General Betray Us?
Obama said not a word last autumn about the Moveon.org slander of Gen. Petraeus when he was running hard left of Clinton and the Moveon.org crowd was essential to his candidacy. But now? After West Virginia, Tennessee, Indiana, Ohio, Texas, Pennsylvania, etc. he realizes two things: there are no longer any rivals to the left, but quite a lot to the right who are turned off by him. So Moveon.org goes the way of Rev. Wright, while his grandmother, the flag lapel, guns, death penalty, Iraq, FISA, and NAFTA climb back on the bus—until he is elected (when some go back off and others get to climb on again).
A Time for Reflection
News today that al Qaeda is now reeling even in Mosul, their last stronghold, should make us all stop and ponder. For all the talk of a worn-out military, a cruel Pentagon that treats its veterans poorly, and the general Democratic notion of our soldiers as victims of an immoral war and brutal militarism, a few thousand Americans, with vast odds against them, have nearly crushed Islamic fundamentalists, won the hearts and minds of Arab Muslims in the ancient caliphate, stabilized a constitutional government, and silenced their critics here at home and abroad. The American expeditionary army and marines in Iraq, and its commander David Petraeus, surely must be regarded as one of the most capable militaries in recent memory—all to the relative silence in our mainstream newspapers, network news, and opinion journalists.
Such a strange age…
The country goes into a fevered state over whether there was or was not yellowcake for sale to Saddam down in Niger. The result is that a Special Prosecutor—charged with finding out who leaked the name of a CIA employee as retaliation for her husband’s (wrong) finding that Niger did not wish to sell yellowcake—knew who leaked Ms. Plame’s identity, and knew that she was not a covert agent anyway. Instead Prosecutor Fitzgerald indicts someone else—who happens to be the real target of a hysterical Washington media. Meanwhile with no more than a tsk, tsk, we learn that 1.2 million pounds of Saddam’s yellowcake have been sitting all the time in storage in Iraq, and are now quietly sold off to the Canadians. Dispute over a few ounces of yellowcake in Africa tie up DC for a year, while tons of the stuff sit quitely in Iraq in leaky drums.
No, it is a crazy age…
Worried about Congressional rankings in the single digits, Democratic Senators and Congress people are parading out to news conferences to assure us that “we can’t drill our way out of this energy crisis” (who said we could?), and that what little oil we would find off our coasts (no mention of the natural gas) would “take ten years” and only shave “pennies” off a gallon of gas.
Examine the logic: we don’t develop these resources because of the time lag? But isn’t there a time lag in creating a viable electric battery, a hydrogen car, solar and wind farms, a new nuclear plant? And the logic is puerile: we simply freeze and assume a fetal position since the results of our labors are only of long-term use?
As for a “few pennies.” Well, a few pennies here, a few there really do add up. In other words, a million barrels in Anwr, a million off our coasts, a million from tar sands, a million in shale, a million on the continental shelf, a million from conservation and pretty soon we have saved trillions in imported oil costs, and provided the necessary bridge, the critical breathing space for electric cars or flex-fuels, or whatever. No supporter of drilling thinks we are going to return to the days of the gas-powered Yukon and Hummer. But we need to preserve our civilization and not mortgage it to the Arabs, Russians, Iranians, and Venezuelans in the process of going green.
The Messiah
First we were told to be on guard for fainting at Obama rallies. Then we were apprised that his candidacy marked the historic moment when the planet healed and the oceans ceased to rise. Then we were told the convention hall was simply too small for the “people” to listen to the gospel of St. Obama. And now the Germans are asked to give him the traditional Presidential podium in front of the Brandenburg Gate. The strange thing is that the elite Left that has always warned us that hoi polloi are prone to groupthink and frenzied hysteria when hypnotized by mass-appeal rhetoricians.
Global whatever
Now we are lectured that climate change is threatening civilization and we must do this and that. Twenty years ago I remember it was the Aids epidemic that was just about to break out among the heterosexual population in the fashion it had devastated the San Francisco gay community. Thus we needed to quit envisioning the virus as largely specific to gays and IV-drug users, and instead mobilize to protect the entire population from a mass epidemic. A few voices in the wilderness who argued that the mechanisms of so-called normal heterosexual sex (while perhaps conducive in their unprotected modes to all sort of venereal diseases) were nevertheless often different from both the apparent frequency and nature of homosexual sex practices, and very different from the blood exchanges of shared-needles, were derided as either illiberal, homophobic, or unhinged.
The country seems to go through these ‘we are on the brink of extinction’ panics about every 20 years or so. We all remember the 1960s population bomb and how 3-billion-person India would be starved into oblivion by now, or Ronald Reagan’s desire for a nuclear winter (remember the made-for-TV movies about a Reagan-inspired nuclear holocaust), or again the take-over of Japan, Inc. as everything from Rockefellar Center to Pebble Beach was lost to the Yellow Peril. I remember my high-school science teacher lecturing about a global ice-age to come, and we humans going the way of the dinosaurs.
I don’t think our planet overheating in the near future is going to kill off billions, but I wonder whether the entire neglect of energy questions for last 20 years, especially the need to develop shale, tar sands, more clean coal, nuclear, and drilling oil to transition us to cleaner fuels, has nearly bankrupted American civilization. Our dependencies have siphoned off trillions from our productive economy in de facto cash grants to very unproductive exporters, who see as their birthright $140 a barrel oil that cost them $4-5 to pump—after someone else provided them the know-how and expertise to find, pump, and ship it.
We seem to panic about imaginary beasts, when real monsters quietly devour us.
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26 Comments
1. Jimmy J.:A veritable buffet bar of a post. A little of Obama, a generous serving of Iraq, a few spoonfulls of Washington politics, some helpings of past psuedo truths/panics, and a heaping portion of energy and oil. All in all quite digestible and nourishing for the brain.
Jul 8, 2008 - 10:16 pm 2. John Jones:Thanks for all you contribute.
Many times over many years, I have read your postings for what I truely believe is an accurate assessment of how things really are. I am a 55 year-old British man. I have no vote in the US. No influence. But if you ever ran for any public office, you would get my vote. Keep writing Hanson!
Jul 9, 2008 - 3:04 am 3. steve:A couple of weeks ago I went through the points above + basic economics/entitlements with my daughters (19 & 24). It was an effort to get them thinking about what is important in the upcoming election, beyond the soundbites and slogans.
Jul 9, 2008 - 4:25 am 4. Jack Marcotte:It strikes me that this is so obvious and straight forward that I simply can not grasp how a significant portion of the populace (perhaps the majority) can fail to see these issues clearly.
Essential vdh
Maybe the oil crisis and 4.50-5.00/gal fuel costs will provide the smelling salts for the “fainter’s” and left wingers. Eventually even they will have to realize that as fish, they can’t be talking about draining the pond all of the time.
Even Michel Obama’s 400,000.00 dollar salary and her Princeton Honors thesis (a high school level presentation of bad punctuation and no two cogent thoughts strung together) will be pierced not by left wing logic and Utopian thinking but by the reality of the Obama’s family budget. A family budget, which based on her comments seem to be tighter than she deserves. High gas prices will be a tremendous pinch.
Somehow I don’t think America will be that lucky however. We are like parents with kids that are already spoiled. That what happens when you give someone something for nothing with other peoples money. Its all down the drain even the people who get the benefits for simply being classified as being the right color. Only in America? Wait a minute, didn’t the Nazis in Germany classify people for different “benefits” like life, death. This is heavy shit man.
The writers for the NYT are the only ones dumb enough to kill off themselves and still blame others even as they expire. They take cabs. They don’t care after all they can walk to the nearest Gay bar. Nothing else is really that important to them. They, after all, are detached from America’s problems. They were taught somewhere in the Ivy covered halls that detachment is the transcendent value for a journalist. Gee! I wonder how long a head would live detached from the body?
NYT’s journalists are such a small group and getting smaller all of the time. They will not be missed. The loss of the NYTs would be a breath of fresh air to the rest of the country.
What was the name of that nuclear reactor in upstate new york that was destroyed by Coumo, a left wing terrorist. My mistake he was the Gov. wasn’t he. How did he spell his name? How time flies.
Wait a minute! I know why the left wing doesn’t seem concerned. Global warming will keep us all warm and reduce our fuel utilization. I knew there was a reason for what appeared to be their idiocy.
Now, based on Obama’s comments on not being able to drill because it would not help us for several years, maybe we can hope for a quicker increase in the rate of global warming so we won’t get chilly in the mean time. Evidence says that in the next 100 years the temp. will rise less than 1 deg.? Wait a minute, that is definitely not fast enough. We will freeze our asXXX off. Get the axes out.
I also forgot–Algore’s plans on global warming will stop it— all we have to do is give his cap in trade for CO2 credits company all of our money.
Damm foiled again by the ingenious left wing branches of the nut house. Bad guys can never win.
Jul 9, 2008 - 4:46 am 5. ~Paules:I find encouragement in the latest poll numbers. The 9% approval rating for congress surely indicates that the populace has become deeply cynical about our political class. This is not good news for Mr. Obama. Voters will reject his cotton-candy rhetoric in favor of red meat. The messiah’s acolytes have become giddy with the prospect of sweeping both congress and the White House, but the polling data suggests otherwise.
Italy offers us an historical precedent. Italian governments rose and fell following the war on an annual cycle. Eventually the Italian people got sick of the endemic corruption. The ‘92 election resulted in a bloodbath for the professional political class. If only Americans would take note and do the same. Certainly the sentiment is there.
“Hope and Change” has all the substance of helium, and a deeply cynical, American public knows it. The vetting process of the primary season has been painful, but useful. Charisma and rhetoric will not carry Obama to the White House if he doesn’t display some substance. And substance is the very thing he lacks. America isn’t buying it. The country is angry. We’re going to get change this fall, but not the kind that the pundits expect.
Jul 9, 2008 - 6:17 am 6. Jim:I think Obama’s decision to accept the nomination in a huge outdoor stadium is a mistake. People are used to seeing the nominee in an indoor arena, with the usual streamers, ballons, and crazy hats, and that shows the nominee thinks of himself as part of a longstanding political tradition in a democracy. The 60,000 screaming fans, the huge stage and podium are going to look just a little fascist. A lot of people are going to ask “who the hell does he think he is?”
Jul 9, 2008 - 6:29 am 7. Ron Kean:I’m going to vote for him anyway and I give him money, but McCain is starting to look a little like Tim Conway to me.
Doesn’t it make sense that drilling now and filling up more tankers and more tankers and more tankers will make the price drop? A panic of glut might make the oil market crash.
Why are we just learning about the yellow cake now? It might have made a difference in the mid-term elections.
McCain must win. Besides spending a load of money beating the bad guys, our military has gained invaluable experience. And Mr. Obama’s commitment to our armed forces is ambiguous if not negative.
Single digit approval for congress? That’s way too high.
Jul 9, 2008 - 6:35 am 8. George:I escaped from a communist country 26 years ago. My wife is American (by birth) and loves Obama. She worries about Global Warming yet continues to buy a pair of shoes a week. I like her friends (they have similar views) - my wife and they are nice people but I think US is doomed. Those people have no discipline, logic, or self-criticism (but yes, they are nice). Where should I escape to from US? Please help!
Jul 9, 2008 - 6:38 am 9. Jack Marcotte:Essential vdh
George, forgetaboutit. Obama is from Chicago, part of the “hood”. You just have to know what to grease to make it big in Chicago. Hey lookit his wife Michele, 400k per year for community outreach or sumpthin. Maybe you could– you know improve your communication skills. Dont worry a little vig and brotherhood will go a long ways in Chicago–it could be your kind of town—you knowwhata mean. thikaboutit.
Jul 9, 2008 - 8:06 am 10. TLM:Where is McCain in all this? It must be the strategy to feed Obama the rope and let him hang himself with his own words. The media infatuation with the Messiah - yes, I know the election is all about Him - and Obama’s own preoccupation with himself leave McCain playing the role of the foil in this tragicomedy. McCain must have internal polling data or a gut feeling or something that indicates people are tiring of the empty rhetoric of junior Senator Obama, and that it is best to lay low and conserve resources for the Fall. Risky, but it may work.
As VDH notes, the situation in Iraq continues to improve militarily and politically. The May report to Congress on political progress in Iraq got little mention in the MSM. Success on 15/18 benchmarks, though of course this is disputed by the liberal faction. They would raise the bar ever higher for the Iraqis, as they progressively lower it for their “progressive” candidate.
Apparently, for the second coming of Obama words still matter, just not as much as winning. If I had the money I would run prime time infomercials replaying ad nauseum selected portions of his speeches from the past 16 months. I’d juxtapose His inconsistent stances on the issues, using only His own words. Run the ads over and over and over, just like the propaganda techniques in communist re-education camps. Even if the public didn’t get the message, they’d become inured to the rhetoric. And when they’re de-programmed, let McCain explain the message: Words matter only if you abide by them.
Jul 9, 2008 - 8:30 am 11. Paul:Obama’s dishonesty is really galling - particularly the instance of his “handlers” that Obama was all for the surge when first introduced. Obama’s claim that he is not “moving towards the center,” is indeed perplexing, as he so thoroughly distinguished himself from HRC in the primary by being the most moderate of the two. His claims of support for individual gun rights, for the surge, etc…he is achieving his goal of hoodwinking Americans, and I hope that McCain can attack these blatant positionings for what they really are - baseless and dishonest pandering.
Jul 9, 2008 - 9:32 am 12. TurfMonster:“We seem to panic about imaginary beasts, when real monsters quietly devour us.” - VDH.
Hammer, nail, head - with one swing of the hammer, you pounded that one in right on the mark! This column was outstanding even by your high standards and it is too bad it is about how our civilization is going down the tubes.
Jul 9, 2008 - 10:55 am 13. A.W. Murphy:One additional point I’d like to offer concerns the public approval rating of Congress.
While Presidential ratings focus on one person the same measure of Congress is not only misleading but essentially useless. All that matters to any individual representative is their standing and polling within their district.
What is maddening to many is while congress traditionally receives low marks many individual members get local numbers at odds with the national figures. So, we disapprove of everyone else’s representative while we think ours is all right. This disconnect is why we get such convoluted policies.
Imagine if we had a system that allowed for national referendums on issues. Anyone care to speculate what the outcome would be on issues like abortion, gun control, welfare, death penalty and scores of other hot button topics.
Jul 9, 2008 - 5:59 pm 14. Ron Kean:George,
There’s only one place left.
Israel. There’s no BS over there.
Living under peril has made Israelis sharp. Forget about New York. If you can make it there, you can make it anywhere.
I was disappointed that the birth certificate thing fizzled out. I’d still like to know there’s a real one that we could touch and feel. Unlike Rathergate, this one resembles the issue of John Kerry and the incomplete disclosure of his form 180.
All Kerry ever showed was an ‘Honorable Discharge’ that coincided with many others that Carter gave to draft dodgers and deserters. There’s a good possibility that we’ll never see the birth certificate and we’ll never know.
It would involve some constitutional right or something a judge would have to decide.
This is a great blog.
Jul 9, 2008 - 6:35 pm 15. Jeffrey S. Neher:It appears to be good old fashioned human nature that gets us into so much trouble as a culture and as a nation. Human nature is to ignore those things we find difficult to confront. Our culture has allowed us to be lazy, to ignore those things that require our attention and effort. And our nation has afforded us the prosperity to kick the proverbial can down the road on issue after issue. These are three very powerful reasons to overcome. But overcome they must be.
Our human nature won’t allow millions of us to consider the threats we face from radical islam. We just can’t allow that there is really that kind of evil in the world. So we ignore it. Finally it lands in our back-yard. The first response is who and why? Then, after a few moments of real or faked anger, the notion sets in that this surely has to be caused by us. The blame America first mentality takes hold. See, if we can just convince ourselves of this then we can convince our enemies. Problem solved. The evil is not as bad as Bush told us(he lied), and our foreign policy has led to this hatred of us anyway. We can’t see the evil so we hear no evil(despite the daily threats coming from those whose mission is to convert us by killing us). Another way to accomplish this would be to elect a man the islamists would surely like…everything from his name down to his policy of negotiate for our right to exist. Gee that was easy…
We have developed a culture that says we are multi. The old American culture has been discarded as one that was homophobic, racist, sexist..and just arrogant. We must be inclusive. In order to do this, we must forget American exceptionalism and accept American mediocrity. We will no longer lift all boats in a rising tide but rather sink those who dare to sail at all. Also, the age of responsibility is now the era of blame. Someone is responsible for your actions..it’s just not you. Throw in a new educational system that re-enforces these notions..replaces writing, reading, and rithmetic with reproduction, racism, and re-cycling. A new generation that doesn’t know a privilege from a right. As they mature, they expect more from their government. They may not know who their congressman is but they surely know who’s in the finals of dancing with the stars. We elect our officials(those who vote at all) and then ignore them..as if self-government is only the ballot. We complain about taxes and hop down to the polls to pull the lever for the guy who will certainly raise them again…and again..and again. We bitch about high fuel costs but still vote for the guy who won’t let us go get the fuel. We’re angry about our porous borders but hire the guys to landscape our yards and build our houses. We demand higher wages, competitive wages and then vote for the guy who will cut trade and competition. This is all so John Kerry in flip-flop confusion…
We had gas for well under a dollar for large portions of my life. All the latest gadgets..new inventions. I can go to the bank to buy a house, a car. Credit everywhere. And the freedom to come and go. The opportunity to start my own business with my own ideas. Working for hundreds a day compared to dollars a day for a large part of the world. All the while problems lay just ahead. We know them..we know they exist. But at the moment we are just too fat and happy. Why mess with social security when the treasury is just over-flowing with money? Why build new refineries, nuke power plants, or drill for our own oil when gas is so cheap? Why over-haul the tax-system when the politicos have it down to a science on buying votes? Why reform the education system when so many teachers and their unions have it made? Why reform the medical industry when the government keeps getting a larger piece of the pie? There is the can..let’s kick that puppy down the road so the next generations have to suffer the consequences..
Jul 9, 2008 - 7:31 pm 16. George Best:resed by this blog and all the smart commenters, please keep it up.As for George, you got Obamacancer. You are constantly around people who support Obama and cant give a good reason for it. You are just being swalloed up by a disease that is rapidly spreading and will kill us all if we dont kill it first in November. Maybe we caught it early, but it might be too late. That cancer wont get me no matter how many limousine liberals seem to cross my path.
Jul 9, 2008 - 8:44 pm 17. “A Bridge Too Far” « Evynn’s Weblog:[...] clipped from pajamasmedia.com [...]
Jul 10, 2008 - 3:48 am 18. George:Yeah, but how do we kill that cancer? You guys (and myself) are used to apply logic while discussing issues. Those people are totally immune to logic. I teach math at a university and even engineering students have problem with BASIC FREAKING LOGIC in this country! Years ago any Asian student was doing well in my classes with probability 95% (if not higher). Now the second or third generation Asian students are almost as lazy as the rest of the nation. OK, I am not totally fair - when it comes to argue for partial credit or asking for preferential treatment our students are very diligent. And to think the Greatest Generation made huge sacrifices for that.
Jul 10, 2008 - 4:31 am 19. TLM:Lord help us!
George:
Common refrain among college professors I’ve talked to. Evidence continues to accumulate that we have failed to educate a whole generation of Americans in the validity of logical/rational thinking. It must be pure torture to teach math to such kids. Apres nous, the Dark Ages.
My wife, an Obama supporter, is always trying to get me to be less cynical. I’m workin’ on it, I truly am. But this is still what you get. God help us all.
Jul 10, 2008 - 7:35 am 20. George:TLM, George Best, and Ron Kean:
Jul 10, 2008 - 7:52 am 21. Cornhead:Thanks for your comments!
Talking about failing to teach a whole generation: I have two Chinese colleagues (professors), one was sent to a village as punishment for his grandpa being rich and somehow managed to come to US to get PhD, the other is young but says his older siblings have no university education as they were raised during cultural revolution. Unfortunately, I will not witness that but interesting question is how will this country recover from current “education”. Intelligent math educators tell me all we do right now (the reforms in education) amounts to shuffling chairs on the Titanic. Can that be compared to priests dying en masse during Bubonic Plague and resulting in Dark Ages (as the education level of the whole Europe sunk)? How to compare what Left has done to American education to what nazis and communists were doing in The Third Reich or Soviet Union? Will private high schools or home schooling solve the problem?
The next time one of those smary and insincere libs goes on TV and says, “We can’t drill our way out of this.” VDH’s response should be shot right back at them.
The “we can’t drill our way out of this” is so glib and shallow.
McCain needs to fly to ANWR in August. With TV cameras rolling, he educates the American people that this is *not* the pristine Grand Canyon. He then commits the oil drilled from ANWR to our US Military. So we don’t run out of fuel patrolling MidEastern seas.
Result: A dramatic drop in the spot price of oil. And Election won for McCain.
Jul 10, 2008 - 8:39 am 22. Cornhead:I should also add that China, India and other developing countries refused to join the G8 in cutting greenhouse gases.
Why?
They all said reducing poverty is more important.
I like that equation; People over porcupine caribou.
Jul 10, 2008 - 8:41 am 23. Cornhead:Hedge fund manager Peter Cohn (Raimus) said yesterday he backs McCain.
Why?
A: This is McCain’s last shot. He doesn’t come with a “due bill.” He can do what’s best for the country; not what’s best for a special interest group.
Barack has a huge due bill. Chicago, the teachers’ unions, other unions, Sierra Club, ACLU and the rest of the Dem coalition want their money. Now. Barack will have to pay.
Jul 10, 2008 - 10:56 am 24. Bob:To TLM:
Love your ad for McCain, but it has to be aired in early September when everyone’s back from vacation and focused on the election.
To Cornhead:
Way to go about ANWR in Alaska. McCain won’t do it (don’t know why; he doesn’t have the green vote). If he did, he should also have ads going to the waters off the contiental shelf, to a nuclear reactor site in France, and to Brazil to talk about ecofuels. At each stop, he should tell people the evidence that all of these resources are relatiely safe and effective. And again, these should be run in early September.
Jul 10, 2008 - 11:39 am 25. Michael Hoskins:Re: The energy segment.
1. Drill
2. Build refineries. (As an industrial construction engineer/exec, I know they can be built to look good, not have a bad odor and not pollute, the three arguments, in order of importance)
2A. Coal Liquifaction. Proven 1940’s technology. See 2 above re: impact.
3. Build Nukes
3A. Build the 4th generation reactor.
3B. Reprocess, on site, fuel.
4. Let H2 etc catch up (about 5 to 10 yrs out)
o Wind. Dumb. Not enough power density.
o Solar, eats too much space, not enough density.
Final comment…Nuclear fuel comes out of the ground. We refine tons and tons of ore to get a few pounds of usable material…we then consume part of the energy of the material. All we need to do is re-mix the spent fuel with the same tons and tons of ore from which it came and return it to nature…Why is it so hard?
Jul 10, 2008 - 1:32 pm 26. Ron Kean:Dear Professor,
How is it that you have so much energy. It’s starting to be the dog days of summer.
I wish someone would put out a good song like Doobie Brothers, ‘What a fool believes’, or Kool and the Gang, ‘Joanna’, or Little Texas, ‘God Bless Texas’, or Michael Jackson, or Cole Porter, or some monster hit that could distract us.
I just saw ‘Cincinnati Kid’ on a netflix DVD. Steve McQueen was great. I think he went to reform school in his youth but I’m sure he died in a layatrill clinic in Mexico. Ann Margaret, Tuesday Weld, hot.
I can’t imagine another time where so many people were bamboozled like they’re being bamboozled by Obama. It reminds me of Harold Hill in the Music Man.
McCain acts like Dana Carvey imitating George H. W. Bush. He reminds me of Buddy Hackett in the Music Man. Shehpoopie.
But at least McCain is a decent guy who’ll make a decent president and represent decent people. I still think he needs comedy writers. He needs something.
Jul 10, 2008 - 7:41 pm