Sissy, Ninny, Girl-Boy, Muffins

I have, of late, adopted a different course of action regarding my political views. A very learned friend of mine suggested that I try to be less strident and angry so as to reach a broader audience. Since she is smarter than I am, and I value her opinion, I have given that the old college try. The last few posts have been more nuanced and less direct than usual. The events of the last few days though have me back into attack mode. I am simply sick and tired of the hypocrisy of the Democratic Party and their lunatic fringe. That fringe, while still not an outright majority, are approaching a serious plurality and, if left unchecked, will eventually swallow the party as sure as a boa constrictor eats pet-store rabbits.

I have witnessed the former president and his senator wife rant and yell about perceived factual inaccuracies in The Path to 9/11, a movie. Did either of these paragons of peace and light object to Death of a President or Fahrenheit 911? After all, the former contains scenes of the current president being assassinated, and the latter was rife with intentional distortions and misleading sound bites. No, neither of these champions of the people cared one whit about these works of art. You cannot stifle free speech they say; unless of course that speech is directed at them. Sandy Berger and Madeleine Albright also objected strenuously to the way they were depicted. Well, they should. They spent years employing smoke and mirrors to generate a legacy and this film, even if it is a docudrama, lets in the light of day. Mr. Berger must have forgotten that he stole federal documents by stuffing them in his socks, and Madame Albright has obviously blocked out the knowledge that she negotiated the treaty with North Korea that gave them fissionable materials. Some legacy.

It does not end there though. Minority Leaders Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid reacted with outrage that President Bush had the audacity to mention Iraq during his address to the nation on 9/11. They demanded equal time of the networks to respond to this partisan, political use of 9/11. They were shocked that he would dare to mention Iraq on such an somber day. It matters not that had the President not mentioned Iraq they would have accused him of glossing over it. The honorable members of Congress seem to have forgotten the Paul Wellstone and Rosa Parks funerals. Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton and various members of the NAACP took the time to pontificate over Ms Parks' casket, and yet, no member of the left castigated them for it. Far from it. In fact they attempted to equate Rosa Parks' heroic act with their completely unpatriotic and selfish, power hungry buffoonery.

That's right. You read that correctly. I just accused the lunatic left of unpatriotic acts, and I mean it. I have tried to suggest over the years that, though I disagreed with them, their actions and words were only in contradiction to mine. They were not inherently unpatriotic. I am no longer of that view. House Majority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) responded to the left's vexation with an observation that they were more concerned with terrorist's rights than Americans. Of course, this caused howls of protest at the contemptible display of partisan politics. Not a peep was heard though when Democratic Whip Richard "Dick" Durbin (D-IL) compared American servicemen serving in Iraq to the Nazis and Pol Pot's regime. Likewise, no one screamed when Senator John Kerry (D-MA) accused soldiers of "terrorizing innocent Iraqi civilians." Not a voice was raised when Rep. John Murtha (D-PA) characterized the Marines in Haditha as having"killed innocent Iraqi civilians in cold blood." All those statements prompted calls to my congressman, but as a good democrat he remained moot; even though he serves on the House Armed Services Committee.

I personally witnessed Alex Jones, the conspiracy theorist radio show host, and the originators of Loose Change attempt to make a mockery of the 5th commemoration of the 9/11 tragedy. With several hundred black t-shirt clad supporters, these patriots swarmed around Ground Zero, handed out documentaries, shouted at the news cameras, assembled mourners and uniformed men and women. The 60's hold-overs and teenaged wanna-be hippies who still sleep in their mother's houses, held signs, chanted trite little slogans and offensive epithets, while the widows of 9/11 recited, in heart-breaking detail, the names of all those killed that day. Did Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY), Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA), or Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI) complain about, or even mention, these miscreants attempting to make a mockery of the murder of nearly 3,000 of my fellow Americans? Even though that question was patently rhetorical I will answer it for you: they did not. Senators Schumer and Boxer reacted to the president's use of Iraq on 9/11, while Sen. Feingold argued semantics over the use of the term Islamic Fascists. Very erudite and nuanced responses all.

So, by now my use of the term unpatriotic must have rankled. What else can it be called though when the perceived enemy of the Democratic Party leadership, and at least (by their own estimates) 30% of the rank and file, is the President of the United States? Shouldn't they have at least as much animus for al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden? Shouldn't they want us wiretapping suspected terrorists, outside the US? Shouldn't they want us secretly tracing the terrorist's financial dealings? Shouldn't their support for the troops extend to something more than lip service. Why do they not extol the virtues of the heroic acts many soldiers have performed, instead of beating the drum constantly over the relatively few abuses. Everyone knows who PFC Lynndie England is, but how many have heard of SFC Paul R. Smith? You will not hear about Sergeant Smith's heroic actions, which posthumously earned him the nation's highest award for valor, because he acted above and beyond the call of duty while serving in Iraq http://www.army.mil/medalofhonor/smith/. As we all know, Iraq is only a republican war.

I have come to the conclusion that years of control have proved the old maxim, "absolute power corrupts absolutely." That adage has been used multiple times to refer to the current administration, but in my case I am referring to the democrats perceived right to power. The forty years they controlled congress have ingrained in them the feeling that power is theirs by want of their left leaning birth-right, and they will do anything to get that power back. It matters not that good, brave men, and yes women, have died to preserve their right to yell offensive things about them and their president. Yes, their president. Fully 85% of those voters in the Armed Forces who voted in the last election voted for President Bush. President Bush has been called an idiot, a despot, and a tyrant by elected officials and their granola crunching minions. Somehow their willing partners in the major media have not seen anything wrong with this, but hell they will divert all manner of resources to the Clinton's outrage. President Bush has been pictured on t-shirts as an International Terrorist, been targeted in a book(and now a movie) for assassination, been called every reprehensible word you can imagine and, yet, he does not cry foul. He simply soldiers on. I have not agreed with him on every issue, far from it, but he is no thin-skinned dilettante. He is what he has always been, a cowboy, and that is why the left hates him. After all, the Indians, excuse me Native Americans, were all but exterminated by the cowboys.

One wonders what Harry Truman, the plain-spoken Missourian who had to make the most difficult of decisions, and John F. Kennedy, a true Navy hero, would make of the current climate of the democratic party. President Truman, in my opinion, ranks as one of the top five president's of the 20th century, and JFK's picture hung in the wall of my grandmother's house for better than 40 years. I can only surmise that in the current environment that is the Democratic Party neither man would have a political home. When the leader of the DNC can suggest that the President of the United States intentionally let black people die out of a desire to change the political landscape, and no one in the party challenges him, something is wrong. When the sitting Senator of Connecticut, a three term democrat and the last presidential cycle's Vice presidential candidate, is ousted unceremoniously from the party because of his support for both the troops and the War against Islamists, something is drastically wrong. So, I started this posting with the title Sissy, Ninny, Girl-Boy, Muffins, a direct reference to the most vocal of the Democratic Party. I say that because they are. They can dish it out, but cannot take it. They can call names, but will sue you if you return the favor. None of them would have lasted a week in my childhood neighborhood, let alone Afghanistan or Iraq. They are not patriots. They are not even men; not even Hillary. My only slender glimmer of hope regarding the Democratic Party is that I know many of them. I even love a few, and, while they may not be completely on board with events in the world, they are not appeasers. One has even suggested that she could not shoot terrorists, but would have no moral quandary against reloading weapons for me to do so. So, my slender hope is that those types of democrats somehow grab back the reins of power from those that see this war as simply a chance to explore diversity of other cultures, before it is too late.