The Patriot Post Chronicle 1-13-2010

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The Patriot Post Chronicle 1-13-2010
From The Federalist Patriot
Free Email Subscription
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The Foundation

"The public cannot be too curious concerning the characters of public men." --Samuel Adams

Reid under fire
Editorial Exegesis

"We can think of several reasons for Harry Reid to resign as Senate Majority Leader, though the flap over his obtuse racial comments isn't one of them. The uproar is nonetheless instructive about the perils of identity politics. Mr. Reid is apologizing to all and sundry for saying in private in 2008 that Barack Obama should run for President because he was 'light-skinned' and spoke with 'no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one.' Republicans are calling for Mr. Reid to resign, on grounds of the Trent Lott precedent. When the Republican leader in 2002 joked at a birthday party for Strom Thurmond that America might have been better off had the one-time Dixiecrat won his 1948 Presidential campaign, Democrats demanded Mr. Lott's resignation. An Illinois state senator with a big political future went so far as to suggest at the time that Republicans needed to 'drive out' Mr. Lott in order to 'stand for something.' Mr. Lott resigned, notwithstanding his profuse apologies. In contrast, Mr. Obama and various black Democrats have rushed to Mr. Reid's defense. ... In any event, this is hardly Mr. Reid's worst rhetorical offense. That prize goes to his all too public comments in April 2007 that 'the war is lost' in Iraq, even as the surge was finally making victory possible. That was a betrayal of American soldiers risking their lives in Iraq, and to the extent it emboldened the enemy, it may have cost American lives. If Mr. Reid has apologized for that defeatism, we don't recall it. That's reason enough to resign." --The Wall Street Journal

The Demo-gogues

Race bait: "[Harry Reid] was wowed by Obama's oratorical gifts and believed that the country was ready to embrace a black presidential candidate, especially one such as Obama -- a 'light-skinned' African American 'with no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one,' as he said privately." --excerpt from the book "Game Change," by journalists John Heilemann and Mark Halperin

But back then: "If you tell ethnic jokes in the back room, it's that much easier to say ethnic things publicly. I've always practiced how I play." --Harry Reid in 2002 after Trent Lott's resignation from leadership after similar racially insensitive remarks

Circling the wagons: "I don't know why people are making such a fuss about this. What is the big fuss about the word 'Negro'? I support the United Negro College Fund. I support the National Council of Negro Women. We still use those two terms because they have been a part of our history for a long time. So I don't know what all this fuss is about." --Rep. James Clyburn, former Chair of the Congressional Black Caucus and current House Majority Whip

"Senator Reid's record provides a stark contrast to actions of Republicans to block legislation that would benefit poor and minority communities -- most recently reflected in Republican opposition to the Health Bill now under consideration." --Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA), Chair of the Congressional Black Caucus

More deep thoughts: "A few years ago, this guy would have been getting us coffee." --Bill Clinton in 2008, as reported in "Game Change"

The BIG Lie: "The Senate thinks [their health care bill] is fairer. We think ours is. We'll see which mirror cracks. But we will proceed in a way that is fair to the American people." --House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), who has anything but fairness to the American people on her mind

You don't say: "This is far from a perfect piece of legislation." --Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT) on the health care bill

Hope 'n' Change: "The jobs numbers are reminder that the road to recovery is never straight." --Barack Obama (The road has been straight ... down. The U.S. lost another 85,000 jobs in December.)

Too much information: "I'm not worried about them touching my private parts." --Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI) on airport screening procedures

Upright

"White liberals have built a political culture that is little different from the plantations of another generation. African-Americans are given just enough to help them survive, but not opportunity which will allow them to escape and become independent of government programs." --columnist Cal Thomas

"We know two thousand pages of 'gov-speak' is one of the largest compendiums of bribes, favors and pork ever devised. We know that in all two thousand pages, there's not a single word about tort reform because the Democratic party is owned by the trial lawyers. We know the overwhelming majority of Congress won't even bother to read the bill before voting on it. And above all, we know the very same people who are foisting this boondoggle on the rest of us will never be subjected to its mandates, because they have their own Rolls Royce health care coverage. ... 2010 can't come soon enough." --columnist Arnold Ahlert

"The special deals and payoffs are incidental to the [health care] bill in one sense; if they were all removed it would still be a bad bill. But in another sense, they reveal something essential about a government takeover of health care: it is all about looting, about how one group of people can tax and regulate others in an attempt to get something for nothing. All statist programs are rife with this kind of scheming, and they have to be, because whenever wealth is seized by force, there is a battle among the looters over how to divide the spoils." --columnist Robert Tracinski

"The White House is ... being completely dismissive ... concerning legitimate questions about the constitutionality of Obamacare. Consider this: No fewer than 13 state attorneys general signed a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, expressing their 'grave concern' over the constitutionality of one provision of the bill. This provision would cause the federal government to grant special favors to Nebraska (subsidizing its Medicaid costs) pursuant to the Democrats' bribe to secure Sen. Ben Nelson's support. ... How did the White House respond when asked about this letter? Well, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs, after admitting he hadn't even read the letter, said, 'I do not believe that anybody has legitimate constitutional concerns about the legislation.' That settles it then. Chief Justice Gibbs has spoken." --columnist David Limbaugh

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The Patriot Post Chronicle 1-13-2010
From The Federalist Patriot
Free Email Subscription
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"The most startling news since Barack Obama's colossal victory over Hillary Clinton in Iowa was the Democratic poll in Massachusetts the other day showing the little-known Republican Scott Brown beating the state's attorney general, Martha Coakley, in the special contest for the late Ted Kennedy's Senate seat by a point. A subsequent poll by the Boston Globe had the Democrat winning by 15. Somebody is very wrong here, obviously, and we won't know until next Tuesday's election which poll got the Massachusetts electorate right. But if the Democratic poll is closer to the truth, and if Coakley can't come up with something to pull Brown's numbers down over the next week, she is going to lose and a Republican is going to win an ineffable symbolic victory against Barack Obama and especially against health care." --columnist John Podhoretz

Insight

"We owe these blessings, under Heaven, to the Constitution and Government ... bequeathed to us by our fathers, and which it is our sacred duty to transmit ... to our children." --President Millard Fillmore (1800-1874)

"Failure is the opportunity to begin again more intelligently." --American industrialist Henry Ford (1863-1947)

"If at first you don't succeed, then quit! There's no use being a stupid fool about it!" --American comedian and writer W. C. Fields (1880-1946)

Dezinformatsia

Bumbling into the truth: "Is it possible it's not what he said but what he didn't say? Isn't Harry Reid implying that a dark-skinned African-American who speaks in a way that some would consider more stereotypical would not be electable?" --NBC's Matt Lauer

Talk about racist: "And they're monochromatic right? ... Every picture I see shows them to be. ... Meaning they're all white. All of them, every single one of them is white." --MSNBC's Chris Matthews on Tea Party protesters (Bob Parks, a black man who attended a Tea Party, begs to differ.)

Shut up, she explained: "There are a lot of interesting ways to talk about the right way to respond to [climate change], but instead, it's ClimateGate, it's all made up. Following the Republican framing into nonsense land and we've ended up talking about stuff that is not real instead of talking about policy. I want to have policy fights. I don't want to be fighting with people who refuse to acknowledge reality." --MSNBC's Rachel Maddow

Bush Derangement Syndrome: "Even George Bush said that, you know, we could be attacked tomorrow. He didn't like to talk about it. I knew him well and knew that he was counting the minutes and the days until he got out of there and could claim he kept us safe." --Newsweek's Howard Fineman

Blame America: "I think that we have inspired more jihadis against us." --NBC's Andrea Mitchell on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan

Liberals just need a dad: "Our professorial president is no feckless W., biking through Katrina. He is no doubt on top of the [the Christmas bomber] crisis in terms of studying it top to bottom. But his inner certainty creates an outer disconnect. He's so sure of himself and his actions that he fails to see that he misses the moment to be president -- to be the strong father who protects the home from invaders, who reassures and instructs the public at traumatic moments. He's more like the aloof father who's turned the Situation Room into a Seminar Room." --New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd (He's more like one of the children play-acting the role of father -- unsuccessfully.)

Belly Laugh of the Week: "Democratic 'progressives' now feel let down because they had assumed the new president was a 'liberal' who believed that the government should initiate New Deal-style programs to get the country back on its feet. Instead, he has conducted his first year in office as a cautious centrist, guided by a more moderate social philosophy than had been generally assumed." --White House press corps journalist Helen Thomas, sounding the world's smallest violin

Newspulper Headlines:

'These Aren't the Droids You're Looking For': "Mind-Reading Systems Could Change Air Security" --Associated Press

We Blame Global Warming: "Flames Too Hot for Predators" --Canadian Press ++ "Talks Frozen in Belarus Oil Dispute" --Moscow Times

Climate Scientists Share Data With Anyone -- Now That Would Be News: "C.I.A. Is Sharing Data With Climate Scientists" --The New York Times

Comet Eats Sun -- Now That Would Be News: "Sun Eats Comet Flying Too Close" --WTVW-TV Web site (Evansville, IN)

Everything Seemingly Is Spinning Out of Control: "Self Destructing Supernova Explosion May Wipe Out Earth" --News.com.au

Bottom Stories of the Day: "Comments by Fox's Brit Hume Upset Some Buddhists" --Associated Press

(Thanks to The Wall Street Journal's James Taranto)

Village Idiots

Vast, right-wing conspiracy: "Most of the domestic groups that we pay attention to here are white supremacist groups. They're anti-government, in most cases anti-abortion, they are usually survivalist type in nature, identity oriented. ... Those groups are groups that claim to be extremely anti-government and Christian identity oriented." --TSA nominee Erroll Southers

It's cold 'cause it's hot: "I think that one only has to step outside here or visit where I used to work in Chicago to understand that climate change, and the record temperature that climate change is likely causing, is with us.... I would say that eve in places that are used to getting very cold weather, record cold ... our weather patterns have been affected by change in our climate." --White House climatologist Robert Gibbs

Non Compos Mentis: "I'm blacker than Barack Obama. I shined shoes. I grew up in a five-room apartment. My father had a little laundromat in a black community not far from where we lived. I saw it all growing up." --former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich

And the apology: "It's a stupid metaphor to say I'm blacker than Barack Obama, that I apologize for. It's not appropriate for me, a white person, to stand out somehow and claim to be a black person, that's just wrong." --Rod Blagojevich

Short Cuts

"President Obama ordered airport passenger scanners upgraded Thursday. It's all tied in with health care reform. If you don't have a personal physician you just fly somewhere and the TSA screener will tell you if your gall bladder looks all right." --comedian Argus Hamilton

"In an effort to calm people after the latest security problems, the White House said it is working even harder to find Osama bin Laden. The frustrating part is that we almost had him. Earlier this year, he snuck into the White House state dinner." --comedian Jay Leno

"Thus, one of the most unsavory troikas in the history of American politics -- Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and Barack Obama -- are cobbling together a take-it-or-leave-it takeover of one-sixth of the American economy. Moe, Larry and Curly couldn't have done a better job of mocking transparent government." --columnist Arnold Ahlert

"How do you explain why anyone in a theoretically free society would willingly surrender his brain to Soviet-like thought control? The best answer I can come up with is that there's a herd instinct among human beings that's akin to the one that governs the behavior of cattle, sheep and lemmings. To think like a liberal, a conservative merely needs to get down on all fours and then bang his head on a wall until he's managed to knock 50 points off his IQ." --columnist Burt Prelutsky

*****

Veritas vos Liberabit -- Semper Vigilo, Fortis, Paratus, et Fidelis! Mark Alexander, Publisher, for The Patriot's editors and staff.

(Please pray for our Armed Forces standing in harm's way around the world, and for their families -- especially families of those fallen Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Marines and Coast Guardsmen, who granted their lives in defense of American liberty.)