The Patriot Post Chronicle 6-23-2010

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The Patriot Post Chronicle 6-23-2010
From The Federalist Patriot
Free Email Subscription
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The Foundation

"We must take human nature as we find it, perfection falls not to the share of mortals." --George Washington

Editorial Exegesis
Gen. Stanley McChrystal

"The political rush was on yesterday, from the left and right, to urge President Obama to exert his command over the military by firing General Stanley McChrystal for an impolitic interview with Rolling Stone magazine. But our advice would be that the President put any personal pique aside in favor of asking whether sacking General McChrystal on the eve of a crucial military offensive would help or -- more likely -- hurt the war effort in Afghanistan. This is not to say that the General doesn't deserve to be taken, as Ronald Reagan once did to budget director David Stockman, to the White House 'woodshed' for his media indiscretions. Why any U.S. officer, much less such a senior one, would invite an antiwar correspondent from an antiwar magazine into his inner councils is one for the PR history books. There's no excuse for military officers to show such disrespect for civilian leaders, including U.S. ambassadors, and especially to a Vice President and Commander in Chief. These are errors in judgment, albeit of a distinctly political kind in which the General's aides had not been sufficiently trained. It speaks to a failure by General McChrystal to instruct his team on the crucial political nature of modern generalship, and a staff housecleaning on that score is plainly in order. ... U.S. and NATO forces are currently in a hard fight to control Marja and on the eve of even bigger battle for Kandahar. No individual is irreplaceable, but Mr. Obama needs to ask if he can do without his main commander in the middle of this Afghan surge campaign. If firing General McChrystal will demoralize the men and women fighting those campaigns, then it would be a mistake for Mr. Obama's own war strategy to do so." --The Wall Street Journal

Upright

"There's no doubt Obama would be fully justified in firing his top general [Stanley McChrystal]. But at the same time Obama has committed himself to a rigid timeline for withdrawal from Afghanistan. Changing commanders could complicate that enormously. Right now, because of his own policy decisions, the president has no good choice." --columnist Byron York

"In wartime, generals become public heroes. In some cases -- in Stanley McChrystal's -- they really may be heroes. But that does not change the fundamental imperative of maintaining order and discipline. And if doing so means relieving a hero of command, so be it." --author Eliot Cohen

"While McChrystal's comments were highly improper, they will strike many observers as having a ring of truth. Even if the president gives the general the ax, the whole episode is further grist for the developing media narrative of an administration that is incompetent and adrift." --Wall Street Journal columnist James Taranto

"Just where in the Constitution of the United States does it say that a president has the authority to extract vast sums of money from a private enterprise and distribute it as he sees fit to whomever he deems worthy of compensation? Nowhere. And yet that is precisely what is happening with a $20 billion fund to be provided by BP to compensate people harmed by their oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico." --columnist Thomas Sowell

"Thuggery is unattractive. Ineffective thuggery even more so. Which may be one reason so many Americans have been reacting negatively to the response of Barack Obama and his administration to BP's gulf oil spill." --political analyst Michael Barone

"Obama believes in the rule of law -- his law. No other law is relevant. No other law matters. When Obama speaks, he expects the world to obey. ... Obama can't comprehend any limitations on his power. ... There have been arrogant presidents before, but none that can compare to the sickening self-centered narcissism that exudes from this man." --columnist Henry Lamb

"I think that governments have become like a cancer, they have expanded in the financial system. I think the biggest problem is too much intervention. Whatever the government touches is usually done worse than in the private sector." --author Marc Faber

Insight

"Liberty will not descend to a people, a people must raise themselves to liberty; it is a blessing that must be earned before it can be enjoyed." --English cleric and writer Charles Caleb Colton (1780-1832)

"But what is liberty without wisdom, and without virtue? It is the greatest of all possible evils; for it is folly, vice, and madness, without tuition or restraint." --British statesman Edmund Burke (1729-1797)

Dezinformatsia

Good, bad and ugly: "They think it was a good week. The president's trip down to the Gulf, the speech, the $20 billion escrow fund and then this gift from Joe Barton, which has really been a lightning rod for the Left, far more than the White House. So I think they feel like they had a good week. Perhaps their first good week since this crisis began." --ABC's Jake Tapper (Why is good news for Democrats always bad news for America?)

Blame America: "One of the differences between the '50's when Sputnik was launched and now, that was a battle against Communism. It's always much easier to rally Americans against an external threat, an external enemy. In this case, the enemy is us. Americans are addicted to petroleum. We use way too much oil. So it's a little harder for the president to turn around and call on Americans to sacrifice." --Atlanta Journal-Constitution columnist Cynthia Tucker

Right-wing "extremists": "First the Right appropriated God, equating churchgoing with party affiliation and demonizing Democrats as secularists. Now they're trying to hijack the Constitution, as though their reading of the Founders' intent is the only true one." --Newsweek's Eleanor Clift

The oath is to support and defend the Constitution, not diversity: "So far [Obama] is setting records for the number of women and minorities nominated to lifetime appointments. Nearly half of the 73 candidates he has tapped for the bench have been women. In all, 25% have been African Americans, 10% Hispanics and 11% Asian Americans. Yet as Obama tries to make gains in diversity among judges, he faces a deeply polarized confirmation process in the Senate ... [which] could undercut Obama's effort to significantly infuse the federal courts with more women and minorities." --USA Today's Joan Biskupic

[nChrist]

________________________________________
The Patriot Post Chronicle 6-23-2010
From The Federalist Patriot
Free Email Subscription
________________________________________

Non Sequitur: "Family, marriage and the contribution of fathers come together as topics for reflection on Father's Day. So I'd like to know why Barack Obama, a husband and a father in a family structure that encompasses bonds deemed essential to our society, is constantly and savagely attacked by conservative leaders whose personal circumstances undermine the family values they espouse?" --Washington Post columnist Colbert I. King (No one criticizes him for his family life, Colbert.)

Newspulper Headlines:

Breaking News From 1994: "Bill Clinton Aims to Help Democrats Keep Congress" --Reuters

Breaking News From 1998: "Man's Lie Lands Him in Trouble" --Daily News (Durban, South Africa)

Always Look on the Bright Side of Life: "Official: Oil Spill Hasn't Reached Great Salt Lake" --Associated Press

What Would We Do Without Experts?: "Experts See How-Not-To Book Emerging From Gulf Oil Spill Cleanup" --The Washington Post

Bottom Stories of the Day: "Obama Faults GOP for Blocking His Agenda, Hurting Jobless" --Boston Globe

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

The Demo-gogues

Who's money is it? "As the House and Senate debate what to do with the expiring Bush tax cuts in the coming weeks, we need to have a serious discussion about their implications for our fiscal outlook, including whether we can afford to permanently extend them before we have a real plan for long-term deficit reduction." --House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) on whether Democrats can "afford" to let Americans keep their money

No alternative to spending money we don't have? "If 'out-of-control spending' refers to the Recovery Act and other jobs programs that are responsible for more than two million jobs and only a small fraction of our deficit, I'd ask what the alternatives were. Whether we are spending or cutting taxes, creating jobs in a recession means adding to the deficit in the short term." --Steny Hoyer, who can certainly afford to spend your money

Belly Laugh of the Week: "That's what we try to instill in a new ethic in the federal government -- individuals, all of us being personally responsible at every level for making sure we handle the taxpayers' dollars well." --VP Joe Biden

Eco-theology: "[Climate change legislation] is a defense, a security issue, a health issue, an environmental issue, it is an economic issue, and it is a moral issue for us to honor the obligation we have to pass this planet on to future generations intact. And, if you believe, as I do, that it is also -- that this is God's beautiful creation, we have a moral responsibility to preserve it." --House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), who is right that we have a moral responsibility to steward the planet, but wrong that intrusive government regulation is the way to do it

Cap-n-tax: "There can be no doubt that the president is rolling up his sleeves to ensure we establish a market mechanism to tackle carbon pollution." --Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) calling his government mechanism a market mechanism

Border insecurity: "The problem is ... if we secure the border, then you all won't have any reason to support comprehensive immigration reform." --Barack Obama to Republican Sen. John Kyl of Arizona

Give it time: "I've never been unemployed. ... I've been very fortunate." -- Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), who is in a tough re-election fight this year

Village Idiots

Things she'll wish she hadn't said: "I loved what happened in the [Robert] Bork hearings.... The Bork hearings were great, the Bork hearings were educational, the Bork hearings were the best thing that ever happened to constitutional democracy." --Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan in a 1997 speech that just surfaced

Space cadet: "Yup [Tea Party activists are just mad that there is an African-American president], and the fact that they chose to call themselves 'teabaggers,' which is slang for a certain act involving b---s. It sort of says a lot. I would say a mouthful. Looks like it's very upsetting for them, but [Obama is] brilliant. The thing is, he's half white but that's still not enough -- for them it's all white or f--k off. I think we don't deserve him and certainly teabaggers don't deserve him." --actress Carrie Fisher, a.k.a. Princess Leia (Where to begin: Tea Party folks aren't racist and did NOT choose a sexual slur as their name, but no, we don't deserve what Obama is doing to us.)

The BIG Lie: "The approach here expressed and supported by other voices in the Republican Party sees the aggrieved party as BP, not the American -- not the fishermen and the communities down there affected. And that would [be] the governing philosophy. And I think what Joe Barton did is remind the American people, in case they've forgotten, this is how the Republicans would govern." --WH Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel on Rep. Barton's apology, since withdrawn, to BP for the White House "shakedown"

Non Compos Mentis: "This is exactly why the conservatives keep harping on spending, spending, spending as the problem: Because they know spending, spending, spending is the solution, and they don't want this solved! They don't want this solved because they hate government! They hate teachers. They hate police officers. They hate first responders. They hate firemen. They hate EMT workers. They want it all to be privatized! That's when you gonna get the haves having police protection and excellent schools and the have-nots having no police protection and no schools! And therein is the dreamworld for them. This is nirvana for them!" --leftist radio talk-show host Randi Rhodes

Short Cuts

"[Last Thursday] was the 36th anniversary of the Watergate scandal, when the Republicans broke into the Democratic headquarters looking for their long-term plans and strategies. It also marks the last time anyone thought the Democrats had a plan worth stealing." --comedian Jay Leno

"That's what liberalism is -- promises and pronouncements untethered to reality. It is cotton candy rhetoric; spun to taste good for a moment. But then it dissolves in an instant, leaving you feeling sick and disgusted that you tried it in the first place." --radio talk-show host Laura Ingraham

"Welcome to soggy reality. The great liberal disenchantment is the realization that it's beyond Obama's powers to turn back an oil spill, let along the tides. He's just a president, and not even a particularly good one." --columnist Rich Lowry

"The president directed his Nobel Prize-winning head of meetings to assemble a meeting to tackle the challenge of mobilizing the assembling of the tackling of the challenge of mobilization, at the end of which they directed BP to order up some new tackle and connect it to the thingummy next to the whachamacallit. Thank you, Mr. President. That and $4.95 will get you a venti at Starbucks." --columnist Mark Steyn

(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.)