Back on the Block: A News Round-Up
Boy, take a couple days off from blogging and suddenly Special Forces generals, and their staff, are giving expletive-laden interviews to Rolling Stone as if they were Billy Joel's road crew! If you rely solely on Free Will for your news updates, I apologize. Herewith, a quick round-up of the last couple days' worth of blog-worthy material that I couldn't tackle:
1.) So...you might have heard that Afghan commander Gen. Stanley McChrystal let some Rolling Stone reporter follow him and his staff around, listening to them curse out their civilian bosses. Gosh, usually in the movies - and during Republican Administrations - that's what the hero does! I guess, McChrystal didn't get the message, tho' you'd think he would. He apparently is a political liberal who voted for Obama and can't even countenance the dread Fox News. If McChrystal really is a liberal, what did he think was going to happen when Obama took office? The Democrat Party's been the anti-war party for decades, and is filled with deep thinkers like Joe Biden who think nothing of dividing countries into three parts and declaring that US war efforts are "lost."
BTW 1: supposedly the dissension between the military and civilians in Afghanistan was an "open secret" in DC. By open secret, we mean: all of the big league DC-based journalists knew all about it, but didn't want to write about it for fear of making The One look bad. (hmmmm....sounds familiar). That Rolling Stone got a scoop of this quality should be a wake-up call for the rest of the MSM.
BTW 2: I don't care either way whether McChrystal should have been fired, but I do know this. We haven't seen Obama looking this serious and engaged in a while. Regardless of what you think of McChrystal's choice of embeds, the views expressed in the article were a sign of an incipient breakdown in military-civilian (at least Democratic civilian...) relations. I hope this snaps Obama out of his Afghan funk.
2.) We're so used to seeing progressive initiatives get approved by the courts, and watching conservative ones declared unconstitutional for failing to comport with the Living Constitution, that it was a pleasant surprise to see a federal judge lift the ban on deepwater oil drilling. People can bitch all they want about the judge being a (hiss!) Reagan appointee who owns (hisssss!) stock in oil companies. That doesn't make the ruling any less correct.
3.) There was a crazy rumor going around that Obama was planning to grant a blanket amnesty to every illegal alien in the US. I'm sure he would do it if he thought he could get away with it, but the backlash would overwhelm him.
4.) Four Christians passing out leaflets outside a fairgrounds in Dearborn, MI were arrested for disturbing the peace...for passing out Bibles to Muslims. No offence, but, if Muslims need a police state so they can feel more righteous about their religion, that doesn't make me think theirs is the One True Faith.
5.) You know what was the last thing Tipper said to Al before they sent out that "We're getting divorced" email? Apres Moi, Le Deluge. How else to explain the sudden interest in a four year old sexual assault complaint from a middle aged (ew!) massage therapist? Apparently, The Oregonian had the story in hand a couple years ago, but nobly stayed their hand. I'll bet Kobe Bryant and the Duke Lacrosse team wish they had received the same courtesy.
6.) SF Mayor Gavin Newsom is getting behind a local initiative that would go a long way towards reducing the Croesus-like pay scale of the City's transit workers. Watch out for Newsom. Everyone thinks he's a standard-issue SF progressive, but he has a real knack for finding liberal Sacred Cows to run against. Sure, he's a liberal goof, but he's liberal goof who isn't quite as doctrinaire as people might like to think.
The Magic Hour, but CNN may be preparing to broadcast a new king of crap. I give you...The Elliot Spitzer/Kathleen Parker Hour! No, this is not a joke. It's hard to know what's worse: that CNN's journalistic standards now include a blow-hard lefty who abused his prosecutorial discretion as NY AG, was an ineffective governor of NY (and directly precipitating that state's current crisis state), and resigned his office after getting caught with a call girl, complete with the "anguished-wife" press conference...or that Kathleen Parker is considered "conservative." Note to media types - just because someone was born in the south and isn't a liberal does not mean she is a conservative.
8.) And, congratulations to Nikki Haley who looks like she will be the next governor of South Carolina, a state that is in desperate need of a political house cleaning, if not a long hot bath. I think when people like Mitch Daniels and (ahem) me call for a truce in the culture wars on the GOP side, this is what they are talking about.
Haley's clearly not a RINO squish, but the campaign against her was the sort of social conservative button pushing effort that gives uptight Bible thumpers a bad name. It had everything: adultery, racism, plus they questioned her religion. None of it was true, and even if it was, who gives a good goddam? Too many Republicans, especially in the South, have gotten too used to an electoral formula that involved putting on a prissy face, denouncing your opponents as sinners...and then soaking up earmark money and campaign donations from their real supporters. We've had one too many GOP politicos talk a big game about family values and then (heh heh) fall on their sword. I don't literally believe that Haley (or Sarah Palin) can do a better job because they are women, but they certainly can't do any worse than the men who've been in charge for the last 15 years.
This entry was posted on at 5:25 PM and is filed under Al Gore, elliot spitzer, free speech, gavin newsom, Gulf oil spill, immigration, Iraq, McChrystal, Nikki Haley, Obama, san francisco politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can
