A couple quick thoughts on the election results. Obviously not what I was hoping for, but it’s really not that impressive of a win for the Democrats for a couple reasons. The losses in both the house and senate were on par for a president in the 6th year of his presidency. Considering that the war is so unpopular, you would really expect the gains by Democrats to be more substantial than they were. I think another reason it’s not an extremely impressive victory is the reason people were voting. People were voting against the war, not for liberal principals, just as they weren’t voting against conservative principals.

Ultimately I think the general public, who can’t sit through a 30-second commercial, can’t sit through a war. The talking heads on TV can’t even explain WHY it’s going "wrong," but people see a body count and assume it’s true. Best line of the night was from Howard Dean: "Clearly the people want a change in Iraq, and I think you’re going to see that." He couldn’t tell you what the heck "that" is, but there will be one!

I’m an optimistic fellow, and I see the next two years as an opportunity. Republicans should wake up and get back to small government basics. The Republicans in office have been pretty poor when it comes to core conservative values, and hopefully they can move back to what a majority of people want: less government. Already Democrats are talking about rasing the minimum wage, and President Bush is excited to have a congress controlled by Democrats because he thinks it will help his amnesty goals. Keep it up President Bush, and none of us will be sorry to see you leave.

Rush Limbaugh has an excellent article at his site.

Peggy Noonan has a new article up about the unique challenges facing Republicans currently in office. Before I say anything about the article, let me say that Peggy Noonan is one of the best writers around. Everytime she says something it seems dead on and cuts through all the balogna.

Most people think the country is going in the wrong direction. Six months ago I would have attributed this simply to people being idiots and looking for someone to blame. Politics seem somewhat cyclical, and the cycle for Republicans might be up. The true negatives about the Bush administration really aren’t that bad. The country is not falling apart, the war in Iraq is rarely a headline anymore, and the economy is great. But I think over time people get anxious, and especially the undecided people in the middle that blow with the wind. "Well these guys have been in power for 10+ years and they haven’t done much, so screw them!"

Democrats have hated Bush since he was elected, but I think his major problems of late stem from his own party. When you don’t veto spending, and you promote GUEST WORKER programs, your own party is going to be fed up with you (and the same goes for congress). Republicans in D.C. better get their act together really fast, or the Democrats will be back in power. At least they would be up front about wanting to spend all our money.

This story is quite old, but I’d never heard it, so I figure many of you have not. In August of 2003 US forces found Iraq’s Air Force buried in the desert. We’re talking a real jet fighter, buried in the sand.

Naturally this leads to a question of whether or not WMDs could be buried in Iraq, but we have no way of knowing. What I think this example does though is show the reality of Iraq, something that few Americans grasp. People watch their TV and read their newspapers, and it all seems so easy. There is no human element to even concern themselves with. If WMDs were there, they should have been found. Nevermind that they could be buried like these jets, or flown to Syria. Nevermind that Bill Clinton, Jacques Chirac, John Kerry, Ted Kennedy, Hillary Clinton, Barbara Boxer, Al Gore, John Edwards, Nancy Pelosi, and many others said prior to the war that Saddam Hussein had WMDs (here and here). Their TV news and newspaper haven’t had a picture of a barrel with "WMD" on the side, and that’s all that matters. People are so quick to forget the names mentioned above and label the President a liar.

I found an exceptional Op-Ed piece at a very unlikely location: the LA Times. The writer, Jonah Goldberg, says "The fact that Hussein turned out to be bluffing about WMD isn’t a mark against Bush’s decision. If you’re a cop and a man pulls out a gun and points it at you, you’re within your rights to shoot him, particularly if the man in question is a known criminal who’s shot people before. If it turns out afterward that the gun wasn’t loaded, that’s not the cop’s fault." Excellent analogy showing that the burden of proof was on Saddam Hussein, not the President. Read the whole thing, not too long but very enlightening.

Are your beliefs about the war in Iraq based on facts or rhetoric? Determination or emotion? Strength or pacifism? Body counts or lives liberated? I’m curious to hear your thoughts.

Stupid ER. We’re watching the episode from Thursday. This stupid show just took another jab at the war in Iraq.

One of the doctors married another doctor, who just left for a second tour in Iraq (Galant). She went to a gathering for spouses whose significant other is off at war. They were all talking about how hard it is being a military spouse, when the ER doctor decided to speak up against the war, and how she doesn’t support it. ER has taken a number of shots at the war in past episodes, but it always drives me crazy how stupid their arguments are.

ER Doctor: "I haven’t seen any weapons of mass destruction, have you?"
Everyone else: "Uhh, err, but we have to support them…uhhh."

Instead of being mindless idiots like the writers wanted them to be, why didn’t they talk about this, or this?

Stupid freaking ER. I want them to know that I record their show, and always skip through the commercials.

A student in Colorado, Sean Allen, recorded some of the liberal comments made by his geography teacher. Among comparing Bush to Hitler, he also ragged on capitalism, the war in Iraq, Democracy, and the CIA. He’s a typical pacifist who thinks all war is evil no matter what.

It’s extremely annoying to listen to, especially since he’s subjecting a bunch of impressionable 10th graders to it. If you’ve got 20 minutes take a listen to what he has to say. He’s totally nuts, comparing the USA to North Korea. "We illegally invaded Iraq, so why can’t North Korea invade South Korea pre-emptively?" The student that records the teacher speaks up about half-way through. Props to him for having the guts to speak up to the crap his teacher is spewing.

Listen to the idiot here.

Harry Reid, the Senate Minority Leader, made some comments the other day that sum up very well what is wrong with the Democratic Party. I think there are two big things that have got them completely clueless.

1) Bush is Evil – We are in year 6 of Bush’s Presedential history, and still the best that Democrats can come up with is "Bush is Evil."  First it was the election results in Florida, and he was evil for "stealing" it! Then it was the tax cuts for the rich! Then it’s the war in Iraq, and then it’s prescription drug plans not being enough, and on and on. The Democrats number one problem is that the only message they have is that Bush is evil. It has become the party’s mantra: If Bush likes it, we don’t. The only alternative ideas the party can put forward are whatever is opposite the Republican party. They are not completely void of ideas though, which leads me to their second problem.

2) Hand Outs – Personal responsibility is something entirely foreign to Democrats. If you read the mentioned article you would see Harry Reid complaining about health care. "Not everyone has it, so let’s give it to them!" This is where the socialist ideals of the Democratic party come into play. A core belief of the Democratic party is that government exists to take care of people. That is BOGUS! It’s no wonder the national savings rate has gone negative. Democrats love to talk about how we’re going to pay for social security forever, and pay all health care costs. When did it become the government’s job to make sure I’m healthy? I don’t need your stupid social security, I can save my own money! Yet the government just hands out money like there is no tomorrow, and personal responsibility has started to disappear. People pay $2000+ a year in car insurance to drive around their leased Hummer, but they can’t pay $1000 a year for health insurance.

Those are the two main things you hear from the Democratic Party, and that is why Kerry lost in 2004. He had zero vision. Bush was evil, and let’s make more people reliant on government hand outs. George Washington and the rest of our founding fathers are surely vomiting in their grave.

I saw this article over at google news about the whole Muslim cartoon issue. It’s written by a US hater, but I think it’s important to know your enemy. There were several statements that completely baffle me.

"It is, after all, Muslims who are overwhelmingly at the receiving end of Western violence." – Of course, gotta watch out for those US and Israeli suicide bombers. I’m sure people will point at the Iraq war, but the burden of proof was on Saddam, not us. Also, don’t forget the money he paid suicide bombers.

"…the controversy reveals a dangerous and virulent anti-Muslim racism that will almost certainly return to haunt us." – If by haunt us you mean "Muslims are going to continue suicide bombing," then you are correct.

"The debate on the cartoons tells us less about fanatic Muslims than about how Europe is choosing to deal with its ‘Muslim question.’" – Europe prints a cartoon, Muslims burn down embassies. Which tells you more?

"The hysterical tone of some free speech defenders comparing official apologies for the cartoons to a dangerous form of appeasement thus betrays a fantastic sense of delusion." – When people respond to something they don’t like with violence and demand an apology, I think the granting of that apology would in fact constitute appeasement. What the heck a "fantastic sense of delusion" is I have no idea.

You can read the article for yourself, but it amazes me how easily he brushes aside the violent acts being commited by Muslims both now in response to the cartoons, and also in the last 5-10 years.

I haven’t been following the story about the cartoon of Mohammed and the resulting backlash from the Muslim community, but I saw something today that was interesting. If you don’t know about the cartoon, basically it depicts Mohammed with a bomb in his turban. This article about the backlash from the Muslim community startled me. Below is the best excerpt:

"Gunmen in Gaza surrounded the local European Union office and threatened to kidnap citizens of countries where newspapers had published the cartoons."

Whatever your opinion is of the cartoon, you are entitled to that opinion. What blew me away though is the reaction from some Muslims around the globe. Threatening to kidnap people at gunpoint for printing a cartoon? If anything they are saying "Mohammed is not a terrorist, but we are!" You don’t have to agree with the cartoon, but when you start waving guns around and burning stuff in the street, you start looking a little "extreme." It’s amazing that we have understood and embraced FREEDOM for over 200 years, yet most of the middle east is still clueless.

The only fear I have of Iraq failing is not our soldiers and their cause, but those religious extremists in the middle east who have never learned to govern without Islam.

Update: Turns out there are several different cartoons, here is a gallery. Now I’m worried the crazies in Palestine will come knocking at my door for publishing a cartoon…wait, no I’m not.

Update 2: Here is a great post about this issue. The author sums up many of the evil things done by some extreme Muslims in recent years. You have to wonder, when are the good Muslims going to say anything?