Roundup Of Randomness

Charles Krauthammer:

The latest flip-flop is the restoration of military tribunals. During the 2008 campaign, Obama denounced them repeatedly, calling them an "enormous failure." Obama suspended them upon his swearing in. Now they're back...

Observers of all political stripes are stunned by how much of the Bush national security agenda is being adopted by this new Democratic government. Victor Davis Hanson (National Review) offers a partial list: "The Patriot Act, wiretaps, e-mail intercepts, military tribunals, Predator drone attacks, Iraq (i.e. slowing the withdrawal), Afghanistan (i.e. the surge) -- and now Guantanamo."

Jack Goldsmith (The New Republic) adds: rendition -- turning over terrorists seized abroad to foreign countries; state secrets -- claiming them in court to quash legal proceedings on rendition and other erstwhile barbarisms; and the denial of habeas corpus -- to detainees in Afghanistan's Bagram prison, indistinguishable logically and morally from Guantanamo...

The genius of democracy is that the rotation of power forces the opposition to come to its senses when it takes over. When the new guys, brought to power by popular will, then adopt the policies of the old guys, a national consensus is forged and a new legitimacy established.

That's happening before our eyes. The Bush policies in the war on terror won't have to await vindication by historians. Obama is doing it day by day. His denials mean nothing. Look at his deeds.

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Maybe we could put the Gitmo terrorists in the Utah nuclear waste dump that Obama refuses to use.

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Every letter or editorial I read from liberals demanding that Cheney shut up brings a frothing algore to my mind as David Limbaugh reminds us:

It must have slipped their minds that radical environmentalism's high priest, former Democratic Vice President Al Gore, has gallivanted the world over, maliciously excoriating the Bush administration. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't believe there was ever the slightest complaint from the Democratic decorum police.

Does this ring a bell? "He betrayed this country! He played on our fears. He took America on an ill-conceived foreign adventure dangerous to our troops, an adventure preordained and planned before 9/11 ever took place."

How convenient, also, for Democrats to overlook that Cheney didn't start any of this. He isn't going about the country leveling unprovoked attacks against the administration. He is responding to Democratic attacks and thuggish threats to criminalize Bush administration policies.

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If It's a Smart Car, Why Does It Look So Stupid?:

Meet the only car that ought to come with a mandatory Mensa membership – the so-called Smart Car. It’s already the car of the present for micro Europeans, but if environmentalists have their way, it might be the kind of car that will be your future. There’s really only one problem – even this dorky motor scooter of a car doesn’t meet Barack Obama’s new mileage standards...

That’s not an easy standard. Only two – the Toyota Prius and the Honda Civic Hybrid – meet that standard in 2009. In other words, the Smart Car, which gets 36 mpg, falls 3 mpg short of the goal. Not so smart after all...

American car companies will be forced to cut size, cut luxuries and make all-around worse cars to meet these draconian mandates.

The only reason Obama can do this backed by smiling auto execs is because, thanks to the bailouts, he’s now their unofficial boss. We now have, in the words of a friend of mine, “Twelve lawyers and a community organizer deciding what cars we get to drive.”

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John Hawkins with a few hits and misses:

Liberals believe that...

1) ...it's impossible to come to any sort of reasonable compromise with conservatives on anything, but that we can fix our problems with nations like Iran and North Korea by just sitting down and talking things out...

17) ...when someone despises America, we need to ask, "What have we done to make him hate us?" -- but, when someone despises liberals for what they're doing to the country, they conclude that person must be ignorant, bigoted, or evil...

20) ...when they looked at information from our intelligence agencies and concluded that Saddam Hussein had WMDs, they were just mistaken -- but when George Bush looked at the same info and drew the same conclusion, he was lying.

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Thomas Sowell randomly randoms:

Random thoughts on the passing scene:...

If increased government spending with borrowed or newly created money is a "stimulus," then the Weimar Republic should have been stimulated to unprecedented prosperity, instead of runaway inflation and widespread economic desperation that ultimately brought Adolf Hitler to power.

Just days after Colin Powell informed us that the American people were willing to pay higher taxes in order to get government services-- and that Republicans therefore needed to stop their opposition to taxes-- California voters resoundingly defeated a bill to raise taxes in order to pay for the many government services in that liberal state...

One of the most important talents for success in politics is the ability to make utter nonsense sound not only plausible but inspiring. Barack Obama has that talent. We will be lucky if we escape the catastrophes into which other countries have been led by leaders with that same charismatic talent...

Much discussion of the interrogation of captured terrorists ignores the inescapable reality of trade-offs. The real question is: How many American lives are you prepared to sacrifice, in order to spare a terrorist from experiencing distress?

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Is the hidden purpose behind the credit card bill in reality quite obvious? More government dependence? Probably. By making it less likely for banks to loan you money (via a credit card that they will not offer to poor credit risks, as they now will not give a mortgage to poor credit risks (I'm not talking about insane credit risks)), that means people will have to turn elsewhere for assistance. Charities? Well, Obama and friends have been temporarily thwarted in their attempt to rein in charitable giving by taking away tax breaks for it, but expect to see a return. What does that leave after you've tapped out your normal sources? Uncle Obama and his big green printing press - feed in rich people and watch the dollars fly out...until there are no more rich people to feed the mill...