Category Archives: Sarah Palin

Links to think about

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When I heard the news about the murder of George Tiller, one of the first writers to whom I looked for reaction was the Anchoress, Elizabeth Scalia, but at that point, she hadn’t gotten around to writing about it. On Thursday, though, she posted a superb piece as the daily article on the First Things website entitled “Tiller, Long, Bonhoeffer, and Assassination”; it’s an excellent piece of theological and moral reflection, and well worth your time to read. I particularly appreciate this piece of wisdom:

Why should we care about some dumb hick named William Long, who was only a soldier and not a hero abortionist? And why should his assassin’s name or religion matter? Because William Long was as entitled to the life he had, as was George Tiller. And Long’s death, at the hands of a man who used his religion to justify his actions, is the ultimate reminder of why Christians cannot emulate Bonhoeffer, for all his brilliance, or Tiller’s murderer: When we start thinking that we know the heart and mind of God so well that we may decide who lives and who dies, we slip into a mode of Antichrist.

The Pauline paradox “when I am weak, then I am strong” carries a flipside: “When I am strong, then I am weak.” Relativism is dangerous because we can too easily slip into the belief that we so well comprehend God’s will that we can confuse our own will for God’s, and thereby do terrible damage to one another. God’s rain falls on “the just and the unjust,” and it is one of the challenges of the life of faith that we must leave to God the rendering of his Justice.

The duty of a Christian—and it is a difficult duty—is to remain in the present moment that we might be alert to the promptings of the Holy Spirit (“continuing instant” in gratitude and prayer) while also taking the long view of things. This requires trust that however things look of a moment or a day, God is present and working: Nothing is static, everything is in a constant state of flux, all of it churning forward so that “in the fullness of time” Christ may restore all things to himself. What is left? Well, prayer, which is the most subversive of powers; it is a self-renewing weapon that cannot be wrested from us, and it cannot be over-employed.

Also of importance on this subject is Michelle Malkin’s reflection on the differing reactions to those two attacks from the media and the White House, “Climate of hate, world of double standards”:

Why the silence? Politically and religiously-motivated violence, it seems, is only worth lamenting when it demonizes opponents. Which also helps explain why the phrase “lone shooter” is ubiquitous in media coverage of jihadi shooters gone wild—think convicted Jeep Jihadi Mohammed Taheri-Azar at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill or Israel-bashing gunman Naveed Haq who targeted a Seattle Jewish charity or Los Angeles International Airport shooter Hesham Hedayet who opened fire at the El Al Israeli airline ticket counter—but not in cases involving rare acts of anti-abortion violence. . . .

The truth is that the “climate of hate” doesn’t have just one hemisphere. But you won’t hear the Council on American Islamic Relations acknowledging the national security risks of jihadi infiltrators who despise our military and have plotted against our troops from within the ranks—including convicted fragging killerHasan Akbar and terror plotters Ali Mohamed, Jeffrey Battle, and Semi Osman. . . .

Is it too much to ask the media cartographers in charge of mapping the “climate of hate” to do their jobs with both eyes open?

On Thursday, I posted a link to Robert Spencer’s demolition of the president’s Cairo speech, but he’s not the only one doing serious analysis and coming away worried; Toby Harnden of the Telegraph is another. Harnden highlights “Barack Obama’s 10 mistakes in Cairo” and concludes,

There’s been lots of breathless commentary today about the “historic” moment and the power of Obama’s oratory. In time, however, the speech will probably be remembered, at best, for its high-flown aspirations rather than the achievements it laid the foundations for. Or, at worst, for the naive and flawed approach it foretold.

Also well worth reading is the online symposium on the Cairo speech that National Reviewpulled together; the contributors raise a number of serious issues, but also offer some strong positive comments. I was particularly struck by the contribution from Mansoor Ijaz, identified as “a New York financier of Pakistani ancestry [who] jointly authored a ceasefire plan between Muslim militants and Indian security forces in Kashmir in 2000”; Ijaz begins by praising aspects of the speech as “brilliant” and “just right,” but then says this:

Where he failed in Cairo was to delineate the overarching fact that Islam’s troubles lie within. It is not that America is not at war with Islam. It is that Islam is at war within itself—to identify what this religion and system of beliefs is in the modern age. Osama bin Laden and his Egyptian sidekick Ayman Al Zawahiri want to take us all back to the Stone Age because they have nothing better to offer their followers than hate-filled preaching. Why didn’t Obama say that?

Islam’s worst enemies are within it. . . .

In fact, the most glaring truth is that Islam’s mobsters fear the West has it right: that we have perfected a system of life that Islam’s holy scriptures urged Muslims to learn and practice, but over the centuries increasingly did not. And having failed in their mission to lead their masses, they seek any excuse to demonize the West and to try and bring us down. They know they are losing the ideological struggle for hearts and minds, for life in all its different dimensions, and so they prepare themselves, and us, for Armageddon by starting fires everywhere in a display of Islamic unity intended to galvanize the masses they cannot feed, clothe, educate, or house.

And finally, for a different perspective on the state of the nation and on the international situation than we’re getting from DC, check out what Sarah Palin had to say on Saturday in her speech in Auburn, NY.

I especially appreciate this line, given our current president’s apparent belief that the best way to conduct foreign policy is to apologize for America to all the people who’ve hurt us for being the kind of people they want to hurt:

We never need to fear that though we’re not a perfect nation, that we must apologize for being proud of ourselves.

Thanks, Governor. We needed that.

The campaign continues, and so do the hatchets

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The latest attempt on Sarah Palin’s political career is a campaign to get people to believe that she’s not a fiscal conservative.  I have a post shredding that argument up on Conservatives4Palin.  If you want to oppose Gov. Palin, fine, go ahead—if your opposition is based on what she’s actually done and what she actually believes.  All these lies and inventions that people are coming up with to try to bring her down are getting very old; the one encouraging thing about them is that they suggest that the Left is too scared of her to let people find out what she actually believes, because they’re afraid of what would happen if the American people took the true measure of this woman.

Barack Obama’s priorities

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The Commander-in-Chief of the United States Armed Forces finally saw fit yesterday, two days after the murder of Pvt. William Long and the attempted murder of Pvt. Quinton Ezeagwula, to issue a statement on this attack on two young men who had pledged him their service (HT:  Michelle Malkin):

I am deeply saddened by this senseless act of violence against two brave young soldiers who were doing their part to strengthen our armed forces and keep our country safe. I would like to wish Quinton Ezeagwula a speedy recovery, and to offer my condolences and prayers to William Long’s family as they mourn the loss of their son.

Compare this to Sarah Palin’s statement, issued Tuesday (yes, a sitting governor took this seriously enough to respond more promptly than the President of the United States):

The stories of two very different lives with similar fates crossed through the media’s hands yesterday—both equally important but one lacked the proper attention. The death of 67-year old George Tiller was unacceptable, but equally disgusting was another death that police believe was politically and religiously motivated as well.

William Long died yesterday. The 23-year old Army Recruiter was gunned down by a fanatic; another fellow soldier was wounded in the ambush. The soldiers had just completed their basic training and were talking to potential recruits, just as my son, Track, once did.

Whatever titles we give these murderers, both deserve our attention. Violence like that is no way to solve a political dispute nor a religious one. And the fanatics on all sides do great disservice when they confuse dissention with rage and death.

And then, further, compare this to the statement of our Commander-in-Chief on the murder of George Tiller:

I am shocked and outraged by the murder of Dr. George Tiller as he attended church services this morning. However profound our differences as Americans over difficult issues such as abortion, they cannot be resolved by heinous acts of violence.

What conclusions can be drawn from these comparisons?  I can think of four.

  1. Barack Obama cares more about the murder of abortionists than about the murder of American soldiers.  The former “outrages” him, the latter merely “saddens” him.
  2. Barack Obama is more willing to condemn those who act in the name of Christianity than those who act in the name of Islam.  Murder by the former is “heinous,” while murder by the latter is merely “senseless” (never mind that it made perfect sense to Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad, formerly Carlos Leon Bledsoe).  This makes sense, given that he appears to be committed to a policy of naïve appeasement of global Islam, while his attitude toward evangelicals who don’t like his actions is, “I won.”
  3. Governor Palin takes the murder of American soldiers more seriously than President Obama.
  4. The likes of al’Qaeda are going to be a lot more worried if Sarah Palin is elected president down the road than they will ever be about Barack Obama.

Sarah Palin on the murder of Pvt. William Long

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Here’s Gov. Palin’s statement (HT:  Mel):

The stories of two very different lives with similar fates crossed through the media’s hands yesterday—both equally important but one lacked the proper attention. The death of 67-year old George Tiller was unacceptable, but equally disgusting was another death that police believe was politically and religiously motivated as well.

William Long died yesterday. The 23-year old Army Recruiter was gunned down by a fanatic; another fellow soldier was wounded in the ambush. The soldiers had just completed their basic training and were talking to potential recruits, just as my son, Track, once did.

Whatever titles we give these murderers, both deserve our attention. Violence like that is no way to solve a political dispute nor a religious one. And the fanatics on all sides do great disservice when they confuse dissention with rage and death.

She’s right on all counts.  Contrary to my initial expectation, the killer here wasn’t a fringe anti-war activist, but rather an American Muslim convert and Yemen-trained Islamic terrorist.  My point still holds, though:  will the media and leftist pundits (but I repeat myself) treat Long’s murder as a terrorist act and go after those whose hateful rhetoric encourages such acts?  So far, nope.  (Go on, tell me you’re surprised.)

Update:  The Atlantic‘s Jeffrey Goldberg has noticed, as has Toby Harnden of the Telegraph.

Sarah Palin weighs in

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A couple hours ago, Gov. Palin released the following statement on the murder of Wichita abortionist George Tiller:

I feel sorrow for the Tiller family. I respect the sanctity of life and the tragedy that took place today in Kansas clearly violates respect for life. This murder also damages the positive message of life, for the unborn, and for those living. Ask yourself, “What will those who have not yet decided personally where they stand on this issue take away from today’s event in Kansas?”

Regardless of my strong objection to Dr. Tiller’s abortion practices, violence is never an answer in advancing the pro-life message.

For my thoughts and comments on this, see my post this morning on Conservatives4Palin.

Front-line leadership vs. rear-echelon dithering

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So North Korea is testing nuclear warheads and long-range missiles—and announcing that they will no longer abide by the armistice that ended the Korean War—and so far, Sarah Palin is sounding more presidential about it than Barack Obama.  Maybe back during the campaign when she stressed the significance of Alaska’s position on the front line of America’s defenses as support for her readiness to deal with foreign policy, she wasn’t just talking through her hat; whether it’s the fact that Alaska is now in range of a North Korean nuke or not, she certainly seems to have more of a grasp of the strategic realities here than the president does, even when limited to 140 characters:

More N Korea nuke tests: why consider US missile program cuts now? AK military program helps secure US. Now is NOT time to cut our defense.

Check out this good read on N. Korea that sheds light on need for strong US defense tools & economic sanctions. http://tinyurl.com/oaf2rm

Must Read: Here’s link to article concerning N.Korea’s missile range & progress.http://tinyurl.com/kre9lh

Yet as North Korea accelerates its pattern of provocations, the governor of Alaska may be standing firm, but the Obama administration can’t even make up its mind whether Kim Jong-Il is a threat; they may declare that “The United States will not accept North Korea as a nuclear-armed state,” but they don’t seem willing to do anything more than “respond to the threat with ‘the strongest possible adjectives.’”  The situation is critical, but the White House seems to want nothing more than for North Korea to recede back below the threshold of public consciousness so they can get back to more important things (like rescinding some of the restrictions on lobbyists that President Obama announced with such self-righteous, self-aggrandizing fanfare back in January).  “Speak softly and carry a big teleprompter,” indeed.

Another Alaskan energy solution

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While drilling in ANWR is on the shelf with this administration, Investor’s Business Daily points out that another potential Alaskan energy source has turned out to be far more significant than first thought:

Back in July, when IBD first interviewed the then-little-known governor, [Sarah] Palin emphasized developing Alaska’s Chukchi Sea resources. . . .

At the time, it was thought that Chukchi’s waters northwest of Alaska’s landmass held 30 billion cubic feet of natural gas.

Today, Science magazine reports that the U.S. Geological Survey now finds it holds more than anyone thought—1.6 trillion cubic feet of undiscovered gas, or 30% of the world’s supply and 83 billion barrels of undiscovered oil, 4% of the global conventional resources.

That’s enough U.S. energy to achieve self-sufficiency and never worry about it as a national security question again.

Of course, as with ANWR, there are those who will object, claiming environmental reasons; but here, the calculus is a bit different.  Leaving aside the strong proven safety and environmental record of our offshore drilling operations, the fact is that this isn’t a choice between drilling in the Chukchi Sea or not drilling there.  As the IBD points out, Russia also has territorial rights in the Chukchi Sea, and they won’t be restrained by our environmental niceties—they’re bound to drill there whether we do or not.  The question, rather, is this:  do we want Russia to take all that oil and natural gas, or do we want to take our fair share?

HT:  Ron Devito

Gas prices: onward and upward

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I argued in a post last Wednesday that gas prices will be Barack Obama’s Achilles heel, but that post was incomplete.  I argued that speculation in oil futures (which played a major role in the surge in gas prices after Nancy Pelosi took the speaker’s chair in the House of Representatives) will once again be a major factor, given that the Democratic Congress and administration have foreclosed the possibility of expanded domestic drilling, which was the most important element in driving the price of oil futures down.  I left out a couple other reasons, though.

First, tied to this, one reason why the current administration and congressional leadership are opposed to energy development (aside from, as noted, wind, solar, and the like) is that they don’t think higher gas prices are a bad thing.  Ideologically, they’re committed to reducing fossil-fuel consumption by whatever means they can find to hand, and they recognize that higher prices mean lower usage; therefore, while they’ve been chary about coming out and saying it where people can hear them, they’re all in favor of gas prices going up.  If they weren’t, they wouldn’t be pushing their “cap and trade” bill (that Rep. Henry Waxman, who’s leading the charge on this, hasn’t even read) so hard; after all, let’s call a spade a spade here, what is this thing?  It’s an energy tax, and when it passes (it might take a while, but they’ll figure out a way to get it through Congress), it’s going to boost the price of gas even more.

Second, President Obama has allies in this effort to push gas prices up—allies with names like Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Hugo Chávez.  It is very much in the interests of oil-producing states like Iran and Venezuela to see gas prices go back up so that they will have more money—which their tin-horn-tyrant rulers will then use, not to better the lives of their people, but to fuel their geopolitical ambitions (which is, not so incidentally, not in the interests of America).  As such, they’re going to do whatever they can to return oil prices to the highs they saw last summer.  It’s an effort in which they will no doubt be grateful for the help they get from the U.S. government; one wonders how long it will be before they start channeling Lenin and talking about “the useful idiots in the White House.”

The politics of personal destruction, intra-GOP edition: take 2

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R. A. Mansour, explaining the reason and purpose for the founding of Conservatives4Palin, wrote,

Sarah Palin wasn’t able to return home from the campaign. The campaign continues, and she is forced to fight a war on two fronts—the local and the national. As long as the campaign continues, we’ll be here to watch her back.

This continues to be true; and the most frustrating part is that each of these fronts in turn has two fronts, as she is assailed both by liberals, from whom one would expect no better, and also by other conservatives.  I have to think that Reagan would be infuriated by the way in which his Eleventh Commandment (“Thou shalt not speak ill of a fellow Republican”) is routinely ignored when it comes to Gov. Palin; I also think that he would have no trouble diagnosing the reason.  President Reagan famously had a plaque on his desk that read, “There is no limit to what you can accomplish when you don’t care who gets the credit”; these people who are attacking her, and cloaking their attacks in the language of conservatism, aren’t doing so for reasons of principle, but because they care who gets the credit.  They care very much, and they don’t want it to be her.

What they fail to understand is that when you care who gets the credit, that sharply limits what you can accomplish—and the more you care, the more limited you are.  Hurting Gov. Palin may well increase the chance that Mitt Romney or Jeb Bush or Tim Pawlenty wins the 2012 GOP presidential nomination, but even more, it increases the chance that Barack Obama wins the 2012 general election.  The only politicians who profit from attacks on Sarah Palin are Democrats, and the only party that is helped is the Democratic Party.  Republicans of influence, be they in office or in the conservative media, need to grow up, shut up, and stop trying to run down Gov. Palin, because not only is it wrong, it’s only going to hurt them and their preferred causes, not help them; the knife they plant in her back is the knife in their own.  Republicans acting like Democrats only profits Democrats.

Barack Obama’s Achilles heel

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I commented earlier today on the latest attempt by the OSM (Obama-stream media), in the person of New York Times gossip columnist Maureen Dowd, to pre-emptively defend their adored idol, Barack Obama, by asserting that any terrorist attack during his time in office won’t be his fault, it will be Dick Cheney’s fault. This is, as I noted, not an isolated thing, but part of a broader campaign to ensure that any bad event or outcome is blamed on the Republicans, and primarily on the Bush administration; though a superficially appealing approach, I argued that it infantilizes President Obama and renders him unworthy of respect, because it essentially says that he can’t be held to the same standard as other presidents.  It makes him less effectual, powerful, influential, and important than his predecessor (and even his predecessor’s VP!), and thereby makes him a lesser figure.

Fortunately or unfortunately, I also don’t think people will buy it; we’re too accustomed to the Harry S Truman (“The buck stops here”) approach for many people to swallow “It’s not my fault” coming from our president.  We’ll take a lot of things, but I don’t believe avoidance of responsibility will be one of them.  However, let’s suppose for a moment that I’m wrong.  Let’s suppose that when the first batch of folks the Obama administration releases from Gitmo turn around and help nuke the World Series, or turn a superbug loose on the Washington Mall on the Fourth of July, or whatever they do, that the American public in fact exonerates the president and buys the line that it’s all Dick Cheney’s fault.  Let’s suppose that a year from now, the voters still pin the problems in our banking system on the Bush administration and hold Barack Obama blameless for the failure of his programs.  Let’s suppose that the polls reveal the attitude that if things are getting worse, it’s just because George W. Bush did such a lousy job.

There’s still one thing that the president won’t be able to duck, and it’s something no one seems to be thinking about:  gas prices.  For whatever reason, all the prognostications I’ve seen are ignoring them, effectively assuming that they’ll remain where they were at the beginning of the year—and they won’t.  Indeed, they already haven’t.  Three or four weeks ago, gas prices here were below $1.90 a gallon; right now, they’re sitting at $2.459, and they’re only going to keep going up.  It won’t be long before they’re back over $3 a gallon, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see them back over $4 a gallon by Labor Day.

Why?  Because gas prices were driven up in large part by speculation in oil futures, and the biggest thing that drove the price of futures down was Congress’ action in letting the offshore-drilling ban expire.  The prospect of a dramatic expansion in American domestic oil production exerted considerable downward pressure on oil futures, which brought down the price of oil, and thus the price of gas.  That prospect is no longer in place, thanks to the policies of the new administration, which is resolutely opposed to any sort of energy development except for those forms which are supposedly “green.”  That means that the conditions are back in place for oil and gas prices to rise, which they’re already doing; that in turn means that speculating in futures, betting on them to continue to rise, will once again be a profitable activity.  With so many people who are now a lot poorer than they used to be and so few means available for them to correct that situation, it seems likely to me that we’ll once again see speculation start to drive up the price of oil futures, and that the price of gas will once again follow suit.

And if I’m right, there will be no earthly way for Barack Obama or any of his media stooges to blame George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, or anyone on the Republican side of the aisle for that—but there will be a great many Republicans, led by Sarah Palin, to say “I told you so.”  It will be all on him, and Nancy Pelosi, and Harry Reid, and the rest of the Democratic cabal now running this country, and no way for them to avoid the blame.