The Anchoress

During Advent, I am really trying to stay AWAY from politics - but you know I can’t just entirely block it out…so a few quick and pithy comments on a few stories, and then I leave the subject again:

This might be the sound of the Democrat Party going too far. I do not believe that most Americans like this sort of rhetoric. Dean - as usual - is overplaying his hand. The Republicans did it to Clinton, and Americans rebelled and supported the president. If Dean and the Democrats keep this up, Americans will rebel again. They do not want to be told they cannot win, or that (as John Kerry said) their troops are terrorists.

Ed Morrissey takes the press to task for their refusal to cover the outrageous excess of the Democrats - surely such excess in the GOP would be covered extensively:

Yesterday, the leader of the major American opposition party called the war in Iraq “unwinnable”, compared the supposed scandal over intelligence — the same intel that Congress had seen since the Clinton administration — with Watergate, and issued a demand that Bush immediately withdraw half of the forces in Iraq — and yet the major newspapers could not be bothered to write their own articles about the story or include it in their print versions today. Neither the NY Times nor the Washington Post gave any kind of comprehensive report to Howard Dean’s shrieking for retreat and surrender…
…
Most laughably, the leader of the Democrats and the man responsible for coordinating their electoral efforts then claims that by pulling American troops out of Iraq and outside of the range of Zarqawi, we’ll be better prepared to fight the insurgents — even though we will no longer have assets on the ground gathering intelligence and conducting the kinds of patrols necessary to find and engage the enemy on our terms. Instead, Zarqawi will simply start taking over towns like Falluja and Ramadi all over again and operating in the open to spread his lunatic Islamofascism across central Iraq.

The embarassment of Dean’s military analysis would make clear that the Democrats have no business conducting foreign affairs and national security for the US in this age of Islamofascist terrorism. That’s why the newspapers buried Dean’s comments on their web sites. They had plenty of time to write their own copy, or at least to include the AP story in their print edition. However, the NYT and the Washington Post obviously hope that Dean’s comments get quickly forgotten. (The Los Angeles Times doesn’t bother to mention it at all, despite the longer lead time for their newspaper.)

Joe Lieberman is being very brave in dissenting. I recall being a disappointed in him when he was working in the 2000 elections, to suppress military votes, but my disappointment has lifted over the years. I like him as much as ever. Funny, how the press - who love to point to John McCain, dissenting Republican, as a “Maverick” do not similarly lionize the maverick Lieberman.

Meanwhile Murtha can’t keep his thoughts straight and Doc Sanity sees a party unhinged.

If these Code Pink gals think they’re “hurting” Hillarythey are deluded. She needs these folks, so that she can appear more centrist. I anticipate a Sister Souljah moment for Hillary sometime in ‘06. Not to worry, though. As we see in this clip, the press will always be there to help her out and spin all things positive. Yawn.

The much maligned Pajamas Media outfit has a bit of a scoop about a resurgance of violence in France…by the Gypsies!

The economic news is is excellent, but that news is being played down as much as possible. Remember, in 1996, when 5.6% was “virtually full employment and every newscast began with the “great economic news?”

Says Gateway Pundit: Just this past Friday, the latest figures show:

* Our economy added 215,000 jobs in the month of November alone.
* Our unemployment rate is down to five percent.
* Unemployment is lower than the average of the 1970s, the 1980s and 1990s.
* The latest numbers also show the economy grew at 4.3 percent last quarter.
* And it has been growing at near that average for more than two years.
* This economy of ours is on the move.
* Americans are buying homes, and that’s good news for this country. We hit an all-time high in October, in terms of home buying.
* More Americans now own their homes than any time in our nation’s history.
* Minority ownership — home ownership is at an all-time high in the United States of America.
* Real disposable income is up
* Our consumers are confident.
* New orders for durable goods, like machinery, have risen sharply, and shipments of manufactured goods are up, as well.
* Business activity in our manufacturing sector reported its 30th straight month of growth.
* In the past five years, productivity has grown at some of the fastest rates since the 1960s.
* Our small businesses are thriving.
* Fortunately, I didn’t listen to the pessimists about tax cuts. The tax cuts are working.
* We’ve cut the rate of growth in non-security discretionary spending.
* We’re on track to reach our goal of cutting the budget deficit in half by 2009.

Now unemployment is down to 5%, we’ve had ten quarters of sustained growth, and the news each day tells us the economy is “grim.” And people believe it, which is scary.

Speaking of Gateway, he links to more democracy in the Middle East. I blame Bush.

Rumsfeld was right to lay into the press, even though they clearly hate him even more for it.

I don’t know how anyone can read of the testimony of these Iraqis, against Saddam and remain unmoved. We have lost 2100 young men and women in the war, and that’s tragic…but their deaths are noble. Maybe beyond noble. A piece from another story whose url I cannot find:

Her voice was heavily modified through a computer to protect her identity. She wept as she told of being forced by an interrogator soon after her detention to strip in custody while five officers watched.
“I was forced to take my clothes off. They lifted my legs up, they tied my hands, they beat me with cables and (gave me) electric shocks,” she said.
She was then thrown into a small room with only red lighting, where she used her shoes for a pillow, she testified, adding that she was interrogated for weeks.
“From a small window, they gave us two loaves of bread,” she said. “After all that torture, do you think we could eat?”

I don’t think you can fairly call people “Islamophobes” who are trying to free these tyrannized and brutalized Muslims from their oppressors. While the spectre of Islamofascism is real, not all Islamists are fascist or terrorists. “Nuff said.

The 9/11 Commission has problems. That’s all I’m going to say about that.

Shall we end with a report from the front?

No, actually, let’s end here: If you’re writing out Christmas Cards, don’t forget to send a couple (with phone cards inside, if you can) to our troops recovering at Walter Reed Hospital to make up for some of the crap they’ve been sent! Here’s a good place to start!
Joshua Sparling, Walter Reed Hospital, 6000 Georgia Avenue, Washington, DC 20307-5001