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January 08, 2005
Saturday morning reading ...
Some great things are afoot today! Let's start with LGF's first round voting for The Fiskie. It's a long list of idiotarians to choose from, but you get to vote for five. Right now the top three are His Corpulentness Michael al-Moor, Kofi 'What tsunami?' Annan and Dan 'fake but accurate' Rather. Get your votes in!
Speaking of the Killian Memo Affair, the "Report" on Rather's fraudulent memos is due today. Hindrocket of Powerline is skeptical that anything resembling an investigation went in to producing the "report." Depressingly, he's probably correct. CBS was just another wing of the DNC and having failed to elect John 'did you know I served in Vietnam?' Kerry, they want to bury their collusion.
VDH captures the growing mood of many Americans toward the UN and EU.
In fact, an American consensus is growing that envy and hatred of the United States, coupled with utopian and pacifistic rhetoric, disguise an even more depressing fact: Outside our shores there is a growing barbarism with no other sheriff in sight. Any cinema student of the American Western can fathom why the frightened townspeople — huddled in their churches and shuttered schools — almost hated the lone marshal as much as they did the six-shooting outlaw gang rampaging in their streets. After all, the holed-up 'good' citizens were always angry that the lawman had shamed them, worried that he might make dangerous demands on their insular lives, confused about whether they would have to accommodate themselves either to savagery or civilization in their town's future, and, above all, assured that they could libel and slur the tin star in a way that would earn a bullet from the lawbreaker. It was precisely that paradox between impotent high-sounding rhetoric and blunt-speaking, roughshod courage that lay at the heart of the classic Western from Shane and High Noon to The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance and The Magnificent Seven.Read the whole thing.
Of course, the perfect eyewitness to the reasoning behind VDH's column is the boots-on-the-ground Diplomad with a scorch-the-earth rant about the perfidious UN and their non-response to the tsunami.
This Embassy has been running 24/7 since the December 26 earthquake and tsunami. Along with my colleagues, I've spent the past several days dealing non-stop with various aspects of the relief effort in this tsunami-affected country. That work, unfortunately, has brought ever-increasing contact with the growing UN presence in this capital; in fact, we've found that to avoid running into the UN, we must go out to where the quake and tsunami actually hit. As we come up on two weeks since the disaster struck, the UN is still not to be seen where it counts -- except when holding well-staged press events. Ah, yes, but the luxury hotels are full of UN assessment teams and visiting big shots from New York, Geneva, and Vienna. The city sees a steady procession of UN Mercedes sedans and top-of-the-line SUV's -- a fully decked out Toyota Landcruiser is the UN vehicle of choice; it doesn't seem that concerns about "global warming" and preserving your tax dollars run too deep among the UNocrats.It is well past time to Get the US out of the UN and the UN out of the US.
It looks like there is a kerfluffle brewing about PR/Media types who actually might have contracts promoting ideas. Imagine that! But when its a black conservative with a government contract rather than Soros backing dKos, or Wonkette on salary from Nick Denton, well... you know... Eric at Classical Values takes a realistic and pragmatic view of the issue. Definitely follow Eric's links and also read Glenn on this, too.
Posted by Darleen at January 8, 2005 07:06 AM