Blogging at the RNC

Since the networks have decided to show reruns of Fear Factor instead of the Republican National Convention, we'll have to rely on the blogs for coverage. Well, to be honest, I'd be getting the news from the blogs anyway. RNC Bloggers is tracking all of the credentialed bloggers covering the convention. Bookmark this one.

If Kerry Were a Republican

A family member emailed this to me. It originally came from Midwest Pundits.

The strange, parallel world of John Kerry floats along with little intruding on its feeling of self-importance and entitlement. It might be said that all presidential candidates have a bit of strangeness about them, but Kerry goes beyond the caricatures that have been created of those from the past. He, or rather his wife, is exceedingly rich, at a level of which few can even dream. His ancestral line can be traced back to the Pilgrims of the seventeenth century. He was educated in private, expensive schools. He is the “champion” of a party that likes to consider itself the defender of the little people. A strange brew indeed.

A person can’t help but to wonder how John Kerry and those supporting him would be treated if fortune were to shake the world and John Kerry were to land on his feet as a solid Republican. Some ideas:

1. John Kerry would be vilified as a war criminal based upon his own words regarding his conduct in the Vietnam War.

2. He would be mocked for having the vanity and foresight to take a movie camera with him to war in order to record heroic images of himself walking about with a weapon.

3. The Swift Boat Veterans for Truth would be booked solid from now until the election day on “news” shows with Katie Couric, the folks at 60 Minutes, Chris Matthews, Paula Zahn, Harry Smith, etc.

4. He would be peppered with sarcastic questions regarding his choice of women. What are the chances that a man would fall in love two times in his life, first with a woman whose family was worth $300 million and second with a woman with a net worth of possibly $1 billion? That he was a “kept” man would always run beneath the surface of any such questions and stories.

5. Pictures of the multi-million dollar mansions (all five of them) of which he calls home and the jet and watercraft which he calls toys would flood the airways.

6. He would be derided for his stiff, patrician mannerisms, his well-coiffed hair and his obvious use of either medicine or the services of a plastic surgeon to keep the face as tight as possible.

7. Theresa Heinz-Kerry would not be considered a breath of fresh air, but instead would be thought a kook and a pretentious one at that.

8. We would have many in-depth reports of the deleterious effects of one George Soros on American Politics. The nefarious manner in which he earned his billions, though they might be legal, would be much reported and condemned.

9. Michael Moore would be in Vietnam, searching for and interviewing the family of the wounded Vietcong that Kerry shot in the back to win his Silver Star.

10. Sandy Berger would be in seclusion and John Kerry would find no relief from the blistering inquiries of a rabid press wondering how Kerry could have as his primary security advisor one who purloined classified documents by hiding them in his trousers and then throwing them away.

If Kerry is one to have nightmares, this might be the scariest. To wake up a Republican and find out that, yes, there is media bias in the world.

Open Letter to Kerry

Here's the text of the letter that Texas Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson tried to give to Max Cleland. He wouldn't take it though.

Dear Senator Kerry,

We are pleased to welcome your campaign representatives to Texas today. We honor all our veterans, all whom have worn the uniform and served our country. We also honor the military and National Guard troops serving in Iraq and Afghanistan today. We are very proud of all of them and believe they deserve our full support.

That's why so many veterans are troubled by your vote AGAINST funding for our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, after you voted FOR sending them into battle. And that's why we are so concerned about the comments you made AFTER you came home from Vietnam. You accused your fellow veterans of terrible atrocities and, to this day, you have never apologized. Even last night, you claimed to be proud of your post-war condemnation of our actions.

We're proud of our service in Vietnam. We served honorably in Vietnam and we were deeply hurt and offended by your comments when you came home.

You can't have it both ways. You can't build your convention and much of your campaign around your service in Vietnam, and then try to say that only those veterans who agree with you have a right to speak up. There is no double standard for our right to free speech. We all earned it.

You said in 1992 "we do not need to divide America over who served and how." Yet you and your surrogates continue to criticize President Bush for his service as a fighter pilot in the National Guard.

We are veterans too -- and proud to support President Bush. He's been a strong leader, with a record of outstanding support for our veterans and for our troops in combat. He's made sure that our troops in combat have the equipment and support they need to accomplish their mission.

He has increased the VA health care budget more than 40% since 2001 -- in fact, during his four years in office, President Bush has increased veterans funding twice as much as the previous administration did in eight years ($22 billion over 4 years compared to $10 billion over 8.) And he's praised the service of all who served our country, including your service in Vietnam.

We urge you to condemn the double standard that you and your campaign have enforced regarding a veteran's right to openly express their feelings about your activities on return from Vietnam.

Sincerely,
Texas State Land Commissioner
Jerry Patterson
Rep. Duke Cunningham
Rep. Duncan Hunter
Rep. Sam Johnson
Lt. General David Palmer
Robert O'Malley, Medal of Honor Recipient
James Fleming, Medal of Honor Recipient

Olympic Basketball

It seems like I'm not the only one that really doesn't care that the U. S. Men's Basketball Team is losing. When we send a group to represent the United States in internation competition, they should be proud to be there. These guys just don't seem to grasp that. This is exactly why I just can not get into the NBA. Let's quit sending pro players to the game and instead make up a squad of college all-stars. I bet that they would hustle and realize just how special it is to play in the Olympics.

We got us a troll

Grouchy Old Cripple gives a recap on a troll that came onto his site with the normal moveon.org talking points. In short, there was a big gang up on the troll with, get this, FACTS! Trolls can be fun. It's a good read.

I'm Back

I'm back from school now. I apologize for the lack of blogging the past week and a half but I've been trying to catch up with everything that piled up while I was gone. So I hope that you'll start checking in on a regular basis.

Vietname Vets Blast Kerry in New TV Ad

Human Events Exclusive: Vietname Vets Blast Kerry in New TV Ad This is a very powerful ad. I'll try to comment on it further.

Blog Break

The Coast Guard is sending me to school.  I won't have any time to blog while I'm there.  I'll be back in three weeks.  Meanwhile, please leave a comment so I know who has been coming by.  Talk to you soon.

Bush and Cheney

There's been a lot of talk about Bush dumping Cheney from the ticket. Some feel that Cheney changed his physician as a prelude to a medical excuse for him to step aside. Barring a (God forbid)serious medical emergency, Cheney is going to stay on the ticket. One of the traits of the Bush family is loyalty to those who are loyal to them. Cheney is a great VP. No one in their right mind is saying that he wants to run for president in '08. He has gone as far as he wants but he could be President if it came to that.
That being said, wouldn't it be great to see the reaction of the left to Bush/Rice '04 bumper stickers?

The Phillipines

I am just dumbfounded at this news. The Phillipines have decided to withdraw their troops from Iraq in exchange for the release of a Filipino hostage held by Islamist terrorists. Do they really think that this will stop violence? It might stop any Filipino's being taken hostage for awhile but that's it. All this will do is embolden the terrorists to go after the smaller members of the coalition and try and pick them off one by one.

This is all the more surprising considering the resistance that the Filipinos put up against the Japanese in WWII.

Red State is Up

Redstate.org is up now. This site was developed by Tacitus. Here's a quote from the site's mission statement;

RedState.org is focused on politics, and seeks the construction of a Republican majority in the United States. We hope to unite serious, innovative, and accomplished voices from government, politics, activism, civil society, and journalism to participate in this work.

Check it out and put it in your favorites. I have.

Fake voter sign-ups increasing

Is anyone really surprised that fake voter sign-ups are increasing? It just goes how far the left will go to get rid of Bush. Amazing isn't it? The left has a history of ignoring the law if it feels that a "greater good" is being accomplished by breaking it.
This election is Bush's to lose and it would be very easy for him to do so.

Law and Scruples

Today's Richmond Times-Dispatch has a great editorial on the judiciary, entitled, Law and Scruples. For a little background on the story, go here. While the story is a Virginia one, the points raised reflect what's going on in the country today especially with the Massachusettes Supreme Court. Read on.


In issuing an injunction to prevent enforcement of the accidentally reinstated blue law, Circuit Court Judge T.J. Markow made a trenchant point: 'The legislative process, like the judicial process, is sacred. It isn't the function of the court to rectify the situation' by correcting legislative mistakes.
Indeed not - particularly because the legislative branch is the most democratic of the three, while the judiciary is the least democratic. The day-at-rest injunction happens to address a situation in which the lawmakers themselves admit to being horrified by the oversight they committed, but it still sets an unhappy precedent. Imagine the havoc that might ensue were judges to begin routinely overturning statutes on the ground that they knew what the legislature really meant to achieve.
Actually, one need not imagine. One need only survey the national landscape and observe activist judges completely ignoring original intent - never mind a plain reading of legislative or constitutional text - to reinvent the law in the image of their own policy preferences. 'Rectifying the situation' easily could be yet another gauzy veil behind which to hide judicial usurpations of power.
Markow deserves credit for the unease he displayed in responding to desperate pleas. The nation would be a better place if more jurists displayed similar scruples."

Police Chiefs Thumb Nose At Illegal-Immigration Laws

Jennifer Nelson has an interesting article on illegal immigrants in of all papers, The San Francisco Chronicle. She is astounded that police chiefs in California are holding press conferences to assure illegal immigrants in their jurisdictions that they are NOT cooperating with federal authorities. Of course the statements are being mad in both English and Spanish so those who are here illegaly and unwilling to learn English will know that the local cops won't enforce the law.

At one point though, Nelson tries to have it both ways when she says;

It's not that I believe all people who come here illegally are criminals. Many are not, though we've got a good number of them sitting in our jails and prisons. But the folks who come here illegally are not stupid. They know they broke a law to get here, and they know they are staying here illegally.

In my definition of criminal, all illegal aliens are criminals because they broke the law to get here.

Of course, whenever one talks about illegal aliens, the left will often call them a racist. They say that we don't want anyone immigrating into the country. What bunk! This is a nation of laws. We can't say that one group has to follow the law and another doesn't. That would be racist and unfair. If you want to immigrate to the country there is a process to do so. I'm sorry if it takes time to complete but if you want become an American badly enough, isn't it worth the wait? I would think so.

Today's Reading Assignment

The Bleat today is a must read. James Lileks dissects Michael Moore's Fourth of July editorial.

Debunking the DaVinci Code

Father Jones has a problem with the Da Vinci Code. That shouldn't come as a surprise, a lot of peole have a problem with it. Father Jones has put his problems on paper and wrote Cracking the Code (link in pdf format). I'll let him describe what his problem is;

So what is my problem? Well, my problem with The Da Vinci Code is that the book blurs the lines between fiction and fact – in a way that comes across to me as deceptive, false and willfully misleading. Most of all, I am troubled that many readers finish the book with grave questions about the essentials of the Christian faith and Church history. As a pastor, and a public Christian authority, I have spoken with countless numbers of confused people – who have read the book, and simply don’t know what to make of the supposedly factual remarks by the book’s scholarly characters. People don’t know what to make of the claim to factuality made in the title pages of the hard-cover edition. People in my church, all of whom are normally highly educated, don’t know what in the book is true and what is pure fiction.

I read the Code and also Brown's first book, Angels and Demons. They weren't the best books that I have read by far. I took them for what they were, entertaining stories. I don't look for my history lessons from fiction.

Father Jones' paper is well worth the read.

VP Choice Scoop

An aviation forum scooped Kerry's Veep choice at 9:45 last night! The internet is an amazing thing. Here's the post;
"John Kerry's 757 was in hgr 4 pit tonight John Edwards vp decals were being put on engine cowlings and upper fuselage. :up: "

Democrats and Gun Safety.

If I was on the range and had my finger on the trigger like this, the Gunner's Mates would pull me off of the line in a heartbeat.
Can anyone come up with a good caption for this photo?

Rock Paper Saddam

What do you mean you've never heard of Tiger Hand?

Mystery Quote

Can you guess who said the following?

"It would be naive to the point of grave danger not to believe that, left to his own devices, Saddam Hussein will provoke, misjudge, or stumble into a future, more dangerous confrontation with the civilized world . . . .He has supported and harbored terrorist groups, particularly radical Palestinian groups such as Abu Nidal, and he has given money to families of suicide murderers in Israel . . . .We should not go to war because these things are in his past, but we should be prepared to go to war because of what they tell us about the future."

Give up? It was said by Senator John Kerry in October 2002.
Hat tip; Richmond Times Dispatch.