Posted on 05/04/2005 4:43:28 PM PDT by perfect stranger
Liberals have been unusually hysterical the past few weeks. But we're not getting much in the way of details which is odd because the devil is usually found in the details. As we reviewed vis-a-vis the judiciary in last week's column, whenever liberals won't give you details, it's because the details don't help them.
We keep hearing Tom DeLay's name uttered in angry, accusatory tones, but I still don't know what law he's supposed to have broken. As far as I can tell, DeLay didn't even cheat at golf during that trip to Scotland. But you know what liberals always say: "Where there's nothing, there's fire."
As long as liberals can keep repeating "Tom DeLay" and "ethics violation" in the same sentence and get the media to throw a grade-A hissy fit and it's so hard to tease that out of the mainstream media when it comes to a Republican they've got themselves a scandal!
Close your eyes and even now you can hear Aaron Brown saying: "Embattled Rep. Tom DeLay came under fire again today when it was disclosed that his Permanent Record showed he refused to take a nap once while in kindergarten. We turn now live to Wolf Blitzer with former kindergarten teacher Louise Millicuddy in Livingston, Texas. Wolf, could this bombshell spell the end for the combative Tom DeLay?"
How about asking the Democrats I would recommend asking Rep. Rosa DeLauro this - to explain precisely which law they believe DeLay broke? People will have already left the building before we get the most basic outline of the allegation. These are the same legal geniuses who looked at dozens of Whitewater-related felony convictions and said, "Crime? What crime?"
DeLay's own constituents seem to like him, unless you include Democrats claiming to be Republicans. Liberals never tire of this trick or imagine that it could ever become any less believable. Turn on talk radio right now and you'll hear some liberal caller claiming to be a lifelong Republican scandalized by the Bush tax cuts or some other policy that has been a mainstay of the Republican Party for at least a century. The callers are always teachers. (No wonder our kids aren't learning their teachers are always on the phone with talk-radio shows pretending to be Republicans.)
A ringleader of the DeLay witch-hunt in Texas is Patricia Baig, who took out a full-page advertisement in a Texas newspaper calling for DeLay's resignation. Baig signed her letter, "A Texas Republican for Ethical Reform."
There is no record of Baig ever voting in a Republican primary, belonging to any Republican clubs or contributing to any Republican politicians in Texas or anywhere else.
To the contrary! Baig contributed to the Democrat who ran against DeLay in his last election. She used her maiden name for the ad, calling herself "P.A. Perine (Texas Republican)." She is a substitute teacher.
All of that was duly noted by a New York Times reporter. (If we are good and decent people, conservatives will put that reporter on a 24-hour watch to make sure he isn't killed in the middle of the night.) But liberals think they can fool normal people with their road-to-Damascus "I used to be a Republican" conversion stories. They can't even fool the New York Times!
Baig's entire retort to the absence of any evidence that she is a Republican was to say that lots of Republicans don't vote in Republican primaries or contribute to Republican candidates (which, in her defense, is at least a better excuse than Kevin Phillips'.)
So, like their theories on "global warming," a liberal's claim to be a Republican is a non-disprovable assertion involving a lot of hot air.
Another conservative getting the Emmanuel Goldstein treatment is John Bolton, Bush's nominee to be ambassador to the United Nations. The charge against Bolton consists of the allegation that he is an absolute beast to his co-workers.
Have the Democrats heard about Katie Couric? As the New York Times described it last week: "America's girl next door has morphed into the mercurial diva down the hall. At the first sound of her peremptory voice and clickety stiletto heels, people dart behind doors and douse the lights." (Funny, I do the same thing when I'm watching the "Today" show at home by myself.)
Things have gotten so bad at "Today," sometimes they show that videotape of Katie's lower bowel exam just to lighten things up.
Can't Barbara Boxer do something to protect the staff of NBC's "Today"? They're at least Americans. First they had to live through the horrors of the Bryant Gumbel years, and now this. Also, I can't be completely clear here, because somebody could get killed, but why isn't a certain lamp-throwing junior senator from New York helping them out? Oh wait I think I know why ...
I repeat: Bolton has been nominated to be ambassador to the United Nations. It's not like it's an important job. Get a grip, people! He's not replacing Paula Abdul on "American Idol."
The U.N. is an organization with thousands of people from all over the world with one thing in common: They badly need to be yelled at, preferably by a guy who looks like Wilford Brimley. When did collegiality with representatives from North Korea and Syria become a pressing national issue?
Why just imagine if Bolton raised his voice in front of Sudan's ambassador, or (gasp!) Burma's! I mean, Myanmar's! (Sorry, military junta that runs Myanmar!)
Democrats are enflamed at the idea of Bolton mistreating representatives of slave-traders and dictators, but won't lift a finger to help the staff of "Today." We used to be a country that cared about ratings genocide.
The only silver lining to the Democrats' efforts to kill Bolton's nomination is that if they succeed, Bush could nominate Ronald Reagan's ambassador to the U.N.'s Economic and Social Council instead. (Alan Keyes!) Maybe then we could finally get on with the important work of quitting the U.N. and kicking them out of New York. Isn't it somebody else's turn to host those guys yet?
Annie's awesome.
Looks a bit like Teddy Roosevelt and his buddy William Howard Taft, before his eating disorder really got to him in the White House. As I heard an historian say about TR regarding his famous statement "Speak softly and carry a big stick", "Teddy never spoke softly in his life."
Keyes, of course. He's an uppity Black man.
bookmark
Michelle Malkin was bashing Southpark Conservatives yesterday because she said they were vulgar. I say they are effective because they are not afraid to stick in the shiv and twist, instead of backing off and apologizing.
Ann is a southpark conservative.
Thank you so much for informing me.
Each of these young women equates to a Deborah in my book and I will applaud each in the hope that they will not do what is normally done among Christians and Conservatives (that is kill their own wounded).
I pray that each remains upright so that what the left wants to use to deter them finds no base. The "curse causelss" cannot light.
Close your eyes and even now you can hear Aaron Brown saying: "Embattled Rep. Tom DeLay came under fire again today when it was disclosed that his Permanent Record showed he refused to take a nap once while in kindergarten. We turn now live to Wolf Blitzer with former kindergarten teacher Louise Millicuddy in Livingston, Texas. Wolf, could this bombshell spell the end for the combative Tom DeLay?"How about asking the Democrats I would recommend asking Rep. Rosa DeLauro this - to explain precisely which law they believe DeLay broke? People will have already left the building before we get the most basic outline of the allegation. These are the same legal geniuses who looked at dozens of Whitewater-related felony convictions and said, "Crime? What crime?"
Ann Coulter buuuuuuuuuuuuummmmmp / ping !!
Hateful speech revisited
Nicole Hoplin is a graduate of St. Olaf College and assistant to the president of the Young America's Foundation, the group that paid the fee for Ann Coulter's talk at St. Olaf College (in part) and paid for her talk at St. Thomas (in full) last month. She has submitted the following column to the Minneapolis Star Tribune and the St. Paul Pioneer Press:
Ann Coulters speeches at St. Olaf College and St. Thomas University captivated students! That is why Fr. Deases labeling of Ann Coulters speech as "hateful" shocked me. I was there, and I should know.
Fr. Dease could have made a statement by attending the lecture to show that his college embraces ideological diversity, yet instead, he relies on those who were most inflamed by Coulters comments, and publicly proclaims Ms. Coulters speech was "hateful." Father Deases statement was mean-spirited. He has, himself, created an environment of hostility towards conservatives at St. Thomas with his statement.
And, all the while, as Brit Hume of FOX News wrote on the FOX website, "He [Dease] never cited anything Coulter said, or even anything he had heard she said. As for the Star Tribunes story [by Matt McKinney], it never cited anything Coulter actually said either." Minnesota, the home of Al Franken who calls Rush Limbaugh a "big, fat idiot," should understand occasional sarcastic humor.
As a life-long Minnesotan (Im moving back in early June), I want my news sources to include the detailsdescribe what Coulter said that deserved the label "hate speech," rather than simply attacking a too rare conservative appearance.
Coulters speeches brought hundreds of young people to her events and have left them debating and discussing the merits of her ideas. Personally, I cant think of a better outcome for a campus speechnor can I think of the last time a liberal generated such interest on a campus in Minnesota.
As a St. Olaf College graduate, a conservative, and the assistant to the president at Young Americas Foundation, yes, the organization that sponsored Coulters lecture at St. Thomas, it has become my lifes work to ensure that young people are presented with conservatism at some point while theyre in college.
My enthusiasm for the Coulter event at St. Olaf couldnt have been higheras a conservative St. Olaf alumna, it was my first time back to the campus to see a speaker I admire present her ideas to the student body. Yet, the St. Olaf event left me wondering, what kind of community fosters an intellectual and spiritual journey that elicits questions such as, "Ann, are you a virgin?"
The speech was held in the campus chapel, a place for me that is both special and spiritual. My husband proposed to me in that chapel during our senior year, and weve been happily married now for three years. Like many in the St. Olaf community, the Sunday services and daily chapel impacted my character and continues to do so even today.
But, the outright rudeness towards Ann Coulter taints those warm memories. Ive never heard the "F---" word in a place of worship, nor do I ever hope to in the future. Why would students wear t-shirts suggesting, "Rape Ann Coulter"? Were these attendees fostered by their educators to be intolerant, hateful, and rude?
A March 2005 poll found that 72% of college professors identify themselves as liberal! Todays campuses swarm with liberal ideas from professors, administrators, and even university presidents. Why is it that students should not listen to ideas that may be different from the ones constantly infiltrated into their daily lives for two hours, one night/afternoon out of one school year? After all, Howard Zinn and Jesse Ventura both recently spoke at St. Olaf. It seems to me that a conservatives presence is a fair expression of intellectual balance.
Ann Coulter attracted more students at St. Thomas than could even attend the event! Students heard conservative ideasyes, they may agree or they may have disagreed. But for a university president to deride her appearance the very week she appeared on the cover of TIME magazine suggests to me that he no longer wishes his university to have a worthy discussion with todays most visible leaders. Id challenge him to put together a comparable event with someone he deems "non-controversial" who will attract such interest or create such memories for St. Thomas students.
Ms. Coulter took questions from students following her remarks to foster a dialogue of ideas. Deases criticism of the Coulter event (after not attending it), prematurely shut down the debate of ideas. What does it say for the future of intellectual diversity on campus if students become afraid to put a speaker with different ideas in front of a student audience?
Indeed, both St. Thomas and St. Olaf should reevaluate the communities they are creating for students of all intellectual tendencies when they foster a hostile environment for one of the nations leading conservatives.
-- Powerlineblog.com, 5/4/05
Yep. He's 80.
Neat! I never saw that picture of her before.
People like Ward Churchill whom establishment journalism calls "dissidents" are establishment "dissidents." That's an oxymoron, of course.And people who actually are dissidents from the establishment which is journalism's consensus don't get favorable mention as dissidents but are slammed as "conservatives," "right wingers, or "right wing extremists."
Yep, eat your oatmeal, everyone, it's the right thing to DO!!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.