A Quick Bolton Update

I never really supported UN Ambassador Bolton one way or the other. To be honest, other than the partisan bickering I heard and read, I had not heard of the gentleman. (The only Bolton I knew was a balding long haired singer) When the Republicans failed to get the needed six additional votes to have him named UN ambassador in session, I did not grieve. I was also ambivalent when Bush approved him when Congress was out of session.

Well, much to the chagrin of the Left, Bolton has been nominated for, get this, a NOBEL PEACE PRIZE by the Nobel committee. Boy, a man portrayed by Kennedy and others as someone who would destroy the US credibility in the UN is being held up as an example.

It is always gratifying to see Kennedy fall on his butt. Apparently Bush got more than better grades than Kerry at Yale. He apparently has more natural sense as well.

What About Dr. King's Message Don't They Get?

Can someone explain to me what about the message of Dr. King that former President Carter and several other Bush haters have missed?

Carter and others stretched any definition of common decency. Coretta Scott King was not removed from the funeral before the attacks on the sitting President began.

Carter is one person who should never criticize a sitting President. He was the worst President in US history while in office. They invented a "misery index" to reflect how bad the country was doing. Nothing Bush I or Bush II have done or could ever do would reach to the ineptitude of this former President. You couple his poor performance in office with his insistence of late in providing credibility to some of the world's greatest dictators and he has proven he lives in a glass house and should not be casting stones.

Equally bad in my opinion were the comments by right Reverend Joseph Lowery took his shots at in appropriate times. In my opinion, this "speaking out" as Mrs. Bill Clinton calls it, is causing more of a rift than a vehicle of support. Look at Carter's comments about what the Dems are calling "domestic spying" and then look at the latest poll numbers. The more shrill the Dems are becoming, the higher the polls in favor of the wiretapping of Al Quaida contacts in the US become.

Regardless, there is something known as tact and a sense of chivalry that the Left have lost with all their recent elections. Where is the America of Dr. King's dream? Certainly not in the party being led by Howard Dean and Mrs. Clinton.

Washington Post Political Cartoon, Lampoon or Sedition?

There is much ado about the Washington Post political cartoon appearing in the January 29th edition of the Post by Tom Toles. The Joint Chiefs are calling it everything from "reprehensible" to "in poor taste." I would lean to the latter comment, but I defend the cartoonists right to print what he wants. I think the cartoon was a lampoon of Rumsfeld and what the columnist believes his callus position is, BUT it is not seditious as some may claim. Poor taste and an even weaker idea do not add up to a seditious commentator.

I don't think we can legislate political correctness on either side of the argument. A commentator should be able to say what he or she wants in the public arena and then it is incumbent on the arena to shout down or raise up the commentator.

In a related story, I disagree with the manner in which Islamists are "shouting down" the Danish cartoonist who depicted Mohammad with a bomb in his turban. I think disagreeing by threatening death is more than divisive, it is criminal.

Why is Congress so Divisive? Bush and the State of the Union.

In watching the State of the Union Address last night, I was not struck by the quality of the speech, the grandiose plans, countless new "initiatives" or the featured guests in the Gallery.

I was struck, however, with the obvious divisiveness in the chamber and the cool wind blowing toward the President from the left side of the aisle. Bush was actually heckled by Hillary Clinton on two occasions. The first was during a comment about ethics legislation.

She was the only one who yelled, drawing a point to, I am sure, what she thought was hypocrisy from the President. As I said in a previous post It takes one to know one (link: http://scjhawkshawksnest.blogspot.com/2006/01/it-takes-one-to-know-one.html.

In this case it takes a hypocrite to apparently know one because she and her husband set new records for unethical behavior. From Whitewater to the travelgate scandal and from Vincent Foster's murder to Lewinski, the Clinton years are a blur of unethical behavior.

The second instance was hyperbolic applause to a Bush reference in to the Social Security initiative. What the Dems do not realize is that many in America remember the "doom and gloomers" in the Clinton years talking about how Bush I and the Congress had let the American people down and that Social Security was "a crisis." That all changed when it because a Bush II initiative.

Since when is it ok to heckle a President in the chamber of Congress? A Republican would not do that. They are not wired that way. I see some rewiring necessary in the next 10 months because if there is none, the Dems will roll over the Republicans in this mid-term election season using the Liberal media as their foil. The long and short of last night is Clinton, Kerry and others should be ashamed. It is too bad, however, they have no shame and as evidenced by the divisiveness of the last year, no scruples.

The sampling of coverage today ranges from the AP's Bush Confident Despite Mounting Challenges
(link: http://story.news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060201/ap_on_go_pr_wh/state_of_union)
to Fox News (link: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/index.html) and their coverage spanning everything from "few on facts" to "impeachment chorus grows."

It is clear that the Congress and the nation is as equally divided as they were in November of 2004. The 98% of the counties still supporting Bush strongly, but the inner cities strongly supporting a Liberal entitlement agenda from the Democrats.

This could be a long, shrill political year.