John Kerry: "With the same energy ... I put into going after the Viet Cong and trying to win for our country, I pledge to you I will hunt down and capture or kill the terrorists before they harm us," Kerry said. "And we will wage a war on terror that makes America proud and brings the world to our side."
When John Kerry pledges to put the same effort into the war on terror as he put into his Vietnam campaign, please remember that he only served 4 months there and, on being awarded his third Purple Heart, applied for early exit which was granted him. He then returned home where he became an anti-war activist, accused his fellow soldiers of war crimes and pretended to throw his medals away.
A similar effort in Iraq will see him grow tired of the war by early summer, at which point he will proclaim victory, withdraw the US troops and be granted a triumphal parade through the centre of Paris and a garlic-scented French kiss from President Chirac.
The university careers of William Zachary Wolff and Philip Smith suffered a set-back last night when they were arrested for throwing pies at conservative journalist Ann Coulter. The custard cream confections splattered her shoulder and a University of Arizona backdrop.
Take a look at these two dip-sticks. For the sake of a bad pun (they claimed to be acting for "Al Pieda") and a chance to ridicule someone they disagreed with, they now have a rap sheet and their mug shots are beamed around the world to tell the planet that "Here There Be Half-Wits". They will be fined, expelled from university and probably sentenced to some time on the county chain-gang where they can explain their exquisite jest to fellow felons.
Dexter is on record as opposing pie throwing, no matter the target. It's an assault and should be punished as such even if the recipient is as objectionable a horse's patootie as, let's say, Svend Robinson.
Spanish vice-president of the European Union Loyola de Palacio (what a great name) has reacted with glee to the fall taken the other evening by Cuban dictator Fidel Castro, who reacted to the tug of gravity and then a sudden stop by suffering a broken knee and arm. She goes even further and wishes that he would die a speedy death -- not that, God forbid, he should be killed, just die very soon.
She went on to criticize the current government of Spain, led by our old nemesis Prime Minister Jose "Speedy" Zapatero. Gotta love her.
Two articles that strongly suggest that we can all go back to the world of September 10, 2001:
Sadik J. Al-Azm announces that Islamic terrorism has peaked and will henceforth be in decline.
A new documentary The Power of Nightmares states that the threat from Islamism is exaggerated and grows from an unconscious conspiracy between the followers of Sayyid Qutb, the intellectual godfather of Al Qaeda, and American neo-conservatism, both of whom despise liberal democracy.
Call me a naive, sentimental fool but I think there are too many Afghanis being murdered for attempting to vote, too many Iraqi Christian churches being torched, too many Balinese night-clubs being incinerated, too many Islamic snipers in Washington and too many aid workers being beheaded on the Internet to call off the caution any time soon.
And, may I note for the record, how few of these atrocities have been committed by neo-conservatives.
The European literati who have been demonizing President Bush for years as stupid, greedy and the pawn of sinister Jewish forces have added a new accusation: he's clinically insane. The Observer, which used to be a serious newspaper, prints an article by Andrew Stephen who suggests that Bush has either cracked from the strain of 9/11, developed a brain disorder or has finally succumbed to years of alcohol abuse. Stephen, who is not, I believe, a practising neurologist, has diagnosed these alleged maladies from observing the look on Bush's face during the debates.
Last week the Left attributed the President's behaviour during the debates to the invisible radio waves that were being beamed to him through a box strapped to his back -- and published pictures to demonstrate this. Right-wingers pointed out that the bulge was actually his spine -- a body part not normally found in Democratic candidates. David Letterman said the bulge was troubling but at least was “an improvement over the last guy, who had a bulge in his pants.”
As I write, the polls are looking increasingly less encouraging for President Bush and there is every reason to fear that the Democratic Party's jelly-fish in human form and his hyena side-kick may be leading the free world come January. Once in the White House they will, of course, find that it is one thing to pose and promise and quite another thing to deliver; far easier to criticize a war-time president in the midst of a conflict than to excel him in leadership.
Bush's handling of the war has been flawed -- he has been too loyal to subordinates who misled him on the troop strength required and the possibility of large-scale guerilla resistance -- but his importance to history has been that he was willing to fight this war at all. His doctrine of pre-emption and aggression will be vindicated in the long run, whether or not he is re-elected in a few weeks.
In this he may end up resembling Winston Churchill who saved European civilization by fighting on in 1940 when weaker men would have made a deal with Hitler and who was rewarded by being tossed out of office by the British electorate with victory in sight.
The relationship between the situations facing Bush and Churchill struck me when I was reading this passage of the War Diaries of Lord Alanbrooke, the British Chief of General Staff in World War II. He said of Churchill in 1944: "It is far better that the world should never know, and never suspect the feet of clay of that otherwise superhuman being. Without him England was lost for a certainty, with him England has been on the verge of disaster time and again."
Unlike Churchill, Bush's feet of clay are far too prominent and they tend to obscure his great contribution to the survival of the West.
Never let it be said that Dexter has no kind word to say for a Lefty. Conrad Russell, the son of Bertrand Russell, hereditary peer and Professor of British History at King's College, London has just died, a year after the passing of his lovely wife Elizabeth. Though his politics were always far too squishy for my liking, Conrad was always gracious to me, a foreign student from an obscure provincial university. He laughed at my jokes, told better ones with Latin punch-lines, encouraged my studies and was a jovial companion on the cricket field and in the pub. Unlike his father, he never aspired to atheism, being content to be called an agnostic. Wherever his soul is now, God in his mercy lend him grace.
Seldom has the contempt of a contemporary artist for the heritage of Western Civilization been exposed so clearly as in the case of Maria Alquilar. Ms Alquilar was commissioned to create a ceramic mural for the Livermore, California library; for the sum of $40,000 she was to portray the great figures of our culture in a child-like fashion suitable for walking on while entering the library. She was able to fashion the portraits crudely enough but neglected to spell 11 of the names correctly. Fans of "Eistein," "Shakespere," and "Van Gough" protested but the latter-day "Lombardo Del Vinci" remained unrepentant.
The importance of this work is that it is supposed to unite people," Alquilar said. "They are denigrating my work and the purpose of this work."
The mistakes wouldn't even register with a true artisan, Alquilar claimed. "The people that are into humanities, and are into Blake's concept of enlightenment, they are not looking at the words," she said. "In their mind the words register correctly."
She had originally agreed to accept another $6,000 plus expenses to repair her mistakes but now says that the flood of hate mail she has received has deterred her and she will never return to Livermore.
As reported in The Onion
If you put John Kerry and me in the White House, we'll have each one of you in the driver's seat of a brand-new SUV. Your bosses will be less cranky, your children will be kept in trucker hats and iPods, and your TV screens will grow even wider. Those who are bald will wake up one morning and magically find themselves with thick heads of luxurious, silky hair. You'll open your refrigerators and 15-pound hams will tumble out. Your dog might even start to talk, and the first thing he'll say is "I love you." It'll be that good.... Just know that, should you elect John Kerry, we'll be able to bounce a goddamn quarter off our border! We'll have big impenetrable gates made of gumdrops and, I don't know, gold....And they'll magically slide open when someone pure of heart approaches and says, "Let me back in, America! My Caribbean cruise was nice, but there's no place like home!"
Oh, that reminds me! God bless our troops in Iraq! They have served America bravely and well. If elected, John Kerry and I will work with the international community to rid the world of terrorism. In fact, come next Christmas, our young men and women will be back home, wearing bright red sweaters with reindeer and bells on the front. That might seem like an impossibly tall order, but just a few years ago, I was an unknown trial lawyer. Now, I'm running for the second-highest office in this great land! I'm smiling so wide, the top of my head might fall off!
All those readers who thought John Edwards was chosen to run as the nominee for Vice President on the Kerry ticket because of his boyish good looks have failed to take into account his amazing psychic powers.
When he was a trial lawyer representing the parents of a child with cerebral palsy, Edwards claimed to be able to channel the thoughts of the unborn baby. Referring to the fetal heart monitor readings, Edwards told the jury, "She said at 3, 'I'm fine.' She said at 4, 'I'm having a little trouble, but I'm doing O.K.'...At 5:30, she said, 'I need out.'" He stated boldly: "She speaks to you through me...I feel her presence. She's inside me, and she's talking to you." So impressed was the jury that his client won a huge settlement. Unfortunately his ability to enter the mind of the unborn and plead so passionately on their behalf did not actually extend to his voting in the Senate against partial-birth abortion, a procedure whereby children almost ready for delivery have their skulls pierced and their brains drained. Pity.
This week the gifted gentleman has abandoned his persona as Mandrake the Fetal Communicator and turned into the warm-up act for the healing grace of the Reverend Billy John Kerry, of the First Church of the Sacred Stem Cell. Whipping the congregation into a frenzy Edwards promised: "When John Kerry is President, people like Christopher Reeve are going to walk. Get up out of that wheelchair and walk again."
There may be a few things in this life lower than promising the unobtainable to sick people in order to win votes and I know just who I'm going to be watching to see them done.
Jacques Derrida discovers whether or not there is ultimate meaning.
Just when you want to go easy on the Spanish they up and do something to remind you why they have as few friends as their snail-snapping neighbours to the north. Not content with running out of Iraq as fast as their swarthy little legs could carry them, they choose to mark their national holiday with a military parade that snubs the Americans. True, it's a Spanish party and no one is obligated to invite American troops even though they have participated in the celebration since 2001.
No, it's something else that rankles. Replacing the American contingent this year will be brave lads from that martial powerhouse, France. Spaniards will remember France from their invasions during the Thirty Years War, the War of the Grand Alliance, the War of the Spanish Succession, and the atrocities of the Napoleonic occupation. The French will have fond memories of Vichy collaborating with Franco's fascists in the 1940s. Neither have any love for the Americans who rescued France twice (to that nation's continuing shame) and who robbed Spain of her Philippine and Caribbean empire.
Just to rub it in, the Spanish Defence Minister Jose Bono, whom faithful readers of Dexter will remember from the scandal he created by awarding himself a medal for the retreat from Iraq, announced that Spain was no longer "subordinated" or "kneeling" to the USA. Under President Bush, he announced, neither peace nor liberty has exactly triumphed.
Perhaps Senor Bono has confused peace with surrender (an understandable mistake by a Socialist) but he should scarcely have overlooked the elections that America and her allies are bringing to Afghanistan and Iraq. Can Spain, proud sponsor of the Spanish Inquisition and a disastrous colonial record, boast a similar contribution to the history of liberty?
John Kerry has clarified what he means by American action having to pass a "global test." Quoth the Democratic candidate: "I can do a better job of protecting America's security because the test that I was talking about was a test of legitimacy, not just in the globe, but elsewhere."
Well, that it explains it. Not just in the globe but ... elsewhere.
Would it be taxing that gentleman's considerable mental powers to explain just where else, aside from this Planet Earth, that American actions have to be tested? Concerned voters in the Crab Nebula need to know.
SEN. JOHN EDWARDS (D-NC) (clip of a speech): "I'd say if you live in the United States of America and you vote for George Bush, you've lost your mind."