Sharp Elbows, Mavericks, and Newsmedia Reporterbots

For the entirety of the campaign, John McCain did his best to pin the label "maverick" to Sarah Palin. However, I venture to guess that the only time you ever heard the term pinned to Sarah was when Sen. McCain said it. I'm pretty sure that the mainstream media resisted the notion of calling her a maverick, although the term fit her reputation perfectly.

In light of this, I find it altogether telling that as soon as Rahm Emmanuel was picked as Pres.-elect Obama's chief of staff, the whole army of mainstream newsmedia reporterbots began to chant the phrase "He has sharp elbows."

One of the great things Rush Limbaugh does is to turn the spot light on mainstream media to show how they are a carbon copy of the Democrat Party. In regard to sharp elbows, Rush did this simply by playing a montage of reporterbots giving their report. He compiled at least 10 if not 20 different reporterbots saying, in quick succession, that Emmanuel has sharp elbows. It is comical to hear this kind of proof that the Democrats put out their little soundbyte about Emmanuel and that the newsmedia do their duty to repeat it verbatim.

I suppose we first noticed this when suddenly all the reporterbots came out saying back in 2000 that George W. lacked "gravitas."

The mainstream newsmedia have squandered their true duty to the American people. As an industry, it needs to wither and die.

All is Great in Iraq

Yep, I should have blogged this last week when I first thought about it, and in doing so, people may have concluded that I have the gift of prophecy.

But really, anyone could have predicted it. The mainstream news media will be taking a fresh look at Iraq and begin noticing encouraging signs of peace and stability.

This newfound perspective is not precipitated by anything different on the ground. No, what is different is that the news media does not want the public to divert its attention away from Pres.-elect Obama's domestic agenda with constant reports about how bad things are in Baghdad.

Secondly, the press does not want to give the impression that Pres.-elect Obama is doing anything wrong in regard to the war in Iraq.

And so, this week, the mind-numb reporterbots got the message from above to start reporting good things about Iraq. This is seen dramatically in this headline from the Chicago Tribune: "Iraq Bombings Show Progress, Challenges." The opening lines read,

Today's bombings in Iraq which left dozens dead is a stark and horrible reminder that, while violence has dropped significantly there as a result of the U.S. military's surge, that country is still very dangerous.

It's a measure of progress that today's blasts, which killed at least 31 people in Baghdad and more elsewhere, according to the Associated Press, represented the worst day of violence since June (Chicago Tribune).

Come on! In a Bush-era newsreport, the headline would read something like, "Iraq Bombings Show Continued Failure." The report would then go on to give fodder for the Bush-haters. (Thanks, Rush, for calling attention to this article.)

We should now expect to hear a constant stream of good news about little Iraqi girls going to school for the first time, the financial liquidity of the Iraqi government, the competency of the Iraqi police force, and how Sunnis and Shiites have recently developed such endearing love for one another. Why, I'm looking forward to a Katie Couric interview with some Iraqi woman who has just planted a new flower bed outside her apartment.

This phenomenon will not impact newsmedia only. Indeed, the Democrat politicians will start chanting the same mantra. No doubt, marching orders have already been given: there shall be not a single negative word spoken about Iraq.

Ultimately, the Democrats viewed Iraq merely as a tool to regain power. They magnified every bad report and minimized every positive report for the last six years. They were willing to lose the war in order to regain power.

Now that Democrats have regained power, all is well in Iraq.

Who Should Be The Biggest Loser in 2010

The biggest loser needs to be the mainstream media.

The American people usually make good decisions when given the unfiltered facts. In the case of the 2008 election, the media was so committed to an Obama presidency and so opposed to a McCain presidency that Obama could have said, "I hate Jews and will support Hezbollah," and it would never have been reported; or Obama could have said something equally bizarre such as "I will bankrupt the coal industry and the cost of electricity will skyrocket under my administration" and it would not get reported.

(For those of you who get your news solely from the three major American networks, BBC, or the Associated Press--or, more accurately APObama--the last comment was actually aired by the new media on the weekend prior to the election, but the mainstream media was absolutely silent about it.)

Mainstream media has squandered its stewardship of the important, almost sacred trust given to it. All that Americans want from the media is the truth, but mainstream media was determined to keep the truth from interfering with an Obama election. Anything that would threaten an Obama presidency was buried as deeply as possible. Meanwhile, mainstream media scrutinised every possible negative on McCain and Palin.

As flawed as the McCain campaign was, it could have won the election if the media had been honest.

We'll not go into detail at this point. My point is not to demonstrate mainstream media's bias, but rather to call for its destruction.

Rush gleefully points out that Standard and Poor's rated the New York Times' stock as "junk" on the day that it endorsed Obama.

While the LA Times was withholding a video tape of a gala event fetting a Palestinian Terrorist which both Obama and self-professed Pentagon Bomber Bill Ayers were in attendance, its company was laying off 10% of its employees.

Mainstream media as an industry needs to die. As many of us as possible should dig up our news from alternative sources. Mainstream media flexed its muscle and proved that it could deliver a president. The American people need to flex its own muscle and deliver a deathblow to a morally bankrupt news media industry.

The biggest loser in 2010 needs to be mainstream media.

The First Press Conference Question

Here's the first question that ought to be asked at Obama's first presidential press conference but won't:

"Mr. President, when Mr. Biden was asked difficult questions in two radio interviews, and then three newspapers endorsed Sen. McCain, your campaign treated these media outlets as something akin to persona non grata. Should the Washington Press Corps continue its practice in the Bush presidency of asking the toughest possible questions to you, or should we be fearful to do so?"

Instead, we should expect the big questions like, "Was it difficult for you and Mrs. Obama to agree on your puppy's name?"

Who's More Experienced and Professional?

Obama and Palin video:

Our Country Deserves Better PAC

Funding of Third World Abortions?

The same Times article as mentioned in the previous previous indicated Obama's intention to fund controversial family planning initiatives in the third world. I assume this includes federal funding of overseas abortions.

I haven't looked deeply at the issue, and I could be wrong, but keep your eyes open.

I keep on hearing that with Obama as president, we Americans don't have to apologize for our country when traveling abroad.

Well, let me say to my Christian brothers and sisters in Kenya, I'm sorry that we Americans are about to take our tax dollars to fund the killing of unborn Kenyans.

Stem-Cell Research Funding

Today's headline indicates Obama's intention to fund controversial stem-cell research.

Why is this an outrage? Because it takes tax-payer money away from people who have genuine conscientious and moral objections to such research.

What is important to note here is that Pres. Bush's executive orders and vetoes on this issue never prevented a single bit of research on stem cells. All he did was keep federal and tax payer dollars from funding it. Any institution interested in doing stem cell research could do so without any interference from the federal government.

I'm not asking Pres.-elect Obama to stop stem cell research--although this would be a good idea. I'm simply asking him not to take money from me to fund others' research. Isn't this fair thing to ask of him?

Why would any president or legislator force me to fund something which I think involves the destruction of human life?

Radical Obama. That's what we have for our new president.

WMDs in Iraq

While WMDs was only one of several reasons for the invasion of Iraq, I think it relevant to point out that massive amounts of WMDs have in fact been discovered.

http://www.americanthinker.com/2006/06/saddams_wmd_discovery_and_deni.html

Colin Powell's Speech to UN about Iraq

http://edition.cnn.com/2003/US/02/05/sprj.irq.powell.transcript/

Just a reminder about why we went to war in Iraq. So far as I know, nothing substantial of Powell's speech has been refuted.

Just War Theory and the Invasion of Iraq

This article was written a year ago, and so does not take into account recent dynamics such as the successful surge.


Dr. Keith Pavlischek, a Christian ethicists specializing in Just War Theory, visited Tyndale House recently to lecture on Just War, with special emphasis on the invasion of Iraq. I was very pleased with his argumentation which affirmed that the invasion was just.

I was unable to ask certain questions during the Q and A time, so here's is my interaction.

Saddam's Threat to America
Regarding whether or not Saddam was an imminent threat to America, I thought that Dr. Pavlischek had laid out a clear rationale as to how indeed Saddam was indeed a clear, imminent threat:

• He was a known supporter of terrorism;
  
• He made sure that everyone was convinced that he had WMD's;
  
• He had not complied with the terms of the Gulf War cease-fire
  
• He was still in state of belligerent hostility toward the U.S.
  

In light of 9/11, how could the U.S. not fear the very real perception that he would not take advantage of any opportunity to facilitate a WMD disaster against U.S.?

Saddam was like a neighborhood thug who is well-known beyond a shadow of a doubt for having robbed at gunpoint several convenient stores in recent years. If such a thug comes into your store and acts as if he's ready to rob the store, with his hand stuffed in his jacket pocket and his fingers formed into the shape of a pistol, ethics of the situation would demand that you get him out of your store, by force if necessary. If it were my wife or daughter minding the store, I myself would shoot him dead should he act threateningly and respond with refusals, threats, and belligerence. If it turned out that he didn't have a gun, one might be tempted to plant one in his hand. If this sounds unethical, consider that the U.S. could easily have planted some kind of nerve gas in one of Saddam's stockades, but didn't.

Why Now the Question of the Ethics of the Invasion?
But, more importantly, I was surprised as to why we're discussing the ethics of the invasion of Iraq. It happened about 6 years ago, and we can't do anything about it now. Moreover, there was no indication that this discussion is taking place in order to make us wiser for future military action. So, we ought to ask why people are all so jacked up about asking about the ethics of the invasion?

One obvious explanation is that there is a concerted interest in heaping condemnation on America for being such a baddy. But really, America has been exemplary in this matter. Back when the U.K. was set on world imperialism, if some poor villager's arrow landed anywhere close to His Majesty's army in Burma or some other occupied territory, would the arrow have constituted a threat to the kingdom? Hardly, but the fury of the kingdom would go unabated against this action. What other world power would have been so tolerant for so long, and worked so hard through world diplomacy, or even allowed Saddam to stay in power like the U.S. did?

A long convoy of trucks, military equipment and scientists would leave their U.N. compound
early in the morning, and make its long trip to an Iraqi inspection site, only to have some puny Iraqi military official say, "No. I regret to inform you that you may not inspect this facility today." And so, the convoy would then turn around, with tail tucked, and return back to its inert U.N. compound. Any other major military power would have shown up with tanks and rolled over anyone who tried to stop the inspection. The U.S. should have done so. World criticism of the U.S. handling of Iraq is illegitimate given our incredible restraint.

Saddam gave standing orders to harass our aircraft with machine gun fire throughout the 1990s, yet the U.S. allowed him to stay in power all those years. Incredible. This in itself was justification to remove him. Yet people have the nerve to say that he shouldn't have been punished for such provocative acts. Those aircraft are manned by real people—the sons and daughters or perhaps the moms and dads of America. Only hypercritical, agendized weanies would argue that this was no reason to remove Saddam.

The Future of the Middle East
Two of the just war elements are that there must be a reasonable chance for success, and that the war must be waged in order to establish the peace. This should have been the point of focus for Dr. Pavlischek.

Prior to the invasion, there simply was absolutely no foreseeable hope for peace in the Middle East. If American efforts to secure stability, peace and democracy in Iraq succeed, however, then the dynamics of the situation will have been altered profoundly. Peace, stability and democracy in Iraq will create increasingly greater pressure on Iran, Syria, and Saudi Arabia to pursue democracy. In this regard, there has already been some early fruits of the invasion, although much more is needed. The subversion of Middle Eastern countries to freedom and democracy would be the greatest boon to world peace we could possibly achieve in this century.

So, the burning question then, which I would have liked to pose to Dr. Pavlischek, is why are the western democracies so hopeful that American aims will be defeated in Iraq? It is an amazing thing to realize that the vast majority of Europeans would celebrate if America were to tuck tail and run out of Iraq tomorrow. Seeing that Europe is so much more vulnerable to the threat of Islamo-fascism, it is an amazing thing to see that not only are European governments refusing to help establish peace, stability, and democracy in Iraq, but they do things to undermine the American effort.

Europe's failure to aid in the establishment of peace, security and democracy in post-war Iraq borders on insanity.

Was Jesus a Pacifist?

Was Jesus a pacifist? Such was the debate topic between two scholars at a recent Oxford conference.

Before the debate were to begin, however, I would suggest this is the wrong question.

I would ask, "In the story of the Good Samaritan, would Jesus have commended the Samaritan if he had arrived early enough to use physical force to fend off the attackers from beating up the guy?"

Or, "Would Jesus have unilaterally disarmed the U.S. in the face of an aggressive Soviet foe?"

Or, "Would Jesus allow Iran to develop a nuclear bomb if he could take military action to stop them?"

Or, "Would Jesus have used a gun to stop an attacker who broke into my house and was about to kill my children?"

Or, "If certain states harbored, aided and abetted terrorists intent on killing innocent American civilians, would he condemn the U.S. for attacking those states once diplomatic efforts had run their course?

Indeed, to turn the question around, what would Jesus think about a legitimate government taking no military action to protect its citizens? Would he not condemn the state for its failure to protect "the least of these?"

Asking "Was Jesus a pacifist" is the wrong question. We should ask, "To what extent would Jesus expect a legitimate government to protect its people?" or "Would Jesus expect the president to do little or nothing in the face of 9/11?"

Don't Rail against the Christian Right

Cal Thomas wrote an article entitled "Religious Right R.I.P." (11-06-08).

It's easy to demagogue against the religious right and to call into question its grander scheme of national politics--but the Christian Right does not start there.

The Christian Right begins with a Sunday School teacher attending a PTO meeting for the local school, and being concerned over curricula which indoctrinate students with anti-Christian values, and eventually being elected as president of the PTO, and who knows, perhaps even being elected as mayor.

The Christian Right begins at the County Commissioner levels where County Commissioners harass churches over zoning laws, prompting a deacon to run for office.

The Christian Right begins when an incumbent state delegate or congressman votes against the born-alive bill which would mandate medical care to babies of botched abortions, prompting a church trustee to run against him.

The Christian Right begins with a lawyer in the church hearing about voter fraud, prompting him to volunteer his time to monitor polling places.

The Christian Right begins with Christians in a community lobbying U.S. Representatives to repeal the marriage penalty from the tax laws so that their 20-something aged children will stop citing it as an excuse for shacking up.

The Christian Right begins with Christians in a community pressing their U.S. Senators to stop stealing the legitimate earnings of successful people in order to redistribute their wealth to unworthy causes.

The Christian Right begins with the preacher from the pulpit telling his congregation that there is a right and a wrong, and that their vote on election day should reflect that fact.

The Christian Right begins with two or three believers meeting for prayer regularly to pray for the forthcoming election.



When believers do what they ought to do, there is fundamental change in society. Our salvation, in fact, moves us to be involved as change-agents in our society. Yes, we have the mandate to preach the Gospel, but we also have the mandate to live the Gospel.

Biblical Perspective of Personal Property and Wealth Redistribution

Although the traditional moral issues are important, I want to give a brief overview of the theology of personal property and wealth redistribution.

Everyone knows that the Bible asserts that good news is for the poor, that God is eager to bestow grace on those of humble means. Unfortunately, Democrats, socialists and communists have seized this point too often in their attempt to promote an agenda which is blatantly non-Christian.

Their agenda is the redistribution of wealth, all in the name of the greater societal good. This is not just a Marxist dogma which causes us to bristle. It is contrary to biblical concepts of personal property rights.

To be sure, everything we have belongs to the Lord. Yet he has made us stewards of our “belongings.” This is contrasted starkly in Old Testament times when kings often wrongly presumed that the kingdom’s personal property was actually part of the king’s property. The king owned your sheep, and it was only his good graces that allowed you to keep one while he took the other nine. The people begged King Rehoboam to ease their tax burden after Solomon’s death, but he presumed—and presumed wrongly—that everything in the kingdom was his for the taking.

While the Bible does urge us to deal kindly with the poor, the Bible nowhere cedes confiscatory rights to the state. Israelite taxes were restricted by law, and divinely fixed taxes were not progressive. Tax revenues could not be used for any and every indiscriminate purpose. Moreover, Christian charity is to be done out of grace, not by government decree.

If you have a dollar, it is immoral for the government to take 90 cents away from you and your heirs to spread the wealth around. If you have $100, it is immoral for the government to take $90 away from you and your heirs to spread the wealth around. Even if you have $100 million, and if you can live comfortably on one million, it is still immoral for the government to take 90 million away from you and your heirs and spend it as if it were their own. It is immoral to steal from the country’s citizenry.

If you have a surplus of funds, it is your responsibility to follow the Spirit’s leading in how you should spend it. Do you have $90 million to spare? I know some pastors in India who could use some financial help in rebuilding their recently destroyed church buildings. But it is not the government’s prerogative to confiscate your money to bail out failed businesses.

To be sure, there are those who have gotten their wealth by abusing their employees or others, or some such. Thugs such as the Hussein family who lived lives of luxury on the broken backs of Iraqis should have their wealth redistributed. However, in contrast to many countries, we live in a society which grants judicial recourse to those who have been wronged. Thus, if your employer really has cheated you of your wages, then sue him! Here in America, chances are, you’ll win. But otherwise, if your employer has gained his wealth by his own hard work or by his parent’s hard work, then don’t steal his money.

Basically, there is one preeminent Christian principle which proves personal property rights and refutes the “spread the wealth around” philosophy: THOU SHALT NOT STEAL.

The Obama Recession

It is nothing less than the Obama Recession. Don't call it anything else.

The recession enters the scene via the Democrat inspired mortgage industry failure. It is perpetuated by Obama's intention to raise taxes across the board (including the expiration of the Bush tax cuts), his refusal to drill here/drill now, and his expressed intention to destroy the coal industry and cause electric prices to skyrocket. He has created an economic environment destined for recession even before his inauguration.

This is the Obama Recession. Use the term now and reinforce it at every opportunity.

Don't Blame Sarah

This summer, I had decided not to vote at all. I reasoned, what's worse?

• A McCain presidency which would devastate conservatism?
  

or

• an Obama presidency which would give an opportunity for conservative resurgence in two years?

I figured that they were pretty much equally bad, fueling my decision not to vote. I was not the only one to be thinking this way. In my small circle of friends, a number of us had come to the same conclusion.

But then McCain brought Sarah Palin into the picture. This was enough to encourage me not only to vote but to put forth my best arguments against Obama's candidacy.

Word is that McCain people are trying to lay the blame on Sarah for his failure. They could not be more wrong. McCain could hardly draw a crowd unless Sarah were on stage with him. Sarah enthused the base and brought volunteers to disheartened county GOP headquarters throughout the U.S. McCain should be sending flowers and thank you letters to Sarah every month for the next four years to express his much owed appreciation for her tireless, enthusiastic effort to boost him over the top.

Who to Blame

A list in progress, not yet in any order....

1. President Bush--not because he was a bad president, but rather he seemed to be absolutely unconcerned about what Americans thought about him. Once elected to a second term, Pres. Bush made not the least effort to defend his policies before the American public, or to salvage public opinion about him.
2. Mainstream Media--Obama could have said something utterly horrendous such as "As president, I'm going to consolidate the auto industry and sell it all to China" or something outrageous like, "I'm going to bankrupt the coal industry" and mainstream media would cover it up.
3. Sen. McCain--McCain was a very, very bad choice to begin with. Ann Coulter said it best when she said that South Carolina and New Hampshire should never again be allowed to have early primaries.

What Europeans Need to Know about Our President-Elect Obama

BBC news makes all British think that all of America is celebrating the election of Obama. I have to remind them first of all that about the same number of Americans voted against him as the entirety of the U.K. population!

But I'm quick to say that it is good that Americans proved themselves capable of electing a black person as president--although this should come as no surprise since President Bush's highest ranking cabinet members were a black woman (Condi Rice) and a black man (Colin Powell), not to mention Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.

To this note of celebration, however, I attach a caveat: "It is unfortunate that this particular black man is so inexperienced." Indeed, I've spent more time working on my PhD than President Elect Obama has spent in the Senate. Or to put things more pointedly: Sen. McCain has spent more time in solitary confinement in a North Vietnamese p.o.w. camp than Obama spent in the Senate. If Obama finishes out his four year term, it will the longest job he has ever held.

By way of comparison, I suppose that the most serious international crisis the world has seen in my lifetime was the coup d'état of M. Gorbachev and the fall of the Soviet Union; picture Gorbachev caged up like a bird, surrounded by his rebellious generals and tanks, and no one really knowing where the nuclear football was. Regardless of one's personal view of George H.W. Bush, the world had at the American helm in this extremely volatile time someone who had served eight years as Vice President, several years as the U.N. ambassador, two terms in congress, head of the C.I.A., who was the special envoy to China that prepared the momentous opening of that country for President Nixon, and...a World War II hero as well. Despite the ominous words of Obama's running mate Joe Biden, we hope that President-Elect Obama will not be tested in the same way.

The world has gotten all caught up in this racial euphoria. Obama's inexperience, however, should make the world very, very nervous.

Whenever I point this out to Europeans, their response is that they expect Obama to surround himself with good advisors. However, Obama's past alliances are not encouraging: Jeremiah Wright, Bill Ayers, Franklin Rains--a race-mongerer, an unrepentant terrorist who bombed the Pentagon and said he wish he'd done more when interviewed in the aftermath of 9/11, and the man who led Fannie Mae into desperate straights and caused the economic collapse.

Much more could be said. Suffice it to say that elections based on identity politics is a perilous endeavour.

Be a Sarah Palin

In the American Civil War, the North got off with a bad start, suffering defeat after defeat, despite huge resources. These early defeats have been blamed, rightly so, on the fact that the North's brightest and best citizenry failed to sign up for military service in the early part of the war. This contrasted starkly with the Confederacy which had a culture that assumed that its best and brightest would serve.

After suffering further defeats in late 1862, leading citizens in the North came to understand that victory would only come if its brightest and best leaders would step forward for the war effort. Late 1862 and early 1863 brought into the Union army's leadership men of such worth, including, for example, Joshua Chamberlain, one of the many heroes at Gettysburg. This brought about a change in the Union's prospects for victory.

This week's election has thrust the whole of federal government into the hands of a party which could not be more wrong on nearly every issue. In some ways, Republicans must now feel like the North did in 1862, after so many serious defeats.

How then shall we now proceed? I would urge the same strategy which citizens in the North did during their dark days of the Civil War.

I urge our best and brightest Christians to consider getting involved in local politics, with an eye toward rebuilding the Republican party in district, state, and ultimately national levels. Sarah Palin has set the example and paved the way simply by starting out attending PTO meetings. We should do the same.

Not every Christian should feel called to politics. However, our churches need to encourage people to think seriously about it and to support them in their initial efforts. Pastors should preach it from the pulpit and mention it personally to people: we need faithful, competent believers dominating politics.

Who in your church will step forward for this honorable service?

Frankly, I don't have time to blog on politics. But perhaps in 1861 some Northerners took the same attitude: "I'm not going to take time off from my work at the university [or at the law firm, or at the corporation] to lead soldiers into battle; my job here is too important." But American politics is such an important cause.

As for myself, I've seen too many political losses when the stakes are so high. I don't want to lose any more battles. I might not be the brightest and best, but someone needs to help get our message out.

Join me in the political process.