Posted on 01/31/2006 8:46:51 PM PST by RWR8189
LET US FIRST praise Hilary Clinton. Whatever her other faults may be, she always shows up to the State of the Union dressed like a professional. She's wearing a stylish gray suit tonight. Most of our devoted congresswomen look like they got lost on the way to a Texas Tech rally. On to the list:
Worst sour-puss: Charlie Rangel sitting motionless as Bush says, "The United States will not retreat from the world, and we will never surrender to evil."
Worst Euphemism: "the traditions of their own citizens"
Worst camera cut: "If there are people inside our country who are talking with al Qaeda, we want to know about it--because we will not sit back and wait to be hit again." At which point Hillary Clinton smiled and slowly shook her head from side to side.
Worst dose of GOP castor oil: "We hear claims that immigrants are somehow bad for the economy--even though this economy could not function without them."
Worst band-aid on an axe-wound: Cutting 140 whole federal programs . . .
Worst attempt at gender-gap pandering: Why is it that the doctors we need to protect from trial lawyers are always OB-GYNs? Do oncologists not focus-group well?
Worst Clinton (Bill) nostalgia: Ah, the line-item veto.
Worst Leonard Nimoy impression: Tim Kaine's permanently-arched left eyebrow
Best call-out since the "Axis of Evil": "There is a difference between responsible criticism that aims for success, and defeatism that refuses to acknowledge anything but failure. Hindsight alone is not wisdom. And second-guessing is not a strategy."
Best channeling of Peggy Noonan: "Far from being a hopeless dream, the advance of freedom is the great story of our time. In 1945, there were about two dozen lonely democracies on Earth. Today, there are 122. And we are writing a new chapter in the story of self-government--with women lining up to vote in Afghanistan . . . and millions of Iraqis marking their liberty with purple ink . . . and men and women from Lebanon to Egypt debating the rights of individuals and the necessity of freedom. At the start of 2006, more than half the people of our world live in democratic nations. And we do not forget the other half--in places like Syria, Burma, Zimbabwe, North Korea, and Iran--because the demands of justice, and the peace of this world, require their freedom as well."
Best Will Farrell flashback: "out-compete"
Best I'm-not-the-one-running-in-November threat: "The tax relief is set to expire in the next few years. If we do nothing, American families will face a massive tax increase they do not expect and will not welcome."
Best received idea at Brookings: A blue ribbon commission to reform Social Security! Plenary sessions!
Best Howard Dean moment: Democrats erupting in applause when the president began a sentence saying, "Congress did not act last year on my proposal to save Social Security . . ."
Best words: Marine Staff Sergeant Dan Clay: "I know what honor is. It has been an honor to protect and serve all of you. I faced death with the secure knowledge that you would not have to. . . . Never falter! Don't hesitate to honor and support those of us who have the honor of protecting that which is worth protecting."
Jonathan V. Last is online editor of The Weekly Standard and a weekly op-ed contributor to the Philadelphia Inquirer.
Count on it. But likely not this coming election. The problem is that the voter is still unaware what is being done to them.
However, in 2015, when they finally figure out that all of the money that they have been paying out each month in interest on their home mortgage, could have gone right back into their retirement fund, they will be appoplectic.
Unfortunately, they will also discover that the realization has come about 20 years too late.
They'll find a huge amount of the interest they paid on their homes went overseas to the very countries which sponsor terrorism against the U.S.... while their retirement money went directly into the general fund, after a cynical charade about it being safe in government IOU's, where it was made safe by immediately spending it!
They weren't permitted to have their FICA taxes deposited directly into a fund, which could then lend money in the same manner as Fannie Mae, or Freddie Mac,; a fund which would have multiplied their money through compounded interest into enough to retire with a smile on..., all the while with those funds being secured, as any secured, high quality, investment grade bond is, by the mortgage on your home...
...because this would not have been safe. Instead the Arabs reinvested their oil dollars into loans right back to the same Americans who...
...(and you are really going to love this part)...
...then guaranteed the safety of the Arab petro dollar investment in your home loan... with your other taxes, - yes- you see it coming now, don't you?- your federal income taxes, which guarantee Fannie Mae loans. So, in the nutshell, the Arabs run no risk, enjoy tremendous returns in interest in America, which they can't in their own country since paying or accepting interest is against Sharia law, while...
...you can't since only Congress can "protect" your retirement money by paving over most of West Virginia with it.
Americans who voted for the Democrats who set up this insanity pretty much deserve what they will get.
But their grandchildren don't....
Ouch. The folks in Lubbock might resent that slap in the face.
Because they're the ones who are sued the most. Duh. The author of this article should check the med. malpractice statistics before he sneers at the Pres.
Why leave out the largest nation in the world, People's Republic of China?
The Hillary moment pissed off so many Americans tonight. It is hard to keep count the number of people who have said to me tonight "it was creepy how hillary laughed about getting hit again".
He is an awesome doc - my boy had the cord wrapped around his neck and he very calmly said, "we're going to deliver this kid in the next two minutes or we are going to the room next door and do a C-section. 90% of the doc's wouldn't have given us that choice. It's a shame he is out of that part of medicine - most of the other doc's would have been in the OR in a heartbeat and counting the $$$
Americans viewing this would seem to fall into one of only three camps: 1)Bush haters who have lost their common and political sense. (To see experienced politicians make such a serious and public error illustrates the depth of the hatred.) 2)Those currently on SS, who are fearful (mostly because of Dem comments) that somehow their SS will be affected, who oppose any SS change. Have the Dems forgotten that the next step after old age is death, and many of these people (the "I got mine" group) will not be around to vote for them when SS hits the fan? 3)Those who are not yet receiving SS who are concerned about what they will receive, and those young people who realize (or soon will) that they will be heavily taxed to support SS and are unlikely to ever receive it themselves. Am I missing anyone?
This was a very stupid Dem move. Did they not envision the Republican commercials, possibly as soon as this year's election, that will result? Could there be a better Republican commerical, directed toward the 3rd group, than simply showing the President making his statement and showing the Dem response?
I find it difficult to believe that this was an organized response, based on a pre-release of Bush's speech? If it was not, who was the first Democrat to stand up?
It must be the purpose of the Democrats to trash our institutions else they couldn't do such an outstanding job of it. Tonight they looked like a crowd at a junior high school basketball game rather than an audience of dignified legislatures in a joint session of Congress.
Watching the dems and their refusal to even politely applaud for anything related to the WOT was profoundly disturbing to me. And their undignified cheering at blocking SS reform was disgusting.
It seems half our elected Representatives have a death wish for the country. All they care about is winning. It made me wonder if the minority in the House has behaved this way before.
That really stood out for me as well. It's the typical liberal scorn for the need for a strong national defense.
Another good line which was Reagan-esque:
"Before history can be written in books, it has to be written with courage."
The best leaders recognize history and have the courage to shape it as it is occurring.
Between that and laughing about us getting hit again, she gave Rove some GREAT shots to use in commercials this year for hear senate race let alone '08. The senator from NEW YORK laughing about terrorist attacks.
As for the worst camera cut, I agree. Was in process of capturing and highlighting it as I read this. Missus clinton's political stupidity apparently knows no bounds.
But, as you say, those are the ones who are unaware. I know this is a tired comparison but to be a Democrat one must either be blissfully ignorant or purposely evil. The ignorant are the vast majority.
I am not an historian but to my recollection politics took a turn for the worse in the 1964 election when LBJ did the daisy and a-bomb commercial to defeat Goldwater. Bill Moyers was a big part of that.
Since, they have been heavy into the politics of personal destruction. They impeached Nixon, after having stolen the 1960 election from him, they denigrated Ford as a clumsy goof (Of course he was very cooperative in the effort.), they attacked Reagan as an old, senile, second rate B movie actor, they accused Bush I of piloting a U-2 to Paris to cut a deal with Iran to elect Reagan, and on and on until the present.
You asked about minorities and I am talking about Democrats. Why? They have been the way the are for quite awhile but they have only recently become the minority. That means the answer to your question is NO.
Yes, that's the way I remember it too.
I am so completely disgusted by those people I can't express in words... It's like watching a pendulum and praying it doesn't stop in the wrong spot.
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