The Black Republican

Technically, the Cox & Forkum team are on hiatus, but while they are not producing new art, they have been treating us with occasional commentary and insight into the mechanics and history of their craft. Today's installment, ostensibly a discussion of Walt Disney's editorial cartoon efforts during World War II, also makes a strong case for total war in the current conflict.

Either someone at The Washington Post took a little nap in the middle of this article on the Democratic debate on Thursday, and woke up writing a completely different article, or there's some perverted logic going on here. Since when do the number of votes cast by a Republican in the Senate have anything to do with post-debate spin?

For posterity, here's the segue:

Rep. Dennis Kucinich (Ohio) clasped the hand of his statuesque, redheaded wife as he waded through the assembled press. Sen. Joe Biden (Del.), who drew kudos for his debate performance, flooded the room with aides, including his sister/senior campaign adviser, Valerie Biden Owens.

The big three candidates -- Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.), Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.) and former senator John Edwards (N.C.) -- skipped the gathering altogether, calculating that no good could be gained by subjecting themselves to the more than 600 credentialed media people at the debate.

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) didn't show up Thursday for the big Senate vote on the Iraq spending bill. The day before, he missed the final passage of education investment legislation, and the day before that, he skipped roll call votes on four amendments and a judicial confirmation. McCain hasn't voted in the Senate since April 12.

Since the beginning of the year, McCain has missed at least seven Iraq-related votes, including the confirmation of the individual whom McCain and other Republicans are counting on to turn the war around, Gen. David H. Petraeus.

Our friend Sue "the instigator" was at it again this weekend, snapping this photo with her cell phone while on a trip to her local grocery store. Yes this is a real product, in a large chain grocery store. I can't vouch for the taste of the sauce or how exactly it's made (and I'm not sure if this would fit into Rick's "Americana Photo" category), but the picture sure does have flavor!

One of the mistakes the Bush administration made early on was to completely avoid releasing any information about enemy fighters killed in action. Their intent was noble, an effort to head off the mistake in the Vietnam era of providing incorrect and inflated numbers in an effort to "prove" success over the enemy, i.e. the "body bag" scandals. But by providing absolutely no information at all during the War on Terror, the administration has promoted the unintended impression that our troops are the only ones dying, which led inevitably to the infamous "grim milestone" reports from the DLM every time our casualty count trips another zero in the total.

So I'm heartened to see a headline in Pajamas Media (heh, where else?) that shows a nice set of numbers about the Afghanistan campaign without ever mentioning how many American deaths it took to produce them: "40,000 Afghan Babies Live. 136 Taliban Die."

We are winning, Harry Reid.

I strongly suggest this piece by Peter Brown, Quinnipiac University as "Recommended Reading".

It's hard to suggest that Mark Steyn has outdone himself again when you've read his stuff so much, and seemingly said such a thing a hundred times. Yet here we are again.

This week, both the House and the Senate voted for defeat in Iraq. That's to say, Congress got tired of waiting for deadbeat insurgents to get their act together and inflict devastating military humiliation on U.S. forces. So America's legislators have voted to mandate the certainty of defeat. They want the withdrawal of American forces to begin this October, which is a faintly surreal concept: Watching CNN International around the world, many viewers unversed in America's constitutional arrangements will have been puzzled by the spectacle of a nation giving six months' notice of surrender. But the cannier types in the presidential palaces will have drawn their own conclusions.

Apparently, it wasn't George Bush.

Instapundit

I strongly suggest this piece by John Yoo, OpinionJournal as "Recommended Reading".

Apparently someone over at Rolling Stone never got the memo: they ARE the establishment now. And the lessons they taught are gathering no moss with the new counter-culture.

If it's not one thing these days, it's another.

These people getting us all into one heapful of trouble.

Click picture to read the story.

Howard says vote helps the enemy. President to veto bill. Democrats vow to stay with surrender and defeat tactics until their poll numbers change for the worse. American citizens continue to want security and request more Jeff Foxworthy appearances to remind them of what is important. And, sure we are tired of hearing about our men dying in the desert, but we understand that no good will come from leaving the job half finished either. Fight them there, or fight them here, as long as the enemy wants to harm us we have that choice to make. Fighting them there is the right decision.

Drive-By Media Misreporting of "Barack the Magic Negro" Song

Philadelphia fortune tellers closed down

I strongly suggest this piece by Jim Kuhnhenn as "Recommended Reading".

Yesterday, I had decided to watch the Democrat 'debate' just to see what each of them would have to say. When I told my wife, she said "Oh no! You're not going to turn that on! I don't want to hear it!" You see, I have a tendency to yell at the television when people say stupid things. I promised that I would keep my mouth shut. With the family activities of last evening, I wasn't able to turn on the 'debate' until 8 minutes into it. However, I managed to keep my promise with the exception of the occasional outburst of laughter (come on, some of the things they were saying last night were so ludicrous, I had to laugh). My breaking point came around 8:20 or so when Bill Richardson was asked some question and he openly answered an entirely different question. It is one thing for these people to dodge questions. I just about expect that from politicians. This display by Richardson showed how much of a non-debate this actually was. This was more of an infomercial for these 8 candidates than anything else.

I strongly suggest this piece by National Review Online as "Recommended Reading".

I was going to marvel at the fact that I'd found a story in the San Francisco Chronicle by staff writer Carolyn Jones that didn't just avoid making me want to vomit, but was actually heartwarming, non-partisan, and - amazingly enough - faintly pro-American.

Checking a rumor, retired UC Berkeley Professor Joe Fischer was poking around the cluttered basement of the Richmond Museum of History and uncovered a long-forgotten "gold mine."

Hidden in a metal cabinet against a back wall were 4,000 meticulously preserved children's paintings and collages.

But instead of children's typical renderings of rainbows, cheerful family scenes, animals or make-believe worlds, there were menacing portraits of Hitler, burning airplanes nose-diving into the ocean, a sad-looking girl with long black braids next to a Star of David, empty houses and dozens of intricately detailed battleships -- some with guns blazing, others sinking.

The paintings, done by children in the Kaiser shipyard child care centers, tell the story of World War II with the simplicity and poignancy of a child's perspective. Their public unveiling was celebrated April 14 with a reception for an exhibition of 50 of the works at Oakland's Museum of Children's Art.

These were the children who spent 12 hours a day in day care while their parents were fighting the war. Their moms were models for Rosie the Riveter, toiling long hours in the shipyards, while many of their dads were battling German fascism and Japanese imperialism overseas.

Many of the children came from lower-income families with parents who moved to Richmond to work in the Kaiser shipyards, which in their heyday turned out more Victory and Liberty ships than those in any other U.S. port. The families lived in makeshift trailer camps, tent cities and quickly constructed government housing.

In all, 27,000 of the 90,000 Kaiser shipyard workers were women, so organized child care was imperative.

"This is a remarkably vivid part of the home-front story," said Lucy Lawliss, resource director at Rosie the Riveter National Historic Park in Richmond. "These children were seeing the home front and were able to record it from their perspective."

Martha Lee, park superintendent, called the collection "a national treasure."

"People think kids in child care suffered," Fischer said. "But without child care, this artwork would not have existed, simple as that."

But you were so close, Carolyn! That was the VERY LAST sentence.

Over the pond in the UK Times (why does it take a British newspaper to bring us this?), word comes that soon US media organizations will unleash a series of exposés (shocking, they never do that!) that will tell "the 'untold story' of 9/11".

Helped by the firefighters’ union, (FDNY battalion chief Jim) Riches and his friends are preparing to “swiftboat” Giuliani, borrowing the tactics of the Vietnam veterans, under the title Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, who pierced the Democratic nominee John Kerry’s seemingly armour-plated credentials as a decorated war hero during the 2004 presidential campaign.

If Jim Riches and his pals are going to "swiftboat" Rudy, does that mean they are also going to tell lies, take things out of context, and smear his "good name"? Or is the concept of "swiftboating" going to suddenly be a noble pursuit in search of truth and justice? Will a "swiftboater" magically become the new media darling, like Time magazine's gushing coverage of "whistleblowers", but wholly unlike their treatment of John O'Neill? Will there ever be the barest acknowledgement that perhaps the senior Kedwards wasn't all he promoted himself to be?

Don't hold your breath. The media will not explain away their pandering shift, and will just act as if the actions of one are naturally noble while the other obviously scurrilous. Not so much as a whiff of an apology will waft down from the ivory towers of the DLM establishment toward the Swifties they maligned, but the firefighters' union will be placed on a pedestal not even a Greek god could scale.

For the record, I welcome Jim Riches and the firefighters to the political stage, and I'm interested in hearing what they have to say - for a little while, at least. I hope they remain as respectful in their dissent as possible, and once they have spoken their peace, I hope they leave the Republican Party to decide for ourselves if the issues they bring up should disqualify Rudy from the nomination. If we decide they don't, and Rudy gets the nod, I hope they will make their voices heard in the appropriate venues as they exercise their rights as citizens throughout the general election.

I have no desire to canonize Giuliani in the first place. To do so over legitimate claims that his failures outweigh his strengths would be especially egregious. I expect, however, that most of the problems Riches will complain about will not hurt Rudy too badly. If I'm wrong, and Giuliani cannot withstand the pressure, I'll be happy that Riches has given us the opportunity to turn away from a decision that could have become a grave mistake for the entire country.

Besides, we still have The Fred.

If you haven't seen it yet, Hot Air has a little Jeff Foxworthy you should see. And if you like Jeff's comedy, be warned: he's dead serious.

(The Freepers have a transcript if you can't watch.)

I strongly suggest this piece by Mike Straka as "Recommended Reading".

I strongly suggest this piece by New York Sun Editorial as "Recommended Reading".

On Friday over at NRO - an old conservative bastion I used to respect, but which I am increasingly coming to dislike as a playpen full of children - Ramesh Ponnuru decided to take pot-shots at Fred Thompson over federalism. After rereading all the commentary in both directions, this strikes me as more than a simple case of a columnist trying to disrupt the nascent candidacy of someone I support.

It may just be me, but Ponnuru seems convinced of one of two things. Either he believes the fawning groupies who read NRO and tell him he is simply brilliant, and he needed to take on the growing popularity of Mr. Thompson to further burnish his own ego, or he's rooting for one of the other candidates running for President and decided it was time to reduce Mr. Thompson's threat level. More probably it was both. Regardless of motive, Mr. Ponnuru clearly has more at stake here than advancing his view of our ideology, and it is this kind of distraction from the dispassionate refinement of good policy from conservative theory that is annoying me most about conservative pundits lately.

Either for the thrill of the joust or sensing the importance of debating the concept at hand - and no doubt to face down the brush-back and show that he is no paper tiger - Mr. Thompson took Ramesh's challenge and offered a perfectly reasonable response that was properly dismissive without being rude.

Ponnuru not only returned the volley with more smoke and mirrors, he acted like a juvenile ass in the process.

I found Senator Thompson's stand on principle to be honorable, and it is clear the votes in question that he cast were made with an intention to set aside the complex and sometimes illicit dance of beltway horse trading in an attempt to spark an important dialogue on the vital balance of powers in our federal system.

I wish Mr. Ponnuru and NRO would make more of an attempt to engage in a respectful discussion of conservative ideals, and less time attacking other Republicans who dare to dismiss their beltway narcissism masquerading as ideology for the venal pastime it has become.

UPDATE: Fred has taken the discussion over to TownHall.com, and Ramesh has responded again

Senator Thompson has another essay on federalism, this time at Townhall. There he explains some of the goods that federalism serves. It allows states to be "laboratories for democracy" and to reflect their citizens' distinctive views. All true.

But sometimes federal action is required to make it possible for states to attain those goods. When big-city mayors, including Rudy Giuliani, sued gunmakers for, well, selling guns, Congress responded by passing a law blocking those lawsuits. Senator Thompson voted with the majority, and he was right to do so. Tennessee law can't reflect the values of its people if its laws are effectively being set by New York City's gaming of the legal system. Federal action was required to stop that from happening. Thompson saw that then; I just wish he saw that the gun case was the tip of an iceberg.

What an ass.

I strongly suggest this piece by Erika Engelhaupt - Environmental Science & Technology as "Recommended Reading".

I've generally avoided using this term with the disdain that some have adopted over the years of our struggle against militant Islamists. Once, I quoted someone else using it. Once, I used it inside scare quotes, while querying those who use it more liberally. And once, I used it as the sarcastic do (but only in the RSS excerpt, which most people won't see), out of a fit of pique regarding one of the rituals of the Shiite sect that disgusts me.

But now I use it bluntly. In one of the articles I link to above, I mentioned (as I must have innocently believed at the time) that Islam as taught in America was relatively liberal, and not at all the same strand as that which we are fighting. So one has to wonder if the enemy has infiltrated Pittsburgh, or if Pittsburgh is no longer a part of America.

Prove me wrong. Dispute me, please. Moderate American muslims, convince the DemocratLiberalMedia Party to help you shout down this animal, or you're going to lose what support you have left among those people who have tried to remain dispassionate about the necessary reform you are NOT conducting within your communities. This isn't about prejudice, this is about survival, and if you're not going to help us protect you by clearly differentiating yourself from the enemy, we're going to be forced to conclude that you too are the enemy.

I strongly suggest this piece by Mohammed Fadhil, Iraq The Model as "Recommended Reading".

The funny - and admittedly endearing - allure of listening to Dick Morris is his tendency to be exactly 180 degrees off-base exactly 50% of the time. While sometimes it's a game to figure out which predictions are so endowed, that time is not now.

For many candidates, delay means that they don’t have to stand out and be targets until later in the game. But for Thompson, delay could be fatal. The major negative against the former Tennessee senator is that he lacks the heart or the fire in the belly to compete and win. With Hillary Clinton looming as the expected Democratic nominee, victory is of surpassing importance to the Republican primary electorate. Republicans will not nominate someone who they think is ambivalent about running.

During his Senate tenure, Thompson’s work habits were suspect. The New York Times recently (gently) noted that he was not known as one of the hardest working senators. The very fact that he left the Senate after only eight years in office raised suspicions that he was distracted by the allure of Hollywood and the joys of private life. Too long a delay in announcing his candidacy could fuel such speculation and create a negative that need not exist for the actor turned politician turned actor.

Keep up the good work, Fred!

I read a feed from the History News Network at George Mason University whenever I can. A lot of times, the articles they highlight are mundane bits of esoterica about history. Sometimes they're better, and sometimes worse:

Because grand heroic acts such as Mr. Librescu's are so rare, Prof. Miller prefers to focus attention on people a little lower down the bravery scale. "What do we call just the ability to be there every day and not run, like these poor guys in Iraq?" he asked. "They see guys every day get maimed and sniped and roadside-bombed, and yet they just go and get in their Humvee every day and discharge their duty. They're not doing anything that's going to get mentioned in the papers, but they're showing up doing a dangerous, terrible crappy job, right? At some level you want to say that takes some sort of moral quality that is to be admired."

The only dis-satifaction I have with OpinionJournal.com is that Mr. Taranto does not provide a link to his own posting, only that of the work prodict of others. Too bad, because often his insight is what makes the links he provides take meaning. Anyway, my latest find over there I shall print in full below. It is a historical comparison between the defeatist words of Harry Reid this week and the defeatist words of the so-called Copperheads of the Civil War era. I hope that this re-posting does not violate any fair use standards. My apologies now if it does.

Latter-Day Copperhead

* "I believe . . . that this war is lost, and this surge is not accomplishing anything, as is shown by the extreme violence in Iraq this week."--Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid, April 19, 2007

* "Resolved, that this convention does explicitly declare, as the sense of the American people, that after four years of failure to restore the Union by the experiment of war, during which, under the pretence of military necessity, or war power higher than the Constitution, the Constitution itself has been disregarded in every part, and public liberty and private right alike trodden down, and the material prosperity of the country essentially impaired, justice, humanity, liberty, and the public welfare demand that immediate efforts be made for a cessation of hostilities, with a view to an ultimate convention of the States or other peaceable means, to the end that at the earliest practicable moment peace may be restored on the basis of the federal Union of the States."--1864 Democratic platform

Update: Mr. Taranto has followed up by pointing us to a NY Sun story which elaborates on the theme.

Copperheads

You won't see me posting this cartoon on these pages, and it is specifically this kind of bigotry that we renounced when we added the word "enduring" to our subtitle.

When even the Philadelphia Inquirer makes these kinds of noises, things are not going well on the left side of the Capitol.

If disgusted voters conclude that the new boss on Capitol Hill is the same as the old boss, it won't go well for Democrats next time at the polls.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.) should spend less time jetting to Syria and more doing what voters put her in her position to do: Clean up Capitol Hill.

The next time someone complains about the prevalence of guns in America, just fall back on that old saw: "Guns don't kill tires, ex-beauty queens kill tires". Then ask them what they really expect an 82-year old woman, balanced on her walker, to do when someone tries to violate her property - or worse.

I strongly suggest this piece by Peggy Noonan as "Recommended Reading".

This deserves to be posted in its own right, but if you check out the thread at LGF where I found this, you'll get this extra-sweet treat in the comments:

I don't see these guys jumping out a window leaving an old man to hold the door shut.

I am absolutely disgusted.

After my rant on Tuesday, the blogosphere has brought out a number of complaints about the feminized culture we have wrought. The feminine response they have elicited from some parts is truly dispiriting. It's also immediate vindication of that argument.

John Derbyshire was probably first out of the gate, but Mark Steyn is also taking a lot of the heat. It was Steyn who brought a couple of posts from Ace, calling Steyn out for being "unfair". Ladies and cowards, when Ace of Spades, whose masthead proclaims we should "begin slitting throats", takes the feminine side in an argument like this, it's time to bend over, because we'll all be taking it like a Viking soon enough.

Kathy Shaidle, quoted by Steyn, sums it up best:

Remember: when we say "we don't know what we'd do under the same circumstances", we make cowardice the default position.

I strongly suggest this piece by Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) Press Release as "Recommended Reading".

"I am pleased that the Supreme Court has upheld a law that prohibits the abhorrent procedure of partial birth abortion," he said. "Today's decision affirms that the Constitution does not stand in the way of the people's representatives enacting laws reflecting the compassion and humanity of America."- President George W. Bush

I believe that this is an issue which the founders of the Republican Party would have taken after with the same vigor with which they attacked the inhumane and degrading practice of human slavery. As we all know from history, the Republicans won that fight against slavery. One need not be a Republican, as I am not, to see that killing babies is wrong; just as one didn't have to be a Republican in the mid 19th century to understand that slavery was wrong.

Today the country is as divided over abortion as were the 19th century Americans over slavery. And, just as it was with slavery, some people can not be made to understand why abortion is wrong. For many, accepting that the mass of cells within the woman's womb is a living entity with its own unique DNA structure and its own life force is just too inconvenient for their life styles. Selfishly they invent substantiations for killing the child which fool no one but themselves. They abort so that the life they created so that it will not interfere with their otherwise irresponsible behavior. One might imagine that somewhere repressed within their thoughts is a voice asking, ' are we sure that it is better dead than fed?', and from the rest of their brain comes no reply. So, they take the life of their child and go back to dancing the night away, until the next pregnancy, and then they rinse and repeat.

It must be easier for them to be self convinced that a child still in the embryonic or fetal stage really isn't a baby than it is for those who wait until the baby is moving down the birth canal and is partly out of the mother's body when it is killed. Of course at that stage they understand that a complete delivery followed by an execution would be criminal, so they hang their legal right to kill the child upon the then flimsy notion that it is still a part of the woman as long as part of it is still inside the woman, as if they were umpiring a tennis match, on the line is in, outside the line is out.

So, having decided that the child is still a part of their body, they permit a butcher regulated by the American Medical Association to put a vacuum cleaner into the skull of the baby's body and suck its brains out. And then they can say, legally, 'hey it was dead when it landed outside the lines Mr. Umpire'. Sad but true. Of course, you never see anyone with a shop vac courtside at a tennis match attempting to influence the outcome of the ball's flight.

Johnny, Johnny, Johnny, it is a good thing for you that you twice made it to the church on time, because you could never earn that diamond encrusted, platinum infused golden parachute by being so tardy.

In a brave, ney, gallant, even magnifique charge forward John Kerry, (he served in Vietnam btw), has made it known that Don Imus is being treated too harshly. What's it been, a week since Imus got the boot, two weeks since the controversy erupted? And now Kerry takes public a stand for his old buddy? What a friend. However, in famous Kerry fashion, he left it open that he may yet flip, or flop, or whichever change of mind comes next for him.

By the way Senator, when exactly do you plan to let us all see those service records you promised to release? This is day 809 since you made that promise to the American people, and then reneged. The Swift Boat veterans must have the story right afterall, don't you think, Senator.

The Drudge Report

A University of Colorado student empathizes with the killer at Virginia Tech, is it such a reach to imagine that he attended Ward Churchill's lectures?

The Drudge Report

For those that don't know I spent my first 27+ years in north central Maryland. I lived 30 minutes south of Hanover, Pennsylvania, home of Utz Potato Chips. If you've ever had some of these chips, you'd know that these are some of the best any where. My wife even thinks that their cheese curls are the best. They had a small delivery rule: their truck drivers needed to be able to make deliveries and be back in the same day. Therefore, they had a limited delivery radius. Outside of Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, and possibly New Jersey, you can't find them. While I was in college, they had a billboard on the lower eastern shore of Maryland that read "No Utz in Miami. Too bad for the rest of the world."

I tell you that because that's what I thought when I heard: the global climate change that is going to prevent hurricanes in the Atlantic won't help the western Pacific. Or anywhere else. Too bad for the rest of the world that the evil United States and their war on the climate is actually going to PREVENT hurricanes from hitting us. I'm plotting a diatribe about global warming, but I'll spare you for now.

After lashing out at a Daily News editorial on his website, Glenn Reynolds got a chance to respond in their own pages. Good for him - and us.

Earlier this year, after it became clear that the next Presidential cycle had indeed begun in earnest (much to our chagrin), Chris and I began discussing the candidates. Specifically, the Republican candidates, or lack thereof (we mainly laughed at the Democrats and believe that they will begin eating their own soon!). And in those discussion we soon realized that while a few have true conservative credentials (Brownback and Hunter), those few were at the bottom of the name recognition/popularity ladder.

We concluded that what we need is a big name personality, with good conservative and Republican pedigree. Given the name of this blog and the person to whom it is dedicated, we both immediately thought of Michael Steele. The parallels to Lincoln seemed too good: Relatively new to the national political scene; more of a self made man than a groomed politician, charismatic and popular locally but even more so nationally; ran for but lost the Senate seat from his state in a highly publicized race and suffered racial slurs and epithets while doing so. Perfect, right?

But a funny thing happened while we were trying to figure out if and how to A) convince Mr. Steele to run, and B) create and jump start a grassroots campaign... Fred Thompson's hat was tossed into the ring. Not officially, mind you, but with enough enthusiasm that it was evident that this was more than just mere speculation or wishfully thinking. His name obviously was raised as a trial balloon... a balloon that quickly, and without much effort, turned into the Goodyear Blimp.

While Michael Steele is a good man and would make a good candidate for many reasons, and would definitely help harken the Republican party back to it's "Party of Lincoln" roots, Fred Thompson can do that and more. He meets our conservative and Republican pedigree requirement and has big-time name and image recognition thanks to the fact that he is an actor on TV's Law & Order. Help the Republican party get back to it's conservative roots and remind people of Reagan because he's an actor? That is a political twofer!

So, if you are like us and would love to see Fred Thompson not just talk about running but actually declare as much, please go out and sign the Draft Fred Thompson 2008 Citizens’ Petition to help convince him.

I can't speak for Chris, but for me the only thing that would be better than having Fred Thompson as the Republican nominee for President in 2008, would be for Michael Steele to be his running mate.

Hmm... Thompson/Steele '08. Has a nice blue-collar, no nonsense ring to it, doesn't it?

If I hear one more time - and from a conservative, no less - how it's more important to show compassion than to demand or promise justice, I swear I'm going puke up a kidney. Stop simpering like babies, grow a pair of stones, and do something to solve the problems we face.

Holy crap, we've turned into a nation of eunuchs.

There are few things on this earth more despicable than a scum-sucking Congressman. They are beginning to rival the terrorists.

Today, April 16th, has always been a very important day, not because of events that happened on this day, but because on this day, at various points throughout history, people awoke to find a world vastly different from the one before.

First off, since April 15th is the official deadline for filing tax return in most areas of the country, April 16 is traditionally a day that people all over the country wake up with either a lot less in their bank accounts or the prospect of a looming tax debt extended for a few weeks, months, or even years. One would hope that this would have by now lead to a re-thinking in regard to the US Tax code - and in some corners it has - but the tax code is so mind-numbing that any momentum for reform seems hard to maintain.

But April 16th is also important because a few of the events of April 15th were so monumental as to change the way an entire nation viewed the world beginning the very next day. Because of those events, I like to think of April 16th as sort of a Renaissance (French for rebirth) day, not a Renaissance in art and literature, but a Renaissance in thinking.

April 16th, 1947 - A step heard 'round the world. Sixty years ago today, the world awoke to the fact that Baseball, the great American pastime, would never again be the same, when Jackie Robinson debuted for the Brooklyn Dodgers baseball team, breaking that professional sport's color line. It wasn't easy, for Jackie or those who followed him in sports or any other profession, but in the words of the Chinese philosopher Lao-tzu "A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step." Jackie Robinson's step onto Ebbets Field was not the first step in that journey, nor will it be the last, but it was a very, very big step!

April 16th, 1945 - A candle in the darkness. Sixty-two years ago today, the world continued to awake to the fact that there is Evil in the world, and that the devil does exist, the day after the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp was liberated by British and Canadian troops. An estimated 50,000 Jews, Czechs, Poles, anti-Nazi Christians, homosexuals, and Gypsies died at Bergen-Belsen. Among them were Czech painter and writer Josef Capek, as well as Amsterdam residents Anne Frank and her sister Margot. The survivors of Bergen-Belsen, and Auschwitz-Birkenau, and the dozens of other camps throughout the Nazi territories have and will continue to remind us that, in the words of Albert Einstein, "The world is a dangerous place. Not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don't do anything about it."

April 16th, 1912 - A Night to Remember. Ninety-five years ago today, the world awoke to the fact that the luxury liner RMS Titanic had struck an iceberg and sank, and would not be showing up at New York's White Star pier 59 that day as scheduled. Close to 1,500 people perished in the accident, and the disaster ranks as one of the worst maritime disasters in history, and by far the most infamous. The frenzy about the Titanic's famous victims and the legends about what happened on board the ship resulted in significant changes to maritime law, and should have forever ingrained into our psyche the fact that words like "unsinkable" and "impossible" should always be avoided when referencing human endeavors versus the forces of Mother Nature. Ironically, nearly one hundred years after the event, many are still foolishly convinced that we humans are more powerful than the Earth and the forces of Nature.

April 16th, 1865 - Now he belongs to the Ages. One hundred forty-two years ago today, citizens of the United States awoke to the fact that they had a new President. Andrew Johnson had been sworn in the day before, soon after Abraham Lincoln, the President of the United States, The Savior of the Union, The Great Emancipator, The Black Republican, had been struck down by an assassins bullet. I think it is safe to say, had Lincoln lived at least long enough to begin the first phase of Reconstruction, our country and the world would have developed much differently. But because it was left to Johnson, a Southerner, Civil Rights for Blacks would be put off for a hundred years.

Of all these huge events, this last one is the only one that can be said to be sort of anti-Renaissance, in that it prolonged the real changes that the Presidency of Abraham Lincoln had begun instead of hastening them. But in other ways, it awoke the country as to what a great man Abraham Lincoln really was, and may have actually made it more likely for people to accept those changes. Who knows? But I do know that as a result of the event as they did unfold, kids born nearly a hundred years after his death are still celebrating his life and extolling the virtues of his ideals. Perhaps his untimely death, the fact that he too "gave the last full measure of devotion" was actually necessary to ensure "that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."

Graphic Content Warning! (the title is NOT a metaphor)

A wonderful video supplied by the folks at Military.com shows a new technique when creating a terrorist propaganda video:

1. Film planning session
2. Film trip to attack
3. Get ambushed by your target
4. Run away!
5. Die
6. Quit directing and become the star!
   (using your own camera, picked off your rotting corpse)

Or maybe not so much regret or sadness after all.

Ace of Spades (w/comments)

I strongly suggest this piece by Stephen F. Hayes as "Recommended Reading".

According to the LA Times, Democrats are worried that they inadvertantly stumbled into ejecting themselves from a prime source of valuable media airtime. But the thing that grabbed by attention was the contention that the pajama brigade has been taken over by the left.

"This is a real bind for Democrats," said Dan Gerstein, an advisor to one of Imus' favorite regulars, Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.). "Talk radio has become primarily the province of the right, and the blogosphere is largely the province of the left. If Imus loses his microphone, there aren't many other venues like it around."

I agree with Ramesh Ponnuru that Michael Tomasky has fashioned a reasonably ineffective hit piece on Rudy Giuliani. I'm no more persuaded one way or another by it, and I've heard all the arguments before. For most of the non-comatose Republican base, you've either already made the calculation that Rudy