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Jewish World Review April 8, 2010/ 24 Nissan 5770 (Tea) Party On By Arnold Ahlert
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
"I was having lunch with Dr. Laurie Mylroie, one of America's leading students of terrorism in general, and Iraqi terrorism in particular. Laurie was beside herself with anger. Why wasn't the Bush administration citing Gen. James Clapper, the Director of the National Imagery and Mapping Agency, who said that satellite imagery proved conclusively that shortly before the war's outbreak, Iraq had transferred its weapons of mass destruction to Syria? Why wasn't it quoting Gen. Georges Sada, deputy chief of Saddam's air force, or Gen. Moshe Ya'alon, Israel's chief-of-staff, both of whom also claimed that Saddam's weapons had been transferred to Syria? Why was it so tongue-tied, so unsure of itself, so unwilling to answer its critics? Didn't anybody in the White House realize that if the Democrats' charges went unanswered, they would fatally undermine the entire case for the war?" — The Man Who Elected Barack Obama, by Joseph Shattan, American Spectator, Apr. 5, 2010
"The last major remnant of Saddam Hussein's nuclear program — a huge stockpile of concentrated natural uranium — reached a Canadian port Saturday to complete a secret U.S. operation that included a two-week airlift from Baghdad and a ship voyage crossing two oceans.
The removal of 550 metric tons of 'yellowcake' — the seed material for higher-grade nuclear enrichment — was a significant step toward closing the books on Saddam's nuclear legacy. It also brought relief to U.S. and Iraqi authorities who had worried the cache would reach insurgents or smugglers crossing to Iran to aid its nuclear ambitions." — MSNBC, July 5, 2008
Despite what many might think, it is not my intention to use the above quotes to once again make the case that removing Saddam Hussein was the right thing to do. It is one of the great liberal hypocrisies that allows one to be simultaneously against bringing down a mass-murdering, anti-American, terrorist abettor, while professing "great concern" for the "oppressed peoples of the world."
My objective is more important. I am using them to illustrate what happens when the liberal worldview — so much of which is based on lies, distortion and character assassination — isn't met with equal amounts of force and determination to provide Americans with the truth.
The failure to do so was the tragic flaw of the Bush administration.
Unfortunately, while the players change, the game remains the same. There is a still a large faction of progressive Democrats, aided and abetted by a purposefully duplicitous media, willing to use the same tactics to bring down those they consider a large threat to their socialist ambitions.
No one threatens those ambitions more than the Tea Party movement.
As a result, there isn't a day that goes by without some story in the media, or some comment by a Democrat politician (or both) to the effect that Tea Partiers are: racist, fringe right-wingers, angry white people, crazies, thugs, stupid, scary, etc....you get the picture. Every day the progressive machine does their level best to discredit Americans whose chief "sin" is to point out an unassailable truth:
America is going bankrupt due to the gross fiscal irresponsibility of the political ruling class.
There isn't an honest person in America who can dispute that fact — which is why it becomes vitally necessary to obliterate the messengers who disseminate it.
And yet incredibly, there is still a level of incomprehension, if not outright denial, that such fire must be met with equal amounts of fire, that each and every distortion, lie, and character assassination must be categorically and forcefully refuted. Turning the other cheek may be a Judeo-Christian ideal, but when you end up with bruises on both sides of your face, you have to realize you're up against an ideology with only one objective: to prevail, no matter what it takes.
Does anyone think — at this juncture — such facts matter anymore? Let me save you a guess. The answer is no. Why? Because there is a shelf life after which any lie left to fester unchallenged becomes unchallengeable.
Sen. Joseph McCarthy has been vilified by the left for years because he pointed out that communists had infiltrated the United States government. When the Soviet Union fell, formerly secret documents known as the Venona papers proved McCarthy was right. Has McCarthy's reputation been rehabilitated as a result?
Or course not.
As far as the left is concerned, today's Tea Partiers are nothing more than a large group of Joe McCarthys who must have their reputations tarnished beyond repair, irrespective of the truthfulness of their message. There is only one way to counter this: every smear the left puts out about them must be dealt with immediately.
This is key. We live in a country where most peoples' knowledge of history is minimal and their attention span is limited by technologically-driven distractions. Sound-bytes aimed at destroying the credibility of the Tea Party movement are being driven by those who know full well that "volume" — aka, the lie repeated often enough — is often the determining factor in winning the hearts and minds of the general public. If I may use an expression that applies quite aptly, the Tea Party movement is being "Palinized," by those who understand that a never ending barrage of vilification need not contain an ounce of truth to make it effective.
And, as I said in a previous column, the Republican party also needs to snap to it as well. Why?
Last week's announcement by Barack Obama that he is suddenly in favor of opening up more areas for oil exploration is a perfect example of a leftist con job: he opens up some areas for exploration, while closing others that are just as, if not more, promising. Despite this ostensible green light, a host of federal regulations will ensure that actual drilling for oil remains years away.
In the meantime, a number of clueless Republicans are being courted to support cap and trade, the most pernicious piece of federal command-and-control legislation ever created. It is a law that would give the feds unprecedented control over America's energy suppliers, and raise energy costs for every American. And part of the Obama administration's "negotiating" tactics are nothing more than common thuggery: you either bend to our will or we'll allow the EPA to assume totalitarian control over everything energy-related — including the air one exhales — absent any input from Congress whatsoever.
Republicans who thought health care was their line in the sand desperately need to see the big picture: every radical transformation of America these socialist hacks propose must be met with the same monolithic resistance Republicans demonstrated with ObamaCare. If Republicans can't find the backbone to do it for the people, then they should consider their naked political interest instead: Obama, et al, are bound and determined to make your political party completely irrelevant.
Translation: complicity — be it on cap and trade, amnesty for illegals, faux financial reform or any other socialist scheme equals political suicide.
Unless I'm missing something, Tea Partiers have zero interest in politicians who believe in compromising with radicals to "get things done." And it's long past time Republicans realized — like the Tea Partiers already have — that the definition of "middle of the road" has been completely skewed by the left. That is why those Americans who believe in limited government, individual freedom, a Constitution that says what it means, and every other aspect of American exceptionalism must be branded as far-right bigots.
It is the only way to maintain the charade that today's Democrats are "reasonable" people.
America literally cannot afford such "reasonableness," and those Republicans who aid and abet it are no better than the perpetrators themselves. Selling out — under the banner of "bipartisanship," no less — won't cut it.
Ordinary Americans — the heart and soul of the Tea party movement, despite every attempt by Democrats and their media lapdogs to obfuscate reality — have demonstrated a remarkable commitment to their cause, and a remarkable amount of restraint towards those who consider them beneath contempt. The Democrat-media machine would like us all to believe the movement is small, radicalized and ineffective — yet their constant attempts to prove it demonstrate their fear that it is not.
This is one American who'd bet the farm that the Tea Party movement represents the No Longer Silent Majority in today's America, and those politicians who understand that will prosper mightily in the next two elections.
Republicans: get on board the Tea Party Express — or get out of the way.
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© 2010, Arnold Ahlert |
Mitch Albom | |||||||||||||
