The frost is on the pumpkin, the geese are on the wing, and your faithful correspondent has to let loose a little. So, in no particular order…
The Elizabeth Smart Case
Tell me. If your 15-year-old daughter were returned after a nine-month kidnapping ordeal, would you rush out to get a movie deal, a book deal, and all the media attention you could possibly handle? Or, would you try to take things slow and quiet, and get on with the rest of your lives? What’s worse? Ed Smart essentially pimping out his own daughter, or the media whore’s feeding frenzy?
Speaking of which, I just heard Ed on
Talk Radio
Ed’s most recent appearance was on the popular Sean Hannity show. Sean’s claims to fame are that he is not quite as irritating (nor as bright) as Michael Medved, and that he pretty much walked into a huge syndication deal. Sean doesn’t have to think too much, since about all he does is parrot Republican party talking points, and pass valuable air time with such washed up politico-celebs as Newt Gingrich and Bill Bennett. It is always stirring to hear from the former speaker who had the world on a string—and lost it, about as much as it is to listen to the gambling-addicted chain-smoking pompous fallen moralist.
And, don’t you just hate the grating repetition, to start every new hour of his show, when Sean plays a sliced and diced version of Gretchen Peters’ “Independence Day,” as sung by Martina McBride? This may come as a shock to many of Sean’s somnolent fans, but the song is about a woman who burns down her house to kill her abusive husband. It was, stupidly enough, adopted by some as a post 9/11 anthem, because of three lines
“Let freedom ring!”
“Let the whole world know that today is a day of reckoning”
“Let the guilty pay!”
Only in America would a song condoning homicidal arson be used to rally us against terrorists who performed the same act on a much grander scale. And only in America would a clueless jerk play it three times a day, five days a week, for this purpose on nationally syndicated radio.
War
It’s not bad enough that the Dems are using the Iraq war to beat up the president, and it’s not even bad enough that our Defense Department is unnecessarily losing American lives by trying to wage a “kinder and gentler” war. Back in Japan, long about September, 1945, there would have been REAL serious consequences if civilians even had weapons, let alone fired them at the occupying troops. But that was then, and this is now.
I suppose I should genuflect, also, at the great and glorious World War II, regarded by many Americans, of both parties, as the quintessence of human achievement. Whatever bloodthirsty tactics we used in that conflict—and I’m all in favor of bloodthirsty tactics for my side—are fine and dandy, but are never to be repeated.
How truly sad that 58 long years after that war ended, the Left, but not only the Left, must engage in morbid ancestor worship for a war that this country had precious little reason to enter, surely less than our incursions into Iraq and Afghanistan.
Feel free to send me all the e-mail you like, trying to convince me that we didn’t know about Pearl Harbor ahead of time, and indeed forced Japan’s hand, or to disabuse me of the notion that WWII did little more than make the world safe for Communism. What was wrong with Stalin’s and Hitler’s armies exterminating each other, while we watch?
Stay tuned for Part II.