Iowahawk strikes again.

Not bad enough they insult President Bush, they also have to insult the magnificent men and women of the United States armed forces:

…near the end of the show things turn tasteless as well. Ferrell/Bush asks the audience for a moment of silence to honor our troops who died in Iraq and Afghanistan. At the performance I saw, most of the audience members went silent but a few tittered nervously. Who can blame them? This is a comedy show. They were expecting a gag, and they soon got one.

After a few seconds of silence a phone on the stage rings, and everyone laughs. The relief is palpable. Hurrah! That thing about honoring our war dead? It really was just the setup to a joke!

Ferrell/Bush is startled by the noise too, because he’s already told us that the phone is just a prop that isn’t connected to anything. He picks up the phone, listens for a second and says, “I didn’t know ‘Annie Get Your Gun’ is playing! I love Tom Wopat too!” Then he tells the audience that he was afraid God was calling him on the phone. “Swear to God – I thought I was having a heart attack in my butt hole!”

The problem is, during what turned out to be merely a pause to set up the punchline, I actually was thinking about our war dead, and so were a lot of others. Left and right, we all believe, or supposedly do, in honoring the sacrifice of our servicemen and women.

Here, Hollywood is letting its mask slip. Ferrell and his director Adam McKay are so confident that everyone shares their contempt for Bush that they slosh over into contempt for all things associated with Bush: the show includes cracks about Texas, Christianity, and finally the military.

A complete and utter disgrace. Everyone involved in the show should be ashamed – but we’ll have to do a morality implant just to get them to understand what shame is.

HAT TIP: Sister Toldjah

Shades of Carter:

From crisis to catastrophe. Off a cliff. Dark, darker, darkest. Mortal danger of absolute collapse. Armageddon.

President Obama and top Democrats on Capitol Hill are deploying these and other stark predictions of doom and gloom to push through their economic-stimulus package. In terms not heard in Washington since the late 1970s under President Jimmy Carter’s watch, the new president has sought to terrify Americans into supporting the $800 billion-plus bailout bill.

While President Bush was accused shortly after taking office in 2001 of “talking down the economy” – and for saying the economy was “slowing down” – Mr. Obama is using ever-heightening hyperbole to hammer home his message. But the strategy brings great risk for the “Yes, We Can” man, who just three weeks ago told America in his inaugural address that despite “a sapping of confidence across our land,” his election meant Americans had “chosen hope over fear.”

“Mr. Hope has to be careful not to become Dr. Doom,” said Frank Luntz, a political consultant and author of the book “Words That Work: It’s Not What You Say, It’s What People Hear.”

“The danger for him is using the Jimmy Carter malaise rhetoric, particularly for Mr. Obama, who was elected because people thought he was the solution. There’s only so much negativity they will tolerate from him before they will feel betrayed,” Mr. Luntz said.

One wonders why Obama seems so desperate to get this dog of a bill passed – and then one realizes we’re dealing with Democrats: so, its all a matter of paying everyone off who help, in any way at all, to elevate Obama to the White House. Why didn’t Hillary start a floor fight? Why did all those super delegates start crowding towards Obama? Why did so many big Democrat donors shell out quite so much money? Well, there is always that chance it was a principled stand – ok, ok; you can stop laughing now. Nope, the whole deal was predicated upon everyone getting paid – and Obama is trying to pay them.

Think about it – in a “stimulus” bill which we must have our we’re all gonna die, there are provisions for condoms. Who would even think to add such a thing to such a bill? I mean, its not like there won’t be plenty of opportunities for Obama to increase condom funding over the next four years…why chuck it in here, right now, and then go about telling the American people that their whole nation will crash and burn unless we rush this thing through, presumably with condoms still in the mix? It must be that those groups who believe that birth control is important made quick action on such a thing the price for their support. Everyone wants their payoff right away, knowing that if they don’t get it right away, they might not get it for years – or ever – depending on the ebb and flow of political powers and popular concerns. What Obama has here is a Chicago-style political payola scam dressed up as an economic stimulus package.

And now Obama seems to be deathly afraid he won’t be able to deliver the promised swag – and this, in turn, is making him use ever more overheated and negative rhetoric to try and stampede Congress into backing this scam. Carter lives – he’s younger, better looking and way the heck more hip, but Obama is the true Son of Carter…only we’re not yet sure that Obama is as dumb as James Earl Carter.

Not yet.

A Gold Star mom received an email from a Marine who was present during Iraq’s recent elections. Read about it at Knotties Niche.

This is a worrisome development:

PRESIDENT Barack Obama has demanded that American defence chiefs review their strategy in Afghanistan before going ahead with a troop surge.

There is concern among senior Democrats that the military is preparing to send up to 30,000 extra troops without a coherent plan or exit strategy.

The Pentagon was set to announce the deployment of 17,000 extra soldiers and marines last week but Robert Gates, the defence secretary, postponed the decision after questions from Obama.

The president was concerned by a lack of strategy at his first meeting with Gates and the US joint chiefs of staff last month in “the tank”, the secure conference room in the Pentagon. He asked: “What’s the endgame?” and did not receive a convincing answer.

Larry Korb, a defence expert at the Center for American Progress, a Washington think tank, said: “Obama is exactly right. Before he agrees to send 30,000 troops, he wants to know what the mission and the endgame is.”

Obama promised an extra 7,000-10,000 troops during the election campaign but the military has inflated its demands. Leading Democrats fear Afghanistan could become Obama’s “Vietnam quagmire”.

It will, indeed, become a quagmire – if Obama tries to place his judgment in military matters as superior to the considered judgment of the very same military leaders who crafted victory in the Iraq campaign. One is concerned that the zero-military experience Obama is making judgment about strategy or the lack thereof – Obama could have been doing some intensive study of military history since November but if he has, I haven’t heard it. As far as I can tell, he’s never so much as picked up a book on military affairs.

It is for the President to set the broad goals of American military policy, it is for the professionals of the US military to carry them out. In the campaign, Obama said he would secure victory in Afghanistan – indeed, one of the selling points he used on himself was the claim that he, unlike former President Bush or Senator McCain, would ensure that victory was achieved in Afghanistan. The goal has been set, the military says it needs 30,000 more troops – I advise against anyone second-guessing this unless there is some concrete fact which argues against sending troops in those number…worrying that there isn’t an “endgame”, especially when the worries come from a rank amateur, is asinine. Let the military do the job we’ve set for it – we’ll know soon enough if they are on the right track or whether they’ve made boneheaded mistakes. This is especially true now that we have battle-tested troops and officers who have shown themselves capable of handling whatever mission is given.

The choices for President Obama are to fight or to withdraw – if we are to fight, we must provide the military, in large terms, whatever it says it needs for victory. If we aren’t to do this, then we should get out now before there is a large effusion of blood for no purpose. I, naturally, believe we should fight for victory; I pledge to be a loyal supporter of the President regarding Afghanistan as long as he is attempting to secure victory – but the moment I perceive a lack of will to victory I will go into opposition on the continuation of the Afghan campaign. Loss of Afghanistan would be a catastrophe for America, Afghanistan and the world…but I can’t agree to continued bloodshed if the President is not clearly fighting for absolute victory.

I hope I’m just being a bit of a Nervous Nellie here with a new, inexperienced President. I really hope that is the case.

And not much else, if this Rasmussen poll is correct:

Support for the economic recovery plan working its way through Congress has fallen again this week. For the first time, a plurality of voters nationwide oppose the $800-billion-plus plan.

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that 37% favor the legislation, 43% are opposed, and 20% are not sure.

Two weeks ago, 45% supported the plan. Last week, 42% supported it.

Down, down, down it goes – where it stops, no body knows. As more and more gets learned of this boondoggle, the lower support for it goes. Once again, the strongest weapon we have to thwart this bill is delay – keep it tied up and allow more and more Americans to find out what the bill does.

It is to be hoped that Obama and his Democrats will figure out that their grand plan to spend us into oblivion is failing in the public square. Its time to call in the GOP and moderate Democrats and work out a genuine economic recovery bill where everyone gets input and all issues are aired in public before the votes are held.

A bad sign for Democrats:

Republican Attorney General Robert F. McDonnell has a three-to-nine point lead against three hopefuls for the Democratic nomination in this year’s closely-watched Virginia gubernatorial contest.

McDonnell, who announced this week that he will step down from his post on February 20 to campaign full-time for governor, bested only one of the three Democrats in early December.

Now, the latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey shows the lone Republican gubernatorial candidate topping his best-known opponent, Terry McAuliffe, by seven points, 42% to 35%. In December, he held a five-point edge over McAuliffe, a longtime Clinton confidant, major Democratic fund-raiser and former national party chairman.

McDonnell is even further ahead of Rep. R. Creigh Deeds of Bath County – 39% to 30%. The two men were tied two months ago.

Brian J. Moran, a former state delegate from Alexandria, led McDonnell by four points in the earlier survey but now trails by three, 39% to 36%.

Losing Virginia in 1993 was the precursor for the Democrats loss in 1994; losing Virginia in 2005 was the precursor for the GOP loss in 2006 – we’ll see how this plays out in 2009 and 2010. I like our chances in Virginia, and the more Obama we get, the more I like our chances in 2010.

And this will complicate matters greatly for an American President who wants to talk to the terrorists and their Iranian sponsors:

The latest poll predicts Likud receiving 27 mandates, Kadima 23, and Labor 17 on election day, but with the Likud-led Center-Right bloc far in front of the Center-Left bloc led by Kadima and Labor. Yet Netanyahu isn’t resting easy these days as another right-wing party — Yisrael Beiteinu — led by Avigdor Lieberman, a nationalist and Russian immigrant, continues to gain on him, coming in with 17 mandates in the poll.

Indeed, on Tuesday, Netanyahu made an impromptu visit to the site of the rocket strike in Ashkelon and spoke with a nationalistic ring, averring that, “A government under my leadership will overthrow the Hamas rule in Gaza and bring about a cessation of rocket fire. The policy of blindness followed in the past years has brought us to this situation. When action was finally taken, the IDF performed wonderfully. But the Livni-Kadima government did not allow the IDF to finish the job….”

Political wrangling aside, Netanyahu and Lieberman are both doing well because the approach represented by Kadima and Labor — based on restraint in the face of terror, reliance on foreign forces and monitors (Egyptian, European, Lebanese) to look out for Israel’s security, and a diffident, apologetic mindset — no longer persuades the majority of Israelis amid ongoing attacks. Netanyahu, who has implied that Israel will go it alone against Iran if necessary, also warned Obama against relying too much on dialogue with the mullahs. Israel knows there isn’t that kind of wiggle room.

Netanyahu, as well as many others in Israel, realize that Iran’s government poses an existential threat to the lives of all Israelis. As long as the mullahs rule Iran, the Israelis will not be able to live in assurance that tomorrow they’ll still be alive. Israel’s immediate neighbors – Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and Saudi Arabia – have come to the realistic conclusion that Israel’s conventional military force would be prohibitively expensive in lives and treasure to defeat in open battle and that with Israel having nuclear forces at her disposal, any attempt to build such weapons to destroy Israel at a blow would be suicidal. Iran’s government doesn’t seem to have such a rational view of things.

It must be kept in mind that Israel is a tiny country – even just two or three nuclear weapons detonated in Israel would effectively destroy the nation. Meanwhile, those who have the capability of seriously hitting the United States with nuclear weapons are rational – Chinese and Russians leaders don’t believe God is on their side and thus know that a nuclear exchange with the United States is insane. North Korea’s leaders are a bit insane, but they don’t have the actual capability of hitting us, and even if they do it would only be with one or two missiles, which can be intercepted by our SDI system. We’re pretty safe from a nuclear attack – except from some terrorists bringing nukes into America, which is something we do have to be concerned with…but, even then, one or two such nukes won’t destroy America. Its all different for Israel.

Their life – as a people, as a nation – is at stake here. And its not a matter of Iran having a nuclear weapon atop a missile in Iran capable of hitting Israel…its Iran having several nuclear weapons in southern Lebanon or in Gaza which could hit Israel in seconds, destroying the whole nation. Israel’s submarine force would then destroy Iran, but good would that do for the Israeli nation, now destroyed? Would Iran do such a thing? If you were the Prime Minister of Israel, how far would you gamble on the rationality of the mullahs?

President Obama wants to talk to Iran – presuming that contacts, dialogue and the prospect of normalized relations will lance the Iranian boil. Could be – hope it is so; but that is me, an American, sitting here safe and dry. Israel can’t be so calm and hopeful about matters – shortly will come the time of decision: does Israel place its bets on President Obama’s ability to diplomatically convince Iran to mend its ways, or does Israel place its bets on the IDF?

It is to be hope that President Obama is keenly aware that whatever time he has to make a deal with Iran, it is short – and it had better be iron-clad for Israel’s security.

Mark Steyn nails it:

In The Washington Post, E.J. Dionne tried to break it gently to us:

“No occupant of the White House has ever been able to walk on water.”

Yeah, sure, no previous occupant of the White House has been able to walk on water – your Eisenhowers and Roosevelts, your Chester Arthurs and Grover Clevelands and whatnot. But Barack didn’t run as just another of those squaresville losers. He was gonna heal the planet and lower the oceans. So, even if he couldn’t walk on water, he should at least be able to paddle in it. “He is a community organizer like Jesus was,” said Susan Sarandon, “and now we’re a community, and he can organize us.”

So how’s that going? Jesus took a handful of loaves and two fish and fed 5,000 people. Barack wants to take a trillion pieces of pork and feed it to a handful of Democratic Party interest groups. Jesus picked twelve disciples. Barack seems to have gone more for one of those “Dirty Dozen” caper-movie lineups, where the mission is so perilous and so audacious that only the scuzziest lowlifes recruited from every waterfront dive have any chance of pulling it off.

The trouble here is that it gets worse every day – who is the person in the Obama Administration of sterling character? Who is the person universally recognized for sobriety and judgment? Where is the program or policy commanding strong majority support?

Seems we made a rather large mistake last November…