Deja Do-Over Priggishness Personified
By Geoff Metcalf (12/04/06)
"We must... not squander on our way through life in the small coin of empty words, or in exact and priggish argument." -- George Sand
The perpetual acrimonious ‘us vs. them’ spitting match between left and right, liberal and conservative, democrats and republicans is a petty counter-intuitive reality that desperately needs to be extinguished…sooner rather than never.
The forces of evil that remain intent on destroying the United States are real. They cannot be appeased, accommodated, or bribed into playing nice. Notwithstanding our professed lofty intentions, myriad shortcomings, errors, and failures, diplomatic obfuscation and partisan rancor will only embolden and enable the enemy.
And by the way…the enemy is very real. However, the enemy is not the ‘other’ political party, or the American citizen with whom you disagree. The enemy is
· The Islamist fanatic
· The communist
· The one-world globalists
· And anyone and everyone who enables them.
Incoming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi remains the consistent liberal sycophant. Her myopic support of John Murtha (and her subsequent failure to enthrone him as a lieutenant) underscores the ‘us vs. them’ pathology.
Pelosi’s rejection of Jane Harman for the chairmanship of the House Intelligence Committee was personal and petty. Her implied support of the impeached judge resurrected as a congress critter, Alcee Hastings, overwhelmed bad judgment (despite her eventual passing him over).
Selecting Representative Silvestre Reyes to one of the most important committees may have ended some caucus intrigue, but it underscores the parsimoniousness of her apparent thinking.
Reyes voted against authorizing the president to go to war in Iraq. He has repeatedly been more combative toward the administration’s policies, and in many ways (unlike Harman) is kinda/sorta a Murtha-lite.
Reyes inherits one of the most important, and dysfunctional partisan panels in Congress. When Harman released committee findings over the objections of Republican Chairman Peter Hoekstra, he cut off access of Dem staff members to classified material.
Last week I observed, ‘To hear Sen. Patrick J. Leahy cry for classified documents is kinda like Michael Jackson demanding to open a day-care facility.’ http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2006/11/27/101421.shtml
This is bad…and dangerous.
As previously noted, Leahy has a history of sabotaging classified strategies that don’t conform to his leftist playbook. His partisan obfuscation has already resulted in the death of at least one man.
There IS an adversarial dynamic in effect, but gosh-oh-gee-golly; it isn’t the Blue team against the Red team. The significant, important, and potentially fatal adversity is anti-American fanatics that want to kill us and replace what we have with either a Muslim theocracy or Communist oligarchy.
Charlie Daniels sings, “From the sound up in Long Island out to San
Francisco Bay, and ev'ry thing that's in between them is our home. And we may have done a little bit of fighting amongst ourselves, but you outside
people best leave us alone. Cause we'll all stick together and you can take that to the bank. That's the cowboys and the hippies and the rebels and the yanks.”
He wrote ‘In America’ in 1980 and the essential truth of the lyrics remains true today. However, politicians, more intent on personal victories, still fail to accept that ‘most Americans’ do not subscribe to the gospel according to the left OR the right.
‘Most Americans’ accept that America is a family…our family. And like most families we are not perfect…we are inherently a tad dysfunctional. However, despite our warts, blemishes, and assorted personal and collective failures, we are still a family…a family to be protected from those who would do us harm.
We can “all stick together”…however, it is far from being bankable. We have the ‘capacity’ for unity. We proved that in the too swift fleeting months after 9/11. We should not require a repeat lesson to comprehend that the threat is very real. It is not partisan.
The bad guys don’t care if you are a republican or a democrat. They don’t care if you are liberal or conservative. To the bad guys, the only significant distinction is that we are infidels. We do not embrace their dogma and do not subscribe to Muslim law (calling the Sharia 'law' can be misleading, because Sharia extends beyond law. Sharia is the totality of religious, political, social, domestic and private life.). http://i-cias.com/e.o/sharia.htm
The new democratic leadership has an extraordinary opportunity to unify the country and protect our national security and heritage.
Sadly, based on early performance and facts in evidence, they seem incapable of recognizing what to most sixth graders is obvious. The ‘us vs. them’ adversarial confrontation that is critical is not political
Rather than squander a gift given, Pelosi et al should become representatives of their constituents. They need to abandon (or at least delay) intramural partisanship and focus on the very real and genuine threats we face.
If or when they fail to face reality (and the odds are they will), we should anticipate another ‘do over’ and renewed opportunity for the GOP to likewise ignore lessons learned from the clear, loud voice of ‘We the People’.
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