The Conservative Revolution

Stephen Rose and Anne Kim point out in today’s Wall Street Journal that even though Americans are worried about the economy, most do not want to enact the big government programs that Democrats favor.

In a February 2007 poll conducted by Democracy Corps, 57% of Americans agreed that “government makes it harder for people to get ahead in life,” and 54% thought that “government mostly gets in the way of the economy and job growth.” While people not hurt by recessions are open to helping those who are, Democrats cannot assume that economic recessions automatically translate into broad public support for major government interventions.

Despite the hyperbole of comparing the current economic trouble to the Great Depression, the American people are not ready for another socialist expansion in America like the New Deal. Bad news for Obama and Clinton.

The Wall Street Journal has an interesting piece today citing the findings of a recent Pentagon report, which examined the links between Saddam Hussein and Islamist terrorists. Hundreds of thousands of documents found in Iraq have been combed through recently as part of this report. The editors write,

Five years on, few Iraq myths are as persistent as the notion that the Bush Administration invented a connection between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda. Yet a new Pentagon report suggests that Iraq’s links to world-wide terror networks, including al Qaeda, were far more extensive than previously understood.

I have been making this case to friends of mine and readers of this blog for years. Stephen Hayes, a writer for The Weekly Standard, even wrote an entire book on the contacts between al Qaeda and Saddam. And the 911 Commission found that there were at least contacts, if not an operational relationship, between Iraq and al Qaeda. The editors of the Journal continue,

Throughout the 1990s, the Iraqi Intelligence Service (IIS) cooperated with Hamas; the Palestine Liberation Front, which maintained a Baghdad office; Force 17, Yasser Arafat’s private army; and others. The IIS gave commando training for members of Egyptian Islamic Jihad, the organization that assassinated Anwar Sadat and whose “emir” was Ayman al-Zawahiri, who became Osama bin Laden’s second-in-command when the group merged with al Qaeda in 1998.

The editors conclude by pointing out that the Bush administration is not doing a good job communicating the findings of the report to the American people. I guess that is what blogs are for.

There is a good piece in today’s International Herald Tribune about Obama’s argument that he can unify the country.

Here is the best quote,

Obama does not come to the campaign with a reputation as one of the accommodating bridge-builders in the Senate. His voting record, albeit short, is to the left; the National Journal declared it the most liberal of 2007. Congressional Quarterly said he voted with his party 97 percent of the time on party-line votes that year.

If the Obama candidacy rests upon his willingness to work with Republicans and Independents, then he will have a difficult time convincing people that he will do this. Ironically, the man who has a record of working across the aisle and compromising is Senator John McCain, much to the chagrin of conservatives.

If the American people want someone who governs from the middle, they should vote for McCain. If they want a liberal, they should vote for Obama. As for conservatives, we don’t really have a candidate in the general election, but the choice is clear for us. Allowing Barack Obama to become president would set conservatism back even further.

As the AP reports, Pope Benedict baptized a prominent Muslim named Magdi Allam over the Easter weekend.

Italy’s most prominent Muslim, an iconoclastic writer who condemned Islamic extremism and defended Israel, converted to Catholicism Saturday in a baptism by the pope at a Vatican Easter service.

Muslim extremists have made threats against Allam in the past for his criticism of Palestinian homicide bombers. Now that he has converted to Catholicism, the Islamists will consider him an apostate, which will mark him for death, according to sharia.

James Taranto of the Wall Street Journal points out that Rev. Jeremiah Wright and his church promote “black liberation theology.”

Here is an excerpt from Obama’s church talking points on this theology:

Black theology refuses to accept a God who is not identified totally with the goals of the black community. If God is not for us and against white people, then he is a murderer, and we had better kill him. The task of black theology is to kill Gods who do not belong to the black community. . . . Black theology will accept only the love of God which participates in the destruction of the white enemy. What we need is the divine love as expressed in Black Power, which is the power of black people to destroy their oppressors here and now by any means at their disposal. Unless God is participating in this holy activity, we must reject his love.

Here is the central question about Obama’s relationship to Rev. Wright. Do Obama and his wife Michelle subscribe to black liberation theology or not? If not, then why attend a church that preaches such racist cant?

Professor Victor Davis Hanson writes at National Review,

Rather than account for his relationship with a hate-monger, Obama will enlighten you, as your teacher, why you are either confused or too ill-intended to ask him to disassociate himself from Wright.

The Obama apologia was a “conversation” about moral equivalence. So the Wright hatred must be contextualized and understood in several ways that only the unusually gifted Obama can instruct us about.

It’s good to see that not everyone is drinking the Obama kool-aid. I had to laugh when I heard Chris Matthews of MSNBC refer to the speech as one of the best in American history.

Anne Applebaum, who has written extensively about communist repression in world history, has a piece on Slate today that links to cell phone footage from the political protests in Tibet this past week or so.

The communist government of China can’t keep their brutal tactics secret in the age of the internet. Thank God for that.

Here is the post from David All of Tech Republican about the FreedomWorks “No Earmarks Pledge.”

The folks at FreedomWorks.org have launched a micro-site to help drive its campaign to reform earmarks — www.earmarkpledge.com.

I asked the folks at FreedomWorks about the micro-site and got two responses worth sharing in this space.

* Dick Armey, Chairman, FreedomWorks: “We plan to use the internet to make it public who has signed our pledge and who refuses to do so. Our members will be able to focus their energy on calling those that haven’t signed the pledge. Our website will allow us to put much-needed pressure on some of these folks, and we will have a record if they decide to drink backsliders wine on the issue in the future.”

* Brendan Steinhauser, Director of Campaigns, FreedomWorks.org: “FreedomWorks seeks to empower grassroots citizens in the states to download our pledge, take it to district offices and ask their Congressmen to sign it. We are pursuing an inside and outside the beltway campaign to make it clear that the American people are tired of out-of-control spending. The Internet will allow us to efficiently coordinate this campaign across the country.”

Nicely done FreedomWorks. Keep fighting the good fight.

The Drudge Report linked to this article in today’s Wall Street Journal about Barack Obama’s preacher, Jeremiah Wright.

Looks like the story finally has some “legs.”

In a sermon delivered at Howard University, Barack Obama’s longtime minister, friend and adviser blamed America for starting the AIDS virus, training professional killers, importing drugs and creating a racist society that would never elect a black candidate president.

Hat tip to Hot Air and Michelle Malkin for this hilarious video of dorky Hillary supporters.

“We need a woman in the White House to clean it up.” — Dorky Hillary supporter number one

Uh, ok.

This is just unbelievable. So much for the politics of “hope” and “change.” Same old tired, racist, divisive rhetoric. This is from Obama’s preacher Jeremiah Wright in Chicago.

Watch the video and make up your own mind, but if Obama’s preacher is this racist, and the congregation is in agreement throughout the sermon, Obama will need to make a public statement disavowing his “church” very soon.

Update: Fox News reports today the church could be in trouble with the IRS over its tax-exempt status.