Driving to work this morning, I was flabbergasted to hear that Barack Obama had won the Nobel Peace Prize.  Why?  Has he actually done anything substantive to improve world peace or advance human freedom?  Has he achieved reconciliation between the Arab world and Israelis? Did he secretly disarm the Iranians nuclear aspirations with a whisper to the mullahs?  Has he achieved a permanent peace treaty between North and South Korea?  Resolved the Kashmir dispute between India and Pakistan?  Gotten the Chinese and Taiwanese to hold hands and break bread together?  Did he persuade the Taliban to join the National Organization for Women?  Of course, not! Perhaps, the Nobel Committee felt sympathy for Obama after his recent unsuccessful visit to Copenhagen to try and win the 2016 Olympics for Chicago.  

This is an example of a bunch of morally muddled stupid secularist socialist Scandinavians falling over Obama in the throes of prepubescent puppy love.  The Nobel Committee has become so enthralled with Obama's apologizing for America's purported sins during the Bush Administration, Obama's quixotic utopian desire to abolish nuclear weapons, and weaken our ballistic missile defense systems, that it has decided to bestow its blessing on Mr. "Change you can believe in" and his idealistic geopolitical stupidity.  Unfortunately, Obama's dangerously delusional beliefs increase the likelihood of war and will only embolden the enthusiasm of anti-American governments and terrorist groups to strike against the U.S. and its allies.  We also need to remember how intellectually and morally empty  the Nobel Peace Prize has become.  This "prize" has been awarded to Yasser Arafat, Jimmy Carter, and Al Gore and comparable leftist low lives.

America is slowly realizing that the "Messiah" is an emperor without clothes as our ongoing economic troubles and his attempts to impose statist solutions to our health care and energy problems demonstrate.  Increasing numbers of independents are beginning to experience buyers remorse over letting themselves be seduced by the Chicago charlatan.  Sadly, the seductive mist weaved by "the One" still lingers over the Scandinavian countryside and in various other international locales where purportedly progressive secularist cosmopolitanism is the preferred means for approaching international affairs policymaking.  Obama will enjoy his moment in the Norwegian spotlight but his winning this prize will do nothing to advance the cause of human freedom and actually retard it.

The ghost of Neville Chamberlain entered the White House recently as the Obama Administration had to decide whether to maintain the Bush Administration's commitment to build missile defenses in Eastern Europe.  Sadly, Obama has proven ignorant of history and of emerging geostrategic realities.  His decision to not continue building a missile defense system in Eastern Europe is a triumph of stupidity and will increase the security threat to our eastern European NATO allies (especially Poland) from a resurgent Russia and from Iranian nuclear weapon aspirations.

We now have the sad spectacle of an administration that does not keep commitments to our allies, fails to understand that the only thing that powers such as Russia and Iran understand is military force and the quality weapons and national will to use such force against the threats these regimes pose to Eurasian security.  Vladimir Putin, his sidekick Dimitry Medvedev, and the mullahs in Tehran must be dancing jigs or other celebratory dances as they contemplate how they have rolled the dimwitted Messiah who seduced the world with his empty rhetoric of "change we can believe in."  Sadly, the change this decision brings increases the likelihood of war in a geographic arena ranging from the Baltic to the Caspian Sea.  This decision also has a chilling affect on the aspirations of individuals in countries such as Georgia and Ukraine who will now face even greater coercive pressure from an emboldened Moscow.  It also places serious doubts on our willingness to continue fighting against Islamist terror in Afghanistan, Iraq, and elsewhere and will also be met with rejoicing in Pyongyang and Caracas by the anti-American and tyrannical North Korean and Venezuealan regimes.

Instead of bringing an early 21st century version of "peace in our time," this decision increases the possibility of anti-American regimes unleashing greater terrorism, asymmetric warfare, and even the dogs of war itself within the next few years.  Barack Obama has proven he doesn't have the cojones, strategic wisdom, or moral courage to understand the historical reality that military power and the willingness to use such power without mercy or hesitation is the only means of preserving peace and U.S. national security interests.

South Carolina Rep. Joe Wilson drew the wrath of Messiah Obama's congressional colleagues when he dared voice his criticism of a part of presidential legislation with the declaration of "you lie."  Rep. Wilson's outbreak may be crude and inappropriate but one can legitimately criticize the veracity of Obama statements in a democratic country just as liberals are free to criticize the veracity of Republican presidential statements.  The fact of the matter is that is a Democratic congressional representative had made such pejorative comments during a nationally televised address by any recent Republican President, particularly George W. Bush, there would hardly have been any criticism of that individual for defaming the President or violating supposedly sacrosant congressional behavioral decorum.

This episode, and the just-passed congressional reprimand of Rep. Wilson, clearly demonstrate that Democrats can dish out inflammatory political rhetoric but can not take it when such incendiary rhetoric is directed at them.  Speaker Nancy Pelosi, reacting to the petulant whining of the Congressional Black Caucus that a white Southern Republican had the impudence to denigrate the "Messiah's" grandiloquent rhetoric and policy proposals, saw to it that the perpetrator of this "egregious offense" be reprimanded with a speed that would please apparatchiks in totalitarian dictatorships.

It's especially amusing to hear ignorant American news commentators condemn this alleged decline in American political civility.  Have they forgotten the often virulent criticisms liberal politicians and media figures made against former Presidents George W. Bush and Ronald Reagan?  Have they never witnessed the smash mouth political rhetoric emanating from British parliamentarians or from other parliamentary democracies during Prime Minister's Question Time?  They must not have noticed a year or two ago that South Korean legislators, opposed to a free-trade agreement with the U.S., tried to forcibly break into a legislative committee room to express their views.  These superficial insular political observers may also not have noticed that nearly a decade ago, if memory serves me right, Taiwanese legislators became involved in such a heated debate that they were vigorously punching each other.  These behavioral extremes pale when compared with the daily violence of political debate in dictatorial regimes across the world.

In reality, U.S. political debates, are as mild as the conversation of dowager women at a tea party.  What's most revealing about this debate, besides Democratic hyprocrisy, is that Obama Administration supporters are so intellectually incapable of defending their positions on health care policy, that they launch vicious personal attacks against their critics.  Such tactics, of course, were practiced by the Clinton Administration without a peep from Keith Olbermann, Rachel Maddow, and other leftist media sycophants of that era.  This episode shows the beginnings of panic by Obama supporters as they realize they will not be able to ramrod their radical health care restructuring on the American people.  Those of us opposed to Obama Administration policies and by the sycophantic support the President has received from much of the establishmentarian media should take heart from the reaction to Rep. Wilson's outburst.

My wife and I recently enjoyed a wonderful vacation in England and have not been around to witness most of the town hall "debates" on the Obama Administration's proposed health care reforms.  Frankly, the "debates" and media coverage of these events are not satisfying.  Health care is really to complex of a topic to discuss with effectiveness and coherence in emotional town hall forums.  There is plenty of criticism to level at both sides in this debate.  The childlike faith of Obamites in the public option is native and appalling given the historical record of nationalized health care in countries such as Britain and Canada.  When I was in England, there was a story in the news that Britain's government run National Health Service had actually allowed a 16 year old to answer questions about the H1N1 flu on a government sponsored phone line concerning this critically important public health issue.  Do we really want an untrained adolescent providing public health advice in the U.S?  Nationalized health care, unfortunately, produces higher taxes, long waits for specialized services, lower service quality, impersonal relationships between doctors and patients, and rationed health care in certain cases.

The U.S. health care system is, in many ways the best in the world, but still has serious flaws.  There is insufficient competition in many areas of health care service, choice, and delivery such as pharmaceutical drugs, the ability to buy insurance across state lines, the shocking absence of electronic record keeping, and considerable waste in health care practices that can ruin families finances.  My brother and I are having to confront our parents declining health by working with an incoherent Medicare program that does not encourage individuals and families to save their money and effectively requires them to spend down their financial resources before they can become eligible for Medicare, Medicaid, and other governmental health programs even if they have been wise stewards of their financial resources.  High malpractice costs for doctors are another problem which conservatives have been better at recognizing than liberals.  To many conservative critiques of Obama health care proposals are not addressing these realities and engaging in infantile bashing of Obamite reform proposals without offering credible substantive alternatives that address the real needs of everyday people.  Conservatives also need to address the reality of large numbers of uninsured people having to turn to emergency rooms as their sole medical care providers and need to support methods such as cooperatives that allow self-employed individuals and small businesses to purchase health insurance at affordable rates.  As a long-time member of a financial credit union, I'm a strong supporter of private sector cooperatives which are customer owned and provide more prudent financial management and effective oversight than commercial banks and insurance companies.

We need to place greater emphasis on disease prevention with particular emphasis on obesity, anti-smoking measures, and alcohol abuse which are major drivers of health care costs.  We also need to eliminate cosmetic surgeries unless they are required to repair damage caused by auto accidents or fires.  We also must face the realith that we will all EVENTUALLY DIE and quit clinging to the hope that more and better medical care or increased medical research funding for the disease du jour is the ultimate solution to our health care problems.  Individual need to be able to take existing insurance policies and be able to transfer them easily if they change jobs and those with preexisting conditions such as allergies (which I have) should not have to worry about losing insurance coverage becuase of these innate conditions.  Doctors and specialists need to do a better job or not ordering unnecessary medical tests and medical schools need to place greater emphasis on training general practitioners and preventative health specialists instead of esoteric specialists such as cosmetic surgeons.

All sides in this debate need to recognized that nationalized health care has not effectively addressed health care problems in countries which have made that choice and that there are significant problems with the current U.S. health care system that cannot be resolved by relying on market forces alone or rhetorical incantations against socialized medicine.  Individuals should communicate with their congressional representatives constructive suggestions for improving our health care system which can include stories of problems and successes they have had with their own medical care.  They should also actually try reading the text of proposed legislation submitted by all participants in this debate instead of relying on distorted media or interest group interpretations of these proposals.

Our private sector health insurance system, including employer provided health insurance, needs to be encouraged to make positive reforms to expand access to this system.  Infantile class warfare bashing of insurance companies is counterproductive and only furthers the agenda of leftist class warriors.  Developing truly effective health care reform will take several years and involve multiple choices for consumers.  It will not be achieved within the narrow parameters of presidential political priorities or the constraints of two year congressional legislative sessions.  It must produce real reductions in medical costs for individual and families, not deter physicians for pursuing medical careers, and not increase the federal deficit or national debt.

The U.S. Senate appears to be on the verge of passing "hate crime" legislation which would allow gender identity and so-called "sexual preference" to be included in the list of factors to be considered in prosecuting and punishing violent crimes against individuals.  "Hate crimes" entered the criminal justice lexicon and the fevered ideals of liberals and gay rights activists following the 1998 murder of gay University of Wyoming student Matthew Shepard who has become the "martyred saint" of the leftist sexual identity movements  Shepard's murder was a tragic incident which, like other murders and violent assaults, can be prosecuted under a wide variety of federal and state legislation.  His murder and murders like it should be plain and simple death penalty cases.

Unfortunately, that's not enough for Harry Reid and other gender and sexual identity sycophants.  This legislation would essentially require prosecutors to factor in extraneous factors in their efforts to prosecute and convict violent criminals which would drive up legal costs in order to meet the leftist rage for retributive ideological justice.  Those of us not subscribing to their ideological sense of victimhood could have our free speech, thought, and religious liberties endangered if we are not subservient to their world view that gays or other members of favored minority groups deserve special legal treatment if they are victims of violent crimes because they have "special status".  Isn't being a human being sufficiently important?  It's very easy to imagine that the "hate crimes" advocates would then seek to regulate speech that does not adhere to the liberal secularist worldview on issues of gender and sexual behavior.  Is this the change you wanted when you voted for Obama and an increased Democratic Congress?

Another exceptionally despicable tactic used by Reid in this legislation is including it as part of the annual defense authorization legislation.  Our troops fighting wars in Afghanistan and Iraq need to have legislation that will actually assist them in their efforts and our defense forces need to have legislation providing them with the equipment and financial support necessary for them to carry out their multifaceted missions.  They don't need irrelevant and insidious leftist social engineering riders attached to defense spending legislation.  Liberalism can become further entrenched through innocuous and insidious legal, legislative, judicial, and regulatory means that are difficult to uproot once planted.  This "hate crimes" legislation is a perfect example of this process.

Alaska's Governor Sarah Palin's rambling unfocused resignation speech and decision to resign are truly disappointing.  I was excited by her emergence on the national stage last year and by how she energized grass roots conservatives.   She should have at least finished her gubernatorial term to augment her public policy accomplishments and not whined about being a "lame duck."  In a Nov. 25, 2008 posting to this blog, I urged her to take advantage of the intellectual expertise available from a wide swath of conservative political and intellectual figures to augment her substantive understanding of political and public policy issues facing this country.  I hope she follows through on the opportunity to consult with the high caliber intellectual capital conservatives have at their disposal in our academic institutions, public policy research institutions, companies, Congress, and Governors such as Indiana's Mitch Daniels and Louisiana's Bobby Jindal.

Palin, to her credit, did seek to go out and promote a conservative vision at many political events across the country, but it may have occurred at the expense of her conscientiously seeking to fill her considerable gubernatorial responsibilities.  Unfortunately, Palin never seemed to progress beyond familiar sound bites to offer credible public policies that would appeal to individuals beyond the conservative base.  She also, sadly, decided to play the role of victim whenever she or her family was confronted by adverse press coverage or criticism from popular culture comedians.  David Letterman's comments about Palin's daughter and New York Yankeee baseball player Alex Rodriguez were beyond the pale, but Palin shouldn't have wasted her energy worrying about ephemeral late night comedian wisecracks.

I also suspect being the mother of several children and worrying about them took a physical and emotional toll on Palin as well.  Having her family in the news in unhelpful ways, as evidenced by daughter Bristol's teenage pregnancy, was not helpful to her political aspirations and message and demonstrates that the more children you have the greater potential there is for disruption to personal and GOP political objectives.  This may be unpopular with some segments of conservative Christendom but that is the case.  Palin's charismatic Christianity with its acute emphasis on emotional displays of faith also alienated individuals who are not from the conservative base, allowed secularists to continue their practice of ridiculing Christians as intellectual lightweights, and reinforced the beliefs and rhetoric of leftist feminazis that only secularist pro-abortion women are entitled to participate in national political debate and the governmental process.  For articulate conservative women to play prominent roles in national political debate and governmental policymaking, conservative Christianity must abandon the heretical belief that women are only suited to be wives and mothers and recognize that they have innate God-given talents and intelligence that demands they participate in the political process to offer constructive and substantive alternatives to the liberal and secularist ethos of unrestricted abortion, gay marriage, the diversity cult, and pernicious vision of women as pathetic victims of an alleged misogynist patriarchal hegemony!

I hope Palin does some serious soul-searching in the months to come and decides to play an intellectually constructive  role in the GOP's efforts to oppose the Obama Administration's dangerously misguided social, domestic economic, and national security policies.  To do so, Palin must abandon the victim mentality and prove herself to be an intellectually coherent and emotionally stable and resilient figure who communicates a clear and credible message of conservative opportunity that can appeal to open-minded nonconservatives and who doesn't give a rip if her message is attacked by secularist apparatchiks and other liberal opponents.  She should "man up" and emulate the examples of successful conservative women leaders as varied as Margaret Thatcher and Jeanne Kirkpatrick and quit whining when there is incoming flak from liberal artillery.

Iranian "President" Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, also known as the swarthy shaggy runt, has demanded that "President" Obama apologize for his relatively mild condemnation of Ahmadinejad's fraudulent reelection and the harsh reaction of Iranian security forces to demonstrators protesting this election.  Since Obama's efforts to "engage" the theocratic mullah regime have failed miserably, Obama should have the sense to tell Ahmadinejad to take his apology demand and shove up his rectum.  Then Obama should have the guts to tell the mullah regime that the U.S. was right to overthrow Mossadeq's secularist nationalism regime in 1953 because that government was composed of incompetent socialists who would have ruined Iran's economy and been susceptible to Soviet subversion, that we were right to support the Shah, that  we should apologize to the Iranian people for not supporting the Shah more forcefully against Khomeini, that we were right to use our embassy in Iran to gather information on terrorist subversives such as those running Iran's government, that we were right to try to rescue our hostages from the Tehran embassy in April 1980 even though our rescue attempt was bungled, that we are right to provide any assistance we can to individuals and organizations who seek to build a better life for the Iranian people against the theocratic regime, and that we are right to try and stop Iran's nuclear weapons program and that we are willing to work with any other country or group of countries, including Israel, to do whatever it takes to prevent these deranged mullahs from having their hands on the nuclear trigger.

I doubt "Messiah Obama" and his advisors have the cojones to take any of these actions, but recent events in Iran make it clear that there is no constructive basis for any kinds of negotiations with this regime and we should do whatever we can to encourage the rise of opposition elements favorably disposed to us that can one day overthrow this bloodthirsty theocratic gang and give the Iranian people the chance to reach their optimum potential.

The turmoil following Iran's "election" has been interesting to watch.  Any discomfort for Ahmadinejad and his Islamist galoots is to be welcomed.  We don't know how widespread this unrest is.  Does it only cover more liberal elites in Tehran or has it reached to other Iranian cities or even the countryside.  If it reaches Ahmadinejad's peasant base than the bearded holocaust denier could be toast.  Opposition leader Hossein Mousavi is not a western liberal Democrat who would be welcome in Georgetown or Manhattan's Upper EAst side salons with Obama and our chattering classes.  He's just a less obnoxious version of the Khomeini revolution who keeps a neat beard and some semblance of sartorial decency unlike Ahmadinejad.  Mousavi is a creature of the Islamic Republic having been a Prime Minister during the 1980s and even if we were to come to power through some miraculous upheaval, he would not pursue radically different policies.

This is a regime that will continue seeking to cut off Iranians contact with the outside world so it can engage in Tiananmien Square style crackdowns against the young people who despise it.  These young people, thanks to the Internet and satellite television, know how far behind Iran is in terms of economic development and social equality for women.  There numbers are growing and it's possible that at some point in the future they may be able to overthrow the Khomeini created Islamist gangsta regime which has squandered their oil wealth through a disastrous war with Iraq, trying to build a dangerous nuclear weapons capability, and supporting Islamist terrorists in far flung locales.  It would be nice if Iran used its human capital and significant historical cultural legacy to build a moderate Western oriented quasi-democratic state that didn't adhere to infantile ideological animosity toward Israel and the U.S.  It would take a couple of decades of religious and intellectual reengineering for that to happen.

Obama and other western leaders will make the usual impotent denunciations of this election fraud but will be unwilling to take steps that would make the Iranians hurt like freeze Iranian assets or fund covert action against the ayatollah's regime such as damaging Iran's antiquated petroleum infrastructure.  The regime probably has a better than 50/50 chance of surviving and becoming more emboldened which will increase the possibility that we and the Israelis will need to take military action to destroy the nascent Iranian nuclear arsenal.
Obama is slowly finding out that his promises of new engagement and dialogue with this terrorist regime are being rebuffed and that U.S.a and regional Mideast security are in further jeopardy because of his appalling naivete.

Former Vice-President Dick Cheney is spot on in his defense of Bush Administration antiterror policies.  Although there were flaws in the execution of aspects of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, these policies have succeeded in keeping the U.S. free from subsequent terrorist attacks.  I am particularly heartened to see Cheney's stout defense of waterboarding as an interrogation tactic.  Time is of the essence in intelligence work and you frequently need to act quickly to be able to extract actionable intelligence from terrorists, their collaborators, and synthesizers.  We are not dealing with choir boys who want to sing Kum By Yah.  We continually forget that we are dealing with sadistic monsters who want to kill hundreds or thousands of non-Islamists "infidels" in a single act in the fallacious belief that they will inherit heavenly virgins as a reward.  We also forget that these individuals want to impose an autocratic Taliban-like regime over the entire world.  This is not a esoteric philosophic debate conducted in a pristine academic conference hall.  It is an existential struggle between freedom and an centuries old form of tyranny which seeks to use our open society and the multiple characteristics of 21st century telecommunication technology to advance its objectives.

I only wish Cheney, former President Bush, and other Bush Administration officials had made more vociferous defenses of their policies against the pygmy brained Obamaites during the 2008 campaign and earlier.  While that might not have been enough to keep the election from swinging to the Democrats given the lamentable state of our economy, it would have heartened the conservative base and reinforced the inclination of some swing voters to not take a chance of Barack Obama's empty "change you can believe in" rhetoric.  Unfortunately, antiterrorism policies being pursued by the Obama Administration, if they even merit the phrase "antiterrorism policies", are little more than pathetic attempts to appease Islamist terrorists and the loony left of the Democratic Party, and are daily increasing the possibility of another terrorist attack or attacks within the U.S. which will produce higher casualties than 9/11's attackers ever dreamed of.