April 29, 2007

"And Why the Sea is Boiling Hot, and Whether Pigs Have Wings"

Hatched by Dafydd

Just a small point to make in this story, which is mostly about a speech Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-Carpetbag, 95%) made to leftist activists in California.

I pass lightly over her fabrications about President Bush -- she seems to believe that Bush's people put up that "Mission Accomplished" sign on the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier in order to claim (prematurely) that the entire Iraq War was finished -- to commence taking victory laps. She is belied by Bush's speech itself, the transcript of which is readily available:

In the battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed. And now our coalition is engaged in securing and reconstructing that country.

We have difficult work to do in Iraq. We're bringing order to parts of that country that remain dangerous. We're pursuing and finding leaders of the old regime, who will be held to account for their crimes. We've begun the search for hidden chemical and biological weapons and already know of hundreds of sites that will be investigated. We're helping to rebuild Iraq, where the dictator built palaces for himself, instead of hospitals and schools. And we will stand with the new leaders of Iraq as they establish a government of, by, and for the Iraqi people.

The transition from dictatorship to democracy will take time, but it is worth every effort. Our coalition will stay until our work is done. Then we will leave, and we will leave behind a free Iraq.

He gave the speech, as its very words proclaim, to commemorate the end of "major combat operations" -- that is, the force-on-force part of the war; and indeed, he was accurate about that: The Iraqi Republican Guard was broken, Hussein's tank divisions were shattered, and his favorite palaces stood in ruins. His sons were dead, and he himself was on the run (he would be plucked from his "spider hole" on December 13th, 2003, and executed just three years later).

But the fact that Hillary Clinton is willing -- eager? -- to prevaricate to achieve her goals is hardly even news... so I won't even mention it. Forget I said anything; erase, erase, erase. This is, after all, the woman who claimed for years that she was named after Sir Edmund Hillary, the first man to climb Mount Everest... which he did when Ms. Clinton was five and a half years old -- conjuring up the charming image of a little girl with no name, awaiting some knight to perform a deed daring enough to finally supply her a moniker.

Instead, I want to focus for a moment on a statement made by John Edwards. This single sentence perfectly encapsulates the disordered thinking (in a clinical sense) of the Democrats:

Edwards, the 2004 vice presidential nominee, said the world needs to see that "America can be a force for good."

"What their perception is that America is a bully and we only care about our short-term interests," Edwards said. "The starting place is to end the bleeding sore that is the war in Iraq."

Let's pull that apart a bit. How can the Iraq war possibly be an example of America only caring about "our short-term interests?" What conceivable short-term interests could be found in going to war with Saddam Hussein and the Baathists?

  • If all we wanted was the oil -- which I suppose is the only feeble ratiocination that flickers like a birthday-cake candle in the oxygen-deprived brain of the former senator -- then why didn't we just cut a deal with the dictator, as France, Russia, and others did?

    If nothing else, Hussein had proven himself amenable to selling off oil leases at bargain rates to avoid being attacked by great powers. Or even France.

  • And if we didn't just want the oil... then whatever we did want, for good or for ill, is necessarily a long-term interest!

I'm tempted to say "that's so Edwards." But really, such mental confusion goes far beyond the politician known as the Pink Sapphire (formerly known as the Silky Pony). It has become almost canonical for Democrats to say, "Under the criminal Bush regime, A has occurred... and the first thing I'll do as president to fix that problem is B" -- where B is a complete non sequitur to A, of course.

Examples:

  • Under the criminal Bush regime, America's economy has completely tanked, and the the federal deficit is spiraling out of control, higher and higher every year. That's why, when I'm elected president, my very first order will be to completely divest America from all investments in Israel.
  • Under the criminal Bush regime, terrorism around the world and especially within our very own borders has skyrocketed since 9/11. When I'm president, I will take the necessary steps to safeguard our country... starting with a promise in writing to ensure that all Americans, regardless of skin color, have a level playing field when it comes to jobs, education, and government contracts.
  • Under the criminal Bush regime, our air has become unfit to breathe, our water unfit to drink, hundreds of children die of tobacco-related illnesses every day, and the earth's temperature has risen so high that most people now boil their eggs in their swimming pools. America needs a president who can actually solve our terrible environmental problems... and I pledge to you that my very first executive order, on January 20th, 2009, will be to establish a living wage that will provide a decent lifestyle to every American citizen, resident, transient, and bum -- regardless of race, color, national origin, or legal status.

Thus, it became clear to me several months ago that some clever entrepeneur has created Democratic speech-synthesizing software: The candidate (or rather, his campaign's computer consultant) enters his favorite stump-speech slogans, catch phrases, and pithy, rhyming sing-song into the database, along with the general themes of the campaign.

(This database is kept updated throughout the campaign; if a particular saying starts to be ridiculed on Jon Stewart's show, it can be replaced by something eerily similar but distinct enough to pass.)

When a talk is needed, the speechwriter selects the audience from a drop-down menu: Anti-war veterans, Militant gays, Unionistas, CAIR, La Raza, or NPR. Mousing over the "gasbag" icon pops up a menu with varying speech lengths: Sound Bite, Press Statement, Stump Speech, Commencement Ceremony, Denial of All Charges, and Multi-Hour Keynote Address.

Once the writer finishes selecting options, a full speech is randomly generated by stringing together poll-tested, trite-and-true phrases from the most recent (1998) edition of the Lexicon of Liberal Liturgies, spiced by selections from the candidate database -- and complete with the word "(Applause)" arbitrarily inserted after several of the paragraphs. (That last is for consumption by the elite media: They can count them and announce -- in advance -- that the speech was interrupted that many times for sustained hosannas.)

Nothing else could explain the bizarre periphrasis and linguistic contortion that litters the Democratic campaign trail like condoms after a gay-pride parade.

Hatched by Dafydd on this day, April 29, 2007, at the time of 2:02 PM

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Comments

The following hissed in response by: karrde

Good theory about that computer program. I don't know if I've seen it before, but it would explain a great deal.

The above hissed in response by: karrde [TypeKey Profile Page] at April 29, 2007 5:14 PM

The following hissed in response by: john the basset

Are Democrats capable of operating a computer? I mean, after all, computers are inherently logical devices.....
I really cannot Picture Edwards, Pelosi, Shrillery (insert Democrat name here ____________) being able to figure out how to turn it on, let alone operate one.
Really!

john
fear the drool, i am basset

The above hissed in response by: john the basset [TypeKey Profile Page] at April 29, 2007 7:15 PM

The following hissed in response by: snochasr

Now if you could simply explain why so many people seem to revel in this demo-drivel as if it were the Revealed Truth, we might be able to find an antidote or treatment for this epidemic of idiocy.

The above hissed in response by: snochasr [TypeKey Profile Page] at April 29, 2007 8:35 PM

The following hissed in response by: Steelhand

I have seen that sign aluded to in the comments field in mostly conservative blogs. Not by the usual muckraking trolls, but by leftists making the usual arguments, but doing so in a fairly respectful fashion.

Once the respectful troll is shot down by arguments, they feign disgust, "I came here for honest debate, and all you give me are talking points from your Bushco handlers."

My point being that there is a deliberate assault on truth that is in phase II. In the first phase, you repeat a lie over and over and over. Now we are in the, "Everybody knows" phase. As in everybody knows...the 16 words in th SOTU speech were a lie; everybody knows Bush is responsible for playing up Jessica Lynch; and everybody knows that the backdrop on the ship was Bush declaring a "premature" victory.

There are a lot of other everybody knows stories out there, and they will probably be in a history book some day as facts.

The above hissed in response by: Steelhand [TypeKey Profile Page] at April 30, 2007 4:17 AM

The following hissed in response by: Rovin

Thus, it became clear to me several months ago that some clever entrepeneur has created Democratic speech-synthesizing software:

So, if there's a glitch in the software do we get:

1) Gore to admit he didn't invent the internet?

2) Kerry to admit Cambodia wasn't in the tour guide?

3) Hillary to admit her "twang" is in the genes?

4) Dirty Harry (Reid) to admit he's rooting for Al-Qaeda?


The above hissed in response by: Rovin [TypeKey Profile Page] at April 30, 2007 7:36 AM

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