Civilization Versus Barbarism

Last week, the prime minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu stepped to the podium at the United Nations and did the unthinkable for that collection of pimps, thieves, killers and pirates.

He told the truth.

This son of Holocaust victims, schooled in the United States, presides over a tiny spit of a country the size of Delaware. But that did not stop him from calling out the world's bullies who have made the UN a trade association for third world dictators, as I like to say.

In deeply calm voice he called BS on every Castro, Chavez, Khadafi, Arafat, Putin and Ahmadinejad who every sullied the place. Holding a 67-year old blueprint of the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp, he challenged every Holocaust denier who ever stood at that very podium.

Speaking directly of the Denier-in-Chief, Iran's Ahmadinejad, he spoke with a forceful clarity unknown to the General Assembly:

One-third of all Jews perished in the conflagration. Nearly every Jewish family was affected, including my own. My wife's grandparents, her father’s two sisters and three brothers, and all the aunts, uncles and cousins were all murdered by the Nazis. Is that also a lie?

Yesterday, the man who calls the Holocaust a lie spoke from this podium. To those who refused to come here and to those who left this room in protest, I commend you. You stood up for moral clarity and you brought honor to your countries.

But to those who gave this Holocaust-denier a hearing, I say on behalf of my people, the Jewish people, and decent people everywhere: Have you no shame? Have you no decency?

A mere six decades after the Holocaust, you give legitimacy to a man who denies that the murder of six million Jews took place and pledges to wipe out the Jewish state. What a disgrace! What a mockery of the charter of the United Nations!

Perhaps some of you think that this man and his odious regime threaten only the Jews. You're wrong. History has shown us time and again that what starts with attacks on the Jews eventually ends up engulfing many others.

And then, turning his sights to Islamic fanaticism and terrorism he said:

In the past thirty years, this fanaticism has swept the globe with a murderous violence and cold-blooded impartiality in its choice of victims. It has callously slaughtered Moslems and Christians, Jews and Hindus, and many others.

Though it is comprised of different offshoots, the adherents of this unforgiving creed seek to return humanity to medieval times. Wherever they can, they impose a backward regimented society where women, minorities, gays or anyone not deemed to be a true believer is brutally subjugated.

The struggle against this fanaticism does not pit faith against faith nor civilization against civilization. It pits civilization against barbarism, the 21st century against the 9th century, those who sanctify life against those who glorify death.

The primitivism of the 9th century ought to be no match for the progress of the 21st century. The allure of freedom, the power of technology, the reach of communications should surely win the day.

And the, challenging the UN itself, he questioned:

Will the international community confront a despotism that terrorizes its own people as they bravely stand up for freedom?

Will it take action against the dictators who stole an election in broad daylight and gunned down Iranian protesters who died in the streets choking in their own blood?

Will the international community thwart the world's most pernicious sponsors and practitioners of terrorism?

Above all, will the international community stop the terrorist regime of Iran from developing atomic weapons, thereby endangering the peace of the entire world?

The people of Iran are courageously standing up to this regime. People of goodwill around the world stand with them, as do the thousands who have been protesting outside this hall. Will the United Nations stand by their side?

Ladies and Gentlemen, The jury is still out on the United Nations, and recent signs are not encouraging.

Prime Minister left the General Assembly with this warning:

Over seventy years ago, Winston Churchill lamented what he called the "confirmed unteachability of mankind," the unfortunate habit of civilized societies to sleep until danger nearly overtakes them.

Churchill bemoaned what he called the "want of foresight, the unwillingness to act when action will be simple and effective, the lack of clear thinking, the confusion of counsel until emergency comes, until self-preservation strikes its jarring gong.”

I speak here today in the hope that Churchill's assessment of the "unteachability of mankind" is for once proven wrong. I speak here today in the hope that we can learn from history -- that we can prevent danger in time.

In the spirit of the timeless words spoken to Joshua over 3,000 years ago, let us be strong and of good courage. Let us confront this peril, secure our future and, God willing, forge an enduring peace for generations to come.

The American author John Steinbeck wrote in his epic novel East of Eden "We have only one story. All novels, all poetry, are built on the never-ending contest in ourselves of good and evil." Last week at the UN Benjamin Netanyahu confronted evil in that body and the evil in all of us--the unwillingness to act when action would be simple and effective, as Churchill said.
In doing so he showed a courage, an honesty and a goodness that is rare in diplomacy, and rarer still in the UN.

Just thought you might like to know.

Appointment in Samarra

President Obama appeared this weekend on five television networks to try and save his controversial healthcare initiative. He appeared on all networks, with one exception-Fox News. The radical left wing of the Democrat party that President Obama heads believes that Fox is biased against the president and its policies.

But what's wet for the cat is dry for the fish, goes the old Russian proverb. And what the socialist wing of the Democrat party sees as bias may be just good, old fashioned good journalism.


The job of a reporter is "to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable." President Obama and the hardcore left continue to see themselves as the victims in this debate (See my post from last week on Jimmy Carter.), deserving of comfort. They'd rather be comforted by the media from what they see as the affliction of talk radio and Fox News. I think most Americans want to hear reporters ask tough questions so they can get to the bottom of an issue that continues to polarize the country.


Mr. Obama thought he was going to be comforted, instead of afflicted, when he scheduled interviews with the broadcast networks. But he had his thinking rearranged when he sat down with former Clintonista George Stephanopoulos at ABC News. Take a look:

Stephanopoulos did what good journalists do: He saw an opening when the president equivocated about whether mandating insurance is a tax, and he went in for the kill. President Obama's handlers will try and paint this as "gotcha" journalism, but it was good, clean reporting. It was the President who came across as defensive, surprised, glib, and condescending at the notion that Stephanopoulos would have the gall to back him into a corner on the issue of taxes.

We've reached a new low in this country when a president tries to control information by restricting who can have access to him. Presidents Johnson, Nixon, Carter, Reagan, Clinton and the Bushes all confronted their accusers at one time or another. This is another example of how President Obama is ill advised and lacks the instincts and experience to make good choices in how he deals with the American people.

Like the fabled Appointment in Samarra, President Obama fled from one marketplace of ideas, Fox News, only to meet his fate-the devil, in the form of George Stephanopoulos-in another.

Just thought you might like to know.

They Don't Build 'em Like They Used To

They don't build them like they used to. I wish I had a buck for everytime some old timer said that to me. Now I'm the old timer. I wish I had a buck for ever time I said it.

As a car guy, I really know they don't build them like they used to. A 1970 Mustang Boss 302 Fastback. A 1931 Ford Five Window Coupe. A 1936 Chrysler Airflow. A 1936 Packard 120. 1961 Jaguar E-Type. Cars that should be in the Museum of Modern Art. In fact, some of them are.

But what about safety? Sure, modern cars have safety belts and air bags and crumple zones. But what about heft? The fenders of a 1918 Buick could take a hit. You can bend the fender of a 2008 Buick by hand.

Surely a 90 year quest to make a modern car lighter, faster and more fuel efficient has taken its toll on safety. Well, actually, no. The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety decided to test the theory. They put their vaunted Crash Test Dummies behind the wheels of a 1959 Chevy Bel Air and a 2009 Chevy Malibu. Take a look:



The 50-year old Bel Air is a land yacht. And still it's amazing to watch the lighter, smaller Malibu penetrate the engine compartment, pop the windshield, shear off the top and put the hurt on the Dummy. The Malibu's driver on the other hand would have a good story to tell, but would probably be in one piece to tell it.

So the next time some gasbag like me says they don't make 'em like they used to, remember: That's probably a good thing!

Just thought you might like to know.

There He Goes Again

 The hapless Jimmy Carter is at it again. He recently said in  an interview with state-run media that the opposition to President Barack Obama's healthcare fiasco is racially motivated. Take a look:

I have no doubt that some of the opposition to President Obama is racially motivated. I have no doubt that a lot of it is. But I know that the vast majority of it is not. It is motivated by the fact that millions of people oppose the president's policies, not because of the color of his skin, but because his policies are ill-advised, out of step with America, and doomed to failure.

Like most card-carrying Leftists, President Carter misses this point. Worse than that, the man who is generally regarded as among the worst of the 44 presidents has inflamed the racial patterns that Barack Obama was supposed to heal. This is another one of Jimmy Carter's ham-handed attempts to make himself relevant and rehabilitate his reputation. This from a man whose view of the world was recently endorsed by Osama bin Laden.

What the ex-president has tried to do is to turn the perp into the victim. President Obama's first eight months has included an $800 billion stimulus package which barely moved the needle on the economy, nationalization of the auto industry, continuing huge bailouts of big banks, a record deficit, a healthcare bill bogged down in partisan bickering, and a stalemate in Afghanistan with guys that don't even wear shoes. There's a long way to go in his term, but right now he's challenging Pres. Carter's record for ineptitude. 

So his answer to Mr. Obama's failures so far is to blame white people. The same white people, by the way, who savaged Mr. Carter when he bumbled through the White House. 

The real reason behind the Obama criticism isn't the color of his skin. It's the fact that he is academic, urban professional disconnected from the rest of America. Barack Obama has little contact with middle America. He has little understanding of middle America. And, frankly,  in his speeches on healthcare and his fly-by appearances at town hall meetings, he's shown he has little respect for middle America.

But a failed ex-president and one-term Southern governor from four decades ago has decided to play the race card in hope of rehabilitating his own reputation and making himself relevant. Sorry, Jimmy, it's going to work about as well as gas rationing and turning off the lights on the White House Christmas tree did.

The last Southern governor who so blatantly played the race card was George Wallace. The only difference between George Wallace and Jimmy Carter is that George Wallace had a better tan.

Just thought you might like to know.

Welcome to Drunk Dorm

If socialized healthcare, wealth redistribution and peace-at-any-cost rallies haven't convinced you that the 1960s are back in style, those latte-swilling city fathers in Seattle have a surprise for you.

Seattle has a problem with homelessness. The city faces the same recession we all do. Homelessness is one consequence of tough times. So is alcoholism. So, how does the Left solve this problem? Reduce taxes so that citizens keep more of their own money? No. Find homeless alcoholics the counseling and medical care they need? No. Help these people overcome their alcoholism? Nah. That's all so '80s.

The answer is to use $11 million in tax dollars to build 75 apartment units in a swanky neighborhood for the use of homeless alcoholics. The tenants get use of a new apartment for three months of free rent, heavily subsidized thereafter, counseling, an on site nurse and a mental health professional. Here's the best part: The alcoholics are free to drink as much alcohol as they want on the premises. No responsibility whatsoever to contribute to the improvement in their lives.

While the limousine liberal set in Seattle thinks this is swell, the developers of a brand new Marriott Spring Hill Suites next door aren't as sure. About half of the rooms in the new hotel will look down on the new drunk tank. Conservative yakker Michael Medved is all over this story.

The friend of Van Jones, Bill Ayers and the radical anti-American cleric Jeremiah Wright has empowered this leftist vision of America. It is an America with no responsibility, no accountable, an American of one horizontal society rather than communities and families. I'm not bright enough to know whether alcoholism is a choice or a disease. I do know people who have conquered that demon with help and support from family, friends and counselors.

But the well-intentioned but dangerously naive people of Seattle are doing these people no favors. And along the way, they are disadvantaging countless citizens who are struggling to keep roofs over their families' heads-only to see their hard-earned money go towards putting a roof over someone else's head and enabling their addiction.

Once again the Left has picked the pockets of hard working, responsible men and women and distributed their pay to someone else.

The problem with socialism, said Margaret Thatcher, is that eventually you run out of other people's money.

We're fast approaching that point.

Just thought you might like to know.

2722

With a right elbow tucked closely to his body and a quick flick of his wrists, Derek Jeter last night pushed a ball into right field--his trademark--and broke a baseball record that had stood for 72 years. With that hit Jeter has become the all-time hit leader of the New York Yankees--no mean feat on a 106-year old team that's known a hitter or two over that time period.

Perhaps more importantly to most baseball fans, along the way Jeter has set records for style, class and grace. This at a time when some teammates, let's face it, we're exhibiting behavior more at home with the Oakland Raiders than the most storied franchise in sports history.

Jeter's hit broke a record that had been held since 1939 by the gifted Lou Gehrig, who had the misfortune for many years to play second violin in a baseball orchestra conducted by Babe Ruth. In many ways Jeter and Gehrig are alike:

• Each was named captain of the Yankees--more than an honorific when you consider the team
• Both came from solid families that typified their eras: Gehrig from German immigrant parents who had come to New York to seek a better life; Jeter from a dual-income family of professionals in the American Midwest.
• Like Gehrig, Jeter is a quiet man in public, giving reporters no wisp of scandal or bulletin board fodder to feed to opposing teams. Over the years this firm quietude hurt both men. 
• Each displayed a blend of professionalism and determination on the field that is rare in sports. 

One big difference: To their credit the Yankees from the start were determined to avoid the mistake the team made with Gehrig, who toiled through his prime in the very large shadow of Babe Ruth. Just a few years after Ruth was cut loose to chase his dream of becoming a big league manager, Gehrig was tragically cut down by ALS. There was no doubt from 1996, when the Yankees gave the second most important field position on a baseball team to the 20-year old rookie from Kalamazoo to the present time, that this would be "Jeter's team."

Players who failed to grasp that concept found themselves ex-Yankees. When the Yankees gilded the lily and acquired Alex Rodriguez, arguably the best shortstop of his generation, Rodriguez signed on knowing that it was no deal unless he agreed to move to third base. Like a sandlot pickup game, shortstop was taken.

The Yankees are loved or hated by baseball fans because of their overarching sense of tradition, in a sport that has turned tradition into a $6 billion business. Fans see their team's sense of history as destiny. Opponents and their fans see it as smugness or worse. For good or bad there is always a sense of what it is to be a "Yankee." They are the only team with an Alumni Association. 

The Yankees' 1992 scouting report on the 18-year old high school player from Kalamazoo was short and to the point: He's a five-tool player. He's a Yankee.

Lou Gehrig has be shorn of two durable records: his record for consecutive games played by Cal Ripken, and his team leadership in hits by Jeter. It is ironic because while Jeter has a lot in common with Gehrig, he also has a lot in common with his contemporary Ripken:

• Both have been respected in opposing clubhouses as much as they've been in their own.
• Both share the same passion for excellence in baseball
• Both serve as role models to young baseball players and kids
• Both had an unparalleled flair for the dramatic
• Both exhibited the same class and professionalism on and off the field
• Both played for owners who were at times boorish and insensitive to the two team leaders

Ripken and Jeter, along with Rodriguez and Nomar Garciaparra, redefined the role of a shortstop on a team. Prior to their appearance in the major leagues, shortstop was typically manned by players nicknamed Pee Wee, Scooter or Rabbit--short, quick magicians known more for their gloves than their bats. Ripken and Jeter showed that six-foot tall three-sport athletes could get down on a ground ball as well as anyone, and could drive an offense as well. 

Baseball fans cherish the memory of Cal Ripken hitting a home run in his last All Star Game--like Gary Cooper riding off into the sunset. Over a long career, Jeter has exhibited a similar flair for the dramatic:

• Running across the diamond to intercept an errant throw against Oakland in 2001 and flipping it in one motion like a basket ball player to his catcher Jorge Posada, preserving a desperately needed playoff win
• An extra inning walk-off home run against Arizona in 2001 to preserve the World Series hopes for New Yorkers still reeling from 9-11
• Recklessly diving into the stands for a foul pop up against Boston in 2004 while the two teams were locked yet again in another steel cage death match pennant race 

Despite these accomplishments, Jeter prefers to be better known as a philanthropist. His Turn 2 Foundation is dedicated to promoting healthy lifestyles among youngsters. In New York, in Tampa and in Michigan, it has awarded over $10 million in grants for initiatives that promote its goals. 

Derek Jeter is a surefire Hall of Famer. But perhaps his greatest legacy may be his foundation work. 

*   *   *   *   *

An epilogue: In passing Lou Gehrig last night, Jeter was very modest and respectful of Lou Gehrig--almost overwhelmed by the event. But despite being dispossessed of two of the more enduring records in the game, Gehrig still owns a record that I think will outlive the game itself. 

In 1938 Lou Gehrig was battling the full blown symptoms of ALS, the disease that would soon take his life. Yet despite the illness, the Iron Horse managed to play in 157 games. He amassed 170 hits--better than a hit a game. He did strike out 75 times, the second highest number of Ks in one season in his career. But he poled 29 home runs and drove in 114 runs. Incredibly, a man who could not dress himself without assistance from his teammates and had trouble walking, stole 6 bases! He ended the season hitting .295--his second lowest batting average of his career, but remarkable for a man who would be dead in a couple of years. .295, 29 homers and 170 RBIs gets players MVP consideration today. 

No wonder they called him the Iron Horse!

Just thought you might like to know.

If at First You Don't Succeed...

Saw an interesting poster in my daughter's ethics classroom last night. It was captioned: "If at First You Don't Succeed...You're in Good Company." The poster went on to detail the failures of some pretty notable people-four presidents of the United States. Consider that:

• Abraham Lincoln's first try at business was a dry goods store that went belly-up. He was later appointed postmaster of a small town, but on his watch it was the most inefficient in the county. His final federal job would end more successfully, albeit tragically: saving the Union as president of the United States.
• Franklin D. Roosevelt flunked out of law school, later turning to public service as assistant secretary of the Navy, governor of New York and president of the United States.
• Dwight D. Eisenhower was rejected three times for command positions in the Army. In 1942 he finally got a command appointment: Supreme Allied Commander. He was the man in charge of the D-Day Invasion. In 1953 voters gave him the ultimate command appointment: president of the United States.
• Harry Truman at age 35 saw his haberdashery plunge into bankruptcy. In a foreshadowing of the plucky character he would later demonstrate in Washington, he spent the next 15 years doggedly paying off his debts. In 1945 he brought World War II in for a safe landing. As president of the United States.

Success is not final and failure is not fatal, said Churchill. These four presidents who knew both were part of the two most enduring quests for freedom: the American Civil War and World War II. All were lightly regarded at one time or another, yet all four today are deeply admired and respected. Their failures, as Churchill said, were not fatal. And their successes indeed live on today.

Just thought you might like to know.

Uncle Knows Best

In all the rhetoric swirling around the national healthcare debate, one story out of New England has gone virtually unnoticed. Time to shine a light on it.


State judge Lucinda Sadler has ruled that a ten-year old girl can no longer be home-schooled, but must attend public school because of what the judge calls the "rigidity" of her mother's religious views. The judge feels that the ten-year old should be exposed to other "worldviews."


Let's, for a moment, leave aside the supreme irony of a judge remanding a student to public school to learn about religious beliefs other than her own.


What Judge Sadler has done is substitute the state's guidance for the parents. The girls parents do not share the same religious views. That is an issue for family counseling or mediation. It is not an invitation for the state to cast aside the custodial parent's judgment in favor of its own. This is taking in loco parentis too far. As Phyllis Schlafly once said, liberals know that if they can win the battle over what's taught in school, they can win the political war at the ballot box.


Where do we go from here when judges set themselves up as religious arbiters? I cop to knowing nothing of the mother's "extreme" religious views. But what happens the next time a parent stands before Judge Sadler or any New Hampshire judge bound by the precedent the judge has just set? Suppose the offending parent is Roman Catholic and believes that she is drinking the blood of Jesus Christ during her main religious ceremony, the Eucharist? Does that make her an extremist in the eyes of the court? Should her parental rights be infringed in some way? How about if the offending parent is Muslim and observes the strict fasting period during Islam's holiest month, Ramadan? Would the judge order the family hooked up to IV bags for lack of nutrition? Jews near the end of September will observe Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, when Jewish oral tradition has long proscribed such things as the wearing of leather shoes, annointing with perfumes or lotions and engaging in sexual relations. Sounds a little extreme to me.


Liberals like Lucinda Sadler shake their heads and tisk-tisk when they see things like raucous healthcare town hall meetings or tax-cutting "tea parties." They are oblivious to the anger welling up in American communities over government arrogance, as Cal Thomas puts it. This arrogance includes public healthcare policy rammed down the throats of Americans, taxes used as an weapon in class politics, and judges who abrogate parental rights.


The irony in all this: the state motto of New Hampsire: Live free or die.


Just thought you might like to know.

The John Adams Project

Few things shock me anymore, but last night one did. Fox News ran a story on an outfit called the John Adams Project. The John Adams Project is a concoction of the American Civil Liberties Union and a group calling itself the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. The Project"s goal: to out CIA agents engaged in the war on terror, placing them and their families' lives in mortal peril. Take a look:

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The ACLU has a long and spotty record open to public inspection. If you're not familiar with the NACDL one look at their legislative agenda will tell you about all you need to know:

• They continue to press for the right to sue telecom companies whose lines were legally tapped to gain valuable insight into terrorist operations overseas
• They oppose sex offender registration and community notification laws
• They supported the Gang Abatement and Prevention Act of 2007 which sought to replace tough enforcement of anti-gang laws with--you guessed it--throwing more tax dollars at the problem

So it's no surprise that these two far left groups have hooked up. The incoherence of their mission was summed up by Ms. Ginsburg in her impromptu Fox interview:

• She first denies that she was involved in the Project, then speaks intimately of its activities
• She denies the accusation (that they are putting the lives in danger) and instead blames the victims (the agents) saying that it is they who are putting the lives of soldiers in danger
• She denies that their researchers are tracking down these agents, a statement belied by her knowledge of the situation
• She justifies the Project's actions, which may be illegal (disclosing the identities of clandestine agents), on the grounds that the Justice Department won't disclose the details of the enhanced interrogation techniques used in the aftermath of 9-11, even though the actions of the agents have been examined and reexamined over the last 8 years

Perhaps most troubling of all, Ms. Ginsburg says ironically that "people in this country have a right to defend themselves." How about the right of the agents to defend themselves? This group whose mission is defense isn't defending anyone; they are attacking a group of individuals who did their job according to the rules they were given at a time of unparalled crisis in the nation's history. The Adams Project is setting itself up as judge, jury and potentially executioner of these agents. To quote Justice Clarence Thomas, this is nothing but a high-tech lynching.

It's up to Attorney General Eric Holder to investigate whether the John Adams Project is breaking any laws. But the attorney general has already opened up yet another investigation into the enhanced interrogation techniques that took place after 9-11. It's doubtful he'll do anything. If he wanted to act in the interest of fairness, he'd have the special prosecutor look into the John Adams Project while he's looking into enhanced interrogation for the 99th time. But don't hold your breath. 

The most upsetting aspect of this situation is that groups like the John Adams Project feel emboldened enough to take the law into their own hands. This is the political climate we now have in this country. We've become a country of intolerance on the left and on the right. When a group of militant, self-righteous lawyers ginned up by a Messianic fervor can violate someone's rights with impunity we as a country have lost our moral compass.

Just thought you might like to know.

School Daze

I think the point is missed in this whole dust-up over President Obama's Back-to-School speech this noon.

Few people would question President Obama's right to deliver an address on education to the people closest to the subject: students. Few people would question any president's right to address specific segments of the population. The president recently addressed veterans via the VFW convention. He addressed Organized Labor via an AFL-CIO convention. Presidents have a right and, frankly, an obligation, to address their citizens, whether they are middle-aged industrialists or teenagers in school.

Presidents including both H.W. Bush and his son, Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan have all met with and addressed students. Few remember that George Bush was in Florida, reading to elementary school children as part of a literacy push, when the first plane hit the World Trade Center.

But this is yet another controversy of this president's own making. First, it is stunning how the team of advisers who delivered the White House to him with tight messaging, adept use of social media, and great public relations could suddenly turn out to be so tone deaf to the American people. It's not the stay-in-school theme that has people upset. It was the "Big-Brother-knows-everything-so-let-him-explain-it-to-you" lesson plan that was supposed to accompany it that angered the American people.

This American president, for someone who is supposed to be so bright, knows very little about Americans. If he did he would know that in matters of learning, parents consider themselves, not professional educators, and certainly not federal bureaucrats, to be their children's first and best teachers. Maybe in President Obama's Euro-world view education is the province of central planners. But in this country education takes place in the home and in the neighborhood schoolhouse.

Second, and maybe more troubling, is this president's tendency to always want to do the "great" thing. It's not enough to inject federalism into an ailing economy in the form of tax breaks. No, we have to have the high drama of midnight congressional sessions to pass a $787 billion "stimulus" plan. Tax breaks would have been more immediate (We've only seen 7% of the stimulus money; tax breaks would have been in people's pockets in two weeks.), but not as "great."

It's passing on the chance at bi-partisan, true healthcare reform for the chance to remake the healthcare system for all time.

Iin this case, if President Obama really wanted to shine the spotlight on education, spending a day at a DC-area high school would have gotten the job done. Hold an assembly. Maybe find an American history class, and help teach it that day. Eat lunch in the cafeteria with students. He would have gotten just as much press, but it would have been more positive.

But that wasn't big enough, or great enough. Instead, we have this need to wire up every school in America to show how technologically hip we are. Again, tonal deafness. Where the President and his Beltway Band saw the chance to deliver an education message grander and greater than any president before him, the American people saw it as a metaphor for a presidency that wants to control every aspect of American life from the Oval Office.

It's this need to be great without having earned the reputation that is so troubling to most Americans. Great things are accomplished by a lot of hard work on the little details, something this president does not seem be particularly adept at.

Some men are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them, wrote Shakespeare.

"Some men are born great, some men achieve greatness, and some hire public relations officers," quipped historian Daniel Boorstin. He must have been thinking of Barack Obama.

Just thought you might like to know.

The American Crucible

There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn't an American at all. We can have room for but one flag, the American flag....We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language, for we intend to see that the crucible turns out people as Americans, of American nationality, and not dwellers in a polyglot boarding house, and we have room for but one sole loyalty, and that loyalty is to the American people."

Who said that? If you were to answer Pat Buchanan, Ron Paul, or Tom Tancredo, you would be wrong. The author of those words was the 26th president of the United States, Theodore Roosevelt, shortly before his death. And his words ring just as clearly today--maybe more so--than they did in 1919.

We've let the intelligentsia take this ethnic pride thing too far and equate it with nationality. I have nothing against ethic pride. As the grandson of immigrants I am extremely proud of my forebears and and my ethnicity. But have no doubts: I am an American first, last and everything in between. That's the way my grandparents would have wanted it. My mother and her siblings speaking Italian in public as kids earned a sharp slap from my immigrant grandfather. In 1943 my father's younger brother died when his plane crashed into the North Sea after an aborted bombing run on Germany.

Today most Americans don't even know the proper way to handle or treat the American flag, let alone fly it. Some adults don't even know the words to the Pledge of Allegiance. Youngsters have been taught in school that all countries are good, that nationality is a relative thing. Students are forced to take a foreign language, while foreign students can demand to be taught algebra and science in Spanish. My son, starting high school this September, must take Afro-Asian history before he ever takes American history.

 Liberals want to purge the phrase "illegal alien" from the English language and replace it with the politically correct "undocumented worker." Most infuriating are Mexican illegal aliens, who once disappeared into the shadows, now demonstrating brazenly in the streets of Los Angeles for the Reconquista"--the re-conquest and annexing by Mexico of the American Southwest.

This boldness is the result of 30 years of liberal influence by educators, lawmakers and the media, which have tried to reduce American pride to a quaint anachronism, like vaudeville or barbershop quartets.

This diminishing of American pride lies beneath our national paralysis over immigration policy. This paralysis is a standoff between left and right wing special interests and the American people. So says syndicated radio talker Laura Ingraham. The goal of immigration policy should be acculturation, the immersion of immigrants into our culture--to see, to taste and to feel what it is to be American. Immigrants must be lowered into the crucible of our culture and emerge as Americans. 

This is why the concept of a "guest worker" policy is abhorrent to me. It is demeaning and does nothing but create a "fifth column" in the U.S., which is not in our national interest. Theodore Roosevelt, 90 years ago, cautioned us that, "[n]ever under any condition should this Nation look at an immigrant as primarily a labor unit."

President Roosevelt continued, "[The immigrant] should always be looked at primarily as a future citizen and the father of other citizens who are to live in this land as fellows with our children and our children's children. Our immigration laws, permanent or temporary, should always be constructed with this fact in view."

People who come to this country legally or illegally to pick lettuce for 10 hours a day in 100 degree heat could teach most Americans a thing or two about work ethic. In return, we'll teach them the English language, our political system, and how to enjoy the blessings of liberty.

An immigration policy that fails to do this is a sham.

Just thought you might like to know.

Dog Day Afternoons

We've just finished the month of August--the dog days. Lots of heat and little relief. And that just about sums up President Obama's month as well. It was a tough summer for the 44th president. Take a look:

• Town hall meetings across the country, designed to let lawmakers show they were on top of the health care bill, erupted into acrimony as voters gave them an earful about the massive spending plan
• Voters used the healthcare issue as a springboard to air their grievances about a government that spends too much and does too little 
• The President's vaunted "cash for clunkers" program became a metaphor for an administration that can't seem to get anything right--much like Jimmy Carter's Rose Garden strategy in 1980 showed him to be just another hostage of Iran's mullahs
• Casualties in Afghanistan-the war Candidate Obama staked out as his-began to rise in the absence of any clear military strategy
• Attorney General Eric Holder stirred up a hornet nest by announcing a special investigation (yet another) into CIA interrogation techniques from 6 years ago-another Obama genuflection to his ideological base
• The FDIC, going broke after  a rash of bank failures this year, is looking for a GM-type bailout, a potential last straw for voters who are sick of hearing the word bailout.

You need to connect these dots to see what's happened to Barack Obama's presidency. In a couple of months he has managed to squander the enormous political capital built up in his amazing run to the White House. The Rassmussen Daily Presidential Tracking Poll this morning  has only 46% of Americans approving of his job performance.

The bad news is that it gets worse for the President in September. Congress reconvenes to pick up healthcare reform. After a summer of town hall meetings, Republicans are ready to move to the center on pre-existing conditions and other issues. Moderate Democrats are even looking at tort reform to get Republicans on board. That leaves the 20% or so of Americans who think of themselves as liberals and want Euro-health. So the President will have to decide whether he wants to be president of all the people of just cheerleader-in-chief for the radical left.

Similarly the President's own commander in Afghanistan ended August with a call for a new strategy. Will Barack Obama infuriate his political base and show the courage that George Bush did by calling  for an Iraq-like surge?

And to drive home the point about out-of-control federal spending, a coalition of conservative groups has ripped a page from the liberals' book and plans a massive march in Washington on September 12. 

In the absence of any White House leadership (Sorry, Mr. President, buzzing into a town hall meeting on the way to vacation is cheer leading, it's not nation leading) will Democrats use parliamentary tricks like reconciliation and simply ram a healthcare bill through the Capitol?

One gets the feeling that President Obama enjoyed the chase of running for president more than he enjoys actually being president. This autumn we may find out exactly how much more.

Just thought you might like to know.