What I’m Reading Instead of Working

Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me: Ed Morrissey notes that the Iraqis remember the 1991 bugout very well.

If we betray them a second time, don’t expect a third welcome. They already mistrust our honor after the 1991 bug-out that left them in the hands of Saddam Hussein. And it won’t just be the Iraqis who watch whether we keep our word; the Afghanis, the Saudis, the Jordanians all will take note of another retreat — and they will make their deals with radical Islamist terrorists accordingly.

If and when Fox News ever tries to have another comedy show, all they really need is Frank J doing a standup routine much like this post.

If bitter people are clinging to guns, don’t we need a president whose smart enough not to upset them?

Jay Tea smacks around the illiberal left, who correctly believe that a draft is the best way to cripple the military. More illiberalism: castration is hilarious, making fun of people who think so, not so much. I was reminded of this verse:

Like a madman who throws firebrands, arrows, and death is the man who deceives his neighbor and says, “I am only joking!”
(Proverbs 26:18-19)

At Pajamas Media, Abe Greenwald writes,

In fact, with sharia being rejected in Iraq and embraced in, say, London, it seems the “Arab spring” may work out just fine; it’s the Western fall that we have to worry about.

It reminded me of Ed Hussain’s book The Islamist. Here’s a quote from Ed from a previous post about that book:

All my talk of ummah seemed so juvenile now. It was only in the comfort of Britain that Islamists could come out with such radical utopian slogans as one government, one ever expanding country, for one Muslim nation. The racist reality of the Arab psyche would never accept black and white people as equal. …Racism was an integral part of Saudi society. My students often used the word “nigger” to describe black people. Even dark-skinned Arabs were considered inferior to their lighter-skinned cousins. I was living in the world’s most avowedly Muslim country, yet I found it anything but. I was appalled by the imposition of Wahhabism in the public realm, something I had implicitly sought as an Islamist. … My time in Saudi Arabia bolstered my conviction that an austere form of Islam (Wahhabism) married to a politicised Islam (Islamism) is wreaking havoc in the world. This anger-ridden ideology, an ideology I once advocated, is not only a threat to Islam and Muslims, but to the entire civilised world.

I was wrong. There seems to be two Americas after all:

Half of American taxpayers will pay 97 percent of the individual income taxes the government will collect for 2008, according to IRS data. The other half will pay little or nothing, yet receive billions in benefits in the form of cash, subsidies, “free” services and other benefits, and loans. There are indeed “Two Americas,” but the two aren’t the rich and poor, but taxpayers and tax consumers. It’s going to get even tougher for the taxpayers in the near future, thanks to legislation being readied by Democrats who control Congress.

I spent a little time in the wrong America back when I was pregnant, widowed and on welfare. But I’ve been on the “pay” side more than long enough to make up for it. I’m in favor of a limited safety net welfare system, just not the welfare lifestyle – and it’s high time we redefined what “poverty” means, in any event.

Finally, Jimmy Carter raises the stakes in the “worst ex-president” contest. I doubt that Bill Clinton could ever catch him, no matter how much taxpayer money he blows through or what lies he tells on behalf of his wife, but evidently Carter wanted some insurance. So he decided to go snuggle up to his terrorist buddies again, who surely like him a great deal better than the average American does. Israel has declined to play along. Now, while I’d admit to some exceedingly guilty schadenfreude if he were kidnapped and/or killed either via beheading or just being in Sderot at the wrong time, I do ultimately side with Ed Morrissey on this one:

Jimmy Carter may be the worst ex-president in American history, but he is still our ex-president, and the Secret Service detail that accompanies him deserves Israeli cooperation.

Well, back to work.