Jonah Goldberg Quote of the Day.

Jonah Goldberg is a conservative syndicated columnist. And he's very quotable. So I will occassionally dig up Jonah Goldberg quotes for the pleasure of the three people who read this blog. Enjoy!

"Take the two leading liberal columnists at the New York Times, Maureen Dowd and Paul Krugman. As we all know, one's a whining self-parody of a hysterical liberal who lets feminine emotion and fear defeat reason and fact in almost every column. The other used to date Michael Douglas."

Ann Coulter is viciously funny.

This was part of an exchange on Hannity & Colmes last night. The guests in this segment were Michael Reagan and Ann Coulter. I found the exchange incredibly humorous:

COLMES: Michael, I want to ask you something you just said about Dick Durbin which was really unfair. You're accusing democrats of being against him (John Roberts) because of their religion, that is outrageous that you would even suggest that. Dick Durbin is a Catholic, Patrick Leahy is a Catholic, and he never said there was a litmus test. He in fact asked the same question John Cornyn asked, whether he could separate his personal believes in what the constitution says, and (UNINTELLIGIBLE)

REAGAN: Alan...

COLMES: That suggests that democrats are just people because of their faith.

REAGAN: Alan, I wrote an op-ed piece, interesting, over a week ago and it'scoming to play out pretty well, that the Democrats will accept him if he becomes a bad Catholic. See, now...

COLMES: Now, that's ridiculous.

REAGAN: A bad Catholic. But they will not take a good Catholic. I'm sorry, but that's a fact...

COLMES: A good Catholic, according to whom? Do you determine what a good Catholic is?

REAGAN: A good Catholic, according to the Catholic Church, how about that? Ask Schulman, you're neighbor.

COLMES: Well, I'm not one to tell people whether they're good or bad at practicing their faith, maybe you think you can determine that.

Ann, I...

REAGAN: No, but there's a standard and the Catholic — it's interesting, there's only one Catholic Church, it pretty well stands, you know, stands pretty solid where it feels on abortion and what have you, and so if you're a Catholic who becomes pro-choice, then the Democrats will, in fact, accept you, which means they will accept a bad Catholic.

COLMES: What if you're a Catholic — what if you're pro-death penalty and you're a Catholic where the church says that they happen to be against the death penalty? Can you be a good Catholic and for the death penalty?

COULTER: And if you if you kill a girl at Chappaquiddick you're really good.

COLMES: Pardon me, Ann.

COULTER: I said if you kill a girl at Chappaquiddick, you're really in.

COLMES: That's a low blow. That really is a low blow. You should be above that.

REAGAN: Oh, you're really in. You can stay in forever.

COULTER: What do you mean a "low blow?"

COLMES: You really ought to be above that?

COULTER: Why? Did or did he, Senator Kennedy, or did he not kill a girl at Chappaquiddick? What, we can't mention it?

HANNITY: All right, thanks Ann, appreciate it. And Michael, thank you.

Funny stuff. Ann's "And if you if you kill a girl at Chappaquiddick you're really good." line had me laughing hard. The nice thing about Ann Coulter is that she's there to remind us all that Democrats are FLAMIN' HYPOCRITES!!! Aw, Ann. I love you.

Further proof that college is a fantasy land isolated from reality.

I stumbled across an article written by one Matt K. Murphy in response to a supposedly fair anti-Bush study by a Robert S. McElvaine, a historian. Murphy evicerates McElvaine and his leftist professor pals.

The Opinions of Brilliant Idiots -- Matt K. Murphy

And here is a link to McElvaine's original "study" that drew Murphy's ire:

Historians vs. George W. Bush -- Robert S. McElvaine

It's a good read and Murphy reveals how absurd and out-of-touch many in academia are.

Calvin Coolidge: Underrated President.

I've been doing a lot of research on Calvin Coolidge, the 30th president of the United States, and I've come to greatly admire the man and I now think he is one of the best presidents in American history--I'm talking top ten.

But everytime--everytime--a presidential poll is run, historians rank Coolidge near the bottom (generally bottom four). Is it a liberal thing? Not really. Modern conservatives rate Coolidge rather low, too. I think most have just accepted what everyone else has been saying about Coolidge and have failed to research the man for themselves.

So I will attempt to educate all three of you who read this blog with the following article which explains better than I why Coolidge was a great president:

A NEW LOOK AT CALVIN COOLIDGE
Remarks by Peter Hannaford

Coolidge should be an icon to libertarians and conservatives.

More links to pro-Coolidge articles to follow...

Steve Young is probably the best QB in NFL history.

The question is not what Young could do but rather what Young couldn't do.

Well, folks, what couldn't he do?

Steve Young is the most perfect quarterback the NFL has ever seen. He's the only QB in history who was consistently accurate from five yards to fifty. No one ran better. No QB in NFL history ran for more touchdowns (43). His 2.17 touchdown to interception ratio is the best in NFL history. When Montana came up, the Niners were the only team running the West Coast offense; teams were not adept at defending it yet. But by the time Young was starting, every team in the league was geared to stop the West Coast offense. Yet Young has the highest pass completion percentage in NFL history.

Some will point out that Young only won one Super Bowl as a starter which hardly compares to guys like Bradshaw and Montana (who won four apiece). That is NOT a legitimate point. It is grossly unfair to heap the failures and success of a team onto one player. Simply put, championships should not be a consideration when ranking great players in team sports. It's absurd.

Steve Young is the greatest quarterback I've ever seen. I didn't see Bradshaw and Tarkenton and Unitas in their heyday but in the twenty years I've followed the NFL, Young is clearly the best QB I've seen. Elway, Favre, Marino, Manning and, yes, Montana not withstanding.

President Bush picks a white guy to replace O'Connor--thank goodness!

Now hear me out.

I have no problem with women; I have no problem with women judges; I don't even have a problem with women supreme court justices (at least in theory--O'Connor and Ginsburg haven't been good justices). What I do have a problem with is any seat on the Supreme Court becoming the "female seat" or the "minority seat" or whatever. President Bush was under enoromous pressure to replace O'Connor with another woman (or a Hispanic). Even the First Lady suggested that Bush should fill O'Connor's vacancy with a woman. And while their were plenty of qualified female candidates--we're told that Judge Edith Clement was the runner-up to Judge Roberts--I'm glad Bush picked the person he thought would make the best justice. And in doing so, the president struck a deathblow to the nonsense of having seats on the supreme court reserved for specific types of people based soley on an accident of birth.

We know that if President Bush has the oppurtunity to replace Chief Justice Rehnquist or Justice Stevens or any other Supreme Court justice, sex, race and ethnicity won't be a consideration (conservative values will be but then that's the right of the president).

Say what you want about the president, but he does not pick people to fill jobs in government positions based on race or sex. He picks those he thinks will do the best job.

Because I like lists: The Top 10 Presidents of the United States.

1. George Washington - He set the precedent for all future presidents. It could have been disastrous for the young republic. But he did things right (though even Washington couldn't avoid controversy). Author and historian Larry Schweikart said it best, "It's hard to imagine, say, John Adams or Thomas Jefferson setting the same kinds of incredible precedents that Washington set, both for decorum and for efficiency. Adams would have (as he later did) alienated half the country, and Jefferson would have lacked the diplomacy to pull the Federalists along."

2. Abraham Lincoln - After the South left the Union and threw a tizzy fit because they couldn't get their way in regard to slavery (make no mistake, the South left because of slavery--the states's rights idea perpetuated by neo-Confederates is a myth), Lincoln did the right thing going to war to keep the Union together. Yes, he expanded the powers of the federal government but he had no choice. His detractors, many of whom favor small government, need to look at Lincoln in the context of the times. Lincoln did what needed to be done.

3. Thomas Jefferson - With the Louisiana Purchase, he doubled the size of the United States. Jefferson believed in small government and believed that people should govern themselves. He also banned the slave trade as president and had the vision to fund the Lewis and Clark Expedition.

4. Ronald Reagan - I don't think Reagan's greatness can be exaggerated. With his economic policies (i.e, tax cuts) he gave us the strongest economy we've ever had. On top of that, he put the Soviet Union out of business bringing hope to not just millions of Americans but millions of people worldwide. Always positive, Reagan made his enemies--both domestic and foreign--look foolish.

5. Grover Cleveland - Robert Higgs, Research Director for the Independent Institute, said this of Clevelsnd, "He kept the country at peace. He respected the Constitution, acknowledging that the national government has only a limited mission to perform and shaped his policies accordingly. He fought to lower tariffs; preserved the gold standard in its time of crisis; and restored order forcibly when hoodlums disturbed the peace on a wide front during the great railroad strike of 1894." Though I disagree with Mr. Higgs on many fronts, he nails my opinion of Cleveland perfectly.

6. (tie) Warren Harding and Calvin Coolidge - It's hard to seperate Harding and Coolidge because Coolidge was an extension of Harding. A former Reagan economics advisor said this about the Harding/Coolidge term: "In another 50 years, Harding will look much better than he does today. His most sensational move was to name Andrew Mellon, the Pittsburgh banker, Treasury Secretary, which is why the Twenties roared. Mellon was the best Treasury Secretary after Alexander Hamilton. Harding's second great move (which preceded his Mellon pick) was to name Calvin Coolidge his running mate. Coolidge is derided because he didn't advocate Big Government, but he was Reagan's hero. RR was in high school in the Coolidge years, when Coolidge best expressed the ideas of low tax rates producing greater tax revenues than high tax rates. It was Mellon who inspired the JFK tax cuts of 1964 and the Reagan Revolution that followed. The only reason Harding is reviled by today's historians is that he MUST be entombed along with Hoover (and Coolidge) in order to elevate FDR." My thoughts precisely.

8. James Monroe - Monroe had one of the greatest cabinets ever assembled and he had the wisdom to let his cabinet secretaries do what they did best. The Missouri Compromise managed to keep the young republic together and the Monroe Doctrine laid the course for generations to follow.

9. Harry S. Truman - Did little to slow down the ineffective New Deal programs of FDR and, overall, he was fairly weak when it came to domestic issues. However, his dealings with the Soviets and Chinese at the beginning of the Cold War were extraordinary in vision and scope. Every Cold War president that followed Truman owes him a debt.

10. William McKinley - Karl Rove, George W. Bush's close friend and advisor, said this of McKinley (which I wholeheartedly agree with), "He modernized the presidency, he modernized the Treasury to deal with the modern economy, he changed dramatically the policies of his party by creating a durable governing coalition for 40 years, he took a special interest in finding the rising generation of young leaders and putting them into the government, he attempted deliberately to break with the Gilded Age politics, he was inclusive and he was the first Republican candidate for president to be endorsed by a leader in the Catholic hierarchy."

Maybe I'll post a "worst ten presidents" list later this week--Carter, Andrew Johnson, Lyndon Johnson, Jackson, Nixon, Ford, Buchanan, and Wilson will all be on it

More thoughts on Judge John Roberts.

As I've looked at other conservative blogs and websites, I've been dumbstruck by just how many conservatives are doubtful about John Roberts's conservative credentials.

They keep comparing Roberts to Souter.

I don't believe there is any evidence that Roberts is another Souter (who was George H.W. Bush's greatest mistake as president).

Roberts does have a conservative record. He is pro-business and, while he isn't the pure constitutional traditionalist many conservatives wanted, Roberts believes the Supreme Court should not legislate.

Comparisons to Souter are invalid. Souter did have a record, in spite of what some conservatives claim. The first Bush administration did not do their homework. If they had, they would have realized that Souter was a conservative in only the strictest definition of the word. He was a pragmatic conservative in the classic political sense. That means Souter felt that dramatic changes to the law was not good for society. He was truly conservative in that he did not like change which is why I believe he ended up becoming part of the liberal bloc of the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court had over the last forty years become increasingly more liberal (liberal in the modern sense) and Souter went with the flow--which is conservative in definition, if not philosophy.

There is no shred of evidence that Roberts has a judicial philosophy similiar to Souter's. If any current Supreme Court justices should be compared to Roberts, it is Rehnquist. Rehnquist is a mainstream conservative who has consistently been a good conservative justice. Roberts appears to be in the same mold.

I continue to praise President Bush's decision to nominate Judge Roberts. If nothing else, Roberts is more conservative than O'Connor. And if President Bush fills every Supreme Court vacancy with someone more conservative than his or her predecessor, I'll be happy.

President Bush chooses John Roberts to replace O'Conner. Yeah!

I admit, I was worried that President Bush would choose a "consensus" candidate to fill Justice O'Conner's shoes. While I have the utmost respect for Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez, replacing a moderate with a moderate would have alienated much of Bush's conservative base and would have been a letdown (if Ginsburg or Stevens retires, Gonzalez would be a fine replacement). But President Bush did the right thing and now we have the conservative Judge John Roberts awaiting confirmation by the senate.

But will Roberts be confirmed?

Already, the pro-abortion whacko left is attacking Roberts as "extreme" and "anti-choice". It will likely be a fight to get Roberts approved by the senate. But with this nomination, President Bush has proven that he is willing to get down and dirty to see that judges who care about the constitution and the history of the United States make it to the Supreme Court.

Despite heavy opposition, Roberts has a couple things going for him:

1. Unlike Justices Ginsburg, Breyer and Stevens, Roberts has actually read the U.S. constitution.

2. Roberts is affable and even some hardline liberals have lauded his honor and integrity over the years (this won't make much of a difference to many on the left as the smear campaign is already underway).

Roberts has written in the past that he feels the Roe v. Wade decision was wrongly decided. While some may consider that extreme, Roberts knows that the founders did not intend for abortion on demand to be a constitutional right. Why? Because the constitution doesn't say anywhere that abortion is a right! Kinda obvious, huh?

Anyway, kudos to President Bush. He did the right thing.

But will the senate follow suit?

More dumb comments from the left.

I read the following on a blog called Rhetorical Imprints:

Out of roughly 1 billion Muslims, how many are involved in legitimate terrorist activities? 10,000? I'm not a terrorist expert or anything, but even that number seems a little high. If that number is roughly correct, that means that only .00001 percent of all Muslims have any connection to terrorism.

It is the height of arrogance to think only 10,000 Muslims are involved in terrorist activities--there are more than 10,000 Muslim terrorists in Sudan alone! While the number of actual terroists may be relatively low in the Muslim world, what about those Muslims who support terror? I daresay--and this is a conservative estimate--those Muslims who applaud terrorist activities against Israel, the U.S. and non-Muslim nations and people in general number in the millions. There is plenty of evidence for this number. Consider the hatred Muslims in Sudan show Sudanese Christians. Government sanctioned Islamist gangs rape and murder thousands of Sudanese Christian women and children every year. Consider the Palestinians. A huge portion of Muslim Palestinians (one-fourth of Palestinians are Christian and over the years not one single Palestinian Christian has ever participated in a suicide bombing) would (and do) kill there Jewish neighbors in the name of Islam. Even in "moderate" Jordan and Saudi Arabia, there exists extremist Islamist movements whose membership numbers in the thousands. And, yes, they support terror. As the saying goes in nearly every nation in the Middle-East "We will kill the Jews on Saturday and then the Christians on Sunday". The author clearly and without serious thought pulled the number 10,000 out of his ass. There is no basis for the number being anywhere near that low. One need only look around the world to see that.

One could argue that nearly all adult Muslims support terrorist activity. Most not directly, of course. But as long as the vast majority of Muslims continue to look the other way and won't speak out against their Islamist brethren, they (the so-called moderates) are allowing the extremists to lead the so-called religion of peace. Their silence encourages the extremists.

All numbers aside, why don't we hear the same exhortations after an abortion clinic bombing by a radical Christian pro-lifer? Can you imagine someone asking, "How do we determine which Christian is a decent person and which is a terrorist?"

The above is a silly statement. How many Christian pro-lifers have killed abortion doctors? Only twenty-five verifiable instances of serious violence against abortion doctors has been documented in the U.S. and Canada in the last thirty years. And not all of those twenty-five cases were committed by Christians nor were all twenty-five cases murder (or attempted murder).

Why should all members of a faith be expected to denounce, and even apologize for, the actions of a fringe element? Again, do we hold all Christians responible for the actions of Eric Rudolph or David Koresh? I'm absolutely perplexed by this kind of behavior.

Now that is a ridiculous statement. First of all, members of a specific religion should protect their religion from those who would destroy it from within--i.e. radical elements of their faith. Those who stand by and allow evil to flourish are committing evil themselves. In that way, moderate Muslims are committing a sort of evil.

Second, when one little incident involving a Christisn who allegedly does something bad is the name of Christianity happens, Christians are expected to denounce him. And they do.

Third, Eric Rudolph--the only example nuts like the author can come up with--isn't Christian! He's a pagan who has denounced Christianity. None of his terroist activites were committed in Christianity's name. You got me on Koresh, though. Congratulations.

Anyone want to make a prediction regarding the first reported incident against a mosque or an innocent group of Muslims? And so the cylce of senseless violence continues.

Have you read the reports on violence against Muslims in the U.S.? It's almost nil. One or two alleged incidents happen and the media headlines read "Muslims under assault!" or "Rash of violence against Muslims continues!" Absurd.

However, since Sept. 11th, 2001, the acts of violence Muslims have committed against Jews in the U.S. has skyrocketed. Ah, the religion of peace.

The Democratic Party: The Party of Corruption.

This is a history lesson, folks. It's a brief history of the Democratic Party. The real history of the Democratic Party.

Martin Van Buren founded the Democratic Party in the middle 1820s. Though many of the those early Democrats were disgruntled former Jeffersonian Republicans, Van Buren's claim that the Democratic Party's foundation was based upon Jeffersonian principles was a falsehood. Jeffersonian Republicans believed in a small centralized government. Andrew Jackson, the first Democratic president, clearly did not. That old scoundrel Jackson--the worst president in U.S. history--expanded the powers of the presidency and ignored congress and the courts whenever it suited him. Jackson's presidency laid the groundwork by which nearly every Democratic president has followed. Corruption, lust for power and contempt for the constitution have marked almost every Democratic administration since.

Corruption and lust for power are part of the Democratic Party--it's been institutionalized and you cannot seperate the Democratic Party from it. All you have to do is take a look at the most recent Democratic administration. President Clinton and his cronies got away with more corruption--thanks in part to a left-leaning media who looked the other way--than President Nixon ever dreamed of. Nixon's downfall was trying to cover-up the watergate break-in. Compared to the stuff--stuff we know for a fact--that the Clintons got away with, the Watergate break-in--which was done to expose members of the Democratic National Convention who were running a prostitution ring--seems almost unimportant by comparison. Think: Hillary Clinton's office covered up the death of Vince Foster (I'm not saying Foster was murdered), Bill Clinton lied under oath and was disbarred by the Arkansas State Bar, Al Gore held fundraisers in houses of worship (which is illegal) and the Clinton administration received campaign donations from foreign sources. These are all facts. And that's just the Clinton administration. Need I point out the ineptitude of Carter? The corruption in FDR's administration (we know now that communists held high positions in FDR's administration--and FDR knew it)? The power-hungry and disasterous economic policies of the LBJ and Wilson presidencies?

The Democratic Party is synomonous with corruption.

When I look back at Democratic presidents, I can only find two I would call great: Cleveland and Truman. Not Wilson who was a white supremacist and who's policies badly damaged the economy. Not FDR who's policies prolonged the Depression (keep in mind that he kept Hoover's economic policies in place his first six years in office). Just Cleveland and Truman.

That isn't much to hang your hat on if you're a card-carrying Democrat now is it?

Dennis Prager exposes one of the left's biggest lies.

Check out Dennis Prager's recent column where he decontructs the one of the left's biggest lies: The left doesn't support the troops and should admit it.

Christianity is better than Islam--by far.

In spite of the constant attacks on Cristianity by the left, Christianity is the only thing standing in the way of radical Islamists's quest for world domination (for those of you who don't know, Islam is the religion of beheadings). It was that way several hundred years ago during the Crusades--there are morons who blame Christianity for the Crusades forgetting that the Crusades were simply a response by European Christians to Muslim aggression--and it's that way now.

Visit leftist blogs, though, and you'd think Christianity is as dangerous as Islam (if not more so). But that is a fantasy conjured up by the left. No evidence supports their ridiculous notion. There exists plenty of evidence to the contrary, however.

Even if we somehow come to the whacky conclusion that Christianity was the aggressor during the Crusades, what happened hundreds of years ago is hardly relevant today. Christianity has apologized for any abuses that happened during the Crusades. What is relevant is how Islam and Christianity treat human beings today.

In many Islamic countries if you're homosexual, you're condemned to die. In America (and it's American Christians who are the ones who receive most of the anti-Christian hatred) if you're homosexual, you are allowed to do just about anything you want--even if it literally kills people.

In Islamic nations if you're Christian, you will likely be persecuted and perhaps even killed because of your beliefs. In America, if you are Muslim (or any other religion), you're allowed to worship just about anyway you like.

In Islam, if you write a book saying bad things about Islam, you might have a warrant for your death issued. In Christianity if you write a book saying bad things about Christianity, you might be chastised by Christians but never threatened and certainly never killed.

Oh, and if you piss off Christians, you don't have to worry about passenger jets being rammed into buildings. Piss off Muslims and you'd better keep an eye out for low-flying aircraft.

A lot of people will say that those Muslims who commit abuses aren't following Islam and/or practicing an extreme version of Islam. First, go read the Koran. Muslims are intructed--commanded even--to commit horrible abuses (please don't bring up Bible passages that allegedly state similar things because you have no idea what you're talking about). But that aside, it does not matter what the Koran states. It's what the practitioners of Islam do that matters. And while most Muslims are rather ordinary folks, a huge portion of Islam is extreme and wants to destroy and enslave everyone who isn't Muslim.

My condemnation of Islam goes far and wide and includes not just the extremists but the so-called moderates as well. Moderate Muslims have said little condemning there extremist brethren and deserve to be chastised for their silence.

Simply put, Christianity is better than Islam. If we converted all Muslims to Christianity, the world would be at peace.

Idiot of the Day.

In yesterday's evening broadcast of NBC Nightly News, anchor Brian Williams had this to say about the Iranian president-elect and allegations that he (the new Iranian president) may be a terrorist, "What would it all matter if proven true? Someone brought up today the first several U.S. presidents were certainly revolutionaries and might have been called 'terrorists' by the British crown, after all."

Congratulations, Brian, you're the Idiot of the Day.