Tuesday, September 19, 2006

Meeting engagment

The worst place for a leader to be is behind those he seeks to lead, desperately calling out to a crowd that is increasingly outdistancing him, in a vain attempt to shift them this way or that. Sometimes opinion "leaders" put themselves in a retrograde position by ignoring what everyone around them plainly sees. Here's an example: writing in the context of the controversy generated by Pope Benedict XVI's remarks, ABC News says the 'Day of Rage' is not a day of rage..


London, Sept. 18, 2006 — Three words suddenly have a lot of Westerners worried and, it must be said, likely making some wrong assumptions about modern Islam. "Yaum al Ghadab" is Arabic for "Day of Rage." When the Qatari Islamic scholar Yusuf al-Qaradawi called for a Day of Rage this Friday in response to Pope Benedict XVI's remarks about Muslims, it might have sounded like a call for street violence. ...

But why do Islamic leaders use what many Westerners regard as inflammatory language? Because it is not inflammatory, at least not in the context of Islamic culture. "We must not try to interpret Islamic terms and cultural signals by using our Western ideas," said Fawaz Gerges, a professor in the department of international affairs and Middle Eastern studies at Sarah Lawrence College, and an ABC News consultant.

These hilarious semantic contortions are not the fault of Muslims, who are pretty straightforward about what they believe in, so much as the willful obtuseness of the politically correct Western cultural elite, which feels the need to interpret the world for a perfectly literate public, like some pedant who insists on reading out a poster to his students. It is so tellingly absurd that even retired clergymen from the Church of England find themselves compelled to blurt out the obvious. The rage is rage. The Times of London reports that the former Archbishop of Canterbury, Lord Carey challenged Islam to confront its "violent" strain.

The former Archbishop of Canterbury Lord Carey of Clifton has issued his own challenge to “violent” Islam in a lecture in which he defends the Pope’s “extraordinarily effective and lucid” speech. Lord Carey said that Muslims must address “with great urgency” their religion’s association with violence. He made it clear that he believed the “clash of civilisations” endangering the world was not between Islamist extremists and the West, but with Islam as a whole. “We are living in dangerous and potentially cataclysmic times,” he said. “There will be no significant material and economic progress [in Muslim communities] until the Muslim mind is allowed to challenge the status quo of Muslim conventions and even their most cherished shibboleths.”

Cardinal George Pell, leader of Australia's 5.1 million Catholics had said almost the same thing as Lord Carey shortly before.

The violent reaction in many parts of the Islamic world justified one of Pope Benedict's main fears," Pell, the Archbishop of Sydney, said in a statement on Web sites of the Catholic Church of Australia. They showed the link for many Islamists between religion and violence, their refusal to respond to criticism with rational arguments, but only with demonstrations, threats and actual violence," he said.

How has it happened that the most unlikely persons are speaking on what is apparently the most volatile of subjects? It is doubly surprising because there is a powerful reluctance within the organizational culture of Christian churches to voice any criticism of another religion. The statements by Pope Benedict XVI, Lord Carey and Cardinal Pell are really near-despairing expedients to fill the aching void left by Western cultural and political leaders -- a vacuum which has emboldened militant Islamic preachers to cross boundaries they would have respected until recently. This erasure of cultural borders caused by the near total desertion of the frontier by the so-called opinion-leaders has invited the most reckless elements of Islam across and raised the risk of real clash of civilizations. As Lord Carey put it: "We are living in dangerous and potentially cataclysmic times". It is a time made perilous not only by the absence of moderate voices within Islam but by the even more conspicuous absence of any leadership among Western politicians. It is a failure which will sooner or later lead to what military historians call a "meeting engagement" in which two forces, each possessed of its own momentum, blunder into each other with catastrophic results. A false kind of tolerance has abolished the fence between the piggery and mosque, the adult video store and the cathedral, the flaming match and the stick of dynamite and called it progress. It is no such thing. It is called stupidity.

50 Comments:

Blogger rasqual said...

"A false kind of tolerance has abolished the fence between the piggery and mosque, the adult video store and the cathedral, the flaming match and the stick of dynamite and called it progress. It is no such thing. It is called stupidity."

Good heavens. So lucid. So obvious. So mad, this world has become.

9/19/2006 07:02:00 PM  
Blogger Baron Bodissey said...

I've said recently that the problems as you describe them arise from the atrophy of the agora, the commons of ideas, in the West.

When the agora was active in our culture, dangerous ideas could be confronted and debated. But the agora has been replaced by the one-way communication, where Those Who Know Best tell the hoi-polloi what is true and good and right. There is no longer a good way to confront The Anointed Ones within a debate.

Until the rise of the blogosphere, that is.

9/19/2006 07:09:00 PM  
Blogger Jamie Irons said...

Wretchard, you have absolutely nailed it with this remark:

The statements by Pope Benedict XVI, Lord Carey and Cardinal Pell are really near-despairing expedients to fill the aching void left by Western cultural and political leaders -- a vacuum which has emboldened militant Islamic preachers to cross boundaries they would have respected until recently.


I was thinking almost exactly the same thing about a week ago, when I first encountered and carefully read the Pope's remarks, which seemed to me lucid and calm and -- Heaven help us -- compassionate (toward Muslims), but I could not have stated this nearly as well as you have. Thanks.

Jamie Irons

9/19/2006 07:13:00 PM  
Blogger Mastiff said...

In fairness to Fawaz Gerges, he is a Lebanese Christian and no friend of radical Islam. In his book, "The Far Enemy," he states that Salafi Islam was a necessary prerequisite to modern Islamist terrorism.

9/19/2006 07:13:00 PM  
Blogger Jamie Irons said...

Baron,

Let me just say that I really value your and Dymphna's writing, as well as your occasional pieces by Fjordman.

Jamie Irons

9/19/2006 07:15:00 PM  
Blogger Baron Bodissey said...

Jamie,

Thank you! I appreciate that.

Unfortunately, all that time spent there means too little time spent here, arguing in Wretchard's fine abode. It's good to see that the quality of discussion here is as high as always.

9/19/2006 07:19:00 PM  
Blogger NahnCee said...

I think America's citizens understand full well what is going on and are prepared to meet it and deal with it. At least the small majority who re-elected Bush last time understand although I despair of the politically correct left.

Our leadership *has* abdicated itself, insisting that the problem is not Islam and that Saudi Arabia is our ally in the face of all proof to the contrary.

I'm not sure what it would take to get the citizens involved in our government again, to get it to do what we WANT it to do, which is to confront Islamofascism, call it what it is, strike out at it, and chase it down until it is dead and eradicated. If that means that all Muslims are given a choice between "stop being a Muslim or die", so be it.

My sense is that Europeans are flailing about hopelessly, reluctant to go to war again and hoping against hope that their enemy will finally see reason, grow up and become rational. It's not gonna happen for Europe, and what is happening is not pretty but I can't see anyone there having enough vigor to do anything about it.

Russia and China are ciphers. They're both concerned with oil and energy but they're also both anti-religious so I can't see them throwing in with a bunch of religious froot loops who will demand that both of *those* countries convert immediately, too.

I simply cannot understand why a majority of Arabs don't understand that the light barreling down the tunnel towards them is *not* individual paradise with honey and dates for all.

9/19/2006 07:22:00 PM  
Blogger wretchardthecat said...

I have nothing against Fawaz Gerges, and he is certainly entitled to his opinion. But it is safe to say that the rage that has been manifested in certain places is exactly that. People can normally recognize a knuckle sandwich when they feel it, and it it almost makes it worse to call it something else.

And if Islam is indeed enraged at the Pope's remarks, it is better to understand it as that rather than to descend into one of those farcical British stage plays where the characters completely misunderstand each other and spend the entire production talking at cross-purposes.

9/19/2006 07:25:00 PM  
Blogger RWE said...

And yet, there are signs of a building momentum.

Since 9/11/01 leftist - and very corrupt - governments in Canada and Germany were tossed out. Leftist challengers were defeated in Mexico and Bolivia, and just this week Sweden, of all places, elected a center-right government.

The Peace Party in Israel essentially no longer exists, so badly mugged by reality as to disavow itself.

In Australia bold proprosals concerning citizenship and alligance have been made.

The article from the self-confessed liberal Sam Harris yesterday despairing of his fellows ever getting the message about Islamic Facism was another crack in the leftist ediface.

And now, even the Pope and these other clerics have pointed out that Islam has serious and inherent flaws that render it unacceptable.

Momentum is building, and it is incredibly broad based in nature.

9/19/2006 07:29:00 PM  
Blogger John Aristides said...

But the momentum that is building is building towards catastrophe.

I'm afraid we've already bought the ticket. We must now steel ourselves for the ride.

9/19/2006 07:43:00 PM  
Blogger Unknown said...

As we discuss this, the focus has been on 'Islam' vs 'the west'. As I read the Pope's well reasoned arguments, he is addressing the schism within the west, not a holy war being waged by Islam. The Pope's message is aimed at Europe and the schism between those who evangelically preach empiricism/materialism and those who find empiricism an killing straight-jacket. The Pope's speech is one of the most intriguing messages to come from the Vatican in years. If the Pope had illustrated his arguments with contemporary 're-education camps' rather than Islamic 'forced conversions', the message would not be getting out to as many people...

9/19/2006 08:01:00 PM  
Blogger Unknown said...

On reading the ABC article, I couldn't help but look for a byline of Edward Said (may he rest in peace) and I thought of Churchill's comment when asked about the disposition of Stanley Baldwin's body - "Embalm, cremate and bury," he replied, "take no chances."

This kind of nonsense is killing people. We should not tolerate it any more than we tolerate stealing by our children.

I don't think the MSM has any appreciation of the damage they are doing to themselves. Granted, it does nothing but help the new media. Time to short sell more big media shares.

9/19/2006 08:10:00 PM  
Blogger Baron Bodissey said...

nonomous --

You're on target there. Fjordman has often said that Islamic extremism is the symptom, and not the disease itself. The disease is endemic in the West, and particularly manifests itself in Multiculturalism.

9/19/2006 08:12:00 PM  
Blogger Charles said...

Aristides said...
But the momentum that is building is building towards catastrophe.

I'm afraid we've already bought the ticket. We must now steel ourselves for the ride.
//////////

so in the end the europeans will kick out the moslems.

Americans of all stripes must ensure that those moslems return to the part of the moslem world from which they came.

Within 10 years the USA will have dropped the cost of water desalination to 1/10th current costs thereby making it economically possible to turn the world's deserts green and double the size of the habitable planet.

Large parts of north africa are going to need a skilled work force to inhabit the newly reclaimed land. They will be eurabians from eurabia.

9/19/2006 08:32:00 PM  
Blogger Marcus Aurelius said...

The skirmishers have been pouring out of the Trojan Camel now for sometime. they are fighting and winning. Even if their opponents knew they were in a battle would they know how to win? What would they fight with? Wine, beer, and cheese?

Benedict may not have walked into the conflagration intentionally but how can anyone not these days? Not today when every molehill is being turned into a mountain and commanded to go to Mohammed.

It seems our civilization is buying the fools bargain, however payment will be due with severe interest and penalties.

9/19/2006 08:42:00 PM  
Blogger Marcus Aurelius said...

C4,

What would President Bush do? What is the UN for? Don't tell me it is for action. The UN is bromide central.

As in one of Wretchard's former blogs the goal for some is to become the homecoming king of the world.

9/19/2006 08:48:00 PM  
Blogger reoconnot said...

Why is it that the slut who misappropriated mary's name can mock Christ without so much as a mild protest but none of us are free to question whether Mohammed is a false prophet?

Until that day returns none of us is free.

9/19/2006 09:22:00 PM  
Blogger sam said...

VATICAN: IRANIAN CLERIC WANTS TO SEND ENVOYS TO INSTRUCT POPE ON ISLAM:

A leading conservative cleric in Iran, Mahmoud Mohammadi Araghi, the president of the Organization of Culture and Islamic Relations, has reportedly suggested that Muslim leaders dispatch a group of envoys to instruct the Pope Benedict XVI and Catholic cardinals on Islam. Araghi, whose organization supervises Iran's 60 cultural centres abroad and is under the direct guidance of the supreme leader Ali Khamenei, made the suggestion in a letter to Muslim religious leaders worldwide, reformist Iranian website Baztab reports.

The idea, reportedly aimed at preventing the Pope from making other remarks offending Muslims, was sent to leading Islamic leaders including Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, secretary general of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC) and internationally renowned Islamic preacher Yusuf al-Qaradawi.

Instruct Pope

9/19/2006 09:29:00 PM  
Blogger buddy larsen said...

"and even in our sleep pain that cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, and in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom to us, by the awful grace of God"

--Aeschylus (525-456 BCE)

9/19/2006 09:56:00 PM  
Blogger sam said...

Bush warns Iranians of 'liberty' denied:

Still, a senior White House official said sanctions will not happen unless European nations fail in their bid to get Tehran to the negotiating table in exchange for a suspension of moves toward U.N. sanctions. Judy Ansley, senior director for European affairs on the National Security Council, said European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana is trying "right now" to persuade Iran to engage in talks on that basis.

"You start the negotiations, the Iranians agree to suspend their enrichment activities, and in exchange, the United Nations will agree to suspend activities at the Security Council as negotiations go forward," she said, adding that "sanctions will be only if that fails."

Liberty Denied

9/19/2006 10:20:00 PM  
Blogger NahnCee said...

so in the end the europeans will kick out the moslems.


We're talking about a slowly building rage here, that's about to become explosive. On both sides.

It seems to me that when it hits, it will be *much* cleaner and faster to just kill them.

9/19/2006 10:31:00 PM  
Blogger Gary Rosen said...

More incoherent gibberish from Shitterfart, just so he can spew his knee-jerk antisemitism. Pavlov's dog was more of an independent thinker. It was all so predictable though - the Catholic Pope speaks of Islam, Muslims respond with rage, and someone blames it on the Jews!

9/19/2006 11:48:00 PM  
Blogger wretchardthecat said...

FYI, Khadaffy's son has demanded that the Pope convert immediately to Islam.

"If this person were really someone reasonable, he would not agree to remain at his post one minute, but would convert to Islam immediately," Mohammed Gaddafi told an awards ceremony on Monday evening for an international competition to memorise the Qur'an.

"We say to the pope - whether you apologise or not is irrelevant, as apologies make no difference to us."


I had to pick myself up from the floor, I laughed so hard. Then I realized there are any number of dimwits in "intellectual circles" who will actually think this is a reasonable demand.

9/20/2006 01:18:00 AM  
Blogger Pascal said...

Awakening to Fight Oblivion

Some days seem better than others. Pray this was one of them.

9/20/2006 01:20:00 AM  
Blogger Jack said...

The truth is ultimately that many of our leaders and opinion shapers are educated people, but ideologically stupid. Plain words become complicated, common assumptions become complicated - everything is overthought on the assumption that it can't just be that simple. What I want to believe and what I'm talk to believe just have to be, I just need to find the convoluted reasoning to explain it.

KEEP IT SIMPLE, STUPID.

9/20/2006 01:35:00 AM  
Blogger Jack said...

"I want to believe and what I'm taught to believe just have to be, I just need to find the convoluted reasoning to explain it."

9/20/2006 01:39:00 AM  
Blogger Jack said...

Itis a pity about Gaddafi's son, a year or so ago he seemed to be [was pretending to be?] a modernizer.

9/20/2006 01:51:00 AM  
Blogger Das said...

I date the surrender of western media intellectuals to radical Islam from the publishing of Salman Rushdie's Satanic Verses in paperback - 1993 or 94. The first hardback edition came out in 1989; the Iranian fatwa and world-wide controversy caught the Viking/Penguin publishers - and everyone else - by surprise.

Even so the publishers knew they had a money maker on their hands. Time to bring out the paper back. What to do? They didn't print the name of the publishing house or the address on the info page (on the other side of the title page); instead the publisher called itself an anonymous "Consortium".

And by the way what has happened to western artists? Usually artists are the first to register the pressures and attacks on freedom for art is where human beings encounter their greatest freedom. Where is the art mocking the pretensions of absolutist Islam? Or if art is too high falutin' then how about some decent satire? The self-serious rage of Militant Islam is a giant helium balloon next to your nose. We've all got pins but are afraid to use them - afraid of the bang, I guess.

Meantime look for the great artworks of Europe to come in for destruction as hot-head Islam's next targets. (Wonder what the appeasing left theorists will say. "Oh they were old and crappy, anyway." Or "The Pieta in its smashed state is even more majestic, etc..."

9/20/2006 02:07:00 AM  
Blogger wretchardthecat said...

I think we are a very long way from any point which would provoke the Western cultural elite to resistance. It would take prolonged danger, real anguish and grinding hardship without hope of surcease to make them understand what they have forgotten to grasp: that they could die.

They need to reach the moment when the flip jokes nauseate; when they recall a McDonald's hamburger -- something they despised -- with infinite longing. They need to feel the way you feel when you are out in the sticks with someone looking to kill you, and have had little to eat for weeks.

Even then they will resist. The way someone who stood astride the world resists accepting he is in jail. They'll go to sleep each night thinking tomorrow the nightmare will be over, except that each morning will dawn with misery unending. Until the day they grip the bars with finality and know, know, that this is where they will die and God please give them another chance.

But what will it take to create those conditions? To what depths must we be plunged to effect the enlightenment of the Prodigal Children? No, their redemption comes at too high a price. We may have to fall so low that each and every one of us must adventure upon survival. I fear we must know real despair before we can expect to hope again.

9/20/2006 02:19:00 AM  
Blogger wretchardthecat said...

The real danger signs were evident when the Nazis invaded Western Europe. That was as existential a threat against as brutal a foe as could be imagined. Yet while there were some brave resistants, as a whole the Resistance was a myth. Faced with the ultimate test, some cared. But many -- too many -- gave it a shrug. John Lukacs recently wrote a book, Five Days In London which describes with what difficulty Churchill persuaded the British cabinet to fight on. Western Europe was delivered by the brutal tenacity of the Soviet Armies and the brute power of America. Left to itself, it might even now be speaking German.

So what is there to encourage the casual observer that the worm will turn? So very little, it seems to me. And having so aspired to be European, many in America may now get their wish in more ways they would have anticipated.

9/20/2006 02:50:00 AM  
Blogger RattlerGator said...

Wretchard and all others: I find a certain beauty in this Pope-inspired conflagration. Catholics have always seemed a bit strange to me; quite "foreign" in my part of America (at least, they used to be). But, like many Americans, I found Pope John Paul II an intriguing figure.

However, Ratzinger is truly fascinating to me. I did a quick tour of duty in Germany while in the Army and have nothing but love for Germans. After that tour of duty, I've always considered Germans the real deal in Europe -- kinda the straw that stirs the drink, to borrow a phrase made famous by Reggie Jackson.

The beauty from this conflagration? Pope Benedict XVI has proven himself to be quite worthy, in a very German kind of way, for the position of Pope.

There will be no blinking in the face of Islamic stupidity.

There will be no blinking in the face of academic stupidity.

Standards will be observed.

And it is, as nonomous and others have surely noticed, the academicians and the cultural elite in "our" communities who have been called out by this Pope.

Well done, well done, well done!

9/20/2006 05:20:00 AM  
Blogger John Aristides said...

An obvious argument, and effective (ht Marc Schulman).

In fact, it is diabolically brilliant.

Farewell, thee order of old. Jealousy and spite will serve you not.

Ahmadinejad is rousing a mob.

9/20/2006 05:37:00 AM  
Blogger RWE said...

In my readings of the last few years I have achieved amazement over how easy it would have been to stop the Nazis.

A British officer's plan for an assassination of Hitler....
A positive response from Britain and France to the German General Staff's plan for a coup...
Even a small show of force when the Sudatenland was reoccupied or the Austrian Anshluss imposed....
Even a company of lightly armed troops to oppose the first German capture of an airport in Norway - which was led by merely a military brass band...
Stopping even a single train of German soldiers during the invasion of Holland....

But these "Bush Doctrine" moments are not, by and large, recalled largely, or with shame, or even with wistfulness. Instead, people prefer to dwell on the years of horror and heroism that followed.

Yes, Aristides, we are headed toward a major collision - but only so to avoid the smaller ones that would have, at most, popped an airbag or two.

9/20/2006 06:02:00 AM  
Blogger enscout said...

We expect the impossible when we call for Islam's moderates to criticize their more extreme elements. They have been reminded about Dar al-Harb and have been placed in the trenches with a very explicit message that deserters will be shot. The Pope's message, IMHO, addresses this reality.

Those living in post-Christian and secular countries have greater freedom to choose. His statements about them are more condemning. He asks how they can be neutral given the urgency of the situation.

9/20/2006 06:32:00 AM  
Blogger NahnCee said...

FYI, Khadaffy's son has demanded that the Pope convert immediately to Islam.

And Mubarek's son has suggested that Egypt start developing its own nuclear capability. I wonder if we'll toss a few more gazillion dollars in on top of the current $2 billion per year we're giving Egypt to help them finance their nuclear program.

9/20/2006 06:54:00 AM  
Blogger Doug said...

Enscout, He asks, and knows the answer:
Moral Equivalence.
---
To that, add Stockholm:
The pope's point, clear enough to everyone but people who riot for a living, is that reason and truth are under siege, and he wants to rescue them and put them once more to work in the public arena where reasonable truth-seekers can argue, debate, dispute and contend, and depart with their scimitars sheathed.

Certain old women among us, terrified of unsheathed scimitars, naturally counsel retreat, apology and escape.
The danger, writes author Karen Armstrong in London's Guardian, the chief repository of British media squishiness, is that Islamic violence is merely a myth fed by papal indulgence:
"We may even be strengthening [the myth] by falling back into our old habits of projection." The West, in this reading, bears the responsibility for Iraq, Palestine, Lebanon.

There's a shrinking market for squishiness like this. The Australian minister for multiculturalism called his country's Muslim leaders in for tea on Sunday and -- speaking of rioting -- read them the act:
"We live in a world of terrorism where evil acts are being regularly perpetrated in the name of your faith," said Andrew Robb, the minister.
"And because it is your faith being invoked as justification for these evil acts, it is your problem. You can't wish it away, or ignore it, just because it has been caused by others."
Unless the Muslims themselves do something about it, big trouble lies ahead for everyone. You don't have to be a prophet to see trouble coming.
Pruden on Politics

9/20/2006 07:13:00 AM  
Blogger geoffgo said...

Great quote (HT - Neo), over at Roger L. Simons' blog:

Besides, if Allah had wanted us all to be Muslims, it would have been so. To believe otherwise, is to question Allah.

9/20/2006 07:15:00 AM  
Blogger Mike H. said...

Nahncee@07:22:44,
Russia and China are riding the tiger and they think that they're far enough back to be missed by the teeth.

9/20/2006 10:08:00 AM  
Blogger Cosmo said...

Being a bit slower than BC's sparkling commenters, perhaps I've got this wrong:

Fawaz Gerges insists, "We must not try to interpret Islamic terms and cultural signals by using our Western ideas."

Yet the Muslim world is entitled view things like Western cartoons through their narrow-minded cultural prism of grievance and paranoia.

Wretchard has it right: "hilarious semantic contortions," indeed.

9/20/2006 10:52:00 AM  
Blogger geoffgo said...

C4,

Except for #10, I'm in complete agreement with your list. Good job.

RE: #10 - If I'm sick I'd rather be here, thank you very much. And, I'm sure you would as well.

9/20/2006 10:58:00 AM  
Blogger buddy larsen said...

greginboise, thanks for that GREAT Kipling--it's a saver.

9/20/2006 11:04:00 AM  
Blogger John Aristides said...

Are you ready for a revolution?

F.B., no, you're right. This fire has already started.

9/20/2006 11:16:00 AM  
Blogger buddy larsen said...

Speaking of Sudan, the representative in the UN audience laughed when GWB in his speech yesterday mentioned "genocide" in Darfur. Cameras evidently caught it, tho i only heard the news of it on tv, in passing, on Fox, i believe it was.

9/20/2006 11:46:00 AM  
Blogger Pierre said...

Yes it is good that the Church's are rising to the challenge because no one else is. Sure there are some scattered attempts by some in the Blogsphere but even there the larger bloggers with the power to make these stories catch fire stay away.

Most of the biggest bloggers are very reluctant to declare Islam the problem. For those I visit I believe they are guided by the hope that if they don't mention the obvious perhaps it will go away. For others it is driven by a misguided attempt to back President Bush's idea that Islam has been hijacked. Cause if it hasn't been hijacked then we will have some major problems bringing democracy to it. As indeed we are having.

Ralph Peters on Islam and those who warn about it!

9/20/2006 11:48:00 AM  
Blogger buddy larsen said...

Great post, aristides (the 'revolution' link above).

9/20/2006 11:48:00 AM  
Blogger Tarnsman said...

NahnCee said...
" At least the small majority who re-elected Bush last time"

Bush won re-election by winning 53%the votes and received the most votes won by any Presidential candidate in US history. The fact that only 60% of the registered voters voted in the election and only have of the elibile voters bothered to register is another matter. The fact, however, remains that Bush won a solid majority, not small. You despair of the left, yet you parrot their propaganda

9/20/2006 11:51:00 AM  
Blogger Mad Fiddler said...

Dear Wretchard,

I hope the state of things in Australia isn’t the cause of your evident discouragement. A lot of us attending Belmont Club take heart at the growing evidence of stiffening resolve in quarters we’d thought long lost to despair. I do agree with a lot of your assessments though, particularly about the Left. They have been allowed to go many decades without any serious puncture to their elaborate delusional construct, but now they’re dying the “Death of a thousand Pricks.” God knows, my Leftward-leaning friends have often called me as "that conservative little prick of conscience."

Like RattlerGator, I am particularly reassured that the Pope has perceived it is time to take a stand. Mind that he was simply pointing out that conversion coerced by threat of death or torture is BAD. He saw clearly that the intolerance of Islam could be best thrown into sharp relief by showing how they react to a statement that even the most secular non-believer can see is fair.

I just hope the Pope’s personal bodyguards are more than ceremonial; we can expect some rascally little mullah somewhere has already shrewdly calculated he can gain points and virgins by sending a symtex-girt emissary seeking a papal audience.

p.s. to greginboise: Thanks for posting so much of the Kipling. Let none doubt the worth of a liberal education! Right up there with Mark Twain!

9/20/2006 12:13:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

Pine Tree Elementary School in Florida Teaches Alphabet to third graders w/Sex Acts Portrayed in Text.
Video on CNN Homepage.

9/20/2006 01:00:00 PM  
Blogger Mastiff said...

Does anyone else find it amusing that C4 launches a tirade against Jews (albiet secular Jews, and I thank him for the distinction), and then follows it up by citing Fred Kaplan?

9/21/2006 10:43:00 AM  
Blogger 3Case said...

Quig quoted VDH: "“There is an American Street that is a far more powerful...."

That is the reason they (the jihadis) hide.It is the reason that they (the jihadis and their fellow travellers [still undefined]) must win without fighting the battle. It is the reason their method is terror.

Out in the open, they are dead men, quickly and unceremoniously. Their lies about seeking paradise, etc. are proved by this hiding. From their darkness they send forward only children and fools, while they hide.

If you recall, the troubles after Arafat died and before the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza ended not long after the IDF began rocketing Palestinian terror leaders off their bicycles and out of their wheel chairs. A brutal, ugly game...which they (the jihadis, etc.) chose.

9/21/2006 03:04:00 PM  

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