Humor and Politics

A more liberal friend of mine sent me this Archie Bunker on Gun Control in good fun. I've been a bald guy since I was 21, I learned to laugh at myself a long time ago. I also find the human condition in general to have a lot of humor. So even though I know what Archie is "up to", he is still funny.

Carroll O'Connor, the actor that plays Archie, and Norman Lear, the producer of "All in the Family" are VERY far to the left of the political spectrum. There is nothing wrong with that, and it is exceedingly common in all of our media, from news, television, movies and music to be fairly far left. It is in fact "the dominant culture". News, entertainment, or even entertainers that are not generally left are in fact "called out" -- Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, the late Charlton Heston, etc. The general media makes sure to tell everyone, "these outlets are biased -- they have an axe to grind, be careful". Again, it is a free country, that is fine -- although one wonders what it really means when the pot calls the kettle black. What does the claim of "bias" against those found to somehow be "conservative" say about those pointing??

The Archie character uses his malappropisms and bigoted attitude to malign and belittle the idea of "guns making us safer" by the assertion that "we ought to just hand out guns to people getting on planes" in order to stop hi-jacking. While Archie was well in advance of 9-11, I find it interesting as a CC holder thinking of those folks on the aircraft being flown into the WTC buildings faced relatively well trained men that had almost certainly killed or were holding a Stewardess or worse (maybe kids, we don't really know) under the threat that they would "slit their throats".

A 9mm slug to the forehead will pretty much abate throat slitting. If US citizen CC permit holders were allowed to carry on domestic aircraft, I sincerely doubt that 9-11 would have happened at all ... at least not the way it did. The non-us citizens could not have got a permit at and would have known that it was highly likely that their box cutters would have had to face one or more armed citizens that they would not have been able to discover in advance. Even if they DID manage somehow to illegally obtain a permit, not knowing who is going to draw a gun on you increases your difficulty.

The combination of educational system attitudes and the general media makes it seem like "legal gun owners are stupid" (I often wonder if they think that criminal gun owners are smarter than the legal ones?) -- BO's 2nd book has the quite laughable thinking that "conservatives think of their guns like liberals think of their books". It is always comfortable to think that folks that think differently from us are "less intelligent". Given the vast limits of human intelligence, the sad fact is that we are all stupid enough relative to the problems of existence, let alone meta-existence, that it is more than likely that ALL human positions are far more inaccurate to actual reality than we realize. On a universal scale, the difference between "Archie Bunker and Albert Einstein" is likely about as significant as the difference between the smartest ant in the ant hill and the least intelligent. From our vaunted position, we feel such discussions about ants are meaningless.

You can go look around the web and find a lot of evidence that CC laws seem to reduce crime. Like anything on the web, I'm sure you can find some counter examples, but it seems that if there was even a SHRED of evidence in the other direction, at least one of the 39 states that have liberalized CC laws in the last couple decades would have repealed the change. While my view is that criminals are generally less intelligent, one might think that the thought that your intended victim may be legally armed isn't all that comforting. As a criminal, it isn't very likely you get out to the range very often in order to improve your competence with your weapon, so the prospect of a gun owner that does silver dollar multi-tap groups on a regular basis is likely not to help your sleep. That seems like common sense to me, and when statistics and common sense go together, it seems pretty plausible.

More RTC, less crime: Since 1991, 23 states have adopted RTC laws, replacing laws that prohibited carrying or that issued carry permits on a very restrictive basis; many other federal, state, and local gun control laws have been eliminated or made less restrictive; and the number of privately-owned guns has risen by about 90 million.² There are more RTC states, gun owners, people carrying firearms for protection, and privately owned firearms than ever before. In the same time frame, the nation's murder rate has decreased 46 percent to a 43-year low, and the total violent crime rate has decreased 41 percent to a 35-year low.³ RTC states have lower violent crime rates, on average, compared to the rest of the country (total violent crime by 24 percent; murder, 28 percent; robbery, 50 percent; and aggravated assault, 11 percent).⁴

You Lie!

PostPartisan - Republicans Behaving Badly

Naturally, the MSM has been all over the one congressman that said "you lie!" to BO. I agree, that is bad behavior and he was right to apologize. Listen to the Democrats boo and guffaw away in the background while Bush tries to make progress on overhauling Social Security in the video below -- another multi-Trillion dollar bad debt hanging over our collective heads. Remember any outcry in the MSM over the impropriety of that show of disrespect? Neither do I!




How many times has Bush been called a "liar" for WMD? I'd think thousands by just the Democrat elected officials alone, yet a "lie" assumes that one KNOWS the truth. Saying "the stock market is going to go down" and then seeing it go up isn't a LIE, it is making a bad prediction. The Republican that blurted out "liar" apoligized and could validly claim "heat of the moment", but what about the same rule of decorum being followed by the President since he is speaking in the chamber? Certainly he can't assert that he said this in "the heat of the moment":

Some of people's concerns have grown out of bogus claims spread by those whose only agenda is to kill reform at any cost. The best example is the claim, made not just by radio and cable talk show hosts, but prominent politicians, that we plan to set up panels of bureaucrats with the power to kill off senior citizens. Such a charge would be laughable if it weren't so cynical and irresponsible. It is a lie, plain and simple.

While "death panel" is certainly incendiary speech, that sort of speech is far from unusual in congress. I recall Reagan's "Dirty Water Bill", and BO recently appointed Van Jones (who had to resign) that claimed that Bush did 9-11 as an "inside job". BO himself mentioned "And we will also create an independent commission of doctors and medical experts charged with identifying more waste in the years ahead." So what is "waste"? Is it a waste to give expensive brain cancer treatment to a guy in his late '70s with brain cancer? (like Teddy Kennedy) I honestly don't know -- to one set of folks, it is probably "wasteful", but to another set, not doing it would be a "death panel". How about if he was 85? 95? 105? Does it EVER become "wasteful"? What does it mean when someone is too old for national health care to pay for some treatment?

Isn't this EXACTLY what is "uncivil" -- one side says "independent commission", the other says "death panel" and then the president escalates it to "lie"? Can we talk about some age where "heroic measures" are just going to prolong suffering rather than improve life? Who decides that? A "commission"? the individual? insurance companies (including maybe the "government option"?). Isn't that what the discussion is supposed to be about?

Oh, and while we talk about that, last night's speech had a lot of examples of the Democrat's favorite argument -- SHUT UP!!

Finally, our health care system is placing an unsustainable burden on taxpayers. When health care costs grow at the rate they have, it puts greater pressure on programs like Medicare and Medicaid. If we do nothing to slow these skyrocketing costs, we will eventually be spending more on Medicare and Medicaid than every other government program combined. Put simply, our health care problem is our deficit problem. Nothing else even comes close.

These are the facts. Nobody disputes them. We know we must reform this system. The question is how.

Reminds me of Global Warming -- "the debate is over".

So Medicare and Medicaid are growing out of control. Wouldn't a sane person say to control the costs of Medicare and Medicaid FIRST, then we will give the government more control over health care once they have proven that they can control the costs on these two programs that they have owned for decades? If the government can't control the costs of these key programs, how in the world is it going to control the costs by taking on MORE??? If the CURRENT burden is "unsustainable", then why in the world would we want to ADD to that burden?? "These are facts, nobody disputes them". In other words, "shut up". But you follow it with "the question is how". My goodness, "Death is a real issue that causes a lot of grief, nobody disputes this. We must reform death. The question is how."

Indeed -- the question very often is "how" -- sometimes just because in the case of winning the game, making a really good cherry pie, or getting a kiss from Cindy Lou, it is the HOW (execution) that is difficult not the goals, even if we have decided on the outcome that we would like. Sometimes, like the death case, and possibly like the health care case, even though the problems are obvious, the solutions (how) are anything but. They are flat out impossible (like death), or they require a whole set of trade-offs that are so difficult or costly that they are fraught with peril. In those cases, the obvious answer is INCREMENTAL! Show the brilliance and resourcefulness of the US government by fixing medicare and medicare FIRST. Instigate various programs at a STATE LEVEL and verify that they work, and THEN see if they SCALE!! Things that work for 30 million people are not guaranteed to work for 300 million people. If you doubt this, put 300 lbs in your trunk, see how your car drives, and then try it with 3,000lbs!! (10x, same scale factor as 30 million to 300 million). The scale factor alone is one of the reasons that our situation is different from Canada, England and others.

BO did very little to help on that path. One man's "bickering" is another mans "discussion of issues" -- were a Republican trying to deal with a real problem (as Bush did with Social Security), no matter how much he "reached out", there would be ZERO help from the other side (as there was with FICA) and he would be 100% demonized over "trying to kill social security" (as Bush was). It is really interesting to watch the MSM be 100% on the reverse side -- all BO's motives are pure, he would NEVER try to create a bunch of big government unionized bureaucracy that would vote Democrat!! or (perish the thought), try to pay off one section of the population that he thinks will vote for him with money taken from those he thinks will not!!! Certainly, the great and pure BO is above that!!

Blogging BO Address

So why do Democrat Presidents seem to have trouble just getting to a speech on time? Slickster was notorious for it, and now it seems that BO has followed along. Would you be late for a job interview? A meeting with your boss? Whatever the great BO says, his actions speak louder than his words. He simply has no respect for the American people.

Man, the lies are thick and heavy.

• "Nobody will have to give up what they have". He really can't believe that. Unless you are filthy filthy rich, you can't avoid Medicare. Once the government steps in, every current business providing healthcare is going to step out.
  
• "Preventative testing saves money". Preventative testing is a great idea, but it does NOT save money, it costs more. The VAST amount of tests will be NEGATIVE ... which means that they incur a cost, but don't save anything. While SOME set of early detections may well save money, the amount isn't enough to cover the huge percentage that don't.
  
• EEK, Does he REALLY believe that a public option can be cheap enough just because there are no profits!!! PROFIT and the attempt to cut costs to make more of it is one of the largest pushes for efficiency. Take it away and let everything go "cost +" and you are going to get a more massive disaster than Medicare!
  
• Not one dime to the deficit?? Gee his own CBO says it will cost over $1.6 Trillion extra over the next 10 years. How can you lie like that with a straight face??
  
• Gee, I faced a Trillion dollar deficit ... and RAISED it to $1.6 Trillion!!! That is one hell of a performance!!

If this convinces ONE person, the American people are gullible to elect someone with no leadership experience with no plan other than "change" and "yes we can" ... hmmm, on 2nd thought.

Bipartisanship

CNN Political Ticker: All politics, all the time Blog Archive - Clinton’s advice to Obama: Forget about Republicans « - Blogs from CNN.com

Isn't this special? Remember back to when Bush and the Republican's were "arrogant" because they managed to pass a few things on a party line vote? Of course they never had even 55 votes in the Senate, so they did MUCH more than "consider" the Democrats else they get stopped with a Fillibuster. Any move the Republicans made that wasn't basically kissing the Democrat minority  boots was "divisive" and "hyperpartisan" and a whole bunch of new words thought up to cover the horror of the MSM's Democrat party not owning a single branch of government. It was the time of boo hoo, boo hoo.

My my, how times have changed. Now it is just fine to "Forget about Republicans". Why Slick Willie, the great triangulator as decreed it!! If the Republicans disagree, they are "insane", "obstructionist", "irrelevant", and whatever other derisive adjective can be conjured at the moment.

Van Jones Who? Truthers

Why did the press ignore the Van Jones scandal? | Washington Examiner

After a rather long break, BO has thrown another victim under the bus -- to keep Jerimiah Wrght, Tom Daschle, the whole Anti-War movement and a quite a few others company I suppose. If you are no longer useful to BO, you get to be thrown under there right away!! Nobody is ever going to accuse BO of being "too loyal".

The press never saw fit to publish the reason that Jones ended up there, so many folks are confused. It isn't because he called Republicans "A**holes". It is because he is a a "Truther", one of those many lefties that feels that 9-11 was "an inside job" -- created and executed by the evil Bush Administration.

One would think that such people would be certifiably insane, and I'd tend to be on your side --  but the fact is that as many as 20% of the Democrat party at least "wonder" on the "inside job" issue. Not surprisingly, the MSM tends to not like to talk about this very much -- and the fact that BO would think it a reasonable idea to have a  Truther as a "Czar" kind of boggles the mind.

Now the right has it's "Birthers" who wonder if BO is really a US citizen. While I don't subscribe to their concerns, I find it somewhat more rational a question if a man that we KNOW had a Kenyan father that was NOT a US citizen met the requirements of being born here. Last I checked, the number of Presidents that we have had anytime in the last 100 years that didn't have both parents be US citizens is very low (zero I believe). I think it is a bit easier to imagine how someone MIGHT have a birth in Kenya and decide to get to the US quickly to gather the benefits of US citizenship, rather than postulate how and why a US President would engineer a set of attacks on his own nation, and how such a conspiracy would be kept secret.

Again, I'm not a "Birther" --- I just find it very odd how really really unhinged the media finds them to be, but somehow thinks that the "Truther" idea is "sort of reasonable by comparison". But, I'm sure I only think that way due to the horror of conservative bias.

The BO Shuffle

RealClearPolitics - What Obama Says vs. What He Does

BO has a way with words, that is for sure. It also that the press just finds everything he says to be so doggone wonderful that there is no reason to check any of it.

As this article points out, the massive healthcare makeover that is being rushed with all possible speed won't take effect until 2013, when BO hopes to have been elected to his 2nd term. Why? If it is a really good thing that will save a lot of money and make everyone happy, wouldn't he put it into effect as rapidly as possible? Uh, well, NO!!

BO KNOWS that it is gong to cost WAY more than what we have now -- that is why the CBO projected it as a Trillion dollars over the next 10 years -- but of course they know that is a Trillion for only 2013 on, not '10 on. BO also knows that it is going to be painful -- to the folks that get sick. There is NOTHING  better than the PROMISE of Universal Healthcare to people that are WELL!!! It is like asking you "How good is your fire insurance or your life insurance". It MUST be GREAT!!! ... if you had somehow come to the conclusion that it wasn't you would have gotten a new policy that you THINK is great! Of course, you certainly aren't dead (in which case your heirs would know how good your life insurance REALLY was) and it is pretty darned unlikely that your house just burned.

BO Accomplishments

Hey, who says that BO hasn't been able to do much as President! Here is a good list of some of his top accomplishments. It is quite a list for someone that hasn't been in office very long. Just think what he might get done in a whole term!

1. Offended the Queen of England
2. Bowed to the King of Saudi Arabia
3. Praised the Marxist Daniel Ortega.
4. Kissed Socialist Hugo Chavez on the cheek.
5. Endorsed the Socialist Evo Morales of Bolivia
6. Sided with Hugo Chavez and Communist Fidel Castro against Honduras
7. Announced we would meet with Iranians with no pre-conditions while they're building their nuclear weapons.
8. Gave away billions to AIG also without pre-conditions.
9. Expanded the bailouts.
10. Insulted everyone who has ever loved a Special Olympian.
11. Doubled our national debt.
12. Announced the termination of our new missile defense system the day after North Korea launched an ICBM.
13. Released information on U.S. intelligence gathering despite urgings of his own CIA director and the prior four CIA directors.
14. Accepted without comment that five of his cabinet members cheated on their taxes and two other nominees withdrew after they couldn't take the heat.
15. Appointed a Homeland Security Chief who identified military veterans and abortion opponents as "dangers to the nation."
16. Ordered that the word "terrorism" no longer be used and instead refers to such acts as "man made disasters."
17. Circled the globe to publicly apologize for America 's world leadership.
18. Told the Mexican president that the violence in their country was because of us.
19. Politicized the census by moving it into the White House from the Department of Commerce.
20. Appointed as Attorney General the man who orchestrated the forced removal and expulsion to Cuba of a 9-year-old whose mother died trying to bring him to freedom in the United States.
21. Salutes as heroes three Navy SEALS who took down three terrorists who threatened one American life and the next day announces members of the Bush administration may stand trial for "torturing" three 9/11 terrorists by pouring water up their noses.
22.Low altitude photo shoot of Air Force One over New York City that frightened thousands of New Yorkers.
23. Sent his National Defense Advisor to Europe to assure them that the US will no longer treat Israel in a special manner and they might be on their own with the Muslims.
24. Praised Jimmy Carter's trip to Gaza where he sided with terrorist Hamas against Israel
25. Nationalized General Motors and Chrysler while turning shareholder control over to the unions and freezing out retired investors who owned their bonds. Committed unlimited taxpayer billions in the process.
26. Passed a huge energy tax in the House that will make American industry even less competitive while costing homeowners thousands per year.
27. Announced nationalized health care "reform" that will strip seniors of their Medicare, cut pay of physicians, increase taxes yet another $1 trillion, and put everyone on rationed care withgovernment bureaucrats deciding who gets care and who doesn't.

Bloomberg: Daschle says,
"Health care reform will not be pain free. Seniors should be more accepting of the conditions that come with age instead of treating them," while former Colorado Governor Dick Lamm says seniors have "a duty to die."

Hearings On Presidential Speech to Students

When Bush spoke to students, Democrats investigated, held hearings | Washington Examiner

Bush 41 had a nationwide hookup to students in '91. Now I really doubt that the original plan for the speech included lesson plans on kids writing down what they could do to "support the President", or videos of any famous people "pledging allegiance to Bush" (as BOs did when the plans first got out). Very few conservatives cared about the FACT of a president addressing the children, the issue was if this was a pep talk or an indoctrination talk. Generally, the MSM has failed to report what was planned and just reports on the content AFTER it was modified in response to conservative voices.

I'm guessing there won't be any investigation into the cost of the speech after the fact this time!

Why did the press ignore the Van Jones scandal? | Washington Examiner

Teddy The Traitor

Ted Kennedy's Soviet Gambit - Forbes.com

I find it absolutely incredible that this was never covered in the US.

"On 9-10 May of this year," the May 14 memorandum explained, "Sen. Edward Kennedy's close friend and trusted confidant [John] Tunney was in Moscow." (Tunney was Kennedy's law school roommate and a former Democratic senator from California.) "The senator charged Tunney to convey the following message, through confidential contacts, to the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Y. Andropov."

This is from Soviet archive information and was published in the London Times in 1991!!! My GOD!! A US Senator offering to work with Soviets to bring down an American President!

Now that bozo is buried in Arlington?? Can't we have him dug up and buried in Moscow?

We all ought to have been clear that the man had no morals, but no patriotism either? I guess once you have no values, it really means NO values!

I Pledge Allegiance to BO

Many conservatives enraged over Obama school speech - CNN.com

One can read this fine CNN article top to bottom and come to the conclusion that they would like you to "conservative opposition to BO is nuts". Maybe so, I'm not going to say that I'm unbiased, but I always like to ask myself a question that I really think CNN and their liberal buddies ought to consider.

What if it was Bush?

How would you feel then? The same? or different? Why? Would THAT be "nuts"? ... and of course I understand that many on the left are going to say that is COMPLETELY different, because BO is great, Bush was all wrong and evil to boot, and naturally anyone stupid enough to vote for Bush is BOTH stupid and nuts! That is why America is (was?) such a great country -- wildly divergent opinions got aired and people were able to compare reality to those opinions. We beleive (ed) in "principles not people".

Apparently, many classrooms intended to show the video that I embedded below. While some of the symbolsm might border on the spooky, it is mostly bubble gum grade propaganda about stupid stuff "I Pledge" ... to be nice to old ladies, shut off lights, study hard, etc ... but at the end, they "Pledge Allegiance to Barack" ... to the President". Now, go look in the mirror, and say "A YouTube Video of Bush supporters saying that they pledged allegiance to Bush that was directed at school kids by using stars that appeal to them would NOT have gotten liberals up in arms" (independent of trying to combine it with a message to school children). Look yourself in the mirror and then think about where you think the media in this country is at left or right??

"I Pledge Allegiance to George Bush" -- for kids. Think about it, and then read the CNN article. Could you pry them off the ceiling? I doubt it. Frankly, it creeps me out about 98% as much to hear "Bush" as it does "I Pledge Allegiance to Barack". Which country is this? Demi Moore and Ashton Kucher may be idiots, but they are well known idiots -- this isn't some "right wing militia" or "Marxist zombies". Frankly, I have an awfully hard time understanding how one can be American at all and not be somewhat concerned about this.

Indoor Aerial Robot

Pretty impressive. Suppose this is the most advanced thing that exists? Maybe, but I'm not sure I'd bet on it. Make this a little smaller, give it Bin Ladin recognition capability, "sleeps" by day and re-charges with solar power and hunts at night? Little C4? Little nerve toxin projectile? Audio of a BO speech? (no wait, that last one would violate the torture prohibition, I apologize)

Mass produce a couple 100 thousand and make a lot of areas of the world "less terrorist friendly". True, countermeasures might be "netting", strong fans on openings to buildings, etc -- but putting a little window breaking firepower on something seems like a potential, as well as maybe a bit of a "swarm capacity"? "Hey, I've found him, all units converge!!" ... say each one of them carry's a few oz of C4 -- 100 of them going for a building/vehicle/etc in unison should be impressive.

Yes yes, it might be tough on tall skinny guys with beards in the assumed area, but how many tall skinny guys does the planet really need?

Reality Speaks At Boston Globe?

Obama’s soak-the-rich mentality - The Boston Globe

Wow. The Boston Globe, deep in the heart of leftville. THEY are looking at things an starting to wonder??

High taxes can have unwelcome, and unintended, consequences.

Governments delude themselves when they imagine they can easily raise all the money they want by soaking the rich. The rich always have other options. When taxes grow too onerous, high earners can adjust their economic behavior. Some move to Spain to play soccer for La Liga. Others, less glamorously, cut back on their investments, forgo new business opportunities, seek out tax havens, or work fewer hours. The impact is felt not only in lower-than-expected tax revenues, but in lower rates of growth and productivity and job creation. Jobs are disproportionately created by those who have money to invest. “You can’t have employment and despise employers,’’ Massachusetts Senator Paul Tsongas used to say. “No goose, no golden eggs.’’

Holy Moly Batman! You think? Folks with more money, more skills, etc have more options? Tell me it isn't so! I thought they were stationary money cows that could be miked at will. Perhaps the Globe needs to bulk up on some frothy BO rhetoric:

“While middle-class families have been playing by the rules, living up to their responsibilities as neighbors and citizens, those at the commanding heights of our economy have not,’’ charges Obama’s 2010 budget. “There’s nothing wrong with making money, but there is something wrong when we allow the playing field to be tilted so far in the favor of so few.’’ Accordingly it vows “to restore a basic sense of fairness to the tax code’’ and to ensure “that the wealthiest pay more.’’

There you go, how can you argue with that? Well, if one was reality based (not that we will be accusing the BO administration of any of that), one might look at the following:

By any reasonable standard the rich pay far more than their fair share. According to the latest (2007) IRS data, the top 1 percent of US taxpayers earn 22.8 percent of adjusted gross income but pay 40.4 percent of all federal income taxes. By contrast, the bottom 95 percent of taxpayers, who earn 62.5 percent of the income, pay just 39.4 percent of the income tax burden. That bears repeating: The income tax burden of the top 1 percent, who comprise just 1.4 million taxpayers, now exceeds that of the bottom 134 million combined.

One doesn't have to think very long to realize why the BO Administration and the MSM tend to be very fact averse. They are such "stubborn things". You go to all the work of devising a brilliant class warfare strategy, and much like your Afghanistan strategy, the rich just don't cooperate. Go figure. Why don't your targets ever sit still?

Lion of Leinenkugel

iowahawk: "Lion of Leinenkugel" Norm Snitker, 62, Laid to Rest

Any resemblance to drunks living or dead is intentional -- forget moderation, just enjoy it!

BO Breaks A Non-Spending Record

Op-Ed Columnist - The Obama Slide - NYTimes.com

The result is the Obama slide, the most important feature of the current moment. The number of Americans who trust President Obama to make the right decisions has fallen by roughly 17 percentage points. Obama’s job approval is down to about 50 percent. All presidents fall from their honeymoon highs, but in the history of polling, no newly elected American president has fallen this far this fast.

Hey, who says BO isn't special? His popularity has fallen the farthest the fastest of any newly elected President!! Wow! It seems that from '05 to '08, falling Bush poll numbers were being trumpeted from front pages with regularity. I wonder why it is that our unbiased press feels so differently about BO?

Oh The Morality!

Cheney’s dark side - and ours - The Boston Globe

As I read through this column I'm struck by a certainty that goes well beyond the farthest reaches of the "religious right" in the US and heads directly into Islamic Fundamentalist "morality". The horrid moralizers of the religious right are only trying to work with the law to control things like infanticide in the service of convienience and to prevent the conversion of a rite that has been between a man and a woman for all of human history into "something new". Those discussions are about using a political system that was supposedly suggested for exactly what it was intended for -- what exactly is the "mechanism" that might be suggested by the columnist below to deal with Americans "not getting their polls right"?:

The rot in our national morality is evident in a June poll by the Associated Press, which found that 52 percent of Americans said torture was sometimes or often justified to obtain information from terror suspects. An April CNN poll found that even though 60 percent of Americans thought harsh techniques including waterboarding constituted torture, 50 percent approved of them. A Washington Post/ABC News Poll was almost evenly split between Americans who say we should never use torture (49 percent) and should use torture in some cases (48 percent).

Whether it is because of the politics of fear that defined the Bush-Cheney years, the recession engulfing the Obama administration, or simply an indifference to foreigners languishing in jail, Americans have displayed scant curiosity about the dark side. A May McClatchy poll found Americans to be almost evenly split on having a “bipartisan blue-chip commission’’ on interrogations, and the CNN poll found nearly two-thirds disapproving of either a congressional investigation or independent panel.

This is a level of apathy, even civic debasement that makes it no wonder Cheney can spout off despite leaving America in a disgraceful place. He feels empowered to defend the dark side, because we have yet to shine a light.

Nobody on the Christian right that I know of expects that the minds of many of those who support Gay Marriage or Abortion on Demand are somehow going to get "educated" to "get it right". The politics is about getting people who SAY one thing (like 70%+ against Gay Marriage and later term abortions) to stand up and be politically counted. We don't expect Planned Parenthood and or the folks that march in the parades in San Francisco to suddenly "see the light".

When faced with people that fly planes into buildings to kill as many civilians as possible with their minds firmly fixed on 72 virgins in paradise, many Americans suspect that prissy Boston Globe columnists might not be the final moral authority on "what's fair in love and war". If they manage to put together some inquisition that puts a bunch of CIA folks and maybe even Dick Cheney in jail, is that going to change their minds.

Maybe. The reality that puts the numbers where they are today is that while the MSM and the Democrats have told us REPEATEDLY that "The policies and methods of the Bush Administration have made us less safe", there hasn't been any obvious evidence of that, such as an attack equivalent or greater than 9-11. If what the MSM and Democrats have said had any foundation in fact, we ought to have been attacked repeatedly during the Bush administration or shortly thereafter. The old low point for the security policy environment left to an administration was 2001 as Clinton handed off to Bush. Eight months later, 9-11. I write this on Sept 1, 2009 -- while BO and the MSM were so very certain that we were made "less safe" by Bush, the Clinton administration saw the first WTC bombing, Kovar Towers, 3 African Embassies and the USS Cole, the Bush Administration saw NONE after changing security policy on 9-11-2001.

We have now changed our policies sufficiently that we ought to be able to see over the next 4 years how much safer we have become with the great and powerful BO at the helm.