Via the
Patriot Post.
The Foundation
"I want an American character, that the powers of Europe may be convinced we act for ourselves and not for others; this, in my judgment, is the only way to be respected abroad and happy at home." --George Washington
Opinion in Brief
Anna Chapman -- one of the Russian spies arrested by the FBI"When the FBI announced the arrest of 10 Russian spies living in deep cover for years, aka sleeper agents, Moscow's feelings were hurt. As if it were the announcement, not the arrests, that was the big problem. To quote the Russian foreign ministry: 'We don't understand the reasons which prompted the U.S. Department of Justice to make a public statement in the spirit of Cold War spy stories.' Why make a scene? Hasn't the new, enlightened American president just reset relations with the Soviet Union -- excuse me, Russia? ... Despite the spy-story trappings, this is scarcely a return to Cold War days. The Cold War was serious. This sounds more like one of Maxwell Smart's battles with KAOS; it's less John LeCarré than Mel Brooks. ... What were these sleepers supposed to be doing over here anyway, besides enjoying the American way of life? ... It seems even Soviet agents are hooked on the American Dream -- a cushy job, an SUV, and a townhouse in Cambridge conveniently near Harvard, or maybe a bungalow out in the leafy suburbs. In short, the good life. ... If there was anything suspicious about those arrested, it was that they were more American than the Americans. Which figures. They were American for all intents and, according to the FBI, subversive purposes. But there's no evidence, not even a whisper, of espionage. What would be the point? This is an age when state secrets are splashed all over the front page of the New York Times -- not just with impunity but with Pulitzer Prizes to follow." --Arkansas Democrat-Gazette editor Paul Greenberg
Re: The Left
"Attorney General Eric Holder and the rest of the open-borders DOJ team have invoked a 'preemption' doctrine based on the U.S. Constitution's supremacy clause to attack Arizona's anti-illegal immigration measure and oppose local and state enforcement of federal immigration laws. Never mind that the Arizona law was drafted scrupulously to comply with all federal statutes and the Constitution. You gotta love Obama's fair-weather friends of the Constitution. When a state acts to do the job the feds won't do, Obama's legal eagles run to the Founding Fathers for protection. When, on the other hand, left-wing cities across the country pass illegal alien sanctuary policies that flagrantly defy national immigration laws and hamper cross-jurisdiction enforcement, the newfound federal preemption advocates are nowhere in sight. The Obama DOJ's lawsuit against Arizona is sabotage of the people's will and the government's fundamental responsibility to provide for the common defense." --columnist Michelle Malkin
( Read more... ) The Last Word
"In his major addresses, Obama's modesty about his own country has been repeatedly on display as, in one venue after another, he has gratuitously confessed America's alleged failing -- from disrespecting foreigners to having lost its way morally after 9/11. It's fine to recognize the achievements of others and be non-chauvinistic about one's country. But Obama's modesty is curiously selective. When it comes to himself, modesty is in short supply. It began with the almost comical self-inflation of his presidential campaign, from the still inexplicable mass rally in Berlin in front of a Prussian victory column to the Greek columns framing him at the Democratic convention. And it carried into his presidency, from his posture of philosopher-king adjudicating between America's sins and the world's to his speeches marked by a spectacularly promiscuous use of the first-person pronoun -- I. Notice, too, how Obama habitually refers to Cabinet members and other high government officials as 'my' -- 'my secretary of homeland security,' 'my national security team,' 'my ambassador.' The more normal -- and respectful -- usage is to say 'the,' as in 'the secretary of state.' These are, after all, public officials sworn to serve the nation and the Constitution -- not just the man who appointed them. It's a stylistic detail, but quite revealing of Obama's exalted view of himself. Not surprising, perhaps, in a man whose major achievement before acceding to the presidency was writing two biographies -- both about himself. Obama is not the first president with a large streak of narcissism. But the others had equally expansive feelings about their country. Obama's modesty about America would be more understandable if he treated himself with the same reserve. What is odd is to have a president so convinced of his own magnificence -- yet not of his own country's." --columnist Charles Krauthammer
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