READER RESPONSE -- National notes

Because this blog is sort of a trial ground for and response area for my Pioneer Press columns, I tend to focus on local issues or issues with a local slant. However I do receive some email on issues of national and international significance and some is worth sharing.

Gary Larson, not the cartoonist but a retired journalist and often-spurned (unjustly so) contributor to the Pioneer Press, takes to the Accuracy in Media web site to rebut a column by Jim Boyd in the Star Tribune.

Another 'Nam vet, editorialist Jim Boyd, a malicious Bush critic (once he compared his policies, actually, to Adolph Hitler's), is a quagmire theorist. In his column in the hard-left liberal Minneapolis [MN] Star Tribune , on the 30th anniversary of the fall of Saigon, Boyd tries mightily to make a case for quagmire. ("Vietnam's past poses hard questions about Iraq's future," on May 1, 2005.)

Boyd ponders how "...like Vietnam the situation in Iraq has become." Earth to Boyd: We won the war in Iraq. Before that, in Afghanistan. Terrorists are being hunted down. Good and decent Iraqis support hunting down the evil-doers. New Iraq's police forces take deadly hits. Democracy is taking root, a far cry from "our" war, Vietnam, by any rational standard. Clear-headedness is clearly not Boyd's forte.

Larson goes on to do a concise dissect and discard of Boyd’s premise and conclusions. Read it here.

Jack Stassen is another strong conservative that has trouble breaking into the pages of the Pioneer Press. Given his solid conservative views, his thoughts on the liberal/conservative filibuster compromise are worth noting.

It also worth noting that while Jack is not specifically responding to this Star Tribune piece, the Strib use of personal attack reinforces Jack’s point. As noted in the Center for the American Experiment newsletter, the Strib refers to conservatives as -- Deceitful, Extremist, Fringe Fundamentalists, Radical, and Ultraconservative Sectarians.

Here are Jack’s observations.

It's amusing how lefties, including the media, constantly refer to ALL conservatives as "neo cons", "far right faction folks", and "radical right wing extremists".

Those labels seem to apply to EVERYONE who doesn't buy into the Socialistic, do-gooder, anti-Bush, bleeding heart, confiscatory redistribution mindset. In other words, the majority of Americans who went to the polls in recent elections are so categorized by the left wing.

The recent jawboning and compromise relative to retaining the filibuster mechanism provided us with some classic examples.

Democrats roundly berated Republican Senators as belonging to one or more of the aforementioned groups, SOLELY because those folks wanted to eliminate the filibuster as an abusive Congressional tool and proceed henceforth with up and down votes for Judicial nominees on the Senate Floor.

The irony is that (and it hasn't dawned on morons as yet) the Republicans probably scored a victory in reaching the compromise.

We all know that shiftless, irresponsible types, who always vote Democrat, are gradually outbreeding and outnumbering us. In the not too distant future, they undoubtedly will be electing a majority of Democrats to the U.S. Senate.
At that point in time, Republicans, as a minority, will be happy to have the filibuster available to them. Hopefully, they will use it in a responsible manner rather than being purely pigheaded and obstructionist.

Of course, when that time arrives, you can bet the Democrats will scream to the heavens to do away with the filibuster. When the shoe is on the other foot, Democrats have never been known to let any sense of fair play, reciprocity, or integrity get in their way.

Sometimes, political myopia and shortsightedness wins a battle but those with some vision and sophistication win the longer term war.