The Silly Putty Candidate

Back in the 1960's, a band called The American Breed had a hit single called Bend Me, Shape Me. How were they to know that the song would aptly describe a future presidential candidate?

A better question might be, who could imagine the most rigid (and oft described as "smartest") woman in America could transform herself into whatever she needed to be to appeal to the most voters? If it weren't so transparently obvious, I would offer some credence to the parenthetical description. I'm sure there are those who would, nonetheless.

Hillary Clinton appeared as a guest on Fox's O'Reilly Factor on Wednesday night, a show greatly anticipated by many conservatives as a potential bloodbath. It never happened; in a clear attempt at looking more feminine, Hillary wore a bright pink pant suit. What this did for me is to remind me of another '60's hit which, ironically, is tied in an abstract way to the song by The American Breed...Silly Putty.

Silly Putty was a toy that came in a plastic egg. It was pink, pliable and kept kids busy for hours. The best part of Silly Putty was that you could flatten it out, press it onto the comics and peel up the image, which you could then stretch into funny faces. Hillary might as well have been singing Bend Me, Shape Me as she plastered her face onto a photo of Ronald Reagan and, peeling up the image on the pliable putty, tried to sound like what O'Reilly's audience might have wanted to hear, all the while stretching the hell out of the truth.

For his part, O'Reilly, while not completely folding like a cheap camera, still allowed her latitudes and escape avenues that someone not-Hillary could never have expected. The kid gloves were most definitely on for the entire interview. There will be more of this futility to air on Thursday night.

I can hardly wait.

-Woody

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Newt (Inadvertently) Gets It "Wright"

The big news of the day is the sudden attacks, if you will, by Jeremiah Wright on Barack Obama and the retaliatory remarks by the candidate flung back at the Reverend. The news wires, the blogosphere, the talk shows are all having a field day with this. I must admit, it is quite enticing to have something of this magnitude rocking the democrats' primary race. But there is much more to this story than a mere spat between pastor and parishioner.

The buzz and the speculation stemming from Wright's interview with PBS' Bill Moyers, as well as his speech before the NAACP, is about his possibly feeling "shunned" by Obama and has therefore been lashing out at him for that reason. I had other ideas but was not quite sure how to broach the subject in a sufficiently sensitive manner until my thoughts were validated this morning.

Considering Reverend Wright's thoughts and his affinity for Louis Farrakhan, I began to think yesterday that perhaps Wright was cut from the same cloth as our so-called "Black Leaders" and as such, had the same risk-of-loss factor as the likes of Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton. There is a specific reason that he would so blatantly jeopardize the chances of America electing her first Black President. It would weaken their mantra that America is still inherently racist.

Newt Gingrich was on Good Morning America this morning. Later he was on The View (something I thought incredibly novel until I heard that Hillary was to appear on The O'Reilly Factor on Wednesday, but that's for another day), and it was actually Barbara Walters who set the question up. Part of the transcripts from Newsbusters:

WALTERS: Why would he try to hurt if, if he’s trying to- just to get back to that, if he is trying to, to have more rights for black people, why would he deliberately harm the first candidate for a black presidency? Why does he matter?


GINGRICH: A good friend of mine, Vivian Berry Hill, is the spouse of an African-American minister in Mississippi and has organized a nationwide organization of spouses of ministers in the African-American community. She sent me an e-mail this morning and she said, you know- after the show she had watched us on "Good Morning America." She said, "you know, if you look at Reverend Wright’s hostility to people becoming middle class and the sense that they were selling out the African-American community," she said "it’s almost as though Senator Obama became more acceptable to white America." He suddenly began to peel away from being acceptable to Reverend Wright’s version of America. And the Reverend Wright’s investment is in a very, very deeply afro-centric model. And he said this a lot if you look at some of his sermons. I mean, he legitimately believes if you become a Bill Cosby, if you become somebody who’s successful in mainstream America, you have deserted the community.

There it is in a nutshell. Reverend Wright and his ilk have decided that if Obama is elected president of this country, it will remove some of the ammunition used in the "struggle" and vindicate every black person who has dared to leave the reservation, as it were, to pursue the American Dream, and to join the community of America and throw off the stigma, once and for all, of victimhood.

How ironic is it, that Barack Obama is such a threat to the Black Leadership that they would attempt to sabotage his chances at the nomination?

-Woody

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Hillary: In The Dark Again

I am constantly amazed that someone once described as "the smartest woman in America" is not only very easily duped, but has been so many times. It's an endless parade of one trick after another being "pulled" on this hapless woman. Couple that with her extremely faulty memory and what's truly frightening is, she wants to run the country.

Whenever it's politically expedient for her faculties to fail, she doesn't see the danger in freely allowing them to do so. She basically admits that she's not all there or not involved in things that she damned well should be. For a smart woman, she sure is dumb for not seeing this. And yet, she's sometimes too smart for her own good.

For example, when the stories started swirling around Barack Obama's cozy relationship with Bill Ayers, a former fugitive from justice for his participation in the dealings of the Weather Underground, Hillary saw an opportunity to take her adversary down a peg. So smart was she that she recognized that she could use the growing controversy to her advantage. But...she wasn't smart enough to remember that she was also a part of history where this group was concerned. Or, she never knew it. Yeah.

So when it came out that her husband, Bill Clinton, commuted the sentences of two former members of the Weather Underground and it looked like it would be a serious hit to her own campaign, she once again feigned innocence. But according to a New York newspaper, she could not have possibly been unaware of the commutations. From Newsday:

On October 19, 2000, as Hillary was hunting for Senate votes throughout New York, Rockland County's biggest paper, the Journal News, ran a front page story reporting that imprisoned radical Susan Rosenberg -- linked to the 1981 Weather Underground Brinks robbery that left two Nyack cops dead -- was seeking clemency from Bill Clinton.

The next day, the widows and fellow state and local police attended a memorial service for the two dead cops at the site of the killings. Also in attendance: Sen. Chuck Schumer, who in that fall was frequently campaigning with Hillary. According to another front page story, on Oct. 21, he made a pledge to the widows to fight the clemency: "I intend to take our opposition as high as I can in government."

On December 16, 2000, after Hillary became New York's Senator-elect, the paper did another Page 1 story about an upcoming 60 Minutes episode on Rosenberg's clemency application. It included a quote from one of her new constituents, Diane O'Grady, wife of one of the dead cops: "This is a woman who has taken lives."

On December 17, 2000, the "60 Minutes" piece on Rosenberg's case and clemency request ran.


So, Clinton -- in her effort to avoid being connected in any way to the case -- now says she knew nothing about it.

What this says is that this woman who would become leader of the free world is either a pathalogical liar, delusional, or a complete tool who has been kept in the dark about almost every important event in her political and professional life. Personally, I opt for number one. In any event, I don't think she should ever set foot in the Oval Office.

-Woody

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Jimmy Carter Update (And Why He Needs A Short Leash)

I wrote a few days ago regarding this subject in Rescind Carter's Nobel Prize and since then some people have had the same idea. Some have called for the revocation of Carter's passport, denying the former president any further international travel. The level of outrage over his one-man crusade to assign legitimacy to a terror group (Hamas) has been palpable. The failure of his "mission" has become more evident by the day.

On Saturday, shortly after Carter claimed to have won some sort of concession, wherein Hamas would "recognize Israel's right to exist", the group attacked a crossing into Gaza, killing two Israeli soldiers. At that time, when I wrote the above mentioned piece, Carter was touting his alleged success in the region as vindication for his refusal to acquiesce to the wishes of the State Department that he not engage in his quest for whatever it was he sought. Perhaps it was further accolades, above what he perceived he attained from the Oslo grant of his Peace Prize.

The very fact that his "acheivement" was instantaneously nullified by the Hamas attacks at the Gaza crossing had no apparent effect on his exuberance and feeling of self-fulfillment. He's still sparring with the Secretary Of State over whether or not he was asked to abort his trip, but the most compelling evidence of just how mis-guided his foray into the Middle East may have been is the reaction of the very people he purported to have been helping; the Palestinians themselves.

According to Palestinian foreign minister Riyad al-Malki , "President Carter came to the region thinking he could achieve something. Unfortunately president Carter left without anything concrete."

So even the people he came to "help" have nothing good to say about his visit. Maybe Hamas was happy about it, but should anyone care what Hamas thinks? Some would argue that Hamas is legitimate simply because they "won an election". Maybe the question should have something to do with how many people wish they could rescind their votes for the Hamas leadership.

While we're at it, a poll asking how many would vote for Jimmy Carter, knowing what they know now, would do so again...

Meanwhile, despite his intrusion into U.S. foreign policy, we still have the staus quo; Hamas will continue in its quest to rid the world of Israel. Great job, Jimmy.

-Woody

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Rescind Carter's Nobel Prize

Perhaps the only positive spin one could put on the ill-advised "peace" junket that Jimmy Carter is currently engaged in with Hamas and Syria is that it demonstrates the futility of discussions with certain groups. Carter should realize by now that Hamas doesn't care one bit what he has to say or offer, and that they don't care what Israel has to offer, except for the death and destrucion of every Israeli. This is not a viable option for the Israelis.

Even as Carter is embarrassing his nation by giving credibility to violent and hateful groups, in the misguided hope of achieving peace, his hosts have launched yet another attack on Israel. Hamas blew up two jeeps full of explosives at a Gaza crossing.


Carter should also remember the Armistice Agreements Of 1949 and all the good they did Israel. It wasn't peace the Arabs wanted then, it wasn't peace the Arabs wanted after they lost the 6-Day-War, and it's not peace they want now. The lead up to the 6-Day-War saw Israel doing everything it could to negotiate peace with her Arab neighbors, but the pleas fell on deaf ears. The Arabs were too busy listening to the mis-information campaign being waged by the Soviets, and too busy provoking Israel into war.

(AP Photo / Yehuda Lahiani)

Carter is wasting his time. People who viewed the very creation of an Israeli State as "al-Nakba" (the catastrophe) cannot be counted upon to negotiate in good faith. This trip by a former (and failed) president should show the world that which they refuse to see. Hamas will never rest until Israel is a faded memory. Hopefully Jimmy Carter will be one long before that day. And hopefully, if it comes down to it, Israel will enjoy the same success it did in the 6-day-war.

-Woody

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Perception Vs. Reality

(Original posting from January '07)

There are so many glaring examples of liberal hypocrisy, combined with mainstream media enabling, that I scarcely know where to begin. But we have all seen it and at least half of us have ignored it. To revert to a reference to movie lore, I can only equate this selective memory to those “flashy things” the Men In Black used. Is such a thing possible? In all honesty, I simply cannot subscribe to such fantasy but to be fair, I have no other rational explanation. Call me kooky, but what in God’s name is going on here?

I’ll begin with the Sandy Berger affair, which is arguably the quintessential case of double standard. In preparation for the impending 9/11 Commission hearings Berger, whether at the behest of Clinton or not, did something that would have been national news for weeks had he been a Republican. He broke the law, seriously. And whether or not you make the connection to the reason why he did this, the fact remains, it looks bad, and the Woodwards and Bernsteins of journalism should have been on this story like…well, like Woodward and Bernstein on Richard Nixon.

Such lame explanations as, “Oh, Sandy was just sloppy that day” have been more than adequate for a media and populace supposedly thirsty for truth. Again, imagine the parties involved being reversed. Imagine Richard Nixon explaining the blank 18 minutes of tape away with something like, “Heh heh, I was trying to tape Pat snoring and put the wrong reel on the machine”. Of course the media would have slapped their collective knee and scolded Tricky Dick for being an incorridgable cut-up, right? Fat chance.

Let’s try the Rose Law Firm records. Hillary had a laptop with all the information required by investigators, but what happened? Uh…it vanished. “Nope, I must have misplaced it”, said an impish Hillary.

No problem, was the response, and the media simply nodded and went about their business, which was to attack those who had the audacity to attack their beloved Clintons. And then, 3 days after the statute of limitations expired in the case, Hillary stumbles down to breakfast and says, “Wow! Someone call the FBI, I just found my laptop!” Media response? “YAWN!!!”

Finally, to ultimately demonstrate that the media is more than a group of people with no agenda, eager to simply provide the news, we have this:

The Duke Lacrosse case. This story was unavoidable when it looked like a group of rich white boys was about to be hanged for raping a black woman. Story after story about how justice in America was finally for real, and no longer would blacks be made victims by whites. Well as it turns out, it was whites being victimized by not only a lone black woman, but by a liberal agenda which is totally out of control.

These boys are all but completely vindicated now (a statement which makes its own sad statement, incidentally), and there is barely a whimper from the MSM. They slash and burn on their alleged “quest for the truth”, and when the trail turns cold, they simply move on like a camper out to piss off Smokey The Bear. They leave the ashes of their campaign smoldering and never bother to glance back.

-Woody

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Teach The Children Well

Sometimes, while digging for treasure, one finds something that was never sought, something not wanted, and certainly something that would have been best left buried if not for the magnitude of the discovery.

Talk radio shows have been atwitter over the Barack Obama-Bill Ayers connection for weeks now, a story that has been largely ignored by Big Media. I decided to find out for myself what the hubbub was about, but I found a much more disturbing story in the process. While we have a Presidential candidate rubbing elbows with an admitted felon and domestic terrorist, the odds of said candidate occupying the oval office are slim, and with the revelations springing forth daily, those odds get slimmer. Still cause for concern to be sure, but not something I consider a grave risk.

What I did find out goes much deeper into the mindset of modern America and our sensibilities regarding right and wrong. People who are already leftists need not read further, for you will only be heartened. People who fret over the education that their children receive in Universities should pay all heed.

There was once a time in our nation when decent people would recoil in horror in learning that their children were not only in the same room with a criminal, but that the criminal was their teacher. Many of us are already highly disgusted with the liberal indoctrination pervasive in our universities, but how many of us knew the extent of the damage? How could we even imagine that former sworn enemies of the U.S. Government, people who openly declared war against their country, would one day hold tenured positions of prestige in our colleges?

Bill Ayers was a member of the Weather Underground, a group of Vietnam Anti-War Protestors who bombed the Pentagon and attempted to blow up the Capitol Building in the late 60's, early 70's. He's also an apparent pal of Barack Obama's. But this website, which contains a very interesting video, shows just what Ayers was doing as a young man. Unfortunately, it's about much more than this one man and his current relationship with Obama.The people associated with Ayers, killers and traitors all, are now "educating" our young adults. A sampling:

Bernardine Dohrn - Part of the leadership of the Weather Underground,
Dohrn was considered the organization’s figurehead. She spent the 1970s
living underground and was on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted list. Today, Dohrn is
an associate professor and director at Northwestern University's Children
and Justice Center.

Mark Rudd - Rudd was best known for his role in the 1968 Columbia protests.
As part of the Weather Underground's leadership, he lived underground for several
years during the 1970s. He now teaches at a junior college in New Mexico.

Bill Ayers - A central figure in theWeathermen, Ayers lived underground
for ten years, an experience he wrote about in his memoir, Fugitive Days.
Now married to Dohrn, Ayers is currently a school reform activist and a professor
of education at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

Click on the link at "A sampling" and read the rest. It is absolutely frightening that these people have been accredited as teachers and professors. People who, by their own admissions, declared war on their own government and vowed to destroy the America we know today. Teaching legions of young adults, like our kids, whatever it is that they believe today.

It is...astounding.

-Woody

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Land Of The Free?

We may still be the home of the brave, but the land of the free part is slowly slipping away. It's happening so slowly, as a matter of fact, that it's barely perceptible. Like grass grows, it is not noticeable until the weekend, when it needs to be mowed.

Our politicians have become much more than drunk with power, they are positively inebriated. We've no one to blame but ourselves, of course, for it is we who have been serving up the beverages in the form of fairness and feel-good demands. Who could have envisioned an America in which the Government would wield the power over private businesses to the extent that it does already?

We now have a politician daring to speak of limiting how much someone can be paid. Barack Obama wants the Government to pass legislation that, in effect, would put a cap on how much a corporate CEO can be paid. In the not so distant past, this would have seemed unimaginable, nay, unthinkable! Now, however, thanks to the fabulous job our politicians have done in dividing and conquering the masses through class warfare, we will have some people applauding like seals over this idea.

We often hear of such things from Venezuela, e.g., and think to ourselves, "Thank God we're in America". But if people would receive the message as it should be delivered by a "non-partisan" press, they would be more inclined to oppose it. So here, I will present the message in its true form.

"America's
federal government seeks to seize corporations."

There, that looks more like it. Of course the fertilizer, that is perhaps as much as half of the population, will make the grass grow by not seeing the obvious and will denounce the message as ludicrous. And come the weekend, we'll be dragging the mower out of the shed.

-Woody

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King Bloomberg And The Punitive Tax

New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg had an idea. He called it "Congestion Pricing" and it was ostensibly designed to ease traffic in Manhattan and cut pollution. Ah, what a lovely sound; cut pollution. Why, we all want to cut pollution, right? Too bad this idea was nothing more than a politician's money-grab, which would have done nothing to cut pollution and would have raped the outer borough people to the tune of at least $160.00 per month. And that's on top of the normal tolls.

The plan would have forced commuters who drive to work to pay an eight dollar "fee" to cross onto the island of Manhattan below 60th Street. Some would say that that's not so bad, but then some probably don't know that the last place to cross from the east is the 59th Street Bridge, unless one drove to the northern tip of Manhattan and crossed there from the George Washington Bridge. That would mean, however, that someone living on or near Queens Boulevard (which is at the 59th Street Bridge) would have to drive up to the Bronx and pay the toll at the Throgs Neck Bridge, drive the length of the unGodly Cross Bronx Expressway, pay another toll to get back into Manhattan from the George Washington Bridge, and sit in traffic all the way back down to say, 61st Street, if that's where they worked.

This may sound ridiculous, but New Yorkers can be pretty hard headed when they want to prove a point. Not everyone would go to such lengths, but there are a lot who would. They are mostly the ones who would absolutely not pay the fee and who also would not switch to mass transit if it meant trading a 20 minute drive in the comfort of one's own vehicle for an inconvenient hour plus trip on a dirty transport where they would have to deal with whoever else was on said transport.

Another point, and one I think would have been a major one, is that vehicles with commercial license plates (you know, the people who deliver all that stuff to Manhattan) would have had to pay twenty one dollars, per day! Imagine...$420 per month for the privilege of driving into an area and having no place to park, all while trying to get necessary goods to the people of New York? I would have been a strong defender of an all-out strike by every delivery driver to simply refuse to bring the goods across the bridges. I wonder how long the kingdom of Bloomy could have withstood such a thing.

Fortunately, the State Assembly pulled the plug on the whole idea. Oh yeah...New York City will now forfeit $354 million in federal aid as a result. Talk about a win-win situation. The taxpayers just saved $354 million and commuters saved a bundle on this Royal Fee.

If you really want to get technical, we can another "win" to the win-win...the people of manhattan won't be forced to walk across the bridges to the outer boroughs to collect the stuff that wasn't delivered. And don't feel bad for the City losing all that revenue. Bloomberg will just raise taxes on cigarettes another buck or two they'll be just fine. Kings can do that, you know.

-Woody

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