Judd Gregg's Withdrawal as Commerce Secretary. I was mystified by how a Republican senator from New Hampshire could be in an administration which pulls a "bait-and-switched" so-called "stimulus" bill, little more than conventional Democratic spending bill of wishlist priorities, and also looked to effectively strip his control over the Census Bureau, which, of course, the Obama Post-Partisan Administration wants to control for its own political ambitions.
It is bad enough that Senator Gregg had his unquestionable integrity impugned by a hyperpolitical operative like Rahm Emanuel, ignoring the pleas of the last several directors of the Census Bureau for independent status. The move essentially transformed the Cabinet post into little more than a figurehead role, bereft of meaningful managerial authority.
Obama's attempts to portray his so-called "stimulus" bill as "bipartisan" (managing to peel away only 3 Republican votes in the entire Congress) lack any serious credibility. Similarly, trying to present 3 Republican Cabinet choices (holdover Robert Gates at Defense (not even a Republican, according to Majority Leader Harry Reid), fellow Illinois Congressman LaHood and Judd Gregg, a replacement for Democrat Governor Bill Richardson) as an unprecedented bipartisan unity government is sheer chutzpah, nothing even close, say, to Lincoln's selection of a Democrat running mate for the 1864 election. Once again, Obama believes that the American taxpayer will continue to confuse symbolism or vacuous speeches with substance, not to mention his rhetorical nonsense of post-partisan politics and "turning the page": His very choice of Emanuel as chief of staff essentially brought old school Chicago politics to the White House. Unrepentant Chicago politics is not "change we need"; it's simply "more of the same".
Helen Thomas and "So-Called Terrorists"
It's bad enough Helen Thomas impugned the integrity of journalism by suggesting any good journalist must be liberal: "I'm a liberal, I was born a liberal, I'll be one 'til I die, what else should a reporter be when you see so much and when we have such great privilege and access to the truth?" Let me get this straight, Ms. Thomas: you see the truth of failing public schools in places like Detroit, under generous funding by a liberal government; you see the truth of the liberal-governed local and state Louisiana government failure to execute on an evacuation plan before and during Hurricane Katrina, leaving school buses to flood out unattended in low areas; you see a deterioration of the percentage of two-parent households in urban areas, even referenced by liberals such as Obama and Bill Cosby, despite massive social welfare net spending: with all these truths and others, able to verify the same first-hand, you remain convinced that of the righteousness of your political convictions and the effectiveness of liberal governance? Talk about a state of denial and inconvenient truths...
We had the following exchange between Obama and Helen Thomas during Obama's first press conference as President on Feb. 9:
OBAMA: All right, Helen. This is my inaugural moment here. (Laughter.) I'm really excited.THOMAS: Mr. President, do you think that Pakistan are maintaining the safe havens in Afghanistan for these so-called terrorists?
There is no way to sugarcoat such an incompetently-asked question. Pakistan troops are not in Afghanistan. Most journalists are aware of the fact that Pakistan forces are not in control of autonomous regions along the western frontier bordering Afghanistan. Also, it is widely suspected that there are Taliban and Al Qaeda sympathizers in Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and among the lower ranks of military officers. If Helen was seeking what feeds these radical elements, she might address of if and when Pakistan is going to crack down on the destabilizing presence of religious Madrassas (schools).
I have Indian friends whom are quite indignant about the fact that the US has been a silent ally to Pakistan for years while the Pakistan military and these radical elements have been playing a game of "good cop/bad cop", leaving in their wake Indian civilian casualties.
But the knee-jerk responses of most objective listeners to Ms. Thomas, including conservatives like myself, deal with Ms. Thomas' deliberate phrasing "so-called terrorists". This is a sensitive topic to most conservatives because certain liberal news media consider the term 'terrorist' to be subjective, e.g., Stephen Jukes, head of Reuter's global news: "Throughout this difficult time we have strictly adhered to our 150-year-old tradition of factual, unbiased reporting and upheld our long-standing policy against the use of emotive terms, including the words 'terrorist' or 'freedom fighter'." This is, of course, pretentious self-serving nonsense: when we had nearly 3000 civilian casualties on 9/11, we didn't refer to them as "alleged civilian casualties" or "so-called victims" (despite the inflammatory rhetoric of people like Ward Churchill and Obama's own mentor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright). I don't need some convened world court's imprimatur to validate what we already know from the preponderance of salient facts.
Ms. Thomas, I don't want to hear anymore about your so-called objectivity or alleged professionalism. You made that quite clear when you admit that your born liberal perspective has filtered and shaped what you report.
Nadya Suleman and Her Octuplets
I am not sure why, with 6 young children already, unemployed, unmarried and living with her parents, why Nadya Suleman consulted with a fertility specialist and allegedly had multiple embryos implanted, recently becoming the mother of the world's first set of surviving octuplets. It is an extraordinary challenge, from both a financial and logistics perspective, to care for 14 young children, never mind the fact that 3 of the oldest 6 are disabled (one with autism) and chances are that some or all of the octuplets are at risk for developmental disorders which may take years to surface.
Bill O'Reilly, the prominent conservative host of the leading cable TV (Fox News) O'Reilly Factor and fellow Roman Catholic, styles himself as a leading advocate against child abuse, most explicitly in support (across all 50 states) of Jessica's Law, which mandates tough sentences for convicted child sex abusers. He has been outraged against both Suleman and her fertility clinic director, Dr. Michael Kamrava, considering the circumstances child abuse, implying the mother and clinic were partially motivated by publicity, with a number of media outlets eager to cooperate with them, and alleging that Suleman was writing a check on the back of California taxpayers.
O'Reilly is not alone with his hostile reaction. Nadya Suleman and even her former publicist received death threats.
Let me make my position clear. First of all, praise be to God for what appears to be a healthy birth and the fact that Nadya Suleman is also in good health. Second, I see each of the children as a blessing from God. Third, I refuse to judge Nadya's motives, I believe that Nadya is a good, loving mother, and I never underestimate what a mother is capable of doing on behalf of her children. There are heartwarming stories of people reaching out to the young family, offering help, even a place to stay; this is a true testament to the generosity of the American spirit.
Fourth, and I want to be quite blunt to Bill O'Reilly and others: I do not want the government getting involved with regulating the number of children a family can have. If and when Ms. Suleman is shown unable to properly care for her family, with whatever assistance from friends and family she solicits, the public has an interest on behalf of the child. The presumptuous nature of Mr. O'Reilly and others passing judgment before the babies have even been released by the hospital is, in my opinion, unconscionable.
Finally, I do think we need to look at this example, among others, where technology has outstripped the ability of our laws and/or the medical profession to keep up. This concept of a numbers game, of implanting multiple embryos with the expectation that some won't take or if they do, selective abortion--not to mention the fact that embryonic stem cell researchers have a vested interest in a surplus supply of embryos--is unacceptable. I am convinced that embryos are human life, and we should make any such implantation procedures as efficient as possible, and any implantation procedure should explicitly consider the possibility that all embryos will take and procedures putting the lives of the mother and her babies at risk should undergo a medical review.
