Prophecies Fulfilled

[As I channel Glenn]
You know, I was told that if George W. Bush -- the "Chimp-in-Chief, blah, blah, blah" -- was re-elected, the ongoing secrecy in high places would attain new record-setting altitudes. And they were right!

From USA Today:

LITTLE ROCK — Federal archivists at the Clinton Presidential Library are blocking the release of hundreds of pages of White House papers on pardons that the former president approved, including clemency for fugitive commodities trader Marc Rich. The archivists' decision, based on guidance provided by Bill Clinton that restricts the disclosure of advice he received from aides, prevents public scrutiny of documents that would shed light on how he decided which pardons to approve from among hundreds of requests. Clinton's legal agent declined the option of reviewing and releasing the documents that were withheld, said the archivists, who work for the federal government, not the Clintons. The decision to withhold the records could provide fodder for critics who say that the former president and his wife... have been unwilling to fully release documents to public scrutiny. Officials with the presidential campaign of Sen. Barack Obama... criticized Hillary Clinton this week for not doing more to see that records from her husband's administration are made public.
"She's been reluctant to disclose information," Obama's chief strategist, David Axelrod, told reporters in a conference call in which he specifically cited the slow release records from the Clinton library. "If she's not willing to be open with (voters) on these issues now, why would she be open as president?"

Got a TiVo?

Walt Mossberg's sidekick Katherine Boehret explains some "TiVo Codes and Shortcuts You May Not Know" in today's Wall Street Journal. I don't have a TiVo, but thought readers who do might appreciate this "heads-up" -- so you're welcome.

The NEW Paradigm

ALAN DERSHOWITZ in yesterday's Wall Street Journal:

Zahra Maladan represents a dramatic shift in the way we must fight to protect our citizens against enemies who are sworn to kill them by killing themselves. The traditional paradigm was that mothers who love their children want them to live in peace, marry and produce grandchildren. Women in general, and mothers in particular, were seen as a counterweight to male belligerence. The picture of the mother weeping as her son is led off to battle -- even a just battle -- has been a constant and powerful image.
Now there is a new image of mothers [Maladan] urging their children to die, and then celebrating the martyrdom of their suicidal sons and daughters by distributing sweets and singing wedding songs. More and more young women -- some married with infant children -- are strapping bombs to their (sometimes pregnant) bellies, because they have been taught to love death rather than life.

It disturbs and frustrates me greatly that a number of clueless ninnies [think Michael Moore, "Rosie" -- and, yes a few high-office morons in D.C.] don't believe there's any real, ongoing GWOT [Global War on...]. They maintain it's just sloganism. Indeed, they are clueless to the point brilliantly made by James Schall, professor of government at Georgetown University, in an essay I read three years ago:

I argue that our main problems are not too much force, but too little. A peaceful world is not a world with no ready forces but one with adequate, responsible, and superior force that is used when necessary. The failure to have or use such forces causes terror and war to grow exponentially. Unused force, when needed at a particular time and place, ceases to be force. But force is meaningless if one does not know that he has an enemy or how this enemy works and thinks. That latter is a spiritual and philosophical problem, not a technical one. Many an adequately armed country has been destroyed because it did not recognize its real enemy. Nor is this an argument for force "for force’s sake." It is an argument for force for justice’s sake.

See THIS related TFR post.

From Austin City Limits....

From this morning's Washington Post:

Hernandez living room, North Austin --

Jennifer Cruz Hernandez's life goes like this:

Get the kids ready for school. Work a shift at the hospital. Take her daughters to the gym for practice. Cook dinner. Help with homework. Bathe the kids. Put them to bed. Sleep, and repeat.
"It's not that dads aren't important," the 38-year-old nurse manager said, glancing across the room at her husband, Carlos. "But you walk in and everyone wants to sit on Mommy's lap. You have to be everything. Hillary understands. She's a mother and an attorney. As a woman you do it all -- cook, wash, clean and feed the dog."

"She probably hasn't done that in 30 years," Carlos, 40, interrupted, referring to Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton.

"You don't know," Jennifer shot back.

Jen --- darlin' --- Get. A. Clue. Everybody with at least 0.31 g of gray matter knows, fer God's sake. Old Carlos be da man!

[Thank you, Kathryn.]

That ELFan Magic

"Luxury homes burn in apparent eco-attack", says the headline. Could someone please explain to me who the hell appointed "ELF" the supreme guardians of the environment? Their activities are as much terrorism as are those of al Qaeda. We're told that "One alleged ELF activist is on trial in Tacoma in the 2001 firebombing of the University of Washington's Center for Urban Horticulture." -- but that ain't good enough. Time to hide-in-wait for these cretins at likely target areas and drop the hammer on them.

"Feelings. Nothing more than feelings."

The effect of [his] exhortations on his audience was magical. By assuming that they would join him in noble self sacrifice without spelling out what they would be asked to give up, he allowed them to feel idealistic at no cost. Because the desire to feel noble without having to act nobly is a strong human emotion, [his] audiences commonly went home feeling delighted with themselves and with him. A few hour laters they might have trouble remembering exactly what he said, but the glow lingered. -- Kendrick A. Clements, Woodrow Wilson: World Statesman

Everybody sing!
A tip of the fedora to "hi_desertgirl", who shared the quote in a COMMENT on another blog.