Well, don't get me wrong...he's had many, many potential ones. He has had to come back and correct his mis-statements with the media too many times. Why is this one the major one? It is the one that the MSM is actually picking up on. I heard ol' Carl Cameron on FOX news just say that his response to the Bhutto assassination is really getting to Iowa voters, and that his response wasn't something worthy of a person wanting the mantle of the Oval Office. Don't quote that, but it's close I'm sure.
For Mike Huckabee, this is the moment he was NOT looking forward to. After riding a surge to the top of the polls in Iowa, NOW, his own jokes about not having foreign policy experience, the one in which he said, "..but I stayed in a Holiday Inn Express last night", is precisely the kind of stuff that can trip him up.
On Thursday night he told reporters in Orlando, Fla.: “We ought to have an immediate, very clear monitoring of our borders and particularly to make sure if there’s any unusual activity of Pakistanis coming into the country.”
On Friday, in Pella, Iowa, he expanded on those remarks.
“When I say single them out I am making the observation that we have more Pakistani illegals coming across our border than all other nationalities except those immediately south of the border,” he told reporters in Pella. “And in light of what is happening in Pakistan it ought to give us pause as to why are so many illegals coming across these borders.”
In fact, far more illegal immigrants come from the Philippines, Korea, China and Vietnam, according to recent estimates from the Department of Homeland Security.
Asked how a border fence would help keep out Pakistani immigrants, Mr. Huckabee argued that airplane security was already strong, but that security at the southern United States border was dangerously weak.
“The fact is that the immigration issue is not so much about people coming to pick lettuce or make beds, it’s about someone coming with a shoulder-fired missile,” he said.
The sudden emergency in Pakistan and Mr. Huckabee’s response come at a time when he has come under increasing scrutiny from opponents for his lack of fluency in foreign policy issues, and the situation in Pakistan appeared to have challenged him.
“We have seen what happens in the Musharraf government,” Mr. Huckabee said on MSNBC. “He has told us he does not have enough control of those eastern borders near Afghanistan to be able go after the terrorists. But on the other hand, did he not want us going in, so what do we do?” Those borders are actually on the west, not the east.
Further, he offered an Orlando crowd his “apologies for what has happened in Pakistan.” His aides said later that he meant to say “sympathies.” He also said he was worried about martial law “continuing” in Pakistan, although Mr. Musharraf lifted the state of emergency on Dec. 15. His campaign told CBS News that his statement was not a blunder.
The media’s covering this with surprising attentiveness, doubtless not so much because of Huck’s shakiness on the facts than his audacious suggestion that people hailing from the nation where the “real terrorists” are and behaving unusually might warrant a bit of extra scrutiny. Oh well. If that’s what it takes to get them off the Huck bandwagon, so be it. Attack, media! Attack like the wind!
I guess the blush is off the rose as far as the media and Huckabee are concerned. Romney's ground game in Iowa should either give him a win, or a closer second than what some may be thinking. By Super Tuesday, I imagine Huckabee will be done. But it remains unclear how the rest of the race will play out.
Want more? A few weeks back, after a different Huck-up, Huckabee touted Frank Gaffney among his foreign policy advisers. Here was Frank's response:
In recent days, Mike Huckabee has tried to answer long-standing questions about who is on his foreign policy team. On Friday morning, he listed former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton as someone with whom he either has “spoken or will continue to speak.”
At a Thursday evening press conference, Huckabee said, “I’ve corresponded with John Bolton, who’s agreed to work with us on developing foreign policy.”
Bolton, however, has a different view. “I’d be happy to speak with Huckabee, but I haven’t spoken with him yet,” said Bolton, now a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank in Washington.
“I’m not an official or unofficial adviser to anyone,” said Bolton, who mentioned he’d had conversations with other Republican candidates but refused to name any names.
This goes beyond mere cluelessness to outright stupidity.
I would think that the millions of Mexican illegals who flow across our border every year would be enough to warrant a border fence without resorting to rather bizarre concerns over illegals coming from a nation on the other side of the globe. But Huckabee’s concerns about Pakistani illegals are even more bizarre when you factor in his support for entitlements for illegal immigrants already in this country.
I think it is simple. Huckabee jumps the gun on a current issue in order to patch up his weak positions on the border and immigration. He gets too eager and doesn't make sure of the facts. Presidential material? I don't think so. Hey Iowa...just follow Peggy's advice...be reasonable.
"Of the 51 UK contributors to the report, there were 5 economists, 3 epidemiologists, 5 who were either zoologists, entomologists, or biologists. 5 worked in civil engineering or risk management / insurance. 7 had specialisms in physical geography (we gave the benefit of the doubt to some academics whose profiles weren't clear about whether they are physical or human geographers). And just 10 have specialisms in geophysics, climate science or modelling, or hydrology. But there were 15 who could only be described as social scientists. If we take the view that economics is a social science, that makes 20 social scientists..."
Make sure to give all of them a warm welcome and check out their blogs!
PS: RWN returns to a regular schedule on Wednesday.
John Hawkins | 09:33 PM |
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WHO AM & The Jaz McKay Show
Update #1: From 5:20 PM to 6 PM EST today, I am going to be doing a radio appearance on WHO AM in Iowa. You can listen to it here, but be forewarned, they're telling me that they're running a lot of commercials during that period. I guess they're taking advantage of all that campaign cash being thrown around this time of year...
Original post: At 3:30 PM EST, I'm going to be on the Jaz McKay show.
Click on Stickam in the left corner to listen to the show.
John Hawkins | 03:25 PM |
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The Top 12 Blunders Of This Year’s Presidential Campaign
Why Huckabee chose to give Romney's supporters a chance to bash him for being "anti-Mormon" just for asking the question is unknown, but the comment, which Huckabee later apologized for, helped enable his detractors to paint him as a man exploiting his faith to help win an election.
11) Mitt Romney "saw" his father march with Martin Luther King: This is a bit of a strange controversy because Romney's father certainly did participate in civil rights marches and there have also been people who have come forward and claimed to have seen George Romney march with Martin Luther King.
However, Romney certainly didn't see it, he certainly didn't march with MLK personally as he has previously claimed, and Mitt's response to this flap certainly makes visions of Bill Clinton's infamous response from his 1998 Grand Jury testimony dance through your head.
Here's Clinton: "It depends on what the meaning of the word 'is' is."
Now, here's Mitt: "The reference of seeing my father lead in civil rights and seeing my father march with Martin Luther King is in the sense of this figurative awareness of and recognition of his leadership. I've tried to be as accurate as I can be. If you look at the literature or look at the dictionary, the term 'saw' includes being aware of -- in the sense I've described."
Oh yeah, he definitely has a little Clinton in him.
10) Obama's Flag Pin and National Anthem Flap: In his quest to win the Democratic primaries, Barack Obama tried to reach out to the patriotism-loathing netroots by making a big public show of not wearing a flag pin,
Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama says he doesn't wear an American flag lapel pin because it has become a substitute for "true patriotism" since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
Obama then was photographed refusing to hold his hand over his heart during the national anthem.
His response to that, bizarrely, was that some people were falsely claiming he didn't hold his hand over his heart during the Pledge of Allegiance when really, it was the national anthem.
Of course, you still hold your hand over your heart during the national anthem, so the point was moot. Long story short, it looks like Obama's unpatriotic "true patriotism" didn't poll as well as he thought it would.
9) Hillary's campaign says Obama is a coke-dealing Muslim liar who has been lying since kindergarten: In what may be the most grotesque display of dirty politics since the Nixon administration, Hillary Clinton's surrogates publicly and falsely suggested that Obama might have been a coke dealer, is secretly a Muslim, and that a kindergarten essay proved he had been lying about his desire to be President.
Had a Republican engaged in the exact same tactics, he would have been accused of being the worst sort of racist -- which incidentally, will probably also be what happens to Hillary Clinton in certain quarters if her repulsive smear tactics enable her to beat Obama in the Democratic primaries.
8) Fred Thompson skips New Hampshire For Leno: On the day of his much anticipated entry into the race, Fred Thompson chose to skip a New Hampshire debate and instead introduced himself to the public on "The Tonight Show With Jay Leno."
That started him out on the wrong foot in New Hampshire and he never recovered in that state. Today he's running 6th in New Hampshire, behind Ron Paul -- which means that if he bombs in Iowa, his campaign may be dead shortly after New Hampshire finishes voting on January 8th.
7) Southern Fried Hillary: In what was really a backhanded slap at black men, Bill Clinton was called the first black President, a label that he readily latched onto for political purposes.
Well, when his charisma-challenged wife tried to pick up where he left off in a black church in Alabama, the result was a horrible Southern accent of the sort you'd expect to hear at a New York Party as they tried to imitate an inbred, hillbilly yokel. It sounded something like this,
"IIIIIII don't feel noways tired. I come too fahrr from where I started frum...III culd have listened all afternuune."
6) John Edwards' running feud with Ann Coulter: Ann Coulter was roundly -- and rightly -- slammed for calling John Edwards a "f*ggot" at CPAC last year.
Unfortunately for John Edwards, instead of ignoring it, he tried to hype it for the sake of publicity and fundraising which not only caused Ann Coulter to continue to go after him, but led to lots of conversations that went about like this,
Person 1: Ann Coulter was wrong to call John Edwards a f*ggot.
Person 2: You're right. She should have just called him a little girl or Silky Pony.
Person 1: ...Or the Breck Girl. I mean he is pretty girlish. But, oh that Ann Coulter -- she always goes too far!
Then, Edwards made the mistake of compounding his error by having his wife call in to attack Coulter on Hardball. That's really the way to convince people that you're not as much of a wimp as they think you are -- by sending your sick wife out to fight your battles for you.
5) Fred Thompson's rejection of a Constitutional amendment to ban abortion: In the name of Federalism, Fred Thompson rejected a Constitutional amendment to ban abortion on Meet the Press.
At first glance, that might seem to be a minor matter since there is no chance of getting it passed any time soon -- but that was the very moment that the bottom started falling out of his campaign as more than a few social conservatives slowly began the migration from him to Huckabee.
4) John Edwards' $400 Haircut: Let me ask the same question a voter asked him on the campaign trail: "Senator, I was just wondering: since you're on this national poverty tour, how do you justify spending $400 on a haircut?"
Of course, you don't and that has summed up the silliness of John Edwards' campaign. He's a pampered, super wealthy lawyer who has built a whole campaign around being a supposed champion of little girls who can't afford a $10 coat at Wal-Mart. It sounds fake, it is fake and people know it's fake.
3) John McCain supports the Senate amnesty bill: At one point, John McCain was considered the front runner for the GOP nomination, but his support for the incredibly unpopular "amnesty" bill in Congress did so much damage to his campaign's poll numbers and fundraising that many political analysts wrote his campaign off for dead.
Since then, because of the weakness of the field, he has been able to climb back into contention, but his continued support for amnesty is like a 45 pound barbell tied to his back. If he doesn't get the nomination, it'll be because of his support of amnesty. If he does get the nomination and goes on to lose in the general election, it'll be because of amnesty. In other words, the biggest hurdle standing between John McCain and the White House isn't his Republican or Democratic opponents, it's his desire to make 12 million fence-jumping, social-security-number-swindling scofflaws into American citizens over the fervent protestations of most members of his own party.
2) Fred Thompson gets in the race late: For months and months, Fred Thompson sat on the sidelines writing columns and doing radio appearances as his poll numbers went up. He thought, with some justification, that there wasn't much of a reason to officially declare his candidacy when he was becoming more popular without getting in the race.
However, on the other hand, while Fred was waiting, the conservative media was picking other candidates to back, top talent was signing on with other campaigns, his supporters were starting to get impatient, and expectations were building to super human heights.
Then, when Fred finally jumped in the race in September of this year, he was mercilessly savaged while he -- and his campaign -- got up to speed under a microscope.
Had he gotten in earlier, say in July of this year, there wouldn't have been as much scrutiny during that first month and he would also have probably raised more money than any other candidate in the third quarter, which would have given him much needed cash and a sign that his campaign was "for real."
As of yet, Thompson's campaign still hasn't recovered from the poor first impression that he made because he got in the race so late. That could turn out to be the difference between Fred Thompson, the GOP nominee -- and Fred Thompson, the guy who was out of the race by the middle of January.
1) Hillary's drivers' licenses for illegals flap: The wicked witch of New York was cruising along, looking inevitable, when she mangled a question about drivers' licenses for illegal aliens in what was probably the single worst debate performance for a top tier candidate this year.
After that horrific performance, Obama started rising in the polls while Hillary's campaign started making unforced errors and playing dirty. If Hillary Clinton doesn't capture the nomination, that botched debate question will be the key moment that led to her defeat and even if she does become the Democratic nominee, the aftermath of that controversy has revealed to the GOP how fragile Hillary Clinton really is when she's challenged.
Betsy's Page: Israeli Soldiers who don't rape are blamed for their bigotry for not wanting to risk a baby being born to the potential victim
Celebslam: Top 10 Britney Spears pics of 2007
You can check out all those links and more by clicking here. Don't forget to bookmark RWN's companion page, CG! Remember, if you're not reading RWN and CG every day, you're not getting the full story!
PS: If you'd like to submit articles to be linked to Conservative Grapevine, register at CG, and then shoot me an email.
John Hawkins | 07:58 AM |
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Final Fred Thompson Blogburst And Video
In order to help inspire people to help Fred out, I've put together a new video called, "Vote Fred Thompson -- Unless you hate children and puppies." I think you will enjoy it -- well, unless you hate children and puppies.
Today, there's a final Fred Thompson Blogburst happening and Right Wing News is participating.
This may be our last, best shot to help Fred because he needs to finish in at least 3rd place in Iowa to keep going -- and let me tell you, if he's out, you're going to really have to hold your nose when you're deciding which of these other candidates to back.
So today, step up and chip in a few bucks for Fred. You can also head over to his website and make some get-out-the-vote phone calls for Fred. That's a great way to make a big difference even if you can't afford to donate any money.
PS: Here's the new Thompson campaign ad, "Substance."
Update #1: You can see a list of the blogs participating in the Blogburst at the Fred File.
John Hawkins | 07:55 AM |
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Q&A; Friday #81: Should Iowa Residents Vote For Fred?
Question: "If you were a resident of Iowa, how would you vote in the Iowa Caucuses on Jan. 3? Because Fred doesn't have a great following in Iowa and no one else seems terribly stellar, would you consider switching to Democrat for the caucus and trying to get someone other than Hillary through?" -- Agent_Westy
Answer: As long as Fred is still in the race, my advice is to vote for Fred because in a 5 way race, with candidates likely to start dropping out and opinion wildly shifting, if he can hang around long enough, he just might pull it out.
In Iowa, he needs to finish in at least 3rd place. 2nd place would probably give him a real jump start. If he shocked everyone and took first, I think he would probably go on to win it.
Granted, the odds are against Fred pulling it out. Of course, the odds were against conservatives when we fought to stop Harriet Miers and fought against the Senate amnesty bill, too. We won both of those fights and we can win this one as well.
Of course, we may very well lose this time, but I'm of the opinion that unless it's a hopeless case, in the end, you always benefit from going down fighting.
John Hawkins | 07:41 AM |
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Q&A; Friday #81: If You Could Erase Any One Person From History, Who Would It Be?
Question: "If you could go back and completely erase one person from the pages of history, who would it be and why?" -- Good_Ol_Boy
Answer: Hitler would seem to be a rather obvious choice, but he would be in third place for me.
Second place would be occupied by Karl Marx because Communism produced a higher count than Nazism in the long run and I have to wonder if Communism would have taken off without its "Father."
However, first place would probably have to go to Muhammad, who made up a religion from scratch that now has more than a billion people under its spell, has helped stagnate the growth of a large part of the world for 5 centuries -- and has turned at least 100 million plus of Islam's current adherents into backwards, misogynistic anti-Semites who support terrorism and murder.
John Hawkins | 07:35 AM |
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Q&A; Friday #81: Why Do You Like Huckabee Better Than Romney?
Question: "You seem to have this "Huckenfreude" thing going on, and have said you like Huck better than Rudy or Romney. Aside from abortion, what is it, specifically, that makes you prefer Huck over those two?" -- RtWingNtCase
Answer: The honest truth is that at the moment, I have no preference between Romney, McCain, and Huckabee -- although I like all of them better than Giuliani.
Admittedly, that does seem like a bit of a cop out, but every time I start to tilt more towards one of them, his glaring weaknesses drag him back into the pack.
Huckabee is a big government Republican. He reminds me of Jimmy Carter. We've also found out over the last few weeks that he has a lot of baggage and is even worse on foreign policy than many people suspected.
Mitt Romney is a phony who is just telling people what they want to hear. He has a reputation as a flip flopper and he deserves it. I also genuinely don't believe he could beat Hillary Clinton or John Edwards in a national election; so if he gets the nod, cross your fingers and hope for Barack.
McCain has made a career in the Senate out of screwing over conservatives like me on big issues and I sure as hell don't want him doing the same thing in the White House. He's also pro-amnesty, which is every bit as unacceptable as being pro-abortion to me in a candidate.
As to why I haven't been as hard on Huckabee as Romney, there are several reasons.
First off, I think people have gone way overboard in attacking Huckabee lately. Granted, he's far from an ideal candidate. But, I would say he's as generally conservative as Romney or McCain -- not the Romney and McCain who are whispering sweet nothings in your ear right now because they want to be President, but the Romney or McCain we'd actually see in the White House.
Also, I really have been pretty tough on Huckabee if you go back and look at what I've written. It's sort of like the situation with Fred Thompson earlier this year, when he was talking about getting in the race. Everybody was saying he was the next Reagan reborn and people were starting to get crabby about the fact that I was saying, hey, I like the guy all right, but he ain't Superman. In other words, even though I was going in the same direction as most other people it was chaffing them that I wasn't going as far or as fast.
Last but not least, I don't think much of all the Republican establishment types, the DC insiders, the RINOS, and the faux conservatives who tend to shape opinions on issues like this. They're always the ones telling us not to stand up for our principles, that we need to be less conservative, that pork isn't a problem, that Harriet Miers is great, that we can win by just telling people that the GOP is the lesser of two evils, etc., etc., etc.
These people make bad decisions so often and so consistently, that I'm always tempted to zig when they zag. Originally, McCain was their candidate, then it was Romney when they thought he couldn't win, and now you'll start seeing them switch back to McCain. Those people hate Huckabee with a passion and if they hate him, that makes me like the guy just a little bit more -- although not enough to make me forget his record.
Eventually, if this thing turns into a two man dance with McCain, Romney, and/or Huckabee in the starring roles, I may have to pick a side, but for the moment, I don't have a preference.
John Hawkins | 07:15 AM |
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Q&A; Friday #81: Are You Giving The American Conservative A Pass?
Question: "Mr. Hawkins - I know how upset you get when any liberal mentions Bush/Republicans and Hitler in the same breath. The current issue of The American Conservative has on it's cover a picture of Guiliana in Nazi brownshirt uniform. Since you haven't mentioned this at all, I wonder is it because it doesn't bother you as much when a conservative does it?" -- tomkat
Answer:
#1) I don't feel compelled to comment on every story that comes out and even if I did, I wouldn't have time to do it.
#2) What I said on #1 is true even of people comparing Republicans to Nazis because it's an everyday thing for liberals. If I wrote a post every time some liberal compared a Republican to a Nazi, I wouldn't have time to do anything else, including brush my teeth, take a shower, or make fun of Hillary Clinton.
#3) Although I do bash other conservatives on a semi-regular basis, people who want to see obsessive attacks on conservatives tend to read blogs like the Daily Kos and Firedoglake, not Right Wing News.
#4) Of course, it was moronic for the American Conservative to draw Giuliani wearing what looks like a brownshirt uniform, but what do you expect from them? They're almost impossible to distinguish from idiots like Michael Moore, Kos, and the Huffington Post on the war, so it's not a surprise that they did exactly what you'd expect from a bunch of liberals.
John Hawkins | 07:00 AM |
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Q&A; Friday #81: Why Did Giuliani Tank?
Question: "Based on polls (if you believe them) has the angst created by the 'Rudy Paradox' finally caught up with 'leaning towards Rudy' Conservatives, finally making them say 'screw Rudy' and vote for someone else?
As you know, but others might not, that have been noted and preaching-as-practiced Conservatives (Sean Hannity a glaring example) banking on Rudy despite the fact that much of Rudy's record doesn't reflect Conservatism. In other words as much as Rudy didn't come off as a Conservative to even them they were going to vote for Rudy anyways because they just want to win. Hence, I dubbed it the Rudy Paradox." -- Corperate_Cabana
Answer: In a 5 way race, it's impossible to count Rudy out as of yet, but admittedly he looks to be in trouble. Although he does seem to still be leading in Florida by a small margin, he doesn't seem to be placing any higher than 3rd place in any of the 5 states that votes before Florida. If it actually plays out that way, it's hard to see Rudy winning Florida and being a big player in the race on Super Tuesday.
As to why Rudy has tumbled, personally I think that the same thing that happened to Howard Dean, happened to Rudy.
Many people think that the "Dean scream" was responsible for the end of his campaign, but forget that he had already lost Iowa by the time that happened.
The truth, which is a bit murkier, is that although Dean made a lot of small mistakes in the run-up to Iowa, he never made a big campaign killing error.
So what happened?
I think that when Democratic voters got to decision time, they probably liked Dean better than the other guys, but in the end, they just couldn't see pulling the trigger and running him against the GOP. In the end, they decided he was just too radical and gaffe-prone to run.
In our case, I think a lot of Republicans looked at Rudy and finally in December, when it was getting close to decision time for them, they concluded that they couldn't vote for a pro-abortion, pro-amnesty, adulterous, flamingly moderate nominee for President.
In other words, I think it's exactly what many people predicted would happen to Rudy all along, but it didn't happen until December, when the voters finally got down to business.
John Hawkins | 06:45 AM |
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Suggest The Most Obnoxious Quotes Of 2007
I'm putting together the most obnoxious quotes of 2007. If you have some suggestions for quotations that deserve to make the list, let me know in the comment section.
John Hawkins | 12:02 AM |
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Q&A; Friday #81
Today is Q&A Friday #81 at RWN.
So, if there's a subject you've been wanting me to tackle or an issue you want to hear my opinion on, just ask your question in the comments section. Your question can be about politics, ideology, history, blogging, RWN, from a liberal, conservative, or libertarian perspective; heck, it can even be about movies, music, literature, or TV. Then later today, I'll select some of the more interesting questions and answer them.
Ask away!
John Hawkins | 12:01 AM |
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December 27, 2007
A Short Obligatory Post On The Assassination Of Benazir Bhutto
Benazir Bhutto has been assassinated and given that Pakistan is a chaotic, backwards, unstable country, inhabited by way too many Islamic extremists, this probably isn't likely to help the situation.
On the other hand, everyone is speculating wildly about the consequences of this and it's very difficult to say at this point how this will impact the stability of the country long-term.
In any case, this latest murder committed by Al-Qaeda was a detestable act. With that in mind, I certainly hope the Pakistanis will give us the opportunity to take revenge for our own dead by helping them pay Al-Qaeda back in blood for this assassination
John Hawkins | 10:16 AM |
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The Top 20 Non-Eye Candy Stories Of 2007 On Conservative Grapevine.
Out of the top 20 stories on Conservative Grapevine for 2007, 15 of them were essentially "eye candy."
Here's the best of the rest: the top 20 non-eye candy stories of 2007 on Conservative Grapevine .
You can check out all those links and more by clicking here. Don't forget to bookmark RWN's companion page, CG! Remember, if you're not reading RWN and CG every day, you're not getting the full story!
PS: If you'd like to submit articles to be linked to Conservative Grapevine, register at CG, and then shoot me an email.
John Hawkins | 08:00 AM |
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Will Smith Foolishly Applies Liberal Logic To Hitler
Will Smith has stunned the world by declaring that even Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler was essentially a "good" person.
The I Am Legend star, 39, is determined to see the best in people, and is convinced the former German leader did not fully understand the extent of the pain and suffering his actions would cause during his time in power in the 1930s and '40s.
He says, "Even Hitler didn't wake up going, 'Let me do the most evil thing I can do today.'
"I think he woke up in the morning and using a twisted, backwards logic, he set out to do what he thought was 'good.' Stuff like that just needs reprogramming."
First of all, there's a minor point that I want to make: Will Smith DID NOT say that "Adolf Hitler was essentially a 'good' person." He said that Hitler errantly thought he was doing good, which is something different entirely.
However, on to the real point of this post: Will Smith's real mistake was taking the liberal view of "evil" to its logical conclusion.
Aside from Republicans, America, and a few people allied with America or people that they like to compare Republicans to -- like Hitler, liberals treat EVERYONE as if they're essentially good people.
They excuse the most evil group of people on earth, the Palestinians, for advocating genocide and deliberately murdering innocent Israelis.
They're constantly crying and moaning about people in prison, like Mumia Abu-Jamal, who they think have gotten a raw deal from society.
They're eternally convinced that the most vile dictators on earth from Kim Jung-Il to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to Fidel Castro only have problems with us because we don't know how to talk to them. If we'd only say the right things to them, they'd understand we're good people, too, and all of our problems with them would go away!
They even make the same sort of excuses for Al-Qaeda. What do you think the meaning of "Why do they hate us," really is? It's that they think they're decent, reasonable people at heart who've been driven to do things we consider "evil" because of us.
So, there again was Will Smith's mistake: he applied the exact same logic that liberals use every day of the week without understanding that it's politically unpopular to say the same thing about Hitler that liberals say about most of the other evil people on the planet.
PS: I caught I Am Legend this week-end and really enjoyed it.
John Hawkins | 06:49 AM |
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That's Wal-Mart Dumb!
I finally decided to go ahead and buy a laptop because I need one to be able to go to conventions and travel for business. After conferring with a buddy of mine who does tech support for a living and sells computers on the side, I decided to get a Dell laptop from Wal-Mart that I found online.
However, if you buy a laptop online, it takes them 7-10 days to ship the laptop to the store. So, I decided to head into my local Wal-Mart and see if they had one in stock -- and they did.
One problem: Online, the laptop costs $628. At my local Wal-Mart, the cost was $798. However, I didn't think there would be a problem because I had actually printed out the sheet with the price on it.
Unfortunately, the clerk I was talking to told me she wasn't allowed to sell it to me at the online price. So, I thanked her and then went to a different part of the store (so as not to embarrass her) and had a manager called over to me. Then, I explained the situation. He told me the exact same thing: they can't give me the computer at the online price.
This made me scratch my head because all that was going to happen was that I was going to go home, order the laptop, and then wait 7-10 days to have a laptop shipped to the exact same store I was standing in. That made no sense to me. Why should I have to wait 7-10 days to get a laptop from the same Wal-Mart I was already standing in, when I was there right then?
With that in mind, I asked the manager I was talking to what would happen if I came in with a sale paper from a local competitor advertising the computer I wanted for the Wal-Mart online price, $628. He said, "Yes, we would match the price of a local competitor."
I said, "You realize that makes no sense, right? You're telling me that you give me the computer for $628 if I had brought in a flier from a competitor, but you won't match the price of your own online store."
He agreed that it didn't make any sense, but said there was nothing he could do about it -- and that was that.
I guess I could have made a really big stink and demanded to talk to the manager in charge and then his district manager if that didn't work, but it didn't seem worth taking it that far.
Still, it was kind of surprising that Wal-Mart, an excellent store that normally excels at customer service, was doing something that unbelievably dumb.
PS: On yet another trip to Wal-Mart over the Christmas holiday, among other things, I bought a $.97 dog toy. When I got up to the register, bizarrely, it rang up as a $60 item. Thank goodness I wasn't zoned out because the cashier didn't catch it and if I hadn't pointed it out to her, I might have thrown $59 down the hole without realizing what happened.
John Hawkins | 06:15 AM |
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John Kerry Tackles America's Really Important Problems
With the New England Patriots now one win away from finishing the regular season undefeated, Sen. John Kerry is stepping up his campaign to get the final game broadcast on national television.
The contest Saturday with the New York Giants is to air locally in Boston and New York. But outside those markets it is scheduled to appear only on the NFL Network, a cable channel that reaches just 35 million households nationwide while the league and cable operators dicker over pricing and distribution.
Kerry asked football Commissioner Roger Goodell today to move the game to NBC – and threatened Senate hearings if he does not.
“Under the unfortunate circumstance that this matter remains unresolved, leaving 60 percent of households across the country – including thousands in Massachusetts – without access to Saturday’s game, I will ask the Senate Commerce Committee to hold hearings on how the emergence of premium sports channels are impacting the consumer,” he wrote to Goodell today in a letter released by his office.
The Massachusetts Democrat added that he would “consider what legislative measures may be necessary to ensure that consumers are more than bystanders in this process."
The whole idea of threatening a private enterprise with Senate hearings because some people may not get to see a football game is an egregious abuse of authority by a puffed up, arrogant buffoon who's drunk on his own power.
John Hawkins | 04:45 AM |
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The Final State Of The Race Report Before Iowa
The race has continued to evolve throughout the Christmas season, although it's a bit hard to get a good reading on things because of the dearth of polling over the last few days.
That being said, here's how things appear to be shaping up,
* Fred Thompson's (5% chance to win) numbers have been tanking across the board in the early states and supposedly he's running low on money. He probably needs at least a third place finish in Iowa to keep going and he may need to do even better to get enough of a boost to really get in the hunt.
* Rudy's (10% chance to win) numbers have bounced back up a bit after plunging earlier this month, but he's still not on track to finish better than third place anywhere prior to the Florida primary, which is on Jan 29.
Granted, Giuliani is back on top in Florida, but since McCain's numbers have improved, he seems less likely to drop out, and that means Giuliani's chances to win have dropped considerably.
Can he go through 5 states, finishing no higher than 3rd place, and then come back and win Florida on the 29th? The odds would seem to be heavily against it at this point.
* For a long time I've been saying that John McCain (25% chance to win) isn't out of it and now he's finally starting to rally. In fact, if you believe Arg's latest poll (which I don't, Arg's polling is mostly crap, mostly), McCain is in third place in Iowa, within striking distance of Romney and Huckabee.
However, in New Hampshire, McCain is definitely fighting Romney for the win. He also appears to have picked up some support from Guiliani and Thompson supporters who seem to be considering McCain as an alternative to Huckabee and Romney.
* Everyone keeps waiting for Mike Huckabee (25% chance to win) to fold under the tidal wave of criticism he's been taking for the past few weeks. Day after day, in story after story, Huckabee is being hammered into the ground, but like a buoy, his numbers just refuse to sink.
The latest numbers in Iowa, which are from the unreliable ARG, have Huckabee up by two points over Romney in Iowa. The other latest numbers for Huckabee, except for New Hampshire, where Huckabee would get a big boost if he won Iowa, look pretty good as well. If he wins in Iowa, he has a great shot to take it all the way.
* Overall, Romney's (35% chance to win) numbers aren't any stronger than Huckabee's. However, since Romney is in the hunt for the top spot in the top three states, Iowa, New Hampshire, and Michigan, he is the candidate with the most potential to run the table and the candidate who looks the most resilient.
Theoretically, he could lose Iowa and New Hampshire, come back and win in Michigan, and stay in the race. On the other hand, if he loses Iowa to Huckabee and New Hampshire to McCain, he may tank in Michigan and then he would probably be out of it.
Long story short: It's still wide open, although Thompson and Giuliani are probably going to need to surprise people with how well they do in the early states to keep going.
If that doesn't happen, Romney or Huckabee could steamroll the field. Alternately, it could turn into a two person race with McCain going toe to toe with Romney or Huckabee. Although it's hard to say for sure, my guess is that McCain would beat either of them in a two man race.
PS: My final personal preference list for the candidates still in the race,
1) Duncan Hunter (My former employer)
2) Fred Thompson
3 -- Tie) Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee, John McCain
4) Rudy Giuliani
5 -- Tie) Ron Paul, Alan Keyes
Thompson and Hunter would be great candidates.
Romney, Huckabee, and McCain? I would support them because I would rather have a Republican in the White House than a Democrat, but my enthusiasm level is pretty much zero for all three of them.
Romney is an unelectable flip-flopper. McCain is a pro-amnesty RINO who loves kicking conservatives in the face for the amusement of the media. Mike Huckabee has a lot of baggage and is a big government Republican who reminds me of Jimmy Carter.
Then there's Keyes and Paul, who are both just horrible.
All that's left to say is that it may not be hopeless yet, but it's not looking good for those of us who want to see a real conservative as our candidate in 2008.
John Hawkins | 04:33 AM |
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RWN's Top Referrers For 2007
Here are RWN's top referrers for 2007. Feel free to go check a few of these blogs out. After all, it's only fair to send them a little traffic back for helping out RWN so much.
Also, as a point of comparison -- and because I'm a statistics junky -- you can see the comparable numbers for 2005, 2004, and 2003 listed below (2006 was lost because of a problem with my stat tracker). It's interesting to note some of the popular (after all, you can't send traffic unless you have it) blogs that have just disappeared into the ether or lost their moxie over the last few years.
Or has it never ended? Rhetorical questions. Unfortunately, I think we all know the answer, best typified by this particular quote:
JESSICA YELLIN: [Iowa voters] really take this process as a legitimate experience and feel entitled to ask "how are you going to fix my life?"
Oh government will "fix" it in such a way you simply can't begin to imagine at the moment. But apparently there are many out there who want to see what that means anyway.
________
All of us know the long odds faced by Fred Thompson in his efforts to win the GOP nomination for president. I’m sure you are all aware that Fred has undertaken pretty much of a do or die bus tour of Iowa in order to finish strongly in the Caucuses on January 3.
Many of you have already taken steps to support the Thompson campaign in a tangible way by placing fundraising widgets on your sidebar and writing about the campaign. In this way, each of us alone has done whatever we can to support Fred in his efforts.
But at this, the 11th hour of the campaign in Iowa, I think it would be a very effective fundraising tool if as many of us as possible were to participate in an old-fashioned Blogburst, writing a post asking readers to donate to the campaign while embedding a fundraising widget in the post for convenience.
I propose Thursday, December 27 for the Blogburst. If you have an email list, I would urge you to ask your subscribers to donate. If you know of other bloggers who support Fred, please forward this email and ask them to participate as well.
Not expecting a “money bomb” but even a few tens of thousands of dollars would help, I’m sure. Given the number of readers represented in the blogs listed here (where I got all of your email addresses) and your cooperation, I feel confident we can give a real shot in the arm to the campaign.
I don’t think any of us believe that our endorsement of Thompson alone means that much in the long run. But working together, uniting for one day and speaking with one voice, I think we could make a significant impact on Fred’s chances in Iowa. After all, when the candidate you support rolls the dice as Fred has, the least we can do is back his play to the best of our ability.
No need to respond to this email. Just do it.
Merry Christmas,
Rick Moran
Right Wing Nuthouse
If you are a blogger who supports Fred, please participate in this Blogburst. If you know of a blogger who supports Fred, I urge you to contact them and ask them to participate.
For me, it comes down to this. If Fred isn’t nominated, I doubt very much that I will show up at the polls next November. Not to punish the party but simply because there is no one in the race who would be representing my views or who I could in good conscience, support for president.
This is why despite his long shot status, every effort must be made to help Fred Thompson continue the campaign by contributing to his efforts in Iowa. I’m going to give on Thursday and I hope you do too.
I feel much the same way, and I know that many other bloggers do as well. So lets get this thing rolling! If you haven't already, go contribute. If you can't afford it, at least join us in spreading the word.
John Stephenson | 02:21 PM |
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Seniors Work To Pay Property Taxes
Soon, this will be all of us
GREENBURGH, N.Y. (AP) — Audrey Davison lives alone, gets a $620 Social Security check each month and worries about the sharply rising taxes on her four-bedroom house. Davison, 76, raised her family there and after 43 years, she really doesn't want to leave Greenburgh.
Greenburgh doesn't want her to leave, either.
The town is pushing a program that would let seniors work part-time, for $7 an hour, to help pay off some of their property taxes.
"People shouldn't have to sell their house, move away to a place with less taxes, leave behind their family and friends," said Town Supervisor Paul Feiner.
The proposal has caused a stir in Greenburgh, a town of 90,000 in Westchester County, which has the nation's third-highest homeowner property taxes. The plan would be unusual if not unique in New York, but similar programs are considered successes in Colorado, Massachusetts, South Carolina and elsewhere.
This is the logical extension of Liberal tax and big daddy government policies. Instead of making property taxes realistic and affordable, the town will allow, in their generosity (sarcasm alert!), senior citizens to work off their point of a gun barrel debt to the collective by working for, you got it! the government.
And the rest of us are next.
Crossposted at Pirate's Cove, where the taxes are low.
William Teach | 11:44 AM |
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Iraq - National Reconciliation: Slowly, but surely
Ed Morrissey was on a teleconference with Rep. Michele Bachmann who relayed the following news:
[T]he National Assembly passed a pension bill, a critical step in reconciliation. That did not get much mention in the American media, but the Sunnis now have government pensions denied them after the fall of Saddam, which should alleviate much of the hostility.
Another step in the national reconciliation process is underway as well:
The Iraqi cabinet approved a draft law on Wednesday that will offer a general pardon to thousands of prisoners in U.S. military and Iraqi custody, a government spokesman said.
"The cabinet has passed the general pardon law, which will define who is eligible to be freed from all prisons, both Iraqi and American," spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh told Reuters.
The law still needs to be approved by parliament.
Iraq's national security adviser, Mowaffaq al-Rubaie, said earlier this month that the draft law was aimed at boosting reconciliation between majority Shi'ite and Sunni Arab Muslims, locked in a cycle of violence.
In addition, while the oil revenue law hasn't yet been passed, oil revenue is being shared among the various factions within Iraq. It is, in fact, directly responsible for much of the economic renewal that is happening there as well as many of the much needed infrastructure repairs.
Speaking of progress, another outspoken critic is seeing changes for the better in Iraq:
U.S. Rep. Nancy Boyda, D-Kan., who has been a vocal critic of President Bush’s policy in the war in Iraq, on Monday visited troops in Iraq and said the situation appears to be improving.
“It’s headed in a much better direction but everything is very tentative,” Boyda said after receiving briefings from war commander Army Gen. David Petraeus, U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker and others.
She said that violence has decreased significantly in the region but that U.S. military and civilian officials don’t want to raise hopes yet.
“What is happening on the ground tactically is very good, and everyone is hopeful that it will continue, but no one is taking anything for granted and they don’t want to overstate things,” she said.
No, you don't want to overstate things yet, but progress has become so obvious now, that even the critics can't ignore it or deny it any longer ... well, except in our comment section.
__________
Gallup reports -- utterly buried in an article about how Hillary Clinton is America's most admired woman (not the subject of this post) -- that none other than President George W. Bush is America's most admired man. (Via Instapundit.)
That is the same George W. Bush who lives on Pennsylvania Avenue. Not his father, the mythical super-president invoked by Bill Clinton and others, who used to live there. No; it is that fellow who is such a poor extemporaneous speaker; who is so inclined to cronysim; who has done such a poor job of marketing to the American public his one historic and courageous policy, the Iraq War -- that same one.
How can this be? It is taken as a given in both the mainstream press and in any forum in which the elite express their opinions that President Bush is in fact the most contemptible person on the planet, or at least the stupidest. Nothing to admire about the stupid.
Who are these "Americans" who come to such conclusions? Where are they? Is the Gallup Organization some Cheney thing?
It's easy to write this item, and you may well blame me for plucking the low-hanging fruit. But in truth, you really do have to sit down and ask yourself just how many alternative universes we are all inhabiting. There is no way on earth that I -- who admire George W. Bush quite a bit, despite my considerable disappointment in him from time to time -- would ever imagine that he was the most admired man in America. I could not fathom that the constant barrage of snark, contempt and calumny directed at this man could not work its way so thoroughly through the populace, even in flyover country, that this could be the result of such a poll.
So yes, it is an irresistible story to comment on, because it is impossible to understate how out of touch the elites that dominate nearly every segment of American life are to what the vast majority of Americans really think and feel. And I mean that in a good way.
The only Canadian magazine to publish the infamous "Mohammed cartoons", the Western Standard, is no more, but their group blog, The Shotgun, remains active.
I hope their capitulation isn't a sign of things to come. I'm talking of course about the other Muslim activists bullying another Canadian magazine, merely for publishing an excerpt of Mark Steyn's bestselling book, America Alone.
The story is getting international attention; Canadians and Americans alike have contacted Prime Minister Harper, expressing their concerns about this ridiculous persecution.
The best "one stop shop" for all the latest developments on this very important case is the cheeky, entertaining blog Free Mark Steyn.
This story threatens to drag on for months, as Steyn and the magazine in question don't get hauled before the Human Rights Commission kangaroo courts until well into 2008.
Luckily, the Free Mark Steyn blog is poised to keep up informed and entertained for the duration. Well done, "Binkie"!
Of course, in a decent world, such blogs would be unnecessary...
ALBANY, Ga. - A military working dog wounded in Iraq during a rocket attack that killed its Marine handler was adopted Friday by the slain Marine's family.
Cpl. Dustin Lee's family planned to take home the bomb-sniffing dog — named Lex — on Saturday after the 8-year-old German shepherd was granted early retirement. It was the first time a working dog was granted retirement to live with the handler's family, officials said.
[...]
On hand for a ceremony at the base were the Marine's parents, Jerome and Rachel Lee, his sister, Madison, 16, and brother, Camryn, 12, of Quitman, Miss.
"It's not going to bring back my brother, but it's something close to it," said Madison Lee as she played with Lex after the ceremony.
Military officials initially told the family that Lex had another two years of service before he could be adopted. But the family lobbied for months — even enlisting the aid of a North Carolina congressman — and the adoption came exactly nine months after the 20-year-old Marine was killed and his dog wounded on March 21 in Iraq's Anbar Province.
The Congressman who helped the family was the normally non-sensical Walter Jones. In this case, he did the right thing.
2nd Lt. Caleb Eames, spokesman for the Albany base, said Lee and Lex were sitting outside at a forward operating base in Karmah when they were hit by shrapnel from a 73mm rocket explosion.
"A part of Dustin is in Lex," said the fallen Marine's father. "To have Lex at home is a part of having Dustin at home."
Rachel Lee said she believes her son's spirit will live on through the dog because of their close bond and because they were together during the final moments of her son's life.
"It was blood on blood," she said. "We can't get Dustin back, but we have Lex."
Looks like Lex is taking to the Lee family well:
Caption: Jerome Lee, kneelling, father of slain soldier Dustin Lee, offically receives Lex from handler Maj. Mike Reynolds while wife Rachel watches during the adoption ceremony Friday, Dec. 21, 2007, at the Marine Corps Logistics Base in Albany, Georgia. (AP Photo/Walter Petruska)
Caption: German Shepherd dog Lex and new owner Camryn Lee get closer together with sister Mady looking on after the adoption ceremony Friday, Dec. 21, 2007, at the Marine Corps Logistics Base in Albany, Georgia.
(AP Photo/Walter Petruska)
Patterico guest poster DRJ wrote about this story back on the 13th when the decision by the Marine Corps was announced, and has more on Cpl. Dustin Lee and his family.
Ron Paul: the chicken is our last best hope in saving the Constitution!
Hillary Clinton: well, Bill was getting a little frisky, so.....
Joe Biden: the chicken just wanted to get from one side of Delaware to the other
Mike Huckabee: the chicken was emulating my tax policies as governor
Fred!: The problem is that chickens sometimes lose sight of common sense as they create regulations
John Edwards: there are more then 47 million chickens in this country without healthcare, who are being forced to cross the road for back alley treatment
Oprah: rather then helping this chicken get an education and become a productive worker, I am giving the chicken a new car!
B. Hussein Obama: In the end, that's what this election is about. Do we participate in a politics of chickens or a politics of roosters?
Rudy Giuliani: the chicken was in clear violation of the jay walking laws (I guess you have to be from the NYC area on that one!)
Mitt Romney: the chicken is on the move and just looking to improve itself
Dennis Kucinich: impeach the chicken!
Harry Reid: the chicken was getting away from the civil war. Plus, it is mostly Pelosi's fault
Dick Cheney: We need to battle the chickens overseas so we don’t have to battle them here at home
Bush 43: the heat of the moon was turning the chicken into a zombie, so it was trying to escape from losing its head
What ya got?
Update: I cannot believe I forgot to type in the one that really got me started on this whole thing:
John Kerry: I voted for the chicken to cross the road before voting against it. The chicken was out there terrorizing women and children in the dead of night.
Between railroad tracks and beneath the roar of departing planes sits "tent city," a terminus for homeless people. It is not, as might be expected, in a blighted city center, but in the once-booming suburbia of Southern California.
The noisy, dusty camp sprang up in July with 20 residents and now numbers 200 people, including several children, growing as this region east of Los Angeles has been hit by the U.S. housing crisis.
The unraveling of the region known as the Inland Empire reads like a 21st century version of "The Grapes of Wrath," John Steinbeck's novel about families driven from their lands by the Great Depression.
As more families throw in the towel and head to foreclosure here and across the nation, the social costs of collapse are adding up in the form of higher rates of homelessness, crime and even disease.
Tent city. U.S. housing crisis. Grown from 20 to 200 residents. "The Grapes of Wrath". Great depression. Foreclosure leads to higher rates of homelessness.
Or does it:
While no current residents claim to be victims of foreclosure, all agree that tent city is a symptom of the wider economic downturn. And it's just a matter of time before foreclosed families end up at tent city, local housing experts say.
Or put another way, everything in the first few paragraphs is apparently a crock of crap.
It's just a matter of times folks. They just have to show up there, because that fits the narrative so darn well.
Yes, foreclosures are up this year and we know why. But the Guardian article claims:
Nationally, foreclosures are at an all-time high. Filings are up nearly 100 percent from a year ago, according to the data firm RealtyTrac.
In fact, per RealtyTrac, they're up 67.82% from last year but now trending down. In fact, the numbers for this November are down 10% from last November.
The Guardian further claims:
California ranks second in the nation for foreclosure filings -- one per 88 households last quarter.
Actually, the figure, per RealtyTrac is one per 325 households for California, and that is 1.9 times the national average (one per every 617).
No one is arguing that there isn't a housing crisis or that foreclosures are somehow a good thing. But this sort of slipshod and agenda driven "journalism" is just inexcusable.
And it is also another example of the great editing we've become accustomed too from the MSM. Nowhere in the Guardian article was this sort of information to be found:
“The 10 percent drop in November is the first double-digit monthly decrease we’ve seen since April 2006,” said James J. Saccacio, chief executive officer of RealtyTrac. “This could indicate that foreclosure activity has topped out for the year, but the true test of whether this ceiling will hold will come at the beginning of next year — when we anticipate that a seasonal surge in foreclosure filings and another possible wave of resetting mortgages could place further pressure on the housing market. But if the trend of flat or decreasing foreclosure activity we’ve seen over the past three months continues in the first quarter, it would certainly bode well for 2008.”
Couldn't have that show up if you're trying to build a tent city, could you? Great job Dana Ford. And a hat tip to your editors as well.
Certainly Bill wants to repay Hill for those traumatic times when he had to hide behind her skirt. And certainly he feels that his legacy is tied to her. He suggests to Matt Bai in today’s Times Magazine that she can be F.D.R. to his Teddy Roosevelt, getting through the ideas that fell flat the first time.
"F.D.R. to his Teddy Roosevelt, getting through the ideas that fell flat the first time"?!
It's true that the first Roosevelt was a "progressive" Republican who had no problem with big government, but he actually succeeded in getting most of his "ideas" enacted into law. Perhaps the "first time" Dowd means -- the period when Teddy moved fairly far from his Republican mandate -- was really the "non-time" of his failed campaign onthe Bull Moose ticket:
Roosevelt campaigned on a platform of "New Nationalism," which included such reforms as women's suffrage, old-age pensions, and child labor laws. He called for the continuation of trusts but under government supervision, and advised their continued existence under government regulation.
Indeed there does seem to be a phenomenon of Presidents of all stripes falling more and more in love with executive power as time goes on. Scruples that candidates and first-term Presidents are able to keep in mind about the limits of their own reach become mere inconveniences of ideologues; now wise monarchs, they trust themselves as they once trusted no man to wield the greatest power benevolently, humanely, sagely. Teddy Roosevelt was no different.
But analogizing from the case of Teddy Roosevelt's "first time" -- his progressive Republican administration -- to the time that never was -- his abortive Bull Moose Administration -- is the wrong analogy to the President Clinton who was and the President Clinton who would be. Yet it's close: In both cases, we can learn from the example of a bored, relatively young ex-President willing to ride whatever will get him back in that ultimate driver's seat.
Every Christmas, after the presents are opened and breakfast is being made, I read this first in the paper. It is a Christmas classic that has always touched my soul. While some people outside of the Tri-State area have heard of it, rarely do papers outside of the NY-NJ-Conn area see it in print, and it always surprises me when I run across someone who has not ever heard the first line. I humbly bring it to you, and hope it touches you as much as it touches me:
Yes, Virginia, There is a Santa Claus
Editorial Page, New York Sun, 1897
We take pleasure in answering thus prominently the communication below, expressing at the same time our great gratification that its faithful author is numbered among the friends of The Sun:
I am 8 years old. Some of my little friends say there is no Santa Claus. Papa says, "If you see it in The Sun, it’s so." Please tell me the truth, is there a Santa Claus?
Virginia O’Hanlon
Virginia, your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the skepticism of a sceptical age. They do not believe except what they see. They think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their little minds. All minds, Virginia, whether they be men’s or children’s, are little. In this great universe of ours, man is a mere insect, an ant, in his intellect as compared with the boundless world about him, as measured by the intelligence capable of grasping the whole of truth and knowledge.
Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus.
He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! how dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus! It would be as dreary as if there were no Virginias. There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence. We should have no enjoyment, except in sense and sight. The external light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished.
Not believe in Santa Claus! You might as well not believe in fairies. You might get your papa to hire men to watch in all the chimneys on Christmas eve to catch Santa Claus, but even if you did not see Santa Claus coming down, what would that prove? Nobody sees Santa Claus, but that is no sign that there is no Santa Claus. The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see. Did you ever see fairies dancing on the lawn? Of course not, but that’s no proof that they are not there. Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen and unseeable in the world.
You tear apart the baby’s rattle and see what makes the noise inside, but there is a veil covering the unseen world which not the strongest man, nor even the united strength of all the strongest men that ever lived could tear apart. Only faith, poetry, love, romance, can push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernal beauty and glory beyond. Is it all real? Ah, Virginia, in all this world there is nothing else real and abiding.
No Santa Claus? Thank God he lives and lives forever. A thousand years from now, Virginia, nay 10 times 10,000 years from now, he will continue to make glad the heart of childhood.
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!!!!
And a Merry Christmas from deep down in my heart to all my friends and visitors out there.
If you would like to know the background on the letter, you can go to the 2004 posting of this.
It's true that the first Roosevelt was a "progressive" Republican who had no problem with 
