Time for Political Correctness to Go

American Thinker has a piece on "Changing the Terms of the Debate" and in it they discuss a frequent complaint of mine - the effect of political correctness on our political debate:

Quite simply, the so-called progressives have been able to gradually push their agenda forward because they have controlled the terms of the debate. By "terms'" I mean both the rules and the language. The most potent weapon in their arsenal has been propaganda in the form of political correctness. They have wielded it with deadly accuracy for years, and it is even more potent now that we have a president who identifies himself as a racial minority. However, in reality, political correctness is less about race than it is about controlling public perception.


At the heart of political correctness is the idea that the left can promote any agenda, as long as they camouflage it with a name that is acceptable to a majority of the population. It is through this technique that the leftists are able to make even the most contemptible ideas seem noble. They mask their true intentions, and then set up camp behind what appear to be noble causes: health care for all, helping the poor, defending oppressed minorities, educating children, comforting the elderly, protecting the planet, etc. From there, they may safely assail their opponents without fear of reprisal.


But behind every well-named liberal cause, there lurks an insidious utopian agenda that requires the sacrifice of untold numbers of human lives upon the altar of progressivism. The agenda is hidden under so many layers of well-manicured false humanitarian imagery, that only the most discerning eyes may see behind the facade. Unfortunately, in today's culture, a majority of the public seems to find such in-depth discernment to be mundane and tiresome. We prefer spoon-sized tidbits of more palatable pop-culture pabulum. With the help of their Hollywood image machine, the spin doctors of the left have become masters of creating tantalizing little morsels of leftist propaganda, sugar-coated with seemingly harmless palliatives.

There's a lot more at the link.

As a nation, and the Republicans as a political party, we have grown reluctant to make our stand on political issues as they should be made out of fear of criticism or name-calling from the left. The word "racist" strikes fear into the hearts of many conservatives - even though they know it's not true. They're afraid to risk issues that might result in racial accusations because they haven't figured out that they have to fight back on the same terms. Make the left prove their racial accusations. Don't let them spout that stuff without it being challenged.

Andrew Breitbart has become a master at this, and the best example was the famous march by the Congressional Black Caucus through a Tea Party crowd on Capitol Hill the day before the Obamacare vote. Several black Democrats alleged that racist taunts were made and one even claimed to be spit upon. Numerous cameras recorded the scene from different angles, and although the media ran with the story, there is no proof whatsoever that the alleged incidents actually occurred. Breitbart called "BS" and challenged the Democrats to prove it, even putting $100,000 of his own money up as a contribution to the United Negro College Fund if anyone could produce evidence that the taunts and spitting actually occurred.

They got nothing.  Even Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr.  who was recording the scene on his camera hasn't come forth with any evidence to support the claim.  The congressmen involved won't even answer questions from the media about it anymore. Political correctness got the story out there and neither the congressmen nor the mainstream media is interested in the truth.

It's time to quit letting the politically correct determine the rules of engagement.  We have to pick the ground upon which to fight.

Obumper Rage

Obama stirs up another violent reaction:

A Nashville man says he and his 10-year-old daughter were victims of road rage Thursday afternoon, all because of a political bumper sticker on his car.

Mark Duren told News 2 the incident happened around 4:30p.m., while he was driving on Blair Boulevard, not far from Belmont University.

He said Harry Weisiger gave him the bird and rammed into his vehicle, after noticing an Obama-Biden sticker on his car bumper.

Duren had just picked up his 10-year-old daughter from school and had her in the car with him.

"He pointed at the back of my car," Duren said, "the bumper, flipped me off, one finger salute."

But it didn't end there.

You can read the rest of the incident at the link.

I've noticed as I drive around Southern California that the Obama/Biden stickers which were once very prevalent have all but disappeared. Political correctness dictated that it was cool during the election and immediate aftermath to have one on your car, but since then, not so much. Right now I'm guessing most people can't peel those things off fast enough.

For One Oscar Nominee the Magic May Be Over

I must admit I did watch the Oscars with my wife last night, but in a concession to my general hatred of the event we used the DVR to our advantage and didn't start watching until the program was already about an hour old. That way I could zip through the multitude of commercials, and zip through every acceptance speech...except Sandra Bullock's. We watched that one because she was the one nominee that I was glad to see win. She portrayed the mother in a Christian family, and an NRA member to boot, whose Christ-like behavior is a model that Hollywood rarely acknowledges, let alone honors. Hers was a surprise win.

One advantage of watching the show that way was that, thanks to Twitter, I knew who the winners were before they came on TV. I was able to make a number of amazingly accurate predictions...before my wife figured it out.

Given the way Hollywood loves to honor dreary stories and political correctness I thought for sure that newcomer Gabourey Sidibe would win for her role in Precious, a depressing piece of filmmaking that I'll never see because I can't think of anything that would interest me less. And it's her that I'm thinking about in the title of this post.

She may have been perfectly suited to the role she played in Precious, but I can't help but think she has now reached the high point of her movie career and the downhill slide will be fast. She had a Cinderella moment, but the ball's over and the clock has hit midnight. Most Oscar nominees could count on a stack of scripts to choose from for their next project, but sadly for Sidibe that's probably not happening. She may end up as the most typecast actress in history, and parts like that aren't going to come along very often. Unfortunately, her physical presence is going to be a very limiting factor for any acting career for which she might have hoped.

I hope she got the most out of her moment in the spotlight.

Oh, and next year, just go with Steve Martin. Alec Baldwin really didn't add much to the hosting duties.

Another Great Moment in the California Legislature

From Political Wire:

California Sen. Roy Ashburn (R), "who has racked up a consistently anti-gay voting record over the years" was spotted by the openly-gay mayor of West Sacramento at gay clubs a number of times over the years, TPM reports.

Ashburn is the lawmaker caught drunk driving earlier this week after reportedly leaving a gay night club.

Interestingly, the Bakersfield Californian asked Ashburn about rumors that he was gay last summer. His response: "Why would that be anyone's business? I think there are certain subjects that are simply not relevant and this is one of them. It has no bearing on the job I do."

This does raise an interesting question: What is an "anti-gay voting record?"

Is it really "anti-gay" or is it "anti-gay rights" or "anti-liberal political correctness?" I think it's perfectly possible for a gay person to oppose certain changes in the law, such as gay marriage or special preferences related to sexual orientation, without being "anti-gay".

Identity politics demands that all people in given group are supposed to share the same political philosophy. Black conservatives are shunned because identity politics demands that blacks be liberal Democrats. I imagine the same is true with gays and gay rights issues.

This guy clearly had issues and was probably trying to hide a private part of his life he didn't want publicized. However, it would be wrong to assume his voting record was simply an effort to deny his sexual preference.

Talking to the Wrong People

This is the kind of political correctness that led to the Fort Hood shootings and will lead to the next incident:

Siraj Wahhaj has defended the convicted WTC bomb plotters, called the FBI and CIA the "real terrorists," and said he hopes all Americans eventually become Muslim.
He was among religious and civic leaders who met with (Mayor Mike) Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Ray Kelly to discuss the deadly Fort Hood shooting spree.

... As he was leaving, a Channel 2 reporter asked the mayor if he was uncomfortable about Wahhaj's presence.

"I don't know. He's not here," the mayor responded. When told that Wahhaj was in fact in the meeting, Bloomberg reversed course.

"That one. Yes. We have to talk to everybody," he said. "That's what dialogue is all about. That's how you prevent tragedies."

No, we don't have to talk to everybody. There are certain people whose views are so deranged and dangerous that they have no business being part of any discussions. They should be isolated and removed from society. Bloomberg is a fool if he thinks this guy can help bring peace.

It struck me last night that the Ford Hood shooting was the first successful terrorist attack on U.S. soil since 9/11. The record of safety begun and maintained by President Bush and Vice President Cheney through the remaining seven years of their term was broken only 10 months into the new administration.

And I predict it won't be the last one before Obama leaves (or is voted out) of office. His refusal to call evil what it is and confront it makes every public place a potential shooting gallery.

The Color Guard is Not Colorful Enough

Powerline has a little-noticed story of military political correctness at the World Series:

The story of the Naval Academy's insufficiently colorful color guard has not quite broken out yet, and perhaps it won't, but it provides additional context to the case of Nidal Hasan. It appears that Naval Academy senior commanders decided during the World Series to remove two midshipmen from the color guard that appeared. What was their offense? The color guard was deemed too white and too male. There was accordingly a push to make the color guard more "diverse."

Two members of the color guard were removed and replaced by a Pakistani and a woman to achieve the requisite "diversity." The Pakistani unfortunately forgot his cap and shoes. He himself had to be replaced at the last minute by one of the two middies removed earlier. The midshipmen have reportedly been ordered not to speak of these events (i.e., punishment will be dispensed for violating a direct order) In any event, the middies aren't talking.

What, no Eskimos? How can we call ourselves an inclusive society if we don't have Eskimos in the Naval Color Guard?

Shameful.

And the Paki forgot to pack? Sometimes the jokes write themselves.

A San Clemente Banner Causes The Vapors

Oh the outrage! (from the OC Register):

A street banner the San Clemente Chamber of Commerce has erected along El Camino Real to promote San Clemente is being removed from public property after a local resident questioned whether its image of a Christian cross is compatible with separation of church and state.

The banner depicts a tower at San Clemente Presbyterian Church. The banner says "San Clemente, Love It."

It's one of about 80 banners the Chamber of Commerce displays on light poles along San Clemente's main highway from Avenida Pico south to Cristianitos Road. Other banners depict beach scenes, a skateboarder and various San Clemente themes.

George Scarborough, San Clemente's city manager, asked the Chamber of Commerce this week to swap the banner depicting the cross for a different theme after consulting with the city attorney and concluding "there is a potential legal issue."

Lynn Wood, chief executive of the chamber, said the banner would be removed as soon as possible, though she is saddened by it.

"With what just happened at Fort Hood and the war in Afghanistan and Iraq," she said, "I think it's sad that we can be focused on a banner and not looking at the big picture of what's going on in this world."

Susan Pierce, a local resident, sent an e-mail to San Clemente Mayor Lori Donchak on Oct. 29 saying she had noticed the banner and that "it seems to be inappropriate on public property."

"Can public funds be expended for church and religious symbol display?" she asked. "Can public property be used to display a religious symbol or structure?"

Pierce could not be reached for further comment.

The banner depicts the tower at San Clemente Presbyterian, but does not name the church nor does it promote attendance at that church or any other. The tower is a landmark in town and completely appropriate on a banner promoting the city.

Political correctness and the fear of lawsuits are causing us to be a nation of wimps.

For the Fear of a Lawsuit 13 Lives Were Lost

The real question is will the Fort Hood shootings make any difference in the future (except, of course, in the lives of the victims):

The warning signs were all there: the justification of homicide bombings; the spewing of anti-American hatred; the efforts to reach Al Qaeda ...

But the U.S. military treated Major Nidal Malik Hasan with kid gloves, even after giving him a poor performance review. And though he was on the radar screen of at least one U.S. intelligence agency, no action was taken that might have prevented the Army psychiatrist from allegedly gunning down 13 people and wounding 29 others in the Fort Hood massacre last week.

"There were definitely clear indications that Hasan's loyalties were not with America," Lt. Col. Val Finnell, Hasan's classmate at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda, Md., told FoxNews.com in an exclusive interview. He and Hasan were students in the school's public health master's degree program from 2007-2008.

"There were all sorts of ... comments made throughout the year that made me question his loyalty to the United States, but nothing was done," said Finnell, who recalled one class during which Hasan gave a presentation justifying homicide bombings.

"The issue here is that there's a political correctness climate in the military. They don't want to say anything because it would be considered questioning somebody's religious belief, or they're afraid of an equal opportunity lawsuit.

Just wait until you see the lawsuits that are going to come out of this. And some of these people who have all the sudden found their voice as they talk about Hasan's past rantings had better be careful. I could very easily see how they could be drawn into these lawsuits by virtue of their failure to act in the past.

The Army Major in the Islamic Fundamentalist Playsuit

Ralph Peters of the New York Post tells it like it is:

On Thursday afternoon, a radicalized Muslim US Army officer shouting "Allahu Akbar!" committed the worst act of terror on American soil since 9/11. And no one wants to call it an act of terror or associate it with Islam.

What cowards we are. Political correctness killed those patriotic Americans at Ft. Hood as surely as the Islamist gunman did. And the media treat it like a case of non-denominational shoplifting.

This was a terrorist act. When an extremist plans and executes a murderous plot against our unarmed soldiers to protest our efforts to counter Islamist fanatics, it’s an act of terror. Period.

When the terrorist posts anti-American hate-speech on the Web; apparently praises suicide bombers and uses his own name; loudly criticizes US policies; argues (as a psychiatrist, no less) with his military patients over the worth of their sacrifices; refuses, in the name of Islam, to be photographed with female colleagues; lists his nationality as "Palestinian" in a Muslim spouse-matching program, and parades around central Texas in a fundamentalist playsuit — well, it only seems fair to call this terrorist an "Islamist terrorist."

But the president won’t. Despite his promise to get to all the facts. Because there’s no such thing as "Islamist terrorism" in ObamaWorld.

And the Army won’t. Because its senior leaders are so sick with political correctness that pandering to America-haters is safer than calling terrorism "terrorism."

And the media won’t. Because they have more interest in the shooter than in our troops — despite their crocodile tears.

Maj. Nadal Malik Hasan planned this terrorist attack and executed it in cold blood. The resulting massacre was the first tragedy. The second was that he wasn’t killed on the spot.

Hasan survived. Now the rest of us will have to foot his massive medical bills. Activist lawyers will get involved, claiming "harassment" drove him temporarily insane. There’ll be no end of trial delays. At best, taxpayer dollars will fund his prison lifestyle for decades to come, since our politically correct Army leadership wouldn’t dare pursue or carry out the death penalty.

Maj. Hasan will be a hero to Islamist terrorists abroad and their sympathizers here. While US Muslim organizations decry his acts publicly, Hasan will be praised privately. And he’ll have the last laugh.

Peters goes on to blast the Army for failing to act on this guy. Peters is a former member of the Army. Read the rest of it here.

The Nation That Cried Sheep

Selwyn Duke adds to the discussion of how political correctness enabled the Fort Hood shooting:

Why was an obvious jihadist in our military in the first place, let alone promoted to major?

Well, the question has already been answered. We have become a sick society, where fantasies are favored and reality is called "racist." If there were an officer of Japanese descent in our military during WWII, he wouldn't have lasted til the next day's rising sun if he had expressed pro-Imperial Japanese sentiments. But that was then, when America was America, before she was sacrificed on the altar of the leftist dystopia in utopian clothing.

Furthermore, only a sick society would tolerate a far more dangerous fifth column: those traitors who, as Cicero said 2,000 years ago, appear not as traitors, who speak in accents familiar to their victims, who wear their victims' face and use their arguments. I speak of those who wasted no time painting Hasan as a victim: writers such as Kenyon Wallace, who only emphasized the claim that the major was "harassed" by colleagues and theorized that post-traumatic stress disorder might have influenced this man who never saw a firefight until he started one at Fort Hood.

What bunk. Sure, Hasan got into heated arguments with fellow officers and was called names. But that's not called harassment. Harassment is not when you disgorge the enemy's rhetoric with a violent tongue. It's called a defense of God, country, and culture. It's called pushing back when pushed.

Yet however much some individuals push, we are a society of three little monkeys, content with their self-imposed handicaps. Is it noteworthy that Islamists perpetrated 9/11, that we are at war with them, and that they have spread their creed primarily by the sword ever since Islam's inception nigh on 1,400 years ago? Is it noteworthy that they perpetrated the aforementioned Arkansas murder; that Sgt. Asan Akbar attacked members of his own American unit in Kuwait with grenades and a gun in 2003; and that, as WorldNetDaily.com reports citing a recent book, "jihadists fill 'every branch'" of the U.S. military? Is it noteworthy that virtually all of today's terrorism is Islamist handiwork, from New York to Nigeria, France to the Philippines, India to Israel? Is this not a pattern?

Yet the powers that be still pretend that fitting an obvious, consistently demonstrated profile is meaningless and trumped by facile propositions such as "He is a soldier sworn to duty," "He is an 'American' with freedom of speech and religion," and the worn-out "Islam is a religion of peace" and "Most Muslims are good people." And their attitude much reminds me of an old Mad Magazine cartoon I read as a boy. It was a depiction of two men observing a huge, octopus-like monster holding a colleague in one tentacle, a fork and knife in two others and dangling salt and pepper shakers over the man's head with another two. One of the men then asks the other (I'm paraphrasing), "What makes you think this creature intends to eat Dr. Toms?"

Ah, the beauty of tolerance and open-mindedness. Pay no attention to the turbaned man behind the curtain. It's them thar racists clingin' to guns and religion (other than Islam) you've got to worry about.

There's more at American Thinker.

America is no longer willing to confront evil within our society and institutions, even when evil goes out of its way to make itself known.

Fort Hood Shooter Tried to Contact Al Qaeda

The story of Major Malik Nadal Hasan gets more and more ugly:

U.S. intelligence agencies were aware months ago that Army Major Nidal Hasan was attempting to make contact with people associated with al Qaeda, two American officials briefed on classified material in the case told ABC News.

Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan tried to make contact with people linked to al Qaeda.It is not known whether the intelligence agencies informed the Army that one of its officers was seeking to connect with suspected al Qaeda figures, the officials said.

One senior lawmaker said the CIA had, so far, refused to brief the intelligence committees on what, if any, knowledge they had about Hasan's efforts.

CIA director Leon Panetta and the Director of National Intelligence, Dennis Blair, have been asked by Congress "to preserve" all documents and intelligence files that relate to Hasan, according to the lawmaker.

It makes me wonder if his transfer from Washington to Fort Hood was done because he was deemed a threat to D.C., but not enough of a threat to detain and investigate. Somebody dropped the ball, and as discussed in the previous post, I wonder how much political correctness and the fear of appearing bigoted contributed to this terrorist attack.

Political Correctness Helped Make Fort Hood Possible

Major Malik Nadal Hasan was a ticking time bomb, ready to go off at any moment, and lots of people could hear the timer counting down and were afraid to confront the problem lest they be considered religious bigots:

Major Nidal Malik Hasan, the gunman who killed 13 at America's Fort Hood military base, once gave a lecture to other doctors in which he said non-believers should be beheaded and have boiling oil poured down their throats.

He also told colleagues at America's top military hospital that non-Muslims were infidels condemned to hell who should be set on fire. The outburst came during an hour-long talk Hasan, an Army psychiatrist, gave on the Koran in front of dozens of other doctors at Walter Reed Army Medical Centre in Washington DC, where he worked for six years before arriving at Fort Hood in July.

Colleagues had expected a discussion on a medical issue but were instead given an extremist interpretation of the Koran, which Hasan appeared to believe....

Fellow doctors have recounted how they were repeatedly harangued by Hasan about religion and that he openly claimed to be a "Muslim first and American second."

One Army doctor who knew him said a fear of appearing discriminatory against a Muslim soldier had stopped fellow officers from filing formal complaints.

Another, Dr Val Finnell, who took a course with him in 2007 at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Maryland, did complain about Hasan's "anti-American rants." He said: "The system is not doing what it's supposed to do. He at least should have been confronted about these beliefs, told to cease and desist, and to shape up or ship out. I really questioned his loyalty."

Sen. Joe Lieberman promises an investigation into this guy and the warning signs that were ignored. There are a bunch of officers in the Army that will have some explaining to do.

UPDATE: Now it comes out that Hasan had tried to contact Al Qaeda.

And as a side note, according to Don Surber, Mr. Pious Muslim frequented a strip joint near the base:

“Major Nidal Malik Hasan came into the Starz strip club not far from the base at least three times in the past month, the club’s general manager, Matthew Jones, told FoxNews.com. Army investigators building their case against Hasan plan to interview Jones soon,” reported Fox News.

I am not that familiar with the Koran, but I am pretty sure that Muslims are supposed to avoid alcohol and joints that serve alcohol.

The manager told Fox News: “The last time he was here, I remember checking his military ID at the door, and he paid his $15 cover and stayed for six or seven hours.”

Six hours in a strip joint? Am I missing something here?

And that prohibition on alcohol?

Jennifer Jenner, 31, said Hasan bought a lap dance from her, and Fox News reported, “he brought in a six pack of light beer, took only a few sips from one can and gave the rest to the strippers.”

He's not going to find his 72 virgins there.

Saving the Afghan War with Hate Crimes Legislation

Say what? How do you connect the dots between the Afghan war and hate crimes? Easy, if you're a Democrat:

What does a hate crimes bill have to do with money for U.S. troops fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq?

Nothing, except that the National Defense Authorization Act, which will win final passage in Congress and be sent to the president's desk this week, also contains the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act, which Democrats placed inside the defense measure over Republican objections.

The crime bill -- which would broaden the protected classes for hate crimes to include sexual orientation and "gender identity," which the bill defines as a victim's "actual or perceived gender-related characteristics" -- passed the House earlier this year as a stand-alone measure. But it's never had the votes to succeed by itself in the Senate. So over the summer Democrats, with the power of their 60-vote majority, attached it to the defense bill.

Republicans argued that the two measures had nothing to do with each other. Beyond that, GOP lawmakers feared the new bill could infringe on First Amendment rights in the name of preventing broadly defined hate crimes. The bill's critics, including many civil libertarians, argued that the hate crimes provision could chill freedom of speech by empowering federal authorities to accuse people of inciting hate crimes, even if the speech in question was not specifically related to a crime.

Just watch what comes out of this. All sorts of speech, from actual verbal statements to columns to blog posts will suddenly be classified as hate speech if the subject matter doesn't toe the line of political correctness and liberal ideology. The threat alone will be enough to chill some speech and the First Amendment will be weaker because Democrats believe it only applies to speech of which they approve.

To All Who Contributed, Thanks for Making "Racist" a Meaningless Word

If figured there might one day come a time when we would no longer hear the word "racist". That would be day that Martin Luther King's ideal of a world in which people "are judged by the content of their character and not the color of their skin" had come to pass.

That day has clearly not come, but thanks to Jimduh Carter, Maxine Waters, and a host of Dem political leaders and mainstream media pundits, the day has come in which the word "racist" no longer has any meaning. It has now lost its sting, its power to rebuke, its power to shame.

There was a time in America when the worst thing you could say about a person was that they were "racist". The word carried a stigma worse than "murderer" or "rapist". O.J. Simpson killed two people, but all the defense had to do was throw "racist" at the cops who investigated him and the case was toast.

But all that has changed. Thanks to the notion being promoted by the usual collection of race-baiters that all opposition to Obama is "racist", the word no longer has power to shape the debate. It's pretty much as powerful as calling someone a "poophead".

Having been called "racist" more times than I can count thanks to my conservative views, political incorrectness and opposition to Obama's vision of a socialist America, I'm personally grateful to the poopheads that have madly waved the race card since Obama became a candidate. They've overused the word so badly, that like the boy who cried "wolf!", when the boys and girls who cry "racist!" scream forth, nobody cares.

Maybe Obama will be a post-racial president after all.

Bonus Political Quote of the Day

From Rush Limbaugh, responding to Jimduh Carter's rant about most opposition to Obama being racist:

"Can we really have an African-American president in this country when the constitutional body, the press rolls over and plays dead, becoming propagandists and stenographers -- and then calls anyone who disagrees with that president a racist?"

Good question. The candidacy of an attractive black liberal Democrat caused political correctness to run rampant and the press, which would normally scrutinize and vet candidates and which normally would have eaten up the scandals and scalawags that made up Obama's past, simply ran for cover rather than risk being called racist. They've been pathetic.

The Man Who Saved More People Than Anyone in History

Have you ever heard of Norman Borlaug? I have to admit that today is the first time I'd heard that name, but it's a name that should go down in history among the greats (from Red State):

Norman Borlaug, agronomist and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, has died. A widower, he leaves behind five grandchildren, six great-grandchildren, and 245,000,000 people who would have died of starvation without hiswork in the Green Revolution.

245,000,000 is, by the way, the conservative estimate. It’s been suggested that Dr. Borlaug may have saved up to 1,000,000,000 people with his work in practical agronomy; it’s certainly true that his work put a stake through the heart of the 1980s doomsday scenarios popularized by Paul R. Ehrlich and others.

Ted Kennedy, who took a life rather than save it and accomplished very little of real consequence, got a several day long state funeral just because of political correctness. Borlaug will probably be quickly forgotten, even by the millions who live today because of his efforts. Such is the twisted world we live in.

Fox News is Saving Obama

Fox News, the network Obama loves to hate and avoid, may actually be saving his scrawny neck, according to a theory proposed by Don Surber:

For a man who has spent the last 2 years doing what he could to fight Fox News — he sank its one and only scheduled Democratic presidential debate by boycotting the event — Barack Obama sure owes Fox News for protecting himself from himself.

Time and time again, Fox News has forced Obama to throw under his political bus some very dangerous people.

Fox News has done this by putting journalism first, political correctness last.

The Hillary Clinton campaign shopped the Rev. Jeremiah Wright story to network after network. Finally Fox News bit and the rest is history. A race-baiting, America-hating man who was the inspiration for “The Audacity Of Hope” book was gone.

Then there was Bill Ayers. And so on, through Van Jones.

And now, ACORN. The administration has cut ties with ACORN after Glenn Beck exposed ACORN workers helping a woman pimp 13-year-old illegal immigrants.

Incredible.

Fox News is doing the nation a favor by doing its job.

I have a theory. Obama is not so sure of his racial identity. He seeks street cred. He thinks race haters like Van Jones help him.

They are poison.

By forcing Obama to abandon him,Fox News saves him and his presidency.

That’s not its purpose, of course. It is only doing its job without regard to ideology.

But the unintended consequence is good for a president who is too trusting of those who hate their own country.

I think Don is probably right. However, it's a sure bet that we'd never hear about any of the kooks in the Obama administration were it not for Fox. The other networks studiously avoid any mention of them and until Fox outs them, who knows what damage they may be doing?

A Black Day for the English Language

Brought to you courtesy of the political correctness police in England:

It could be construed as a black day for the English language — but not if you work in the public sector.

Dozens of quangos and taxpayer-funded organisations have ordered a purge of common words and phrases so as not to cause offence.

Among the everyday sayings that have been quietly dropped in a bid to stamp out racism and sexism are “whiter than white”, “gentleman’s agreement”, “black mark” and “right-hand man”.

The Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission has advised staff to replace the phrase “black day” with “miserable day”, according to documents released under freedom of information rules.

It points out that certain words carry with them a “hierarchical valuation of skin colour”. The commission even urges employees to be mindful of the term “ethnic minority” because it can imply “something smaller and less important”.

The National Gallery in London believes that the phrase “gentleman’s agreement” is potentially offensive to women and suggests that staff should replace it with “unwritten agreement” or “an agreement based on trust” instead. The term “right-hand man” is also considered taboo by the gallery, with “second in command” being deemed more suitable.

Many institutions have urged their workforce to be mindful of “gender bias” in language. The Learning and Skills Council wants staff to “perfect” their brief rather than “master” it, while the Newcastle University has singled out the phrase “master bedroom” as being problematic.

Advice issued by the South West Regional Development Agency states: “Terms such as ‘black sheep of the family’, ‘black looks’ and ‘black mark’ have no direct link to skin colour but potentially serve to reinforce a negative view of all things black. Equally, certain terms imply a negative image of ‘black’ by reinforcing the positive aspects of white.

“For example, in the context of being above suspicion, the phrase ‘whiter than white’ is often used. Purer than pure or cleaner than clean are alternatives which do not infer that anything other than white should be regarded with suspicion.”

I would suggest that they eliminate the phrase "God Save the Queen" since that implies that a female monarch needs saving, and "Queen" could also be construed as a flamboyant male homosexual. Clearly unacceptable.

64 Years Ago

On this day in 1945 the airplane you see below made an historic flight:

That's the Enola Gay, a B-29 bomber now on display at the Smithsonian's Air and Space Museum at Dulles Airport. This is the ship that dropped the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima.

For some odd reason pollsters are asking today if the decision made 64 years ago was correct. 61% said yes, with overwhelming support among those who are 55 or older. The younger the respondent the less likely they were to agree with Harry Truman's decision. The people in the older age group either remember WWII firsthand or had a parent that told them about it.

The results don't particularly surprise me. For the younger crowd it's always easier to oppose historical decisions when you have no firsthand knowledge of the times in which they were made. Political correctness today would demand opposition to the use of nuclear weapons, even if we know they ended the war and saved untold millions of people who would have been killed in the invasion of the Japanese home islands. Logic and political correctness rarely operate in harmony.

As for me, I'm firmly in the "Give 'em hell, Harry" category.

Lefties Beside Themselves Over Obama Poster

This poster is driving the left absolutely nuts:

Look what L.A. Weekly says about it:

A new poster depicting President Obama as a version of Heath Ledger’s Joker character in The Dark Knight has appeared in Los Angeles[.]

It has a bit of everything to appeal to the drunk tank of California conservatism: Obama is in white face, his mouth (like Ledger’s Joker’s) has been grotesquely slit wide open and the word “Socialism” appears below his face. The only thing missing is a noose.

I don't think a noose would have helped it all that much.

One of our local L.A. race baiters is also peeved:

Los Angeles Urban Policy Roundtable President Earl Ofari Hutchinson is calling the depiction, politically mean spirited and dangerous.

Hutchinson is challenging the group or individual that put up the poster to have the courage and decency to publicly identify themselves.

"Depicting the president as demonic and a socialist goes beyond political spoofery," says Hutchinson, "it is mean-spirited and dangerous."

Free speech, Earl. Get used to it.

Of course, any criticism of Obama is considered racist, so we have to take L.A. Weekly's and others complaints for what they are - political correctness. President Bush was portrayed in all sorts of unflattering ways (Say Anything has one example here) and I don't remember hearing any such complaints. In fact, Vanity Fair even did Bush as...wait for it...the Joker. Funny thing this selective outrage that they've got.

Some on the right are unhappy with the poster as well. They don't think conservatives should be playing the same games the left plays, and maybe that's true to a point, but while we busy riding our high horse of moral superiority we're losing elections. If the Dems are going to use hyperbole and outright falsehoods to demonize our candidates, the least we can do is use a little hyperbole of our own.

This poster is pretty tame considering what passed for political criticism 100 or more years ago. Abe Lincoln was portrayed as a monkey (try that with Obama and see what happens), and all kinds of slander was routine in political campaigns. The left hesitates not for one second to promote outright lies such as the stuff that's been thrown at Sarah Palin. We don't have to lie, but we can certainly take the truth and exaggerate it to great effect.

This poster has been showing up all over Facebook as people switch their profile pictures. I won't do that, but I have no problem with this little piece of political theater. It's nice to see the left treated to some of their own medicine.