To Tell The Truth

Remember the old television program, To Tell The Truth, in which three individuals tried to fool a panel of "experts" about who was really the legitimate world record holder, inventor, author, etc., being described to the panel? The winning "pretender" was generally the best liar.

The current version of To Tell The Truth is currently being played out between the Democrats in Washington, ably assisted by their accomplices in the mainstream media, and the Bush administration. The level of fantasy and outright fabrication on the part of the Democrats is truly unprecedented. They have gone well beyond stating an opposing, but legitimately-held, view and plunged to new depths of political disingenuousness.

In this game, the Dems are the pretenders and the Bush administration is the legitimate player. The Dems are very practiced at their art, but they cannot be allowed to win by telling outrageous lies over and over until, somehow, the public is convinced it is the truth.

In this essay in Commentary Magazine, Norman Podhoretz, walks the reader through the most complete debunking of the Dems' position I have seen. It is required reading!

(Hat tip to PowerLine for pointing out this great piece of writing.)

The Liberal Political Credo - A Must Read

David Limbaugh's column today on TownHall.com is a must read for anyone trying to understand liberals. It also makes me wonder why no psychosis has been named for people willing to believe all of this hogwash. Maybe it just falls under the general category of "delusional."

Would the Left Call You a "Right-Wing Extremist?"

The vocal political left is fond of accusing anyone who opposes their views of being a "right-wing extremist." Considering where they stand on the political spectrum, even moderate liberals must look very "right wing" to them. They believe they represent what they constantly reference as the "mainstream;" however, in poll after poll their views are demonstrably not mainstream.

Of course, anyone President Bush would nominate to the Supreme Court is, by definition, a "right-wing extremist" to these people. This article in The American Thinker starts by requesting a definition of this over-used and undefined term. I recommend it for your reading and ask you to consider whether your views would entitle you to such an epithet from the left-wingers. I sincerely hope so.

The Democrats' Alternative Universe

The Wall Street Journal's lead editorial today does a good job of summarizing the strange path the Democrats are walking. Its concluding paragraph follows.

The scandal here isn't what happened before the war. The scandal is that the same Democrats who saw the same intelligence that Mr. Bush saw, who drew the same conclusions, and who voted to go to war are now using the difficulties we've encountered in that conflict as an excuse to rewrite history. Are Republicans really going to let them get away with it?

Confirmation Prediction

John Podhoretz of the New York Post has the following to say about the Alito confirmation process and outcome.

About that "all-out political war" — as an MSNBC anchor dubbed it — that has supposedly broken out over the nomination of Samuel Alito Jr. to the Supreme Court: There isn't going to be one.

Here are the facts of the case. No Supreme Court nominee has been rejected by the Senate since Bork, during Ronald Reagan's second term. Bork's defeat came in a Senate controlled by Democrats. Today's Senate is dominated by Republicans, 55 to 45.

So, will Democrats try to block Alito with a filibuster? Almost certainly no. Why? Because in that circumstance Republicans led by Sen. John McCain will be forced to support the president by voting for the so-called "nuclear option" to change the filibustering rules. That takes only 50 Republican votes and one from Vice President Dick Cheney, who can break a tie vote in the Senate.

Triggering the "nuclear option" would be a huge defeat for Democrats — a defeat far greater than letting a distinguished jurist like Alito get through, no matter how much grumbling they do.

They won't risk it. Barring some shocking revelation, Alito is in by Christmas.

I think Alito will be confirmed without a filibuster, but I'm not optimistic it will be by Christmas.

Game On!

While I certainly thought the Alito nomination would result in a major battle, even I am amazed that it only took one day for the Democrat National Committee to go into "ethnic slur" mode. The "stuck on stupid" crowd is suggesting that Alito, who is Italian-American, is soft on the mob.

Read this post at Captain's Quarters for the details.

Re Ronnie Earle

If anyone had any doubts about the ethics of Ronnie Earle, district attorney of Travis County, Texas, this article by Andrew McCarthy in National Review OnLine should make it all very clear. Among other things, McCarthy says:

As Byron York has been reporting on NRO (see here, here, and here), Earle has partnered up with producers making a movie, called The Big Buy, about his Ahab's pursuit of DeLay. A movie about a real investigation? Giving filmmakers access to investigative information while a secret grand-jury probe is underway? Allowing them to know who is being investigated and why? To view proposed indictments even before the grand jury does? Allowing them into the sanctuary of the grand jury room, and actually to film grand jurors themselves? Creating a powerful incentive — in conflict with the duty of evenhandedness — to bring charges on flimsy evidence? For a prosecutor, these aren't just major lapses. They are firing offenses. For prosecutors such as those I worked with over the years, from across the political spectrum, I daresay they'd be thought firing-squad offenses.

Setting the Stage Again

Manuel Miranda's OpinionJournal column today summarizes the status of the Supreme Court war very well. Conservatives want the next nominee to be even more conservative than Roberts, and liberals want a woman, but not just any woman, appointed. Even Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has weighed in on the subject:

On Wednesday, Justice Ginsburg told an audience that she doesn't like the idea of being the only female justice on the U.S. Supreme Court, but that in replacing Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, "any woman will not do." There are "some women who might be appointed who would not advance human rights or women's rights." When she was counsel for the ACLU, Justice Ginsburg advocated that there was a constitutional right to prostitution and that the age of consent should be lowered to 12.

As Miranda notes, "With a 'human rights' standard as high as that, Mr. Bush's job just got a whole lot tougher."

Update (September 23 at 8:40 a.m.): Following is an editorial today from the Wall Street Journal:

18-0. That was the vote count when the Senate Judiciary Committee confirmed Supreme Court Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer in the 1990s, and it should have been the vote for John Roberts yesterday, instead of 13-5. The two Bill Clinton appointees are every bit as liberal as Judge Roberts is conservative, and they were just as unforthcoming during their confirmation hearings on how they would vote on specific cases.

Instead, five Democrats voted "no" yesterday. Chuck Schumer, Dick Durbin and Ted Kennedy claimed they didn't know enough about how Judge Roberts would rule on specific precedents. Joe Biden was, well, Bidenesque. Dianne Feinstein apparently thought the candidate had been nominated for Chief Family Man instead of Chief Justice. "Rather than talking to me as a son, a husband, a father -- which I specifically requested he do -- he gave a very detached response," she said yesterday. Imagine that: A judge who is restrained.

Senator Feinstein has also said repeatedly she cannot support a nominee who doesn't support Roe v. Wade. So on the one hand liberals say they want President Bush to appoint Justices who aren't committed to a political agenda. On the other hand, they're opposing Judge Roberts because he wouldn't commit to fulfilling a specific political agenda, namely theirs. The lesson for Mr. Bush is that he should nominate the best conservative he can find for the next Court opening, because there's going to be a fight no matter who it is.

Myth Regarding Bush Comments on New Orleans' Levees Exploded

From today's OpinionJournal's Political Diary (subscription):

Sometimes the truth has to run hard to catch up with the lie, and sometimes it gets a helping shove from events. President Bush was condemned for supposedly saying no one anticipated the New Orleans levees would fail, a canard that even the Chicago Tribune repeated yesterday in an editorial that purported to set the record straight on Katrina "myths."

What Mr. Bush actually said was that, once it became clear that Katrina would not make a direct hit on New Orleans, it wasn't anticipated that the levees might fail anyway.

In one of life's ironies, indications are now surfacing to support even the misquoted Mr. Bush. Yesterday the Washington Post reported strong evidence that the levees holding back Lake Pontchartrain were never overtopped by the Katrina storm surge -- the predicted form of failure in a storm greater than Category 3. Instead, the floodwalls gave way in two spots in an entirely unpredicted structural failure, which never should have occurred had they been built to specification. Here's a passage from the Post report that vindicates even the statement Mr. Bush didn't make: "Former senator J. Bennett Johnston (D-La.) said he remembers numerous briefings from Corps officials about the danger of a hurricane overtopping the New Orleans levees. But he said he never envisioned a scenario like this one. 'This came as a surprise,' he said."

Odds that critics will stop accusing Mr. Bush of having said nobody anticipated levee failure in New Orleans? Zero. For those who are interested, however, the truth is out there and may be more interesting than the already settled wisdom about the Great New Orleans Flood of 2005.