2009 April 14 | SONICFROG DOT NET

Rush… Bad For Republicans, Pt 3

Here’s Rush:

The whole reason that there is a resurgence of piracy, which is something that was thought to have been stamped out a couple of hundred years ago, is precisely because idiots like Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama think pirates and terrorists — and this is terrorism — are criminals, not enemies.

Gee, and here I thought that piracy has been an ongoing problem throughout the 20th Century…. Oh, it HAS! And here’s a few maps of piracy incidents from 2005 through 2008. In fact, the Rand Corporation reported:

Acts of piracy — boarding a ship to commit theft or another crime — totaled 2,463 actual or attempted incidents between 2000 and 2006, according to the report. The overall problem is almost certainly even greater than the figures suggest as researchers suspect nearly half of all piracy attacks are not reported, usually because of fears about subsequent investigation costs and increases to insurance premiums.

The report opens by stating that open seas piracy was on the rise. In 2008. Hey, wasn’t that when G. W. Bush was in office; when criminals like pirates were terrorist?

Politics / Law Stuff | Sonicfrog April 14, 2009 | Comments (0)

Why Rush Is Bad For The Republican Party, Pt 2

“I want to single out Jonah Goldberg of National Review for being the first that I saw to have the proper reaction to the rescue of Captain Phillips from the merchant marine organizers, and that was to congratulate President Obama for a job well done. I would not only like to jump on the bandwagon, but I’d like to say I don’t think the Navy had that much to do with it.”

-Rush Limbaugh

This is a bit like watching a movie where someone has blown up a bridge, and the train cars plow off one at a time, in slow-mo. Before this ended with military action, you were led to believe by Rush and others that no action was being taken because Obama would not allow the military to do its job. He is a weak anti-military socialist. Apparently, Rush now dismisses Obama’s decision to allow the use of force against the Somali Pirates. This is how a reader at The Corner sums it up:

In particular, I think Rush has one meritorious point: the pirate situation is cheap PR for Obama personally.

Two points:

(1) Not that it wasn’t apparent before, but there is NOTHING SHORT of Obama becoming a completely different person, an ultra-conservative one, that will please the far right, and

(2) doesn’t Rush’s criticism of Obama validate the left’s criticism of Reagan’s invasion of Grenada – it was a cheap PR move for Reagan?

I know the two incidences are a bit different, but not by much. Of course, the far right wants to invade Somalia… yesterday. Question. If Obama did that, would he get more respect, even though we would be stuck in yet another never ending conflict on foreign soil?

As if this were not enough, on Sunday evening radio host Bill Cunningham was critical of Obama for deciding to bring the surviving pirate to the U.S. to face trial. Why? Because he would have a defense attorney and it would take years before the pirate would go to trial. Better to hand him off to the Kenyans for a swift trial and execution. First off, prisoners who are imprisoned in other countries, on the behalf of the U.S., tend not to stay in jail for long in other countries involved in the Global War On Terror – Yemen, I’m looking your way. Anyone here who believes that the Pirate Consortium (or whatever they call themselves) would not be able to bribe Kenyan prison guards or officials into “accidentally” releasing said pirate captain, please raise your hands. The captain who was kidnapped is a U.S. citizen, making this a crime with U.S. jurisdiction. And I’m sure his family would rather have the trial here. Oh, but I forget. Our justice system is tainted with incompetent liberals, and they tend to botch cases, like the one involving Ted Stevens…. Oh Sorry. That was under conservative oversight.

Politics / Law Stuff | Sonicfrog | Comments (0)