6 posts tagged “freedom”

Moving Day Approaches

Sep 12, 2007
12 comments

Only five more days before I leave!!! Still doing some last minute packing and address changing (wouldn't want to miss my favorite magazines!). We are having a big yard sale on Saturday, at which I hope to make a little extra cash for the road. I am trying to fit in regular visits to the gym this week as well, so I don't feel as bad sitting in my car all next week. Other than that, it's just getting real for me--I am moving across the country!!

September 11, 2007

Sep 10, 2007
1 comment

Just don't forget.

WTC

September 11, 2001

Flying the Friendly Skies

Aug 14, 2007

What he said.

I recently made a trip to Seattle/Tacoma to visit my sister. This is the fourth time I've been in an airport this year. This last time, I saw something that truly disturbed me. And no, I have not let 9/11 go. I have no qualms about flying, but it's not like things have really straightened out since then.

Anyway, I am clearing security to go to my gate and as I bend down to put my shoes on, I glance over at another security station. There is a little old lady, and yes, she was little and old. I would say she was about 78-82ish and wearing a matching green cotton pants and shirt set with flowers on it. She had a cane. She was sitting down and the TSA agent was explaining to her that "she needed extra screening."

It took all my will power not to go over there and smack that TSA agent with her magna-wand and remind her that taking the time to screen an 80-year-old white lady with a cane takes away from the time that could be spent observing LIKELY threats to my outbound plane.

There are things I am sure of: one, there are people in this country who want to do to us the most evil things, including flying commercial jetliners into major cities. Two, all the people who have attempted or achieved this goal have been Muslim. So, as long we know this happened:

September 11, 2001

...and if I ever saw this at an airport:

Imamsprayairport

you can bet your ass I am OFF that plane in a heartbeat.

Things I Want

Aug 11, 2007
2 comments

For What?

I think I will make this an ongoing post, like Hunk Day, which, come to think of it, could also be called "Things I Want...."

Thing I want #1:

How to Vote Democrat

Yeah, that's pretty funny.

Pontifical Humility

Jul 28, 2007
1 comment

    In 2000, my first chance to vote in a Presidential Election (I missed the '96 election by 13 months), I proudly pulled the lever for George W. Bush. In 2003, two weeks after my college graduation, my brother entered Marine Corps boot camp in San Diego. He graduated in August and was deployed in February, 2004. In November 2004, shortly after his return, I pulled it more resolutely than the first time. In my mind, I knew G.W.B. would be a major president in my lifetime, but not like it's come to be recently. First the immigration debacle, which angers me beyond anything that's happened with the war, and now, the war.
    Despite my brother's devotion to the cause and this country (and the fact that he would happily go back to Iraq a third, fourth, fifth...time at the drop of a hat), and the fact that I am not a "give peace a chance" kind of girl, I think now I'd like to see President Bush finish what [he] started....
    I reject the comparisons to Vietnam and think Democrats who threaten impeachment hearings are giant fools, but as much as I would love to see the Iraqis live in freedom, I believe they will not and cannot. They are not us, they never knew the freedom and democracy that we have known for hundreds of years, they are a third world country (in many ways, barbaric and oppressive) and will fight change all the way to the grave. I pray that President Bush listen to his republican congressmen and senators, because in 10 years when I read about the Presidency that possibly defined the beginning of the 21st century, I'd like some of it to be good, and I'd like it to remind me of the way I felt the when I voted for him.

Bush will have to pull out of Iraq, or face historical obliteration

By Dick Morris
July 11, 2007
Are they traitors or prophets, these Republicans who have jumped ship and called for Bush to begin pulling out of Iraq — Sens. George Voinovich (Ohio), Richard Lugar (Ind.), John Warner (Va.), and Pete Domenici (N.M.)? More likely the latter. A look at the political map and the electoral calendar tells us that GOP Sens. Arlen Specter (Pa.), Norm Coleman (Minn.), Olympia Snowe (Maine), Susan Collins (Maine), Chuck Hagel (Neb.), Lindsey Graham (S.C.) and Gordon Smith (Ore.) are probably not far behind them. If you haven’t been counting, that comes to 11 Republican defections —enough to force a vote even if the Dems lose Joe Lieberman (Conn.). A veto override? Add in the likes of marginal-state GOP senators like John Thune (S.D.), Kit Bond (Mo.), John Ensign (Nev.), Chuck Grassley (Iowa) and a handful of others and it’s possible. Retiring Sen. Wayne Allard (R-Colo.) might just do his party a favor on his way out. The Republican senators are coming to realize that Bush needs to begin to pull out to save his party, even if it puts Iraq at risk. With the president’s favorability down to 29 percent in the USA Today poll, and 26 percent in Newsweek, the party leaders are coming to realize that they are not planning to join Bush in retirement — at least not yet — and that unless he begins the pullout, the GOP cannot hold on to the White House. Hillary’s stand — demanding a start to the withdrawal but not setting an end date — gives Bush the flexibility he needs to begin to pull out and stretch the process as long as he has to in order to have some hope of achieving his objective. The back end of Clinton’s position — that sufficient troops should remain to provide intelligence, logistical, air, and training support to the Iraqi Army and to prevent Iranian infiltration and hunt al Qaeda operatives in the provinces — will make it hard for her to differentiate her position from Bush’s once the withdrawal starts. The mainstream of the American public is not going to go to the ramparts over 10,000 or 20,000 troops for a few months one way or the other. For those on the left who do, they will find Hillary’s proposals as unsatisfying as they are going to find Bush’s slow pullout pace. Right now they don’t notice the limitations on Hillary’s position because Bush is against any pullout ever. But if the president begins to withdraw, the left will scrutinize the details of Hillary’s program and find it wanting. For the rest of us, Bush can defend the pace of his pullout, noting that a withdrawal while under enemy fire is the most difficult of all military maneuvers and that he must safeguard American lives and those of our Iraqi allies in the process. No reasonable observer is going to force him to commit to a set pace of withdrawal once he has begun the process in good faith. From the point of view of Iraq, a gradual pullout makes all kinds of sense. The lesson of Vietnam is clear: If the public get so turned off on a military intervention, it will force Congress to ban any further involvement, making it inevitable that our enemies win. But if the administration salvages a modicum of public support by way of a prompt but gradual withdrawal, it will preserve the option of re-entry by air or land should an adverse situation arise. We probably could have stopped the North from winning in Vietnam had Congress not banned any air or ground involvement after 1974. We must not fall into the same trap in Iraq. Besides, beginning a pullout may even force the government in Baghdad to get moving on real reforms in the distribution of oil revenue and the sharing of political power in the hope of slowing the pace of the withdrawal. But Bush faces a stark choice: If he doesn’t begin pulling out, his party will lose the White House, lose Congress by stunning and likely filibuster-proof margins, and his tax cut and education reforms will be repealed. His footsteps will be obliterated from history. It will be as if he never served. And if Bush doesn’t get it in time, there are enough sensible Republican senators to give him a wake-up call. Morris, a former political adviser to Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss.) and President Bill Clinton, is the author of “Outrage.” To get all of Dick Morris’s and Eileen McGann’s columns for free by email, go to www.dickmorris.com .