gringoman.com

SAIGON NOTES, March 15, 1970

(Note: This is the second in a series for an on-going Vietnam War Legacy Project that began July 4.
My features that appeared in The Saigon Post etc will be digitized for future reference  and also posted here. (Details at July 4 post.) The following, under byline 'Daniel Cameron,' is the SAIGON NOTES  column for March 15, 1970.)

            SAIGON NOTES

               by Daniel Cameron                 

          THE 'I' HOUSE INCIDENT

 

 Most Saigon hands remember  the International House which closed down  last year on Nguyen Hue  Street. You paid a $20 membership fee and then ate low-priced steaks, drank the PX booze, played the slot machines and had companionship. American civilians went there in droves,  The place did a good business---so good, in fact, that at least two managers are being indicted  by a federal grand jury in Los Angeles. The charge is conspiracy to defraud an instrumentality of the US Government of hundreds of thousands of dollars. This is according to a recent Stateside article by CLARK MOLLENHOFF.

 

The American Embassy here is involved because it had the authority to audit the club and was also represented on the board of International House. This Board was composed of officials from various  US Federal agencies in Saigon. It had the responsibility of supervising  the club's finances and, presumably, keeping the wrong hands out of the right pockets. Although no Embassy official is implicated in any wrong-doing (aside from gross negligence) MOLLENHOFF writes:

 

"The intital investigation of International House gives a clue as to how one State Department official was able to afford Monday night parties with guest lists as long as your arm, and still repay an old credit union debt of thousands of dollars."

 

The International House was not an agency of the US Government. It was a private club managed by non-Government managers. As an American official explained to us, it wound up becoming a 'baby' of federal agencies here because that was the only way it could get duty-free food and liquor. He said that without these duty-free privileges the club would not have been able to serve its 5000 members at bargain rates.

 

"There was a need for such a club," he said. "Almost everybody wanted it. And so we let ourselves take the responsibility for the financial supervision."

 

According to MOLLENHOFF, a Justice Department audit says that "much of the fraud was apparent, but nobody paid any attention to the evidence."

 

State Department auditors say the records are missing, equipment is missing, money is missing and it's almost impossible to reconstuct financial transactions.

 

While official members of International House were meeting regularly in Saigon, non-officials with hot hands  were apparently having a good time operating slot machine rackets, equipment-purchase rackets  and kick-back rackets. Liquor, meat and other foods would be bought from "favored" vendors for as much as 30 or 40 percent more than the going market price. The vendors split the amount of the overpricing with "key club employees."

 

An American official tells me, "We had no idea what was going on."

 

The funny or sad part is that he was probably being perfectly honest in his reply. Did the Board of International House ever anticipate such possibilities for hot hands in the "I" House?

 

Apparently not.

 

MOLLENHOFF writes: "The US Embassy had the authority to audit the club, but it did not have the specific responsibility to conduct periodic audits. Consequently the club personnel operated with little or no supervision."

 

ps. Information suitable for this column can be mailed to The Saigon Post. Or leave name on bulletin board at JUSPAO , 145

Nguyen Hue St.

 

 

Saigon Notes

 

ANNOUNCEMENT/////////This begins a little Legacy Project from the war in Vietnam (and Cambodia.) It will  digitize and upload one man's experiences and observations, especially those recorded in the very controversial (and independent) column, SAIGON NOTES, and the earlier series, ETCETERA that appeared in the Saigon Post.  These comprise over 150 articles under the byline 'DANIEL CAMERON.'  Later I may add some of the "well-behaved"  reportage done for NEWSDAY, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, The CHICAGO SUN-TIMES and finally for CBS after its entire staff fled in the famous panic during the 'Story of the Decade,' i.e. the Fall of Saigon (including the  in-house  story that remains in the CBS Memory Hole to this day.) 

 

In general the period covered ranges from late 1969, when President Nixon began to 'Vietnamize' the Democrats' war, gradually phasing out US forces, to the fateful Spring of 1975, when most Americans were gone, Nixon had been Watergated out of office, and Congress refused emergency aid to the South Vietnamese as Hanoi's Communist Army rolled South, less than two years after the famous Paris Ceasefire and Peace Accords of Nixon's Henry Kissinger and Hanoi's Le Duc Tho.

 

The digitizing project will start today with the very first SAIGON NOTES (September 28, 1970) reproduced at http://www.gringoman.com / These re-printings will be somewhat redacted for clarity.   The originals are  full of typos. (Unfortunately, the Chinese typesetter sweating in his underwear in a wartime basement  did not have even a GED in English.)

 

Note to ideologues of any stripe: In Saigon everyone read these columns and not a few were offended, especially members of the crack Saigon press corps, like NEWSWEAK. If you are not offended right away, just be patient. Of course I wouldn't write exactly like this today, being slightly more civilized. I certainly wouldn't be so mean to a poor Gloria Emerson, late of the NY Times. But the historical record compels me, in the main,  to stick to the original, even when it offends even me. (Typo-cluttered originals are microfilmed somewhere or other by someone or other.)

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1970. NOTICE: 'Saigon Notes' by Daniel Cameron makes its debut in The Saigon Post starting Monday, September 28. The columns will be a regular feature on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. The views expressed in the column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Saigon Post.

 

                                        SAIGON NOTES

                     ENTER SIR ROBERT

Great Britain's distinguished Southeast Asia man, Sir Robert Thompson, advisor to President Nixon and author of NO EXIT FROM VIETNAM, returned to Saigon recently.

Discreet, as ever.

 

                                       EXIT JAMES STERBA

 

James Sterba of the NY Times is probably one of the finest young reporters in Vietnam, Now that he's going home very soon, we hear that he's spending much more time at the pinochle table than in briefing rooms. Sterba completed a very good article recently about the G.I. use of marijuana and drugs in Vietnam. But persons who read both claim that he may have been surpassed by 'STEEL POT IN A MARIJUANA CONVOY' which appeared in the little old Saigon Post, September 18 and 19. Sorry 'bout that, Jim. But nobody will hear about it Stateside, or in JUSPAO's Vietnam Round-up. No sweat.

 

                                        DIAMOND DADDY DILEMNA

 

Now that a Stateside diamond salesman is going to take over The Overseas Weekly,the outfit's local staff may have to do some uncomfortable soul=searching. Indications are that Diamond Daddy plans to castrate the hard-hitting publication, turning it into a respectable eunuch which he feels will make friends with military commanders and money with G.I.s The current staff may have to go along with Diamond Daddy or face unemployment. In such a dilemna, what would you all do, buckeroos?

 

                                         CLYDE AND CHARLEY

 

According to senior North Vietnamese defectors, the word coming down from COSVN headquarters to all echelons and branches is: economize, economize, economize. The Allied sweeps into Cambodia and the closing of the Sihanoukville port to Red supplies have painfully damaged Red logistics. The problem is compounded by China's unwillingness to let Russian supplies enter North Vietnam through China, which may quadruple the Kremlin's transportation costs. It's reported that in An Xuyen and Dinh Tuong Provinces of South Vietnam, Red forces are being directed to use their AK-47's only under specific orders. The non-automatic weapon is now the common weapon, using less ammo.

 

                                          FOR MISS GLORIA EMERSON

 

"The concept of trying to help  others is an alien one to most Vietnamese, who distrust such attempts."

This New Yorker insight is from a September 14 NY Times article by Miss Emerson. The article was about social welfare or charity projects in Vietnam. Miss Emerson's smug, reckless generalization about Vietnamese character was either deliberate slander or sheer obtuseness. We prefer to think she is intelligent (aren't NY Timers by definition intelligent?) so we'll suggest slander. We don't demand unusual perception and  insight from US correspondents, but we hope for basic education. Gloria, dear, maybe you were just confusing "trying to help others" with the concept of organized charity? Maybe you know that organized charity is a peculaiarity mainly of the Anglo-American world? You've been around a little, haven't you? Most of the world, dear, sees the practice of philanthropic NY socialites  in a slightly different way than you may see them. Your description may get by with New york provincials, but what about others?

 

 

 

DC Train Disaster: Quota Hire?

 

(Extracted from the Washington Post report on yesterday's fatal train crash in Washington===and raising the politically incorrect question.)

There was no reason to think that the operator did not spot the train ahead of her yesterday. The weather was clear, and the trains were not in a tunnel.

"It doesn't look like she hit the brakes," said a train safety expert, who asked not to be identified because the crash is under investigation. "That's why you have an operator in the cab. She should have been able to take action. That's what they're there for."

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These systems were supposed to make yesterday's crash impossible.

But four years ago, in an episode eerily similar to yesterday's, the signal system briefly failed in the tunnel between Foggy Bottom and Rosslyn, forcing two quick-thinking operators to stop their trains manually to avoid a crash.

In the June 2005 incident, the operator of one train noticed that he was getting too close to the train ahead. The signal system was telling him the track was clear, but he hit the brakes. The operator of a third train on the line hit the emergency brakes on time, too.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/22/AR2009062203261.html

 

 

 

Now Iran

Here is a video than conveys more in minutes than many movies do in hours, and the pictures are all still,  as choral voices in the background move. This is what Revolution feels like.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KNrYy7oTqGw

Remembering The 'Nam

(fotos copyright dan cameron rodill)

Christmas Day, 1969 at beseiged Special Forces Camp Bu Prang in the central highlands of South Vietnam(the 'Nam, as the 'grunts' of US Infantry called it,) With a lull in a month of intense Communist shelling, a Colonel and two Doughnut Dollies from the Red Cross arrived by helicopter to greet the soldiers. These  'Redlegs' of  Charley Battery, 2/17th Artillery, First Field Forces  had seen Montagnard children wounded in camp and their own XO (Executive Officer). Captain Coleman killed.  The Captain had visited them  one day with their pay (although he didn't have to)  was hit and his Sergent's leg blown off. Before he could be medevaced,  Captain Coleman died in the arms of Charley Battery's radio man. Over 1400 shells had landed inside  Camp Bu Prang's barbed wire perimeter. During that period the young Redlegs never failed to come out of their bunkers, man the big guns and pour fire back into those surrounding hills. They were never overrun.

MIDDLE FOTO   Charley Battery and the Donut Dollies

BOTTOM FOTO. Gunners at Camp Bu Prang, enjoying some liquid refreshment after their Christmas turkey dinner etc. They were proud, "We shell like hell," but not happy about the recognition they would or would not get. It was not just that the US media at this time was far more interested in a story of American disgrace, the My Lai Massacre, than in a hundred stories of American valor and honor (I covered this story for the Saigon Post, as US editors were not interested.) Charley Battery also claimed to me that the Army would pin individual citations on the Special Forces who remained inside their bunkers during the heavy North Vietnamese bombardments, while giving the 'Redlegs' who came out and manned the guns only a group citation. What I knew for sure, despite leaning to liberal politics at the time, was that the Communists were winning the Media War and Americans were losing it. But it wasn't until almost six years later, during the Fall of Saigon, covering for CBS News after its entire staff fled in the panic of a rumored bloodbath, that I got unforgettable insight into the rules of the game. And Walter Cronkite, "America's most trusted broadcaster," was never going to broadcast it.

BOTTOM FOTO. Charley Battery and the Red Cross Doughnut Dollies

Waterboardgate?

It doesn't have the same ring to it as the epic notoriety of Richard Nixon's 'Watergate' almost 35 years ago, does it? .
Is Nancy Pelosi, after a press briefing that made even Democrats cringe, likely to be driven out of high office in disgrace and acrimony, an encore of Nixon-like debacle? 

The short answer: No. 

The not-so-short answer: Well, Maybe. Sort of. But....The 'but' is the kicker.

True, she's gotten herself into a direct confrontation with the CIA, something that Nixon would never have done in public. But since she's made this  into a she said/they said stand-off, who will liberals and Democrats side with---their House Speaker Pelosi or the CIA?

It's generally not considered wise to call the CIA liars ("They misled me in 2002." She says they only told her that waterboarding was an option, and that they were not using that option), or to waffle like a child (She said that they admitted to others in 2003 that they were waterboarding, and these others told her, yes, but the CIA did not brief her directly on this, so what was she to know and what could she do about it anyway?) Not good, Nancy. Yes, you've got the Democrats' "torture" jihad against Bush and Cheney to support, we understand, but weaseling like this makes you look positively frantic, trying to cover a certain part of your anatomy. Too, the CIA is known for it's record keeping, its ability to corroborate. It often knows who did what and who said what and exactly when. You defamed them to their nation and to the world. What were you thinking?.... But....(see the 'but' above.)

Nancy, despite being a very presentable rich woman of a certain age and probiotic injections, who learned politicking from her Daddy , a Mayor of Baltimore, is not considered popular with many Democrats who deal with her in Washington. But her vote-getting smile still works wonders in her 8th Congressional fiefdom in San Francisco, especially as she caters to demands for aborting, gaying and the special needs of violent Islamic fanatics held at Guantanomo.

It's widely believed that the Obama White House feels it can manage without her. It probably understands that her serving on so-called 'Intelligence' Committees raises too many questions. But was Nancy raised by her politician father to go gently into the night?

Assuming that Nancy, by catering to the Democrats' "torture" meme against Bush, Cheney etc, got herself so tangled up, needing to cover contradictions and mis=statements, that she committed the equivalent of a "blood libel" on CIA staffers who saw themselves as dedicated and safeguarding Americans, can the Obamanistas, needing a working relationship with the CIA, afford her anymore? Maybe not, but surely the Left would feel betrayed if Obama did to Nancy Pelosi what he did to his white grandmother.
Does POTUS Obama have a choice? What if the CIA has the facts and the records to blow Nancy Pelosi out of the Potomac? But we don't know (yet) what they have and what they may leak.

And then there is that which almost no one wants to mention in public. Obama's birth certificate? Yes, but that's just the tip of the elegibility iceberg, even aside from the dual citizenship birth, derived from a Kenyan father, which no court has been willing to adjudicate, not with Obama poll numbers still in global warming.  Obama, the "transparency" guy,  has been extraordinarily secretive even about his school records, medical records, passport history, travel history, Indonesian adoption history etc. Any single one of these documents might or might not have information bearing crucially on his elegibility for POTUS. He and his pricey legal SWAT team have managed to keep it all secret, so far. An  acquiescent media will not pry open that can of Constitutional worms. Judges look away. Republicans have lockjaw. Dissident lawyers are marginalized. Citizens who complain are called "birthers" or "troofers", as in the art of ridicule from Obama mentor Saul Alinsky's 'Rules For Radicals.' 

Conclusion: Even if the Democrats had a crush on Nancy Pelosi, and they don't; even if Barry had a mysterious fatal attraction for her, and he doesn't, can the CIA tolerate being called liars by a patent liar? And just because Barry pays legal hotshots a million dollars to keep sunlight off his records from school, birth, doctors,travel, adoption etc, does that mean that the CIA is clueless as to what is on those records?

 House Speaker Nancy Pelosi might still be third in line for the Presidency come 2010. But then again, maybe not--- especially if she is  seen as a Botoxic asset by the Obama White House or the CIA, and not necessarily in that order.

The Gaying of America

(NOTE: gV sees this legislation, as described by Jerry Kane,  as another  landmark in what  gringoVision calls 'The Gaying of America.' )

 

Making Free Speech a Hate Crime

By Jerry A. Kane

The hate crime bill that passed the U.S. House of Representatives April 29 is an attempt by democratic socialists and progressives to silence dissent against alternative lifestyles. Their incessant iconoclastic attacks on once established values and morality have nearly eroded this nation’s spiritual and cultural legacy. Instituting same-sex marriage and prosecuting hate speech will complete the process and shatter the remaining hopes for cultural regeneration and tear down the last vestiges of the country’s Judeo-Christian ethic.

In America’s brave new post-modern multiculture, homosexual and transgender people will become a federally-protected class under the Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2009, HR-1913. Under this act, anyone who publicly opposes the practice of homosexuality or any of the 30 other sexual orientations as designated by the American Psychiatric Association (APA) could be charged with expressing “hateful words” and convicted of a “hate crime.”

 

 Continued at http://editorials.americandaughter.info/?p=372

Flaming Sarah Palin

(Also posted at monicamemo under Monica Crowley's 'The O'Reilly Factor' for her appearance with Alan Colmes.)

A suggestion for a still-hot topic for Monica and her bubby-in-law Alan Colmes: FLAMING SARAH PALIN (who, as you know, the Republican elite decided they must invite on their, uh, national "Listening Tour.")

A propos, here is a new gringommentary directed at someone who, by the way, will not hesitate to slam commenters at times, if they earn it.

(Conservative Attorney Debbie Schlussel---dubbed by gringoVision 'The Hebrew Hammer'---is lashing out at supporters of Sarah Palin, especially the ones who message her viciously and obscenely. Here is a gringommentary to the post she titles,

You Stay Classy, Sarahmessiah & BristolBabyMamaMessiah Fanatics; Hypocritical Palin Daughter Contradicts Herself for Big $s.)
http://www.debbieschlussel.com/archives/2009/05/you_stay_classy_1.html
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Dear Debbie,

Sarah Palin does light the oven, doesn't she? Amazing how the heat turns off some and turns on others. Has any Republican been able to do that(to this degree) since Ronald Reagan? Have you tried flame retardant for Sarah? You clearly do not want a 'Red-Necked Woman' in the White House, do you, and that's your right.

Full disclosure: I'm interested enough to keep Sarah (my own mother's name, did you know that?) on my radar. It will be interesting to see which way she blows in the wind, and if they   can keep her where you and Obamasuck media and elite Republicans obviously think she should be, down home in a trailer park with the rest of the 'white trash.'

And Debbie, I don't demean you for honest critique and reporting what you see as contradictions and hypocrisies. Say anything you like about Palin, especially if it's well reasoned. Vicious Palin "supporters" (if they really are hers, and not ACORNbots on special duty) who come on you like foul-mouthed low-lifes are regrettable. It's proof that the "progressives" don't have a monopoly on scummies and dirtbags after all. But we knew that already, didn't we?

BamBam Getting Dumb-Dumb?

(A Gringommentary at www.monicamemo.com / under PEARLS BEFORE SWINE, after questioning Monica Crowley's seeming to give George Bush a free pass on the question of "open borders" and the new swine flu.)

 

If we can segue for a moment from the Adoration of the Georgie to the Hosannas for The One....

Re yesterday's stupendously stupid Air Force One "mission" over Manhattan which paniced many New Yorkers who experienced 9.11....As for accountability and our being told of Obama's "outrage," the facts show that approval for this amazing idiocy came directly from where it would have had to come--guess where?---the White House. Of course.

"On Monday afternoon, the Director of the White House Military Office, Louis Caldera, released a statement saying, "Last week, I approved a mission over New York. I take responsibility for that decision...." (link below)

As for transparency, perhaps Obama will step forward like a man and take responsibility for this, or at least apologize for having such stupid help in the White House?

Do you think?

http://a.abcnews.com/Blotter/story?id=7

Rappin' Latin Obama Trip

(A GRINGOBROmmentary posted Monday, April 20, 2009 at monicamemo under Monica Crowley's OBAMA DOES DICTATORS....Note: If you know anything about using computer to provide a musical,,,er, uh, rap background for, you know, like home-made fresh rappinade, GRINGOBRO tells me he will appreciate what you can relate....gringoman

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Once again our Monica is in torment
About the dude elected President
She sees a whole lot of socialist intent
Makes it hard to smile like Pepsodent
Well, she must know more than Gringobro
She's got the doctorate to show.
Me, I can't figure why this Prez would go
And grin, like she says, with Dictator Chavez.
But I don't know enough to crow
About him bein'  a dreamin' schemin'  neo-com ho'
The country is worried, the economy is messed.
He must be doing what he thinks is best.
Only will his best pass the test
Even with his media girl friends so impressed?
They say the reason he went mano-a-manos
With all those lefty Latin Americanos
Was just for diplomatic bran-nose.
Did he go down there just to get kissed
Or show Morales, da Silva and Ortega how to bump a fist?
I know, they look like Marxistas who want the USA dissed.
Is capitalismo what Bamacito really wants to banish
Or did he go down there just to practice his Spanish?
I haven't figured out all the rhumba politeeka,
And you know what? That could be the cue for La Princessa Warrior Moh-nee-ka

by GRINGOBRO The Cracker Rapper.  Coming YOU LIBERAL RACIST, YOU.

Tea For Two

While Democrats and liberals tried  to demean and diminish yesterday's coast-to-coast "Tea Parties,"---an incipient national Tax Rebellion---Michelle Malkin warned RINOS not to do likewise or try to manipulate grassroots anger and water it down.

http://.michellemalkin.com/2009/04/15/an-army-of-tax-revolters-and-a-warning-to-fair-weather-republicans/

While agreeing with Malkin, gringoVision shifted the focus a bit. Re yesterday's rather historic events, Democrats pooh-poohed, with lots of "teabagging" double entendres by the media's usual hacks and hackettes.  Wasn't this "uprising" just a hyped creation of Fox News and some "rich Republicans"? Republicans clucked away, trying to sound respectful of the largest anti-tax demonstrations in American history. The people, quietly simmering (or not so quietly anymore), looking far more like Richard Nixon's middle-class  "Moral Majority" than the students and tatooed chanters  in other street outpourings, simply made their point: 'Now it's time for us to sound off and get heard'.

In official echelons Democrats, of course, blame Republicans. Republicans blame Democrats. There was plenty of that to go around. Few are ready to indict their own icons, even one as tarnished as the former President Bush.

Bush, the open borders fiscal socialist, succeeded by Obama, the open borders bailout socialist: for alleged enemies of Big Government and putting America in hock for generations to come, this is not a gruesome twosome?  Haven't this couple proven that both of them can  spend like drunken Democrats?  Should the "party-goers" have warbled the old standard, 'Tea For Two' and me (Georgie) for you (Barry)?'

Isn't it time to recognize the Republican George Bush and the Democrat Barack Hussein Obama---both of them open borders fiscal freaks---as socialist siblings under the skin?

The nation, we are told, pines for brotherhood. Well, take a look. There it is, at the very top.

Nice and Big Brotherly too.

Obama: Scourge of Sea Thugs?

(posted under CAPTAIN PHILLIPS COMING HOME at www.monicamemo.com /)


In any hostage negotiation situation in which police are involved it is not even necessary for authority to be given to shot to kill as a last resort. That is a given and standard operating procedure all the time. The Obama Administration is making a big deal about giving that authority on Friday. That means nothing. It was the Captain of the Bainbridge who took it upon himself to order the rescue. OBAMA DID NOTHING, PERIOD.

Posted by: SteveOk | April 13, 2009 at 08:30 AM

SteveOK,

The Obots and their Slimeberts actually do have a point. They just don't understand what the point is.

Their guy actually did do something by doing nothing. He waffled and dithered for days. (Will the true record later reveal that he at first counter-manded the standard operating procedure? It appears that he very well may have, wanting to "negotiate" with the thugs and not do a "cowboy" George Bush. )

Eventually the pressure built up. This would have forced him to lift his ban on the standard operating procedure, Otherwise, why wasn't this thing resolved the first time that Captain Phillips jumped in the water to escape?  As it dragged on,  Bammy could not ignore the increasing pressure.   Even I had posted links to videos here showing the French in action. French Commandos had liberated hostages and killed or captured muslim "pirates." The Bammy-led Americans were looking like sissy boys in white uniforms. The formidable US Navy was becoming an unseemly spectacle, unable to deal with a few gang members who were taking time off from street crime and raping Somali women. A socialist dream for dealing with US "imperialism" seemed to be coming true. The US Navy was being turned into the US Nanny. Instead of "doing something," i.e. stopping the Navy from doing its job, Barry had to relent and "do nothing," i.e. let the Navy on the scene sort it out, even if that meant, yes, doing "violence."

So what happened finally? I think it's clear. Barry finally GOT OUT OF THE WAY and let the Navy be the Navy  and the US Seals be the US Seals, while Vermont's Captain Phillips emerged as an authentic American hero.

Of course, this is how gringoVision sees it. The Obamasucklings and their media  have another point of view. They also have to work on their guy's  poll ratings as Commander-in-Chief.

Politically Correct Media and White House Massage will see that he takes his place with  Captain Phillips and the other Americans on the scene in this drama. 

But give Barry credit for something. I do. He  finally got out of their
way.

Birth of an Obamanation

Update: BIRTH OF AN OBAMANATION

gringoNOTE: The following is from "conservative" Obamaphiliac ANDREW SULLIVAN

Andrew Sullivan calls on Obama to release his birth certificate

In a move that might help the MSM further unjustly discredit all those who want the truth about the Obama citizenship issue (see that link for our extensive, completely fact-based coverage), Andrew Sullivan now says (andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2009/02/first-keyes-now.html):

...I see absolutely no reason why Obama himself should not release the actual original document and provide it to the press. The president of the United States, like anyone else in public life, has no "right to privacy" in a matter like this, and there's absolutely no good reason why he should refuse to give the press every conceivable piece of evidence at his disposal to clear up even paranoid conspiracy theories about his birth and eligibility to be president.

http://24ahead.com/andrew-sullivan-calls-obama-release-his-birth-certificate

Coming: An Exclusive. YOU LIBERAL RACIST, YOU (a glimpse at what none (well, extremely few) dare to name; as for any in the Lamestream who even tried, who among them has survived to tell the tale?

MERRY CHRISTMAS................... HAPPY NEW YEAR

Barry's Real Middle Name

(Foto: Campaigning, Barack Obama engages Joe 'the Plumber' Wurzelbacher outside his home in Toledo, Ohio)

A miniscule moment in American history as the Harvard/Chicago Community Organizer  goes out to meet and canvas some of the 'clinger' people and talk taxes? Yes, perhaps.

Nevertheless, the consensus at gringoman.com:  this "taxing" exchange   between the lawyer-as-Ivy League Robin Hood,  and how to tax small business enterprise that often  hires other workers, has solved the controversy of Barry's middle name. What it really is, and should be, and whether to use it or not is, at last, perfectly clear. In fact, Barry himself gave it away in his little talk---captured on tape---with Joe the Plumber.

Barack "Spread the Wealth Around" Obama.

Sarah Barracuda Palin

 

 

(First version posted earlier at www.monicamemo.com/)

 Johnny Boy  made what is arguably the most daring and dramatic VP choice in US history (Initially it  stunned even the Gringo Advisory Board, which knew nothing about Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, but our quick studies caught up fast, as per recent comments.) Conclusion?

 

The lib eliteniks are apprehensive.  They must go into risky high smarm mode,  mock and attack  a "hockey mom" from Alaska, a state with less population than Delaware. (You remember the Democrats' Delaware: the tiny corporate-shelter fiefdom that big out-of-state "progressive" money bought for their Obama's VP choice, Joe Biden, the US Senator who talks  for a living.)

 

  Suddenly John "Maverick"  McCain has ignited his troubled image with conservatives and Republicans, re-charged the batteries, re-aligned the dynamics and changed the race for the White House 2008.  Ol' war hero Johnny Boy did it with just one staggering  (and yes, risky) stroke of  genius (say Republicans) or irresponsibility(say Democrats, as they and OSM (Obamastream Media) reach for the mud buckets.)  Either way, it is boldness in the oldness.

 

There is probably  no way on earth the lib eliteniks can fully grasp the import and meaning to Americans  of a Christian "hockey mom"  of five who can shoot, hunt and ice-fish, skin the carcass of a caribou  with her own hands, articulate as well as any Democrat, was called 'Sarah Barracuda' in high school for her intensity on basketball court, is no more Ivy League than was Ronald Reagan, may even be border-conscious and aware of nearby Russia,  is  affable, attractive, solidly pro-life, a tax-cutting environmentalist who has fought Exxon and corporate toadies but is ready to drill, drill, drill,  a professional communicator, with  more executive experience than Obama-Biden combined, a reformer who fights the kind of party corruption that in Chicago put  "change guy"  Barack Obama where he is,  has the highest rating of any Governor in the USA (80%), has instantly electrified the long-dispirited conservative base and suddenly lifted the Republican Party out of what John McCain himself had escaped from not long ago: tomb-like doldrums.

 

 Is this like a very old, now out-of-fashion Hollywood movie, Frank Capra directing,  starring Jimmy Stewart, idealistic and highly improbable?   Why, yes.

 

 And it's happening while the Pubs have been groaning for years in the vein of  "Where O where is the next Ronald Reagan?"  and "Golly, why can't we Americans have anything like a Margaret Thatcher? Are we really inferior?"

Democratic support is wasting no time in going on the attack, grasping and groping for material. They have "revealed" that Sarah Palin's teen-aged daughter Bristol is pregnant. A major left-wing blog, known to some as 'KosKooks,' also "revealed" that Bristol is actually the mother of the Down syndrome baby that Sarah "claimed" to be pregnant with. 'KosKooks' with "documentation" has proved that Sarah is really the grandmother etcetera ad kookus. Unfortunately for their "investigative" work, Alaska has been laughing, as Alaskans, unlike urban provincials,  have known for months that Bristol was (and still is) pregnant, the kind of family story that happens more and more frequently in today's liberal culture.

 

While the K-Kooks hastily removed their "proof" of the 'Palin lie' from their website, they have discovered more "dirt", i.e. the rumor that Sarah Palin was involved with a party that advocates Alaska secession from the U.S. It gets better. There's more.

The  Huffington Post---another elite "authority" on how conservatives think--- claims that Palin once told a "boob" joke. Worse yet, the joke was funny. And how dare this Palin hick not follow the liberal's script of a stereotype Christian conservative?

 

Another site portrays Palin as a Gay Marriage advocate. Charles Johnson,(http://strata-sphere.com/blog/index.php/archives/5848)/ who broke the CBS forged document in Rathergate) has traced this site to the Obama weblog that claims to be against smears!

 

 

 

Democrats are clinging, if not to guns and BIbles, to the investigation of Sarah Palin in "troopergate," in which a State Trooper was fired, perhaps improperly. Even here, the Dems must tread carefully or Palin could come out looking---again---like a heroine. The state trooper is a documented violent spouse abuser (of Palin's sister) who tasered his own step-son.

 

If Palin holds up in the glare of the national spotlight , while  the OSM (Obamastream Media) hacks and hackettes work against her and coddle Obama  day and night, GAB (the Gringo Advisory Board) is prepared to forgive McCain for passing up  Mitt Romney as VP.  Hand it to Johnny. He rolled  the dice like the last of the great riverboat gamblers (after cool heads prevailed on him to avoid almost certain shipwreck  with liberal pal Joe Lieberman). He even rehabilitated his name, Maverick,  daring to pick his equal  in the 'maverick' category.

 

Are we witnessing a totally unexpected political earthquake, Democrats feeling the tremors, once moribund Republicans waking up to the excitement,  aftershocks to be felt nationally for days and weeks to come?  Stay tuned to your special Acts of God, or Creationism, radio.

 

From the crystal gringoBall: Election 2008 for the White House is now the Republicans' to lose, i.e. They win, unless they try hard to lose.

 

 

 

 

Lincoln, FDR, Bush

                                         

(Previous edition at Monica Crowley's/ IN THE SHADOWS [http://monicamemo.typepad.com/weblog/2008/06/in-the-shadow.html])

JULY 18,2008 Update: Gringommentary: OBAMA BODY LANGUAGE(See below 'Lincoln, FDR, Bush')
                                               

 George Bush, his poll numbers almost as dismal as Congress's, is not normally mentioned with Democratic icon Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Republican icon Abraham Lincoln.  Arguably bashed as much as "the gangly ape"  Lincoln was, Bush is thought to have little in common with them, except for presiding over a war. Could this week's momentous legal decision change that? It could. But that would depend on George Bush.

According to Chief Justice John Roberts, the  Boumediene v. Bush 5-4 decision marks a very dark day in Supreme Court history. To paraphrase Roberts, with a little help from FDR:  This day will live in judicial infamy.

 For the first time ever, alien prisoners captured on a battlefield are to be granted habeas corpus rights. The Mujahadeen are to get  Constitutional rights of a US citizen. A lawyer's dream?  A legal nightmare for the US military and court system? It's certainly one giant step for turning warfare into lawfare. The American soldier, besides the national defense, must be ready to gather evidence for  his own defense. His every action, including pulling a trigger, can be subject to supboena.

Liberals and Democrats are grinning wide. They  feel they have socked it to George Bush again and struck a blow for "human rights",  a progressive twofer.  The SOTUS decision was a case of five liberals (including a Bush pere appointee) against four conservatives.

 Conservatives and Republicans are groaning that, for  liberals, the desire to bash Bush and score points  trumps common sense and  national security every time.

 Republicans say these Guantanomo prisoners, being held indefinitely, are very dangerous Islamic fanatics.(Monica Crowley, who visited there and saw them up close, concurs.) It's been documented that some of those released have gone on to kill Americans. The Democrats counter that not all of them are dangerous, some are innocent, and therefore  you need to put them all through the (already clogged) US court system, no matter how much time, money and  chaos it takes.

 The gringomanic response:

 Of course the Democrats are transparent, increasingly partisan, increasingly "progressive."  To see them is to see through them.

 But as for George Bush, how serious is he? Mildly? Very? Or what?

 If Bush  is deeply concerned, he doesn't  have to cite Franklin Roosevelt, who thought nothing of holding German prisoners in WW II, when no Democrat "progressive" would dare to squawk about their "human rights" and did not even complain when FDR and the military tribunal ordered them executed.

 What is to stop George Bush from hearkening  back to Abraham Lincoln, if he's serious?  In 1861 Lincoln suspended civil rights wherever he thought peaceniks and others endangered the war effort. There was no ACLU on the attack.If there had been, all indications are that Lincoln would have tossed it into prison without a second thought. In 1862 Lincoln suspended habeas corpus and had copperhead democrats arrested for interfering with the war effort. The ACLU wouldn't have stood a chance against Lincoln.

 George Bush would not have to go near as far as Honest Abe. Lincoln  suspended habeas corpus nationally, and for U.S. citizens. Bush could be much milder.  What is to stop him from suspending habeas corpus for any alien prisoner---who arguably does not have that right in the first place? Georgie could suspend it just for good measure,   for anyone who believes that the five liberal activist Judges were acting Constitutionally.

 There is precedent, as the legalists like to say. It is there for the President.

 Would a globalist guy like George Bush, a "compassionate conservative", never too fussy about borders, be inclined? Would he  mind the full-court press of   liberals barking and yelping at  him for suspending a "global right" of these aliens--- a "right" that never was until their Judges said it is?

July 18, 2008 Gringommentary: OBAMA BODY LANGUAGE. Here is a foto of Barack Obama with UK Prime Minister Brown. No prompting from gringoman. Put on your body language reading glasses and see what you see.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When Will McCain Buckle?

May 27, 2008 Update: IN MEMORIAM (See Gringommentary below 'When Will McCain Buckle?') May 12 Update: OBAMA'S 'JUNIOR MOMENT' (See Gringommentary)

[Also  at Monica Crowley's site, as comment to  her post  The McLaughlin Group---Alert.

WHEN WILL MCCAIN BUCKLE?
 

Cara Mia,

'  Things fall apart, the center cannot hold....'  WB Yeats sounded the alarm, and now, 'As the best lack all conviction/And the worst [Obama's Pastor Jeremiah Wright?] are full of passionate intensity'....

*  The Rodham of Clinton  goes on 'right-wing conspiracy' Fox News  with Bill O'Reilly.

*  Media icon Don Imus, still sheltered in foxhole with his race-hustling tormenter Reverend Tawana Sharpton, endorses 'Satan' (The Rodham) over Charisma Barry (while saying he'll still vote for John McCain in the general.)

*  The increasingly deranged Democrats and progressives hope to convince someone that the unpopular Georgie Bush is running against their black proggy or their female proggy in 2008.

*  Our new member of GAB (Gringo Advisory Board), gringoBro, an Obama stalwart (and admirer of that 'fine Monica Crowley,') does not want to open up "a Chinee fortune cookie that say, 'USA, Game Over.'"

*  Georgie Bush's Great Black Hope, Condy Rice, has ordered a politically correct gag on the State Department: NO mention of Jihad OR Islamic terrorist OR anything else that will offend the muslims. (Entire U.S. Government must and will follow suit, exactly like the Euro pc-ers.)

........Monica, for your appearance this Sunday morning on The McLaughlin Group, here is a suggested mini-topic:

John McCain still dares to use  'Islamic' as an adjective with  'terror'.

As you must know, the pc police now consider this to be an adjectival crime, or certainly a transgression. No less than Georgie Bush's  Condoleeza Rice, the SecState herself, now forbids the pairing of 'Islamic' with 'terror,' just as the very mention of 'jihad' is now verboten to anyone on Government payroll.

Question: In light of enormous pressure from muslims, Saudi gold dinars, Free Trade Republican wussies doing Sheikh deals, Free Trade Democratic dhimmis doing Sheikh deals, and the media's cowardly little Christian bashers,(not to mention the fact that McCain will be getting Government funds for his election campaign) how much longer will Johnny Boy stand firm on 'Islamic terror?'

Will he continue to 'offend' and transgress?

Or is the more cogent question: When will he buckle?

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

May 27, 2008 Update: Gringommentary: IN MEMORIAM.

Let us thank these soldiers who fight for their country in a time when leaders and media no longer believe in the nation state. Sisyphus in ancient Greece would understand, rolling the boulder uphill, watching it roll down again, yet still continuing his assignment, his orders from above,  doing his job always, rolling that boulder upward in  the endless struggle. And they call that a myth.

Let us have a moment of silence for the soldiers who die while civilians in suits and ties trade away their birth right of a  Constitution and national sovereignty.

Play Taps. Sound the bugle.

 

 

 

 

 

 May 12, 2008 Update: Gringommentary: OBAMA'S 'JUNIOR MOMENT' 

Just in from ObamaWatch:

 

Rush Limbaugh, Grand Satrap of the 'Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy,' may run hot and cold, and have been off his game until this wild Election 2008 has him revved up again. (As an aside, many may consider his  descriptive 'Fly-by media' as good or better even than the gringomanic 'Lamestream Media.')

 

His OPERATION CHAOS, designed to encourage the natural Democratic tendency to self-destruct with deeply flawed candidates (while admitting a Republican tendency in the same direction)  has rocked and rollicked. Now, he just came out with what I call a  "fascinating factoid" relating to Obama's mis-speaking on the United States of America.

 

Recall Obama's "junior moment" last week, when he told us about his visiting "57 states." The "change" lawyer was  obviously confused about the country he's made his own. Tired, maybe, or whatever. These things happen, even to the "young."  The YouTube video............

 

Well, Rush now mentions something I never heard before, relating to the  recent gaffe about the Democratic hope visiting "57 states."  This mention is unlikely, by the way, to please the politically correct, including those  who demand  that Obama's legal middle name  stay off-limits during Campaign 2008.

 

Here it is: The Organization of Muslim States. Rush says these number 57. Yes.

 

So, of course, I checked it out. The results of a very  brief, perfunctory check:

 

* One site states '56' as the number of these muslim states.

 

* The only other site I checked did not give a number, but listed the states. I counted them. I counted 57.

 

 

Many will say that this correlation of muslim states and Obama's mis-speaking about American states during a "junior moment" is a meaningless coincidence, just as his Chicago Black Nationalist and Black Muslim associations have nothing to do with him.  Maybe they're right. And yet....

 

Many others will say it's a coincidence, all right, but meaningless? Ask any psychoanalyst, Freudian or post-Freudian.

 

 

 

 

Bush at The Games?

(Foto. President Bush culturally cross-dressing with Russia's Vladimir Putin.)

April 29, 2008 Update: Reverend Wright & gringoBro (See gringommentary below BUSH AT THE GAMES?)
April 21, 2008 Update: MUSLIMS ATTACK JOHNNY BOY. See gringommentary below BUSH AT THE GAMES?
April 12, 2008 Update: THAT CACKLE-DOODLE-DOO.(Hillary again.)  See gringommentary below BUSH AT THE GAMES?
================================================

 

 As the decision to give the Beijing commissars the Olympics 2008 begins to look dumber with each new Tibet or "Torch Drama" headline, the Bush White House is in a quandary. Even Nicholas Sarkozy, the somewhat conservative President of France, says he might not attend The Games. However,  our leader hurries to affirm that he, as POTUS, will attend

 

Did Beijing do better buying, stealing or other-wise co-opting  US technology and missile-guidance precision under eight years of Bush, or the preceding eight years under the Clintons? Perhaps only historians will tell. The Chinese General who boasted about now being able to ICBM Los Angeles is not saying. (The Campaign money trail does seem to indicate that Billary the Slick  collected many golden egg rolls, the bankable kind.)

 

Bush has been quick to placate the comrade capitalists---a move quickly  exploited by the Clintons whose Hillary half  says he should not go to Beijing. Is the Bush hasty "I'll go" just  knee-jerk realpolitik? Does it simply  boil down to the massive Free Trade imbalance? Debtors, as the Bible and history make clear,  used to be sold into servitude or outright slavery. Of course, that was before our apostles of un-fettered globalism. Today, when its Creditor says 'Come,' does the Debtor USA simply say, "When?"

 

 

At any rate Georgie Bush, in the twilight of his Presidency, must feel some obligation to a tyranny that is funding over a quarter trillion dollars in US debt. Tibetans riot in Lhasa against their Chinese overlords, making cable news and video, stirring the world? Yes, true,  but he has to look at hard numbers. Debt-wise, the U.S. is now in hock to those same overlords. Call it the vagaries of Free Trade (to be ironed out in an indefinable future, say the business school apostles.)

The  Olympic Committee was believed to know what it's doing. It wouldn't be taken in by guarantees from Beijing, unsustainable,  for a smooth operation, would it?  They weren't just naive or hustling  careerists, were they, willing to ignore how tainted and adulterated many of the

products and promises still are ?

 

And so they gave 2008 to  China, Inc., the hot new brand on the block. China, Inc.  was clearly ambitious and proud enough.  But was it free enough---enough for the glare of a  world spotlight in today's 24/7 telecom age?

 

Now,  as the grand venture turns increasingly into a PR nightmare,   even big corporate sponsors are getting nervous. Multi-nationals,  finicky about China where they've found golden egg rolls? Not a good sign. The international uproar over China in Tibet---to cite just the most glaring example---will likely continue from Spring into Summer, especially if Beijing still thumbs its hard nose at the world and adamantly refuses some kind of accommodation with Tibetans and the Dalai Lama.

Meanwhile China, now emerging from its 5000-year old shell, becoming Manufacturer to the World as the West sends its plants and know-how to cheap labor, makes multiple Olympic torches to forestall "incidents" around the world. A team of special commandos in track suits run, un-invited, through Paris and London, to "guard" the "sacred flame" and knock down anyone in the way, a technique not even used by the Nazis during peacetime outside of Germany.

 

No matter. Demonstrations turn the "Torch Drama"   into TV farces.The hard-line commissars in Beijing, trying to blame the upheaval  on the Dalai Lama exiled in India,  sound increasingly ludicrous. Are these clever traders, some even trained in the West,  ready for prime time?

But it's not just Tibet. Athletes consider minimizing their time in Beijing due to the notorious air pollution. American athletes reportedly will avoid ingesting contaminants by bringing their own food, and certainly not brushing their teeth with toothpaste known for antifreeze additives. (Even the frozen dumplings from China have caused alarm in Japan recently, consumers rushed to the hospital.)

And so, will our border-busting Presidente, who has made much of "human rights" and "democracy," really attend the opening of the Beijing Olympics on 08/08/08?

Of course he will, unless the Grand Event implodes into a black hole (once believed impossible, now simply, well, maybe "unlikely.") How could he snub such a gigantic creditor? As a proper globalista with an MBA from Harvard Business School, he understands. Today's USA owes. Of course he'll go to the Free Trade commissar games. That's bidness.

People understand too, even without the MBA.
 

Still, a question hangs in the polluted air: Could Georgie go to Beijing, doing the pro forma inevitable,  but in a way that would mark him as truly bold?  Assuming he must go,  could he nevertheless do it in a way that would capture the world imagination? Could he go  without it  being just the predictably hack, or diplomatic,  thing to do?

Sure he could.  Here's how....

Let our leader attend the Games in the  robe of a Tibetan Buddhist monk.

Too much for our Presidente? But wait. Think again. Recall how he once wore traditional Chinese garb  on a state visit---Georgie as the Cowboy Confucius? (see foto.)   Along with Vladimir Putin, he was a cultural cross-dresser for the occasion.

 

Conclusion: It can be done. Yes, it can. Where there's a will there is a Tibetan robe, complete with blouse, vest, even skirt, and available in cotton or fine Indian wool.

And note the more esoteric  symbolism our Presidente would be conveying at the Games, wearing something like Dalai Lama garb (or just common monk attire.) Note how it would address the tired cliche about "sport" and "politics" and not mixing the too (as if Beijing was doing anything but that in show-casing China, Inc.). Or another way of putting it: note how it  relates to the famous passage (MATTHEW 22:20--22) where Jesus is asked to decide between the worldly and the divine. Jesus was challenged by the Pharisees to choose between Caesar(paying the Roman tax, the worldly) and God (ignoring the Romans, refusing to pay their tax, remaining only with the divine.)

 

Georgie in Beijing could not be expected to repeat the famous reply of Jesus, but could he manage to paraphrase it in his own way? Could he respond dramatically to the "impossible"  challenge of siding with the commissars (attending The Games)  or with world opinion (not attending The Games)?

 

Yes, he could.

In Beijing POTUS could be rendering unto Caesar what is Caesar's,(by attending the Games) and unto The Spirit what is The Spirit's (by his surprising couture.)

As for whether a Christian, or any non-Buddhist, could wear a saffrom robe (the color sacred to Buddhists), we assume that President Bush could reach an understanding with the Dalai Lama, should he wish to.  Special dispensation, if needed from the Buddhists or from his own church,  could  be attainable. Details, details. What are details between men of good will?

You want to talk legacy, and shaking the world for a moment, even soaring over Harvard Business School and  the Iraq dilemna?

Is Georgie up to it?

================================================

[GRINGOMMENTARY; April 29, 2008. Reverend Wright & gringoBro.]

 

In the interests of diversity and reaching out, GAB (the Gringo Advisory Board) announces a new member: gringoBro....(Also posted at monicamemo as a comment to Monica Crowley's post, 'Small Change...'

======================================

"Thank you, gringoman. You might be a fool too, but at least you tryin'. (I could say 'trying'. You like that Englifocation from the Teach? That make you happy? Hee-hee.)

"Now look, you white folks cain't unnerstand black. And why can't you? (Hee-hee.) The Reverend Jeremiah Wright just told you, speaking to 10,000 brothers at that NAACP eat-out in Detroit. There is white brains and black brains. (Don't believe me? Check out the Rev on yo' video.  Go to YoTube. The Rev tell you all about  left brain (that be you) an'  right brain (that be us). That man a real scoller.) An' guess who got the pale white stuff and who got the rich black stuff?

"Now don't get bookworm on me. Don't tell me 'bout no Hitler dude rappin' like that in My Kamp. You cain't be a black Nazee.
Those Nazees  were crackers, maybe just a little more honest than you half-a-redneck crackers an' those white libs and our Joosh "friends" bombin' the po' Palestinians.

"You got it now? You unnerstand what the 'change' is all about? It's about facin' up, actin' up, and stop chompin' on that phoney baloney you love to chomp.

"Obama's spirit father, Reverend Wright, has laid it on you. He talkin' to you. You hear? The "change" is for YOU to see what WE can see. THAT is progress in the race divide.You hear? You ready? You got to hear, not just fear.

"Black brains are here to stay. Got it? Work on it.

"Try usin' yo' white brains. You got some, right? Hee-hee."

 

 

[GRINGOMMENTARY: April 21, 2008. MUSLIMS ATTACK JOHNNY BOY.]

Many Republicans, especially the Beltway type like our President, view Islam as "a religion of peace." On this issue they are just as politically correct as any liberal or Democrat

 

And so, it will be very interesting to see who  sides with who in this new flare-up over the use of "Islamic" for  terrorists and assassins like the Osamatons, the suicide-bombers, the Obama-friendly Hamas etc etc.

 

John McCain, presumed warrior and  soon-to-be-nominated Republican candidate for President,  is currently ruffling  muslim feathers, or head-dress, or hijabs.  How?  "The "muslim community" demands that he stop using "Islamic"  to describe these Allah-fervent fanatics who read the Koran and blow up innocent human beings.

 

"A COALITION OF AMERICAN MUSLIM GROUPS IS DEMANDING THAT SEN JOHN MCCAIN STOP USING THE ADJECTIVE 'ISLAMIC' TO DESCRIBE TERRORISTS AND EXTREME ENEMIES OF THE UNITED STATES."

 

http://www.washingtontimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080421/NATION/438135169/1001

 

gringoNote: It will be interesting to see whether Johnny Boy backs down from this concentrated barrage of muslims (less than 3% of the U.S. population, so far) who are now, in effect, "demanding" a speech code for  the US electoral process---an American process that was born in an American  revolt against what the American Thomas Jefferson called "every form of  tyranny over the mind of man."

But we live in Free Trade times. Sovereign petrol muslims know how the game works.

Should we ask: How soon will Johnny back cave to this billionaire-backed pressure? (We know what Georgie Bush would do, in consultation with the State Department and "moderate" oil sheikhs.)

Anyone taking bets?

 

[GRINGOMMENTARY: April 12, 2008 Update. THAT CACKLE-DOODLE=DOO.]

Hillary Clinton's celebrated cackle is back. (Video posted at http://monicamemo.typepad.com/weblog/2008/04/clintons-columb.html/)

 

When facing "problematic" questions, polished pols have learned to take evasive action by smiling away, even titttering a bit. This will often throw off the hounds, or in many cases, the media puppies.

 

Hillary, as we see, or hear, in the video, still has not perfected the technique. She was asked about Bill's pulling in---if not grifting--- almost a million dollars for speeches supporting the Columbia NAFTA deal---yes, the very same Free Trade deal  which she herself is now claiming to oppose.

 

Uh-oh. What does an iconic Presidential candidate do who tells us she is ready to take momentous phone calls at three o'clock in the morning, on anything from mad mullahs to mortgage defaults?

 

It turns out that Hillary, fresh from being caught in her "Sniper Fire" doozy, apparently is still unable to lie as artfully as Master Slick. She had  another deer-in-the-headlights moment. 

 

Her reaction to a straight question about Clinton contradictions and playing both sides against the muddle?

Not very Presidential. In fact, she was unable to keep the old cackle in its box. Despite all her lessons, all the tutoring from professionals, all the Billdozing,  it still escaped (and into the wide world of YouTube.) And the eyes, Deer me!

 

At http://www.monicamemo.com  /, where Monica Crowley posted the tell-tale video,  a gringommentary:

 

 

Dennis Miller says the Clintons are low-rent grifters who should never be allowed back in the White House.

Dennis was kind. He didn't advocate prosecution for the precision missile guidance technology  that now  lets a Chinese General boast how they can  target L.A.

And, so far as I know,  he didn't suggest water-boarding to get back the White House silver.

==================================================================

 

 

 

Conservatism: An Elegy?

Ancient Greek Wise Guy: Demosthenes

( 'Elegy' to be posted serially: 16 stanzas  on the contemporary political psyche

in the Republicratic land of Demopublicans.)



January 07, 2008 Update (Gringommentary) RETRIBUTION FOR CLINTONS? Fall-out from the great Iowa blow-out. Scroll down below the initial stanzas for CONSERVATISM: AN ELEGY?

January 03, 2008 Update: (Gringommentary) GORACLE WARMING. Wealthy warmologist Al Gore's crusade is challenged at---can you believe it?----the New York Times. Scroll down below the initial stanzas for CONSERVATISM: AN ELEGY?


Dec. 26, 2007 Update: (Gringommentary.) RUSHING TO MONICA? Rush Limbaugh now focusing on the gal that gringoVision took note of years ago? Scroll down, below stanzas for CONSERVATISM: AN ELEGY?


Dec. 19, 2007 Update: (Gringommentary) McCAIN IS BACK? REALLY? (For this gringommentary on John McCain's "resurrection" scroll down below initial stanzas for CONSERVATISM; AN ELEGY?


Dec 01, 2007 Update: Gringommentary.  SAVAGE VS. CAIR. IT'S WAR. Council on American Islamic Relations alleges that talk jock Michael Savage has defamed Islam. Savage launches powerful counter-attack. For gringommentary scroll down below initial stanzas for CONSERVATISM: AN ELEGY?

Nov. 27, 2007 Update: Gringommentary: IOWA AND SCORPIONS (Reaction to ABC's Monica Crowley who compares the Obama-Clinton battle in Iowa to two scorpions in a bottle. Which will sting the other to death? For this gringommentary scroll down below these initial stanzas of the on-going CONSERVATISM: AN ELEGY?)

 

                          

Nov. 14, 2007 Update.

[In Stanza 5 (of 16) Old Wise Guy confronts the Values Folk
who still see themselves as citizens of a
sovereign nation with borders.]

                                    5

At that moment the All-Wizened One cracked a strange smile:

Angelic? Devilish? He seemed to hover in a dangerous air pocket,

Somewhere between kindness and something politically inadvisable..

"Children,"he said, then caught himself. "But wait.

"You're not children, are you? Not subjects. You are, ah, 'citizens.' "

"Yes, we are! You better believe it, Wise Guy."

"I see....And what does 'citizen' mean

"When every living irresponsibility and demoquack can become one.

"Egged on by shysters, communards, Big  Bidness and hustling legalniki?"

"Citizens? Heh. Citizens of what sovereignty?

"Do rulers enforce even their own laws when too inconvenient?

"But you still think your borders are their borders?

"How sweet and sentimental: Patriotism minus sovereignty.

"Patriots without a patria. How droll,

"How slick  the  lawyerly demoquackery, the quoting of  Jefferson

"While forgetting what Jefferson always remembered:

"Democracy  impossible for  irresponsible.

"Without  true citizens,

"Without true sovereignty,

"Without true  responsibility,

"Democracy is but a  momentary farce,
"Some decades  of demogogue dreams,
"The oligarch's charade, the dummy's parade.
"The smoke in your eyes, the pie in their lies,
"A corrupt and devious impossibility,

"A cheap politician ploy that cannot stand.
"...Always was. Always shall be."

                                        6

The Values-oriented girded themselves.

Biblical or not, something was coming.

How did this Guy get under their right-of-center skin?

He was not even a Preacher Man of brimstone and collection plates.
"Admit what you fear," he said.

"You dread the People's Republic of Clintonistan,

"The grammatically correct corruption, the shuck  and the shady,

"The semi-literate cesspool adored by Victim People,

"The more articulate banality preferred by media mammals,

Glittering Oslo  'Agreements,' the sand foundation neatly hidden,

"The sleaze too greasy to grab and strangle,

"The gaudy, the tinsel, the fawning jackanapes,

"The tenured turkeys of academe, solemn and applauding,

"The carefully cultivated Pentagon desk jockeys,

The boa constrictor bureaucracies,

"The grinning moderate mooslims,

"The grinning moderate Beijingers,

"The Reconquista's La Raza calling you racists,

"The black racketeers calling you racists,

"The white progs calling you racists.

"The ACLU lawfare,

"Orwell's 'Animal Farm' Goes to Hollywood,

"The Repulsive  Reverends in collusion,...

"And you also expect, as Soros-blessed payback,

"The first homosexual wedding ceremony  on the White House lawn,

"Music by Elton John, photography by Annie Liebovitz,
"As Daddy Bubba gives the shaven 'bride' away

[Below:: Stanzas 1, 2, 3, 4 in that order]


                                   1
       

Did  you hear that gaddy old Wise Guy?

"Conservatism is dead. Hijacked.  Marginally moribund.

"The Bush and  Republicans did the deed."...

Yes, that's what the old gad said. Decrepit drivel, no?

Experts know better, no?

And did you hear  the Values People,

Their shock, confusion, dismay, 

Lots of elemental anger?

"Whaaaaaaaat!"they cried.

He repeated for them. (Gladly? Commisseratingly?)

"Conservatism,"he said. " Rigor mortis. Thank your Republicans

"Or  don't. Don't blame them. Cop out.

"Blame just leftniki and  media monks.

"Indict only  socialistas, not globo-corporatistas.

"Absolve El Presidente and Business Planet

"Who quote the Bibles they import,

"Who sing the Star-Spangled Banner in  Englobalish,

"Who pledge allegiance to  North American Union
"(And to the Republica for which it stands.)

"Who will even support the  unborn,

"And promise to de-taxify you,

"And save your children from Sammy Sodom and Hilda Gomorrah

"As their  pols waive your flag,
"As they salute your flag,
"As they rally 'round your flag.
"Send your soldiers  to die under the flag---

"Then burn that flag at your  borders!"

                           2

 

The Values Folk seemed  stunned.

"Wise Guy, you're raving. Like an old nutcake."

He gave them an odd, sort-of smile.

"Be not unhinged, children.

"Your politically bisexual  rulers,

"Your Bubbas, your Bushes, the  femiwills, the shills,

"The pacifiers, pussifiers, the gaiety, the  nannymenschen---

"They mean to rule you well (in their way),

"Democratically, you know, not fanatically.

"Hey, touch  their big ol' bottom line,

"Feel their shock -and--awe compassion,

"Taste their spicy new global goulash!

"Bet you can smell it already.

"Mmmmm!  Won't you be lovin' it?"

[To be continued: The  People decry Wise Guy... Who more subverts their conservative values---the obvious (progressive Democrats) or the less obvious (globo-guy Republicans)?

 

Nov.12, 2007 Update   

                        

[Continued  on Veteran's Day as Republicrats, by defending borders in Iraq but not in the US, take the unspeakable to the brink of untenable. Here in Stanza 3 the worried Values Folk  decry old Wise Guy and his provocations. (Below 3 are Stanzas 4, then the previously posted 1 and 2]

                                      3

 

 

They were not  relieved, soothed, Oprah-fied or amused.

"We need someone to rock us. This guy wants to mock us."

To which 'this guy' replied,

"Rock, mock, but take stock."

" But Wise Guy, not all Republicans are dismal as Democrats,

"In bed with pornosexual progressives, out-glibbed by media monkeys

"And race racketeers,  border banditos,  dippy defeatniks.

"Not all Repubs are semi-articulate mannikins,

"Wussies with golf balls,

"Sucking on Ronald Reagan jelly beans..."

Did the Wise Guy grin?

Or was that a scowl above the jowl?

"Meaning what, children? Meaning what....?"

Some saw him as a hoary horror.

Many protested, or Protestanted.

"Stop it, old Wise Guy! Stop it!"

                               4

The Values People turned away. Many sought balm,

Whether from Gilead  or a generic brand.

They fished for facts, too.

Some cried, "Down with opinions! Give us facts!"

Others: "Down with cherry-picking fact mongers! Let there be light!

Give us insight, understanding, a blaze of light!"

Certain that progressives were craftily suffocating tradition

In school, court, textbook, Government and infotrainment;

They became as ping pong balls,

Slapped back and forth from opinion to fact,

Fact to opinion, opinion to fact,

Candidate X to Candidate XX to Candidate XXX,

Flicking dials, switching channels, surfing cyber-space, reading wood products,

Checking out titans of talk, aces of Arbitron, plagues of  daily polling.

Some prayed for Instant Messaging to the Father.

Some encountered again the ancient Wise Guy,

His face lined and wrinkled with eons,

Or chasms of too much history, not all written down.

He was either smiling at them, or grimacing from sunlight.

"Do your leaders ever call you trans- fat fools?"

Why was he getting abusive?

"Listen here, Wise Guy. Of course they don't disrespect us.

"I vote, therefore I am."

"Criminals vote too,  Public school fool votes. Bums vote.

"Aren't you all equally equal in  post-Jeffersonian equality,

"The new demoquacks of Democracy?

"Are you not demographics, quarks, quirks, quantifiable,

"Calculated  for carefully-groomed media monks and monkettes?."

"Damn you, gray Wise Guy!  We're not the riff-raff or femi-nutsies

"Or pampered dreamers hatched on campus soviets!

"We are the Values Voters!

"Let the progs stay in their AIDS- rated bathhouses

"Or solve global warming in their Hollywood hot tubs.

"They shall not squat  on 5000 years of marriage!"

"Yes," the near prehistoric one replied. "I see. I see.

"You're not from MoveOn.Soros, are you?"

"No, we're not!
Send that money-changer  back to Hungary

"With his little lefty Soros workers .

" 'Vee vant to take bock Ameyreeka'!

"George Soros  'Open Society'? Yeah, right.

" 'Open Sore--os', "

       [To be continued. Stanza 5: Old Wise Guy throws
        "stones," like 'citizen,' 'nation,' 'sovereignty,' 'res-
        ponsibility,' 'Jeffersonian.'  Some people are hurt.]

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

January 07, 2008 gringommentary: RETRIBUTION FOR CLINTONS? (In response to 'Pile-On to Pile-up' Monica Crowley's look, on eve of the New Hampshire primary,  at the  shellacking the "inevitable" Clintons received from Barack Obama  in the recent Iowa Caucuses.)

Or another way of putting it, ma chere....

We are witnessing the fall-out of the Great Iowa Blow-out. Mrs. Stiff Slick, did you notice, even had to answer a question yesterday about her and Oprahbama re the likeability factor...."Well, yes, he IS likeable...."

OMG, can it be? Did that really happen? The irony beats iron supplements. A Clinton finally forced into doing a Lewinski, and in public! Who said divine retribution isn't what it used to be? Knee-pads for a Clinton, finally?

And yet, and yet....does anyone expect them to remain on bended knee, or to go softly into that black hole of the tawdry universe they once mastered?

=======================================

A reminder from gringoVision:

Have you apologized for slavery?

January 03, 2008 gringommentary: GORACLE WARMING. First it was 400 skeptical scientists, unaffiliated with the MSM or MoveOn.Soros. Now it's New York Times columnist John Tierney. He sprays a devastating coolant on Al Gore's Nobel Prize-winning hot air. For the progressive warmology industry, will 2008 mean serious recession?

December 26, 2007 gringommentary: RUSHING TO MONICA? Posted at monicamemo.com/site of ABC Radio's Monica Crowley:

 

Monica, you owe this Chickaboomer. That foto she posts of you, in knockout buckled black, should be on your site. It is smashing. Why not use it to replace the current toothpaste ad you seem to prefer here? Take it from a guy with an eye.

The Chick, I see, is also linking you with conservative radio's current runner-up for God (he still apparently trails Jesus Christ, but it's close). And she adds,

"Rush Limbaugh ordered a $3,600 bottle of Margaux at the Kobe Club on W. 58th St. Wednesday night — then left an eye-popping $5,000 tip on top of a $4,410 check." Ben Widdicombe's Gatecrasher NYDN"

Cara mia, it's just one of those things, unless Rush  will drink the Margaux out of your shoe. On camera? Well, as our new friend in Paris, Monsieur Sarkozy, would say, ca depend. In any case, I recommend that  the shoe be well-worn. That's  non-negotiable.

Merry Christmas!

(By the way, on family gift-giving:  Has your new  liberal brother-in-law got the Guilt packaged nicely  with pretty ribbons?)

December 19, 2007 gringommentary: JOHN MCCAIN IS BACK? REALLY? (Also posted at site of ABC Radio's Monica Crowley, monicamemo

Forget John McCain. I mean admire the old maverick, respect his service and derring-do and sense of tradition, honor him for what he endured and survived in Hanoi during those years when I could jump back and forth from a firebase to Saigon any time I felt like it---but forget John McCain as a candidate or political viability. The endorsements by three Des Moines Register yentas and the Sulzberger Boston Globe are near laughable.

McCain lost out to Bush in the Republican primaries for  2000 (possibly unfairly and arguably, for the country, unfortunately.) But that was then, when the bantering old fighter pilot could still excite. Since that time McCain has gone the way of all Beltway flesh, congealing into an establishment fixture, trimming his sails, making the deals.  The flash is gone, even if he's not just carrying on right now to get campaign debts paid off. Everybody (except possibly tone-deaf liberals) knows it. The chemical residue has crystallized into just another Washington pol, albeit with more personality and temper. His moment arrived in 2000. He tried gallantly to seize that day, fought a good fight, but The Club won out, as it usually does.

Oh, sure, if by a miracle Johnny Boy could swing the nomination for 2008, conservatives would probably still have to vote for him against the Democratic choice of MoveOn.Soros. I might have to vote for Shamnesty John too,  against The Yale Medusa. (Let those without political sin judge me.)

  But take note, cara mia: No such miracle is showing up in the crystal gringoBall.

And yes, there could be a "surprise" in Iowa, but not this one. You heard it here first. More later. (Full disclosure: If the "suprise" I mean does not materialize, then I may have to concede that you, not to mention most of the Stream, were right all along about a certain someone else.)

To expand a bit on McCain (from a gringommentary posted last summer, June 08.)

Possibly the most celebrated POW in U.S. history (Vietnam War), McCain the maverick and media star was out-maneuvered (or shafted, some still think) by Karl Rove, who won the Republican nomination in 2000 for George Bush. But McCain, as he states, never gives up. He hung in there as Senator from Arizona, working the establishment, working the Beltway, becoming the odds-on favorite for 2008, despite age seventy looming.

It looked so predictable.  Two years ago McCain vs Hillary for 2008 seemed as certain as Republicans and caddies, or Democrats and taxes. It was downright inevitable.

And then the inevitable began to unravel.

Problems old and new compounded. Dems and some independents, formerly charmed,  began to loathe John McCain for stoutly defending the unpopular war in Iraq despite the Bush mismanagement. Old sore points with Republicans got sorer. There was McCain-Feingold, seen as liberal suppressing of free speech and electioneering (and partly responsible for today's Endless Campaigning, needed for fund-raising.)  As a politician McCain  also--surprise--flip-flopped. His record showed him good on the unborn, but not good enough for some. He also (1) opposed same-sex marriage (2) opposed a Constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage (3) would not oppose a homosexual President (and of course didn't say whether this President should bring the significant same-sex other to the Inaugural Ball, could they hug or smooch with cameras present, could they raise Delbert with two Daddies in a civil union etc? ) Independents gagged. Republicans groaned.

Finally, the Beltway (sic) high life and the furor over the Illegal Invasion sealed his doom. It was called the Bush-Kennedy-McCain Amnesty-Don't-Say-It's -Amnesty bill, hundreds of incomprehensible pages that few even tried to read. It was like wading through jungles of IRS Tax Code. What was this once golden guy of the "Straight Talk Express" thinking?

McCain-Feingold. Establishmentarianism. Then the Shamnesty flood gates opening while the nation was already gasping for relief from  illegal tidal waves. The temperamental John McCain, Republican heir apparent for 2008, had slapped himself upside the head, then shot himself in the foot, and finally jumped off the bridge. Possibly the strangest case of Post-Vietnam Stress Syndrome on record.

(And now there is this follow-up gringommentary to a reader's December 18  question. WHAT IF MCCAIN WON IN 2000?)

 

The question, I admit, is not without interest. No doubt many have pondered it. Suppose Team Bush had not slimed John McCain in S. Carolina, in efffect torpedoing the greatest obstacle to Bush ascendancy? And suppose  not taking such a low road led to a President John McCain? What differences would four (and likely eight) years of McCain instead of Bush have made to the country and the world?

 

Unfortunately---or maybe fortunately---we will never know. Would McCain have delivered on his promise of Maverick Magic? Would he have been a President who can communicate? Who can say? We know what did happen after 2000. The golden guy of the "Straight Talk Express" morphed into Shamnesty John, Establishment pet, clueless on why such a national furor had broken out over Illegalismo.

 

We do, however, know what happened to the guy who Republicans were so euphoric about after the Election.

He became El Presidente Jorgecito Bush, defending the powerful corporate globalistas (and by extension the cunning socialistas) against the American people who see their nation disappearing.

 

Who knew?

 

December 01, 2007 gringommentary: SAVAGE vs. CAIR. IT'S WAR.

This Savage vs. CAIR battle may get interesting and significant. CAIR (Council on American Islamic Relations), using the Soros worker/ACLU trick of quoting and slandering out of context, alleges that talk host Michael  Savage has defamed Islam.

Unfortunately for these militant mooslims, Savage will not react like a Jorgecito Bush, or apologize like Don Imus.(Savage is a street fighter with an advanced degree. Don Imus is a radio talent from the boonies who knows how to epater les bourgeois in Manhattan and play at jive with homeboys but can never know the streets like a Michael Savage or a Curtis Sliwa who do not take guff from or apologize to low-lifes hiding behind pc mantras.)

For Savage this is war and he, unlike Imus, will counter-attack. Of course the pusillanimous Pubs and the dismal Dems will turn their backs and see no evil, like the "friends of Imus" who crawled under their desks when Reverend Sharpton/"Satan" attacked Imus. But Savage has hired one of the top civil rights lawyers in America, Daniel A, Horowitz, (a liberal no less) who has made it clear that he will go after these mooslims with a vengeance, including discovery of who their real supporters and financiers are. Horowitz doesn't mind using terms like "degenerate oil sheikhs."

It may be take-no-prisoners time for the CAIR segment  of Jihad in America.

http://www.savage-productions.com/Savage_CAIR_suit.html

Posted by: gringoman | December 01, 2007 at 01:14 PM

NOVEMBER 27, 2007 Gringommentary: IOWA & SCORPIONS

 

Meanwhile, there's this from a gringommentary response to Monica Crowley's (ABC Radio) blog post, THE OBAMA OFFENSIVE. The final lines of Monica's post....

 

Obama has the momentum.  She's lost it.  He knows it. She knows it. 

For the two scorpions in the bottle, the question is:  Who will deliver the fatal sting first?

http://monicamemo.typepad.com/weblog/2007/11/the-obama-offen.html#comments/

In response, the gringommentary: :

Whoa! Monica! Granted, the image of leading Democrats as poisonous arachnids is vivid (some may even say accurate). The picture of a scorpion driving its venomous tail into Hillary's gluteus maximus is dreadful, horrifying (although to many, not unjustified). But Monica,  wouldn't traditional fair-sex metaphors  be more a propos, more civil,  more, uh, politic, especially for nice Iowans in their nice Iowan cauci?

Isn't Democrat Nancy Pelosi's "It takes a woman to sweep out the House" more acceptable rhetoric---especially before Americans actually saw what that place looks like with  her Speaker's  dusting, and now rate the Pelosi-cleansed House even lower than Republican minefield Presidente Jorge Bush ?

Hasn't The Hillary, instead of going directly venomous,   tried to whip up angry white women with the same broomstick?

And what about Obama's Missus, a lawyer herself ? Despite Democratic campaign pressure to whine a bit and faithfully play the mixed race card for hubby, she hasn't used the reptile analogy. And yet,...wasn't Michelle Obama the most devastating of all with her remark about Mrs. Slick and the serial infidelities they call a marriage?: How---asked Michelle--- is a woman who can't manage her own house gonna run the White House?

And there you have it, cara mia.  Woman is more deadly than a scorpion.

But you already knew that?