Earlier this week we mentioned National Review's ranking of the fifty most conservative rock songs, and noted that the compiler of the list, Michael Long, would be counting down the top five this week. Number five is here, along with Long's explanation for why the song merits inclusion on such a list, number four is here, number three is here, and number two is here.
Number one will be announced tomorrow along with the other forty-five.
Here's left-wing British MP George Galloway staking out his accustomed terrain in the febrile swamps of moral depravity:
The Respect MP George Galloway has said it would be morally justified for a suicide bomber to murder Tony Blair.
In an interview with GQ magazine, the reporter asked him: "Would the assassination of, say, Tony Blair by a suicide bomber - if there were no other casualties - be justified as revenge for the war on Iraq?"
Mr Galloway replied: "Yes, it would be morally justified. I am not calling for it - but if it happened it would be of a wholly different moral order to the events of 7/7. It would be entirely logical and explicable. And morally equivalent to ordering the deaths of thousands of innocent people in Iraq - as Blair did."
It is just a short step, perhaps an imperceptibly short step, from justifying a man's murder to hoping for it or calling for it. Try to imagine a member of the House of Representatives saying that the murder of George Bush would be justified. There have been a number of people on the left who have made somewhat similar statements but no one, so far as I know, of such lofty position as George Galloway enjoys in England.
He is a sick man.
This does not sound good:
Military activity in the Gulf has been increasing tremendously in the past few months. According to British sources, the stock of weapons, missiles and combat planes in the six neighboring countries to Iran is now three times what it was at the onset of the Iraq war in 2003.
This arsenal is also composed of submarines, destroyers belonging to Iran and also to the international community in the Sea of Oman. An impressive number of offensive and defensive weapons are also deployed in the region. For instance, since March ,Gulf refineries and vital oil installations are protected by batteries of Patriot missiles. Furthermore, according to the Kuwaiti daily Al Seyassah, the US has built a massive stock of oil and could ask the temporary stop of Gulf refineries in order to prevent heavy damage in case of an Iranian attack. Iran has indeed warned Gulf monarchies that their oil facilities would be the first target in case of a US operation on Iranian nuclear facilities.
Let's hope that if war with Iran breaks out the Bush administration has lots of allies on board. Being solely responsible for a shock to the world's oil supply would create enormous ill-will both at home and abroad, even if the war is necessary to keep Iran from getting nuclear weapons.
Will Marshall and Jeremy Rosner tell us what the Democrats' plan for the war on terror should be. Not surprisingly the plan is to do pretty much what the Bush administration is already doing:
Democrats should begin by reaffirming their party's commitment to progressive internationalism -- the belief that America can best defend itself by building a world safe for individual liberty and democracy.
Progressive internationalism occupies the vital center between the neo-imperial right and the noninterventionist left, between a view that assumes our might always makes us right, and one that assumes that because America is strong it must be wrong. It stresses the responsibilities that come with our enormous power: to use force with restraint but not to hesitate to use it when necessary; to show what the Declaration of Independence called "a decent respect for the opinions of mankind"; to exercise leadership primarily through persuasion rather than coercion; to reduce human suffering where we can; and to bolster alliances and global institutions committed to upholding an increasingly democratic world order.
By applying the organizing principles of progressive internationalism -- national strength, equal opportunity, liberal democracy, U.S. leadership for collective security -- Democrats can design a strategy that will defeat Islamist extremism. That strategy should specifically revolve around five key imperatives:
First, we must marshal all of America's manifold strengths, starting with our military power but going well beyond it, for the struggle ahead.
Second, we must rebuild America's alliances, because democratic solidarity is one of our greatest strategic assets.
Third, we must champion liberal democracy in deed, not just in rhetoric, because a freer world is a safer world.
Fourth, we must renew U.S. leadership in the international economy and rise to the challenge of global competition.
Fifth, we must summon from the American people a new spirit of national unity and shared sacrifice.
Okay. The Bush administration hasn't been too good on number five, but what is Marshall and Rosner's alternative? A military draft? Nooo. It's raising taxes. Like "progressives" everywhere they propose that we all share the burden of the war by making ourselves all worse off than we are now. Sounds like a winner in '08.
Dick Morris thinks that Bush's best chance for a political resurrection is to get pump prices down. He notes that:
As incredible - and almost sacrilegious - as it seems, Iraq has faded as the dominant political issue even though we are still losing 50 to 60 good young men and women there every month.
And - even after a prime-time speech and a solid week of congressional action on the subject - immigration runs a distant third to pump prices as the major topic of conversation these days.
I doubt that Morris is correct about this. If Bush signs a weak immigration bill he's going to permanently alienate his base, and, in my opinion, the Republicans will lose their majority, if not in 2006 then certainly in 2008. Bush's only hope for political resurrection lies in the House of Representatives. If they can negotiate a tough compromise bill with the senate in conference committee - a bill which closes our borders - and Bush signs it, then he can recover. If not, conservatives all across the country are going to throw up their hands in disgust, and it'll take years to win them back to the Republican fold.
Your post on Rollins cracked me up. I'll have to check it out. Before coming to Christ I worshipped Rollins. I went to hear his band multiple times, read his books, and went to his spoken word performances. :)
MRUPDATE: Here's a picture of Henry Rollins sharing his affection for Christians and ID supporters:
Or maybe this is really Senator John McCain in disguise telling us what we can do with our desire to stop illegal immigration.
Thanks to Uncommon Descent for the tip.