A Lawyer's Christmas Greeting

A friend passes along this parody of what modern liberalism has done to Christmas:

Please accept with no obligation, implied or implicit, our best wishes for an environmentally conscious, socially responsible, low stress, non-addictive, gender neutral, celebration of the winter solstice holiday, practiced within the most enjoyable traditions of the religious persuasion of your choice, or secular practices of your choice, with respect for the religious/secular persuasions and/or traditions of others, or their choice not to practice religious or secular traditions at all...

And a fiscally successful, personally fulfilling, and medically uncomplicated recognition of the onset of the generally accepted calendar year 2007, but not without due respect for the calendars of choice of other cultures whose contributions to society have helped make America great (not to imply that America is necessarily greater than any other country or is the only "AMERICA" in the Western Hemisphere), and without regard to the race, creed, color, age, physical ability, religious faith, or sexual preference of the wishes.

(By accepting this greeting, you are accepting these terms. This greeting is subject to clarification or withdrawal. It is freely transferable with no alteration to the original greeting. It implies no promise by the wisher to actually implement any of the wishes for her/himself or others, and is void where prohibited by law, and is revocable at the sole discretion of the wisher.

This wish is warranted to perform as expected within the usual application of good tidings for a period of one year, or until the issuance of a subsequent holiday greeting, whichever comes first, and warranty is limited to replacement of this wish or issuance of a new wish at the sole discretion of the wisher.)

Past performance does not guarantee future results.

And Happy HannuKwanzmas to you.

Skewering the ISG

John Podhoretz skewers the ISG and its hapless report in an essay in the New York Post. The whole column is worth reading but especially the beginning and the end. He starts with this:

The profound quality of the suggestions offered by the Iraq Study Group - the panel headed by former Secretary of State James Baker that presented its report with such fanfare to the president yesterday morning - can be inferred from the following passage on page 60:

"RECOMMENDATION 19: The President and the leadership of his national security team should remain in close and frequent contact with the Iraqi leadership."

Truly, a grateful nation should fall on its knees and thank the benevolent Creator that the nine wise men and one woman who comprise the Iraq Study Group were willing to sacrifice themselves and come together so that such a recommendation could be placed before our leaders and the world.

The nation's capital hasn't seen such concentrated wisdom in one place since Paris Hilton dined alone at the Hooters on Connecticut Avenue.

After all, only genius approaching the level of Paris could have written this sentence: "The Support Group should consist of Iraq and all the states bordering Iraq . . . and, of course, Iraq itself." Yes, that's some Support Group, what with Iraq and Iraq in it together to support, um, Iraq.

And ends with this fine summary of the ISG's findings:

Oh, and what about that war in Iraq, the ostensible subject of the Study Group's work?

Well, we're losing it, and there's no way we can win it, and we don't have enough troops to do it, and we can't get any more troops, and the ones we can get will be tired and mad, but we shouldn't pull out of Iraq because, after all, that would be a disaster. But don't worry, everybody! Iran and Syria will save our bacon! All that needs to happen is for Israel to cease to exist!

This report has been catnip to the liberal media but other than the fact that it's critical of the Bush administration I can't see why. Reading through the full report one is struck by how many of the 79 recommendations are either redundant, irrelevant, banal, or impractical. I guess it doesn't take much to gain applause from the left as long as it's possible to portray the object of their ovation as a slap in Bush's face.

The Gathering Storm

Rick Santorum delivers his farewell speech to the Senate and sounds like a modern day prophet. He is certainly, among politicians, a voice crying in the wilderness. The speech is long - it takes 10 to 15 minutes to read - but it may be the most important speech anyone has ever given on the Senate floor. In explaining why he was one of only two senators to vote against the nomination of William Gates to be Secretary of Defense, he outlines the parlous position we are in today, where the threats to our national existence lie, and what we must do if we are to survive. Here's an excerpt:

If there has been a failing--obviously, for the last several weeks and months we have been talking about the failings of the administration with respect to the policies within Iraq--I would make the argument that the larger failing, not just of the administration but of the Members of Congress and leaders in this country, is that we have not had the courage to stand up and define the enemy as to who they are and study and understand them and explain to the American people who they are.

I defined the enemy back at the National Press Club speeches as Islamic fascism. I said that is the biggest issue of our time, this relentless and determined radical enemy that is not just a group of rag-tag people living in caves but, in fact, people with an ideology, a plan, and increasingly the resources to carry out that plan, as well as, increasingly, a bigger and larger presence throughout the Islamic world, these radical Islamic fascists.

Whether we know it or not, they have been at war with us, and the State of Iran specifically has been at war with us, since 1979 when they declared war against the United States. They have not rescinded that declaration. So when we talk about engaging Iran as the Secretary, the new, future Secretary of Defense has talked about, we are talking about engaging someone who is at war with us, who has declared war with us, and who has been at war and, and as I will talk about here, and I think it has been widely reported in the press, has been doing a lot to substantiate the claim that they have been at war with us.

The question is, are we at war with them? What are we doing to insure that they don't win? Take the time to read Santorum's entire speech. It's crucially important.