December 08, 2005

Dad’s fifteen minutes

Iran's "President" opines that, inasmuch as Germany and Austria feel so damn guilty about the Holocaust, they should establish an Israeli state on their own turf.

This is not a new idea.

In the early 1970s my father, John F. Bridge, was Opinion Editor for The National Observer, a weekly newspaper put out by Dow Jones. He wrote a long editorial piece predicting unending terrorism and war in the Middle East over the existence of Israel.  A gloomy, if prescient fellow, my Dad. If his accuracy on the successive 30 years was accurate, you can be further alarmed that he also predicted a second holocaust - a nuclear one.

His solution was that the nation of Israel should be abandoned and reestablished in the continental United States.

"In the future everyone will be Hitler for fifteen minutes." - James Lileks.

That was my Dad's fifteen minutes. The Observer got more hate mail over that one editorial than any other piece they ever printed.

Does the Left Oppose Free Speech?

Ann Coulter Cuts University Speech Short Amid Jeers:

STORRS, Conn. (AP) — Conservative columnist Ann Coulter cut short a speech at the University of Connecticut amid boos and jeers, and decided to hold a question-and-answer session instead.

This is perfectly ordinary behavior for many Liberals. As I noted in this previous post, it is common for speakers to be shouted down on college campuses. And at the recent Liberty Film Festival, I witnessed two Liberals rush the stage, shouting at speaker David Horowitz,  "You have no right to speak!"

It is time for those of the Left to stand up for free speech in America, and say that such tactics are unacceptable. 

Update 12-16-05: Here's the text of a new post on this subject. I'll duplicate it here so as to have all entries on this subject available in one article. 

This report on demonstrations against the execution of Tookie Williams included the following photo and comment:

One of the standard activities of radicals at protests these days is to physically cover up the messages of people they don't agree with. At the vigil, the socialists did everything they could to cover up the Christians' signs. And, as you can see here, the media joined in: a sound technician from one of the leftist radio stations used his boom-mike to try to cover up the Christian protest sign. Using a microphone to stifle free speech -- could you get more ironic?  

Dean Lamely Attempts to Remove Foot from Mouth

Dean Defends Remarks on Iraq:

WASHINGTON — Democratic Party Chairman Howard Dean said Thursday his assertion that the United States cannot win the war in Iraq was reported "a little out of context," saying Democrats believe a new U.S. strategy is needed to succeed there.

Oh right, that's just what he meant. Let's review his original statement : 

(SAN ANTONIO) -- Saying the "idea that we're going to win the war in Iraq is an idea which is just plain wrong," Democratic National Chairman Howard Dean predicted today that the Democratic Party will come together on a proposal to withdraw National Guard and Reserve troops immediately, and all US forces within two years.

Dean made his comments in an interview on WOAI Radio in San Antonio.

"I've seen this before in my life. This is the same situation we had in Vietnam. Everybody then kept saying, 'just another year, just stay the course, we'll have a victory.' Well, we didn't have a victory, and this policy cost the lives of an additional 25,000 troops because we were too stubborn to recognize what was happening."

Dean says the Democrat position on the war is 'coalescing,' and is likely to include several proposals.

"I think we need a strategic redeployment over a period of two years," Dean said. "Bring the 80,000 National Guard and Reserve troops home immediately. They don't belong in a conflict like this anyway. We ought to have a redeployment to Afghanistan of 20,000 troops, we don't have enough troops to do the job there and its a place where we are welcome. And we need a force in the Middle East, not in Iraq but in a friendly neighboring country to fight (terrorist leader Musab) Zarqawi, who came to Iraq after this invasion. We've got to get the target off the backs of American troops.

And now he's pretending that all that meant, yes we could have a victory, we just need a new strategy. 

Yeah, right.

The good news is, Dean must have come under fire from his fellow Liberals for his original statement. If he'd only been criticised by Conservatives, it's doubtful he'd be back-pedalling.

Thanks to Guest Poster, Don Bridge!

I'd like to thank Don Bridge for his excellent posts here over the last two weeks. They enabled me to take a vacation from blogging, which I greatly needed. I could tell it was working because over the past week I'd started to see quite a number of news items I wanted to post about. In recognition of Don's excellent articles, which I have very much enjoyed reading, I have invited him to continue to guest-post for another two weeks.