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On last month's Fix;

the answer to last month's Fix,
"Was the statement by Trent Lott about Strom Thurmond at the latter's 100'th Bday party a resignable offense?"
is

Background: Trent said at the party, "It's too bad the country didn't vote for Strom in '48, it would have been better off. I'd have voted for him." This has been taken by the media to mean, "Since Strom ran on a race segregation platform, and I - being a Rep - am naturally a racists, sexist, bigoted homophobe, I think he'd have made a great president.

Never mind that;
 The ranking Sen. Dem. today, Robert Byrd , was a KKK grand wizard

Never mind that;
 Trent was 8 at the time of Strom's run for president.

Never mind that;
 In 1948 Strom was on the "Dixiecrat" ticket, spawn of the Dem. party

Never mind that;
 The guy was at a party honoring Strom and being nice.

And Certainly Never mind that;
 Both Strom and Trent are pro-states rights and believe the trend towards unbridled Federalism is not only unCOnstitutional but dangerous.

No no, pay no attention to any of that. Just shoot the Rep. Perhaps though, Lott should have resigned for leaving it up to the likes of me for making his case for him.

David Limbaugh

February 1, 2003

Pelosi's endless questions

I was flabbergasted as I watched House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi stumble through an interview about Iraq on "ABC This Week." She's just lucky George Stephanopoulos was interviewing her instead of George Will. When you focus on what she actually said, coupled with the pathetic Democrat State of the Union response by Washington Governor Gary Locke, you will understand just how fortunate we are to have George Bush as president for such a time as this. I mean, with Pelosi we're talking about one of the premiere leaders of the Democratic Party. Her colleagues chose her -- a damning reflection on the whole lot of them.

Stephanopoulos asked Pelosi whether she was now prepared to support a military action against Iraq, having
earlier opposed the authorizing resolution. Apparently, oblivious to the indispensability of decisiveness to
leadership, she stammered around like a criminal suspect in a police interrogation room.

Midway through her gratuitous non-answer she said, "I think … we must exhaust every remedy … before we
put our young people in harm's way." Perhaps she would prefer that we allow Saddam to mess us around for
another decade while he perfects his means to kill us and has a better opportunity to deliver weapons of mass
destruction (WMD) to his soulmates in al Qaeda.

Pelosi continued ticking off one excuse after another in a vain effort to legitimize her party's obstruction. Truly,
it's as if she saw herself in a high school debate with no more at stake than how many points she could assert,
irrespective of the real world implications and the important role she is supposed to be playing in it. She had the appearance of a detached robot programmed by the Democratic National Committee to interfere, but with no comprehension of the issues she was purporting to raise.

Let's go through it again, Nancy, and I'll help you with some short answers. "What is the prospect for military
success? How long will that take? Would (the) new regime be committed to stopping the development of WMD if the neighboring countries are engaged in that development?" The prospects for success are even better than your chances for re-election in your socialist district, but without a crystal ball we aren't sure how long it will take nor whether the new regime would be committed to stopping WMDs, but you can be sure we'll attend to it.

"What is the cost to our economy … our budget?" President Bush has supplied estimates of the cost, but he
can't be certain, because presidents aren't clairvoyant either. But you can be sure that unlike you and your
colleagues, he places the national security above concerns about any temporary setbacks to the economy.

"What is the cost to the war on terrorism?" You naïve people need to quit compartmentalizing. Even your ally, New York Times Columnist Tom Friedman has identified this is a "bogus argument." This is the war on
terrorism, whether or not President Bush makes a direct connection between Saddam and Osama, as is being anticipated. Saddam is a terrorist thug who hates America and Israel, and would love nothing more than to arm al Qaeda with the means to decimate New York, Washington and Tel Aviv.

"What is the Pandora's box that we open … without this multilateral support?" The more allies we have on
board the better, but we open no "Pandora's Box" without their unanimous participation.

Then, Pelosi asked the revealing question, "What is the case that has not been made to the allies that this war is necessary?" -- as if they have superior wisdom. Has it ever occurred to you, Nancy, that they don't care about the evidence -- that they just have a different philosophy about military action -- cockeyed and pacifist -- or have different motivations to stay on Saddam's good side? (The French have admitted that Iraq has WMDs, by the way.) Leadership requires that we make the decision with our own brains, doing our own evaluation.

But the most disturbing part of the interview was Pelosi's stated willingness to confer on the French, as a
member of the U.N. Security Council, veto power over our decision. Earth to Nancy: We already secured the U.N.'s blessing anyway. And people wonder why conservatives worry about entrusting national security and sovereignty to the Democratic leadership?

Almost every time she finished a litany of questions, Pelosi caught herself, as if aware viewers might recognize
her obstruction for what it is. Then, in vintage liberal-ese she uttered the non sequitur that Saddam ought to be shaking in his boots because we're having this debate and such freedom is what makes America strong. Yes, Nancy, I'm sure Saddam is terrified of our laser-guided debate microphones homing in on his presidential palace. Debate away -- and in the meantime, President Bush will tend to our national security.
 

serge wrote:
>
>               "Was the Trent Lott statement about Strom
> Thurmond a  serious enough offense to resign over?"
>

Serge,

The way Trent Lott's statement about Strom Thurmond was abused,
reminded me of how the press treated Newt Gingrich. Trent could have
cleared it up by saying he was talking about the "States Rights" issue
instead of Seperatists. But he didn't and his appologies made the whole
thing worse! In the end stepping down from the Senate leadership was
best.

Maybe he should have said. "I'll step down for my support of
Seperatistism when Senator Byrd steps down for his work with
the KKK."

Dave

--
"Equality is not in regarding different things similarly,
  equality is in regarding different things differently."
  -- "Still Life with Woodpecker" by Tom Robbins
 

Minnesota;

Texas;

1. 1 Feb, Dallas: The nation learned to it's detriment of the destruction of the space shuttle Columbia yesterday over Texas at 0900 CT. Columbia was 15 minutes out from landing at Cape Kennedy in Florida, descending through 200,000 feet at Mach 15, when it disintegrated over Texas airspace killing all 7 astronauts aboard including the word's first Israeli man in space. Theories range from catastrophic metal fatigue, to loss of aeronautic control due to ice colliding with flight control surfaces on launch, to terrorist sabotage.

With this loss, the nation is down to 2 flight worthy shuttles. A total of five were built: Columbia and Enterprise in 1977-78, then later Endeavour, Challenger and finally Atlantis. Enterprise was a glide only test vehicle, while Challenger blew up on launch in 1986. At 26 years old, Columbia was the oldest shuttle so metal fatigue has to be a consideration.
Ed: I remember the maiden launch of Columbia very well. It was to have been on my 18'th bday, but thunder storms delayed the launch by two days, so Columbia went into space on 12 April 1981. After the first two flights, NASA stopped painting the external fuel tank to save weight, hence rather then an all white vehicle at launch, it came to have the orange look we know today.
 

Washington D.C.