Cooking the Internet for the White House

Here's that "General Betray Us" ad that MoveOn.org was so proud of until recently. I got it from FreeRepublic, of course.


Click on it for the full size version. Here's the text:

GENERAL PETRAEUS OR GENERAL BETRAY US?
Cooking the Books for the White House

General Petraeus is a military man constantly at war with the facts. In 2004, just before the election, he said there was "tangible progress" in Iraq and that "Iraqi leaders are stepping forward." And last week Petraeus, the architect of escalation of troops in Iraq, said, "We say we have achieved progress, and we are obviously going to do everything we can to build on that progress."

Every Independent report on the ground situation in Iraq shows that the surge strategy has failed. Yet the General claims a reduction in violence. That's because, according to the New York Times, the Pentagon has adopted a bizarre formula for keeping tabs on violence. For example, death by car bombs don't count. The Washington Post reported that assassinations only count if you're shot in the back of the head -- not the front. According to the Associated Press, there have been more civilian deaths and more America soldier deaths in the past three months than in any other summer we've been there. We'll hear of neighborhoods where violence has decreased. But we won't hear that those neighborhoods have been ethnically cleansed.

Most importantly, General Petraeus will not admit what everyone knows: Iraq is mired in an unwinnable religious civil war. We may hear of a plan to withdraw a few thousand troops. But we won't hear what Americans are desperate to hear: a timtable for withdrawing all our troops. General Petraeus has actually said that American troops will need to stay in Iraq for as long as ten years.

Today, before Congress and before the American people, General Petraeus is likely to become General Betray Us.

Isn't it sad to see people who have money, power, but who don't possess the courage of their convictions?

Make sure you click on the link and save this image. We need to help "keep the dream alive" by spreading the word about the true nature of General Petraeus. We need to do it for the poor peacenik saps who gave money to MoveOn.org. It looks like they've been betrayed this time in the name of political expediency.

Rove Summarizes Democrats' Woes

Karl Rove provides a dozen or so insightful paragraphs which should give us some hopey changy for November. Here's my favorite:

Then there is the intensity gap, which is particularly important in midterms. In Gallup, 45% of Republicans are "very enthusiastic" about voting this fall versus 24% of Democrats. This staggering 22-point gap is the largest so far this election year. And in the NPR survey of 60 swing Democratic districts, 62% of Republicans rated their likelihood of voting as 10, the highest. Only 37% of Democrats were similarly excited.

The intensity gap has always been intriguing to me because I'm one of those folks who has voted in almost every election since my 18th birthday. I don't have to feel intense about it any more that I need to feel intense about taking out the trash. I remember the time I missed an off-year primary; I felt awful, like I'd let my country down. Remember Anthony Michael Hall's geeky character in Breakfast Club who had procured a fake ID so he could vote? Yeah, that was me.

At some point I learned that many people don't vote at all and they don't have the least bit of guilt about it. My first thought at that point was "then they really have no right to complain". But I noticed also that these people usually complain the most; they're also the ones spouting the mantra "There's no sense voting anyway; the ________* control everything. That's the elephant in the living room. There's no real difference between Republicans and Democrats. The fix is in as usual...." Yawn. Don't you need to go pick up your unemployment check or something?

Trivia: I cast my first Presidential vote in 1988 for Ron Paul.

(* = usually Jews.)

"Divine happenings, going beyond the limits of our human frailty"

From a sermon of Saint Augustine on the Birth of John the Baptist. (source)

The Church observes the birth of John as a hallowed event. We have no such commemoration for any other fathers; but it is significant that we celebrate the birthdays of John and of Jesus. This day cannot be passed by. And even if my explanation does not match the dignity of the feast, you may still meditate on it with great depth and profit. John appears as the boundary between the two testaments, the old and the new. That he is a sort of boundary the Lord himself bears witness, when he speaks of “the law and the prophets up until John the Baptist.” Thus he represents times past and is the herald of the new era to come. As a representative of the past, he is born of aged parents; as a herald of the new era, he is declared to be a prophet while still in his mother’s womb. For when yet unborn, he leapt in his mother’s womb at the arrival of blessed Mary. In that womb he had already been designated a prophet, even before he was born; it was revealed that he was to be Christ’s precursor, before they ever saw one another. These are divine happenings, going beyond the limits of our human frailty. When John was preaching the Lord’s coming he was asked, “Who are you?” And he replied: “I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness.” The voice is John, but the Lord “in the beginning was the Word.” John was a voice that lasted only for a time; Christ, the Word in the beginning, is eternal.

He must increase; I must decrease.