Connecticut Commentary: Red Notes from a Blue State

Tough day at the office.

It’s always a hazard to make predictions, because future events depend upon current events that change rapidly. The best sort of prediction is a vow: “I pledge in the New Year to be kinder to my friends and more hostile to my enemies.” This sort of prediction depends solely on will power and determination, which always lie in the hand of the vow taker. Predictions about historic events are always iffy. History, as a rule, snatches the better angels of our nature from us and consigns them to Hell. The careful reader will note that I have capitalized “Hell.” This, with apologies to honorable atheists among us, is because it is a place name for a real place, as yet undiscoverable by the spiritually vacuous tools of modern science. The following are safe predictions because, with the exception of #7, they are limited to what will not happen in the coming year. 1) Bloggers -- who are nasty, brutish and short (with just about everybody) – will continue on their private path to Hell (note the...

Politico is reporting that the embattled Sen. Chris Dodd, who has not risen much above 2.5% in the polls, has slipped a dagger or two in the sides of Democrat presidential wannabes Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. The presidency involves more than giving great speeches, al la Obama, or observing politics, a la Hillary Clinton Dodd said in Iowa: “It isn’t just a question of giving a great speech, giving an ennobling idea. It isn’t enough just to be sitting on the sidelines and watching your husband necessarily deal with problems over the years.” Expanding on the idea of witnessing, Dodd said, “Laura Bush is a wonderful person, a delightful first lady, but I don’t think anyone would assume necessarily she is ready to be president of the United States. Now, Hillary Clinton has been elected to the Senate, and that adds a bit more to all this. But the idea that, for the last 10 or 15 years, because you’ve been next to events as they’ve unfolded somehow qualifies you to do this job is an ex...

Wussiness is a matter of perspective. If Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York, Bill Clinton’s choice for president, has thus far appeared to be a tad less wussy than the other empty wallets with whom she has shared the stage during the Democrat primaries, it is because Hillary’s position on the Iraq war has been more attentive to consequences than, say, that of Sen. Chris Dodd. Dodd’s position on the war is: Run away. No ambiguity there. More precisely, Dodd’s ambition is to do everything legislatively to force the president to withdraw from Iraq – short of passing a bill definancing the war, which would create a multitude of problems for his comrades in the Senate and House. That kind of a bill would be a) constitutional, b) effective in ending the war and c) politically disastrous for the future of the Democrat Party. Dodd, an old anti-Vietnam war protestor, knows that the American public was loathed to turn against that lost cause until very late in the season. Generally, Americans do...

It is not always easy to bend your ear to the whisperings behind the firing of cannons. War is loud; it drowns out the central meaning of things. It would not be far from the truth to say those who have distorted jihad have hijacked Islam. For instance, a rigid and clear prohibition lies upon the unjustified killing of Muslims by other Muslims, and other clear prohibitions forbid the wanton taking of the lives of the innocent. There are no passages in the Qur’an or in the commentaries that would justify such actions without seriously distorting both the message and the messenger of Allah. This does not mean that a clever and malicious mind cannot so distort the message; even the devil, we are told in Christian theology, can quote scripture to his own purpose. When he does so, it is important that he be recognized by other students of scripture as having distorted God’s message. The Qur’an does not sanction wanton violence against the innocent, which is why, following the violence again...

God being unavailable – see atheist writers Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins on this – Americans naturally are anxious to bring History to their side. In the post-Hegelian world, History has been deified, has a voice and speaks to us. “This, damn it all,” a blogger wrote following General David Petraeus’ report to Congress, “actually is Bush’s fault for going to war with Iraq in the first place when there was no legitimate reason to do so. That, I guarantee you, will be history’s judgment.” These lines appeared in defense of Sen. Chris Dodd’s view of the Middle East and History. After General Petraeus’ appearance before congress, Dodd said in one of his press releases: “The fact that there are questions about General Petraeus’ report is not surprising given that it was brought to you by this White House. In contrast, independent report after report indicates that the whack-a-mole strategy has made this the bloodiest summer of the war. And by the General’s admission, the so-call...

The problem with modern atheism is that it has no positive content. It’s the phallus of Old Greek comedy applied to religious precepts. Christopher Hitchens, author of “God Is Not Great,” and Richard Dawkins are very good at swinging that thing, usually at literalist faiths. Dawkins argues that theology is vacuous; he means non-materialistic. Hitchens is likeable; even those who heartily disagree with his point of view appreciate his fidelity to the Western Enlightenment period, which was also, at least in its later stages, profoundly anti-religious, if not atheistic. But the wit and charm of Hitchens’ atheism changes nothing. There is and can be no “there” there in atheism, and one grows suspicious of Dawkin’s apologetic note when he softly criticizes the ravages of Lenin and Stalin -- who were simply atheistic banditos with guns. There is something wrong with the analytical acuity of critics who are overly severe with Mother Teresa but go soft and squishy on Stalin and Hitler, both ...

If the Bush administration has suffered from a failure of thought – and it has –his Democrat opponents are suffering from a failure of will. Newt Gingrich examines both in a short, devastating analysis. Gingrich's analysis is devastating because it is true. The Democrat analysis is impotent because it is not true. It is not true on a very elemental level, because it is a pretense that if America retreats from the jihadists, it will suffer no permanent loss in lives and honor. Despite Democrat propaganda to the contrary, there is evidence that the surge has been at least partially successful. There are two reasons for this: 1) The increase in troops has provided in some embattled areas of Iraq shelter from the storm of foreign terrorists, and 2) the jihadists clearly have overplayed their hand, as may be seen in this report from Jack Kelly . But the limited success of the surge can only mean that Bush’s early strategy – low troop levels, a diminished American presence – was a horri...

A green color, passed through a bias prism, is seen as red. We all have biases, but some cherish them more than others. U.S. Sen. Joe Lieberman has become a target in the blogsphere for progressives who wish to advertise themselves as such by sporting their biases. Rejected by his party in a primary, Lieberman ran as an Independent in the general election – and won, much to the dismay of left wing Democrats who favored Ned Lamont, an anti-war Democrat from Greenwich nudged into the race by ex-Senator and Governor Lowell Weicker. At bottom, all politics is personal because, unsurprisingly, it involves persons, many of whom are unwilling to lay aside their biases for the public good. Weicker was defeated by Lieberman in a hotly contested senate race. A few years later the sleeping bear was back again wielding a bludgeon, a left wing fellow from his old hometown, against his former rival. Since Lieberman’s defeat of Lamont in the general election, progressives in Connecticut and its envir...

The problem with Sen. Chris Dodd’s view of the world – and even more so his views on foreign policy – is that there is no “is” there. In foreign policy issues, Dodd proceeds as if the ideal universe he wishes to establish on earth, mostly by diplomatic means, is the reality; when, in fact, the real world, especially in the Middle East, is riven by religious zealots impervious to diplomacy whose world view is shaped by dreams of a Islamic caliphate that will extend from the shores of Tripoli to the halls of Montezuma. Improbable as it may seem, in the real world of Osama bin Ladin and his intellectual offspring, the Islamic revolution will not be complete until Dodd’s two charming daughters are wrapped in burqas and Dodd himself, a putative Catholic, is taxed for his non-belief. That is the way things were in the good old days of the 10th century, and terrorists in and outside of Iraq are striving to reestablish their supremacy over the West – which is to say, over everything to which D...