Tuesday, July 31, 2007

Mea Culpa (just a little)


Earlier on the blog, I wrote a piece coming to the
defence of former Senator, and aspiring presidential
candidate, Fred Thompson. I double checked my facts,
as much as one can with the resources at my disposal,
and went ahead with the story. It now turns out, the
story has some merit, though not to the extremes that
the LA Times is claiming.

The Thompson camp, after a story published by the New York Times,
and backed by the always reliable National Review, admitted that Thompson
had indeed done some brief lobbying for planned parenthood organisations,
to obtain federal funding for abortions.

Now, let it be noted that a lawyer working as a lobbyist takes on a plethora
of clients, and his job is to be an advocate for his client's views, even if
they often do not reflect his own - just like a defence lawyer takes on
clients, who have more than often done things, he, or she, may find horrifying.

The full picture, as an op-ed piece on NRO points outs, is murkier than
we would like it to be. Recently revealed letters to constituents show
that his beliefs in the mid 1990, clearly indicated that he leaned towards
the pro-choice position. Mr. Thompson's voting record, however, has
always been solidly pro-life.

A murky situation indeed, especially when Thompson proclaimed that
he couldn't possibly fathom how anyone could paint him as pro-choice.
Regrettably, as the Thompson camp has now had to concede, the evidence
shows how one could indeed come to that conclusion.

But let's give the benefit of the doubt to old Fred. 15 years ago is a long
time, and his voting record to the pro-life cause has always been solid.
Perhaps he, like many others, changed his mind over the years, as I'm
sure many voters have. This is not unheard of, and can hardly be
called a latter-day conversion, like that of Mitt Romney. (pardon the pun).

As for me, I am guilty of jumping too quickly to defend Mr Thompson,
and for that, my readers may declare shenanigans on me. (that's a South
Park reference if that went over your head). Thompson's situation is confusing,
but his voting record is not. Let's give the benefit of the doubt to Mr. Thompson,
and those who choose not to, better be prepared to remember projects they were
working on 15 years ago as well. Rest assured, the Thompson team is working
over time to remind them of when, and for whom, they were working for.

Cordially

Joe

Sunday, July 22, 2007

Weekend Update...Sort Of



Really, unless you're a student, government employee, or someone lucky enough
to still 9 to 5 it up, Dolly Parton style, few of us have a Saturday-Sunday weekend. That said, I can't fathom why I feel obsessed with being so pedantic about posting
weekend updates before Friday. My own "weekend", as I now think the word deserves
quotations, falls on Thursday and Friday, which is actually a Muslim weekend, and almost a
Hebrew one. So Mazoltoff! to all my Jewish readers, and Molotov! to all the Islamo fascists out
there.

I went to a local Irish Eatery, where I had chicken curry smothered on french fries, which
to me, is like slathering Bechamel sauce on cheesecake. Now, I hear in that part
of the world, curry and chips is all the rage, especially in England, where it is not the culinary
abomination that it sounds like. Anyway, the curry was passable, but the mushed concoction
made it feel like East Indian Leprechauns where jumping up and down on my stomach.

Anyway, my weekend, was beset with a slight malaise, topped with a sprinkling of
melancholy, but it went better than this poor schmuck in Thailand who has become
yet another victim of an increasing number of Bizarre elephant tramplings. The poor chap
is quite dead, but happily, the elephant was subdued with bananas. I guess he got so
hungry, he thought smashing someones skull might prove to be a clever way to incorporate
more fruit into his diet. (note that the header for the story reads; "Angry Elephant Stomps
man to Death". Maybe if he had shined up on his happy, he would have had more bananas
to begin with.)

My Girlfriend is still in the big city, and I am anxiously waiting her return in several weeks.
Hopefully she won't come back wearing Prada and lamenting about you just can't get
any decent theatre in the Maritimes. I'm teasing. She's going to be the same girl
I love when she gets back, as she was when she left.
Cordially

Joe

Saturday, July 21, 2007

The Anderson Cooper Pooper Scooper

My friends and acquaintances know that I am like an urban Bedouin.
It seems that fate, circumstance, sprinkled with sometimes, plain old
bad luck, require me to move more than I would like.

Granted, never feeling settled down for any extended period of
time can be tiring, but I have always believed that home is where
there is love and friends, so in a sense, I'm always home, at least
with a few exceptions from my past, which I care not to rekindle.

Now, the only real caveat to my constant gypsie-like ways, is
that sometimes I am without my lifeline, my current events
thermometer, the only station no self respecting conservative
can do without - Fox News.

I'm not going to get into a long winded defence of why Fox news is, I think,
though not perfect, at least the best cable news network out there. The
other two options being CNN, the mouthpiece for left of center democrats,
and Johny-come-lately populists, and MSNBC, the far left, low rated
mess of a news station, often jokingly referred to in the industry as
"a website with a news channel".

Seeing that I don't miss MSNBC when I move to a place where there's
no digital cable, I'm forced to endure the rantings of the pod-people at
CNN, who usually devote an entire news day to whatever non-celebrity
has gotten themselves into some kind of substance related trouble, or have
assumed room temperature, because of their substance related trouble.

I don't know who the producer is for CNN's dreadful morning show,
but if the current trend continues, I'm sure to be shedding my temporary
fat pants, and back into my pin striped, slim-jims in no time.

On Saturday morning, while munching on toast, I was informed of the
President's colonoscopy. Now, that doesn't gross me out, and I took
a certain glee that during the 2 hours that President Bush was
under anaesthesia, my man Dick Cheney was at the helm. (I can imagine
the hordes of unshaved Birkenstock clad liberals, dashing down to
Martha's Vineyard to hold each other.)

As I stated, the colonoscopy didn't turn me away from my Wonder bread,
it was the medical expert whom they selected that went into great
detail about how far this electronic probe would be inserted into poor
President Bush's colon.

After recovering from the details of the President's anus (everyone loves to chat
about poop over breakfast), I was lulled into a false sense of security and
after the commercial break, I was bombarded with stories and images
of the cruel things people do to puppies and animals. Lovely. It's not
even 8:30 AM.

Sure, the Fox morning team can cause me to want to cry as well.
There are only so many cute animal stories I can endure - like clips
of a deer running amok in someone's backyard set to "Flight if the
Bumblebees".

But at least Fox has the courage to call a spade a spade, and label "insurgents"
and "suicide bombers" as terrorists. They're not afraid to call pedophiles - creeps,
or uncover ramped corruption at the UN, which is being covered in every other
country across the world, except the United States.

If Anderson Cooper was so concerned about "Keeping Them Honest", as
his nightly segment so pompously asserts, perhaps he should wake up and
realize that he is not going to be crowned the Patron Saint of New Orleans, and
that no government policy can prevent natural disasters, or the mess they create
in their aftermath. Bad things happen Anderson. Hurricanes, the mess in New
Orleans and politicians wasting tax dollars are hardly headline news. Why
don't you stop trekking around the rain forest in your designer LL Bean cargo
shorts, rumpled just so by your producers, and start digging into the oil
for food scandal at the UN, that has affected more lives across more
continents than any other pedantic scandal you seem obsessed with.

Anyway, I'm off on a dinner date with 3 lady friends of mine, (yes
my girlfriend in the big city is aware of this), so I wish you all a
good weekend.

Cordially

Joe

Sunday, July 15, 2007

6 Degrees of Separation to No Where


Former Senator, Law And Order star, and potential presidential candidate,
Fred Thompson, is making some on the left very nervous. The Washington Prowler is reporting that the LA Times worked overtime to publish a story trying to link Mr. Thompson to various pro-choice groups, including planned parent hood.

The allegations date back to 1991, when Thompson held an office at the Ardent
Fox Law firm in Washington. The LA times has been feverishly to trying corroborate
implausible story that Thompson had been hired by the National Family Planning
and Reproductive Rights Association.

The reason the LA Times sat on the story for so long is that the ties that
bind Mr. Thompson to the radical organization, come by several degrees of separation.

Thompson only worked in the office, was never a partner, and primarily
worked out his home base in Nashville. What has got the Times grasping
at straws is that the National Family Planning and Reproductive rights director,
Judith Desarno, had a working relationship with Michael Barnes, A former
partner at the firm.

Even more foolish is the fact the same pro-choice organization that the
Times is trying to claim Thompson was hired by, once listed him as
"Anti-choice Enemy No. 1".

The foolish attempt to tie Thompson with the radical pro-abortion group, is
a clear signal that the LA Times, an accurate thermometer of the American Left,
is spooked by the prospect of Thompson's rising popularity in national polling.

Thompson is an eloquent speaker, with a solid conservative voting record, and his
ability to communicate ideas, in a plain, no-nonsense manner will have
enormous appeal to undecideds, conservatives who have felt alienated by
President Bush, and closet, pro-war democrats.

The liberal LA Times has much to fear from a potential Thompson Presidential bid,
and this attempt to undercut his stellar reputation amongst pro-life Republicans will
fail miserably.

The Times would be ill advised to mess with Fred Thompson, but if they

continue to do so, it will a jolly good time to watch them get pimp slapped

into next week.




Cordially



Joe