Say Anything Blog

I’d missed the story when it surfaced a few months ago but a law professor makes the case that he isn’t because he was born in the Panama Canal Zone before citizenship was granted to children of Americans living there. I’m sure he’ll run whether he’s technically eligible or not although I’d hate to be the judge forced to rule on the issue.

It’s too bad for those of my Constitutional Originalist friends that aren’t totally happy with McCain as nominee that they didn’t latch on to this earlier.

Where ever you are.

Speech Warriors expressed shock and the whole world sighed in relief as the Canadian Human Rights Commission delivered its predictable verdict in the Macleans case this week.

In its ruling, posted on Maclean’s website, the commission acknowledges “the writing is polemical, colourful and emphatic, and was obviously calculated to excite discussion and even offend certain readers, Muslim and non-Muslim alike.”

But the commission also says that, overall, “the views expressed in the Steyn article, when considered as a whole and in context, are not of an extreme nature, as defined by the Supreme Court.”

While doubtless of little solace to Mr. Steyn and a group of Canadian writers seeking to wring every last drop of martyrdom from the affair, the reasonable ruling demonstrates that, once again, the system works if you let it.

Well done CHRC.

A blast from the past, courtesy Matthew Yglesias, as Fareed Zakaria recalls the horror that was Ronald Reagan’s “appeasement” of the Soviet Union. Gnash your teeth along with Newt as he denounces Reagan’s visit to Moscow as

“The most dangerous summit for the West since Adolph Hitler met with Chamberlain.”

Consistency in thought and action is the hallmark of the true conservative IMO.

I’m surprised SA readers aren’t all over the Larry Sinclair news conference held yesterday in Washington. You’ll remember Larry as the guy who claimed to have “commingled” with Senator Obama in the back of a limousine. The press were not convinced apparently and Larry’s performance concluded with his arrest on an outstanding Colorado warrant. Pandagon has the salient, if not salacious, details...I liked the comment from Sinclair’s lawyer best.

It might if Presidential Airways can persuade a Florida court considering a lawsuit arising from a plane crash in Afghanistan. Details are here.

I see that the ranks opposed to same sex marriage have been joined publically by one Khalid Sheik Mohammed, leader of the 911 attack in 2001. I’m confident that this development will not tip the balance in favour of the California Proposition to exclude same sex marraige from Constitutional protection although I am routinely accused of underestimating the threat the jihadist movement poses.

I’m not suggesting that an actual alliance or conspiracy exists to defeat the movement for equality rights...it’s more like a confluence of interests shared by groups with certain fundamental views of what constitutes appropriate behaviour.

I also firmly reject the premise that those sharing Al Qaeda’s opposition to same sex marriage are in any way supporting the goals of international jihadism. It is quite possible to be a patriot and support aspects of the jihadist philosophy IMO.

Phase 2 of the Senate Intelligence Committee’s report on prewar intelligence in Iraq has finally been released and it would seem that some Administration claims could not be supported by the intelligence.

Despite the claims of Dick Cheney and several of the usual suspects at SA that Muhammad Atta met with Iraqi intelligence in 2001, the meeting could not be verified by American intelligence.

Despite statements by the President and the Vice President indicating that Saddam Hussein was prepared to give WMD to terrorist groups for attacks against the United States, the actual intelligence contradicted that possibility.

I suppose they had their reasons for making unsubstantiated statements or perhaps the statements can be substantiated through avenues other than American intelligence but such behaviour seems a little reckless to me.

Courtesy of the fine folks at abu muqawama...a very fine blog by the way.

P.M. Maliki...Sec. Gates...Gen. Petraeus...it’s the trifecta of defeatists!

Douglas Feith’s piece in today’s WSJ has a little bit of something for everyone. Feith addresses the faulty intelligence and WMD issues and illustrates how differences within leadership play out when trying to formulate and sell policy. I’m gratified that, like me, Feith detects the significant change in emphasis the Bush Administration placed on the justification for the Iraqi operation and correctly highlights the lack of a coherent and consistent rationale as an erly step towards the public view of the Administration as less than fully competent and reliable.

Others will certainly find aspects of interest to chew on...check it out if you haven’t already.

I’ve got your appeasement right here.

Talking with the enemy...what’s next?

About Wall Street and the credit crisis that is. My favourite line:

One truth, that deregulation is sometimes a good thing, has been followed down so long and winding a road that it has led to an immense lie: that deregulation carried to an extreme will not lead to calamity.

If Ben Stein understands this then there really isn’t any excuse for thoughtful observers not to get it. As little regulation as possible but enough to ensure fairness and stability. It is sometimes necessary to restrain human greed, not to save people from themselves but to ensure that those people don’t muck it up for the rest of us.

Stein’s piece is here.

I was glancing around Tony Zirkle’s website today and was pleasantly surprised to find the rich collection of links to an assortment of wacky and zany sites. For the uninitiated, Tony is running for Congress in Indiana and is currently in the news due to an appearance at the National Socialist Workers Party’s celebration of Hitler’s birthday.

Tony likely has less than a snowball’s chance in hell of seeing the inside of Congress in any capacity other than that of tourist as his views don’t represent more than an insignificant blemish on the American body politic. That said, if you’re a sucker for oddballs with odd ideas who link to odd sites, and I certainly am, then you could do much worse than checking him out.

Today’s Globe and Mail quotes Jimmy Carter as saying that Hamas is prepared to accept the right of Israel to “live as a neighbour next door in peace.” This would be very good news if true and once again demonstrates the importance of talking with enemies and even hugging them when circumstances warrant.

Recognising most readers’ distaste for Hamas and the even greater sense of aversion for Jimmy Carter, I expect that this news will only please about three or four of us SA regulars. Nevertheless, I’m hoping that Carter’s impressions are accurate and that Hamas will be engaged in dialogue sooner rather than later.