Say Anything Blog

Guess how many times Rev. Jeremiah “God Damn America” Wright is mentioned in the page A1 story about Obama’s faith in the Washington Post?

Zero.

But I guess there’s no sense mentioning the man, in an article about Obama’s spiritual side, who married Barack to his wife, baptized his children, worked for his campaign, wrote the sermon Obama named a book and his campaign theme after and presided over the church he attended for two decades.

That’d just be too inconvenient for Obama.

How terribly inconvenient for Barack Obama and the rest of the Iraq war defeatists.

“They [the terrorists] were intending to besiege Baghdad and control it,” al-Maliki said. “But thanks to the will of the tribes, security forces, army and all Iraqis, we defeated them.”

He was speaking at ceremonies marking the fifth anniversary of the assassination in 2003 of Ayatollah Mohammed Baqir al-Hakim, a leading opponent of Saddam Hussein who was killed in a truck bombing in Najaf after returning from exile in Iran.

What will the liberals do if our troops end up leaving Iraq a relatively stable country (compared to the rest of the middle east and what it was before) with a representative government?

But isn’t trying to corral the stupid, uninformed voters part of every election?

This really isn’t anything new.

Allah from Hot Air adds:

...if they want to be cheeky, they should put out a new ad congratulating Barry O on his newfound openness to stability-driven “refinements” of his withdrawal plan. Imagine some lefty turning on his TV to find that spot running: “Vets for Freedom salutes its newest ally in the fight for victory in Iraq: Sen. Barack Obama.”

I don’t think they left generally cares that Obama is in the process of flip-flopping on the war.  They know he can’t campaign as the liberal he is and expect to win.  They know he has to be dishonest about his policy preferences to get elected.  And, for the most part, they’re fine with that.

Hot Air has a story about the Democrats’ money woes going into their convention, with this little gem from the NYT inside it:

The Democratic National Convention Committee decided not to take cheap office space and instead rented top-quality offices in downtown Denver at $100,000 a month, only to need less than half the space, which it then filled with rental furniture at $50,000 a month.

$150K a month, for twice as much premium office space than it needs...if the Dems are willing to blow that much of their donors’ money lavishly before the convention, how many more of the taxpayers’ bucks do you think that Democratic Party control will squander should they take control of the White House in November?

Cross Posted at Proof Positive

The RNC is running this ad in Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin:

Powerful stuff.  I don’t think McCain is any great shakes when it comes to energy policy, but Obama is certainly terrible on it as his policy is little more than a copy of the Democrat playbook on energy.  Namely, tax the hell out of energy producers while standing in the way of efforts to increase domestic supplies of energy such as oil and nuclear power.

Which isn’t so much a “plan” as an amalgamation of favors to various anti-oil, anti-corporate, and/or environmental special interests.

Do we really want these chuckleheads running our country?

Some of the Democratic missteps started soon after planning for the event began. The Democratic National Convention Committee decided not to take cheap office space and instead rented top-quality offices in downtown Denver at $100,000 a month, only to need less than half the space, which it then filled with rental furniture at $50,000 a month. And in a costly misstep, the Denver host committee, early on, told corporate donors that their contributions were not tax-deductible, rather than to encourage donations by saying that the tax-exempt application was pending and expected to be approved.

Overly ambitious environmental goals — to turn the event into a “green” convention — have backfired as only three states’ full delegations have so far agreed to participate in the program. Negotiations over where to locate demonstrators remain unsettled with members of the national news media concerned over proposals to locate the demonstrators — with their loud gatherings — next to the media tent.

And then there is the food: A 28-page contract requested by Denver organizers that caterers provide food in “at least three of the following five colors: red, green, yellow, blue/purple and white.” Garnishes could not be counted toward the colors. No fried foods would be allowed. Organic and locally grown foods were mandated, and each plate had to be 50 percent fruits and vegetables. As a result, caterers are shying away.

For the Democratic Party, the danger is that a poorly run convention, or one that misses the mark financially, will reflect badly on the party and raise questions about Democratic management skills. And more worrisome for the Obama campaign is that it will be left with the bill for overruns or fund-raising shortfalls, and that the candidate will have to compete in raising money against a convention effort desperate for cash.

Funny that the “we’re the voice of people” journalists don’t want the actual voices of the people anywhere near their tent.  I guess the Democrats will have to move the free speech cages somewhere else.

Anyway, as Ed Morrissey notes:

In some ways, it provides an excellent manifestation of Democratic governance.  Underfunded, overspent, and chock-full of unrealistic mandates…

Indeed.

Real subtle, Bubba.

Bill Clinton is speaking at the Aspen Ideas Festival, and he said just now, apropos of almost nothing (actually, during a long peroration on Nelson Mandela): “Every living soul on this planet has some highly-justified anger. Everyone. If you know anybody who was a P.O.W. for any time, they can be going on for years and all of a sudden something will happen that will trigger all those bad memories.”

Does anyone on the left really think these attacks on McCain’s service in the military are going to get them anywhere?  They come off as mean and petty, and given how most Americans feel about military veterans I just don’t see them getting a lot of traction.  I don’t think McCain’s military service, outside of speaking to his character, is in and of itself a qualification for the man to be President (it should be noted that McCain himself has never made that claim) but attacking that service is just going to reflect more on those doing the attacking than on McCain himself.

They’d be better off sticking to criticisms of some very real problems with McCain’s policy choices and leadership as a US Senator.

Update: Here’s the video.

Doh:

“I’m surprised at how finely calibrated every single word was measured. I wasn’t saying anything I hadn’t said before, that I didn’t say a year ago or when I was a United States senator,” said Obama, who is still a senator from Illinois.

Presumptuous, no?  But not surprising from a guy who had his own presidential seal made up for himself before he’s even accepted his party’s nomination as a candidate let alone won the election.

Discussion question: Wouldn’t it be a bit more proper for candidates like Obama, and McCain for that matter, to resign their seats in Congress so that their constituents are still served properly even as they campaign for higher office?

Andy McCarthy from the National Review posts the following about the new questions surrounding Obama’s birth certificate which I posted about yesterday:

My predisposition on the many stories floating around about Obama and his circle is to ignore them on the following theory:  If there was really anything to this or that, the Clintons would have found it and gotten their media friends all over it.  This story about Obama’s eligibility puzzles me because (a) it is so basic, (b) it should be so easy to prove the relevant facts of his birth, (c) the Obama campaign’s response to the story is bizarre, and (d) it seems to be getting worse rather than resolved.

That pretty much sums up my feelings about this.  It’s hard to believe that the circumstances of Obama’s birth aren’t exactly what the campaign tell us they are, but with these seemingly legitimate questions swirling about the circumstances of that birth and veracity of government birth documents acknowledged as accurate by the campaign its also hard to imagine why the campaign doesn’t just order a release of a hard copy of the birth certificate from the appropriate state authority and be done with it.

If there’s something here that the Obama campaign is hiding, that’s bad.  But if there’s nothing to this and Obama is such an ineffectual leader that his campaign can’t even figure out how to squash something like this, is that not equally as bad?

Neither circumstance speaks highly of Obama.

A couple of interesting video clips from Ted Koppel on ABC’s This Week.  First up, here’s Ted talking about how Obama is just now realizing that blunt promises to withdraw the troops from Iraq do not a sound foreign policy make:

With even mainstream media reporters owning up to the fact that abandoning Iraq isn’t sound policy I think it’s time for the left, up to and including Barack Obama himself, to admit that they’ve been wrong about Iraq all the time.  That it hasn’t been a failure.  That success has been possible all this time.

They won’t admit it, of course, but they should because it’s true.  President Bush is going to leave office with Iraq - and by extension the middle east in general - in much better shape than it was when he came into office.  And that fact is a terrible rebuttal of the liberal lefts incessant defeatism.

The second video here shows Koppel, no doubt in pain from having to criticize the liberal messiah in the first clip, telling us all how Obama’s flip-flops on issues as he enters the general election show how he’s a “tough” candidate.

Personally, I don’t think politicians trying to confuse the public as to their true policy positions is “tough” at all.  I think it’s a crass and cynical ploy from a power-hungry politician who will say anything to get elected.

We all know Obama is moving to the center because he knows he can’t get elected as the far-left, Daily Kos/New York Times candidate he was in the primaries.  We all know that, should he take office, he’ll govern as the far-left liberal candidate he was in the primaries.  Therefore, we all know that this “move to the center” stuff we’re seeing from Obama is calculated to mask the sort of leader he really is.

It’s all a lie, in other words, and there’s nothing “tough” or even positive about that.

Earlier today The Whistler took The Grand Forks Herald to task for softball coverage of Subprime Senator Kent Conrad’s apparent quid pro quo arrangements with Countrywide Mortgage.  Conrad’s shady dealings have gotten a significant amount of coverage in the national media (and scant, going-through-the-motions coverage from the North Dakota media) but here’s one aspect of the scandal that isn’t getting much coverage.

Why is Kent Conrad, the Democrats’ self-proclaimed “budget hawk” who has been ardent in his criticism of Republicans for deficit spending, working personally to pass $300 billion in bailout spending for one of the biggest, most lucrative industries in America?

Conrad’s buddy Angelo Mozilo is CEO of Countrywide Mortgage which just happens to be the biggest player in the mortgage industry and thus stands to gain the most from the bailout legislation Conrad personally ushered through the Senate Budget Committee.  Mozilo himself makes tens of millions of dollars more per year than much-maligned Exxon CEO Lee Raymond.  Countrywide itself takes in about $13 billion a year in revenue, and generates about $2.5 billion/year in net income.  Sure the company may be hitting a rocky spots now, but why should the taxpayers be responsible for bailing them out?  The company has made billions of dollars in the past.

And Kent Conrad, Mr. I’m-Oh-So-Concerned-About-Budget-Deficits, is in favor of passing legislation potentially tens of billions of dollars for Countrywide?

I guess Conrad’s budget hawkishness goes out the window if you grease his palm right.

According to the ”news service that no one quotes any more”, the US recently completed a secret operation to remove 550 metric tons of yellowcake from Iraq.
For those of you unconvinced of Uncle Saddam’s nuclear program, that’s:

Five hundred
and fifty
metric
tons.

That’s nearly one and one quarter million pounds.

Of yellowcake.

Yellowcake is used in the preparation of fuel for nuclear reactors...to produce enriched uranium suitable for use in weapons and reactors.

I’m sure Uncle Saddam, in oil rich Iraq, was only going to use a million pounds of yellowcake to produce clean energy for...the children!

Hat tip LGF
Cross Posted at Proof Positive

Last week the Subprime Senator paid a visit to the Grand Forks Herald’s editorial staff.  He was rewarded with two puff pieces in the Wednesday newspaper, one a “news” story on the front page and the other a editorial.  Both of these were egregious in a number of ways. 

I posted on the “news” story on Thursday. I meant to get to the editorial written by Tom Dennis for the editorial board sooner than this but the Fourth of July family commitments had me tied up.  So without further ado I’ll get into the editorial. 

I think what’s really funny is how this editorial while being as syrupy as it can get makes provisions just in case further information comes out.  It seems to me that if Conradwide had any credibility they wouldn’t feel the need to do this over and over.  That means to me that they think he’s guilty but nobody’s going to find a smoking gun.  Come to think of it, if the Herald believes that then they’d probably be right for once.

If that [more incriminating evidence emerging] happened, of course it would change our view. But we suspect it won’t happen, because Conrad’s reputation and past conduct as well as the current lineup of evidence all point to innocence rather than guilt.

Actually it’s unlikely because they’ll explain away any evidence that comes up.  It’s been reported in the media that there’s a memo from this Mozilo that told his subordinates to take a point off for the Subprime Senator.  If that’s not good enough then nothing will be. 

Conrad visited the Herald editorial board Tuesday and made his case. He got or refinanced loans from Countrywide four times beginning in 2002, he said. Three of those transactions took place entirely at market rates, Conrad claimed (and offered interest rate snapshots and other documents to support).

Those claims would ring false if evidence of sweetheart deals at below-market rates had surfaced. But as far as we know, no critic has found a meaningful disparity in the deals Conrad got and the rates that were available at the time.

As for the fourth loan, there is evidence that Angelo Mozilo, Countrywide’s CEO, told his subordinates to take one point off of Conrad’s closing-cost fees. Conrad says he wasn’t aware of this discount. When he learned of it a few weeks ago, he donated the amount — $10,500 — to charity.

What does it matter that only one loan was dirty?  Would a judge buy a shoplifters excuse that he paid for three CD’s and only had one under his shirt?  The other thing apparently the fact that Countrywide waived the rules in order to finance his apartment house in Bismarck has gone down the memory hole.

Maybe Mozilo shaved the point because Conrad is a senator. Or maybe not. Maybe he discounted points for many dozens or hundreds of people for any number of reasons. Mozilo’s motives for that action haven’t been fully established yet.

This is probably the worst statement in this whole editorial.  For what other reason would Mozilo cut Conrad a deal? We know that Conrad didn’t get a break because of his sparkling personality.  Kent Conrad’s an utterly unremarkable person except that he happens to be a fairly seniro US Senator. 

Apparently the Herald’s just going to play stupid on this point.  Unbelievable.

In recent weeks, the Herald, the North Dakota Republican Party and others have raised questions that Conrad answered more fully on Tuesday. For example:

n the early days of the Conrad/Countrywide affair, many reporters called, and Conrad spoke to most of them. But telling the same story so often to so many led to seeming, rather than actual, contradictions.

You know it’s always best to stick to the truth when you’re going to be asked to recount a story a number of times.  After all it’s easier to remember.

I don’t recall the Herald asking any hard questions.  In fact they didn’t do any original reporting that I can tell.  But that’s besides the point.  What is important is that the Herald never questioned these multiple stories and only address them in order to help with the cover-up.  Did Conrad say he never met the man and only later admit he had called him on the phone.  Did he then say that Mozilo only happened to be in his buddy Johnson’s office when he called him looking for advice.  (If that doesn’t light up the BS meter nothing will.) (Oh and when is the Herald going to question Conrad on his friendship with Fannie Mae scammer James Johnson.  (The guy that was too sleazy for Obama to keep on his VP vetting staff.)

The Subprime Senator has told other stories that show a pattern of lying.  He said that the house was his wife’s when the public record documents prove that it belongs to both of them.  He said that he wanted to disclose the fact that he owned a 1.4 million dollar beach home but the security people in the Senate wouldn’t let him.  That’s obviously false because he lists his Washington DC residence and his official residence (that he probably has never stayed in) in Bismarck on the forms.  Besides using public records Rob found it in a matter of minutes. 

Conrad’s now-clarified version of events has him talking to Mozilo only once on the phone, and then for only about a minute or less. (The conversation took place two years before the “point shaving,” by the way.)

What does two years have to do with anything?  The fact of the matter is Mozilo wanted to do a favor for a US Senator hoping to get a favor back when he needed it. 

“Why the extraordinary help in bailing out Countrywide?” as a Herald “Viewpoint” column asked last week.

Conrad claims he gave routine, not extraordinary, help to a bill bailing out the mortgage industry, not Countrywide specifically.

Once again the Herald is silent on the issue, only allowing it to be mentioned in a “viewpiont” article submitted by the head of the Republican party.  That way they can pretend that this is a partisan issue rather than one of a politician doing favors for a person who gave them a large, personal gift. 

The “routine” help that Conrad did for Countrywide was waiving the budget rules for a THREE HUNDRED BILLION DOLLAR MORTGAGE BAILOUT BILL.  Is there anything routine about that bill?  I’m sure that the Herald got example of other similar bills in scope that he performed this “routine” help. 

Comeon Tom there was nothing routine about this bill!

Yes it does help the morgage industry as a whole but so what.  Even if Countrywide wasn’t the biggest player in the market it would make sense for them to have a friendly US Senator on their side.  Is the Herald going to claim that this THREE HUNDRED BILLION DOLLAR MORTGAGE BAILOUT BILL doesn’t help Countrywide many times more than the $10,700 gift they gave Conrad?

That must have been some phone call in 2002 if it predicted the entire housing crisis and engineered Congress’ response, Conrad suggested.

This is the stupidest argument out there Kent.  Do you think that a huge business in a heavily regulated industry doesn’t want to have favors owed to them by a US Senator for whatever reason might come down the pipe?  I’m sure that if the subprime crisis wouldn’t have happened there still would have been mortgage laws being debated in the Senate and in committees that Kent Conrad sits on. 

I think Countrywide looked on is like having a lawyer on retainer.  It might be an expense today but it’ll pay off in the long run.

“How does the Senate’s self-proclaimed ‘numbers guy’ not know the most basic facts about his own mortgage?” last week’s Viewpoint also asked.

But remember, Conrad says that none of his four mortgages got interest-rate discounts, and only one saw the shaving of a single point. And points vary enough between lenders to make “missing” this discount a reasonable claim.

Once again the Herald ignores the fact that Countrywide waived the rules to finance his apartment complex in Bismarck.  (In other stories Conrad claimed this was routine.  Just like it was routine for him to waive the budget rules to help Countrywide out.)

I like how the Herald emphasizes that no interest rates were cut.  Tom, nobody ever claimed that he got a break on his interest rates.  What he did get was a $10,700 personal gift in the form of a point waived.

Apparently the Grand Forks Herald is ok with North Dakota’s US Senator getting that kind of deal and turning around and giving extraordinary help to give the mortgage industry a gift of taxpayers money amount to THREE HUNDRED BILLION DOLLARS.

This editorial was written by Tom Dennis for the editorial board.  I suspect that the actual tone of the article was set by someone in Fargo and Tom (who I respect) was only writing it the way he was told to. 

Ever wonder how Code Pink moonbats get into Presidential speeches? Like the one that heckled President Bush on the Fourth?  LGF points to a Kossack who brags about making phony press passes for them!

Ever since I figured out how to duplicate Medea’s (Benjamin) press pass for other members of CodePink, I have been doing so with her blessing. Since Medea is the founding director and CEO of Global Exchange as well as one of the founders of CodePink, how I implemented it may be a bit of a hack; but it is quite legitimate insofar that yes, these are valid press passes for a news organization, created with the full knowledge and permission of the company director.

Sounds to me like maybe the Secret Service needs to do better background checks on those claiming to be members of the Fourth Estate!

Cross Posted at Proof Positive

When Medal of Honor recipient Mike Monsoor was laid to rest in San Diego, nearly every Navy Seal on the West Coast showed up to honor him.
Part of their tribute to their fallen comrade is slowly gaining attention.

During the service, as Monsoor’s coffin was taken from the hearse to the gravesite, Navy SEALs lined up in two columns. As the coffin passed, video shows each SEAL slapping down the gold Trident from his uniform and deeply embedding it in Monsoor’s wooden coffin. The slaps were reportedly heard across the cemetery.
The symbolic display moved many, included Bush, who during his speech in April’s Medal of Honor ceremony spoke about the incident.
“The procession went on nearly half an hour,” Bush said. “And when it was all over, the simple wooden coffin had become a gold-plated memorial to a hero who will never be forgotten.”

The account of Monsoor’s heroism has been related here at Say Anything before. This was a tribute to his life.

Cross Posted at Proof Positive

Clear as mud:

ST. LOUIS - Barack Obama said Saturday that he was surprised at how the media has “finely calibrated” his recent words on Iraq, and denied that he intends to anything but end the war if he is elected.

“I was a little puzzled by the frenzy that I set off by what I thought was a pretty innocuous statement,” the expected Democratic presidential nominee told reporters flying with him to Missouri from Montana. “I am absolutely committed to ending the war.”

On Thursday in North Dakota, Obama said that “I’ll ... continue to refine my policy” on Iraq after an upcoming trip there. With a promise to end the war the central premise of his candidacy, the Obama campaign has struggled over the past two days to push back against Republicans and others who say his recent statement could be a softening.

So what Obama is telling us now is that he’s already made up his mind on his Iraq policy and that a visit to the country, something that has been recommended even by liberal rags like The New Yorker so that Obama can update his outdated stance on the war, won’t do a thing to change it?  And that his previous comments about “refining” his stance after a visit to the country weren’t really meant to imply any refinement at all?

That would be a blatant admission of lying on the campaign trail, and if it’s the case, why even bother visiting the country?

By the way, I think it’s rather sad that Obama would come to a red state like North Dakota and talk a bunch of phony baloney about refining his Iraq position, only to leave the state and tell the national media that what he told the rubes out in fly-over country was, in fact, phony baloney.

Personally, I thought the rumors circulating about Barack Obama’s Hawaiian birth certificate were put to bed when Daily Kos posted a copy of Obama’s birth certificate which the Obama campaign promptly acknowledged was genuine.

Now, however, some serious questions are being raised about the provenance of the birth certificate image posted at the Daily Kos.  An apparently government-trained documents expert named Jay Mckinnon has posted faked images of Hawaiian birth certificates on the internet, and those fakes share a lot of similarities to the image of the birth certificate purporting to belong to Obama:

One image created and posted by opendna is what he describes as a “blank template” of a State of Hawaii Certification of Live Birth. Only two data fields are filled in: the ISLAND OF BIRTH ("Oahu") and the HOUR OF BIRTH (7:24 PM). Neither of the images have a posted date stamp, but embedded EXIF information contains the time stamp of June 12 at 8:24am, the same day and time Daily Kos posted the purported Obama birth certificate.

Both images lack two salient characteristics present in the Barack Obama birth certificate images claimed by the Daily Kos blog and Obama’s “Fight the Smears” site. The Field under CERTIFICATE NO is blank whereas on the purported “Obama birth certificate” that area is blacked out as if to conceal a real number. In addition, the two documents posted to the opendna account lack the reversed date (June 6, 2007) that appears at the bottom of the purported “Obama birth certificate.”

However, the ISLAND OF BIRTH and the HOUR OF BIRTH is identical on the “Haye I.B Ahphorgerie” and blank certificates as well as the purported “Obama birth certificate,” which also claims 7:24 pm as the HOUR OF BIRTH and Oahu as the ISLAND OF BIRTH. The odds of an identical time occurring by chance in two certificates is 1440 to 1. Either the former is derived from the latter, or the latter is derived from the former.

If “Haye I.B Ahphorgerie” were derivative of the purported “Obama birth certificate,” it would have meant that—in a matter of minutes on the morning of June 12, 2008, opendna would have had to tracelessly erase all fields (save ISLAND OF BIRTH and the HOUR OF BIRTH), and to painstakingly remove the blacked out area near CERTIFICATE NO and the reversed date that appears at the bottom of the purported “Obama birth certificate.” Given the complexity of the background pattern, it would have been difficult to do this without leaving behind traces of the extractions. For what motive would one want to do this?

At first blush I thought the birth certificate controversy was rather silly.  Just another derivative of the constant furor over Obama’s funny-sounding name.  Like maybe some of the people demanding to see the birth certificate were thinking that if Obama’s real middle name turned out to be “Mohammed” his campaign might be sunk.

But this issue has serious consequences attached to it.  If it turns out that Obama wasn’t born in the United States, for instance, he may not be eligible to run for the Presidency.  The Obama campaign has been less than forthcoming about this birth certificate, despite rumors circulating about it for months now, and that’s only added to the controversy.  Why is the Daily Kos the only place where Obama’s birth certificate has ever appeared?  Why hasn’t Obama just issued his birth certificate, something that would both stop the rumor mills and make his critics look foolish for taking up the issue?

The questions deserve answers from Obama himself, I think, and until he provides them this controversy is only going to grow.

A preemptive strike against Americans who may be poised to flee an impending Obama administration’s tax-and-spend policies?

You probably didn’t notice this little provision inserted into the Heroes Act of 2008, passed by Congress on June 17.

The headlines in the press release about the law were about the increased benefits for veterans and families of deceased military.

But Richard Kohan of Price WaterhouseCoopers drew my attention to one section of the act—the portion that states anyone voluntarily giving up his or her citizenship will be taxed on ALL of his assets as if he or she had sold them—paying capital gains on assets that have increased in value, even though they have not been sold!

That’s right. While everyone in the media is focused on keeping aliens out of America, Congress has voted to lock its citizens—or at least a good portion of their assets—into—America! Maybe they’re thinking that patriotism won’t be enough to keep the smart money from recognizing the coming increases in the tax burden.

Ask yourself: What revenue need in the government does this tax serve?  If your answer is “I don’t know” you begin to see why taxation for any purpose other than raising revenue necessary for government is a very bad thing.

By allowing politicians to pass things like “sin” taxes into our tax code for the purpose of deterring certain types of behavior - or passing tax exemptions and deductions for things like buying a hybrid vehicle to encourage certain types of behavior - we’ve opened the door to politicians being able to control us through taxation.

A sort of back door tyranny.  The founders never intended that government should dictate to us what vehicles we can drive, etc. but by using the power of taxation the government can exert that control anyway, albeit in a more limited sense.

We should demand that the tax code be simplified, and that taxation be limited to revenue-raising purposes only and not bouts of social engineering or outright attempts to deny citizens the liberty to move as we see in this instance.

I was truly saddened… and angered… to read this story.  It would be nice to know that Britain has a death penalty… and would use it.

A man has been charged with killing a former soldier allegedly attacked on a bus after telling thugs not to swear in front of a lady.

Stan Dixon, 60, had been fighting for life since the attack on Saturday but died in hospital yesterday, police revealed today.

A 23-year-old man initially arrested on suspicion of causing grievous bodily harm with intent has now been charged with the murder.

Mr Dixon, renowned for his traditional values, was travelling home with his 41-year-old partner on Saturday evening when he heard the group’s bad language.

He asked them to refrain from swearing in front of a woman - but the couple were met with a torrent of abuse.

To avoid any further confrontation, they decided to get off at an earlier stop than they had planned.

But as they stood at the doors of the bus, which was nearing Mr Dixon’s home in Horden, County Durham, two of the gang allegedly pushed him in the back.

The father of three fell forwards off the bus, on to the road where he collapsed unconscious with major head injuries.

This is not at all unlike all those young thugs in this country who feel compelled to share their taste for 600 watts of vile, foul-languaged Gangsta’ Rap with anyone and everyone within ten car lengths.

But there is another, more universal lesson to be learned from this incident:  Avoiding a confrontation with evil, a form of appeasement, can have its own, deadly consequences.  Neville Chamberlain was a WWI veteran who tried to avoid confrontation.  The price paid for his appeasement was hideously spread all across the globe.