BROADSIDES

June 30, 2004

Witch Hunt
Hillary Clinton, are you now or have you ever been a communist?

We're saying that for America to get back on track, we're probably going to cut that short and not give it to you. We're going to take things away from you on behalf of the common good.

I'll take that as a "Yes!"

B. Sides @ 8:39 AM

June 25, 2004

Is That A Gavel In Your Pocket?
Judicial activism has run amok in Oklahoma. The Smoking Gun reports that Oklahoma's attorney general has petitioned for the removal of Creek County Judge Donald D. Thompson. It seems that Judge Thompson routinely masturbated with a penis pump while presiding over court.

Now we know why justice is blind.

B. Sides @ 9:33 AM

Meet Brian Chontosh
In a speech to the Marine Corps-Law Enforcement Foundation, Marine Corps Commandant General Michael W. Hagee told several stories of Marine heroism in Iraq.

The AFPS reports:

His first story was about the heroism of then-1st Lt. Brian Chontosh, who was recently promoted to captain.

While serving as a platoon commander in an armored Humvee with a .50-caliber machine gun mounted on top in Iraq, Chontosh was caught in an ambush. His platoon came under heavy enemy fire from AK-47 assault rifles, machine guns, rocket-propelled grenades and mortars. An RPG struck one of his Humvees, killing one Marine and wounding another.

"He was in the kill zone of the ambush," Hagee noted. "He saw the only way out was to drive right toward a .50-caliber machine gun. So he told his driver to attack that machine gun emplacement. The driver drove straight at it, and the machine gunner up top at point-blank range took out the Iraqi machine gun emplacement.

"He was still receiving fire, so he saw a trench line on his left and told his driver to go into the trench line," Hagee continued. "The good news is they got to the trench line. The bad news is it was an Iraqi trench line.

"This lieutenant got out of his vehicle with an M-16 in one hand and a 9 mm pistol in the other hand, and he started working his way down the trench line," Hagee continued. "He ran out of ammunition. He picked up an AK-47 and continued working down the trench line. He ran out of ammunition again. He picked up another AK-47 and continued working down the trench line. He reached the end of the trench line and there was an Iraqi machine gun emplacement sitting up on the top. He picked up an Iraqi RPG and took out that machine gun emplacement.

I'm sure glad Brian's on our side!

General Hagee said that Brian "didn't get a scratch--not one scratch." A few weeks ago, the general awarded Captain Chontosh the Navy Cross for bravery. "When I gave it to him," General Hagee related, "and thanked him for his service and what he'd done, he said, 'Sir, I was doing it for my Marines, to take care of my Marines.'"

The Navy Cross is the country's second highest bravery citation. It seems to me though that Brian's actions merit the Congressional Medal of Honor.

B. Sides @ 8:57 AM

June 24, 2004

The F Bomb
According to Drudge and a CNN report, Vice President Dick Cheney had a brief message for Vermont's most vile senator, Pat Leahy. Reacting to Comrade Leahy's baseless charges about Cheney and Halliburton, the Veep told Leahy, "Fuck you."

At this point, it's unknown if the vice president's declaration was inclusive of the horse Leahy rode in on.

B. Sides @ 9:33 PM

June 21, 2004

Presidential Honor
This week the news is again dominated by a former president. Bill Clinton is making the rounds promoting his newly published autobiography. In it, the former president shamelessly claims that his impeachment battle is "a badge of honor."

A twisted notion from a twisted mind.

Fortunately, Americans need only look to last week for many displays of true presidential honor. At the National Cathedral service for Ronald Reagan, Peggy Noonan experienced a sublime moment which is just one example:

I was walking down the aisle when someone called to me and said, "Peggy, Natan Sharansky": a small balding man who looks like a shy accountant. He was in the gulag when Ronald Reagan was president. He was in solitary confinement, and when word would reach him of Reagan's latest anticommunist speech, he would tap out in Morse code a message to his fellow prisoners. And now he was here, a free man, at the funeral of Ronald Reagan, who got him out of the gulag, which was run by Mikhail Gorbachev, who was right over there. Oh life, what a kick in the pants it can be. All I could do as it all flashed through my mind was ask if I could put my arms around him, and all I could think of say was, "Oh, Natan Sharansky." A beautiful moment for me.

B. Sides @ 1:18 PM

Great Headlines From The Onion
"Report: 9/11 Commission Could Have Been Prevented"

B. Sides @ 1:07 PM

Blot It With A Little Soda Water
The Man from Hope is a national joke. My favorite line from Bill Clinton's autobiography is about his impeachment. Claiming that the impeachment battle was "a badge of honor," Clinton concludes:

I don't see it as a stain ...

I'm sure Monica's drycleaner disagrees.

B. Sides @ 12:01 PM

June 14, 2004

A Passing Thought
Here's an idea: make Ronald Reagan's headstone out of a piece of the Berlin Wall.

Get right on that and report back to me when it's done.

B. Sides @ 11:47 PM

Parking Spot 4 Rent: LIKE NEW!!
Senate financial disclosures reveal that Senator Ted Kennedy has made "up to $2,500 in rental income for a single parking space in Boston," the AP reports.

Considering that Ted's car is under water, this is hardly a surprise.

B. Sides @ 11:25 PM

June 12, 2004

Zzzzzzzzzzzz
Via Drudge, the AP reports that "a Japanese company has developed a sleep machine system it says will deliver a full eight hours of Z's in your own bedroom. Matsushita Electric Works will open its 'Sleep Room' to the public in Tokyo next week, giving the weary a chance to get a scientific take on their sleep patterns — and take a nap."

And here are the Sleep Room's first customers.

B. Sides @ 1:05 AM

June 11, 2004

Tributes
"In 1983, I was confined to an eight-by-ten-foot prison cell on the border of Siberia. My Soviet jailers gave me the privilege of reading the latest copy of Pravda. Splashed across the front page was a condemnation of President Ronald Reagan for having the temerity to call the Soviet Union an 'evil empire.' Tapping on walls and talking through toilets, word of Reagan's 'provocation' quickly spread throughout the prison. We dissidents were ecstatic. Finally, the leader of the free world had spoken the truth--a truth that burned inside the heart of each and every one of us." -- Natan Sharansky, former Soviet political prisoner

"When talking about Ronald Reagan, I have to be personal. We in Poland took him so personally. Why? Because we owe him our liberty. This can't be said often enough by people who lived under oppression for half a century, until communism fell in 1989 ... I distinguish between two kinds of politicians. There are those who view politics as a tactical game, a game in which they do not reveal any individuality, in which they lose their own face. There are, however, leaders for whom politics is a means of defending and furthering values. For them, it is a moral pursuit. They do so because the values they cherish are endangered. They're convinced that there are values worth living for, and even values worth dying for. Otherwise they would consider their life and work pointless. Only such politicians are great politicians and Ronald Reagan was one of them." -- Lech Walesa, former president of Poland

"Hope was Ronald Reagan's secret weapon. He gave it to the young and the old, to the worn-out and the weary, to the disenfranchised and the disillusioned. He gave it to the people of our country and of every country, to leaders and little people and everyone in between. And by restoring the hope of all Americans, he restored the greatness of America, because hope is the foundation of freedom ... Ronald Reagan stood against the darkness of communism. He won the fight for freedom and brought down what he rightly termed the 'Evil Empire.' He won the race and, by now, has met God face to face. As for a kingdom of love, well, we've seen a glimpse of that this week from coast to coast. May he rest in peace." -- Terri Lukach, former public liaison staff assistant to President Reagan

"In his lifetime Ronald Reagan was such a cheerful and invigorating presence that it was easy to forget what daunting historic tasks he set himself. He sought to mend America's wounded spirit, to restore the strength of the free world, and to free the slaves of communism. These were causes hard to accomplish and heavy with risk. Yet they were pursued with almost a lightness of spirit. For Ronald Reagan also embodied another great cause - what Arnold Bennett once called `the great cause of cheering us all up'. His politics had a freshness and optimism that won converts from every class and every nation--and ultimately from the very heart of the evil empire ... I cannot imagine how any diplomat, or any dramatist, could improve on his words to Mikhail Gorbachev at the Geneva summit: `Let me tell you why it is we distrust you.' Those words are candid and tough and they cannot have been easy to hear. But they are also a clear invitation to a new beginning and a new relationship that would be rooted in trust. We live today in the world that Ronald Reagan began to reshape with those words ... With the lever of American patriotism, he lifted up the world. And so today the world -- in Prague, in Budapest, in Warsaw, in Sofia, in Bucharest, in Kiev and in Moscow itself - the world mourns the passing of the Great Liberator and echoes his prayer 'God Bless America'." -- Baroness Margaret Thatcher, from the eulogy delivered at the National Cathedral

"Ronald Reagan was more than an historic figure. He was a providential man, who came along just when our nation and the world most needed him. And believing as he did that there is a plan at work in each life, he accepted not only the great duties that came to him, but also the great trials that came near the end. When he learned of his illness, his first thoughts were of Nancy. And who else but Ronald Reagan could face his own decline and death with a final message of hope to his country, telling us that for America there is always a bright dawn ahead. Fellow Americans, here lies a graceful and a gallant man." -- Vice President Dick Cheney, from the eulogy delivered during the State Funeral in the Capitol Rotunda

B. Sides @ 1:40 PM

June 08, 2004

Just Like Old Times
In 1984, a drug-addled nuclear-freeze goob hissed at me, "Reagan is going to kill us all in a nuclear holocaust!" Glancing at his fellow protestors, I replied "Good."

Debate over. I won.

It's good to see that 20 years later, the Gipper (even in death!) has lost none of his ability to induce frothing-at-the-mouth seizures among leftists and other enemies of freedom.

Yesterday, the New York Times took a break from faking news stories to fire a few subtle, passive-aggressive editorial salvos at Reagan. The commie regime of Cuban dictator Fidel Castro declared it would've been better had Reagan never been born. Referring to Reagan's passing, boring and predictable political cartoonist Ted Rall wrote on his website yesterday, "I'm sure he's turning crispy brown right about now." (Interestingly, the link to this Rall "rant" no longer works.) Not to be outdone, kooky Libyan tyrant Colonel Moammar Gaddafi announced his regrets that Reagan died before standing trial for the ass-whoopin' administered to Libya by the United States Navy in 1986. (Judging from this recent photograph, the only person who should stand trial in Libya is the pimp who picks out the Colonel's clothes.) And then, reliably, there are the Eurofucks at Reuters who asked yesterday if President Reagan was "in charge or simply a puppet, the master politician or a manipulated performer ..."

Immensely entertaining stuff.

And a very good indicator.

For it's a political rule-of-thumb that if you find yourself being harshly criticized by the New York Times, Moammar Gaddafi, Ted Rall, Reuters, and Darth Castro, then you must have done something right.

B. Sides @ 8:05 AM

June 07, 2004

"What A Life ..."
Peggy Noonan, who worked with President Reagan on some of his most memorable speeches, pays tribute in today's Wall Street Journal. A couple excerpts:

Ronald Reagan told the truth to a world made weary by lies. He believed truth was the only platform on which a better future could be built. He shocked the world when he called the Soviet Union "evil," because it was, and an "empire," because it was that, too. He never stopped bringing his message to the people of the world, to Europe and China and in the end the Soviet Union. And when it was over, the Berlin Wall had been turned into a million concrete souvenirs, and Soviet communism had fallen. But of course it didn't fall. It was pushed. By Mr. Know Nothing Cowboy Gunslinger Dimwit. All presidents should be so stupid ...

What an era his was. What a life he lived. He changed history for the better and was modest about it. He didn't bray about his accomplishments but saw them as the work of the American people. He did not see himself as entitled, never demanded respect, preferred talking to hotel doormen rather than State Department functionaries because he thought the doormen brighter and more interesting. When I pressed him once, a few years out of the presidency, to say what he thought the meaning of his presidency was, he answered, reluctantly, that it might be fairly said that he "advanced the boundaries of freedom in a world more at peace with itself." And so he did. And what could be bigger than that?

B. Sides @ 1:10 PM

June 06, 2004

Overlord: D-Day 60 Years Later
We're here to mark that day in history when the Allied armies joined in battle to reclaim this continent to liberty. For four long years, much of Europe had been under a terrible shadow. Free nations had fallen, Jews cried out in the camps, millions cried out for liberation. Europe was enslaved, and the world prayed for its rescue.

Here in Normandy the rescue began.

Here the Allies stood and fought against tyranny in a giant undertaking unparalleled in human history.

We stand on a lonely, windswept point on the northern shore of France. The air is soft, but 40 years ago at this moment, the air was dense with smoke and the cries of men, and the air was filled with the crack of rifle fire and the roar of cannon. At dawn, on the morning of the 6th of June, 1944, 225 Rangers jumped off the British landing craft and ran to the bottom of these cliffs.

Their mission was one of the most difficult and daring of the invasion: to climb these sheer and desolate cliffs and take out the enemy guns. The Allies had been told that some of the mightiest of these guns were here and they would be trained on the beaches to stop the Allied advance.

The Rangers looked up and saw the enemy soldiers--the edge of the cliffs shooting down at them with machine guns and throwing grenades. And the American Rangers began to climb. They shot rope ladders over the face of these cliffs and began to pull themselves up. When one Ranger fell, another would take his place. When one rope was cut, a Ranger would grab another and begin his climb again. They climbed, shot back, and held their footing.

Soon, one by one, the Rangers pulled themselves over the top, and in seizing the firm land at the top of these cliffs, they began to seize back the continent of Europe. Two hundred and twenty-five came here. After two days of fighting, only 90 could still bear arms.

Behind me is a memorial that symbolizes the Ranger daggers that were thrust into the top of these cliffs. And before me are the men who put them there.

These are the boys of Pointe du Hoc. These are the men who took the cliffs. These are the champions who helped free a continent. These are the heroes who helped end a war.

Gentlemen, I look at you and I think of the words of Stephen Spender's poem. You are men who in your "lives fought for life ... and left the vivid air signed with your honor." ...

You all knew that some things are worth dying for. One's country is worth dying for, and democracy is worth dying for, because it's the most deeply honorable form of government ever devised by man.

All of you loved liberty. All of you were willing to fight tyranny, and you knew the people of your countries were behind you.
—President Ronald Reagan, commemorating the 40th Anniversay of D-Day at the U.S. Ranger Monument in Pointe du Hoc, France, June 6, 1984

B. Sides @ 11:20 AM

June 05, 2004

Celebrating Reagan
Ronald Reagan is my hero. I could write a lengthy essay explaining why that is so but, frankly, it's difficult at the moment.

Rather, President Reagan provided the explanation himself in 1992:

Whatever else history may say about me when I’m gone, I hope it will record that I appealed to your best hopes, not your worst fears; to your confidence rather than your doubts. My dream is that you will travel the road ahead with liberty’s lamp guiding your steps and opportunity’s arm steadying your way.

Rest in peace, Mr. President. And thank you.

B. Sides @ 5:32 PM

June 01, 2004

Sumner Redstone Is A 'Which'
Get a load of this paragraph from an Associated Press report about Mel Karmazin's resignation from Viacom. Referencing a statement from the Owner of the World's Worst Toupee, Viacom chairman Sumner Redstone, the AP writes:

"We very much regret Mel's decision to resign and we wish him well," Redstone, which is chairman and chief executive of Viacom and built it into a media powerhouse, said in a statement.

Despite his Madame Tussauds waxy appearance, Sumner is very much alive and, accordingly, merits being a "who" rather than a "which."

Apparently Madelyne Toogood is now writing copy for the AP. That should make for an interesting Bring Your Daughter To Work Day at the AP office.

B. Sides @ 3:25 PM