At the end of the day

Let’s have a little fun with the U.S. military and government and its most important talking points about the Fort Hood massacre.

The New York Times published this story.

I am going to take a page from Geert Wilders and assume that the Koran and Hitler’s book, Mein Kampf, are equally odious in that they tell people to go out and kill other people who don’t agree with them and who belong to some identifiable class; in the case of the Koran it is Infidels, Jews and Christians, and in the case of Hitler’s bible, it is Jews, and that both books are political ideologies.

So in the Times story instead of Muslims, we will substitute Nazis, and pretend that we are back in the 1940s combating Nazism in Europe. We’ll cut out some superfluous reporting, and pretend that the shooter was a German American, and see what this looks like.

Army Chief Concerned for Nazi Troops

General George Casey Jr., the Army chief of staff, said on Sunday that he was concerned that speculation about the political beliefs of the officer accused of killing 12 fellow soldiers and one civilian and wounding dozens of others in a shooting rampage at Fort Hood, could “cause a backlash against some of our Nazi soldiers.”

“I’ve asked our Army leaders to be on the lookout for that,” General Casey said in an interview on CNN’s “State of the Union. “It would be a shame — as great a tragedy as this was — it would be a shame if our diversity became a casualty as well.”

General Casey, who was appeared on three Sunday news programs, used almost the same language during an interview on ABC’s “This Week With George Stephanopoulos,” an indication of the Army’s effort to ward off bias against the more than 3,000 Nazis in its ranks.

“A diverse Army gives us strength,” General Casey, who visited Fort Hood Friday, said on “This Week.”

Senator Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut, appearing on “Fox News Sunday,” said that as chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee he intended to investigate the officer’s suspected motives and whether the Army “missed warning signs that should have led them to essentially discharge him.”

“If he was showing signs, saying to people that he had become a complete and committed Nazi, and not just a half-assed, laissez-faire Nazi, the U.S. Army has to have zero tolerance,” Senator Lieberman said. “He should have been gone.”

Asked whether he thought the Army “dropped the ball” in not responding to warning signs that the officer was increasingly radical, General Casey replied that he was encouraging soldiers to provide information to criminal investigators. But he added that the Army needs to be careful not to jump to conclusions based on early tidbits of information.

“The speculation could heighten the backlash,” he said on “This Week.” “What happened at Fort Hood is a tragedy and I believe it would be a greater tragedy if diversity became a casualty here.”

Sen. Lindsey Graham, a Republican of South Carolina, and Sen. Jack Reed, a Democrat of Rhode Island, took also pains on Sunday to say that Nazis have served honorably in the military and at risk to their lives.

“At the end of the day this is not about his politics — the fact that this man was a Nazi,” Senator Graham said on CBS’s “Face the Nation.”

“At the end of the day, maybe this is just about him. It’s certainly not about his politics, German National Socialism.”

He added: “To those members of the United States military who are Nazis, thank you for protecting our nation, thank you for standing up against Hitler who is trying to hijack your political beliefs.”

Obama has a near "Brownie moment"

We all remember former President George W. Bush, patting his hapless Director of FEMA on the shoulder and saying, “You are doing a heck of job, Brownie.”

In that moment, more than anything else that had transpired, he doomed his Presidency. People were prepared to give him a lot of slack on his war in Iraq because they were not sure that he was wrong about keeping America safe. But when they saw the plight of Americans in New Orleans and saw how disconnected his administration seemed to be from what was so obvious in all the media coverage, the electorate started to disengage.

It was like the late President Nixon’s famous declaration, “I am not a crook.”

These kinds of comments have a self-serving ambience about them that simply exacerbates a problem of dissonant public perception, rather than smoothing it over.

That brings me to President Barack Obama’s rather extraordinary media reaction to the events in Fort Hood. I tuned in to him when it was advertised that he would speak about it. At first, I thought I must have been misinformed. He was rambling on congratulating some Indian conference organizers and getting the audience to recognize some local hero. I was just about to move on when he brought up Fort Hood.

It was creepy and reminded me of the minutes after 9/11 when George Bush received the news in a children’s classroom and seemed not the slightest moved by it. That Obama wouldn’t start off the top of the microphone opportunity with the Fort Hood commentary was very strange.

After doing the ritual of "how our prayers and thoughts are with the wounded and the families of the deceased", he then started in about himself and his job and his responsibility. Don’t want to dwell to long on those sad Texas folks and take your eyes off the most important thing in the United States -- me.

This guy is supposed to be one of the best public speakers in America, but he is surely no Ronald Reagan when it comes to conveying the appropriate emotion.

He is busy telling us not to jump to conclusions until all the facts are in. This is code for, "Don’t start blaming Islam because I have been kissing Islamic ass for nearly a year and you will upset all the benefits to be derived from my groveling and abasement, and wreck my Presidency, and that would be a disaster for America."

OK. I won’t jump to conclusions.

Let’s add up the facts so far:

Islam preaches Jihad against non-Muslims.

The shooter’s parents are Palestinians and he is a life-long Muslim – a regular at the mosque.

The shooter has been making anti-American comments for some time, expressing his opposition to the wars in the Middle East by non-Muslims and suggesting that Muslims should fight back.

He folded up his tent in anticipation of going somewhere, saying goodbye to all his friends.

He used private weapons which he acquired just prior to the shootings and he employed a type of gun that is rapid fire, accurate, Kevlar-piercing, and can be loaded with a 30- round clip. I am not saying he used a 30-round clip, but many people found it difficult to believe he could have hit so many people with a single pistol.

He shouted "Allah Akbar" while he fired his gun; it is a common expression for those who are about to destroy non-Muslims to preface their action with cries of "Allah Akbar".

I’ll wait for more facts before coming to a conclusion, as Dear Leader asks, but, in the meantime, I am reminded of that old saw: if it walks like a duck, and it looks like a duck, and it quacks like a duck, then it most probably is a duck.

Why not China?

Every once in a while an otherwise fairly sensible journalist drops off the edge of the world and engages in drivel. Such was the case with Terence Corcoran writing a column in today’s National Post, entitled, “Warm, fuzzy dictatorship".

First, he engages in the Straw Man Fallacy, asking us to imagine a situation in which the Obama administration wants to invest in our oil patch through some U.S. government- controlled agency buying out Suncor Canada at a premium. Then, he knocks the straw man down by claiming there would be national outrage at Americans taking it over.

His main point is that the government of China is doing much the same thing and being welcomed with open arms. He attributes this imagined difference to Canadian knee-jerk anti-Americanism, because he thinks there is no good reason to be treating with a dictatorship and if we had our wits about us we would be able to separate the wheat from the chaff – the chaff being China.

It is certainly an argument, but, leaving aside the fantasy problem, it is not an especially persuasive one.

In the first place, Canada has already opened its resources arteries to American investment through NAFTA. If there was a horse in the barn to be protected, it long ago left the stable, never to return. Fortunately, we are rich enough, and America is apparently not hungry enough, so that we have excess capacity to sell to others. Why not China?

Secondly, we have traded resources with other dictatorships for years. Our foreign business dealings have never been based on other countries being mature democracies or being as pure as the driven snow on human rights. What compelling reason would there be during a major international economic meltdown to start drawing this Boy Scout line in the sand now?

Thirdly, it makes economic sense to have competitors for your resources. During Pierre Trudeau’s years the government tried to stimulate more trade with Europe, to no avail. Since then, it is the Pacific region that has become the greater economic zone, and China looks to be a good customer.

Fourthly, we are not discussing technology transfer here. We are talking about things that you dig out of the ground – Canadian ground. If there were an international crisis in which China was on the opposing side, we have physical control of the assets, so there is no national security issue.

Fifthly, it is not clear that the U.S. will remain our best customer for oil if all this global warming nonsense is translated into American-driven carbon penalties for shale oil. We need to diversify and China makes the most sense as an alternative customer.

Finally, I would not count on the outrage of Canadians. The majority of the citizens in this country are quite taken with the Obama mystique (not to their credit, in my opinion). They would not get worked up at such an Obama initiative any more than they thought the firing of the president of General Motors was anything extraordinary for him to do, and probably cheered him when he did it.

These are different times, Mr. Corcoran. Please try and keep up.

Pop goes the weasel

They say you are not supposed to speak ill of the dead. They usually say that when the dead person has a lot of dirty laundry that just never got washed.

The late Senator Edward Kennedy ought never to have been in political life after the night of July 18, 1969. That was the night of the infamous “Chappaquiddick incident”, as it has become known.

Funny word, “incident”.

For Mary Jo Kopeckne and her family it was the Chappaquiddick tragedy. But, for Ted Kennedy it really was just an incident. She lies in a grave and he went on to fame, a long life and the enjoyment of his considerable family fortune. In fact, for Kennedy the real problem was that the “ghost of Chappaquiddick” prevented him from gaining the highest office in the land.

The American novelist, F. Scott Fitzgerald once commented to his fellow American novelist, Ernest Hemingway that, “The rich are very different.” Hemingway replied, “Yes. They have more money.”

Fitzgerald was right and he immortalized that difference in his novel, The Great Gatsby. What we saw were wealthy characters, steeped in their own pleasure, and indifferent to the pain and suffering they inflicted on others.

That is always how I have viewed Ted Kennedy, through an F. Scott Fitzgerald filter.

We know from his history that he was a boozer and a womanizer. Was his nature and were his inclinations any different on July 18, 1969? Does it seem reasonable with his record that they would be?

There have been a number of eulogies about Senator Kennedy, but I haven’t seen a recent compilation of the story of Chappaquiddick. So I am going to give one.

At the time of her death, Mary Jo Kopechne was 28 years of age and single. Ted Kennedy was 37 and married. She and Kennedy were attending a party on Chappaquiddick Island. Kopechne was staying in a hotel on the mainland.

At 11:15 p.m. Kennedy offered to drive her back to her hotel. He took a road called Dyke Road that led to a one-lane bridge and his car went off the bridge into the water. The car was sitting on the bottom, upside down. Three windows were smashed. Kennedy, who was six feet, two inches tall, escaped from the car. Kopechne, who was five feet, two inches tall, did not.

The water was not very deep, approximately seven feet. Kennedy claimed he couldn’t remember how he got out of the car, but he did remember diving several times to free Kopechne without success. He then walked back to the party. Sometime after midnight, he enlisted the aid of two cousins to go back to the scene to get Kopechne. They were unsuccessful.

Since the ferry was then shut down, Kennedy said he decided to swim back to the mainland – not an easy swim because of tides and currents. The next day, he reported the mishap to the police. However, by this time the police had already recovered Kopechne’s body.

Here is the dirty laundry list:

1. Why did Kennedy drive down Dyke Road.? It was going in the opposite direction to where he was supposed to be going

2. Why did Kennedy claim his problem was that he was unfamiliar with the road? He had quite good knowledge of Chappaquiddick and had passed over the road twice before that very day.

3. Police estimated he was doing about 55 kilometers an hour when he approached the bridge and jammed on his brakes 5 meters from the bridge, which effectively locked his brakes and caused his loss of control. Why was he doing an unsafe speed? He had no explanation.

4. Why did Kennedy walk back to the party instead of seeking assistance from an island resident who lived only 135 meters from the bridge?

5. Kennedy was reported as being relaxed and even jovial the following day. He took the ferry back to Chappaquiddick with his two cousins and then reported the accident by telephone. Unexplained behaviour.

6. The coroner said the death was by drowning, but the undertaker said it was by suffocation. The police diver who recovered the body said it was too buoyant to be full of water.

7. Unfortunately, Kopechne’s family (she was an only child) did not give permission for an autopsy, apparently afraid the autopsy would disclose that she was pregnant. In 1969, it was still socially scandalous to have a daughter who was pregnant without being married, even if she was well into her adulthood. So we are not sure what she died from.

8. Kennedy informed Kopechne’s parents of her demise, but did not tell them he was driving.

9. It was also unusual since Kennedy normally had his chauffeur drive (no doubt because of his drinking), but on this occasion took the keys from the chauffeur.

10. Kennedy claimed that he had consumed no more than a quarter of a glass of beer, but other evidence was offered that suggested he had been drinking rum and cokes well before the start of the party.

When Kennedy finally made a public address about the matter a few days later he offered this slimy version:

There is no truth, no truth whatsoever, to the widely-circulated suspicions of immoral conduct that have been levelled at my behaviour and hers regarding that evening. There has never been a private relationship between us of any kind. I know of nothing in Mary Jo's conduct on that or any other occasion - the same is true of the other girls at that party - that would lend any substance to such ugly speculation about their character. Nor was I driving under the influence of liquor.

In short, how dare anyone accuse Miss Kopechne of immoral conduct -- I would never be in the company of a woman of low moral virtue!

Most of his tributes have called him “the lion” of the Senate. But in July, 1969, he was definitely a weasel. This behaviour disqualified him from the presidency, but apparently is acceptable conduct for a U.S. senator since he continued to be re-elected quite easily for the next 40 years.

I also completely discount all this bullshit about what a great liberal senator he was and how he will be missed in that role. Politics is like nature, it abhors a vacuum. And if Kennedy hadn't been there to occupy the liberal space, some other senator, probably a better representative, surely would have.

Look up the definition of narcissistic personality

Seven out of ten Republicans have answered a national poll by saying they would vote for this chowder head in 2012. Only in America is ignorance raised to the level of virtue. She resigned her governorship of Alaska to start her presidential campaign. Here is a well-researched Vanity Fair article on Ms. Palin, appropriately entitled, It Came from Wasilla.

South of the border, down America way

America is nothing if not a country devoted to equality. There will be pressure on the government in its efforts to protect its borders to treat its northern boundary with Canada exactly as it does its boundary with Mexico. Already, the passport requirement is in effect at land border crossings and the U.S. has deployed spy drones and other electronic devices to watch for illegal crossings from Canada. No doubt the legislators will demand a fence like the U.S. has between itself and Mexico, although nearly half the boundary between our two countries is under water.

The Department of Homeland Security will have to show that it is spending an equal amount of money defending America's north as it is defending America's south -- in the U.S., equality is measured by money.

Here are the numbers regarding illegal crossings from last year.

Officials apprehended 723,840 people trying to enter the country illegally. Nearly 662,000 were from Mexico. Only 610 were from Canada.

Let's put those numbers in some perspective.

If you put all the illegal entries from Mexico in one urban location, it would rank by population as the 20th largest city in the United States, knocking Baltimore, Maryland down to the 21st spot. If you put the illegal entries from Canada in one place, it would equal the crowd that be can found in one of Toronto's largest downtown nightclub on any Saturday evening.

Do you really need to spend the same money on policing a downtown Toronto nightclub as you do Baltimore?

Now a cynic might say that the reason for the discrepancy in these numbers is because the United States has to date spent a lot more money on resources to catch illegal immigrants from Mexico.

No.

That would be a person who believes that everybody wants to come and live in the United States and that there is no difference in that respect between Mexicans and Canadians. I don't like to burst the bubble of American self-pride, but the vast, vast majority of Canadians have no interest in living in the United States -- visiting yes -- living no. And the few that do want to live there take the legal route and become fully-fledged voting American citizens.