There was Benghazi. Also something happened to/with a reporter, and then the Tea Party groused about their IRS paperwork. Now we find out a Hawaiian guy has run off to Hong Kong after telling Americans something they already knew. In a London daily. Okay.

All these are scandals apparently. But aren’t scandals supposed to have something to them? Aren’t they supposed to make me angry? Isn’t there supposed to be a reason for that? I’m not seeing many reasons.

Help me out, guys. What’s the nub of the controversy here? These outrages surely boil down to something. A point? An essence? The heart of a matter? Charles Krauthammer unravels the mystery:

“Horrible customer service.” That’s what the newly fired IRS commissioner averred was the agency’s only sin in singling out conservative political groups for discriminatory treatment.

. . But when the maitre d’ screens patrons for their politics and only conservatives find flies paddle-wheeling through their consomme, the problem is not poor service. It is harassment and invidious discrimination.

Chuck can’t even scare up a compelling metaphor. If a restaurant in Jim Crow-era Alabama were dropping flies in the locals’ soup I’m not sure the DOJ’s Civil Rights lawyers would bother. ‘Asshole’ pretty rarely overlaps with ‘invidious,’ except when you’re hired to play professional victim a la Krauthammer.

Brit Hume listens to DNI Clapper’s weaselspeak, and he bristles:

This administration is in the habit of saying things we already know are not true. It’s a very peculiar way to proceed in dealing with a scandal like this.

There we go! A SCANDAL. Like this:

Look, I happen to think that the NSA program is valid and legitimate. And I don’t think anything that this leaker has said, who is being called a whistle-blower, which I doubt — but I don’t think anything he has said points us in the direction of any specific abuses of any kind. . . But I do not understand why the people in this administration can’t seem to shake hands with the truth.

It’s all perfectly fine, there’s nothing wrong. Until Brit watches the video — then it’s outrageous the way Clapper’s lying about the outrage. *Poof* suddenly there are two scandals. Schroedinger’s cat anybody? First there is a scandal, then there is no scandal, then there is.

Peggy Noonan takes a crack at it.

This Is No Ordinary Scandal

We are in the midst of the worst Washington scandal since Watergate . .

No one’s been buying the earlybird ‘Watergate’ special. Not even Peggy herself. So she did the thing all over again. As for ‘No Ordinary Scandal,’ let me clarify . .

Why This Scandal Is Different

Sometimes when you’re writing part of a column you keep getting close to the meaning of what you want to say but you don’t quite get there, the full formulation of the idea eludes you. Then two days later, relaxing in conversation with friends, the thought comes to you whole, and you think: That’s what I meant to say. That’s what I was trying to get.

. . my friend got to the essence. He wrote, “The left likes to say, ‘Watergate was worse!’ Watergate was bad—don’t get me wrong. But it was elites using the machinery of government to spy on elites. . . . It’s something quite different when elites use the machinery of government against ordinary people. It’s a whole different ball game.”

It is.

That’s exactly what I meant.

The victimization of little people. That’s the scandal. Peggy thinks about them about the same time she cocks her head and gazes into the camera lens. Now that it’s clear a few dozen of the sainted averages were barely delayed in their attempts to acquire tax exemptions, Peggy couldn’t be more steadfast. If Bob Crane had suffered this way, a Stalag 13 sitcom wouldn’t have been nearly as funny.

Rush Limbaugh. You can count on Fatso to get right to the point:

The Question is Not Whether the Obama Regime Will Survive, But Will America as Founded Survive the Obama Regime?

. . Do I want somebody in charge of this kind of surveillance who doesn’t like this country as it’s founded? Do I want somebody collecting this kind of data on everybody who is in the middle of trying to transform this country into something the founders never intended it to be? On the other side of this is you would hope that our country and our intelligence agencies are able to determine planned attacks against this country and citizens against this country and uncover those in enough time to thwart them. In that sense, you want this kind of ability. And, by the way, the ability exists. This genie’s not gonna go back in the bottle.

The domestic snooping is necessary and it’s permanent. That narrows the problem a bit.

So in my mind, it does matter who’s in charge of it. It does matter. The political identity of the people who administer something like this matters incredibly. . . The government’s not just this thing sitting there that people run. There are certain kinds of people running it.

It’s a scandal that the President is a Democrat. Fair enough.

Note:

• Empaths have the ability to scan another’s psyche for thoughts and feelings or for past, present, and future life occurrences. Many empaths are unaware of how this actually works, and have long accepted that they were sensitive to others.

Ann Althouse approaching. Must be prepared.

• An empath can sense the truth behind the cover and will act compassionately to help that person express him/herself, thus making them feel at ease and not so desperately alone.

Okay:

The word “umbrella” appears exactly once in Obama’s “Dreams From My Father.”
* Who is Althouse? * Contribute * Shop AMAZON *

I’m searching the text, because I’ve been thinking, this morning, about the fascination with Obama’s interaction with the Marine and the umbrella, and that set me looking into umbrellas as a famously Freudian symbol . .

See the ‘interaction’ between The Traitor, The Marine and The Folly Brolly:

Patriot reaction:

Marine: (To himself) “Don’t touch my uniform, you New Guinea c*cks*cker.”

You get why Ann wanted to mind-meld with “Obama’s interaction with the Marine and the umbrella.” Why, if you crane your cerebellum’s neck you can juuust catch a Freudian glance at IT’S AN UMBRELLA YOU HOUSECAT. No gosh no. It’s not once Althouse and her emoticlysms engage. Can’t you see, Timmy? The rain is irony, the President a castaway, and the umbrella is a hollow stump tucked inside the basement wardrobe where a shimmering portal to an unseen world of well I was just thinking about it . .

. . Obama, in Africa, falls to the ground between the graves of his father and his grandfather and cries.

“. . A light rain began to fall, the drops tapping on the leaves above. I was about to light a cigarette when I felt a hand on my arm. I turned to find Bernard squatting beside me, trying to fit the two of us under a bent-up old umbrella.

‘They wanted me to see if you were okay,’ he said.”

. . beedle-oo beedle-oo beedle-oo . .

Flash forward, and he’s President. He is in the Rose Garden. It starts to rain. No man suddenly appears with an umbrella. He is getting wet and he is President — with plenty of airplanes and rifles and all of the world’s greatest military at hand — but he is still getting wet.

Blink. Blunk.

He has to order the Marine to shelter him. It isn’t Bernard squatting with a bent-up old umbrella. It’s a Marine in full-dress uniform, with a fine unbent umbrella, which is nevertheless not correct under the official — male, rigid — Marine Corps regulations. Where are the words of encouragement, the embraces, the strong, true love?

. . ?

Now, here is the whole world gathered around him. Was there ever anything more unlike the time when he was alone between 2 graves? And yet, back then, the moment a light rain began to fall, his brother was there, sent by others who loved to see if he was okay.

Blonk. Blink.

And here he is, the center of the whole world’s attention, and he had to call for the umbrella. He is not okay.

He is not okay. Miraculous. We should have expected this after a United Federation of Planets mission crashed on Betazed.

Right-wingers have a strange relationship with science. They don’t do it, they don’t like it, and they don’t understand it in the least. But they employ it frequently in arguments as a trump card. Like: Studies show that guns prevent violent crime, you idiots. But soon enough it turns out that’s not what the studies say. And that the best research, if it’s even applicable, really supports a different view. Usually the opposite one. That’s when science turns into a corrupt endeavor practiced by weasels who are in it for the money. Or for the fame. Or for any one of those other gaudy lures that a rigorous discipline is fraught with. Also, and, scientists are stupid.

Myer2 wrote: Why is algebra such a problem? Most of you feel science is a leftwing plot (evolution and global warming)-

Dear Comrade No. 2:

Science is not, in and of itself, a leftwing plot. For that to be true scientists would have to be cool people, not the mathematically-gifted, socially awkward wallflowers who never really had friends- or dates- in high school.

It’s our old friend. John “seventies vagina face” Ransom.

Elbert Einstein was the greatest theoretical physicist ever. He had rather childish views about money, economics and politics however.

That’s pretty strong. As you can see, John is one of the world’s premiere know-it-alls. He reads our e-mails, and he shits himself with laughter. He writes a column, then he thumbs through his indexed copy of The Humor of Milton Friedman.

The cool kids in politics- the people smarmy enough to get elected- use science and scientists to make the scientists feel cool and important. And then they get them to opt-in to their plan to “save the world” . .

Let’s face it; science is just a creative accounting gig.

Scientists are stupid. Well, when compared to the likes of the “Finance Editor for Townhall Finance” they are. A guy like that is a reality-devouring fact-spewing god:

Inflation: It’s Back
John Ransom | February 18, 2011

Data from China, the UK and the World Bank weighed in on Tuesday, revealing the key dangers the US economy faces from the economic and social policies of the Obama administration’s loose money program. The news makes the plainest case for budget cuts and increased deficit reduction favored by some members of Congress.

Inflation, once relegated to the historical trivia of the late 1970s and early 1980s, is back.

Mmm.

Ignore the Rally
John Ransom | February 28, 2011

Ignore the rally.

Now is the time to filter out the background noise that comes with market rallies and concentrate on individual equities.

I checked this: The Dow Jones at the end of February 2011 sat at 12,226. And Friday it closed at 14,712. So you can see why the Financial CEOs from the Townhall Finance Division of Finance made him “Finance Editor.” He may not be Elbert Einstein smart, mind you, but then hey who is? Wait – don’t tell me: Elbert Einstein.

But that’s only part of it. Scientists also let leftwingers off the hook for denying many proven scientific theories.

For example, leftwingers deny the link between breast cancer and abortions, the pill and cancer, although the science is clear.

Hello, it’s the American Cancer Society:

Another large, prospective study was reported on by Harvard researchers in 2007. This study included more than 100,000 women who were between the ages of 29 and 46 at the start of the study in 1993. These women were followed until 2003 . .

After adjusting for known breast cancer risk factors, the researchers found no link between either spontaneous or induced abortions and breast cancer.

The California Teachers Study also reported on more than 100,000 women in 2008. Researchers asked the women in 1995 about past induced and spontaneous abortions. While the women were being followed in the study, more than 3,300 developed invasive breast cancer. There was no difference in breast cancer risk between the group who had either spontaneous or induced abortions and those who had not had an abortion.

Ding dong, it’s the National Cancer Institute:

A number of studies suggest that current use of oral contraceptives (birth control pills) appears to slightly increase the risk of breast cancer, especially among younger women. However, the risk level goes back to normal 10 years or more after discontinuing oral contraceptive use.

Women who use oral contraceptives have reduced risks of ovarian and endometrial cancer. This protective effect increases with the length of time oral contraceptives are used.

So that would be yes, the science is clear. Scientists are stupid.

New York Times.

WASHINGTON — As North Korea hints at new military provocations in the coming days, the United States and South Korea have drawn up plans to respond more forcefully than in the recent past, but in a limited way intended to prevent an escalation to broader war.

Thomas Sowell in the National Review.

Yet there on the front page of the April 8 New York Times was a story about how unnamed “American officials” were planning a “proportional” response to any North Korean attack. This was spelled in an example: If the North Koreans “shell a South Korean island that had military installations” then the South Koreans would retaliate with “a barrage of artillery of similar intensity.”

Well that’s just crazy.

Back before the clever new notion of “proportional” response became the vogue, our response to Pearl Harbor was ultimately Hiroshima and Nagasaki. And Japan has not attacked or even threatened anybody since then. Nor has any war broken out anywhere that is at all comparable with World War II.

All the Japanese did was sneak-attack one of our islands. And what did we do? Retaliate with nuclear weapons. Now they’re our friends. The lesson there: ‘Don’t fool around with your enemies when you can crush them.’ Also, now would be a perfect time to start making friends with the North Koreans wink.

Which policy is better? There was a time when we followed the ancient adage “By their fruits ye shall know them.” The track record of massive retaliation easily beats that of the more sophisticated-sounding proportional response.

This is quite odd, I must say. I know virtually nothing of war theory, but I must have heard about “Just War” 25 years ago. There, the “proportional response” idea plays a central role, both in the cause for war and in its proper dispensation (if such a thing is possible). I much later came to know it was something Augustine discussed around 400 A.D. Wikipedia says its roots can be traced back a thousand years before that.

These are fundamentals of Western warring traditions. I can’t imagine any decent West Point education that doesn’t discuss at some length Just War Theory and proportional response. So what’s the point of Sowell’s rant? Is he laughably ignorant? Or is he merely in the mood for an all-out conflagration?

North Korea is a mandatory conscription state. Its government spends between one-quarter and one-third of its budget on the military. Accounting for the home guard, there are something like 9 million North Koreans ready and willing to go to battle on any given day. Would Sowell like to become aware of any of this? Or would he prefer to fight fire with fire, vis a vis the enemy’s well known sophistication?

James Taranto at the Wall Street Journal, he thinks gay marriage is a threat. No not to other marriages, c’mon, nobody is saying that (all his friends say it). To the institution of marriage. A. Barton Hinkle doubts:

Is there some ontologically separate entity called Marriage that exists independent of all the marriages of all the couples in the world? There would have to be, according to the institution-of-marriage argument. But that makes no sense. After all, you would not say a virus “threatens humanity” if, in fact, no individual human person was ever harmed by the virus.

Oh No. Now Taranto will have to break out his blog hammer. How about it? He invents and infects the world with a ‘Hinkle Virus.’ This is a bug that doesn’t actually harm anybody, but it makes your future children homosexuals.

We have established as a condition of the experiment–and we trust that in the real world Hinkle agrees–that it is not harmful to a woman to give birth to a homosexual child, nor is it harmful to a child to be born homosexual. And since the virus affects the sexual orientation only of the yet-unborn, it should not disrupt any existing heterosexual relationship.

Yet it should be obvious that the Hinkle virus would threaten humanity by dramatically reducing the incentive to reproduce. Presumably it should be obvious that the Hinkle virus would threaten humanity by dramatically reducing the incentive to reproduce. Presumably the next generation would stave off complete extinction by means of artificial insemination, but it’s preposterous to think that fertility in an all-homosexual society would come anywhere near the replacement rate of 2.1 children per woman . .

Progeny down, homosexuality a threat to mankind. That’s that. I think a better blogger might have finally defined ‘humanity’ at this point — Taranto has been using it on the one hand for ‘human characteristics’ and on the second for ‘future existence.’ That would have started an even bigger controversy, I imagine, granting his conservative take, but at least he might have ridden out the traffic bump with a ‘harumph.’ Instead, Taranto claims victory.

The foregoing is not an argument against same-sex marriage but rather a defense of a form of argument that Hinkle makes an embarrassing philosophical error in categorically rejecting.

Um, take that(?).

. . Hinkle’s reduction of human institutions and societies–and of humanity itself–to merely the sum of their individual members is a reductio ad absurdum of individualism into a kind of philosophical narcissism.

Ah! And that.

Hinkle’s cognitive error–an inordinate focus on the individual and refusal to consider systemic effects–is quite common on the left and the libertarian right.

And that. But be wary, friends. While Taranto makes with the war whoops, I can assure you that Hinkle is very much alive. Roy Edroso:

Taranto could as well have said “any children they conceive after infection will be born male” — nothing wrong with being male, right? — or “any children they conceive after infection will be born female” — nothing wrong with being female, right? Which in the long run would have an even more dramatic effect on reproduction, if not on the “incentive to reproduce.” We could use this, I suppose, as proof that masculinity presents a threat to mankind without blah blah. Or femininity!

Gender, the ultimate individualism. Taranto’s thought-experiment aimed to affirm his appreciation for ‘humanity,’ but it proved he was interested in much less: ‘fertility.’ You reduce the species to a single characteristic, you run the risk of going philosophically extinct. There may be two archetypes, man and woman, but neither one can stand for humanity as a whole. It’s fair to say the same for homosexuals. You listen to business majors argue biology, and this is what you get.

Believe it or don’t, there’s more. Remember Taranto’s chest thumping over the presumption of Hinkle?

. . Hinkle’s reduction of human institutions and societies–and of humanity itself–to merely the sum of their individual members is a reductio ad absurdum . .

Lo that ‘humanity’ would be the sum of all human beings! How frustrating it is to argue with children. Taranto dismantled this blunder by what method? By changing, biologically and behaviorally, all human beings. So he’s not much for logic either.

I admit, this is a splendid comedy. But what does Taranto’s act tell us, if anything? It says that our biology informs and inflects our humanity, but it does not define it. And that, like most other conservatives, marriage (remember that?) is the last thing he’s interested in.

They want the cool flag. With all its fifty stars. They want the bullying military. With its death from above. They want the football stadium flyover. With its $2 billion stealth marvels. They want every one of the planetary bragging rights entitled the citizens of the most dangerous, most technologically advanced superpower in the planet’s history.

But they don’t want the Bill of Rights.

A bill filed by Republican lawmakers would allow North Carolina to declare an official religion, in violation of the Establishment Clause of the U.S. Bill of Rights, and seeks to nullify any federal ruling against Christian prayer by public bodies statewide.

They’ve grown tired of eating their peas. Now its licorice whips for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Thanks for the internet, but we’re going back to segregation. Why? Because we can. Oh, and if the Supreme [ha] Court comes after them with the Supremacy Clause?

“The Constitution of the United States does not grant the federal government and does not grant the federal courts the power to determine what is or is not constitutional; therefore, by virtue of the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, the power to determine constitutionality and the proper interpretation and proper application of the Constitution is reserved to the states and to the people,” the bill states.

The Tenth Amendment nullifies it. Double jinx, no backsies. What?

The Oscar for Best Picture came down to a battle between the favorites Lincoln and Argo. Ben Affleck’s Iran hostage crisis thriller won out, but fans are still arguing over which is the better flick. For some the answer came down to politics. What if Bill Buckley were still alive, which of the two would he prefer? Only one can be a true statement of conservatism, and that’s your winner.

“Opposing slavery and supporting the free market were, for the early GOP, two sides of the same coin,” said Michael Zak, a Republican Party historian and author of “Back to Basics for the Republican Party,” a book on the party’s heritage, connecting the achievements of Lincoln with that of Ronald Reagan. “Slavery impoverishes an entire society.”

. . David Von Drehle, author of “Rise to Greatness: Abraham Lincoln and America’s Most Perilous Year,” made a similar point in a Wall Street Journal op-ed in December, writing, “Lincoln’s determination to resist and finally defeat the slave system wasn’t based on ideas of racial equality, however, or on abstract ideals of human dignity. It was grounded in his belief that liberty of all kinds begins with economic freedom.”

Slavery had socialized the market, which of course made Abe’s political instincts itch. If I could get the Thirteenth Amendment passed, he thought, I could unshackle this low-wage economy (some instances, very low). The fight for the soul of America was on — and look who won. If those aren’t Republican bona fides, I don’t know what is. Lincoln was the better film. I think.

“Historians such as Doris Kearns Goodwin are acting as partisan Democrats when they claim that the parties have switched,” Zak said in an interview. “They can’t defend decades of Democrat villainy, so instead they smash and grab Republican achievements.”

Danger. Goodwin provided the source material for the movie. And the liberal production team, Steven Spielberg et. al., saw Abe as a fellow traveler. Audiences picked up on that, so the film is something of a politics trap. What a shame Chuck Norris didn’t write or direct it. I see little point in playing into the hands of Commie propagandists, you see. Maybe Argo?

. . it is clearly explained in the film that the U.S. government knows that nobody in Hollywood will help since they don’t want to take a risk; cooperate with the CIA, which they regard as evil; or lift a finger to save the Americans. Only one man — an independent director — is enough of an outcast and rebel rogue to help. The film is thus not a celebration of Hollywood as hero but a condemnation of the town for its anti-patriotic, narrow selfishness.

Sounds right, Euro-liberals. Only a Hollywood outsider could save the hostages.

After all, it was the Obama Administration that did the opposite of Operation Argo: it refused to try to save four Americans, including the ambassador, who were killed in Benghazi.

So an award for a film about saving Americans is given by a representative of a government that did not save Americans in front of a cheering crowd of people who — according to that film — would have refused to help save Americans as both sides congratulate themselves on what great people they are!

Sweet, delicious irony. The anti-Americans rewarding American heroism. Michelle Obama to boot! Good enough for me, Argo was the best film. What, no?

Rather than picking a movie that dramatized one of the most glorious moments in American history – the final abolition of slavery – the Academy chose a film that portrayed one of the most embarrassing – the Iran hostage crisis. Instead of a story of redemption based on military success, impassioned debate and bare-knuckled deployment of political power, the Oscar went to a daring rescue based on fast-talking Tinseltown scam artists and a silly Hollywood movie that didn’t even really exist.

A sleazy film director? Beating out the Great Emancipator? Only on Planet Hollywood.

. . the Lincoln liberals displayed a reverence for our sixteenth president and the epic achievements of his heroic generation that can arguably be called conservative, while spreading the wealth to a less deserving achievement like Argo reflects values on the part of the Motion Picture Academy that qualify as undeniably liberal.

But let’s not forget: Ben Affleck screwed Iran, which was amazing. Daniel Day Lewis got shot in the head, but never gloried in victimhood. Nobody had an abortion, golly! Come to think of it, there’s almost nothing to distinguish between the two films.

I think this is a real hoot. Self-snarking funny.

Gilded Class Warriors
Liberal grandees attack the rich while enjoying their lifestyle.
By Victor Davis Hanson | National Review

In his first term, President Obama was criticized for trash-talking the 1-percenters while enjoying the aristocracy of Martha’s Vineyard and the nation’s most exclusive golf courses . .

Before we get too far, let’s just cut to Hanson’s chase. The President is a big fat hypocrite. What’s more Obama’s insincerity has spread throughout the left like a wildfire, exposing the pro-poverty and heroin-chic crowd for the Park Avenue Set they’d rather be. If you think your Chrysler 300 will score a curbside spot at Le Bernardin, think again. You all should know Stuart Weitzman does not make a rope-sole sandal. (These last bits I added after peeking at what Victor’s obviously thinking.)

The message here is ‘You clearly want to be us. So quit playing games.’

And that’s what’s funny. Because Victor is very clearly confused. It’s bad enough that a President talks about the rich again and again without ever once kissing their asses. That alone whets his suspicion. But added to that, Obama speaks of the wealthy as if they were lucky? Or wielding of power? Or imbued with societal responsibilities? These things are simply not done. There is but one truth to be discussed publicly of fat cats and it is this: Me Too Please!

Obama knows this and what a liar:

Obama never quite squared his accusations that “millionaires and billionaires” had not paid their fair share with his own obvious enjoyment of the perks of “corporate jet owners,” “fat cat bankers,” and Las Vegas junketeers.

A devastating indictment, don’t you think? Obama never squared his mentioning that the rich pay low taxes with his own eating well and flying comfortably. This class of hypocrisy would kill a decent man.

Of course Obama is rich, tells everybody he’s rich, pays low taxes, and tells everybody he pays low taxes. Because it’s true. And now he’d like to pay more taxes, and he wants his fellow lucky ducks to do the same. This is an obvious deceit, of some Machiavellian stripe. For Hanson’s part, he will toss the government a few extra bucks after Obama goes bankrupt and lives in a cardboard box for the rest of his life. Fair is fair, after all.

Now, that paradox has continued right off the bat in the second term. In the State of the Union, Obama once more went after “the few” and “the wealthiest and the most powerful,” whom he blasted as the “well-off and the well-connected” and the “billionaires with high-powered accountants.”

Let’s get straight to the President’s dishonesty: The rich politician “once more went after” his rich neighbors with insults. “The few.” Which is true. “The wealthiest.” That’s true. “The most powerful.” True. “Well-off.” True. “Well connected.” True. “Billionaires.” True. “With high-powered accountants.” True. The word impeachment fails the development.

Obama frankly described the wealthiest among us in complimentary terms, and Hanson is galled by the attack. If the President had uttered something like “blue-blood,” Victor and his pals would have had to storm an armory to restore the Rockefellers’ reputation. They’re a defenseless bunch and Victor’s nearly a martyr, and whaddyaknow he happens to be landed and wealthy himself.

He also deigns it his responsibility to speak freely of American groups and classes, but he rarely picks nits in the mirror. He draws on a litany (here, here, here) of foul and derisive stereotypes to describe the poors and the ethnics, but we assume that’s all they really are, right? Certainly. Still, it would be wise of you to refrain from mentioning David Koch is “well connected” lest Victor unload both barrels of his class-warfare gun…

Like clockwork, the president then jetted to West Palm Beach for yet another golfing vacation at one of the nation’s priciest courses . .

…while the President, who’s rich, is rich.

Can we agree? The housewife who pulls an AR-15 from her dirty laundry hamper to Swiss-cheese “three, four, five violent attackers, intruders in her home with her children screaming in the background” could not be sexier. Talk about yer red hot right-wing mama. Like a bare-ass shivering Marilyn Monroe wearing Ronald Reagan’s hair. On her head, you goons.

Alternatively: How about a woman dressed in fatigues, trained for battle, ready to fight? With Uncle Sam’s M-16 slung across her shoulder? Why you bastards.

The sidespinning continues. In the wingnut stewing over SecDef Panetta’s decision to allow women in combat, this latest argument I fully expected at some point to hear. I just didn’t expect it to come from a woman. Here at first is the American Thinker’s Marion Dreyfus, cerca paragraph number three:

Since time began, women aspiring to “male” jobs and occupations have been derided and disrespected as a consequence of their menstrual periodicity. Everything suspect, from womb-connected “hysteria” to lack of judgment and inferior cognition was assigned to the female, and used as a club to deny women representation in education, careers, the opportunity rung on the rigorous escalator of achievement.

Okay. Then here she is about 25 grafs later:

Women experiencing their menses may be sussed out by sensitive dogs and/or detection devices, and staked positions in camo may be disclosed.

Seem unlikely? It is not. Hunters refrain from aftershave and perfumed soaps when on the hunt, as do professional anglers: Animals and even fish can detect an infinitesimal taint of sweat, scent, cosmetics and ointments in hunters and fishermen.

Marion might want to choose a side in the War On Periods. I expect Bryan Fischer tomorrow to quote her extensively seeing as how she’s a terrific expert.

For the sake of argument, anyhoo, let’s just assume the photos of the Afghan war are accurate. If Fido-al-Waziri out on patrol with the Taliban can smell anything other than ox dung and Chinese smokes, I’ll be surprised.

This was on point:

IF ‘ASSAULT WEAPONS’ ARE BAD…WHY DOES DHS WANT TO BUY 7,000 OF THEM FOR ‘PERSONAL DEFENSE’?
Daily Caller | Jason Howerton

DC picked up the meme that NY State Senator Greg Ball laid down in a press release:

The Department of Homeland Security is the latest to find Governor Cuomo’s anti-Second Amendment agenda is at odds with reality. A report by Steve McGough of RadioViceOnline.com cites a General Service Administration (GSA) request for proposal (RFP) on behalf of the Department of Homeland Security and member components such as Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) seeking over 7,000 AR-15’s and matching 30 round clips . .

This federal government rebuke of Cuomo comes just hours after news broke that two students from Rochester lives were evidently saved by an AR-15 as armed intruders entered their home. The very same personal defense weapon Cuomo plans to take out of law abiding gun owners hands protected two of New York’s best and brightest.

The gun nuts seem to think we oppose assault weapons because they don’t kill people fast enough. Odd. Factory slaughter is all they’re good for. Unless the simultaneous killing of game and rending of beef jerky is a good thing (mind the shards of hot bone and lead). As they say, any argumentative port in a storm.

This was Ball’s great ‘take that’ to the liberal world last week. Pardon the legacy media timing of the post, but I’ve spent most of my time occupied with other pursuits:

Lying around on the sofa.

And swallowing pills. You’re wondering how long it takes before a cold turns a reasonable person into a homicidal lunatic? 10 days. After that you’re measuring suitable targets for your rage. Good thing people were used to running away from me on sight.

Women stepping into combat roles. Who knew the right wing would freak out this way? This is, well, women already do that. Been doing ‘war’ for a while thanks. But until now I don’t suppose conservatives had the chance to complain about it properly. They could really use some time to work the whole thing through in their heads:

Regarding sex, what’s going to happen if a leader appears to show preferential treatment to his lover? What if he has to pick a few soldiers for a dangerous mission – will his lover be included? What happens to morale and cohesion if some soldiers are receiving love and sex on a regular basis and some are left out? What if some soldiers are extremely jealous or show stalking tendencies? What happens if soldiers are willing to literally fight for their love interest?

That last bit works for me. But, generally, if you’re furloughing soldiers two-at-a-time for honeymoons you’re not doing combat readiness any favors.

James Taranto at Wall Street Journal gets a note from a Marine Corps veteran about this. It’s such a leveler he reprints it for his column.

As a Marine Corps veteran of three combat tours, the first as a rifle platoon commander during the Vietnam War, my concern is what this policy will contribute to further breaking down the already-troubled relationships of men and women in our society.

That’s a new one. After seeing front line action, women aren’t going to like men any more. Have I got that right?

My concerns:

What kind of a man is it who can send women off to kill and maim? What kind of society does that?

What kind of society does that to anybody? A sick one. But as long as women don’t have to do it, they won’t complain. And that way we just keep on keepin’ on, which is nice.

What kind of society bemoaning that men don’t seem to respect women can’t see that part of the respect they demand is predicated on the specialness of the other?

Better to have the specials sitting at home fretting if their boyfriends and fathers are still alive and breathing. Wondering if they have the use of their arms and legs. That’s better for everybody.

Perhaps it is possible in a firefight to distinguish between how one treats women and men, but I doubt that I could do it. And if I am trained to treat men and women the same throughout my career, can this have no significant effect on how I treat women otherwise?

Like when some random guy at the hardware store tells this guy to shoot someone, he does it. Men are officers, remember? Countries have for the most part sorted this problem out I think, with the uniforms and such. Taranto then throws in his civilian pennies:

One way of defining feminism is as the pursuit of the mutually irreconcilable goals of sexual equality and sensitive treatment of women.

Let’s take it for granted James means “gender equality.” Sexual equality is too mind boggling an idea to consider. Can you imagine the numbers of male prostitutes society would have to provide? Not sure how that “Plushy” thing would work, either.

You’d think that contradiction would be a weakness, but it’s actually a strength: Every advance for equality creates a demand for more measures to promote sensitivity, and vice versa.

And to wit: Every demand for more measures to promote sensitivity would create an advance for equality. Have I got that right? Or is that meaningless?

Feminism’s failures perpetuate feminism, at the expense of other goals such as defending the country.

As I mentioned before, the Israeli Defense Forces had women in combat roles from the beginning. They haven’t lost any wars yet.

I think the nuts are getting panicky because the portrait of the American Warrior comes tightly bound with the notion of Ultimate Authority. That’s no place for women, or so they thought. It’s already bad enough that so few of them obey The Bible.

They’re just making things up about Thomas Jefferson. Which is probably necessary as he hasn’t yet embraced the Bushmaster/Colt side of the argument.

In the spirit of fighting fire with fire, a concept which the Founding Fathers likely grasped in its entirety, do you suppose they would now deny us the ability to be at least as well armed as those who would criminally abuse us?

‘. . life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Yes. That will do. Excellent. Next: How to fight fire. With . . what? The incontinent horse? No. The sodden wife? Bah. [pause] Yes! With fire! Fight fire with fire. Gadzooks, the whole concept! Now I apply it to weapons: Every Citizen Should Have A Thousand.’

When a home invader can knock down your door and point an illegally obtained, fully automatic machine pistol at your face, do you really believe your Founding Fathers wouldn’t want you to have, at the minimum, a 17 round semi-automatic handgun to abort that planned home invasion in the entryway?

‘Martha, take this down: Tis the Gentleman’s duty to obtain for Himself a high-muzzle velocity weapon and a 17 cartridge magazine. To pursue American life, full as it is with the arm-ed criminal, random skirmish and desultory volley. Now: I should be succinct, succinct being goode, and declare war. This Is War. Sincerely, Jebediah Blastloon.’

‘Yes, surely this will be a great nation. Or a fine buffalo hunt. I have partaken of too much absinthe mead again, and must go to bed good evening.’