Conservative Response to Earthquake in Haiti

Just a few days ago the island nation of Haiti was devastated by an earthquake. Thousands of buildings collapsed; tens of thousands of people are dead. America responded as usual to these kinds of tragedies by immediately rushing to help the beleaguered people of the impoverished nation. President Obama made a public call for Americans to contribute much-needed money to the relief effort. Americans are a generous people and will rise to this occasion as needed.

However, all is not well in our fair Republic, for none other than conservative leader and radio personality Rush Limbaugh condemned Obama's call for help and implied that people should not contribute. "We have already given through our incomes taxes," he stated. He also implied that any money donated in response to Obama's call would be siphoned off for political use and never get to the needy people of Haiti.

Not to be outdone, conservative Christian leader Pat Robertson made an emphatic statement that the Haitian people had made a "deal with the devil" when they rose up to throw off the shackles of colonial rule. The result has been a history of suffering and devastation.

One wonders how much lower conservative leaders can sink. Now is the time when the Haitian people need words of comfort not condemnation. Do conservatives have any compassion whatsoever? It is far past time for conservative leaders of the Republican Party to disavow the hatred spewed out by these outspoken men on a continual basis. They do no good for the Republican Party nor are they good for America.

Connecting the Dots

America is all in a frenzy because of the near tragedy on Christmas day when a Nigerian youth attempted to blow up an airplane landing in Detroit. Our security forces should have apprehended him prior to getting on the plane,President Obama declared. We had plenty of information, we just didn't connect the dots.

From my perspective, the reason we didn't connect the dots is that there are just too many dots to connect. With 1 million people on the watch list it is impossible before the fact to identify the ones who really are the bad guys. Now, because of the security frenzy, even more people will be put on the list making more security dots to connect. America's desire for perfect safety in every aspect of life is probably not reasonable.

Rush In A Rant

It seems that the whole country has gone berserk over the recent incident on the Northwest flight into Detroit on Christmas day. For those who are hibernating on the mountaintop, a young Nigerian attempted to light an explosive on the plane. Fortunately, some passengers noticed what he was doing and put a stop to his evil plan.

Now everybody is trying to figure out what to do protect us and make us totally secure in this country. Rush Limbaugh, in his characteristically angry style, has suggested that all Muslims be required to go through a separate checkout line. He doesn't explain how we will identify all Muslims. Maybe they should be required to wear green armbands, or have a large M tattooed into their forheads.

The unfortunate part about Rush's rant is that so many people actually believe that his anger is good thinking. From my perspective, we may have more to worry about from that crowd than the few radical Muslims that might slip through our grasp.

Republicans in a Panic

Republicans are in a panic these days over the situation in Congress with the healthcare bill. They have fought that all the way in both the House and now in the Senate. Now, it appears that Democrats are going to actually be able to pass this legislation. Of course it has some problems like any other complex piece of legislation does. In general, however, the healthcare proposal will make good law. So, why are Republicans in such a panic? Because it appears that Obama will be successful in fulfilling his promise for healthcare reform. And remember the stated goal of Republican is for Obama to fail. Now that it looks like he might succeed, there is indeed grounds for them to panic

Within Two Minutes

I watched with much interest president Obama's speech to the nation regarding the war in Afghanistan. From my perspective, he laid out a clear plan, starting with a short history of our involvement in Afghanistan, the reason why got involved, and what our goals are there now. He carefully linked our military action to the devastating attack on America on September 11, 2001. If we do not destroy the terrorist network, he claimed, they will attack us again. we are not there to occupy the country or even to engage in nation building. Our military has two functions: disrupted the Al Qaeda network so that it cannot export terrorism, and train the Afghan armed forces so they can keep their own people safe and secure.

Within two minutes of his speech the commentators at Fox News were disparaging Obama and his message to theAmerican people. Listening to their critique it appeared that it was a pre-planned generic criticism which was intended to fit no matter what Obama said. Fox News seems to have two rules regarding our current president. Rule one is: everything Obama says or does is bad. Rule two is: in the unlikely event that Obama does or says something good, refer immediately to rule one. Too bad they can't be more patriotic and put the good of the nation ahead of their own rancor and hatred.

Is Huckabee Really a Liberal?

What a fascinating news item. It turns out that when he was governor of Arkansas, Mike Huckabee pardoned a large number of convicted criminals in his state. One of them has recently been accused of killing four police officers in the state of Washington. He gunned them down in a cold blooded murder. This brings up the question, is Mike Huckabee really a liberal in conservative clothing?

For those with long memories, Michael Dukakis of Massachusetts lost the presidency partly because of his releasing a convicted criminal named Willie Horton. He was accused of being soft on crime. From my perspective, one can ask: is Huckabee of the same stripe? It will be interesting to see how this all plays out in the Republican primaries in 2012.

A More Important Question

As I write this, the nation eagerly awaits an announcement by President Obama regarding troop levels in Afghanistan. In case you have forgotten, we are at war in that far-away country. The commanding general has submitted a request for a major increase in the number of American troops under his command there. Obama has taken a long time thinking about this request and what his response should be.

From my perspective, a more important question the President needs to answer is “What is America’s goal in Afghanistan?” Most Americans have forgotten why our troops are fighting there. Obama needs to tell us what our basic goal is, then he can explain how many troops we need to accomplish that task. Hopefully he will do that sometime soon.