Wednesday, June 27, 2007

Sitting Here in the Wreckage

The President’s speech was worse than I thought. Much worse.

First he pandered, then he pattered, and finally he just handed over the keys and told everyone at the Islamic Center that he just knew they could be trusted with the ship of state. Get a load of this piece of tripe:

Today we gather, with friendship and respect, to …renew our determination to stand together in the pursuit of freedom and peace. We come to express our appreciation for a faith that has enriched civilization for centuries. We come in celebration of America’s diversity of faith and our unity as free people. And we hold in our hearts the ancient wisdom of the great Muslim poet, Rumi: “The lamps are different, but the light is the same.”

Moments like this dedication help clarify who Americans are as a people, and what we wish for the world. We live in a time when there are questions about America and her intentions. For those who seek a true understanding of our country, they need to look no farther than here. This Muslim center sits quietly down the road from a synagogue, a Lutheran church, a Catholic parish, a Greek Orthodox chapel, a Buddhist temple — each with faithful followers who practice their deeply held beliefs and live side by side in peace.

Does he actually believe these poisonous platitudes? Doesn’t he read the newspapers? Hasn’t he seen what they’re doing to Christians in Gaza? To Hindus in Europe? What moral universe does our President inhabit?

Here’s the worst of several atrocities:

OIC flagTo underscore America’s respect for the Muslim faith here at home, I came to this Center six days after the 9/11 attacks to denounce incidents of prejudice against Muslim Americans. (Applause.) Today I am announcing a new initiative that will improve mutual understanding and cooperation between America and people in predominately Muslim countries.

I will appoint a special envoy to the Organization of the Islamic Conference. This is the first time a President has made such an appointment to the OIC. (Applause.) Our special envoy will listen to and learn from representatives from Muslim states and will share with them America’s views and values. This is an opportunity for Americans to demonstrate to Muslim communities our interest in respectful dialogue and continued friendship.

That presupposes that rational people are interested in respectful dialogue with theocratic tyrants. Get a grip, Mr. President, you have slid so far down the muddy slope of sloppy, mindless goodwill that we’ll have to winch you back up to reality; you’ll never make it under your own steam. And that would presume you even wanted to live in a reality-based environment, a presumption I no longer assume on your behalf.
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The Center for Vigilant Freedom immediately makes the logical jump to what a “special envoy” to the OIC might entail:

First, that’s probably an entire office, not just some guy with a blackberry and a lot of airline miles. We’ll also assume logically that office is in the State Department, until we hear otherwise.

Second, what is the scope of commitment and involvement — and implicit acceptance of a new identity as a “Muslim state” — as a result of our sending a representative?

If we’re sending a representative to the OIC… are we now a member? What is the status of a representative to the OIC and what does it mean about our role vis-à-vis the OIC? We’ve been warned about Eurabia by Bat Ye’or. Welcome to Amerabia.

The Organization of Islamic Conferences has a lot of conferences (listed below)*: will we be represented at all of them? Who will be the representatives and their staff (look to friends of Suhail Khan, Grover Norquist, David Keene [now of the new joint organization “American Conservative Union-CAIR”], CAIR, MAS, and the attendees at yesterday’s Wilson Center conference for resumés now burning up the fax machines at the State Dept.). Will our involvement be as transparent and public as, say, inside efforts at passing the Amnesty Bill or establishing the apparatus of the North American Union?

*Organization of Islamic Conferences

  • Islamic Summit Conference
  • Conference of Foreign Ministers
  • Conference of Information Ministers
  • Conference of Culture Ministers
  • Conference of Tourism Ministers
  • The Standing Committee for Economic and Commercial Cooperation of the OIC (COMCEC)

Which is the conference to which non-Muslim states send representatives? I’m optimistic that there is one, and he just didn’t go into the details.

But I can’t find it. What I can read in the OIC charter is this:

The Islamic Conference is made up of:

1. the Conference of Kings and Heads of State and Government
2. the Conference of Foreign Ministers, and
3. the General Secretariat and Subsidiary Organs.

ARTICLE VIII

Membership:

The Organization of the Islamic Conference is made up of the States which took part in the Conference of Kings and Heads of State and Government held in Rabat and the two Foreign Ministers’ Conferences held in Jeddah and Karachi, and signatory to the present Charter. Every Muslim State is eligible to join the Islamic Conference on submitting an application expressing its desire and preparedness to adopt this Charter. The application shall be deposited with the General Secretariat, to be brought before the Foreign Ministers’ Conference at its first meeting after the submission of the application. Membership shall take effect as of the time of approval of the Conference by a two-third majority of the Conference members.

Are we now therefore, by default, a Muslim state (well, that would explain why we didn’t send a representative before…)? Will we be financing the OIC?

Good questions from CVF. Just try getting answers from the Byzantine Church of the Bush White House.

I am counting the days until this man goes back to Texas and morphs into just another ex-President shill for the same oily money bags that Jimmah and the Clintoons haul around.

He has become as smarmy as Hillary, as beholden as Barack, and every bit the turncoat that Kerry was. I would say it can’t get worse but Bush has another eighteen months to take us down.

Me? Bitter? Nah. Hell hath no fury like a voter scorned, Mr. Bush. Certainly you can feel the heat from millions of angry citizens by now. At least I hope you can. If you can’t it’s simply because you are so well-insulated by your sycophants that you can’t feel anything, can’t hear anything except your own echo chamber.

By the time Clinton left office I couldn’t bear to hear his voice. It had been the carrier of so many lies, so much faux-sympathy that I ran from the sound. Bush’s voice is worse, because I expected better from him. I expected better and I got worse, much worse.

After I lie down for awhile with a cool cloth on my forehead, I’ll have to get up and get back to work, figuring out the scenarios for 2008. But I’m twice shy now, having been so thoroughly burned… it’s hard to believe any of them.

Why would a sane person run for this office, and why would we vote for anyone who wanted it? They have all become automatically suspect.

As for our status now, I leave you with the questions the Center for Vigilant Freedom proposes:

Let’s be optimistic. Say we’re just sending a representative, not participating as an equal Muslim state but as some other category. What is that other category? Are we sending a Dhimmi representative as an inferior state (by definition of the Koran, if we are not a Muslim state)?

What, exactly, will be the portfolio of the Dhimmitude Desk in the State Department?

If this President had the anatomy for it, he’d propose John Bolton for this position as envoy to the OIC. Bolton would have them for breakfast. That’s why it will never happen.

Nothing manly will ever happen again on Bush’s watch.

13 comments:

Exile said...

Perhaps we should rename it...

Capitulation Hill..

Melissa "Darla" In Texas said...

I am afraid you are correct.
I have always been a Bush supporter, but I am starting to question the man sanity.

zzdeville said...

More kabuski theater on display by el presidente. He and Condi put on their masks and trot out to speak worn out platitudes of ROP and the Palestinian state and seem not to care that the audience no longer believes anything they say. I think the only thing that would bother Bush is doing something to bring shame on the Bush family. Behind his mask he doesn't give a flip what we think.

xlbrl said...

We saw him clearly for the first time the day after the election, speaking from the White House lawn. A frightened, confused frat boy, looking for a place to land or hide. He pretty much indicated that place was going to be across the political aile, but I was to stupid to believe what I was hearing. Even stupidity has its limits. I believe.

Jason said...

This is friendship and respect? Seems like a mighty costly friendship when our government turns a blind eye on the plight of its own citizens for the sake of that friendship.

Dymphna said...

xlbrl ---

I disagree. He was a competent governor of Texas and I was relieved he'd won. The opposition was creepy.

I liked the Bush Doctrine; I just wish he'd lived up to it.

I agreed with his forays into Iraq and Afghanistan, but like his father, he didn't have a Plan B after we got there. And the State Dept undermined everythign, hoping to get Kerry elected if things were really bad.

He was back-stabbed repeatedly by the Old Hands, who are still working to bring him down.

In some ways it's amazing he's still standing.

BUt that speech at the Islamic Center was neither necessary nor politic.

I give up. He can't hear.

Lao said...

Dymphna, hope you don't mind, but I'm going to repost this here - for reasons that you are familiar with.

"We can’t be at war with every muslim in the world."

Yes we can, and we are.

Regardless of whether each and every Muslim in the world wants to kill you or not is irrelevant, all Muslims worldwide deeply believe in and adhere to a religious/political ideology that promotes a dualist worldview that is the antithesis of freedom and democracy.

The word "Islam" my FRiend does not mean "peace" as America's quislings would have you believe, it means "submission". It should be painfully obvious that freedom and liberty, that very creed for which all Americans live by is in actuality the diametrical opposite of what Islam truly is.

Under the guise of political correctness Americans have been led to believe that their obeisance towards Islam is merely an act of tolerance. Chesterson once said that "Tolerance is the virtue of the man without convictions". Think about it.

Tell me what convictions America holds dear today and I will show you how America's "conflict of conscience" has led to our nation's submission. How will the next generation of Americans, your children and mine, find courage to fight for the sort of imperfect humanity which is willing to abort innocent lives while sanctifying those of criminals, or which undermines it's own principles by banning moral absolutes as politically incorrect.

Reflect on Chesterson's eternal aphorism and look around and tell me where America's love affair with political correctness and tolerance has led.

America is in need of strong leadership not consensus, sadly leadership is something that Bush has consistently shown to be incapable of providing.

I'll end this with a quote from Reagan that it fitting from another time in our nation's history when we faced a grave threat to our way of life.

"You and I are told we must choose between a left or right, but I suggest there is no such thing as a left or right. There is only an up or down. Up to man's age-old dream -- the maximum of individual freedom consistent with order -- or down to the ant heap of totalitarianism. Regardless of their sincerity, their humanitarian motives, those who would sacrifice freedom for security have embarked on this downward path. Plutarch warned, "The real destroyer of the liberties of the people is he who spreads among them bounties, donations and benefits."

Ronald Reagan - Address to the nation, 27 October 1964


Thanks.

Dr.D said...

zzdeville said, "I think the only thing that would bother Bush is doing something that would bring shame on the Bush family."

As I see it, just about everything Bush does brings shame on the Bush family, particularly things like this traitorous speech to the Muslims today. I was initially proud when a fellow Texan was elected President, but he has become much worse than an embarrassment. He is a total sell-out, and I am ashamed of him, as he should be also. Shame and dishonor will follow him through history.

Pax Federatica said...

Bush is reminding me more and more of Tolkien's King Théoden.

Théoden, as you may recall, was mentally compromised by Wormtongue, an agent of Sauron. God knows Bush has been listening to plenty of Islamist Wormtongues over the years, with plenty more of them on hand at his speech. Unfortunately there's no Gandalf The White available to break the Islamists' spell over Bush. At this rate, Rohan doesn't stand a chance.

Whiskey said...

Unfortunately GWB is a liberal at heart. A JFK type liberal, but a liberal none the less.

He has made the political calculation to throw in the towel and govern with the Democrats. Hence his speech today and basic surrender on all points to an Islamist agenda.

ANTI-ISLAMIST said...

On Marc Alexander's blog 'A New Dark Age Is Dawning' there is a *Letter to America* about the two main problems that are facing the US:

(1) the Problem with Islam and
(2) the Problem with the Southern Border.

Question: - Can an emasculated or even castrated government solve these problems?

ChrisLA said...

I urge everyone to check out the Charter of the OIC. Not only is membership limited to Muslim States (Article VIII), but all expenses will be shared by member states in proportion to their national incomes (Article VII). This will make "member USA" the largest financial supporter of the Conference. It gets worse: One of the four assistants to the Secretary General must come from Palestine (Article V) and the headquarters in Jeddah are only temporary until Jerusalem is liberated (Article VI). Perhaps a reader who understands Arabic can inform us if the word "struggle" used twice in the OIC's objectives is actually "jihad" in the Arabic.

All I can say is that if Bush had been president in the 1930's, he probably would have named a delegate to Germany's National Socialist Party. IDIOT !

xlbrl said...

Yes, Dymphma, I must have been unclear. I never had questions concerning the alternatives to Bush. I only meant to say that the election night broke him.
He means to have something of immediacy and relevance to hang on to now, and that something is, bizarrely, Godfather Jorge giving away one more thing that he did not earn, but was earned by better men than he who spent decades toiling in political obscurity.
Well, back to obscurity.