Karl's Weekend Reading

John R. Bolton, an owner of our sexy Ushanka hat, offers five suggestions in the Monday WSJ in his opinion piece, "Salvaging Our North Korea Policy". His outrage our the failure of the US to push our partners to pressure the Communist regime is well founded. As Rwanda is Bill Clinton's biggest regret, this failure, and the continued suffering it has caused, may be Bush's.

Declare North Korea's repeated refusal to honor its commitments, especially but not exclusively concerning full disclosure of its nuclear programs, unacceptable,
Suspend the Six-Party Talks, and reconvene talks without North Korea (to apply more pressure on China),
Strengthen international pressure on North Korea's nuclear and missile programs,
Squeeze North Korea economically,
Prepare contingency plans for humanitarian relief in the event of increased North Korean refugee flows or a regime collapse

The WSJ's Mary Anastasia O'Grady interviewed Yon Goicoechea, a 23 year old student activist in Venezuela who has helped organize the recent protests to Hugo's attempted media grab last year, and to thwart the referendum for dictatorial powers.

The quote below caught our eye for a common component for Communism to take hold - a public so anxious for a change they do not care what change they will get. We see this as a DNC strategy - Bush Fatigue Syndrome - and see a Hillary or Obama election as an unconscious move toward Socialism. Do you see that too?

Mr. Chávez won the presidency in 1998 largely because Venezuelans were fed up with the ruling political and economic elite. Over 40 years of so-called democracy, the traditional parties had manipulated the law to grant themselves privilege and loot state coffers. When voters gambled on Mr. Chávez, it seems to have been more about rejecting the status quo than embracing the fiery newcomer.

We missed Obama's speech about the Hate America pastor. Yes, the 'race' speech. But the editorial board at the WSJ didn't. It appears victim status will be something we all have in common if Obama is elected and his vision adopted. From "Discovering Obama":

The Senator noted that the anger of his pastor "is real; it is powerful," and in fact it is mirrored in "white resentments." He then laid down a litany of American woe: "the white woman struggling to break the glass ceiling, the white man who has been laid off," the "shuttered mill," those "without health care," the soldiers who have fought in "a war that never should have been authorized and never should've been waged," etc. Thus Mr. Obama's message is we "need unity" because all Americans are victims, racial and otherwise; he even mentioned working for change by "binding our particular grievances."

And the cause of all this human misery? Why, "a corporate culture rife with inside dealing, questionable accounting practices, and short-term greed; a Washington dominated by lobbyists and special interests; economic policies that favor the few over the many." Mr. Obama's villains, in other words, are the standard-issue populist straw men of Wall Street and the GOP, and his candidacy is a vessel for liberal policy orthodoxy -- raise taxes, "invest" more in social programs, restrict trade, retreat from Iraq.

James Taranto adds to the Obama/Race kerfuffle in Monday's Best of the Web with a review of "Black Liberation Theology":

Here is a quote from Cone, explaining black liberation theology (hat tip: Spengler, a pseudonymous columnist for the Asia Times):

"Black theology refuses to accept a God who is not identified totally with the goals of the black community. If God is not for us and against white people, then he is a murderer, and we had better kill him. The task of black theology is to kill Gods who do not belong to the black community. . . . Black theology will accept only the love of God which participates in the destruction of the white enemy. What we need is the divine love as expressed in Black Power, which is the power of black people to destroy their oppressors here and now by any means at their disposal. Unless God is participating in this holy activity, we must reject his love."

Could Obama really have been unaware for all these years that his spiritual mentor follows a racially adversarial theology, one that demands of God that he be "for us and against white people" and that he participate "in the destruction of the white enemy"? It doesn't exactly sound like the sort of change we can believe in.

Another owner of our world famous Ushanka hat, Ann Coulter, addressed the Obama/Race issue in her Thursday Townhall.com article, "Throw Grandma Under the Bus".

So for half of Rev. Wright's 66 years, discrimination against blacks was legal -- though he never experienced it personally because it existed in a part of the country where he did not live. For the second half of Wright's life, discrimination against whites was legal throughout the land.

Discrimination has become so openly accepted that -- in a speech meant to tamp down his association with a black racist -- Obama felt perfectly comfortable throwing his white grandmother under the bus. He used her as the white racist counterpart to his black racist "old uncle," Rev. Wright.

First of all, Wright is not Obama's uncle. The only reason we indulge crazy uncles is that everyone understands that people don't choose their relatives the way they choose, for example, their pastors and mentors. No one quarrels with idea that you can't be expected to publicly denounce your blood relatives.

Tired of the MSM using polls to push their agenda? Join the club! Karl Rove uses the data from a recent poll to show us how the "Democrats are still Weak on Security". His Friday WSJ article explains that Pelosi, Clinton, Obama and others are in the 18% segment of society that wants the US out of Iraq regardless of the consequences.

Asked by CNN's Wolf Blitzer on Feb. 9 if she was worried that the gains of the last year might be lost, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi shot back: "There haven't been gains . . . This is a failure." Carl Levin, the Democratic chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee told the Associated Press the same month that the surge "has failed."

This passionate, persistent unwillingness to admit what more and more Americans are coming to believe is true about Iraq's changing situation puts Democrats in dangerous political territory. For one thing, they increasingly appear out of touch with reality, a charge they made with some success at the administration's expense before the surge began changing conditions in Iraq.

Hmm, Democrats out of touch you say?