Mission Accomplished

Success.

Make no mistake about it. The radical wing of the pro-live movement has scored a coup, a major success. The Associated Press reports

The family of slain abortion provider George Tiller said Tuesday that his Wichita clinic will be "permanently closed," effective immediately.

In a statement released by Tiller's attorneys, his family said it is ceasing operation of Women's Health Care Services Inc. and any involvement by family members in any other similar clinic.

It worked out perfectly. Despite connections to far-right groups, Roeder, as far as we know, planned and executed the murder of Dr. Tiller himself. These groups can remain at arms length from the murder and the murderer himself while the immediate purpose of the slaying has been accomplished. And the ultimate objective? The AP article continues

Dr. Warren Hern, one of the few remaining doctors in the country who performs late-term abortions, said the closure of the clinic was an "outrage" and he feels the loss for Dr. Tiller's family and the patients he served.

"How tragic, how tragic," Hern said when contacted by phone at his Boulder, Colo., clinic. "This is what they want, they've been wanting this for 35 years."

Asked whether he felt efforts should be made to keep the clinic open, he said: "This was Dr. Tiller's clinic. How much can you resist this kind of violence? What doctor, what reasonable doctor would work there? Where does it stop?"

Where, indeed.

The Right And Domestic Terrorism

Dr. George Tiller, allegedly murdered by anti-abortion fanatic Scott Roeder in Kansas; army recruiter William Long shot and killed, and another recruiter wounded, in Arkansas by a Muslim described as "having political and religious motives"; and now security guard Stephen Tyrone Jones fatally wounded at the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C., apparently by elderly white supremacist James Von Brunn.

On Monday evening, June 8, Keith Olbermann had asked about Roeder

You got both words wrong, Sonny. If this man, meanwhile, shot a doctor for religious and political reasons, he is, by definition, a terrorist in the 21st century meaning of the word. If, as he said from prison, there will be other attacks, why are we still not treating this case as terrorism?

Olbermann's question has not been answered, and the issue of domestic terrorism- or just plain terrorism- was largely ignored by all but the openly liberal media (such as Olbermann) following the successful attack on one of the few doctors performing late term abortions in the U.S.A. Now it is being reported that the U.S. Code of Federal Regulations (28 C.F.R. Section 0.85) defines terrorism as

the systematic use of terror or unpredictable violence against governments, publics, or individuals to attain a political objective. Terrorism has been used by political organizations with both rightist and leftist objectives, by nationalistic and ethnic groups, by revolutionaries, and by the armies and secret police of governments themselves

The F.B.I. distinguishes between domestic terrorism and international terrorism and defines domestic terrorism as

the unlawful use, or threatened use, of force or violence by a group or individual based and operating entirely within the United States or its territories without foreign direction committed against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian population, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives.

There you have it: the murder of Dr. Tiller was a terrorist attack, though you'd never realize it by watching, or listening to, the "liberal media."

Nor are you likely to hear a mea culpa by the right wing talkers, who excoriated the report, issued by the Department of Homeland Security on April 13, entitled "Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment." Michelle Malkin, whose condemnation of the report was typical, imagined it as evidence of "The Obama DHS hit job on conservatives."

Not only was the report commissioned by the Bush Administration- which would make it a conservative hit job on conservatives- but a paragraph on page 2 was eerily prescient:

Rightwing extremism in the United States can be broadly divided into those groups, movements, and adherents that are primarily hate-oriented (based on hatred of particular religious, racial or ethnic groups), and those that are mainly antigovernment, rejecting federal authority in favor of state or local authority, or rejecting government authority entirely. It may include groups and individuals that are dedicated to a single issue, such as opposition to abortion or immigration.

Even this afternoon, Republican Talking Point Sean Hannity was still claiming that that the DHS report was an unsconscionable attack on the conservative movement, and no denizen of the right-wing echo chamber has admitted error or expressed any humility. Facts matter little, and the attack today won't change that.

Down On America

A pattern is developing.

First it was Texas Republican Governor Rick Perry, who after the tea party in Austin on April 15 told reporters

There's a lot of different scenarios. We've got a great union. There's absolutely no reason to dissolve it. But if Washington continues to thumb their nose at the American people, you know, who knows what might come out of that. But Texas is a very unique place, and we're a pretty independent lot to boot.

Then it was Hugh Hewitt, echoed by Republican Party boss Rush Limbaugh, urging his listeners to sink an American auto company and throw Americans out of work:

Even if these massive subsidies for a time present appealing products at subsidized prices, however, I won't be visiting a GM or Chrysler lot no matter the product offered. The very idea of a socialized American car company ought to cause millions of Americans to reject the idea of doing their car shopping at those venues.

And now there is U.S. Representative Mark Kirk, who admits (video below), when he met with leaders of mainland China, he declared

One of the messages I had -- because we need to build trust and confidence in our number one creditor is that the budget numbers that the US government had put forward should not be believed. The Congress is actually gonna spend quite a bit more than what's in the budget, and the health-care bill probably being the lead driver of additional spending by the Congress.

Wanting (or considering) splitting off from the United States; encouraging a boycott of an American company and its workers; indirectly urging a foreign nation to call in its loans to the American government, which probably would bring down the U.S. economy. Some people might say that conservative Republicans love America but hate Americans. Half-right.

When The House Of Worship Isn't

The Courier-Journal of Louisville, Kentucky reports

A Valley Station Road church is sponsoring an "Open Carry Church Service" in late June, encouraging people to wear unloaded guns in their holsters, enter a raffle to win a free handgun, hear patriotic music and listen to talks by operators of gun stores and firing ranges.

Pastor Ken Pagano of New Bethel Church said the first-time event is "basically trying to think a little bit outside the box" to promote "responsible gun ownership and 2nd Amendment rights."

The event, slated for late Saturday afternoon, June 27, is being promoted with online posters, including one using a red font resembling splattered blood with the words: "Open Carry Church Service."

Now for a different perspective on the role of the church and its use as a building:

"And Jesus entered the temple and drove out all who sold and bought in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money-changers and the seats of those who sold pigeons. He said to them, 'It is written, My house shall be called a house of prayer, but you make it a den of robbers.'" (Matthew 21:12-13, ESV)

Rush: Down With America, and American Workers

Chairman of the Republican Party (not RNC) Rush Limbaugh has done it again.

No, not saying that he hopes President Barack Obama will fail, though he did so (video below) when interviewed by Sean Hannity on GOP TV on June 3. No, now he has made clear what some of us have suspected for a while- that he wants the American worker and the American economy to fail.

The people saying they don't want to buy anything at General Motors are not mad at General Motors. They don't want to patronize Obama. They don't want to do anything to make Obama's policies work!....

Anyway, the point is, be it General Motors, be it Chrysler -- whatever else Obama ends up controlling and running -- the American people are not going to want it to succeed. So I want all of you who work at General Motors and all of you who are members of labor unions to understand that the opposition to you is not because of you.

So Rush Limbaugh encourages a boycott of one of America's three automobile companies (and historically the largest) and it's nothing personal- just business, you understand. While the President is encouraging individuals to buy American, Limbaugh is applauding the sentiment of people allegedly refusing to buy from General Motors, encouraging them to boycott it and Chrysler. And if the effort is successful, the companies will fail and Americans will lose their jobs. Still, "the opposition to you is not because of you"- it's only your job and American manufacturing Rush and his dittoheads want to destroy.

Jonah Goldberg, Misguided

In The Columbus Dispatch, it was "In Cairo, It Was All About Obama;" in National Review Online, it was "The Prism of Obama" (and subheaded) "This was precisely the moment to let Obama be Obama." Taken together, they reflect the slightly schizophrenic nature of the conservative columnist's column of June 5 on Barack Obama's June 4 speech in Cairo, Egypt. But with either title, Goldberg is plain wrong.

The National Review columnist concludes by arguing:

This was precisely the moment to let Obama be Obama. Yes, he is a hypocrite for downplaying his Muslim connections when running for office and then touting them once in office. But such hypocrisy is a small price to pay. If Richard Nixon was a statesman for laying aside his anti-Communism to engage China, then surely Obama can brag about his Muslim father. Obama has a cult of personality in the Muslim street. If he can exploit it for America's and the world's benefit, he should.

This is a safe, centrist view: if Obama can fool the enemy by pretending to be sympathetic and empathetic, and it redounds to the benefit of the U.S.A., it can only be useful.

There is little analogy with President Nixon engaging mainland, then commonly referred to as Communist, China. No matter the benefit or cost, it was more than a strategy but actual action and can be evaluated on its own merits. Obama's approach in Cairo, whether sincere (as liberals believe) or not (as Goldberg and some other moderate-conservative Americans believe) is a strategy, one the President hopes will quell some of the enthusiasm in the Muslim world for the terrorism of its extremists. It either will be backed by action- disappointing the Jonah Goldbergs, presumably- or if it is insincere, represent an effort to buy cheaply from the Muslim world support for American goals and actions.

If it is the latter, it's likely that at some, more critical, point (or gradually), Arab nations and groups will catch on and believe themselves betrayed. Nevertheless, Obama's effort to dupe- or convince- the Arab community would be doomed at birth to failure if he were not able to acknowledge the most obvious of failings.

This obviously is the United States' government war of choice in Iraq, an acknowledgment which escapes Goldberg, who writes

Obama was reliably Obamaesque again when he disparaged the Iraq war as a "war of choice." But wait, he also thinks Iraq is better without Saddam, so maybe it was a good choice?....

....As ever, Obama's positions on Iraq cannot be reconciled. Just as he often celebrates our troops' success but can't say we succeeded, he celebrates Iraq's democratic progress but -- hamstrung by his own ideology and pride -- won't fully acknowledge that such progress is even possible, given that it began at the point of an American gun. In short, President Obama is straddling Iraq just as candidate Obama did.

Whom does Goldberg believe he is fooling? The Arab street, overwhelmingly opposed to the U.S. action in invading Iraq? The ranks of terrorists, swelled in response to the military action? The soldiers in Iraq, for whom providing resources was less important to the President than cutting taxes on the wealthy? The soldiers in Afghanistan, shortchanged as President Bush pursued in Iraq a far less important strategic objective? Or perhaps the families of the soldiers who have been killed in a war trumped up by false claims about nuclear weapons, chemical and biological weapons, and, well, practically everything?

Clearly, Goldberg, commenting "just as he often celebrates our troops' success but can't say we succeeded," is frustrated that he cannot pin on Mr. Obama the "liberals hate the troops" meme. He fails to understand- or more likely, does not want to concede- the distinction between the honorable service of individuals in the nation's armed services and the utter failure of American policy under the leadership of George W. Bush.