Saturday, December 09, 2006

With Whom Do You Stand?

A little tidbit from the news Thursday, not reported that I heard of, only read about from a Reuters news account, is Howard Dean's little trip off to Portugal for the conference held by the European Socialist Party. It was a two day soiree for the leaders of the leftist governments and the president of the group, Danish Prime Minister Poul Nyrup Rasmussen, told the audience "We are not anti-American, we want the real America, your America" as he looked over to Dean. The Portuguese Socialist Prime Minister Jose Socrates, chimed in with "Europe needs an America that is back on track."

Nice.

I suppose we are to want to strive to imitate Europe, with its high unemployment rates, high cost of living, lesser home ownerships, socialist medicine and nanny state mentality.

Socrates assured Dean that the Democrats "should know that they can count on European Socialists" for support.

O.K.

I feel much better now.

In stark contrast, President Bush and Tony Blair held a joint press conference Thursday. As I watched the two leaders of the free world speak and answer questions, all I could think was how fortunate that we are to have these two strong men at this time in history.

I was reminded of President Reagan and Margaret Thatcher. An earlier team who were committed to keeping their countries free and spreading the concept of freedom and liberty for all.

In today's dangerous times, no less is needed. One of the key facts from the Iraq Study Group's report was the need for a unified American people. Senator Joe Lieberman said, "Too much of our discussions on Iraq have been carried out in partisan press conferences. That's got to end." He is right. Again. It is a shame more of his party is so committed to our failure in Iraq and humilating President Bush that they cannot see beyond the next election cycle. They are not serious people and command no respect.

I have very little in the way of common political beliefs with Senator Lieberman. However, on the most important issue of the day, the pursuit of the war on terrorism, we are on the same page. That is bi-partisan.

That is rising to the occasion.

Are you Chamberlain or Churchill?

With whom do you stand?


"You don't accept that you ever give up." - Tony Blair

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I read The Wilderness Years not too long ago. Eerie, the similarities. It seems so clear, the foolishness of appeasement.

Gas in Europe is really high. Way higher than our own here, over $6 dollars per gallon. I read that in France the pump price consists of 70% taxes while in the US its around 17%.

Jenny finally understood something the other day. She said the store wanted more for a bottle of water than her gallon of gas! When I asked if she bought the water, she said, "Well... yeah." We're only part of the way there but first ya gotta take off the blinders.

Anonymous said...

I read The Wilderness Years not too long ago. Eerie, the similarities. It seems so clear, the foolishness of appeasement.

Gas in Europe is really high. Way higher than our own here, over $6 dollars per gallon. I read that in France the pump price consists of 70% taxes while in the US its around 17%.

Jenny finally understood something the other day. She said the store wanted more for a bottle of water than her gallon of gas! When I asked if she bought the water, she said, "Well... yeah." We're only part of the way there but first ya gotta take off the blinders.

Anonymous said...

Karen, Please dump at least one of those comments! I don't know what happened.

srp said...

I feel so sad when I get to a blog with little signs on the sidebar that say... Only so many more days, hours, minutes, and seconds until Bush leaves office. Never before, except the Civil War, have the people of America been so divided.