IVAN SIRKO FOR PRESIDENT!

This marvelous painting by Russian artist Ilya Repin (1844-1930) is entitled Reply of the Zaporozhian Cossacks (click on the link for a higher resolution).  It is a large oil on canvas (6.5 ft. high by 8.5 ft. wide), and it made an unforgettable impression on me when I saw it some years ago at the Alexander III Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia.

It is a historical tableau set in 1676, depicting a group of Christian Cossacks from what is now southern Ukraine called the Zaporozhian Host (who lived "above the rapids," za porohamy, of the lower Dnieper River). 

They are in a good mood, for they had recently demolished in battle an army of Ottoman Sultan Mehmet IV's (1642-1693).  This was a prelude to the Moslem Sultan's historic defeat at the Battle of Vienna (September 12, 1683) that you read about at the close of Asia Minor (Part One).

Yet the Sultan had the gall to demand that the victorious Cossacks, as Christian infidels, submit to his Moslem rule and be his subjects.  They decided to write him a letter, and you can see they had fun doing it. 

While I had seen the painting, I never read the letter, copies of which have been preserved.  We owe thanks to TTP member Julius Wroblewski who sent me the text, so I can share it (albeit bowdlerized) with you.

As you read it, while thinking about our present White House which won't effect regime change in Iran or protect our borders, you may feel the temptation to yell out loud about the Cossack leader who wrote the letter, "Yes, this is the guy I want in the Oval Office!"

The Cossack leader's name, you see, was Ivan Sirko.

His response was to this letter from Mehmet IV.  As is obvious, the Sultan was inflamed with a truly pathological sense of self-importance, an evidently common Islamic affliction:

As the Sultan; son of Mohammed; brother of the Sun and Moon; grandson and viceroy of God; ruler of the kingdoms of Macedonia, Babylon, Jerusalem, Upper and Lower Egypt; emperor of emperors; sovereign of sovereigns; extraordinary knight, never defeated; steadfast guardian of the tomb of Jesus Christ; trustee chosen by God himself; the hope and comfort of Moslems; confounder and great defender of Christians-I command you, the Zaporozhian Cossacks, to submit to me voluntarily and without any resistance, and to desist from troubling me with your attacks.

(signed) Sultan Mehmet IV

And here is Ivan Sirko's reply, which has to be appropriately asterisked as we try to keep this a family-friendly website:

Zaporozhian Cossacks to the Turkish Sultan!

O sultan, turkish devil and damned devil's kith and kin, secretary to Lucifer himself. What the devil kind of knight are you, that can't slay a hedgehog with his naked arse? The devil sh*ts, and your army eats. You will not, you son of a bitch, make subjects of Christian sons; we've no fear of your army, by land and by sea we will battle with thee, you mother-f***er.

You Babylonian scullion, Macedonian wheelwright, brewer of Jerusalem, goat-f***er of Alexandria, swineherd of Greater and Lesser Egypt, Armenian pig, Podolian thief, catamite of Tartary, hangman of Kamyanets, and fool of all the world and underworld, an idiot before God, grandson of the Serpent, and the crick in our d*ck.  Pig's snout, mare's arse, slaughterhouse cur, unchristened brow, go f*** your own mother!

So the Zaporozhians declare, you lowlife. You won't even be herding Christian pigs. Now we'll conclude, for we don't know the date and don't own a calendar; the moon's in the sky, the year with the Lord, the day's the same over here as it is over there; for this kiss our arse!

(signed) Koshovyi Otaman Ivan Sirko, with the whole Zaporozhian Host.

Don't you long for a President who would talk to Vladimir Putin, Bashar al-Assad, Mahmoud Ahmadinutjob, the Chicoms, Hugo Chavez, the leaders of CAIR, the leaders of La Raza, the leaders of MoveOn and Daily Kos, Al Sharpton, Teddy Kennedy, Noam Chomsky, and every other America-hating Harvard professor that way?

That's leaving out Hillary and Pelosi Galore, for even Cossacks could be gentlemanly.

Wow – didn't that feel good?  So, now that we've gotten that out of our system, we can return to reality.  To help, here's a short story from the 1980s.  The storied 80's when the White House was inhabited by the ultimate conservative hero, Ronald Reagan, whose like we yearn for today and hope for in 2008.

One of the principal leaders of the conservative movement back then, as he remains today, was Howard Phillips of the Conservative Caucus.  Perhaps no conservative leader despises and publicly condemns George W. Bush as Howard.  Then again, back in the Heroic 80s, he despised and publicly condemned Ronald Reagan for being too soft on the Soviets.

"Ronald Reagan," Howard is quoted in Time Magazine, "is a very weak man… He has become a useful idiot for Soviet propaganda."

Let that sink in.  One of the most influential and prominent conservatives in the country publicly called Ronald Reagan a "useful idiot" of the Soviet Union.  That's what happens when you really want an Ivan Sirko as president.

Now – don't even think­ that I am comparing George Bush to Ronald Reagan – even though this nutso Kennedy Immigration Reform bill Bush is trying to force down our throats is alleged to be the solution to the problem of illegal aliens created by the Kennedy Immigration Act of 1986 – which was supported and signed into law by Ronald Reagan.

What I am talking about is political reality in America.  This is a country that came within a femtometer of electing to the presidency a clinical nutcase dedicated to destroying our economy.  This is not hyperbolic.  Algore is nuts, very, very dangerously so.  More sobering, we live in a world that wants to give him a Nobel Peace Prize.

Let that sink in too.

When you compare what we almost got with Algore and then a lying pompous arrogant coward, John Kerry, to what we did get, we lucked out.

That's an argument for moderating our anger towards George Bush and putting it in perspective, not for dismissing it. 

To moderate that anger even more – just think of how apoplectic the Left is right now towards the Democrats.  If you're angry about the Immigration Bill giving immediate amnesty to illegals, the Left is twice as angry for all the bill's restrictive provisions.

The Dem double-whammy is their surrender on the Supplemental funding bill for the War in Iraq.  Bush kicked Pelosi and Reid's butts.  He won, they lost, big time, and no matter how much the media ignores or spins Bush's victory, the MoveOn folks who thought they ran the Dem show are totally freaking-out enraged.

Isn't that cool?  Even cooler is that it looks like the Immigration Bill is DOA, cold as a corpse.  Word is that every Republican Senator is being deluged – Katrina deluged – with constituent calls, faxes, and emails denouncing the Amnesty Bill.

Senate staffers tell me now that "there's no way whatever that my boss is going to vote for this turkey" after being in their home states over this week's Memorial Day Recess and facing such voter anger.

So another Bush "Harriet Miers Moment" will soon be in history's dustbin, and while we continue to be puzzled over the mystery of this decent Christian man who is so strangely flawed and profoundly infuriating, it is those on the Left who will sink into ever deeper depths of BDS, Bush Derangement Syndrome.

For an example why, take a quick look at this BBC news bulletin:  US Opposes G8 Climate Proposals.  The only human being at this moment standing in the way of the Left's goal to take over our lives and economy through the excuse of "global warming" is the current occupant of the Oval Office. 

He's not Ivan Sirko, he's not Ronald Reagan.  With any luck we'll get somebody better in 2008, maybe even much better.  But we almost got folks nightmarishly worse in 2000 and 2004.  And with no luck, an even greater nightmare with Hillary awaits us next year. 

Some luck is better than no luck at all.