IS SPAIN BREAKING APART?
Madrid, Spain. Spain has been one of the great democratic and economic success stories of the last three decades. But there is now some reason to fear for its future. The Spaniards have moved in two generations from conservative church-going Catholics to some of the most socially liberal people on the planet (the Californians of Europe). Recent surveys have shown the Spaniards to be among the happiest people on Earth. In sum, Spain seems to have everything going for it. There are problems, however, big problems in paradise.
DOES AMERICA DESERVE ITS MILITARY?
In all of American history, only a handful of generals -- Grant and Sherman in the Civil War, and Douglas MacArthur with the Inchon landing in the Korean War -- have turned a war around in so short a time as has Gen. David Petraeus in Iraq. And no one has done it with so few casualties, or so little civilian "collateral damage." What has happened in Iraq since the troop surge began about this time last year is a tribute to the kindness and the humanity as well as to the courage and skill of U.S. soldiers and Marines. And to the genius and leadership of David Petraeus. Grant, Sherman, and MacArthur were national heroes. Their names were on everyone's lips. Parades were thrown in their honor. Grant became president. Sherman could have been, had he wanted to be. MacArthur was touted for the Republican nomination in 1952, which went instead to another successful general. David Petraeus, on the other hand, is the Rodney Dangerfield of successful American commanders. He didn't even make the top ten in Gallup's poll of the most admired men for 2007.
BUSH AS A WORLD SUCCESS
The first thing his wife would do if she became president, Bill Clinton said in South Carolina last week, would be to dispatch him and the first President Bush on an around the world diplomatic mission to repair the damage done to America's reputation and influence by the policies of the current President Bush. George H.W. Bush became friendly with the man who beat him in 1992 when they worked together to raise funds for tsunami relief. But the elder Mr. Bush made it clear that neither Bill nor Hillary had ever discussed such a diplomatic mission with him, and he wouldn't have been interested if they had, because he strongly supports his son's foreign policy. The episode reminds us that Bill Clinton's relationship with the truth remains problematic. The theme -- that President Bush's policies, particularly with regard to the war in Iraq, have cost us the respect and support of our traditional allies -- is an article of faith among Democrats. But it is untrue. On the whole, our president is a world success.
CHARLIE WILSON AND RONALD REAGAN’S WAR
This picture was taken during my wedding on May 25, 1986. The ceremony took place at the villa of a friend of mine in St. Tropez, France. My bride was a gorgeous California redhead named Rebel Holiday (yes, her born name). The dapper gentleman you see between us was serving as my best man. The reason he doesn't look like Tom Hanks is because he's the real Charlie Wilson. So it was a strange experience for me to see the movie Charley Wilson's War, a movie portraying events I participated in, to see how it was both true and not true at the same time. Hanks portrays Charlie as the hero he really was. A larger-than-life America-loving Communist-hating true blue patriot who used his power and influence to the max to stick it to the Soviets big time. That Hollywood would make a major motion picture about a genuine Anti-Communist hero, about a noble Anti-Communist triumph over the Evil Communist Empire of the Soviet Union is morally thrilling. The movie is magnificent. Not taking anything away from the magnificence, it is also ludicrous. http://www.rebelholiday.com/
THE 2008 CARPE DIEM FILTER
I personally believe that neither The PIAPS, Obambi Hussein, nor the Breck Boy have any reasonable chance of getting elected. And I cannot take seriously a Preacher Boy candidacy by another Arkansas populist con man. Yet when I think how America dodged a bullet from the likes of Algore and another from F'n Kerry, it's also hard to believe that Providence will push us aside from still another. Fortunately, Providence has always watched over America in spite of itself. For that to continue, the most minimal requirement for a president is to resist the liberal compulsion to apologize for America's existence in the world. We can upgrade the requirement to a determination to defend America's national security. The ideal requirement would be a president who knows how to carpe diem - who looks at problems as opportunities to pro-actively advance America's security and interests in the world. There will be plenty of such opportunities in 2008 and the following years of the next presidency. Let's judge our choice of candidates on who would best be able to not just defend in a crisis, but to recognize and maximize the opportunity in a crisis to America's benefit. One such crisis has just presented itself in Pakistan. Here are three more examples headed down the 2008 pike:
2007 IN THE REAR VIEW MIRROR
2007. What a ride. What a finish. Just this week, a guy I once beat in arm-wrestling makes Time Magazine Man of the Year (I told the story way back in October of 2003 in Arm Wrestling With Russia - and I sure agree with Mitt Romney that the award was "disgusting."). It's just too delicious that up on Drudge right now (10am 12/21) is the British Guardian story about Putin's $40 Billion fortune. You learned about that last February in The World's Richest and Most Dangerous Gangster, which was updated a month ago in Pro-Communist Conservatives. A country I said back in April of 2005 was going to break apart (Bye Bye Bolivia) is now right on the brink of it. CNN is reporting Four Bolivian regions declare autonomy from government. Right on schedule this week, the fellow I said last April who would get elected president of South Korea, Lee Myung-bak, in Regime Change in Korea did so in a total landslide. I expect all of what I predicted in that article to come to pass next year: And on the domestic front, I hope you're all reveling in the marvelous John Edwards Love Child Scandal detailed in this week's National Enquirer. Particularly since you learned those details last October in The Breck Boy Is Cleared From The Presidential Field. Little Johnny is toast, just as predicted. Yet for all of the above, this week was just getting warmed up.
CHRISTMAS GIFTS FOR YOUR PC
[Mark Gilligan is TTP's own "Marco," known to all participants in the TTP User Forum. His first column appeared last month: Marco The Wizard? His column will be a regular feature in 2008.] It's the gifting time of the year and for your technological needs we have some suggestions that may make your life easier and your wallet less depleted. Here are a few... The anti-virus software package offered by AVG is one of the best available - and it's free! If you want the full capacity of Adobe's Acrobat Professional Apps and don't have the several hundred dollars in the budget, you can get its equivalent for only $9.95 at pdf995.com.
THE YEAR OF GLOBAL COOLING
Al Gore says global warming is a planetary emergency. It is difficult to see how this can be so when record low temperatures are being set all over the world. In 2007, hundreds of people died, not from global warming, but from cold weather hazards. Antarctica is getting colder. Unexpected bitter cold swept the entire Southern Hemisphere in 2007. Johannesburg, South Africa, had the first significant snowfall in 26 years. Australia experienced the coldest June ever. South America this year experienced one of its coldest winters in decades. Last January, $1.42 billion worth of California produce was lost to a devastating five-day freeze. In April, a killing freeze destroyed 95 percent of South Carolina's peach crop, and 90 percent of North Carolina's apple harvest. Extreme cold weather is occurring worldwide. On Dec. 4, in Seoul, Korea, the temperature was a record minus 5 degrees Celsius. If you think any of the preceding facts can falsify global warming, you're hopelessly naïve.
BLUENOSES ON STEROIDS
I suppose it's possible that there are things I could care less about than Barry Bonds taking steroids. The latest antics of Britney Spears or the fate of contestants on one of those Survivor television shows, maybe. But the whole Bonds "scandal," the whole Mitchell Report bloviation about "rampant performance-enhancing drug use" in professional sports, baseball in particular, ranks near the top of my list of news items in the So What? category. Except there's something about it that really bugs me. Nanny-state ninnies sticking their bluenoses into none of their business. Fascist prosecutors trying to put people in jail for lying about something that's no crime. Increasingly louder demands for more intrusion into athletes' lives, for wrecking their careers, for their unending investigation, for their punishment. Someone needs to tell the bluenoses, from George Mitchell to George Will, from every insufferably puritanical sportswriter to every self-important airhead sportscaster to shut up. Or else the real fascists, the ones in Congress who have the capacity to shove government guns in our faces, will use the "scandal" - as they do with every other such opportunity - as an excuse to restrict the freedom of us all.
HELPING RAMOS AND COMPEAN HAVE A HAPPIER CHRISTMAS
For many conservatives, the most infuriating outrage of the Bush Presidency has been the prosecution and imprisonment of two Border Patrol agents, Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean, for shooting a Mexican drug smuggler in the ass. It is the drug smuggler, Osvaldo Aldrete-Davila, and the federal prosecutor, Johnny Sutton, who belong in jail, not them. For defending our border from mass foreign invasion, Ramos and Compean will be spending Christmas in solitary confinement, rather than with their families. It's hard to think of a more Christian, a more pro-American thing you could do this Christmas than send them a message of support and a donation to their wives and children. Here's how: