Bomb Throwing Pacifist

Today I decided I was up for a challenge, so instead of going to Townhall and picking the most hilariously ricockulous column I could lay my hands on, I decided I would go ahead and parody a well thought-out, articulate, eloquent column that made some truly solid points andwould serve to give the wingnuts some much-needed credibility in the world of respectable opinion journalism. Unfortunately kiddos, I have some bad new insofar as my brilliant scheme was concerned, I'm afraid. It seems that I created a greivous miscalculation which resulted in some serious flaws in an hertofore outstanding work of quivering genius. In my eagerness to parody an intelligent, well-thought out conservative column, I disaterously forgot one key fact: THERE ARE NO INTELLIGENT CONSERVATIVE COLUMNS!! As such, you will have to settle with a generic column chosen at random from the treasure trove that is the wild, wild world of Wingnuttia. But don't worry folks. We've had to deal with Kaye Grogan, and in the words of Joel from the MST3K crew, "Stay frosty fellas; we got through Monsters A-Go-Go, we can handle this." And so, without further ado, we at BTP are pleased/horrified to bring you...

You know, it's not often that we at BTP spend too much time focusing on the looks of people who bother submitting columns to places like Townhall and RenewAmerica. After all, most sane people would consider it punishment enough that they should have their geologically-scaled idiocy displayed for all the world to see through the glory of the internets. Hell, most people would be embarrassed if people even found out that they surfed Townhall.com, much less helped flesh out the bulk of its contents. However, we do have a reputation to maintain and should we let this particular little picture pass us by without comment, rumour might spread that we were going soft, and then no amount of shanking guards or setting fire to child molesters would be enough to restore our cred in cellblock 6.

Who is our Winston Churchill now? Sixty years ago, on
March 5, 1946, in Fulton, Mo., Winston Churchill spoke of how "From Stettin in
the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the
(European) Continent."

Hehehehehehehehehe...I'm sorry, I just can't help it. I mean, even though I must admit that I have't read more than two sentances of this peice, I just can't help snickering at the idea of listening to a lecture on geopolitik from a guy who looks like he might be one of Goofy the dog's relative's.

Separated at birth, anyone?

Sorry. Let's get back to G. Marvin Olasky's peice.

Who is our Winston Churchill now?

To be honest, I would assume that our Winston Churchill now is still the same Winston Churchill of yesteryear, only instead of making speeches decrying the rise of communist totalitarianism, he now spends his time underground rotting. However, if you simply must have a living person to be your Winston Churchill, I suggest looking him up at www.whitepages.com. There don't seem to be a lot of entries for him, but there is at least one in New York that might be worth looking into (although, as a New Yorker, Mr. Olasky would no doubt be disappointed to hear that he is almost certainly liberal).

His speech signaled the beginning of an American and British understanding that the Cold War had begun. When the Soviet Union speedily developed nuclear missiles, that war threatened to become fiery -- and the threat remained for the next four decades, until Ronald Reagan stood firm and the Soviet empire disintegrated.

Dude, the war didn't suddenly threaten to become firey once the Soviets developed nuclear missles. Hell, even when the Chinese intervened in the Korean War and the Soviets looked like the might join in as well, it still wasn't the beginning of a firey Cold War threat. In fact, you might go so far as to say that the Cold War well and truely began getting ugly in 1947-48 with the Soviet blockade of East Berlin, the Berlin Airlift, and the eventual backing down of Stalin.

As to Ronald Reagan standing firm in the face of Soviet agression, it must be rememebred that the Blessed Saint Reagan, despite His many accomplishments in conquering the stars with superlazers, brinning the mullahs to the negotiating tables via arms-for-hostages deals and fingering trees as the true culprits in the war against pollution, simply cannot be remembered for standing firm against the Soviets. After all, if He, in His infinite wisdom did so, it was only because of the examples set by Harry Truman, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, Jimmy Carter, and Lech Walesa (we'd add St. Nixon the Dick in there for good measure, but that whole withdrawl from Vietnam nixes him I'm afraid).

Now a new threat looms. Just about the only similar answer that George Bush and John Kerry gave in their first debate two years ago came when they were asked to define the "single most serious threat to American national security." Both answered, "Nuclear terrorism." Last year, President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and Homeland Security secretaries Tom Ridge and Michael Chertoff all said or implied the same.

And yet, we see paranoia regarding the Patriot Act, even as Harvard professor Graham Allison, the author of "Nuclear Terrorism," states a nuclear attack on U.S. soil within the next 10 years is probable. We see political positioning about which company will manage a port, when the real problem is that security is inadequate at all our ports. (A nuclear bomb could be smuggled across our still-porous borders, but it's easier to import one by sea in a cargo container.)

You know dude, I hate to break it to you, but all the noise you're hearing from congress about the dangers of the UAE ports deal (especially from the Democratic side) isn't just empty posturing and jockying for political supremacy. After all, the Democrats have attacked the administration's lax efforts to tighten port security since 9/11, and John Kerry went so far as to mention it during the debates...that despite 5 years of Patriot Act, Homeland Security, 9/11 awareness, anti-terrorism activities, and dirty bonb threats, about the same percentage of cargo entering U.S. ports is inspected as before 9/11: about 5%.

So while conservatives and Republicans such as yourself start breaking out into a sweat that the very administration that has made national security part of it's entire game strategy for winning elections is thinking about putting a country with more ties to Al-Qaeda and 9/11 than Saddam every had in charge of U.S. port security, you simply can't accuse the Democrats of doing the same thing your side of the aisle has been doing for years: using national security as a useful rhetorical and debate tool, but actually taking little to no action. Because you see, that's the fundamental difference between us and you: we actually care about national security and want to fix holes, gaps, and other problems that make us more vulnerable to terrorist attacks. Your side just wants to hang "Mission Accomplished" banners and give the thumbs up whenever the CIA whacks Al Qaeda's number 2 man du jour.

Churchill in 1946 knew that the United States and its allies were living on borrowed time. He wisely contended that: "We cannot afford, if we can help it, to work on narrow margins. ... If these all-important years are allowed to slip away, then indeed catastrophe may overwhelm us all." He uttered words about Soviet leaders 60 years ago that are now relevant in the Middle East: "I am convinced that there is nothing they admire so much as strength, and there is nothing for which they have less respect than for weakness, especially military weakness."

And with that, Churchill in conjunction with Harry Truman proceeded to buy the U.S. and the free world some time by promptly invading East Germany, Yugoslavia, and the Baltic states thus ensuring that instead of sweating out the next four and a half decades on the brink of nuclear ahnnialation (which was ultimately peacefully resolved with minimal loss of life), we could fight the Russkies over there rather than over here. That's also why, likewise, when push came to shove JFK authorized the reinvasion of Cuba in 1962 in order to push the envalope and ensure that the commies would see how tough and macho Americans were, and presumably back off their nuclear ambitions.

Our best opportunity to avert disaster is to stay strong and deny the terrorists secure bases. Some might credit the Bush administration for winning us some time by having the United States go on offense, rather than sit back on defense.

Because as we all know, if there is a nest of wasps in the local park a few miles down the road, the best way to avoid getting stung is to go out there with a handful of gravel and throw rocks at it until they understand how tough and determined you are, and decide to leave the area. Fuck the Park Rangers...we never liked them anyway!