The Pendragon's Hall

So, the sneak is revealed at last. I'm one of the few Americans who still thinks W. Mark Felts, "Deep Throat", is a snake and not a hero. His son calls him "a great American hero." Make me sick. I read with amazement today that after over thirty years of silence W. Mark Felts, former second in command at the FBI, has admitted that he was the mysterious "Deep Throat" (named after the title of a pornographic movie) that leaked information on the so-called Watergate scandal to the Washington Post, leading directly to the fall of the Nixon administration. I guess the press is probably glad it wasn't George H.W. Bush or Pat Buchanan, as some conspiracy theorists have suggested, because they wouldn't want to have to lionize the men they despise. So for the next few days I suspect we'll have to hear how brave and amazing "Deep Throat" was to stand up to the Nixon administration and destroy it. Give me a break. All this from the same people who think Clinton didn't do anything wrong. Watergate was the Left's revenge for Nixon's exposure of communist moles in the government years before; nothing more or less than that. LBJ, JFK, FDR and Truman, all darlings of the Left, had bugged their opponents and lied about it and the press knew it. So that obviously wasn't the reason Watergate mattered. It's pretty convenient how only Republicans are supposed to live by their principles.

And yes, President Bush shouldn't have used the word "disassembled" to denote lying in his press conference today. So what? What he said was true enough. Al Qaida is training their people to spread rumors of torture and desecration in order to divide their enemies. Of course the media is too busy praising "Deep Throat" and reliving the glory days of how they overthrew the Nixon administration to tell you about that but most of us saw this coming. Good thing President Bush doesn't listen to the media. We may win this war yet.

Well, I stand amazed. I would never have thought it of them. France's voters have dealt the EU a crushing blow, and humiliated their own president. 55% of France rejected the new EU constitution that would basically streamline all decisions, making the EU a sort of federation, I am assuming along the lines of the United States or the former USSR (I haven't actually read the proposed Constitution). Jacques Chirac campaigned hard and fast for this and admitted his disappointment with the turnout. The amazing thing is that it was the Left-leaning voters of France that apparently made the difference (well, perhaps not so amazing; there aren't many Right-leaning voters these days in Europe). Ah well; what can you expect when by European standards Chirac is center-right? This is good news for the United States. The EU is trying to be another super-power to balance the US. France's rejection makes it hard for all the America-haters to get together.

Today is Memorial Day in the US, a day we set aside to thank our servicemen and servicewomen who lay down their lives to keep our country safe. A huge thank-you to all who serve.

As a history major who often feels unimportant, I don't usually criticize people who look back to history. Look back to it by all means, but don't get stuck in it! The Democratic Party, I think, still believes they're dealing with John Quincy Adams. I was reading this morning how the Democrats, under the leadership of the then-vice president Calhoun, filibustered "to death" Adams' nominations to a summit with Latin American nations because they believed the whole administration was fouled. Of course Adams took the heat, lost ground in the midterm and was buried in his reelection bid by Andrew Jackson, who had won both the popular and electoral vote four years earlier only to be defeated by a controversial House decision. This is, of course, what the Democrats were hoping for before now and indeed Bush bears remarkably similarities to JQA considering both were sons of former presidents who were narrowly elected President over the protest of the opposition, although Bush's election was unquestionably legal, Adams' is a bit more uncertain. What they seem to be forgetting is that Bush has this uncomfortably knack for beating historical odds. No President elected by a popular minority has ever been re-elected; Bush has. No relative of a one-termer has ever been re-elected; Bush has. No President in modern times has managed to not only re-elect himself but keep his Party in popular majority; Bush has. Those practicing obstruction over at the Senate might want to remember this. They wanted, and failed, to make Bush a one-termer like his father. All it has done is cost them control of the Senate and kept them in minority party status nationwide. You want to remember history, Dingy Harry? Remember that.

Well, it happened. Took a little longer than I thought but it finally happened. The "deal" Senate RINO's cut with DIFO's (Democrats in Fact Only) fell through. The Senate ground to a halt right before the Memorial Day recess with Democrats continuing to filibuster John Bolton's nomination for the UN Ambassador position. It will now not be decided until next month sometime. The Senate Democrats are demanding the release of top secret documents having to do with Bolton from the State Department. If Harry Reid wants to pontificate stories about George Washington, perhaps he could tell people how as President, Washington refused to release secret documents relating to the controversial Jay's Treaty to Congress on the basis that national security would be endangered. Now, in case there are any historical scholars out there wanting to pick a fight with me, I do know that it was the House and not the Senate that Washington denied access to. But do you know what his rationale was? I'll assume you don't because I want to tell you: He believed it would be dangerous to leak top secret documents to a popularly-elected branch of government because of the temptation for members of that branch to inform their constituents for political reasons. In his day, the House was the only branch of government that was popularly elected, as the Senate was chosen by State Legislatures. Today, however, the Senate is also popularly elected! The fact is: the Senate has no right to these documents and the State department is right to refuse them. But I sure hope John McCain feels stupid because he is. He claimed he was making it possible for Dems and Republicans to work together. That's not going to happen as long as Harry Reid and the rest of these morons are simply obstructing the role of government. George Washington would not approve.

Does anyone remember, ever, what happens to Republicans who jump ship? The seven idiots who betrayed their own party yesterday will soon have reason to. The press may love them now but when a duly-elected Republican president, Bush I, once vowed, "Read my lips. No new taxes" and then waffled under pressure from a Democratic congress and signed the second biggest tax hike in US history, the press loved him too. But it had its limits. When given a choice between the waffler and the felon, they backed the felon. After all, he raised taxes even higher! McCain seems to think he can win without his base. Hillary already has the leftist loonies. They know her "trip to the right" is a bald-faced lie and she'll never live up to it. But the Republican base is not so sure of McCain or any of his cronies. I'm afraid that what will happen is that McCain will so disenfranchise the Republican base that they will veer off to a rightwing third party, leaving loyal Republicans with a choice between the Left (McCain) and the Far-Left (Hillary). Because there is very little Party attachment these days enough people will vote for the new Ross Perot (and we've got Howard Phillips and Roy Moore and a bunch of others lining up to be that) to give Hillary an easy election. It's time for action. I was mildly amused by the fact that AOL's headlines declare: "Conservatives Vow Revenge." Indeed, we do. And if McCain realized that only by "pandering to his conservative base" was Bush able to pull off the electoral upset of the century he'd be a little concerned about this. This would never happen in any other country because the other countries, like Canada (how sad), were smart enough to institute strong parties and there are penalties for selling your own side out. I'd like to see some of them taken off committees now. President Bush and Senator Frist, stop being so gentlemanly! If you don't act now to preserve your authority, you will be condemned to being useless figureheads for the rest of your term in office. And voters won't remember it kindly in 2008: all they'll think is, "Hillary's husband got stuff done." And he did. Because Republicans weren't smart enough to realize being the majority means you get to dictate. Otherwise he would never have survived in office.

I was disappointed today to read that Republicans in the Senate have again let the pressure get to them and dropped the constitutional option as a viable tool for ending the mindless Democratic filibuster on Bush's judicial nominees. I was afraid this would happen. Perhaps it's time for some heads to roll behind the scenes. In response to the seemingly endless question of, "Would you be so supportive of the Constitutional option if it were a Democratic majority trying to override a Republican filibuster of judicial nominees?" I'd say it's not even worth speculating on. First of all, it is not and never has been a Republican minority trying to do this. Secondly, if the Democrats were the majority party, they'd act the exact same way they are acting today as the minority (of course with Republican Senators like Arlen Specter, John McCain, Chuck Hagel, Lincoln Chafee and George Allen, you can see why Democrats would commonly become mixed up and think they are the majority party). The minute it became apparent that Republicans were playing politics with this country's judicial system, certainly if it got to this level but probably even if one judge had been filibustered, the Democrats would go on the warpath to heat the coffee back up. Newspaper editorials and television commentators from across the fruited plain (or, in this case, the fruity plain) would begin the long barrage of reasons why Republicans should let principle rise above politics (an argument only made against Republicans in the mainstream media) and allow simple up or down votes on the nominees. The Republican Party, the naysayers would cry, was allowing the country's government to run down all because of their political preferences. How like conservatives, they would say in disgust. And, finally, worn down by the demonizing and the political screaming (it does pay to have the loudest groups and the media on your side constantly) the Republican minority would back down and allow an up or down vote on the nominees, regardless of whether they were qualified or not. For those who ask how the Senate will fare if the rules are changed, I ask simply, "Is the Senate working now?" Is the principle of republicanism, or democracy if you prefer, being upheld when a minority party dictates the running of the government? The party the people rejected is now obstructing their peace and safety by throwing a temper tantrum. Hey, you know what? I have a great idea for Canada....

Having what's known as a life, I rarely watch C-SPAN but I ended up doing it the other day as it was a choice between that or "Leave It To Beaver" reruns. What can I say? TV just ain't what it used to be. At any rate, I found myself watching (with such fascination that I actually woke myself up several times) a debate between Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-T.N.) and Minority Leader Harry "He-Sure-Ain't-Daschle" Reid (D-N.V.) on the issue of the continuing Democratic filibuster of President Bush's judicial nominees. Dingy Harry decided that, lacking what's known as a commonsense argument, he'd tell stories, and forthwith launched into one of the most ridiculous anecdotes I've ever heard...and I've heard some doozies. Supposedly Thomas Jefferson asked George Washington what the purpose of the Senate was, something I've been wondering too, and Washington supposedly asked Jefferson why he poured his coffee into his saucer before drinking it. Jefferson replied he had done so to cool it down. "Just so," Washington replied grandly, "we pour legislation into the Senatorial saucer to cool it down." Yeah, yeah, about as much truth as the old cherry tree story. "This is precisely what the filibuster does," Dingy Harry proclaimed. On the contrary, Mr. Minority Leader, the filibuster heats up--you get all your liberal ideologues out there shouting and demonstrating until the Republicans, used to being the minority party for half a century, decide it's not worth the stress and cave in. This doesn't teach that "cooler heads will prevail" but that shouting and screaming gets its way in the end. If you're going to tell stories, at least try to tell ones that prove your point.

This whole John Bolton thing has gotten way out of hand. All the blatant hypocrisy of the Left is in full cry. Imagine this was a President Kerry nominating someone for the post of ambassador to the UN and sending it before a Republican senate. Let's take some totally whacked out choice, I mean what else can you expect from the guy who chose John Edwards as his running mate? Let's say he suggests former President Jimmy Carter, or for that matter, former President Bill Clinton. And the Republicans in the Senate begin to dig into the past. Now the press would be all over them if they ever dredged up any event from the man's presidency to suggest he should not be ambassador to the United Nations. As far as I can tell, the case against Bolton rests entirely on the idea that he is "mean" to his employees. Bill Clinton called his secret service detail "trained pigs." Ask the permanent White House staff what they thought of Clinton or Carter. It won't be rosy pictures I can tell you that. But if the Republicans brought this up, they'd be accused of playing politics with an important position (which it isn't even--I mean it's only UN ambassador, it's not like federal judge or anything). And the Republicans would not do it this way either--they have a way of governing like a minority party. The choice would come before the whole Senate and undoubtedly cheered on by RINO's like McCain and Chafee might even pass. But they would not bottle it up in committee the way the Democrats have tried to do. I find it amazing that one livejournal commentator, who shall remain nameless and linkless to protect his stupidity, actually criticizes the Republicans for not "jumping ship" and undermining their own president on these issues. What did you expect, chico? The Democrats don't ever jump ship--remember the Clinton impeachment? Why should Republicans abandon their Republican principles? In fact, when they do, they get called up for it and the media decries their forsaking of the creed of "state's rights." I do agree with the Dems though on this one--George Bush shouldn't have picked John Bolton. He should have borrowed from Ronald I, Pope of Conservatism and Good-Thinking: He should have nominated Alan Keyes.

Several years ago I set out to discover for myself the truth about the Harry Potter series and just recently having read through all five books and seen all three movies, I think I'm ready to give my informed opinion.

First of all, I would not classify these books so much as kid's books, more like young adult fiction, and perhaps most people's problems with the series would melt away if they were classified as such. There are some elements, after all, that require more discernment than kids under ten generally show--and I'm not talking about the magic which is pretty harmless stuff by comparison to other books I've read from the same genre. What readers need to be able to do is recognize that not everything is black and white and good and evil sometimes look suspiciously like each other. They need to understand this though through the lens that good and evil does exist and that you need to be attuned to the good in order to recognize either. Children under 10 don't have this characteristic as much as older children tend to.

Other than this, however, I am convinced not only that much of the hype surrounding the Harry Potter series is wrongheaded but that a lot of good things can come out of the books, things we would want to teach our young people. In the first book, the Dark Lord tries to convince young Harry that "there is no good and evil--there is only power and those too weak to grasp it." But Harry rejects the offer of grasping power for himself. Sacrifice and loyalty to one's friends is also a huge theme of the books--Harry's godfather yells at the wizard who betrayed Harry's parents: "You should have died, rather than betray your friends! Like we would have done for you!" When Harry's impulsiveness leads five of his closest friends into confrontation with the risen Dark Lord in Book 5, his friends simply take their place beside him and prepare to die, without a word of blame being spoken. But all does not always turn out well--Harry's impetuous charge lures his beloved stepfather into danger and he is killed by the Dark Lord's henchmen. I think this is a rather worthy reminder for young people that when evil exists, it causes pain, but that one has to be willing to lay down one's life for one's friends (gee, that sounds familiar from somewhere). Intringuingly, though, the books also shine a light on the problems of being too unbendingly loyal. In Book 4, a scene is relived where a young man accused of serving the Dark Lord is committed to prison by his own father despite his own protestations that he is innocent. Throughout the book Harry and the others harbor a sort of disrespect for the father for not believing his only son. Yet in the end it turns out the father was right--his son was a servant of the Dark Lord. The scene I thought was intended to attack the Salem witch trials could in a way justify them.

Everyone has to make the decision for themselves. Some people will think I'm wrong on this review and if they do, that's their right and decision. But I would encourage people to actually find out what's in the Harry Potter series before blanketly dismissing them all to hell. After all, very few of the people who read them actually continue to spread the story that they are occultic and satanic.

The US media must be in huge turmoil these days. Try as they might, they just can't seem to call it. Most have reported Tony Blair's re-election in terms of the seats he lost, by saying that his support for the war in Iraq has hurt him with the British voters. But wait a minute! If Iraq is such a big issue why did the only party to oppose the war pick up a measly two seats? If Blair's entry into the war in Iraq hurt him with voters how come he was reelected with a slight majority and the even more pro-American Conservative Party is now nipping at his heels while the Liberal Democrats languish at 53 seats, up only two from the last election cycle? This must be killing the mainstream media. While I was in London I sure saw evidence that the Iraq War was extremely unpopular with the British mainstream yet these elections keep confirming it. Blair remains on top, with the Conservatives right behind him. If Iraq was such a big deal, you'd think at the very least the Lib Dems would be gaining a lot of seats. Perhaps the message of the British voter is more that they want principled leadership. Iraq continues to be the sticking point for the media in this country--remember, they foretold that it would hurt Bush and the Republicans last November. Let's see: Bush re-elected with a majority of the largest electoral turnout in history, and the Republican Party swept into control of both Houses of Congress. I can see why the New Left called themselves "The Weathermen": they're always broadcasting and never getting it right.

I never thought I'd hear myself say this, but I'm rather glad Britain's Labour Party remains in power. While Tony Blair's domestic policies differ widely from my own views, I nevertheless have to hand it to the man that he is a loyal and true friend and if this is worth anything, he is deserving of reelection. While my own natural tendecies is toward the Conservative Party, I nevertheless find myself in such revulsion at the Liberal Democrats that I would even back a Labour government in order to avoid Liberal Dems dictating the course of the country.

I wonder too what happened this morning with the bomb attack on the British Consul building in New York City. Mayor Bloomberg, another of those RINO's I warned you about, is advising people not to assume there was any specific target here. I don't know...Spain faced a similar attack right before its election day; Al Qaida hasn't shown too much creativity lately. They resort to the same old things. I suspect there may have been more to it than that. Hang in there, Mr. Blair. The US salutes you.