Quotes

• Nile Gardiner on Ali al-Megrahi's Release to Libya : The repugnant decision to release Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi is a massive insult to the memory of the 270 people murdered by the Libyan intelligence agent in 1988. Megrahi served a petty eight years of his minimum 27-year sentence for bombing PanAm Flight 103, while the families of his victims are serving life sentences for their loss. What kind of sick message does this send to every other Islamist terrorist out there?
  
  This represents the worst kind of appeasement – the sacrifice of moral decency on the altar of political expediency – in this case cutting a deal with Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, one of the most odious tyrants of modern times. Scottish Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill and First Minister Alex Salmond should be ashamed of themselves for placing the interests of a terrorist and his Libyan handlers above that of the relatives of those brutally slain at their hands.
  
  If Gordon Brown had an ounce of moral fibre he would step in and reverse this scandalous decision. But no doubt a deal had been struck between New Labour and Tripoli months ago. The whole notion that the British government is powerless to intervene is nonsense and simply a smokescreen. The Scotland Act of 1998 makes it clear that Westminster still retains control over all defence and national security issues as well as foreign affairs.
  
  There will be huge public and political outrage across the Atlantic and rightly so. Millions of Americans will be repulsed by a cynical betrayal by a lily-livered and third-rate Scottish Executive, as well as a reckless British government that has callously disregarded the concerns of its closest ally. The US-UK Special Relationship should mean something on an issue like this, but has been discarded like a rag doll on bonfire night by Downing Street and the Foreign Office. Clearly the killing of 180 Americans at the hands of Colonel Gaddafi meant nothing at all to Brown and his spineless Foreign Secretary David Miliband.
  
  This is a shameful day for Scotland and for Britain. Terrorism, and the brutal rogue regimes that back them, are the biggest winners. This is how wars are lost, and great nations decline. Megrahi walks a free man, whisked off by luxury jet to Tripoli, looking forward to a glorious reception in his home country as a returning hero before an adoring crowd of thousands. This is not “compassion” or “smart power” - it is a humiliating daylight mugging by our enemies.
• From General MacArthur's West Point Address : "Let civilian voices argue the merits or demerits of our processes of government; whether our strength is being sapped by deficit financing, indulged in too long, by federal paternalism grown too mighty, by power groups grown too arrogant, by politics grown too corrupt, by crime grown too rampant, by morals grown too low, by taxes grown too high, by extremists grown too violent; whether our personal liberties are as thorough and complete as they should be. These great national problems are not for your professional participation or military solution. Your guidepost stands out like a ten-fold beacon in the night: Duty, Honor, Country."
  
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• Michael Ledeen on the US & Iran : "It's always better to assert American values, both because he's our president and he should be speaking for all of us, and because catering to the tender sensibilities of the murders in Iran won't gain anything. It will only increase their contempt."
  
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• FDR's D-Day Prayer : And, O Lord, give us faith. Give us faith in Thee; faith in our sons; faith in each other; faith in our united crusade. Let not the keeness of our spirit ever be dulled. Let not the impacts of temporary events, of temporal matters of but fleeting moment -- let not these deter us in our unconquerable purpose.
  
  With Thy blessing, we shall prevail over the unholy forces of our enemy. Help us to conquer the apostles of greed and racial arrogances. Lead us to the saving of our country, and with our sister nations into a world unity that will spell a sure peace -- a peace invulnerable to the schemings of unworthy men. And a peace that will let all of men live in freedom, reaping the just rewards of their honest toil.
  
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• Robby George on the Tiller Shooting : "Whoever murdered George Tiller has done a gravely wicked thing. The evil of this action is in no way diminished by the blood George Tiller had on his own hands. No private individual had the right to execute judgment against him. We are a nation of laws. Lawless violence breeds only more lawless violence. Rightly or wrongly, George Tilller was acquitted by a jury of his peers. "Vengeance is mine, says the Lord." For the sake of justice and right, the perpetrator of this evil deed must be prosecuted, convicted, and punished. By word and deed, let us teach that violence against abortionists is not the answer to the violence of abortion. Every human life is precious. George Tiller's life was precious. We do not teach the wrongness of taking human life by wrongfully taking a human life. Let our "weapons" in the fight to defend the lives of abortion's tiny victims, be chaste weapons of the spirit."
  
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• Brian Kennedy on North Korea : "What do we know about North Korea that we did not already know three or five years ago? The North Koreans have the material, the will, and the expertise to produce nuclear weapons.
  
  "These recent tests demonstrate both how serious the North Koreans are and how manifestly unserious the United States remains. Throughout the Clinton, Bush, and now the Obama administrations, we have lived under the delusion that we could negotiate with the North Koreans or the even more absurd notion that we could use China to pressure them. None of this has worked." Click here to read more.
• Bennett & Cribb on Memorial Day : "Twice in the 20th Century, American soldiers led the way in saving the world from slavery -- first from the Axis powers, then from Soviet totalitarianism. In recent years, American soldiers have liberated tens of millions in the Middle East from brutal regimes.
  
  "The U.S. soldier is the greatest defender of freedom the world has ever known. Remembering those who served is more than a gesture. It is our duty."
  
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• The Education of Barack Obama : "Throughout his presidential campaign, Mr. Obama excoriated Mr. Bush's counterinsurgency strategy in Iraq, insisting it could not succeed. Earlier this year, facing increasing violence in Afghanistan, Mr. Obama rejected warnings of a "quagmire" and ordered more troops to that country. He isn't calling it a "surge" but that's what it is. He is applying in Afghanistan the counterinsurgency strategy Mr. Bush used in Iraq.
  
  "As a candidate, Mr. Obama promised to end the Iraq war by withdrawing all troops by March 2009. As president, he set a slower pace of drawdown. He has also said he will leave as many as 50,000 Americans troops there.
  
  "These reversals are both praiseworthy and evidence that, when it comes to national security, being briefed on terror threats as president is a lot different than placating MoveOn.org and Code Pink activists as a candidate. The realities of governing trump the realities of campaigning."
  
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• A Slice of History--Jack Kemp's Vision : "I believe that our future begins with faith -- faith in the Jeffersonian ideal that God is the Author of life and liberty; that He is the Author of our personal freedoms -- political, economic and religious -- and that these freedoms are at the heart of all human progress. No government in history has been able to do for people what they have been able to do for themselves, when they were free to follow their hopes and dreams.
  
  "The American Dream is not to make everyone level with everyone else, but to create the opportunity for all people to reach as high as their God-given potential allows. In this Nation, if you're born to be a mezzo soprano, or a master carpenter, or even an NFL quarterback, there ought not be anything standing in your way, not color, not creed, nor station in life."
  
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• House HLS Chairman Bennie Thompson Letter to Janet Napolitano : "I am disappointed and surprise that the Department would allow this report to be disseminated to its State, local and tribal partners in its present form." Click here for more information.
• If We Now Captured Osama--by Michael Scheuer : "The Republicans do not have the votes to stop Obama, and the world will not be safer for America because the president abandons interrogations to please his party's left wing and the European pacifists it so admires. Both are incorrigibly anti-American, oppose the use of force in America's defense and -- like Obama -- naively believe that the West's Islamist foes can be sweet-talked into a future alive with the sound of kumbaya.
  
  "So if the above worst-case scenario ever comes to pass, Americans will have at least two things from which to take solace, even after the loss of major cities and tens of thousands of countrymen. First, they will know that their president believes that those losses are a small price to pay for stopping interrogations and making foreign peoples like us more. And second, they will see Osama bin Laden's shy smile turn into a calm and beautiful God-is-Great grin."
  
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• Brian Kennedy on the North Korea Missile Launch : "First, is it possible that North Korea would test this missile without the support or at least permission of the People's Republic of China? As it stands - with North Korea receiving its food and energy from the PRC - they are wards of the Communist Chinese. It is inconceivable that the North Koreans would not serve the high policy of their Chinese masters.
  
  "Second, and related, does anyone seriously think it is possible that the North Korean missile test was not designed to embarrass Mr. Obama? While he is preening about a world without nuclear weapons, and beginning his justification for doing away with our rudimentary missile defense systems, the North Koreans launch a missile that further demonstrates their intention of being able to attack the United States or Japan.
  
  "Third, we must thank the North Koreans for at least reminding the American people that the world is a serious place where life and death matters. This is more than our elected representatives are giving us these days. Newt Gingrich, no longer elected, struck just the right tone on Fox News Sunday in taking the threat as seriously as it is warranted. It was in stark contrast to Mr. Obama's pursuit of a world without nuclear weapons - an idea so ridiculous that it begs the question, 'Why not a world without weapons of any kind?'"
  
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• Judd Gregg on the Budget : "Instead of tightening Uncle Sam's belt the way so many American families are cutting back these days, the president's proposal spends so aggressively that it essentially adds $1 trillion to the debt, on average, every year.
  
  "Except for some accounting gimmicks, the budget makes no attempt to cut wasteful spending or find savings. It ignores reform for major entitlement programs such as Medicare and Social Security, which are on track to cost us $67 trillion more than we have over the next 75 years.
  
  "The new spending is coupled with the largest tax increase in U.S. history -- $1.5 trillion over 10 years.
  
  "Who will pay all those taxes? The president says it's just the rich. But let's keep in mind that a lot of these "rich" people are actually small-business owners, and small businesses create 70 percent of the new jobs each year. When millions of Americans are out of work, taxing job creators and making it harder to run a business are certainly not the answer."...
  
  "And since the revenue the government collects still won't cover all its spending, we will be left with an unsustainable level of debt. Under the president's budget, the national debt doubles in five years and nearly triples in 10 years. Our debt will exceed 80 percent of GDP by 2019 -- the highest level since World War II.
  
  "This borrowed money is certainly not free. Our children and grandchildren will be hit with the bill. Sadly, in 10 years, we will spend more on interest payments on this debt than we spend on education, energy and transportation combined -- almost four times as much." Click here for more information.
• Joe Nocera On Geithner, Congress, and the Economy : "By week's end, I was more depressed about the financial crisis than I've been since last September. Back then, the issue was the disintegration of the financial system, as the Lehman bankruptcy set off a terrible chain reaction. Now I'm worried that the political response is making the crisis worse. The Obama administration appears to have lost its grip on Congress, while the Treasury Department always seems caught off guard by bad news.
  
  And Congress, with its howls of rage, its chaotic, episodic reaction to the crisis, and its shameless playing to the crowds, is out of control. This week, the body politic ran off the rails.
  
  There are times when anger is cathartic. There are other times when anger makes a bad situation worse. "We need to stop committing economic arson," Bert Ely, a banking consultant, said to me this week. That is what Congress committed: economic arson.
  
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• Newt Gingrich on Republican Revivals : "I've lived through '64, '74 and '92. In '64 we were beaten so badly people talked about whether the party had a future. By '66, Lyndon Johnson had gone so far to the left and spilt the Democratic Party and we gained 47 House seats and picked up a bunch of governorships and Senate seats. Since 1968 you have not elected an overt liberal in 40 years. In '74 to '76, we had Watergate and a bad recession and then a Reagan-Ford nomination fight. In that period, only 17 percent of the country identified itself as Republican and yet four years later, Reagan won a smashing victory and Carter collapsed under a bad economy. In '92, Bush, having thrown away the fiscal conservatives by raising taxes, lost the three-way race and, two years later, we gained the House for the first time in 40 years and kept it. I know how fast the country can switch."
  
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• Jonathan Krohn on Conservatism : "Jeffersonian conservatism correlates with three more values of modern conservatism: small government, respect for the military and the importance of virtue. The most important of these is smaller government. Jefferson was very open with his belief in small government. He said, "[It] is inconsistent with the principles of civil liberty and contrary to the natural rights of the other members of society, that any body of men therein should have authority to enlarge their own powers, prerogatives or emoluments without restraint."4 Liberty is not made fuller by the hand of the government; it is only made fuller by the hand of the average citizen. The government can give the citizen the freedom to exercise liberty; only the citizen can take the initiative to exercise it."
  
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• Gary Bauer on Hollywood MIA When it Comes to True Abuse : "Why is it that Hollywood obsesses about the alleged splinter in the eye of the West but ignores the plank in the eye of a culture that treats women no better than property?
  
  "I wish Hollywood would make a film highlighting the brutal treatment of gays and women in Islam, especially given the steady stream of films detailing how stifling to women American society supposedly was in the 1950's and how oppressive it continues to be for homosexuals today."
  
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• Secretary Arne Duncan on Education Reform : "D.C. has had more money than God for a long time, but the outcomes are still disastrous." "The challenge isn't an intellectual one, it's one of political courage." "School buildings don't belong to us. They don't belong to the unions. School buildings belong to the community....Almost every school building has classrooms. They have computer labs. They have libraries. . . . Why are they open six hours a day? It's crazy."
  
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• Rich Lowry on Obama & The Vote of the Economy : "The last day before Obama was inaugurated, the Dow was at 8,281. Today, it closed at 6,763. Two political points: 1) Every day the markets continue to slide, it makes it harder on Obama to blame the mess on President Bush and forswear any responsibility himself; 2) if I were Eric Cantor or John Boehner, I'd be talking about a "real recovery package" every day- payroll and corporate tax cuts, regulatory reforms for the financial and auto industries, relief for small business. None of it is going to pass, of course, but it will dispel the idea that they aren't for anything and show they are zealous about trying to check the economy's downward slide."
  
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• The Age of Irresponsibility by Matt Continetti : "Start with some exemplars of decency, professionalism, and ability. US Airways pilot Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger III riveted the nation with his dramatic crash-landing into the Hudson River. -Sullenberger's experience and stoicism meant that not a single life was lost during the dramatic and dangerous touch-down. It is no surprise that he has been lionized in the days since. When everything else seems to be crashing all around us, Sullenberger is a rock of common sense and soft-spoken modesty. Imagine--just imagine--if the men and women who represent us in Congress shared his character?
  
  "Then there is General David Petraeus. At the recent Super Bowl, Petraeus received huge applause when he walked on field for the pregame coin toss. The crowd's response was no mystery. They were saluting the man who helped rescue the American war effort in Iraq, the man who did so without mincing words to the American people or their elected representatives. Petraeus has a Ph.D., runs marathons, wins wars, and spends every waking moment trying to become a better soldier and man. It ought to give us hope that our culture--the culture of A-Rod, Madoff, Hilton, and Murtha--is still capable of celebrating someone like Petraeus. Why not boldly and consistently champion the commitment to patriotism and duty expressed in the character of the American soldier--a living refutation to irresponsible living?
  
  "The sad fact is that it is difficult to come up with more than a few examples of elite responsibility. Failure breeds apathy. So the age of irresponsibility has spawned a cheap cynicism that says, since everything is broken, why not sit back and laugh at the degradation?
  
  "But the cynics are wrong. Things can get a whole lot worse. A failure of accountability not only erodes the foundations of our culture. It also puts our country on unstable fiscal ground. A storm of moral and financial insolvency has been brewing for some time. The populist reaction is only the beginning. We're hearing the thunder. Get ready for the deluge.
  
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