Who's Calling Whom "Chickenshit"?

Barack (Barry) Obama

Sergeant Benjamin (Bibi) Netanyahu

'Nuff said. 


**** 

"The Crisis in U.S. Israel Relations is Officially Here" (Jeffrey Goldberg, The Atlantic, October 28, 2014). 

Not Useful, Just an Idiot

Behold the beautiful people, Hollywood gentility, blue blooded, empty-headed, imbeciles, idiots. 

Ay me! She speaks!

"Give this man all of the power that he needs to pass the things that he needs to pass" 

(Gwyneth Paltrow, speaking at a fund raiser at her house for Barack Obama).

I wanted to include her in my (growing) list of "useful idiots," but Paltrow strikes me as nothing more than a foolish, fatuous, vacuous, unschooled, ignorant person, so I didn't want to dignify her with the designation. Now, though, reading this article by Steve McCann, published a couple of years ago, I suppose I should go ahead and upgrade her status to "useful." As McCann explains, the term "useful idiot" was coined "by the leaders of the Soviet Union to describe those in the West who naively promoted the cause of Russian Communism when in reality they were held in contempt and were being cynically used by the Soviet hierarchy." Now, he remarks, the term aptly applies to "a vast swath of citizens in the United States who have been cynically used by the hardcore left for a cause they are unwilling to understand." He continues: 

Among the mysteries confronting those of us who have immigrated to the United States from countries that have experienced the devastating outcome of socialist/Marxist ideology [McCann apparently came to America as a child in 1952, but I don't know from where], is why seemingly successful and educated people could be so easily swayed to support those whose end-game is to transform the country into a socialist "utopia" and to control the day-to-day lives of all Americans. Among these "useful idiots" are a seeming majority of the Jewish population as well as many in business, and nearly all in the entertainment industry.

So yes, Ms. Paltrow, it appears you are, in fact, a useful idiot after all, along with Maxine Waters and Ben Affleck. 

Speaking of Affleck, I wonder what his thoughts were today about the Islamists he defends with such ardor as he read in today's Los Angeles Times that Islamic State proudly justifies "forcing ethnic Yazidi women into sexual slavery--a practice they say is encouraged under Islamic [Sharia] law" and that the group "exults in the enslavement and rape of women from the Yazidi religious minority captured in Iraq after their husbands or fathers were killed or taken prisoner." Comments, sir? 

"Islamic State Publication Seeks to Justify Slavery and Sexual Abuse" (by David Zucchino, Los Angeles Times, October 14, 2014).

Ben Affleck, Another Useful Idiot

What an odd group of panelists. Ben Affleck, Michael Steele, and Nicholas Kristof debating Bill Maher and Sam Harris discussing radical Islam and whether condemning radical Islam is a type of Islamophobia. I never thought the day would come when I sided with Bill Maher, but that day has come. The world truly must be topsy-turvy. 

I'm surprised to see Michael Steele siding with Affleck and Kristof against Maher. I sort of wonder what the back story is. And what a foolish man, Ben Affleck, whose reasoning seems to be (if you'll pardon the cliché), a mile wide and an inch deep.

Transcript can be read here, if you can't stand listening to these gentlemen argue.

Recommended Reading: 1776, by David McCullough

I'm sure I'm not the first person to say this after having read David McCullough's remarkable book, 1776.  But I'll say it anyway: how in the world did the Americans win the Revolutionary War?


To say this was a David vs. Goliath tale is to traipse precariously close to cliche, yet it is so. The description of Washington's ragtag rebel army is no exaggeration, especially in that final month of the year. 

Most of the troops, comprised of teenagers and older men, farmers and businessmen, had never served in a military, let alone been trained in the art of war. Many of them came to the end of that year literally barefoot, marching in snow, on ice, in sleet. The army's leadership emerged by instinct and sheer grit. The incredible story of Henry Knox, then a junior officer, and his successful effort to retrieve cannons from Fort Ticonderoga, is but one example. Words of hope or encouragement sometimes fueled the defeated army to fight another day, but it was often short-lived. 

Contrast the Continental army with the British military, well-disciplined, well-fed, well-supplied, constantly reinforced (those Hessians!), and, of course, His Majesty's Royal Navy, and, well, you can't help but wonder, as I did, again and again, if this time, the outcome will be different (spoiler alert: it isn't).  

But really, at any given point during this one year, the war should have ended in defeat. Some battles were literally decided on a change in weather--a fog, a sudden storm, a gale-force wind--or a disagreement between British officers about whether or not to advance today or wait until tomorrow. 

This book ends, of course, in Trenton, New Jersey, in December 1776. All depended on the element of surprise, a midnight (Christmas Eve!) march (barefoot!), and silence. But then, that storm. Should they proceed? Yes, they marched, which probably gave them the advantage. The Hessians were celebrating the season with no expectation of an attack in this kind of weather. 

George Washington ("that fox!") who had been outwitted again and again with only a few small victories to his credit, somehow managed to summon, deep within himself, the ability to persevere. After the victory at Trenton, John Hancock had this to say of Washington: "Troops, properly inspired, and animated by a just confidence in their leader, will often exceed expectation, or the limits of probability." 

That the Americans exceeded the limits of probability is an understatement. That they won that battle, and, in time, the war, certainly was improbable. 

Here's how McCullough ends the book: 

The year 1776, celebrated as the birth year of the nation and for the signing of the Declaration of Independence, was for those who carried the fight for independence forward a year of all-too-few victories, of sustained suffering, disease, hunger, desertion, cowardice, disillusionment, defeat, terrible discouragement, and fear, as they would never forget, but also of phenomenal courage and bedrock devotion to country, and that, too, they would never forget. 

Especially for those who had been with Washington and who knew what a close call it was at the beginning--how often circumstance, storms, contrary winds, the oddities of strengths of individual character had made the difference, the outcome seemed little short of a miracle. 

This is probably one of the best books I've ever read.