Bill O’Reilly’s fall into Irrelevance

I remember sitting in the break room of my Company’s barracks building with a dozen other guys watching a television program. The cheap couches and chairs were packed and those who couldn’t find a seat were happy to stand and watch the show. No one played ping-pong; no one cared to knock the balls around on the pool table. Everyone was riveted to the television screen.

Normally, with dirt-chewing, gun-toting infantrymen of the coarsest variety, the only sort of on-screen feature that could command such attention was a film of the x-rated sort . . . and even that would have had to be remarkable in some way. This occasion, though, the soldiers weren’t watching the latest war movie or film starring adult entertainers. We were watching The O’Reilly Factor.

Arlington-Smarlington . . . I Need a Vacation

Speaking for myself and from a position of relative ignorance – as most of us must with the way the MSM refuses to execute their due diligence as the Fourth Estate regarding Obama’s presidency – I am, at the same time, not surprised by and wholly disgusted with the president’s decision to opt out of the Memorial Day Wreath Laying Ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier so he can take yet another vacation. It will be his second vacation this month.

I remember when Vice President Cheney laid the wreath at the Tomb instead of President Bush. And maybe I’m not being fair to Obama, because I didn’t feel the same indignation then as now. He hasn’t cancelled the ceremony outright, after all, and he is sending Biden as his supernumerary. Then again, taking into account the characters of each Bush and Obama, maybe I’m not.

How Much is Enough?

“We're not trying to push financial reform because we begrudge success that's fairly earned. I do think at a certain point you've made enough money, but you know, part of the American way is, you can just keep on making it if you're providing a good product.”

This was, of course, the President of the United States of America Barack Obama off the teleprompter script.

Discriminate? Don’t You Dare

Think about the law recently passed in Arizona. No, not the fact that the law simply gives law enforcement officers in the state the authority to enforce federal immigration law. No, not how the left (to include the president, his buddy down Mexico way, his Attorney General, his Secretary of Homeland Security, and her underlings) has not bothered to read the bill but gone on to piss and moan how the law is an atrocity. Instead, think about how they are pissing and moaning.

Even though the law clearly states that officers may not use factors of race, ethnicity, etc. to investigate a person’s legal status, the left has blatantly ignored this fact. But, how, exactly, are they getting their rhetoric through despite it? Simple: they are using the “D” word, discrimination.

Awarding Minimum Standards

American military personnel engaging the enemy must follow certain Rules of Engagement (ROE) as commanded by their leadership. Though the ROE necessarily evolves to accommodate current battlefield conditions, soldiers and Marines understand that one of the constants of each issued ROE is that targeting civilians is a no-no. Should a soldier or Marine engage and wound or kill a civilian when such could well have been avoided, they understand that they will face criminal charges. If convicted, they are given a suite at Ft. Leavenworth's Military Prison.

Now, apparently, all of those who do not - which is to say all of those who now stand ready on the front lines because they haven't already been removed for such actions - would be eligible for President Obama's idea for a new commendation, the Courageous Restraint Medal.

Compassionate People

America: the land of compassion. Doubtless, few will disagree, but mostly because each Left and Right stakes a claim to having it while the other doesn’t. I am one of those.

Though it is quite the mystery for lefties to understand exactly how we conservatives can claim be compassionate, the facts and logic state – or should – indisputably that such is true. The Right, year in and out, donates such a larger portion of their incomes to charitable organizations as compared to folks on the Left by so large a margin that this fact alone should be enough to end all debate. But the facts only begin there. The ideological differences between Left and Right are what really create the delineation regarding the degree of compassion.