We cannot fully know what leads a man to do such a thing. – President Barack Obama on Fort Hood mass murderer Dr. (MAJ) Nidal Malik Hasan, USA, 7 November, 2009.

They are Americans of every race, faith, and station. They are Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus and nonbelievers. They are descendents of immigrants and immigrants themselves. They reflect the diversity that makes this America. – ibid. on Major Hasan’s victims and the rest of the members of the Uniformed Services.

“We cannot fully know”!? With all due respect, Mr. President, are you really that big an idiot? When a man named Nidal Malik Hasan jumps up in a room full of soldiers, shouts “Allahu Akbar!” – “God is great” in Arabic – and fires 100 rounds of ammunition into the crowd, killing 13 and injuring about 30-40 others, I think we can know fully what drove him to do such a thing. And before the T & D crowd starts whining that I’m being unfair to Muslims or Islam, I’m not. I’m not saying being a Muslim makes you a terrorist. I’m saying being a Muslim who stands up in a crowded room, shouts “Allahu Akbar!” and empties three 30-round magazines makes you a terrorist. I don’t care what his cousins say.

I’ve written nothing on this topic yet for two reasons. One: I haven’t been around a computer enough to pound on the keyboard about it. Two: I wanted more than a name to go on before I started calling Major Hasan an Islamist terrorist. What I had not heard about until yesterday – and I will thank the Washington Examiner (www.washingtonexaminer.com), a free tabloid paper read by people on the subway, for handing it to me – was President Obama’s comments on the incident. 

First the facts. As everyone not in a cave knows, Major Hasan, an Army psychiatrist, apparently shot up a deployment readiness center at Fort Hood, Texas last Thursday. Twelve soldiers and a civilian died and some 30-odd were injured. The 10-minute rampage ended when local police Sergeant Kimberly Munley – herself wounded by Hasan – shot and wounded the terrorist. Hasan is alive and recovering in the hospital as he awaits his arrest and prosecution. As with any story of this nature, the details were sketchy at first, and the media quickly jumped to their own conclusions on what happened and why. MSNBC’s website stated unequivocally that Major Hasan’s motive was that he was upset at his impending deployment. That, of course, was before it came out that (a) Major Hasan is a life-long Muslim; (b) he attended a mosque in the Washington, DC area at the same time and with the same radical imam as two of the 9/11 hijackers; (c) the same radical cleric praised Hasan for his actions and said that Hasan was a model to all Muslims in the US military – i.e. Muslim soldiers should shoot up rooms full of non-Muslim soldiers – calling those who don’t “traitors to their religion”; (d) Hasan, during his schooling, and while in the military,  made presentations equating suicide bombers to soldiers who throw themselves on grenades to save their comrades; and (e) Hasan had expressed concerns about fighting “his own people” (i.e. other Muslims) and was dismayed that President Obama hadn’t summarily pulled troops out of Iraq and Afghanistan.

Let’s cut the garbage, here. This isn’t a Tolerance and Diversity issue. This is a Radical Islam issue. We have allowed a man who attended a mosque run by an insane cleric to pin on the rank of a field-grade officer in the US armed forces. That’s the functional equivalent to allowing a Soviet spy into an operational position in the CIA during the Cold War. When we allow the enemy into our national security apparatus, people die. And the people who follow the radical brands of Islam are – by their own words and deeds – our enemies. “Death to America!” The 1979 attack on our Embassy in Teheran. The dozen or so hijackings and bombings throughout the 80s. Mir Aimal Kasi. The bombings of our embassies in Africa. 9/11. Osama bin Laden. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. You get the picture.

That would be bad enough, as would the typical Leftist media response of jumping to the conclusion that Major Hasan’s Muslim background could have nothing to do with his terrorist act. But, two days after the attack, and with plenty of information available, including the fact that the perpetrator was still alive, President Obama goes and talks about how “We can never fully know” why Major Hasan did what he did. That sentence was better left out of that speech. Without it, it wouldn’t appear that President Obama – accused by his more irrational critics of being a closet radical Muslim – was trying to cover up Major Hasan’s motive. And to pile insult on top of injury, President Obama went on to preach about the diversity of the armed forces and the veterans thereof. In context (you can read the full text of the speech here), the diversity comment seemed to be the most important aspect of the military. “Our veterans are a very diverse group. And oh, by the way, they are also brave and patriotic.”

There is some good news on this story. Police Sergeant Munley has survived her wounds (so far). Major Hasan has also survived, and his condition is improving. I call this good news because he’ll live to stand trial. The trial should leave out any doubt as to his motive and the Left wing of the media will be forced to equate his crime to the Islamist terrorist act that it was. Once convicted, Major Hasan will be sentenced to death, I am sure. In addition to 13 counts of premeditated murder and who knows how many “attempts”, at least one of Major Hasan’s victims was a superior officer (one of the dead was a Lieutenant Colonel), and assaulting a superior commissioned officer is itself a potentially capital offense. 

If I were in charge, I’d be awarding Sergeant Munley with the highest military decoration a civilian can earn (which may be the Distinguished Service Cross, one step below the Medal of Honor, but I could be wrong) in addition to any medals she gets from the Police Force. I’d also pin a Purple Heart on the chest of every wounded in that deployment center for wounds received in an engagement with the enemy – an award not without precedent: A few soldiers (including a recruiter) got them for injuries sustained in the Oklahoma City bombing, and several got them for injuries sustained in 9/11 if I recall correctly. Civilians would get the Defense of Freedom medal (the civilian equivalent of the Purple Heart). Furthermore, I would be taking a close look at security clearance and military eligibility questionnaires. Given what we know, I would say adding a line asking the question: “Have you ever attended or belonged to a mosque presided over by an imam who preached violence against the United States? If yes, give details.” I’d also make such mosques illegal for service members to attend. And if you think I’m being too hard on Muslims, go find me a priest, minister, or rabbi who has preached that committing mass murder of their comrades is an exemplary model for Christian or Jewish soldiers to follow. 

Because we practice freedom of religion in this country, I do not advocate barring Muslims from military service. However, because Radical Islam has made us its enemy, Radical Muslims ought not be allowed into positions where they can affect national security.

NY-23, as it’s being called anymore, basically encompasses the northern tip of the state. It includes the towns of Plattsburgh, Ogdensburg, Potsdam, Watertown, Oswego, Fulton, and Oneida. It’s current the largest of New York’s districts in land area, thus it is the most sparsely populated (All of NY’s districts having a 2000 population of around 654,360). As with most small-town/rural communities, the population generally trends conservative, but according to the Cook Partisan Voting Index, it only rates an R+1 (meaning that it voted 1% more Republican than the national average in the last 2 Presidential Elections.) By comparison, the mainly conservative Virginia 1^st District – my home district – is an R+7 and ultra-conservative or ultra-liberal districts have a rating of R or D +20 or more.

So we come to this year’s special election, brought on because President Obama appointed the former Representative, John McHugh (R, NY) to be Secretary of the Army. Because of New York Election Law, the major parties both nominated their candidates by committee, rather than a primary. Dede Scozzafava (R) and Bill Owens (D) were nominated in July and began their campaign.  Doug Hoffman, who had lost the Republican nomination, received the nod from the New York Conservative Party about a month later. In initial polls, Scozzafava had a fair lead over the other two candidates taking between 30 and 35% in three September polls. By Mid-October the polls had swung in favor of Owens primarily because Scozzafava became “indistinguishable” from her Democrat opponent. Scozzafava’s positions on abortion, gay privileges, union card-check, the stimulus, taxes, healthcare, and a host of other issues more resembled President Obama’s positions rather than those of her own party. Senior Republicans, including former Alaska Governor and VP candidate Sarah Palin supported Hoffman, the conservative, in favor of Scozzafava, the very liberal Republican. Scozzafava was supported by, among others, the founder of the Daily Kos, the well known leftist blog website.

After endorsements of Hoffman by major Republican figures, Hoffman’s poll numbers took off and Scozzafava’s plummeted. Hoffman and Owens traded leads in the polls throughout October and Scozzafava’s support continued to wane. Finally, on October 31, 4 days before the election, Republican Scozzafava left the race and supported Democrat Owens, in a final stab at the conservative candidate’s back. On the day of the election, Doug Hoffman, a man who had entered the race a month late, lacked the major-party resources of the other candidates, initially even lacked the major party backing, and was on a three-person ballot as the third party still garnered 45.3% of the vote, losing the election by a mere 3.9%. More to the point, Dede Scozzafava, whose name and party were still on the ballot, took 5.5% of the vote, which, most likely, would have gone to Hoffman, and which, if it had, would have put Hoffman over the top, as Owens won only a plurality of votes, not a majority (49.2%).

The Left has been playing this up as (A) a fracturing of the Republican Party, (B) a Republican defeat because they supported the conservative over the “moderate,” and (C) a sign that the conservatives in the Republican Party won’t accept moderates, and will continue to lose elections as a result. As with most Left-wing analyses, this one is both wrong and obviously a politically motivated spin tactic. How is it wrong, you might ask? Well, I’ll tell you.

First off, rather than showing a fracturing of the Republican party, it’s showing a unity of the people that make up the GOP behind the conservative candidate, not just one with an (R) after her name. The party leadership realized that late and threw their support behind the candidate the people favored. With luck, this will indicate to the party leadership that we, the voters, are tired of Republicans who are difficult to distinguish from Democrats. Here’s a hint, if the Daily Kos, the New York Times, or the Washington Post support a Republican candidate, don’t nominate them.

Secondly, the Republicans did not lose the race because they backed a conservative candidate, they lost the race because they initially nominated a liberal one. Had Hoffman been nominated over Scozzafava, this would never have happened, and either Hoffman would have won the two-man race or, if Scozzafava had run as a third-party, she would have sucked votes off of Owens, not Hoffman, because her views were the same as Owens’s.

Thirdly, the analysis relies on Scozzafava being a moderate. Scozzafava leans left both socially and fiscally. She supports abortion, same-sex “marriage”, union card-check, and the Obama stimulus packages, and has been ambiguous on cap-and-trade. About the only truly conservative position I’ve heard of her taking is being against gun-control, hardly surprising in a mainly rural district. Even Democrats know you don’t win elections being anti-gun in hunter territory.

Fourth is the idea that eschewing what the New York Times calls “moderate” Republicans costs the GOP races. That is simply false. George W. Bush won the Presidency twice because he was a social conservative and wanted to cut taxes. Ronald Reagan won the Presidency twice because he was a social conservative and wanted to cut taxes. George H.W. Bush lost the Presidency because he raised taxes and was too easily swayed by the Democrat congress. Bob Dole and John McCain lost their bids for the Presidency because they were too liberal, not because they were too conservative.

Finally, the analysis ignores the other races around the country. It ignores the fact that executive candidates considered “Taliban-esque” conservatives by some media types won 15-18% landslides in Virginia. It ignores the fact that the Republican candidate won in New Jersey, a usual Democrat stronghold. And it ignores the fact that the people of Maine, the home of Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins, voted against same-sex “Marriage” thus proving once again that given the choice, The People will vote against redefining marriage.

The Republican Party should take two things away from Tuesday’s results. 1. They are not invulnerable and nominating RINOs will not work as well as nominating true conservatives. 2. This is an opportunity not to be wasted. Stir up the Conservative base of the party and 2010 will see a major power shift.

President Obama and his allies in Congress are free to ignore the true message the election in New York – and elsewhere – sends: The Left’s platform is losing favor. But they do so at their own peril.

I live in Virginia, so I’m most familiar with the recent campaigns for Governor, Lt. Gov., and Attorney General in the Commonwealth. If you have lived in a vacuum for the last few hours, it’s possible you do not know that Bob McDonnell (R) defeated Creigh Deeds (D) in the bid for Richmond. What you may not know is that McDonnell won by nearly 250,000 votes or roughly 18% (59-41%). Furthermore, McDonnell’s running mates incumbent Lt. Governor Bill Bolling and Attorney General Elect Ken Cuccinelli (both R) also won by similar (if slightly closer) margins. This election gives us the unusual, though not unprecedented circumstance of having the entire Virginia Executive branch all one party.

I’m not going to be one of those who harp on this being an indictment of President Barack Obama’s policies in particular, though there is some truth to that thought. Instead, I’m going to go with the theme that this is an indictment of the Democratic Party in general, and the results in New Jersey, Maine, and, yes, even New York tend to bear that out.

Right now, in most jurisdictions the Democrats cannot win on the issues. Barack Obama did not win the Presidency because of the issues. He won because the incumbent President was unpopular, because his opponent was weak, because the media played up his charisma and celebrity as much as was physically possible, and because he is black. I’ve said it before – and I’m not the only one – a white man with the same credentials as Senator Obama would never have made it past the Iowa caucuses, and even in the unlikely, but not altogether impossible event that he made it to the general election, he would have lost like Walter Mondale.

Perhaps the worst thing that could have happened to Virginia Democrats was the election of Jim Webb over incumbent Senator George Allen, Jr. 3 years ago. Webb, at a time when the Republican Party was on a down cycle, campaigned primarily on allegations of racism and sexism against Allen. Webb won the election and, so, two of the three Democrats tried the same tactic in this year’s election.

Deeds pulled out McDonnell’s Master’s thesis that apparently said that McDonnell believed women in the workplace was a bad idea. The one issue Deeds used was abortion, showing that McDonnell is a strong anti-abortion believer. So Deeds was calling McDonnell a misogynist. 

Cuccinelli’s opponent, Steve Shannon, called Cuccinelli a “bigot” in his ads, and quoted some newspapers stating that Cuccinelli would discriminate against people who didn’t share Cuccinelli’s view of morality. So Shannon was probably calling Cuccinelli a homophobe. Of course, no evidence was ever proffered to support this slur, but it was out there.

And that brings me to my next point. We heard last week about the football player who was suspended by his team for using “gay slurs” in some “Twitter” posts (never mind that the stories that repeated the slurs had to explain what they meant because no one else ever uses them). Of course people are accused in the media of using racial slurs all the time, as well. So I have a proposal. I realize this isn’t going to get any traction because no one actually reads this stuff, but I’ll throw it out there in case Ann Coulter or Mike Adams are bored one day. So here it goes:

Goodness and Decency win again in the battle against the redefinition of marriage. The news, yesterday was that polls generally showed that the people of Maine favored letting a man “marry” a man. This morning, gays everywhere were surprised (again), dismayed (again), and whining (again) that their goal of wrecking the institution of marriage by redefining it out of existence failed yet again. Gay marriage has failed every time it has come up for a vote from the people. Most importantly it fails in votes by the people in places like the People’s Republic of California, and the home state of Olympia Snowe, neither of which are conservative strongholds. In California it didn’t just fail, it didn’t just fail twice, and it didn’t just fail in a constitutional amendment, it was affirmatively voted against. It wasn’t laws allowing same-sex “marriage” that failed referenda (as was the case in Maine), it was laws disallowing same-sex “marriage” that passed.

The people don’t want same-sex “marriage.” Every time they’ve spoken, they’ve repeated that statement. It is only in states where the people have not been allowed to speak where it exists, and in most of those it was imposed by unelected courts, not even legislators.

Supporters of same-sex “marriage” say it is “inevitable.” It is not. Not as long as people continue to understand the consequences of moral relativism and fight these plans to remake society in the image of depraved minds.