Express 'Em If You Got 'Em

There is an old saying that usually comes into play when some group, often a military platoon, is about to take advantage of a brief lull before some important, heated, restrictive battle: "Smoke 'em if you got 'em" is how it goes. It relates to cigarettes, and the idea that if you are going to want one, now is the time to light up, because you may not get another chance for awhile.

Today's online edition of the Washington Times (www.washingtontimes.com) features a poll asking whether the Obama administration should have contacted Ayatollah Ali Khamenei (Iran's supreme religious leader) before the Iranian elections.

The poll is in response to a lead article at the paper's website which reports that the Obama administration sent a letter to Khamenei calling for an improvement in relations between the U.S and Iran. Khamenei referenced the letter last week during a sermon in which he accused the U.S. of fomenting dissent following the Iranian elections.

My problem or point here is not the article itself, the poll, or even the issues of Iran and the so-far feeble Obama administration response to Iran. Our new President is mad. Really, really mad, darn it. You can tell, because yesterday he "strongly" condemned the Iranian regimes unjust actions towards the street protesters of the rigged elections. Strongly.

No, my problem is with the supporters of America's first socialist President. When you answer the poll question, it takes you to the updated poll results and a commentary page. Here anyone who is registered with the site can make comments about the poll, and anyone at all can read these comments, even if not registered.

There is one answer that encapsulates the liberal, progressive, socialist mindset towards anyone who expresses Obama-dissent. Here a poster calling themselves 'TheProgressiveTruth' says that "conservative ideas are discredited and are not taken seriously by serious people."

Fair enough. That's showing political bias, but this is America, and they are free to express their political views. The problem comes with his next statement: "My advice, again: shut up!" Here they show their true stripes. Those with differing opinions need to be silenced.

There are many liberal politicians and partisans who subscribe to this line of thinking. They call for a radio 'Fairness Doctrine' (sic) that would silence conservative talk radio hosts like Rush Limbaugh, Bill Bennett, Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham, Glenn Beck and others, simply because they disagree with these conservative commentators but cannot come up with liberal commentators to draw a sustainable audience.

Bottom line is, liberals and progressives cannot win the battle of ideas in the public square, just as they cannot win at the polling booth on social ideas such as the farcical gay marriage issue. They lose every time one of these issues is balloted and put directly to the voters. Instead, they seek to "shut up" conservatives and force their views through controlled media and through the courts.

Barack Obama, his administration, and his colleagues in Congress have been seriously over-reaching in their valuation of their recent electoral victories. The American people voted for a change, but absolutely did not vote for the type of change that weakens or cheapens democracy and capitalism, or that calls for silence from its opponents.

Have some opinions on the issues that matter to you and your family, opinions that are different than the Obama administration and the former mainstream media try to force down the throat of the public. Then I have just one message for you: express 'em if you got 'em!

No Price is Too High For This Guy

Davey Johnson loves talking about Stephen Strasburg. He gets excited talking about Stephen Strasburg.

Johnson is a baseball manager who has seen great pitching and knows great pitching.

That's why he loves talking about Strasburg - because he gets to use the word "great" so many times.

"He has a great arm, great poise, great command, great stuff. ... He is special, no doubt about it," said Johnson, who managed Strasburg, selected Tuesday by the Washington Nationals as the first pick in baseball's amateur draft, during the 2008 Olympics.

You've already read so many accolades about Strasburg that it can make you skeptical about whether he can live up to the hype. Strasburg has been so deified that if and when the Nationals do sign Strasburg, it will never rain again at Nationals Park, as it did Tuesday night. The ballpark clock will suddenly work. The sausages will shoot out of the sausage gun intact and be the best-tasting sausages you have ever had.

Nothing will ever go wrong for the Nationals again.

He may not have supernatural powers to change curses, but the natural powers he has certainly could help change the fortunes of this woeful franchise.

Stephen Strasburg may indeed live up to the hype.

"He is the real deal, baby," Johnson said.

Johnson, skipper of the 1986 World Series champion New York Mets and a winner everywhere he has been, was one of the top managers of his time and particularly good at managing pitching. As a player, he was part of those Orioles teams with Jim Palmer and Dave McNally. As a manager, he nurtured Dwight Gooden with the Mets.

Johnson knows pitching, and he is not a man who is easily impressed. He is effusive in his praise of the 20-year-old Strasburg, who went 13-1 with a 1.32 ERA in 15 starts as a junior for San Diego State, also striking out 195 in 109 innings. He did not issue more than two walks in any game this season and walked one or fewer batter in 10 of 15 starts.

"Great makeup and a great competitor," Johnson said. "He was the only college kid on what was basically a professional team for me in the Olympics, and a lot of the guys used to get on him about it. But it didn't faze him a bit.

"The first game he pitched for me was against the Netherlands in China, and it made me nervous because he had a no-hitter going for about five innings," Johnson said. "He ended up with a one-hitter through seven. He threw about 90 pitches. He was overpowering. Great command. He is a power pitcher with control. ... He doesn't overthrow. He has a nice, easy delivery, and he locates real good.

"You couldn't ask for anything better," Johnson said. "He goes about his business and knows what he has to do to get prepared. He's outstanding."

Sounds like a $50 million pitcher to me.

That reportedly is the price that Strasburg's uber-agent, Scott Boras, is seeking for his client, only nearly $40 million more than the highest number any No. 1 pick has gotten in the past. I can't fathom the Nationals paying that amount, and consensus has been that while Strasburg will sign for a record-setting figure, it will be closer to $15 million to $20 million. Then again, I also can't fathom under any circumstances how the Nationals could not sign Strasburg, no matter what his price - particularly after not signing their No. 1 pick, Aaron Crow, last year and how damaged the organization's credibility is in and out of baseball after a series of mistakes and mishaps.

The Strasburg hype is so great that if you announced that Stephen Strasburg was simply going to make an appearance at Nationals Park - sing with Cliff, race with Teddy, whatever - it would outdraw the paying crowd of about 20,000 that the Nationals have supposedly averaged so far this year. So if indeed Strasburg is the real deal, he will be worth whatever the Lerner family has to pay at least to stop the bleeding of this wounded franchise.

The hoopla is already driving Nationals management crazy, and the negotiations are just about to begin. On Tuesday night, when acting general manager Mike Rizzo was asked in a press conference about Strasburg being a "once-in-a-generation" pitcher, Rizzo responded, "I don't know why he is called that."

Because he is, until proved otherwise, and the Nationals better hope is turns out to be just that.

WRITTEN by Thom Loverro at The Washington Times on June 10th, 2009

Dick Cheney's Compelling Witness

An extraordinary scene played out Thursday with what amounted to a Lincoln-Douglas-style debate between a popular sitting president and an unpopular former vice president. The former veep won, hands down.

Former Vice President Dick Cheney's speech at the American Enterprise Institute had been scheduled for weeks before President Obama quite obviously tried to drown out Mr. Cheney by speaking on the same topic beginning exactly two minutes before Mr. Cheney was scheduled to take the AEI podium. In his 50-minute jeremiad, Mr. Obama repeatedly took nasty shots at Mr. Cheney and the administration he served, questioning not just the preceding administration's judgment, but also its motives and integrity.

Against Mr. Obama's insults, rhetoric and studied poses at his teleprompter, the former vice president answered with forceful words married to an understated tone of utter seriousness, with no electronic aids.

Mr. Obama accused the Bush administration of jettisoning the principles of the Constitution "for expedience sake." He accused his critics of "political posturing." And he said that "our government made decisions based upon fear rather than foresight, and all too often trimmed facts and evidence to fit ideological predispositions. Instead of strategically applying our power and our principles, we too often set those principles aside as luxuries that we could no longer afford."

Mr. Cheney responded that neither values nor the law had been set aside. He said that carefully selected CIA agents had been "especially prepared to apply techniques within the boundaries of their training and the limits of the law. Torture was never permitted, and the methods were given careful, legal review before they were approved. Interrogators had authoritative guidance on the line between toughness and torture, and they knew to stay on the right side of it."

Those interrogations, Mr. Cheney said, "prevented the violent death of thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands, of innocent people." The former vice president complained, rightly, that memos about the interrogations that Mr. Obama released provided "less than half the truth" because they were "carefully redacted to leave out references to ... specific terrorist plots that were averted." Yet: "For reasons the administration has yet to explain, they believe the public has a right to know the methods of the questions, but not the content of the answers."

The chattering classes have been blasting Mr. Cheney for weeks for speaking out so forcefully on these issues on behalf of positions the chatterers say are deeply unpopular. However, they can't accuse him of self-serving ambition. As he noted, he spoke "as a private citizen - a career in politics behind me, no elections to win or lose, and no favor to seek."

The remarkable sight of such a harshly criticized former leader standing so unbowed brings to mind some words from poet Alfred, Lord Tennyson: Mr. Cheney is exhibiting "some sense of duty, something of a faith, some reverence for the laws ourselves have made ... some civic manhood firm against the crowd."

The crowd ought to heed Mr. Cheney and rally behind him. By defending our intelligence officers, he defended America.

WRITTEN as a Washington Times editorial on May 22nd, 2009