“We were always hesitant to include the term ‘American way’ because the meaning of that today is somewhat uncertain,” Ohio native Dougherty explains. “The ideal hasn’t changed. I think when people say ‘American way,’ they’re actually talking about what the ‘American way’ meant back in the ’40s and ’50s, which was something more noble and idealistic.”
Michael Dougherty, one of the screenwriters of “Superman Returns”

The Hollywood Reporter explains why the new Superman movie doesn’t claim that their hero fights for “truth, justice and the American way,” but rather “truth, justice and all that stuff.” I know it’s just a movie, but this is pathetic! Mr. Doughterty, it may be hard to appreciate out there in Hollywood, but here in flyover country we know exactly what the phrase the ‘American way’ means. As we approach the 4th of July, I feel compelled to try to help you clear out the thicket of cobwebs that have grown over your brain. Before I do, let me acknowledge that I realize that you and the others involved in this movie are looking ahead to foreign distribution, so that this mealy-mouthed denial of American exceptionalism could be nothing more than crass marketing.

That notwithstanding, this mentality needs to be confronted because it’s just plain wrong. I have had it with the “global test”, concerns about our “image in the world”, and how we’re “alienating the rest of the world” by defending ourselves. This is the mentality that says the whole world loved us on September 11 because we were humiliated victims, only to do a 180 and despise us when our president vowed “never again” and took it to the enemy. It’s also the mentality that leads folks like Mr. Dougherty to be confused about what the ‘American way’ means.

When Mr. Dougherty says that the phrase refers to what it meant in the 40’s and 50’s, he appears to be saying that was a time when things were much more black and white, when everyone knew that some things were right and some things were wrong, and where the bad guys were easily identified (Nazis, Communists) and so were the good guys (the United States). Then came the 60’s. Suddenly moral relativism was all the rage, and the worst crime anyone could commit was being “judgmental.” The sixties were also when it became fashionable to view “Amerika” as not the positive force for peace and freedom in the world it had always been, but as an imperialistic bully, a view promulgated by the communist-financed anti-war movement. It was a crock of crap then and it’s a crock of crap now.

Here’s a Reader’s Digest version of what the “American Way” means:

That freedom is the God-given birthright of every human being;

That if the word ‘civilization’ means anything it means protecting the innocent, the voiceless and the helpless;

That there is a bright line between good and evil;

That when the forces of evil seek to plunge the world into darkness, it is the duty of the free world to stand up to them, defeat them, restore world peace and prosperity, not by taking over our previous enemy, but by helping to rebuild their devastated countries and helping them rejoin the international community;

That no one person is better than another, and that everyone deserves a fair shake;

That America is the last best hope for mankind. To explain it even better, let me quote from one much more eloquent than I will ever be, Ronald Reagan:

“We cannot escape our destiny, nor should we try to do so. The leadership of the free world was thrust upon us two centuries ago in that little hall of Philadelphia. In the days following World War II, when the economic strength and power of America was all that stood between the world and the return to the dark ages, Pope Pius XII said, ‘The American people have a great genius for splendid and unselfish actions. Into the hands of America God has placed the destinies of an afflicted mankind.’

We are indeed, and we are today, the last best hope of man on earth.”

We believe in might for right, not might makes right.

That’s what the American Way means, Mr. Dougherty. Check into it.

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I relied on media reports yesterday when I said that the Hamdan decision was close to 100 pages. It turns out it’s closer to 200! Good grief—I’ll plow through as much as I can stand. Somehow I don’t think reading the majority’s opinion will convince me that this decision isn’t anything but dangerous and wrong.

More later.

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Why is this man smiling?

Regular listeners to the Teri O’Brien Show know that ever since I went on the air at WLS in 2002, there have been two issues that we have considered more important than any of the hundreds of issues we discuss. No, not Celebrity Fit Club, or “Snakes on a Plane,” although as usual, we were way ahead of this whole “Snakes on a Plane” thing. We discussed it on the show on April 16, 2006, so much like the whole Connie Chung chanteuse routine, you heard it here first, and now you’ll hear it everywhere else.

The two issues that I consider absolutely crucial to the future of our country, and the ones we discuss so often that some of your may get sick of hearing me blather on about them, are the appointment of federal judges and the war against the head-chopping, bomb-exploding, dirty-rag-wearing, backward murderous thugs who are determined to plunge the world into darkness. Today the two issues have converged in the form of Hamdan decision. I haven’t read the whole opinion yet. It’s nearly 100 pages long, but I did note one interesting little gem from Justice Steven “if I can’t find anything in the Constitution to justify the desired result, I’ll check out the statutes in Zimbabwe” Breyer. First, Justice Breyer sniffs that “The Court’s conclusion ultimately rests upon a single ground: Congress has not issued the Executive a ‘blank check,’ Breyer wrote. “Indeed, Congress has denied the president the legislative authority to create military commissions of the kind at issue here. Nothing prevents the president from returning to Congress to seek the authority he believes necessary.” In other words, let’s make the administration jump through a pointless, silly hoop during a time of war. Then, as the WaPo reports, [h]e argued that far from weakening “our nation’s ability to deal with danger,” judicial insistence upon consultation with Congress “strengthens the nation’s ability to determine — through democratic means — how best to do so.” Since when is this lib so concerned about “democratic means?” You mean as in Roe v. Wade, Judge?

As we like to say on the show, the rationale of this opinion is as phony as a Chappaquiddick neckbrace. Consultation with Congress? Congress has been involved all along, beginning with the resolution passed September 14, 2001 and with the Detainee Treatment Act, passed in December, and which stripped the courts of any jurisdiction over habeas corpus petitions or “other actions against any other action against the United States or its agents relating to any aspect of the detention by the Department of Defense of an alien at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba” who is in custody and who has been determined to be an enemy combatant under procedures established by the Department of Defense.

The decision apparently also holds that the head loppers are entitled to the protections of the Geneva Conventions. I’m not sure where they come up with that. Maybe it’s in the Trinidad and Tobago constitution.

More on this outrage later. In the meantime, please visit http://www.teriobrien.com and respond to our poll question: Should the president ignore the Hamdan decision?

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To justify damaging our national security by publishing a blue print on how we track terrorists with the cooperation of the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications (SWIFT), the treasonous New York Times says:

Everybody knew anyway.

Then why is it on the front page of your paper?

It’s not our job to “pre-empt the courts and Congress” by declaring this program legal.

No, your job is to destroy its effectiveness and assume that anything the grownups do to fight the head choppers who are determined to kill us is sinister and illegal.

We’re not concerned about whether it’s effective or not in keeping the country safer. In fact, our own story acknowledges that it has been very useful. That’s not the issue.

Wrong again, Effete Snob Boy. That’s the most important issue of this generation.

This program has been going on for 5 years. We’re concerned that it has no end point.

I guess I missed the memo. Did the terrorists declare an end point to their plan to destroy Western civilization? You liberals love timelines and end points, just as long as they are imposed on the legitimate functions of government, like national defense. Creating a stable democracy in the middle East in Iraq? That needs a deadline. Terrorists held at Gitmo? It’s unacceptable to hold them indefinitely. When’s the last time you heard a liberal suggest that we need an end point for some worthless, or even destructive, government social program?

I say if Arlen Specter can drag AT & T’s CEO up to Capitol Hill and berate him for the crime of cooperating with the government in the war against the murderous fanatics we’re fighting, why can’t he drag Bill Keller up there and demand to know who put him in charge of our national security? If Judith Miller can go to jail for refusing to reveal sources in the pointless Valerie Plame case, can’t we find a couple of orange jumpsuits for Eric Lichtblau and James Risen?

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This is the having-a-rotten-week hat trick for liberals. First, they lose the election in California after their empty-headed loudmouth candidate Francine Busby lets the cat out of the bag about their plans for guest voters. Then Zarqawi gets greased. Now, Patrick Fitzgerald announces that Karl Rove will not be indicted.

Too bad they couldn’t have gotten this news last week at their moonbat convention. That would have made those 3 Gitmo suicides look like a warmup. BTW, when I heard about those suicides resulting in the guards not letting those guys do their laundry anymore, I thought to myself “Wow, and I thought the Husband would do anything to get out of doing laundry,” but apparently he’s not as hardcore on that issue as those guys.

I have it on good authority that they are back from Las Vegas. I was watching C-SPAN this morning and a caller said that she knows that Karl Rove and others on the White House staff practice voodoo in the basement of the White House, and she wasn’t calling from Las Vegas.

Who do you suppose will be more apoplectic—the Screamer (Chris Matthews) or his reporter David Schuster? Has Keith Olbermann jumped out of a skyscraper window yet?

And what about that “truthout”—there’s a great name report a couple of weeks ago claiming that Karl Rove had been indicted? I guess they need a new name for their stupid website.

This should be fun to watch.

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Thanks to SL (Smart Listener) Joe for his corrective comments on my initial thoughts on hearing the great news about the death of murderous scumbag al-Zarqawi; specifically, (1) that the bearded head chopper was not incinerated (darn it!) and (2) that the reward is NOT 25 Large, as in $25,000, but $25 million. I had a major brain cramp there because I did know that the reward was the larger amount. As Joe suggest, perhaps we could call that 25 Large Large. I like that.

Speaking of the reward, we’ll probably not know for some time if anyone does collect it, for obvious reasons, so I might have been wrong about that too. Keep in mind, though, that at the time that I hurriedly wrote that post before meeting my partners at the gym, and in a hypoxic post-treadmill state, I was so excited I could barely contain myself. Not an excuse, but the actual reason.
Thanks again, Joe for keeping me honest.

More to come, including the post responding the arguments in favor of so-called same sex “marriage.”

Thanks for listening!

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The murderous scumbug Zarqawi has been incinerated along with 7 of his peeps. Here were my initial thoughts:

If 8 of them get killed at once, do they have to share the 72 virgins?

Once I finally get to the point that I can pronounce their names, these guys either get captured or killed.

Here’s 25 Large (the reward) that we saved.

How long before the moonbat left-wing websites say that this did not happen, but was staged to take the heat off Haditha, Pres. Bush, Haliburton, Scooter Libby

Won’t it be fun to watch the 5th column media and their dem buds try to pretend they think this is good news?

Will Chris Matthews still do a segment tonight on
(A) How the dems are going to take over Congress in the fall?
(B) The CIA Leak investigation?

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Last week, Olbermann and other broadcast “journalists” crowed over the terrific sales of the Dixie Chicks new CD. Do you suppose they’ll highlight this news about the lagging ticket sales for their tour to support the album?

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Please correct me if I’m wrong. I could be hallucinating, or at least suffering from a foggy memory. Haven’t I been hearing for years with a brilliant woman Carol Marin is? Not only brilliant but a well-respected journalist, oozing integrity, so much so that back in 1997 when the suits at WMAQ (NBC 5 Chicago) hired fellow democrat Jerry Springer as a political commentator, she resigned in protest. She huffed that the former democrat mayor of Cinncinnati was the “the poster child for the worst television has to offer.” How courageous of Ms. Marin! How dare these money-grubbing executives try to sully her reputation as a serious journalist (never say “news reader”) by putting a sleaze merchant like Springer on her newscast! Filthy lucre be damned, at least when it comes to anything other than her paycheck.

After reading the breathtakingly vacuous column she wrote for the Chicago Sun-Times recently, I’m thinking that the editors there should have published one of Jerry’s Final Thoughts. None of them could have been any more moronic that this mess that is this silly column.

Ms. Marin proudly recounts yet another courageous act, buying the Dixie Chicks latest CD to demonstrate that she stands in solidarity with her equally courageous sisters. I mean can there be anything more courageous than making a statement bashing President Bush before a crowd of popular music fans in London? Maybe buying a Dixie Chicks CD would qualify. Observing all this remarkable courage, I wonder–are the Dixie Chicks and Ms. Marin still at large, or have they been whisked off to Gitmo? Consider the headline (which I concede Ms. Marin may not have written, but which was written to reflect the content of her column): “The War at Home: Fighting for Free Speech.”

The problem with the Dixie Chicks fight for free speech is that they don’t seem to understand that while they are free to say whatever they like, the rest of us are free to react in any way that we choose, including not buying their CDs or downloading their songs, and telling radio station managers that we don’t want to hear their music on the air. Those things are free speech, too. It seems like such a simple and obvious point, doesn’t it? You’d think it would have occurred to a brilliant journalist like Ms. Marin, but then she hasn’t exactly demonstrated a tremendous understanding for what’s good or bad for business. She’s a journalist, and therefore above such concerns, as noted above. A reality, and U.S. Constitution refresher for Carol and all those like-minded people who agree with the drivel she writes: Natalie Maines can pop off all she wants, but if it’s bad for business, don’t blame the customers, who are also exercising their freedom.

Not content to display her own fatuous hero worship of these airheaded loudmouths, walking examples of the old expression “empty barrels make the most noise” (or maybe I should say poster girls, huh, Carol?), Ms. Marin enlists the assistance of her Sun-Times colleague, Jim DeRogatis. That’s when the piece descends into the conspiratorial idiocy that we’ve grown to enjoy so much on the moonbat blogs and websites. Strap on your tinfoil hat and enjoy. When asked why radio stations would refuse to play the Chicks’ new CD, Mr. DeRogatis explains “Who is the major force on Country radio? Clear Channel Entertainment …based in Texas …hugely supportive of President Bush …a monopoly …a monolithic force …I don’t know if they really, legitimately are reflecting the opinions of their listeners …but who let it become this? Well, Bush’s FCC.” I don’t know what these ellipses, which were in the original Marin column, mean. She probably fell asleep while this guy was babbling, but nevertheless, after this nonsensical rave-out, Carol says “OK. Now I get it.”

You do? I’m glad someone does because what Mr. DeRogatis says is uninformed, paranoid and nutty. If Mr. DeRogatis is lamenting radio consolidation, I think he’s forgetting that it began after legislation in 1996, when—let’s see, who was president then? Oh yes, Bill Clinton. If he’s suggesting that the FCC should require radio stations to play Dixie Chick CDs, I don’t think the Chicks would like that. I would assume that they’re probably ashamed that Clear Channel is from Texas and probably don’t want anything to do with them.

From this spirited defense of the poor persecuted Dixie Chicks, Ms. Marin launches into a valentine to that lefty phony Studs Terkel. His courageous act, the thing that makes Carol “grateful beyond words?” He and the ACLU are suing AT & T for cooperating with the government in their efforts to intercept the schemes of the next Mohammed Atta More courage! In the piece, published last week, Ms. Marin says she’s “rooting for Studs on this one.” I wonder if after the arrests of the 17 terrorist suspects in Canada over the weekend, which apparently resulted from the very sort of surveillance she and Studs hope to stop, she’s had the brains to stop congratulating herself for her courage and revisit that point of view. I doubt it.

Let’s hope that no one, including Ms. Marin, has to show the sort of courage-that would be the genuine variety–of a Nicholas Berg or a Daniel Pearl because of the treasonous actions of ignorant crypto-commies like Studs Terkel and the simple-minded cheerleading of same from the likes of Ms. Marin.

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If you are near the point of projectile vomiting over the liberal phonies who claim to “support the troops,” some of whom were spitting on returning Vietnam vets 35 years ago, you’re going to love this piece by David Gelernter, Yale computer science prof and a man who has managed to avoid the elitist brain rot that afflicts many who teach in the Ivy League.

One sentence summary: Robotically repeating the phrase “the greatest generation” doesn’t make up for years of disrespect and blissful ignorance.

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