Ben Domenech's blog

Posted at 10:15am on Jul. 4, 2008 Jesse Helms 1921-2008

By Ben Domenech

Jesse Helms, a warrior for the conservative cause, passed away this morning.

Jesse Helms was a controversial figure to the American left, but he was beloved by his colleagues and by many of his ideological foes. Madeleine Albright kissed and danced with him. Joe Biden loved him. Elizabeth Edwards said her husband was just like him. Helms considered Bono a personal friend.

Helms in person was very unlike the caricature the left painted of him. He was strongly opposed to the United Nations and what he saw as encroachment on American liberty, and yet was one of the first Republicans to endorse a strong worldwide foreign aid policy on AIDS relief. He never graduated from college, and never shook off his lower class upbringing, but through hard work and commitment earned the respect of his friends, his colleagues and even his enemies.

Ever a fighter against the encroachment of bureaucracy and ever-expanding big government, Helms was an old school conservative in that regard. Once, when facing the prospect of a government shutdown, he is supposed to have said to his colleagues: ""Every day these buildings are closed, the Republic grows stronger." And he certainly believed it.

He was a warrior and a patriot. The date of his death is fitting indeed.

RIP.

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Posted at 12:35am on Jun. 19, 2008 If Only We Had Cars That Ran on Magic

By Ben Domenech

I had the pleasure of participating in a BBC debate this afternoon on the World Newshour show with Daniel Weiss of the Center for American Progress. We had an extensive discussion with the host on the President's announcement today in support of offshore drilling and other energy initiatives. Feel free to listen, and then a few points after:

Ben Domenech on BBC Radio (6:00 Minute Mark)

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Posted at 9:19pm on Jun. 17, 2008 Do Not Screw Around with Ramesh

By Ben Domenech

I wrote an oped on Doug Kmiec and the Flight of the Obamacons over at the Washington Times last week - you might want to read it before taking in this testy yet amusing little exchange.

Over at the Corner, Ramesh posted this here, questioning Kmiec's decision to support Obama, as well as raising the question about independent sources backing up Kmiec's tale of denial of communion on the basis of politics. In response today, Kmiec writes the following:

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Posted at 11:53am on Jun. 9, 2008 Barack Obama's New Christian Group Takes the Name of a Conservative Group

By Ben Domenech

Barack Obama's outreach to young evangelicals and Catholics is getting off on the wrong foot. Since his staff pays so much attention to the evangelicals he claims to care about, he's taken a name that's already held by a fairly active conservative group. Nathan Gonzales reports in today's Roll Call (subscription only):

Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) is about to launch his latest outreach to religious voters, but the name of the group could land him in legal trouble.

First reported on Friday by Christian Broadcasting Network's David Brody, Obama's “Joshua Generation” is designed to help the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee appeal to young evangelicals.

But “Generation Joshua,” a division of the Home School Legal Defense Association, has been established since 2003 and is pursuing legal action against the Obama campaign.

“This is an improper invasion of our trademark and we've retained legal counsel to notify the Obama campaign to stop this,” HSLDA’s co-founder, chairman, and general counsel Michael Farris told Roll Call on Monday morning. The conservative group plans to notify the Obama campaign later today.

You can read the Brody column here. Obama's been using this reference occasionally, but it's one thing to use it in a speech, and another to use the name of a trademarked political group. Hello? It's called Google people.

Read on . . .

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Posted at 12:35am on Jun. 6, 2008 Batman for President Announces Running Mate

By Ben Domenech


Batman has announced his running mate.

Read more at Batman for President.

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Posted at 10:00pm on Apr. 25, 2008 Believe it or not, Barack: This Matters

By Ben Domenech

McCain spokesman Brian Rogers offers the following statement, starting where John McCain did today on his blogger call. Let it serve as a sign that Barack Obama's merry little nod toward the nice smiling folks down the street at Hamas, Inc. will not go unnoticed, and will absolutely be an issue in the general election campaign.

Some things John McCain isn't going to touch, but "Do you like me? Yes/No/Maybe" notes passed between terrorists and a presidential candidate? Yeah, that's a bit far.

Barack doesn't have anything to say about the fact that they like him, you know: those people, they did horrible acts, detestable acts, but he was younger then, and they're just in the neighborhood. He's just being nice! Like a senator should be! That's why he sat through all those Jeremiah Wright sermons, you know - it's basic human politeness not to stand up when a Reverend is talking.

Read on . . .

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Posted at 8:21am on Apr. 15, 2008 Racism vs. Sexism: The Final Countdown

By Ben Domenech

Let this be our final battle

“Fame,” Rilke wrote, “is the sum total of all the misunderstandings that can gather around a new name.”

I bet Barack Obama can quote Rilke when he's in front of the right audience. He had a good line or two about bitterness. Smart people like to quote Rilke.

Read on.

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Posted at 11:06am on Apr. 14, 2008 Why You Should Care About Puerto Rico

By Ben Domenech

Over at Human Events this morning, you'll find my latest column on the importance of Puerto Rico in the 2008 cycle.

There's a point that I make later in the piece which might be worth considering here - namely, that neither Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton offer a cure for what ills Puerto Rico. Regardless of what you think of the statehood-independence issue, this is a situation where there's no question that there's a need for pro-free market, anti-corruption, pro-trade leadership.

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Posted at 10:11pm on Apr. 10, 2008 South Park on Abortion: "The Ultimate Cheat"

By Ben Domenech

I know not all of you are South Park fans. I'm a huge fan of their work, and as RS editors know, I try to force them all to watch the episodes and marvel at the phenomenal social commentary hidden behind a layer of the absurd and/or the obscene.

The South Park guys aren't conservatives - they're libertarians. But they're awesome libertarians. They hate the global warming preachers, NAMBLA, Jesse Jackson, Hillary Clinton, and save some of their strongest bile for the celebrity political activists - George Clooney, Rob Reiner, Rosie O'Donnell and Barbara Streisand. They can't stand politically correct authoritarians and they authored the definitive anti-9/11-truthers response (which actually ends up being kinda pro-W, believe it or not). They've made Al Gore into a walking joke among Comedy Central viewers. Yes, they bash the Catholic Church a lot and they have some cutting remarks about redneck Americans and country music...but their episodes bashing Richard Dawkins and atheism are far more vicious, and amazingly composed.

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Posted at 1:22pm on Apr. 8, 2008 Bobby Jindal Crosses the High Water

By Ben Domenech

Jindal in the Black Hawk

So the time came, and we went to the place where the men were building a wall to stop the water. The tilted blades of the Black Hawk helicopter made a heavy whut-whut sound as they arced through the air above us – ferocious, unrelenting, yet somehow comforting to the ear. Beneath us, the lazy curves of the Mississippi River stretched and sighed in the afternoon sun, the roiling water full of life and memory. As the rotor turned, I remembered the drawl of the smiling Natchez lawyer who told me when I was younger that this River carried in itself the story of America – which, to my Jackson-born ears, sounded like a loftier way of saying that this carved-out scar of flowing water was big, it was unstoppable, and without it, none of us would be. Or if we were, we would not be children of the American South, taught tales from the crib of the tragic accidents of history – brought up with the knowledge that existence is a fragile, fate-filled thing.

The wall was in Pointe Coupee Parish, and the men building it were soldiers from the 225th Engineering Brigade. It was an amazing site from the sky, following the line of the Potato Levee along the Atchafalaya River Basin, an unbroken line of 4 foot by 4 foot sacks glinting white in the sunlight. We set down in the mud and walked to where they were sealing a final hole, mashing 3,000 pounds of dirt into the stretched sacks, donated by a local company – when filled, as strong as a bunker. Much better than the ones we used in ‘83, said one veteran who worked on saving the same swathe of land 25 years ago. When finished, it would stretch for more than two miles.

The farmers were sincere men, sunburned and smiling in their checked shirts. They saluted the National Guard members with the eagerness of young boys, and could not stop thanking anyone who was anyone. You would do that too, of course, if someone’s action and quick response was about to save your nearly 6,000 acres of wheat and soybeans. But what you wouldn’t be able to do, of course, was cook them a meal like these farmers did.

“What are you boys eating?” one of the farmer’s wives had asked on the first day.

“MREs, ma’am.”

Read on . . .

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Posted at 12:03pm on Apr. 3, 2008 Hillary Clinton is no Fool

By Ben Domenech

Hillary Clinton reportedly told Bill Richardson the following prior to his announced endorsement of Barack Obama:

"He cannot win, Bill. He cannot win."

This seems like sheer ego-puffery by a candidate locked in the day-to-day grind of an election cycle. But Hillary Clinton is no fool - and I think that she's looked at many of the same statistics and factors we all have in other places. And now we have what should be the final word of analysis on the difference between Hillary's constituency and Barack's - no surprise, it's from our favorite mentat:

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Posted at 3:02pm on Mar. 31, 2008 TX-22: Where Republican Voters are Proud of their Stupidity

By Ben Domenech

The Amazing Shelley Sekula-Gibbs

Another day, another amazing revelation about the brief reign of error of Dr. Shelley Sekula-Gibbs in Congress (emphasis mine):

Records of Sekula Gibbs' spending of the public money for her offices in Washington and the district "reveal a total disregard for taxpayer's money," Goldstein said.

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Posted at 2:35am on Mar. 25, 2008 Please Continue To Pray Peacefully As We Round You Up For Slaughter

By Ben Domenech

Beijing

Now when Daniel learned that the decree had been published, he went home to his upstairs room where the windows opened toward Jerusalem. Three times a day he got down on his knees and prayed, giving thanks to his God, just as he had done before. (NAS)

I was asked by a friend once about the two bumper stickers I had on my first car when I was a teenager. One was a Catholic pro-life sticker written in Spanish - the other, a small flag of Tibet. He asked me if I was trying to get my car keyed by everyone at once, or if they would just take turns.

For me, the question still is: Why aren't conservatives leading the way for Tibetan freedom?

While it may inspire very different demographics, I still believe that these two battles speak to the very soul of American conservatism. If conservatism means anything, it means this: that we are all born with an equal claim to certain rights given to all mankind, and that these include the right to live, and live freely, regardless of whether your life is inconvenient, or another claimed to own it, and the power to determine its fate ... and the right to worship, regardless of whether the deity you serve is unpopular with the ruling authorities of your nation. The claim to the first principle gave rise to the abolitionist movement and the Republican Party; the claim to the second gave rise to the Pilgrims and the birth of America itself.

And that principle is at the heart of the conflict in Tibet today.

It doesn't matter whether or not you believe the Dalai Lama's message about the nature or theology of the divine - that is irrelevant. What matters, in the case of the recent "unrest" in Tibet - such an adorable, innocent little word these foreign beat reporters use, as if China was turning restlessly in its sleep - is that the freedom to worship in this case has not just been torn from an entire people. It is their right to exist, to direct their own paths in any meaningful way.

Read on . . .

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Posted at 12:00am on Mar. 10, 2008 Why Don't You Sit this Next One Out Champ, Stop Talking for a While

By Ben Domenech

I understand that it's the only way for Brent Bozell to get in the WaPo editorial page, but attacking Fred Barnes and Mark Helprin as being "McCain surrogates" - who are somehow acting on the candidate's orders when they say they believe conservatives will suck it up and vote for the man - just doesn't pass the laugh test.

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Posted at 1:16pm on Mar. 9, 2008 Barack Obama Builds a Religion

By Ben Domenech

Somebody finally did this:


Let's face it: it's been needed for a while. Kudos to the person who made it last week, whoever they are.

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