The culture of Republican victimhood

By Michael J.W. Stickings

They like to think they're the party of responsibility, the party that believes in pulling oneself up by one's bootstraps, the party that opposes government handouts, the party that rewards initiative and entrepreneurship, but Republicans play the role of the persecuted victim awfully well, so well in fact that victimhood seems to be their default mode. And -- guess what? -- it's starting up all over again now that they're in the minority in Congress. As if it's not enough to have the country's elites against them -- the elites of New York, Washington, and Hollywood -- now they have the Democrats to contend with. Again.

Justin Rood: "Republicans aren't yet an official minority in the House, but they're already beginning a campaign to portray themselves as victims of a heartless Democratic majority." Three Republican Congressman are even pushing -- I kid you not -- a so-called "Minority Bill of Rights".

Imaginary victimhood. It's the Republican way.

And we'll be hearing a lot more about it over the next couple of years.

(For more, see Steve and Shakes.)

Your life is an open book

By Capt. Fogg

British travelers to the U.S. will soon have another American style indignity to suffer; something I doubt that U.S. citizens would tolerate from a foreign government. According to The Telegraph, their credit card records can be inspected and their e-mails read if they purchase airline tickets to the U.S. Information released under the Freedom of Information Act reveals that even a traveler’s special food choices will be revealed which can be a clue as to their religious background.

A British Department for Transport spokesman is quoted as saying: "Every airline is obliged to conform with these rules if they wish to continue flying.”

That the European Union has acquiesced in this is astonishing, that the Bush government wants to know everything about everyone is not. When Ronald Reagan told us that “I’m from the government and I’m here to help” was a scary thing to hear, America agreed. Perhaps that’s why we seldom hear anything when the government of George W. Bush shows up, proctoscope and magnifying glass in hand.

Just another year in the life and death of Iraq

By Michael J.W. Stickings

We mostly focus on days and months here, but, well, how about a look back at the entirety of 2006? It wasn't good:

As enraged crowds protested the hanging of Saddam Hussein across Iraq's Sunni heartland Monday, government officials reported that 16,273 Iraqi civilians, soldiers and police died violent deaths in 2006, a figure larger than an independent Associated Press count for the year by more than 2,500.

The tabulation by the Iraqi ministries of Health, Defense and Interior, showed that 14,298 civilians, 1,348 police and 627 soldiers were killed in the violence that raged in the country last year.

Remember, this is three years after the invasion. And it'll soon be four years after the invasion. And then four years after the end of "major combat operations". And all this -- or most of it -- because Bush's war has been so badly botched, so grossly mismanaged. True, much of this violence is sectarian in nature, but it seems to me that the Iraqi blood is on the hands of the warmongers, including the president, as well as on the hands of the perpetrators of the sectarian violence.

They should have seen it coming. They should have planned for it. They should have had a strategy to deal with it. But they didn't.

And now -- what now? It's too late to make up for all the mismanagement.

The war is lost. And the blood still flows.