GOP Vixen

Will the 'special relationship' find a new object of affection?

I would have never said this a few months ago, but I'm now pondering the idea of a new "special relationship" in my Los Angeles Daily News column today. They were quite special friends in helping America win her independence...

"Even the most loving of special relationships can fizzle.    

Sometimes no one's really to blame for this, or at least that's what the Cosmo article about moving on will tell you. Sometimes two parties just grow apart, begin to see the world differently, have polar goals.

And when that happens, you can either accept it and become, as Kyra Sedgwick said in the movie 'Singles,' one of those couples who sit in Denny's and don't speak to each other, or you can find a new lover.

Perhaps - ooh-la-la - a French one?    

The term 'special relationship' has long been used to describe the United States and the United Kingdom. It has included alliance on military matters, as well as nonmonogamous financial relations. And as far as cultural ties, we'll always be grateful for the Beatles and Ozzy, and may forgive our cross-pond paramours one day for the Spice Girls.

But this is not Margaret Thatcher's Britain anymore. Tony Blair, who has steadily weathered criticism for his alliance with George W. Bush, is soon stepping aside and Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown is set to take his place. The next challenge the Labour Party will face is the Conservative Party - also not Thatcher's anymore - and prime minister wannabe David Cameron, who has turned pimping for votes by changing a party's platform into an art form.    

Polls show that Americans still like Britain, but Brits tend to be more soured on considering the U.S. a key ally. Meanwhile, the U.K.'s own image has suffered from a dangerous rise in Islamic extremism on home soil and the embarrassing hostage incident this year with Iran, when afterward a young sailor told tabloids that Iranian guards had upset him by comparing him to Mr. Bean.

Could it be that a more fulfilling special relationship awaits across the English Channel?

It may have been unthinkable in the days of Jacques Chirac, when french fries became Freedom Fries and Bill O'Reilly called for a boycott of France. But there's a new sheriff in town, and he promises to alter much of the political model that has inspired so many French jokes by people who actually work 40 hours a week. In fact, in a poll commissioned by the French-American Foundation after French elections, 80 percent of Americans said it was important for the U.S. to have good future relations with France.

And after powering through that contentious election, President Nicolas Sarkozy is poised to shift the landscape of power in Europe. ..."

Read the whole thing! And mark on your calendars the day in history that GOP Vixen started favoring the French... here's Chirac's reaction when Sarkozy told him:

 

Not feeling sorry for Mr. TB

OK... so this guy who, even though he knew he had tuberculosis, flew out of the country for his wedding, flew to Italy for his honeymoon where he was contacted and told he had a drug-resistant form of TB and was advised to turn himself in to Italian health officials (but DIDN'T), flew to Prague, flew to Montreal, and drove back into the U.S. (where he should have been detected by border guards as he was on a no-fly list), was just talking to Fox News by phone from his hospital room. All he did was whine and complain about being in forced quarantine, complaining that he was like a prisoner, that he didn't have visitors, that his aunt couldn't bring him food or something like that. How about all of the people on all of those flights that he could have infected with the airborne disease? He claimed he wasn't properly told how bad TB was. Didn't he see "La Boheme"? (Scratch that -- he didn't sound like he would have.) But when health officials track you down halfway around the world, that's a pretty damn clear-cut sign that you're ill with more than the sniffles. He even told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that the reason he flew into Canada is because he knew he was on a U.S. no-fly list because of the TB!! He said he didn't turn himself into Roman officials because he thought Italian medical treatment would "doom" him, like the Italians were going to stick leeches on him and bleed him or something.

So it's clear -- and was even clearer from hearing the phone call to Fox -- that this guy isn't the sharpest tack in the drawer. But he knowingly put others in danger. Throw the book at him.

NRO: Hugo's fatal misstep?

Check out my National Review Online column today, where I delve into the protests over the closing of a TV station that have caused Hugo Chavez to call out his Brute Squad:

"The death knell for freedom in Venezuela was the sound of silence, as Hugo Chavez’s regime finally pulled the plug on Radio Caracas TV at midnight Sunday.

The next sound to emerge had the ring of totalitarianism, as government 'socialist television' station TVES began broadcasting 20 minutes later, after soldiers had seized all equipment inside RCTV studios. The first broadcast was Gustavo Dudamel, music director of the Simon Bolivar National Youth Orchestra (who is to lead the Los Angeles Philharmonic starting in 2009) conducting the national anthem, as if the shuttering of Venezuela’s oldest station had something to do with national pride or artistic freedom.

'Do not lose hope. We will see you soon,' RCTV presenter Nelson Bustamante said as tearful staff bade viewers farewell and shouted 'Freedom!' before the screen went black.

Network president Marcel Granier, after pointing out the obvious about Chavez’s megalomania and authoritarianism, vowed, 'Democracy will return to Venezuela, along with RCTV.'

The true heroes of the day, unlike those to be splashed on Hugo’s silver screen in collaboration with Danny Glover, were the thousands of Venezuelans who took to the streets to protest Chavez’s autocratic closing of RCTV. They protested in the days leading up to the closure, as each appeal to keep the station opened failed. They protested as the hours ticked down for RCTV, met by riot police spraying water cannons and tear gas. And university students poured into the streets Monday, braving tear gas and a barrage of rubber bullets at Briones Plaza in eastern Caracas, one of many demonstrations throughout the country.

The station’s closure touched a nerve and touched off the largest student demonstrations in eight years, a leader told the Associated Press. And as the fury over Chavez’s heavy hand continued unabated, one couldn’t help but wonder if closing RCTV will be Chavez’s fatal miscalculation.

Perhaps it opened the eyes of some people who still believed in Chavez’s yarn about caring socialism and a country that’s truly for the people. Shutting a TV station because you don’t like its criticisms is an action straight from the Soviet bloc or Castro’s authoritarian wonderland. Suddenly red shirts may not be looking so fashionable anymore, despite the till-dawn party of Chavez supporters staged outside RCTV after the station takeover..."

Read the whole thing! (And thanks to a friend who worked for Reuters in Brazil for translating the archbishop's Portuguese column!)

The return of Azzam the American!

And this time he's mad, pointing, looking more like James Lipton Jihadist every day, and pointing some more!

"Put an end to all forms of interference in the educational curricula and information media in the Islamic world and impose a blanket ban on all broadcasts to our region, especially those designed to alter or destroy the faith, minds, morals, or values of our people."

Is this in response to the "American Idol" final? Was the beat boxing really over the top?

"Your failure to heed our demands ... means that you and your people will ... experience things which will make you forget all about the horrors of September 11th, Afghanistan and Iraq and Virginia Tech."

Lemme guess: Ayman al-Zawahri plans to replace Rosie on "The View."

One thing I'm noticing in this AP story... Adam Gadahn is referred to as Azzam al-Amriki, which is just Arabic for Azzam the American, which is how wire stories used to refer to him. Now his al-Qaida moniker, to the untrained eye, actually looks like a real name, instead of the decidedly clownish Azzam the American. And since Adam is the biggest buffoon this side of the Waziristan hideouts, we needn't grant him the cool factor.

Congrats, Bashar!

You've won another term as president of Syria! A stunning victory! Of course we don't think that the fact you were, um, the only candidate had anything to do with it. It was surely your rapier wit and sparkling personality that gave you the electoral edge over, well, nobody. And now you have a mandate to continue your dictatorship presidency. As well as track down those who dared show up to the polls and not vote for you. On the bright side, I hope you got at least one congratulatory call from an old friend:

Poor Innocent Greenland

Recently a congressional delegation flew to Greenland in the comfort of their jumbo jet, which belched massive quantities of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. Why did this august delegation put the planet at such risk you ask? Well, so they could tell the rest of us we need to do something about climate change. Nancy Pelosi said the delegation, "saw firsthand evidence that climate change is a reality; there is just no denying it".

The real story here is Nancy’s choice of words; "global warming" is out, "climate change" is in. The "man is responsible for global warming" scam is little more than a money and power grab. The term "global warming" is not cutting it since the promised disasters are not materializing. But climate change, there’s something that they can scare people with every day. Too much snow, climate change! Too little snow, climate change! Hurricanes, climate change! Hoards of locusts, climate change!!!!! It has to be the best con since Y2K.

But it gets better. Nancy also said, "It wasn't caused by the people of Greenland - it was caused by the behavior of the rest of the world." Apparently, Greenland is the only innocent in the whole world and the rest of us should give Nancy and her ilk all the money and power they need to save Greenland from the rest of us. If you aren’t from Greenland, you should be ashamed of yourself.

Cindy Sheehan gives up war protesting

After all that time in a lawn chair outside the Crawford ranch, she came to the conclusion that  her son "did indeed die for nothing." In a letter on Daily Kos on Monday titled  "Good Riddance Attention Whore" (I swear, we didn't come up with that title), Sheehan says she's pooped, impoverished, and pissed as hell with Dem lawmakers. But she needs to look on the bright side: At least she found love during her journey.

Bolton Smack Down

  At a recent trade conference one of the Vixen’s favorite guys, John Bolton, put the smack down on one of the Vixen’s favorite targets, Hugo Chavez. Being ever the diplomat Bolton said Hugo Chavez "has been called, Castro without brains". My first reaction was, "What, Castro has brains!" Since Bolton seemed to attribute the comment to someone else, I wonder who he might be hanging with that would make such a comment. Hmmmmm…the Vixen has been on the road an awful lot lately.

As if not wishing to prove Bolton wrong, tomorrow Chavez will shut down the most popular TV station in Venezuela. Critics claim that Hugo is shutting the station down because of its opposition to Chavez. I’m not so sure since the decision a few weeks back not to renew the license for RCTV came suspiciously close to Sanjaya getting kicked off Idol. Hugo has tried to build support by acting the part of champion of the poor but taking away their favorite TV shows is truly brainless. Oh well, there's always reruns of I Love Lupe.

The bitch is back

Sexy snaggletoothed Muqtada al-Sadr has returned from months of R&R in Iran to make a profound statement:

"No, no for Satan. No, no for America. No, no for the occupation. No, no for Israel."

Rah rah rah, sis boom bah! Like House Democrats, Muqtada wants a timetable for the withdrawal of U.S. forces, because then he can give the all-clear for his Iranian cronies to come and help set up a similar style of theocracy in Iraq. To facilitate this goal, Muqtada obviously took some P.R. training from Ahmadinejad & Co., because he returned spouting the same refrain favored by Mahmoud: I am the great uniter. I want to draw together all factions in peace and harmony to kick the crap out of America and the evil West. Join me because I'm so damn charismatic (and have the munitions to back it up)!

Will Iraqi Christians and Sunnis -- the objects of his newfound affections -- fall for his harmonizing B.S.?

Pick up the Phone Nancy

Nancy Pelosi should make another trip back to Syria. This time maybe she can do something other than kiss dictatorial behind whilst slamming her own duly elected President. It seems that Syrian pro-democracy activist Mamoun Homsi wrote a letter asking Pelosi not to go to Syria because he felt that her visit would strengthen the government. For the act of asking pretty please to our house speaker, the Syrian government seized all his assets which has left his family impoverished.

Homsi had the stones to serve in Syria’s joke of a parliament while remaining one of the regimes fiercest critics. For his pro-democracy views, Homsi served a multi year stint at the Syrian cross-bar hotel where, unlike Gitmo or the DMV, torture is not defined as having to stand for long periods of time. After leaving prison, Homsi wisely deduced that staying in Syria could be hazardous to his health so he left the country.

Since one might assume Pelosi, being a Democrat, might actually support a pro-democracy guy like Homsi, perhaps she could pick up the phone and call her bud Bashar Assad; "Hey Bash, what say you give the Homsi family back their stuff and I’ll spring for lunch at the Fisherman’s Warf. I’ll even throw in Iraq for you and Iran to split…. Yeah, I know I was going to give you Iraq anyway but you don’t want to miss out on those crab cakes."