November 20, 2008
A damned defeat
By James Lewis

Yet I ... can say nothing --- no, not for a King,
Upon whose property and most dear life
A damned defeat was made!
So said Hamlet the Prince of Denmark about the murder of the King, his father.

Well, we've just suffered a damned defeat, not as bad as the loss of a beloved father, but all the same a very bloody punch in the nose. American conservatism has taken a trouncing, and the country has itself a new King Obama.

Cardinal Stafford of Baltimore just declared in a published sermon that "On November 4, 2008, America suffered a cultural earthquake." He called Obama's campaign "aggressive, disruptive and apocalyptic" and said he campaigned on an "extremist anti-life platform."

On the matter of abortion the Cardinal is literally correct.

I don't think the Cardinal meant to dehumanize the President-elect, the way that President Bush has been dehumanized so thoroughly by the Left since 2000. But telling the truth is the first step to recovery.

It is incumbent on us to tell the truth, without scapegoating, and without denying the new administration a chance to find the center of American political life. If they are so inclined.

However, judged by the open record, the coming administration will bring to power the most radical Leftist group of political operators in American history. Their unapologetic radicalism on the subject of abortion is only part of their story, but it is surely the single most lethal and irresponsible part. Their entire campaign was built on lies and image-making, shielded by a solid stream of daily cover-ups by the Big Media, and supported by tens of millions of brainwashed followers.

So the Left got away with it. The Democrats won, but democracy lost.

And yet, all is not lost.

American conservatives can celebrate one historic triumph: The performance of the New Media in this election. We can't lose sight of the fact that the New Media managed to expose Obama and his lifelong network. We did the job of real journalism.

Any American who wanted to know the truth was able to find it out with a few clicks on a keyboard. That is real journalism, not the phony imitation from the Old Media and its camp followers.

There is no secret any longer about the ideology of these people, or about their close alliances with Islamic radicals, destructive Leftist billionaires and Saudi influence buyers. There is no doubt about their deep and entrenched roots in the Chicago Machine. Chicago Mayor Daley is on the transition team, and Chicago hardball pol Rahm Emanuel is the White House Chief of Staff. This is the dream team of demagogues like J-Wright, Bill Ayers, Louis Farrakhan, and our sworn enemies abroad. About half the voters know it, and they will not forget it.

That simple fact --- that tens of millions of Americans are not deceived --- puts powerful pressure on the Dems to behave themselves, as least in public. Any dirty work will have to be done in the dark, where it can be exposed.

Telling the truth is the first step.

Between the web and talk radio the New Media did the job. A decade ago it would have been impossible. After a similar electoral loss, the legacy media would award itself Pulitzer Prizes in these circumstances. We should give the same kind of lasting recognition to brave and talented people like Stanley Kurtz, Andrew McCarthy, Jack Cashill, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Mark Steyn, and a host of others who exposed the Left's agenda, and kept us laughing in spite of the painful outcome for the country. Friends in the British and European blogosphere helped. Without the New Media, the truth about the Obamanoids would have been drowned in Lake Michigan --- with concrete boots on, like Jimmy Hoffa.

We did our part. We will keep doing it.

Lincoln went through hellish defeats before saving the Union and freeing the slaves. George Washington had nothing but pain and trouble before beating the professional armies of King George III. Winston Churchill looked like a goner more than once. And our troops in every single war, including Iraq, have suffered much worse, and still kept their spirits up.

Churchill showed us how to survive defeat and come back stronger.

"... never give in, never give in, never, never, never, never --- in nothing, great or small, large or petty - never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense. Never yield to force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy." http://www.winstonchurchill.org/i4a/...cfm?pageid=423

Words to remember.

What comes next? We need to repair ourselves and prepare to be counted in the coming battles. We need to do it intelligently. No banzai charges, but nimble guerilla warfare, like the Minutemen against the Redcoats. And we need to remind ourselves that the Hard Left will try to lock in its control of this country, just as it has in most of Europe. That will be the biggest running battle, to stop the power grab that is even now taking hold silently behind the scenes.

And if you need to keep your bearings straight, remember Obama's words on live-birth abortion, properly called infanticide:

"Look, I got two daughters ... I am going to teach them first about values and morals, but if they make a mistake, I don't want them punished with a baby."
Bear that in mind when Obama's famous charm is on display.

Ellie