Glenn Beck: You'll Laugh, You'll Cry, You'll Learn about American History Using Blackboards

I like Glenn Beck. He's sincere and gracious and smart and talented and entertaining.

Like Rush Limbaugh, the majority of the people who don't like Glenn have never listened to or watched his show. I really don't care what those people have to say about Glenn or Rush and neither should you for the simple reason that their opinions about Beck & Limbaugh (& others like them) are based on what they learn from Keith Olbermann. Or Jon Stewart. Or Chris Matthews. Or some other such MSM filter that simply never does justice to the ideas and opinions of conservatives.

Check out the WSJ's Weekend Interview with Glenn Beck.

(h/t Scott L.)

If you have tips, questions, comments or suggestions, email me at lybberty@gmail.com.

California Senate: Carly Fiorina Vs. Barbara Boxer

I've got questions about her conservatism, but in California, you take what you can get.

John Fund, of WSJ Political Diary fame, has this week's Weekend Interview with Carly Fiorina--former HP CEO and candidate for the United States Senate.

Look, Barbara Boxer is sooo bad on every issue. Whoever we can nominate in California will be a better alternative. Although, like Fiorina points out in her interview, Boxer's singular inability to really do anything makes her somewhat valuable.

You know the old joke, about a player on the other team being so bad that they are your team's MVP.

Yeah, that's Barbara Boxer.

If you have tips, questions, comments or suggestions, email me at lybberty@gmail.com.

My Kind Of American

Meb Keflezighi won the recent New York City Marathon. Keflezighi and his family lived the Horatio Alger, up-by-the-bootstraps American dream liberal elites disparage. The WSJ's Weekend Interview explores his family's immigration to the United States and his experience as a marathoner.

Born in 1975, Mebrahtom (his full name means "let there be light") grew up in an Eritrean village with no electricity and no running water. Besides poverty, Meb's parents, Russom and Awetash, feared for their family's safety because of Russom's involvement with the Eritrean Liberation Movement and because of the ongoing war with Ethiopia. Meb's father decided to flee. "He walked all the way"—60 miles—to Sudan, Meb says. Russom eventually made his way to Milan, Italy, where he worked to raise the money to bring his family out of East Africa.

On Oct. 21, 1987, a date that rolls off Meb's tongue, the family immigrated to San Diego as refugees with the help of the Red Cross and the sponsorship of Meb's half-sister, Ruth. "Dad used to wake up at 4 a.m. so we could learn English," Meb says. "He worked as a taxi driver and worked in restaurants to be able to feed the family."

Meb adds, "You start on the bottom, work hard, and your dreams will come true—and that's what happened. We have a very successful family because my parents always emphasized using the opportunity you have to the maximum: 'There are a lot of people that don't have this opportunity, so make sure you use it.' That stuck in our head."

(image from the WSJ article by Zina Saunders)

If you have tips, questions, comments or suggestions, email me at lybberty@gmail.com.

'Where The Hell Does Congress Get The Power To Do That?'

Last Weekend's Interview with Seth Lipsky in the WSJ, focuses on the powers of the Constitution:

Last year's District of Columbia v. Heller, in which the court held that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to own firearms, exemplifies Mr. Lipsky's point that the language of the Constitution retains its power even when long ignored. "We've had 200 years, and nothing's ever been done about this," he says. "For 50 of the 200 years, the New York Times has been sneering at the idea of an individual right, and everybody's been talking about how this right belongs to the 'militia.'"

Yet by carefully analyzing the language of the Second Amendment, the court cast aside that musty conventional wisdom. Mr. Lipsky, who describes himself as "a partisan of the plain-language school of the law," applauds not just the result but the method the justices, in an opinion by Antonin Scalia, employed to reach it: "They really get into the language. I mean, the actual grammar, the sentence structure, the subordinate and not-subordinate clauses, which—forgive me, but I've been arguing for a generation and a half as an editorial writer, the plain language of this thing is plain."

The Constitution provides that ordinary citizens can challenge legislation in court and overturn the law the of the land.

What a great document, that Constitution.

If you have tips, questions, comments or suggestions, email me at lybberty@gmail.com.

Gen. Jack Keane, American Hero

Last week's WSJ Weekend Interview was with Gen. Jack Keane--one of the early backers and architects of The Surge. Add him to the list with John McCain, George W. Bush, Joe Lieberman and Gen. David Petraeus who believed in The Surge and backed it and supported it and implemented it when it was unpopular to do so.

Gen. Keane is one of the less-known, but integral contributors. Despite his key role, he is the humble soldier to the end--deflecting attention and credit.

From the interview:

The surge turned things around on another difficult front, Washington. "Despite the fact that President Bush did preside over a strategy that was failing for three plus years, and he has been criticized for that," says Gen. Keane, "he also deserves a significant amount of credit because all around him people were advocating a failed strategy, particularly key leaders around him, and he had the wherewithal to make a tough decision that flew certainly in the face of political opposition even in his own party."

Gen. Keane says he understands why there was resentment among the Joint Chiefs at seeing the president change course against their wishes and follow a retired general's recommendations on strategy and staffing in a war zone. But he considers his role perfectly appropriate. "In my mind, I think a president has a right to seek advice and counsel any place he chooses," he says. "I certainly wasn't forcing myself on them."

The U.S. came "within weeks or months" of defeat in Iraq in 2006, he says. The consequences of that were "unacceptable" for the region, "not to speak of an institution that I loved." And what about the military chiefs who thought the extra battalions and extended service tours would be too much of a strain on American forces? "When people talk about stress and strain on a force, the stress and strain that would come from having to live with a humiliating defeat would be quite staggering."

If you have tips, questions, comments or suggestions, email me at lybberty@gmail.com.