'How Do I Know When I'm In Love?'

Do I need a reason to despise Kaddafi? Do I need a reason to despise anyone - or not despise? Reasons can be countered effectively by other reasons; by clever manipulation of words. In the end, reasons never make much of a difference. One still continues to despise or not despise. It’s like love, or not to love.

Love exists outside the realm of reason. That much has been generally acknowledged. In the film “Of Gods and Men” a young girl asks the old monk, “How do I know when I’m in love?” He answers something to effect that she would not ask the question if she knew it was true. She counters that the man whom her father has chosen for her leaves her unmoved. “Then it isn’t serious,” the old man says.

“Have you ever been in love?” the young girl asks.

“Many times,” the old monk replies after a pause. Finally, he proclaims his love for God and the scene ends.

Words are seldom adequate to capture emotion. Those who seek to imprison their emotions in words alone tend to remain stunted. I’ve always liked Kaddafi as much as I've hated certain U.S. presidents. And I’ve never had a reason to change my mind.

It’s no different with Hillary. I’ve always despised her for her elitism, her indifference; for her opportunism, the way she always calculates for best political advantage. She married for it. (There obviously wasn’t much love.) Then she lied. Then she became a carpetbagger (in New York). She promised New York everything and then broke her promise. Now as Secretary of State she thinks she has found an opening to the top floor, never realizing that she is being used (the same as everybody else). Both Hillary and Petraeus have been given more than enough rope to hang themselves with.

Winner: Obama.

Sleepless in Chatham (NJ)

Obviously, not everyone agrees. There must then be more than one side to the story. Russia, China, India, et al were maneuvered into ‘agreeing’. They agreed by voting ‘present’ – which is a way of saying, “Do what you want, but we’ll have no part of it.”

Action involves risk. Risk must be balanced by benefit. For far too long American foreign policy has excluded any notion of ‘benefit’. It has been unbalanced. In Iraq we never insisted on payback. Its oil is now going to our rivals. As the chaos and killing there continues, we cannot even claim ‘victory’ on that front. Neither do we insist on Libya’s oil in exchange for our effort. And indeed, Libya’s oil is already spoken for and going to those who voted ‘present’.

You would think that Obama, of all people, would understand the benefits that accrue by voting ‘present’; that voting otherwise engenders risk which, in turn, invites loss. It has been my contention that Obama – whether by way of retribution or an affinity for victimhood - deliberately invites loss. Neither revenge nor national suicide are attractive to anyone but himself.

Saw the French film “Of Gods and Men” last night. As my friend and I settled ourselves outside afterwards to discuss the merits of the film, a woman approached us. She clearly had been disturbed by it. She said it was the worst film she had ever seen. She said it was good to have someone to talk it out with and hoped that she would not have bad dreams.

It was basically an anti-war film. In addition, it blamed the West. As such, it entered the realm of propaganda. Propaganda can never rise to the level of art. It targets those lacking any clear cut principles …and leaves them sleepless.

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