Senator Hillary Clinton says she wants to be the president who ensures that every American has health coverage. And, yes, she continues to claim, “it’s a right, not a privilege.”

Apparently, it’s still a right she wants people to pony up money to enjoy:

The New York senator and Democratic presidential candidate would mandate that all Americans buy health insurance _ much as states require all drivers to have licenses.

She would let the uninsured buy into two existing government insurance programs or buy private insurance, offer them financial help in paying premiums and help small businesses cover their employees.

Evidently, it’s been a long, looooong time since Hillary spent much time among the fringe of society… if she ever spent any time there at all.

Otherwise she’d know that the for some people the lack of a valid drivers’ license does not keep them from driving any more than the lack of an ounce of common sense keeps some people from running for president.

Sure Al Gore has got many folks thinking about using CF bulbs in their ceiling lights instead of the old-fashioned kind. But as we right-leaning folks like to point out, every time Gore takes a flight from his Nashville home to Washington, D.C. his private plane emits as much green house gas as a standard light bulb left on for thirteen solid days.

Now, multiply that by the 1,000 cities Gore visited nationwide to promote his “Inconvenient Truth”.

In the grand pecking order of liberals, even that‘s not nearly as bad as his eating habits, at least if you ask PETA.

Citing United Nations research that the meat industry is worse for the environment than driving and flying, animal rights groups are directing a campaign at the former American vice-president’s diet.

When he delivers a lecture on global warming in Denver next month, protesters will display billboards bearing a cartoon image of Mr Gore eating a drumstick and the message: “Too chicken to go vegetarian? Meat is the No 1 cause of global warming”.

The campaign is being organised by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (Peta) and is backed by other animal rights groups.

Hmmm…. I feel like chicken tonight.

Good Lord. How long have we been hearing the liberal Left demanding the impeachment of Bush and/or Cheney? One could easily assume that Democrat pols keep hammering the issue to distract from their lack of actual substance. But apparently there’s no substance to their demands for impeachment, either, and they’re finally starting to catch on.

Check out Robert Meyer’s explanation for why Senator Feingold’s now talking “censure” instead of impeachment.

Sen. Feingold says it is necessary to have this censure for the sake of the historical record. The problem for the Democrats is that they talk a good game, but exhibit no inclination to follow through in unison. By censuring Bush, rather than impeaching him, they get the public thinking that they could have gotten the president for worse, but refrained from putting the country through such turmoil.

But I suspect the real reason we see little desire to impeach Bush is because the evidence could prove Bush is not a liar after all. Far better to leave people with an impression that never has to be proved.

Wasn’t it Abraham Lincoln who advised it’s better to keep silent and thought a fool than open one’s mouth and remove all doubts? Pity the Dems didn’t take his advice. Then again, why would they? He was a Republican, too.

I think I may abandon my search for cheap cruises now that I’ve learned the National Review is hosting a cruise for Republicans featuring, what else, Republican speakers.

You’d think that billing, along with the lineup of speakers, would be sufficient to deter any liberals from forking over the cash for such a Right-leaning trip. You’d be wrong, though.

If there are two things that inevitably sneak aboard a cruise ship like this it’s rats and journalists. Sometimes they are the same thing. Witness, for instance, the liberal reporter from The Independent who signed up for the NRO Cruise determined not to reveal that she’s a reporter unless directly asked.

In her article entitled “Ship of Fools” (because, you know, that’s such an objective way to describe the purpose of these cruises), Johann Hari recounts one unbelievable conversation after another. And I do mean unbelievable.

I am standing waist-deep in the Pacific Ocean, both chilling and burning, indulging in the polite chit-chat beloved by vacationing Americans. A sweet elderly lady from Los Angeles is sitting on the rocks nearby, telling me dreamily about her son. “Is he your only child?” I ask. “Yes,” she says. “Do you have a child back in England?” she asks. No, I say. Her face darkens. “You’d better start,” she says. “The Muslims are breeding. Soon, they’ll have the whole of Europe.”

Drat. Now she’s uncovered the real gist of the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy: outbreed ‘em. Could that be why we’re known as the “Pro-Life Party”?

So Hari goes on to recount another far-fetched conversation held as she lounged on the beach (apparently her cruise didn’t head to Alaska). She and a woman she describes as a “chatty, scatty 35-year-old” designer from California — you know, because there are so many Republicans there — sunbathe and talk about the “perils of Republican dating.” (Wait a minute… “Perils???” I thought we already established that Republicans make better lovers.)

Naturally, that conversation effortlessly flowed into one about executions.

When I hear her say, ” Of course, we need to execute some of these people,” I wake up. Who do we need to execute? She runs her fingers through the sand lazily. “A few of these prominent liberals who are trying to demoralise the country,” she says. “Just take a couple of these anti-war people off to the gas chamber for treason to show, if you try to bring down America at a time of war, that’s what you’ll get.” She squints at the sun and smiles. ” Then things’ll change.”

Hmm. I don’t recall reading that notion in the Republican party platform. Time to get on it, folks. We’re falling behind. I’d write the proposal myself but I don’t have the time. I’m too busy laughing at Hari’s sudden attack of racial conscience.

Filipino boat hands are loading trunks into the hull and wealthy white folk are gliding onto its polished boards with pale sun parasols dangling off their arms.

The last person I heard use the word ‘parasol’ was Mary Poppins. Could it be that the singing, magical nanny was herself part of the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy?! *gasp* But wait, I digress.

Hari’s already admitted she ponied up the $1200 for the cruise herself but, hey, that was for journalistic endeavors, making it utterly impossible that she could ever, EVER be one of those “wealthy white folk.” Couldn’t she afford a parasol of her own?

Maybe that’s her “point”: the struggle between the Haves and Have-Nots… it’s all about the parasoooooools!

In the Vegas-like setting of the Vista cocktail lounge on board the cruise ship, Hari joins the other passengers for an evening of prominent Republicans giving speeches on the country’s performance and the media coverage of the Iraq war. She is quick to point out something which strikes her as odd:

The etiquette here is different from anything I have ever seen. It takes me 15 minutes to realise what is wrong with this scene. There are no big hugs, no warm kisses. This is a place of starchy handshakes. Men approach each other with stiffened spines, puffed-out chests and crunching handshakes. Women are greeted with a single kiss on the cheek. Anything more would be French.

Not exchanging hugs and kisses with people one merely happens to be taking a cruise with is somehow wrong? Oh, that’s right: liberals seem to think people must not like each other unless they’re willing to hold hands and sing Kum Bay Yah. I forgot.

Hari seems a bit surprised, needless to say, that her fellow attendees have not all been sufficiently indoctrinated to espouse the same view-point. A view, I might add, which is more of a parody of Republican thinking than anything else.

The first of the trip’s seminars is a discussion intended to exhume the conservative corpse and discover its cause of death on the black, black night of 7 November, 2006, when the treacherous Democrats took control of the US Congress.

There is something strange about this discussion, and it takes me a few moments to realise exactly what it is. All the tropes that conservatives usually deny in public — that Iraq is another Vietnam, that Bush is fighting a class war on behalf of the rich – are embraced on this shining ship in the middle of the ocean. Yes, they concede, we are fighting another Vietnam; and this time we won’t let the weak-kneed liberals lose it.[...]

Rich Lowry, the preppy, handsome 38-year-old editor of National Review, says, “The American public isn’t concluding we’re losing in Iraq for any irrational reason. They’re looking at the cold, hard facts.” The Vista Lounge is, as one, perplexed. Lowry continues, “I wish it was true that, because we’re a superpower, we can’t lose. But it’s not.”

No one argues with him. They just look away, in the same manner that people avoid glancing at a crazy person yelling at a bus stop.

Note that spin, folks: the lack of dissent must have a more sinister motive. Republicans’ silence could never, EVER signal agreement with Lowry’s statement. Oh, these folks could know Lowry’s opinion from reading NRO long before signing up for the cruise but they, the conservative hoi polloi, could never actually agree with him, could they?

God forbid that Republicans appear, you know, human in an article published by the Independent.

Enough — I see another, more intriguing ghost. Ward Connerly is the only black person in the National Review posse, a 67-year-old Louisiana-born businessman, best known for leading conservative campaigns against affirmative action for black people. Earlier, I heard him saying the Republican Party has been “too preoccupied with… not ticking off the blacks”, and a cooing white couple wandered away smiling, “If he can say it, we can say it.” What must it be like to be a black man shilling for a magazine that declared at the height of the civil rights movement that black people “tend to revert to savagery”, and should be given the vote only “when they stop eating each other”?

I drag him into the bar, where he declines alcohol.

Ohmygoodness — a “black person” declined alcohol?! Stop the presses! We’ve just got to note that in the aritcle, don’t we? And, hell, let’s make sure that surprising little detail isn’t lost among all those other less important words, ok? Because this — wow, it’s just… so relevant.

She then engages in the journalist equivalent of sputtering and spewing her booze in surprise that Connerly — a black person, remember — was not only endorsed by the KKK when he opposed affirmative action but can actually sympathize with those who believe, as he does, that affirmative action amounts to discrimination.

A consistent value-system in a black person? Oh, the horror! The horror!

/sarcasm

The idea that Europe is being “taken over” by Muslims is the unifying theme of this cruise. Some people go on singles cruises. Some go on ballroom dancing cruises. This is the “The Muslims Are Coming” cruise — drinks included. Because everyone thinks it. Everyone knows it. Everyone dreams it. And the man responsible is sitting only a few tables down: Mark Steyn.

He is wearing sunglasses on top of his head and a bright, bright shirt that fits the image of the disk jockey he once was. Sitting in this sea of grey, it has an odd effect — he looks like a pimp inexplicably hanging out with the apostles of colostomy conservatism.

Steyn’s thesis in his new book, America Alone, is simple: The “European races” i.e., white people – “are too self-absorbed to breed,” but the Muslims are multiplying quickly.

That’s the thesis? Color me surprised. See, when I read my advance copy of Steyn’s new book, I got the message that what he’s advocating is the revolutionary concept of America standing by its system of government and values. You know, those same things that distinguish our country from Europe but which the Left says should make us feel ashamed for being, well, different. (Kinda like a black person who doesn’t drink alcohol, I suppose.)

Still, I’m awfully glad to know what Steyn was wearing. That’s hard-hitting journalism there, that is.

As she winds up her week-long cruise, proud of herself for having infiltrated the cabala of Republican thought, Hari bids an adieu to her fellow cruise passengers, complete with the hugs and kisses she previously claimed Republicans never, ever exchange.

I spot the old lady from the sea looking for her suitcase, and stop to tell her I may have found a solution to her political worries about both Muslims and stem-cells.

“Couldn’t they just do experiments on Muslim stem-cells?” I ask. ” Hey — that’s a great idea!” she laughs, and vanishes. Hillary-Ann stops to say she is definitely going on the next National Review cruise, to Alaska. “Perfect!” I yell, finally losing my mind.

“You can drill it as you go!” She puts her arms around me and says very sweetly, “We need you on every cruise.”

Because, you know, Republicans could never make jokes or actually have a twisted, sarcastic sense of humor. That’s just… well, as far as the liberal Left is concerned, that’s unheard of!

Kind of like a black person who doesn’t drink.

/disgust

San Francisco is worried about how it’s going to pay the $4.9 billion health care tab for its retiring employees.

“As this number keeps growing … it can cripple our budget,” said Supervisor Sean Elsbernd. “This will eat up all our discretionary income, the money we use for street repairs, parks and programs for the people of San Francisco.”

The city currently covers the annual health care costs for retired workers on a pay-as-you-go basis. The amount is expected to reach $150 million this fiscal year out of the same general fund that finances police and other municipal services.

Here’s a thought: stop enacting so much damn legislation. Your city ordinances banning declawing of cats and feeding wild parrots, proposals to ban smoking everywhere except single-family homes, and that whole thing outlawing plastic shopping bags all require employees to cite the violations, employees to process the violations, and employees to fine the violations. Not to mention more employees to process the fines, and still more employees to oversee those citing, processing, and fining.

See, that’s the dark side of the Nanny government you operate. You found ways to intrude into all sorts of things that have nothing to do with civic government, so you had to hire the people to maintain the power that you usurped for yourself. Now you’ve got to pay those people off, and you’ll keep paying, too.

Why? Because now all sorts of people who don’t want to have to think or care for themselves are flocking there, and you’ll be picking up the tab for them, too.

On a positive note: it can’t be that much longer before your city falls into the ocean, so maybe you won’t have to pay those debts you racked up after all.

UPDATE: Linked to the OTB Traffic Jam.