Al Qaeda is what, I asked, Sunni or Shia?

“Al Qaeda, they have both,” Reyes said. “You’re talking about predominately [sic]?”

“Sure,” I said, not knowing what else to say.

“Predominantly — probably Shiite,” he ventured.

He couldn’t have been more wrong.

Al Qaeda is profoundly Sunni. If a Shiite showed up at an al Qaeda club house, they’d slice off his head and use it for a soccer ball.

That’s because the extremist Sunnis who make up al Qaeda consider all Shiites to be heretics.

Al Qaeda’s Sunni roots account for its very existence. Osama bin Laden and his followers believe the Saudi Royal family besmirched the true faith through their corruption and alliance with the United States, particularly allowing U.S. troops on Saudi soil.

It’s been five years since these Muslim extremists flew hijacked airliners into the World Trade Center.

Is it too much to ask that our intelligence overseers know who they are?

I say no. I was telling my dad about this interview last night . . . when I got to the “Al Qaeda — Sunni or Shia?” question, he said, “They’re Sunni,” very matter-of-factly, like I’d asked him if Derek Jeter plays for the Yankees or the Red Sox.

Keep in mind that Rep. Reyes gets paid $165,200 a year to know more about this stuff than the average 70-year-old retiree.

And Hezbollah? I asked him. What are they?

“Hezbollah. Uh, Hezbollah…”

He laughed again, shifting in his seat.

Funny stuff! I’ll bet he misses this one too . . .

“Why do you ask me these questions at five o’clock? Can I answer in Spanish? Do you speak Spanish?”

“Poquito,” I said–a little.

“Poquito?!” He laughed again.

“Go ahead,” I said, talk to me about Sunnis and Shia in Spanish.

Reyes: “Well, I, uh….”

Was that Spanish? OMG, I feel a lot safer now!

I really hate people who don’t put in the effort. Maybe instead of shutting it down at 5 p.m., he could go till 7, 8, or 9 p.m. and try to learn something about the people who’d like to end Western civilization as we know it. Oh sure, it would mean missing the free taquitos at happy hour, but wouldn’t it be worth it in the long run?

I apologized for putting him “on the spot a little.” But I reminded him that the people who have killed thousands of Americans on U.S. soil and in the Middle East have been front page news for a long time now.

It’s been 23 years since a Hezbollah suicide bomber killed over 200 U.S. military personnel in Beirut, mostly Marines.

Hezbollah, a creature of Iran, is close to taking over in Lebanon. Reports say they are helping train Iraqi Shiites to kill Sunnis in the spiralling civil war.

“Yeah,” Reyes said, rightly observing, “but . . . it’s not like the Hatfields and the McCoys. It’s a heck of a lot more complex.

“And I agree with you — we ought to expend some effort into understanding them. But speaking only for myself, it’s hard to keep things in perspective and in the categories.”

I totally know what you mean! I have a hard time keeping up with all the latest developments in my business too! But I try. I make a daily effort.

My dad couldn’t believe it: “No, he didn’t really say that.” But he did!

This must be why people endure the personal indignities necessary to succeed in politics.

You can make a very nice income without doing any actual work.

You can kick the president’s ass for years on his handling of major issues without offering any ideas of your own, and without even knowing the basic facts.

You can endanger the entire nation by being entrusted with a key national security position despite the fact that you’re as dumb as a rock, and then laugh in the face of a man who exposes you as a fraud and a dangerous imbecile.

Willful incompetence never had it so good!

I don’t usually offer investment advice, but in this case I’m going to make an exception. Long: blankets, canned goods and shotgun shells.

You know, education, if you make the most of it, if you study hard and you do your homework, and you make an effort to be smart, you can do well. If you don’t, you get stuck in Iraq.

And I think this reveals, is a glimpse into what the Democrats actually mean when they say we support our troops. They support them as victims, as children, as people too stupid to know better. But they don’t support them in the mission they’re fighting, thousands of miles away.

— Mark Steyn

Under Mr. Bush and the Republican Congress, incomes today are $1,000 less for the typical household than during Bill Clinton’s final year in office; incomes for the typical working-age household have declined every year since the president took office.

BOO HOO HOO! The President made my income go down.

I’ve never understood the mechanism behind the president or Congress making my income go up or down. Can someone explain that to me?

You know who I think makes my income go up or down? ME! I’ve made decisions that made my income go UP, and I’ve made decisions that made my income go DOWN.

Who is the target audience for this tripe? People who want to believe they have no control over their own lives? People who need to blame all their problems on others?

It’s always someone else’s fault. It’s my boss’s fault, it’s my spouse’s fault, it’s the president’s fault . . .

Look in the mirror, you schlubs!

What a dismal vision of America. Elect some Democrats, you sorry losers! Oh, and we won’t be fighting terrorists in Iraq anymore. We’ll be fighting them in the streets of major American cities.

He’s not exactly Winston Churchill, is he?

OH YEAH!? Not if I have anything to say about it, comrade!

Not only do lying liars rely on Lenin’s repetition principle, they rely on people being generally inattentive, uniformed and eager to believe anything consistent with their existing opinions.

I say that as someone who’s as inattentive and uninformed as anyone on most topics. But I do know a couple of things, and I set them forth herewith.

Note: All quotes are from “Revisionist History” by Peter Wehner.

Did the President mislead us into war?

Come on, people! Everyone thought Saddam had the WMDs! Big difference between relying on information that turns out be wrong, and lying about it.

Some pre-war quotes:

Iraq has continued its [WMD] programs in defiance of U.N. resolutions and restrictions. Baghdad has chemical and biological weapons as well as missiles with ranges in excess of U.N. restrictions; if left unchecked, it probably will have a nuclear weapon during this decade.

— 2002 National Intelligence Estimate

I believe that a deadly arsenal of weapons of mass destruction in [Saddam's] hands is a threat, and a grave threat, to our security.

— John Kerry, in voting to authorize use of force

We have known for many years that Saddam Hussein is seeking and developing weapons of mass destruction.

— Ted Kennedy

In the four years since the inspectors, intelligence reports show that Saddam Hussein has worked to rebuild his chemical and biological weapons stock, his missile delivery capability and his nuclear program.

— Hillary Clinton

I think all of our governments believe that Iraq has produced weapons of mass destruction and that we have to assume that they continue to have weapons of mass destruction.

— Wolfgang Ischinger, German ambassador to the U.S.

See, even countries like Germany that opposed the removal of Saddam believed that he had the weapons.

Is democracy in Iraq a post-war rationalization?

More pre-war quotes:

A liberated Iraq can show the power of freedom to transform that vital region, by bringing hope and progress into the lives of millions. America’s interests in security, and America’s belief in liberty, both lead in the same direction: to a free and peaceful Iraq. . . . The world has a clear interest in the spread of democratic values, because stable and free nations do not breed the ideologies of murder. They encourage the peaceful pursuit of a better life. And there are hopeful signs of a desire for freedom in the Middle East. . . . A new regime in Iraq would serve as a dramatic and inspiring example of freedom for other nations in the region.

— President Bush, Feb. 26, 2003

President Bush sketched an expansive vision last night of what he expects to accomplish by a war in Iraq. . . . The idea of turning Iraq into a model democracy in the Arab world is one some members of the administration have been discussing for a long time.

— The New York Times, Feb. 27, 2003

Speaking at Columbia University in 1959, a student challenged the 33rd President [Harry Truman], a Democrat, on dropping the second A-bomb. ‘The reason I asked this,’ the student said, ‘was that it seemed to me the second bomb came pretty soon after the first one.’ After speaking testily of ‘Monday morning quarterbacks,’ Truman said simply: ‘I was there. I did it. I would do it again.’

KERRY: I think George Bush rushed to war without exhausting the remedies available to him, without exhausting the diplomacy necessary to put the U.S. in the strongest position possible, without pulling together the logistics and the plan to shore up Iraq immediately and effectively.

TIME: And you as Commander in Chief would not have made these mistakes but would have gone to war?
KERRY: I didn’t say that.

TIME: I’m asking.
KERRY: I can’t tell you.

— TIME magazine, March 7, 2004