Thanks to one of our (highly critical) readers who sent it to us, here is a cheerful message for the new year, written by Howard Golganov:

THINK VERY SERIOUSLY ABOUT THE FOLLOWING STATEMENT:

No politician has ever done America and the Free World a greater SERVICE, than has Barack Hussein Obama and the FOOLS who elected him.

HERE’S WHY I BELIEVE IN WHAT I HAVE JUST WRITTEN:

For more than a couple of generations, North America has been sliding slowly but surely towards creeping socialism, where even our ‘pretend’ Conservatives have been playing the game.

Two perfect examples include President George W Bush and Canada’s Prime Minister Prime Minister Stephen Harper, both of whom increased spending, their respective debts, and the size of their respective governments.

Even ‘pretend’ Conservative leaders have been chipping away at INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS, while imposing more and more regulations and bureaucracy.

Had Barack Hussein Obama not come along when he did, this trend to the LEFT, especially to the FAR LEFT would have continued without any REAL abatement, option, or alternative in sight.

But, because of Obama and the extraordinarily horrible people he is aligned with inside and outside of government, the shift to the LEFT that would have taken much longer has in fact EXPLODED overnight.

Had the move to the LEFT continued unabated, I sincerely believe that not only would our economies have crashed, but also, we would have lost our individual RIGHTS, which would have been irretrievable without some form of serious conflict.

Perhaps even a civil war between the RIGHT and the LEFT.

But, this SHOCK THERAPY courtesy of Obama has been a clarion wake-up call. And because of it, strong Conservative leaders have emerged before it became too late.

Even MODERATE LIBERALS are having serious sober second thoughts about the direction in which the LEFT are dragging the USA. So much so, that even they can see the edge of the precipice Obama and his coterie of co-conspirators are running hell bent to jump off of.

Here is a prediction that takes very little prognosticative skills:

Not ONLY will Obama go down in history as the WORST President ever. Even making Carter look less horrible than he actually was. Obama will go down as the MOST HATED PRESIDENT EVER.

Because of Obama, who has managed to screw everything up in less than one full year, making his LEFT base upset, losing all of his moderate and independent supporters, taking a Nobel Peace Prize while making war, and bringing America and the entire world to the brink of bankruptcy, THE AMERICAN LEFT WILL BE CRUSHED for a long time to come.

Sometimes we just don’t know how good we have it until something REALLY BAD happens to take it all away. Obama is that something REALLY BAD that has happened.

So, to all of you folk who write to me in tones of DESPAIR – Despair not.

HAPPY DAYS WILL SOON ENOUGH BE HERE AGAIN.

Nice. We follow his argument and we hope he’s right. Only we’re not so sure about the strong Conservative leaders he says have emerged. Who are they?

If he means, for instance, Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck, they’re doing a splendid job as providers of information that the mainstream media would rather keep hidden; and they are certainly leaders of public opinion which can influence policy decisions; but they are not likely to become policy makers themselves. If he means Sarah Palin he may be right. Anyone else?

Paul Rahe writes at Power Line:

If there is an alternative to Islamic revivalism on the horizon, it is to be found in Iraq. The simple fact that there are free elections in that country, that there is open debate, and that it is drifting in the direction of genuine prosperity — this stirs dissatisfaction of an entirely different sort in the Arab world — and, as is abundantly evident in Iran, it does so in the larger Muslim world as well. As time passes and the dust settles, George W. Bush may come to look more and more like a hero — both in the Arab world and here in the United States. For, if the Iraqis remain steadfast and succeed, it is to their example that those fed up with Islamic revivalism will look, and it will be remembered just how adamant the second Bush was in his support for the democratic aspirations of the Iraqi people.

We have shown appreciation for Paul Rahe’s wisdom in the past, but with this, much as we’d like to agree with him since we were supporters of George Bush’s regime-changing war in Iraq, we find reason to dissent.

Again it is Diana West who explains why ‘democratic’ Iraq is no model for the rest of the Islamic world:

I don’t know how to candy-coat reality: Post-surge Iraq is a state of increasing repression, endemic corruption, religious and ethnic persecution and encroaching Sharia. Recent media reports flag just some of these glaring truths that American elites, civilian and military, seem to shy away from. …

In November, Reuters highlighted the government crackdown on the media via lawsuits against criticism, and laws enabling the government to close media outlets that “encourage terrorism, violence,” and — here’s a handy catch-all — “tensions.” There are new rules to license satellite trucks, censor books and control Internet cafes. “The measures evoke memories of … the laws used to muzzle (journalism) under Saddam Hussein,” Reuters writes.

In December, the British paper The Observer reported that hundreds of Iraqi police and soldiers descended on Baghdad’s 300 nightclubs where they “slapped owners’ faces, scattered their patrons and dancing girls, ripped down posters advertising upcoming acts and ordered alcohol removed from the shelves.” The official reason? No licenses. But, the paper reports, “the reality is that a year-long renaissance in Baghdad’s nightlife may be over as this increasingly conservative city takes on a hard-line religious identity.”  …

[O]ne particularly shocking, unintended consequence of U.S. involvement has been the religious “cleansing” of Iraq’s ancient Christian populations. In 2003, 1 million Christians lived in Iraq. Six years later, after successive waves of violence and intimidation largely unchecked by either Iraqi government action or U.S. intercession, more than 500,000 Christians have fled the country. It is a crisis that inspired Christian leaders to assemble in Baghdad in December for a conference piteously titled: “Do Christians Have a Future in Iraq?”

This anti-Christian persecution is a large part of why the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom recommended in December 2008 that the State Department name Iraq a Country of Particular Concern (CPC) — its dread Saddam-era designation. (Recommendation denied.) In May, to strengthen human rights in Iraq, the commission’s Iraq report included suggested amendments to Iraq’s constitution, which, not incidentally, boil down to abolishing the constitutional supremacy of Islamic law. (And yes, U.S. legal advisers helped write this same Sharia-supreme governing document.)

For example, the commission suggested deleting the line in Article 2 that says no law may contradict “the established provisions of Islam.” It suggested revising the “guarantee of `the Islamic identity of the majority’ to make certain that this identity is not used to justify violations” of human rights. It also suggested that “the free and informed consent of both parties (be) required to move a personal status case to the religious law system,” and “that religious court rulings (be) subject to final review under Iraq’s civil law.” Another suggestion was to remove “the ability of making appointments to the Federal Supreme Court based on training in Islamic jurisprudence alone.”

Good ideas — if religious freedom is the objective. But it is not the objective in Iraq, or in other Islamic countries. Which should make the United States, founded and defined by such freedom, look before nation-building, and ask: Do we really want Americans to “surge” and risk death to build nations such as this to stand as monuments to “victory”?