North Korea warned Wednesday that any attempt to stop, board or inspect its ships would constitute a “grave violation.”

The regime also said it could no longer promise the safety of U.S. and South Korean warships and civilian vessels in the waters near the Korea’s western maritime border.

“They should bear in mind that the (North) has tremendous military muscle and its own method of strike able to conquer any targets in its vicinity at one stroke or hit the U.S. on the raw, if necessary,” it said.

The maritime border has long been a flashpoint between the two Koreas. North Korea disputes the line unilaterally drawn by the United Nations at the end of the Koreas’ three-year war in 1953, and has demanded it be redrawn further south.

The truce signed in 1953 and subsequent military agreements call for both sides to refrain from warfare, but doesn’t cover the waters off the west coast.

North Korea has used the maritime border dispute to provoke two deadly naval skirmishes – in 1999 and 2002.

On Wednesday, the regime promised “unimaginable and merciless punishment” for anyone daring to challenge its ships.

Personally, I think this is all the result of a regime change happening inside DPRK, but it could also be a military distraction similar to the cause of the 1983 Falkland Islands War. In any event, let’s HOPE Obama is ready to lead on day 130 or so ’cause he sure as hell ain’t leading on day 1, and he’s gonna have to start leading instead of blaming if he wants things to CHANGE.

Barack Obama’s campaign pledge, as written on his campaign website:

Obama will give his Secretary of Defense and military commanders a new mission in Iraq: ending the war.

George W. Bush esentially beat him to it. What he really means is, how can I bring the troops home, responsibly from Iraq?

“Let me say this as plainly as I can: by August 31, 2010, our combat mission in Iraq will end.” -President Obama, February 27, 2009

Could this be a “read my lips” moment, for President Obama? Or a “It depends on what the meaning of the word ‘is’ is” moment:

“And under the Status of Forces Agreement with the Iraqi government, I intend to remove all U.S. troops from Iraq by the end of 2011″

Notice the wiggle-room provided in the choice of a single word?

Last Friday, President Obama delivered a speech at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, declaring- not victory- but an end to combat operations in Iraq (ABC News link borrowed from Scott’s post):

President Barack Obama consigned the Iraq war to history Friday, declaring he will end combat operations within 18 months and open a new era of diplomacy in the Middle East.

“Let me say this as plainly as I can: By August 31, 2010, our combat mission in Iraq will end,” Obama told Marines who are about to deploy by the thousands to the other war front, Afghanistan.

Even so, Obama will leave the bulk of troops in place this year, contrary to hopes of Democratic leaders for a speedier pullout. And after combat forces withdraw, 35,000 to 50,000 will stay behind for an additional year and half of support and counterterrorism duties.

Just six weeks into office, Obama used blunt terms and a cast-in-stone promise to write the last chapter of a war that began six years ago.

The “last chapter”?!? “Cast-in-stone promise”??….? As Iraq War critic Thomas Ricks concludes in his new book, The Gamble, “the events for which the Iraq war will be remembered probably have not yet happened.”

And as Ricks writes in his post:

The more I consider it, the more I think President Obama’s Camp Lejeune speech last Friday was about how to stay in Iraq for a while, not about how to get out.

And as he writes further in regards to the Status of Forces Agreement (negotiated under Bush’s watch):

(And a memo to everyone who is counting on the SOFA to bail us out of Iraq: Guys, that was about getting Iraq through 2009, not about what happens in 2011.)

MataHarley points out:

But, of course, as the SOFA implicitly states, the US may have to re’escalate if necessary. As stated in Article 27 (1):

1. In the event of any external or internal threat or aggression against Iraq that would violate its sovereignty, political independence, or territorial integrity, waters, airspace, its democratic system or its elected institutions, and upon request by the Government of Iraq, the Parties shall immediately initiate strategic deliberations and, as may be mutually agreed, the United States shall take appropriate measures, including diplomatic, economic, or military measures, or any other measure, to deter such a threat.

Also, Kori Schake (note, a number of links I use today come from former foreign policy makers from the “loyal opposition”, blogging at Shadow Government) writes:

It leaves room for renegotiation of the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) to keep a Korea-style U.S. long-term presence without requiring the Iraqi parliamentarians to agree to it concurrent with the SOFA itself. And it outlines sensible military missions and adequate forces to achieve them.

We supporters of the surge need to acknowledge that many in the military advocated this drawdown — not least the Service Chiefs, who are worried about the strain on U.S. forces from six years of continuous warfare. But we should all also be worried about committing to this timeline. The problem with establishing timelines rather than objectives is that the enemy accounts for them as well.

So, will we really be out of Iraq by 2011? Or is it all a pie-crust promise, easily made and easily broken?

2. This speech should be seen in the context of the assurance Obama reportedly made to Sen. McCain and others that he will evaluate the troop drawdown as it unfolds in light of developments on the ground. This will be an important test of Obama’s realism.

I think, like his EOs on Guantanamo and Ensuring Lawful Interrogations, President Obama’s speech is mostly window dressing to give the illusion that he is in charge here; that he is commanding a radical shift away from the policies of the Bush Administration when it comes to the War on Terror. As Thomas Ricks puts it, “Iraq will change Obama more than Obama will change it”.

The fact that President Obama is able to announce what amounts in people’s minds as a “firm” date of withdrawal and an end to the conflict in Iraq, is not due to anything President Obama has done, but in spite of; it is due to the hard decisions made under the previous Administration. President Obama is merely surfing the waves created by the previous president.

Both the COIN/Bridge strategy and SOFA were developed under Bush’s watch.

So who gets credit for the decision to implement COIN, which includes the troop surge? The buck-credit stops at George W. Bush. The Then-Senators, Obama and Biden, opposed the troop surge. (See Curt’s post for some quotes).

September 2007:

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama is calling for the immediate withdrawal of all U.S. combat brigades from Iraq, with the pullout being completed by the end of next year.

“Let me be clear: There is no military solution in Iraq and there never was,” Obama said in excerpts of the speech provided to The Associated Press.

“The best way to protect our security and to pressure Iraq’s leaders to resolve their civil war is to immediately begin to remove our combat troops. Not in six months or one year — now,” the Illinois senator says.

~~~

He introduced legislation last January calling for withdrawal to start on May 1 and for all combat brigades to be pulled out by March 31, 2008

“a surge would tell Iraqi leaders they can continue to avoid reaching a political solution.”- Senator Barack Obama, 01/06/07

Obama and Biden will press Iraq’s leaders to take responsibility for their future- Campaign website

The arguments of Democrats around this time was that Iraqis weren’t standing up because we were carrying out a welfare policy in Iraq that gave them no incentive to stand on their own two feet (nevermind that war-opponents constantly loved to cite polls saying Iraqis want us out; and nevermind that Iraqi patriots have been standing up and dying by the droves defending the fledgling government) and were sitting on an “80 billion surplus” while we spent $10 billion of our own treasure every month.

In fact, some of Obama’s statements at the time reflect the mentality of those military commanders who opposed a change (from the desire to “stand down” so that Iraqis will be forced to “stand up”) and who opposed the troop surge:

TR: But the uniform military is against the surge. The only person in the chain of command supporting the surge is General Raymond Odierno. Casey, Abizaid, the chairman of the joint chiefs, all of them are saying this is crazy, we’re doing fine, get off our backs, no problem.

HH: Did Peter Pace resist the surge?

TR: Yes.
-Hugh Hewitt interview with Thomas Ricks

However these examples [unilateral COIN implementation by a few military commanders] weren’t imitated by other commanders, probably because they were at odds with the strategy set by Gen. Casey and his boss at Central Command, Gen. John Abizaid. Working on the theory that the U.S. military presence was an irritant to Iraqi society, the generals were trying to oversee a transition to Iraqi forces and so wanted an ever-shrinking American “footprint”. By contrast, McMaster injected thousands of U.S. troops into the middle of a city, implicitly saying that they were not the problem but part of the solution, that American troops weren’t the sand irritating Iraqi society, but could be the glue that held it together.- Thomas Ricks, The Gamble, pg 60-61

Rick’s new book, pg 58, also partially cites the following:

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said the Iraqi government must become less reliant on the United States to handle security. He also said U.S. officials are working with the Iraqis to develop projections on when that might happen.

“It’s their country, they’re going to have to govern it, they’re going to have to provide security for it, and they’re going to have to do it sooner rather than later,” Rumsfeld said.

“The biggest mistake would be to not pass things over to the Iraqis, create a dependency on their part, instead of developing strength and capacity and competence,” he said.

Departure from this approach and the implementation of the troop surge and COIN strategy- opposed by President Obama and his ilk- got us out of the 4-year quagmire, making troop withdrawal possible under the banner of success and victory rather than under the flag of defeat and surrender.

Caving to the pressures of getting out of Iraq as soon as possible rather than investing patience to get things done right was a mistake on the part of the Bush Administration. As symbolically important as the first purple finger election was, I think it was done in haste before the country was truly ready to hold such an important election. Pressures to speed up the process of graduating Iraqi soldiers and police officers produced quantity over quality.

Will the Obama Administration learn from the experience and mistakes of the Bush Administration?

It seems to me that by vowing to get out of Iraq in 16 months, President Obama is not departing from the mistakes of George Bush, but repeating them. That is, Bush was persistently overoptimistic about Iraq. His original war plan assumed that the United States would get down to 30,000 troops in Iraq by the fall of 2003. Instead, here we are more than five years later with more than four times that number of troops mired in Iraq. I hope we can stop planning for Iraq only on best-case assumptions. I mean, it hasn’t worked, I think.

Certainly our resources are not limitless (someone tell Pelosi, Reid, and Obama) and at some point training wheels have to come off and we are not responsible for babysitting Iraq until the end of days; but exactly how useful is it to set timelines engraved in stone? Of announcing troop withdrawal to the enemy?

At this stage, I think regardless of who sits in the Oval Office- Bush, Obama, or McCain, there really isn’t that much difference on Iraq policy, other than in the rhetoric.

As Noah Feldman so whimsically puts it:

the Obama position seems to be that we should leave as soon as we’re able, and the McCain position seems to be something like we should stay as long as we must.

It’s too bad that President Obama couldn’t find it within himself to give any credit whatsoever to President Bush. If he had done so, he’d finally live up to his demagogueing about rising beyond partisan politics; but Barack Obama can’t help but be who he is: A man of the far left with the aura and mask of a pragmatic centrist.

Christian Brose writes:

At the risk of heading into la-la land, I think Obama should have tipped his hat ever so slightly today to President Bush, Sen. McCain, and other Republicans who had supported the surge strategy, naming them and thanking them. Of course, there’s no telling how Iraq would look today had the surge never happened, but it’s likely that conditions would be pretty grim and that this withdrawal plan would have the smell of defeat to it, rather than the opposite, as it does.

Obama could have caveated this to death — “I opposed Bush’s decision to begin this war, I opposed how he sold it to America, I opposed the way he prosecuted it,” etc. But he could have recognized that Bush’s decision to change strategies in 2007 is in large part why the security situation in Iraq has turned around more than anyone could have hoped, why we can now begin drawing down our forces with a good measure of confidence, and why our troops now feel more and more that their sacrifice is worth it.

Not only would this have been magnanimous, it would have been smart politics. It would have acknowledged the bipartisanship that underlies the decision to begin bringing our troops home by drawing an important line of continuity through our Iraq efforts of the past two years. It would have disarmed Obama’s more hawkish critics on Iraq by conceding their point on the surge and turning it into an argument for the drawdown, which it is. And it would have shown Republicans that Obama is committed not just to a bipartisanship of style but of substance — not just being willing to recognize when the other side has valid points, but actually incorporating them into one’s own thinking.

The fact remains, we had to leave Iraq at some point. This is as good a time as any to start. And there is bipartisan support to do so, because of the events of the past two years.

The only reality as it relates to 2 years into the future, is that a lot can happen in 2 years. And the hidden reality from those who think the “war” is ended in Iraq by bringing American troops home is that President Obama wisely maintains flexibility on that.

More from Hewitt’s interview with Ricks:

HH: Let’s talk about how it all ends.

TR: It doesn’t end, and I think this is the biggest problem that Obama’s going to have as he talks about Iraq. Obama’s going to be changed more by Iraq than he changes it. What do I mean by that? It’s what I was talking about yesterday, in that this over-optimistic approach, I can get out of Iraq quickly. No, you can’t. You’re stuck. Now I don’t think it’s Obama’s fault. I think that George Bush made a horrendous mistake in invading Iraq. The question is, how do you fix this? And my response is, and it kind of agrees with Petraeus, there is no good answer. The question is what’s the least bad answer. I think staying in Iraq is immoral. I think leaving Iraq is even more immoral.

President Obama’s speech was delivered for the sake of appearances and a photo-op, taking credit for the final two years of Bush’s presidency, as it relates to the situation on the ground in Iraq. He gives credit to the troops, because he has to; any politician that didn’t would be committing political suicide. He denies President #43 any credit because Barack Obama isn’t as magnanimous and gracious and honest as his image portrays him to be. He is realistically and pragmatically, deeply partisan to the left.

Of further interest:
Transcript to Thomas Rick’s two-part interview with Hugh Hewitt:
Part One
Part Two

Previous related posts:
Obama Abandons Commitment to Iraq Withdrawal Timetable

The Leaders Who Brought Victory to Iraq

Obama’s Iraq Speech: Never Used the Word VICTORY!

Meanwhile Obama spoke eloquently of reaching across the aisle and running a bipartisan administration also. No history to look at since the man doesn’t have any. So we waited.

And learned, once again, Obama lies:

“John McCain Was Right.”

That’s one headline we ought to see when President Barack Obama puts his name to the stimulus bill in Denver later today. But we won’t. And the reason points to a glaring double standard on bipartisanship.

When Mr. McCain accepted the Republican nomination for president, he noted that while he and his opponent both spoke about moving beyond partisan divisions, only one of them had a history of working with members of both parties to get things done. “I have that record and the scars to prove it,” he said. “Senator Obama does not.”

Only a month ago, with Mr. Obama holding a dinner in Mr. McCain’s honor, it wasn’t hard to imagine the two coming together on the big challenges facing our nation. But now Mr. McCain has come out strongly against the stimulus in a spirited dissent suggesting that the whole process was a “bad beginning” for someone who promised a new spirit of bipartisanship. That ought to give White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel pause, if only because it wasn’t all that long ago that Barack Obama was speaking the same way.

In a passage from his 2006 book, “The Audacity of Hope,” he sounds like a Republican complaining about the stimulus. “Genuine bipartisanship,” he wrote, “assumes an honest process of give-and-take, and that the quality of the compromise is measured by how well it serves some agreed-upon goal, whether better schools or lower deficits. This in turn assumes that the majority will be constrained — by an exacting press corps and ultimately an informed electorate — to negotiate in good faith.

“If these conditions do not hold — if nobody outside Washington is really paying attention to the substance of the bill, if the true costs . . . are buried in phony accounting and understated by a trillion dollars or so — the majority party can begin every negotiation by asking for 100% of what it wants, go on to concede 10%, and then accuse any member of the minority party who fails to support this ‘compromise’ of being ‘obstructionist.’

“For the minority party in such circumstances, ‘bipartisanship’ comes to mean getting chronically steamrolled, although individual senators may enjoy certain political rewards by consistently going along with the majority and hence gaining a reputation for being ‘moderate’ or ‘centrist.’”

As a rule, complaints about the “lack of bipartisanship” generally represent the whine of the losing side. With regard to Mr. Obama’s handling of the stimulus, however — his first big test as president — they have a more interesting subtext. For one thing, his promises of a postpartisan future in some ways became the substance of a campaign built on lofty but largely undefined invocations of “hope” and “change.”

For another, a stimulus package with strong bipartisan support was well within his reach. Even at full strength, the Republicans didn’t have the votes to obstruct the stimulus if they had wanted to. And with a little imagination, a White House in search of bipartisan support might have easily picked off Republicans by exploiting differences within the party.

The WSJ details a few instances where true compromise could of been reached, but wasn’t. Such as infrastructure projects which could of swung 6-7 Senators and maybe a good 30-40 House Republicans. Instead Obama went the other way and took out infrastructure projects, instead of adding more in.

We have said many times that Obama will tow the party line. He will go along with those who helped put him into the oval office ie. MoveOn, Code Pink, and the Pelosi’s and Reid’s.

What does this mean for the next four years? We are told that when LBJ learned of Walter Cronkite’s famous broadcast questioning U.S. policy in Vietnam, he said, “If I’ve lost Cronkite, I’ve lost middle America.” In a similar way, it might be worth asking what John McCain’s strong dissent says about this president’s commitment to lead us into a postpartisan future.

That was the standard Mr. Obama promised during his campaign. Now that he’s got his bill, it will be instructive to see if he will be held to that standard by an “exacting” press corps he says is essential to ensuring that a ruling party negotiates in good faith.

And the result of Obama and Company not putting together a bipartisan bill?

3.2 TRILLON DOLLARS:

1,073 pages of scattergun spending, with much of it extending for a decade – and it offers a “cure” to the jobs hemorrhaging that may be far worse than the disease.

Before Mr. Obama has even submitted his first budget later this month, he and congressional Democrats have increased spending for multiple programs that will be in place for the next 10 years before expiring – a multiyear practice virtually unheard of in American politics that may cost $2 trillion more to fund. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated that the full cost of this bill, including its $348 billion debt service and the out-year financing, will reach $3.2 trillion by 2019.

Just wonderful.

At his meeting with bipartisan leaders of Congress, Obama said he would make his stimulus proposal available on the Internet, with a Google-like search function to show each proposed project or program, by congressional district, according to three people who attended.

THE REALITY

In a press conference Thursday, the House Republican leadership spoke candidly about being kept out of the House-Senate conference on the Obama-Pelosi-Reid so-called “economic stimulus” bill. They confirmed they had not yet seen the text of the bill as of 4 p.m.

Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) said he was unsure how many Democrats would vote with Republicans again on this bill but that he thought Republicans “may get a few” Democrats to side with them. The fact that the Demos have now broken their promise to have the public able to see the bill for 48 hours may drive more Dems into the Republican camp.

“[I] don’t know, ‘cause they haven’t seen the bill either,” Boehner said. “The American people have a right to know what’s in this bill,” Rep. Mike Pence (R-Ind) told HUMAN EVENTS after the press conference. “Every member of Congress — Republicans and Democrats — voted to post this bill on the internet for 48 hours, 48 hours ago. We’ll see if the Democrats keep their word.”

For some completely unknown reason (I just can’t possibly imagine) MSNBC has not followed up on its own article by asking Democrats what happened to the 48hr online review?

So, who DOES know what’s in the bill that Congress is going to approve? Congress doesn’t. Lobbyists do

Presidential Executive Order:

1. Torture is prohibited as defined in section 2340 of title 18, United States Code.

2. Murder, torture, cruel or inhuman treatment, mutilation or maiming, intentionally causing serious bodily injury, rape, sexual assault or abuse, taking of hostages, or performing of biological experiments is prohibited.

3. Other acts of violence serious enough to be considered comparable to murder, torture, mutilation, and cruel or inhuman treatment, as defined in section 2441(d) of title 18, United States Code are prohibited.

4. Any other acts of cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment are prohibited.

5. We are prohibited from engaging in willful and outrageous acts of personal abuse done for the purpose of humiliating or degrading the individual in a manner so serious that any reasonable person, considering the circumstances, would deem the acts to be beyond the bounds of human decency, such as sexual or sexually indecent acts undertaken for the purpose of humiliation, forcing the individual to perform sexual acts or to pose sexually, threatening the individual with sexual mutilation, or using the individual as a human shield.

6. Acts intended to denigrate the religion, religious practices, or religious objects of the individual will not be tolerated.

Does that sound like a strong departure from the Bush Administration’s Interpretation of the Geneva Conventions Common Article 3 as Applied to a Program of Detention and Interrogation Operated by the Central Intelligence Agency?

It’s not. It IS the Bush Administration’s 2007 Executive Order 13440.

Earlier today, CJ posted his examination of the Executive Orders regarding the Guantanamo Detention Facilities. His conclusion is that it bears little difference than the way the Bush Administration has been handling the situation; and that there’s enough legal loopholes in the wording, as to allow President Obama an “out”, from following through with closing the facility, should the Administration fail to solve the dilemma of what to do with the remaining detainees.
(Check this out, btw: former detainees appear in al Qaeda video. That news compliments the other peachy story regarding a former detainee becoming a deputy leader in al Qaeda’s Yemeni branch).

Looking over the new executive order Ensuring Lawful Interrogations, which revokes President Bush’s Executive Order 13440, CJ comes to the conclusion that President Obama’s executive order says much the same thing as the one it revokes:

What’s that? You agree with all six of those points? Then why did President Obama just revoke them? Those were all outlined in Executive Order 13440 signed by President George W. Bush on July 20, 2007. That’s right. Those aren’t Obama’s words although he does restate in less plain terms than President Bush did. That’s right. Much like the Gitmo issue, this EO simply restates what was already US policy. So why revoke it and recreate the wheel?

Well, that wasn’t all that President Bush’s EO 13440 said. President Bush reiterated what the Geneva Conventions already tell us about unlawful enemy combatants – that they aren’t entitled to protections under the law. Specifically, according to Bush, “members of al Qaeda, the Taliban, and associated forces are unlawful enemy combatants who are not entitled to the protections that the Third Geneva Convention provides to prisoners of war.” Translation: terrorists will be treated as such so long as they continue to fight in violation of the established Conventions agreed to by most nations.

President Bush also gave the CIA latitude to conduct interrogations against said unlawful combatants in any manner the Director of the CIA may deem necessary to “detect, mitigate, or prevent terrorist attacks, such as attacks within the United States or against its Armed Forces or other personnel, citizens, or facilities, or against allies or other countries cooperating in the war on terror with the United States, or their armed forces or other personnel, citizens, or facilities.” These tactics MUST provide “the basic necessities of life, including adequate food and water, shelter from the elements, necessary clothing, protection from extremes of heat and cold, and essential medical care.” Additionally, they are not exempt from the six areas listed above.

You read me correctly. The CIA was not above the law and neither was the military. Neither agency or department was given tacit or implied permission to commit those six acts. And when it was discovered that some rogue elements or personnel DID commit these offenses, they were promptly dealt with and a rash of new training was conducted to ensure future compliance.

The media is going through great pains to let the enemy know that they can now breathe a sigh of relief from US pressure. The CIA is now restricted to a particular set of interrogation approaches that the Army currently uses. I’ll get to that later. There are more important areas that need to be addressed first.

As of the 22nd of January, the CIA must close any detention facilities that it currently operates and cannot operate any such detention facility in the future. Where are they supposed to put all of America’s enemies that are covertly trying to kill another 3,000 innocent citizens? Gitmo is out of the question. I guess Pennsylvania’s 12th Congressional District is going to get pretty populated soon.

The EO on interrogations requires a comprehensive “study and evaluation” on interrogation techniques and their usefulness. It will also “study and evaluate” how our enemies are being transferred to other nations. This has been done. It’s constantly done. The Field Manual in question just underwent an extensive review and update thanks to our not-so-illustrious Senator from Arizona, Mr. John McCain. The result was a much more restrictive and hands-tied approach to gathering information.

Which brings me to the Field Manual. And I refuse to discuss that. Sorry, but I’m not going to give our enemy any more ammunition and information than our Executive Branch has already given them.

It’s all for show, folks! Smoke and mirrors to appease the true believers of radical change and an ushering in of the New Era of Transparency.

And meanwhile, the real threat to our civil liberties and to our way of life- the Islamic terrorists- get a glimpse at our playbook.

This really sets the stage for a “fun” ride…..

My comment #5, blockquoting Sheryl Gay Stolberg writing for the NYTimes:

January 25, 2009
White House Memo
Great Limits Come With Great Power, Ex-Candidate Finds
By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG

WASHINGTON — President Obama showed up for his first full day at work on Wednesday determined, as he later told the nation, to make “a clean break from business as usual.” But it did not take long for the new president to discover that there were limits to his power to turn his campaign rhetoric into reality.

Mr. Obama spent his first few days in office rolling out an orchestrated series of executive orders intended to signal that he would take the nation in a very different direction from his predecessor, George W. Bush. Yet he wrestled with fresh challenges at every turn, found some principles hard to consistently apply and showed himself willing to be pragmatic — at the risk of irking some supporters who had their hearts set on idealism.

When Mr. Obama wandered into the White House briefing room Thursday afternoon hoping to make small talk with reporters, he was instantly confronted by an unwelcome question: Why was he waiving his tough restrictions on lobbying for a Pentagon nominee? The president brushed it off, saying he would not return “if I’m going to get grilled every time I come.”

Lol….lol…..roflmao!!!!!!!

His plan to build bipartisan consensus around an economic package ran smack into discontented House Republicans. When he ordered the prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, to be shut down, Mr. Obama put off the tough decision of what to do with the terrorism suspects there, a delay that his senior adviser, David Axelrod, attributed to the complexity of the issue — the same argument Mr. Bush used to keep the prison open.

“That is an enormously complicated situation,” Mr. Axelrod said Friday afternoon in an interview in his West Wing office, adding: “Obviously, you can’t solve problems overnight. But what you can do is signal a sense of motion, a sense of ferment and activity and direction. And I think that he is doing that.”

Throughout the campaign, Mr. Obama was something of a political Rorschach test; he was not required to make tough executive decisions, and so people could see in him what they wanted. His first few days as president, though, have given the first hints of how he will run his administration.

“I think you will see a presidency that’s less about hard-core ideology, and more about setting bold strategic objectives and setting out how we are going to get there,” said John D. Podesta, who ran Mr. Obama’s transition.

Already, that has given rise to some contradictions.

On his first full day in office, Mr. Obama declared that his administration would place a high priority on openness and transparency. Yet the first official White House briefing was given by two senior aides who, in the time-honored way of Washington, demanded anonymity.

At the same time, the Obama team made no apologies for the president’s willingness to make an exception to his tough anti-lobbying rules for William J. Lynn III, a military industry lobbyist who is the president’s pick for deputy secretary of defense. That exception drew sharp questions late Friday from Senator John McCain, Mr. Obama’s opponent in the general election and someone the president has sought to make an ally.

Senator Richard J. Durbin, an Illinois Democrat and a close friend of Mr. Obama’s, said the move suggested the president was willing to take a few lumps if he thought he was right.

“He obviously needed and wanted this man,” Mr. Durbin said, “because he knew the critics would say, ‘What are you doing here? You established a rule and you changed it.’ ”

And while as a candidate Mr. Obama had tough criticism for the Bush administration’s use of harsh interrogation tactics, President Obama left himself some wiggle room in overturning that policy, by deferring a decision on whether some techniques should remain secret to keep Al Qaeda from training to resist them.

“I think it emphasizes a realist, a pragmatist, someone who is not on a strictly political or ideological exercise,” said Senator Jack Reed, Democrat of Rhode Island, who is close to the president. “It underscores what I think is part of his leadership style, which is that there has to be some flexibility — a firm principle but a flexible application.”

Yet one man’s flexibility is another man’s wishy-washiness, and Mr. Obama’s willingness to adapt carries the risk that he will either alienate his liberal base or fail to convert Republicans whose support he hopes to win. During his transition, Mr. Obama managed to charm conservatives; he wooed them at one dinner honoring Mr. McCain, and at another at the home of the columnist George F. Will.

But just days into the Obama presidency, some conservatives sound wary.

“I thought he did very well during the transition on things like the dinner with George Will, and all the words sounded good,” said Newt Gingrich, the Republican former speaker of the House. “But I think they are right at the cusp of either sliding down into a world where their words have no meaning or having to follow up their words with real behavior.”

Mr. Obama came into office with a clear set of objectives for his first week, advisers said. He wanted to convey a sense that he was moving quickly to make good on campaign pledges, while at the same time establishing realistic expectations for what he could achieve. “He wanted to show that an activist president could get the ball rolling right away,” Mr. Podesta said.

Many Democrats, and even some Republicans, say he succeeded. “He is creating an image that he is making something happen,” said Scott Reed, a Republican strategist.

But in the coming weeks, Mr. Obama will have to do more than create an image; he will in fact have to make something happen — most immediately, an economic stimulus package with bipartisan support, as promised. His ability to bring Democrats and Republicans together will be the first major test of his presidency.

That test began Friday, in the White House Roosevelt Room, where Mr. Obama tried to bring House Republicans on board, despite their fundamental differences on tax policy for low-wage workers.

“I said to him straight up, ‘I think your electoral success was largely based on the hope that you could deliver change to the way Washington works,’ ” said Representative Eric Cantor, the Republican whip. He said he had told Mr. Obama pointedly that he would lose Republican support unless House Democrats were willing to make some changes in the bill.

The president listened intently, Mr. Cantor said, giving little hint of how he planned to square that circle.

Dec 20, 2008
By JASON STRAZIUSO
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) – The top U.S. military officer said Saturday that the Pentagon could double the number of American forces in Afghanistan by next summer to 60,000 – the largest estimate of potential reinforcements ever publicly suggested. Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that between 20,000 and 30,000 additional U.S. troops could be sent to Afghanistan to bolster the 31,000 already there.

The Army is Broken

In the last few weeks, Pelosi has released three official statements designed to highlight the comments of generals who say the military is reaching a breaking point.

“Americans are rightly concerned about how much longer our nation must continue to sacrifice our security for the sake of an Iraqi government that is unwilling or unable to secure its own future,” Pelosi said late last month, responding to comments by Army Chief of Staff Gen. George Casey that six years of war have left the Army “out of balance.”

House Democratic Caucus Chairman Rahm Emanuel (Ill.) compiled a list of examples of National Guard shortfalls in 16 states that hampered their ability to react to natural disasters or terrorist attacks.

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So, Mr. Chairman, as we look to that future, we do so with an Army that’s already stretched by the impacts of six years of war. And while we remain a resilient, committed, professional force, today’s Army, as Congressman Hunter said, is out of balance. The current demand for our forces exceeds the sustainable supply. We are consumed with meeting the demands of the current fight and unable to provide ready forces as rapidly as necessary for other contingencies. Our reserve components are performing an operational role for which they were neither originally designed, nor resourced.
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Those in charge deny there’s a crisis. Schoomaker, the Army’s top general, served in the Vietnam-era Army. “I know what an Army that’s near broken smells like, what it looks like, how it acts,” he said in January. “Drug problems, race problems, insubordination — all kinds of things going on. We’re nowhere near anything like that.”
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General Colin Powell Agreed With General Shoomaker That the Army Is Broken. “I’m suggesting that what General Schoomaker said the other day, before a committee looking at the Reserve and National Guard, that the active Army is about broken. General Schoomaker is absolutely right, and all of my contacts within the Army suggest that the Army has a serious problem in the active force, and it’s a problem that will spread into the Guard and Reserves: Backlog of equipment that is not being repaired, soldiers–especially officers and noncommissioned officers–going on repetitive tours.”
link

Democrats Call For Draft

U.S. Representative Jim McDermott (D-Wash.) spoke Wednesday at the UW about reinstating the draft during declared war or national emergency. He described House Resolution 393 as a national service bill. He co-sponsored the bill with fellow veteran Congressman Charles Rangel (D-NY). It would require all citizens 18-42 to perform national service for two years. This requirement could be fulfilled through civilian volunteer work or through military service.
…
“Having a draft means everybody then cares,” he said. “If you believe in a democracy, you have to believe that the people will make the right choice.”
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“We’re going to have to face that question,” Biden said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” television show when asked if it was realistic to expect restoration of the draft. “The truth of the matter is, it is going to become a subject, if, in fact, there’s a 40 percent shortfall in recruitment. It’s just a reality,” he said.
link

—–
Interesting article in today’s Washington Post
(another dying newspaper that’s paying the price for leaning too far to the left)

In the weeks before the election, I noticed a growing number of my fellow citizens wearing Obama’s face on their t-shirts, usually in the spirit of socialist realism art. There’s not a politician alive who I admire enough to the point of worshipful adoration that I’d sport his likeness on my clothing or plaster it all over the wordsmobile (I do, however, wear my FA t-shirts with pride and enthusiastically tell people it’s a right-wing website when asked).

The only pro-McCain t-shirt I have seen in person was worn by a lone demonstrator in front of the house where an effigy of Sarah Palin was hung, supposedly in the spirit of Halloween. And even his didn’t sport McCain’s face on it.

I know that even in blue state California, here in the Los Angeles area, there were more than just a handful of McCain-Palin supporters. Yard signs and bumperstickers were more common; just not the t-shirts. And I’m sure a big part of that has to do with the intimidation factor.

There seem to be more loud activists on the left than on the right. Conservatives seem to not want to make a nuisance of themselves; but many liberals have no problem wearing their politics on their sleeves, on their t-shirts, on their cars. It’s apparently an automatic given that the whole world hates Bush; that’s why, in open public and broad daylight, they can say something derogatory about President Bush and feel safe in not getting called on it. Even amongst strangers.

The sad fact is, liberals, through the education system and through media and Hollywood pop culture, have been “allowed” to define and characterize conservatism. The Republican Party has been branded as the party of the rich; warmongers and war profiteers; racists and bigots. If you don’t believe in the alarmism of global warming, you are a “denier” and don’t care about the planet; if you believe in closing the borders, assimilation, and controlling immigration, then you’re against diversity and appreciation for the beauty of other cultures as well as anti-Mexican. And on and on, it goes…

I did not see one- NOT ONE!- “yes” on Prop 8 sign or button or bumpersticker. But I saw the “No” on Prop 8 placards around, perhaps even more than Obama signs. I thought it might pass, given that California voters had already “been there, done that” with Prop 22. What truly makes me livid about the issue, is how liberal activists once again are the ones who get to frame the debate. They’ve painted it as “the next good fight” in the struggle for civil rights and equality; and anyone who stands in the way is a bigot and a hatemonger, with backward religious beliefs and narrow-minded intolerance. Frankly, as someone rather agnostic on the issue, the bigotry and intolerance that I see is all coming from the self-righteous activists who won’t take “yes” for an answer and allow the majority rule to decide.

If you walk around with a “Yes” on Prop 8 sign the stigma is that you are a homophobic bigot and religious nut. You are the radical. Not the other way around. It’s also amusingly not funny to me that these activist bullies targeted the Mormon Church but not black churches when 70% of blacks voted “yes” on Prop 8. Ah, but I digress….

My post is actually about 14 year-old Catherine Vogt and her t-shirt experiment.

As the media keeps gushing on about how America has finally adopted tolerance as the great virtue, and that we’re all united now, let’s consider the Brave Catherine Vogt Experiment.

Catherine Vogt, 14, is an Illinois 8th grader, the daughter of a liberal mom and a conservative dad. She wanted to conduct an experiment in political tolerance and diversity of opinion at her school in the liberal suburb of Oak Park.

She noticed that fellow students at Gwendolyn Brooks Middle School overwhelmingly supported Barack Obama for president. His campaign kept preaching “inclusion,” and she decided to see how included she could be.

So just before the election, Catherine consulted with her history teacher, then bravely wore a unique T-shirt to school and recorded the comments of teachers and students in her journal. The T-shirt bore the simple yet quite subversive words drawn with a red marker:

“McCain Girl.”

“I was just really curious how they’d react to something that different, because a lot of people at my school wore Obama shirts and they are big Obama supporters,” Catherine told us. “I just really wanted to see what their reaction would be.”

Immediately, Catherine learned she was stupid for wearing a shirt with Republican John McCain’s name. Not merely stupid. Very stupid.

“People were upset. But they started saying things, calling me very stupid, telling me my shirt was stupid and I shouldn’t be wearing it,” Catherine said.

Then it got worse.

“One person told me to go die. It was a lot of dying. A lot of comments about how I should be killed,” Catherine said, of the tolerance in Oak Park.

But students weren’t the only ones surprised that she wore a shirt supporting McCain.

“In one class, I had one teacher say she will not judge me for my choice, but that she was surprised that I supported McCain,” Catherine said.

If Catherine was shocked by such passive-aggressive threats from instructors, just wait until she goes to college.

“Later, that teacher found out about the experiment and said she was embarrassed because she knew I was writing down what she said,” Catherine said.

How often do you suppose this happens in the classroom? Often, I believe. I work with a lot of kids and it sounds like liberal indoctrination is all too common. Outing oneself as belonging to a conservative Republican family, and the child is subjected to ridicule from the herd mentality of children who have been told Democrats are “the good guys” and Republicans are basically “evil and selfish”.

Scott’s own daughter experienced abuse by Obama bullies.

One student suggested that she be put up on a cross for her political beliefs.

“He said, ‘You should be crucifixed.’ It was kind of funny because, I was like, don’t you mean ‘crucified?’ ” Catherine said.

Other entries in her notebook involved suggestions by classmates that she be “burned with her shirt on” for “being a filthy-rich Republican.”

Some said that because she supported McCain, by extension she supported a plan by deranged skinheads to kill Obama before the election.

I’ve heard some deranged liberals accuse McCain of being a racist. Absolutely laughable, given one of the most under-reported items regarding Senator McCain is that he and Cindy have a Bangladesh daughter, Bridget, adopted from Mother Teresa’s orphanage. McCain did not politicize the touching story of how this daughter came into their lives, nor make an issue of his two sons currently serving.

And I thought such politicized logic was confined to American newsrooms. Yet Catherine refused to argue with her peers. She didn’t want to jeopardize her experiment.

“I couldn’t show people really what it was for. I really kind of wanted to laugh because they had no idea what I was doing,” she said.

Only a few times did anyone say anything remotely positive about her McCain shirt. One girl pulled her aside in a corner, out of earshot of other students, and whispered, “I really like your shirt.”

Whispered “out of earshot”…..

It’s time for conservatives to be more “activist” and to start fighting back more vocally and vociferously against the misperceptions and decades of slander against the Republican Party and conservative ideology. More importantly, we need to stem the tide of liberal indoctrination in our schools, when we turn on the tv, when we open up the newspaper, when we go out to see movies. If we don’t we will lose the culture war and we will lose the half of America that we believe represents the best part of America.

Hat tip: American Power for the story of Catherine Vogt.

Here’s the follow-up story.

Barack Obama has already stated an intention to appoint Republicans to his cabinet. Citing Abraham Lincoln as a precedent, Obama will even consider political enemies for powerful positions in his administration.

A source in Chicago informed me earlier today that John McCain will be meeting with Obama and his handlers tomorrow in Chicago in order to discuss the possibility of a Secretary of Defense appointment. That McCain will be in Chicago tomorrow is corroborated by an article London Times published one hour ago. The Times, however, claims McCain will most probably not be appointed to a Cabinet position. But he will be consulted on topics on which he and Obama have “common ground.” This certainly does not preclude the possibility of an appointment of McCain to Secretary of Defense.

Our source maintains that McCain will visit Chicago tomorrow in order to discuss the Secretary of Defense appointment.

Chicagoan at No Quarter raised some questions on this development, all of which leads me to believe McCain will not be appointed to the position. Obama’s campaign called McCain a warmonger and an extension of the Bush foreign policy. Just those two reasons alone makes me think a Obama appointment of McCain to SecDef would not go over to well with the MoveOn crowd….a crowd Obama relies on heavily for support. Plus, if he leaves his Senate spot to take this position, who will get his seat? The Governor of Arizona is a Democrat so a Dem would be appointed….can you say supermajority?

While this news is interesting it will not happen.

I’m sure it does signal the fact that Gates is out tho…no surprise there.

There seems to be a civil war going on. Hard to the right Conservatives who reluctantly jumped aboard the straight talk express- not because they were for McCain so much as they were against Obama (and for Palin)- are now angrily throwing McCain under the straight talk bus.

A small camp of conservatives blame the Palin pick. She rejuvenated the base but turned off independents, whether through legitimate concerns of competence, or fabricated, pro-Obama media irrationality. Nevertheless, by Sept 10th, she helped McCain come up 8 points from behind, only to lose that groundswell with the timing of the economic collapse.

Patrick Buchanan:

Why did John McCain lose?

Let’s start with those “headwinds” into which he was flying.

The president of the United States, the leader of his party, was at Nixon-Carter levels of approval, 25 percent, going into Election Day.

Sixty-two percent of the nation thought the economy was the No. 1 issue, and 93 percent thought the economy was bad. Two-thirds of the nation thought the war McCain championed was a mistake, and 80 percent to 90 percent thought the country was on the wrong course.

As a political athlete, measured by charisma and communications skills, McCain is not even in the same league with Barack Obama. He was outspent by vast sums, and his political organization was far inferior.

It is a wonder McCain was even competitive, dealt such a hand.

8 years of President Bush and the relentless media drumbeat pounding into voter consciousness the myth that it’s been nothing short of 8 years of absolute failed policies from Bush lied, people died, Hurricane Katrina, to today’s economy, the legacy of Bush as it stands today, was an albatross around the neck of the McCain campaign. McCain offered up more of the McSame, if you vote him into office.

If movement activists within the Party wish to throw CINOs under the bus, don’t just end it there with McCain. Throw President Bush under there, as well.

Bruce Walker:

President Bush, admired for his personal honor and deep faith, was respected by many conservatives, but he was hardly a conservative himself. No man who nominated Harriett Meiers to the Supreme Court could be considered a true conservative. Anyone who could embrace the vision of Ted Kennedy for our national education policy was not a true conservative. Anyone who could create a new entitlement for prescription drugs was not a true conservative.

Bush was simply a decent man who was not a Leftist Democrat. As McCain found out, being a decent man who is not a Leftist Democrat means nothing at all to the Left. Both men, like Bob Dole and like George H. Bush, are good Americans, admirable people, and men blissfully unaware that the Left is not just waging battles on issues like more socialism but are rather waging war on our entire way of life. Bush, Dole, McCain, and Bush Sr. were not wicked failures because they were not conservatives. They were more like Chamberlain at Munich: They did not grasp the true depth and nature of their adversary and, they thought, their adversary might be reasonable.

Jonah Goldberg:

For some liberals, this is clearly just a tactical pose. Bush is unpopular, so they hope to discredit conservatism by marrying it to Bush, just as Barack Obama succeeded by painting John McCain as a Bush clone. This is the moment, as Obama might say, to permanently block the right-hand fork in the road so the country can only move leftward.

The view on the right is very different, and the debate about the Bush years will largely determine the future of the Republican Party and the conservative movement.

Bush’s brand of conservatism was always a controversial innovation on the right. Recall that in 2000 he promised to be a “different kind of Republican,” and he kept his word. His partner in passing the No Child Left Behind Act was liberal Massachusetts Sen. Ted Kennedy. Bush’s prescription drug benefit — the largest expansion of entitlements since the Great Society — was hugely controversial on the right. He signed the McCain-Feingold bill to the dismay of many Republicans who’d spent years denouncing campaign-finance “reform” as an assault on freedom of speech. The fight over his immigration plan nearly tore the conservative movement apart.

This is not to suggest that Bush was in fact a liberal president. Politics is not binary like that. There were conservative triumphs — and failures — to the Bush presidency. He appointed two solid conservatives to the Supreme Court. He tried to privatize Social Security, though that failed for sundry reasons.

His much-touted “compassionate conservatism” was rejected by many on the right as a slap to traditional conservatives and an intellectual betrayal of Reaganite principles. It was a rhetorical capitulation to Bill Clinton’s feel-your-pain political posturing and an embrace of the assumptions that have been the undergirding of liberalism since the New Deal. That is, the measure of one’s compassion is directly proportionate to one’s support for large and costly government programs.

And Bush admitted as much. In an interview with the Weekly Standard’s Fred Barnes, Bush explained that he rejected William F. Buckley’s brand of anti-government conservatism. Conservatives had to “lead” and to be “activist,” he said. In 2003, Bush proclaimed that when “somebody hurts” government has to “move.” This wasn’t a philosophy of government as much as gooey marketing posing as principle. Ronald Reagan would have spontaneously burst into flames if he’d uttered such sentiments.

Dissent from Bush was muted for years, in large part because of 9/11 and the Iraq war. Conservatives, right or wrong, rallied to support their president, particularly in the face of shrill partisan attacks from Democrats who seemed more interested in tearing down the commander in chief than winning a war. But the Bush chapter is closing, and the fight to write the next one has begun.

Conservatives have criticized Bush for straying from conservative principles of fiscal responsibility, smaller government (when will Republicans begin walking the talk? Did even Reagan?), and on the issue of immigration. But they have also rallied to his defense against the political onslaught of those on the left who have inexplicably painted him as a far right conservative.

David Brooks examines whether traditionalists or reformers hold the magic formula to winning future elections.

Traditionalists own the conservative mythology. Members of the conservative Old Guard see themselves as members of a small, heroic movement marching bravely from the Heartland into belly of the liberal elite. In this narrative, anybody who deviates toward the center, who departs from established doctrine, is a coward, and a sellout.

This narrative happens to be mostly bogus at this point. Most professional conservatives are lifelong Washingtonians who live comfortably as organization heads, lobbyists and publicists. Their supposed heroism consists of living inside the large conservative cocoon and telling each other things they already agree with. But this embattled-movement mythology provides a rationale for crushing dissent, purging deviationists and enforcing doctrinal purity. It has allowed the old leaders to define who is a true conservative and who is not. It has enabled them to maintain control of (an ever more rigid) movement.

Ann Coulter sees Brooks as part of the problem.

Hugh Hewitt is more level-headed and pragmatic about it:

It is a fine column and sure to get e-mailed around, sparking snarky comments along the way.

But it vastly understates the complexity of the situation within the conservative movement and the GOP today, and largely because most of the names it names are Manhattan-Beltway media or organizational elitists. Many of these folks are my friends and colleagues and they do great work, but they don’t and can’t drive a movement or a party. Leaders and activists do that, and they do it from outside of New York or D.C.

More analysis

Some have had it “up to here” with the Republican Party as a whole and are ready to kick the GOP to the curb, as well, going independent.

The argument goes that the reason we lost is because we, as a political party, abandoned our conservative principles and ran too far to the center; not only this, but the Party itself has diluted itself of conservatism. Some purists seem to want to purge the Party of RINOs (laughably inaccurate label…what they should really mean is “CINO”: Conservative in Name Only. But I digress…) and wishy-washy center-right conservatives (like myself).

The thing is, most purists angry about the watered-down brand of conservatism they’ve been getting for the last decade, still came out against Obama if not exactly for McCain. Purists alone inhabit too small a tent to win elections. They need the center-right moderates as well as the independent voters to win in elections where the country is evenly divided. The Democrats this year, simply had the superior-packaged candidate who campaigned against Bush-fatigued Americans (Conservatives tired of defending a good president who’s governed too much to the center but has kept us safe; Liberals on the relentless assault who blame a fascist president for endangering us, taking away civil liberties, torture, credibility and standing in the world, etc., etc.) as well as the illusion of being a centrist moderate with promises of bipartisanship and “reaching across the aisle”.

2008 was not a landslide victory, nor indictment of conservative ideology.

An ideology that has been allowed to be defined by the opposition as a movement of racists, bigots, religious zealots, close-mindedness, selfish, for the rich and against the poor.

Hispanics and blacks share some of the same values as echoed by conservatism; yet they still vote against the Republican Party which has been characterized by Democrats as racist, xenophobic, and against the middle class and poor folk.

Liberals know what ideas they believe in. Does the right?

Regarding the label RINO:

Those who make war on RINO’s, however, ought to confront an obvious question: would you really prefer that such people drop the Republican designation? How does it help if politicians or office-holders with whom you disagree leave your party and join the opposition? When alleged “RINO” Jim Jeffords of Vermont left the GOP and joined the Democrats, it gave them control of the US Senate. When another RINO, Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island, lost his Senate seat in 2006, it also gave the Democrats control; if Chafee had won, we’d still have a Republican majority and GOP committee chairs. The truth is that no successful political party has ever been built on ideological purity. You can construct a majority coalition by bringing people into your party, not by driving them away. It’s childish and self-destructive to wage war based on some notion of “real conservatism” with those who want to align themselves with your side. Ronald Reagan himself used to say that “if somebody agrees with me 70% of the time, rather than 100%, that doesn’t make him my enemy.”

The definition of what constitutes a “RINO” seems to have expanded in 2008 by the angry right who lionize Reagan and claim ownership of his legacy. For many of these so-called, self-fashioned “Reagan footsoldiers”, Ronald Reagan would not be Reagan enough for them today, by their own measuring rod standard of conservatism.

Hugh Hewitt’s 2004 book, If it’s not Close, They Can’t Cheat, is a primer on how to win elections. And it doesn’t advocate for rooting out RINOs or movement activists and fanatics. It does advocate for a strategy on how to win elections by building a coalition of regulars, occasionals, principled pragmatists, movement activists, and fringe fanatics.

….insistence on personal taste is disastrous for political parties. There are only two real choices in America- Republican or Democrat. To demand more is to be disappointed before you begin, and to hand a victory to the set of choices most repellent to you.

Let me emphasize that if you walk away from politics because you can’t have everything your way, you are helping the people win who are least like you and most opposed to your views.

~~~

Majorities matter. Majorities matter. Majorities matter.

Sometimes when a purist Republican calls my show and denounces thir or that RINO (Republican in name only), I despair of ever teaching anyone the importance of majorities. For some reason, conservatives and especially evangelicals are stubborn when it comes to the importance of majorities.

These conservatives will talk sanctimoniously about voting on principle, or sitting an election out to “teach the Republican Party a lesson”.

These purists cannot bring themselves to vote for Republicans who don’t share their particular views, even if the election of a Republican majority in Congress hangs in the balance.

~~~

In short, the loss of one vote- even though it was the vote of the most liberal Republican senator- caused enormous damage to the Republican agenda, the president’s agenda, and the conservative agenda. Confirmations stalled. Bills died. The platform from which the agenda could be spotlighted and sold collapsed.

That’s how government operates. In a majority rule system like ours, either the Republican Party or the Democratic Party is in charge.

~~~

Some conservatives put fingers in their ears and make noises in an attempt to avoid the message, as though shouting ever changed words printed on a page. They don’t like the system. They want it their own way.

Just as there’s no dealing with tantrum-throwing two-year-olds, there’s no dealing with some voters. No appeals to reason and no number of repeated demonstrations of basic math matter to them.

These are not real conservatives. These are not even real single-interest voters. These are self-centered and selfish voters

~~~

you should always ask yourself if the candidate you support in a primary is electable in a general election. You have to look ahead to the general election’s likely opponent and ask if your candidate has the capabilities to win the contest that matters. It is no victory to support a candidate who wins a primary, only to lose the general election.

Yet those who don’t take into consideration a candidate’s electability can smugly feel good about themselves, “at least I stood on principle.”

Another lesson:

From Hugh Hewitt’s 2004 book, If It’s Not Close, They Can’t Cheat, pg77:

Republicans need to keep a majority of Senate seats in Republican hands; thus, we need liberal GOP senators as well as very conservative GOP senators and all those in between.

Which brings me to the subject of incumbents, especially those of your own party that you don’t like much.

Throughout 2003, a small group of conservative activists attempted to rally support to the insurgent candidacy of Pennsylvania Congressman Pat Toomey, who declared against incumbent Republican Senator Arlen Specter- a liberal Republican.

The Toomey candidacy came very close to unseating Specter, but it failed by a few thousand votes because serious conservatives understood that Specter keeps the Senate in GOP hands. Even had Toomey won in the primary, he would have been left open to withering attacks in the general election- with no money and Specter “moderates” practicing paybacks- as well as leaving disaffected the GOP voters who have stood with the iconoclastic Specter for many years.

Similar efforts have been launched in the recent past, including one against John McCain by Arizona conservatives who believe McCain to be insufficiently pure.

All such efforts against incumbents of all ideological shades are ill conceived and harmful, with one exception: where an incumbent is too weak to win reelection.

This happened in 2002 in New Hampshire where Senator Bob Smith, the Senate’s oddest Republican duck and an unreliable Republican- he bolted the party once, only to return later- was trailing the likely Democratic nominee in polls. A congressman, John Sununu, took on Smith in a primary and won, and he went on to hold the seat for the GOP in the fall 2002 elections. It was the sort of challenge to an incumbent that made sense, but it is rare.

Neither Specter nor McCain is a weak incumbent in general elections. Conservative purists should not only leave both men alone; they should enthusiastically support their reelection efforts. All the money and effort that goes into campaigns to push them out would be far better spent on helping folk like John Thune in South Dakota, a more conservative candidate than either McCain or Specter, but also a Republican running against a powerful Democrat- Tom Daschle.

Please absorb this basic fact about American politics: majorities, not individuals, govern. Without an understanding of this, the GOP’s return to near permanent minority status- and the powerlessness it includes- is all but guaranteed.

John Hawkins has had enough of Mitch McConnell. Many movement conservatives have long had enough of John McCain and were absolutely livid when he won the Party nomination. Still, most of them were smart enough to come to bat for him as a vote against Obama, if not for McCain. But since he lost the election, rather than sharing collective blame, the fingers are pointed to where the buck stops.

Ann Coulter reignites her disdain for McCain:

How many times do we have to run this experiment before Republican primary voters learn that “moderate,” “independent,” “maverick” Republicans never win, and right-wing Republicans never lose?

~~~

After showing nearly superhuman restraint throughout this campaign, which was lost the night McCain won the California primary, I am now liberated to announce that all I care about is hunting down and punishing every Republican who voted for McCain in the primaries. I have a list and am prepared to produce the names of every person who told me he was voting for McCain to the proper authorities.

We’ll start with former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Florida Gov. Charlie Crist. Then we shall march through the states of New Hampshire and South Carolina — states that must never, ever be allowed to hold early Republican primaries again.

Personally, I’d rather throw Ann Coulter under the bus (but won’t, because I’d rather have her within the Party even more than she wants wishy-washy moderates out of it). She’s an uber-conservative who oozes purist ideology. Yet rather than successfully get across the conservative message, her system of delivery only succeeds in alienation. Anyone think she could win an election? For the most part, I see her as part of the problem, not a solution. It’s not that I don’t share in much of her conservativism; it’s her intolerance for those who don’t live up to her standards and interpretation of it. If she wants the perfect presidential candidate who she can agree with on 100% of the issues, she should run for office. If she only wants those in her party with whom she agrees with 100% of the time as the only true conservatives, then she will inhabit a lonely small tent of election losers, relegating the Republican Party to an irrelevant 3rd, 4th, or last party (What was McCain’s lifetime ACU ranking again? Around 82%. Apparently not good enough for the party purists).

Read:
Poking my thumb in the eye of conservatives for their own good
John McCain: Republican Apostate?

Michael Medved:

No movement in U.S. political history has ever benefited from a purification process; purges always weaken or destroy a party’s vitality and viability, as even 1930’s Communists could attest. Nothing is more obvious in the American political process than the proposition that you win elections by attracting wafflers, moderates, dissenters, and independent spirits to your side; you lose elections by driving away such uncertain souls.

Of course, far right conservatives want to attract such voters in order to win based upon conservative ideas; for some inexplicable reason, though, they don’t seem to want them within the Republican Party. Not unless they are turned on by conservative ideology to the degree that they too become conservative purists.

Purists ruin movements, though. They lose elections. There just aren’t enough voters out there who think narrowly enough to satisfy the Party purists. It’s unlikely, too, that they will ever find their dream presidential candidate because the only way to find someone who will agree with them 100% of the time, would be to run for office themselves.

The following point is going to find disagreement amongst those who are hard to the right, like Coulter and Limbaugh and who fashion themselves as “Reagan conservatives”, claiming we’ve strayed from his brand of conservatism:

The greatest conservative of them all, Ronald Reagan, always understood this principle. At the moment of his greatest triumph, when he finally captured his party’s nomination in 1980, he didn’t turn to a “pure conservative” or a “true conservative” as his running mate. Instead, he chose party unity and selected George Herbert Walker Bush, a prime example of the Ivy League, country club Republican many right-wingers instinctively despised. Reagan also used Bush’s friend and aide, the notorious moderate James Baker, as his chief of staff. Unlike his mentor Barry Goldwater (who lost in a landslide), the Gipper understood throughout his career that a party that achieved “pure conservative” status would become a “pure loser” in competition for swing voters.

Moreover, history shows conclusively that a bitter defeat never pushes a conservative party farther right, or pushes a liberal party further left. Instead, political organizations that experience harsh rejection from the electorate move instinctively, inevitably toward the center in quest of precisely those middle-of-the-road voters who abandoned them in the previous contest. After outspoken conservative Barry Goldwater led the GOP to an overwhelming defeat in 1964, the nominees that followed (Nixon twice and then Gerald Ford) clearly represented the more moderate wing of the party. When unapologetic liberal George McGovern brought the Democrats a ruinous 49-state drubbing in 1972, they followed with a long series of relatively centrist, purportedly non-ideological candidates (Carter, Mondale, Dukakis, Clinton, Gore), reliably shunning the strong leftist contingent within their coalition.

There’s been some disagreement between me and others regarding how Senator Obama ran his campaign. I agree that his big spending proposals and party platform were not “centrist” by any means; and anyone who looked at his skimpy voting record in the U.S. Senate, his record in the Illinois State Senate, and his history of associations to radical activists and gravitation toward Marxist ideology, would fear him as a radically far left liberal. Furthermore, I don’t see the Democratic Party as moving toward the center to win elections, but more and more, being overtaken by Moveon.org… and becoming the party of Michael Moore and George Soros.

However, Obama’s image in how he portrayed himself to the American public- in how the media was complicit in suppressing anything that suggested differently, for the most part- was as a radically “centrist” liberal candidate. (Consider his inflexible record on abortion; you’d think Catholics would overwhelmingly vote against him; McCain’s record on supporting conservative judges and protecting the unborn is solid).

Here’s a useful checklist of Obama’s campaign promises, btw.

There is simply no historical model for the process of party defeat, purification and rejuvenation that some deluded conservatives recommend. Consider the sad state of the Republican Party during the 1930’s and ‘40’s. In 1928, Herbert Hoover represented the most moderate, or even progressive, nominee since Teddy Roosevelt in 1904. When Hoover got crushed by FDR in 1932, the Republicans didn’t turn back to solid conservatives in the Coolidge tradition. Instead they kept nominating moderates (Alf Landon, former Democrat Wendell Wilkie, New York progressive Tom Dewey twice, and then the non-ideological General Eisenhower) in the often forlorn hope that they could woo wavering independents or conservative Democrats away from the New Deal coalition. Not even five consecutive defeats on the Presidential level led the Republicans to shift to a more conservative, ideologically rigorous posture.

I believe in conservative ideology. I don’t believe the American public rejected conservatism; nor did they reject the watered-down brand of conservatism that McCain represents to so many angry conservatives (for those who argue there wasn’t a conservative- other than Palin- in the bunch). After all, Palin was on McCain’s ticket; and although she energized the base and gave us our own rock star, she failed to attract the all-valuable independent votes as her character was savagely dragged through the mud and she was portrayed as not only ignorant, but as a far right Bible-thumping conservative hillbilly nut rather than the outside-the-beltway reformer willing to take on and weed out corrupting influences from her own political party. She, more so than Obama, is a true Washington outsider, living amongst the Joe Six-Packs and Joe the Plumbers; not the Joe Six-Terms.

Michael Medved:

Some of the nation’s most influential conservatives (on talk radio and elsewhere) have begun promoting the odd idea that John McCain lost the election because he ran as a “moderate” and a “maverick” rather than a “true conservative.” According to this argument, the GOP nominee could have won the White House had he only “taken the gloves off” and run to the right, without apology. This logic suggests that candidates fare better when they display ideological rigor and consistency, and that Republicans can never succeed by going after moderate and independent votes.

Fortunately, there’s an easy way to test this theory. McCain appeared on the 2008 ballot with some of the nation’s most outspoken, hard line conservatives, who won nomination for governor or US Senator. If the argument is true that you can win more votes by appealing to right-wingers, rather than aiming for the center, then conservative Senate and gubernatorial candidates should have out-performed McCain, particularly in solidly Republican Southern or Midwestern states.

In fact, the results from Tuesday show that McCain did better than his conservative running mates—and in some cases, much better. In New Mexico, for instance, the Presidential nominee ran three points ahead of the hard-line, anti-immigration candidate Steve Pearce, who ran for an open Senate seat. McCain also drew three points more than incumbent Senator Saxby Chambliss in Georgia, six percentage points more than Senator Elizabeth Dole in North Carolina, five points more than re-elected Senate leader Mitch McConnell in Kentucky, two points more than Senator Roger Wicker in Mississippi. The McCain-Palin ticket also drew twelve points more in Virginia than former governor Jim Gilmore, running for an open Senate seat, ran thirteen points ahead of conservative challenger John Kennedy in Louisiana, and three points more than impassioned, eloquent right-wing Congressman Bob Schaffer in Colorado (running for another open Senate seat). Joel Dykstra, a militant pro-life leader in the South Dakota legislature, challenged ailing Democratic Senator Tim Johnson, and drew only 38% of the vote, in a state McCain carried easily with 53% — a huge fifteen point difference in their strength at the ballot box.

In fact, McCain ran well ahead of Republican nominees for Senate and governorships almost everywhere – except in those cases when statewide GOP candidates had cultivated their own reputations for independence, centrism, and ideological flexibility.

For instance, Senator Susan Collins of Maine beat back a well-financed Democratic challenge and drew an amazing 61% in her state – where McCain got only 40%. Likewise, Gordon Smith in Oregon (who may still retain his seat after the long tabulation process concludes) advertised his willingness to work with Democrats (including Barack Obama) and ran four points ahead of McCain. Lindsey Graham (derided by anti-immigration activists as “Lindsey Graham-nesty”) won easy re-election with 58% — four points ahead of McCain’s own strong showing in the Palmetto State. And in Minnesota, in a complicated three-man race, independent-minded Norm Coleman seems to have earned a squeaker victory in a state that McCain lost by a full ten points.

In other words, uncompromising “movement” conservatives performed far worse than the GOP’s “maverick” Presidential nominee—even in some of the nation’s most conservative states (Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, Louisiana, South Dakota). On the other hand, Senators (and gubernatorial candidates like Washington’s Dino Rossi) who stressed their independence, bi-partisanship and non-ideological approach to the issues (Collins, Graham, Smith, Coleman) drew more votes than McCain in their states – even when those states were as conservative as re-elected Senator Graham’s South Carolina. In any event, there’s scant evidence that McCain (who generally ran more strongly than his statewide counterparts) in any dragged down local candidates in his losing but gallant campaign. If anything, some of those local candidates seem to have dragged down McCain.

In other words, the undeniable facts about the recently concluded election offer a complete, consistent, and powerful rebuttal to the misguided notion that running to the right as a “true conservative” pays off more than going after moderate and independent voters. In every state of the union, no matter how bright red its hue, comparisons between McCain’s results and those of statewide Senate and gubernatorial candidates suggest that Republicans do better when they target the rich cache of votes at the center of the political spectrum. The exit polling for 2008 showed that only 34% of voters called themselves “conservative” (and McCain won an overwhelming 78% of those votes). Meanwhile, 45% of this year’s voters said they were “moderate.” This means that even if a candidate secures every available conservative vote he’d still lose in a landslide without a strong showing among moderates and independents. (McCain lost self-described moderates to Obama by a modest margin, and thereby lost the election).

Old Soldier makes a solid rebuttal point to Medved’s comparison of Congressional seats to campaigning for the presidency:

First of all, the comparison is drawn between McCain’s bid for the presidency, and senator’s and representative’s bids for congressional seats. This is an apples and oranges comparison in that congressional politicians have a localized base to which they must appeal; be it a state or a district. A presidential candidate must appeal to the whole nation or at least enough to garner 271 electoral votes. There is a world of difference between local and national level constituency bases.

There is a difference, but I’m not sure if there is a “world of difference”.

Medved concludes:

Appealing to the quirky, restless, independent-minded voters who see themselves traveling down the middle of the road shouldn’t require compromising core conservative principles. Appealing to the political center shouldn’t involve abandoning ideals but it may require adopting a more cooperative, pragmatic, non-ideological tone. Conservatives have already found the right substance on the issues but they still need to learn to adopt the right style in presenting it.

Of course, John Hawkins asks 15 good questions of those who think the GOP should campaign toward the center:

#1) If both the GOP and the Democrats support bigger government, how does the country survive long term given the size of the debt we already have and the deficits we’re running right now? In other words, how can running massive deficits possibly be sustainable over the long haul?

#2) If the GOP were to officially become a big government party, wouldn’t there be a real danger of having a large third party spring up that would represent the considerable number (I’d say a majority, at least in the abstract) of Americans who do want smaller government and less spending?

#3) If the GOP becomes a big government party, how do you see us differentiating ourselves from the Democratic Party? Do we spend almost as much as they do, but not quite as much? Do we spend even more? Do we favor deficit spending, but just on different things? Isn’t there a real danger that Democrats — since their base tends to generally be OK with excessive spending — could simply outbid us on anything we offered to the American people?

#4) Since the majority of the GOP’s core supporters don’t agree with “moderate” positions like big spending or amnesty, feel very strongly about it, and feel those positions harm the party politically, how can the party continue to hew to those positions over the long term without being permanently at odds with the people who should be their strongest supporters?

#5) Let’s do the math on amnesty: there are roughly 12-20 million illegal immigrants, most of whom are Hispanics. Hispanics broke 70/30 for the Democrats in 2006 and 69/31 for the Dems in 2008 according to the latest exit poll data. If the split stayed at 70/30 and 12-20 million new illegals were made citizens, that would mean the Democrats would add another 4.8 to 8 million potential new voters as a result of amnesty. The top end of that scale is a larger margin than what Barack Obama won by in 2008.

Additionally, even if the GOP improved our numbers with Hispanics — which we certainly need to do — we’ve never come close to getting 50% of the Hispanic vote. With all that in mind, isn’t amnesty political suicide for the GOP?

#6) Some people tend to assume that Hispanics vote almost entirely on the illegal immigration issue, but I would assert that there is very little objective evidence for that. George Bush and John McCain are the two biggest proponents of amnesty in the Republican Party and neither of them is particularly popular with Hispanics today. In fact, according to exit polls, against a candidate who was thought to be weak with Hispanics, John McCain only got 31% of the Hispanic vote. So, what objective evidence convinces you that Hispanics vote largely on illegal immigration and that if the GOP supports amnesty, it will get us over the 50% threshold with Hispanics?

#7) Given that the mainstream media overwhelmingly supports the Democrats, it’s extremely important for the GOP to have the support of conservative talk radio hosts, magazines, and the RightRoots. Since the new media is overwhelmingly comprised of conservatives, how does a moderate GOP gain their genuine support over the long haul?

#8) Follow-up question to #7: If the GOP can’t get the new media back enthusiastically on its side — which is likely to be the case unless there are changes on spending and illegal immigration policies — how does the GOP get the base fired up? In other words, if Rush Limbaugh, Michelle Malkin, Ann Coulter, Laura Ingraham, etc., etc., are telling everyone who’ll listen that the Republicans stink, how does the Republican Party work around that?

#9) Setting aside the conservative media, obviously the conservative movement is lacking energy and passion right now. Many people, myself included, would say that this has a lot to do with the position that the GOP has been taking on immigration and spending issues. How does the GOP get conservatives supporting the GOP again, instead of just opposing the Democrats, if the party continues to pursue big government policies and amnesty?

#10) If amnesty, big government, and deficit spending are winning issues for the Republican Party, why did we take such a huge beating in 2006 and 2008 despite pursuing those very policies?

#11) Over the last two elections, moderate Republicans haven’t quite been wiped out, but percentage wise, they’ve suffered much higher losses than conservative Republicans. If moderate Republicans can’t even win elections in moderate districts now, why would we want to adopt that losing philosophy across our whole party when conservatives are winning at a much, much higher clip across the country?

#12) As moderate columnist David Brooks has said,

There is not yet an effective Republican Leadership Council to nurture modernizing conservative ideas. There is no moderate Club for Growth, supporting centrist Republicans. The Public Interest, which used to publish an array of public policy ideas, has closed. Reformist Republican donors don’t seem to exist. Any publication or think tank that headed in an explicitly reformist direction would be pummeled by its financial backers. National candidates who begin with reformist records — Giuliani, Romney or McCain — immediately tack right to be acceptable to the power base.

So, there are no moderate think tanks, no moderate donors, the new media is overwhelmingly conservative, the Republican base and activists are overwhelmingly conservative — shouldn’t that tell people something about whether the idea of a moderate GOP is workable?

#13) Follow-up question to #12: If a moderate Republican Party is workable, how do you make it work without the new media, think tanks, money, or an excited base on your side?

#14) John McCain was the most moderate candidate the GOP has run since Richard Nixon. In fact, he’s the standard bearer of the “moderate Republican” wing of the party and yet the media trashed him, he had trouble raising money — and other moderates, including prominent moderate Republicans like Colin Powell and Christopher Buckley, voted for Obama. In the end, McCain received almost 4 million less votes than Bush did in 2006. Doesn’t that suggest that moderate Republican candidates may have trouble raising money, retaining moderates, and generating the enthusiasm from the Republican base that will be needed to win?

#15) When the Democratic Party was out of power, the party moved to the left, not to the center. They obstructed the GOP at every opportunity, put hard-core left-wingers in charge of everything, and ran an extremely liberal candidate in 2008. Granted, they also had moderate Democrats that they ran in states and districts that leaned red, but those people are almost completely locked out of power and their agenda is largely ignored. Since that strategy worked so well for the Democrats, doesn’t it make more sense for the GOP to pursue the same strategy instead of continuing the move to the center that has done so much damage to the party over the last two elections?

There were a number of reasons why conservatives lost this election (glass ceiling of the first non-white president, campaign money, biased media, 8 years of Bush); I don’t think blaming RINOs and moderates is the answer to our woes. I’m not so sure this self-bleeding is necessary, although introspection is usually beneficial. The GOP definitely could use a makeover. In terms of physical image (more Palins and Jindals and Steeles and a few less “old white men”, as superficial as it may sound), and in terms of ideological image. Basically, that WE should be the ones defining who we are; not the opposition party. Through the media, through Hollywood and pop culture, through k12 and university indoctrination, liberalism has saturated the hearts and minds of many Americans while stifling and distorting conservative ideology.

Matt Lewis offers up a few suggestions:

One thing we probably can all agree on is that to win elections again, the GOP must embrace the Internet and technology. As such, I have joined in an effort to encourage the next GOP Chairman to modernize the party and to embrace technology.

Both Barack Obama and Ron Paul took full advantage of the internet as a vehicle to spread their message and gather campaign contributions.

But tactics are not enough. To win the future, conservatives must — in my opinion — also find ways to make our timeless classical liberal principles relevant to the 21st century. This, in my estimation, is the most important intellectual discussion we can engage in for the next months (or possibly years). And since we are in the brainstorming phase of this process, let me throw it open to you: If we were creating a new contract with America, what 10 bullet points would you include?

Following are a few of my thoughts…

- The GOP must become the Party of science and math. This might include new energy ideas, a major investment in educating our children to compete with China in science and math, space exploration, etc.

- The GOP simply cannot continue to lose the Hispanic vote to the degree we lost it in 2008. I am not suggesting we support Amnesty. Instead, I am making a factual statement based on math.

- The GOP must embrace the future. Part of this means accepting that some industries and jobs will go away as high-tech jobs and industries arise. We must develop smart ideas regarding how workers can be re-trained and given the technological information to improve their lives — not just survive the changes.

Some voters smugly brag about how they don’t vote for any party; that they vote on principle, and vote for the individual. I believe that of the two parties, the Republican Party is the one that best represents my politics. I vote on principle as well by voting Republican, top to down, on a general election ticket. That’s because I believe that my party is what’s best for my country (Hence, the title of this convoluted post.). That is, until such times as the opposition party becomes more conservative than the one I’m currently in. It takes a majority vote to influence legislation in Congress, and the Party with which I agree with most of the time, is the Republican one.

Hugh Hewitt, If It’s Not Close They Can’t Cheat, pg 74:

it is much easier to remind voters why they want to hold their noses and vote for the party despite misgivings over the individual.

When you explain the importance of majorities, use a familiar example, like a church congregation or a homeowners association. Ask your friends if, faced with a vote of a congregation to keep or dismiss a pastor or of an HOA to allow or reject a home addition or other remodeling project, they want to be on the winning side of the vote. They will answer “yes” if they are anything other than permanently irascible.

Once they say they want to have a majority on their side in any particular situation, then ask them if they care about the various motivations behind the votes of those who agree with them.

Most people might pause, but in practice the answers are almost invariably “no”. If your friend wants the pastor to get tossed out, he doesn’t care why others are voting for the pastor to get the boot. It doesn’t matter why others in the majority are voting no. What matters is the tally that conclusively ousts the minister.

If you want to add an upstairs level to your home, it doesn’t matter a bit if the three votes on the five-member homeowners association board denying your plans are cast for different reasons. The result is a unitary one: no building that second story. The majority dictated the result.

For all the tacky talk in media circles, where folks have extremely over-inflated opinions of themselves, one would think that Sarah Palin was the sole arbiter of Republican defeat this year.

What a pile of preposterous poppycock!

From the beginning of ‘08, the accepted wisdom was that no matter whom the Democrats nominated, they would deliver to the Republicans an ignominious defeat. But this year’s defeat was anything but the complete rout it was supposed to be.

And the person who nearly even saved the day — and the election — for Republicans was Sarah Palin.

This is not a minority opinion. When Rasmussen conducted detailed exit polling among Republicans, they found that a full 69% of respondents thought Sarah Palin helped — not hurt — McCain. Governor Palin has not garnered the status as America’s most highly regarded, most popular governor for nothing.

And how much do Republicans admire Sarah Palin? Far more than anyone else on our side of the aisle, according to more Rasmussen tidbits:

Ninety-one percent (91%) of Republicans have a favorable view of Palin, including 65% who say their view is very favorable. Only eight percent (8%) have an unfavorable view of her, including three percent (3%) very unfavorable.

When asked to choose among some of the GOP’s top names for their choice for the party’s 2012 presidential nominee, 64% say Palin. The next closest contenders are two former governors and unsuccessful challengers for the presidential nomination this year — Mike Huckabee of Arkansas with 12% support and Mitt Romney of Massachusetts with 11%.

And just how was it that the pitbull in lipstick upset the pundits and the prognosticators this year, at least in the matter of degree?

The woman, in my opinion, is a natural Patton. A fighter to the core. Palin seems to instinctively know that when one is hip-deep in a culture war and a fight for the survival of American exceptionalism, then one must do more than defend, defend, defend.

If one is not willing to attack in defense of one’s cause, then he ought to get out of the way at the very least — or consider joining the other side.

At least that’s my paraphrase of one of the Patton doctrines.

Sarah Palin came out fighting on her night in the convention spotlight. In her speech, she relied on the same line of attack that catapulted her from Wasilla mayor to governor of Alaska: plainspoken, honest convictions and a sense of humor.

And she debuted with some of the most memorable lines of this entire campaign:

I guess a small-town mayor is sort of like a “community organizer,” except that you have actual responsibilities.

I might add that in small towns, we don’t quite know what to make of a candidate who lavishes praise on working people when they are listening, and then talks about how bitterly they cling to their religion and guns when those people aren’t listening.

We tend to prefer candidates who don’t talk about us one way in Scranton and another way in San Francisco.

Sarah Palin’s appeal was her willingness to fight — and fight courageously — for the American taxpayers, the ones who actually pay the bills for all that bureaucratic largess and faux generosity.

The only reason many of us Republicans were able to vote for McCain without holding our noses was because of Sarah. If she is no threat why would the MSM and the left spend so much time trying to trash her? From her clothes to fake stories about Africa. Why? Because they know she is a political sensational. She came out of nowhere and in the final ten weeks pulled a loser of a campaign back into onto the race track.

Teacher Diantha Harris browbeats McCain supporting student, Kathy,in Ashville N.Carolina grade school. The poor girl is obviously distressed over the teacher’s line of questiong and belittling her choice of candidate in front of her school mates.

Note the use of vague promises of “change”, and abusing the “100 more years of Iraq war” to McCain when addressing the military daughter/student. Also, that the war was “senseless”.

Moral of the story? Keep a close eye on what they are teaching your children in school….

What happened tonight may be historical in many ways. The way I take it is one completely different than those I know. This defeat has left me bitter and hurt. It’s something I will have to work to repair within myself. Am I disappointed? Yes. Not by my country but the people within the country. My words are obviously filled with anger and sadness. You would have felt the same way if Barack Obama had lost so let me have my right to grieve over this election.

My words are jumbled, rushed, and hardly eloquent right now. As everyone knows I think too much and say too little. It’s not in my nature to say everything that‘s on my mind and in my heart. Well, tonight that’s been broken. There will be no more of the quiet reader or the silent thinker. My role will be much different after today.

John Adam once said that no democracy lasts. It often commits suicide. Maybe this our beginning of the end. Maybe not. Only time will tell. Many people probably think I’m a fool or an idiot for crying as I write this but this election meant a lot more to me than I thought it did. My heart had become entwined with the McCain campaign and when PA and OH came, my heart broke just like the rest of theirs. It was a hard fought battle but battle that just had too much ammo against a man that I consider my own personal role model. I hope to emulate his gracious exit with some dignity intact though it it’ll take me a few days to wrap my head around this. I knew the reality but I didn’t want to accept it until I saw the words on the screen.

Perhaps I invested too much spirit into this campaign and not enough effort. Perhaps my belief that people would look beyond a face, beyond the charm that they would see was wrong. The people of Ohio and Pennsylvania didn’t look to facts, didn’t listen to the common sense. You thought George Bush was bad? Tell me how you feel in four years.

So, I concede defeat for this round but I will never give up the war. I will be a part of history and hopefully alter it for the better.

Your question to me will probably be, am I going to get behind a President Barack Obama? My question to you in return is, did you get behind President George Bush?

McCain sues to force Va. to count military ballots
By BOB LEWIS
Associated Press Writer

Republican John McCain’s presidential campaign sued the Virginia election board Monday, claiming absentee ballots weren’t mailed on time to military members serving overseas.

The complaint asks the U.S. District Court in Richmond to order the state to count absentee ballots postmarked by Tuesday and received by Nov. 14. It contends that thousands of troops’ ballots – many of which would go to McCain – will not be counted.

The deadline for ballots to be received is 7 p.m. Election Day, which is Tuesday.

The lawsuit is the second in a week to challenge preparations for the presidential election in Virginia, where Barack Obama hopes to become the first Democrat since 1964 to win the state’s 13 electoral votes. Polls over the past week show him about even with or slightly ahead of McCain.

More than 436,000 new Virginia voters have registered since Jan. 1, and about 500,000 people – a tenth of the state’s electorate- have cast absentee ballots.

The NAACP sued the state last week, alleging it allotted too few voting machines for the enormous number of voters in majority black precincts expected to be drawn by the prospect of electing Obama as the first black president.

U.S. District Judge Richard L. Williams on Monday declined to order longer voting hours and other changes requested by the NAACP. He did order the elections board to publicize the availability of curbside voting for older or disabled voters and the fact that people in line by 7 p.m. will be allowed to vote.

A hearing on McCain’s lawsuit is scheduled for 1:30 p.m. Tuesday before Williams.

That lawsuit alleges that ballots for overseas military voters were mailed too late to ensure they are returned by the deadline. Defendants are the chairwoman, vice chairman and executive secretary of the state elections board.

A 1986 federal law requires ballots to be mailed to military voters in foreign countries at least 45 days before the election, which this year would have been Sept. 20. The lawsuit alleges the state didn’t have the ballots printed and sent to local officials by then, meaning they may not have been mailed overseas until October.

Ashley L. Taylor Jr., an attorney for McCain, said tens of thousands of oversees military absentee ballots could be voided unless the deadline is extended.

“The last thing you want is to have a service member in Afghanistan or Iraq who received his ballot too late not being able to vote in this election,” Taylor said.

Board Chairwoman Jean Cunningham said late Monday afternoon the board had not seen the lawsuit and could not comment.

Associated Press Writer Larry O’Dell contributed to this report.

TEHRAN (Reuters) – Iranians marked the 1979 seizure of the U.S. embassy on Monday, a day before Americans elect a new president, with some demonstrators indifferent to the U.S. vote and a few wondering if it could help rebuild ties.

Iran has been a focus of the foreign policy debate in the U.S. campaign before Tuesday’s vote. Both candidates, Democrat Barack Obama and Republican John McCain, say they will toughen sanctions. Obama says he is prepared to engage in direct talks.

Kayhan International, a hardline English-language daily, said in a column that it did not matter who won the U.S. race. “Hopefully either of the two would be presiding over the end of the U.S. domineering system, whose den of espionage was taken over this day in 1979 by Tehran University students, in a move that nipped in the bud the plots of the White House against the newfound Islamic Republic,” it wrote on its front page.

The United States cut ties with Tehran in 1980. Washington now says it is considering opening a U.S. interests section in Tehran, which would mean sending diplomats. It says this would show the United States was against Iran’s government not people. But amid “Death to America” chants outside the former U.S. mission, some wondered if Tuesday’s vote could bring change.

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