Month: April 2007

2 Comments Posted on '08 Election, Democrats, Liberals, Moonbats

random thoughts on the democratic debate

What Keith Olbermann oh-so-cleverly called “the spotlight dance” between Obama and Clinton (and those other people) failed to reveal anything that we didn’t already know. There was no compelling story in this debate, only the regularly scheduled Bush-bashing and an argument over which candidate would get us out of Iraq the fastest. That’s why all the buzz was around two (shall we say) lesser lights in the Democratic field, Mike Gravel and Dennis Kucinich.  (I especially liked Gravel’s accusation that Barack wanted to nuke somebody…)

Transcript available here.

Kucinich doesn’t buy the line that they did the best they could with the information they had at the time. At least he has what could be charitably called an Iraq plan.

KUCINICH:

I have a plan, H.R. 1234, a plan to end the war in Iraq, which calls on the international community to provide peacekeepers and security forces that will move in as our troops leave. But we can’t do that until we determine we’re going to end the occupation. And we will do that when we stop the funding.

Any plan that primarily depends on the international community for its success is doomed to failure.  There should be collaboration with the international community, but I’m not sure what makes Kucinich think that he can do what much more skilled politicians have failed to do. What would convince those countries who had previously promised their support to actually provide it? I don’t know the answer, and Kucinich probably doesn’t either.

That said, he is committed to getting the US out of Iraq, for better or for worse. He calls out the other candidates for continuing to pay for this war that they don’t support.   He has been the candidate who takes unpopular positions on issues, and that’s something you can’t say about most of the Democratic front-runners. He could be the most hard-left candidate the Dems have…except for Mike Gravel.

Mike Gravel said some unbelievable stuff…like this:

We need to find another way. I really would like to sit down with Pelosi and with Reid, and I would hope the other senators would focus on, how do you get out? You pass the law, not a resolution, a law making it a felony to stay there. And I’ll give you the text of it.

And if you’re worried about filibuster, here’s what you do tactically. They can pass it in the House. We’ve got the votes there. We’ve got the votes there.  In the Senate, let them filibuster it. And let Reid call up every — at 12:00 every day to have a cloture vote. And let the American people see clearly who’s keeping the war going and who’s not.

Good luck with that, Mr. Gravel. Did you catch that? He wants to make it a FELONY to stay in Iraq. Left unclear, of course, is WHO Gravel wants to put in jail.  I’m guessing it’s the President of the United States, but maybe I should ask him the question just to be sure . It’s quite difficult to be left of Kucinich, so I give him credit for succeeding with that.

Even though I have no doubt that both of these men believe everything they said in the debate, these statements weren’t entirely made out of conviction.   They were made out of necessity —  a need to distinguish themselves from their fellow travelers…and maybe in the process steal some inhabitants of nutroots nation. What we saw from them in this debate is Exhibit A why third-tier candidates, whether they are Democrats, Libertarians, Greens, or the Vampires party, haven’t yet attained that credibility that one must have to break into the top tier in any presidential race.

Another reason these candidates can’t seem to get any traction is that choosing a presidential candidate has become more about image than about substance.  Image consciousness drives the process in both parties.  In the non-political world, we would be more impressed with Joe Biden and Bill Richardson and their experience/ qualifications than we are with Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. The Republican or Democratic presidential nomination is no longer given to the most qualified, but to the candidate whose family looks the best on a Christmas card.

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4 Comments Posted on Random Musings

i’m truly shocked

According to the Financial Times of London, carbon offsets such as the kind purchased by corporations, big Hollywood celebs, and Al Gore provide little to no environmental benefit.  You don’t say. We can expect nothing much to be reported about this, and all those buying into this myth will continue to preach to us about wasting toilet paper and driving big gas-guzzling SUVs. Until all these ‘greenies’ start practicing what they preach, and allowing opposing arguments on the environment to be heard…I can’t buy what they’re selling.

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2 Comments Posted on Democrats, Iraq

good point

WITHOUT meaning to do so, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has pushed the debate on Iraq in a new direction.Reid claims that the war is lost and that the United States has already been defeated.

By advancing the claim, Reid has moved the debate away from the initial antiwar obsession with the legal and diplomatic controversies that preceded it.

At the same time, Reid has parted ways with Democratic leaders such as Sen. Hillary Clinton, who supported the war but who now claims that its conduct has been disastrous. What they mean, by implication, is that a Democratic president would do better than George W. Bush and win the war.

Reid’s new position, however, means that even a Democratic president wouldn’t be able to ensure a U.S. victory in Iraq. For him, Iraq is irretrievably lost.

Some antiwar analysts have praised Reid for what they term “his clarity of perception.” A closer examination, however, would show that Reid might have added to the confusion that has plagued his party over the issue from the start.

Because all wars have winners and losers, Reid, having identified America as the loser, is required to name the winner. This Reid cannot do.

The reason is that, whichever way one looks at the situation, America and its Iraqi allies remain the only objective victors in this war.

Amir Taheri in the New York Post

Read it all here. It is a different view to say that under competent management, Iraq is a war that can be won. What Harry Reid is saying is that there is no way anyone can manage a successful end to the war in Iraq.  He asks the question of who the winner of the war is…if the United States has truly lost it, and there doesn’t seem to be one at this point. This won’t always be the case if the Democrats succeed in ending our involvement in Iraq.

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2 Comments Posted on '08 Election, Republicans

more mitt

Here’s my theory that I’m just going to throw out there for discussion: Mitt Romney was never able to completely convince pro-choicers that he was one of them, no matter what he said publicly. We are quite familiar with the Senate debate video clips, and the accusations leveled of flip-flopping on the issue of abortion. Less familiar to conservatives still struggling with supporting Mitt is the fact that he had the endorsement of Massachusetts Citizens for Life in 1994…because “he supported parental-consent laws, opposed taxpayer-funded abortion or mandatory abortion coverage under a national insurance plan and was against the Freedom of Choice Act that would have codified Roe”. He certainly didn’t convince Kate Michelman of NARAL that he was 100% pro-choice.

In the above linked article, Michelman accuses Romney of a “campaign of deception to hide his anti-choice views”. Interesting. Even after all the signs pointed to Romney being, at the very least, pro-choice friendly, there were still doubts about his position on abortion by activists like Michelman. The whole American Spectator article deserves a look, because it does shed a little light on Romney’s past record on abortion, and it brings out several things the casual observer may not realize about that past.

I’m not suggesting that Romney was always pro-life, just that he has taken positions in the past which are consistent with pro-life positions, even before he became governor. He admitted that he has changed his position on abortion, but I’m not sure he was ever 100% pro-choice to begin with. It takes extreme political skill to convince activists from both sides of this issue that you support their view, and it’s not surprising that Romney couldn’t completely pull it off.

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Posted on '08 Election, Conservatives, Republicans

mccain

maybe he’s not the conservative’s prince charming, but right now he’s saying all the right things.

“I’m not running for President to be somebody, but to do something; to do the hard but necessary things not the easy and needless things. I’m running for President to protect this country from harm and defeat our enemies. I’m running for President to make the government do its job, not your job; to do it with less, and to do it better. I’m running for President to defend our freedom and expand our opportunities. I’m running for President not to leave our biggest national problems to some unluckier generation of leaders, but to fix them now, and leave our grandchildren a safer, freer and more prosperous country than the one we were blessed to inherit; I’m running for President to make sure America maintains its place as the political and economic leader of the world; the country that doesn’t fear change but makes change work for us; the country that doesn’t long for the good old days, but aspires to even better days. I’m running for President of the United States, not a defeated country, not a bankrupt country; not a timid and frightened country; not a country fragmented into bickering interest groups with no sense of or dedication to the national interest; not a country with a bloated, irresponsible and incompetent government. I’m not running for town manager or school board member or corporate treasurer or surgeon general or head of the trial lawyers association or secretary of the local charity. I’m running for President of the United States, the most powerful, prosperous nation and greatest force for good on earth. And if I am elected President I intend to keep it so. Thank you.”

read it all here.

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2 Comments Posted on '08 Election, Conservatives, Republicans

struggle

Getting involved on the grassroots level of politics usually means that, during that process, you end up meeting people who are very passionate about the candidates they are supporting and the party they belong to.  It’s necessary that there is diversity of opinion in a political party, and there is no possible way that everyone will always be on the same page. What worries me going into ’08 is that this passion will cause divisions between members of the same party who, after our candidate is selected in the primary process, could refuse to support that candidate because he might not pass all the ideological roadblocks that have been placed in his path.

There are folks that I respect very much who have decided to support several of the second and third tier candidates in the Republican field.  I also know several people supporting Romney and McCain whose opinions I value a great deal.  In the absence of a viable “true conservative” who is 100% in the Reagan mold, we have the current front-runners, who all have some problems with the conservative base.  During the primary process, it is absolutely fair to try to convince supporters of another candidate, like Romney, for example, to back a more conservative, but less viable candidate like Huckabee, Duncan Hunter, or Sam Brownback. I don’t think the conservative cred of any of those gentlemen is in question.  I will concede that to their supporters. But there are other considerations for the Republican nominee for President than just being conservative enough for the base.

There is a fight going on for the soul of the Republican party. Every group wants a piece. The SoCons  (or the religious right), the fiscal conservatives, those who are more liberal on social issues, and the “compassionate conservatives” who support excessive spending on programs that do not work and see no problem with allowing illegal immigrants who have broken the law to continue to do so…these are just a few of the constituency groups we have to deal with. This is a healthy debate to have within the party, and one could make a strong case that the Republican party has strayed from its roots. I don’t think you would get much argument from conservatives on that, especially social conservatives.

But I’m not ready to exclude candidates who have a good chance of winning the nomination / Presidency simply because they can’t check off on a checklist all the conservative hot button issues. There are others who feel the same way that I do about this, and none of us should feel that we are less of a conservative just because we may not be supporting the most conservative candidate in the field.  This is the message we are getting, whether intentional or not, from supporters of Huckabee, Hunter, and Brownback, and I just don’t think that this is the best argument to make to fellow conservatives.

There seems to be this fear that the Republican party will lurch inexorably left should Giuliani or Romney get the nomination. I don’t see this happening. Conservatives will always be part of the Republican party, just like liberals will always be part of the Democratic party. This won’t change.  The Republican party has had capable and worthy nominees for President not named Ronald Reagan in the past and the same will be true in ’08, whether the candidate is conservative or not.

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Posted on Tony Blair, UK

beckett’s delusion

I have been watching with great interest the evolution of the Labour party since Tony Blair came to power in 1997. Blair’s victory was proof that one could, with enough charm and personal charisma, convince the British people to buy into a more palatable version of the socialism that was the foundation of Old Labour. Of course, like the American mid-term elections, it may have had more to do with dissatisfaction with the ruling Conservative party than a mandate for the policies of Labour. It’s all in the interpretation, I suppose.

The Iraq war raised Blair’s profile a great deal in the United States when he decided that the UK would support the invasion of Iraq, and not only support it, but also be a passionate defender of that war. This was a unique position for a Labour prime minister to take, since the Labour party has always had the same Achilles heel as the Democrats when it comes to being soft on war. Even though I suspect that the delay and the appeals to the UN were Blair’s price for that support, he still took a political risk for his support of the war, and he deserves credit for this. The international community made the decision that Saddam needed to be dealt with, but they did not have the will to stop him. We can argue all day long about whether Saddam was a threat or not, or whether those WMDs ever existed. The point is that we can’t afford to make a mistake about Iran and its intentions.

What we already know about Iran is scary enough. The delusion that Iran only has good intentions (if only the US, the UK, and the West would stop aggravating those peace-loving mullahs) is a very dangerous one, and we must not get sucked in to their games. I thought that Blair understood the threat of Iran, but I’m not sure his Foreign Secretary does. Margaret Beckett is still trying to convince the British people that the release of the British hostages was some kind of victory for diplomacy.

She says:

This was a victory for patient and determined diplomacy. We got our people out, unharmed, and we got them out relatively quickly. That has to be the measure of success.

In going down this route, we have shown that those who confused diplomacy with weakness were wrong in their analysis and wrong in their advice.

By building support among our allies and Iran’s neighbours, we put a consistent squeeze on the Iranian regime.

In the end, its best option was to look for a way out from an unhappy situation of its own making.

Propaganda wars are winnable without bloodshed, madam Secretary, and Iran has claimed the first round. While I am not suggesting the correct response would have been to bomb Iran, surely there was a solution between concessions and military action. Iran will continue to defy the will of the majority of the international community, including the best intent of the UN, and nothing will happen to them.  That’s the lesson Iran learned from their little stunt, and we must reverse this trend toward appeasing the dangerous, or worse things will happen than the kidnapping of a few British sailors.

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2 Comments Posted on Democrats, Liberals

“alternative foreign policy”

that’s how representative tom lantos (d-san mateo) has described his diplomatic efforts with speaker pelosi to syria, and now this successful duo is considering bringing their road show to misunderstood iran. but wait a second…i thought that pelosi and her delegation were merely passing on the views of the bush administration. that’s what pelosi has said she was doing. no harm in that right? it shouldn’t be a secret at this point that speaker pelosi doesn’t approve of the way the bush administration is handling foreign policy, and especially iraq. if that’s the case, then what would be the point of pushing said foreign policy (which she derides as a “poverty of ideas“) in meetings with assad (and possibly ahmedinejad)? the bush administration has made its case why syria isn’t interested in making the kind of concessions the united states wants it to make in order to facilitate any serious negotiation between the two countries. now there are more reports that iran is actively helping the iraqi insurgency. these two countries aren’t interested in concessions unless the concessions are made by the united states. this shouldn’t be a hard concept to grasp, even for democrats like pelosi.

i am not suggesting that pelosi did something unprecedented in taking meetings with foreign heads of state without the approval of the white house, but it does raise a few red flags for me because of lantos’ comments about having an “alternative foreign policy”. it wouldn’t make sense for her to push what she sees as failed administration policies, so what exactly is she discussing with assad? i think it’s fair to ask questions about that, and if there are transcripts and audio clips available of their discussion that prove pelosi’s claims about that conversation, then there is no reason why we shouldn’t be able to get them and decide for ourselves.

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Posted on Tony Blair, UK

european diplomacy

i don’t think the resolution of the british hostage situation was any kind of success for diplomacy. if so, iran certainly didn’t get that message.

here’s why (hat tip: lgf):

Hardliners in the Iranian regime have warned that the seizure of British naval personnel demonstrates that they can make trouble for the West whenever they want to and do so with impunity.

The bullish reaction from Teheran will reinforce the fears of western diplomats and military officials that more kidnap attempts may be planned.

The British handling of the crisis has been regarded with some concern in Washington, and a Pentagon defence official told The Sunday Telegraph: “The fear now is that this could be the first of many. If the Brits don’t change their rules of engagement, the Iranians could take more hostages almost at will.

“Iran has come out of this looking reasonable. If I were the Iranians, I would keep playing the same game. They have very successfully muddied the waters and bought themselves some more time. And in parts of the Middle East they will be seen as the good guys. They could do it time and again if they wanted to.”

Americans also expressed dismay that the British had suspended boarding operations in the Gulf while its tactics are reassessed.

iran knew exactly what it was doing, and the release of the british hostages had nothing to do with anything tony blair said to ahmedinejad. surely prime minister blair is smart enough to know this, but for some reason he chose to go along with iran’s propaganda stunt. iran has done this before, and if they continue to get away with kidnapping people without any reprecussions, there’s no reason to believe that they won’t do it again in the future. iran learned that no country is willing to hold them accountable for their behavior, and that the UN won’t be able to stop whatever they want to do. this is a dangerous path we are on with iran.

it would be bad enough if iran kept kidnapping foreign sailors for propaganda purposes, but now they will have nukes too, and the UN will not stop them.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Monday the country’s nuclear fuel production program had reached “industrial” levels, setting Tehran on a fresh collision course with Western governments over its atomic ambitions.

A U.S. State Department spokesman said the announcement was “another signal Iran is in defiance of the international community.” Iran has already faced United Nations sanctions over its refusal to back down from developing nuclear fuel.

“Iran has succeeded in development to attain production at an industrial level,” said Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, addressing an audience at the Natanz nuclear facility as part of a ceremony marking the anniversary of the start of uranium enrichment at the plant.

“With great pride, I announce that as of today, our dear country, Iran, is among the countries of the world that produces the industrial level of nuclear fuel.”

Ahmadinejad vowed the fuel would be used for energy, “and for the expansion of peace and stability.”

it’s to our credit, i guess, that we are not buying the argument that iran will only use nuclear fuel for energy. we have been here before. the question is: what should we do next? if i’m the leader of a country with a stake in the outcome of this, i would insist on independent inspectors to keep tabs on iran and their progress to ensure that iran is only producing this nuclear material for peaceful purposes. i would also send to the UN a proposal for penalties to be assessed for non-compliance. the problem is that there seems to be no indication that the UN could credibly threaten iran, especially based on what we have seen from the UN in the past.

europe better wake up to the threat iran poses, or iran will continue to defy the international community and suffer no consequences for that defiance.

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11 Comments Posted on '08 Election, Republicans

romney on hannity and colmes

sean hannity interviews governor romney:

HANNITY: What do you think about Speaker of the House Pelosi, against the will of the White House, the recommendation of the State Department, is going to Syria to meet with the Syrian president? Is that the wrong thing to do? Does that send the wrong message to the world?

ROMNEY: It’s outrageous. What she’s doing is absolutely outrageous. I’m afraid she has been taking John Edwards’s talk to heart, which is that there are two Americas, one led by the president and the other, which is led by her.

But there is one America. It’s the United States of America. We have one foreign policy. If people don’t agree with that foreign policy, they can elect new leaders. They can elect a new president in two years, and they can pursue a different course.

i love this. governor romney is exactly right, and this is what it boils down to here. congress doesn’t have the role of commander-in-chief. if they want that role, they have to get a democratic president elected. the democrats are in danger of overstepping their constitutional role by any freelance foreign policy they are doing, so speaker pelosi and her bipartisan delegation need to be careful that the United States speaks with one voice to terrorist-supporting states like Syria and Saudi Arabia.

he continues:

But the idea of having the speaker of the House, the third person in line for the presidency, of the United States, being with Assad, being welcomed and given diplomatic coverage, shots of her on TV and the media and the way she’s being used by the Arab press is just outrageous.

HANNITY: Let me go to the issue of Harry Reid earlier this week said, in fact, he would support Russ Feingold’s bill to defund the war in Iraq within 120 days of its passage if, in fact, the president goes forward with his threat to veto the supplemental that was loaded up with pork and, of course, this artificial timetable, as the president says?

How should the president react to that and what do you say to Senator Reid for that proposal? That basically guarantees defeat.

ROMNEY: Well, it’s a terrible idea. And again, I think people are playing politics with foreign policy.

No one likes the fact that we’re still in Iraq. Everybody wants our troops home as soon as they possibly can be home. But people who have studied it very carefully and put politics aside recognize that if we simply withdraw on a precipitous basis, we open a risk of a very substantial nature to America’s interests.

The risk is that Iran, the nation we just were speaking about, grabs the Shia south of Iraq, that al Qaeda plays a dominant role among the Sunnis, that the Kurds destabilize the border with Turkey, and that potentially from any one of these acts that we end up with a regional conflict. And that our friends like Israel get drawn in, and then America has to go back in a far more difficult position.

These are the consequences of improper departure from Iraq, and so we have to make sure that we — we manage to the extent humanly possible this process to maintain order and a decree of stability we don’t let this country to fall in complete and total collapse.

HANNITY: If that were to come to fruition, Iran and al Qaeda would also have the oil reserves in Iraq, which would create the financing as they, you know, basically have a new staging area for terror.

ROMNEY: The people in Congress, and the people of America have to recognize that you’ve got to separate our disappointment and, in some cases, anger with where we are in Iraq. We made a lot of mistakes. Look, this has not been — once we knocked down Saddam Hussein, the war has not been conducted perfectly by any means.

We are, to a certain degree, responsible for the mess we find ourselves in. But as long as there’s a reasonable probability that a pathway exists for us to maintain a central government in Iraq, with a central military, albeit with strong sub-states, that’s a pathway which is in the best interest of America.

governor romney had a very strong interview here, in my opinion. what i’m still trying to understand about romney is why he feels the need to not only support conservative positions like gun rights, but also to insist that he has always been the strongest supporter of those positions. romney’s strengths and weaknesses will always be competing for the public’s attention. rudy guiliani has never been a favorite of the SoCons, but at least he is what he is: a strong supporter of abortion (even public funding of abortions) and gay marriage.

let me pass along some free advice for mitt romney: what conservatives want to know is whether you will do what you say you will do when in office. i think you are trying too hard to sell yourself as the most committed conservative candidate in the field. i’m not sure that this will work for you, based on your past history. we want to be able to trust you. don’t go to extremes to impress us. be who you are. that just might be enough to get the nomination.

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