1 Comment Posted on Tony Blair, UK

blair announces his resignation

Tony Blair will step down on June 27th, handing over the keys to Number 10 to Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown. It’s not a minute too soon for those who are convinced that he talked Britain and the United States into an unnecessary preemptive war. They are looking for someone to blame for what they see as a failed policy in Iraq, and Tony Blair is a convenient target.

History will be kinder to President Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair than we realize. While we are still engaged in this war in Iraq, it is difficult to view the record of these two men through any other prism. Tony Blair will leave Number 10 with a record of achievement that cannot be matched by any previous Labour Prime Minister, and I hope that Gordon Brown intends to keep the US/UK alliance as strong as Blair made it during his time in office.

Blair’s resignation speech is here, but his farewell address is not what we should remember about him. This is.

From a June 2003 speech before Congress:

That is what this struggle against terrorist groups or states is about. We’re not fighting for domination. We’re not fighting for an American world, though we want a world in which America is at ease. We’re not fighting for Christianity, but against religious fanaticism of all kinds.

And this is not a war of civilizations, because each civilization has a unique capacity to enrich the stock of human heritage. We are fighting for the inalienable right of humankind – black or white, Christian or not, left, right or a million different – to be free, free to raise a family in love and hope, free to earn a living and be rewarded by your efforts, free not to bend your knee to any man in fear, free to be you so long as being you does not impair the freedom of others. That’s what we’re fighting for. And it’s a battle worth fighting.

And I know it’s hard on America, and in some small corner of this vast country, out in Nevada or Idaho or these places I’ve never been to, but always wanted to go. I know out there there’s a guy getting on with his life, perfectly happily, minding his own business, saying to you, the political leaders of this country, ‘Why me? And why us? And why America?’

And the only answer is, ‘Because destiny put you in this place in history, in this moment in time, and the task is yours to do.’

And our job, my nation that watched you grow, that you fought alongside and now fights alongside you, that takes enormous pride in our alliance and great affection in our common bond, our job is to be there with you. You are not going to be alone. We will be with you in this fight for liberty. We will be with you in this fight for liberty. And if our spirit is right and our courage firm, the world will be with us.

The Economist has a good recap of the Blair years here. Will Gordon Brown be this kind of ally to America? Time will tell, but I’m not optimistic about that possibility.

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Posted on '08 Election, Republicans

rudy and those planned parenthood donations

What Matt Lewis said.

Ok…I can’t let it go at that. We have known all along that Rudy was pro-choice, so this shouldn’t surprise any of the conservatives out there who have been paying attention to the ’08 candidates. Most conservatives who support Rudy do so because they think he would be tough on terrorism and because they like his record on crime in NYC. Those conservatives see the life issue as secondary, so the fact that Rudy Giuliani donated $900 to Planned Parenthood won’t make much difference to that group of supporters.

Rudy’s problem is that he tried to pull a “Mitt”– where his “I hate abortion” line is his equivalent of Romney’s “personally pro-life” line. There’s no question that Romney has some work to do on the abortion question to convince pro-lifers that his conversion is genuine, but at least he has, to some degree, admitted that he changed his mind on that subject. What conservatives respected about Rudy Giuliani is that he was unapologetic at one point about being pro-choice, and that he was willing to defend his opposite views from the SoCons on gay marriage and abortion. He was the “authentic” candidate (for lack of a better word). Giuliani can’t legitimately claim that he hates abortion if he supports taxpayer funding of abortion and speaks at NARAL “Champions of Choice” lunches. Like Matt Lewis said, that looks more like someone who is not simply pro-choice, but an abortion advocate.

Will this matter to the majority of Republicans who would be willing to sell their souls if it meant beating Hillary? Probably not. This sounds a bit harsh, I know. We have to be honest with ourselves about what we are willing to accept in our nominee and whether winning has to mean compromising on issues like abortion and gay marriage.

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Posted on '08 Election, Republicans

ronald reagan is still dead

The only Reagan I saw in that debate hall Thursday night was Nancy Reagan…and she’s probably a moderate on social issues. But seriously folks…

Chris Matthews adds an interesting dynamic to the normal cookie-cutter type debate, where the moderator generally tries to stay above the fray and just asks the questions. Matthews should have been watching how Brian Williams handled the Democrats in their debate.  I can’t be objective about this overbearing jerk, and I can’t believe that I actually watched him badger the candidates when I could have been watching good stuff on network TV. Just as Mike Gravel and Dennis Kucinich were the distraction in the Dem debate, Chris Matthews filled the same role for this Republican debate. Grrr…I just wanted to slap him half the time.

Candidates who looked pretty good in my view:  Romney, Giuliani, and Huckabee.  Romney needs a better answer to those abortion questions. He needs to explain his conversion/evolution on that issue by being honest about his past. He won’t ever be that 100% conservative, but he might be able to change minds if he can just get his story straight on who he really is. Giuliani deserves credit, I guess, for telling us how he really feels about overturning Roe, but the answer that he gave could be a sticking point against him for SoCons who might have found other reasons to support him.  Huckabee performed better than I expected.  As others have said, there’s nothing to distinguish him as a leader or someone who one could see as the President of the United States.  He deserves a second look, but I don’t know about a second debate.

There’s no doubt in my mind that McCain would scare the heck out of terrorists, his views on torture aside.  But I didn’t see anything from him that convinced me that he should be the Republican nominee. His performance was disappointing.  It’s still early, so he has time to recover from this.

I liked listening to what  Ron Paul had to say.  Even though he had different views than most of of the other candidates, he still was able to articulate those views without sounding like Mike Gravel or Dennis Kucinich.    Unfortunately for him, only his die-hard fans believe that Dr. Paul actually won the debate.  (I really can’t say what exactly they saw that I missed…)

The rest of the field just faded out. We gave those second and third-tier candidates a chance to blow us away with their performance in this debate, and they did not.  I’m not sure whether this is a good idea to have all these candidates with minimal support as a part of debates. It limits the time for every candidate involved, and we need to hear more from Romney, Giuliani, and McCain than every other candidate.  I know that we are dissatisfied with those choices, but I didn’t see any of the other candidates step up Thursday night and show that they should be right there with the top three.

There’s also no guarantee that Fred Thompson will be the right guy for the Republicans to nominate.  Sure his record looks good, but do we really know that he could be a good President?  Being popular and photogenic only seems to work for Democrats. He’s the anti-”Rudy McRomney” and that seems to be enough for Republican conservatives.  Is this really the guy we want to run the country?  Maybe I’m the only one still skeptical of all the Fred hype.  We should nominate the best guy for the job, not necessarily someone who gets the most publicity.  I’m still undecided after this debate.  There’s still time for the top three (or Fred) to get my attention.
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2 Comments Posted on Random Musings

rethinking the role of the “religious right”

Cal Thomas:

Nearly 30 years after religious conservatives decided to re-enter the political arena — after abandoning it as “dirty” and leading to compromise — what do they have to show for it? The country remains sharply divided and the reconciling message they used to preach has been obscured by the crass pursuit of the golden ring of political power. In the end, they got neither the power, nor the Kingdom; only the glory and even that is now fading, as these older leaders pass from the scene.

This is not to say there is no role for conservative Christians in the civic life of their nation. There is. But Christians must first understand that the issues they most care about — abortion, same-sex marriage and cultural rot — are not caused by bad politics, but are matters of the heart and soul. Some evangelicals wish to broaden the political agenda beyond these issues to poverty, social justice and the environment. Politics can never completely cure the ills of any of these, but the message Christians bring about salvation and redemption can. Besides, they can never “convert” people to their point of view.

Too many conservative Christians have focused on the “seen” rather than the “unseen,” thinking appearances at the White House, or on “Meet the Press,” is evidence that they are making a difference. And too much attention has been paid to individual personalities, rather than to the One these preachers had originally been called to exalt.

He is saying that many leaders of the “religious right” have lost their focus. Christians should always influence their culture positively and fight for what we believe is right. But like Thomas says in a previous paragraph, “Politics is about compromise. The message of the church is about Truth.” The Truth has been lost or conveniently forgotten. You will never be popular by telling the whole Truth about Christianity and its requirements on believers in Christ. The answer to societal ills and moral decline isn’t a political one. It’s a spiritual one. Once we recognize that, maybe those who wish to speak for evangelical Christians will start concentrating more on changing hearts and minds on these social issues, than on gaining political power for themselves.

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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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