Posted on '08 Election, Democrats

hillary: the dems’ best hope for ’08?

Don’t get me wrong. I’m a longtime Hillary Clinton fan. As in a back-when-she-was-still-wearing-headbands fan. I have found her warm and utterly charming in person; more than that, she understands the challenges facing Democrats in a way that few others in the party do, and her ability to absorb policy nuances rivals her husband’s. This country is long past due for a female president, and I would love to see Hillary Clinton in that trailblazing role (and not just because it would make Ann Coulter break out in giant hives). But—at the risk of getting myself permanently blackballed by her loyal and protective staff—while Clinton can win nearly any debate that is about issues, she cannot avoid becoming the issue in a national campaign. And when that happens, she will very likely lose.

–amy sullivan in the washington monthly

i am not a hillary fan. never have been. i don’t share ms. sullivan’s positive assessment of the junior senator from new york. i also can’t see the evidence that hillary totally understands where her party needs to be on the issues of the day, especially in the area of national security. nor does she appear willing to take on the popular left-wing fringe in her party and provide leadership. all i know is what i’ve seen of hillary, and i have to confess that i’m not too impressed with her politically.

while i would love to see a female president, i just don’t see an ideal candidate for that office right now…at least not a candidate who shares my ideological views. dick morris has floated the idea of a condi rice candidacy. she’s not running. that’s too bad, because it would be an interesting campaign to watch. could she beat hillary? i don’t know. my gut feeling is that she would certainly give hillary a much closer race than the previous attempts made by wanna-be challengers rick lazio and jeannine pirro. (hillary would have lost to guiliani…guaranteed.)

the democrats have a problem here. at present, they have no coherent leadership. there are several democrats attempting to fill this void: dean, kerry, gore, and senator clinton. they are well-known on the national stage, and vary a great deal in their level of credibility with the american people. whether this should be the case or not, hillary’s political ambitions can’t be divorced from her overall negative image. amy sullivan may be correct when she says that hillary can win issue-oriented debates, but at the end of the day, hillary can’t run from her past history. even her detractors recognize that she is a formidable opponent, but she sometimes makes bad political calculations and says silly things (like the plantation remark) which damage her credibility as a leader.

with all that said…i still think hillary’s the best candidate the democrats have right now. maybe in the next 2-3 years they will find a stronger representative for the democratic party. but in order to do that, they will have to first find a coherent message for that candidate and for their party. good luck making all those groups within the party happy. it will be a difficult task.

BTW…she’s no centrist.

related:

Is Hillary a centrist? Let’s look at her votes–newsday
Hillary in 2008?–amy sullivan
Many faces of Hillary — none a winner–jonah goldberg

Posted on Random Musings

monday’s good stuff to read

Ending the “Human Rights” Farce –NRO editorial on the United Nations and their Human Rights Commission (an oxymoronic group consisting of dictators with their own sordid history in this area lecturing the united states on how morally inferior we are)

Regardless of whether we participate in the new council, it’s time to create an alternative. The United States should lead efforts to found a new institution devoted to the protection of human rights, and involving eligibility requirements that would limit member states to genuine liberal democracies. Many multilateral organizations exist outside the U.N. structure — NATO and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe come to mind — and they are effective precisely because, unlike the three rings at Turtle Bay, their member states are committed to common values. President Bush has already set a precedent for circumventing failed international bureaucracies: Faced with the ineffectiveness of the International Atomic Energy Agency, he created the Proliferation Security Initiative, which has been instrumental in, among other things, inducing Libya to give up its nuclear-weapons program.

many things could be changed to make the un live up to to a fraction of its utopian idealistic vision. read more here.

America Must Preserve Its Culture–california conservative

Europe’s abandonment of the Judeo-Christian foundations of its culture during the last century has left it devoid of any firewall against the enormous encroaching pressures of militant Islam. Certainly its insipid and fanciful premises of “social justice” and post-modernism are no match for Islamic zeal.

Now, the once-great continent is left scrambling to offer any believable reason why its institutions and culture should be immune to the prohibitions of the Islamists. And for the preservation of their future, Europeans have little more to hope for than the benevolence of an ideology that knows no such concept.

totally agree. while it is important to recognize where we came from and the characteristics that make us the unique people we are, those who are americans have committed themselves on some level to a common identity. this common identity which unites us has started to fade away with the new emphasis on multi-culturalism, and that’s a shame.

other interesting posts:

Europe’s Hidden Conservatives–weekly standard blog
Joe Wilson: pro-Iraq war once upon a time?–sister toldjah

that’s all. read now. 🙂

Posted on Democrats, George W. Bush

the democrats’ lost mojo

President Bush was in trouble. Nothing was going right, and the war in Iraq was rapidly losing support. Democrats smelled victory but kept bungling the chance. Their nominee was so unappealing that Bush and the GOP scored a giant victory.

That’s a short history of the 2004 elections, when Bush won a second term and the GOP gained seats, and kept control, of both houses of Congress.

Fast forward and 2006 is shaping up like deja vu all over again.

Bush hasn’t seen 50% approval in the polls for months, Iraq is stuck in bloody neutral and congressional Republicans are under fire for ties to a corrupt lobbyist. With midterm elections in the fall, Dems should be able to take one or both houses and exert much more influence over the last two years of Bush’s term.

But Democrats are still getting in their own way, and could blow their chances again. The most prominent party leaders, including Hillary Clinton and Ted Kennedy, have become so extreme that their attacks make Bush look good by comparison.

–michael goodwin, “dems are blowin’ it” (ny daily news)

quick. get austin powers on the phone. mojo of a different sort is missing from the party in opposition. they can’t seem to get anything positive out of their attacks on president bush. they can’t seem to find a message that works for them and also is something that the average american can identify with/relate to. in addition, they can’t seem to figure out who is really in charge of their party. is it howard dean? is it left-wing blogs? hillary? john kerry? nancy pelosi? harry reid? the answer is that NOBODY knows. it’s interesting that even the democrats don’t see hillary as a leader or even representative of their party’s views right now. i do think that if the democrats found a unified message and if (this is a big if) it consisted of more than just opposing what bush does, then they would have a much better chance of success in november. i just don’t see this happening.

where are the men and women of vision for the democratic party? who will provide an optimistic view of this country’s possibilities and promise in addition to concrete solutions to problems we are facing as a nation? who will step up and push the democrats closer to the views of most of the rest of the country? i haven’t seen any of them who are willing to abandon the kook vote. none of the potential democratic candidates for president have shown leadership, and they also don’t have a message that’s easy to sell.

but the republicans can’t rely on democratic failure/implosion. we still need to tear down some walls in our own house, and remember what made us successful in the beginning. it’s not enough to be against bush. the opposition needs to present a vision for change, and right now they just don’t seem to have one.

jonah goldberg in the la times:

“Some Democrats are furious that their party doesn’t have its own ideas. Others say they do have ideas, they’re just keeping them secret for now. That sounds a lot like the high school geek who insists that his girlfriend is really hot but lives in an undisclosed location in Canada. “

exactly.

interesting weekend linkage (related and otherwise):

Posted on Random Musings

YAY! (non-political alias post)

some non-specific alias spoilers below…don’t read if you don’t want to know if you will ever see vaughn again. i will simply compliment JJ (abrams, also known for LOST) on this fabulous decision and move along. now if we could have an exact date on the return of alias to our TVs…

from tvguide.com’s ask ausiello column:

Question: Michael Vartan is supposedly signed to do four more episodes of Alias. Will it be as a ghost? — Brett

Ausiello: OK, major-ass prattle here: According to Pinkner, Vartan is actually returning for five, possibly six, episodes, beginning with the second one back this spring (that’s Episode 99, for those keeping track at home). And I’ll let Jeff address the second part of your question: “As we’ve said from the beginning, the rumors of Vaughn’s death were nothing more than rumors. In this world, don’t take anything at face value. We’ll know by the end of the 99th episode exactly where he is and if he’s alive or not.”

expect more political stuff in the near future. 🙂

Posted on Uncategorized

free speech vs. extremism

If the events of the past week don’t put an exclamation point on to what we are dealing with – the irrationality and hatred resulting from tools of fanatical Islamic propaganda – and force everyone to realize that the enemy we face is dangerous and only getting more daring, what will it take? How long before we can no longer say anything about the Practitioners of Peace without having them threaten to engage in their ancient ritual of removal of head from body?

Most dangerous is the willingness of those who are right to give in to the demands of the fanatics. Israel constantly gives in to the commands of the Palestinians as a result of their desire for a peace that the fanatics do not want. Countries apologize for their own free speech codes in their own country after the Crazed Ones take to the streets with torches. Late last year, France responded to mass rioting by Muslim youth by promising more welfare programs for them. Giving in to the enemy is more dangerous than fighting it and telling them enough is enough. Giving in to their demands only encourages them.

dustin hawkins, “At Least They Are Not Crazy” (posted at california conservative)

read more in this post at california conservative, which is, as always, right on the money. negotiating with extremists usually doesn’t produce the desired result. the right to dissent is an important one, but it has been abused by these protestors. we cannot reward this kind of behavior with concessions, and as soon as the europeans realize this, they will become more serious about how they treat such behavior. michelle malkin’s got more interesting artwork here.

Posted on Democracy

bad PR for the “religion of peace”

A democracy cannot survive long without freedom of expression, the freedom to argue, to dissent, even to insult and offend. It is a freedom sorely lacking in the Islamic world, and without it Islam will remain unassailed in its dogmatic, fanatical, medieval fortress; ossified, totalitarian and intolerant. Without this fundamental freedom, Islam will continue to stifle thought, human rights, individuality; originality and truth.

Unless, we show some solidarity, unashamed, noisy, public solidarity with the Danish cartoonists, then the forces that are trying to impose on the Free West a totalitarian ideology will have won; the Islamization of Europe will have begun in earnest. Do not apologize.

–Muslim dissident Ibn Warraq, from the article “Democracy in a Cartoon”
(ht: malkin)

this guy gets it right. more muslims need to speak out against the violence. this is why our support of the danish cartoonists is important. we cannot allow the debate to be controlled by extremists who use offensive cartoons as an excuse to riot and burn buildings. michelle malkin has more alarming pictures of the protests in this post.

burning buildings over offensive cartoons is not the best way to promote Islam. it’s not the best way to sell Islam as a religion of peace. in fact, i’m having a hard time believing that many muslims who believe the way that ibn warraq does actually exist. it’s possible that there are moderate muslims who are simply practicing their faith without any desire for any sort of jihad. but they need to speak up right now if they are tired of extremists controlling their party and controlling the debate.

related:

Danish Embassy Set Ablaze: Can We Co-Exist–jay at stop the aclu
“Can Democracy Co-Exist with Extremism?”–california conservative
On Freedom of Speech and Islam: News, Commentary and Blogs…–small wars journal

Posted on Democracy

mark twain on government and democracy

i couldn’t decide on just one of these quotes, so you get to read both of them. 🙂 read and enjoy.

Only a government that is rich and safe can afford to be a democracy, for democracy is the most expensive and nefarious kind of government ever heard of on earth.

good point. democracies not only have an expensive financial cost, they also have an expensive social/cultural cost as well. some social/cultural systems are more compatible with democracy than others, and we should recognize that and adjust our political strategy to account for that difference.

Each of you, for himself, by himself and on his own responsibility, must speak. And it is a solemn and weighty responsibility, and not lightly to be flung aside at the bullying of pulpit, press, government, or the empty catchphrases of politicians. Each must for himself alone decide what is right and what is wrong, and which course is patriotic and which isn’t. You cannot shirk this and be a man. To decide against your convictions is to be an unqualified and inexcusable traitor, both to yourself and to your country, let man label you as they may. If you alone of all the nation shall decide one way, and that way be the right way according to your convictions of the right, you have done your duty by yourself and by your country- hold up your head! You have nothing to be ashamed of.

i have nothing to add to this.

Posted on Democracy

promoting democracy: a failed experiment?

Nobody knows whether the election win for Hamas will help or hurt the cause of democracy in the Middle East. On the one hand, the victory of a terrorist party seems to vindicate the argument that democracy can only work where modern mores and social institutions are already in place. On the other hand, there is at least a scenario in which either Hamas is forced to transform itself, or the ultimate failure of Hamas teaches the Palestinians a culture-changing lesson in what real democracy requires.

Ideally, I would prefer to go the route of slow cultural transition before giving democracy a try. The danger of premature democracy is exactly what we’re seeing now. Yet I recognize that we cannot afford the luxury of slow-motion cultural transformation. The pressure of nuclear proliferation has forced us to try something drastic and risky. The stakes, arguably, justify the risk.

stanley kurtz– the corner on nro

here are a few questions we should ask ourselves in determining the success or failure of this experiment. let’s have the debate. is promoting democracy the best way to fight the war on terror? have we considered that a change to democratic government may not be the first step for a country unfamiliar with how that system of government works? kurtz makes an excellent point here when he says that there is more involved in establishing a working democracy than simply having elections. read the whole post. he is absolutely right. i’m not sure that the bush administration has completely thought through the implications of this approach to the war on terror.

i’m not opposed to democracy. i believe that it is the best form of government for the United States, even though it doesn’t work in an error-free fashion for us either. we need to remember that the current version of our democratic system wasn’t automatically created at our country’s first breath. it took 200 + years to get where we are today. we can’t expect iraq, afghanistan, and other mideast countries to understand how democracy works right away after having limited to no experience with that form of government.

that said, if we really want these countries to elect their own leaders, then we have to live with the results of those elections. it’s easier to be in opposition than to be the ruling party, as hamas will soon find out. when your party is out of power, you can make all sorts of irresponsible statements and advocate many impractical policy changes, without being held to account for the results of your actions. that changes when your party is in power.

part of this post from the therapy sessions says this better than i just did:

To take power is to take responsibility. When you run an organization on the fringe – Hezballah in Lebanon, The Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, al Qaeda throughout the region – you can say and do what you like, even with the tacit approval of those in power.

When you are in charge, things change. The terrible economy is not an advantage – something you can complain about to generate support; it is a liability. It is your job to make it better (and only economic freedom creates economic growth). If you sponsor attacks in other countries, these are not just suicide bombings, they are acts of war.

No more shadowy groups hiding in the fringes. If these groups take power democratically, so be it. If that leads to civil wars, that’s sad – but we might as well get them over with.

For a century, we tolerated dictators in the region as the price of stability, but there was another hidden price: behind the scenes, thousands of fringe groups were taking the hearts of the people – or so they thought. This policy has been shattered by Bush, and those groups are being told: put up or shut up.

These are good things.

this argument makes sense to me. i do think that america is not obligated to financially support groups like hamas, whether they are democratically elected or not. (the whole concept of foreign aid is flawed as a general theory…but that’s a subject for another post.) the people will find out whether hamas is worthy to rule by what they do with the power they have been given. the same goes for the governments of iraq and afghanistan. these countries may have to learn a few painful lessons along the way, but eventually i think that they will figure it out. we did.

the results of promoting democracy are mixed so far. time will tell whether we will achieve the desired results of this experiment.

other good stuff to read:

Is there a place for democracy in the Middle East?–iraq the model
Can Democracy Stop Terrorism?–an balanced look at our current policy in the mideast from foreignaffairs.org
Welcome Hamas–quoted here (from the therapy sessions blog)

Posted on Iraq, Moonbats

unholy alliances and george galloway

“You may very well ask, why so many people wanted to come in here and watch and listen to two British guys debating in the United States of America about a war far away. I think the reason is this: our two countries are the biggest rogue states in the world today. And it is therefore vitally important that those who oppose the crimes of our governments, on both sides of the Atlantic, link hands, link arms, stand shoulder to shoulder, until we’ve rid the world of George W. Bush and Anthony Blair, once and for all…”

british MP george galloway–during a debate with fellow brit chris hitchens

my favorite moonbat george galloway (british MP, iraq war opponent, etc,etc) was voted out of the celebrity big brother house (UK edition). he has had a rough go of it recently. labour MP steve pound is quoted here as saying:

“He’s gone from imitating a cat to wearing a catsuit. Next he’ll be advertising cat food. I actually feel sorry for him because that’s the only future he’s got.

“When he returns to the House of Commons there is going to be such a chorus of ‘Meow’. He’ll have a saucer of milk waiting for him and a litter tray.”

heh. indeed. that’s a great quote, and it would definitely be must-see video if that actually happened in the house of commons. if only humiliation in front of many british citizens were his only problem. if you thought that the pictures of bush and abramoff were incriminating, at least our president has never been photographed with one of saddam’s evil sons. unfortunately for “gorgeous george”, the same cannot be said for him. there’s another unholy alliance just begging for space on this blog. michelle malkin’s got all the info in this post.

i wonder what galloway and the other iraq war critics would have to say if there was confirmation those WMDs were moved somewhere else before the invasion. more on that in a future post.

for more on galloway and his opposition to the iraq war:

(from this blog)
britain’s hard left vs. tony blair
george galloway is a loon…and other obvious truths
galloway is a loon…part II

other blogs:
Coleman, The Cat Who Laughed Last–captain’s quarters
Galloway Booted From Big Brother— video at the political teen

Posted on Democrats, Liberals, Moonbats

harmless flirtation…or unholy alliance?

apparently it’s true that john kerry is now blogging at cindy sheehan’s second favorite blog (the first of course is huffpost). i thought that this was something kos made up, because john kerry couldn’t possibly be capable of making such a huge political gaffe. i have now despaired of guessing correctly any future moves by the democratic “leadership”. when you think you have seen everything, there’s always something else that the democrats do to surprise us. as a republican, i totally endorse this strategy by kerry and the democrats. after all, daily kos is a very influential blog. many bloggers would kill (figuratively, of course) for that kind of pull and traffic, me included. so, it makes sense to get the attention of that massive audience. the question is what effect it will have on more moderate kerry supporters?

let me put it to you this way. in relationships, there are those males or females that you would be proud to bring home to mom and dad. then there are the rebels we all love, possibly with tattoos, weird-colored hair, strange hobbies, etc. that’s the role currently played by the inhabitants of daily kos. so here comes john kerry with a convincing line to that audience. does he really want to make a serious commitment to the fringe left of his party? is that a smart move? i say… not so much. mom and pop voter may not be as understanding and as tolerant with kerry’s flirtation with the hard left than members of his own party seem to be. harmless flirtation, or future unholy alliance? you make the call.