No way. Way!

This has got to be, by far, the most interesting primary season that I can recall. Looks like one of my predictions from yesterday was actually spot on. Of course, my Florida predictions were rather akin to a shotgun blast...

At any rate, McCain beat, not handily, but he did beat, Romney in Florida. Rudy's out, and probably going to endorse McCain. Will that hurt Romney? Probably. But, Mitt still has some things going for him, leading up to the convention:

• There are enough Western states, where Romney is likely to perform well, on Super Tuesday to catch up, or at least keep within striking distance, of McCain's delegate count.
• He has the support of a sizable majority of the "uncommitted" delegates (akin to the Democrats' SuperDelegates)
• If Huck makes it all the way to the convention, his delegates could, in theory, be sent to one column or the other, tipping the balance. My guess is that Huck is going to send them to Mitt, rather than John, because Mitt is closest to Huck on social issues.

As for the Dems, Hillary continues to shore up her delegate count, while Barack is wooing establishment Dems like Teddy into his camp. Hillary's ace in the hole has always been the SuperDelegates; Teddy's defection suggests that they may not be a lock for Hill. Still, Barack is going to have to pick up some delegates on Feb 5 if he wants to stay in this thing.

As for Super Tuesday? Hell if I know.

Oprah is in trouble with women. As it turns out, there are plenty of women who believe that you ought to put a person in office just because she's a woman. These women believe, it would seem, that race is not a good enough reason to put a person in office.

But, as it turns out, in the U.S. race has most often trumped gender (or class, for that matter). After all, in the mid-nineteenth century when Europe was undergoing its class revolutions, we got into a civil war instead. We granted "all men" the vote long before we granted it to women. Not saying it's right (I don't believe it is) but it is how things are here.

To get mad at Oprah for not supporting your favorite liberal democrat is just plain silly. As an American, I don't identify myself, politically, as a white male. In fact, the one person I really wanted to see in this primary season, and the one person for whom I would have fervently campaigned, is Condi. But I have a sneaky suspicion that if there were a general election between Condi and, let's say, John Edwards, Oprah and every one of her little minions would be voting Edwards. Would they be traitors for doing so? Of course not. It would just mean that they had the sense to vote for the candidate whose ideas most fit their own.

True Colors, baby

The grassroots Democratic party, hell, I'll just say it, are lunatics.

I mean, Hillary is left, there's not doubt. But Democrats at the local level are whacked out. After all, it's local democrats in San Fran who banned military recruiting. It was grassroots Democrat officials doing gay marriages all over the damn place. And now, local dems have decided that a county's emergency warning system does not belong on the same station as Limbaugh and Hannity.

It's all right by me, though. Rush has been the Early Warning system, preaching the disastrous impact of liberalism for decades. Putting their little county thing on the air with him would be, well, redundant.

Impeach Gonzales

It boggles the mind.

Renowned RINO Arlen Specter is going to vote for a "no confidence" vote for Attorney General Al Gonzales, alongside his democrat buddies in the Senate. This guy, who is by any measurement an ideological liberal, is portrayed by his supporters as being strong-willed enough to stand against the Republican establishment. The problem is that Specter, like most liberals, is spineless.

You see, here's the thing. If Gonzales had done something illegal or inappropriate, congress has a built-in remedy: impeachment. The AG serves at the will of the President, and always has. But congress has the ability to impeach the AG just as they do any of the President's cabinet. So, why this charade of a "no confidence" vote? I mean, other than the fact that Gonzales hasn't done anything wrong?

It's simple: the Dems (and Specter) feel like they're in a win-win situation. On one hand, they may get Bush either have to fire Gonzales, thus admitting that there was impropriety over at Justice. Alternatively, they will pressure Bush and he will stand by Gonzales in the face of a media who have already crucified him at least twice. In their minds, they win either way.

The problem is here that the Dems (and Specter) are being as political, or even more so, than Gonzales. If the Dems (and Specter) truly believe that Specter is not the man for the job, the only true recourse is to impeach him. The option of "Bush defends a guilty Gonzales" doesn't help the country, even if it helps the Democratic party (and Specter).

The real problem with Pelosi's trip to Syria

Nancy Pelosi is at it again.

Pelosi has traveled to the middle east, met with Israeli leaders, and supposedly carried a message to Syria. She's convinced that she's played an integral part in the middle east peast process. Good for her. Except, there is a problem.

Now, the rest of the conservatives today are, of course, talking about how she's screwed up. That there was no message. That she's a complete novice when it comes to diplomacy. That she's so far out there, even Jimmy Carter supports her trip. But I have to be honest, that's not my concern.

No, my concern is this: Nancy Pelosi, by inserting herself into a diplomatic role, is attempting to circumvent the constitutional separation of powers, much as she has done with this nasty business about setting a withdrawal date for Iraq. Advise and Consent, that phrase so used by Republican and Democratic congresses alike, does not mean circumvent. It also doesn't mean that congress should fund the millitary only if a withdrawal date is set. They are to either fund it or not. If they want, they can vote to end the entire war on terror by simply cutting the purse strings. However, Article 2, Section 2 of the Constitution expressly gives the President full authority in matters of foreign relations (with the exception of trade law, which does rest with congress) as well as in millitary questions, such as a withdrawal date.

This cavalier approach to our Country's most sacred of documents makes my physically ill.

What the Brits Don't Get

Tony Blair has suffered major political fallout for his willingness to stand up against Sadaam's regime of terror. As such, we know that the UK is pulling troops out of Iraq, and won't be there much longer at all. In the minds and words of many liberal anti-war activists, being in Iraq only makes the UK a target for terror. So, if the UK pulls its troops from Iraq, terrorists will not target the Brits.

But the don't get it. Radical fundamentalist Islam is, at the end of the day, a movement that attacks based not on a demonstration of strength, but a demonstration of weakness. The Iranians capturing British soldiers, detaining them, and, one assumes trying them and eventually killing them (if London doesn't do something drastic). No, this move to take troops away from the War on Terror only makes the UK look more vulnerable.

The same thing happened with the train bombings in Madrid. It was obvious that Spain was on the edge about whether or not it would stand up against these thugs and murderers. Radical Muslim extremists blow up a train and the next thing you know Spain is out, AND they have a new shiny socialist government.

It's the same thing that Bin Laden figured would happen on 9/11. It's been well publicised that Bin Laden saw the U.S. as a "paper tiger" that would fold under pressure. But, the opposite happened, at least initially. And thank God for George W. Bush's steadfastness in the war on terror, too.

Of course, now the Democrats in the house are trying to fulfill Bin Laden's prediction, if a bit late. They are demanding we get out of Iraq, and are, like much of the rest of the world, demanding that a millitary solution to Iran's nuclear crisis be taken off of the table.

Look, appeasement didn't work when we tried it with Hitler. It didn't work with Stalin, either. These maniacs don't respond to guestures of kindness; they only respond to a show of force. If we back out of Iraq and refuse to disarm Iran of its' nuclear program, that will send a clear signal to the terrorist organizations, as well as rogue states, that we don't have the will to see it through. We will have many more 9/11's, and eventually one of them will be nuclear.

We taught the Dems a lesson

And that lesson is this: under oath, everyone is eventually going to say something that isn't true. When that happens, they are toast.

This thing with the U.S. attorney firings is laughable. I've read the supposedly damaging portions of the documents being bantered about. There is nothing in any of them that is any different from any other Washington memo. The democrats know that there is no way in hell that they are going to convict Al Gonzales or anyone else in the Bush administration on these firings. Nothing illegal was done, and it is starting to look like nothing particularly immoral was done, either.

No, the Democrats are not issuing subpoenas to get to the bottom of the firings, regarless of what Leahy the Leaker says. They want Karl Rove's head on a platter, and the lesson of Scooter Libby is that, eventually, you're bound to flub something, whether intentional or not, under oath. Doesn't matter if it is even related to the case.

Not that it hasn't happened to the Dems before. After all, lying under oath is what impeachment was all about. Still, Clinton's lie was, very obviously, a self-serving and bold-faced lie directed at the American people. Libby's perjury was, at worst, a goof on some factual details. Clinton stared directly into the camera and told the American people the same damned lie that he told under oath. Getting facts out of order is a hell of a lot different.

The Lunatic Fringe

From the Las Vegas Review Journal:

But the socialist, Web-addicted wing of the Democratic Party was apoplectic. The prospect of having to watch Fox News to see their own candidates would have been torture in itself. So they set the blogosphere aflame with efforts to kill the broadcast arrangement, or at least have all the candidates pull out of the event. Before Friday, the opportunistic John Edwards was the only candidate to jump on that bandwagon.

Now, I don't know who the editors are at the Las Vegas Review Journal, but it is nice to see that someone else out there gets it. I mean, for crying out loud, if Republicans had sworn off every left-leaning media outlet, there would be no White House press corps.

What is it that these nutjobs at Moveon.org are afraid of? They claim that Fox News is not a legitimate media outlet, yet the bureaucratic mouthpieces of NPR and PBS are somehow direly needed. Moveon.org claims to want NPR and PBS to be free of "partisan meddling," but they just don't get it: ANY outlet that is controlled by government is, by its very nature, partisan.

It's like the same loonies that think that funding elections publicly will remove corruption from the process. Hello? Is there any government-funded program that is not inherently prone to corruption? These dingbats disparage our Armed Forces during a time of war, and seek to defund our mission in Iraq.

Look, I'm all about liberty. Really, I am. I believe that we get the government that we deserve. But the fact of the matter is that there are a hell of a lot of really, really stupid people out there on the left, and they've got a much sexier message than those of us on the right.

After all, what sells better to the working class: "We want to raise your wages through the force of law," or "if you work harder to improve your station in life you can?"

The truth isn't always easy, and it isn't always popular, but it is still the truth.

Why the Dems want a timetable

Democrats want us out of Iraq. That's not news. A millitary withdrawal would make for the ultimate black eye on any administration. Just ask LBJ's ghost, he can tell you all about that.

But, this timetable thing is especially interesting. Hillary, of course, previously said that Bush shouldn't leave Iraq for his successor to clean up. That would mean, then, that we should be out of Iraq by January of 2009, right? Nope. The Democrat timetable for the pullout of Iraq is August, 2008. Why?

It is simple. The Dems don't want the war on terror to be an issue in the 2008 campaign. The fact of the matter is that, unless Lieberman decides to run for prez as a Dem, they don't have one candidate on the block that is strong on defense. And the Republicans are overflowing with them. And, while I don't personally like McCain because of his encroachment on free speech (which was initiated and executed by the Democrat Feingold, by the way), you damn well better believe I'd rather have him at the helm during war than Barry or Hillary.

The Democrats know it. Even if support for the war is at an all time low, none of their candidates can get elected if we've got troops deployed in an active conflict zone.

This is also, by the way, the same reason the Dems want to negotiate with a guy who denies the holocaust ever took place. God forbid that we should be in active conflict with Iran in August of '08, just three months before the presidential elections.

What the Liberal Media isn't Telling You - Part 1

Among other things...

Not everyone hates George W. Bush, especially not all Republicans.

DDT is not as dangerous as malaria.

Phil Gramm behind him.

Democrats pander to the evangelical block as much as Republicans.

Al Sharpton and Strom Thurmond

Interesting.

As I understand it, then, we have a guy who was a racist in 1948 and ran for president on the one hand, and a guy who is a racist and ran for president in 2004 on the other hand. Let's compare:

"White folks was in caves while we was building empires... We taught philosophy and astrology and mathematics before Socrates and them Greek homos ever got around to it." - Al Sharpton, 1994.

"We stand for the segregation of the races and the racial integrity of each race; the constitutional right to choose one's associates; to accept private employment without governmental interference, and to earn one's living in any lawful way. We oppose the elimination of segregation, the repeal of miscegenation statutes, the control of private employment by Federal bureaucrats called for by the misnamed civil rights program. We favor home-rule, local self-government and a minimum interference with individual rights." - Strom Thurmond, 1948.

Now, several things strike me initially:

• Both are full of crap
• Both were products of their age (although one renounced racism later in life)
• One of the two seems to be talking about philosophical principles
• One of the two seems to be homophobic
• One of the two has really bad grammar
• Both assume their race is better than the other race.
• Both were Democrats when they ran for president (Dixiecrat was a democratic party offshoot, remember)

So, bitter irony that the two are connected on more than just one level?

I have to say, it would really have been fitting had Sharpton's ancestors been slaves of Robert Byrd's ancestors.

New Oscar Category

I can only assume there's a new Oscar category entitled "largest pile of crap."

Hollywood doesn't lean to the left, oh, no it doesn't.

Jimmy Carter needs to shut the frack up, and go back to building houses.

I am so fracking tired of Jimmy Carter.

I was four when he was elected president. I still remember sitting in line for over an hour for gas at the height of his presidency. A seven year-old in a 1974 Buick in the middle of summer with no AC is an unhappy seven year-old. I was tired of Jimmy Carter by the age of eight.

I don't remember the hostage crisis, per se. I do remember them getting off the plane after being released, though, and someone saying how great it was that Reagan got these folks home (the conventional wisdom holds this to be true; Iran was afraid of the incoming administration, who they believed would have used force to get the hostages. And they were right to do so.)

Carter's recent book was, of course, more than a little bit of a fiasco. The moment you start comparing Israel to Apartheid-era South Africa, you've gone down a bad road. People are going to get sick of that really really quick.

But here's what is sticking in my craw today. Carter has never believed in the long-standing tradition of ex-presidents shutting the frack up, and once again he's decided that he needs to criticize the current administration. This time his invective is aimed at Dick Cheney (my hero, by the way; he shoots from the hip, political future be damned. He can be honest politically, because he just doesn't care to be elected to anything ever again).

And, just for the record, the Camp David Accords were not Carter's doing. They were a combination of the groudwork laid by Kissinger and Sadat's trust of Kissinger. What's especially telling here is that Kissinger got his nobel peace prize in 1973, and Sadat and Begin in 1978. Carter's was awareded twenty four years AFTER Sadat and Begin.

Hillary wants the Confederate flag removed from the South Carolina statehouse grounds. Something bothers me about this.

OK, I know, I know. I've heard it. The Confederate flag, even if it doesn't represent slavery or racism to Bo and Luke Duke, it does represent slavery or racism or something to Jesse Jackson and his friends, so it's offensive. It's about reception as well as intention. Fine, fine. I disagree, but I'm tired of this particular argument for a while. We can revisit it another time.

I'm not even upset at the hypocrisy of Hillary. She never suggested removing the Confederate star from the Arkansas state flag, or pulling down the "lone star" Republic of Texas flag down off of the Texas Statehouse grounds. (Although, that would be a fun one to watch. Can you imagine the hell that Hillary would catch?)

And, honestly, the "support the troops from South Carolina by removing the Confederate flag, yet let's demand Bush bring them home without victory" argument is, by any logical estimation, flawed at best. But, that's not new, we've seen it a lot from Hillary. And I'm sure we'll see a hell of a lot more. That doesn't especially bother me today.

Nope. My big problem is this:

Hillary Clinton is a Senator. From New York. She thinks she needs to dictate to another State, South Carolina, what it should and should not do with its flags.

Hillary Clinton wants to be President. Of the United States. As which she, we should assume, would actually think she had the power to dictate to a state, like South Carolina, what it should do with its flags. Now, that is scary, my friends.