Reality Check
So Bill Kristol has decided, against all evidence, to turn his frown upside-down and thinks the rest of the center-right is doing the same, huh? Well, I read his attempt at justifying his feigned happy face, and let's just say I find it weaker than hundred-year-old scotch (That's a James Doohan hat tip, BTW).
In a time of war, that should have been enough to keep them there, but the center-right grassroots also had to make its contribution to the party's roaring idiocy by committing electoral fratricide by omission by staying home last November 7th. Or perhaps they were manipulated into doing so by the party's own leadership in order to produce the result they desired but dared not publicly acknowledge - they wanted out of power as much as the Dems wanted back into it.
All I know is, I haven't seen that many Republicans smiling all at once since election night 1994. Or walk toward the camera in packs like that; makes it look like a Nike commercial.
Bush had good reason to be loyal to Rummy, because Rummy had continually been vindicated in his decisions. Despite what numbnuts like Carl Levin might think, the "insurgency" in Iraq was crushed, over a year ago. The past year has seen back-and-forth sectarian violence directed not at the Coalition but at (alternately) Iraqi Sunnis and Shia, and by Iraq's not-disinterested neighbor to the east, the Islamic Empire of Iran.
It is on what to do about, and with, the Iranian mullahgarchy that President Bush needs, desperately, to change course, and has for the past four years. I've said it before many times and will say it again: until Iran is liberated, Iraq can never be stabilized. But just this week came the following comments from a Bush Administration official (hint: NOT Donald Rumsfeld):
Wanna know a conservative who's not smiling about this? Frank Gaffney, for starters:
El Rushbo called it the Carterization of Bush foreign policy. Boy, he really knows how to hammer a nail home, doesn't he?
With all due respect to General Petraeus, bleep the "surge"; if you want to win in Iraq, send your tank armies east, as fast as possible. Hell, even if it is too late, send 'em anyway; as George Patton once said about the Red Army, "We're here now, we might as well fight 'em while we have the chance."
And since we're gonna have to anyway.
Good Lord. The "we won by losing" canard just will not die. This really is putting lipstick on a pig, my stubbornly optimistic friends. Even Limbaugh is buying into the part about the ruling Democrats "floundering" and "flailing" on following through on their six-year-running-screeching vow to defund the War Against Islamic Fundamentalism.
The truth, gentles, is that the Democrats have rediscovered the fine art of discretion. Oh, they're still not very good at it, but their "slow bleed" strategy of gradually starving our deployed forces and then blaming the inevitable reverses on the White House and the GOP minority is inspired, if expectedly despicable, political strategizing. The latter will always get the blame for anything (real or perceived) that goes wrong anyway, the Donks' exposure is minimal and their opportunities for more open policy sabotage proportionately greater, and it sets the 2008 table for Hillary Clinton's triumphant return to power for a de facto third presidential term.
As for Mitch McConnell, sorry, I'm not impressed. The leader of a forty-nine member caucus shouldn't have extraordinary difficulties getting forty of them to go along with a filibuster. Hell, Harry F'ing Reid ran the last Senate every bit as much from the minority as he's running this one from the majority. You want to impress me with McConnell, have him convince Joe Lieberman to cross the aisle and turn the chamber back over to the GOP. That might, just might, persuade me to forgive him for caving to McCain-Feingold five years ago. And even then, it'd be a photo finish.
This laundry list won't take long:
***Barack Obama is the great, black hope. Lighten his epidermal hue to pinkish levels and he'd still be a state legislative back-bencher, never to get the slightest sniff of a U.S. House race, much less the U.S. Senate. He's callow, he's inexperienced, he's a lightweight. That he wants to run for president ought to be an affront to anybody and everybody who takes the presidency seriously, especially in time of war. But he's black, so we can't say that out loud.
But he does have super fist pumping action down pat.
***Opie Edwards couldn't beat Lurch Kerry. Come to think of it, Opie Edwards was the 2004 version of Barack Obama. Minus, you know, the excess pigmentation.
***Al Gore? Leonardo DiCaprio has a better shot.
You'll note that Warner, Vilsack, Bayh, and Richardson would all be more serious contenders than the aforementioned three, and none of them are running. That's because they're perceptive and realistic enough to know that they would not be challenging a conceited dullard like the Boston Balker, but the invincible, Borg-like Clinton Machine itself. And while You-Know-Who is entirely without the "people skills" of her incontinent hubby, she does possess the drive, determination, and iron discipline to mercilessly crush anybody who gets in her way. Not unlike the late Dick Nixon, really.
In order for Hillary Clinton to be "beatable," whoever wins the GOP nod will have to be a lot better than ordinary to have a prayer of overcoming the media/propaganda/mafia forces that will be brought to bear on her behalf. And, honestly, do you really see anybody on our side who fits that description?
Rudy Giuliani is unnominatable. Don't believe me? Look at the breed of judges he would appoint. I dunno about you, but none of them bears even a passing resemblance to Chief Justice Roberts or Justice Alito, near as I can tell. Look at his support for abortion on demand and special rights for homosexuals. Push him and watch the party fragment to the four winds.
If Giuliani is unnominatable, John McCain is Mephistopheles himself. Here are reasons #1, #2, #3, and #4. #5 is that the Enemy Media love him and he endlessly seeks out their affections. #6 is that he hates evangelical Christians. #7 is campaign finance reform, a legislative nuking of the First Amendment. #8 is his pandering to environmental extremists by pushing ratification of the moribund Kyoto Protocol. #9 is his opposition to tax cuts. #10 is his crusade for terrorist rights. #11 is the "memo of understanding" that sabotaged Bill Frist's belated attempt to ban the Democrats' judicial confirmation filibusters and helped cost Republicans control of the U.S. Senate.
I'm sure there's more I've forgotten, but I think that's enough to make the basic point. Push Darth Queeg and watch the party combust like a warp core breach.
The '08 GOP nomination will fall to Mitt Romney more or less by default. But he proved himself too soft and weak to take on and overcome top tier Donk opposition back in his 1994 Massachusetts Senate race against Ted Kennedy. In a year that was the perfect storm for the GOP, in which Democrats across the country were dropping like frozen turkeys thrown from a helicopter, Romney should have at least made the contest close. But in their one debate, the eventual Bay State governor tacked "to the center," and Uncle Teddy pulled away to a blowout re-election victory.
Romney's problem isn't that he's Mormon, or that he had ancestors who practiced polygamy, or that he looks way too much like Sam "Mayday" Malone; his problem is that he's too nice of a guy. Absent Reaganian charisma, it will take a ruthless sonofabitch to beat Mrs. Clinton at her own game. Does anybody seriously believe that Mitt F'ing Romney fits that description any better than the other one?
Oh, forget about it. Kristol is delusional. Without an effective candidate to serve as an electoral vehicle, no idea has a snowball's chance of seeing the light of policy day. And in 2008 on the presidential level as it was in 2006 on the congressional level, the effective candidate will be on the other side of the aisle, and will reside there for the forseeable future.
I'd call that an "inconvenient truth," but the notion of infringing on Al Gore's gimmick would probably cause me to break out in hives. Not something I need seeing as how I don't quite have my vertigo problem entirely licked yet.
I have lots of conservative friends and often speak to Republican-leaning groups. I have something surprising to report: they're pretty cheerful. They're well aware that President Bush's numbers are terrible--and that Al Gore got an Academy Award. Yet my fellow conservatives and Republicans are pretty upbeat. After a rough 2006, conservative magazines are seeing an uptick in subscription renewals, right-wing websites are getting more hits, and Republican and conservative groups here at Harvard (yes, Harvard!) seem invigorated. What's going on?I'll tell you what's going on: they're profoundly relieved to be back in the minority. When the GOP was in charge there was relentless pressure to actually produce center-right legislation, slap down the Donk minority, and actually lead the country in the right direction. What became overpoweringly self-evident over the past dozen years, but none moreso than the last two, is that the Republican party simply did not have such greatness or courage in it. Or much conservatism, for that matter. They were exposed as being a centrist party, not a right-wing one, standing for little or nothing, all hat and no cattle, all sizzle and no steak, their greatest value being their ability to deny power to the DisLoyal Opposition by taking up that space.
In a time of war, that should have been enough to keep them there, but the center-right grassroots also had to make its contribution to the party's roaring idiocy by committing electoral fratricide by omission by staying home last November 7th. Or perhaps they were manipulated into doing so by the party's own leadership in order to produce the result they desired but dared not publicly acknowledge - they wanted out of power as much as the Dems wanted back into it.
All I know is, I haven't seen that many Republicans smiling all at once since election night 1994. Or walk toward the camera in packs like that; makes it look like a Nike commercial.
1. The surge. Nothing was more demoralizing last year to supporters of the war than the sense that Bush was refusing to alter course out of misguided loyalty to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and General George Casey. The ouster of Rumsfeld and Casey and the announcement of a new strategy backed up by additional troops and a new commander, General David Petraeus, gave hope to those who still think success is possible in Iraq - which, polls show, is still a healthy majority of Republicans.
Bush had good reason to be loyal to Rummy, because Rummy had continually been vindicated in his decisions. Despite what numbnuts like Carl Levin might think, the "insurgency" in Iraq was crushed, over a year ago. The past year has seen back-and-forth sectarian violence directed not at the Coalition but at (alternately) Iraqi Sunnis and Shia, and by Iraq's not-disinterested neighbor to the east, the Islamic Empire of Iran.
It is on what to do about, and with, the Iranian mullahgarchy that President Bush needs, desperately, to change course, and has for the past four years. I've said it before many times and will say it again: until Iran is liberated, Iraq can never be stabilized. But just this week came the following comments from a Bush Administration official (hint: NOT Donald Rumsfeld):
We hope that all governments will seize this opportunity to improve their relations with Iraq and to work for peace and stability in the region. I'm pleased that the government of Iraq is launching this new diplomatic initiative and that we will be able to support it and participate in it. The violence occurring within the country has a decided impact on Iraq's neighbors - and Iraq's neighbors, as well as the international community, have a clear role to play in supporting the Iraqi government's efforts to promote peace and national reconciliation within the country. [emphases added]This was Secretary of State Condolezza Rice, droning on obseqiously before the Senate Appropriations Committee, about Iraq's "diplomatic initiative" to....Iran. Yes, the same hostile neighbor that is inciting Iraq's sectarian violence, targeting American soldiers, and after the Democrats finish pulling the plug on our presence in the Middle East will vassalize Iraq or perhaps conquer and annex it outright. And we are going to support AND PARTICIPATE in it.
Wanna know a conservative who's not smiling about this? Frank Gaffney, for starters:
There are fundamentally three things wrong with negotiating with the Islamic Republic of Iran — whether over Iraq or anything else. First, such negotiations will legitimate one of the most dangerous regimes on the planet. By acceding to the pressure to accord the mullahocracy in Tehran the status of equal partners and members in good standing of the “community of nations” — especially against the backdrop of its increasing aggressiveness, we reward that bad behavior. It should come as no surprise that there will be more of it in the future.Gaffney's conclusion?
Second, embracing Ahmadinejad and his mullahs in this way can only alienate our natural allies: the people of Iran. They have lately been demonstrating a growing willingness to challenge the Islamofascists who have oppressed them for so long. The intensifying economic pressure of recent months — a product of efforts to divest the stocks of publicly traded companies doing business with Tehran, the declining price of oil and international economic sanctions (such as they are) — has helped make the Iranian regime even more unpopular at home. Now, it is inevitable that such pressure will be alleviated, as governments and businesses seize on the new diplomatic opening to rush in and prop up Ahmadinejad.
Third, the adoption of the negotiating track effectively forecloses other [i.e. military] options for dealing with the danger posed by the Iranian regime. In particular, efforts to bring about its downfall will be precluded. Diplomats predictably will insist that nothing be done — for example, through covert operations, more far-reaching and effective economic sanctions, military preparations, or political warfare — that will jeopardize the prospects for successful negotiations.
Ahmadinejad and the mullahs for whom he fronts will perceive the new U.S. diplomatic opening for what it is: evidence of the collapse of George W. Bush’s resolution and ability to contend with the danger posed by what our President once correctly called “the Axis of Evil.” By substituting an unabashed appeasement strategy with respect to Iran — on the heels of the Administration’s recent, appalling accommodation of North Korea — for policies aimed at containing and, where possible, eliminating the regimes that comprised this axis, the Administration has declared an open season on American interests.
El Rushbo called it the Carterization of Bush foreign policy. Boy, he really knows how to hammer a nail home, doesn't he?
With all due respect to General Petraeus, bleep the "surge"; if you want to win in Iraq, send your tank armies east, as fast as possible. Hell, even if it is too late, send 'em anyway; as George Patton once said about the Red Army, "We're here now, we might as well fight 'em while we have the chance."
And since we're gonna have to anyway.
2. Congress. The bad news of November 2006 was that the Republicans lost their majorities on Capitol Hill. The good news is that the Democrats are now in control. It's difficult to be in charge of Congress, especially when your grass roots are pushing you to do something about the war, and it's hard to do anything without seeming to undercut the troops or denying Petraeus a chance to succeed. Mitch McConnell's performance as Senate Republican leader has also - for the first time in a long while--given Republicans a congressional leader worth rooting for as he outmaneuvers the Democrats in their efforts to put Congress on record against Bush's Iraq policy.
Good Lord. The "we won by losing" canard just will not die. This really is putting lipstick on a pig, my stubbornly optimistic friends. Even Limbaugh is buying into the part about the ruling Democrats "floundering" and "flailing" on following through on their six-year-running-screeching vow to defund the War Against Islamic Fundamentalism.
The truth, gentles, is that the Democrats have rediscovered the fine art of discretion. Oh, they're still not very good at it, but their "slow bleed" strategy of gradually starving our deployed forces and then blaming the inevitable reverses on the White House and the GOP minority is inspired, if expectedly despicable, political strategizing. The latter will always get the blame for anything (real or perceived) that goes wrong anyway, the Donks' exposure is minimal and their opportunities for more open policy sabotage proportionately greater, and it sets the 2008 table for Hillary Clinton's triumphant return to power for a de facto third presidential term.
As for Mitch McConnell, sorry, I'm not impressed. The leader of a forty-nine member caucus shouldn't have extraordinary difficulties getting forty of them to go along with a filibuster. Hell, Harry F'ing Reid ran the last Senate every bit as much from the minority as he's running this one from the majority. You want to impress me with McConnell, have him convince Joe Lieberman to cross the aisle and turn the chamber back over to the GOP. That might, just might, persuade me to forgive him for caving to McCain-Feingold five years ago. And even then, it'd be a photo finish.
3. The 2008 Democratic field. Hillary Clinton, as Hollywood chieftain David Geffen has famously pointed out, looks beatable in a general election. Barack Obama is impressive but Republicans find it hard to believe he'll be our next President. The second time doesn't seem to be the charm for John Edwards. And Al Gore, who could be the nominee, still isn't a natural pol. There are serious Democrats who have won in red or purple states: former Governors Mark Warner of Virginia and Tom Vilsack of Iowa, Senator Evan Bayh of Indiana and Governor Bill Richardson of New Mexico. But the first three have dropped out of the presidential race, and Richardson is polling at 2% and looks unlikely to make it into the top tier. Hillary is the least left-wing of the leading Democratic candidates. To a Republican, that says it all.
This laundry list won't take long:
***Barack Obama is the great, black hope. Lighten his epidermal hue to pinkish levels and he'd still be a state legislative back-bencher, never to get the slightest sniff of a U.S. House race, much less the U.S. Senate. He's callow, he's inexperienced, he's a lightweight. That he wants to run for president ought to be an affront to anybody and everybody who takes the presidency seriously, especially in time of war. But he's black, so we can't say that out loud.
But he does have super fist pumping action down pat.
***Opie Edwards couldn't beat Lurch Kerry. Come to think of it, Opie Edwards was the 2004 version of Barack Obama. Minus, you know, the excess pigmentation.
***Al Gore? Leonardo DiCaprio has a better shot.
You'll note that Warner, Vilsack, Bayh, and Richardson would all be more serious contenders than the aforementioned three, and none of them are running. That's because they're perceptive and realistic enough to know that they would not be challenging a conceited dullard like the Boston Balker, but the invincible, Borg-like Clinton Machine itself. And while You-Know-Who is entirely without the "people skills" of her incontinent hubby, she does possess the drive, determination, and iron discipline to mercilessly crush anybody who gets in her way. Not unlike the late Dick Nixon, really.
In order for Hillary Clinton to be "beatable," whoever wins the GOP nod will have to be a lot better than ordinary to have a prayer of overcoming the media/propaganda/mafia forces that will be brought to bear on her behalf. And, honestly, do you really see anybody on our side who fits that description?
4. The 2008 Republican field. Republicans look likely to nominate one from a trio of "metro Republicans," to use the term applied to Rudy Giuliani, John McCain and Mitt Romney by Noemie Emery in the Weekly Standard. Emery writes, "None hails from the South, none looks or sounds country, none is conspicuous for traditional piety ... [but] each is a strong conservative on many key issues, while having a dissident streak on a few. Each has a way of presenting conservative views that centrists don't find threatening, and projecting fairly traditional values in a language that secular voters don't fear." Each has shown an ability to get independent and even Democratic votes. Democrats won the national vote in 2006 by about 8 points. Republican front runner Giuliani now beats Democratic front runner Clinton in polls by about that margin.
Rudy Giuliani is unnominatable. Don't believe me? Look at the breed of judges he would appoint. I dunno about you, but none of them bears even a passing resemblance to Chief Justice Roberts or Justice Alito, near as I can tell. Look at his support for abortion on demand and special rights for homosexuals. Push him and watch the party fragment to the four winds.
If Giuliani is unnominatable, John McCain is Mephistopheles himself. Here are reasons #1, #2, #3, and #4. #5 is that the Enemy Media love him and he endlessly seeks out their affections. #6 is that he hates evangelical Christians. #7 is campaign finance reform, a legislative nuking of the First Amendment. #8 is his pandering to environmental extremists by pushing ratification of the moribund Kyoto Protocol. #9 is his opposition to tax cuts. #10 is his crusade for terrorist rights. #11 is the "memo of understanding" that sabotaged Bill Frist's belated attempt to ban the Democrats' judicial confirmation filibusters and helped cost Republicans control of the U.S. Senate.
I'm sure there's more I've forgotten, but I think that's enough to make the basic point. Push Darth Queeg and watch the party combust like a warp core breach.
The '08 GOP nomination will fall to Mitt Romney more or less by default. But he proved himself too soft and weak to take on and overcome top tier Donk opposition back in his 1994 Massachusetts Senate race against Ted Kennedy. In a year that was the perfect storm for the GOP, in which Democrats across the country were dropping like frozen turkeys thrown from a helicopter, Romney should have at least made the contest close. But in their one debate, the eventual Bay State governor tacked "to the center," and Uncle Teddy pulled away to a blowout re-election victory.
Romney's problem isn't that he's Mormon, or that he had ancestors who practiced polygamy, or that he looks way too much like Sam "Mayday" Malone; his problem is that he's too nice of a guy. Absent Reaganian charisma, it will take a ruthless sonofabitch to beat Mrs. Clinton at her own game. Does anybody seriously believe that Mitt F'ing Romney fits that description any better than the other one?
5. Fresh ideas....
Oh, forget about it. Kristol is delusional. Without an effective candidate to serve as an electoral vehicle, no idea has a snowball's chance of seeing the light of policy day. And in 2008 on the presidential level as it was in 2006 on the congressional level, the effective candidate will be on the other side of the aisle, and will reside there for the forseeable future.
I'd call that an "inconvenient truth," but the notion of infringing on Al Gore's gimmick would probably cause me to break out in hives. Not something I need seeing as how I don't quite have my vertigo problem entirely licked yet.
posted by JASmius at 12:19 PM
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