Weekend Highlights & Lowlights

I am, once again, on assignment at a not-to-be-disclosed location. Well, okay, here's a hint: I spent yesterday afternoon taking down storm windows and putting up screens in their place, and today I'll be running around obtaining a power of attorney and inventorying a safe deposit box. Not much of a hint? Well, it's not much of a vacation, either. But a baby's gotta do what a baby's gotta do, as Tommy Pickles used to say.

Therewith, rather than try to catch up on all the blogfodder that's passed me by the past few days, I shall try to skim over the wave crests (and troughs) as I surf my customary route.

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President Bush's former pollster, Matt Dowd, has turned heel, and then chickened out on writing a guest op-ed for the New York Times kissing John Kerry's ass for gratuitous measure. Somehow, the latter seems to flow from the former. Also unsurprising that it's because of the war that is unfolding exactly as Bush said it would six and a half years ago. The bleeping turncoat RINO actually wrote, “I feel a calling of trying to re-establish a level of gentleness in the world.”

Yeah, sure, Matt; tell that to the millions of jihadists trying to kill us all - I'm sure they'll listen to such sweet reason if you're the one sticking his neck out.

Ed Morrissey and Big Lizard have more.

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Last week the Democrats, with wily Senate Republican blessing, passed a supplemental war spending bill for ongoing operations in Iraq and Afghanistan that has a dilly of a poison pill: a firm, unbreakable timetable for all-out retreat from the Middle East, to be completed by next March.

Some have wondered why Donk leaders pushed so hard for this since they had the votes neither to overcome a GOP filibuster or override an inevitable Bush veto. Indeed, so doubtful of the ultimate political gain were a number of Democrats, both NeoStalinist crazoids like the "Out of Iraq #$%^ing NOW!!!!!" Caucus and the so-called "moderate "Blue Dogs," that the majority leadership larded the monstrosity up with over $24 billion - with a "b" - in blatant pork barrel add-ons, something I could have sworn voters said they were against in last year's mid-term campaign. I guess they're just against pork when Republicans wallow in it.

Fear not, though, friends, Romans, and countrymen, for I know why they did it. They key is in a comment from Senator Chucky "The Plumber" Schumer wherein he said that this stunt was not an isolated incident, but part of "a long-term campaign." And it has a name with which those who follow such things are already dismally familiar: the "slow bleed" strategy.

The supplemental appropriation in question is meant to keep funding going past April 15th. That's two weeks from yesterday. Without it, operations will start having to be drastically curtailed. Now consider that General David Petraeus' "surge" strategy in Iraq has been enjoying dramatic success against the "insurgents" trying to spark a genuine civil war. Think the timing is a coincidence? I don't. Nor is it just happenstance that rather than simply being open and honest and refusing to continue war funding, the Democrats are scamming poison pills that they know the President will never accept in order to make it look like he's the one standing in the way of continuing to support the troops in harm's way. And, of course, after he vetoes this supplemental bill, you know the Donks will take their own sweet time even coming back to it, and when they do it is highly unlikely to change very much, particularly the poison pill [whatever Barack Obama is claiming at the moment].

It's a self-fulfilling prophecy: bring the "surge" to a screeching halt, blame the Bush Administration for that and the inevitable battlefield reverses that will follow, and cite THAT as "proof" that we "can't win" and must "get out" as soon as possible.

And, if the Washington Post has their story straight, that's to be just the beginning of the Donk rampage I predicted in the wake of last November's mid-term disaster:

Even as their confrontation with President Bush over Iraq escalates, emboldened congressional Democrats are challenging the White House on a range of issues - such as unionization of airport security workers and the loosening of presidential secrecy orders - with even more dramatic showdowns coming soon.

For his part, Bush, who also finds himself under assault for the firing of eight U.S. attorneys, the conduct of the Iraq war and alleged abuses in government surveillance by the FBI, is holding firm. Though he has vetoed only one piece of legislation since taking office, he has vowed to veto sixteen bills that have passed either the House or the Senate in the three months since Democrats took control of Congress.

Despite the threats, Democratic lawmakers expect to open new fronts against the President when they return from their spring recess, including politically risky efforts to quickly close the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba; reinstate legal rights for terrorism suspects; and rein in what Democrats see as unwarranted encroachments on privacy and civil liberties allowed by the USA Patriot Act.

"I suppose there's always a risk of going too far," said House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer (D-MD), "but the risk of not going is far greater."

Backed by a unified party and fresh from a slew of legislative victories, Democratic leaders appear to believe there is hardly any territory they cannot stray onto, a development that has Republican political operatives gleeful and some Democrats worried. Representative Tom Cole (OK), chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, warned of a "political price" at the polls: "If they let their constituents and their ideology drive them past the point where the American people are comfortable, they will find how quickly the voters will react." [emphasis added]

Given that voters put the Democrats back in power last fall, and that they couldn't possibly have done so with their eyes anything but wide open, I would suggest that the American people are entirely comfortable with the Dems' ideology and where it's driving them, and will react to their runaway "straying" with hearty approval. At least until it yields its inevitable national security disasters, and then voters are as likely to swallow Donk excuses that they're the fault of "Bush's warmongering" as the Dems' own seditious, militantly pacifisitic foolishness.

Cap'n Ed still persists in believing that the Democrats are going to far with this, despite the fact that that was what they were elected to do. But I will concede that there is one man who can turn this tide if he will but finally throw away his idiotic, politically suicidal civility and bipartisanship and take these assholes head-on:

The Democrats are about to retreat on Iraq war spending, after giving Bush an opportunity for an easy veto. It's bad enough that the Democrats played a game of chicken that they couldn't possibly win the last two weeks. They compounded the error by larding the final bills up with so much pork that Bush can now easily justify the veto on the grounds of containing corruption - and make the Democrats look as if they will only fund the troops if they can get their own snouts into the trough as well.

Now they want to force the government to allow unionization for TSA workers, which will impact the agency's already uneven [heh] efforts to provide security for transportation centers in time of war. The Democrats also want to close Guantanamo Bay's terrorist detention center, allowing the detainees to have access to the American civilian justice system. These combined together show an ambition to remake the entire national-security apparatus - one that has kept the US safe from additional terrorist attacks for the five-plus years since 9/11.

George Bush will be warming up his veto pen and preparing for battle himself. The Democrats don't have the votes to override him on any of the important issues, and may wind up making the same mistake Newt Gingrich made in 1995.

Maybe. Personally I'm dubious of the GOP's ability to exploit opposition excesses as deftly as the Clintonoids did back then. And don't forget that the primary result of that was not a restored Democrat congress in the 1996 election, but rather a second term for Bill Clinton. I think it will take a lot more than that to shove, by main force, the political pendulum so prematurely back in the Republicans' direction.

But you have to start somewhere. And George W. Bush is he only one who can do it.

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Hmmm; popular two-term governor of a key swing state; has both federal and state budgeting experience; has gravitas on a big domestic issue (health care) from a center-right/free-market perspective.

I think we've got a Thompson in the race that I can unreservedly, whole-heartedly back. I just hope he doesn't end up as the Phil Gramm of 2008.

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Pop quiz: Identify what's wrong with this picture:

U.S. House members meeting with President Bashar Assad Sunday said they believed there was an opportunity for dialogue with the Syrian leadership.

The U.S. House members, who included Virginia Republican Frank Wolf, Pennsylvania Republican Joe Pitts and Alabama Republican Robert Aderholt, also said they had raised with Syrian officials the issue of stopping the alleged flow of foreign fighters from Syria to Iraq.

In a statement issued by the U.S. Embassy in Damascus, the congressmen said they had talked about "ending support for Hezbollah and Hamas, recognizing Israel's right to exist in peace and security, and ceasing interference in Lebanon."

"We came because we believe there is an opportunity for dialogue," the statement said. "We are following in the lead of Ronald Reagan, who reached out to the Soviets during the Cold War," it added.

I've got three words for ya - The Logan Act:

§ 953. Private correspondence with foreign governments.

Any citizen of the United States, wherever he may be, who, without authority of the United States, directly or indirectly commences or carries on any correspondence or intercourse with any foreign government or any officer or agent thereof, with intent to influence the measures or conduct of any foreign government or of any officer or agent thereof, in relation to any disputes or controversies with the United States, or to defeat the measures of the United States, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both.

This section shall not abridge the right of a citizen to apply himself, or his agent, to any foreign government, or the agents thereof, for redress of any injury which he may have sustained from such government or any of its agents or subjects.

The only "dialogue" that should be offered to the "Syrian leadership" is a demand for unconditional surrender. And when Crazy Nancy and her Donk/RINO delegation return from the Middle East, it should be to a reception of U.S. marshalls, handcuffs and orange prison suits at the ready, a-frog-marching to go.

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Looks like the mullahgarchy is as intent on reprising their glory days as the Democrats are:

About two-hundred students threw rocks and firecrackers at the British Embassy on Sunday, calling for the expulsion of the country's ambassador because of the standoff over Iran's capture of fifteen British sailors and marines.

Several dozen policemen prevented the protesters from entering the embassy compound, although a few briefly scaled a fence outside the compound's walls before being pushed back, according to an Associated Press reporter at the scene.

The protesters chanted "Death to Britain" and "Death to America" as they hurled stones into the courtyard of the embassy. They also demanded that the Iranian government expel the British ambassador and close down the embassy, calling it a "den of spies."

One of Cap'n Ed's commenters suggests that since the UK is a member of NATO, and the NATO charter holds that an act of war against one member is an act of war against all, that a state of war already exists between NATO and the Islamic Republic of Iran. A state that would be hugely reinforced if Islamist "students" storm the British Embassy as they did the American one twenty-eight years ago.

I'm still not convinced my pessimistic scenario isn't the more logical one. I think as long as there's no direct US-Iranian clash, there will be no military response to the mullahs' brazen provocations.

But how difficult would it be to set up such an "accident"? And would President Bush have the cajones to do it?

Perhaps this could get "interesting" after all....

Nahhhh. But a man can dream, can't he?