Post #192

Subject: We Got Fooled Again, Pt II

Hey, I know less about the economy than John McCain does, but I do know the solutions coming from Washington smell -- throwing money at Wall Street because they asked and inflicting another layer of bureaucracy -- “car czar” -- on those who actually work for a living.

It seems to me that Barack Obama’s first step to help the economy should be something easy, inexpensive and effective -- EIE. He should sign an executive order -- easy -- mandating that all new cars and trucks bought by the feds -- inexpensive; the feds need replacements every year -- be powered by something other than gas -- effective; creating a new market for Detroit. This will “grease the wheels” of lending, as loans to Detroit would now seem like a good idea; thus, lowering our bailout overhead.

By the way, the author of the last article I quoted -- my Post #191 -- William Greider has been a political journalist for more than thirty-five years and has been a editor at Rolling Stone and Washington Post.

Post #191

Subject: We Got Fooled Again

My responses and additions – in [brackets]….

Paulson Bailout Plan a Historic Swindle By William Greider

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20081006/greider

[It is, as Jim Cramer of CNBC’s “Mad Money” puts it, a betrayal by the Bush administration. George W. Bush took care of his pals -- even forcing banks that did not want or need help to accept taxpayer funds. Of course, we now know that banks cannot or will not account for that money.]

[I thought the whole idea was to ’grease the wheels’ of lending so that other bailouts would not be necessary.]

[Please, Mr. Obama, not another dime to reward incompetence -- cut our losses at $350 billion.]

[Note the date of this article.]

September 19, 2008

Obama's too smart to allow the ideas of the past to define his presidency. Yet Timothy Geithner is an architect and enabler of the unfolding crisis.

If Wall Street gets away with this, it will represent an historic swindle of the American public--all sugar for the villains, lasting pain and damage for the victims. My advice to Washington politicians: Stop, take a deep breath and examine what you are being told to do by so-called "responsible opinion." If this deal succeeds, I predict it will become a transforming event in American politics--exposing the deep deformities in our democracy and launching a tidal wave of righteous anger and popular rebellion. As I have been saying for several months, this crisis has the potential to bring down one or both political parties, take your choice.

Christopher Whalen of Institutional Risk Analytics, a brave conservative critic, put it plainly: "The joyous reception from Congressional Democrats to Paulson's latest massive bailout proposal smells an awful lot like yet another corporatist lovefest between Washington's one-party government and the Sell Side investment banks."

A kindred critic, Josh Rosner of Graham Fisher in New York, defined the sponsors of this stampede to action: "Let us be clear, it is not citizen groups, private investors, equity investors or institutional investors broadly who are calling for this government purchase fund. It is almost exclusively being lobbied for by precisely those institutions that believed they were 'smarter than the rest of us,' institutions who need to get those assets off their balance sheet at an inflated value lest they be at risk of large losses or worse."

Let me be clear. The scandal is not that government is acting. The scandal is that government is not acting forcefully enough--using its ultimate emergency powers to take full control of the financial system and impose order on banks, firms and markets. Stop the music, so to speak, instead of allowing individual financiers and traders to take opportunistic moves to save themselves at the expense of the system. The step-by-step rescues that the Federal Reserve and Treasury have executed to date have failed utterly to reverse the flight of investors and banks worldwide from lending or buying in doubtful times. There is no obvious reason to assume this bailout proposal will change their minds, though it will certainly feel good to the financial houses that get to dump their bad paper on the government.

A serious intervention in which Washington takes charge would, first, require a new central authority to supervise the financial institutions and compel them to support the government's actions to stabilize the system. Government can apply killer leverage to the financial players: accept our objectives and follow our instructions or you are left on your own--cut off from government lending spigots and ineligible for any direct assistance. If they decline to cooperate, the money guys are stuck with their own mess. If they resist the government's orders to keep lending to the real economy of producers and consumers, banks and brokers will be effectively isolated, therefore doomed.

Only with these conditions, and some others, should the federal government be willing to take ownership--temporarily--of the rotten financial assets that are dragging down funds, banks and brokerages. Paulson and the Federal Reserve are trying to replay the bailout approach used in the 1980s for the savings and loan crisis, but this situation is utterly different. The failed S&Ls held real assets--property, houses, shopping centers--that could be readily resold by the Resolution Trust Corporation at bargain prices. This crisis involves ethereal financial instruments of unknowable value--not just the notorious mortgage securities but various derivative contracts and other esoteric deals that may be virtually worthless.

Despite what the pols in Washington think, the RTC bailout was also a Wall Street scandal. Many of the financial firms that had financed the S&L industry's reckless lending got to buy back the same properties for pennies from the RTC--profiting on the upside, then again on the downside. Guess who picked up the tab? I suspect Wall Street is envisioning a similar bonanza--the chance to harvest new profit from their own fraud and criminal irresponsibility.

If government acts responsibly, it will impose some other conditions on any broad rescue for the bankers. First, take due bills from any financial firms that get to hand off their spoiled assets, that is, a hard contract that repays government from any future profits once the crisis is over. Second, when the politicians get around to reforming financial regulations and dismantling the gimmicks and "too big to fail" institutions, Wall Street firms must be prohibited from exercising their usual manipulations of the political system. Call off their lobbyists, bar them from the bribery disguised as campaign contributions. Any contact or conversations between the assisted bankers and financial houses with government agencies or elected politicians must be promptly reported to the public, just as regulated industries are required to do when they call on government regulars.

More important, if the taxpayers are compelled to refinance the villains in this drama, then Americans at large are entitled to equivalent treatment in their crisis. That means the suspension of home foreclosures and personal bankruptcies for debt-soaked families during the duration of this crisis. The debtors will not escape injury and loss--their situation is too dire--but they deserve equal protection from government, the chance to work out things gradually over some years on reasonable terms.

The government, meanwhile, may have to create another emergency agency, something like the New Deal, that lends directly to the real economy--businesses, solvent banks, buyers and sellers in consumer markets. We don't know how much damage has been done to economic growth or how long the cold spell will last, but I don't trust the bankers in the meantime to provide investment capital and credit. If necessary, Washington has to fill that role, too.

Finally, the crisis is global, obviously, and requires concerted global action. Robert A. Johnson, a veteran of global finance now working with the Campaign for America's Future, suggests that our global trading partners may recognize the need for self-interested cooperation and can negotiate temporary--maybe permanent--reforms to balance the trading system and keep it functioning, while leading nations work to put the global financial system back in business.

The agenda is staggering. The United States is ill equipped to deal with it smartly, not to mention wisely. We have a brain-dead lame duck in the White House. The two presidential candidates are trapped by events, trying to say something relevant without getting blamed for the disaster. The people should make themselves heard in Washington, even if only to share their outrage.

Post #190

Subject: War Crimes

“What sets us apart from our enemies in this fight… is how we behave. In everything we do, we must observe the standards and values that dictate that we treat noncombatants and detainees with dignity and respect. While we are warriors, we are also all human beings”

-- General David Petraeus, May 10, 2007

On Thursday, December 11, 2008 -- eight days ago, the Senate Armed Services Committee released a report which laid out the case that George W. Bush and his entire National Security Council are war criminals. It is important that the Senate committee voted for the report unanimously -- every Republican, including John McCain, and every Democrat voted for this report. The report is titled "Senate Armed Services Committee Inquiry Into The Treatment Of Detainees In U.S. Custody."

To quote:

“Al Qaeda and Taliban terrorists are taught to expect Americans to abuse them. They are recruited based on false propaganda that says the United States is out to destroy Islam. Treating detainees harshly only reinforces that distorted view, increases resistance to cooperation, and creates new enemies. In fact, the April 2006 National Intelligence Estimate "Trends in Global Terrorism: Implications for the United States" cited "pervasive anti U.S. sentiment among most Muslims" as an underlying factor fueling the spread of the global jihadist movement. Former Navy General Counsel Alberto Mora testified to the Senate Armed Services Committee in June 2008 that "there are serving U.S. flag-rank officers who maintain that the first and second identifiable causes of U.S. combat deaths in Iraq -- as judged by their effectiveness in recruiting insurgent fighters into combat -- are, respectively the symbols of Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo."

There ya go, Mr. Hawk -- and ya know who ya is: Keep Guantanamo open and create more enemies.

“The abuse of detainees in U.S. custody cannot simply be attributed to the actions of "a few bad apples" acting on their own. The fact is that senior officials in the United States government solicited information on how to use aggressive techniques, redefined the law to create the appearance of their legality, and authorized their use against detainees. Those efforts damaged our ability to collect accurate intelligence that could save lives, strengthened the hand of our enemies, and compromised our moral authority.”

The Senate Armed Services Committee has publicly released a summary of this report -- the full report is still classified, although Committee Chairman Carl Levin has called for it to be declassified. The report details war crimes by the highest government officials, the top of the chain of command.

“Conclusion 1: On February 7, 2002, President George W. Bush made a written determination that Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions, which would have afforded minimum standards for humane treatment, did not apply to al Qaeda or Taliban detainees. Following the President's determination, techniques such as waterboarding, nudity, and stress positions, used in SERE [Survival Evasion Resistance Escape] training to simulate tactics used by enemies that refuse to follow the Geneva Conventions, were authorized for use in interrogations of detainees in U.S. custody.

“Conclusion 2: Members of the President's Cabinet and other senior officials participated in meetings inside the White House in 2002 and 2003 where specific interrogation techniques were discussed. National Security Council Principals reviewed the CIA's interrogation program during that period.”

These were the meetings at which John Ashcroft famously said, “History will not judge this kindly.”

“Conclusion 3: The use of techniques similar to those used in SERE resistance training -- such as stripping students of their clothing, placing them in stress positions, putting hoods over their heads, and treating them like animals -- was at odds with the commitment to humane treatment of detainees in U.S. custody. Using those techniques for interrogating detainees was also inconsistent with the goal of collecting accurate intelligence information, as the purpose of SERE resistance training is to increase the ability of U.S. personnel to resist abusive interrogations and the techniques used were based, in part, on Chinese Communist techniques used during the Korean War to elicit false confessions.”

Doesn’t anybody care what is going on in your name? I pray that we are on God’s side.

Post #189

Subject: George W. Bush: Ya is Fired! Pt. IV

OK, I just like the title -- “George W. Bush: Ya is Fired!” The below is from another blog. My responses and additions – in [brackets]….

http://blog.catholic-convert.com/?p=2495

“A friend wrote:

“Dear Fellow Business Executives:

“As the CFO of this business that employees 140 people, I have resigned myself to the fact that Barrack Obama will be our next President, and that our taxes and government fees will increase in a BIG way.

“To compensate for these increases, I figure that the Clients will have to see an increase in our fees to them of about 8% but since we cannot increase our fees right now due to the dismal state of our economy, we will have to lay off six of our employees instead. This has really been eating at me for a while, as we believe we are family here and I didn‘t know how to choose who will have to go.

“So, this is what I did. I strolled through our parking lot and found 6 Obama bumper stickers on our employees‘ cars and have decided these folks will be the first to be laid off. I can’t think of a more fair way to approach this problem. These folks wanted change; I gave it to them.

“If you have a better idea, let me know.”

Some folks took this way to seriously, as a few emails have demonstrated. This is a “joke,” a political satire, a social commentary, a sarcastic “cartoon” in words. This did not really happen (for those who don’t read between the lines). It was meant to react to those who treated Obama like a Messiah-figure who will now have to pay for their choices in the real world -- even as
Obama begins seriously backpeddling from much of what he promised and can never deliver.

[Satire -- I get it. Or at least thought I did. I thought this was aimed at those who rush to judgment, those who over-react out of FEAR -- kind of like you-know-who….:p]

[Why doesn’t Mr. Business wait until his taxes are raised BEFORE he fires ‘family members?’]

Post #188

Subject: George W. Bush: Ya is Fired! Pt. III

My responses and additions – in [brackets]….

By Pat Buchanan

November 4, 2008

[Why did I chose this column -- “But Where Did Bush Go Wrong?” -- posted on election day by Pat Buchanan as another post-mortem on John McCain’s presidential bid instead of Pat’s “Why Did McCain Lose?” Quite simply, Pat’s post-mortem was a thinly-veiled call for more racism and hatred. Hopefully, we are beyond that.]

After losing control of the Senate and 30 House seats in 2006, the GOP is bracing for losses of six to nine in the Senate, and two dozen to three dozen additional seats in the House.

If the party "were a dog food," says Rep. Tom Davis, "they would take us off the shelf."

[George W.] Bush's approval is 25 percent. Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton left office with ratings more than twice as high.

But while John McCain and others have deplored the Bush failures, what, exactly, did he do wrong?

What were the policy blunders to which Republicans vehemently objected at the time?

That Bush is a Big Government Republican is undeniable. His two great social spending initiatives, prescription drug benefits for seniors under Medicare and No Child Left Behind, so testify.But how many Republicans opposed Bush on these initiatives? How many have called for the abolition of either program, or for raising payroll taxes to pay for prescription drugs?

[“Big Government Republican” ought to be a contradiction in terms.]

McCain now supports the Bush judges and justices and the Bush tax cuts, as do almost all Republicans.

True, Bush sought amnesty for illegal aliens and backs the free-trade globalism that exported our manufacturing base and 3 million to 4 million jobs. But McCain is even more enthusiastic about both.

Does the party dissent on free trade and mass immigration?

Two-thirds of Americans now believe the Iraq war a mistake. Yet, all but a few Republicans backed the war. At the time of "Mission Accomplished!" in May 2003, the nation gave Bush a 90 percent approval rating, as his father had after Desert Storm.

What turned America against the war was not the decision to invade, oust Saddam, destroy the weapons of mass destruction and depart, but the long, bloody slog, the five-year war, with nearly 5,000 dead, that Iraq became. It was not the lightning war of Tommy Franks, with journalists riding tanks into Baghdad, that soured America, but the unanticipated duration and cost of the war.

Yet, Republicans still believe that the war was not a mistake, only mishandled. And now that Gen. Petraeus got it right in Iraq, they say, we should pursue the Petraeus policy in Afghanistan.

[Add me to the ever-growing list of those who question our commitment in Afghanistan. What exactly did Petraeus do in Iraq, and why will that work in Afghanistan? Let’s find out BEFORE we “surge” in Afghanistan, huh?]

How many Republicans have repudiated the Bush Doctrine that got us into Iraq - the belief that only by making the world democratic can we keep America secure and free? Americans no longer believe that, if ever they did. And history proves them right. For Iraq has never been democratic, and America has always been free.

Yet, the Republican Party has never renounced the Bush Doctrine.

Indeed, it is being applied today in Afghanistan.

That war, too, after we failed at Tora Bora to capture or kill bin Laden, has become a long slog to create a democratic Afghanistan, which, like a democratic Iraq, has never before existed.

In Afghanistan, we are entering the eighth year of war with victory further away than ever. The Taliban grows stronger. U.S. casualties are surging. Opium exports are breaking records. Our NATO allies grow weary. Even the Brits are talking of reconciliation with the Taliban, perhaps accepting a dictator.

These two wars helped to cripple the Bush presidency and end the GOP ascendancy. Yet, at the highest levels of the party, one hears no serious questioning of the ideology that produced these wars. McCain has pledged to stay in Iraq until "victory" and send 10,000 more troops to Afghanistan.

Nor have Republicans objected to the U.S. air strikes that have killed hundreds of Afghans, or the Predator strikes that have inflamed Pakistan or the helicopter raid into Syria that humiliated Damascus and enraged the population. If Republicans disagree with these policies and actions, their voices are muted.

Bush is for facing down Russia and bringing Georgia and Ukraine into NATO. Does any Republican disagree? For McCain is more hawkish than Bush when it come to Moscow.

The party says it is losing because the economy went south. But who caused that? Was it not because Republicans colluded with Democrats in pushing "affordable housing," subprime mortgages, for folks who could not afford houses?

Is the GOP prepared to demand tough terms for home loans?

Was it not GOP presidents who appointed the Fed chairmen who pumped up the money supply and created the bubble? How many Republicans objected to the easy money when the going was good?

The country wishes to be rid of the Bush policies and the Bush presidency. But where does the Republican Party think Bush went wrong, other than to be asleep at the wheel during Katrina?

The GOP needs to confront the truth: The failure of the Bush presidency lies not in a failed execution of policy but in the policies themselves and the neoconservative ideology that informed them.

[It is worth repeating: The failure of the Bush presidency lies not in a failed execution of policy but in the policies themselves and the neoconservative ideology that informed them.]

Yet, still, the party remains in denial, refusing to come to terms with the causes of its misfortune. One expects they will be given the time and opportunity for reflection soon.

"The fault, dear Brutus, lies not in our stars but in ourselves."

Post #187

Subject: George W. Bush: Ya is Fired! Pt. II

My responses and additions – in [brackets]….

By George Will

November 16, 2008

WASHINGTON -- Conservatism's current intellectual chaos reverberated in the Republican ticket's end-of-campaign crescendo of surreal warnings that big government -- verily, "socialism" -- would impend were Democrats elected. John McCain and Sarah Palin experienced this epiphany when Barack Obama told a Toledo plumber that he would "spread the wealth around."

[All taxes -- and indeed tax cuts -- “spread the wealth.” The only question is, to whom? George W. Bush got over a trillion dollars in tax cuts. How much did ya get? I’m still waiting for those Ronald Reagan tax cuts to “trickle down” to me…. :p]

America can't have that, exclaimed the Republican ticket while Republicans -- whose prescription drug entitlement is the largest expansion of the welfare state since President Lyndon Johnson's Great Society gave birth to Medicare in 1965; a majority of whom in Congress supported a lavish farm bill at a time of record profits for the less than 2 percent of the American people-cum-corporations who farm -- and their administration were partially nationalizing the banking system, putting Detroit on the dole and looking around to see if some bit of what is smilingly called "the private sector" has been inadvertently left off the ever-expanding list of entities eligible for a bailout from the $1 trillion or so that is to be "spread around."

[Whatever happened to, the government that governs least, governs best?]

The seepage of government into everywhere is, we are assured, to be temporary and nonpolitical. Well.

[Who assured that?]

Probably as temporary as New York City's rent controls, which were born as emergency responses to the Second World War, and which are still distorting the city's housing market. The Depression, which FDR failed to end but which Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor did end, was the excuse for agriculture subsidies that have lived past three score years and 10.

The distribution of a trillion dollars by a political institution -- the federal government -- will be nonpolitical? How could it be? Either markets allocate resources, or government -- meaning politics -- allocates them. Now that distrust of markets is high, Americans are supposed to believe that the institution they trust least -- Congress -- will pony up $1 trillion and then passively recede, never putting its 10 thumbs, like a manic Jack Horner, into the pie? Surely Congress will direct the executive branch to show compassion for this, that and the other industry. And it will mandate "socially responsible" spending -- an infinitely elastic term -- by the favored companies.

Detroit has not yet started spending the $25 billion that Congress has approved, but already is, like Oliver Twist, holding out its porridge bowl and saying, "Please, sir, I want some more."

McCain and Palin, plucky foes of spreading the wealth, must have known that such spreading is most what Washington does. Here, the Constitution is an afterthought; the supreme law of the land is the principle of concentrated benefits and dispersed costs. Sugar import quotas cost the American people approximately $2 billion a year, but that sum is siphoned from 300 million consumers in small, hidden increments that are not noticed. The few thousand sugar producers on whom billions are thereby conferred do notice and are grateful to the government that bilks the many for the enrichment of the few.

Conservatives rightly think, or once did, that much, indeed most, government spreading of wealth is economically destructive and morally dubious -- destructive because, by directing capital to suboptimum uses, it slows wealth creation; morally dubious because the wealth being spread belongs to those who created it, not government.

[Aaahhh, this is where ‘conservatives’ really need to do a re-think: If taxes slow wealth creation -- and tax cuts create wealth, well, how are things today? And leave the “morally dubious” charge to church.]

But if conservatives call all such spreading by government "socialism," that becomes a classification that no longer classifies: It includes almost everything, including the refundable tax credit on which McCain's health care plan depended.

Hyperbole is not harmless; careless language bewitches the speaker's intelligence. And falsely shouting "socialism!" in a crowded theater such as Washington causes an epidemic of yawning. This is the only major industrial society that has never had a large socialist party ideologically, meaning candidly, committed to redistribution of wealth. This is partly because Americans are an aspirational, not an envious people. It is also because the socialism we do have is the surreptitious socialism of the strong, e.g. sugar producers represented by their Washington hirelings.

In America, socialism is un-American. Instead, Americans merely do rent-seeking -- bending government for the benefit of private factions. The difference is in degree, including the degree of candor. The rehabilitation of conservatism cannot begin until conservatives are candid about their complicity in what government has become.

[Simply, ‘conservatives’ need to admit their complicity in the victory of BIG government. Then, perhaps “I believe in what Ronald Reagan believed in” will not sound so shallow -- dishonest. And who’s gonna want a dishonest party in charge!?! :p]

As for the president-elect, he promises to change Washington. He will, by making matters worse. He will intensify rent-seeking by finding new ways -- this will not be easy -- to expand, even more than the current administration has, government's influence on spreading the wealth around.

[Spreading-the-wealth to the middle class sounds better than spreading the wealth to the rich. I’m against spreading the wealth -- well, much of it. But, after eight years of favoring the rich -- to no good, it seems only fair to favor the middle class.]

Post #186

Subject: George W. Bush: Ya is Fired!

My responses and additions – in [brackets]….

By Charles Krauthammer

November 07, 2008

WASHINGTON -- In my previous life, I witnessed far more difficult postmortems. This one is easy. The patient was fatally stricken on Sept. 15 -- caught in the rubble when the roof fell in (at Lehman Brothers, according to the police report) -- although he did linger until his final, rather quiet demise on Nov. 4.

In the excitement and decisiveness of Barack Obama's victory, we forget that in the first weeks of September, John McCain was actually ahead. Then Lehman collapsed, and the financial system went off a cliff.

This was not just a meltdown but a panic. For an agonizing few days, there was a collapse of faith in the entire financial system -- a run on banks, panicky money-market withdrawals, flights to safety, the impulse to hide one's savings under a mattress.

This did not just have the obvious effect of turning people against the incumbent party, however great or tenuous its responsibility for the crisis. It had the more profound effect of making people seek shelter in government.

After all, if even Goldman Sachs was getting government protection, why not you? And offering the comfort and safety of government is the Democratic Party's vocation. With a Republican White House having partially nationalized the banks and just about everything else, McCain's final anti-Obama maneuver -- Joe the Plumber spread-the-wealth charges of socialism -- became almost comical.

[Which is more funny? Joe not knowing what socialism is -- nationalizing banks, farms and soon-to-be health care IS socialism -- or talking dismissively of spread-the-wealth when he himself had received government benefits twice during his life?]

We don't yet appreciate how unprecedented were the events of September and October. We have never had a full-fledged financial panic in the middle of a presidential campaign. Consider. If the S&P were to close at the end of the year where it did on Election Day, it will have suffered this year its steepest drop since 1937. That is 71 years.

At the same time, the economy had suffered nine consecutive months of job losses. Considering the carnage to both capital and labor (which covers just about everybody), even a Ronald Reagan could not have survived. The fact that John McCain got 46 percent of the electorate when 75 percent said the country was going in the wrong direction is quite remarkable.

[“Frightening” is the word I’d use.]

This is not to say that McCain made no errors. His suspension of the campaign during the economic meltdown was a long shot that not only failed, it created the McCain-the-erratic meme that deeply undermined his huge advantage over Obama in perception of leadership.

The choice of Sarah Palin was also a mistake. I'm talking here about its political effects, not the sideshow psychodrama of feminist rage and elite loathing that had little to do with politics and everything to do with cultural prejudices, resentments and affectations.

[Sarah Palin scared the voters she was supposed to attract -- the Hillary voters. Put a dress on Hermann Georing, and ya still have a Nazi! :p To think that women will vote for a dress, any dress, is sexist.]

Palin was a mistake ("near suicidal," I wrote on the day of her selection) because she completely undercut McCain's principal case against Obama: his inexperience and unreadiness to lead. And her nomination not only intellectually undermined the readiness argument. It changed the election dynamic by shifting attention, for days on end, to Palin's preparedness, fitness and experience -- and away from Obama's.

[Oh, yes, Sarah Palin fired up ‘the base,’ but ‘the base’ is dwindling. Do the Republicans really want to appease ‘that base’ any more?]

McCain thought he could steal from Obama the "change" issue by running a Two Mavericks campaign. A fool's errand from the very beginning. It defied logic for the incumbent party candidate to try to take "change" away from the opposition. Election Day exit polls bore that out with a vengeance. Voters for whom change was the most important issue went 89-to-9 for Obama.

Which is not to say that Obama did not run a brilliant general election campaign. He did. In its tactically perfect minimalism, it was as well conceived and well executed as the electrifying, highflying, magic carpet ride of his primary victory. By the time of his Denver convention, Obama understood that he had to dispense with the magic and make himself kitchen-table real, accessible and, above all, reassuring. He did that. And when the economic tsunami hit, he understood that all he had to do was get out of the way. He did that too.

[Yes, if Barak Obama is truly behind half of the stuff he’s accused of -- from the economic meltdown to fathering Sarah Palin’s infant -- then, my Gawd, that’s the President for me! :p]

With him we get a president with the political intelligence of a Bill Clinton harnessed to the steely self-discipline of a Vladimir Putin. (I say this admiringly.) With these qualities, Obama will now bestride the political stage as largely as did Reagan.

But before our old soldier fades away, it is worth acknowledging that McCain ran a valiant race against impossible odds. He will be -- he should be -- remembered as the most worthy presidential nominee ever to be denied the prize.

[Aaahhh, there, Charles, is where you are missing the point: John McCain was not a conservative and did not deserve to be the nominee of the conservative party. But, then, again, most Republicans are not conservative either.]

[Remember during the second debate when McCain kept hitting Barak Obama for his ‘government will do this’ and ‘government will do that’ answers? Then, McCain said that his own idea was for the government to buy bad mortgages.]

[BIG government has won. History has taken another step to the left. Republicans need to forget the Sarah Palin knee-jerk wing and concentrate on individual rights -- civil liberties -- within the BIG government framework. Or become irrelevant.]

Post #185

Subject: Lest we forget

My paternal grandfather was a WW I vet and was gassed by the Germans. He suffered breathing problems in 'is later years. WW I, ya know, is why we have Vets' Day when we do....

Thanks to an e-pal for the following link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DTWtdnDjmDI

Post #184

Subject: Obama Wins!

I pegged Barack Obama -- the smooth black man who opposed the Iraq War -- as the 2008 Democratic candidate back in 2004 after his speech at that years convention. But I was sure he'd never win.

Boy, I've learned my lesson: Never underestimate the power of George W. Bush to mess things up! :p

http://www.theonion.com/content/news_briefs/black_man_given_nations

Obama can lead. Can we follow? Yes, we can!!

Post #183

Subject: AN ENDORSEMENT

Barack Obama is going to win the presidency. While the end of the current era of Republican mismanagement may be good news in many respects, this is no cause for complacency for anyone concerned about American liberty and America's place in the world. Senator Obama, despite his eloquent call for reform, has demonstrated that he, like other politicians, is ever ready to trim his sails to gain a few votes. A vote for Bob Barr and the Libertarian Party would be the best way to tell President-elect Obama that the American people are serious about real change in Washington.

Sen. Obama's rhetoric is uplifting and positive, but the Senator who showed genuine foresight and courage in opposing the Iraq war spent most of the primary season edging away from his initial tough stand. Will he order the troops to exit Iraq? Will he bring them all home, or simply shift them from Iraq to another foreign country?

Similarly, it would be hard for Sen. Obama not to be an improvement over the Bush administration on civil liberties. However, here, too, Sen. Obama has demonstrated his willingness to trim under pressure.

President George W. Bush violated the law when he ignored both the Constitution and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Congress should have held him and his appointees accountable for their law-breaking. Moreover, telephone companies that aided and abetted executive branch law-breaking should have been left liable in the courts.

Yet, Sen. Obama folded, backing a "compromise" that gave the administration most everything that it wanted. No individualized warrants or evidence of law-breaking is required to authorize government spying on U.S. citizens' phone calls and emails. No administration officials paid the slightest cost for engaging in illegal conduct. No private firm suffered the slightest inconvenience for helping the government violate their customers' constitutional rights. This was the moment for Sen. Obama to prove that he possessed a true dedication to civil liberties, and he failed.

Of course, we all hope that, as president, he will feel freer to stand up for American liberties. But there also will be voices advising him to use the executive powers so freely expanded by his predecessor. Will he be strong enough to resist this Siren's Song? No one knows, but one thing is known: If freed from the limiting forces of public awareness and involvement, President Obama would follow a long line of presidents who talk of enhanced individual liberty, but practice a policy of increased government power.

In other words, the best way to encourage Sen. Obama, if he is elected president, to follow the straight and narrow is to actively and clearly demonstrate that we, the American people, are concerned both about our civil liberties and his commitment to protect them. The way to do that is to vote for Bob Barr and the Libertarian Party.

Only one party has consistently stood up for the Constitution and against expansive executive power: the Libertarian Party. Only one party has consistently demanded a quick and full withdrawal from Iraq: the Libertarian Party. Only one party has demanded that all administration officials, legislators, and bureaucrats be held accountable for violating the law or the Constitution: the Libertarian Party.

Sen. Obama's impending big victory will tempt liberals to relax and celebrate. Yet the time of greatest danger will be the transition, when Sen. Obama will be deciding on who to appoint and what direction to take. The best way to safeguard our liberties is to let him know that his election victory comes with an important "but"--in the form of a strong showing by Bob Barr and the Libertarian Party, who have placed the protection of American liberties and America's reputation in the world at the core of their campaign.

- by Bob Barr

* * *

http://www.bobbarr2008.com/

OK, I don’t like Bob Barr for his involvement in the impeachment of President Clinton. I think it was waste of time and money when the outcome was preordained.

I’ve got to wonder: Is he really a Libertarian or just a Republican in disguise? For example, he cites the Constitutional right to own a gun and to hunt. Show me “hunt’ in the Constitution! :p

But, overall, though….

Post #182

Subject: Putting America first….

My Mom saw John W. McCain ranting and raving on TV yesterday, and she called him “unseemly.”

I couldn’t agree more

For the sake of the country, for the sake of your ability to work with the next President, for the sake of your own reputation, please, Mr. McCain, just stop. Stop the name-calling, the lies, the smears, the innuendos, the whispering-campaigns, the stirrings of hatred.

You never stood taller, Mr. McCain, than in 2000 when you denounced the dirty tactics of the George W. Bush campaign. Now, you’ve sunk to the same level.

This is NOT an endorsement of Barack Obama. But, whether ya like ‘im or ya don’t -- and I don’t, learn to love ‘im!

On a personal note, Windows Vista is bad. Ya’d think that with each generation of Operating System, ‘puters would get easier and easier to use. But NO -- it has taken me three [3] days to set up my Elisha Cuthbert desktop, and I still have NOT figured out how to get rid of the advertising that covers Elisha’s face. I do like the added security, but it’s now a pain to just ‘surf. Since ya figure that most Vista users are upgrading from XP, ya’d think they’d leave alone the thangs from XP that work well -- to shut down in XP, ya clicked the button clearly marked “shut down;” in Vista, the button is NOT marked at all….

Oh, why couldn’t McCain spread a lil’ of Sarah Palin’s wardrobe allowance my way? :p

Post #181

Subject: Re: Fwd: 57 states??

An e-mail I got….

* * *

What's in the heart comes out via the tongue!

From a radio show yesterday.....

'Hey, folks, you want to tweak the Drive-By Media with me right now?

You are aware, probably, that Barack Obama lost his bearings recently and said that he was going to campaign in all 57 states.

You heard this? And everybody chalked it up to, 'Well, he's tired.'

You know, this is a Dan Quayle moment. I mean, Dan Quayle goes out there and misspells 'potato,' and we still hear jokes about it.

Barack Obama says he's gonna go out and campaign in 57 states, he was just tired, you know, it's been such a long campaign, he's been so many places, he probably thinks there are 57 states.

Well, I have here a printout from a web site called the 'International Humanist and Ethical Union' . And here is how the second paragraph of an article on that website begins.

'Every year from 1999 to 2005 the organization of the Islamic Conference representing the 57 Islamic States presented a resolution to the United Nations Commission on human rights called commbating.'

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organisation_of_the_Islamic_Conference

Obama said he's going to campaign in 57 states, and it turns out that there are 57 Islamic states.

There are 57 Islamic states.

So did Obama just lose his bearings, or was this a more telling slip, ladies and gentlemen?'

KEEP IT GOING, FOLKS!

WE NEED TO PRAY FOR GOD'S WILL IN THIS ELECTION.

* * *

Yep, God is gonna lay the smackdown on John McCain for abandoning his first [1st] wife, the woman who waited for him for five [5] years while he was a prisoner, for a floozy. :p

The point being, be careful what you wish for -- NOBODY knows God's will....

http://www.snopes.com/politics/obama/57states.asp

If ya don’t wanna vote for Obama because of ignorance, please don’t hit “Fwd” on every Nutty e-mail. And please don’t hid your ignorance behind God.

Post #180

Subject: Who Killed Conservatism?

John W. McCain keeps saying that he is proud of Sarah Palin’s conservative credentials

Oh, really?

What conservative principle did she follow when she originally supported the “Bridge to Nowhere?” What conservative principle did she follow when she opposed the “Bridge to Nowhere” after it became a national disgrace? What conservative principle did she follow when she took that nasty evil earmark money that was for the “Bridge to Nowhere” and applied it to other projects in Alaska?

What conservative principle did she follow when she billed the taxpayers of Alaska for a tanning bed? Shouldn’t such a project for her vainity be paid for out of her Governor’s salary? A spokesperson for Palin said that the Governor uses the tanning bed as a treatment for depression. It is not important to know if Palin has a mental illness; what is important to know is that why she didn’t bill her health insurance company instead of the taxpayers of Alaska?

And the Republicans in Alaska have found Palin guilty of “abuse of power.”

Well, there ya go – “abuse of power,” a conservative credential McCain can be so proud of.

OK, I’m being sarcastic – “abuse of power” is a REPUBLICAN trait, and todays Republicans are not conservative at all.

Indeed, but maybe there is hope: http://www.amconmag.com/aboutus.html ....

Post #179

Subject: How about this for the using the money wisely!

Some of these figures I got in a “Fwd” e-mail are already out-dated, but ya get the point….

* * *

I'm against the $85,000,000,000.00 bailout of AIG.

Instead, I'm in favor of giving $85,000,000,000 to America in a We Deserve It Dividend.

To make the math simple, let's assume there are 200,000,000 bonafide U.S. Citizens 18+. Our population is about 301,000,000 +/- counting every man, woman and child. So 200,000,000 might be a fair stab at adults 18 and up. So divide 200 million adults 18+ into $85 billon that equals $425,000.00.

My plan is to give $425,000 to every person 18+ as a We Deserve It Dividend.

Of course, it would NOT be tax free. So let's assume a tax rate of 30%. Every individual 18+ has to pay $127,500.00 in taxes. That sends $25,500,000,000 right back to Uncle Sam. But it means that every adult 18+ has $297,500.00 in their pocket.

A husband and wife have $595,000.00.

What would you do with $297,500.00 to $595,000.00 in your family?

Pay off your mortgage - housing crisis solved.

Repay college loans - what a great boost to new grads

Put away money for college - it'll be there.

Save in a bank - create money to loan to entrepreneurs.

Buy a new car - create jobs.

Invest in the market - capital drives growth.

Pay for your parent's medical insurance - health care improves.

Enable Deadbeat Dads to come clean - or else.

Remember this is for every adult U S Citizen 18+ including the folks who lost their jobs at Lehman Brothers and every other company that is cutting back.

And of course, for those serving in our Armed Forces.

If we're going to re-distribute wealth let's really do it...instead of trickling out a puny $1000..00 ( "vote buy" ) economic incentive that is being proposed by one of our candidates for President.

If we're going to do an $85 billion bailout, let's bail out every adult U S Citizen 18+!

As for AIG - liquidate it. Sell off its parts. Let American General go back to being American General.

Sell off the real estate. Let the private sector bargain hunters cut it up and clean it up.

Here's my rationale. We deserve it and AIG doesn't.

Sure it's a crazy idea that can "never work."

But can you imagine the Coast-To-Coast Block Party!?!

How do you spell Economic Boom?

I trust my fellow adult Americans to know how to use the $85 Billion

We Deserve It Dividend more than I do, the geniuses at AIG or in Washington DC.

PS: Feel free to pass this along to your pals as its either good for a laugh or a tear or a very sobering thought on how to best use $85 billion.

* * *

As of today, the figures I’d use are $100 billion, $500,000 tax-free for everybody. Social Security and other entitlement programs could be dismantled or seriously curtailed

Why did John W. McCain climb into bed with George W. Bush and rob from the poor and give to the rich to the tune of $700 billion? “Change is coming.” [rolleyes]

Slide over – Barack Obama joins that bed! “Change we can believe in.” [rolleyes]

Post #178

Subject: Re: 545 People

Here’s how I see it:

The Constitution is the Supreme Law of the Land and can only be changed by Amendments. The Constitution gives Congress the power to declare war.

George W. Bush asked Congress for something against the Constitution – he wanted the power to declare war himself. That is one to blame.

Congress passed a resolution – NOT an Amendment, mind ya – giving Bush the power to declare war. That’s 535 to blame. Well, actually, blame 373 – 156 voted “no,” and three did not vote. I guess the others did not show up for work.

How will the next President prosecute an undeclared war? Will he or she ask Congress to declare war? Will he or she ask for another resolution? Or will he or she just blissfully go ahead?

The Supreme Court let that unConstitutional act stand. That’s nine to blame. Oh, yes, I am well-aware that a lower federal court had ruled that the resolution of Congress was “absolutely binding,” but, Goodness, that is what the Supreme Court is for: to review lower courts’ rulings and decide if the ruling was correct. The Supreme Court declined to review. To not decide is to decide.

Congress gets blamed again that they didn’t immediately impeach the Weasel when he declared war by himself. Oh, yes, “politics” – can’t impeach a popular President, right? Now, Bush is too unpopular to impeach. Whatever happened to doing the right thing – “politics” be damned?

And also blame Congress for gibing a dime for that mess. I wonder if the next President will continue the practice of charging the costs of our foreign policy against our future, adding to the national debt – over $700 billion so far? Where have the fiscal conservatives – who are tooting their own horns over their opposition to the $700 billion bailout – been regarding the Iraq War?

Simply, that is why we are in Iraq, the one problem that could be our undoing. The Iraq War is not making us more secure – indeed, as long as we maintain a military presence in the heart of the Middle East, the 40-year Cold War on Terror can not begin. How can we win the hearts and minds of the jihadists as long as we are killing Arabs? At home, we are bleeding to death, sacrificing blood and treasure and our Constitution – all for the sake of the wrong approach. The truth is, we can not afford McCain’s War.

Post #177

Subject: Why $700 Billion?

Where did that figure come from? Why does Wall Street need $700 billion? Why not $500 billion? Or $100 billion? Or $10?

The cynic in me says that George W. Bush – who has presided over the biggest expansion of government since World War II – asked for almost as much as the Iraq War has cost so far. He probably figured that Congress would open the wallet.... again. And he is probably correct.

Until somebody can explain to me, in plain English, the bad consequences for me if the bailout fails, I refuse to be scared by the doomsday rhetoric. The only thing we have to fear is fear itself. The last thing we need is a President who runs around like a chicken with his head cut off, like John W. McCain.

If Wall Street is having trouble brought on by greed, waste, fraud and lazy government oversight, well, so? Let them eat cake! Maybe it is time for new financial markets.

And, Goodness, let’s remember those who supported this

Post #176

Subject: The Gall of John W. McCain

I received a letter from John W. McCain asking for money. Here is my reply:

* * *

Are you kidding me!?!

You want $1000, $500, $100 or even $25 from me – as tho my $10 does not matter. That’s on top of the $2000 bill you plan to stick me with for the bailout of your Wall Street buddies. I don’t “play the market” and don’t care to bailout those who do. Bailout Main Street instead.

I guess $2000 is not much to you – only one month’s worth of that Social Security you snort from big government. * oink, oink * That’s five month’s worth of my Grandma’s Social Security – and that IS her income. No Senate salary, no disability pension from the military, no spouse worth $100 million. What is she supposed to do? Not eat for five months!?!

And that is to say nothing of your never-ending war. Didn’t the experience of the Soviet Union teach you anything?

Sorry, you won’t be getting my money, Mr. McCain, or my vote. I can’t afford you.

Of course, I can’t afford Obama either, but at least his heart is in the right place.

Post #175

Subject: 9/11, revisited, Pt. II

Every time I think about forgiving George W. Bush for 9/11, I read my Post #104 – which follows. It is a Damning indictment of the Weasel’s ineptitude and doesn’t even include some of the most obvious examples – Condi Rice’s July ’01 meeting with George Tenet or the August ’01 Presidential Daily Briefing. Nor did I mention Bush’s opposition to the/11 Commission or his refusal to give a formal interview.

The most depressing thing I saw on TV yesterday during MSNBC’s replay of the coverage of that morning was, before 12 noon, Tom Brokaw identified the prime suspect, Osama bin Laden, and cited a speech he had given in London the month before in which he threatened the United States.

Why wasn’t Bush all over this?

* * *

Post #104

Subject: 9/11, revisited

President George W. Bush stood atop the rubble of the World Trade Center, wrapped his arm around a firefighter and said, “These terrorists shall hear from us. But, if we can’t get ‘em, we will invade a country that did not attack us and does not threaten us.”

Wait – was that a dream or a nightmare?

Richard Clarke, former counterterrorism czar, had a meeting with the deputies of Cabinet Secretaries in April of 2001, when, he says, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz insisted the real terrorism threat was not al Qaeda but Iraq

Why a meeting with the deputies and not the Secretaries? Bush had downgraded counterterrorism from a cabinet-level job, so Clarke now dealt instead with deputy secretaries. As Clarke told the 9/11 Commission, “It slowed it down enormously, by months. First of all, the deputies’ committee didn’t meet urgently in January or February.”

The Secretaries’ first meeting on al Qaeda was not until after Labor Day, on September 4, 2001.

On January 25, 2001, five days after Bush took office, Clarke sent Condoleezza Rice a memo, attaching to it a document entitled “Strategy for Eliminating the Threat of al Qaeda” It was, Clarke wrote, “developed by the last administration to give to you, incorporating diplomatic, economic, military, public diplomacy, and intelligence tools.”

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, January 17, 2001)

SANDY BERGER, NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER: With survivors of the U.S.S. Cole reinforced the reality that America is in a deadly struggle with a new breed of anti-Western jihadists. Nothing less than a war, I think, is fair to describe this.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

As Senator Carl Levin said, “I’m concerned that we may not be putting enough emphasis on countering the most likely threats to our national security and to the security of our forces deployed around the world, those asymmetric threats, like terrorist attacks on the U.S.S. Cole on our barracks and our embassies around the world, on the World Trade Center.”

And where was Bush?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, February 27, 2001)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The Taliban in Afghanistan, they have offered that they are ready to hand over Osama bin Laden to Saudi Arabia if the United States drops its sanctions, and they have a kind of deal that they want to make with the United States. Do you have any comments?

ARI FLEISCHER, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: Let me take that and get back to you on that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

Ari never did.

On February 26, 2001, Paul Bremer said of the administration, “What they will do is stagger along until there’s a major incident, and then suddenly say, Oh, my God, shouldn’t we be organized to deal with this?”

And they gave us Iraq instead….

Post #174

Subject: 545 People

545 People, by Charlie Reese.

Politicians are the only people in the world who create problems and then campaign against them.

Have you ever wondered why, if both the Democrats and the Republicans are against deficits, WHY do we have deficits?

Have you ever wondered why, if all the politicians are against inflation and high taxes, WHY do we have inflation and high taxes?

You and I don't propose a federal budget. The President does.

You and I don't have the Constitutional authority to vote on appropriations. The House of Representatives does.

You and I don't write the tax code, Congress does.

You and I don't set fiscal policy, Congress does.

You and I don't control monetary policy, the Federal Reserve Bank does.

One hundred senators, 435 congressmen, one President, and nine Supreme Court justices -- 545 human beings out of the 300 million are directly, legally, morally, and individually responsible for the domestic problems that plague this country.

I excluded the members of the Federal Reserve Board because that problem was created by the Congress. In 1913, Congress delegated its Constitutional duty to provide a sound currency to a federally chartered, but private, central bank.

I excluded all the special interests and lobbyists for a sound reason. They have no legal authority. They have no ability to coerce a senator, a congressman, or a President to do one cotton-picking thing. I don't care if they offer a politician $1 million dollars in cash. The politician has the power to accept or reject it. No matter what the lobbyist promises, it is the legislator's responsibility to determine how he votes.

Those 545 human beings spend much of their energy convincing you that what they did is not their fault. They cooperate in this common con regardless of party.

What separates a politician from a normal human being is an excessive amount of gall. No normal human being would have the gall of a Speaker, who stood up and criticized the President for creating deficits. The President can only propose a budget. He cannot force the Congress to accept it.

The Constitution, which is the supreme law of the land, gives sole responsibility to the House of Representatives for originating and approving appropriations and taxes. Who is the Speaker of the House? She is the leader of the majority party. She and fellow House members, not the President, can approve any budget they want. If the President vetoes it, they can pass it over his veto if they agree to.

It seems inconceivable to me that a nation of 300 million cannot replace 545 people who stand convicted -- by present facts -- of incompetence and irresponsibility; I can't think of a single domestic problem that is not traceable directly to those 545 people. When you fully grasp the plain truth that 545 people exercise the power of the federal government, then it must follow that what exists is what they want to exist.

If the tax code is unfair, it's because they want it unfair.

If the budget is in the red, it's because they want it in the red.

If the Army & Marines are in IRAQ , it's because they want them in IRAQ .

If they do not receive Social Security but are on an elite retirement plan not available to the people, it's because they want it that way .

There are no insoluble government problems.

Do not let these 545 people shift the blame to bureaucrats, whom they hire and whose jobs they can abolish; to lobbyists, whose gifts and advice they can reject; to regulators, to whom they give the power to regulate and from whom they can take this power. Above all, do not let them con you into the belief that there exists disembodied mystical forces like "the economy," "inflation," or "politics" that prevent them from doing what they take an oath to do.

Those 545 people, and they alone, are responsible. They, and they alone, have the power.

They, and they alone, should be held accountable by the people who are their bosses provided the voters have the gumption to manage their own employees.

We should vote all of them out of office and clean up their mess!

* * *

Charlie Reese is a former columnist of the Orlando Sentinel Newspaper.

Post #173

Subject: John W. McCain Rushes to Judgment... Again!

Why did John W. McCain pick Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as his running mate?

It's been reported that McCain didn't seriously consider Palin until a week before. She rose to the top of his list only after influential conservatives strenuously objected – threatened a floor flight at the RNC – if McCain picked either Senator Joe Lieberman or former Pennsylvania Governor Tom Ridge, who both favor abortion rights.

Palin, of course, is opposed to all abortions. I heard on TV a couple of nights ago that she was now OK with abortion if the life of the mother was in danger. I heard on TV yesterday that she was now OK with abortion in cases of rape and incest. What’s next? “Roe V. Wade is the law of the land, and we must respect that.” :p

When Palin was announced as McCain's running mate -- no one had been sent to Wasilla, Alaska, to look through the archives of Palin's hometown newspaper, the Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman. And, according to one source, no extensive research into the city council records from her 10 years on the council and then as mayor of Wasilla has been completed. Aides were sent to pour over that newspaper AFTER Palin was picked.

A Republican close to the campaign. “This was really kind of rushed at the end, because John didn’t get what he wanted. He wanted to do Joe or Ridge.”

Palin employed a lobbying firm to secure almost $27 million in federal earmarks for a town residents while she was its mayor, according to an analysis by an independent government watchdog group. Earmarks? Isn’t MCain opposed to those?

The Republican president of Alaska’s state Senate, a woman who hails from Palin’s hometown, rushed to tell the press, “She’s not prepared to be governor; how can she be prepared to be vice president or president?”

But she’s got more executive experience than Obama, say the Republicans, as tho McCain’s experience in the Senate doesn’t matter

It looks as if the vetters were so focused on Palin's appeal to Republicans' conservative base as an opponent of abortion and gun control, for instance, that they stopped asking questions about her background too soon. Indeed, from another blog, “McCain made an impetuous decision in order to prove his fealty the Republican right while demonstrating that he will do anything to get elected. Is that the kind of president the rest of us want?”

“John W. McCain – the selection of Sarah Palin is all about you and your judgment.” A President McCain will choose leaders such as Cabinet members and Supreme Court jurists – a McCain who is hostage to Right-wing Nuts!

By the way, the McCains with their $100 million did not buy me a new computer – I pulled myself up by my own bootstraps and fixed this one. Ya know, my taxes are supporting McCain’s snout in the trough of big government,… and that is a disgrace!

Post #172

Subject: The End?

After nine years of safe surfing, I’ve been felled by the “AntivirusXP2008” computer virus. I’ll probably be out weeks/months while trying to fix my computer.

Or maybe John W. McCain will ask not what his country can do for him but what he can do for his country and buy me a new computer – supporting freedom of speech, ya know! :p

Post #171

Subject: Who stunk it up?

‘Pretty Boy’ John Edwards… who listened to the whispers that he was prettier than his wife and deserved more. I am NOT surprised that he had an affair; I am surprised that it took so long after his appearance on the national stage – assuming, of course, that there are no other skeletons in the closet.

So, disappointed? NO – I’m not disappointed with Edwards. I did not expect any better from him. I am disappointed in Elizabeth, his wife. The strength of their marriage was a selling point of Edward’s campaign. How could she go along with that?

Actually, I think a ‘womanizer’ can be effective in public office. That * sigh * ya just heard was from John W. McCain! But, please, politicians, do not run for office as a ‘family man’ if ya’re not….

Post #170

Subject: John W. McCain and his Social Security Problem

Retire: To withdraw oneself from business, public life, or active service.

I thought you had to be retired in order to collect Social Security. I also thought when you collected Social Security you could only work a certain amount of hours. Isn't the President of the United States a full-time job? :p

Republican Presidential candidate John McCain cashes his monthly Social Security checks despite calling the federal program "a disgrace," the Associated Press reports. McCain gets $1,930 a month from a ”broken” Social Security system. “I'm receiving benefits," McCain told campaign reporters, but added, "the system is broken."

In 2007, he received benefits of $23,157 from Social Security, approximately $1,930 a month. The maximum monthly benefit under Social Security is $2,185. Social Security benefits are determined by age at retirement.

McCain, who is 71, has received benefits since he was 65 – despite NOT retiring.

Whoops [blush] – McCain IS retired from the military. When McCain released his tax return for 2007, he separately disclosed that he received a pension of $58,358 that was not listed as income on his return.

McCain’s staff identified the retirement benefit as a "disability pension" and said that McCain "was retired as disabled because of his limited body movements due to injuries as a POW." Certain types of military and veterans pensions are either partially or completely tax-exempt, depending on the seriousness of the disability. In McCain’s case, the exemption is 100 percent. If McCain had to pay taxes on the full amount of the pension, it would have increased his tax bill by about $18,000 based on the percentage of his income he paid to the federal government.

McCain has long said he is in robust health and is strong enough to hike the Grand Canyon, but he also is receiving what his staff termed a "disability pension" from the Navy. If he is 100% disabled then he certainly shouldn't be running for President! :p

McCain told observers at a town-hall meeting in Portsmouth, Ohio, "Americans have got to understand that we are paying present-day retirees with the taxes paid by young workers ... and that's a disgrace." No, not a disgrace. Indeed, that's what family and community is all about - and that's why the Social Security contract cements the bond between young and old. The disgrace is a wealthy freeloader like McCain who obviously doesn’t need it with his snout in the trough. McCain's wife Cindy has a net worth of approximately $100 million.

My Grandma, 87, gets about 1/5 of what McCain does – and that IS her income. Social Security Insurance works well in doing what it was designed to do – providing insurance in case ya mess up your own retirement plans… or lack thereof. Government is NOT in charge of your retirement. Government keeps my Grandma from eating cat food.

Republicans are always complaining about too much government, welfare queens, government hand-outs, and praising self-sufficiency, rugged individualism, ‘pull yourself up by your own bootstraps,’ but they need to walk the talk. Weasels like McCain have been living off big government all their lives and have never held jobs in private industry. Yet, they're the first to condemn any sort of program which is designed to assist the lower wage workers – low-interest college loans, increases in the minimum wage, health insurance, or greater regulations of some corporate behavior – while benefiting themselves

The point is not that McCain isn't entitled to the Social Security money. The point is that he hypocritically derides Social Security as a "disgrace" but fails to set an example to other multi-millionaires that the system would be benefited greatly if those not needing the money would refuse it. If every multi-millionaire stopped taking the money they don't actually need and gave it to the poor or those without health insurance, think what good that would do!

B.J. Jarrett from the Social Security Administration said that individuals can refuse retirement benefits.

… from another blog: “When McCain began receiving Social Security retirement benefits at age 65, 4 of his children were also eligible for benefits. Children under age 18 are eligible for benefits on a retired beneficiary's record. Four of his children were 17,15,13 and 10 when he began resceiving Social Security benefits. One child, Bridget, is still under 18 and presumably still receiving benefits (half her dad's benefit rate or $965/month in 2007). With the 2.3% cost of living increase in January, 2008, McCain's current benefit probably exceeds $1974/month. His 2007 high earnings probably increased his benefits to an even higher benefit rate in his computation. His daughter gets 1/2 or $987 plus a month. His wife is also eligible for spouse's benefits for having an underage daughter in her care. His wife probably earns too much to collect that benefit though. However, if all her income is from investments and she has no wages or self employment earnings, she could draw another $987/month.

“Isn't it wonderful that Senator McCain is criticizing a program that his family benefits from to the tune of $36,000 to $48,000 this year? This is after having collected over $200,000 in family benefits in the previous 6 years.

“The pay as you go system which he criticizes has always been the basis of Social Security. Current wage earners pay for current beneficiaries. This system has succeeded in virtually eliminating poverty for senior citizens in the United States. This is the system that has helped enrich McCain and his family. This is the system that has allowed the McCain family to collect far more in benefits than he paid in taxes.

“It doesn't stop there. In his first marriage, Senator McCain's wife became disabled and, assuming she had worked sufficiently under Social Security, drew Social Security disability benefits. Since the McCain's had 3 young children, they would have been eligible for benefits as children under age 18 of a disabled beneficiary. In fact, at the time of her disability, children were eligible for benefits up to age 22 if they were full time students. So McCain family #1 may very well have had an opportunity to have Social Security defray a large portion of his children's college expenses. SSA benefits also lessened the burden on Mr. McCain's obligations to support his children from his 1st marriage after his divorce.

“The level of benefits that the McCains have received from Social Security is astounding. And he wants to dismantle the program that provided his family such substantial benefits?”

Post #169

Subject: John W. McCain knows how to win wars.

Oh, really?

I’ve heard John W. McCain say over and over “I know how to win wars, I know how to win wars.” – as tho repetition makes it so. Can he cite an example of a war that he’s won either as a soldier or as an architect?

I’m sure that he’ll say, as a lowly soldier, it was not his responsibility to win Vietnam – true. I’m also sure that he’ll say, as an architect, it was George W. Bush who screwed up Iraq – true, too. But doesn’t that – being an architect for the incompetent Bush – raise questions about judgment?

Still, the question remains, can he cite an example of a war that he’s won either as a soldier or as an architect? It seems that McCain really only knows how to LOSE wars. :p

The good thing about blogging is that, uh, politically incorrect questions can be raised without worry about what some bobblehead on Faux News will say. Ya know, the Main Stream Media is just too lax when it comes to obvious questions.

For example, McCain keeps citing the “new strategy “ that’s working in Iraq and will work in Afghanistan. Well, what “new strategy” – specifically? What is it we are now doing in Iraq, and why will that strategy work in Afghanistan?

I thought that the historical lesson of Vietnam was that we should not have been there in the first place – that will undoubtedly be the historical lesson of Iraq, too. I thought the secondary lesson of Vietnam was ‘commit the country BEFORE committing the troops’ – that will undoubtedly be the secondary lesson of Iraq, too. How does McCain plan to commit the country at this late date? If he can’t – say, the people’s representatives in Congress cut off his money, what will he do?

Post #168

Subject: Is Anybody Listening?

… from the RAND National Defense Research Institute, a federally funded research and development center that does research for the Office of the Secretary of Defense, the Joint Staff, the unified commands and other defense agencies.

http://www.rand.org/news/press/2008/07/29/

My responses and additions – in [brackets]….

News Release
Tuesday
July 29, 2008

U.S. Should Rethink "War On Terrorism" Strategy to Deal with Resurgent Al Qaida

Current U.S. strategy against the terrorist group al Qaida has not been successful in significantly undermining the group's capabilities, according to a new RAND Corporation study issued today.

Al Qaida has been involved in more terrorist attacks since Sept. 11, 2001, than it was during its prior history and the group's attacks since then have spanned an increasingly broader range of targets in Europe, Asia, the Middle East and Africa, according to researchers.

In looking at how other terrorist groups have ended, the RAND study found that most terrorist groups end either because they join the political process, or because local police and intelligence efforts arrest or kill key members. Police and intelligence agencies, rather than the military, should be the tip of the spear against al Qaida in most of the world, and the United States should abandon the use of the phrase "war on terrorism," researchers concluded.

"The United States cannot conduct an effective long-term counterterrorism campaign against al Qaida or other terrorist groups without understanding how terrorist groups end," said Seth Jones, the study's lead author and a political scientist at RAND, a nonprofit research organization. "In most cases, military force isn't the best instrument."

[Well, folks, ‘a new way forward’ from the minds of the RAND, a group of usually right-wing Nuts! :p This is not Daddy’s ol’ friends telling George W. Bush that he is wrong – this is the best and the brightest saying what Bush – and John W. McCain or Barak Obama – need to do in the future to fight al-Qaeda. After all, isn’t al-Qaeda our #1 enemy?]

The comprehensive study analyzes 648 terrorist groups that existed between 1968 and 2006, drawing from a terrorism database maintained by RAND and the Memorial Institute for the Prevention of Terrorism. The most common way that terrorist groups end -- 43 percent -- was via a transition to the political process. However, the possibility of a political solution is more likely if the group has narrow goals, rather than a broad, sweeping agenda like al Qaida possesses.

The second most common way that terrorist groups end -- 40 percent -- was through police and intelligence services either apprehending or killing the key leaders of these groups. Policing is especially effective in dealing with terrorists because police have a permanent presence in cities that enables them to efficiently gather information, Jones said.

Military force was effective in only 7 percent of the cases examined; in most instances, military force is too blunt an instrument to be successful against terrorist groups, although it can be useful for quelling insurgencies in which the terrorist groups are large, well-armed and well-organized, according to researchers. In a number of cases, the groups end because they become splintered, with members joining other groups or forming new factions. Terrorist groups achieved victory in only 10 percent of the cases studied.

Jones says the study has crucial implications for U.S. strategy in dealing with al Qaida and other terrorist groups. Since al Qaida's goal is the establishment of a pan-Islamic caliphate, a political solution or negotiated settlement with governments in the Middle East is highly unlikely. The terrorist organization also has made numerous enemies and does not enjoy the kind of mass support received by other organizations such as Hezbollah in Lebanon, largely because al Qaida has not engaged in sponsoring any welfare services, medical clinics, or hospitals.

The study recommends the United States should adopt a two-front strategy: rely on policing and intelligence work to root out the terrorist leaders in Europe, North America, Asia and the Middle East, and involve military force -- though not necessarily the U.S. military -- when insurgencies are involved.

The United States also should avoid the use of the term, "war on terror," and replace it with the term "counterterrorism." Nearly every U.S. ally, including the United Kingdom and Australia, has stopped using "war on terror," and Jones said it's more than a mere matter of semantics.

"The term we use to describe our strategy toward terrorists is important, because it affects what kinds of forces you use," Jones said. "Terrorists should be perceived and described as criminals, not holy warriors, and our analysis suggests that there is no battlefield solution to terrorism."

[This is your taxdollars at work, peeps. I wonder if that report is being shuffled around the halls of official Washington -- and being read by the two campaigns.]

Among the other findings, the study notes:

Religious terrorist groups take longer to eliminate than other groups. Since 1968, approximately 62 percent of all terrorist groups have ended, while only 32 percent of religious terrorist groups have done so.

No religious terrorist group has achieved victory since 1968.

Size is an important predictor of a groups' fate. Large groups of more than 10,000 members have been victorious more than 25 percent of the time, while victory is rare when groups are smaller than 1,000 members.

There is no statistical correlation between the duration of a terrorist group and ideological motivation, economic conditions, regime type or the breadth of terrorist goals.

Terrorist groups that become involved in an insurgency do not end easily. Nearly 50 percent of the time they end with a negotiated settlement with the government, 25 percent of the time they achieved victory and 19 percent of the time, military groups defeated them.

Terrorist groups from upper-income countries are much more likely to be left-wing or nationalistic, and much less likely to be motivated by religion.

"The United States has the necessary instruments to defeat al Qaida, it just needs to shift its strategy and keep in mind that terrorist groups are not eradicated overnight," Jones said.

[The reason that John W. McCain is having a hard time explaining a positive vision for the future is that he sees no positive future. Wars in Afghanistan, Iran and Iraq with Syria on notice; al-Qaeda strengthening; oil wells off the coast; a Constitutional crisis as Congress tries to cut off money for McCain’s war machine – the future according to McCain. Ya know, I bet he likes it!]

The study, "How Terrorist Groups End: Lessons for Countering al Qaida," can be found at http://www.rand.org/ .

Post #167

Subject: Let's Talk Troop Surge

… from The American Conservative:

http://www.amconmag.com/blog

My responses and additions – in [brackets]….

Who Wants To Talk About Troop Strain?

July 23, 2008 by Kelley Vlahos

Like every other VIP that’s flown into the Green Zone for the dog & pony-grip & grin, Barack Obama was transported safely from Iraq 48 hours later, leaving tens of thousands of US troops behind. In his wake, the media attention and with it, the mind-numbing debate over timelines and time horizons and status of forces agreements will eventually give way to more pressing issues for these troops whose main contact with home is a tiny camera assisting their email: how to pay the bills, kids acting out in school, the baby on the way.

But the image of Obama and his media pack flying away is indeed symbolic in that lost in the bloodless debate over whether soldiers and Marines should be coming home now or later, at fixed dates or after “aspirational goals” are met, is that experts, including top Army officials, have been saying for over a year that the current force strength cannot keep up with today’s deployment schedule without breaking the service and the men and women in it.

[Yep. I began this blog two years ago because I thought the Army was at a breaking point and therefore George W. Bush’s Napoleonic vision was ending, and I wanted to take a few swipes at the Weasel. I didn’t anticipate the Weasel extending tours of duties and lowering recruiting standards and sacrificing more blood and treasure so that he can hand-off his War to the next President – who undoubtedly will get blamed by Bush for losing Iraq.]

In fact, it seems that talking about the true state of our force strength has become nothing but a strange exercise in denial, with a little smoke and mirrors to keep the American people distracted. The surge allowed for adding five brigades to the existing 15 in Iraq back in March of ‘07. Now that the surge is technically over, those five brigades have been coming home, and will be out of Iraq by the end of the month, according to military officials. That leaves the force strength the same, if not slightly higher than when the surge began – about 140,000 troops. President Bush has said there will be no further draw-downs until conditions improve more. Though there is always the tease – part of the smoke and mirrors component – of future withdrawals, we wait endlessly for something more official.

As I wrote for TAC back in June, many believe that the surge was ended not so much for its tactical successes, but because the brigades had to come home. The 15-month deployments and close to 1:1 deployment/dwell time ratio is and was untenable (the healthiest would be 1:4 and that is a fantasy in today’s war). Retired Brig. Gen. Kevin Ryan told me at the time, “We cannot replace them out there without a full mobilization, without total access to the reserve and the National Guard. In the situation now, we cannot do that – we either have to change our strategy or make our Army bigger.”

While the Army and Marine Corps have orders by Bush to grow by 92,000 by 2012, they can hardly expect to start supplying fresh troops and Marines to the battlefield today. As it were, no less than 13 National Guard brigades have already been called up for (re)deployment to Iraq through 2009, ostensibly to replace exhausted active duty components there now.

To be fair, the centerpiece of Obama’s campaign is to bring most troops home within 16 months. However, much of this talk these days is balanced out by his desire to send more troops into Afghanistan. Even worse, say critics Larry Korb and Fred Kaplan, John McCain’s plan not only excludes a timeline for drawing down troops in Iraq, but putting even more troops than Obama envisions in Afghanistan.

Kaplan: Here’s the problem: The U.S. Army is stretched so thin that, according to its own calculations, no extra combat units can be sent to Afghanistan unless the same number of units is pulled out of Iraq. There is no flexibility here. So if McCain wants to put three more brigades in Afghanistan, where is he going to get them?

Referring to Obama’s call for withdrawing troops from Iraq, McCain says, “Sen. Obama will tell you we can’t win in Afghanistan without losing in Iraq.”

Cute, but beside the point. Military strategy involves the application of resources to war aims. If McCain wins the White House, the first thing the Joint Chiefs will tell him is that they don’t have the resources to fulfill his war aims.

[When will McCain ‘straight-talk’ the American people about the sacrifices needed for his war machine? Extended tours? Recruits from prison? A draft? The war machine will need to be even bigger if/when Israel drags us into war with Iran. Will that ‘straight-talk’ come BEFORE the election?]

Korb, with Laura Conley: Sen. McCain’s policy does not account for the strain placed on U.S. forces due to repeated deployments. Of the nearly 1.7 million U.S. soldiers who have served in Afghanistan or Iraq, almost 600,000 have been deployed more than once. As the large U.S. presence in Iraq continues to require repeated deployments, often with insufficient time between tours of duty, the ability of the military to provide significant numbers of combat-ready forces for Afghanistan is diminished.

Increasing security in Afghanistan must be the primary, though not sole priority of the United States. U.S. policy in Afghanistan can and must be revitalized with a commitment to building Afghan government capacity, reining in corruption, increasing reconstruction efforts, removing the terrorist safe haven in Pakistan, and reducing the production of opium.

[Terrorists need to understand that the long arm of swift and sure American justice will get ‘em. I doubt that message is getting thro to those safe havens in Pakistan. The War on Terror can not even begin as long as 9/11 masterminds are on the loose – I hope you-know-who doesn’t die peacefully in his sleep.]

As usual, as these guys point out, the human side of the debate gets lost, particularly in jargon like “aspirational goals,” but let’s get serious here: tens of thousands of men and women have been repeatedly deploying in and out of this warzone for six years, on stints that last anywhere from seven to 18 month each, depending on their branch of service and when they were deployed. Their individual commitments rival, if not exceed, that of their counterparts in World War II, Korea and Vietnam, yet this aspect of the war seems to get lost. Leave the brigades, take out the brigades, transfer the brigades, bring home the brigades – we have to remember there are people involved. As it stands today, 4,125 servicemen and women have been killed in Iraq, 33,000 wounded in action (that doesn’t include tens of thousands of non-hostile injuries and illnesses); 560 killed in Afghanistan. Many lives have been put on hold for the better part of this decade, and, at least now, with no end in sight.

I was struck by the resignation in the tone of one soldier interviewed by the Washingn Post earlier this week on the success of the surge. Asked if the surge worth it, Spec. Derek Taylor, 23of West Virginia, “It was worth it, and it was not worth it – I have a wife and a kid. I go home, and my daughter is 2. She probably doesn’t remember who I am.”

Post #166

Subject: Antonin Scalia, Naked Under his Robes

There used to be a lone voice of solid reasoning that thundered across the political landscape – this is a nation of laws, not of men. Respect for what is written in the Constitution is paramount. But that changed in 2000.

If ever there was one case that the U.S. Supreme Court should have stayed out of, it was Bush v. Gore. Our election for President is not a national election – if it was, Al Gore would have won. But our election is a series of state elections with each state determining its own rules as ultimately interpreted by that state’s Supreme Court – not the U.S. Supreme Court.

The irony is that, if played out according to the law, George W. Bush would have won legitimately. Instead, we have an illegitimate President who was inflicted upon us by Antonin Scalia.

Recently, I saw a TV interview with Scalia and was hoping for a reasonable explanation. Instead, when asked why the U.S. Supreme Court intervened, he answered “the way it was presented, it was a Constitutional problem.” Well, yes or no. Goodness, anything can be presented as a Constitutional problem -- the Supreme Court decides what is or is not a Constitutional problem.

Scalia then went on and said that he considered public opinion, that the public was impatient for a new President. What does public opinion have to do with deciding a case before the U.S. Supreme Court? To Scalia, it is important.

Not only is public opinion important to Scalia, but he also cited world public opinion as a reason the U.S. Supreme Court intervened in Bush v Gore. Scalia was worried that a foreign newspaper – French? – might make fun of the world’s leading democracy when we had to follow the law to determine our President.

Uh, I thought following the law was what a democracy was all about.

Of course, still today, Scalia is wandering… out there. Take, for instance, the recent D.C. gun ban case and show me “self-defense” written in the Constitution. Scalia made convincing arguments as to why the ban was bad policy, but he had to rely on “original intent” as a way to describe the ban as un-Constitutional – that is, he guessed as to what the founders meant so that he could impose his own agenda on the country instead of relying on what is written in the Constitution. Isn’t that known as “legislating from the bench?”

Antonin Scalia – another one. * sigh *

Post #165

Subject: I get e-mails. Pt. II

I got another “Fwd” e-mail the other day about recent anti-terror doings in Australia and how we needed leaders like those in Australia. Well, the e-mail was NOT entirely true. Read the findings at snopes.com,

http://www.snopes.com/politics/religion/australia.asp

and see that what really happened – kewl, by the way – has been combined with an editorial from a military magazine. What tipped me off – encouraged me to look – was the reference to a Christian nation. Australia was a penal colony – drunkards, murderers, rapists, the dregs of British society. I doubt there were many Christians among the founders.

That e-mail had been “Fwd” to thousands. I wish peeps would check snopes.com BEFORE hitting “Fwd.“ * sigh *

Post #164

Subject: War Is Over! We Won!!

We Won!! War Is Over! There’ll be dancing, dancing in the streets. Newborn babies will be named “W.”

George W. Bush is a supergenius – he had the courage to surge when EVRYBODY told him not too. And the surge has worked, fulfilling its original promise of providing breathing room for the Iraqi government to get its act together.

Iraq's Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said Monday that his country wants some type of timetable for a withdrawal of American troops included in the deal the two countries are negotiating. It was the first time that he has explicitly and publicly called for a withdrawal timetable.

In Washington, the State Department declined to comment on the ongoing negotiations and said officials in Washington were not yet entirely sure what al-Maliki had said. "This falls in the category of ongoing negotiations, and I'm not going to talk about every single development, every single development in the negotiations," spokesman Sean McCormack told reporters.

Maliki offered no details. But his national security adviser, Mouwaffak al-Rubaie, told The Associated Press the next day “We will not accept any memorandum of understanding that doesn’t have specific dates to withdraw foreign forces from Iraq.”

What does John W. McCain think?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOHN W. MCCAIN: It’s obvious that we would have to leave because -- if it was an elected government of Iraq, and we’ve been asked to leave other places in the world. If it were an extremist government, then I think we would have other challenges, but I don’t see how we could stay when our whole emphasis and policies are based on turning the Iraqi government over to the Iraqi people.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

Whoops – wrong tape [blush] – that was McCain from 2004. Tuesday morning on MSNBC, McCain was asked about Maliki’s demand that the U.S., at least, make plans to go home.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, MORNING JOE)

MCCAIN: The Iraqis have made it very clear including meetings I had with the president and foreign minister of Iraq that it’s based on conditions on the ground. That’s what I’ve always said. I’ve always said we’ll come home with honor and with victory and not through a set timetable.

The same media outlets, by the way, were saying two weeks ago that Maliki said there would be no Status of Forces Agreement. But he is a politician; he is a leader of a country that’s finally coming together. There is no reason to assume that the Iraqis aren’t going to act in what they perceive as their national interests.

I believe we’ll act in ours.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

There it is, peeps – our commitment to democracy is a sham. McCain has flip-flopped, moved the goalposts, snatched defeat from the jaws of Victory. Instead of Bush and McCain admitting their War was wrong, they’d rather set America on the course for a s-l-o-w suicide. What patriots.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA: So when I hear John McCain saying, ‘We can’t surrender, we can’t wave the white flag’ nobody’s talking about surrender. We’re talking about common sense. We cannot be there forever.

(APPLAUSE)

OBAMA: We can’t be there for 50 years. We can’t afford it. Our military families can’t bear that burden. We’ve got to get more troops into Afghanistan. I am going to bring this war to an end.

So, don’t be confused. I will bring the Iraq war to a close when I’m president of the United States of America.

(APPLAUSE)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

Post #163

Subject: John McCain, patriot?

What we need, what this country needs, is someone who will stand up and tell us the truth. We need a patriot, someone who has seen war and will give us a little straight-talk about the Iraq War.

“A war that began dishonorably cannot end honorably – the only honor comes with the end.” Lying, cheating, misguided, foolhardy, whatever your favorite term is to describe the sales campaign for the Iraq War – I think we can all agree that it was dishonorable

Ya’d think John McCain would be the perfect candidate to take on that task. Unfortunately, McCain has learned the wrong lesson about Vietnam – he thinks one more push will be honorable, sacrificing more men for… what?

I thought that the historical lesson of Vietnam was that we should not have been there in the first place – that will undoubtedly be the historical lesson of Iraq, too. The last thing we need is a President who is wrestling with the ghosts of Vietnam.

Can we convince those who want to do us harm that there is a better way BEFORE they do us more harm? Can we win the hearts and minds of the jihadists? Not as long as we are in Iraq…. * sigh *

I’m depressed now – I’ve been blogging for two years, and we have a major Presidential candidate who just doesn’t get it: Continued investment in Iraq weakens our position in the War on Terror. I shudder to think what it will take for McCain to realize that simple truth.

Post #162

Subject: Barack Obama, Where has the Magic Gone?

My responses and additions – in [brackets]….

How Obama Won and May Win
By Pat Buchanan, http://www.theamericancause.org/

June 10, 2008

“I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy. I mean, that’s a storybook, man.”

Thus did Joe Biden famously describe his rival for the nomination, Barack Obama, to the The New York Observer, a year ago.

Biden, however, thought Obama might not be able to win the fall election, as he is “a one-term, a guy who has served for four years in the Senate. I don’t recall hearing a word from Barack about a plan or a tactic.”

Biden was forced to apologize, but was dead on in discerning Barack’s strengths as a candidate in the primaries, which might prove weaknesses in the fall.

[Yep, Joe Biden was correct – and so was Hillary ‘he can’t win’ Clinton.]

A new face in the game, Barack opened with three aces. He opposed the Iraq war, the defining issue in a party that had come to detest the war. He was an African-American. Thus, as the hopes of millions rose that he could be the first black president, there were surges of black voters whom he begin to sweep 90-10.

Lastly, Barack is a natural, a Mickey Mantle, a superb political athlete like JFK, who has looks, charm, youth and a speaking style that can move crowds to cheers or laughter.

Barack was thus able to unite the McGovern wing – young, idealistic, liberal, anti-war -- with the Jesse Jackson quadrant of the party, black folks, and defeat Hillary’s coalition of working-class Catholics, women, seniors and Hispanics.

As of today, by the traditional metrics of national politics, Democrats should roll up a victory this fall like FDR’s first in 1932.

[My Grandma – 87 years old and feisty as Hell – could beat the crap out of John W. McCain. But we are gonna get him! [rolleyes] My hope is that we elect enough Democrats with ‘testicular fortitude’ to restore Congress’ proper role among the three branches of government – and reject any Scalias who are nominated.]

Bush’s disapproval is near 70 percent, and 80 percent of the country believes the nation is on the wrong course. Unemployment is rising. Surging gas and food prices compete for the top story not only on business pages but front pages, with home foreclosures and the housing slump. Family incomes of Middle Americans have ceased to rise, as millions of their best jobs have been outsourced overseas.

Yet, national polls show McCain-Obama a close race, and the electoral map points to critical problems for Barack.

He seeks, for example, to target Colorado, Nevada and New Mexico. But in all three the Hispanic vote may be decisive. And Barack was beaten by Hillary two to one among Hispanics, and between these two largest of America’s minorities, rivalry and tension are real and rising.

Barack must hold Michigan and Pennsylvania and pick up Ohio or Virginia. Yet, his weakness among Southern and working-class whites and women is remarkable. By two to one they rejected him.

After his string of primary and caucus victories in February, Barack proceeded to lose Texas, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Indiana, then West Virginia by 41, Kentucky by 35, Puerto Rico two to one and South Dakota by 10. That last one Barack was supposed to win.

The longer the campaign went on, the more reluctant Democrats seemed to be to embrace his nomination.

What is Barack’s problem?

Middle America knows little about him, and much of what they know they do not like. When West Virginians were asked what they knew about Barack, a plurality said the Rev. Wright was his pastor. In Pennsylvania, a goodly slice of Democrats knew Barack had said they were ‘bitter’ about being left behind and were clinging to their bigotries, Bibles and guns.

By June, resistance to Barack’s nomination in the party that he now leads was extraordinary, stemming from a belief that he is too naive to be commander in chief in wartime and too far left, and does not like or understand Middle America or its values.

“He is not one of us.”

And if Barack cannot erase this hardening perception in the American mind, he will not be president.

Democrats may talk of making the economy the issue this fall, but Republicans are going to make Barack the issue. Story line: We cannot entrust our beloved America, in a time of war, to this radical and exotic figure who has so many crazy and extremist associates.

Barack’s problem is thus Reagan’s problem.

As the country wished to be rid of Jimmy Carter in 1980, so the nation today wishes to be rid of Bush and his Republicans. But America is apprehensive over a roll of the dice, in Bill Clinton’s metaphor.

How did Reagan ease the anxiety? In the debate with Carter, he came off as conservative, yes, but also traditional, mainstream, witty and the more likable man. The real Reagan came through.

With his persona, Barack may be able to do the same – in the debates. The problem is that he had two dozen debates with Hillary and, by the end of the primary season, five months after it began, he was still losing ground.

[And to wait for the debates will be too late – negative perceptions will have hardened by then in this era of 24/7 news. Obama needs to show he is one of us.. BEFORE the convention. I heard that Obama’s mother was on welfare – he knows then what it is to struggle. Play that up, for Goodness sake.]