Well AJ is so excited about showing off the new site, you’d think it was Xmas.
I’m going to officially declare no more posts or comments at midnight tonight. I will try to have the final batch of posts/comments moved by midday on Saturday, so be patient.
Thanks for your wonderful support of the Strata-Sphere!
LJStrata
Rumors of a devastating tape of Michelle Obama are being spread by the Clinton shock troops:
And from whence does it come. Well from Hillary Clinton supporter and somewhat veracity-challenged Larry Johnson, at “No Quarter”, who, quite naturally, implies it is the Republicans (but seems quite happy about the possible result none-the-less) playing this card:
I now have it from
twothreefour sources (three who are close to senior Republicans) that there is video dynamite–Michelle Obama railing against “whitey” at Jeremiah Wright’s church. Republicans may have a lousy record when it comes to the economy and the management of the war in Iraq, but they are hell on wheels when it comes to opposition research.
Johnson is a political hatchet man who covered for Valerie Plame and her lying husband Joe Wilson. All of Larry’s claims proved wrong in the end - he prides himself on his ability to lie and intimidate. Too bad he’s a about 100 IQ points short of actually being as clever as he thinks he is.
For example: why would any GOP source uncover this October Surprise Atom Bomb now? Obama is in, Clinton is out - keep the powder dry on this one and we get President McCain. All this does is help Clinton - not the GOP. There probably IS a tape, but clearly it is in the hand of the Clitonistas. Let’s break down Larry’s comments to see if he actually says anything, other than there is this tape?
First sentence: “I now have it from two three four sources (three who are close to senior Republicans) that there is video dynamite …”. He has three sources from Congress. They are close to senior Reps. Senior Dems are ‘close to’ senior Reps. Dem Staffers are ‘close to’ senior Reps. Maybe his sources are Rep Staffers getting word from Dem staffers who favor Clinton? Who knows, but Johnson is CIA trained on the art of misdirection, so read his words carefully. He does not say what party or candidate his sources are from, and he doesn’t say who has the tape. He has just allowed the mind of the reader to draw conclusions that are not there.
Second sentence: “Republicans may have a lousy record when it comes to the economy and the management of the war in Iraq, but they are hell on wheels when it comes to opposition research.” Think this has to be connected to the first sentence? Not really. I have seen this done many times. For example, I have seen someone present details of a SW architecture, then present on best practices, and then go onto something else. The funny thing was, when I asked if they used the practices the presenter said not completely, he was just presenting context.
Another example was in the Valerie Plame Game, where there was a lot of discussion about Joe Wilson debriefing the VP about his visit to Niger Turned out Wilson never debriefed Cheney, and neither did the CIA. Also turns out Wilson did not report back to the CIA, but actually debriefed an two officers at his home with Valerie serving tea (though she claimed she was not involved with Wilson’s report). You have to watch these people, they are great at making you think there is connection when there isn’t.
So why do this now? Well, Hillary needs to cripple Obama ASAP. She needs to make sure his unelectable before the convention. What this news does is force Obama back on the defensive. Without the tape he is trying to deny a negative, or an unknown. And now everyone is going to start digging through videos to see if they can find this atom bomb. Checkmate. How can Obama deny something he hasn’t seen? If he does have it he has to make it public and then deal with it. If he doesn’t find it others will. If it is a myth the rumor cannot be squashed.
Classic Clinton Dirty Tricks - executed by a dirty trickster himself. H/T to Q and O
Boy, Obama sure is looking the fool over his Surrendercrat plan to run from Iraq and talk to Iran and al-Qaeda (can we all just get along). Bush rightfully noted how history has shown ‘talking’ doesn’t work when dealing with blood-thirsty and suicidal extremists. And how does Obama respond? He cries ‘unfair’!
Barack Obama rebuked Republican rival John McCain and President Bush for “dishonest, divisive” attacks in hinting that the Democratic presidential candidate would appease terrorists, staunchly defending his national security credentials for the general election campaign.
Nothing like emphasizing the negatives Barack! Aren’t Obama’s national security credentials his time as a Boy Scout when he went to Europe or something? Here is what people see when Obama cries he has been unfairly attacked:
And this is one of Bush’s most memorable images as the leader of a nation at war:
Hmmmm, when we think of a strong leader able to stand up to all of our threats as a nation does someone who cries “it’s unfair” come to mind? If Obama wants to paint McCain as another Bush he needs to make sure that analogy works in his favor. Right now …, not so much.
Glenn Reynolds asks an interesting question today:
SO IF THE REPUBLICANS ARE IN TROUBLE, WHY ARE THESE PEOPLE SO HAPPY? I’m at the NRA Convention in Louisville, Kentucky. I haven’t been to a big gun event in probably a decade, and the change in mood is striking: People are, well . . . not ebullient, really, but noticeably cheerful and confident. The defensive crouch of a decade ago is gone. Will that change if the Democrats take the White House?
They don’t seem to think so here. Ten years ago, gun rights were under siege. Now the two Democratic presidential candidates are bending over backward to try to paint themselves as pro-gun. It’s a lie, of course. But it’s a lie that shows where the political balance of power, er, lies on this issue. The Democrats are electing new members of Congress, too — but, again, they’re running as pro-gun. People here, I think, feel like they’ve got the momentum regardless of what happens in November.
They are happy Conservatives (and I mean the broader, more diverse, more pragmatic conservatives - not those ‘true’ conservatives who denounce compromise with the democrats, let alone voting for them) because they have choices. They are being wooed by the Democrats and GOP. And as has been shown in the Special Elections this year they are voting for Dems over the GOP in heavily conservative GOP districts.
While the ‘true’ conservatives (who come to this site and claim I am left of Hillary Clinton and a closet Democrat - supposedly as a way to woo my support!) have destroyed the GOP lock on conservatives. They chased those who believe in conservative issues - AND believe you can progress them through reasonable compromise with dems - out of the GOP. No compromise! The far right can deny this all day long, but it won’t change the reality. The GOP told the moderates there was no more common ground and called them traitors for defying the will of ‘true’ conservatives on issues such as comprehensive immigration reform.
Those nasty one-time GOP voters who would talk to dems, work with dems, compromise with dems and now - yes - vote for dems are by definition not ‘true’ conservatives. They were the cancer that had to be purged from the GOP and the right. They had become traitors to ‘the cause’. Of course these nasty people are the moderate, psuedoconservative, independent … whatever name the far right uses to try and shore up their own superior conservative ideology.
So how is it these happy centrists, being wooed by left and right, are taken as both evil and desired? I have seen all sorts of warped logic from the far right on how the moderates have destroyed the party. But it is these very moderate voters the far right needs to get back in order to win elections. Yet all they do is insult them for being so, well, moderate! (side note: I love my typos some days. My latest was “far fright” for “far right”. How ironically true was that one!).
Why are conservatives happy - they are no longer tied to one party which can take them for granted - to the point they can insult their beliefs and still expect their vote each fall. Well the last laugh is on the ones not smiling, the ones looking shell-shocked and scared because they realized they told their constituents their views were not wanted or respected. Guess what, those happy moderate conservatives now have choices because more than one party is wooing them. Well, actually only one party is wooing them now, their old party just can’t seem to find one nice thing to say about them and their ilk. Duh!
Addendum: Just finished reading Peggy Noonan stab Bush and our troops in the back again. Sshe now seems to claim we needed to surrender and run, since that would ‘break with the administration’ position to stay and win. Same old pretzel logic: ‘the GOP is not far enough to the right’, which is why the voters are electing conservatives that are to the left of center (Blue Dog Democrats). ‘The GOP is not far enough to the right’, which is why GOP voters selected McCain over a sea of far right candidates. ‘The GOP is too soft on immigration’, which is why voters in the GOP and in general elections have dumped all the hard liners out of office.
The far right talks of rebuilding by becoming more of what the voters are rejecting - call me naive but if the voters don’t like it, more of the same won’t help change their minds. What the GOP needs is to stop tearing itself apart like Noonan does. Right now no sane person would trust her to stand by them when the going got tough. She runs away saying “its all their fault!”. Yeah, if this is showing the voters what a true conservative is I am sure the voters are paying attention and taking notes. Amazing to watch a party devour itself like this.
So it seems liberals found a soldier who would be happy to play a starring role in their made-for-TV production of “Bush’s Illegal War”, wherein the poor, uneducated, desperate hick from the country is seduced into protecting his company, tricked into fighting an ‘illegal’ war - a war Congress authorized and has funded for 5 years now.
Ladies and Gentelmen, in his national acting debut, we give you Sgt Matthis Chiroux:
Matthis Chiroux is the kind of young American US military recruiters love.
“I was from a poor, white family from the south, and I did badly in school,” the now 24-year-old told AFP.
“I was ‘filet mignon’ for recruiters. They started phoning me when I was in 10th grade,” or around 16 years old, he added.
Chiroux joined the US army straight out of high school nearly six years ago, and worked his way up from private to sergeant.
He served in Afghanistan, Germany, Japan, and the Philippines and was due to be deployed next month in Iraq.
On Thursday, he refused to go, saying he considers Iraq an illegal war.
“I stand before you today with the strength and clarity and resolve to declare to the military, my government and the world that this soldier will not be deploying to Iraq,” Chiroux said in the sun-filled rotunda of a congressional building in Washington.
“My decision is based on my desire to no longer continue violating my core values to support an illegal and unconstitutional occupation… I refuse to participate in the Iraq occupation,” he said, as a dozen veterans of the five-year-old Iraq war looked on.
Minutes earlier, Chiroux had cried openly as he listened to former comrades-in-arms testify before members of Congress about the failings of the Iraq war.
It’s so bad in this illegal war (Congress authorized and continuously funds) that recruitment across the board is … way up. What we have is John Kerry Jr - some guy willing to sell out his buddies (who risked their lives to protect his) for fame and fortune (trust me, he is getting something for this). The fact this guy picked a left-wing congressional committee to make his stance in front of the cameras is all you need to know about this propaganda stunt. A stunt that will backfire.
When the real journalists decide to find the story behind this my guess is they will find things about the sergeant that will start to blow holes in this stunt. For one, his comrades will come forward and give their view (that old ’swiftboating’ trick where you ask people there what REALLY happened). I am glad to see the media treating the American people as a bunch of stupid rubes who would never see through this slick Madison Avenue charade. Never in a million years.
Update: It seems Kerry Jr is not really a fighter, but an Army photographer. What was so illegal he would be doing in Iraq? Is there something we should now about how Sgt Chiroux uses his camera? This is clearly an offshoot of the Hollywood Writers’ Strike - who is dumb enough to fall for this crap?
OK, I know there are hundreds of left-wing sites who will be rushing to show their ignorance and how they are puppets of the elitists in DC and NYC. But let’s face reality folks, there will always be folks slated for the B-Ark of life (which only fans of Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy will understand).
In the weeds today so some short posts on news you may not have seen on events in Iraq. This article out of Europe has a reasonably good history, and well detailed overview of the Sadr/Mahdi Army conflict in Iraq. Interestingly these folks conclude the Sadrist have been crippled and Maliki strengthened, when all is said and done:
The Mahdi Army, which abandoned most of its positions in Basra, concentrated its forces in Sadr City which is considered its main base. But even in Sadr City, JAM has been in retreat.
On 11 May, the Sadr Movement’s chief negotiator in Iraq, Shaikh Salah Obeidi, declared that the group would allow the Iraqi army to enter into its strongholds and would not be fired on.
While there are still many disagreements on the terms of the ceasefire, this is definitely a military and political defeat for the Sadrists, perhaps their very first.
Modeled very much like the Lebanese Hizbollah, the Mahdi Army is best at short-term wars with militarily superior forces. Its war-fighting strategy basically consists of resisting its enemies long enough to make the continuation of the war politically too costly for its adversaries. This is exactly what happened in Najaf in 2004 between the US and JAM. Therefore, the Mahdi Army is ill-prepared to wage a protracted war, particularly if the adversary happens to be an Iraqi Shia force.
“They were badly outmatched by the combined forces of Iraqi army and the US military,” Jason Gluck of the US Institute for Peace in Washington DC told ISN Security Watch. “Their fighters were picked off one by one while the fighting was causing a huge humanitarian crisis for their civilian supporters. This was an untenable position,” Gluck said.
The NY Times did its usual “It will never work!” article today - since the fight against the Mahdi Army has worked and now the liberal media can only wonder if it will stop working:
But Will the Mahdi Army Return?
By THE NEW YORK TIMESThis blog was written by an Iraqi member of the security staff of The New York Times. His name has been withheld for his safety.
…
This time one of the things that made us feel good was how busy the streets were. One of my friends even came to visit me at 9.30 p.m., and he lives a long way from the center of the town.
I met many people, everybody was very comfortable, very happy. They were all saying, “We hope things keep going as well as they are now.”
When I see these things going well I hope it will last, and I think it will. I am optimistic.
But women are still all covered. I know that Basra women are more open than this. They want to go on the streets without headscarves, but they are still scared.
…
But if the army suddenly leaves, definitely the Mahdi Army will return because they must be waiting for a chance.
Weapons or money won’t be a problem for them — they are just across the border. It will be very quick and fast. This is not just my feeling, this is the feeling of Basra. I spoke to people.
Yes, if Maliki and the government retreat from their gains like a liberal Surrendercrat the hell of Islamo Fascism will return to southern Iraq. But unlike the Democrat Congress here in America, where failure is the only option they will consider, the Iraqis have seen the brutality of Islamo Fascism close up and would never dream of giving them a chance to return to any form of power or control. That kind of warped thinking on exists on the liberal left here in the West.
The US is continuing to find evidence of Iranian support to the Mahdi Forces (as all Iraqis now know is happening). And the continue to point out that these Iranian trained, armed and funded thugs are killing more Iraqis than Americans. Which in turn has Iraqis realizing they need to stop Iran’s bloody intervention.
And as this article out of Europe notes (same source as the initial link from above) many of these Iranian armed and trained fighters in Iraq are not abiding by any cease fire (which is was said to be only for 4 days, which means it will expire soon):
Moqtada al-Sadr may have negotiated a fragile ceasefire with the Iraqi government after several weeks of street fighting in northern Baghdad, but in this part of the city, Shiite fighters who loosely associate themselves with Sadr’s Mahdi Army militia couldn’t care less.
“My intelligence tells me that they are Jaish al-Mahdi special groups,” said US Army Captain Andrew Betson, the commander of the outpost in Saidiyah, using the Arabic name for Sadr’s militia and the American military term for Shiite militants that are believed to have splintered off from the mainstream.
“I do not believe that they are mainstream Jaish al-Mahdi,” he said. “At least they believe that they don’t have to abide by the ceasefire.”
The Sadrists are in real trouble. Their supporters are begging for a cessation in the violence, but the Sadrists gave cover and support to blood thirsty extremists who would as soon kill Shiite as Americans. This is the pact with the devil the Sunnis made with al-Qaeda, for which they paid dearly.
If the rogue elements continue to fight the Sadrists are going to be facing a choice very soon. Right now they are predicting they can pull of this peace deal. But if they cannot control these whack-jobs that they allied with, they will have to turn on them and help the Iraq government hunt them down and destroy them. Just as the Sunni had to do to show they were good leaders for their people and would protect them from outsiders. All outsiders.
The Strata-Sphere is turning 3 years old on May 18th, and we have a nice surprise coming for the big day. The Strata-Sphere is going to get a long overdue makeover, we hope everyone will like it. However, the change will mean turning off comments for a day so we don’t lose anything during the transition. Thanks for your patience and we hope you like the new and improved Strata-Sphere coming this weekend.
Want to get a taste of what is happening in the Middle East when Sunnis broke with al-Qaeda, when Shiites broke with Sadr and the Mahdi Army, when Afghans broke with the Taliban. There is nothing more shattering than to have the belief system that underpins your life and soul shattered. There is nothing like learning people you supported and trusted would kill you without any thought to further themselves. What the eiltes in this country cannot fathom is losing everything to heartless killers and thugs you once thought were saviors and an army of angels. If you want to see a snapshot of what is happening to al-Qaeda, the Mahdi Army, the Taliban and other Islamo Fascists as the facade is ripped from them and their evil core is exposed to the Muslim Street watch this clip and how a believer became a fighter. How an image of the future of Islam turned into the enemy of Islam:
H/T to Gateway Pundit for finding this clip. What is important to take from this is how dramatic and forceful the change is when one realizes they have been played the fool in a dangerous game that could have killed. While the Nazis rose to power on a myth of superiority in race, al-Qaeda rose to power on the myth of religious rapture, and the coming of heaven on Earth once the evil West was vanquished. While the fervor over the coming of a rapture can mobilize more people to greater heights (even into suicidal martyrdom), when the facade is ripped away the crash back to reality is jarring. You can see how this women is fed up with the movement once it crossed the line and made her the enemy.
This is a good insight into what happens and what it takes to shatter a dream and take up the fight against one time allies and fellow believers. This is what is rattling the Islamo Fascist movement and paving the way to victory (over the coming years, not days) in the war on terror.
With all eyes on the elections and how Iraq is doing with the Sadrists and Mahdi Army I totally missed the news that the US took out an al-Qaeda group in Pakistan:
At least a dozen militants including foreign fighters were killed Wednesday in a suspected US missile strike on two houses in northwestern Pakistan, a senior security official said.
Two missiles apparently fired by a US drone aircraft demolished a house and a compound used by suspected Al-Qaeda militants in Bajaur tribal region near the border with Afghanistan, the official, who declined to be identified, told AFP.
“We have reports that the missile strike killed at least 12 militants including some foreigners,” the official said.
The houses targetted belonged to Maulvi Taj Mohammad and Maulvi Hassan, the official said, though it was unclear if they had been killed in the strikes.
“Both were Al-Qaeda facilitators,” he said, adding there was an ammunition dump in one of the houses.
I keep hoping one of these days we will nail Bin Laden or Zawahiri in one of these strikes. For some reason locals are not letting government forces near the site:
Angry residents of a Pakistani village on the Afghan border stopped government officials on Thursday from approaching the ruins of a house struck by missiles suspected to have been fired by a U.S. drone.
Eighteen people including foreign militants were killed when two missiles hit a house in the village of Damadola in the Bajaur tribal region, where Islamist militants have been known to operate, on Wednesday evening, a security official said.
…
A senior government official said the strike had apparently targeted a mid-level, Arab al Qaeda member, who had been killed.
Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani, asked about an attack apparently carried out by the United States, said: “I strongly condemn this. It’s absolutely wrong. It’s unfair. They should not have done this action.”
Well, this is the Obama strategy after all, invade our democrat allies and talk to our enemies. But I seriously doubt the US would risk total diplomatic melt down with Pakistan over a mid-level AQ leader. I would bet someone of import is having their meeting with Allah about now. Whoever those ‘foreign militants’ must have been high valued targets.
Update: Boy, this attack stirred up the hornet’s nest all right. The attack happened in Bajur Agency, one of the agencies of the FATA region of Pakistan and sometimes identified as the hideout for AQ’s top leaders. Bajur Agency is at the northern most tip of FATA and borders the NWFP region, which also has seen militant problems. (Click the map below to get a larger image)
One of the more extreme Taliban leaders in the area has vowed to attack America in response:
After attending a funeral for seven men said to have been killed, Faqir Mohammed, a cleric and deputy leader of Pakistan’s Taliban movement, vowed revenge.
“This is jihad for us, and we fully know the price we have to pay for fighting aggressors,” said Mohammed, who is accused of links to al-Zawahri and other al-Qaida operatives.
“America martyred our people, and the blood of our brothers will not go to waste,” he said. “God willing, we will avenge it by targeting America”.
The supposed peace deal between Pakistan and the militants is in tatters, not because of this attack, but because the Taliban only want peace for Pakistan - they still vow to wage Jihad across their borders into Afghanistan.
Maulvi Umar, a Taliban spokesman, has said the movement will continue fighting in Afghanistan despite any peace deal it might reach in Pakistan. Both countries have suffered from a series of militant attacks.
And now the promise to take their fight global. Well, that pretty much ends that nonsense, not that it was not worth a try to see if peace could be achieved. But there will be no sanctuary to launch attacks on others. We tried that path and it led to 9-11.
President Bush took off the gloves and laid one right on the kisser of Barack Obama and his Surrendercrat policy for Iraq:
“Some seem to believe we should negotiate with terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along,” said Bush, in what White House aides privately acknowledged was a reference to calls by Obama and other Democrats for the U.S. president to sit down for talks with leaders like Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
“We have heard this foolish delusion before,” Bush said in remarks to the Israeli Knesset. “As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American Senator declared: ‘Lord, if only I could have talked to Hitler, all of this might have been avoided.’ We have an obligation to call this what it is — the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history.”
Appeasement especially seems foolish given the fact Iraq is executing a final mopping up of al-Qaeda in Iraq right now. Why grasp for defeat this close to victory?
In 2007 the Democrats tried to force a retreat from Congress. They even tried to stop The Surge which has brought security to Iraq, political reconciliation across Iraq’s various sects and strength to Maliki’s government. The result is one of the lowest approval ratings for a Congress, achieved faster than ever before. Americans don’t back losers. American know our enemy and are impressed with our success against all odds and cries of doom from the leftward fringes.
The Dems climbed out on this Surrender Branch two years ago and will probably be skewered by it this fall in the Presidential elections. And who knows, if the far right can get its act together and stop slamming moderate and independent conservatives, the Surrendercrat debacle could even change the GOP’s future in Congressional races as well. But that takes more than winning in Iraq, it would take some serious mea culpa’s from those on the far right who now oppose Bush and McCain.
Anyway, Bush’s comment must have left a mark for Mad Dog Doh!-berman to go all foamy-at-the-mouth! Someone needs to check that man for rabies, he really has gone ga-ga.
A spokesman for anti-American Shiite cleric al-Sadr admitted today that Iranian arms are being used by Sadrist and Mahdi Army forces, and then tried to defuse the news with the ‘everyone does it’ BS the news media is so gullible to bite on:
A spokesman for the Sadrist movement of Muqtada al-Sadr, accused by the Americans of receiving funds and weapons from Tehran, added, “Iran sells weapons to anyone who wants and the Sadr movement, al-Qaeda and the parties in Iraq’s political process have Iranian weapons.” He added, “Therefore, it is quite natural to find Iranian weapons because they are sold and bought and any party can buy them.”
Well why are the Mahdi Army launching their Iranian made weapons (magically shipped to the front, without Iranian knowledge, direct from the factory within a matter of weeks) at Iraqi government forces and facilities. Assuming the BS is true (and I don’t) even if everyone did have access to Iranian weapons, only the Sadrist’s Mahdi Army is using them against the Iraq government forces and US forces.
This is doubly troubling with some potential news that not only has Sadr lost control of the Mahdi Army, so has Iran. Apparently Iran sent a message through Iraqi intermediaries to General Petraeus claiming Sadr and his Sadrists where out of control (note, this BBC article keeps trying to salvage the line Basra and the efforts against Sadr’s Mahdi Army by Maliki was a failure, though all indications on the ground show just the opposite - take it all with a grain of liberal news media salt):
Even more intriguingly, the Christian Science Monitor reports a second meeting between President Talabani and Gen Soleimani, in early April.
According to the paper, the latter sent a message to the top American commander in Iraq, Gen Petraeus.
Its tone was surprisingly conciliatory.“We must all work together - Iraq, Iran and the United States - to stabilise the situation,” the Iranian general reportedly said.
More surprising still, he described Moqtada Sadr as “the biggest threat to peace in Iraq” and said his movement was “outside anyone’s control”.
CSM is one of the worst offending of the overly biased liberal SurrenderMedia (the sight of a US Carrier Group to focus the mind.
If Iran is pointing the finger at Sadr being out of control, and Sadr’s people are admitting they have Iranian weapons, clearly Iran is hinting they trained and armed a group of thugs who are now out of control in Iraq. Seems no one wants to step up and side with the Mahdi Army anymore, now that they are out of control and being exposed as killers.
The purity wars inside the GOP are doing what many of us feared and predicted, decimating the GOP as America dumps the “true conservatives” and goes with conservative democrats. Those are the choices we have seen in the last 3 special elections: Far Right verses Left of Center. America chose Left of Center.
Why did America do that? Probably because they are tired of the far right testing their purity and clamoring all the time about who the best, most pure conservatives are, while damning those lesser conservatives - which are at times called ‘moderates’ (best said with the nose up in the air), many times ‘RINOs’ (Republican In Name Only), and on some issues ‘traitors’. America has decided that the ‘true conservatives’ are too difficult to deal with and are going with the conservative democrats or moderate republicans instead.
Rush Limbaugh tried to say the other day that the GOP dumped on the conservatives (of course all the true conservative ranting and name calling over issues like immigration is not dumping, it is politics). Actually conservatives, at least the ‘pure, true’ conservatives of Hannity and Levin and others, are not being dumped on. American voters are simply dumping them - period. Sorry Rush, but that dumping feeling is Americans telling the far right they went too far. That feeling of rejection is not because people are mean to the far right, it was because the far right became too caustic and heated and started on their purity rant, which left voters cold and looking elsewhere.
Note how all the ‘true conservative’ presidential candidates failed in this year’s GOP primary. The ‘true’ conservative’s worst enemy has became the party standard bearer. That was a message to the far right. The fact the conservative movement is growing and succeeding on the Democrat side of the aisle is a message to the far right. The fact that the liberal democrats had to end their own purity wars and allow pro-life candidates into the fold to gain back their political power is a message to the far right. The only question is whether anyone is listening on the far right, or are they all still obsessively comparing how ‘pure’ they are too each other and ignoring everything else going on around them?
Personally, I prefer the Reagan-Bush version of conservatism that came out of the GOP. But that was a broad coalition Reagan built. A diverse movement that respected differences and did not have litmus tests. This is not Reagan’s conservative movement today, clearly since it has decided to reject one of the most successful conservative president’s in modern history: George W Bush. Funny thing is all these purists think it was centrist Bush who chased the centrists to the center? Now that is some pretzel logic! If you are on the right and cannot stand Bush it is a good bet you are a ‘true conservative’, and you probably look in the mirror and think you see Reagan staring back.
But Reagan was extremely tolerant of non-conservative views. Remember, he was an life-long Democrat - like Harriet Miers. And we all know how Mrs. Miers was treated. He signed into law the largest, real amnesty bill for illegal immigrants, and we all know what traitors lurk in the GOP to repeat Reagan’s sin. Conservatism has a bad image right now, and the fact is the ones at fault are those who created the image of ‘true conservatism’ and claimed it was the only allowable brand of conservative thought allowed in the GOP. When they did that they told everyone else to take a hike - and they did! Now Americans support conservative democrats as they take over GOP seats held for a decade or more. We have succeeded in obtaining purity! (of course being an independent who is not allowed to be ‘conservative’ due to his impure positions the ‘we’ is very much tongue in cheek, or as Tonto would have said ‘what’s this ‘we’ stuff Kimosabe?”)
This was always where the purity wars were going to lead. To make something pure means to distill it down to just a few numbers with identical traits. That in politics is called a fringe group, because it is so far outside the impure mainstream. It looks like when Bush completed much of the common ground the right of center coalition agreed on, that coalition was destined to blow apart. There was nothing left to fight for that everyone agreed on. Now comes the next coalition, whatever shape that may be. Hopefully another Reagan-Bush type leader will arise that will quell this ten year itch the far right gets, which lands us with Clintons and Carters and who knows what this year.
Update: With all due respect to Ed Morrissey, who I find is one of the most level headed people on the right, his current thesis on what is wrong with the GOP is just not realistic:
Did the House GOP caucus take a hard line on pork-barrel spending or adopt policies to cut federal spending? No. Republican voters and conservative pundits begged the House and Senate caucuses to make dramatic breaks with the previous six years and adopt real conservative policies of fiscal responsibility and federalism. What did they do? They offered to stop earmarking only if Democrats followed suit, a deal everyone knew would never take place. Instead of appointing one single anti-pork activist to the House Appropriations Committee in Jeff Flake, they appointed Joe Bonner, a good Congressman but a well-known earmarker, and mostly because Flake’s anti-pork crusade irritates his colleagues.
Sorry, this is too much inside baseball to sway the electorate outside the beltway. And the idea anyone would gravitate to the tax-and-spend Dems to limit spending is laughable (but I still respect you Ed!). Whatever committee some guy named Flake is on did not cause this. Everyone sees the evidence - a conservative coalition is building in the democrat party. Conservatism is now winning when it comes attached to the democrats, which would have been considered ridiculous back in 2004 - before the purity wars erupted.
The reason far right conservatives are losing is they have lost the American voter. And it is not because they are not conservative enough, it is because they have been demeaning people who disagree with them marginally for years. When McCain and Bush and others put forth a reasonable compromise on immigration, people on the far right compared them to the far left which wants instant citizenship for all! This comparison was ludicrous and only demeaned those making it. America saw a radicalized, out of control, overly emotional far right and has backed away. America is backing away from conservatism under the GOP and going with conservatism under the democrats. Get a clue folks. If you love America and its people then listen to what they are saying in the voting booth. This not about pork spending and committee assignments. This the GOP losing the conservative preference to the Dems. Without broad conservatism, what does the GOP have to offer to oppose liberalism?
Update: I meant to post how Rush Limbaugh actually does the same thing has Hannity and Levin and Savage, by disparaging those ‘impure’ conservatives:
Gee, they’re just now getting it. What took ‘em so long? Did you see what happened in 2006? Folks, I am mad today. Did you see what happened in 2006? Did you see all the conservative Democrats Pelosi ran in the South then and skunked your incumbents? With what? Not McCainism. These Democrats were not running as McCain. They were running as Reagan conservatives, and that’s how they won, in Reagan conservative districts.
…
Because the Republican Party, which has sold out to the pseudoconservatives of the New York Times and the DC-New York media establishment who think that Rockefeller Republicanism and country club Republicanism is the future of the party, Ms. Pelosi, “Okay, they’re going to give that up, they’re going to give up Reagan, fine, we’ll go take over.” If she wanted to, she could take over the whole Republican Party this way. But she’s too far left and her party is too far left. But if they really wanted a huge supermajority, it’s waiting for them. Meanwhile, the Republican Party is doing everything in the world that it can to try be 25%, 30%, 40% liberal or independent for some God-knows-who-can-explain-it reason.
Well, no time out from RINO bashing it seems. I think it is delusional to claim a democrat conservative is more conservative than the GOP conservative. Greg Davis in MI (the GOP candidate) was on the far right, especially when it came to immigration. He beat out those nasty pseudoconservatives (aka, RINOs, like Rudy Giuliani). No, it was not because the democrat was more conservative - that is emotional denial.
Want to know what pisses off America? Insult their favorite hero Mayor from 9-11, Rudy Giuliani, as the ‘true’ conservatives did when he ran for President. Insult Vietnam War Hero Senator McCain. Backstab our President and demean him and his views. That is the GOP brand of conservatism in the eyes of many Americans, and they have had their fill of it. They are now voting for lower key, less volatile conservatives, ones not beholding to the conservative chattering class. Yes, the Blue Dogs have to co-exist with Pelosi’s liberals and fight the battle for conservatism inside the Dem party, but they are not beholding to conservative talk radio and others who try to push more conservatism than some are ready to accept. Did it ever occur to the far right that Americans are really smart and know how to get around obstacles? Want to get the far right talking heads out of the picture? Put in Blue Dogs who can run free of the far right.
Something to think about while this disaster unfolds.
Update: This article at the Politico is especially brutal, but it also notes the other fallout of the GOP conservative movement losing ground to a Democrat conservative movement - you lose campaign dollars. I fail to see how Rush Limbaugh expects to garner support for GOP conservatism by bashing pseudoconservatives and conservative independents like he did the other day? When these impure voters vote for Blue Dogs, the tend to take their campaign contributions with them. Not sure how belittling them is a winning strategy???? Call me naive.
Iraqi forces are standing up and taking control of their destiny in the War on Terrorism. The Surge worked, it gave Iraq enough security and breathing room to now finish the job. And hopefully the last big job is purging al-Qaeda from its last stronghold. Prime Minister Maliki sent forces north to Mosul to round up the al-Qaeda forces there. Back in January of this year the government claimed Iraq had penetrated al-Qaeda (something the US cannot do easily of course) and would be able to take them down swiftly:
The Interior Ministry announced Friday that al-Qaeda in Iraq has been successfully penetrated by means of a recently formed government security apparatus and is virtually an “open book,” confirming that the sectarian sedition in the country was at the end of its rope.
Major General Abdul Karim Khalaf, director of operations at the Interior Ministry, told KUNA here “we have succeeded in establishing a capable intelligence apparatus to penetrate the al-Qaeda organization in Iraq and all armed groups targeting Iraqi national security.” He said emphatically that the sectarian sedition in Iraq has virtually ended, adding that the new intelligence apparatus is able to achieve its objectives regarding all armed groups operating in Iraq.
Few took the bold statement as fact or an indication of things to come. I felt pretty confident the boldness was backed up by reality. And today we can see that indeed the Iraqi government had identified hundreds of al-Qaeda and their supporters, given the pace at which they are rounding them up in Mosul:
Iraqi security forces carried out mass arrests in the main northern city of Mosul as a new crackdown against Al-Qaeda entered its second day on Thursday, officials said.
About 275 people were detained overnight on top of 560 people seized since Tuesday, defence and interior ministry officials said. Fifty of those arrested have since been released.
“The terrorists are hiding in residential districts of the city to avoid (confronting) security forces,” interior ministry spokesman Major General Abdul Kareem Khalaf said.
Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki and his top aides travelled to Mosul on Wednesday to spearhead the latest drive, codenamed Mother of Two Springs, against what the Americans have said is Al-Qaeda’s last urban bastion in Iraq.
The American military said they were providing logistical and intelligence support for the Iraqi-led offensive in Mosul.
It is good to see Iraqis take the lead in the final cleansing of Iraq of Islamo Fascists. Iraqis led the way to liberate Basra from the Mahdi Army, are leading the effort to purge Sadr City of the Mahdi thugs and now are leading the effort to clear out the Northern areas of Iraq of al-Qaeda. As many proponents of the war and The Surge said, victory was achievable. Now some are willing to say openly it in big news media outlets - The Surge was a success:
However fitfully it began, the Basra campaign is a sign that Iraqis are in fact “standing up” for their own security. It is also a personal vindication for Mr. Maliki, who recognized to his credit that his government had to have a monopoly on violence in Shiite neighborhoods as much as in Sunni enclaves.
In the last year we were told first that the surge was a military failure, and later that it was a military success but that Iraq’s political class had not lived up to its end of the bargain. In fact, just as surge supporters said, the Iraqis have become more confident and effective the more they have become convinced that the U.S. was not going to cut and run.
As Iraq gains confidence and respect in the Middle East, al-Qaeda and Iran and those who back Islamo Fascism are losing respect and support. Just as we hoped. It was partially due to the fact the US stayed and finished the work, but it was also largely because of all the human atrocities al-Qaeda and their ilk inflicted on their fellow Muslims in Iraq. Those stories now stick to al-Qaeda like the Holocaust sticks to the Nazis, and al-Qaeda has become the enemy of Islam to many.
What we need in DC is a house cleaning. Need to get rid of the dead end hyper partisans and find new leaders who can champion their causes without slandering their opponents (inside and outside of their parties). The dysfunctional set of leaders we have now are the problem, not the solution. And it seems America is ready to clean house:
The approval rating of the U.S. Congress dropped to near-record levels and is lower than U.S. President George Bush’s mark, a Gallup poll indicates.
The telephone survey of 1,017 U.S. adults indicates 18 percent of those interviewed May 8-11 approve of the current Congress. The score matches record lows from similar Gallup polls in August 2007 and March 1992.
Gallup said Wednesday the reason for the low approval rating is because “rank-and-file Democrats are providing no support cushion for the Democratic-controlled institution.”
The same poll indicated approval ratings of Bush hover around his record lows, with 29 percent of respondents voicing support for the president.
Bush is leaving without a doubt - now the only question is will the American people dump incumbents from both sides of the aisle or not?
The fact of the matter is if you look at the data the ‘global’ warming phenomena is not global - it is centered over one (obvious) region of the world). Check out this map of the global temperature variances for March 2008:
Notice the clear hot spot over Asia, which just happens to be host to half the world’s population and the most populated countries on the planet? Now look at America - which is pretty much running on average. Does anyone think removing C02 from America will change what is happening on the other side of the planet? Clearly it will not. Yet America is the largest per capita producer of C02 (we have big carbon foot prints), but our region of the globe is not warming?
McCain is our candidate, but he is not perfect. And in this case he is dead wrong. I will happily vote for him because I do think McCain is open to reason. I can see him facing scientific facts and adjusting his position. I don’t see Clinton or Obama deciding victory in Iraq is now an option we should pursue. The choice is clear and obvious, despite McCain’s misunderstandings on ‘global’ warming.
