From politics (moderates who lean to the right) to Pogo (drools during poker stare) to rants (Whatcha expect from savvy, sassy sexagenarians?) to raves (Have you had your kudo today?) -- we never take ourselves too seriously.
We do, however, reserve the right to slaughter an occasional sacred cow. And in case we fail to mention it -- we will never forget....
Ten Cadillacs and other hollywoodish lyrics are unrealistic (hey -- it's only a song), but a flag on every lawn and a chicken in every pot will do the trick. Plus moving the RNC platform more to the middle.
That's how Democrats won in November 2006. Check out the Blue Dog Democrats who won, giving Democrats majorities in both the House and Senate.
While this New York Times op ed has some debatable points and may be more relevant to the Northeast, this basic premise is on-target:
During the 12 years that Republicans controlled the House, moderate Republicans were the stepchildren of their party, expected to vote with their conservative leadership on crucial issues, even if it meant taking positions that could anger centrist voters back home.
In fact, the Democrats made some of their deepest inroads last year in the Northeast. A total of 10 Republican incumbents in the House were defeated in four states — New Hampshire, Connecticut, New York and Pennsylvania — where the challengers aggressively tried to tie the incumbents to President Bush and his conservative allies on the Hill.
I don't imply that conservative values are on the down-swing. Core values will not change in our lifetime -- to the contrary. But trends do change ...
I simply point out that if Republicans are to make in-roads toward regaining both the House and Senate AND especially in retaining the White House -- the party must move to the middle to attract and represent the interests and aptitudes of Americans.
The handwriting is on the wall and no amount of posturing will erase it. Core values will always be relevant to conservatives; interests and aptitudes change.
Candidates and party lines must reflect the interests of Americans. That's how Democrats won in 2006. They'll win again in 2008 unless Republicans gravitate toward more moderate national trends and opinions.
One critical trend for Republicans to grasp is that America does not identify with the far left. Blue Dog Democrats know this and face their own battles to break the binds of established hard-line liberals.
"Smack Dab in the Middle" may be a tad extreme for most conservatives, but if maintaining control of the direction of this nation (and I add -- for the sake of this nation) is important, then conservatives best accept the reality that America IS becoming increasingly politically moderate.
And on a purely personal note -- did I mention that Mitt Romney is the only proven Republican candidate to bring conservatives and (democrat) moderates together?
James Baker, co-chair of the Iraq Study Commission, corrects Congressional leaders (Pelosi, Murtha, Lantos and Reid, et al) about their "interpretation" of the Commission's recommendations:
The report does not set timetables or deadlines for the removal of troops, as contemplated by the supplemental spending bills the House and Senate passed. In fact, the report specifically opposes that approach. As many military and political leaders told us, an arbitrary deadline would allow the enemy to wait us out and would strengthen the positions of extremists over moderates. A premature American departure from Iraq, we unanimously concluded, would almost certainly produce greater sectarian violence and further deterioration of conditions in Iraq and possibly other countries.
The goal of the United States should be to help Iraqis achieve national political reconciliation and greater effectiveness of their security forces, the report said, so that Iraqis can assume more of the security mission. This in turn could allow for an orderly departure of U.S. troops. An important way to encourage Iraqis to work together is to hold them to the type of benchmarks that Congress, President Bush and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki have all considered. If the Iraqi government does not meet those benchmarks, the United States "should reduce its political, military, or economic support for the Iraqi government," the report said. But we did not suggest that this be codified into legislation. The report doesn't recommend a firm deadline for troop removal unless America's military leadership believes that the situation warrants it.
Nothing has happened since the report was released that would justify changing that view. Setting a deadline for withdrawal regardless of conditions in Iraq makes even less sense today because there is evidence that the temporary surge is reducing the level of violence in Baghdad. As Baghdad goes, so goes Iraq. The Iraq Study Group said it could support a short-term surge to stabilize Baghdad or to speed up training and equipping of Iraqi soldiers if the U.S. commander in Iraq determines such steps would be effective. Gen. David Petraeus has so determined.
Read the entire report. Better still, send a copy of this article to your representative as they mull the President's veto.
No, it's not just conservatives who are criticizing Pelosi's fact-fumbling trip to the Middle East. Liberal news shows, comedians, the WP and now the WSJ editors:
Democrats at War Prime Minister Pelosi and Secretary of State Lantos undermine U.S. foreign policy--and maybe their own party.
Friday, April 6, 2007 12:01 a.m. EDT
Democrats took Congress last fall in part by opposing the war in Iraq, but it is becoming clear that they view their election as a mandate for something far more ambitious--to wit, promoting and executing their own foreign policy, albeit without the detail of a Presidential election.
Their intentions were made plain this week with two remarkable acts by their House and Senate leaders. Majority Leader Harry Reid endorsed Senator Russ Feingold's proposal to withdraw from Iraq immediately, cutting off funds entirely within a year. He promised a vote soon, as part of what the Washington Post reported would also be a Democratic offensive to close Guantanamo, reinstate legal rights for terror suspects, and improve relations with Cuba.
Meanwhile, Speaker Nancy Pelosi made her now famous sojourn to Syria, donning a head scarf and advertising that she was conducting shuttle diplomacy between Jerusalem and Damascus. If there was any doubt that her trip was intended as far more than a routine Congressional "fact-finding" trip, House Foreign Affairs Chairman Tom Lantos put it to rest by declaring that, "We have an alternative Democratic foreign policy. I view my job as beginning with restoring overseas credibility and respect for the United States."
Americans should understand how extraordinary this is. There have been previous battles over U.S. foreign policy and fierce domestic criticism. In the 1990s, these columns defended Bill Clinton against "the Republican drift toward isolationism and political opportunism" amid the Kosovo conflict. But rarely in U.S. history have Congressional leaders sought to conduct their own independent diplomacy, with the Speaker acting as a Prime Minister traveling with a Secretary of State in the person of Mr. Lantos.
Yes, Congressional Republicans have visited Syria too. But Ms. Pelosi isn't some minority back-bencher. Without a Democrat in the White House, she and Mr. Reid are the national leaders of their party. Even Newt Gingrich, for all his grand domestic ambitions in 1995, took a muted stand on foreign policy, realizing that in the American system the executive has the bulk of national security power. He also understood he would do the country no favors by sending a mixed message to our enemies--at the time, Slobodan Milosevic.
What was Ms. Pelosi hoping to accomplish, other than embarrassing President Bush? "We were very pleased with reassurances we received from the president that he was ready to resume the peace process," she told reporters after meeting with dictator Bashar Assad. "We expressed our interest in using our good offices in promoting peace between Israel and Syria."
She purported to convey a message from Israel's Ehud Olmert expressing similar interest in "the peace process," except that the Israeli Prime Minister felt obliged to issue a clarification noting that Ms. Pelosi had got the message wrong. Israel hadn't changed its policy, which is that it will negotiate only when Mr. Assad repudiates his support for terrorism and stops trying to dominate Lebanon. As a shuttle diplomat, Ms. Pelosi needs some practice.
Mr. Lantos probably got closer to their real intentions when he told reporters that "this is only the beginning of our constructive dialogue with Syria, and we hope to build on it." The Pelosi cavalcade is intended to show that if only the Bush Administration would engage in "constructive dialogue," the Syrians, Israelis and everyone else could all get along.
This is the same Syrian regime that has facilitated the movement of money and insurgents to kill Americans in Iraq; that has been implicated by a U.N. probe in the murder of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri; and that has snubbed any number of U.S. overtures since the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003. Perhaps if he works hard enough, Mr. Lantos can match the 22 visits to Damascus that Bill Clinton's Secretary of State Warren Christopher made in the 1990s trying to squeeze peace from that same stone.
In fact, Ms. Pelosi and Mr. Lantos both voted for the Syria Accountability and Lebanese Sovereignty Restoration Act of 2003 that ordered Mr. Bush to choose from a menu of six sanctions to impose on Damascus. Mr. Bush chose the weakest two sanctions and dispatched a new Ambassador to Syria in a goodwill gesture in 2004. Only later, in the wake of the Hariri murder and clear intelligence of Syria's role in aiding Iraqi Baathists, did Mr. Bush conclude that Mr. Assad's real goal was to reassert control over Lebanon and bleed Americans in Iraq.
With her trip, Ms. Pelosi has now reassured the Syrian strongman that Mr. Bush lacks the domestic support to impose any further pressure on his country. She has also made it less likely that Mr. Assad will cooperate with the Hariri probe, or assist the Iraqi government in defeating Baathist and al Qaeda terrorists.
Back in Washington, Harry Reid says his response to Mr. Bush's certain veto of his Iraq spending bill will be to escalate. He now supports cutting off funds and beginning an immediate withdrawal, even as General David Petraeus's surge in Baghdad unfolds and shows signs of promise. If Mr. Bush were as politically cynical as Democrats think, he'd let Mr. Reid's policy become law. Then Democrats would share responsibility for whatever mayhem happened next.
So this is Democratic foreign policy: Assure our enemies that they can ignore a President who still has 21 months to serve; and wash their hands of Baghdad and of their own guilt for voting to let Mr. Bush go to war. No doubt Democrats think the President's low job approval, and public unhappiness with the war, gives them a kind of political immunity. But we wonder.
Once we leave Iraq, America's enemies will still reside in the Mideast; and they will be stronger if we leave behind a failed government and bloodbath in Iraq. Mr. Bush's successor will have to contain the damage, and that person could even be a Democrat. But by reverting to their Vietnam message of retreat and by blaming Mr. Bush for all the world's ills, Democrats on Capitol Hill may once again convince voters that they can't be trusted with the White House in a dangerous world.
Guess who is becoming their own worst enemy?
If Democrats plan to take the White House in '08, someone better reign rein in Pelosi, Reid, Murtha and now the self-anointed S0S Lantos.
President Bush did another "Bolton" while Congress took a break from their hearings and pork-barreling .... He made three appointments in their absence!
And they will serve until the next Congress convenes -- for the duration of Bush's term, at least.
The president used recess appointments to install Sam Fox, a major Republican donor from Missouri, to be ambassador to Belgium; Andrew G. Biggs of New York to be deputy commissioner of Social Security, and Susan E. Dudley of Virginia to be administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs at the office of Management and Budget.
Naming the three while Congress is in recess allows Mr. Bush to avoid the Senate confirmation process. The recess appointments allow the three to remain in their posts until the end of 2008, virtually the end of Mr. Bush’s second term.
Mr. Bush’s use of the recess appointment device, which is authorized in the Constitution, was an unmistakable gesture of defiance against the newly empowered Democrats. He has previously used the tactic to install judicial appointees unpopular with Democrats and to seat John R. Bolton as ambassador to the United Nations.
Today’s recess-appointment gesture was another sign that he will not easily surrender to lame-duck status despite the Democrats’ control of Congress.
Mr. Fox, a wealthy businessman active in Republican politics, contributed $50,000 to the Swift Boat campaign that attacked Senator John Kerry’s Vietnam War record during the 2004 presidential race. Senator Kerry got a measure of revenge last month as he needled Mr. Fox in a hearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
The Bush administration withdrew Mr. Fox’s nomination for the ambassadorship on March 28, after it became clear that Democratic senators were lining up against him to settle a score. Mr. Kerry commented then that Mr. Fox “had every opportunity to disavow the politics of personal destruction and to embrace the truth” and had not done so. “The White House made the right decision to withdraw the nomination,” Mr. Kerry said. “I hope this signals a new day in political discourse.”
Mr. Kerry had a different reaction today. “It’s sad but not surprising that this White House would abuse the power of the presidency to reward a donor over the objections of the Senate,” he said in a statement.
Ms. Dudley was first nominated last August for the management-and-budget post, but she came under heavy criticism from environmental and consumer groups, which said she was hostile to government regulation. Mr. Bush nominated her again on Jan. 9, but her chances for confirmation were dicey at best in the new Democratic-controlled Senate.
An economist, Ms. Dudley worked in the Environmental Protection Agency for two years during Ronald Reagan’s presidency. She has written extensively, and skeptically, about government regulation. In 2005, while she was at George Mason University in Northern Virginia, she wrote that government regulation was generally not warranted “in the absence of a significant market failure.”
And Mr. Biggs, who holds a bachelor’s degree from the Queen’s University of Belfast, a master’s from Cambridge University and a doctorate from the London School of Economics and Political Science, ran afoul of Democrats because they disliked his ideas about privatizing Social Security. He has worked for the Cato Institute, which promotes libertarian views, and served as a staff member for the President’s Commission to Strengthen Social Security.
He was nominated last year but failed to win confirmation, and Senator Max Baucus, the Montana Democrat who heads the Senate Finance Committee, said in February that his panel would not take up his nomination anew.
The White House announced the three appointments in a routine news release that listed a number of personnel moves. The president himself was in California this afternoon, meeting soldiers at Fort Irwin. He made no mention of the impending appointments on Tuesday, when he held a news conference in the Rose Garden.
eh. eh. eh. That's taking "swiftboating" to a(nother) level.
Hot Air (referencing Gateway Pundit) offers a summary of the facts relating to the messages to/from Nancy. The most relevant and heretofore unreported is warning Olmert gave to Pelosi: ".... trip to Damascus is a mistake."
If this is accurate, it would explain Israeli leaders efforts to quickly qualify the message Pelosi states she delivered to Syria:
"[Our] meeting with the president enabled us to communicate a message from Prime Minister [Ehud] Olmert that Israel was ready to engage in peace talks," Pelosi told reporters in Damascus after talks with Assad.
Pelosi said Assad in turn assured her of his willingness to engage in peace talks with Israel.
"We were very pleased with the assurances we received from the president that he was ready to resume the peace process," Pelosi said. "He's ready to engage in negotiations for peace with Israel."
The prime minister said Israel is interested in peace with Syria, but Syria would first have to abandon the path of terror and providing support for terrorist groups," the official said, in reference to Palestinian group Hamas and Lebanon's Hezbollah.
Earlier this week, I predicted that Pelosi would "likely" be involved in bringing the UK hostages/detainees home ....
Interestingly, Syrian officials announced today that they were mediating the detainees release. All that remains is for Pelosi, who was in Syria concurrently, will also takes credit for bringing about their release.
Time will tell. And I'm confident Pelosi will try to use that time to her advantage -- to further upstage the President.
She best take her own advice and be patient, however.
Israel may have just given her a deserving come-upance for misrepresenting their position in pursuing peace talks. U. S. participation in any Israeli-Syrian and Middle East peace plans will not flow through the Speaker of the House. It will through its rightful venue from the President.
Congressman Tom Lantos, who is a member of the delegation that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is leading to Syria, put the mission clearly when he said: "We have an alternative Democratic foreign policy."
Democrats can have any foreign policy they want -- if and when they are elected to the White House.
Until Nancy Pelosi came along, it was understood by all that we had only one president at a time and -- like him or not -- he alone had the Constitutional authority to speak for this country to foreign nations, especially in wartime.
All that Pelosi's trip can accomplish is to advertise American disunity to a terrorist-sponsoring nation in the Middle East while we are in a war there. That in turn can only embolden the Syrians to exploit the lack of unified resolve in Washington by stepping up their efforts to destabilize Iraq and the Middle East in general.
Members of the opposition party, whichever party that might be at a given time, knew that their role was not to intervene abroad themselves to undermine this country's foreign policy, however much they might criticize it at home.
During the Second World War, the defeated Republican presidential candidate, Wendell Wilkie, even acted as President Roosevelt's personal envoy to British Prime Minister Churchill.
He understood that we were all in this together, however we might disagree among ourselves about the best course to follow.
Today, Nancy Pelosi and the Congressional Democrats are stepping in to carry out their own foreign policy and even their own military policy on troop deployment -- all the while denying that they are intruding on the president's authority.
They are doing the same thing domestically by making a big media circus over the fact that the Bush administration fired eight U.S. attorneys. These attorneys are among the many officials who serve at the pleasure of the president -- which means that they can be fired at any time for any reason or for no reason.
That is why there was no big hullabaloo in the media when Bill Clinton fired all the U.S. attorneys across the country -- even though that got rid of the U.S. attorneys who were conducting an on-going investigation into corruption in Clinton's own administration as governor of Arkansas.
So much hate has been hyped against George W. Bush that anything that is done against him is unlikely to be questioned in most of the media.
But whatever passing damage is being done to George W. Bush is a relatively minor concern compared to the lasting damage that is being done to the presidency as an institution that will still be here when George W. Bush is gone.
Once it becomes accepted that it is all right to violate both the laws and the traditions of this nation, and to undermine the ability of the United States to speak to other nations of the world with one voice, we will have taken another fateful step downward into the degeneration of this society.
Such a drastic and irresponsible step should remove any lingering doubt that the Democrats' political strategy is to ensure that there is an American defeat in Iraq, in order to ensure their own political victory in 2008.
That these political games are being played while Iran keeps advancing relentlessly toward acquiring nuclear weapons is a fateful sign of the utter unreality of politicians preoccupied with scoring points and a media obsessed with celebrity bimbos, living and dead.
Once Iran has nuclear weapons, that will be an irreversible change that will mark a defining moment in the history of the United States and of Western civilization, which will forever after live at the mercy of hate-filled suicidal fanatics and sadists.
Yet among too many politicians in Washington, it is business as usual. Indeed, it is monkey business as usual, as Congressional Democrats revel in the power of their new and narrow election victory last year to drag people before committee hearings and posture for the television cameras.
It has been said that the world ends not with a bang but with a whimper. But who would have thought that it could end with political clowning in the shadow of a mushroom cloud?
Clarice Feldman has followed the Plame investigation and tactics by Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald closely.
She asks questions that others only allude to -- Did Fitzgerald withhold or disregard evidence in order to entrap Libby?
It is well past time for the public to know what Patrick Fitzgerald told the Court. I , for one, have every reason to believe he was as disingenuous and loose with the facts with that Court as he was with the public when he announced the indictment and with the jury in his rebuttal argument at the closing of the Libby trial.And I am not shy about saying what the Wall Street Journal hints at: The only conceivable reason Fitzgerald is fighting public disclosure of the redacted portions of the affidavit and opinion is to cover up his own failings in an utterly outrageous prosecution of a perfectly innocent man.
I'm confident Clarice Feldman will continue to ask this question until there is an answer. As there should be.
So why then did this President take the time and trouble to take the hand of his political enemy, a man who has said, "We have heard a lot about revisionist history from the White House of late in answer to those who question whether there was a real threat from Iraq. But, it is the President who appears to me to be intent on revising history."
Why would this President show such deference and respect to a man who has suggested that he, the President, has been guilty of impeachable offenses?
The answer is as simple as the humility of this President. He took the hand of Robert Byrd, to help him into his seat, because Byrd is approaching 90 years of age, and this President is respectful of his elders. He took his hand because he needed help, and this President is not the type of person to turn his back on a fellow human being in need. He took his hand as an act of friendship, because this President does not take his politics personally. He understands that his political enemies are not his personal enemies.
