Eric Earling responds to David Horsey’s cartoon with a perceptive analysis of the tensions within the GOP.

David Horsey’s latest takes a stab at understanding the latest twist in the horserace of the Republican nominating contest. Horsey’s simplification of Rudy Giuliani as the candidate of national security conservatives, Mitt Romney for “business conservatives,” and Mike Huckabee for social conservatives doesn’t quite hold true in reality but it makes for a nice cartoon.

My hunch, however, is that observers with little more than indirect experience with social conservatives may be a bit miffed in full at how Huckabee can be rising in Iowa and in the South given his well-documented problems with economic/small government conservatives. For one, Huckabee’s rise isn’t merely a product of social conservatives, it’s specifically a product of Evangelicals (as the links in the section on Huckabee at this post describe). That’s an important point to understand even in the context of politics around here and the local GOP.

To understand what that means, take a step back from Mike Huckabee for a minute. Consider someone like him, without the baggage of a Presidential race: current Washington Post columnist Michael Gerson. Since taking that gig earlier this year, Gerson has spent a good deal of time talking about the issues of the day in a manner quite similar to Huckabee (Gerson spent a full column praising him). As Ross Douthat notes in his broader critique of Gerson, many of those columns have served to make Gerson’s fellow conservatives more than a bit angry at him. More importantly, Douthat identifies one of the serious deviations from the conservative mainstream by many Evangelicals like Gerson (and thus Huckabee):

As the world understood the term conservative in, say, 1965, Gerson isn’t one. Like many Americans who’ve crowded into the GOP over the last four decades—blue-collar Catholics and Jewish neoconservatives as well as evangelicals—the militantly libertarian spirit of the midcentury Right is largely foreign to him. But on the road from Goldwater to Reagan, and thence to George W. Bush, the conservative movement transformed itself from a narrow claque into a broad church, embracing anyone and everyone who called themselves an enemy of liberalism, whether they were New York intellectuals or Orange County housewives. This “here comes everybody” quality has been the American Right’s great strength over the past three decades, and a Republican Party that aspires to govern America can ill afford to read the Gersons of the world—social conservatives with moderate-to-liberal sympathies on economics—out of its coalition.

Not only do many Evangelicals not truly embrace the more libertarian aspects of conservative thought, they outright disagree.

Read the whole thing.

Mark Steyn compares the Republican and democrat campaign fields.

As National Review’s Jonah Goldberg pointed out, the mainstream media are always demanding the GOP demonstrate its commitment to “big tent” Republicanism, and here we are with the biggest of big tents in history, and what credit do they get? You want an anti-war Republican? A pro-abortion Republican? An anti-gun Republican? A pro-illegal immigration Republican? You got ‘em! Short of drafting Fidel Castro and Mullah Omar, it’s hard to see how the tent could get much bigger. As the new GOP bumper sticker says, “Celebrate Diversity.”

Over on the Democratic side, meanwhile, they’ve got a woman, a black, a Hispanic, a preening metrosexual with an angled nape – and they all think exactly the same. They remind me of “The Johnny Mathis Christmas Album,” which Columbia used to re-release every year in a different sleeve: same old songs, new cover.

A number of my conservative friends are selling out to Giuliani on the basis of supposed electability. Going outside the conservative fold in hope of electoral success has proven in the past to be a mistake, and would be a mistake again.

My own view is that Giuliani is a lot like Nixon, who, as everyone needs to remember, was an electable compromise who turned into a disaster for Republicans with respect to policy, and who produced a thoroughgoing political debacle as well.

Like Nixon, Giuliani is not conservative. He is merely a statist authoritarian. But Giuliani is even worse than Nixon. He has only very recently become strongly self-identified as Republican at all or made even the slightest pretension towards conservatism. Unlike Nixon, who was at least occasionally allied with Republican conservatives, Giuliani has been an outright enemy of the Republican Right who endorsed the ultra-liberal democrat Mario Cuomo in 1994 rather than support George Pataki (who was back then erroneously believed to be a serious conservative).

It is perfectly obvious that Giuliani’s recent conversions are entirely related to the personal opportunities they offer in 2008, and, were he to be elected, it is very doubtful any of those new commitments would endure as long after the election as the interval that they preceded it. Once in office, Giuliani would have new priorities far more important to him than Republicanism, Conservatism, or keeping faith with people foolish enough to elect him. He would immediately start taking steps to create a personal legacy and secure a second term.

Both goals would be more easily achieved by changing course and (like his non-conservative predecessor Richard Nixon) supporting the key top items on the liberal establishment’s agenda. So expect Rudolf to get right to work on the contemporary equivalent of enacting Affirmative Action, betraying Taiwan, passing the Endangered Species Act (giving the federal government an excuse to preclude private use of any piece of property), and implementing Wage and Price Controls. The more support he can get personally the better for him, so watch for a series of democrat appointments and a major sellout on court appointments.

Can we predict specifics of Rudy’s betrayals? Some of them I think we can.

Giuliani’s equivalent of Nixon’s Affirmative Action will be federalized Gay Marriage. His equivalent of the Endangered Species Act will be the adoption of the Kyoto Treaty and the creation of Carbon Credits. (Al Gore and Kleiner Perkins get very, very rich.) Giuliani’s Wage & Price Controls? Expect hizonner to raise taxes, to go after the Hedge Fund industry, and to revive Anti-Trust. Giuliani will continue from the White House his practice of building personal power by playing the role of class warrior and brutalizing more nouveau and vulnerable economic contestants on behalf of more established sections of the Financial Community. Doubtless, he will also find allies in the tech sector on whose behalf he can break up “monopolies.” With whom Giuliani will make a deal overseas is less clear right now. Perhaps he would preside over the reunification of Taipei with the Mainland and get his own opera.

Berkeley Breathed’s latest here.

Hat tip to Karen Myers.

Matthew J. Frank discusses the interesting question of whether Republicans should trust the former New York mayor’s recent “conversions.”

“Isn’t it better that I tell you what I really believe instead of pretending to change all of my positions to fit the prevailing wind?”

So asked Rudy Giuliani at the “Values Voter Summit,” on October 20. It’s a powerful rhetorical question. Simultaneously Giuliani declared that flip-flopping and pandering are beneath him, and intimated that he is superior to his leading rival, Mitt Romney, who is famous for having changed his mind on the subject of abortion rights. I’m no waffler, no quick-change artist when I face a different constituency, says Rudy. “I believe trust is more important than 100% agreement.” And so Hizzoner has made trust the currency of his campaign, and he links trust to consistency: I’m the same guy yesterday, today, tomorrow, and the day after that.

By now you get the picture. Mayor Giuliani’s latter-day assurances on the abortion issue are thin and insubstantial, and appear to be made to endure for just as long as it takes to get the Republican nomination. So far I believe the phrase “right to life” has never passed his lips, and I’m not sure it can. It’s hard to imagine Giuliani as the party’s nominee even continuing to talk about the abortion issue after he achieves that status, if he could get away with it.

But would he get away with it? Giuliani’s pandering in all directions on this issue, his evident lack of a guiding moral or legal principle on the issue, is tailor-made for attack by Hillary Clinton’s campaign. We can hear her now in a head-to-head debate: “Which is it, mayor? Do your ideal ‘strict constructionist’ judges strike down a woman’s right to choose, or not? Which do you want to see happen? Where are you on this issue?” Does Rudy then betray a career-long support of abortion rights — or the platform of his party — or stick bumptiously to his well-rehearsed mantra of “don’t-care strict constructionism”? Surely the Democrats are already relishing the opportunity they’ll have to make him dance even faster.

Why do we worry about the flip-flopper or the panderer in political campaigns? Because we wonder whom to trust, to be sure. But also because we want our own party’s candidates to be as invulnerable as possible to attack by the opposition party. A lot of pro-lifers want desperately to trust Rudy Giuliani, and are willing to put the fate of the right-to-life cause in his hands because they believe he’s the man who can beat Hillary Clinton. But even if that trust is wisely given (a big if indeed), on this issue, compared to almost anyone else in the GOP field — Mitt Romney most certainly included — Rudy Giuliani is the most vulnerable candidate the Republicans could make their standard-bearer.

I don’t myself care much about the abortion issue. (I’m not really planning on having any personally.) But I care a great deal about Gun Control, on which issue Giuliani’s record is utterly abysmal, and Hizzoner’s recent supposed conversion on the subject does not impress me in the least. If they nominate Giuliani, I’ll be voting Third Party.

AJStrata watches the map of Virginia change from red to purple, and wonders when the GOP is going to wise up and realize that Nativism has always been a losing political strategy in the United States.

We have had GOP Congressman in my areas of Northern Virginia for as long as I can remember, and now we don’t. It is not just the Iraq war. Northern VA has an enormous (and sometimes troublesome) immigrant population from below our southern border. But the area has people from all over the world, given the work done in downtown DC. So immigration and diversity of cultures and traditions is the norm overall. Herndon, one of the most visible flash points in the illegal immigration issue, is now possibly a very democrat place.

So how is being hardlined on long term immigrants benefitting the GOP here? We all agree we need to boot the criminals ASAP, get the rest background checked and processed into the above-the-table economy, and restrict all future immigration to be truly temporary and enforceable. Conservatives implode (and get nasty and testy) when we discuss the option of having long term, crime free immigrants pay fines and stay. Seems to be some sort of emotional issue with some. But I can see the results. Democrats win.

Democrats just took away decades-long GOP seats in areas of VA rife with illegal immigrants. If the GOP hardline won’t work here it won’t work in a lot of places. Not all, but too many to consider a governing majority. The problem is the long term illegals are interwoven into our society. They are neighbors or friends and teammates of our kids. They sit next to us in Church (OK, they would if I attended church). They are not usually or obviously criminals.

The GOP is attacking and maligning friends and neighbors to too many people who will vote against such posturing and are in sufficient numbers to move 5-8% of the vote and tip seats into Democrat hands. 5-8% of the population is not a large number, but when they switch sides or are repulsed away from one side that shift in voting can be like a political earth quake.

The same lemming-like strategy of political self-destruction worked marvelously in California. In Ronald Reagan’s day, California was a Republican bastion. Today, the largest block of electoral votes in the country can be relied upon to belong to the democrats and California sends two democrat senators to Washington. All because the GOP chose to make illegal immigration its key issue, thoroughly alienating working-class Hispanic voters.

Brooks thinks that the Republican natives in Iowa and New Hampshire are restless, none of the front-runners is securely in the lead, and they both have some negatives.

Huckabee was good at the debate I watched partially. I certainly like his abolish-the-IRS proposal. There has got to be a cheaper and simpler way of funding the federal government. Personally, I think he is more likely to be a good Vice Presidential nominee, but it is interesting to find that Huckabee has captured the positive attention of the urban bohemian-bourgeoisie demi-Republican Mr. Brooks.

The first thing you notice about Mike Huckabee is that he has a Mayberry name and a Jim Nabors face. But it’s quickly clear that Huckabee is as good a campaigner as anybody running for president this year. And before too long it becomes easy to come up with reasons why he might have a realistic shot at winning the Republican nomination.

Read the whole editorial.

I basically agree with John Hawkins’s summary of the situation.

Thompson is the most authentically conservative candidate with the best potential to win. Romney could fail to carry the South, and Giuliani is a liberal pretending to be conservative.

Thompson is definitely much more representative of the vision of the Republican Party that people had in 1980-1994—than he is of the “Big Government Republicanism” vision of the GOP that George Bush has come to represent. That means that Fred Thompson could be someone conservatives really want to have in the White House, as opposed to a candidate who could only be said to be the “lesser of two evils” when compared to Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama.

Complete article.

Stephen Green summarizes at PJM:

When asked point-blank if he’d support the Republican nominee next fall, (Ron) Paul answered just as Grosse Pointe-blankly: “No.” Unless the party retreats from Iraq – and Germany and Korea and Japan, too – then Paul wants nothing to do with the Republicans. That said, Paul should stick to his principles and RSVP “thanks but no thanks” to the next debate, and the one after that, and so on. If he’s not even going to pretend to be a Republican, he ought to go back to the Libertarian Party where he and his five million dollars would be more than welcome. In the meantime, he’s just taking up space, time, and a whole lot of hot air.

Thompson’s performance was much more low-key than Paul’s, which is like saying that napping tree sloth is somewhat calmer than a spider monkey hopped up on Mountain Dew and herbal Viagra. Over the course of a two hour debate, I caught Thompson mentioning exactly one hard fact – Israel’s air strike on Iraq’s Osirak nuclear plant, way back in 1981. The rest of the time, Thompson spoke in platitudes, slowly, and yet still stumbled through some of his answers. The good news, if you can call it that, is the expectations game. After a month of dismal campaigning, Fred looked pretty good just showing up fully dressed and speaking in complete sentences. ...

Really, today’s debate was the Mitt & Rudy Show. Romney and Giuliani were offered more questions than any other three or four candidates, and neither of them made any major flubs. There was one telling moment, however, just minutes before the end of the debate. CNBC’s Maria Bartiromo asked Giuliani if London would ever replace New York “as the world’s financial capital.” As I wrote on my blog, live during the debate, “Rudy basically gave her the New Yorker Single Finger Salute.” Ain’t nobody bigger ’an New Yawk, lady. When asked the same question a moment later, Romney gave a canned answer, which included mention of some obscure provision of the impenetrable Sarbanes-Oxley Act.

You have to give this debate to Rudy on points and style, and hope that the real Fred Thompson shows up at the next one – if ever.

I watched the first hour. Thompson seemed surprisingly nervous and unprepared to me. He also looked unwell. He kept his head bent forward in a perpetual stoop, as if he had to minimize his height to get into the angle of the camera, and he looked drawn and cadaverous.

The Romney-Giuliani exchange was telling, and left a little blood in the water. Giuliani boasted he cut taxes 23 times as New York mayor, and Romney nailed him by noting that it was hizzoner who sued all the way to the Supreme Court to kill the presidential line-item veto. Giuliani scuttled to hide under the protection of the Constitution, claiming it was only what a strict constructionist like himself had to do. A few moments later, he admitted that retaining NYC’s share of federal pork had also motivated him.

I did not even initially recognize second-tier candidates like Brownback, Tancredo, Huckabee, and Hunter, and I was surprised by how articulate and comparatively substantive all of them were. Brownback and Huckabee distinctly increased my interest and respect. But, unfortunately, the way US politics operates, with our dimbulb celebrity-culture media functioning as the filter between reality and the voting public, however meritorious any second-tier candidate might be, unless he starts dating Paris Hilton, he is just not going to get the attention needed to compete effectively.

Ron Paul was also an effective speaker, but I doubt that his economic prescriptions (which implicitly demanded a return to the Gold Standard) or his foreign policy of isolationist pacifism are going to win him a lot of support.

Thompson survived, but his performance can only have disappointed and alarmed those of us hoping he’d provide a conservative electoral choice. Fortunately, only journalists, bloggers, and the rest of an infinitesimal minority of intensely political Americans were watching. He still has lots of time to get into shape and improve.

David Brooks grazes meditatively beneath the New York Times’ luxuriant English oaks.

Modern conservatism begins with Edmund Burke. What Burke articulated was not an ideology or a creed, but a disposition, a reverence for tradition, a suspicion of radical change.

When conservatism came to America, it became creedal. Free market conservatives built a creed around freedom and capitalism. Religious conservatives built a creed around their conception of a transcendent order. Neoconservatives and others built a creed around the words of Lincoln and the founders.

Over the years, the voice of Burke has been submerged beneath the clamoring creeds. In fact, over the past few decades the conservative ideologies have been magnified, while the temperamental conservatism of Burke has been abandoned.

Over the past six years, the Republican Party has championed the spread of democracy in the Middle East. But the temperamental conservative is suspicious of rapid reform, believing that efforts to quickly transform anything will have, as Burke wrote “pleasing commencements” but “lamentable conclusions.” ...

To put it bluntly, over the past several years, the G.O.P. has made ideological choices that offend conservatism’s Burkean roots. This may seem like an airy-fairy thing that does nothing more than provoke a few dissenting columns from William F. Buckley, George F. Will and Andrew Sullivan. But suburban, Midwestern and many business voters are dispositional conservatives more than creedal conservatives. They care about order, prudence and balanced budgets more than transformational leadership and perpetual tax cuts. It is among these groups that G.O.P. support is collapsing.

American conservatism will never be just dispositional conservatism. America is a creedal nation. But American conservatism is only successful when it’s in tension — when the ambition of its creeds is retrained by the caution of its Burkean roots.

There is something, doubtless, about a New York Times editorial position, possibly the prestigious title or perhaps the unlimited expense account, which is liable to make any man into a Burkean defender of the status quo.

Mr. Brooks is, however, clearly confusing American with British conservatism, when he describes it in these emolient and unthreatening Burkean terms. But the American case is very different.

The roots of American conservatism lie in the American Revolution against Royal authority and established traditions of governmental supremacy. And the pedigree of modern American conservatism goes back to the movement which took over the GOP led by Barry Goldwater and his supporters.

Barry Goldwater was correctly perceived as a radical opponent of the New Deal’s established order of Welfarism, mixed economy socialism, Big Government and tolerance of International Communism, the champion of a collection of American principles and ideals, which (however originalist) were so utterly alien to the prevailing Establishment consensus as to seem revolutionary.

Mr. Brooks needs to remember that the father of the modern conservative Republican Party is the man who said “Extremism in defense of Liberty is no vice.”

In an Iowa interview with Roger Simon, Fred Thompson, promises to fight the good fight to keep the Republican Party principled and conservative.

Fred Thompson has a folksy, good old boy persona on the stump, but it may not last much longer.

When I asked him if he is an 11th Commandment man — Never speak ill of a fellow Republican — he responded, “I am more of a 12th Commandment man: Don’t speak ill of them until they speak ill of me. And then really speak ill of them.”

Thompson’s stump speech contains the warning that Republicans must “stay with our principles” when it comes to choosing a nominee.

I asked him if that was a veiled reference to Rudy Giuliani.

Thompson made a face of mock horror and laughed.

From the New York Times’ point of view, the Council for National Policy (CNP), is some sort of slightly sinister and secretive conspiratorial organ of the Religious Right. When I Googled this organization, and read over the names of members and officers, my own impression was the CNP appeared to be a slightly more diverse networking group of influential and activist movement conservatives, including many famous names. Some, but not all, were prominent figures in the Religious Right.

Not surprisingly, this group of activists did a certain amount of saber-rattling over the possibility of the Republican Party nominating Rudolph Giuliani.

Alarmed at the possibility that the Republican Party might pick Rudolph W. Giuliani as its presidential nominee despite his support for abortion rights, a coalition of influential Christian conservatives is threatening to back a third-party candidate.

The threat emerged from a group that broke away for separate discussions at a meeting Saturday in Salt Lake City of the Council for National Policy, a secretive conservative networking group. Participants said the smaller group included James C. Dobson of Focus on the Family, who is perhaps its most influential member; Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council; Richard A. Viguerie, the direct-mail pioneer; and dozens of other politically oriented conservative Christians.

Almost everyone present at the smaller group’s meeting expressed support for a written resolution stating that “if the Republican Party nominates a pro-abortion candidate we will consider running a third-party candidate,” participants said.

The participants said that the group chose the qualified term “consider” because it had not yet identified an alternative candidate, but that it was largely united in its plans to bolt the party if Mr. Giuliani, the former New York mayor, became the nominee. The participants spoke on condition of anonymity because the Council for National Policy meeting and the smaller meeting were secret, but they said members of the smaller group intended to publicize the resolution.

The CNP leak to the New York Times focussed on the Abortion issue, but I’d say that’s merely one of a number of important reasons that the movement conservative core will never support the former New York City mayor.

Giuliani’s record is that of an opportunist, statist, and populist politician. He originally came to prominence via a series of questionable prosecutions of prominent figures in the financial industry, conducted ruthlessly and in the spirit of class warfare.

Giuliani was so liberal that, back in 1994 when nearly everyone mistook George Pataki for a conservative, Giuliani tried to torpedo his gubernatorial candidacy with a last-minute endorsement of Mario Cuomo.

Neither opponents of abortion nor defenders of the Right to Keep and Bear Arms can have confidence in Giuliani’s current promises or future court appointments.

Nominating Giuliani would be a far greater disaster than nominating Nixon was. A Giuliani nomination would reverse the results of the Conservative Movement’s long and ultimately victorious struggle for control of the Republican Party, and return national control of the party to Northeastern liberal Republicans-in Name-Only.

Giuliani is an unacceptable Republican nominee, period. Real conservatives, both libertarian and traditionalist, will not support him.

Atlanta Constitution reports Harris Poll results:

After officially declaring his candidacy, U.S. Senator Fred Thompson moves ahead of former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani in the race for the 2008 Republican presidential nomination. One-third (32%) of those who say they will vote in a Republican primary or caucus will vote for Thompson while 28 percent will vote for Giuliani. Much further back is John McCain, who continues his downward slide with 11 percent saying they would vote for the Arizona Senator, and 9 percent who say they would vote for former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney.

14:12 video

Much too much head-bobbing, but otherwise a pretty decent performance. I have never had the slightest temptation to support Rudolph Giuliani, a liberal Republican whose political career was founded on the abuse of prosecutorial power. Mitt Romney’s business career compels respect, and I have not been living in Massachusetts, so I was not terribly familiar with the detail of his liberal actions and policies as governor. I thought Romney was worth considering, until I observed his indecent haste in jettisoning ties to Larry Craig. That was a little too political for my taste. McCain is, of course, not only way too liberal, he’s also way too old. So, on the whole, I am leaning toward Thompson.

I suspect that Fred Thompson is the only GOP contender with a serious chance of defeating Lady Macbeth. Giuliani was afraid to run against her for the Senate from New York. Why would anyone think he can beat her nationally?

Fred08.Com

Michelle Malkin isn’t happy that Larry Craig is reconsidering that resignation.

Think about it, Michelle. We can’t afford to operate this way.

Democrats don’t resign over sex scandals. They only use them to force Republicans out of office.

Do you remember Bob Livingstone? The slimy pimp Larry Flynt hired private detectives to hunt for Republican pecadillos he could use to avenge the impeachment of William Jefferson Clinton for perjury, and Rep. Livingstone immediately resigned, giving up the Speakership of the House, as soon as news of his marital infidelity was released.

Politicians are human, alzumenschlich commonly in fact. Are only democrat adulterers, only democrats who spend time in the company of prostitutes, only leftwing and democrat homosexuals to be allowed to remain in public office?

If only sinners in private life who are democrats get to survive in office, we are probably conceding a permanent democrat majority.

Mark Steyn reflects upon the entrapment of Larry Craig.

My general philosophy on public restrooms was summed up by the late Derek Jackson, the Oxford professor and jockey, in his advice to a Frenchman about to visit Britain. “Never go to a public lavatory in London,” warned Professor Jackson. “I always pee in the street. You may be fined a few pounds for committing a nuisance, but in a public lavatory you risk two years in prison because a policeman in plain clothes says you smiled at him.”

Just so. Sergeant Karsnia is paid by the police department to sit in a stall in the men’s room all day, like a spider waiting for the flies. The Baron von Richthoven of the Minneapolis Bathroom Patrol has notched up a phenomenal number of kills and knows what to look for — the tapping foot in the adjoining stall, a hand signal under the divider. Did you know that tapping your foot in a bathroom was a recognized indicator that a criminal act is about to occur? Don’t take your i-Pod in with you! Or, if you do, make sure you’re listening to the Singing Senators: Hard to tap your foot to “Sweet Adeline,” and if you do it’s unlikely to be in a manner sufficiently frenzied to attract the attention of the adjoining constables.

What else is a giveaway that you’re a creep and a pervert seeking loveless anonymous sex? Well, according to Sergeant Karsnia, when the Senator entered the stall, he placed his wheelie bag against the door, which (according to the official complaint) “Sgt Karsnia’s experience has indicated is used to attempt to conceal sexual conduct by blocking the view from the front of the stall”.

No doubt. But, if you use the men’s room at the airport, where are you meant to put your carry-on? There’s not many other places in a bathroom stall other than against the door, unless Minneapolis is planning on mandating overhead bins in every cubicle. In happier times, one would have offered some cheery urchin sixpence to keep an eye on one’s bags. But today if you go to the airport bathroom and say to some lad, “Would you like to take care of my wheelie for five minutes?”, you’ll be looking at 30 years in the slammer.

I’ve no doubt Senator Craig went to that bathroom looking for sex. Listen to the tape of his encounter with Sergeant Karsnia and then imagine, as Jonah Goldberg suggested, how the conversation would go if Senators McCain or Webb had been in that stall and were accused of brushing shoes with the flatfoot. Not being privy to the codes of the privy, it would take ‘em 15 minutes even to figure out what Sarge was accusing ‘em of and, when it became clear, the conversation would erupt in a blizzard of asterisks and, shortly thereafter, fists. Instead, Senator Craig copped a plea. Because of that, he should disappear from public life as swiftly as possible and embrace full time the anonymity he cherishes in his sexual encounters. Not, as the left urges, on grounds of “hypocrisy” — because he’s a “family values” politician who opposes “gay marriage” yet trawls for rough trade in men’s rooms. A measure of hypocrisy is necessary to a functioning society. It’s quite possible, on the one hand, to be opposed to the legalization of prostitution yet, on the other, to pull your hat down over your brow every other Tuesday and sneak off to the cat house on the other side of town. Your inability to live up to your own standards does not, in and of itself, nullify them. The Left gives the impression that a Republican senator caught in a whorehouse ought immediately to say, “You’re right. I should have supported earmarks for hookers in the 2005 appropriations bill.” That’s the reason why sex scandals take down Republicans but not Democrats: Sex-wise, the Left’s standards are that whatever’s your bag is cool — which is the equivalent of no standards. Thus, Monica Lewinsky was a “grown woman” free to make her own decisions on the carpet of the Oval Office. Without agreed “moral standards”, all you have is the law. When it’s no longer clear something is wrong, all you can do is make it illegal.

And so we have the bizarre situation of a United States senator convicted of the crime of brushing his foot and placing his carry-on luggage in the only available space of a men’s room stall. Larry Craig feebly accused Sergeant Karsnia of “entrapping” him but, in fact, the officer didn’t even need to entrap him into anything other than an allegedly intrusive shoe movement. That’s a crime? On the tape, Craig sounds sad and pathetic, a prominent man cornered in a sordid transaction. Yet Karsnia sounds just as weird and creepy: a guy who’s paid to sit in a bathroom stall for hours on end observing adjoining ankles. I’d rather hand out traffic tickets.

Mark R. Levin offers some bitter remarks.

Today some Republicans pat themselves on the back for their “courageous” stand against liberal charges of hypocrisy as they were early in their denunciation of Craig. Now, these would be the same liberals who show routinely their hypocrisy embracing Bill Clinton (accused of rape), Barney Frank (accused of allowing his home to be used for male prostitution), and the late Gerry Studds (who had sex repeatedly with a seventeen-year-old page). These Republicans fear the “culture of corruption” label the liberals have assigned them and aren’t quite sure how to respond to it. Mostly, they refuse to fire back by highlighting the numerous examples of demonstrable sleaze involving William Jefferson (alleged bribe), Alan Mollohan (alleged self-dealing), John Murtha (earmarks related to his brother), Dianne Feinstein (her husband profiting from military contracts), Hillary Clinton (Norman Hsu, et al), and, of course, the aforementioned Clinton, Frank, and Studds examples.

There is indeed a culture of corruption, and it extends well beyond any single politician. It swirls around big government. It always has and it always will.

Hat tip to Richard Falknor.

Ben Stein had some sensible remarks, which I quite agree with, on Fox News with Neil Cavuto. The clip is, unfortunately, derisively linked by the left, so please ignore the monkey noises and watch out for thrown feces as you approach the cage.

I know a black sheep old-time member of the Conservative Movement, who would often complain lugubriously over his cups (in relation to the unhappy consequences to his conservative career of his own pecadillos) that “the Conservative Movement does not know how to tend its wounded or bury its dead.”

I was tempted to apply that observation to the behavior of Republicans in the case of Senator Larry Craig, but listening to the 8:23 Minneapolis police tape (NY Times transcript) it isn’t even obvious to me that Senator Craig was genuinely wounded.

In the first place, it is perfectly clear that no sex, not even any explicit sexual proposition, ever actually occurred. It is also clear that the covert signals Senator Craig supposedly made were in dispute between himself and Sergeant Karsnia, the arresting officer, and that Karsnia’s version features at least one very major implausibility. Karsnia claims that, as a signal, Craig reached below the divider between his bathroom stall and the stall to his right, with his left hand palm down, and rubbed the bottom of the divider. How could anyone possibly physically do that in the cramped confines of a typical public bathroom stall?

It is also quite apparent, listening to the tape, that Karsnia is artfully and intensely manipulating Craig. He is continuing to sell Craig on the plea deal, and he is also doing his level best to persuade Craig to assent to his own preferred version of the facts. The tape does not contain the whole of their conversation, and the portion released was clearly made in order to support the guilty plea which had been previously negotiated.

Common sense tells us that Karsnia must have threatened Craig with far more serious charges, charges involving the possibility of felony convictions, life-time sex offender status, public scandal and personal ruin, then offered a deal. In Karsnia’s deal, Craig would plead guilty only to a misdemeanor charge of disorderly conduct. It would be like a speeding ticket. Craig would simply plead guilty to disorderly conduct, pay $575 in fine and court fees, and walk away a free man. He would even be able to catch his original flight. And, best of all, there would be no publicity, no scandal, no ruinous sexual charges.

We can see just how well the Minneapolis Police Department kept its side of that plea bargain. So why should we believe one of its members’ allegations of about intrinsically ambiguous signals?

Just how plausible is it that a married 62-year-old Senator is in the habit of passing the time between changing planes by finding himself some sort of awkward and unseemly sexual encounter featuring heaven-only-knows whatever precise activity which may be conducted beneath the divider between two lavatory stalls?

As Eric at Classical Values observes, that this is the second major national sex scandal involving a Congressional Republican with no actual sex.

The problem is not one of Republicans not knowing how to tend their wounded. The problem is that Republicans don’t know how to handle scandals, either defensively or offensively.

The Administration’s opponents leak the highest level National Security secrets to the Press, and only one single Intelligence Community official is ever accused, no trial ever takes place. There are no convictions and no punishments. On the other hand, the mere identification of Ambassador Wilson’s wife’s role in assisting his trying to impeach British Intelligence reports of Saddam’s efforts to secure uranium (for a second time) from Niger, in democrat hands, shook the Bush Administration right down to its timid and quivering foundations.

Barney Frank survived a gay prostitution ring being run from his Washington apartment by a gay prostitute he himself had previously hired. But, in the case of a Republican, it only takes a mere accusation for the Party leadership to run for cover, our own editorialists to demand summary execution, and the accused to slink away, his career permanently destroyed.

Bill Clinton sexually exploited a 22-year-old White house intern, and the democrats persuaded a substantial portion of the public that it was downright evil of Republicans to pry into the President’s private sex life.

Republicans need to develop the capacity both to take the heat of the unfair accusations of their adversaries without flinching and to fight back.

Larry Craig has one of the best voting records in the Congress. I don’t personally care if he has a habit of enjoying relations with Idaho sheep by the light of the full moon, and I’m skeptical that he is guilty of anything in Minneapolis. I hope that he will tough it out, and not resign.

MeaninglessHotAir at YARGB shares an email describing the prehistoric origins of some well-known contemporary human cultures.

Humans originally existed as members of small bands of nomadic hunters/gatherers. They lived on deer in the mountains during the summer and would go to the coast and live on fish and lobster in the winter. The two most important events in all of history were the invention of beer and the invention of the wheel. The wheel was invented to get man to the beer. These were the foundation of modern civilization and together were the catalyst for the splitting of humanity into two distinct subgroups. These are known in the United States today as (1) Democrats and (2) Republicans. ...

Some men spent their days tracking and killing animals to B-B-Q at night while they were drinking beer. This was the beginning of what is known as the Republican party. Other men who were weaker and less skilled at hunting learned to live off the Republicans by showing up for the nightly B-B-Q’s and doing the sewing, fetching, and hair dressing. This was the beginning of the Democratic party. Some of these Democratic men eventually evolved into women. The rest became known as girliemen.

Some noteworthy Democratic achievements include the domestication of cats, the invention of group therapy, group hugs, and the concept of democratic voting to decide how to divide the meat and beer that Republicans provided. Over the years Republicans came to be symbolized by the largest, most powerful land animal on earth, the elephant. Democrats are symbolized by the jackass.

John Hinderaker, at Power-Line, quotes an eloquent remonstrance from John McCain to his despicable colleagues in the Senate. He titled it: A Man Addresses the Boys.

Let us keep in the front of our minds the likely consequences of premature withdrawal from Iraq. Many of my colleagues would like to believe that, should the withdrawal amendment we are currently debating become law, it would mark the end of this long effort. They are wrong. Should the Congress force a precipitous withdrawal from Iraq, it would mark a new beginning, the start of a new, more dangerous, and more arduous effort to contain the forces unleashed by our disengagement.
No matter where my colleagues came down in 2003 about the centrality of Iraq to the war on terror, there can simply be no debate that our efforts in Iraq today are critical to the wider struggle against violent Islamic extremism. Already, the terrorists are emboldened, excited that America is talking not about winning in Iraq, but is rather debating when we should lose.

***

Mr. President, the terrorists are in this war to win it. The question is: Are we?

***

The supporters of this amendment respond that they do not by any means intend to cede the battlefield to al Qaeda; on the contrary, their legislation would allow U.S. forces, presumably holed up in forward operating bases, to carry out targeted counterterrorism operations. But our own military commanders say that this approach will not succeed, and that moving in with search and destroy missions to kill and capture terrorists, only to immediately cede the territory to the enemy, is the failed strategy of the past three and a half years.

***

Mr. President, this fight is about Iraq but not about Iraq alone. It is greater than that and more important still, about whether America still has the political courage to fight for victory or whether we will settle for defeat, with all of the terrible things that accompany it. We cannot walk away gracefully from defeat in this war.

What a fine leader and desirable Republican presidential candidate a reliably conservative John McCain could have made!
————————————————

I don’t agree with Harold Meyerson’s politics or his defeatist view of the situation in Iraq, but I wholeheartedly endorse his characterization of a number of Republican senators:

Anyone searching for the highest forms of invertebrate life need look no further than the floor of the U.S. Senate last week and this. These spineless specimens go by various names—Republican moderates; respected senior Republicans; Dick Lugar, John Warner, Pete Domenici, George Voinovich.

But if weak-kneed Republican bedwetters running for political cover are rightly described as invertebrate, leftist democrats who make a profession and career out of opposing their country’s cause and stabbing American troops in the back are obviously still lower on the evolutionary scale.

Nebraska RINO Chuck Hagel, who has complied a record of anti-Republican votes and defeatism that Lincoln Chafee might envy, observed yesterday on Face the Nation that, in his view, the Republican Party had been hijacked away from its core values (presumably those of Liberal “Me-Too” Republicanism) by “extremists.”

In an interview with CBS’s Bob Schieffer, Hagel expansively speculated about running as a Third Party candidate, a move he predicted would be good for the American political system. Schieffer then turned the conversation to discussing prospects of a joint run with New York City’s Anti-Gun-crusading, Anti-Nicotine-Nazi Mayor Bloomberg.

Hagel was delighted by the idea, and grew misty-eyed over the generosity of the America which could offer such opportunities to some very rich and powerful “boys” from Nebraska and New York.

As John Wayne used to say: That’ll be the day.

Your inner rebel: Brando in The Wild One (1953)

Matt Lewis says it’s time for us Republican conservatives to stop thinking about those safe, liberal 2008 choices, and start supporting someone in our hearts we know is right.

In life, there are times to make a safe choice. Should you go to the gym in the morning or pour yourself a bowl of Miller Lite Cheerios? Should you take the car rental insurance or chance it? Decisions, decisions.

Similarly tough choices inevitably seep into our politics. For Republican voters, it has been: Should you vote for Ross Perot or Pat Buchanan, or go with the Republican standard-bearer? (You probably made the “adult” decision, sucked it up and punched your ticket for George H.W. Bush and Bob Dole, even if they were squishy Republicans who were dull as can be.)

For 2008, the safe thing means backing one of the “big three” Republicans, Sen. John McCain (Ariz.), former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney or former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani.

Here’s the problem with always doing the safe thing: Voting is supposed to be a bit rebellious. There are times to throw caution to the wind and go for what you really want. (This often happens after a few drinks.) Depending on your lifestyle, that might include buying a motorcycle, following the Grateful Dead, getting a tattoo or just ordering another helping of that sinfully rich chocolate cake.

Read the whole thing.

He won’t get an argument from me.

Pat Toomey, whom Bush ought to have supported in a primary against Arlen Spector, explains why John McCain’s record makes him unacceptable as Republican nominee for the presidency.

The reduction of tax rates on income and investment is a cornerstone of limited-government philosophy and a powerful driver of economic growth. When the most important pro-growth tax cuts in a generation were proposed by President George W. Bush in 2001 and 2003, Sen. McCain vigorously opposed them. While he has more recently supported the extension of the Bush tax cuts and has previously proposed requiring a supermajority vote in Congress to raise taxes, the extent of his opposition in 2001 and 2003 supersedes any potentially redeeming votes.

Sen. McCain was one of only two Republican senators to oppose the 2001 tax cuts and one of only three GOP senators to oppose the 2003 reductions. Furthermore, his reason for opposing the cuts was taken straight from the playbook of the most radical left-wing Democrats. In 2001, Sen. McCain argued, “I cannot in good conscience support a tax cut in which so many of the benefits go to the most fortunate among us at the expense of middle-class Americans who need tax relief.”

That statement is virtually indistinguishable from the class-warfare demagoguery used by Democrats like Ted Kennedy and John Kerry. More importantly, it was grossly inaccurate. The Bush tax cuts lowered income taxes, and other taxes, for every American who paid them. In percentage terms, lower-income workers enjoyed the greatest savings, and today, upper-income workers pay a larger share of total income taxes than they did before the Bush tax cuts.

Sen. McCain did much more than just criticize the Bush tax cuts—he also joined leading liberal senators in offering and voting for amendments designed to undermine them. All in all, he voted on the pro-tax side of 14 such amendments in 2001 and 2003. These included an amendment he co-sponsored with Sen. Tom Daschle to limit the rate reduction in the top tax bracket to one percentage point and an amendment sponsored by Sen. Russ Feingold against full repeal of the estate tax, aka the death tax. This latter vote is in keeping with Senator McCain’s 2002 vote against repealing the death tax…

Over the years, Sen. McCain has supported a number of other big-government bills, including an amendment that would authorize the government to set prices on prescription drugs under Medicare and an amendment to prohibit oil drilling in part of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska.

But of all his infringements on personal freedom, Sen. McCain’s persistent attacks on political speech are the most worrisome. The First Amendment is an important safeguard of pro-growth policies. When government strays from sound economic policies, citizens must be free to exercise their constitutional rights to petition and criticize those policies and the politicians responsible for them. The 2002 McCain-Feingold bill (or the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act), named in part for the Arizona senator who gave it life, seeks to squash political dissent by imposing grossly unconstitutional restrictions on citizen participation in political debate.

In defense of the bill’s provision severely limiting the freedom of private groups to run political TV ads, Sen. McCain argued in a Supreme Court brief, “These ads are direct, blatant attacks on the candidates. We don’t think that’s right.” He thus anointed himself the arbiter of appropriate political speech, worthy of deciphering which speech is “right” and which should be permitted in American political debate. His law constitutes the greatest modern infringement of the First Amendment right to political free speech. While bestowing significant advantages upon incumbent office holders, it has created neither a less corrupt political domain nor a more democratic one.

I would support Newt Gingrich, possibly Mitt Romney or Fred Thompson, but definitely not Giuliani or McCain.

Ann Coulter

The New York Times is reporting that Giuliani, McCain, and Romney have condemned Ann Coulter for jestingly applying to John Edwards a pejorative term for a male homosexual. What a bunch of sissies!

video of Ann Coulter being so bad.

AP:

Republican and Democratic senators warned Tuesday against a drift toward war with an emboldened Iran and suggested the Bush administration was missing a chance to engage its longtime adversary in potentially helpful talks over next-door Iraq.

“What I think many of us are concerned about is that we stumble into active hostilities with Iran without having aggressively pursued diplomatic approaches, without the American people understanding exactly what’s taking place,” Sen. Barack Obama (news, bio, voting record), D-Ill., told John Negroponte, who is in line to become the nation’s No. 2 diplomat as Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s deputy.

In reality, we’ve been at war with Iran since 1979. Or, more properly,one should say: Iran has been at war with us since 1979. We have not bothered to notice.

Hugh Hewitt and NZ Bear have created a pledge promising that signatories will not support any Republican senator who votes against the troop increase in Iraq.

If the United States Senate passes a resolution, non-binding or otherwise, that criticizes the commitment of additional troops to Iraq that General Petraeus has asked for and that the president has pledged, and if the Senate does so after the testimony of General Petraeus on January 23 that such a resolution will be an encouragement to the enemy, I will not contribute to any Republican senator who voted for the resolution. Further, if any Republican senator who votes for such a resolution is a candidate for re-election in 2008, I will not contribute to the National Republican Senatorial Committee unless the Chairman of that Committee, Senator Ensign, commits in writing that none of the funds of the NRSC will go to support the re-election of any senator supporting the non-binding resolution.

Do please sign it. I have.

Hat tip to Glenn Reynolds.

Jonah Goldberg’s mind is boggling at the results of a recent Fox News Poll.

News story:

63 percent of Americans say they want the plan to succeed, including 79 percent of Republicans, 63 percent of independents and 51 percent of Democrats.

Meaning 37% of Americans, 21% of Republicans, 37% of Independents, and 49% of democrats either desire its failure, or are not sure.

On the larger political front, more people think “most Democrats” want the Bush plan to fail and for him to have to withdraw troops in defeat (48 percent), than think Democrats want the plan to succeed and lead to a stable Iraq (32 percent).

But she finds what the democrats will do with the opportunity presented by their recent electoral success is unclear.

As for Democrats, they have a unique opportunity, one they haven’t had in 14 years, to redefine for the public what their party is. It is their chance to change their public label. Now, with the cameras of the country trained on Capitol Hill, they can throw off the old baggage of the 1960s and ‘70s and erase the cartoon version of their party, which is culturally radical, weak in its defense of America, profligate, McGovernite, bitterly devoted to the demands of its groups as opposed to the needs of America.

In 1992 the young Southern moderate Bill Clinton got a chance to erase the cartoon, and he did, for a while. But he quickly slid back, undone by his own confusion as to the purpose of his power, and reinforced the public’s worst assumptions about his party with everything from the health-care fiasco to using the Lincoln bedroom as a comp room for big rollers to horrifying fund-raising and personal scandals. What he did prove—and the area in which he did break away from the cartoon version of Democrats—was that he didn’t dislike money or its makers. He did nothing to harm Wall Street, little to slow the economy, displayed a personal tropism toward the rich. Beyond that he didn’t change his party’s rep.

Can Nancy Pelosi? She looked radiant when she was elected by the Democratic conference Thursday, and she was careful to speak—everyone was careful to speak—of children and grandchildren. No one held up a sign saying “We’re Normal,” but the message was sent.

Can the Democrats spend the next two years showing a moderate, centrist, mature face to the country? Republicans say—this is the big phrase—“It’s not in their DNA.” But betting on the other guy’s inability to change is not, really, a plan. And these Democrats, or many of them, seem a rising generation of pragmatists. They seem to know what’s at stake. If they scare America, they give Republicans a ready campaign theme for 2008: If you liked the crazy Democratic Congress, you’ll love a crazy Democratic White House.

Can they go down the center, or will radicalism of various sorts erupt and gain sway? No one knows. The Democrats don’t know. The answer is going to help shape America’s future political history. And it will help shape George Bush’s. If the Democrats are radical, he will look more reasonable, not only in the eyes of the public but of history. If the Democrats are moderate, I think he will do something surprising, and yet much in line with his personality and nature.

She predicts, on the other hand, that George W. Bush will outdo both the Paleocons and the Neocons in dumping the Republicans.

Old affection and regard for the White House and the president have dissipated. But fear remains. They have two more years, they have the power to nominate, they have money. And so a party that might begin the process of refinding itself by thoughtfully detaching from the White House will, likely, not.

But I see a surprise coming.

What is the first thing men do when they’re drowning? They save themselves. With the waters rising on every side the president will attempt to re-enact his first and most personally satisfying political success when, as governor of Texas, he won plaudits and popularity for working hand in glove with Democrats. He accepted many Democratic assumptions—he shared them, it wasn’t hard.

The White House’s reaction to the recent election was, essentially, Now we can get our immigration bill through with the Democrats. That was a clue. I suspect the president will over the next two years do to Republicans what he did to Donald Rumsfeld: over the side, under the bus and off the sled.

He doesn’t need them. They’re not popular. They’re not where the action is. He’ll work closely with Democrats, gain in time new and admiring press—“Bush has grown,” etc.

This is the path he will take to build his popularity and create a new legacy. If the Democrats let him. It would be in their interests, so I think maybe they will.

AJStrata has a good word to say for George W. Bush and the Conservatism of the Bush Administration, and urges the rest of us to refrain from jumping ship.

Let me describe what I think is an attractive conservative vision. It begins with supporting and respecting our President and all his accomplishments. And since I and many others still have unflinching support and admiration for the man, I decided to steal some from the commenters here and dub this conservative view “Bush Conservatives”.

Bush Conservatives not only believe in Reagan’s 11th commandment to not speak ill of fellow conservatives – we live it. From the Gang of 14, to Harriet Miers, to Dubai Ports World and to the immigration issue – there has been a brand of Republican which eschewed the 11th commandment. So let the Republicans be defined by that group – Bush Conservatives will be defined by their antithesis. Bush conservatives are not afraid of the word ‘compromise’. They despise the word ‘failure’. If there is a good idea, we do not care what party gets credit – we care that the good ideas get enacted. It is not Party uber America anymore.

Read the whole thing.

Beth agrees with him, and takes a firmer line with the Paleocons:

I’m still very, very angry at the Buchanan Conservatives/neo-right/cannibals/whatever you wanna call ‘em. It is THEY who I blame more than anyone for the GOP/conservative loss in the election. I suppose it’s irrational to blame them first, but they are the ones with whom I have the most contact, if you will, or at least the most in common (in that we are bloggers). They worked for over two years, slandering everyone on their own side whenever there was a point of disagreement. How the hell did they think the media wouldn’t lap that up? Dissension within the conservative ranks? A gift to the liberal media! And as a result, rather than putting real pressure on those who needed it, they simply allowed the left’s sound-bite slogans, “culture of corruption” and “pork-loving Republicans” to penetrate the usually-disengaged voters’ minds.

The Marine Corps tells recruits in boot camp that pain is just the natural sensation of weakness leaving the body. We conservatives can look upon an electoral defeat as the sensation of opportunists and trimmers losing control of the Republican Party.

Success in 1994, 2000, and 2004 largely led to Republican cowardice, compromise, complacency, and SPENDING. If the GOP goes down in flames in 2006, let’s just hope many of the current pilots meet their political demise in the crash.

The Conservative Movement has come back, more than once, from grave reverses, each time stronger than before. We need to do now, as we did then: wage the battle of ideas; and, after winning, go on to govern on the basis of those ideas.

A democrat majority, resting on its hard left base, is a recipe for disaster. If we are forced to step aside, we will have the opportunity to recover ground with every democrat blunder, every democrat outrage, and every democrat scandal. And they may be relied upon to supply plenty of all three.

Moreover, there is reason to believe that any democrat majorities which occur will be built upon the electoral success of far more conservative democrat candidates than have been seen in a long time. If they win in 2006, the democrat party’s radical base loses anyway.

Excellent GOP response ad.

video

Hat tip to José Guardia and Dean Esmay.

When Bill Clinton out-maneuvered House Republicans in the 1995 budget battle, and they found themselves under fire for “shutting down the government,” wholesale incumbency timidity returned.

In 1989, Newt Gingrich rose to the number two leadership position in the House after a contentious three-way race pitting young backbench conservatives such as myself, Bob Walker, Joe Barton and others against old bulls such as Minority Leader Bob Michel and other ranking members. We thought they suffered from a minority party mindset and were too accommodating of the Democrats. Out of congressional power for nearly two generations, Republicans had become complacent. Senior members of the party were happy to accept the crumbs afforded by Democratic chairmen. Life was comfortable in the minority as long as you did not rock the boat. Members received their perks—such as travel abroad and special banking privileges—and enough pork projects for reelection. The entire Congress lived by the rule of parochial politics.

Gingrich and I and a handful of true believers in Ronald Reagan’s conservative vision set the goal of retaking the House. The “Contract With America” outlined our platform of limited government. This vision appealed to both the social and economic wings of the conservative movement; equally important, it included institutional reforms for a Congress that had grown increasingly arrogant and corrupt. The contract nationalized the vision of the Republican Party in a way that unified our base and appealed to independents. We championed national issues, not local pork projects or the creature comforts of high office.

In 1994, this vision was validated when Republicans took 54 seats in the House, eight seats in the Senate and control of both houses of Congress.

Welfare reform in 1996 only affirmed the revolution. Bureaucrats, special interests and the White House all claimed that the sky would fall if we touched this failed Great Society program, but we held firm. When you take on a sacred cow, you must kill it completely—tinkering on the margins is ineffective. In the end, the reform proved so successful and popular that President Bill Clinton (who rejected the original bill twice) considers it one of the best ideas his administration ever had.

At one point during the welfare reform debates, a member approached me and said, “Dick, I know this is the right thing to do, but my constituents just won’t understand.” I told him, “So you’re telling me they are smart enough to vote for you but not smart enough to understand this?” He ended up voting to pass the bill.

Yet despite such successes, we didn’t learn the right political lessons. A few months before the victory on welfare, we lost the battle over the federal government shutdown of 1995, when we were outmaneuvered by Clinton, a masterful political operator. After that fight, too many Republicans apparently concluded that America wanted bigger government. This misreading was the first step on the road away from the Reagan legacy.

We emerged as a wounded party; we stopped trusting the public; and we internalized the wrong lesson. Since the party won the majority in 1994, the GOP Conference had been consistent in requiring offsetting spending cuts for any new spending initiatives. (In fact, during the aftermath of a large Mississippi River flood, Rep. Jim Nussle even waited to find and approve offsets before moving the relief legislation for his own state of Iowa.) But by the summer of 1997, the appropriators—rightly called the “third party” of Congress—had begun to pass spending bills with Democrats. As soon as politics superseded policy and principle, the avalanche of earmarks that is crushing the party began.

Read the whole article.

I noticed that Dick Armey failed to discuss how in 1997, with Newt Gingrich under fire from ethics charges trumped up by democrats, House Republicans led by Armey himself attempted to remove Gingrich as Speaker. Consequently the following year, after unexpected electoral setbacks (Republicans lost five House seats), Gingrich was blamed. He resigned the Speakership and left the House, rather than face another rebellion. It’s impossible to avoid comparing the quality of Republican leadership, and ideological commitment, before and after Gingrich’s departure.

The Taxman ad.

video

also here.

The latest nannystate regulations pushed Jeff Soyer over the edge this morning, and he is in full rant mode. Some (bowdlerized by me) highlights read:

Smoking. Yeah-yeah, I should just give it up. Sorry, I still reserve the right to kill myself, albeit slowly.

Now that NY, VT, and apparently NH require cigarettes to be “self-extinguishing” I’m seriously pissed. I know the intention is good; to prevent fires from drunk/sleeping smokers, but if I put my cigarette down in the ashtray for a minute, it burns out. What a damn annoyance! It just makes me light-up more often and puff on the coffin-nail more often.

I hate the “nanny-state” and hope a bunch of meteorites fall on every single statehouse across the country.

And on Washington DC, too

We’ve become a nation—no, make that a world—of whiny-babies, of perpetual-victim-invalids and their dog-shit greedy lawyers, who are incapable of self-thought, personal responsibility, and freedom of action; even to make stupid mistakes if they chose to do so….

I hope every ****ing politician in this country is thrown out of office. Or maybe worse than that.

Hell will freeze over before I vote for ANY ****ing Democrat or Republican again. And spare me your ****ing “would you rather…lesser of evils…throwing away your vote” bullshit. We need a revolution—in politics, in thinking, in rights, in America and the world,—and you will NEVER get it from anyone in the two major parties. We need a nation where men start acting like men again. This country needs a big ****ing shot of testosterone.

And this guy is gay!

Lord knows, I can understand where he’s coming from. We all feel that way several times a week, typically after reading the newspaper. But, the consequences of a democrat House majority are no joke.

“This list of the bills most likely to be championed by committee chairmen in a Pelosi-led House of Representatives would be great fodder for the latenight talk show hosts if it weren’t true,” House Majority Whip Roy Blunt said. “Instead, it’s just plain scary…

Department of Peace and Nonviolence Act—H.R. 3760: Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) and 74 Democratic cosponsors propose a new “Department of Peace and Nonviolence” as well as “National Peace Day.” Cosponsors include three would-be Democratic Chairmen: John Conyers (Judiciary), George Miller (Education and the Workforce), and Charlie Rangel (Ways and Means).

Gas Stamps—H.R. 3712: Jim McDermott (D-WA) and eight Democratic cosponsors want a “Gas Stamps” program similar to the Food Stamps program to subsidize the gasoline purchases of qualified individuals….

Voting Rights for Criminals — H.R. 1300: John Conyers (D-MI) and 32 Democratic cosponsors, and H.R. 663: Charlie Rangel (D-NY) and 28 Democratic cosponsors would let convicted felons vote. Rep. John Conyers is the would-be Democratic Chairman of the Judiciary Committee which would consider this legislation.

Expand Medicare to Include Diapers—H.R. 1052: Barney Frank (D-MA) supports Medicare coverage of adult diapers. Barney Frank is the would-be Chairman of the Financial Services Committee.

Nationalized Health Care — H.R. 4683: John Dingell (D-MI) and 18 Democratic cosponsors want to expand Medicare to cover all Americans. John Dingell is the would-be Democratic Chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee who along with cosponsors Charlie Rangel, would-be Chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, and Henry Waxman, would-be Chairman of the Government Reform Committee, would have jurisdiction over the proposal.

Federal Regulation of Restaurant Menus—H.R. 5563: Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) and 25 Democratic cosponsors authorize federal regulation of the contents of restaurant menus.

Taxpayer Funded Abortions & Elimination of all Restrictions on Abortion, Including Parental Notice — H.R. 5151: Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) and 66 Democratic cosponsors want to overturn even minimal restrictions on abortion such as parental notice requirements. The bill would also require taxpayer funding of abortions through the various federal health care programs. John Conyers, the would-be Chairman of Judiciary Committee which has jurisdiction over the bill, is an original cosponsor.

Bill of Welfare Rights—H.J. Res. 29-35: Jesse Jackson, Jr. (D-IL) proposes a Soviet-style “Bill of Welfare Rights,” enshrining the rights of full employment, public education, national healthcare, public housing, abortion, progressive taxation, and union membership. On some these measures, Rep. Jackson is joined by up to 35 Democratic cosponsors, including would-be Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers.

A note about this list: While by no means an exhaustive list of the liberal, out-of-the-mainstream bills introduced by Democratic Members, these bills deserve particular attention because the principle advocates are the very individuals who would be in a position to schedule committee markups and move the legislation through the Congress should the Democrats take control.

For more details on the would-be chairmen….

Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey (D-Wis.) Elected 1969, 18th term Rep. Obey voted with the AFL-CIO 100% of the time. Obey voted against the Deficit Reduction Act, against Defense Funding (FY06), against the Legislative Line Item Veto, and against funding the Global War on Terror (FY04).

“Mr. Obey was one of those Democrats who ripped Mr. Clinton for endorsing a balanced budget in 1995. Rather than cut spending, his goal would be to spend less on defense and more on domestic programs and entitlements.” (WSJ, 08/31/06)

Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charlie Rangel (D-N.Y.) Elected 1970, 18th term Rep. Rangel voted with the ACLU 94% of the time. Rangel consistently voted against free trade agreements, against the Bush tax cuts, against Pension Reform, and against Welfare Reform.

Rep. Rangel “opposed the Bush tax cuts and recently voted against free trade with tiny Oman. His committee’s crucial health care subcommittee would be run by California’s Pete Stark (1972), who in 1993 criticized Hillary Clinton’s health care proposal because the government wasn’t dominant enough.” (WSJ, 08/31/06)

“No question about it.” Rep. Charles Rangel (DNY), when asked whether tax increases across the spectrum would be considered should Democrats take control of Congress. (CongressDaily, 09/26/06)

Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers (D-Mich.) Elected 1964, 21st term Rep. Conyers voted with the AFL-CIO 100% and the ACLU 100% of the time. Conyers consistently voted against any liability reform, against the USA PATRIOT Act Reauthorization, against REAL ID, against the Child Interstate Abortion Notification bill… “He recently made his plans clear in a 370-page report… the report accuses the Administration of violating no fewer than 26 laws and regulations, and is a road map of Mr. Conyers’s explicit intention to investigate grounds for impeaching President Bush.” (WSJ, 08/31/06)

Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman John Dingell (D-Mich.) Elected 1955, 25th term Rep. Dingell voted with the AFL-CIO 100% of the time. Dingell voted against exploring for American-made energy in ANWR and OCS, against reforming the Endangered Species Act, and against the Telecom Reauthorization bill. “The Michigan Congressman would do his best to provide taxpayer help to GM and Ford. But telecom companies would probably get more regulation in the form of Net neutrality rules, and a windfall profits tax on oil would be a real possibility.” (WSJ, 08/31/06)

Education and the Workforce Committee Chairman George Miller (D-Calif.) Elected 1974, 16th term Rep. Miller voted with the ACLU 95% of the time. Miller voted against Higher Education Reauthorization, against Head Start Reauthorization, and against Pension Reform. Rep. Miller is “the chief sponsor of the ‘Employee Free Choice Act,’ which would make it much easier for unions to organize by largely banning secret elections… The Californian also wants to raise the minimum wage and fulfill the National Education Association wish to spend more federal dollars on local school construction.” (WSJ, 08/31/06)

Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank (D-Mass.) Elected 1980, 13th term Rep. Frank voted with the AFL-CIO 100% and the ACLU 95% of the time. “…the ascension of Barney Frank (1980) would mean a reprieve for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, despite $16 billion in accounting scandals. His main reform priority has been to carve out a new affordable housing fund from the two companies’ profits. And forget about any major review of Sarbanes-Oxley.” (WSJ, 08/31/06)

Government Reform Committee Chairman Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) Elected 1974, 16th term Rep. Waxman voted with the AFL-CIO 100% and the ACLU 95% of the time. Waxman voted against the 9/11 Recommendations Implementation Act, against the formation of the Bipartisan Katrina Committee, and against 527 Reform. Rep. Waxman “would compete with Mr. Conyers to see who could issue the most subpoenas to the Bush Administration.” (WSJ, 08/31/06)

Intelligence Committee Chairman Alcee Hastings (D-Fla.) Elected 1992, 7th term Rep. Hastings voted with the AFL-CIO 92% of the time. Hastings voted against declaring that the U.S. will prevail in the Global War on Terror, against the 9/11 Recommendations Implementation Act, against Supporting Terrorist Finance Tracking, against the USA PATRIOT Act Reauthorization… Rep. Hastings “who, should Ms. Pelosi succeed in pushing aside current ranking Member Jane Harman, would take over the House Intelligence Committee. Before he won his Florida seat in 1992, Mr. Hastings had been a federal judge who was impeached and convicted by a Democratic Congress for lying to beat a bribery rap. He would handle America’s most vital national secrets.” (WSJ, 08/31/06)

And think how many of them are in favor of more gun control.

There’s no doubt about it. Republicans deserve to lose this election, but we Americans do not deserve a democrat Congress.

House Intelligence Chairman Pete Hoekstra suspended an unidentified individual working on the staff of one of the democrat committee members on Thursday, when it was established that the staffer had requested a copy of the National Intelligence Estimate from National Intelligence Director John Negroponte three days before selected leaked portions of the document were published in the New York Times.

It has since been learned that the suspended staffer was Larry Hanauer, employed by California democrat Congresswoman Jane Harman .

Cooperative Research tells us:

After George W. Bush took office in 2001, Larry Hanauer, who has long been at the Israel-Syria-Lebanon desk and who is known to be “even-handed with Israel,” is replaced by David Schenker of the Washington Institute. [American Conservative, 12/1/2003; Mother Jones, 1/2004.

Harman has stated that she is “appalled,” and is demanding Hanauer’s reinstatement.

The suspension is evidently payback for Harman’s unilateral release earlier this week of an independent investigator’s report on the bribe-taking of resigned-convicted-and-imprisoned former Republican Congressman Randy Cunningham.

Here is the new Republican Committee Ad. A lot of people on the right are complaining that it’s unoriginal, just a take-off on Bill Moyer’s anti-Goldwater “Daisy” ad. Perhaps so, but as I recall Johnson did win.

The embedded player is a bit too small for easy reading. If you have a problem, just catch it at the original GOP web-site here.

Bethany from the realVerse videoblog hands out awards for the most amusing recent political campaign ads.

video

Hat tip to Michelle Malkin.

P.J. O’Rourke contemplates the twin horrors of the upcoming election.

Watching Republicans in Washington is like watching lemmings, if lemmings jumped into cesspools instead of off cliffs. Splash! There goes Mark Foley!...

Actually, the Republicans should be grateful for their lying, thieving scum. It distracts the public from the things the Republicans have done that are honestly bad. Our postwar policy is creating Weimar Iraq. And when the Islamofascist Beer Hall Putsch comes there won’t even be beer.

Social Security privatization was presented to the electorate with a public relations and marketing flair not seen since New Coke. Intelligence collection has been given an additional bureaucracy to correct the problems created by too much bureaucracy in intelligence collection. “Homeland Security” sounds like a failed 1980s savings and loan. Didn’t Grandma lose $20,000 when Homeland Security went under? Then there’s No Child Left Behind. What if the child deserves to be left behind? What if the child deserves a smack on the behind? We have a national testing program to test whether kids are . . . what? Stupid? You’ve got kids. Kids are stupid.

Immigration policy will fence the border, providing economic stimulus to the Mexican ladder industry. The National Guard is stationed on the Rio Grande—U.S. troops standing between you and yard care…

I am so moved by principle and idealism, so indignantly high-minded, that I’m changing sides. At least the Democrats aren’t hypocritical about being scum. After Gerry Studds was censured for molesting an underaged congressional page, he was reelected six times. Therefore, in the mid term elections, I’m working to get Demo crats into office.

And work it is. There’s the problem of putative speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, whose very name summons images of children coming home from day care madly scratching their scalps. Then, when you see Pelosi speak, it’s impossible not to think of Lucy holding the football for Charlie Brown. I hope her campaign slogan isn’t “A New Kick-Off for America.”

There is also the problem of issues for the Democrats to run on. You’re going to elect Democrats to control government spending? And you’re going to marry Angelina Jolie for her brains. The privacy issue—government spying on U.S. citizens—isn’t going to work. True, NSA has been collecting all our telephone information, but anyone who’s answered the phone during dinner knows that every telemarketer on earth has that information already. Illegal immigration? When the Democrats were in charge, the illegal immigrants were from al Qaeda. And as for Iraq, the best the Democrats have been able to do is make the high school sex promise: “I’ll pull out in time, honest.”

Read the whole thing.

The Anchoress notes that Harry Reid isn’t getting the same kind of attention that Mark Foley got, and concludes that for some reason, in the eyes of the mainstream media, not every political scandal is equally worthy of attention.

Honestly. Let’s be truthful, here. If Sandy Berger (D – PaperSox) worked for anyone with an R after his name, and destroyed documents spirited out of the National Archives via his pants…do you really think the press would have immediately yawned and put that story to bed?

There are many good people working in the mainstream media. But let’s not kid ourselves that we have a free and unencumbered press in this country. The press is not free and they are very encumbered…and they have sadly caged themselves by choice.

David Zucker, producer of Scary Movie 4, turned out this little bombshell for GOP use in the final days running up to the 2006 election.

All those big brains who have brought Republican prospects to their current point of success thought Mr. Zucker’s ad was “too extreme,” “way over the top.”

So he just gave it to Matt Drudge.

video

One key way in which this blog differs from the typical conservative blog is a reflection of the management’s point of view on MSM-cum-blogospheric feeding frenzies. They are public exercises in stupidity, which, at some point in the proceedings, I would really prefer simply to ignore.

There is good reason to suspect that the Foleygate brouhaha really amounts to a pre-election touchdown play by a very skilled democrat dirty tricks team, enabled by some behind-the-scenes coaching by radical Gay activists. Gateway Pundit is providing a program identifying some of the principals.

It’s looking ugly right now. The democrats made this Republican Congress look stupid, incompetent, corrupt, and undeserving of its House and Senate majorities, most of which is not really all that much of a feat. But you do have to admire the enemy’s skill and organization.

I could almost entertain the idea that it might be better to turn over the job of wiping out Islamic terrorists to the more competent, more perceptive, and far more ruthless party. But unfortunately, as we all know, democrat competence, clear-sightedness, and ruthlessness stops at the water’s edge. Too much of that party’s base is made up of thoroughly committed enemies of America, from Beverly Hills to Beijing, for there to be any possibility on its part of effectiveness at managing a war. Après Charlie Rangel, it will be le deluge.

What consoles me, as the conniving and slippery dems hand Denny Hastert his head, is the reflection that I’ve seen all this before.

When I was in college, back during the Consulate of Plancus, I was active in many political organizations. One of my personal favorites was an absurd activity called the Connecticut Intercollegiate State Legislature (CISL, pronounced “Cecil”). This organization had student delegations from most colleges and universities all over the state, and its entire raison d’être consisted of organizing and arranging a one day mock legislative session in the actual house and senate chambers in the State Capitol in Hartford. CISL’s real function was social. In the days before coeducation, the opportunity for students from for male-only schools, like Yale, to meet girls was invaluable.

Yale obviously had a edge with respect to talent and leadership, and the Yale CISL Delegation had a long and illustrious tradition of domination through pure Machiavellianism. Since CISL was intrinsically meaningless, ideology was irrelevant. It was simply a matter of Yale contra Mundum.

Although conservatives from my own extreme right-wing student society (the Party of the Right) ran the Yale CISL Delegation up until the mid-1960s, conservatives at that point (distracted by their own internal conflicts between libertarians and traditionalists) cheerfully turned CISL over to the liberals. Yale liberals did a fine job of running CISL. In essence, the manipulative, dishonest, and unprincipled way Yale always ran CISL really accorded better with the standard liberal political métier.

Eventually, though, Yale’s evil ways caught up with us. After a few decades of absolute domination by wily and unprincipled Yale delegations, the whole organization wised up. Everyone knew Yale was crooked, and most other schools had memorized the Yale playbook. Everyone was doing double-dealing and dirty tricks, and the entire rest of the organization was united en bloc, determined to end Yale’s tyranny.

It was a sticky situation, I can tell you, and I had a tough time retrieving Yale’s fortunes, faced with such a newly competent and thoroughly-united alliance of adversaries, but all that is of small interest now.

The point of all this is the simple observation that, if even clueless and provincial rubes from bad state schools can eventually catch on to the razzle-dazzle tactics of their betters, there may be hope for even Congressional Republicans. Nothing goes on forever. Eventually those underdogs you’ve been trampling into the mud will get tired of being walked over (despite being in the majority). Even people like Bill Frist and Denny Hastert get tired of big, bad democrats swaggering over, and kicking sand in their faces. One fine day, the Republicans are going to mail away for that Charles Atlas brochure, and start studying the democrat playbook.

What you do right now, just for instance, is a two-direction maneuver. You kill the news meme, by doing something important overseas: invade Waziristan and catch Osama, declare war on another outlaw country, or just blow up an aspirin plant in Somalia. Meanwhile, you make the democrats pay by taking the anti-Gay momentum of Foleygate, and running with it. How about investigating Barney Frank? Time to introduce a few measures, like the Defense of Marriage Amendment, which will make them sorry they started all this.

Former Congressman (as she preferred to be titled) Helen Chenoweth-Hage died today in a one-car crash near Tonopah, Nev., 172 miles northwest of Las Vegas. She was 68.

Helen Chenoweth-Hage was born in Topeka, Kansas, grew up in Grant’s Pass, Oregon, and attended Whitworth College in Spokane, Washington. She married Nick Chenoweth of Orofino, Idaho in 1958. They had two children, and divorced in 1975. From 1975-1977, she was Executive Director of the Republican Party in Idaho. She was subsequently chief of staff and campaign manager for Steve Symms.

In 1994, she ran for Congress for the Idaho First District, pledging to occupy the office for no more than three terms. She defeated a two-term incumbent in a colorful campaign which saw Chenoweth hosting “endangered salmon bakes.”

She was an arch libertarian, and ranked as one of the most conservative members of Congress. I remember her with affection.

She was a defender of militia movements, and frequently attacked over-militarization of federal law enforcement. One can perceive just how sound she was by reading this commie attack piece identifying her as a “Poster Child of the Militia.”

She was a severe critic of William Jefferson Clinton, and was one of the first to call for his resignation. In return, her own private life was attacked by a sleazy Pacific Northwest leftist in a shameful hit piece in Salon.

In 1997, she introduced H. J. Res 83 in the 103rd Congress, a new version of the famous Bricker Bill attempting to place restrictions on treaties and executive agreements entered into by the United States. Unfortunately, that Congress neglected to pass this highly desirable measure.

Faithful to her word, despite being re-elected by comfortable margins, Helen Chenoweth declined to run for Congress again after her third term.

In today’s automobile accident, Helen Chenoweth-Hage was a passenger in the car driven by her daughter-in-law, and was holding her infant grandson in her lap. She was thrown from the car, but succeeded in protecting the infant while suffering fatal injuries herself.

Clarice Feldman, at American Thinker, identifies some interesting background to the recent Rep. Mark Foley improper emails story.

1) The same emails were given to the St. Petersburg Times last November. The paper did not run a story.

2) The Foley story was hinted at Monday 9/18 on a new, and highly inactive, blog purportedly created 7/28 to Stop Sex Predators. Its management is unidentified, and in six weeks of previous operation it had produced 7 posts, all minor research papers on ancient history.

This blog dropped the bomb on Congressman Foley last Sunday, publishing 4 emails evidencing suspicious interest in, and overly-cordial expressions of good will towards, a 16 year old page.

3) On Thursday, 9/28, an ABC news blog took up the story, noting that Rep. Foley’s democrat opponent Tim Mahoney was calling for an investigation. The same day, another party contacted ABC with more explicit emails. Foley resigned 9/29.

4) Brian Ross, an ABC reporter with an interesting record of leftish partisanship (early source for Rush Limbaugh arrest, Russell Tines leak), took up the Foley story armed with some new IM correspondence.

5) CREW (Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington), a Soros-funded leftwing political litigation group, has jumped on board, calling for the appointment of a special counsel to investigate the House Republican Leadership in connection with the Foley scandal.

Clarice Feldman thus demonstrates that the demise of Rep. Foley is no accident. The whole thing is another cleverly conceived, professionally-executed partisan operation, aimed at gaining at least one House seat, and damaging House Republicans as much as possible, on the basis of a planted story scheduled to break just weeks before the November elections.

Winchester Model 1897 trench gun

The Bush Administration has been widely criticized for the allegedly unprecedented policy of interpreting the definitions of portions of the Geneva Conventions. And Senators McCain, Graham, and Warner recently waged a very public battle in the Senate specifically to ensure “that there be no attempt to redefine U.S. obligations.”

Bush Administration opponents are mistaken. There is a very prominent case of the United States refusing to accept the definition of treaty terms used by the enemy, and openly defying world opinion.

In WWI, the US military issued Winchester Model 1897 slide-action shotguns to US troops, along with buckshot-loaded cartridges. Each 12 gauge round contained nine size 00 buckshot. The shotguns featured a bayonet lug, and a perforated metal cover to protect the hand from the barrel becoming over-heated by rapid fire.

The shotguns were found to be desirable weapons, very useful for clearing trenches and in close combat. They were particularly popular with the Marines, who put them to conspicuously good use in Belleau Wood.

Germany, in 1918, protested US use of shotguns firing multiple projectile buckshot ammunition as a violation of Section II of the 1907 Hague Convention (the Geneva Convention’s predecessor treaty), which forbade belligerents to employ arms, projectiles, or material calculated to cause unnecessary suffering.

But, as W. Hays Parks, Special Assistant for Law of War Matters, Office of The Judge Advocate General, U.S. Army, notes in a 1997 paper, DA-PAM 27-50-299, the United States interpreted the Hague Treaty differently, rejecting the German protest.

The highly-effective use of the shotgun by United States forces had a telling effect on the morale of front-line German troops. On 19 September 1918, the German government issued a diplomatic protest against the American use of shotguns, alleging that the shotgun was prohibited by the law of war.

After careful consideration and review of the applicable law by The Judge Advocate General of the Army, Secretary of State Robert Lansing rejected the German protest in a formal note.

Threats to punish captured American soldiers found armed with shotguns met the stern US warning that any unjustified measures taken against US prisoners of war would be retaliated in equal measure upon captured Germans.

The reality is that international agreements of this kind invariably include substantial quantities of broad and unspecific statement, inevitably requiring interpretation. Someone has to decide whether 00 buckshot constitutes the kind of projectile “calculated to cause unnecessary suffering.” Someone has to decide today whether keeping someone in a cold room, or subjecting someone to “water-boarding,” constitutes torture.

What is remarkable is that, in the old days, Germany would argue for definitions which were in Germany’s interest, and United States officials would argue for interpretations which were in the interest of the United States. Today, our leading media outlets, a substantial portion of the body of active participants in policy debate, the former Secretary of State, and even three prominent Republican senators are found shouting their heads off in the public square, demanding that the United States adopt interpretations as inconvenient to US interests as possible.

Some of us find all this more than a little grotesque.

As the GOP faces losing the House (and conceivably also the Senate) two months from now in November, Newt Gingrich, the architect of the Contract With America, which won Republican control of Congress in 1994 for the first time in 40 years, thinks Republicans can win, if they will just run on the issues the American people want addressed.

Newt’s points:

(1) Make English the Official Language of Government. The House should pass a bill making English the official language of government, abolishing multilingual ballots and reaffirming that new citizens should be required to pass a test on American history in English. The Rasmussen poll reported that support for English as the official language was 85%. The Zogby poll had it at 84%. Why do Republican leaders find it so hard to side with more than four out of every five Americans? How many liberal Democrats who currently assume they are unbeatable would suddenly have a hard time explaining a series of votes against English to their constituents? Remember, at 85%, there are no anti-English congressional districts no matter what the elite media says.

(2) Control the Borders. The House should pass a narrowly focused bill to ensure that the United States can control the border. The current Senate bill is a disaster. It is impossible to pass a “comprehensive” immigration bill in the next two months. The American people overwhelmingly want the borders controlled and every act of terrorism reminds us that having the borders uncontrolled makes us more vulnerable to attack. The House should immediately pass a border-control bill and conservative Republican senators should move every day to bring it up in the Senate. Let Democrats and elitist Republicans block controlling the border and make that a referendum test for Election Day.

(3) Keep God in the Pledge. Congress should take two steps to preserve the right to say “one nation under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance, a right which is supported by 91% of all Americans. The American people feel deeply that our Declaration of Independence is correct in saying that each of us is endowed by our Creator with inalienable rights. Beginning with the Supreme Court’s 1963 decision outlawing school prayer, the courts have waged a 43-year assault on the core values of American liberty. It is time to return to a balanced Constitutional system. There is no Constitutional case for five lawyers’ on the court being a floating majority for a permanent Constitutional Convention.

The American people would rally to the elected branches’ taking steps to rebalance the Constitution. First, the House should pass a bill suspending the recent federal district court decision in California outlawing the words “one nation under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance. Second, the House should pass a law blocking the Supreme Court from reviewing the constitutionality of the Pledge of Allegiance (a power of the Congress expressly granted in the Constitution).

(4) Require a Voter ID Card. The American people overwhelmingly support (85% in one poll) having a voter id card so we can be sure only legal citizens are voting. Passing a bill to require this in all federal elections would be a big step toward more honest elections.

(5) Repeal the Death Tax, for Good. The American people have consistently supported the total repeal of the death tax and the House should simply pass it once a week and attach it to various Senate bills to force the Senate to deal with it again and again. Let liberals explain why they oppose something that more than 70% of the country favors.

(6) Restore Property Rights. The American people are deeply opposed to local politicians’ being able to seize a citizen’s home or business. The Supreme Court’s Kelo decision on eminent domain is one of the most unpopular in recent years and is also one of the most dangerous. Anyone who knows the history of local government corruption in America knows it will not be long before some corrupt developers engage some corrupt politicians and this power is exploited at the cost of most Americans. Members of the Black Caucus have been among the most vocal in pointing out that it is poor people who will be the most victimized so rich developers and greedy politicians can make the money off their homes and businesses. The House should pass a powerful bill returning the constitutional law to the pre-Kelo rules and blocking the Supreme Court from reviewing it.

(7) Achieve Sustainable Energy Independence. The country is eager for a straightforward new energy strategy for national security, environmental and economic reasons. The combination of $3 gasoline, watching Iran, Venezuela, Saudi Arabia and Russia get more of our money, and concerns about the environment come together to require real change. The House should meet that need. Starting with Rep. Jim Nussle’s (R-Iowa) bill on renewable fuels, adding to it clean nuclear power using new technologies that are safe and produce little waste, developing more clean coal solutions, investing in a conversion to a hydrogen economy, incentivizing conservation, providing tax credits so the auto industry can invest in the new technology and new manufacturing equipment needed to produce revolutionary new vehicles, creating the tax incentives to build the distribution system for biofuels, hybrids, and hydrogen, providing deeper tax incentives for radically better cars (imagine a substantial tax credit for cars exceeding 200 miles to the gallon of petroleum through a combination of E-85 or biodiesel, hybrid use of electricity and hydrogen), and a bill to create state flexibility in exploring off shore with a 50% split in revenue so state legislatures and governors would have an incentive to develop environmentally sound methods of exploration and production.

(8) Control Spending and Balance the Budget. The House should pass new budget legislation to control spending, leading to a balanced budget in seven years (the length of time we gave ourselves in the Contract with America and which led to the first four balanced budgets since the 1920s), with special focus on programs liberals will fight to increase spending. Let the country see who is really committed to smaller government with lower taxes and who is committed to bigger government with higher taxes.

(9) Tie Education Funding to Teacher Accountability. A major result of the No Child Left Behind legislation has been the clear revelation that a number of schools systems are crippling and destroying children. When the Detroit school system only graduates 21% of entering freshman on time, it is clear the children are being cheated. The American people strongly support reforms designed to save the children. The first step would be to insist that federal funds only go to school systems which require teacher competency and accountability. A clear choice between those who want to save the children and those who want to save the bureaucrats would mobilize the country in favor of dramatic education reform.

(10) Defend America From the Irreconcilable Wing of Islam. Terrorism is a real threat. Congress should hold hearings on the recent terrorist activities in Canada, the U.K. and Morocco. The House should move bills that strengthen our security from terrorists with increased powers for surveillance, an overruling of the disastrous Hamdan decision and a series of other steps.

(11) Focus on Iran and North Korea. The American people are very prepared to believe we face extraordinary threats from a nuclear North Korea and an Iranian regime actively seeking to develop nuclear weapons. Any actions in Iraq need to be recast in terms of their impact on Iran. A weak America in Iraq will be unable to stop Iran. Stopping Iran is potentially literally a matter of life and death. Congress should hold hearings on the scale of the Iranian and North Korean threat, the statements of their key leaders and the requirements for action to replace these dictatorships before they succeed in killing millions of Americans. The Santorum Iranian democracy bill should be forced out of the Senate in the context of these threats. Everything about Iraq should be debated within this larger and much more dangerous context.

The first three are gestures in the direction of the part of the Right that I don’t belong to, but none of them represent a price I, and my kind of Republicans, would be unwilling to pay to keep the coalition together.

Newt’s list may not be genius, but it is kind of close. He has managed to identify a package of issues which have serious voter appeal, and which would put the democrats right back on the defensive. If Congressional Republicans had any brains (a highly dubious proposition, judging by their performance recently), they would announce that they are embracing this 11 Point Plan from the Capitol steps tomorrow morning.

Paul Bedard, in US News, reports that the results of a Republican National Committee survey indicate that Republican voters are every bit as mobilized as the moonbat left.

81% of Republicans say they are “almost certain” to vote this coming November, and another 14% say they are “very likely” to vote.

93% of Republicans have “extremely strong feelings” on issues related to the War on Terror.

96% of Republians have “extremely strong feelings” on domestic issues including taxes, cultural values, and health care issues.

Republicans support President Bush by an 88-11 margin. And, faced with the democrat alternative, Republican voters support even this Republican Congress by an 84-6 margin.

A college classmate this morning sent me a link to Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne’s somewhat premature attempt at dancing on American Conservatism’s grave.

Dionne is not entirely wrong, of course. He notes correctly that George W. Bush never was a real conservative in the Goldwater, Reagan, or Gingrich sense. But, personally, I wouldn’t waste my time constructing elaborate theories about Hamiltonian “big-government conservatism,” or using “government as a means to achieve conservative ends.” It’s really much simpler than that. George W. Bush is simply an old-fashioned garden variety practical politician (what we used to call an Eisenhower Republican), bringing to his Presidency his family’s traditional flexibility in governing, flavored with just enough red-state populism and Republican impulses to secure the GOP base’s support.

The American left has remained mobilized and afflicted with a paranoid sense of wrong ever since their favorite son’s sexual scandals metastasized into perjury and impeachment. Disappointment with the outcome of the 2000 election and US military actions following 9/11 have continued to keep the left as angry and active as a nest of red ants thoroughly poked with a stick. The larger part of George W. Bush’s perceived conservatism really amounts to mere reciprocated animosity.

Dionne is not inaccurate in describing this Congress.

The most obvious, outrageous and unprincipled spasm occurred last night when the Senate voted on a bill that would have simultaneously raised the minimum wage and slashed taxes on inherited wealth.

Rarely has our system produced a more naked exercise in opportunism than this measure. Most conservatives oppose the minimum wage on principle as a form of government meddling in the marketplace. But moderate Republicans in jeopardy this fall desperately wanted an increase in the minimum wage.

The Republican Senatorial majority unfortunately includes a number of liberal Republican-in-name-only senators, and has been effectively paralysed by joys-of-incumbency induced timidity and the democrats’ willingness to abuse the filibuster.

Dionne contends that the repeal of the death tax failed “because there is nothing close to a conservative majority in the United States.” Rubbish! There certainly is a majority in this country in favor of not taxing away a family’s assets simply because someone has died.

Poll after poll proves it.

a 1999 poll by Worthlin Worldwide found 70 percent of voters favoring a phase-out of the estate tax.—A 2000 poll by the Pew Research Center found 71 percent of voters supporting elimination of the inheritance tax.—A 2001 CBS News/New York Times poll also found 71 percent of people opposing imposition of an estate tax at death.

Dionne would like to believe that libertarian versus traditionalist divisions are in the process of splitting the right on issues like immigration and stem cell research. Sorry, Mr. Dionne. It’s true that I disagree strongly with Michelle Malkin and Victor Davis Hanson about immigration, but our differences do not materially diminish my admiration and respect for those two traditionalists, nor are they likely to persuade Michelle, Victor, or myself to start voting for democrats. I don’t have a problem with stem cell research myself (being irreligious), but I believe President Bush was quite right to veto spending the tax dollars of religious people funding things they find morally repugnant. Let’s just finance this kind of research privately. There’s no shortage of rich atheists or leftists.

Dionne is off-base looking for a conservative split over religious issues these days. I’ve had plenty of differences within the Conservative Movement with religious traditionalists in days gone by, but there is no particular Religious Right agenda we libertarians have a major problem with today. I do have problems with organs of the left, like the ACLU, waging intolerant campaigns to eradicate any form of private religious expression in the public space, eliminating religious symbols, or persecuting the Boy Scouts for political incorrectness. In short, I expect most of us making up what Dionne calls the “big-business right and culturally optimistic conservatives” are likely to continue to vote with the ordinary hometown Americans rather than with the coastal community of fashion indefinitely on into the misty future.

He’s right in saying this Congress is a disaster, and many of its members deserve to be defeated. I’ve said the same thing repeatedly myself. But what will lose in November will not be conservative principles, but the exact opposite. The losers will be the unprincipled, the compromisers and trimmers, and the opportunists.

The Conservative Movement, Mr. Dionne, has experienced setbacks and electoral defeats before. Those of us who lived through the Goldwater campaign of 1964 are not especially perturbed by the prospect of this coming November. We will be back.
——————————-
Hat tip to Steve Wagenseil.

Karl Rove, in a NH interview quoted by Raw Story, opines that the rise of the Blogoshpere has proven a much more useful and positive development for Republicans than it has for democrats.

I do also think that the Internet has proven to be a more powerful tool on our side than it has been for the other side. It has proven to be a tool on our side to sort of unite Conservatives and have a healthy intra-movement dialogue. But it’s essentially been something that has helped us gain in influence and broaden our appeal. Among Democrats, my sense is that the blog world has tended to strengthen the far Left of the Democratic Party at the expense of liberal, but somewhat less liberal, members of their party. It has tended to sort of drive their party even further to the Left rather than focusing on good ideas that would help unite people around common goals and common purposes. Instead, the Internet for the Left of the Democratic Party has served as a way to mobilize hate and anger — hate and anger, first and foremost, at this President and Conservatives, but then also at people within their own party whom they consider to be less than completely loyal to this very narrow, very out-of-the-mainstream, very far Left-wing ideology that they tend to represent.

The Wall Street Journal put the debate on the Death Tax (which costs more to collect than it adds to the Federal coffers).

Americans favor repealing the death tax not because they think it will help them directly. They’re more principled than that. Two-thirds of the public wants to repeal it because they think taxing a lifetime of thrift due to the accident of death is unfair, and even immoral. They also understand that the really rich won’t pay the tax anyway because they hire lawyers to avoid it.

For proof that they’re right, they need only watch the current debate. The superrich or their kin—such as Bill Gates Sr. and Warren Buffett—are some of the loudest voices opposing repeal. Yet they are able to shelter their own vast wealth by creating foundations or via other crafty estate planning. Edward McCaffery, an estate tax expert at USC Law School, argues that “if breaking up large concentrations of wealth is the intention of the death tax, then it is a miserable failure.”

Do the Kennedys or Rockefellers look any poorer from the existence of a tax first created in 1917? The real people who pay the levy are the thrifty middle class and entrepreneurs who’ve built up a modest nest egg or business and are hit by a 46% tax rate when they die. Americans want family businesses, ranches, farms and other assets to be passed from one generation to the next. Yet the U.S. has one of the highest death tax rates in the world.

But two Republican poltroons in the Senate joined the Party of Envy to defeat the repeal 57-41. A 60 vote majority was needed to end a democrat filibuster against basic decency.

Besides Mr. Baucus (D – Montana), three other Democrats voted to end debate and clear the way for a vote on repeal. They were Senator Ben E. Nelson of Nebraska, Senator Bill Nelson of Florida and Senator Blanche L. Lincoln of Arkansas. Two Republicans, Senator George V. Voinovich of Ohio and Senator Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island, voted to block the bill.

A young woman was about to finish her first year of college. Like so many others her age, she considered herself to be a very liberal Democrat, and was very much in favor of the redistribution of wealth.

She was deeply ashamed that her father was a rather staunch Republican, a feeling she openly expressed. Based on the lectures that she had participated in, and the occasional chat with a professor, she felt that her father had for years harbored an evil, selfish desire to keep what he thought should be his.

One day she was challenging her father on his opposition to higher taxes on the rich and the addition of more government welfare programs. The self-professed objectivity proclaimed by her professors had to be the truth and she indicated so to her father. He responded by asking how she was doing in school. Taken aback, she answered rather haughtily that she had a 4.0 GPA, and let him know that it was tough to maintain, insisting that she was! taking a very difficult course load and was constantly studying, which left her no time to go out and party like other people she knew. She didn’t even have time for a boyfriend, and didn’t really have many college friends because she spent all her time studying.

Her father listened and then asked, “How is your friend Audrey doing?” She replied, “Audrey is barely getting by. All she takes are easy classes, she never studies, and she barely has a 2.0 GPA. She is so popular on campus, college for her is a blast. She’s always invited to all the parties, and lots of times she doesn’t even show up for classes because she’s too hung over.”

Her wise father asked his daughter, “Why don’t you go to the Dean’s office and ask him to deduct a 1.0 off your GPA and give it to your friend who only has a 2.0. That way you will both have a 3.0 GPA and certainly that would be a fair and equal distribution of GPA.”

The daughter, visibly shocked by her father’s suggestion, angrily fired back, “That wouldn’t be fair! I have worked really hard for my grades! I’ve invested a lot of time, and a lot of hard work! Audrey has done next to nothing toward her degree. She played while I worked my tail off!” The father slowly smiled, winked and said gently, “Welcome to the Republican Party.”