I was up quite late last evening... like after 0200 hrs... watching all the dreck. And I'm still watching it, as we speak. Some random observations:
Obama's remarks this morning: He's still not acknowledging his agenda is out of touch with the mainstream. Nope: Americans are just "frustrated." He made some appropriately conciliatory "let's work together" statements towards Republicans, but what else COULD he say? He also acknowledged concern about the deficit and that's a Good Thing, but will he change (sorry)? I doubt it. Good words about continuing a moratorium on earmarks, too. It's the same ol', same ol' re: health care... there's a BIG war brewing here. Same ol', same ol' on taxes, too. He seemed to back off on Cap'n'Trade but was wishy-washy on EPA regulation of greenhouse gasses and other "energy" areas... Obama still buys into the whole AGW piece o' crap. Not a frickin' word... not ONE... on foreign policy. I found that amazing. The Q&A was interesting; overall I'd give him a "C," his performance was decidedly average. I didn't really expect more than he delivered.
Taking the House is a GREAT Good Thing; I think we can say Good Riddance to another round of "stimulus;" anything else is up in the air until we hear from the new Speaker. I'm thinkin' it'll be two years of gridlock and that ain't a bad thing (which is not a new or unique observation).
I HATE the fact that I have to look at Boxer and Reid for another six years. This was last night's worst outcome.
Watching the Lame Duck session in the House will be MOST interesting. People with nothing left to lose do strange, strange things. Thank The Deity At Hand for the filibuster in the Senate.
Teevee coverage: I give CNN the nod for best coverage, surprisingly. Their analysis was more in depth and their graphics presentation was world-class. Wolf Blitzer is STILL an asshat and so is Anderson Cooper and Donna Brazile (among others), but overall? Their coverage was better than anyone else's, FNC included, and MOST especially after 0300 hrs EDT... Fox's B-Team was horrid. MS-NBC was good for a few laughs but interesting only to serious moonbats. I prolly watched about 15 minutes (at the most) of MS-NBC. One can only take so much of Olby, Matthews, and the oh-so-precious Maddow.
Enough of this crap.
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Today's Teh Stoopid, from an Amazon marketing e-mail:
Yeah... I wanna be a Facebook fan of a frickin' machine. Right.
SN1 sends the following along... asking if we notice the typo:
In response to why America trusts the military…
Ed O'Malley
A former state legislator and gubernatorial aide, Ed O’Malley is President and CEO of the Kansas Leadership Center, a first-of-its-kind training center charged with fostering large-scale civic leadership for healthier communities. He tweets at eomalley.
The leader next door
Confidence in the military comes easily because our soldiers care about something larger than themselves. Their work is not about profit, but duty and freedom; not about popularity (as is the case with media ratings, consumer rankings and political polls), but about the honor and security of America.
Cynicism about those in government, business and the media runs rampant, while Americans continue to hear heroic stories about military men and women, doing the work few in government, business and the media have done or likely would do.
In addition, perhaps we trust the military more because it delivers on its broad promise to the American people. We ask the military to keep us safe, and they deliver. We ask government to solve tough issues like lax regulation of Wall Street and government dithers. We ask media to shoot straight and then media bias, on all sides, is so evident. We ask big business to steward the economic promise of America and then find ourselves bailing out billionaires.
We trust military leadership because we know the military. My dad was a Marine, and my granddaddy was in the Air Force. My colleague's daughter serves on the USS Truman. Our recent widow-repair man served in Iraq. A friend flew refueling tankers over Afghanistan. I don't know any Wall Street billionaires, and that is fine with me. I'll take the leadership lessons from a soldier, sailor, air man or Marine any day.
***
As I told SN1... well, there could be such a thing (but I sincerely doubt it).This just serves to illustrate the perils of spell-check... sometimes that squiggly red underline goes missing, eh? Still and even, Mr. O'Malley's point has the ring of truth and is VERY well taken.
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So. We're just now finishing our second cup after answering the overnight mail and such. We've yet to turn on our teevee, make the Daily Blog-Rounds, or even steal a look at memeorandum. Part of the reason I was up all night was the news coverage of the elections... and it appears to have been a great night for Republicans. I'm not all that adept at reading political tea leaves, but my initial reaction is "no big deal." The GOP, of course, is saying they're resurgent and the elections represent a referendum on The One and his policies. I don't quite see how state governors and such have anything to do with Mr. Obama and his policies, especially in New Jersey where God hissownself would have been defeated had he run as a Democrat. Too much party corruption there, for way too long. Still and even, I hope the GOP pols are correct and the public rejected Democratic candidates simply because they were Democrats. But I kinda doubt it.
The word “libertarian” isn’t well known, so pollsters don’t find many people claiming to be libertarian. And usually they don’t ask. But a large portion of Americans hold generally libertarian views — views that might be described as fiscally conservative and socially liberal, or as Gov. William Weld told the 1992 Republican National Convention, “I want the government out of your pocketbook and out of your bedroom.” They don’t fit the red-blue paradigm, and they have their doubts about both conservative Republicans and liberal Democrats. They’re potentially a swing vote in elections. Background on the libertarian vote here.
And note here: If you tell people that “libertarian” means “fiscally conservative and socially liberal,” 44 percent will accept the label.
From my Blogger profile, first published in 2005:
Politically moderate, I'm conservative on foreign policy and national defense issues (surprise!) and liberal on social issues. I've voted Republican since 1980 but if the Libertarian party were viable I'd support them.
It looks like I'm more mainstream than I thought… but not in the Republican Party. And nothing brings this more to the fore in my feeble lil mind than the current brouhaha concerning the self-destructing GOP that is unfolding in Upstate New York… I'm speaking specifically of the special election in NY-23 for the US House. That election is garnering a LOT of attention among those who follow politics closely. Let's quote The Other McCain, writing in The American Spectator:
In the past six days, Hoffman has been endorsed by former House Majority Leader Dick Armey, former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, Sen. Jim DeMint, Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, former National Republican Congressional Campaign chairmen John Linder and Tom Cole…
The complete list of Hoffman endorsers is a long one, and seems to include nearly every Republican except Newt Gingrich and Dede Scozzafava, the later (sic) of whom is Hoffman's opponent, and the former her only prominent supporter. According to the two most recent polls, the liberal Republican Scozzafava is now in third place, while Hoffman has pulled ahead of Democrat Bill Owens.
It's fairly unusual for an off-cycle special election to attract this much attention, let alone candidate endorsements from Party luminaries like Palin, Pawlenty, and Gingrich, et al. But if you (a) haven't been paying attention to this issue and (b) followed the link to The Fix above (which is highly recommended), you'll note the NY-23 election amounts to a serious litmus test of conservative bona fides. It's also quite troubling. Here's an excerpt from Ben Smith's blog at The Politico, where he quotes Gingrich (appearing on Fox News):
GINGRICH: Well, I just find it fascinating that my many friends who claim to be against Washington having too much power, they claim to be in favor of the 10th Amendment giving states back their rights, they claim to favor local control and local authority, now they suddenly get local control and local authority in upstate New York, they don't like the outcome.
There were four Republican meetings. In all four meetings, State Representative Dede Scozzafava came in first. In all four meetings, Mr. Hoffman, the independent, came in either last or certainly not in the top three. He doesn't live in the district. Dede Scozzafava...
VAN SUSTEREN: He doesn't live in the district?
GINGRICH: No, he lives outside of the district. Dede Scozzafava is endorsed by the National Rifle Association for her 2nd Amendment position, has signed the no tax increase pledge, voted against the Democratic governor's big-spending budget, is against the cap-and-trade tax increase on energy, is against the Obama health plan, and will vote for John Boehner, rather than Nancy Pelosi, to be Speaker.
Now, that's adequately conservative in an upstate New York district. And on other issues, she's about where the former Republican, McHugh, was. So I say to my many conservative friends who suddenly decided that whether they're from Minnesota or Alaska or Texas, they know more than the upstate New York Republicans? I don't think so. And I don't think it's a good precedent. And I think if this third party candidate takes away just enough votes to elect the Democrat, then we will have strengthened Nancy Pelosi by the divisiveness. We will not have strengthened the conservative movement.
VAN SUSTEREN: What is it that they have identified as why they think the independent candidate...
GINGRICH: Well, there's no question, on social policy, she's a liberal Republican.
VAN SUSTEREN: On such as abortion?
GINGRICH: On such as abortion, gay marriage, which means that she's about where Rudy Giuliani was when he became mayor. And yet Rudy Giuliani was a great mayor. And so this idea that we're suddenly going to establish litmus tests, and all across the country, we're going to purge the party of anybody who doesn't agree with us 100 percent -- that guarantees Obama's reelection. That guarantees Pelosi is Speaker for life. I mean, I think that is a very destructive model for the Republican Party.
(Bold emphasis by Smith) I chose Smith's blog for the quote above because the comments thread is VERY interesting for us political junkies. And I happen to agree with Gingrich… what's happening in NY-23 sets a dangerous precedent… which is to say an opening for knee-jerk Third Party candidacies whenever and wherever a significant minority of conservatives disagrees with the mainstream GOP. As Newt says: this sort of fragmentation almost guarantees The One's reelection. Newt and I also seem to be in the minority on this issue, as well. I'm not that much of a political junkie to claim I know what's going on in NY-23 but I know enough to see things don't look good for us Libertarian-type conservatives… and the GOP, as a whole. Shorter: What are we doing in this handbasket? And where are we going, anyway?
(Just as an aside: if you read blog-bud Morgan regularly you know that he and I have been sparring on this exact issue since last year's Republican primaries and well before. It all began when he backed Fred Thompson and I supported Giuliani; the discussion has continued full-tilt boogie since he's become a serious Palinista. Which I'm not. See "libertarian," above.)
A lot of folks… me included… typically respond with “Who gives a shit?” when Euro-Weenies opine on American politics. But there ARE exceptions to the “Who gives a shit?” rule, especially when it comes to the Brits. It’s that “special relationship” in play, in large part, and the fact that the Brits tend to look at America and see the best in us, rather than the worst (other Europeans do, too, although they’re in the minority on “the continent”). One such exception appears in today’s Daily Mail, under the heading of “The night we waved goodbye to America… our last best hope on earth.” Excerpts:
Anyone would think we had just elected a hip, skinny and youthful replacement for God, with a plan to modernise Heaven and Hell – or that at the very least John Lennon had come back from the dead.
The swooning frenzy over the choice of Barack Obama as President of the United States must be one of the most absurd waves of self-deception and swirling fantasy ever to sweep through an advanced civilisation. At least Mandela-worship – its nearest equivalent – is focused on a man who actually did something.
I really don’t see how the Obama devotees can ever in future mock the Moonies, the Scientologists or people who claim to have been abducted in flying saucers. This is a cult like the one which grew up around Princess Diana, bereft of reason and hostile to facts.
It already has all the signs of such a thing. The newspapers which recorded Obama’s victory have become valuable relics. You may buy Obama picture books and Obama calendars and if there isn’t yet a children’s picture version of his story, there soon will be.
Proper books, recording his sordid associates, his cowardly voting record, his astonishingly militant commitment to unrestricted abortion and his blundering trip to Africa, are little-read and hard to find.
If you can believe that this undistinguished and conventionally Left-wing machine politician is a sort of secular saviour, then you can believe anything. He plainly doesn’t believe it himself. His cliche-stuffed, PC clunker of an acceptance speech suffered badly from nerves. It was what you would expect from someone who knew he’d promised too much and that from now on the easy bit was over.
He needn’t worry too much. From now on, the rough boys and girls of America’s Democratic Party apparatus, many recycled from Bill Clinton’s stained and crumpled entourage, will crowd round him, to collect the rich spoils of his victory and also tell him what to do, which is what he is used to.
Dang.That’s harsh. Author Peter Hitchens (Christopher Hitchens' brother, oddly enough) goes on at some length, and his op-ed is pretty much on the money, for the most part.I tend to disagree with his evaluation of The One’s acceptance speech, but NOT with his views on The One’s qualifications for office. I’m also in semi-agreement with his views on how things are likely to unfold in an Obama administration, but less so with his gloomy outlook on what this all means.Peter Hitchens delivery tends to be a little hyperbolic, but he does articulate my objections to The One fairly accurately.The op-ed is worth a read.
Let us bend over and kiss our ass goodbye. Our 28-year conservative opportunity to fix the moral and practical boundaries of government is gone--gone with the bear market and the Bear Stearns and the bear that's headed off to do you-know-what in the woods on our philosophy.
An entire generation has been born, grown up, and had families of its own since Ronald Reagan was elected. And where is the world we promised these children of the Conservative Age? Where is this land of freedom and responsibility, knowledge, opportunity, accomplishment, honor, truth, trust, and one boring hour each week spent in itchy clothes at church, synagogue, or mosque? It lies in ruins at our feet, as well it might, since we ourselves kicked the shining city upon a hill into dust and rubble. The progeny of the Reagan Revolution will live instead in the universe that revolves around Hyde Park.
[…]
It's not hard to move a voting bloc. And it should be especially easy to move voters to the right. Sensible adults are conservative in most aspects of their private lives. If this weren't so, imagine driving on I-95: The majority of drivers are drunk, stoned, making out, or watching TV, while the rest are trying to calculate the size of their carbon footprints on the backs of Whole Foods receipts while negotiating lane changes.
People are even more conservative if they have children. Nobody with kids is a liberal, except maybe one pothead in MarinCounty. Everybody wants his or her children to respect freedom, exercise responsibility, be honest, get educated, have opportunities, and own a bunch of guns. (The last is optional and includes, but is not limited to, me, my friends in New Hampshire, and Sarah Palin.)
Reagan managed to reach out to blue collar whites. But there his reach stopped, leaving many people on our side, but barely knowing it. There are enough yarmulkes among the neocons to show that Jews are not immune to conservatism. Few practicing Catholics vote Democratic anymore except in Massachusetts where they put something in the communion wafers. When it comes to a full-on, hemp-wearing, kelp-eating, mandala-tatted, fool-coifed liberal with socks in sandals, I have never met a Muslim like that or a Chinese and very few Hispanics. No U.S. immigrants from the Indian subcontinent fill that bill (the odd charlatan yogi excepted), nor do immigrants from Africa, Eastern Europe, or East Asia. And Japanese tourists may go so far as socks in sandals, but their liberal nonsense stops at the ankles.
We have all of this going for us, worldwide. And yet we chose to deliver our sermons only to the faithful or the already converted. Of course the trailer park Protestants yell "Amen." If you were handling rattlesnakes and keeping dinosaurs for pets, would you vote for the party that gets money from PETA?
In how many ways did we fail conservatism? And who can count that high? Take just one example of our unconserved tendency to poke our noses into other people's business: abortion. Democracy--be it howsoever conservative--is a manifestation of the will of the people. We may argue with the people as a man may argue with his wife, but in the end we must submit to the fact of being married. Get a pro-life friend drunk to the truth-telling stage and ask him what happens if his 14-year-old gets knocked up. What if it's rape? Some people truly have the courage of their convictions. I don't know if I'm one of them. I might kill the baby. I will kill the boy.
[…]
But are we men and women of principle? And I don't mean in the matter of tricky and private concerns like gay marriage. Civil marriage is an issue of contract law. A constitutional amendment against gay marriage? I don't get it. How about a constitutional amendment against first marriages? Now we're talking. No, I speak, once again, of the geological foundations of conservatism.
Where was the meum and the tuum in our shakedown of Washington lobbyists? It took a Democratic majority in the House of Representatives 40 years--from 1954 to 1994--to get that corrupt and arrogant. And we managed it in just 12. (Who says Republicans don't have much on the ball?)
Our attitude toward immigration has been repulsive. Are we not pro-life? Are not immigrants alive? Unfortunately, no, a lot of them aren't after attempting to cross our borders. Conservative immigration policies are as stupid as conservative attitudes are gross. Fence the border and give a huge boost to the Mexican ladder industry. Put the National Guard on the Rio Grande and know that U.S. troops are standing between you and yard care. George W. Bush, at his most beneficent, said if illegal immigrants wanted citizenship they would have to do three things: Pay taxes, learn English, and work in a meaningful job. Bush doesn't meet two out of three of those qualifications. And where would you rather eat? At a Vietnamese restaurant? Or in the Ayn Rand Café? Hey, waiter, are the burgers any good? Atlas shrugged. (We would, however, be able to have a smoke at the latter establishment.)
Those are lengthy excerpts from an article that is long, and I’ve barely scratched the surface.Yes, the article is long, but more importantly… it’s GOOD.I don’t believe I’ve read a more perceptive (and humorous) catalog of conservative failings… ever.There’s more than one reason I claim P.J. as one of my favorite authors… not the least of which is his sense of humor… but I love him primarily because of his sensibilities and his uncanny ability to put his finger directly on the pulse of sensible conservatives. “Sensible conservatives,” of course, is defined at El Casa Móvil De Pennington as me and those who think like me.My tongue isn’t completely in my cheek as I write this, ya know. I've been having friendly discussions (heh) with other, more strident conservatives in this space throughout the election season. To no avail, mostly.
I know a lot of folks who visit EIP don’t chase all the links I post. We all have limits on our time… understood. But if you read anything I link at all, then please read this. Especially if you claim to be a conservative… and even if you’re not (Lori!). You may disagree with O’Rourke in the end, but I’ll wager he’ll give you a LOT to think about.
Brevity is the soul of wit Saturday… since it’s Football Day and I’m otherwise occupied. But here are a few items for my politically-minded readers (both of ya!) that you’ve probably already read. First… the inimitable Charles Krauthammer with “The Campaign Autopsy” (via memeorandum and Real Clear Politics). Excerpts:
WASHINGTON -- In my previous life, I witnessed far more difficult postmortems. This one is easy. The patient was fatally stricken on Sept. 15 -- caught in the rubble when the roof fell in (at Lehman Brothers, according to the police report) -- although he did linger until his final, rather quiet demise on Nov. 4.
In the excitement and decisiveness of Barack Obama's victory, we forget that in the first weeks of September, John McCain was actually ahead. Then Lehman collapsed, and the financial system went off a cliff.
[…]
We don't yet appreciate how unprecedented were the events of September and October. We have never had a full-fledged financial panic in the middle of a presidential campaign. Consider. If the S&P were to close at the end of the year where it did on Election Day, it will have suffered this year its steepest drop since 1937. That is 71 years.
At the same time, the economy had suffered nine consecutive months of job losses. Considering the carnage to both capital and labor (which covers just about everybody), even a Ronald Reagan could not have survived. The fact that John McCain got 46 percent of the electorate when 75 percent said the country was going in the wrong direction is quite remarkable.
Senator McCain might as well have had one of those “Born to Lose” tats on his shoulder after the financial meltdown.As Krauthammer notes, even Reagan couldn’t have pulled this one off after the financial system…not just “the market”… tanked.Mr. Krauthammer has more and it’s good stuff… as usual.
Few will claim that "big government Republicanism" — or, as Goldwater referred to it, a "Dime Store New Deal" — is the wave of the future. Conservatives know that competing for the affection of voters by leasing their souls to corrupt lobbyists has been a fool's errand. Within days will come a restatement of minimalist government principles, especially by the economic right.
This will resonate immediately as President-elect Obama has espoused the most collectivist philosophy of any presidential candidate since George McGovern in 1972. As the newspapers are filled each day with articles detailing the failures and corruption of government at every level, it will be easy to hang the Democrats with this issue.
[…]
The social right will have a more difficult time putting the genie back in the bottle after eight years of being promised that the national government could achieve what they had been working for years to achieve at the state level. Yet again, since the national levers of power are now gone, practicality will force the social conservatives to go back to basics, and win the war for the culture at the local level.
From a practical standpoint, the results of the Nov. 4 election should not be disheartening for the Right. When Obama stuck to his teleprompter, he talked about tax cuts, family values, the Second Amendment and strong national defense. Without his teleprompter, he talked about a national police force, overturning state conceal carry laws, how health care is a "right" while his supporters salivate at the prospects of censoring, smearing and criminalizing conservatism.
Unlike Republicans, the Democratic leadership of Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer and Harry Reid understand power. Liberals will move to shut down talk radio, dressed up in the nicest of language of course. Only a few days ago, Schumer equated Rush Limbaugh with pornography.
I agree with nearly all of what the IBD has to say in this space, particularly with its view on the social conservatives’ agenda.State and local gub’mint is the place to go for this sort of stuff, not the federal gub’mint.But then again I’ve always thought this way… when I think about a “social agenda” at all, which is rare, indeed. I’ve never taken the trouble to lay out my political beliefs in detail (who the Hell cares, anyway?), so I’ll just repeat what’s in my Blogger profile:“Politically moderate, I'm conservative on foreign policy and national defense issues (surprise!) and liberal on social issues.”It all comes back to that ol’ saw:“You can’t legislate morality.”You shouldn’t even try.My mini-rant aside… there’s much to like in the IBD op-ed.
President Bush will soon be heading home and for many that day cannot come soon enough. Count me among those who will miss him and his bedrock decency.
He had a rough road from day one. His first inauguration struck me as a portent. I was there, shivering in the grandstands on Pennsylvania Avenue. At the exact moment the president heard "Hail to the Chief" for the first time and was announced to the audience, a sleet storm descended from the skies.
It has never let up.
Through it all Mr. Bush kept his head up and soldiered on. He took the criticism in stride.
So… I’m still in a bit of a funk today.I’m having the hardest of hard times coming to grips with the reality of the nation’s political situation, truth be told.Here’s part of an e-mail exchange I had with SN1 earlier today:
Me:So... here I am, waiting for the coffee pot to finish its magic. Yesterday was SUCH a strange day. I was up until 0400 yesterday morning, watching all the election returns (Missouri and N. Carolina still "too close to call" as I write), and up again just after noon. When I say "strange," I mean the feeling I get whenever I see The One's smiling face and hear people refer to him as "President-elect Obama." I've even said "President Obama" out loud a couple of times and it simply doesn't work for me. At all. I'm still in something akin to a mild state of shock. In my heart I knew McCain would lose, but the reality is very hard to accept.
What's the temp like among the troops? Most of the milbloggers I read have the typical military attitude... Obama will be the CinC, and that's that. Salute smartly and move on...
SN1:As for the local mood regarding the election…you hit it spot on. Here’s an excerpt from an email I wrote the kids:
Ok...now that the initial shock has worn off...
The beauty of our country is our ability to have an election, peacefully transfer the greatest power on the planet, and press on with our lives.
We'll be ok. I don't agree with the man on a lot of things...but he'll be the president and I'll support him, because he is our nation's leader. That's what we in the military do...we follow our leaders.
So you nailed my sentiments…and those of most around here…right on. I’m having a hard time imagining him as the CinC as well…I really don’t want to retire while he’s in office…another reason to stay in…
I’ve noticed in my ramblings around the ‘net… through the (primarily military) blogosphere… that the above opinions are nearly universal, and that comes as NO surprise to me.As SN1 stated… “that’s what we in the military do… we follow our leaders.”The key point is left unsaid, of course.But, just to clarify for readers of little or no military experience, there are two salient points in play here.
First and foremost: everyone who puts on the uniform of our country swears an oath to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States” and “I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me” (there are minor differences between officer and enlisted oaths, but let us not quibble over details).I cannot over-emphasize the importance of this oath, as it ends with the words “So help me God.”You swear the oath, you make a commitment in the presence of the Deity and invoke His help.This is NO small thing.It’s the very essence of what it means to be in the military and that essence remains a part of you as long as you live.Or it should, at any rate.There are always a few outliers.
Point Two:The President of the United States isn’t the President of the Democrat/Republican/What Have You Party… he’s the President of the United States, duly and lawfully elected to that office by the people.As such, the incumbent is OUR president, and that’s no small matter, either.I could launch a huge tangential rant about how annoyed I was with the Left for failing to realize this fact over the course of the last few years, but I’m sure you know where I’m coming from, Gentle Reader.And I flat REFUSE to become the right-wing equivalent of a moonbat by saying shit like “Obama isn’t MY president.”The people have spoken, for better or worse, and we’ll have another go at this four years on.In the meantime… I suggest any malcontents out there suck it up and get with the program.Otherwise?Vote with your feet.There are airplanes departing these shores every single day.Get on one and be gone, as you obviously don’t “get” what this country is all about.I’ll end this part of the rant right here… or, ‘nuff said.
One last point… I agree with what Cassie has to say on this subject:
It remains for us now to find a way to reconcile our political differences, for despite the rhetoric of hope and change our differences are stark and will not give way to the fuzzy talk that wins votes. This will require grace and magnanimity from the victors as well as restraint and willingness to forget old grudges from the losers in this contest. We need not forebear to criticize, but we should never undermine policy once Mr. Obama takes his oath in January.
And above all, let us respect the dignity of the office of the President. He has earned it by dint of the campaign he ran, as well as by virtue of the thousands of votes cast for him. It is well that there will be no unseemly haggling over the vote counts, as happened in 2000 and 2004. This has been a long contest and with two wars going on and an economic turndown to deal with, our energies will be best directed to the conversation about the America we want to leave for our children and grandchildren.
The good news is that we all still have a voice in that America. Let's roll our sleeves up and make it a better place.
John McCain's concession speech, just in case ya missed it (10:00 min):
My initial reaction to this speech last evening was there has to be just a little bit of buyer’s remorse amongst some Obama voters. Not the hardcore Obamanons, mind you... I'm thinking more of the cross-over vote and/or newly registered “Independents.” Senator McCain is a class act… a man of courage, integrity, and values.He would have made a great president.
I also watched Obama’s acceptance speech last night and it wasn’t all that bad.There wasn’t any substance in the speech (as usual), but he did say a few of the “right” things.Once again, in case ya missed it, here’s Obama’s acceptance speech (17:00 min):
I was up until 0400 this morning watching all the brouhaha.I’m tired, disappointed, and emotionally hung-over today (no alcohol hangover, thankyouverymuch).But I need to say one thing:I was SO very proud to be an American last night.Our democratic political system played out as it has so many, many times in the past.There will be yet another peaceful transition of power, with no blood in the streets, no riots, no threat of a coup d’état.There will be a recount or two where the results were close, but that’s about it. My bottom line:I may not like the results but I LOVE the process.
Via Lex… especially for Blog-Buds Barry and Doc… a letter to the editor, published at American Thinker.Just a couple of excerpts to whet your appetite (I’m sorely tempted to use a Guns ‘n’ Roses pun here, but I’ll resist):
I’m voting Democrat because like most Americans I trust lawyers more than anyone else; I think only lawyers should run the government, and all the Democrat Leaders are lawyers: Barack Obama, Michelle Obama, Joe Biden, John Edwards, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senate Leader Harry Reid, Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, and John Kerry, to name just a few. (Al Gore dropped out of LawSchool, so I don’t trust him as much, except on Global Warming.)
I’m voting Democrat because the Democrats support the trial lawyers and I think this country needs more lawsuits and less tort reform. And I don’t believe the trial lawyers’ contributions have a thing to do with it.
I’m voting Democrat because Congress has done such a wonderful job under Democrat leadership the last two years, that I want a lot more of the same.
I’m voting Democrat because I want to get my health care from the same competent, efficient, cost-effective, customer-service-focused folks who run the US Post Office, the Pentagon, FEMA and the state Registry of Motor Vehicles.
[…]
I’m voting Democrat because I’m for putting up barriers to free trade, as they did in 1930 with the Smoot-Hawley bill. That made things much better then.
I thought about adding more excerpts… but you get the picture.And you should go read ALL the great reasons for voting for The One… and his partners-in-crime running for House and Senate seats, too.I mean… how could you NOT, based on the way they’ve run things over the past two years?(Which, of course, in no way makes up for the debacle of the previous SIX years of a GOP-controlled Congress… but those retards were voted out in 2006, right?)
Well, delivered to the Official USPS Big Blue Box that sits here on the grounds of Beautiful La Hacienda Trailer Park, anyway. And soon to arrive in Livingston, one would assume.
More in a bit. I'm off to yet another late start today, but my civic duty has been done.
The man does make sense, doesn’t he?I’m bettin’ The One wishes he’d NEVER had that conversation out on the trail, eh?
While we’re on the subject of last evening… however indirectly it might be… I think Senator McCain scored a thin win last night, on points.But I also believe his (McCain’s) performance was/is too late to change anything, as the “undecideds” are largely a myth at this point in time.In other words… if I were a Lefty I’d be telling anyone/everyone who would listen that I’ll be off to Canada pretty soon (think: Dubya/2004).But I’m NOT a Lefty, and I intend to stay right where I am, thankyouverymuch.The Republic will survive an Obama presidency… maybe even in a form we’ll recognize, four years on.I’m hopeful.
Oh yeah… I should ALSO add I’m not giving up.Stranger things have happened in American politics than a McCain win, ya know.
The biggest complaint from most of us who oppose The One is his demonstrable lack of experience, his opaque track record, and the fact he seemingly hasn’t done anything of consequence during his four years in the Senate — and that would be the US Senate, not the Illinois State House.Well… it’s come to light that this didn’t just happen, it’s by design.Here’s Tom Daschle, speaking about His Boy Barack:
In 2006 ... he talks to you about the possibility of running for the presidency. What do you tell him?
I tell him he should do it. We went to my favorite restaurant and took the kitchen table in the back where nobody could see us. We had a bottle of wine and a great meal and what was supposed to be a conversation that lasted about an hour I think went over three.
And during that time I told him that I thought his lack of Washington experience was one of his greatest assets. And I argued that windows of opportunity for running for the presidency close quickly. And that he shouldn't assume, if he passes up this window, that there will be another. I had that experience, and I wouldn't want him to see the same thing happen to him.
Why the 2008 window for Obama?
I think the window is important for a couple of reasons. One, it was an open opportunity -- that is, he wasn't running against an incumbent; and secondly, because the longer he's in Washington, the more history he has, and the more history he has, the more he's going to be explaining his votes and his actions and his statements and his positions that undermine his message. His message is one of change, his message is one of new direction, and it's harder to do that after you've been in Washington for a long time.
The passages above were taken from the PBS/Frontline web site, specifically from the text of the interview with former senator Daschle.The web site is an adjunct to the Frontline program “The Choice 2008,” a two-hour show that ran last evening.I watched the whole thing and was more than a little surprised at the even-handedness and objectivity of the program. Frontline tends to have a decidedly Left point of view, and I expected the program to be a puff-piece for The One. And it wasn’t… much to my surprise.
But… back to the main point.There was also another interview during the program last evening where a Talking Head claimed a conscious decision was made by Obama and his staff to keep the junior Senator from Illinois away from any and all issues that might be the least little bit controversial.I looked high and low for that quote, but it’s either been edited out of the interviews, or eliminated entirely.But… the point remains: The One’s track record is thin, by design.I find that particularly troubling.
I really liked “The Choice 2008.”Frontline usually re-runs its Tuesday show on Thursday evenings (in my market, anyway) and oftentimes again on Saturday.I heartily recommend watching the show if you haven’t made up your mind about who you’ll vote for on November 4th.MY mind has been made up for months now, and I think it’s a testimony to the quality of the Frontline presentation that I felt my decision was reinforced by watching that show.In other words, Frontline’s “The Choice 2008” validated my judgment… and that’s no small feat for a bunch of left-wing documentary producers.You can also watch the program in its entirety on the web site… but I don’t know anyone who has the patience to watch two hours of teevee on a computer screen.I certainly don’t, but your mileage may vary.
So… today is the season's first “heating day” here on The High Plains of New Mexico.It was 44 degrees when I awoke this morning (I use the term “morning” quite loosely) and it’s supposed to hit a high of 58.I don’t think we’re gonna make that, but I could be wrong.It’s been known to happen.One thing I DO know:no beer and cigars on the verandah today.Nosiree, Bob.
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I’ve been wrong about a lot of things in my life, as noted above, but it appears I wasn’t wrong about the McCain campaign.Here’s Bill Kristol, writing in yesterday’s NYT (“Fire the Campaign”):
It’s time for John McCain to fire his campaign.
He has nothing to lose. His campaign is totally overmatched by Obama’s. The Obama team is well organized, flush with resources, and the candidate and the campaign are in sync. The McCain campaign, once merely problematic, is now close to being out-and-out dysfunctional. Its combination of strategic incoherence and operational incompetence has become toxic. If the race continues over the next three weeks to be a conventional one, McCain is doomed.
He may be anyway. Bush is unpopular. The media is hostile. The financial meltdown has made things tougher. Maybe the situation is hopeless — and if it is, then nothing McCain or his campaign does matters.
But I’m not convinced by such claims of inevitability. McCain isn’t Bush. The media isn’t all-powerful. And the economic crisis still presents an opportunity to show leadership.
Mr. Kristol goes on to lay out a roadmap of sorts for a McCain recovery and come-from-behind win.It’s really late in the game for Mr. Kristol’s prescription (or anyone else’s, for that matter) to work, but God knows the current campaign isn’t working… at all.
I was looking for the transcript of yesterday’s Fox News Sunday panel discussion, in which Mr. Kristol gave the closing remarks… all about the sorry state of the McCain campaign.Those remarks were short and to the point, whereas Mr. Kristol’s op-ed in the NYT tends to wander a bit.But the op-ed will have to do, in the absence of a published FNS transcript.I’ll keep watching for those remarks and will post them when and if they become available.
In the same vein (kinda-sorta), here’s Victor Davis Hanson, writing at Real Clear Politics (“Jumping Ship…”):
Obama, as I have said ad nauseam, has brilliantly prepped the battlefield to such a degree that a Farrakhan endorsement or surrogates calling Palin a quasi-Nazi or a bimbo, or smearing McCain as near senile is irrelevant; yet one screamer in a crowd of tens of thousands is proof of McCain's and Palin's racism and hatred.
Again, most conservatives know this paradox, but for some being outraged, as the conservative voice of reason, at McCain's supposed low road ensures a CNN spot, or some future rehabilitation during the expected Obama regnum of the next eight years. I think should I write a column suddenly taking the "high road", praising Obama's wit, taste in books, and metrosexuality, I would be dubbed principled rather than cynical, 'even-handed' rather than self-serving, and a maverick rather than toadish.
Yet for a self-acclaimed conservative to vote Obama would mean that higher taxes, larger government, more entitlements, more of a UN-centered foreign policy, dialogue with an Iran, less coal, oil, and nuclear energy production at home, more "oppression" studies and "reparations", leftish Supreme Court judges, open borders (I could go on) were the truly conservative positions, or perhaps suddenly truly the 'right' positions. And as far as ethics go, in fact, a cursory review of the past Obama campaigns would reveal a ruthlessness never seen in any of McCain's efforts. Obama's record is far more left than McCain's is far right. Obama the healer has proven to be the most partisan in the Senate, McCain one of the most bipartisan.
The foregoing isn’t so much a treatise on the failures of the McCain campaign as it is a warning to conservatives who have jumped ship for The One.Yeah… I’m looking at you, Doc and Barry.Just imagine… for a moment… The One, Pelosi, and Reid discussing tax policy over dinner, mmm-kay?Or, Hell… discussing anything else of import for the nation, for that matter. That doesn't scare ya?
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Good news… the Dow Jones Industrials are up 700 points or so about a half hour away from the market close; the other indices are also up.So, we’re spared a ninth consecutive down day on Wall Street.We certainly needed a breather, eh?
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And finally… a new, self-explanatory, tongue-in-cheek video of that ol’ ‘80s hit “Take on Me” has surfaced and is making the rounds of these here inter-tubes.It’s pretty cute, so I thought I’d pass it on.Me and about 379 other people, according to ViralVids.Here we go…
Blog-Bud Doc put up a thoughtful post earlier this week entitled “Why I’m Leaning Toward Obama.”His very first line is this:
“Leaning, mind you. Much can change in the next few weeks.”
And then Doc launches into a well-reasoned explanation for his leanings, which basically involve contrasting Senator McCain’s character with that of Senator Obama’s.And Doc obviously finds flaws with Senator McCain, or rather with Senator McCain’s campaign, and to a much greater extent, some of Senator McCain’s idiot supporters… the sort of people who send out idiotic rants like this in the hope of swaying opinion.
(Short parenthetical digression: people who send out videos like the one at the link aren’t so much McCain supporters as they are Obama haters… and there are a LOT of haters out there, sad to say.I’ve noticed there’s a tremendous amount of bad information — which is to say info that is factually inaccurate or outright lies, as in the “Obama is a Muslim” meme — being circulated via e-mail, and I’ve received way too much of it.But the point is… the “hate” stuff is out there and it’s having a NEGATIVE effect on some of the undecideds.)
This, I suppose, plays into my point that McCain is running a very inept campaign.I’ve not articulated that point in a main blog-post here at EIP, but I’ve left comments to that effect in my friends’ blogs when the subject comes up.One such comment:
I'm of the opinion that the McCain campaign has been... to date... one of the most inept, tone-deaf, and incompetent presidential campaigns... ever. One expects this sort of thing from the Dems (witness: Dukakis and Kerry), but from the GOP? McCain's descent into faux populism ("Greed and corruption on Wall Street!") turns my stomach, and the "handling" of Palin has simply been a disaster... of incredible and potentially devastating proportions.
I'm thinking it's too late to save it, but I HOPE to God I'm wrong.
So.Back to Doc.If I’m reading him correctly, Doc believes Obama has run a more principled campaign while McCain has opted for traditional mud-slinging.Or… McCain is doing the classic “whatever it takes” maneuver so common to our politicians (especially when they fall behind), thereby sacrificing his principles.Doc does have a point with the direction he’s taking here, and that point is “character matters,” where the tone of a campaign is concerned. This is something of an explanation as to why otherwise rational people might choose to vote for The One.I’m sensing there’s a lot of disgust over the state of our political process, but I’m of the opinion that The One is most certainly NOT the answer.But to give the Devil his due, Obama has played this discontent like a freakin’ Stradivarius.And McCain has not.
It ain’t over ‘til it’s over… and The Fat Lady ain’t gonna sing until the wee small hours of November 5th.Doc, in closing to this particular post, makes the point that American politics has (seemingly) always been about choosing the lesser of two evils.I’ll agree with that.You have to go back to Reagan to find an example of someone worth voting for, rather than someone to vote against.But… that said, McCain is the lesser of two evils in this election cycle, which is obviously one of the more important elections of our time.The One is just be SO wrong and SO detrimental to the success and prosperity of America it’s scary.
