what if?

A Window

What candidates believe about the economy, the military, social values, health care, energy policy, education - and on and on and on and on - is of course critical.  Nevertheless, something else is integral to selecting a candidate to represent our nation.  That something is the character of an individual.

We have been given a window into the character of at least one candidate.  It is not pretty.

Mrs. Clinton's willingness to ignore the truth for short-term political advantage is exactly what breeds the partisanship that's paralyzed Washington for too many years, and the cynicism felt by so many Americans, especially the young. Getting ahead by any means possible is the strategy. Once elected, the candidate falsely believes that he or she will be able to set things right and govern differently. All that was said in the campaign is rationalized -- it will be forgiven and forgotten as part of the hyperbole of the election process.

Sadly, it just isn't so. No one forgets and no one forgives in Washington. (Ask John Kerry if he has gotten over the Swift boat smear campaign.) How you get elected defines who you will be once in power. Mrs. Clinton has shown us with this one simple, baseless accusation why it will be hard for her candidacy to represent a change. She appears too comfortable with the politics of personal destruction if she can gain a political advantage.

You Get What You Pay For

Did Rudy lose because the purportedly "ruthless" candidate was too nice?

Most critical in the closing days of the contest, when he desperately needed to reinsert himself into the narrative, was Giuliani’s inexplicable refusal to draw contrasts with his rivals, especially the surging McCain, whose votes were coming directly out of the former mayor’s hide.

“Within the campaign, there was broad strategic consensus to engage the opposition,” shared a frustrated adviser. “But whether it was subtle or aggressive or stuff in between, the reality was that it was his decision, and his opinion was that that was not the way he wanted to run campaign.”

“He just didn’t want to do [contrast ads],” said another source close to the campaign. “He rejected a lot offers.”

“You see what that gets you — maybe McCain will send him a thank you note.”

And

"I'm proud that we chose to stay positive," Giuliani said after the Florida results were known. Even beyond his unwillingness to launch negative ads, in fact, Giuliani declined to raise direct contrasts with his rivals on the campaign trail.

Of course, I do not know if this evaluation is accurate or not.  If it is, however - those of us who bemoan the nastiness and brutality of some campaigns should realize:  we get what we pay for.  If we do not reward candidates who attempt to run above board, based-on-the-issues campaigns, then we will not see more of them in the future.

People are People

Are you a liberal who foams at the mouth about the immorality of big business?  Are you a conservative who rails about giving ten cents to government employees who will waste it or steal it?

Turns out you are all right!

Let's face it.  People are people.  Some of us rise to the occasion magnificently.  Some of us are utter low lives.  Most of us are in the middle; we basically live a decent life, but have our moments of acting poorly.

No matter where each of us falls, however, the bottom line is that government and the private sector has its share of bad apples. 

The study, released yesterday by the nonprofit Ethics Resource Center, found that nearly 60 percent of government employees at all levels -- federal, state and local -- had witnessed violations of ethical standards, policy or laws in their workplaces within the last year.

Observed misconduct was lowest at the federal level, with 52 percent of federal workers surveyed saying they had witnessed problems such as conflicts of interest, abusive behavior, alterations of documents and financial records and lying to employees, vendors or the public within the last year. . . .

The sooner we all recognize this simple fact, the more rapidly we can get to superior solutions to lowering the ill effects of such activity.

President McCain?

As any of my readers know, I was a Rudy woman.  Now that the handwriting is on the wall for all to see, I must go elsewhere.  Romney?  McCain?

My best friend from first grade, who has political views remarkably similar to my own, has a blog about critters.  Roxy has unearthed the important fact that McCain has more critters than any other candidate!

Now, while having three parakeets may not be the most critical reason for which someone should support a presidential candidate - one must take that tidbit of data into consideration!

"First They Came for the Gays"

My liberal friends think I'm a conservative.  My conservative friends think I'm a liberal.  Frankly - there is truth in the assessment of both groups.  Depending upon the issue, you can honestly label me with both.

One issue that continues to gnaw at me is that of equal rights for gay people.  Again - I am bothered by positions by both conservatives and liberals on this topic!  Too many conservatives either do not appreciate the burdens that gay folks must experience today, despite improvement in recent years.  Others are out and out homophobes.  On the liberal side, too many seem unaware of the relationship between the battle against radical Islam and the fight for equality for gay people.

Bruce Bawer has a column which highlights these points.  Whether your general philosophy is of a conservative bent or a liberal one - please read this and take it to heart.  Have more consideration for your gay neighbor.  If you already do - then please realize that his rights are under terrible threat in societies that you consider to be "enlightened."

Europe is on its way down the road of Islamization, and it’s reached a point along that road at which gay people’s right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness is being directly challenged, both by knife-wielding bullies on the street and by taxpayer-funded thugs whose organizations already enjoy quasi-governmental authority. Sharia law may still be an alien concept to some Westerners, but it’s staring gay Europeans right in the face – and pointing toward a chilling future for all free people. Pim Fortuyn saw all this coming years ago; most of today’s European leaders still refuse to see it even though it’s right before their eyes.

A New Symbol

After five years of heated debate, the Commission of Human Rights approved the official Symbol of Marriage.

If Only

What might have been.

We need to leave a lot more decisions - about abortion and gay rights, about drugs and guns - to individual communities to reflect their own values. Like New York in the 1970s, they may not always make the right decisions. But people have a way of learning over time to do the right thing in their own neighborhoods. That's the most conservative idea there is.

If we are going to go back to first principles and hand power back to local communities, we are all going to have to accept compromises at the national level. This whole culture war business over Washington values may have started with liberal judges rewriting the constitution, but it didn't get out of hand because any one group wanted to hijack the process. It happened because a lot of people of good faith on all sides just wanted to do the right thing - the right thing for innocent children or women's health or marriage or gay rights. People wanted to stop the spread of pornography, or to keep guns off the streets, or to keep an innocent woman from being starved to death by her husband. I'm not here to criticize anybody for wanting to do the right thing. But we are all going to need to resist the temptation to go back to the way things have been in national politics, and I'm starting that with my own positions. I hope you will join me.

Finally, a word for my fellow Republicans. Some of you are wondering whether a Giuliani presidency would mean rewriting the party platform and standing for something different. Others are hoping for just that. The New Federalism is the way for us to say we have a big tent party, and also say we have the party of people who vote their values, and mean both. By returning these issues to states and local communities, we can build state and local parties that reflect the diversity of our great country and yet still stand for the things we all have in common. I'm asking for your vote because I believe that those common principles deserve a bigger majority than we have had in some time as a national party. And our country deserves to have a president who does his job and lets local community leaders do theirs.

The High Cost of Hillary

Finally.  The veil of ignorance has been lifted from the eyes of many liberals.

One former Clinton supporter whom I do not know e-mailed me about a recent piece I’d written on the Clintons and said this:

allow me to apologize on behalf of all other liberals concerning the Clintons, though I doubt I'll be the only one. They really are the soulless, cynical spinmeisters that many on the Right made them out to be… Speaking only for myself, I never actually thought there were purely political motives for conservatives to detest the Clintons that much. The visceral hatred directed at them always seemed sincere enough to me, just hard to understand because apparently so excessive. But now that I'm on the opposite side of them in a campaign for the first time (as an Obama supporter), I know what it feels like to wake up each morning and face ever new depths of shamelessness from the Macbeth Family. Now I may actually catch myself going back to Impeachment Trial evidence for the sake of Schadenfreude. I'm starting to regret not having enjoyed it at the time.

This note is typical of others I have received, and the list of liberals turning against Bill and Hillary Clinton is noteworthy. A partial list includes Senators Kennedy, Kerry, and Leahy; former Clinton Administration cabinet member Robert Reich; former Clinton lawyer Greg Craig (whom Bill Clinton asked to lead the defense team the White House assembled for his impeachment battle); liberal radio talk show host Ed Schultz; liberal columnists E.J. Dionne, Eugene Robinson, Frank Rich, William Greider, Bob Herbert, Joe Klein, and now Chait; Nobel Prize winner Toni Morrison, who described Bill Clinton as America’s “first black president”; and others.

This One's for You

Fed up with speeches about terrorism, taxes and what the government can do for you?  Tired of catfights between Hillary and Obama - with Edwards hanging onto their tails?  Bored with guessing whether McCain, Romney or Huckabee will end up on top - or whether Rudy has ruined his earlier opportunities?

If so - then this column's for you!

It turns out that the 2008 Florida Democratic primary doesn't count. Florida will be sending the same number of delegates to the 2008 Democratic convention as Uzbekistan. This may seem unfair, but there's a simple, logical explanation: The whole primary system is insane. Consider the process so far:

First, Iowa held ''caucuses,'' in which Iowans gathered in small groups at night and engaged in some mysterious Iowan ritual that for all we know involves having intimate relations with corn. Right after that, Wyoming had a primary, but it was only for Republicans, because Wyoming Democrats (apparently, there are at least two) will hold their primary on March 8. Most of the candidates ignored Wyoming and focused on the New Hampshire primary, except Rudy Giuliani, who's following a shrewd strategy, originally developed by the Miami Dolphins, of not entering the race until he has been mathematically eliminated. After New Hampshire came Michigan, where the ballot listed all the Republicans, but only certain Democrats -- including Chris Dodd, who had already dropped out if the race -- but not including Barack Obama or John Edwards.

After Michigan came the Nevada caucuses, in which Hillary Clinton got more votes but Barack Obama got more delegates. (If you don't understand how that could happen, then you have never been to a casino.) Then came the South Carolina Republican primary, which of course was not held on the same day as the South Carolina Democratic primary, which was Saturday. Then comes Florida, in which Republican voters will elect some delegates, although the total will only be half the number Florida was originally supposed to get. Meanwhile, Florida Democrats, as I mentioned, will have the same impact on their party's nomination as if they fed their ballots to ducks.

I am not making any of this up: This is our actual primary system, except (I hope) the part about the corn. We're selecting candidates for the most important job in the world via a process that's less rational than the one used to choose Miss Kumquat of Pasco County.

I Confess

Do I have HRC Derangement Syndrome?  Yes.  I confess.

Nevertheless, can someone tell me who on Earth buys these ludicrous statements from the HRC herself?

Hillary Rodham Clinton said Friday she must respond in kind to attacks from rival Barack Obama even though she'd rather keep the race for the Democratic presidential nomination focused on their differences on public policy issues.

"I try not to attack first, but I have to defend myself — I do have to counterpunch," Clinton told NBC's "Today Show."

"I took a lot of incoming fire for many, many months and I was happy to absorb it because obviously, you know, I felt that was part of my responsibility. But toward the end of a campaign you have to set the record straight," the New York senator said.

Come Again?

No wonder the New York Times isn't making money like they used to do.

While the content of this entire opinion piece is rather breathtaking in its departure from reality, this in particular caught my eye:

Mrs. Clinton sometimes overstates the importance of résumé. Hearing her talk about the presidency, her policies and answers for America’s big problems, we are hugely impressed by the depth of her knowledge, by the force of her intellect and by the breadth of, yes, her experience.

While Mrs. Clinton has had some experience as a U.S. senator - exactly what else constitutes the "breadth of her experience"?  Losing her law records for a year while First Lady?  Working hard to cover her husband's priapic proclivities while he was governor and President?  Making Bill sleep on the sofa once he wasn't able to lie his way out of DNA evidence?

As for the "depth of her knowledge" and the "force of her intellect" ... what exactly has Mrs. Clinton achieved to have earned such glowing accolades?  Oh sorry; I forgot.  She did turn $1,000 into $100,000 in one day during her virgin foray into commodities trading....

Can anyone but East Coast liberals read this sort of thing without being on the verge of upchucking?

Can Rudy Come Out and Play?

  Some of my readers who frequently leave comments have been leaving little digs at Rudy's campaign.  While Rudy is still the candidate I would most like to see the Republican party nominate, I have not been arguing vociferously with these critics about Rudy's viability.  Between the consistent hammering from the liberal press (I think that they have always seen Rudy as the candidate toughest for the Democrats to beat) and the questionable decision by Team Rudy to sit out .... and sit out ... and sit out - the critics may well be correct. 

Then again - as the saying goes, the fat lady has not yet belted out her aria. 

Giuliani's edge among early voters would indicate that he has the highest floor in the race. His rebound from earlier polling could also mean that the national media attention has boosted his profile after spending the last three weeks as an afterthought. The trend could help energize Rudy's backers in Florida and elsewhere.

This race is going to be tight. Don't count Rudy out until the polls close.

Could Rudy and his team be the brilliant strategists, and the rest of us not having "the vision"?  We shall see.

Silk Purses and Sow's Ears

We all know that you cannot make a silk purse from a sow's ear.  Similarly, an anti-racism conference that features Libya as its chair, with Cuba as its vice-chair, has virtually no chance of achieving any rational dialogue about combatting racism.

In the past, too much of the world has failed to recognize this simple truth.  The U.S. and Israel (too often objects of derision from the worst offenders) had to go it alone.  The Captain reports, however, that Canada is finally seeing the light.

Originally, Canada wanted to participate in an effort to keep the conference focused on real racism and intolerance. However, when the UN appointed Libya to chair the event, Cuba as the vice-chair, and put its problematic Human Rights Council in charge of oversight, Canada saw the writing on the wall. The HRC has followed the tradition of its predecessor Human Rights Committee in focusing all of its attention on Israel rather than nations that coincidentally sit on the HRC and systematically abuse human rights.

Of course, a few other warning signs have already appeared. The planning sessions got scheduled on Jewish high holy days, effectively ensuring that the Israelis would have no say in the event. However, Iran -- whose leader called to have Israel wiped off the map and held a conference to imagine a world without Israel or the US -- has been named to the organizing committee.

Canada has made the correct decision. This UN hate-fest only derogates anyone connected with it, as Durban I did. Obviously, the UN has not done anything to eliminate the influence of anti-Semites within its organization, even while staging events like Durban II to scold the world for racism. Perhaps the critics who lashed out at the Bush administration for its refusal to endorse such a despicable event will consider Canada's rejection as evidence that the White House got this right in 2001.

A small ray of sunshine for the UN - but, we will take what we can get, no?  Perhaps one day this organization will realize that you must use silk moths to create silk.

First Woman on the Moon

Some of you may be too young to understand this.  For the rest of you - enjoy!

We Always Knew

What slimebuckets the Clintons were.

Now liberals are acknowledging it.

If Bill Clinton has to trash his legacy to protect his legacy, so be it. If he has to put a dagger through the heart of hope to give Hillary hope, so be it.

If he has to preside in this state as the former first black president stopping the would-be first black president, so be it.

The Clintons — or “the 2-headed monster,” as the The New York Post dubbed the tag team that clawed out wins in New Hampshire and Nevada — always go where they need to go, no matter the collateral damage. Even if the damage is to themselves and their party.

Bill’s transition from elder statesman, leader of his party and bipartisan ambassador to ward heeler and hatchet man has been seamless — and seamy.

Youthful Wisdom

Shay, the proprietor of Booker Rising, is but a youngster.  Nevertheless, this bright young woman consistently demonstrates wisdom beyond her years.

Today's quote is but one illumination of this.

"He who is carried on another’s back does not appreciate how far off the town is." — African proverb

ABH

Anybody But Hillary.  Anybody but her!!

Do we really want this all over again - in the White House?

 

(Barack) Obama stopped just short of calling (Hillary) Clinton and her husband liars... from the Swamp's live blog of last night's Democratic debate.

Hmm. I see no reason to stop short. Bill and Hillary Clinton have lied brazenly about Obama's recent statement about Ronald Reagan.

The Case

It may be that Rudy Giuliani's strategy to lay low then come on strong with be the death of his candidacy.  Yet, like Dennis Prager, Rudy is still my first choice.  Little with which I disagree in these paragraphs.

Rudy Giuliani may have made a great mistake by not campaigning in New Hampshire, Nevada, Iowa and South Carolina. But between Rudy Giuliani (and, for that matter, Mitt Romney) on the one hand and John McCain on the other, there is little question as to who more embodies mainstream conservative and Republican principles.

But Giuliani is not merely more of a conservative than John McCain. In fact, if it is Ronald Reagan that Republicans want, Giuliani is extraordinarily close to that venerated man. Ronald Reagan stood for two great beliefs: that big government is a big problem for a free society and that America must be militarily strong and lead the war against global communism.

Substitute "global jihadism" for "global communism" and you have Rudy Giuliani's twin pillars. His one major weakness in appealing to all conservatives is that he is for abortion rights. Let me, then, briefly address all those who, like me, consider nearly all abortions immoral.

Ronald Reagan was pro-life, and it mattered little to the pro-life cause. Concerning abortion, what matters most in a president is the type of judges he appoints to the Supreme Court. As George Will wrote on behalf of Giuliani, "The way to change abortion law is to change courts by means of judicial nominations of the sort Giuliani promises to make." It is extremely unlikely that John McCain would appoint similarly conservative judges. After all, why would he appoint judges like Scalia and Alito who apparently differ with him on the constitutionality of McCain's own "campaign finance reform" laws?

Pro-life Republicans need to ask themselves: Will a Democrat or Giuliani as president render abortion less common in America? The best is the enemy of the better. And Giuliani is far better on abortion than any Democratic nominee.

Giuliani is for school vouchers, against bilingual education, for reducing taxes further, for reducing government spending. And he has well-thought-out positions on how to achieve these things. He also has the experience of cleaning up the most liberal major city in America.

I write this column aware that Giuliani may have lost his chance at getting the Republican nomination. But I could not live with my conscience if I did not articulate one week before the potentially decisive Florida primary why I believe Rudy Giuliani would make an excellent president of the United States.

1984

Yes, I know that the calendar year is 2008.  In Canada, however, the government is behaving frighteningly like it's 1984.

A few days ago, I was interrogated for 90 minutes by Shirlene McGovern, an officer of the government of Alberta. I have been accused of hurting people's feelings because, two years ago, I published the Danish cartoons of Mohammed in the Western Standard magazine.

Ms. McGovern's business card said she was a "Human Rights Officer." What a perfectly Orwellian title.

Early in her interrogation, she said "I always ask people … what was your intent and purpose of your article?"

It wasn't even a question about what we had published in the magazine. It was a question about my private thoughts. I asked her why my private feelings were of interest to the government. She said, very calmly, that they would be a factor taken into account by the government in determining whether or not I was guilty.

Officer McGovern said it as calmly as if I had asked her what time it was.

When she's doing government interrogations, she always asks people about their thoughts.

It was so banal, so routine. When she walked in, she seemed happy. With a smile, she reached out her hand to shake mine. I refused — to me, nothing could have been more incongruous. Would I warmly greet a police officer who arrested me as a suspect in a crime? Then why should I do so for a thought crime? This was not normal; I would not normalize it with the pleasantries of polite society.

This was not a high-school debating tournament where Human Rights Officer McGovern and I were equals, enjoying a shared interest in politics and publishing. I was there because I was compelled to be there by the government, and if I answered Officer McGovern's political questions unsatisfactorily, the government could fine me thousands of dollars and order me to publicly apologize for holding the wrong views.

MLK Day

Shopping extra-markdown sales?  Have the day off from work?  Too often, our national holidays seem little more than opportunities to add to our credit card debt, or to have an extended weekend.

Today, however, please do not forget who and what we are commemorating.

Reading the "Letter" forty-five years later is a humbling experience. Perhaps most striking is King's seething anger over the indignities of segregation:

I guess it is easy for those who have never felt the stinging darts of segregation to say, "Wait." But when you have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at will and drown your sisters and brothers at whim; when you have seen hate filled policemen curse, kick, brutalize and even kill your black brothers and sisters with impunity; when you see the vast majority of your twenty million Negro brothers smothering in an airtight cage of poverty in the midst of an affluent society; when you suddenly find your tongue twisted and your speech stammering as you seek to explain to your six-year-old daughter why she can't go to the public amusement park that has just been advertised on television, and see tears welling up in her eyes when she is told that Funtown is closed to colored children, and see the depressing clouds of inferiority begin to form in her little mental sky, and see her begin to distort her little personality by unconsciously developing a bitterness toward white people; when you have to concoct an answer for a five-year-old son asking in agonizing pathos: "Daddy, why do white people treat colored people so mean?"; when you take a cross-country drive and find it necessary to sleep night after night in the uncomfortable corners of your automobile because no motel will accept you; when you are humiliated day in and day out by nagging signs reading "white" and "colored"; when your first name becomes "nigger," your middle name becomes "boy" (however old you are) and your last name becomes "John," and your wife and mother are never given the respected title "Mrs."; when you are harried by day and haunted by night by the fact that you are a Negro, living constantly at tip-toe stance never quite knowing what to expect next, and plagued with inner fears and outer resentments; when you are forever fighting a degenerating sense of "nobodiness"; then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait. There comes a time when the cup of endurance runs over, and men are no longer willing to be plunged into an abyss of despair. I hope, sirs, you can understand our legitimate and unavoidable impatience.

As a child, when I learned of what King described, I remember feeling incredulity that people could treat one another that way, based upon nothing more than the color of their skin.  Decades later, it still confounds me.

It did take our government to finally change the evil in our laws.  Yet, make no mistake.  Without the strength, the sacrifice, the commitment, the sweat, the purpose, the courage, the faith and the dignity of Martin Luther King, Jr and other men and women like him, the evil stain on the soul of our country might still be with us.