Category: 2008 Election

It takes a real talent to contradict yourself in your own op-ed.  In Today’s New York Times, Barack They Call It Mellow Yellow Obama talks about his plan in Iraq.  In one paragraph:

Since then, more than 4,000 Americans have died and we have spent nearly $1 trillion. Our military is overstretched. Nearly every threat we face — from Afghanistan to Al Qaeda to Iran — has grown.

Then the next paragraph:

[Surge] tactics have protected the Iraqi population, and the Sunni tribes have rejected Al Qaeda — greatly weakening its effectiveness.

So which is it?  Is Al-Quaeda getting stronger or weaker?  Are we winning or losing?  Perhaps my chief problem with Obama is that 9/11 didn’t really have anything to do with either Afghanistan or Iraq.  We were not attacked by the Taliban government either, they were just sheltering Al-Qaeda.  But we’re not at war with a country, we’re at war with an ideology.  I still stand by Steven Den Beste’s analysis of the situation from 5 years ago.  Even if Al-Qaeda didn’t exist in Iraq before we invaded, and there’s evidence that it did in some measure, I don’t think, if you’re battling an ideology rather than a nation, that it’s a horrible idea to enter the heart of the region of the world that spurned that ideology, and fight anyone who wants to adhere to it.  If Iraq is soundly rejecting Al-Qaeda, because they have been shown for the butchers that they are, I think that’s a good outcome.

UPDATE: Richard Fernandez has more.

Apparently McCain voted for the eventual passage of the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act after it had the assault weapons language attached to it.  I hadn’t seen that one before.  I knew he voted against the assault weapons ban amendment, but because he managed to get his gun show language on the bill, he voted for its eventual passage.  I guess his gun show bill was important enough to him to overcome his principles on assault weapons.

This is another reason to not be excited about McCain, but as I said in the comments, I have to play the cards that came out of the deck, and it’s a crap hand.  I’ll take the guy who’s with me half the time to the guy who will never be with me.  Sure, there is a point where even I’m going to stay home, or vote third party, but McCain doesn’t quite get there for me (though, he’s precipitously close — his veep choice is important)

Remember folks, we got 5-4 on a .38 revolver.  If we want that to be the extent of the right recognized by the courts, letting Obama remake the federal courts is a great way to get there.  McCain might nominate bad judges too, but he might get some good ones.  His selection committee has a lot of quality conservative legal minds on it, and I have a lot more faith that we’ll get better judges out of McCain than Obama, and to me, that’s the most important thing this time around on the domestic front.

Obama endorses the idea of forcing students to volunteer for community service, which Bitter explains will make it a lot harder to people, like myself, who worked while going to school to help pay for it.  Yeah, there’s nothing like forced labor to create a sense of national community, let me tell you.

Not how I want my national security advisor starting a sentence.

On the election:

This election brings us what is probably one of the worst match-ups in presidential history.  We’re running a conservative democrat against a Marxist, and for some reason I can’t seem to get real excited about our options here.

Read the whole thing.

Barack Obama isn’t too keen on the right to bear arms, but he certainly thinks people who are irresponsible with credit cards deserve some extra “rights”.

Obama needs to pick a veep who is good with gun owners, says news.com.au.  He’s not the only one though.  Of course, the funny thing about this is the Australian media isn’t to up on a lot of our politicians:

There are two front runners. Governor Tim Kaine of Virginia is just like his state – a mix of progressive ideals and conservative values of the old rural south. A pro-gun, pro-life, Church-going family man from the heartland but also a Harvard educated lawyer and greenie.

Governor Ed Rendell of Pennsylvania is described by his local newspaper as “a laughing, back-slapping, forearm-squeezing, all-pro schmoozer”.

He is a political warhorse, renowned for his love of shooting and football as much as his formidable reputation for fundraising, grass roots organising and delivering his key state to Democratic candidates.

His prowess helped Clinton to a 10-point win in Pennsylvania.

Ed Rendell and Tim Kaine are both gun lovers?  That’s news to me.  Last I checked Kaine is getting behind a new round of gun control initiatives in Virginia, and Rendell is trying to bulldog the legislature into passing more gun control laws.  Let’s also not forget that as Mayor of Philadelphia, Rendell pioneered the idea of suing the gun industry out of existence as a public nuisance.