Right Wing Nut House

If, as expected, John McCain wins a smashing victory tonight and takes an insurmountable lead in delegates, most conservatives will have to face the fact that our influence in Republican party has diminished significantly and that a re-assessment of our relationship with the party is in order. I daresay the most immediate fallout - and most superficial - will be a reduction in donations to the party from conservatives as well as fewer volunteers to fill out the staffs of Republican campaigns.

I realize this kind of talk drives some conservatives who support McCain batty. My good friend Pat Curley left this comment on my post from yesterday where I speculated that McCain would freeze out conservatives from his administration:

Why do you think that McCain will give the deep freeze to conservatives in the cabinet? He may not have a whole lot of support from the electronic conservatives, but he’s got plenty of support from conservatives in the Senate and among the governors.

And you know, it would help if the people griping that McCain’s not conservative enough actually had a pony in the race. The idea that Fred Thompson or Mitt Romney is a “real” conservative and John McCain is not is ludicrous. If you really wanted a rock-ribbed con, why didn’t people support, oh, Sam Brownback? Because he wasn’t going to win?

I think I’ll let Bill Quick answer Pat here because he says it better than I ever could:

Do not be fooled. What you are witnessing today is a war for the soul, if it can be said to have one, of the Republican party. One one side is the GOP machine establishment - represented by the Bushes, the Roves, and all the family and political dynasty politicians and their strategists who have tried to keep control of the party over the years.

On the other side are those whom the establishment regards as the barbarians at the gates: the rabble who listen to the conservative talk shows, the talker hosts themselves, the “Reagan Republicans,” the Gingrich revolutionaries, and now the bloggers and their readers.

This is, in a nutshell, a war between those who value principle over power, and those for whom power is first, foremost, and nearly everything.

Pat, God bless him, is willing to sacrifice at least some of his principles in order to support a candidate who feels has the best chance of winning in November. Unlike Bill, I see nothing wrong with political practicality when employed in a judicious and rational manner. Pat mentioned that many of us supported Fred Thompson and wondered why not Sam Brownback. It’s a good question and I would answer it by saying that Brownback was not ever a serious candidate for president or even for the nomination. His was a vanity run or perhaps a bid for the Veep spot. But anyone who considered him presidential material should have their head examined.

Thompson on the other hand was an extremely serious man who sought to revitalize the Reagan coalition. Unfortunately, he was not the man to do so or perhaps time had passed him by on that the very idea and no one could have accomplished the feat.

But McCain’s candidacy is successful largely because he is running as the anti-conservative, anti-Republican. “Maverick” is more than just a cutesy media term for his political actions. It is the core of his belief system. This is a politician who has not relied on the party structure for advancing his notoriety and elevating his profile but rather the small group of reporters and media outlets with a national reach. Because of that, he is literally forced by circumstances to play up his “independence” while sticking it to conservatives and party members.

This is why McCain will freeze conservatives out of the cabinet - or at least the major cabinet positions. If he would dare appoint a conservative Secretary of State, the media would be on him mercilessly for what they would consider “backsliding” or playing the same old party games. He has created a personae that is based on criticizing and marginalizing the Republican party. How can he suddenly switch and defend the party against what is sure to be the rabid onslaughts of the left if he were to win in November?

The Republican establishment support for McCain is a mile wide and an inch deep. I doubt whether they would stick with him as most have stuck with Bush for eight years. And when he gets in trouble - as all presidents eventually do - McCain may find himself out on a very long limb with many hands eagerly holding saws ready to cut him loose and fed to the dogs.

The conservatives who support McCain have a right to be upset with those who have threatened all sorts of havoc if McCain is the nominee. But they should also heed the warnings of those who have opposed McCain on principle. This is a man who has demonstrated not once, not twice, but many times that he values media affection over principle or party. In that sense, I trust him even less than I trust Romney whose “conversion” to conservatism is so transparent as to be laughable at times.

A McCain candidacy will probably end up a loss anyway. The enthusiasm of Democrats for their candidates is beyond anything I’ve seen in my 30 years of politics. Even the 1980 boom for Reagan was fraught with angst and uncertainty on the part of the George Bush wing of the party - the establishmentarians who still view the bulk of us “barbarians” as less than equal. But for any Republican running today, it would be a long, uphill climb to win in November.

More than likely, McCain’s victory tonight means the beginnings of a strategic retreat by conservatives - a long march into the wilderness hopefully to emerge in a few years invigorated and strengthened so that our influence will once again count for something.

If, as expected, John McCain pulls away from Mitt Romney in tomorrow’s Super Tuesday primaries making his nomination inevitable, a legitimate question will arise as to who really wields power in the Republican party?

That’s because the movers and shakers we would ordinarily think control the party (or are able to influence it heavily) would have failed utterly and completely in derailing McCain’s Straight Talk Express. Most of the rightosphere on the internet as well as talk radio giants lined up behind Romney while the establishment politicians have swallowed whatever misgivings they have about McCain and sided with him.

Guess who wins that war?

The fact is the Republican party - like the Democratic party - is not one, single entity but rather a host of smaller parties united by electoral expedience. There is the Electronic Conservative Republican party - the aforementioned internet and talk radio bloc. Then there is the Traditional Conservative Party or Main Street Republicans who are closely allied with the Evangelical Republican Party but place less emphasis on social issues. There are Libertarian Republicans, Intellectual Republicans, even Extremist Republicans - smaller entities but present nonetheless. Then there is the Congressional Republican Party and the Presidential Republican Party that make up most of the party establishment.

The glue that held all of these separate parties together was supposed to be conservatism. The problem now is that I believe the Republican party is in a definitional crisis as to what exactly “conservatism” represents. Is it an ideology? Is it simply a label that we use for any pol who mouths allegiance to some core issues like abortion and the war? Or have many Republicans simply “moved the bar” and decided for themselves that being a conservative means supporting campaign finance reform or Kennedy-McCain immigration?

I speculated about this last week in my PJ Media column:

It could very well be that what we are seeing in the Republican party is a redefining – or perhaps more accurately, a “readjustment” – in how people identify themselves as conservatives.

Part of it could very well be based on issues. There may be many moderate and moderately conservative Republicans, as Jennifer Rubin muses in The Observer, who wish the party to do something about climate change despite the adamant opposition of many in the base. It could very well be that there is close to a majority of Republicans who want to solve the illegal immigrant problem by closing the border and then granting some kind of path to legality to those already here.

The proof is in the pudding, friends. John McCain supports those positions and is the presumptive nominee. All other GOP candidates opposed those positions and are toast.

While these positions would have been seen as “moderate” 8 years ago, those McCain supporters who identify themselves as “somewhat conservative” may also hold positions on continuing the mission in Iraq, fiscal responsibility, pro-life, anti-gay marriage, and other issues where they would find agreement with the base.

In other words, the party itself may have been gradually moving toward the center over the last eight years. It is not inconceivable that there remains broad agreement on a host of issues while many conservatives have moderated their views on others.

How else do you explain McCain’s support among conservatives? So many people can’t be that ignorant of his record - not when it is has been plastered all over every media outlet for almost a month and not since Romney went on the offensive against him. We are just going to have to face the fact that a sizable number - perhaps a third - who believe themselves to be “conservative” support McCain’s stance on the issues - despite the fact that most of us can find two or three “deal breakers” when it comes to McCain’s positions on those issues.

The power in the Republican party is gravitating toward Senator McCain and his more moderate supporters. And I think we can almost guarantee that any McCain administration would give the deep freeze to conservatives when it came to cabinet appointments and other key policy positions. This may cause Rush Limbaugh to pop a blood vessel but there is little he or anyone else can do about it.

A political party and what it stands for is not set in stone. In my lifetime, Republicans have re-invented themselves twice; once in the 1950’s when the party of the isolationist Taft gave way to the internationalist Eisenhower. Then again in the 1970’s as the seeds planted by Barry Goldwater bore fruit and blossomed into the Party of Reagan.

Could such a shift be happening again? Unless you want to believe that millions of primary voters who will cast their ballot for John McCain tomorrow are idiots and don’t pay attention to what’s going on, you must accept that there has been a fundamental shift in the balance of power in the Republican party away from the old Reagan coalition and toward a still forming mass of more centrist, less doctrinaire conservatives.

Kevin Drum watching the Democrats debate in Hollywood the other night:

Another thing the debate brought home to me is something Matt Yglesias complains about frequently. Both candidates claimed that Democrats understand national security and terrorism issues better than Republicans (”Democrats have a much better grasp of the reality of the situation,” as Hillary put it), and both agreed that a successful Democratic candidate would need to be able to make that case to the public. Obama thought he could make that case better because he opposed the Iraq war from the beginning, while Clinton thought she could make the case better because she’s better prepared. But neither of them actually made that case. Both Obama and Clinton had a national stage where they had more time than usual to explain the liberal position on how to combat terrorism and make the world safer, and neither of them did it. They just said they needed to do it.

And they’re right. They do need to do that. So why didn’t they start last night?

Democrats “understand” national security issues better than Republicans but the cat’s got their tongue when trying to explain why?

Let’s buy into that dubious formulation and try to ease Kevin’s perplexity. First of all, both Clinton and Obama are hamstrung by one, overriding, overarching reality; they can’t support any policy, strategy, or proposal that has been implemented, offered by, or hinted at by the Bush Administration.

This is the baseline for any policy formulated by the candidates. The deranged nature of their base when it comes to anything Bush precludes the advocacy of some Administration policies that actually may have merit while other Bush policies regarding the use of pre-emptive force and the struggle against Islamic extremism have become an anathema to the entire Democratic party.

That leaves each candidate trying to show how much more accommodating they would be to the cutthroats of the world than Bush - a prospect that no doubt has the Iranians, Syrians, Hamas, and others wishing devoutly for a Democratic triumph at the polls next November but that may leave large segments of the American electorate cold.

Hence, the attempts by both candidates to obscure the truth by mouthing platitudes and offering generalities in lieu of specific ways to deal with the threats that we will face over the next decade. I think both candidate’s emphasis on nuclear non-proliferation is spot on and is something they should probably highlight even more. And I think that Clinton, at least, has a grasp of the nature of the terrorism threat and could be counted on to be creative in confronting it.

But we hear precious little about revitalizing NATO so that Afghanistan can be saved. Nor do we hear anything about regional security regarding our Gulf allies who truly see an existential threat coming from Tehran. Lest anyone doubt that fact, the recent flurry of diplomatic activity by both the United States and France in the region that included Bush’s tour of the region, the sale of sophisticated weaponry to the Saudis, and Sarkozy’s nuclear diplomacy with other Gulf states proves the point.

In the end, the real debate is over the use of force; when, against who, and if ever. Both candidates say they would respond forcefully to a terrorist attack against the United States. Bully for them. If they didn’t, they would be impeached by their own party.

What the American people want to know is would they strike to prevent an attack and what they would do about a regime that planned and/or executed another 9/11? What would be done about an attack that was something far less than another 9/11? Would there be a “proportional response” to such an attack - stopping short of regime change while lobbing a few cruise missiles on to some vital economic or military targets?

And what about regime change? Is there any criteria where it would be justified? Both candidates have roundly criticized - with some justification - Administration policies in Iraq. Would our experience there keep them from taking down a tyrant or regime that threatened America directly?

I suppose it somewhat unfair to ask Democrats to answer these questions when Republican candidates haven’t been very clear themselves although both Romney and McCain have come out in support of pre-emptive war to some extent. But for the Democratic front runners, being obtuse is a survival tactic. If they sound too tough in the primaries, they lose the base. If they sound too weak, the GOP makes hay during the general election campaign.

Hillary Clinton seems to have found the answer to that dilemma simply by speaking out of both sides of her mouth at the same time. She can sound as tough as any Republican when she talks about the War on Terror while offering soothing platitudes regarding negotiations and scathing criticism of Bush at other times. This has the dual effect of keeping the Democratic base at bay while not offering an opening for Republicans if she wins the nomination.

So both candidates end up promoting a “Wonder Bread” national security policy; very soft and full of air but tastes good going down. It is enough to satisfy their base but will it work on the voters in the general election campaign? I think that depends on how important national security will be as an issue next fall. If the economy is in the tank, I doubt if people will give much weight to GOP criticisms of the Democrat’s obscurant policy positions. But all bets are off if the United States is attacked again or if the economy isn’t quite as important as it is today. Then the Democratic candidate will be forced to be a little more specific about what they intend to do to protect the US from the threat of international terrorism.

I make no bones about the fact that I am obese. I could lose 50 lbs and just barely get below the standard BMI (Body Mass Index) indicator for obesity. According to this chart, I am “severely obese” which is just a hairsbreadth from me being “morbidly obese.”

My “ideal weight” ranges from an impossibly thin 149 pounds to a reasonable 183 pounds. I spent most of my 20’s in the 160-170’s, most of my 30’s in the 180-190’s and since I was about 42 I have been over 200 pounds.

So yes, I am a enemy of the state - a borderline morbidly obese American who greedily uses health care resources that would be put to better use by thin people. (Haven’t been to a hospital for illness since I was 6 months old.) To make my crime even more heinous, I am a smoker, a couch potato (thus not contributing to the gross domestic product by purchasing all that useless exercise equipment), and a red meat eating, potato chomping, cold cut binging, mayonnaise slathering, coca cola swigging criminal mastermind who wants to overturn the established order in America and corrupt the young.

Fortunately for you, I am not contagious:

It has actually happened. Lawmakers have proposed legislation that forbids restaurants and food establishments from serving food to anyone who is obese (as defined by the State). Under this bill, food establishments are to be monitored for compliance under the State Department of Health and violators will have their business permits revoked.

House Bill 282 was introduced in the 2008 Mississippi legislative session on Friday by Representative W.T. Mayhall, Jr., a retired pharmaceutical salesman with DuPont-Merk. Its co-authors are Bobby Shows, a businessman, and John Read, a pharmacist.

This is a joke, right? In America? How could this happen in the land of the free and the home of the busy-bodying, do-gooding, well meaning health Nazis?

Is this a tongue-in-cheek bill, meant to point out how absurd the war on obesity has become? Or do lawmakers actually believe the myths that gluttony is the cause for obesity and that it is the government’s role to force people to eat and live how it deems best?

I called lead author, Rep. Mayhall, and asked if this was serious legislation or tongue-in-cheek to make a point. He kindly took a moment to answer my question while the legislature was in session. He said that while, regrettably, he doesn’t believe his bill will pass, this is serious. He wrote it, he said, because of the “urgency of the obesity crisis and need for government action.” He hopes it will “call attention to the serious problem of obesity and what it is costing the Medicare system.”

Ah, yes. What it is costing the government run health care system. Let’s get a peek of where this kind of deep thinking will lead. Let’s go to Great Britain and look in on their version of Hillarycare or Obamamedicine:

Doctors are calling for NHS treatment to be withheld from patients who are too old or who lead unhealthy lives.

Smokers, heavy drinkers, the obese and the elderly should be barred from receiving some operations, according to doctors, with most saying the health service cannot afford to provide free care to everyone.

Fertility treatment and “social” abortions are also on the list of procedures that many doctors say should not be funded by the state.

The findings of a survey conducted by Doctor magazine sparked a fierce row last night, with the British Medical Association and campaign groups describing the recommendations from family and hospital doctors as “out­rageous” and “disgraceful”.

It may be “out­rageous” and “disgraceful” to contemplate withholding treatment from the obese, the old, those “undeserving” of help in order to allocate resources to the pretty people but that doesn’t mean that Great Britain’s national health care program isn’t headed toward a day when those kind of decisions won’t be necessary.

But the issue here is not so much sticking it to the obese as it is forcing private businesses to enforce the government’s disapproval of obesity.

Should this pass, scales will appear at the door of restaurants, people with BMIs of 30 or higher won’t be allowed to be served. And to comply with government regulations, restaurants will have to keep records of patrons’ BMIs.

The Crusaders who believe they have the absolute right to tell us what we can eat, drink, ingest, or smear on our bodies will never stop. It is not about “health.” Nor is it about “the children.” For them, it has always been about control - the ability to tell others what to do and get the emotional satisfaction of being, in their own mind morally superior to the rest of us.

Their current target is the obese. And as long as they target one minority after another - smokers, fast food overeaters, sugar addicts - they can continue with impunity.

One day, they will come after you - probably for something you can’t imagine being harmful or anti-social. But their need for control knows no logic nor no bounds.

And then where will you be, my friends? Where will you be?

UPDATE

Pretty much of a first. James Joyner is at a loss for words.

And from Misha’s “You just can’t make this sh*t up” file, his highness has some high quality photos of a gaggle of BBW’s doing their best imitation of “piling on.”

Talk about meat on the hoof…

Watching Barack Obama during the debate last night I was struck by the notion that here indeed, the torch of leadership was being passed to a new generation of Democrats. In many ways, it’s the same coalition of unions, special interest groups, and race and class warriors who have dominated the left since the 60’s that make up the bulk of Obama’s supporters. But there is a decidedly centrist thrust to his candidacy - a welcome rejection of some of the outward manifestations of New Left politics in favor of a more inclusive, less abrasive style of governance.

What I find in Obama that I never expected were echoes of the kind of classical liberalism that I admired in my youth but was eventually corrupted by the radicals who captured the Democratic party and turned it into a haven for those who preferred to make America the scapegoat for the world’s ills while playing off one race against another, one class against another.

Where those Democrats sought to divide and conquer, it appears to me that Obama really is making an effort to unite the center and center left - not by trying to hide his true intentions but rather by appealing to what most can agree are broad national interests using admittedly non-specific language and platitudes to get his message across.

Of course, the devil is in the details and Obama’s health insurance plan for example, is just as statist in nature as any other Democrats. But with an almost certainly augmented Democratic majority in the House and Senate being seated in January 2009, one wonders if even a Republican president wouldn’t be forced to deal with some kind of statist approach to health insurance given the huge support for it among voters.

If it sounds like I admire Obama, I do. And given the distinct possibility that John McCain will be the GOP standard bearer next November, I thought it might be interesting to take a closer look at my home state senator. If I am going to hold my nose and vote for the GOP nominee, before I punch a hole by his name it makes sense to look closely at the other candidate in the race to see if he is any more viable.

If it were between Hillary and McCain, that would be no contest. But try as I might to dismiss them, there are certain personal and even political aspects to Obama’s candidacy that I find appealing. Would he have a chance to get my vote?

Not likely. Obama would have to demonstrate an understanding of the threat posed by radical Islam and a willingness to confront it before I would seriously consider voting for him. I would guess that there are many who feel the same way - that there are some things about Obama that are deal breakers when it comes to supporting him. For myself, it is the War on Terror. For some it may be national health insurance. For others, it would be his decidedly squishy approach to border security and illegal immigration.

But I feel confident that a Republican minority would be able to block most of the onerous proposals coming from the Democrats. They have proven adept at doing so to date and I have no reason to believe that they wouldn’t be able to muster the unity to defeat mandated health insurance or any kind of amnesty legislation.

When it comes to the War on Terror, however, there is little the Republicans would be able to do to give Obama a different perspective on the nature of the threat and why we must continue to confront it rather than sit back and wait to be hit again. Obama is a weak sister when it comes to the War on Terror and unless he is able to convince me and others that he understands what is at stake and will take the steps necessary to protect us, there is no way I could see myself voting for him.

But he is an interesting politician nonetheless. And if he fails in his bid this time, I fully expect to see him make another run in the future. He is an immensely gifted man with a compelling story. A little more seasoning, perhaps a rethinking of some basic issues, and he could very well make it all the way to the oval office.

Did Bill Clinton really say we have to “slow our economy” to deal with global warming?

In a long, and interesting speech, he characterized what the U.S. and other industrialized nations need to do to combat global warming this way: “We just have to slow down our economy and cut back our greenhouse gas emissions ’cause we have to save the planet for our grandchildren.”

At a time that the nation is worried about a recession is that really the characterization his wife would want him making? “Slow down our economy”?

I don’t really think there’s much debate that, at least initially, a full commitment to reduce greenhouse gases would slow down the economy….So was this a moment of candor?

A “moment of candor?” Or a journalistic faux pas? Here’s more from Bill:

“Everybody knows that global warming is real,” Mr. Clinton said, giving a shout-out to Al Gore’s Nobel Peace Prize, “but we cannot solve it alone.”

“And maybe America, and Europe, and Japan, and Canada — the rich counties — would say, ‘OK, we just have to slow down our economy and cut back our greenhouse gas emissions ’cause we have to save the planet for our grandchildren.’ We could do that.

“But if we did that, you know as well as I do, China and India and Indonesia and Vietnam and Mexico and Brazil and the Ukraine, and all the other countries will never agree to stay poor to save the planet for our grandchildren. The only way we can do this is if we get back in the world’s fight against global warming and prove it is good economics that we will create more jobs to build a sustainable economy that saves the planet for our children and grandchildren. It is the only way it will work.

(HT: Sadly No)

Obviously, Clinton was not recommending that we unilaterally slow down our economy to cut emissions. He was saying that just because we did, others wouldn’t necessarily follow suit.

But just what the hell was he saying? He was saying that “the fight” against global warming will create more jobs and build a “sustainable(?) economy” that will save the planet so that Californians won’t wake up one morning a hundred years from now in desperate need of water wings and flippers.

Earth to Brad: I congratulate you on calling Tapper out for his idiotic take on Clinton’s speech. But you missed the real story. What Bill said was a lie. A great, big, fat, Clintonian truthbusting whopper of a fib.

As much as scientists all agree that global warming is “real” - and they do - economists are in agreement that cutting our emissions even modestly will entail a huge cost to our economy. How much depends on what model you”re looking at (ironically, exactly the same as trying to glean how much warming can be expected over the next century). From a low of $500 billion over ten years to a high of $1.8 trillion over a decade are current estimates published in peer reviewed journals.

In case you were curious about what effect that might have on the economy, imagine all the global warming advocates in the world gathering together in one place, each of them with a $100 bill. Then imagine a bonfire where all of those millions of hundreds are burned while the greens take off their clothes, cover themselves in body paint, and dance a dabke in celebration.

Well…maybe they wouldn’t cover themselves in body paint. Maybe they’d just smear honey on themselves or vegetable oil. But you get the picture.

Taking that much money out of the economy would if not be catastrophic, it would certainly cause a long, painful recession. I haven’t seen a recent study on the number of jobs that would be lost so I won’t give a number. But economists are in almost unanimous agreement that the effect on job growth would be severe.

Bill Clinton is lying through his teeth by trying to make dealing with global warming a painless process. It won’t be. It will involve massive disruptions in industry and labor with some regions being hit very hard. We would have to alter our lifestyles not just in how we use energy and generate emissions but in fundamental ways we are just beginning to grasp. There will be a cascade effect on our society that no one - and I mean no one - can foresee.

Clinton talks of “building a sustainable” economy. Just what does he mean? What exactly does “sustainable” mean? Not surprisingly, no one knows. But it sure sounds good, eh?

Population growth alarmists talk about “sustainable” economies being able to support 1-2 billion people on earth. Meanwhile, the United Nations - in true bureaucratic fashion - has perhaps the most confusing (and sometimes contradictory) sets of criteria for sustainability that encompasses all facets of society, not just the economy.

But contained in many of these “sustainability models” is a streak of Ludditism - anti-capitalist, anti-business, anti-property rights, anti-growth; in short, anti-people and anti-freedom. This is the true agenda of some global warming fanatics. And I believe it is telling that Bill Clinton has adopted their nomenclature to lull us to sleep about the true cost of cutting emissions.

Now let me say that if this is what it would take to save the planet, we would have no choice but to initiate the kind of draconian policies that would harm our economy most severely. Let me further say that I believe that anthropogenic global warming is a reality although man is probably not to blame to the degree usually ascribed.

The problem isn’t whether global warming is “real” or not. The problem is that there is not one iota of proof that reducing emissions will lower the temperature. Zero. Zip. Nada. Common sense would dictate that it would but some models show differently. This is a part of climate science that all can agree is not settled - not by any stretch of the imagination.

So in effect, we are being asked to drastically alter our economy and our lifestyle on a whim and a prayer. No thanks.

This doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try to lower emissions by developing new (and old) technologies that would generate less greenhouse gas while working to wean ourselves from foreign oil supplies. It does mean that Bill Clinton is a lying sack of rotten potatoes when he tries to sell “sustainable” economic growth as a painless panacea for reducing our carbon footprint.

UPDATE

Bryan at Hot Air is on pretty much the same wavelength I am:

He goes on to serve up pipe dreams about how green tech like 100-mile-per-gallon cars will create more jobs, which seems unlikely. He’s also off in the weeds when he declares that anything is “the only way it will work.” That’s classic Clintonian fallacy: A complex problem, if it’s even a real problem, requires a complex set of solutions, supposing it’s even something we could solve.

The bottom line is that, for whatever reason, ABC actually played Clinton’s “slow down the economy” line unfairly and ended up downplaying his argument against the far left on global warming. I’m sure that will be too much mental jujitsu for the Clinton-hating, “conservative media” nutroots to handle.

I must apologize for my cynicism up front because I know it is not shared by many - at least not in polite company. But I just can’t help it.

There were times during that debate last night where I had to remind myself that these were actually Republican candidates for President. At times, it sounded more like a John Edwards political rally with talk of “evil” Wall Street companies and Huckabee’s “two Americas lite.” And Romney’s penchant for throwing a couple of hundred billion dollars at voters sounded more like some other Massachusetts politician except I’m sure Mitt is a better driver.

When the presidential selection process began, there were several candidates that any conservative could have supported if not enthusiastically then at least by giving lip service if they had ended up the nominee. Now by default, we are left with a man who ran for governor as a center left moderate, governed as a centrist, and then adopted a slew of conservative positions on the issues just in time to be seen as a viable candidate for the White House. For many, giving Mitt Romney the benefit of the doubt for what John Hawkins has refereed to as his “Road to Damascus” conversion to conservatism is a matter of desperation. There isn’t anyone left in the race who espouses bedrock conservative principles mostly across the board except Romney.

For me, the question has never been that Huckabee and McCain aren’t “true” conservatives. By the lights of most who read this blog, I am not a “true” conservative either. The question is one of conservative governance and in both men, there is a lack of commitment to some truly basic conservative principles that calls into question just what kind of president they would be.

Huckabee cannot see beyond class. He has wedged class in his campaign in a pale imitation of John Edwards by trying to demonize the wealthy and speak for “ordinary Americans.” He has further carved out support by shamelessly and constantly appealing to Christian conservatives, calling himself a “Christian leader” and invoking the name of God every chance he gets.

Since when is initiating class warfare a conservative campaign tactic? Pundits call his philosophy “conservative populism” but it’s really much simpler than that. He is using class as a political scalpel to snip away a portion of the Republican electorate while slicing the bulk of Christian conservatives away from more traditionally conservative candidates. There is no path to the White House for Huckabee employing these tactics. But he should be able to harvest a couple of hundred delegates on Super Tuesday by winning 2 or 3 primaries while picking up delegates for finishing second and third elsewhere. He will then be in a position to humbly offer his services as Vice President to John McCain who will, if things remain relatively unchanged, come out of Super Tuesday with a huge lead in delegates on Mitt Romney.

For McCain, I suspect his fealty to conservatism and conservative principles will last until he wins the White House. It will be at that point that we will get a glimpse of just how important he thinks his conservatism is by looking at his cabinet appointments and the manner in which he fills other important posts in his Administration. I daresay there will be many “maverick” choices - including Democrats - that will curdle the blood of most movement conservatives and dismay the rest of us.

Would Romney be any different? The former governor and CEO would almost certainly look for the most competent people he can find to run the government. No doubt we would be disappointed in some of his choices. At least we could be assured that his selections were not made to “stick it” to conservatives - a disease McCain seems to have acquired over the years as his contempt for the right has been demonstrated on numerous occasions.

McCain and Huckabee can say they’re the best conservatives in the race until doomsday and it won’t make it so. And Romney can call his conversion to conservatism true and honorable until the cows come home and there will always be that nagging doubt in the back of everyone’s mind.

In my PJ Media column today, I look at McCain, Huckabee, and Giuliani and see a Republican party that is moving inexorably toward the center.

There may be many moderate and moderately conservative Republicans, as Jennifer Rubin muses in The Observer, who wish the party to do something about climate change despite the adamant opposition of many in the base. It could very well be that there is close to a majority of Republicans who want to solve the illegal immigrant problem by closing the border and then granting some kind of path to legality to those already here.

The proof is in the pudding, friends. John McCain supports those positions and is the presumptive nominee. All other GOP candidates opposed those positions and are toast.

While these positions would have been seen as “moderate” 8 years ago, those McCain supporters who identify themselves as “somewhat conservative” may also hold positions on continuing the mission in Iraq, fiscal responsibility, pro-life, anti-gay marriage, and other issues where they would find agreement with the base.

Does this mean that the party has lurched leftward while no one was looking? Perhaps not as much as it would appear but more than the base is willing to admit.

Would independents and even some Democrats really support McCain in a general election against either Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama? Not unless McCain made a conscious decision to virtually abandon the conservative base and adopt a more centrist platform. That’s because the country itself has moved slightly leftward in the last 8 years. On a variety of important issues including health insurance, the environment, and Middle Class entitlements, the American people appear ready to accept more government as the solution to perceived problems.

So in the end, it becomes a question of how many conservatives are willing to hold their noses and vote for McCain so that Hillary Clinton - the presumed Democratic nominee - is prevented from getting her clutches on the levers of government. I will probably be one of those conservatives who votes to keep Hillary Clinton out of the oval office. How many others would follow that example will determine the winner in November.

The Rick Moran Show will go live tonight at the special time pf 7:30 PM - 9:00 PM Central Time.

Tonight, I’ll have my trusty sidekick and co-host Rich Baehr, Political Correspondent of The American Thinker with me for the entire 90 minutes as we examine the Florida results and look beyond to Super Tuesday next week.

Joining me the first half hour will be Ed Morrissey of Captainsquartersblog.Com. Then Kevin Sullivan of Real Clear Politics Blog will be with us for the final hour.

For the best in political analysis, click on the button below and listen in. A podcast will be available for streaming or download around 15 minutes after the show ends.

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Also, if you’d like to call in and put your two cents in, you can dial (718) 664-9764.

My latest column is up at PJ Media. It’s a look at last night’s SOTU address and why such formal speeches are worse than useless. Jules Crittendon first offers his thoughts on the speech so make sure you read his take also.

A sample:

Not a word about the dollar which is tanking in international markets. Nor did the president mention record trade deficits. He alluded to a “decline” in the housing market, forgetting to mention that for the first time in memory, housing values dropped. It also slipped his mind that around 1 1/2 million Americans are apt to lose their homes in the coming year regardless of what he, the Congress, or the entire federal government does about it.

All of this may or may not lead to a recession. But it is equally uncertain whether throwing $130 billion dollars that we don’t have at people in the form of “rebates” will do anything except get most of the Congress re-elected.

A protest against power cuts to southern Beirut - cuts the power company denies making - escalated into a riot when protesters blocked roads and threw stones at police and the army who were trying to maintain order.

Southern Beirut is a Hizbullah stronghold but it is not certain that the violence was connected exclusively to the political crisis involving the election of a president that would be acceptable to both the Hizbullah led opposition and the majority March 14th forces. Then again, one can hardly dismiss the idea that this was a demonstration organized by Hizbullah which had recently promised “decisive action” in the streets in order to force the government to accede to their demands.

Both sides are currently in a standoff over the issue with the government proposing Army Chief Michel Suleiman for the post while the Syrian backed opposition opposes his election, still maintaining that any government formed by the new president must give them enough ministers to have veto power over the majority’s decisions.

There were reports of snipers firing from rooftop positions into the crowd below. One of their targets was an opposition Amal official:

Among the victims was an official from Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri’s Amal movement. The others were four Hizbullah activists, a rescue worker and a civilian.
The official was identified as Ahmad Hamza, Amal’s representative in Hay Mouawwad quarter of Shiyah, where protests first broke out at around 4 pm.

“Hamza has passed away after being shot in the back,” an Amal official told AFP, adding that he was unable to identify the source of the fire.

The bloodshed came amid fears of civil unrest in Lebanon which has been gripped by a prolonged presidential crisis, and two days after a massive car bombing killed a top intelligence officer and four other people.

The intelligence officer, Wassam Eid, was involved in terrorism investigations. He was reportedly assisting the International Tribunal in their investigation of the assassination of former prime minister Rafiq Hariri and other murders of anti-Syrian politicians and journalists.

The riot quickly spread from Beirut to the suburbs where the rioters blocked roads and threw stones at cars and police vehicles:

The army shut down many roads to stop the protests from spreading, and soldiers also took positions on rooftops.

But as night fell, riots spread to reach the airport highway, where demonstrators cut the main road with burning tires. Soon afterwards protesters cut the Mar Elias road in west Beirut while gunfire rang out sporadically across the southern suburbs.

Riots also reached south Lebanon, where the coastal highway between Sidon and Tyre was closed by blazing tires.

The road to Baalbek in east Lebanon’s Bekaa valley was also briefly closed.

A car that had been set ablaze exploded, triggering panic in Beirut where only two days ago a massive car bombing killed a top anti-terror officer and four other people.

A top security official warned the riots could spread unless politicians reined in their supporters.

What sparked the riot? Evidently, the old Hizbullah gambit of closing the road to the airport - something they have done before in their street protests. Only this time, the army intervened:

The unrest broke out after demonstrators set ablaze tires, blocking a main road linking the Shiyah and Mar Mikhael neighborhoods to protest at power shortages.

The army fired warning shots to disperse the demonstrators, a security official said.

Witnesses said that gunmen in the crowd opened fire at the security forces who retaliated.

Premier Fouad Saniora declared Monday a day of national mourning and ordered schools and universities closed.

As of today, it is unclear how many or if any of the demonstrators were killed by the army and how many by rooftop snipers who were apparently caught on tape and shown on Lebanese television.

Lebanese bloggers are weighing in offering analysis and mostly bemoaning what appears to be the powerlessness of the government to stop the murders. Mustapha at Beirut Spring offers some speculation about the rooftop snipers:

The puzzle has a missing piece. It seems that a third party wants to stir things up by breaking the balance of restraint between the Lebanese parties. As political analyst Ossama Safa puts it: “This is the work of agents provocateurs — someone is in there stirring trouble [..] I really think they want to get a hold of the situation. But someone, somewhere is doing this.”

The politicians will try to calm the situation. But expect a lot hot-headed blame to be tossed around.

And the fact that Hizbullah is now pointing the finger directly at the army is very significant. Could the opposition had staged the protest, started the riot by firing at the army from inside the crowd, and assured even more anger by having snipers pick off Hamza all to discredit General Suleiman? I would say it a more likely scenario than March 14th forces trying to deliberately start a civil war.

Abu Kais wants the government to start telling the truth about the violence:

Many of us have their own suspects. It doesn’t take a genius to point the finger at Syrian intelligence—the motives are there, and the methods too predictable. Yet despite all this obviousness, we ultimately sink in confusion because no one is willing to present an official account of what happened, and who did it. It’s always swept under the rug of “investigation”. Killers roam free and kill again while being “under investigation”. And the argument against Syrian culpability weakens, because not even the official authorities are able to point the finger.

Needless to say, we are tired of it all. If this is war, then could someone involve the dying public in the details of the fight? This public cannot subsist on the same old indirect accusations. Instead of declaring a day of mourning, how about a day of truth? How about teaching the interior minister how to speak? How about the army commander, instead of phoning the dictator next door, be asked to report to the defense minister and to the public? Is the enemy so powerful that we are afraid to at least give it the media treatment we have given Israelis when they were doing the killing?

And to underscore that point, Daily Star editorial page editor Michael Young interviewed former UN prosecutor Detlev Mehlis who was the first prosecutor appointed as part of the International Tribunal and whose initial investigation implicated high level Syrian ministers in the plot to kill Hariri. Mehlis was disappointed in the subsequent investigations of the Tribunal:

Mehlis, who was the first U.N. chief investigator, has said in his reports that the Hariri plot’s complexity suggested that Syrian and Lebanese intelligence services had a role, but [Serge] Brammertz has not echoed his view. Four pro-Syrian Lebanese generals have been under arrest for almost two years for alleged involvement in the murder.

In his final appearance before the U.N. Security Council in December, Brammertz said that progress made in the last few months has enabled investigators to identify “a number of persons of interest” who may have been involved in some aspect of the crime — or knew about the preparations.

The investigation “appears to have lost the momentum it had until January 2006,” Mehlis said in the interview. “When I left we were ready to name suspects, but it seems not to have progressed from that stage.”

“If you have suspects you don’t allow them to roam free for years to tamper with evidence,” Mehlis told The Wall Street Journal.

Indeed, for a while Brammertz seemed to be treating the Syrian government with kid gloves, praising their “cooperation” with the Tribunal while hinting that no Syrian ministers would be charged in the assassination. There was also evidence that Brammertz refused to follow up some leads with regards to Palestinian involvement in the crime.

All the violence takes place against the backdrop of an Arab League attempt to get the two sides to agree on a presidential candidate. Secretary Moussa will travel to Lebanon again this week to continue his fruitless search for a compromise acceptable to Syria and the opposition.

Meanwhile, the murders continue, the two sides become even more entrenched and the citizens of Lebanon are on edge wondering what will come next. The Blacksmiths of Lebanon outline the endgame:

The attacks on our institutions continue with the aim of dismantling the Lebanese state and replacing it with a quasi-Syrian province [slash] Iranian paramilitary front.

Thanks to the inviability of these plans and the historically proven inability of any one side [this time Hizballah] to impose its will on the rest of the Lebanese political/sectarian groupings, these plans will most likely fail. The issue remains, however: what will it cost our country before they do? Syria, Iran and their quislings in Lebanon [starting with Nasrallah, Berri, Aoun, and going all the way down to "the Qansos", Wahhab, and Franjieh] continue to work to ensure that price is high.

It is best if the western powers who continue their strong backing of prime minister Siniora remember that these are the stakes in play.