Right Wing Nut House

Like his other major addresses given over the past month, the President’s oval office speech last night was a calm, measured and fairly accurate portrayal of the situation in Iraq and the consequences of giving in to the Democratic party’s defeatism and surrender tactics. It was delivered in typical Bush style - which is to say that it didn’t put anyone to sleep but was hardly the kind of rousing, “Rally ‘Round the Flag” stemwinder that is probably needed to change the political dynamic and actually garner more support for his policies with middle of the road Americans. These all-important voters who have mostly abandoned the President on Iraq are the reason the Democrats have been smelling blood in the water all these months and will continue to work to undermine the war effort.

Unlike his last oval office speech in 2003 when the President enjoyed substantial support among independents for the war, today that number has fallen to around 37%. And to make matters worse, Rasmussen’s rolling average over the last month has shown a depressing steadiness to the President’s support from these “unaffiliated” voters.

Basically, this means that the President’s rising approval ratings are the result of Bush winning back Republicans who had strayed off the reservation and not indicative of a sea change in public attitudes toward Iraq.

While it is true that the President’s information offensive has been going on for only a month, the White House is probably asking itself what else they can do to reverse the decline in the support of independents before next year’s Congressional elections. The arithmetic is all too frightening. As it stands now, for every independent voter who makes a decision to vote Republican based on the President’s and the party’s support for the war, the Democrats will get two independents to vote for their candidates. Therein lies electoral disaster for Republicans in the Senate and perhaps even in the House, although the number of people who weight their vote based on a Congressional candidate’s foreign policy views is far fewer in House races.

Is there a way to win back enough independents to avoid a Republican debacle at the polls next November? The answer is a qualified “yes.” In the Presidential election of 2004, Bush received 48% of the independent vote with voter identification by party dead even at 37%. Today, with only 37% of independents supporting the President and party identification at a worrying 47% Democratic to 43% Republican, the President must not only find a way to win back at least some of those middle of the road voters but also energize the Republican party base so that enough conservatives go to the polls and keep Republican Senate candidates - especially in the south - from being swamped by a Democratic surge.

What the President must do is change the narrative on Iraq to reflect the reality of what is happening on the ground rather than the fairy tales being spun by the Democrats and their allies in the MSM. Recently, there has been some very small moves in this direction as a few media outlets have begun to compare the tone and tenor of their past coverage of the war with evidence that all is not as they have been reporting. The steady progress in reconstruction along with the obvious strides being made by the Iraqis in the political arena (and American-Iraqi military successes in slowly beating down the insurgency) have bestirred some in the mainstream press to grudgingly change the constant drumbeat of negativity that has permeated their coverage for more than 2 years. Ed Morrissey:

The Sunni participation puts the last of the building blocks in place for the establishment of a consensus democratic republic. The reporting of the Times indicates that the American media might finally start recognizing what will shortly become obvious to all whether they do so or not: that a free Iraq exists, thanks to an administration that steadfastly refused to listen to the Chicken Littles of the opposition and the whiners of the Exempt Media at home. The war may finally have turned the corner in the only place it could be lost — here in America.

It’s not enough, of course. While the Democrats have concentrated on undermining the President’s credibility on the war - with a great deal of success - they have either failed to realize the real world consequences of their defeatism or, more likely, could care less as long as it brings them victory in 2006. There follows a logical progression here; if the real story of what’s going on in Iraq can begin to be told, the President’s credibility will rise. If that occurs, the Democrats may be faced with an election day debacle of their own. Those same independents who have abandoned the President could return in large enough numbers to deliver a stinging rebuke to the Democratic party on election day 2006.

Several factors on the ground in Iraq could help the President and Republicans regain some momentum:

* Several insurgent groups lay down their arms and join the political process

* The Iraqis have a comparatively uneventful time of it in forming a new government

* Zarqawi is either killed or he announces a move out of Iraq to somewhere more hospitable, the former being more likely.

* A large and noticeable fall off in civilian casualties over several months.

* A rise in secularism with demonstrated unity between Shias, Sunnis and Kurds.

* Well publicized successes in fighting the insurgency by the Iraqi military.

* More public support from Arab governments for Iraqi democracy.

I would hope that two or three of these things happening between now and the 2006 election would secure a Republican triumph and, more importantly, drive a stake through the heart of the insurgency and hasten the day when our sons and daughters can come home.

UPDATE

Some react to the speech:

Michelle Malkin live blogged the address and, in something one rarely sees from a liveblogger, she gives the talking head response immediately following the speech.

Think Progress published a copy of the speech even though it was embargoed. Their explanation?

[Ed note: We’ll start respecting embargoes when they start telling the truth.]

Um…does anyone else see that as petty and childish? Par. For. The. Course.

Is Glen Reynolds being cynical?

BUSH DOUBLES DOWN: I just watched Bush’s speech. Nothing new there for anyone who’s been paying attention to the speeches he’s been giving over the past couple of weeks. But one big thing struck me: In this national televised speech, Bush went out of his way to take responsibility for the war. He repeatedly talked about “my decision to invade Iraq,” even though, of course, it was also Congress’s decision. He made very clear that, ultimately, this was his war, and the decisions were his.

Why did he do that? Because he thinks we’re winning, and he wants credit. By November 2006, and especially November 2008, he thinks that’ll be obvious, and he wants to lay down his marker now on what he believed — and what the other side did. That’s my guess, anyway.

Paul Mirengoff nails it:

He expressed respect for those who oppose the war, admitted to some mistakes, and conveyed how wrenching it is to be a war president and how determined he is to win the war. Bush also put the focus where it should be — on where we go from here. He has a coherent answer; the Democrats don’t.

Most lefty bloggers are too busy wetting their pants over the NSA story to write much about the speech. Does this mean that they care more about safeguarding the rights of terrorists than fighting and winning the war?

Of course not, don’t be silly. That would be unpatriotic and defeatist not to mention suicidal.

Good for the Governator:

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger refused to block the execution early Tuesday of Stanley Tookie Williams, rejecting the notion that the founder of the murderous Crips gang had atoned for his crimes and found redemption on death row.

With a federal court refusing to grant a reprieve, Williams, 51, was set to die by injection at San Quentin Prison just after midnight for murdering four people during two 1979 holdups.

Williams’ case became one of the nation’s biggest death-row cause celebres in decades. It set off a nationwide debate over the possibility of redemption on death row, with Hollywood stars and capital punishment foes arguing that Williams had made amends by writing children’s books about the dangers of gangs.

But Schwarzenegger suggested that Williams’ supposed change of heart was not genuine, noting that the inmate had not owned up to his crimes or shown any real remorse for the countless killings committed by the Crips.

I’m no big fan of the death penalty but Tookie has got to go. The idea of “redemption” on death row is laughable, something only liberals and people who believe in the tooth fairy can support with a straight face. There is no redemption for someone who has killed 4 people in the manner that Mr. Williams did. The Lord will redeem him perhaps, but please do not ask us to. Laughing and bragging about murdering the innocent is an irredeemable sin. And the fact that he has yet to take responsibility for his crimes and show any remorse whatsoever for not only those he killed but the thousands of dead young people whose lives were tragically cut short either in gang warfare or as a result of being caught in the cross fire bespeaks a breathtaking arrogance that should give the lie to any “redemption” Mr. Williams claims as a result of death staring him square in the face.

The problems with the death penalty have been well documented by people a helluva a lot smarter than I am. Basically, it comes down to a question of justice not of race. It is proven to us time and time again that if you’re rich, you have an excellent chance of either beating a murder rap or at the very least, escaping the death penalty. Poor people are not so lucky. And when talking about justice, how can we in good conscience allow this disparity when dealing with the life and death of a human being?

But I’ll make an exception in Tookie’s case. The wasteland that is South Central Los Angeles and countless other inner city war zones can at least partly be laid at the feet of Mr. William’s creation; the Crips street gang. So much violence and terror. So many destroyed lives. And let’s not forget a culture that glorifies the Tookies of the world at the expense of more uplifting and hopeful role models. Tookie offered a grinning death’s head as a symbol to his followers and admirers. You can’t get much more destructive than that.

UPDATE

React - both sublime and grotesque - from the right.

John Cole:

I am glad he ‘reformed’ after a while in jail, and I am glad he managed to do a few good things after being sentenced to death for his unspeakable crimes- maybe his God will take that into account tonight. But personally, I have a really hard time getting worked up over this case, and think there are far better cases to champion for those who dislike the death penalty than a multiple murderer who still refuses to admit his own guilt.

Ace with some spot-on commentary on reaction from the left:

It’s a strange compulsion of the radical left to excuse the worst of all crimes — murder — simply because someone may have a bit of creative talent or literary potential. Murder is not some penny-ante offense that is outlawed only due to blue laws forced on the country by religious freaks. It is the ultimate crime, the alpha and omega of violations.

This absolves his sins?

In his gentle, caring way, Misha commiserates with Tookie ’s desire not to have anyone present at the execution:

‘Fraid you don’t have much say in that matter, you perverted, murdering son of a whore. Pardon our harsh language, but we’re still pissed off that all of the tickets to the show were sold out and that we’ll be stuck at home when we should be watching Tookie getting the Juice O’Death, stuffing our face with pork rinds and swilling beer. They do allow beer in there, don’t they?

Um…don’t think so my Emperor but we could try and make an exception in your case.

Thanks to Will Collier for reminding us what Mr. Williams is being executed for.

As usual, James Joyner is thoughtful and succinct:

While laudable that Williams decided that murder and mayhem were bad things while in prison, achieving the moral consciousness of the average 6-year-old does not erase his heinous past. As founder of the Crips, he is responsible for more murders than Charles Manson, Son of Sam, Jack the Ripper, John Wayne Gacy, and every other serial killer you’ve ever heard of combined. If anyone deserves to die, it’s him.

RIGHT WING FANATIC BLOGGERS MARCHING IN LOCKSTEP DURING THEIR ANNUAL “RUSH-ROVE PARADE”

Would someone please tell me where I went wrong?

I mean, I know I called former FEMA Director Michael Brown that “horse show impresario.” And I may have gotten Karl mad at me when I called for Rummy’s resignation and criticized George for not coming out and speaking about the war earlier than he did. And as far as the Christian fundamentalist agenda…well, let’s just say that I respectfully agree to disagree. But is that any reason to purge my name from the email list?

After all, like this guy Crowley says, we right wing whack jobs are uncaring, unthinking tools of Karl Rove and his allies in the massive right wing media infrastructure:

But Democrats say there’s a key difference between liberals and conservatives online. Liberals use the Web to air ideas and vent grievances with one another, often ripping into Democratic leaders. (Hillary Clinton, for instance, is routinely vilified on liberal Web sites for supporting the Iraq war.) Conservatives, by contrast, skillfully use the Web to provide maximum benefit for their issues and candidates. They are generally less interested in examining every side of every issue and more focused on eliciting strong emotional responses from their supporters.

But what really makes conservatives effective is their pre-existing media infrastructure, composed of local and national talk-radio hosts like Rush Limbaugh, the Fox News Channel and sensationalist say-anything outlets like the Drudge Report - all of which are quick to pass on the latest tidbit from the blogosphere. “One blogger on the Republican side can have a real impact on a race because he can just plug right into the right-wing infrastructure that the Republicans have built,” Stoller says.

First, would someone please send me today’s password so I can “plug right into the right wing infrastructure?” I mean how the hell am I supposed to “emotionally connect” with my readers unless I have the damn password? The password, damn it! Give it to me.

You don’t realize how unplugged you really are until you wake up one morning and find yourself “out of the loop.” No more cozy email exchanges with Karl. No more instant messaging with Rush. And Drudge? The bastard won’t even take my calls anymore. And after all those “tidbits from the blogosphere” I’ve dutifully passed on to my readers too! Ungrateful wretch. Maybe I could start an internet rumor that the reason he wears that stupid hat is to hide his baldness. Or maybe to hide his pointy head?

Anyway, I’m lost without you guys so would someone send me some instructions here? I’m so bollixed up that I can’t for the life of me figure out whether I’m coming or going.

It’s getting darker now. My screen is dissolving to black. Have I been purged? Have I been drummed out of the League of Extraordinary White Right Wing Wackos? Look, this isn’t fair! I’ve done everything asked of me.

It isn’t fair. It just isn’t fair.

I’m never quite sure what to make of political cartoonist Ted Rall. Is he being serious? Or, like some demented 2 year old who combines the grotesquely comical of Chucky with the casual malevolence of Damien, does he throw his anti-American fits just to get attention?

Certainly his artistic ability is indicative of someone who has not reached the age of reason. In some respects, his caricatures are little better than stick figures, formless blotches with no artistic depth which bear little resemblance to the targets of his satires His crude, Crumb-like pictographs add little to the thoughts expressed and ideas behind the cartoons, which sets him apart from all good cartoon satirists. Thomas Nast he isn’t.

If Mr. Rall can’t draw very well, he at least has a point of view to share with his readers. Again, it is hard for me to believe that Mr. Rall isn’t pulling our leg just a little bit when he writes things like this:

Congress never declared war against Iraq. As an unelected imposter [sic], George W. Bush did not enjoy authority under the War Powers Act to commit American forces abroad. Concentration camps at Abu Ghraib and elsewhere violate the Geneva Conventions, which as treaty obligations are binding under U.S. law. Iraq did not threaten the United States. Iraq is not the subject of a U.N.-led international police action. Thus, by several measures, the war is illegal. Every order to deploy a soldier, aviator or sailor to fight in Iraq is by definition an unlawful order, one that he or she is legally and morally bound to refuse.

How can we take someone like this seriously? Someone who can’t even spell “impostor?” And how about “unelected impostor?” Is Mr. Rall trying to tell us that the man who garnered 51% of the vote last November is not George Bush but someone else who looks like George Bush and is pretending to be the President of the United States?

Obviously, George Bush is neither unelected nor is he an impostor. This would lead one to believe that either Mr. Rall is trying to be amusing or is a blithering idiot.

As for “violating the Geneva Convention,” it is very hard to violate something when its strictures are not applicable. In the case of the terrorists being held at various locations, while they are entitled to some basic rights (that to our shame have not been defined well enough to prevent the kind of abuse we’ve seen at Abu Ghraib, Bagram, and elsewhere) their captivity does not technically fall under any codices or code contained in the Conventions.

And Mr. Rall’s contention that “Iraq is not the subject of a U.N.-led international police action” is demonstrably false. On On May 22, 2003, the UN Security Council voted 14–0 to give the United States and Britain the power to govern Iraq and use its oil resources to rebuild the country. That would indicate to all but the most willfully self deluded that the UN is sanctioning the occupation. And the invasion itself was justified under 14 different UN resolutions relating to Iraq as well as the right of self-defense also guaranteed under the UN Charter.

All of this is well known to even casual observers of the war. But for Mr. Rall and the traitorous bunch of far-left galoots, these facts don’t fit the narrative and therefore, can safely be ignored. And it may be just me but the closer the Iraq War gets to success, it seems that the rhetoric of these lickspittles gets wilder and more out of control:

What are members of the military to do? They should certainly refuse to applaud when Bush uses them as backdrops to his logo-ridden pro-death pep rallies. Moreover, just as Muslim leaders were pressured to speak out against Islamist extremists after 9/11, soldiers ought to step forward to condemn the atrocities at Bagram, Fallujah and Guantánamo in letters to newspapers and other public venues.

The military used to be an honorable calling. Not under Bush. Ethical Americans considering a military career should seek a civilian job until a lawful, elected government has been restored in Washington and we have withdrawn our forces from occupied Afghanistan and Iraq. Those who are already enlisted should refuse to reenlist. Soldiers trapped by “stop loss” orders should apply for conscientious objector status (which is difficult to obtain) or refuse deployment based on the unlawful order principle. And if all else fails, there’s always desertion.

Mr. Rall writes as if he is under some kind of occupation himself. The fact that there is zero chance that he will be arrested and tossed in jail for advocating sedition in the armed forces should give the lie to the statement about a “lawful, elected government” being “restored. Perhaps Mr. Rall would like to speak to a few Democratic legislators who might resent the idea that they also are unelected.

The rest of Rall’s ridiculous rant raises some interesting questions about loyalty during a time of war. Obviously, Mr. Rall could care less about loyalty. And I’m not talking about loyalty to Bush, or Republicans, but to the Constitution and the law of the land which have pretty specific language about not actively engaging in treasonous activity. For that is what we are talking about here - rank treason. In another age, another time, Ted Rall would be in the dock, on trial for his life. But in 21st century America, he is lionized, invited to all the important cocktail parties, and paid vast sums of money to continue to utter his treasonous thoughts.

This brings me back to my original point. Is Ted Rall serious or is he someone exhibiting a kind of post-pubescent anti-authoritarian tantrum? Is he real or is he a caricature of himself?

Given his track record of traitorous and nauseating anti-American rants, in the end, it really doesn’t matter does it?

The Democratic party is nothing if not consistent. And their Chairman is a living, breathing representation of everything that is tragically wrong about a once great party that at one time, led the fight for freedom and democracy around the world.

The fact that Howard Dean has come out and said that the Iraq War is “unwinnable” should not surprise anyone. It has been the unspoken position of the Democratic Party that preventing the United States from winning in Iraq is the number one political goal of the party. Allowing for victory would cement Republican majorities in the House and Senate for the foreseeable future, something that the party cannot tolerate. It is a party currently constructed for the sole purpose of exercising the power of the federal government to benefit its confusing alphabet soup of interest groups, organizations, NGO’s, and hangers’ on. Wielding power for power’s sake is the reason for its existence. And being out of power threatens to destroy it. This is the party that stood up to communist aggression in the 1940’s, 50’s, and 60’s while Republicans wanted to bury their heads in the sand and pretend the threats to freedom in the world were none of our business.

They are well beyond that now, of course. For more than a quarter of a century, they have been driving loyal Americans away from the fold until all that is left are the remnants of the anti-Viet Nam coalition; media, academia, and the social misfits and anti-American galoots who continue to play the same tired, electoral hand of race baiting, class warfare, and suicidal isolationism that appeals to a narrower and narrower band of the American electorate.

Unfazed by this losing combination, the Democratic leadership has been reduced to political hackery of the worst sort - a pandering for votes and money at the expense of the national security of the United States. The problem isn’t that they want to win elections. The problem is that in their current delusional state, they believe that by turning their backs on history that they can somehow click the tumblers into place and unlock the secret of victory at the ballot box. By convincing themselves of the absolute rightness of their moral posturing on Iraq, they believe that they can convince a majority of their countrymen that cutting and running in the middle east is a policy without consequence, that retreat in the face of aggression will not be seen by the world - our enemies most especially - as a monumental defeat for the US and our position in the world.

I always liked that line from Gladiator where Caesar asks Maximus “What is Rome?” Maximus answers “Rome is the light. The rest of the world is darkness.” While it may be politically incorrect to think so, the idea of American exceptionalism is one of the major reasons the world is as livable as it is. As bad as things are, how much worse would the world be without an America as a beacon in the night for freedom loving peoples everywhere? How much more trouble would the earth be in if, as the Democrats so fervently desire, America were to take a secondary role in world affairs and allow the corrupt, freedom hating bureaucrats at the UN to take the lead in trying to tamp down the scourge of terrorism that threatens to extinguish the light of human tolerance and understanding?

America is the light. And while the entire rest of the world may not be the darkness, we certainly outshine those countries who should be standing with us shoulder to shoulder in our fight to protect the best of western civilization. The Democratic party has joined the chorus of those who believe that America is a force for evil in the world. They are convinced that any setback we endure in Iraq would be a good thing because it would teach us humility or would bring us down a peg or two in the international pecking order. This is stupid and suicidal. Masking their defeatist and yes, unpatriotic positions in the rhetoric of feel-good, new age hokum, Democrats will attempt to hide their real feelings on the War and America’s place in the world because they know that a majority of Americans - barely - disagree with them.

By turning their back on the Iraqi people, the Democrats are turning their backs on one of the most powerful forces for good the world has ever seen; the simple, compelling need of human beings to decide their own destiny free from terror, free from coercion, and free from the strife that has afflicted mankind since we crawled out of caves and began to live with the hope that things could be better. Perhaps it is the concept of good and evil that confuses them. Perhaps it is the idea that in this conflict one side is right and the other side is wrong. Such stark moral choices don’t go over well in the salons where liberals shake their heads and click their tongues in disapproval over American actions.

But I’ve got news for the Democrats and their far left allies who are seeking to deal the United States a political defeat in this war on terror; our enemies have no such daintiness when it comes to deciding who is right and who is wrong. They clearly delineate between factions. They don’t toss and turn at night worrying about moral quandaries. They are simply prepared to do whatever is necessary to win.

The hard fact is the United States needs the left, we need the Democratic party to engage in this fight. Without them, we are going into the battle with one hand tied behind our back. And Howard Dean and the rest of the defeatists in Congress and the hinterlands of America must be roundly and soundly disabused of the notion that they have any support outside of a few isolated ivory towers in academia, the media, and some of the darker places in American politics.

The real Democrats - the Democrats of my father who fought for freedom in WW II and here at home - have got to stand up and once and for all eliminate this disease from their ranks. Otherwise, America will keep limping along only half engaged in this battle for survival. And that would be a recipe for disaster.

If they weren’t such a bunch of defeatist, partisan, left-wing, hypocrites, you could almost feel sorry for the New York Times. Instead, after reading editorials like the one today about how Republicans are (in no particular order) undermining the Constitution, stripping people of their rights, rigging the election process, and politicizing the judicial system, it would perhaps be better to point a finger in their direction and laugh uproariously at the attempt to turn the recent history of Congressional redistricting into a Fractured Fairy Tale of lies, half truths, and convenient memory lapses:

The rules of American democracy say every president may install his own team of like-minded people in the government - even at a place like the Justice Department, which is at its root a law-enforcement agency and not a campaign branch office. But the Bush administration seems to be losing sight of the fact that the rules also say the majority party of the moment may not use its powers to strip citizens of their rights, politicize the judicial system or rig the election process to keep itself in office.

You may remember the Fractured Fairy Tale cartoons from the old Rocky and Bullwinkle Show. Writer A.J. Jacobs would take a fairy tale and turn the story on its ear by positing outrageous juxtapositions of the familiar facts with thoroughly modern elements ending the segment with a bad pun as a comic punchline. The Times may fail miserably in the comedy department but that doesn’t seem to deter them from corrupting history to suit their partisan agenda by glossing over the past and dishonestly exaggerating the present to skewer Republicans over redistricting practices that have been carried out since Alexander Hamilton’s time.

I have absolutely no doubt that Republicans gamed the system in order to increase their majority in the House not only in Texas but other states as well. And this is a shock to the New York Times? Of course, they couch their objections in terms of “civil rights” but what is really at work here? Are Republicans drawing Congressional districts to disenfranchise minorities or to maximize the votes of their constituencies? In other words, by drawing district lines that “dilutes” the most reliable bloc of Democratic votes - Blacks and Hispanics - are Republicans being racists or simply emulating the practices of past Democratic Party masters of the tactics of gerrymandering?

One of those masters was Phil Burton of California. Burton was a pugnacious, unabashed liberal whose personal style was so offensive that many in his own party gave him a wide berth. But he was a genius at redistricting California and making it a Democratic state. His 1980 redistricting plan was a jaw dropping exercise in partisan political hackery. He himself referred to the plan as “my contribution to modern art” so wildly skewed were the lines that delineated Congressional districts. I wonder if the Times would say the same thing about Burton that they wrote about Tom DeLay?:

But The Washington Post’s Dan Eggen reported last week that the Justice Department has been suppressing for nearly two years a 73-page memo in which six lawyers and two analysts in the voting rights section, including the group’s chief lawyer, unanimously concluded that the Texas redistricting plan of 2003 illegally diluted the votes of blacks and Hispanics in order to ensure a Republican majority in the state’s Congressional delegation. That plan was shoved through the Texas State Legislature by Representative Tom DeLay, who abused his federal position in doing so and is now facing criminal charges over how money was raised to support the redistricting.

Did Burton “abuse” his federal position when he bragged about his plan? The result of Burton’s machinations became clear in 1982. When Ronald Reagan was elected in 1980, there were 22 Democratic and 21 Republican Congressmen. In 1982, following Burton’s manipulation of the system, there were 28 Democrats and 17 Republicans in Congress. In 1984, Republicans won a majority of votes in Congressional districts but failed to gain a single seat thanks to Burton’s gerrymandering.

The map drawn up by Burton looked like he had given a monkey a crayon and allowed him to scribble on a map of the state. Burton’s own district featured so many twists and turns that the lines actually ended up splitting apartment buildings in two. There were lines drawn down the middle of streets so that one side was in Burton’s district and the other side given over to the Republicans. All of this legerdemain was necessitated by the changing nature of Burton’s district which had become gentrified and thus full of Republican voters. But it was made possible - like DeLay’s efforts in Texas - by the magic of computers and the science of demography.

And the 2001 redistricting process in California was in some ways, even more outrageous:

The same could be said of the 2001 gerrymander, especially considering the 23rd congressional district drawn to guarantee Democratic Congresswoman Lois Capps a safe seat. It traces the California coastline from Monterey County down to Ventura County. Although it is 200 miles long, its width ranges from five miles to 100 yards, carefully avoiding Republican leaning-neighborhoods. When discussing the 2001 redistricting map that created this district the Governor said it looked like it was drawn by “a drunk with an Etch-a-Sketch.”

Much as we are loathe to admit, we Americans tend to vote in blocs. People of similar incomes, color, religious faith, sexual preference, and even TV preferences (to name a few) all tend to vote in a similar way. This is the dirty little secret in American politics and is grist for the demographer’s mill when they seek to slice and dice the data and turn it into political power. If one were to feed recent election results by precinct along with census figures from that same zip code into a computer and ask it to elect a Republican Congressman, the obedient machine would spit out a map that would guarantee a Republican majority district.

While court decisions have required plans to take into account the racial make-up of districts, there is nothing on the books that says lines must be drawn to insure a certain number of Democratic seats. This is the real beef of the Times and the opponents of the Texas redistricting plan. It is not so much a question of “diluting” minority votes as it is a question of blunting the impact of Democratic votes. The fact that the voters are members of a minority is a straw man set up to hide the real objection - Republicans drew the lines to garner more seats in the House of Representatives.

In the mind of the editors at the New York Times, this raw exercise in political power is evil and indicative of a Republican plot to destroy the Republic. But in telling this fractured fairy tale, the Times misses the punchline. By totally ignoring past efforts of Democrats when they were the majority party and seeking to cement that advantage using the same tactics as Republicans, it somehow didn’t seem quite as urgent to defend the rights of the minority.

This article originally appears in The American Thinker.

If you look very closely, you can see patches of ice forming along the banks of the River Styx. Charon, the ferryman, is seriously contemplating trading in his flat bottomed boat for an ice breaker while he worries that soon, some of the recently departed will be able to simply walk across the river without paying him and enter the afterlife, leaving the ferryman holding the bag so to speak.

In fact, there’s a decided chill in the air in hell these days. I say this because Hillary Clinton’s recent comments about Iraq actually make some sense and are worthy of serious consideration.

Now before many of my right-leaning friends stage an intervention and try to get me to voluntarily commit myself for 6 months of aromatherapy, let me make matters worse by saying I don’t believe that what Hillary is trying to accomplish is necessarily a poll-driven exercise in moderation. In fact, while her continued support for the war has more qualifiers than a pill bottle’s warning label, I would like to point out that she is opposed to a rigid timetable for withdrawal and in support of pretty much the same formula for victory that President Bush has recently outlined.

If this is a calculated move on her part to make herself more acceptable to the broad middle in American politics, I should remind you that she is agreeing with a President with a 42% approval rating, a man who demonstrably is in trouble with those same middle of the road Americans that are absolutely necessary to achieve victory in any race for the White House.

And Clinton has demonstrated a refreshing independence from what should be her natural base - the hard left Democrats who now stalk her fundraisers with protest signs against the Iraq war. The anger generated among this constituency for her continued support of the war has some Democratic strategists wondering whether Senator Clinton is hurting her chances to win the nomination. These very same activists hurling invective at the former First Lady are usually the determining factor in who the Democrats nominate for President every four years. And many of them have made it crystal clear that any candidate who voted for the war’s authorization need not come ’round at primary time, hat in hand, trying to win their affections.

Those activists overstate their influence with Hillary. Given her rock star status and proven ability to raise huge sums of money, if Senator Clinton chooses to run in 2008 I daresay she will be able to call upon the best and brightest in the Democratic party to staff her campaign as well as energize enough of the base to overcome the opposition of the cut-and-run crowd.

So if Hillary’s recent statements of support for continuing the war through as she has said, to an “honorable” victory aren’t purely a matter of repositioning herself toward the middle, it could very well be that the wife of the greatest prevaricator to ever occupy the White House could, in fact, mean what she says on Iraq.

And why not? Clinton’s statements before a womans group this past Monday sounded like any reasonable American defending our commitment to Iraq:

The New York Democrat said she respects Rep. Jack Murtha, D-Pa., the Vietnam veteran and hawkish ex-Marine who last week called for an immediate troop pullout. But she added: “I think that would cause more problems for us in America.”

“It will matter to us if Iraq totally collapses into civil war, if it becomes a failed state the way Afghanistan was, where terrorists are free to basically set up camp and launch attacks against us,” she said.

If that sounds familiar, it’s because that is exactly what the President has been saying for more than two years.

And her critique of the intelligence fiasco leading up to the war, while reliably anti-Bush, stops well short of the “Bush lied” theme adopted by many of the more radical elements in her party:

“I take responsibility for my vote, and I, along with a majority of Americans, expect the president and his administration to take responsibility for the false assurances, faulty evidence and mismanagement of the war…”

And when she visited Iraq last summer, she certainly didn’t sound like a defeatist:

“The concerted effort to disrupt the elections was an abject failure. Not one polling place was shut down or overrun,” Clinton told reporters inside the U.S.-protected Green Zone, a sprawling complex of sandbagged buildings surrounded by blast walls and tanks. The zone is home to the Iraqi government and the U.S. Embassy…

…The fact that you have these suicide bombers now, wreaking such hatred and violence while people pray, is to me, an indication of their failure,” Clinton said.

I think it safe to say that Hillary Clinton, while remaining a fiercely partisan Democrat, has been one of President Bush’s more reliable Democratic supporters of his war policies. Considering the statements and actions of some other Democrats who voted for the war like John Kerry and John Edwards, Hillary’s position on Iraq has been a model of bi-partisan cooperation. She said as much in her speech on Monday:

She blamed the problems facing the United States in Iraq on “poor decision-making by the administration,” but added: “My view is we have to work together to fix these problems.”

The fact that Mrs. Clinton’s steady support for the war flies in the face of the conventional wisdom on the right that her advocacy is a cynical move toward the political center does a disservice, I believe, both to her and other Democrats that the President needs desperately to maintain our commitment to Iraq. If the longshot chances of the Democrats to win back the Senate next year come to fruition, the President is going to need the support of Senator Clinton and others to prevent the cut and run Democrats from taking over Iraq policy.

And even if the Republicans, as expected, maintain control of both Houses of Congress, Hillary Clinton’s voice will be even more important given the media attention that will begin in anticipation of the 2008 Presidential race.

Does this mean that conservatives may want to consider supporting Hillary for President in 2008? Don’t worry, the weather forecast for hell is calling for drastically warming temperatures followed by a heat wave in the very near future.

UPDATE

Before I get a single email or comment about it, I will admit that yes, dear readers, I know very well that Charon the ferryman took people across the River Acheron and not Styx but hey! The mis-identification is indelibly etched into popular culture so I decided to take advantage of it.

How’s that for pre-emptive defense?

The speech given by President Bush at the Naval Academy yesterday outlining his plan for victory in Iraq was a brilliant exposition of both a rationale for our being there as well as clear strategy for victory. The President always seems to rise to the occasion during these set-piece talks and as John Hindraker points out (as well as Norman Podhoretz) Bush’s careful annunciation of his vision during these speeches has been one of the more remarkable aspects of his presidency. Perhaps no President since Wilson has spent as much time and effort in communicating an overall strategic outlook about what America’s place in the world should be and how the forces of history can be tapped to aid us in our war against the fanatical Islamists who seek to destroy us.

But the speech, like other efforts by the President recently, is falling on deaf ears. This is mostly his fault as he has allowed his political opponents to construct an Iraq narrative (almost totally at odds with the reality of what is happening on the ground) that has now taken hold with the great majority of the American people. I say it is the President’s fault because Bush has failed in the #1 area where Presidents - especially a President at war - simply cannot afford to fail; he has failed to forcefully and consistently remind the American people of why we are in Iraq and what is at stake if we lose. Instead, for months he ceded the job to his surrogates, not all of whom did he or his administration credit not to mention muddying the waters considerably regarding the strength of our commitment to victory.

It was only when Congress itself indicated a desire to usurp his authority as Commander in Chief by attempting to manage the war from Capitol Hill did the President rouse himself. First, with a defense of his actions prior to going to war and now a clear delineation of what constitutes victory, the President has finally come out from behind his desk and begun to fight.

It is unclear as to how the situation can be retrieved at this point. So much of his opponent’s narrative has been accepted as fact - we’re losing, we can’t win, Bush lied, the place is a complete mess, etc. - that only some dramatic event on the ground in Iraq such as some insurgent groups giving up and agreeing to work within a democratic framework will change the dynamic of the national conversation on the war and allow for revision of “conventional wisdom.”

Part of the problem is the President’s credibility which has been successfully challenged by his political opponents with plenty of assistance from the media. The President’s trustworthiness which was one of his strengths in last year’s election, has fallen like a stone in recent polls, hovering around 40% from a high last November in the upper 50’s. The sad fact is that the American people do not believe or trust the President at this point. History has shown that a President’s credibility can, in fact, be resurrected but that it takes time. And unless the President ’s pronouncements on Iraq can be seen as reflecting what is truly going on there, the President is in danger of losing at least the Senate and possibly even the House in next year’s elections.

So despite a brilliant speech, the President may just as well have been giving it to an empty room. Until other factors working against the President can be blunted, support for the war and for victory in Iraq will be held hostage to the forces of negativism, defeatism, and political posturing.

A sad state of affairs, that. But one that the President has mostly himself to blame.

Citing bad play calling by Philadelphia Eagles coach Andy Reid, Senator Arlen Specter (Busybody-PA) has threatened to convene a hearing of his Judiciary Subcommittee to investigate why the coach called a “PRO RIGHT Z-CRASH 38 SWEEP TRAP” instead of a “PRO LEFT 32 BLAST” on 4th and 2 in the third quarter of last Sunday’s game.

Shaking with anger, Specter said an investigation was called for because “any idiot” could see that the Packers had flooded the strong side, rolling up the safety’s and overlapping a linebacker while shooting the gaps with their D-linemen.

“I threw my beer at the TV screen I was so mad,” said the 75-year old Senator.

Specter also announced that he may hold hearings into the Terrel Owens affair to discover whether or not the penalties meted out to the controversial wide receiver for his extraordinarily stupid actions constituted a violation of anti-trust laws.

“What good is it if I have this subcommittee and can’t stick my nose where it doesn’t belong every once in a while?” Specter asked.

Specter says that he is concerned that football teams are not as responsive to input from fans - or from Congress for that matter - as they should be.

“Football teams are becoming entirely too independent. Play calling such as we saw on Sunday is the direct result of Coach Reid ignoring input from knowledgeable fans like me and I think an investigation is called for,” the Senator said.

Specter would neither confirm or deny a report that he telephoned the stadium on Sunday and demanded to be put through to the offensive coordinator Brad Childress. A telephone operator at the stadium has been quoted as saying that immediately following the unsuccessful attempt on 4th down, someone she described as “a real loon” and identifying himself as a Senator from Pennsylvania called the stadium switchboard demanding to be placed in contact with Coordinator Childress.

“He was sputtering about how bad the call was,” said the operator who wished to remain anonymous. “I connected him to the concession stand under the north end zone,” she giggled.

A spokesman for Sportservice, Inc., owner of the concession stand, said that an employee has been disciplined for taking the call and impersonating the offensive coordinator. He reportedly told the Senator to “go climb a tree” when Specter complained about the 4th down call.

A source in Specter’s office has said that the Senator is also interested in investigating other calls made by Reid during the game, especially the play in the 1st quarter where it was 4th and less than a yard on Philly’s own 28 yard line and…

To those of us of a certain age, the year 1980 will be marked forever as the beginning of a gilded age in politics as conservatives streamed into Washington full of energy and enthusiasm ready to do battle on behalf of Ronald Reagan and his revolution with the staid, established interests who were strangling the country with their attitudes of defeatism and ennui.

Trying to explain what it was like to someone in their twenties or thirties is usually an exercise in futility. The reason is that those born after the revolution or who were very young while it was fought have no conception of the kind of country Ronald Reagan inherited from Jimmy Carter and the Democrats in that fateful year of 1980.

How do you explain 12% inflation to someone who has grown up in a virtually inflation-free era? Telling them that the prices you paid for food at the grocery store went up noticeably every week draws blank stares of incomprehension. Or trying to give a young adult today an idea of what it was like to try and buy a car when the prime rate was 18.5%? Or the feeling that America’s best days were behind her and that we may as well get used to the idea of decline. Or that communism was the wave of the future?

This was America when Ronald Reagan took office. His prescription for the country - cut taxes, revitalize the military, cut the bureaucracy, and rein in spending - triggered an explosion of ideas the likes of which Washington hadn’t seen since FDR’s first term. These were heady times for young conservatives who were more than ready to explore ways to bring the thoughts of conservative thinkers into the political conversation and make theory a reality.

I first remember hearing Lyn Nofziger at a breakfast meeting of the National Chamber of Commerce back in 1981. He didn’t give a speech as much as he simply “harrumphed” his way through his presentation. He was gruff, funny, down to earth, and very wise. He didn’t talk about conservative ideology as much as he talked about “the movement.”He gave a brief rehash of the 1980 election and then showed with devastating clarity why the Republicans would win most national elections far into the future. Demographic electoral trends in the south and west were going to heavily favor Republicans for decades to come. He believed that the Democrats could only win national office if they ran a moderate southerner who was identified with the pro-military wing of the party, a fairly prescient analysis given that Mr. Nofziger had no clue that the Soviets were to collapse in less than a decade.

At that breakfast, Nofziger demonstrated a clear understanding of the idea that politics is a means to an end, not an end in and of itself. And in this interview published in today’s Washington Times, it appears that Mr. Nofziger has not forgotten that one salient fact:

“They’ve been in power too long,” Mr. Nofziger says of Republicans. “Any time you put any political party in power for too long, it becomes corrupt. It loses its focus. It forgets why it came there.”

When it comes to the so-called neoconservatives surrounding the president, he says, “?’Conservative’ is a word that doesn’t mean anything. It can mean what you want it to mean.”

This is what I see as the major problem of the Bush Administration. Their conservatism is defined electorally not ideologically. It is ridiculous to talk about this Administration as the left does as “ideological” in a conservative sense. I truly believe that if 9/11 had not occurred, there would have been little to ignite the passions of Bush and his people and they would have governed as centrists in both domestic and foreign affairs. Their cautious approach to the flap over the collision with the Chinese fighter was indicative of the way Bush would have managed foreign affairs; consensus over confrontation.

But as he waxes nostalgic in the interview, Nofziger reveals the reason why conservatives today seem lost:

“To me, conservative means believing in a minimum amount of government and a maximum amount of freedom — and keeping government out of people’s lives and business — and leaving people alone,” Mr. Nofziger says. “I recognize you have to have national defense and have to finance the government. But government does not have to be the be-all and end-all.”

The question isn’t if this definition of conservatism has been invalidated by the Bush Administration but rather what does it really mean?

How do you translate that classic definition of conservatism and have it mean anything relevant when trying to govern a 21st century industrialized liberal (dictionary definition) democracy?

Simply believing one wants “small government” is a meaningless exercise in wishful thinking. Do we get rid of the FDA? How about the FTC? Or the EEOC?

These agencies aren’t superfluous bureaucracies, they are vital to the functioning of a government that wishes to protect the food and drugs consumed by people, ride herd on gigantic corporations who do not have the interest of the majority of the people at heart, and protect the rights of formerly oppressed minorities. But in order to carry out their mandates, they must insinuate themselves into “the lives and businesses” of people.

Can they be run better? Can they be made more responsible to the people we actually elect to run these agencies? The answer is yes. But how that is accomplished without some kind of revolution (with a concomitant upheaval that would endanger those agencies abilities to carry out their mandates)?

I’ve only begun to explore these questions. I would be curious to hear other people’s thoughts on how to translate the Nofziger definition of conservatism into something that would reflect the realities of government today.