the movie

The cool kids

A few thoughts on last night's ABC GOP debate.

How is it that someone like McCain attacks Mitt Romney for changing his position on abortion over the years while McCain himself changed his position on illegal immigration during the campaign? McCain has drastically changed his position on one of the most pressing issues of the day within the last few months. McCain is a candidate who will prevail only if adequate scrutiny is not paid to his record as a senator. The McCain-Kennedy bill and the McCain-Feingold bill are not exactly hardcore conservative credentials.

And when has Romney ever changed his position on the war in Iraq? Huckabee supposedly scored a hit when accusing Romney of changing his position on the war? This is the same man who accused Bush of having bunker mentality? How Huckabee has any running room criticizing some one else's foreign policy ideas is beyond me. In last night's debate Huckabee again proved himself to be an utter hack, representing the worst kind of opportunistic and substance-free politician.

Then we have what I call the 'cool kids' factor. The piling on of personal insults and marginal policy critiques by every candidate upon Romney. First of all, the fact that no one piled on say, Fred Thompson is revealing enough. You don't pile on a non-factor. But beyond that, what we saw last night was reminiscent of high school cafeteria table where the cool kids gang up on the smart kid. (Often times in 7th and 8th grade I was with the cool kids, I'm not proud to say.) We've all seen versions of this phenomena countless times in life, some people are threatened by smart, capable individuals. It's just easier to team up and pile on than it is to compete on a legitimate basis. In the case of last night's debate, it was easier to rely on personal attacks, one-liners, and quips in an attempt to hide mediocrity.

During the debate, John McCain snickered at his own supposed jokes and sat back in his chair with an over-confident smirk after delivering insults. As Romney's press secretary suggested, McCain "Looked like the guy who had just pushed someone down a stairwell." He's right, McCain looked childish, the ringleader of the brats who are tired of having their not-so-conservative record being pointed out.

If Romney were to drop out of the race, all other candidates would look much better. Guiliani would look like a genius. McCain would look like a wise elder statesmen and not a petty, sinister, grumpy old man. Fred Thompson would look like the only legitimate conservative choice. Huckabee would be the sole 'family values' candidate. Ron Paul would be... well he'd still be Ron Paul, the natural foil to any Patriotic American who believes that the Islamo-fascists are the enemy, not our own foreign policy.

The more the Republican candidates pile on Romney exactly because he is a worthwhile candidate, the worse they look. Romney wanted to have an honest policy discussion last night and largely succeeded. But by teaming up on the smartest guy in the room and playing the role of the cool kids, the other major candidates (aside from maybe Fred Thompson) merely succeeded in looking petty, vindictive and loser-ish. These are not the qualities I would want in a president.

Why I don't 'Like Mike'

By now Mike Huckabee has proven himself to be an utter fraud, a complete charlatan.

He was "for negative attack ads before he was against them".

He has despicably played the 'religion card' against Romney and is playing, as Rush Limbaugh calls, 'identity politics' to the highest degree.

His shamelessly populist rhetoric has been, at this point, vetted and analyzed to be the thinly veiled liberal philosophy that it is.

His main criticism of Romney, the amount of money Romney has spent in Iowa, is classic liberal backwards logic. The Huckabee campaign would have us believe that being able to raise money and run a well-organized campaign is a bad thing. What does the Huckabee campaign imagine is a good approach to beating say, Hillary Clinton I wonder? That running a campaign "out of your back pocket", as Rich Lowry calls it, is somehow a viable way to defeat the entrenched Democratic apparatus? This kind of John Edwards-esque backwards logic is what we can expect from the other side of aisle, which represents yet more evidence that Huckabee is a RINO.

Pastor Huckabee has bungled every single opportunity to prove he knows a thing about foreign policy. Even his most ardent supporters would concede that, as Huckabee himself would probably quip, that his foreign policy experience amounts to that he has twice eaten at the International House of Pancakes.* He actually did say something like “I may not know a thing about Pakistan, but I did stay at a Holiday inn Express last night.” Sorry Mike, we are not electing a comedian-in-chief, we would prefer that our candidate at least know that illegal immigrants from Pakistan do not outnumber those from all other countries but Mexico.

That I haven't heard more about his completely inappropriate responses to the so-called negative ads that Romney has been running is somewhat puzzling to me. Huckabee has vindictively whined about the Romney campaign contrast ads running on TV in Iowa and elsewhere. The ads, which stay miles away from any personal attacks, highlight the substantive differences between the two candidates. Claiming that he is running a positive campaign, Huckabee counter attacks Romney about the ads with all the pettiness and vitriol of a classic Harry Reid or Nancy Pelosi anti-Bush rant, yet never does he address the substance of what Romney is saying. Does anyone still fall for this kind of obfuscating, smoke screening defense? I'll make it very simple. If candidate A makes a charge against the record of candidate B, candidate B when addressing the charge, should do so squarely. Save the one-liners, the folksy quips, the homespun logic, and the personal attacks, just address the direct subject at hand. Such as, do you support in-state tuition for illegal immigrants under any circumstances or not? Or, did you grant pardons to X number of violent criminals while governor or not? I have to believe that I'm not one of the only people to notice that for all the caterwauling regarding Romney's ads, never does the Huckster address the substance of the ads.

I could go on for days about Huckabee and why he is a fraud but I just hope he does not win Iowa tonight.

Like Susan Estrich, all those who want Republicans to lose in ‘08 want Huckabee to finish first place in Iowa.

*credit, Jay Severin

Backtrack-abee

At this point Mike Huckabee has distanced himself from his own belief that illegal immigrants should be entitled to pay instate tuition as well as distancing himself from his own disbelief in Darwin's Theory of Evolution. The other day Huckabee raced to assure Larry King, of all people, that his own disbelief in evolution would in no way change or effect his public policy if elected president.

Today Huckabee, in response to Condi Rice's ardent defense of Bush foreign policy, is essentially backtracking on his comments about the Bush administration's "bunker mentality" as he called it. He's parsing, dodging, and weaving even suggesting that he was not responsible for writing his own commentary which appeared in the most recent issue of "Foreign Affairs Journal".

Huckabee is man who seems to come out proudly and say the wrong thing and when pressed on it, rather than admit he was wrong, he prefers to backtrack and/or obfuscate. "Did she actually read the article?", he said today in an obvious attempt to muddle the issue by suggesting that his criticism of the Bush Administration has been some how misinterpreted or taken out of context. No Mr. Huckabee, nice try though. We all knew what you meant. We've heard the exact same refrain countless times from your leftie brethren and other agenda driven critics of the Bush administration's foreign policy.

I'd have more respect for Hackabee if he just flopped and said," I was misinformed or mistaken and I'm sorry, I was wrong." Instead we have this bad Bill Clinton impersonation of parsing the truth. "My comments were taken out of context." Yeah... sure they were.

Mano a Mano

One of the most heated exchanges of last night's CNN YouTube debate last night occurred right at the outset between Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney, arguably the two front runners. The topic was illegal immigration and I believe it's fair to say that Romney came out ahead by attempting to confine the debate to matters of public policy whereas Giuliani strayed into the personal. And, as Fred Thompson alluded to in the very next question, Giuliani is not one to be casting aspersions upon some one else's personal hiring practices given his own recent troubles vis a vis Bernard Kerik. Romney also prevailed in a lively one-on-one debate with John McCain regarding issues related to the nature of torture.

Also on the matter of CNN's credibility or lack thereof, it turns out that of the dozen or so questions asked of the candidates, amongst the questioners was a Clinton operative, an Obama supporter and two John Edwards supporters. So, the Democratic YouTube debate featured softball question after softball question with no follow up questions and the Republican YouTube debate featured questions asked by planted Democratic campaign members attempting to ambush and/or embarrass the candidates. CNN is laughably biased at this point.

The Guy From Boston!

You might wanna turn down the volume one or two notches before you listen to this hilarious rant by internet phenomenon "The Guy from Boston". It's not for the politically correct. It's Paulie Walnuts meets Michael Savage. He's so angry about illegal immigration, he can barely see straight.

Items to discuss

-The defeat of comprehensive immigration reform.

-The commutation of Scooter Libbey's sentence by President Bush.

-The defeat of a proposed constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage in Massachusetts.

-The proposed revival of the "Fairness Doctrine".

-Mike Nifong's resignation and disbarment.

General Attack

The following general attack upon conservatism is one of the most thought provoking comments posted to this blog:

"History is a valuable tool from which to learn and history has taught anyone open to its lessons that liberals have never been wrong and conservatives have never been right. From the Spanish Inquisition, the persecution of scientists, the crusades, racism, and general intolerance, it is universally accepted that conservatism failed humanity. We are all liberal in hindsight once we are emotionally detached from a situation.

It is possible for conservatism to embody many diverse views because conservatism is not, an ideology like many believe, it is a method of thought. Society and culture are the variables that allow many views to be derived from a constant philosophy.

The only diffrence between a supporter of terrorism, a member of the KKK, and a conservative in America today is the society they were born into.

Conservatism is the politics of delay. It seek to preserve the society in which it exists and will arbitrarily oppose anything counter to this irrespective of its merit. So long as society is imperfect conservatism will be wrong.

Although the specific ideology of each conservative movement is dependent on society every society, and therefore every conservative movement has some common traits. These include: the containment of new ideas of new ideas and foreign cultures, a fear of change, a rejection of outsiders, and a desire to preserve society in its present form.

How could such an illogical philosophy flourish? There are three basic and interconnected roots of conservatism: ignorance, fear, and hate. Ignorance is the deepest root of conservatism. Within the context of politics ignorance is ultimately the sole cause of two other roots. This may be an alarming statement for some of my conservative friends, but it is easily demonstrated when looking to examples of conservative philosophy.

Racism has been the most widespread and controversial conservative belief. Racism is fear of a benign change in culture, an ignorance of others, and a hate of a people perceived as inferior. Characteristically we think of the south (a traditional hot bed for conservatism), slavery, and segregation. However racism manifests itself in our culture even today.

For example, the immigration debate. The simple facts of this issue are that having a large number of immigrant laborers in our country is a mutually beneficial economic relationship. Conservatives, however, fear their culture may be diluted, hate a people who they perceive as criminals, and are ignorant of the facts of this issue. It has been noted, and successfully demonstrated, that any Minutemen project volunteer allowed to see firsthand the life of an immigrant family would quickly renounce their previous opinions on the topic.

Gay rights is another issue where conservatism's motivations shine through. Conservatives passionately oppose granting any rights extended to heterosexual individuals despite the fact that this would cause them no harm. Conservatives hate gays for their "sin", an issue that is frankly beyond their control (doesn't the Bible instruct that "he who is without sin may throw the first stone"), fear something they cannot understand, and are ignorant of the facts that most gays have more in common with them then they'd be willing to admit.

I will not go into any more examples although any conservative belief, ancient or modern, can be traced back to these three factors."

And now, my response:

The beginning of the comment is general enough that I don’t necessarily have a substantive complaint. My first serious problem arises when the author claims the following:

“The only difference between a supporter of terrorism, a member of the KKK, and a conservative in America today is the society they were born into.”

This juicy example of moral relativism is further proof that liberal philosophy is something that I do not ascribe to. I want no part of a philosophy that imagines that those who target women and children are either somehow misunderstood or in some way the equivalent to any member of the modern American body politic. Where liberals see gray, conservatives are able to determine who may be considered enemies of our country. To liberals like this commentator, terrorists are simply misunderstood revolutionaries. Conservative leaning individuals like myself are able to understand that Islamic terrorists, for example, represent a serious threat the safety and security of our country and democratic way of life. They should be seen as the blatant enemies to America that they espouse and believe that they are, who employ tactics that the Western world never dreamed of using even in their darkest medieval days. Strapping an explosive device to child is nothing even the dreaded Spanish inquisition, Nazi Germany, or any other example of the worst in western civilization would ever consider doing to achieve a political agenda. The moral relativism employed by many liberals, which equates cold-blooded killers to traditional Americans, allows those on the left to rationalize much of their anti-American and/or 'blame America first' code of conduct. This surely is not a political philosophy that I would ascribe to.

Which brings me to my next point. In order for leftist or liberal wishes to come true, to have their philosophy universally embraced, those who disagree must be silenced, shouted down, or brow beaten and personally attacked with the charges of bigotry, fear, racism, and hatred. In what I call the totalitarian leftist worldview, there is no room for dissent. Ironically enough, there is no room for tolerance in this brand of liberalism. Sure, liberals are fans of tolerance in the form of “diversity” at the expense of merit in the workplace by artificially imposing quotas based on the color of one's skin for example, but there is no room for philosophical or political diversity in the world of the totalitarian left. Like a proselytizing missionary, these liberals seek to indoctrinate and change conservatives, whereas conservatives essentially want to be left alone. Leave us, our wallets, and our country alone. Society always changes naturally over time, must we race to do away with all of the systems and traditional concepts that have worked well up to this point for America?

As the commentator says, one of the most common traits found in various forms of conservatism is “…a desire to preserve society in its present form.”

To liberals, this notion of preservation is outrageously unenlightened. 'Anonymous' seems to want to cite history but fails to pay any tribute at all to the traditional and time honored values of Americans through the years. Its as if America became the greatest county on earth through some random cosmic phenomena or some other kind of arbitrary and nebulous circumstances. To “…desire to preserve society in its present form” is to cherish and value the basic building blocks that have ensured American prosperity in the world. But this is not good enough for the totalitarian left. Americans are not allowed to want to preserve the English language. Americans are not allowed to want to keep more of the money they earn. Americans are not allowed to want to preserve the tradition of marriage as defined by Websters dictionary that has been a cornerstone of successful societies for thousands of years. Americans are not allowed to determine who and how many immigrants are allowed to enter our country at any given time. To do so is racist in the mind of left leaning individuals like the anonymous commentator I’m addressing here.

Under a totalitarian leftist regime, I must be controlled. And I don‘t desire to be controlled by any group of persons or any particular political ideology. I enjoy the very precepts that makes a liberals skin crawl: the quintessential American values of individuality, self-reliance, and personal responsibility. I believe that as citizens of a sovereign nation we have the right to determine who and how many foreign nationals are allowed to enter into or reside in our country at any given time. I believe that allowing Americans to keep more of the money that they earn stimulates the economy and is consistent with and stands to preserve (yes preserve) the fundamental and essential qualities that have shaped our country and made it into the most prosperous and successful democratic country in history.

Patrick's Day

Well, it’s Patrick's day here in Boston, as in Democratic gubernatorial hopeful Deval Patrick. He just won his party’s hotly contested primary election earlier this evening defeating the current Attorney General Tom Reilly and venture capitalist Chris Gabrieli. The immediate implications for Patrick’s victory over his more moderate opponents include the fact that the Republican candidate, current Lt. Governor Kerry Healey, now has a significantly improved chance to win the general election that did not exist hours ago. Although not a lot here in Boston is made of it, former Clintonite Deval Patrick resides far to the left of his now vanquished fellow Democrats on the political spectrum. Among Patrick’s little publicized positions on issues include: giving tuition breaks to illegal immigrants, the advocacy of issuing driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants, the opposition of the MCAS graduation requirement, and opposition to the growth of charter schools. If only the other two candidates had bothered to point out any of these far left positions, they might have had a chance to defeat Patrick.

Interestingly, what was pointed out and made very much an issue of was Chris Gabrieli’s ties to corporate sponsors who would stand to gain tremendously if a one billion dollar public funding proposal of stem cell research, that Gabrieli advocated, was realized. Amazingly, this fact had to be pointed out by the Republican candidate Kerry Healey who may have strategized that Gabrieli was the largest obstacle in the way of realizing her own gubernatorial ambitions. Of this move Gabrieli stated, on the steps of the State House that, “The Healey campaign is doing their best impression of Karl Rove”. While it is always annoying that Karl Rove is bashed precisely because of his effectiveness, Gabrieli, in my opinion was correct. The Healey ad campaign that bombarded the airwaves took the proverbial wind out of Gabrieli’s sails, allowing a possibly unelectable far left candidate to sweep in and steal the hearts of Massachusetts Democrats (especially the Boston Globe) everywhere. Of course, many left leaning Boston pundits mischaracterized Healey as “being against stem cell research”. This is a common mischaracterization, which conflates the idea of being against the public funding of stem cell research with being against stem cell research period. But that issue, at least here in Boston, is for another day.

Many local pundits assert that Kerry Healey would not stand a chance against the tough on crime and more moderate Attorney General Tom Reilly. And Chris Gabrieli, for his part, actually shares some of the same reasonable (read conservative) opinions on immigration and taxation that Healey does. Healey’s chances to win being better against Reilly or Gabrieli is unclear. What is clear is that Healey’s chances to acquire the top Beacon Hill position are vastly improved against a far left candidate in Deval Patrick. Also, the turn out of voters in today’s Democratic primary was rather low (about 20% of eligible voters). That number will likely increase in the general election when conservatives like myself (who actually vote) are given the chance to weigh in as I did last time for Romney.

Congratulations to Mr. Patrick on his victory and thank you to Massachusetts Democrats for Selecting a member of the far left to go up against the level headed conservative Kerry Healey. Healey for guv in 06’.

Invasion

Ahhh...such a demonstration of respect for our country. By all means, continue to break our laws by illegally infiltrating into our country.

I've been reluctant to cover this topic becasue I'm not looking forward to being labeled a racist or a xenophobe, but what happened the other day requires my attention. In a public California High School, the Mexican flag was raised in an apparent expression of solidarity with the peoples of the sovereign nation of Mexico. If that was not enough of an insult to the United States, the American flag was raised upside down underneath it. Yes, we get the message. Mexico:good, America:bad. You will not see images like this on MSNBC.com for example. The mainstream media doesn't really want anyone to see this side of the current "immigrant rights" debate. Of course, "immigrant rights" advocates should really be called "illegal immigration” advocates and “undocumented alien” is politically correct code for "illegal alien". Conflating the last two terms is like driving without a license and then being pulled over by a cop and saying” I’m not driving illegally without a license officer, I’m just an ‘undocumented’ driver.” Then the cop would say, "Oh I see, you’re just 'undocumented' not illegal…OK please go about your business, you’re free to go.” And I love the last picture here. Thanks for the history lesson. At least this picture makes it clear that many illegal aliens have no interest in becoming a part of this country and making it better, as the apologists would have you believe. I refer the apologist to the last picture I have here. You cannot tell me that the people depicted here consider themselves to be American in any way. Clearly they see themselves as subjects of the sovereign nation of Mexico. What term describes when peoples from one sovereign state move in and occupy a neighboring sovereign state? I believe the correct term is: Invasion. If illegal aliens want to stick with the argument that America has unjustly occupied parts of Mexico and that they are now redressing the matter, then they are forced to admit that they have no interest in becoming American. That's how logic works people...it's either one or the other stance. Are you a Mexican or are you an American?