The Vision Thing

I can’t remember a time when I hadn’t made up my mind by now about who I would back for POTUS (always the loser!).

This year there are plenty of candidates, plenty of policy options, plenty of personalities, plenty of mindless news coverage, so why am I still undecided?

Callimachus gave me a clue with this post.

Cal says part of the job of POTUS is “setting a tone for national policies”. As an example, he offers this quote from Huckabee regarding immigration:

We penalize law-breakers. We don’t penalize their children for something they can’t help.

If a child is gasping for air, asthmatic, and he’s on the hospital steps, what do the other candidates suggest we do, let him sit there and gasp until he doesn’t have any air left and he dies? If a child comes to our school—and our law, by the way, in most of our states, mine certainly says you’ve got to educate a child if he’s of child age—and do you, break your own law and say, ‘No, you can’t come in the schoolhouse door’?

No, you don’t do that. What you do is you elect a president who will fix the problem where it needs to be fixed: At the border. But if your government at the federal government is so incompetent that it fails to secure the border, you don’t then grind your heel into the face of a 6-year-old child over it. That’s not what this country does. We’re a better country than that.

And amen to that. In my view, this is what is missing in the national conversation we are having during the ‘08 POTUS run; a vision for our country that isn’t divisive like Edwards’ “Two Americas” screed.

It’s a good thing that the candidates are out there with their plans for immigration, Iraq, healthcare, etc., because that expands the national debate about these matters, but let’s get real—-no matter who is elected POTUS, by the time his/her policy is run through the grinder of Congress and every special interest is appeased, the final product, if any, will look nothing like the original.

We need more of The Vision Thing rather than the bazillionth National Healthcare proposal.

Candidates—-give us your vision for the future.

Money, It’s A Gas, Grab That Cash With Both Hands and Make a Stash

If you happen to be in Chicago on Wednesday, November 28, by all means stop by the Friends of Phil Hare fundraiser at BB’s, 22 E. Hubbard. For a mere pittance of $1000-$50, you can line our specially selected congressman’s coffers.

Hosts are Michael Bauer, described as a “top Democrat fundraiser and gay activist”, Dan Shoman, longtime Obama aid and described as being “involved with certain politicians and he uses that to his personal advantage”, and Mia Phifer, a “fundraising consultant”.

Unfortunately, our specially selected one is a wholly owned subsidiary of Big Labor and as such, doesn’t have much grassroots support, so he must go trolling for dollars in Chicago with the help of the “professionals”. They sound like a great bunch of people too, so be there or be square.

Save The World—Have An Abortion

If I weren’t such a firm believer in Darwinism, I’d think Toni Vernelli, who was sterilized at age 27 to reduce her carbon footprint was either a joke or abomination, since Toni also claims that having children is “selfish”.

Sez Toni: Every person who is born uses more food, more water, more land, more fossil fuels, more trees and produces more rubbish, more pollution, more greenhouse gases, and adds to the problems of over-population.

As a late-in-life mother, I’ve gotta say that having a child is NOT selfish. Being childless is selfish, but so what? Since all the Greens like Vernelli will be aborting their children or sterilizing themselves , that means the environmentalists will die out. In other words, since those who believe people are the problem in the world will not be reproducing, they will die out and Darwinism (and the “selfish) will rule.
These sort of vain, idiotic moralists will die out and it couldn’t happen to a more deserving bunch!

They Were Against Him Before They Were For Him

In yet another incredible exercise of political flip-flopping , the Democrats have asked the general in charge of Abu Ghraib to give this weekend’s radio address.

The more intelligent of you will be asking why, since the Democrats have denounced Abu Ghraib from the top to the bottom. One guess—-General Richardo Sanchez has come out for troop withdrawals from Iraq. I don’t think it is much of a stretch to say the Democrats would embrace Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter or Karl Rove if they would only say “bring the troops home now”. Don’t the Democrats have ANY standards except for whatever it takes to pander to the anti-war left? Sheesh!

But abu muqawama gets the last word:

It was well-known that Sanchez had a disastrous relationship with the civilian proconsul, Paul Bremer, and also that he never won his fourth star largely because of the Abu Ghraib scandal—surely America’s crowning moment in the short history of its empire.

Anyway, some of you revisionists may disagree with the yoke that’s been hung around Sanchez’s neck, but like it or not, his name is synonymous with failure. Which is why it makes perfect sense for the Democratic Party to recruit him to deliver this weekend’s radio address.

What Is The Opposite Of “I Didn’t Inhale And I Never Tried It Again”?

That would be what Barack Obama said when speaking to a group of high school students in New Hampshire:

“You know, I made some bad decisions that I’ve actually written about. You know, got into drinking. I experimented with drugs…There was a whole stretch of time that I didn’t really apply myself a lot. It wasn’t until I got out of high school and went to college that I started realizing, ‘Man, I wasted a lot of time.”

Of course the Church Ladies among us were not amused. Mitt Romney said it was a “huge error” for Obama to admit drug use and that “It’s just not a good idea for people running for President of the United States who potentially could be the role model for a lot of people to talk about their personal failings while they were kids because it opens the doorway to other kids thinking ‘well I can do that too and become President of the United States’”

OK. Sure. Whatever. Since when are politicians role models? Obviously since before we knew the dirt on JFK.

 Fortunately, Rudy Giuliani injects some reality into Mitt’s fantasy world: “I respect (Obama’s) honesty in (admitting drug/alchol use). I think that one of the things we need from our people who are running for office is not this pretense of perfection. The reality is all of us that run for public office, whether its governor, legislator, mayor, president—we are all human beings. If we haven’t made mistakes don’t vote for us cause we got some big ones that are gonna happen in the future and we won’t know how to handle them.”

Considering all we know about our past POTUS; JFK’s prodigious womanizing and super-human drug use, LBJ’s womanizing and lying about VietNam, Nixon’s dark and dirty tricks, Bill Clinton’s womanizing and perjury, etc. the idea that anyone, including those under the age of 18, thinks the POTUS is some super-human flawless being
is just plain laughable.

Obama wrote about his drug use in his book “Dreams From My Father”, which was first published in 1995. Kudos to him for getting this out in the open instead of using the lame “I didn’t inhale” idiocy, and kudos to Rudy for defending him.

If Obama was still using drugs today—-then all bets would be off, but for anyone to be excluded from public service due to some youthful stupidity is wrong. Do we really want to be ruled by moralistic prigs?

BTW, even if you don’t agree with Obama’s ideology you should read  “Dreams From My Father”—  Obama isn’t just a politician, he is also a gifted writer and storyteller.

Beyond Stenography/The One Trick Pony

Today in The Quad-Cities Times, Ed Tibbetts did a fine piece of civic journalism in his article, Hare Gets Noticed As Free-Trade Critic.

This is what I have been kvetching about for some time—-that Hare is more Big Labor lobbyist than representative of all the interests of the 17th.

Of course, Tibbetts doesn’t just come right out and say that, instead he writes a thoughtful article examining many aspects of NAFTA and globalization.

Tibbetts contacted the Farm Bureau for their opinion about cutting back on trade and they are AGAINST cut backs because they figure the agriculture sales to Peru could increase by more than $700 million. But Hare isn’t interested in representing  our local agriculture community.

Take a look at Hare’s Opencongress blog page. In a 5 day period, you’ll see at least 15 blog posts about Hare’s opposition to free trade. He really is the go-to guy for Big Labor concerns.  Then go to his main OpenCongress page and you’ll see that over 77% of Hare’s funding comes from Labor, Ideology/Single Issue and Lawyers/Lobbyists.  Which explains a lot.

But not all Democrats are against NAFTA and free trade agreements because they are catering to their own special interests and donors.  Buried at the bottom of a New York  Times article about the Peru Free Trade deal is this:

Democrats from the prosperous areas of the East and West Coast have become especially responsive, many Democrats say, to the desire of Wall Street and the high technology, health pharmaceutical and entertainment industries to expand their sales overseas.  These industries have also become major Democratic contributors.

Not trading with Peru will not bring back those Maytag jobs in Galesburg or return all those good union jobs making farm machinery to the QCs.  We have had Democrat Congressmen for the last quarter century and neither Lane Evans nor Phil Hare could or will stop the inexorable march of globalization and free trade,  but Hare should at least consider other factors and interests in the 17th and not just the interests of his Big Labor paymasters.

But enough ranting. Tibbetts could have just made this another puff piece about a local politician who has gained prominence as a Big Labor spokesman, and just copied Hare’s Big Labor talking points. But instead, Tibbetts gave us a broader view and more information about what these trade agreements do and what they mean.

Bravo Ed! More articles like this—please!

The Opposite of “Progressive” Is….

Urging Democrat POTUS candidates to re-fight the ‘04 POTUS election.

Sheesh! I don’t get this at all. Sure George Bush used Bill Clinton’s record and policies against his opponent, Al Gore in ‘00 because Gore was Clinton’s VPOTUS, and Gore therefore had some connection and culpability to those programs and policies.

But since Dick Cheney isn’t running, and none of the current GOP POTUS candidates have any direct links with Bush, how will beating up on Bush help the Dems?

Kos brings up all of Bush’s failed appointees, Bush’s failed congressional run in ‘78 (!) and even Ronald Reagan. I really don’t understand how any of this is relevant to ‘08 or how it will be useful to the Democrats.

Just as voters had tired of Clinton after 8 years, and wanted change, voters are tired of Bush and want change. But if the Democrats insist on pounding the past by going “back to future” this will turn off all but the most dedicated and frothing Bush-haters.

I do hope Hillary, Obama, Edwards, Richardson, etc. avoid this toxic trap. I could vote for a Democrat for POTUS, but not if all they have to offer is frothing, boring Bush-bashing.

Most voters are like me and want to know what each candidate’s vision and plan for the future is.

Beating up Bush as a substitute for policy and vision is a losers game.

Can’t Anybody Here Play This Game?

I guess not, according to this AP report.

Harry Reid, speaking for Senate Democrats says: “We’re going to continue to do the right thing for the American people by having limited accountability for the president and not a blank check.”

Hee!hee! “LIMITED accountability for the president”? Does that mean MORE accountability for Congress?

Democrats can’t even demogogue effectively!

The rest of the article says that “(t)he delay will satisfy a Democrat support base that is fiercely anti-war”, but at what cost? Are we supposed to trust Democrats because they cower in fear of the extremist MoveOn.org, Code Pink Nutroots? What about the rest of us?

Democrat Chuck Schumer said that “unless Bush accepted the restrictions, the Defense Department would have to eat into its core budget. The days of a free lunch is over”, sez Chuckie.

“Free lunch”? What a moron!

Defense Secretary Robert Gates said that without the money now, drastic steps would have to be taken in anticipation of the shutdown, including plans to freeze contracts and to furlough about about 100,000 government employees.

Even though those 100,000+ plus employees are government workers and reliable Democrat voters, once their paychecks are on the line because of Democrat idiocy, that will change—pronto!

 I can’t wait to see how our A+ Phil spins this—provided the feckless local press asks him.  If they do, I predict A+Hare will spin one of two ways:

1. Even though the Democrat Congress approval rating is at 11%, which is lower than O.J. Simpson’s 16%, Hare will still say he is “proud” of the 110th Congress and that they are doing a super-de-duper job , or

2. Blames Republicans/Bush.

Let’s face it, Hare doesn’t know what else to do, since his primary job is to lobby for Big Labor, rather than represent the 17th District.

Reason #2959345 To Hate The Press

Bob Novak says “(a)gents of Hillary Clinton are spreading the word in Democrat circles that she has scandalous information about…Sen. Barack Obama, but has decided not to use it. The nature of the alleged scandal was not disclosed.”

If you ever needed proof that the purpose of the press was to help politicians and hurt the public, this is a classic example.

What is the “scandalous information” about Obama? Novak won’t say, since he is a tool of political insiders. Hillary put this out there in order to scare away any supporters of Obama and the press is her enabler.

If Hillary is elected POTUS, look for more of this sort of press co-option. The internet will be more important than ever in getting the truth out—-when it comes to secrecy, the Clinton’s make George  Bush look like a piker.

Politicians and the press—-working together to make us stupid, barefoot and pregnant.

Fight the machine!

UPDATE: Obama fights back! Obama says don’t Swiftboat me Hil!

UPDATE II: He said-she said. The Clinton camp says Novak is lying.

Question Of The Day

Why is Bill Clinton trolling for money in Ireland for his wife’s POTUS campaign?

Did the Clinton’s run out of liberal bazillionaires like George Soros, Warren Buffett, Bill Gates and Ron Burkle?

How much money does it take to get Hillary elected? Evidently there isn’t enough money in the USA to make her POTUS.