All Falling Down (Victor Davis Hanson)

One problem with knowing history when most people do not is you can see when it is repeating itself and many people do not listen. VDH goes over recent and more ancient history and points to parallels that more people should be aware of. And of course his indictment of Obama's governing is one I would love to see an O-bot respond to but I am not holding my breath!!!

On Political "Front Runners" Historically, Sarah Palin's Prospects in 2012, Etc.
(Musings of your humble servant at Rerum Novarum)

To start with, talking heads in the msm are already (so soon after the last presidential election) opining about various political persons and their perceived viability or lack thereof in the 2012 contest. I however do not play the game of political prognosticating this far out for the simple fact that a year is an ice age in politics and four years might as well be like the Jurassic period metaphorically speaking. A lot can happen between now and then and I have traditionally been very accurate in my political prognosticating{1} to a good extent because I do not play this game that far out. However, there are certain trends politically that one can use to forecast with a greater degree of accuracy what will likely happen and I will at this time do that without currently making any definite predictions one way or the other.

To start with, politics as a vocation tends to be dynastic to a certain extent even though there have only been two presidential "dynasties" properly speaking thus far.{2} But to a certain extent, there are patterns one can refer to from the past to better help them forecast future probabilities. For one thing, though it is not by any means a universal, it is nonetheless true that presidents who are successful more often than not had previous experience as an executive in some capacity. This experience could come in a variety of ways from business owner to field commander in the military to mayor of a town or governor of a state but as a rule the best presidents have had this kind of experience and those who were not as good did not.

By contrast to those with executive experience, senators and representatives in Congress who later on become president are traditionally not as good though again this is not an absolute principle but instead more of a general rule. And having noted those things, we get to the issue of dynastic political elements which I will now touch on so the reader knows what I am talking about if they do not already.

Since the presidency of the businessman and general George Washington, those who were subsequently elected president have always had experience in government in some form or another. In Washington's cabinet was John Adams the vice president and Thomas Jefferson the secretary of state -both of whom had high profile government positions before serving in Washington's cabinet. Adams would succeed Washington as our second president and Jefferson was our second vice president and third president. Jefferson's secretary of state was James Madison who would succeed him as president and Madison's secretary of state was James Monroe who succeeded him. James Monroe's secretary of state was the heavily credentialed John Quincy Adams who had served in various government posts{3} prior to being Monroe's secretary of state.{4} Quincy Adams won the controversial 1824 election after not getting the popular vote against General Andrew Jackson who despite his popular image as the first "commoner" to be president{5} as well as the first of the Democratic party presidents{6} had previous experience as a senator from Tennessee, house member from Tennessee, judge on the Tennessee supreme court, general of the military, and military governor of Florida.

We could similarly trace this pattern throughout all of American political history but pointing to the patterns that we have seen since 1952 suffices to make this point. Let us begin the more modern era therefore starting with Richard M. Nixon who was the vice president for two terms under former army general and president Dwight D. Eisenhower. Nixon was the nominee for president in 1960 and we need not go over how the Democratic party machine in Chicago and other places cheated him out of victory in that election.{7} He later on was defeated in the California gubernatorial election of 1962. After losing that election (and claiming he was finished), Nixon came back in 1968 to capture the nomination and win the presidency and won re-election in 1972. Senator John F. Kennedy who narrowly failed to secure the vice presidential position at the 1956 Democratic party convention of course was the party nominee and "victor" in 1960.{8} His vice president Lyndon B. Johnson (Senate majority leader, former House member, and a candidate in the 1960 election) became president in 1963 when Kennedy was assassinated and won in his own right the following year.

Having already covered the Nixon election wins, it bears pointing out that when his successor Gerald Ford{9} ran unsuccessfully for president in 1976, he was very nearly upset by former California governor Ronald Reagan -winning the nomination by a mere hundred odd delegates out of a couple of thousand cast. Reagan of course went on to win the next two presidential elections by monumental victory margins. One of his adversaries in the 1980 election was George H. W. Bush who was then added as his vice presidential candidate when Reagan locked up the 1980 the nomination for president. (He was to succeed Reagan by winning in his own right in 1988.) One of the Democratic party failed presidential candidates of 1988 was Albert Gore Jr. who was added as Bill Clinton's vice presidential candidate in 1992. After eight years of serving as vice president, Gore was nominated as his party's candidate and ultimately lost the 2000 election by failing to win the electoral college. Gore was opposed by former President Bush's son George W. Bush who won the general election after fending off a tough challenge from Sen. John McCain in the Republican primaries. McCain as we all know was the Republican party nominee in the 2008 election.

I have traced this historical sketch out to provide a glimpse of sorts into how history has gone to better enable readers to better gauge how future election history will go. For one thing, those touting a possible future candidacy for Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal are already behind the curve in that my good friend Kevin M. Tierney in one of the frequent political conversations we have had was calling Jindal a possible "dark horse candidate" back in 2008 and already predicted he would run in 2012 and be the favourite for the nomination that year. I am not sure if he has changed his prediction or not in the aftermath of the political ascent of Alaska governor Sarah Palin but I have him on record picking Jindal as far back as at least eight months ago if not more.{10} In the meantime, I know of some people who are currently picking Palin as the front runner in 2012.

Speaking of Governor Sarah Palin, insofar as she goes as a front runner in the 2012 presidential election for the Republicans, a bit of history of former vice presidential candidates who later ran as presidential candidates seems in order. (I should note that when I say "ran" I mean was actually successfully nominated to run as representative of their respective political parties.) The first of the major parties to cover is the Federalist party and the only vice presidential candidate they had who later ran for president was President Washington's vice president John Adams but this example as well as the one from the elections of 1796 and 1800 cannot be used.{11} The opposition Democratic-Republican party{12} never had a vice presidential candidate who became president so we can rule them out as well. In the divisions of 1824 from which today's Democratic party takes its true origin to the present day, there have been several vice presidential candidates who have become president but in all but one case they succeeded to the presidency upon the death of the president.{13} The exception to the rule was the only vice presidential candidate who ever ran successfully as president later on and that was President Franklin D. Roosevelt.{14} There have been a number of former vice presidents from the Democratic party side who subsequently secured their parties nomination for president{15} but only FDR successfully won in his bid after securing the vice presidential nomination in a losing party effort.

On the side of the Whigs -a party that became the main opposition to the Democratic party in 1833 and eventually was replaced by the Republicans in 1854, two of their vice presidential candidates on winning presidential tickets became president but in both cases (Tyler in 1841 and Fillmore in 1850) it was because the president they ran under died in office.{16} On the Republican party side of things, seven successfully nominated vice presidential candidates ran for president later on. Of the seven, three succeeded to the presidency upon the death of the president before they made their runs{17} and two of them won election as president in their own right.{18} Of the others{19}, none of them successfully was elected president in their own right after failing to win the vice presidency earlier.

The history of political dynastic voting patterns points to Governor Sarah Palin being the logical front runner in 2012. However, only once in US history has a candidate from any major party successfully been elected president in their own right after failing to win the vice presidency on someone else's ticket. Does this mean that Governor Palin is certain to fail in this endeavour? Not necessarily. Senator Bob Dole after being nominated as President Ford's running mate failed to be elected vice president in 1976 and later on failed to win the presidency in 1996. There is no record of this sort to go on from the Democratic side of things other than the example of FDR. But before people read too heavily into these things as spelling certain death for Governor Palin's chances, they need to consider the circumstances behind the failed vp and successful bid of FDR and the failed bids both times of Senator Dole.

To start with, FDR did not have any executive experience when he ran in 1920 as James Cox's vice president and they ran on the tail end of President Woodrow Wilson from their own party who for a variety of reasons{20} was unpopular. No Democratic candidate was going to win that year basically under the climate of the times. Subsequent to that point, Roosevelt was successfully elected governor of New York in 1928 and thus by 1932 he had executive experience to make his presidential bid more credible than it otherwise would have been. He also in his presidential run had the benefit of opposing the boneheaded governance of the incumbent President Herbert Hoover who was no laissez-faire president by any means.{21} Senator Bob Dole ran as vice president on the ticket of a non-elected president who had previously been appointed as vice president himself two years after the previous vice president of his party (and later the president he replaced) resigned in disgrace.

The Ford/Dole ticket faced a particularly stiff challenge from former California governor Ronald Reagan which while it galvanized the party contributed in the short term to narrow presidential defeat.{22} Twenty years later, Senator Bob Dole ran for president and in a situation where his party had moved to prevent the possibility of potential upsets akin to what Reagan nearly pulled off in 1976, the deck was stacked in the primaries to favour party insiders and make a repeat of the 1976 nomination scenario next to impossible.{23} As a result, the candidate who was the strongest party nominee by force of party connections (Dole) was probably not their best candidate for winning the general election against an incumbent president like William J. Clinton who had recently achieved some significant real and perceived victories against the opposition Republican congress.{24} Plus, Senator Dole though he ran for president in 1988 and also 1996 had not bothered in the time since he was Ford's vp candidate to acquire any executive experience.

So of the two examples we have of successfully nominated vice presidential candidates, we have one that succeeded (FDR) and one that failed (Dole). We can also point to circumstances of the times of the various elections that contributed in no small way to the success of FDR and the failure of Dole in their presidential aspirations. What this tells us ultimately is the general rule I spelled out at the beginning of this posting applied here and the successful example (FDR) had executive experience that the unsuccessful example (Dole) did not.

So readers need to take that into account ultimately when they attempt to write off the chances of Governor Sarah Palin to successfully get her party's nomination in 2012 and potentially win the general election. Like FDR and unlike Dole, she has executive experience having been both a mayor as well as a state governor. As for predicting a front runner for 2012, all I will say is if Palin and Jindal do not win their re-elections in 2010, they will not be the party nominee in 2012 and while I believe they will both be re-elected (particularly Jindal), I will not dare to make a political prediction of the overall viability for presidential candidacy of either of them until they do.

As far as Senator Hillary Clinton goes, her chances of running again depend on how she sees herself in 2012. If President Obama has a successful or average presidency, he will not have any opposition in his party to re-election. If however he is a trainwreck, then he may well receive the sort of stiff party challenge that Ted Kennedy gave President Carter in 1980. Senator Clinton came closer to a come-from-behind victory for the nomination than any presidential candidate since Ronald Reagan in 1976. If Obama really messes things up, she may well run again in 2012 for far from being "too old" she would know that she would be no older then (65) than Reagan was in 1976 when he challenged Ford (he was 65) and four years younger than Reagan was when he won the presidency in 1980 at 69 years of age.

If President Obama is a disaster as president, can anyone think of other Democratic party candidates besides former Senator and now Secretary of State Clinton to give him a political fight? Only two come to my mind offhand that could be similarly viable. One is former Indiana governor and current Indiana senator Evan Bayh and the other is Virginia governor Tim Kaine. Bayh is from a politically dynastic family and Kaine as of January 21, 2009 holds not only his position as Virginia governor (he is up for re-election in 2010) but also is chairman of the Democratic National Committee. It would seem far more probable to me that Kaine would be more the king (or queen) maker than the king himself in light of his new position as DNC chair so that would leave Bayh as the only candidate I can think of who could rival Secretary of State Clinton as a party challenger to President Obama if his presidency is floundering when 2012 approaches.

Furthermore, Secretary of State Clinton's current cabinet position as a political precursor to the presidency was touched on earlier in this note. While it is true that her cabinet position has not been as influential in the past hundred and fifty years as it was previously, it still bears noting that four of the first seven and six of the first fifteen presidents were secretaries of state for a previous president{25} before becoming president in their own right.

Notes:

{1} Though in 2008 I was less accurate than the norm because a lot of things went against type in that election year -the msm shedding the last vestiges of their pretenses of "objectivity" to whore for Barack Obama in a way that was both shocking as well as frightening.

{2} The first of these was John Adams and John Quincy Adams while the second was George Herbert Walker Bush and George Walker Bush.

{3} Including Ambassador to the Netherlands under President Washington, Ambassador to Prussia under his father President Adams, Member of the Massachussets state Senate from 1802-1803, Senator of Massachussets from 1803-1809, Ambassador to Russia under President Madison until 1814, negotiator at Ghent for an end to the War of 1812 (and subsequently Ambassador to England) under President Madison. He also served in the Massachussets House of Representatives after losing his bid for re-election in 1828 until his death twenty years later: the only former president to serve in "the people's chamber" after serving as president.

{4} See footnote three. Quincy Adams was also the mind behind the famous Monroe Doctrine as promulgated in 1823 by President James Monroe and one the more fervent early slavery abolitionists. To say that he got by far more on his own natural talents than riding his famous father's coattails than President George W. Bush did is well established and beyond any debate by rational people.

{5} Which to a certain extent is accurate in that he was the first president who was not from the aristocratic class of American society.

{6} The Democratic party does not date from the time of Thomas Jefferson however much modern Democrats may wish it did.

{7} Nixon wisely chose not to go the "Al Gore route" and accepted the election results.

{8} See footnote seven. I would like to add here that I do not think Kennedy personally had a hand in any of this though that his influential father did is pretty close to being beyond debate really.

{9} Who became president after he was appointed to succeed Spiro Agnew in 1973 as vice president and then sworn in when President Nixon resigned the presidency in August of 1974.

{10} I would have to check my archives to know for sure but I have to give Kevin his due for being ahead of the popular curve on Jindal.

{11} The reason is the current law of parties running specifically as designated presidential and vice president was not put into effect by constitutional amendment until after the election of 1800 when Jefferson and Burr tied in electoral votes despite Burr being intended initially to be the vice presidential not presidential candidate. Starting with the election of 1804, the practice as we know it today has been in force.

{12} Originally called the "Republican" party by its advocates who wanted to claim that they favoured republicanism and the opposing federalists were closet monarchists. The Federalists countered by calling them "Democrats" to associate them with the French Jacoban democrats who were the architects of the French Revolution and its anarchial aftermath. Today, they are referred to as the "Democratic-Republican" party to separate them from the later Democratic party formed by the Jacksonians and the later Republican party which originated from 1854 as a coalition of old Federalists and a good section of the then-dying Whig political party.

{13} These include Harry Truman in 1944 and Lyndon Johnson in 1963 -both of whom subsequently won elections to retain their hold on the presidency in the following presidential elections.

{14} Who was the vice presidential candidate on the losing ticket of 1920 to Ohio governor James Cox.

{15} These include John C. Breckenridge who was nominated vice president on the winning ticket in 1856 who ran in a split party election in 1860 (representing the south) and Hubert H. Humphrey who was nominated vice president on the winning 1964 ticket who ran as the party's nominee in 1968. There was also Walter F. Mondale who was nominated vice president on the winning ticket in 1976 and was the incumbent vice president on the losing 1980 ticket, and Al Gore who failed to be nominated in his own right in 1988 and was President Clinton's vice president for eight years. (And as we know, he failed to win in 2000.)

{16} Neither Tyler nor Fillmore despite running as incumbents were able to win the presidency in their own right later on.

{17} Chester A. Arthur (succeeded the assassinated President James Garfield in 1881), Theodore Roosevelt (succeeded the assassinated President William McKinley in 1901), and Calvin Coolidge (succeeded President Warren Harding who died in office in 1923).

{18} Roosevelt in 1904 and Coolidge in 1924.

{19} See footnote fifteen.

{20} Too numerous to go into here.

{21} Contrary to the revisionist historical nonsense paraded about today as "history" supposedly "teaches."

{22} President Ford made some pretty bad gaffes in debate against Georgia governor Jimmy Carter which also did not help him.

{23} This ultimately is why I told the Republicans to go to hell after the 1996 general election and have been an unaffiliated Independent voter ever since.

{24} See footnote twenty.

{25} Jefferson for Washington, Madison for Jefferson, Monroe for Madison, Quincy Adams for Monroe, Van Buren under Jackson, and Buchanan under Polk.

"One From the Vault" Dept.
(On Presidential Legacies)

[Prefatory Note: This was drafted on August 14, 2008 but for some reason it was never published. Having just re-discovered it when perusing various unpublished drafts and seeing as the principles underlying what I say in it are applicable to a variety of circumstances, I post it at this time. -ISM]

He is not even out of office yet...

The Bush legacy cannot be fairly judged when the person in question is still in office. It takes time and distance to attain a proper historical perspective. For example, in 1952 Harry Truman was viewed by most people in the same light as Bush is now. But now Truman is considered one of the best presidents of the twentieth century.

Then there is the "tax cuts for the rich" crap which others have commented on which tells me the unmentioned side of the story: these "historians" have agendas to push and cannot allow themselves to approach matters with even a pretense of objectivity.

I predict Bush will look a little bit better to posterity than Clinton for a variety of reasons but neither of them will be considered a great president. And neither of them was or is as completely incompetent as Jimmy Carter was. Apparently these "historians" to the tune of 98% have forgotten about the peanut farmer which tells us all we need to know about the integrity of their presumed "poll" on this matter.

What's So Bad About Socialism Anyway?

This bit from the article summarizes it quite well:

If you believe in the freedom of the press, the right to belong to a political party of your choice, the due process of law, and/or private property, then Che Guevara was a monster, plain and simple.

Readers can observe what is happening with the whole President Barack Obama vs. Rush Limbaugh controversy{1} that the idea of freedom of the media is somewhat at stake here. Or as I noted earlier this morning in another media format:

Well remember XXXXXX, the real threat to the nation is a guy on the radio not a whackjob president of a country which is trying to get nuclear weapons to wipe other countries off the map with to advance "the religion of peace" and who furthermore denies the Holocaust and gets his views about Jews from the Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion. Someone should tell President Hussein that the phrase about keeping friends close and enemies closer is a figure of speech and not to be taken literally.

Carter II is early on looking somewhat like Carter I with the pandering to extremists in the middle east. I wonder if we will have another hostage situation at this rate -whatever one says about GWB these sorts would never have tried that sort of thing on his watch. With BHO though who the hell knows.

And that is where we are at now folks, with socialism in the form of federal bailouts being the new chic along with presidents who have more respect for sponsors of state terrorism than for opinionated radio personalities.{2} it does not portend for good things politically in the short term.

Notes:

{1} Whatever one thinks of Rush Limbaugh, he has and has maintained the largest audience in talk radio history for two decades now. He has the right to be heard even if his opinion goes against the current political zeitgeist. of lockstep socialism which as Claude Frederic Bastiat so astutely noted nearly 160 years ago is merely the communist tree in an early stage of growth.

{2} See footnote one.

Briefly on the Proposed "Bailout":

This is a text written a few days ago in response to a discussion thread from September 24, 2008 pertaining to the subject in question.

XXXX and Kevin [Tierney] are both correct on this in part. They forgot about the Justice Department under Clinton threatening banks with federal lawsuits for "redlining" if the banks did not make a certain percentage of loans available for those who were very high credit risks. The program was put in place by the Carter administration in 1977 but it was not until 1994 that the Clinton administration started really giving it teeth via that scumbag Deval Patrick at the helm of the Justice Department.{1}

The problem with the Bush administration is that they basically went along with what was in place already when they should not have. Both Bush and the post 2001 Republican congresses are equally at blame for this as far as I am concerned -the 2007-present Democratic congresses for recessing and leaving the mess as it is for political advantage should be taken outside and shot every last one of them for wasting time on stupid "impeachment" crap and other attempts to obstruct the Bush administration instead of focusing on this problem which they knew very well was coming.

I am no congressperson but this problem was one I knew would happen at some point and indeed some such as Sen. McCain warned of it back in 2005 and 2006 when Sen. Obama was supping at the trough of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac as one of their three most financed lobbyists.{2}

The solution is not federalizing things as that always has historically made things worse. (Such as the New Deal prolonging the Depression which we only went out of by going to war and ramping up military production.) The solution is letting the market work and not trying to coerce it -including not trying to force banks to lend to people who are high credit risks at the risk of federal lawsuits. That is after all how we got into this mess to begin with.

Notes:

{1} Briefly on the Current Real Estate Situation (circa July 26, 2008)

{2} I meant to say "contributed to politicians" but wrote that text in a hurry without giving it the customary final review before sending it.

Miscellaneous Musings and Threads of Interest:

Some quick bon a couple stories from today's headlines so without further ado...

US, Poland OK missile defense base, riling Moscow

It would be advisable for the US to stand firm on this -particularly in light of the recent rumblings of the Russian Bear. I will have more to say on the latter in the coming days but for now I recommend perusing the above article if you have not already.

McCain Takes Lead Over Obama In Poll

By all rational accounts considering how the msm has fawned over this guy and given him three times as much coverage as Sen. McCain at times, he should be leading at this point in polling but it has until now been a dead heat within the margin of error.

This does not bode well for Sen. Obama -particularly since other polls have been general ones and this one is focused on an important element: likely voters. All the polls in the world do not help if those included are not likely to actually vote in November.

It seems that the more people see of Obama the less they are enthused about him and the saddleback forum{1} of which my friend Kevin Tierney said showed Sen. McCain looking particularly conservative and presidential compared to Sen. Obama who looked far less comfortable; ergo providing grist for the opinion that this is why Obama has resolutely refused to meet McCain in these kinds of forums up to the present time. It is still early and there is still ten weeks to go but that Obama does not have a lead by this point at least comparable to that of Carter in 1980 or Dukakis in 1988{2} does not bode well in an election year where the Republican brandname is not by all appearances selling very well.

Notes:

{1} On the accusation from leftists that Sen. McCain may have lifted a story from the works of the late Alexander Solzhentisyn, that charge has been refuted.

{2} Both of whom lost in the general elections of those years.

More on Senator John McCain, the Boundaries of Conservative Republican Thought Historically Speaking, and Certain Troubling Contemporary Ahistorical So-Called "Conservative" Trends Thereof:
(Part V of a Dialogue)

This is a continuation from the fourth part of this series which can be accessed here. To start from the beginning (if you have not read the previous parts) please go here.

And though I have noted it in every part of the series so far, a reminder of the colour schemata in this series (to cut down on confusion as to the sequence of arguments) still seems pertinent; ergo I reiterate for a final time what I noted in the first part of this series:

The orange font is from the emailer's original email while light blue font is my responses to the emailer's original note. The dark green font is from the emailer's follow-up to my first response while the regular blog font colour is my response to the emailer's follow-up note. Any sources I quote in this note will be in dark blue font and possibly smaller type as a result of the format this original text was taken from (I do not have time to change it). [Excerpt from Rerum Novarum (circa April 26, 2008)]

Without further ado...

Furthermore, the Reagan years were an aberration of sorts...in the past hundred ten odd years, there were only three non-establishment Republican candidates: Teddy Roosevelt, Barry Goldwater, and Ronald Reagan. (The Democrats had only one -Harry Truman- in that same span of time if you exclude the thrice defeated William Jennings Bryan.) TR only became president because the establishment plan to shut him up by making him vice president backfired when McKinley was assassinated. He was able to get elected on his own in 1804 and if he had not died when he did, probably would have won in 1920...a story for another time altogether perhaps.

Goldwater broke the back of the establishment in 1964 along with the Democratic stronghold of the south though he lost in a landslide thanks to the establishment doing their part of not supporting him as they should have. But he made an important breakthrough because other than his home state of Arizona, all the states he won electorally were in the deep south: a break of the "solid south" which had been dominated by Democrat electoral power since 1856. This paved the way for Nixon to come through in 1968 and then even more spectacularly in 1972 but Nixon was an establishment candidate. He was replaced by Ford in 1974 and in 1976, the entire establishment supported Ford against Reagan -even Goldwater who basically brokered Nixon's resignation supported Ford over the candidate who was ideologically much closer to himself.

Well, Goldwater was actually closer to Rudy Guiliani that he was to Reagan. Once issues like abortion and homosexuality became issues Goldwater was both pro-gay and pro-abortion.

Sigh...more education is needed on this obviously.

I think it is more than safe to say that Reagan turned out to be a true conservative while Goldwater didn't.

Senator Goldwater did take the view that someone who was gay should not be disallowed in the military if they are competent soldiers. If you are going to oppose his view on that then at least familiarize yourself with it first. It is not a matter of being "pro gay" but instead pro military and recognizing that those who can shoot straight can make valuable contributions to the nation's defense even if they are not personally straight. There is also the recognition that there have been homosexuals in the military in every military since the days of the Roman empire and policies that involve pretending otherwise are both naive as well as stupid.

I happen to have not viewed the gays in the military issue as much of a big deal -ironically I differed from Goldwater on means though not the end if you will. I had no problem with the "don't ask, don't tell" policy when Clinton announced it (unlike Goldwater) and I do not now: it has nothing to do with being "pro gay" any more than defending someone's right to believe something makes me "pro" their view. And I am not going to anathematize Goldwater for disagreeing with me on this issue viz. the means.

As far as the abortion issue goes, to understand Goldwater's position it helps to consider some of his comments from The Congressional Record:

There is no position on which people are so immovable as their religious beliefs. There is no more powerful ally one can claim in a debate than Jesus Christ, or God, or Allah, or whatever one calls this supreme being. But like any powerful weapon, the use of God's name on one's behalf should be used sparingly. The religious factions that are growing throughout our land are not using their religious clout with wisdom. They are trying to force government leaders into following their position 100 percent. If you disagree with these religious groups on a particular moral issue, they complain, they threaten you with a loss of money or votes or both. I'm frankly sick and tired of the political preachers across this country telling me as a citizen that if I want to be a moral person, I must believe in "A," "B," "C," and "D." Just who do they think they are? And from where do they presume to claim the right to dictate their moral beliefs to me? And I am even more angry as a legislator who must endure the threats of every religious group who thinks it has some God-granted right to control my vote on every roll call in the Senate. I am warning them today: I will fight them every step of the way if they try to dictate their moral convictions to all Americans in the name of "conservatism." [Senator Barry M. Goldwater: From The Congressional Record (circa September 16, 1981)]

I can not only understand Senator Goldwater's anger on these matters but to some extent I have long shared it. On religious matters it embodies opposing those who would try to make others follow every jot and tittle of their personal opinion as if it was required dogma lest they be viewed as "heterodox" "anathematized", or whatever.{1} On political matters it encapsulates those who try to claim some unique franchise on the term "conservatism" by focusing on one or two issues and disregarding the rest; essentially, ignoring the underlying philosophy of a conservative outlook while uncritically parroting one or two talking points positions which are based on certain foundational presuppositions which they do not bother to question. To quote Goldwater, "just who do they think they are"???

Of course there are some areas where Reagan fared a bit better on the issue of conservatism. Neither man was supportive personally of abortion but they went about it differently. In Goldwater's case, his claim that women had a "right to abortion" late in his life was a recognition that RvW was "settled law" (cf. John Roberts) whether we like it or not. But just because something is "settled law" does not mean it cannot at some point be changed.

Goldwater according to his autobiography was personally was opposed to abortion -viewing it as a states right issue not a federal one. And while Reagan was better on balance than Goldwater on abortion perhaps;{2} nonetheless, on the plethora of what embodies conservative principles, Reagan did not fare as well overall as Goldwater.

For Goldwater was not only opposed to The Great Society as Reagan was but also to The New Deal which Reagan was in many respects not. (My view on this is somewhere between that of Reagan and Goldwater.) But the root difference between Conservatives and Liberals was one that Goldwater noted decades ago in the following fashion:

The root difference between the Conservatives and the Liberals of today is that Conservatives take account of the whole man, while the Liberals tend to look only at the material side of man's nature. The Conservative believes that man is, in part, an economic, an animal creature; but that he is also a spiritual creature with spiritual needs and spiritual desires. What is more, these needs and desires reflect the superior side of man's nature, and thus take precedence over his economic wants. Conservatism therefore looks upon the enhancement of man's spiritual nature as the primary concern of political philosophy. Liberals, on the other hand,—in the name of a concern for "human beings"—regard the satisfaction of economic wants as the dominant mission of society. They are, moreover, in a hurry. So that their characteristic approach is to harness the society's political and economic forces into a collective effort to compel "progress." In this approach, I believe they fight against Nature.

Senator Goldwater did not believe in trying to harness any governmental entity to try and "compel progress" regardless of what that proposed "progress" happened to be. He was in other words completely consistent on this matter. The same cannot be said of The Gipper who did not mind trying to use government at times to "compel progress" depending on the issue at hand.

The problem with judicial activism on one hand is it makes one lack credibility when they criticize the other side for doing the same thing: yet this is precisely what the religious right sorts want to try and do. The hallmark of conservatism is advocating the maximum of human liberty consonant with societal order: subsidiarity if you will. And part of subsidiarity is not involving the federal government in the attempt to compel societal virtue.

This is why Goldwater did not favour activist judges of any stripe and Reagan in this area was a bit inconsistent. They were both conservatives, believing in the same core principles but differing at times on how they viewed those principled to be best implemented. Neither was 100% perfect but Goldwater overall was better than Reagan was.

At bottom, your comments about Goldwater reveal to me that you do not really understand the heart of conservative philosophy despite (usually) having some good conservative instincts XXXXXXX. But that is a subject for another time perhaps...I have said all I intend to for now on it.

And if not for Carter being such a horrible president, Reagan would probably not have been elected in 1980. There was that and also because Carter and his advisers made the same mistake in 1980 that Governor Pat Brown and his advisers did in California in 1966: they presumed Reagan was easier to beat than the other major candidates so they sabotaged the front runner to get Reagan as an opponent. So Reagan got the nomination, resisted the attempts to paint him in demonic colours that the Democrats tried to do, and won in 1980 by significantly dominating the south -winning all but Georgia and West Virginia. He added those states in 1984 when he swept the south: the second time a Republican had ever done that. (Nixon was the first in the 1972 election to do it.) Bush Sr. ran as carrying Reagan's mantle the same way that Taft ran as carrying TR's mantle in 1912. And just as Taft was a huge disappointment, so too was Bush Sr. and both of them lost re-election in three party races. The Republicans in 1916 as in 1996 went with an establishment candidate and need I go on??? The bottom line is, what we saw this year is historically more probable than not.

1916, the year of the Bull Moose "It's all about Teddy" debacle.

You mean 1912. Woodrow Wilson ran for re-election in 1916 on the "he kept us out of war" platform winning narrowly.

TR's act of self-agranddizement was both embarrassing and destructive.

In a sense it was sure. But your claim that it was an act of "self-aggrandizement" shows me you do not know much about what actually happened. TR followed the Ben Franklin model and did not campaign for the presidency -noting that he would not seek the nomination but if there was a grass roots movement that supported him, he would not refuse out of a proper sense of duty on the matter. As it happens, there was such a movement from many who were pissed off at the Republican party bosses and the most visible person they could find to champion their cause was TR. I could note more on this but that you do not even realize that TR responded to a movement to draft him and did not lead such a charge himself tells me just how shallow your knowledge on this matter really is.

But you are right about this event having a destructive nature to it as it basically drove the Roosevelt element out of the Republican party and let the conservative oligarchy element to deservedly die on the vine in the general election. But it also opened a new vista in the form of the election primary contributing to the nomination of a candidate.

That election also was one of the first where primaries became a factor in nomination and it was the Roosevelt faction that favoured the primary system as a way of breaking the establishment hold on the party machinery. The problem is, the primaries were not viewed as binding back then but instead as voluntary; ergo Wisconsin Senator Robert LaFollette won two primaries out of the first four, President Taft won two out of the first four, and TR won nine of the last ten including Taft's home state of Ohio which he won by a large margin. The momentum had clearly shifted and Taft was losing where the party bosses were unable to keep a tight control on things. And at the convention, the conservative party bosses rigged the machinery to get a nomination victory for Taft. They did this not only in seating Taft delegates in Alabama and Arizona but also from California -a state that Roosevelt had won. As a result of the California shafting, TR and his delegates saw the screw job in the making and walked out of the convention hall and formed their own party.

Of course you think that TR was the "embarrassment" because he did not smile, lie back, and have "thoughts of England" while he was being screwed by party bosses. But then again, that is the difference between those who are party loyalists (like you) and those who are not (like me). Disgraceful actions are disgraceful in and of themselves, not okay or otherwise worth being quiet about when "our guys" do it but then shrieking like a banshee when "their guys" do.

One of the major differences between TR and Reagan was their post presidential years. Reagan was a true statesman when push come to shove and Roosevelt wasn't.

Reagan was an old man of 77 who did not have much else he could do when he left office whereas TR had just turned 50 and still had plenty of gas in the tank. That point aside what exactly did Reagan do of a "statesman-like nature" that you think was so compelling or otherwise accomplishing of something positive??? I cannot think of anything offhand -he gave a great speech at the 1992 convention and attended Republican functions on occasion but that is about it.

By contrast, TR was involved in a much-publicized African Safari in support of science in 1909-10{3}, fought the corruption in his own party in 1911-12, trekked through South America in 1913-14 again to aid in the advancement of science -though that time he was infected by malaria and the result was a loss of a massive amount of weight and health problems that plagued him for the rest of his life.

Despite that though, he campaigned energetically for Charles Evans Hughes in 1916, offered once President Wilson received his declaration of war to raise an all-volunteer infantry, and on party matters also through his efforts at campaigning for Republicans enabled them to regain control of the Congress in 1918 which put an important check on President Wilson's efforts. And besides these things, he was an energetic campaigner for physical fitness and hunting his entire life, supported the Boy Scouts, and wrote a number of books on a variety of subjects from foreign policy to history.

If I did not want to finish this thread as soon as possible, I would supply links in that paragraph to substantiate every point I made. The bottom line is this: the contributions of TR after he was president so dwarfed those of RR that your assertion is (with all due respect) absurd. I do not fault RR for this for a variety of reasons but your deprecation of TR's post-presidential record overall is frankly quite disturbing.

But McCain has repeatedly stuck the knife in the back of the GOP establishment (and it was not even to being a conservative dagger), whereas the other guys didn't. That's the major difference here.

As I said, I can sympathize with some of McCain's annoyance. I find myself embarrassed by the ahistorical and narrow-minded dogmatism of the self-anointed "true conservatives" a lot. The pro lifers particularly are at times embarrassing and I noted this not only recently but indeed in every election cycle since I have been blogging to some extent or another.{4} And I noted it in discussion forums long before anyone had heard of my apologetics stuff and in various conversations and formats prior to that as well. If not for having spent enough time on this response already, I would make quite a list -my position on this has been both ample as well as consistent over the years.

For what could be a response to Medved's Kool Aid drinking (although it isn't actually) Rush's little brother has this to say.

David is wrong: McCain is not "liberal lite." Compared to Obama (8%) and Clinton (9%), McCain's lifetime conservative rating is 82.3%. That is lower than the ratings of Tancredo (97.8%), Brownback (94%), Hunter (92%), Thompson (83%). I am not sure about Guiliani and Romney but if we consider the flop-flop of Romney and Guiliani's views on certain core conservative issues where he is seriously lacking (unlike McCain) it seems probable that both of them would finish lower than McCain on that score. (The American Conservative Union does not rank governors or mayors so this is a nebulous area.)

No, you are wrong. I hinted above that his voting record does not give us a true picture of the real John McCain. How many of John McCain's votes in the Senate were decisive?

Neither you nor I are in a position to know this without an exhaustive review of the Congressional Record.

I think it is undisputable that the legislation he has co-authored and sponsored tells us more about the real John McCain than his voting record. I can't think of any legislation McCain co-authored or sponsored that wasn't only leftist but to the far left.

So because you cannot think of any, that means none exists huh??? You realize presumably that finding just one piece would invalidate your whole presumption. However, I am not sure whether or not you would ignore whatever I would present as if it was non-existent. Certainly without a pledge to avoid such things I will not expend an ounce of time on the matter.{5}

Just the damage wrought by MF itself more than wipes out any positive effect of his voting record.

By whose assessment??? The intention was to (i) control soft money contributions in campaign financing, by prohibiting national political party committees -in not only national but also state and local races-from raising or spending non-federally limited funds and (ii) utilizing issue ads within 30 days of a primary or 60 days of a general election which named candidates along with any such ad paid for by corporations -be they non profit or unincorporated entities -one that stretches to both business entities as well as union ones.

The result so far is a significantly lessened influence of soft money on campaigns since MF was signed into law. It is a regrettable piece of legislation in several ways this is true and we will see clarifications on it coming from the courts which in my mind is just fine. But I doubt you have taken any time to look soberly at this piece of legislation -a presumption based on your track record thus far in what I have responded to.

Medved is lying through his teeth when he says that MF was only "useless" and has done no real harm, especially to the Right to Life cause. The Wisconsin Right to Life case soundly refutes him there.

One example doth note a definitive statement on this matter make. MF affects a variety of activist causes -among the organizations fined for failure to follow campaigning guidelines in the 2004 election were (according to Wikipedia) the liberal League of Conservation Voters ($180,000) and Moveon.org ($150,000) as well as the conservative Swift Boat Veterans for Truth ($299,500). I do not know the reasons for the fines so levied so am not in a position to say whether they should have been more or less in any given case.

Presumably Medved was referring to the effect of MF on balance as opposed to one particular issue or group. But then again, I am inclined towards giving a charitable interpretation whenever this is feasible to do where the party in question has not given me just cause to not do so. By contrast, you apparently are driven to presume the worst without sufficient cause to do so viz. Medved's statement on this matter. This shows the depth of who really has a "derangement syndrome" here XXXXXXX and I will give you a hint: it is not this little black duck, nosiree.

And MF is as brash a violation of the First Amendment as the criminalization of porn isn't.

You appear to take a Hugo Black approach to the first amendment and historically the courts have never sided with that interpretation -heck the 1919 Schenck vs. United States case{6} is the example that most readily comes to mind. That point being noted though, there is still a question as to the extent of MF in passing constitutional muster. And that being noted, I have no problem with the Supreme Court (in its current configuration under Chief Justice Roberts geared as it evidently is towards judicial restraint) hearing cases on MF.

But it doesn't stop there. You have McCain Leiberman, which is McCain's open vying for the Cardinal's red hat in Pope Algore I's church of the environmentally ill.

You realize presumably that variations of that bill have been introduced since at least 2003 and they have died every time right??? Even the one currently up (S. 280) is nowhere near being in danger of being made into law. But to know this would be to know the status of the bills and the percentage of bills that actually make it out of committee.{7}

I don't think I need to tell you how dangerous the radical evironmentalist agenda is to this country in terms of economics and national security.

I agree with you on that.

And yes there is the McCain Kennedy amnesty bill. This is the only area where the unconservative Bush is anywhere near as liberal as McCain.

Bush is a fiscally irresponsible "dime store new dealer" (cf. B. Goldwater) and McCain is not. There is another issue for you.

Furthermore, if I am not mistaken, McCain's voting record post-2000 is only in the low 60's to high 50's.

It varies from session to session but you are (as you have been thus far) quite spectacularly wrong. The average in that span of time excluding 2007 is...well...you do the math yourself. Here are the numbers:

2006: 65%
2005: 80%
2004: 72%
2003: 80%
2002: 78%
2001: 68%
2000: 81%

I trust you do not need a calculator to figure out that you are (yet again) quite mistaken.

Furthermore, the average numbers are even higher than that prior to 2000 on balance with only five years with a rating of less than 83% going all the way back to not only his first Senate year (1987) but even including his previous four years as a Representative from Arizona (1983-1987). I could say more but once again: the facts do not substantiate your presumption.

If you are going to say that McCain is going to govern more conservatively than Bush you need to bring something more substantive than "Bush has set the bar so low" to the table.

I have not said he would govern more conservatively.{8} What I said was simply that it would not be hard for him to since Bush set the bar so damned low.

Finally, you really have a lot of nerve engaging in the same kind of deadagenting and sophistry that you have railed against (and rightly so) these last few years. In the text of this letter I have pointed out where you have done that to the point of moonbattery.

Since so little of what you said is sustained under examination, you would be wise to not speak so brashly as you have been. I have engaged in no sophistry at all. What I have done is take a view on these matters which accounts for the diverse streams in the well of what is commonly called "conservatism" while you have shown an ahistorical understanding on these matters both wholly and in most of the significant parts. Conservative instincts are good to have (and on balance you have them) but instincts not informed by facts make for a dangerous combination.

I could get up in a twist about having my intelligence so carelessly insulted. But why? I have better things to do than to expend emotion on such nonsensical horseshit.

If anyone should feel their intelligence has been insulted on this, it is me. Kindly do your own homework next time and do not blindly and uncritically genuflect, bow three times, and incense the opinions of either of the Limbaugh boys.

Notes:

{1} Or someone's particular interpretation of an accepted dogma to the exclusion of other possible viewpoints.

{2} If we rule out his signing of the most liberal abortion law in the country when governor of California.

{3} Financed by both Andrew Carnegie and also sales of his own writings.

{4} I do not have time to look for them but the archives of this weblog contain several examples -the most recent one from January of this year:

On the Candidacy of Mike Huckabee and the Political Stupidity of Pro-Lifers (circa January 9, 2008)

{5} I spent enough time tracking down the sources on this note already.

{6} Which upheld the US Sedition Act of 1918.

{7} A hint: it is very small and I gave it to you already.

{8} I did not realize that in responding to the longer email the first time, I actually did say this though I intended more nuance than that. The emailer can consider this to be a victory for them if they want but it would be a pyrrhic victory if they do.

More on Senator John McCain, the Boundaries of Conservative Republican Thought Historically Speaking, and Certain Troubling Contemporary Ahistorical So-Called "Conservative" Trends Thereof:
(Part IV of a Dialogue)

This is a continuation from the third part of this series which can be accessed here. To start from the beginning (if you have not read the previous parts) please go here. And though I have noted it in every part of the series so far, a reminder of the colour schemata in this series (to cut down on confusion as to the sequence of arguments) seems to me to be advisable; ergo I reiterate yet again what I noted in the first part of this series:

The orange font is from the emailer's original email while light blue font is my responses to the emailer's original note. The dark green font is from the emailer's follow-up to my first response while the regular blog font colour is my response to the emailer's follow-up note. Any sources I quote in this note will be in dark blue font and possibly smaller type as a result of the format this original text was taken from (I do not have time to change it). [Excerpt from Rerum Novarum (circa April 26, 2008)]

Without further ado...

What I am surprised by is that you did not realize this until now or (if you did) you did a good job of hiding it. There is a reason I am not a Republican anymore XXXXXXX -a reason why twelve years ago I told the Republicans to blow it out their pieholes. I was sick of this crap back then and over time my view has not changed. Welcome to the realization I had back then: that the establishment usually wins because they stack the deck against those who are outsiders.

Tell me what good does leaving the GOP do? How does that help advance the conservative cause? This is the very thing the country club establishment wants.

To explain the dynamic I sense is coming will require a history lesson but heck, I am willing to provide it. To start with, there are conservatives in both parties XXXXXXX, not just the Republicans. There are also conservative Independents. Ultimately party loyalty is what is killing this country and frankly I think both major parties need to be obliterated.

Now before you think what I am saying is not possible, it happened in the 1800's on more than one occasion. To start with, the Federalists (party of Washington, Hamilton, Morris, and Adams) was the original party of those who favoured the Constitution and a strong federal government and an energetic executive. However, the Federalists did not come into being as a party strictly speaking until the 1790's after the dispute over the Bank of the United States and Thomas Jefferson founded a party in opposition to it which former Federalist James Madison joined.

The Federalists ruled from 1789-1801 and went into decline after the death of former President George Washington (1799), the loss of President Adams in the second contested presidential election to Thomas Jefferson (1800), and the death of Alexander Hamilton in his duel with Aaron Burr (1804) left the party without a strong leader to coalesce around. The Federalists made matters worse in their opposition to the War of 1812 and as a party they were dead after 1816.{1} It is true that there were still identified Federalists as late as 1830 but there was no party of that name or general principle by that time even if former Federalist and the greatest chief justice in United States history (Chief Justice John Marshall: an Adams appointee) was still running the Supreme Court into the 1830's.{2}

The opposition Republican party (now styled the Democratic-Republican party) was founded in 1792 and took power in 1801. By 1820 they were the only party in the country and thus the 1920 election was won virtually unopposed by incumbent President James Monroe: only the third time in history this happened after General Washington's two unanimous elections to the presidency in 1788 and 1792. However, that party could not sustain itself due to competing interests and it broke apart into factions between 1821 and 1824 which resulted in the election of 1824 having four candidates of the same party (Democratic-Republican or the old Jeffersonian party) with Secretary of State John Quincy Adams winning despite not getting most of the popular vote or even the electoral majority over General Andrew Jackson,{3} Secretary of the Treasury William Crawford, and Speaker of the House Henry Clay. From this election, President Adams and Speaker Clay went on to form the Independent Republican party from the more federalist-minded of the Democrat-Republicans while President Jackson's supporters founded what is the modern Democratic party. Those were the two parties that competed for the presidency in the 1828 election which was a rematch of President Adams and General Jackson -and Andrew Jackson beat President Adams pretty convincingly in that election.

Speaker Clay ran unsuccessfully as the nominee of that party against President Jackson in 1832 and was soundly beaten by Jackson despite there being an Independent candidate and an Anti-Mason party candidate in that election. But between 1832 and 1836 there was another party reconfiguration which resulted in the 1836 election seeing the Democratic party candidate opposed by four members of the Whig party -a party formed out of the Independent Republicans and Democrats who were pissed off at President Jackson. The Whigs tried to run four candidates against Vice President Martin Van Buren{4} to keep a majority and getting it thrown into the House of Representatives where one of four Whigs could be selected. The strategy backfired as Martin Van Buren won enough electoral votes to secure the victory. The election for the Vice Presidency was contested and thrown into the House of Representatives: the first and only time thus far that this has happened in case you did not know.

The newly formed Whigs would go onto win the presidency in 1840{5}, lose in 1844{6}, win in 1848 (with General Zachery Taylor), lose in 1852 (with General Winfield Scott as the nominee), and then come apart at the seams over the issue of slavery shortly afterward. The Republican party was formed in 1854 from the wreckage of the Whigs with the issue of slavery as its main issue running their first presidential candidate in a losing cause in 1856. They would succeed the second time with Abraham Lincoln as their candidate. At that point we had the two major parties we have had to this day.

I see us in the stages (and we have been for some time) of a major implosion of one or more major political parties and a similar recasting required today. Like those days it will require some major issues of convergence. The Federalists and the original "Republicans" were opposed on the principle of federalism. The Jacksonians were aligned against the recharter of the Bank of the United States and against business in general while the Independent Republicans (and the later Whigs) were a more business oriented party which was also less strident on the subject of slavery than the Jeffersonians. The Republican party came out of the wreckage of the Whigs with the signal issue of slavery and its abolition.

We are in a similar situation today where a major issue or two will potentially form another major party and whether it becomes a third party or merely replaces one of the major parties remains to be seen. We may even in the next ten to twenty years see two major parties formed: the situation today in many respects is as chaotic on some major issues as it was in the period from 1824-1854: a thirty year period where major parties were cast and broke apart until we saw the formation of the two parties we have seen as the winners of every presidential election since 1854. Those who were involved in shaping the previous formations did not do so from within the major parties even if they were sympathetic to{7} certain general presuppositions of one major party or the other.

There has been a kind of paradigm shift in the works for a long time -as far back as 1964 actually- and what happened in 1972, in 1980, and in 1992 were all ingredients that go into what we will quite likely be seeing in the not too distant future. (As similarly weighty issues shaped the new configurations along the lines of the way slavery and the approach to federal power shaped party reconfigurations in the nineteenth century.) The Democratic party has been living on borrowed capital for about a generation and I do not view what the Republican party has become in the past twenty years as anything worthy of being saved.

As far as the Republicans go, part of the reason I say that is the absurd and ahistorical mentality of those who ascribe one particular view of things as "THE conservative view" or "THE conservative movement." And yes, one of those I take issue with in this area is Rush Limbaugh but by no means is he the only one who does this. Whatever else a President McCain could accomplish possibly expediting that realignment which has long been in the making is one of them. As far as fiscal discipline goes, he cannot possibly do worse than the current president has done who (unlike his father) does not have the veneer of the excuse that President Reagan had for the deficits that stacked up during his presidency.{8} Even W's daddy can claim he had to fight a Democratically controlled congress in both parties unlike Reagan who at least had a Republican senate for the first six years of his term. (Budgetary matters while input on them can come from both houses and even the president to some extent nonetheless originate in the House which if they do not originate it, the money is not allocated; ergo the importance of having control of the House.)

There are in other words circumstances that mitigate the first six years of Reagan's term{9} and the entire four years of W's daddy's term. We need not bring Clinton into this because the deficits were smaller during his presidency and eventually there were surpluses: one good thing the Republicans did in his administration that he reluctantly went along with. (Another was comprehensive welfare reform.)

Since George H. W. Bush repudiated the Reagan legacy and by that cost himself the election in 1992, this has been what we have had to deal with. Gingrich's congresses promised a lot and delivered very little and the six years we had of a Republican congress and president were shameful in their fiscal lack of discipline.

The 1994 takeover of Congress refutes your implication that a straightforward telling them what was what conservative can't win. It sure did in 1994, irregardless of whether or not it was implemented.

My assertion stands because promises without action are worthless. Furthermore, midterm elections historically are usually of a lower turnout so that factor has to be taken into account as well. And besides, the Republicans in 1994 were hardly as "straight forward" as you claim. The whole "balanced budget in seven years" thing while better than what was seen previously was nonetheless a bit evasive because Gingrich and company did not bother to tell the American people that the reason for the deficits was ballooning federal programs that needed to be cut or eliminated outright in actuality not merely given smaller increases from year to year and trying to grow the economy to a balanced budget situation.

Now I must admit that I do not blame the congressional Republicans of the 1990's for taking the approach they did on the budget because they caught enough flack for it from the idiots in the media who were too stupid to realize that adding more money to a program every year -even if the amount added is less than what was originally scheduled- is an increase in funding not a cut. It was a good move but a lot more was needed. Certainly it is better than the idiots who ran Congress from 2001-2006 and whose 2006 budget was a 3 trillion budget that was growing every year and still running annual deficits of no small significance!!!

To give you some scope of this, the 1987 budget was 1 trillion. So the budget from 1987 to 2007 tripled. And considering the rate of inflation for that period in time, a credible argument cannot be made that those increases were for "cost of living adjustments" or whatever. We are in some serious trouble here when we have two parties which are birds of the same feather on issues such as the budget, so-called "free trade", illegal immigration, and other significant issues. This monopoly on significant issues cannot continue indefinitely and it will not be.

Can it be said that McCain has acted, in his political career, in manner "worthy of his suffering"? I think not.

His record is mixed but that is not uncommon for politicians of twenty years standing in DC.

Voting the wrong way on a bill that has complex facets is one thing, actively co-authoring legislation that is anti-conservative is quite another.

He considered running alonside the unrepentant John Kerry, whose, 1971 testimony was played repeatedly in the Hanoi Hilton, according the POW's who supported the SBVFT in 2004.

Again, we have John Kerry's word on this and if you want to trust Kerry on this than you are being amazingly selective in what you will accept from him.

No, we have McCain's word on that. McCain admitted that he would consider accepting a VP slot on Kerry's ticket.

I already dealt with this and what you are referring to was McCain speaking of an impossible hypothetical situation. If you think that was something serious then you are really in need of toning down the lithium dosages because it sounds like something Dr. Savage would say.

He panders to the media, many of whom who show more sympathy with his captors than they do the POW's.

This is "six degrees of Kevin Bacon" kind of stuff XXXXXXX.

How so? So, you don't think McCain panders to the left wing media and that that very same left wing media that has more sympathy for those who held McCain and his fellow POWs in totureous squalor for over a half decade? In fact, when I pointed this out to you before, you seemed to be in agreement with it. Why the sea change all of a sudden?

You just went from "many of whom show more sympathy" to "that...media has more sympathy" in a kind of universal statement. Furthermore, while I have no love for the msm (as you probably know) unfortunately they are at times a necessary evil to deal with. We can debate on the best way of how this is done but there is no "one size fits all" approach to be taken.

My intuition on McCain and the media is that McCain tries to take a Reagan like approach to the media but does not recognize that executives (be they presidents or governors) are in a better position to pull it off than congressmen and senators are - Reagan's profound superiority at public speaking over McCain notwithstanding of course.

This has always bothered the hell out of me about McCain.

Whether we like it or not XXXXXXX, the media is a necessary evil in a lot of this. Without them, it is hard to nearly impossible to get your message to a broader audience and with them, you have to deal with the fact that they have an agenda. (We have alternatives now that we did not have in years past but McCain is pretty old school in this regard to some extent.) Whatever prudence or lack thereof that you want to ascribe to Senator McCain in this area, it would be wise to view the situation for what it is.

How is pandering to the left wing media necessary for conservatives? If anything it is couterproductive for conservatives. The biggest mistake a republican not to mention a conservative one can make is pander to the media. This is the very thing that sunk Newt Gingrich.

What sunk Gingrich to a good extent is that he was a good guerilla fighter on the defensive but not really cut out to be the primary spokesman on issues pertaining to an overall agenda. There are other factors that led to his downfall but that was a key one right there. He is not the first leader of a revolution who once they were in power could not effectively govern nor will he be the last.

The one thing Rush Limbaugh warned the 1994 freshman class about was to not try to get the media to like them. That it would be the very thing that destroyed them becuase the left wing media hates republicans and conservatives even more so. You couldn't anymore worng when you say McCain isn't stupid. He is not only stupid, but his relationship with the media is a textboook example who of how useful an idiot can be.

As I said before, McCain is old school when it comes to the media. You see it as "useful idiot" and I see it as a seventy-one year old senator who does not understand many of the dynamics of the new media age we are in. I am not saying Limbaugh is wrong on this point in principle but he also spoke to the freshmen at a time when there was no real alternatives to the mainstream media other than the very small (but growing rapidly) talk radio outlet and the occasional conservative publication of limited circulation (like National Review).

With the advent of a more balanced overall media picture now -including more conservative-inclined cable news outlets like FoxNews, the explosion of the internet, and a variety of online sources such as Drudge, NewsMax, etc- the landscape is significantly different now than it was even in 1994 which (lest you forget) was two years before the launch of FoxNews. If you want to claim that McCain should have better adapted to the changing circumstances of media in that time, perhaps so but a lot of things have changed very rapidly in a short span of time and a rule of life is that older people (and McCain at seventy-one qualifies as old) do not usually respond quickly to these sorts of changes.

The recent New York Slimes non-story about McCain and the lobbyist could not be anymore timely in proving my point. This is a story they have been sitting on for eight years. Now, why would they sit on such a hot non-story for that long? Simple. They've been waiting for McCain to get the nomination so they can destroy him. IOW, they've been playing him. Sad thing is, a blind man could see this coming from a mile away, but McCain being so blinded by his desire to be liked was too stupid to see it. And since the left-wing media is a stable of whores and the Old Gray Lady is the madam you can expect a lot more of this.

Perhaps but people have gotten a lot more jaded about the msm in recent years. And unlike in previous times, there are a host of ways to fact check and otherwise examine these matters via "Armstrong research,"{10} That is why the msm has gotten their eyes blackened in recent years with an increasing frequency: that and the fact that the msm is not the only game in town anymore...just ask Dan Rather about that.

Before you use the "President Reagan went over the heads of the media to the people" line, remember that as president there is a bully pulpit of sorts that senators and house representatives do not have. Unlike the president who can call press conferences by virtue of his position -and thus has a platform for making their views known apart from media spin- senators and representatives cannot do that unless they at least implicitly do something that appears to support the media weltanschauung. And a Republican who does not toe the Republican party line fits that in a way that a Democrat who does not toe the Democratic party line does not. This is not to defend or excuse McCain mind you but instead to remind you of what he is up against. As president he will not be so constrained.

Reagan's ability to go over the heads of the media precedes his presidency.

He did it as governor of California too...another executive position. Prior to that, Reagan was the head of the Screen Actors Guild: another executive position of sorts. Starting to see a pattern yet???

Otherwise how do you think he got elected without the benefit of an influential conservative talk radio?

Two words: Jimmah Carter.

If he had that he would have even been able to destroy Clinton (the only Dem President since FDR to to get reelected) in 1996.

Who would have been able to destroy Clinton in 1996??? Surely you do not mean Reagan who was in the throes of Alzheimers by that point.

And given McCain's hero status as a POW, it gave him a great opportunity to speak over the heads of the media but he chose to be a suck ass. And given McCain's long standing reputation as a left wing media kiss ass, it would most definitely constrain him as president because reputations do matter.

McCain's hero status as a POW of a war that the msm despised and continues to despise. Or did you forget about that part of the equation???

This is a mere synopsis of the problems I have with John McCain. His nomination perplexes me greatly.

He was not even in my top four of candidates. In order, my candidate choices ideally were 1) Duncan Hunter 2) Fred Thompson 3) Sam Brownback 4) Mitt Romney 5) John McCain 6) Rudy Guiliani. I would vote for a Democrat before I would vote for either Mike Huckabee or Ron Paul so I need not mention them. I only want you to realize in my saying this that I am not enthralled by McCain being the nominee either but we have what we have.

You're number one guy endorsed the one you demonize the most. What does that say?

The pickings among the candidates that were left at that point were on the issue of illegal immigration akin to Scylla and Charybdis.{11} I frankly wish Hunter would have said nothing but it did not happen that way obviously. Imagine that: politics is the art of the possible not of the perfect.

On one hand, a good case can be made that he is better than both Shrillary and the Magic Negro.

Side note: that Sharpton parody from Paul Shanklin is my favourite parody in a long time!!!

It's one I would, under normal circumstances, instinctively embrace. But Rush Limbaugh makes the point that if we are going suffer in the next four years it is better that it be a Democrap holding the bag for it than a republican.

Limbaugh is not going to fail to support McCain. I remember in 1992 he said a lot of the same things about Bush's papa and then went out and supported Bush Sr. He will do the same thing this time -guaranteed.

Uhmm, don't think so.

I have yet to see Rush not support a Republican.

If anything, he will give tacit support at best. Remember, McCain is a totally different animal than Bush Sr. In fact, I think Rush is right when he says that his endorsing McCain would hurt him given the fact that conservatives are not going to enthusiasctically back McCain and Rush's endorsement will only scare the liberals McCain is going to have to win over.

Tacit or otherwise, he will endorse McCain: that was my point.

Now, I'm not sure if I would embrace that view, but it can't be dismissed out of hand given what a McCain Administration would bring in the unlikely event he wins in November.

I remind you that a year is a long time in politics...McCain has lower unfavourable ratings than Clinton (and that is not going to change) and Obama is still quite unknown. The more Obama is drawn out, the less attractive he will be.

Yes, but once McCain attacks Obama's liberalism, Obama can strike back by saying "Senator McCain just last year you were on the same side as us on many of these issues." IOW, Obama will have an easy time portraying McCain as the weaker version of himself that McCain truly is. Obama may be an empty suit, but he is light years smarter than McCain.

Obama's inexperience is going to hurt him against McCain after Hill is through beating Barack to a pulp. That is the value of Hill staying in the race: she will be able to go after Obama in ways that McCain could not if it was just him and Obama. And of course once she does that, McCain could then merely "concur with the senator from New York" on these matters.

And there are not a whole lot of issues which Obama can claim that he and McCain are simpatico on. Hillary would have an easier time making that argument than Obama would (albeit not by much) but she is not likely to at this point get the nomination unless she can lock up enough delegates to take it at the convention through a back room deal. If that happens, the fallout for the Democrats would be a lack of substantive unity going into November which would be a detriment to them.

I think these are things we conservatives have to think long and hard about in the next nine months.

As a former Republican you have my sympathies. But you wonder why I have in various ways endorsed a third option in politics for a long time. But for all your talk about how that throws things to the Democrats, now you appear to be willing to do the same thing but directly instead of potentially indirectly.

First of all, the main reason I oppose the stupid ass third party theory is that our electoral and governemental process doesn't faclitate more than two major parties in practice. I said this clearly when I utterly destroyed your Kingdom for a Third Party arguments a year or so ago.

That was three and a half years ago and your recollection is faulty on more than just the time line.

What, you don't think I would remember?

My how we revise the past and omit what is not convenient!!! I remember having to constantly explain to you that I was not proposing the traditional approach to third parties in that hypothesis but you continued to misrepresent my stance. Yeah, misrepresentation is "destroying [my] arguments" alright...more like erecting strawmen, knocking them down, and then crowing about "victory"...What, you do not think Iwould remember???{12} I may not be a Republican anymore but I still have a memory like an elephant most of the time.

If you care as much about preserving conservative constitutionally sound principles you cannot be indifferent to what happens to the Republican party whether you regard yourself as such.

Who said I was indifferent??? Just because I do not tip the biretta, bow three times, and incense uncritically the dogmatic pronouncements of Pope Limbaugh on what is and is not conservative does not make me indifferent.

At least the indirect approach sets the table for something possibly coming out of it other than establishment retrenching. But then again, you seem to not recall just how Reagan was really perceived by the establishment: he was as distrusted by the "far right" as he was the "far left."

No, your third party idea only further empowers the country club establishmment within the GOP.

Since you continue to not get the third party idea that I outlined (which is in many respects unconventional anyway), it is difficult for me to not laugh as I type this in response. You remind me of those fundamentalists who no matter how many times it is explained to them continue to say "but Catholics worship Mary."

It is damn difficult to have a dialogue when one party refuses to listen and (as a result) continues to caricature the position of others. Even if I do not always represent 100% accurately your view it is not for want of listening as people capable of critical discernment often have nuances to their positions which are not self-evident and require repeated emphasis. But one thing I do tire of very quickly is those who are set straight on an issue more than once and yet they continue to repeat the same misunderstandings or errors over and over again. How I choose to respond to such things depends on a case by case basis on my mood or level of patience at the time respond to this sort of thing in a variety of ways.

Let's see what your vote for Perot "set the table" for, eight years of Clinton and eight years of Bush.

At least I voted.

Now, it is safe to say that eight years of Clinton was bad.

Not completely. It did get us us six years of a Republican congress in both houses which derailed or otherwise watered down a lot of what Clinton wanted to do. If only from the standpoint of breaking that logjam of four decades of House control and Senate control for forty of the previous forty-six years it was a worthwhile endeavour because without Clinton as president, it never would have happened. But beyond that point, it also got us progress on welfare reform, a balanced budget, a nationalization to general elections for congressmen and senators that previously did not exist, and also contributed to a generally good degree of economic growth.

There are a few other bits and pieces here and there I could probably list if I gave this point a bit more thought but that is all I have time for now. Suffice to say your "safe" assumption here is not as "safe" as you presume it to be.

And if your BDS runs it's full course, you are going to wind up saying that Bush is worse than Clinton if you don't think that already.

You are confusing my realistic assessment of W with your McCain Derangement Syndrome. At least I gave W the benefit of the doubt before he was elected and then let him deprive himself of my good will over time while he governed. It is not derangement to do the same thing for McCain that I did for W. As far as the last two presidencies as a whole go, it is too early to be fair to either Clinton or Bush in deciding which of them was better than the other -particularly Bush since he is still in office now. Plus, even when he leaves in a year, some of his legacy depends on what happens in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as how the court shapes up after his nominations particularly the selection of Roberts as chief justice.

Neither of them will be viewed as a great president -overall probably average at best for the both of them with W coming out a bit better on the basis of his court selections. But right now and in the here and now, he looks pretty bad and that is reality whether you like it or not.

Ergo, you unwittingly argue more forcefully than I do that your third party ala voting for Perot was foolish.

You mean the election where I voted and you did not??? I have not a whit of regret at that vote because I voted instinctively on something I had a faint shadow of knowledge of at the time. Knowing what I know now, I would make the same decision without a hesitation.

The realignment I spoke of earlier is coming and oftentimes ideas have to start outside the machinery of the major parties before either one will accept them -akin to the fact that alternatives to pharmaceutical remedies start outside the medical establishment more often than not only to be accepted by the establishment at a later date. The principle here is the same.

And I have also explained that this is why I remain republican.

Out of love of party is what it seemingly boils down to when you take it to brass tacks on some subjects.

And the [disputed issue deleted] reveals that I am a lot less willing to circle the wagons for our side when they choose to be two-faced wimps than you are.

No, that issue reveals that you are more willing to charge into windmills like Don Quixote than I am or (to use a WWII analogy) "fly kamakaze-like at aircraft carriers." If that is what you are asserting, then I agree with you. That is all you have accomplished on that one for the most part: alienating people who could be allies to the cause (even if imperfect ones) out of some stupid "my way 100% or the highway" kind of mentality. For your extolling of Reagan, The Gipper certainly did not take that approach (to his credit). You would be well to learn from him on that matter.

To be Continued...

Notes:

{1} The last time they fielded a candidate for president.

{2} He died in 1835.

{3} Who did but not enough to win the election.

{4} Whom Jackson gave his support to at the Democratic convention.

{5} With General Harrison beating President Van Buren only to be succeeded a month after his inauguration by Vice President John Tyler when the president died of pneumonia.

{6} When former speaker Henry Clay lost to James K. Polk after the incumbent President Tyler was denied the nomination and then kicked out of the Whig party.

{7} Or in many subjects perhaps supportive of.

{8} Winning the Cold War by bankrupting the Soviet Union is what I refer to here.

{9} And the deficits went down in the second half of Reagan's presidency as you presumably know was due to the economic growth.

{10} Aka "googling various terms."

{11} That was one of Hunter's main issues as you know: he was not about to endorse McCain on it and Romney's recent "come to Jesus" conservative view was obviously viewed as suspect.

{12} To note a few examples from our earlier discussion:

[Y]ou cannot find in this country's history a third party approach such as what I am advocating...

Yes it is telling. That is why I am proposing alternative third party strategery here...

I recommending a policy here that has reflections in the American experience with third parties??? No, I am not and surely you can agree with that much...

I am proposing this third option along with other ideas like my rider reform proposal and am not rehashing old ideas or approaches by any stretch...

Frankly, I think the general trends of third parties in history would make such multiplication unlikely. Remember, I am proposing a party that takes time to build a coherent philosophy and grass roots influence before running candidates for office. This is a radical approach for third parties to take which is why there are not likely to be a lot of imitators should one utilize this method as I am suggesting...

[Y]our argument is not interacting with the substance of what I am proposing...[Excerpts from Rerum Novarum (circa November 11, 2004)]

As subsequent emails from you continued to misrepresent what I was saying to no small degree, I decided to drop the issue at that time and not continue discussing it with you.

More on Senator John McCain, the Boundaries of Conservative Republican Thought Historically Speaking, and Certain Troubling Contemporary Ahistorical So-Called "Conservative" Trends Thereof:
(Part III of a Dialogue)

This posting is a continuation from the second part of a dialogual series which can be accessed here. To start from the beginning (if you have not read the previous parts) please go here. I also want to remind the readers of the colour schemata in this series so there is (hopefully) no confusion as to who said what and where; ergo I reiterate at this time what I noted in the first part of this series:

The orange font is from the emailer's original email while light blue font is my responses to the emailer's original note. The dark green font is from the emailer's follow-up to my first response while the regular blog font colour is my response to the emailer's follow-up note. Any sources I quote in this note will be in dark blue font and possibly smaller type as a result of the format this original text was taken from (I do not have time to change it). [Excerpt from Rerum Novarum (circa April 26, 2008)]

Without further ado...

Like I said yesterday, McCain's self-serving (even for a politician) is all the more disgusting given the fact that he was POW in the Hanoi Hilton. People who have had that experience ought to know better than to act like McCain has. I am of the belief that war heroes who run for elected office have greater obligation to act uprightly than others do. The great psychologist and Auschwitz survivor Viktor Frankl would say that they have an obligation to live in a manner "worthy of their suffering".

What I do not understand is this: you are angry because we have McCain as a Republican nominee and have talked about throwing this to the Democrats in 2008 so that the establishment finally realizes that pretending that conservatives can be completely ignored is a policy that means certain defeat. But then in the past you said that my voting for Perot was stupid because it essentially gave the election to Clinton as a lot of people approached this as I did. Now you seem to functionally advocate now what I advocated then.

First of all, GHW,glaring problems notwithstanding, was nowhere near as bad as John McCain.

As I noted already, I do not agree with you on this. John McCain has been a senator who has to truck and bargain in the senate to try and get anything done whereas President George W. Bush has been the executive for going on eight years now who was and is in a position of far greater power and capable of getting a lot more done.

Whatever you want to say about McCain he was not a lame executive on numerous important issues as W has been for the first six years of his presidency. McCain did not fail to stand up with the power of the bully pulpit and threaten the veto pen to his own party if they did not govern according to conservative principles including fiscal discipline. The whole "well we are at war" excuse was pathetic...it may account for 2002 and 2003{1} but it would not account for 2004, 2005, or 2006.

And I do not give three shits about the fact that it will be another deficit this year: the Republicans messed up big time and attempts now to claim to have "learned their lesson" or whatever will have a difficult time sticking. The only real hope here is that the progress in Iraq continues to look good as it has been for the past fourteen odd months or so. At least with a Republican presidency in McCain and a Republican congress (if we can get that combination), I trust McCain to wield the veto pen against his own party unlike W who lacked the guts to.

GHW never sided with the left on issues for the express purposes of sticking it to conservatives.

What do you think all that "compassionate conservatism" crap was??? GWB presided with a Republican congress over one of the (if not THE) largest expansion of the budget in any six year period in history -both in terms of actual dollars as well as by percentage. And as so many conservatives were constantly calling for smaller government and fiscal restraint during that interim as always, the unwillingness of GWB to wield a veto pen to do anything whatsoever about this is a fact that by itself does not mesh with your statement above so that is all I will say on the matter.

And I am not advocating "throwing this to the democrats". In fact, I said if you would only pay attention to what I actually said, that I while I do not necessrily embrace the idea there is something to said about the idea that if things are gonna go to hell in a handbasket, it would be better if the Dems were left holding the bag for it than the GOP, as Rush Limbaugh put it.

We do not know if things are "going to hell in a handbasket" yet. There is a lot of talk about recession but we have not met the key indicators that would note a recession is happening. [Note: The rest of this paragraph was written in February. -ISM] Last Tuesday's "balance of trade" figures for January came in at $59.2B which was a tad below the estimate of $59.5B. It is a moderate indicator. Last Wednesday's "crude inventories" figure came in and also be a moderate indicator -they were ambiguous at best. Last Thursday had three figures, one moderate and two high including two retail sales figures -they were at -22% which was less than the -5% anticipated- and last Friday had consumer price index figures which are also high indicators that remained unchanged keeping the Core Consumer Price Indexes at 2.3% on the year which portends about a .75% funds rate cut by the Fed tomorrow.){2} The media is of course going to play the perceived problems for all it is worth as if it is the same way they played up every casualty in Iraq as "proof of a failed policy."

Besides, do you think if the Dems win and everything goes to hell that the media will paint it as anything but "the fallout of eight years of a failed Bush economic policy" or something similar? They did not do this with the mild recession early in Bush's term{3} but we both know that the media has no respect for the law of non-contradiction any more than apologist sorts do when it is not to their advantage. In the case of the msm, they are banking on most people having either no memory of that or no desire to actually factcheck them.

I also think that Rush has a point that there is no way the Dems are gonna do anything that will secure defeat if they have to be the ones to take the blame for it.

This election is wide open. Besides, they already think they will win no matter whom their person is so do not forget that. I for one want them to continue to be so arrogant because it increases the chances of their undoing.

They will surely do it if a Republican will. And with McCain in office with even bigger Dem majorities, as conventional wisdom predicts

Conventional wisdom in this election year has been wrong time and time again thus far. Even I who usually do well with political forecasting have been wrong to a higher degree than the norm thus far this year: the most difficult to predict election since 1952.

and the fact that McCain is a dove on the interrogation methodology (which is essential to any war effort and by logical extention can be as much a dove on matters like rules of engagement), they would be in position to do just that.

You are presuming without warrant that McCain's presumed opposition on some points means he is thereby in opposition or weak on other points which at best have a tenuous connection. There is a difference between rules of engagement and interrogation methodology. Come on, surely you can do better than this.

I mean what is the GOP minority going to do about it? Hell, they won't even be able to criticize McCain, who would be the leader of their party in the so unlikely event it will take a miracle he were to get elected.

For all the talk about McCain as president being the leader of the GOP, why are you seemingly not extending this to its logical conclusion and putting the largest chunk of the blame for the GOP's current mess in the lap of GWB??? It is pointless to claim that the Republican congresses are primarily at fault when the role of the executive is to lead and an "energetic executive" of the sort the framers envisioned will always be able to control the legislature.

Heck, Bush suddenly after six years finds his veto pen and is able to stymie the Democrats time and again in 2007 and also this year (thankfully). If he had been a man for the first six years of his term on the budget front, he could have done an even better job as "leader of the GOP" than he is doing now in keeping the Dems on a controlled leash of sorts.

The executive always has that kind of advantage. Similarly a weak executive is a disaster and while W has not been weak in a Carter-like way, he has nonetheless as a rule not been strong in a Reagan-like way or even (I hate to say it) the way Clinton was at times. Obviously his approach to 9/11 and the war on terror has been a noted exception of course. I can never take either that or the very good Court nominations from him -my annoyance at him having to be embarrassed into nominating Samuel Alito notwithstanding.

As far as John Roberts and his selection not only as a justice but as chief justice, that was something that I viewed as most excellent at the time{4} and brilliant in hindsight: possibly the most restrained chief justice since Chief Justice John Marshall at least thus far which may well make the Roberts nomination for chief justice the second most significant in United States history after the aforementioned nominee of the first President Adams.

This situation is not analagous to 1992.

Oh but it is. In 1992 you had a Republican president and a minority Republican party. Perot's involvement got Clinton elected as we would both admit to and two years later, we had Republican majorities in both houses of congress and a good degree of optimism of what that event could mean.

Of course the Republicans struggled against Clinton a bit the same way the Dems are against Bush now insomuch as the executive will always have an advantage over the legislature in the absence of a veto-proof majority. But from 1/2001-1/2007 we had Republican control of congress and the presidency and the abominable budgetary results cannot be explained away by you or Rush or anyone else. Just as in 1992 we had the issue of Republicans breaking promises and more of the same which led to their defeat, that is precisely what happened in 2006 where many pissed off conservatives deserted the Republicans in the election.{5} And it may well happen in 2008 as well unless the war issue can be gotten out of the headlines other than having good news to report (of course) and the economy can somehow avoid a recession.

Oh yes and there was a recession in 1992 also if you recall. And (of course) we also had those who played the "gee, if Clinton gets nominated the antichrist will rule" kind of crap which was intended to scare people into voting for GHWB and the same is the case with either Obama or Hill as the Democratic nominee. There are a lot of similarities to 1992 in the current election year. And one more thing while I am thinking about it.

I do not buy (at any price) the crap of the Republicans "not being able to govern in the majority" ala what Rush has said for a number of years. That argument may have been valid in the 1990's{6} but not in the twenty-first century and with a Republican president. For crying out loud, these guys were stood down by President William Clinton -a member of the opposing party. Are you telling me that President George W. Bush of the same party (the "party leader") could not have successfully stood up to them???

Make no mistake about it: the person most at fault for the disintegration of the conservative movement was {{{insert dramatic fanfare tune here}}} President George Walker "not Texas Ranger" Bush. Yet to listen to you, it was a sole senator from Arizona who deserves the blame there and who deserves no benefit of the doubt whatsoever before he is president of the sort that most people of decent will are willing to grant to any president.

W got the benefit of the doubt from me overall for six years with each succeeding year being less and less generally speaking since 2004.{7} I am not about to treat McCain any differently should he win than I have W except I will probably start him off with a lesser grade than the A+ I gave W starting on January 20, 2001.{8} Where he goes from there is up to him.

To be Continued...

Notes:

{1} The 2001 budget was approved by President Clinton before he left office so it does not count even though that year was a surplus.

{2} My prediction here was on the money.

{3} Which was the result not of Bush's policies but fallout from the "dot com" bubble burst that happened on President Clinton's watch.

{4} Bush replaced the constructionist with what from all appearances is a solid originalist thus holding serve on the court. [Excerpt from Rerum Novarum (circa October 8, 2005)]

For those who wonder what the distinction is between my varying choice of words to describe the two chief justices (Rhenquist and Roberts), see the recent clarification thread located here:

Clarifying My Use of Use of Various Jurisprudence Terms (circa March 13, 2008)

{5} In 1992 many voted for Perot, in 2006 not a few conservatives stayed home.

{6} I agreed with it then actually and considering the novelty of it for a couple of years, it was a persuasive argument.

{7} It has stayed fairly constant in the past years due to the progress of the war in Iraq after he wisely changed the Rumsfeld strategy a year ago and put General David Petraeus in charge over there on the ground and General Robert Gates in Rummy's spot.

{8} Probably an A-: time will tell.