Having titled the article, let me say I would love to see O'Donnell win and surprise all the pundits. But I respect Krauthammer.
Bill Buckley - no Mike Castle he - had a rule: Support the most conservative candidate who is electable. There's something to be said for that. Note the takeover by the left has spanned years and years, and when they over-reached, we got Obama. Gain a little at each election, rather than lose it all until next election.
On the other hand, Krauthammer notes -
This is no ordinary time. And this is no ordinary Democratic administration. It is highly ideological and ambitious. It is determined to use whatever historical window it is granted to change the country structurally, irreversibly. It has already done so with Obamacare and has equally lofty ambitions for energy, education, immigration, taxation, industrial policy and the composition of the Supreme Court.
Mr Krauthammer is correct, it is no ordinary time. But the first vote an electable Mr. Castle would have made was the vote to make a Pub the Majority Leader instead of Mr. Reid (or Mr. Schumer). If the Pubs fall a vote short, we'll lament Delaware. Maybe.
Posted by: Bobby ||
09/18/2010 16:57 ||
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#1
With regard to O'Donnell, I note in passing that she was not considered electable in the primary either.
That said, the latest RINO nonsense with Murkowski in Alaska kind I'd drives home the point that the Republican Party has become it's own worth enemy. If we want to win again and keep winning then we need to clean house first.
#2
Unfortunately, a liberal Republican is more destructive to conservative goals than even a liberal Democrat.
Imagine a football game where one side's players were loyal to the team, but the other side had one player on offense, and one player on defense, who without warning, would suddenly try to throw the game.
The first response of the team with the treacherous players is to argue that without them, they cannot field a complete team, so will be at a disadvantage. But that is a poor argument, because the treacherous players are worse than useless.
To make matters worse, while the treacherous player on defense might do his job most of the time, the treacherous player on offense vigorously refuses to permit his team to play offense. So instead, the team decides to concentrate on defense. A static defense.
Which means that the best they can ever hope for is to just slow down the other team's victory.
This is the state the Republican party finds itself. Until the treacherous RINOs are either eliminated, or benched, marginalized, there will be no turning back of the villainy of the Democrats, much less advancement of Republican goals.
As such, it is better for the party that it be in the minority, but with party discipline, and a dedicated effort to not just stop the Democrats, but when the opportunity presents itself, to reverse their damage, and restore the nation to order.
[Dawn] The blow-off from a fairly long opinion piece:
Though Musharraf's policies may not have engaged the common man the way Z.A. Bhutto's did, however, it did have a deep impact on urban, middle-class Pakistan.
This happened in two stages. The first was the proliferation of a new-found sense of creative freedom among the urban middle-class youth, and the next stage was when this astute sensibility eventually evolved into a new political awakening of sorts.
Or was it, really?
If one scans the writings that still appear in newspapers and internet sites of certain pro-Musharraf punters, or listen to certain men and women who appear as hosts and 'analysts' on TV (and make no bones about being the general's fans); and their youthful followers who love taking part in whip lashing cyber discussions, one can clearly detect in their tirades a constant stream of some of the most outlandish reactionary and nationalistic claptrap this side of Joseph Goebbles!
Most of these ladies and gentlemen come from well-to-do, upper-middle and middle-class backgrounds. Many of them are young. And 'educated.' But I am afraid on most occasions than not, their rhetoric has very little to do with anything either enlightening or moderate.
Educated they may be, the twist comes in when most of them suddenly morph into desperate nut cases spouting utter hatred.
Hatred towards democracy, towards politicians, and towards the stupid and 'illiterate' masses that actually exercise their right to vote and elect these politicians; hatred towards minority sects in Pakistan, Hindus, Jews and even fellow Muslims who commit 'shirk' (blasphemy) by going to Sufi shrines. Funniest, however, remains to be their hatred of 'liberal extremists!'
Now remember this is coming from men and women who might be drinking, smoking and grooving on the latest Indian and Western tunes on their iPods. Or who may be associated with giant western multinationals, foreign funded NGOs, fashion and pop industries, elitist schools and colleges, and major money making concerns and private TV channels.
Is this what Musharraf's enlightened moderation create?
Apart from a country infested with psychotic monsters jumping about in suicide belts, this enlightened moderation also created perfumed little pompous rats proving that yes, extreme patriotism can most certainly mutate into a plague infected with a warped understanding of politics and nationalism -- mostly constructed on an unending series of diabolic conspiracy theories, and feel-good lectures constituting sheer lies and delusions about one's country and religion.
Thus, I think instead of calling his doctrine 'enlightened moderation,' he should have called it 'frightened frustration' instead. Because the kind of hairy barbarians conducting suicide attacks on the one hand, and the pompous patriots dripping with chauvinistic drool and anti-democracy bile that his rule eventually generated, is really about frustrated cowards running amok.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/18/2010 00:00 ||
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#1
perfumed little pompous rats
That's a keeper.
hairy barbarians conducting suicide attacks on the one hand, and the pompous patriots dripping with chauvinistic drool and anti-democracy bile
And THAT but of purple prose is basically saying that this is the breeding ground for the next high-impact terror attack on the US. IMO- before Obama leaves office in 2013, he is going to have to make a choice about whether to hit Pakistan- hard.
[Dawn] A barrage of drone strikes in parts of North Wazoo Agency recently has once again thrust the controversial programme in the spotlight.
The escalation appears to be linked to time running out for America's strategy to stabilise Afghanistan and prevent that country and the border areas with Pakistain from remaining a safe haven for groups inclined to attacking the US.
Beyond that, little is certain. The strikes over the past couple of weeks have focused on specific areas of one of the three divisions in North Wazoo, areas believed to be largely Haqqani strongholds.
This indicates that the pursuit of Al Qaeda has gone down a notch, perhaps because that group's size is believed to have shrunk to no more than a few hundred members.
Increasing pressure on the Taliban, however, should not be read as a fixation with just the Afghan Taliban. In North Wazoo, even the Pak Taliban are believed to be oriented towards Afghanistan and as such would also be in the cross-hairs of the US drones.
When the strikes in North Wazoo are considered along with US pressure on faceless myrmidons in eastern Afghanistan, the other side of the border from North Wazoo in particular, it becomes evident that America is willing to act even in the absence of the much- demanded military operation in North Wazoo. The window for America to produce military results is closing.
The Pak government, rather the security establishment led by the Pakistain Army, needs to come clean about the drone strikes.
US Special Representative for AfPak Richard Holbrooke has claimed the government and the army are very much on board regarding the drone strikes -- something privately acknowledged by the Pak side.
If there isn't cooperation on every strike, then broad permission appears to have been granted by the Pak side. Secret deals on strikes which are public appear to make little sense. Ideally, the US should transfer drone technology to Pakistain to remove qualms over violation of sovereignty.
For this, greater mutual trust is needed. Till then, a private understanding on drone strikes would have to suffice as the use of Pak bombers could mean greater collateral damage.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/18/2010 00:00 ||
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#1
If there isn't cooperation on every strike, then broad permission appears to have been granted by the Pak side. Secret deals on strikes which are public appear to make little sense. Ideally, the US should transfer drone technology to Pakistain to remove qualms over violation of sovereignty.
Is the speaker nuts? No way am I handing that technology to people who could use it against us.
The Pak military is helping to pick the targets. Sovereignty my a**.
Posted by: Mike Ramsey ||
09/18/2010 10:45 Comments ||
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Secret deals on strikes which are public appear to make little sense.
Makes sense to me. Keep the drone strikes going and don't satisfy these surrender monkey journalists.
Posted by: Shomotch Scourge of the Algonquins2445 ||
09/18/2010 20:17 Comments ||
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Ideally, the US should transfer drone technology to Pakistain to remove qualms over violation of sovereignty.
Very ignorant idea. All we need is Shariah proponents to have this ability. At least they probably wouldn't be able to maintain it, but I could imagine them selling the tech to China, Russia, or any other enemy nation.
As for coming clean, I disagree. Consider the political establishment the PAK government is in and the majority of their, "constituents." They can create a tacit understanding with the US to carry on strikes against terrorists, whom are also a danger to the regime. By giving the US a nod and not claiming any thing, the keep the folks in their neck of the woods happy with plausable deniability. The US gets to attack the terrorists. Certain PAK officials can remove threats and get the chance to complain about sovereignty.
SPIEGEL interviews Egyptian-German political scientist Hamed Abdel-Samad. He discusses life as the son of an Egyptian imam, the threat posed by Islam and his ideas about the degeneration of the Muslim world. The author of the new book, Der Untergang der islamischen Welt (The Downfall of the Islamic World), says that he not completely turned away from his faith.
#1
The optimal sentence: "Rauf has already skillfully turned American Muslims and non-Muslims into enemies of one another something even Osama bin Laden failed to do".
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
Though Musharraf's policies may not have engaged the common man the way Z.A. Bhutto's did, however, it did have a deep impact on urban, middle-class Pakistan.
SPIEGEL interviews Egyptian-German political scientist Hamed Abdel-Samad. He discusses life as the son of an Egyptian imam, the threat posed by Islam and his ideas about the degeneration of the Muslim world. The author of the new book, Der Untergang der islamischen Welt (The Downfall of the Islamic World), says that he not completely turned away from his faith.
By Abigail Esman
