Copyright © 2007 Frank Lynch.
Copyright © 2007 Frank Lynch.
Me: Frank Lynch Home These are my mundane daily ramblings.
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A toothless threat for the GOP in 2008? Some conservative Christians are threatening to run their own independent presidential candidate in 2008, according to David Kirkpatrick of the New York Times. Apparently the possibility of Rudolph Giuliani winning the GOP nomination is too intolerable, and a motion has been adopted that should the GOP nominate someone who is pro-choice these Christians will bolt the party. It's an interesting move: certainly it makes sense for them to exert their pressure on an issue they care deeply about, but if one plays out the "what ifs" beginning with a Giuliani nomination, it gets intriguing. The hypothetical conservative Christian hasn't been identified yet, but think of the predicament it presents the conservative Christian voter: if enough vote against Giuliani, it makes the Democratic candidate more likely to win, and with that you have a Democratic president making the judicial nominations. And those nominations have an impact in many areas, not just abortions. So essentially the GOP and conservative Christians are stuck with each other: the Democrats aren't a suitable alternative for either group. This ploy will only work if it works before the nomination and blocks Giuliani out. It won't work afterwards. And the funny thing to me is this: I always figured that
Giuliani had no hope of winning the GOP nomination because of his
social ideas, and figured him more successful if he ran as
a third party candidate.
What's the difference between Adolf Hitler and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, President of Iran? Not a trick question, there really is one. The biggest one is that Hitler was Germany's leader; the title of 'President' doesn't bear the same weight in Iran as it does here. (I'm not even sure it has the same weight as it does in Ireland.) Ahmandinejad is not the leader of Iran, but he sure has become the poster child for the wing nuts who want to build on our success in Iraq (or eclipse the failure?) and march headlong into Iran. 2009 can't happen soon enough: everyone wants that new US
President, but as the editors of The Nation warned recently, there is still a lot of damage which Bush
and his cronies can do between here and there. Waiting for 2009
isn't going to be enough: this lot could feel like they have to
make a last mad dash for the finish line. That's surely part of
what's driving the delaying tactics with respect to withdrawing
from Iraq: keep it all in place until the pudding sets and it's
some Democrat's problem. At that point any unavoidable blood
bath, bottled up until that point with no solution, becomes the
next President's "fault." And everyone will forget Colin Powell's
admonition to Bush about the "Pottery Barn rule." Some other
schmuck broke it, not Bush.
Chris Matthews' imagined
difficulties. Tweety asked Senator Chris Dodd if he had any
difficulties debating a woman. Dodd, of course, said no, but
why would Matthews imagine such a thing in the first place? I
just hope that if Matthews makes it uptown to Sylvia's that he
doesn't go on about "And I couldn't believe it, but they were
acting as if Hillary Clinton's gender doesn't matter."
Sorry to have to pop your balloon... General Petraeus's tenuous argument that the surge has shown some success seems to have provoked a very bloody counter argument: according to the New York Times, in the last 48 hours Sunni extremists have mounted a systematic series of attacks on Iraq security forces. It's a too-serious version of the line from Monty Python and the Holy Grail: I'm not dead yet. But whereas the old guy in that scene was swiftly sent off to his reward, it's not clear (to me, anyway) that we can write this off to "last throes." Unfortunately our memory of Bush's lines are too vivid: you can tell how desperate they're getting from how effective their attacks are. What's the "over-under" number on how soon some pundit will
say this makes the Republicans look good?
This is New York. We can even survive speeches from the President of Iran. Oh, wow, what a close one up at Columbia University: our entire way of life was threatened by a speech from Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Thank God we're New Yorkers and don't really need the Right Wing to insulate us. Why, some other cities in the US might have taken him seriously that there aren't gays in Iran, but thankfully we've seen so many charades in this town (Giuliani, the RNC in 2004...) that we don't really need the pundits to protect us. Maybe they need that in Orange County or Minneapolis, but not here. In all seriousness, I don't think that the Iranian President
per se deserved a forum at Columbia, but I'm completely OK
with the idea that forums exist to allow the concept of people
like him to get up and speak their mind: the answer to speech is
more speech, and you can't shout down the bad ideas if you don't
give them a hearing. So I'm basically glad that he had the podium
and used it to his disadvantage. All those who didn't think he
should have spoken (or that Columbia was committing some kind of
atrocity by giving him a podium) show too little respect for the
adults in the world. Nanny state? That was what they were after.
The big dog. I think we're beyond the
point of questioning our international standing, and whether or
not we've gone too far in the GWOT. It's not just the way we've
run our secret little prisons in foreign countries, Abu Ghraib,
Guantanamo, kidnapings, special renditions and so on. It's not
just that we've gotten so secretive about everything: but it's
come to the point where German prosecutors are demurring from filing
extradition papers because they're apparently intimidated by
us. I know Germany is one of our allies, but so much so that
they won't do everything to pursue justice for their own cases?
The good news from Iraq. It always amazes me that the "Hate America First" crowd on the left adamantly refuses to talk about all the positive change going on in Iraq. Like the Iraq soccer team having won the Asia Cup. The extremists who seem to have dedicated entire careers to seeing the US initiative fail just refuse to talk about their victory, as well as the ticker-tape they got in Baghdad's Canyon of Heroes. UPDATE: My bad, there wasn't a parade, the team is too afraid to return to Iraq. Carry on
(assuming you have electricity).
Let me write this down. Loaf of bread.
Half gal milk. Parsley. Got it. Does anyone really think Rudy
Giuliani isn't disciplined enough to turn off his cell phone so
he doesn't answer calls from his wife
while on a podium? The concept that this is just natural is
laughable. Why's he have it on? Expecting a call-up from the
Yankees?
I can't escape the energy-sucking alien
movies. They keep ringing in my head, seeing as how the oil
revenue agreement is such an important goal for the Iraqis, and
seeing as how we tried to protect the oil equipment after the
fall and ignored the munitions dumps. Meanwhile, Blackwater is back in business, with the US
perhaps only having "consulted" with the Iraqi authorities (did
they bless it? did they sputter?). Kind of odd that we'd push to
use Blackwater after the Iraqis banned them. I mean, whose
country is it? Sovereignty? Oh, pshaw!
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