Posts from — January 2008

Sean Hannity: “I’ll tell you right now, and I’ve not announced this, but I will be voting for Mitt Romney in this campaign. It’s the first time I’ve stated it publicly. I’ll state it now.” (”Sean Hannity Radio Show,” 1/31/08)

Thanks to Hugh Hewitt for this bit of good news!

For those who already heard it, congrats! I’ve been buried in writing a journal article and haven’t been seeing much of the action.

There’s a simple explanation for the slew of quasi-Republican endorsements McCain has recently racked up. First, let’s get this straight: Arnold (the Gubernator) ain’t really a Republican and never was. These McCainiacs are all insiders or insider wannabes. The insiders know that Romney isn’t one them and will be able to really do what John McCain just talks about.

Romney can and will (I think) stop the pork-barrel-go-round in Washington. He can clean and will clean the place up just like he did the Olympics. Like no one has done in decades. And no one on the inside — or who wants to get at the inside goodies — wants someone like Romney in charge. It’s that simple. Real people, like Sean Hannity, see through McCain’s fog of boor. Hopefully, enough GOP voters will wake up and smell the humus in time.

Here’s an interesting contribution to the Romney-McCain debate, courtesy of Citizens United Political Victory Fund:

The optimism of the times:

“We should do for Europe on a large scale essentially what we did for Cuba on a small scale and thereby usher in a new era of human history.”

Walter Hines Page, U.S. Ambassador to England, in a letter to President Woodrow Wilson, November 24, 1916.

Florida exit polls and today’s Miami Herald show yet again the power that Cuba exerts over the American presidency. This ironic political pathology — that Cuba effectively chooses American presidents, not the other way around — may be the real legacy of Jack and Bobby Kennedy . Today, they should be rolling over in their graves. [Read more →]

I think Mitt Romney did remarkably well yesterday in Florida especially in light of McCain’s distortions of Mitt’s record on Iraq, the the media’s bias in favor of Rudy and McCain, and the Florida Republican establishment’s coming out for McCain. Romney can still win the nomination even though the Florida results make the task more difficult. It will be interesting to see how long Huckabee hangs in the race. He knows he won’t win the nomination. At this point, my guess is that he has two objectives: strengthen his case for a VP spot should McCain win and play the spoiler for the SBC in an effort to keep Mitt out of the White House.

Here’s Mitt on what’s up next:

Thanks to Eric Glover for the tip on this IDB comic from January 8. It really says it all. Or does it? (Click the pic to enlarge.)

Yesterday, John McCain told an AP reporter:

Seriously, can I say, right now, we need judgment. We need judgment. We live in a very, very dangerous and challenging world. I’ve been involved in every major national security issue facing this country, including having the pride of raising my hand at age 17 that I would support and defend the constitution of the United States.

He didn’t explain how the second sentence relates to the first. I have an idea why not. It’s pretty simple. When it comes to exercising good judgment and self control — with a few notable exceptions — John McCain has been AWOL for about the last fifty years. Yet, last night, at the Tampa Convention Center (hat tip to Byron York), McCain stressed:

I want to get right to the point. I’m running for president of the United States because I believe I can keep America safe . . . we face the transcendent challenge of radical Islamic extremism that threatens everything we stand for and believe in…The central battleground in this struggle is Iraq… Please remember this, if you forget everything else I tell you: Al-Qaeda is on the run, but they are not defeated…We will never surrender; they will.

With due respect to John McCain’s heroism as a POW, McCain has a devil of a time controlling his mouth and emotions. Why should we think him capable of commanding entire armies and navies? Recent examples below — collated by the Romney campaign — suggest that when it comes to keeping America safe, Mitt Romney is a better bet. [Read more →]

This just in from George Will on “St. John McCain’s” last-minute distortions of Romney’s position on the “surge” in Iraq:

This was a garden-variety dishonesty, the manufacture of which does not cause a Clinton in midseason form to break a sweat. And it was no worse than — actually, not as gross as — St. John of Arizona’s crooked-talk claim in Florida that Mitt Romney wanted to “surrender and wave a white flag, like Senator Clinton wants to do” in Iraq because Romney “wanted to set a date for withdrawal that would have meant disaster.”

Imitation being the sincerest form of flattery, the Clintons should bask in the glow of John McCain’s Clintonian gloss on this fact: Ten months ago Romney said that President Bush and Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki should discuss, privately, “a series of timetables and milestones.” That unremarkable thought was twisted by McCain, whose distortions are notably clumsy, as when Romney said, accurately, that he alone among the candidates has had extensive experience in private-sector business. That truth was subjected to McCain’s sophistry, and he charged that Romney had said “you haven’t had a real job” if you had a military career. If, this autumn, voters must choose between Clinton and McCain, they will face, at least stylistically, an echo, not a choice.

More here.

Check out this personable, insightful radio interview of Mitt Romney by Ed Morrissey. Well worth the fourteen minutes it takes. Turn up your sound, open the page, look to top right, pull the radio bar rightward to 37:30 and listen. Romney demonstrates a thoughtful, measured approach to foreign policy, especially the war on terror and global jihad. It’s a refreshing contrast to one opponent’s habit of stating over and over that several decades ago he was a top-gun on the bridge of the USS Whatever and he “understands these things.”

Here’s a partial transcript:

Ed M: Now, regarding global Jihad, are you in favor of pursuing the same type of forward of strategy as the Bush administration has used? [Read more →]

One of the most underexamined assumptions of the Republican primary to date is the notion that John McCain is somehow THE guy to take on national security and the war on terror. How did it get to be fait accompli in the public mind that Little John is so equipped for such a big responsibility? Is it because he used to pilot a Navy jet? Because he got smacked around (note: I do not underestimate his courage here) by the VC for a few years? Or is it because of his tired posturing about following OBL to “the gates of hell”?

So let’s dispense with the McCain war hero mythology on the grounds that it has absolutely nothing to do with the concrete policy choices he will make as Commander in Chief. And let’s focus on what we know that should concern anyone that rates national security or the war against Islamic extremism as their top concerns: [Read more →]