Observers of presidential hopeful Mitt Romney have been awaiting "the speech" -- the one that's going to settle once and for all his intent that his Mormon beliefs would not interfere with his leading the country.
The situation has been compared with that of John F. Kennedy, the first Catholic president, who on Sept. 12, 1960, wowed the Greater Houston Ministerial Association with an assurance that Rome would not dictate his actions.
American voters expect their presidential candidates to be God-fearing, church-going paragons who can explain, without a hint of self-consciousness, how their faith informs their lives, their thoughts and their politics.
But we want only Romney to tell us how his particular brand of religiosity won't influence his presidential decision-making, while we give a free pass to the other mainline Protestant candidates, who, for example, could find some difficulties in reconciling the New Testament's dictum to "turn the other cheek" with delivering an appropriate response to a terrorist attack.
-- Carleton Bryant, assistant managing editor, The Washington Times
The popular all-American comic-book military man and action figure dating back to the 1940s is undergoing a significant transformation for the Paramount Pictures-distributed "G.I. Joe" film, which begins production in February and is scheduled for release in summer 2009.
No longer will G.I. Joe be a U.S. Special Forces soldier, the "Real American Hero" who, in his glory days, single-handedly won World War II.
In the politically correct new millennium, G.I. Joe bears no resemblance to the original.
Paramount has confirmed that in the movie, the name G.I. Joe will become an acronym for "Global Integrated Joint Operating Entity" -- an international, coed task force charged with defeating bad guys. It will no longer stand for government issued, as in issued by the American government.
The studio won't elaborate, saying filming hasn't begun and details are still in the works, but the behind-the-scenes rumblings are that the producers have decided to change the nature of G.I. Joe in order to appeal to a wider, more international audience.
The word is that in the current political climate, they're afraid that a heroic U.S. soldier won't fly.
Listening on C-SPAN Radio as Gen. David Petraeus testified to Congress on Monday, it was obvious that the general's superior communication skills played an important role in his advancement.
Civilians perhaps do not adequately appreciate that America's top military commanders are extraordinarily well educated.
General Petraeus was the General George C. Marshall Award winner as the top graduate of the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College Class of 1983. He subsequently earned MPA and Ph.D. degrees in international relations from Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, and later served as an Assistant Professor of International Relations at the U.S. Military Academy. He also completed a fellowship at Georgetown University.
Wonder how many of the members of Congress on that panel -- or how many of the journalists who covered the hearing -- have Ivy League doctorates?
The general's opening statement showed a master communicator at work. He started strong, demolishing with two sentences all the negative spin poured out by his critics prior to Monday's testimony:
At the outset, I would like to note that this is my testimony. Although I have briefed my assessment and recommendations to my chain of command, I wrote this testimony myself. It has not been cleared by, nor shared with, anyone in the Pentagon, the White House, or Congress.
So much for this being "the Bush report." And he was just warming up. After describing the decline in violence in Iraq, he then says:
One reason for the decline in incidents is that Coalition and Iraqi forces have dealt significant blows to Al Qaeda-Iraq. Though Al Qaeda and its affiliates in Iraq remain dangerous, we have taken away a number of their sanctuaries and gained the initiative in many areas.
We have also disrupted Shia militia extremists, capturing the head and numerous other leaders of the Iranian-supported Special Groups, along with a senior Lebanese Hezbollah operative supporting Iran's activities in Iraq. (Emphasis added.)
Brilliant strategic move there. First, he emphasizes that the war in Iraq is an integral part of the war against al-Qaeda, and then points out that his troops are also taking on -- and taking out -- exotic bad guys from Iran and Lebanon.
Notice that he makes these moves with sentences that are concise and specific -- facts, facts, facts -- keeping it short and clear. Brilliant tactician that he is, Gen.Petraeus anticipated that his testimony would be preceded by the pompous rhetoric of politicians and prepared his own statement so as to maximize the contrast.
Later, Gen. Petraeus supplies a razor-sharp three-sentence description of the basic situation:
The fundamental source of the conflict in Iraq is competition among ethnic and sectarian communities for power and resources. This competition will take place, and its resolution is key to producing long-term stability in the new Iraq. The question is whether the competition takes place more -- or less -- violently.
A very pragmatic statement. Rivalry between social groups is nothing unusual in human history. Avoiding "the violence of faction" was, as James Madison explained in Federalist 10, a basic object of our own Constitution. (Like Gen. Petraeus, Madison was a Princeton man.)
A couple thousand words later, Gen. Petraeus does what every communicator should do -- he finishes strong:
In closing, it remains an enormous privilege to soldier again in Iraq with America's new "Greatest Generation." Our country's men and women in uniform have done a magnificent job in the most complex and challenging environment imaginable. All Americans should be very proud of their sons and daughters serving in Iraq today.
People who suggest America's top military commanders are a bunch of brainless brutes are simply displaying their own ignorance. And speaking of MoveOn.org, their idiotic "General Betray Us" ad backfired like no other such stunt in recent memory. It was like watching a patrol of infantry trainees wander blindly into an L-shaped ambush manned by veteran troops. They were completely routed, once Americans got a chance to see for themselves the brilliant officer in charge of our troops in Iraq.
Here's a video highlight of the general answering questions during Monday's hearing, courtesy of Hot Air:
Study that lesson. Class dismissed.
-- Robert Stacy McCain, assistant national editor, The Washington Times
National political reporter Brian DeBose notes a new poll that shows Barack Obama ahead of Hillary Clinton in popularity among blacks in South Carolina.
The poll, conducted recently by Winthrop University, also highlights discontent among blacks about the Democratic Party.
Asked if the Democratic Party has taken blacks for granted, 56.2 percent of the respondents said the national party has done so and 57.1 percent said the state party also has neglected the black electorate.
It will be interesting to see if those seeds of discontent bear any fruit for Republicans, since 53 percent of the respondents said the GOP is working to attract black voters. What's more, 61.2 percent said those efforts have been very-to-somewhat effective, compared with the 35.6 percent who said the efforts have had little-to-no effect.
Are blacks -- in South Carolina and across the country --really listening to Republicans? Maybe, but I doubt it. Blacks have long complained about feeling neglected by the Democratic Party but have consistently rewarded it with their undying loyalty and unvarying vote, as Maryland's U.S. Senate race last year proved.
Still, the prospect of change is present. Asked to identify their ideological leanings, 31.3 percent of the respondents described themselves as very-to-somewhat liberal, 31.5 percent as very-to-somewhat conservative and 28.2 percent as moderate -- a fairly even spread across the political spectrum.
However, change in black voting patterns won't occur until black voters embrace a capitalistic property of politics: Your vote increases in value if both parties compete for it. Until then, blacks will continue voting for Democrats -- and bemoaning their lack of Democratic attention.
-- Carleton Bryant, assistant managing editor, The Washington Times
It began last week -- the unrelentless barrage from overhead, the pinging, banging, knocking on the roof just shortly after dawn.
"Nuts," I thought.
And it was.
Squirrels were knocking nuts from the tree that canopied over the roof of our bedroom.
The green unripe nuts came cascading down, directly over my head, then rolled into the gutter with a clang. Some spilled over and I made a mental note to ask my husband who was sleeping soundly beside me to clean out the gutters.
It was so loud and annoying I could not get back to sleep so I got up and checked my email. Had a note from my buddy Jeff Denning who was recently called up in the Army Reserves and is now fighting in Iraq.
He had woken up that morning to the sound of exploding IEDs.
'Nuff said.
-- Audrey Hudson, Homeland Security reporter, The Washington Times
More from my friend Jeff Denning, who was recently called up in the Army Reserves and is now fighting in Iraq. He's writing a blog and wanted me to read his first few entries. He's a good writer, and expertly describes one recent battle he witnessed:
"The battle lasted for nearly seven hours. They knew the consequences going into this vulnerable skirmish. It was a high threat mission that few would ever volunteer for. Casualties were expected. Once it began the level of stress and exhaustion was nearly overwhelming. Tempers flared and thoughts of soldiers dying surfaced. Thick tension filled the battle zone like never before. Shocking chills and near-tearful pleas came and went. Demanding, screaming voices could be heard over the sounds of gunfire and car bombs. There was fear, anger, rage, uncertainty and frustration. It was tough. And, the relief seemed days away.
"That's exactly what happened on Monday when the commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, General David Patraeus, flanked by Ambassador Ryan Crocker, testified in the Cannon Caucus room in Washington D.C."
Jeff also talks about how he misses his family, and the problems they face in his absence.
"The young girls in my daughter's Sunday School class told her I would die. My six-year-old son is terribly stressed about that. No doubt his schoolmates say the same thing. I can’t communicate with the smaller kids. The refrigerator and hot water heater broke soon after I left, leaving my sweet wife to fix that, as well as the toilet sewer water that flooded the basement. And that's just the beginning of it! Forget the stress that comes from being separated and the difficult transition when coming home."
My husband completed his reserve duty this summer. He helped me clean the house yesterday. I've decided not to mention the gutter issue and leave him to his NASCAR race today.
"Health care is a right, not a privilege," Mrs. Clinton said.
Her inclusion of health care among the rights delineated in the Declaration of Independence and guaranteed in the Constitution would seem questionable -- if not erroneous -- if we the people weren't already inured to the ever-expanding list of rights "discovered" by politicians, advocacy groups and courts.
Doubtless, health care is a basic need for every person on the planet. But is every basic need a right -- a moral and/or legal entitlement to be provided by a government?
Food, shelter and transportation are the most basic of needs, and the problems of hunger, homelessness and limited mobility have long been reported and debated in our country.
The federal government could declare food, shelter and transportation as rights and then aim to provide them for every man, woman and child in America. But then, citizens would have to eat whatever the government feeds them, live wherever the government places them and travel whenever the government directs them.
Farfetched and extreme? Education has been declared a right, and local and state governments provide it (with varying degrees of success) by requiring students in specific areas to attend specific schools, unless their parents have the means to send them to the schools they choose. (I shudder at the thought of the government declaring sex a right.)
The problem with declaring health care a right -- aside from the cost, the enforcement mechanism, the quality of service, etc. -- is that it erodes the fundamental rights noted in our founding documents, i.e. freedom, self determination and limited governmental intrusion.
A young, single worker in excellent health may want to forgo the cost of health care for the first few years in the workplace, but he or she would not be allowed to under the Clinton plan. An employer might want to offer health care as an incentive but couldn't under the Clinton plan.
The goal of a democratic society is not to provide every basic need for its citizens. The goal of a democratic society is to provide basic freedoms to allow its citizens to meet their needs for themselves.
-- Carleton Bryant, assistant managing editor, The Washington Times
Associated Press correspondent Nedra Pickler, who has been following the Democratic candidates for president, discusses how some are now focusing on issues other than Iraq.
-- David Eldridge, managing editor, WashingtonTimes.com
This week couldn't end too soon for the CodeKos-MoveOn-Sheehanistas.
Today the Senate voted down legislation that would have ordered most U.S. troops home from Iraq in nine months -- the latest disappointment for Democrats in a week that also saw the rejection of an anti-surge bill from Virginia's Jim Webb and another from Harry Reid and Russ Feingold.
Huffington Post blogger Bob Cesca captures the Left's disgust:
Prior to this embarrassing week of events on the Hill, the Democratic majority has acquiesced on war funding and have fallen over themselves backpedaling as fast as their trembling legs could carry them ...
But it was the Republicans' outmaneuvering of Democrats on the MoveOn.org "General Betray Us" ad that really irked some, including Time's Michael Kinsley:
Welcome to the wonderful world of umbrage, the new language of American politics. You would not have thought that the likes of Rush Limbaugh and Bill O'Reilly would be so sensitive. Sticks and stones and so on. Yet they all seem to have taken one look at that ad and fainted dead away. And when they came round, they demanded -- as if with one voice (or at least as if with one list of talking points) -- that every Democratic presidential candidate must "condemn" this shocking, shocking document.
The GOP, Kinsley contends -- with good reason -- is grandstanding on the issue.
But they're grandstanding because they can.
The Republicans instinctively understand that while a lot of Americans are frustrated with the war, few of us are inclined to cast our lot with the likes of these charmers, or this screeching bunch, or the smirking geniuses who thought spitting at the general was a good idea.
-- David Eldridge, managing editor, WashingtonTimes.com
Mike Rogers, Alabama Republican, made his stance on the Bush's handling on border immigration control clear today at The National Heritage Foundation.
"People have a palpable anger for the fact that this country is not doing more to protect the borders, and they expect something to be done.
We need to know how much money these illegal aliens are costing.
What I am asking is for the administration to get serious and look at some meaningful, outside-of-the-box ways to immediately secure the border with what resources we have. I told the president, 'We have to got to secure the border.' Unfortunately, that's probably going to be the next president that has to do that."
David Schnare, an environmental scientist and attorney associated with the Thomas Jefferson Institute for Public Policy, told the U.S. Senate today that a solution to global warming is simple, cheap -- and no more than a few years away.
With geo-engineering, the doctor says, scientists are learning how to replicate natural phenomenon, like volcanic eruptions, to control global temperatures. Here are excerpts from prepared testimony the doctor submitted:
Geo-engineering is the deliberate modification of large scale geophysical processes ... The first of the two most common examples cited is placement of reflective aerosols into the upper atmosphere in order to reflect incoming sunlight and thus reduce global temperature.
The eruption of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines in 1991 injected a significant amount of sulfur dioxide into the stratosphere, lowering the Earth's surface temperature by about (half a degree) the year following the eruption.
... Because these techniques mimic natural phenomena, we know more about how quickly and well they work than we do about the efficacy of attempting to reduce greenhouse gases. We have measured the effects of the natural processes and can state with considerable certainty, bordering of complete certainty, that they will produce the result sought. Although the effects of greenhouse gas reduction would occur over a period of no less than decades and more likely centuries, the effects of geo-engineering can (and will) be manifest in a matter of weeks after application.
... Geo-engineering is ... 200 to 2,000 times less expensive ... than exclusive reliance on carbon control.
Wow. Has Al Gore talked to this guy? Is it really that simple?
