Obama's Fracking Vendetta

Fracking is, to our economy, a god send. The modern fracking technique has only been in use since 1998, and has led to a budding energy revolution for our nation. A big part of its success is that it hasn't been saddled by crushing federal regulation.

Fracking is, to radical environmentalists and Arab oil potentates, a curse that must be shut down at all costs - and they are certainly not above cooking the books to make it happen. Nor are they above making use of propaganda. The just released film "Promised Land" a film written by the noted scientist, Matt Damon and that explores all the unproven evils of fracking, was bankrolled by the UAE.

As anyone in the radical green movement will tell you, he quickest way to shut down any sort of activity is to get our government to regulate it to the point that it is no longer economically feasible. The environmentalists have done it with refineries, they are in the midst of doing it with coal, and now their sites are set on the enormously successful practice of fracking.

Enter Obama's EPA. It has already been caught cooking the books on fracking in Texas. It is now doing it again in Pavillion, Wyoming. On 8 Dec., the EPA issued a draft finding that fracking there was causing groundwater contamination.

The problem for the EPA - another branch of the government (one that may well find itself under new leadership soon) the U.S.G.S., conducted their own tests right alongside the EPA, and their findings are at polar ends of the spectrum. This from the WSJ:

The Pavillion study involves two water wells drilled by the [EPA] in 2010 to test groundwater quality. Experts from the Wyoming Water Development Commission and elsewhere sharply criticized the EPA's results on several grounds, including that EPA investigators didn't follow their own guidelines on the timeliness of the testing and the purity of the water samples. The federal Bureau of Land Management said that "much more robust" testing would be needed to properly draw conclusions.

So the EPA agreed to test the wells again, in April and May of last year 2012. In October, it claimed again to have found contaminated water. But this time there was a new wrinkle: The U.S. Geological Survey had conducted tests alongside the EPA, and its investigators reported different results. Unlike the EPA, the USGS failed to find any traces of glycols or 2-butoxyethanol, fracking-related chemicals that could cause serious health issues if they entered the water supply at levels the EPA considers contamination.

Meanwhile, the USGS found significantly lower concentrations of other materials identified by the EPA—including phenol, potassium and diesel-range organics—which might not have resulted from the fracking at all. The phenols were likely introduced accidentally in the laboratory, for example, and potassium might be naturally occurring or the result of potash contained in the cement used to build the EPA wells.

The USGS also noted that in constructing the monitoring wells, the EPA used a "black painted/coated carbon steel casing," and EPA photographs show that investigators used a painted device to catch sand from the wells. The problem is that paint can contain a variety of compounds that distort test results—so it is poor scientific practice to use painted or coated materials in well-monitoring tests.

After initially neglecting to disclose this information, the EPA eventually acknowledged it, but only while attempting to deflect criticism by releasing more test results and claiming that its data are "generally consistent" with the USGS findings. These actions only muddied the matter and postponed the peer-review process until after Jan. 15.

As the Tulsa-based energy and water-management firm ALL Consulting concluded: "Close review of the EPA draft report and associated documents reveals a number of concerns about the methodology, sampling results, and study findings and conclusions. These concerns stem from apparent errors in sampling and laboratory analysis, incomplete information that makes it difficult to assess the validity of the results, and EPA's failure to seriously consider alternative explanations for the results of its investigation. . . . Taken together, these concerns call into question the validity of EPA's analytical results and their conclusions regarding the sources of the reported contamination."

Anyone want to bet that none of this stops Obama's EPA from finalizing their finding to justify extensive regulation of fracking. That is their holy grail, and actual science is secondary. And the left calls us "anti-science." When Newt Gingrich said during the primaries that the EPA was beyond salvage and needed to be replaced, he was spot on. It is agenda driven and corrupt.

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Powerline's John Hinderaker Gets Unihinged

One does not see this too often from John Hinderaker at Powerline - throwing what can only be described as a temper tantrum. But here it is.

It seems that just the thought that Newt Gingrich might win the SC primary has Hinderaker going into a full metal leftie unhinged rant. Labeling anyone who votes for Gingrich "delusional," Hinderaker tells us that electing Gingrich as our nominee would result in the near complete extinguishment of the Republican Party, in addition to causing a whole host of other calamities all the way up to the visitation of the ten biblical plagues on our nation. Well, maybe he didn't say that last bit, but after reading his unhinged rant, one wouldn't be surprised if he had.

In list form, Hinderaker throws the kitchen sink at Newt as to why he is our era's Thomas Dewey, Michael Dukakis, and the Edsel all rolled into one. But he counts them as asides, settling on the utterly bizarre argument that Newt can't win in the general election because of Newt's ex-wife's revelations in the ABC interview on Thursday. Using incomprehensible reasoning, Hinderaker says that Newt - who has acknowledged most of the facts raised by his ex-wife in the interview - is mortally wounded because he called her new allegation, that he had asked for an open marriage, false. Indeed, Hinderaker fails to note that Gingrich's ex has spoken at length publicly on the break up of her marriage with Newt over the past several years - yet this is the very first time she has raised the "open marriage" allegation. His post is one giant non-sequitur. It is he that appears "delusional."

Indeed, if Newt's past infidelity and an unhappy ex-wife are going to be the deciding factor in this election, Hinderaker had best inform Thomas Sowell, Kyle-Ann Shiver, in addition to President Grover Cleveland if they can dig him up - just to name a few in a very long list.. What is it about Newt that drives so many Republicans into an utter frenzy of inchoate rage? In this, John Hinderaker joins the ranks of most of the entire staff of the NRO, Ann Coulter, George Will, Jennifer Rubin and Kathleen Parker, all of whom are exhibiting unmistakable symptoms of Gingrich Derangement Syndrome.

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Handicapping The Race

Looking at the Republican potential / declared candidates for President in 2012, here is how I see their chances:

3 to 1 - Paul Ryan: The economy is the single most important issue facing our nation going into 2012. Ryan understands the economics of our government the way few do - and he can explain the economics, albeit a bit woodenly. Most importantly, he has had the intellectual honesty and huevos grande to go where few politicians dare tread, proposing specific reforms to our entitlement boondoggles. Negatives - he says he won't run.
Ability to beat Obama: 54 to 46.

5 to 1 - Chris Christie: His winning wars with the unions and the democratic legislature in NJ have been the stuff of youtube gold. He is articulate and doesn't back down an inch. His ability to communicate is the best of any politician on either side of the aisle.
Negatives - He says he won't run. He wants to keep NJ pensions as defined benefit plans. Lastly, he seems to have RINO tendencies on issues such as gun control, as well as zero understanding of the threat we face from political Islam.
Ability to beat Obama: 53 to 47.

6 to 1 - Mitch Daniels: Daniels too understands economics, having served as Director of OMB. As a two-term Gov. of Indiana, Daniels has taken Indiana from a significant deficit to fiscal sanity. His first day as Gov., Daniels decertified all government employee unions by executive order and did away with the requirement that State employees pay mandatory union dues. In 2008, he passed laws creating a statewide school voucher program and merit pay for teachers. He also oversaw passage of laws penalizing companies who employed illegal aliens as well as denying illegal aliens in-state tuition.
Negatives: His earlier call for a truce on social issues has left SoCon's leery. Moreover, one of his first acts as Gov. was to submit a fiscal plan that called for tax increases. Lastly, he is still playing coy, promising to decide on whether to enter the race "soon."
Ability to beat Obama: 53 to 47.


8 to 1 - Mitt Romney: He is a well known quantity from the 2008 election. He was a very successful businessman and a former governor of bluest of blue Mass. He will likely be able to raise a huge warchest. And lastly, he is the "next man in line," which seems to be the way Republicans choose their nominees.
Negatives: Romneycare, Romneycare, Romneycare. Did I mention Romneycare.
Ability to beat Obama: 51 to 49.

10 - 1 Michelle Bachman: She is still a bit of a mystery to me. She has embraced the tea party and taken strong positions on social issues, leading others more knowledgeable about her than I to say that she has the SoCon vote largely sewn up. I have not heard her debate anyone yet. I do know that she has very strong money raising potential.
Negatives: She has already gotten a bit of the Sarah Palin treatment from the media, claiming that she is an intellectual light weight. If she does well in debates, she could easily move up the ladder.
Ability to beat Obama: 50 to 50.

10 - 1 Herman Cain: An extremely successful businessman and an arch-conservative talk show host. He is likable, well spoken and has the best business bona fides of anyone in the race. He is able to think quickly on his feet and is very knowledgeable about all of the major political issues.
Negatives: No experience in government. His health is also a concern.
Ability to beat Obama: 50 to 50.

15 - 1 - Sarah Palin: She is the most well known of all the potential candidates. She is intelligent, articulate and beautiful. But having been the subject of the most relentless leftwing media jihad in our nations history, she is a wild card. If she enters the race, and she might, I could easily see her placing second, if not first.
Negatives - She has already been successfully labled by the left as an intellectual lightweight. She would have to overcome that label and overcome questions regarding her decision to resign from the governorship of Alaska.
Ability to beat Obama: 49 to 51.

15 - 1 - Jeb Bush: He is the Bush that his family thought would be President. By all accounts, he did an excellent job as Gov. of Florida, making positive changes in the areas of education, medical malpractice and Medicare.
Negatives: He has indicated that he will likely not run. And of course, his last name is Bush - a liability for probably the next 4 to 6 years.
Ability to beat Obama: 49 to 51.

100 - 1 - Jon Huntsman: One of the key issues facing us is the left's insane push to treat carbon as a pollutant, with all the ramifications that has for our economy. A few days ago, Huntsman said he believes in man-made global warming. Moreover, while he was Gov. of Utah, he embraced the stimulus.
Negatives: I don't see much positive about Huntsman at this point.
Ability to beat Obama: 47 to 53.

999 to 1 - Ron Paul: From an uber-isolationist foreign policy to his embrace of the gold standard, Ron Paul is the Republican's crazy uncle.
Ability to beat Obama: 30 to 70.

1,000,000 to 1 - Chuck Schumer: I list Schumer simply to put the chances of Newt Gingrich in perspective.
Ability to beat Obama: 0.

1,000,001 to 1 - Newt Gingrich: Having gone on the Sunday talk shows and played Russian roulette with all chambers filled, Gingrich has destroyed any possible chance of winning the nomination for Republican candidate for the Presidency. But all is not lost. He could still mount a primary challenge to Obama.
Ability to beat Obama: 0

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The Newt Debacle

In 2010, when I pondered Newt Gingrich entering the 2012 Presidential race, I was optimistic indeed. A brilliant history professor with tremendous intellectual agility, Newt was a man, I thought, who could take up the conservative banner and run with it. After all, he had led the great Republican revolution in 1994 and he championed the Contract With America, a Reagenesque basket of specific reforms strongly supported by all conservatives.

Then, earlier this year, Newt came out in full support of ethanol subsidies. As I wrote here:

Bio-fuels are the world's greatest boondoggle. The fuel is inefficient, expensive and actually contributes to the growth of CO2 in our atmosphere. Not only does it make no sense to mandate or subsidize ethanol, it is a major contributing factor to poverty and hunger world-wide. . . .

And indeed, the WSJ crucified Gingrich for this horrid bit of Iowa-centric, anti-conservative politics, labeling him "Professor Cornpone." The WSJ opined that Gingrich's "ethanol lobbying raises larger questions about his convictions and judgment." To say the least.

And yesterday, appearing on "Meet the Press," Gringrich came out in opposition to Paul Ryan's proposed fix for Medicare, calling it a plan for "radical change" and describing it as "right wing social engineering." To top that fatal self-inflicted wound, he announced support for some "variant" of the "individual mandate." The "individual mandate" means a vast expansion in government power beyond anything envisioned by the Founders, no matter how you cut it. As Judge Roger Vinson noted, as regards the "individual mandate:"

It is difficult to imagine that a nation which began, at least in part, as the result of opposition to a British mandate giving the East India Company a monopoly and imposing a nominal tax on all tea sold in America would have set out to create a government with the power to force people to buy tea in the first place. If Congress can penalize a passive individual for failing to engage in commerce, the enumeration of powers in the Constitution would have been in vain for it would be ““difficult to perceive any limitation on federal power" . . . and we would have a Constitution in name only. Surely this is not what the Founding Fathers could have intended.

You know, if I wanted to vote for a big government politician who embraces harmful programs for their political value and who wants to vastly expand government power over the individual irrespective of the Constitution, I would vote straight Democrat. Newt doesn't need to be making a bid for the Republican candidacy for President, he needs to be mounting a primary challenge against Obama. At any rate, he won't be getting my vote, much less my support.

Update: Charles Krauthammer delivers the eulogy over Gingrich's 2012 election chances.

RIP - quietly.

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Newt, The NYT, & The Presidential Scarlet Letter

Newt Gingrich is poised to announce his bid for the Presidency, likely today. And as to be fully expected, this event is celebrated in the pages of the NYT with a lengthy column, though it is a column that seems drawn in inspiration from the pages of Nathaniel Hawthorne's magnum opus, The Scarlet Letter. Titling their first real hit job of the 2012 Presidential season "Gingrich Set to Run, With Wife in Central Role," the NYT revels in . . . . well, you guess. Is it, (A), a news worthy analysis of what makes Newt a viable candidate to challenge Obama? Or is it (B), a lengthy walk down the memory lane of Newt's marital infidelities? For the answer, let's go to the opening paragraphs of the NYT announcement of Newt's presidential aspirations:

Callista Bisek’s friends from rural Wisconsin were stunned when, well over a decade ago, she confided that she was secretly dating an older, married man: Newt Gingrich.

Still in her 20s when they met, Ms. Bisek had been raised in a town of 1,500, the only child of a meat packer and a secretary. A churchgoing Roman Catholic, she had attended a Lutheran college where she practiced piano five hours a day. “Is this the wisest course for you to be taking?” Karen Olson, her best friend, recalled asking. . . .

I think this piece may be even too low brow for the Enquirer. They at least have some journalistic standards. How long before this left wing rag finally goes into bankruptcy?

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The 2012 Campaign Begins With The First Hit Piece

It is more than two years until the next Presidential election, but the Esquire has drawn first blood in the campaign. They have published a hit piece on potential Republican candidate Newt Gingrich, a large portion of which is derived from interviews with his ex-wife. Heh.

Want to get the worst possible spin on someone, what better place to go than to an ex who feels wronged. The author makes no bones as to his own political philosophy as he describes Gingrich. For but one example:

. . . a reasonable and sober Newt Gingrich would never have gotten anywhere. Hence his ability to be scandalously extreme with great ease. This incoherence is at the heart of today's conservative movement, and no one embodies it more than Gingrich. He is both sides of the divided Republican soul in a single man.

Reread that snippet again. Does it make any sense? It is obviously an ad hominem attack on both Gingrich and conservativism, but it is, itself, an incoherent one. How the hell does the left get paid to write this drivel?

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The War Against Radical Islam & The Battlefield of Ideas

Andrew McCarthy, writing at NRO, is effuse in his praise for Newt Gingrich's remarks concerning our war against "radical Islam" in both its militaristic and 'fifth column' forms. Gingrich, he says, is that exceedingly rare combination of a politician who both understands the nature of the threat and is willing to speak out about it honestly. This from Mr. McCarthy:

. . . Gingrich grasps that there is an enemy here and that it is a mortal threat to freedom. He knows that if we are to remain a free people, it is an enemy we must defeat. That enemy is Islamism, and its operatives — whether they come as terrorists or stealth saboteurs — are the purveyors of sharia, Islam’s authoritarian legal and political system. . . .

The single purpose of this jihad is the imposition of sharia. On that score, Gingrich made two points of surpassing importance. First, some Islamists employ mass-murder attacks while others prefer a gradual march through our institutions — our legal, political, academic, and financial systems, as well as our broader culture; the goal of both, though, is the same. The stealth Islamists occasionally feign outrage at the terrorists, but their quarrel is over methodology and pace. Both camps covet the same outcome.

Second, that outcome is the death of freedom. In Islamist ideology, sharia is deemed to be the necessary precondition for Islamicizing a society — for Islam is not merely a religious doctrine, but a comprehensive socio-economic and political system. As the former speaker elaborated, sharia embodies principles and punishments that are abhorrent to Western values. Indeed, its foundational premise is anti-American, holding that we are not free people at liberty to govern ourselves irrespective of any theocratic code, that people are instead beholden to the Islamic state, which is divinely enjoined to impose Allah’s laws.

Sharia, moreover, is anti-equality. It subjugates women and brutally punishes transgressors, particularly homosexuals and apostates. While our law forbids cruel and unusual punishments, Gingrich observed that the brutality in sharia sanctions is not gratuitous, but intentional: It is meant to enforce Allah’s will by striking example.

On this last point, Gingrich offered a salient insight, one well worth internalizing in the Sun Tzu sense of knowing one’s enemy. Islamists, violent or not, have very good reasons for the wanting to destroy the West. Those reasons are not crazy or wanton — and they have nothing to do with Gitmo, Israel, cartoons, or any other excuse we conjure to explain the savagery away. Islamists devoutly believe, based on a well-founded interpretation of Islamic doctrine, that they have been commanded by Allah to kill, convert, or subdue all who do not adhere to sharia — because they regard Allah as their only master (“There is no God but Allah”). It is thus entirely rational (albeit frightening to us) that they accept the scriptural instruction that the very existence of those who resist sharia is offensive to Allah, and that a powerful example must be made of those resisters in order to induce the submission of all — “submission” being the meaning of Islam.

It makes no sense to dismiss our enemies as lunatics just because “secular socialist” elites, as Gingrich called them, cannot imagine a fervor that stems from religious devotion. We ought to respect our enemies, he said. Not “respect” in Obama-speak, which translates as “appease,” but in the sense of taking them seriously, understanding that they are absolutely determined to win, and realizing that they are implacable. There is no “moderate” sharia devotee, for sharia is not moderate. . . . Islamism is not a movement to be engaged, it is an enemy to be defeated.

Victory, Gingrich said, will be very long in coming — longer, perhaps, than the nearly half-century it took to win the Cold War. . . .

Debate over all of this is essential. The crucial point is that we must have the debate with eyes open. It is a debate about which Gingrich has put down impressive markers: The main front in the war is not Afghanistan or Iraq but the United States. The war is about the survival of Western civilization, and we should make no apologies for the fact that the West’s freedom culture is a Judeo-Christian culture — a fact that was unabashedly acknowledged, Gingrich reminded his audience, by FDR and Churchill. To ensure victory in the United States we must, once again, save Europe, where the enemy has advanced markedly. There is no separating our national security and our economic prosperity — they are interdependent. And while the Middle East poses challenges of immense complexity, Gingrich contended that addressing two of them — Iran, the chief backer of violent jihad, and Saudi Arabia, the chief backer of stealth jihad — would go a long way toward improving our prospects on the rest.

Most significant, there is sharia. By pressing the issue, Newt Gingrich accomplishes two things. First, he gives us a metric for determining whether those who would presume to lead us will fight or surrender. Second, at long last, someone is empowering truly moderate Muslims — assuming they exist in the numbers we’re constantly assured of. Our allies are the Muslims who embrace our freedom culture — those for whom sharia is a matter of private belief, not public mission. Our enemies are those who want sharia to supplant American law and Western culture. When we call out the latter, and marginalize them, we may finally energize the former. . . .

These are points that I have been making ad infinitum on this blog. For but one example, see National Security At The End Of Obama's First Year (its a long post - scroll half way through to get to the section on 'war of ideas'). The bottom line is that we have to engage in the war of ideas or the Islamist's war against the West will still be being fought by our grandchildren's grandchildren. Moreover, given the push of radicals for weapons of mass destruction, the far too widespread support for radicals throughout the Islamic world, and the continued push of Salafi Islam into the West on the back of Saudi petrodollars, the chances are very high that the war will likely become far more bloody and expensive as time goes on, as well as ever more threatening to the fundamental freedoms of Western civilization. This is a war that we could indeed lose if we fail to engage.

Step one in the war of ideas is to identify the enemy. We have to expose Wahhabi / Salafi Islam and shine a light on it in to engage the strongest force in any democracy - public opinion. Bush never did this. Obama is exponentially worse, pretending that there is no threat to the West originating out of Islam. It is not merely an incredibly dangerous falsehood, it is treasonous. Gingrich is the first major politician of either party to step up.

Dafydd ab Hugh at Big Lizards has done two recent posts on this topic, both of which should be required reading. In Brilliance At Midnight, Dafydd notes that the threat from radical Islam to Western society is really two fold:

The take-away from the massive dumping of leaked U.S. military documents on WikiLeaks, documents related to the conduct and progress of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, is this: The putative "rift" between Islamist terrorists on the one hand, and radical Islamists who "reject terrorism" (at specific times and places) on the other hand, has nothing to do with any ultimate goal of Islamism.

The rift reflects only a difference of opinion about the precise strategies and tactics for achieving that goal. Islamist victory conditions are the same in both groups: a pure, radical Islamism dominant across the globe, with sharia the final law in every country. . . .

Our soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq are involved in the physical war against this threat, but in the long run, it is the war of ideas that matters more. In Brilliance at Midnight - the Dawn, Dafydd flushes out the tools available to us to engage in the war of ideas:

. . . The most important task before launching into a war of ideas is to fully arm and equip our "soldiers" -- in this case, our soldiers comprise all Americans willing and able to defend Western values of individual liberty, property and Capitalism, freedom of speech and religion (not merely freedom of worship, as Obama would have it), actual rule of law, and governance by the consent of the governed. Bluntly, I mean educating the masses about the Grand Jihad, its goals, its methods, and the existential danger it poses. . . .

Do read both of his posts. We fail to engage in the war of ideas at our own existential peril.

Lastly, as to Gingrich himself, I wrote recently that I consider him the best candidate for President the Republicans could field in 2012. His above remarks on the threat we face from Islamism merely increase my conviction exponentially.

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Looking Ahead: Obama, 2012 & The Biggest Republican Weakness (Updated)

Charles Krauthammer issues a warning to the right on Obama. Karl Rove admits to the greatest failing of the Bush Administration - failing to respond to the lies of the left. And then there is the question of what this means for Republicans in 2012.

A cautionary note is sounded by Charles Krauthammer in his article this week - don't take Obama for granted. According to Krauthammer, Obama has sacrificed Congressional Democrats in order to transform America into his vision of a socialist utopia. But, as Krauthammer notes, his low point today does not translate into weakness two years from now. This from Mr. Krauthammer:

In the political marketplace, there's now a run on Obama shares. The left is disappointed with the president. Independents are abandoning him in droves. And the right is already dancing on his political grave, salivating about November when, his own press secretary admitted Sunday, Democrats might lose the House.

I have a warning for Republicans: Don't underestimate Barack Obama.

Consider what he has already achieved. Obamacare alone makes his presidency historic. It has irrevocably changed one-sixth of the economy, put the country inexorably on the road to national health care and, as acknowledged by Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus but few others, begun one of the most massive wealth redistributions in U.S. history.

Second, there is major financial reform, which passed Congress on Thursday. Economists argue whether it will prevent meltdowns and bailouts as promised. But there is no argument that it will give the government unprecedented power in the financial marketplace. Its 2,300 pages will create at least 243 new regulations that will affect not only, as many assume, the big banks but just about everyone, including, as noted in one summary (the Wall Street Journal), "storefront check cashiers, city governments, small manufacturers, home buyers and credit bureaus."

Third is the near $1 trillion stimulus, the largest spending bill in U.S. history. And that's not even counting nationalizing the student loan program, regulating carbon emissions by Environmental Protection Agency fiat, and still-fitful attempts to pass cap-and-trade through Congress.

But Obama's most far-reaching accomplishment is his structural alteration of the U.S. budget. The stimulus, the vast expansion of domestic spending, the creation of ruinous deficits as far as the eye can see are not easily reversed.

These are not mere temporary countercyclical measures. They are structural deficits because, as everyone from Obama on down admits, the real money is in entitlements, most specifically Medicare and Medicaid. But Obamacare freezes these out as a source of debt reduction. Obamacare's $500 billion in Medicare cuts and $600 billion in tax increases are siphoned away for a new entitlement -- and no longer available for deficit reduction.

The result? There just isn't enough to cut elsewhere to prevent national insolvency. That will require massive tax increases -- most likely a European-style value-added tax. Just as President Ronald Reagan cut taxes to starve the federal government and prevent massive growth in spending, Obama's wild spending -- and quarantining health-care costs from providing possible relief -- will necessitate huge tax increases.

. . . The critics don't understand the big picture. Obama's transformational agenda is a play in two acts.

Act One is over. The stimulus, Obamacare, financial reform have exhausted his first-term mandate. It will bear no more heavy lifting. And the Democrats will pay the price for ideological overreaching by losing one or both houses, whether de facto or de jure. . . .

The next burst of ideological energy -- massive regulation of the energy economy, federalizing higher education and "comprehensive" immigration reform (i.e., amnesty) -- will require a second mandate, meaning reelection in 2012.

That's why there's so much tension between Obama and congressional Democrats. For Obama, 2010 matters little. If Democrats lose control of one or both houses, Obama will probably have an easier time in 2012, just as Bill Clinton used Newt Gingrich and the Republicans as the foil for his 1996 reelection campaign. . . .

The real prize is 2012. Obama sees far, farther than even his own partisans. Republicans underestimate him at their peril.

In the WSJ, Karl Rove admitted that his single greatest mistake was his failure to anticipate the effect of the left's relentless, baseless attacks on Bush and his veracity - all repeated ad infinitum by a left wing MSM dedicated to the end of the Bush presidency. This admission is not exactly earth shattering. Indeed, for years now, I have been screaming that the failure to communicate and respond to these endless attacks was the greatest failing of the Bush Administration - and Republicans generally in all situations. I am convinced that McCain lost the election because of his failure to aggressively attack Obama in the debates and the failure of the entire Republican Party as a whole to respond to the left's outrageous charge that the right was responsible for our financial nightmare. For example, this from September, 2008:

For every ten Democrats I have heard baldly blame the Republicans for the subprime crisis, and for every Democrat I have heard speak against McCain's presence in the negotiations, I have heard maybe one Republican speak to the contrary. Some of the worst was last night, listening to CNN, listening to Paul Begala heap scorn on Republicans for the subprime crisis while the token Republican on the panel remained silent in the face of complete falsehoods. Further, I just listened to Harry Reid and Chris Dodd - two people up to their eyes in direct responsiblity for this subprime crisis - hold a news conference giving their CYF (Cover Your Fannie) story on all of this, including with blame for McCain, with no corresponding attempt by Republicans to respond in kind.

The Republicans are pristine in comparison to Democrats as regards the subprime crisis that has brought our economy to the brink of depression. . . . For Republicans to cede the narrative on this is the height of incompetence. Unless and until they become absolutely vociferous in getting out their message, the left will ever increase their stanglehold on America, much to America's detriment.

And much to America's detriment it has been indeed. Just yesterday, supposedly in order to insure that another meltdown never happens again, the left passed a 2,000 plus page nightmare regulation of our financial industry. The fault for the subprime meltdown lies with the left. The fault for the passage of this financial monstrosity that addresses everything but the actual cause of our financial meltdown lies squarely with Republican leadership for their near total inability to communicate.

Having watched the current crop of Congressional Republicans for years now, I am under no illusion that, come 2012, they will be able to effectively communicate. The backlash we see against Obama's policies and vast overreach today has come from the bottom up, with the Tea Parties and social networking. It has nothing whatsoever to do with Congressional Republicans. That does not bode well for the right come 2012.

That said, as I look out at the field of potential candidates who could possibly communicate effectively - those with the necessary intelligence and aggressiveness to actually call the left on their falsehoods and change the national paradigm - the only one I see today who foots that bill is Newt Gingrich.

Update: Bookworm Room has written a post on these topics, commenting on the issues raised by Krauthammer, a post by Jonah Goldberg, and a comment from a fiery young ideologue on the above topics. As is everything Ms. BWR writes, it is thought provoking on the issue of Republican chances and options looking forward to 2012.

In her post, BWR makes the point that any consideration of Gingrich must take into account his having suffered 20 years of MSM demonization. That said, how much trust lies in the MSM now days? The MSM gave us Obama, and it would seem from the polls today, much of America realizes they have been had - and know where that responsiblity lies. Could this be an example of Goldberg's thesis - that the rules have changed and the MSM hatred of Gingrich is a plus? I don't think that is beyond the realm of possiblity.. At any rate, I think Gingrich quite capable of running against Obama and a corrupt MSM, pointing out the follies and biases of both.

Whomever Republicans run, they must not adhere to the McCain line of treating Obama with the utmost respect. If you recall the "debates," the low point of Obama's performance came when he was getting directly challenged. For example, he was extremely uncomfortable - indeed, near petulant - when having to explain his way around his "bitter clingers" statement and challenges to his honesty. We need a highly aggressive debater who is going to use the word "bullshit" - or one of its synonyms - every time its appropriate and challenge Obama, for Obama is nothing if not petty and clearly he does not like to be challenged. That is one of the reasons I think Gingrich would be the perfect candidate to go against Obama. Every sentence would be a knife. And we need Obama fileted in 2012.

Here is hoping he does decide to run.

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Some Interesting Reads

Newt Gingrich has a good op-ed piece in the Washington Post documenting why he has referred to the Obama Administration as a "secular socialist machine:"

An April 14 op-ed by Norman J. Ornstein, "The great 'socialist' smear," argued that to those "outside the partisan and ideological wars," it is "bizarre" to accuse the Obama administration of "radicalism, socialism, retreat and surrender." I was among those he cited, for having called Barack Obama "the most radical president in American history" and describing the goals of the left and its methods of operation as a "secular-socialist machine."

In fact, Ornstein has it exactly backward. It is only from the perspective of the cultural elite that the left-wing governing of the Obama-Pelosi-Reid team could be seen as moderate. . . .

Do read the entire article. As I inevitably find with Gingrich, he makes perfect sense.

The second article is by someone I have never recommended before in this blog - Pat Buchanan. I parted ideological ways with Buchanan years ago. That said, his most recent peice on the left's melodramatic response to Arizona's new immigration law is spot on. This from Mr. Buchanan:

With the support of 70 percent of its citizens, Arizona has ordered sheriffs and police to secure the border and remove illegal aliens, half a million of whom now reside there.

Arizona acted because the U.S. government has abdicated its constitutional duty to protect the states from invasion and refuses to enforce America's immigration laws.

"We in Arizona have been more than patient waiting for Washington to act," said Gov. Jan Brewer. "But decades of inaction and misguided policy have created an unacceptable situation."

We have a crisis in Arizona because we have a failed state in Washington.

What is the response of Barack Obama, who took an oath to see to it that federal laws are faithfully executed?

He is siding with the law-breakers. He is pandering to the ethnic lobbies. He is not berating a Mexican regime that aids and abets this invasion of the country of which he is commander in chief. Instead, he attacks the government of Arizona for trying to fill a gaping hole in law enforcement left by his own dereliction of duty.

He has denounced Arizona as "misguided." He has called on the Justice Department to ensure that Arizona's sheriffs and police do not violate anyone's civil rights. But he has said nothing about the rights of the people of Arizona who must deal with the costs of having hundreds of thousands of lawbreakers in their midst.

How's that for Andrew Jackson-style leadership? . . .

Do read the whole article.

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A Tale Of Two Conservative Parties: Part 2 - The US

As I wrote in a companion post below:

At a time when the left has swung the pendulum hard to the left in both the UK and the US, at a time when the electorate of both US and UK appears poised for a massive move to the right, the "conservative" parties - the Tories in the UK, the Republicans in the U.S. - seem far from up to the task. When we need Churchill and Reagan, we instead have leaders in the mold of Clement Attlee and Herbert Hoover. The problem is particularly acute in the UK.

In the post below, I address the problems of the UK and its "conservative party." By comparison, our problems in the U.S. are not as dire as those of Britain's, largely because our democracy is much more representative than is their's. Yet in some ways, our problems are not dissimilar. In both countries, the left has pushed our nation's so far to the left that the economies and the very fabric of our societies are threatened. Further, today, neither in the UK nor in the U.S. is there a sufficiently strong leader on the right to stem the tide. For the UK, four weeks from their next election, that fact is disastrous. For we in the U.S., it is not yet at that point given that we are about two years out from having to decide who will be the Republican nominee. Yet the problems that they will face will be every bit as daunting as those faced in the UK:

- Between massive deficit spending and out of control entitlement programs, our economy is approaching a potentially existential crisis:

The U.S. government has $12.5 trillion of funded debt, almost 90% of last year’s GDP. That is a critical level according to Reinhart and Rogoff based on their 800-year study of sovereign bankruptcies. Serious, funded debt is not the major problem. Unfunded entitlements (Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid) are. These are estimated to be $106 trillion.

And still Obama continues a world record spending spree.

- the left wars on business (non-union businesses, at least) and the profit motive. Given the Obama plan to let many of the Bush era tax cuts expire and given the murmurings about a VAT tax, it appears that Obama's next grand act will be an attempt to tax us into prosperity.

- the war on business has resulted in persistent and staggering unemployment in America. "The U-6 unemployment number . . . is at 17.5%, within 0.5% of its all-time high. This figure includes discouraged workers who've stopped looking, marginally attached workers, and workers that are forced to work part-time because full-time jobs are not available."

- the enactment of Obamacare portends to only worsen our fiscal crisis while doing nothing to alleviate the severe crises posed by are already existing entitlement programs - Social Security, Medicare, Medicade and S-CHIP to name but a few.

- Public sector unions, only allowed in America since the days of JFK, are a toxin in America. They have perverse incentives to push for bigger government and higher taxes and they operate unchecked by market forces. They degrade performance in every aspect of the government where they exist and are a particular problem in education. The average public sector union worker now makes significantly more than their private sector counterparts - and they are destroying state and local economies with massive unfunded pension liabilities.

- Regulatory burdens, particularly in the area of environmentalism where the left has handed the keys to the courthouse to the radical greens, with untold costs to our economy. Moreover, in a move that bypasses Congressional refusal to enact cap and trade, the EPA recently announced that they will begin regulating carbon - in what portends to be a significant cost to our economy.

- Proposed regulatory changes to our financial structure that will place significantly greater racially charged lending standards on our financial institutions, despite the fact that this same degradation of lending standards led in large part to our current financial meltdown.

- The removing of any caps on the liability that will be underwritten by the U.S. government from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

- The left continues to feed the race baiting industry beyond long after we passed any rational justification. It is time to bring an end to affirmative action as well as any and all use of the disparate impact theory to punish entities for racism despite no evidence of any act of racism. It should be noted that Obama wants to expand the disparate impact theory as part of the new financial regulations.

- our Courts are regularly legislating from the bench, reinterpreting Constitutional provisions in a manner far outside of the original intent of the drafters to bypass the ballot box on contentious social issues, ripping at the fabric of our nation. We could really use a Constitutional Amendment on this issue to provide some guidance to the Courts on how to execute their Article III duties.

All of the above are simply domestic problems - and the last two our my own issues that are not as pressing as the rest, but that do need to be addressed as part of a radical reorientation of our domestic polity. None of this even begins to touch upon the problems Obama and the left are causing in foreign policy.

Whoever is to tackle all of these problems in a decisive manner will have to be highly intelligent, articulate, and sufficiently driven by internalized conservative idealism to withstand the type of massive assault in the left wing MSM that will come with applying conservative solutions to the above problems - many of which will of necessity mean reorienting America away from the left wing path it has been on since at least FDR. Moreover, we are going to need a reorientation that has as its absolute focus the growth of businesses of all size - we are in a hole where the only answer to both our deficit and our undemployment problem is to grow ourselves out of both. Do we have a leader that strong on the horizon to accomplish all of these things?

Perhaps we do. I think New Gingrich fits that bill. I would also watch closely Paul Ryan and Chris Christie. I think all others are a level below these three in intellect, if not also in the intestinal fortitude needed to lead the type of radical reorientation our nation needs to survive, let alone to remain as first among equals.

Newt Gingrich - He is an absolutely brilliant man and a highly articulate speaker. Compliments of the MSM smear machine in the 1990's, many in the left and center have negative views of Gingrich, though it is doubtful those general views are today sufficiently strongly held to disqualify him from making a run. Of all the potential candidates, I would think him most qualified and the most likely to be able to address the many problems of our country itemized above.

Paul Ryan - I do not know enough about him yet to put a gold star next to his name, but his performance during the televised dog and pony shows with Obama have shown him to be articulate and in possession of a first class intellect. It is also notable that he is the only one, of all the Republicans in Congress, to actually publish an alternative to Obamacare. He is one to further evaluate.

Chris Christie - This man impresses ever more on a daily basis. He faces many of the problems in governing New Jersey that our nation faces on a grander scale. He is demonstrating daily a strong intellect and an even more impressive hard as nails approach to the problems of New Jersey. If he succeeds in turning around New Jersey in any cognizant fashion, he will definitely be a person to watch - if not in the 2012 election, then in 2016 and beyond. He has already demonstrated the combativeness and cajones necessary to push through the radical reorientation our country needs and he, unlike George Bush and much of the Republican Party, has also shown a willingness to push back hard against the smears of the left.

Then there are the lessers and the long shots:

Sarah Palin - as much as I like her, I don't see her as sufficiently rounded to make a run for the Presidency. I think her decision to give up her governership not even half way through her term was fatal to a bid for 2012. Perhaps in 2016 she might have a chance.

Mitt Romney - His claim to fame was his economic smarts. But the simple fact is that he designed Obamacare for Massachusetts. Either his economic smarts are vastly over-rated or this man is an incredibly cynical political opportunist. Regardless which, we can afford neither in office beyond 2012, and thus I won't be pulling a lever for him under any circumstances.

Mike Huckabee - his foreign policy views were what turned me against him during the last primary and nothing since has occurred since that would lead me to believe that he has gained strength in that area. That said, I do like his Fox shows.

Ron Paul - I would vote for Obama before I would vote for Paul. He really is a few McNuggets short of a Happy Meal.

Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty - I do not know enough about him at this point to make a decision on Pawlenty. I have heard him speak a few times and have not walked away with either a positive or negative impression. Perhaps that itself says all that needs to be said.

We will see who rises to the top over the next year. The other critical issue will be gaining conservatives in sufficient numbers in Congress. At any point in my lifetime, I would not have thought that possible. But today, given the path to the far left Obama is pushing us and the strength of the Tea Party movement - I now think it very possible.

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The Sound & The Fury (Updated)

Gov. Palin's story is pretty amazing. Add to that, her resume, in every objective sense, stacks up better than the 1st term Senator's from Illinois. As Newt Gingrich called it yesterday.



The scale and fevor of the attack on Gov. Palin goes beyond anything I have observed from the left during my lifetime, and that includes some incredibly scurrilous attacks on a wide range of minorities and women. It all stands in incredibly stark contrast to the pass the media has given to Obama on his history and history of associations. Twenty years of association with Rev. Wright alone and the embrace of Black Liberation Theology should at a minimum have been fully vetted. Instead, the silence on the air waves and in print has been palpable.

The media are attempting to define Gov. Palin as illegitimate for the nation before the nation can make up its own mind. As Howard Kurtz memorializes in WaPo today, Steve Schmidt of the McCain camp has accused the media of "attempting to destroy Gov. Palin."

The Beltway Boys have a roll-up of some of the most recent, though they leave out the odious Barney Frank pronouncing open season on the Palin family. Their theory is that Palin is both an outsider and a threat to entrenched Washington culture and power brokers, thus the zeal to destroy her as a legitimate politician. I think that is correct, but it goes one further.

Ed Morrisey at Hot Air believes that the media inquisition has been motivated by McCain fooling the MSM, with this now being the MSM's way of trying to justify their blindness by showing the McCain pick makes no sense. That is colorable, but I do not believe accurate.

I think Michelle Malkin hits this one on the head when she writes today of the four stages of conservative female abuse. As the says:

Liberals hold a special animus for constituencies they deem traitors. Minorities who identify as social and economic conservatives have left the plantation and sold out their people. Women who put an "R" by their name have abandoned their ovaries and betrayed their gender. As female Republican officeholders and female conservative public figures have grown in number and visibility, so has the progression of Conservative Female Abuse. The astonishing vitriol and virulent hatred directed at GOP Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin is the most severe manifestation to date.

This will succeed or fail depending on the performance of Gov. Palin. If the country likes her, the liberal elites pushing the inquisition of Gov. Palin will pay dearly. If she does not give a bravura performance tonight, the feeding frenzy of the left will make the last few days look like glowing coverage. My gut tells me that Gov. Palin is up to the task. My brain is damn well hoping its right.

(Update) I have to add this from Peggy Noonan at the WSJ who captures all of this perfectly:

Gut: The Sarah Palin choice is really going to work, or really not going to work. It's not going to be a little successful or a little not; it's not going to be a wash. She is either going to be magic or one of history's accidents. She is either going to be brilliant and groundbreaking, or will soon be the target of unattributed quotes by bitter staffers shifting blame in all the Making of the President 2008 books. Of which there should be plenty, as we've never had a year like this, with the fabulous freak of a campaign.

More immediately and seriously on Palin:

Because she jumbles up so many cultural categories, because she is a feminist not in the Yale Gender Studies sense but the How Do I Reload This Thang way, because she is a woman who in style, history, moxie and femininity is exactly like a normal American feminist and not an Abstract Theory feminist; because she wears makeup and heels and eats mooseburgers and is Alaska Tough, as Time magazine put it; because she is conservative, and pro-2nd Amendment and pro-life; and because conservatives can smell this sort of thing -- who is really one of them and who is not -- and will fight to the death for one of their beleaguered own; because of all of this she is a real and present danger to the American left, and to a future Obama candidacy.

She could become a transformative political presence.

So they are going to have to kill her, and kill her quick.

And it's going to be brutal. It's already getting there.

There are only two questions.

1. Can she take it?

Will she be rattled? Can she sail through high seas? Can she roll with most punches and deliver some jabs herself?

2. And while she's taking it, rolling with it and sailing through, can she put herself forward convincingly as serious enough, grounded enough, weighty enough that the American people can imagine her as vice president of the United States?

I suppose every candidate for vice president faces these questions to some degree, but because Palin is new, unknown, and a woman, it's all much more so.

Amen (and I wish that I could write like that).

(H/T Hot Air)

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