Speaker Pelosi Confused, Thinks She’s Secretary of State

Last Friday Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) took it upon herself to reach out to the Dalai Lama in beleaguered Tibet, visiting its universally revered religious leader and appearing with him in ethnic garb for a series of photo ops. She denounced the oppression of the Chinese government perpetrated upon the Tibetian populace. “As a freedom-loving people, if we don’t speak out about the Chinese oppression, then we have lost our right to speak on human rights,” Pelosi grandly stated. Wrapped up in self-righteous euphoria, she was not to be stopped by concern that maybe there were more pressing matters facing her own constituents, or that perhaps there were plenty of other oppressed folks out there that she hasn’t felt the urge to publicly support. Was it a play to boost her dreadful approval ratings? Or just a chance to get some rare media coverage in a Presidential Election year? The answer remains unclear, but what is clear is that Pelosi seems to forget we pay professionals to the foreign relations thing for us.

Partisan Rancor Spreads to Christmastide?

Indeed, with the campaign season and the Christmas season coinciding this year, top greeting card producers have devised a way to make a buck off of rampant partisanship. The expanded greeting card racks at fine retailers everywhere have been spiced up with gems like the one with picture of Dubya on the cover exlaiming, “I’ve got three words for you!” The punch line inside? “Merry Christmas!”

Targeting the GOP demographic, on the other hand, is what you see above. Great, eh? Feel free to disseminate via email to your Republican friends. You can blame my Moto RazR for the poor picture quality.

Thompson to Run on ‘08, Sources Say

Today’s Brian and the Judge radio show, co-host Brian Kilmeade reported that Fred Thompson–the Great Hope for Republicans disenchanted with 2008 Presidential race frontrunners Giuliani, McCain, and Romney–will indeed throw his hat into the ring later this year. Kilmeade claimed to have spoken to someone as “close to Thompson as his wife,” who said that Thompson “definitely will run,” but not until September. No reason was stated for the late entry, which provides a great source of speculation.

 americanrevolution is most definitely in the business of speculation on such things, and sees things in the Thompson case thus: This is a risky move with potentially big payoffs. Why is it risky? Well, as the pundits quipped on Brian and the Judge, all the best campaign personnel will already have been snapped up by the frontrunners. Furthermore, to begin fundraising in the fall and well after many key contributors will already have made donations to the existing frontrunners will present a hurdle as Thompson begins filling the war chest. These are all valid concerns. However, a late entry in the race does offer several advantages. First, with the highly abbreviated attention span of the American public by way of the media, Thompson will present a somewhat fresh face at a point when the buzz surrounding the current crop of contenders will be fading somewhat. Furthermore, Thompson will have time to watch Giuliani, McCain, Romney, etc., and to craft his image to represent a strong alternative to those guys who disappoint so many conservatives. Furthermore, he will by entering the race immediataly gain the support of far-right conservatives who refuseto stomach the pro-abortion Giuliani, the Mormon Romney, and the confusing maverickishness of McCain.

 So if he can overcome the aforementioned hurdles, which are rather substantial, he may just have something. americanrevolution is interested first to see if the report of Thompson’s September Splash is true, and if so how things will play out.

Public Service Announcement: Candidate Edwards Appears to be an Amateur

Check out John Edwards on ABC’s “This Week.” He shows clearly that he hasn’t put it all together just yet. Worse, he seems to have picked up a bad habit from his 2004 running mate John Kerry-the ‘ol flip flop. Just something to keep in mind as the race heats up.

Are We There Yet?

The din of defeatism is so loud on Capitol Hill these days when it comes to Iraq. Even Republicans are joining the cry in the interest of trying to prolong their political careers. Shame on these spineless Congressmen. While many are joining the wave of defeatist paranio, some Americans still understand the grave situation the nation would find itself in if the Democrats were to declare defeat and evacuate US troops from Iraq. They realize that, as Dick Cheney bluntly explained today, that the casualties US forces have suffered in Iraq are worth the lives saved in keeping nuke-toting terrorists off American soil. So like these perspective folks, I remain in full support of the action in Iraq, despite being well aware of past missteps and wary of more in the future. And as such it just makes me tired all over to hear this whining about Iraq.

I heard the most perfect analogy on Spencer Hughes’ radio program today. A caller said something to the effect that these whining defeatocrats remind one of the kids in the back seat that keep whining ‘are we there yet?’ The Dems (and a some of these despicable fair-weather Republicans) should grow up and act responsibly rather than pandering to masses. No we aren’t at the Grand Canyon yet. Unfortunately, in our case to turn around and go back means to declare with trumpets blaring America’s gross impotence. That is unacceptable. So if you don’t like it, shut up or bring a solution to the table.

Hillary Tells Supporters to Give Money or Get Lost

Mara Copeland developed a political dialogue with the Clintons through MySpace, exchanging what she calls “personal” emails with the two and other Clintonites. Once the Clintons-or their campaign people masquerading as the Clintons en vivo-had poor Mara on the hook, they demanded  cash and set a deadline! Full story is on Newsmax.

Double Standards of Political Correctness

Funny how the response to what is said is determined by who says it. Let’s be honest-if a Republican commented that Barack Obama, the fresh young Senator from Illinois, is “the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy,” well, the media, the DNC, the intelligentsia-heck, just about everyone-would waste no time in demanding an apology, and the more extreme factions within each of the aforementioned groups would be haughtily muttering accusations of racism just above their collective breaths. It obviously insinuates that prior to Mr. He’s-so-hot-right-now Obama’s rise to prominence, there existed no clean-cut and competent African American statesmen. That’s a pretty unequivocable slap in the face of the African-American community and beyond.

And yet, it was not a Republican congressman who remarked such. It was 2008 Presidential hopeful Joe Biden, a Democratic congressman from Deleware (CNN).  Now two weeks later, the incident seems to be all but forgotten. But it was not the only recent racially-insensitive remark by a congressman this month, and indeed another Democrat. South Carolina’s Robert Ford proclaimed earlier in the month that “Obama winning the primary would drag down the rest of the party…Every Democratic candidate running on that ticket would lose because he’s black and he’s at the top of the ticket” (Associated Press). Ford summed it up rather nicely: “I love Obama, but I’m not going to kill myself.”

Even if these remarks are made by Democrats in the context of Obama’s impact on the party, they still should provide a grand display of the mass hypocrisy of the party that claims to be the party of the minorities, the poor, the middle class, and of tolerance. If a Republican were to stand up and say Obama could not win the Presidency because he is Black, they would be burned in effigy. Somehow, these utterances from Democratic lips are easily forgiven and forgotten.

For reference, consider two historical cases. Republican Trent Lott made a racially-insensitive remark in 2003 and was forced to resign his post as majority leader in the Senate. Conversely, Robert Byrd, a documented Ku Klux Klan leader until at least the late 1940s, became in 2006 the longest serving Senator in US history (Wikipedia). Yes, he was a Democrat.

As long as Democrats can get away with publicly-voiced disrespect for African-Americans, no progress will be made toward a time where when we mention the Senator from Illinois, the parenthetical notation of his race is no longer obligatory. That, my fellow Americans, should be the real story here.

www.barackobama.com

Disunity on Display

 Joe Lieberman said earlier this week that “For the Senate to take up a symbolic vote of no confidence on the eve of a decisive battle is unprecedented. But it is not inconsequential. It is an act which, I fear, will discourage our troops, hearten our enemies, and showcase our disunity.” A word to the Congress-ever heard of keeping your problems in-house? In this age of instant proliferation of information, this may be too much to ask. But Lieberman has a point. The carping about the war that permeates the media and now the Congress is ineffectual except to showcase for the world our disunity and haplessness in a time of near-crisis. Capitol Hill is very much the epicenter of the political world, and as such, the messages it sends to the world on behalf of the American people carry much weight. The Congress would do well to remember this.

It is undeniable that the Iraq venture is a mess, and presents almost the perfect Catch-22 scenario. The first response to such a situation is finger-pointing. This catharsis is soon followed by a move to develop a solution-ideally, that is. But in our case, the finger-pointing stage, inaugurated over two years ago, persists. The Iraqi Study Group was a useless exercise–a brief pause in the action. The anti-war faction has, in this past few years, developed no feasible alternatives to the President’s [perhaps deservedly] much-maligned “Stay the Course” approach.

Today, America finds itself in a situation where the winning strategy is elusive, but essential. In the meantime, through the valiant yet largely unsung  efforts of tens of thousands of American soldiers, the nation is at least treading water in Iraq. They face a the worst sort of enemy- a guerilla bound to destroy America or die trying. In the face of this, the clear message America is sending from it shores is that the majority disapprove of its President, and a great many would prefer to pull out of Iraq and declare defeat. This is a clear message of weakness. It is also a clear message to American troops that most Americans and their elected officials are ready to say the 3,000 troops that have died and many thousands more who suffered severe injury did so in vain.

 America should demand of its elected officials that after years of anti-war rhetoric it is high time they do their part to end the grand display of national disunity and shut up until they can provide some useful alternatives.

www.johnmccain.com revisited

We recently pointed out the fact that as yet John McCain, expected to be a frontrunner in the 2008 Presidential contest, does not own www.johnmccain.com. While americanrevolution still finds this inexcusable, more information has been brought to light to inform further discussion. An article from The Hill dated June 21, 2006 has been unearthed here. Most pertinent to our subject is this bit:

David Webb of Dallas has owned johnmccain.com for the past four years. Although at least 20 interested buyers have offered money for the site, including one who offered $25,000, he is in the process of handing it over to the senator free. Webb said that he does not necessarily support McCain’s views but believes that “McCain has served his country well” and deserves the site.

This changing of the guard, as it were, at www.johnmccain.com must be quite the protracted struggle. This story was written nigh seven months ago and as yet it appears Mr. Webb is still in posession of an important piece of McCain’s campaign communications. Mindblowing.

The article makes for an interesting read aside from the McCain story. It looks at the story of political domain names, who owns them, what they have been offered for them, et cetera. We learn that www.billfrist.org redirects to the home page for eBulkcandy.com, and that www.condoleezarice.com is offered for sale at $29,000 despite the fact that “Rice has two z’s in her first name, not one” according to the article.

Despite the demise of George “Macaca” Allen of Virginia, www.georgeallenforprez.com is still good for a laugh.

www.johnmccain.com

It is widely accepted at this point that the GOP presidential nomination will come down to a contest featuring former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney and Senator John McCain of Arizona. Mitt Romney’s exploratory committee has a lovely website up at www.mittromney.com, as was detailed in the previous post. It would be expected that the Senator would have developed a counterpart site, and purchased all the pertinent domain names long ago. Alas, www.johnmccain.com is, well, check it out for yourself. In this day and age of high-tech political warfare, that is a dreadful mistake! Indeed, this revelation supports the premise of the previous post, which puts Romney as the early frontrunner in the 2008 race.