It's way to early to start speculating on '08 presidential candidates. It might be more fun to start culling the weak ones from the herd -- eliminating the candidates it's pretty easy to say won't make the final cut. My first nomination to the Goner category is John McCain. He has long since lost his reputation as a straight shooter. The more people he tries to appeal to, the less coherent he sounds. This is just absolutely stupid:
In a sign that he wants to distance himself from the president - to whom he lost in an ugly campaign in 2000 - Sen McCain outlined a series of measures to roll back Bush policies and counter the "ugly American" image.
"I would immediately close Guantanamo Bay, move all the prisoners to Fort Leavenworth (an army base in Kansas) and truly expedite the judicial proceedings in their cases," he said. "I would reaffirm my commitment to address the issue of climate change and greenhouse gas emissions. I know how important this is in Europe in particular."
John Weaver, Sen McCain's chief strategist, confirmed his plans for a markedly more conciliatory foreign policy. "The next president will have to work extra hard to unite our friends and divide our foes. Sadly the opposite has occurred in recent years," he said, as Sen McCain addressed a crowded hall in the farming community of Cedar Falls.
Europeans haven't loved us for a long time, for a lot of reasons, and what they think about us should be of little consequence to American foregn policy. Our foreign policy under Bush has largely shifted from multilateralism to unilateralism, and there are serious implications in that needing to be discussed. But this trivial Ugly American crap, no more attractive from John McCain than it was from John Kerry, is no help to that task.
Comments
>It might be more fun to start >culling the weak ones from the
>herd...
>this trivial Ugly American
>crap, no more attractive from
>John McCain than it was from
>John Kerry, is no help...
Why do I get the feeling you intended to say "weak sisters," but held your fire?
Speaking of the Ugly American, I was just thinking the other day how long it has been since any of the cable channels has aired THE UGLY AMERICAN with Marlon Brando (based on the old best-seller).
The real sin of our ratings system is that we get fourteen reruns of SCREAM 3 while films like THE UGLY AMERICAN gather dust in some major studio's Projection Department.
Inarguably shameful. It is one of the most disheartening and inescapable shortcomings of the nearly-asphyxiated-by-commercialism cable/sat-TV business model.
what about NM governor and Democrat for President Bill Richardson?
He has foreign policy experience- unlike Obama.
He rides a horse, and enjoys shooting his "Ranch Rifle"- unlike most of the Dems; he won't take your guns away.
He will split the far left voting block- the Kerry-Edwards "NE Liberals" and the Hillary-Obama front runners.
I think the Idea of a Gun rights supporting democrat is a novel Idea.
but He would never carry the leftists here in allen county. but by May, its all ove anyway.
roach wrote:
>{NM governor and Democrat...Bill >Richardson} rides a horse, and enjoys >shooting his "Ranch Rifle"- unlike most
>of the >Dems; he won't take your guns >away...
>I think the Idea of a Gun Rights
>supporting democrat is a novel Idea.
So novel that the old guard democrats might not stand for it -- in fact I understand they've already considered and abandoned the idea of running on a platform that would genuinely table their gun control fetish. None of their pretentions to moderation have proved to be honest or sincere so far, so one wonders how long it would take for a liberal-leaning Congress to overwhelm a pro-Second-Amendment president. Not long, I'll wager. Don't we know them far too well by now? If they ever want to make that claim, I'll help lobby for a signed, very binding, comprehensive document to back up the assertion.
The moderate democrats are now, post-election, judged by the Washinton pundits to be DOA, while the same old radical-red faces are still "leading" the democrat party.
I always predicted that a vote for a "moderate" democrat would simply usher the dead-horse, far-left radicals back into gleeful power. They've got a razor-thin majority, yet Schumer, Feinstein, Pelosi, Kerry, Reid, and the rest are all elbowing into the center stage and moderates don't get enough oxygen to maintain life support. This why I detest the modern democrat party -- The more things change, the more they remain the same.
The democrat party isn't like the moderates in the fly-over states would like to think it is. It's a largely anti-American movement at the top and at it's most activist, composed of leaders who like very little about American principle other than the limited portion of the First Amendment that keeps such spoilers out of prison for supporting anti-American propaganda, not just at activist rallies, which might be tolerable (even the flag burning), but proudly in the halls of Congress, the White House, and many federal courts.
Given their rigid obsessive/compulsive fixation to keep re-electing the blue state radicals, and their obvious addiction to an unvarying, unpopular leftist agenda (especially after recent drubbings with record voter participation), I see no reason to soften my view (so far) and give them any chance to gain more power to dump more American principles on the altar of the democrats' false religion of an "elastic Constitution."
The Constitution must serve through the ages -- in all possible circumstances -- not in one time, with one set of problems, trends and social challenges. It is the American people who must stretch if and when necessary to meet our challenges inside the Founders' wise structure of the American way of life. I challenge anyone to sensibly predict what limb of the Constitution or Bill of Righs they can lop off without making the nation vulnerable to collapse -- not to happen tomorrow, but in 50 years, or 75, or a hundred. Any part of those documents might be the phrase that is key to meeting a challenge now unknown to us. It's why we err on the side of freedom.