Thinkin’bout Stuff

I may be biased, but I thought this was the highlight of this week’s SNL.  the Palin/Couric thing was pretty good and seems to be getting all the attention, but I thought this was funnier:

It may not be right, but we brought it to you first. 

Some thoughts about the future:

• Between now and election day, there will be a significant shift of support away from Barack Obama as concerns mount over his inexperience and inadequate handling of his guilt-by-association problems
• John McCain/Sarah Palin will be elected
• With Obama discredited, the Clinton machine will retake the DNC, Howard Dean will be out, MoveOn will be relegated to fringe status (where they belong)
• 2012 or 2016, after continuing to rehabilitate his reputation while serving in the US Senate, Barack Obama is elected Governor of Illinois as a predecessor to another run for the White House in 2016 or 2020
• 2012 Hillary Clinton, after solidifying her base in 2008 and winning over new converts since having the nomination pulled out from under her that same year, with the DNC solidly behind her, makes another run for the White House as the Democratic nominee… “super delegates” that remain after housecleaning solidly behind her this time
• 2012 John McCain will decide to not seek re-election
• 2012 Sarah Palin, with the field ahead of her somewhat cleared because she is the incumbent VP and a woman, wins the nomination to set up a guarantee for history to be made… a woman will be the next president in 2012 

Will any of this happen…  who knows, but remember you heard it all here first.  Remember to check back here every few years to keep me honest.

Consider this: 100% chance that the next President of the United States, in the year 2012, will be a woman.

Assuming John McCain is elected this year and conventional wisdom that he would be a one-term president comes to pass, Sarah Palin, with four years as VP, would be positioned to head the Republican ticket in 2012.

Assuming Barack Obama is not elected this year, Hillary Clinton will be the logical choice to head the Democratic ticket in 2012; some would argue she was the logical choice this year, but that’s a different blog.

By electing John McCain, we will almost guarentee that in 2012 we will have the first woman elected to President of the United States.

Something to consider … we have an opportunity to set the stage for history to be made four years from now.

Look’s like Bill Clinton agrees with the assessment that Joe Biden was chosen to serve as Presidential Training Wheels for Barack Obama:

From the transcript of Bill Clinton’s convention speech - With Joe Biden’s experience and wisdom, supporting Barack Obama’s proven understanding, insight and good instincts, America will have the national security leadership we need.

So let’s break this down.  Obama understands, has insight and good instincts; unfortunately he lacks wisdom and experience, but hey, Joe Biden has plenty of wisdom and experience, so no biggy dude.

I guess I need to stop printing “Words of Wisdom from the Mind of Obama”… he doesn’t have any…  OK, I guess that was my point.

Then again, Clinton also said:

My fellow Democrats, 16 years ago, you gave me the profound honor to lead our party to victory and to lead our nation to a new era of peace and broadly shared prosperity.

Together, we prevailed in a campaign in which the Republicans said I was too young and too inexperienced to be commander-in-chief. Sound familiar? It didn’t work in 1992, because we were on the right side of history. And it won’t work in 2008, because Barack Obama is on the right side of history.

Peace and broadly shared prosperity?  I’ll concede the prosperity even though it is pretty clear that some of that prosperity was a direct result of jobs created by the lead up to Y2K (I know folks who got double their current salary to take on Y2K coding jobs… which promptly disappeared after Y2K came and went.   Pre-2000 jobs during Clinton years; post-2000 Y2K jobs go bye-bye during Bush years).  This was also the artificial dot-com boom that made a bunch of folks millionaires on a promise of something that wasn’t really there, only to come crumbling down when folks woke up with a big financial hang-over.  Happens when you indulge in too much “irrational exuberance“.

But peace?  Someone please remind me what Bill Clinton did to contribute to peace?  Making believe we are not at war while the enemy attacks us at home and abroad is hardly the same as peace:

• On 12 October 2000, while at anchor in Aden, the Cole was attacked by Al-Qaeda suicide bombers, who sailed a small boat near the destroyer and detonated explosive charges. The blast created a hole in the port side of the ship about 40 feet (12 m) in diameter, killing 17 crew members and injuring 39. 
   
• The 1993 World Trade Center bombing occurred on February 26, 1993, when a car bomb was detonated below Tower One of the World Trade Center in New York City. The 1,500 lb (680 kg) urea nitrate-hydrogen gas enhanced device was intended to knock the North Tower (Tower One) into the South Tower (Tower Two), bringing both towers down and killing thousands of people. It failed to do so, but did kill six people and injured 1,042.
   
• Battle of Mogadishu (1993) - Task Force Ranger executed an operation which involved traveling from their compound on the outskirts of the city to capture tier one personalities of the Habr Gidr clan, headed by Aidid. The assault force composed of nineteen aircraft, twelve vehicles and 160 men. During the operation, two U.S. MH-60 Black Hawk helicopters were shot down by rocket-propelled grenades, and three others were damaged. Some of the soldiers were able to evacuate wounded back to the compound, but others were trapped at the crash sites and cut off. An urban battle ensued throughout the night. Early the next morning, a combined task force was sent to rescue the trapped soldiers.  This task force reached the first crash site and led the trapped soldiers out. The second crash site was overrun and pilot Mike Durant, the lone surviving American from that site, was taken prisoner but later released.
   
  Service analyses of the action later identified three factors in the failure of the raid to achieve its objectives without serious casualties on both sides:

- A failure of intelligence gathering, particularly in relying on local intelligence sources only and failing to recognize Aidid’s capability in urban guerilla warfare;

- A lack of political support for the Task Force Ranger mission, reflected in denial or removal of military support assets that would have aided the force, such as M1 Abrams tanks , AC-130 Spectre gunships, and M2 Bradley APCs.

- A lack of decisive force by Task Force Ranger, including insufficient troops, equipment, and weaponry.

In other words, the Clinton Administration refused to provide the necessary support for this operation for political reasons; not unlike the Bay of Pigs debacle of the Kennedy Administration. 

• The Battle of Mogadishu led to a shift in American foreign policy, as the Clinton administration became increasingly reluctant to use military intervention in Third World conflicts peripherally related to the supreme national interests of the United States, such as the Rwandan Genocide, the mass murder of an estimated 800,000 to 1,071,000 ethnic Tutsis and moderate Hutus by Hutu militia groups in Rwanda in 1994 (though Clinton approached Senator Dole and Speaker Gingrich about the possible use of military intervention, both parties agreed such action imprudent). President Clinton also refused to mobilize U.S. ground troops in fighting the Bosnian Serb Army in Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1995 and the Yugoslav Army in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (specifically, the province of Kosovo) in 1999, out of concern for sacrificing American soldiers in conflicts only peripherally related to the national interest or national defense of the United States, which could have resulted in situations similar to Mogadishu in 1993.

Ah yes, let’s hide and hope… that way we can live in peace… until the enemy decides we are weak and without a will to fight for our freedom.  Enter Osama bin Laden:

(Source) “Despite if they try or not, we have seen in the last decade the decline of the American government and the weakness of the American soldier. America is prepared to wage easy wars but not prepared to fight long and bitter wars.

This was proven in Beirut when the Marines fled after two explosions. It also proves they can run in less than 24 hours. This was repeated in Somalia.”

“We do not differentiate between those dressed in military uniforms and civilians; they are all targets in this fatwa.”

President Clinton’s peace and prosperity led to the 9/11 attack, just months after he left office. 

Before Clinton, we had President Carter who turned his back on an ally and created the ongoing problems we have with Iran.  Before Carter, President Johnson dragged us into the Vietnam quagmire (something the Dems forget when comparing Iraq to Vietnam).  And before Johnson, President Kennedy abandoned the Cuban resistance fighters trying to overthrow the Castro regime.  By the way… can you name the only US President to use a nuclear weapon against a civilian population?  That’s right, President Truman.. Democrat… not once… twice.

If elected president, Obama has a lot to live up to… just think, if only this election were a year ago, we could have already surrendered to al Qaeda in Iraq.

Update:  Looks like Bottom Line Up Front was way ahead of me on this…

Another update 8/29: Saw someone declaring today, after McCain selected Palin for veep, that the Dems would win and return us to peace and prosperity.  Shared my thoughts there and thought I might’s well add them here as well:

Ah yes  peace and prosperity…  Dems always bring us peace and prosperity.

For example, the sale of sweaters quadrupled under Jimmy Carter,  people happily waited for hours in line for gasoline,  and his foreign policies led to the liberation of Afghanistan by the Soviet Union, the liberation of Iran by radical Muslims, the liberation of the Panama Canal by… well by Carter.

Bill Clinton, aside from being impeached, proudly set the stage for future Dems to call for peace through surrender after allowing us to absorb attack after attack with no response and proved to OBL that the US was paper tiger.  As far as prosperity goes, a case can be made (and has been made) that the dot-com boom and the Y2K effort was a major factor in our economy, not the fiscal policies of the Clinton administration.  As the dot-com boom went bust and Y2K came and went, the US entered into a recession leading up to 9/11, before Clinton left office.

Johnson… well Johnson brought us the failed policies that provided generations of Dems the war to compare all wars.  Whenever you hear a Democrat compare any of our engagements to the quagmire of Vietnam, please remember to tip your hit to LBJ.

Kennedy?  Actually Kennedy would be considered a fiscal conservative these days, but his handling of the Bay of Pigs led to an ever-present Castro regime off our shores and he brought us to the brink of nuclear war.

Truman… right or wrong, let us not forget he is the only US president to use nuclear weapons against civilians… twice.

Obama would have a lot to live up to to match the records of his predecessors.

I typically don’t pay too much attention to the primary season, since no party affiliation equals no vote, but this time around, especially on the Democrat side, has been quite interesting.

Seems to me that, until this year, folks believed they were selecting the person they want to represent their party in the general election. Now I think their eyes have been opened to an ugly truth, especially for the “count every vote, Bush stole the election” crowd… the end result of the primary is more of a strong recommendation than an actual selection.

For example, if Obama wins the popular vote and the majority of the delegates who are not “super” (how sad for them), he could still lose if the superdelegates, who are essentially political power brokers, decide to support Clinton.  Not likely to happen, but nothing preventing it from happening; not the rules, not the law, nothing.  In fact, if I’m not mistaken, even “pledged” delegates could, theoretically, act independently and support a candidate to whom they are not pledged.  By the way,  about one-fifth of the Dem delegates are superdelegates… 796 in all.

And of course there is the much talked about, much written about, Michigan and Florida fiascos.  Sure, the Republicans made a similar blunder by cutting the state delegations in half, but at least they were smart enough to not exclude two entire state delegations.  It’s essentially the difference between a trip to the penalty box or being thrown out of the game.

Florida and Michigan violated party rules, but the penalty imposed by the Democrats was excessive and pretty damn stupid.  Now they lose either way… if they go to the convention without two state delegations, the will alienate huge voting blocks and Clinton supporters; if they allow the delegations to be seated, they are changing the rules after the game is over and alienate the Obama supporters… unless Obama wins anyway, in which case it would be obvious Florida and Michigan will only “count” if they don’t count. 

Either way, the Democrat leadership has positioned the party for what will likely be a major upset come November…  in retrospect, no matter who wins in November, we can all breath a sigh of relief it won’t be Howard Dean… yeeeeaaaahhhh!

Amazing…   after years and years of claiming Republicans are suppressing the vote, Democrats have decided to punish Florida for moving their primary by not allowing their delegates to be seated nor their votes counted at the Democrat convention.

That’s over 1,000,000 US citizens, residents of the great state of Florida, who will not have their votes counted in this election because the Democrats have deemed them unworthy.

And the really sad thing for the Dems is they can find no way to blame the Republicans.

Interesting this isn’t bigger news. 

Oh sure, stop a few illegal aliens from voting and you’re a racist.  Stop felons? How dare you withhold the right to vote from these poor misunderstood criminals. Require photo ID to prevent voter fraud and you are clearly trying to suppress the vote.

But throw away over one million votes… well, hell… serves them right for voting on a day not approved by the Democrat Party.

Never fear good people of Florida… HRC is on the case.  Now that she’s won, she’ll do everything she can to make sure every one of those votes count.  Anyone believe she would bother to lift a finger if she lost?

And what of poor BHO…  how will he ever explain it if he opposes HRC’s efforts to demand these votes be counted? What can he do… agree with HRC and she gets the delegates uncontested… fight her on this and he’s no better than those rascally Republicans.

So sad…

There are more than 150,000,000 Americans old enough to run for President of the United States.  Do we really believe that our generation has so little to offer that, from among those 150 million people, the best candidates are either named Bush or Clinton.

If HRC is elected president and somehow manages to get re-elected to a second term, the President of the United States for more than a generation (28 straight years) will either have been a Bush or a Clinton…  I guess it’s conceivable Jeb Bush could keep the seat warm until Chelsea Clinton is ready.  Then again, at the end of this hypothetical two terms for HRC, Chelsea will be old enough to run for president and the Clintons could score the first presidential hat trick.

Come on people… 150,000,000 of us to choose from, no need to limit ourselves like this.  If we’re not careful, this could turn into a rotating monarchy instead of a democracy.