Pundits Never Die

TAPPED, “What’s at Stake in Michigan”

In his January 14, 2008, posting Paul Starr does a little bit of speculation about the upcoming January 15 primary election and the rest of the primary season.

On the Republican front, Starr proposes that if McCain wins Michigan and then South Carolina, he might easily snatch the nomination come Super Tuesday. On the other side of the political spectrum, Starr seems certain that Fortuna’s Wheel will continue to spin and the fates of Clinton and Obama will remain dubious until long after February 5 and even, as he suggests, “into March and beyond.” He seems dismayed by this fact.

Frankly, at this point of the article, I thought, “Good, who cares?” I thought most pundits had learned their lessons in New Hampshire with Clinton about making speculation on speculation, and I was accusing Starr of incorrigibility.

However, Starr supports his assertion with something of a logical buttressing. He notes that if his hypothetical McCain victory streak occurs and the Democrats linger too long with their choice, there will be insufficient time for the Party to rally around a candidate bruised and battered by his or her same-party opponents on the search for the nomination.

Unfortunately, he, like too many other Internet pundits and bloggers, makes the fatal error of giving no examples in support of his claim. Similarly to some of the comments left on the blog by other readers, I feel that this dreadfully damages his case, essentially making his seemingly abstract-based interpretations of current political happenings just another brick in the wall.

Nasrallah to Israel: Peace on Earth and Goodwill to... Aw, Fogetaboutit

Meryl Yourish, “Nasrallah the Anti-Racist”

Apparently, there is a trend for terrorist losers to whisper from hiding their ideological persuasions to the world. Such is the case with Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of terrorist organization Hezbollah, who claimed victory after the 33-day day war between Hezbollah and Israel and then promptly went in to hiding. While some may say his hiding was a move made from fear of the Israeli army, which just having crushed Hezbollah would likely eliminate him quite quickly, I suggest that his move was very likely an honest attempt to escape the attention and fame of being a war hero.

But I digress. Yourish reports about a video that the bold Seyid Nasrallah released in light of President Bush’s recent visit to Israel. Ynet reports, “According to Nasrallah, Bush views Israel ‘as a Jewish state, that is, racist...its existence is premised on race. Israel aspires for a racially pure existence.’” The rest of Narallah’s tirade is on the abov-linked Ynet page.

Of course, Yourish does not allow herself to even waste her one iota of her time and energy (think “carpal tunnel syndrome”) to repudiate the accuracy of Nasrallah’s foolish statement. Another thing Yourish does not allow is let Nasrallah get away so easily with the context of his extremely coy and subtle statement. Reaching back a bit, she asks if indeed this statement was coming from the same egalitarian terrorist who said these things:

“…if [Jews] all gather in Israel, it will save us the trouble of going after them worldwide.”

“If we searched the entire world for a person more cowardly, despicable, weak and feeble in psyche, mind, ideology and religion, we would not find anyone like the Jew. Notice, I do not say the Israeli.”

No! It can’t be; not our peace-loving buddy Nasrallah, the activist so incensed by racism and prejudice of any kind.

Reader, indeed it’s true. Even peace-mongering terrorists like Nasrallah sometimes contradict themselves.

Abortion: Could I Have Some Lies With That?

TAPPED, “Republicans Lobby for Abortion – In Israel.”

In this posting, Sarah Posner reports on the trip of three United States’ Republican Congressmen – Frank Wolf (VA), Chris Smith (NJ), and Joseph Pitts (PA) – to Israel, where the trio is lobbying for a ban on abortion in the Holy Land. Posner, at best, seems to disapprove of this move.

Yet Posner objects not only to the actual trip but also to Ynet News’ reporting on it. She notes, “Israeli press coverage of the visit did not mention Smith's 2004 comparison of abortion to the Holocaust.” This might have been a valid point… if it were true. A quick trip to the link she supplies proves her claim feeble and nit-picky. Speaking at the 31st annual March for Life, Smith had stated, “Americans want the abortion holocaust to end.”

Past the connotation of the word, there is no other evidence that would support Posner’s claim that Smith was likening the slaughter of around 50 million innocent lives to the Nazi Holocaust, which claimed the lives of 12 million. Though perhaps such a comparison would be generously kind to the likes of Planned Parenthood.

For those of her readers who enjoy bonus deception, Posner adds in her concluding remarks, “But just like here [in the United States], this [that abortion is murder] is a minority view; according to a recent poll, only 30% of Israelis believe that abortion is murder.” Well, I checked the site she suggested and boom, there it was: 30%. My doubts were quenched… that is, of course, until with a lingering suspicion I checked US statistics to see if Americans agreed with the Israelis about the morality of abortion. Guess what I found. In the year 2000, 57% of those surveyed by the LA Times agreed that abortion is murder. For those one you, who, like Sarah Posner at numerologically disinclined, that’s almost twice 30% and any percentage over 50% is called a majority.

New York's Own: Pinocchio on Campaign

TAPPED, “RUDY!MENTUM”

Scott Lemieux of The American Prospect lays it out there, pure and simple:

Don’t get fooled by Giuliani’s excuses. Rudy totally bombed in New Hampshire.

Lemieux targets Giuliani’s claims that his extremely poor showing in New Hampshire is the result of his proportionate campaigning policy – that is, he did not focus either his time or money on small states like Iowa or New Hampshire, but rather turned his resources to delegate-rich states where he would reap more for what he had sown.

Yet Lemieux points to an article that shows quite the opposite. In fact, “he spent more time and money there than anyone except Romney… mak[ing] his barely finishing ahead of Ron Paul especially embarrassing.”

Lemieux concludes by striking Giuliani out of the race, leaving McCain, Huckabee, and his money’s bet, Romney in the running for the Republican Party nomination.

Like Lemieux, I have written off the Rudynator a while ago, on both grounds of personal political preference (chiefly on social policy) and electability, and frankly, I think the two reasons overlap when it comes to the primary electorate.

It is no political secret that when candidates are trying to win the party nomination, they must shoot for their party’s ideological wing. If they can successfully appeal to the wings, then likely they will do well in the primaries, probably securing the nomination. That’s why over the past few years, we’ve seem Romney, no doubt dreaming of the GOP nomination, scrambling to ameliorate some of his more liberal views, particularly on abortion, to appeal to the Right.

The trick next for the two major Presidential candidates, of course, is to shift their views from the wings of the party to appeal to the general electorate, which is much more moderate than the primary electorate. This must be done skillfully enough so as to avoid catching the sticky title of “flip-flopper” that Kerry seemed to wear so well in the 2004 elections.

Which brings me to my point: Giuliani was either A) unable to master the art of altering his views to appeal to both the primary electorate with the knowledge that he would later have to refocus his campaign to appeal to the moderates, or B) he was too honest to change his views for the sake of victory.

If you ask me, his outright, boldfaced lying about his campaign’s commitment to victory in New Hampshire give me good reason to eliminate choice B.

Blacksmiths for Edwards '08

TAPPED, “Lightning Round: The (BS about Hillary Clinton’s) Crying Game.”

Today on TAPPED, Sam Boyd pours out a slew of recent political news, much of which is related to the 2008 Presidential Race. Among the ten bulleted points, Boyd briefly mentions John Edwards’ criticism of Hillary Clinton’s emotional display at one of yesterday’s New Hampshire campaigning events, commenting that Edwards’ move seems like an attempt “to throw away all the good will he's generated in his campaign.”

I tried to hold back from commenting on Hillary’s tears. I really did. And in fact, I might even succeed. As I go forth from this point on, I will do as little as possible to mention Clinton’s tears/whimpers/passionate sighs/whatever-you-want-to-call-‘ems.

Let’s talk about Edwards for a bit. His campaign has reaped surprising crops in his second place finish at the Tall Corn State primaries on January 3rd. Yet, polling data on a national average places him in third place with 18.0% of the vote, with Obama ahead with 29.3% and Hillary in the lead with 37%. Moreover, his chances in New Hampshire today are slim at best, with an average polling of 18.3% of the state’s Democrats supporting his candidacy, with Obama polling at 38.3%, Clinton at 30.0%, and Richardson in last with 5.6%.

Edwards, at his moment of desperation, tries a particularly sneaky, though not quite well thought out ploy. Though I doubt any of his advisers approached him and cried, "Strike while the iron is hot!" Edwards' words might as well have stemmed from that axiom. He opportunistically sprang at the first chance to criticize Hillary before New Hampshire in order to make the public doubt her ability as a candidate and potential leader of the free world: "'I think what we need in a commander-in-chief is strength and resolve, and presidential campaigns are tough business, but being president of the United States is also tough business."

Dear Edwards,

Whoever agreed with what you said already agreed with you before you opened your mouth. All you did is tarnish your own image and step on the sensibilities of any undecided Democratic voters who were trying to test the tactfulness of the remaining candidates. Sometimes, silence is golden, worth much more than some blunt, misshaped instrument banged out of hot iron.

Sincerely,
Brother Benjamin

Close Encounters of the Third Kind: Iran on the High Seas

Meryl Yourish, “Iranians threatening U.S. ships”

Today, Yourish tackles the newest incident in a string of intensifying tensions between the United States and the Islamic Republic of Iran. She notes that, according to a Pentagon report, a number of Iranian Revolutionary Guard boats made threatening maneuvers against three United States Naval vessels: the USS Port Royal, the USS Hopper, and the USS Ingraham. Yourish’s entry delves more into details of the apparent provocation, more of which will likely continue to come out over the next few hours and days, as her posting was based on one of the earliest reports of the incident (the Guardian Unlimited article Yourish cites was released 9:46 AM EST, while BBC didn’t report the incident until 12:40 PM EST).

As I first read this posting, two different images began developing in my mind. Side by side they stood, the USS Cole burning in the port of Aden in Yemen and American destroyers firing barrages at supposed Vietcong gunboats in the Gulf of Tonkin. Harbor those images in your mind, and I’ll return to them shortly.

An unnamed source at the Pentagon paraphrased a message that the US ships received from the Revolution Guards boats: “We’re coming at you and you’ll explode in a couple minutes.” Not to leave any of their words in obscurity, the Iranian units allegedly began charging the group and dropping packages into the water around the three naval vessels.

Back to the images now…

First of all, the Iranian “harassment” (as the AP phrased it with the utmost sensitivity and political correctness) was an attack against American sovereignty, not unlike the strike on the USS Cole. True, no lives were lost and all American vessels are still floating on the world ocean, but only a margin of seconds prevented the encounter from escalating into a fiery battle.

This brings in the second image. Perhaps the Iranians were trying to create their own sort of Tonkin Bay, in which the “American war machine” tried to invade the sovereign waters of the Iranian Republic (as their propaganda would surely proclaim). Then, when the heroic Revolutionary Guard, the bastions of Iranian liberty and solidarity, tried to warn the Western invaders that they were in danger of violating their waters, the American aggressors callously and maliciously opened fire in a symbolic declaration of war and martyring the valiant defenders of Iran (for this reason, at least, I am grateful that our soldiers showed restraint in firing off the shots that would have put the Revolutionary Guard boats at the bottom of the strait; the less material Ahmadinejad has for his inflammatory, anti-American addresses the better).

Surprisingly, the Iranian government confirmed the incident soon after the press released the story. As was expected, however, they denied any hostile or aggressive actions or messages against the US Navy ships in the Strait of Hormuz. The government, cheeky as usual, claimed their reckless taunts over the radio and their threatening actions did not happen; rather, the government claimed the Iranian vessels were doing a routine inspection and left the incident ground as soon as they recognized the American vessels.

Less than a year ago, Iranian Revolutionary Guard seized fifteen British sailors and marines in international waters. Until only recently, Atomic Mahmoud has been running his mouth against the whole civilized world about his nation’s peaceful nuclear ambitions that no one is allowed to see (trust me!). Today, they threatened United States Naval vessels and American lives, once again, in international waters, and then ran away like scared dogs in the last second before our soldiers could show the Iranians what kind of threats we are capable of making. I don’t know where Ahmadinejad wants to lead his Islamic Republic, but if you ask me, he’s heading right for the jaws of death.

Day Two: Huckabee - Dobson = Still Chugging

TAPPED, “Christian Right Grassroots Give Dobson the Finger”

TAPPED blogger Sarah Posner writes her latest entry about Mike Huckabee and his shot at the Republican nomination for the President of the United States. More specifically, she focuses at Huckabee’s continual rise and hitherto success without the support of some powerful names within the conservative Christian political movement, namely James Dobson. Then, Posner describes the new coalition of supporters within the Christian right that Huckabee has created around himself to replace the spot left unfilled by Dobson and some of his compadres.

Posner seems almost pleased with Dobson’s new “irrelevant[ce],” while at the same time warning her fellow left-wingers that Huckabee’s new coalition might form a cohesive and effective force in the primary season and perhaps even into the general election.

As a Huckabee man for the last year and a half, I can recall my surprise when I first heard that Dobson and company had rejected Huckabee at the 2007 Values Voters Summit. Only a year before that, I had first heard Huckabee speak at the Summit of September 2006, long before the tumultuous primary season began. I overheard two elderly women share sentiments about his speech: “I sure wish he would run for President!” Since that realization struck, I’ve stood behind Huckabee and am quite pleased by the various major supporters he’s managed to accrue thus far on the campaign trail.

Posner concludes almost sardonically, as if lamenting the continued survival of “the evangelical right.” She seems bitter about what she claims is “excessive media attention” given to the Christian right, and she hints with a belittling attitude at the evangelical right’s mission “to restore America, its government, and its culture to ‘biblical values’” (underlining not found in original, but quotes present).

Though the conservative evangelical community has in recent years blundered rather heavily and not always been consistent, to Posner I say but one thing: “Long live the Christian Right, and God bless America!”