James Gilmore’s term as Governor of Virginia ended in 2002. He has served as the RNC Chairman, Head of a National Committee on Terrorism, Chairman of the National Council on Readiness and Preparedness, and is a veteran of the U.S. Army. Governor Gilmore recently withdrew from the 2008 Presidential Race, and will be my guest on Political Pistachio Radio this coming Saturday, 4pm Pacific/7pm Eastern.

Eric Edelman, the Pentagon’s undersecretary for policy, has done us all the public service of providing a real-life sample of what a Hillary Clinton presidency would be like (via CS):

Clinton, the Democratic frontrunner for president, had asked the Pentagon to detail how it is planning for the eventual withdrawal of U.S. military forces from Iraq. She first raised the issue in May, pointing out that whenever troops leave, it will be no simple task to transport the people, equipment, and vehicles out of Iraq, possibly through hostile territory.

Eric Edelman, the Defense Department’s undersecretary for policy, offered a sharply-worded response, saying such discussions boost the enemy.

“Premature and public discussion of the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq reinforces enemy propaganda that the United States will abandon its allies in Iraq, much as we are perceived to have done in Vietnam, Lebanon and Somalia,” Edelman wrote. His tough language in a letter obtained Thursday was surprising in part because it came in correspondence with a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, which has oversight of the Pentagon.

Clinton responded Friday in a letter to Edelman’s boss, Defense Secretary Robert Gates, asking if he agreed with Edelman’s charge.

She said Edelman had ducked her questions and “instead made spurious arguments to avoid addressing contingency planning.”

“Undersecretary Edelman has his priorities backward,” Clinton wrote, calling his claim “outrageous and dangerous.”

Edelman has “backwards priorities”?  For challenging the lib fantasist orthodoxy that defeat in Iraq is as inevitable as, well, Hillary’s presidency is?  For telling her flat-out that dropping the knee to her Infernal Majesty’s defeat-mongering would be to give aid & comfort to the enemy?  Seems to me Undersecretary Edelman was just doing his job.

Funny that Mrs. Clinton considers that to be “dangerous,” and his lack of obeisance “outrageous.”  Makes you ponder what a President Rodham will do to all of us Edelmans still in the country on and after January 20, 2009.

And whether Secretary Gates will be among them.

Tomorrow President Bush will undergo a colonoscopy, but it’s the far left that will be feeling the pain. Dick Cheney will be president! I’d like to unveil the contents of a manila folder I received surreptitiously this morning under my door mat. It was a copy of a handwritten to-do list straight from Darth Cheney’s desk outlining his objectives during the two hours as reigning world warmonger.

1. Schedule meeting between Jack Murtha and John McCain - lock them in room with golf clubs

2. Executive Order: All government employees must memorize every line in movie “300″

3. Bomb Iran, Syria, North Korea, China, the State Department, Joe Wilson’s house and where ever Carl Levin is

4. Fire 8 more federal prosecutors, promote Johnny Sutton

5. Initiate final phase of government takeover - activate cameras and wire taps, shut down internet, close libraries and arrest anyone wearing Birkenstocks or smelling like Pachouli oil

6. Get black cape from cleaners

There’s one more, but I can’t read it. Anyone who’s got any ideas what else might be on the list can leave it in the comments. We’ll understand if you do so anonymously. It’s the least we can do for our wooky friends over at the Daily Kos!

Political Vindication!

Looks like Jim Geraghty isn’t any better at handling heat than the candidates he’s covering.  See if you can deduce the gaffe in his latest post:

And just as Reagan had had it up to his keister with leaks, I’ve had it up to there with people whining that I’m unfair and biased against their guy (since I’m getting it from every direction). Sorry, McCain fans, but your man has had a lousy month in the polls and the base loathes his position on immigration. Sorry, Fredheads, but Thompson’s handling of the abortion lobbying inquiries will not be studied for years to come as a triumph of p.r. crisis management. Sorry, Rudy fans, but Rudy’s speeches do sometimes fall flat and some of his debate answers have looked haltering and tentative. Sorry, but Mitt Romney’s dog-on-the-roof story will go over about as well as a dog-walking service sponsored by Michael Vick and pointing out that some voters will never vote for a Mormon does not make me “an accomplice to bigotry.” If Sam Brownback doesn’t want to get whacked around for switching his vote during the immigration deal, he ought to lay off making attacks on other candidates for flip-flopping.

Ladies and gentlemen, I didn’t get your candidates into these messes, your man did.

Calling all of the above besides McCain’s immigration amnesty gotterdammerung “messes” is rank exaggeration (and Brownback’s switchback, but he’s irrelevant).  But that’s not the banana peel.

….Give up?  Let me put it in the form of a question: How, politically speaking, is Mitt Romney’s Mormonism a “mess”?  And isn’t including it in the “mess” category, well, bordering on “accomplicizing bigotry”?

J-Ger, back to you….

Jenber and The Dreaded Ann Coulter take us on a tour of the Democrats’ Land Of Foreign Policy Make-Believe, 2008 edition.

As the Enemy Media escalate their anti-military vituperations in proportion to the success of the “Surge” in Iraq, boss surger General David Petraeus shows himself to be hearteningly media-savvy as well.

Later in the day I dropped by the aforementioned Donk Land Of Foreign Policy Make-Believe, and found how deep that particular rabbit hole really goes.

Loose lips used to sink ships.  Now vigilant ones can save lives - but not if jihadis make take offense.

Lastly, Mitch McConnell provided me with one heckuva nightcap.  I hope it’s far from the last.

The way the 2008 campaign is going to work, in a nutshell (via CampaignSpot):

Illinois junior Senator and waaaaaaay-not-ready-for-prime-time, has-no-business-even-saying-the-word-”president” presidential candidate Barack Obama has surface a sound bite from his functionally unopposed 2004 senate campaign in which he hinted slyly that he might support paganized sex education in public schools as early as kindergarten without actually coming out and saying so.  He attempts to plausibly deny that he meant any such thing, using the ample rhetorical wiggle room he left himself.

Seeing an opportunity, former Massachusetts Governor and GOP presidential hopeful Mitt Romney struck.  An easy pinfall, right?

C’mon, you know better than that; Obama is a Democrat, and Romney is a Republican.  So of course the former slipped off the hook he was never really on in the first place, and the Mittster gets gaffed:

In a Planned Parenthood questionnaire he filled out during his 2002 gubernatorial run, Romney checked ‘yes’ to a question asking, “Do you support the teaching of responsible, age-appropriate, factually accurate health and sexuality education, including information about both abstinence and contraception, in public schools?”

The Romneyacs retorted that their guy didn’t mean all the way down to kindergarten, and Obama did.  And I have no doubt that Obama did mean that, except that in the best Clintonoid tradition, he didn’t actually say it, but couched it in words indistinguishable from the Planned Parenthood question that Romney answered identically.

As with the press fascination with FDT’s past dabblings in the lobbying arena, the Obama-Romney-Oops exchange won’t matter.  But it sure is amusing to see the Fred detractors - particularly over at Giuliani Central Hub - chortlingly dismissing him as PR-clumsy.  At worst, he’s undergoing his “shakedown cruise”.  Romney had a six-month head start - what’s his excuse?

And, come to think of it, why did he fill out a Planned Parenthood questionnaire at all, anyway?