Ed,

I agree that “battered spouse syndrome” doesn’t accurately reflect how the administration has treated those who “brung ‘em”, but the feeling of betrayal is very real.

More along the lines of a trusted friend stealing your wife.

You can see it not only in the opinion pages of conservative media, but we’re hearing it on the phones in our GOP fun raising. People who worked hard - extremely hard - for George Bush’s election to office - twice - have had it with the “because I said so”.

This will not bode well in the future as we - the base - look closely at the current crop of GOP candidates, and make no mistake we are looking very closely. To quote The Who:

“We won’t get fooled again”.

Andrea, forgive me, but your post sounds as overwrought as the President’s hamhanded groin-stomping immigration bill marketing plan.  Have you thought through some of your rhetoric?

[W]e MUST clean house. We MUST win back our party. We MUST win back our country and our control of it from arrogant, insulated careerists who think it’s their due….

That can mean only one thing. Vote. them. out. Every last one of them. It will be painful, but we MUST break off from those who have already broken away from us.

How many do you imagine this number to be?  We already know who the RINOs are.  But while people like McCain and Lindsay Graham are national figures, they’re not nationally elected.  On the Senate side they’re not all up for re-election in the same cycle.  And while the Democrats may be able to keep communal rage at a high-rolling boil for years on end, I rather doubt that we can.  It just isn’t our nature.

What about the once-dependable Jon Kyl?  He was just re-elected last November, which I’ll betcha dollars to doughnuts is why he was designated to shephard this misbegotten legislation through its cabalistic backroom negotiations.

The most recent case-in-point is Linc Chafee.  Was he taken out last year?  No, he wasn’t, even though he had a strong primary challenger.  And what was the outcome?  A Democrat replaced him who is, at best, no improvement. 

One other thought: Remember the aforementioned Senator Graham?  He wasn’t a RINO when he stepped up to the Senate in 2002.  But he became one under Darth Queeg’s insidious tutelege.  As long as a handful of “mavericks” remain - and we’d NEVER get rid of ALL of them - and even if this party deconstruction was conducive to majority-building, the fresh-faced conservatives who went to Washington would simply be subjected to the same corrupting influences, and a new litter of RINOs would emerge.  Just like Lindsay Graham did two years ago during the “memo of understanding” debacle.

That’s not a defense any member of the “perfidious devilspawn” wing of the GOP (far from it!), but simply a dash of cold, dripping reality that “Vote.  Them.  Out.” is good catharsis but is much easier bellowed than accomplished.  And even then it wouldn’t be a permanent housecleaning.

It may take a purge that will last two or three election cycles — four, eight, twelve years. But in the grand scheme of things, over the course of the 231 years of this country’s history, it’s a brief moment in time. And as a friend put it, “Sometimes the cure comes close to killing the patient. But if you don’t apply the cure, the patient is sure to die anyway.”

Be careful what you wish for.  Would you want to live in the America that would exist after two terms of Hillary Clinton?  And another one or two of Barack Obama?  I’ll guarantee you that after a single Hillary! term we’d be slobbering for anybody who could unseat her, no matter what their immigration views.  How do I know that?  Because that’s what happened in 2000.

Besides, in the age of Islamist terror and WMD proliferation, the old Nixon adage that “Nobody can completely screw up the country in only four years” is functionally obsolete.  Or, in other words, the patient is less likely to die than is the country itself as we have known it if the former lets anger push him (or her) into foolish, ill-considered decisions.

Might history be repeating itself? Should it? Is there a party worth defecting to?

Ronald Reagan was confronted with that question in 1976 during another time of intra-party dissention.  I’d say his answer, and subsequent actions, are timeless.

Capt Ed:

“Welcome to the hardball of the Bush administration. We loved it when they used it on Democrats and the war, and it seems just a little hypocritical to start whining about it now that we’re getting a taste of it ourselves.”

Not the same at all. While the war on terror and the question of illegal (let’s not loose the definition) immigration - and national security are one and the same. However, Bush telling cut and run democrats to “get bent” and then telling his constituents who are concerned on how the current bill lessens our national security “get bent” is ludicrous.

The problem we are seeing is basically one of arrogance and of forgetting who brung you to the dance. As a leader in the local GOP of South Florida let me tell you this IS the break point for our future support for Bush as well as all those who support the bill.

Had it not been for the core of the Party - who are against this bill Bush wouldn’t be President today and that other (ugh) guy would be Presi…..

**********holy crud, wheres my Pepto again!!

Fact is that when you are seeing more and more the core in outrage (Noonan and Will are just a few of the big names), the issue because “Who is George working for”?, and right now it’s not us.

As everyone knows from the Macranger Show with my pal Harold Hutchinson, I support immigration reform. But anyone who has actually read the drafts and not had their hair stand on end wondering, “What in the &#^@ are they thinking”, knows how valid the concerns on this present bill are.

It IS an amnesty bill, and all the “pay no attention to the man behind the curtain” talk won’t change it.

Bush is on a mission as detailed here. He truly believes in this cause and I can appreciate that. But he is also the present leader of our Party and as such he was elected by US to promote the agendas and concerns that are important to us.

On this issue however he has talken a Marie Antoinette approach to us and subsequently he’s gotten his head chopped off.

That’s what I took a stab at last night.  And rest assured, it is everywhere on the right side of the aisle.  Conservative pundits, bloggers, emailers - the “prairie fire” this (not first, but second) attempt at border erasure has ignited isn’t some small, isolated blaze, but a horizon-to-horizon conflagration.

Having said that, there is a part of me that wants to ask why everybody appears to be surprised at the course the White House has taken.  Maybe a lot of us have forgotten, but George W. Bush was never coy about what he believed in.  We knew back in 2000 that he wasn’t a “movement” (i.e. ideological) conservative.  He certainly wasn’t an admirer of the government-shrinking philosophy that inspired Newt and his “revolutionaries.”  He knew well enough to learn from his father’s biggest mistake and push tax cuts rather than leave any doubt that he might raise taxes.  But apart from taxes and judges, he was a big government guy.  No Child Left Behind, the prescription drug entitlement, profligate spending - and, yes, open borders - he set it all out there in the 2000 campaign.  He was a “different kind of conservative”; he was a “compassionate conservative”; he was Clinton with a zipped fly.  And we bought into him anyway because after eight years of Mr. Bill we (does this sound familiar?) wanted to win.  The post-election Florida uprising only reinforced that pragmatic loyalty until we couldn’t distinguish between that sort and the genuine article.  9/11 cast it in cement.

That’s why the President’s war against his only remaining base of support this week seems so jarring.  When you take a sledghammer to a cinder block, it shatters abruptly and violently.  But we willingly stuck our feet in those “overshoes,” and this is, what, the fourth time (Harriet Miers, Dubai Ports World, last year’s immigration bill) he’s declared war on us and still we’ve stuck with him, so how much can we reasonably complain?

Mark Levin captured this estranged bewilderment yesterday:

You expanded the federal role in education, and we held our nose because of the war. You signed McCain-Feingold in the dead of night, and we held our nose because of the war. You expanded Medicare by adding prescription drugs, and we held our nose because of the war. You increased farm subsidies, and we held our nose because of the war.

Today you disparage us for opposing a massive amnesty program that endangers our economy and national security. Today you even embrace the religion of global warming, a stunning shift from prior policy (your Administration even went to the Supreme Court and argued correctly that carbon dioxide is not a pollutant).

What’s a conservative to do?

I think we already have our answer.

As for my take?:

What do I think of George W. Bush? Does it matter? I don’t have to leave the Republican Party when it’s already fragmenting all around me.

And to think that this is the same President whom National Review once referred to worshipfully as “the Conqueror,” and the same party that ruled Congress for a dozen years.

A riven party and a demographically doomed country. Let’s see Bill Clinton top THAT legacy.

UPDATE: Brother Meringoff concurs, and Ed adds the need for a positive conservative agenda for 2008 as the best reaction to the Bush years.

That would, of course, argue for Fred Thompson or Mitt Romney, not Giuliani or McCain.  Something the polls will have to catch up with if we don’t want to end up in the very same pickle a few years from now (if we’re lucky).

Cue the death march….

Peggy Noonan:

“For almost three years, arguably longer, conservative Bush supporters have felt like sufferers of battered wife syndrome. You don’t like endless gushing spending, the kind that assumes a high and unstoppable affluence will always exist, and the tax receipts will always flow in? Too bad! You don’t like expanding governmental authority and power? Too bad. You think the war was wrong or is wrong? Too bad.

But on immigration it has changed from “Too bad” to “You’re bad.”

The president has taken to suggesting that opponents of his immigration bill are unpatriotic–they “don’t want to do what’s right for America.” His ally Sen. Lindsey Graham has said, “We’re gonna tell the bigots to shut up.” On Fox last weekend he vowed to “push back.” Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff suggested opponents would prefer illegal immigrants be killed; Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez said those who oppose the bill want “mass deportation.” Former Bush speechwriter Michael Gerson said those who oppose the bill are “anti-immigrant” and suggested they suffer from “rage” and “national chauvinism.”

Why would they speak so insultingly, with such hostility, of opponents who are concerned citizens? And often, though not exclusively, concerned conservatives? It is odd, but it is of a piece with, or a variation on, the “Too bad” governing style. And it is one that has, day by day for at least the past three years, been tearing apart the conservative movement.

I suspect the White House and its allies have turned to name calling because they’re defensive, and they’re defensive because they know they have produced a big and indecipherable mess of a bill–one that is literally bigger than the Bible, though as someone noted last week, at least we actually had a few years to read the Bible. The White House and its supporters seem to be marshalling not facts but only sentiments, and self-aggrandizing ones at that. They make a call to emotions–this is, always and on every issue, the administration’s default position–but not, I think, to seriously influence the debate.”

Haven’t felt this bad since Star Trek (the original) went off the air.

Those who know my writing on this at Macsmind know that at first I was for the “let’s debate the thing” crowd, but quite frankly I’m really starting to get the case of the ass at Bush.

After actually reading a great portion of the bill I’m moving more for the “can it” idea. This bill is bad folks. To use the over-used cliche, “It’s bad for America”.

For the better part of six years we - bloggers/pundits - and workers for the GOP have slugged it out with the left over their attacks on the President. This even though the White House offered nary a defense of it’s own, leaving us feeling as though we were left out to dry many times.

But no more George - I’m filing for a divorce along with the majority of the GOP. On the war on terror I will still stand with the ideas you foster, but with a bit of suspicion that I never had before.

Could it be that we have been had? Could it be that GW Bush is simply just a bad example of his father - who was ulimately a RINO coverted to pure conservatism in 1980 to ride into history with Ronald Reagan?

Perhaps. But I’ve got this real sick feeling in my stomach and it’s something Pepto can’t help.

There’s been a lot of attention paid to Fred Thompson these past weeks, and the spotlight is growing hotter and brighter on the actor-who-would-be-president. Heck, I’ve even put the kleig light on him a few times on this site — here, and here, and here.

But I’m taking a second, closer look at the former Tennessee senator. A hard one. Casting a skeptical eye. Something’s nagging at me that our man Fred might not be “all that and a red pick-up truck…”

Here’s what’s got my eyebrows raised:

Read the rest at The Radio Patriot.

*****

Here’s a quote. You tell me who said it.

. . . said he would keep the country safe by going “after terrorists where they are.”

The answer and my thoughts at bRight & Early.

It must be tough to be Jimmy Carter. Not quite forgotten as one of the worst Presidents of the 20th century, Jimmy seems to be on a crusade for attention, something like you’d expect from Britney Spears during a slow week. Where Britney shows the world her bare head and her bare…well, you know, Jimmy says outrageous things with no basis, no proof, and certainly no intelligence.

Evidence of this can be seen in not only his original comment this week to the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, but his backpedaling later. 

“I think as far as the adverse impact on the nation around the world, this administration has been the worst in history,” he pontificated.  Pretty strong statement, with a pretty definite meaning.  There’s really no way to parse that.  What you see is what you get.

Here are his convoluted tap-dancing skills on display later, and as you can see, he’s a bit rusty.

“(My comments) were interpreted as comparing this whole administration to all other administrations when what I was actually doing was responding to a question about foreign policy between (President Richard) Nixon and this administration, and I think that this administration’s foreign policy compared to Nixon’s was much worse. … I wasn’t comparing this administration with other administrations throughout history but just with President Nixon’s…”

Okay, Jimmy. Let’s look at that original comment again.

“I think as far as the adverse impact on the nation around the world, this administration has been the worst in history.”

Not “the worst since Nixon,” not “the worst in a while.”

Someone please tell this man that there’s a room at a nursing home somewhere with his name on it. I’m not a fan of psychotropic drugs, but in this case I think Jimmy’s already got the tardive dyskinesia. Let’s get out the Haldol.

And before some liberal comes over and says, “How can you say that?!  Why would you put Jimmy on Haldol?  Mental disorders are a serious problem!” let me just assure you that I know this.  I’m just looking out for Jimmy.

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This despicable immigration/amnesty disaster has us in an uproar. A sputtering, white hot, tearing our hair out, over the top fit to be tied conniption over the absolute arrogance of our US Senate. Can we all agree to vote out the incumbents? Arrrgh!!!

Where to begin? You could start here. But stay with me and read this post first. Here will still be here when you finish reading this.

Let’s start with Senator “I’ve-Never-Met-a-TV-Camera-That-I-Didn’t-Love” John McCain?

He reminds me of when I worked as a TV reporter covering the Maine state legislature.  Politicians would trip over themselves in their race to get to our camera, salivating to be featured on the six o’clock news. We’d flip the switch, lighting the darkened halls of the Augusta State House, and these boys would magically appear like moths drawn to a flame, elbowing each other to be first. “Pick me! Pick me!” We’d have to shoo them away.

McCain is one of those opportunistic moths — more fascinated with his reflection in a camera lens than the good of our country. My instincts aren’t wrong: to wit — McCain-Feingold, The Gang of 14, and now this piece of garbage McCain-Kennedy Amnesty bill.

That seals it for me. McCain’s bid to represent me as my president is DOA as far as I’m concerned. Stow the defibrillators.  Thank you for your military service, sir. Now go on back home to Arizona and take a nap.

I see I’m not alone in coming to this conclusion.

*****
Sen. Fred “Montecristo” Thompson is coming on strong in the blogosphere. Mister Law & Order is pretty doggoned smart about conducting his “non” campaign for the Oval Office. If you think he isn’t running, you’re politically naive. He’s in. With both size 13 wingtips firmly planted on the campaign trail. The hokey good ol’ boy is dumb like a fox.

The man-actor is everywhere and nowhere at the same time. Can you spell u-b-i-q-u-i-t-o-u-s? Good. Now define it: “Fred Thompson”. Very good, class.

*****

The other Non Candidate — Newt “See you in September” Gingrich also has come out against this bill. Folks say he’s unelectable. Too much “political bah-gahj.” Heck, I’d vote for him, regardless of his trunkfull of crap. The man is more intelligent than most and has solid, sensible ideas. Doesn’t get flustered, no matter how obnoxious Alan Colmes gets. And he calls a spade a SPADE.

*****

Rudy Giuliani? Not a man for all seasons. Yeah, he’s got some strengths, but strengths carried to an extreme are weaknesses. He was balls to the wall in the days following 9-11, and we loved him for it. He talks a good game. But folks, can we do better than a man who’s been divorced twice, supports abortion, kept NYC a sanctuary for illegals, and is fully engaged in the movement to merge America with Mexico? Can we? I think so.

*****
Romney — the guy looks crisp, has all the right attributes — attractive and intelligent wife, tons o’ bucks, $4,000 suits, experience in government and private industry. Hmm… Yet somehow, I can’t shake the sense that that’s as far as it goes.

Leave alone the fact that he’s a — gasp! Mormon! (Oh come on…) To his credit, he’s come out strong against the Amnesty bill.

What’s important to me is this: WHAT would Mitt do if a nuclear attack took out one or more of our cities? I don’t think even he knows. How deep is this man? What’s beyond the perfect teeth, engaging smile, chiseled jawline?

We’ve got to have an Oval Office Occupant who knows exactly what he’ll do if push comes to shove. So far, though I’m looking at “The Candidate”, Romney’s not shown me he’s capable of being “The Terminator”.

*****
Tancredo? I like Tom. Met him and his wife at last November’s Restoration Weekend in Palm Beach, grabbed a coupla snapshots with him, and chatted about the border situation. He’s an Average Joe whose heart is in the right place — passionate about sealing the borders and protecting us from terrorist threats. But presidential?

I’d peg him to head up the Department of Homeland Security. Perfect. He’d do a better job than Bush’s political chump Chertoff has done. Damn better.

****
Others in the Republican stable bring various strengths — and weaknesses — to the mix. The second and third tier candidates probably don’t have a snowball’s chance of making it to the finish line, but are viable contenders for other posts, nevertheless. Example: Put Ron Paul in charge of protecting the Constitution. As a bulldog (Jack Terrier?) sentry, he could guard his post alongside The Document to make sure we’re all strictly adhering to the enumerated powers. Added benefit: He’d bite the ankles of anyone who’d dare do otherwise.

****
Okay, that’s the “traditional” view of things. Now for the “off-the-beaten-track’ non-traditional perspective. Which is a bit of an inverted irony, because the “non-traditional” has now become the “traditional”, wouldn’t you agree?

Do you really think there’s a dime’s worth of difference between the republicans and democrats anymore? Can you point to either side and say “Yep! That’s my party! They represent my view of limited government, lower taxes, individual responsibility, national defense, etc. etc.”?

You can’t. Neither can I. And that hacks me off. Here I am, late to the party (a Massachusetts liberal child of the 60’s and 70’s — code for “free love, free pot, psychedelic head shops with feminine butterfly roach clips”) with a post 9/11 epiphany that stopped me dead in my tracks and turned me 180 degrees to the Right.

I found a home in the Constitution, in traditional values. And an appreciation, love and respect for today’s fighting men and women along with those who shed precious blood for their Sacred Honor to protect this great Republic.

Then “Whoomp!” The party I thought represented these ideas falls apart!!! Abandons everything I thought it stood for! Merges into an amorphous mass that is indistinguishable from the socially progressive Democrats who have bloated our government beyond recognition.

So now what? Now what???

Is it time to repudiate the Republicrats and find or form a Party that embodies everything we hold dear? That adheres to the Constitution? That embraces and embodies the traditional Judeo-Christian values upon which our Country was founded?

“A third party? Hah! Never happen!”, you harrumph.

Well, maybe.

Then again, maybe not. Maybe this piece o’ crap amnesty bill is the tea-tipping point where we toss the Tetley overboard and join our forefathers in deciding, “Enough is enough! Come what may, let the revolution begin!”

Come what may… The times are ripe for a revolution. A constitutional revolution to take back our country from those arrogant SOBs in Washington who tax us without representation.

A movement is afoot. Smart people are checking the powder houses. Do you see a lighted lantern in the steeple of the old North Church? Me too. Time to mount up.

You ready? Let’s roll.

*****

Also posted at The Radio Patriot

The Andrea Shea King Show

Mondays thru Thursdays at 9 p.m. ET on BTR

Sunday Nights at 9 on AM 580 WDBO - Orlando FL

The head of one of America’s most powerful conservative organizations says the ‘08 presidential election is going to be close. Very close. Reflecting the almost equal political divide we find ourselves in. And it could go either way — Hillary in the White House is a distinct possibility.

David A. Keene, chairman of the American Conservative Union, was my guest on Sunday night’s radio program at WDBO AM 580 in Orlando. (It’s the only terrestrial radio I do. I LOVE BlogTalkRadio folks, ok?)

Keene is described as a bulwark of the conservative movement who knows all the Republican candidates personally. Political leaders like Karl Rove consult him. The ACU runs the Conservative Political Action Committee’s annual conference in Washington (where Ann Coulter made her controversial remark about John Edwards, using the “f” word in the same sentence), and publishes an annual Rating of Congress, the gold standard by which the ideology of Congressional members is measured. A passing grade is 80% or better.

We ran through the list of Republican presidential wanna-be’s, beginning with John McCain.

“He’s dying a slow political death right now,” Keene said. His candidacy has fatal problems. He has the largest base, but the lowest ceiling of support. Prior to ‘98 or ‘99, he was a reliable conservative senator. But then he discovered the media, was seen to be involved in the Keating 5 scandal, and developed that campaign finance reform, which was seen as an attack on the Republican Party and an assault on the 1st Amendment.”

There was more. Much more. Keene also gave his assessment of Rudy Giuliani. “Not America’s Mayor. Manhattan’s mayor, and that doesn’t reasonate with the rest of the country.”

Mitt Romney.

“There’s no ‘there’ there.”

Fred Thompson? Newt Gingrich? To hear what Keene had to say, the show is podcast available at ASKShow.com

As interesting was Keene’s take on the President’s woes.

“I think at this point, as we know, he’s got real credibility problems… He’s still got the support that he needs from his own party in Congress as long as things don’t deteriorate too much further in Iraq. He is, to his credit, fighting a lot of the democratic spending plans, but I think he’s weakened himself and I know they feel cornered there at the White House, but I think he’s got some dead wood in the administration that ought to be cleaned out. His attorney general has not done a very good job across the board and the current flap that was wholly constructed by the Attorney General and his deputy with Congress is standing in the way of some things.

“I think he’s got to be tough on the things he cares about and he’s got to rally his own party and he’s got listen to them and talk to them more than he has been. There’s a problem particularly in the second term of an administration toward the end when they come under fire and they start to develop a bunker mentality and then things get worse rather than better.

“He came in and the Bush Administration constructed a White House operation that was very tightly held and, for the plus side? There weren’t leaks, they seemed to marching down the road in the same direction … On the negative side though, is they made it clear to a lot of people they really didn’t broach much criticism, so it developed over time that they weren’t getting much advice that was critical. You know, politicians — but particularly presidents — there aren’t many people that’ll go in and say “you know Mister President, you really screwed this up”. They developed an attitude where — I happen to think Karl Rove is very very smart — but no matter how smart you are, if after three or four years nobody’s telling you the truth, nobody’s giving you what’s really going on out there, you’re gonna start making the wrong decisions.

***

About the hand wringing Republicans who went in to talk to the President last week in a private meeting, then blabbed about it to the media:

“I think that was foolish on their part in the first instance to be talking about it. Of course, that was supposed to be an off-the-record meeting, which the President to his credit, was willing to get together with them on and discuss. But then a couple of them decided to talk to the press. It was foolish from a substantive standpoint because we have troops in the field over there. And is it any better for these guys to say “Mister President, if you can’t achieve A, B and C by September, we’re bailing out on you”? Is that any different that what Nancy Pelosi wants to do?

And it’s wrong for the very same reasons. So they had every right to go in, to talk about the political consequences of where they are and the difficulties they’re having, their own misgivings. Lord knows this is a democracy and they should tell the president those things but they can’t expect on the one hand for the president to sit down and listen to that and then on the other hand, for them to just walk out and announce it to the press.

“I’m always amazed. I used to ask people when they’d say ‘Well we should we distance ourselves from the president.’ I’d say ‘Go ask Al Gore how that worked in 2000′. It doesn’t work. Because even if you’re president, if you decide that you’re a Republican or a Democrat, and your president is becoming unpopular and you — as one of his team — bail on him, the odds are that’s not gonna help you. Because even at his least popular most of his partisans are going to be with him, and from a purely political standpoint, you’re not gonna get forgiven for it. So, it’s a foolish thing from a political standpoint to do. It doesn’t work.

“That doesn’t mean you should slavishly follow your president or your party… part of the problem that the Republicans have had over the last few years is to slavishly do whatever the team wants done. That’s a mistake. But at the same time you can stand for principle without taking gratuitous shots at your president or your leaders.”

To listen to the entire interview, click here. Go ahead. You’ll even get to hear Michael Barone, who joined us during the first hour. Two great guests for the price of one click.

Also posted at The Radio Patriot.

Hardly unexpected, and long overdue, the President vetoed the Cut and Run funding bill.

In only the second veto of his presidency, Bush rejected legislation pushed by Democratic leaders that would require the first U.S. combat troops to be withdrawn by Oct. 1 with a goal of a complete pullout six months later.

“This is a prescription for chaos and confusion and we must not impose it on our troops,” Bush said in a nationally broadcast statement from the White House. He said the bill would “mandate a rigid and artificial deadline” for troop pullouts, and “it makes no sense to tell the enemy when you plan to start withdrawing.”

There is an interesting story about the pen used to veto the bill.

Bush signed the veto with a pen given to him by Robert Derga, the father of Marine Corps Reserve Cpl. Dustin Derga, who was killed in Iraq on May 8, 2005. The elder Derga spoke with Bush two weeks ago at a meeting the president had with military families at the White House.

Derga asked Bush to promise to use the pen in his veto. On Tuesday, Derga contacted the White House to remind Bush to use the pen, and so he did. The 24-year-old Dustin Derga served with Lima Company, 3rd Battalion 25th Marines from Columbus, Ohio. The five-year Marine reservist and fire team leader was killed by an armor-piercing round in Anbar Province.

One key reason for the rejection is beyond obvious, and it confounds me that others refuse to see it. From the President’s remarks:

It makes no sense to tell the enemy when you plan to start withdrawing. All the terrorists would have to do is mark their calendars and gather their strength — and begin plotting how to overthrow the government and take control of the country of Iraq. I believe setting a deadline for withdrawal would demoralize the Iraqi people, would encourage killers across the broader Middle East, and send a signal that America will not keep its commitments. Setting a deadline for withdrawal is setting a date for failure — and that would be irresponsible.

Well, yeah.

I’m glad that the President used his veto power on this pork laden surrender document. I do wish he had remembered this power of the presidency much sooner, say around the time of the BCRAp bill.

Ok Surrender Monkeys, you’ve had your day of political theatre. Now do what’s right.

Cross posted at bRight & Early.

Did anyone catch this Tenet on 60 Minutes tonight? If so, how did you remove the stains from the TV screen after you spit your coffee out. Sheesh, where was this guy at in the days before and after 9/11, on Bizzaro?

Today different versions of history than I remember that’s for sure, and I’m not the only one. Bill Kristol thumbing through Tenent’s book found more than a few fabrications:

“THE WEEKLY STANDARD has now learned of a second, more stunning error in Tenet’s book (which is due to appear in bookstores tomorrow). According to Michiko Kakutani’s review in Saturday’s Times,

On the day after 9/11, he [Tenet] adds, he ran into Richard Perle, a leading neoconservative and the head of the Defense Policy Board, coming out of the White House. He says Mr. Perle turned to him and said: “Iraq has to pay a price for what happened yesterday. They bear responsibility.”

Here’s the problem: Richard Perle was in France on that day, unable to fly back after September 11. In fact Perle did not return to the United State until September 15. Did Tenet perhaps merely get the date of this encounter wrong? Well, the quote Tenet ascribes to Perle hinges on the encounter taking place September 12: “Iraq has to pay a price for what happened yesterday.” And Perle in any case categorically denies to THE WEEKLY STANDARD ever having said any such thing to Tenet, while coming out of the White House or anywhere else.”

Where have we seen this sort of history re-write before?

Senate votes for cut and run, largely along party lines (exception made for Chuck Hagel who isn’t a republican).

More notable is that McCain missed the vote. What in the hell is this guy good for? Abslolutely nothing.

Anyway, 51-46, not even close to override a veto, nevertheless, McCain might as well pull up the stakes now.

Crossposted at Macsmind

New WSJ poll:

“As the Democrat-controlled Congress and the White House clash over an Iraq spending bill, with President Bush vowing to veto it because it contains withdrawal deadlines, the latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll finds that a solid majority of Americans side with the Democrats.

In addition, a nearly equal number believe that victory in Iraq isn’t possible, and about only one in eight think the war has improved in the three months since Bush called for a troop increase there.

“They don’t see the surge working,” says Democratic pollster Peter D. Hart, who conducted the survey with Republican pollster Neil Newhouse. Instead, they are saying “we need to get out.”

Hmmmm, poll was conducted when?

April 20 (Friday) through 23 (Monday), when it’s well known conservatives (true Republicans) are NOT home as we have more to do than Liberals who do stay home and answer phones.

Still, fact is that the administration hasn’t done a great job in getting the successes of the surge out, and there have been significant successes. Americans don’t need a lot to help to make them believe, but remember that they are deluged every night by only the negative side of the story.

Winning a war is more than just killing bad guys, it’s also about winning the hearts the Nation to the cause. In every war there has been a significant effort to win this battle at home, but since Vietnam when the antiwar left won the propagada war via the liberal media, it hasn’t been easy. Unfortunately this administration seems at times completely enept in promoting their passion for victory to the American people - who I believe above all else want to win.