Looks both the Republicans and Democrats are ignoring Von Clausewitz when they talk about Syria

GOP leaders are faulting the President for not being bold and decisive about Syria. I guess their model is Bush with Irag. Some model. Meanwhile the President is talking about a "measured response" to the Syrian dictatorship's ethnicidal efforts using war gases.

Republicans should remember that Von Clausewitz said never go to war until you get the people behind you. And the American people don't want us to get involved in Syria. I'm not saying they're right or wrong--just that if you do want to go to war, first you have to make sure of popular support. You don't have to make the argument after a Pearl Harbor or 9/11. You do when we haven't been attacked.

Democrats should remember that Von Clausewitz said if you do go to war, your first blow should be hard enough to flatten the enemy. War isn't a slap fight. That's why Bush's effort in Afghanistan was such a failure--he went in light, failed to get Bin Ladin, and while he decapitated the enemy regime in the capital, it had plenty of fight left, as the ensuing decade has shown.

I'm not saying a blow hard enough to impress Von Clausewitz would require a full invasion of Syria. But it would have to create "shock and awe" in the enemy.

Oh, and never make public threats you aren't willing to follow up on. Don't say something is unacceptable unless you mean it and act on that. Otherwise say something else.

Message for Republicans

To all the Republicans who are blogging and commenting in various media upon the occasion of Obama winning the race definitively:

Did you hear John McCain's noble and intelligent concession speech?
Did you hear him say what conservatives must do now?

Take his advice if you really love America.

Obama helps Republicans

If Obama wins this election, conservatives should breathe a sigh of relief—because then they’ll at least have a chance to reclaim their party.

Once the GOP represented prudent, responsible governance. Its big tent gladly included many moderates, including people like Chris Shays, Dick Lugar, Olympia Snow, and General Colin Powell (U.S. Army, Ret.)

Now it has become the party of corruption, incompetent governance, ideological rigidity, rash policies, and viciously underhanded politics. These are nonpartisan failings that have all been exhibited by the Democratic Party in other times. But now the Democrats are led by someone with a strong, even temperament, a solid command of the issues (as shown in the debates), and an exemplary personal life.

I wish I could say the same about the GOP ticket.

Obama’s campaign has indulged in a fair amount of lies and spin, but has not resorted to nonstop slander, demagoguery, and character assassination—the trademarks of Republican campaigns for decades, which, again, have nothing to do with conservatism, but everything to do with an institution whose founding ideals have been swamped by the goal of Winning At All Costs.

Republicans will be tempted to blame red herrings like campaign finance (ironically), media bias, and vote fraud for this debacle. Even more dangerously, the radical right will say the GOP lost because it wasn't radical enough.

But real conservatives will take their lumps, face facts, and start the extraordinarily difficult task of reforming their party. I hope they succeed.

Conservatives for Obama

The worst thing that could happen for conservatives next Tuesday would be a McCain/Palin victory.

When I was a kid in the Eisenhower era, "Republican" meant being conservative--i.e. conserve-ative: prudent, responsible, devoted to leading the whole country, fierce in war but reluctant to get into foreign adventures, not given to government solving all problems...yet it was Eisenhower who built our interstate highway system.

And Republican congressmen would have dinner with their Democratic compatriots.

Then the Democrats decided it was time to try to actually win the Civil War, and the White South became available as a bloc vote.

The Republicans under Nixon ate the rat poison and got the Southern White vote in exchange for adopting that region's 18th century mindset.

It's gotten so bad that they now call actual traditional Republicans "RINOs"--Republicans In Name Only.

The best, most thoughtful summary of all this showed up in Colin Powell's recent interview on "60 Minutes" in which he endorsed Obama, despite his close friendship with McCain over many years. The reasons Powell gave were a repudiation of the Bush/Rove direction they've given the party, which I'd sum up as winning at all costs through finding the low road, and then tunnelling under that.

Of course if McCain/Palin lose, these low-lifes in expensive suits will assert that they just didn't go low enough--as if that were even possible at this point.

But actual conservatives will at least have a chance of reclaiming their party.

America needs responsible liberal, conservative, and centrist voices in its politics. Not ranting left-wing whirlie-eyes and their right-wing soulmates. These morons have done their best to wreck both parties. I just hope and pray saner voices can stand up to them.

So if you're conservative, pray for an Obama landslide. I wouldn't have said that before McCain picked Palin and demagoguery as his running mates. But he did and made the choice simple.

General Colin Powell endorses Obama

General Powell represents the tip of the iceberg. Huge numbers of moderate Republicans--myself included--have been ethnically cleansed from the GOP by the Machiavellian corporatists and right wingnuts who hijacked it in the Reagan era.

Regardless of your opinion of either Powell or Obama--his comments on the current GOP's leadership and its vile campaign tactics ring true.

Remember Reagan's famous comment that the scariest words you can hear are "We're the government and we're here to help you."

Oh really? I didn't see the banks turning hanging up on Treasury Secretary Paulson lately.

Today's GOP has nothing in common with the GOP of Eisenhower--or General Powell. It has become profoundly corrupt.

I want a viable conservative alternative to the Democratic Party. Only a Republican rout on Nov. 4 will give us a chance of that. If you love what the Republican Party once was, pray for an Obama landslide. I'm not ga-ga over Obama. But given the actual alternatives, I find Powell's arguments convincing.

Pity Party for Conservatives

Kathleen Parker is the conservative Washington Post columnist who said Governor Palin isn't qualified to run the country. The comments to her latest column contained a lot of back and forth between angry conservatives and cheery liberals. Here's my contribution:

To the gloating democrats on this forum:

I think it's time to express a little sympathy for the conservatives. Think about it: we who didn't vote for Bush and his congressional co-conspirators have been tremendously harmed by these criminals. But we weren't betrayed. Because betrayel requires a violation of trust, and we never placed our trust in them.

Conservatives voters have been betrayed. They believe in limited government, limited taxes, prudent management of our country, avoiding foreign entanglements, and going after those who attack us remorselessly.

Their party has given them the biggest expansion of government in American history, a huge increase in taxes (albeit put off for a few years--but where do you think the payoff for that trillion-dollar debt's gonna come from?), management of our country by incompentent cronies and party hacks, foreign entanglements up the wazoo, and attacking the country that hadn't attacked us while making the most half-hearted of efforts to go after those who actually had attacked us.

So--you think we're angry? Imagine how they must feel.

The problem is that the party that betrayed them continues to betray them by working hard--and often successfully--to redirect their rage at the Democratic Party and its presidential nominee.

For example, here's the exact and complete text of the robocall that's going out to many thousands of GOP voters:

------------------------------------------

"Hello. I'm calling for John McCain and the RNC because you need to know that Barack Obama has worked closely with domestic terrorist Bill Ayres, whose organization bombed the U.S. capitol, the Pentagon, a judge's home, and killed Americans, and Democrats will enact an extreme leftist agenda if they take control of Washington. Barack Obama and his Democratic allies lack the judgment to lead our country.

"This call was paid for by McCain-Palin 2008 and the Republican National Committee at 202-863-8500."

-----------------------------------------

Now the rest of us look at Obama--his demeanor, his advisors, his innately cautious actions and proposals--and see anything but an "extreme leftist." I knew quite a few extreme leftists in college, and Obama's nothing like them.

The Republicans' efforts to paint Obama and his party as crazed socialist revolutionaries is despicable. They are seeking to delegitimize half the country and divide America into two warring tribes while our real enemies proceed with their plans.

But it's not hard to see how folks like the right wing ranters on this blog come by their beliefs.

Their only alternative is to repudiate the party they've trusted with their hopes and dreams--to realize that it has really, truly, profoundly betrayed them. These are people who respect authority more than we do, and to them such a repudiation feels like mutiny. Unthinkable.

I honestly feel sorry for them.

McCain: "I'm not George Bush"

McCain is right--he's not George Bush. His voting record makes him only 90% identical to George Bush. By Republican standards that certainly qualifies calling him a maverick.

But Obama has pointed out that this 10% divergence isn't in economic areas. Where pocketbook issues are concerned McCain is virtually identical to our current president.

I've no doubt that McCain would execute his duties better than Bush. I think he'd make more effort to actually enforce laws Congress enacts, instead of doing whatever he pleases, as Bush has done.

So McCain would be a better Bush.

Woo hoo.

Is ACORN the greatest danger to American democracy?

That's what McCain said in the last debate--probably the single most irresponsible statement made in the whole debate series.

I do agree that ACORN is doing something wrong: it's taking monies it has received for legitimate purposes and diverting those monies into handouts for street people, who then did their jobs with the kind of diligence you'd expect from, say, a crack addict.

The way the left pulls stunts like this--and the way the right morphs this nonsense into dark conspiracy theories in an effort to win elections by hook or by crook--exemplifies the perils of American democracy that Alexis de Toqueville warned about over 150 years ago.

How about this: make it illegal to pay people to register voters unless they're bonded. And stop sending taxpayer dollars to ACORN until they quit diverting voter drive money into their help-crack-addicts-gets-more-crack project.

And for some real election reform, how aboput a bipartisan national drive to make the job of state election chief a nonpartisan position? Having rabid partisans like Katherine Harris run their states' elections is a vastly worse problem than ACORN's idiotic malfeasance.

The conservative choice for President

I've heard a lot of Republican commentators tie themselves in knots trying to describe Palin as ready to become the President of the United States if McCain were incapacitated.

She is not. The Couric interviews were a truer measure of her readiness than the Biden debate, since it precluded responding with memorized talking points.

I'm not saying this because I think Obama's a cynosure. He isn't either, but he obviously has the intellectual capacity and general knowledge required, as well as what I'd call the "presidential temperament."

This is really important. My Republican friends--including my spouse--should not vote for the McCain ticket even if McCain and Palin espouse the same values.

So would many bright 15 year old conservatives.

A values match matters IF and only if the person in question is qualified to do the job.

I may have the right attitude for a fighter pilot, but it doesn't matter because I'm old, myopic, and lack the God-given physical coordination required of a fighter pilot. So my attitude/character/values are irrelevant.

Let me stipulate that you may well think poorly of Obama's political positions; ditto Biden. But they obviously meet the basic standard of competency. Heck, the way Obama's run his race--from zero to hero--proves it in spades.

But even if you think Obama is a liberal who will appoint the wrong Supreme Court justices and sign every pork-laden spending bill his party's Congress sends him (like Bush did)--he can run the country. Palin can't. You know she can't. And whether McCain can or not, his age and medical history mean that if Palin can't you can't vote for McCain--even if his values match yours perfectly.

This is a bitter pill to swallow. I realize that. And I don't feel exactly happy about voting for Obama. After all, Obama believes that the ruling elite of Mexico should get to export Mexico's home-grown overpopulation crisis to America, at the expense of working-class American jobs and wages. And his defense of this stance is completely specious. He's simply pandering to Latino voters. Too bad McCain isn't much better.

But I can't vote for a ticket that could put someone as unready as Palin in the most important job not just in America but on Earth.

And our votes must communicate to both parties that we won't let political positions trump incompetence.

If you don't believe me about Palin's unreadiness, go back and look at her long interviews with legitimate journalists. She didn't just flub the answers--she didn't understand the questions. Her performance went beyond nervousness. She. Is. Not. Up. To. The. Task.

I was honestly tempted by McCain until he picked Palin. But besides Palin's falling so far short of the mark, it reveals McCain as someone who's willing to roll the dice. I want someone more cautious for my president this time around. And I'd bet dollars to donuts that the thing Obama is probably keeping under his hat is that he's actually more small-c conservative--that is, cautious and willing to listen to knowledgeable others--than his most rabid supporters think he is.

Vote--however reluctantly--for Obama/Biden. It's the conservative choice.

Discrimination

Blacks gripe about racism, women about sexism, old coots about ageism...yet the three current candidates with a clear chance of becoming President of the United States are a self-identified Black, a woman, and an old coot (not self identified, but the guy's in his 70s).

No one in politics complains about religionism.

Okay, I made that word up. Because political discrimination against people who aren't religious is so pervasive, so much a given, that there's no need for a word to describe it in the public discourse.

Instead, many religious people constantly claim that they're being discriminated against.

I'll answer that simply. Does anyone claim that a professed atheist could become President of the United States, regardless of his or her qualifications? How about a Senator from any state? How about a Congressman from anywhere but a few urban/college town districts?

Our President could be a woman, a Black, an old guy--but not an atheist.

Nonreligious people amount to some 4-10% of America's population. And not one of them could run for president.

I think you could make a plausible argument that that's the largest minority in America which is categorically excluded from the highest office, not by law, but by practice--a practice that a majority of Americans find not just acceptable but mandatory.

So tell me why again that I should concern myself with discrimination against Blacks, women, etc. when they can be President...but I can't?

Let's start thinking about tomorrow sez the GOP

Main GOP talking points include denying that the past matters. Whenever critics point to the massive failures in judgment that led to the Iraq war and occupation, they say that's all water under the bridge and a diversion from facing what we have to do now.

That's the same as telling a trucking company manager not to look at prospective employees' driving records. He should just ask them how they propose to drive a big rig, and whether they believe truckers should avoid making stupid decisions.

And journalists fall for this time after time. Of course with all the major news outlets firmly in the control of major corporations, it's no wonder. Not that the journalists are being told to pander to the pols. Not necessary. You just create a work environment based on the principle that "If it bleeds it leads. If it thinks it stinks." That's enough.

What I want to hear from the candidates

I want to hear Clinton & Obama say what they'd do when pork-stuffed spending bills from the Democratic Congress reached the White House.

I want to hear McCain discuss the situation in Iraq--not his stance (stay 'till the last dog is hung). He's spoken about his stance nonstop. I want him to describe the situation--what's going on with the Sunnis, including Awakening factions and Al Qaeda-leaning ones, and where their support is coming from abroad (Saudi Arabia via Jordan and Syria mainly); The Shia, including the conflict between the Sadrists and the Maliki-"led" faction, and Al-Sistani, and where Shia support is coming from relative to these factions (that would be, by and large, different factions in Iran, one led by Ahmadinejad, the other by less hard-line folks, both opposed weakly by more liberal politicians, mostly out of office now).

Because while I don't think much of Clinton's braggadocio (next thing you know she'll be talking about how she was nailing snipers with a 50 cal. machine gun, hand-held) or Obama's attempt to become black after an totally unblack upbringing by attending the blackest church in Chicago and kissing off his white family to some extent, I think even less of McCain's apparent ignorance about who's who in Iraq. I appreciate his military background--that's fine with me. But just as I don't think Rev. McNasty was being taken out of context, and I don't think Clinton just misspoke, I'm not buying McCain's having "misspoke" either. I'll assume he's either ignorant or borderline senile until he speaks on Iraq enough to convince me that he knows what's going on there.

You Choose, You Lose

What's a centrist to do? It seems like none of the real presidential contenders are running for President of the United States. Instead each is running for a slice of the job. McCain is running for Commander in Chief; Romney for Our Nation's CEO; Obama for Chief Social Worker; and Clinton for Chief Administrator. Each of this is a valid, important role--but it's far from the whole enchilada.

And each seems to be seriously flawed from a centrist viewpoint. McCain simply isn't as smart as the rest, and his apparently higher integrity compared to the rest is coupled to him being very far to the right on abortion, yet kind of a left winger on illegal immigration, and certain to nominate more right wing judges than a Democrat, in the context of a Supreme Court that's mainly divided between hard right Republicans and more moderate Republicans.

Romney is sharp, but he has taken hard right positions on everything across the board, including the environment, abortion, and Supreme Court nominations. And he consistently uses uncompromisingly hard right language and nasty tropes in his campaigning. He cannot unite the country when he represents himself as purely and solely representing the ideas and prejudices of no more than a third of the country. Despite his opposition to illegal immigration--his saving grace--Romney offers the prospect of four more years of acrimonious gridlock in Washington. Like Bush, he treats those who disagree with him contemptuously.

Obama is the only candidate promoting driver's licenses for illegal aliens. He has adopted the illegal aliens' marching chant "Si se puede" as his own, both in Spanish and English ("Yes we can"). Meanwhile he has nothing to say about how employers have exploited abundant illegal alien labor to drive down blue-collar wages 10-25% and bust unions. And he has certainly not pledged to veto spending bills stuffed with pork and earmarks. So he presents the prospect of an out of control spending spree comparable to what Bush and a same-party Congress did for six years.

The same can be said of Clinton--she hasn't pledged to veto porky spending either, and she's vying with Obama to see how much she can pander to identity politics such as treating Latin Americans as Latinos first and foremost and Americans only as an afterthought. But because she hasn't been quite as spineless as Obama in the regard, I find her preferable. Which is too bad, because a president Obama--just the fact of it--would be a great start in repairing the damage Bush did to us internationally.

Fortunately we won't have to choose between four candidates this September--just between two. That will make choosing slightly less painful.