From Krauthammer:

…When the world’s expert on this type of counterterrorism warfare recommends precisely the opposite strategy — “counterinsurgency,” meaning a heavy-footprint, population-protecting troop surge — you have the most convincing of cases against counterterrorism by the man who most knows its potential and its limits. And McChrystal was emphatic in his recommendation: To go any other way than counterinsurgency would lose the war.

Yet his commander in chief, young Hamlet, frets, demurs, agonizes. His domestic advisers, led by Rahm Emanuel, tell him if he goes for victory, he’ll become LBJ, the domestic visionary destroyed by a foreign war. His vice president holds out the chimera of painless counterterrorism success…

There is a great deal of truth in that, especially as it relates to the sort of political advice Obama is getting. Given that Obama’s military knowledge is nil and his knowledge of Vietnam colored by the tenured radicals who educated him, Obama may find that the leftist advice he’s getting makes sense. To Obama, the story that LBJ was undone by war makes sense – but while LBJ was undone by Vietnam, he wasn’t undone for the reasons liberal think. To liberals – and thus to Obama – it was war, in and of itself, which doomed LBJ. The truth of the matter is quite different – it was failure to win the war which doomed LBJ.

For all the talk of the anti-war movement’s effect on the 1968 election, the fact of the matter is that all three major candidates (Nixon, Humphry, Wallace) were pledged to victory in Vietnam, by one means or another. The overtly anti-war candidates (Romney for the GOP, McCarthy for the Democrats) were trounced by their respective party nominees – neither of them ever really had a chance of being nominated. While it was anti-war McCarthy’s strong showing in New Hampshire which convinced Johnson to back out, the fact that Johnson’s pro-victory Vice President won the nomination indicates that the vote was more anti-Johnson than anti-war. Had Johnson secured victory – or at least seemed to be fighting for victory – then he probably would have been easily re-nominated, and almost certainly re-elected. Obama is drawing the wrong lesson – he needs to learn that he should fight to win, but what he’s getting is “don’t fight/don’t lose” – the very same advice which lost us Vietnam, and lost Johnson the Presidency.

Again and again I go back to the refrain – MacArthur’s “in war, there is no substitute for victory.” I keep saying it because it is absolutely true. A hard war doesn’t cause trouble; a long war doesn’t cause trouble – a war which is being lost causes trouble…and in a democracy, anything short of “clearly winning” translates in the public mind as “lost”. More than ever, what Obama needs is advice to keep fighting – to send the requested troops, to often visit the troops (here and in Afghanistan), to repeatedly state that victory is the goal. To nutshell it, Obama needs to become exactly like President Bush…clear, convincing and unflagging. If Obama does that, he’ll have a victorious war to his credit in 2012 – if Obama takes the advice he’s currently getting, he’ll have a lost war or a long, drawn out blood bath to his discredit in 2012. Fight and win, or wimp out and lose – and not just for himself, but for America and the world.

Be careful of what you say and do:

Brothers and sisters:

Indeed the word of God is living and effective,

sharper than any two-edged sword,

penetrating even between soul and spirit, joints and marrow,

and able to discern reflections and thoughts of the heart.

No creature is concealed from him,

but everything is naked and exposed to the eyes of him

to whom we must render an account. – Hebrews 4:12-13

Everything has to be accounted for – remember that.

Don’t break out the champagne, yet, but things are looking good:

Republican Robert F. McDonnell has taken a commanding lead over R. Creigh Deeds in the race for governor of Virginia as momentum the Democrat had built with an attack on his opponent’s conservative social views has dissipated, according to a new Washington Post poll…

…The poll indicates that the GOP is well-positioned to emphatically end a recent Democratic winning streak, with Republicans Bill Bolling and Ken Cuccinelli each holding identical 49 to 40 percent leads over Democrats Jody Wagner and Steve Shannon for lieutenant governor and attorney general.

On the other hand, the race for NJ governor is very tight. In the end, I expect we’ll win – but New Jersey has shown itself again and again to be a State which will vote Democrat no matter what. In a year of high unemployment and a very unpopular, incompetent Democrat governor, this might prove enough to convince even New Jersey that the GOP might be the better option.

Be that as it may, the fact that we’re surging so strongly in Virginia shows, I believe, that the effects of our 2006-08 losses have faded…we’re getting back on track. Of course, we’re being fabulously helped by the Democrats being more incompetent and corrupt than even we figured they’d be – but even taking in to consideration that help, its clear that the messages of low taxes and balanced budgets are once again winners for the GOP.

Here is someone else who was nominated for the Nobel this year:

An attorney who is one of several human rights activists in China working with Chen Guangcheng against forced abortions is one of the nominees who lost the Nobel Peace Prize award to pro-abortion President Barack Obama. The committee awarded the prize to Obama after his serving just 11 days in office.

Hu Jia, an activist on other issues, is an attorney for Chen and an outspoken critic of the Chinese government in part because of the forced abortions and sterilizations that occur in its one-child family planning campaign.

But the Nobel Committee was smart enough to pass over this nobody who’s done nothing and give the prize to the really deserving.

Wonder if they’ll pay attention?

House Democrats had better start taking the ethics allegations against Rep. Charlie Rangel seriously. I know it’s difficult for those steeped in Capitol Hill’s hermetic culture to understand, but a verdict of “mistakes were made” — which a lot of Democrats would like to reach — doesn’t cut it in the real world. Strange as it seems. Seriously…

…But just because Republicans are posturing for political gain doesn’t mean that Democrats can do the same without paying a price. If you win big majorities in both the House and Senate by railing against a “culture of corruption” in Washington, as the Democratic Party did, voters tend to get the wacky notion that you actually mean what you say.

The violations that Rangel is alleged to have committed are, inconveniently for him, easy for anyone to understand. The most serious, perhaps, is the allegation that he failed to pay taxes on about $75,000 in income from renting out a beach house that he owns in the Dominican Republic. For the chairman of the House committee that writes tax legislation not to pay his fair share in taxes would be as bad as, say, for the secretary of the Treasury not to pay his fair share in taxes. Hold it, maybe that’s a bad example…

…The real problem, though, is the overall portrait of a wealthy and privileged congressional pasha to whom ordinary rules don’t apply. It’s a picture that obscures Rangel’s long and tireless work in the House on behalf of the needy and dispossessed. It pains me to see his record tarnished, because I like and admire the guy. But he’s the one who did the tarnishing.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi may owe Rangel her job, but she needs to press the ethics committee to do its work without fear or favor. And she needs to contemplate the prospect of explaining to voters, come next fall, why the affluent man who sets their taxes didn’t pay his.

And that is it, in a nutshell. Even if one wishes to believe that the economy will be significantly better by November of 2010, the fact remains that it won’t be great and a lot of people will still be out of work. When you add to frustration over the economy the fact that the political class is corrupt, you can easily get a tidal wave of political change. Keep in mind that the GOP lost its Congressional majority in the relatively prosperous year of 2006. 8%+ unemployment coupled with Culture of Corruption could swing an election from the expected 25-seat Democrat loss to 50 or more (and I think unemployment will be 10%+ at that time…).

The message from the people is very loud and clear – stop the corruption, stop the back room deals, stop tax, spending and borrowing up in to oblivion. Democrats have preferred to concentrate on un-needed and un-wanted reforms to health care and energy along with preparing to scuttle Afghanistan and various oddities about extended “hate crimes” laws to homosexuals and allowing women to serve on submarines. In addition to this, Democrats have, if anything, become more arrogantly corrupt since they won the whole ball of wax last November – they seem to think they’ve won another 40 year term as majority.

If the Democrats don’t heed the voices of wisdom on their own side, they will head towards catastrophe next year.

Here it is in PDF – a quote:

Dear Attorney General Holder,

As you are aware, the Commission on Civil Rights investigates, among other things, complaints alleging that citizens are being deprived of their right to vote by reason of their race, color, religion, sex, age, disability and national origin, or by reason of fraudulent practices. Referred to as the “conscience of the nation,” the Commission and its individual members have historically stood against systemic efforts to corrupt the electoral process and disfranchise qualified voters…

…In November 2008, several commissioners wrote to your predecessor, Attorney General Michael Mukasey, urging him to launch a nationwide investigation into ACORN’s practices in the face of widespread evidence that it has engaged in filing possibly hundreds of thousands of fraudulent voter registration applications in some fourteen states – in invidious invitation for corruption in our electoral process…

…We respectfully urge the Department of Justice to undertake such a full-fledged, nationwide investigation of ACORN, including an assessment of whether ACORN’s conduct violates various applicable federal statutes, and to conduct its work with all deliberate speed. The integrity of our electoral system demands no less.

Ok, liberals; commence explaining this away. Also, we wonder how long before Obama manages to get a new Commission appointed? Certainly can’t have a Commission which asks for this sort of thing – next thing you know, people might start demanding that only citizens vote…and they only vote once! What would Democrats do if that came to pass?

This just sorta slipped out in the New York Times:

Slipped ever so casually into a New York Times profile on Dr. Francis Collins, the new director of the National Institutes of Health, is this stunning and not-so-objective example of reporting:

“First, there is the God issue. Dr. Collins believes in him. Passionately. And he preaches about his belief in churches and a best-selling book. For some presidential appointees, that might not be a problem, but many scientists view such outspoken religious commitment as a sign of mild dementia.”

Excuse me. Rewind the tape, please. Did the New York Times just say that people who believe in God and talk about it have dementia?

In an otherwise unremarkable profile, this offhand remark, which is never backed up by anything that could even remotely be considered “evidence,” is included as part of a discussion on whether Dr. Collins, who happens to be Christian, could possibly handle the reins of NIH and believe in God at the same time. Quoted in the article is another doctor who says that Dr. Collins’ two-year search for God after being questioned by a patient about his beliefs and his conclusion that yes, there is a God, is “enough to cause concern.”

One of the many things which amazes me is how monumentally stupid some people will be as regards religion. The knots some people twist themselves in to over their insistence on non-belief is amazing. Its plain as a pikestaff that God exists (one of a hundred examples: if the universe is expanding, it must be expanding in to something…meaning there is something before, and thus outside, the universe; try and work that in to Darwinism, suckers), but here come the non-believers who simply will not admit that there might be something smarter than they are. Its really rather sad – and sterile, too.

While some do hold to “special creation” – that God created everything as is at some relatively recent time – most people are ok with a universe billions of years old. Most are also ok with evolution – I mean, if we’re talking about a creature which, via slow stages, changed from ape to man, who really wants to argue against it? Especially since so many men can be ape-like in their day to day affairs? But what is stupid is to say that it happened by accident – that some self-creating microbe billions of years ago by accident changed in to a man…and also in to a whale…and a fruit fly…and a lizard…it just can’t happen. It defies common sense to believe such an idiotic notion…but it is believed. And so stout is the belief that, per the above article, these people are coming to view belief in God as a mental disorder (which, even if they are right, it can’t be – if we really did evolve by accident to have the best means of survival, then belief in God is proven to be part of our vital survival evolution…those who are denying God are denying evolution, and essentially trying to kill us all…if we take their views at face value; such is the topsy-turvydom of the non-believers).

I also wonder why they bother – it takes a lot of work to be a non-believer. You have to continually reinforce your non-belief – can’t for a moment allow even a sliver of the supernatural, or the jig is up. Meanwhile, believers are free to believe in God and evolution – both of which tend to make sense of the world as we know it.

After all this talk as candidate and President about taking the fight to Taliban, now we get this:

President Obama’s national security team is moving to reframe its war strategy by emphasizing the campaign against Al Qaeda in Pakistan while arguing that the Taliban in Afghanistan do not pose a direct threat to the United States, officials said Wednesday.

As Mr. Obama met with advisers for three hours to discuss Pakistan, the White House said he had not decided whether to approve a proposed troop buildup in Afghanistan. But the shift in thinking, outlined by senior administration officials on Wednesday, suggests that the president has been presented with an approach that would not require all of the additional troops that his commanding general in the region has requested.

In other words: Obama’s leftwing base is opposed to fighting for victory in Afghanistan while an outright cut-and-run would damage Obama irretrievably on the national security and terrorism issues…so, a compromise and, like all compromises in war, its a miserable thing. Obama’s team – if not yet Obama – is leaning towards a cowardly scuttle of Afghanistan. Perhaps with a “decent interval” to get Obama past the 2012 campaign.

This cannot be allowed – to surrender Afghanistan to the Taliban (and any “power sharing” arrangement would just be a temporary delay of outright Taliban control) is to lose the War on Terrorism. It will completely undo all our efforts since 9/11 and put us squarely back where we were the day we pulled out of Somalia in 1993. We’ll become sitting ducks – waiting here at home in a defensive crouch for the enemy to strike…but an ever more inattentive crouch as months and years go by with no direct attack on us. We’ll have 9/11, again – perhaps with WMD instead of hijacked planes.

We must fight – and keep fighting as long as is necessary to turn Afghanistan in to a viable nation with a reasonable level of liberty and prosperity. If we do anything else, then we just sign the death warrants of untold thousands of people – Americans among them, in the by and by. Its fight now, or fight later – and Obama’s people, typical of corrupt, liberal elites, are only thinking of the next year or two…that thousand might die after 2012 doesn’t concern them in the least…only the next election matters.

As usual:

Former President George W. Bush addressed a capacity crowd Wednesday night at the Wilderness Resort and Convention Center in Sevierville.

Bush wowed a crowd of more than 9,000 that attended a three-day conference of the Phil Waldrep Ministries based in Decatur, Ala.

Bush gave the enthusiastic crowd a patriotic message of joy, hope and faith in our families…

…The former president shied away from any political stance and said each U.S. leader must surround themselves with people they can trust.

“Always surround yourself with people that you’re not afraid to listen to,” he said.

“Base your decisions on your values that are steadfast and don’t change with the times. It’s essential that when you look in the mirror you can be proud of what you see. Never compromise your values for popularity. Take a stand and defend it.”

Bush said he was proud to represent the United States during his eight-year tenure.

“The institution of president is so much more important than the person,” he said. “I tried to bring honor to the office for eight years.”

Obama and Co can’t go a day, it seems, without using President Bush as a whipping boy – President Bush simply cannot bring himself to offer criticism, even of those who hate him. A Christian and a gentleman, its just not in him to match his critics’ invective.

I said back in 2008 that we’re going to miss him – I certainly do: I’d give my right arm to have him back in the White House for just a week, in order to make the decisions necessary to carry Afghanistan through.

Nauseating:

France’s Culture Minister Frederic Mitterrand is facing intense pressure over a book he wrote that described paying for “young boys” in Thailand.

The book was written four years ago, before he joined the government, but is back in the headlines following his impassioned support for Roman Polanski.

Polanski has been arrested in Switzerland on child sex charges.

Mr Mitterrand, nephew of late President Francois Mitterrand, is expected to defend himself on TV later on Thursday.

Mr Mitterrand has come under attack from right and left.

In his 2005 book The Bad Life, he wrote: “I got into the habit of paying for boys,” saying his attraction to young male prostitutes was not dimmed despite knowing “the sordid details of this traffic”.

“All these rituals of the market for youths, the slave market excited me enormously… the abundance of very attractive and immediately available young boys put me in a state of desire.”

With people like Mitterrand high up in French government, its small wonder that a child molester like Polanski could be protected for decades.

But there is a larger issue, here: the complete break down of morality in elite circles has led to this sort of depravity. How many more are there like Mitterrand high up in government and corporations? Men who fly to poor nations and purchase boys and girls for sexual gratification? How can we have a moral society if the people who run it are grossly immoral, or even just willing to turn a blind eye to such abominations?

Hiding under the absurd “right to privacy”, protected by the cultural imperative to not be “judgmental” and ensconced in a world of wealth and privilege, we’re seeing the complete collapse of basic, human decency on a grand scale. Some one like Mitterrand would be lucky to escape with his skin a mere 50 years go – now, he might be forced out of government, but he won’t be forced out of the good life…and there could be rehabilitation for him, at some point…as long as he doesn’t offend the cultural elites, they’ll find it in their hearts to forgive…after all, to someone like Mitterrand (or Polanski), what is one, little boy, more or less? Its not like it was “rape-rape”, ya know?

We have to start insisting upon basic decency, again – no man or woman who breaks core, Judeo-Christian principles should be allowed power and privilege in our society. Its either that, or see this just get worse and worse.