Showing, once again, that the best man doesn’t always win – from Breitbart:

US Senator John McCain Sunday slammed the July 2011 target for beginning to pull US troops out of Afghanistan, saying setting a firm date for withdrawal would raise questions about US commitment there.

“I’m concerned about the perception of our friends and our enemies as well as the people in Afghanistan, as to the depth of our commitment,” McCain told ABC news in an interview from Kabul.

The Republican lawmaker and former prisoner of war said the policy of announcing a planned draw down date was a “bad idea,” and that the United States should only leave Afghanistan when the country is stable enough to maintain a strong government.

Which is the only sensible thing to do – but good sense is in short supply in DC these days. I recall watching a short bit of the Petraeus confirmation hearings where I believe it was Sen. Leahy (D-VT) who said that time tables proved their worth in Iraq. A statement more at variance with the facts would be harder to find – it was because President Bush stubbornly resisted Democrat attempts at setting a time table that we were able to win, at all. Obama’s July, 2011 time table just sets the date for our defeat.

The enemy is just waiting until we leave and our friends – actual and prospective – in the area are trimming their sails to the withdrawal date. This is what bin Laden was on about when he talked of strong and weak horses – the strong horse isn’t necessarily the fastest or more muscular horse, but the horse with the greatest endurance. Right now, we’ve set a limit to our endurance, and our enemies are determined to last just one day longer.

General Petraeus has signaled that he doesn’t mean to hold to the July, 2011 time table, and that is good. But the ultimate decision isn’t his, it belongs to President Obama. The President must, in public, set aside July, 2011 and commit to victory…which may, by the way, come sooner than July of 2011 if we show that we’re not going to quit. People would much prefer a peace based upon our ideals than upon the Taliban’s – but they’ll swallow the Taliban if there is no other choice.

Right now, for them, there is no other choice – we must change that.

From Quinnipiac:

New York City voters oppose 52 – 31 percent a proposal by a Muslim group to build a mosque and cultural center two blocks from Ground Zero, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released today. Another 17 percent are undecided.

Opinions about the proposed mosque range from 46 – 36 percent support among Manhattan voters to 73 – 14 percent opposition in Staten Island, the independent Quinnipiac (KWIN-uh-pe-ack) University poll finds…

It is just plain and simple wrong-headed for any Moslems, anywhere, to think that a mosque in proximity to Ground Zero is a good idea – and the fact that a Moslem group is trying to do it demonstrates the level of contempt they have for America.

This, in turn, stems from the way Moslems view non-Moslems as, in varied hues, scum of the Earth. Remember, no non-Moslem is to be allowed in Mecca. The very presence of you, dear reader, is an intolerable pollution. Small wonder that Moslems would want to deliberately insult the memory of the non-Moslem dead by building a mosque close to Ground Zero.

I don’t care how it gets stopped, but it must be stopped – no mosque at Ground Zero, not now and not until the Moslem world ceases to view non-Moslems as filth…until, as I’ve said before, a church is freely operating in Mecca.

As the economy starts to tank and visions of a Republican Congress start materializing, Democrats are starting to press for a stimulus which, they hope, might keep the economy afloat until after election day – from The Hill:

…In letters, interviews, and public statements, President Barack Obama, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and other senior Democrats are now raising red flags that the economy could falter without additional stimulus efforts.

Obama urged congressional leaders in mid-June to pass an extension of tax breaks and unemployment benefits, and up to $50 billion in aid for states and local governments. Without Congress acting, Obama said the economy could “slide backwards.” …

It is already sliding backwards, its just that it’ll be two or three months before the slide shows up in the GDP numbers. The money for the States and local governments is to keep government employees on the job – all I can see tells me that the Democrats biggest fear is an unemployment rate of more than 10% come election day. As it stands right now, quite a lot of government employees are going to get the boot from our bankrupt States…unless Obama Claus slides down the chimney with magical federal money.

All is to be subordinated to keeping Pelosi in the Speaker’s chair and some Democrat as Majority leader (they are already getting ready to write off Reid, I’m sure). The liberals are deathly afraid of both having their agenda derailed and Republicans in charge of government oversight – too many crooked deals have happened too recently. They don’t want them looked in to by anyone who would want to find the truth.

Our job, as Republicans, is to block them at every turn – no amount of stimulus will fix what wasn’t fixed by the previous, much larger stimulus and, indeed, any attempt to do so will just make matters worse. We daren’t allow Democrats to further mortgage our future just to try and save their political hides. Fight them out toe to toe, and let the voters decide in November.

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume, among the Powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security…

From CNN’s Anderson Cooper – when you start ticking off liberal MSMers like Cooper, you know you’ve really stepped in it:

Really miss having a great President.

…I therefore invite the good people of the United States, on the approaching 4th day of July, in addition to the usual observances with which they are accustomed to greet the return of the day, further, in such manner and at such time as in their respective localities and religious associations may be most convenient, to mark its recurrence by some public religious and devout thanksgiving to Almighty God for the blessings which have been bestowed upon us as a nation during the century of our existence, and humbly to invoke a continuance of His favor and of His protection.

In witness whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.

Done at the city of Washington, this 26th day of June, A. D. 1876, and of the Independence of the United States of America the one hundredth.

U. S. GRANT.

From Rasmussen:

Voters trust Republicans more than Democrats on nine out of 10 key issues regularly tracked by Rasmussen Reports…

The really curious thing is that Democrats are more trusted on ethics. Yes, the party of Reid and Pelosi is more trusted than the GOP. This shows not strong Democrat ethics, but just how badly we screwed up. We must always remember this – how we lost the public’s trust and how hard its going to be for us to earn it back.

The rest of the poll, though, is a disaster for Democrats trying to stave off defeat in November. Republicans hold an 11 point edge in health care, 9 points on the economy, 16 points on taxes, 10 points on abortion, 17 points on national security, 15 points on immigration – and even by two points in education. Democrats have entirely wrecked the glow of good feelings they had on election night, 2008 – the bottom is out of the political tub for them

Four score and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth upon this continent a new nation: conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war. . .testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated. . . can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war.

We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate. . .we cannot consecrate. . . we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember, what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here.

It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us. . .that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion. . . that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain. . . that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom. . . and that government of the people. . .by the people. . .for the people. . . shall not perish from the earth. – Abraham Lincoln, November 19th, 1863

…Of all the dispositions and habits, which lead to political prosperity, Religion and Morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of Patriotism, who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness, these firmest props of the duties of Men and Citizens. The mere Politician, equally with the pious man, ought to respect and to cherish them. A volume could not trace all their connexions with private and public felicity. Let it simply be asked, Where is the security for property, for reputation, for life, if the sense of religious obligation desert the oaths, which are the instruments of investigation in Courts of Justice? And let us with caution indulge the supposition, that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect, that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle… – George Washington, September 17, 1796