Blogs For Victory

It is a question being asked – and talked of very intelligently by Peter Wehner:

…he seems to be more of a populist and libertarian than a conservative, more of a Perotista than a Reaganite. His interest in conspiracy theories is disquieting, as is his admiration for Ron Paul and his charges of American “imperialism.” (He is now talking about pulling troops out of Afghanistan, South Korea, Germany, and elsewhere.) Some of Beck’s statements—for example, that President Obama has a “deep-seated hatred for white people”–are quite unfair and not good for the country. His argument that there is very little difference between the two parties is silly, and his contempt for parties in general is anti-Burkean (Burke himself was a great champion of political parties). And then there is his sometimes bizarre behavior, from tearing up to screaming at his callers. Beck seems to be a roiling mix of fear, resentment, and anger—the antithesis of Ronald Reagan.

I understand that a political movement is a mansion with many rooms; the people who occupy them are involved in intellectual and policy work, in politics, and in polemics. Different people take on different roles. And certainly some of the things Beck has done on his program are fine and appropriate. But the role Glenn Beck is playing is harmful in its totality. My hunch is that he is a comet blazing across the media sky right now—and will soon flame out. Whether he does or not, he isn’t the face or disposition that should represent modern-day conservatism. At a time when we should aim for intellectual depth, for tough-minded and reasoned arguments, for good cheer and calm purpose, rather than erratic behavior, he is not the kind of figure conservatives should embrace or cheer on.

Which is an arguable position – but a position I think wrong. Here’s why:

The Republican Party is not a majority party in the United States. Neither is the Democrat Party. Both parties are a minority dependent upon non-party voters to craft a governing majority. There is a theory that the GOP must moderate its tone in order to capture the votes of non-affiliated voters. These are voters who are not keen on politics, don’t pay daily attention to what is happening in politics, and are easily turned off by people coming across as too extreme. There is much to be said for this argument – but not right now.

We are in an era of political ferment; in my view, a nearly revolutionary ferment. Heck, so dissatisfied are people, on the whole, that even a large number of leftists are not liking the way Obama is governing – of course, they see it as him not being leftist enough, but the fact remains that only a very small minority are pleased with things as they are. Outside of the precincts of the left, the anger is palpable (the left calls it “hate”, but that is because the average leftist has been living in a bubble of lies for so long he can’t tell truth when it falls on him) – people are furious. Fed up. Mad as heck and not going to take it anymore.

Beck has either keyed in to it, or it has keyed in to him – regardless, he’s the representative of the fury of the people. This is not to say that Beck commands a political movement – no one commands this movement, which showed up in droves on September 12th in Washington, DC – but that he is speaking to them and for them much better than almost anyone else out there. Even such grand masters of conservative polemics like Rush and Hannity are not quite on the same plane, with the most disgruntled, as Beck is.

To speak of Beck as good or bad for conservatism is to miss entirely what is happening out there – Beck is neither good nor bad: he is what he is, and the people he speaks for and to are what they are…and we conservative Republicans had better figure out a way to court them or we’ll miss the opportunity of a lifetime to really reform our nation. The people, epitomized by Beck, are sick of the whole, rotten mess we call American government…make no mistake about it: they have no love for the GOP or the Democrat party. They share a greater affinity with the GOP than they do with the Democrats, but they aren’t an adjunct of either party, and they are open to the pleas of anyone who actually gets out there and speaks to their concerns and their demands. While a liberal Democrat would have a hard sell with this TEA Party movement, such a person would have far more luck than a conservative GOPer who shied away from the movement out of fear of being “extreme”.

These are revolutionary times – and as G. K. Chesterton once observed, if you wish to be conservative, you have to continually have revolutions. To paraphrase – if you wish to preserve a fence post, you have to keep painting it, or you’ll shortly have a rotted stump. If we wish to conserve the America we love, its going to take a revolution to do it – and you can’t have a revolution without revolutionaries. The people out there in the streets are the revolution – Beck is one of their prime spokesmen…he and they won’t always be 100% right and are bound to make mistakes as they go along. But they are the future – and it is time for we Republicans to grasp that future, and ask for their support, and pledge ourselves to a course of action which will save the America we all love.

What we’re fighting for:

Our contest is not only whether we ourselves shall be free, but whether there shall be left to mankind an asylum on earth for civil and religious liberty. – Samuel Adams

Mish’s talks it up in Strenuously Overbought, But…?

As all must know by now, I’m sure we’re in a bad way – we’re broke, massively in debt and engaged in a game of financial roulette, propelled by the Fed and other central banks just flooding the world with fiat money. This all might have worked (to an extent) if anyone was willing to go in to debt and buy stuff…but the American consumer isn’t interested. Its now a matter of saving money, first, and then spending, with care. The bonanza is over – no more massive increases in GDP courtesy of massive indebtedness. We can get rich, again – but only if we start working really hard and saving our pennies for a rainy day.

Its really all for the best, in the long run – heck, its already starting to make me a better person. Both more willing to donate to the less fortunate, and more careful in my spending. I hope it continues until I’m tithing on the one hand and have a fat savings account, on the other. Dollars to donuts most people are starting to get like this, at least to some degree. We’ll have a bit less debt-driven flash to our lives, but a lot more real wealth, where it really counts.

Michael Ledeen seems quite confident:

…a world-changing event: the death of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Khamenei and Ahmadinejad, and the rest of the evil empire in Tehran, are all dead men walking. We don’t know the schedule for the funeral yet, but Iranians know it’s on the agenda. One will get you ten at my betting window that, aside from a very thin veneer of top officials (for whom there is no hope, for they will fulfill the demand of the nightly rooftop chants), anyone who is anyone in Iran today is trying to make a deal with Mousavi and Karroubi. They are all whispering that their hearts are green, and always were green.

Khamenei & Co. certainly know this, as they know they are being betrayed by some very high-ranking people. And the exodus is under way; by the end of the week we will see some important representatives of the Islamic Republic resign their posts, for they do not wish to be associated with it any longer.

Nothing would delight me more – but I’m not as confident as Ledeen…with Obama making cooing noises to the Iranian thugs and Russia willing to back them up and the US MSM almost entirely ignoring the revolutionary ferment, it could be that the Iranian thugs might find enough people willing to go on a killing spree against the Iranian people. From what Ledeen is saying – and I don’t doubt it – a great deal of Iran’s security forces have either melted away or joined the revolution…but it only takes a few thousand determined killers to knock a revolution off its feet, unless it has armed power of its own.

And so – the question might come down to, what will the Iranian military do? If they stay out of it, then the Iranian government might survive…if they join the revolution, then the jig is up for the mullahs.

Crunch time in Afghanistan:

The top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan warns in an urgent, confidential assessment of the war that he needs more forces within the next year and bluntly states that without them, the eight-year conflict “will likely result in failure,” according to a copy of the 66-page document obtained by The Washington Post.

Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal says emphatically: “Failure to gain the initiative and reverse insurgent momentum in the near-term (next 12 months) — while Afghan security capacity matures — risks an outcome where defeating the insurgency is no longer possible.”

His assessment was sent to Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates on Aug. 30 and is now being reviewed by President Obama and his national security team.

McChrystal concludes the document’s five-page Commander’s Summary on a note of muted optimism: “While the situation is serious, success is still achievable.”

What will Obama do?

He can stay with what he’s got; scuttle the mission right away; or fight for complete victory. Naturally, I wish the President to fight for victory – and I’m certain that is what the troops want him to do, too. The only good option is to pour it on and do whatever proves necessary – to steel ourselves, as we did in 2007, to fight for victory regardless of cost. Scuttling or continued half-measures are the worst option…in either case, we’ll end up with defeat, though if we keep at it with insufficient forces we’ll have a higher death toll, ours and theirs.

We are about to find out, for certain, if Obama has the stuff of Presidents in him.

Discuss any breaking news or whatever comes to mind.

The story:

The president said he is “happy to look at” bills before Congress that would give struggling news organizations tax breaks if they were to restructure as nonprofit businesses.

“I haven’t seen detailed proposals yet, but I’ll be happy to look at them,” Obama told the editors of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and Toledo Blade in an interview.

Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.) has introduced S. 673, the so-called “Newspaper Revitalization Act,” that would give outlets tax deals if they were to restructure as 501(c)(3) corporations. That bill has so far attracted one cosponsor, Cardin’s Maryland colleague Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D).

It’ll get nowhere, but it does show (a) how bad its become for the dinosaur media and (b) how completely corrupt Democrats are…so corrupt they likely don’t even realize it when they’re doing it. Imagine, for a moment, if President Bush had stated he was open to a subsidy to, well, the old Blogs for Bush? After all, Matt and I were struggling a bit there and the blog advertising revenues weren’t enough to maintain a Washington Bureau…and, so, why not?

Well, because it would have been a sleazy use of taxpayer money to reward supporters – neither Bush or Matt and I would ever have contemplated such a thing, and if any one of us had, the other two would have smacked him down. No problem for our Democrats though…

Probably – because we used to call them “liberal Republicans”, now we call them “moderate Republicans” but mostly what it amounts to is “Republicans we can’t rely upon in a crisis” – anyways, looks like there’s a chance Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-ME) might bolt:

Senator Snowe’s mid-week remarks on her place in a changing GOP might seem tame. Snowe, a moderate Republican and senior senator from Maine, stated that “I haven’t changed as a Republican, I think more that my party has changed.” The comments came in an interview with John Harwood on CNBC. Citing the full quotation might be a useful background for the analysis that follows. Asked why she was a Republican, she answered:

Well, you know, it’s — I’ve always been a Republican for the traditional principles that have been associated with the Republican Party since I, you know, became a Republican when I registered to vote. And that is limited, you know, limited government, individual opportunities, fiscal responsibility, and a strong national defense. So I think that those principles have always been a part of the Republican Party heritage, and I believe that I, you know, reflect those views. And I haven’t changed as a Republican, I think more that my party has changed.

The MSM and the left eats this stuff up – here’s the supposed real-deal for the GOP: if only we’d all be more like her, we’d be able to get ahead! Its the endless refrain – if only we GOPers would become more liberal, all would be well. Of course, its all bull – and Snowe makes a liar out of herself in her own statement. If she’s for limited government and fiscal responsibility, then why did she vote for Obama’s Spendulus package? That is the definition of fiscally irresponsible big government.

There has to be room for dissenting voices in the GOP – but there must also be a certain cohesiveness to the party. One certain, crucial issues, a person has to either be with the party, or not in the party at all. Voting for the Spendulus wasn’t just another vote on another spending bill – it was a major, early victory for Barack Obama and the liberals in Congress. What the heck did we get in return for all our efforts to elect and re-elect Snowe? It didn’t help us at the moment we really needed it. And now we’re supposed to help re-elect her, again? Why? So she can cut us off at the knees one more time?

There is talk of finding a primary challenger for Snowe – and I hope we get one. Senator Snowe needs to learn that if she takes our sweat and our money, we expect at least a modicum of party discipline in return. At the bare minimum, no GOPer should be the vote which hands a signal victory to the liberals we all – moderates and conservatives – oppose. She doesn’t have to be a Republican – she’s free to switch to Democrat or Independent…but if she wants to be part of us, then we expect her to return the favor.

No more Specters in our party – no more RINOs. We’re Republicans – we range from rock ribbed conservatives like Sen. Jim DeMint (100% ACU rating) to fairly liberal Republicans like Rudi Giuliani…room at the table for all sorts, but no room for those who would betray us.

Interesting run-down of the scandal of NEA Spendulus grantees being conscripted to push Obamacare and other Obama programs. Read the whole thing – here’s the kicker:

But, there is even a larger issue that hasn’t yet received much attention in the press. Among the Obama Administration officials on the call were Buffy Wicks, Office of Public Engagement and the lead White House official on the President’s Serve.Gov initiative to promote national service. Also on the call was Nell Abernathy, Director of Outreach for Serve.Gov. One of their main goals on the call, it seems, was to encourage artists to produce works that would reinforce the President’s call for service; specifically through the Serve.Gov web-portal.

As Dana Loesch recently reported at Big Government, the Serve.Gov portal funnels citizens to volunteer or service projects connected with ACORN and other leftist groups. The taxpayer-funded website is evolving into a cyber-recruitment tool for the progressive movement.

So what did happen on that call? Was the NEA coordinating with the White House to push their agenda on a group of artists eager for and reliant upon the NEA for grants, or is the NEA telling the truth that this call “was not a means to promote any legislative agenda”?

Tomorrow at noon ET, explosive new information will answer that question and raise many others.

This if from Andrew Breitbart – he who brought us the ACORN scandals. When he says “explosive”, I’m expecting something rather large.

And once upon a time, Brzezinski was a fairly smart guy:

How aggressive can Obama be in insisting to the Israelis that a military strike might be in America’s worst interest?

We are not exactly impotent little babies. They have to fly over our airspace in Iraq. Are we just going to sit there and watch?

What if they fly over anyway?

Well, we have to be serious about denying them that right. That means a denial where you aren’t just saying it. If they fly over, you go up and confront them. They have the choice of turning back or not. No one wishes for this but it could be a Liberty in reverse.

“Insane” and “stupid” compete with each other in this statement. This is one of the top foreign policy minds in the Democratic party – their Grand Old Man of foreign affairs…and if the Israelis decide to strike Iran’s nuclear program (because they feel we won’t do anything about it…and we’re making it pretty clear we won’t do anything about it), he wants us to risk battle with the Israeli air force. Where do the Democrats get people like this?

The good news is that he’s not in charge of anything in Obama’s Administration…the bad news is that we’re relying on Hillary Clinton to give better advice.