Blogs For Victory

NRO got a statement from the Clinton campaign about the delegate decisions…and it ended with this:

We reserve the right to challenge this decision before the Credentials Committee and appeal for a fair allocation of Michigan’s delegates that actually reflect the votes as they were cast.

A credentials fight at the convention. As noted earlier, there are efforts in the Obama camp to ease Hillary out, but I don’t thin she wants to be eased out. They are going to have to force her out, and the only way to do that is to have Obama secure a majority of delegates as if FL and MI were fully represented at the convention…in other words, I don’t see Hillary quitting even if Obama gets to 2025…he’ll have to go 100 above that, and I don’t think he’ll be able to do it, because as long as Hillary hasn’t conceded, there will be some superdelegates who will stick with her no matter what, and others too afraid to vote against her (they don’t know what Obama will do if they don’t help him out, but anyone in politics over the past 16 years knows the sorts of things Hillary WILL do to them if she’s crossed).

I don’t see this ending on Tuesday – certainly not before late June.

UPDATE: Hillary wins Puerto Rico by a convincing margin. Obama is still acting as if he won. Does this work to Obama’s advantage? I mean this treating Hillary as a negligible quantity and all this orchestrated talk about how Hillary has to back out? Does it make Obama seem strong, or does it make him seem disrespectful of a gallant opponent? Contemptuous of Hillary’s continuingly ardent supporters? The MSM is entirley on Obama’s side here (the linked AP story calls Hillary’s win today “largely symbolic”), but I wonder if Obama is getting into an echo-chamber much as Kerry did in 2004 and doesn’t understand that outside his ardent supporters, he’s a much diminished figure?

From the Wall Street Journal:

… al Qaeda finds itself on the ideological backfoot, even in radical circles. As our Bret Stephens reported in March, Sayyed Imam, a founder of Egyptian Islamic Jihad and once a mentor to Ayman al Zawahiri, has written an influential manifesto sternly denouncing his former comrades for their methods and theology. This was enough to prompt a 215-page rebuttal from Zawahiri, who seems to have time on his hands. Lawrence Wright in the New Yorker and Peter Bergen and Paul Cruickshank in the New Republic have recently written about similar jihadist defections.

But the U.S. offensives in Afghanistan and especially Iraq deserve most of the credit. The destruction of the Taliban denied al Qaeda one sanctuary, and the U.S. seems to have picked up the pace of Predator strikes in Pakistan – or at least their success rate. This has damaged al Qaeda’s freedom of movement and command-and-control.

As for Iraq, Zawahiri himself last month repeated his claim that the country “is now the most important arena in which our Muslim nation is waging the battle against the forces of the Crusader-Zionist campaign.” So it’s all the more significant that on this crucial battleground, al Qaeda has been decimated by the surge of U.S. forces into Baghdad. The surge, in turn, gave confidence to the Sunni tribes that this was a fight they could win. For Zawahiri, losing the battles you say you need to win is not a way to collect new recruits…

…One irony here is that Barack Obama is promising a rapid withdrawal from Iraq on grounds that we can’t defeat al Qaeda unless we focus on Afghanistan. He opposed the Iraq surge on similar grounds. Yet it is the surge, and the destruction of al Qaeda in Iraq, that has helped to demoralize al Qaeda around the world. Nothing would more embolden Zawahiri now than a U.S. retreat from Iraq, which al Qaeda would see as the U.S. version of the Soviet defeat in Afghanistan.

It is far too soon to declare victory over al Qaeda. Still, Mr. Hayden’s upbeat assessment is encouraging, and it suggests that President Bush’s strategy of taking the battle to the terrorists is making America safer.

After the buildings came down I, like the rest of you, was in a state of shock for a while. After the shock wore off a little bit came the desire to wreck vengeance upon those who did this. But that wore off, too. After shock and rage had played themselves out over a few days, one began to think about what to do. A cruel foe had reached out from across the seas and killed thousands of Americans at trifling cost to himself. Even if we went on an extended bombing run against terrorist targets around the globe, the plain fact of the matter is that the enemy could trade punches with us like that indefinitely and we’d always come out the loser in the exchange – bomb the heck out of a terrorist training camp and you might kill a score or two terrorists…but the other score is already enroute to the US, where they will killed hundreds, if not thousands. It became clear to me that a fundamental change had to be effected, some how, in the way things were done.

One of the first thing which occurs to a person who starts to think about the people of the middle east is that they are, indeed, people. As I am also a people, I tried to imagine what I – translated into the highly conservative, Moslem society – might want out of life. I figured that I wanted to be mostly left alone, and if I had a wife and children then I would want very much to provide them the best life I could, with a mind towards my children having an overall better life than I experienced. “Left alone” and “life” became the most important parts of the equation because life is pretty miserable in most of the middle east, and the on thing the people there aren’t is “left alone”. They are pestered by Islamists. Pestered by secret police. Pestered by con artists who want their blood and treasure in order to enrich themselves. And, sure, they might hate with a white-hot passion the very concept of Israel, but for the guy in Cairo who has to bribe an official just to he can open up a small shop, or the guy in Riyadh who is being harrassaed by the “virtue police” because his wife’s ankle was seen in public…well, hating Israel takes a backseat to more day to day concerns. I developed a bet I was willing for us to make:

That given a free choice, the masses of the Arab/Moslem world would choose to live and build rather than kill and destroy.

Now, while I have been and will always be a strong supporter of President Bush, its not like he called me and asked my advice. I had no idea what he would do any faster than any other regular American. But when I saw his policies developing – not treating terrorism as a law enforcement issue; understanding that this was a twilight struggle in which military force would only be partially useful; that there is an evil ideology out there using Islam as a means to an end; that anyone who sponsors terrorism must be considered at least somewhat an enemy of the United States, even if they haven’t done anything to us; that pre-emptive strikes might be needed – I was in complete agreement, because I figured that President Bush and team were seeing the situation in much the same way I was. And then came Iraq.

Well, truth be told, them came the long song and dance about Iraq which delayed action for at least 9 months (one of the more amusing aspects of leftwing criticism is their stout insistence that we “rushed” into Iraq). I wanted us to go into Iraq – and I didn’t really care what particular reason we used because we had a perfectly good legal right – in both US and international law – to go into Iraq any time we wanted and overthrow the wicked Saddamite regime. I wish, very often, that we hadn’t used WMD as a main (but not the only reason, as our leftwing friends assert) reason, but only because our failure to find the large stocks of WMDs everyone in the world knows where there in 2002 has allowed the left to cast a cloud of doubt over the whole effort. Among the score of perfectly valid reasons for liberating Iraq – any one of which, by itself and even without 9/11 as an ice-breaker, as it were – the one I wanted was the bit about overthrowing Saddam and helping the Iraqi people towards a free future. From the war resolution:

Whereas Iraq persists in violating resolutions of the United Nations Security Council by continuing to engage in brutal repression of its civilian population thereby threatening international peace and security in the region, by refusing to release, repatriate, or account for non-Iraqi citizens wrongfully detained by Iraq, including an American serviceman, and by failing to return property wrongfully seized by Iraq from Kuwait…

…Whereas the Iraq Liberation Act (Public Law 105-338) expressed the sense of Congress that it should be the policy of the United States to support efforts to remove from power the current Iraqi regime and promote the emergence of a democratic government to replace that regime…(emphasis added)

I backed this and very much wanted this because I wanted the Iraqi people to have that free choice – to decide whether they wanted to live and build, or kill and destroy. It has taken a lot of fighting and some heartbreaking losses and setbacks, but we’ve now done it. The Iraqi people are, for the first time in their history, being allowed to freely choose what sort of lives they will have…and they are choosing to be free, and they are choosing to fight for this freedom. They want to live and they want to build – just like all other sane human beings in the world, Iraqis want to be pretty much left alone and allowed to live their lives. Only thusly could we show a different paradigm to the people of the Arab/Moslem world and defuse the strength of Islamist propaganda – and it should be noted here that this propaganda says that the only way Moslem people can regain power and prosperity is to kill at the bidding of Islamists. Iraq is demonstrating that power and prosperity can be secured without the Islamists – and, indeed, in partnership with the United States of America, even though America is a friend of Israel. The linked article notes how al-Qaeda is up against the wall – this didn’t happen “just because”; it happened because the US went into this with a desire to bring something better to the people of Iraq, and they are now responding heavily in our favor.

As I said before the liberation began, it is either do this deed and thereby change the middle east for better, or play around the edges of the issue and be faced with the inevitible WMD terrorist attack in the United States. We couldn’t fight them outside the middle east – outside their homeland, that is – with any prospect of success. Dangerous as it was – and it was an immense risk we took; those who argued that it couldn’t be done weren’t just being fools – it had to be tried. If we failed, then we failed and we’d have to just to the best we could to thwart the enemy….but if we won (and we have), then the whole dynamic would change in our favor, and we come into a position where we can end the use of terrorism as a means of political assertion.

Still a lot left to do in Iraq – but the only way we can lose it now (and give up all the gains we’ve made) is to elect a President who is so blind in his knee-jerk leftism that he won’t change his anti-war views to suit current condition…to elect, that is, an Obama pledged to defeat. Only thus can we lose.

HAT TIP: NRO’s The Corner

UPDATE: US deaths at a post-liberation low, Iraq oil production at a post-liberation high…which means our lefties will be back on the “blood for oil” meme, but what it really means is that we’re winning.

This is a news story about how the Obama camp plans to get Hillary out of the race – and it is a nightmare scenario for the United States:

After today’s primary election in Puerto Rico and Tuesday’s final contests in Montana and South Dakota, the remaining super-delegates will come under huge pressure from fellow party grandees to declare their hands.

The Obama camp, however, remains nervous about Mrs Clinton’s intentions and ambitions, and is preparing a face-saving package that will allow her to continue to play a role in health care reform, which has been her signature issue for more than a decade. Despite pressure from some Clinton allies, Mr Obama and his advisers do not wish to ask her to be his vice-presidential running mate. “They will talk to her,” one Democrat strategist close to senior figures in the Obama camp told The Sunday Telegraph. “They will give her the respect she deserves. She will get something to do with health care, a cabinet post or the chance to lead the legislation through the Senate.”

Another Democrat who has discussed strategy with friends in the Obama inner circle said that Mr Obama was openly considering asking Mrs Clinton to join his cabinet, alongside two other former presidential rivals: John Edwards, who is seen as a likely attorney general; and Joe Biden, who is a leading contender to become Secretary of State.

Hillary to run health care, Edwards to run law enforcement and Biden to run State – all under an empty-suit leftist! Anyone who figures that a period of Democratic rule will work to conservatism’s benefit is a purblind idiot from this point on!

Hillary’s health care plan is a catastrophic government take over. Edwards is hack lawyer who is a complete tool of the trial lawyers. Biden is one of the Democratic Senators who introduced legislation in January of 2007 calling for no increase in US troop levels in Iraq. Hillary will bankrupt healthcare; Edwards will use the Justice Department to enrich his trial lawyer puppet-masters; the man who wanted to ensure our defeat in Iraq will orchestrate our surrender to Iran over Iraq. And you think Obama will do anything to make it better? He hasn’t the first clue about real political in-fighting and he’ll be a feather blown on the winds of these dedicated political gamesmen. This is what we’ll get if we don’t win – except, even worse, we’ll also get leftwing extremist judges and bureaucrats who will try to regulate us to death “for the children”.

The news story:

Barack Obama and his wife Michelle have resigned their membership at the Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, FOX News has confirmed, after controversies stemming from the congregation created a persistent distraction for Obama’s campaign.

The criticism started with the sermons of his former pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr., but Obama’s pastor problems were compounded this week by the Rev. Michael Pfleger, whose videotaped guest sermon at the church Sunday showed him taunting Hillary Clinton and saying she felt she was “entitled” to the presidency because she’s white.

Obama said he was deeply disappointed by the remarks and Pfleger apologized, but Clinton’s campaign still demanded Obama specifically reject the latest remarks.

By resigning his membership, Obama is taking the most definitive stand to date against the church.

All he needs to do now is to specifically condemn the actual teaching, by name, of Trinity United – once he does that, then the matter is closed. I doubt that he will, though; too much of his leftwing base is 100% in agreement with the preaching of Trinity United. Right now, he’s just in major damage control – we’ll have to see if he’s (a) learned how wrong he was to be a member for 20 years and (b) is willing to make amends for being a member of such a group.

Wonder what NARAL-Pro Choice America and NOW will have to say about this:

Egypt – Muslim extremist women are challenging al-Qaida’s refusal to include — or at least acknowledge — women in its ranks, in an emotional debate that gives rare insight into the gender conflicts lurking beneath one of the strictest strains of Islam.

In response to a female questioner, al-Qaida No. 2 leader Ayman Al-Zawahri said in April that the terrorist group does not have women. A woman’s role, he said on the Internet audio recording, is limited to caring for the homes and children of al-Qaida fighters.

His remarks have since prompted an outcry from fundamentalist women, who are fighting or pleading for the right to be terrorists. The statements have also created some confusion, because in fact suicide bombings by women seem to be on the rise, at least within the Iraq branch of al-Qaida.

And, also, I wonder if, now, the “pro-choice” people will come to understand that far more important than the act of choosing is what is chosen…

Details over at Battle Born Politics.

The news story:

Each April, weather wizard William Gray emerges from his burrow near the Rocky Mountains to offer his forecast for the six-month hurricane season that starts June 1. And the news media are there, breathlessly awaiting his every word.

It’s a lot like Groundhog Day – and the results are worth just about as much.

“The hairs on the back of my neck don’t stand up,” ho-hums Craig Fugate, director of emergency management for Florida, the state that got raked by four hurricanes – three of them “major” – in 2004. When it comes to preparing, he says, these long-range forecasts “are not useful at all.”

But climate models which claim to tell us what the global average temperature will be in 50 years are useful?

The problem the anthropogenic global warming enthusiasts have is that anyone who actually sits down and thinks about will come to the “you can’t possibly know that” conclusion.

Yeah, I’m glad that we might get Obama in the White House…’cause its been so hard having someone as dumb as GW in office. We’ll get Obama, and then the intellectual heights will be scaled…

Democrat Barack Obama paid an unscheduled late-night visit to Mount Rushmore Friday…

…Obama said it was his first visit to the landmark.

He did express curiosity about the filming of a chase scene in “North by Northwest,” Alfred Hitchcock’s 1959 classic starring Cary Grant and Eva Marie Saint that included a death-defying scramble over Rushmore’s presidential faces.

“How did they get up there in the first place?” he asked ranger Wesley Jensen.

“They didn’t. It was a movie set,” Jensen told him.

“Pretty spiffy, isn’t it,” said the Illinois senator, summing up his overall impressions.

The anti-Obama campaign is starting to write itself…

This is getting absurd:

Parents’ hopes of quick reunions with more than 400 children removed from a polygamist sect’s ranch were dashed Friday after their attorneys and a judge clashed over proposed restrictions.

A decision by Texas District Judge Barbara Walther means that to regain custody, the 38 mothers whose filed the complaint that led the Texas Supreme Court to reject the state’s massive seizure must personally sign an agreement their attorneys and state child-welfare officials have proposed…

…The high court on Thursday affirmed an appeals court ruling ordering Walther to reverse her decision last month putting all children from the Yearning For Zion Ranch into foster case. The Supreme Court and the appeals court rejected the state’s argument that all the children were in immediate danger from what it said was a cycle of sexual abuse of teenage girls at the ranch…

…Under the deal CPS released, the families won’t be able to leave Texas until Aug. 31 but would be allowed to move back to the ranch. It also calls for parenting classes and visits by CPS to interview children and parents in the child abuse investigation.

Walther wanted to remove the August deadline and provide for psychological evaluations of the children. She also wanted it specified that parents can’t travel more than 60 miles from their residence without 48 hours’ notice. She also wanted CPS to have access to the ranch and the children at all times necessary for any investigation.

The judge has been ordered to reverse her decision. No indictment has been brought. No actual evidence of criminal activity – other than polygamy, which isn’t the fault of the children – has come forth. No one has been convicted…and yet an allegedly American judge wants to treat these mothers as if they were criminals in the custody of their children. Can’t leave the State? Must submit to psychological testing? Must allow CPS people to barge in at all times? Can’t travel more than 60 miles without advance notice? Is this the State of Texas, or the USSR? What the F is going on here?

This must not be allowed to stand – this is judicial tyranny at its worst; this is a threat to all families, everywhere. It is turn this back – and turn this judge out – or at the whim of a judge a family can be destroyed.

Crediting our enemies with the success of our troops and our Iraqi allies – that does go entirely too far:

In an interview yesterday with the San Francisco Chronicle, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi claimed the U.S. troop surge failed to accomplish its goal. She then partially credited the success of the troop surge to “the goodwill of the Iranians,” claiming that they were responsible for ending violence in the southern city of Basra.

Asked if she saw any evidence of the surge’s positive impact on her May 17 trip to Iraq she responded:

Well, the purpose of the surge was to provide a secure space, a time for the political change to occur to accomplish the reconciliation. That didn’t happen. Whatever the military success, and progress that may have been made, the surge didn’t accomplish its goal. And some of the success of the surge is that the goodwill of the Iranians-they decided in Basra when the fighting would end, they negotiated that cessation of hostilities-the Iranians.

This is an inexcusable slander. Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki brought the Sadrists militias to their knees in a month-long battle that enabled Iraq’s largest Sunni bloc to rejoin the government. Furthermore, when Pelosi met with Prime Minister al-Maliki in Mosul she sang quite a different tune. She had “welcomed Iraq’s progress in passing a budget as well as oil legislation, and a bill paving the way for the provincial elections in the fall that are expected to more equitably redistribute power among local officials,” and stated, “We’re assured the elections will happen here, they will be transparent, they will be inclusive and they will take Iraq closer to the reconciliation we all want it to have.”

Discounting the success of the American military, denying the accomplishments of U.S. allies, and giving the credit to our most dangerous enemies seems like an especially productive week for a Democrat on Capitol Hill. After Nancy Pelosi’s post-Iraq hat trick, there’s really no need for Barack Obama to make this trip after all.

If Pelosi had an ounce of honor in her body – and ounce, that is, of genuine patriotism for the United States of America – she would immediately apologise to our troops, our Iraqi allies and then she’d resign her position. The US and Iraqi militaries are the reason peace is coming to Iraq, not the benevolence of the lunatics who govern Iran, and who are responsible for the deaths of very many Americans and Iraqis. This is not honest dissent, this is treasonous. Al-Qaeda has its back to the wall, Syria is talking a separate peace with Israel and Iran finds itself isolated, having angered the populations of Iraq and Afghanistan, and having nothing to show for all their efforts over the past 5 years…Pelosi’s statement is, in a way, giving aid and comfort to our enemies; what she said is akin to saying that the Nazis deserve credit for our liberation of Rome in 1944 because they chose to withdraw rather than fight for the city…if there is anything which will keep the enemy fighting in their hopeless cause it is the belief that the Democrats will come in and be the “weak horse” they expected us to be all along.

If anyone out there needed a reason to fight hard to defeat the Democrats in 2008, here it is – a Democratic victory in November will elevate into complete power that very 60’s radicalism which nearly destroyed this nation 40 years ago, and which is bound and determined to have another shot at wrecking the country. People like Pelosi act the part of traitor, even if they don’t know it (and my bet is that 90% of them really don’t know it – so entirely ignorant of their own ideological background are they); we can’t afford to have this mindset in power.