Trump! Trump! TRUMP!!!!

Several articles about Trump today. Cal Thomas wrote about how Trumps connection to Christianity may not be all that sincere.

He [Trump] did say he goes to church "as much as I can. Always on Christmas. Always on Easter. Always when there's a major occasion." Christians know a lot of people who attend church only on Christmas and Easter and special occasions. They are usually not serious about their faith. Not to judge, but if Trump intends to use faith to win votes from people of faith, then those people have a right to determine whether he is sincere or simply trying to manipulate them.

I pretty well agree with Thomas here; if he is playing to get Conservative Christian votes by pretending to be one of them, well, they have a right to ask how committed he actually is.

That said, Conservative Christians generally don't actually care about the faith of their candidates, so long as they vote the right way. Trouble is Trump has shown himself to be all over the map on that score.

Thomas does carefully exclude Trumps biggest selling point to the Right, i.e. his willingness to take Birtherism seriously. I suppose that makes sense, no sense bringing up embarrassing aspects about your base.

Larry Elder has no such compunction though, and dedicates his article to the proposition that Trump is asking questions that the media won't.

But are the "birther" folks wackier than the majority of Democrats who believe George W. Bush had prior knowledge of 9/11 or are unsure that he did?

Are the "birther" folks wackier than the majority of Democrats who believe that "Bush Lied, People Died" our way into the Iraq War or are unsure that he did?

Are they wackier than the majority of Democrats who, in 2008, held Bush responsible when gas prices hit $4 a gallon?

What's the point? When people are unhappy with a politician and/or his policies, they sometimes see the worst -- whether or not there is a factual basis. But the media do not even have a name for the Democratic equivalent of "birthers," despite these vicious, unsubstantiated and irresponsible accusations of Bush.

Poor Elder. Not a very strong section. But lets go through it.

First of all, 9/11 "Truthers" have never been taken seriously by any major Liberal pol. Liberal website Salon went out of their way to take the mickey out of the Truthers. In contrast there are several Republican pols who are taking this seriously, from state legislators putting up bills that require Presidential candidates to put up Birth Certificates to Presidential Candidates and Congresspeople giving a wink and a nod to Birthers.

Second and three are just said. People think that Bush lied us into Iraq because what he told us about Iraq turned out not to be true. We didn't find weapons of mass destruction. There is strong evidence that Bush and his advisors were determined to invade Iraq regardless of the evidence. Did they genuinely believe we needed to invade Iraq? Probably. Did they present all the evidence to the American people so they could make up their minds with all the facts? It does not seem so.

And of course our invasion of Iraq had something to do with Gas Prices going up.

Finally, yes, the media do have a name for people who think that Bush allowed or caused 9/11 to happen. It's Truthers as mentioned above.

Elder does more than wink at the Birthers, but makes it clear that he thinks they have some good points. Which is nice, since he's Black. This is helpful for Birthers, who are regularly accused of being racist for questioning whether or not President Obama is legally qualified to be President. This is because some of them are clearly racist, and others seem concerned that Obama isn't a real America like the rest of us. So Elder does provide a valuable service to the Birthers here.

Still, even with Elder, you can't get around some of the ugliness in their comments.

I am not so concerned about the so-called "birther issue as the "What are we going to do to Obama when his birth issue proves to be correct. I always have the image of his grandmother stating that "li'l Barry was born in Kenya," in front of me.

There has to be some kind of splendiferous punishment for the con - death by firing squad seems too little in view of the level of the fraud.

When you tell a 224 year old Christian nation that we are not a Christian nation any more and you are going to change the foundation that made us great, then people are going to have questions.

Barack Obama is a limp-wristed-panty-waist, who does not like getting his own hands dirty, instead he surrounds himself with those who are willing to do whatever criminal act or illegal operation Barack Obama has in his bag-of-community-organizing-tricks.

Interesting mix. The top one speaks for itself. The middle one plays off of the belief of many on the right that Liberals just aren't very good Americans. And the bottom one is homophobic crap, which I guess is slightly better than being racist.

A Flawed Study

Obviously "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" won't be repealed any time soon. Republican Senators are going to delay any action on it till next year, at which point there will be no chance in a Republican Congress. This despite a Department of Defense study that suggests that the change would cause little problems. Cal Thomas though, after reading a Washington Times Editorial, knows that the study is flawed. Who are you going to trust more, the Department of Defense or the Washington Times Editorial Board?

But not content with denigrating our military (while extoling the real homophobic military), he then moves on to this leap.

Gates and Mullen suggest that the troops can be conditioned into accepting openly gay service members. Would that include chaplains and religious soldiers for whom homosexual behavior is thought to be a sin? Will chaplains be disciplined if they counsel someone who is gay that they can change and be forgiven, just as heterosexuals who engage in sex outside of marriage can also repent and discover a new path? This proposed change in the law has more of a "fundamentalist" tone than fundamentalism. Submit, or else.

Hmmmm. This is interesting. We must continue treating Homosexuals like second class citizens in order to prevent chaplins from being persecuted for explaining their beliefs. I mean a Christian Chaplin who believes Homosexuality is wrong can't minister to homosexual troops. That's why we don't allow Jewish or Islamic or Buddhist troops; I mean a Christian Chaplin would naturally have to tear down their religions faith because there is one and only way back to God.

Wait, it just occured to me that we have had Jewish and Muslim and Buddhist troops; so I guess the military is resilient enough to accomodate different points of view without persecuting poor Christians. Maybe we can assume that Homosexual's will go through the same path.

False Gods

Cal Thomas, like many Consrvatoids, is upset that a judge struck down Proposition 8, and argues so in his latest article.

The decision by a single, openly gay federal judge to strike down the will of 7 million Californians, tradition dating back millennia (not to mention biblical commands, which the judge decided, in his capacity as a false god, to also invalidate) is judicial vigilantism equal to Roe vs. Wade.

I strongly believe that it is not the capacity of any Judge to set themself up as a God, false or otherwise. Judges are there to interpret the law not to reign in heaven!

That said, I also don't think Judges should be rulling based on what they think God wants, but should interpret the law. Prop 8 violated the California Constitution, according to Judge Walker, so he overturned it. Cal Thomas obviously disagrees with me as his article is largely about how a vengeful God is probably upset at us for failing to serve God sufficiently.

Radical - a useful adjective

Cal Thomas, one of our nations foremost proponents of the "Muslim Menace," continues on that vein in his latest article. But he touchingly adds an adjective - radical - to make it clear that he's not against Islam itself. Just radical Islam. Of course even a shallow reading of his work reveals that Radical Islam is a term so broad as to include most of the Islamic world and certainly the bulk of American Muslims.

Ask yourself: if you wanted to infiltrate a country, wouldn't a grand strategy be to rapidly build mosques from Ground Zero in New York, to Temecula, Calif., and establish beachheads so fanatics could plan and advance their strategies under the cover of religious freedom and that great American virtue known as "tolerance," which is being used against us?

. . . Instead, they build their mosques with minimal opposition from the squishy politicians and elites who could stand against them if they had any backbone. And so those radical Islamists who would dominate America move forward with plans to subjugate us all to their religion and way of life.

See that sounds like it's not just Radical Islam that is the problem. Or to put it more clear, it's seems like Thomas is incapable of recognizing a non radical Islam. But on some level he recognizes that others would be upset at the bigotry of attacking Islam (not to mention the logistics of such an illogical approach), so he adds Radical as a fig leaf.

We'll Kill Them Until they Love Us

Townhall is going through a soft redesign right now which leads to some oddities - like today's Cal Thomas article being split into two pages, with 95% of the article on the first page and one sentence on the second page. Thomas is writing about McChrystal and trying desperately to split the difference - essentially McChrystal and his aides were right to rip into Obama but it is still against the rules. He then gets to the rules of engagement problem.

To win in Afghanistan, and make such things possible, our "rules of engagement" must change. American casualties have increased because of self-imposed restraints when encountering Taliban who hide behind civilians. You can't win a war by hesitating when the enemy is at a disadvantage. To paraphrase a familiar admonition: grab them by their throats and their hearts and minds will follow.

To clarify, Thomas believes we should kill civilians if it will help us kill Taliban insurgents. And he's kind of a wuss if he can't repeat the quote correctly (it's balls, not throat).

You might wonder how Thomas thinks this killing of civilians is going to work; the truth may be that Thomas doesn't really believe that there are any civilians in that part of the world (he's certainly written his share of Muslim Menace articles). Or he favors the black and white theory that those who are terrorists are going to be terrorists regardless of what we do. I don't believe either of those things, but perhaps Thomas does.

Clash of Civilizations

It is to be expected that the American Right Wing and the Political Class of both persuasions will support Israel and condemn Palestine no matter the situation. Cal Thomas's latest article is certainly no surprise in this regard. He neglects to mention that the ship was in international waters when it was boarded, and he describes them as akin to the mafia; pretending to be charitable, while really out to destroy Israel. Not very surprising all things considered.

Of course, Thomas then makes this stirring call.

Again, we've seen this scenario before and surely will see it again, and again, and again, unless and until the world wakes up to the clash of civilizations too many want to ignore, hoping it will go away. It won't until one civilization crushes the other.

By which Thomas means, presumably, the West crushes the Islamic World. War without end, indeed. And as I've noted before, Palestine and the Palestinians have been crushed by almost every definition of the term. The remaining possibility is, well, genocide; but let's hope that's not what Thomas is calling for.

Resuming Transmissions

Apparently Immigration is going to be the issue of the next couple of weeks, what with Arizona's plan to crack down on illegal immigrants and Congress taking back up immigration reform. Naturally the writers at townhall are all over this.

Arizona has decided that if the federal government will not live up to its responsibility to control the border, it will. Governor Jan Brewer, a Republican, signed a bill that allows police officers to inquire about a person's immigration status if there is reason to suspect that individual might be an illegal immigrant. The governor correctly noted that the new law "represents another tool for our state to use as we work to solve a crisis we did not create and the federal government has refused to fix."

The latest example of that failure is the Obama administration's refusal to finish the border fence begun with some reluctance by the Bush administration.

Cal Thomas

What is the response of Barack Obama, who took an oath to see to it that federal laws are faithfully executed?

He is siding with the law-breakers. He is pandering to the ethnic lobbies. He is not berating a Mexican regime that aids and abets this invasion of the country of which he is commander in chief. Instead, he attacks the government of Arizona for trying to fill a gaping hole in law enforcement left by his own dereliction of duty.

Pat Buchanan

So, why would anyone who actually wants to solve the problem suggest implementing a government policy that's already a proven failure? Of course, that's just it: What politicians want is more illegal workers to pad the bottom lines of businesses that give them campaign contributions and more potential voters for the Democratic Party. What they don't want is to fix the problem because they're worried about what's good for them personally, not what's good for the country.

John Hawkins.

So that's the argument of the week.

Salon's War Room has some thoughts on it too, saying it is a cynical but likely successful strategy.

For showing some political savvy, at least, the Democrats deserve some applause. With the election approaching and vulnerable incumbents -- not least Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, of 25-percent-Latino Nevada -- getting nervous, putting immigration at the center of the national agenda seems to make a certain strategic sense. It's an issue that divides Republicans more than it does Democrats. Not to mention that, in the wake of Arizona’s new draconian anti-immigration law, getting behind reform is a way for the Democrats signal to Latino voters that at least one party is still friendly territory. Democrats are hoping that they can repeat the electoral gains them made off of California’s 1994 crackdown, Proposition 187. That confrontation helped drive Latino votes away from the GOP for years.

Democrats are probably right to think that another major showdown over immigration with an angry, out-of-power GOP will pay off, even though the bill will most likely not pass. That prospect has the conservative base freaked out about an issue of American national identity. And you know what that means: White people -- engage!

Makes sense to me. A debate on National Identity isn't going to hurt Democrats that bad, but should bring out the worst in conservatives/Republicans, and that's good for the party.

Interesting but Badly Formatted Article by Cal Thomas

Cal Thomas attempts to declare health care unconstitutional in his latest article, using the 10th amendment to suggest that the states and the people have the power in this case, not the Congress. Kind of a slippery argument.

Roe vs. Wade, a decision he presumably disagrees with, stated that the privacy between a doctor and his/her patient should be kept safe from Federal manipulation. If a woman wanted to have an abortion that is between her and her doctor and no one else. Healthcare reform, of almost any stripe, will be more intrusive than anti-abortion laws. Or at least that is the theory. So if the Court said the state can't get between a patient and a doctor in regards to abortion, maybe the state can't get between a patient and his or her medical bill.

Like I say a slippery article, and it kind of depends on Thomas and other conservatives accepting the logic behind Roe v. Wade, which presumably they don't accept.

Americans who believe their government should not be a giant ATM, dispensing money and benefits to people who have not earned them, and who want their country returned to its founding principles, must now exercise that power before it is taken from them. The Tenth Amendment is one place to begin. The streets are another. It worked for the Left.

It worked for the left in regards to civil rights; hard to see where else it worked.

Back from the Dead

Been away for a few days.

Over the weekend I saw a van with a collection of Conservative Bumper Stickers. Most were about how Obama is a socialist or a Communist, but right in the middle was one that said "Annoy a Liberal, Be Happy."

I've seen variations on that one that make a little more sense. "Annoy a Liberal, Succeed" for example, is total crap, but you can see where they are coming from. They feel that liberals put up a lot of barriers to success and that we champion societies losers, hence we must be anti-success.

But anti happiness? What sort of human being would be annoyed at seeing a happy person? Well he'd have to be somewhat of a monster wouldn't he?

I mention this because a perusal of the articles at Townhall leads me to the conclusion that I should have taken another day off. Most of them are about Roman Polanski, unsurprisingly arguing that his raping a 13 year old proves that Liberals are morally depraved (Cal Thomas throws David Letterman into the mix, arguing that we should probably get rid of our televisions).

But the one that really gets me is John Hawkin's latest, in which he gives advice to Republican lawmakers. It just reveals that the liberal and conservative world views are diverging more and more, and probably will eventually get to the point that meaningful discussion across the divide will be impossible.

One of the biggest differences between the Democrats and the GOP is that the Dems have worked to legitimize their base.

You see as a member of that base, this statement makes no sense. Democrats don't legitimize their base, particularly not their activist base. If anything they run against us. Clinton and to a lesser extent Obama both ran against the crazies in their party. And look at how the Healthcare debate is going - Single Payer, a big favorite among the Activist Base, was dropped immediately. The Government Option a somewhat weaker position has also seemingly fallen by the wayside. What does that leave us with?

In fairness, this has less to do with politics and more to do with the power of the Insurance Lobby over both parties.

Hawkins also feels that Conservative bloggers aren't being given enough money. Probably true; Conservative donors tend to be, well, conservative. They are spreading the money in traditional ways. He ignores, of course, the power of Conservative Think Tanks in shaping political discourse, as it doesn't fit his metaphor. It's not that Conservatives haven't spent money; they have. They've almost certainly outspent Liberals, George Soros notwithstanding. They just aren't as keen on spending it on new-fangled technologies like the internet.

Hawkins hold up Joe Wilson's yelling of Liar at the President as an example of what Conservative Lawmakers should be doing. Speaking truth to power, I suppose.

The Muslim Menace

Haven't gotten to write on Muslim Menace articles in a while, but here comes reliable old Cal Thomas with a particularly illogical one.

If you are an enemy of America seeking her destruction, you would add to your pursuit of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons the undermining of this nation from within. You would do this largely through deception, putting on a peaceful face while subtly plotting ways to bring America down.

That tactic was on display last Friday in Washington as a crowd estimated at 3,000 Muslims gathered to pray. The organizer of the rally, Imam Abdul Malik of Brooklyn, N.Y., told Americans what we like to hear: "What we've done today, you couldn't do in any Muslim country. If you prayed on the palace lawn there, they'd lock you up."

As reported by The Washington Times Sadara Shaw, a resident of Washington, D.C., was quoted as saying "It's a show of solidarity to show all Muslims are not terrorists but law-abiding citizens." That is probably true, but irrelevant since it takes only a small number of terrorists to cause havoc.

So dumbass Cal Thomas believes that Muslims are putting on a peaceful face while subtly plotting, but at the same time he believes that most of them are law-abiding citizens. Odd. I guess his theory is that since plotting isn't technically against the law, they can be law-abiding plotters?

The article is a pure Muslim Menace one.

Try a little experiment, Google "Islam near" and then type in the name of any city or town. When I tried the small town of Bryn Mawr, Pa., 10 Islamic-related sites came up. In larger cities, there are as many, or more.

Oh my gosh. There are Islamic people right here in my home town. They must be subtly plotting to bring America down. Let's get them!

Unless of course they are law-abiding citizens. Should we be beating up law abiding Muslims? I don't know. I'm so confused.

Correcting Racial Misconceptions

Cal Thomas's latest article is a pretty poor reflection on Race in America in the age of Obama.

As the president's approval ratings fall and rise and fall again, some of his supporters in journalism and politics are returning to days of old when the label "racist" could end any discussion and force the accused either into stunned silence, or groveling repentance. I suspect the tactic won't work this time because Obama supporters will have difficulty explaining how a mostly white country could elect a black man president last November and ten months later become a racist majority.

Sad. Nobody thinks that America is a majority racist country all of a sudden. Some would argue that Conservatism is a majority racist movement, but I'm not even going that far. All I will say is that it's clear that a lot of the most impassioned attacks on Obama are, at least in part, racially motivated. And that these racially motivated people are having an effect on the electorate as a whole; they keep their racism largely under wraps.

According to liberal doctrine, black people can never be racist because they are members of a victim class created by white liberals as a kind of modern plantation to keep blacks voting for liberal Democrats.

This a bastardization of the real argument. Black people have much less power than white people in our society. White Racism keeps black people in Ghettos; Black Racism is mildly annoying for White People. Liberals and Democrats want a society in which Blacks participate equally without being disparaged or attacked because of their race; Conservatives and Republicans want us all to shut up about race.

Not all or even most Conservatives are Racist in my opinion; but most virulent Racists are Conservative.

Trivializing Serious Issues

Cal Thomas's latest article is about Israel, in which he presents Obama as, at best, another Chamberlain eager to sell out the Jews. And yet that's not the bad part.

What could the Jews have done seven decades ago to dissuade Hitler from his "Final Solution"? What can modern Israelis do today to keep from being murdered by those who continue to hate Jews simply for being Jews? The answer to both questions is: nothing. Jews were murdered then and now, not for anything they did, but simply for being Jewish.

Thank you Mr. Thomas for trivializing a serious issue with blatant and obvious misstatement, if not outright lie. The truth, as anybody with half a brain knows, is that the Palestinian issue is a real issue; Israeli treatment of the Palestinians has been, at best, mixed. And when you completely exonerate Israel, and chalk up the tension strictly to irrational, Hitler-like hatred, you make it harder to actually solve this problem. And that's pretty damned shameful, in my opinion.

Suicide is Painless

Or so the song goes; two writers over at Townhall describe America's current course as suicidal.

When a democracy reaches a point where the politicians cannot say no to the people, and both parties are competing for votes by promising even more spending or even lower taxes, or both, the experiment is about over.

"Remember," said John Adams, "democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide."

Pat Buchanan, "The Fatal Flaw of Democracies"

One answer is to be found in a new book by investigative reporter, educator and columnist Martin Gross. Gross summarizes in an easy to read and understandable style how and why government has failed its citizens. The book, to be released Sept. 1, is called "National Suicide: How Washington is Destroying the American Dream from A to Z." In addition to listing some of the more outrageous pork projects that are now well-known to anyone who has been paying attention ($107,000 to study the sex life of the Japanese quail; $150,000 to study the Hatfield-McCoy feud are just two examples on a long list), Gross touches on even bigger and equally outrageous expenditures.

Cal Thomas, "National Suicide"

Granted both are quoting others, but it is pretty grim imagery.

Complaining about $7,000,000,000,000 in debt and then bringing up $150,000 to study the Hatfield-McCoy feud strikes me as a big out of whack. That $150,000 accounts for 0.0000025% of the debt. Plus it's a history project; we should be doing more history, not less.

Cal Thomas, Music Critic

Cal Thomas's latest article is on the media circus surrounding the deaths of Michael Jackson and Farrah Fawcette. And then he takes a moment to comment on Jackson's music.

Listening to the Michael Jackson tributes would make one think he had created something of lasting value. Some said his music will "live forever." No it won't. No one today hums Stephen Foster songs or ditties from World War I, or the Great Depression, which were better songs and understandable. Can anyone quote the lyrics from Gus Kahn's greatest hits? Somehow "Butterflies all flutter up and kiss each little buttercup at dawnin'") doesn't seem to have the ring it had in 1922.

Actually many people have heard a Stephen Foster song or two; and writers like George Gershwin and Cole Porter still have their songs listened to and enjoyed. Not to mention classical composers like Beethoven and Bach. Are Jackson's songs in the same category? Only time will tell, but I would suggest at least a few of them might well stand the test of time.

Also I'm not sure what Thomas means by Understandable; I've never had any particular difficulty understanding Micheal Jacksons songs.

Tony Bennett is a singer. His songs have a better chance of longevity than Jackson's because they are about love and relationships, which are common to every generation. Bennett and his contemporaries, including Frank Sinatra, Mel Torme and Ella Fitzgerald, are in a league far above the "pop" culture headed at one time by Jackson, whose biggest hit "Thriller" came before the younger generation was born.

Tony Bennet is quite good at interpreting other people's songs, I'll grant you. And a good entertainer. But I'm starting to think that Thomas has never heard a Michael Jackson song if he thinks he doesn't sing about love and relationships.

His larger point is that Celebrities are not good role models; something very few people disagree with in general (although individual Celebrities might be quite worthwhile people. I think his larger point that he never quite gets around to making is something about the transitory nature of our lives and the eternal nature of God, but, like I say, he never articulates it. So maybe I'm just reading into it.

The Joy of Marriage

Cal Thomas's latest article is pretty depressing; it is on fidelity in marriage in reaction to the Governor Sanford situation.

Psychiatrists explain that married people tire of one another after 10 or 20 years (it used to be seven years, as in that Marilyn Monroe/Tom Ewell film "The Seven Year Itch." Must be inflation.). Good marriages are the result of hard work. Forsaking all others is more than a wedding promise. It is a daily denial of one's lower instincts. Temptation is everywhere. The key to overcoming it is to realize you are fighting an adversarial force that wants to destroy you, embarrass you and cause ridicule to be heaped on the God you claim to worship.

So basically you have between seven to ten years of wedded happiness and then you spend the rest of your life fighting against the Devil's temptation? At which point you either succumb or triumph - but even the triumph seems pretty cold.

Pretty depressing view of marriage, but not being married myself I guess I won't comment.

Give 'em the boot!

Obama sure is getting a lot of advice from Conservative Columnists. And that advice largely adds up to an admonition to, well, be Conservative. I guess it's not surprising Conservatives are in favor of Conservatism. Cal Thomas's latest article is in this vein, encouraging Obama to help the American people to become more independent of the government. Not by helping them, but more by encouraging them. Then Thomas makes this fascinating statement.

Don't make the mistake Republicans made when they ran all three branches of government. Make Republicans feel like fellow Americans with a different plan for reaching similar goals. No one wants poorly performing schools, more poverty and a weak national defense. If we can agree on the problems, we can then discuss the best way to solve them. Include Republicans in your decision-making and at least occasionally embrace some of their ideas. Disarming your opponents is less bloody and can be more productive than crushing them.

I suspect that Thomas thinks this is good advice for Democrats; but not as sure he would be as keen on Republicans following this advice. Democrats should be nice to the Republicans; Republicans should beat the hell out of Democrats. That works because Conservatives are nice people who genuinely want to make America better; Democrats may or may not be - after all Thomas did label us Taliban Democrats back in the day. So it makes sense to be nice and even accommodating to people who are good hearted and want to help America, but it makes no sense to be nice to people who are not nice and not good hearted and who don't really want to make America better.

You Must Learn!

Well, Cal Thomas has dug deep to come up with the solution to the current woes plaguing our economy, in his latest article. People should be less greedy. Yep.

John McCain wants more regulations. What McCain should be demanding is an investigation, especially of those members of Congress who failed to provide oversight. It also wouldn't hurt to recommend more self-control and an embrace of the Puritan ethic of living within one's means.

No I suppose it wouldn't hurt. And I think it would be nice if people would choose to live in their means more. But I'm not sure this is really a strategy for dealing with the problems in our market.

Let's just say it, we could do away with laws against stealing if everybody agreed to not steal. But we have laws against stealing because some people do steal. And more people are tempted to steal, but are dissuaded by the possibility of jail time. Presumably Thomas wouldn't think the solution to crime is simply to convince criminals to not commit crimes.

But the same mentality doesn't apply to corporate crime. When it comes to corporate crime, our first line of defense is to convince the people running Wall Street to be puritans. The upshot of it? We waste our time scolding them, while allowing them to take the actions that have gotten us into this mess.

I'm also impressed by the contrast with another article at Townhall by Terence Jeffrey. Apparently puritanism or living within ones means isn't the solution to every problem.

Democratic leaders in the House of Representatives sent a message this week to hard-working commuters forced to pay historically high prices for gasoline: Ride a bike.

Yeah I guess if people did ride bikes we'd need less gas, and prices would go down and our supplies would last longer. Seems like the Puritan thing to do. But of course Jeffrey's point is that what Congress should be doing, instead of encouraging us to live within our means, is going out and getting more gas for us so we don't have to.

Compare and Contrast

Remember how I said that it was unlikely that the Conservative Base would cotton to David Brooks suggestion that McCain promise to work with Democrats? Well Cal Thomas agrees, in his latest article.

While John McCain promised those gathered at the Republican National Convention in St. Paul that he would "reach across the aisle" and put Democrats and Independents in a McCain administration, Democrats are busy sending out fund-raising letters asking for donations so they can win a "gridlock-proof Senate majority" and won't have to compromise with Republicans.

Where are principles in this? Why aren't conservatives arguing in favor of the superiority of their ideas rather than attempting to win "Miss Congeniality" awards from liberals?

So there you go. I'm right again. But then Thomas who gains points by agreeing with me, loses them by being a dope.

A national telephone survey by Rasmussen Reports, posted Aug. 27, finds that just 9 percent of likely voters give Congress positive ratings, while 51 percent say it's doing a poor job. This is an issue McCain should embrace. Harry Truman made the Republican "do-nothing Congress" an effective campaign issue in 1948 and while lightning rarely strikes twice in politics, McCain might consider a similar tactic.

The problem with this strategy is pretty obvious. The Democratic Congress looks crummy because it isn't doing enough to stop President Bush. They are seen as spineless and weak, because, well, they are spineless and weak.

But since McCain largely agrees with President Bush, well, it's hard for him to make the case that Congress should be fighting President Bush with more fervor. Drilling gives him an opening (because Democratic Congresscritters have not successfully articulated why the Drill Here, Drill Now program is a poor idea), but it's not a big enough opening I should think.

Unless it turns out the American people don't like the "do-nothing" congress but aren't really sure what they want them to do. Which is, regrettably, totally possible.

Making it Explicit

A number of commentators have speculated that McCain's selection of Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate might end the debate over Obama's experience. I expect the campaign might drop it, and some of the mainstream commentators. But Conservatoid Commentators won't. And Cal Thomas explains why in his latest article.

That Obama lacks experience to be president has led some pundits to say that issue is now a wash, harming neither candidate. Not true.

There is good and there is bad experience. More importantly, there is worldview. Obama and his running mate, Sen. Joe Biden, see America as a nation in which government plays a primary role in individual lives. John McCain and Sarah Palin see the individual as primary and government as a protector of freedom that can help the less fortunate become self-sustaining.

There it is. Palin has developed the right political views and so her experience is fine, no matter how scant it is. Obama has the wrong political views and so his experience is suspect, and so is Biden's.

Predictably Depressing - Conservative on John Edwards

Three articles over at Townhall today on the Edwards Scandal - and more to come for sure. Chuck Norris, who has positioned himself as a Conservative Spokesperson, and who includes plugs for two of his books (one already out, one soon to be published) in his brief article. My guess is that he'd like you to go buy his books. He writes this.

I believe leadership should be above reproach. I believe those who govern should lead also in civility and decency and that their character should be congruent with their call to office. Like parents to children, a nation's politicians' integrity and character should supersede its citizens. But as long as we the people tolerate leadership immorality and elect corrupt politicians, we cannot expect the heart and character of our nation to improve.

One problem with that particular argument, as regards John Edwards. He's a private citizen. He is no longer a member of the senate and although he ran for the Democratic Presidential nomination, he didn't get it. So, as it turns out, he's not in a leadership position.

I certainly agree, though, that leadership should be above reproach. Hey Chuck, did you hear that the Bush administration might have forged one of the key documents in the run up to the Iraq war?

Debra J. Saunders article is notable mostly for it's meanness (it's entitled "Not so Pretty Boy") and the somewhat brazen way it brings up McCain's infidelity.

Yes, McCain was married when he met his current wife, Cindy, in 1979. The former prisoner of war did pay a political price for his behavior. Last month, the Los Angeles Times reported how the breakup of McCain's first marriage "fractured" his relationship with President Ronald Reagan and his wife, Nancy.

Of course the fact that the media would spend time investigating the background of the Republican Presidential nominee is proof of it's bias. We'll ignore for a moment how many crazy claims that Media has repeated happily about Senator Obama.

Cal Thomas wrote an Edwards article as well, comparing the whole thing to Mamma Mia, which I guess he saw. Kind of dull for him, but he doesn't really get worked up unless it involves the "Muslim Menace."