CenterFeud

"He is the Felix Ungar to McCain's Oscar Madison."

Pollster Jay Cost has some good advice for the Obama campaign. I hope they heed it.

Why Europe and the Left will miss Bush

UK columnist Nick Cohen perfectly captures the realities of the post-Bush era, both for Europe and for liberals in general: "Why Bush has been a liberal's best friend."

By building him up into a great Satan, the oil man who invades countries to seize their reserves and the Christian who orders bloody crusades, [the liberal-left in Europe and North America] have hidden the totalitarian threats of our age from themselves and anyone who listens to them. Bush allowed them to explain away radical Islam as an understandable, even legitimate, response to the hypocrisies and iniquities of American policy. Even those in the European elites who do not buy the full 'America has it coming' package believe that Bush is a cowboy who doesn't understand that the postmodern way to end conflict is to compromise rather than fight.

In January, Bush will be history, leaving liberals all alone in a frightening world. Little else will change. Radical Islam will still authorise murder without limit, Iran will still want the bomb and the autocracies of China and Russia will still be growing in wealth and confidence. All those who argued that the 'root cause' of the Bush administration lay behind the terror will find that the terror still flourishes when the root cause has retired.

Agreed 100%. In many ways, an Obama presidency would be a relief, in that it would force the Democratic Left to confront the realities of an ideology of religious supremacism that stands foursquare opposed to all of its professed ideals. But since that ideology doesn't originate with familiar opponents, it may take awhile for the realization to set in. But those realities will be there to be confronted, and the illusions will last only so long once hard decisions must be made.

Once back in power, the Democrats will find that they can stay in power by pursuing popular programs here at home and putting out soothing idealistic rhetoric abroad, all the while quietly building on the assets left to them by the Bush administration, i.e., an emerging democratic Iraq and an al-Qaeda back on its heels after a stinging defeat in Mesopotamia -- a defeat Obama the Democrats would have gladly embraced to repudiate Bush and his war, regardless of the enormous cost. Fortunately, Bush made it easy by doubling down on the Surge, enabling that victory to occur at virtually no cost to the Democrats.

For their part, if the GOP is out of power, they will need to put country above politics and lend enthusiastic support to any moves by Obama to counter the influence and aggression of radical Islam, even if that means on occasion siding with the opposition party on principle, as did Joe Lieberman. Will the GOP have the courage of its convictions, even if they no longer call the shots?

AP catches up to Michael Yon on success in Iraq

Michael Yon, July 14, 2008: Success in Iraq.

Associated Press, July 26, 2008: Analysis: US now winning Iraq war that seemed lost.

Hmmm...Only two weeks or so behind the curve. "Independent journalist beats MSM to the story" is seeming more and more like "dog bites man". Would be nice if occasionally, the mainstream press acknowledged this.

UPDATE: Maybe only 2 days behind the curve? On July 16, the AP was quietly saying the war was winding down, it just wasn't the headline. But Gateway Pundit commemorated the occasion with a flying pig.

Bush vs. Batman

Bush or Batman? Lots of people can't tell them apart.

Including, apparently, the Wall St. Journal.

John Bolton slams Obama's revisionist Cold War history

Former Ambassador John Bolton weighs in with a harsh analysis of Obama's  recent address in Berlin before a crowd of 200,000 Germans:

First, urging greater U.S.-European cooperation, Obama said, "The burdens of global citizenship continue to bind us together." Having earlier proclaimed himself "a fellow citizen of the world" with his German hosts, Obama explained that the fall of the Berlin Wall and the reunification of Europe proved "that there is no challenge too great for a world that stands as one."

Perhaps Obama needs a remedial course in Cold War history, but the Berlin Wall most certainly did not come down because "the world stood as one." The wall fell because of a decades-long, existential struggle against one of the greatest totalitarian ideologies mankind has ever faced. It was a struggle in which strong and determined U.S. leadership was constantly questioned, both in Europe and by substantial segments of the senator's own Democratic Party. In Germany in the later years of the Cold War,Ostpolitik-- "eastern politics," a policy of rapprochement rather than resistance -- continuously risked a split in the Western alliance and might have allowed communism to survive. The U.S. president who made the final successful assault on communism, Ronald Reagan, was derided by many in Europe as not very bright, too unilateralist and too provocative.

This is, of course, exactly right. The Cold War didn't come to an end because we all came together as one world to reject Communism; it ended in spite of a drift towards seeing the Soviet Union as a mirror image of -- and occasionally useful counterbalance  to -- to the excesses of American power. During the '80s, Ronald Reagan's hard line against the Soviet Union, which included basing medium range Pershing missiles in Germany, sparked massive protests across Europe. Yet, it was this hard line stance that convinced  the Soviet leadership that they would not be able to prevail in a confrontation with the West. The need to choose between guns and butter ultimately led to the rise of Mikhail Gorbachev and his polices of glasnost (political openness) and perrestroika (economic restructuring).

The Berlin Wall fell, in no little part because of Gorbachev's outreach to the West and his decision to not use military might to rein in Poland and other balky Warsaw Pact nations. But without the hard line -- and unpopular -- Cold War stance of Reagan, backed by Margaret Thatcher and Pope John Paul II, the Soviets would have pushed more aggressively for world domination, and reformers like Gorbachev would not have been ascendant,

Obama either forgets or ignores those lessons at his own peril. It is very possible that, should he end up in the Oval Office, he will be forced into a remedial course.

Do tell

15 years after the institution of "Don't ask, don't tell." a sea change in public attitudes towards gays in the military. From the Washington Post:

Today, Americans have become more supportive of allowing openly gay men and women to serve in the armed forces. Support from Republicans has doubled over the past 15 years, from 32 to 64 percent. More than eight in 10 Democrats and more than three-quarters of independents now support the idea, as did nearly two-thirds of self-described conservatives.

These numbers are heartening, especially the response from conservatives.

Hitchens waterboarded

Writer and gadfly Christopher Hitchens undergoes the procedure as part of an article for Vanity Fair: "Believe me, it's torture." He doesn't last long. Video here.