What a guy!

There he goes again. Paying little attention to the sensibilities of a foreign nation, President Bush simply reached into the middle of a developing flap between the Secret Service and Chilean security officials, grabbed his chief bodyguard by the arm and pulled him into the State dinner in Santiago. This didn’t play well in Chile, the New York Times was careful to inform us.

Why am I reminded of Alexander and the Gordian Knot? No doubt you recall the prophecy that the individual who was able to untangle this ancient knot was to conquer Asia. Alexander cut it in two with his sword, and the rest is for Oliver Stone to tell you.

I know the Left in this country flip-flops between viewing the president as a clueless coward and a Machiavellian bully, but let’s at least agree on how his supporters see him: he’s a real man, one with a vision clearly held and the courage to pursue it decisively. The incident in Chile is not important except as an indicator. Can you imagine how Kerry would have handled it? Carter?

It chills the blood to think about it.

Tell Laura, I love her...

Since they lost on November 2nd, we have been witness to the Democrats in the process of continuing to destroy the viability of their party by driving their party towards a more narrow ideology. Do Republicans want to follow their lead?

Arlen Specter is under the gun by conservatives for remarks he made related to his expected elevation to chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Laura Ingraham is one of those in full cry to deny him this position. Before we speak about why Specter is in this pickle, let’s look at the realities.

First, the Republican Party is doing a creditable job filling the vacuum left in the “big tent” by Democrats (Republicans, especially conservative Republicans, are quite familiar with the peculiar bigotry displayed by purists who would rather lose elections than allow for competing viewpoints, but that’s another blog.) Does it really help the Republican Party grow its membership to insist on ideological purity?

Second, think about effectiveness. Do you think a conservative ideologue would be more effective than Specter getting conservative judges approved? As long as Specter continues to support the President’s choices and moves the process swiftly to a floor vote, all of which he has committed to do, he will be a far more effective advocate than anyone else on the Committee.

Finally, let’s think about why Specter is in this position. The article characterizing Specter’s comments was written by the AP’s Lara Jakes Jordan, the reporter who spun Rick Santorum’s (R. - Pa.) remarks on the Texas sodomy case into the same trap. Santorum stood by his remarks, and refused to follow her story down the spider hole, but conservatives are lining up to take the plunge.

Laura, I love you, but you’re wrong on this.

Am I blue?

Without question, many voters in the blue states are very blue indeed, but not me. With insightful advice from intelligent, astute political observers like Bill Clinton, Democrats should be able to fix their problems and move on. After all, it was Clinton who warned them about underestimating Bush, saying after they first met, “This guy really connects.”

Of course, this presumes that Democrats will follow his advice. After viewing the election wrap-up on Real Time with Bill Maher, I can confidently report that there is little danger of that happening.

The panel consisted of D.L. Hughley, Pat Schroeder and Andrew Sullivan, with a teleconference obeisance to Noam Chomsky, the highly intelligent priest of anti-Americanism and hypocrisy from MIT.

Mr. Hughley betrayed the peculiar mixture of ignorance, bombast and non sequitur that seems to plague Hollywood activists. Former Congresswoman Schroeder was her giddy self and Andrew Sullivan turned out to be a stalwart supporter of the nation, an outcome that put Bill Maher off his game.

Famously knavish in his attack from the Left, Bill was non-plussed, to say the least, when Mr. Sullivan roundly criticized the poisonous Mr. Chomsky as the prevaricator he is. Bill stacks his audiences with fans of Michael Moore so that his most vile asides will be guaranteed a round of applause. The audience, like Bill, wasn’t expecting one of the three other voters for Kerry to defend his adopted nation so stoutly. Their applause was disconcerted and contradictory; Bill was stung and flailing.

All of which confirms that the Republicans have nothing to fear for the next several election cycles. The Democrats, it appears, have nothing they need to fix.

Sacre Bleu!

At least, that’s what I expect Jacques Chirac had to say when he got the election news from Les Etats Unis.

Random comments—

I, for one, will never let a national election go by without volunteering to help. I’m embarrassed to say that this is the first time I did more than carp from the sidelines. I knew if I thought the election was important, I had to pitch in. I was surprised how enjoyable it was working with the exciting team of kids that came from DC to help out.

Nothing so became the challenger in the campaign as his demeanor in leaving it. I was genuinely touched with his concession speech, and impressed with the integrity he showed in resisting the efforts pressed by Terry McAuliffe and John Edwards to take the decision to the courts.

The President weathered the withering attacks from the Left, Right and Center, while his opponent ran only one gauntlet, the one crafted by the Swift Vets. The mainstream media stayed scrupulously away from any embarrassing questions. After all the vitriol - Pouf! Michael Moore- Pouf!

Osama bin Laden found out he was not dealing with Spain or the Philippines. But then, shivering in his cave, he already knew that.

With the unfortunate help of their new governor, Californians signed a check for $6 billion for Idiotic Scam Cell research. 23 years and no breakthroughs – no wonder the vulture capitalists want the good people of California to take the risk so that they can spend theirs on Ferrari F430s. Vroom!

Our volunteers vs. their mercenaries

Perhaps you heard of them. Some of them were caught red-handed leaving a prison with stacks of absentee ballots under their arms. This is wrong on several fronts: third parties are not allowed to deliver ballots; no one was monitoring how the voting was carried out; prisoners serving time for misdemeanors can vote, but felons cannot. The mercenaries were caught on tape.

In Lower Merion Township, decidedly for Kerry this cycle, over 400 George Bush signs have been stolen. No Kerry signs have gone missing. Kinda says something about Kerry supporters, doesn't it.

Final note: I have it from a reliable source that Florida will go for Bush. I wish I were as confident about Pennsylvania.