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In the absence...nay, vacuum...of Democratic leadership, what choice has a reasonable person but to conclude that, implausibly, Republicans will retain occupancy of the White House?

What choice has a responsible person, then, but to urge and urge and urge John McCain NOT to succumb to Hardright influences? Hardright is NOT a majority in this country.

If John McCain hopes to lead an American majority into wellness rather than an American Fringe unto further power over majority dis-ease, he will distance himself from Extremism. Otherwise, as the fallout of Bush Administration policy and philosophy lands on his watch and that of a deeply divided Congress and citizenry, his legacy will be that of a one-term, do-nothing placeholder president. It can be guessed that Hardright will promptly sell him down the river, again, pointing to his not being a purist as they clamor and connive for eight more years, but of “real” Republican leadership.

John McCain is all about winning, yes? Then let him not surrender the honorable badge of Maverick.

Let him remember, rather, that troops abroad are supported by troops at home. Supporting troops abroad demands rallying the far greater number of troops at home. Nothing says ‘every man for himself’ like Hardright.


Campaign Cappuccino

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BillCosby

yea w/ mcbush running the show we will not have to worry about all those alquida bases in Iran......

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Preventive war is not war!!!!Counter-terror is not terror

djack

"Get off my lawn god damn it."

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Tug Of War

I draw your attention back to the front page of the April 10th New York Times, which you have surely already seen....not just news that’s fit to print, but news that’s fit to print on page one, above the fold.

The story has this eye-catching, heart-warming headline:

Foreign Policy: 2 Camps Seek McCain’s Ear

“Senator John McCain has long made his decades of experience in foreign policy and national security the centerpiece of his political identity, and suggests he would bring to the White House a fully formed view of the world.

“But now one component of the fractious Republican Party foreign policy establishment - the so-called pragmatists, some of whom have come to view the long war or its executions as a mistake - is expressing concern that Mr. McCain might be coming under increased influence from a competing camp, the neoconservatives, whose thinking dominated President Bush’s first term and played a pivotal role in building the case for war...”

At first glance, I perceived this as a straight positive. In answer to my earlier question, yes, John McCain can hear us.

How IS your hearing, by the way? I count among my acquaintances a number of people in their 70’s who are markedly harder of hearing than formerly they were. I know this for certain, as they were also among my acquaintances when they were NOT in their seventies. I have observed a distinct and consistent reluctance among the freshly hearing-impaired to acquire and wear a device that would remedy the weakness. Perversely, the ones who would happily wear hearing aids cannot afford them, and the people who can afford them are too vain to wear them.

That’s why I ask, and I mean it, how’s your hearing? We don’t have to survey my acquaintances, we need only look at the general population to acknowledge that there is a number of some significance which signifies the onset of Alzheimers or other dementia during a person’s 70’s...factually, their EIGHTH decade on the planet.

Are you amenable to undergoing such tests as might reveal a problem, if problem there be? Not if there’s a problem, will you tell us...that is NOT the question. The question is, will you undergo testing for the express purpose of providing the results to logical concerns that Pragmatists have about your age?

But that is another matter. I want to draw your and other Pragmatists’ attention back to the two paragraphs quoted from the New York Times which is, I believe, still considered a paper of record despite its accommodating...NO LESS THAN SMALL PUBLICATIONS OR CITIZEN JOURNALISTS OR MEMBERS OF CONGRESS...a bowing of integrity before commercial viability.

On thorough reading of the article, as opposed to glancing at headlines, I apprehend that the opening paragraphs...which are the most that most people can be expected to read while they scramble and scrape to, literally, keep a roof over their heads...are begging for remark.

FIRST AND FOREMOST, your world view better NOT be “fully formed.” A fully formed-read-that-fixed view of a changing world is an exceedingly bad thing and, if you don’t understand why that is, unequivocally, you are not smart enough to lead this country.

Second, by calling the Republican party’s foreign policy establishment fractious, with two dichotomous “camps,” the writers imply that this is a constant pot on the stove, simmering away until it reduces to one Republican stew, with perhaps a neoconservative flavor, of which we all partake. I beg to differ.

As far as I can tell, the Republican party foreign policy establishment has for some time now been a quite private and very exclusive club of Players, with rank and file lock-stepping into the stadium to watch and applaud from the bleachers. Or maybe only watch and worry, but they’re not eating stew. Neoconservativism has been more like an invitation-only, fundraising dinner.

As far as I can tell, there have been no Pragmatists in EITHER party during this clusterfuck of an Administration. Insofar as there seems STILL to be no Pragmatists in the Democratic party, intensifying my suspicion that neither Clinton nor Obama can win this November...while we are at war with a nation of Islam...it is incumbent upon me to consider how I might influence you to Reason.

Pragmatists are new on the scene. Many of those Pragmatists are Republican. Pragmatism is a NEW influence in Republican politics.

Pragmatists are Change at the same time that pragmatism is Retro...cool goes Back To Basics.

Compassionate Conservativism, they name is likewise Pragmatism. Common sense and common decency. I can’t think of anything more indecent than people starving to death while we hold crops back from production, can you?

Pragmatists are the vanguard, searching for a Maverick.

Don’t make us vote for Obama.



Campaign Cappuccino

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And another thing.

You'll hold that line on the housing bailout, or it WILL be used against you to herd not only some Pragmatists but some Christian Republicans over toward Obama.

You know perfectly goddamned well that the proposal disproportionately favors those who least need help FROM the fiasco and who most contributed TO it. It's not right, it's not Christian, it's not necessary and it's not prudent.

I appreciate your calling for investigation into industry malfeasance and that's good...so long as it sends a few kingpins to prison, otherwise it's a waste of money. But we are watching carefully to see whether you are only saying right-right things, then doing wrong-right things.

This bailout shouldn't occur at all.

The effects of real-time meddling play out later, when circumstances will naturally have changed. If Congress knew what to do now to make later better, presumably they would have done before what would have prevented the current state of affairs.

Minimalism is a conservative trait.

Prosecute the Bad Guys, bail out the Little People, let the Players play and the market correct itself. I can't put enough emphasis on prosecuting the Bad Guys. Bad Guys make a free market not work right.

You'll have heard the People clamoring for Change.

This'd be different. What's the price tag if we double assistance to the bottom 20% of the debatably labeled victims, the Fools, and eliminate assistance to the top 20%, the Assholes?

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I implore John McCain to back off the Evangelicals.

I do not say to throw them off the bus or under the bus, neither to insult them nor to shoot them. But do not court them.

Evangelicals constitute Fringe...read that, Extremists.

Let them assemble in worship, let them raise Mega Dollars during televised broadcasts from colossal Mega Churches. Let them thump their bibles if they favor Holy McCain and let them bump their fists if they favor Holy Obama. But know that they are fixed as one or the other...Holy Roller Republicans or Holy Roller Democrats.

Evangelicals on the right-not-to-say-Right will never vote for Barack Obama. Hardright Evangelicals will not stay home, heightening the chance of an Obama victory.

Evangelicals on the left will never vote for John McCain.

You are then, my friend, wasting time and money cozying up to them, AND YOU ARE ALIENATING MORE MODERATE VOTERS AT THE SAME TIME. I remind John McCain that wasting time and money is a hallmark of Liberal Democrats, and a travesty in God’s eyes.

Reason, Practicality and Wisdom, the backbone of good governance, are found in the mild middle...not on the excitable edges.

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mentor

I actually liked John until he started remaking himself in W's image. Too bad.

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“I believe in God, only I spell it Nature.” Frank Lloyd Wright