MAYBE. MAYBE NOT.....

Hilly/Billy and Obambi still too close to call.

John Edwards refuses to bail -- maybe if he doesn't win, his father the millworker will get some votes (they talk about him so much he's probably going to get lots of write-ins).


TO ABSOLUTELY NO ONE'S SURPRISE....

The New Republic unearths what crackpot libertarian (and fake Republican) RON PAUL has been hiding under his tin-foil hat: paranoia and prejudice. He's toast, at last.


Paul has vowed to continue the campaign until the mother ship comes to transport him away.

I predicted earlier that
New Hampshire would see
BILL CLINTON MUZZLED
if Hillary was to succeed
in the first primary.



He wasn't.

She's screwed.



It's what he's good at......

Over at the Western Standard Blog, Obambi is slapped with the ULTIMATE CANADIAN INSULT:

Obama is shallow and ill educated enough to make an outstanding Canadian Liberal MP.

Is there no depth to which some people will not stoop??????

Read the whole teeth-grinding article if you dare. Somebody doesn't like Bambi.

DAVID WARREN, in his high priestly office as spitfire pundit for the Ottawa Citizen, assesses the entrails of the American election in its early phases here.

He also passes on the Mo-Do coined moniker (prophetically, we hate to admit) for now-frontrunner Barack Obama:

"OBAMBI"

I love it-- appealing, fluffy, naive, clueless, and frozen in the headlights of life-threatening world events.

Alas, no Republican Godzilla yet on the horizon to make short work of little deer.

FOOD FOR THOUGHT:

The goal of Democrats -- and their allies -- over the next two years should not and cannot be to stop the war cold turkey. The goal should be to politicize the issue in preparation for 2008.

"I may not agree with the assessment of the far left, but at least they're honest. They think we've lost in Iraq and that we should get out now. Contrast that with those who see in Iraq a wonderful opportunity to win more seats for their party, like publius. It pleases me to no end that if I end up getting killed in Iraq, at least my wife can take comfort in knowing my death may help the Democrats win the White House in 2008. Really, that makes it all worthwhile."

The passage above is an extract from a typically acerbic blog post written on February 19, 2007, by Major Andrew Olmsted, a career Army man who had been blogging since 2002. He began his first tour of Iraq in July of 2003, at which time his blog was picked up by the Rocky Mountain News.

Major Olmsted died on January 3, the first American fatality of 2008. His unit was ambushed by insurgents in Diyala province, north of Baghdad.


A man with such a lot to say would naturally leave a final post to be read in the event of his death. He asks that no one politicize his death, for any side of any argument.

Hmmm. Tall order.



Requiescat in pace.

IT'S OFFICIAL

I'M A TWO-STAR
BLUE-STAR MOM




Number Three Son just swore his oath today and signed the papers to enlist in the Navy. He checks into Naval Officer Candidate School next month.

Anchors Aweigh, me boy!

Vodkapundit writes an open letter to Iowans -- says it all. Money quote:

Des Moines (literally, French for “tell me about the rabbits, George”)

32 years ago, your Democratic brethren took one look at Jimmy Carter -- the worst 20th Century President bar Nixon, and the worst ex-President ever -- and declared, “That’s our man!”

Three decades later, and along comes Mike Huckabee. Same moral pretentiousness, same gullibility on foreign affairs, only-slightly-less toothy idiot’s grin. Then you so-called Republicans took a look at Carter’s clone and said, “That’s our man, too!”

Yeah -- what he said.

In answer to the preceding questions:

YES, IOWANS ARE
FRICKIN' DERANGED.


Huckabee wins big, Edwards beats Clinton.

These are two of the emptiest suits on the modern American political scene -- Huckabee sincere but flimsy as wet kleenex, Edwards thoroughly phoney from hairspray to shoe-polish.

Salient observations from National Review Online's "Corner" blog:

From Mark Hemingway:

Edwards: He came out to give his concession speech to U2's "(Pride) In the Name of Love" and immediately started talking about his grandmother and father working in a textile plant. Suffice to say, I immediately needed an airsickness bag.

Mike Huckabee: The only people I know who are excited about a Huckabee victory are friends who are rigidly pro-life Democrats. That about sums it up.

Hillary Clinton: ...relative to Edwards and Obama, she seems better on foreign policy and national security by a factor of ten. Still, there's something deeply satisfying about watching the Clintons start to go gently into that good night...

From Mark Steyn:

Obama: Content-wise, Obama's victory speech was totally lame... But nobody cares. He's likeable, he's upbeat, and he's new. We shouldn't take away from the Senator's achievement tonight. He's made history.

[opening lines of the speech:

“They said this day would never come. They said our sights were set too high. They said this country was too divided; too disillusioned to ever come together around a common purpose."

This is clearly a reference to race. Obama has certainly achieved an historic first for a black American. But who among the living are the "they" who said it could "never" be done? Does anyone seriously believe that in 2008 an otherwise able candidate would be barred from success because he's black? Poppycock.]


From Rich Lowry, the money quote:

Here's one way to look at it: 60% of voters were evangelicals. Huck beat Romney among them 45-19%. 40% weren't evangelicals. Romney beat Huck among them 33-13%.

Romney strikes me as a little slick and slippery, and I don't totally buy him. Huckabee, on the other hand, is either genuinely unslick, or brilliantly fake-unslick -- but God spare us another (after Bush) dull-minded, hearty-feely, God-channeling, purer-than-thou and oh-so-saved-forever, rote-learned Bible boy in the Oval Office. They're nice enough folks, but they should stay on the farm and not be put in charge of anything that means life-and-death for the whole country, not to mention the world-- at least not in however many lifetimes it will take to remedy the Scandal of the Evangelical Mind.

Huckabee gave a content-challenged acceptance speech full of rambling puffery and a hint of smuggery -- and I began to sense that, for the broad spectrum of the electorate of both parties, he may yet be able to produce negatives even higher than Hillary's!

I predict (I pray) that the Huckaboom will bust, and we can get back to a contest among serious people who belong on the world stage. (That's assuming weirdsmobile Ron Paul finally does the honorable thing and falls on his sword-- and are there other speed-bump candidates still out there? I forget.)

THE HILLARY THING:
The pundits seem to agree: never has so much money, massed organization, and intimidating raw power been expended on behalf of an anointed candidate to such disastrous effect, done in (for this round anyway) by the toxic combination of her own profound dislikability and her husband's bizarre mix of mysterious charm and suffocating self-absorption. I see Bill being muzzled in New Hampshire, perhaps even hidden until his black eyes have healed. Mere Hillary will be loosed upon the world. Which is too bad -- she is eminently beatable by any strong Republican. Obama is not. Crap.

Bottom line: The whole Iowa circus has become ridiculous at the best of times, compounded this year by the Election Strain of Bush Derangement Syndrome. This front-loaded primary mess is the direct result of the delusional state in which the left has been seething since the 2000 election.

Having concluded by early 2007 that they were never going to be able to change administrations through impeachment, they decided to just pretend it was an election year and anoint their unstoppable candidate, whose election was a foregone conclusion -- thereby achieving a virtual change in government, a good year before electoral reality caught up with the comforting delusion.

A strategem well-befitting this gaggle of wrinkled flower-children. Ambitious, if rather unhealthy.

Not gonna happen. Well, maybe it's too soon to say that. After all this excitement, the truth is we're no closer to knowing how it will all come out than we were yesterday.

Bring on the next debate!

FOOTNOTE TO YESTERDAY'S POST:

POLLS SHOW
TOP THREE DEMOCRATS
RUNNING NECK-AND-NECK
FOR IOWA CAUCUSES


MEMO TO IOWA:

ARE YOU DERANGED?

JOHN EDWARDS?

The only thing more disturbing than the Iowa "Huckaboom" is the thought that there are also enough doofuses in the same state to consider the preening, posturing, class-warfare-mongering, silk-suit, country-club ambulance-chaser Edwards as even remotely fit to run the United States of Anything.

Actually I did once hear a perfectly reasonable explanation for Edwards' appeal: he was poor, and he got rich -- richer than freakin' Elvis! WOO-HOO!!! Gotta love that boy! He's so damn rich! He BIG rich! And he didn't even have to marry a dipsy-wipsy ketchup widow to get there! Oh yeah! My hero! HE da MAN! etc. etc.........


And Lord knows, he's pretty.

LATEST POLLS SAY IOWA CAUCUSES
WILL FAVOR HUCKABEE


MEMO TO IOWA:

ARE YOU DERANGED?

Please, somebody tell me that no single state in the union has such a large proportion of doofuses (doofi?) that this guy could actually win it.


Just how big a knucklehead is this saucer-deep Evangellyrolling Creationistamatized, Hagee-schmoozing, Arkansas smarm-artist?

Oh, about THIS BIG.



(Sweet God, wasn't one enough?...)








McCain. Guiliani. Romney. Even Thompson.

Could probably live with any of them, flaws and all.


Huckabee? I'd have to move to Canada.

Oh yeah -- I already live there.


A-A-A-A-G-G-H-H-H-H!!!!
WE'RE NOT SAFE ANYWHERE!!!!

Okay -- put your head down and lean into the wind. Let's get the "Hawkeye Cauc-ae" over with, and move on to a state with a real primary.


P.S.:
In the Democrat camp, the polls show the three leading candidates running neck-and-neck. To the degree that there's any neck involved...

2007 -- good riddance -- for too many sad memories with the power to overshadow the good stuff; for separation, deaths, betrayal by "auld aquaintance" (too painful to "be forgot" quite yet) -- for cowardice and calumny from the squalid halls of government.

On the other hand... babies reached their one-year mark, kids took first steps on the road to life, scattered and shattered friends re-grouped and made music, good folks in distant lands laid down arms and came to the radical conclusion that U.S. Marines can walk on water.

Despite the amusing bumper sticker (heh), a man in a uniform brought promise of peace -- not so much through superior firepower as through unshakeable perseverence, not to mention compassionate, respectful, innovative, brilliantly intelligent and breathtakingly courageous toe-to-toe, man-to-man, cor ad cor exercise of human virtue, forging and drawing on the bonds of common humanity.

His nickname used to be Peaches.

Man of the Year (perhaps the decade),
General David Petraeus.

More people's chances for a Happy New year, and some light at the end of a smoking tunnel, probably depend on this one man at this moment than on any other person now living.

He has his detractors.

We spit on them.


I have a son in Iraq who is fighting boredom.

For that we thank you, General.

The sun has already risen on a better day.

Just in case you were wondering why we're still having trouble with that "PEACE ON EARTH" thing....

Priests brawl at Bethlehem birthplace of Jesus
[hat-tip: Breitbart.com]

As they say in the world's Parliaments [ you know, "Parliament" -- that glorious gift of British "Imperialism" to the entire globe] :
SHAME! SHAME! SHAME!

There's a reason why my most profound spiritual experience in the city of Jerusalem was visiting the Western Wall and the archaeological site at the base of the Temple Mount: because, as important as the Church of the Holy Sepulchre is for the Christian, it was tainted by these same inter-Christian tensions and rivalries, such as competitive simultaneous Masses between the Copts and the RC's-- not to mention the fact that the Christian custodians seemed more interested in marking out their own territory than in maintaining any sense of reverence among the cell-phone-toating, underdressed tourists.



Meanwhile, back in the war zone where American "Imperialism" has ruined everything for everybody.....

Shiite tribal leaders attended Christmas Mass in Iraq [hat-tip: Gateway Pundit]

Alleluiah, Hosanna, and OOH-RAH.


Meanwhile, back in nuclear Pakistan,
to no one's great surprise
Benazir Bhutto assassinated.


Religion of Pieces chalks up another one.

Drive-by Media To-Do List, Item (1):

Figure out how to blame George Bush.

CHRISTMAS IN THE HOLY LANDS

Even as the Vatican is doing a funk'n'bunk-- stiffing persecuted Middle Eastern Christians and moving the living Nativity scene from Bethlehem to Nazareth [hat-tip: DavidWarrenonline]-- over in the original Holy Land (Ur of the Chaldees), Christians are re-staking their 2000-year-old claims and re-filling the churches of Baghdad. [Hat-tip: JammieWearingFool, via Instapundit]


May the Prince of peace stand guard at their doors.

SOMETHING I WISH I WERE SINGING THIS CHRISTMAS.

...Come to think of it, I WISH I WERE SINGING THIS CHRISTMAS-- PERIOD.

Life is too short to explain that just now [the story of the Great Choir Massacre of '07 will have to wait] -- so listen and enjoy, in these last days of Advent.




"I'LL BE HOME FOR CHRISTMAS,
IF ONLY IN MY DREAMS..."

How many of us grew up listening to Der Bingle singing that song, and never knew that it referred to the troops of World War II. Now I know -- in every sense of the word.


Cincinnatus blogs from Al Asad, at the near edge of the original Holy Land, and gives us a new take on the seed of Abraham, promised by God to be more numerous than the stars.

Well, there's been little to report because little out of the ordinary has been going on here the last few weeks. The day guys go out and fly their missions, and then the sun sets and every few days (or nights, "days" for me since I'm up for 14 hours, but . . . I'm not going to explain it anymore, because it makes my head hurt and my brain is starting to reject the programming) I launch and spend a few hours staring at the green world around me through my goggles.

Last night was about as uneventful as it gets, especially considering we went out on an eastern route we're not allowed to fly during the day that takes us within sight of the lights of Baghdad. And lights there are, in the city itself and extending north along both the rivers that run through it. Mesopotamia is lit up like a Christmas tree (or the hajj equivalent, this time of year) through our night vision goggles, though not like cities and towns are back at home. At home, urban centers are these big blobs through the goggles, sometimes big and sometimes small, but generally kind of circular in shape. Out here, night shows you how much of a river culture Iraq truly is: cultural lighting is almost continuous as it spreads out along the rivers from the seat of the old caliphate, but it rarely extends more than a half-mile from either river-bank.

The night sky is also a veritable blaze of light, given that we rarely see clouds and there's nothing on the horizon to obstruct one's view. Sure, it's all green in the NVGs, but you can see thousands more stars than back in the real world, and the goggles help amplify the light from shooting stars that you'd never see unaided. Last night they were falling everywhere, the bigger ones leaving a trail of fire in the heavens that lingered on our artificial eyes. It was a night where little on the ground (except the landing phase) was as interesting as the patterns on the tapestry above.

Republican presidential candidate Fred Thompson gets up-and-down reviews as a campaigner, but when the rest of the field, both parties, are making goofballs of themselves trying to win votes with Christmas themes, Fred just says what should be uppermost in the mind this Christmas whether your loved one is Over There or not.





Newsflash: CANADA SET TO FLEX ITS
HUMAN RIGHTS MUZZLE

Story here.

FREE MARK STEYN!!!!

HEH.

ANDY BOROWITZ strikes again:

Kim Jong-Il Kicks Iran out of Axis of Evil

Nukeless Nation Just ‘Not Evil Enough,’ says Korean madman

With a National Intelligence Estimate revealing that Iran halted its nuclear arms program in 2003, North Korean president Kim Jong-Il ejected Iran from the Axis of Evil, calling them "not evil enough."

"I can't tell you how many times Mahmoud Ahmadinejad looked me in the eye, told me he was developing nuclear weapons, and cackled like a madman," Kim said. "That man does not deserve to cackle."

Read the rest here.


FURTHER FUNNIES

from Michael Ramirez, Investor's Business Daily political cartoonist.




Mary Jo Kopechne could not be reached for comment:



And not so funny:

"I'll see your Muhammady Bear,
and raise you a Digital Deserty Marine Bear"

...who, according to Marine General James Mattis , thinks it might be "fun" to terminate with extreme prejudice "guys who slap women around for 5 years because they didn't wear a veil"-- or maybe folks who want to flog and jail a woman for letting her student name a stuffed animal after himself. (Anybody flogging the kid for violating the tenets of his own religion? After all, he's old enough to train as a suicide bomber.)

Flogging -- now what does that actually look like again? Oh yeah, it was in that movie everybody got so excited about a few years ago, where Jesus took a whuppin': "Blood, flesh, bone, teeth, eyes, eye sockets, ribs, limbs -- the man is skinned alive, taken apart." Fiction? Tell it to this guy:

[This year's line of Highly Controversial Muhammady Bears on view here.]



UPDATE: IN ORDER TO DO THIS....



....YOU'D HAVE TO FIND IT FIRST



Brian de Palma's execrable anti-military hate-film Redacted opened in fifteen whole theatres (!) on the weekend of November 16, and the 5-million-dollar film made a whopping great $25,000. [then down to nine theatres for week two, making only $10,000, then in ten theatres for week three, making $5,500] That should just about cover the catering and limousines for the various pampered participants. No, on second thought, that's about the value of one or two Oscar-presenter loot bags.

However, I'm sure it was worth it all if the director could bask in this kind of critical acclaim. (more here and here -- hat-tips Boston Globe, Maxim, and Slate.com)

IRAQ IS ON A ROLL

Michael Yon weighs in again, hot on the heels of his "Thanks and praise" photo essay (which went deservedly viral in the blogosphere this week), because the hits just keep on comin'. Today's entry tells of the inspiring restoration of normal life and worship in St. John Church, almost three years to the day after it was severely damaged by car bombs [November 8, 2004], and six months after the church was forced to close because of violence in the neighbourhood.


Mass was celebrated by Auxiliary Bishop Shlemon Warduni of the Chaldean/Assyrian Catholic Diocese, who alternated between Arabic and English to make sure that members of the U.S. Army's 2-12 infantry battalion got the message: thank you, American soldiers.

But there was an even more important message being conveyed, not only in words but in the mere presence of the congregation, because the Christians in the church were apparently well outnumbered by Muslims from the neighbourhood. Their message: COME HOME.

"Tell the Christians to come home to their country Iraq."

Christians once made up about 5% of the population of Iraq, but even that slim fraction has shrunk, as hundreds of thousands have fled to other countries-- estimates as of last May put their numbers at less than 400,000 of the 1.5 million who once lived more or less in harmony with their Muslim neighbours (no less terrorized under Saddam than anyone else, but no more either). In Baghdad at least, these neighbours are imploring them to return home and reclaim their houses and business, to resume the way of life they once all shared, but in a country now with real hope of deliverance from the pangs of rebirth.

MIRABILE DICTU + + + HOSANNA!

HOW DID THIS HAPPEN? HOW DID THE WORM TURN?

Says a Washington Times editorial:

All of this is the result of the most underreported successful military operation since the invention of the telegraph... But the point to take away from the surge is that, though a brilliant military operation, it was never just a military operation. Rather it developed a political, economic and communications infrastructure that is permitting local-level reconciliation. We are creating representative governance from the bottom up — not from the Green Zone down. Despite a frail and inept national government, the people in the towns and provinces (under the tutelage of the U.S. military) seem to be forming order out of the chaos.

Oh.
Now I see.
Simple dimple.

Joe Klein of Time Magazine doesn't see it quite the same way. I quote him here so we can add him to our collection of people who are going to sound UNBELIEVABLY STOOOOPID much sooner than they could ever anticipate. Say it ain't so, Joe!

Let me reassert the obvious here: The war in Iraq has been a disaster, the stupidest foreign policy decision ever made by an American President. It has weakened America's moral, military and diplomatic status globally. It can not be "won" militarily. The best case scenario is a testy stability, most likely under a Shi'ite strongman, who will be (relatively) independent of Iran and (relatively) independent of us.

Wow, Joe -- you write for Time -- you must be really smart.


TREATS FOR TROOPS DELIVERS!!!

Cincinnatus has been 'in country' just a few weeks, and Treats for Troops wasted no time in delivering a giant snack attack, within about ten days of my order. You can send goodies of all sorts to your own special set of boots on the ground, or adopt a whole regiment, or adopt one individual who's been noticed as not getting enough attention by mail. TFT takes care of all the details, knows what kind of stuff survives mailing halfway around the world, and delivers the air-drop to the target. (And, I'm told, provides fantastic chicken fajita jerky.)

Want to help support the troops? Order up some intercontinental ballistic jerky.



SUPPORT FOR TROOPS WHO CAN'T PICK UP A SNACK, OR ANYTHING ELSE:

PROJECT VALOUR-IT

The branches of the military services have been competing to raise money for Project Valour-IT (the Army beat the Marines, but that's kind of demographically inevitable) -- but you can donate any time to purchase voice-activated lap-tops for amputee veterans. (That's why they call it Project Voice Activated Laptops for OUR Injured Troops.)


A MILITARY MOM TELLS IT LIKE IT IS
reflecting on modern apathy towards the observation of Veterans Day --
attention must be paid [hat-tip Human Events] -- money quote:

Military moms have trouble watching television or reading the newspaper when they read over and over that their children are fighting or were wounded or were killed for nothing. Military moms hear their officemates, their neighbors, their fellow parishioners, sometimes even their other family members disparage the war effort, or famously declare that they “support the troops but not the war” as if that is a rational statement. Military moms hear and see that their sons and daughters names are used by anti-war politicians and activists in an effort to score political points, using their children’s blood and sacrifice as a cover. And military moms try not to be bitter, not to be angry, not to profane their children’s decision to protect and defend the United States. Military moms try to live up to their children who tell them: “Mom, don’t get angry at them. I am fighting to protect their right to be jerks.”

This put me in mind of a memorable column by Renaissancy gadfly Ben Stein expressing his personal gratitude to all military wives [hat-tip Opinion Journal] via a letter written to one of them in August 2004. To 'Karen' he writes:

I have a great life. I have a wife I adore, a son who is a lazy teenager but I adore him, too. We live in a house with two dogs and four cats. We live in peace. We can worship as we please. We can say what we want. We can walk the streets in safety. We can vote. We can work wherever we want and buy whatever we want. When we sleep, we sleep in peace. When we wake up, it is to the sounds of birds.

All of this, every bit of it, is thanks to your husband, his brave fellow soldiers, and to the wives who keep the home fires burning while the soldiers are away protecting my family and 140 million other families.

Always worth a re-read.


FUNNIEST POLITICAL SATIRE OF THE WEEK:

Andy Borowitz reports at the Puffington Host [hat-tip Jewish World Review]:

Hillary Refuses to Answer 'Paper-or-Plastic' Question

Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) raised eyebrows in Iowa today when she refused to respond to a supermarket cashier's question about her preference for paper or plastic bags, calling the inquiry "totally hypothetical."

Mrs. Clinton's aversion to hypothetical questions has been a hallmark of her quest for the Democratic presidential nomination, but her refusal to answer the paper-or-plastic query during a campaign stop in Davenport took even some of her closest supporters aback.

The New York senator had stopped by the local supermarket for a photo opportunity, but her appearance ran off the rails when she was blindsided by the cashier's unexpected question.

"This paper-or-plastic business is one of those 'gotcha' questions that I'm not going to get into," Mrs. Clinton said. "I don't want to be in a situation where I've chosen one and that takes the other one totally off the table."

Shunning both paper and plastic, Mrs. Clinton left the store clutching an unwieldy assortment of groceries in her bare hands.

HILLARY LOCKS UP THE WOMEN'S VOTE:






THEN AMERICA FIGHTS BACK!



(As part of her exit strategy she gives policy advice about how "the bases aren't weighted enough." She should know. Check out the weight of her base as she exits. MUST LOSE THOSE PANTSUITS!)

VETERANS DAY MUSINGS
from Duncan Maxwell Anderson AT American thinker:

Are modern-day monuments to heroism merely "Monuments to Wimpdom"?

Well....yeah.

I don't entirely agree with Anderson's assessment of Frederick Hart's trio of figures created to face, and humanize, Maya Lin's searing "Vietnam Wall" -- he [Anderson] thinks the guys look tentative rather than determined.


I dunno -- tired, maybe, but in control of their situation.

The back view speaks as well.


But, fair enough-- it's not quite the triumphant stance that other more traditional memorial statues might convey. However, it is miles better than architectonic "absences" that pass for memorials today.

I've written on this elsewhere, for instance, about the proposed Disabled Veterans LIFE Memorial, a noble idea, but I think the design suffers from the same image-free vapidity as those criticized by Anderson. He missed another one too -- the sadly underwhelming World War II memorial on the Mall bolsters his thesis. I wonder, though, if he thinks that the grim and struggling look about the figures at the Korea memorial counts it as one among the "wimpy" -- I sure don't.



Still, the essay is a thought worth thinking on this Remembrance Day weekend (God bless the British/Canadian way of "saying it with poppies").


[Canadian vet Alfred Finlay, in 1996]




































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