The Middle is Always Evil

This post is best begun with a YouTube clip (be patient its a bit slow to load). Watch:

I have to point out the stark difference between Barack Obama’s bumbling, backtracking and general verbosity and John McCain’s conciseness of response– this difference is due in large part to the fact that while John McCain has principles (even though I disagree with many of them), Barack Obama has none– at least no consistent ones. But this is to be expected. John McCain has led a life of public service, and Obama hasn’t even finished his first term in the Senate.

If you watched the clip, you’d know that the Junior Senator said that answering the question of when a baby gets human rights is “above his pay grade.” In other words, he doesn’t know. He doesn’t know? A one-year old is a baby– does he have human rights? Of all the things that he could’ve said, this was the dumbest.

Strange words coming from the most liberal, pro-human rights candidate in history. Do you think the folks who presented him with the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award feel a bit… awkward?

But Obama has had plenty to say on the issue of Human Rights; here are some highlights.

At the Council on Foreign Relations in 2004:

In every region of the globe, our foreign policy should promote traditional American ideals: democracy and human rights

Yes, but how, under your leadership, can the US promote Human Rights when you don’t even know at what point people get them? Lets move on. At the ‘Citizen of the World’ speech in Berlin:

Will we stand for the human rights of the dissident in Burma, the blogger in Iran, or the voter in Zimbabwe?

I don’t know Barry, how can we, under your leadership, if the question of whether they deserve them at all is ‘above your pay grade’?

But Obama did not think that it was above his pay grade in 2001 as a state senator, when he voted against the infanticidal Born Alive Infants Bill, which would require that a child that has been born and has survived an abortion to receive the same care as a child that was born prematurely; Obama would rather the baby be left to die. Ironically, Obama made substantially less money then than he does now: maybe his standards went up?

Perhaps Senator Obama does not realize that as president of the United States, he’ll be making decisions that effect the lives of millions of people, including the unborn. If that question is above his pay grade, then –in all seriousness– maybe he should apply for another job. If I had been Rick Warren, I would have stopped him before he continued into his bloated elaboration, and I would have asked him, “Senator, if its above your pay grade to answer that question, do you believe your daughters have human rights?”

Last night, the two remaining contenders for the presidency took the stage together for the first time in the election cycle. The event, as you probably know, was held at Saddleback Chruch in Lake Forest, California. All in all, this event showed us two things:

• Any casual observer learned (and probably already knows) that Barack Obama cannot preform well off-the-cuff, and that John McCain can; this means the debates between these two are going to be interesting, and that this election may be a lot closer than many of us previously thought.
• We also learned that both candidates despise their own happiness– or at least consider it something to feel guilty for, to try to hide from the public.

Case in point: when asked what his greatest moral failure was, Senator Obama mumbled something about drug use, but then went on to say that it was a “fundamental selfishness”

I am proud to say that what Barack Obama lists as his greatest moral failure is the thing that I would consider to be the greatest moral achievement a person could aspire to: selfishness.

When Pastor Rick Warren asked McCain why he wanted to be president, he said that he wanted to,

“inspire a generation of Americans to serve a cause greater than their self interest.”

For all their disagreements (and agreements) on foreign and domestic policy, these two candidates sure do come down together on the issue of whether or not Americans have the right to live for their own sake: the answer, firmly, emphatically, is: no.

John McCain is not the first politician that has called for a generation to bow to a cause greater than themselves; watch the clip. Barack Obama is not the first politician to call for a country that– like in the clip above– “knows no class distinction;” This is not a Change I can believe in– in fact, its not a change at all. Its been done before.

You see, ladies and gentlemen, the actors change, but the course of history stays the same.

John McCain wants you to serve your country; Barack Obama wants you to serve, not just your country, but an amorphous “others.” But what these men forget– or rather, what they do not forget– but instead, what you forget is that where there is a servant, there is a master, ladies and gentlemen.

And don’t comment saying that its inappropriate for me to compare modern day political figures to Adolf Hitler, because it isn’t; watch the video.

Besides, that’s just what I do: I compare people to Hitler.

You can’t have your cake and eat it too, it is said. Apparently, no one ever told John McCain this particular pearl.

Ever since clinching the nomination, McCain has been hit by Democrats with allegations that his presidency would be nothing more than “Bush’s third term,” labeling him John McSame, and challenging people to find differences between the policies of the two Republicans. Looking only at the George Bush’s abysmal approval rating, McCain has spent a large portion of his time distancing himself from the President.

But in doing so, McCain is only digging himself into a hole. Infamously, Governor Mark Sanford was unable to show any significant differences between the economic polices of George Bush and John McCain.

Here’s what people are missing with this video: like it or not, George Bush has had some solid economic policies, especially in the areas of tax cuts and free trade. But they haven’t worked, you say. The economy is terrible, you say. You’re wrong. The economy is bad, but its not terrible– we’ve been much worse off. Take the Carter administration for example.

But the economy is declining, and thats because Bush has been far-from-perfect economically. Look, for example, at his federal spending record:

In February, Bush sent a 3.1 trillion dollar budget to congress: hardly conservative. Just yesterday, Bush authorized a bill that will send $48 billion American taxpayers’ dollars to Africa for AIDS relief. Over all, Bush has shown an utter reluctance to veto anything, much less spending, during his administration, which has made for an out of control federal deficit.

George W. Bush is proof that tax cuts alone are not enough– without tandem cuts in spending, they hurt, rather than help the economy. John McCain has stated this problem explicitly, and he says he will be fixing Bush’s error here.

This is the single, most important difference between Bush and McCain: and McCain never mentions it. Why does he think the American public is so dumb? We can understand that just because the two men have similarities, they aren’t the same; we aren’t two-year-olds. He’s gotten so wrapped up in distancing himself from the President that he’s become reluctant to defend what works, and as a result he’s drifting further and further left. Is it so hard to say: “Yes, George Bush supported it, but it is right.”?

John McCain is supposedly Mr. Straight Talk; so why can’t he look into a camera and tell me: “Look, George Bush and I have a lot in common, but in the places where we differ, it makes all the difference.” Now thats some straight talk I can get used to.

Here’s the bottom line: McCain and Bush are similar, very much so, but their similarities are good.  But McCain is obsessed with being a non-conformist, and in his attempt to distance himself from the President, he has ended up downplaying his strengths and playing up his weaknesses. Way to go, maverick.

Drudge is reporting this afternoon that the New York Times editorial staff has rejected an op-ed written by John McCain. An instance of clear media bias, the piece was written in response to Obama’s editorial, “My Plan for Iraq.” In a small attempt to thwart the disgusting incompetence and slanted journalism of the NYT, I have posted McCain’s full editorial, released by the campaign to CNN, below. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

In January 2007, when General David Petraeus took command in Iraq, he called the situation “hard” but not “hopeless.” Today, 18 months later, violence has fallen by up to 80% to the lowest levels in four years, and Sunni and Shiite terrorists are reeling from a string of defeats. The situation now is full of hope, but considerable hard work remains to consolidate our fragile gains.

Progress has been due primarily to an increase in the number of troops and a change in their strategy. I was an early advocate of the surge at a time when it had few supporters in Washington. Senator Barack Obama was an equally vocal opponent. “I am not persuaded that 20,000 additional troops in Iraq is going to solve the sectarian violence there,” he said on January 10, 2007. “In fact, I think it will do the reverse.”

Now Senator Obama has been forced to acknowledge that “our troops have performed brilliantly in lowering the level of violence.” But he still denies that any political progress has resulted.

Perhaps he is unaware that the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad has recently certified that, as one news article put it, “Iraq has met all but three of 18 original benchmarks set by Congress last year to measure security, political and economic progress.” Even more heartening has been progress that’s not measured by the benchmarks. More than 90,000 Iraqis, many of them Sunnis who once fought against the government, have signed up as Sons of Iraq to fight against the terrorists. Nor do they measure Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki’s new-found willingness to crack down on Shiite extremists in Basra and Sadr City, actions that have done much to dispel suspicions of sectarianism.

The success of the surge has not changed Senator Obama’s determination to pull out all of our combat troops. All that has changed is his rationale. In a New York Times op-ed and a speech this week, he offered his “plan for Iraq” in advance of his first “fact finding” trip to that country in more than three years. It consisted of the same old proposal to pull all of our troops out within 16 months. In 2007 he wanted to withdraw because he thought the war was lost. If we had taken his advice, it would have been. Now he wants to withdraw because he thinks Iraqis no longer need our assistance.

To make this point, he mangles the evidence. He makes it sound as if Prime Minister Maliki has endorsed the Obama timetable, when all he has said is that he would like a plan for the eventual withdrawal of U.S. troops at some unspecified point in the future.

Senator Obama is also misleading on the Iraqi military’s readiness. The Iraqi Army will be equipped and trained by the middle of next year, but this does not, as Senator Obama suggests, mean that they will then be ready to secure their country without a good deal of help. The Iraqi Air Force, for one, still lags behind, and no modern army can operate without air cover. The Iraqis are also still learning how to conduct planning, logistics, command and control, communications, and other complicated functions needed to support frontline troops.

No one favors a permanent U.S. presence, as Senator Obama charges. A partial withdrawal has already occurred with the departure of five “surge” brigades, and more withdrawals can take place as the security situation improves. As we draw down in Iraq, we can beef up our presence on other battlefields, such as Afghanistan, without fear of leaving a failed state behind. I have said that I expect to welcome home most of our troops from Iraq by the end of my first term in office, in 2013.

But I have also said that any draw-downs must be based on a realistic assessment of conditions on the ground, not on an artificial timetable crafted for domestic political reasons. This is the crux of my disagreement with Senator Obama.

Senator Obama has said that he would consult our commanders on the ground and Iraqi leaders, but he did no such thing before releasing his “plan for Iraq.” Perhaps that’s because he doesn’t want to hear what they have to say. During the course of eight visits to Iraq, I have heard many times from our troops what Major General Jeffrey Hammond, commander of coalition forces in Baghdad, recently said: that leaving based on a timetable would be “very dangerous.”

The danger is that extremists supported by Al Qaeda and Iran could stage a comeback, as they have in the past when we’ve had too few troops in Iraq. Senator Obama seems to have learned nothing from recent history. I find it ironic that he is emulating the worst mistake of the Bush administration by waving the “Mission Accomplished” banner prematurely.

I am also dismayed that he never talks about winning the war– only of ending it. But if we don’t win the war, our enemies will. A triumph for the terrorists would be a disaster for us. That is something I will not allow to happen as president. Instead I will continue implementing a proven counterinsurgency strategy not only in Iraq but also in Afghanistan with the goal of creating stable, secure, self-sustaining democratic allies.

I’m currently hanging around the Defending the American Dream Summit in Austin, Texas; I’ve been passing the time talking to a cute LP spokeswoman and checking out some of the other booths. It seems that there’s a lot of support for John McCain around here– that’s a bandwagon I cannot in good conscience jump on.

Don’t be deceived by the man’s hawkish patriotic stump speeches, he’s a liberal; there have been plenty of militaristic liberals in recent history (Castro, Mao, Stalin), so I don’t understand why this throws people off so much.

McCain-Feingold and McCain-Kennedy are two of the most leftist legislative moves that I can think of off the top of my head. Indeed, McCain is to the left of most Democrats on immigration and campaign finance reform. Not to mention his shameful stance on gun rights and welfare. The man is simply not a conservative. Its pitiful that we have him as our smaller-government alternative to Barack Obama.

Both these two men are Marxists; one of them is pretending not to be. Anybody who believes in public education is a Marxist; anyone who supports the existence of the IRS to any extent is a Marxist; anyone who supports the existence of the Federal Communications Commission, the Department of Labor, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Securities and Exchange Commission, etc. is a Marxist. Anyone who believes that the roads should be publicly owned is a Marxist. Period.

I cannot bring myself to support John McCain.