A new and nearly unheard of - in national political circles - candidate has entered the race for the Republican nomination to challenge Barack Hussein Obama next year and stands as a shining example of a person with an insufficient public persona attempting to cloak himself in the guise of a previously successful person.
Just like John F. Kerry unsuccessfully attempted to portray himself as a latter day John F. Kennedy in 2004, Jon Huntsman who is so unremarkable that his own staff misspelled his name on his announcement stationery, is attempting to portray himself as a latter day Ronald Reagan.
It didn't work for Kerry and it won't work for Huntsman.
All else aside, there are two strikes against Huntsman already: he worked for Barack Hussein Obama as ambassador to China; and the American Terrorist Media loves this guy so much that they have progressed from tingles up their pant legs to virtual orgasms.
Either situation is an automatic disqualifier in my book and hopefully in the books of GOP primary voters across the country too.
Huntsman made his announcement in New Jersey's Liberty State Park, the same site where Reagan opened his 1980 presidential campaign with the Statue of Liberty in the background. But aside from the backdrop any similarity between Huntsman and Reagan ends right there.
In fact, Rush Limbaugh had a blast this week rebroadcasting excerpts from Ronald Reagan's announcement speech when he took on ex-president jimmy carter, and Huntsman's announcement speech where he promised to carry Barack Hussein Obama's water. What a difference.
Reagan took it right to Carter, promising and delivering a no-holds-barred campaign, while Huntsman opined that Obama is really a very nice guy who just has marginal policies. Whooppeee, we're in for a hot one now folks. Bleeeccchhh.
This entire approach of trying to recast oneself in someone else's image leaves me high and dry. If you can't portray yourself to the American public as who you really are, with expectations that the voting public will respond to you and your ideas - especially with modern marketing tools - you may as well quit before you start wasting everyone's time.
Remember John "Chameleon" Kerry when he went out to the Midwest on a bird hunting campaign appearance? Walked into a sporting goods store and the guy who talked about Genghis Khan with a soft 'g' in 1971, attempting to be the ultimate pseudo-intellectual back then, in 2004 asks the store clerk "Can I get me a hunting license here?"
'Get me a hunting license?' Really?
Did Ronald Reagan attempt to sell himself as a reincarnation of someone else? NO! He portrayed himself as himself and the public responded ... twice!
Did John F. Kennedy campaign on how much he was like some previous president? No way! He couldn't, he was the first Catholic to be elected president. Good grief even Obama didn't campaign on his similarities to someone else, he ran as himself -whomever that might be.
Kerry's unsuccessful attempt to build a link between himself and Kennedy should be a model of what NOT to do in a presidential campaign.
Kerry, who knew the Kennedys when he was a youngster, planned out his presidential bid decades in advance. Members of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth who worked tirelessly to portray the real John Kerry to American voters recalled that he carried a motion picture camera with him in Vietnam, a very, very rare occurrence in those days - especially for troops in combat who were too busy trying to stay alive to film themselves doing it.
When Kerry made his bid for the presidency his commercials were full of dashing images of American Swift Boats on patrol in Vietnam's waters; remarkably similar to Victory at Sea images of World War II PT Boats, which were Kennedy's claim to fame. In fact, the movie PT-109 about Kennedy's boat being destroyed by a Japanese destroyer and Kennedy's true-life valor in surviving and help save other crew members, included scenes that appeared to be recast in Kerry's commercials.
But John F. Kerry was NOT John F. Kennedy and all the commercials in the world could not stop the truth from emerging. His betrayal of fellow Vietnam vets in his phony Winter Soldier hearings in 1971; his violation of his oath as a US Naval officer when he went to Paris and held unauthorized, and illegal, meetings with Vietnamese communists; his inclusion in the communist war museum in Saigon as a Hero of the Revolution - right there with Jane Fonda; his betrayal as co-chair of the Senate Select Committee on POWs and MIAs of more than 300 POWs left behind in Laos; all these transgressions caught up with him.
Oddly enough, in Huntsman's case the national electorate doesn't know enough about him yet to fully understand what are certain to be his weaknesses. On the surface his resume looks pretty good - twice elected Gov. of Utah, with a huge majority the second time; an exemplary Eagle Scout; the guy who made the largest tax reduction in Utah's history, and still ended the year with a budget surplus.
But what is certain to make many voters squirm is that he has worked in appointed positions in the administrations of presidents from both parties, including Reagan's but that was decades ago. Meaning he is part of the establishment, meaning he is tainted, meaning he is going to have to reinvent himself if he is going to gain a foothold with voters across the political spectrum who are sick to death of the establishment and the status quo. Huntsman's travels on all sides of the political spectrum automatically make him suspect as a RINO and as a ringer.
So Jon Huntsman has his work cut out for him ... starting with building an identity that will work with the voters if he is so uncertain of his true self. But my advice would be to lay off the Ronald Reagan comparisons.
We've already seen the real Ronald Reagan and that act is impossible to follow.
President Barack Hussein Obama is poised to announce troop withdrawals from the ongoing War on Terror's Afghanistan battlefields later today, with a preordained result that can be easily determined simply by studying the failed Vietnam policies of the late President Richard Nixon and his National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger.
In the spring of 1969, about three months after his inauguration, Nixon announced that he was going to begin withdrawing troops from Vietnam. This apparently was his so-called "secret plan to win the war" on which he had campaigned the previous year. His timing could not have been worse, the results were disastrous, his decision failed to take into account the true situation on the battlefield, and his motivation was purely political - just like President Obama's.
When Nixon made his ill-fated announcement the US had approximately 540,000 troops in Vietnam, and for the first time in the war we had numerical parity with the communist forces, which by then were entirely composed of regular troops from the North Vietnamese Army.
A year earlier, beginning on Feb. 1, 1968, the communists had launched their Tet Offensive, using 75,000 Viet Cong guerrillas backed by North Vietnamese regulars - counting on huge numbers of South Vietnamese civilians to rise up alongside them. But the vicious terror tactics employed by the communists had alienated the South Vietnamese populace, who stayed home for the battles, and by the end of the month, with the exception of the siege at Khe Sanh and the Battle for Hue City, the fighting was over.
The Viet Cong suffered an estimated 37,500 troops killed in action, which forever broke the back of the guerrilla forces, with the North Vietnamese losing about 25,000 more.
When the siege at Khe Sanh was lifted in April the communists had lost approximately 15,000 troops of the 40,000 North Vietnamese who had surrounded the remote base, and another 8,000 died in and around Hue City. All in all it was a total military disaster for the communists.
But the American media, led by the late CBS evening news anchor and closet communist Walter Cronkite, lied to the American public and reported the US victory as a communist victory, much to the delight of their cohorts in Russia, China and North Vietnam. The American media by that point had progressed from mind-numbing ignorance of military issues, compounded by arrogance and groundless self-importance, to open collaboration with the communists.
Cronkite even flew to Saigon and reported to America that the war in Vietnam was at a "stalemate" and "unwinnable." Incredible liar.
As a result, the late president Lyndon B. Johnson replaced the victorious American commander Gen. William Westmoreland, but nonetheless began pouring even more US troops into the country - similar to President George W. Bush's 2007-2008 "Surge" in Iraq if you will.
Prior to this point in the Vietnam War the US had not lost a single battle, and never did. The communist losses were far in excess of America's although the American media again lied to the American public, ridiculing the military's body counts. (After the war it was revealed that in addition to annihilating the Viet Cong, killing virtually all of the 75,000 guerrillas in battle, the north lost about 1.5 million troops killed in action!)
With even more troops on the ground enabling a more aggressive search and destroy methodology the scope of the communist battlefield defeats escalated and they lost entire regiments and even divisions in a series of operations launched by US forces. By the spring of 1969, especially after the communists suffered massive losses in the 9th Marines' Operation Dewey Canyon, the communist field commanders began lobbying their political bosses to surrender.
Enter Nixon's troop withdrawal announcement, at the urging of Kissinger. The communist political bosses in Hanoi immediately squashed all talk of surrender, figuring correctly that while they couldn't defeat America militarily, they did have far more backbone than America's political leaders.
Later that year Nixon announced his "Vietnamization" program by which more of the fighting would be turned over to the South Vietnamese armed forces, a tactic that worked very well for the South Koreans in the early 1950s. The Vietnamization program was again ridiculed by the American media, but in fact, it worked!
South Vietnamese forces gained strength and ability, and while taking their hits along the way, still progressed to the point that in the spring of 1972, with most Americans long gone from the battlefield, they were able to stand up to a massive communist invasion of 250,000 troops, plus huge numbers of tanks and artillery. At the end of that invasion, fought on the ground by South Vietnamese forces backed by US air power, the communists had lost an estimated 150,000 troops killed in action, plus half their armor and artillery.
The US media again reported mostly on the difficulties encountered in fighting such a huge invading force, and basically neglected to mention that it failed miserably, even worse than the Tet Offensive of 1968, and that South Vietnamese forces were victorious.
America had long been at the bargaining table with the communists in Paris, another mistake based on the fraudulent concept that the war couldn't be won and only a negotiated settlement was acceptable. Later that year when the communist negotiators began dragging their feet Nixon ordered the Christmas bombings of the north to force them back to the bargaining table.
He suspended the bombing again at the urging of his by then Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, and as it later turned out again lost an opportunity to force the communists to surrender. In a memoir written well after the war, North Vietnam's top general said that the bombing was so effective and so demoralizing to the north that if it had continued for only two more days the communists were prepared to surrender unconditionally.
Instead, they went back to the bargaining table where they consistently outmaneuvered the American negotiators until an agreement was reached. The handful of remaining American fighting forces were withdrawn, and some of America's POWs were brought home, but half again as many were left in communist hands, to rot and die in Laotian prisons.
In June 1973 the US Congress passed the Case-Church Resolution, cutting off all aid to South Vietnam, our ally, including all medical, economic, military and humanitarian assistance.
Two years later after Nixon resigned in disgrace, and then-President Gerald Ford who openly told the northern communists via the American media that the US would not intervene if the communists again invaded South Vietnam, the rebuilt communist forces did just that. In April 1975, alone, abandoned and nearly out of bullets, the South Vietnamese government fell, setting off a communist rampage in Southeast Asia that left nearly 3 million civilians dead and millions more displaced.
And now we have Barack Hussein Obama, once again setting the stage for a premature troop withdrawal, a resurgence of extremist Muslim forces, and offering our enemies a secure haven from which to rebuild their forces and to once again attack America and our allies, if we actually have any.
We have many similarities between Vietnam and Afghanistan. Our enemies employ vicious tactics including using civilians as shields, they have sanctuaries in neighboring countries - Paah Kiss Taaan this time - Laos and Cambodia in the Vietnam war, that our troops are prevented from attacking, and the war is fought more often based on political and media considerations rather than military strategy.
As in Vietnam our government announces troop buildups and coming offensive operations in advance, giving the enemy time to adjust. We have "pundits" who obviously have no clue about real military tactics saying the war is unwinnable - exposing their abject ignorance of military subjects, yet providing "advice" that is heeded by President Obama.
In that vein I heard some Democratic "pollster" on Fox and Friends this morning saying the same thing as Cronkite - the war is "unwinnable." I didn't catch the guy's name and I really don't care who he is because he obviously is a Walter Cronkite wannabe who wants to go down in history as the man who convinced Obama to lose Afghanistan.
Yet we still are winning.
So-called experts are now arguing over what is the correct number of troops to bring home. That is irrelevant!
The issue is that by announcing an intention to disengage, Obama - who is doing this for political reasons just as Nixon did - is signaling a weakness in our political willpower. He is giving hope where there should be unrelenting, ceaseless attacks that kill and demoralize the enemy force, nothing less.
The war in Afghanistan is being won just as the war in Vietnam was being won. But once again the media is reporting it as being lost or at least unwinnable.
But consider this my media acquaintances - eventually, historians are going to realize that the American media was complicit in the deaths of some 3,000,000 southeast Asians slaughtered by the communists after the fall of Saigon, Phnom Penh and Vientiane, and those who took part will be forever branded as traitors to humanity.
And eventually, a withdrawal from Afghanistan when we are on the cusp of victory - military commanders on the ground there say they need about two years to wrap it up - will result in a resurgence of the same kind of extremism that was exhibited by the communists in the mid- to late-1970s. So my question to the American media is: do you really want this for your legacy? Is this how you want to be remembered?
As the next generation of propagandists who encouraged the slaughter of untold numbers of innocents - again? Think it over.
I generally don't write a separate column when we learn that a member of the Armed Forces from my state dies in combat because the ultimate goal of my columns - besides needling politicians - is to inform and give readers a sample of my writing style. Thus I don't want to create the appearance of commercialism when we lose another warrior in the ongoing War on Terror.
But for three years now I have been teaming up with other bloggers in Connecticut - most notably radio talk show host Jim Vicevich who precedes Rush Limbaugh on WTIC-1080 at 9 a.m. weekdays - to convince readers to send care packages to the troops overseas. This year the date on which I intended to deliver my annual "Support the Troops" message coincided with the news that Connecticut has lost another soldier.
My fellow bloggers and I participate in the blog competition in conjunction with an annual Internet Troopathon run by Move America Forward, the nation's largest pro-troop organization. The Troopathon this year will be held on June 23 and our blogathon competition has been underway since last month.
Three years ago, our team - The Greyhawks, named after the call sign that was assigned to Marine Medium Helicopter Squadron (HMM)161 - came in second place against some stiff competition. I served in 161 in Vietnam, it was the first helicopter squadron to carry troops into battle in Korea, and it also served with distinction in the Gulf War and the ongoing War on Terror.
For more than 40 years HMM-161 flew CH-46 Sea Knight helicopters, but last year the squadron transitioned to the new V-22 Ospreys which are half helicopter-half airplane and it's designation was changed to VMM-161. The HMM designation is now part of history.
Nonetheless, the Greyhawk tradition lives on here in Connecticut. Last year the Greyhawks won the blogathon competition and this year we are in the lead again. In addition to Jim http://radioviceonline.com/ and I, the CTWatchdog.com consumer website hosted by my former Hartford Courant colleague George Gombossy also is participating.
The blogathon is a means of encouraging people to visit the MAF website - all you have to do is click on the Remember Their Sacrifice link on our websites - where you can select a care package to send to troops serving in the Middle East. The options range from a package suited to one person, which costs $30, up to enough to serve a battalion. The choice is yours, but if you are so inclined please click on the link on my website, or Jim's or George's, and do something special for the people who are most impacted by the war.
None of us, not the Greyhawk bloggers, nor Move America Forward, gets so much as a cent out of this. We do it because we know that there are people defending us every single day and night from some of the most vicious terrorists the human race has ever faced. There is little we can do for them directly because the military provides all their material support.
But we can do this. Please help us.
And please pray for the family and friends of Army Private First Class Eric Daniel Soufrine, a Woodbridge, Connecticut native who was killed in action in Afghanistan on Tuesday. I offer his family, friends and loved ones my most sincere, deepest condolences.
There is little else I can offer in this time of tragedy except to say that his efforts on our behalf, and his sacrifices, as well as those of all who knew and cared for him, will never be forgotten.
Flags will fly at half-staff until he is brought home for burial, but long after they have returned to full-staff his memory will live with those of us who once walked in his shoes, and were fortunate to have returned.
As long as there are veterans of America's wars, as long as we have the capability to communicate, as long as there are days of remembrance, he will be remembered, along with all the others who also died in the service of our country.
It is our obligation to ensure that his memory, his deeds and his sacrifices will live on as long as there is a United States of America. SAEPE EXPERTUS, SEMPER FIDELIS, FRATRES AETERNI "Often Tested, Always Faithful, Brothers Forever"
Aware Americans have been talking for decades about the "dumbing down" of the public school system, with curricula focused on the slowest students in each class to ensure that no one ever fails - thus drawing the entire system into a black hole of underachievement.
Now we find that one reason the media gives only passing notice to this travesty is because many American "traditional journalists" are so blindingly stupid, or at least terribly unschooled, that they probably don't know what constitutes a real education.
I say this because of the reprehensible actions of the vast majority of media outlets and personalities last week when Sarah Palin made an appearance in Boston. She said that when Paul Revere of Revolutionary War fame rode out to warn the colonists that the British were coming, he also warned the British that the colonists were gathering to kick their red-coated butts back to England.
AAAAAAHHHHHHAAAAAAAA! went the collective American Terrorist Media. WE HAVE YOU NOW!
WHAT A STUPID THING PALIN SAID THIS TIME! WHAT A STUPID BROAD SHE IS! WE TOLD YOU SO! WE SAID SHE WAS A NINCOMPOOP! WE SAID SHE HAD NO BUSINESS RUNNING FOR PRESIDENT OR ANY OTHER OFFICE! WHAT A JERK! EVERYONE KNOWS PAUL REVERE WARNED THE COLONISTS NOT THE BRITISH. SEE? SEE? SEE? WE TOLD YOU!!!
Unfortunately someone should have told Paul Revere what the media would say about his ride some 236 years later. Revere was one of three patriots who rode that night, the others being William Dawes and Dr. Samuel Prescott. History states that all three were arrested by the British but Prescott and Dawes quickly escaped while Revere was held and interrogated before being released.
Revere said in his later writings that he warned the British troops that they better let him go because they were about to be squished. Left without a horse, Revere returned to Lexington in time to witness part of the battle on the Lexington Green.
A transcript of a letter from Revere to his friend Jeremey Belknap in 1798 describing his ride that night which can be found online at http://www.masshist.org/ says:
I observed a Wood at a Small distance, & made for that. When I got there, out Started Six officers, on Horse back, and orderd me to dismount;-one of them, who appeared to have the command, examined me, where I came from, & what my Name Was? I told him. it was Revere, he asked if it was Paul? I told him yes He asked me if I was an express? I answered in the afirmative. He demanded what time I left Boston? I told him; and aded, that their troops had catched aground in passing the River, and that There would be five hundred Americans there in a short time, for I had alarmed the Country all the way up.
Note to the media - I left the segment above as I found it online for authenticity purposes so don't get all over the spelling and grammar errors. They aren't mine. Dumbasses.
So, um, where are the apologies? There ARE apologies aren't there? Apologies to Sarah Palin, apologies to the readers and viewers of the various outlets that were subjected to a media fraud, and especially apologies to all of the schoolchildren across America who were so horribly misinformed by this propaganda onslaught.
We also need apologies from the so-called late night entertainers who attempted to hack Palin to pieces over her alleged faux pas. Let's start with Jay Leno, who showed himself to be vicious as well as ignorant.
I've always thought of Leno as somewhat of a bumbling jerk who has lots of money and collects classic automobiles because he had the good fortune to inherit the late night audience that the late Johnny Carson spent decades building, and the good sense not to screw up Carson's efforts.
But Leno really showed his true character when he went on a rant against Palin, commenting that New Yorkers should have someone ride to warn them the next time she is coming to town. How about a warning pasted across the TV screens stating that Leno is an arrogant, uneducated, stiflingly self-absorbed jack wagon whose commentary is dangerous to the mental health of unsuspecting viewers?
Leno should apologize as should that perverted jerk Letterman - I don't know what he may have said because I haven't watched his pathetic efforts at humor since the revelations about his relationships with staffers, and his vicious sexual comments about Palin's then 14-year-old daughter. But he should apologize before he starts each show just because he's such an ass.
Oh yeah, that dimwit Imus should apologize too - partly for even being alive, but specifically for his running attacks on Palin in which he repeatedly characterizes her as stupid. Imagine that - a man who has to stand on the shoulders of his extensive staff every day just to give the impression that he has a double-digit IQ calling someone else stupid.
You know who is dumber than these media stooges? Their audiences! Think about it - these jackasses go out in print or on the airwaves every day making some of the dumbest commentaries in recorded history and they have a ready supply of fawning sycophants at hand to laugh on cue. What dipsticks!
I watched Sarah Palin on Fox News Sunday last weekend and even Chris Wallace gave the distinct impression that he thought she was full of it. She didn't back down though - and ended the segment with the comment "I know my American history."
Apparently Wallace didn't and obviously many alleged "journalists" on the national scene don't either. And these people have the temerity to want to tell us who we should vote for - in the primaries and for president - and actually think we're the "lower class."
But Sarah Palin won't get the apologies she deserves and we won't either because of the aforementioned media arrogance. Why do you think they are carrying on about that sick freak of a Democratic New York Congressman Anthony Weiner's disclosures that he has Internet sex with women he doesn't know and sends them x-rated photos of his privates?
Do you honestly think members of the American Terrorist Media would be making such a big deal of a Democrat's perverted behavior if they weren't trying to divert attention away from their insufferable ignorance over the Paul Revere-Sarah Palin story?
This is cover your ass time for the media and Weiner, sick bastard that he is, has now discovered what it means to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Thrown under the bus he is, and he deserves it. Personally, I think freaks like him ought to be in sideshows, not the US Congress where his mere presence, among so many others like him, is a primary cause of the decline of the United States of America.
But the media would give him a pass in a heartbeat if there weren't so many people scrambling to distance themselves from their reprehensible performances on Palin.
I think Palin may have set these people up on purpose, knowing as she does that they are biased, unprofessional and make their living lying to the American public.
Whoa! Did you feel that? I did! I mean, I was writing about all the slimeballs in Congress and the media and started to feel as though I was neck deep in a settling tank at a sewage treatment plant.
Then I switched back to Sarah Palin and it was like walking into a cool shower and watching all that slime wash right down the drain. I like that analogy. Congress and the media = sewage.
Sarah Palin = cool, clean shower. Yeah. That works.
If I have one criticism of Sarah Palin - and I discussed this at length with my son who is an expert on these things - it's that she didn't call the media out more aggressively for so obviously trying to sabotage everything she does. I mean, we have a president in the White House who can't do simple math in his head and thinks the US has 57 states!
Here's a couple more examples of Obama's "special" relationship with the media: 2008: Navy Seal Team 6 is Cheney's private assassination team. 2011: I put together Seal Team 6 to take out Bin Laden.
2008: Bin Laden is innocent until proven guilty, and must be captured alive and given a fair trial. 2011: I authorized Seal Team 6 to kill Bin Laden.
2008: Guantanamo is entirely unnecessary, and the detainees should not be interrogated. 2011: Vital intelligence was obtained from Guantanamo detainees that led to our locating Bin Laden.
But does he ever get hammered by the media? NO!
My son says he has seen enough of Sarah Palin's lipstick and now he wants to see the pit bull behind it. I agree. Enough of the nice girl nonsense. If you want to be president the country wants to know that you can take off the velvet glove and use the iron fist on occasion.
How about the first punch going right onto Jay Leno's massive glass jaw? I'll bet Palin could kick his ass in one round.
For months now I have been watching the national media, aka Mainstream Media, aka Lamestream Media, or as it is known in this column, the American Terrorist Media, attempting to run every non-traditional candidate out of the race for the Republican presidential nomination before we even get to the primaries.
The traditional media doesn't like Sarah Palin - we all know that, they've been savaging her mercilessly since 2008. They don't like Herman Cain - I mean after all, a BLACK Republican presidential candidate who also is a corporate CEO with a strong track record of business success, who can't be pushed around on the flat tax issue? They don't like Michelle Bachmann at all - Good GAWD another Republican Woman???
The media does like former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney who announced his candidacy today because they think his Romney Care legislation enacted when he was governor will kill his chances with conservatives - Republicans and Independents alike. They loved Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels - who? - until he dropped out. They love to hate former House Speaker Newt Gingrich because he has more baggage than an overseas tourist flight.
They keep throwing former Ambassador Jon Huntsman's name around because he worked for Obama and again would have no chance with rank and file Republicans on that issue alone. They loved to love former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee until he dropped out because according to the media's "logic" he also was beatable.
Even when the announced GOP candidates were preparing to debate in South Carolina the media described Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty as "the only top-tier" candidate (defined as meeting the approval of the national media, which is further defined as having baggage that would prevent his election should he face incumbent President Barack Obama.)
Sen. Rick Santorum, Rep. Ron Paul of Texas, and former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson all get passing grades from the media for one reason - they all are known quantities and all can be manipulated by the very people who are passing judgment on them.
Meanwhile, the media also has declared the Presidential election of 2012 a done deal, with Obama the winner, because the arrogant pieces of crap think the American public is so dense that we can't think for ourselves.
As evidence of Obama's certain victory 18 months from now the media points to last week's election of a Democrat to the US House of Representatives in a "GOP stronghold" in upstate New York; and to a horribly skewed poll that was done by CNN - Obama's public relations agency - that has his approval rating bouncing back from the mid-40s to around 60 percent.
First, in upstate New York, no one got a majority of the votes cast because a former Democrat who reinvented himself as a Tea Party candidate ran a third party race that siphoned votes from the Republican candidate and assured the Democrat victory. Now, without question the Republicans should have put a much, much stronger candidate up for that seat, and they should have done one hell of a lot more to educate the voters to the sleazeball tactics of the opposition.
They didn't and paid the price, but I hardly think that qualifies as a "trend" or even a sign.
AS far as the latest bogus poll is concerned - every news outlet on the national scene is reporting it as if it is gospel (every one, get it? EVERY one. Meaning FOX too. It's true. It's true. I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen it but I did.)
Way back when it first broke a number of outlets mentioned that it had a horribly over-represented number of Democrats compared to Republicans and Independents so it has virtually no validity - although that point was established once we noted it was sponsored by CNN.
But there is more to this approval rating issue. If a major percentage of registered voters don't like a particular candidate it isn't likely that they are going to change their minds simply based on who else is running. I have seen this before, very recently, and I can tell you that once a candidate's negative ratings go above 50 percent it is very hard to get people to change their minds - unless you have rigged sufficient numbers of voting machines that it doesn't matter.
Obama's approval rating supposedly shot upwards due to his "courageous" decision to allow US Navy Seals to put two bullets into Osama bin Laden's head. Are you kidding? I even heard radio personality Don Imus, who frankly isn't even a ghost of his former hard-edged self any longer - make that point recently.
There was nothing courageous about making that decision. It was a decision that had to be made and should be made in the normal course of business if you are President of the United States. Imus claimed that Obama's decision to allow the SEALS to whack Osama has erased any comparison between Obama and the ultimate wimp president, jimmy carter.
Bull! It did no such thing. The fact that sycophants like Imus are trying so hard to give Obama a macho image only serves to further illuminate the point that even a simple decision has to be blown up far beyond its true value and meaning to give Obama any boost at all. For crying out loud the majority of Americans have been wanting bin Laden dead for nearly ten years!
How courageous is it to say "Sic 'em" once he was found? A pacifist could have made that call in his sleep!
The GOP has some real issues to deal with, but they aren't the issues the media is pushing. The lesson to be learned from the New York race is that: 1.) we should enact run-off legislation that will require the top two finishers to run against each other in any race where no one gets 50 percent of the vote (as in Bill Clinton); and 2.) we'd better start grooming some spoiler candidates of our own all across the country to draw votes away from establishment Democrats to nullify that tactic.
It will piss the Democrats off and they'll holler and fuss like spoiled children, but who cares? They won't win, Obama won't win and that is the real issue.
The GOP also needs to get off stupid questions like "Is Sarah Palin qualified to be President?" Are you serious? Is Obama?? Good grief a New England stone wall has more qualifications to be president than Obama? At least the stone wall has strength of character.
As Huckabee put it one night recently, just about any GOP candidate out there has worlds more qualifications than Obama. I even saw Juan Williams on a recent panel talk show, in his continuing role as Democrat mouthpiece and reciter of the daily Democrat talking points, take a shot at Congressman Paul Ryan's presidential aspirations because Ryan supposedly has no foreign relations experience.
Williams quickly shut up when the host reminded him that Obama doesn't have ANY experience except for voting "Present" when he was representing the people of Illinois.
And it shows! Unless you're Williams or one of the other media sycophants working out of the D.C. beltway or Manhattan most people know that Obama is doing squat except screwing up the country.
I've been having a blast the last few days watching the media work itself into a state of extreme frustration because Sarah Palin won't tell them what she is attempting to accomplish with her bus tour of America. She won't tell the media and sometimes she won't even tell the GOP power structure where she is going or what she will do when she gets there.
Would you like to know why? Because she doesn't trust either of them and she shouldn't.
Best way to cover Sarah Palin's bus trip? Rent a car and follow her. Listen to her speeches, write down what she says, take in the crowd reaction and do the job you signed on for instead of sitting on your ass in the bureau letting the Democratic communications people write your stories for you.
I don't know what the GOP field is going to look like by this time next year, but I am very happy that we have a diverse and interesting group of candidates out there trying for the nomination. I like Herman Cain. I like Michele Bachmann. I like Sarah Palin too, and yes she is qualified to be president if you look at her real record in Alaska instead of reading the propaganda spewed by the alleged ATM.
I'll decide who to vote for when the time comes, and on that day you can be sure of this - I won't be making any decisions based on anything I see in the media.