The Future of Republicanism

Andrew Sullivan has a post about a particularly comic young Republican named Ryan Sorba. Sorba's specialty is mixing psuedo-intellectual blather with threats of physical violence against those who disagree with him. He apparently made a big splash at CPAC. Read more here.

Palin: The Movie

Thanks to Andrew Sullivan's Daily Dish blog for posting this.

The Best Defense

Andrew Sullivan posts an essay on why we must elect Barack Obama. In a nutshell, he captures the damage Bush and Cheney have done to our national security, and what an Obama presidency could mean. This is the best defense of Obama I think I have ever read.

Obama and Terrorism

Andrew Sullivan has a very intelligent post regarding Sen. Obama's strategy for fighting terrorism. As Sullivan notes, the current strategy for defeating terrorism worldwide has not been working. Although there have been no major terror attacks against the United States since 9 / 11, al-Qaeda is on the rise again, and Afghanistan is slowly drifting back into chaos.

Some, such as Alexander Cockburn and Richard Kim, will no doubt count Sullivan's support as a point against Obama. However, there is nothing wrong with gaining the support of moderate, intelligent conservatives like Sullivan. As Sullivan himself points out in his post, he came to some of the wrong conclusions about how to react to 9 / 11. What is important is that he has had the sense to recognize that, and adjust his position accordingly.

Losing Faith in Obama

Senator Obama's rejection of Rev. Jeremiah Wright comes as a great disappointment to me. I saw Rev. Wright on Bill Moyers Jounal recently, and found myself agreeing with much of what he said. I particularly agreed with his point that if America goes around using terroristic tactics against third world countries, it will inevitably provoke a brutal backlash. The only thing I saw as questionable was his idiotic belief that the US government created AIDS.

Not all Obama supporters agree, though. Andrew Sullivan applauds Sen. Obama's denunciation of Rev. Wright. In one particularly amusing line, he condemns Rev. Wright's attack on America's brutal treatment of Nicaragua during the 80s. I suppose the Contras were just fine, upstanding gentlemen then?

Time to Get Rough, Barack

Barack Obama's campaign recently condemned one of his unpaid aides, Professor Samantha Power, for referring to Sen. Hillary Clinton as a power-hungry monster. My only question is: why?

As Andrew Sullivan notes, Senator Clinton and her husband will do whatever it takes to stay in power. They will stoop to dirty tricks (e.g. the race baiting inherent in their release of the Somali Barack photo), negative campaigning, and manipulating the nomination process to get elected.

It's time to fight back. And we have so much to do so with. If Hillary Clinton wants to run on her record, let's start with her health care screw ups. I can see it now...

"It's 3 AM. Your children are sick. Who do you want in charge of our national healthcare system? A man who is willing to work in a bipartisan fashion to create a workable, affordable system, or a politician who wastes opportunities through partisan bickering?"

Huckabee and the Fanatics

I know this blog is supposed to be on hiatus, but I found a very important post on Andrew Sullivan's blog about Michael Huckabee's connection to reconstructionism, an ideology that advocates reforming the Constitution along Biblical lines. Huckabee has held major fundraisers at the homes of Reconstructionists, suggesting he will be at least somewhat sympathetic to their aims.

I do not want to sound too alarmist. After all, he may just be paying them lip service in order to get their votes. Nevertheless, any connection to such a group of fanatics is cause for concern.

Read more here.

Bhutto: The Imperfect Martyr

I am not very convinced of the view of Benazir Bhutto as a martyr for democracy. Even if some of the charges against her were made up by Pakistani intelligence, as some have suggested, there is strong reason to believe she was involved with Oil-for-Food corruption, as the BBC has reported. Furthermore, some of these convictions have been by foreign courts, where the influence of the Pakistani military would probably be little or non-existant.

Andrew Sullivan has a relatively realistic look at the implications here. The Suburban Guerilla blog has some good commentary on the U.S.'s role and aims in bring Bhutto back to Pakistan.

Romney Gives His Spiel

Andrew Sullivan has an interesting commentary about Mitt Romney's new speech regarding his Mormonism. He has some interesting points.

First, although Romney wants to make his Mormonism a non-issue, he still uses a religious rhetoric, which will naturally bring religion into the race as an issue. For instance, in today's speech, he claims, "Freedom requires religion just as religion requires freedom." Uh Mitt, if you want to keep your religion out of it, you shouldn't constantly bring up religion.

Also, as Sullivan correctly points out, Romney does not acknowledge the right not to have a religion, to be an aetheist or a secularist. If people are allowed not to vote for aetheists, then they can not vote for Mormons, either.

I do think that Sullivan goes too easy on Romney. For instance, while Sullivan claims that Mormonism should not be a factor at all, I do think it should be a matter of concern to voters if a candidate is a devout Mormon. Let's face it, Mormonism is Christianity's answer to Scientology (i.e. an outright, easily seen through scam.) If a candidate is willing to swallow that, who knows what else he might swallow. (For more on this, see this Slate article by Jacob Weisburg.)

Furthermore, the religious rhetoric itself disturbs me. Previous candidates who have had to deal with religious intolerance, such as JFK, maintained a steadfastly secular approach to their campaigns. They did not sell themselves as God or the Pope's candidate. NPR had a great segment about this on Morning Edition.

Will Blacks Back Barack?

Andrew Sullivan reports that Barack Obama may just stand a chance at gaining the support of black Americans. Although he cites no statistics, Sullivan points to reports that some African-Americans are tired of Hillary Clinton taking their support for granted. He uses this as evidence for his contention that an African-American would stand a chance at being elected President.

I am not totallly convinced one way or the other. I certainly hope that at this point people have gotten past prejudice enough to elect an African-American to the executive office. Nonetheless, I must take issue with Sullivan's certainty on the matter, especially when it comes to lower middle class and working class white people. My own experience tells it isn't the case.

Furthermore, we have to consider the experience of the African-Americans themselves, who are very doubtful about the matter. I just can't believe that a gay, Catholic Englishman is better position to just the racial situation than the African-Americans themselves. Sorry, Andy...