Blackwell, Steele, Swann? The trio that may bring three high level elected African Americans to the GOP. Democrats may not like to admit it but their stranglehold on the African American segment of the vote may be quickly slipping. Ken Blackwell (OH) and Lynn Swann (PA) are both rumored to have strong gubernatorial ambitions, and would be considered at or near the front of their packs in the respective primaries. Blackwell would likely be a shoe-in, while Swann would face a tougher fight versus two RINOs (Picola and Scranton).

Michael Steele of Maryland, the current Lt. Governor, is also rumored to have higher ambitions and if Sarbanes retires, is likely to run for the Senate seat in Maryland.

Well Christine Todd Whitman has launched basically what you could describe as the “anti-Save The GOP ” site. Humorously called “My Party Too.” For an idea of really what they are talking about look at their allied groups. Well I guess Whitman is now officially outing herself as a giant RINO.

Let the race for 2008 begin, and may they not win.

And for today…

Ted speaks. Bush should listen.

The United States should start to withdraw militarily and politically from Iraq and aim to pull out all troops as early as possible next year, Sen. Edward Kennedy said on Thursday.

After Sunday’s Iraqi elections, Kennedy said President Bush should state he intends to negotiate a timetable with the new Iraqi government to draw down U.S. forces.

At least 12,000 U.S. troops should leave at once, Kennedy said, “to send a stronger signal about our intentions to ease the pervasive sense of occupation.”

The Massachusetts Democrat, who opposed the U.S. invasion of Iraq, became the first senator to lay out a plan for Bush to start withdrawing troops a day after the Pentagon (news - web sites) warned lawmakers that strikes by insurgents may increase after Sunday’s elections [...]

“We now have no choice but to make the best we can of the disaster we have created in Iraq,” Kennedy in a speech to the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. “The current course is only making the crisis worse.”

He said the indefinite presence of U.S. troops is “fanning the flames of conflict” in what has become “a war against the U.S. occupation.”

How many more people will die due to Bush’s stubborness?

Enough said…

Does moderate Islam exist? This question is at the heart of the matter. And thus the avoidance of this issue is directly proportional to its importance.

People need to stop saying: “well democracy didn’t work in other authoritarian cultures, why can’t it work in the middle east?”

The key word is “culture.” Islam is not a “culture” but rather a “religion.” And not some religion that gives broad guidlines, but one that claims to be the divine, direct, literal word of God. It is also made explicitly clear that the state and religion must be one in the umma. The Quran is the highest source of law, followed by Hadith and Sunnah (sayings and tradition of Muhammad), and then finally by analogy and consensus.

The thing is, there is a theological argument that Islam and democratic government can work, but its long and winding, and may end up looking like a Muslim can be pro-democracy like a Catholic can be pro-choice on abortion.

If there are devout Muslim scholars who believe democracy and Islam to be compatible, then where are they? Many have moved to America for freedom and a new chance, but why do they not advocate that their brothers and sisters back home have the same opportunity?

At any rate, democracy has the best chance to flourish in Iraq, where a secular maniac (despite his delusions of being Salah al-Din) has brutalized his people for decades.

Rep. Judson Dexter, R-Swanzey is a obviously a RINO, the proof is in the Union Leader. What happened to the Granite State? I used to love our utopia of conservatism in the far northeast.

The largest computer maker in China, Lenovo has bought IBM’s PC division. So what? This is old news. Recently however certain members of the GOP, namely Ducan Hunter, Henry Hyde, and Don Manzullo (both from IL Alex) have blocked the proposed deal on the grounds that it would expose an American company that deals in government contracts to the Chinese government.

This is quite possible and the review should go forward, but I have serious doubts that IBM deals in any serious military technologies with it PC division. These people make and manufacture commercial use PCs, not military hardware. I fear the real reason this is being blocked is because it looks bad when China is buying the American company that virtually began the Information Age. What does it say when China owns IBM?

Well I can tell you, it’s absolutely awesome, because we are laughing all the way to the bank on this deal and most Chinese don’t even know why. Lenovo is paying way too much for an under performing division that can’t compete with Dell anyway. They are going to lose a pile of money on this deal. IBM meanwhile has acquired (along with a considerable amount of cash) a large stake in Lenovo which they will use to profit from the current China Boom. Make no mistake, it looks bad in the news headlines: “China Buys Symbol of American Capitalism!” But it is ever so sweet if you are in the know: “China Pays too Much for Crappy Company, American Profits Soar!”

If there is a security concern, then it can easily be corrected, but to kill this deal out of China-phobia would hurt America more than it would China.

NRO provides an update on the current situation vis-à-vis Taiwan. Worth reading if this part of the world is your cup of tea. Excuse the pun.

The American Thinker has another excellent article up regarding President Bush’s Inaugural Address. I can’t say I agree with everything he writes here, but he does help me make some other points that I have previously advocated.

Props to the American Thinker for this great piece on Russia and its people’s rising discontent. Freedom wins out, but it must be deeply desired by the people who will posses it, otherwise it will die on the vine, look at that miserable failure the French Revolution. The people of France wanted food and royal bloodshed, not freedom. Give a man a fish and he eats for a day, teach a man to fish and he eats for a lifetime. The same applies to the gift of freedom.

I love Jonah Goldberg, he is hands down my favorite political writer at NRO/NRODT, which pretty much makes him my favorite overall (With my main man Derb a close second and that wit Nordlinger coming in third by a nose). I will respond to his main point from his previously posted article that they hate us for our democracy. I am going to take quotes that appear hostile to my original statements and then I am going to proceed to savagely batter them to a small, soft pulp. Observe. Click to continue »

Alex do you remember just the other day, I was mentioning that the slippery slope of neo-conseravtism would have us charging off all over the world to fight dictators, in Africa (I used the example of the Congo, but Nigeria would be just as bad) and Burma? Gary assured me that no, no we would constrict ourselves to the Middle East. Now we have a major intellectual thinktank putting forward the position of Nigeria as a potential target in the worldwide war on terror.

It sure didn’t take long to slide down the slope did it?

Novak in the Chicago Suntimes offers his views on the impending situation with Iran. He thinks it probable that a strike will not happen. I disagree, we will strike and we will do so this year. Time is against us, the Europeans can only appease the mullahs for so long after all.

Thomas Sowell, one of the finest economists living or dead, writes on the role of the media in war in Iraq here at Townhall. I particularly like this bit because it so beautifully counters the panicked cry from our cowardly leftist “countrymen” that, “Iraq is now a magnet for terrorists from all over the world!” Sowell responds with intellect here:

Since terrorists are pouring into Iraq in response to calls from international terrorist networks, the number of those who are killed is especially important, for these are people who will no longer be around to launch more attacks on American soil. Iraq has become a magnet for enemies of the United States, a place where they can be killed wholesale, thousands of miles away.

This of course was the plan, to create a battlefield of our choosing. We fight our enemies in Iraq, not in New York or in airliners above the Pennsylvania skies. Let these fools flood into Iraq, we have killed more Islamic warriors in the last two years in Iraq than we ever did in the entire 8 years of Clinton’s presidency, when it was just as vital to do so.