Raining on the Republicans' Parade

I hate to do it.  I would love as much as the next Reagan conservative to see the Republicans pick up 70 seats in Congress and 15 seats in the Senate.  And there are reasons to be optimistic about a takeover of Congress and hopeful about the same in the Senate.  For example, Gallup's latest poll has Republicans up 10 points on the generic Congressional ballot among registered voters. It's never been that high. So what could possibly be wrong?

Raining on the Democrats' parade

Tonight President Obama will announce mission accomplished on Iraq. Never mind that they never supported the mission. Never mind that they called it a failure prior to the surge that the President will now take credit for succeeding.

The real issue is that there is a significant chance (let's say 40%) that during Obama's tenure the violence in Iraq will flare up to such a point that the end of combat operations that the President just declared, won't really be the end of combat operations.

Keep in mind that the withdrawal of the last combat troops leaves 50,000 soldiers in Iraq. I guess they're the non-combat army platoons. Keep in mind also that the withdrawn troops are just across the border in Kuwait, available at a moment's notice. Maybe they know the risk of declaring something over too soon is dangerous.

Then again, if liberals were amenable to learning from history (in this case George Bush's early declaration of victory in Iraq), they'd be conservatives.

Democrats off message for a reason

Back in 2008 the Democrats rode the "Hope and Change" message to the White House and large Congressional victories. Twenty two months later they are floundering and in large part it's because reality has subverted their narrative. The message that got them here is not able to be used to keep them in power. This November, when the Republicans are looking to do to Democrats what that rogue wave did to the Aleutian Ballad a few years back, the Democrats themselves will apparently still be looking for a coherent message to sell to the American people.

Nifty Notes on Nonsensible Spending

The government of the United States is digging ever deeper into your wallet.  Intuitively you know this, but here's some proof of out of control government spending.

Alinsky Tactic Alert

I think we're starting to see the development of a possible new trend that might be an outgrowth of Alinsky tactics.  Alinsky's first rule for radicals is as follows; "Power is not only what you have, but what an opponent thinks you have. If your organization is small, hide your numbers in the dark and raise a din that will make everyone think you have many more people than you do." That's happening more frequently today.

Canadian Idol contestant a Jihadist???

Yeah, this is uber-cool.

But it's no Slavic disco.

Here's the kicker - this guy turned out to be involved in a terror plot to blow up Canada's parliament. And unlike his claim, he wasn't a recent immigrant at the time - he was home grown. Much like his dancing must have made viewers at home groan.

Awful, awful pun.  As a disciplinary matter for that pun, I will force my self to watch that video once more.