Change: Obama offers plum appointments to big donors

In another example of the different kind of politician Barack Obama was advertised to be, we see how big-time political donors get offered sweetheart appointments, often to ambassadorships, and quite obviously in thanks for swelling his campaign coffers. Among the appointments:

• Louis Susman, appointed ambassador to the UK, raised between $200,000 and $500,000
• John Roos, appointed ambassador to Japan, raised $500,000
• Charles Rivkin, appointed ambassador to France, raised $500,000 for Obama’s campaign and $300,000 for the inauguration
• Laurie Fulton, appointed ambassador to Denmark, raised between $100,000 and $200,000
• Dan Rooney, appointed ambassador to Ireland, is the owner of the Pittsburgh Steelers and endorsed Obama as a Republican, which probably helped Obama in what was at times a close race in Pennsylvania

Obviously, Obama is by no means the first President to do this. Both Bushes and Clinton have done the same, and indeed, the article notes that since JFK, over one-third of ambassadorships have gone to campaign donors. It doesn’t make Obama stand out as a chief symbol of cronyism – but it does further put to rest the absurd assumption that Obama is anything but a standard politician.

Obama: Health care reform must come this year

(Image credit: Jason Reed/Reuters via the NY Times)

President Obama, returning from a fund-raising trip, phoned campaign volunteers to tell them it was imperative health care reform happen this year, or it won’t happen at all. The conference call was put together by his political organization Organizing for America, and is part of a strategy to keep his 2008 campaign volunteers active and engaged. The push comes right after a fund-raising dinner where Obama congratulated himself on all his administration has done so far, even explicitly inviting superlative comparisons to FDR, and told his audience, “You ain’t seen nothing yet.”

There’s a political reality to Obama’s warning that there is only a limited window for his universal health care package. It has to happen during the honeymoon phase so he can minimize opposition effectively while voters continue to give him the benefit of the doubt. Wait any longer, and there’s a chance his efforts will meet with greater resistance as time passes. It’s a political fact of life that any President must face.

But on top of that, there’s a continued sense that the Obama administration keeps pushing the “it’s now or never” line to scare people into following the plan. We heard it with the stimulus package, where if Congress didn’t pass it immediately, the American economy would immediately explode. We are hearing it with cap-and-trade, where we hear the planet simply can’t afford for us to wait any longer for us to take political action. And now we’re hearing it with Obama’s universal health care plan, where the President acknowledged a real political deadline but also has tried to tie it directly to the economic crisis, and we can’t stop anything that might help end the financial crisis, can we?

The speed and ferocity might make some swell with pride, but legislators and voters have little idea of the details of any of these plans that are being ramrodded through. It’s summed perfectly by Rep. Henry Waxman indignantly stating he has no idea of the specifics of his own cap-and-trade bill, and by the admission of lawmakers that they hadn’t read the stimulus bill. The left charged the Republican-controlled Congress of sneaking through the Patriot Act in the dead of night when no one was watching, but apparently the lightning-fast push-through of any and all of the President’s agenda with little to no deliberation is just dandy.

The President still has three and a half years left in his term. He has plenty of time to take a breath and attempt to pass whatever legislation he wants. But quite frankly, ramming through as much as he can in as little time as he can is a disservice to the legislative process, which ought to be more deliberate and conscious of potential consequences, and it seems suspiciously to be just more of “Hurry up before they see.” More importantly, it’s distracting the administration from the growing concerns of North Korea, Iran, and Pakistan, who we cannot afford to ignore while the President occupies himself unnecessarily in racing through a checklist of domestic agenda wishes.

Clinton’s SecDef chastises Obama over missile defense

The Secretary of Defense under Bill Clinton, William Cohen, took President Obama to task in an editorial in the Washington Times over the President’s $1.4 billion cut to the American missile defense program. (Heads-up from Hot Air) Set against the backdrop of North Korea’s missile launches and nuclear tests, he argues we ought to err on the side of safety and show the world we don’t take the threats of rogue nations lightly.

Unfortunately, taking them lightly seems to be what’s going on so far. Obama has effectively punted the North Korean issue to the UN, and has pushed back evaluating the Iranian question until later. His focus is entirely on pushing through a massive domestic agenda at lightning speed, and foreign policy seems to be on the back-burner. Sadly, this is a severely critical time to be phoning it in geopolitically, as Iran and North Korea were undoubtedly watching carefully if the new President would deal strongly with them. The attitude is summed up perfectly by Obama’s national security advisor James Jones, who shrugged off North Korea’s missiles as not an imminent threat. But, as candidate Obama suggested, these are only “tiny countries,” so we need not concern ourselves with them right?

Wrong. Beyond the threat of a nuclear-armed Iran and North Korea, there is the more palpable fear of these rogue regimes selling their arms to terrorist groups to be used to whatever end. And God help us if the Taliban grab hold of Pakistan’s nukes. I would urge this administration to ease up on the domestic side and begin to focus more on these vipers’ nests before the danger becomes insurmountable. It’s too bad it won’t happen – Obama has his own agenda to ram through, the rest of the world be damned.

Sotomayor to be Obama’s SCOTUS pick

(Image credit: ABC News)

In a move that surprised few, President Obama nominated the front-running candidate to replace Supreme Court Justice David Souter in Sonia Sotomayor. Obama, who has listed “empathy” as a criteria for being a judge, which sounds nice but has little place in the role of an impartial legal umpire, will likely get Sotomayor approved as while Republicans might put her feet to the fire over a few issues, I can’t see them going all filibuster over her, unless something supremely distasteful shows up. Hispanics are bursting with pride over the selection of the first Latina Supreme Court nominee, and I’m glad for them, but we still ought to examine closely her judicial philosophy and temperament.

There are issues for concern. Sotomayor is undoubtedly a liberal, which in and of itself doesn’t immediately disqualify her. However, she has made statements to the effect that one’s gender and ethnicity ought to influence one’s judicial philosophy, none of which makes any sense when one considers the rule of law. One such statement was made in a 2001 speech and reported by the New York Times:

I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life.

Switch the ethnicities being mentioned by Sotomayor, and it would be fairly controversial, right? Especially if spoken by Samuel Alito or John Roberts before they underwent the confirmation gauntlet. Judicial decisions should be based on law, and while one’s personal experiences might give depth to an opinion, at the end of the day a responsible judge should be judging based on the facts and decided law, not on the unique perspective of an identity group.

Not only that, but we have the troubling statement in 2005, captured in this video, where Sotomayor indicates that the Court of Appeals is “where policy is made.” What’s more, she laughs it off, almost to say, “Yeah, yeah, I know that’s not what we’re supposed to be doing under the Constitution, but who cares, right?” Legislating from the bench is something that irks me to no end, as it seems fairly obvious that the Framers did not intend that function to be ascribed to the unelected and unaccountable judiciary.

It’s clear to most that Sotomayor is a liberal, which is why Senator Chuck Schumer’s recent comments are even more laughable. Sen. Schumer, ridiculously claiming Sotomayor is a “moderate,” warns Republicans not to listen to the 5% extreme fringe and oppose her, claiming this nomination is a referendum on the direction of the GOP. The concerted and orchestrated effort to move Republicans left never stops, it seems. Never mind that Sotomayor is nothing approaching a “moderate,” and even moderate Democrats like Ben Nelson have expressed reservations about judicial activism. Schumer’s a little weasel, and his threat to label Republicans as right-wing and racist if they take issue with Sotomayor is a clown-like song-and-dance that I doubt will be followed up with any action (but more words, I’m sure).

Michelle Malkin and the Anchoress have more round-up regarding the nomination of Sotomayor. In any case, although it appears Sotomayor is fairly liberal, and one that the New Republic reveals has questions regarding her temperament, philosophy, and intellectual effectiveness, her confirmation will not fundamentally change the balance of the Court. Yes, she may be to the left of Souter, but the votes will still fall down the same way.

In a large sense, the pick must surely disappoint those who voted for Obama and expected him to govern from the center and as a pragmatic moderate. The decisions over the last several months have shown him to be anything but.

CA Supreme Court upholds Proposition 8

The California Supreme Court ruled today that Proposition 8, a voter initiative that amended the state constitution to define marriage as between a man and a woman, should be allowed to stand, but that previous gay marriages should not be dissolved. Proposition 8 passed in November with 52.24% of the vote in a fairly liberal state that by 61% voted for President Obama. The ruling is somewhat surprising as the California Supreme Court is considered by some to be one of the most left-leaning of any state supreme court.

Whatever your stand on gay marriage, the California Supreme Court got this one correct in that, right or wrong, the people of California got the final say in the matter, and the previous marriages before the provision went into effect are still binding. I’m not a fan of legislation by judicial fiat, and I’m glad to see that the will of the California voters was upheld. If Prop 8 opponents can get enough votes to repeal the amendment (which they will likely attempt to do in the near future), then more power to them. It’s the way democracy is supposed to work – broad social issues being decided by the populace, not by a few who presume to know better.

New N. Korean nuke test prompts renewed international concern

North Korea on Monday carried out an underground nuclear test that was confirmed by seismic observations in South Korea, which registered a 4.7 magnitude tremor as a result of the blast. President Obama called the test a cause for “grave concern”, and warned North Korea it would find neither security or peace on the belligerent path the impoverished Asian nation continues to barrel down. Japan, South Korea, and even North Korean quasi-allies Russia and China condemned the test as well, and an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council was called, though no new developments have as yet arisen from that front.

With the recent test-firing of a long-range missile over Japan, North Korea under an ailing Kim Jong Il has stepped up its belligerence in the last few months since Obama’s inauguration. The President’s call for dialogue with rogue nations has been largely ignored by both North Korea and Iran, the latter of which has rejected a Western nuclear proposal while its President offers to debate Obama at the UN.

I have little faith that UN wrangling will produce little more than a “strongly worded memo” (in the words of Ed Morrissey), especially while Russia and China are likely to continue to obstruct any harsher tactics directed at North Korea. It will take more than strong words to dissuade these rogue nations from pursuing their reckless agenda. It’s been fairly obvious for the last few years that “dialogue” would prove futile against governments that have proven themselves so unwilling to listen. It was why listening to the Obama the candidate lecturing us on the importance of diplomacy and of extending an olive branch to brutal regimes was so frustrating.

Reality, I hope, has now set in, and I hope the administration will take a more pragmatic approach to both Iran and North Korea. As much as I dread the prospect, a harder line than even the Bush administration adopted may be needed to quell the nuclear threat in its tracks, as we can most assuredly not afford to merely “live with” two nations who are likely to sell their nuclear technology to terrorists and who pose grave enough threats as it is. The threat is multipled when the fate of Pakistan’s nukes is in danger as well, and the United Nations cannot sit idly for much longer before the scales begin to tip in the direction of nuclear inevitability for these two rogue nations. Idle words, however, are what I suspect we’ll see more of from an international body that has become largely ineffective and useless to solve international crises of any sort.

Update: North Korea, one day after the nuclear test, has test-fired two more short-range missiles, clearly thumbing its nose at the supposed international “condemnation.” That condemnation came in the form of, you guessed it, a strongly-worded resolution that in the end will solve nothing. The nuclear programs of North Korea and Iran are growing more worrisome by the hour.

Memorial Day

So another Memorial Day is upon us, marking the unofficial beginning of the summer season and ushering in all the niceties and Americana that the lazy months of June, July, and August bring us year after year. I’ll unfortunately be spending the day the same way I spent Saturday and Sunday – at work (bacteria don’t take holidays, alas), but all across this nation, people will be spending the day at the pool, at barbecues, at parks and baseball games with family and friends.

On this long weekend of kicking up your heels, I’d ask you to take just a few moments for the reason for this holiday, and the reason we’re able to enjoy the creature comforts and freedoms we constantly take for granted – our fallen servicemen and women, not only those who died on the battlefield, but those who lived through their conflicts and have passed on.

From Lexington to Inchon, Dunkirk to Da Nang, Manassas to Mosul, those who risked their lives and gave the ultimate sacrifice deserve our eternal thanks. To their families we owe a debt that can never be repaid. Our nation exists today because of their bravery and patriotism, and every last one of them is a hero.

I have many family and friends that have served in the military, but thankfully none have died in combat. My grandfather served in World War II on the sub-hunter Hugh Pervis, and we lost him several years ago. Many others weren’t as lucky as he to live through that great conflict, or any of the others that blight our history. To paraphrase Lee Greenwood, let us not forget the men and women who have died to safeguard our precious freedoms.

Wherever you are, fallen heroes, I hope that a grateful nation remembers you. I know I will.

Obama: “We’re out of money now”

In a surprising interview with C-SPAN’s Steve Scully, Drudge is reporting that President Obama, when probed about the staggering deficits and when we might run out of money in the future, replied, “We are out of money now.” He then makes the argument that the failures of Medicare and Medicaid are in a large part responsible, pushing for – surprise! – more government health care. Read the transcript for more details – Hot Air has the video.

The President presents a false choice when he says we either have to adopt his health care “improvements” or do nothing and watch our deficit continue to skyrocket. It’s a form of rhetorical blackmail that leaves out all of the other failed functions of government, and in some ways is illogical. Health care reform is helpful, but universal government-funded health care is another massive entitlement program for which the President tacitly admits we have no money. And yet, we must adopt it, or else!

It’s one thing when pundits lament about the state of our nation’s finance, but when the President comes out and says we’re broke, you have to take notice. With all the money we’ve been spending, this is going to stoke the fears of inflation and higher taxes. I can’t see how this is going to help the financial markets, and maybe the hope is when the markets reopen after the long holiday weekend, the blow may have softened somewhat. To many, though, the President’s remark is a “No duh” admission which underscores the need to limit the size of spending and to make systemic changes in how our sprawling federal bureaucracy operates.

Obama and Cheney give dueling speeches on terror policy

One day after the Senate overwhelmingly voted against providing funds to close down Guantanamo Bay, President Obama gave an address reaffirming his intention to bring some Gitmo detainees to the US. Nearly simultaneously, the increasingly vocal former Veep Dick Cheney spoke at the American Enterprise Institute and blasted the phony moralizing and feigned outrageof partisan critics of Bush-era interrogation tactics, and stressed again that the CIA operated within its boundaries and with the knowledge of Congress, including Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi.

Obama’s speech was hastily scheduled as a way of pre-empting Cheney’s scheduled speechin an effort to try to push the Guantanamo debate in a direction favorable to the administration. From what I can tell, there still isn’t an assuring plan in place of dealing with the detainees. It would have behooved the President, before announcing he was closing Gitmo, to have a fleshed-out and cohesive plan in place to assuage the nerves of those in Congress and many voters about what would eventually happen with these detainees. Instead, in a rush to action, the administration looked before it leaped, and is now paying the consequence for it.

I read something today pooh-poohing bringing the Gitmo prisoners to the US – it’s not like they’re super-villains that will immediately break out with their monster powers, right? Of course that’s true, but that really isn’t the way the debate has been framed for the past few years. What I hear is that these are innocent people at Gitmo were abducted from battlefields just so prison guards could abuse them in Cuba and flush their Korans down the toilet. Honestly, the fact that there is a belief we need to keep them locked up is progress to me.

Update: A quick and unrelated aside – it’s a fair bit of work to find images of VP Cheney that aren’t grossly unflattering or photoshopped to hell. Google Images serves up a few pages of the stuff that, while entertaining to some, are hardly useful to anyone in a serious capacity. I don’t know if I’d call it “image bias”, and I’m not sure how Google does its image search algorithm, but it is interesting to note.

Feds to get majority stake in GMAC and take on more debt

More worrisome news from the sector of government economic control. The Treasury Department is expected to announce it will be pumping an additional $7.5 billion into car loan company GMAC, and as a result the federal government will assume a majority stake in the private auto finance company. Not only does it throw more taxpayer money down the tube in an effort to prop up car loans, but it gives bureaucrats controlling interest in a private entity that is responsible for a large number of citizens’ car loans. With giving tax money comes an obligation to safeguard the public funds, but there is a large difference between being cautious on behalf of taxpayers and taking the reins of a company on the supposed behalf of taxpayers. The move will put the finishing touches on an almost complete takeover of the auto industry by the federal government.

This comes as Federal Reserve officials are considering buying more debt from Treasury and the mortgage industry, and have, incidentally, downgraded their outlook for the near-term economic future, saying the recession will continue for another two years. Good thing we got that massive stimulus package passed, right?

If you want to know the endgame for all this government spending, just take a look at the woes of California and a few other states that have spent themselves into fiscal oblivion. Taking over vast sectors of the economy won’t solve the underlying issues, but will instead massively harm the free-market system that, by and large, has served us fairly well. Government control of the auto, banking, and finance industries signals a troubling turn into the morass of socialism that will take a long time to extricate ourselves from. My fears for our long-term outlook are growing steadily by the day.

Senate votes to keep Gitmo open, 90-6

In a stinging rebuke of President Obama’s intentions on Guantanamo Bay, the Senate voted 90-6 to deny funding to close down the detention facility there. This comes on the heels of a federal judge ruling that indefinite detention can continue. Even more damaging is the revelation from the New York Times that the Defense Department is reluctant to release a report showing 1 in 6 released Gitmo detainees returned to terrorism, undercutting the argument that these people are no threat whatsoever.

It didn’t help that the Obama administration had no plan for what to do with the terrorists kept at Guantanamo except to bring them to our shores, and this vote is a sign that a strong majority in Congress are uncomfortable with the President’s approach on the subject. But even more, I believe it showcases the political hypocrisy of Democrats, who for eight years tried to score political points by portraying Guantanamo Bay as the biggest hellhole on the planet, where atrocities were committed daily (when in reality the detainees were treated just as well as any American prison). These same Democrats, when faced with the prospect of Gitmo closing, wisely acknowledged the reality that keeping these people locked up might not be such a bad idea. It’s a welcome flip-flop, but it should serve to destroy the false hysteria perpetuated by the left over Guantanamo Bay.

California rejects tax and budget measures by wide margin

In a blowout electoral defeat, the California ballot measures heavily promoted by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger went down in flames yesterday by a nearly 2 to 1 margin. The only ballot initiative to pass was one which prohibited government officials from receiving a pay raise under a budget deficit, and the defeated measures dealt with shuffling tax dollars and borrowing more money to support out-of-control state spending that has resulted in a $42 billion budget deficit. Cuts in spending must now be enacted to close the gap, which is probably what should have happened in the first place when Schwarzenegger was first elected back in 2003 largely on budget and spending concerns.

Make no mistake – California voters are quite obviously outraged over the way their state government has wantonly spent their tax dollars and worked the government into severe debt. The reason this story has national implications is that California is a predictor of what can happen on a nation-wide scale as government spends and spends and exerts more control over an economy. The upheaval being felt in California right now will be echoed across America as the bill for the reckless spending of the last few months becomes due. At that time, politicians will need to have better solutions than simply raising taxes if they want to stave off voter anger.

Better yet, they should head off the problem now and exercise fiscal restraint. But we all know how likely that is.

Obama administration to “briefly” own GM and impose tough fuel standards

In a move that should concern anyone with a passing interest in the free market, Reuters is reporting that as part of a planned bankruptcy deal, GM plans to sell healthy assets to a new corporation initially owned by the government. A credit line would be extended to the new company, and the bulk of the $15.4 billion loan would be written off – so much for that taxpayer money being paid back with interest, eh?

If this doesn’t fit the definition of socialism, I don’t know what does. I’m wondering if anyone who disparaged “socialist” comments about Obama might be willing to rethink that criticism. Whether you think these steps are warranted or not, government ownership of one of the cornerstones of American industry is socialism, no if’s, and’s, or but’s about it. Michelle Malkin suggests GM ought to now stand for Government Motors, and she’s right.

On top of this, the Obama administration announced new fuel economy standards that will add up to $1,300 to the price of a vehicle and result in smaller cars that, while perhaps better on gas, are proven by the National Academy of Sciences to be less safe on the roads. Together with Obama car czar Steven Rattner halving the advertising budget for Chrysler, I have to wonder how anyone in the administration thinks this is going to save the auto industry.

Perhaps, instead, it’s not the intention to save the auto industry, but to kill it slowly through overregulation and government ineptness. Hell, that’s already been going on for the last two decades anyway. The fact is that all the taxpayer money shunted toward GM and Chrysler were supposed to stop those two companies from going under, and it now appears they’re going to declare bankruptcy anyway. It makes you wonder if the infusion of federal funds wasn’t supposed to help, but just provide a foot in the front door, paving the way for more government oversight and control. If these GM bankruptcy plans come to pass, the federal government will, with the exception of Ford, effectively own the auto industry. When you consider the massive power it has quickly exercised over the financial and banking industries, it all boils down to greater federal power over multiple aspects of the economy.

With such a stellar track record on managing Social Security, you’ll forgive me if I’m filled with trepidation over the prospect.

Obama at Notre Dame and the abortion debate

On Sunday, President Barack Obama gave a much-anticipated commencement speech at Notre Dame. The appearance was controversial owing to Notre Dame, a Catholic university, taking the occasion to bestow an honorary degree upon the strongly pro-choice politician. Leaving aside the Notre Dame President calling peaceful protesters “religious vigilantes”, the event was somewhat anti-climactic, with Obama urging understanding and open-mindedness in a somewhat trite address that wasn’t as inflammatory as some feared it might be, but not as transcendent as others might have spun.

One thing the President said struck me – I’m paraphrasing, but it was something along the lines of both sides of the abortion debate should want the number of women seeking abortions to decrease. It’s a terrific concept, and one that I believe myself – that no matter your view, we ought to agree that abortion should be the method of last resort because it represents at some point a failure of decision-making that should be curtailed as much as possible.

The only problem is that we never hear this argument at all. Any attempt to promote adoption or abstinence is laughed off as unrealistic, and it seems like there’s a belief among some that flooding the streets with condoms and nonstop sex education will solve the problem of unwanted pregnancy. At the same time, an argument against abortion at any stage is immediately attacked as anti-woman, as if a moral opposition to the practice somehow means you secretly pine for women to bleed to death in back alleys. It’s a cartoonish view of the opposing side that doesn’t seem very open-minded, and is just as ridiculous as caricatures of pro-choice folks as bloodthirsty murderers itching for the next opportunity to kill.

It’s why the President’s call for seeking “common ground” seems a bit hollow, particularly for a man who fretted over the Illinois version of the Born Alive Infant Protection Act, worrying that doctors might have their orders superseded if an infant survives an abortion procedure. Doctor Zero at Hot Air has an excellent analysis of the larger truth surrounding Obama’s speech – that the call for “dialogue” rings empty when one side really doesn’t want the debate, when both sides demonize another, and as the President stated, on a very basic level are fundamentally irreconcilable.

Dialogue and an open mind are great things to say (and things which I welcome), but saying things is easy. On a more tangible level, I’m a little disappointed for the Notre Dame students. They deserved a graduation that celebrated their own accomplishments, but instead they got a commencement that was more about President Obama and his beliefs. Notre Dame’s decision to bestow an honorary degree makes little sense to me from a variety of standpoints, but it’s done and the brouhaha is over, for now anyway.

“Blowout” if Palin is prominent in GOP, says Huntsman advisor

An advisor to Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman said yesterday that if Sarah Palin and Rush Limbaugh are the major voices of the Republican Party in 2012, the GOP is destined for a devastating defeat. John Weaver, who helped craft John McCain’s “stellar” Presidential bid, predicted a “blowout” if the Alaska governor had a prominent role in the GOP in a not-so-subtle suggestion that Republicans need to tack to the left if they are to become powerful once more.

I find all the hoopla about Jon Huntsman more than a little fishy. The article suggests he’s good at speaking off the cuff to business leaders, but let’s face it – no one had ever heard of him outside of Utah until Obama advisor David Plouffe named him as the politician Obama fears facing most in 2012. This supposed great threat is then offered the ambassadorship to China, a post Huntsman readily accepts. Finally, the Huntsman team begins insinuating that theirs is the best way to electoral victory, trashing others along the way. It might be bordering on conspiratorial, but I don’t think it’s too much of a stretch to imgaine that Huntsman, in exchange for a diplomatic post and national promotion, had it suggested to him that his team try to steer the GOP in a direction that benefited Democrats.

Sorry, but I just smell more narrative-building here. Nonstop we’ve been hearing the drumbeat of  ”the Republicans must be more moderate, more moderate, more moderate.” I’m no electoral strategist, but I don’t hear a vision or positive message; all I hear instead is that the GOP must become Democrat-lite. Republicans ran their most moderate candidate to date in John McCain, and while his willingness to thumb his nose at conservative positions on immigration, campaign finance, and global warming among other things may have endeared him to independents and moderates, those same independents and moderates still ended up voting for Obama. Watering down your message to appear “less scary” accomplishes nothing except playing into the hand of your political opponents.

It still amazes me how denigrated Sarah Palin has become. Apparently two lousy interviews are enough to transform a competent if inexperienced governor into a mouth-breathing sexpot. I doubt that Palin will be the savior of the GOP, but it’s worth noting that the lethargic McCain campaign received a jolt with her selection, and her appearances drew large and enthusiastic crowds. Even if she’s not an ideal candidate, many still share her views and convictions, and denigrating and dismissing her as a voice in the party is the wrong idea.

I’ve said before that the three main planks for Republicans should be fiscal conservatism, limited government, and a strong national defense. (Huntsman, by the way, already botched the first two with his loud support of the stimulus package.) If Republicans need to “moderate” on other things, then an open-mindedness with healthy internal debate is all well and good. But right now the narrative is being set by the moderates that it’s their way or the highway – and it’s not going to work.