Just Eleven More Months

Speaking before the Republican Governors Association yesterday, President Bush took a moment to predict the future, claiming Americans will ultimately be thankful for his foreign policy decisions:

I believe 50 years from now, people will look back at this period of time, and say, thank God the United States of America did not lose its faith in the transformative power of liberty to bring the peace we want for our children and our grandchildren.

The notion of the public thanking the almighty for Iraq is becoming increasingly popular with Bush cronies. Karl Rove said last week, “I think that people will look back at the Iraq war and say ‘Thank God, he [Bush] had the courage to do what he did.’”

Think Progress » Bush: America will ‘thank God’ for Iraq in 50 years.

Fear Mongers

Who profits from your fear? peace, mjh

Wash. Times baselessly claims ‘military’ fears Obama.

The Washington Times ran a front page article today headlined “Military fears ‘unknown quantity,’” attacking Sen. Barack Obama’s (D-IL) “commander-in-chief qualifications.” The Times’s only sources for those in the “military” who fear Obama, however, include a “retired Air Force Lieutenant General who doubles as a Fox News analyst,” a unnamed “senior Pentagon official,” and a defense “industry executive“:

“We’re very concerned about his apparent lack of understanding on the threat of radical Islam to the United States,” said retired Air Force Lt. Gen. Thomas McInerney, who is pro-Iraq war and a Fox News analyst. “A lot of retired senior officers feel the same way.”[…]

A senior Pentagon official said an Obama swearing-in “will give the Arab street the final victory, the best optics, and the ultimate in bragging rights. They win. We lose.” […]

“We’ve got some trepidation. There is no track record,” said an industry executive of the first-term senator. “He’s an unknown quantity and that scares us a little bit.”

TPM’s Greg Sargent asks: “Is it really possible that such gutter journalism tactics would be signed off on by such a great journalist, as Beltway types keep calling [John] Solomon?

Think Progress » Wash. Times baselessly claims ‘military’ fears Obama.

THAT’S What I’ve Been Waiting For

Finally, some real blood on the floor between Wilson and Pearce. Bring it on! (peace,) mjh 

[From Heath Haussamen’s excellent blog:]

Heather Wilson is attacking Steve Pearce for claiming on Saturday that England is a bigger exporter of Islamic terrorists than any country in the Middle East.

It’s the latest spat in what has become a contentious GOP U.S. Senate primary.

“We must have a moral standard in this country. We cannot be a moral vacuum,” Pearce said at the Valencia County GOP convention on Saturday. “If we try to do that I will guarantee that the same thing will happen to us that happened in England. They export more radical Islamic terrorists today than any country in the Middle East. It’s because they said, ‘We can live in a moral vacuum.’” [mjh: Great Britain could not be reached to confirm this quote.]

You can listen to Pearce’s full speech by clicking here.

Wilson called on Pearce to justify his remarks or apologize to America’s closest ally in the war on terror.

“A U.S. senator can’t afford to offend our closest ally, particularly when he is wrong on the facts. Senators – and people who want to be senators – should not say irresponsible things like this,” Wilson said. “…Great Britain and the United States have had an unwavering, special relationship since World War II. We have a closer relationship with Britain than with any other ally in the War on Terror. To claim that Britain ‘exports’ more terrorists than the long list of countries that actively support and fund terrorism is incorrect and offensive.”

Heath Haussamen on New Mexico Politics: Wilson attacks Pearce for comments about England

Rasmussen Poll Shows Obama, McCain Tied; McCain 12 Points Up on Clinton

New Mexico FBIHOP:

The latest New Mexico general election Rasmussen Poll shows Barack Obama and John McCain tied.  Hillary Clinton trails McCain by double digits.

Barack Obama: 44%
John McCain: 44%
Undecided: 12%

Hillary Clinton: 38%
John McCain: 50%
Undecided: 12%

This poll is in stark contrast to the recent SurveyUSA polling which showed Obama and Hillary Clinton both leading John McCain.  This one paints a picture more like the past two Presidential elections (if Obama is the nominee) with an extremely tight race.

There are, however, a much higher percentage of undecided voters in the Rasmussen poll than the SurveyUSA polls.

New Mexico FBIHOP:: Rasmussen Poll Shows Obama, McCain Tied; McCain 12 Points Up on Clinton

Obama Wins Global Primary – TIME

Obama Wins Global Primary – TIME 

More than 20,000 U.S. citizens living abroad voted in the primary, which ran from Feb. 5 to Feb. 12. Obama won about 65 percent of the vote, according to results released by the Democrats Abroad, an organization sanctioned by the national party.

Voters living in 164 countries cast votes online, while expatriates voted in person in more than 30 countries, at hotels in Australia and Costa Rica, at a pub in Ireland and at a Starbucks in Thailand. The results took about a week to tabulate as local committees around the globe gathered ballots.

Obama Wins Global Primary – TIME

Obama’s Substance

Much more at this link on Obama’s substance.

Obsidian Wings: Obama: Actually, I Think We Can

I’ll say something about the peculiar idea that Barack Obama is all style and no substance.

I came to Obama by an unusual route: as I explained here,
I follow some issues pretty closely, and over and over again, Barack
Obama kept popping up, doing really good substantive things. There he
was, working for nuclear non-proliferation and securing loose stockpiles of conventional weapons, like shoulder-fired missiles. There he was again, passing what the Washington Post called
“the strongest ethics legislation to emerge from Congress yet” —
though not as strong as Obama would have liked. Look — he’s over
there, passing a bill that created a searchable database of recipients of federal contracts and grants, proposing legislation on avian flu back when most people hadn’t even heard of it, working
to make sure that soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan were
screened for traumatic brain injury and to prevent homelessness among
veterans, successfully fighting a proposal by the VA to reexamine all PTSD cases in which full benefits had been awarded, working to ban no-bid contracts in Katrina reconstruction, and introducing legislation to criminalize deceptive political tactics and voter intimidation. And there he was again, introducing a tech plan of which Lawrence Lessig wrote:

“Obama has committed himself to a technology policy for
government that could radically change how government works. The small
part of that is simple efficiency — the appointment with broad power
of a CTO for the government, making the insanely backwards technology
systems of government actually work. …”