McCain's VP this week?

Robert Novak is reporting that McCain may name his running mate this week. There has been lots of speculation about Mitt Romney.

Please not Romney. Although he is a millionaire, he proved himself to be an ineffective candidate in the primaries, his only success being in caucus states, Massachusetts and Michigan (where he grew up). He had a notable lack of success in the south, and that might put the south in play.

If it is not going to be my friend Tim Pawlenty, please let it be Alaska governor Sarah Palin. It would knock the political world on its ear to have an attractive Alasksan who likes hunting, fishing, and oil drilling. Better yet, make the announcement in front of a group of cheering Alaskan oil workers.

C'mon McCain. Palin for VP. Look to Alaska.

"Mad Men" on AMC

One of my new favorite shows is coming back soon--"Mad Men" on AMC. It is about an ad agency in 1960 and it is very accurate historically. Today there is a Season 1 Marathon...that's what I'll be doing today.

10 reasons to vote for McCain

Courtesy of Lou Aguilar at National Review online:


1. Barack Obama spent 20 years sitting in church while his preacher and others bad-mouthed the United States of America. Navy pilot John McCain spent five years being tortured in the Hanoi Hilton, and refused a chance to walk out ahead of fellow POWs with more seniority.

2. Obama wants to cut and run from Iraq regardless of conditions on the ground or future consequences. McCain took on the president and secretary of defense in demanding more troops for Iraq, a policy that is inarguably winning the war. He also has two sons who fought in Iraq.

3. McCain supports nuclear power. Obama backs wind energy.

4. Obama wants restrictive gun control because only economically depressed middle-Americans “cling to God and guns.” McCain unwaveringly supports the Second Amendment.

5. McCain has deviated from his party’s conservative base on several occasions (McCain-Feingold Bill, Gang of 14, McCain-Kennedy Bill, opposition to torture). Obama has voted the left-wing line every single time, and been designated the most liberal Senator in Congress.

6. Obama is willing to meet with hostile state leaders like Ahmadinejad and Hugo Chavez without preconditions. McCain will set conditions first, talk later — maybe.

7. Obama is married to a bitter, angry lawyer who became “proud” of her country for the first time this year. McCain’s wife is a beer heiress who founded an organization to provide MASH-style units to disaster-torn world regions. Did I mention that she’s a beer heiress?

8. Obama supports higher taxes for a government-run nanny state that will coddle all Americans like babies. McCain trusts people to spend their less-taxed money however they wish.

9. The name John McCain sounds like “John McClain,” the action hero played by Bruce Willis in the manly Die Hard series. “Barack Obama” sounds like the kind of elitist villain John McClain has to outwit and defeat.
10. McCain is endorsed by Clint Eastwood, Sylvester Stallone, and Arnold Schwarzenegger. Obama gets support from Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon, Oprah Winfrey, Tom Hanks, and every weenie in Hollywood. Plus, Susan Sarandon has vowed to leave the country if McCain gets elected. Case closed.

McCain on Obama's trip to Iraq

Obama is finally going to Iraq. Unfortunately, he continues to push his withdraw (i.e. surrender) in 16 months that military professionals say is logistically impossible. Reminiscent of "1984" Obama scrubbed his web site, no longer calling the Iraq conflict a civil war. It's too bad he can't say "McCain was right and I was wrong--the surge worked."

McCain continued to hammer Obama today, saying "In my experience, fact-finding missions usually work best the other way around: first you assess the facts on the ground, then you present a new strategy."

Victor Davis Hanson on BHO

Victor Davis Hansen is a writer and military historian. Today he writes:

I think McCain will incrementally continue to close the lead for four reasons:

The hope and change rock-start moments are waning, and replaced by a new Obama composite:

1) Obama flips in furious fashion; the only controversy is over when the mutations will stop, and how well he can convince his base that they are only cosmetic adjustments of limited duration necessary for election and the implementation of their shared European-like agenda.

2) Obama is proving messianic; all the lectures about fainting, the Brandenburg Gate, his new seal, open-air address in Denver, oceans receding, etc. are cementing a portrait of a megalomaniac. Almost everyone has by now "disappointed", or "disrespected" Obama, or is not the fellow prophet that Obama "knew," "remembers", or "recalls". His sermons on our SUVs, lack of language fluency, diet etc. are as hypocritical as they are sophomoric, and confirm Michelle's summation of the rest of us as "unaware, uninformed."

3) Obama is ruthless — the numbers of those thrown under the bus — Wright, his grandmother, Ms. Power, former aides — are now resembling speed bumps. This is not unusual in politics, but contradicts the Sermon on the Mount imagery, and confirms the past narrative of his take-no-prisoners political ambitions.

4) Obama has a poor grasp of history, geography, American culture, and common sense — whether the number or location of states in the Union, basic facts about WWII or where Arabic is spoken, or his sociological take on Pennsylvania, etc. His advisors realize this, and are playing 4th-quarter defense by keeping him out of ex tempore, non tele-prompted hope and change venues, where his shallowness can manifest itself in astonishing ways.

The result of these trends is to sow doubt in the American electorate about an otherwise charismatic and electrifying candidate in a year tailor-made for Democrats. In itself, the fissures in the Obama porcelain are not enough for McCain to win: he must focus his message on four or five issues — winning the war on terror, the radical change in Iraq that promises victory, cutting spending and reducing American debt, developing traditional energies in a can-do fashion, as we transition to electric, solar, wind, hydrogen, flex, green etc. power, and closing the border now-discussing the contentious issues later — as he contrasts these with the amorphous always changing opportunism of Obama. He can't do that via dueling set-speeches; he doesn't do as well on the teleprompter and the media will always amplify that in their selection of clips. But in town-halls, the debates, and in interviews, he can draw the distinctions. The longer the campaign, the more it benefits the older candidate rather than the vigorous, but green youngster.

Iran missile photoshop

It looks like Iran photoshopped their latest missile launch. Great pictures of other photoshops at wired.com.

Obama tidbits

Interesting post by Kevin McCullough, who says that there are two types of households: (1) people who fly the flag on the 4th of July, and (2) people who put Obama signs outside of their houses. There is hardly any overlap!

Obama showed his ignorance about national security matters again today, saying that he would direct the Joint Chiefs of Staff to withdraw US troops from Iraq. Surely he should know that the Goldwater-Nichols act made the Joint Chiefs an advisory body, and that troops are directed through "combatant commands" up to the Secretary of Defense. It would be truly shocking to have such a neophyte as commander in chief. Dean Barnett has more details at the Weekly Standard's blog.

Noticed a good post on National Review online, saying that McCain really has to work hard to get Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Michigan, and probably needs Ohio to win. Michael Novak suggests John Kasich as VP, and Kasich would be a good choice.

Now the Dems are criticizing McCain's war record?

Wesley Clark said that McCain's experience "riding in an airplane" did not qualify him to be President? Is flying 23 missions over Vietnam and then being shot down count as "riding?" This line of attack will completely backfire--it only serves to highlight Obama's lack of experience in military matters.

This n That

Big things happening with my job situation. More details later, but let me just say it looks like an interesting opportunity may be coming my way.

Hot as heck here in NoVa, but typical for this time of year.

K. returned from a week at the beach with her friends.

Hideki Matsui's knee put him on the Yankees disabled list, so I essentially blew uup my fantasy baseball team. I could not afford to hold onto Matsui indefinitely, so I picked up David Murphy from the Rangers. Benched Lester, activated Harang, dropped Reynolds, Glaus, picked up Cantu, Gordon. Currently tied for sixth in a ten-team league.

Denver or St. Paul?

Earlier this week, the Wall Street Journal reported that the Democratic National Convention issued the following mandates:


No fried food. And, on the theory that nutritious food is more vibrant, each meal should include "at least three of the following colors: red, green, yellow, blue/purple, and white." (Garnishes don't count.) At least 70% of ingredients should be organic or grown locally, to minimize emissions from fuel burned during transportation.


The DNC has also ordered baseball caps made of organic cotton by unionized labor and will use "biofuel made from beer waste to power the convention's fleet of flex-fuel vehicles," according to the Journal.

Denver's mayor John Hickenlooper says that the Democrats' green convention is a display of "the new patriotism".

One wonders what Mayor Hickenlooper must think about the patriotism of Republicans gathering in Minnesota. The St. Paul city council has voted in favor permitting bars to close at 4 a.m. during the Republican National Convention, and the RNC spokemsan says Republicans will be "drinking our beer, not burning it."

And what will the Democratic food police think of all the Republicans heading to Minnesota State Fair, where gluttons will be chowing down a few deep fried Twinkies, or, for those preferring lighter fare, deep fried cheese curds and a pork chop on a stick?

I, for one, would rather be in St. Paul.

More Obama flip-flops

Now Obama has flip-flopped on guns, saying that he supports the Supreme Court decision, after previously saying that he supported the D.C. gun ban. You can add that to previous flip-flops on campaign finance, NAFTA, and the death penalty. You can't trust anything the guy says. Instead, watch what he has DONE, like voting against the well-qualified judge Roberts and Alito for the Supreme Court. If Roberts and Alito are not qualified, what types of judges ARE qualified?

Bill Bennett on Obama

Bill Bennett has 10 concerns about Obama at nationalreview.com. Here is an excerpt:

1. Barack Obama’s foreign policy is dangerous, naïve, and betrays a profound misreading of history. For at least the past five years, Democrats and liberals have said our standing in the international community has suffered from a “cowboy” or “go-it-alone” foreign policy. While politicians with favorable views of our president have been elected in Germany, Italy, France, and elsewhere, Barack Obama is giving cause to make our allies even more nervous. This past Sunday’s Washington Post reported, “European officials are increasingly concerned that Sen. Barack Obama’s campaign pledge to begin direct talks with Iran on its nuclear program without preconditions could potentially rupture U.S. relations with key European allies early in a potential Obama administration.”

Barack Obama’s stance toward Iran is as troubling as it is dangerous. By stating and maintaining that he would negotiate with Iran, “without preconditions,” and within his first year of office, he will give credibility to, and reward for his intransigence, the head of state of the world’s chief sponsor of terrorism. Such a meeting will also undermine and send the exact wrong signal to Iranian dissidents. And, he will lower the prestige of the office of the president: In his own words he stated, “If we think that meeting with the president is a privilege that has to be earned, I think that reinforces the sense that we stand above the rest of the world at this point in time.” Not only has his stance toward Iran caused concern among our allies in Europe, U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton called it, “Irresponsible and frankly naïve.”

McCain's town halls

Time magazine has a good article this week on how McCain does well at "town hall" meetings, at which he takes questions from audience members. Obama has refused to appear at this type of forum, except at one on July 4, at which no one will be watching. Obama does better at scripted events--showing that he does nothing more that give a scripted speech.

I read some VP speculation today that suggests that my friend and old classmate Tim Pawlenty is a front-runner for the Republican VP nomination. I can personally vouch that Tim would be an excellent VP choice for McCain.

Fred Thompson on Obama and enemy detainees

Earlier this week, Senator Fred Thompson held a press conference on the Supreme Court’s Boumediene decision and the reaction to it from Barack Obama. Afterwards, the Obama campaign dug up a quote from Senator Thompson in which he said that Osama bin Laden should get “due process” as a defense for Obama’s support of Boumediene — which shows that Obama doesn’t understand the decision or due process. Senator Thompson responds publicly and exclusively at Hot Air:
Our Democratic friends are once again scrambling to defend Senator Obama’s latest national security gaffe.
Obama supports the recent Supreme Court majority opinion in the Boumediene decision, which extended for the first time habeas corpus rights to foreign enemy combatants held abroad. The Senator went even further than the Court and said that accused terrorists should be tried in American courts as was Omar Abdel Rahman, “the blind sheik”, who masterminded the first World Trade Center bombing.
Last week, in a call with reporters and bloggers, I pointed out Obama’s folly. The Rahman case demonstrates some of the main reasons why we should not treat enemy combatants as ordinary criminal defendants. Such proceedings potentially compromise results, sources and methods of intelligence gathering. In the course of prosecuting Rahman, the government was compelled to turn over a list of un-indicted co-conspirators to the defendant. That list included the name of Osama bin Laden. We later learned that within ten days a copy of that list reached bin Laden in Khartoum, letting him know that his connection to that case had been discovered.
My comments apparently caused the DNC to send out an A.P.B. for anything that might help their candidate out of this problem. Their “Googling” efforts revealed the fact that last year I pointed out that bin Laden would have to be given due process when he is apprehended.
Given that our Democrat friends apparently don’t understand what “due process” means for enemy combatants. They thought they had found a silver bullet for their candidate. For them, my statement supports Obama’s argument for terrorist trials in United States courts.
Of course, it doesn’t. Under several centuries of British and U.S. law, enemy combatants, especially those who are foreign combatants, do not have the same rights as American citizens. This does not mean that they cannot be given certain rights. In 2005, under the Detainee Treatment Act, Congress provided enemy combatants arrested and held abroad with certain procedural rights, such as the right to detention hearings where they may call and cross examine witnesses, etc. It was the due process to which all such prisoners were entitled at the time of my statement last year.
This is a far cry from a trial in a United States court, which Senator Obama would grant them.
The military tribunal process which the Supreme Court threw out last week provided more “due process” to enemy unlawful combatants than any which preceded it — and certainly more than Obama’s oft-cited Nuremberg trials, which provided neither habeas corpus nor any appeals whatsoever. Barack Obama may want to study Nuremberg before using it as an example, because all it proves is how wrong he is.

Afghan Prison Break

From today's Wall Street Journal:

The Supreme Court ruled last Thursday that the writ of habeas corpus should apply to non-American terrorist detainees held at Guantanamo Bay. The Taliban delivered its own commentary on the ruling the very next day, when it busted into a prison in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar and freed 1,150 prisoners, of whom 400 are Taliban members and the other 750 easy potential conscripts. Call it habeas corpus, Taliban-style.

The connection between these events is not merely their timing. The point of keeping enemy combatants at a remote location like Guantanamo is that it offers some assurance that they will not return to the battlefield to kill more Americans – something many have done when given the chance. Yet last week's Boumediene decision makes it all but certain that Gitmo will soon be shutting (or should we say opening) its doors.

The High Court's 5-4 decision will also likely bear on the "rights" that captured enemy combatants will now try to claim when detained by the U.S. in Iraq, Afghanistan and other theaters in the war on terror. As a result, the U.S. military is likely to transfer an increasing number of captured terrorists to local prison authorities, if only to avoid the endless judicial landmines it can expect trying to win convictions in U.S. court.

Fantasies about "torture" at Guantanamo notwithstanding, we have yet to meet the person who thinks the rights of the detainees are better assured in their native lands, whether that's Afghanistan, Egypt, China or even France (recently listed by Foreign Policy magazine as one of the five worst places in the world to be a terrorist). As for security, the Kandahar prison break is not the Taliban's first, and it won't be its last. To the extent that the Supreme Court has made secure detentions more difficult, it has made the task of our troops more dangerous.

Happy Father's Day

to all the fathers out there. Did you know that John McCain's father and grandfather were Navy admirals, and that McCain's son attends the Naval Academy, the fourth generation John S. McCain to do so?

"One Minute to Midnight"

I'm reading "One Minute to Midnight," a new book on the Cuban Missile Crisis by Michael Dobbs. It is a great book, and has a lot of previously undisclosed photos and information. Highly recommended.

McCain: Guantanamo decision "one of the worst in history"

John McCain today slammed the US Supreme Court ruling that terrorist detainees at Guantanamo Bay have a constitutional right to challenge their detention in civilian courts.
At a town hall meeting in Pemberton, N.J., McCain called it “one of the worst decisions in the history of this country.”
While McCain reminded voters that he has worked to prevent the torture of terrorism suspects, he also argued against giving those rights to enemy combatants who are not US citizens. ….
“There are some bad people down there,” he said, adding that the first obligation of the government is to ensure the nation’s safety. “This decision will harm our ability to do that.”
McCain also warned that the courts will be “flooded” with habeas corpus petitions, delaying the adjudication of the cases.

He's right, especially the last sentence.

Samuelson on Obama

Robert Samuelson had a good column this week. He wrote that he is for McCain for the simple reason that with the Democrats likely to hold both houses of Congress, it is important to have a Republican in the White House to check the excesses of a Democratic Congress. I agree with that.

The Supreme Court came out with their Guantanamo decision today, saying that persons detained at Guantanamo have a right to petition federal courts for a writ of habeas corpus. This is a disturbing decision, for the first time holding that combatants detained on foreign soil have a right to petition federal courts for their release. Justice Scalia, Alito, Thomas, and Roberts dissented, with Scalia bluntly stating that this decision will cause the death of Americans. Justice Roberts also wrote that this will prolong the proceedings, because it adds a level of review (the district court) between the Combatant Status Review and the federal appeals court. This will harm any persons wrongfully detained (because things will take longer), and harm the country as to persons properly detained, because many dollars and hours will need to be expended to keep them detained.

Dan McLaughlin writes that this will lead the administration to transfer detainees to other countries, and he may be right.

Bill Bennett on Obama

"The Democratic party is about to nominate a far left candidate in the tradition of George McGovern, albeit without McGovern’s military and political record. The Democratic party is about to nominate a far-left candidate in the tradition of Michael Dukakis, albeit without Dukakis’s executive experience as governor. The Democratic party is about to nominate a far left candidate in the tradition of John Kerry, albeit without Kerry’s record of years of service in the Senate. The Democratic party is about to nominate an unvetted candidate in the tradition of Jimmy Carter, albeit without Jimmy Carter’s religious integrity as he spoke about it in 1976. Questions about all these attributes (from foreign policy expertise to executive experience to senatorial experience to judgment about foreign leaders to the instructors he has had in his cultural values) surround Barack Obama. And the Democratic party has chosen him."