Backcountry Notes

Jay, thank you so much for an insightful article. We share the same assessment.

As an interested observer of US politics here in the UK, I enjoyed reading your post. We have similar thoughts about Senator Obama. He seems to be very adept at going a great deal of speaking, but actually saying nothing at all!
Best wishes,
airliebird

I too am a McCain Democrat. Never thought I'd vote Republican for anything. Almost makes me want to vomit when I think of how far away my party has pushed me. Ever since it became clear what the real Left Wing agenda of the Dem party had become this year, I have found myself watching Fox News, campaigning for a Republican Presidential candidate, and (ugh) agreeing with the President in some things. I get disoriented when I think about it. Sometimes I think this must be a nightmare, and I'll wake up and Obama/Dean/Pelosi will have just been a bad dream, and then I despair when I realize it is actually no dream. Now I'm de-registering for the Dem party and going Independent. McCain '08

Hi I'm a passionate Obama supporter. I would just like to highlight a difference between Obama and Mccain on foreign policy.

Obama will engage Iran. He has made a gaffe with the issue of preconditions but he will engage the country nonetheless. Obama also seeks to pull US troops out of Iraq within two years except for a strategic presence. Do you know what the funny thing about these strategies are? They're compatible, the only way the US can extricate its forces from Iraq is by playing nice with the neighbour who has the most influence on the ground there.

Mccain will not engage Iran. As he says, he sees no reason in negotiating with a country that calls Israel a stinking corpse. Mccain, who is lucky to be in possession of a precise crystal ball, has said that Iraq will be stable in 2013. Firstly, such a prediction is far more naive than Obama's "gaffe". Secondly, if Mccain achieves stability in Iraq by 2013 (it is not even certain whether such stability is possible) it would require the assistance of Iran.

I'll open this up for rational discussion.

Cheers

Ben

Sorry Ben, but no one pays any attention to snobama's foreign policy because he is an idiot on that topic and he has no chance of winning the general election.
I agree with a majority of the dems who will go for McCain or wait for an independent or maybe write-in Hillary Clinton.
The DNC and snobama has destroyed the Dem party.

Thank you for this very insightful article. I too never thought I would vote for a Republican for President but if Obama is the nominee, McCain is the only real choice.

Really good article, well written and very astute. I have been shaking my head in absolute disbelief, for many months now. Yes, tuning into Fox News to get fair and balanced coverage of the primary and listening to pundits ask Hillary to drop out of the race for the good of the party!
After the landslide victories in West Virginia and Kentucky, I even heard a whole panel of "the best political team on TV", suggest and call on Hillary to denounce her voters if race is one of their issues!! They said she should take the 'high road' and tell her supporters that she rejects their vote if they're voting for her because she's not black!!! This wasn't even tongue in cheek, they were serious! I kept waiting for one of them to bring up the fact that Obama gets 92% of the black vote...but, no one did? My head is still shaking in disbelief. If this double standard isn't resolved, sexism vs racism, and the popular vote taken into consideration as the 'will of the people'...the democratic party will lose...it's time to say we're Americans 1st, and demand actual democracy in our elections!

Hi Ben,

I have to correct your apparent misunderstanding of McCain's position. McCain has never said that he wouldn't engage Iran diplomatically, quite the contrary. What he said was that an executive level meeting will not be undertaken without meeting preconditions, including disengagement from their nuclear program and discontinuing efforts to fund terrorism and insurgencies throughout the Middle East. Obama, after several redux versions of his original "preconditional" gaffe, now says that he would require "preparations" and "benchmarks", which are synonymous with what is meant by a "preconditional" meeting. But right now Ahmadinejad has shown no willingness to meet any benchmarks or humanitarianism and diplomacy, and the President meeting with him in person would only be used as a propaganda campaign to legitimize him. Same with the leaders of Cuba, Syria, and North Korea. McCain has laid out a much clearer plan for aggressive diplomacy combined with the use of any available diplomatic, economic, or military leverage to pressure these leaders whenever it is appropriate and safest to our national interests to do so. Especially as we face a Democratic majority that has proven itself as corrupt as the current President (the recent Farm Bill proves as much), we need a moderate Republican and true fiscal conservative like McCain to provide a system of checks-and-balances, and to keep us safe.

Obama's willingness to withdraw precipitously from Iraq is another example of his ignorance of national security. We can and should only withdraw from Iraq when we can be assured of not leaving behind an even greater threat that may force us to return to the region, the next time without the popular support that so many millions of Iraqis are giving us. Most of them want us there, now. But if we leave them to the wolves, they may never forgive us again.

Another failing of Obama's policies can be seen in his willingness to seek permission from foreign leaders for Americans to drive SUV's, run their air conditioners, and eat as much food as they want. As long as we're paying, we can do these things all we want, and although I do discourage people from buying SUV's and I am opposed to giving them a "light truck" status so that they can have lower fuel mileage, that is more a matter of their value and legal status as opposed to whether we should be allowed to drive SUV's. Wanting to run our air conditioners is none of any other country's business (and as someone who lives in South Florida, the thought of being banned from using mine because some European bigwigs don't like it is horrifying), and food supplies have nothing to do with Americans being too fat, there's more than enough food for everyone to get fat if they want, if they can afford the food and if it reaches them in the first place (keep in mind that rats alone devour a fifth of the human food supply each year, mostly due to poor storage; factor in economic and distribution problems in developing nations, and these two factors alone probably contribute to most of the problem, even more than climate change or corn ethanol). I will not give up my way of life just because some lear jet liberals and European leftists didn't approve. John McCain will defend our way of life while moving us into a future in which our way of life is sustainable by such means as alternative energy sources and new techniques of food production, as well as a market restructuring that prevents Vegas-type investors from inflating the oil futures market with their conspiracy theories about diminishing oil supplies, which is a myth that had been thoroughly debunked by Russia for better than half a century now. Instead of listening to half-wise naysayers, the Russians invested in oil reserve development in their own country, and in places where Western experts assured them that no oil could possibly be found, and at this day they now produce more oil per year than Saudi Arabia and have existing oil supplies for over a century, with the potential to expand their supplies considerably in the future. If we in the United States were to do the same by developing some of our newfound reserves in the Gulf of Mexico, and to limit oil futures investment to large investors who are properly educated about the levels of future oil supplies, we could get gas prices under control and better ensure our national security. We also need to eliminate gas and oil taxes and replace them with revenue raised by cutting unnecessary Government spending and eliminating all earmarks. In some places the elimination of the taxes on state, federal, and even local levels could decrease average costs considerably. We also need to increase the fuel efficiency of our vehicles so that they are comparable with European automobiles, which will help to ensure that the decreased costs will not drive up demand.

I hope you better understand some of these issues now.

It's nice to see that other's feel the same as I do. Nothing can make me vote Obama over McCain. I also only watch Fox news and have had my eyes opened to the far left new democratic party. McCain is a moderate that will protect this country from it's enemies.

The problem is, we look more at labels than we do the actual content of the individual. He's a Democrat, so he must be a good guy...He's a Republican, so he stinks...etc.

Current leadership has moved the party so far to the left it is frightening. Neither major party is looking out for the good of the American people.

Ironically, McCain (and Bush, for that matter) are more closely aligned with the Democrat Party principles of FDR and JFK than most of today's leaders. I dare say that if either of these guys had a D designation rather than an R we would find ways to defend, rather than attack, them.

Hyper-partisanship has paralyzed our government (Congress: 13% approval; President: 30% approval) resulting in high energy prices, rising food prices, a credit crisis, an unstable currency, and threats from beyond our borders.

I say it's time to forget about labels and elect people who will put the interests of the American people ahead of their own personal agendas.

Hi Texan,

I agree about McCain, but not Bush. Bush is a bad President, whether there is a D or an R after the name. He lied, people died. Should've impeached him and Cheney a long time ago in my opinion, but I don't want House Speaker Pelosi to become to the next President. Bush is the classic example of hyper-partisanship; his decision to veto the Farm Bill recently was one of the few things he's ever said or done that I agreed with, that and finally listening to McCain about the need for the surge. You really shouldn't compare the two, because when you do you bolster the DNC's preposterous assertion that John McCain is a clone of George W. Bush. They are almost nothing at all alike.

Great analysis and comments. You have a read of reality (as exhibited in your post) and then look at how the media is falling all over Obama and you can't help but laugh at the stupidity and then cry at the possibilities.

Jay: Excellent post - Looks like you took the words from my mind. I am democrat since I became a citizen. Never voted for a R in a presidential election. Was a fan of Tim Russert - but now I can barely watch msnbc or cnn. Amazing how the media is in Obama trance. All this analysis that only people without college or below 50k vote for Hillary. I am highly qualified - 2 post graduate degrees and 6 figure income. I cannot vote for Obama not because of his race but he is inexperienced and all speach. See where landed with a President without experience. And I really have a problem with his wife.

I think the dems are creating political sucide in a year that they should win the the WH

"Bush lied and people died" is malignant nonsense right from the playbook of the Daily Kos and other far left demogogues. There is a good read on the RealClearPolitics site today by Ed Koch on how history will redeem George Bush. Koch is right: Bush is an easy target by those who gain political capital by selling simple answers to people with simple minds. The world is at a point of decision: will we confront or appease the radical elements within Islam? Bush has taken the correct if unpopular path of dealing with the enemy in the only way they understand: by force. Obama is either ignorant (which I doubt), or very cynical in his stated belief that those who have sworn our destruction can be negotiated with. Whether we are considering Neville Chamberlain in dealing with Hitler, the English in dealing with the Vikings, or the known world dealing with Attila the Hun the results of appeasment are always the same.

Cyraneau

Cyaneau,

First of all, I've never visited Daily Kos. I don't read left wing news services, or watch them on television.

The problem with Bush is not that he decided to confront radical Islam head on. I was all in favor of the war in Afghanistan, but Iraq is a different matter. Saddam Hussein may have been a bit of a radical, but he was not a Muslim radical, on the contrary he ran a secular government that effectively defended the Iraqis from the threat of foreign terrorists, which is exactly why he and Bin Laden hated each other. There were many better threats to go after than Iraq, which was a contained situation. And yes, Bush and his administration did lie, they selectively chose intelligence to bolster the claim, since proven false, that Saddam had WMD programs. They conveniently withheld all intelligence that contradicted it. They basically gave in to radical elements of Israeli security, and while I support Israel, in the case of Iraq their intelligence agencies have grown a bit paranoid ever since Saddam tried to develop WMDs against them, which he DID at one time but was no longer doing. There were better first targets, and frankly we should never have diverted from the mission in Afghanistan until we had stabilized the region, or until we had to divert resources to pursue Bin Laden when it became clear he had gone elsewhere. The war itself was a wrongheaded and poorly executed plan from the start. History may shine favorably on McCain's handling of the war, including his encouragement of the surge and of implementing a hearts-and-minds strategy, but it will never clear Bush of the single greatest lie a President has ever told in order to justify a war. If you want us McCain Dems to be able to help carry the man to victory, we need the Bush loving cult to please go underground, you are distracting people from noticing how crazy the Obama loving cultists are.

BTW, my last comments were meant to be joke, I hope they were not taken the hard way. I don't really think Bush or Obama supporters are literally "cultists", but my point is that as long as Bush and his millions of unpaid surrogates flood the blogs with defenses of their beloved Bush, they push one more person closer to the Dems. Now's the time for a mute campaign. Don't praise Bush overly much, and don't compare McCain to Bush. I don't tolerate that nonsense from Dems, I won't tolerate it from Repubs. McCain and Bush and mirror opposites in almost every regard, and that is what I intend to keep reminding people as I campaign for him.

For the record,the race card was first played by Obama African-American surrogates in response to President Clinton's statement in Dartmouth, NH on January 8, 2008 regarding Obama's stance on Iraq:

"It is wrong that Senator Obama got to go through 15 debates trumpeting his superior judgment and how he had been against the war in every year, enumerating the years — and never got asked one time, not once, 'Well, how could you say that, when you said in 2004 you didn't know how you would have voted on the resolution, you said in 2004 there was no difference between you and George Bush on the war. And you took that speech you’re now running on off your Web site in 2004 and there's no difference in your voting record and Hillary's ever since?' Give me a break. This whole thing is the biggest fairy tale I've ever seen."

Obama surrogates completely ran with this statement in a wholely disingenuous and deceitful way saying that Clinton had implied that a black man as president is a fairy tale. Since that point race-bating by the Obama campaign has been rampant with any criticism of Obama decried as racist. It is likely that this "cold" and "calculated" Obama strategy has played a major role in turning off women and white working class Americans. I have voted as a Democrat since 1976, and I have never seen the party so divided. So much for Obama the "uniter."

The great myth of the "Bush Third Term":

Democrats would have us believe that John McCain is a clone of George W. Bush. A prominent Democrat in the Senate recently used those exact words, in fact. Let us review McCain's background briefly, and explore the basis of this claim:

John McCain was the simple son of a military family. This background set the future course of his own life, as he entered military service and fought in the Vietnam War. There he was taken as a Prisoner of War, where he put a valiant effort to resist giving up information under torture. Enduring this torture left a permanent impression on McCain, the impression that torture should never be allowed.

After being released, McCain chose assignment at the war college, where he attempted to learn as much as possible about why wars are lost and how they are won. His unique experience led him to conclude that, regardless whether or not the war in Vietnam should ever have been fought, it was a war that could have been won. The failed strategy in Vietnam was a result of a fundamental misunderstanding of the conflict as one of sheer military might, and only too late was a "hearts and minds" strategy adopted, which had it been employed from the start might have succeeded. This knowledge would prove crucial in his recent policy differences with his fellow Veteran Congressmen regarding the war in Iraq.

Later he joined a generation of Vietnam Vets in Congress. There are currently four such Veterans in Congress, two democrats and two Republicans. McCain proved himself to be a unique kind of politician, imperfect perhaps but a breath of fresh air compared to the stale divisive partisanship that has long dominated the two parties. He chose to resist his party on a number of crucial issues, and has been recognized as the most centrist legislator in the Congress by sources on each side of the political aisle. For a time he was possibly the most popular politician in America, as his maverick tendencies set him apart from the politics of stalemate partisanship.

McCain voted to authorize the war, as did fellow Veterans in the Congress, such as John Kerry. Regardless your feelings about whether the Bush Administration deceived the Congress about the reasons for war, the Congress was pretty thoroughly convinced, as a vast majority voted to authorize. They faced a tough decision in the face of seemingly damning intelligence, and they decided to take the Commander in Chief at his word. However McCain was the first to observe the failure of Bush's strategies, which had led to so many problems. He endorsed a widely disparaged surge, which however seems to have helped, and he encouraged new "hearts and minds" strategies be implemented before a repeat of the "too little, too late" lesson that he had learned from Vietnam. When public opinion, driven largely by monetary concerns, turned against the war, McCain stood his ground and advocated new strategies, and finally Bush relented. McCain knows that a precipitous withdrawal would be disastrous, both in its consequences for Iraq, and for the message that it sends to people throughout the Middle Eastern world, which is the message that America has been defeated, has become a "paper tiger", and this will embolden the recruitment efforts of countless terrorist organizations, especially if Iraq is left incapable of defending itself from powers such as Iran, Syria, and Al Qaeda.

Four years ago, nearly half of American voters, including a clear majority of Democrats, supported Senator John Kerry, who more responsibly than his young protege Obama spoke of changing strategies and winning the war. Kerry's national security experience and military knowledge paled in comparison with McCain, who instead of endorsing vaguely defined "new strategies" has been at the forefront of pioneering clear new strategies that can lead us to the only form of victory in Iraq that matters: A nation friendly to us and stable enough to resist terrorism and foreign military powers. The goal is in sight, it is not just over the horizon, it is becoming visible. McCain knows we cannot afford to fail.

This brings us to the "McSame" argument. It is contradicted by McCain's voting records and foresight. It appears to be supported by only two arguments: 1) McCain changed his mind about tax cuts, and 2) McCain doesn't want to set a timetable for withdrawal. The first argument is somewhat cogent, but it takes for granted that low taxes on corporations equals economic distress. The reality is more nuanced. When these tax cuts are considered in the context of his entire platform of federal tax and spending reform, the tax cuts may make sense. And anyways, the Democratic majority would never let him pass such a thing if they thought it was a bad idea, right? The rest of his economic plan seems highly sound. His health care platform seeks to give us the same degree of choice in health care as we have in other free market systems, instead of the largely uncompetitive and unreliable company-based insurance plans. Individuals would receive the same tax deduction for health care that companies currently do, and could apply this money towards insurance packages offered by a much wider range of carriers who can compete over prices and tailor packages to individual needs. Short of a truly universal health care plan such as in Canada, which neither party is actually proposing, this is undoubtedly the best health care proposal being made. McCain's flatter tax code will result in tremendous savings in the federal costs of processing tax returns, which are currently based on an incredibly complicated code tens of thousands of pages long, and which the Democratic candidates have each proposed complicating further. What is more, McCain would make the new tax plan optional, not mandatory. McCain opposes all earmark spending, and has not taken any earmark spending or voted for any ear mark bloated bills. The quintessential examples of the failure of pork barrel spending can be seen in two pork barrel projects undertaken within the last decade by Alaskan Senators, one being a bridge to nowhere in Alaska, the other being a road to nowhere in Florida (I live in Florida, don't ask me how an Alaskan Senator does such a thing or how we allowed it). There is little in earmark spending bills that can be considered any nobler or more rational than these.

On the environment, McCain's policies represent a good start towards bridging the divide between economy and ecology. It may not be perfect, but there can be little doubt that he will continue to work across party lines for the good of the environment, and not resist the Democrats on every environmental measure as Bush did. A Democratic trifecta would likely push a wide variety of radical, anti-economic environmental programs full of new spending and bloated up with pork barrels in order to tempt their fellow Republicans, many of whom have failed to endorse the same anti-pork barrel platform as their candidate, as evidenced by their bipartisan passage of the Farm Bill. That is not the kind of bipartisanship that America wants or needs, that is just a vision of a monolithic political party where candidates never disagree with each other as long as the price is right.

Vote McCain '08
A Disgruntled Florida Democrat for McCain

I truly appreciate this colorfully written blog but I disagree with most of the opinion. It's sort of like being hit over the head with a sack of dictionaries.
I guess I should confess. I am a L I B E R A L. And I actually think it's wise to hear different opinions before I make up my mind, so I welcome the editorial pages of the major newspapers (long may they live) and listen to the pundits on TV as much as I can stand. Although I absolutely cringe at what Fox calls balanced news, I watch it. I prefer PBS for balance. The station coming out of Chapel Hill even has BBC news at 10 pm, so I like to hear what the Brits think about all this stuff.
And I really like Obama. I also like Hillary because she is an admirable trouper (even if she did "mis-speak" about dodging bullets). But Mccain? Come on, people. How can you say he is not following in Bush's boot prints. I admire his courage when he was a prisoner. I think he is a decent man. But I am imspired by Obama. If it's all smoke and mirrors, he has me fooled. I feel as if I have a lot in common with him. I go to a church that allowed the Black Panthers to meet in our building during the 60's, scary as they were. The reason I have stayed in that congregation for 50 years is that it is also the first church that started a program for the homeless and an outreach for the poor. Has anybody read about Wright's outreach programs in Chicago? I think maybe that's why Obama stuck with his church. We've had many ministers in my church, some of whom were as radical as Rev. Wright, most of whom were not. I also have friends from the far right, born again Christians and atheists too. Should I drop them? Should I disown them because we don't agree on every aspect of life? I won't cheat myself of such rich diversity. And I won't fool myself into thinking that any one political party has all the answers to our grievous problems. We need to forget labels as much as we can and try to bring this country back to its ideals. I've lived long enough not to be sure of anything, but I'm hoping Obama will at least give us a shot at that. I'm an old (77 yrs. old) white woman, born and raised in Appalachia, transplanted to Norfolk in the late 60's. My heart still leaps up when I head up 64 and spot the mountains west of Charlottesville. I envy that beautiful spot you've got, Jay. I don't know how you drag yourself in off the porch to peck on the computer. phyllis

Hi Ben,

As a Muslim, I'd like to point out that "They're compatible, the only way the US can extricate its forces from Iraq is by playing nice with the neighbour who has the most influence on the ground there." would not likely happen. Iran and Iraq have religious strife, amongst their people, that go back ages. Hoping Iran will play nice with Iraq is not likely, as history has repeatedly demonstrated. Iraq has a unique balance of Shi'a and Sunni Muslims, despite the media showing constant strife (those are more rare than people think). Iran will completely upset this balance being majority Shi'a, but more importantly, willing to push the fact that it is majority Shi'a. Playing nice with Iran means starting a horrific war between the two and/or a civil war in Iraq. McCain has got it right, but I agree that his prediction is probably too optimistic.

Now as an economist, "market restructuring that prevents Vegas-type investors from inflating the oil futures market with their conspiracy theories about diminishing oil supplies," is totally impossible. Markets will always have speculators, because investing is essentially gambling but with the advantage of large amounts of information (which is a rather large advantage). There's always people in the market who are grossly misinformed and there's no way to make sure there are no idiots in the market. Not to mention people make mistakes. It takes just one sucker with a few million (or even less nowadays) to cause an unanticipated market panic. Still McCain is way more market friendly than Barack, which as a foreigner why I choose to be here -- the free market has made me much better off than the majority of the world that seriously lacks it. Unfortunately(?), you have to be willing to bust your behind to succeed.

Perhaps the insecurities in the Middle East might be caused ,in large part, by the fact that Israel has nuclear weapons and moves whenever and wherever it damn well pleases, while the US and other allies just go along, singing Israel's praises.
I do believe that if we were in a similar position, say, if Cuba built nuclear weapons close to our borders, that we would feel threatened too. I can't say I blame Israel's neighbors for wanting to ratchet up defenses given the armament and attitude of Israel. They would scare me, if they were my neighbors.

Phyllis - Reality check: Israel had to fight four wars against hostile Arab neighbors (1948, 1956, 1967, 1973) who had sworn to demolish it. Some of those hostiles are still out there - - Syria, Iran, Gaza - - along with terrorist groups like Hamas - - and are still bent on destroying Israel. To that extent, middle-east "insecurity" has been self-inflicted by the Muslim nations. As for Cuba, I don't recall that we have any commitment to destroy it and whether or not one agrees with the economic embargo (I don't), that hardly compares with a threat to kill everyone in the country - - Jay