The tenets:
STRENGTHEN NATIONAL DEFENSE - increase the size, capability and efficiency of our Armed Forces, bringing back our defense spending to historical levels as percentage of GDP.
GAIN ENERGY INDEPENDENCE - open up ANWR and the OCS to exploration; aggressively pursue nuclear energy and green technologies; and incent private industry to aggressively pursue clean, renewable energy sources.
SECURE THE BORDERS - build physical barriers immediately as a precursor to an overarching, sensible immigration policy. If the boat's sinking, you plug the holes first.
DEATH TO EARMARKS - zero tolerance for earmarks.
DEATH TO CORRUPTION - zero tolerance for corruption.
ENGLISH AS NATIONAL LANGUAGE - national unity requires a national language. That language is English.
IMPLEMENT FLAT TAX OR FAIR TAX - simplify the tax system by eradicating a tax code gone mad.
REDUCE SIZE OF GOVERNMENT - provide "whistleblower-style" awards for reducing the size of government and task the IRS (which will no longer have to worry about enforcing the tax code) with achieving the reduction goals on an annual basis.
SPUR HEALTHCARE COMPETITION - Address health-care deficiencies - with competitive, free-market solutions, not Government largesse.
ADDRESS ENTITLEMENTS - engage a bipartisan consortium to create a multi-million dollar competition to incent teams from private industry and academia to create solutions for our social security and Medicare liabilities.

This should not be a platform. It should be a promise -- an ironclad commitment -- to voters.

Young Women in the News

A couple of young women were in the news today. The first, a 22 year-old from the Jersey Shore, whose name isn't very important at all, charged $1,000 an hour to have sex with the governor of New York. When she's not hooking, she's an aspiring nightclub singer it seems.

The other woman, 19 year-old Monica Lin Brown, also made the news, but in a much lesser way. This Texan teenager was awarded the nation's third highest military metal, the Silver Star. Army Spc. Brown, a medic stationed in Afghanistan, earned the medal for her bravery saving her wounded comrades. According the the well-concealed news report:

Army Spc. Monica Lin Brown is only the second woman since World War II to receive the medal, one of the nation's highest military awards given for gallantry in combat.
''She just did what she was trained to do," her 74-year-old grandmother, Katy Brown, said from her Lake Jackson [Texas] home on Sunday.
Monica Brown, a medic, was part of a four-vehicle convoy patrolling near Jani Kheil in the eastern province of Paktia when a bomb struck one of the Humvees on April 25, military officials said.
After the explosion, she braved insurgent gunfire and mortars to reach five wounded soldiers. She shielded them as she administered aid and helped drag them to safety, the military said.
"I did not really think about anything except for getting the guys to a safer location and getting them taken care of and getting them out of there," Monica Brown told The Associated Press on Saturday from a U.S. base in the province of Khowst.

I'll bet you didn't hear or read about Monica Brown. I'll bet you know what the hooker's name is.

WWF Smackdown

Ooooooh! It's the ultimate death-match in a cage time. The final primaries for the Democratic nomination. "It's Obama's to lose." "Hillary's getting steamrollered." "Eleven straight losses have buried her." Well, ... I don't think so. I can't see HRC walking off stage because she came in second in Texas. Or Ohio. Or Rhode Island. Or whereever else. C'mon, it's a real fight and there's gonna be blood splattered on the walls before the night's over. The spin is already circulating, too. "Unless Obama sweeps the primary, that means that the dems still want HRC." I think I got that one right. I dunno, the spin is coming so fast it's tough to keep track of it. If you listen to Howard Wolfson and Harold Ickes long enough, your brains will melt and run out your ear holes onto your shirt. You will drool. Their spin is so intense, it's like looking into a galactic vortex, a black hole, a super nova of bullshit. No mere human can stand it. I can't anyway. HRC is ahead, behind, surging forward, being overwhelmed and maintaining her narrow margin. That's all in one day. Tuesday's gonna be fun. Has anyone figured out what Sen. Obama's position on ethanol is? How about gay voter registration? Or the Law of the Sea Treaty?

September 11, 2001, and John McCain

Posting about McCain brought back a memory.

On September 11, 2001, I was in Washington, D.C. My Lovely Bride and I were down South, visiting family. We came up September 10 to her sister's house in Maryland. I had arranged with one of Congressman Duncan Hunter's staffers, Valerie, for a tour of the House of Representatives floor and the Capitol. You could do that pre-9/11. So, at about 9:00 a.m., I dropped off my brother-in-law, sister-in-law and My Lovely Bride outside one of the congressional office buildings and looked for a place to park. There are no places to park on Capitol Hill. The last parking place was taken in 1987 and has been passed down from father to son ever since.

While I was making increasingly wider circles around the Capitol, I noticed a bunch of young men and women all briskly walking or running, every one with cellphones stuck in their ears. They all wore Navy Blue blazers, white shirts and khaki trousers. I started giggling at how self-important these Congressional aides thought they must be. All in the same uniform, all talking earnestly on cellphones, I just thought, "Yeh, I'm in the Imperial Capital, and that's how everybody, all these pretentious kids, sees themself here. What a bunch of dweebs".

It wasn't until I finally got inside (by waiving at the guard at the door) that I realized something was wrong. About then, I can't remember if I heard a noise or somebody shouted, "It's the Pentagon!". I still hadn't figured what had happened. I got to Duncan Hunter's office by then. He was there and put on his "glad to see a constituent" face. We chatted a bit, and he asked for my cellphone number, saying "Maybe we can have dinner tonight". I suggested that he was going to be rather busy, for it was now clear that New York and the Pentagon had been attacked.
Duncan dismissed the objection with a waive of the hand and said he was there to see his "people from home".

At this point, I hustled My Lovely Bride, brother-in-law and sister-in-law out of the office. By the time we made it to the exit, guards were shouting at everybody to "Get away from the building!". My Lovely Bride has had a few back surgeries and is not exactly an Olympic sprinter. She was hobbling with the cane and I was darting around her shrieking, in a purely husbandly and loving way, of course, "Let's get out of here!". We made it to the rental car and spent the next couple of hours on totally grid-locked streets trying to get of out D.C. and back to Maryland.

I didn't know then that what saved our butts was probably the heroic actions of the passengers on United Flight 93. They selflessly gave their lives to force the airliner down in some remote Pennsylvania woods. The airliner was thought to be aimed at the Capitol.

Fast forward. Last year, My Lovely Bride and I were visiting family in the Susquahanna Valley, north of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. We were driving through the world's longest valley, the Juniata Valley on old US Hwy 30 when I saw a turnoff for Shanksville, PA. I turned to My Lovely Bride and asked, "Hey, didn't something happen at Shanksville?". I'd forgotten. I forgot United Airlines Flight 93. I cannot even remember the name of the hero whose last words were, "Let's roll!". My sorry butt was saved, but I hadn't the fainest clue. That's what six years does. We're still at war. There are still crazies out there that want to kill us because, and only because, we're Americans. But, I'd forgotten the heroics that probably saved my family and me.

That's why we should vote for McCain. The other two, Hillary and Barrack, are just wrong on the war. We've got lots of time to sort out universal health care, and the rest of the largesse that the federal government doles out, if we protect ourselves and fight this war. Read Norman Podhoretz' "World War IV". Vote for McCain.

My Cloudy Crystal Ball

So much for my predictive powers. Huh. Whodda thunk it? McCain wasn't even on my list in December. Thus is politics. Last week's darling is this week's faint memory.

I had dinner with McCain once. It was about 10 years ago or so. It was at a local Duncan Hunter event on a college campus next to the ocean. I sat next to McCain. He gave a great stump speech, even though it was well before the 2000 campaign. He had some great lines about "every Senator not under indictment or in rehab wants to be President", and "it's great to be in San Diego to see all my constituents". That latter is because the place is flooded with Zonies in the summer. Any Zonie with half a brain gets out of the Valley of the Sun in the summertime.
They flood the coastline with their RVs and 1973 Cadillac convertibles. The La Jolla grey-hairs call them "summer trash".

Throughout the dinner, I chatted with McCain. He was smart, personable and the consummate politician. I picked up a really weird sensation talking to him. It was as if there was an undercurrent of rage. It was as if any moment there was going to be a meltdown and he was going to stand up shrieking, waiving a pistol. He didn't seem to have what they call "judicial temperment". Now, I will never be a judge. Probably not smart enough, and, certainly not well connected enough, to be one. But I know judicial temperment when I see it. It is the ability to take a bite of a shit sandwich and only comment on the freshness of the bread. McCain didn't have that. He was one pissed off guy, and it was only millimeters below the surface.

Having said that, it begs the question, will I vote for him? You bet. In a heatbeat. Looking at either Hillary or Obama, it's not even a close call. Personalities, and judicial temperment, aside, their worldview and their proposed plans are light-years apart. McCain is not my second choice. Or third, or fourth, or tenth, for that matter. But I probably agree with him 50% of the time. I don't agree with Hillary Clinton or Barry Obama 1% of the time. That's the difference.

In my perfect world, Duncan Hunter and Fred Thompson would run. If for no other reason than a "Hunter-Thompson" bumper sticker would be cool. But that ain't gonna happen. Oh well.

Politics '08

It's the SuperBowl, World Series, World Cup, Olympics and all those tedious Scandanavian winter festivals rolled into one: it's the U.S. Presidential Election. God, how I love it! Watching the campaign is like watching a slow-motion train wreck. Each. Agonizing. Smash up.

Tonight was New Hampshire. The spin was mighty. Who won does not matter. Next week some other obscure, low-population state will have some other caucus or poll. Somebody else will win. What will matter is February 5. Super Tuesday. Nineteen states will pick their nominees. Then the fun will begin.

Prediction: There will be at least one brokered convention. Just like the old days, the pols will skulk into a backroom to cut a deal. Three days of theater and a nominee will emerge. Republicans? Democrats? Maybe both, I dunno.

It's Showtime!

As Joe Gideon said, "It's show time, folks." That was Roy Scheider playing a Bob Fosse character in a movie written by (and about) and directed by Bob Fosse. One look in the bathroom mirror, downing a handfull of benzedrine, eyes sparkling, and yes, "It's shooooow time, folks!"

Well, we're here. the presidential primaries start in about three weeks. Let's see who's running:

Hillary. Nope. I'd love to see a woman president, but not her. She's a communist. And, she doesn't have any leadership experience. This is the end of the first year of her second term as senator from New York. She's authored nothing of note. She's been the quintissential back bencher. What has she managed/overseen/run?

Obama. Maybe. A Chicago pol who mixed it up downstate before going to Washington. Maybe he's got the toughness underneath the charm. Let him duke it out during the presidential campaign to see what he's made of.

Edwards. Not a chance. He's a personal-injury lawyer for God's sake! Doesn't that make your stomach churn? C'mon, the guy's way too pretty, and knows it. Empty suit.

Richardson. Probably. Lot's of experience. Solid. Good ideas. Not too weird. As a Whig, I probably wouldn't vote for him, but he'd be okay.

Romney. Uh-uh. I don't care what they say, too many folks think it's a cult. Evangelicals and fundamentalists across the country are lined up against this guy. Too bad, too. He's probably the best of the lot. Straight middle-of-the-road with executive experience. Smart. Big smart. Decent sort with a good family. Down in the hookworm belt, though, they'd rather see Satan elected.

Giuliani. Naaaaah. Too much mob. Too much Noooo Yahk City. Executive experience, good under pressure. But...he's dirty. Too many connections. Too many problems. The social liberalism won't sink him, but the ties to the bad guys will.

Paul/Kucinich. Only if you live on the planet Zorkon 9. Neither one of the fools has a chance. They're almost amusing (and Dennis' wife is hot!). Ron Paul is smart for a doctor, too.

Huckabee. Pleeeeeze. No way. There's a Jimmie Swaggart moment ahead of us, mark my words. Running solely on the Christian Theological Ticket will not get him to president. Nor should it. The guy's an out-of-the-closet big government liberal. His knowledge of foreign policy is about as much as Obama's. Maybe less.

Thompson. In a perfect world, it would be the ticket of Thompson-Duncan Hunter that takes office January 20, 2009. The world is not perfect. Fred doesn't have the fire in his belly. Duncan is too patriotic for today's metrosexual, multicultural, universal citizen of the world. Alas, they will both be footnotes when the history of the decline and fall of this wonderful country is written.

Whom have I left out? Dodd? Biden? Tancredo? Keyes? Gilmore? Buchanan? Jackson? Sharpton? Dogs barking in the night.

Update -- Richardson's swung over into the moonbat camp with Dennis and Ron. He wants to include alternative medicine in a prescription benefit. That's right, get your ginko biloba on the taxpayers' nickel. Last Thursday, after Bhutto was assassinated, Richardson wants to cut off aid to Musharref. It's deja vu all over again -- another protesting pretentious lefty.