American Republic Online

Last month, General Petraeus was nominated to lead Central Command. His will probably one of Bush’s few disputed nominations. Even Democrats have softened their blows over his success in Iraq (though they don’t call it that). Presidential hopeful Barrack Obama remarked that

“I think that both of you gentlemen are doing the absolute best that you can given an extraordinarily difficult situation…”

General Petraeus has indeed been quite successful in Iraq. When is the last time we’ve heard about a civil war, or the word quagmire? The General’s success (thus far) has come through a “new” strategy. That is, his is a strategy akin to the old saying that “war is politics by another means.” Or, at least in Petraeus’ case, success has come through a union of war and politics. He recognized that victory would only come by involving local politicians. Demonstrable military strength coupled with political maneuvering have led to the recent stability in Iraq [note: so have the trebled oil prices, but that’s another post]. These two factors build on each other: they are not mutually exclusive. A strong military presence is not enough (as demonstrated over the past few years), nor is political will. Combined, however, is/was necessary. Petraeus saw this, and implemented it to a noticeable success.

This is where it gets interesting.

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John McCain’s appeal is supposed to be his bi-partisan approach to politics. Like his record of selling out the Republican party to work with Ted Kennedy on Amnesty for Illegals. Or his efforts as leader of the “gang of 13″ undermining Republican efforts to end filibustering judicial nominees. Let’s face it, bi-partisan in DC means sell out conservatives, join liberals and make moderates/independents feel good about the “compromise”. And McCain has excelled at this kind of politics. Democratic crossover voters in early primaries helped him secure the nomination. But apparently it’s not enough.

Howard Dean wants McCain to stop using powerful Republican political operatives on his campaign:

“But it gets worse. Charlie Black is McCain’s chief political adviser. Over the past seven years, lobbying filings show he’s used his connections with George Bush and Dick Cheney to lobby administration officials…” - Howard Dean, May 21st Email “Unfunny Joke”

Connections with Bush AND Cheney! The thought that a Republican presidential candidate would stoop to using someone that’s worked so closely with Republicans during the Bush administration is appalling. I mean a Democrat would never do such a thing!

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As we reported yesterday, Democratic Presidential Front-Runner Barack Obama stated in a prepared speech just this Saturday:

“China, India, in particular Brazil. They are growing so fast that they are consuming more and more energy and pretty soon, if their carbon footprint even approaches ours, we’re goners.” - Sen. Obama (emphasis added)

Unfortunately it is far worse than Sen. Obama realized:

China has surpassed the United States in carbon emissions to become the world’s largest producer of carbon dioxide, the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency (NEAA) reported Tuesday.

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This quote was buried in the press for obvious reasons, but the ARO has ferreted it out for you. Here is a full snippet of Obama’s speech in Oregon on Saturday:

“All right. So that’s what we want to do on global warming here in the United States. We are also going to have to negotiate with other countries. China, India, in particular Brazil. They are growing so fast that they are consuming more and more energy and pretty soon, if their carbon footprint even approaches ours, we’re goners. That’s part of the reason why we’ve got to make the investment. We got to lead by example. If we lead by example, if we lead by example, then we can actually export and license technologies that have been invented here to help them deal with their growth pains. But keep in mind, you’re right, we can’t tell them don’t grow. We can’t drive our SUVs and, you know, eat as much as we want and keep our homes on, you know, 72 degrees at all times, whether we’re living in the desert or we’re living in the tundra and then just expect every other country is going to say OK, you know, you guys go ahead keep on using 25 percent of the world’s energy, even though you only account for 3 percent of the population, and we’ll be fine. Don’t worry about us. That’s not leadership. That’s not going to happen.” - Sen. Obama (emphasis added)

This brief portion of his speech speaks volumes about Barack Obama’s outlook of and for the country. I must say though that this compelling messag has raised a lot of questions in me:

• What should I do with my SUV now that I can’t drive it?
• Isn’t having enough to eat a pre-req for not being among the “3rd World”?
• How many Americans are currently living in the “tundra”?
• Why is Brazil with a population of 188 Million worse than China & India that both exceed a Billion?
• How many other countries need to approve of our lifestyle to be acceptable? Just one, three, all of them?
• Since we should shrink our lifestyle to allow for China’s growth - is Obama running for President or Chairman?

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The Wall Street Journal has a piece that shows that even though food prices are at all time highs, farms are still a great way to spread around some political love:

We can’t wait to hear how Members of Congress explain their vote this week for the new $300 billion farm bill. At a time when Americans are squeezed at the grocery store, they will now see more of their taxes flow to the very farmers profiting from these high food prices.

This year farm income is expected to reach an all-time high of $92.3 billion, an increase of 56% in two years, making growers perhaps the most undeserving welfare recipients in American history. But that won’t stop this bill from passing the House and Senate by wide margins. Speaker Nancy Pelosi was once a farm subsidy skeptic, but she now has some 30 freshman Democrats from battleground rural districts to protect. So more than $10 billion a year in giveaways to agribusiness is a necessary taxpayer sacrifice to keep her majority.

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