Misc Commentary For October 12, 2007

* So, who is doing a better job of serving their interests: James Dobson or the Club For Growth?

Dobson’s not particularly happy with the candidates the GOP has for President, so he’s threatening to support a third party run in 2008. That is creating enormous amounts of ill will towards Dobson and, if he went through with it, would probably throw the election to a Democrat who would oppose every item on Dobson’s agenda.

On the other hand, the CFG works to inform conservatives of the views of GOP candidates and raises money to support Republicans they like. Yes, they do try to beat Republicans they disagree with in the primaries, but they’re not interested in forming a third party. As a result, the CFG’s status amongst conservatives has gone up considerably and they’ve helped elect a number of conservatives whom they agree with.

Which of those two approaches makes more sense?

* My buddy Cassy Fiano doesn’t get enough email, so I figured I’d help her out by posting this =D

“When I think of Ron Paul, the image I get is of an annoying little housefly buzzing around your head. You know he’s not going to sting you or anything, but the little fly is just bugging the crap out of you. You swat at it and swat at it, but it just won’t go away. I think of Ron Paul and think of him as this little annoying housefly buzzing around the race for the candidacy that most people wish would just go away.” — Cassy Fiano

* From the Sun-Sentinel,

In a marked change from his predecessors, Florida’s Republican governor is tackling many issues important to black voters, so much so that one black Democratic legislator calls him the state’s first black governor.

Isn’t it patronizing to black Americans to have people pointing to white politicians and declaring that they’re the first black governor, in Crist’s case, or the first black President in Bill Clinton’s case?

* It’s really amazing that so many liberals can look at statistics like this…

“In fact, overall about one out of every seven Canadian physicians sends someone to the United States every year for treatment.”

…and then, without skipping a beat, advocate things like the SCHIP expansion and Hillarycare so we can make our system more like the one in Canada.

* One of the weird tics of the Democratic Party’s foreign policy is that they suck up to nations that hate the United States or refuse to cooperate with us while they simultaneously go out of their way to aggravate nations that are helping us out. Here’s a great example of that sort of behavior,

A House committee rejected warnings from the Bush administration yesterday and approved a resolution condemning Turkey for committing genocide against Armenians during World War I, an act the White House said could jeopardize military operations in the Middle East.

The House Foreign Affairs Committee voted 27-21 in favor of the resolution, which will go to the House floor for a full vote in mid-November, Democratic leaders said.

“I just don’t know how many people can be destroyed before that word [genocide] can be applied,” said Rep. Gary L. Ackerman, New York Democrat. “Our friends in Turkey have to understand that they can get beyond this.”

…The White House yesterday used its biggest guns to argue that a resolution could provoke Turkey to cut off U.S. access to its Incirlik Air Base — a key component of resupply routes for the U.S. military in Iraq and Afghanistan.

…About 70 percent of all air cargo going into Iraq goes through Turkey. About a third of the fuel that [U.S. troops] consume comes from Turkey,” Mr. Gates said.

Mr. Gates said U.S. military commanders raised concerns about the resolution because “they believe clearly that access to air fields and to roads and so on in Turkey would be very much put at risk if this resolution passes and the Turks react as strongly as we believe they will.”

Miss Rice said the military commanders “asked us to do everything we could to make sure this does not pass” and said “we are very dependent on a good Turkish strategic ally to help with our efforts” in Iraq.

This is an extremely sensitive issue in Turkey and an almost entirely irrelevant one in the United States, given that we’re talking about events that happened more than 80 years ago.

So, is there any point to this ridiculous resolution at all beyond trying to deliberately aggravate Turkey into cutting off supplies to our troops in Iraq.

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