Jay Reding.com

The editors of RedState single out Congressman Lynn Westmoreland for bucking the House leadership on spending:

On March 14th, aided by 22 Democrats, the Republicans passed a rule for consideration of the emergency spending bill dealing with Iraq, Afghanistan, and hurricane relief. The vote was 218-200. Lynn Westmoreland, along with John Shadegg, Mike Pence, and 25 other Republicans, voted against the rule because, among other things, it failed to offset hurricane relief costs. Leadership had refused to separate out war spending to increase chances of their fiscal recklessness passing.

Westmoreland, along with John Shadegg who was also a deputy whip, was uncerimoniously kicked off the leadership team because, in the words of Roy Blunt, “You need an example every once in a while.”

According to news reports, Westmoreland said he chose principle over the party line. Westmoreland, quoted in Congress Daily AM, said, “I’m not a martyr. You do what you got to do.”

Rep. Westmoreland did the right thing, and the leadership team should be ashamed of themselves. The Republican leadership had damned well better realize that politics as usual isn’t going to fly with the base anymore. Trying to use the cover of our brave men and women overseas for more pork-barrel politics is a deeply disturbing action. Representatives Westmoreland, Pence, Shadegg, and the other dissenting Republicans were willing to put their fiscal principles over political expediency. We need more like them in public service these days.

Stephen Green finds an irrefutable argument for why Bush is not a fascist:

President Bush isn’t a fascist, and I can prove it.

We’ve seen what American bookstores and publications and universities do when confronted with real fascists: they knuckle under. You might not be able to find those Danish cartoons anyplace respectable, but you’ll sure find lots of anti-Bush stuff.

Ipso facto, America is doing just fine, thankyouverymuch.

I think we can close the case on that one now…

A group of anti-amnesty Republicans said that prisoners should pick fruit rather than illegal immigrants - one of the dumbest things I’ve ever heard.

It’s one thing to oppose amnesty for illegal immigrants as being bad for America. However, Rep. Rohrabacher’s suggestion was absolutely idiotic. The anti-amnesty side is going themselves no favors by looking like a bunch of half-cocked loons and using rhetoric that’s needlessly inflammatory.

Immigration splits the GOP more than any other issue, and the President’s plans for what amounts to amnesty for illegals could very well hurt the party in this year’s elections. Bush should tread very carefully around this issue. Rewarding people who have broken this nation’s laws is not sound policy, but neither can we try and retreat behind the walls of Fortress America and simply try to seal the border. As long as people can come through they will, and we can’t prevent all of them.

There are no easy solutions to this problem. We can’t seal the borders, and amnesty would reward breaking the law. A temporary guest worker program might help, but it won’t help enough to necessarily be worth it. If we cap the number of guest workers, people will still stream in illegally. A good fraction of the immigrants who come across the border do so to get social benefits that guest workers do not. Even if we enforce our borders more strongly and provide a guest worker program as the President wants, it won’t do much more than restrict the tide of illegals.

The only way to prevent this problem is to get the Mexican economy to a functioning state, which is a much harder task than any of the other options – and is largely out of our hands. As long as there is a sufficiently strong economic incentive to do so, illegals will cross our borders, even if there’s substantial risk. We can – and should – work to enforce our laws, but the reality is that this issue isn’t going to go away, and when politicians seem more interested in pandering to one side or another, the chances of a sensible policy coming out of this debate seems slim.

Bill Nienhuis of Pundit Guy takes an axe to the Democratic “plan” on national security. Once again, the Democrats demonstrate quite clearly why they are rightly viewed as the party of weakness on national security. As Nienhuis observes:

The Democrats fundamentally misunderstand the war on terror. To them, terrorism is encapsulated in one person – Osama bin Laden. By promising to find and kill bin Laden, the Democrats push the notion that if you get rid of the man, you rid the world of terrorism. Of course, this position falls flat on its face when you consider there are terrorist cells throughout the world who disagree with bin Laden and act unilaterally even though they consider themselves members of al-Qaeda. Just consider Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. There are global terrorist factions who rally around and take orders from this man. What are the Democrats going to do when Zarqawi replaces bin Laden?

Removing bin Laden is a one trick pony approach to fighting terrorism. It’s a law enforcement solution which might work if we’re talking about cleaning up a neighborhood by taking out the guy who runs the crack house down the street. Unfortunately for the Democrats, terrorism can’t be localized like this. There are other neighborhoods and thousands of guys who run crack houses. There are other countries and a million terrorists.

The Democratic plan is about winning the war, it’s about going home – the same as their plans on Iraq. They believe that if we can just get rid of Osama, then the war’s over and they can quickly change their message and everyone can return to the nice world of September 10. The oft-repeated saying that the Democrats are the September 10 Party isn’t all that far from the truth.

As nice as it would be to have Osama burning in the deepest pits of Hell, what does that accomplish? Would al-Qaeda suddenly say “Gee, I guess this whole jihad thing doesn’t work out. Let’s all go back to Saudi Arabia and grow dates.”? Would it mean that their quest to obtain weapons of mass destruction would magically end? The answer, and the obvious answer at that, is of course not.

For all President Bush’s many flaws, he understand we’re in a long war. A war that requires action on many fronts. A war that we have no option but to win. Just getting rid of Osama is entirely insufficient and may even be counterproductive. We have to undermine the ideology of Islamic extremism at its core – and that means slowly undermining the autocratic regimes that created it in the first place. That won’t be achieved by capturing one man.

For the Democrats, it’s all about changing the subject – which is precisely why they are phenomenally clueless on issues of national security. If this is the best the Democrats can come up with in regards to one of the most critical issues of our time, it’s clear they simply can’t lead.

While the US and international media fixates on other issues, the future of Iraq is being written behind the scenes as various factions jockey for power. Recently, US and Iraqi forces executed a raid against members of Moqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army near Baghdad. al-Sadr is, to be expected, crying foul. He’s been trying to play kingmaker for some time, and his Mahdi Army militia gives him more leverage than he would have normally.

At the same time, Bill Roggio notes that SCIRI is pushing for Abdul al-Mahdi to become the new Prime Minister and Ayatollah Sistani is calling for the swift formation of a new government. The good news with al-Mahdi is that he is favored by many Shi’ites, the Kurds, and Allawi’s secular Sunni list. The bad news is that SCIRI has some troublesome ties to Iran – but then again, so does al-Sadr, and at least al-Mahdi would be much more effective than the weak al-Jaafari, who’s al-Sadr’s pick for the position.

If al-Mahdi can form a government using the power of the Kurdish list, the Sunni lists, and breakaway factions of the UIA Shi’ite list, it will be a positive step towards stability in Iraq. al-Mahdi has promised to a “law-and-order” candidate who will crack down on militias and terrorist groups alike. It’s almost certain that al-Sadr is a stooge of the Iranians, and while SCIRI’s Iranian ties are troubling, he’s no theocrat, and he could garner the support of the Sunnis and Kurds, which would help keep Iraq together.

The next few days and weeks will be crucial. The violence in Iraq has spiked recently, which has strained everything from the political process to reconstruction. Getting control of the situation will require a coordinated effort on all sides, which al-Mahdi could pull off better than the weak-willed Ibrahim al-Jaafaari. If SCIRI and other members of the UIA’s somewhat fragile coalition break off, al-Sadr’s little game of kingmaker could be over very quickly – which would be a very good thing for the future of Iraq.

UPDATE: The Belmont Club has much more on the situation, including the observation that the political wing of SCIRI has been largely separated from the Iranian-controlled Badr Brigades. If so, a government in which SCIRI plays a strong role may not be such a bad thing. Given a choice between SCIRI and the al-Sadr – who is undoubtedly an Iranian stooge – the former is far more preferable for the stability of Iraq.