McCain Stands On Iraq

Powerline has some interesting analysis on today’s John McCain speech on Iraq. There’s no doubt that Senator McCain has been one of the strongest supporters of this war from the beginning, and even though the political winds have shifted, McCain won’t back down:

Before I left for Iraq, I watched with regret as the House of Representatives voted to deny our troops the support necessary to carry out their new mission. Democratic leaders smiled and cheered as the last votes were counted. What were they celebrating? Defeat? Surrender? In Iraq, only our enemies were cheering. A defeat for the United States is a cause for mourning not celebrating. And determining how the United States can avert such a disaster should encourage the most sober, public-spirited reasoning among our elected leaders not the giddy anticipation of the next election. Democrats who voted to authorize this war, and criticized the failed strategy that has led us to this perilous moment, have the same responsibility I do, to offer support when that failure is recognized and the right strategy is proposed and the right commanders take the field to implement it or, at the least, to offer an alternative strategy that has some relationship to reality.

McCain’s stance is unquestionably brave. Right now, most conventional politicians are running from the Iraq issue as fast as they can. McCain, however, refuses to play that game. Either McCain is so blind that he’s lost all touch with reality (which is the shrieking chorus from increasingly vitriolic left) or he sees something that the rest of the field doesn’t. He sees that there is progress in Iraq, and that he can win politically by being the one candidate with the force of convictions not to run away from a fight.

It’s a dangerous gambit, but it could be the right one. No matter what, Sen. McCain cannot be faulted for his conviction — and in an age where the Washington political class can’t buck a negative poll, no less al-Qaeda, Sen. McCain has a very strong argument that his leadership is exactly what this country needs in this time of crisis.

Desire For Change

Glenn Reynolds notes that Congress’ approval ratings aren’t much better than the President’s. Attributing this to a general loss of faith in America’s political class is right. The President is isolated and has become almost a Nixonian figure. Nancy Pelosi is trying to pretend that she’s the President and Rep. Tom Lantos is arguing that the Democrats have their own foreign policy, the Constitution be damned. The basic problems that affect most Americans — the economy, health care, education, all of them go without any real solutions from Washington.

The current state of American politics is indeed shameful — the radical left “netroots” push the Democratic Party into ever more shrill partisanship, the Republicans are up sh*t creek and their paddle drifted away shortly after the 2004 elections, and the 2006 elections resulted in one set of politicians behaving badly with another set of politicians behaving even worse. The country is left with the Hobson’s choice of a giant douche and a turd sandwich.

Sooner or later something will come along to break the stalement — but no one is sure what that will be. One thing is certain — the level of dissatisfaction with the political status quo isn’t going to go away any time soon.

Pelosi’s False Foreign Policy

The Lebanon Daily Star has a blistering review of Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Syria:

We can thank the US speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, for having informed Syrian President Bashar Assad, from Beirut, that “the road to solving Lebanon’s problems passes through Damascus.” Now, of course, all we need to do is remind Pelosi that the spirit and letter of successive United Nations Security Council resolutions, as well as Saudi and Egyptian efforts in recent weeks, have been destined to ensure precisely the opposite: that Syria end its meddling in Lebanese affairs.

Pelosi embarked on a fool’s errand to Damascus this week, and among the issues she said she would raise with Assad – when she wasn’t on the Lady Hester Stanhope tour in the capital of imprisoned dissidents Aref Dalila, Michel Kilo, and Anwar Bunni – is “the role of Syria in supporting Hamas and Hizbullah.” What the speaker doesn’t seem to have realized is that if Syria is made an obligatory passage in American efforts to address the Lebanese crisis, then Hizbullah will only gain. Once Assad is re-anointed gatekeeper in Lebanon, he will have no incentive to concede anything, least of all to dilettantes like Pelosi, on an organization that would be Syria’s enforcer in Beirut if it could re-impose its hegemony over its smaller neighbor.

Pelosi’s trip was deeply irresponsible, and quite possibly a violation of federal law. Speaker Pelosi is not authorized by the Constitution or federal law to act as an agent of United States foreign policy — and if the Democrats think that they can create their own foreign policy, the Constitution says otherwise. Only the Executive has the right to “receive Ambassadors” and by trying to suborn American foreign policy the Democrats are violating the sacred principle that America should speak with one voice abroad.

By visiting Syria, Speaker Pelosi has given an air of legitimacy to a state that is actively involved in the subjugation of Lebanese sovereignty, is actively aiding the ruthless terrorist group Hizb’Allah, and is an avowed enemy of the United States. The Syrian government was responsible for the assassination of Rafik Hariri, they are actively aiding Hizb’Allah, and they are actively helping spread terrorist from Beirut to Baghdad and all across the globe. Our demands must be non-negotiable: Syria must end their support of terrorism or pay the price.

It is clear that this foolhardy trip has earned Pelosi widespread criticism — as well it should. There’s a difference between a fact-finding mission and an attempt to create a shadow foreign policy. It is clear that the Democrats have every intention of taking illegal control of American foreign policy — something which the Constitution does not allow them to do.

It was bad enough that several Republican congressmen did the same — but there’s a big difference between a Congressional delegation and the Speaker of the House. By visiting Syria, Speaker Pelosi has undermined American foreign policy, given tacit diplomatic support to an enemy of both the United States and those in the Middle East seeking freedom from terrorism, and quite possibly violated federal law. Speaker Pelosi is not the nation’s chief diplomat, and if she thinks that the Democrats should be running foreign policy, they should concentrate on winning the next election rather than trying to undercut the rightful foreign policy establishment.

Rudy’s Abortion Problem

Rudy Giuliani had been doing a rather good job of making himself an acceptable candidate for social conservatives, but his latest comments on abortion may cause many pro-life voters to take a much closer look at how a Giuliani Administration would treat the abortion issue. By suggesting that the fact that the Supreme Court has (erroneously) ruled that there is a “right” to abortion under the Constitution it does not at all follow that the government has any business paying for abortions. As the editors of National Review explain:

The mayorâ€™s rationale for abortion funding is bizarre. Putting his statements together and reading them as charitably as possible, his argument is that so long as the Supreme Court says abortion is a constitutional right state governments have an obligation to help poor women afford it…

Mayor Giuliani has tied himself in knots. His position makes neither logical, moral, nor political sense. Many conservatives are disappointed, and hope that their disappointment is not going to grow as the campaign wears on.

Giuliani has been trying to chart a sensible course on abortion rights — painting it as an issue for the states. However, he’s going to have a lot of explaining to do, and if his position really is that the federal government should be providing funds to pay for abortions – a position that puts him well to the left of the Democratic field on this — that position will be manifestly unacceptable to many social conservatives. Giuliani’s already problematic on the abortion issue, and this comment only increases the doubt that many people who believe in the value of pre-natal life have over whether the former Mayor will stand on the right side of this issue.

The Reports Of The GOP’s Death Are Greatly Exaggerated

Time has an interesting poll in which they find that the GOP has a slight edge over the Democrats coming into 2008:

So it’s taken almost as a given among the professional political class that the 2008 Presidential election is the Democrats’ to lose. Republicans are so morose in general, and conservatives so unhappy with their current field of candidates, that the assumption of a Democratic advantage has become bipartisan. And with the public so soured on the Republican in the White House, and so many other trends working against them, including an uptick in the percentage of Americans identifying themselves as Democrats, it’s hard to find any good news for Republicans these days. So why, in poll after poll, including the new TIME poll, does that advantage seem to disappear whenever voters are asked to pick a President in hypothetical head-to-head matchups among front-runners with solid name recognition. In our poll, Hillary Clinton loses to John McCain, 42%-48%, and to Rudy Giuliani 41%-50%. Even though Clinton maintains a 7% edge over Obama among Democratic respondents, Obama fares better in the general election matchups. It’s so close that it’s a statistical dead heat, but Obama still loses: 43%-45% to McCain, 44%-45% to Giuliani.

I’m not particularly surprised by these results. It’s important to note that President Bush is basically a lame duck politically — he’s not going to be much of a factor in 2008 for either side. The Democrats continue to run against a man who won’t be on the ballot in 2008, and it’s a lot more difficult to target a party rather than an individual lightning rod.

The factor is that 2006 was not a referendum showing the popularity of Congress, but a referendum showing that the GOP leadership had royally screwed the pooch. Indeed, despite the change in parties, Congress still has abysmal public approval numbers. People aren’t fed up with individual parties, they’re fed up with politics as a whole.

That helps explain the appeal of the various candidates running in the 2008 race. Barack Obama, Rudy Giuliani, and to a lesser extent John McCain all have appeal because they can argue that they are the “outsider” candidates who can transform the sorry state of American politics. In contrast, Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, and to lesser extends Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney seem to represent the old ways of politics as usual — the last thing the American people want in politics is another Clinton-Gingrich fight.

The reason why this favors the GOP is that the Democrats are currently the party in power — with a White House rendered largely impotent the Democrats have the chance to set the agenda. And the agenda they’re setting is one that prioritizes withdrawal in Iraq and prosecuting the President. Add to that the proposed Democratic tax increases and the Democrats are playing to type exactly in the way the Republicans said they would. That sort of image won’t help the Democrats in 2008.

With the Democrats trying to play to the MoveOn.org wing of their party, now is the time that the Republicans have the greatest opportunity to catch the vital center in American politics. Part of the appeal of a Giuliani campaign is that he can capture centrist voters while advancing key issues of concern to Republicans — strong national defense, low taxes, and more fiscal responsibility. The party that will win the election in 2006 is the party that can reach beyond their own base — and right now the Republicans are better position to do so simply because they’re not in the majority and have no choice but to reach out.

Of course, anything can change in the months ahead — the Democrats could implode, the GOP field could radically change, a dark-horse candidate could emerge that changes everything. However, the reality seems to be that the American people are looking for a Presidential candidate that can break the current status quo, and the GOP has more hopefuls who promise to that than do the Democrats.

If that analysis is correct, the Democratic candidate to watch would be Barack Obama who has wisely based his campaign around the notion of changing the political status quo. The problem with Obama is he’s done that by being as gauzy in his political views as possible, and underneath all that soft-focus media trickery is a politician whose liberalism would alienate many. Obama’s appeal may quickly fade once he has to get involved in the rough and tumble of a real campaign — something he’s never had to face.

In the end, this race is still very wide open, but the early trends show that counting out the GOP in 2008 would not be a smart move for the Democrats — not when the early numbers show the Republican slate being quite competitive with their Democratic counterparts in a year following an abject electoral slaughter of Republicans.

National Review: Gonzales Must Go

National Review has an editorial which calls for the resignation of Alberto Gonzales as Attorney General:

What little credibility Gonzales had is gone. All that now keeps him in office, save the friendship of the president, is the conviction of many Republicans that removing him would embolden the Democrats. It is an overblown fear. The Democrats will pursue scandals, real or invented, whether or not Gonzales stays. But they have an especially inviting target in Gonzales. He cannot defend the administration and its policies even when they deserve defense. Alberto Gonzales should resign. The Justice Department needs a fresh start.

Ultimately, I don’t think the President has any intention of asking Gonzales to step down or even accepting his resignation. Then again, this may be another case like the one of Harriet Miers in which the President is forced to back down.

There’s a time for stubborn tenacity such as when fighting a war, and there’s a time to understand that one is in a politically untenable position. The President finds himself in a politically untenable position — Gonzales has damaged his own credibility to the point where it is not at all clear that he can continue on as Attorney General.

The sad fact is that the only thing the Democrats are going to do this term is hound the Bush Administration with all the determination of a Captain Ahab or an Inspector Javert. The Bush Administration cannot stonewall for the next two years, even though the Democratic Congress seems to have every intention of riding roughshod over every principle of separation of powers that they can conceivably get away with. If Bush thinks that holding onto Gonzales will somehow diminish or delay the Democrats in attacking his administration, he vastly underestimates the raving partisanship of the Democrats.

Gonzales may be an able public servant, but he’s damaged himself politically to the point where it is no longer tenable for him to remain in office. The Bush Administration should ask him to retire from public service and spend more time with his family for the good of the Department of Justice and of the nation.

How Eisenhower Solved Illegal Immigation

The Christian Science Monitor has an intriguing article on how Dwight Eisenhower solved the illegal immigration problem of his day:

In 1954, Ike appointed retired Gen. Joseph “Jumpin’ Joe” Swing, a former West Point classmate and veteran of the 101st Airborne, as the new INS commissioner.

Influential politicians, including Sen. Lyndon B. Johnson (D) of Texas and Sen. Pat McCarran (D) of Nevada, favored open borders, and were dead set against strong border enforcement, Brownell said. But General Swing’s close connections to the president shielded him – and the Border Patrol – from meddling by powerful political and corporate interests.

One of Swing’s first decisive acts was to transfer certain entrenched immigration officials out of the border area to other regions of the country where their political connections with people such as Senator Johnson would have no effect.

Then on June 17, 1954, what was called “Operation Wetback” began. Because political resistance was lower in California and Arizona, the roundup of aliens began there. Some 750 agents swept northward through agricultural areas with a goal of 1,000 apprehensions a day. By the end of July, over 50,000 aliens were caught in the two states. Another 488,000, fearing arrest, had fled the country.

Eisenhower’s solution to illegal immigration worked — enforcing the nation’s laws is a perfect viable way of restoring public order. Not only did Eisenhower significantly reduce the economic impact that illegal immigration has, he made it more difficult for deported illegals to return by ensuring that they were deported well inside Mexico rather than merely shunted across the border where the opportunity costs for a second crossing were significantly lower.

Such a plan would be quite doable today, even though it would also face significant political opposition. Even Eisenhower did allow for a “guest worker” program which allowed Mexican citizens to hold temporary worker permits for a fixed amount of time. A similar political compromise could work today.

This country is a nation of laws, and it should be seen as widely unacceptable that our nation’s immigration laws are largely unenforced. If Mexican nationals want to come to America for opportunities they can’t seek at home (which is a problem all to itself), then they should do so under a clear legal framework. Unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be a political consensus in either party to take anything other than cosmetic steps towards enforcing the nation’s borders. Multiculturalists on the left don’t like the idea of enforcement any more the economic interests on the right do. Until that changes, the situation is likely to fester.

Eisenhower was able to accomplish five decades ago what our policymakers have so far been unable to do — and perhaps now is a good time for Congress to open their history books and take a look at a model for what a successful solution to our immigration quandary look like.

Snow’s Cancer Returns

White House Press Secretary Tony Snow is now undergoing treatment for a recurrence of cancer after treating colon cancer in 2005. Doctors have said that the growth removed from Snow’s abdomen was malignant and that the cancer has spread to his liver.

It’s not a good diagnosis, but Snow has said that he intends to beat cancer again. Here’s hoping that he does.

Can Thompson Steal Rudy’s Thunder

Kathryn Jean Lopez notes that a USA Today poll shows Fred Thompson stealing some thunder from Rudy Giuliani.

That doesn’t particularly surprise me, since both Giuliani and Thompson are attracting the “leadership vote” — voters who are looking for a President who exudes the kind of personal leadership that the current Administration seems to lack these days. Giuliani’s inspirational performance during the aftermath of September 11 gives him that cachet. Likewise, Fred Thompson not only plays a natural leader on TV, but he was the real thing long before he got started in acting.

Thompson has a lot less baggage than does Giuliani, which is why he’s probably the biggest threat to the Rudy candidacy right now. Conservatives who are hungry for a determined leader in the Oval Office but are turned off by Giuliani’s social liberalism and personal history have a natural alternative with Thompson. The question is whether Thompson really wants to run (which would probably entail a salary cut as well the usual public proctal examination), and whether if he does he could raise enough funds to truly be competitive. The window for him to do so isn’t closed, but he’s going to have to decide fairly soon or bank on the collapse of one of the other major campaigns for him to have a realistic shot at building enough momentum to make it into the primary season.

Still, Rudy’s got a real challenger in Thompson, who’s already in the double digits despite not being officially in the running. While Rudy still has a commanding lead, this is a very period in which anything can (and probably will) happen. It’s a rare thing in an open race for the front-runner to stay that way for long, and all it takes is one major gaffe on the part of a candidate to take a soaring campaign and crash it back down to Earth.

Siege Mentality

Robert Novak has an interesting article on the isolation of the Bush Administration in its waning days:

“Gonzales never has developed a base of support for himself up here,” a House Republican leader told me. But this is less a Gonzales problem than a Bush problem. With nearly two years remaining in his presidency, George W. Bush is alone. In half a century, I have not seen a president so isolated from his own party in Congress — not Jimmy Carter, not even Richard Nixon as he faced impeachment.

I think that analysis is dead on — the Bush Administration is politically dead. They have no chance of setting an agenda and have retreated into a kind of bunker mentality. The problem is that when you’re under fire from all directions, that’s simply not a tenable position. The Administration has made mistake after mistake after mistake since their reelection in 2004 — Harriet Miers alienated Bush’s conservative base, the Dubai Ports issue was horrendously mishandled, and the firings of the US Attorneys was also done in a way that virtually guaranteed political problems down the road.

Despite the image created by the liberal media, Bush has never been a political gunslinger. His tenure as Governor of Texas was all about generating political comity with his opposition and trying to charm them into meeting him halfway. One gets the impression that Bush, the object of absolute hatred by many of his opponents, is unused to being in a position where the opposition has no intention of meeting him halfway on anything.

Even when Bush is right — on Iraq, on national security, he’s unable to articulate a coherent message. The President is both Commander in Chief and the leader of his party, and his inability to lead is hurting the efforts of our troops abroad and allowing the anti-war side to dominate the field of popular opinion. Yes, the media is almost reflexively anti-American, but that doesn’t excuse a seeming lack of message discipline from the Administration.

Politically, there’s little question that Bush is adrift. The Republican Party is already looking towards 2008 for leadership, and there’s a reason why someone like Rudy Giuliani or Fred Thompson is looking so attractive — they exude a sense of leadership that Bush now lacks.

The decline of the Bush Administration may involve many factors, but ultimately President Bush is responsible for his own political fortunes. He now stands as a man alone — few are willing to defend him openly as the political price is often high. The President has shown great leadership and resolve over the past few years, especially in the tumultuous period after the September 11 attacks. However, the measure of a leader is not how they lead in times of comity, but how they unite people in times of strife. President Bush seems to be a leader who knows how to work well in times of comity, but hasn’t had that luxury for most of his Presidency — and certainly doesn’t enjoy it now. If Bush is to be anything other than a lame duck, he’s going to have to reorganize the way he does business and develop a more effective and forward-looking political machine.

Bush is right to put the war above politics, but the problem is that politics is part of this war, whether the President likes it or not. This isn’t the Second World War, and Bush is no Churchill. In the end, if his Presidency becomes an anchor which drags the war down, he’ll end up defeating the very thing that he cares the most strongly about — and it will not merely be his own political legacy that would suffer.