Politics

  • McCain,  Obama,  Politics

    Palin the tethered goat

    It seems to me that the McCain campaign is using Sarah Palin to draw out the worst of the democratic leaning population, which will cause the not that interested voter to associate the Obama campaign with the Move-On/Cindy Sheehan crowd, and hence be turned to Obama. Pretty clever.

    On another note, isn’t Palin a wonderful blank canvas on which people can project their hopes and desires? She’s the equal of Obama in that regard.

  • Patrick Lang,  Politics

    Col. Lang on the VeepStakes

    On Joe Biden

    His argumentation is logical, passionate and usually (unlike the occasion mentioned,) delivered behind a screen of civility spread across a vast hostility.

    On David Petraeus

    Petraeus is youthful, well spoken, handsome, intelligent, successful in the war in Iraq, youthful, and youthful. Petraeus has reached the top in his profession. There is no “up” in the Army from full general and theater commander. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff? Yawn… The professional politicians would probably not like to have Petraeus on the ticket, but his presence there would make victory inevitable.

    My money’s still on Meg Whitman as the veep choice.

  • Biden,  Obama,  Politics

    The agitator brings the Biden pain

    From this post

    Biden’s record on other criminal justice and civil liberties issues is just as bad. Opponents of the federalization of crime might note that the 1994 crime bill he sponsored created several new federal capital offenses. Biden also wants to expand federal penalties for hate crimes. He supports a federal smoking ban. His position on the federal drinking age is, and I quote, “absolutely do not” lower it to 18. He believes “most violent crime is related to drugs” (if he had said “drug prohibition,” he’d be closer to the truth). Biden also has an almost perfect anti-gun voting record. He said last year he favors “universal national service,” either in the Peace Corps or the military. Sounds like conscription to me. He says he’s opposed to the PATRIOT Act, but he voted for both the original bill and its re-authorization in 2005.

    Foreign policy? Biden voted for the war on Iraq. Yes, he’s opposed to it now (and I like the partition plan he pushed in the primaries). But he didn’t vote correctly when it counted most. Biden also voted to send troops into Darfur. He wants to enlarge NATO. He voted in favor of the air strikes in Kosovo. He voted to strengthen the trade embargo against Cuba. His seems to be a meddling, interventionist, Clinton-esque foreign policy. His first instinct seems to be that the U.S. military’s objective include some vague notion of “doing good in the world.” Never mind the disastrous consequences that notion has reaped over the years.

    I obviously disagree with Biden on a host of economic and regulatory issues, too (though he does seem to be fairly decent on free trade). But that’s to be expected. My problem with Biden is that he’s not even good on the issues the left is supposed to be good on. He’s an overly ambitious, elitist, tunnel-visioned, Potomac-fevered Beltway dinosaur, with all the trappings. He may well have been the worst possible pick among congressional Democrats when it comes to the drug war and criminal justice.

    Meg Whitman seems like a more obvious choice now.