Barely two weeks into Messiah Obama's new order, the tarnish is eroding from his halo fasting than you can say "change we can believe in."  First Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, a reputed economic wunderkind, was found to have been deficient in his taxpaying, and his confirmation was opposed by 34 Senators with the wisdom to see that the leader of the department the IRS is part of should, as a minimum job requirement, be able to pay his taxes.  Today, the Obama Tax Evaders (the next big hip-hop act) became a trio when his nominee for Chief Productivity Officer couldn't demonstrate sufficient productivity to pay her taxes and was forced to give up her aspirations and when Health and Human Services Secretary designee Thomas Daschle was forced to resign when he forgot to pay various taxes and was found to have received significant financial benefits from the health industry he's supposed to regulate.  Daschle, a former Senate Majority leader who was thankfully ousted by South Dakota voters in 2004, has been an especially unctuous liberal populist whose purported prairie "man of the people" rhetoric is as enduring and substantive as the tumbleweeds floating across the Great Plains.  His departure from public life alone is glorious news for the future of our Republic and warrants conservative dancing in our ice cold streets and countryside!

You would think that the problems his appointees have had with tax matters would cause Obama's economic "brain trust" to consider drastically simplifying our hopeless convoluted tax system as a means to lessen the occurrence of such embarrassments and increasing economic productivity and revenue collection enhancement.  I'm  not holding my breath waiting for that to happen but hope does spring eternal.

With the apparent addition of New Hampshire Senator Judd Gregg as Commerce Secretary, Obama now has three Republicans in his Cabinet who will, hopefully, reign in possible penchants for protectionism.  Perhaps, they might even force him to scale down his economic stimulus fantasies and look at spending restraint and debt reduction as the best means for restoring national economic vitality instead of nostalgically trying to reprise FDR's New Deal.  I'm heartened by the growing opposition to the stimulus package which will further exacerbate the federal deficit and national debt, create limited long-term jobs, and resurrect inflation to levels not seen since the Carter Administration or even, at an extreme, Weimar Germany.   Astute students of economic history know the horrific consequences that Weimar Germany's hyperinflation ultimately  produced for German national leadership in the 1930s.   Hopefully, the Senator from New Hampshire to replace Gregg will have the wisdom and political courage to espouse fiscal thrift against the profligacy of the Obama Administration and represent a true alternative to Obamism despite the Granite State's recent drift to leftist stagnation.

As the Obamaite sans culotte hordes defenestrate Washington with a mania not seen since Jacksonian hordes invaded in 1829, it's a good time to make a preliminary assessment of George W. Bush's presidency.  I recognize that it is several decades before it's really possible to assess a president's impact on national and international politics but it is possible to make a few preliminary observations.

One of the most important is that George W. Bush is an honorable man who restored significant chunks of honor to a presidency desecrated by Bill Clinton's depravity.  Bush's presidency will be forever marked by the 9/11 attacks and his responses to them.  The imbecilic and hyperbolic responses of his deranged leftist critics to many of his policies also reflect well on the man and should endear him forever to all conservatives.

Bush was right to launch the initial assault of Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan to oust the Taliban and deprive some form of sanctuary to Al Qaida.  Contrary to leftist critics such as Plagiarizer Joe Biden, he did not take his eye off the ball by pursuing further operations in Iraq but not enough sustained attentioned and forces were deployed to Afghanistan and Pakistan's tribal areas to further crush Al Qaida remnants.  Insufficient pressure was applied on Pakistan, in particular its intelligence services, to aggressively pursue Al Qaida and Taliban remnants in Pakistan's tribal areas such as Waziristan.  Cleaning up this region is a difficult and long-term task due to the reflexive Islamic primitivism of its inhabitants and will take decades of sustained effort.

Contrary to the petulant whining of leftist critics, Bush was right to launch military operations against Iraq.  We should have launched such operations if 9/11 never happened and Osama Bin  Laden didn't exist.  Saddam Hussein's regime aspired to acquire weapons of mass destruction, supported various terrorist groups, and conducted offensive military operations against countries as diverse as Bahrain, Iran, Israel, and Kuwait.  It was not a regime that was responsive to UN sanctions or to various UN blessed sanctions short of outright regime change.  The conventional operations against Iraq in 2003 were brilliantly executed and proper.  Unfortunately, we failed to plan for the power vacuum Saddam's ouster would create and we failed to account for the resurrection of centuries old Shia-Sunni hatreds within Iraq which occurred in the invasion's aftermath.  We should have sent a larger number of  troops for stabilization and reconstruction operations in the aftermath of Saddam's defeat.  Consequently, it has taken the pain and casualties of a civil war which only begun to be reversed in 2007 with the ingenious and visionary strategic leadership of General David Petraeus which is beginning to put Iraq on the road to having a chance of becoming a normal nation by the warped standards of Middle East Islamic culture.

President Bush's stalwart courage and resolve and his refusal to buckle in to defeatist cowards and critics is one of his greatest triumphs.  If the Mideast region achieves some greater semblance of political and religous freedom as a result of our actions and sacrifices in Iraq and Afghanistan in the decades to come it will be because of Churchillian resolve even if he lacks Churchill's rhetorical eloquence.

The fact that we have not been attacked by Islamist terrorists since 9/11 is another towering vindication of Bush's leadership.  Some of the steps his administration has enacted such as the USA Patriot Act, NSA's wireless surveillance program, and imprisoning Islamist terrorists at Gitmo, have been unpopular in the terrorist apologist communities of lawyers and leftist academics, but they have worked.  Civil liberties have not been impeded and you don't have to worry about these policies unless you are an Islamist terrorist plotting to kill or injure Americans or someone seeking to aid and abet such individuals.  Sadly, Bush and his administration have refused to rhetorically engage these imbecilic critics in the vigorous fashion necessary to gain widespread support for these policies.  This has, in turn, made Americans susceptible to the delusional sophistries of Barack Obama and his hordes of buffoons clamoring for "change we can believe in."

There were economic successes on Bush's watch.  The 2001 tax cuts, which are now in jeopardy, helped spur significant economic growth after the recession of Clinton's final presidential years.  Until 2007, significant stock market growth was occurring, the trade deficit was declining, and overall economic growth was positive.  Unfortunately, excess non-defense spending by the Bush Administration and Republican and Democratic congresses has drastically increased our budget deficit and national debt which are the core causes of our economic malaise.

Anyone with rudimentary knowledge of U.S. economic history should know that presidential policies can do more to harm economic growth than promote such growth.  Unfortunately, the abysmal economic education taught in our schools and in far to many families, reflects how easy it is for charlatans like Barack Obama to peddle their fraudulent visions of change masquerading as historically failed public policies.  Present and historic congresses and presidential adminstrations of both parties share responsibility for allowing imprudent legislation like the Community Reinvestment Act and American Dream Downpayment Act to become law without requiring prospective homeowners to demonstrate the earnings potential and workforce stability to demonstrate they can meet monthly mortgage payments.  Bush and conservatives should have done more to promote prudent long-term personal and governmental financial planning instead of succumbing to Democratic blandishments to spend more money to achieve desired social objectives or to believe that tax cuts alone, instead of prudent spending and long-term strategic financial planning, are all that's required to achieve sustained economic growth.

George W. Bush's presidential legacy is a mixed but honorable one on balance.  I believe honest and intelligent historians who are not seduced by leftist silliness and our contemporary enthrallment with Barack Obama will recognize that George W. Bush's presidency is a significant one who's stature will improve with time as Harry Truman's and Dwight Eisenhower's did.  Bush did a better job of responding to our problems than either of his defeated opponents Al Gore or John Kerry would have.  Buyer's remorse over Obama will occur within the next several months as it becomes manifestly clear that melliferous rhetoric, statist spending policy, and a dangerous alchemy of liberal Christian and secularist social polices are not the change America needs.
We will grow tired of Obama's empty rhetoric and polices which will worsen our national debt and endanger  national security.
The time will come when many Americans will realize how they let Barack Obama, Harry Reid, and Nancy Pelosi play them for fools and they will long for the refreshing honesty of George W. Bush's presidency.

Most conservative men like myself, will also miss Dana Perino's press briefings.  She is a cheerful and assertive defender of the President (not to mention serious eye candy and worthy of being remembered as the hottest presidential press secretary) and it's regrettable she was not appointed to this position earlier instead of the duplicitous Scott McLellan who might as well have worked for the Democratic National Committee.   Fortunately, the archived White House website will feature video webcasts of these press briefings as we enter into the torpor of the Obama era. 

We should also be grateful for First Lady Laura Bush who restored civility and class to that position after it was degraded by Hillary Clinton who's degradation of national institutions as extended to the U.S. Senate, and will soon envelope the State Department and U.S. foreign policy credibility.

Conservatives must stand strong, humorous, and defiant in this orgy of Obamite imbecility.  The flaws of "change we can believe in" are about to become apparent and our opportunity to recover our bearings and our country will return sooner than many of us might expect.

Imagine living in a state or province anywhere in the world and visualize the southwest boundary of your home region being subject to artillery fire on a regular basis.  Consider what it would be like to live under such a situation where your homes, families, and businesses regularly experience explosive projectiles fired into your living and working spaces.  This nightmarish scenario has been a reality faced by Israelis living adjacent to Gaza since Israel made its ill-advised decision to return Gaza to the Palestinean Authority.  That "authority" has been dominated by the Islamist terrorist group Hamas which was popularly elected against the corrupt non-performing Palestinean "Liberation Organization" of Yassar Arafat.  Did Hamas try to materially improve the lives of Gaza's residents and pursue peaceful coexistence with Israel upon attaining power?  Not a chance!

Hamas is a terrorist organization like Al Qaida whose political and ideological raison d'etre is destroying Israel.  The Israelis have demonstrated remarkable if not foolish patience in tolerating Hamas' misbehavior in recent years.  Israel has every right to pursue the destruction of Hamas and should not stop until it has retaken Gaza and told the apologists of Islamist terror to shove their allegedly moralistic objections up their terrorist appeasing rear ends!  There will not be any hope for peace in that region until Palestinean and other Arab  children quit being indoctrinated with the dangerous mythology that Israel is an alien presence in the Middle East that needs to be expelled.  The curriculum of Arab school systems and mosques must be revised to tell the Arab world that Israel's existence is part of God's will and that they should quit clinging to 60+ years of Taliban mullah fantasies that Israel can be driven into the sea.  How much more of their human and financial capital will retarded Arabs invest in their suicidal stupidity? The Islamist amen corner in some leftist Western media outlets, the European Community, the United Nations, and European Union but that's the irrevocable fact of the matter.

I hope the Israeli Government will have the persistence and courage to only stop their operations against Hamas once they have decimated this terrorist organization and left the putrid corpses of its fighters rot on the streets of Gaza no matter how much international howling there is.

A few years ago, former Illinois Governor George Ryan left office in disgrace following a corruption scandal, and last year received a prison sentence for his crimes.  Unfortunately for Illinois citizens, his successor Rod Blagojevich didn't learn from Ryan's sins.  Blago, as he is called, was arrested this morning for a sordid list of crimes including seeking payment for filling the U.S. Senate seat created by "Messiah" Obama's election to the presidency.  Hopefully, Illinois voters will demand Blago's immediate resignation and impeachment.  Can you imagine how ethically tainted a Blago appointed U.S. Senate replacement would be? Will any Obama Senate replacement be seen as untainted by ties to Obama and the Chicago machine?  Sadly, Illinois political culture is increasingly coming to resemble the historical excesses of Louisiana and New Jersey politics and even the depths of corruption achieved in various third world countries.

What will be interesting to find out in days to come is to what extent Obama and his people were aware of Blago's crimes.  Those deluded simpletons voting to elect Obama President failed to realize he is part of the corrupt Chicago political machine infrastructure which produced Blago, Tony Rezko, Jesse Jackson, Emil Jones, and numerous other cretins.  To think Obama would stand up against his patrons and financiers and promote real political openness and ethical reform is the height of naivete.
We should not be surprised to see Obama attempt to replicate Chicago's corrupt political structure on the banks of the Potomac.
His appointment of Rahm Emanuel, an Clinton Administration alumnus, and notoriously hard-nosed political operator as his chief of staff is a clear sign that Obama intends to adhere to Chicago political ethics while he's ensconsced in the Oval Office.
Instead of practicing a mythical "change you can believe in", Americans need to ask themselves "Is this the "change" you wanted?" as we witness replays of Blago-like behavior in the years to come.

Like many Conservatives, I am personally and politically impressed with Sarah Palin.  She helped energize the conservative base and, until the Sept./Oct. financial market turmoil, gave the GOP a fighting chance.  Contrary to liberal critics, she is qualified to be Vice-President or President.  If she aspires to the presidency in 2012, I encourage her to take the following steps.

She should become acquainted with the writings of conservative thinkers in think-tanks such as the American Enterprise Institute, Heritage Foundation, Manhattan Institute, and other like-minded organizations.  She should also be given the opportunity to meet with conservative thinkers in these organizations and academe to get briefed on various public policy issues in order to enhance her intellectual basis for promoting conservative values.  Examples of these individuals would include Bernard Lewis and Daniel Pipes on Middle East issues, Michael Novak on church-state issues, Chester Finn on education, Jack Kemp on urban development, Richard Pipes on Russia, Mitt Romney, Steve Forbes, and George Gilder on economics, Newt Gingrich on the technology revolution, Robert Bork on judicial issues,  and Abigail Thernstrom on civil rights matters. She should also hold regular meetings with prominent conservative Senators or Representatives such as James Inhofe, Steve Buyer, John Kyl, Sam Brownback, Mike Pence, Jeb Hensarling to get their perspectives on Capitol Hill.  These congressional figures should regularly brief her on their responses to inevitable Obama policy blunders and how they are working to reinvigorate

Taking the opportunity to engage in foreign travel for Alaskan economic development purposes would strengthen her foreign policy knowledge base.  Trips to Pacific Rim countries would be particularly advantageous for Alaska and show her appreciation of this region's increasing global economic preeminence.

Giving regular interviews with conservative journals such as National Review, Weekly Standard, Human Events, American Spectator, and Commentary and their online editions would also be helpful as would speaking before groups such as the Young America's Foundation, Conservative Political Action Committee, National Rifle Association, pro-life and traditional values organizations would also enhance her visibility and credibility with the conservative base in the upcoming bleak Obamite years.

Campaigning for nationally significant Conservatives in 2010 in strategically important states with large electoral votes would also be beneficial.  She should also continue burnishing her credentials as a conservative reform Governor of Alaska by producing significant public policy accomplishments so she can win an impressive reelection victory in 2010.

Despite this month's election loss, Sarah  Palin has ignited hopes among Conservatives that she could become an important even transforming figure in American politics.  She can build on her positive start by taking the steps listed above to become an inspiring figure for conservatives and a substantive and credible national political figure as the inevitable follies and blunders of the Obama-Biden Administration become apparent in the months and years to come.

November 4, 1980 was an exciting and rewarding day for me.  As an 18 year old, I cast my first presidential election vote.  It was for Ronald Reagan and I also cast my first U.S. Senate vote for Dan Quayle and both achieved victory and began the Reagan Revolution which has profoundly shaped my political world view.

Yesterday, I saw the first member of my generation be a major party's presidential nominee.  Because he does not share my values, I could not vote for him but I was honored to vote for John McCain and Sarah Palin.  Sadly, my vote was not successful.  Americans have let themselves be seduced by a fraudulent demagogue with empty and vainglorious promises of change masquerading as historically failed public policies reminiscent of LBJ's Great Society Liberalism, Jimmy Carter's stagflationary malise, infantile class warfare, and Neville Chamberlain-like appeasement of terrorist enemies.

Last year's election demonstrated that America seems to go into a petulant whining funk every 16 years as it did in 1976 and 1992.  This childish behavior has resulted in our selecting a president who rails against real or perceived Republican presidential failures but does not bring substantive improvements in public policy.  Obama's election last night represents a sign of a nation in serious intellectual regression and moral decline although California's endorsement of a ban against same sex marriage is a remarkably heartening exception.  Those supporting Obama are, in many cases, economic, historical, political, moral, and dysfunctional ignoramuses who don't want to do the intellectual heavy lifting or live the morally responsible lives required to be productive citizens.  They reflect the abject failure of much of our primary, secondary, and higher educational systems to effectively and properly educate the intelligent, discerning, and virtuous citizenry necessary for effective republican governance.

Many of these individuals let themselves be seduced by high flung rhetoric about change without bothering to scrutinize whether the change Obama seeks to bring will really improve their lives or make this a better country.  They continue to cuddle Obama's warm milk rhetoric while they suckle up to the federal government's seemingly limitless fiscal nipple to achieve their physical and mental nourishment.

Ensuing years will see the dangerous consequences of Obama's election in social, economic, foreign, and national security policy as well as judicial appointments.  I am looking forward to seeing the disillusionment of the idealistic dimwits supporting Obama as the reality of economic constraints, the U.S. Constitution, existing federal laws and regulations, international political, economic and military constraints, and the political realities of republican governance force Obama to make decisions which will be displeasing to his supporters in the Democratic Party's hard left.  As conservatives, we should look forward to the opportunity to tell Obama's imbecilic followers "We told you so" when things go wrong and to ask them "Is this the change you wanted?" when you made your fateful choices on November 4, 2008.

Conservatives will have to make tough decisions regarding our future and I'll make suggestions for possible renewal in later blog postings.  If Obama should, by providential circumstance, make a sound decision I'll applaud him for it.  The Democrats can no longer engage in their demagogic pillorying of President Bush.  They now hold the cards and when their abysmal failures to deliver on their lofty promises become manifest, we Conservatives need to ruthlessly expose them for the frauds that they are no matter how much they or their establishment media allies scream about our purported politics of personal destruction.  

Several weeks ago, I mentioned that Canada's minority Conservative government was doing well and facing an election soon.  They held that election a couple of weeks ago and Prime Minister Stephen Harper's Conservatives were returned to power with an increased number of seats although they fell short of gaining a majority in the House of Commons.  The Conservatives have a nearly de facto majority due to the weaknesses of the Liberals, the separatist Bloc Quebecois, and the New Democrats. 

Canada is experiencing some of the economic challenges the U.S. is but not as severely.  As of now, Canada does not have a budget deficit and Harper reappointed Ontario's Jim Flaherty as his Finance Minister to ensure competence and continuity in these troubled times.  Harper also retained Nova Scotia's Peter McKay as his Defense Minister and Canadian troops will continue their yeoman service and sacrifice in Afghanistan.

A particularly important reason for the Conservatives stronger showing in this election was making progress in gaining the support of a larger number of Canada's ethnic minority groups such as the Indians, Chinese, and Inuit.  Some of the newly elected Conservative Members of Parliament (MPs) are from these groups and represent areas as diverse as Toronto, Calgary, Edmonton, Vancouver, and the territory of Nunavut.  The new Health Minister Lena Aglukkaq is Inuit and from Nunavut.  An architect of these Conservative gains among these ethnic groups is Jason Kenney a Conservative MP from Calgary Southeast who becomes the Citizenship & Immigration Minister.  The Conservatives were successful with these groups by demonstrating that they valued them as individuals who could contribute their unique talents to Canada as a country, that Liberals and other leftist parties in Canada treated them like victims, took them for granted, and mocked their traditional moral values while the Conservatives, in contrast, seek to encourage traditional moral values, and provide sound government meeting people's everyday needs.

Canadians were not seduced by fraudulent rhetoric of "change we can believe in."  Instead, they wisely put their trust in prudent policymaking and intelligent leadership which will enable Canada to endure and emerge from current economic difficulties in far better shape than the U.S. will if we delude ourselves into thinking Barack Obama and his fraudulent messianic rhetoric are the solutions to our problems.  It's all to easy for us to dismiss Canada as a cold and frozen country to our north with no significance to us.  However, if the polls are right, it may well turn out that in the critical elections of 2008 Canadian voters chose wisely and U.S. voters did not.  Canada's electorate may turn out to be the smartest North American electorate of the year.

These are all lessons American Conservatives should learn from and apply if next Tuesday's results are disappointing.

Recent campaign rhetoric over the encounter between Joe the Plumber and Barack Obama speaks volumes about the economic philosophies of the two presidential campaigns.  Those of us supporting John McCain believe that our country is strengthened by all individuals working and taking responsibility for our actions.  We believe our economy should benefit individuals who apply themselves in school, strive to live intelligent and moral lives, are prudent and save for a rainy day, and that government's primary economic role is creating and sustaining the conditions necessary for creating more wealth and allowing individuals and organizations such as small businesses to reach their God-given potential.

Those supporting Barack Obama, regardless of their socioeconomic status, tend to take a different view.  They believe government is the only entity capable of promoting economic growth.  They believe individuals are pathetic victims of supposed racism, sexism, homophobia, or some other victimology du jour to improve themselves.  A core tenet of the Obamaites is that you don't need to apply yourself in school, live within your economic resources, or engage in moral and intelligent lifestyle practices.   They believe you should consider yourself a victim and be a parasite who lives off of the governmental dole and the hard work and productivity of law-abiding, intelligent, and moral Americans like Joe the Plumber and a host of other individuals from all walks of life and sociocultural backgrounds who make the United States the greatest economic and moral power in history.

Our ongoing economic difficulties have, unfortunately, strengthened the hand of the whining petulatant parasites.  Because of this we are in danger of repeating the biblical maxim of Proverbs 26:11 which admonishes "As a dog returns to its vomit, so a fool repeats his folly."  Rather than using this economic crisis as a teachable moment to promote the virtues of thrift, fiscal prudence, long-term economic thinking and saving for a rainy day,  we have succumbed to the belief that we need more infusions of credit to incompetent businesses and imbecilic homeowners who knowingly took on more mortgage debt than they could pay for.  Instead of relying on new fiscal stimulus packages or governmental takeovers of the financial sector, we should begin the painful but necessary practice of restraining government spending and reducing our budget deficit and national debt.

This is an excellent opportunity for our governmental leaders to build a financial policymaking institutions that effectively regulate a 21st century global economy and dismantle unnecessary governmental entities.  Updating the 1980s Grace Commission reports on governmental agencies and actually implementing such recommendations would be an auspicious beginning to restoring governmental fiscal and administrative probity.  Such reform must also occur in Congress and our legislative branch needs to reform its oversight system by eliminating committee turf battles and developing one committee each in the House and Senate to oversee our financial system instead of having a patchwork of committees that our now doing this.  Now is also an excellent opportunity to reform entitlement spending and make our tax code more efficient and less burdensome.

An Obama presidency would mark the reemergence of a parasitic welfare state mentality that would do further damage to our socioeconomic fabric and societal development.  Instead of promoting real and market oriented change, false prophet Barack Obama and his simpleton followers and more sophisticated acolytes are advocating redistributionist polices which would resurrect the worst failings of LBJ's Great Society liberalism and Jimmy Carter's malaise economic policies.

We can hope and pray this commonsense realization will hit voters as they go to the polls.  Unfortunately, our fear that our current economic frustrations will cause many Americans to take their Barack Obama flavored Jim Jones poisonous Kool-Aid and cause this nation to commit political and economic suicide.

I've not given up hope that the American people may awaken from the seductive embrace so many have made of Barack Obama and realize the horrific consequences of an Obama presidency.  Such a calamity will have deleterious consequences in areas such as taxes, national security, judicial appointments, economics, foreign policy, social policy, and in national living standards.  I'd like to place particular emphasis on the individuals he may choose for his Cabinet.  Obama has hinted he may make Warren Buffet his Treasury Secretary.  The reputed oracle from Omaha is reported to be hostile to Christianity and recently "married" his three decade long mistress.  With behavior like that, he's would have been ethically qualified to work in Bill Clinton's Administration.  Buffet has no experience with domestic and international economic policymaking.  The way he's glorified by the liberal media and Obama should make us all uneasy.

Here's another vision from hell.  John Edwards as Attorney General!  Placing the mother of all ambulance chasing trial lawyers in a position of real power should scare the cojones off of any rational person.  Edwards will spend more time clogging the courts with trivial lawsuits against political opponents instead of fighting real crime and aggressively fighting and pursuing Islamist terrorists.  He'll be more interested in pursuing hate crime vendettas against critics of him and Obama than in working constructively to promote law abiding behavior by Americans.

For Secretary of Defense, Obama could pick Iraq defeatist and corrupt Pennsylvania congressman Jack Murtha.  Democrats regard him as some sage on national security matters, when his actual experience with national security issues has been funneling defense spending to his district because of his long-time service and chairmanship on the House Appropriations Committee's Defense Appropriations Subcommittee.  Murtha is so hung up over Vietnam and his anti-Bush tirades, that he'd probably try to ask Al Qaida and Taliban commanders for permission to bomb their forces.

Obama's Secretary of State will probably someone committed to "repairing the damage" allegedly caused to the U.S. by the Bush Administration's foreign and national security policies.  What this will involve will be hiring a Foggy Bottom frump who will genuflect before the United Nations and seek to "apologize" every chance he or she can to international leftist and secularist public opinion that is appalled by our taking decisive action against Islamist terror.  Instead of forcefully stating our legitimate case against international terrorism and educating a supine international public opinion about the dangers Islamist extremism poses to democratic freedoms, we could see the next four years of our diplomacy being characterized by spineless cowardly curs who want to engage in ritual self-flagellation instead of asserting our geopolitical and strategic interests.  This may also involve pressuring Israel to make unwise concessions to sadistic terrorist extremists, cutting a "deal" with Venezuela's Hugo Chavez, allowing Russia to retake portions of the former Soviet Union, acquiescing in Iranian nuclear weapons development, and numerous other examples of appeasement in areas such as China and North Korea.

Our next Energy Secretary will tell us that we have to get used to a lower standard of living, travel less, and pay more in taxes for less energy access and delivery.  This individual will tell us we need to remain dependent on uncertain markets and petroleum suppliers who are hostile to our national interest.  This same individual, possibly Ralph Nader, will launch repeated public jeremiads against nuclear energy which is the most environmentally friendly and technologically proven energy source available.

Ask any of your friends and relatives who have been seduced by "the one" whether they like any of these policy scenarios I've described.  I highly doubt most Obama supports have the intellectual capacity to understand the role of cabinet governance let alone any intellectual understanding of the reality that the policies Obama supports have proven miserable failures when they were implemented by presidential administrations such as Lyndon Johnson's, Jimmy Carter's, and Bill Clinton's.

Hopefully, Sarah Palin's strong performance in last night's debate against Joe Biden will reassure Conservatives concerned about her recent nerves in interviews with Katie Couric and Charles Gibson.  Additionally, it is to be hoped that Palin's performance will silence liberal ignoramuses who think she's unqualified to be Vice-President.  Palin has had to put up with an enormous amount of crap from the mainstream liberal media and feminzai academic harridans who are scared spitless by the idea that the first woman Vice-President or President could be a conservative, religious, pro-life woman who takes assertive stands on foreign policy and national security  issues. 

Palin drew blood when she described the Obama/Biden Iraq policy as being appeasement.  She also could have mentioned that if Obama/Biden really want to "end the war" they'll have to go begging to Islamist hotspots such as Waziristan, the Gaza Strip, and numerous other locales around the world to appease the wrath of the Islamist galoots.  Palin ably empathized with the problems middle class families are having with current economic problems and demonstrated that the massive government intervention favored by Obama/Biden would be injurious to their personal economic well-being as well as to national economic well-being.

On the nuclear weapons question, Palin did miss an opportunity to explain why we need to modernize our nuclear deterrent by testing and how the threat of nuclear armed Iran and/or North Korea makes developing effective missile defense a priority.
Biden managed to avoid his frequent verbal diarrhea although he fails to understand that the Vice-President is a member of both the executive and legislative branches.  Guess, he hasn't looked at his Constitution lately, which is pretty disturbing for someone who was once chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Hopefully, the McCain-Palin ticket can build on the strength of her performance in St. Louis last night.  In the upcoming Nashville debate, McCain needs to look Obama in the eye and tell him that he is not prepared for the presidency and incapable of giving America the strong and decisive leadership we need at this challenging time.  Both McCain and Palin need to tell Americans with blunt ferocity that economic problems and our national security situation will be worsened if the electorate makes the mistake of giving the presidency to Obama/Biden and retains congressional control in the hands of the rabid Nancy Pelosi and the doddering senescent Robert Byrd, and the insufferably anal retentive Harry Reid.

It's easy to dismiss our northern neighbor Canada.  To do so is unwise, because what happens in Canada affects the U.S. economy and national security just as events in the U.S. impact Canada which is our largest trading partner.

Canada is holding its federal election on October 14.  After 13 years of Liberal Party misrule, Canadians elected a newly reconstituted Conservative Party to lead its government on January 23, 2006.  Canada's Prime Minister since then has been Stephen Harper who is an intelligent and principled Conservative from the energy rich province of Alberta.  The Canadian electorate gave Harper's Conservative a plurality but not a majority of House of Commons seats in that election and after a lengthy two and half year minority government, Harper recently dissolved Parliament and is seeking a majority for the Conservatives in next month's election.

Harper and the Conservatives have had some success in their governance.  They have cut the Goods and Services Tax (GST) which is Canada's national sales tax from 7 to 5%.  Significant ethics legislation has been enacted in the wake of scandals during the Liberal Governments of Jean Chretien and Paul Martin during their tenure in power from 1993-2006.  Canada has been less damaged by the mortgage market downturn than the U.S. and is benefitting from increased oil and natural gas revenues.  It's federal budget is in much better shape than the U.S.  Harper has a much more mature and responsible attitude toward relations with the U.S. than some of Canada's leftist opposition parties do.  Anti-Americanism has periodically been an ugly rhetorical whipping boy for some of these individuals.

Harper's government is beginning long overdue efforts to upgrade Canada's military after decades of budgetary neglect.  His government wants to increase Canada's naval presence in the Arctic which will be increasingly important as Russia seeks to assert sovereignty over polar seabed natural resources that are far beyond Russian territorial boundaries.  Harper's government has continued Canada's involvement in military action in Afghanistan begun by predecessor Liberal Governments.  Canadian troops have performed admirably under trying conditions and have taken significant casualties.  All Americans should appreciate the work and sacrifice of Canadian forces in Afghanistan!

Harper is helped by having four leftist political parties in opposition.  The Liberals, who have regularly been Canada's governing party for many recent decades are lead by Stephane Dion who is from Quebec and is seeking to impose a carbon tax on Canadians which would have horrific economic questions.  Dion is a weak leader and the Canadian Conservative Party has a website at http://www.notaleader.ca/ which ably dissects Dion's manifold weaknesses.

Then there is the New Democratic Party (NDP) lead by Ontario's Jack Layton.  The NDP is a Social Democratic Party which combines organized labor and some leftist agrarian populists and is the party that is one of the intellectuals godfathers of Canada's nationalized health care system.  To add to further spice to this leftist goulash is the Bloc Quebecois lead by Gilles Duceppe.  This is a Quebec separatist party who's goal is to make the province of Quebec an independent nation.  Finally, there are the Greens lead by Elizabeth May. 

The Conservatives have made gradual inroads against the Bloc Quebecois in Quebec and have a chance of picking up a significant number of rural seats.  The Conservatives base is in Western Canada, particularly Alberta, where they hold all 28 Albertan seats in the House of Commons.  (Alberta, by the way, is a wonderful place to vacation.)  If the Conservatives can pick up enough seats in suburban areas near Toronto, they could get a majority.

While some Canadian Conservatives are more liberal than American conservatives, there are many who would fit comfortably in American conservative gatherings.  U.S. conservatives should pay close attention to the Canadian election as a bellweather and, hopefully, inspiration to our cause.  The Conservative Party website www.conservative.ca/ 
features campaign advertisements and detailed information about our Canadian partners in political arms.