Emails From the Future

I recently received two Emails from the year 2012. Now, receiving an Email from the future is odd, but what makes it even odder is that each Email appears to be from an alternative time line. One time line appears to be a world where Barack Obama has had a successful presidency and the other appears to be from an unsuccessful Obama presidency.

This is the disaster presidency:

November 10th, 2012
To: POTUS, DCCC, DNC
CC: Fmr Rep. Pelosi, Fmr Sen. Reid, Lame Duck President Obama
From: Palin-Jindal ‘12 Campaign
Subject: Thanks guys!
Hi guys
I’ve got to tell you, 4 years ago I never dreamed I would be writing this Email! I mean who woulda thunk that little Sarah Barracuda would ever beat a sitting president in a close election? After John and I lost the election in 2008 all the experts I talked to said that our goose was cooked and that the GOP would become a minority party baring some kind of disaster from within the Democrats. Insofar as you guys were instrumental in causing the destruction of your party, Governor Jindal and I send our sincere thanks.

I guess our path to victory really began during the transition. Although then President-Elect Obama gave a rousing speech in the wee hours of November 5th, all his fancy talk of post-partisan politics and pragmatic solutions fell by the wayside when then-House Speaker Pelosi and then-Senate Majority Leader Reid began announcing their legislative agendas for 2009. Why, just think, if you guys hadn’t spent so much time in January and February fighting to enact the Fairness Doctrine and card check laws, Obama’s health care plan might have gotten somewhere.

Of course President Obama and Fmr Vice President Biden didn’t help matters much when, in February of 2009, just as the new president was trying to get his cabinet approved, Vice President Biden gave an interview where he said that he thought the Charlie Rangel’s bill which would have nationalized 401ks “Made some sense”. Things only went downhill from there as President Obama first tried to defend the comments, comparing Biden to an “old uncle who says goofy things”; then trying to distance himself from the comments by saying that “Joe Biden does not represent my views or for that matter the views of this administration”; finally culminating in the now infamous “Throw Biden under the bus” speech, which reportedly contributed to Biden’s decision to resign the vice presidency in early 2010, ostensibly for “health reasons”. I have to tell you guys, watching the mini civil war that erupted as Hillary Clinton angled herself to be appointed VP, and then watching her announce that she would now be an independent when Obama refused her request was very entertaining.

I have to admit, you guys were dealt a lousy hand. The recession assured that you guys would never be able to enact your promised tax cuts or that second stimulus plan. And the skyrocketing unemployment rate was not helped by the “Fair Trade” bill passed narrowly in the Senate and overwhelmingly in the House that required the U.S. to only trade with nations that paid their workers a “fair wage”. I guess it’s ironic that the bill that guaranteed the Democrat’s defeat in 2010 was also the first bill repealed by the new Republican majority in 2011. By the way, I should tell you guys that Senators Rice and Romney, and Senators elect Schwarzenegger and Giuliani also send their thanks for the way you guys ran things these last four years. But the good news is that unemployment has finally fallen back to the single digits (9.8%!) for the first time since early 2009.

Of course it must be noted that not all Democrats deserve thanks. The 50 or so Dems who quit their party when Fmr Speaker Pelosi tried to cram the assault weapons ban down their throats; thus killing the ban and probably stopping the GOP from picking up several seats in rural districts in “red” states. And Senators Webb, Clinton and Lieberman, who, along with Senators McCain and Voinovich, formed the moderate caucus in mid-2009, promising to focus on pragmatic solutions to energy and healthcare. Thank goodness you guys did so much to punish their efforts!

In closing, 2008 was a dark year for Conservatives. Many worried that we had lost our way; others felt that we needed to rethink our philosophy. Lucky for us you guys were more interested in settling scores than with governing. It turns out we didn’t need a new philosophy, all we had to do was let you guys rerun all your old liberal arguments and then point to the mess you made. Once again, Vice President Jindal and I offer our thanks.

Sincerely
President-Elect Palin,
Vice-President-Elect Jindal
And the RNC.

This is the success:

November 10th, 2012
To: DNC, DCCC, RNC
CC: Fmr Governor Huckabee, Fmr Governor Palin, Fmr Speaker Pelosi, Fmr Majority Leader Reid, Senator-Elect Patraeus, Governor Jindal, Amb. McCain, Amb. Clinton
From: POTUS
Subject: My reelection campaign

Greetings and salutations ladies and gentlemen

I just wanted to take this opportunity to thank all of my supporters who assisted in my reelection campaign. When I came to Washington I asked the American people not just to take a chance on me, but to take a chance on themselves as well, because I knew that we, as a nation, were ready to face the challenges before us if we could find a way to put aside the smallness of our partisan politics. I stand in owe in the progress we have made in these last for years, and I am humbled that the American people once again saw fit to ask me to lead them in this wonderful journey.

I would like to start by congratulating governors Palin and Huckabee on a well-fought campaign. We certainly had a number of vigorous debates about the future of this nation, but in the end I was truly moved by both your concession speeches. Governor Palin, as a father of two daughters I found your candidacy an inspiration to little girls everywhere. Governor Huckabee, your speech the day after election about the progress that has been made since your boyhood in the segregated south moved both the first lady and myself to tears. I sincerely hope you will consider my offer to join us in the New Year as my health and human services secretary.

To former speaker Pelosi, and to former Congressman Rangel and former Senators Reid, Boxer and Feinstein I have to say: sorry I had to throw you guys under various buses over the last four years and I hope that you are all enjoying a relaxing retirement. I am aware that many Democrats believe that my repudiations of various bills and proposals you made contributed to Democratic loses in the House and Senate in 2010, but I wholeheartedly believe that the American people sent me to Washington not just advance some abstract philosophy, but to work on real solutions to the issues that plague the middle class. To that end, I appreciate the fact that you guys granted me fast track trade authority early in my term; though it is too bad none of the “Fair Trade” bill you guys proposed ever picked up quit enough support to make it through. We will continue to explore this issue in the New Year. On a happier note, I must say that Speaker Boehner and I have built a very constructive relationship.

To Ambassadors McCain and Clinton, I hope you two are enjoying India and China, respectively. John, we fought a hard campaign, but I appreciated the assistance you gave me in getting my energy bill through the Senate. I also appreciated the wise council you offered in dealing with the deteriorating situation in the former nation of Russia. And President Clinton, your assistance in constructing the Camp David Plan for peace in the Kashmir region was invaluable. Each of you gentlemen is a true statesman and I look forward to continuing our work over the next 4 years.

I would be remiss, of course, to talk about the Camp David Plan without mentioning the wonderful work done by Senator-Elect Patraeus. The COIN plan you enacted in Waziristan in 2009 started a chain reaction that minimized Al Qaeda’s presence in the region and provided enough breathing space for India and Pakistan to begin making real progress in resolving the Kashmir issue. I still believe that the Democratic Party has a tent big enough to include a man with your more conservative values sir, but I am equally certain that your service as an elected official will be as successful as your service in uniform whatever party you represent. And I must add that your address to the Republican Convention earlier this year was magnificent, eclipsed only by the moving “A Nation of Immigrants” speech offered by Governor Jindal. I must say that I am glad my time in elected office will be finished before you gentlemen decide to run for the highest office, because either of you would be a worthy opponent for anyone in my party.

In closing, 2008 was a dark year for our country. We were demoralized by turmoil at home and uncertainty abroad. Our nation was mired by style of politics that emphasized divisive issues and treated policy as a game of winner-take-all. I am proud to have been a small part of a switch from the politics of winner-take-all; to the politics of we are all in this together.

Sincerely
President Barack Obama

I'm not the only one....

I'm not the only conservative who has both endorsed Obama and spent the last couple months wondering "What the hell happened to John McCain?"

Here is Christopher Buckley's take on the matter:

A year ago, when everyone, including the man I’m about to endorse, was caterwauling to get out of Iraq on the next available flight, John McCain, practically alone, said no, no—bad move. Surge. It seemed a suicidal position to take, an act of political bravery of the kind you don’t see a whole lot of anymore.

But that was—sigh—then. John McCain has changed. He said, famously, apropos the Republican debacle post-1994, “We came to Washington to change it, and Washington changed us.” This campaign has changed John McCain. It has made him inauthentic. A once-first class temperament has become irascible and snarly; his positions change, and lack coherence; he makes unrealistic promises, such as balancing the federal budget “by the end of my first term.” Who, really, believes that? Then there was the self-dramatizing and feckless suspension of his campaign over the financial crisis. His ninth-inning attack ads are mean-spirited and pointless. And finally, not to belabor it, there was the Palin nomination. What on earth can he have been thinking?

All this is genuinely saddening, and for the country is perhaps even tragic, for America ought, really, to be governed by men like John McCain—who have spent their entire lives in its service, even willing to give the last full measure of their devotion to it. If he goes out losing ugly, it will be beyond tragic, graffiti on a marble bust.

Like me, Buckley has long been a McCain booster and is deeply disappointed to see what the McCain campaign has become.

I've been even more heartbroken as I've worked my way through Bing West's "The Strongest Tribe," in which West frequently cites Senator McCain's work in bringing the Bush administration about with regard to troop levels and tactics in Iraq.

Here is what Buckley says about Obama:

As for Senator Obama: He has exhibited throughout a “first-class temperament,” pace Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.’s famous comment about FDR. As for his intellect, well, he’s a Harvard man, though that’s sure as heck no guarantee of anything, these days. Vietnam was brought to you by Harvard and (one or two) Yale men. As for our current adventure in Mesopotamia, consider this lustrous alumni roster. Bush 43: Yale. Rumsfeld: Princeton. Paul Bremer: Yale and Harvard. What do they all have in common? Andover! The best and the brightest.

Buckley's sentiments are echoed by Christopher Hitchens:

I suppose it could be said, as Michael Gerson has alleged, that the Obama campaign's choice of the word erratic to describe McCain is also an insinuation. But really, it's only a euphemism. Anyone with eyes to see and ears to hear had to feel sorry for the old lion on his last outing and wish that he could be taken somewhere soothing and restful before the night was out. The train-wreck sentences, the whistlings in the pipes, the alarming and bewildered handhold phrases—"My friends"—to get him through the next 10 seconds. I haven't felt such pity for anyone since the late Adm. James Stockdale humiliated himself as Ross Perot's running mate. And I am sorry to have to say it, but Stockdale had also distinguished himself in America's most disastrous and shameful war, and it didn't qualify him then and it doesn't qualify McCain now.

Like me, Hitchens does not suppose Obama will be a panacea:

I used to call myself a single-issue voter on the essential question of defending civilization against its terrorist enemies and their totalitarian protectors, and on that "issue" I hope I can continue to expose and oppose any ambiguity. Obama is greatly overrated in my opinion, but the Obama-Biden ticket is not a capitulationist one, even if it does accept the support of the surrender faction, and it does show some signs of being able and willing to profit from experience. With McCain, the "experience" is subject to sharply diminishing returns, as is the rest of him, and with Palin the very word itself is a sick joke. One only wishes that the election could be over now and a proper and dignified verdict rendered, so as to spare democracy and civility the degradation to which they look like being subjected in the remaining days of a low, dishonest campaign.

In other news, Obama appears poised for a blowout. I'd say 100+ electoral points is realistic at this point.

Thoughts on the debate.....

John McCain does not understand the difference between a tactic and a strategy.

Barack Obama does.

Just something to think about.

My Endorsment for 2008: Barack Obama

With about five weeks to go, John McCain has suspended his campaign.

He says its to allow him to focus on the financial crises.

I guess we can just assume he'll be suspending his presidency each time his Google stock takes a tumble.

Let me be very clear: America can never fully repay the debt we owe to men like John McCain. There is not a person alive today that has any right to question John McCain's courage or devotion to his country. It is only fitting that I take this time to thank Senator McCain for his decades of service in defense of this nation.

But elections are about the future, not the past.

Over the last few weeks I've increasingly come to question McCain's judgment; between his choice of running mates, his confusion over the prime minister of Spain, his threat to fire the head of the SEC, seemingly without cause save the aforementioned drop in stock prices (I know there is a "meltdown" afoot, but McCain hardly articulated exactly how SEC chief could have prevented it). The "suspension" of his campaign and his attempt to postpone Friday's debate is just the latest in a what is becoming a pattern of erratic behavior and I'm beginning to seriously worry about John McCain condition. This could well portend either dementia or the early stages of Alzheimers. And I think I've made my disdain for a certain hockey mom waiting in the wings clear.

As for Obama, I think Tom Barnett said it best earlier today when he wrote:

McCain will be a presidency built around crisis. It's what he loves.

Obama's presidency will be conducted at room temperature: calm, cautious, careful, calculating.

Exactly.

Let me be very clear about something: I am now, and will remain for the foreseeable future, a Republican. If I ever switch parties it will be to Libertarian. I am not now, nor will I ever be a welfare/social liberal. My economic beliefs lie somewhere between Milton Friedman and Gordon Gecko. I think the world where Saddam Hussein is dead is preferable to the world where Saddam was alive and knowing what I know now I still think it was Saddam's time to go in '03. And I don't just pay lip service to the 2nd Amendment; if you see me out and about I am probably packin' (we fought a hard battle for concealed carry in this state).

But it is because I am a conservative; because I believe that government power must be applied judiciously; because I believe that a tax cut is not a tax cut if its cost are simply foisted upon future generations; because I know that the rule of law strengthens the legitimacy of government even while containing its power; because I realize that simply making big government less effective is not an acceptable substitute for the conservative goal of having a small but efficient government; it is for all these reasons that I am endorsing Illinois Senator Barack Obama for President.

I am not swept up in the cult of Obama. I realize he is not a perfect candidate, and once he is elected I have every intent to play the role of the loyal opposition if he tries to follow through on some of his goofier campaign promises. But the events of the last few weeks demonstrate that Barack Obama is serious about governing. His choice of running mate is nowhere near as "sexy" as John McCain's, but Joe Biden is a competent public servant whose decades of senate experience will help President Obama navigate the ends and outs of dealing with the legislative branch. And during this latest crisis, while John McCain has flailed about desperately switching messages by the hour Barack Obama has remained reasoned and rational, offering that he will have to reevaluate his new spending plans in light of the financial crisis, as McCain threatened to fire the head of the SEC, Obama offered Congress both guidance and wide latitude for compromise by outlining his criteria for a bailout.

While I do endorse Barack Obama for President I continue to endorse Republicans in every other race. Like Clinton, President Obama would perform best with a divided government, which would allow the U.S. to gain all the public diplomacy benefits of an Obama presidency while constraining the lesser of angels of the Democratic Party. That being said, an Republican retaking of either house is highly unlikely this year.


In conclusion, these last few weeks have demonstrated that John McCain has a predilection for making rash, politically expedient choices while Barack Obama has demonstrated the temperament and judgment to be commander and chief.

Palin on Grand Strategy (or lack thereof)

"Doctrine, boy I don't know."

Condi. Joe Liberman. Colin Powell. Mitt Romney. Rudy.

Just a few of the people that would have made a more responsible choice for VEEP.

She doesn't understand that question. Perhaps he should have asked her to define "doctrine" define "Grand Strategy".

Gibson nails it when he says he's "Lost in a blizzard of words".

"Pakistan, boy I don't know."

I wonder if she's aware that cross border raids are being conducted into Wazaristan?

I wonder if she knows where Warzistan is?

"Warzaristan, boy I don't know."

Russia, boy I don't know...

The scene above is from the 3rd season of the West Wing. In the clip, Bartlett tell Richie that a Secrete Service Agent was just killed in a robbery. Richie responds by saying "Crime, boy I don't know."

Tonight Sarah Palin had a similar moment, except hers was televised and her answer can be better summarized as "Nuclear holocaust, boy I don't know".

GIBSON: Would you favor putting Georgia and Ukraine in NATO?

PALIN: Ukraine, definitely, yes. Yes, and Georgia.

GIBSON: Because Putin has said he would not tolerate NATO incursion into the Caucasus.

PALIN: Well, you know, the Rose Revolution, the Orange Revolution, those actions have showed us that those democratic nations, I believe, deserve to be in NATO.

Putin thinks otherwise. Obviously, he thinks otherwise, but...

GIBSON: And under the NATO treaty, wouldn't we then have to go to war if Russia went into Georgia?

Yes. Of course. That's why it's so important that we not allow a country with a ONGOING conflict into NATO. Whoever started the trouble in Georgia (Russia's hands aren't clean; but neither are Saakashvili's), it would be ludicrous to allow a country that currently has hostile forces stationed within its borders into NATO.

Saakashvili does not get to declare war between the two largest nuclear stockpiles in the world.

Somebody get Sarah Palin a copy of The Guns of August.

PALIN: Perhaps so. I mean, that is the agreement when you are a NATO ally, is if another country is attacked, you're going to be expected to be called upon and help.

But NATO, I think, should include Ukraine, definitely, at this point and I think that we need to -- especially with new leadership coming in on January 20, being sworn on, on either ticket, we have got to make sure that we strengthen our allies, our ties with each one of those NATO members.

We have got to make sure that that is the group that can be counted upon to defend one another in a very dangerous world today.

GIBSON: And you think it would be worth it to the United States, Georgia is worth it to the United States to go to war if Russia were to invade.

PALIN: What I think is that smaller democratic countries that are invaded by a larger power is something for us to be vigilant against. We have got to be cognizant of what the consequences are if a larger power is able to take over smaller democratic countries.And we have got to be vigilant. We have got to show the support, in this case, for Georgia. The support that we can show is economic sanctions perhaps against Russia, if this is what it leads to.

It doesn't have to lead to war and it doesn't have to lead, as I said, to a Cold War, but economic sanctions, diplomatic pressure, again, counting on our allies to help us do that in this mission of keeping our eye on Russia and Putin and some of his desire to control and to control much more than smaller democratic countries.

His mission, if it is to control energy supplies, also, coming from and through Russia, that's a dangerous position for our world to be in, if we were to allow

I don't know how many times she used the word "democratic".

"Democracy, boy I don't know."

But that's not what worries me. She doesn't understand the function of NATO. If a State, be it Georgia, the Ukraine or France, becomes a NATO member we are automatically obligated to protect them if they are invaded. We don't have options, we don't proceed with sanctions (when have sanctions ever worked?) we go strait to the beach, so to speak (On the Beach, good movie; bad grand strategy).

A hair trigger "red line" with a short time delay is deterrence. That is what kept West Berlin free for 45 years and what stopped the U.S. from intervening in Hungary or Checezlovakia. The red line can be a powerful tool, but must be applied judiciously. Should a NATO country be invaded and we respond with sanctions or diplomacy that's the ball game. We get to pack up our military units, say bydy-bye to the international system we worked so hard to create since 1945 and just wait for the Humongous to take over.

On the other hand, it makes no sense to go to war with Russia over two breakaway regions of Georgia.

A black and white, democracy versus Putin narrative does not work here. Complexity is not a vice.



She takes being disengaged to new heights. When I first saw that McCain had picked Palin it struck me that there was nothing in her academic or professional background that demonstrated any sort of curiosity about international relations, national security or diplomacy. This interview confirms my worst fears. She's a .22 caliber mind in a .45 ACP world. This nation, at this moment, has to expect more from our leaders.

We need a heavyweight.