Carter in a Kennedy Suit

The background starts with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev spoiled Obama’s little Grant Park party hours after his historic election by announcing the stationing short-range missile systems in Kaliningrad between Poland and Lithuania. This in response to stationing an anti-missile shield in Poland. 

We have the Polish President Kaczynski asking Obama for an assurance that such a shield will be deployed. On the other hand, we have Obama waffling. The difference between Obama’s waffling and unequivocal statement of need hasn’t gone unnoticed. By Russia. By Iran.

(hat tip: Washington Times, Breitbart, PowerLine)  

This brings back some bad memories about Carter’s handling of the Neutron Bomb controversy from the 1978 time frame. (Time, 1978)  This was a weapon that emitted lethal radiation will little, relatively, collateral blast damage. It’s deployment rationale was to blunt the then Warsaw Pact’s 3-to-1 advantage in armor in central Europe. There was, at the time, a great deal of opposition on both sides of the Atlantic, lubricated by Pravda. However, with a great deal of intense negotiation, and with the support of of many of his chief defense and diplomacy, Carter backed off at the last minute. Carter tried to put lipstick on that pig (couldn’t resist) by saying he wanted to use the Neutron Bomb as a bargaining chip over the coming deployment of the Soviet intermediate range missiles, the SS20.

Then, we had the whole intermediate range missile controversy of the 1980’s when Reagan decided to deploy Pershing and cruise missiles to counter the Soviet SS20 missile deployment. Again, in the teeth of all sorts of controversy.

And, so here we have new situation with a little bit of both controversies mixed in. And, we have the same old line up; NATO versus Russia.

Yet, it is different. This controversy revolves around a clearly defensive weapon, designed to knock out offensive nuclear missiles. It addresses the serious moral shortfall of Mutually Assured Destruction; that of holding civilians hostage in war. Yet, we have the worst of the Neutron Bomb controversy and the SS20 deployments of, respectively, 1978 and the 1980’s. Here we have the seeds of undercutting an ally, Poland and its President, Kaczynski just the way Carter undercut then West German Chancellor Schmidt. Then, unlike Reagan, who actually created useful “bargaining chips” by deploying Pershing and cruise missiles, we have Obama waffling and sending a message that we may not deploy a clearly defensive anti-missile system. And, the Russians get what they want for free.

The GOP, because of 30 years of economic growth and prosperity had little to campaign on because most of the electorate forgot economic life under Carter. A very successful military bottled up Islamic imperialism at its source thousands of miles from our shore. Say what you will about the state of Iraq, pre and post surge, those American troops in Iraq and Afghanistan have been key in  preventing another 9/11. Unfortunately, because the GOP so damaged their brand with profligate spending, they no longer had the credibility, in this election, to effectively warn Americans that abandonment of Reagan’s policies of a strong military and a pro-growth economic policy of less taxes and government will spell disaster.

Will Obama’s emulate Kennedy? He of the Kennedy tax cuts and the Cuban Missile Crisis. Or, does that Kennedy suit hide the hard-core appeaser, the inner Carter, that seems to animate Obama’s basic instincts.

 

ACORN and Honest Elections

One of the brilliant features of the electoral college is a built-in check against voter fraud. Or, to make fraud truly effective, one would need to do so in 51 different geographical locations. Even with ACORN going national, that’s still a daunting task. The simple fact is that stealing votes in Chicago will only net the electors of Illinois, no matter how many votes cast in Chicago. Whereas if presidential elections were done by popular vote, every fraudulent vote would count.

But, were ACORN and their allies can truly cause damage is in the three remaining and undecided elections for the Senate; Alaska, Georgia and Minnesota. Here we have elections close enough that fraudulent activities of even a few thousand votes, or a few hundred in Minnesota, can make a difference. A difference, indeed, since these three elections will determine whether the GOP can mount meaningful opposition to the legislative testosterone of the Democratic majorities of the House and Senate with a compliant Oval Office.

The last time the Democrats had a filibuster proof Senate was the 95th congress of 1977-79. The one that, with Carter at the helm, gave us the Community Development Act, the origin of the current subprime mortgage mess. 

Already, there are signs of a stolen election in Minnesota. Given a vote differential of only 500 votes, this one is an easy one to steal especially since the Minnesota Secretary of State is a creature of ACORN. And, indeed, one hundred votes here and one hundred vote there start to pop up for Frankin. How convenient since the entire process is counted electronically by an optical scanner.

If this was such a transformational election, then Senate and House majorities would have reflected such. But, using Obama’s vote tallies, he got on 52% in another 50-50 nation election. He’s the first Democratic candidate to even break 50% since Carter in 1976–32 years ago. And, frankly, the three remaining Senate contests would have swept Democratic. But, it didn’t. It didn’t because there may have been a temper tantrum to throw punish the party that currently holds the White House, but there isn’t a socialist mandate.

As tight as they may be, those elections and the check of filibuster must stand. To overturn these elections by fraud will slowly create a lawless that stems a society wide disrespect for the rule of law. You only need to travel to Chicago, were a century or more of corrupt Democratic machine politics creates such a causal disregard for the law. Due process is reduced to cutting deals, lubricated by cash. Elections are pre-ordained; the real outcome being determined in the Democratic primary. It is not a place that attracts new economic growth. It is a very expensive place to live. It coasts on the momentum of being, for the present, the 3rd largest city in the country. For a bright young federal prosecutor, a treasure trove of corruption convictions to burnish any career.

What with a beyond biased MSM, shady fund raising, questionable past associations never truly vetted, this election was rigged enough to call into question, even Obama’s victory. It needs to end on at least the positive note, that in these three remaining elections, of some modicum of integrity of an honest ballot. 

The Temper Tantrum Election

Others made a similar comparison.

That is the comparison to the 1976 election between Ford and Carter. The electorate is sour. In 1976 the there were economic issues, principally inflation. In some respect, the electorate had more justification to be sour, coming off the Watergate scandal.

But, interestingly, it wasn’t that the Democrats were innocent, since many of the shenanigans that Nixon pulled were done by the Democrats as well. Kennedy taped conversations in the Oval Office. Nor, was Kennedy’s election clean; a certain Irish Catholic mayor of Chicago, stole the election for him. Johnson’s rise to power never came from his luster of Mr. Clean. In fact, of the entire crowd of Democratic presidential candidates in 1976, Carter was the only plausible candidate that could actually beat Ford. 

In fact, Ford was the really clean candidate. But, he pardoned Nixon. He did the country a favor, in the long run, by ending Watergate. But, in placing the long term good of the country ahead of his personal ambitions, he cost himself the election. The pardon prevented the criminalization of your opponents acts in office. Yes, Nixon violated laws; such as obstruction of justice. But, the prosecution, had it been allow to proceed, would have hijacked by his enemies for the sole purpose of settling scores with old “tricky Dick” over policy. It could very well have set a precedent of show trials for your political rivals, banana republic style. 

So, along came Carter. Like Obama, his true very leftist roots were masked by a compliant MSM as a Southern-conservative-born-again-Democrat.

What we got was a dangerously naive, but arrogant, mean-spirited man that just about drove the country off the cliff. And, with comfortable majorities in both Houses of Congress for 1977 and 1978, we were launched into the era of double digit inflation. Employment that approached double digits as well. This was the era of “bracket creep.” Remember? The hollow military. The debacle of Desert One. Carter’s “misery” index doubled under his watch. 

And, we got two things that haunt us to today. First, was the overthrow of the Shah; aided and abetted by the blame-America-first crowd that filled the Carter administration. The second was the Community Reinvestment Act. The former gave us the mad mullahs of Iran who are now on the verge of nuclear weapons and a will to use them against Israel. The latter served, with the corrupt lack of oversight by the Democrats, to give us the financial meltdown that may very well lead us into a severe recession, the first since Carter’s administration.

We’ve come a full revolution and now we have Obama, another arrogant and corrupt politician. A man who’s true bona fides are being actively hidden by the MSM. A man who may very well be elected by a financial crisis that had its origins in the Carter era. A man, who when he arrives in the Oval Office, is ready to accept a nuclear Iran as “reparation” for the “evil” of American “imperialism.”

And, unlike Nixon, the GOP’s troubles stem, not from presidential corruption, but Bush’s insistence to stay a course against the existential threat of Islamic imperialism. A staying of that course in the face of adverse opinion polls–aided by just this side of treasonously biased MSM reporting. Knowing that our failure to act now will only result in a bigger and bloodier war to come. A staying of the course based on historical presidents from the 1930’s; had Hitler been stopped at any one of multiple times prior to Chamberlain’s appeasement in 1938 in Munich WW II could have been prevented.

But, the Obama presidency will only be transitional in nature. FDR only inherited the Great Depression after Hoover failed to come to grips with that depression from 1929 to 1932. Obama will have his name associated with this economic downturn, recession or otherwise, because it will contemporaneous with his occupancy of the Oval Office.

Nor can the loyal foot soldier of the Chicago Democratic political machine can be likened to Truman. Truman was a product of the Pendergast machine from Kansas City, but he never personally partook of machine graft. Compare that to Obama’s 1.5 million house, a sweetheart mortgage deal and Michelle’s “promotion” and the doubling of her salary at the University of Chicago to $300,000 per year.  And, long before he rose to the presidency, Truman made himself a respected Senator from Kansas, not Pendergast, by such activities as the “Truman Committee.” And, it was Truman that made the decision to use the atomic bomb. Obama’s no Truman.

So, here we are today. The GOP getting tagged with a war and a financial mess for reasons that are really the GOP’s fault. The electoral loss by the GOP by both Houses of Congress were deservedly due to the GOP’s straying from their small government roots. The war has been portrayed as another Vietnam “quagmire.” The MSM narrative was another America exploiting another “morally superior” non-European, non-Christian culture. Never mind that what we extol as individual liberty, freedom of worship and liberation of women from the status of chattel are completely alien concepts in large swaths of the Muslim world.

Then, we have the financial crisis, all directly related to governmental involvement in the private sector (the Community Redevelopment Act) and then supercharged with the corruption of Fannie and Freddie. The only solace from this crisis is that Obama will have his options and legislative testosterone greatly constrained by the fact that he got his tax hike, all 700 billion, and his buddies at ACORN already spent it.

And, then we have Obama, walking into the presidency by virtue of being the last man standing. Again, like 1976, he’s the only Democratic candidate that can realistically win. His competition was Hill, whose political career was only possible by a name acquired in marriage. And, who is as corrupt as her husband. 

Then, we’ve got Edwards, our ambulance chasing friend from North Carolina. Thanks to the MSM, his love child peccadillo was hidden for something like a year. And, of course there was Senator Dodds from the great state of Countrywide.

Attributed to Mark Twain, profanity provides relief denied even in prayer. But, while in the heat of the moment, ventilating anger feels incredibly good, you generally regret the outburst for having said or done things you wished you hadn’t. A lot of people are going to vote for Obama for “change.” For the feel good opportunity to “stick it” to Washington and “throw out the bums.” But, with Obama in the White House, there’s going to be one heck of a hangover on January 21st.