... strongly influenced/informed by kids with cams and their budds on YouTube?

Well, God bless them.

Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, and after a $160,000 instruction at some playground, they've mastered a Flip and the art of weekend editing.

Let me suspend all disbelief, and just roll with the idea that Mr. Microphone isn't inserting his drinking buddies in with all the edited quotes. Why, rest assured, nobody who has graduated from Aparatchik 101 would ever stoop to such manufactured propagandizing. Seriously.

Because I'm an idiot, too.

What is it that is claimed we can learn from this 'Sarah Palin Supporters' video...about who?

MP4 encoders are the new spraypaint.

Sarah Palin would be a perfectly adequate state plumber. She'd be a terrible emperor of the universe/Runner of 'The' Economy.

And, that defines what's underneath the jr. high sensibiities driving the debate about her.

Boycott Copenhagen

Any deal at the Copenhagen climate summit will be more about politics than science. President Obama should stay away

Sarah Palin
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 9 December 2009

With the publication of damaging emails from a climate research center in Britain, the radical environmental movement appears to face a tipping point. The revelation of appalling actions by so-called climate change experts allows the American public to finally understand the concerns so many of us have articulated on this issue.

"Climate-gate," as the emails and other documents from the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia have become known, exposes a highly politicised scientific circle – the same circle whose work underlies efforts at the Copenhagen climate change conference. The agenda-driven policies being pushed in Copenhagen won't change the weather, but they would change our economy for the worse.

The emails reveal that leading climate "experts" deliberately destroyed records, manipulated data to "hide the decline" in global temperatures, and tried to silence their critics by preventing them from publishing in peer-reviewed journals. What's more, the documents show that there was no real consensus even within the CRU crowd. Some scientists had strong doubts about the accuracy of estimates of temperatures from centuries ago, estimates used to back claims that more recent temperatures are rising at an alarming rate...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/comm...
......................................................................................................................

Post re-directed to my blog.

...an opportunist constantly in campaign mode, but absolutely crap in even achieving the things he claims he wants to achieve.

If Tony Blair was in opposition when the Iraq war began you can be sure he would have opposed it. Remember that his other policies when he was in opposition were to be anti-nuclear power and anti-police state. However as soon as he was elected he reversed his position and became one of the greatest ever promoters of the police state and nuclear power this country has ever seen.

The one big difference is that Blair won elections by appealing to the conservative middle class.

Obama, on the other hand is still trying to appeal to the trendy lefties. That is a strategy bound to fail.

However, the next election is not for him to win, but his opponent potentially to lose.

This is the end of Mike Huckabee

PARKLAND, Wash. – A man with an extensive criminal past — whose 95-year prison sentence was commuted in Arkansas nearly a decade ago — was being sought Sunday as a "person of interest" in a deadly ambush on four police officers who were gunned down inside a coffee shop.
Pierce County sheriff's spokesman Ed Troyer told reporters that Maurice Clemmons, 37, was one of several people investigators want to talk to and that he could not be called a suspect at this point.
In a news release, the sheriff's office said Clemmons has an extensive violent criminal history from Arkansas, including aggravated robbery and theft. Clemmons also recently was arrested and charged in Pierce County in Washington state for third-degree assault on a police officer, and second-degree rape of a child.

In 1989, Clemmons, then 17, was convicted in Little Rock for aggravated robbery. He was paroled in 2000 after then-Gov. Mike Huckabee commuted Clemmons' 95-year prison sentence. Huckabee, who was criticized during his run for the Republican presidential nomination in 2008 for the number of clemencies and commutations he granted, cited Clemmons' age at the time of the sentence.

...on the the viral video chart this week.

Made by lefties to ridicule Palin supporters as being right-wing hicks without a clue.

That is the perception she would have to fight to win a Presidential election.

It may be insurmountable.

Here's a video circulating now that captures comments from folks lining up outside a bookstore on the Going Rogue tour. Freedom is on these people's minds, and they speak plainly of their understanding of Sarah Palin's philosophy.

I see a ripe opportunity for Objectivists to raise the pitch of reason in the Palin constituency . . . to help some of these folks fill in the blanks.

Fred Bartlett asks, "How would a country bumpkin Lincoln be perceived through today's junior-high sensibilities 'presidential' prism?"

If Lincoln was a bumpkin, then Sarah Palin is a rhetorical genius.

WSS

James:

We're electing state plumbers, not 'runners of the entire nation.'

ref: We The Living.

Of course we need the plumbing/state, but we don't let plumbers rule our lives.

The collectivists/totalitarians have the nation convinced that what we need is a Leader Maximus, someone to 'RUN THE NATION"... to run 'THE' Economy. The myth of 'presidential' is a political term foisted on us by the Leader Maximus crowd, those looking for an emperor to RUN THE NATION.

Nonsense. What a free nation needs is honorable plumbers to keep the plumbing of state running cleanly. Paint the double yellow lines fairly down the middle of the road. The nation will run its own lives, thank-you. We'll drive ourselves, we don't need to be told where or what or when or for what reason to drive, and thank you for the great job with those double yellow lines well painted, they are quite helpful to all of us.

Palin would make a damn cute state plumber: her most appealing quality is that she understands she's running for chief state plumber, not emperor of the USA, and for sure, not emperor of the Free World.

How would a country bumpkin Lincoln be perceived through today's junior-high sensibilities 'presidential' prism?

It's hard to imagine looking at the CronyFest on the Potomac and conclude that what is needed is just one more Ivy Leager, as if we're just one shy of utopia. Please.

Linz,

No, I don't consider Palin to be a redneck. I don't consider George W. Bush to be one either. But the U.S. Republican party is in thrall to a social conservative, Bible Belt ethos. Bush pandered to that in South Carolina in 2000 and Palin has pandered to that.

I'm hoping for anything but Obama, but the Republicans won't get that with Palin. Some of it is not her fault. People in the U.S. are so sick of the incompetence of the second term of W that they won't vote for anything that looks or smells like that however misguided the alternatives may be.

Jim

Do you consider Palin a redneck? I'm not clear from your last post.

Do you consider Heartland America = Redneck America? I'd consider Redneck America to be a Democrat fringe of Heartland America (KKK types are usually Dems, no?), and an aberration.

Perhaps Heartland America should be renamed Tea Party America. The types I see there, while holding some conservative positions an Objectivist would disagree with, are not totalitarians. They oppose gay marriage but don't want to criminalise gays. They seem to confine their opposition to abortion to federally-funded, late-term abortion (in which case I agree with them). They know the necessity of a strong defence, small government, low taxes and the rest, and seem to be conversant with the Declaration of Independence. Even though Tea Party America may fall short, I'll certainly be rooting for it over Airhead America ... at least, while institutional Objectivism disdains politics.

Ted,

I'm not in the hate Palin brigade. I think she helped McCain's cause in the last election. She was just the kind of youthful counterbalance he needed. She's just not presidential. None of the people on Linz's list with the possible exception of Mitt Romney, who I desperately hope is not the nominee, has a chance in a head to head matchup with Obama.

If the Republicans persist in being the party of redneck, they are going to lose. The last time the Republicans won a convincing victory in a presidential election it was 1988 and it was because the opponent wasn't credible. After everyone saw Dukakis look like an idiot in that tank video it was game over.

Jim

Okay, James-Pauline "I don't know anyone who voted for Nixon" Heaps-Kael-Nelson, we know where you stand. But I know atheists with doctorates who voted for McCain Palin only because Palin was on the ticket.

No one is saying that Palin is a Christopher Hitchens. But Christopher Hitchens is still a socialist, no matter how sharp, posh and edumacated. Is it not conceivable that the reason Palin's rambling is so striking is not that it differs from the mental processes of many other politicians, but that she has simply not spent years practicing how to hide what's going on in her head? I want to know only one thing about Palin. Has she ever said anything that was morally objectionable?

Palinophobes Hate First, Ask Questions Later

By Jonah Goldberg

Slate magazine is just one of the countless media outlets convulsing with St. Vitus' Dance over that demonic succubus Sarah Palin. In its reader forum, The Fray, one supposed Palinophobe took dead aim at the former Alaska governor's writing chops, excerpting the following sentence from her book:

"The apartment was small, with slanting floors and irregular heat and a buzzer downstairs that didn't work, so that visitors had to call ahead from a pay phone at the corner gas station, where a black Doberman the size of a wolf paced through the night in vigilant patrol, its jaws clamped around an empty beer bottle."

Other readers pounced like wolf-sized Dobermans on an intruder. One guffawed, "That sentence by Sarah Palin could be entered into the annual Bulwer-Lytton bad writing contest. It could have a chance at winning a (sic) honorable mention, at any rate."

But soon, the original contributor confessed: "I probably should have mentioned that the sentence quoted above was not written by Sarah Palin. It's taken from the first paragraph of ‘Dreams From My Father,' written by Barack Obama."

The ruse should have been allowed to fester longer, but the point was made nonetheless: Some people hate Palin first and ask questions later.

...is no Reagan.

Not by the longest shot.

When she can write and deliver a speech like Ronnie did as far back as the 60s, then I'll say she's got the right stuff.

At the moment she's filling a vacuum. No harm in that, but, Lawdy, give us someone with a killer determination who's prepared to go down with the ship.

You're not going to win a presidential election by appealing only to voters who could be extras on HeeHaw or Strange Brew. Politicians who aren't quite ready for prime time should take the time to polish their craft until they are. Also, what's with the whining about the McCain campaign? Would we even be talking about her if they had selected someone else?

Jim

Well said Ted!

I got an idea. Let's put all the smart guys in one building and let them run the country. What? It's been tried... ?

Missed it too. But she'll never win on the 'smart' front and I think it plays to her strength to let it linger and let her actions speak.

Yeah, what we really need is a smart politician, maybe a well spoken, pensive graduate of a an Ivy League School, someone who wrote a book before he became president...

Lord save us from "smart" men. Integrity takes integrity, not "intelligence."

One does not need to be a brain scientist (and one evidently cannot be a Harvard lawyer) in order to uphold one's oath to defend the Constitution.

But let's face it, she's not smart enough, but she'd get some things right. There could be less than a handful of politicians in the world who are smart enough to impress.

... seemed a bit piss-weak with O'Reilly, but it's hard to judge fairly when the interview was so heavily edited and post-produced. She would have created a headline and earned huge brownie points if she'd answered his "Are you smart enough ..." question with a simple "Yes," instead of tying herself up in knots and reinforcing the impression that maybe she's not smart enough.

The media is out of touch, except for Fox, and are losing money. She plugs into that authentic heartland - the tea party folk. Being independent now, she's putting the acid on both Obama's agenda and the Repubs at the same time. She's taking the limelight and no Repub up for election in 2010 will want to be on the wrong side of her. Obama's weakness in all matters grows more apparent every week, and we know his policies will fail. She's positioned herself with all the options, whether she runs for prez or not. (Dumb broad huh?) For one, she will clean out the Repub old boys or RINOS. She's already bypassed the media and they will be chasing her, not she them. She's proved she don't need them. And they have to chase her now, to stay in biz, like it or not. Fascinating.

Obama would be very scared. He's fading within a year, the problems multiply & not much gets done & his presidential limelight is gettin' stolen by a hockey mom from Alaska who ain't in government anyplace. And she don't look like she's going away. Game on. Fun times.

I too prefer 'lightweights.'

I like Marco Rubio a lot. I hope he beats out Crist in the primary for the Florida Senate seat. My favorite for president among viable mainstream candidates would be Judd Gregg, a low key fiscal conservative who isn't a religious nut.

Jim

The naive optimist in me always looks for a candidate who'll at least slow the gallop toward tyranny. "Lightweight"? They said the same of Reagan and Thatcher. When self-proclaimed "critical thinkers" in the illiberal lamestream media (Sarah's name for it) call someone a lightweight, you know that person has something going for him or her.

Wottabout this guy?

http://www.rightpundits.com/?p...

Cute, too!

O'Reilly/Palin Pt 2 in a few minutes.

A further thought: 2012—Airhead America vs. Heartland America.

Linz,

Palin is a lightweight. Her problem is not CNN, the MSM, or bad press. Her problem is that political independents in the US don't think she's qualified. I don't think it's like Reagan's affected aw shucks attitude either. She's either an idiot or severely undereducated. She also has no big state constituency such as Texas, California, Florida, Illinois etc.

The important goal right now is the 2010 congressional elections. I predict a strong recovery for Republicans.

Jim

Bloomberg is a favorite of the liberal media. He's a smarmy fascist of the middle. He bankrolled a campaign to institute term limits while Rudy Giuliani was mayor. Giuliani would have won re-election for a third term handily, but he couldn't very well campaign against term limits. Bloomberg, a life-long Democrat, changed to Republican when he saw the vacuum left after Giuliani's departure. Bloomberg promised when he ran that if elected he would not raise taxes and that he would only serve one term. He said nothing whatsoever about cigarettes or other "health" issues when he ran. The Democrats had had a particularly bruising race for their party's nomination. The favored candidate before the primary was the long serving Bronx County President Freddy Ferrer who won the primary with a plurality. In the runnof he was defeated by the "not ferrer" candidate, the Hillary-like Mark Green. Bloomberg took advantage of the outrage among Latino democrats, and spent millions of his own money carpeting the Bronx and Spanish Harlem in Spanish Language advertising and pretended to be able to speak Spanish in TV ads. He won the election.

His first acts as mayor were to raise property taxes by 30% while making no significant cuts to city spending except to close the libraries on Saturdays. He then donated his own money to reopen them. Then he had the city council raise the tax on a pack of cigarettes to $4.25, an issue upon which he had not campaigned and never spoken. He would not have been elected otherwise. The day after his cigarette tax went into effect, the street corners of New York City were flooded with black market menthols. He has also led campaigns to ban trans-fats and has passed other intrusive "I know better than you" legislation.

Reneging on his campaign pledge to seek only one term, he said that the city was in such bad shape (after his first four years in office?) that he had to run again. After the election he declared himself an independent, no longer a Republican in name only.

He personally shot down rebuilding the Twin Towers, running a sham campaign to install the "hip" but untried post modern Daniel Libeskind to design the shameful "Freedom Tower" replacement. Bloomberg is highly invested in real estate. A quickly rebuilt and successful WTC would be a competitor of his.

Then it turned out that Bloomberg determined that his own re-election to a third term was an absolute necessity. He bankrolled a campaign to have term limits overturned. He had little resistance from a city council which was all too happy to extend its own stay in power.

Mayor Bloomberg is one of the most evil politicians in the United States. His legacy is corruption, high taxes, nany state regulation and personal hypocrisy.

She'll win *because* of the media-hate!

The media are out of touch. It's why, apart from Fox, they're all plummeting. CNN is in free-fall. Wotta shame!

"Heartland America," for all the lummoxes it harbours, is decent, and proud, and individualistic. It sees through phonies and doesn't like being trodden on. It has no affinity for self-professed "critical thinkers" and their pomowanking pin-ups.

She acquitted herself well with O'Reilly today, but it was a dumb interview about O'Reilly's own silly preoccupations. Pt 2, tomorrow, apparently is about the tuff stuff. Tune in!!

...someone like Margaret Thatcher was not hated to that extent by left-wingers and the media before she became Prime-Minister.

Look at all the smears against Palin by the MSM for just publishing this book.

Newsweek's strap-line was - "She's bad news for the GOP - and everyone else, too."

I don't know if it is possible for a Presidential Candidate to overcome that much media-hate.

... it'll be Palin, if the reaction to her newly launched book is any indication. She has the star quality that the others lack. Plus she pisses off pretentious "liberal" grotesqueries and pomowankers. I'm looking forward to it.

Of course it's early days still, but wouldn't we be aware of any other rising star by now?

Bloomberg anyone?
.......................................................................

Barack Obama is beatable - but by whom?

The Republicans have a fundamental problem: they don't have a leader to capitalise on Barack Obama's weakness, says Simon Heffer.

By Simon Heffer
06 Nov 2009

A year on from its meltdown in the Obama landslide, the Republican Party has cause to celebrate. As predicted, it won two state governorships this week – and that was predicted because of the disillusionment with the image machine that is President Obama and his chums. Those victories, in states Mr Obama won last year, Virginia and New Jersey, have caused not just many Republicans, but also their acolytes in the press, to proclaim they are on the road back, and that the spectre of George W Bush no longer hangs over them.

Perhaps they are right: but things don’t look entirely wonderful for them.

Like our Tories, the Republicans are finding it hard to avoid a civil war over ideology. A more significant electoral result, in this respect, came in a congressional by-election in New York state. There were effectively two Republicans on the ballot – a moderate, pro-abortion one called Dede Scozzafava, and one supported by most local Republicans, but running under the banner of the Conservative Party, Doug Hoffman. Last Sunday Miss Scozzafava withdrew from the race and said she would back the Democratic candidate. Her name was already on the ballot, she registered 5 per cent of the vote, and the Democrat won.

Those who have said that this shows the American people don’t want a Reagan-style Republican Party are, however, just plain wrong. Miss Scozzafava did not withdraw because she was popular: she withdrew because she was about to be thrashed out of sight. However, the battle over just how far to the Right the Republicans should be is one that is going to run, and cause problems, right up to the day in the summer of 2012 when their candidate is formally nominated to take on Mr Obama...

Mayor Bloomberg is a model for MPs

The other victor here this week – though by a surprisingly small margin – was Michael Bloomberg, now three times Mayor of New York. He is back in City Hall, despite two problems many locals seemed to have with him: first, he changed the rules so he wasn’t limited to two terms, and second, he threw anything up to $100 million of his $18 billion fortune at the contest. However, New Yorkers should stop whining. Their vastly improved city is a showpiece to the world largely because it is run by a serious businessman, not by a professional politician of the sort he defeated. Might there be a lesson for us, to avoid politicians who go into the game to make money, rather than after they have made it? I think so...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/com...

"But Iraq as a threat and warranting a full scale war, let alone an invasion or occupation, is ridiculous."

Iraq was a threat in the Middle East. A full scale war, invasion, occupation? With hindsight unwarranted, true. Only a properly constituted government put in place after invasion and cleaning up might have worked. They should have taken out the aggressors, destroyed any military machine, and stuck a semi-permanent structure in to run it before 'handing it back.'

"And your facts are quite off in 'Iraq's interest was in perpetuating the anti-freedom dirt-worshipping Shiite whatever-shite barbarism.' Despite having a Shia majority, Iraq under Saddam was primarily ruled by less religiously zealous Sunni muslims. Saddam's rule was also relatively secular,"

Yes my facts are off, that's why I said "whatever-shite." Instead of Sunni barbarism they had secular barbarism, principle's the same.

"without many moral prohibitions concerning drinking, roles of men and women, etc. common in middle eastern Islamic nations. He actually was condemned for this by some zealots, including one bin Laden, for turning his back on Islam." Yes I know all of this from a friend who has children with a Kuwaiti. He travelled over there during the Kuwait invasion to get them out and succeeded.

"It's only been after toppling Hussein and US bringing the sacred cow of democracy to Iraq that the Shia majority has been gaining power and there's significant risk of becoming more like Iran." True, see above. America could do with a similar clean out.

Of late, since having a child of my own, I've been watching some children's films.

Anyway, in the film Madagascar there is one scene in which the monkeys escape from the Central Park zoo.

One monkey says to the other one who can only use sign language:

"I heard Tom Wolfe is speaking at Lincoln Center."

The other signs something back and the second monkey responds.

"Well, of course we're going to throw poo at him."

I don't know why the film-maker's decided to pick on the Journalist/ Novelist Tom Wolfe. Perhaps because he supported George Bush and the Iraq war?

Anyway, interesting is that in the German version, they remove the Tom Wolfe reference, supposedly because he is not know in German speaking countries.

So the translation goes like this:

"I heard Hillary Clinton is speaking at Lincoln Center."

"Well, of course we're going to throw poo at her."

I thought that was quite a fascinating, but hilarious change. Who would have thought it? Germans of all people making a joke at Clinton's expense?

While I'd generally support Ron Paul - or Peikoff or maybe even Glenn Beck - the only person on your list with an *actual* chance is Romney. Sadly, I expect Obama to be a two termer and that you should put the likes of Hillary '16 on the list as well. May God come into existence just so he could have mercy on our souls.

Aaron

Iraq, after the end of a bloody 8 year war where the US supported them and looked the other way about chemical weapon usage, invaded Kuwait in a dispute over borders drawn arbitrarily by a foreign power 80 years prior. This move put the aggressive nation only 8000 miles and a Bering Strait crossing away from invading Alaska, so clearly a preemptive war was necessary in self-defense.

Please. Saddam was a murderous bastard who anyone had to moral right to put down like a rabid dog. This was the case in the '00s, the '90s, back in the '80s when Rumsfeld was chummy with him. But Iraq as a threat and warranting a full scale war, let alone an invasion or occupation, is ridiculous.

And your facts are quite off in 'Iraq's interest was in perpetuating the anti-freedom dirt-worshipping Shiite whatever-shite barbarism.' Despite having a Shia majority, Iraq under Saddam was primarily ruled by less religiously zealous Sunni muslims. Saddam's rule was also relatively secular, without many moral prohibitions concerning drinking, roles of men and women, etc. common in middle eastern Islamic nations. He actually was condemned for this by some zealots, including one bin Laden, for turning his back on Islam. It's only been after toppling Hussein and US bringing the sacred cow of democracy to Iraq that the Shia majority has been gaining power and there's significant risk of becoming more like Iran.

Aaron

"what was Iraq’s interest in attacking the USA, or to see harm to her?"

Iraq's interest was in perpetuating the anti-freedom dirt-worshipping Shiite whatever-shite barbarism. That meant Israel was the target. Not America directly although that was in fact perpetrated by scum of Iraq's ilk, and without a doubt supported by Hussein, (no not Barack).

"What was the motive? Generally speaking, what is in the interest of any country invading another…to what end and by what means?"

Look I'll give you a quick summation. Generally a country invades another because its socialist economics has forced it to expand its 'enterprise' and plunder the next available vessel.

A moral defense of invading a country is to dismantle and KILL the inhabitants involved in acts of aggression, or planned attacks of invading country. Got a problem with that? But I'm listening to some nice piano and may not reply tonight.

"Are you kidding me? Iraq was justified on the grounds of self-defense. It wasn't an altruist mistake like Vietnam."

Specifically, as you understand the issues—what was Iraq’s interest in attacking the USA, or to see harm to her? What was the motive? Generally speaking, what is in the interest of any country invading another…to what end and by what means?

Iraq invaded Kuwait and there was potential for more of the same despite WMD being well hidden/transported/unfound.

Leftie acqaintances who'd been through the mind molesting Universities liked to say to me that the Iraq war was about oil. I'd say "yes it was, if it wasn't for oil, oil to which Western technology allowed Arabs access, Saddam Hussein wouldn't have acquired the wealth to become the threat so as to be worth taking on."

The war cost a hell of a lot, but not as much as the price of not waging it.

Obama has demonstrably shown that such expenses were mere chickenfeed in his scheme of "Change America."

Are you kidding me? Iraq was justified on the grounds of self-defense. It wasn't an altruist mistake like Vietnam.

The US felt safe with a strutting bravado invading Iraq because the Iraqi government had been largely disarmed by 15 years of sanctions and so could not retaliate.

"I'm glad Bush was in charge post 9/11. When you walk through a rough part of town you take your rottweiler not the poodle. Poor US foreign policy going back years caused the situation."

Really? Haha, take a step back...look at the forest. The caricature-like idea that nomadic mobs of thugs will successfully "take over" a stateless society is a surprisingly popular notion in "intellectual" circles, given the disasters we see every day in Iraq - but invasions are never profitable unless subsidized by the taxpayers of the invading army’s government.

From a mere financial standpoint, Iraq is a fiscal disaster. This proves that even invading one of the most oil-rich countries in the world doesn’t pay. Iraq was invaded only because the costs of the invasion are entirely borne by taxpayers and that permits billions to be tapped off to the military, state agencies and private corporations.

The same is true for all occupations in history, from the Roman, British and French Empires to the Eastern Bloc to the Iraq occupation. Taxpayers are forced to pay with money and blood, while billions are stolen through subsidies and contracts. The real target in any war is not foreign troops, but domestic taxpayers. War is a means to an end: the end being the looting of the public purse.

You are glad, eh?

darling, we'd each like our minimal government - or in your case non-existent government by contractors not known as government employees and therefore, gee swell, - but I was talking about the system you're saddled with. Nothing wrong with voting.

I'm glad Bush was in charge post 9/11. When you walk through a rough part of town you take your rottweiler not the poodle. Poor US foreign policy going back years caused the situation.

I'll have to add Bush wasn't nearly good enough either.

Yes. They voted Bush is twice. Not only that...they...um...vote in general.

...that's very dark humor.

And very possible.

As a pacifist Russell would indeed have been morally unfit, but obviously that's obviously no cause for a supreme court case. I don't think anyone except pundits knows who he is at this point. Think, rather, how we treat Hitchens. And I assume you know that it was the boys from South Park who gave Dawkins the rough treatment.

Here is the infamous Go, God, Go episode if you need the link.

I really was most curious as to what are your sources. Do you read RCP, for example, to which I linked above? You should. Sowell, Wills, Krauthammer, Steyn, these will give you an accurate view of the influential right. Coulter strays into looney land, and is usually good for a laugh, either with or at her.

The bottom line with the stem cell stuff is that its a good pandering issue with which to distract from lack of substance in other areas. Note, for example, that Bush only banned federal funding for new lines developed after a certain date. He would never have had the ability to shut down research and there was no real call for it.

Most of the conservatives I know are Christians. Most of them love Palin. None of them is excited because she is a Christian. The average conservative is annoyed that we have court cases trying to remove crosses from WWI gravestones or trying to prevent individual from making religious statements in public venues. Maybe one in twenty conservatives actually really wants an expansion of religion or an institution of official school prayer.

I have formed most of my opinions from Doctor Who, (mostly Tom Baker) One Foot in the Grave, and As Time Goes By, so I am sure I have a most accurate view of Britain.

I assume you have heard of South Park conservatives.

...how I got it wrong.

However, I based my opinion on the case of the British Philosopher Bertrand Russell.

He was forced from his post of Professor of Philosophy at the College of the City of New York, after a New York Supreme court ruling in 1940 that he was 'morally' unfit to teach philosophy.

This was caused by a media frenzy drummed up William T. Manning, the Episcopal Bishop of New York, who complained of Russell’s advocacy of 'sex before marriage' and 'atheism'.

How times have changed, eh?

Do you remember, the great controversy over the use of embryonic stem cells in research during the Presidency of Clinton and Bush?

When Obama removed the block in state funding for stem cell research this year, there was barely a fart of protest from the religious right - or perhaps the media just ignores them now.

Ever since, George Bush and the Iraq war fell out of favour in the US, the religious right appears to have gone completely silent (or been silenced).

I didn't anticipate that when I made my prediction about Dawkin's God Delusion, that there had been such a shift of power in the states to the left.

...Wen Jiabao, but does it count if he takes office by way of a foreclosure?

I remember, Marcus, your prediction that Dawkins' books would be burned in the streets when God Delusion was published.

What is your source for reading American opinion? Our depiction in the BBC and the British Press? Do you read RealClearPolitics? Do you watch Special Report on Fox News? (I am not challenging you, I am expressing curiosity.)

Palin most certainly has a very good chance at unseating Obama. (And I do believe Beck could do it if he wanted, he'd have my vote.)

Your assertion that Americans wouldn't vote out Obama because he's black is simply unfounded, (or founded on a view of America distorted by the left,) on par with the prediction of the coming Dawkins book burnings. I don't think anyone (except the chattering left who characterize his critics as racists) actually actively thinks of him as black. It's a total non-issue except with the lunatic left.

and hyperinflation's devaluing their income thanks to his fiat currency fetish, and the inevitable downside of his taxation regime biting into productivity, combined with the general international view of him being a simpleton - the Chinese, Russians and Moslems laugh at him - I can't see it.

Could US voters be that dumb twice? (Crikey when I was young we all joked about the stereotypical stupid American.)

...if the current events continue in this direction, then Obama is going to be completely powerless on the domestic front when the Republicans are swept to victory in both houses. Frankly, he's having a pretty piss-poor showing now when he should be the cat who got the cream.

That means he going to focus on being an international 'statesman'. The rest of the world is more than happy for him to fill this role.

So come the next Presidential election, Obama will no longer be tied to his domestic failures, but will be touting his overseas popularity.
His party will start calling him a 'historic' (i.e. black) President who is liked overseas.

With the Republicans in control on the domestic front, and Obama vetoing the odd bill here and there and sometimes negotiating compromises, he will say this proves how bipartisan he was all along.

US voters will lap it up.

...I'm wiser than you imagine

Wise.

...Gingrich interviewed post Virgina and NJ.

He's still playing the old game re Reps good, Dems bad.

Dumb.

If the Republicans don't fully embrace this current groundswell that the likes of Beck and the Tea Party-ers have created, then they will blow it.

Actually, they need to sell the idea of freedom to the youngsters. The old are, well, old, and their current voting power will soon evaporate, replaced by the aging 60s deadheads.

Obama can be relegated to an anomaly, but only if they move fast.

Frankly, I don't hold out much hope.

"the US public likes the idea of having a 'black' President. It wouldn't look good 'historically' to vote him out."
You kidding me? They'll kick his black ass as far as they can!

...his hair is disingenuous.

Besides, his name is a breed of sheep.

...has a snowballs chance in hell of being elected as President.

The Presidential candidate with a chance has yet to emerge.

I voted for Glenn Beck, on the assumption that the question regards who I'd like to see in the Whitehouse.

Of course there is a good chance that Obama will be re-elected with Republican majorities in both houses - just because the US public likes the idea of having a 'black' President. It wouldn't look good 'historically' to vote him out.

Romney would be a McCain repeat. Jindal and Pawlenty are ciphers as yet. Gingrich is a possibility, and I wish Giuliani would run, but he had the nomination in the bag in 2008 and forfeited by not even trying to contest Iowa and then letting the media declare him defeated by the third of fifty primaries. I doubt Huckabee will run.

Palin is the only serious name you have posted who will run, has recognition and could win.

Of course I would love Beck to run. Palin/Gingrich Palin/Giuliani and Palin/Thompson have their attractions, while none of the men seems the second fiddle type. Of course Cheney was very influential.

The big problem with a Palin/Gingrich run is that Gingrich exacerbates her religious focus. Gingrich is huge on a "school prayer" amendment which he has repeatedly said is his highest priority.

There is no Reagan or Goldwater. Palin is a Republican Bill Clinton, flawed, but a sexy charismatic winner.