Posts Tagged ‘history’

Three words for Susan Estrich: James Knox Polk

Posted: August 10, 2010 by datechguy in Uncategorized
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That is the answer to her piece about one terms presidents.

Winning may not be the only thing, but in politics, it’s the thing that makes everything else possible.

That is actually a pretty solid statement and the next two are significant as well:

Being a one-term president is a badge of failure, not success, even if it comes by being true to your convictions.

Being a one-term president means that, for the next term, someone who rejects those convictions will be making the decisions that count. How can that be a good thing?

KingGold not withstanding she makes an important point (remember Polk didn’t run for re-election) you need both convictions and the willingness and ability to make your case to the American People to succeed in the White House. The fact that Polk comes to mind so quickly makes her case since when you have only a single exception to prove a rule false, it’s usually a pretty good general rule. (There is also Grover Cleveland who after losing due to following his convictions defeated the person who beat him four years later.) Her argument fails for a totally different reason; she is making the wrong case.

Susan thinks the problem is being so true to his convictions, that people are forgetting the second part of the equation here.

She is misreading these people, the leftists lionizing one term presidency are trying to make lemonade out of lemons.

The problem is not that president Obama doesn’t know how to make a case to the American People, he does, it’s that he has made his case for months and America has rejected it.

They have rejected it not because he didn’t make it properly, but because if you put dogfood on a cracker and call it Hors d’œuvres, no matter how you sell it, it’s still tastes like dogfood on a cracker.

Joe Scarborough in command at Spotsylvania Court House

Posted: August 9, 2010 by datechguy in Afghanistan war, opinion/news
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On Morning Joe again today Joe Scarborough brought out his favorite number “50 Al qaeda” when talking about Afghanistan and if we should be there. (it was not the most ridiculous statement of the show as a guest talked how it costs $1 mil per GI there saying we should spend it on their people instead as if a ten man medical team was not just slaughtered there two days ago) Every time the subject of Afghanistan is brought up the 50 al-Qaeda number is trumpeted by Joe in his argument that we should cut and run withdraw.

By an odd coincidence I was re-reading about the Battle of Spotsylvania Court House this weekend. It was a seminal moment in the war because Grant after being defeated soundly at the Wilderness instead of retreating as other Union generals did raced for Spotsylvania to get around Lee by the left. Grant’s troops raced for the courthouse in the hope of getting there first.

James Longstreet had been badly wounded and his division was now under the command of the unexciting Richard Anderson. Anderson’s division, not renowned for speed, raced for the same point on a road that was being cleared even as he marched

At Spotsylvania the Cavalry of course got there first. There was a clash at a rail pile where Confederates defended against the Union Cavalry trying to dislodge them but the infantry was just behind them. When the first Union elements arrived General Warren (one of the heroes of Gettysburg told his Brigadier John Robinson to attack informing him that there was nothing but dismounted cavalry ahead of him.
It was true at the time he said it but between that moment and the time of attack, the first infantry brigades made it to the line, beating the union troops there by less than a minutes and insuring that the massive bloodshed that the country had gone through for 3 years would be prolonged for at least one more.

Under the Joe Scarborough theory of warfare there will never be anything more than Fitz Lee’s dismounted cavalry in front of the rail piles and all decisions to be made should be on that basis. There will always be just 50 Al Qaeda in Afghanistan and the Taliban are not our business.

I like Joe but lucky for us the tactical and strategic decisions in Afghanistan are not his.

Reagan and the Republican Establishment

Posted: August 6, 2010 by datechguy in opinion/news
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Big Government tell me I’m apparently not the only person who remembers the Republican Establishment’s reaction to Reagan:

You had to live through it to recognize the metamorphosis. During those early days of June 2004, as the nation mourned the passing of Ronald Reagan, you would have never known he had been ridiculed and treated with disdain for most of his political career—not only by Democrats but by establishment Republicans. Frankly, I was stunned by the display of love and gratitude in 2004.

As the Reagan motorcade drove toward the Reagan Library for the final tribute, ordinary citizens along the route were paying their final tributes as well. It was an amazing moment.

But it was not always so.

Yet another testament to the great love the Republicans have for members of their party who are actually capable of winning elections. Somehow he sees the same parallel with Palin that I do.

Imagine that!

You know I keep wanting to get off of the Bainbridge topic…

Posted: August 5, 2010 by datechguy in elections, opinion/news, politics, tea parties
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…really I do, but the news of the day doesn’t allow it. Example from Ruby Slippers:

An early look at Schneller’s nominating petitions, which are still being reviewed by pa2010.com iin full, shows that Schneller couldn’t have gathered the required 4,200 signatures without help from Democrats. Schneller himself collected only about 3,200 signatures. Almost all of the remaining 4,800 signatures were gathered by registered Democrats, many of whom have clear ties to Lentz. Many of the Democrats who circulated petitions for Schneller are party insiders and activists who would surely find Schneller’s political beliefs to be distasteful at best. Schneller is a staunch conservative who has dabbled in the so-called “Birther” movement that questions President Obama’s signature.

The Tea Party has in fact endorsed republican Pat Meehan and has no interest in Schneller but as politico reports this would not have been possible without the Lentz campaign:

The Democrats who helped gather the signatures include Colleen Guiney, the chairwoman of the Swarthmore Democratic Party and a Lentz supporter; Nicholas Allred, who works for the Swarthmore College Democrats and Rocco Polidoro, among others, according to secretary of state filings.

National review calls it a stench in Pa-7. Actually this is a very old political hardball tactic, not much different than Limbaugh’s “operation chaos“.

If you are going to run for office, particularly if you are threatening the use of the Treasury as a piggy bank to buy votes of course you are going to get people using any legal tactic to stop you and you’d better be ready to fight fire with fire. Why the RNC isn’t getting Naderites on the ballot all over states like Calif and MA is actually beyond me.

memeorandum thread here

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