January 31, 2007

The Number One Problem With Political Consultants

Newt Gingrich at the National Review Institute's Conservative Summit last weekend had some great advice for Republican candidates:

Always talk personally first, historically second, and politically last. This is the number one problem with the consultant class. They get up every morning and read Hotline, then they go to Drudge, then they talk politics all day. And then because they have no idea what the average American thinks or does they try to write a clever attack commercial because they haven't got anything postive to say. That is fundamentally wrong.

Pledge Update

Nearly 31,500 people have signed The Pledge to not support any Republican senator running for re-election who votes for any resolution that amounts to less than 100-percent commitment to victory in Iraq. Hugh Hewitt has the latest on the Pledge and the various resolutions being pushed by defeatist Democrats and retreatist Republicans in the U.S. Senate who, somehow, think it's a good idea to go on record opposing the sending of reinforcements to the American troops fighting in the central combat theatre of the War on Terror.

I don't understand why some senators are pushing any sort of nonbinding resolution to express the Senate's dislike of the new military strategy in Iraq. The general leading our forces in Iraq says such a resolution will embolden our enemy. The Secretary of Defense concurs.

Senators who feel strongly about their opinion that the new military strategy won't work - or who support it - are perfectly capable of issuing a press release, and reading it into the Congressional Record, stating so. There is no need for a resolution - it won't affect policy though it will encourage the enemy. Such political grandstanding may well prolong the war and get more Americans and Iraqis killed.

Is that what the American people really want?

Boston Herald columnist Jules Crittenden has taken a look at public opinion polls and says what the majority of the American people really want in Iraq is victory. One poll found that 63 percent of Americans say they want the plan to succeed, including 79 percent of Republicans, 63 percent of independents and 51 percent of Democrats.

Conversely, that means 37 percent of Americans want the U.S. to fail in Iraq - including 40 percent of Democrats and 21 percent of Republicans. That's disgusting - no American should be rooting for defeat. But some are.

Still, the poll shows that most Americans favor American victory.

And there are signs already that the president's new military strategy may deliver, says Crittenden:

But if the majority of Americans wants us out of an intractable mess, the majority also would rather see us sort it out, if it is at all possible, and a lot of them think it is. That suggests Americans are waiting for signs of success, but presented only with reasons to despair, have agreed to do so.

The good news is, the signs of success are showing up fast. The mere suggestion of a serious crackdown has prompted its targets to run for cover. Moqtada al-Sadr is angling to get back into the political process. His Shiite militias men have hidden their weapons and are trying to act normal. Sunni insurgents are reportedly hightailing it to Diyala. Iran has signalled it wants positive engagement and negotiations, and is trying to look like a friendly neighbor to Iraq.

Those are only preliminary and temporary developments. But they represent a vote of confidence in the Bush plan from its target. The enemy has shown fear. The enemy does not want us to attack.

As Gen. Petraeus takes command and the new strategy is implemented in force, the majority of American people who long for success may begin to see it and support it.

James Baker, whose Iraq Study Group produced a series of truly bad ideas in December - a hasty withdrawal schedule and talks from a position of weakness with the very nations trying to force us out of Iraq - Tuesday said something very wise.

He told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee it made no sense to approve Gen. Petraeus’s appointment to command in Iraq while undercutting him with resolutions in defiance of his mission. And Baker, whose plan for Iraq has been largely pushed aside by the president, showed himself to be a big man with a sense of history and propriety when he told the senators they should give the president’s plan a chance to succeed.

Because if our elected leaders want to satisfy the masses and govern by poll, then they should aspire to satisfy the deep desire most Americans will state when asked. That’s the one that cuts sharply across measures of skepticism and despair. It is the poll result that says Americans want to win.

Greenpeace Vs. The Environmentalists

Click the play button to watch the head of Greenpeace tell lies about a mining project that would help pull a small Romanian village out of poverty, as he debates the issue with documentary film maker who, unlike the head of Greenpeace, has actually been to the village of Rosia Montana 12 times and talked to its residents.

Do the people of Rosia Montana really overwhelmingly oppose the proposed mine, as Greenpeace's John Passacantando asserts? No. More than two thirds of the affected property owners in the village have already voluntarily sold their land to the mining company - and many more have signed a letter urging approval of the mining project. Learn more about the documentary, Mine Your Own Business, at the film's website and blog. For more see the Persistence of Vision blog of the Motion Picture Institute, especially this post and this post.

The mining company will clean up the environment of the village if it is allowed to open the new mine, but it will remain heavily polluted if the mine is not allowed. Greenpeace won't clean it up. So... who are the real friends of the environment in this case? Not Greenpeace.

Related Bloggery:
Ed Driscoll comments on the "omnipotent tourist syndrome" and all those Lonely Planet-waving travel snobs who "whine about how some current or formerly misgoverned hellhole has been 'ruined' by" development.

Van Helsing writes, "The movie focuses on Rosia Montana, a dirt-poor Romanian village that foreign environmentalists want to stay that way, despite opportunities for gold mining that would provide hundreds of jobs. In addition to yelping about the ecosystem, envirokooks cite the "unique cultural and archaeological treasures in the area." In other words, they like the rustic peasants right where they are - charmingly starving in their wretched huts."

Meanwhile, via the blogosphere we learn that the mining company has opened a micro-credit financing company in Rosia Montana to help grow the small-business economy there. Greenpeace didn't do that. But, then, Greenpeace has been fighting against the economic progress of the people of Rosia Montana.

Note to readers in Southern California: There is a free screening of Mine Your Own Business tonight at UCLA. Click here for details.

Memo to the filmmakers: Please bring MYOB to Nashville.

A Good Idea Gains Momentum

Nashville City Paper writer John Rodgers reports that a proposal to give voters the responsibility of picking the state's four constitutional officers "could gain new momentum with Republicans and Sen. Rosalind Kurita now controlling the state Senate."

Under the state constitution the Legislature elects the treasurer, secretary of state and the comptroller, while the state Supreme Court picks the state attorney general. Sen. Kurita, the Clarksville Democrat who backed Republican Ron Ramsey for Senate Speaker, has long pushed amending the constitution to allow the people of Tennessee to elect those offices. The City Paper says many Republicans have been backing the popular election of the constitutional officers, and Kurita has newfound ties to the GOP.

I have always agreed with Kurita's view that the secretary of state and the attorney general ought to be elected by the people, though I had been less certain that the treasurer and comptroller should be elected. But last fall the supposedly "non-political" state treasurer and state comptroller engaged in partisan political campaigning, exposing themselves as political partisans whose reports related to the state's taxes, spending and other matters now must be viewed not as neutral and dispassionate reports but as partisan spin meant to further their party's legislative agenda.

Now that those supposedly non-political offices have been politicized, the partisan politicians that hold those jobs ought to have to face the voters.

See also: today's City Paper editorial.

Ethanol Push Fuels Higher Food Prices

Here's my latest over at the Ecotality blog, where I'm writing daily about alternative energy news and issues for Ecotality Inc: The ethanol pugsh is driving up food prices around the world - and ethanol production itself may be a threat to the environment. Also: a technology breakthrough for hydrogen fuel cells, while some folks are trying to hold back the wind. Today's shilling on behalf of sensible energy and envirnonmental policy is brought to you by Ecotality Inc. of Scottsdale, Arizona.

Trunk Show

Over at ElephantBiz.com today: Attack ads go online as ordinary people gain unprecedented power to impact campaigns. Also. Is Giuliani Big in Texas?

January 30, 2007

Warming Up to Global Warming

Here's my latest over at the Ecotality blog, where I'm writing daily about alternative energy news and issues for Ecotality Inc: sometimes global warming is good, while sometimes ethanol is bad. And there still is no silver bullet. Today's shilling for alternative energy and a cleaner environment has been brought to you by Ecotality Inc. of Scottsdale, Arizona.

January 29, 2007

Bloggers Gone Wild

ABC News has a fascinating story, headlined Blogging Gone Wild, out of the Virginia state legislature, where the minority Democratic Party is using modern video technology in its latest political tactic against the Republican majority. There's a lesson in this for Republicans in the Tennessee legislature...

Anger over Republicans killing bills without recording the vote, Democratic operatives began videotaping early morning and late-night statehouse proceedings and posting them on their assembly's blog and the Internet-based video site YouTube. "We're providing openness and access to Virginia government," said Mark Bergman, spokesman for the Virginia Democratic Party.

Bergman argues that the videos are the only way for Virginians to see these committee proceedings because the Republican majority changed the rules in 2006 to allow off-hour committee and subcommittee votes to go unrecorded. Last week, House Republicans in Virginia defeated a Democratic measure without recording the vote that would have raised the state's minimum wage.

"They are scheduling these major votes in the wee hours of the morning or late at night, when no one from the public or press is there to see it," Bergman said. "Two or three members could effectively kill a bill at 7:30…in the morning when nobody's there and there's no record of the vote."

Bergman said Virginia Democrats have gotten good at using the Internet and video as a political tactic, and cited newly-elected Virginia Sen. Jim Webb, D-Va., as a recruit of Virginia's blogging community. The Webb campaign made major gains after a caught-on-tape campaign blunder featuring Virginia Republican Sen. George Allen calling a Webb volunteer of South Asian descent a "macaca" started making rounds on the Internet.

But Virginia Republicans said the video recordings of legislative proceedings have nothing to do with open government, instead accusing the Democrats of playing "gotcha" politics. "It's an effort to demonize Republicans," said Shaun Kenney, communications director for the Virginia Republican Party. "It's about targeting and embarrassing Republican delegates," he said.

Technology such as cheap digital video cameras, blogs and YouTube are wonderful tools for opening government up to more transparency and honesty, and both sides ought to use them. And the Virginia Republicans really ought to put an end to unrecorded votes.

There's a lesson in this for Republicans in the Tennessee state House, where House Speaker Jimmy Naifeh's Democrat-run committees and subcommittees have often killed Republican legislation on unrecorded voice votes of dubious numerical majority. Get yourself some video cameras, a YouTube account and a blog and start showing the people of Tennessee what's really going on.

Cross-posted as The Macaca Effect at
.

Lessons of History

Foreign Policy magazine says...

Vietnam taught many Americans the wrong lesson: that determined guerrilla fighters are invincible. But history shows that insurgents rarely win, and Iraq should be no different. Now that it finally has a strategy, the Bush administration is in a race to beat the insurgency before the public's patience wears out.

The cold, hard truth about the Bush administration's strategy of "surging" additional U.S. forces into Iraq is that it could work. Insurgencies are rarely as strong or successful as the public has come to believe. Iraq's various insurgent groups have succeeded in creating a lot of chaos. But they're likely not strong enough to succeed in the long term. Sending more American troops into Iraq with the aim of pacifying Baghdad could provide a foundation for their ultimate defeat, but only if the United States does not repeat its previous mistakes.

Memo to the Media

Hey MSM: There's a conservative "netroots" too.

We Won, Remember?

Democrats in the Tennessee state Senate are whining that they didn't get more committee chairmanships and comittee seats, reports Knoxville News Sentinel reporter Tom Humphrey. But new Republican Lt. Gov. Ron Ramsey's response to complaints that Republicans, who hold a 17-16 majority, numerically control all of the committees and chair all of the important ones, is perfect: "Control is not just fair. It's a given. We won, remember?"

Much is made by Democrats of former Lt. Gov. John Wilder's alleged bipartisanship and fairness in doling out committee assignments, but the truth is Wilder always kept Democrats in charge of the committees that matter most - committees like Judiciary, and Finance, where Republican legislation was routinely stopped even after Republicans won a majority in the Senate two years ago.

Blogger Bags a Top State Official

Maine blogger Lance Dutson deservedly dances the happy dance over the firing of an apparently corrupt Maine bureaucrat brought down by Dutson's intrepid investigative reporting published on his blog, the Maine Web Report. Making the sacking of Maine Tourism Director Dann Lewis all the more satisfying for Dutson: Lewis - as Dutson discovered using Maine's open records laws to access Lewis's emails - orchestrated a failed attempt to silence Dutson via a SLAPP lawsuit.

Priorities

Here's my latest over at the Ecotality blog, where I'm writing daily about alternative energy news and issues for Ecotality Inc: Which should come first in alt-energy policy: energy independence or environmental concerns?. I argue that it's energy independence - and that the environment will benefit too, if we prioritize short- and long-term goals. Shifting the national vehicle fleet to "green" cars may also help us win the war on terror. Plus: an introduction to a new blog pushing conservative/free-market economic solutions to energy and environmental issues. And check out today's Ecotality blog posts for several videos from YouTube about alternative energy and hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles.

A Good Start

As seen on TV: Amazing cellphone video of intense fighting near Najaf, Iraq. Video shows Iraqi Army engaging terrorists/insurgents. News reports say 250 enemy killed. The gloves are off.

Trunk Show: Huckabee, Rudy, Hillary and Newt

Over at ElephantBiz.com today: Defending Mike Huckabee (well, on raising Arkansas' gas tax). Also, Will Giuliani run? Of course he will. Meanwhile, by delaying his own announcement "decision" until fall, Newt Gingrich has made it impossible for any of the other truckload of Republican candidates in the race to cement their conservative support. And are Hillary Clinton's "web-chats" cutting-edge campaigning? No. Not really.

Also, will Red Sox ace Curt Schilling run against Kerry? No. Because Kerry can't beat the Yankees.

Stop The War!

Let's stop the War on Terror. Right now. Pull our troops out of Iraq and Afghanistan, stop helping the Somali government and its Ethiopian allies defeat the Islamist radicals that are trying to turn that wreck of a country into an al Qaeda training camp, and stop our covert ops around the world aimed at disrupting Islamist terror networks. Let Iran have nukes, tell Israel they're on their own against Hezbollah, and if Islamist radicals take over nuclear-armed Pakistan, let India handle it. Bring the troops home.

Because what we are fighting for on the one hand, the West is surrendering bit by bit anyway...

Alex Alexiev of the Center for Security Policy writes about Western acquiescence to the radical Islamist agenda:

A few weeks ago, Muslim cab drivers at Minneapolis airport started refusing to carry passengers carrying alcohol purchases, following a fatwa by the extremist Muslim Students Association, which has no authority to issue fatwas to begin with. Yet, instead of immediately pulling their licenses for refusing to perform the service for which they were licensed, the city meekly submitted to this outrage. Where does this all end? How far are we from the day when an emergency room surgeon refuses to operate on a person because he had a glass of wine or ate pork before getting ill?

There are now countless Islamic centers, mosques and extremist organizations of all kinds incorporated in the U.S. that officially swear allegiance to shariah in their bylaws in blatant disregard to the law of the land. These are American non-profit organizations that pledge fealty to a reactionary code which requires rape victims to find four male witnesses to prove the crime, or face being stoned to death for adultery.

Nor do our public officials appear better informed than the British chancellor about the threat we're facing. Top government representatives regularly engage in meaningless "Muslim outreach" programs with the most radical of Islamist organizations, thereby legitimating them again and again in the eyes of mainstream Muslims as the powers that be in their community.

Karen Hughes, the public diplomacy guru of the land, told a convention of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA): "You are the frontline in public diplomacy because you are more credible than I am." Who exactly are these credible frontline troops? A recent survey of ISNA members provides some unambiguous answers.

By nearly a 3 to 1 margin they believe that America is at war with Islam as a religion and that the U.S. government had advance knowledge of the September 11, 2001 attacks and allowed them to happen. A majority did not believe that the terrorists responsible for the September 11 attack and the July 7, 2005 attack on London were Muslim.

Even our law enforcement is not immune to this pernicious affliction, with FBI honchos across the country now forcing their agents to sit through "sensitivity training" sessions administered by the likes of the Council on Islamic-American Relations, several high officials of which have been sent to jail by these same agents for terrorist activities.

A historian once remarked that civilizations do not die of old age: they commit suicide. He might have added that a civilization that submits to the rules of those who would destroy it is halfway there already.

January 28, 2007

Iraq Myths

StrategyPage.com presents the Top Ten Myths of the Iraq War. Good stuff. Meanwhile, TigerHawk notes that there are two groups opposed to the "surge" - the president's deployment of more troops to Iraq to implement a new military strategy against the terrorist insurgents. Who, mainly, is against it? The enemy. And Democrats. The enemy, you can understand why they don't want more armed Americans chasing after them. But why do Democrats oppose sending reinforcements to our troops in Iraq? (That's what the "surge" is, after all - sending reinforcements. Maybe we should call "sending reinforcements" instead of a "surge," and then ask wobbly senators and congressman why they oppose sending reinforcements to our troops in battle...)

Tigerhawk:

The conviction with which Democratic Senators aver that the "surge" will only make matters worse is startling. They do not explain how it will make matters worse, only that it is inevitable that it will. ... New York Senator Chuck Schumer seemed to give away the game - at least implicitly - on "Meet the Press." He quite obviously does not want the next election cycle to be "about" Iraq. One gets the sense that this sentiment is even more pronounced among the Democrats who will be vying for their party's presidential nomination. It is easy to see why: the problem of Iraq will be nothing but trouble for leading Democrats. The party activists who hold sway during the primary season will demand that candidates embrace the so-called "anti-war" agenda without reservation, but if Democrats do that too enthusiastically they will remind voters that their party has been all about defeat since 1972. Since none of them want to be caught in that Liebermanesque trap, leading Democrats are desperate for Iraq to be off the table by next fall.

January 27, 2007

Driving the Discussion

From story in the Saturday Tennessean headlined Either choice by Toyota will add Tenn. jobs:

No matter which one is picked, the auto plant would attract workers from Tennessee and allow Toyota to tap its existing base of auto suppliers that already feed parts and material to plants in Kentucky and Indiana, Hill said.

While a Toyota plant in Chattanooga would certainly create many new jobs for Tennesseans, that would be true too if the plant was built in Arkansas just across the Mississippi River from Memphis, which is home to the bulk of the population in that area. ...There's not a huge difference to Tennessee in locating the plant in either location, because it still will fuel the business and growth of jobs at auto parts suppliers in the state that already do business with Toyota's Kentucky operations.

And yet Tennessee economic development officials and the Bredesen administration are negotiating with Toyota and probably promising huge tax subsidies and "incentives" to bring the plant to Chattanooga.

That's a big mistake.

Either location for the Toyota plant will boost the Tennessee economy and create jobs for Tennesseans, so the state of Tennessee should not offer Toyota anything other than to pay the state's normal share of road and infrastructure improvements necessary if Toyota chooses the Chattanooga site.

While I'm happy to see the Tennessean follow up on an issue I first raised here on my blog - that either Toyota site would be good for Tennessee - the Tennessean article failed to inform readers of a very important piece of context: That Toyota is an extremely profitable company.

While The Tennessean described the plant as a $1 billion investment that would have a $430 million annual payroll, the paper doesn't tell readers that Toyota is huge profitable - the company made a $3 billion profit in just one quarter last year - in other words, the company made enough to build the plant in one month.

A hugely profitable company like that certainly does not need to dip into Tennessee taxpayers' wallets. And because Tennessee benefits even if Toyota picks the Arkansas site, any offer from Tennessee to Toyota that goes beyond normal infrastructure costs is nothing but a waste of tax dollars.

January 26, 2007

The Gloves Are Off

An excellent essay today from Donald Sensing, who explores the new military strategy in Iraq: "Lethality is the focus now," says Sensing.

Further evidence of the new focus on lethality is the President's approval of killing Iranian agents inside Iraq. I think this development buttresses the claim that our strategy is indeed different than before. I also think that US political and domestic opinion will "wait and see" no more than six months whether Gen. Petraeus can turn things around, and the general probably knows this. So I expect that al Qaeda is going to have a very rough six months ahead of it, and Maliki will be squeezed even more to clean up his own house.

Update: Sensing tries to figure out where Tennessee's two U.S. senators stand on the "surge," and the resolutions regarding same. Good luck with that one, Donald - though I can't for the life of me figure out why two senators from a state that defied the blue tide in the '07 election and is home to Fort Campbell and the 101st Airborne - and the 287th Tennessee National Guard - could possibly think that there's political points to be gained in Tennessee by voting with the many defeatist Democrats and the handful of retreatist Republicans.

There are only three basic public stances a senator can take:
1. Endorse the president's new strategy and vote against the resolutions opposing the surge.
2. Doubt the president's new strategy, but vote against the anti-surge resolutions so as not to help the defeat-seeking Democrats do what Gen. Petraeus says will only encourage America's enemies.
3. Doubt the president's new strategy and vote for the anti-surge resultions.

Right now it looks as if Sens. Corker and Alexander are going to fall into slot #2.

Update: More than 20,000 people have signed the pledge, but Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell may be caving in to the defeatists - even though Defense Secretary Robert Gates says the resolutions would "embolden the enemy". An enemy that is a bunch of barbarians.

Legislative Previews

TeamGOP has the Tennessee House Republican Caucus' legislative preview. Immigration is a high-priority issue. House Republicans may also push the Spending Control Amendment to make it just a little more difficult for the legislature to exceed the annual spending-growth cap. It's an excellent proposal to fix a flaw in a constitutional amendment the people of Tennessee approved in the late 1970s.

The Forgotten Mammal

Mary Katherine Ham has an excellent column today on the damage the environmental Left does to the people it claims it is trying to help. It's an excellent follow-up to her excellent column from yesterday on the Left's condescening romanticization of third-world poverty.

The distance between the communities "defended" by environmentalists against development and the communities themselves is often large, both philosophically and literally. Filmmakers and journalists, Phelim McAleer and Ann McElhinney have made a documentary that highlights these environmental battles and the exaggerations, fibs, and sometimes outright lies that keep some of the world's poorest cultures from developing. "Mine Your Own Business" is an entertaining, moving and sometimes humorous look at a side of the environmental movement we don't often see - the dark side.

McAleer traveled to Rosia Montana, Romania several years ago to cover a story for the Financial Times - the story of Toronto-based mining company Gabriel Resources forcing people from their homes, planning an environmentally destructive mine, and ruining the pristine countryside of that remote Romanian village, all against the wishes of its residents. Only, when he got to Rosia Montana, he found a different story. "I pretty much found that everything the environmentalists were saying was either false, exaggerated, or just a plain lie," McAleer said in a telephone interview Monday.

For more of my bloggage re Mine Your Own Business, click here.

Additional media and blog coverage:
Mine Your Own Business Opens in Washington
The neo-communist environmental lobby have tried to ban it in Romania, by threatening cinemas that show it: how ironic that it should be today, on what would have been Nicolae Ceausescu's 89th birthday, that Romanians are once again being told what they can and cannot watch.

When the Facts Don't Fit, Construe!

Poor Villagers Don't Need Development, Say Foreign Green Activists

More Inconvenient Truths About Environmentalism
Frayda Levy, president of the New York-based Moving Picture Institute, and MPI executive director Rob Pfaltzgraff write that Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth "does not tell the whole truth about the environmental movement, and students should not be taught that it does." They suggest that students shown Gore's film also be shown Mine Your Own Business, so they know that "much of Western environmentalism is hostile to people living in underdeveloped parts of the world."

Weasels Wobble

President Bush has authorized the U.S. military to capture or kill Iranian agents in Iraq who are plotting attacks against U.S. and coalition forces. That's the good news today about the war on terror - instead of caving in to the Democratic Party's demands that we declare defeat and get out of Iraq, Bush is finally doing what he should have done two years ago: getting tough with Iran, the single worse state sponsor of Islamist terrorism worldwide that is fueling the terrorist insurgency in Iraq.

Pledge update: More than 16,000 people have now signed the online pledge that they will refuse to support any Republican senator running for reelection who votes for any resolutions being pushed in the Senate by the many defeatist Democrats and a few retreatist Republicans in the U.S. Senate that oppose the president's new military and political strategy in Iraq.

The pledge is simple and straightforward. It reads: If the United States Senate passes a resolution, non-binding or otherwise, that criticizes the commitment of additional troops to Iraq that General Petraeus has asked for and that the president has pledged, and if the Senate does so after the testimony of General Petraeus on January 23 that such a resolution will be an encouragement to the enemy, I will not contribute to any Republican senator who voted for the resolution. Further, if any Republican senator who votes for such a resolution is a candidate for re-election in 2008, I will not contribute to the National Republican Senatorial Committee unless the Chairman of that Committee, Senator Ensign, commits in writing that none of the funds of the NRSC will go to support the re-election of any senator supporting the non-binding resolution.

Sign it here. Help put some backbone into Republicans senators who are or may be on the verge of caving into the Democrats' plan to lose the war in Iraq.

John Edwards' America

Mary Katherine Ham takes a look at one of John Edwards' "Two Americas." The one with the squash court

Blogging Scholarship

The Daniel Kovach Scholarship Foundation is offering a $2,000 college scholarship to a political blogger. To qualify you need to be a U.S. citizen attending college full-time and have a 3.0 GPA - and you must write a blog that contains "unique and interesting information about political issues, current events, opinions, etc." Last year's winner was a blogger at The Daily Kos. I'm told that, so far, they only have four applicants for the political blogging scholarship. There's also a $10,000 "general blogging" scholarship.

The Revolving Door

A new state ethics law requires lawmakers to wait one year after leaving office to do lobbying work, but former state Rep. Kim McMillan will be lobbying the legislature on behalf of the Bredesen administration right away as Bredesen's new "senior advisor," just weeks after leaving office. McMillan was the prime sponsor of the ethics law in the House so, no doubt, there's probably a loophole in the ethics law that allows this - but that doesn't mean it's ethical.

January 25, 2007

Alexander On Iraq

After reading in NashvillePost.com yesterday that Tennessee Sen. Lamar Alexander was not in favor of the "surge" of additional troops to Iraq, I went to the senator's website to express my thoughts on the subject. I received the following response via email today...

January 25, 2007
Dear Bill,

Thanks very much for getting in touch with me and letting me know what's on your mind regarding the future of Iraq.

The situation in Iraq is worse, and the time has come to change our strategy. I have read the bipartisan Iraq Study Group report, heard recommendations from leaders in the military, and I listened carefully to President Bush's proposal for success.

Sending 21,500 more American troops temporarily into Iraq to try to stop sectarian violence is not, by itself, new or a strategy for success. If the President is finally requiring Iraqi forces to take the lead with American forces in support, that would be different - and should allow us to start bringing troops home sooner. Our troops in Iraq need to get out of the business of combat and into the business of supporting Iraqi forces. That means embedding more American troops in Iraqi units and, in the next year, drawing down our combat forces there. Special operations against al-Qaeda and other training, support, and intelligence missions should continue.

The hard truth is that the United States will have some presence in Iraq for a long time, but it ought to be in a limited, supporting role. At this point in the Iraqi conflict, that's the best way to defend U.S. interests and to honor the sacrifices of the hundreds of thousands who have fought for us. I remain committed to ensuring that our troops have everything they need. I send my sincere appreciation to all of the brave individuals who have put their lives on the line - especially those who have made the ultimate sacrifice - to protect our nation and its principles.

I hope the President's new strategy succeeds, but Iraqis must show that they are ready and willing to make the tough decisions to bring peace and democracy to their own people. I'll be sure to keep your comments in mind as these issues are discussed and debated in Washington and in Tennessee.

Sincerely,
Lamar

I believe Sen. Alexander is thoughtfully approaching the Iraq issue, as he thoughtfully approaches every issue. Sen. Alexander has never been a knee-jerk, repeat-the-party-talking-points kind of politician. If he says he believes the surge is a bad idea, I'll accept that he says so because he truly believes so, rather than because of political calculations.

That said, I think he's wrong on this issue. Not dreadfully wrong - he hasn't, for example, joined the retreatist Republicans like Sen. John Warner, Sen. Susan Collins and Sen. Chuck Hagel, who seem determined to assist the Democrats in the Senate in passing some sort of resolution undercutting the president and condeming the troop increase even though the general in charge of Iraq says he needs the additional troops, and even though passage of such a resolution would encourage the enemy.

But Sen. Alexander's letter indicates he thinks all that the president has proposed is increasing troop levels. That's just not the case. The mainstream media has dangerously over-simplified the story to "the surge," and made the story all about whether the voters and the elected officials are for or against it, but there is more to President Bush's new strategy in Iraq than increasing troop levels. More on that in a moment. First, I'll repeat a section of Sen. Alexander's letter to me:

Sending 21,500 more American troops temporarily into Iraq to try to stop sectarian violence is not, by itself, new or a strategy for success. If the President is finally requiring Iraqi forces to take the lead with American forces in support, that would be different - and should allow us to start bringing troops home sooner. Our troops in Iraq need to get out of the business of combat and into the business of supporting Iraqi forces. That means embedding more American troops in Iraqi units and, in the next year, drawing down our combat forces there. Special operations against al-Qaeda and other training, support, and intelligence missions should continue.

It is not just more troops, but new tactics and a new strategy designed to shift responsibility to the Iraqi army and police over time. I have no doubt that, if President Bush and his military commanders believed we could just immediately demand Iraqi forces "take the lead," and they could do so with success, that demand would already have been made - and implemented.

Clearly, they don't believe the Iraqi army is ready. Just as clearly, they believe that, with time it can become ready.

But to get there, we have to clear and hold Baghdad - to give the elected Iraqi government breathing room to stand up and take control.

It is not a crazy strategy, either.

Years ago I was a crime reporter in the dusty West Texas city of Lubbock, and was reporting on a neighborhood watch program there. One of the police organizers told me the strategy was to drive the drug dealers and property vandals and burglars and thugs out of the city one block at a time. Clear and hold one block with a neighborhood watch program, and the bad guys might just move on to a nearby block. But eventually, block by block, you drive them out of the city.

"Then they go to Amarillo or Dallas," he said, "and they become someone else's problem."

President Bush's new strategy is not just "send more troops to Baghdad and hope for the best." It is to clear Baghdad of its thugs a block at a time, figuratively speaking, until the bad guys have been driven to the edge of town or killed - and then to defend Baghdad while bringing the Iraqi police and military up to the job of doing it themselves.

In short, it is a strategy not too unlike the one Sen. Alexander calls for in his letter to me.

...Meanwhile, more than 10,000 people (including myself) have signed Hugh Hewitt and N.Z. Bear's NRSC Pledge, vowing not to support any Republican Senator in '08 who votes against the surge. (Hat tip: Glenn Reynolds)

Bringing the Heat

Rolling Stone is pumping Al Gore for President, saying, "If the Democrats were going to sit down and construct the perfect candidate for 2008, they'd be hard-pressed to improve on Gore. ... He has the buzz to beat Obama, the substance to supplant Hillary, and enough stature to enter the race late in the game and still raise the millions needed to mount a successful campaign."

I don't know. I still think that global warming is caused mainly by the hot air that comes out of Gore's mouth. The more he talks about global warming, the hotter it gets. Think about it.

20 Days Later

The Tennessean's politics blog has just reported that U.S. Rep. Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee has signed on as an adviser to Mitt Romney's presidential campaign - news that was on the AP wire on Jan. 5. Man, that Gannett bureau in Washington D.C. sure does generate the scoops.

Some Dirt Is Harder to Clean

A former Tennessee state legislator tainted by the Tennessee Waltz corruption probe is prepping a new career as a lobbyist. Which ethically unconcerned company will hire him first?

Net Losers

Republican presidential candidates are getting killed in the online campaign so far.

"That's what poverty looks like"

Mary Katherine Ham looks at how environmentalists undermine the efforts of the poor to become not-poor. Writes Ham, "All too often, Lefties - particularly environmentalists - condemn globalization, free trade, free enterprise, and new development in other countries without thinking far beyond their own upper middle-class Western existences." And by doing so condemn millions to continued poverty.

Reality Check Please

New today over at the Ecotality blog, where I'm writing daily about alternative energy news and issues for Ecotality Inc: A State of the Union reality check on cutting gasoline usage. Also: a look green investing. And, close to home, the most powerful Democrat in the Tennessee state Senate wants to put the University of Tennessee into the biofuels research business in a big way. (And state Sen. Tim Burchett wants to require state government to buy "green" vehicles.)

Trunk Show

Over at ElephantBiz.com today: Romney focuses on Iran while McCain focuses on Romney. Also, influential talk show host and blogger Hugh Hewitt leads the charge against retreatist Republicans in the U.S. Senate, while Hillary Clinton goes to Blogistan.

Fighting Against Those Who Would Seize Defeat

Jules Crittenden's analysis of President Bush's State of the Union speech notes the iron will of the President to continue to seek victory in the main combat theatre in the war on terror, Iraq, even as more and more members of Congress - Democrats, mostly - push for defeat. More from Crittenden here.

The Blogger and the Chocolate Factory

Here's an interesting story out of Dallas about how a bad review on a blog can impact a company's image:

Last month, an anonymous Internet blogger launched a 10-part series concluding that Noka Chocolate, whose expensive confections have turned up at Hollywood parties and a posh Las Vegas hotel, is not worth its high-end price. The report, released just ahead of the critical holiday sales season, put the Plano company on the defensive about its manufacturing processes. At least 10 consumer-focused Web sites and blogs have linked to the report on DallasFood.org.

Whether chocolate that sells for more than $20 a bite represents a good value may be a question only the very rich - or the very generous -can decide. But some blogging and journalism experts say the controversy demonstrates the impact an online report can have on a company's reputation - and eventually on its bottom line.

Ripple Effect

Nashville City Paper had a good story yesterday about just how far-reaching the election of new Lt. Gov. Ron Ramsey could be. Not only has Ramsey, the first Republican Senate Speaker and Lt. Governor in about a zillion years, appointed Republicans to chair all the really important senate committees and put Republican majorities on all of them, which will affect what legislation has a chance of passing in the state Senate, he also gets to appoint members to about 50 state boards and commissions.

January 24, 2007

Backing Down

And so the Senate Foreign Relations Committee has voted for a nonbinding resolution opposing the sending of more troops to Iraq to execute the Bush administration's new military strategy there. The vote was 12-9, with 11 defeatist Democrats and one retreatist Republican voting to undercut the commander-in-chief at a difficult moment in a war we can not afford to lose.

In doing so, they have sent a signal to the nuke-seeking terror mullahs in Iran, the terror enablers in Syria, the terror financiers in Saudi Arabia, the terror recruiters in Anbar province, the terror allies of Hezbollah and Hamas in Lebanon and Gaza, and the terror-apologist Islamist extremists in the suburbs of Paris and London and Madrid and maybe even in your city that the new Democratic majority in Congress has no stomach for the fight.

Well, there you have it. We have come a long way from October 16, 2002, when the full Senate, with heavy Democratic support, voted to authorize President Bush to use military force in Iraq. You can read the resolution yourself.

I've read it and a couple things jumped out at me.

The first is this line: "The President is authorized to use the Armed Forces of the United States as he determines to be necessary and appropriate..."

Which, you would think, includes re-increasing troop levels if new tactics on the ground require it.

The second thing that jumped out at me is something the resolution did not say. The war resolution contains no caveat, no sub-clause, no exception, no footnote that says, "We authorize this war - unless it turns difficult and bloody."

UPDATE: NOT BACKING DOWN: I'm in total agreement with Hugh Hewitt and committed to support his excellent proposal to put pressure and withdraw future campaign support for any senator who votes for any resolution opposing the President's new Iraq battle strategy. ACK reports that Sen. Alexander may be going wobbly on supporting the commander-in-chief. More here at NashvillePost.com.

Believe General Petreaus!

Greenpeace Fails To Silence Critics

A documentary that Greenpeace doesn't want anyone to see will be shown in the nation's capital tonight, despite the efforts of the environmentalist group to demonize and squelch it. The documentary, Mine Your Own Business, shows how international environmentalists are trying to force the people of poverty-stricken villages in Romania and Madagascar to remain mired in wrenching poverty when they could have good jobs and a better way of life. It screens tonight in Washington D.C. at the National Geographic Society's Grosvenor Auditorium, and also is available online on DVD.

The films directors, Phelim McAleer and Ann McElhinney, fellows of the Moving Picture Institute, called the protests, condemnations, and a call for
> censorship from environmental activists "totalitarian" and "intolerant" in a press release from the Moving Picture Institute, which reveals that Greenpeace Executive Director John Passacantando has declined an invitiation to be a special guest at the screening and to engage in dialogue with the audience and filmmakers after the screening. Instead of accepting that invitation, Passacantando instead sent a letter to the National Geographic Society pressuring them to cancel the screening.

"I'm appalled by their demand to shut down the film," said MPI President Frayda Levy. "We invited them, but instead of joining us for a discussion, they display breathtaking narrow-mindedness. Regardless of whether you love or hate Mine Your Own Business, it deserves to be seen. What makes them so afraid of this film?"

The film reveals how the campaigns of global environmental activists are often exaggerated, misleading and motivated by a desire to preserve poverty stricken villages they view as "quaint."
The filmmakers' complete statement reacting to Greenpeace's attempt to squelch the film is - where else - on the film's blog.

Past coverage:
1. Mine Your Own Business
2. Greenpeace Seeks to Squelch Speech
3. "Poverty is not Quaint"

AP To Carry Bloggers' Coverage of Libby Trial

WASHINGTON DC, January 23, 2006 - The Associated Press has partnered with the Media Bloggers Association to distribute its members' coverage of the trial of Lewis "Scooter" Libby, former chief of staff for Vice President Dick Cheney, to the news organization's member websites, the news agency announced today. The wire service and the Media Bloggers Association announced a parternship to put bloggers' coverage of the high-profile trial on more than 600 newspapers' websites. You can read the Media Bloggers Association press release online here or in a PDF here.

Update: A number of media outlets are picking up the story, including WebProNews and Broadcasting & Cable. Click here to see how it is appearing on the Knoxville News Sentinel website. If your paper isn't carring the AP's blogger feed from the Libby trial, just go to ScooterLibbyTrial.com.

Round Four...

...in which Mick Wright slams Bill Moyers to the mat. Over and over and over and over and over again. If you want to know what was really the agenda of leftist media types gathered at the National Conference for Media Reform in Memphis a few weeks ago, you have to read Mick Wright's comprehensive coverage.

State of Reality

The editorial board at The Tennessean, predictably, didn't like President Bush's State of the Union speech, publishing an editorial with the headline State of reality lacking in union address. Ironically, it is the editorial itself that is at odds with reality in its paragraph on budgetary matters...

Bush follows the Democrats in attacking "earmark" pork projects, and his call for balancing the federal budget by 2012 sounds good. Again, the public awaits details on how the budget can be balanced with no tax increases and no assurance that federal spending will be curtailed.

As for the defict, at current trends of growing federal tax revenues (for which I blame the Bush tax cuts), and slower-growing federal spending, the deficit will be gone in 18 months - without raising taxes.

January 23, 2007

"The Fight We Are In"

The section of President Bush's State of the Union speech Tuesday night that dealt with the war was as tough-minded and clear-headed as any major speech I've heard the president give on the war since 9/11. Like all SOTU speeches, this one was chock full of domestic policy proposals that we'll have plenty of time to discuss in the days ahead. None of them matter much if we don't get the war right, so I'm reprinting in the extended portion of this post the complete text of the war section, copied here from the transcript available at the WhiteHouse.gov website. My thoughts follow at the end of the excerpt.

For all of us in this room, there is no higher responsibility than to protect the people of this country from danger. Five years have come and gone since we saw the scenes and felt the sorrow that the terrorists can cause. We've had time to take stock of our situation. We've added many critical protections to guard the homeland. We know with certainty that the horrors of that September morning were just a glimpse of what the terrorists intend for us -- unless we stop them.

With the distance of time, we find ourselves debating the causes of conflict and the course we have followed. Such debates are essential when a great democracy faces great questions. Yet one question has surely been settled: that to win the war on terror we must take the fight to the enemy. (Applause.)

From the start, America and our allies have protected our people by staying on the offense. The enemy knows that the days of comfortable sanctuary, easy movement, steady financing, and free flowing communications are long over. For the terrorists, life since 9/11 has never been the same.

Our success in this war is often measured by the things that did not happen. We cannot know the full extent of the attacks that we and our allies have prevented, but here is some of what we do know: We stopped an al Qaeda plot to fly a hijacked airplane into the tallest building on the West Coast. We broke up a Southeast Asian terror cell grooming operatives for attacks inside the United States. We uncovered an al Qaeda cell developing anthrax to be used in attacks against America. And just last August, British authorities uncovered a plot to blow up passenger planes bound for America over the Atlantic Ocean. For each life saved, we owe a debt of gratitude to the brave public servants who devote their lives to finding the terrorists and stopping them. (Applause.)

Every success against the terrorists is a reminder of the shoreless ambitions of this enemy. The evil that inspired and rejoiced in 9/11 is still at work in the world. And so long as that's the case, America is still a nation at war.

In the mind of the terrorist, this war began well before September the 11th, and will not end until their radical vision is fulfilled. And these past five years have given us a much clearer view of the nature of this enemy. Al Qaeda and its followers are Sunni extremists, possessed by hatred and commanded by a harsh and narrow ideology. Take almost any principle of civilization, and their goal is the opposite. They preach with threats, instruct with bullets and bombs, and promise paradise for the murder of the innocent.

Our enemies are quite explicit about their intentions. They want to overthrow moderate governments, and establish safe havens from which to plan and carry out new attacks on our country. By killing and terrorizing Americans, they want to force our country to retreat from the world and abandon the cause of liberty. They would then be free to impose their will and spread their totalitarian ideology. Listen to this warning from the late terrorist Zarqawi: "We will sacrifice our blood and bodies to put an end to your dreams, and what is coming is even worse." Osama bin Laden declared: "Death is better than living on this Earth with the unbelievers among us."

These men are not given to idle words, and they are just one camp in the Islamist radical movement. In recent times, it has also become clear that we face an escalating danger from Shia extremists who are just as hostile to America, and are also determined to dominate the Middle East. Many are known to take direction from the regime in Iran, which is funding and arming terrorists like Hezbollah -- a group second only to al Qaeda in the American lives it has taken.

The Shia and Sunni extremists are different faces of the same totalitarian threat. Whatever slogans they chant, when they slaughter the innocent they have the same wicked purposes. They want to kill Americans, kill democracy in the Middle East, and gain the weapons to kill on an even more horrific scale.

In the sixth year since our nation was attacked, I wish I could report to you that the dangers had ended. They have not. And so it remains the policy of this government to use every lawful and proper tool of intelligence, diplomacy, law enforcement, and military action to do our duty, to find these enemies, and to protect the American people. (Applause.)

This war is more than a clash of arms -- it is a decisive ideological struggle, and the security of our nation is in the balance. To prevail, we must remove the conditions that inspire blind hatred, and drove 19 men to get onto airplanes and to come and kill us. What every terrorist fears most is human freedom -- societies where men and women make their own choices, answer to their own conscience, and live by their hopes instead of their resentments. Free people are not drawn to violent and malignant ideologies -- and most will choose a better way when they're given a chance. So we advance our own security interests by helping moderates and reformers and brave voices for democracy. The great question of our day is whether America will help men and women in the Middle East to build free societies and share in the rights of all humanity. And I say, for the sake of our own security, we must. (Applause.)

In the last two years, we've seen the desire for liberty in the broader Middle East -- and we have been sobered by the enemy's fierce reaction. In 2005, the world watched as the citizens of Lebanon raised the banner of the Cedar Revolution, they drove out the Syrian occupiers and chose new leaders in free elections. In 2005, the people of Afghanistan defied the terrorists and elected a democratic legislature. And in 2005, the Iraqi people held three national elections, choosing a transitional government, adopting the most progressive, democratic constitution in the Arab world, and then electing a government under that constitution. Despite endless threats from the killers in their midst, nearly 12 million Iraqi citizens came out to vote in a show of hope and solidarity that we should never forget. (Applause.)

A thinking enemy watched all of these scenes, adjusted their tactics, and in 2006 they struck back. In Lebanon, assassins took the life of Pierre Gemayel, a prominent participant in the Cedar Revolution. Hezbollah terrorists, with support from Syria and Iran, sowed conflict in the region and are seeking to undermine Lebanon's legitimately elected government. In Afghanistan, Taliban and al Qaeda fighters tried to regain power by regrouping and engaging Afghan and NATO forces. In Iraq, al Qaeda and other Sunni extremists blew up one of the most sacred places in Shia Islam -- the Golden Mosque of Samarra. This atrocity, directed at a Muslim house of prayer, was designed to provoke retaliation from Iraqi Shia -- and it succeeded. Radical Shia elements, some of whom receive support from Iran, formed death squads. The result was a tragic escalation of sectarian rage and reprisal that continues to this day.

This is not the fight we entered in Iraq, but it is the fight we're in. Every one of us wishes this war were over and won. Yet it would not be like us to leave our promises unkept, our friends abandoned, and our own security at risk. (Applause.) Ladies and gentlemen: On this day, at this hour, it is still within our power to shape the outcome of this battle. Let us find our resolve, and turn events toward victory. (Applause.)

We're carrying out a new strategy in Iraq -- a plan that demands more from Iraq's elected government, and gives our forces in Iraq the reinforcements they need to complete their mission. Our goal is a democratic Iraq that upholds the rule of law, respects the rights of its people, provides them security, and is an ally in the war on terror.

In order to make progress toward this goal, the Iraqi government must stop the sectarian violence in its capital. But the Iraqis are not yet ready to do this on their own. So we're deploying reinforcements of more than 20,000 additional soldiers and Marines to Iraq. The vast majority will go to Baghdad, where they will help Iraqi forces to clear and secure neighborhoods, and serve as advisers embedded in Iraqi Army units. With Iraqis in the lead, our forces will help secure the city by chasing down the terrorists, insurgents, and the roaming death squads. And in Anbar Province, where al Qaeda terrorists have gathered and local forces have begun showing a willingness to fight them, we're sending an additional 4,000 United States Marines, with orders to find the terrorists and clear them out. (Applause.) We didn't drive al Qaeda out of their safe haven in Afghanistan only to let them set up a new safe haven in a free Iraq.

The people of Iraq want to live in peace, and now it's time for their government to act. Iraq's leaders know that our commitment is not open-ended. They have promised to deploy more of their own troops to secure Baghdad -- and they must do so. They pledged that they will confront violent radicals of any faction or political party -- and they need to follow through, and lift needless restrictions on Iraqi and coalition forces, so these troops can achieve their mission of bringing security to all of the people of Baghdad. Iraq's leaders have committed themselves to a series of benchmarks -- to achieve reconciliation, to share oil revenues among all of Iraq's citizens, to put the wealth of Iraq into the rebuilding of Iraq, to allow more Iraqis to re-enter their nation's civic life, to hold local elections, and to take responsibility for security in every Iraqi province. But for all of this to happen, Baghdad must be secure. And our plan will help the Iraqi government take back its capital and make good on its commitments.

My fellow citizens, our military commanders and I have carefully weighed the options. We discussed every possible approach. In the end, I chose this course of action because it provides the best chance for success. Many in this chamber understand that America must not fail in Iraq, because you understand that the consequences of failure would be grievous and far-reaching.

If American forces step back before Baghdad is secure, the Iraqi government would be overrun by extremists on all sides. We could expect an epic battle between Shia extremists backed by Iran, and Sunni extremists aided by al Qaeda and supporters of the old regime. A contagion of violence could spill out across the country -- and in time, the entire region could be drawn into the conflict.

For America, this is a nightmare scenario. For the enemy, this is the objective. Chaos is the greatest ally -- their greatest ally in this struggle. And out of chaos in Iraq would emerge an emboldened enemy with new safe havens, new recruits, new resources, and an even greater determination to harm America. To allow this to happen would be to ignore the lessons of September the 11th and invite tragedy. Ladies and gentlemen, nothing is more important at this moment in our history than for America to succeed in the Middle East, to succeed in Iraq and to spare the American people from this danger. (Applause.)

This is where matters stand tonight, in the here and now. I have spoken with many of you in person. I respect you and the arguments you've made. We went into this largely united, in our assumptions and in our convictions. And whatever you voted for, you did not vote for failure. Our country is pursuing a new strategy in Iraq, and I ask you to give it a chance to work. And I ask you to support our troops in the field, and those on their way. (Applause.)

The war on terror we fight today is a generational struggle that will continue long after you and I have turned our duties over to others. And that's why it's important to work together so our nation can see this great effort through. Both parties and both branches should work in close consultation. It's why I propose to establish a special advisory council on the war on terror, made up of leaders in Congress from both political parties. We will share ideas for how to position America to meet every challenge that confronts us. We'll show our enemies abroad that we are united in the goal of victory.

And one of the first steps we can take together is to add to the ranks of our military so that the American Armed Forces are ready for all the challenges ahead. (Applause.) Tonight I ask the Congress to authorize an increase in the size of our active Army and Marine Corps by 92,000 in the next five years. (Applause.) A second task we can take on together is to design and establish a volunteer Civilian Reserve Corps. Such a corps would function much like our military reserve. It would ease the burden on the Armed Forces by allowing us to hire civilians with critical skills to serve on missions abroad when America needs them. It would give people across America who do not wear the uniform a chance to serve in the defining struggle of our time.

Americans can have confidence in the outcome of this struggle because we're not in this struggle alone. We have a diplomatic strategy that is rallying the world to join in the fight against extremism. In Iraq, multinational forces are operating under a mandate from the United Nations. We're working with Jordan and Saudi Arabia and Egypt and the Gulf States to increase support for Iraq's government.

The United Nations has imposed sanctions on Iran, and made it clear that the world will not allow the regime in Tehran to acquire nuclear weapons. (Applause.) With the other members of the Quartet -- the U.N., the European Union, and Russia -- we're pursuing diplomacy to help bring peace to the Holy Land, and pursuing the establishment of a democratic Palestinian state living side-by-side with Israel in peace and security. (Applause.) In Afghanistan, NATO has taken the lead in turning back the Taliban and al Qaeda offensive -- the first time the Alliance has deployed forces outside the North Atlantic area. Together with our partners in China, Japan, Russia, and South Korea, we're pursuing intensive diplomacy to achieve a Korean Peninsula free of nuclear weapons. (Applause.)

We will continue to speak out for the cause of freedom in places like Cuba, Belarus, and Burma -- and continue to awaken the conscience of the world to save the people of Darfur. (Applause.)

American foreign policy is more than a matter of war and diplomacy. Our work in the world is also based on a timeless truth: To whom much is given, much is required. We hear the call to take on the challenges of hunger and poverty and disease -- and that is precisely what America is doing...

I noticed also that Bush was not reluctant, as he has seemed in the past, to discuss the sectarian elements of the war we find ourselves in - first mentioning the Sunni extremists and then the Shia extremists in Iraq and how they are at war with each other, with moderate Muslims, with America and with the very notion of civilization itself.

"This is not the fight we entered in Iraq, but it is the fight we're in," Bush said. How true. When Congress voted six years ago to authorize President Bush to use military force in Iraq, they did not know exactly how it would turn out - whether it would take months to reach Baghdad or weeks, or whether we suffer tens of thousands of dead troops in the invasion or only a few hundred, or whether, having taken Baghdad, we would find it easy or difficult to create a stable new Iraq.

When Congress authorized the war they authorized it no matter whether it was a cakewalk or a long, hard slog. We all hoped and prayed for the former, but steeled ourselves for the latter, as the troops rolled in. I've read the resolution that Congress passed authorizing the Iraq war. Nowhere in it is a clause that says Congress supports the war "unless it turns out to be difficult and bloody."

Bush wisely used a long section of his speech to detail how the Islamist extremists - the Al Qaeda/Sunni extremists and the Iranian-backed Shia extremists - "struck back" in 2006, seeking to undermine the advance of freedom and self-determination in Lebanon, Iraq and Afghanistan.

Responding to the calls from Democrats and other war critics to extricate America from Iraq by turning responsibility for Iraq's stability over to the Iraqi government, Bush portrayed the "surge" as more than just an increase in the number of troops, but as a change in tactics that will facilitate doing exactly that.

And then Bush said this:

This is where matters stand tonight, in the here and now. I have spoken with many of you in person. I respect you and the arguments you've made. We went into this largely united, in our assumptions and in our convictions. And whatever you voted for, you did not vote for failure. Our country is pursuing a new strategy in Iraq, and I ask you to give it a chance to work. And I ask you to support our troops in the field, and those on their way.

He should have said, "I expect you to support our troops..."

No members of the Congress of the United States of America should ever have to be asked to support America's troops while they are in combat - because asking implies a choice and there is only one proper choice for an American when America's troops are at war: Support them.

Define Success

Dana Blankenhorn says righty blogs don't work. But he's a liberal, so you would expect him to say that.

Hickey Fades

A source informs me that J.D. Hickey, the former Bredesen administration TennCare director who left the administration just seven months ago to head Qualifacts Inc., amid a swirl of still-unanswered questions about Gov. Phil Bredesen's role in the job switch, has apparently now left Qualifacts, a healthcare software company. He's been disappeared from the management page of the company's website.

Update: Ask and ye shall receive. A big thanks to NashvilePost.com's Ken Whitehouse for following up on my blog tip and tracking Hickey down.

Trunk Show: Earmarks and Mitt

Over at ElephantBiz.com today: Why South Carolina Sen. Jim DeMint's successful battle to expose "earmarks" may boost the presidential prospects of former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney. Plus: the latest name to surface as a possible Republican candidate for the key 2008 Colorado senate race is Jim Nicholson. And also today: why I'm not worried about Bill Richardson - but both Hillary Clinton and the Republican Party ought to be.

Update: Donna Locke, who has written for BillHobbs.com before on illegal immigration, says Richardson is "a dangerous man" because of his stand on immigration. Here's the transcript of a speech that Richardson delivered last month on the topic of illegal immigration. Agree with it or not, you can tell he's a serious man who has given serious thought to the issue.

Richardson seems a bit too eager to wipe the slate clean for the 11 million or more illegals who are already in this country, but he's right that one cause of our illegal immigration is our economy needs more workers for a variety of low-wage jobs that Americans largely won't do than our immigration laws will allow in the country.

We don't need 11 million illegals in this country - we need them to be here legally, and in larger numbers.

That said, there's just no way we're going to round up 11 million folks and send them back south of the border to stand in line at the nearest American consulate to apply for legal entry. And while we ought to do some things to demagnetize the country - no drivers licenses for illegals, for example - we ought also to recognize that as tough as we make our laws, America is still going to be a more attractive place to live for most of those folks than the crappy, corrupt, poverty-riddled, opportunity-deficient countries they come from.

So, what to do? Here's a thought: Instead of just granting "amnesty" to 11 million folks who broke the law to get here, make them pay a price for breaking the law. Allow illegals to apply for legal status and, if they have no criminal record and pass a rigorous background check, allow them to stay on a provisional basis. And here's the key provision: They must pay a fine of $1,500 per year for ten years direct to the federal government, with one third of the money going to their home state's government. 11 million illegals - that would generate $11 billion per year for the federal government, to be used to beef up the Border Patrol and related services.

States would use their share of the revenue - $5.5 billion a year, divided among the states based on the size of their registered-illegal population - to offset the cost of providing government services (education, healthcare, law enforcement, etc.) that are higher because of the illegal population.

The $1,500 per year fine would be in addition to regular taxes that everyone in America pays.

At the end of the decade, having paid all of their $15,000 fine, the illegal would - if still having no criminal record - be allowed to apply for permanent residency.

It's just an idea.

Whaddya think?

Local Politics in a YouTube World

Mike Chapman at Blogabilities reports on how a small group of students at Texas State University in San Marcos used social media to upend the established political order in Hays County, Texas.

The group's tactics included using MySpace and Facebook pages to create online communities to educate students on issues directly affecting them. Then using traditional GOTV (Get Out the Vote) methods, only modernized to target cell phones and incorporating mass text messaging, they made sure everyone knew when, how, and where to vote for their candidates.

The young consulting team was so successful that several key races - including the county-wide Criminal District Attorney race, which was decided by only 13 votes out of nearly 30,000 cast - swung toward the student-represented candidate. This may be a trend that the national parties ignore at their own peril.

Hays County, which had been trending solidly Republican for more than a decade, went from four Republicans and one Democrat on the County Commissioners Court (the governing body for county governments in Texas) to four Democrats and one Republican. The only county-wide position on the county court went from Republican to Democrat.

Political professionals have long tried to factor students into their election strategies. With social media coming of age, and with students being particularly heavy users of new technologies and trends, capturing the college-student vote may be more important than ever. If students across the nation are even close to replicating the work at Texas State, any politician with a clue about getting elected will be paying close attention. It may do them well to study up on the issues important to students going into 2008.

Congressional Bigotry

The Politico exposes rampant racism and bigotry in the halls of Congress as a racially exclusive club excludes a Jew.

January 22, 2007

Poverty is Not Quaint

Last week I wrote two posts about a new documentary, Mine Your Own Business, and how the environmentalist Left was trying to squelch it. Well, they failed. Last week, Fox News's Brit Hume reported on the film and the issues it raises. Mine Your Own Business shows how international environmentalists are trying to force the people of poverty-stricken villages in Romania and Madagascar to remain mired in wrenching poverty when they could have good jobs and a better way of life. It screens Wednesday night in Washington D.C. (sold out) and is available online on DVD. (The Fox News clip starts with an Art Buchwald story - be patient, the MYOB story is after that.)

Trunk Show: One For the Books

Over at ElephantBiz.com today: The 2008 presidential campaign will be one for the books, while the GOP is set to gain ground in '07 gubernatorial races, while fundraisers for all the Republicans running for president just got a big boost. Also, from over the weekend at ElephantBiz.com, is Fred running on radio? And is America really wanting a post-Boomer president? Plus: The 2008 White House Power Rankings.

The High Price of Cheap Gas

New today over at the Ecotality blog, where I'm writing daily about alternative energy news and issues for Ecotality Inc: the high price of cheap gas. Plus: an inconvenient joke.

January 21, 2007

Just the Facts?

Bob Cox compares Big Media and blogger coverage of the Scooter Libby trial...

It was no small irony for me to watch this while reading some of the media coverage of the courts decision to credential bloggers to the Libby Trial. Some of the reports go to great pains to disparage bloggers for lacking journalistic standards and not having the value of editors and producers to vet stories before they are presented to the public. And yet we see it time and time again that, in the breach, the professional journalists do precisely those things for which they disparage bloggers - putting out information with out fact-checking it, not presenting both sides of a story, not going to the actual source, not correcting misinformation, and so on.

YouTubing

This is my son's favorite video on YouTube. He's four. I kind of like it too. But the dancing cow is better. And, for the grownups, here's Late Late Show host Craig Ferguson riffing on saving the weird animals.

A Tennessee Toyota Plant?

A report in an Arkansas newspaper says Toyota will build a new auto assembly plant either in Chattanooga, Tennessee, or in Marion, Ark., across the Mississippi River from Memphis. The Sunday Tennessean has the details. A few days ago the Tennessean reported the possibility that Tennessee officials were involved in secret negotiations with Toyota.

Count me as one person hoping that, this time, Tennessee doesn't fork over truckloads of cash to win the bidding war. Toyota is a highly profitable company - reporting a $3 billion profit one recent quarter, so they certainly don't need Tennessee tax dollars to make their project feasible or profitable. Also, while a Toyota plant in Chattanooga would certainly create many new jobs for Tennesseans, that would be true too if the plant was built in Arkansas just across the Mississippi River from Memphis, which is home to the bulk of the population in that area.

Don't get me wrong - Toyota is, hands down, the best car company on the planet right now, and its going to get even better. But there's not a huge difference to Tennessee in locating the plant in either location, because it still will fuel the business and growth of jobs at auto parts suppliers in the state that already do business with Toyota's Kentucky operations.

Given those factors, if Toyota really is down to picking between Chattanooga and the site in eastern Arkansas, Tennessee should offer nothing more than standard infrastructure improvements - road and rail - that any major manufacturing plant would require.

Bredesen's Inaugural Speech

The Tennessean has put the audio online of Gov. Bredesen's speech at his inauguration Saturday for a second term. Click here to listen, or right-click to download. The paper's brief story from the inauguration is here.

January 20, 2007

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Back in early September I made a prediction that Gov. Phil Brede