Posted on 09/27/2005 12:04:34 PM PDT by Keyes2000mt
As I've written about the necessity of being involved in choosing a President, and putting yourself in a position to make a difference, it's important now to examine the qualities we should look for in a President.
Character
The character of a person who will be the President of the United States cannot be underestimated. The President is a role model for American youth, whether we like it or not. Also, as we learned from the Clinton administration, the character of the President can become a joke that distracts from our nation's business and detracts from our country's character.
We don't just need a president who looks good in public, but a President whose private character is marked by moral probity. To believe someone will be faithful to serve his country and his duty to the Constitution when he's been unfaithful to his family repeatedly or dishonest in his financial dealings is folly.
This is not to say that a President must have lived a spotless life. If men were angels, James Madison told us, there would be no need for government. It is reasonable, however to expect that in recent years, the man has been faithful to his family, honest in his personal dealings, and been an example of integrity. I honestly don't care if in college, he did a few drugs, or if something happened 20 years back. What I care about is who the candidate is today.
I don't particularly care about John McCain's Divorce almost thirty years ago. However, I'm concerned by Rudolph Giuliani's divorce and his decision to parade around his mistress in the year 2000 while in his Senate campaign advocating for the display of the Ten Commandments. This was Rudy's second marriage, the first one ended when he figured out after 14 years of marriage that he was married to his second cousin and got an annulment from the Catholic Church.
Newt Gingrich's record of personal conduct is even more deplorable. He ended an 18 year marriage and let his then-wife know about the divorce as she was recovering from cancer surgery back in the '80s. In the '90s, he divorced his second wife after she claimed to have told him that she had a neurological order that could lead to MS. He then married a third wife who was more than 20 years his junior.
Remembering Bill Clinton's dishonor, I can't in good conscience support either of these men to be President of the United States.
Strong Leader for the War on Terror
When I look at the War on terrorism, it becomes apparent that we need someone who is up to the task of leading our country as we continue to deal with terror around the world. I don't necessarily feel that a wealth of foreign policy experience is necessary to this task. Under President Bush, we've had great success capturing Al Qaeda leaders and rooting out terrorists. I don't think extra foreign policy experience would have changed that.
What is was required is strong leadership and courage to stand up for American values with a strong understanding of the issues facing us. I believe our party as a whole has that understanding and I can think of no candidate who doesn't.
Strong Conservative
Republican party leaders rail against single issue voters. If I list about five issues a candidate's wrong on, I'm still a single issue voter for not supporting the candidate. The confusion comes from the fact that the people making these arguments are "no issue voters," they'll back any Republican no matter how far left.
The fact that the Republican Party is a coalition of social conservative, economic conservatives, gun rights supporters, property rights activists, and immigration reformers. If you fail to have a candidate who satisfies the entire coalition, who moves their agenda forward in some tangible way, you risk losing the strength of the coalition. Republicans are strongest when we are united behind a candidate who shares our dreams and values. Whoever leads the Republican party must unite all Conservatives. So, in choosing a candidate we should be single issue voters for all of our constituencies.
Rudy Giuliani, in addition to his character problems is also a strong gay rights advocate and pro-abortion, even to the point of opposing the partial birth abortion ban.
John McCain supports stem cell research, spearheaded the effort to pass the abominable campaign finance reform act, and also is soft on immigration.
Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN) has been one of those most responsible for the run-away growth of the federal government in addition to embracing stem cell research.
Governor George Pataki (R-NY) is a moderate-to-liberal like Giuliani without the charisma or the personal appeal, who'd lose an election for a 4th term in New York.
Governor Tim Pawlenty (R-Mn.) has been widely floated as a candidate for President by many but has recently violated his no new-tax pledge in Minnesota.
Governor Mike Huckabee (R-Ar.) who has done great things in the state of Arkansas on social issues, but has been increased spending at an average clip of 7% a year. In addition, he doesn't take the issue of illegal immigration seriously, as he stated recently that it isn't a 'real problem.'
Now having summarily dismissed seven presidential candidates, we'll winnow the field further in my next column.
Unless you intend that support of the 2nd Amendment is covered under "Limited Government" I would say that a clear statement of support on the 2nd Amendment would be a requirement for this conservative voter.
Regards,
TS
That was my idea. Wouldn't bother me if it was listed as a separate issue of its own. Its that important.
Yes, I think that the 2nd Amendment has to be there.
Or rather, that the candidate must not back away from the Second Amendment when the issue arises.
I think the Republicans' problem will be that they'll find a conservative candidate like this, but the business Republicans will walk away and support Hillary Clinton.
The time to have insisted on the right policies was December 2004 onward, not election 2008. Unfortunately the Republicans have been wearing out their "Trust Me" card.
"The fact that the Republican Party is a coalition of social conservative, economic conservatives, gun rights supporters, property rights activists, and immigration reformers."
Add National Security. Properly applied, this issue trumps all those listed, as far as winning elections. This ommission disqualifies this author.
Why should the reader consider his opinion to disqualify seven potential candidates, when the author overlooks the SINGLE most important issue of the day?
I covered that previously in discussing the need for a strong leader in the War on Terror.
Yes, the Republicans have shown themselves more willing to engage in overseas hostilies in pursuit of the War on Terror than the Democrats have, or will.
Unfortunately, the Administration has not shown itself particularly adept at fighting the war. Iraq is not going well, and it could be going much better, had the Administration listened to professional advice given it from the start. The worst mis-steps have not been surprises.
So yes, certainly national security has to be on the table.
But again, the problem here is a comparison between what amounts to Democratic isolationism, and Republican military ineptitude. That is an unenviable choice. We shouldn't have to make it, but we do.
We are not talking about a comparison between brilliant competence and utter incompetence. Our choice is really between bumbling, marginal competence and isolationist cravenness.
National defense is no longer a slam-dunk Republican issue. Bush and Co. are no Reagan.
"Unfortunately, the Administration has not shown itself particularly adept at fighting the war. Iraq is not going well, and it could be going much better, had the Administration listened to professional advice given it from the start. The worst mis-steps have not been surprises."
I'm sure you will reveal the professional advice that was rejected.
I'll offer an idea. After WWII, the US didn't give Germany and Japan an unlimited amount of time to invent a "Constitution." We shoved ours down their throats, for the most part.
Chief of the Army, for starters, and the folks who worked with him.
The old professionals said more troops were needed.
To this day we have not closed the Syrian and Iranian borders and cordoned off the Iraqi interior to be able to limit the insurgent base we have to attrite. And we can't, because there are not enough troops to do it, and now, politically, we cannot deploy more.
So we're stuck in a reinforcing war of attrition, where our troops are dead but the enemy troops are dirt cheap.
To this very moment we still need to deploy more forces there, particularly to the border regions, to completely seal them. The bulk of the insurgents and terrorists are foreign, but there's a sea of about 400 million Muslims all around, with a steady stream of fanatics coming out of it.
Cordoning off and cutting off a region is Strategy 101 for defeating an insurgency. And that takes enough troops to literally cordon it off, among other things we're not doing.
Rumsfeld thought differently.
Rumsfeld was wrong.
Anyway, we can't walk that cat back, but we could send in a lot more troops and patrol helicopters to close the cordon and shut the borders. So, why don't we? Because a massive escalation at this point would be an admission of error. The Administration won't admit error.
So, instead, we're committed to white-knuckling this war of attrition, in the hopes that things will get better and the enemy will wear himself out.
He won't.
But we will, eventually.
That's the problem, and it's been the problem for a year.
That the leadership won't acknowledge that it's a problem and instead takes the identical stance that they did about the initial dilatory and incompetent response to Katrina (before the reality of what was going on down there was so obvious that the Administration had to change its tune in order to save itself politically) does us no good.
And that the Republican faithful refuse to admit that WE ARE IN TROUBLE in Iraq, that things are not going well there, that we're caught in a war of attrition we can't ultimately win and need to change tactics: this doesn't do us any good either.
The Democrats never wished the country well. They didn't want the war and don't want us to win.
But the rest of us thought the war was necessary, and understand that need to win. The problem is, the decisions that have been taken have handicapped us in actually accomplishing that, but nobody is willing to admit it. Instead, let anyone raise the objection I'm raising and the incoming fire is hot and furious.
But none of that shooting into the circle is going to fix the problem that we've got to change strategy in order to win over there.
The Republican faithful are in shoot the messenger mode right now, but that isn't going to win the war.
A change is strategy will, but that is not on the cards.
Which is a really terrible thing.
"To this very moment we still need to deploy more forces there, particularly to the border regions, to completely seal them. The bulk of the insurgents and terrorists are foreign, but there's a sea of about 400 million Muslims all around, with a steady stream of fanatics coming out of it.
Cordoning off and cutting off a region is Strategy 101 for defeating an insurgency. And that takes enough troops to literally cordon it off, among other things we're not doing."
How about this idea?
Our 2,000 dead in over 3 years is almost nothing, considering the total magnitude of an epic World War with Islam.
Is such a war continues trading dead soldiers, in conventional ground warfare, they outlast us.
But if we successfully stand up the means, within each country to police their own rebels, we never have to wage an all-out war. This can't be done in an instant, but progress is taking place.
But if that fails, we would have learned by trying, that they need nukin. Cuz as I said, we lose if it just means trading dead soldiers.
Muslim countries won't dare fight a conventional war with us. But islam as an institution has declared war, an unconventional war.
Your analysis is "conventional."
I say, in the medium/long run islam must fix itself, or we must kill very many muslims, and that won't be pretty. And it won't be accomplished by some extra boots on the ground in Iraq.
Can you find "thirty year war" in history books?
Let's guess Adam.
You would'nt be holding Allan Keyes in the wings now ? would ya?
It not, then Who?
The ideal candidate has'nt surfaced. And all the runners don't seem to be finishers.
Jeb? No. No actors. No incumbents? No up and comers?
Meantime Adam, shave that beard,start hitting the gym and we look forward to a brand new You in '06.
I have this theory that "Republican fatigue" will set in and the Dem candidate will win in 2008. The seemingly youthful, vigorous "new broom" Democrat won in 1960 after eight years of Republican president Eisenhower. Sixteen years later, after the Nixon-Ford years left the country fatigued, another energetic "sweeper" breezed in. Sixteen years after that, the Reagan-Bush years wore on the public's attention, and yet another engaging rascal captured the White House. Sixteen years after that will be 2008 and the end of eight years of Republican George W. Bush.
If the pattern holds, it won't be Hillary who'll win in '08, but someone like John Edwards. And with qualifications as meager as Kennedy's, Carter's and Clinton's, he'll still win, if only because he will seem to present a change of pace and a sense of rejuvenation for the body politic.
Ok, now you're talking like a realist.
Yes, the 30-Years War. That is a pretty good comparison.
Here's the difference between then and now.
Then, as now, the religious parties were backed by princes of great states, and willing to wage conventional and unconventional warfare, against armies and against populations, in order to win - or to refuse to allow the enemy to win.
So far so, good.
But then, all countries were monarchs and able to continue wafare for as long as they pleased, or as long as their money supply held out.
Today, there is a serious asymmetry.
THEY are ruled by monarchs, either directly or effectively. To the extent that war weariness sets in, it does not affect governance and continuation of the war at all. Just like in the 30 Years War. All of the peasantry of Germany were well and truly sick of it, but it did not MATTER, because Kings and Princes in faraway lands had no stake in any of the suffering. For as long as they had tax money, they could recruit soldiers and continue the killing. There was no popular check on warfare, and there isn't in the Middle Eastern countries now, except Israel (and, paradoxically, Iraq).
But we are NOT a monarchy. In our democratic republic, an unpopular war can go on for at most four years. If war weariness is great enough, the Administration engaged in it will lose an election and the other side will take over and change the strategy. That is how Vietnam ultimately ended. It was neither a military failure of American forces, nor a failure of the logistical ability to support the army. LBJ's government fell because the people turned against the war. After that, America had to lose. Nothing Nixon could do short of nuclear weapons would completely overbear the North Vietnamese and end all resistance in four short years...really 2 years, since a Congressional election would intervene and suck all money out of the war effort had Nixon decided to save American honor and thrown the full armed might of the US into an invasion of North Vietnam. North Vietnam could be invaded, by not pacified in 2 years. And after that, Nixon's government would have lost all support in Congress, and Nixon himself would have been out of office in 2 more years. You cannot wage a war against the will of the American people, not against a determined enemy who won't surrender. Try it, and the enemy - who need not fight elections - will simply fight on until the American will to fight collapses, and the war party is voted out of office.
So, you say 2000 dead is nothing.
But I tell you, I PROMISE you, that if this war is as it is now, by 2008 there will be 3500 to 4000 dead, and the Democratic candidate for President will win, and will withdraw from Iraq just as Nixon withdrew from Vietnam. We CANNOT fight a war of attrition against monarchical or dictatorial enemies in a forever-war insurgency. Americans as a people don't really care all that much about massive battle deaths of civilians: those are the hazards of war. But the slow drip-drip-drip of casualties, with no end in sight, and no sign of any change in strategy, or tactics, or anything: this will be lethal to the war effort.
And we're already on that power curve. There's still time to fix it, but there's no indication that Administration has any intention of changing course. We saw the same attitudes regarding Katrina: these men are ARROGANT. They made up their minds, and they are going to do it that way, and it doesn't matter if it doesn't work.
If we successfully stand up the means, you say.
Sure, IF.
The problem is, to do that, you've got to be able to provide a bubble of protection for the fledgling troops, a sanctuary for the guys you're trying to train. What is happening is that its the soft recruits getting blown up, and the fundamental corruption of the society is such that the effectives within the forces are themselves infiltrated.
In frustration, you are ready to reach for the nuclear option. My friend, the American people will politically nuke our Administration and vote them out of office long before any US President orders a nuclear strike on civilian cities in Iraq.
Now, there still is a template to win this thing, but it involves provoking incredible hostility among the American people, and will harm our government's reputation, because it will be a frank admission that we are not currently winning, despite all the happy talk that we are.
What is required is a massive escalation.
A LOT more ground troops and helicopters and engineering batallions need to be deployed, not to Iraqi cities, but to the empty deserts that separate the Tigris and Euphrates vallies from Iran and Syria. The engineers need to build and extend great earthen berms north to south. This has already been done to an extent, but it needs to be much more substantial. We are talking about Offa's Dyke here. Those berms need to be MINED on their approaches to and from. The deserts, to and from need to be aerial patrolled and seed with mines, and declared free-fire zones. Anyone crossing them, day or night, should be hit from the air and destroyed, or hit with the heavy roving troop patrols. The only way in or out of the Iraqi heartland should be by a couple of roads, and every car should be inspected, every single person who travels it should be photographed, fingerprinted, DNA matched and put into a data base.
This cordons off Iran, Syria and Turkey: no resupply, and no fresh recruits from outside. The Iraqi cities and population centers will be within the wall, and the battle there will need to go on as now. Without the fresh reinforcements from without, the Iraqi security forces will be slowly getting larger, while the insurgents will be getting smaller.
Further, the effort should not be to hold everything. Some cities are hotbeds of insurgency. Instead of sending patrols in to get blown up, let them rebel and become insurgent strongholds. Then concentrate US forces as was done at Fallujah. However, unlike at Fallujah, don't go in house to house and maximize your own casualties. Used ranged weapons and airpower to level the place, killing just about everybody inside. This will kill a lot of civilians who don't evacuate, to be sure, but Americans will accept that (particularly since a well-cordoned city does not have reporters INSIDE, and media access can be controlled). What Americans WON'T accept as a perpetual state of affairs is the drip-drip-drip of casualties with no end in sight.
Most people started out making the calculation you're making. Yes, we're taking casualties, but that's the price you pay to win the war. However, what has happened is that it's become clearer the US is not WINNING the war on the current strategy. It's just simply a reinforcing war of attrition. Which means that the drip-drip-drip is not the slow trade of a few of ours for vast numbers of theirs, with their numbers dwindling. It is, rather, a drip-drip-drip of ours against a steadily reinforcing enemy with an unlimited supply of recruits to draw on.
The reason we have ranged weapons and airpower is so that we can kill at a distance. Killing at a distance means killing a lot of civilians while digging out the bad guys. Iraqis will accept this, in the Kurdish and Shiite areas, if the civilians being killed are the rebellious Sunnis of the insurgent areas.
That is far short of the nuclear fantasy, but it breaks the morbid paralysis we're in.
However, to do it would require a lot more troops.
And the leadership is still asserting:
(1) We have what we need, and
(2) the military says so.
The first is not true, and the second is true, but its a sham. The military always gives a cheery aye-aye and does what it's told and supports the chain in public. In private, the military said: more troops, and was right. And today, the miltary says: gotta put up a sanitary cordon, but that will take more troops. And they're right.
If it's a 30 Years War, we lose after 5.
As I've already said, no, I do not believe Dr. Keyes will be a candidate in 2008.
Its a sign of success when your opponents sink to personal insults.
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