November Surprise

Commentary Magazine ^ | 5.7.2007 | Norman Podhoretz

[bnelson44]

In spite of what the polls supposedly tell us, I strongly suspect that the Democrats may already have blown the 2008 election. Unlike the late Senator Aiken of Vermont, who proposed that we declare victory and get out of Vietnam, the Democrats want us to declare defeat and get out of Iraq. This, they imagine, is what the American people were demanding in the congressional election of 2006.

But it seems far more likely that the message of that election was not "Get out," but rather "Win, or get out." In any case, the position the Democrats are now taking can only have the effect of revivifying and reinforcing the sense of them as weak on national security. And this was the very factor that led to the ignominious defeat of their presidential candidate, George McGovern, in 1972, when they also misread the public temper by paying too much attention to the left wing of their party.

[lentulusgracchus]

They don't want lower oil prices, they want to ban fossil fuels. If that results in the death by starvation of 95% of the human race well then that is just a bonus.

I'm afraid you're right -- one bunch out there has already gone on the record as favoring zero population: the extinction of humanity, to "restore" the earth.