Glick on Obama & Clinton

Caroline Glick has another good essay in the Jerusalem Post comparing Clinton and Obama. My favorite passage is the following:

THERE ARE two reasons that a deterrence model will be as ineffective in curbing Iranian aggression as Obama's appeasement model. First, as last week's 25th anniversary of the Iranian-sponsored bombing of the US embassy in Beirut recalled, Iran has been attacking the US and its allies both directly and through proxies since 1979. To date, not only has the US failed to deter such attacks, it has never made Iran pay a price for them. With this abysmal track record against a non-nuclear Iran, it is hard to see how the US can threaten a nuclear-armed Iran with sufficient credibility to make a deterrence-based strategy successful.

The second reason that basing US policy towards Iran on a deterrence model will likely fail is because Iran's leadership has made clear that is not necessarily concerned about the survivability of Iran. From Ayatollah Khomeini to Ayatollah Khamenei to Ali Rafsanjani to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran's leadership has made clear that they are not Iranian patriots but global Islamic revolutionaries. Given their millenarian, apocalyptic view of their country's purpose in world affairs, there is good reason to believe that a strategy based on some form of mutually assured destruction would have only marginal impact on Iran's decision-makers.[emphasis added]

The Republican Primaries and the Elections

It has been claimed that this race is uninspiring to Republicans because none of the current contenders are "true Conservatives." Some Evangelical Christians such as James Dobson are unhappy with the current front runners -- Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani. Romney is a Mormon who until recently held rather liberal positions on various issues and has now apparently been convinced they were wrong and switched to positions more in line with those of the Christian Right, for example, he is now opposed to abortion as well as stem-cell research. Giuliani remains pro-choice and has a personal life that does not exactly suggest "family values." The less said about the other candidates, the better.

However, I see this race as an opportunity. For first time in about 30 years we can move beyond the agenda of the Christian Right in the Republican party. Rudy Giuliani represents such an opportunity. If Giuliani wins the Republican primaries he will finally open up the Republican party to secular candidates. The key is that he has to then win the election. If he wins both the primaries and the election, he will have dealt a severe blow to the presence of the Religious Right in the Republican Party. If, on the other hand, he loses the election, it will be claimed that secular forces are too weak on the Right and we will not see a secular candidate like Giuliani lead the Republicans for quite some time. The Religious Right will claim that the secular right has had its chance and the next Republican nominee will be as religious as the current occupant or perhaps even more. And furthermore, he will very likely win, given that Hillary Clinton will have been President and implemented some of her policies. As I have stated elsewhere I intend to vote for Giuliani when the primaries are held in California, and if he wins the nomination, I think I will vote for him in the general election as well.

Hillary Clinton & the NEA


I was going to post a detailed dissection of the recent NEA resolutions, but I see that Rational Jenn beat me to it.
According to the site OnTheIssues.org (scroll down a little) Hillary Clinton sports an 82% approval rating from the NEA. In July of this year, the Clinton campaign announced that "NEA NH Leader Karen McDonough to Co-Chair Education Leaders for Hillary." "McDonough was a leader of NEA-NH, a 13,000-member organization, for 16 years. She served as president for last eight years and as vice president for the eight years prior to that." Presidential Candidate Hillary Clinton spoke at the 2007 annual NEA meeting in July. Given that by virtually every poll Hillary Clinton's nomination as the Democratic Candidate for President seems assured, I think it we can safely assume that she will take the NEA line on most issues.