Will the Democrats, Once Again Snatch Defeat Out of the Jaws of Victory?

< McCain on the Campaign Trail

Not long ago, the word on the street was; "There's no way a Republican can win in November '08." Back then, when there were over 8 Democratic candidates vying for the candidacy, Hillary was the presumptive "chosen one" and she was also lauded as having the best organization on the ground and having the most financial backing. No one at the time expected the rise of Barack and the demise of John Edwards.

My, my, how times and the public can bring all things to a whole new view. However, as the Democrats have learned with candidates such as Ronald Reagan and Bush I and II, to quote the great Yogi Berra; "It ain't over, til it's over!" According to the so called "knowledgeable pundits", John McCain was never going to be the Republican nominee, (Oh yeah, we all remember that it was "America's Mayor", Rudy Giuliani that was destined for that position........) and if not Rudy, the next big money was on Mitt Romney or Mike Huckabee. Well, I guess congratulations are in order for John McCain. You did what everyone was saying was impossible.

And why do I use the word; "impossible"?

Well, all of those neocons that usually make the most noise in the media had previously said they could not support John McCain. President Reagan's son, talk show host Michael Reagan, has written a number of "anti-McCain" articles. In fact, one of them was titled: "John McCain Hates Me". Reagan also wrote: "I don't like the way McCain treats people. You get the impression that he thinks everybody is beneath him." Today, Reagan says: "Assuming that John McCain is the Republican candidate, you can bet my father would be itching to get out on the campaign trail working to get him elected. Even if he disagreed with him on a number of issues."

There's also the written comment by Republican Senator Thad Cochran on McCain's tendency to explode at his Senate colleges: "The thought of him (McCain) being President sends a cold chill down my spine. He is erratic. He is a hothead. He loses his temper, and he worries me." Even after writing this statement, Cochran recently endorsed McCain.

Conservative political author, Charles Krauthammer recently wrote about McCain's attitude against conservative thinking in the Washington Post; "McCain's apostasies are too numerous to count." McCain is regularly referred to by many conservatives as "Juan McCain" because of his support for amnesty for undocumented immigrants. Rush Limbaugh has said that he feels that McCain could be the beginning of ruining the Republican party. Ann Coulter has said she might vote for Hillary Clinton over McCain if Hillary is nominated. When it was pointed out on CNN's Glenn Beck Show, that the reason that McCain does well with voters is that they think McCain is an "independent", Beck replied: "Yes, but so is Dr. Frankenstein". Even with all this negative press, little by little the conservatives are starting to get behind John McCain as their candidate.

Now that the Republican side of the program has been decided, we are now being forced to watch the debacle that is going on between the final two Democratic potential candidates. As they both continue to struggle in trying to "one-up" each other, McCain's campaign bus, the so called "Straight Talk Express" heads down the campaign trail virtually unopposed. The current situation on the Democrat's side has become very depressing as is shown in an excerpt from a rhyme recently written by the progressive author / poet Calvin Trillin;

"Republicans seemed sunk before----A grim economy and the war..... But now the Democrats are making news.....They've figured out a way to lose...."

I keep hearing from some of the Democratic leadership that in the long term, the current "slug-fest" between Obama and Clinton is healthy for the party. However, I personally have trouble believing that whomever is left standing, the winner and the loser are both going to be battered and bruised and will not be stronger in the end from all of the "competitive experience". When it's all over, and hopefully that's soon, I still have my fingers crossed that whoever survives will be able to catch up to whatever gains McCain is able to achieve while the Democrats are so busy fighting each other.

It has been promising as well as amazing that there have been so many new registered Democrats around the country. (And the large numbers of theses new voters go well beyond Rush Limbaugh's Operation Chaos where he's trying to make Hillary the Democratic candidate.) Hopefully, these new voters are coming on board because they've had enough of the current "failed" Republican administration. I hope that they also understand that if they didn't like Bush, McCain shows every sign of being a whole lot worse.

Here's are a few examples for why I am hoping that the Democrats don't screw up and "Once again, snatch defeat out of the jaws of victory".

>>> McCain told Russian President Vladimir Putin directly that he (McCain): "Doesn't care what Putin thinks about American plans to put missiles in Eastern Europe." He also said; "The first thing I would do is make sure we have a missile defense system in place in Czechoslovakia and Poland and I don't care what Putin's objections are."

>>> McCain's use of the Beach Boy's song "Barbara Ann" and to make it into "Bomb, bomb, bomb---bomb, bomb Iran" is potentially dangerous, shows a lack of respect and is not very funny.

>>> Larry Wilkerson, a retired army colonel and former top aide to Secretary of State, Colin Powell stated: "Hardheaded is another way to to say it (about McCain). Arrogant is another way to say it. Hubristic is another way to say it. Too proud for his own good is another way to say it. It's a quality about him that disturbs me."

>>> McCain is known to be drawing up plans for a new set of global, US institutions, from a potent covert operations unit, to a "League of Democracies" which would bypass the UN, to a an expanded NATO that will bump up against Russian interests in Asia and to possibly revive US unilateralism against his personal version of the "axis of evil". This is all about his vision for carrying on the "war on terror" deep into the twenty first century. Unfortunately, there is no room for diplomacy in any of McCain's plans.

>>> I am very concerned about the list of like-minded neocons that have been assembled as McCain's advisors. They include: Randy Scheunemann, a chief architect of the Iraq War and McCain's current foreign policy advisor. Also included in this group are: Bill Kristol, James Woolsey, Robert Kagan, Max Boot, Gary Schmitt and Major Ralph Peters. All of these would support McCains "shoot first and ask questions later" mentality.

>>> McCain has been a cheerleader for the war going back to the eve of the invasion. He was even heard to echo Vice President Dick Cheney's comments when he said; "There's no doubt in my mind that once Saddam is gone, we will be welcomed as liberators." (Well, we know where that went.) When General Eric Shinseki warned a month before the war started, that occupying Iraq would require far more troops than Rumfeld's plan called for, McCain remained mute. By late 2006, when the bipartisan Iraq Study Group (ISG) called for pulling out all combat brigades within 15 months, McCain, Lieberman and a group of neocons, led by Fred Kagan of the conservative American Enterprise Institute and joined by Cheney, persuaded Bush to instead, escalate the war.

>>> Retired General Wesley Clark, previous head of NATO Forces, said recently that on the eve of the war, he and McCain were: "Shown a Pentagon document that portrayed Iraq as the first in a series of operations to also change the political regimes in Iran, Syria, Sudan, Libya, Somalia and Lebanon." Larry Korb, former Reagan Defense Official said: "He (McCain) would always employ military force to the exclusion of other options."

>>> McCain has already said that he would not rule out making a "Preemptive strike on Iran, depending on what the circumstances were at the time."

>>> McCain wants a White House directly in charge of the US intelligence Community. He would disband-band the CIA and set up a new agency that would have little or no Congressional controls.

>>> The UN would be shunted aside by the new "League of Democracies". The new "League" would provide an alternate way of legitimizing foreign intervention by the United States. A veteran GOP strategist that knows McCain very well says: "The new League would circumvent the UN and would take the authority to act in the name of the international community, sometimes using force." This would obviously be viewed by the Russians and the Chinese as a threat.

>>> "He's a true neocon." stated Ivo Daalder of the Brookings Institute. He also said: "If you thought Bush was bad when it comes to using military force, wait till you see John McCain. He has bought into the fallacious notion that we're in a global struggle of us-versus-them." For McCain, the Iraq War, the conflict with Iran, the Arab-Israeli dispute, the war in Afghanistan, the Pakistani crisis and the lack of democracy in Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Jordon are all rolled up into one ball of wax.

>>> And it really scares me when I think of whom McCain would choose as his candidates for the US Supreme Court.

And this is just the short list of my concerns.....................