When they had a common adversary in Mitt Romney, it was understandable that Mike Huckabee and John McCain were complimentary to each other. Romney is no longer a factor anymore. The civility and decency of the interaction between head-to-head opponents Huckabee and McCain, however, not only continues to exist but seems to have deepened. It shows class.

It has been well said that the true manners of a man are measured not by how he talks of his employer but his former employer, not by how he mentions his allies but how he mentions his erstwhile allies, not by how he speaks of his significant other, but how he speaks of his ex significant other.

Both Governor Huckabee and Senator McCain seem to be the kind of men into whom was instilled that ancient wisdom of decency that taught them to say ‘We are no longer together, and it is all my fault.’

Whether that kind of sterling character and class gets Senator McCain the presidency or not, I do not know. Frankly, much of our society is too given to ‘let it all out’ exhibitionist verbosity to appreciate the stoic decency of men like McCain. No wonder that the Republic’s intelligence services are having a tough time recruiting HUMINT these days; I mean can you believe being taciturn and being given an ultimatum that ‘we need to go to counseling because you are not being open with me’.

The biggest casualty of modern times is not innocence or unity or bi-partisanship but honor and faith. A McDonald drive through culture, even with organic cooking on the weekends, cannot long anchor ancient vanilla flavored qualities like faith and honor.

KsReaganite has had a long week with 12 hour workdays, he is reflecting too much, he needs his bourbon, his cigar, his solitude, and his patio to commiserate about honor and sacrifice, silence and selflessness, peace and peacefulness. Solitude and the commiseration on the deepest values and conflicts of the self must go hand in hand, so opined Captain Robert Falcon Scott, that glorious symbol of all such selfless thoughts that English-speaking people once held dear.

One of the unnoticed tragedy, what with all the presidential primary hoopla, of last Tuesday’s contests was liberal Democrat Congressman Albert Wynn of Maryland’s Fourth District. He was beaten by a relative newcomer, probably equally ultra-liberal, who banked on Wynn’s incumbency factor among other things. Now, there are very very few things Mr. Wynn and I agreed upon and I shouldn’t be shedding too many tears on his apparent political demise. But I guess I do.

See, Al Wynn was one of those extremely few members of Congress who truly cared for children of broken homes. A divorced father himself who had to fight tooth and nail, and expend all his limited savings, to keep meaningful relationship with his children, Wynn did not buy the nonsense that the powerful divorce industry sold in the halls of power. He was amongst a handful of Representatives and Senators who had the raw courage to speak on behalf of the rights of children when the entire machinery of the federal government, state courts, social workers, and sleazy lawyers was arrayed against the kids. Like me, Al Wynn found it unconscionable that the livelihoods of petty bureaucrats and campaign coffers of unethical politicians were helped in direct proportion to the number of children who are whisked away from the lives of their parents.

I hope against hope that Al Wynn runs as an independent Democrat in November and wins (it is a safe Democrat seat so no Republican has a chance anyway).

In a different part of the country, businessman Tim Burns is running for the Congressional seat vacated by Louisiana’s newly elected reformist governor Bobby Jindal. It is only appropriate that the good people of Louisiana’s First District nominate Burns in the March 8 primary because he is a principled conservative and no-nonsense reformer in the vein of his predecessor. With a record of no-apologies defense of innocent life, deficit and tax reduction, and school choice in Louisiana’s otherwise corrupt legislature, Tim Burns will bring a much needed image change for the political class of that state. And he will be a solid asset for the true blue conservatives in Washington DC.

Thought 1: We know that Senator John McCain has consistently opposed the abuse of federal tax dollars to extract DNA from bears in Montana. As such he has endeared himself to the bear population that resents such a federally funded intrusion of privacy. It should come as no surprise then that the McCain campaign announced a National Bear-man for the McCain operation who would presumably work alongside the national Chair-man of the operation. Informed sources reveal that the National Bear-man, currently in partial hibernation, is a brown bear named CB who was originally a part of the Florida GOP.

Thought 2: Today, yours truly saw a true pro-choice bumper sticker he loved. Heck, I could use that bumper sticker proudly. It says

I AM PRO CHOICE: EVERY UNBORN BABY SHOULD HAVE A CHOICE

Right on!!!

Thought 3: For understandable reasons I am removing the Romney for President link from my blog. It's been fun but now we have a nominee and its time to fight the good fight unitedly for values dear to us: lower taxes, national security, free markets, life, and constructionist judges. The alternative is a high tax burden, unconditional surrender, socialized economy, taxpayer funded abortion till the day of (or maybe even day after) delivery, and judges who act like unelected tyrants.

 

 

Most of my readers and my friends know well the acute Anglophilia with which I identify. Thus it comes as a horror of horrors and albeit a warning to us on this side of the Atlantic when I read this news report:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080204/od_afp/britainpeoplehistoryoffbeat
Most Englishmen and Englishwomen, products of mass public schools run amock by the amptly abbreviated NUT (National Union of Teachers, the English equivalent of our NEA), think that Sherlock Holmes rather than Winston Churchill is real. Mind you that most English families, just like their American counterparts, do not have the choice of sending their children to a school of their choice anymore. The result is a new generation that is supposed to take the mantle of what once was the greatest civilizing empire in the world. What a pity that those who conquered everything and everyone from Scots nearby to the Indians faraway, have great grandchildren who have no concept of that history or the men who made that history. What a shame for the English speaking peoples of the world.
But then NUT is probably already lobbying for teaching kids Gaelic and French anyway. The English may have defeated the Scots, the Irish, the Germans, and the Indians, but England's teachers have certainly won back all that was lost.

In November, with a heavy heart KsReaganite endorsed Governor Romney in the following entry. As readers will note, the key reason was the apparent ability of Romney to stop Rudy Giuliani's apparently steamrolling machine. Even as I backed Governor Romney, I said his frequent change of positions bothered me and told you about my deep admiration for Senator John McCain.

http://ksreaganite.townhall.com/g/dd15c113-9d58-451d-a204-f9e05abe2d12

Well, with Giuliani's precipitous and welcome political demise, the main point of the endorsement becomes moot. And several of my entries since have made the point that Governor Romney's campaign has engaged in tactics and postures which I find undignified. Ultimately, it comes down to who can uphold our values (Rudy didn't) and beat the Democratic machine in November. I believe that man is John McCain...a man I admire greatly and one whose heart is in the right place which is a place far removed from the latest Gallup polls on issues of the day. Today, in his gracious victory speech he made a point of mentioning constructionist judges. He needs to continue to do that for that is a perpetually top priority domestic issue for movement conservatives.

 

No candidate in either party has paid a higher price for his love of country than John McCain; nobody is better experienced to handle the terrorist war imposed on us; and nobody understands more deeply the need to keep America faithful to her founding values in good times and in times of profound challenges. And I am satisfied that McCain is right on trade, taxes, spending, immigration, and life. No amount of shrill posturing by self declared conservative pundits like Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh can change the fact that McCain's record is one of principled conservatism that appeals to our highest hopes rather than our basest fears.

 

Tonight KsReaganite is relieved to be able to come to the side of the candidate who principles and record match my priorities the most closely: a true American hero, John Sidney McCain.

 

THE MAC IS BACK!!!!

Today is January 29, 2008, the one hundred forty seventh birthday of this great state of Kansas. This is an event which is celebrated across the state by Republicans while Democrats, to the surprise of many unaware of history, generally ignore the day.

 If I were a Democrat I’d probably ignore the birthday of Kansas too…as our governor did yesterday when making the response to the President’s State of the Union. You see, Governor Sebelius’s party fought tooth and nail, blood and gore, and bodies and bones to stop Kansas from entering the Union during those eventful years of ‘Bloody Kansas’ in the 1850s. The newly formed Republican Party wanted Kansas to enter the Union as a free state while Democrats operating out of neighboring Missouri wanted slavery not only to be accepted in Kansas but placed above the reach of laws and courts. So they fought, the Democrats bolstered by armed ruffians and the Supreme Court’s Dred Scott decision (see previous post), the Republicans enthused with the radical idea that one human being cannot determine life and liberty for another. Entire Kansas towns (including Lawrence) were burned to the ground by the pro-slavery rights forces and federal courts, the only ones in operation in pre-statehood Kansas, refused to intervene: the ‘enlightenment’ of the lawyers and judges and New York Times dictated that every white man ought to have the choice about what to do with his own ‘property’. Despite such ferocious opposition, Kansas indeed came into being and the rest, as they say, is history.

 A similar battle, more sublime but no less defining, about the rights of vulnerable human beings goes on in the country today and Kansas is often ground zero for it. And once again, the Democrats are on the wrong side, along with the New York Times, lawyers, and federal judges (remember Patrick Kelly?).

 Happy Birthday Kansas…and don’t worry if the Democrats are being sore losers about it.

Not much for writing yet but a quick commemoration of National Sanctity of Life Day today. Our founding document said "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life.." Someday, someday soon we will reach a place where that  First Unalienable Right will be protected by our legislatures and courts unabashedly. Not today, not tomorrow, not in my lifetime or yours..but happen it will someday. This is America....just like Dred Scott vs. Sanford of 1856, the decision of January 22, 1973 will end in the ash heap of history, in the rancid ignomy it so richly deserves. For ultimately, Americans in their hearts know that taking someone's life or liberty, just because of the victim's station of life or domicile, is repugnant to every value that has ever been considered 'American'.

I wasn't planning to come back and write for a few days..just not upto it for some reason. And I won't for a few days except to point out tonight how shameful some so called 'conservatives' have become in pursuit of nefarious electoral agendas. For some, specially in South Carolina, the end justifies the means, no matter how much falsehood is spread. Don't get me wrong...I am not the one to shy away from negative campaigning. Frankly, negative campaigning based on a person's character and record is very fair game.

What is not fair is plain disregard for the truth and a blatant appeal to the lowest demons of our nature. In attacking John McCain, a candidate I find myself at oddes with on several major issues, some of thee self declared conservatives and their champion candidates digust me. McCain has enough things to be criticized for honestly-like campaign finance and lackluster support of the 2001 tax cuts-without making up things about his record. In a deeply conservative state like South Carolina, he has been accused of being a pseudo-conservative and soft on life, for example. The facts are different. John McCain's lifetime rating by the American Conservative Union is above 80 percent, making him one of the most conservative twenty percent of United States senators. His advocacy for the civil rights of unborn children is evident in vote after vote, as is his advocacy on behalf of children who are abused, malnoursihed, and uninsured. Now that is the true definition of being pro life. Were it not for his intervention in the compromise of 2006, we would have never gotten Sam Alito on the Supreme Court, bringing the highest bench of the land just one vote short of someday overturning that nefarious, outrageous blot on our Republic's conscience known as Roe v. Wade.

Issue after cardinal issue, John McCain has been the true conservative with a record to show: free trade, civil liberties, right to self defense, national security, cutting pork, support for Israel and the rest of America's allies....the list goes on. Where he has broken ranks is with narrowly focused special interest groups that pose as conservative but are either really anti-free market xenophobes of the Pat Buchanan-Lou Dobbs variety, or individuals who have never seen a day in combat but fancy being tough warriors behind mahagony desks in Washington DC or Boston.

John McCain is neither perfect nor a saint. But one thing he is is a conservative. A conservative with compassion, honor, and heart.  My friends in South Carolina will do a great disservice to their good name if they were to vote against Senator McCain simply based on shadowy allegations of dubious merits that is being targeted at him. There are several reasons to vote against McCain but a lack of conservative credentials isn't a good one amongst them.

Dear readers, sorry for not updating recently. It's due to a sudden bout of illness that is sapping my energy and making my mind less willing to engage in grand pronouncements as it is wont to here and elsewhere . Chances are I will be spotty in updates for the next few days or week at least. Please bear with me. Yes, and I join those heartily who congratulate Sen. John McCain on his victory in NH. He is a good and honorable man who has given more for this Republic than all the candidates running in either party, combined ten times over. The Mac is Back.

That Governor Mike Huckabee cleaned the clock, after being outspent 15 to1, in Iowa is a testament to the fact that many Iowans bought into the sincerity exuded by the candidate. It is also a reflection of that very sublime and yet ever present American strain of having a soft corner for those considered to be on the margins of society. Unlike many Republican campaigners, Huckabee tapped into that compassion that exists amongst regular Republicans just as much as amongst regular Democrats. Compassion for those who are 'in the dawn of life, in the shadows of life, and in the twilight of life, is what defines the greatness of a civilized society', so said the late Democrat Vice President H Hubert Humphrey. Be such life be that of the unborn child, the abused animal, the wayfarer, the troubled teen, the depressed adult, or the harried immigrant, Huckabee didn't apologize for his belief that all such life has certain inherent dignity. Whether he goes far or not is something I don't know; what I do know is that it is a wakeup call for many of us establishment Republicans who often forget to see beyond the polls, the spreadsheets, and the think tank analyses pouring out of Washington.

Happy New Year to all of you! I must admit it was a good start to the New Year for KsReaganite..he got to usher it in with his friends, family, and loved ones. The past year, at its very end, did see the sad demise of Benazir Bhutto, an iconic former Prime Minister of Pakistan.

Sad as it was, as any violent death of a human being is, the assasination of Bhutto is neither entirely unexpected nor is it a license to call her a martyr for democracy. Fact of the matter is that for all her Oxford clipped rhetoric custom made for Washington comsumption, Benazir Bhutto was hardly a democrat, as the term is understood in the West. The daughter of a Z.A. Bhutto, Pakistan's first popularly elected premier, Benazir inherited the megalomania, ego, and intolerance of her socialist father whose secret police tortured political opponents with methods that are too disgusting and harrowing even for Pakistan. During her two terms as Prime Minister, Benazir Bhutto did nothing to ameliorate the plight of women or minorities in her country but rather unleashed a reign of terror in Karachi which was dominated by the ethnic oppostion MQM party. To this day hundreds of disappeared MQM members have never been found. To top it off, Bhutto orchestrated the murder of two of her own brothers, lest they become contenders for her position at the head of the Pakistan People's Party. And even her supporters acknowledge that this 'friend' of the Pakistani masses and her husband Asif Zardari bilked Pakistan's treasury of millions while in power...a scale of corruption massive even by Pakistani standards. It is not without accuracy that the Times of London columnist Jemima Khan, herself a prominent British Pakistani, described the late Benazir Bhutto as a 'kleptocrat in a Hermes scarf'.

Oxford accents and appearances in Washington DC parlors do not a democrat make. God bless Benazir Bhutto's soul but let us not kid ourselves: she was a typical autocratic Pakistani politician who fell victim to the same cycle of violence that she had greedily engaged in a bare fifteen years ago.

I am on vacation till after New Year's Day and will have comments on the assassination of former Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto then. Happy New Year!

Now Mike Huckabee is getting flak from liberals here and even abroad about that campaign ad earlier this month which he closed with 'Merry Christmas'. How dare he?? From the New York Times to the International Herald Tribune to the Guardian of London is after Governor Huckabee for being so open about his faith. It is a pity how little they know about the foundations of this Republic whose founding fathers were all devout believers in God and his Majesty, though they may have approached God on slighty different paths. 'If a bird flap not its wings but by the leave of the Almighty, dare we think that a great Republic shall rise without His blessing?', so asked the supposedly 'secular' Dr. Benjamin Franklin at the Constitutional Convention (evidently that was before the time of the ACLU which probably would have promptly sued Dr. Franklin for violating that imaginary separation of church and state).

Who are these liberals kidding?

So the indications and rumors were true, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair did become a Roman Catholic officially. In an academic sense it is not surprising: his wife, Judge Cheri Boothe (and their children) has been a practicing Catholic for a long time, and as political science demographers know, in situations where there is a difference of religion, men often take the lead of their wives (it is the reverse in politics).  Byond the demographic aspect, it is well known that Mr. Blair is, unlike most British public figures, not averse to talking about his faith, his relationship to his Creator, and Judeao-Christian values. For all his leftist rhetoric, he has proven himself to be a man of certain moral absolutes.

Hence, the only church left for him to go to in utterly secular Western Europe and Britain is, unfortunately, the Roman Catholic Church. Britain's premier Church of England (CofE), like its cousin the Episcopal Church in the USA, is but a shadow of its former self whose theology consists of an odd assortment of the most latest Left wing ideological snippets. Many CofE bishops are more intersted in removing crucifixes and endorsing lesbian 'marriages' than preaching the antiquated Ten Commandments; most CofE parishes are empty on Sunday mornings. The CofE is going the same way that the state Lutheran churches in Norway, Sweden, and West Germany, the Presbeteries in Scotland, and Orthodoxy in Ukraine went....into oblivion marked by irrelevance and unmourned by parishioners who had long ceased to come into the Leftist conclaves that those churches had become.

Whether we like it or not, the only national spiritual organization with moral absolutes that exists in most of Western Europe, and specially in Great Britain, is the Roman Catholic Church. It is the last line of defense for Judeao-Christian civilization in Europe. Tony Blair is a fighter....he proved that much on Iraq. I guess he wants to join the fight to defend the last shreds of Western Civilization left in his country.

The President and his domestic social policy advisers often promote marriage as a stabilizer and bemoan the falling rates of the same. His Healthy Marriage Initiative of 2002 even had bi-partisan support. They would do better to reflect on this article which, sadly, portrays an all too common phenomena in America.

http://men.msn.com/articlebl.aspx?cp-documentid=5873934&GT1=10715

The surprise shouldn’t be that fewer men get married than before, but that ANY men get married at all. Nothing in America is a greater gamble for men that getting married. The two stories in the article may make Saudi Arabia look positively average when it comes to law and justice. A more disgusting and deadly perversion of justice is hard to imagine. Please, nobody ask me why I have such a staggering contempt for feminists, family court judges, the domestic violence industry, and divorce lawyers. The State Department should stop lecturing other countries about gender equity and human rights and better use those exhortations domestically.