Jeffrey Lord at the American Spectator has a great article about just how wrong Colin Powell and the so-called, oft-cited, but ill-defined moderate republicans are, particularly when it comes to their understanding of their conservative fellows.

Why is it that the left, who can never stop giving the right advice that is “for our own good,” are so quick of late to quote Powell as the unimpeachable source? Is this not the crowd who until recently called him a traitor, a liar, a war criminal, and an uncle Tom? Whether they believed that then, or this now, it makes their advice that we should listen to him completely ridiculous.

I gotta find out how they get away with being so blatantly two-faced. That’s got to come in handy playing cards. Anyway, go read this.

(Via Instapundit) Not without repeating the entire thing, at least. So just go read it, and marvel that Slate apparently has a regular writer who doesn’t understand that nothing ever goes away on the Internet.

I’m flabbergasted, really.

Crossposted to Moe Lane

And I normally don’t bother linking directly to the Online Left anyway – still, regarding today’s completely unsurprising California Supreme Court decision on Proposition 8, Taylor Marsh writes:

The first thing you have to ask is how Californians allowed the referendum to pass in the first place. How does a civil rights campaign in California fall to the bigots? Because many people don’t vote in off election cycles, and the most committed wins. The anti civil rights crowd is wrong on this issue, but they are determined.

Leaving aside for the moment the advisability – or indeed, the basic morality – of attacking same-sex marriage opponents* in such a fashion, I am forced to ask: in what alternate universe was the 2008 Presidential election an ‘off election cycle’?

Moe Lane

*Particularly given the demographic breakdowns – and yes, I am aware what the Left’s pet astrologer told them.

Crossposted to Moe Lane.

…some of the Democrats are apparently trying to recruit us. But this analysis from Alan Abramowitz claims that it would be a futile and net negative effort for the Dems to do so.

Based on their ideological identification and other issue positions, there appears to be little likelihood that pro-life Republicans would respond positively to appeals from Democratic candidates on the issue of abortion. Moreover, in addition to alienating the pro-choice majority of Democrats, such a shift would also alienate the pro-choice minority of Republicans who appear to be much more open to appeals from Democratic candidates on a wide range of issues. These findings suggest that rather than abandoning the Democratic Party’s traditional support for abortion rights in a futile pursuit of pro-life Republican voters, Democratic candidates would be better off focusing their efforts on appealing to Republicans who support the Democratic Party’s traditional position on abortion.

Funny, this sounds exactly like my analysis (in reverse) of what would happen if the so-called “moderates” got their way with evicting the Socons and adopting a socially-liberal pro-choice, pro-gay-marriage platform.

Today the Telegraph posted a superb article that points to some of the same issues with President Fluffy that I’ve been stating almost since January. The money quote:

The speech gave a crystal-clear view of Mr Obama’s approach to politics, but was also a token of how increasingly difficult he will find it to govern so long as he persists in thinking he is still on the campaign trail, rather than in the White House and actually running the country. Despite having won his election nearly seven months ago, and perhaps because of grumblings from critics that he could emulate Jimmy Carter and be a one-term Democrat president, Mr Obama cannot help but try to court popularity. He often does this, as in the abortion speech, by seeking to create an idea that he is somehow above differences within the American nation, and that he can represent neither camp or both camps on any question, however tendentious. It won’t work.

The guy has been in campaign mode since the day he was elected. The drone about “failed Bush policies” was creative campaign fodder, but now all it does is shows that he’s unwilling to take responsibility. That’s not leadership…that is cowardice. And that’s the last thing we need with North Korea and Iran about to become nuclear powers. Again the eery similarities with the Carter administration are kicking in. That ain’t good.

And you can believe their intentions as much – or as little – as you like; speaking as an incorrigible giver of advice that I know darn well to be ignored, their cheerful “forget all of this when we get a Democrat that we like running for office” attitude is an argument in favor of it being honestly meant advice. The short version? Don’t go after the current Democratic President the way that the last Democratic President was gone after.

Yeah, some of you don’t want to hear that; personally, I’m more interested in the 2010 election than I am the 2012 one anyway. I figure that the White House can find it just as easy to try to claim credit for everything that a GOP-dominated Congress does and call it a domestic policy as he currently does now for a Democratic-dominated one. Besides, there’s a need for local support in elections. There’s always a need for local support in elections. There’s always going to be a need for local support in elections.

H/T A Conservative Lesbian, whose major problem with the advice is that it implies keeping Michael Steele as RNC Chair.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to Moe Lane.

President Obama, that is. Via Holy Coast:

Several dozen professors had called upon the first African-American president to forgo a Memorial Day tradition of laying a wreath at a monument to Confederate soldiers at Arlington National Cemetery, the grand hillside preserve across the Potomac River from the Capitol on the onetime estate of Gen. Robert E. Lee.

Instead, the White House sent wreathes to both the Confederate memorial at Arlington and to the African American Civil War Memorial in Washington’s historically black U Street neighborhood north of the Capitol.

Presidents traditionally visit Arlington to personally leave a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknowns, bearing the remains of unidentified U.S. military members who died at war. And President Barack Obama did that today, during his first Memorial Day ceremony as president. They have aides deliver wreaths to other memorials – including, today, at the mast of the USS Maine and at the Spanish American War Memorial.

Included in the ranks of said protesters is our old friend Bill Ayers, would-be mass murderer and domestic terrorist. While I’m sure that the President is grateful that he’s decided to come down on the other side of this, one wonders what personality flaws are present in Ayer’s colleagues, that they would be happy to count him as one.

Crossposted to Moe Lane.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/may/25/second-thoughts-on-cheney-indictment-pardon-him-an/

Lanny Davis the pitbull of the infamous Clinton Administration called last week for Vice President Cheney to be indicted. This week, not so much. I am sure this has absolutely NOTHING to do with Mrs Moneypenny (Pelosi) nothing at all.

“The one that bothered me the most was sent half-tongue-in-cheek: “Someone seems to be sending something out under your name that suggests … the government should selectively prosecute only those members of a prior administration who engage in forceful public criticism.”

Yes I am quite sure Mr. Davis that is what CHANGED your mind and for your next one trick pony?

(Via Hot Air Headlines) The DCist really wanted to mock this video of Steele talking to some high school students:

…but couldn’t. Worth watching to the end.

Crossposted to Moe Lane.

The NY Times thinks it’s somehow newsworthy that the President of the United States was given a respectful reception by newly-commissioned officers serving under him:

Obama Is Embraced at Annapolis

ANNAPOLIS, Md. — Nobody protested President Obama’s commencement address Friday morning at the United States Naval Academy. Nobody told Mr. Obama he was undeserving of an honorary degree. Instead, under a nearly cloudless sky, Mr. Obama was treated to a 21-gun salute, a Blue Angels flyover — and a respite from graduation controversy.

Well, yeah. That’s what the military does. They’re professionals and he’s the President. But buried in there is one discordant note: “when John S. McCain IV was called to the podium to receive his diploma, a huge roar rose from the crowd”. Subtle, perhaps. But also a way of politely informing the President that another choice might have been preferred.