Huh?

In an otherwise excellent article on perhaps the fundamental difference between liberals and conservatives, William McGurn continues to make the same mistake so many on their side and the Brooks/Frum Axis of Stupid on our side has made all along; Obama and his cabinet/czars/advisors are not the "best and the brightest". They are, maybe, relatively more ‘intelligent’ than the average IQ but to a person they are nothing more than an echo chamber for statist, Marxist policy that anyone of average intelligence knows will never work:

Many of the people in the Obama administration, the president included, enjoy all the credentials we associate with the best and the brightest: the right schools, the good grades, the successful careers.

The "right schools" debate notwithstanding, what "good grades"? What "successful careers"? The egghead cabinet in place now hasn’t ever left academia. They know nothing but what their professors before them instilled in their minds. Trust me, I know eggheads, they’re the dumbest people on the planet because they utterly fail to accept the fundamental truth about human nature that individuals are not infinitely malleable by the State. An ideology based on universal compliance cannot work where free will exists. It’s that simple.

Mr. McGurn continues, however:

Alas, whether it be allocating health care or defining the kind of jobs the economy ought to create, the policies they favor suggest a strong belief that they know what’s best not just for themselves, but for everyone else too.

That’s not ‘intelligence’ or ‘smarts’, that’s sick hubris. That’s uncontrolled arrogance. Since when does being smart entail a belief that you are better than everyone around you? It doesn’t.

In any event, Mr. McGurn does make an important point that’s relevant to the debate we’re having on our side about the desirability of a third-party candidate, whether for President in 2012 or in any of the dozens of Congressional races in 2010. While I am fully sympathetic to the argument that there is little difference between the two major parties today, I still believe that there is this one fundamental bedrock that still separates us from them:

The difference is that we trust free citizens to make decisions about themselves—and are skeptical about government.

Now, I admit that it hasn’t seemed that the greater Republican party has acted this way over the last decade. That much is true. But I also believe that the most important consequence of this year’s tea parties is to re-illuminate and focus that difference, and empower more legitimately Conservative candidates to challenge the mainstream Republicans for the soul of the party.

But at the end of the day, we will lose if we split off. The historical evidence for this fact is overwhelming and it won’t work this time around either. We highlighted the poll yesterday that indicated that a hypothetical ‘Tea Party’ candidate would beat a Republican but would lose to the Democrat. That’s most likely what would happen.

I for one will continue, as I have for years, to preach the rightness of Conservatism unabashedly and proudly. I will call out RINO’s and DIABLO’s wherever I see them and do my best to explain the wrongness of their views. I promise to be relentless in admonishing the eggheads on our side who really are no different than the eggheads on their side.

But when it comes down to the time to pull the lever, I will pull it for the Republican no matter what, including over a third-party on our side. I’ll do that because we will lose if we don’t. I urge all of my fellow Conservatives to do the same.

We’re making a difference in swinging the GOP back to first principles and we should continue that fight right up until election day. I was there on 9/12 and on 12/5 and I’ll be there whenever I can to continue to let the GOP know that they’ve strayed too far.

We have a real chance to swing the balance of power back to the right side in 2010. Let’s not blow it.

UPDATE: Before I even post this, Sarah says the same thing . Get your house in order GOP so she, or we, don’t have to do it for you.

The Competitive Enterprise Institute is swiftly becoming the lead pipe-swinger in the defense of U.S. Capitalism. First they file an intent to sue NASA over their failure to comply with FOI Act demands for ClimateGate documents and now their suit to have Sarbanes-Oxley declared unconstitutional is three short days away from being heard before the Supreme Court.

I may have to check this one out as well.

SarBox, as many of you may know, is a terrible piece of legislation that has hustled through Congress in the wake of the Enron accounting scandal. Like most hastily crafted law, its unintended consequences include costing the economy at large billions of dollars each year in useless compliance costs [PDF].Think of it this way, since SarBox’s passage the law has cost the economy upwards of $400 Billion dollars in wasted compliance costs.  Hmmm…where else have I heard that number recently?

I’m just sayin’…

The main issue, most simply stated, is that the agency set up by SarBox-the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB)-is unconstitutional because appointments to the Board are made not by the President but by the five members of the SEC. Like so many other unaccountable government agencies, among which include the National Labor Relations Board, PCAOB has grown by leaps and bounds since its creation and is literally like a rogue agent accumulating power without any Congressional or Executive oversight.

Remember, ObamaCare creates over 100 new agencies that will operate more or less exactly like the PCAOB and the NLRB. CEI notes the ominous words of Phil Gramm in 2002 regarding the enaction of SarBox. From their issue PDF at page 3:

This board is going to have massive power, unchecked power, by design. . .We are setting up a board with massive power that is going to make decisions that affect all accountants and everybody they work for, which directly or indirectly is every breathing person in the country. They are going to have massive unchecked powers.”

Substitute ‘doctors and everybody they work with’ for “accountants and everybody they work for” and you’ll get a real nice idea of what ObamaCare’s going to look like.

CEI sums up SarBox this way:

The law, which was rushed through Congress after the Enron and WorldCom scandals, created numerous corporate governance and accounting rules that have been criticized by both Democrats and Republicans as excessively burdensome to smaller companies, detrimental to U.S. competitiveness, and ill-equipped to protect shareholders from fraud.  The decision the Court makes could be more consequential to jobs growth than any job summit politicians might have.

The reason for that, dear readers, is because, as the Club for Growth stated today in response to November’s job numbers:

The American entrepreneur remains the marvel of the economic world.

Left free to pursue his business absent useless and stifling Government yokes, that marvel is simply breathtaking.

Do the right thing SCOTUS.

If there is one, this is it.

Pakistan, (or Pok-eee-ston as our Dear Leader in his infinite sophistication insists it be pronounced), has been for a while, is now and will be the X-factor for strategic command going forward in Afghanistan. Now that Obama has made his call to send 30,000 (or is it 33? 35?) troops there for 18 months (or is a little longer?) how will the tenuous civil/military shared government react?

I don’t pretend to be a Pakistan scholar, although I’m going to make it my business to become one as quickly as possible. McChlatchy is reporting a story today that should at least raise eyebrows in Defense as Obama rallies the troops for their mission.

Suspicions by Pakistan’s powerful army that the country’s civilian leadership is growing too close to the United States are fueling a political crisis that analysts here believe threatens the survival of the government and could divert attention from the battle against Islamic extremists.

Military officials believe that secretly taped conversations between Pakistani President Asif Zardari and his ambassador in Washington, prove that it was at Zardari’s insistence that a $1.5 billion U.S. aid package passed by Congress in September contained several provisions that angered the Pakistani military. The military publicly protested the aid package last month.

“The reaction (from the military) was not so much to what was in the bill but to the thought that the government was trying to create a civilian-to-civilian dialogue (with Washington),” said a senior Pakistani official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The army has ruled Pakistan for most its existence, with civilian rule returning only last year.

Yeh that’s what we need, civil war inside Pakistan, that should make things much easier on our troops as they try to accomplish their mission which is…uh…

Talk about complicating matters. Not only did the U.S. aid package piss off the military junta, it threatens to further unravel an already existing crisis involving the recently expired amnesty for civilian government officials.

Seth Jones thinks we should take the War directly to Pakistan:

As we quicken the pace, the top American commander here, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, has repeatedly noted that there are many issues to focus on: building more competent Afghan Army and police forces, adopting more effective anticorruption measures and reintegrating “moderate” Taliban and other insurgent fighters into Afghan society and politics.

But perhaps the most difficult issue is largely outside of General McChrystal’s control (and got short shrift in President Obama’s speech at West Point): undermining the Taliban’s sanctuary in Pakistan. Thus far, there has been no substantive action taken against the Taliban leadership in Baluchistan Province, south of the Pashtun-dominated areas of Afghanistan. This is the same mistake the Soviets made in the 1980s, when they failed to act against the seven major mujahadeen groups headquartered in Pakistan.

This sanctuary is critical because the Afghan war is organized and run out of Baluchistan. Virtually all significant meetings of the Taliban take place in that province, and many of the group’s senior leaders and military commanders are based there. “The Taliban sanctuary in Baluchistan is catastrophic for us,” a Marine told me on a recent trip to Afghanistan’s Helmand Province, across the border from Baluchistan. “Local Taliban fighters get strategic and operational guidance from across the border, as well as supplies and technical components for their improvised explosive devices.”

Jones says that while we haven’t yet made any progress, there are ways to target the Taliban in Pakistan without using military force:

The first is to conduct raids to capture Taliban leaders in Baluchistan. Most Taliban are in or near Baluchi cities like Quetta. These should be police and intelligence operations, much like American-Pakistani efforts to capture Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and other Qaeda operatives after 9/11. The second is to hit Taliban leaders with drone strikes, as the United States and Pakistan have done so effectively in the tribal areas.

The cost of failing to act in Baluchistan will be enormous. As one Russian diplomat who served in the Soviet Army in Afghanistan recently told me: “You are running out of time. You must balance counterinsurgency efforts in Afghanistan by targeting the leadership nodes in Pakistan. Don’t make the same mistake we did.”

Have we not been doing that for years? Doesn’t a burgeoning civil crisis there complicate matters in this arena? I don’t think Mr. Jones has thought these things through. I hope Obama has.

Has anyone heard anything about whether Obama’s plan has a contingency for this? I for one am praying to God that it doesn’t hit the fan over there, but you’d like to think we’re ready for it.

Does Ollie North think we’re ready for it?

Finally, Obama’s self-centric West Point remarks — he referred to himself no less than 57 times — also prove that he and his speechwriters don’t know history either. He claimed that Afghanistan would not become “another Vietnam,” because “unlike Vietnam, we are not facing a broad-based popular insurgency.”

Whoever wrote these words is simply wrong.

The Republic of Vietnam wasn’t lost to a “popular insurgency.” By April 1969, the Viet Cong had been eliminated as a military threat. The frail, flawed democratic government in Saigon collapsed in April 1975 — three years after the last American combat troops were withdrawn — because in December 1974 the country was invaded and subsequently conquered by a hostile neighbor — North Vietnam — only after the U.S. Congress rebuffed President Gerald Ford’s request for $522 million in emergency aid.

A head of state who distorts the lessons of history is a peril. A leader who tries to deceive himself and his people is dangerous. We can only pray that this commander in chief isn’t committing 100,000 young Americans to a mission impossible in the shadows of the Hindu Kush.

Doesn’t sound like it.

Huh? Dude, Obama is turning this world completely upside down.

The DB, for those who don’t know, is kind of a consortium of wishy-washy small-’c’ conservatives comprised of pseudo-intellectuals, Frum-esque charlatans and, of course, the Queen of Young and Restless Conservatism, that stalwart of the middle and unashamedly self-congratulatory Daughter of Maverick…the Blonde Muppet herself, Meghan McCain.

(Incidentally, Meggie Mac rests much of her alleged conservative cred on the fact that she was on stage as an embryo in 1980 at Ronald Reagan’s nomination. For what it’s worth, and that would be nothing, I was there too, as a 3-year old with my Mom and Dad, who was an alternate delegate. Read some more books Meg. I still think you could be a real asset once you get a handle on the truth)

That said, Reihan Salam seems to be the most cogent of the bunch and his article linked above is actually a very good one outlining the quandry into which Obama has put himself with his idiotic, counterproductive non-strategy-strategy for future U.S. military operations in Afghanistan:

And so the president is caught in an extremely awkward position. Abandoned by the Democrats, he is relying on the support of a shrinking centrist foreign-policy establishment that, to put it bluntly, has zero political muscle. The conservatives who back the troop surge don’t think the president is going far enough, and most expect that his effort to craft a compromise counterinsurgency will fail. Among grassroots conservatives, there is a growing sense that the U.S. military is too hamstrung by concern about civilian casualties and political correctness to wage an effective military campaign under Obama, which implies that there is little point in offering him political support.

That’s exactly right. Obama isn’t even trying to “win” this war. I said before and I’m sticking to it, this move is an entirely political one, calculated to achieve maximum gain on the back end at the expense of our troops, the mission and short-term liberal disgust on the front. Eighteen months (or so) from now, many more soldiers will have died, the domestic Afghan security forces will be unprepared and largely compromised, Al-Queda and/or the Taliban will have regrouped and manned up for their own surge but Obama will be pulling the troops out just around the time he starts gearing up for his run at a second term.

Teriffic.

One more quick article today on this from George Will:

Obama’s surge will bring to 51,000 his Afghanistan escalation since March. Supposedly this will buy time for Afghan forces to become adequate. But it is not intended to buy much time: Although the war is in its 98th month, Obama’s “Mission Accomplished” banner will be unfurled 19 months from now — when Afghanistan’s security forces supposedly will be self-sufficient. He must know this will not happen.

[...]

On Tuesday the Taliban heard a distant U.S. trumpet sounding withdrawal beginning in 19 months. Also hearing it were Afghans who must decide whether to bet their lives on the Americans, who will begin striking their tents in July 2011, or on the Taliban, who live there.

Many Democrats, who think the $787 billion stimulus was too small and want another one (but by another name), are flinching from the $30 billion one-year cost of the Afghan surge. Considering that the GM and GMAC bailouts ($63 billion) are five times bigger than Afghanistan’s GDP ($12 billion), Democrats seem to be selective worriers about deficits. Of course, their real worry is how to wriggle out of their endorsement of the “necessary” war in Afghanistan, which was a merely tactical endorsement intended to disparage the “war of choice” in Iraq.

The president’s party will not support his new policy, his budget will not accommodate it, our overstretched and worn down military will be hard-pressed to execute it, and Americans’ patience will not be commensurate with Afghanistan’s limitless demands for it. This will not end well.

A case can be made for a larger and more protracted surge. A better case can be made for a radically reduced investment of resources and prestige in that forlorn country. Obama has not made a convincing case for his tentative surgelet.

George Orwell said the quickest way to end a war is to lose it. But Obama’s halfhearted embrace of a half-baked nonstrategy — briefly feinting toward the Taliban (or al-Qaida or a “syndicate of terror”) while lunging for the exit ramp — makes a protracted loss probable.

Will is right, this will not end well. I don’t always agree with Will and he makes a point in the article of lying again about supposed “non-existent” WMD in Iraq to square his circle, but this time he’s right on the money. Old-Guard establishment conservative sellout or not, this will not end well.

Russ

No, seriously.

So now the Speaker of the House and a Democratic Senator from North Dakota have in the span of a week, basically called those who are wary of the propaganda-ready show trial of KSM down the street from Ground Zero, un-American reactionaries who should pack up and leave because they, not us, love America.

Wow. Take that 9/11 families. Incidentally, the rally to protest HoBama’s decision will be on “December 5 at a park adjacent to the Manhattan federal courthouse where Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four others will be tried just blocks from Ground Zero.” You can sign their petition here. Pam has the story.

Sen. Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) told CNSNews.com that civilian courts are well-suited to prosecute al Qaeda terrorists and that “if people don’t believe in our system, maybe they ought to go somewhere else.”

Conrad also dismissed a question about the rights of terrorists captured on foreign battlefields and the rules of evidence in terms of a civilian court trial as not serious.

Well of course he did. Honestly people, you and your crazy concerns about the “constitution” and “laws”…ease up off my back about it:

On Capitol Hill on Nov. 19, CNSNews.com asked Conrad: “We’re going to have a civilian trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. If our troops–the evidence against him is going to be found in Afghanistan, there on the battlefield–if our troops need to enter a house and they think that there’s evidence there, should they have to establish probable cause and get a search warrant from a judge first?”

Conrad said: “You’re not being serious about these questions, are you?”

Pffft. Evidence.

Maybe we oughta go somewhere else.

(watch the video at the link. I don’t know how to add it here)

That’s absolutely right.

Sixty-three percent (63%) of U.S. voters say political correctness prevented the military from responding to warning signs from Major Nidal Malik Hasan that could have prevented the Fort Hood shootings from taking place.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey shows that just 16% disagree and do not believe political correctness kept military authorities from possibly stopping the killing of 13 people and the wounding of many others in the November 5 incident. Twenty-one percent (21%) are not sure.

This is tremendously encouraging for someone like me who despises political correctness, not only because I’m a Jersey bigmouth who lacks a filter, but also because I’m someone who has studied enough to recognize the significant damage such a speech regime does to free states and the quality of political discourse. Make no mistake about it, I firmly believe that P.C. is what’s bringing down the quality of our political discourse and not the yellin’ and the cussin’.

The Fort Hood massacre was a preventable terrorist attack that happened because the powers that be were indirectly silenced by the disastrous, amorphous, intangible shock collar known as “political correctness”.

That’s it.

Hmmm…

My first question is whether this 34,000 is the same as this 34,000. Is this just another leak that won’t pan out? Why do we have to wait until December 1 to get the announcement? I think this 34,000 is the same as the support troops increase he announced in October, but perhaps with an added component of combat troops.

The word “combat” shows up only once in the article:

As it now stands, the plan calls for the deployment over a nine-month period beginning in March of three Army brigades from the 101st Airborne Division at Fort Campbell, Ky., and the 10th Mountain Division at Fort Drum, N.Y., and a Marine brigade from Camp Lejeune, N.C., for as many as 23,000 additional combat and support troops.

“For as many as 23,000 additional combat and support troops”? This isn’t anywhere near what the Generals have asked for and, depending on the breakdown of that smaller 23,000 number, isn’t by any account I’ve heard even a reasonable number ofcombat troops necessary for making a difference:

The plan adopted by Obama would fall well short of the 80,000 troops McChrystal suggested in August as a “low-risk option” that would offer the best chance to contain the Taliban-led insurgency and stabilize Afghanistan.

It splits the difference between two other McChrystal options: a “high-risk” approach that called for 20,000 additional troops and a “medium-risk” option that would add 40,000 to 45,000 troops.

There are 68,000 U.S. troops and 42,000 from other countries in Afghanistan. The U.S. Army’s recently revised counterinsurgency manual estimates that an all-out counterinsurgency campaign in a country with Afghanistan’s population would require about 600,000 troops.

So the “plan” splits the difference between the ‘bad’ and ‘worse’ plans. This guy is just some kind of leader isn’t he?

Maybe instead of hacking away coming nowhere near 100 on the Golf course this clown should have been studying with his Generals and coming up with an actual exit strategy, instead of this new “off-ramp” nonsense.

And what is an “off-ramp”? I’m glad you asked:

The administration’s plan contains “off-ramps,” points starting next June at which Obama could decide to continue the flow of troops, halt the deployments and adopt a more limited strategy or “begin looking very quickly at exiting” the country, depending on political and military progress, one defense official said.

Ed hit the nail on the head on this:

A Commander in Chief doesn’t need “off-ramps.”  Any President can call an end to a deployment based on his own judgment.  Putting these conditions into the American strategy signals weakness — a desire to pull out without getting blamed for the decision.   Obama wants to be off the hook for an eventual withdrawal by claiming that he’s forced to do it because of these benchmark failures.  And if Obama’s that keen to retreat, he should just do it now.

I gotta get up earlier in the morning.

That’s the money point right there. Doesn’t it just seem like Obama’s doing all of this to placate some political opponents instead of, you know, doing everything possible to win the war? There is no reason whatsoever for these “off-ramps” because he’s the boss anyway.

Couple this with yesterday’s rumors about possible surrender negotiations and it becomes unavoidably clear that because our President is not committed to the lives of our soldiers, it’s time to bring them all home and let the chips fall where they may.

On a lighter note…

There is no way on this Earth that Obama is playing to a “mid-20′s” handicap.What that means, basically, is that he is consistently hitting three strokes under 100 over a par-72 18 holes, a feat that isn’t accomplished often even for “serious recreational golfers”. As an example, I’ve broken 100 only three times in probably somewhere north of 60 rounds of Golf, and I practice as often as I possibly can. Obama, disturbingly, has played somewhere in the neighborhood of 25 rounds as President. What this idiotic report is saying is that Obama’s peak performance for half of the required rounds is a 92-97.

No…Way.

This might be the biggest lie I’ve heard yet. By all accounts the guy played a handful of times before he became President. Since then, it is clear that he has played an inappropriate amount of times considering the issues with which he has to deal and how badly he’s screwing them up. But I will eat the circuits in my laptop if Obama has broken the century mark more than once. And even if he did break it once, he got lucky that time.

No, that’s not strong enough. I’m willing to wager everything I’ll ever be worth that he hasn’t legitimately come within a half-dozen strokes of 100 yet on an honest scorecard. Golf is an honest gentleman’s game. Obama would no doubt lie on the Golf Course just as easily as he lies to us on a daily basis.

For those of you who don’t know, Golf is by far the hardest game in the world to play well consistently. Not the hardest single thing to do in sport mind you, that honor is still reserved for hitting a major league slider squarely; despite Elizabeth Williamson’s snarky “ugly 20′s” handicap crack, the fact remains that unless Obama is not only playing too much Golf but practicing it as well, there is no way he’s coming anywhere near, let alone under 100 with consistency.

Williamson says that while the President’s handicap is a “matter of national security” according to Axelrod, those who have seen him play say his swing is “robotic”, that he’s hit another player’s ball and that his swing shows he “needs a little bit of work”.

Translation: The President’s Golf game is worse than his foreign policy strategy. Yeh, chew on that for a second.

Trust me on this one. There is simply…no..way. Golfers who read this will know what I’m talking about.

Consider it an open challenge: Obama v. Me over 18 to decide the fate of ObamaCare. Any course, anywhere, anytime.

Whenever you’re ready hotshot.

(this post was edited for language by the author. Many thanks to RedState readers for bringing this to my attention.)

Terrific article today from Der Spiegel, (that’s German for you leftist twits out there), explaining from one German’s point of view how Obama’s ass-kiss diplomacy is failing. Giving away the ending, the article quotes Newt by saying that Obama’s approach is “a lot like Jimmy Carter“.

Barack Obama looked tired on Thursday, as he stood in the Blue House in Seoul, the official residence of the South Korean president. He also seemed irritable and even slightly forlorn. The CNN cameras had already been set up. But then Obama decided not to play along, and not to answer the question he had already been asked several times on his trip: what did he plan to take home with him? Instead, he simply said “thank you, guys,” and disappeared. David Axelrod, senior advisor to the president, fielded the journalists’ questions in the hallway of the Blue House instead, telling them that the public’s expectations had been “too high.”

Wait…whose expectations were “too high”? What people were sitting around back home going, ‘Man, Obama’s gonna topple Chinese Communism while he’s over there and maybe Free Tibet while he’s at it.’

Too high? I for one think that after watching our President bow down to royalty, his trip is a rousing success because he didn’t bend over for Hu Jintao and take it up the tailpipe on State television. After watching Obama fail miserably everywhere he goes, my expectations for him consist of hopefully not selling nuclear secrets for a photo-op.Too high? Axelrod is a funny guy sometimes.

But what I’m not so sure about is the writer’s suggestion that Obama may have to alter course and take a more, gasp!, Bush-like approach to foreign policy:

There are many indications that the man in charge at the White House will take a tougher stance in the future. Obama’s advisors fear a comparison with former Democratic President Jimmy Carter, even more than with Bush.

Have you gotten this feeling from Obama or his team? I haven’t. I’ve seen no indication of a toughening Obama except for some useless and meaningless get tough talk like “time is running out,” Obama said in Korea. What the hell does that mean coming from Obama? Nothing.

Obama is a child, nothing more. He is a lost little boy playing grown-up in a serious and often dangerous world. I’ll be honest with you and say that if Obama were thinking about transitioning to a more serious approach to foreign policy, that could end up being even more scary than the status quo because, like a child, Obama simply doesn’t know how to act like a grown-up. If he tries playing Reagan or Bush on the world stage, there’s a very good chance that the real grown-ups in the room won’t take too kindly to the gesture. Like Newt says, “Carter tried weakness and the world got tougher and tougher because the predators, the aggressors, the anti-Americans, the dictators, when they sense weakness, they all start pushing ahead…”

A year has passed now since Obama was elected and the world is acutely aware of who he is and who he isn’t. He is a foreign policy neophyte with zero experience, a tendency toward condescension and little credibility. He is not willing to stand up for human rights, defend Freedom abroad or challenge the world to promote our interests. If Obama tries a 180 now it will be interpreted as disingenuous and backfire royally.

I’d just rather Obama stop traveling and get serious here at home for a while.

Russ

There’s an interesting discussion going on right now about the possibility and desirability of Sarah making her way to Arizona next year to campaign for John McCain. It’s all speculation at this point because the challenger hasn’t announced.

I mean…just look at her.

But seriously, is there anything more fun than speculating about what Sarah might do? Not for my money…

The reason it came up is because Rasmussen has McCain and potential challenger J.D. Hayworth in a statistical dead heat at 45-43 Maverick.

Bill Kristol at the Standard thinks Sarah will ride to the rescue in the event McCain is about to fall.

I couldn’t disagree more. I can’t see Sarah Palin sticking it to her base by going back on her word to only back Conservatives. No way. That doesn’t happen.

What’s more though…? I don’t think Sarah owes McCain anything. Listen to me, Sarah Palin would have been where she is now one way or another. Look at her. If it wasn’t Maverick, it would have been someone else.

But more likely than that it would have been Sarah Palin herself. I knew who Sarah Palin was before McCain picked her. In fact, I’m pretty sure I posted something to the effect that I hoped he would pick her during the run-up last year. Can anyone tell me with a straight face that Sarah Palin would never have wound up on the big stage without John McCain?

Ludicrous I tell you. Ludicrous.

Justice McNamara said here a little while ago that “Sarah Palin is going to be President one day. It’s inevitable so accept it and live with it. Its star power…and she has it.” This is true. I think there’s more to it than just star power, but it’s true nonetheless.

But it’s true whether John McCain ever picked her for V.P. Some people are stars. Sarah Palin is one of them. She doesn’t owe John McCain anything anymore except maybe a polite thank you and a nice bottle of scotch for his retirement. All John McCain did was accelerate the inevitable.

Incidentally, I just wanted to highlight one of the funniest lines I’ve ever read in a blog post. Allahpundit:

Remember, Reid and The One are itching to revive amnesty in the Senate next year as part of their grand “piss off every last independent in America” strategy.

I literally almost fell off my chair laughing when I read that. I’m still laughing.

But, if that’s true, and I for one happen to believe it is, it’s just another reason that Sarah has to run, if at all, for the Conservative. This is assuming that Hayworth is not an amnesty guy, of course.

In the end, it’s probably most palatable for everyone if Sarah just declines to get involved with Arizona at all. But there’s no way she campaigns for McCain against a viable Conservative candidate.

She’s too right for that.