After four years of Obama, and with the glut of laws, executive orders, regulations, and so on, we should be united in the concept of small government conservatism. Limited government. Less laws. Abortion is settled law. It may suck, it may be wrong, but simply passing more laws on this or other social issues won’t stop it from happening. And not only is it extremely doubtful that any new laws on the subject would ever stand an ice cube’s chance in hell of passing, but equally, the push for those laws would result in an even smaller GOP minority.

There is one way, and one way only to reduce abortion in America, and that is via a major cultural change, a return to classic, American, judeo-christian-based family values. The minority party can’t change the culture, and a party with a shrinking minority changes the culture even less. We’ve seen the cultural impact a mere 4 years of Obama and his policies have had on our country. Another four, and the fact that abortion is legal will be the very least of our problems.

And at the end of the day, that’s what this is about. We can sit here and whine about how unfair it all is, and it most certainly is unfair that the Vice President can say all manner of things with minimal coverage, meanwhile some unknown candidate from MO can be used to shift a national race. But so what? Do we want to win? Do we want to wake up on November 7th, with another four years of Obama hanging over our heads? That’s what’s at stake here. One need only consider one question – does support for Akin, or excusing of his comments help us in this goal, or not? The answer is clearly, not.

If we want to stand any chance to kick Obama out of the White House in November, something that in my view is crucial to the very survival of this country, and something that is hardly guarunteed by any stretch, then it’s time to stay focused. And to shut up about the stuff that really doesn’t matter this time around.

If you’re one of the voters who helped to elect Akin in the primary, or if you sympathize with his comments, or feel we should all just get over it because he was somehow taken out of context and apologized, then I’m talking to you. Shut up. Shut up shutting up even. Now. You’re part of the problem right now, because you’re playing directly into the Democrats hands – Democrats who actually ran $1.3 million in ads to help get Akin to win the primary mind you. Sure, within your limited circle, this all sounds like speaking truth to power. To the masses at large, the very same whom we need to win in November, this sounds like kooky ultra-rightist insanity. And the Democrats understand this for all it’s worth.

And with that all said, I’m also a small government conservative who desperately wants Obama to lose and Romney to win. In fact, I see this as crucial to America’s very survival, and it’s inconceivable to me that Obama, with his horrific record on, well just about anything, stands even the slightest chance of re-election. And yet the polls consistently show that a sizeable portion of the populace still support the guy.

I remember when David Dinkins was elected Mayor of New York. Similar to the Obama presidency, Dinkins was hailed as the first black mayor of New York, and blacks across the city were justifiably proud that he made it. Yet when Dinkins proved to be an abject failure, black New Yorkers recognized it. If you’ve ever listened to A Tribe Called Quest, you may have heard the line “Mr. Dinkins would you please be my mayor?” from the song “Can I Kick It.” I saw tribe several years later, after Dinkins left office, at the Hammerstien Ballroom. When they did Can I Kick It, the place went predictably nuts. And when Phife dog got to that ill fated line, I was amused to hear him reword it – “Mr. Dinkins was a F***’d up Mayor.” He said it, not me. And he was right – Phife wasn’t going to disrespect his audience in the name of racial pride. Just because Dinkins was the first black mayor didn’t absolve him from doing his job, and when people voted him out, no one seriously claimed that it was about race, because it simply wasn’t.

Fast forward roughly two decades, and we have a similar situation playing out on the national level. Difference being that African Americans, with few exceptions, aren’t being sensible or impartial this time around. And it’s not even subjective that Obama is doing a bad job, and a bad job for African Americans in particular. We all know the unemployment figures, and how you have to double them when looking only at the black community. Thanks to Obama, more blacks are out of work, using more food stamps and dependent on government cheese for their subsistence than at any time under George W Bush or in recent memory. The fact that so many in the black community defend this disaster of a president amid his record and at least seemingly on the basis of his skin color, would suggest racism of the reverse type, and yes it does exist.

Even Obama’s election, given his record, associations, and accomplishments, seemed to be more about race than the actual candidate. Does anyone honestly believe that if candidate Obama were white, he would have gotten anywhere near 1600 pennsylvania avenue? Only, perhaps on a tour of D.C.

Yet blacks supported an inexperienced and vague candidate Obama, and the liberal policies he espoused without question, and with exponentially more vigor than great African American conservatives such as Condi Rice, Allen West and Thomas Sowell have ever enjoyed. And despite the fact that Democrats have a long record of standing in the way of civil rights, and aside from the fact that liberal policies have a proven track record of hurting black communities, the fact is most blacks in America view the GOP as racist, and align themselves with Democrats. Blindly.

Why exactly? It’s not like Liberal policies haven’t been tried in the very inner cities that represent the bastions of liberalism. George W Bush isn’t at fault for there being a ghetto in East New York or south-side Chicago. Literally billions of dollars have been poured into these depressed neighborhoods via well-meaning but ineffective at best liberal programs for around 50 years, and just as many black people are poor and can’t obtain a decent education. Blacks continue to have the highest rates of single parenting. Black on black crime is rampant, and the ratio of whites who kill blacks is dwarfed the number of blacks who kill whites.

Obama is fond of spouting the illogical line that we can’t go back to the policies of the past, which got us into this mess – conveniently ignoring the fact that those policies of the past seemed to work pretty good for 200+ years, and have only “gotten us into this mess” since Obama was president. Not to say that he caused the economic collapse of 2008 – he didn’t though the policies he ascribes to had a major role, but provably, he hasn’t helped us out of it in 4 years either. The fact is that half a century of liberal programs designed to uplift the poor with a focus on minorities is what’s been tried and what’s failed. And by every metric too – culturally, socially, and of course economically. Anyone who had been paying attention to what’s happening in the liberal urban centers predicted what it would look like on a national level, and Obama has certainly lived up to our expectations.

Conservative policies on the other hand, are a true solution for the ills of the black community. Conservatives believe in less government, more freedom and especially more economic freedom. No government program will get a family out of the ghetto, but a booming economy might. Conservatism eschews the racial pandering that suggests blacks can’t compete on the same playing field as whites, or comically, that they can’t obtain their own state issued id’s. Yet somehow, today’s black community views conservatism and it’s ideals for individualism and freedom, as the very root of racism. But it’s precisely the opposite, a license for freedom, which is what all those who were enslaved were struggling for in the first place.

All of which brings me to the NAACP, which claims to be non-partisan, but is reliably liberal and completely in the tank for Obama. After Romney’s speech, I do believe some in the audience who actually listened to his words might be reconsidering their support of Obama. But the leadership of the NAACP has doubled down, with Ben Jealous and various other bobbleheads suggesting that Romney somehow disrespected this ultra sensitive audience with the use of the term Obamacare, and that he intentionally wanted to get booed. Lolll.

What’s disrespectful are the racial hucksters, who seem to be ever growing in number, making such base and false claims in an attempt to change the narrative away from Obama’s awful record. Racism exists and it’s alive and well – but the real victims of racism are minimized by the endless false charges of racism in support of the political objectives of leftism. Blacks shouldn’t let themselves be played by politicians looking to amass power. Romney went to the NAACP with no real expectation of changing anyone’s mind. He spoke the truth and talked about what he’d do instead, and why. And predictably, smarmy charges of racially motivated scheming abound. But is it really likely that he went there to get booed in order to shore up the white-racist vote? Or perhaps, what’s really going on is that Obama is really that bad of a president and Romney just acknowledged it.

Dr. Martin Luther King famously said that he dreamt about the day that we’d all be judged by the content of our character, rather than the color of our skin. Given the seeming blind support by so many in the black community for Obama amid his terrible performance, and the nearly complete rejection of anything and everything Romney by this same constituency, proves that we still have a long, long way to go to get to King’s ideal.

First, obviously Biden’s recent gaffe wasn’t a gaffe at all but a planned event, to test the waters before Obama reversed course. And we all know that reversing course is being kind – someone like Obama hasn’t the principles to feel one way or another about the topic of traditional marriage. He’s really just a reflection of whatever ideal he feels he needs to emulate in order to win re-election. So when someone is so blatantly fake, should we really get worked up over what they have to say on anything?

The fact is, the reason this is happening in two-fold: Obama sees the poll numbers and is trying to shore up the vote of every victim group he can. Gays just happen to be the low hanging fruit of the day, having been disappointed with him for quite some time. However, there is a second reason why this is happening – the shiny object.

Remember the whole contraception debate? The resulting “war on women?” Etc, etc ad nauseum? See, Obama simply cannot win on his record. He can only win by somehow getting people to stop looking at his record, and hopefully focus on the potential shortcomings of the alternative. During contraception-gate, that was the whole point – instead of focusing on Obama’s failures, we gave the media 2-3 weeks worth of coverage on a non-issue. And at the end of the day, for all of our outrage, nothing changed except that we gave the DNC yet another talking point against us and hurt Rush Limbaugh in the process.

That’s what this is about. Obama wants us to take the bait, so then the media can harp for the next two or three weeks about homosexual intolerance. Pleas will be made that “something must be done” and look at how backwards the enlightened Obama’s opponent happens to be. And btw, if you doubt me on this, just consider that Obama’s already started this with his comment that he’s “evolved,” meaning, by extension, that anyone who doesn’t agree with him is somehow un-evolved.

I would advise all of my fellow countrymen to tread very carefully. This is a trap, and we mustn’t take the bait. Let’s not win a war on Gay marriage, and lose the election in November. The focus needs to be on the economy. If Obama wants to change his view on gay marriage, that’s fine. He won’t get the votes to pass any legislation on this in any case. We can’t get bogged down into spurious discussions around social conservative issues when Americans care about one thing, and one thing only, the economy.

Total disclosure here – I’m all for gays being treated equally, but against the idea of government defining marriage. Marriage is a religious institution, and as a result out of the purview of the government. I’d support civil unions for everyone to make things equal, and allow people to go to a church, synagogue, or other house of worship in order to get traditionally married.

The left is radical. The radical left has tried to redefine the very documents our country is based on to mean things like free healthcare. They believe that the government is there to limit our freedoms if that is what central planners have deemed to be the best way forward. They say the founding documents are living, which means that they can change our rights when and how they decide. They believe our money is the governments (which is why tax cuts are referred to as spending by liberals), rather than being the fruit of our labor, even though property rights are a major element of being free (see slavery). This same left is in the business of trying to restrict legal ownership of guns, even though the constitution clearly states the right to bear arms in the second amendment of the bill of rights – to what end when crime is already illegal?

Conservatism isn’t about giving money to the rich. It’s not about restricting women from making choices “about their bodies”. It’s about sticking with the framework that has served this country so well for so many years, and has resulted in that shining city on the hill. No one ever emmigrated to America because of free healthcare, or because they could get unemployment for 99 weeks. They came here for the freedoms and opportunities that they couldn’t get in their native countries, the same freedoms the left is trying to cajole us here into giving up.

In Kim Strassel’s excellent column today in which she effectively makes the case that both Santorum and Romney are playing (to lose) Obama’s class warfare game, one peripheral phrase lept out at me, and spurred me to write this. She says:

“Team Obama may be abandoning [White working-class Americans] altogether, instead looking for 2012 victory in a progressive coalition of educated, socially liberal voters, combined with poorer ethnic voters, in particular Hispanics.”

Hold on. “Educated” socially liberal voters? This theme of educated people typically tilting leftwards is one that needs dispelling. Are we talking about indoctrinated when we use the term “educated?”

Churchill’s old saw was that you’d be heartless if you weren’t a [modern day] liberal when young, brainless if you weren’t a conservative when old. That progressive liberalism is favored by artists, college kids and the ill informed, while conservatives tend to be older, tax paying, more world-wise if less up to date on the latest trends, all detract from the notion of the “educated liberal.” But it’s progressive liberalism’s policies and actions that really demonstrate how false this premise is.

Fact is, anyone who is truly educated in the goings on of the world, anyone who has any knowledge about the way people and organizations work, knows full well that progressive liberalism or statism, cannot work. In fact, at least from this American’s view, the entire concept behind leftism, collectivism, marxism, et all, is one that doesn’t stand the test of even the most basic logic and has been disproven countless times in history, right on up to present day.

While it’s now fashionable to be one of the 99%, people used to understand that communism is a great idea on paper, but when implemented it leaves something to be desired. Perhaps it was more evident when we had the example of the Soviet Union staring us in the face. Yet a few decades later we have folks protesting capitalism in the streets. American leftism may not be the communism of the U.S.S.R, but it clearly takes us in that direction. If adherents of statism in America can’t internalize the hard-earned lessons of a mere 30 years ago, or even the lessons being learned in Europe right now, then how can they possibly claim to be educated?

And of course the majority of progressive-liberal policies simply haven’t worked. The idea that handouts help the poor, very popular with the Obama administration, despite a half century-long war on poverty that’s yeilded no results. Or the concept that public schools just need more money, despite some of the most well funded, and worst performing schools, right in the very bastions of liberalism.

Conservatism in D.C. and our southern states isn’t the cause of the extreme poverty, terribly performing public schools, or bugetary and fiscal woes found in the heart of New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and Detroit. Not to say there isn’t poverty in Republican states, but if liberal policies worked, then poverty would ONLY exist in red states, meanwhile blue states wouldn’t be facing the financial and educational issues now confronting them either. Are the educated statists to have us believe that somehow George Bush is the blame for the lifestyle or quality of public school education for residents in New York or Los Angeles’ worst neighborhoods, despite decades long liberal Democrat control (Anthony Wiener and Charlie Rangel to wit)?

The truly educated rely on facts and logic, and I believe most tenets of Conservatism are likewise based on facts and logic. However, often progressive-liberal positions are plainly based in deceit.

The notion that the rich don’t pay their fair share is commonly touted by the liberal left as if the science is settled. Yet the fact is that nearly half of America’s working populace pay no federal income taxes at all – and it’s not the rich half. Yes, lower income Americans may pay other taxes – so too do the rich along with punitive federal, capital gains and estate taxes as well. On top of this, the very term “rich,” and millionaires and billionaires, refers to people making 250k or more a year (less if they are single). All of this is so out rightly deceitful, and yet despite the fact that the richest 1% of Americans pays nearly 40% of federal income taxes collected (a share that’s grown considerably over recent decades), teenagers squatting in the parks are screaming that rich people pay less taxes than the secretaries they employ.

Another liberal deceit is that higher taxes and increased regulations don’t hurt business or cost anyone money. Regulations actually create jobs, and higher taxes are absorbed in one way or another, the (and I am being generous here) thinking goes. In reality, the big picture is that some regulations are necessary, but the King Kong style regulatory and taxation regime adopted by this administration has one effect, make America less competitive globally, at the expense of it’s citizens and to the benefit of it’s competitors like China.

Even the liberal view as to the cause of our economic crisis is likewise based in deceit. Sure, the symptom of the problem came out in failures in the credit markets, but this stemmed from one thing – liberal policies encouraging lenders to loosen standards so that more people (i.e. those less qualified) could borrow. No mortgage backed security ever caused someone to foreclose (unless that person traded in said MBS), but plenty of forclosures are what caused the credit markets to seize. Yet progressives commonly blame the downturn on a lack of deregulation by Bush or Reagan depending on who you talk to. The president himself has even given claim to exactly that. To add a bizzarre twist to the already insane, progressives believe that Dodd-Frank is the corrective to all this, even as the Fed recommends further easing of lending standards.

Obama’s own deceit, too vast to be covered in a single article, or perhaps book, has been most recently displayed in some comments he made justifying his latest unconstitutional move to install Richard Cordray as head of CFPB:

“We know what would happen if Republicans in Congress were allowed to keep holding Richard’s nomination hostage. More of our loved ones would be tricked into making bad financial decisions. More dishonest lenders could take advantage of some of the most vulnerable families. And the vast majority of financial firms who do the right thing would be undercut by those who don’t.”

All those dishonest lenders just salivating over the hordes of newbie working “families” who apparently can’t read what they are signing aside, are we really to believe any element of this was really worth setting this lawless precedent? Failing a clear judiciary overturn, something I think is unlikely, our republic has been irrevocably damaged and all we get on this point from the left is deceit.

Lastly, while the educated should be tolerant, Liberals also tend to be the least tolerant people that exist.

This whole idea of the 99% and the 1%, just the latest example, and is so divisive that it’s scary. How is the persecution of the 1% any different from the roots of racism in early America? How is dividing each and every American based on gender, ethnic and victim group, and then assigning special rights and privleges to certain favored groups a demonstration of equality and tolerance? It is in fact the very opposite of tolerance, only serves to further divide us, and if left unchecked over the long term, will only result in what class warfare always results in, a lower quality of life for all involved.

Of course progressive intolerance is at it’s worst when discussing any of the issues above. The disdain liberals have for conservatives is palatable, and always with an assumption that the conservative is somehow ill informed. I guess conservatives treat liberals similarly now, but most conservatives seem more willing to at least engage in discourse. This is plainly evidenced by conservative media outlets such as Fox or the WSJ that routinely take pains to show both sides of the story, something that’s verboten in liberal bastions such as MSNBC, Huffington Post, Politico, and of course the New York Times. I guess when you believe in something that can’t hold up to basic questions of logic, you’re not so interested in discourse.

Educated? Not so much. Ignorant, deceitful and intolerant? Yes, very much so. Let’s not let this false narrative of the intellectual left continue.

We need to be smart here. The 2012 election is seriously up for grabs, Obama could easily win, and is likely to win. As desperately terrible as this presidency has been these last years, our side is in fact likely to lose. Every single one of us interested in the long term survival of this country need to take this very seriously, be smart, and keep our eye on the prize. It really doesn’t matter if our guy wins the primary, if Obama wins the general. And if Obama does win, 2016 doesn’t exist, because America ceases to exist.

Think I’m being dramatic? 1 in 7 are on food stamps now, and as a second term of Obama comes to a close, and that number decreases further, to what, 1 in 5, 1 in 4, and with Obamacare, now firmly entrenched as an entitlement like Medicare or Social Security, an entitlement that people are actually dependent on for their healthcare, exactly how well do you think old-fashioned, conservative and individualistic values will play among the electorate? It won’t. The entitlement mentality, already dangerously close to taking over a majority now, will be so firmly entrenched by 2016 that the majority will cease to be as concerned with our debt level, as long as someone (perhaps Germany), bails us out. Not to mention the deleterious effect of another 5 years of Obamanomics.

This isn’t an election for the POTUS, it’s an election to decide whether we remain America or not. We lose this one and it’s game set and match for this once great country.

Despite these realities, our team hasn’t been a team. Each day I read another article about a brokered convention, or I hear the candidates (or their surrogates) destroying each other. It’s not that Mitt’s better than Newt, it’s that Newt is simply so flawed as to be unworthy of consideration. Eventually, Americans watching who might be open to something other than Obama, instead get a sense that none of these guys is fit.  Not Bachmann, not Perry, not Cain, not Romney, not Newt, and now… wait we ran out of people. And before the Paulites accuse me of prejudice, let me add that should Paul take even one primary state, it will only go to prove what the left says about us.

And I really can’t wait for yet another vow taking session where each candidate swears to their moms about how pro-life they really are. Or whether they are against Gay marriage enough. Or Christian enough. Listen, I’m a single issue voter too – my one issue is I strongly support second amendment rights. But I don’t want to “scare the horses” – if the candidates start making vows on my issue, it will have one effect only – to incite and inflame all the pansies in liberal land who don’t understand the difference between legal and illegal gun ownership. We have to be smart here – if Obama wins a second term, ALL of these single issues will cease to matter. Law of man, and not law of god, becomes the rule of the day. We’re already halfway there now.

This is not 1980. This is 2012. Obama won in 2008, not by getting specific on issues, but by selling himself and a vague idea of change. The population bought it and like it or not, those same voters will be pulling the lever in November. We have to be smart here, and realize that we don’t benefit by endlessly debating the finer points. Yes, we’re smarter than the majority by and large, and yes we could debate the finer points, but let’s actually prove how smart we are by actually snatching the White House out of the clutches of burgeoning marxism.

Say it with me: “If your candidate wins, I’ll vote for him. Both of our candidates are vastly superior than the current occupant of the white house. No way am I staying home in November, I’ll be at the ballot voting R down the line, because I know a third party vote means Obama wins. And I’m not going to make my contentious single issues an issue this time around because more is at stake than ever before.”

If you can’t say the above, then you are part of the problem, and your actions will help ensure a second Obama term. And don’t be mad at me for telling you the truth.

Truth be told, I know that abortion is murder, and life begins at conception. I think conservatives SHOULD hold their candidates to a higher standard than the left. But we don’t have the luxury to have these debates this year. Let me (ah) be very clear here – if Obama is re-elected president in 2012, and believe me, the chances of this are very very good that he will, it’s America that will be one and done.

Just a mere three years of Obama, and Iran is on the verge of getting nukes with no deterrent, Israel is on the precipice of war as a result. Our credit rating has taken a severe dive (about soon to get worse). The government now has it’s tendrils firmly implanted in our healthcare, our banking industry and American energy independence is being farmed out to Brazil. Our DOJ is going after states for enforcing our borders, and the NAACP is claiming to the UN that the GOP wants to “suppress votes.” Meanwhile, our fourth estate, fully owned by the extreme left, continues to sing a happy song, brainwashing millions (possibly a majority of Americans) that things are not only fine, but that Obama is actually a likeable person despite actually being a thin-skinned, immature creep.

Meanwhile, conservatives who should be united in their objective to defeat this man-child president are arguing over such nonsense as Abortion, the “purity” of candidates, and whether Trump should be hosting debates.  Some, whose favored candidates can’t seem to muster even 10% in any given poll threaten to vote third party (see Ross Perot and Bush 1).  Note that in Politico today, the lefties referred laughingly to what’s going on in conservative circles as a “knife fight.”

Newsflash people: Your cherished single issues will cease to mean anything when they change the name of the place to the U.S.S.A. When 1000% of our GDP is owned by the Chinese, not only will abortion be legal, but it will be mandated. Whether Newt got divorced or whether Trump is hosting a debate will cease to matter once the state decides it’s only fair that those extra rooms in your home should be used to provide housing for the less fortunate (like they did in Venezuela a couple of years ago).

Think these things can’t happen here?  You’re dead wrong.  The very essence of America is slipping away, and in about a year, our nation faces a choice between America the great, and America the social safety net. And you’re arguing about the position of the deck chairs.

It’s time to cut it out. You can’t get everything you want, and you’ll get nothing if you cut your nose to spite your face, which is the tenor of many of the diaries I’ve been reading here as of late.

“Just over a hundred years after the Bull Moose delivered his New Nationalism speech in Osawatomie, Kansas, Obama is scheduled to tout his own square deal – he’ll describe it as everyone getting a fair shot – there on Tuesday.”

Never in my life have I seen a president who constantly and consistently tried to emulate the successes of presidents past. Every other president, from Carter all the way up to Bush II, has stood their own, and governed in their own way, to fit the time. Not to say the media hasn’t made comparisons before, but the comparisons of the Obama presidency, mostly flattering of course, seem to be the very substance of his administration.

Of course, this brings us back to the central issue with Barack Obama. Three years in, no one really knows who he is. We get what he stands for, class warfare, an all powerful centralized government, and fundamental change of this great nation to, well, something else. (But don’t dare call him a socialist.) Rather than simply be Barack Obama, he instead is constantly searching for a way to be someone or anyone else, other than himself. In effect, Obama, throughout his presidency of imitation, has admitted that he is but an empty vessel, which even he can place his hopes and dreams.

The real question of course is whether the populace sees this. From the relatively safe confines of Redstate and others, it sure feels like the man is a one termer, but I get scared when I talk to the “moderates” out there who spout off about an intransigent congress, or the “weak field” of GOP candidates. God help this nation if Obama (or FDR, Lincoln, Reagan, TR, or whomever else Obama fancies himself to be today) gets another four years. Sadly, with the bulk of the mainstream media behind him and actively covering for his faults, and with a GOP primary focusing on nonsense like abortion and a candidates previous marriages, and rumbles from Paul freaks of a 3rd party run, I think that’s just what we will get.

So it’s great we’re pulling out of Libya, and likewise, I fully support our complete withdrawal from Iraq AND Afghanistan as well. When the American people elect a President who can prosecute foreign affairs in the actual interest of this great land and her allies, and with respect to the young men and women putting their lives on the line, then we can think about putting Americans in harms way.

In the last few days there has been lots of talk about how the developments in Libya prove out Obama’s strategies, and add to his already extensive bona fides – a canard so rich that it deserves it’s own column, but I digress. What I’ve found so astonishing is how little talk there is about “Winning the Peace” (WTP).

Remember WTP? Back when President George W. Bush went to war in Iraq, after asking permission of congress and passing several resolutions in the UN, I might add, and after he appeared under the “Mission Accomplished” banner following the toppling of Baghdad, the literati, the professional left, and seemingly the entire world (or at least the U.N.), couldn’t stop handwringing over what would happen now that the dictator Saddam was toppled. We broke it, we had to fix it right? We had to have a plan to win the peace, right? I mean right?

What ever happened to nation building? Are the good people of Libya, sprung from the clutches of an admittedly despicable dictator, any less in need of a new nation than Iraq was? Where is the outcry from the media, where are the human rights groups now that a vacuum has been created in leadership, likely to be filled by the Muslim Brotherhood or some equally fanatical group or worse, a proxy for Iran?

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think we should rebuild Libya. I think Bush’s tactical error was playing into this handwringing in the first place – Iraqi’s were an industrious people and they would have figured it out without us.  We should have limited our mission to wining the military conflict, and toppling Saddam (an accomplishment for Bush far greater than anything Obama might have had to do with the demise of Qadaffi) regardless of what the NY Times editorial page thought. But I just can’t get over the ever growing and astonishing double-standard at play here. I shouldn’t be surprised, but I’ve just never thought I’d see a time where dis-ingenuousness would so thoroughly rule the day without the populace as a whole so much as batting an eye.

The positive side of this may be that the next Republican president in 2012 might be able to follow suit, as now no Liberal can ever now complain that we broke it, so we must fix it, or have a plan for winning the peace.  Those same rules didn’t apply to their guy,  so it stands to figure that when a Republican takes the White House and actually tries to act in the interest of this country using military force, our new President might have quite a few more options than Bush ever did .  Then again, given the traitorous liberal media, who informs the masses in lockstep with an unflinchingly partisan tilt, perhaps I shouldn’t count on it.

Would you consider this person crazy? I think most Americans would. Apparently however, everything changes when we’re talking about a penis instead of a left arm. If we’re talking about lopping off genitalia, not only is the decision sane but should be supported, celebrated, defended as a right, and maybe even subsidized by federal dollars (we’ll see about that one in the upcoming legislation, whenever the Democrats get around to letting us know what they finally pass). The person undergoing such surgery not only deserves our approval, according to the liberal mindset, but we also need to treat them as we would any other human being, equally, without any question as to their mental state.

Witness the media treatment of Chastity Bono’s decision to undergo transgender surgery — heralded as a “courageous decision to honor his (her) true identity.” GLAAD added on to this saying, “Chaz Bono’s decision to live his life authentically represents an important step forward, both for him personally and for all who are committed to advancing discussions about fairness and equality for transgender people” [emphasis mine]. Seems like having your body mutilated is an empowering action. Maybe we should all do it so that we can all be courageous in honor of our true, “authentic” selves. But the reality for Chastity is much less impressive than these impassioned cheers would have you believe. Growing up in Cher’s shadow, not the best role model herself, Chaz entered an early teenage life of drugs and promiscuous sex with little actual parenting — typical for children of the extremely famous. Now we’re supposed to support her “courageous” decision to permanently modify her body into that of a he? Sounds less like courage and more like confusion and adult-onset, teenage angst to me, cheered on by an ultra politically correct and unquestioning left.

Which brings us to Obama’s latest and supposedly enlightened appointment at the Commerce department. Just don’t call Amanda Simpson a “token” appointee. After all, gender or identity politics had absolutely nothing to do with the selection, at all. Nope. Nothing to see here folks. Out of 300 million Americans who could serve as Senior Commerce Advisor, the single most qualified for the job just happened to be among the infinitesimal fraction of Americans who also happened to have had their gender re-assigned. And incidentally Ms. Simpson, who for most of her career worked either for the government or as a military contractor for the government (read: little actual private sector commerce experience), is on the board of the National Center for Transgender Equality. But again, this is not identity politics at all! And if you believe that, email me as I have some can’t-lose investment opportunities for you.

I know the Perez Hiltons out there will come out in full force and call for this Neanderthal’s head for suggesting such anti-gay and insensitive points of view. Yet, even putting aside the obvious play by the Obama administration to the GLTB community (yes Amanda, you ARE a token, a mere effort to quell the GLTB masses), why shouldn’t we question a transgendered individual’s mental state? Can anyone tell me what the difference is between the psyche of those who have undergone extreme voluntary plastic surgery such as Michael Jackson, Jocelyn Wildenstein, and Joan Rivers, who are routinely characterized as a bit insane, versus the psyche of those voluntarily undergoing much more invasive sexual reassignment surgery such as Chaz Bono or Amanda Simpson? I’m not suggesting those undergoing gender reassignment are evil, and perhaps Ms. Simpson is perfectly well-adjusted. For me, the personal choices made by Simpson raise concerns as to whether she’d be fit for a cabinet level position in any administration. I’d hope we’d ask the same questions about any appointee who’s made extreme personal choices resulting in permanent and major bodily modification, or any extreme behavior for that matter. This would seem to me to be true equality and even common sense.

But in the name of political correctness we’re not supposed to even question it. That Ms. Simpson is transgendered can be mentioned, parlayed, bandied about by the president, presumably to prove how unbigoted he is (which in itself is a form of bigotry), but don’t you dare question the reasoning (or confusion) behind her choice. Ms. Simpson’s sanity is peerless. Aside from her desire to actually have her penis removed, we’re told that she is otherwise completely normal and should be treated as such. Even if she isn’t completely normal. That’s right. I said it. She isn’t.

There will be many who will respond to this article claiming that I have no idea what I’m talking about, that I am some middle-America redneck, that I need to get out to the coasts more. While this article isn’t about me, and while I live in New York, I do want to share my own personal experience in this matter. I was very close friends with someone who underwent gender reassignment. I was his friend throughout the whole process, from when he became a she. This person had a sweet heart and was one of the most intelligent people I’ve ever met in my life. But one thing is for sure — this person was suffering. And the operation merely traded one form of suffering for another; it wasn’t a solution or empowering or courageous. It was unfortunate and, frankly, strange. And while I still have lots of respect and support for this person, the whole episode left me thanking the powers that be that I wasn’t afflicted with the same issues that my friend had. What’s interesting about the experience is that at the time, being more politically correct and “hip,” I didn’t question my support for my friend’s choice. After seeing what my friend lived through and continues to live with, perhaps I should have.

The selection of Ms. Simpson to the commerce post is yet another example of the endless game of identity politics engaged in by the current administration, at the cost of competent leadership. After all, the proof is in the pudding and a year into the Obama presidency, it’s clear there are questions around this administration’s competence. Even the most ardent Obama supporters are starting to question the handling of virtually every dust-up and for good reason. Whether Obama has been right or wrong on policy, he’s almost always blows the nuance of the political dance with the American people and this falls squarely on the back of his cabinet. As such, he should really reconsider his identity-based appointee approach, in favor of a purely merit-based one. As if that will ever happen.

At the end of the day, I’m not making any claims to be the arbiter of what is moral or what’s right. And I don’t claim to have answers for those who face a dilemma regarding their own sexuality. In my view, people should have a right to make whatever personal choices they like, to their own benefit or detriment. And an elected president has the right to appoint any person of any persuasion, race, creed or whatever to office as he or she sees fit. By the same token, the rest of us have a right to question the mental fitness of such a person being promoted into a powerful position in government (as well as the fitness of the person doing the appointing), in full view of others more qualified, without being immediately labeled as homophobic, intolerant or bigoted.