A lot of pundits are wondering if there will be a third-party or independent run by someone this year. The usual scenario is that it if Giuliani is nominated, then a lot of the evangelicals will abandon the Republican Party. But in the previous post, I thought this an interesting comment:

I really don’t like him either. What the hell am I supposed to do if the contest ends up between Clinton and Huckabee?

It would be a pretty depressing prospect for conservatives and libertarians, to have no candidate in either major party with either a conservative or libertarian bone in their bodies. To my mind, this would be the most likely scenario to cause a revolt of the Republicans (and some Democrats). There would be an opportunity for someone to run on platform of individual and market freedom (particularly if they combined a tough stance on the war). I’m not sure who that would be, though, or how it would happen. Thompson would fit the bill, but I’m don’t know if he’d abandon the party, or be able to pull it off, given his seemingly lackadaisical campaign style to date.

[5 PM EST update]

Here’s an evangelical who thinks that Fred is the man, despite his secularism. He’s a “leave-me-the-heck-alone conservative“:

We Jesus Freaks (I’ll embrace the term) can mostly accomplish what we want to accomplish with a “leave me the heck alone” conservative like Fred (heck, or even McCain). We can live and let live. And Fred’s a likable guy. So I’m with him. And the nice thing about it for me is that I’m not with Fred because the others suck. I’m with Fred because I want to be. In a small bit of irony, back in February I was attending an event in Kansas at the Dole Institute. I told the Director that I was supporting Mitt Romney, but that I really wished someone like Fred Thompson would get in the race. The Director agreed. His name is Bill Lacy. You might have heard of him.

A good bit of me loves Huckabee and Rudy really excites me as a candidate against Hillary. But I want an across the board pro-life, pro-defense, small goverment, pro-entrepreneur conservative. And of the three men who fit the bill, I think Fred offers the most with the least baggage. He’ll make sure the government leaves me the heck alone.

Though I’m not a theist, let alone a Christian, that works for me, too. I think that’s a good sign, if he can survive Iowa and New Hampshire.

This article has the headline, “McCain Pounds Clinton On Iraq” (which he does, and she is more than deserving of the pounding), but what caught my eye was this comment from Mike Huckabee:

Huckabee responded to Romney

From a comment at this post about the JFK assassination, which has drifted far off topic because an anonymous moron came in and asked if I thought that Clinton was involved with it (for the record, as far as I know, JFK was killed by Lee Harvey Oswald, unassisted).

Rand, it was clear from even a quick google search that everything you said about Newsweek, Isakoff, and Drudge were true, and I’m not disputing them. What I couldn’t figure out, from admittedly just a quick search, was _why_ Newsweek “spiked” the story, I assume by “spiked” you mean “suppressed”.

I saw lots of sources that suggested that they did because they were still building the story.

The bigger more interesting picture: I’m just a vanilla Hillary-Supporter, and my support Hillary is probably only of interest to you in that I’m similar to the vast majority of voters who simply aren’t knowledgeable about this stuff. Maybe unlike most voters, I read the NYT every day, and lately I’ve been reading politico.com obsessively. But I never hear about this stuff. I respect your opinion (this blog isn’t in the rat’s nest), and when you have time and interest, I would like to hear more about a) the worst things you suspect eithor of the Clintons did and why, and b) why in the world the NYT and the Washington Post (and Tim Russert, Chris Matthews, etc), don’t cover the evidence for these deeds. No hurry, although I hope you write about it (or link to it) before I vote on Feb 5th.

That was suggested by many (lots of things were always suggested by many to deny the press bias in favor of the Clintons in the nineties), but my understanding is that Isikoff thought it was ready to go, and expected it to, and it was spiked at the last minute.

As to why they did it, the media was always reluctant to print negative things about the Clintons, and when they did, they always gave prominence to their spinmasters to minimize the damage. Don Hewitt claimed credit for saving Clinton’s candidacy with the Sixty-Minutes puff piece on the “problems with their marriage” after the Gennifer Flowers audio tapes surfaced. In one particularly shameful episode, when Gary Aldrich came out with a damaging book about them, and was scheduled to go on This Week, Stephanopolous (who ironically now, was working for the White House at the time) got them to cancel his appearance.

Continue reading What I Think Of The Clintons →

Let’s hope there are a lot of traitors there:

Brandishing a little red book listing his desired 69 revisions to Venezuela’s charter, Chavez exhorted his backers to redouble their efforts toward a victorious “yes” vote in the Dec. 2 ballot.

“He who says he supports Chavez but votes ‘no’ is a traitor, a true traitor,” the president told an arena packed with red-clad supporters. “He’s against me, against the revolution and against the people.”

People here who support this budding despot, like Jimmy Carter, should be ashamed of themselves. But I think they have no shame.

[Update a few minutes later]

Here are some of the potential traitors standing in food lines, waiting for milk.

[Another update a couple minutes later]

I wonder if the leche lines are why he’s lost his lead?

…the survey was the latest blow to Chavez. He has suffered a series of defections over his plan, including an ex-defense minister who had restored him to power after a brief 2002 putsch but who called Chavez’s reforms a new “coup.”

“The debate over voting ‘yes’ or ‘no’ has burst into the very heart of Chavez’s support base,” Leon said in an interview. “We can see moderate Chavez backers ready to vote ‘no’ even though they like him.”

The question is, what will he do if he loses? Have the “traitors” shot?

This seems a worthy cause to me.

Jonah Goldberg writes:

It is, for example, absurd that we’ve decided the Supreme Court should be the final arbiter of morality in this country and it is even more cockeyed that, having arrived at this absurd place, we continue to appoint lawyers to the court on the assumption they are the experts best qualified to adjudicate not merely the law (which is fine, of course) but right and wrong and all of the mysteries of metaphysics and meaning. Why lawyers? Why not priests, doctors and philosophers too

Glenn Reynolds has a column on DC v Heller at the New York Post today, and a podcast with the lawyer behind the lawsuit. He makes a pretty good case for why the court will have difficulty doing anything but upholding the appellate court decision, and the original meaning of the Second Amendment.

The SCOTUS is going to grant cert in DC v. Heller.

This is another huge story (two in one day, with the stem cell breakthrough). They are finally going to resolve, one way or the other, if the purpose clause can allow a government to deprive people of their civil rights. It will be a sad day for liberty if they overrule the appeals court, and essentially eviscerate the Bill of Rights of one of its most powerful one.

The pen is mightier than the sword, so they say, which may be why they made freedom of speech the first amendment, but the fact that the right to bear arms is number two is probably a good indication of the degree of importance attached to it by the Founders. Without that one, all the rest are ultimately at risk to a new tyranny.

The audio of the king of Spain telling Hugo Chavez to shut his pie hole is being downloaded as a ringtone:

In Venezuela, a group of students who oppose Mr Chavez’s government have also been downloading the ringtone, a US newspaper reported.

“It’s a form of protest,” a 21-year-old student in Caracas told the Miami Herald. “It’s something that a lot of people would like to tell the president.”

As that great philosopher, Nelson Muntz (more than) once said, “Ha ha!”

Here’s a cross-dressing “artist” with Islamaphobia:

Speaking at a meeting organised by the Art Fund, Perry said that it was simple fear which stopped him from addressing Islam in his work. ‘I don’t want my throat cut’, he said.

I’ll bet that dress he’s wearing won’t pass muster with the fashion police, let alone under Sharia law.