Great post as always, and I agree today is a great day. I like Gov. Barbour; what about the Gov of Florida, or is he damaged goods because of immigration? What about Colin Powell? Am I dreaming? What about Tom Coburn or is that two senators? Oh, what about the former governor of Oklahoma, Frank Keating or does that bring of the past scandal? I'm just going on; I'm happy McCain won. I think he'll take the fight to the terrorists; I also want him to take the fight to the Democrates.

I'd hope for Pawlenty, but would be very happy with Haley Barbour. Thats a future problem of course, but McCain needs to make more headway in his effort to inspire conservative support. His speech today did not do the job.

I have one question, because I didn't hear Mitt "wholeheartedly endorse" McCain. When was that?

Romney did strongly agree with McCain on the need to win the battle against the forces of Islamic Jihad, and I heard him call that the single most important issue in the campaign even while comparing McCain's position enthusiastically to the horrible positions of Obillery, but I didn't catch the "endorsement" you heard. I was hoping for that, so if you could point it out to me I'd appreciate it.

I would suggest Sarah Palin, Govenor of Alaska.

http://weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/013/851orcjq.asp?pg=1

One of my good friends is a native Alaskan, very conservative and he can't say enough good things about her.

MTF:

I have one question, because I didn't hear Mitt "wholeheartedly endorse" McCain. When was that?

When a candidate withdraws from the race and then makes utterly clear that he will campaign for his erstwhile rival -- "we cannot allow the next President of the United States to retreat in the face of evil extremism" -- that is a wholehearted endorsement.

Perhaps you mistakenly thought I meant Mitt Romney wholeheartedly endorsed every position John McCain takes on every issue. I assure you, that is not what I said nor what I meant.

But just as Ronald Reagan wholeheartedly endorsed the candidacy of Gerald Ford in 1976 and campaigned for the president's reelection, Romney has wholeheartedly endorsed McCain and will campaign for him.

(For a contrasting example, see Nelson Rockefeller's vile and divisive speech at the 1964 Republican National Convention, in which he compared nominee Barry Goldwater's supporters to Birchers, Klansmen, and terrorists.)

Dafydd

From a youtube search:

MCCain Co-Chair MN Gov. Tim Pawlenty on Sen. McCain
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-pzpnbHtvbc

I can see the logic in praising Mitt Romney for conceding early enough to have a positive effect... dragging it out 'till the end would not have served his causes or his political future well. I'm not enthusiastic about McCain, but he's a danged site better than Hillary or Barack.

But as for his VP selection? I just don't understand what McCain would gain by moving to the Right with a VP. If anything, I would expect him to pick a Republican more to his left; but I hear there wasn't anybody in that column. (Bah-dum pum.)

What does a VP bring to the Candidate? Votes. I don't see Conservatives voting for a Democrat (the loud Blonde aside) and staying home again, allowing another Clinton into office isn't going to happen, IMHO. Not if Mitt campaigns for McCain with any kind of vigor.

I think McCain would have no problem going up against Clinton, because her negatives within HER own party outweigh McCain's negatives in ours. But if Barack Obama wins the Dem ticket... that might be harder.

Everything the Republicans say against him as a person will be a racist comment. It'll be a definition. The solution may be a little transparent, but it would be a good choice as well: Michael Steele. He's not got a lot of time in office, but he has name recognition from CNN, as well as an inside track to the East Coast political machine. And yes... he's black. But he's so danged well spoken, I feel badly for the dummy who first uses the word 'token' in public against him. He just has too much STYLE to fit into that mold. He would give the black voters upset with the Democratic Party some 'clearance' to vote, and even campaign for the Republican ticket. Maybe I'm just a Steele fan, but it would make sense politically for him to be the pick... and he's available in a year when we can't really spare any 'good' Republicans who are already in office.

So if I were betting... I'd bet on Michael Steele to be McCain's VP choice.

Today was a bitter sweet day for conservatives. It was really nice to see that Romney is a stand up man and a team player and definately not a poor sport.

But its a sad day because us conservatives have no one to vote for in the general.

Also, I think Huckabee didn't drop out yet because he's playing spoiler to Mitt Romney. Probably had he known that Romney was going to drop out today, he would have tried to pre-empt Romney and drop out first. Huckabee will be out just as soon as he can craft a goodbye speech now that Romney is gone.

One further note and its rather morbid. It is so morbid that it even makes me shudder when I consider it.

The only way I will support John McCain in the general and give him my vote is if he picks a conservative VP. I'm about 99% certain he won't do this but if he does i'll give him my vote (And nothing else).

Why is that morbid? I'll end by saying because he'll be 72 when he's elected into office and there's a better than even chance that the conservative VP will end up being President.

I know, the thought makes me a horrible person and I can't believe i'm even thinking it, but its true. Apparantly such vile thoughts and actions exist within me.

So anyway, on to the general. Congrats to Romney for exiting in such a graceful way.

Now let's see who McCain takes as his Veep. My money is on a Senator pal of his, perhaps Lindsey or Joe.

The most frustrating thing for me in this primary so far is that the big 3 GOP candidates are moderates.
Romney, Huckabee and McCain are all moderate.
The morphing of Romney into Reagan v2.0 is almost as frustrating as what the same people have turned Reagan into - some sort of timeless relic.
I can understand the frustration with McCain- he naively thought the campaign 'reform' would work.
His immigration stance is annoying but unfortunately realistic. And he has, unlike talk show hosts, realized the limited legs of the issue.
But Romney and Huckabee both made very moderate policies as Governor's of their respective states.
It is clear that the people in this election cycle prefer McCAin, and I am OK with that.
If Huckabee's ego has become as you fear malignant, then the election will go to the extremists in the dhimmie party and bring down the end of organized conservative Christians in the Republican party.
I hope and pray Hickabee wakes up from any delusions he may have and avoids this treacherous path.

Did you vote for Romney in the primaries? Did you hope with all your heart that he would not just beat but thrash Mccain? Did you encourage others to do so? Did you buy into and sometimes even use the invective to which McCain was subjected this past primary season? Did you hope they would really boo him at CPAC? Do you perhaps hope against hope that something untoward should happen to McCain between now and nomination day? Did you swear on Reagan's grave that you would never, ever vote for Mccain and maybe countenance working and voting for a Democrat?

How dare you now come to give advice to John McCain about how to unite the party; how to play kissy-face with you who, until a day ago, hated his guts and his heroism; with you who even now are praying to the gods of accident that he meet with one!

By what right do you claim to even be a member of this coalition? We have lived with Mccain; if necessary we will die with McCain (figuratively speaking). But what we don't need is you telling us how to knot the noose and how to put the noose around our necks! As you had no part in the election you will have no part in the victory or in the defeat. You're out, gone, kaput, finished!

As Gladstone once said to the Turks "Take your bags and baggage and leave this place which you have desolated and profaned!"

Go! We have no use for half-hearted haters!

Luv Ya!

Sarah Palin would be a gas.

Mark Sanford?

Haley Barbour would be a very shrewd choice.

If I were him, I'd balance the ticket with a African American if Hillary gets nominated, or a woman if Barack gets the pick. Entice all those image voters let down by the Dems.

Sarah Palin would be a gas.

Mark Sanford?

Haley Barbour would be a very shrewd choice.

If I were him, I'd balance the ticket with a African American if Hillary gets nominated, or a woman if Barack gets the pick. Entice all those image voters let down by the Dems.

Let me assure you that if Tim Pawlenty is McCain's VP, any hope and prayer McCain had of attracting conservatives to his cause will be lost. Rather than making McCain's candidacy viable in Minnesota, it will make it a sure loser. Put simply, Minnesota conservtives, for the most part, will hold their nose and vote for McCain. They don't have two noses.

snochasr:

I don't think Pawlenty is the best of all choices either, but he's not a bad choice. The Minnesota conservatives that hate Pawlenty are the type of conservatives that are never happy following the majority anyway. Why defer to them?

------------
NOTE TO DAFYDD:

I think I might have a little clue here:

August 9, 2007 "Powell donates to McCain"
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2007/08/09/powell-donates-to-mccain/

I'd love Colin Powell as I mentioned above. He left the administration because he didn't like the way things were going. If he came back on board with McCain, it would really signal what the most important issue is. IT'S THE WAR, STUPID!

The Thunder Run has linked to this post in the - Web Reconnaissance for 02/08/2008 A short recon of what’s out there that might draw your attention, updated throughout the day...so check back often.

EliXelx:

Out to win friends and influence people, EliXelx?

As far as haters go, you're about the closest we have on this blog. Certainly no Romney, Huckabee, Thompson, or Giuliani voter posting here has evidenced even one tenth the bile and hatred you manage to squeeze into near every post.

"This book is a mirror: When a monkey looks in, no acolyte looks out."

-- Principia Discordia

Dafydd

Pam:

I'd love Colin Powell as I mentioned above. He left the administration because he didn't like the way things were going.

He left the administration because he wanted us to refight World War II for the fifth time in Iraq. The Powell Doctrine is a prescription for complete inaction, because we haven't anywhere near a big enough military to use the sort of overwhelming force he found necessary.

Thanks to President Bill Clinton, we couldn't even mount an operation the size of Desert Storm today -- and Powell did that just to push Iraq out of Kuwait. It evidently wasn't big enough, in his opinion, to remove Hussein from power.

Note that, contrary to the predictions of Powell and Eric Shinseki, et al, the force-on-force portion of the war went extremely well indeed. We should have followed by immediately transitioning to a counterinsurgency, then just sat there and waited for an insurgency to start so we could stomp it flat... but nobody -- nobody, not David Petraeus or the lads at AEI, not even John McCain -- was talking about COIN in 2003.

Now we know; but Powell didn't know then, and neither did anyone else, here or in any other country. It's a new world of warfare now. Powell left in a snit because Bush refused to wait to invade until we could send in half a million troops... which would have been "never."

And even if we had, Iraq would simply have been stomped flat, becoming yet another failed nation state. Since we can't invest it forever, whenever we left, we would have left behind a ruin that would be the perfect petrie dish for the al-Qaeda culture to grow. It would have been a complete catastrophe... and the "lesson" we would have learned would be to become more like Europe: utterly allergic to the use of force anywhere, anytime, for any reason. Eurabia? Welcome to Amerabia.

As it was, we got the job done in Afghanistan and Iraq; the Rumsfeld strategy turned out to be correct; neither he nor anyone else realized then that the proper combination was Rumsfeldian small-footprint warfare, followed immediately upon victory by Petraeus-style COIN units and British-style Foreign Office permanent nation-building civil servants, who go to the country in question expecting to stay there the rest of their careers.

Now we know; and next time, we'll do it right... assuming we don't have some dinosaur like Colin Powell in charge -- or some radical defeatist like Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama.

Dafydd

Have you seen the bile and hatred, Daffydd, on the Republican blogosphere? Hell if the Kos kids were writing it, it would not be as bitter as the man who spread reports that McCain was given two prostitutes in the Hanoi Hilton; that he took bribes; that his service record was one of losing planes and etc. etc. He's a RINO; he's a traitor; he's a hypocrite!

It is also a lie that nearly every post of mine contains bile and hatred Dafydd; why don't you check back and show me all my past posts, and then we'll decide if nearly all contain 10 times as much bile and hatred as anybody else's.

Finally, Daffydd, me old cocker, this last post of mine was meant to point out an anomaly in the strongest possible way--that the very same people who abused John McCain, who booed him, are the ones offering him advice about how to unite the party. Ann Coulter even suggested she would vote for him if he went with Romney as VP. Hugh Hewitt, the man whose blog started all this McCain hating, is now offering to be a go-between between McCain and the Right Wing. All of a sudden former Mitt supporters are flocking to Huckabee, and swearing that they want to go to the convention because maybe there the miracle will happen.

And you think my posts are TEN TIMES as vituperative as are these, Daffydd?

BTW, I don't know any monkeys who have read the Talmud;

There may be one however who quotes the Principia Discordia.

Sorry Daffydd, the only way you are going to get rid of this blocker is by appealing to McCain-Feingold and abridging my Free Speech in your house. That's your right, of course, and I'll defend unto death your right to ban me!

Elixelx:

I have banned one (1) commenter in the entire two and a half years of Big Lizards' existence. He was banned for making conversation impossible, and making this place unpleasant.

You are skating very close to that line. It seems that every post of yours is an invitation to duel, but without seconds.

Don't comment here about comments on other blogs in "the Republican blogosphere." This is not the Republican blogosphere; this is Big Lizards.

Nobody here has said anything bad about McCain's conduct as a POW. Nobody here has said anything negative about his service record. Nobody here has even called him a traitor. As far as being a hypocrite, that is a perfectly reasonable criticism -- whether I agree with it or not -- as it is when used against Romney, Huckabee, or anyone else.

We are really easy here: We don't bounce commenters for disagreeing, as they do on Kos; we don't edit comments except to remove profanity or potentially libelous statements (if someone ever posted classified information, we would remove that too).

But one kind of comment that is certain to be deleted and, if repeated, get its creator banned, is one whose purpose or effect is to make reading Big Lizards unpleasant for other people. That's like a missile aimed directly at us -- and we will respond.

So this is your only warning: Stop making this an unpleasant place to be; stop attacking people; stop making scurrilous charges that cannot possibly be checked (and which relate to other blogs anyway). Start communicating; you might find that you actually like us.

We're not so bad, once you get to know us.

Thanks,

The Mgt.

Thanks Dafydd. The unusually high level of commentary here combined with your uncanny insight into politics, warfare, and technology are why I keep coming back.

I wish you the best of luck and the worst of luck with the site. Best, because I want it to grow and for you to enjoy it, and be successful, and have an ever-expanding readership...and the worst, because I want to keep it nice here the way it is.

I can't make heads or tails of CQ comments any more...

Daffydd

Two PS's to our "communication".

1) How does one human being ban another's Free Speech for saying/writing something that HURTS THE FEELINGS/BURNS THE EARS of the speaker/author?
As you must know there is a case against Mark Steyn in Canada for writing something that "hurt the feelings" of some Muslims; Are you and I getting to that point?

2) Abraham wines and dines a stranger in the middle of the desert, and then asks him to say grace to G-D. The stranger replies that he does not believe in G-D, which makes Abraham very unhappy and angry and resolved to get rid of this person at the first possible opportunity for this man is skating very close to the line.
That night G-d visits Abraham in a dream and G-d says to Abraham: "Abraham, I have tolerated all this man's denials and insults for the 40 years of his adult life, and you, you couldn't tolerate him for even one night?" (From the Talmud)

"All comparison is odious"--Cervantes

EliXelx:

1. There is no general freedom of speech on Big Lizards. The only person who has any right to free speech on this site is the owner. This site is private property. All comments are allowed by privilege revokable at a moment's notice, or no notice whatsoever.
2. God does not own this site: I do. ("I paid for this microphone.")
3. I have no problem with your last comment. If you keep writing comments of that ilk, we'll have no quarrel!

Dafydd

Is this right, Daffydd, this right you assert to being all-powerful in your own house, is this right extendable to every owner of every house, or does it end where your compound wall stops?

Any comparison to G-d is, of course, not coincidental.

"We had rather, in the ways of Good, follow our enemies, than in the ways of Evil walk with our friends" --Jan Huss

Every blogger gets to decide about what goes on at their blog.
It is not a government free speech forum.
The owner/administrator is always empowered and justified to do what they think is in the best interests of their blog.
This is no different from any other media outlet.
Keep up the excellent work, Dayfydd

Wow, Dafydd, I didn't realize your feelings about Colin Powell! If all this is true, and I have no reason to doubt your expertence, then Secretary Powell would not even accept, if offered! Besides, Allah has linked today an interview he did with Wolf Blizter, praising Obama on his engery and excitement. Powell also said he'd vote for whoever he thought would work on repairing America's standing in the world. Hint, Hint! What I find amazing is how these people, who think we need to improve our image, think that by withdrawing from Iraq and leaving those people to fend for themselves, before they can, and to leave a power vacum, which will lead to AQ and others re-entering to fill the void. There, they would plot, plan and lauch attacks. Can anyone not see that is what happened in Afganastan' why don't they realize it would happen in Iraq? Am I wrong, here!

Pam:

If all this is true, and I have no reason to doubt your expertence, then Secretary Powell would not even accept, if offered!

Of course he wouldn't; Powell has made it abundantly clear over the years that he has no interest whatsoever in electoral politics. He has been approached numerous times by both parties; no dice.

Dafydd

Thanks for hissing in, . Now you can slither in with a comment, o wise. (sign out)

(If you haven't hissed a comment here before, you may need to be approved by the site owner before your comment will appear. Until then, it won't appear on the entry. Hang loose; don't shed your skin!)

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