Candidates For GOP and A Dead President

   I have to admit that I did not watch the Republican debate last night as I saw no reason to endure such torture for 90 minutes. Why waste my time listening to the participants telling us how great Ronald Reagan was and how much they wish they could be like him?

  It strikes me as funny since they all want to embrace the Reagan legacy, but that would be only because the Bush legacy is one of stupidity, corruption, and cronyism. If things were going half as well as Bush claims that they were, all of the debate candidates would have been telling you how they will continue along the same path. I guess that they have forgotten that they voted for this current mess that the Bush administration is in with the war in Iraq and with the scandals. They gave Bush a blank check and they helped him along with his agenda, no questions asked, and now they are trying to run from it by invoking Reagan's ideas?

John McCain: "Ronald Reagan used to say, we spend money like a drunken sailor."      Source

   You helped Bush spend like a drunken sailor, Mr. McCain, and you would continue along the same path.

They stressed the importance of persisting in Iraq and defeating terrorists, called for lower taxes and a muscular defense, and supported spending restraint.

  Iraq is a waste of our resources and they all know this. Lower taxes are great when you are not wasting billions of dollars per month on a war. Spending restraint for a Republican? Give us a break! It ain't gonna happen.

   They used Reagan's name some 19 times and barely mentioned their current wannabe king, Bush.

   It really doesn't matter all that much. If the only thing that the GOP has going for it is a trip back into time, they are screwed in November, 2008.

I'm sure that most blogs and maybe some MSM aren't letting them run away from the Bush support that they were so willing to give to him.

Tags: Mitt Romney John McCain Rudy Giuliani GOP

General Sir Michael Rose: U.S. and Britain Should Admit Defeat and Leave Iraq

The Guardian

General Sir Michael Rose told the BBC's Newsnight programme: "It is the soldiers who have been telling me from the frontline that the war they have been fighting is a hopeless war, that they cannot possibly win it and the sooner we start talking politics and not military solutions, the sooner they will come home and their lives will be preserved."

When he was asked if he thought the Iraqi insurgents were right to try to force the US-led coalition out, he replied: "Yes I do. As Lord Chatham [the politician William Pitt, the Elder, who, in the second half of the 18th century called for a cessation of hostilities in the colonies and favoured American resistance to the British Stamp Act] said, 'if I was an American - as I am an Englishman - as long as one Englishman remained on American native soil, I would never, never, never lay down my arms'. The Iraqi insurgents feel exactly the same way. I don't excuse them for some of the terrible things they do, but I do understand why they are resisting the Americans."

   I would guess that General Rose just about says it all in this piece. He also goes on to say that the U.S. and the British should admit defeat and leave before more troops are killed.

Tags: Sir Michael Rose U.S. British Iraq