ComMITTed to Romney!

As you all know, Sen. McCain delivered a major speech on Thursday, May 15, where he outlined his TIMETABLE FOR THE WITHDRAWAL OF U.S. TROOPS FROM IRAQ!

This is the same man who used that very point to attack Mitt Romney during the last days of the Florida primary! Wait, I’m confused. Timetables for an Iraq withdrawal are bad, right? No, now they’re good.

McCain said that Gov. Romney should not have taken a nuanced approach to timetables in a debate question when he said that their should be private timetables used to gauge the Iraqi government’s progress toward certain benchmarks. He (Romney) said he would not be in favor of publicly releasing any timetables that could be used to the advantage of the insurgents. I thought that was an intelligent response to a complicated set of problems and the correct policy approach.

Sen. McCain had different ideas back then. After all that was three months ago. He lectured Gov. Romney that his response should have been “No.” McCain’s current answer is “Yes.”

Unbelievable folks, just unbelievable. Not only does McCain have timetables, but he delivers them in a major speech that traveled around the world within minutes of it’s conclusion. All Al Queda has to do now is lay low for four years, use the time to recruit and train new thugs, raise money to buy ammunition and IED’s from Iran and get ready for the “big push” in 2013.

~~John Cronin~~

H/T: Hotair and a tip from a friend of mine

First, here’s Grahamnesty playing dumb under an onslaught of facts from Sean Hannity and attacking Romney for allegedly supporting a timeline for surrender.

Putting that clip together with this link from Time Magazine from back in September, however, makes me think that perhaps Grahamnesty was just confused and projecting onto Romney his own desire and advocacy for a timeline to surrender.

Wednesday, Sep. 26, 2007
Lindsey Graham’s Iraq Deadline
By Michael Duffy/Washington

Sen. Lindsey Graham, a pivotal Republican vote in the U.S. Senate on Iraq policy, is willing to give the government of Iraq until Christmas to get its act together.

But not much more.

Graham told TIME Wednesday that the Iraqi leaders have 90 days to start resolving their political differences with real legislative agreements or face a change in strategy by the U.S. “If they can’t do it in 90 days,” he said, “it means the major players don’t want to.”
Graham, who has been to Iraq nearly a dozen times, including spending 11 days in August on duty as a reserve Air Force officer, pointed out that Washington has spent the last few weeks debating Iraq policy and emerged with a commitment to continuing the surge through the spring. That commitment, he said, is the green light for the Iraqis to finally take action on resolving their disagreements.

But Graham, who is up for re-election in 2008, said he will not wait forever. “If they can’t pull it together in the next 90 days,” he said, “I don’t think they are ever gonna do it.” He followed that prediction with a promise: “If they don’t deliver in 90 days, I will openly say the chances for political reconciliation are remote.”

Graham said he believed the “conditions are ripe” for political deals between factions on de-Baathification, which would ease the way for participation of Sunni tribes in local Iraqi politics, and on the holding of local elections, which would allow Sunnis to take a greater role in the Shia-dominated country.

Graham first hinted at a 90-day clock in testimony before the House Foreign Affairs Committee September 19. In his comments before that panel, he merely predicted the world would see progress by Baghdad in the next 90 days.

In his conversation with TIME, he held out a stick in the event that progress does not materialize. Said Graham: “We’ve won the day here politically, to give them the infrastructure they need to do this. It’s been missing up until now. I am vocally saying it’s up to [the Iraqis] to deliver. We’ve done our part.”

Though he would not elaborate on what kind of plan he would push if the Iraqis fail to meet the deadline, Graham did say a change in strategy would be warranted. “If they can’t do it by the end of the year,” he said, “how do you justify a continued presence?”

In response to Graham’s comments, White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe said Wednesday, “The President urged the Iraqi government to make progress on the political front in his meeting with Maliki yesterday. The President has also said that Petraeus and Crocker will report back in March, when they will be able to make a further assessment.”

Do McCandidate and his lap dog Grahamnesty really think that Republicans are this stupid?

By way of contrast, here’s the link to Mitt’s interview with Wolf Blitzer today. Note the good nature and humor with which he responds to McCain’s lies. Night and Day.

McCain’s Attack Mailer

More than just the same old personal attacks, McCain has now launched a mailer exaggerating increases in fees in Massachusetts while Mitt was governor and criticizing Mitt for other things. See the Politico for the story.

Astute readers will recognize the hypocrisy here. McCain cried “foul” when Mitt presented McCain’s record on the Bush tax cuts and amnesty for illegals. While McCain didn’t agree with Mitt’s definition of amnesty (though Fred Thompson did agree with Mitt in a subsequent debate), McCain’s only responses were to cast aspersions on Mitt’s character, effectively calling Mitt a liar. He also criticized the ads as “negative.” Well, here’s McCain doing what he so roundly criticized. Here’s his campaign’s response:

Asked how they reconcile running a positive campaign with such a mailer, McCain spokeswoman Jill Hazelbaker said: “We’ve been attacked enough times by Mitt Romney to justify getting out front to set the record straight.”

Sound like any two year old you know? “He did it first!”

JMart Points out McCain Flaws (Quoting Mark Lavin)

Jonathan Martin of the Politico recently posted a blog wondering aloud why no GOP candidate is hitting McCain on his “obvious” flaws in his not-so-conservative Senate voting record. He provides a link to a National Review Online article written by Mark Lavin on this subject. The obvious answer to me is that McCain and Huckabee have a marriage of convenience. It’s in both’s interest to take Mitt down, and McCain is gambling he may never have to get negative on Huckabee as Huck is likely to fade on his own. Huckabee knows he’s helped as well and is willing to take his chances against McCain later one on one after a more conservative rival is gone. But for you wondering why everyone considers McCain a liberal (and why he continues to garner more support among liberals than among people classifying themselves as “Republican”) see the following:

There’s a reason some of John McCain’s conservative supporters avoid discussing his record. They want to talk about his personal story, his position on the surge, his supposed electability. But whenever the rest of his career comes up, the knee-jerk reply is to characterize the inquiries as attacks.

The McCain domestic record is a disaster. To say he fought spending, most particularly earmarks, is to nibble around the edges and miss the heart of the matter. For starters, consider:

McCain-Feingold — the most brazen frontal assault on political speech since Buckley v. Valeo.

McCain-Kennedy — the most far-reaching amnesty program in American history.

McCain-Lieberman — the most onerous and intrusive attack on American industry — through reporting, regulating, and taxing authority of greenhouse gases — in American history.

McCain-Kennedy-Edwards — the biggest boon to the trial bar since the tobacco settlement, under the rubric of a patients’ bill of rights.

McCain-Reimportantion of Drugs — a significant blow to pharmaceutical research and development, not to mention consumer safety (hey Rudy, pay attention, see link).

And McCain’s stated opposition to the Bush 2001 and 2003 tax cuts was largely based on socialist, class-warfare rhetoric — tax cuts for the rich, not for the middle class. The public record is full of these statements. Today, he recalls only his insistence on accompanying spending cuts.

As chairman of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, McCain was consistently hostile to American enterprise, from media and pharmaceutical companies to technology and energy companies.

McCain also led the Gang of 14, which prevented the Republican leadership in the Senate from mounting a rule change that would have ended the systematic use (actual and threatened) of the filibuster to prevent majority approval of judicial nominees.

And then there’s the McCain defense record.

His supporters point to essentially one policy strength, McCain’s early support for a surge and counterinsurgency. It has now evolved into McCain taking credit for forcing the president to adopt General David Petreaus’s strategy. Where’s the evidence to support such a claim?

Moreover, Iraq is an important battle in our war against the Islamo-fascist threat. But the war is a global war, and it most certainly includes the continental United States, which, after all, was struck on 9/11. How does McCain fare in that regard?

McCain-ACLU — the unprecedented granting of due-process rights to unlawful enemy combatants (terrorists).

McCain has repeatedly called for the immediate closing of Guantanamo Bay and the introduction of al-Qaeda terrorists into our own prisons — despite the legal rights they would immediately gain and the burdens of managing such a dangerous population.

While McCain proudly and repeatedly points to his battles with Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, who had to rebuild the U.S. military and fight a complex war, where was McCain in the lead-up to the war — when the military was being dangerously downsized by the Clinton administration and McCain’s friend, former Secretary of Defense Bill Cohen? Where was McCain when the CIA was in desperate need of attention? Also, McCain was apparently in the dark about al-Qaeda like most of Washington, despite a decade of warnings.

My fingers are crossed that at the next debate, either Fred Thompson or Mitt Romney will find a way to address McCain’s record. (Mike Huckabee won’t, as he is apparently in the tank for him.)

Conservatives need to wake up to the fact that McCain is not one of us and is a better candidate for a third party, or even the democrats, than for the Republicans. Most Republicans have recognized that (remember his no-show in Iowa and losing among actual Republican voters in NH to Mitt). We need to spread the word so we don’t inherit McCain as our candidate through dirty pool.

I’ve pointed out Romney’s comprehensive policy statement “Strategy for a Stronger America” in previous posts.

One of the nice things about this document is that it provides the text to a number of Romney’s major speeches. I spent some time reading the text of these speeches and was struck by how powerful and well thought out they are. They are worth reading.

Below is the text of the speech Romney delivered at the 2007 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC).

“The mainstream media is surprised that we’re here. They wrote our obituary last fall. Course, they’ve written our obituary before: after Watergate, after the 82 midterm elections, after Iran-contra, and after Bill Clinton’s election. The truth is that their wishful thinking reports of our demise have been greatly exaggerated. In fact, I predict that we’ll be around a lot longer than . . . say, newspapers.

“No, conservatism is alive and well. And it is needed more than ever. America faces a new generation of challenges, critical challenges. Today is similar in many respects to what we faced as a nation 30 years ago, looking at the menacing face of communism.

“In fact, 30 years ago, in this very conference, one man stood up and told America what was needed. It was conservatism, a new coalition of conservatives that would lead to a brighter future for the nation. Ronald Reagan said this: ‘What I envision is not simply a melding together of the two branches of American conservatism into a temporary uneasy alliance, but the creation of a new, lasting majority.’ And here is where he said that this conservative alliance would lead: ‘I have seen the conservative future, and it works.’

Continue Reading »

By: Mary Jacoby

WALL STREET JOURNAL December 26, 2007

I am obviously playing catch-up with my print edition of the WSJ, but this story is very much relevant even though it’s a few days old.

The results are clear. In the battle of “significant” campaign speeches, Mitt Romney’s Dec.6 “Faith In America” address has crushed Rudy Giuliani’s Dec. 15 “closing argument” campaign speech in one key barometer of buzz: YouTube.

As of Monday, a clip of Mr. Romney’s much anticipated address, in which he defended his Mormonism and explained the need for expressions of faith in public life, garnered 46,437 views and some 1,500 comments on the popular video-sharing website.

Mr. Giuliani, speaking to about 200 supporters in Tampa, stressed his leadership qualities and unveiled his new slogan: “Tested. Ready. Now.” His campaign had billed it as the former prosecutor’s “closing argument” for the Republican presidential nomination. The jury appears unconvinced, however. As of Monday, a clip of the speech had been viewed only 1,106 times and it drew no comments.

To me, it is very ironic, that Mike Huckabee’s shameless playing of the religion card, which had the effect of re-introducing an issue that many felt had been taken out of American presidential politics by John F. Kennedy’s speech in Houston, Texas back in 1960, has produced one of the best moments of the campaign thus far and has generated the “buzz” that all politicians hope for, but few attain. It is also ironic that the Romney campaign was at first reluctant to give the speech, understandably and justifiably so. Gov. Romney has run his campaign on the theme of the “three legged stool” of a strong economy, a strong military and strong families. He did not intend to run a campaign based on religion or he would have incorporated it into the original theme.

However, former Gov. Huckabee had a different idea and chose to emphasize religion as a major plank in his platform. I wonder if Mr. Huckabee is having any second thoughts about opening the door on an issue that has now turned into a major gift in disguise.

~~John Cronin~~

Governor Romney scored a respectable B on this quiz from —>The American Thinker.

Take a look at how Governor Huckabee scored:

Mike Huckabee flailed wildly about in his response. First, he contrasted the assassination with the smooth transfer of power in the United States. Then he tried to tie the assassination to immigration, warning that we should keep an eye on the 660 Pakistani illegals who are in the country. When asked where he got that number, he became incoherent, finally saying something about a CIA briefing. Some analysts believe the Huckabee campaign is now officially over after his performance.

“HE HAS AGREED TO BE A PART OF THE GROUP”
Gov. Huckabee Claims Foreign Policy Advisers Who Aren’t Advising Him
No Laughing Matter: A serious look at Gov. Mike Huckabee’s record and policy beyond the one-liners.

• Gov. Mike Huckabee: “And the ultimate thing is, I may not be the expert that some people are on foreign policy, but I did stay in a Holiday Inn Express last night.” (WABC Radio’s “Imus In The Morning,” 12/4/07)
• National Review: “The Holiday Inn Express Candidate.” “In sum, conservatives should have worries about the depth and soundness of Mike Huckabee’s foreign-policy views. And staying at a Holiday Inn Express is not going to be enough to allay them.” (Editorial, “The Holiday Inn Express Candidate,” National Review, 12/10/07)

Confronted With Misstatements On Foreign Policy, Gov. Huckabee Insists He Is Authentic And Honest:

• Gov. Huckabee Says That People Are Looking For “Authenticity” And “Honesty.” NBC’s LESTER HOLT: “But can you afford those kind of misstatements when the spotlight is on you and people are looking for credible foreign policy credentials?” GOV. MIKE HUCKABEE: “What they’re looking for is authenticity, they’re looking for honesty.” (NBC’s “Today,” 12/29/07)
• Yet, Gov. Huckabee Continues To Insist He Is Being Advised By Former Ambassador John Bolton:
  On Thursday, Gov. Huckabee Said That Ambassador John Bolton Had Agreed To Help Him Formulate Foreign Policy. “At a Thursday evening news conference, Huckabee said, ‘I’ve corresponded with John Bolton, who’s agreed to work with us on developing foreign policy.’” (Lisa Lerer, “Huckabee’s Foreign Affairs Lapses,” The Politico, 12/29/07)
• On Friday Morning, Gov. Huckabee Said That He Had Spoken With Amb. Bolton About Foreign Policy. “On Friday morning, Huckabee listed former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton as someone with whom he either has ’spoken or will continue to speak.’” (Lisa Lerer, “Huckabee’s Foreign Affairs Lapses,” The Politico, 12/29/07)
• By Friday Evening, Amb. Bolton Said He Hadn’t Spoken With Huckabee, Nor Agreed To Be His Adviser. “Bolton, however, has a different view. ‘I’d be happy to speak with Huckabee, but I haven’t spoken with him yet,’ said Bolton, now a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank in Washington. ‘I’m not an official or unofficial adviser to anyone,’ said Bolton, who mentioned he’d had conversations with other Republican candidates but declined to name any names.” (Lisa Lerer, “Huckabee’s Foreign Affairs Lapses,” The Politico, 12/29/07)
• On Saturday Afternoon, Gov. Huckabee Was Still Claiming That Amb. Bolton Had Agreed To Be His Adviser. REPORTER: “Governor, you mentioned John Bolton as someone who is helping you to shape your foreign policy proposals. He says he hasn’t had communications or conversations with you. And he wasn’t the only person who you mentioned in your list of people you have talked to, to get advice from, who have said they haven’t spoken to you. Can you clear that up?” GOV. MIKE HUCKABEE: “Well, I had an e-mail exchange with John Bolton, and he has agreed to be a part of the group. He has not endorsed me. he has not indicated he would be supporting my candidacy, but he is one of many people who would be willing to have conversations. And we did have that e-mail exchange.” (Gov. Mike Huckabee, Press Conference, 12/29/07; YouTube)

• Gov. Huckabee Also Wrongly Claimed Former National Security Adviser Richard Allen Is Advising Him:
  “Huckabee Said He Had Also Spoken With… Former National Security Adviser Richard Allen.” “Huckabee said he had also spoken with former State Department official Richard Haass (now president of the Council on Foreign Relations); military analyst Ken Allard; former national security adviser Richard Allen; former House Speaker Newt Gingrich; Frank Gaffney, founder of the Center for Security Policy, a conservative think tank; and a ‘number of military personnel.’” (Lisa Lerer, “Huckabee’s Foreign Affairs Lapses,” The Politico, 12/29/07)
• Yet, Allen Also Says He Has Not Spoken With Gov. Huckabee. “Reached via e-mail, Allen said an intermediary asked him to speak with Huckabee, but he hadn’t yet agreed. ‘I’m gradually getting older, but am fully capable of recalling with whom I have spoken,’ said the former Nixon and Reagan foreign policy campaign adviser.” (Lisa Lerer, “Huckabee’s Foreign Affairs Lapses,” The Politico, 12/29/07)

Huckabee must think that the American People, and with it the American Press are absolute idiots.

First off check out —>this post from earlier.

Continuing on this discussion, Fox News did some research on “The Huck’s” so called “facts”, and here is what they found (I’ve also included a photo of the chart mentioned in the post for visualization purposes).

Huckabee warned an Iowa crowd that 660 Pakistanis have come into the country illegally in the past year because of insecure borders. It was a new angle among the candidates reacting on the trail to the assassination Thursday of former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto.

He also said: “We have more Pakistani illegals coming across our border than all of the other nationalities except those immediately south of the border. … In light of what’s happening in Pakistan it ought to give us pause.”

But his Pakistan statements don’t jibe with the data. Pressed by reporters where he got his figure, Huckabee initially said: “Those are numbers that I got today from a briefing and I believe they are CIA and or immigration numbers.”

Later, in a conference call with reporters, he identified the figure as coming from the Department of Homeland Security and news articles, including a March 2006 piece in The Denver Post.

Only that article said 660 Pakistanis entered the United States illegally between fiscal 2002 and 2005 – not just in one year. And Homeland Security figures for 2006 show that many more illegal immigrants came from India, Korea, China, the Philippines and Vietnam than Pakistan, which didn’t even make the chart.

See On The Chart How Pakistan Isn’t Even Listed?

Meanwhile, Huckabee on MSNBC talked about Pakistan’s “eastern borders near Afghanistan,” even though that border is on Pakistan’s western end.

And he suffered another gaffe Thursday when he said it’s too early to say whether martial law should “continue” in Pakistan, even though martial law was lifted two weeks ago.

Huckabee’s campaign later offered a statement saying “martial law in Pakistan, as a practical matter, should not be viewed as having been completely lifted until the restrictions imposed during that period on the press and judges are removed.”

Such comments could play into the hands of critics who say Huckabee’s light on foreign policy experience. Since recently admitting to reporters that he hadn’t heard about a major report on Iran’s nuclear capabilities, Huckabee has sought to fight that accusation.

…but John Bolton denies it.

I’ve lost count of the number of gaffe’s Huckabee has had in the last couple days, but add another one to the mix. Some choice bits:

In recent days, Mike Huckabee has tried to answer long-standing questions about who is on his foreign policy team. On Friday morning, he listed former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton as someone with whom he either has “spoken or will continue to speak.”

At a Thursday evening press conference, Huckabee said, “I’ve corresponded with John Bolton, who’s agreed to work with us on developing foreign policy.”

Bolton, however, has a different view. “I’d be happy to speak with Huckabee, but I haven’t spoken with him yet,” said Bolton, now a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank in Washington.

Okay, if that weren’t bad enough, it gets worse:

Transcript from CNN:

WOLF BLITZER: “Let’s go back out to the campaign trail right now. Presidential candidate appears to be trying to change the subject after making what some are calling a notable gaffe. That would be republican Mike Huckabee. He’s a former governor with less foreign policy experience than some of his rivals. Now some are wondering if that is becoming obvious out on the campaign trail. Let’s go out to Iowa, Dana Bash is watching all of this unfold. You’ve learned about the concerns inside Huckabee’s own camp about his national security experience. Explain to our viewers what’s going on.”

DANA BASH: “Well, Wolf, in a very candid moment today, a senior Huckabee campaign official told me that with their candidate, quote, ‘There is no foreign policy credential.’ And that unlike many other presidential candidates, he can’t boast about knowing Benazir Bhutto. This official also said that until they can, quote, ‘get him briefed’ and up to speed on Pakistan, they’re going to try to bring it closer to home. Mike Huckabee is responding to crisis in Pakistan in an offbeat way, tying it to a red hot campaign issue: immigration.”

GOVERNOR MIKE HUCKABEE: “There were more Pakistanis who illegally crossed the border than of any other nationality except for those immediately south of our border. 660 last year. That’s a lot of illegals from Pakistan.” (Me: by the way, that’s wrong, far more illegal immigrants come from the Philippines, Korea, China and Vietnam according to the Dept. of Homeland Security)

BASH: “Sounding an alarm about illegal Pakistanis in America is a surprising tactic for a candidate who preaches tolerance. He dismissed any concern it looks like xenophobia.”

HUCKABEE: “No none. Not at all. I’m just saying that a lot of Americans sitting in Pella, Iowa maybe look halfway around the world and say how does that affect me?”

BASH: “When asked by CNN for the source of his statistic, 660 illegal Pakistanis, Huckabee seemed unsure.”

HUCKABEE: “Its come largely from CIA numbers, and ill get u the exact source, but those are numbers that i got today from a briefing, and I believe they’re CIA and/or immigration numbers.”

BASH: “A senior Huckabee campaign official admitted to CNN the former Arkansas governor has, quote, ‘no foreign policy credential.’ that’s why his campaign turned to immigration, a top concern for Iowa GOP voters especially men he’s been losing ground with. The pivot followed a gaffe, not appearing to know martial law was lifted in Pakistan two weeks ago.”

This is getting embarrassing. Huckabee evidently just makes stuff up and hopes that nobody calls him on it. This might have worked in Arkansas, but he isn’t in Little Rock anymore. (no disrespect intended to Arkansasans)

Apparently Mike Huckabee feels that in light of the Bhutto assassination that we should not have great fear that Pakistani Immigrants are going to begin a mass exodus across our Mexican and Canadian borders.

See:

Huckabee Ties Bhutto’s Assassination to Illegal Immigration.

Huckabee said the pace of building the border fence had to be accelerated. But Huckabee also made the “observation” that we have “more Pakistani illegals coming across our border than all other nationalities, except those immediately south of the border, and in light of what’s happening in Pakistan, it ought to give us pause as to why are there so many illegals coming across these borders.” He said he was citing numbers he had learned about during a briefing this morning. The campaign has not yet responded to requests for the study Huckabee was referring to.

“Because what I’m afraid is happening – a lot of Americans are watching [the assassination] on television and they don’t think it has any correlation to them and it does. And it’s not just immigration, it’s the instability of the Middle East; it’s the fact that Al Qaeda and the Taliban could in fact be emboldened by their capacity to take out a presidential candidate in a major nation. It’s the increased instability that it creates in Pakistan and how it affects the whole geopolitical balance of that part of the world – it’s all of those things, but it does have an impact on people here in the United States where we need to recognize our borders are not that safe.”

Looking at the journalists, Huckabee said, “You guys live in this world and you swim in this sea everyday. A lot of people, they’re just interested in going to work, coming home, they see this on television [and wonder], how does this touch me? And it does touch them.”

Gotta love that last statement. Who is he to imply that Iowans don’t know anything about the issues in Pakistan. Just because he doesn’t know where Pakistan is, or what’s going on within their country doesn’t mean that he needs to imply that the rest of the American people are as uneducated on the matter.