EVENING UPDATE:  MAY 21,  2008

Posted at 7:54 p.m. ET

THE POLLS

Three new polls show mixed results in the general election.  Rasmussen's tracking poll shows McCain up one over Obama, but Gallup's tracker has Obama up three over McCain.  A new Reuters/Zogby poll shows Obama up eight.

Rasmussen has Clinton and McCain tied.  Gallup has Obama up four.  The Reuters/Zogby poll, like Rasmussen, shows a tie.

Rasmussen is the only major poll right now to have McCain ahead.  But it will take much more time to determine if this is an important trend.

May 21, 2008.

THE SECOND SPOT

Three names have surfaced on John McCain's "let's talk" list, and none is surprising:

Senator John McCain, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, on Friday is scheduled to meet with two Republican governors who have been prominently mentioned as potential running mates, according to Republicans familiar with McCain's plan.

The two governors, Charlie Crist, of Florida, and Bobby Jindal, of Louisiana, have both accepted invitations to meet with McCain at his home in Arizona, according to Republican familiars with the decision. One Republican said that Mitt Romney, a former rival of McCain for the presidential nomination was also expected to visit him this weekend. Romney's advisers declined to comment.

The most exciting name on the list, of course, is Jindal, the young governor of Louisiana, the son of Asian-Americans, and a dynamic, if sometimes excitable speaker.  He would draw the greatest attention.  The problem, of course, is that a young governor with no foreign-policy background kind of negates McCain's claim that major experience is critical.  After all, the vice president might suddenly become president.  Also, Louisiana's reputation for corruption is such that even a reformist governor like Jindal might be tainted by it.

Selecting Crist would probably secure Florida, a critical state for McCain.  He's an engaging campaigner, but he's a white male with gray hair, like McCain.  The sameness doesn't do much on the excitement meter.

McCain and Romney are known to dislike each other, but that didn't stop Kennedy from picking Lyndon Johnson in 1960.  Romney would give McCain economic credentials, which he lacks.  However, Romney can "out-stature" McCain in some areas, and that could create new friction.

May 21, 2008.                       

WEDNESDAY:  MAY 21,  2008

Posted at 4 a.m. ET

AFTERMATH

The reality is that nothing really changed last night.  Clinton blew Obama away in Kentucky by 35 points.  Obama handily defeated Clinton in Oregon by 16.  Obama came close to claiming victory in the nomination race without pushing Clinton out of it.  Clinton vowed to keep fighting while assuring the world that she'd support the Democratic candidate. 

The only remarkable thing was to hear Clinton portrayed as the more conservative candidate.  Compared to Obama, she is.  Compared to most sane people, she isn't.

In watching those two I realized how far the party has come from Roosevelt, Truman and Kennedy.  They wouldn't recognize their own party today.  I don't think they'd join it.

May 21, 2008.      Permalink          

LAMENT FOR THE DEMS

That same theme was carried over by Joe Lieberman in a superb column for The Wall Street Journal, based on a speech Lieberman gave at a Commentary magazine dinner.  Lieberman laments for the party he once knew, a party that "was unhesitatingly and proudly pro-American, a party that was unafraid to make moral judgments about the world beyond our borders."

But it all changed:

This worldview began to come apart in the late 1960s, around the war in Vietnam. In its place, a very different view of the world took root in the Democratic Party. Rather than seeing the Cold War as an ideological contest between the free nations of the West and the repressive regimes of the communist world, this rival political philosophy saw America as the aggressor – a morally bankrupt, imperialist power whose militarism and "inordinate fear of communism" represented the real threat to world peace.

And...

Of course that leftward lurch by the Democrats did not go unchallenged. Democratic Cold Warriors like Scoop Jackson fought against the tide. But despite their principled efforts, the Democratic Party through the 1970s and 1980s became prisoner to a foreign policy philosophy that was, in most respects, the antithesis of what Democrats had stood for under Roosevelt, Truman and Kennedy.

Lieberman regrets that the party, even after 9/11, chose to lurch left, regarding President Bush as the real enemy:

Far too many Democratic leaders have kowtowed to these opinions rather than challenging them. That unfortunately includes Barack Obama, who, contrary to his rhetorical invocations of bipartisan change, has not been willing to stand up to his party's left wing on a single significant national security or international economic issue in this campaign.

In this, Sen. Obama stands in stark contrast to John McCain, who has shown the political courage throughout his career to do what he thinks is right – regardless of its popularity in his party or outside it.

John also understands something else that too many Democrats seem to have become confused about lately – the difference between America's friends and America's enemies.

There are of course times when it makes sense to engage in tough diplomacy with hostile governments. Yet what Mr. Obama has proposed is not selective engagement, but a blanket policy of meeting personally as president, without preconditions, in his first year in office, with the leaders of the most vicious, anti-American regimes on the planet.

Finally...

A great Democratic secretary of state, Dean Acheson, once warned "no people in history have ever survived, who thought they could protect their freedom by making themselves inoffensive to their enemies." This is a lesson that today's Democratic Party leaders need to relearn.

Sadly, they won't relearn it.  They're too comfortable with their cozy, leftist approach.  The new component groups within the party are wedded to the left, and have contempt for the very people who built the Roosevelt, Truman and Kennedy coalition.  Bottom line, much of the Democratic base today doesn't care if we lose the war on terror.  In their view, we would then have to adjust to the world, and it would be good for us.

May 21, 2008.      Permalink          

STRIKING IRAN

One of the great threats we face - although Senator Obama apparently doesn't think so - is from Iran.  Now Ken Timmerman, one of the best of our Iran experts, reports that pro-American elements within the Iranian regime itself would welcome an American military strike:

As Barack Obama and John McCain thrash it out over how they would deal with Iran, voices from inside Iran are weighing in with an unusual message: If the United States strikes hard and fast, we will support you.

Emissaries from inside Iran have been meeting with Iranian exiles in Europe, the United States, and elsewhere in recent weeks to deliver this provocative message, which they claim comes from pro-U.S. dissidents at the upper-most levels of the regime.

“U.S. airstrikes must be powerful and sustained enough to break the myth of the regime’s absolute power and reveal the weakness of the leadership,” a former official who traveled outside of Iran recently said.

The United States should target the office of Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, as well as the headquarters of the Revolutionary Guards Corps, the offices of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and that of his predecessor and rival, Mullah Hashemi-Rafsanjani, Iranian sources say.

The goal should be to carry out sustained airstrikes over a 48-72 hour period that would “decapitate” the regime.

But there are many caveats, and there is really no evidence that the Bush administration plans an attack before it leaves office, despite occasional rumors to the contrary.  A good friend of mine, a prominent Iranian dissident, also warns that an attack on Iran could provide the regime, if it survives, an excuse to unleash its legions of suicide bombers around the world. 

This is, as FDR liked to say, an "iffy" question.  The threat from Iran is not easing, and the nation plunges recklessly ahead with its nuclear program.   The best time to move against Iran probably is now...if we had broad support, which we don't.  I suspect the problem will be left for the next president.  If it's Obama, it will not be solved.  It will get worse.

May 21, 2008.      Permalink          

TAKE THAT, HARVARD

Harvard does not have ROTC, ostensibly because it's upset at the "don't ask, don't tell" rule. You do get the feeling, though, that even if the rule were lifted, the scholars would find another excuse. But William McGurn tells of another college, a small one lost among the "flyover people," that does have ROTC.  He was its commencement speaker this year, and he liked what he saw.  I commend this story to you.  It will give you renewed confidence in America:

It's a long way from Harvard yard to Benedictine College. But this little Kansas campus could give Cambridge a big lesson in diversity.

Benedictine held its annual commencement ceremonies this past weekend, and I happened to be there because I was the speaker. After all the degrees had been handed out, two young men in dress blue were called back on stage. Before their families, their classmates, and their teachers, these men raised their right hands and swore to "support and defend" our Constitution. And then Lt. Jeff Fetters and Lt. Michael Mundie were presented to their class as "the newest officers in the United States Army."

What a striking moment this was. Here were two young men who had stepped forward to wear the uniform in a time of war – and who had their service publicly acknowledged by their peers and institution. One retired general who graduated from this same campus in 1966 put it this way. "These young men will need every bit of encouragement in the world they have now entered," said Tom Wessels. "And by golly, it was great to see them get it."

Read on.  It's worth it.

Back later in the day.

May 21, 2008.      Permalink