Mitt Romney - again...

I have another article on Romney here, entitled "Warning!"

Why is it that the candidate who is spending the most time and money to get the publics attention is the one "flying under the radar"?
He is spending a 85,000+ dollars a day on television advertising, more than any other candidate in history.
He has spent a whopping 10.2 million dollars on ads already.
His closest competitor, John McCain, has spent only 300,000 dollars. You can see an article about his spending here.

Yet he is getting the least scrutiny.
People are blasting Fred Thompson over abortion when Romney professes the same view.
People are digging into Mike Huckabee's record and bringing up some stink, yet they ignore Mitt Romney who has a very much identical record on everything except abortion and gay marriage.
People are even giving Giuliani more thought - at least he is honest, he hasn't changed his views one bit, they just aren't conservative. Romney on the other hand had very liberal stances when he ran for governor, but now is toting himself as a conservative.


Well, it appears he is an aspiring robot who is just trying to stay out of the lime-light.
In a recent interview (located here) he claimed he is pleased to be in Clinton's newest ad because he has "always (aspired) to be a machine".

Now, acting as a robot, he has decided to skip the Iowa Fox news debate (read about here), opting instead to just run ads that say what he wants, instead of going out and actually answering the questions people have for him.
I hope the debate actually goes ahead, without Romney - especially given the fact that the most recent rasmussen poll has Huckabee moving ahead of Romney! (read about it here)

Much as I wish Fred Thompson were the one winning Iowa, at least people are realizing that Romney is not the best candidate, and picking one who is at least a little better.

So, why are people letting him slide under the radar?
I guess it is because most people do just listen to the media.
And since the media is liberally biased, which a recent Harvard study
(reported here) has proven, and since Romney is probably the most liberal candidate, except for maybe Giuliani - but that is only because Giuliani hasn't switched, it isn't unreasonable to believe that, since he is spending 34 times the amount of advertising of his nearest competitor, he would be very largely in the lead.

The only reason he is in second place is because he is buying people's time and vote, and because Giuliani is the only one courting the moderate/liberal vote.
If either of those changed, he would either be in first, or last.

Part 2: Fred Thompson on "Meet the Press" = Common Sense

Note: I had originally planned on posting the entire interview with my thoughts about it when he was on, but I found that it would take too long, and be too cumbersome of a post.
Thus, I will be writing a series of posts about Fred Thompson on "Meet the Press".
This second one will deal with the part of the interview on abortion and gay marriage.
The first part can be found here.

You can read the entire transcript from the interview here.

On abortion and gay marriage (they kinda got mixed in together in the interview, and I feel that because Thompson treats them both as state issues I too will address them together - though abortion will be more closely looked at, as there has been more of a stink made about it):

Abortion:
"MR. RUSSERT: This is the 2004 Republican Party platform, and here it is: “We say the unborn child has a fundamental individual right to life which cannot be infringed. We support a human life amendment to the Constitution,” “we endorse legislation to make it clear that the Fourteenth Amendment’s protections apply to unborn children. Our purpose is to have legislative and judicial protection of that right against those who perform abortions.” Could you run as a candidate on that platform, promising a human life amendment banning all abortions?"

"MR. THOMPSON: No."

"MR. RUSSERT: You would not?"

"MR. THOMPSON: No. I have always—and that’s been my position the entire time I’ve been in politics. I thought Roe v. Wade was wrongly decided. I think this platform originally came out as a response to particularly Roe v. Wade because of that. Before Roe v. Wade, states made those decisions. I think people ought to be free at state and local levels to make decisions that even Fred Thompson disagrees with. That’s what freedom is all about. And I think the diversity we have among the states, the system of federalism we have where power is divided between the state and the federal government is, is, is—serves us very, very well. I think that’s true of abortion. I think Roe v. Wade hopefully one day will be overturned, and we can go back to the pre-Roe v. Wade days"

"MR. RUSSERT: Each state would make their own abortion laws."

"MR. THOMPSON: Yeah. But .. to have an amendment ... going back even further than pre-Roe v. Wade, to have a constitutional amendment to do that, I do not think would be the way to go."

"MR. RUSSERT: So ... you believe that life begins at conception ... ?"

"MR. THOMPSON: Yes, I do."

Homosexual marriage:

"MR. RUSSERT: And also with gay marriage, according to the Associated Press: “Thompson favors a constitutional amendment that bars judges from legalizing gay marriage, but also leaves open the door for state legislatures to approve the practice.” So if a state said, “We want to have gay marriages in our state,” you would be OK with that?"

"MR. THOMPSON: Yes ... marriage is between a man and a woman. Nobody ever thought that that was contested until recently, and we’ve had a couple judges in a couple states decide to turn all that on its head. So we’ve, we’ve had, again, a judge-created problem. I would support a constitutional amendment that addresses this judge-created problem ... and say judges can’t do that. But, at the end of the day, if a state legislature and a governor decide that that’s what they want to do, yes ... they should have the freedom to do what Fred Thompson thinks is a very bad idea."

The only thing I can see that people find objectionable is that he is against federal regulation on these subjects.
Why is this such a problem for them?
He is merely stating that the constitution places these kinds of decisions into the states hands.

In relation to abortion, he is not saying the he is pro-choice (he is actually doing the opposite), but what he is saying is that the federal government needs to stop over-stepping it's bounds.

This poll clearly shows that the country is extremely divided on the issue of abortion. And it is not the right of one group (however right they may be, and I am with the pro-life stance 100%) to impose laws on another.
Under the constitution all citizens have an equal right under the law. We don't need a situation where, when republicans take control of the senate abortion is illegal, and when democrats take control it is legal.

What we can do, however, is leave it up to each state to decide independently.
This allows more liberal states to allow abortion, and more conservative states to ban it. While this not ideal for a conservative like me (and most republicans), this does keep the laws consistent with the constitution, and moves the choice on this vote away from politicians, and back to the individual voters.
This also, like Thompson has stated, gives conservatives a chance to work against abortion.
As it is, with the current Roe v. Wade laws, abortion is just another hot-button issue which really is not going to be definitively decided in the near future.

What Thompson does address (and it seems a lot of people are ignoring) is the fact that it is because of court decisions, and not constitutional laws, that abortion and homosexuality are such big problems today.

When was the Judiciary branch given the power to create laws? Is not their intended role to "enforce" previously written laws?
Fred Thompson makes a point about this, stating that Roe v. Wade should be overturned, and that the courts should return to simply enforcing laws, and leaving the law creation where it belongs - in the Senate.


Mike Huckabee lashed out at Fred Thompson over his stance on abortion, and an awful lot of people have joined him in doing so.

Why is it that these people keep saying Thompson is not pro life, as if it is some sort of attack on him, when in fact he is very pro-life.

Why isn't anyone mentioning Giuliani's pro-Abortion stance? (link for Giuliani: http://www.lifenews.com/nat3227.html)

Thompson's pro-life voting record, which is even more pro-life than McCain's? (from the same link for Giuliani: "During his [Fred Thompson] seven years in the U.S. Senate, he voted anti-choice [pro-life] 44 times out of 46 choice-related issues [that is 97% of the votes]. He has called Roe v. Wade 'bad law' and received a 100 percent voting record from the National Right to Life Committee.")

McCain's record, and how it is very similar to Thompson's (McCain has a 96% pro-life voting record, as judged by the liberal, pro-choice group "NARAL". Information from the same link as Giuliani)

How Mitt Romney "supports a womans right to choose", but also believes, as Thompson does, that it is a state matter? (http://conservativesagainstromney.com/2007/03/15/mitt-romney-flips-on-abortion/)

Or that Ron Paul has the exact same view on abortion, ie - it should be left to the states? (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_positions_of_Ron_Paul#Pro-life_legislation)

And finally, and most importantly, Huckabee himself had the same view on the matter as Fred Thompson, up until his presidential run that is. If you read the interview at right wing news (scroll down to the "Switching gears again, do you think we should overturn Roe v. Wade?" part) and the proceeding thoughts on it at the Arkansas Times blog it is clear what he believes is within the states and federal governments rights.

Huckabee is just changing his position in an attempt to polarize people between himself and Thompson.
And he has succeeded with me.
I want a candidate I know I can trust, and that is Fred Thompson, all the way.

Thompson is clearly the most pro-life candidate who actually has a shot at this, besides possibly Huckabee or Ron Paul, but personally I prefer Thompson's consistent pro-life stance over Huckabee's "new" stance.
Not to mention that he has now been endorsed by the National Right to Life Committee (read about it here and here), an endorsement he also received when running for the Senate in Tennessee.

Fred Thompson, the right choice if you want common sense leadership in an insane world.

Getting stronger :)

Fred Thompson seems to be catching on to the surge of Huckabee, if not outshining it.

While you can't see this in individual polls really well (he has been dipping 3 or 4 percentage points in the last few weeks - though the same can be said for most of the candidates), you can tell by rank.
A few weeks back he was holding a steady 3rd or 4th place in the nationals. Now he is going up, and quickly. It doesn't matter which of the other candidates flip-flop for 1st or 2nd, he is always in the top 3.
In fact, many of the polls say he now holds a very solid second place, with Giuliani being in first but dropping from 38% of the votes down to 25-28%, in just one month.

Fred came in late, but immediately shot up in the polls. Huckabee came out of nowhere, but hasn't risen as fast, as some people still don't know where he stands on important issues. I am no longer one of those people. I had him as my number 2 candidate, up until I really checked into his beliefs and voting record (I'll post some things about Mike Huckabee soon).
He is now down in one of the lower spots on my personal rankings, above only Ron Paul and Mitt Romney.

Whether he is a good candidate or not, conservative or liberal, honest or flip-flopping, I expect Huckabee's "reign of momentum" to level out fairly quickly, once his views get out enough.

Fred, on the other hand, has been staying in the 16-23% range of votes the entire campaign, based on some polls here.
Which means he is not likely to dip too far below those numbers, unless he really makes a slip-up of disastrous proportions.
Some have even been placing him within single digits of Giuliani for a while.

We'll have to see what happens in the next few weeks.
Personally I hope Fred wins, but here are my overall rankings of the GOP candidates:

1. Fred Thompson
2. Duncan Hunter (what can I say? He has the most conservative voting record in his years in Washington D.C. of any of the candidates, he wants to bring our manufacturing jobs home, he wants to finish the fence on the border between us and Mexico, and he seems very pro-Israel.)
3. John McCain (too liberal for my taste, but less liberal than Giuliani)
   
4. Rudy Giuliani (don't like his more liberal views, but agree with his stances on the war on terror and Israel, and he has a better shot at this than the remaining candidates below)
5. insert most of the remaining GOP candidates here
6. and here
7. and here
8. Mike Huckabee (I'll be posting why Mike is not a good candidate in another post)
   
9. Mitt Romney (hate his liberal views, and his flip-flopping)
10. Ron Paul (has least conservative voting record of candidates, isolationist, and others - will post more later)

Go Fred Go!!!

Warning!

Mitt Romney is possibly the most liberal candidate the republicans might actually be able to back.
I had thought it was a lock-up with Giuliani taking the cake, and that Mitt Romney might really be as conservative as he sounds.

Then I began seeing some people saying things like "He was a democrat 2 years ago", or "He only started being a republican 7 years ago" and a few others like it.
Uh-oh, "too good to be true" ring a bell?
I had always thought there was something about him that wasn't right. I actually had the impression that he was sort of a republican JFK.
So, I started looking around the web, and found that he has been a republican his "entire" life. Both his parents are republicans, and both were active in the political scene.

This made me start to doubt the accusations ... until I came back for round 2.
I finally found a good site that covered his past voting record, the massresistance site.
Here are some basic conclusions drawn from that page (which in turn are based on his voting record, and political statements):

• Mitt Romney had a major role in destroying the republican party, and helping the democratic party while he was governor of Massachusetts.
• Mitt Romney pretty much single-handedly allowed the homosexual movement to become a serious threat, to legalize gay-marriage (and not the gay as in happy kind), and to push homosexual, bi-sexual and trans-gender teaching in the schools.
• Mitt Romney welcomed and helped agendas that supported, assisted and encouraged abortion.
  

Incredible! How can someone go to all the lengths he has to ruin the republican party and rewrite his own liberal record, and then have people actually believe him to be a staunch conservative?
He is just another smooth-talking, flip-flopping, back-stabbing and believable politician.
Basically he has the charm, looks and the attitude a lot of people want, like JFK, but the "republican" version of a Bill Clinton in view-point.

We don't need Bill back, whether it be through his wife, or through someone posing as him.

Here are some more links about Mr. Mitt:

• http://contraception.about.com/b/a/000075.htm
• http://votingundertheinfluence.blogspot.com/
• http://conservativesagainstromney.com/
• http://townhall.com/columnists/JohnHawkins/

Part 1: Fred Thompson on "Meet the Press" = Honesty

Well, if I like nothing else about Fred Thompson it is his absolute honesty on subjects.
He does not shy away from risky topics, nor give pat answers.

Tonight I watched him on MSNBC's "Meet the Press", and I must say, I am impressed.
With no other candidate can I say I agree entirely with what they have to say. While I know you can never have everything you want or hope for, it is refreshing to share so many views.

Let's see what he had to say. You can read the entire transcript from the interview here.

Note: I had originally planned on posting the entire interview with my thoughts about it when he was on, but I found that it would take too long, and be too cumbersome of a post.
Thus, I will be writing a series of posts about Fred Thompson on "Meet the Press".
This first one will deal with the part of the interview on Iraq and Pakistan.

On Pakistan:

"MR. THOMPSON: I’d be saying learn as much as you can about the situation to all my people ... We’ve got two competing serious considerations there. One is the rule of law, which we’ve got to stand for, which he’s going against right now. And the other is the fact that it’s one of the most potentially dangerous situations in the world for us right now. He is an ally in, in a, in a very sparsely populated place as far as allies are concerned. There’re not many of them in that part of the world. Even parts of his own government do not have our interests at heart ... I do not know exactly what Musharraf sees or thinks he sees to cause him to do what he has done, but we need to understand that this is a nuclear country. We could face a real nightmare scenario by seeing these radical elements, or these terrorist sympathizers, take control of that government and have that nuclear capability there on the border of, of Afghanistan when we’ve got so many troops there."

"MR. RUSSERT: We have provided President Musharraf $10 billion in American aid since 2001. Should we suspend that aid?"

"MR. THOMPSON: Not now. I know that it’s been mentioned by our people. He’s been told that that’s at risk if he, if he did what he, in fact, did. Everything’s going to be on the table. I think we’ve got to play hardball with him, but understand that ... they were making progress, apparently, toward a civilian government. You know, former Prime Minister Bhutto was coming back; they had had discussions ... It looked like things were going well. Then terrorists attacked Bhutto when she was there, and she had to leave the country again. So now he’s reacted to that and, on balance, we have to make sure that whatever happens that we do not see total instability in that country in, in that government and we do not see a takeover by a radical Muslim elements or terrorist sympathizers."

"MR. RUSSERT: Because of the uniqueness and precariousness and the sensitivity of that country, would we allow President Musharaff, General Musharaff, to continue under martial law because he’s our ally?"

"MR. THOMPSON: Well, when you say we allow the head of a country to stay the head of a country, you know, that’s, that’s, that’s kind of a mouthful. I don’t think we ought to look at it like whether or not we allow someone to stand or not. The question is what’s our relationship going to be with him? What kind of support are we going to, to give? Hopefully that situation won’t stay that way. I don’t see how it could. I think it’s going to move one way or another.

I think our job right now is to make sure that we know all that he knows and the reasons why he’s doing what he’s doing ... Let’s make sure that we properly analyze our own intelligence there and work toward moving that situation toward a civilian government.

What he’s doing, I’m afraid, is alienating those in that country who might be on the fence, who might be somewhat moderate when he, in effect, declares martial law and suspends the constitution. He’s working against his own interests, perhaps. But again, he knows his own country ... it’s too early to be making broad pronouncements about that part of the world right now."

I couldn't agree more. While I am pro-war(when necessary), we are already in Iraq and Afghanistan, and there is the looming threat of Iran going nuclear and requiring intervention. So right now we need all the allies we can get, not another enemy who wants to blow us up with nukes.


On Iraq:

"MR. RUSSERT: Let me turn to Iraq. You said the other day that “I think the policy we’re engaged in now is the right one,” and then added this, earlier, this, couple of years ago, talking to Larry Kudlow. “It’s just a matter of staying the course. And as long as we have the will to stay—and it’s extremely important, I think, to our future security that we stay—we’ll be OK, and we’ll work our way through it.” Is that still your view?"

"MR. THOMPSON: Yeah. I think so. It seems to me like, at the end of last year, we were losing the war. It seems to me now, in the last five months, that there’ve been a lot of good things happen there. You know, we just got through Ramadan, which is one of the worst periods for us historically, and there’s less violence than in the last three years there. By any measure, in terms of the sectarian violence, in terms of the military deaths and injuries and attacks, Baghdad over the last several months is in much better shape, and the area around Baghdad. We know a lot of, a lot of progress has been made out in other provinces. Around Baghdad I think car bombings have gone down over 80 percent. There’s some reconciliation apparently taking place out in the country. Not enough is happening among those—the political leaders in Baghdad, for sure, but that doesn’t mean progress is not being made. So the Sunnis are turning away from al-Qaeda. They’ve—they’ve had an opportunity to live under them in some of these places and localities and seen their brutality. They don’t want that. They’re turning toward us. Reconciliation between Sunnis and Shia and other parts of the, of the country there.

... I think that we’re making substantial progress there ... nobody knows what’s going to happen, but this would be the worst time in the world to start talking about deadlines or cutting off funding or getting out prematurely. I would like to see nothing more than our troops start coming out of there, but as a part of a success scenario. And I think that’s a realistic scenario that the generals on the ground there have in mind."

"MR. RUSSERT: But staying the course, the status quo, can that be our strategy? What is our exit strategy? How long would you stay there?"

"MR. THOMPSON: Well ... it’s not a stay-the-course when—in, in terms of what’s been going on there. What’s been going on there’s been quite negative. It is a—giving us an opportunity to succeed. You know, we’ve got to, we’ve got take yes for an answer. We got to take success as a, as a reality when we find it. We’ve, we’ve seen a lot of negativity, and rightfully so. But now that things are turning, even those in some of the think tanks around town are not pro-war by any stretch of the imagination have stepped up and said, “We’re making real progress.” We see the headlines that, that are, that are changing now. The stakes are too high, Tim. It’s not, it’s not a matter of, of just Iraq ... we’re being tested. The whole world is watching to see whether or not the American people have the will and the ability, the unity, the determination to, to succeed in any front that we happen to be engaged in, and this is a front in much larger war. We—we’ve provided stability ever since the end of World War II in the world. Some people—some countries have not gone nuclear because of us, because of our strength and stability we’ve provided. We don’t want to see Iran fill that vacuum that we would leave there. We do not want to see the Saudis, for example, to go nuclear in response to what they perceive Iran is doing, and especially if we pulled out of, of that area. So now of all times when we’re seeing so many good things happening there and so many good reports from generals who we respect there, we should, we should not be thinking in terms of deadlines."

"MR. RUSSERT: We should plan on being there several years."

"MR. THOMPSON: Well, I don’t know what several years means. I mean, we, we just don’t know. We, we hopefully can be a buffer for a while after we pacify the place, and average people can go worship without fear of being blown up. And we can be a necessary buffer there for a while, but I would hope that it would not be, you know, indefinite. You know, we’ve read too many historians who’ve talked about great nations in times past that many of them were empires. We don’t call ourselves an empire."

"MR. RUSSERT: But you oppose withdrawing any troops right now."

"MR. THOMPSON: Well, I, I, I think we ought to stay on the course that we’re on. The scenario that’s planned, as I understand it, involves a withdrawal of troops next, next spring or summer as a part of the success scenario. But I don’t think that we ought to, to be armchair generals and say that a few more or few less ought to be the, the way to go when we’ve got people on the ground who apparently now know what they’re doing."

"MR. RUSSERT: You made a comment the other day in South Carolina, said, “Fred Thompson said the Iraqi insurgency is made up of ‘a bunch of kids with improvised explosive devices,’ and suggested that the appearance of losing to such an enemy would harm U.S. national security.” As you know, we’ve lost 3,834 kids; 28,385 wounded or injured, 65 percent of them by these improvised devices."

"MR. THOMPSON: Yeah."

"MR. RUSSERT: It’s more than just a bunch of kids."

"MR. THOMPSON: Yeah. Well, that’s, that’s not exactly what I said. I mean, I, I don’t minimize the fact that, that we’ve got terrorists coming in from Syria ... from Iran and, and other places, in Saudi Arabia, pouring in there. We, we have Sunni-Shia violence; there’s no question about that. I’ve never disputed that. Al-Qaeda, although I think they’re back on their heels now, still strong there, there’s no question. What I said was, the—when I’m talking—I was talking about will and unity and the perception that we’re going to have around the world. The fact that friends and foes alike are looking to see what kind of a, of a, of a determination that we’re going to muster in, in dealing with this thing."

"MR. RUSSERT: But you should not trivialize..."

"MR. THOMPSON: And I said..."

"MR. RUSSERT: You shouldn’t trivialized as a bunch of kids."

"MR. THOMPSON: ...and I said, and I said—well, let me finish. I said the United States of America could not be perceived as having been run out of Iraq with our tail between our legs because a bunch of kids on the border there making improvised explosive devices. The—as they’re going to recruit future al-Qaeda young men, they’re not going to get into the nuances of the various factions that are our enemy down there. They’re going to go say, “Look, you can do, you can do exactly what your brothers did. You can be a part of us. We brought them down. We brought the United States of America to its knees.” And, in large part, it is because of young people making—they call them improvised for a reason. I mean, they’re, they’re pretty low-tech kind of operations by people probably with not much education, and they can be taught to do this, and they’re causing great damage to us. And you go to places, Brook Army Medical Center and so forth, they don’t handle no one—nothing but burns and amputees, and you see what’s, what’s, what’s been done there. They’ve, they’ve, they’ve demoralized us in many respects. They’ve hurt us badly. There’s, there’s no question about that. It should not be minimized.

But the point being, these young people that I’ve talked to know what they’re doing, and they know that they’re doing something good for their country, and we need to understand that, too. And we cannot let the perception be, and the new potential recruits for al-Qaeda be convinced of the notion that these young people like this can bring us down."

I couldn't agree more.
Personally I don't think that in the overall scheme of things our helping in Iraq will change the countries of the Middle East(or the rest of the world for that matter), or their attitudes toward us. But it will buy us, Israel, the rest of our allies, and the other nations in this world who are also being targeted by radical Muslims the time they need to prepare for and understand their enemy.

I'm not saying all Muslims are our enemy, or even that most Muslims are.
What I am saying is that the leaders of the Islamic world have been consistently turning toward more radical viewpoints, in an attempt, I assume, to bring about what they perceive as world peace. I am not a scholar of Islam or the Koran, but, from what I hear, the moderate Muslims have stated that this is not what Islam is about - I pray this is true, and hope that this form of Islam becomes the dominant form in the Middle East.

But if a more radical form of Islam should become dominant, and if it seeks (as most radical Islamic groups do) to forcefully convert the entire world to Islam, destroy Israel, and impose there leadership on every nation in the world, then we must be prepared to defend not only our way of life, but that of every other nation in the world.

"MR. RUSSERT: As you know, we’ve lost 3,834 kids; 28,385 wounded or injured, 65 percent of them by these improvised devices."

That is true. And I feel for the families of those who have paid the highest price for our country,
But when I think about it, those numbers do give me a sense of hope. They indicate that our troops have been well trained, and know how to survive. In the 9/11 attacks alone approximately 2,750 people lost their lives. It has taken more than 4 years to reach that number in Iraq. And if you count all the terrorist attacks since 9/11, there have been at least 4 times the casualties - and that is assuming all those attacks have only caused one casualty each. Don't believe me? Check out The Religion of Peace, it states that there have been more than 9900 deadly terrorist attacks since 9/11.
It wasn't so long ago that a war would claim 10's of thousands of lives, in a single battle.

How many people in this country truly want another 9/11, or worse, a nuclear strike?
Another 9/11, if it hit a source as crucial as the WTC's, combined with the 9/11 attacks themselves would cause more death and suffering than the entire Iraq war up until this point.
While that is a sobering prospect, a nuclear strike would be far, far worse.
Imagine, if you will, what would happen if NYC, LA or Chicago were hit?
Answer: There would be at least 100's of thousands of casualties - possibly millions - and many many more injuries.

I'm not saying that this means we should go around putting our troops into these kinds of situations just for the heck of it, or that there death is any less saddening, but, our soldiers, who have willingly fought and died for our country, have saved more lives than have been taken in this entire war.

Highly motivated kids are not our enemy, this is true. No child has ever been "evil" at heart, they can only be made this way through teaching, brainwashing or through traumatic events. But the monsters behind these terror groups that are in the Middle East have taken these normal kids, who are poor, hungry and deeply zealous about there religion, and have turned them into killers, killers who's only intent is to follow there masters to war, because they believe this will make the world a better place, and that if they die they will go to place where not only will they no longer be poor or hungry, but they will have a place of honor.


What would happen if we just suddenly pulled out and gave up in Iraq?
All the sacrifices by our troops, and all the protection that they have given us would be meaningless.
The radical Islamic terrorists would see it as a victory, and recruiting would be off the charts.
Other countries in the region would have less to fear and would become more bold.
Terroristic regimes would regain there control of Iraq and Afghanistan, causing pain and loss of life to their civilian population for their support or, at the least, their cooperation with us.
Iraq and Iran would very quickly gain or regain their nuclear ability, and would be free to create vast quantities of other WMD's.
Every free, democratic country in the Middle East would face renewed pressure to conform to the tyrannical system of government of the radical groups.

How can anyone possibly believe this is what is best for our country?
It would be the exact opposite.
I fear, though, that this is the course that will eventually be taken. And it should scare any sane person what this world would become like.

Fred Thompson seized every opportunity.

Well, I was just reading over at fred08.com, and I found this particular article very interesting.

It is amazing to me how so many things could just "fall into place" like that. And it is even more amazing to me how many people have the same chances, but never grab hold of them, and really take off.

"As a young lawyer in the 1970s, Thompson took up Marie Ragghianti's lawsuit against Tennessee's governor, and won her reinstatement to her job and back pay. The story became a book; the book became a movie; the movie launched Thompson's acting career; the actor's profile helped Thompson win a seat in the U.S. Senate.

...

GOP connections led Thompson to Tennessee Sen. Howard Baker, who in turn led Thompson to Watergate. Six years out of law school, at age 30, Thompson was chosen by Baker to became minority counsel on the Senate's special committee established to investigate the famous break-in.

...

With his GOP connections, he joined the U.S. attorney's office as a prosecutor for three years, then helped to manage Baker's 1972 re-election campaign. When the senator became vice chairman of the Watergate committee a year later, he picked Thompson as Republican counsel.

President Nixon couldn't have been more underwhelmed by Thompson.

"That kid," Nixon called him. "Dumb as hell."

"Well, we're stuck with him," H.R. Haldeman, Nixon's chief of staff, harrumphed.

Baker told Nixon: "He's tough. He's 6 feet 5 inches, a big mean fella."

Thompson, an administration loyalist, gradually realized Nixon might be lying."

I find his ability to take on people from both parties to be a good indicator that he will do what he thinks is right, regardless of whether they are republican or democrat.

He seems to have weathered anything that has been sent at him.

• Getting his girlfriend pregnant at 16, in a time when that was very frowned upon, especially in the Christian conservative movement, and could have caused republicans to frown on him.
  

• Nixon calling him names - kinda stupid and childish, but if he hadn't been on the winning side he probably would have kissed his political career "bye-bye".

• Going to Hollywood. This can seriously change someone, and it is really hard to keep your identity in that environment. You don't believe me? See what happened to Michael Jackson, Lindsay Lohan, the Olson twins, and many, many more. They all started out as cute, nice little children, and ended up being very problem-prone people, more so even than people who went to Hollywood as adults.

Fred Thompson has been tested on a large range of subjects, and, from from what I have sen so far it appears he has passed every challenge with flying colors.


And now for two final quotes:

"I don't do frenetic well" and "I've done pretty well being me, and me is all they're going to get."

Amen and thank you for just being you. So many people are willing to sacrifice to many things to accomplish something. Accomplishing something good in a wrong way is not the same as accomplishing something good the correct way!

I'm off to watch him on meet the press, see you later :)

Hello

And welcome to my blog.

I am a conservative, republican teen, who lives in a blue state.

I will be eligible to vote in the next election, so I'm trying to gather as much information on politics and all the candidates(both conservative and democratic) as I can. I hope to post what I find, think or hope for here, so others can benefit as well.

Currently I think Fred Thompson is our best bet for president, for several reasons.
I agree with almost every single thing he has said to this point,
he has been a conservative for his whole adult life,
and, most importantly IMHO, he has consistently voted conservative, whereas the rest of the republican candidates have wavered on a lot of issues.


I am pro-life, pro-guns, pro-marriage, anti-gay-marriage, pro-"war on terror", and 100% pro-Israel.

I am a creationist, but also acknowledge that it is impossible to prove my view, just as it is impossible to prove that the theory of evolution is accurate.
Both are a matter of faith. Do you have faith in a divine entity, or do you have faith that there is nothing beyond what you can see?

I am also an environmentalist, though I do not believe in human caused global warming.
I just prefer not eating, drinking or breathing toxic waste.


I am a pessimistic optimist, while I believe we can make the world a better place, I also realize that there is going to be a lot of bad things that happen before and during that transformation.

I believe that in order for us to fix this world, we have to go back to our conservative, Christian-based system of government.
Though I am not a Christian, one must acknowledge the fact that all of the founding fathers were Christians, and that they have successfully run this country for the better portion of it's history.

Assuming that Christians are a plague that is destroying our country is ludicrous.

Our fore-fathers left there homelands in search of a better country in which to live and raise there families.
They found it, here, in the United States of America. If it is so bad living under Judaeo-Christian laws and morals, why does everyone continue to flock here, just as they have since it was founded?

Better yet, why did our country become the most prosperous, powerful, and free country in the world?
And why, now that we have become more liberal, are we losing that place?

For me the answer is obvious.