Cowboy Confessional

These are the times that try men’s souls. Which is why Howard Dean appears so placid - he lacks one.

A recent installment of rhetorical inanity erupted when George Bush, while in Israel, mentioned that appeasement is a bad idea. He cited history, alluding to the the worst practitioner of foreign policy in modern memory.

No, not Jimmy Carter, though he is a close second.

Bush spoke of Neville Chamberlain and his negotiations with Adolf Hitler. Hitler had already engineered the assassination of one Austrian Chancellor leading to annexing the joint. Perplexed by naked aggression, Chamberlain traveled to Munich to negotiate an agreement that called for Hitler to quit acting like Hitler. Chamberlain returned promising “Peace for our time”.

Then Hitler invaded Czechoslovakia.

So Bush brings up these nasty memories while speaking in Israel. Call me ignorant if you must, but the choice of topics for that audience was appropriate. His point was that haggling with an aggressive enemy is rarely a smart strategy. With characters like Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad promising to wipe Israel off the map, the topic seemed mildly appropriate for an audience of resident Jews.

What made the whole episode amusing was the reaction of Barack Obama, who took Bush’s analysis personally. For all I know Bush was poking a political finger in Obama’s eye. It wasn’t the poking that was dangerously hilarious: it was Obama’s knee-jerk reaction. Even more hilarious — by being intellectually bereft — were his fellow Democrats who compared Obama’s stated desire to negotiate with known, practicing terrorists to Ronald Reagan talking to Mikhail Gorbachev.

Let’s evaluate these three scenarios:

• Chamberlain was weak and passive. Hitler was strong and aggressive. Result: Millions of people died.
• Reagan and the U.S. were strong. Gorbachev and the Soviet Union were collapsing, and Gorbachev had already blinked, showing signs of compromise. Result: the evil empire vanished.
• Obama is a policy-free, knee-jerking neophyte. Ahmadinejad/Hammas are radicalized theocratic war mongers who have stated plans to kill an entire nation. Result: death to the west.

You tell me how that will end. The road map has been drawn once before.

Being a Southerner by birth and a former Floridian by accident, I’m sensitive to issues and history from either corner of my past … especially when history richocets in ironic ways.

The saddest part of American history was slavery. In modern context we properly revile the very notion. But at the forming of this nation, slaves were a “normal” part of everyday life. Since participation in the new Union by all the former colonies was essential in forming a deterrent to invasions and attempts at recapture by the Brits, certain repugnant compromises were made to keep slaveholders profitable.

Which demonstrates the inanity of the art of compromise.

One power-splitting concession to the south was allowing slaves to counted as lesser people when determining the number of electors a state would have in the new United States. In census population and electoral college counts, each slave was tallied as 3/5th of a human — a discounted denizen if you will. This gave southern states motivation to join the Union and to increase the number of slaves, as each additional slave slowly made a slave-holding state more powerful.

America’s first unintended consequence.

It appears that in proud Democrat tradition, the discounted human theory is being resurrected for the presidential campaign. Lawyers for the DNC have decided that the delegates in the contested states of Florida and Michigan will only get 1/2 of a vote each. Keeping true to their Uncivil War sensibilities, the Democrat Party is creating a lower caste of citizens, this time within their own party.

George Wallace must be grinning from his warm little corner of Hades.

Let’s call it a tiny family squabble gone horribly right.

I was at the Denver Libertarian convention. During an otherwise hyper-intellectual weekend (those Libertarians make beltway policy wonks look like imbeciles) I witnessed a friendly divide between ideological purist (you know, the ones that keep the Libertarian party focused) and pragmatics who were backing Bob Barr. The pragmatics knew Barr was not a 100% match to the libertarian platform, but if the purist were to admit such, they wouldn’t be either. The pragmatics won, Barr is in, his running mate Root is a man on fire, and this will hurt Obama.

I hear my Republican and conservative friends’ jaws dropping. Come on guys. Get your chins off the floor and let me explain.

Current polling shows 12% of Democrats cannot stomach Obama. Only 8% of Republicans hate McCain. That’s a 4% spread, and enough to influence an election, especially if other factors make the race tight. Barr is that factor.

So what Dems despise Obama? Primarily the Blues — the Blue Dogs and Blue Collar Democrats … they very ones Hillary hunts today. They likely will not switch to McCain, but in what will be a contentious election, they won’t sit it out either. Come time for the debates, they will be open to the small-government, pro-gun, school-choice pitch of the Libs.

McCain does not suffer the same problem. Socially liberal issues supported by the Libertarians (gay marriage, relegalizing marijuana, etc.) are repugnant to conservative Republicans. Any who would have trouble voting for McCain might not defect for lack of an alternative.

However, these same issues are hot-buttons for Democrats, and ones on which Obama will equivocate. Single-issue Democrats will defect where as single-issue Republicans won’t. Pair this draining of votes with the Nader factor, and the electoral shift hits the Obama fan.

And it gets worse Barack.

The debates will be Obama’s New Orleans and his opponents his Katrina. First, Barr will be in the debates. Barr is backed by Russ Verney’s (ala Perot) strategy skills and Richard Viguerie’s fundraising prowess. The rules set by the Commission on Presidential Debates are fairly low — more than low enough for Barr and Root to participate with his assembled campaign horsepower.

For all his charisma, Obama breaks when discussing the details of policy in a confrontational mode. He will wither during the debates when pitted against well-honed warriors like Barr, McCain and Ralph Nader. Obama will finish the job the Libs have started. Any left-of-center position on which appears weak will be a target for Nader and Barr.

I mentioned my wet cocktail napkin math to a conservative Republican buddy of mine who lives in the Modern Sodom of San Francisco (yes, he leads a very lonely life there). He pondered it a bit, then asked where he could get a Barr-Root sign for his house. “After all,” he said “every little bit hurts.”

Enjoy your moment my Democrat friends … it will be short lived.

I’m sipping whiskey for the fourth straight night in Denver, while I and the Libertarians sit in stunned amazement.

The Libertarian party (LP) has gone mainstream. They have developed creeping respectability. They may soon risk becoming boring.

Not that their convention was boring. Far from it. Being the completely anal retentive ideological purists they are, the seeming invasion from ex-Republicans (Bob Barr) and ex-Democrats (Mike Gravel) made for tense conversations, endless hand wringing, and a lot of late night power drinking as many LP members came to terms with the Gawd awful decision they faced.

Do we vote for a pure Libertarian and get no media coverage (as usual) or do we accept a 90% candidate and get the attention of a nation.

They chose the latter, and it was a wise choice. I learned from some private polling that the LP is the second choice for nearly everybody - Democrats and Republicans alike. 52% of Republicans and Democrats think the LP should be in the presidential debate. Though they are not well acquainted with every element of Libertarian philosophy, swing voters have said they want to learn more.

And there lies the danger for those who love the two party stranglehold. I spoke with many new LP members over the weekend and all came from either the Republican or Democrat camps. They all felt abandoned by their parties. They sought and found a home that stood for something, and what’s more, something that gave them trust.

And “trust” beats the Sam Hell out of “hope” any day.

Nobody, not even the most involved LP insider, is predicting a win come November. But every LP member sense a shift, one that puts the LP candidates in the debates, the LP freedom mission in televisions from coast to coast, and and forever changes the two-party system into a three-party system.

---

While I’m coining and copyrighting slogans, I’ll add the following and save them for my own use and licening.

Trust is hope.

Trust brings hope.

Freedom is hope.

Trust in freedom, trust is hope.

Trust beats hope.

Trust, hope and change.

… and all minor variations tereof.

Barack Obama complains of racism in this year’s presidential contest.

Hilary Clinton complains there has been sexism.

John McCain’s camp derides blatant ageism levied against him.

None of the candidates ever just cowboy-up and get on with the issues.