The Spyglass Spots: Super Tuesday Fallout: Where the Race Goes From Here

Super Tuesday Fallout: Where the Race Goes From Here

Posted: 06 Feb 2008 12:50 AM CST

Hillary Clinton's strength among core Democratic constituencies -- women, Latinos and working class whites -- pushed her to victory in the mega-state primaries of California, New York, New Jersey and...

The Spyglass Spots: Why It's Not The Economy

Why It's Not The Economy

Posted: 06 Feb 2008 12:30 AM CST

WASHINGTON -- As the economy weakens and the campaign intensifies, we'll hear more of James Carville's familiar refrain: It's the economy, stupid. Well, it ain't or, at least, shouldn't be. I'm not...

The Spyglass Spots: The McCain Revival

The McCain Revival

Posted: 06 Feb 2008 12:30 AM CST

WASHINGTON -- The largest political story of the last year has not been the struggle for conservative self-definition, or the racially charged fight between Clintonistas and other Democrats, or the...

The Spyglass Spots: Berkeley Disrespects the Marines

Berkeley Disrespects the Marines

Posted: 06 Feb 2008 12:30 AM CST

"I guess they've never heard of free speech," Berkeley City Councilwoman Dona Spring told The Chronicle as she defended the council's 6-3 vote to tell Marine recruiters that they are not welcome in...

The Spyglass Spots: McCain Haters Put Egos Ahead of Security

McCain Haters Put Egos Ahead of Security

Posted: 06 Feb 2008 12:00 AM CST

If you read the threads on conservative Web sites (which these days takes a strong stomach), you'll encounter frequently the acronym "RINO." It stands for "Republican In Name Only," an appellation...

The Spyglass Spots: Mortgage Bailout Would Cost Society Vital Principles

Mortgage Bailout Would Cost Society Vital Principles

Posted: 06 Feb 2008 12:00 AM CST

SAN DIEGO -- I've written before about how many Americans feel entitled to a comfortable ride through life and then rush to dole out the blame when things get bumpy. Now this entitlement...

The Spyglass Spots: U.S. Makes Adoption Harder

U.S. Makes Adoption Harder

Posted: 06 Feb 2008 12:00 AM CST

Do you want to rescue an abandoned child and give him a loving home? Don't even try, says the U.S. State Department. That's not exactly what the bureaucrats said, but it's...

The Spyglass Spots: Berkeley Vs. America, Again

Berkeley Vs. America, Again

Posted: 06 Feb 2008 12:00 AM CST

The troop-bashers in Berkeley are at it once more. But this time, the rest of America lashed back. Message to the Left Coast: It's not the 1960s anymore. On Jan. 29, the Berkeley city...

Out of the State in the warm 80's

I have received many emails from subscribers what is going on at the Spyglass, and why no recent posts. Well I can disclose I have been out of the state for nearly a week.

Back in October, I jacked up my back on the job at the Home Depot (yes I do have a real job).

After several trips to the ER, several CT scans and MRI's, lots of narcotics and muscle relaxers, I was not improving and was staring at possible back surgery. I was examined by several specialist's and after nearly 60 days off work and little improvement, I was very depressed.

I have never had any trouble with my back and the accident (denied as usual by the workers comp carrier) was a freak combination of product, events and bad timing.

Well a family member suggested a non traditional treatment, and I was in so much ongoing pain that I agreed if only to get him off my back (ha ha). The treatment was spinal decompression which is a computerized modern day torture rack.

First using electro-muscular stimulation, physical therapy stretching, spinal adjustments and cold Laser, I was strapped into this contraption.

To say the results were amazing does not really speak to the issue. My pain level dropped 50% after the first treatment. For the past month I have been receiving regular treatments and spinal adjustments, swimming, and weight training to build back up the muscle tone I lost from inactivity and the results are fantastic.

I plan on returning to The Home Depot on Feb 4th, as fully recovered as possible. Carrie and I are spending a little alone time together, and trying to get our winter bodies back in shape.

When we return, I will fill you all in on our adventure.

Until then, the Captain is swimming every day, diving in warm blue waters, watching humpback whales breech, and looking at stars on top of a 33,000 foot mountain.

Captain Mark

A Second Look at Romney

By Mona Charen
Friday, December 14, 2007

Link: http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=NWExZDFjMzYyNDU4MzUzMTA3OWEwYjZmM2FhMWIxZDc=

Pretty much every election year since I can remember, a complaint has arisen that goes like this: "Why are we stuck with these awful choices? In this vast country of highly successful individuals, why don't any of the best people run for president?" Some years evoked more howls than others, and admittedly, 1976 really did present two underperformers, as did 1996. So let's pause to notice the fact that this year we have some exemplary choices.

Fred Thompson is an excellent man who is running a refreshingly substantive campaign. John McCain has demonstrated not just personal courage (which is admirable enough) but the courage of his convictions. And Rudy Giuliani achieved a seemingly impossible task in transforming America's largest city.

But no one running is more impressive than Mitt Romney. It was his speech on religion in American life that caused me to take another look at him. Until then, I confess that I saw him as a sort of robo-candidate: smooth, articulate, but perhaps a little opportunistic and possibly even insincere. The religion speech cast a new light on him.

The question as to whether someone's religious convictions are a fit subject for public scrutiny is not as simple as it sounds. It's too pat to say, "There should be no religious test for public office and there's the end of it." If a candidate were, say, a fundamentalist Mormon like Warren Jeffs, or a Scientologist, that would be an obstacle. But the mainstream Mormon Church has enough of a track record in producing excellent Americans that the particularities of its doctrine are by now a matter of purely scholarly interest. No one thought to raise objections to Mormonism when Mo Udall ran for president, nor even when Mitt's father, George, made a bid. The Senate majority leader is a Mormon and this fact causes not a flicker of interest on the part of his colleagues. Besides, Mitt Romney served as governor of Massachusetts. If anyone felt Joseph Smith's brooding presence during that time, they haven't mentioned it.

What Romney's religion speech demonstrated was not so much his devotion to his own faith (though he declined to run away from it) as his understanding and embrace of America's civic religion. In his telling, that civic religion amounts to a commitment to religious liberty as well as to broadly shared religious values. "It is important to recognize," he said, "that while differences in theology exist between the churches in America, we share a common creed of moral convictions. And where the affairs of our nation are concerned, it's usually a sound rule to focus on the latter -- on the great moral principles that urge us all on a common course. Whether it was the cause of abolition, or civil rights, or the right to life itself, no movement of conscience can succeed in America that cannot speak to the convictions of religious people." Romney went on to paint America as the golden mean between the empty cathedrals of Europe and the violent jihadists of the Islamic world. It was a masterful performance.

But then Romney has been masterful in everything he has attempted. It is not insignificant that this cum laude JD/MBA graduate of Harvard guided Bain Capital to become a hugely successful private equity investment firm and rescued Bain & Company from financial collapse. Romney was brought in to save the 2002 Winter Olympics when the games were mired in scandal and $379 million in debt. Romney was able to turn the situation around completely so that the games actually turned a $100 million profit instead. (He also gave back his salary.) That's not slick, that's substance.

When Mitt Romney took office as governor of Massachusetts, the state had a $1.2 billion deficit. Four years later it was in surplus. He boasts that fourth and eighth graders in Massachusetts achieved the highest scores in the nation in reading and math, though they were doing so before he became governor as well. But his program of assessment, merit pay for good teachers, English immersion and a focus on math and science may have helped keep them at the top.
It is difficult to find any significant weakness in Romney. He is refreshingly articulate, exceedingly well prepared and self-disciplined, clearly an excellent manager with both private and government experience, happily married with a large, supportive family, and well within the mainstream of conservatism on every major issue. His nomination would not divide the base.

He is just the sort of candidate people complain that they never get.

From Kennedy to Romney: 47 Years of Judicial War Against American Freedom of Religion

On Sunday, I appeared on ABC News' "This Week with George Stephanopoulos" to comment on what I am calling a bureaucratic coup d'etat, that is the new National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iran released earlier this week. I'll give you my take on it in a minute, but first, I wanted to share with you that while I was getting ready to appear, it occurred to me that all the historical comparisons being made between presidential candidate Mitt Romney's speech last week and President John Kennedy's speech in 1960 are wrong in a fundamental way.
After my appearance, I listened to some of the program's political analysts criticize former Massachusetts Republican Gov. Romney for pointing out the current, judicially-driven effort to drive faith and God from America's public square -- something Kennedy didn't do.
The Kennedy-Romney comparisons are fundamentally false because President Kennedy spoke at a time when Americans had a fundamentally different understanding of faith in the public square. He gave his speech almost two years before the Supreme Court decision Engel v. Vitale outlawed school prayer in 1962.

Kennedy spoke 11 years before the 1971 Supreme Court decision in Lemon v. Kurtzman, in which the court devised its most stringent standard of legal secularism.
Kennedy spoke 20 years before the 1980 Supreme Court decision in Stone v. Graham, which found that the state of Kentucky could not post copies of the 10 commandments in public school classrooms.
Kennedy spoke 32 years before the 1992 Supreme Court decision in Lee v. Weisman, which held that non-sectarian invocations and benedictions at public school graduation ceremonies were unconstitutional.
Kennedy spoke 40 years before the 2000 Supreme Court decision in Santa Fe School District v. Doe, in which the court found that brief, nonsectarian, student-led prayer before football games (which no one is forced to attend, and where no one is forced to pray) is unconstitutional.
In the forty-seven years since Democratic presidential nominee John F. Kennedy delivered his historic speech, the courts have been increasingly hostile toward public religious expression and increasingly tolerant of anti-religious bigots and their agenda to remove all references to and acknowledgement of God from public life.

Free Speech, no such thing

In Defense of Free Speech--And Mark Steyn

Posted: 09 Dec 2007 12:37 AM CST

The right to free expression of opinion and belief -- though constrained in its extremes during wartime -- is not something that can be negotiated in a free country. For it is the most fundamental...

From the City Weekley

By UtahLiberator 12-06-07

Mike Rigidway is as offensive an individual as you will ever hope to meet. He is deliberately contrarian and so monomaniacally self-centered that you register on his radar only as ears. Ears to hear his obsessive/compulsive rants about "How are you today?" or "How's the weather?"

Mike does not speak except to continually praise his own perspective by diagnosing and analyzing his own perspective. You are ears and should be grateful to be in His presence. The problem with ideologues is that they are ultimately boring. Politics is people. Nutjobs like Rigidway don't even care if his petty tirades disrupt the natural flow of political discourse. He is a statue of congratulatory self-righteousness; a never-moving traffic stop.

He has no regard for anyone else. Basically, he has absolutely no understanding of politics. None whatsoever. He delights in being an impediment when progress is required. He gleefully obstructs the course of human events.If you have foolishly given him your home number, he may deign to call you at 3:00 AM, that you may glory in wonder at the glory of his thinking on whatever. Resistance is futile. I am the Bored. Mike has an unnatural focus on himself. The ever-corrupt Utah GOP, however, is justified in banning him. The party is a political body, Mike is an Ayatollah-wannabe. He's about as willing to negotiate, recognize that others might have a point or stake on an outcome as your average shark. Rigidway is an American Taliban.

I have no idea who Towner is but I can tell that in this duel, he, like all of us, is/are the offended party. If you read Ms. Biele's article you may discern that even she, the objective goddess, has problems with Imam Mike, pboh.

Some people advance principles by speaking forcefully for them. Rigidway offends by speaking selfishly about them. I don't care how big an arse Towner is, he's a better human being than his logorrhea-prone nemesis.

If you agree with Mike's alleged principles, find another leader. Someone who gets every door slammed in his face is never going to be able to help you advance any cause.

Where is the GOP Candidate?

The GOP Race is Still Up for Grabs

Posted: 09 Dec 2007 12:53 AM CST

The most intriguing aspect of the Republicans' road to the nomination for president is its unpredictability. It's a buckle-up race that won't be decided early or easy. About the only thing for...

Hot Blogs

Dobson: Romney Speech "Magnificent" Posted: 06 Dec 2007 04:36 PM CST Focus on the Family's James Dobson released this statement today on Mitt Romney's "Faith in America" speech: James Dobson Declares Values Voters Still Have a Strong Voice Calls Romney's speech a...

The PM Line: Speech-Less Edition Posted: 06 Dec 2007 03:19 PM CST Iran's ambitions "Not benign": The deputy director of National Intelligence elaborated on the recent NIE report to a House committee today. The House passed an energy bill containing provisions which...

Hugh's Review Posted: 06 Dec 2007 02:51 PM CST A favorable review of Romney's speech by Hugh Hewitt was certainly to be expected, but the opening of his post is so over the top it gives sycophantism a bad name: Mitt Romney's "Faith in America"...

One Small, Ungracious Point on 'The Speech' Posted: 06 Dec 2007 02:29 PM CST I know I'm like three news cycles behind already, but this line in Romney's speech stuck out: Some believe that such a confession of my faith will sink my candidacy. If they are right, so be it. But...

SC Poll Posted: 06 Dec 2007 11:49 AM CST On the heels of Kyle's post below comes another GOP poll out of South Carolina, this one from Insider Advantage. And like Rasmussen, IA shows Huckabee surging 12 points in the last two months, taking...

'The Speech' in Full Posted: 06 Dec 2007 11:02 AM CST A complete video of Mitt Romney's "Faith in America" speech earlier today at the George H.W. Bush library in Texas: More videos in the Vlog....

Obama & The Black Vote Posted: 06 Dec 2007 10:45 AM CST The latest Rasmussen Democratic poll today from South Carolina has that race in almost a tie: Hillary Clinton leads Barack Obama 36%-34%. But the real import of the poll is the figures it shows on...

Quick Speech Reax Posted: 06 Dec 2007 10:23 AM CST It was a solid speech: well delivered and very presidential. It should generate some positive buzz for Romney in the short term, though whether it has any appreciable effect on Republican voters -...

Rasmussen Poll Posted: 06 Dec 2007 10:19 AM CST Rasmussen's latest poll in South Carolina shows Huckabee taking the lead, after finishing fourth in the poll just two weeks earlier. Huckabee 25 (+13 vs. last poll Nov. 20) Romney 18 (-3) Thompson 18...

'I Salute You, Hugo Chavez' Posted: 06 Dec 2007 09:59 AM CST And, boy, Roger Cohen offer up one heck of a salute in his New York Times column today. After congratulating Chavez for accepting defeat with grace, Cohen writes: The United States might ponder those...

The Daily 2008 Posted: 06 Dec 2007 07:44 AM CST On this day in 1865, eight months after the end of the war, the 13th Amendment was ratified, ending slavery. Also on this day in 1973 Congress confirmed Gerald Ford as Vice President. On to today's...

Expectations and the Speech Posted: 06 Dec 2007 05:34 AM CST I'm perplexed. Everyone is breathlessly awaiting Romney's speech this morning as if it's going to change everything. Michael Luo of the New York Times writes that Romney will "confront suspicions...

Chatter in the Blogosphere Posted: 06 Dec 2007 05:04 AM CST Hillary and Huckabee top out blog chatter this morning, while John Bolton goes after the NIE. Check out all of these headlines and more this morning at RealClearBlogs: John Bolton: Iran report has...