Combs Spouts Off

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Posts Tagged ‘elections’

Obama wins, future looks bleak

Posted by Richard on November 6, 2012

My optimism of the past few months was sadly mistaken. I had this gut feeling that, when push came to shove, the majority of Americans would choose freedom, opportunity, and growth over entitlement, redistribution, and stagnation. I was wrong. Voters have chosen to emulate the sinking ship that is Europe (to borrow a metaphor from Dennis Prager).

If the President sticks by his campaign promise to continue doing what he’s been doing, the best-case scenario is that the United States will become France. The worst-case scenario is that we’ll become Greece.

I predict bull markets in guns, gold, and silver.

Assuming that the economy manages to limp along OK for another four years, I’ll be ready to retire around the end of the second Obama term. I don’t look forward to becoming a frail old man living in a major metropolitan area when the monetary system collapses and the social order breaks down. I may have to consider Plan B (“B” for Belize) or Plan C (“C” for Costa Rica). Assuming they don’t confiscate my wealth if I try to leave the country.

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Barone: Romney will win big

Posted by Richard on November 4, 2012

Michael Barone, one of the more astute observers of the political scene, doesn’t think the election will be all that close. He’s predicting that Romney will carry North Carolina, Florida, Ohio, Virginia, Colorado, Iowa, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, and will end up with 315 electoral votes.

I hope he’s right, but it’s all going to depend on turnout. If you’re in one of those states (and you’re not a socialist), I sure hope you’ve voted already or are definitely going to vote. For Romney, of course.

If you’re in some state where the outcome is a foregone conclusion, I encourage you to vote for Libertarian Gary Johnson.

But if you’re in one of these “swing states,” don’t do something that may help move us further toward a stagnant socialist future.

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Gallup: Electorate decidedly more Republican than in 2008

Posted by Richard on November 4, 2012

Gallup has compiled demographic data on 2012 likely voters (sample size 9424, margin of error 1%), and in most respects the electorate is essentially unchanged from 2008. The only exception is party identification. The electorate this year is significantly more Republican (and leaning Republican) and less Democratic (and leaning Democratic). Here are the numbers:

2004

2008

2012

Democrat

37

39

35

Independent

24

31

29

Republican

39

29

36

Democrat/Lean Democratic

48

54

46

Republican/Lean Republican

48

42

49

Of course, state-by-state distributions matter. But basically, it looks to me like success for the Romney campaign depends on getting their supporters to the polls.

It concerns me a bit, therefore, that I’m still getting robocalls from both the Romney campaign and the RNC urging me to vote. I cast my ballot a week ago, and they should know that and stop wasting time on me.

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Bully, wimp, whatever…

Posted by Richard on July 30, 2012

The narratives of the left:

The strategy of the left: Throw whatever excrement you can come up with against the wall and hope something sticks.

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Voting is easier than reporting on Holder speech

Posted by Richard on July 11, 2012

Eric Holder spoke at the NAACP convention in Houston yesterday, and he railed against voter ID laws:

Attorney General Eric Holder pledged to aggressively fight new voter-identification laws during a speech Tuesday to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), which has argued the policies make it harder for minorities to vote.

The Obama administration is arguing before a panel of three federal judges in Washington, D.C., this week that Texas’s new voter law is too restrictive and, under its identification requirements, will make it hard or impossible for poor people to vote.

Hypocrisy alert: In order to get into the convention to report on the speech, members of the media had to present not just press credentials, but a “government-issued photo I.D. (such as a driver’s license).”

The Obama administration has been aggressively fighting any and all state efforts to clean up voter registration rolls or require voters to identify themselves at the polls, arguing that these are efforts to “disenfranchise” people. Yes, they are — they disenfranchise dead people, felons, and non-citizens.

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Walker wins!

Posted by Richard on June 5, 2012

Much earlier than I had expected (less than 2 hours after the polls closed), Fox News projected that Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker had survived his recall election. NBC,  CBS, and CNN soon followed. This is a tremendous victory for the Tea Party movement and a crushing defeat for organized labor and the Socialist Democrats.

Apparently, according to Fox News, earlier projections that the vote would be incredibly close were based on exit polling, and when the vote totals started coming it, it soon became clear that there was a significant difference between the actual votes and what the exit polls predicted. In other words, either many of the people being exit-polled lied, or (much more likely) the exit polling didn’t question a representative sample.

I’m thrilled, but cautiously so. With 55% reporting, Walker leads 57-42. That’s bound to tighten as more of Madison and Milwaukee come in. So I just hope Walker’s margin of victory ends up being big enough to avoid a recount or challenge. Because you know if it’s close, challenger Tom Barrett and the unions will try to pull an Al Franken.

UPDATE: Here’s the biggest laugh of the night. David Axelrod looked at the Obama-Romney numbers from the Wisconsin exit polls and tweeted that “WI raises big questions for Mitt” — shortly before the actual vote totals completely discredited the exit polls.

Axelrod must have also fashioned the Obama campaign’s response. According to Politico, they’re claiming that a “strong message” was sent to Walker. As Joshua Sharf tweeted, these are the folks who said a “strong majority” passed Obamacare. “I don’t think that word means what you think it means.”

UPDATE 2: According to the AP, with 97% of precincts reporting, it’s Walker 53%, Barrett 46%. So Walker’s margin of victory tonight is greater than the 5% margin he had in 2010. Woohoo! Lieutenant Governor Rebecca Kleefisch also beat the recall with 53%.

Oh, and as for the four Republican state senators facing recall — they all won, with 55-61% of the vote.

Does it get any better than this?

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Electoral signs of the times — or something

Posted by Richard on May 9, 2012

I’m not sure what these things mean, but I suspect they mean something.

In the West Virginia Democratic presidential primary, Keith Judd, a convicted felon imprisoned in Texas, got 41% of the vote in his run against President Obama, who got 59%.

In the Indiana Republican senatorial primary, incumbent Sen. Dick Lugar got 39% of the vote against challenger Richard Mourdock, endorsed by Tea Party groups and the Club for Growth, who got 61%.

So a convicted felon in West Virginia managed a better showing against the sitting president than an incumbent senator in Indiana managed against a Tea Party challenger.

Meanwhile in Wisconsin’s run-up to the June 5 gubernatorial recall election, Democratic voters by a wide margin chose Milwaukee mayor Tom Barrett over Kathleen Falk to challenge Gov. Scott Walker, even though Falk had the backing of the labor unions who bankrolled the recall effort and made it possible (and who tried to pressure Barrett, who lost badly to Walker in 2010, into not running).

But here’s what’s interesting: The Democratic primary was hotly contested, while Walker faced no meaningful opposition on the Republican side. Nevertheless, 626,000 Republicans turned out to vote for Walker, despite no compelling reason to do so — almost as many as voted for the four Democratic candidates (665,000). That seems like a good sign for Walker.

Make of all that what you will. Being optimistic by nature, I’m inclined to see these as signs that the American people aren’t ready to emulate France or Greece.

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RINO Lugar given the boot

Posted by Richard on May 8, 2012

The French may have embraced socialism, and the Greeks may have embraced default, but Indiana Republicans have embraced Senate challenger Richard Mourdock, who was endorsed by various Tea Party groups and the Club for Growth. Mourdock crushed incumbent Sen. Dick Lugar (dubbed “Obama’s favorite Republican” by Tea Party critics):

With 98 percent of precincts reporting, Lugar had just under 40 percent of the vote to Mourdock’s just over 60 percent.

Playing out in a conservative state, the race illustrated the electorate’s animosity toward many incumbents and anyone with deep ties to Washington. That was clear when Lugar, who hasn’t faced questions about his residency in decades, found himself on the defensive over whether he lived in Indiana or northern Virginia. Lugar also was cast as too moderate for the conservative GOP in Indiana, and he took heat for his work with Democrats on issues such as nuclear nonproliferation, underscoring deep polarization in the country as well as a split in the GOP between the establishment wing and the insurgent tea party.

In a statement, Obama praised his former Senate colleague as someone “who was often willing to reach across the aisle and get things done.”

Yet another sign that the Republican electorate is fed up with the ruling party Republican establishment. And that the Tea Party movement is alive and well.

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Adios, Santorum!

Posted by Richard on April 10, 2012

Rick Santorum has ended his quest for the Republican presidential nomination. Good riddance. Apparently, he was headed for a humiliating defeat in his home state of Pennsylvania. Jennifer Rubin:

The race has been a foregone conclusion for weeks, but Santorum did indicate that the weekend and the illness of his daughter did cause he and his wife to reflect on the race and their responsibility as parents. In defeat he was humble and sincere, and in recapping the race he charted the improbable course of his campaign. For cynics, it was maybe the first speech of his next campaign, an option he leaves open by not fighting to the bitter end and by not making himself a pariah in the race. That he never mentioned Mitt Romney by name or offered congratulations is, well, sadly reflective of a smallness that he revealed from time to time.

Why didn’t he win it? Well, the real question may be how he did so well with virtually no name recognition or money or support at the get go. In part, he won by working his devoted base in Iowa and waiting for others to drop out until he was the the receptacle for the not-Romney voices in the party.

But ultimately his lack of organization, executive prowess (needed to organize a national campaign) and inability to stay on a blue-collar economic message doomed him. He is eloquent but excessively combative. He is well read but condescending toward fellow Americans. He was ultimately his own worst enemy.

Those of us of a libertarian or free-market conservative bent objected to Santorum’s self-described “Big Government conservatism,” history as a spendthrift and pork lover, rabid social conservatism, and comparative disinterest in economic and fiscal matters. In recent weeks, he’s tried to change that, speaking out (sometimes eloquently) more and more about federal spending, regulation, and the financial cliff this country is approaching. But many of us suspected that this was a matter of campaign strategy, not the result of a personal epiphany.

Of course, the same thing could be said about Mitt Romney. Or just about any other prominent politician. Sigh.

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Eric Holder for a day

Posted by Richard on April 9, 2012

You too can be Eric Holder for a day. Just show up at his polling place on November 6 and say “I’m Eric Holder and I’m here to vote.” James O’Keefe has already shown how easy it is:

In a new video (below) provided to Breitbart.com, James O’Keefe’s Project Veritas demonstrates why Holder should stop attacking voter ID laws–by walking into Holder’s voting precinct and showing the world that anyone can obtain Eric Holder’s primary ballot. Literally.

The video shows a young man entering a Washington, DC polling place at 3401 Nebraska Avenue, NW, on primary day of this year–April 3, 2012–and giving Holder’s name and address. The poll worker promptly offers the young man Holder’s ballot to vote.

The young man then suggests that he should show his ID; the poll worker, in compliance with DC law, states: “You don’t need it. It’s all right. As long as you’re in here, you’re on our list, and that’s who you say you are, you’re okay.”

…As Project Veritas has proven, voter fraud is easy and simple–and may be increasingly common in the absence of voter ID laws.

Project Veritas has already shown how dead people can vote in New Hampshire, prompting the state senate to pass a voter ID law; they’ve also shown people can use celebrity names like Tim Tebow and Tom Brady to vote in Minnesota, prompting the state legislature to put voter ID on the ballot as a constitutional amendment.

A few years ago, Hugh Hewitt wrote a book entitled If It’s Not Close, They Can’t Cheat. But in a number of critical precincts, districts, and states, it’s almost always close. And they do cheat.

It’s not just the outcome of a given election. Bad laws that aren’t enforced and can’t be enforced breed cynicism and contempt for our system of justice, and they encourage more law-breaking. Likewise, bad election rules that aren’t enforced and can’t be enforced breed cynicism and contempt for our democratic process, and they encourage more cheating and subversion of that process.

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Romney number cruncher thinks it’s all over but the counting

Posted by Richard on March 7, 2012

Hugh Hewitt quoted Romney supporter David Parker as having crunched the numbers and concluded that “there is NO scenario wherein Rick Santorum or Newt Gingrich, or anyone else other than Mitt Romney can accumulate the needed 1,144 delegates; unless of course that Mitt Romney withdraws, which is not likely!” The nut of the argument:

… With proportional allocations and 851 of 2,286 delegates having been through the primary/caucus process; Mitt Romney has won nearly 50% (he has also won 14 of 22 states), Rick Santorum has won about 19% and Gingrich has won about 12%. From another vantage point, Mitt has to win approximately 50% of the remaining delegates, Santorum and Gingrich have to win approximately 70% and 73%, respectively. …

Those numbers, if correct, don’t quite mathematically eliminate Santorum and Gingrich, but they sure make Romney’s eventual victory highly likely.

I suppose I’m OK with that. I’ve expressed before my strong dislike for Santorum’s big-government social conservatism. And Gingrich strikes me as narcissistic, unpredictable, and too clever by half (as demonstrated by his partnering with Nancy Pelosi on the issue of “climate change,” for instance).

Ideally, I’d like to see the Republicans nominate someone with a Reaganesque vision of a brighter future, not just a competent executive to “manage the decline,” in Gingrich’s memorable phrase. But, like many people today (most, I hope), I’ll settle for someone who can defeat Obama — and who’ll hopefully have a majority in both houses of Congress, where people like Rand Paul, Jim DeMint, Marco Rubio, and Paul Ryan can provide the vision.

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Anti-capitalist conservatives

Posted by Richard on January 10, 2012

Yesterday, I mentioned in passing the leftist-sounding attacks on Romney by Gingrich and Perry. Bobby Eberle has much more:

In their quest for the Republican nomination, it seems these “conservatives” will embrace any idea in order to attack another candidate. The latest is an assault on capitalism… yes, capitalism! What’s next? Supporting higher taxes and bigger government?

As noted in a story on CNSNews.com, GOP presidential front-runner Mitt Romney is under attack by his fellow opponents, namely Newt Gingrich and Rick Perry. Why, you ask? Because Romney ran Bain Capital, which would restructure and reorganize companies in order to make them profitable. In doing so, everything that would be involved in saving a company was on the table: selling assets, trimming work staff, modernizing… you name it.

Oh the horror of it all! Gingrich and Perry are blasting Romney for not relying on the government, not going for corporate bailouts, but rather, for handling corporate woes in the private sector.

In National Review, Jay Nordlinger writes, “The last two presidential election cycles have revealed a stinking hypocrisy in conservatives: They profess their love of capitalism and entrepreneurship, but when offered a real capitalist and entrepreneur, they go, ‘Eek, a mouse!’ And they tear him down in proud social-democrat fashion.”

I’m not writing this column as a Romney supporter. I too would prefer someone more conservative. But in this race, the so-called conservatives are sure NOT sounding conservative to me. They are blasting Romney for engaging in capitalism. They are hounding him for turning companies around. That was his job, and apparently, he was good at it.

I said there’s no Reagan in this Republican field and no clearly best choice. The “conservative alternatives to Romney” have been making themselves less and less palatable to me.

Ron Paul is great on economic and fiscal issues and on the size and scope of the federal government, but he has some serious flaws: (1) that unfortunate association with the Lew Rockwell paleo-libertarians, (2) flirtations with 9/11 Trutherism and Bilderberger/CFR conspiracy theories, and (3) a dangerously mistaken and ignorant view of the Islamofascists.

I hate to say it, but Romney is beginning to look like the best (or least bad) that the GOP can offer this year.

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Obama mail scavenger hunt

Posted by Richard on October 14, 2011

Apparently, President Obama is not too popular in Virginia. His only announced Virginia appearance during next week's bus tour is in a state senate district where the Democratic candidate has no Republican challenger in next month's election. Four previously reported stops in districts where the Democrat faces a challenger have apparently been dropped.

The Republican Party of Virginia says it's hard to find a Democratic candidate eager to be associated with the President. So they're having a contest, the "Proud to Stand with Obama" Direct Mail Scavenger Hunt (emphasis in original): 

Find any general election direct mail piece from a Virginia Democrat running for the state Senate – or one from a Democrat committee – that uses a picture of President Obama in a positive light, i.e. "Supported/Endorsed by Barack Obama" or "Supports Obama's policies."  (Note: Democratic primary mail pieces do not count!)

Then scan it and email it to contest@RPV.org  or fax it to us at: (804) 343-1060. The first qualifying mail piece in the door wins the prize, an autographed copy of Karl Rove's "Courage and Consequences," and a "Not Again!" bumper sticker.

If no qualifying entry is submitted by Oct. 28, they'll award the prize to the first person to submit a direct mail piece from any of 10 Democratic state senate candidates "that proudly identifies them as the Democratic candidate." 

The original contest idea, which involved the state's popular Republican governor, had to be scrapped:

The initial idea for this contest was to see how many different pieces of direct mail we could find in which Democrats running for the state Senate used the phase "worked with Governor McDonnell," or included a picture of themselves with Governor McDonnell… but we've seen several of those piece already, so that wouldn't have made for a very challenging scavenger hunt.

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Shocker in New York, landslide in Nevada

Posted by Richard on September 15, 2011

If Scott Brown's stunning upset in Massachusetts foreshadowed the Democrats' drubbing in November 2010, does Bob Turner's shocking victory over David Weprin in New York portend even more trouble for Dems in 2012? Maybe. I sure hope so.

Dems and their media shills have been whistling past the graveyard today, claiming Turner's 8-point victory in a district that's 3-1 Democratic is no big deal (Erick Erickson has a funny post illustrating their claims). But the polls right before Tuesday's special election told a different story. CBS News reported today:

Weprin, a 56-year-old Orthodox Jew and member of a prominent Queens political family, initially seemed a good fit for the largely white, working-class district, which is nearly 40 percent Jewish.

But voter frustration with Obama put Weprin in the unlikely spot of playing defense.

While Obama won the district by 11 points in 2008 against Republican John McCain, a Siena Poll released Friday found just 43 percent of likely voters approved of the president's job performance, while 54 percent said they disapproved. Among independents, just 29 percent said they approved of Obama's job performance.

PPP's poll was even more informative: 

Turner's winning in a heavily Democratic district for two reasons: a huge lead with independents and a large amount of crossover support.  He's ahead by 32 points at 58-26 with voters unaffiliated with either major party.  And he's winning 29% of the Democratic vote, holding Weprin under 60% with voters of his own party, while losing just 10% of Republican partisans.

If Turner wins on Tuesday it will be largely due to the incredible unpopularity of Barack Obama dragging his party down in the district.  Obama won 55% there in 2008 but now has a staggeringly bad 31% approval rating, with 56% of voters disapproving of him.  It's a given that Republicans don't like him but more shocking are his 16% approval rating with independents and the fact that he's below 50% even with Democrats at 46% approving and 38% disapproving. Obama trails Mitt Romney 46-42 in a hypothetical match up in the district and leads Rick Perry only 44-43.

Unlike Scott Brown, whom Tea Party groups supported largely for strategic reasons, Turner didn't campaign as a moderate centrist. He made the campaign a referendum on Obamanomics, Obamacare, taxes, and spending. (Yes, Israel was an issue, but not as much as some claim. Weprin has a solid, life-long pro-Israel record and he repeatedly criticized the President on that issue.) Democrats and their media shills portrayed Turner as a "Tea Party extremist," and cited his positions on the issues as proof: 

Mr. Turner, citing his background in business, said that the federal government needed to cut spending by 35 percent, and suggested eliminating the Agriculture and Education Departments and curtailing the Environmental Protection Agency.

“We have a government that is out of control,” Mr. Turner said, stressing that the cuts should be made without increasing taxes. “It’s not only possible, it’s absolutely necessary,” he added.

Mr. Weprin, on the other hand, used the Tea Party name as a pejorative and tried to affix it to Mr. Turner as often as possible. He proposed raising taxes on wealthy Americans and corporations, and defended the place of the federal government in regulating the environment.

Unlike the ruling class Republicans, Turner didn't seem to be ashamed of his "extremism," retorting "If I suggest a 30% cut in spending when we're overspending by 40%, does that seem extreme?" Not to me, Bob. And apparently not even to New Yorkers. 

Meanwhile, across the country in Nevada's District 2, Republican Mark Amodei beat Democrat Kate Marshall, which was not a big surprise. But his margin of 22 points was. And Politico's Molly Ball thinks the outcome in one county of that district is even more significant than the huge upset in New York's District 9: 

When Democrats lost Tuesday’s Nevada special election, they didn’t just lose a long-shot House race. They also got creamed in one of the most crucial swing counties in the nation.

Washoe County, the Northern Nevada county that contains Reno, is the No. 1 bellwether in a top Western swing state. It was crucial to Harry Reid’s 2010 reelection, to Barack Obama’s 2008 election and to the countless governors, senators and presidents who have competed in the Silver State before them. And on Tuesday, Republican Mark Amodei won it by 10 points.

Bush carried the county 51-47% in 2004. Obama won it by 12 points in 2008. And a 5-point lead there was critical in Harry Reid's 2010 re-election.

Of Tuesday’s two House elections, it’s the surprise GOP win in New York that’s getting the most attention – an unexpected rout in a seat not held by a Republican since the 1920s. But it is the Nevada race that could hold more ominous signs for Democrats.

It is almost universally true that as goes Washoe, so goes Nevada – and as goes Nevada, so goes the nation. The state has voted for the winner of every presidential race but one since 1912, giving it a stronger claim to bellwether status than Missouri.

How bad do things look for the Dems? The Hill's Cameron Joseph reported:

A Democratic strategist said Obama has become such a problem for down-ticket Democrats that he was wary of encouraging candidates to run next year. “I’m warning my clients — ‘Don’t run in 2012.’ I don’t want to see good candidates lose by 12 to 15 points because of the president,” said the strategist. 

The question for Democrats is, to quote a former governor, "How's that hopey-changey thing working out for you?"

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The transformational power of liberty

Posted by Richard on February 2, 2011

First, Tunisia. Now, Egypt. And other Middle East autocrats have taken notice. The "transformational power of liberty" is on the move in the Middle East:

Once invincible, a Mideast autocrat is close to finished. Egypt's longtime President Hosni Mubarak is fading fast after a week of inspired street protests. And the shock waves are spreading out as his rule weakens.

The 82-year-old leader now is offering not to run for re-election later this year. It's a too-little, too-late gesture to mollify masses of Egyptians who are demanding that he depart and give new leadership a chance.

Underscoring Mubarak's final moments is another reality: His longtime ally, the United States, is giving a firm shove after initial hestitation. "We hear your voices," President Obama said in a Tuesday message to the demonstrators. The transition "must begin now," he added.

It's an earthshaking moment for the Mideast. The region's biggest country, viewed as one of the most stable, is on the brink of democratic change. And it was created by widespread, homegrown protests, not a bloody coup or outside force.

First came the demise of Tunisia's corrupt government, an act that touched off a similar surge in Egypt that Mubarak was unable to quell. One telling moment was an assurance from the independent-minded military that it would not use force against citizens taking to the streets.

The looming downfall of Mubarak could send reverberations throughout the Mideast. Jordan's King Hussein raced to get in front of similar protests in his country by firing his Cabinet. Other leaders might scramble to stay in power as the Mideast glimpses a chance for democracy. A turning point is at hand.

I blame Bush. This is from an October 2005 post, "The one thing Bush gets right":

Bush spoke at length about the fifth point, and his commitment to "the transformational power of liberty" remains solid. He singled out Egypt and Saudi Arabia as "friends" whom we're encouraging to reform and to "respect the rights and choices of their own people." He pointedly added:  

… We're standing with dissidents and exiles against oppressive regimes, because we know that the dissidents of today will be the democratic leaders of tomorrow. We're making our case through public diplomacy, stating clearly and confidently our belief in self-determination, and the rule of law, and religious freedom, and equal rights for women, beliefs that are right and true in every land, and in every culture.

Bush closed, as he so often does, with a restatement of his commitment to and confidence in liberty:

Throughout history, tyrants and would-be tyrants have always claimed that murder is justified to serve their grand vision — and they end up alienating decent people across the globe. Tyrants and would-be tyrants have always claimed that regimented societies are strong and pure — until those societies collapse in corruption and decay. Tyrants and would-be tyrants have always claimed that free men and women are weak and decadent — until the day that free men and women defeat them.

We don't know the course of our own struggle — the course our own struggle will take — or the sacrifices that might lie ahead. We do know, however, that the defense of freedom is worth our sacrifice. We do know the love of freedom is the mightiest force of history. And we do know the cause of freedom will once again prevail.

I also blame Natan Sharansky (as channeled by Bush). Also Condi and her 2005 speech in Cairo. And Tony Blair.

I'm optimistic and hopeful about the wave of transformational liberty sweeping across the Middle East. Arab Muslims have a strong yearning for democracy. Yes, there's a danger that radical Islamists will gain power in democratic elections. But as I noted years ago regarding Iraq, even such an outcome would be a short-lived victory for radical Islam:

It's a crucial idea that the Islamofascists seem to understand clearly, but the critics and pessimists just don't get: once the vast majority of the people buy into the concept of democratic government — even a Sharia-based or Shia-dominated democratic government — the reactionary theology of the Islamofascists has already lost. Their version of Islam can't tolerate people choosing, period — even if you make the "right" choice, the very idea that it's up to you to decide between competing ideas undermines their entire belief system and will eventually destroy it. 

Years ago, I argued that the Bush Doctrine is a long shot, but it's the best option we have. Now, it just may be working. Best wishes to the freedom-loving people of Egypt, Tunisia, and the other autocratic nations of that region.

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