Politics Blog

The Old York Times’ Tom Friedman says that Iraq is no Vietnam:

There is this notion being peddled by Europeans, the Arab press andthe antiwar left that “Iraq” is just Arabic for Vietnam, and we should expect these kinds of attacks from Iraqis wanting to “liberate” their country from “U.S. occupation.” These attackers are the Iraqi Vietcong.

Hogwash. The people who mounted the attacks on the Red Cross are not the Iraqi Vietcong. They are the Iraqi Khmer Rouge

The US economy is growing at the fastest pace since 1984:

Powered by tax cuts and low interest rates, the U.S. economy expanded at a 7.2 percent annual rate in the third quarter, the fastest growth in more than 19 years, the Commerce Department said Thursday. The first estimate of real gross domestic product was considerably stronger than the 6 percent consensus forecast.

Riding a strong economy, Reagan crushed Walter Mondale in 1984, winning 49 states. He allowed Mondale to win his home state of Minnesota because Reagan did not want to completely humiliate the former vice president. Mondale later completely humiliated himself by losing Paul Wellstone’s US Senate seat in 2002, thus becoming the only person to lose a statewide election in all fifty states.

— PoliPundit

The Note on the impact of the GDP numbers:

It’s not just the economic numbers, it’s boy oh boy look at the economic numbers.

ABC News’ Ramona Schindleheim reports that this morning’s economic growth number

I predicted the strong economic growth in the third quarter when the quarter had just begun:

Like most conservatives, I’m an optimist. I wouldn’t bet against America. The economy will likely come roaring back and the situation in Iraq will improve remarkably as the weeks and months go by. Have faith.

As regular readers know, I’m not one of those people who’s shy about saying I told you so.

— PoliPundit

Max Boot wonders how the lying liberal media would have covered D-Day:

“More than 8,000 Allied servicemen were wounded, 3,000 ofthem fatally, during an assault on Normandy beaches yesterday. Despite those heavy casualties, almost all of France remains under Nazi occupation. The supreme Allied commander, Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, claimed that everything had gone according to plan, but a number of retired military officers suggested that the invasion is in grave danger of failing.”

— PoliPundit

The latest independent poll from Louisiana shows 32-year-old Indian-American conservative Republican Bobby Jindalleading his “moderate” Democrat opponent, Lt. Governor Kathleen Blanco, by 11 points. This is a tremendous leap for Jindal and shows that the GOP has a good chance of sweeping all three remaining governorships up this year - Kentucky, Louisiana and Mississippi - giving the GOP control of 29 governorships, the highest level since 1996.

I’ve said more about these races at this post.

— PoliPundit

Will Saletan notes yet another in the long litany of Weasel Clark’s hypocrisies.

— PoliPundit

Dorothy Rabinowitz says the latest nine dwarfs debate was one long GOP campaign ad:

There is nothing new about candidates avoiding answers to hard questions, but the mode of that avoidance is always telling. Consider the moment when Gen. Clark was asked his own plans for balancing the budget–particularly since he’d made a point, in his campaign, of criticizing the administration on this issue. The general’s response–a list of entirely vague if impassioned references to the administration’s lack of responsibility–brought an unusual interruption from moderator Gwen Ifill, who asked, politely but firmly, if the general would be specific about what he would do. A request that brought the answer that he would opt for using money wisely and he would try to get the nation on the road to fiscal responsibility.

With his deer-in-the-headlights look–regularly evident whenever he was asked a specific question–it was clear that the general had bet his chances on winging it, and was now coming face to face with results. His platform is, quite simply, opposition to the war–his credential, his status as a former general who has discovered there beats in his breast the heart of a true Democrat. Don’t ask him for details, policies, programs.

Details and programs flow somewhat more plentifully from his competitors. Nothing equals Dennis Kucinich’s spectacular specifics, including his plan for a Department of Peace. Still, it is clear from the unvarying flow of bile emanating from them that the main program on the minds of the Democrats this campaign season is the contest to exceed one another in contempt for the president, for the war the nation has engaged. If the Republican National Committee has any sense, it will be busy making recordings of events like these debates, and cutting them into snippets for airing during the presidential campaign. It will make quite a show.

– PoliPundit

This picture was taken at the “memorial service” for Senator Paul Wellstone (D-MN) exactly one year ago. It shows a former president and vice president grinning ghoulishly at the thought that a colleague’s death may help them hold on to his Senate seat. It reveals Democrat leaders for what they really are: America-hating, partial-birth-aborting, tax-raising, power-hungry career politicians who have no respect for the basic norms of human decency.

It is essential that we reduce the Democrat party to a permanent minority party in 2004. That’s the only way to preserve the American Dream.

Today is Wictory Wednesday. Every Wednesday, I ask my readers to volunteer and/or donate to the Bush 2004 campaign. If you’ve already volunteered and donated, then get a friend to join you.

If you’re a blogger, you can join Wictory Wednesday simply by putting up a post like this one every Wednesday, asking your readers to volunteer and/or donate to the Bush campaign. And do e-mail me so that I can add you to the Wictory Wednesday blogroll, which will be a part of the Wictory Wednesday post on all participating blogs:

– PoliPundit

I’d missed this story: A couple of weeks ago, NPR (yes, NPR!) had a collection of remarkable quotes from Weasel Clark’s former colleagues. You’ll love what some of them had to say about him in the second half of the audio clip.

— PoliPundit