Before Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer, the current chair Democratic Governors Association, gets too excited about his New Jersey colleague Jim Corzine’s chances of re-election this fall, he should study return for another northeastern gubernatorial election when, as in the current Garden State race, there was a third party candidate with deep pockets polling at about 10%.

You see, Schweitzer’s getting all excited that a spate of recent polls shows “Corzine, who has trailed in every survey, narrowing the gap with Christie into or near the margin-of-error.”  And the media, ever quick to repeat Democratic talking points, have echoed Schweitzer.  Problem is, as Stuart Rothenberg points out that Corzine hasn’t increased his standing in the contest:

Corzine’s chances of winning re-election now are no better than they were a month ago. The governor continues to be stuck between 38 percent and 42 percent in the ballot test, where he has been for many months, and the fundamentals of the race continue to favor the Republican challenger.

To be sure, Republican challenger Chris Christie has slipped in polls, likely due to a lackluster campaign and Corzine attack ads. ANd Third-party candidate, Chris Daggett, “a former official in Republican Gov. Tom Kean’s administration,” has picked up the slack, siphoning off some of Christie’s support, rising “to to 12 percent in the most recent Quinnipiac poll“.

Similarly, fifteen years ago in New York, as that state’s gubernatorial election drew toward a close, polls showed B. Thomas Golisano Golisano, a Rochester millionaire running on the Independence Fusion ticket “drawing considerable support away from [Republican challenger George] Pataki”

Three new polls, one released by the Marist Institute for Public Opinion in Poughkeepsie, another by Newsday and WABC-TV and a third conducted for The Daily News and WNBC-TV by Louis Harris & Associates, show Mr. Pataki’s lead over Mr. Cuomo disappearing amid Mr. Cuomo’s negative advertising and the heavy spending of the Independence Fusion candidate, B. Thomas Golisano. (more…)

Something strange has been happening in the blogosphere. I chance upon another post by John Aravosis with which I agree almost entirely. During the course of the 2008 campaign, John beat the drum as hard as any left-wing blogger for Barack Obama.

And now he pulls no punches in faulting the Administration for further putting off a decision on the time-frame for repealing the ban on gays in the military:

Apparently, General Jones would have us believe that President Obama wasn’t aware that we were fighting wars in Iraq and Afghanistan when he promised to lift the gay ban during the campaign in exchange for our votes. So, Jones tells us today, Obama can’t get to that particular promise right now because he’s busy fighting wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Uh huh.

I don’t agree with Aravosis much, but do agree with him that the Administration should make it a priority to repeal the ban which serves no military purpose. After all, Obama did promise us he was going to do it. And gay Obama supporters cited that promise as one reason they backed the Democrat.

But, that erstwhile Obama supporter finds the administration of man he back last fall “is doing next to nothing – and perhaps nothing altogether – to move the ball forward on repealing DADT.”

So, what gives, with a majority of conservatives favoring repeal, why won’t Obama act?

And let me give major props to John Aravosis for sticking to his principles on this one even if it means criticizing a man whom he once so enthusiastically supported.

Many people have been wondering why President Obama, his wife and their advisors made such a fuss about traveling to Copenhagen to make a pitch for getting the 2016 Olympics for his hometown.  But, once you see the imagery which influenced his foreign policy–and that of many post-Scoop Jackson Democrats, you’ll better be able to understand his decision:

I may or may not blog again on the case of Kevin Jennings.  I do have another post in my mind, but it’s basically just an expansion on a point I made in my last post on the topic.

I hope the readers who brought up the issue of “gray areas” in this case appreciate that I did indeed acknowledge those areas (perhaps implicitly) in the very post to which they attached their comments.  For I grant that, in this case, there are indeed gray areas (on the part of Jennings but not “Brewster’s” lavatory lover).  But, there aren’t always gray areas.

But, it seems sometimes that all too many of our fellow gays (and a large number of straights, particularly men) have decided to replace the Manichean division of sexual expression (“good” when inside marital bonds, otherwise, “bad”) with the notion (to borrow a line from the movie Saved!) that “it’s all a gray area.”  No, it’s not.

It is wrong for a man (or woman) to have sexual relations with a minor.  It is wrong for a married man or woman to cheat on his spouse.  It is wrong to promise fidelity to your boyfriend (or girlfriend) while carrying on with someone else.  And there are other things, many involving coercion, which are clearly wrong.

That said, the older I get, the more I realize how amazingly complicated our sexual expression is (and the more, many more, gray areas I find).  I still remain convinced that the highest form of sexual expression is between the two partners in a committed monogamous union.  But, not all of us are so fortunate to find ourselves in such a state, hence the gray areas.

That said, I fear that all too many in the gay community echo that silly notion from Saved! that it’s all a gray area.   (more…)

Perhaps because I spend the better part of each week blogging about politics, for the past 36 hours or so, I’ve not been too keen on addressing political issues.  And given that a friend’s story of a bizarre e-mail exchange earlier in the week reminded me that I had wanted to blog on a similarly strange experience I had had now nearly three years ago, I thought I’d blog on that.

My friend (we’ll call him Dave though that’s not his real name) related how a man expressed interest in him in an online dating forum.  Before Dave had had a chance to reply, the man (who somehow became aware that he (Dave) had reviewed his (the man’s) profile), fired off a series of angry e-mails to Dave, saying, in effect, but with words a little more direct, that he wasn’t the man he claimed to be (in his profile).

Now, Dave had not sent the guy one single e-mail, had not said a word to this guy and yet was subject to a barrage of insults.  So, I quipped, “The guy does know how to make a good first impression.”

And I wondered if the guy was really interested in Dave, why he would so mouth off at him?  Did he think that would make him more likely to respond favorably to his romantic entreaties?  This reminded me of my own strange experience now nearly three years ago.  I had met a man through an on-line dating service.

After exchanging a few e-mails, we decided to meet for coffee.  That went well enough that he suggested dinner.  It was a wonderful dinner; we had a great conversation about movies and story-telling, with me waxing eloquent about a particular movie (which he hadn’t seen).  So, we decided to watch this flick (then, as now, available on DVD) for our third get-together.

We went to his house, ordered in and watched it.  We kissed good-night.  It seemed he was interested in, well, become more physically intimate, but I didn’t feel it was appropriate, didn’t want to lead him on.  A few days later he calls me up and basically asks, “So, are we boyfriends now?”  I said I didn’t know where it was headed, but did want to see him again.

At that point, he proceeded to accuse me of leading him on and launched into a full-on attack.  (This broadside continue for about 20 minutes.)  Well, that did help me make up my mind about where our relationship was headed. And what struck me more than anything was the same thing which struck Dave.  Why would a guy interested in one of us proceed to attack when he did not get the answer he wanted? (more…)

Hat Tip to Rich at The Corner, and sorry for the ad you have to watch before the good stuff:

-Nick (ColoradoPatriot, from HQ)

UPDATE (from Dan):  When I saw Nick’s headline, I thought of this clip from Young Frankenstein:

UP-UPDATE (Nick again):

So it’s a competition now to best describe the first 9 months of the Obama Administration? I know I can trump all (as The One would say himself): “You [effed] up: You trusted us”

UP-UP-UPDATE: Didn’t think we were having a competition, but if we were, I graciously concede defeat. The Animal House clip takes the cake.

I’m no fan of rogue Congressional delegations travelling abroad and undermining our foreign policy a la that dipshit from San Francisco going to Syria, or those useful idiots from Seattle, Michigan, and Napa bankrolled by Saddam Hussein himself. So I’m not jumping up and down celebrating Senator Jim DeMint’s victory over John Kerry’s failed attempt to scuttle his plans to take Congressmen Aaron Schock and Peter Roskam of Illinois and Doug Lamborn from the Greatest State on a “fact-finding” mission to the beleagured Central-American state.

Part of what keeps my feet on the ground here is DeMint’s style. The Twitter message he used to announce the trip read:

Leading delegation to Honduras tomorrow to support Nov 29 elections. Hondurans should be able to choose their own future.

(emphasis added)

As that cow over at State has said, the Honduran elections will not be recognized by America unless the interrim government gives up its Constitutional authority and puts back in place the criminal Zelaya who she’s so happy to sit down with and give succor to. So DeMint’s goal in his trip was pretty specifically contrary to the policy of the US government.

If his mission were indeed (as he said after Kerry gave it the kibosh) “fact-finding”, he’d have a better standing for support in his trip. As wrong-headed and perverse (not to mention continuously bizarre and vexing) as the Administration’s and State Department’s policy is toward Honduras, it is America’s policy, and undermining it while abroad can have unintended consequences and negative ramifications for the US. And believe me, Sen. DeMint, Obama and Clinton need no help effing up our foreign policy. They’ve pretty much proven their capbility on that front without any assitance.

Nevertheless, thanks to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, the delegation proceeded and met this weekend with members of the interim government there.

As tainted as the trip is, I do hope that something good can come out of it. Specifically, I hope that Senator DeMint was temperant in his discussions and didn’t lead the leaders of that country to any ill-founded conclusions. More so, I hope that the delegation actually learned some first-hand information to bring back to Clinton and Obama about the absolutely legal and constitutional ousting of Zelaya and installation of an interim government ahead of elections scheduled next month.

And ultimately, here’s hoping Obama and Clinton will shed their arrogance about the matter, admit they’ve been wrong all along, embrace the rule of law (for once), and support the people (and the Constitution!) of Honduras.

Watch this space to find out. I’ll post what I can find out as I have the time.

-Nick (ColoradoPatriot, from HQ)

I don’t feel the need to pile-on, and there are certainly better-expressed opinions than mine about Obama’s embarrassment in Copenhagen this week (most notably at NRO’s The Corner).

AND, after reading his remarks to the IOC, I was prepared to give the president what I thought was well-deserved credit for having (for the first time in his term representing all of us as our head of state) traveled to a foreign country and not bashing us.

Unfortunately, there’s this, the president’s response to a question of, of all innocuous topics, crowd control that he had to jump in and turn into yet another opportunity to admit how horrible America is (or at least used to be before we were all so wise as to choose him to save us from ourselves):

MR. RYAN: The next question relates to — comes from Mr. Ali, and thank you for the question. How do we intend to deal with all of the millions of people who will enter?

…

THE PRESIDENT: I think that over the last several years sometimes that fundamental truth [our diversity as a nation] about the United States has been lost. And one of the legacies, I think, of this Olympics Games in Chicago would be a restoration of that understanding of what the United States is all about, and the United States’ recognition of how we are linked to the world.

Last year, America elected a president with an obvious and personal dislike for the nation itself. When you think about it, why would the IOC bestow upon such a country the honor of hosting the enitre world?

And so now the list grows yet again, and Obama’s up to a full dozen:

Canada
Great Britain
France
Saudi Arabia
Mexico
Trinidad and Tobago
Egypt
Germany
Turkey
Russia
Ghana
Denmark

Remember back at the beginning of September when President Obama promised to pay for his health care overhaul by rooting out waste and fraud in Medicaire?  Well, Senator Charles Grassley (R-IA) has a plan which would provide one safeguard against fraud in federal healthcare programs.  And, well, Democrats on the Senate Finance Committee unanimously rejected it:

Senate Finance Committee Democrats rejected a proposed requirement that immigrants prove their identity with photo identification when signing up for federal healthcare programs.

Finance Committee ranking member Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) said that current law and the healthcare bill under consideration are too lax and leave the door open to illegal immigrants defrauding the government using false or stolen identities to obtain benefits.

Seems Senate Democrats are doing their part to confirm Rep. Joe Wilson (R-S.C.) as the “truth czar” of the healthcare debate.   Not just that, it shows that Democrats aren’t really serious about following up on the President’s pledge in his health care speech to eliminate ”hundreds of billions of dollars in waste and fraud” from Medicare.  At the time, Charles Krauthammer found that pledge more than just dishonest:

That’s not a lie. That’s not even deception. That’s just an insult to our intelligence. Waste, fraud and abuse — Meg Greenfield once called this phrase “the dread big three” — as the all-purpose piggy bank for budget savings has been a joke since Jimmy Carter first used it in 1977.

Moreover, if half a trillion is waiting to be squeezed painlessly out of Medicare, why wait for health-care reform? If, as Obama repeatedly insists, Medicare overspending is breaking the budget, why hasn’t he gotten started on the painless billions in “waste and fraud” savings?

Senator Grassley gave Democrats an opportunity to show their commitment to preventing fraud and to put their votes where the President’s mouth was.  And they balked.  They’d rather please the interest groups who back their party than follow through on their own party’s rhetoric and act to safeguard that ever dwindling supply of taxpayer dollars.

It has been a full week since Clark Hoyt, the public editor of the New York Times acknowledged the Old Gray Lady’s sloth in reporting the scandal swirling around ACORN:

. . . for days, as more videos were posted and government authorities rushed to distance themselves from Acorn, The Times stood still. Its slow reflexes — closely following its slow response to a controversy that forced the resignation of Van Jones, a White House adviser — suggested that it has trouble dealing with stories arising from the polemical world of talk radio, cable television and partisan blogs.

The paper still has a lot of catching up to do.  Over at Big Government, Matthew Vadum blogs about a memo from attorney Elizabeth Kingsley to the controversial left-wing organization telling them, in so many words, to clean up their act.

“But whether you try to implement some or all of these recommendations, there must be someone committed to follow-up. There must be a review mechanism, and a means of holding people accountable after any final decisions are made. If you do not make some hard choices now and ensure they are carried out, they almost certainly will be made for you.

Building on his post in an article on the American Spectator’s site, Vadum points that Kingsley discovered systemic problems with ACORN:

Kingsley explains that her concerns fall into four major categories: “respect for corporate integrity, the necessary separation between different types of political work, the niceties of 501(c)(3) tax compliance and accounting for those funds, and a big-picture question about organizational capacity.” She goes to great pains explaining that she is not trying to single any person out, “but to point to systemic institutional concerns.”

Vadum points something else which gets at the hollowness of Hoyt’s expressed resolve that his paper do a better job of reporting stories unearthed on the right: “the New York Times has published excerpts of the document”.  So, maybe, you think, they’re getting their act together.  If you thought that, you’re sure to be disappointed.  When you follow the link to the Old Gray Lady, you get an article from last October, as in 2008, nearly one full year ago.  I get the same results when I do a google search of te paper’s web-site:  no mention of Ms. Kingsley and ACORN since October 22, 2008. (more…)

While researching another post which references the failure of the New York Times to follow up on Clark Hoyt’s acknowledgment that its editors (and writers) need scan the conservative press (including) blogs, I chanced about this headline which shows just how great has been their failure to consider conservative sources of analysis and opinion: U.S. Wonders if Iran Is Playing for Time or Is Serious on Deal.

Um, that’s what conservatives have been saying for years, at least since then-President George W. Bush all but outsourced negotiations with the Iranian regime to the Europeans.

NB: I change the title since the initial post as it sounded clunky.

From the first moment Spencer Tracy sets eyes on Katharine Hepburn in the 1942 classic Woman of the Year (at 5:46 on the DVD), you know he wants to explore that leg which she has been stretching and find just where it leads.  Just by the glances the exchange in the ensuing scene, you know they find each other attractive and want to act on attraction.

That coupled with a good script (well, until the concluding scene) makes the movie compelling.  We believe the tension and affection between the two.  Indeed, their cinematic chemistry defines the various movies they  made together, overcoming, in a number of cases mediocre scripts.  For example, in Desk Set is almost unwatchable, but the scenes where the two are together more than make up for the emptiness of much of the rest of the script.

Good screen chemistry can often overcome a mediocre screenplay (see e.g., Two Weeks Notice, Titanic) and turn an excellent script into a great movie (see e.g., Casablanca, The Philadelphia Story, When Harry Met Sally).

And bad screen chemistry can ruin even a well-crafted script, the first two-thirds of Absence of Malice, which I watched this past week.  From the first moment the leads, Paul Newman and Sally Field, come together, anyone familiar with contemporary cinema knows they are being set up to fall in love.  We know this, in large part, because Field spills her coffee when she first hears Newman’s voice identifying himself to her.  Sydney Pollack, the film’s director, needed to have her do this to show how she was caught off guard by his appearance.

Miss Hepburn, however, didn’t need to spill any coffee or drop a hairpin when she first caught site of the man with whom she had been feuding in the pages of the newspaper for which they both wrote.   (more…)

US JOB LOSSES WORST SINCE 1983 – 9.8% UNEMPLOYMENT
(Millions of jobs shed SINCE Obama Stimulus bankrupts nation)

DOW DROPS SEVEN OF LAST EIGHT DAYS

US FACTORY ORDERS PLUNGE UNEXPECTEDLY
(How’s that “growing economy” working out for you, Tano?)

CHICAGO LOSES ON FIRST BALLOT FOR 2016 OLYMPICS.
(Only thing accomplished was large Obama carbon footprint,
and Michelle “sacrificing” by making trip)

This President can truly be declared the worst since Jimmy Carter, circa 1979.

2010 and 2012 cannot come soon enough to rescue our nation.

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

I just want to be clear.  So please stop me if I miss something or if I’m wrong.  But I want to make sure I list everything that is morally justified by liberals versus things that get them upset:

1 – A rich, famous brother of a Democrat President who drives drunk off a bridge and murders a young woman who was not his wife: OKAY

2 – A famous Hollywood Director who intoxicates, then rapes a 13 year old girl, confesses to it and then runs from the law for 30 years:  OKAY

3 – A Democrat President who sexually harasses an intern under his employ in the Oval Office then lies under oath: OKAY

4 – A Republican Congressman who texts with 17-18 year old boys but never met them:  NOT OKAY

5 – A Democrat Senator currently with leadership status who was the elected “Exalted Cyclops” in the Ku Klux Klan and repeatedly used racial slurs on television until he became too old and his words slurred:  OKAY

6 – A Republican Congressman who yelled at a President who happens to be African-American:  NOT OKAY

7 – A Democrat school teacher, now Presidential “Safe Schools Czar”, who did nothing when a teenager told him of dangerous sex habits with older men:  OKAY

8 – A Republican VP candidate whose underage daughter becomes the target of rape jokes by liberal Late Night talk show host:  OKAY (and hilarious!)

9 – A liberal Late Night host sexually harassing employees on his staff:  ALSO OKAY

And that is just the tip of the iceberg of the Democrats’ lack of morality.  Never mind the hypocrisy on CIA interrogations, closing GITMO, exploding the Federal Debt, government transparency, and massive Congressional corruption.

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

Not much.

But, our junior Senator’s still got one year to complete her third term, so maybe she’ll actually accomplish something that helps bring the Golden State back from the brink.  Yet, the one bill she’s mostly recently authored will likely cost California jobs, even while it’s unemployment is soaring.  Should this bill passes, “it would only be the fourth bill she’s championed that’s signed into law during her three terms as a U.S. senator.”  While she may succeed in helping enact a law, she will also help increase her constituents’ energy costs and further reduce employment.

After nearly 17 years in the Senate, “only three of the nearly 400 bills she has sponsored have ever been passed.” Her senior colleague, the decent Dianne Feinstein who has served two full months longer than Mrs. Boxer “has had four times as many bills signed into law.”

As the 2010 Senate race heats up, Californians should not lose sight of Mrs. Boxer’s record.  The state’s economy is ailing.  Nearly 1 in 8 people in the Golden State are out of work.  And Barbara Boxer kowtows to liberal interest groups.

We need someone who’s going to represent the Golden State, crafting legislation in Washington that will reduce regulatory burdens in California–and across the country.  With fewer regulations, entrepreneurs can more readily start up new businesses, while those owning existing firms can pour their profits into innovation and expansion rather than bureaucratic compliance.  The former leads to a growing economy with more jobs, the latter leads to continuing economic paralysis.

Unfortunately, Mrs. Boxer hasn’t been writing legislation which helps business.  Her bills would only increase regulation.  So, maybe it’s a good thing she hasn’t been successful.  But, it would be a better thing if instead of having a Senator take up space while misrepresenting her constituents, we had somehow actually acting on their behalf.

There are times when a critic chimes in in a civil tone in the comment section, adding a wrinkle to the story under consideration (in the post at hand) that causes me to reconsider my conclusion.  Such was the care Jody took in distinguishing the era when the teen confided in then-teacher Kevin Jennings that he had been having sex with an adult from the world today  Then, there weren’t the support groups we now have.  Had the boy reported this to the authorities, this might have forced the kid out, making his sexuality known and putting him in the spotlight.

Fair points.  It may have hurt the teenager more had his case become public.

And while that comment (and others in a similar vein) have caused me to reconsider my view, after considerable thought I return to my original conclusion:  Jennings should resign from his position in the federal Department of Education.

Had this story come out because a friend in whom he had confided revealed it, I might be less inclined to see him leave his current post. But, recall that he volunteered this information in a book and in a public conference.  His references to the story indicate he thought he handled the situation properly.  Not once in the statements he made before this week (that I could find online*) does he even say (or appear to suggest) that he should have handled the situation differently (as he did in his statement on Tuesday).

It is particularly troubling that he did not discourage the boy from having sex with adults.  If reporting the incident might have created undue hardship on the student, why not then warn him both about the dangers of unsafe sex as well as about the perils of having sex with men you meet in public lavatories.  He could inform the boy that men who have sex with teens usually take advantage of them, likely causing great emotional pain and creating psychological problems which may well plague him into adulthood.

That he would continue to write about the incident –sharing it with a mass audience — without showing any remorse, any second thoughts suggests he oblivious to the psychological issues.   (more…)

Glenn observes, “SARAH PALIN’S BOOK remains #1 on Amazon. Quite impressive, given the media hostility.”

Maybe hearing all the nasty things left-wingers are saying about this good women, a lot of her supporters (and just plain folks who can’t stand the nastiness) become more motivated to buy the book.

Who was it who said, there’s no such thing as bad publicity?   Trying to trash Mrs. Palin’s book, her critics (and haters) remind people it’s about to be published, so they look for it online.

At the end of my post yesterday on Kevin Jennings the openly Assistant Deputy Secretary for the Office of Safe and Drug-Free Schools, I indicated that I would reconsider my call for his resignation should evidence emerge that he had previously acknowledged his “wrongdoing,” by which I meant his failure to report a teenager’s sexual relationship with an adult.  There is no evidence to suggest he ever even discouraged the boy from continuing his sexual relationship with the older man. 

Even in a piece at left-leaning (but even-handed) Queerty critical of how conservative media has treated Jennings, they are concerned by the Obama appointee’s silence:

 If Jennings “technically” had a legal obligation to report the incident, he should have. His CV is impressive, and sounds like it qualifies him for the “safe school czar” job under Obama. But it’s an insufficient answer to why, as a teacher to young people, he did not attempt to intervene to stop an underage boy from continuing an unhealthy sexual relationship — and keep that boy from becoming a victim.

While I do believe Jennings acted inappropriately in 1988 when the student approached him, I did want to cut the guy some slack for something he did early in his career.  Had he expressed some regret long before he became politically active, it would add a different dimension to his past conduct.  It would show this action as an aberration in an otherwise distinguished career.

But, now information has come forward suggesting that Jennings’s conduct was not an aberration, but part of a career suggesting a greater concern for the sexual liberation ideology of one segment of the gay movement than for the welfare of students.  That ideology has led to reluctance of many gay activists, apparently including Jennings, to never discourage any form of sexual expression, even that involving minors. (more…)

In a short post over at Commentary Contentions, Peter Wehner addresses the media’s relatively blasé response to l’affaire Grayson, and points out how the Florida Democrat’s rhetoric is remarkably consistent with that of his fellow partisans:

For the record, and for those keeping count, Democrats have now accused critics of ObamaCare of perpetrating “lies” (President Obama), of being “evil-mongers” (Harry Reid), of using “un-American” tactics (Nancy Pelosi and Steny Hoyer), of being members of “the mob” (DNC video), and have likened them to the Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh (Brian Baird). But of course it is the “fringe right” that is responsible for incivility in American politics today. Just ask Tom Friedman and the rest of the MSM. They react with fury when Republicans and conservatives cross certain lines yet react with relative indifference when Democrats and liberals do the same. Republican incivility borders on a criminal offense; Democratic incivility falls under the category “Boys will be boys.”

And our critics want us to apologize for the nasty rhetoric emanating from the right-wing fringe.  I wonder if they’ll apologize from the name-calling, vitriol and bile from their party’s congressional caucus.

While some have compared the rise of Islamofasctic Iran in the current decade to the rise of Nazi Germany in the 1930s, there is one major difference.  Within eighteen months of taking power, Hitler had succeeding in snuffing out all opposition (quite literally because it was the murderous “Night of the Long Knives” at the end of June and beginning of July, 1934 that marked his total consolidation of power).

While Hitler never allowed a free and fair general election after he had taken power (though some might call the March 1933 elections free), he likely would have survived any plebiscite held in Germany in all twelve years of his “Reich.”  Not so with the Iranian mullahs.   Were it not for fraud, they would have lost the elections this past June.  And with the subsequent protests, the tyrants feared something which barely concerned Hitler after he had dispatched Ernst Röhm on July 2, 1934, the undermining of his regime from within:

The fraudulent presidential election in June and the subsequent mass demonstrations produced the biggest regime crisis in years. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Ayatollah Ali Khamenei must have been panicked at the prospect of losing control — and with reason.

Thus, Robert Kagan, who penned those words above, contends since the election, the regime’s “overriding goal since the election . . . has been to buy time and try to reestablish and consolidate control without any foreign interference in its internal affairs.”  He suggests then the President focus ”on the regime’s instability,” ignoring “the nukes”, while pushing “crippling” sanctions which “could help the Iranian opposition topple these still-vulnerable rulers”:

The government’s behavior during and after the election has opened an irreparable breach between the regime and large elements of Iranian society, and even within the clerical ranks. The government may succeed in clamping down on the opposition and driving it underground. But the notion that the Iranian opposition will suddenly rally around Ahmadinejad and Khamenei if the West imposes sanctions is absurd.

With protests continuing more than three months after the fraudulent elections, it’s clear that the regime’s repressive measures have failed to dampen the spirit of the people.  Yet, the Obama Administration has acted as if their movement for change were a distraction from its foreign policy goals.   (more…)