Posted on 09/15/2014 8:09:56 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Suddenly NBC's "Meet The Press" matters again, and when new host Chuck Todd joined me on Friday's radio show (see transcript) two of many reasons why became obvious.
First, Todd had booked James Baker (former secretary of state and treasury, White House chief-of-staff, and W's Florida strategist during 2000's epic recount) to talk about whether or not an international coalition could be assembled by President Obama to battle the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. The Baker booking was shrewd, and more will be forthcoming.
Also shrewd was Todd's analysis of the Romney 3.0 boomlet which had been the subject of a piece by Robert C. O'Brien and me for Politico Magazine on Friday, "Third Time's the Charm," which had quickly accumulated more than 1,000 comments and scores of emails and tweets pro-and-con. We discussed it and Todd nailed the source of the Romney surge:
I think the reason why Romney 3.0 has gotten traction is less about Romney, and more about the current issues of the day. I think the Republican 2016 field as we thought we knew it — think Scott Walker, think Chris Christie, think Marco Rubio, think Bobby Jindal — you know, throw those names in. I think if you have issues like national security front and center, that’s an incredibly shrinking, I feel like all of those guys are suddenly shrinking in stature. None of them, if the chief criticism of Barack Obama by a lot of people is you know what, he just wasn’t experienced enough, he just didn’t have a grasp of everything you needed to know to be able to be commander-in-chief, right? ... So I think that’s why [Romney] seems to look larger right now in stature because of the issues of the day that are front and center, and if you look at the rest of this Republican field. They don’t seem as if they have the resume to reassure hawks in the party.
The last line was the key — the "hawks" in the GOP are suddenly resurgent and back in demand among the grassroots. A day earlier, former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum had said on my show of his likely opponent in the 2016 Iowa caucuses Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., that "now that things have heated up, [Paul's] trying to put the genie back in the bottle" on his previous foreign policy statements. Perhaps; perhaps not, but Santorum perceives an edge on the issue of security.
On Saturday, the New York Times ran with an AP story early in the morning "Eyeing 2016, Sen. Rubio Stresses Border Security."
This is another symptom of the sudden turn back towards seriousness on defense and national security. Anyone who has read Lawrence Wright's The Looming Tower knows the jihadist threat is decades old and that the Islamic State is neither new nor exceptionally brutal by Islamist extremist standards, but back-to-back beheadings of Americans tend like hangings in Samuel Johnson's day to focus the mind wonderfully.
By week's end, retired war fighters Army General David Petraeus and USMC General James Mattis as well as former President George W. Bush had all found forums on Thursday and Friday in which to gently but firmly push the president towards taking on the Islamic State with decisive force before it could put down roots and nest deeply. The elections of 2014 have veered towards national security -- scaring every Democrat on the ballot -- and just in time. With the world melting down, every candidate who is serious about American strength is going to do very well in November, and beyond.
What does that have to do with Mitt Romney's family being here for five generations without a single military veteran? That's plain WEIRD, Williams. I can't think of a single average American family in my acquaintance without a veteran in the immediate or close-to-immediate family. Not a single one.
Obama has zero to do with the Romney family's obvious contempt for military service.
The only things that elected Obama were votes, Williams. Get that through your skull and heart. Votes were the ONLY things that "elected" him.
Failure to vote for a leftist Republican did not "elect" Obama. Voting for a leftist Republican, as you did, told the Republican party that you think it needs to move left. That is the ONLY thing your vote did.
The stupid party, for people stupid enough to vote for a leftist on the pretense that it is the same as voting "against" leftism.
Dodo.
Unfortunately you have wasted my time responding to your silly posts, about something that you don’t know anything about, but was so nastyly offended since you perceived an insult to Mitt Romney and decided to start the name calling.
“”However, when your analysis begins in 1840, well case closed.””
Most of us call that knowing our subject and being well informed, and in this case knowing the Romney family, and knowing a very strange and unique family history that involves two presidential candidates during our lifetime, and goes all the way back to WHY this anti-American family came to America in the first place and what they have displayed since.
Spend your time as I do and research your own slate of candidates, unless of course you need to do deep research on the democrats to find a reason to reject democrat candidates, keep reading FR, and perhaps you will learn something, but only if you ask for more information for what you don’t understand, and quit merely trying to keep information about the Romney family off the threads.
Silliness.
Yep, sounds about right. I have been REALLY disgusted with the GOPe for years, for nominating people like Dole, McCain and Romney, but it pales in comparison to my utter, total, complete contempt for the rat party. I know that I am a Christian, and I should not hate these POSs, but I am struggling with it. What I think, is the GOPe are mostly socialists and the rats are TOTALLY socialists, and many are outright communists. I just wonder if the country can ever be taken back from the GOPe and the rats? I hope so, but in my heart of hearts, I believe Obama is God's judgement on America for her sins, and since it does not appear America is repenting, the Hildebeast is waiting in the wings to continue the judgement. I have no way of knowing for sure if this is all true, but it might be.
Ain't that the truth. One of life's great mysteries. Kinda makes you go "Hmmmm"
... in my heart of hearts, I believe Obama is God's judgement on America for her sins ...
In my heart of hearts, I believe that Romney's defeat -- that enough God-fearing conservatives refused to go against Christian values and vote FOR a pro-homosexual and pro-abortion "leader" as the price of voting "against" Obama -- was God smiling on America.
I love that my fellow conservatives on balance feared God more than they feared Obama. I believe God smiled on an America that chose to face another Obama term rather than betray God and vote for an agent of evil. Romney is dead-to-rights on record as pushing "Gay Youth Pride" outreach to school kids, supporting homosexuals' "rights" to adopt children, and publicly declaring that a pregnant minor teen had a "right" to go to a judge to overrule her parents if they denied permission for her to get an abortion. That is as evil as anything Obama brings to the table, and I am asked to vote FOR it in order to vote "against" Obama? Say what?
I guess what I'm saying is that Romney would have been God's harsher judgment against Americans craven enough to vote for wickedness in order to avoid Obama. Better to face the music -- that's what America did when it rejected Romney. In my heart, I know I did right by God when I voted third-party, and I am blessed to live in a country where I was in company with the God-fearing balance. Romney lost.
God FIRST, then Country.
God bless America.
It’s sad to read idiocy masquerading as fool’s logic. Nothing is ever your fault is it? America will burn down around you and you will sit there lecturing people about how it’s not your fault. So you live in an absolutely childish fantasy world where only “votes” elect people and those who stay home have no impact on the result.
And you live in a further fantasy where a family’s lack of military service 5 generations ago had something to do with a candidate today.
A further fantasy that lack of service is “contempt”for the military.
Bard on your logic if you have not served, YOU have contempt for the military. And no, your uncle Joe’s military service does NOT count for you except in your dreams.
Angry fantasy artists like YOU are why we have Obama in the White House. Period.
God “smiled” on America for electing Obama, a pro homosexual, pro abortion, anti military communist Muslim lover? Because God was so glad to keep Romney out?
But you said only “votes” count. Oh I know you’ll answer with more contortions.
No the election of Obama did not serve God anymore than you did by electing Obama.
I’m just wondering do you stick your head up there and think you’re seeing sunshine? Boy I hope we can elect Hillary next, that will show those liberals we mean business. /s
Amazing how God supports every stupid thing that comes out of your head.
Mrs. Clinton won't be hampered by a belief in a religion as Obama is to a certain extent. He is a Moslem and working for Islamic goals. She has no religion beyond Herself and actually has more freedom of movement in her own psyche. She will, indeed, be more damaging, especially following the Sultan. But, then Romney is pretty scary, too. He is a Leftist for sure, and he will have the confidence of the business class, even the smaller corporations, way longer than Obama.
THAT, dear Williams, is IDIOCY.
On the contrary, Williams, I take responsibility for what I vote for, and because I have voted straight REPUBLICAN party ticket since 1976 -- by the way, Williams, how long have YOU been voting? -- and in that process, I have voted for many moderate and left-leaning Republicans including Arnold Schwarzenegger and Meg Whitman. It is MY FAULT that the Republican party turned left because I VOTED FOR IT.
You are a fool who is dangerous to America.
You refuse to take responsibility for what you vote FOR. You are dangerous to America and dangerous to freedom. You should stay home on election day.
Yeah right. How childishly stupid.
You did the right thing under the circumstances voting for Arnold and Whitman. Arnold at least tried before giving up.
Willard “Mitt” Romney, the rat backstabber, is the reason
Obama is in the White House, twice.
Romney’s inconsolable LUST for power,
LUST for statism, and LUST for backstabbing
has been — and remains — the DNC’s best hope.
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