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RUSH: What a sad state journalism must have to be in. We know it is, but it was on display last night, the sad state of journalism. You know it's bad when they have to drag Tom Brokaw out of Jurassic Park to moderate the debate. What happened to Brian Williams? What happened to Charlie Gibson? What happened to Katie Couric? Why go to Jurassic Park? Folks, I am sitting here, all I can do today is laugh. I've been having so much fun getting ready for today's show and I'm going to share it with you, greetings, great to...

Wayne Gilchrest, the nine-term Republican congressman who represents Maryland's Eastern Shore and parts of Anne Arundel County, has had it, and he's ready to talk. He's had it with his own party, which he says "has become more narrow, more self-serving, more centered around 'I want, I want, I want.' " He's finished with his party's presidential candidate, John McCain, who Gilchrest says "recites memorized pieces of information in a narrow way, whereas Barack Obama is constantly evaluating information, using his judgment. One guy just recites what's in front of him, and the other has initiative and reason and prudence...

You know, I was going to call it a night. And then I saw the story about John McCain’s appearance at the 9/11 Columbia University forum earlier this evening. Every time you grit your teeth and defend this guy, he pulls something like this. Hey, Maverick: Way to throw Sarah Palin, Rudy Giuliani, and your strategists who had the sense to seize on Obama’s abysmal, ineffectual record as a Chicago rabble-rouser under the bus! Criiiiiikey: Barack Obama and John McCain attempted to set their differences aside Thursday night, if only for a moment, as they encouraged Americans to volunteer in...

TO REBRAND THE GOP THEY'VE PICKED THE RIGHT GUY By JOHN P. AVLON September 4, 2008 ST. PAUL John McCain is leading a party with a deeply unpop ular president in office. Eighty-one percent of the American people believe the country is headed in the wrong direction. But, against the odds, he's still very much in this race. Tonight's acceptance speech will be McCain's best chance to make his case for the presidency - and, in the process, to start rebranding his party for the post-Bush years. It'll be an uphill effort. Many conservative activists still can't believe that their...

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and state Sen. Tom McClintock are California's best-known Republicans. McClintock is the quintessential Republican candidate for statewide office. He is a middle-aged, upper-middle-class, white, male career politician. He currently serves as state senator for the 19th District, where he hasn't lived in years, and is running for Congress in the 4th District, where he not only doesn't live, but can't even vote. McClintock is completely inflexible and incapable of compromise, and as a result, receives little to no Republican support in Sacramento. He regularly gets beaten in statewide elections, having lost races for state controller, lieutenant governor...

Confronting the Islamic Military Cross posted from Debbie Hamilton's Right Truth: http://righttruth.typepad.com/right_truth/2008/06/the-misnomer-of-radical-islam---americas-security-blunder.htmlDEBBIE NOTE: Right Truth is thankful to Martel Sobieskey for publishing his articles here at Right Truth. We look forward to publishing future articles. Regular readers at Right Truth know that I completely agree and support the material set forth in this particular article. We have found a kindred spirit my friends. This article is posted at Real Clear Politics, your votes are appreciated The Misnomer of Radical Islam America’s Security Blunder June 27, 2008 by Martel Sobieskey There is the erroneous assertion that Radical Islam is not...

Of all the cures commonly proposed for the many ailments afflicting the Middle East, there is one tonic nearly everyone seems to agree on: boosting moderate Islam. It sounds eminently reasonable. If Islamic extremism is the problem, moderate Islam must be the solution. It follows that Western governments should therefore find ways to make the moderates more powerful and encourage the extremists to become more moderate. Allow Islamists to compete and accumulate power, the argument goes, and they will have little incentive to radicalize. Furthermore, assuming the mundane tasks of day-to-day governance will compel even the most extreme groups to...

I’d love to be able to say that American voters are far too intelligent to ever fall for the socialist drivel currently peddled by the New Democrat Party, aka - the Democratic Socialists of America. But that would be a lie... Sadly, many Americans are indeed stupid enough to overlook the reality that “universal health care” and “socialized medicine” is the same thing. They are indeed stupid enough to support socialism over economic freedom, a greater communal good over individual liberty, a nanny state over self-governance and even a completely unqualified half-black 100% Marxist for president over a man who...

AND NOW . . . amidst billowing clouds of fragrant, aromatic first- and second-hand premium cigar smoke. . . it is time for . . . that harmless, lovable little fuzz ball, the highly-trained broadcast specialist, having more fun than a human being should be allowed to have, from behind the golden EIB microphone, firmly ensconced in the prestigious Attila-the-Hun chair at the Limbaugh Institute of Advanced Conservative Studies, with talent on loan from G-d, at the cutting-edge of societal evolution, with half his brain tied behind his back — just to make it fair, the all-knowing, all-caring, all-sensing, all-feeling,...

The long, fascinating spectacle of the presidential primaries has all but obscured their potential impact on American politics: Campaign 2008 may break Washington's gridlock by reviving the long-dormant political center. The public's hunger for a change in Washington's ways has formed the backdrop of this year's presidential race from its outset. When the Wall Street Journal and NBC News surveyed voters in December, as the campaign began, almost half agreed that America needed "major reforms and a brand new and different approach" to handling problems. In the wake of Tuesday's primary elections in North Carolina and Indiana, it appears more...

Let's worry about Islamofascism The resolution adopted by Muslim theologians representing the various schools of Islam at the All-India Anti-terrorism Conference organised by Darul Uloom, Deoband, 'denouncing' terrorism but condoning radical Islam's ghastly excesses, apart from remaining silent on Islamist terrorism in India which continues to extract a terrible price, is of a piece with the Observatory Report on Islamophobia released by the Organisation of Islamic Conference at its recent meeting in Dakar, Senegal. Both documents seek to justify manufactured Muslim rage and lay the blame for the resultant death and destruction at the doors of everybody else but...

Iran’s “Moderates” by Dan Rabkin Friday, March 28, 2008 With US Vice President Dick Cheney wrapping up his 10-day trip to the Middle East, made in part to allay regional fears of a growing Iranian influence, the Iranians themselves are busy preparing for the second round of parliamentary elections to be held in April (the first round was held on March 14th). The results, of course, have been known for a while: the conservatives will continue with their stranglehold on power. But there are still two very important reasons to follow this race. The first is the fact that the...

Conservatives remain scarce in the news media landscape. Only 6 percent of the national press corps describe themselves as "conservative" in a population that includes reporters, editors and producers from major television and radio networks, daily newspapers, news wires and online sources. Those who consider themselves "very conservative" amount to just 2 percent, according to a wide-ranging survey of 585 journalists and news executives released yesterday by the Project for Excellence in Journalism. In contrast, 36 percent of the overall population generally consider themselves conservative. There are more conservatives in broadcast than print — 10 percent and 2 percent, respectively....

Cannot Post due to copyright issues: http://www.newyorker.com/talk/comment/2008/03/17/080317taco_talk_hertzberg

Two former Islamists are to launch a Muslim thinktank aimed at improving relations with the west by challenging extremist ideologies. The Quilliam Foundation believes Muslims should shake off the "cultural baggage of the Indian subcontinent" and the "political burdens of the Arab world". Its director is Maajid Nawaz, 30, who was adopted as a prisoner of conscience by Amnesty International after being jailed in Egypt for membership of Hizb ut-Tahrir. Since returning to London he has written pamphlets criticising the party. His deputy is Ed Husain, 32, the author of The Islamist, which details his youth in east London moving...

The FASCISM in Mainstream Islam The FASCISM in Mainstream Islam Even in Western UKUNDERCOVER MOSQUE-A MUST SEE (UK) A look into a "moderate" Mainstream Mosque, what "normal Muslim clerics" preach... http://www.dafka.org/NewsGen.asp?S=4&PageID=1489 Islamic Hatred in Mainstream Aussie Mosqueshttp://www.littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=16355&only=yes Islamic Jew hatred contained ... disseminated by the most respected, mainstream Islamic institutions. http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=23399 Study: 3 in 4 U.S. mosques preach anti-West extremismSecret survey exposes widespread radicalismPosted: February 23, 2008An undercover survey of more than 100 mosques and Islamic schools in America has exposed widespread radicalism, including the alarming finding that 3 in 4 Islamic centers are hotbeds of anti-Western extremism, WND...

On a recent thread--from the last week, certainly--a freeper posted a quote attributed President Reagan. In a nutshell, Reagan asserted that the Republican party had no need for moderates. It was a short and snappy quote, and I (stupidly, erroneously) thought I would have no problem committing it to memory. Those of you who know me can quit laughing now. Anyway, I did a google but realized it would take me hours of reading to come across the quote, so I thought one of you may be familiar with it. Any help you can give is most appreciated.

John McCain is neither the inevitable Republican Nominee nor as electable as current polling data suggests for three reasons 1) the mainstream media will turn their backs on McCain as soon as he is the nominee, 2) so-called independents and moderates will not show up as strongly for McCain in the general election as in the primary, 3) McCain cannot unify the party because many important conservatives will not rally around him, and 4) McCain-Feingold will literally seal his fate because conservatives will not outlay cash in the general election for McCain. The mainstream media will turn against Senator McCain...

The man of hope has beaten the man from Hope (and possibly his wife). The endorsement of Barack Obama's presidential campaign by three Kennedys from different generations was a political trifecta for the young upstart from Illinois. He is not to be confused with Sen. Hillary Clinton who is from Illinois, Arkansas, New York, or wherever you want her to be. The contrast of sincerity (Obama) with insincerity (Hillary and Bill Clinton) could not be starker. Critics can say that "Camelot" was a myth created after the assassination of John F. Kennedy, but it is a powerful myth and to...

WASHINGTON - John McCain's support from Republican moderates, Hispanics and Florida's numerous older voters helped lift him to victory in Florida's GOP presidential primary on Tuesday. Mitt Romney relied on solid backing from conservatives and people troubled by illegal immigration and abortion, but could not persuade voters he was the one to cure the country's economic ills. In a blow to Romney, the former Massachusetts governor, McCain led among people who said the economy was the country's No. 1 issue, according to results of an exit poll conducted for The Associated Press and the television networks. As with most other...

...at least not to the AP: Romney did better among more conservative voters, while McCain and Paul each got about one in five moderates, who made up about 20 percent of the electorate. OK, what kind of a "moderate" would vote for Ron Paul? I can't think of any position that he takes that could be considered "moderate." He's what most people would call an extremist*. If someone called themselves a "moderate," or someone whom the AP would call a "moderate" would vote for Ron Paul then the word has no meaning whatsoever. And frankly, I find people who call...

The assassination of former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, with whom the United States had long cultivated a close relationship, has been widely seen as a setback for the forces of moderation in Pakistan and as another imposing obstacle to victory in the so-called "battle of ideas" in the "war on terror." With Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf discredited and Bhutto eliminated, the Bush administration responded in part by "reaching out" to Nawaz Sharif, the former prime minister it had held at arm's length because it did not see him as a faithful ally. For those who have long criticized the...

It's one of the great MSM rituals of presidential politics: the labeling of leading Dems as "moderates" or "centrists." Gail Collins honors the tradition in her New York Times column of today. Now it's true that Collins ostensibly speaks more of Obama's tone than of his politics. But, ultimately, as you'll see, she melds the two to portray a thoroughly moderate man [emphasis added]:

Today, Iowa is the center of the political universe, but for only a day. Right here in Minnesota is where the next president will be chosen. I know the conventional wisdom: Candidates who hope to capture their party's nomination must make an early splash in Iowa or New Hampshire, or at least in Florida's primary on Jan. 29. As a result, it's thought, the GOP convention in the Twin Cities later this year will merely anoint a nominee chosen months earlier, in the sort of anticlimactic, scripted coronation we've seen for decades. This year, I predict, things will be different....

WEST DES MOINES, Iowa—On a recent ice-swept morning, a group of self-described moderate Republicans met in a hotel convention room, looking to find a way to break the chill of a presidential season that has found many of them left out in the cold. "Our goal is to get traditional centrist moderate Republicans to get to the caucus and make their voices heard," said former Iowa Lt. Gov. Joy Corning. "The moderates who are out there, they've been rather quiet for a few years. Many of them have dropped out of the party or become independents, and so this is...

I am pleased to see that since my last post, the country has indeed begun following Iowa’s lead and Obama and Huckabee are surging in national polls. Frank Rich offered this explanation on these two candidates’ surge: “Both men have a history of speaking across party and racial lines. Both men possess that rarest of commodities in American public life: wit. Most important, both men aspire (not always successfully) to avoid the hyper-partisanship of the Clinton-Bush era. Though their views on issues are often antithetical, Huckabee and Obama may be united in catching the wave of an emerging zeitgeist that...

By Ted Belman "Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists" Pres Bush said after 9/11. He went on to identify N. Korea, Iran and Iraq, the "axis of evil" and to declare the "war on terror". The last thing he wanted to do was to identify the enemy. N. Korea was included in the list for fear that someone might think, G-d forbid, that Moslems were the enemy or that Islam was the enemy just as Communists and Communism were during the Cold War. It's not that he didn't know who the enemy was. After all,...

Iraqi Politician of a Rare Kind Talks Iraqi Politician iyad Jamal Al-Din: "The Arabs Use Israel as a Pretext for Their Backwardness, But Don't Really Want Democracy"... (How come this country [Israel] has developed a democracy despite being surrounded by enemies...?) Al-Arabiya TV (Dubai), Al-Fayhaa TV (Iraq/UAE) - 11/30/2005 - 00:02:29http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=46e8c8caeb http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z10AivMgu60 Backward Arabs Use Israel as a Pretext http://www.solomonia.com/blog/archives/2005_12.shtml

Many Muslims seemed to favor radical Islamdigg thishttp://www.collegian.psu.edu/archive/2007/10/26/many_muslims_seemed_to_favor_r.aspx Before this week, I felt convinced that all Muslims don't sympathize with terrorism. I figured that out of 1.5 billion Muslims, very few actually sympathize and support radical Islam. Things changed a bit after former U.S. Senator Rick Santorum's speech on Tuesday. Santorum made a point of identifying that within Islam, there is the ideology of Islamo-Facism. He in no way said that all Muslims were evil, just those who were in the sub-genre of radical Islam. Santorum's father was an Italian during World War II, where there was the threat of...

Even though every national poll shows Hillary Clinton running away with the 2008 Presidential election, Al Gore is busy racking up award after award, becoming more of an international leftist icon than ever before, and RNC front-runner Rudy Giuliani has peaked at only 32 percent support from Republican voters, Republicans still seem disinterested in the 2008 election. Is it because they figure all is already lost, or because they have no fear of losing in ’08? Divided they stand? So far, Republicans only agree that they dislike all of their choices in ’08. They have not yet begun to consider...

You want a liberal? - We’ll give you one! Almost every political pundit in America is asking if hard-headed “Christian conservatives” are really prepared to defect from their Republican Party in ’08 if they can’t get a conservative nominee from the RNC. But my question is; - when did respect for the “unalienable” right to Life, Liberty and Freedom, become an extreme right-wing ideal, held dear only by “Christian conservatives?” Who told RINOs that Life, Liberty and Freedom are extreme ideas? Who told moderate Republicans that they belong to a secular socialist party? America already has a liberal party pushing...

Pali Dictionary (2007)   The guide to the Arab Muslim 'Palestinian' propagandist    A security 'check point' (the one you have in the airports that effects all Israelis too) = "oppression".   Arrests of terrorists = "subjugation".   Equal rights, equal treatment, freedom for all & democracy = "apartheid".   Terror camps = "refugee camps".   Terror attacks aiming at the unarmed innocent civilians = "freedom fighting".   Cowards hiding among civilians = "fighters".   Reluctance to shoot at terrorists surrounded by civilians = "weak Zionists".   Use of human shields = "heroism".   Unintended deaths of human shields = "victims...

Texas Democrat Henry Cuellar is today fond of quoting a famous Lyndon Johnson line: "You know the difference between cannibals and liberals? Cannibals only eat their enemies." Mr. Cuellar would know, having found himself the main course on liberals' election menu just last year. A centrist Democrat who is pro-business, free-trade and strong on law enforcement, the congressman was designated an apostate by the left-wing Netroots crowd. They decamped to his district and bankrolled a liberal primary challenger. Mr. Cuellar triumphed, though Daily Kos founder Markos Moulitsas would later swagger on his blog: "So we didn't kill off Cuellar. But...

"They'll find their way back to the middle. And if they don't, they won't win." So says a blunt Harold Ford Jr., chairman of the Democratic Leadership Council, of his party's current crop of presidential candidates. The question is just how many would-be Democratic presidents recognize the wisdom of his words. Mr. Ford is in a feisty mood throughout our chat, as well he might be given the shelling his group has recently endured at the keyboards of the far left. Skip back 15 years, and the DLC stood as the proud architect of Bill Clinton's "New Democrat" campaign victory....

A first-tier presidential candidate was the keynote speaker at a recent trade association convention held just outside Washington. The candidate began the evening by telling the crowd: "His eye is on the sparrow, we know that. . . . And we are here tonight to give praise and thanks to He who made it possible for us to be with each other this evening." The candidate spent a lot of time talking about the importance of hard work and personal responsibility, quoting another thinker's motto: "If I've accomplished anything in life, it is because I've been willing to work hard."...

A Bridge to 'Moderate' Islam Is In Fact a Road to Hell Amil Imani - 8/8/2007 Islam is a religion of peace and the great majority of Muslims are not party to any plans and actions of the radicals’- so claim academic pundits, leftist journalists, and hired Islamic apologists. The incantation of these “authorities” is the lullaby that puts the people into a sleep of complacency. Complacency and appeasement on the part of the free world and those well-meaning, non-practicing Muslims, can only serve Islam. There is no chance for co-existence with Islam. All one needs to know is to...

The lone Senate Republican who voted for the long-delayed, $145 billion state budget is one of the few GOP moderates left in an increasingly fractured Legislature. Sen. Abel Maldonado, a farmer from Santa Maria, was the only one of 15 Senate Republicans to vote for the spending plan Wednesday night, leaving it one vote short of the two-thirds majority needed to send it to the governor's desk. "I look at myself as an independent," Maldonado said in an interview Thursday. "I've always been independent. I vote my district. If it's good for my district, I'm going to vote aye. If...

THE WASHINGTON TIMES - The Republican Party must temper its emphasis on moral issues like abortion and same-sex "marriage" if the party is to regain seats lost during the 2006 congressional elections, a new poll says. Fifty-three percent of Republicans say the party "has spent too much time focusing on moral issues such as abortion and gay marriage and should instead be spending time focusing on economic issues such as taxes and government spending." "The results of this poll confirm what we have long believed — that what holds the GOP together is a belief in core economic principles," said...

As the Democratic presidential candidates gather in Washington to make their pitch to party activists this week, "liberal" is suddenly no longer a dirty word. In recent months, virtually the entire Democratic field has tacked left -- not just on the Iraq War, but on health care, taxes, energy issues and gay rights. In each of those areas, much of the field is standing to the left of where Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., stood in 2004, when President Bush lampooned Kerry as a "Massachusetts liberal." "They're responding to the reality of the primaries, where the center of gravity is far...

McCain and Giuliani are sticking to positions that aren't in line with their base. The politics of conviction. John McCain likes being on the wrong side of his party, almost too much. At a town-hall meeting last week in New Hampshire—the state where he emerged as an unvarnished truth-teller in 2000—the Arizona senator went bare-knuckled with voters on an issue that threatens to cripple his campaign: immigration reform. McCain is proud to be a chief cosponsor of a reform bill, now stalled, that includes a path to citizenship for the nation's estimated 12 million illegal immigrants. But most of the...

A group of Republican lawmakers warned President George W. Bush this week at a private White House meeting that conditions in Iraq must improve quickly or he will lose more support from his own party, The New York Times reported on Wednesday. Eleven moderate House Republicans were unusually candid with Bush in a meeting that lasted more than an hour, telling him public support for the war was crumbling in their swing districts, the Times said, sighting participants in the Tuesday session. NBC Nightly News quoted an unnamed participant in the meeting as saying that they had an "unvarnished conversation"...

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), who last week gave a high-stakes speech reaffirming his support for President Bush’s surge policy in Iraq, will begin to take steps this week to court independent and moderate voters who were a crucial part of his 2000 coalition but who have been turned off by his steadfastness on the war. McCain is reaching beyond the traditional pool of Republican primary voters with a pair of speeches – including one in Memphis Monday - that include plans to help displaced workers find new jobs and an outline of proposals on energy security that mirror the free-enterprise...

These should be heady days for liberal Democrats, with their party controlling Congress, a Progressive Caucus boasting six dozen members and one of their own, Nancy Pelosi, serving as speaker of the House. Instead, some liberal lawmakers say they have begun to feel marginalized by Pelosi and other House leaders, who have so far played down some of the liberal concerns and charted a course toward the political middle. They have begun to complain that Pelosi has overplayed her campaign promise to "govern from the center," taking special pains to appease moderates while neglecting some long-standing bullet points on the...

There is an argument floating around Republican circles that to win again, the GOP has to reconnect with the truths of its Goldwater-Reagan glory days. It has to once again be the minimal-government party, the maximal-freedom party, the party of rugged individualism and states’ rights. This is folly. It’s the wrong diagnosis of current realities and, so, the wrong prescription for the future. Back in the 1970s, when Reaganism became popular, top tax rates were in the 70s, growth was stagnant and inflation was high. Federal regulation stifled competition. Government welfare policies enabled a culture of dependency. In short, in...

Lawyers and a Muslim group say they will defend at no cost airline passengers caught up in a lawsuit between a group of imams and U.S. Airways if the passengers are named as "John Does" and sued for reporting suspicious behavior that got the Muslim clerics booted from a November flight. The six imams are suing the airline, Minneapolis-St. Paul Metropolitan Airports Commission, and the unnamed "John Does" to be named later, for discrimination, saying they were removed from the flight for praying in the airport. Dr. M. Zuhdi Jasser, a Phoenix-area physician and director of American Islamic Forum for...

If a country like Sweden, infamous for its PC socialist policies can embrace a person like (rather) newly elected (in Sept 2006) PM Mr Reinfeldt, PC Socialism might actually someday come to an end. Even in Europe. It is intrinsic human nature to desire liberty and freedom. The article: "Reinfeldt crushes Sahlin in popularity stakes Published: 17th March 2007 10:53 CET Online: http://www.thelocal.se/6718/ Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt has higher approval ratings than the Social Democrats' new leader, Mona Sahlin, who is due to be confirmed to the post on Saturday. In a poll by the Skop Institute, voters were asked...

The Myth of Moderate Mullahs It's still Khomeini's Iran http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/013/401lsgzo.asp If the Reagan administration had learned in 1987 that the clerical regime in Tehran was doing what it is doing today, would Washington have approved of preventive strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities? If Reagan and company had seen Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini rapidly constructing uranium-enrichment centrifuges in underground facilities, pushing doggedly ahead on heavy-water research and a plutonium-making nuclear reactor, and spending profusely on the development of long-range intercontinental ballistic missiles that are effective weapons only if topped with WMD warheads, would more of the U.S. foreign-policy establishment have urged our...

Republican Rep. Jim Walsh of New York, who holds a ranking appropriations post, has sided with Democrats on 14 of the 16 biggest votes this year. Remarkably, GOP leaders don't seem to care. In one of the most significant strategic and tactical shifts of the new Congress, moderate Republicans such as Walsh are getting little pushback from their conservative leaders for voting with Democrats on major bills. In fact, 39 House Republicans have been with Democrats on 60 percent or more of major votes, according to a voting analysis by The Politico. Welcome to life in the minority for the...

Is Islam the problem, or can it be part of the solution? Can Islam be reformed from within, or is Muslim violence and hatred due entirely to the teachings and history of the Qur'an? These were some of the major issues raised at the Secular Islam Summit in St Petersburg, Florida, this week. A landmark event, the summit brought together such brave and eloquent defenders of freedom and conscience as the scholar Ibn Warraq (his nom de guerre); Iranian exile and activist Banafasheh Zand-Bonazzi; Austin Dacy of the Center for Inquiry; as well as many other Muslim and ex-Muslim dissidents....