Tag: Romney

Governor Chris Christie Wildly Popular…in New Jersey

On By kingsjesterIn Politics5 Comments

chris christieNew Jersey’s larger-than-life Governor has a larger-than-life popularity rating in the Garden State.

It’s the highest job approval Governor Chris Christie has ever had. At 74 percent, it’s the highest of any New Jersey Governor in the 17 years that Quinnipiac has been polling the state, and the highest of any Governor in the seven states that Quinnipiac polls now.

Seventy-one percent say Governor Christie deserves re-election.

“Barbara Buono, the State Senator who is the probable Democratic opponent for him [in the 2014 gubernatorial race] — he beats her 62 percent to 25 percent,” says Maurice Carroll, director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute.

Christie also performs strongly among those surveyed in a hypothetical matchup for the White House in 2016.

“If the Democrat was Andrew Cuomo or Hillary Clinton, Clinton beats him 49 percent to 45 percent — within the margin of error — and Cuomo trails him 54 percent to 36 percent in New Jersey,” Carroll explains.

Carroll says Christie’s response to Hurricane Sandy helped to boost his popularity.

Perhaps in “Joisey”, Mr. Carroll, but Governor Zeppelin’s (as New Jersey Conservatives have named him) “bromance” with President Barack Hussein Obama did absolutely nothing to endear himself to Conservatives in the rest of the country.

On November 19, 2012, the New York Times reported on Americans’ Post-Romney-loss reaction to Christie’s “bromance”:

A few days after Hurricane Sandy shattered the shores of New Jersey, Gov. Chris Christie picked up the phone to take on a different kind of recovery work: taming the Republican Party fury over his effusive embrace of President Obama.

On Nov. 3, Mr. Christie called Rupert Murdoch, the influential News Corporation chief and would-be kingmaker, who had warned in a biting post on Twitter that the governor might be responsible for Mr. Obama’s re-election.

Mr. Christie told Mr. Murdoch that amid the devastation, New Jersey needed friends, no matter their political party, according to people briefed on the discussion. But Mr. Murdoch was blunt: Mr. Christie risked looking like a spoiler unless he publicly affirmed his support for Mitt Romney, something the governor did the next day.

Mr. Christie has been explaining himself to Republicans ever since. His lavish praise for Mr. Obama’s response to the storm, delivered in the last days of the presidential race, represented the most dramatic development in the campaign’s final stretch. Right or wrong, conventional wisdom in the party holds that it influenced the outcome.

But behind the scenes, the intensity of the reaction from those in Mr. Christie’s party caught him by surprise, interviews show, requiring a rising Republican star to try to contain a tempest that left him feeling deeply misunderstood and wounded.

The governor, who had spent days delivering bear hugs and words of sympathy to shellshocked residents, resented the pressure to choose between the state he loves with fervent, Springsteen-fueled ferocity and his future as a leader in the Republican Party.

In New Jersey, Mr. Christie’s politics-be-damned approach to the storm seemed to represent a moment of high-minded crisis management for a governor frequently defined by his public diatribes and tantrums. Mr. Christie locked arms with Mr. Obama, flew with him on Marine One, talked with him daily and went out of his way to praise him publicly as “outstanding,” “incredibly supportive” and worthy of “great credit.”

But in the days after the storm, Mr. Christie and his advisers were startled to hear from out-of-state donors to Mr. Romney, who had little interest in the hurricane and viewed him solely as a campaign surrogate, demanding to know why he had stood so close to the president on a tarmac. One of them questioned why he had boarded Mr. Obama’s helicopter, according to people briefed on the conversations.

It did not help that Mr. Romney had not called Mr. Christie during those first few days, people close to the governor say.

The tensions followed Mr. Christie to the annual meeting of the Republican Governors Association in Las Vegas last week. At a gathering where he had expected to be celebrated, Mr. Christie was repeatedly reminded of how deeply he had offended fellow Republicans.

“I will not apologize for doing my job,” he emphatically told one of them in a hotel hallway at the ornate Wynn Resort.

His willingness to work closely with the president has cast a shadow over Mr. Christie’s prospects as a national candidate, prompting a number of Republicans to wonder aloud whether he is a reliable party leader.

“It hurt him a lot,” said Douglas E. Gross, a longtime Republican operative in Iowa who has overseen several presidential campaigns in the state. “The presumption is that Republicans can’t count on him.”

Republican voters in Iowa, the first state to select presidential candidates, “don’t forget things like this,” Mr. Gross said.

With Mr. Romney’s loss still an open sore, Mr. Christie’s conduct remains a topic of widespread discussion in the party.

And, it remains a topic of discussion to this day.

Gov. Zeppelin, in his own way, has become a loathsome symbol of the Vichy Republican Establishment, who have sold all their Conservative Principles and any integrity that they may have once had, in an ill-fated attempt to appeal to the squishy middle of the American voting public, while ignoring the date who brought them to the dance, the Conservative Base.

Unfortunately for the Grand Old Geniuses, their fictional “Moderate Base” exists predominately up in the Northeast.

Average Americans living in the Heartland are still Conservative by nature, with actual morals and ethics, which aren’t situational.

You’ve heard the old saying,

If you don’t stand for something, you’ll fall for anything?

Well, evidently Gov. Christie and the rest of the Republican Moderate Elite never have.

Until He Comes,

KJ

The Epic Failure of the Republican “Establishment”

On By kingsjesterIn Politics4 Comments

Boehner2Last week, in a post titled,”The Failed GOP Strategy of Passive Resistance”, I observed,

Out here in the Heartland of America, I have heard from Conservatives who are bumfuzzled by the actions (specifically, the lack thereof) of the Republicans in the House of Representatives and the Senate, in regards to the full throttle offensive battle being waged against America by its own president, Barack Hussein Obama.

I believe that the GOP Establishment have ordered the rank and file to shuddup and practice “Passive Resistance” in an effort to show the party as being “bi-partisan” and able to “reach across the aisle”.

The reason for their inaction has to do with the fact that the Republican Establishment are all Moderates. And, as the great Margaret Thatcher once said,

Standing in the middle of the road is very dangerous; you get knocked down by the traffic from both sides.

And, evidently the Northeast Republicans’ Club, soooper geniuses that they are, love the abuse.

On Novmber 8, 2012, Jeffrey Lord wrote the following in an article for The American Spectator:

And so, another moderate fails.

Governor Romney is a good person, a great business leader.

But, alas, he is also a moderate Republican.

As were Herbert Hoover, Alf Landon, Wendell Willkie, Thomas E. Dewey, Gerald R. Ford, George H.W. Bush, Bob Dole and John McCain. Making Mitt Romney a historical asterisk as the tenth moderate GOP nominee (Dewey was nominated twice) to lose the White House.

The exceptions to the rule are Dwight Eisenhower, who won not because he was a moderate but because he was the general-hero of World War II. Richard Nixon campaigned as the moderate he was in 1960 and lost. By 1968 he had won the nomination of a party that had shifted back to its conservative roots and he campaigned accordingly — as he did in 1972. He won narrowly the second time, by a landslide the third. George H.W. Bush ran as the heir to Reagan in 1988 and won. Governing as a moderate he lost — and lost badly in his 1992 re-election effort. George W. Bush ran as a “compassionate conservative” — which is to say a moderate — in 2000 and 2004 and squeaked by the first time thanks to the Supreme Court, winning the second time by a bare 100,000 votes in Ohio.

On Tuesday night, it comes clear, as this is written using the latest Fox News figures, Mitt Romney lost to President Obama by 2,819,339 votes.

And the news ekes out that Moderate Nominee Number 10 Romney received some 3 million Republican votes less than Moderate Nominee Number 9 — John McCain in 2008.

Which is to say, 3 million base GOP voters simply refused to vote for Romney. Doing the available math, that means had those 3 million Republicans voted for Romney he would have, as this is written, a margin of victory in the national popular vote of 180,661. Depending on the state spread, potentially an Electoral College victory as well.

Does the message get through here?

Well, for some in the GOP — no.

The usual call will now go up — just as it did in 1950 from two-time loser Dewey — that to nominate a conservative is to lose. Somehow heedless that it wasn’t Ronald Reagan and his conservatism that lost or almost lost the White House, it was this seemingly endless stream of very nice moderate Republicans.

Reasonable people can be expected to raise the point of just when that old joke attributed to Einstein will come clear. You know the one. That the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. For Republicans, this translates as yet again nominating a moderate who is said to “move to the center,” “can attract women,” “get the youth vote” and “get the minority vote.”

The strategy has failed repeatedly for some 80 years. Say again… 80 years!!!!! And yet there are still those out there who insist on doing the same thing  over — and over and over and over — again.

As we head into the Lightbringer’s second term, it appears that the Republican Establishment would rather find a scapegoat for their collective misery, that learn anything in their defeat.

On his radio program on January 13th, Rush Limbaugh said:

I think the Republican establishment is of the same frame of mind as Obama is, that the opposition is conservatives. The opposition is conservatism. And that’s why we’ve had some people ask me, “What was Colin Powell doing?” Colin Powell was on Meet the Press yesterday doing what Scarborough did on MSNBC this morning, which is what a lot of Republicans are doing, and that is criticizing conservatives. Every problem we’ve got, from the gridlock to intransigence to spending, it’s all the fault of conservatives.

Mark Levin nailed the problem with the GOP last Monday on Sean Hannity’s radio program, as therightscoop.com reported:

The Republican establishment is destroying the Republican Party. The only reason they’re in the majority in the House is because of conservatives, conservatives across the country, the grassroots.

They lost the Senate. They like to point to 2 races, one in Missouri and one in Indiana. I can point to 10 races where there were liberal to moderate Republicans who lost and of course they never mention that.

The fact of the matter is that in my opinion…until the Republican leadership that has brought us McCain and Romney, that has a feckless RNC, a preposterously incompetent get-out-the-vote operation, is removed and replaced with fresh, smart, confident, knowledgeable people, until some of our backbenchers move to the front, some of the young, tea party conservative candidates who can articulate our vision and our principles, this is going to continue.

Obama may want to destroy the Republican Party, but the Republican Party is imploding. And you know what? It needs to be cleansed, it needs to be cleaned out – not for purity reasons, not for absolutism, but because it needs to be a party that stands for something.

I agree with “The Great One”. Until the good ol’ boys, or the Northeast Republicans’ Club, as I like to call them, realize that the majority of Americans out here in the Heartland are still Conservative “bitter clingers” who love God and country, they will be victims of their own hubris, and continue to lose elections.

And, it will be nobody’s fault but their own.

Until He Comes,

KJ

Romney: A Failure to Communicate

On By kingsjesterIn Politics2 Comments

romney4Conservatives, such as myself, were presented a raw deal by the GOP in the past election. Their chosen one, Willard Mitt Romney, was no Conservative. He was a Moderate, who, regarding many Social Issues in his past history, took stances to the Left of the Political Spectrum. On top of that, “Romneycare” in Massachusetts, was the Godfather of the State-run Healthcare Monster known as Obamacare.

That was an awful lot of baggage for a Republican candidate to be carrying.

When the Conservative Base raised questions about the GOP Elites’ predetermined candidate, were their concerns met with empathy?

Hardly.

Shut up!

the GOP Establishment and New England Moderate wing explained.

So, dutifully, out of love for our country, Reagan Conservatives held our noses and voted for Mitt Romney…because anyone would be better than the present occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, DC.

…And…he lost.

Why? How could he? Obama was, and is,  an anti-American, Muslim-sympathizing, political-pandering, class warfare-preaching, tax-the-rich, spread-the-wealth, card-carrying Communist.

Michael Barone, writing for the Washington Examiner, presents the following theory:

In both elections [2004, 2012], each candidate concentrated on a more or less fixed list of target states, and in both elections the challenger depended heavily on outside groups’ spending that failed to achieve optimal results.

The popular vote margins were similar — 51 to 48 percent for George W. Bush in 2004, 51 to 47 percent for Barack Obama in 2012.

The one enormous difference was turnout. Turnout between the 2000 and 2004 elections rose from 105 million to 122 million, plus 16 percent. Turnout between the 2008 and 2012 elections fell from 131 million to 128 million, minus 2 percent.

Turnout is a measure of organization but also of spontaneous enthusiasm.

In 2004 John Kerry got 16 percent more popular votes than Al Gore had four years before. But he lost because George W. Bush got 23 percent more popular votes than he had four years before.

Kerry voters were motivated more by negative feelings for Bush than by positive feelings for their candidate. They disagreed with Bush’s major policies and disliked him personally. The Texas twang, the swagger, the garbled sentence structure — it was like hearing someone scratch his fingers on a blackboard.

Bush voters were more positively motivated. Political reporters had a hard time picking this up. His job rating was weak, but Bush voters tended to have a lot of warmth for him.

He had carried us through 9/11, he had confronted our enemies directly, he had pushed through with bipartisan support popular domestic measures like his education bill and the Medicare prescription drug benefit.

His criticism of his opponents was measured and never personal, and he blamed none of his difficulties on his predecessor (who had blamed none of his on his).

This affection evaporated pretty quickly, in the summer of 2005, with scenes of disorder in the streets of Baghdad and New Orleans. But it was there in 2004 and you can see it in that 23 percent turnout increase.

The 2012 election was different. Barack Obama got 6 percent fewer popular votes than he had gotten in 2008. And Mitt Romney got only 1 percent more popular votes than John McCain had four years before.

In retrospect, it looks like both campaigns fell short of their turnout goals. Yes, examination of election returns and exit polls indicates that the Obama campaign turned out voters where it really needed them.

That enabled him to carry Florida by 1 percent, Ohio by 3 percent, Virginia by 4 percent, and Colorado and Pennsylvania by 5 percent. Without those states he would have gotten only 243 electoral votes and would now be planning his presidential library.

But the conservative bloggers who argued that the Obama campaign’s early voting numbers were below target may have been right. If Mitt Romney had gotten 16 percent more popular votes than his predecessor, as John Kerry did, he would have led Obama by 4 million votes and won the popular vote 51 to 48 percent.

Romney, like Kerry, depended on voters’ distaste for the incumbent; he could not hope to inspire the devotion Bush enjoyed in 2004 and that Obama had from a diminished number in 2008.

But, to continue this counterfactual scenario, if Obama had won 23 percent more popular votes this year than in 2008, he would have beaten Romney by 85 million to 69 million votes and by 54 to 44 percent.

Unfortunately, if “ifs” and “buts” were candy and nuts, we all would have had a Merry Christmas!

The reality is, Mitt Romney lost. And, now, his son, Tagg Romney, tells us, his Dad never really wanted to be president, in the first place.

Okay, kid. Thanks for telling us…after the election is long over.

I have a couple of questions, then.

1. If he did not want to be president, why did he run?

2. If he did not want to be president, why did he attack the other primary candidates, especially the Conservative Republicans, with a fury reminiscent of Johnny Weissmuller as Tarzan, rolling around in an African river, as he killed a humongous crocodile with his knife?

Was he put up to this by the GOP Elite, so desperate for an easily-manipulated Washington Insider, that they overlooked Romney’s failures as a candidate in previous elections?

If you will notice, immediately after the man-made disaster, known on November 6th, 2012, the GOP Elite were calling for the direction of the Party to move even farther Left, in order to “be more competitive”.

Sorry, boys. All that backroom cigar smoke has rotted your brains.

The majority of Americans, except for those little blue dots in the urban areas, denoting Democrat voters, on the map showing the election results, remain Conservative.

If you would have presented a Conservative candidate, who could articulate Conservatism and the Party Platform, and thereby, connect with us average Americans, living here in the Heartland, then that Republican would have beaten the Manchurian Candidate, Barack Hussein Obama (mm mmm mmmm).

Instead, what we had heah, was, failure to communicate.

#Evolve? Into what? A Democrat?

On By kingsjesterIn Christianity, Politics7 Comments

As I got ready to attend church this morning, I was mulling over this historical week in American Politics and, also, considering the aftermath.

After Republican Moderate Mitt Romney lost, the cries came up from anonymous sources on the internet and television and radio pundits as well, that the reason Obama won, is the narrow-mindedness, and old-fashioned core values of the Republican Party.

These geniuses want the party to be in favor of no-strings-attached amnesty for  illegal aliens, to embrace gay marriage, and to sublimate, if not totally eliminate, any influence Christians have on the Republican Party Platform.

In other words, these geniuses wish to turn the GOP into a doppelganger of the Democratic Party.

And, if that happens, our two party political system is finished.

Here’s one of those MENSA members I am speaking of:

An outspoken Republican moderate, Meghan McCain took to Twitter to express frustration with her party following a less-than-stellar night for the GOP.

“I don’t need to do any soul searching about what the GOP is doing wrong, I knew what was wrong four years ago when my father lost. #evolve,” she wrote on Twitter Wednesday morning after Republican nominee Mitt Romney was projected to lose the election to President Barack Obama Tuesday night and Congress would remain with Republicans controlling the House and Democrats the Senate.

McCain, a writer and daughter to former presidential candidate Sen. John McCain tweeted again, “Keep calling people like me RINO’s and see how many elections we keep winning.”

A “RINO” or “Republican in name only” is a term used within the political sphere to describe a self-identifying member of the Republican Party who does not conform to a certain mold of a conservative Republican.

McCain pushed back on the apparent name-calling Wednesday morning suggesting the Republican Party needs to, as she tweeted, “evolve” on a number of issues to keep up with an increasingly diverse American electorate where Democrats appear to have an advantage.

McCain’s reaction on Twitter is part of a growing narrative woven from the Republicans losses in Tuesday’s election and joins a chorus of Republican voices calling for change within the party.

But, win or lose, McCain got a little back-up from her mother on the social media site.

“Good job Meghan!!! RT @McCainBlogette: Keep calling people like me RINO’s and see how many elections we keep winning,” tweeted Cindy McCain, wife to Sen. McCain and Meghan’s mother.

#Evolve…into what? A Democrat?

I would rather set my hair on fire and put it out with a hammer.

The day after the election, Rush Limbaugh said:

All of these things that define the traditional institutions that made this country great, that’s what the Romney campaign was about. It was rejected. That way, or that route to prosperity was sneered at. That route to prosperity was rejected. The people who voted for Obama don’t believe in it. They don’t think it’s possible. They think the game’s rigged. They think the deck is stacked against them.

They think that the only way they’re gonna have a chance for anything is if somebody comes along and takes from somebody else and gives it to them. Santa Claus! And it’s hard to beat Santa Claus. Especially it’s hard to beat Santa Claus when the alternative is, “You be your own Santa Claus.” “Oh, no! I’m not doing that. What do you mean, I have to be my own Santa Claus? No, no. No, no, no. I want to get up every day and go to the tree. You’re the elves,” meaning us.

You throw Hurricane Sandy in here. I must admit, I am genuinely puzzled that Hurricane Sandy and the aftermath helped Obama and hurt Romney. But it did. According to the exit polls. I mean, what they say is what they say. The polls were right on the money, as it turned out. But until people understand why and how big government reduces prosperity for all, they’re gonna continue to be fooled by little things.

By marketing, by smooth talkers, by faux compassion. So we’ll see what happens with the economy as we go forward. Some people think, “Hey, Rush, the economy is resilient in this country, and it’s gonna naturally rebound. No matter what.” There are people today scared the economy is going to rebound despite what’s happening in the stock market today and Obama’s policies are gonna get credit for it.

A bunch of libs are salivating over that. They think the economy is gonna come back no matter what, and that Obama’s big government is going to end up being the explanation for the rest of our lives as to how that happened. Just like in Japan, just like in Greece. But look, you bring up Greece and you bring up Europe, and they’re where we’re headed. Their problems are acute.

The difference is that none of those European countries are anywhere near the leading economy of the world like we are. The world depends on what happens here. The world does not depend on what happens in Spain or Greece or Italy. Not to put them down. But regardless, wherever you go… Look at Greece. Whenever necessary austerity measures are proposed, what happens?

“No, you don’t! You’re not taking it away from me!” There is no rising to responsibility. There is no accepting responsibility. There’s just a demand that the gravy train continue, and we have an administration that’s promising an endless gravy train. All you have to do to stay on that gravy train is vote. But it doesn’t matter.

The thing that’s mind-boggling is that there is no new prosperity in America. There is no improved standard of living. It’s all going down. “But Obama cares. He really cares! He cares much more than Romney. He really, really cares. In fact, he cares so much, we’re gonna give him a do-over. We’re gonna give him a second term to do what we know he wanted to do in the first term but wasn’t able to for whatever reason.”

In fact, Obama cares so much about us, that, while hundreds of thousands are still without power, and desperately trying to pick themselves up after Hurricane Sandy, he went golfing yesterday.

And, this schmuck is an example of the behavior that these Vichy Republican geniuses think our party should be modeling itself after, in order to win back the American public’s vote?

Then…they are just as void of any core values as the Manchurian President himself, is.

For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?

Mark 8:36

As for me, I will remain a Christian American Conservative.

Until He comes,

KJ

Vote Like Your Freedom Depends On It

On By kingsjesterIn Politics4 Comments

Well, here we are:  Election Day 2012. Four years in the making: President Barack Hussein Obama vs. Mitt Romney. At stake: this Sacred  Land, the Shining City on a Hill,  Land Where Our Fathers Died, Land of the Pilgrims’ Pride, the United States of America.

Yes, once again, as Ronald Wilson Reagan said in 1964, it is A Time For Choosing:

The Founding Fathers knew a government can’t control the economy without controlling people. And they knew when a government sets out to do that, it must use force and coercion to achieve its purpose. So we have come to a time for choosing.

Public servants say, always with the best of intentions, “What greater service we could render if only we had a little more money and a little more power.” But the truth is that outside of its legitimate function, government does nothing as well or as economically as the private sector.

Yet any time you and I question the schemes of the do-gooders, we’re denounced as being opposed to their humanitarian goals. It seems impossible to legitimately debate their solutions with the assumption that all of us share the desire to help the less fortunate. They tell us we’re always “against,” never “for” anything.

We are for a provision that destitution should not follow unemployment by reason of old age, and to that end we have accepted Social Security as a step toward meeting the problem. However, we are against those entrusted with this program when they practice deception regarding its fiscal shortcomings, when they charge that any criticism of the program means that we want to end payments….

We are for aiding our allies by sharing our material blessings with nations which share our fundamental beliefs, but we are against doling out money government to government, creating bureaucracy, if not socialism, all over the world.

We need true tax reform that will at least make a start toward I restoring for our children the American Dream that wealth is denied to no one, that each individual has the right to fly as high as his strength and ability will take him…. But we can not have such reform while our tax policy is engineered by people who view the tax as a means of achieving changes in our social structure….

Have we the courage and the will to face up to the immorality and discrimination of the progressive tax, and demand a return to traditional proportionate taxation? . . . Today in our country the tax collector’s share is 37 cents of -very dollar earned. Freedom has never been so fragile, so close to slipping from our grasp.

Are you willing to spend time studying the issues, making yourself aware, and then conveying that information to family and friends? Will you resist the temptation to get a government handout for your community? Realize that the doctor’s fight against socialized medicine is your fight. We can’t socialize the doctors without socializing the patients. Recognize that government invasion of public power is eventually an assault upon your own business. If some among you fear taking a stand because you are afraid of reprisals from customers, clients, or even government, recognize that you are just feeding the crocodile hoping he’ll eat you last.

If all of this seems like a great deal of trouble, think what’s at stake. We are faced with the most evil enemy mankind has known in his long climb from the swamp to the stars. There can be no security anywhere in the free world if there is no fiscal and economic stability within the United States. Those who ask us to trade our freedom for the soup kitchen of the welfare state are architects of a policy of accommodation.

They say the world has become too complex for simple answers. They are wrong. There are no easy answers, but there are simple answers. We must have the courage to do what we know is morally right. Winston Churchill said that “the destiny of man is not measured by material computation. When great forces are on the move in the world, we learn we are spirits-not animals.” And he said, “There is something going on in time and space, and beyond time and space, which, whether we like it or not, spells duty.”

You and I have a rendezvous with destiny. We will preserve for our children this, the last best hope of man on earth, or we will sentence them to take the first step into a thousand years of darkness. If we fail, at least let our children and our children’s children say of us we justified our brief moment here. We did all that could be done.

President Ronald Reagan also said:

If we ever forget that we are One Nation Under God, then we will be a nation gone under.

President Barack Hussein Obama once said, on 6/28/2006:

Which passages of scripture should guide our public policy? Should we go with Leviticus which suggests slavery is okay? Or we can go with Or we could go with Deuteronomy, which suggests stoning your child if he strays from the faith? Or should we just stick to the Sermon on the Mount? A passage that is so radical that it’s doubtful that our Defense Department would survive its application. Folks haven’t been reading the bible.

In April of 2008, Obama said at a fundraiser:

You go into these small towns in Pennsylvania and, like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing’s replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton Administration, and the Bush Administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. And it’s not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.

President Barack Hussein Obama recently said in front of the UN, while lying about the cause of the attack and murder of four Americans on 9/11/12, at the Consulate in Benghazi, Libya:

The future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam.

Is this what you want for our country’s future? Your Freedom of Speech, your Freedom of Religion, regulated by the State, as it is in Canada, where Christian Pastors are arrested for speaking their minds from the pulpit? Do you want the Greatest Country on God’s Green Earth reduced to the status of another Greece, with rioting in the streets? Or, another Venezuela, where a dictator gets re-elected by “98 per cent”? Do you want a country where “Honor Killings” of teenage girls are covered under Sharia Law?

I don’t. I stand with America’s Pastor, Rev. Billy Graham, who recently wrote:

The legacy we leave behind for our children, grandchildren and this great nation is crucial. As I approach my 94th birthday, I realize this election could be my last. I believe it is vitally important that we cast our ballots for candidates who base their decisions on biblical principles and support the nation of Israel. I urge you to vote for those who protect the sanctity of life and support the biblical definition of marriage between a man and a woman. Vote for biblical values this November 6, and pray with me that America will remain one nation under God.

Amen, Reverend, Amen.

“Love of Country” Trumps “Revenge”…Every Time

On By kingsjesterIn Politics4 Comments

Soon-to-be Former President Barack Hussein Obama went off of the teleprompter again Friday night…and, really put his foot it.

The Daily Mail has the story:

Aides to Barack Obama are defending his remark that ‘voting is the best revenge’ by saying it was made in the context of Mitt Romney’s ads about Jeep jobs – even though the transcript shows the president had not mentioned the ads.

Speaking at Springfield High School in Ohio on Friday, Obama hailed former President Bill Clinton, saying that ‘his economic plan asked the wealthiest Americans to pay a little bit more so we could continue to invest in our people, continue to invest in ideas and innovation, invest in our infrastructure’.

When he added: ‘And at the time the Republican Congress and a Senate candidate by the name of Mitt Romney’ the audience of some 2,800 began to boo.

Obama responded with the standard ad lib he uses when crowds boo Romney on Republicans: ‘No, no, no. Don’t boo – vote. Vote!’ Then he added: ‘Voting is the best revenge.’

In just five words, Obama handed Romney a potentially significant opportunity in the waning days of the campaign.

The utterance has underlined why every Obama campaign speech is tightly scripted and delivered using a teleprompter.

The ‘voting is the best revenge’ slip was virtually the only time during the speech that Obama ventured away from the script he saw before him on the teleprompter.

Put on the spot about the remark, which has been seized on by Romney and turned into an attack ad by his campaign, Jen Psaki, Obama’s travelling campaign spokeswoman, said – according to a White House pool report – that Obama had been speaking in the context of Romney’s ‘scare tactics’ in Ohio.

The Republican nominee was ‘frightening workers in Ohio into thinking, falsely, that they’re not going to have a job’, she said.

‘And the message he [Obama] was sending is if you don’t like the policies, if you don’t like the plan that Gov. Romney is putting forward, if you think that’s a bad deal for the middle class, then you can go to the voting booth and cast your ballot. It’s nothing more complicated than that.’

But a transcript posted on the White House shows that Obama was not speaking in the context of Romney’s controversial ads about Chrysler, bailed out by the U.S. government, adding production of Jeeps in China.

Obama has not mentioned the Jeep issue when he talked about ‘revenge’. Rather, he had spoken about Hurricane Sandy, the U.S. economy, national security and Clinton’s record.

Revenge for what, Scooter? For Americans finally figuring out who and what you are?

What did the Republican Challenger, Mitt Romney, say about that?

Something presidential.

Did you see what President Obama said today?” Mitt Romney asked the crowd of 30,000 at his evening rally. “He asked his supporters to vote ‘for revenge’–‘for revenge.’ Instead, I ask the American people to vote for love of country.

Love of country…what a novel idea.

President John F. Kennedy understood this:

In the long history of the world, only a few generations have been granted the role of defending freedom in its hour of maximum danger. I do not shank from this responsibility – I welcome it. I do not believe that any of us would exchange places with any other people or any other generation. The energy, the faith, the devotion which we bring to this endeavour will light our country and all who serve it — and the glow from that fire can truly light the world.

And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you – ask what you can do for your country.

My fellow citizens of the world: ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man.

Finally, whether you are citizens of America or citizens of the world, ask of us the same high standards of strength and sacrifice which we ask of you. With a good conscience our only sure reward, with history the final judge of our deeds, let us go forth to lead the land we love, asking His blessing and His help, but knowing that here on earth God’s work must truly be our own.

Kathie Lee Bates understood “ove of country”, also, when she penned “American the Beautiful” and wrote this verse:

O beautiful for heroes proved

In liberating strife,

Who more than self their country loved,

And mercy more than life!

America! America! May God thy gold refine

Till all success be nobleness,

And ev’ry gain divine!

On May 15, 1800, Pastor Joseph McKeen spoke the following words as part of a speech given before a joint session of Congress:

Good example acts with the greater effect, because it reproves without upbraiding, and teaches us to correct our faults without giving us the mortification of knowing that any but ourselves, have ever observed them. We feel the force of counsel or persuasion much more sensibly, when we see that one does what he advises or requires us to do. But the best counsel from one, who obeys not his own precepts, nor practices upon the principles of his own advice, will generally be little regarded. We do not believe a man to be in earnest, who advises one thing, and does the contrary.

To resist the progress of irreligion, injustice, luxury, selfishness, and an impatience of legal restraint, is a duty imposed by patriotism. And I hope my much respected hearers feel their obligation to recommend by their own example piety, justice, economy, public spirit, an attachment to our constitutions, and a cheerful submission to the laws, as essential to our political happiness.

I wonder what Pastor McKeen would think about the current occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue?

I know what America’s Pastor, Rev. Billy Graham, thinks about Tuesday’s Election:

On Nov. 6, the day before my 94th birthday, our nation will hold one of the most critical elections in my lifetime. We are at a crossroads and there are profound moral issues at stake. I strongly urge you to vote for candidates who support the biblical definition of marriage between a man and a woman, protect the sanctity of life and defend our religious freedoms. The Bible speaks clearly on these crucial issues. Please join me in praying for America, that we will turn our hearts back toward God.

Which candidate do you think best represents America’s Judeo-Christian values and tradition?

I know who I am voting for.

2 more days!

The Democrats: Using Hurricane Sandy as a Photo Op?

On By kingsjesterIn Politics3 Comments

Yesterday, as local authorities in the Northeast performed the arduous and perilous task of digging their constituents out, in the aftermath of Hurricane Sunday, the Democratic Party, their Presidential Candidate, Barack Hussein Obama, and their minion, Martin Bashir, at MSNBC, were busy trying to score political points.

Bashir had some guests on with him on his program on MSNBC, offering their analysis of Republican Presidential Candidate Mitt Romney’s charitable work with the American Red Cross, as part of the Hurricane Sandy Relief Effort.

Noel Sheppard describes the scene, in a post on newsbusters.org: 

…Imagine that. A presidential candidate who gives millions of dollars a year to charity does a storm relief event in Ohio, and an MSNBC anchor is disgusted by it because the Red Cross would prefer people donating cash.

Yet according to the Washington Post:

The stop was billed as a “storm relief” event, and attendees were asked to bring non-perishable foods and other items for those affected by the storm. Long white tables to one side of the cavernous James S. Trent Arena were piled high with flashlights, batteries, diapers, toothbrushes, mini-deodorants, fleece blankets, cereal, toilet paper and canned goods.

Two large TV screens at the front of the venue bore the logo of the American Red Cross and the message: “Sandy: Support the Relief Effort. Text ’REDCROSS’ to 90999 to make a $10 donation.”

So besides the food and supplies that Ohioans generously donated, two large television screens asked participants to send money to the Red Cross.

But this didn’t make Bashir happy. Ditto his Obama-supporting guests.

“I think that this is just another moment where you see the clear striking difference between a president who has a heart for the American people and someone who simply wants to be president of the United States,” said Mayor Reed.

“Indeed,” replied Bashir who then asked for Peterson’s input.

“I would agree,” echoed Peterson. “It’s compassion that shows through in times like these. It’s humanity that shows through in times like these, and it just seems clear that the President, in addition to stepping up and doing what he does as Commander-in-Chief, demonstrates compassion in these remarks and in his approach to this kind of serious disaster.”

“All we’ve seen from Romney and from his surrogates is all kinds of politicizing and misdirection,” Peterson continued, “and I think the American people in this sort of disastrous moment can really see in bold relief the differences between President Obama and former Governor Romney.”

So having a storm relief event with tables “piled high with flashlights, batteries, diapers, toothbrushes, mini-deodorants, fleece blankets, cereal, toilet paper and canned goods” along with two large television screens calling for donations to the Red Cross demonstrates a lack of compassion on MSNBC.

Yet the network didn’t end there.

About a half hour later, Bashir brought GQ’s Ana Marie Cox on to trash Romney’s event.

“I found that sort of fake, relief rally, whatever it is, to be pretty offensive, and also wrong-headed,” said Cox. She actually called Romney “craven” for doing it.

I’m not kidding.

This was followed by MSNBC contributor Karen Finney saying, “As a former governor, I would think that he would know that what the Red Cross needs in times like this is money and blood.”

Yes, that’s why there were two large television screens asking for people to donate to the Red Cross.

And, what was the Democratic Candidate doing yesterday? Well, according to the Washington Times:

President Obama may have suspended his campaign rallies due to Hurricane Sandy, but he managed to squeeze in his campaign slogan — intentionally or not — during a briefing Tuesday with federal emergency officials.

“The president made clear that he expects his team to remain focused as the immediate impacts of Hurricane Sandy continue and lean forward in their response,” the White House said in a statement about Mr. Obama’s video-teleconference that he conducted from the White House Situation Room. “Forward” is the slogan of his re-election campaign.

Mr. Obama canceled all campaign events on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday as the storm lashed the East Coast, causing billions of dollars worth of destruction, resulting in several deaths and interrupting power for millions of residents.

He was joined on the video conference by Vice President Joseph R. Biden, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, FEMA Administrator Craig Fugate, Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta and other federal officials.

The White House said Mr. Obama “expressed his concern for those impacted by the storm, as well as the heroic first responders who are selflessly putting themselves in harm’s way to protect members of their communities. He also noted his sadness over the loss of life associated with the storm so far.”

There’s more…from breitbart.com:

Today [Tuesday], during a non-campaign campaign stop at the Red Cross, President Obama told the nation something his administration obviously didn’t believe during the seven-hour attack on our consulate in Benghazi (and a nearby annex) on the night of September 11, 2012: That when an “American is in need… we leave nobody behind”:

This is a tough time for a lot of people; millions of folks all across the Eastern Seaboard, but America’s tougher. And we’re tougher because we pull together, we leave nobody behind, we make sure we respond as a nation and remind ourselves that whenever an American is in need, all of stand together to make sure we’re providing the help that’s necessary.

So, while Romney was pitching in and helping out with The Red Cross’s Relief Efforts, Obama was having a Photo Op.

Par for the course.

As I tweeted yesterday,

“We leave nobody behind.” – Obama 10/30/12 The 4 brave Americans murdered by Muslim Terrorists in Benghazi remain unavailable for comment.

Presidential Election 2012: Class Vs. Crass

On By kingsjesterIn Christianity, Politics11 Comments

As I publish this post, we are nine days from the most important Presidential Election in 32 years. As this historic campaign nears the finish line, the difference between the 2 candidates could not be more clear:

It’s class vs. crass.

CLASS

After [Mitt] Romney’s initial investment in five rental properties went south, he ended up holding on to them for more than a decade, often renting them at a loss. The Times notes it’s one of few miscues in Romney’s investment history. When he did offload the homes, the renters were given first dibs, but Timothy and Betty Stamps were unable to get a loan for the home because Timothy had recently lost his job.

…“Then I got this phone call, personally, from Mr. Romney, asking if we really wanted to buy the house,” Mr. Stamps, 63, said in an interview the other day at the barbershop he now runs. “I said, yes we did. And he said he would loan us the money. He really helped us when we needed it.”

…Mr. Stamps said that he and his wife had received calls in recent months from strangers who “seemed to be looking for negative stuff” about Mr. Romney, but that the couple had nothing to say to them. (The Stampses recently refinanced the original 30-year loan; the new mortgage, still with Mr. Romney, was dated June 12 but signed just two weeks ago. Details of the interest rate were not included in the public record.)

…Andrea Saul, a Romney campaign spokeswoman, declined to answer questions about the Texas investment.

…[Romney] demonstrated personal faith in the Stampses and it turned into a cool story in which one American could make allowances for another American’s circumstances and take a risk a bank wouldn’t. Liberals find this noble when Freddie and Fannie do it with your money.

Recently, Gov. Romney spoke to an overflow, enthusiastic crowd of over 10,000 at the legendary Red Rocks Theater in Colorado:

The governor returns backstage and he is smiling and shaking hands, taking congratulations from everybody around him. He’s saying how great it was. Somebody yells out he’s going to win Colorado and the governor laughs and says he thinks so too. And then something very interesting happens. He moves away from the group of people just a bit. Maybe ten or fifteen feet or so. Just enough to have a little space to himself. And enough people notice that the area gets a lot more quiet, and they are trying to watch the governor without looking like they are watching the governor. They can all kind of tell something is happening right then. It was described as something very peaceful and powerful that came over that backstage area for a moment. And the governor, he lowers his head and his eyes shut tight and you could see him take a slow deep breath and then he lets it out and says quietly, but just loud enough for some to hear, “Lord, if this is your will, please help to make me worthy. Please give me the strength Lord.” And then his eyes open up, and he’s back to smiling and laughing and shaking hands and being the candidate once again.

CRASS

As an interview team from Rolling Stone were leaving the Oval Office earlier this month, that magazine reveals, “executive editor Eric Bates told Obama that he had asked his six-year-old if there was anything she wanted him to say to the president … She said: ‘Tell him: You can do it.'” Obama replied: “You know, kids have good instincts. They look at the other guy and say, ‘Well, that’s a bullsh@#$er, I can tell’.” “Bullsh!@#er” may not be “motherf!@#$er” – but as an insult directed at one presidential candidate by another, it’s this campaign’s high, or low, point, which makes it, in the immortal words of Joe Biden, “a big f!@#in’ deal.” “The president is someone who says what he means and does what he says,” Obama’s spokesman Dan Pfeiffer tried to clarify, urging reporters not to get “distracted by the word”.

And then, this little gem of a campaign commercial came out, featuring some chick (notice I did not call her a young lady) named Lena Dunham, the 26-year-old creator of HBO’s raunchy series Girls (figures).

Your first time shouldn’t be with just anybody. You want to do it with a great guy. It should be with a guy with beautiful … somebody who really cares about and understands women.

A guy who cares about whether you get health insurance, and specifically whether you get birth control. The consequences are huge. You want to do it with a guy who brought the troops out of Iraq. You don’t want a guy who says, “Oh hey, I’m at the library studying,” when he’s really out not signing the Lilly Ledbetter Act.

Or who thinks that gay people should never have beautiful, complicated weddings of the kind we see on Bravo or TLC all the time. It’s a fun game to say, “Who are you voting for?” and they say “I don’t want to tell you,” and you say, “No, who are you voting for,” and they go, “Guess!”

Think about how you want to spend those four years. In college age time, that’s 150 years. Also, it’s super uncool to be out and about and someone says, “Did you vote,” and “No, I didn’t vote, I wasn’t ready.”

My first time voting was amazing. It was this line in the sand. Before I was a girl. Now I was a woman. I went to the polling station and pulled back the curtain. I voted for Barack Obama.

Now I realize that this is a comparison of the Presidential Candidates, but I just had to include this crass insensitive remark by Obama’s idiotic running mate, Vice-President Joe Biden.

Charles Woods, father of Tyrone Woods, called into “The Glenn Beck Program” on TheBlazeTV Thursday and recounted his interactions with the president, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Biden at the ceremony for the Libya victims at Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland. He told host Glenn Beck that what they told him, coupled with new reports that indicate the Obama administration knew very good and well, almost immediately, that a terrorist attack was occurring in Benghazi, make him certain that the American people are not getting the whole truth.

Vice President Biden, as he has become known to do, reportedly made a wildly inappropriate comment to the father who had just lost his hero son.

Woods said Biden came over to his family and asked in a “loud and boisterous” voice, “Did your son always have b@lls the size of cue balls?”

Un-buh-lievable.

Think about it: Obama and Biden have been representing America to the rest of the world for the last four years.

Don’t these clowns remind you of Eddie (Randy Quaid) in Chevy Chase’s National Lampoon Vacation movies?

On November 6th, 2012, it’s time to take the trash out from OUR house.

The 3rd Presidential Debate: The Petulant President Vs. the Grown-Up Contender

On By kingsjesterIn Politics2 Comments

Going into last night’s debate, all you heard from the MSM, and all the Obama sycophants (but, I repeat myself) was that Obama was just cotton-picking brilliant in the area of Foreign Policy

Of course, I’m sure that Ambassador Chris Stevens would have a different opinion.

Foxnews.com describes the opening of the debate:

Mitt Romney ripped President Obama’s foreign policy at the start of Monday night’s debate, claiming the president’s strategy has not quelled the Al Qaeda threat.

“It’s certainly not on the run. It’s certainly not in hiding,” Romney said. “This is a group that is now involved in 10 or 12 countries.”

Obama, though, countered that “Al Qaeda’s core leadership has been decimated.”

And he sought to portray Romney as someone who would be an unsteady leader on the world stage. He accused Romney of having a strategy that is “all over the map.”

Obama was tough on Romney from the outset, accusing him of having poor judgment and antiquated views on the world stage.

“I’m glad that you recognize that Al Qaeda is a threat, because a few months ago when you were asked what’s the biggest geopolitical threat facing America, you said Russia, not Al Qaeda,” Obama said. “The 1980s are now calling to ask for their foreign policy back.”

Obama went on to say that, on foreign policy, “every time you’ve offered an opinion, you’ve been wrong.”

Romney fired back, “attacking me is not an agenda.” He accused Obama of looking at countries like Russia through “rose-colored glasses.”

Per businessweek.com:

President Barack Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney accused each other of failing to have clear foreign policy visions as the two met for their third and final debate.

“I know you haven’t been in a position to actually execute foreign policy, but every time you’ve offered an opinion, you’ve been wrong,” Obama said tonight at the faceoff in Boca Raton, Florida. Romney, a former Massachusetts governor, has put forth strategies that are “all over the map,” Obama said.

Romney began the debate by criticizing Obama for what he described as growing threats in Syria, Libya, Mali, Egypt and Iran. While he congratulated Obama for the raid that killed terrorist leader Osama bin Laden, he said, “we must have a comprehensive strategy” to reject extremism.

“We can’t kill our way out of this mess,” Romney said. Later, he said, “nowhere in the world is America’s influence in the world greater than it was four years ago.”

Obama stressed his commander-in-chief credentials while trying to paint Romney as out of his depth. He criticized Romney for once saying Russia was the biggest geopolitical foe facing the U.S.

“The 1980s are now calling to ask for their foreign policy back because, you know, the Cold War’s been over for 20 years,” Obama said.

Later, Obama told Romney that a complaint he frequently makes on the campaign trail about lower U.S. navy ship levels was misplaced because the military has changed.

“We also have fewer horses and bayonets” than in the past because of differing national security demands, Obama said.

And that’s the way the evening went.

Mitt was acting mature and presidential, and Obama was petulant and rambling like a six year-old, who got caught with his hand in the cookie jar.

As I alluded to earlier, if you look at all the usual suspects this morning, CBS, NBC, ABC, Huffington Post, USA Today, et al, you would think that President Barack Hussein Obama (mm mmm mmmm) was absolutely brilliant.

If he is, then, so was Neville Chamberlain.

Investigativeproject.org reports:

A year-long investigation by the Investigative Project on Terrorism (IPT) has found that scores of known radical Islamists made hundreds of visits to the Obama White House, meeting with top administration officials.

Court documents and other records have identified many of these visitors as belonging to groups serving as fronts for the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas and other Islamic militant organizations.

The IPT made the discovery combing through millions of White House visitor log entries. IPT compared the visitors’ names with lists of known radical Islamists. Among the visitors were officials representing groups which have:

Been designated by the Department of Justice as unindicted co-conspirators in terrorist trials; Extolled Islamic terrorist groups including Hamas and Hizballah;

Obstructed terrorist investigations by instructing their followers not to cooperate with law enforcement;

Promoted the incendiary conspiratorial allegation that the United States is engaged in a “war against Islam”— a leading tool in recruiting Muslims to carry out acts of terror;

Repeatedly claimed that many of the Islamic terrorists convicted since 9-11 were framed by the U.S government as part of an anti-Muslim profiling campaign.

Individuals from the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) visited the White House at least 20 times starting in 2009. In 2008, CAIR was listed as an unindicted co-conspirator in the largest terrorist money laundering case in U.S. history – the trial of the Holy Land Foundation in which five HLF officials were convicted of funneling money to Hamas.

U.S. District Court Judge Jorge Solis later ruled that, “The Government has produced ample evidence to establish the association” of CAIR to Hamas, upholding their designations as unindicted co-conspirators. In 2008, the FBI formally ended all contact with CAIR because of its ties to Hamas.

As I reported Sunday, Obama appointed a Jihadist to the OCSE, the UN Committee, who has been invited by someone (with no sense whatsoever) to monitor our National Election on November 6th. To remind you,

Salam Al-Marayati is the founder of the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC), a Los Angeles-based Islamic advocacy group that defends Muslim extremist violence. MPAC has condemned the anti-terrorism measures of both the U.S. and Israel, and has called for a repeal of the Patriot Act.

This is Smart Power?

Obama’s Domestic and Foreign Policies both stink on ice. We cannot afford 4 more years of the Manchurian President. 

I know how I’m going to vote on November 6th. How about you?

The Presidential Debate on Foreign Policy: Another Time For Choosing

On By kingsjesterIn Politics3 Comments

Tonight President Barack Hussein Obama and Republican Challenger Mitt Romney will square off for the final Presidential Debate, which will be on Foreign Policy.

According to the New York Times:

When President Obama and Mitt Romney sit down Monday night for the last of their three debates, two things should be immediately evident: there should be no pacing the stage or candidates’ getting into each other’s space, and there should be no veering into arguments over taxes.

This debate is about how America deals with the world — and how it should.

If the moderator, Bob Schieffer of CBS News, has his way, it will be the most substantive of the debates. He has outlined several topics: America’s role in the world, the continuing war in Afghanistan, managing the nuclear crisis with Iran and the resultant tensions with Israel, and how to deal with rise of China.

The most time, Mr. Schieffer has said, will be spent on the Arab uprisings, their aftermath and how the terrorist threat has changed since the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001. No doubt the two candidates will spar again, as they did in the second debate, about whether the Obama administration was ready for the attack in Benghazi, Libya, that killed J. Christopher Stevens, the American ambassador, and three other Americans. Mr. Romney was widely judged to not have had his most effective critique ready, and this time, presumably, he will be out to correct that.

The early line is that this is an opportunity for Mr. Obama to shine, and to repair the damage from the first debate. (He was already telling jokes the other night, at a dinner in New York, about his frequent mention of Osama bin Laden’s demise.)

I’ve heard Former Ambassador to the UN, John Bolton, who is also Mitt Romney’s Foreign  Policy Adviser, state that Romney’s approach to Foreign Affairs with be like that of President Reagan: “Peace Through Strength”.

Amb. Bolton explained that concept further in an interview he did in September with The Washington Times:

It is central to successful U.S. foreign policy that we achieve the overwhelming preponderance of our key objectives diplomatically, without the use of force. But as the Romans said, si vis pacem, para bellum: If you want peace, prepare for war. George Washington used the maxim in his first State of the Union address, and in our day, Ronald Reagan characterized his policy as “peace through strength.” The point is clear.

Unfortunately, too many mistake resolve for belligerence. President Obama, for example, acts as if American strength is provocative, that we are too much in the world, and that a lesser U.S. profile would make other nations better disposed toward us. This is exactly backwards. It is not our strength that is provocative, but our weakness, which simply emboldens our adversaries to take advantage of what they see as decline and retreat.

…When our opponents sense a weak, inattentive U.S. administration, they are obviously motivated to seize the opening before a Reagan-like president appears. So, when Mr. Obama pleads with Russian President Medvedev to give him “space” before our election so Obama can be more “flexible” afterward, our adversaries take careful note. And when China’s official news agency scoffed last week that, “U.S. power is declining and it hasn’t enough economic strength or resources to dominate the Asia-Pacific region,” China’s neighbors shudder.

The perception of U.S. weakness can certainly be reversed, as Reagan did, but the costs are inevitably high. Today, debilitating cuts in the national-defense budget, with more to come if the sequestration provisions kick in, only make the task of rebuilding harder. International leadership is undeniably a burden, and many other countries benefit as free riders, but we cannot forget we are not leading out of altruism but because of the sustained economic and political benefits that accrue to America. We cannot have one without the other.

…George H.W. Bush correctly assessed his 1988 opponent Michael Dukakis by saying, “He sees America as another pleasant country on the U.N. roll call, somewhere between Albania and Zimbabwe.” This is essentially Mr. Obama’s view, that of a self-described “citizen of the world.” It rests on two elements. One is “moral equivalency,” seeing all nations as fungible, no one having a higher claim than another, including our own. Iran, North Korea, America — it’s just too parochial to treat them differently. The other is “mirror imaging,” the fallacy of seeing other nations as operating according to our same incentives and disincentives, our rationality and our same ranking of outcomes. While we can overcome these failures, we must first be aware how pervasive they are within the American Establishment.

…Beyond question, our gravest threat comes from the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (nuclear, chemical and biological) and the means to deliver them, including ballistic missiles. Whether in the hands of terrorists, rogue states or increasingly from a re-surging Russia and a rapidly advancing China, the WMD threat is growing. It has been so long since nuclear testing, above or below ground, that I worry too many Americans have lost sight of the power of nuclear weapons, seeing them as something from grainy black-and-white films from 1940s testing in Pacific atolls.

The consequences, however, are terrifying, whether we contemplate the loss of even one American city held hostage to nuclear blackmail by terrorists, or the prospect of Israel vaporizing in a nuclear holocaust. There is more to defending the United States than just the military assets we deploy. More fundamental is our basic attitude: Do we acknowledge, or not, the possibility — even the likelihood — that there are ideologies, religions or nations that wish us ill, even to the point of our destruction?

Amazingly, having just concluded a century where vicious ideologies like Nazism and Communism caused slaughter and torment beyond description, we find many political leaders — like President Obama (“the tide of war is receding”) — essentially prepared to declare “peace in our time.” No war on terror, no radical Islam, no geopolitical competitors, no nothing. This is a prescription not for peace ahead, but for imminent danger.

…Contrary to what its critics, including many in this country, say, American exceptionalism simply recognizes the reality of our distinct history. After all, a Frenchman, Alexis de Toqueville, first characterized us as “exceptional,” and he didn’t mean it entirely as a compliment! Mr. Obama once compared U.S. exceptionalism to Britain and Greece, and he easily could have listed the other 190 United Nations members. If everyone is exceptional, no one is, leading almost inexorably to believe that the United States has no special role to play internationally, even on its own behalf. It leads to a “come home, America” approach that inevitably weakens the United States, its friends and allies, and the values and interests we should be advancing.

Tonight, as you watch this last, and possibly, most important of the Presidential Debates, the question you need to decide for yourself is very simple: 

Which Foreign Policy will keep Americans safer from our enemies?

A return to Peace Through Strength and American Exceptionalism?

or

A continuance of the naive acquiescence, the alienating of our allies and embracing of our enemies,  that got Ambassador Chris Stevens murdered by Islamic Terrorists?