Readers of my previous post may wonder if I hold Clinton responsible for 9-11.  Let me clarify.

I do believe that his actions and his inaction directly led to 9-11.   The structural faults in our intelligence machines, the treatment of terror attacks as criminal matters rather than something more serious, the ineffective responses to acts of war against us, the cutting down of the military all added to or allowed the Jihadists view that we were a paper tiger and that we would not prevent them from attacking us and, if attacked, we would not respond effectively.  Fortunately, Bill Clinton was not in office when the attacks actually occured.

Having said that, there is no way that Clinton could have known definitively what the consequences of his actions would be.  There may have been people around warning him, but there are enough conspiracy people around that it is difficult enough to hear the soothsayers among the cacophony of cooks.  We may question the wisdom of his actions, we may say that it was not hard to foresee the consequences, but there was no way someone with his world view could see what was coming.

So I do not blame him.  He may have been negligent, if you will, but not criminally so.

Then we come to today, or rather, pitifully soon after 9-11.  First, the complaint was that the administration was incompetent for not connecting the dots and preventing the attacks (of course, this doesn't include the loonatic fringe that believe the administration orchestrated the attacks).  It wasn't long after that people were complaining about airport security, about the Patriot Act, about "domestic eavesdropping."  You have to wonder if, after having seen what Jihadists are capable of, how people can critique the then administration for not connecting the dots and preventing the attack.  One could argue that if we did not know what might happen,  the measures that we were an unnecessary and inconvenient infringement of our freedom.  But having seen what Jihadists are capable of doing, how can people strain under the yoke of what has been determined to be necessary to prevent the next attack?

So when Pelosi and her accomplices allow the FISA to expire, they will be responsible, criminally negligent, for any attacks that occur because we didn't have our ear to the ground.  When Obama Billary bring our soldiers home, followed on their heels by the Jihadists, they will be responsible and criminally negligent.

And what does that say about the people who elected them?  Particularly the conservatives who decide to protest by not voting for the only candidate who might keep us safe?  The people who recognize the dangers and vote (or don't vote) in a way that endangers our safety?

That is what Ann Coulter seems to be saying in her latest article.  But we can't "Make a deal."  And it does matter that you choose the right door.  The Right door.

Let me confess something.  I like Ann's work.  Many conservatives may not admit this.  But RightTeacher1 will.  She is . . . caustic, to be sure.  And I do disagree with her on occasion. 

On the other hand, she defended Joe McCarthy as a man who was actually right.  That if people know exactly what happened in that "Have you no decency?" episode, they would have a different opinion than they would just reading history books and watching movies of the event.  (How many people still think SENATOR McCarthy had anything to do with the HOUSE Unamerican Activities Committee.)  That he was a man more sinned against than sinning.  But he was, well, . . . caustic.  I tried to get people on leftist boards to defend history's verdict.  They were very helpful about how much they hated Ann.  They were very helpful about how much they hated McCarthy.  But when I would solicit facts about why he and Ann are wrong and they are right, they would tell me that that is not what their board is about--they aren't interested in facts.  They had no real critiques about what he did.  He just rubbed people the wrong way.

Ann rubs people the wrong way.

And she does that as she tells people that we now have to choose between three senators for our next president (meaning of course, that our next president will be a senator--something that hasn't happened since JFK) and that all three are democrats.

Well, she's wrong.  McCain has an R next to his name.  He may be to the left of anyone who might be reading this, but his is no RINO.

She refutes my previous posts (OK, not directly) that McCain may have an 82 LIFETIME conservative rating, but that RECENTLY his rating has been closer to 62.  Fine.  Probably a good point.  But we need to look at a number of things.

First, if I understand this rating correctly, 62 would still be "conservative."  Not as conservative as we'd like (I'm still a Romney guy, even though I'm a McCain guy), but certainly no democrat.

Second, what are the ratings of Obama or Billary.  That is what democrats should look like.  McCain is no democrat.

Third, we already know some of his colossal blunders.  He's already taken a hit for them.  We already take those into account.  Don't hit him a second time because those blunders lowered his conservative rating.  Is there anything that the 62 ratings tell us that we didn't already know?

We know about immigration, Bush's tax cuts, campaign finance reform, judges, and the environment.  Isn't that alone enough to lower his rating to 62?  Is Ann telling us there is more?

But McCain is no democrat.

He is right on the war.  Take either Billary (Ann's choice) or Obama, and we will give up in Iraq.  Does it matter that we're winning?  I recall a tape made by one Osama Bin Laden from December 2001, where he talks about America as a paper tiger after eight years of Clinton 41.  And that is just because we didn't engage when threatened several times over those eight years.  We all remember the result.  We will never forget the result.  Imagine how much more of a paper tiger we would seem to Jihadists if, after all this time, all this blood and all this treasure, we ran away when we weren't losing, just because our leaders didn't have the stomach to finish the job.  They would try something worse than 9/11.  Something that might even succeed if the Obama Billary people manage to weaken FISA and the Patriot act and other acts and agencies that have kept us safe for almost seven years.  This would not happen with McCain.  Ok, there is still the torture issue, but that is understandable.  McCain is still no democrat.

On immigration, McCain has said we would do enforcement first.  I hope someone asks him if that means that we'll get our damn fence.  I hope he gives the right answer.  I hope he means it.  Certainly his position is better than Obama Billary's.  Not giving driver's licenses to illegal immigrants is a necessary, but not sufficient condition.  If he asks me, I'll tell him what to do.  I also hope he appoints people who can give him good advice.  After all, McCain is no democrat.

On the Tax Cuts, we understand why he did it.  He believes in the integrity of the budget.  But we're at war.  He knows that.  He wants to keep non-defense spending under control.  Does anyone reading this disagree with that?  He needs to have Romney or Rudy explain to him about taxes and a vibrant  economy.  And he'll listen because McCain is no democrat.

On campaign finance reform, I don't have a response.  I hope he's seen the error of his ways, but is too stubborn to admit it.  Certainly after one campaign running against Obama Billary and their 527's, he will come to appreciate what a mess he made.  Certainly then, he'll be no democrat.

On judges, he has said and I believe that he will pick Roberts's and Alitos.  I prefer Scalias's, but that is just me.  His problem with judges was over procedures, not over the kind of judges we will need.  In that case, it may be good to keep him out of the senate.  He is no democrat.

On environment, I am hopeful that an educated McCain will not blunder.  The need for energy independence and his understanding of national security would compel a change on his ANWR stance.  The enlightenment he needs to get about business and the economy would make him renounce his McCain-Lieberman farce.  I am hopeful because I know he is no democrat.

This is not an impassioned defense.  In my refrain, I am not taking my cue from Mark Antony.  I am not being ironic.  I wish I could make a better case.  I know Romney (or Rudy) would be better.  I am a month behind in listing to talk radio podcasts, and so I am hearing about a wistful time when Romney was still in it. But, McCain has won according to the rules, as George Will reminds us.  I know there are still problems with McCain that I don't have answers for.  But we are stuck with him.

Right now we have a choice of three and soon we will have a choice of two.  One will have and R after his name and he will win the war, cut spending, and appoint good judges.  The other will have a D after his/her/his name and will appoint activist judges, raise taxes, increase spending and lose the war.  The person with a D after his/her/his name may get us killed.

That is the choice we have.  We can't make a deal.  Door number one, door number two, or door number three.  Which ever you choose, it is vital that McCain is on the other side.

McCain and Lieberman have both been right on Iraq.  There are some other issues on which they might agree.  Most of the time they do not.

McCain is a conservative.  Most of his voting record rates out as conservative.  He is wrong on some issues.  Big ones.  But most of the work of congress (and the president) never makes the news.  On these issues, McCain is very conservative and Lieberman is very liberal.  Don't get me wrong.  I like Lieberman and wish more democrats were like him.  But he is right on about as many issues McCain is wrong on.  There is the war.  What else?

Considering the different parties positions and and McCains positions on those issues it may seem like McCain would have been successful as a democrat, or that McCain and Lieberman would make good running mates (though there would still be a question of who would be on the top of the ticket).  But the truth of the matter is that neither of this would have worked out.  Like a couple that is attracted to each other but is fundamentally incompatible, McCain and the democrats just wouldn't work.  On all of those issues that don't make the news, the day to day decisions made by the chief executive, the dems and the McCain would not be able to get along.

We have been reading blogs and articles all over the spectrum.  Everything from talk radio pushing Romney down our throats to conservatives voting for Hillary rather than McCain.

There is only one thing that matters.  In January either McCain or (Hillary or Obama) will be giving the oath to become the 44th president of the United States.  Which do you want?

Those who claim that people will see how bad things are under a Democratic president, and then not vote Democratic again have a short memory.  That is the same things that people were saying in 2006 about throwing the rascals out when they lost their way with corruption and when they lost all semblance of fiscal responsibility.  What happened?  We had the media saying that the Republicans lost because of their support of the war in Iraq.  We got the worst do-nothing congress ever.  But what are the prospects for the congressional races in 2008?  Do we have the big revolt that would return congress to their senses and conservative representatives to power?

What will we have in 2012 if we revolt and elect . . . one of them?  Four years of Democratic rule.  A number of Supreme Court appointments whose effect will be felt for decades. Higher taxes, more regulation, a stagnant economy, environmental regulations, etc., etc., and, of course, etc..  But what about that great revolt?  We will have liberals complaining that the government is not liberal enough.  We will have conservatives complaining that things would be better if only they were in power.

If we can do such a good job forgetting what happened in 2006 after two years, how are we going to remember why we put the democrat in power after four years.

The choice is simple.  McCain, or (Hillary/Obama).

Make your choice.

So the writers' strike is over and network TV can begin again.  Maybe.  Bringing the shows into the pipeline will take many weeks, depending on the progress of the scripts when the writers stopped working on them.  Some shows may not get completed until May sweeps.  What a novel idea!  Good quality original programming for May sweeps.  It boggles the mind how networks and advertisers think that they can sample viewership when they bring out special shows and special schedules to try to entice viewers who may not return once the sweeps period ends.

There are problems.  Summer would soon be upon us.  That means that some shows may only show for four weeks before the summer starts.  For other shows--those that are more expensive to produce such as Lost and Heroes, that may mean it isn't worthwhile to start production and expend the expense for only a handful of shows.  The networks wouldn't want to use new material in the summer when viewership is down.

Bull puckey.

I understand people may be on vacation.  I also understand that, with the sun making extended appearances, people may enjoy spending more time outside.  But what data does the network have for the premise that people don't watch TV during the summer?  They show reruns during the summer.  Perhaps people don't watch TV during the summer because all of the major networks are showing reruns.  Perhaps if there was something to watch, people would watch it.

Maybe it is summer itself that diminishes viewership, or maybe it is just the summer reruns.  I think it is about time to get some reliable data on that.  If you show them, they will watch.  And if the shows come on and people would rather play ball outside, well that is why they invented VCRs, TiVos, DVRs, and $40 boxed sets of free TV.

How is that for marketing?  Show the season's final episode in July.  Release the DVDs in August.  Start the next season in September.

That way the whole season won't be Lost and they can make Heroes of the network executives.

Sam Donaldson on This Week tells us that the democrats have a plan in case we are in a deep recession near the November elections.  He didn't indicate what it might be.  Didn't indicate if he even knew there was one.  But he felt confident that there was one.  Nice to know that those Democrats who are worried about the economy will be voting on the basis of these non-existent plans.

Of course when talking about these selfsame Democrats who are worried about the economy, the sole reason why these people were voting for Hillary was the Clinton surname.  They remember some economic success during the 90's and they long to have those back.  Somehow, Billary would return us to those glory years of the 90's when the economy was happy and gay.

Of course the only way we will get back to those gay nineties is for Al Gore to invent another internet.  I don't see any new internet popping up anytime soon (IPv6 notwithstanding).

As the George W Bush engineered recovery was taking hold, my liberal colleagues (a redundancy if I ever heard one) we complaining that, though the economy may be recovering, we didn't have the jobs we had during Clinton.  Of course, this mystery was soon explained by some computer science graduate students that we talked to.  They were asked if they were worried about going into the computer field (and by extension, whether we should be pushing students into the computer field) if the job prospects were so poor.  During the heady 90's, we were told by these students, any company who stood to profit from the internet was getting all of the venture capital that they wanted.  They did need to show the had the staff to be a player in that environment.  These companies were hiring left and right to fill out their rosters.  They were hiring programmers that couldn't program.  When the tech bubble burst, these companies (the ones that survived, at least) got rid of the people that they really didn't need and that they really didn't want.

If Billary could engineer another tech bubble, we might have the carefree nineties again.  The problem is they can't.  The problem is bubbles tend to burst.  The slow growth (Goldilocks) economy produces sustainable prosperity.  The democrats don't want slow growth.  The don't want to produce an economic environment that will promote slow growth.  They don't want to encourage business economies.  They want to tax and spend.  They want to discourage precisely the kind of economic activity that will slow or reverse any kind of recession we may be headed for.

Which leads me to what I call liberal denial.  They seem to be pro worker.  But what do workers need?  They need good jobs.  How will they get good jobs if the big bad guys from the economic world are big businees.  If they make sure those big bad companies don't get those obscenely big profits, how will the workers get the really nice jobs all these liberals want?  If you want to be pro-worker, you have to be pro business.

If you're reading this, it is probably basic stuff to you.  Most of the country (more than 50% plus McCain) doesn't get it.

I take back the McCain crack.  He is My Man McCain, after all.

Does it seems strange that McCain is ahead of the delegate count by amost two and a half times, and yet the total vote count is only 4 million to 4.7 million (and advantage of a meager 17%)?

I might recommend Game, Set and Math,  but here is the gist.

With our elections, as with tennis matches and the world series and many other competitions, the effect of breaking one competition into several smaller is the magnify whatever small differences the competitors may have.

In any game, any competitor can win.  A small difference in abilities (say 51% to 49% probability of winning) may not make much of a difference in any one game.   In one game, it may be that the loser might win almost half the time.  Over the long run, the better team will win many contests, but with one game, one superbowl, one election, the odds are more even. 

Having a larger number of discrete competitions (different states in elections, winning four of seven in the world series) simulates "the long run" and makes it more likely that the better competitor will win.  It may be that "luck" may have the lesser competitor winning one or two competitions, but luck can't hold out against statistics, and, in time, the better competitor will win out. A small difference in abilities will be magnified.

Of course, tennis magnifies the magnification.  Not only do you have to win games to win a set, but you need to win a number of sets to win a match.

In our election, Romney was first or second in almost every state (excepting a number of th states where Huckabee won).  He had wide appeal and was the selection of many voters. Unfortunately, over the long run, he lost more sets than he won.  Match goes to McCain.

No, I don't want to elect him.  Be serious.

Your speech at CPAC was a good start.  That you spoke there at all was somewhat of a prerequisite.  Now you have to go on all the talk-radio shows that you have been balking at.  I'm sure it will be a more friendly audience now than it might have been yesterday, but you should expect and welcome tough questions.

One of the first insights I remember having on politics, was watching Reagan's speech during the convention in 1976. I watched the speech, and saw the reception he got.  I saw Reagan standing with Ford.   I got the impression that some (many?/most?) of the delegates were wishing they had picked this guy instead of the other guy.  Certainly the people at CPAC seemed to want the businessman over the senator, but I think many of the conservative voters will be thinking this as well.  If not during the convention (will Romney speak?) then as he campaigns for McCain in the coming months.

I've been meaning to post since Hugh posted this good message about the real statistic:  the percentage of remaining delegates needed to win.  Using the numbers I got from CNN, (714/286/181 with 16 for Ron Paul) we find that McCain needs 40.32 of remaining delegates to win while Romney needs 76.50%.  You have to know that Romney looked at the data and did the same analysis.

One of the echanting Mrs. Teacher's favorite radio hours is the last of fifteen of Hugh's show--movie night.  The rapport between Emmet and Hugh is fantastic.  On the occasions that Dean has substituted for Hugh on Movie night in the past, he sounds like someone who likes a joke he has heard and tries to retell, but never seems to tell it right.

He has tried to have a guest on while Dean presents his list.  You sort of wonder why the guest is even on if he is only to comment on someone else's list.  He has tried to present his list without a guest.  In the latter case, he seems to realize he needs someone to bounce off his ideas as he presents the list, so he begins talking to Duane, who apparently would rather be doing his work than bailing out Dean.

So I am telling Dean how the formula works.  And I hope Emmet will agree to come on, even though Dean is hosting tomorrow as long as Dean agrees to the following:

Dean will not present his own list.  Emmet will present his list for Dean to comment on.  Hugh has been trying to have Emmet present lists on a theme leading up to Valentine's Day, but it hasn't been working, and I'm sure no one will mind if he changes the list to something else.  Maybe The Movies with the Best Concession Speeches.

Dean will let Emmet talk.  Emmet is the guest.  Dean will not talk over Emmet.  Dean can talk all he wants, but he must wait his turn.

Just a thought.

Read the report on Romney's conference call.

When asked about the war on radical Jihadists after Iraq, Romney mentions Afghanistan, Pakistan.

Note to journalists:  When talking to candidates regarding the war on Jihad, always ask about Iran.

With the CNN numbers (McCain 97, Romney 92, Huckabee 26, Other 7), which include Maine, the all important statistic, percent of remaining delegates that the candidate needs to win becomes 50.19% for McCain and 51% for Romney.

Of course, we're still only at 10% of the delegates chosen.  Tuesday will provide more meaningful results.  Watch this space for the new percent-of-remaining-delegate statistic when we have some new numbers for Tuesday.

Obviously, when the number exceeds 100%, it becomes impossible for the candidate to win.  When it reaches 0%, the candidate has clinched the nomination.  Those situations are often reported in the media.  It's the in-between numbers that we are interested in.  We want to see how close the candidate is to 100% (bad) and 0% (good). 

Right now, they are within one percent.  Depending on the breaks (shades of Dr. Strangelove), Tuesdays numbers could create a 30% separation or more.

Today on This Week, in spite of an interview with My Man Mitt, the Round Table and the two Georges had all but written off MMM.  However, in their concluding remarks, one of the pundits brought this bit of wisdom back from the time of the Iowa caucuses:

Pundits know nothing.

As we count off Hughs optimistic polls, read the premature predictions of MMM's demise, it becomes clear that we need to show these pundits that they know nothing.  The only polls that count are the election polls.  Then only predictions that matter is the weather report.  The only presidential candidate that would be good for America from the top two of either party is the only one that is not a senator. 

We need a Romney victory on Tuesday.  Many of them.  So let's all start cheerleading and make a big push to get all our like minded friends and colleagues to the polls.

You need to because I can't.

We certainly don't want Ann Coulter to be rooting for Billary.