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“Radical” is not a word that I use often, but it seems the perfect definition for the desperate and reckless strategy driving the Democratic Party.  The Democratic National Committee put on its blinders again yesterday,  by throwing its weight behind 72-year old retread Jerry Brown for California governor.  The DNC plans to put at least $40 million behind Brown’s 2010 candidacy, and also convinced upstart San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom to bow out of the race so that Brown, an almost infamous 70’s free-thinker, is uncontested.

Third Time's The Charm

Last evening on CNN’s Larry King, Brown seemed old, out of touch, and ineffective in explaining why California would benefit by having TWELVE years of his leadership.  Jerry Brown followed in his father’s footsteps by winning the governship of California in 1975 and serving two terms.  Edmund G. (Pat) Brown served from 1959-1967.  While his father is credited with creating a statewide water plan and developing a system of higher education in California, voters almost stomped their feet to retire Jerry Brown after eight years of his liberal agenda.

Jerry Brown spent virtually his entire professional career either working in government or campaigning.  He made three failed attempts to run for President of the United States in 1976, 1980 and 1992.  He ran for the Senate and lost in 1982.  Settling for wins in statewide offices, Brown has been elected California Secretary of State, Governor, Attorney General, and even Mayor of Oakland.

More conservative Americans should see a pattern developing. The Democratic agenda is to expand and insure what is its most liberal agenda in 40 years.   In a year when the groundswell in the country is uncertainty, The White House along with Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid are committed to continuing to spend blindly.      According to today’s National Debt Clock, America is now $12.5 trillion in debt and Obamacare would increase that figure to nearly $14 trillion.

The Golden State For Electoral Votes

The DNC’s backing of California gubernatorial candidate Jerry Brown should be a big, fat billboard to taxpayers that the Democratic National Committee has no intention of letting the state house of California slip away just before the 2012 presidential election.  Barack Obama will need California.   The unspoken fact is that in November,  Jerry Brown will likely face Mitt Romney protégé Meg Whitman, former Ebay CEO.   Not only has Whitman given every American a tiny piece of the economy through Ebay, but as Governor of California, she would be infinitely valuable to Mitt Romney in a run to unseat Barack Obama.

This video clip takes a few minutes to watch, but in it the brilliant young Congressman Paul Ryan of Wisconsin lays out the financial case against Obamacare as well as we have seen that done anywhere:

Last week, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair gave impressive testimony about the real decisions and real consequences world leaders faced in contemplating the powers of Iraqui leader Sadam Hussein in 2001.  There isn’t an informed American who wouldn’t

The Truth?

have preferred not to take that journey.  Blair shared insights and information and most of all reminders, of the psychotic and mass-murdering history of this dictator.  The Wall Street Journal Online recounts his testimony here before an inquiry in Great Britain and offers perspectives that are valuable to revisit.

President George Bush became a lightening rod because of his swift, focused commitment to the ouster of Hussein.  His strengths were always in personal conviction, not communication.  History though, I believe, will judge his response to the threats to America’s security, and to the security and stabilization of the world as responsible.   Were there other paths?  Should we have simply invaded Afghanistan instead?  Should we have stayed home and protected our own borders?

Bush did what every president must do.  He led with the information he had. His choices were unique to virtually any other President of the United States since Roosevelt.  Only the threats facing Americans were not on distant shores, they were on the streets of our own cities.  Voters on both sides of the aisle can make solid cases for staying out of Iraq, but no one can deny the obvious.  Sadam Hussein would have likely opened the borders of Iraq to many enemies of the United States and created a nationwide terrorist motel.

Map of Headaches

To view a map of the region is to feel the imminent dangers to the United States.  No imagination required.  Iran and Pakistan and Afghanistan to the East.  Syria to the Northwest.  Kuwait vulnerable as ever.  The world’s oil supply ( of course) wrapped up in Iraq and Saudia Arabia and other neighboring producing countries.  Finally, Israel, always the ultimate defense issue on the table, a sitting duck.

Blair and the Wall Street Journal take a worthwhile look back.

Americans In Iraq

Here we have the President of the United States, in his State of the Union address, hectoring the Supreme Court over a decision with which he disagrees, and urging Congress to help him circumvent the effect of that decision. This may be unprecedented.

You can see Justice Samuel Alito shaking his head and mouthing the words, “Not true,” in response to the president.

Thanks to Glenn Reynolds at Instapundit, we have this from Georgetown law professor Professor Randy Barnett:

In the history of the State of the Union has any President ever called out the Supreme Court by name, and egged on the Congress to jeer a Supreme Court decision, while the Justices were seated politely before him surrounded by hundreds [of] Congressmen? To call upon the Congress to countermand (somehow) by statute a constitutional decision, indeed a decision applying the First Amendment? What can this possibly accomplish besides alienating Justice Kennedy who wrote the opinion being attacked. Contrary to what we heard during the last administration, the Court may certainly be the object of presidential criticism without posing any threat to its independence. But this was a truly shocking lack of decorum and disrespect towards the Supreme Court for which an apology is in order. A new tone indeed.

Instapundit has a collection of additional comments on this latest episode.

One of the criticisms we hear about President Obama is that he is arrogant. This episode certainly seems to support that claim. And that attitude of arrogance may pervade his administration. In the video, you can see Eric Holder, the Attorney General of the United States, at the Court members’ right. He is sitting right next to them. At least, he was, until he leapt to his feet and, with a grin, began applauding the president’s statement. If nothing else, this whole episode is appallingly impolite.

And to think the president is a lawyer.

Barbara Boxer has kept a seat warm in the United States Senate for 18 years.  EIGHTEEN YEARS.  In that time she has sponsored exactly three pieces of legislation.  Remarkable, but true.  In an election year when Democratic candidates throughout the U.S. will be desperately trying to whitewash the targets on their backs drawn from the health care debate, Barbara Boxer is in the most trouble.  Boxer is facing the first real political contest she has ever had in the challenge of former Hewlett Packard chief Carly Fiorina.

Carly Fiorina Surging

Carly Fiorina is a conservative and principled woman who has the know-how and the support to win in a head-to-head battle with the legendary and rough campaign tactics of Boxer.

Early polling numbers reveal that Boxer is already having trouble getting out of the gates with her own constituents.  This week Instapundit reports:

“ANOTHER ONE BITES THE DUST: Beau Biden won’t run for Senate after all. What’s next? Bye, bye Bayh? Or a Boxer past her prime? “The fact that Boxer’s support is frozen at 46 percent against all GOP challengers suggests that the race, for now, is about her rather than those running against her. Boxer is viewed very favorably by 25 percent of California voters but very unfavorably by 34 percent.”

Barbara Boxer is not alone in her vulnerability this year, but she is a favorite conservatives would like to retire.  Long-entrenched Democrats like Chris Dodd also see the writing on the wall and are looking to run from defeat and await a likely payback position in the Obama Administration.   Harry Reid too.  His re-election bid in Nevada seems doomed. The Senate Majority Leader doesn’t seem too concerned though, because assurances by the White House have probably already been given about his future.   But Barbara Boxer has no such cover.  She has always somehow been shielded by the shadow of the more relevant, real, and reasonable Diane Feinstein.

Where To Pass The Torch?

The more one looks at Martha Coakley, the more you have to wonder where were all the Massachusetts aspirants to the Kennedy Senate seat?  Did the Democrats fall into the awful hole of delivering a favor to Coakley because it was her turn?

Obvious by their absence in the race were all of Ted Kennedy’s children, nieces and nephews.  Not one of the multitude of Kennedy children or grandchildren was either scandal-free or desirous of carrying on the family dynasty, not even in their own home state.   Patrick Kennedy stumped for Martha Coakley at the end of the campaign, but wasn’t invested in her candidacy enough to know her name!  He called her Marsha not once, but three times at the same campaign rally.  Joseph Kennedy II joined Teddy Kennedy’s wife in an endorsement, but he himself left politics because  of uncomfortable public scrutiny.  So how helpful was his support?   Even with the presence of Kennedy’s widow and the endorsement of the Kennedy clan, Coakley couldn’t pull it out.  You might want to measure for yourself the energy level the Kennedy’s brought to a Coakley endorsement in this video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2kL2pnNNm8M

Of course…who could blame them?