I have been working at a new job recently, and I have had little energy for blogging.  But today I took the time during lunch to pen a few thoughts on the Barack Obama problem.
Additionally, my wife found my first gray hair this evening.  I am ecstatic, having desired a touch of gray since I was 17 or so.  I think that optimally I would affect a George Clooney or a Reed Richards, one or t'other.  Now, without much ado, my first bloggable thought in weeks.

********************

Lately I've been ruminating on the specter of an Obama candidacy.  Hillary is not done yet, but it looks grim.  The Democrats have decided that they can safely abandon Mrs. Clinton in favor of the charismatic Senator from Illinois.  Obama presents some unique obstacles to a reasonable discourse.  No criticism of the man seems to be allowed to stand...for this, that or the other reason.  He was handled with kid gloves during the early part of the primaries.  
The crux of the issue with Barack Obama is that he is an inexperienced candidate who has some very questionable associations that may affect his ability to lead us, but we are being prevented from seriously exploring his weaknesses because of a heightened sensitivity to matters of race and identity.
There is a legitimate fear that his association with avowed anti-American radicals as well as his long membership in a church which prides itself on being the cutting edge of black liberation theology are less a circumstance of his political upbringing and more a reflection of his own personal beliefs.  Americans, I feel it safe to say, want in their President a basic quality - that of the ultimate Spokesman.  To my thinking, a President should at the very least be altogether in love with America.  Not blithely accepting this or that policy as sacred, no, but echoing Stephen Decatur's toast:

Our country! In her intercourse with foreign nations, may she always be in the right; but our country, right or wrong.

A man who could share this sentiment looks clearly at things and sees the plain truth that America, for all her faults, is a force for good in the larger world.  A President of the United States should ever and always be the first to sound the praises of America, even as he claims to chart a new course.
Obama's attempts to avoid jingoism and immodest displays of patriotism bespeak a very cool attitude towards the country he thinks he is qualified to lead.  The question again intrudes upon us:  what exactly are his beliefs about America?  We must have an answer, but we are consistently thwarted in our attempts to procure one.
I am inclined to believe, as are others, that Obama's immaculate status is preserved by unfair means.  Why is it legitimate, even mandatory, to question Cindy McCain's tax returns, but entirely unfair to bring up the subject of Obama's radical colleagues and mentors?  If there is a scale of relevance, Mrs. McCain ranks in the bottom quarter...or eighth.
But, as ever with liberals, we find that when it comes to their pet causes every action is judged on a sliding scale - a relative measure.  Obama is spared from deserved criticism because he is held to a different standard.  I posit that this is due to his race.
It is not a direct relationship.  Obama is not spared because he is black.  But he is.  What we have to understand is that the culprit in this case is the very worst sort of identity politics.
Think about it.  To liberals, a person's identity takes center stage.  Every aspect of that person makes up the very essence of who they are, their identity.  This is opposed to character, which can be judged to be good or bad.  Criticizing a person for their character flaws, long thought to be acceptable as a means of improving character, has of late been replaced with a drive to affirm the individual's sense of identity.  Iconoclasm is the new old vogue, and so to criticize a person like Barack Obama is to violate a taboo of liberalism. 
Another thing that makes up your identity, as opposed to your character, is your race.  So, to criticize Obama's actions is to criticize his identity.  And to criticize his identity is to criticize, however tenuously, his race.  And thus we are faced with the uncomfortable realization that criticizing Barack Obama has a slight odor of racism about it.  I doubt Obama intentionally cultivates this, but he certainly benefits from it.  And I'd liken the scent to a manufactured odor, sort of the way that Febreze doesn't really smell like fresh linens hanging on a line. 

When we view Obama through a lens of identity, it is not possible to judge him fit or unfit for the Presidency.  When we look at him through the prism of character, it is eminently doable.  This is the great problem we face in our current political climate:  Identity politics is the order of the day, and until we distinguish between the false, relative view of identity and true personhood we will never be free of it.

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National Review Online has a tremendous piece by Frederick W. Kagan on Iraq.  Specifically, the common myths associated with the war that many on the left side of the spectrum continually cite as reasons we have lost, will lose, or must withdraw from the present conflict.
Do the nattering nabobs really know the counterpoint to their arguments?  I would think not.  So often I see a parroted claim about the war that can be no more supported than the rantings of a 9/11 conspiracy theorist.  Conservatives who have conviction but not the knowledge to back it up must educate themselves so as to better exploit this weakness.  Liberals who wish to better defend themselves may also find the article useful.

Let's just ignore for now the sobering fact that no amount of information will make any of us actually change our minds, and just enjoy the opportunity to learn.

The article's long, as something like this would have to be, but it's not overlong.  Five years of the left pulling out every conceivable objection to the war have left Kagan a big job.  He tackles it handily and you should read the whole thing.  However, I provide a snippet to draw you in:

The War Costs Too Much
An increasingly popular talking point of the antiwar party is that the war simply costs too much and that we must end it and refocus on domestic priorities. This talking point has a number of variants:

The “$3 trillion war.” Simplistic economic analysis declares that the war has cost the taxpayers $3 trillion since its inception, implying that this is a $3 trillion dead loss to the economy — a price too high to pay.

• Modern economics has long understood that the notion of a one-for-one guns-versus-butter trade-off is simply wrong. A high proportion of money spent on defense goes back into the U.S. economy in the form of salaries paid to the more than 5 million Americans employed directly or indirectly by the Defense Department, and payments to the defense industry and the long and complex supply chains from which they draw their raw materials. Military spending has traditionally been a form of economic stimulus, and wars more commonly end recessions or depressions than start them. That’s not a good reason to start a war, but neither is it a good reason to lose one. The impact of the current war on the U.S. economy, finally, is far smaller than the impact of previous major conflicts. Military spending in World War II ranged from 17.8 percent of GDP to 37.5 percent; in Korea from 5.0 percent (in 1950 — 7.4 percent in 1951) to 14.2 percent; in Vietnam from 7.4 percent to 9.4 percent. Current expenditures on the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars bring total defense expenditures to something well below 5 percent of GDP. Even granting the simplistic and misleading $3 trillion figure, $3 trillion is about 5 percent of the nearly $60 trillion American GDP over the five years of the war.

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I found this interesting article on National Review, and thought I'd share it.  I enjoy the fact that Islam is still being preserved from criticism, even much deserved criticism.  It seems that no progress has been made since the riots following the pope's call to reason at Regensburg. 
Threaten enough people and I guess you get your way.  Perhaps when Christians begin to cut off the heads of their detractors they will be afforded the same deference.  I doubt that very much, for it often seems that anti-Christian sentiment is the last acceptable bigotry.  Is it because we are "the Establishment" religion?  Perhaps so.  Europeans are increasingly godless and it has ever been the fashion of the American societal elite to ape Europe.   Give him enough time, and the common man begins to ape the ape in a bid for the appearance of sophistication. 
The other week I had the occasion to attempt a dialogue with another Voxer who had made it very clear that she didn't like my particular religion.  She trotted out the usual litany of abuses committed by my Church over the years, but focused primarily on the sexual abuse scandal among the clergy.  When I offered a counterpoint to her views, I was unfortunately met with "The Wall."  That is, the "this is my personal view and I don't want to be criticized for it" wall.  Now, I would hope that anyone who reads my piddling excuse for a blog would understand my frustration.  Anything I post in public I understand to be open to criticism.  Especially if I post something critical to another person's beliefs.  Sometimes, I border on the insulting.  I'd hate to be labeled a troll, but there is a point at which letting an accusation or a misconception stand is tantamount to agreement.  So it seems I am constantly stepping on the toes of liberals, atheists, global warming nuts and even Protestants.
It's all quite frustrating, because at the end of the day the Internet just isn't real.  The victories I might win are easily ignored.  The points I make are suspect because the conversation begins with me as an intruder on a particular person's public space (which makes no sense to me...the Internet is hardly private).  So what is the point of it all?
Well, I still believe that we can carry our principles with us even when we are completely anonymous.  I feel that the anonymity allows us to engage in debate devoid of the usual obfuscations of personal pride and ego.  Rhetorical tactics can still be used to great effect, but the debate can be essentially neutral without lacking substance.
What we say on the Internet actually is real and it matters.  I still believe that relativism is the thing that will doom us to half-witted expressions of banal tolerance for even the worst sorts of offenses.   And so I suppose I am going to continue feeling awkward and unpopular amongst my many anonymous Internet acquaintances.
Whose commentary, as always, I welcome.

The Evolution of Religious Bigotry

Courage without consequence.

By Jonah Goldberg

I just watched Fitna, a 17-minute film by Dutch parliamentarian Geert Wilders. 

Released on the Internet last week, Fitna juxtaposes verses from the Koran with images from the world of jihad. Heads cut off, bodies blown apart, gays executed, toddlers taught to denounce Jews as “apes and pigs,” protesters holding up signs reading “God Bless Hitler” and “Freedom go to Hell” — these are among the powerful images from Fitna, Arabic for “strife” or “ordeal.”

Predictably, various Muslim governments have condemned the film. Half the Jordanian parliament voted to sever ties with the Netherlands. Egypt’s grand imam threatened “severe” consequences if the Dutch didn’t ban the film.

Meanwhile, European and U.N. leaders are going through the usual theatrical hand-wringing, heaping anger on Wilders for sowing “hatred.”

Me? I keep thinking about Jesus fish.

During a 1991 visit to Istanbul, a buddy and I found ourselves in a small restaurant, drinking, dancing, and singing with a bunch of middle-class Turkish businessmen, mostly shop owners. It was a hilariously joyful evening, even though they spoke little English and we spoke considerably less Turkish.

At the end of the night, after imbibing unquantifiable quantities of raki, an ouzo-like Turkish liqueur, one of the men gave me a worn-out business card. On the back, he’d scribbled an image. It was little more than a curlicue, but he seemed intent on showing it to me (and nobody else). It was, I realized, a Jesus fish.

It was an eye-opening moment for me, though obviously trivial compared with the experiences of others. Here in this cosmopolitan and self-styled European city, this fellow felt the need to surreptitiously clue me in that he was a Christian just like me (or so he thought).

Traditionally, the fish pictogram conjures the miracle of the loaves and fishes as well as the Greek word IXΘΥΣ, which means fish and also is an acronym for “Jesus Christ, God’s Son, Savior.” Christians persecuted by the Romans used to draw the Jesus fish in the dirt as a way to tip off fellow Christians that they weren’t alone.

In America, these fish appear mostly on cars. Recently, however, it seems Jesus fish have become outnumbered by Darwin fish. No doubt you’ve seen these, too. The fish is “updated” with little feet on the bottom, and “IXΘΥΣ” or “Jesus” is replaced with either “Darwin” or “Evolve.”

I find Darwin fish offensive. First, there’s the smugness. The undeniable message: Those Jesus fish people are less evolved, less sophisticated than we Darwin fishers.

The hypocrisy is even more glaring. Darwin fish are often stuck next to bumper stickers promoting tolerance or admonishing that “hate is not a family value.” But the whole point of the Darwin fish is intolerance; similar mockery of a cherished symbol would rightly be condemned as bigoted if aimed at blacks or women or, yes, Muslims.

As Christopher Caldwell once observed in the Weekly Standard, Darwin fish flout the agreed-on etiquette of identity politics. “Namely: It’s acceptable to assert identity and abhorrent to attack it. A plaque with ‘Shalom’ written inside a Star of David would hardly attract notice; a plaque with ‘Usury’ written inside the same symbol would be an outrage.”

But it’s the false bravado of the Darwin fish that grates the most. Like so much other Christian-baiting in American popular culture, sporting your Darwin fish is a way to speak truth to power on the cheap, to show courage without consequence.

Whatever the faults of Fitna, it ain’t no Darwin fish.

Wilders’ film could easily get him killed. It picks up the work of Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh, who was murdered in 2004 by a jihadi for criticizing Islam.

Fitna is provocative, but it has good reason to provoke. A cancer of violence, bigotry, and cruelty is metastasizing within the Islamic world.

It’s fine for Muslim moderates to say they aren’t part of the cancer; and that some have, in response to the film, is a positive sign. But more often, diagnosing or even observing this cancer — in film, book or cartoon — is dubbed “intolerant,” while calls for violence, censorship, and even murder are treated as understandable, if regrettable, expressions of anger.

It’s not that secular progressives support Muslim religious fanatics, it’s that they reserve their passion and scorn for religious Christians who are neither fanatical nor violent.

The Darwin fish ostensibly symbolizes the superiority of progressive-minded science over backward-looking faith. I think this is a false juxtaposition, but I would have a lot more respect for the folks who believe it if they aimed their brave contempt for religion at those who might behead them for it.

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I think this paragraph from Jonah Goldberg of National Review is a tidy summation of my feelings on what some have called "one of the finest speeches ever." 

Why do voluptuaries of racial argy-bargy want yet another such dialogue? For some, it’s to avoid actually dealing with unpleasant facts. But for others — like La Raza or the college professors scrambling to follow Obama’s lead — when they say we need more conversation, they really mean their version of reality should win the day. Replace “conversation” with “instruction” and you’ll have a better sense of where these people are coming from and where they want their “dialogue” to take us.

Ultimately, Obama's speech is nothing so momentous, so awe-inspiring.  In fact, Obama's refusal to distance himself personally as well as professionally from the man who condemned America in no uncertain terms while giving an award to real hate-mongers like Louis Farrakhan is troubling.  Is it weakness of character, which might be forgivable, or is it that Mr. Obama finds the words of his pastor not particularly offensive? 
One thing I think we can agree upon is that the President of the United States cannot be too patriotic.  He is not only our leader in matters foreign and domestic, he is also America's preeminent spokesman.  When a man tolerates sentiments such as Jeremiah Wright's and refuses for years to repudiate them, that man is demonstrating a quality that no President should possess. 
Is Obama's speech really a call to dialogue?  That remains to be seen.  Currently, it amounts to nothing more than a grand changing of the subject.

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Now for those who know me and my politics, the following should come as no surprise.  But I'm going to discuss some very sensitive issues here and I'm going to do so in my usual frank and somewhat insensitive way.  So, sharpen your knives.

Have you ever made a comment that dealt directly or indirectly with a person's race, and seen your audience begin to shift their eyes and shuffle their feet uncontrollably?  Not a racist comment, mind you, but just a frank acknowledgment of differences among the races? 

"I'd recommend my stylist to her, but she doesn't know how to cut black hair."  On the face of it, sounds vaguely racist.  At the very least, it was not pleasant for me to write the words or for you to read them.  But talk to any black woman and she'll tell you that black hair behaves differently from white hair.  Stylists frequently charge extra when dealing with black hair for the simple reason that it is more complicated. 

But make a simple comment like that, and you have the obligation to explain yourself...if you're white, and you're talking to white people.  Because one thing I've noticed about my fellow Caucasoids is our sheer neuroticism in matters of identity politics.  Race is uncomfortable due to the very real history of slavery in this country, and so we avoid discussing it with the single-minded purpose of an obsessive-compulsive personality.

I've also noticed that it tends to be liberals who react most strongly to perceived racism and assaults on the "comfortable silence" that is the de facto state of affairs when it comes to race in America.  Conservatives are of course blamed for the state of the races in the country, but liberal progressives have had their fair share of racism to haunt their dreams.  Eugenics, anyone?   Tangential, sorry.
All this is not to downplay the fact that the races are in very different places when it comes to opportunity, affluence and power.  Heavens no.

So, I wasn't at all surprised to see this article from the Daily Mail website.  Along with this photograph:

Here's the context:  Robert Downey Jr. is playing an Oscar-worthy actor, down on his luck, who is forced to take a role in the biggest Vietnam movie ever.  And the part he is playing was originally cast for a black man but, pompous actor that he is, the character "goes method" to quote the article.  Which is not even the plot of the movie, because the actors are so fussy that the studio drops them into the middle of a live conflict...which the actors are too self-absorbed to notice is real.  What a great commentary on people who take their profession or their own talents so seriously that they refuse to let common sense come close to informing them.

Now, what do you think is going to happen when you put a white man in make up that makes him look like a black man?  Here's what I think:  White people are going to be very nervous about offending other races, black people won't care.  And along the way the whole point of the movie might be lost.

...anticipating a backlash, Downey Jr told a US magazine: "If it's done right, it could be the type of role you called Peter Sellers to do 35 years ago. If you don't do it right, we're going to hell."

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Well, with Fred Thompson gone it's time for me to pick a new candidate.  I've chosen Mitt Romney for his economic experience, his stated commitment to pursuing our foreign interests, his executive credentials and because he's just so gosh-darn presidential looking.
I believe his conversion on the pro-life issue is genuine and I am willing to give this man my support.  Of the remaining Republican candidates he offers the best hope of winning in November.  You can go to his site, here, and explore the issues.

Of course, I am certainly up for a discussion on his relative merits.  I will need practice defending/promoting him, so let's get started, Vox friends.

You may fire when ready.

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So, to those of you who do read this stuff I put up here, do you recall my post from a few days ago?  The one about Fred Thompson, in which I reasoned that if the Presidency is beyond his reach then he might at least be considered for the VP spot?  The better to shore up the conservative credentials of the eventual nominee, you see.

Well, I just saw on Fox News that the pundits have caught up with your boy Scio.  The ticker made mention of my very idea, not 10 minutes ago.

Which begs the question...Am I simply becoming more experienced in the way of politics, or do I have a secret readership? 

Come out, Chris Wallace!  I know you're there. 

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1.  If Thompson places third tonight in South Carolina, he will drop out of the race.

2.  If Thompson places second, he may stay in for a little while.

3.  If Thompson stays in and continues his campaign as he has, he will remain a factor in the race but is unlikely to make serious waves.

4.  If Thompson stays in and continues his rhetoric from the past few days, of which it has been asked, "Where was this six months ago," then there is a very good chance that he can oust Huckabee.

5.  If Thompson ousts Huckabee, I see him as Romney's Vice President.  This would shore up Romney's conservative credentials and Thompson could draw McCain supporters to the ticket.

At present, nobody is willing to make the call.  It appears McCain will take the state, with Huckabee in second.  But Thompson may surprise by breaking out of third and upsetting Huckabee...fingers crossed.

UPDATE:  Not a chance.  Thompson polled 16%, with Huckabee taking 30% and McCain 33%.  How depressing.

UPDATE 1/22:  Thompson has officially withdrawn from the race.  My predictions which followed from the first are therefore unverifiable and since the first came true, I have a 100% accuracy rating thus far.

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I defy anyone to argue with Mark Steyn.  The man is simply a genius.  He makes me depressed by exposing how utterly screwed up the West's collective head is.  Is it any wonder that an Islamic group in Canada was trying to have him muzzled?

At some point conservatives will have to abandon the polite tolerance we've had for liberal inanities and fulfill their expectations by calling out the militia and rounding them up, Planet of the Apes style.  Har Har, of course I'm joking.  Or am I?  I've been accused of worse while arguing about less important things.

What's at issue here is that the absurdity of this generation's anti-war stance is without bounds.  Steyn drags it out into the light and clubs it like a baby seal.

UnphenomenalTimes
Fake but ... fake.

By Mark Steyn

Have you been in an airport recently, and maybe seen a gaggle of America’s heroes returning from Iraq? And you’ve probably thought, “Ah, what a marvelous sight. Remind me to straighten up the old ‘Support Our Troops’ fridge magnet, which seems to have slipped down below the reminder to reschedule my acupuncturist. Maybe I should go over and thank them for their service.”

No, no, no, under no account approach them. Instead, try to avoid making eye contact and back away slowly toward the sign for the parking garage. You’re in the presence of mentally damaged violent killers who could snap at any moment.

You hadn’t heard that? Well, it’s in the New York Times: “a series of articles” — that’s right, a whole series — “about veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan who have committed killings, or been charged with them, after coming home.” It’s an epidemic, folks. As the Times put it: “Town by town across the country, headlines have been telling similar stories. Lakewood, Wash.: ‘Family Blames Iraq After Son Kills Wife.’ Pierre, S.D.: ‘Soldier Charged With Murder Testifies About Postwar Stress.’ Colorado Springs: ‘Iraq War Vets Suspected in Two Slayings, Crime Ring.’”

Obviously, as America’s “newspaper of record,” the Times would resent any suggestion that it’s anti-military. I’m sure if you were one of these crazed military stalker whackjobs following the reporters home you’d find their cars sporting the patriotic bumper sticker “We Support Our Troops, Even After They’ve Been Convicted.” As usual, the Times stories are written in the fey more-in-sorrow-than-in-anger tone that’s a shoo-in come Pulitzer time: “Individually, these are stories of local crimes, gut-wrenching postscripts to the war for the military men, their victims and their communities. Taken together, they paint the patchwork picture of a quiet phenomenon, tracing a cross-country trail of death and heartbreak.”

“Patchwork picture,” “quiet phenomenon”… Yes, yes, but exactly how quiet is the phenomenon? How patchy is the picture?” The New York Times found 121 cases in which veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan either “committed a killing in this country, or were charged with one.” The “committed a killing” formulation includes car accidents.

Thus, with declining deaths in theater, the media narrative evolves. Old story: “America’s soldiers are being cut down by violent irrational insurgents we can never hope to understand.” New story: “Americans are being cut down by violent irrational soldiers we can never hope to understand.” In the quagmire of these veterans’ minds, every leafy Connecticut subdivision is Fallujah and every Dunkin’ Donuts clerk an Abu Musab al-Zarqawi with an annoyingly perky manner.

It was the work of minutes for the Powerline website’s John Hinderaker to discover that the “quiet phenomenon” is entirely unphenomenal: It didn’t seem to occur to the Times to check whether the murder rate among recent veterans is higher than that of the general population of young men. It’s not. Au contraire, the columnist Ralph Peters calculated that Iraq and Afghanistan vets are about a fifth as likely to murder you as the average 18-34 year-old American male. Better yet, the blogger Iowahawk meticulously drew his own “patchwork picture” of another “quiet phenomenon”: the Denver newspaper columnist arrested for stalking, the Cincinnati TV reporter facing child-molestation charges, the Philadelphia anchorwoman who went on a violent drunken rampage. As Iowahawk’s one-man investigative unit wondered: “Unrelated incidents, or mounting evidence that America’s newsrooms have become a breeding ground for murderous, drunk, gun-wielding child molesters?”

Why would the Times run such a series? My columnar confrere Clifford May connected it to a notorious anniversary: Seventy-five years ago, in February 1933, the Oxford Union passed a famous resolution, by an overwhelming margin, that “this House would under no circumstances fight for its King and country.” The Union was the world’s most famous debating society, in a great university of the dominant global power; its presidents have gone on to serve as Prime Ministers at home and overseas, from Gladstone in the 19th century all the way to Benazir Bhutto in the 1990s.

So the debate and its resolution sent a message to Britain’s enemies: As Churchill saw it, the vote was a “disgusting symptom” of the enervation of the ruling elites. Clifford May sees that same syndrome today around the western world, but, in fact, it’s worse than that.

The Oxford debate took place a decade and a half after the worst carnage in human history. The First World War cost the lives of some 20 million people. Do you remember back in 2004 when Ted Koppel devoted one episode of Nightline to reading out the names of everyone killed in combat in Iraq? If he’d attempted a similar task with the British Empire’s war dead in 1919, the half-hour episode of Nightline would have had to be extended to ten months — or longer if Ted took bathroom breaks, or indeed pauses for breath. The war reached into the smallest English hamlet and culled a generation of young men. It swept through the glittering palaces, too: The brother of Queen Elizabeth (the mother of the present queen) was killed on the western front in 1915. It would be a statistical improbability to have been at that Oxford Union debate and have come from a home in which on some mantle or bureau there was not a photograph of a son or uncle or fiancé forever young.It would be as if millions upon millions had been slaughtered in the first Gulf war, and 15 years later Harvard or Yale were debating whether we should do it all over again.

In other words, we don’t have their excuse. Our war has one of the lowest fatality rates of any war ever, and, when they get so low that even Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid temporarily give up the quagmire bleating, the Times invents bogus stories to suggest that the few veterans lucky enough to make it out of Iraq alive are ticking timebombs ready to explode across every Main Street in the land.

A few days before the Times series began, The National Journal published the latest debunking of a notorious survey: in 2006, the medical journal The Lancet reported that the Iraq war had killed over 650,000 civilians, over 90 percent victims of the US military. That’s 500 civilians a day. Which is quite a smell test. The figure was over ten times the estimates even of hardcore antiwar left-wing groups. Who are these 500 daily victims? Why aren’t there mass riots by Iraqi civilians protesting the daily bloodbath?

Because it’s fake. It didn’t happen.

Yet it’s indestructible. I picked up a local paper in New Hampshire the other day, and a lady psychotherapist was twittering about our “mentally wounded” troops returning home after killing gazillions and bazillions of Iraqi civilians. In 1933, the debaters at Oxford were horrified by the real cost of war. In 2008, the editors of the Times, our college professors and Hollywood celebrities, are horrified by a fiction. Faced with an historically low cost of war, they retreat into fantasy. Who’s really suffering from mental trauma? Who needs the psychotherapy here?

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So if it hasn't been made clear by now, this race for the Republican nomination is a bit different than usual.  We've got different winners in the early primaries, and South Carolina looms as a make or break state for more than one candidate. 
It may interest a very few to know that I have decided to support Fred Thompson, at present.  While I prefer him to Romney, I would not hesitate to vote for Mitt in the absence of Fred. 
Here's a nice analysis of the results from Michigan, courtesy of my old stalwart, National Review. 
What an exhausting campaign this is to follow.  I can't imagine running it.  I may make a post outlining why I prefer one candidate over the other soon.

John Hood
So, it’s Mitt Romney by, oh, a quarter mile. By the previous standards of this quirky and often-silly electoral season, the political talk shows ought to start speculating about Romney’s strategy for November and columnists ought to be tossing around potential veep picks. It’s all still way too early, of course, which was also true last Tuesday night in New Hampshire and the previous Thursday in Iowa. The GOP race remains competitive. Both practicality and politeness argue for letting voters in other states have their say before packing it in.

Apologists for the other candidates will discount Romney’s win by pointing to his native-son status, the exceptional nature of Michigan’s economic challenges, the lack of a real Clinton-Obama fight to boost political interest, and the weather. The apologists will be right. But where were they when Romney defenders pointed to the idiosyncrasies of Iowa and New Hampshire, and the odd media snub of Wyoming’s Jan. 5 vote (which actually awarded more delegates than Granite State voters did)?

If there is a deeper significance in Romney’s Michigan success, it is that the conservative establishment within the Republican Party retains influence and cohesion. Among the GOP candidates, the divide is between two candidates on the one side (Romney and Thompson) running as conservatives in the traditional triad of economics, foreign policy, and social issues and three candidates on the other (McCain, Huckabee, and Giuliani) running as conservatives in one or two of those issue sets but not all three. The latter group essentially believes that the current GOP coalition is inadequate to defeat either Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama in the fall. Romney and Thompson disagree, believing that Republicans must secure their base and then pitch independents on particular issues where the Democratic nominee will lack credibility or be out of step.

For good or ill, the conservative establishment agrees with the optimists, Romney and Thompson. These establishmentarians don’t feel inclined to abandon conservative principles that they believe are both correct and politically effective. With varying degrees of enthusiasm, many of them have gravitated to Romney (with a smaller group preferring Thompson on grounds of either resume or consistency). The Michigan results please them, though few seem to have yielded to irrational exuberance. That is wise. Super-Duper Tuesday is still to come, then a long, hard slog to November.

— John Hood is chairman and president of the John Locke Foundation and author of Investor Politics.

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