If you want War and Panics, Vote for Hughes with Roosevelt.
IF YOU WANT PEACE WITH HONOR AND CONTINUED PROSPERITY
VOTE FOR WILSON!
It’s Up To You and Your Conscience

Wilson pitched for war within five months of winning re-election. Hmm. Have any other Presidential candidates every lied about being anti-war, or being in favor of a “humbler foreign policy,” prior to engaging in Imperial Overreach and nation-building? Are there any candidates today, perhaps in the Democrat party, who are running as “anti-war?” Do you believe them?

The GOP candidates are playing their cards thusly: if McCain/Huckabee wins, then McCain steps out after one term and Huckabee runs for POTUS (president of the U.S.) in 2012. If the ticket loses, then Huckabee is still seen as valuable, undamaged goods for a POTUS run in 2012. After all, failing as a VEEP candidate doesn’t politically damage one at all, compared to a failed POTUS run.

The Dems will field a Clinton/Obama ticket, as predicted here over a year ago. That combination is unstoppable! Both can lie convincingly about being anti-war, despite the fact that Clinton voted for it and supports it, and despite the fact that Obama won’t rule out a nuclear first strike on Iran and only wants troops out of Iraq so that he can use them in Pakistan and Afghanistan! Both will pander to the welfare class and to those who have class envy. Hillary will bring in a disproportionate amount of the female vote, and Barack doesn’t hurt her there, because he’s younger and more attractive than either of the GOP candidates – given equivalent choices, women in the U.S. will generally vote for whom they find most f*ckable. Obama will bring in a disproportionate amount of the black vote, and since Clinton was married to “America’s First Black President,” she doesn’t hurt him at all in that regard, so this combination ticket will be even more powerful in the minority vote than a typical Dem POTUS candidacy is. They only have to agree to minimize their personal conflicts and “take one for the team,” act nice to each other, and they will win. Hillary is used to “marriages of political convenience,” anyways. I would put the odds on Hillary running for POTUS with a plan for the younger Barack to run either for POTUS after Hillary is done in office, or to run in 2012 on the odd chance that they lose in 2008, which is unlikely. This is a similar dynamic to the McCain/Huckabee combination discussed above. The ONLY way they can lose is if they fracture the party while fighting amongst themselves. I don’t think that likely, but this is the Democrat party we’re talking about here - they’re pretty inept at times.

The mainstream media (MSM) got what they wanted all along, the assurance of a Democrat President. The MSM valued McCain and Giuliani as GOP candidates because they knew those candidates’ belligerence would ensure a high turnout from the anti-war, but ignorant, crowd, which thinks the Dems will be anti-interventionist. The MSM valued Huckabee because they have enough dirt on him from his Arkansas days that they felt he would be an “easy beat” as a POTUS candidate. As he’s a VEEP candidate now, most likely they will save that for the 2012 election. The MSM blackout on Ron Paul was necessary, because he was the only GOP candidate that had a shot at beating Clinton/Obama – after all, he could outflank them from the left (being TRULY anti-war) and from the right (anti-tax, anti-welfare, pro-capitalism). Now that he’s all but removed, there’s no way the GOPers can win this year.

The GOP establishment got what they wanted all along, as well, which is the assurance of a Democrat President. That’s why they went along with the MSM blackout on Ron Paul, and that’s why they’re shooting themselves in the head with a McCain nomination. Ultimately, they want to blame the economic troubles and the continuing foreign policy/war troubles on the Dems, which will be easy, because the Dems don’t have any economic solutions and they will continue the war. The problem is that McCain is this year’s Bob Dole, the “next guy in line” (and a partially crippled war hero, too, just like Bob), so they needed to get him out of the way to make room for new blood. The best way to do that is to give him a shot NOW, knowing he can’t win, and using this campaign as a vetting process to prepare a list of possible candidates for 2012.

I still see a carry-through to the convention by Ron Paul as a positive for building a long-term infrastructure for freedom-minded individuals, but there are some other considerations. To a large degree, we have networked and now know who, and where, we are. While there is some marginal benefit to be gained, there are some other opportunity costs. Getting a large turnout for a third party (Libertarian, in this case) will, under current rules (which could always be changed in the interim), ensure some easier ballot access in 2012. While Ron Paul is still running for President, he can’t use those funds to run for Congress, and he does do some good in that role, so it would be nice to see him re-elected. Future ballot access easing is all that a third-party run can hope to acheive, as it will be marginalized so much by the MSM that they’ll be lucky to take more than 5-10% of the vote, and will take it from both the Dems and the GOPers in approximately equal amounts. In the end, the decision to run third-party is in Ron’s hands.

This battle may be lost, but the REAL r[LOVE]ution continues.

Bhutto is the opposition party leader. Ooops, she was the opposition party leader.
The current military dictatorship is a puppet of the U.S.
The current military dictatorship allows our bases there as logistical support for incursions into Iraq, Iran, etc.
The Muslim population of Pakistan, by and large, aren’t fans of the U.S. using their territory this way.
We provide “aid” to the military dictatorship in Pakistan in order to keep the U.S. puppet “government” in power.
We also pay them “palimony” for their nuclear weapons technology, so they don’t get greedy and sell it to others.
Being able to “pin” Bhutto’s death on “Islamic terrorists” strengthens public support for current U.S. foreign policy.
Acts of “terror” are always convenient excuses for removing civil liberties and strengthening central “government.”

Who benefits from Bhutto’s death, and the lack of a real, open democratic process in Pakistan?

I would venture that not only does the current administration in Pakistan benefit, by being able to stay in power and use this “terror event” as an excuse to crack down further on civil liberties, but also the current U.S. administration benefits - because they get to keep Pakistan as a lap dog under Musharraf, or someone very much like him and perhaps picked by him. I am actually quite shocked that Pakistan hasn’t devolved into civil war before now; I expected such would happen years ago.

Logically, here are our possibilities.

(1) The “official” story that terrorists assassinated Bhutto despite the best efforts of the Musharraf military security, and both Musharraf and the U.S. “government” are really, really upset.

(2) Musharraf arranged it without knowledge or cooperation from the U.S.

(3.a.) See (2), but with a wink and a nod from the U.S., like the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait almost two decades ago. If this is the case, then the PR flack about the assassination might result in the U.S. arranging a swapping out of puppet leaders in Pakistan.

(3.b.) See (2), but with more explicit permission. This won’t rule out a “puppet swap” if the PR is really bad, however.

(3.c.) See (2), but with actual assistance from U.S. covert operatives, in providing arms, explosive expertise, or logistics.

My bet would be on some version of (3). I don’t believe the crocodile tears coming from the White House, and I don’t believe in the sincerity of any PR-based “U.S. efforts” at a Musharraf/Bhutto reconciliation. Getting her back into Pakistan benefited the U.S. even if their plan was simply to coordinate vote fraud and keep Musharraf in power; her death in Pakistan through “Islamic terror” furthers both Musharraf’s, and the U.S.’s, ends far more than her life in exile ever could.