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Since the war started, Iraqis who have worked for the Americans are in an extremely precarious position in their own country. Many Iraqis who work in the Green Zone have had to lie about what they are doing entering or exiting the Green Zone when asked by their "fellow" Iraqis. "I am just looking for my brother who disappeared," is a common refrain. These people are risking their lives to support us and yet when they need help from us, nothing.

Many Republicans continue to support the war because otherwise would be a "betrayal of the Iraqi people." Yet how many of these same Republicans are willing to let Iraqis immigrate to our country? The attitude among some Republicans appears to be, "Whoa, hold on there a minute, buddy. I know you acted as a translator for us in Baghdad at great risk to yourself and your family but, see, you are a little too dark to be allowed into these here United States. Plus, we really can't be sure you are not a terrorist in disguise."

A Democratic congressman from Oregon is sponsoring a bill that would allow more Iraqi immigrants to enter the United States. Damn those Democrats, supporting even more immigration! (Um, sorry, I guess I was channeling my inner-Rush Limbaugh there for a second. Won't happen again.) Currently, an Iraqi seeking to come to the United States has no chance of making it over here without a strong personal advocate.

Wouldn't it show enormous goodwill on our part to allow Iraqis to access our health care and our universities and just the rest of our society? Wouldn't that help win some hearts and minds?

Also, do we really want to be known as a country that fenced Iraqis out in their time of great need?

There They Go Again

I am a big fan of the Atlantic Monthly magazine. I just feel so damn cultured after I get done reading each month's issue. (You should have seen how upset I got when my sister lost last month's copy before I had the chance to read it. Darn her!) I am also a big fan of the Atlantic's cadre of bloggers - Marc Ambinder, Matthew Yglesias, Megan McArdle, and Ross Douthat. These are the bloggers I read first most mornings. They all have unique points of view which makes me think about ideas that I normally wouldn't think about on my own. Which is always a good thing.

Today Marc Ambinder reported that an iPetition appeared on a website called "No Mitt VP." My first question - an iPetition, what's that? The website was created by people who don't want John McCain to pick Mitt Romney as his vice-president choice because Mitt is insufficiently dedicated to social issues such as opposition to abortion and gay marriage and YouTube. Nothing new here as one of the reasons that Mitt Romney cratered as a candidate was because his conservative credentials were always suspect. Reading through the comments of Marc Ambinder's post seemed to favor Romney 3 to 1 however. The message of most of these commenters - if you don't like Mitt Romney, you are a religious bigot.

I think Mitt Romney was a terrible candidate. Many times before the primaries even started, I would tell my friends, "Mitt would be a worse candidate than George W. Bush." Seriously. I said that. George W. Bush was enough of his own man to go against generally accepted conservative beliefs. For example, George W. Bush has been rather welcoming of immigrants to this country. For that, Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh raked him over the coals. Could you imagine President Mitt Romney ever going against Rush Limbaugh? I can't. George W. Bush believes he is a conservative which allows him to pick and choose battles with the conservative base. His comfort with them (because he is one of them) means he can try to push them into the direction he wants. Family squabbling is okay. We all do it.

Mitt Romney is the equivalent of someone marrying into the family. Most of us guys would not argue with the mother of our fiancée right before the wedding. We would probably go along with whatever our future mother-in-law wanted. This would be the prudent course. Why make waves? Mitt is this person. He knows he is not a conservative but he wants all the benefits that he thinks being a conservative would get him. Heck, he is pretending he is a conservative already so he might as well go all the way into Limbaugh/Hannity/O'Reilly Land. The ironic thing is that 2008 just wasn't the year to be a conservative. Romney gambled and lost. Yet his followers can't see that.

Romney's supporters can't accept the real reason he lost (the reason stated above) so they come up with the "religious prejudice" excuse. There are always going to be people who don't like Mormons. But then there are people who don't like blacks or Catholics or Jews. Barack Obama seems to be doing fine. Joseph Lieberman was seen as a decent vice-presidential candidate in 2000. And John F. Kennedy is still regarded by many as a good president. People sometimes can't admit that the candidate they picked was seen by many people as insincere and wooden and politically clumsy. To see things this way impugns the judgment of Romney supporters. To impugn the judgment of phantom religious bigots means that Romney supporters won't have to go to sleep at night wondering how they picked such a weak candidate.

The "Agony" and the Ecstasy of Rush Limbaugh

Last week featured the imbroglio with John McCain and the New York Times and and, my personal favorite, an extramarital affair with a blond lobbyist. (In my honest opinion, I think blond lobbyists are just the pits. So full of themselves they are.) Like clockwork, Rush Limbaugh got all upset about how the liberal media is going tough on Republicans while taking it easy on Democrats such as Barack Obama and, especially, Hillary Clinton.

Um, excuse me, Rush? Rush also explained last week how the New York Times and the rest of the liberal media would never do a tough story on Hillary Clinton. Once again, excuse me, Rush? It seems to me that Hillary Clinton is has been scrutinized by the press to an extreme degree. Granted, you should invite a lot of press scrutiny when you decide to run for public office. But do y'all remember all the "headband" stories about Clinton from the 90s? Remember the political agenda of Hillary's headband? How she was trying to disguise herself as a regular working mom so that she could gain the support of women everywhere which would allow her to push her socialistic message? She can't even dress herself without people questioning her motives.

The press coverage of Hillary Clinton's campaign for the president has also been pretty tough. The media seems to think that everything she does in her campaign emerges whole cloth out of some sinister reason. I concede that Hillary Clinton has pulled some shady tactics against her opponent, Barack Obama. (South Carolina was just sad.) But the narrative that emerges if you read the press is that mean lady Hillary is always trying to pick on that innocent choirboy Barack Obama. A narrative that has some truth but only some. It is way easier for the press to pick out a narrative that sells a lot of papers and just keep running with it ad nauseum. They are a business like any other.

It is the best of times and the worst of times for Rush Limbaugh. He is a man without any proactive ideas to push. We know this because Rush is so full of himself that he would totally brag about 'em if he had 'em. But, sadly, he is an empty void, bereft of any ideas that could be useful to us Americans. Thus, he needs stories of malfeasance that feed into his normal tropes. Oh, woe is me, the New York Times is so evil, says Rush. How I hate those university professors because of their fancy book learnin'. Damn ACLU and their trial lawyer buddies. And don't get me started on those feminazis. Somebody go tell them to please shave their legs.

Oh sure, Rush Limbaugh will feign anger and agony when the New York Times does something wrong. But I am not fooled. Rush is ecstatic because a negative story that fits into El Rushbo's world view buys him another day of relevance. Another day to collect a big paycheck. One day, a day that can't get here soon enough, the world according to Rush Limbaugh will be seen as realistic as something written by J.R.R. Tolkien. With Rush Limbaugh starring as Saruman.

Superconservatize Me

Mitt Romney will announce today that he is dropping out of the race for the presidential nomination of the Republican Party. My first reaction? YES!!!! But you kind readers need more of an explanation for my dislike for Romney the candidate than "YES!!!!" so here goes. Be forewarned - my relationship with Mitt Romney has been love and hate and more hate. But let me put that aside and try to be objective

It seems strange now but I was intrigued by Mitt Romney when I first heard he may be running for president. All I knew about him then was that he was super-duper rich and that he had saved the Olympics. (Shades of me saving the Jewish Law Students Association at my law school. That I packed it with gentiles is another story.) I knew that Romney was instrumental in passing a health care plan that tried to reach every citizen of Massachusetts, the state where he was governor.

Huh, I thought. Is Romney a different kind of Republican? The old paradigm of what made a Republican needed to be updated for the 21st century. The old tropes just weren't exciting enough people anymore. (How many times can you cry wolf about the horrors of gay marriage anyway?) There were legitimate problems facing our country and there wasn't that much time to waste when Romney first let it be known he was running for president a few years ago. For example, health care. And Romney seemed to have a plan for that.

But something happened on the way to the convention. Romney made a huge mistake when he decided to become the latest guy to try to assume Ronald Reagan's mantle. (Guys, it can't be done.) Instead of being the problem-solving moderate he had always been, Romney decided to hold the most conservative position on every issue. He wanted to be the most conservative candidate ever. I am not a Rudy Giuliani fan by any means but he did get off a good line about Romney when he said Romney would probably have put Ronald Reagan in one of his commercials that criticized Giuliani and McCain and Huckabee for being soft on immigration if Reagan was still alive because Reagan had signed an amnesty bill in 1986.

Also, it seems that neither Romney nor his advisors had ever heard of YouTube. Because there was a wealth of clips of Romney pontificating his views of just a few years ago. Views that were moderate and, in my opinion, where most people were. He showed some tolerance towards gays and lesbians. He wasn't happy about abortions but said it was something that was needed. He wanted some kind of gun control. He showed some humanity toward illegal immigrants. He recognized that there were some excesses during the Reagan/Bush I years.

Romney didn't think who he actually was was enough to to get him elected. He didn't have enough faith in the voters. He didn't think we would see him as a slightly dorky but highly competent individual. It is as if one day he decided to model himself after Rush Limbaugh. As of today, Rush Limbaugh has never won a race for public office. I know Rush's ego is big enough that if he thought he could run for president and win, he would have done that already. So far, no Limbaugh presidency. Romney chose a poor model to copy. The irony is the real Romney would have demolished the phony Romney.

Back in 2006, Romney probably thought his main competition would come from Senator George Allen of Virginia. Back then, Allen was supposed to be the new Reagan. Romney thought he would have to out-right wing Allen. Again, irony shows it lovely head when Allen macacized his chances for his Senate reelection and a subsequent run for the White House. By this point, Romney has committed himself to a rightward tilt. There was to be no turning back. Romney was stuck.

Other problems emerged in Romney's attempt to Reaganize himself. He wasn't the charismatic presence that Reagan was. He wasn't as believable when talking about conservative values. (One of the knocks on Reagan when he was running for president was that he was too tied to his beliefs. Romney had the opposite problem.) Reagan was believable as the common man due to his humble and troubled upbringing. Romney is not a common man; he doesn't look like one. (I wish I was "common" enough to have vacation homes in four states.) When Reagan was running for president, people weren't going around quoting his net worth like a pejorative.

Reagan had a long history in the conservative movement when he won the presidency, going all the way back to "The Speech" of 1964. Romney has been a member of the conservative movement for about two years. There will be rumblings that Romney will run in 2012. I don't see it. Nobody seemed to really like Romney except people making more than $100,000. There aren't enough of those people to ever create a Romney movement.

The Patriot That is Rush Limbaugh

This is a post that will summarize what I think of the state of the Republican race before tomorrow's Super Tuesday primaries. (To be followed by a post describing the Democratic race.) I am still waiting to be convinced that there is a good candidate out there for me. Though I have already ruled out a certain someone. (You know who you are, Mitt Romney.)

John McCain has emerged as the clear favorite to gain the nomination of the Republican Party. People are very surprised by this because at least two different issues arose last year that were supposed to have sunk McCain's campaign. The McCain candidacy almost ended when money was wasted on frivolities that didn't matter and when McCain supported George W. Bush's comprehensive immigration reform plan. I am not President Bush's biggest fan by any means but I think one of the things he has done right is to treat immigrants with a great sense of fairness. I was born and raised in Texas and President Bush has lived most of his life in Texas. Mexican immigrants are so part of the fabric of our lives in Texas that it would make it near impossible for a native Texan to join the hateful campaign against immigrants that is consuming a part of the Republican Party.

McCain was able to overcome his early disasters for one simple reason - the other candidates he was running against turned out to be a true conservative but a mediocre campaigner (Fred D. Thompson), a niche social conservative but economic populist (Mike Huckabee), a liberal mayor of New York with lots of skeletons in his closet who also happened to be truly unlikeable (Rudy Giuliani), and a phony conservative who alienated all the other candidates because he accused the others of positions he held just a year or two earlier (Mitt Romney.)

A mediocre conservative candidate would have had this nomination wrapped up by now but there was no such candidate this year. Of course, Mitt Romney is trying to be the candidate that speaks to the traditional three prongs of Republican conservatism - the social conservatives, the national security conservatives and the tax-cutting conservatives. Romney has been harmed by a lack of a magnetic personality and his flip-flopping on issues important to Republicans. Still he continues to try to push on us the idea that he is Ronald Reagan Jr. (Sorry, Mitt, but such a person already exists.)

What is emerging from the Republican race is the fact that only one prong of the so-called "three prongs of the conservative stool" built by Reagan actually matters. John McCain has spent much of his career in the United States Senate focused on national security matters and is a genuine war hero. ("We will stay in Iraq for 100 years if that is what's needed.") Mike Huckabee has advertised himself as a "Christian leader" in his political ads. He is on the right side of all the issues important to social conservatives. Huckabee is a former Baptist minister who speaks in terms that show he is an ordinary person, not a person pretending to be an ordinary person. This attribute helps Huckabee conform with Republican voters' anti-elitism beliefs. These two men should be embraced by Republicans because of their respective life stories.

The thing is...they have not been. The reason for this is simple. McCain and Huckabee see there are things more important than tax cuts. McCain thinks that we need a strong military and that veterans need to be cared for after their service to our country is over. Huckabee says that children need to be cared for even after they have been born as opposed to those people who thinks life begins at conception and ends at birth. ("No health insurance for you!") These two men probably feel taxes can be cut but only after their agendas have been addressed.

This is the wrong answer according the Republican establishment led by Rush Limbaugh. Of course, Rush will pay lip service to the social issues and a strong military. But what exactly has Rush ever done to prove he cares about social issues and a strong military? Did he serve in the military? No. When it comes to discussing people with drug abuse problems, Rush says, "Don't ask, don't tell." Which leaves us with the one thing Rush Limbaugh truly cares about - tax cuts.

I can understand tax cuts. I really do. Heck, I am about to become a small-business owner. I am going to love tax cuts. It is common knowledge that Rush is struggling by on an average salary of about $20,000,000 a year. According to Rush, charity begins in the homes of people making $20,ooo,ooo a year or more.

John McCain and Mike Huckabee don't believe in this principle. Therefore, they officially suck!

Give Me Some of That Old-Time Division

I just read Josh's first post on this blog. He knows of my intense dislike for Mitt Romney. Yet Josh was excited about Romney winning the Republican nomination because he would easily be the weakest candidate to face Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama. You know what, Josh? I think you may be on to something. And would I enjoy having Mitt to kick around for another ten months? Hell ya!

Much is made of Mitt Romney being a viable candidate because he can self-fund his candidacy. The man is worth $250,000,000. Or he was when the race was started. If Josh gets what he wants, Romney will get the Republican nomination but lose big in November and perhaps be $100,000,000 poorer. Those would be results I could live with too.

Being a bit of a contrarian by nature, I think the fact that Romney is spending his own money proves just how weak a candidate he is. He is spending his own money out of necessity, not by choice because nobody likes him. (I am betting that Mitt's wife Ann wishes he would just quit already.) If there was a wave of "Mitt-o-mania" sweeping the land, Mitt wouldn't have to rely on his own "bling-bling." But no one is donating to his campaign except a few of his rich buddies. His campaign is not built on support from people in the heartland or from the South, the supposed Republican base. You know what these people are seeing? A flip-flopper from Massachusetts, that is what.

There are bigger problems for the Republican Party out there in the ether as well. Mike Huckabee is running a quixotic and endearing campaign for president. He is representing himself as a "Christian leader." I personally like the guy. But Huckabee is hated by the Republican establishment because he talks about the government's role in making the lives better for the average person and not for the average corporation. If you listen to Rush Limbaugh talk about Mike Huckabee, you would think that Huckabee was Bill Clinton's long-lost cousin from Arkansas. I wonder what social conservatives will think when they reflect on the drubbing a true social conservative candidate (the dude is a Baptist preacher) received from the supposed party of "family values."

On election night 2004, I watched the results with my friend Leona and her husband Ian. They were both very distressed. I was distressed too but only about 75% or so. 25% of me was happy because I didn't think President Bush wouldn't be any great shakes in his second term. Turns out he hasn't even been any mediocre shakes. If John Kerry had won the presidency, everything in Iraq would have been blamed on him. President Bush would have become a martyr. The Republican Party would be able to label themselves victims of liberal elites again.

But today, we are able to call a spade a spade.

Blog New World

Hello and welcome to the new blog. This here blog is going to be a collaborative process that will involve both me and my friend Josh. We are going to talk about the political process. Josh is a current teacher and I am a former teacher. We are both rather interested in how things work. And we are both liberals, I think. Call me "Left" and call Josh "Lefter."

At my other blog "American Sweatpants," I had the tendency to talk at great length about how I couldn't stand members of the Republican party. Limbaugh, DeLay, Rove. Quite a list of great Americans there. How do I know this? Why they remind us everyday, silly. My other blog was a kinder and gentler place. All the talk of cutthroat Republicans scared my readers there. Hence this new blog.

Let us talk about my homey Mitt Romney. He was out among the African Americans yesterday as you can see from the above video. I guess he lost his dog because he started asking people, "Who let the dogs out?" Hopefully Mr. Romney will find his missing canine. Another thing I liked about this video is Mr. Romney seems to think that African Americans can only talk about one thing - the weather.

I can say one thing nice about homey Romney. He is nice to babies. I liked how he went up to an African American baby and called him "Michael Jordan" as he was admiring the baby's bling bling.