NOTE: I will be on the road dealing with approaches to the energy crisis for the next couple of days -- so there will be no update until I return.
At the moment, Democrats and Obama have a distinct edge – can they keep it?
It remains far too early to get any defining reading on the presidential race – and McCain faces a struggle against massive media support for Obama.
While the reality of most key issues should favor Republicans, an ability to communicate those things effectively has proven difficult – especially given media resistance.
McCain’s campaign eschew’s attack – someone, somehow, will have to find and employ other means – Obama’s personal extremism is the greatest Democrat vulnerability.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/07/where_the_race_for_the_white_h.html
Obama struggles to lie out of his plan to cut, run, and surrender in the war on terror
Once again, Obama flip flops on Iraq and his plans – the second flip flop in as many months.
Obama held a news conference in Fargo in which he backed away big time from his pledge to leave Iraq within 16 months “no matter what”
He was then forced to hold a second to say “what I really meant was” – demonstrating for all within hearing that no one can count on anything Obama might or might not mean.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/07/obamas_tiptoeing_on_iraq.html
Orange County, California Republicans and their ultimatum to the GOP
Many Grassroots Republicans are disenchanted with their party’s leadership in Washington and are demanding immediate reform – no matter what happens in November.
While California’s Orange County GOP is getting the coverage, they are not alone by any means. Other actions in other states reveal a growing conservative revolution against a party leadership seen as having become less than conservative.
Some party leaders at the state level are saying “heads will roll” after the new year dawns.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/07/no_permanent_gop_minority.html
Opinion:
Those claiming Bush lied are finally repudiated – big time
For some years now, liberals have chanted “ Bush lied, people died” – a mindless chant now prove to be a lie itself.
The liberal claims are now proven false – the claims of Ambassador Wilson that generated the ridiculous manufactured scandal involving his wife – a clerk at the CIA – are proven false or worse.
A very major liberal conspiracy is unveiled at last – what others remain?
What possible implications might they hold for America’s future?
Buddy
President Bush exonerated of 'misleading statements' leading to Iraq war
Vincent Gioia
In 2003 newspaper columnist Robert Novak wrote his now infamous "Mission to Niger" (published on July 14, 2003) in which he mentioned an allegedly failed attempt by Saddam Hussein to purchase uranium reported by the husband of a (not so) secret CIA agent, Valerie Plame, and mentioned her by name.
Mrs. Wilson's husband, former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson, stated in a number of interviews and in subsequent writings (as listed in his 2004 memoir The Politics of Truth) that members of President George W. Bush's administration revealed Mrs. Wilson's covert status as retribution for his op-ed entitled "What I Didn't Find in Africa," published in The New York Times on July 6, 2003. In addition, after the March 2003 invasion of Iraq, Wilson wrote a series of other op-eds questioning the war's factual basis (See "Bibliography" in The Politics of Truth). In one of these op-eds published in the New York Times on July 6, 2003, Wilson says that, in the State of the Union Address, President George W. Bush misrepresented intelligence leading up to the invasion and thus misleadingly suggested that the Iraqi regime sought uranium to manufacture nuclear weapons.
After the initial Novak column, fueled by Democrats, a sycophantic news media proceeded to make the matter a public spectacle for years. A special investigator, Patrick Fitzgerald, was appointed to lead an investigation (which eventually would cost $2.58 million) and he convened a grand jury.
Despite revelation to the special investigator that the actual leaker of the name of this secret CIA "operative" (Richard Armitage) in only a few days, Fitzgerald managed to keep the investigation going thereby extending his 15 minutes of fame for years. The CIA leak grand jury investigation did not result in the indictment or conviction of anyone for any crime in connection with the leak itself; however, I. Lewis Libby, Chief of Staff of Vice President Dick Cheney was indicted on five counts of obstruction of justice, perjury, and false statements to the grand jury and federal investigators on October 28, 2005( Libby resigned hours after the indictment).
The amazing thing about this incident, in addition to the obvious miscarriage of justice, is that at the root of the controversy was an erroneous report by Valerie Plame's husband, Joseph Wilson, who parlayed his report into a public scandal with the help Democrats, the ever-investigative Fitzgerald and the Democrat Party house organs, has been proven to be totally wrong. Those who harped on the Bush administration and its members for both the "leak" and for going to war in Iraq despite a supposed lack of evidence of a nuclear program by Iraq's monstrous dictator and his sons should by all rights be made to suffer the same indignities visited upon President Bush, Vice President Cheney, their aides and especially, Lewis Libby.
Today we know that Iraq did possess 550 metric tons of "yellowcake" -- the seed material for higher-grade nuclear enrichment. The effort to topple Hussein and cause regime change was indeed necessary to prevent the development of nuclear weapons. We know this because it has been revealed, albeit without the fanfare of the earlier "scandal", that this huge stockpile of concentrated uranium, a remnant of Hussein' nuclear program, was removed from Iraq and shipped to a buyer in Canada. It should be a great relief to the world to know that Hussein was not given enough time to further develop his nuclear program because President Bush defied his critics and took action to abort this threat.
To those unfamiliar with "yellowcake", it is a concentrated form of uranium resulting from early stages of uranium ore processing. Although yellowcake is not considered potent enough for a nuclear bomb or for a so-called "dirty bomb" - "a conventional explosive that disperses radioactive material" - it is a very dangerous material in the wrong hands. Yellowcake can be enriched for use in nuclear reactors and, at higher levels, nuclear weapons.
Of course, as was the case with Caesar, "The evil that men do (in the eyes of their critics) live after them but the good is ("oft") interred with their souls". Bush continues to be maligned by his liberal and appeasement minded critics and too many Americans as well, for taking preemptive action to cancel this threat. We can only wonder what critics and opponents would say if Saddam Hussein had been allowed to continue and developed a nuclear weapon of mass destruction and made it available to world terrorists; at least those of them who would still be alive following a nuclear terrorist attack in the United States?
Vincent Gioia is a retired patent attorney living in Palm Desert, California. His articles may be read at vincentgioia.com and he may be contacted at gioia@gte.net.
Update from Randall Hoven:
The AP article states "U.N. inspectors documented and safeguarded the yellowcake, which had been stored in aging drums and containers since before the 1991 Gulf War. There was no evidence of any yellowcake dating from after 1991, the official said."
While this 550 tons of yellowcake was news to some of us, it was not news to Douglas Hanson or Rick Moran at American Thinker.
As Douglas Hanson asked in 2004:
"Why did the IAEA allow Iraq to retain such massive amounts of nuclear material, when its three nuclear facilities had been destroyed over 12 years ago, and have never been repaired?"
In another AT piece , he went on to say
"How many nuclear weapons can you build [with 500 tons of yellowcake]? The answer is 142."
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