Election 2012: Why the GOP is D.O.A.

It might not look like it at the moment, but President Obama has a pretty easy path to victory in 2012. All he has to do is sit back and wait for the Republican Party's slapstick band of weirdos, religious fanatics, and angry white racists driven mad seeing a black man in the White House, implode from the weight of its own ridiculousness.

Recent polls have shown that a generic Republican candidate would beat Obama, but the problem with the current crop of GOP candidates is that they are anything but generic. When Ron Paul is your sanest candidate, you know your party is in trouble.

The Republican Party had a major credibility problem even before Donald Trump claimed that Obama was not born in the U.S. and demanded to see his birth certificate. But as the media followed Trump's every idiotic word, most of his party just agreed with him, and the GOP looked like a bunch of racist lunatics. When Trump claimed that Obama wasn't smart enough to get into an Ivy League college, but only got there because of affirmative action, the rest of the party watched and incredibly seemed to agree. This bolstered the logical theory that the Republicans are indeed a bunch of racist idiots, driven mad by a black man more intelligent, articulate and even-tempered than any of their own misguided and bizarre leaders.

Not only did the GOP as a whole fail to dismiss any of this birth certificate outlandishness, but had no comment on candidates who raised the specter of Sharia law in America or dismissed global warming as a socialist plot.

The fact that political lightweight Rick Perry is the newest and best GOP choice sums up the state of the party. Perry has been described as a “stupid George Bush”, but the median IQ of the rest of the GOP hopefuls falls somewhere between Michele Bachmann and Ron Paul.

Although a bit cartoonish, Ron Paul is very articulate, and has attracted somewhat of a cult following. And he is looking pretty smart these days, when matched against the rest of the GOP airheads. However, he has shown some very radical views. For example, his national defense strategy is to allow Iran to have their nuclear weapons because everyone else has them. The reasoning is obviously that the U.S. will always have more nuclear weapons than Iran, so that if they threatened us, we could simply blow them off the map. Paul does have a good point, though. We need to decrease our military spending and think more about our own economy. Obama knows this, but his views are less extreme than Paul's, and he was able to kill Osama bin Laden while simultaneously reducing our troop levels in Afghanistan.

Obama has taken a cautious, level-headed approach to national security, as he has with the rest of his presidential decisions, including the economic ones. You may agree with him or not, but considering the gridlock in Washington caused by the Tea Party and the resistance of the more moderate Republican base to stand up to them, it's amazing that Obama has been able to get anything done at all. The budget negotiations were a disaster, but they weren't Obama's disaster. In November of next year, when voters are alone in the booth, they will remember the chaos caused by a few right-wing nut jobs who were not willing to compromise, default or no default.

According to his Web site, Ron Paul is “America's leading voice for limited, constitutional government, low taxes, and free markets”. Once a fringe candidate, Paul's views are becoming more popular with some on the right simply because they are exactly the opposite of the Democratic positions. The fact that Paul has consistently stuck to his views without wavering sets him apart from the rest of the GOP field, many of whom take whatever positions are popular with their base at any given moment. Front runner Mitt Romney, for example, has turned political flip-flopping into an art form.

It would be an entertaining race if the colorful limited government advocate Paul was the GOP candidate, and Democrats would wholeheartedly approve. But we all know that won't happen, so the focus right now is on Romney and intellectually challenged Rick Perry, who Republican strategist Alex Castellanos says "benefits from an uncluttered mind". Besides not being very sharp on topics outside his comfort zone, particularly foreign policy, Perry's problems are obvious, starting with the fact that he's being compared to Bush. Tea Party favorite Michele Bachmann, winner of the meaningless Iowa Straw Poll, is ahead in many opinion polls, but Republican insiders know that she can't win the general election. First of all, her political views are based on religious extremism and not the facts, and second, she's a Tea Party favorite.

Of all the candidates, Romney looks the most presidential, but sounds the least presidential, at least from the GOP standpoint. Many in the Republican establishment are furious that Romney enacted a health care law in Massachusetts that required people to buy insurance, which was similar to Obama's plan. Romney said that his plan was not like the national law because it applied only to his state. In fact, it was exactly like the national law, expanded to all the states. Romney's consistent inconsistency is why the Democrats have said that he's not pro-choice, he's multiple choice.

The recent debt ceiling negotiation fiasco and subsequent credit rating downgrade seemed to be an indication that Obama is in trouble. Neither party was happy with the deal, and each party blamed the other for the way things were mishandled. But Standard and Poor's, the organization responsible for lowering the credit rating, blamed the GOP for causing it, at the same time the GOP was blaming the Democrats.

Americans are fed up with both parties, and politicians in general, but Obama's path to a second term is starting to look pretty good. The Republican Party is in disarray, and the nuttiness of the candidates compounds the fact that the party is being brought down by the Tea Party. This is not only causing political infighting, but is making the voting public aware just how far to the right the party has moved and how unpopular its positions have become. Not only are they talking about tax cuts for the rich, but cuts to Medicare, deregulating Wall Street and greenhouse gas pollution.

People are unhappy with the current political climate, but the majority don't blame Obama, and they sure as hell don't want to put the Republicans back in charge. Let's look at it this way: the odds are that the GOP will retain control of the House of Representatives next year, and they could theoretically win control of the Senate, given the number of seats up for grabs in 2012. If that happens, a Republican presidential victory would give them total control of the Federal government. Considering that nobody wants the Tea Party running the country, that may be the best argument the Democrats have for keeping Obama in the White House.

Even if the Republican Party could find a candidate more qualified than the current group of oddballs, the Tea Party has already done its damage. In addition, the far left of the Democratic Party may not like the concessions that Obama has had to give to the Republicans, but the liberal criticism aimed at him will position him well with moderate and independent voters, much as President Clinton was helped in his 1996 campaign against Republican Bob Dole. In that case, Clinton engaged in “triangulation”, a strategy by which he positioned himself as a moderate centrist. Clinton was aware that winning over the independent voters was the key to winning the election.

Once the debt crisis is safely in the rear-view mirror, Obama will be able to bring sanity back into vogue, and his critics on the left will at least vote for him, considering that he's their only real choice. By being cautious and level-headed, he has been able to compromise, even with the right-wing Tea Party stinking up the process. Obama will win in 2012 because the Democrats will unite behind him, independents will jump into his corner, and Republicans will split their loyalties between the moronic Tea Party and their more moderate lunatic fringe.

It doesn't matter whether Obama wins or the Republicans lose, it will be the same result. And it doesn't matter how many Democrats ubiquitous candidate Sarah Palin has in her crosshairs. When it comes to the 2012 presidential race, the GOP is D.O.A.

Stopping Homegrown Terrorism - Pipe Dream or Pipe Bomb?

If the car bomb hadn't been a dud, there would have been many dead tourists and a crater in Times Square. But Faisal Shahzad was not good at the art of bomb making. If he had taken just a few more lessons on the Internet, things might have been different. The American citizen, originally from Pakistan, left his crude homemade bomb smoking in an SUV in Times Square in May. While counterterrorism authorities tried to claim some sort of victory for the failed bombing, even though quick response by New York city police would not have stopped a more skilled terrorist, the case highlighted how difficult it is to find terror suspects in the U.S. Authorities repeatedly pointed out that Shahzad had not come to the attention of any counterterrorism investigators prior to the Times Square attempt.

Since 2009, over thirty American citizens have been arrested on federal charges related to Islamist extremism. Fourteen people, including seven U.S. citizens, were charged this week with trying to join a Somali terrorist group allied with al-Qaeda, and were tied to two deadly bombings in Uganda. The Justice Department said in a statement that they were charged with trying to join or provide support to the group, known as al-Shabab. They were indicted in Minnesota, Alabama and California.

“Somebody's going to get through,” a counterterrorism expert told Newsweek in June. He chose to remain anonymous, but he is not alone in his fears. In New York City and throughout the country, there is an inevitable sense of impending danger among law enforcement officials. But, although Republicans accuse the Obama administration of being soft on terrorism, there has not been a major successful attack on American soil since 9/11.

Many top officials and politicians are saying that the U.S. will be attacked again, and it will be soon. “We must be honest with ourselves,” said John Brennan, the President's top counterterrorism advisor, on May 26. “No nation, no matter how powerful, can prevent every threat from coming to fruition.” He pointed out that the U.S. is more susceptible to attack because the terrorists can take advantage of our free and open society and rely on the so-called “lone wolves” and self-radicalized terrorists.

Attorney General Eric Holder is quick to dismiss this kind of speculation. After the indictments this week in Minnesota, Alabama and California, he said: “These arrests and charges should serve as an unmistakable warning to others who are considering joining or supporting terrorist groups like al-Shabab. If you choose this group, you can expect to find yourself in a United States jail cell or to be a casualty on a Somali battlefield.”

It will take more than tough words from the Attorney General to stop what many think is an inevitable attack on American soil. Although most American Muslims have no interest in extremist ideology and don't want to be stereotyped, the very act of treating them as potential enemies could make matters worse. Some impressionable Muslims decide to join terrorist organizations after reading or listening to English-speaking al-Qaeda propaganda on the Internet. And although conservatives continue to portray Obama as soft on terrorism, his administration continues to kill al-Qaeda operatives in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Yemen and Somalia. Since Obama took office in 2009, the military and the CIA have launched over 100 drone attacks against al-Quaeda and the Taliban, more than twice as many as President Bush had ordered during his entire second term.

There is some evidence that these remote-control drone attacks risk what the intelligence community calls “blowback.” Terror suspects have repeatedly told investigators that they were at least partly motivated by the desire to seek revenge for drone strikes. Any military action in a foreign country has consequences. Because the Internet has made it possible for terrorists around the world to be recruited, Western Muslims seeking to bring jihad to America are more common than ever.

Attorney General Holder continued to speak of this week's indictment of the fourteen al-Shabab recruits. “We are seeing an increasing number of individuals – including U.S. citizens – who have become captivated by extremist ideology,” Holder said. “It's a disturbing trend that we have been investigating in recent years and will continue to investigate and root out. But we must also work to prevent this type of radicalization from ever taking hold.”

But is it possible to prevent this type of radicalization from ever taking hold? Most Americans think this is just a pipe dream. President Obama clearly has no inclination to stop killing terrorists with unmanned drones, even if it means killing a few civilians. We may have to deal with the “blowback” sooner rather than later.

The 65th Anniversary of D-Day

June 6, 1944 - More than 150,000 Allied troops took part in D-Day, 65 years ago today. The Allied forces, made up of mostly American, British and Canadian troops, overwhelmed German forces in the Normandy Invasion. The operation proved to be a turning point in driving the Nazis out of France and doomed Hitler's dream of a Nazi controlled Europe, marking the beginning of the end for Germany in World War II. The operation, code-named "Operation Overlord", was commanded by American General Dwight D. Eisenhower. Originally intended to be on June 5, 1944, bad weather delayed it until the following day. The U.S. National D-Day Memorial Foundation estimates that 2,499 Americans were killed, along with 1,915 from the other Allied nations, totaling 4,414 dead (much higher than previous estimates of a total of 2,500 dead). Today, on the anniversary of D-Day, President Obama joined France's President Nicolas Sarkozy, Britain's Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Canada's Prime Minister Stephen Harper at a ceremony at the American Cemetery in Normandy. President Obama addressed the 288 veterans who attended the ceremony: "You are why we keep coming back." Nearby Omaha Beach was one of the main landing points for U.S. troops involved in the operation, and Obama urged the world to remember what happened there. "Friends and veterans, what we cannot forget...is that D-Day was a time and a place where the bravery and selflessness of a few was able to change the course of an entire century." We defeated Hitler, but we cannot ignore - on this, the 65th anniversary of D-Day - that evil and hatred still exists. The United States is involved in two wars, Iraq and Afghanistan, and we are at trying to figure what to do about nuclear threats from Iran and North Korea. Iranian's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said in a 2005 speech: "Israel must be wiped off the map." North Korea's diminutive oddball leader, Kim Jong Il, was described by CNN as "one of the most mysterious leaders in the world". And the craziest. North Korea has been testing its nuclear weapons, and it's only a matter of time before the United States is within its range. This is a day to reflect on the past, and try to figure out the future. President Obama has his hands full.

The Loneliest Pig

Afghanistan's only pig has been put into solitary confinement. In Afghanistan, pigs and pork are illegal for religious reasons. They don't believe in the separation of church and state, which we take for granted here in America. However, an exception has been made for one pig. Up until a few days ago, he was on display at the Kabul Zoo, along with the goats, monkeys and other animals. But then visitors to the zoo started expressing concern that they might contract swine flu from Afghanistan's one pig. Zoo director Aziz Gul Saqib told Reuters: "For now the pig is under quarantine. We built it a room." Saqib acknowledges that their pig is actually fine and that nobody is going to get swine flu, but they made the move anyway to calm a panicked public's ill-informed concerns. There is no word on how long the quarantine will last. As if being the only pig in all of Afghanistan wasn't a lonely enough proposition, the little fellow sits alone in a tiny room awaiting his fate.