So I have to wonder if the strong portrayal of President David Palmer by Dennis Haysbert in the hit series 24 helped Presidential Hopeful Obama in the American mindscape. President Palmer was the ideal man for the job for most Americans. Lets look at his qualifications:

• Tall
• Attractive (don’t kid yourself - these matter)
• “Presidential Presence”
• Compassionate enough to wrestle with weighty decisions of life and death
• Yet still has the balls to take the fight to our enemies and authorize whatever-is-necessary Bauer to kick ass

I believe this mix of strength and compassion is what most people crave in a leader. After 3 Seasons, Dennis Haysbert secured the idea of a Black American as a great President and got himself his own show (the Unit).

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The brains behind Obama are recommending that the “Pull Out” of Iraq look a lot more like a simple force reduction. Returning us to troop levels not that far below Pre-Surge levels. While there is a significant difference in “stance” of 150k troops “on the front lines” and 80k troops in “oversight” - though the terms are as malleable as any applied to this war - it falls far short of “pulling out”. Now people with some semblance of foreign policy knowledge will find it comforting that, as many suspected, the Democrats have no intention of leaving Iraq except ceremonially for the TV cameras. On the other hand, the anti-war zealots won’t be to happy to learn that the candidate most pandering to them - isn’t quite the pacifist he claims to be .

• NY Sun: Obama Advisor: 60-80k Troops Through 2010

That’s right since leaving the White House the Clintons have sure found a lot of GREEN. They couple’s recently released tax returns show that they have made $109,200,000.00 since 2007. That’s an average of $15.6 Million per year. Which makes you wonder if Hillary has her fingers crossed when gives campaign speeches about how she’s going to stop the evil rich or when she explains how she can empathize with the poor and downtrodden in this country.

Something I’ve always wondered: if the Big Wig Democrats actually believed the things told to the adoring masses, why don’t they donate their own money to the government? I mean it’s a widely held democratic belief that the rich are “bad” and can “afford” to give more of their wealth to the government… so where is the leading by example? I think this question could be asked of any multi-millionaire Democrat, (I’m looking at you Hollywood) but particularly a leader of said political movement. If the government is the best method to more justly/correctly/fairly distribute the money that the rich don’t need to help those that do need…. doesn’t it follow that wealthy politicians (that claim such beliefs) should just give the portion of wealth that they don’t need to the government. I mean sure raise taxes as soon as you can, but you don’t have to wait to help the masses with your money - right? Right?
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On March 19th at the Campaign for America’s Future Take Back America Conference in Washington, Arianna Huffington (co-founder and editor-in-chief of The Huffington Post, and one of Time Magazine’s “100 most influential people”) made the following statement:

“It’s time to actually have zero tolerance for certain ways of arguing. First of all, we can not allow John McCain to ever say again that Al-Qaeda is going to increase the levels of violence because it doesn’t want John McCain to be president. That should be outside the realm of political debate in this country. We need to say, it is completely un-American to politicize real threats to this country for the sake of getting elected. There is nothing we can do about Rush Limbaugh and all the rest of them. They are toxic curiosities. But there has to be a different standard to what happens in the United States Congress, and it is up to us to demand censure and to demand an absolute zero tolerance for statements like that starting with John McCain’s statement.” - Arianna Huffington (emphasis added)

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Our good friend Patrick Bedard of Car & Driver has a excellent piece on the governmental sneaky tax: Robo-Cop.

This just in: A red-light camera on Broadway Street in Knoxville, Tennessee, has suffered fatal gunshot wounds. Three bullets struck the device, destroying the lens and rendering it inop. Clifford E. Clark III, 47, holed up in a nearby minivan, was arrested and charged with felony vandalism.

Not to put words in Clark’s mouth, but what I think he was trying to say with his .30-06 Ruger was that he had withdrawn his consent to be governed by robots. You may remember that our founding fathers had a very clear idea of the source of government legitimacy. The Declaration of Independence says that “Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.” The political theory here is that there is no moral authority to use state power unless the people say there is.

One guy expressing disapproval of a red-light camera won’t curb government zeal for robot surveillance, but it’s a start…

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Well Super Tuesday II has come and gone with not quite the fan fare of the first. Most predictions held with Hillary pulling out two vital wins in Texas and Ohio, but the real story is slightly below the surface of the the win column.

#1 McCain is still struggling to convince Republican voters that he’s their man. Take a look at how Huckabee faired in the big states: 30% in Ohio and almost 40% in Texas. That does bode well for the candidate that “locked up” the nomination weeks ago. While McCain may be gaining the independents he seems to be losing the at least a third of his base. And without his base its unlikely that he will have enough votes to unseat either Dem. Think it’s just Huckabee’s charm? Look closer. Romni, Thompson and Giuliani all pulled statistically significant numbers (>1%), some as high as 4%. These candidates are not only out of the race but all have endorsed McCain. Which would mean that McCain’s negatives are high enough to only pale in comparison to Hillary’s.

#2 The Primary structure is messed up. The Dem side is worse but both sides are bad. Can someone explain to me the significance of Ohio? Don’t get me wrong it’s a great normal state, but WHY does everyone care about it? Or more accurately, why does it get a disproportional number of delegates? Let’s look at the numbers: Texas population: 22.8M delegates: 39 dems, 69 repubs. Ohio population: 11.4M delegates: 128 dems, 79 repubs. (Tennessee population: 6M delegates: 66 dems, 46 repubs.) Didn’t we outlaw the concept that some people’s votes only count 2/3 or 3/4 of others? -shrug-

Gary Hubbell at the Aspen Times has an interesting piece on the angry white guy voting block. Give it a read and you’ll be surprised how much you like AWM. I liked his description so much that I have reprinted his article in its entirety here for posterity.

There is a great amount of interest in this year’s presidential elections, as everybody seems to recognize that our next president has to be a lot better than George Bush. The Democrats are riding high with two groundbreaking candidates — a woman and an African-American — while the conservative Republicans are in a quandary about their party’s nod to a quasi-liberal maverick, John McCain.

Each candidate is carefully pandering to a smorgasbord of special-interest groups, ranging from gay, lesbian and transgender people to children of illegal immigrants to working mothers to evangelical Christians.

There is one group no one has recognized, and it is the group that will decide the election: the Angry White Man. The Angry White Man comes from all economic backgrounds, from dirt-poor to filthy rich. He represents all geographic areas in America, from urban sophisticate to rural redneck, deep South to mountain West, left Coast to Eastern Seaboard.

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The shadow of the Earth will start eclipsing the moon tomorrow night around 8:50 pm EST. Full eclips-ation will occur around 10pm.

Here’s hoping the clouds don’t ruin it for us.

UPDATE: The clouds were kind for the first 10 minutes and then sporadic after that.  The 8″ scope could see through the thinner clouds but eventually, the clouds overwhelmed my optics with their density and we had to call it a night.  Hope everyone at least got a glimpse of the lunar show.

In case you haven’t figured it out from the utter lack of coverage, the US Military has been kicking butt in Iraq. The surge help our forces reach that critical mass of manpower. Coupled with the additional time, defections, and other gains - the point spread on this has shifted considerably in the last 6 months. The underdog Al-Qaeda now just looks like a dog and a rather small one at that.

Al-Qaeda in Iraq faces an “extraordinary crisis”. Last year’s mass defection of ordinary Sunnis from al-Qaeda to the US military “created panic, fear and the unwillingness to fight”. The terrorist group’s security structure suffered “total collapse”.

These are the words not of al-Qaeda’s enemies but of one of its own leaders in Anbar province — once the group’s stronghold. They were set down last summer in a 39-page letter seized during a US raid on an al-Qaeda base near Samarra in November.

The US military released extracts from that letter yesterday along with a second seized in another November raid that is almost as startling.

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Between Super Tuesday and Romney stepping out, John McCain has all but locked up the Republican Nomination. And in much of the country there was weeping and nashing of teeth. In the past few days, I have spoken with countless Republicans that are struggling with which is stronger: their love of the party or their disgust with the Maverick.

McCain has been a liberal media darling for a variety of reasons: 1) historically he has tried his best to please the media (regardless of voter preferences) 2) the media sees him as a beatable candidate 3) if he some reason he did win, he’s liberal enough to be palatable as a Republican president. But NOW that the nomination has been sewn up for McCain the Democratic mouthpieces can focus on promoting Obama Mania.

WASHINGTON (AP) — While Republican John McCain is urging his conservative critics to rally around his presidential campaign, there is a lot of water under that bridge.

Here are the top 10 reasons some conservatives dislike the Arizona senator:

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