Dragging Up the Past

Off Fort Benning's Sand Hill since October 12th (Amen ... yet I worry that my right shoulder will never be the same!) and headed slap across the country to Fort Lewis at the end of the month. I'm still not clear, although clear enough to proceed I suppose, on Uncle Sam's policy on blogging by soldiers so likely just one post for now. More to follow I hope (There's plenty I've been stewing on indeed ... although I've admittedly been as news deprived these last few months as I've been since I was embryonic!) if I saddle back up on Old Blogger.

An especially scary slate seeking the White House from the GOP this cycle and yet I fear the masses will hardly grasp the radicalism these candidates are spouting in their present effort to secure "the base" that makes up a large chunk of today's Republican party. Rudy Giuliani appears to be their boy yet it is way too early. Coverage like what I'll reference below, at least for the rare voters that bothers reading even these common resources, might help educate those on the fence as to some of the perils of going with the GOP's "I'm not Hillary but can beat her in the general" candidate of choice. I'll have plenty to offer on the Democratic candidates (Is there still hope for Progressives?) later I hope, even if merely offline, yet the term "Yellow Dog Democrat" surely applies in 2008 for not just this ornery Scot.

I was pleased to see Michael Cooper and Marc Santora of the Gray Lady today up on MSNBC with their "Mideast hawks help to develop Giuliani policy : Team includes Podhoretz, Pipes and Rubin" piece. I'd noted Fareed Zakaria's recent "Stalin, Mao And … Ahmadinejad? : Conservatives have become surprisingly charitable about two of history's greatest mass murderers" where he also pointed out the lunacy of Norman Podhoretz. In that I was already aware of old Norman's influence on at least Rudy, if not most of the GOP's field, the blogging sirens were calling especially lovely to me.

Truly we've got to understand the past as this old history teacher so often preached. That Dubyah needed all the help he could get to try to understand pretty much anything is a given. However, from Grandpa Fred on down, the GOP's team doesn't exactly seem that "sharp". So is this peril and/or opportunity? How the Vulcans (and yet another book is added to the Amazon list!) influenced a weak-minded "leader" elected by a weak-minded electorate is hardly a past lesson I want to be dragged through again. And I'm hardly sure the American public will pay enough attention to the details to set things straight. Thus the use of The Donald in our image. One works with what they've got I suppose. Peace ... or War!