The Occasional Observer

So says the National Review. I spent a half hour yesterday listening to Gov. Walker's press conference as reported on CNN, and this went, in my mind, from being merely an interesting story, to the critical story out there.

This budget showdown is becoming the flash point for our whole nation's fiscal predicament. Will the new GOP majority in WI succeed in busting the public sector's collective bargaining rights, and making public sector employees share health and prnsion costs on par with private sector workers?

I'm pretty sure that if they fail--if the local protestors and professional rabble-rousers succeed in cowing the new Governor--this country is basically sunk. It will be the first concrete proof that we're more France than we are olde-time America. Strikes will rule the day, and fiscal reality will continue to be swept under the rug until the lenders stop funneling us currency.

And just like Gov. Walker, trust me, the lenders will be the bad guys.

Here's the speech.

George Will sure can give an intro, huh? First time I've seen him since he introduced Rudy in '07.

and I can't even believe who they recruited to come up with it:

And apparently he's bailed on the Rent Is Too Damn High party and is planning on running as plain old mainstream party candidate....



A Republican.

This is one really important piece. This is the Editor in Chief. Of the National Review. THE institutional magazine of beltway conservatives.

Are we looking at Jeb '12? Lowry says he can't afford to wait for '16. Jeb would turn this race on his head.

The world's ONLY ROCK BAND.(tm)

Not a snowball's chance in hell, per Jennifer Rubin. She makes a brief but compelling argument.

So aside from looking for Dark Horse candidates, which is always more fun than dealing in known commodities, that brings me back to the reality that there are only 4 contenders who poll with meaningful support nationwide at this point: Romney, Huckabee, Palin, and Gingrich.

Until proven otherwise, I'm going to stick with these 4 as the serious contenders. And Palin has general election viability issues that I think may convince her not to run. We may have a "Big 3" for the second straight cycle. 2 of those 3 are the same as in '08, with Gingrich replacing McCain.

It's fascinating, b/c they're 3 very different conservatives. Huck, I believe, is ultimately the most electable of the three because of his personal charisma. Mitt has the skill set and temperment I'd most like to see behind the wheel from a day-to-day administrative standpoint. And Newt has the feel for the political "big picture", the historical storyline, and long-term vision that can make politics transcend tit-for-tat argumentation.

From Y! News:

Mitt Romney, former Massachusetts governor, 2008 candidate:

[A change in Egypt's leadership] would be best undertaken if President Mubarak were to step out of the way or lead the transition...I don't know that I would say to the president, 'You should call for Mubarak's resignation.' That, I think, flies in the face of a long history of friendship between he and our country and our friends.... I think that [the Obama administration] got off to a rocky start. I think some of the statements early on were misguided. But I think they corrected and they said they want to see transition, I think that's right," he told me. (Source: Interview Jan. 31, ABC's Good Morning America.)


Mike Huckabee, former Arkansas governor, 2008 candidate:

The overall consensus [in Israel] is two-fold. First, real shock and surprise down to the average on the street Israeli citizen at how quickly the Obama administration abandoned a 30-year ally and a long standing friend to peace and stability-- President Mubarak. I don't think anybody is trying to defend everything that he did as President, but they would have liked to have seen at least an acknowledgment that he's been a friend for all these years. So the concern is that if the U.S. will so quickly turn on that friend, how quickly will it turn on its other friends?... The second concern is that this could have cascading effects across the Middle East. (Source: Interview Feb. 1 on Fox and Friends via ThinkProgress.)


Tim Pawlenty, former Minnesota governor:

I think his time is going to come to an end. It should come to an end. But as that vacuum gets filled, we want to do all we can to make sure it gets filled by institutions and people and leaders that share our principles... We're at a precipice now where there's going to be change, and the infrastructure--the political infrastructure of the country--isn't well prepared for the change. And it's in part because we allowed this vacuum to materialize underneath Mubarak. (Source: Interview with reporters Jan. 31, as reported by the Des Moines Register.)


Newt Gingrich, former House Speaker:

The United States should try to facilitate the movement to a system that promotes democracy, but we shouldn't kid ourselves. We do not want to see Egypt go the way of Iran and have a pro-Western ally replaced by a radical Islamist organization that is clearly dangerous to our future and could cause enormous instability in the region. (Source: Interview Jan. 31 on Fox's Sean Hannity Show)


Rick Santorum, former Pennsylvania Senator:

Here we have a regime that has actually been quite friendly to the United States, cooperates with the United States. And there seems to be more encouragement [from the State Department] for the protesters on the streets of Egypt than there was for the protesters in the streets of Iran [during the Green revolution.] And that's a bit puzzling to me... This is a hard case... If you take Iran from 1979, we had a dictator there in Iran, the Shah in Iran, who was a friend of the United States... but we abandoned him and what we got in exchange was... a radical Islamic regime. That happening in Egypt would have a profound effect on the Middle East. (Source: Interview Jan. 28 on Fox Business)

There was still a microscopic grain of honor left in my mind for the Nobel Peace Prize. There were some respectable early winners such as T.R. and the Red Cross. But it's dropped off a cliff in the last decade with winners such as Kofi Annan, Jimmy Carter, and Al Gore. I thought they hit bottom when awarding it to Obama, but they got out the shovel and dug a bit deeper. Wikileaks has been nominated. What a farce.