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The failure of the Maryland GOP to recruit a candidate to run against Maryland Attorney General Doug Gansler is shocking.  We were sharply reminded of this last Saturday when we heard from a GOP leader we trust in another state who volunteered - -

“The MD GOP must be in a sad state if they cannot find one person to challenge Gansler.”

Commented state GOP chairman Audrey Scott by way of an excuse: “One candidate changed his mind, she said. Another appeared at the last minute, but party paperwork prevented her from being able to put his name forward, she said.”

Mr. Gansler’s likely reach extends beyond preempting voters from having the final say on Maryland recognizing “gay marriage” celebrated in other states.

The Attorney General has firm views on the Arizona law –  “We have no role in it, because it’s unconstitutional.”  And on gun rights under the Heller decision- - “We do not believe that any of Maryland’s laws are so restrictive that they violate the Second Amendment.” 

Those voters who care about the future of freedom in Maryland higher education and fear the further balkanization of our culture should carefully go through his office’s “Strengthening Diversity in Maryland Colleges and Universities: A Legal Roadmap.”

Readers can make their own judgments about who, among of the Maryland GOP chieftains, assigned a low priority to recruit actively and timely, and help raise money for a formidable Republican attorney-general candidate. 

But this failure to recruit is no sign of vigorous Maryland party leadership in a year that the Republicans are obviously strong nationwide

And the failure to come up with an opponent to Mr. Gansler also seems to show the state GOP’s indifference to the incumbent Attorney General’s own “progressive” policy agenda.

SCROLL TO END FOR  EMAILED COMMENTS! 

“Why not have welcomed Brian Murphy to the campaign, welcomed debate, shook hands, and said may the best man win?   Then prove to us, the Republican voters, that Bob Ehrlich is the best man to take on O’Malley.  Instead, no, same old Maryland dirty tricks.  Haven’t you guys been listening  to the Tea Party folks across this country?” - - Ann Corcoran of Potomac Tea Party Report

Maybe - - just possibly - - respected and popular Frederick County sheriff Charles Jenkins’ support for Maryland GOP gubernatorial primary challenger Brian Murphy will prompt a full-blown public exchange on the issues and approaches separating Murphy from (or shared by him with) the Maryland GOP Establishment favorite, former governor Bob Ehrlich.

Katherine Heerbrandt’s Gazette.Net piece today is illuminating: “Sheriff’s support of Ehrlich’s opponent raises eyebrows | Stance on illegal immigration raises profile of challenger to former governor today” - -

“Jenkins said he was surprised at how the seemingly innocuous video pledge became ‘escalated and sensationalized.’

He believes that his public endorsement of Murphy doesn’t make much difference, but he stands firmly by his side. ‘If Bob Ehrlich was concerned at all about who I was going to support, he would have come to me and ask me, ‘What do I need to do to gain your support?” Jenkins said.

Ehrlich, he said, showed no inclination during his administration to adopt the 287g program. ‘I very frankly don’t think Ehrlich would be totally supportive of 287g,’ Jenkins said. ‘I only say that because when he was governor, he made no move toward it.’

Despite his initial reaction to Jenkins’ endorsement, Donald Murphy [who represented District 12A in the Maryland House of Delegates for two terms in the 1990s] is not surprised that the sheriff is behind Ehrlich’s challenger. He heard him ‘rip Ehrlich for a number of things when he was in office’ during state Republican party chair Audrey Scott’s visit to Frederick in April.”

Would Bob Ehrlich Transform Maryland from a Sanctuary State Into An Attrition-Through-Enforcement State?

If Mr. Ehrlich’s goal is to grow jobs in Maryland, his administration doesn’t need the budgetary (and security) burden of illegal immigrants, and their constant pressure to expand government services.

But first a little recent Maryland history to put coping with illegals into context.

In December 2007, we reported in our “Gilchrest Ads Misleading But CASA Gets Big Taxpayer Bucks”  - -

“Neither the congressman [Wayne Gilchrest] from the first district nor his adversary on slots, then-governor Bob Ehrlich, saw fit, however, to spend political capital on protecting the integrity of Maryland drivers permits. Herb McMillan, however, did some very heavy lifting in the House of Delegates to try to do so. Ron George continues his work. As the Washington Times wrote in December of 2005:

‘For the past two years, Republican Delegate Herbert McMillan has introduced legislation that would ensure the state would deny licenses to illegals, and both times the bills were killed by the Democrats. Mr. McMillan plans to introduce a similar bill in next year’s session. The legislation is critical to homeland security and deserves support, but it has no possibility of passing unless Mr. Ehrlich is prepared to endorse it and take an active role in fighting for its passage. We urge the governor to act now.’(Underscoring Forum’s.)

Arguably,the current Maryland policy of drivers permits for illegals is the strongest inducement for illegals to come to Maryland. (Recall how drivers permits are also tied in to the Motor Voter Act.) State senator Andy Harris voted against a bad drivers-permit bill in 2003 which the then-governor nonetheless approved,and Harris cosponsored drivers-permit-reform legislation in 2007.”

Moreover voters deserve some substantive commentary from Mr. Ehrlich on the letters of support from two prominent Republicans, former GOP state chairman John Kane and delegate Tony O’Donnell, in behalf of one of president Obama’s Department of Justice chieftains, Thomas Perez.

Does Mr. Ehrlich approve of the former chairman of the Maryland Republican Party and the current Republican leader in the House of Delegates supporting the Senate confirmation of Mr. Perez, sometime Casa de Maryland chief? Mr. Kane wrote the Senate Judiciary panel on April 17, 2009 - -

“My relationship with Mr. Perez developed further as I became Chairman of the Maryland Republican Party from 2002-2006. Over the course of those four years, we would meet on occasion to review the political landscape in the state of Maryland. We would discuss business issues, wherein he regularly showed a willingness to listen, as well as, bring different stakeholders to the table to work on issues outside the realm of partisan politics. A few folks thought it odd that a leading Democrat on the County Council of Montgomery County, Maryland, maintained such a strong relationship with the chair of the Maryland Republican Party.  What most of them did not understand was that with Mr. Perez,it was never about politics, but about policy and what was best for those he served.(Underscoring Forum’s.)

Are we to believe that John Kane’s wife, Mary Kane, Mr. Ehrlich’s selection for his running mate as lieutenant governor and Maryland Secretary of State during the Ehrlich administration, was unaware of Mr. Kane’s “strong relationship” with Mr. Perez?

In 2004, as Deputy Secretary of State, Mary Kane reportedly promised to advance Action in Montgomery’s (AIM) priority of “a full-service immigration and naturalization office in Montgomery County” - -

“After the adoption of the agenda, the County Executive Doug Duncan, Congressman Van Hollen, and Deputy Secretary of State for Maryland Mary Kane were asked to stand and individually pledge to support AIM’s [Action in Montgomery] agenda by taking specific action and here is what they pledged:

• Deputy Secretary of State for Maryland Mary Kane - will arrange for a meeting with Lieutenant Governor Michael Steele and other officials from the Governor Ehrlich’s administration to discuss how to support the immigration action.” (Underscoring Forum’s.)
  

Voters concerned about illegal immigration would like to have Mrs. Kane’s own comments on the October 13, 2004 meeting this website reports her attending.  What were the details of AIM’s request for “a full-service immigration and naturalization office in Montgomery County.” Why would anyone recommend that the Ehrlich Administration press for Federal money for this service facility as opposed, say, for money to safeguard our harbors and our borders?

The current AIM website states - -

“On February 24th 2010, 235 AIM leaders gathered with County Executive Leggett and Council President Floreen and called on them to: Ensure that, even in the face of budget cuts, the county will continue to treat all of its residents equally; immigration status must not be a factor in determining who can use county services and programs, including affordable housing assistance, health care, and tuition rates at Montgomery College.” (Underscoring Forum’s.)

The current AIM website, also declares - -

“AIM is affiliated with the Industrial Areas Foundation (IAF), the oldest and largest national, congregation-based, community organizing network in the United States. Founded more than 50 years ago by Saul Alinsky, the IAF works with more than 55 community organizations like AIM across the United States, and in Canada, Germany, and the United Kingdom.”

Mary Kane’s campaign biography includes her work for the Chamber of Commerce.  Does she agree with their position on immigration?

 What Taxes Does Bob Ehrlich Plan on Raising? Hardly a Recipe for Jobs.

Mr. Ehrlich has not signed the gubernatorial no-new-taxes-pledge. Nor did he do so in 2002. Mr. Murphy and his running mate, Michael Ryman, however, have done so. 

Maryland conservatives should ask all state GOP lawmaker candidates two questions directly related to tax hikes and immigration:

(1) As you highlight your signing of the no-new-taxes pledge, will you honor that pledge even if a Republican governor proposes the tax - - even if he tries to disguise it as a “fee”?  (Here is a list of no-new-taxes pledge-breakers who voted at least twice in 2004 for major new taxes approved by then-governor Bob Ehrlich.) Voters want to be sure that Maryland pledge-signer candidates understand that Republican-authored tax hikes are quite as bad as Democrat-authored tax hikes.

(2) Will you co-sponsor and actively support a parallel Maryland version of the Arizona law (reportedly to be called the “Citizens Rights Act”) as delegate Pat McDonough is urging?

EMAILED COMMENTS FROM READERS

“I am very disappointed the media has effectively awarded the GOP nomination already to Ehrlich.His disregard for value based voters and grass roots organizations cost him his re-election, a circumstance of which the candidate seems blissfully unaware. Ehrlich’s style and client list portray a politician in the embrace of ‘ruling class’ politics, as described in Angelo Codevilla’s recent American Spectator article.”  

- - July 27, 2010 Dave Gardner Crofton, MD

Why Is the Department of Justice Still Failing Military Voters? A former litigation attorney in the Voting Section of the DOJ charged yesterday in a commentary piece “EVERSOLE: Military voters soon to be disenfranchised - again | Panther prejudice not the only problem at Justice” in the Washington Times - -

“According to the Election Assistance Commission, more than 17,000 military and overseas voters were disenfranchised in 2008 because their ballots arrived after the deadline and had to be rejected. Thousands more were disenfranchised when their ballots never arrived or were received too close to the election to be returned. . . . .  A law, however, is only as good as the people who enforce it and, once again, the Voting Section is making decisions that will disenfranchise military voters in 2010. In February, a senior official in the Voting Section informed an audience of state election officials that the waiver provision was ambiguous. The official further expressed the section’s willingness to work with states to submit waiver applications and emphasized the section’s desire to avoid litigation. Since February, the section has continued to advocate a position that would grant waivers freely and even grant them if a state failed to provide a military voter with 45 days to receive and return his or her ballot. In other words, notwithstanding Congress‘ clear mandate, the section continues to argue that military voters should have less than 45 days to receive and return their absentee ballots.” (Underscoring Forum’s.)

* * * * *

The Vast Intelligence Bureaucracy?  Former CIA field agent Ishmael Jones in his National Review on Line (NRO) post yesterday  “Why the Post’s Investigative Series Matters” declares - -

“The series’ contribution to national security is not that it provides new information, but that it is the first substantial criticism of the intelligence community’s lack of accountability to appear in a major left-of-center newspaper. Despite the growth of Internet news and talk radio, the New York Times and the Washington Post retain enormous power. Their reporters have developed excellent sources among top CIA officials. These sources, illegally and often for political reasons, provided classified information on such things as Abu Ghraib, torture and interrogations, and Iraq-WMD intelligence failures. In exchange, these journalists did not investigate the CIA’s huge domestic growth, profusion of bureaucrats, lack of financial accountability and fraud, because to do so would have offended their sources. The great majority of the 854,000 people with top secret security clearances thrive within expensive offices located in the United States. The number of heroes protecting Americans by gathering intelligence in foreign countries is tiny.” (Underscoring Forum’s.)

On a parallel path, Ralph Peters this morning in his New York Post column “Dumbing down Intel | Bigger isn’t better in spy game” explains, drawing on his extensive experience - -

“The fundamental problem with our national intelligence system is that it assumes that quantity can substitute for quality. The result is a vast, expensive network that’s far less than the sum of its parts…. This week, The Washington Post has done something of a service with a series of articles, ‘Top Secret America,’ chronicling the lack of accountability in our intelligence community. The analysis is a bit superficial, but diligent reporting drives home the point that we’re just not getting our money’s worth. That’s been the case at least since The 1960s. But waste took a quantum leap after 9/11…. Timidity: Bureaucracies aren’t brave. The Army staff, where I worked, was bolder than the cover-your-butt DIA and CIA — but authentic outside-the-box thinking just worried folks. The goal of The intelligence community wasn’t revelatory insight, but consensus — so no one organization could be singled out for blame when things went south. Intelligence work without moral courage is just a welfare program for university grads. Lack of foreign experience: This deficiency keeps getting worse, despite our ongoing wars. The analyst-to-agent ratio is crazily top-heavy — for every serious observer on the ground reporting back to Washington, you have hundreds of analysts at dozens of agencies and headquarters parsing the same reports. And the underwear bomber still gets through.(Underscoring Forum’s.)

* * * * *

How Many U.S. Presidents Have Pretended Iran Is Not at War With Us?  Counter-terrorism expert and historian Michael Leeden in his Pajamas Media Post last week “Hey Secretary Gates, Admiral Mullen, General Petraeus! Isn’t General Odierno Right?” explained in a - -

“Note to Secretary Gates, General Petraeus, and Admiral Mullen: Our refusal to see the big war that we are actually fighting is making your commanders in the field very nervous. In another one of those little stories that appear just once and then vanish into the pit of Newspeak, General Odierno pointed out that the Iranians are still after our guys in Iraq, and we are making things easier for them. . . . . Let’s put it in simple language: the Iranians are doing everything they can to kill Americans. These are your soldiers and our children, and while the politicians and journalists rarely mention this unpleasant fact, your sworn duty is to defend them, and to strike at our enemies. Your commander in Iraq is obviously trying to get somebody’s attention back here in Washington.” (Underscoring Forum’s.)

* * * * *

These are all the kinds of national-security-related questions Tea Partiers and the conservative grass-roots should be considering and raising with their elected officials.  They are too important to be left to “ruling class” politicians (of whatever party) and bureaucrats.

“In the short term at least, the country class has no alternative but to channel its political efforts through the Republican Party, which is eager for its support. But the Republican Party does not live to represent the country class.  . . . . Few Republican voters, never mind the larger country class, have confidence that the party is on their side. Because, in the long run, the country class will not support a party as conflicted as today’s Republicans, those Republican politicians who really want to represent it will either reform the party in an unmistakable manner, or start a new one as Whigs like Abraham Lincoln started the Republican Party in the 1850s. “ - - - Angelo Codevilla (Underscoring Forum’s.)

Angelo Codevilla has just published an essential addition to the American conservative conversation, America’s Ruling Class — And the Perils of Revolution , in the current number of the American Spectator. (We are grateful to Jonah Goldberg for drawing the Codevilla article to our attention last Friday.)

For conservatives and for Tea Partiers, Codevilla’s is a seminal and challenging piece that helps answer frequently-asked questions about puzzling if not highly frustrating (for conservatives) behavior within the GOP Establishment.

For example - -why does the US Senate Republican Leadership not play real hardball to try to stop statist legislation and nominees?  Why does the Maryland GOP Establishment try to muscle Old Line State conservatives out of party power?  Why did the governor of Virginia almost instinctively hit the Arizona bill though later coming to an apparently less critical view?  Why does his administration simply fine-tune the Old Dominion’s governmentalism? (Budget-and-taxes hawk Norman Leahy has the latest fiscal take on the McDonnell Administration.)

We can’t possibly do justice to distinguished scholar Codevilla’s entire piece - - but we can highlight some of his insights that touch our current situation. (Underscoring is Forum’s throughout the quotes.)

TARP and the Ruling Class

“As over-leveraged investment houses began to fail in September 2008, the leaders of the Republican and Democratic parties, of major corporations, and opinion leaders stretching from the National Review magazine (and the Wall Street Journal) on the right to the Nation magazine on the left, agreed that spending some $700 billion to buy the investors’ ‘toxic assets’ was the only alternative to the U.S. economy’s ’systemic collapse.’ In this, President George W. Bush and his would-be Republican successor John McCain agreed with the Democratic candidate, Barack Obama. Many, if not most, people around them also agreed upon the eventual commitment of some 10 trillion nonexistent dollars in ways unprecedented in America. They explained neither the difference between the assets’ nominal and real values, nor precisely why letting the market find the latter would collapse America. The public objected immediately, by margins of three or four to one. When this majority discovered that virtually no one in a position of power in either party or with a national voice would take their objections seriously, that decisions about their money were being made in bipartisan backroom deals with interested parties, and that the laws on these matters were being voted by people who had not read them, the term ‘political class’ came into use.”

But what is the “Country Class” according to Codevilla? 

“Describing America’s country class is problematic because it is so heterogeneous. It has no privileged podiums, and speaks with many voices, often inharmonious. It shares above all the desire to be rid of rulers it regards inept and haughty. It defines itself practically in terms of reflexive reaction against the rulers’ defining ideas and proclivities — e.g., ever higher taxes and expanding government, subsidizing political favorites, social engineering, approval of abortion, etc. Many want to restore a way of life largely superseded. Demographically, the country class is the other side of the ruling class’s coin: its most distinguishing characteristics are marriage, children, and religious practice. While the country class, like the ruling class, includes the professionally accomplished and the mediocre, geniuses and dolts, it is different because of its non-orientation to government and its members’ yearning to rule themselves rather than be ruled by others.
Even when members of the country class happen to be government officials or officers of major corporations, their concerns are essentially private; in their view, government owes to its people equal treatment rather than action to correct what anyone perceives as imbalance or grievance. Hence they tend to oppose special treatment, whether for corporations or for social categories. Rather than gaming government regulations, they try to stay as far from them as possible. Thus the Supreme Court’s 2005 decision in Kelo, which allows the private property of some to be taken by others with better connections to government, reminded the country class that government is not its friend.

Negative orientation to privilege distinguishes the corporate officer who tries to keep his company from joining the Business Council of large corporations who have close ties with government from the fellow in the next office. The first wants the company to grow by producing. The second wants it to grow by moving to the trough. It sets apart the schoolteacher who resents the union to which he is forced to belong for putting the union’s interests above those of parents who want to choose their children’s schools. In general, the country class includes all those in stations high and low who are aghast at how relatively little honest work yields, by comparison with what just a little connection with the right bureaucracy can get you. It includes those who take the side of outsiders against insiders, of small institutions against large ones, of local government against the state or federal. The country class is convinced that big business, big government, and big finance are linked as never before and that ordinary people are more unequal than ever.”

The Beltway GOP and the Obama Program

“Moreover, 2009-10 establishment Republicans sought only to modify the government’s agenda while showing eagerness to join the Democrats in new grand schemes, if only they were allowed to. Sen. Orrin Hatch continued dreaming of being Ted Kennedy, while Lindsey Graham set aside what is true or false about ‘global warming’ for the sake of getting on the right side of history. No prominent Republican challenged the ruling class’s continued claim of superior insight, nor its denigration of the American people as irritable children who must learn their place. The Republican Party did not disparage the ruling class, because most of its officials are or would like to be part of it.”

The “Two Classes”

“Today’s ruling class, from Boston to San Diego, was formed by an educational system that exposed them to the same ideas and gave them remarkably uniform guidance, as well as tastes and habits. These amount to a social canon of judgments about good and evil, complete with secular sacred history, sins (against minorities and the environment), and saints. Using the right words and avoiding the wrong ones when referring to such matters — speaking the ‘in’ language — serves as a badge of identity. ‘ . . . . [W]hether formally in government, out of it, or halfway, America’s ruling class speaks the language and has the tastes, habits, and tools of bureaucrats. It rules uneasily over the majority of Americans not oriented to government.

The two classes have less in common culturally, dislike each other more, and embody ways of life more different from one another than did the 19th century’s Northerners and Southerners — nearly all of whom, as Lincoln reminded them, ‘prayed to the same God.’ By contrast, while most Americans pray to the God ‘who created and doth sustain us,’ our ruling class prays to itself as ’saviors of the planet’ and improvers of humanity. Our classes’ clash is over ‘whose country’ America is, over what way of life will prevail, over who is to defer to whom about what. The gravity of such divisions points us, as it did Lincoln, to Mark’s Gospel: ‘if a house be divided against itself, that house cannot stand.’”

The Attack on Faith and Family

“The ruling class is keener to reform the American people’s family and spiritual lives than their economic and civic ones. In no other areas is the ruling class’s self-definition so definite, its contempt for opposition so patent, its Kulturkampf so open. It believes that the Christian family (and the Orthodox Jewish one too) is rooted in and perpetuates the ignorance commonly called religion, divisive social prejudices, and repressive gender roles, that it is the greatest barrier to human progress because it looks to its very particular interest — often defined as mere coherence against outsiders who most often know better. Thus the family prevents its members from playing their proper roles in social reform. Worst of all, it reproduces itself.”

In this connection, readers should also be aware of seasoned investigator’s Cliff Kincaid’s warning about  - -

“. . . a well-funded effort to divide the conservative movement and dump Christian conservatives as a key constituency for the GOP.”

Codevilla adds - -

“The ruling class’s manifold efforts to discredit and drive worship of God out of public life — not even the Soviet Union arrested students for wearing crosses or praying, or reading the Bible on school property, as some U.S. localities have done in response to Supreme Court rulings — convinced many among the vast majority of Americans who believe and pray that today’s regime is hostile to the most important things of all. Every December, they are reminded that the ruling class deems the very word ‘Christmas’ to be offensive. Every time they try to manifest their religious identity in public affairs, they are deluged by accusations of being ‘American Taliban’ trying to set up a ‘theocracy.’ Let members of the country class object to anything the ruling class says or does, and likely as not their objection will be characterized as ‘religious,’ that is to say irrational, that is to say not to be considered on a par with the ’science’ of which the ruling class is the sole legitimate interpreter. Because aggressive, intolerant secularism is the moral and intellectual basis of the ruling class’s claim to rule, resistance to that rule, whether to the immorality of economic subsidies and privileges, or to the violation of the principle of equal treatment under equal law, or to its seizure of children’s education, must deal with secularism’s intellectual and moral core. This lies beyond the boundaries of politics as the term is commonly understood. “

And the future - - as Codevilla sees it?

“If self-governance means anything, it means that those who exercise government power must depend on elections. The shorter the electoral leash, the likelier an official to have his chain yanked by voters, the more truly republican the government is. Yet to subject the modern administrative state’s agencies to electoral control would require ordinary citizens to take an interest in any number of technical matters. Law can require environmental regulators or insurance commissioners, or judges or auditors to be elected. But only citizens’ discernment and vigilance could make these officials good. Only citizens’ understanding of and commitment to law can possibly reverse the patent disregard for the Constitution and statutes that has permeated American life. Unfortunately, it is easier for anyone who dislikes a court’s or an official’s unlawful act to counter it with another unlawful one than to draw all parties back to the foundation of truth.”

We will be revisiting Codevilla’s rich discussion from time to time.  And typical of good argumentative conservatives, we may dissent from some or another of his lesser conclusions.  But his overall theme is sound and lights our way.

We will also, in coming posts, want to talk about Codevilla’s illustrations of the degradation of the legislative process and ways to fix it - -

“Nowadays, the members of our ruling class admit that they do not read the laws. They don’t have to. Because modern laws are primarily grants of discretion, all anybody has to know about them is whom they empower. By making economic rules dependent on discretion, our bipartisan ruling class teaches that prosperity is to be bought with the coin of political support. Thus in the 1990s and 2000s, as Democrats and Republicans forced banks to make loans for houses to people and at rates they would not otherwise have considered, builders and investors had every reason to make as much money as they could from the ensuing inflation of housing prices.”

Don’t overlook Codevilla’s final caveat - -

“How the country class and ruling class might clash on each item of their contrasting agendas is beyond my scope. Suffice it to say that the ruling class’s greatest difficulty — aside from being outnumbered — will be to argue, against the grain of reality, that the revolution it continues to press upon America is sustainable. For its part, the country class’s greatest difficulty will be to enable a revolution to take place without imposing it. America has been imposed on enough. “

The Long Haul

This is no time to be discouraged about the long haul. Mark Levin described the length of the road ahead as we noted last year - -

“’For the Conservative, the challenge is daunting and the road will be long and hard,’ Levin sums up. ‘But it took the Statist nearly eighty years to get here, and it will take the Conservative at least as long to change the nation’s direction. Still, there is no time to waste. The Conservative must act now.’”

“We are entering troubling times. The conviction that war is upon us grows with each passing day. What remains to be determined is who will dictate the terms of that war - Iran or Israel.”    — Caroline Glick

The Obama Administration’s weakening of America and abandonment of our allies ties right into the unseemly haste of the president’s circle to transform America in 2010.

Seasoned political analyst Caroline Glick last Tuesday in her “A war on whose terms” reports - -

“Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu just returned from yet another visit with US President Barack Obama. Although the background music was cheerful, from statements by both men it is clear that Obama is not a credible ally. He does not understand or accept the strategic logic behind the US alliance with Israel and will not support Israel in future armed conflicts.

Indeed, in the face of the growing Iranian menace, Obama insists on limiting his interests to the irrelevant faux peace process with Fatah while allowing Iran and its proxies to run wild.

What this means is that for better or for worse, under Obama the US is far less relevant than it was four years ago. And this frees Netanyahu to fight the coming war on Israel’s terms. Iran’s domestic troubles and the Arab world’s genuine fear of a nuclear armed Iran provide Israel with a rare opportunity to radically shift the balance of power in the region for the better. It is time for Netanyahu to lead.” (Underscoring Forum’s.)

Readers can get a clearer picture of current pressures on Israel and what’s driving the Iranian regime from considering her entire column - -

* * * * *

Rogue CENTCOM Red Team

Veteran national-security sentinel Frank Gaffney asks in his June 30 Newsmax article “Is Petraeus Going Native?”

“It was bad enough when, two months ago, word got around that U.S. Central Command’s commanding general, David Petraeus, had embraced the meme that Americans were being killed in his theater of operations because Israel had refused to make peace with its Palestinian enemies.

Now comes word that elements within his command – including many of its ’senior officers’ and ‘intelligence personnel’ – believe the United States should abandon its longstanding policy of ‘isolating and marginalizing’ Hamas and Hezbollah.

According to an article entitled, ‘Red Team: CENTCOM thinks outside the box on Hamas and Hezbollah’ by Mark Perry published today online by Foreign Policy magazine, a Red Team at Central Command is recommending ‘a mix of strategies that would integrate the two organizations into their respective political mainstreams.’ The justification for treating these designated terrorist organizations as though they were part of the solution is to be found in the following, astounding remarks by unidentified CENTCOM officers . . . .” 

. . . . .

“Even more instructive was the following line by Perry: ‘The Red Team also claims that reconciliation with Fatah, when coupled with Hamas’s explicit renunciation of violence, would gain ‘widespread international support and deprive the Israelis of any legitimate justification to continue settlement building and delay statehood negotiations.’ Indeed, delegitimation of Israel seems pretty much to be the Red Team agenda – a nation that has been and remains a key ally of what one would hope remains the Blue Team: the United States of America.” (Underscoring Forum’s throughout.)

Former Reagan defense aide Gaffney deconstructs the Red Team’s reasoning throughout his post.

* * * * *

General Jim Mattis - - Warrior Monk

Independent defense thinker Ralph Peters last Tuesday told us that “The ‘warrior monk’ New CENTCOM head is our finest Marine” - -

“Nominated last week to replace Gen. David Petraeus as the head of the US Central Command, the Marine Corps’ Gen. Jim Mattis may be the finest four-star on duty in any service today.

He’s certainly the humblest. And maybe the smartest — but he’ll let you figure that out for yourself.

If confirmed, Mattis will team with Petraeus on AfPak, but he’ll also be responsible for the vast surrounding region. He won’t micromanage Petraeus. Instead, he’ll support his nominal subordinate every way he can. He’ll build the frame, letting Petraeus paint the Afghan canvas.”

. . . . . . . . . .

“So the left-wing media hate him. Not only is Mattis a fighter in the great Marine tradition, he doesn’t pretend he’d rather be running a soup kitchen in San Francisco.

The media have conditioned Army generals to apologize for their profession (when they’re not pandering to Islamist terrorists). But lefty journalists will never forgive Mattis for stating, back in 2005, that he enjoys being a Marine.

I sat beside Mattis on a panel in San Diego when he made his ‘infamous’ remarks about taking pleasure in killing the worst of our nation’s enemies. I don’t think he knew there were reporters present. (It was a closed-door session for Marine and Navy officers.) So he spoke the way authentic warriors do.

He was spanked for it. (Wouldn’t want honest generals, would we?) And he won’t make that error again. Yet, when his nomination as CENTCOM commander was announced at a Pentagon press session last week, CNN’s Barbara Starr was seething.

Uninterested in anything else about this great Marine, she read Mattis’ 2005 remarks for the cameras, implying that any Marine who enjoys being a Marine should be kept away from terrorists and children.” (Underscoring Forum’s.)

Our moral in this brief review of three posts:  don’t forget - - in the midst of our struggle against statism-with-many-faces at home - - that there are dangerous and savage regimes and movements abroad that threaten, not just our traditional allies, but ourselves here at home. 

A militarily strong America with a believable diplomacy and a strong sense of our own sovereignty is essential for a more peaceful and prosperous globe.

The Wall Street Journal’s Daniel Henninger today declares “Berwick: Bigger Than Kagan: If the American people want the health-care world Dr. Berwick wishes to give them, that’s their choice. But they must be given that choice.”

“Barack Obama’s incredible ‘recess appointment’ of Dr. Donald Berwick to head the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) is probably the most significant domestic-policy personnel decision in a generation. It is more important to the direction of the country than Elena Kagan’s nomination to the Supreme Court.

The court’s decisions are subject to the tempering influence of nine competing minds. Dr. Berwick would direct an agency that has a budget bigger than the Pentagon. Decisions by the CMS shape American medicine.

Dr. Berwick’s ideas on the design and purpose of the U.S. system of medicine aren’t merely about ‘change.’ They would be revolutionary.” (Underscoring Forum’s.)

Read all of columnist Henninger’s revealing piece on what Dr. Donald Berwick believes. Henninger gives chapter and verse. 

Andrew McCarthy on Berwick

On Tuesday, Andy McCarthy at National Review on Line (NRO) commented in his “Another One for the ‘Sound and Fury, Signifying Nothing’ File”  - -

“The most transparent president of all time made his most transparent move yet in the recess appointment of an unabashed socialist, Dr. Donald Berwick, as his new healthcare rationing czar (i.e., administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid services at HHS). That is, Mr. Obama could not more clearly have told Senate Republicans to go pound sand if he had held up a sign, live on C-SPAN, that said ‘Go Pound Sand!’

Roll Call (subscription only) reports that, upon returning to session, our redoubtable GOP senators reacted by taking to the floor to denounce the recess appointment in the harshest terms and to issue ’stern warnings’ that, as one staffer put it, all future Obama nominees would be viewed through the ‘prism of Berwick.’ They then bravely closed ranks to unanimously … wait for it … join with Democrats to approve, by an 86-0 vote, the nomination of Sharon Coleman, Obama’s choice to serve as a district judge in his home state of Illinois.” (Underscoring Forum’s.)

The Senate Republicans cannot undo a recess appointment.  But they can slow walk if not halt other Obama priorities in the Senate.  The Senate Republican leadership might consider doing their utmost, directly and indirectly, to obstruct and delay other Obama revolutionary initiatives until the nation has spoken on November 2.

“2010 Let’s Make Lasting Change !” - - DSCC Tote Bag Slogan

“. . . Democrats know the electoral setbacks will only be temporary. They are banking on the assurance that Republicans merely want to win elections and have no intention of rolling back Obamacare, much less of dismantling Leviathan.” - - Andrew McCarthy

For Tea Partiers and conservatives, it is a primary objective to keep the Obama Administration’s legislation and regulatory innovations from settling into “lasting change.” People understand that preventing this “lasting change” is the first step to returning America to the right path.

We also know, however, undoing the Obama Mischief in many cases is far harder than stopping it initially.

Unfortunately the Senate Republican leadership apparently has, to put it charitably, a different perspective about stopping Obama legislation.

We have written about the leadership’s soft-power approach a number of times, most notably in our June 26, 2010 “DISCLOSE” Will Senate GOP Leaders Stop Really Bad Bills? and our March 24, 2010 Shaming a Faltering Senate GOP Leadership into Action.

Here are extracts from our March 24 post - -

“Nor have other senators in GOP leadership roles, John Kyl and Lamar Alexander, been the conservative warriors we all hope for.

From one past (December 5) Forum post - -

• Here is Michael Hammond’s up-to-the-minute situation report (do read it all):  ‘We don’t want Mitch McConnell to try to make himself look good by pretending to be a ‘non-obstructionist.’ We want Senate Republicans to move heaven and earth to protect Americans from Harry Reid’s scheme of bribery, fraud and dirty politics. ACTION:  Contact your two U.S. Senators.  Tell them to object to any further Unanimous Consent agreements to further the ObamaCare freight train.’ (Hammond is a former general counsel to the Senate Republican Steering Committee.)

• “RedState’s hogan here cites Senate Republican Whip John Kyl’s ’strategy’— “’actually, I think we can be fairly upfront about it. Our strategy is not actually to delay and not take votes.’ He added, ‘our strategy is to have a lot of good amendments and highlight the problems in the bill,’ and ‘it is not our strategy to somehow slow things down.’”
  

And from another (July 27) Forum post - -

Last Friday, RedState’s Erick Erickson declared “Lamar Alexander Plays Lapdog to Barbara Boxer and Endorses Government Mandated, Tax-Payer Funded Abortion.”  Read Erickson’s take here on this member of the Senate Republican leadership he terms ‘a serial capitulator.’”

In RedState hogan’s post of last December 4 Senate Republicans Fiddle While America Burns, the veteran Senate watcher offered this advice about stopping Obamacare - -

“Delay, obstruct and fight – using every parliamentary tactic in the book – such as forcing a reading of the bill, offering strategic amendments, etc… - and try to build up so much public opposition that Democrats cannot get 60 votes. The tools for this strategy were outlined by Senator Judd Gregg, but this is being ignored in favor of ‘messaging amendments’ (code for: we don’t have a plan, so let’s offer ‘messaging amendments’ even though we have no actual message, instead of useful, divisive amendments that might actually be a poison pill).”

Readers should print out to carry with them Senator Jud Gregg’s manual for Senate delaying.

The Heritage Foundation writes about a number of Obama Administration proposals that may arrive on the Senate menu right through a possible lame-duck session, bills that deserve to be delayed to death.

Lamentably, the Senate Republican leadership apparently had already decided that the Dodd-Frank financial regulation bill was not worth obstructing and delaying. Today the Wall Street Journal editors reported about “The Uncertainty Principle: Dodd-Frank will require at least 243 new federal rule-makings.” Here is a link to the bill’s (H.R. 4173) conference report.

Nonetheless the Senate Republican leadership should quickly begin to delay and obstruct other Obama Administration priorities between now and August 9, the beginning of the summer recess.

If enacted, bad bills will be very difficult to repeal. If Dean Elena Kagan is confirmed to the US Supreme Court, that begins a lifetime of anti-constitutional influence.

If the experience with the Bush Administration is any test, even rolling back bad regulatory innovations might well be an uphill fight with future Republican presidents.

Between now and the next Congress in January, we have to fight with the Senate army we have. As we have written, our current impression is that too many Republican Congressional incumbents are wholly beguiled (and distracted) by a vision of a “blow-out victory” next November. Instead of indulging in premature triumphalism, we need commitment to wage a stubborn, unrelenting fight in the Congress from now until January.

Despite their spirited denunciations of the Obama Administration’s measures, the Senate Republican leadership has accomplished little. 

The costs of the Senate Republican leadership maintaining their respectability in the Beltway Establishment by failing to obstruct and delay are too high for the future of the Republic.

Perhaps our best hope lies with prompt local guidance - - to their senators in leadership roles - - from the Tea Partiers and the conservative base in Kentucky, Arizona, and Tennessee. These are the states represented in the Senate by the Republican leader, the Republican whip, and the Republican conference chair.

UPDATE JULY 14! Kudos to Virginia Republican Representative Robert Wittman and veteran Virginia Republican appropriator Frank Wolf who signed (scroll down) the Discharge Petition.  Maryland conservatives will want to urge Democrat Frank Kratovil, and Virginia conservatives will want to urge Democrats Glenn Nye and Rick Boucher to sign the Discharge Petition.  The three Democrats voted against Obamacare on final passage.  Signing the Discharge Petition will give the three members an opportunity to restate their opposition to that freedom-denying legislation.

* * * * * 

“Republicans just need to sign a repeal bill, bring forth a discharge petition, use the discharge petition as a litmus test against Blue Dog Democrats in the November elections, win back a majority, pass a repeal bill in the new Congress, endure Obama’s inevitable veto of it, shut off the funding for the 2011 and 2012 enactment of Obamacare, and, finally, elect a new president in 2012.” – Representative Steve King

National Review on Line’s (NRO) Ramesh Ponnuru two weeks ago wrote  - -

“NRO editorialized recently that the basic House Republican health-care strategy this year should have three facets. First, House Republicans should co-sponsor a simple, straightforward repeal bill. Second, Republican challengers should urge Democratic incumbents—especially those who voted against Obamacare—to co-sponsor the bill as well. Third, Republicans should continue to promote alternative health-care reforms such as tax credits, interstate purchase, and so forth. While the party’s message should include a ‘replace’ component, its legislative tactics this year should focus on repeal.

. . . . . . . . . .

Republican challengers need to pressure Democratic incumbents, especially the ones who voted against Obamacare, to support repeal. (Underscoring Forum’s.)

Readers are encouraged to consider all of Ponnuru’s well-reasoned piece.

Here is our paraphrase of how some key conservative voices are explaining the nuts and bolts of why we want all our Republican House members - - and those Democratic members who trumpet their vote against Obamacare - - to sign the discharge petition now - -

With a repeal bill unlikely to come to the House floor this year, the next best thing is discharge petition #11.  If this discharge petition gets signed by 218 members, then Speaker Pelosi would be forced to bring H.R. 4972 to the House floor for an up or down vote on repealing Obamacare. The discharge petition also provides concerned citizens and grassroots groups a single legislative target to focus their attention.

Tea Partiers and conservatives in Virginia and Maryland should take pains to be sure that all their Republican U. S. Representatives, and those Maryland (Frank Kratovil) and Virginia Democrats (Rick Boucher and Gerald Nye) who voted against Obamacare don’t stray from the fold at this crucial time.

Here is a July 1 link listing the 109 House members who have already signed Mr. King’s discharge petition.  Members are now returning after the July 4th recess, and the House will meet tomorrow July 13 at 2 PM.

Maryland and Virginia: In addition to Democratic members Mr. Kratovil, Mr. Nye, and Mr. Boucher, two Republicans (from Virginia) who have not yet signed are Frank Wolf and Robert Wittman.

They all should sign the discharge petition allowing Steve King’s simple Obamacare repealer to come to the House floor for a vote.

Michelle Malkin starts off with her “Open-borders DOJ vs. America” post - -

“My column today looks at one of the champions of illegal immigration inside the DOJ: Civil Rights Division chief/assistant attorney general Thomas E. Perez.”

Continues Malkin:

“The Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, headed by Assistant Attorney General Thomas E. Perez, took the lead in prepping the legal brief against Arizona. The son of immigrants from the Dominican Republic, Perez is a far Left lawyer and activist who worked for the late mass illegal alien amnesty champion Teddy Kennedy and served in the Clinton administration DOJ. While holding down a key government position there in which he was entrusted to abide by the rule of law, Perez volunteered for Casa de Maryland – a notorious illegal alien advocacy group funded through a combination of taxpayer-subsidized grants and radical liberal philanthropy, including billionaire George Soros’s Open Society Institute (not to mention more than $1 million showered on the group by Venezuelan thug Hugo Chavez’s regime-owned oil company, CITGO).

Perez rose from Casa de Maryland volunteer to president of the group’s board of directors. Under the guise of enhancing the ‘multicultural’ experience, he crusaded for an ever-expanding set of illegal alien benefits from in-state tuition discounts for illegal alien students to driver’s licenses. Casa de Maryland opposes enforcement of deportation orders, has protested post-9/11 coordination of local, state, and national criminal databases, and produced a ‘know your rights’ propaganda pamphlet for illegal alien depicting federal immigration agents as armed bullies making babies cry.”

Last week the Blue Ridge Forum revisited Mr. Perez’ October 6, 2009 confirmation, and some of his subsequent testimony about the dismissal of the Black Panthers case.

Mr. Perez is clearly no friend of conservatives, nor — some would argue - - of constitutional government.

So why did Maryland House of Delegates Republican leader Tony O’Donnell help advance Tom Perez’ confirmation to a sensitive Department of Justice position in the Obama Administration? Recall that Perez has also come under recent heavy criticism on his testimony about the Black Panther-case dismissal.

And why did former GOP state chairman John Kane write the Senate Judiciary Committee such a congenial letter urging Mr. Perez’ confirmation.

Blue Ridge Forum revealed these letters last October 7.  They have been no secret. The Potomac Tea Party Report is also right on the case.

We believe that Maryland House of Delegates GOP insiders have a duty to reveal what really led Republican Leader Tony O’Donnell to support Mr. Perez.

Similarly, any state Republican leader close to John Kane should see that his motivation in supporting the Perez confirmation is brought to light. Readers will note that both the O’Donnell and Kane letters in support of Perez were signed about a week apart.  

Readers can decide for themselves whether the Kane-O’Donnell support for Perez was warranted.

We need more facts, however, on the circumstances behind two Maryland Republican chieftains supporting Senate confirmation of such an unlikely candidate.  Mr. Perez was not simply a nominee for some assistant secretaryship in the Agriculture or Commerce department - - but for a major Department of Justice post and thus a key player on the Obama Team.

What, in short, was the deal?

Distinguished Heritage Foundation Senior Fellow Bob Moffit has just published a short but seminal essay “Revitalizing Federalism: The High Road Back to Health Care Independence.”

We strongly recommend health-care expert Moffit’s entire article to all our readers, and particularly to both the Virginia Republican state legislative and executive leaders, and to the two Maryland Republican gubernatorial primary candidates, Bob Ehrlich and Brian Murphy.

Republican incumbents and challengers should also take in Dr. Moffit’s action-packed prescription “Playing Offense” - -

“Under the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution, the powers not granted to the national government are reserved to the states and to the people. There is a large role that states can play in making health care policy, especially over the next four years. Furthermore, inaction by the states is an invitation to the federal government to take over their legitimate power when there is a popular demand for action.

State legislators can and should move ahead with their own agenda for health reform, not just play a waiting game until 2014, listening for Washington to tell them what to do and how to do it. State legislators should seize every inch of territory in the health policy debate within the law, such as health insurance market reform, and challenge every transgression of their legitimate authority if and when federal officials violate it.

State legislators should also hold their own public hearings on the impact of the federal law on their citizens, employers, employees, insurers and medical professionals, and state agencies. U.S. Senators who voted to impose costly mandates on their states should be invited to state legislative hearings to give an account of their actions and explain why they believe that such mandates advance the true interests of the states they represent.

Likewise, state legislators should invite federal officials to appear and explain how they intend to implement mandates and make them justify their proposed rules in broad daylight. State legislators, in cooperation with colleagues in sister states, should make it clear that dumping hundreds of pages of complex federal rules into the Federal Register for public notice and comment is no longer sufficient.“ (Underscoring Forum’s.)

We wrote last August that Obamacare was a bigger threat to our liberty than even to our wallets.

Some of Moffits’ tactics for “playing offense” against Obamacare, moreover, might be employed to help states push back against the Environmental Protection Agency’s so-called “endangerment finding” allowing that agency “to regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act.” As Iain Murray of the Competitive Enterprise Institute wrote - -

“The EPA is now clearly the mightiest agency in government. It has overstepped its bounds to impose its control over the economy - and the Senate has been too craven, feckless, partisan and ideologically blinded to stop it.”

For example, U.S. Senators who, in effect, voted not to repeal the economy-killing endangerment finding should be called to state legislative hearings and asked to “give an account of their actions and explain why they believe that such mandates advance the true interests of the states they represent.”  Again, state legislators might invite EPA officials “to appear and explain how they intend to implement mandates.”  In short, “make them justify their proposed rules in broad daylight.”

As Moffit explains, “dumping hundreds of pages of complex federal rules into the Federal Register for public notice and comment is no longer sufficient.” Neither for environment policy nor for health policy, we would add.