* * *
Rand Paul had his best debate moment Tuesday when he
challenged Marco Rubio on his plans to increase defense spending by $1
trillion.
“You cannot be a conservative if you’re going to keep
promoting new programs you’re not going to pay for,” said Paul.
Marco’s retort triggered the loudest cheers of the night:
“There are radical jihadists in the Middle East beheading
people and crucifying Christians. The Chinese are taking over the South China
Sea. … the world is a safer and better place when America is the strongest
military power in the world.”
* YES. RUBIO'S REPLY BROUGHT CHEERS... FROM PEOPLE WHO
THEMSELVES WOULDN'T HAVE TO TAKE PART IN THE FIGHTING... FROM FOLKS WHO DON'T
BELIEVE THEY'D PAY ANY PERSONAL PRICE...
* FOLKS... TODAY'S "AMERIKA" IS FILLED WITH
PEOPLE WHO "TALK THE TALK" YET IF ASKED TO "WALK THE WALK"
WOULD RUN THE OTHER WAY.
(*SIGH*)
* REMIND ME AGAIN... WHAT BRANCH OF THE MILITARY DID MARCO
RUBIO SERVE IN? WHERE DID HE FIGHT?
(*SNORTING WHILE SMIRKING*)
* I WONDER HOW MANY IN THAT AUDIENCE SERVED? I WONDER
HOW MANY HAVE SONS AND DAUGHTERS SERVING? NOT MANY, I'D GUESS.
Having called for the U.S. Navy to confront Beijing in
the South China Sea, and for establishing a no-fly zone over Syria that Russian
pilots would enter at their peril, Rubio seems prepared for a confrontation
with either or both of our great rival nuclear powers.
Dismissing Vladimir Putin as a “gangster,” Marco emerged
as the toast of the neocons.
* CHINA IS OUR ENEMY. RUSSIA SHOULD BE OUR FRIEND. THE
OLIGARCHS SEE IT DIFFERENTLY, HOWEVER. HOW'S THE OLIGARCHY BEEN DOING RUNNING
THE COUNTRY SINCE THE DAYS OF PAPPY BUSH?
Yet the leading GOP candidate seems closer to Rand. Donald
Trump would talk to Putin, welcomes Russian planes bombing ISIS in Syria,
thinks our European allies should lead on Ukraine, and wants South Korea to do
more to defend itself.
(*STANDING OVATION*)
Uber-hawk Lindsey Graham did not even make the undercard
debate. And though he and John McCain are the most bellicose voices in the
party, they appear to be chiefs with no Indians.
* GIVING CREDIT WHERE CREDIT IS DUE, BOTH MEN ARE PRETTY
MUCH WRONG ON... WELL... EVERYTHING... BUT AT LEAST THEY WORE THE UNIFORM.
(GRAHAM AS A LAWYER... BUT, STILL...)
Still, it is well that Republicans air their
disagreements. For war and peace are what the presidency is about.
* AGREED.
Historically, Republican presidents appear to line up on
the side of Rand and Trump.
* YEP... (AS DID OUR FOUNDERS!)
Since WWII, there have been five elected GOP presidents:
Eisenhower, Nixon, Reagan, Bush I and Bush II.
Only Bush II could be called a compulsive
interventionist.
(*NOD*)
Ike ended Truman’s war in Korea and kept us out of
Indochina after the French defeat at Dien Bien Phu. He ordered the Brits,
French and Israelis out of Suez after they had attacked Egypt in 1956. He gave
us 7 years of peace and prosperity.
* I DIDN'T PERSONALLY LIVE THROUGH EISENHOWER'S
PRESIDENCY... BUT NEVERTHELESS... I LIKE IKE!
(*WINK*)
Nixon pledged to end the U.S. war in Vietnam, and did.
* YEP...
* DO THEY EVEN TEACH THIS IN SCHOOL NOWADAYS?
And as Ike invited the Butcher of Budapest, Khrushchev,
to visit the United States, Nixon invited Brezhnev, who had crushed the Prague
Spring.
(*NOD*)
Nixon became the first Cold War president to visit the
USSR, and famously ended decades of hostility between the United States and the
China of Chairman Mao.
* AND THEN THERE'S REAGAN...
Reagan used military force only three times. He liberated
the tiny Caribbean island of Grenada from Marxist thugs who had murdered the
prime minister and threatened U.S. medical students. He put Marines in Lebanon,
a decision that, after the massacre at the Beirut barracks, Reagan regretted
the rest of his life. He bombed Libya in retaliation for Moammar Gadhafi’s
bombing of a Berlin discotheque full of U.S. troops.
Blow-back for Reagan came with Pan Am 103 over Lockerbie
in 1988.
Though they were the foremost anti-Communists of their
era, Nixon and Reagan negotiated historic arms agreements with Moscow.
Reagan did send arms to aid anti-Communist rebels in
Angola, Afghanistan and Nicaragua, but never confronted Moscow in Eastern
Europe, even when Solidarity was crushed in Poland.
George H.W. Bush sent an army of 500,000 to expel Saddam
Hussein from Kuwait, but ordered those U.S. troops not to enter Iraq itself.
* AND ALLOWED SADDAM HUSSEIN TO RETAIN HIS "ELITE"
REVOLUTIONARY GUARD... AND... TO USE HIS POST-WAR FORCES TO CONTINUE MURDERING
THE IRAQI KURDS!
* FOLKS... I CAN'T STRESS TO YOU STRONGLY ENOUGH WHAT A
TERRIBLE PRESIDENT GEORGE HERBERT WALKER (PAPPY) BUSH WAS.
When the Berlin Wall fell and the Soviet Empire collapsed
and the USSR disintegrated, Bush I played the statesman, refusing to exult
publicly in America’s epochal Cold War triumph.
It was George W. Bush who gave the neocons their hour of
power.
After 9/11, came the invasion and remaking of Afghanistan
in our image, the “axis of evil” address, the march to Baghdad, the expansion
of NATO to Russia’s doorstep, and the global crusade for democracy “to end
tyranny in our world.”
Result: The Republicans lost both houses of Congress in
2006 and the White House in 2008 when John (“We are all Georgians Now!”) McCain
was routed by a liberal Democrat who had opposed the war in Iraq.
With the exception of Rand and Trump, the GOP candidates
appear to believe the road to the White House lies in resurrecting the attitude
and policies of Bush II that cost them the White House.
From Marco and other voices on stage one hears: Tear up
the Iran deal. Confront Putin. Establish a no-fly zone over Syria. Assad must
go. Send offensive weapons to Kiev. More boots on the ground in Iraq and Syria.
Send U.S. troops to the Baltic and warships to the Black Sea. Confront China in
the Spratlys and South China Sea.
Responding to that audience in Milwaukee, most GOP
candidates appear to have concluded that bellicosity and bravado are a winning
hand in the post-Obama era.
Yet, those nationalist strongmen Vladimir Putin and Xi
Jinping do not seem to me to be autocrats who are likely to back down when told
to do so by Marco Rubio, Jeb Bush or Carly Fiorina.
* TRUE...
* AS TO BUCHANAN'S BROADER POINT... WHILE I AGREE WITH
MUCH OF WHAT HE WRITES... CHINA IS OUR ENEMY AND WE MUST ACT ACCORDINGLY.
AGAIN... THE TRAGEDY IS THAT WE'VE ALIENATED RUSSIA. RUSSIA SHOULD BE OUR ALLY.
INDEED, I'D RATHER HAVE RUSSIA AS AN ALLY THAN EUROPE. EUROPE IS A CONSTANT
DRAIN UPON US.
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