– By Warner Todd Huston
Three of the contenders for the nod for the GOP nomination for president were heard today at the CLC. I met and talked to each of them and listened to their message in speeches and townhall meetings.
First up was the ever tanned and handsome Mitt Romney. As always he said the right things, gave the audience the right conservative message, smiled a lot, and told us how much he loves his wife. He is a good business man. And that is one of the things I have against him. Sure it’s good that a presidential candidate knows something about business, that isn’t what my problem is. But, today we need a man who is a leader with his philosophy and ideas backing up his decisions, things that will lead us past the danger of our times. Mitt does not seem to be that man. He seems, rather, a man that is more interested in doing what “works” quite despite whether there are any principles behind that workable solution. His voting record pretty much shows that. Mitt might have been fine in 1994 when we thought that we had reached “the end of history” but not today.
Still, he had a fine, well crafted speech and seemed to please many. Well, he pleased many except the guy who asked him about medical Marijuana. That guy was a tad upset that Mitt said a firm NO to legalizing the weed even for so-called pain easement. Mitt said that there were plenty of other medications that could be used to ease a patient’s pain and that we didn’t need to resort to Mary Jane.
Next was the stalwart Duncan Hunter. Duncan was all fired up about how the border fence he had built in California had worked so well. He went on about immigration too much for my tastes, though. As important as the issue is, and it is really important, we need a president who is ready to deal with more than one or two issues and his almost border only townhall was a bit too single issue oriented for my tastes.
However, he did get into economics and he said one thing that I really liked. He said that as president he’d institute what he called a “mirror tariff” on foreign trade. If a foreign country had tariffs or restrictions on our trade he’d hold up “his little mirror” to their policies and institute the exact same ones for any of their products entering the USA. If they eased them on our trade going into their countries, he would follow suit on their products coming here.
That was good stuff!
I like Hunter a lot in quite a few ways. I would have no problem voting for the man if the opportunity presented itself.
UPDATE: For an my expanded remarks on Alan Keyes’ address click here.
Then came the amazing Alan Keyes. Keyes doesn’t much care if he wins the nomination or the White House. His cause, our cause, is what matters. Now, I think if you go to Ed Morrissey’s site, (Captain’s Quarters Bolg)he will say that Keyes was too much the polemicist and demagogue. If Ed’s comments at the diner table after Keyes’ speech is any indication, Ed will find Keyes a tad… well, maybe distasteful is the word?
I have to disagree to some extent. See, Keyes doesn’t care much about the presidency, really. He wants the pulpit. His goal is to alert America to the loss of sovereignty, the loss of liberty, the destruction of the Constitutional Republic which the Founders worked so hard to build and sacrificed so much for.
Alan began his rip roaring sermon — for that truly is what it was; a sermon — saying that he was going to break Reagan’s 11th commandment, which was “don’t talk bad about other Republicans.” He ripped Giuliani as completely unrepresentative of any Republican principles (not “values,” principles). He excoriated Romney for being unbelievable in his claims to support those Republican principles, and hinted that the rest of the field does not address the true issues of the day (Even as Duncan Hunter was in the room listening).
Incongruously, as Ambassador Keyes stood in front of a giant, 12-foot-tall Hunter for President banner, Keyes pummeled the other candidates. He did not do so, however, in a vulgar way or on anything other than a true reading of American first principles as bestowed upon us by the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, both documents that Keys said the rest haven’t the first clue about.
He is absolutely correct, even as he was a tad forceful in saying so. But, we are at a crossroads and force may be soon enough our last choice to bring back our Republic. I spoke to Ambassador Keyes for a while before diner and he is fast coming to a point past feeling that we are still at a time when talking will solve the problem. Action is now required and not action of the delicate type.
Now, I have to mention a chief point of his on the case of abortion. Keyes feels that there is a phrase in the Constitution that guarantees that the Founders were against abortion. It can be found in the preamble to the Constitution.
We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America
The word “Posterity” explains that abortion is anti-American, anti-Constitutional as far as Keyes sees it. After all, our posterity is our progeny, our children. And if the Founders wanted to assure that our posterity had their liberties protected by that document, then abortion must be illegal under the Constitution. After all, how can we bestow liberty on our posterity if we have aborted them in the womb? (It should also be remembered that abortion was certainly illegal in those days)
Here is where I disagree with Ed Morrissey and agree with Keyes. Words, it turns out, mean things. And words were the very tools of creation that the Founders used to assure that very liberty that Ambassador Keyes is talking about. They worried about punctuation, they worried about structure, they debated for months over many of those words. I believe that the Founders would see the logic in Ambassador Keyes’ position and would commend him for the interpretation.
Morrissey is right, though, that Keyes might be a tad “dangerous” in his thinking. But, we may be approaching a day when a bit of danger is the right prescription for what ills are infecting the US.
And, if Morrissey were to go back to the days of the American Revolution, I’d suspect that he condemn each and every one of our Founders for their equally demagogic speech… no for their even more dangerous speech than Keyes’. Compared to the Founders rhetoric, Alan Keyes is practically a pussycat.
So, where Ed sees “danger” — and dangerous it is to call for a virtual uprising of concerned citizens — I see what is fast becoming a last option. Keyes wasn’t advocating for armed rebellion, but for a concerned citizenry to take back what is ours. And to that I agree 100%. If that is “danger” then so be it.
Tomorrow, I interview J.D. Hayworth. And will report on the final day of the CLC.
At the end of September the school district in Oak Lawn, Illinois announced it was considering eliminating holiday celebrations like Christmas in its schools. Oak Lawn has seen increasing numbers of residents that identify with the Muslim faith who are naturally sending their children to the public schools there and school board members are afraid that Christian holidays are “offensive” to Muslim students.
Outrageously, a new live-action movie based on the G.I. Joe toy line might see Joe’s American soldier identity scrubbed to be replaced by membership in an “international force based in Brussels.” The news site, 
Anyone who is politically aware in this country, anyone who has taken the time to keep up on the news, can’t help but to have run across one of the left’s favorite bromides; “Bush lied, People Died.” Not quite as well known, but as an adjunct to this doggerel, the left has also indulged in a bit of backward Clinton praising with the phrase “No one died when Clinton lied.” This, however, is a lie in and of itself, and it’s a perfect example of how the left lies to themselves and everyone around them.
One of the chief reasons that Republicans in general and Conservatives in particular were always wary of John “the maverick” McCain is the slobbering love that the MSM so constantly lavished upon him. The MSM is so distrusted that their love for McCain relayed to the country that there must be something wrong with him. As his campaign descends into ever lower depths of disarray, we may begin to see the MSM fall to the floor in abject lamentations over his demise. There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth now that their favorite Republican looks to be a goner, at least if Michael Hirsh of Newsweek is any indication. In 
Did you know that a monument to the many millions of victims who died during the Cold War as a result of communist oppression was dedicated in Washington DC on June 12th? You would be excused if you didn’t know anything about it if the coverage of the event by the MSM is any measure because they all but ignored the unveiling of this moving monument.
Several years ago, I wrote an article in which I urged our school systems to teach Americanism so that we could reestablish our American culture. I remember several letters scolding me for this notion, but I got far more agreeing with my main point; without our shared American culture we cannot stand as a nation.
The AP has given us a piece on how “Right-Wing” book publishers are “worried” over the future success of publishing books on conservatives topics. One cannot help wonder, though, if the “worry” by the so-called “right-wing” publishers is more like the APs glee when you read their piece titled, 
The Washington Post is tsk tsking the U.S. Army and Walter Reed Army Medical Center today for their uninviting of aging 60s’ war protester Joan Baez from appearing in a concert for wounded soldiers with John Cougar Mellencamp last Friday. In a 
The foreign press are having a field day wagging their collective finger at Americans, scolding us over our 2nd Amendment rights. It seems they are all of a mind to take our guns away from us… not that they have any say in the matter. But, at least one paper, the Daily Telegraph of Australia, got themselves in trouble with Americans over their insensitive choice of wording in a story about one of the victims of the Virginia Tech shootings.
When reading about the story of protests in Colorado over the raising of a memorial statue to a fallen U.S. Soldier, one is tempted to feel that Americans have lost every vestige of manhood that it ever possessed. Just the very fact that someone would be so free of patriotism and testosterone that they’d protest this statue should be enough to affirm that there are no men left in the nation… or at least in the state of Colorado. Fortunately, the final analysis of the case tends to affirm the opposite, but the very fact that someone was ignorant enough to protest this memorial to an American hero is enough to rankle the American spirit.