Common cause?

Apparently Islamist regimes and Republicans have gathered around a common enemy: Barack Obama.

The AP reports that:

"Republican senators criticized President Barack Obama on Sunday for not taking a tougher public stand"

and Al Jazeera reports that Ahmadinejad:

"has told the US [...] to stop interfering in the country's internal affairs"

So, believing both the Iranian regime and the GOP, the Obama administration is oxymoronically "timidly" and "passively" interfering in the domestic affairs of Iran.

Reminder

Freedom Democrats has a thank-you note up to Democrats and the media.

First, on the topic of the "Wall Street meltdown" I am completely and totally heartless and callous. I don't blame this on George W. Bush and the Republicans. I don't blame this on Bill Clinton and the 1990s. It's the entire system at fault and to lay the blame at any one individual is absurd and just political opportunism.

I am in complete agreement.

Random Lookalike Contest

I am incapable of watching The Fifth Element without thinking of Fred Thompson. Right?

Catching flak

Hotline's On Call has carried the story of a war of words between Senator Barack Obama and Senator John McCain. After McCain criticized Sens. Hillary Clinton and Obama about their vote for the Iraq war funding supplemental, Obama responded:

“And if there ever was a reflection of that it's the fact that Senator McCain required a flack jacket, ten armored Humvees, two Apache attack helicopters, and 100 soldiers with rifles by his side to stroll through a market in Baghdad just a few weeks ago."

McCain jumped on the apparent misspelling in subsequent the press release, noting that:

"By the way, Senator Obama, it's a 'flak' jacket, not a 'flack' jacket."

FWIW, spell check in Microsoft Word for the sentences, "I am wearing a flack jacket" and "I am wearing a flak jacket" both escape without need for correction.

Interestingly, the word "flak" is an acronym from German. If Obama deems the criticism worth responding to in the future, I hope it's just as smarmy.

Nomination options

Training in St. Charles has delayed any updates, but here we go.

RealClearPolitics shows a composite graphic displaying the results of at least 7 different recent polls for the Republican nomination. Rudy Giuliani leads John McCain with anywhere from 4 to 24 points.

Newt Gingrich is polling better than Mitt Romney. What if the GOP nominees for President and Vice president were Rudy Giuliani and Newt Gingrich?

What if the Democratic nominees were Barack Obama and Bill Richardson. If that's the case, I see a Republican victory in 2008.

Blow the system

Commenters on The Moderate Voice, discuss a Robert Novak column:

"The [...] question is how successful the Republicans will be at pulling the blame game off, and how the Democrats will respond to the game ([which] will play into how successful, or unsuccessful the Republicans are).

[The] sense also is that the reason everyone is afraid to “pull the plug” (and they all are), is that no one knows how to without “blowing out the entire power system”. We are truly between a very large rock, and a very very hard place. Whatever [we] do is going to result in bad repercussion."

Most importantly:

"...no war can last longer than public support for it."