Notes From D. R.

Weekend Box Office: This...Is...Spartans!

Meet The Spartans tops the charts.

Right On!

Today's the tenth anniversary of the "vast right-wing conspiracy".

UPDATE: More from Jeff Jacoby.

End Of Term

Former Indonesian leader Suharto passes away at 86.

World Turning

Barack Obama wins the South Carolina Democrat primary. More from Jonathan V. Last.

One More Time

William Kristol and Fred Barnes on President Bush's final year.

The Insider

Richard Darman, an influential aide to Presidents Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush, passes away at 64. Darman was said to have been responsible for Bush's controversial decision to break his no-new-taxes vow in 1990. More from the New York Times.

Screwjob

10 years ago today, Bill Clinton said: "I did not have sexual relations with that woman."

From Behind

Could Newt Gingrich actually throw his hand into the GOP Presidential ring?

No Longer A Menace

Dennis Kucinich abandons his Presidential bid.

Speakerboxxx

A bizarre controversy involving former White House adviser Karl Rove.

Street Fight

David Frum and Peggy Noonan on the '08 election.

Sliding Doors

Things would be so much better for Barack Obama were he a Republican.

Could you imagine Obama being treated this way as a GOP candidate? It’d never happen. In fact, Republicans would be kissing his feet (as well as other body parts), lionizing him as the GOP’s new savior. Far from bashing him, some Republicans would literally drink his bath water.

Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity would be praising him to the high heavens, declaring him the Ronald Reagan of the twenty-first century. National Review and the Weekly Standard would be declaring the election over, and gloating about the Democrats’ inability to lay a glove on the man.

Sen. Obama, I think you might have joined the wrong party.

Remember when William Kristol and Bill Bennett went ga-ga over a potential Colin Powell Presidential bid in 1995? They wanted him to run on the Republican ticket so much, they practically begged him to get into the race—and Powell wasn’t even a conservative!

Obama would have received a warm embrace from the Republicans, not the cold fists he’s currently receiving from the Democrat elite (otherwise known as “Clinton Inc.”). He’d be praised by conservative bloggers as proof of Dr. King’s vision becoming reality. He’d be celebrated as a man who could finally break down the political barriers separating blacks from the GOP.

Republicans are laughing right now over Bill and Hillary Clinton’s efforts to destroy Obama’s candidacy. Most Republicans are thinking to themselves, “How stupid are these people?”

Obama would be much more formidable than Clinton in a general election. It would be virtually impossible for the GOP to run a successful smear campaign against Obama, as the media would demonize such a campaign as an effort by bigoted Republicans to scare white voters from supporting a black man (in other words, what a few bigoted Democrats are doing right now).

Obama would be the Democrats’ most effective soldier in this fall’s war—but right now, he’s being subjected to less-than-friendly fire. The Clintons are sabotaging Obama’s candidacy in order to allow Bill to effectively run for a third term.

In a way, you can’t blame the Clintons. They know that black voters who are currently horrified by the Clintons’ tactics will still support Hillary in the fall against her Republican opposition. Don’t forget that the Clintons were shameless—and effective—in their demonization of Republicans and conservatives on racial grounds in the 1990s (remember Bill Clinton’s 1993 remark asserting that Limbaugh only defended Attorney General Janet Reno in the wake of criticism she received from Rep. John Conyers over her handling of the Waco siege “because she's being attacked by a black guy"). All Bill and Hill have to do is warn black voters about the alleged bigotry of the GOP candidate, and they will once again receive ninety percent of the black vote. The Republicans could even select an African-American Vice Presidential candidate and they would still receive only an infinitesimal portion of the black vote.

Black voters may detest what the Clintons are currently doing to Obama, but they still consider the Clintons blood. To the black electorate, the Clintons are like wayward relatives who constantly get themselves in trouble: as much as one hates them for their unfortunate actions, one is still compelled to stick up for them as fellow family members.

Black love for the Clintons will win out in the fall. Blacks who despised Ronald Reagan in the 1980s fell for the Clintons in the 1990s; they regarded Clinton as the anti-Reagan, compassionate where Reagan was supposedly cruel, helping where Reagan was supposedly harmful. It’s a dysfunctional relationship, but it will certainly continue this fall.

It’s a shame, isn’t it? Obama had the potential to change the political game this fall, but that potential won’t be realized thanks to the thug tactics of the Clintons. The First Family of the Democrat Party has damaged Obama beyond repair, using their surrogates to smear him as a neophyte, a race-baiter and a drug-addicted black man. I’m surprised the Clintons haven’t run ads in South Carolina showing an Obama lookalike shooting up heroin in inner-city Chicago. They’ve done everything else to him, haven’t they?

The Republicans would have treated Obama like a master were he running on the GOP ticket. Unfortunately, he’s a Democrat—which means the Clintons have decided to treat him like a disobedient slave.

Contradiction In Terms

Ken Tomlinson on big-government conservatism.

Over The Edge

A great Larry Elder column on "Bush Derangement Syndrome".

Whack-A-Mole

Ever get the sense that the New York Times really doesn't like Mitt Romney?

The Final Scene

Actor Heath Ledger, known for his performances in The Patriot, Monster's Ball and Brokeback Mountain, passes away at 28. More from the New York Times and Hugh Hewitt.

I'm Coming Out

Fred Thompson drops out of the Presidential race. More from Human Events.

Child's Play

The 35th anniversary of Roe v. Wade. More from Duncan Hunter.

Showdown

John McCain vs. conservatives. More from David Brooks.

The Razor’s Edge

I still can’t shake the sense that the Republicans are going to lose it all this November.

Forget the Clinton-Obama dogfight: it’s a guarantee that they’ll kiss and make up in the end, and that black Democrats who dislike Clinton’s rhetorical assaults on Obama will still support Clinton if she becomes the Democrat nominee out of hatred for all things Republican.  The GOP is the truly divided party—and it will probably remain that way no matter who receives the Republican nomination.

If, as some have suggested, the GOP race is now a two-man contest between Mitt Romney and John McCain, this does not exactly bode well for conservatives. If McCain becomes the nominee, he may be competitive against Clinton, especially if he selects a solid Reagan conservative as Vice President. However, there’s a risk that the conservative base—angered by McCain’s clear apostasy on critical issues—could decide that there’s not a dime’s worth of difference between McCain and Clinton and abstain from voting, thus throwing the election to Clinton.

Romney would be somewhat more competitive against Clinton, as the ideological contrast between Romney and Clinton would be much clearer than that between McCain and Clinton. Yet, elements of the GOP base are still skeptical of Romney because of his actions as Massachusetts governor: some of that skepticism lacks a logical foundation, but it’s still a reality.

However, if Obama becomes the Democrat nominee, the GOP’s election hopes could turn out to be hallucinations. McCain could easily beat Obama if national security were foremost in the minds of American voters—but the reality is that the “holiday from history” has returned, and that we are now in a 1992-style period in which domestic concerns have replaced foreign-policy worries. The more voters think about domestic issues, the worse McCain’s chances are against the Illinois senator.

Romney could put up a better fight against Obama—but can Romney fight off a mainstream-media assault against him? The media has already demonized Romney as an insincere flip-flopper—and the Fourth Estate’s proclamations will only get louder in a general election. In a fight against the man who wants to be the first real black President, Romney will face off-the-charts media maliciousness concerning the Mormon church’s admittedly less-than-stellar record on race. The Obama campaign will also exploit whatever religious misgivings Americans may have about Romney.

Romney survived the Massachusetts media’s assaults on him in the early- and mid-2000s, but the national media will be far more vicious. If he cannot overcome press propaganda, he cannot possibly defeat Obama.

Is a GOP loss inevitable? Perhaps, but that’s not entirely a bad thing. A November defeat—and four years of a Democrat President mishandling things in Washington—could pave the way for the second coming of Reagan conservatism in the 2010s.

While one would like to win every Presidential election, reality dictates otherwise. However, the GOP has shown a remarkable ability to recover from major losses. After Barry Goldwater fell to Lyndon Johnson in 1964, the Republicans recovered, controlling the White House from 1969 to 1974. The fallout from Watergate doomed Gerald Ford’s chances for victory in 1976, but four years later, Ronald Reagan ushered in a dozen years of GOP rule. Bill Clinton’s excesses paved the way for George W. Bush to recapture the White House for the Republicans in 2000.

It may be that a GOP loss in ’08 is in fact necessary to preserve Reagan conservatism. After all, Reagan didn’t get elected until Americans realized just how far to the left the country had moved under Carter. The Republican Party’s “brand name” is said to be damaged today because of Bush’s errors as President, but after four years of increased taxation, rationed health care and excessive regulation under the guise of preventing climate change, the electorate could well decide in 2012 that all is forgiven vis-à-vis the GOP.

Storm clouds are gathering over the Republican Party, but after the storm passes, we could be in for several years of great weather. The GOP is in a short-term recession, one that might last for the remainder of this year. However, projections for the 2010s could turn out to be positive. If the GOP loses this year, it will force the party to clean up its act and regain the intellectual and ideological discipline of the “Contract with America” era. A Republican loss might be sickening for conservatives—but it could also be just what the doctor ordered.

King For A Day

Oh, you know it has to piss Democrats off when President Bush makes reference to Martin Luther King Jr. in any way, shape or form...

Colorblind Vision

Roger Clegg and the Los Angeles Times on renewed efforts to ban public-sector racial quotas.

Crossover Star

Will conservative Christians vote for Barack Obama?

UPDATE: At least one will... More from William Buckley.

Two Thumbs Down

Sure, people are going to rush to the theatres to see Oliver Stone's new movie about President Bush... More from Power Line.