It's a little startling how many people talk up the notion of American energy independence - usually dressed up in why are we buying oil from people that hate us rhetoric - without it seems ever stopping to consider what the strategic consequences of America no longer being tied to Mideast oil would be - these people are making statements that are ostensibly strategic in nature and yet they completely ignore the the strategic fallout of such a turn. Seems pretty odd to me - maybe not too surprising though, level of discourse in Washington and elsewhere being what it is.

In short - if we're no longer addicted to Mideast oil, what happens to our military commitment to the region? What's our motivation, how do we rationalize the expenditure, the loss of blood and treasure, defending other peoples energy supplies? Even if we vow a business as usual strategic commitment to the region in order to preserve the world economy, in reality how will such a thing play politically, even psychologically? And what about Israel? If energy independence causes us to detach from the region and it's troubled cultures both civic and social, what happens to Israel? And what about China? If we pull back they will most certainly step in - hell, they're doing it now - how would the big picture strategic map change with such a dramatic upending of things?

Not once have I heard anyone bring up these issues when flippantly spouting off about American energy independence. I'd like to think these people understand the implications of what they're talking about but bury it because the real treat is the freedom from people that hate us silliness. Still, who knows - there are a lot foolish people out there.

Lord, still I hear it, over and over again, from republicans who can't stand Romney but are stuck begrudgingly having to admit that no one else in the race is electable [and, O cruel irony, for the very reasons they can't stand him] and who, in order to avoid actually having to express support in any way for Romney or actually having to call out Gingrich for the monumental head case that he is, resort to the cowardly equivocation and nonsensical rationalization of "it doesn't matter who wins cause anyone would be better than Obama". Putting aside the obvious logical inconsistency of the statement ie the realization that occasions the sentiment is that only Romney has a chance of beating Obama therefore it of course very much matters who wins the nomination - but ignoring that and taking the statement at face value you're still left with an assessment utterly detached from common sense and cold reality - should you beat Obama, whether you have a super majority or not, the only way you're gonna be able to enact and maintain the long term changes that are required to right the country is if you have a president who doesn't alienate moderates or infuriate the not so moderate by seeming too driven by blind ideology, too willing to subvert common sense and practicality in the name of demagoguery and doctrine - only Romney fits that description - I'm not saying he can pull it off - I would have preferred Daniels or Christie or Ryan I think - but it seems very clear to me that out of Obama, Gingrich and Santorum Romney's the only one likely to be on the presidential ballot of 2012 with the potential to pull it off.

"... the thing about an Israeli attack on Iran as opposed to a US one is that Israel's window of opportunity is more constrained than America's because of the difference in sufficient firepower required to do the job... what that means is if Israel does not trust Obama to pull the trigger if such becomes necessary or does not trust him to be honest with them about his intentions and therefore suspect he may try and trick them into allowing their small window of opportunity to close, then Israel may feel it has no choice but to act... and let's face it, Obama's actions since becoming president have done little to inspire confidence that his view of Israel's security is in keeping with or even remotely sympathetic to the perceptions of Netanyahu and his confederates... and since from what I read the Israeli window of opportunity stands now at about nine months and the full proposed sanctions on Iran do not kick in for another five months and cannot be trusted with any conviction to do the job regardless... well, do the math and tremble..."

Concerning my post of a few days ago about how China's closed system sustains itself like all closed systems with a reliance if not dependency on illusion and misinformation and therefore one should be circumspect about stated Chinese numbers on their economy, this article is interesting.

Bret Stephen on WSJ editorial page pretty much sums up my feeling on the primary - his best line: a vote for Gingrich is a vote for an entertaining election, not a republican in the White House.

Much discussed article in NY TImes about why Apple products cannot be built in the US and how that kind of manufacturing is lost to the US for good is rebutted by Clyde Prestowitz over at Foreign Policy. My feeling is Clyde's take is closer to the truth - especially when he says Corning's decision to build the iPhone glass in China rather than America has less to do with supply chains as Corning claims and much more to do with China demanding that this is the way it's gonna be if you want access to the Chinese market.

I remember reading the article and thinking when an Apple executive was quoted as saying that the company was under no obligation to help with America's unemployment problem that that just didn't sound right - but I couldn't really put words to the feeling of exactly why that was - Clyde makes the argument for me.

Take on SC? That my contention of the primary proces being a silly if not pathetic parade of mindless populism, transparent rationalizations of blatant idiocy and the mad feckless rush of the masses towards the ideological equivalent of a baby's soother was both correct and wrong - correct because the what, twenty? thirty? percent swing in voter sympathies in the course of a mere few days seems to have almost entirely been predicated on the shallowest of understandings, the most superficial of perceptions concerning the issues and the candidates' respective suitabilities thereof - wrong because Romney looked flat footed and unprepared if not indeed confused when challenged by Gingrich on Bain Capital and his taxes - his inability or unwillingness to mount an impassioned defence of his success in the private sector while at same time casting Newt as an inconstant, hypocritical and politically toxic excrescence of Washington baffles - it's not enough to claim surprise that a supposed fellow conservative would be foolish enough to launch an attack that seemed taken right out of the Michael Moore Little Red Book of Left Wing Demagoguery - everyone knows Obama will be coming hard with this class warfare populist crap and Romney's complete failure to defend the ramparts made him look unfit for the looming battle - therefore in need of more primary boot camp.

Although I guess that's not necessarily true - the Romney battle plan may have been to run against Obama rather than his primary foes and thereby stay clean and above the silliness - possibly they calculated that was the best case scenario for a win and they'd ride such a plan out for as long as it was working but if and when it started to look to be falling short they'd go to approach number two - which I assume we're going to see rolled out now - and if that's the case it allows one to keep faith in Romney as being not only savvy and competent and prepared, but also up for a fight - of course if Gingrich wins Florida the savviness of such a strategy will be open to harsh criticism.

Unfortunately of course it could also just as well be something else manifesting itself here - ie that the republican base and environs are so awash in fear and loathing of Obama and the liberal agenda he represents that they have very little patience for rational arguments - they want blood - and they'll clamor to whomever promises it to them, doesn't matter how trite, manipulative or compromised by delusion the promise is - Bachman promised blood and they ran to her, then Cain, then Gingrich - but since the presence of Obama is key to this emotional need for an ideological cleansing, electability becomes a deciding factor - Romney only becomes tolerable for these people when the credibility of the not-Romneys' electability gets stretched so thin as to be unsustainable - but give them the slightest pretext to believe in the promise again and they will run to it like starving dogs. Bain and Gingrich's histrionic debate performances supplied the pretext. And so the question becomes: did Romney try and stay above the fray and run against Obama etc etc because that was a smart strategy? or because he underestimated and possibly even entirely missed the level of irrationality at play here and is now unwilling or maybe even incapable of fighting the fight now being forced upon him?

Guess we'll find out over the next few weeks - either Romney effectively defends his private sector success and in doing so exposes Newt as the dangerous charlatan that he is, or... well... Mitch Daniels is giving the GOP response to Obama's SOTU speech tomorrow - still remains for my money the best man for the job.

Ha! With a Gingrich win in SC we now have a long primary battle to look forward to - and Tobin over at Commentary raises the issue that I've been talking about all along - ie, that those who compare a tough primary battle with the Obama/Clinton face off and conclude that it will serve to make Romney a better candidate are failing to take notice of several serious differences that could do more harm than good to Romney. In short, the happiest people tonight are those watching the returns in the White House. This is a great night for them.

I don't think anyone has yet pointed out that if Gingrich wins South Carolina, and at the moment that looks likely, the main reason for this will be lefty CNN debate moderator John King, who set up ol' Newt with the perfect question to start the last debate - and what if as a liberal King knew exactly what he was doing? ie. King was thinking: Newt is only a factor in this primary because of his bashing of the liberal media in the debates - as a liberal I want Gingrich to be the nominee because there's no way in hell he beats Obama - so I'll feed him a question that allows him to win the debate and therefore SC goes his way. What if that's what happened here? Cause it's not a stretch at all to imagine that's exactly what has happened here.

But even if that wasn't the plan by CNN and King - the result is the same - that's not disturbing? Seems pretty disturbing to me.

The upside of all this would be, if I were Romney, I'd be extremely pissed off - and if he can't get pissed off and start going to town on Gingrich, well then it's not likely he had what it takes to knock off Obama anyway - so hell, as pathetic and dispiriting and absurd as the primary seems to be, maybe after all the process is working the way it should. I dunno - part of me really just wants to turn the TV off and the whole sad spectacle with it.

Is there anything to the idea that some are trying to float that Romney will actually be ok with Gingrich winning SC? The idea being that such would put an end to Santorum and Santorum is the only real threat out there - that only a wacko state like SC would go for a wacko like Gingrich and so with Santorum out of the way the next four or five primaries easily fall to Romney and then it's game over? I dunno. I still think that if you're battling Newt [and Paul] till the end two negatives come of that - the republican brand increasingly looks unhinged, diminished, which doesn't help the eventual nominee - and two, with Gingrich attacking you from the left that in a sense legitimizes Obama's arguments to come which to me makes it very difficult to paint Obama as immoderate - which presents not only a tricky problem for Romney but also for republicans in congress who will be stuck trying to counter Obama's populism viz taxes on the rich and vulture capitalism etc etc while one of their own is making the same argument. Krauthammer was right: it's really impossible to overstate the abject stupidity of Gingrich's left wing attacks on Romney.

And let's not forget that Romney's failure to adequately defend himself on Bain and his taxes, a defence that should have been easy to make, has left him looking weak and a wee bit incompetent, not good optics for a person whose main appeal to right wing voters is his supposed ability to beat Obama - now I know it's absurd that a deeply flawed person like Gingrich can attack a conservative in terms admired by ultra uber lefty Michael Moore, terms taken essentially right out of the Obama reelection playbook, and be rewarded for it by republicans - but that's the point, this primary is absurd, has been from the start - and therefore an abomination like Newt now making a serious run for it would not surprise me at all.

Peter Wehner over at Commentary makes point that a deeply flawed Newt profiting from insanity currently at play in republican primary does not reflect well on conservatism in America.

I actually watched some of the debate last night - I avoid these things cause they're just pathetic displays, they're not debates, they're the equivalent of fashion shows, model walks for political candidates - do a little promenade on the stage, flash some sound bites, some canned answers, some shameless pandering to the benighted audience - it's pathetic that we actually think these farces reflect well on our democracy - rather to me they express the vacuity of the culture, the shallowness of the process - it's not a debate if, one, you try and cover multiple subjects which essentially guarantees that substance will be sacrificed to empty rhetoric, and two, if the candidates cannot challenge the positions of each other in a detailed way - like I said, it's a fashion show, it's embarrassing - and then the moderator, John King, starts off with a question to Gingrich about his marriage which is like throwing a soft, 'hey Newt, give us a rant about the evil liberal  media' hanging curve ball to a power hitter - and accordingly Gingrich knocks it out of the park with the rabid glee of a steroid addled psychopath and the silly crowd goes nuts and effectively at that point the "debate" is over because for a large section of the right wing electorate all that really matters is an appealing show of anger against liberals, and Gingrich does that very well - which is why he's now apparently leading in South Carolina and why it won't surprise me at all if despite all the compelling reasons not to vote for the man [ie, he's insane] he pulls out a win - an eventuality I warned people of when they tried to convince themselves after New Hampshire that the race was over and the nominating process was working efficiently and within the bounds of common sense and clear reasoning.

But regardless of all that, I watched the debate and have concluded [tentatively] that, even though I've defended Romney and for very good reason - I was looking for other more appealing prospects to jump in but they didn't so that leaves Romney as clearly the only legitimate candidate in the race - but I'm not sure that even he can beat Obama. He just can't shake that whole oddly detached, stiff, programatic Mormon thing - it hurts him and I'm thinking is why he's so far not effectively rebutted the attacks on Bain Capital. I dunno - possibly his performance improves once he no longer has to appease the uber right blowhards - still, it just feels like something is missing there, something the average voter is looking for - but I see very popular republican governor Bob McDonnell just endorsed him, so... I do think Romney would be a good president - but that's a useless thing if you can't beat Obama. And remember, given the changes that must happen if Romney takes the White House in November, he's gonna have to sell a difficult agenda to the country, there's gonna be a lot of resistance - he's gonna have to be a good salesman, communicator - is that Romney? Don't see it at the moment. If he wins who he picks as VP will be crucial - he'll need to pick someone with the skills and attributes to act as salesman in chief cause I'm not sure that's something Romney could pull off.

[Krauthammer has a good article up which makes point of why it's a big deal that Romney so far has failed to effectively defend his business dealings and taxes - granted these left wing attacks are now issues in a right wing primary because of the unfathomable idiocy of Gingrich et al - still, if Romney can not make this case and make it in a way that resonates with a broad spectrum of independents and disgruntled small 'L' liberals, then he can't beat Obama - that's a problem]

[some are taking issue with my refusal to consider Santorum a 'legitimate' option. Well... I'm still suffering some trauma from the googling of 'santorum' - I know conservatives are hunkered down into a near monolithic state of denial over this nastiness - but I can't shake the visceral unpleasantness of it, so... but in an ostensibly more serious vein, sure Santorum is the only not-Romney who, should some utterly shocking, incomprehensible miracle vault him into the presidency, it wouldn't necessarily plunge me into a despond of dread and despair - I'd be troubled, sure, but not dismayed in the sense that Gingrich/Cain/Paul might inspire. So... the man has no executive experience and given the challenges the country is facing that's a big minus - even if I loved Santorum as a candidate I'd probably still side with Romney since I think executive experience is vital here, and Romney has tons of it - besides, what experience Santorum does have is all in the public sector - again, a big negative when compared to Romney - but of course the thing is it's impossible to love Santorum because he's a creature spawned in the social conservative swamp and that's a big do not pass go problem when it comes to a presidential campaign - if he was an appealing personality with an inspiring story and a sympathetic press trailing in his wake willing to tell it without question - the attributes that carried the uber lefty Obama to the throne - well then maybe he could sneak one by an ever gullible public - but of course Santorum is decidedly not a likeable fellow with a putatively great story to tell and a fawning press under his thumb pining to tell it - and so unelectable and almost certainly not a good fit for the job in either case - it's really gonna be near impossible to move this country in the direction it needs to go without some enlightened bipartisan cooperation - I don't see how a guy utterly chained to the uber rightness of social conservatism would manage something like that - especially when he has no experience of ever even trying to manage something like that - he's simply not a legitimate candidate once you move beyond the cloying distortions of the republican base]

If Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons as an existential imperative, the only way sanctions can possibly dissuade them from this action is if the existential threat raised by sanctions is equal to or greater than the one that motivates the nuclear imperative. It's very unlikely sanctions can ever rise to this level, especially since it would no doubt require the coordination of all the world's signal powers in a unified effort to that end - this is already not happening [see China, Russia, India] and it's very hard to imagine that dynamic changing. Therefore, it's logical to conclude that those clinging to sanctions are either naive, delusional, putting on a show for political purposes or dearly hoping that the compromised sanctions now threatened will prove punitive enough to cause the Iranian people to rise up and remove the current regime - problem with that dubious scenario is that unless the social upheaval is so great as to also sweep away the true overlords of Iranian power and aspirations, the Imams and the Republican Guard, or barring that highly unlikely thing great enough to force the Ayatollahs and Guard to dramatically recalibrate their strategies, then getting rid of Ahmadinejad adds up in the end to nothing much. It is therefore also logical to conclude that there are only two outcomes here that don't defy credibility: a military intervention; Iran with the bomb and all the strategic nightmares that ensue.

"... it does seem increasingly clear these days that anything a liberal might say regarding a conservative is like to be insincere and shamelessly self-serving and likewise anything a conservative is like to say about a liberal is similarly challenged as far as veracity and objectivity go... one imagines reflexive partisanship has always been the default position for the political animal, insecure beasts that they are... to be generous, I suppose one could say it's merely a manifestation of the awkwardness of democracy that peoples opinions have so much trouble standing on their own... a less kind view might be that the species is irredeemable even under the best of circumstances..."

My impression was the story going largely unnoticed, which seems both odd and not so much - the story being China purging some 70% of content from TV broadcasts for the sin of being too contaminated by Western culture, indeed of seeming to promote our values over those of the PRC - the order was given that Chinese culture was the superior culture and television programming must now reflect that.

This an interesting development for a few reasons. For one, a dramatic reminder that China remains a closed society whose attributes and aspirations are still largely dictated by and under the ultimate control of a communist ethos. That western media passed over the story as if it were a mere curiosity suggests we've spent so much time and effort convincing ourselves that capitalism will transform China into a nonthreatening image of us that we're now just simply assuming that has actually happened. If this the case the PRC overlords would view this as a significant victory on their part - score one for the scions of Sun Tzu.

Another interesting element of the story is that this action is clearly motivated by fear - but fear of what? Could it be the Chinese economy is much more fragile than the neo-mandarins are letting on? Are they worried that an economic downturn could spur social upheaval and therefore the television edict is a preemptive attempt to reestablish tight control of the population? One can read articles that are bullish on China and articles that are bearish - both can't be right - I find myself more persuaded by the sceptics who contend that a bursting real estate bubble, a looming banking crisis, a shit load of bad debt seeping through cracks in the politburo's 'everything's fine, nothing to see here' facade of stolid competency, and a sharp decline in demand for Chinese manufactured goods caused by a worsening Euro crisis - this all coming to a head and spelling trouble.

Like I said, there are China bulls and bears, and for a non-specialist it's hard to figure which tracks closer to the truth - but then that underscores the real problem - truth - closed societies must religiously control information - truth therefore is the enemy - or put another way, doubt is the demon they must constantly guard against - an oppressive authority's legitimacy cannot survive the spread of doubt through the thing it hopes to oppress. The neo-Mandarins are therefore in the business of forever shoring up the illusion of legitimacy. This why it would not surprise me at all if the vaunted Chinese economic miracle is only half miracle - the other half being a steaming pile of bull shit.

Accordingly, one might expect to see, with the leadership changes rapidly approaching and bringing with them the uncertainty natural to such things within closed systems, a stark ramping up of nationalistic zeal.

Why do people insist on believing that sanctions against Iran will work? It's almost as if they're engaged in some charade that they feel obligated to see through to the end even though the end is already known. My memory [and learning in general] is way too debilitated to ever allow me even the pretense of knowing what I'm talking about concerning the history of sanctions, but I have read a few articles, one just recently from STRATFOR, that seem to make it clear that that history should not be mistaken by anyone as being anything other than discouraging. Regardless, isn't there a built in contradiction even hypocrisy that comes with a belief in sanctions? What I mean is, often the claim is made that a military intervention will cause the Iranian people to rise up and unite in support of the current regime - well, if the regime is forced to ignominiously back down and renounce its nuclear ambitions, ambitions which I believe are shared by many in Iran, how exactly is it that the consequences of that will prove different? How is it we come to assume that, even if by some miracle the sanctions work and we get what we want, what we get won't end up being very short lived and no less fraught with dangers?

It's all very nice that the moribund Bain Capital attacks of Gingrich etc have essentially, at least among republicans, redounded to Romney's benefit [although I have yet to hear him make the spirited defence of capitalism that is needed - could be he's just pacing himself, keeping powder dry since Bain will play a key role in Obama's re-election plans] - and it's a pleasing comeuppance to watch erstwhile uber right Gingrich etc supporters and thus Romney haters forced into defending Romney and chastising Newt etc etc because of the utter reprehensibility of the Bain attacks - all very well and good - still, even though they're now running [well, walking quickly] to Romney's defence here the fact remains these ideological blowhards bear much of the responsibility of enabling the rise of such obviously flawed candidates - so sure, they can now defend Romney because the toxic spill that was Cain but is now Gingrich et al is flooding back on them and forcing the miscreants to higher ground - but what I'd really like to see is Limbaugh pressing his insufferable snout to microphone and admitting what a complete fucking moron he is and has been... "Friends, I'm an idiot, an ass, a charlatan... and although I appreciate that y'all have seen fit to make me quite rich despite these little shortcomings, certain events have transpired to make me wonder how dumb is too dumb even for you..."

So, Romney does quite well in New Hampshire - some want to proclaim the race over [hold on there people - South Carolina has potential to stir things up again - but if he takes that, and at moment he's leading, one can then assume Florida goes his way too - then it's over I'd say] - was therefore all my Cassandraing about the uber right misplaced?

No. It was blatantly obvious from the beginning that there was only one legitimate candidate in the race, but because he seemed a moderate [and I defy anyone to coherently define what exactly they mean when they use that appellation or exactly why being a moderate would be so bad - Daniels too was abjured as a moderate even though all he did was suggest quite rationally that given the troubling economic problems afflicting the nation getting bogged down in 'culture war' issues was probably ill advised] - anyway, because Romney seemed a moderate huge chunks of republicans appeared willing to entertain outlandish, astoundingly absurd options in order to apparently avoid the utter evil of Mitt's moderateness at all costs. I consider that to be a bad thing - that people remain so enslaved to needing to set problems in an irrational emotional context in order to understand them, gotta say that worries me. Remember, Cain was an absolute embarrassment of a candidate - yet had he not self destructed who knows how far he could have gone - after all, the man obviously has a gift for fooling not only himself but everyone around him - it's not a comforting thought that a man so ill-suited to the job, so lacking in the necessary attributes, so mired in swamps of delusion and deception, so utterly unprepared for the responsibilities he had the gall or arrogance or cupidity or naivety or outright stupidity to ask us to trust him with, might still have snaked his way to the prize but for the fact he liked to touch women inappropriately and they were kind enough to step forward and let us all know about it. If the thought of Herman Cain [or Newt or Ron Paul or etc etc for that matter] as president doesn't cause a cold shudder of fear and foreboding and despair to quake through your body, then... well... then you demonstrate my point.

So, a healthy majority of republicans seem now to have come to terms or at least are coming to terms with the reality that has been there all along staring straight at them - I guess I should be relieved by that. Regardless, I feel like I've been driven at a reckless speed through a dark wood by a drunken sixteen year old and somehow survived - surviving doesn't miraculously change the fact that I might not have.

[and lookee, apropos of above, right on cue polls today suggest Gingrich has pulled into virtual tie with Romney in South Carolina,  apparently buoyed by his anti-Bain Capital ads that even Romney hater Limbaugh has criticized as ignorant and detrimental to a conservative ethos - how can one not be troubled by the irrationality of all this? Sure, democracy, as I've said before, is always to some degree at the mercy of stupidity, apathy, populist drivel, irrational sentimentality etc etc - such vulnerabilities are the reason Obama and not Hillary is president now - but this primary it seems to me has magnified the problem greatly because Romney is clearly the only credible choice - it was tentative but still plausible to defend the questionable rationality of preferring Obama over Hillary - there is no defending a preference for Newt et al over Romney unless of course a reckless ideological imperative has trumped reason and clarity]

The Obama defense cuts - opinion? Ah... well, what you spend on the military ain't really the problem [if one's sympathies are pro military] - how you spend it is the issue - which doesn't mean cutting the budget is necessarily bad - it just means that the real issue viz the Pentagon is lack of an overall strategy that informs the procurement process beyond the twisted reach of short sighted political motivations - in other words, the problem is systemic, politcal, strategic - how the money is spent, not how much per se [again, assuming one is not a liberal who believes tax dollars are of course always put to better use when spent on social programs rather than defense].

But Obama has announced a new strategic focus, no? The Asia pivot. Right... believe it when I see it. To actually engage in a robust Asia strategy, according to the way most experts envision it, you'd probably have to keep the budget roughly the same, just allocate more funds to the Navy and less to the Army - but that's not what they're saying - which is why the putative Asia pivot is just a feint as far as I'm concerned designed to give the illusion of some robust strategy that is actually just a cover for hollowing out the Pentagon - which was the purpose of Libya war too: dramatically change the perception of the uses of American military might [lead from behind] so you can dramatically cut budgets which in turn has the effect over time of transforming the American military into an emasculated force for good as opposed to a dominant power in the service of an empire. And Obama's drone wars, same thing - the illusion of power rather than actual power - and it's amazing how many conservatives have fallen for this charade - they congratulate Obama for his aggressive use of drones, completely failing to see the political ploy behind it - the illusion of power without actual power - war the way liberals fancy it should [and can] be.

The putative Asia pivot looks like a shell game to me - I haven't read anything that suggests the practical considerations required to make such a strategic shift real and possible - ie, you have to commit to a larger Navy - are anywhere in the pipeline or seriously being discussed - expect more leading from behind. In short, without a reform of the procurement process and without something real and palpable to lend substance to the supposed strategic shift, all I see is a anti-military liberal agenda at play in the budget cuts.

I was surprised though to see liberal mouthpiece NYTimes raise troubling spectre of the erosion of American hi-tech manufacturing that may follow in the wake of an emasculated military - this huge issue as far as I'm concerned - in fact I've argued that if a great power is going to waste money on something best it be on the military, especially when both economic and military might are so dependent on technological innovation. Very surprised the Times went there - but they're right, the real vulnerability created by a hollowed out Pentagon may have more to do with a technological decline than a military one - although, America's military edge is very much about technology regardless.

Headline this morning in Washington Post: Romney defends business background. Good work, not-Romneys - how can there be anything wrong with a strategy that helps Obama demonize Wall Street? What's not logical about attacking a candidate that you despise for being too liberal by accusing him of being too conservative? Wonderful exhibition.

Some want to take the glass half full approach - ie, rebutting these idiots will help Romney perfect his counter attacks on Obama when he goes down the same road - I don't necessarily see it that way - all I get from this is further confirmation of just how illegitimate the not-Romneys are and therefore how increasingly their influence works to damage not only Romney in particular but the republican brand in general if this race drags on and on - can anyone imagine Jeb Bush or Paul Ryan or Christie taking this entirely self-defeating line of attack? - in the end I see this nonsense as serving no useful purpose to anyone other than Obama.

I suppose though one can't rule out that Romney, if he mounts a vigorous and evocative defence of his business experience, turns this pathetic attack to his advantage, especially as concerns independent voters.

Lord, these people are foolish. Poll on National Review's website asks if its readers are fine settling for Romney - aside from being forced to satisfy some arbitrary and specious ideological purity test, how does nominating the only legitimate [which doesn't mean perfect] candidate in the race amount to settling? When the country in general seems to be utterly fed up with partisan nonsense the bases of each party carry on as if none of that matters - these people are delusional, there's no other way to describe it. Problem for conservatives is that Obama's partisan hackery seems more method than madness - regardless what he may actually believe, he knows that the more liberalism he intimates the more idiot like the right gets and the easier it is for him to play the moderate - in short, the uber right is so stupid that Obama can end up looking relatively moderate in comparison by sounding more liberal.

Look at Gingrich to see how this plays out - Newt is now faulting Romney for being a successful businessman - you have one supposed conservative criticizing another for practicing capitalism! Newt, that's what democrats are for! - we're the one's who actually admire a business ethos. And yet Gingrich just a few short weeks ago was the uber right's shining hero - even though anyone with a brain and a reasonable familiarity with objectivity knew this is exactly why all his colleagues from the nineties expressed alarm at him leading the polls - he's a self aggrandizing narcissist unable it seems to abide the notion that not every thought he has ever had has been brilliant - absurd gyrations like this are where unstable blowhards like Gingrich always end up - as anybody not driven into dementia by the lurking evil of Romney's moderateness well understood. And so, if Romney is the nominee and Obama criticizes him exactly along the lines Gingrich now has, Obama will seem the moderate attacking the capitalist extreme embodied by Romney, no?

A demand for ideological purity is in fact the expression of a fear that the tawdriness of one's beliefs is ever under threat of being revealed.

"... are you denying that in many ways it's the most important question, if not the only question?... was the West's supremacy the result of mere luck?... or was it the result of singular historical and cultural attributes, attributes which indeed may have been occasioned by luck but regardless became forces unto themselves?... because, you see, how you answer that question changes the way one views the world around us... and ultimately determines what it will mean that certain aspects of those attributes, discrete elements of that essence, are now so effectively imitated by so many for whom, because they do not share in the history, the glory of it all is lost..."

I was going to write a post debating whether or not Santorum's good results in Iowa should cause me to reconsider his viability as a candidate [short answer: no] when I stumbled upon internet chatter concerning the very unpleasant thing that happens when you Google 'santorum' [I guess if I still watched The Daily Show I wouldn't be so late with this, ah... story - but Stewart's smugness continues to turn me off - although if the uber right persists in annoying me the way they are I may have no choice but to overcome my Stewart aversion].

The guy can't recover from an association like this, can he? I don't see it - I can't say his name now without feeling a little twinge of disgust - plus, in a very unpleasant way it reminds you of the cogency of arguing against his viability as a candidate - his support is rooted mainly in his social conservatism - that may win you Iowa, maybe even South Carolina in a republican primary, but it's an anchor around your neck come a general election.

And let's not forget this goes to something I've been saying all along - Romney is the only credible, viable candidate in the race - everyone else is either deeply flawed in some obvious way or an outright embarrassment - if Romney can't shake loose from these clowns and pretenders as soon as possible the malignancy will spread to him.

I almost want to feel sorry for Santorum - but then I remember he brought this on himself - I may be somewhat opposed to gay marriage too, but not for sanctimonious moral reasons [I oppose on grounds it's an affront to logic and common sense - I'm happy to give gay couples the same rights as straight couples, but don't force me to pretend that there's no fundamental existential difference separating the two experiences - and traditional marriage is wholly defined by that difference - if we're going to pretend that that difference doesn't exist or matter then what we're really saying is that marriage is now about love - in which case, why should the gov't be involved at all?]. And it's not like there was a great calling for him to run for president - it's not like his resume screams 'we need this man!'. He was just a largely insignificant senator who knew how to work social conservatives into a lather [a santorum, you mean? O God, many twinges of disgust].

[on the other hand a quick review of conservative websites reveals that as far as I can tell absolutely none of them are talking about the Santorum Google problem - which means maybe it doesn't hurt Santorum at all - which merely underscores the point that the primaries are a fantasy world of uber right wish fulfillment that is entirely disconnected from the reality of what it will take to defeat Obama in 2012]

Boy, Gingrich really isn't good at marriages - the republican base has already abandoned him for Santorum? Maybe it's just a case of the ideologues being consorts of easy virtue.

So let's rehearse the catechism once again - Santorum has been ignored for 6 months because he's eminently ignorable and not because of some gross oversight by occluded punditry - he's an emanation of the social conservative milieu and therefore a nice fit for the paleo-conservatives of Iowa and maybe South Carolina but that's about it, which is why he's devoted almost all of his limited resources to doing well in Iowa [yet making even more clear that republicans really do themselves no favors by granting a highly idiosyncratic caucus this much influence] - he doesn't have the money nor the organization to compete in 50 states - his resume looks paper thin compared to Romney's - in short, unelectable, he's yet another not-Romney that leaves one scratching their head and asking "what the hell makes this idiot think he can or should be president?" - should a miracle happen - or a plague of astounding ignorance decimates republican ranks - and he becomes the nominee he has zero shot against Obama and will merely motivate moderate [ie, not crazy] conservatives deeply troubled by the thought of a second Obama term into backing some third party entry.

All other commentary is just noise. What a glorious thing democracy is.