Richard Bennett

It’s becoming increasingly apparent that President Bush will win re-election this November. The polls show him widening his lead over Flopsy and Mopsy, despite the bounce Dems expected with the announcement of the safe choice VP.

The reason for the eventual success of the President is actually quite simple: he’s running unopposed. Not in the literal sense, of course; the Dems will place a nominal candidate against him, and many will vote for him simply because they hate Bush. But the Dems aren’t going to run a real candidate until 2008 when the country will be ripe for a split government and to take a break from the arduous work of fighting the terror networks and their state sponsors (like Saddam.)

The cipher candidate has announced contradictory positions on every important issue, and most recently has fallen back into the traditional Democratic Party platform of giveaways and fanciful foreign policies. Kerry wants to give us free medical care, free college, lower corporate taxes, more police and fireman, higher teacher salaries, and a completely green environment. And he’s going to do all this by taxing foreign corporations and the upper 3% of citizens. All of that, with so little pain.

As if that weren’t silly enough, the invisible man proposes to solve the Iraq problem by turning it over to the UN and to NATO, in some unspecific power-sharing arrangement that won’t relieve the US of the need to pay the bills for more and better Iraqi security forces. Unfortunately, the UN and NATO aren’t willing to take orders from Mr. Kerry, any more than foreign corporations are going to pay him taxes on their activities outside the US. But the Easter Bunny will apparently join the Kerry Administration as Chief of Staff and make it all work.

Like I said, Bush is running unopposed.

Once again we find the government of France up to its old tricks, opposing international action to stop genocide in Sudan in order to protect its oil deals:

Some one million people have fled their homes and at least 10,000 have been killed in what the UN calls “the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.”

A rebellion broke out in Darfur early last year, when two groups took up arms, accusing the government of ignoring the region.

“In Darfur, it would be better to help the Sudanese get over the crisis so their country is pacified rather than sanctions which would push them back to their misdeeds of old,” junior Foreign Minister Renaud Muselier told French radio.

France led opposition to US moves at the UN over Iraq. As was the case in Iraq, France also has significant oil interests in Sudan.

While the UN has agreed to send in a token force of 300, most agree that it will take at least 10,000 to stop the genocide. So it falls on President Bush and Prime Minister Blair to stand up for the human rights of the black Sudanese.

And if they do, will the media report the story fully and accurately, or will we get a replay of the “quagmire” stories that seem to be the dominant sort of war reporting since Vietnam?

The BBC report linked here surprised me, given that the Queen’s network reported the liberation of Iraq as if it were the English language service of Al Jazeera.

The latest AP/Ipsos poll shows the President increasing his lead over Kerry to 4 percent, as voters are unimpressed with Edwards:

The three-day survey began Monday, the day before Kerry tapped Edwards as his running mate, and asked registered voters about the newly minted ticket on Tuesday and Wednesday. Half supported the Republican tandem of Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney (news – web sites) while 46 percent backed the Kerry-Edwards ticket, just within that question’s margin of error of 4.5 percentage points.

Voters said they were feeling better about the economy and no worse about Iraq (news – web sites), a sign that Bush may be regaining his political footing just as Democrats make a high-profile push toward their nominating convention in late July.

“I want Bush in there, because the other guy is like sending a boy to do a man’s job,” said Glenn Foldessy, 45, of Streetsboro, Ohio, outside Cleveland. Foldessy, who usually votes Republican, said Edwards made the Democratic ticket stronger, but not strong enough.

So much for bounce, eh?

Link John Marfoe

Everybody who’s seen or read about Michael Moore’s pseudo-documentary knows that the Bush family is connected to the bin Ladens through the shadowy Carlyle Group, but how many know about this connection:

Liberal activist George Soros has a stake in the Carlyle Group–the organization Moore uses to make the Bush-Bin Laden link–that dwarves that of the Bush family.

Moveon.org is practically a wholly-owned activity of Soros, its biggest supporter, so here we see how the bin Ladens intend to run Bush from office, the better to carry out their nefarious plots against America.

Why doesn’t the left want you to know this?

John Kerry explained the advantage he and Edwards have over the incumbent to an admiring crowd today:

…we’ve got better hair.

I’m glad he cleared that up, because when Kerry said Edwards didn’t have enough experience to be president — just a few weeks ago — I thought he meant it. But as we can now see, it was just Kerry being Kerry.

Does a freshman senator with no prior experience have what it takes to step into the Oval Office and run the Free World in the event that the president takes sick, gets shot, or has a better offer from a richer country?

In general, I think the answer is probably no, and largely because of the nature of legislative experience. We typically choose governors to serve as chief executive, because their experience is so much more relevant than that of legislators, especially back-bench legislators from the minority party whose chief role is toeing the party line and doing what their committee chairs tell them to do.

The joke about Edwards is that Kerry wanted someone with more experience, but Dan Quayle turned him down.

Peaceniks held a demonstration in San Diego to protest the handover of sovereignty in Iraq, only to be outnumbered by counter-protestors. Go read Citizen Smash, the instigator. This is great.