The Senescent Man

Rudy Giuliani was in RI yesterday at the Westin Hotel, and  I had a chance to hear him speak.  He is makes for an attractive presidential candidate.  His views on the war and President Bush's efforts to win it are right on the money.  He is also the hero of 9-11, accompanied by a body guard who evidently saved the mayor's life that day.

He is very big on police and fire fighters, as well as soldiers - all of whom he sees as making sacrifices for our freedom.

Both Governor Carcieri and former Mayor Steve Laffey were on hand lending support to Rudy.

Someone asked if Hillary Rodham ends up being his opponent, how would he handle it.  He said he'd start by challenging her to a debate on NY Yankees lore.  After all, he said, she's from Chicago, alluding to Hillary's new found love for the Yankees (and the Mets too by the way) as a political necessity.  Giuliani is a Yankees fan.  And not a Mets fan, and he pays a price every time he goes to their stadium - except immediately after 9/11, when he was roundly applauded.

He did not speak a word on social issues.  Both Carcieri and Laffey are pro-life, but Giuliani is not a pro-lifer.  That poses a problem for me, but on all his other positions:  his opinion of the free market, the war, and Democrats - it is all Reaganesque.

It will be a very interesting two years.

// posted by The Senescent Man @ 1:19 PM

The gun has gone off, and the hounds have been released!

Hillary Rodham Clinton was trying like mad today to out Universal Health Care Barack Hussein Obama.

They each couldn't move their proposals to the left fast enough, having conflicting press conferences, and trying like mad to outmaneuver one another.

I think this is grand. And if the president manages to gain any traction with his bet-it-all approach to the war in the Mid-East, the Republicans just might - might mind you - have a means for making a come back by 2008, though some are already blushing at my optimism.

I really do think that people oppose the president for the following reasons:

1. He's a hard guy to like. He is not the most articulate person we've known in the White House.

2. He doesn't explain himself well, though the editorial page of the WSJ and the Weekly Standard do their best to try to explain him.

But I think really, people are frightened at the prospect of a long war where our kids are ground up in the meat grinder of that war that goes on ad infinitum.

That is why people oppose the president.

But if we were to see a shift in the pattern of success, I would wager the country would turn on a dime, and support the president. The Democrats would wonder what in the world had happened.

I do think it is a long shot, but it could happen. The key is whether General David Patraeus will be successful. It is my opinion that he will be successful, but we shall see.

// posted by The Senescent Man @ 8:10 PM

Who said the following:

"None of us can be certain [the president's plan] is going to work; all the choices we have in Iraq right now are difficult. But by far, the one that is the worst, and would have disastrous consequences, is to pick up and leave, in small steps or in one large step, for all the reasons we know, . . . I have admiration for the president, because I believe he gets it. He understands the challenge of our time, which is from Islamic extremism. . . . And he knows what he's doing is not popular. But he's doing it because he thinks it is right for the country."

The answer can be found here.

BTW, I have a theory.  Is it possible that the troop build up and the ships being directed to the Gulf are indications of an escalation into Iran?

We may learn more about that in the President's State of the Union Address on Tuesday.

// posted by The Senescent Man @ 8:35 AM

Evidently its a form of diverticulitis that tends to be fatal in elderly people living just south of the US border.

// posted by The Senescent Man @ 8:24 PM

Don Surber reports (HT: Glenn Reynolds) that deaths in Iraq have been actually lower than they were under the regime of Saddam Hussein.  An excerpt:

AP played the numbers game this week with reports about how many people have died in Iraq. I always have a problem reducing people to numbers but AP said that 16,273 violent deaths in Iraq in 2006 -- 14,298 of them civilians.

By the way, the 16,273 violent deaths in 2006 compares favorably to the 600,000 documented deaths under Saddam Hussein. Many more are likely.

Hussein's carnage averaged 70 to 125 civilian deaths every day for the 8,000 days he reigned. His 20,000 civilian deaths a year (on average) were considered "peace" while last year, under war, there were 14,298 civilians deaths.

Incidentally, if Hussein was the cause of all these deaths and for so long, why is anyone upset about his bungled execution - which has been the focus of discussion in the MSM morning TV news shows?  Come on! 

// posted by The Senescent Man @ 8:49 PM