Steele-y!

Yep, a decent fellow with humor and a smart mind.

Now if ya'll can hone Fred's logic and mute the SOCON agenda, reframe yourselves into multiethnic NEOCONstitutionalists, you've got a winning ticket.

"I encourage you to have an honest exchange of ideas with Republicans across this country, and move this party from one that feeds off of anti-intellectualism to one that encourages political innovation and entrepreneurship." Letter to Steele

And what did Fred say?

Smaller Government. Strong defense. Translating rather than reinterpreting the Constitution and Individual choice? A bit Libertarian with a dose of moderate moral values and robust global Internationalism (not so Libertarian) would be something our Founders could be proud of.

Steele could be a good advocate for that approach with a cool telegenic appeal. Now please don't someone say Palin Steele in 2012.

P.S. the funniest thing about Simon's LAT Blog link was the comment thread. It puts the letter to Steele in perspective....

Update this morning upon reading that Hamas fired more missiles into Israel and how this connects to GOP (steele) tact.

First, Americans are not stupid and Republicans need to point out the enforcement problem I highlighted with an earlier post of the US not being able to impound Iran arms smuggling ship. Then there is this. No wonder the Hamas top leader has emerged in Gaza from the place he was hiding. And then this is another slap at Obama who already Iran is declaring is moving away from capitalism because of its failure. Is there an opportunity being missed with the adminsitration not taking note of Egypt's bold opposition to Iran and Hamas? Perhaps the GOP is missing a great opportunity itself in not pushing an alternative Middle East PLan.

Despite Mitchell and offering more aid to Gaza, the GOP can point out that Iraq holds new historic and general violence free elections as a result of the surge (SECURITY), Gaza must also be free of militants who are murdering Fatah as we speak. That is, if Obama doesn't understand the need for weapons to stop and Hamas isolated you will never get two sides that want peace to the table. It will be a blow to Obama should his first big foreign affairs push lead to renewed violence within weeks.

Steele ought to make this case clear and begin offering America a counter to the administrations gestures and vague solutions.

Also, Palin better watch her back.

And Steele can tie the above with this. He can point out the bravado of Obama's Afghanistan paper more than a year ago in which he attributed failue there with Iraq. If Obama can't turn the tide with more force, then how does his argument hold? And incredibly, he countered Clinton's hawkishness by proposing to move our troops from Iraq to Afghanistan. Now he doesn’t seem likely to send more than Bush was going to….hmmm.

Last and even more amazing, Obama clearly declared that there were no lessons from Iraq to apply to Afghanistan. Biden chimed in saying the Great Awakening cannot be applied to Afghanistan. The media swooned over such brilliance, yes? Sorry, Obama, the indigenious strategy is the way to go with more help from the EU and world. Steele needs to remind Americans of what was said during the campaign. He must pre-empt what is coming by beating Obama to the trigger. Obama will try to use the economy to cut expectations in Afghanistan and elsewhere though defense spending can be good for stimulus and our dangers are very important. Will the bailout cut aid to Mexico or Columbia. And of course this all ties now to bad Bush. Steele needs to argue that the bailout should not cut back from our national security and that defense IS a good way to stimulate our economy while advancing our security. He can ask if Obama still argues that erasing poverty in adversarial nations is our best option for victory against terror. The signs are out there and the game of chess is on. Let's see how smart Steele is.

It might be that by starting his administration off with the massive bailout (winning the office on correcting this singular crisis), Obama necessarily links many debatable issues to his first act; military spending, foreign policy, foreign aid, protectionism, abortion (almost), energy (where is the stimulus for drilling?), taxes and reforming partisan pork all into one act. For an admistration touting transparency, I am suprised how little has been defined beyond sound bites. Because of the self-inflicted urgency of producing a bailout first on top of a trillion dollar bailout already approved under Bush, Obama has to defend and define each related issue and argue how his bailout will not complicate these other presently undefined policies mentioned above with Healthcare, Immigration, Environment, Social Security and National Debt waiting on the sidelines.

Having hyped our downward direction on a sobering cry of doom the missing JFK/Reganesque confidence about both our strength and our capitalism is plainly missing. Again, Steele has a lot to work with in a tactical effort to revisit what "good" change really is and how best to achieve it. That is the "word" to crack. Too bad the GOP doesn't have a conservative Colbert.

Liberals ought to anticipate this move, but I rather doubt Pelosi or Reid think the Republicans are clever enough. I sure hope Obama does and starts to reconsider the size and the approach, weighing the the short and long term consequences of his Master Plan. Or maybe Obama would rather be like Bush....

As usual my two cents......lol

Hell, if Simon was Palin's chief advisor, she would be faring much better. I do find her PAC site reading almost like a moderate Democrat with zero SOCON trappings. Quite amazing considering GOP politics just two years ago.

Want to know how New York became so blue? Well, here is today's NYT. Can you believe after the historic and mostly violence-free elections in Iraq, the NYT can't bring itself to give the US kudos for eliminating the Saddam the Times railed against for years? Having moved from "Iraq is lost" to well, "maybe the surge worked", the NYT still characterizes the recent Iraqi elections in sour terms. Do I think few Iraqis have no gratitude towards the US? No. Is Iraq already MUCH better off than under Saddam? Yes. Is it in the best interests of Middle East stability to keep enough US power there to thwart Iran and AQ? Yes. Is the NYT ready to admit they got it all wrong? No.

So the media and the New York-based media plays a huge roll in nudging a basically centrist/left population into a more Liberal crowd. SNL last night attacked Patterson again most cruelly. It was way over the top because POLLS INDICATE NEW YORKERS APPROVE OF PATTERSON. And nowhere was there ever a spoof on Caroline Kennedy. This is a big reason why New York has gone bluer and the reason why SNL was awful last night. The old SNL would and could attack anyone. Since Liberal media here wants no part at making fun of Obama, Palin was and still is the highest rated boost SNL ever had.