Please click on the CPAC 2008 ad at HumanEvents.com.  Look at the other ads we’re up against!

(btw, I assume the competing ad is part of an ad service (i.e. Google ads) and something they don’t control.  Please don’t blame this wonderful publication.)

All aboard the Straight Talk Express! 

9 :10 p.m. After they’re done asking the candidates about whether we’re headed for a recession, let’s ask Greenspan about shaking hands and kissing babies.

IOTUS adds to the Debate Drinking Game this rule: Drink when an issue group is mentioned, i.e. Club for Growth.

9:16 p.m.  Oh yeah, Fred Thompson is still in it.  He just stood up for Giuliani.  Take that McCain lovers!  I’m not necessarily a Thompson supporter, but I do admire anyone that doesn’t want to run for president. 

LOTUS Drinking Game Rule: Finish your drink when Reagan is mentioned.

9:18 p.m. Carl Cameron reminds us that no Republican has ever won the nomination without winning South Carolina.  Cameron asks Huckabee about the Reagan Coaltion and whether he’s distanced himself from it.  It sounds like Huckabee just gave the working definition for “compassionate conservatism.”

9:25 p.m. Romney: Knowing how America works is more important than knowing how Washington works.

9:26 p.m. Thompson puts the smack-down on Huckabee.  Hot!  Thompson says: That’s not the model of the Reagan revolution. That’s the model of the Democrat party.

It’s possible that Thompson is strong enough a candidate to wake up a dead campaign with one answer.

9:29 p.m. Giuliani says the Reagan revolution was about being inclusive. Tear down this wall and give me a hug!

Here come the foreign policy questions.  McCain is getting antsy.

9:43 p.m. Romney accuses Paul of reading Ahmadinejad’s press releases.  Cheers and Jeers.  Paul appears to make some response and I’d love to know what it was.

9:45 p.m.  McCain defends the surge.  “Bringing the troops home is not going to be decided by any politician.  It’s going to be decided by the man that should have been Time magazine’s Man of the Year, General David Petraeus.”  McCain also claims to be the only one on the stage to support the surge.  Giuliani calls him on it and says many of the people on the stage supported the surge.  McCain counterpoint: Nuh uhhh!

LOTUS wonders how PJB would answer some of these questions.  Time for the IOTUS and LOTUS’s texting comedy pyramid!

IOTUS: What would Patrick J. Buchanan Do?

LOTUS: PJB is my homeboy.

IOTUS: PJB is my copilot.

LOTUS: PJB loves me this I know, ’cause the Bible tells me so.

IOTUS: What a friend we have in PJB. He walks with me. He talks with me and tells me I am his own.

LOTUS: When you saw only one set of footprints in the sand it is when PJB carried you.

IOTUS concedes, LOTUS wins.

10:15 p.m. Oh, these guys are still talking. Giuliani just listed his foreign policy credentials.  McCain answers: I did it not for profit, for patriotism.

Giuliani did it all for the nookie.  (That could be the wine talking.)

Lightening Round!

10:25 p.m.  McCain says his immigration bill failed because it was so awesome that the American people were afraid that it wouldn’t be enforced.  McCain recalls a serviceman’s wife who was in endangered of being deported.  Uh, if they’re married, why is she in danger of being deported?  I’ve heard McCain bring this up before.  This is akin to the pro-abortion people that talk about the 11-year-old girl who was raped by her father and then became pregnant. What about her?!?!?!?  Ugh…

It’s over.  I think the edge goes to Fred Thompson.  What are your thoughts?

It’s about time we starting exporting people to Mexico.  And an even better idea to start with liberal politicians!

H/T Wonkette

Taser parties are the latest craze.

I wonder what marketing genius decided that in order to get women to buy something they just have to make it pink.

Thanks, but LOTUS will stick to what she knows.

There’s no room at the table!  On Fox News right now the five top-tier candidates (Giuliani, Romney, Huckabee, Thompson, McCain) are sitting inches away from one another.  It’s making me uncomfortable. 

Photo via MichelleMalkin.com

Major Andrew Olmsted has been on the frontlines in Iraq as a soldier and blogger.  The Rocky Mountain News reported:

Fort Carson-based Army Major Andrew Olmsted is blogging from the war in Iraq, where his mission is to teach members of the Iraqi Army how to defend their country and provide security for their people. Major Olmsted is a veteran blogger and he is determined to make a difference in Iraq. “The sooner the Iraqi government doesn’t need U.S. support to provide security for its people, the sooner we will probably be asked to leave.”

“hilzoy” at Obsidian Wings writes:

Andrew Olmsted, who also posted here as G’Kar, was killed yesterday in Iraq. Andy gave me a post to publish in the event of his death; the last revisions to it were made in July.

The following is the first part of Major Olmsted’s funny and touching post.  I don’t feel it’s my place to pick excerpts, so be sure to read the entire post here:

“I am leaving this message for you because it appears I must leave sooner than I intended. I would have preferred to say this in person, but since I cannot, let me say it here.”
G’Kar, Babylon 5

“Only the dead have seen the end of war.”
Plato*

This is an entry I would have preferred not to have published, but there are limits to what we can control in life, and apparently I have passed one of those limits. And so, like G’Kar, I must say here what I would much prefer to say in person. I want to thank hilzoy for putting it up for me. It’s not easy asking anyone to do something for you in the event of your death, and it is a testament to her quality that she didn’t hesitate to accept the charge. As with many bloggers, I have a disgustingly large ego, and so I just couldn’t bear the thought of not being able to have the last word if the need arose. Perhaps I take that further than most, I don’t know. I hope so. It’s frightening to think there are many people as neurotic as I am in the world. In any case, since I won’t get another chance to say what I think, I wanted to take advantage of this opportunity. Such as it is.

“When some people die, it’s time to be sad. But when other people die, like really evil people, or the Irish, it’s time to celebrate.”
Jimmy Bender, “Greg the Bunny”

“And maybe now it’s your turn
To die kicking some ass.”
Freedom Isn’t Free, Team America

What I don’t want this to be is a chance for me, or anyone else, to be maudlin. I’m dead. That sucks, at least for me and my family and friends. But all the tears in the world aren’t going to bring me back, so I would prefer that people remember the good things about me rather than mourning my loss. (If it turns out a specific number of tears will, in fact, bring me back to life, then by all means, break out the onions.) I had a pretty good life, as I noted above. Sure, all things being equal I would have preferred to have more time, but I have no business complaining with all the good fortune I’ve enjoyed in my life. So if you’re up for that, put on a little 80s music (preferably vintage 1980-1984), grab a Coke and have a drink with me. If you have it, throw ‘Freedom Isn’t Free’ from the Team America soundtrack in; if you can’t laugh at that song, I think you need to lighten up a little. I’m dead, but if you’re reading this, you’re not, so take a moment to enjoy that happy fact.

Click here to continue reading.  One last thing — please respect Major Olmsted’s wishes and keep politics (pro or against the war) out of the comments section.

Coming in second in the Iowa Democratic caucus, Senator John Edwards gave the worst “victory” speech EVER.  In the first 2 or 3 minutes of the speech Edwards mentioned a child dying after not receiving a liver transplant, another death, his poor mother, starving parents and children that were turned away from an Iowa soup kitchen, and a woman who died from breast cancer.  Edwards paints a dismal picture for a country where over 80% of people are ”satisfied” with their personal lives with a large majority saying they are “very satisfied.”

Some other random thoughts from the Fox News coverage: 

• I’m getting a kick out of seeing Senator Hillary Clinton giving her speech behind a podium that reads “Ready for Change” with Madeleine Albright on one side and Bill Clinton on the other.  I’d use the term “threesome” to describe them, but that would bring the porn industry to a screeching halt.

• I think Chuck Norris’s wife wins the prize for the hottest chick on the campaign trail. 

• Huckabee and McCain are practically having phone sex over one another’s unexpected success. 

• Huckabee said, “If this were a marathon, we’ve only run half of it.”  Um, I think there are 49 other states that will disagree with him.  Forty-nine should be an easy number to remember — it’s generally where Arkansas places for its educational excellence among the other states.  President Bush may have had problems with foreign leaders’ names, but Huckabee has problems with fractions.

• You have to be an idiot in order to be accepted for a focus group.  Frank Luntz talked to a couple of Huckabee voters and they all gave the most ridiculous reasons for why they voted for him.  One said “because he’s me.”  Another said she was sick of people “buying” elections.  In different ways both are votes out of spite, not based on what’s best for themselves or for the country.  Both have clearly bought into Huckabee’s “Let’s win one for the little guy” mentality.  No, let’s win one for the best candidate.  The “little guy” identity politics is just as ridiculous as voting for Obama or Clinton simply because it’s time we had a black or a woman in the White House. 

I just snagged this from AOL… talk about a loaded poll question.

The answer to the title question is “none of the above” — it’s because she’s too young  :)

Thomas Houlahan from the Middle East Times via Sweetness & Light via Ann Coulter:

Last weekend after returning to my office from the television studios of a major network where I had done a brief segment on the security of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons, I turned on CNN to watch their coverage of the Bhutto assassination’s aftermath.

Sen. Hillary Clinton was telling Wolf Blitzer that she didn’t think “the Pakistani government at this time under President Musharraf has any credibility at all.”

She then said something that betrayed a serious lack of knowledge about Pakistan and called her own credibility on the subject into serious question.

“If President Musharraf wishes to stand for election,” she told Blitzer, “then he should abide by the same rules that every other candidate will have to follow.”

My immediate reaction was: “Did I hear that correctly?”

As a Pakistan analyst, I know for a fact that Pervez Musharraf doesn’t wish to stand for election any time soon.

The upcoming elections are for the next parliament. Musharraf was just elected president of Pakistan, overwhelmingly, by popularly elected electors on Oct. 6. He’s just begun his five-year term as the president of the country. Why would he ever want to run for one seat in parliament? It wouldn’t make sense.

However, I checked the transcript of the interview later. That’s exactly what she said.

My next reaction was: “Maybe she misspoke. Candidates do a lot of interviews. Not every sentence comes out the way they want it to.”

…

No such luck.

Sunday morning, ABC’s This Week ran an interview George Stephanopoulos had done with Sen. Clinton on Friday.

The interview produced this gem:

Referring to a possible delay in the elections, Sen. Clinton said: “I think it will be very difficult to have a real election. You know, Nawaz Sharif (leader of the PML-N, an opposition party) has said he’s not going to compete. The PPP is in disarray with Benazir’s assassination. He (President Pervez Musharraf) could be the only person on the ballot. I don’t think that’s a real election.”

And then it hit me:

Sen. Clinton really didn’t know that the upcoming elections were for individual seats in Pakistan’s parliament. She actually believed that Bhutto, Nawaz and Musharraf would be facing off as individual candidates for leadership of the country in the upcoming elections.

Sen. Clinton didn’t know that Nawaz Sharif isn’t allowed to run for office in Pakistan because of a felony conviction. She didn’t know that President Musharraf won’t be on the ballot because he’s already been elected.

Sen. Clinton, a candidate for the leadership of the free world, apparently doesn’t know the first thing about the country referred to by some as “the most dangerous place on earth.”

Lake Superior State University has just released their annual “List of Words Banished from the Queen’s English for Misuse, Overuse and General Uselessness.”  They include “post 9/11,” “it is what it is,” “surge,” “organic,” “sweet,” and “give back.”

I’d like to add some others to the list:

“Love her or hate her” (only seems to be used about conservative women)

“gah” (used in place of “God” and totally annoying)

All abbreviations for short words — mb (maybe), 2 (to), bb (baby), u (you), WTF (a bunch of short words)

“1,000,000 Strong For/Against” (if you’re on Facebook, you know what I’m talking about)

“In it to win it” (let’s also bannish the woman who uttered this phrase)

Do you have any words you would like to banish from the lexicon? 

(Oh, let’s also banish “lexicon.”)