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THE FOUNDATION: THE PRESIDENCY

“The second office of this government is honorable & easy, the first is but a splendid misery.”  —  Thomas Jefferson

CAMPAIGN WATCH

“So far only John McCain is certain to need a running mate, and his choices are limited by his needs and his nature. McCain needs someone who will help him win and be a plausible president during the next four years. He has been in Washington more years than Clinton and Barack Obama combined, and today, as usual, but even more so, Washington is considered iniquitous, partly because McCain, our national scold, incessantly tells the country that its capital is awash in ‘corruption.’ It would be reassuring were he to select a running mate with executive experience administering something larger than a senator’s office... In politics, gratitude is optional but admirable, and McCain is indebted to Florida Gov. Charlie Crist, 51, who endorsed McCain on the eve of his state’s primary. Because the disastrous recent performance of Ohio’s Republican Party will make it difficult for McCain to hold that state’s 20 electoral votes that Bush won, McCain must keep Florida’s 27... Three two-term governors might help McCain, including Mississippi’s Haley Barbour, 60. He has two things McCain lacks —  impeccable conservative credentials and a genial disposition. He was conspicuously competent in Katrina’s aftermath... South Carolina’s Gov. Mark Sanford, 47, is more of a maverick than McCain, and Sanford faults his state party for being insufficiently conservative. His frugality has had him at daggers drawn with the state Legislature, which Republicans control... Finally, Minnesota’s Tim Pawlenty, 47, is national co-chairman of McCain’s campaign. His is the only state (10 electoral votes) to go Democratic in the last eight presidential elections. The candidate who wins a majority of the electoral votes in the Mississippi Valley usually wins the White House. Pawlenty is a center-right politician in a center-right country.”  —  George Will

FOR THE RECORD

“Inasmuch as the current presidential election has come down to a choice among hemlock, self-immolation or the traditional gun in the mouth, now is the time for patriotic Americans to review what went wrong and to start planning for 2012. How did we end up with the mainstream media picking the Republican candidate for president? It isn’t the early primaries, it isn’t that we allow Democrats to vote in many of our primaries, and it isn’t that the voters are stupid. All of that was true or partially true in 1980 —  and we still got Ronald Reagan. We didn’t get Ronald Reagan this year not just because there’s never going to be another Reagan. We will never again get another Reagan because Reagan wouldn’t run for office under the current campaign-finance regime... Reagan loved giving speeches and taking questions from voters. The one part of campaigning Reagan loathed was raising money. Thanks to our campaign-finance laws, fundraising is the single most important job of a political candidate today. This is why you will cast your eyes about the nation in vain for another Reagan sitting in any governor’s mansion or U.S. Senate seat. Pro-lifers like to ask, ‘How many Einstein’s have we lost to abortion?’ I ask: How many Reagan’s have we lost to campaign-finance reform?... It is because of campaign-finance laws like McCain-Feingold that big men don’t run for office anymore. Little men do... You want Reagan back? Restore the right to free speech, and you will have created the conditions that allowed Reagan to run.”  —  Ann Coulter

GOVERNMENT

“Hillary Clinton told The New York Times recently, ‘I want to get back to the appropriate balance of power between government and the market... You try to find common ground, insofar as possible. But if you really believe you have to manage the economy, you have to stake a lot of your presidency on it.’ Notice that she equates government power and market power. That is absurd. ‘Power’ in a free market means success at creating goods and services that your fellow human beings voluntarily choose to buy. Government power is force: the ability to fine and imprison people. Politicians who talk about managing the economy ignore the fact that, strictly speaking, there is no economy. There are only people producing, buying and selling goods and services. Keep that in mind, and one realizes that government action more often than not interferes with the productive activities that benefit everyone... The economy is far too complex for any president —  no matter how smart —  to manage. How can politicians and bureaucrats possibly know what hundreds of millions of individuals know, want and aspire to? How can government employees fathom what trade-offs to make in a world of scarce resources? They can’t. That’s why free people are more prosperous than unfree people. Presidential candidates should promise to keep their hands off the economy.”  —  John Stossel
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RE: THE LEFT

“But as he moves into the lead for the Democratic nomination, however much we may delight in seeing the air deflate from the Clinton dirigible, we must ask: What would a President [Barack] Obama look like? Much of his rhetoric is lighter than air —  almost content free. It’s the past versus the future, hope over fear, one nation not two, yes we can, turn the page, and so forth. But when you get past the music and really focus on the lyrics, Obama emerges as an utterly conventional, down-the-line liberal Democrat. He claims to be all about the future, but his policy ideas are about as modern as disco and the leisure suit.”  —  Mona Charen

INSIGHT

“The goal of the ‘liberals’  —  as it emerges from the record of the past decades —  was to smuggle this country into welfare statism by means of single, concrete, specific measures, enlarging the power of the government a step at a time, never permitting these steps to be summed up into principles, never permitting their direction to be identified or the basic issue to be named. Thus, statism was to come, not by vote or by violence, but by slow rot —  by a long process of evasion and epistemological corruption, leading to a fait accompli.”  —  Ayn Rand

FAMILY

“Those who are quick to say that the traditional family is nearing extinction would be wise to check out the latest report from the Census Bureau. According to the most recent data, a majority of American children (70%) live in two-parent homes and the vast majority (90%) of those live with both of their biological parents. This means that of all American children, 63% are living with both their biological parents (60% married biological parents, 3% cohabiting biological parents). The other bit of good news is that the intact married family is getting stronger among Asian-Americans, where the proportion increased significantly between 2001 and 2004, from 76.4% to 80.5% —  making the strongest family ethnic group even stronger yet. The rest of the news is not as optimistic. For all American children in all ethnic groups, there has been a slight decrease (1.4%) between 2001 and 2004 in the proportion living in the married, intact family. White American children are the second strongest group, after Asian-Americans, with 65.9% (down from 67.1%) living with their married, biological parents. Hispanics are next at 57.1 % (down from 58.2%) and African Americans last at 28.2 % (down from 29%).”  —  Tony Perkins

LIBERTY

“The massively cruel and ruinous communistic experiment of the Soviet Empire would not have been necessary if philosophers and intellectuals had not ignored a basic truth about human nature: Human beings, as a derivative of the instinct to survive, are innately driven to act in their own self interest. Notwithstanding propaganda, conditioning or brute force, any government or institution which runs head on against the grain of this basic human drive is doomed to fail. We seem not to have learned a basic lesson of history: Capitalism harnesses human self interest; socialism exhausts itself trying to kill it. The bureaucrats, who seize and dole out other people’s assets, initially see themselves as humanitarians. Eventually, they conclude they are indeed superior to others, and treat themselves accordingly. They make laws to which they are not subject; they vote themselves and their wards privileges and benefits. Then, they no longer serve —  they rule a nation of the government, by the government and for the government.”  —  Linda Bowles

THE GIPPER

“Leadership is a great burden. We grow weary of it at times... But if we are not to shoulder the burdens of leadership in the free world, then who will?... We grew from that small, weak republic which had as its assets spirit, optimism, faith in God and an unshakeable belief that free men and women could govern themselves wisely. We became the leader of the free world, an example for all those who cherish freedom. If we are to continue to be that example —  if we are to preserve our own freedom —  we must understand those who would dominate us and deal with them with determination. We must shoulder our burden with our eyes fixed on the future, but recognizing the realities of today, not counting on mere hope or wishes. We must be willing to carry out our responsibility as the custodian of individual freedom. Then we will achieve our destiny to be as a shining city on a hill for all mankind to see.”  —  Ronald Reagan

OPINION IN BRIEF

“Which of these three options is more likely to prevent further murderous rampages: a) making universities closed campuses and increasing the police presence on campus (as the president of [Northern Illinois University] has promised to do); b) making guns much harder to obtain; or c) enabling specially trained students and faculty to carry concealed weapons on campus? Because political correctness has replaced wisdom at nearly all universities, colleges are considering options a and b. But the only thing the first option will accomplish is to reduce the quality of university life and render the campus a larger version of the contemporary airport. And the second option will have no effect whatsoever since whoever wishes to commit murder will be able to obtain guns illegally. But if would-be murderers know that anywhere they go to kill students, there is a real likelihood that one or two students will shoot them first, and if in fact some would-be murderer is killed before he can murder any, or at least many, students, we will see far fewer such attempts made. Even though many of these murderers end up killing themselves, they don’t want to die until they have first murdered as many students and teachers as possible. Of course, there is virtually no chance that the uniformly left-thinking individuals who run our universities will ever consider this option. To do so would mean abandoning what is essentially a religious-like conviction that guns are immoral rather than the people who use them immorally.”  —  Dennis Prager
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SELECT READER COMMENTS

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“The commentary ’The ecstasy of Barack,’ presents an ominous portent of the future as it foreshadows a victory for Obama if those entranced by empty rhetoric, and flamboyant showmanship vote in greater numbers than those interested in real leadership qualities, and disheartened by the lack of a candidate exhibiting them.”  —  Lakeside, Arizona

“In Kathleen Parker’s essay, ’The ecstasy of Barack,’ I note some politically correct phrasing. ‘Common Era’ indeed! AD & BC are much more precise in retaining the reason for the commonality of reference. To see The Patriot, theoretically conservative, bowing to the PC terminology, is very sad. Maddening.”  —  Eagan, Minnesota

Editor’s Reply: Kathleen Parker was making a point about the Left being politically correct —  NOT succumbing to it herself. Nor were we by reprinting it.

“Illinois is second only to Massachusetts in bad politicians. I will never understand why intelligent people in these states continue to elect and re-elect unacceptable, criminal and brain-dead politicians. Gun control only means one thing; hit what you aim at. If gun control means disarming the general populace, then criminals will flourish, because they are not going to relinquish their guns. It is entirely unintelligent to believe otherwise.”  —  McAlpin, Florida

“My son is a recent graduate from Parris Island, SC —  his Father and I are very proud of him and he is proud to be a United States Marine. I wanted to share with you that he told me that he looked so forward to my letters as I would print a copy of The Patriot Post and send it to him weekly along with my encouraging letters. He so enjoyed reading The Patriot and would share it with a few of the other recruits. He has now subscribed and thoroughly enjoys your no nonsense approach to being a proud American. Thanks to the staff at The Patriot and all they contribute.”  —  Maryville, Tennessee

THE LAST WORD

“It seems to me that Barack Obama is the triumph of flesh, color, and despair over word —  that’s to say, he offers an appealing embodiment of identity politics plus a ludicrously despairing vision of contemporary America... On the other hand, if you’re running for president not as an unexceptional first-term senator with a thin resume but as the new Messiah, the new Kennedy, the new Gandhi, the new Martin Luther King, you can’t blame folks for leaping ahead to the next stage in the mythic narrative. Around the world, a second instant sub-genre has sprung up in which commentators speculate how long it will be before some deranged Christian-fundamentalist neo-Nazi gun-nut deprives America of its fleeting wisp of glory.”  —  Mark Steyn

Veritas vos Liberabit —  Semper Vigilo, Fortis, Paratus, et Fidelis! Mark Alexander, Publisher, for The Patriot’s editors and staff. (Please pray for our Patriot Armed Forces standing in harm’s way around the world, and for their families —  especially families of those fallen Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Marines and Coast Guardsmen, who granted their lives in defense of American liberty.)