On Monday morning, as usual when I get ready to go to work, I turn on MSNBC to watch a little Morning Joe. I respect Joe Scarbourgh as the only true conservative on the network, having to go against the likes of major lefties Ken Olberman, David Schuster, and Chris Mathews. Another reason to watch is that Mika Brzezinski is easy on the eyes. This morning Joe had the day off and Pat Buchanan was filling in. I usually have respect for Pat but our views of the war in Iraq can’t be any different. They were talking about the 4,000 deaths in Iraq since the beginning of the war and they had Chris Mathews as a guest. Chris was talking about a very short quote from Dick Cheney “so” when answering a question from a reporter talking about how unpopular they war is to the American people. Chris and Pat agreed Cheney and the administration are arrogant towards American citizens when it came to the war in Iraq. How we can have a war that is not supported by the American people? Chris also brought up polls that were taken when the war began , stating American supported the war in the beginning but this support declined when asked whether we could live with significant causalities. Well DUH, of course we don’t like to lose any soldier’s life in battle. I bet if we did polls during WWII we would say the same thing, and this was a war where we lost more soldiers in one battle than we have during the five years in Iraq.

Again, as Americans, we have a short memory when it came to events leading to the war with Iraq and if I have to repeat myself I will until I am blue in the face on the facts:

* congress had the same intelligence as the President and approved action by an overwhelming majority.

*President Bush never said that Iraq had anything to do with 911 but it was supporting terrorism in general.

*Saddam Hussein was crossing that line with us and the United Nations when it came to inspecting their nuclear facilities and daring us to do something. If we didn’t retaliate we would look like a paper tiger constantly making lines in the sand and not backing it up. Intelligence reports stated that he wanted to buy uranium in Niger, which turned out to be wrong AFTER THE FACT.

*We knew that Hussein had WMD’s they could be buried anywhere or left on a ship to Syria

*It was never about oil, there would be easier countries to knock over for their natural resources.

Over the last five years the administration has done an awful job speaking about their reaons why we went to war in Iraq. They have let the media and their opposition in congress dictate why we went into Iraq. Even if the intelligence was wrong and I am not sure that it is, we need to think this through on whether we should get out of Iraq. What would happen in the area if we would get out now or even a couple of years from now. I know we can’t maintain the troop levels where they are now forever. We need to get the government stabilized once and for all and if this means splitting up Iraq in three, so be it. I also know that we will be having a presence in the country for the foreseeable future to protect our interests and investment just like our presence in South Korea and Germany. If we would get out now, there would be a huge vacuum effect, that would make the situation 100x worse that what it is now.

Now going back to Chris Mathews comments, I don’t think the administration should care about what the American people think about the war. Cheney was right for answering the question with an arrogant “so”. While I agree that the President and Congress should listen to the American people more often than they do now on many issues, like abortion, taxes etc national security isn’t one of them. Leave it up to the experts. They have all the intelligence much of it classified for our safety, I don’t want polls from an uniformed public dictating foreign policy. If we had our choice we would never go to war because of the fear of the loss of life of our soldiers. There are many citizens our there who would never go to war under any circumstances. I think Barack Obama is one of them, who would rather sit down and talk with enemies of the state than be strong and protecting our interests.

*** Well it couldn’t happen to a more deserving person. New York Governor Elliott Spitzer being caught up in a prostitution ring has a nice ring of irony to it. A man who was fought corruption (I call it extortion, milking companies for millions to make him look like he is doing a good job) in the corporate and political world is now caught up in a scandal of his own with people calling for his resignation. Knowing that he is a Democrat, (you wouldn’t know it by reading articles about it) he probably won’t resign or at least not for a while, trying to live through the criticism until the very end. You might even see spin of a right wing conspiracy. If this was a mistress or a office fling, I wouldn’t haven’t a problem of him staying in office, (he will have his own problems at home with his wife) but HE BROKE THE LAW. Soliciting prostitution is illegal, not the sexual act. With Bill and Monica, it wasn’t the office fling , it was Bill lying under oath that got him in trouble. As Governor and before that Attorney General he is expected to uphold the law of the state of New York. How many people have he sent to jail for the same offense. As I am writing this a major lefty Alan Deshorwitz on CNN is trying to justifying this by saying prostitution laws are outdated and we should legalize it like Europe (I do agree, but its still against the law NOW), and Bill Clinton never resigned and finished his term but in the same conversation he didn’t like what Larry Craig did in a public restroom. Trying to justify an illegal act doesn’t make old Alan look good in my eyes. I guess let the spin begin.

***All we have heard on the political front is the possibility of a SUPERTICKET of Barack and Hillary or Hillary and Barack. I just don’t see it happening. There is a 90% chance of Barack Obama winning the nomination unless Hillary tries to steal it. I don’t see that Hillary would take the nomination anyway, she is 60 now and if Barack wins she will be 68 when 2016 comes around. I know McCain is older now and has waited 8 years for his chance but I don’t think she was the patience to wade it out as VP. Also, she wields more power as a Senator of a large state of New York than as VP , that attends state funerals and maybe vote once or twice to break ties. If Hillary had the lead, I can see Barack taking the nomination as a step leading to the White House knowing that 2008 wasn’t his year, but we know that isn’t going to happen. Even if there were a super ticket, who says that they will be unstoppable. I have said time and time again, with us using the electoral college and not the popular vote, I just don’t see certain state that the Democrats need to win, being ready quite yet voting for the first African American or woman President of the Untied States and definitely not voting for both on the same ticket.

*** All of you Green Bay packer fans can blame me for the retirement of Brett Favre. For at least four years I have been saying at the end of each year that he will be retiring yada yada yada and each year he has came back for more. At the end of this year, I said that he will be coming back to finish what they started and guess what he retired. I call it reverse Karma. Now if this would only work on Matt Millen, worse GM in sports. Go Lions!!!!

Hey, I have to give Hillary credit, her winning Texas and Ohio, albeit not cutting much into Obama’s delegate lead, tells us this is going to Denver in one of the closest primaries in history. I knew she were going to win Ohio, but not by ten points. Texas was a little surprise, knowing that the polls were trending in Obama’s favor, to a point where he has a slight lead but well within the margin of error in several polls. So now what. If you thought this race is interesting now with Hillary and Barack neck and neck, just hold on to your seats its going to get really interesting quick. Wyoming and Mississippi are next but the only big prize left on the board is Pennsylvania (and a handful of states including North Carolina are coming up after)but their primary is in SIX weeks, so their will be a lot of attention paid to the Keystone state. No one will come out of this primary season the decisive winner because of the Democrats are handing out their delegates proportionately to vote total. This doesn’t mean there won’t be fireworks before the convention. Everywhere I see down the news channel dial tells me that Hillary will start aggressively attacking Barack’s inexperience and his connection with shady real estate deals in Chicago and Barack will fire back questioning Hillary’s past business dealings. So much for a civilized campaign. When so much is at stake, this will go back to good old fashioned, down and dirty politics.

With so much attention paid to the Democratic race with McCain having sewn up the Republican nomination, does this hurt or help McCain. I think it will help him a lot for many reasons:

1) He can rest up (not saying he is old and needs it), having been on the road for a year now can wear down any politician, having made many speeches and appearances daily.

2) He have the time to properly go through the list of candidates for his Vice President running mate and create a strategy for the general election, no matter who he will be facing. The Democratic candidate won’t have this luxury.

3)You know that the Democratic primary will start to get down and dirty, turning off some who were looking at Hillary and Barack as different type of politicians who are above mudslinging

4)Hillary will have to start fighting for delegates from Michigan and Florida to be seating which will at least alienate some democrats no matter what the outcome will be

5)John McCain can fundraising and having to spend very little giving him a huge war chest for the general election while either Clinton or Obama will be behind the eight ball in funds by having spent more than planned (who would of thought this race will be this close).

6)Knowing the liberal media, having articles on John McCain toward the back of the newspaper is a good thing, no news is good news, their resources will be tied up covering the Democrats and finding dirt on them instead of finding dirt (or in the case of the New York Times making some up).

Another interesting point is that this race will be decided by Super delegates not committed delegates voted by citizens of this country. This is from a Democratic party who were in denial as George Bush defeated Al Gore in 2000. They were complaining up and down to anyone who would listen that that George Bush’s victory wasn’t legitimate. They complained that a republican loaded supreme court elected our president even though Al Gore won the popular vote. Hillary Clinton could lose the nomination by losing the Super Delegate race even by winning more votes as a whole this primary season (as of right now she is leading if you count MI and FL). As for me I will be sitting on the couch with me feet up and enjoying this. Let the fireworks begin.

“Shame on You” will those be the only harsh words Hillary Clinton will say about her opponent Barack Obama this campaign. What ever happened to the Clinton machine, who has a history of attacking people who stands in their way. I know in the beginning of her campaign, she wanted to change people’s perception of her. We all know that Hillary’s biggest negative is that people think she is a cold-hearted bi**, that will do anything to win. Then she gets on the Sunday morning news shows and on the campaign trail, laughing, looking happy go luck, actually acting human, showing emotion. Then came the famous tear she shed after her loss in Iowa. People say that this moment helped her win in New Hampshire. It was too little too late. This change of face I believe didn’t help her one bit and might even hurt her worse by now making her seem fake and insincere. Even her win couldn’t stop the tidal wave known as Obama-mania, he overwhelmed crowds with his speeches, calling him today’s Martin Luther King. Barack hasn’t gone negative, nor should he. People responds to his message and if he did go negative, Hillary would definitely attack, going after his inexperience and the lack of substance in his message. Plus, its hard to go negative when both Hillary and him pretty much preach the same message and being on the same side of most of the important issues.

I thought Hillary would go negative and crank up the “Clinton Machine” as soon as she started to lose the delegate count or at least at the debate last week on CNN. No such luck. All we have is three words “Shame on you” , her response over brochures Obama was sending out in Ohio that she claims falsely criticizes her health care agenda. So, what is she waiting for? In this case slinging mud might actually help her by firing up the part of the public that buys into this type of campaigning and it will but Obama on the defensive, a position that he hasn’t been in yet. This could make Obama slip up, exposing some weakness. Instead of speaking about his vision of America, he would have to address real issues like his inexperience and other attacks Hillary might come up with. I find it hard to believe that a person who was made it to Senator for a state like Illinois have no skeletons in the closet, but I might be wrong, he might actually be that clean. The only other theory of why she hasn’t gone negative, is that is that she feels that she can keep it close in Texas and Ohio, might lose a few delegates in these primaries next week but still leaving it a close race. Then she could use her ace in the hole. This would be the delegates from Michigan and Florida that she would like to have seated in full at the convention. If she would go heavily negative, it would tick off the Democratic leadership, who she would need to help win her case. I guess we will have an indication at the debate tonight, this might be the end of the Hillary campaign if she doesn’t wipe the floor with Obama.

I guess this should have been my first post, explaining my definition of a common sense conservative. While there are many definitions of being a conservative in America, but I think we all can agree that conservatives believe in small government, low taxes, national security, personal responsibility and having the free market regulate business. Intended or not, conservatives in general has also championed religious causes like the abolishment of abortion, general morality and keeping the relationship between government and religion they way our founding fathers wanted, not the “separation of church and state” liberals have been dictating for decades now. In today’s world there are many different classifications of conservatives; fiscal and social, conservative and moderate. Someone like Rudy Giuliani is a fiscal conservative but a social liberal, while some religious leaders are social conservatives but fiscal liberals. I call myself a strong fiscal and social conservative. I don’t blindly follow these values but use my brain and being realistic in applying my conservative values on today’s issues.

I like to use the example of Ron Paul, who is on paper a good conservative but his ideas are unrealistic in today’s world. One example is his calling for going back to the gold standard and a overall stringent monetary policy. While I do agree that having a very weak dollar and a large debt financed by foreign governments is a bad thing and will probably nip us in the butt years from now, going to extreme measures like going back to the gold standard and taking a huge chunk of money out of the economy isn’t the answer. For one it will be virtually impossible doing these things without causing a large global depression that would make the Great Depression look like a blip on an economic map. We do live in a global economy and things are a lot of different in the world than even 20 years ago. There is many more industrialized nations like China and India that are competing for business. We didn’t get to point in our economy overnight and we shouldn’t be serious about solving these issues overnight either. We have to make sure that we don’t make our economy worse, we need to make strides to shore up our monetary policy and make the dollar stronger versus others. The main culprit of our economy is running a huge budget deficit. Money is better spent and more jobs created if individuals spend their own money than having the government doing it for them. If we can get congressmen that are serious about balancing the budget, keep taxes low, controlling earmarks and not depending on economic flukes (Clinton got lucky from the revenue from the Internet bubble, so he can taut having a surplus) we can have an long running strong economy that would be the envy of the world.

Another Ron Paul example is his foreign policy. He believes we shouldn’t give any foreign aid, getting our troops out of foreign affairs like Iraq, Germany and South Korea and interfering in foreign government affairs like Israel. This policy might have worked a century ago, when travel between countries were much harder and there are no such things as nuclear bombs and chemical weapons. Ron Paul needs to realize that there are people out there that hate who we are because of what we stand for and will do anything to destroy us. While I don’t know your views on WWII but I think that you would be against fight the Nazis in Europe because they didn’t pose a threat and didn’t attack unlike the Japanese. Sixty years ago was the Nazi and today is Islamic extremists. The world is smaller than it once was with any group of rebels can get the weapons to destroy entire nations. I am a strong believer that since we are the only true superpower left in the world, we have the responsibility to our citizens and the resources to fight these threats before it reaches our borders. While we have built up governments that have eventually turned on us like Iraq and made enemies from our support of Israel, foreign aid and our presence in other countries have helped us become a safer nation and a safer world.

Other examples of non-conservative values but are either necessary or impossible to change would be monopolies, Social Security, Medicare, and government agencies like the Department of Education. We need to either limit the scope of these problems (like trying to change Social Security into private accounts, renew talk about abolishment of the Department of Education and implementing a flat tax)or slowly improve the situation (like actually cutting spending to balance the budget). If this means compromising our values once in a while, that’s ok as long as we win the minds of the citizens and win the war. Ronald Reagan for his tax cuts to pass had to sign bills that had huge spending increases in them. As we learned, tax cuts worked to increase tax revenue and if we can actually decrease spending by controlling the growth in spending, eliminating earmarks and cutting unimportant programs we can balance the budget.

As you will all see in my upcoming posts, you will see a mix of conservatism mixed with a little common sense and being realistic living in today’s world. We might not win every battle but we need to win the war versus the liberals where they want to strive for socialism, which history has proved doesn’t work.