When enough really is enough.

On December 31st, 2007, Mike Huckabee called a press conference. Initially, the Huckster called the press conference to debut a new attack ad on Mitt Romney.

He then claimed that, during his morning run and prayers, his head cleared a bit and he'd changed his mind. According to TheHill.com

The former governor said the ad, which hits Romney on the issues of taxes and abortion, was set to start running in Iowa Monday at noon.

He said he made the decision earlier in the morning that he does not want to run a negative campaign. As a result, he said he will not run any ads going after Romney or other Republican rivals.

He then showed the ad to the reporters in the room, you know, just so that they would know that he really was prepared to run it.

Now, whether or not he realized that the ad would wind up being run by those same reporters on their assorted news channels is debatable. If he didn't realize it, you should question whether or not he's got the intelligence to be President as, surely, one wouldn't expect the broadcast media to not show the ad that had been shown to them.

If he did realize that the ad would be shown, you've got to admire his political savvy -- he used the media to run his ad all over the place on his behalf, getting his message out without ever getting his own hands dirty or having to spend money to do it -- but you have to wonder just how genuine his 'epiphany' about doing the right thing was.

After all, as the Huck himself said, "If a man’s dishonest to obtain a job, he’ll be dishonest on the job."

( And, it should be at least mentioned that the ad -- which FactCheck.org points out is misleading and inaccurate -- actually was run, paid for by the Huck campaign, in Iowa anyway. The Huck calls it a 'mistake'. Uh huh. )

Keep in mind that, according to that press conference, the Huck decided that he didn't want to run a negative campaign. He wanted to be above that. He didn't want to stoop to that level.

Apparently, that desire was only temporary.

Ed Rollins, Huck's campaign adviser who was behind the ad that Huck supposedly decided not to use in Iowa, was overheard telling someone working up Huck's South Carolina ad campaign to "put some good in there if you have to, with the bad. Do what you gotta do."

Rollins later admitted that he intended to go negative in South Carolina because, as Rollins put it, South Carolina "is a more negative state, they're more used to those kinds of things." He also told the Washington Post, "To me, hitting somebody, knocking somebody down, is a great feeling. Firing out a negative ad just feels amazing."

The more I see from Huckabee and his campaign, the more disingenuous and dishonest he seems.

Perhaps Huck can answer his own question: "If you gain the whole world and lose your soul, what does it profit you?"

The Wonder of Canadian Healthcare.

If you've seen Michael Moore's Sicko, you're sure to know how far superior Canada's socialized healthcare system is to that of our privatized system here in the United States.

I hope Mr. Moore doesn't try peddling his 'stuff' to Arlene Meeks, who is a Canadian citizen 'trapped' in a hospital in California after her appendix burst. Why is she trapped there? Because she's been waiting for a bed to transfer back to in Canada for more than two weeks.

According to a Vancouver News Radio station:

A Surrey woman's holiday in California has turned into a healthcare nightmare. The 68-year old needed emergency surgery after her appendix burst, but now she can't come home due to a lack of hospital beds.

Arlene Meeks has been in a California hospital since December 17th. Her family has been trying to get her transferred back to the Lower Mainland for 2 weeks now but they haven't had any luck.

Stephen Harris with the South Fraser Health Region says the issue is a shortage of ventilated intensive care unit beds, which are highly specialized. He says over the holidays, it's not surprising to see those beds filled up.

Harris says as soon as a bed becomes available, Meeks will be transferred to a local hospital.

Arlene's daughter Kim says her mom is 'frustrated as hell', and she just wants to come home....

If you ask me, it sounds as though Ms. Meeks ought to be happy her appendix burst here in the States -- you know, if one can ever be happy about something like that -- because it sounds like she might still be waiting to have it removed up there in Canada ...

[sarcasm] I'm so glad that folks like Mike Huckabee, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and John Edwards want to bring this entirely wonderful system to us right here at home. [/sarcasm]

Obama's Hillary Meal Deal

Toby Harnden, in his blog on Telegraph.co.uk, posted a picture of a funny desktop wallpaper found on a computer in the business center of the Holiday Inn in Des Moines where Barack Obama's campaign staff are staying.



Oddly, I can't decide whether or not this really qualifies as 'dirty politics' ...

Hillary's newest 'conspiracy' theory.

Apparently, while I was away enjoying time with my family over the Christmas holiday, I missed Hillary Clinton giving great examples as to why she shouldn't ever get into office.

Every is aware (or, at least, they should be) of both Barack Obama and Mike Huckabee's statements that they'd invade our sovereign ally Pakistan (while vacating the battle with terrorists in Iraq). Republican contender Huckabee has also recently shown that he's unaware of Pakistan's current political state (saying it is still under martial law, when it had been lifted several weeks previous) and geographical location (saying it share an eastern, rather than western, border with Afghanistan).

Now, Mrs. Clinton has made clear that she has no clue what's going on with Pakistan's elections. Last week, on CNN's Wolf Blitzer show, she said:

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

And, she then followed up on ABC's This Week with George Stephanopoulos on Sunday:

"[Musharraf] could be the only person on the ballot. I don't think that's a real election."

The problem is, as Thomas Houlahan (and, later, Joe Biden) points out, that ... well, Musharraf isn't on the ballot.

Yes, you read that correctly. Musharraf isn't up for election. The up-coming elections in Pakistan are Parliamentary elections, and Musharraf was elected President (a separate election) by popularly elected Electors back on October 6th, 2007.

So, essentially, we've got Pakistan -- often called 'the most dangerous place on earth', whose government has nuclear weapons, that is being targetted by Islamist radicals and terrorists (both al-Qaeda and the Taliban have claimed responsibility for the Bhutto assassination), in the midst of what may be an election that determines whether they fall under Islamist rule (as the extremists would prefer) or transform themselves a fledgling democracy (as Bhutto's supporters wanted) -- and the 'world-class genius', Mrs. Clinton, isn't even aware enough of the situation over there to realize that Bhutto wasn't running against Musharraf anymore than she herself was running against George Bush when he was elected President and she ran for the Senate in 2000.

Can we please get at least one Democrat Presidential candidate who has some clue about what's going on on the planet? Please? Just one ... ?

Why the Iowa Caucus doesn't mean anything.

With the 2008 elections ready to jump into full swing tomorrow, the majority of the media conglomerates and candidates are trying to paint the Iowa Caucus as the true test of a candidate's viability.

Here is the truth: It's not.

Since it became the 'first in the nation' portion of the Presidential nomination process in 1972, the Iowa caucus has had an absolutely horrible record at picking the eventual Presidential nominee for each party.

In 1972, Iowans picked Edmund Muskie on the Democrat side and the Republicans didn't even bother scheduling an early caucus. Muskie lost the Democratic nomination to famed loser George McGovern.

In 1976, the majority of Iowa's Democrats chose an 'uncommitted slate' (meaning, essentially, that they didn't like anyone enough to give them consensus) over eventual nominee Jimmy Carter.

In hindsight, the whole country would've likely been better off chosing an 'uncommitted slate' over Carter.

In 1984, they finally got one 'right' by picking Walter Mondale but quickly slid back into obscurity by chosing Dick Gephardt over Michael Dukakis in 1988 and Tom Harkin over Bill Clinton in 1992.

In the other years -- 1980, 1996, and 2000, Iowa's Democrats went the 'safe' route by nominating either the incumbent Presidents (Carter and Clinton) or their sitting Vice Presidents (Gore).

2004 marked the first time since ... well, ever, that the Iowa Democrats managed to actually pick a non-incumbent Democrat nominee that eventually went on to win the party's nomination.

And, Iowa's Republicans don't do a whole lot better. For example, in 1980 Iowa's Republicans chose George H.W. Bush over eventual Republican nominee Ronald Reagan amd then, in 1988, they chose both Bob Dole and Pat Robertson over sitting Vice President George H.W. Bush.

In fact, since it began more than 30 years ago, the Iowa Caucus has only successfully picked a candidate from either side of the aisle (that wasn't an incumbent President or a sitting Vice President) that went on to win their party's nomination four times -- with Bob Dole and George W. Bush on the Republican side and Walter Mondal and Al Gore on the Democrat side. And, obviously, only one of those candidates went on to win the actual Presidential election.

So, no matter what the results are tomorrow, don't buy into the 'hype' that the media and the candidates themselves are going to throw at you about who won and who lost and what it really means because, in November, it likely won't mean much.