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| Republican Soul Searching Probably Mostly Pointless - Fox News Posted: 09 Nov 2012 07:22 AM PST "[Embracing fiscal restraint] would help in a host of ways in terms of just ending the notion of Democrats as free-wheeling spenders, 'government solves all your problems.' Because that leads right into the slippery slope of Democrats being lax on moral issues, faith issues. Fiscal issues are a huge opportunity for Democrats." -- Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., talking to the New York Times for a Nov. 7, 2004 piece: "Baffled in Loss, Democrats Seek Road Forward." Heartbroken Republicans would do well to consider how much worse it was for Democrats eight years ago. In 2004, Democrats lost not only in a bid to unseat an incumbent president much hated by the party's liberal base, but also saw the Republicans solidify what had been tenuous majorities in the House and Senate. While President Obama's re-election margin was more decisive that President George W. Bush's was in 2004, Democrats failed to roll back the large Republican majority in the House and added only two seats to their Senate majority. Some over-eager Democrats and deeply depressed Republicans are seeing the collapse of the GOP: a demographic cliff and an eventual unraveling of the conservative party. The conventional wisdom is that Republicans are doomed without a move to the middle. But in 2004, Democrats were looking at what seemed to be a generational oblivion. The combination of the Republican advantage on national security and social issues combined with Democrats isolation as the party of the urban poor and costal elites seemed to spell doom for the Blue Team. The answer offered by party mandarins and the establishment press was that the time had come for Democrats to return to the moderation and centrism of the Clinton era, to reject the anti-war liberalism that had inflamed the party's base and go back to fiscal and social moderation before the party lost all credibility with voters. Wise men and women assumed that the party was headed back to Clintonism, either in the person of Hillary Clinton, junior senator from New York, or with another southern or border state Democratic moderate like Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia. The last thing that the smart set would have suggested was that the newly elected senator from Illinois – he of the anti-war left, African parentage, utterly socially liberal and with the middle name Hussein – would be the best bet for 2008. And yet, Obama won. Twice. And for two years presided over the largest Democratic majority in Congress since the Watergate wipeout for Republicans. For all the talk of oblivion for Democrats, it was just two years later that thanks to growing frustration with the Iraq war that Democrats would retake the House in a 31-seat swing and erase the Republican gains in the Senate. Democratic success in 2006 was part of a strategy of finding moderate Democrats who could use opposition to the war and deficit spending to pick off vulnerable Republicans by tying them to Bush policies. The wave John Kerry had hoped to ride into the White House crested two-years too late for the Massachusetts Democrat, who was also too elite and too liberal to connect to heartland voters. Liberal Democrats were growing very concerned that the party was lurching rightward and losing sight of its principles. They went to work to make sure that the Clinton wing of the party did not reassert itself and, like 2004 contender Howard Dean, set about mainstreaming and moderating the message, but not changing the ideals, of the left. The last thing that the smart set would have suggested was that the newly elected senator from Illinois – he of the anti-war left, African parentage, utterly socially liberal and with the middle name Hussein – would be the best bet for 2008. - In Obama, Democrats found someone who shared all of the beliefs of the liberal base but who could talk about them in such a way as not to terrify moderate voters. The left knew Obama was their man, freeing him to talk like a moderate. And with a thin voting record in the Senate, he was tough for the Clintons and later Republicans to find fresh evidence of positions outside the mainstream. With the backing of the left, a Democratic desire for racial justice and a campaign strategy that combined inspirational rhetoric with bare-knuckled tactics, Obama vanquished Clinton and then, thanks in large part to voter fatigue with Republicans and the Panic of 2008, swept past the GOP into the White House. It's a story that few would have even imagined possible in mid-November 2004. A very liberal senator with little experience, born in Hawaii to a Kenyan father? No chance. Republicans can't know yet what the opportunities and challenges of the next years will bring. Neither can they tell who will be available to carry the party's banner. Any pundit or Republican operative who can tell you exactly what the GOP ought to be doing now is likely just flattering themselves. Moderates believe the party ought to be more moderate. Conservatives believe the party ought to be more conservative. But as Obama has proven, politics is about exploiting opportunities foreseeable and unforeseen. There's no doubt that Republicans need to show moderation and a conciliatory countenance in the wake of Obama's re-election and the split decision by voters. But the direction the party will take in the 2014 midterms and beyond will be about how voters, markets and international foes respond to another term of Obamism and the political gifts of individual Republicans – those well known and still mostly unknown. And Now, A Word From Charles "I think one thing he might do if it's not Simpson-Bowles would be to offer the Treasury to Romney. I'm sure he would probably turn it down but it would be the ultimate gesture. I don't think it will happen. I agree John Kerry will probably end up at secretary of State. But I must say that my sources in the Obama White House have been rather quiet since January 2009."
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| Iran, Saying Aircraft Trespassed, Confirms Drone Shooting Episode - New York Times Posted: 09 Nov 2012 08:31 AM PST By THOMAS ERDBRINKPublished: November 9, 2012TEHRAN — Iran's defense minister on Friday confirmed that Iranian warplanes had fired shots at an American drone last week but said they had taken the action after the unmanned aircraft had entered Iranian airspace. The assertions by the defense minister, Brig. Gen. Ahmad Vahidi, were the first acknowledgment from Iran that the episode had happened. He spoke less than 24 hours after the Pentagon first disclosed the shooting, involving two Iranian jet fighters and the American aircraft, a Predator surveillance drone based in Kuwait, during what American officials described as a routine surveillance mission on Nov. 1 in international airspace over the Persian Gulf. It was the first time that Iranian aircraft have been known to fire at an American drone, one of the many ways that the United States has sought to monitor developments in Iran over more than three decades of estrangement between the two countries. The United States said it had protested the shooting via the United States interests section at the Swiss Embassy in Tehran, and had warned the Iranians that the drone flights would continue. The American officials said the Predator had been flying 16 nautical miles off the Iranian coast. General Vahidi did not specify where the episode took place, but his assertion that it was in Iranian airspace presented a possible new complication to quiet diplomatic efforts by both countries to engage in direct talks following President Obama's re-election. General Vahidi's version of events also differed with the Pentagon version in another way: He said the two Iranian planes, which the Pentagon had identified as Russian-made Su-25 jets known as Frogfoots, belonged to the Iranian Air Force. The Americans had said the two planes were under the command of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, whose activities are routinely more aggressive than the conventional Air Force. General Vahidi, whose account was reported by the Iranian Labor News Agency and other media outlets, said that last week an unidentified plane had entered Iranian airspace over its waters in the Persian Gulf. He said the intruder had been "forced to escape," after action by Iran's air force. It is unclear why Iranian officials had kept the episode a secret. It also is unclear, from the Iranian account, whether the warplanes had sought to down the drone and missed, or had fired warning shots to chase it away. A lawmaker, Mohammad Saleh Jokar, a member of the National Security and Foreign Policy Committee of Iran's parliament, also said the American aircraft had trespassed. "Early last week, a U.S. drone which had violated Iran's airspace received a decisive response by the armed forces that were stationed in the region," he said in a Friday interview with the Young Journalist Club, an Iranian semiofficial news agency. Mr. Jokar said the drone had been on a spying mission. "The U.S. drone entered our country's airspace with an aim to gather information because there is no other justification," he said. The Predator's sensor technology is so sophisticated that it could have monitored activities in Iran from the distance cited by the Pentagon officials in their account. The Iranian firing on the aircraft had been completely legal, Mr. Jokar said. "Any violation against Iran's airspace, territorial waters and land will receive a strong response by the Islamic Republic of Iran," he said. Earlier on Friday, Iranian state television ran "breaking news" banners during regular programming saying that the country will confront any foreign aircraft violating its airspace. But there was no specific reference to the Predator drone. "Iran pledges 'firm response to any air, ground and sea aggression' " and "Iran says will confront any foreign aircraft violating its airspace," one news item on a ticker read. A presenter for state television's English language channel Press TV said that Iran was making this statement "in the face of threats of military action, from Israel mainly." Two commanders also gave interviews on Friday stressing Iran's right to defend itself. "Defenders of the Islamic Republic of Iran will give a decisive response to any air, land and naval attacks," the deputy commander of Iran's armed forces, Massoud Jazayeri, told the Fars News Agency, which is headed by a former officer of the Revolutionary Guards. "If any foreign flying objects enter our country's airspace, the armed forces will confront them," he said. Another officer, the commander of the Khatam al-Anbiya Air Defense Base, told the state Islamic Republic News Agency his forces are capable of countering "all threats." |
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