Rudy or the Minimax:
Game Theory, Giuliani, and the GOP Nomination

But what if the reason that Hillary wins is, as some want to claim, because social conservatives did not choose the lesser of two evils and vote for Rudy? Again, we social conservatives are not to blame at all. We are the ones who will have made the rational choice during the primaries while the Giuliani supporters made an irrational choice.

And why would he be the lesser of two evils? You stated that your objection to Rudy was:

"pro-choice, anti-gun, cross-dressing philanderer "

Well, Hillary as far was we know is not a philanderer nor does she engage in cross-dressing (please no jokes from the peanut gallery saying "wait, she sometimes wears dresses!"). She doesn't even appear to be as anti-gun as Rudy (although be careful, GOP candidates seem to have acquired rapid 'evolution' in their views.) Let's face it, all you really mean by 'social conservative' is 'cheerleader for the Republican Party'.

[BTW, are you really serious about the cross-dressing? He did it as part of a skit at a comedy show. Is Bob Hope on your list of evil Americans who have degraded our culture?]

Your game theory evaluation uses a 'single turn' model. In other words, it assumes the only thing that matters is this election and that's it. But presumably 'social conservatives' are in it for the long haul. They would like the Republican Party to nominate social conservatives all the time, not just this upcoming election.

Evaluate the game then? If Rudy is nominated and they vote for him and he wins they will have sent a message that the GOP can feel safe ignoring them. A limited short term win (no Hillary) is brought at the cost of losing a long term goal (influencing the Republican Party).

On the other hand if they withhold their support and Rudy looses they may take some rhetorical blame but what will the GOP do? If they cannot replace the loss Christianist voters with Democratic voters (say by making inroads among Hispanics) they have no choice but to make sure the next guy is more acceptable to them in the next round. Even if they withhold their support and Rudy wins they still make it more difficult and more expensive for him to have won. Assuming he wants to win re-election and he isn't being worshiped as the greatest President ever he will still want to add social conservatives to the ranks of his voters.

In the end I think your argument reveals the 'true agenda' here. Some social conservatives really believe what they are saying and others really believe in the GOP first and everything else second. Perhaps we shall call your group "Yellow Dog Republicans"?

Rude Giuliani

The Anchoress did a great piece on this.

Theory aside, the reality is that we are in a two-party system the first party to disintegrate loses. So, you tell me who do you want picking your Supreme Court nominees - Giuliani or Clinton?

Theory aside, the reality is that we are in a two-party system the first party to disintegrate loses. So, you tell me who do you want picking your Supreme Court nominees - Giuliani or Clinton?

The intellectual bankruptcy of the right seems to extend to the judicial branch as well. Scalia, Thomas etc. seem content to ditch principles when it suits their ideology. While you probably wouldn't trust my judgement I would say it probably matters less than you think. Rudy would be under intense pressure to appoint judges that were not anti-Roe ideologes. On other issues you may want to see some liberal balance in the court, especially since the right wing of the court seems to be beholden to big gov't in many areas like eminent domain, state rights (medical maj.) and other issues.

Don't stay home on election day if Rudy wins the primary for two reasons:

1. Last election, I saw five candidates on the ballot for president. I realize that three of them had no chance, but I think voting for them makes a difference anyway. If people see that Nader + Gore > Bush, but Bush wins or that (hypothetically) Rudy + Paul/Badnarik > Hillary, but Hillary wins, they might rethink pursuing undecideds while insulting their base.

2. On election day, there will probably be quite a few important races. I have one senator that sorely needs replacing, but that doesn't happen from home, right?

Boonton makes a good point regarding the time frame for playing the game. Christian conservatives have helped the Republican candidate win five of the last eight presidential elections, and not counting the partial birth abortion ban those five presidential terms have yielded practically nothing for the pro-life cause. What makes them think that the next election will be decisive for the cause?

There's a lot more at stake in the next election cycle than the fate of Roe v Wade. If the SC's are going to be a one issue constituency, then they will only end up marginalizing themselves in the long run. I don't care for Rudy for all the issues, but from a foreign policy & national defense standpoint he's my favorite.

Robert,
Boonton makes a good point regarding the time frame for playing the game. Christian conservatives have helped the Republican candidate win five of the last eight presidential elections, and not counting the partial birth abortion ban those five presidential terms have yielded practically nothing for the pro-life cause. What makes them think that the next election will be decisive for the cause?

Why? Because today it's also incremental. Very little ever happens quickly.

Rudy Giuliani is a social moderate, NOT a liberal, on the popular issues where the media loves to tar him with that dirty "L" word. And he's a Reagan conservative on basically everything else.

Here is where Rudy stands on:

ABORTION:
Yes, he's pro choice, but he only supports late term abortion if it's shown to be needed to protect the life of the mother, on a case by case basis. Otherwise he feels it would be unethical and should be illegal. A liberal would support late term abortion to also protect the "health of the mother", which can mean almost anything, including a psychologist's claim that the woman would be emotionally distraught if she had the child. Giuliani also supported the Supreme Court's recent decision to uphold the partial birth abortion ban. Unlike liberals, he also supports parental or other adult family member notification laws for underage girls who want to have an abortion. All this makes him a moderate on the subject, not a liberal.

SAME SEX MARRIAGE:
Giuliani has consistently stated that marriage must remain between a man and a woman, in order to preserve it as the institution deemed best for the raising of children, our nation's most precious resource. He only supports same sex domestic partnerships, which are simply legal contracts between any two people, and should be Constitutionally allowed for anyone. By the way, President Bush himself openly supported same sex civil unions during the 2004 election campaign. Civil unions and domestic partnerships are not "marriage by another name", as some say. On this issue Giuliani also holds a moderate position, not a liberal one.

GUN CONTROL:
As someone who consistently calls himself a strict constructionist, Giuliani supports the 2nd Amendment because it's unequivocally right there in the Constitution. But he knows that states and localities have limited rights to set and enforce their own laws. As he says, what works in New York won't necessarily work in Alabama or Mississippi. Here he's honestly demonstrating his commitment to federalism, or states' rights, which is a core of conservatism. But don't expect NYC type of gun laws on a federal level if he's President, because he knows that could never be imposed.

ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION:
Few of the presidential candidates came out harder against the recent failed Bush/Kennedy illegal immigration bill in the Senate, and Giuliani had a clear explanation of why he felt the bill was a bad idea. He's constantly saying we need a strong physical wall and technological wall at the border, harsh penalties on employers who knowingly or repeatedly hire illegals, a tamper proof ID card for employers, and that the recent bill was obviously amnesty. And he has come out strongly with a detailed plan of how he would enforce the border, using a version of the extremely successful program he used to reduce crime in New York City.

JUDGES:
As a former U.S. Attorney, he's consistently clear about the Constitution's demand that judges only interpret the law instead of making it up. Making law is only for the legislative and executive branches, and when unelected and unaccountable judges do this, they upset our government's separation of powers. And truthfully, nominating judges is one of the few areas where a president can actually make a difference with many of these hot button social issues.

HEALTHCARE:
Few candidates of either party have laid out as comprehensive a plan as Giuliani's to make healthcare more affordable to more people with more choices and flexibility, and it uses the power of the free market instead of non-competitive socialized medicine. His plan not only makes sense, the fact that he even developed one early in the campaign season shows that he is not afraid to tackle these controversial issues head on.

It's easy to be a conservative in a red state or town, but Giuliani cleaned up NYC with conservative principles against one of the most bogged down leftist city councils this side of Havana. Also, who can forget his famous battles against the so-called civil rights groups over federal funding of obscene art and the porn shops in Times Square, as well as his almost daily confrontations with virulently hostile reporters at his press conferences?

How many people knew where Rudy Giuliani stands on all these positions? The fact is he is moderate to conservative on the "hot button" social issues, NOT a liberal. And based on what he's shown so far, he's a real Reagan conservative on foreign policy/the War on Terror, judges, taxes, the economy, and illegal immigration. THESE are the important issues of our time, and where we most desperately need real, principled leadership. All of this, combined with his electability in a general election, make Rudy Giuliani the Republican we need to nominate for 2008.

Eric Johnston, a passionate pro-lifer on the abortion issue recently wrote this terrific article (in the NY Times, believe it or not!).

His thesis: BECAUSE Giuliani is not a religious conservative (just a law & order, national security, fiscal, and judicial conservative), he can very likely shake up the entire abortion debate on a national level as our next president, in a way that would help win the issue for conservatives.

You see, right now, most Americans think conservatives oppose abortion ONLY because of religious or strict social doctrine. Most people don't understand how conservatives passionately oppose Roe vs. Wade because it took the power to decide the issue out of the hands of the people and their representatives, and into the hands of unaccountable judicial tyrants on the Supreme Court, who invented a "privacy right" that doesn't exist in the Constitution. They'd be shocked to learn that most conservatives, even strict social conservatives, would accept legalized abortion if it were decided by the people or their representatives, although one certainly reserves the right to try and change hearts and minds at the grassroots level. That is of course, what America is all about.

Giuliani can wake Americans up to this fact, because Americans wouldn't chalk up his opposition to simple religious doctrine. And he WOULD be a force against unfettered abortion, and abortion on demand. Besides a commitment to nominate the types of judges who'd never decide Roe in the first place, he opposes late term abortion, unless medically necessary for the life of the mother, and supports parental notification laws for minors wanting an abortion.

How does that stack up to Saint Hillary and the rest of the Democratic Party circus? Giuliani would make great strides toward promoting the pro life cause, even if he's not an outspoken soldier in that war.

Link to the article: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/14/opinion/14johnston.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

pcon-T wrote: "Giuliani is the only candidate, in either party, with a successful track record as an effective chief executive, which is exactly the job of the President."

Huh? You are obviously forgetting Mitt Romney, who has by far the most impressive record as a chief executive. He also has a substantially more conservative record than Rudy.

Joe:

What do you think of this advice?

ADVICE FOR REPUBLICANS, from Tony Blankley: "Every faction within the GOP coalition should agree immediately to make no further demands of their party. Just as the liberals did in 1991 and 1992, the conservatives of 2007 and 2008 simply should let their strongest candidate campaign in a way most likely to gain victory. Every conservative principle thereby would be safer than if heavy demands yield a Hillary presidency."

Problem is, Romney is actually the most in-line with social conservatives in general, but his being Mormon means the social conservatives, i.e. Born-Again Christian Base, will automatically reject him, both in the Primary and in the General. Even if they don't actively vote for Hillary, they'll passively do so by staying home and feeling righteous about it. (And besides, Christ will Return and Rapture them before anything happens to them personally -- won't He?)

A couple months ago, Hugh Hewitt did a piece on Christianity Today's website plugging Romney as being the candidate most in touch with the Christian voting base. The comment threads on that piece were overwhelmingly Denunciations of Mormon False Doctrine (SCRIPTURE! SCRIPTURE! SCRIPTURE!). Given this, Romney, best candidate for the social conservatives, doesn't stand a chance with them.

They will make their bed, and all of us will have to lie in it.

Boonton,

I think your analysis of whether or not social conservatives should bolt from a Giuliani candicacy makes sense.

However, one aspect that both you and Joe seem to be overlooking is that a mutiny by evangelical-conservative types (such as James Dobson) could actually give Giuliani a big boost in the general election. It could even spell the difference between slaying the Hilda-beast and losing to her.

It's not like Giuliani has any chance of carrying New York State against Hillary, but it would make a difference in a lot of swing states.

As for "Hillary Derangement Syndrome", I don't hate Senator Clinton, or underestimate her, I scorn her and disdain her character.

I don't have an irrational belief that Hillary will bring the end days upon us. I have a very rational belief that whoever is president will have vast powers to promote good or not-good, and that includes someone I support and admire such as Senator Thompson. So I will do everything in my own very limited power to see that the presidency is awarded to someone of good character instead of someone who represents the worst failings of the political class.

Senator Thompson talks about unfunded entitlement spending, global security, and bringing people together through leadership. Senator Clinton talks about baby bonds and, through the website Media Matters which she supports, how Rush Limbaugh is anti-soldier. I'm glad you're able to appreciate her good points, though -- maybe you can tell us all what you like about President Bush while you're at it.

However, one aspect that both you and Joe seem to be overlooking is that a mutiny by evangelical-conservative types (such as James Dobson) could actually give Giuliani a big boost in the general election. It could even spell the difference between slaying the Hilda-beast and losing to her.

Here's the game theory question, does the Christian right matter or not? If they don't then the GOP can win or lose without their aid. In that case the optimal strategy would seem to be "sit down and shut up". Don't make waves for the party and hope that you'll get some bones as a reward. In the meantime work on building your numbers and influence.

If the right does matter, though, then a mutiny would signal the party "don't mess with us or we alone will cost you elections". Not only would you not be deranged over Hillary winning but you'd need her to win. If the right revolted and Giuliani won the general election anyway you'd basically have demonstrated that you don't matter. Expect to be ignored for a long time afterwards.

So it's a bit of a gamble. If you mutiny you're gambling that you're important enough to matter. Hope that if your bluff is called you really are. Then again, no guts no glory. Remember the right actually accepted a loss in 1976 because they wanted the party purged of its losers. What better way than letting them...well...lose.

Now if you don't take the gamble you don't get to win big. That's just how life works. Perhaps you'll win and like I said if you suffer from HDS that might be all that matters to you....just like a drug addict cares only about that next bag and not the job, house and savings account he is giving up for it. I think a win would be very counterproductive not only for the GOP but for the US. It would basically say there's no punishment for producing crap and let's face it, that's what the GOP has been making for the last twenty years or so. Can you get away with it? Perhaps, Detroit did with cars for a long time but in the long run it just made the eventual reckoning all the worst.

Joe:

Did you answer my question about Tony Blankley's advice? I don't think Blankley is pushing for Guiliani, is he? I think he's only pushing for Guiliani if he thinks Rudy can win. Isn't he simply urging us to vote for the lesser of two evils? I don't know if Guiliani can win, but he has to be better than she who must not be named. He's pleading with the Christian right to not stay home if it's a choice between Clinton and anyone else.

Boonton,

Ahhhh yes, Senator Thompson is going to "bring us together through leadership". I think you may want to make sure you aren't suffering from a host of derangement syndroms.

I understand your skepticism, and even share it up to a point. But if Senator Thompson can't unify us, then it is probably true that nobody else who is running can.

Why is it important that Limbaugh is called out on being anti-solder ...

My point was that Rush is Hillary's issue, not mine. At best, Hillary is using Rush as a distraction from more important issues. At worst, she really does think Rush is anti-soldier and deserves flack from the highest levels of the government.

Wherever the truth lies, it paints Hillary as a cynical hack.

... (which he is)?

Everyone is entitled to his opinion. Since you are the one making the accusation, though, I would ask you to provide some evidence. What exactly did Rush say, and how was it anti-soldier?

A baby bond seems like a good idea (I suppose the devil is always in the details but on the surface I don't see anything obviously wrong with it).

Like I said, you are entirely entitled to your opinion.

Here's a "surface" objection for you to mull over, though, if you are interested: every government benefit is paid for by tax revenue; all tax revenue is money taken involuntarily by the government from private citizens; there is, therefore, a strong presumption against every goverment benefit, in the sense that one shouldn't take other people's money unless there is a crying need to do so and unless the government is actually the best agent to address that need.

When you write about the next president having the power to do good or not-good I thought you actually cared about important issues.

You are being tendentious here, and I'm not the one who comes off the worse for it.

In other words, look at what you've become after so many years of Bush corruption.

President Bush hasn't been corrupt, and Democrats have given the Republicans a good, stiff run for the title of most corrupt party. You are revealing your partisan bias, and it ain't pretty.

Offending a has-been drug addict radio dj is actually an important issue to you. Why?

See above: Hillary's issue, not mine. But thank you for giving me the opportunity to defend Mr. Limbaugh one more time.

A "has-been drug addict radio dj"? You are many things, Boonton, but please don't ever call yourself a liberal. Only a very pinched, illiberal person could mock an addict this way.

I don't like Mr. Limbaugh's rhetoric a lot of the time -- it is overheated, over-the-top, unnecessarily combative, and divisive. But I recognize that politics is not softball. Conservatives and Republicans should not unilaterally disarm in the media battles by eschewing the tactics of people like Rush Limbaugh.

If sometimes Rush crosses the boundaries of appropriate commentary, it's because he, like Ann Coulter, has chosen to take the fight to the other side in the most vigorous way that he knows and sometimes he makes mistakes. I don't hesitate to acknowledge or point out his mistakes, but I don't condemn him for being a political warrior.

If the right does matter, though, then a mutiny would signal the party "don't mess with us or we alone will cost you elections". Not only would you not be deranged over Hillary winning but you'd need her to win. If the right revolted and Giuliani won the general election anyway you'd basically have demonstrated that you don't matter. Expect to be ignored for a long time afterwards.

So it's a bit of a gamble. If you mutiny you're gambling that you're important enough to matter. Hope that if your bluff is called you really are. Then again, no guts no glory.

Boonton, I'm not sure, but I think you were misreading me about all this. I was proposing that a "religious right" rebellion against Giuliani could help him win the general election.

One of the biggest concerns about Rudy is that he is something of an authoritarian nutjob. But if genuine nutjobs like James Dobson attack Rudy from the right, it could only burnish his image and reputation with the vast majority of the country. I wasn't being sarcastic or tongue-in-cheek, I really believe that an evangelical revolt could help him pull off a victory against Hillary.

One more thing, you never told me what you like about President Bush. I'll start by saying something positive about Senator Clinton: she knows how to listen and be flexible, and she is pretty smart for a politician.

John Kerry never said soldiers who supported the Vietnam or Iraq wars were 'phoney soldiers'. Limbaugh did. Notice you don't actually say Limbaugh didn't say it or didn't mean it. No, you assert that the idea that the sacred Limbaugh could ever assert something wrong is..well just unimaginable. For someone who calls himself a Christian you seem to worship quite a few sacred cows.

I'll say it now, Boonton, you gullible troll. He didn't say it. You obviously don't know the facts. Once again, I assumed the obvious, that Rush loves soldiers and everything about them. You assume the opposite (even though Rush is the biggest warmongering, nuke-'em-all fascist who has ever lived).

However, I didn't just assume. I heard the show. I heard what he said. The whole story is one big smear. But then you would know that because you never take anything at face value, right? You always dig beyond the surface to get at the real story. The obvious can never really be true.

I'm waiting, along with Matthew Goggins, for your evidence that Rush said what you and Media Matters have accused.

Again he is anti-soldier. Anyone who says those who are actually serving in combat, such as the 7 soldiers who co-authored the NY Times Op-Ed (two of whom have been killed I believe) are 'phony soldiers' because they disagree with the war is objectively anti-soldier.

Get me a link to the program Rush did where he claimed those seven faked their credentials. As far as I know, nobody ever accused those seven of faking their credentials... except you, because you lumped them in with all the other people who claim to have served in Iraq but didn't, claimed to be special services but weren't, etc.

So now you're going to tell us out of the hundreds, maybe thousands of people who ever wrote a letter, wrote an article, showed up at a protest or whatnot as a critic of the Iraq war if there was one who claimed to have served there when he didn't...WHY THAT VINDICATES RUSH!!!

No, I'm going to remind you that anybody who claims to have served in Iraq but didn't, and anybody who claims to have been in the special services but wasn't, and anybody who basically misrepresented themselves as being a soldier when they were kicked out of boot camp is a phony soldier. And I'll go even further in qualifying what a 'phony soldier' is... deserters are phony solders, and any soldiers that willfully and knowingly engage in a gross dereliction of duty are phony soldiers.

The militant anti-war agitators only ever hold up the phony soldiers and soldiers that disgrace the uniform services as paragons. But you are the one who lumps the phony soldiers in with the real soldiers and dishonors them by refusing to recognize the difference.

Boonton,

What exactly does this mean? How are we going to be 'unified'?

You know what unity is -- we saw it after 9-11. The nation had shared a deeply meaningful event and was struggling together to make sense of it and come up with a proper response.

That unity held stongly going into the spring of 2002. President Bush pushed hard to go into Iraq, and the unity frayed and fell apart pretty quickly.

How could a President Thompson unify us? By trying to enlist both sides of the political spectrum in tackling our problems. You don't think he has a very good prospect for success, but I wouldn't say it's impossible either.

Who would have thunk that that old Nazi-baiter imperialist dinosaur Winston Churchill could have had such tremendous success unifying Britain during its death match with Hitler? Sometimes the right individual at the right time can make all the difference.

We don't need to be 'unified' on Iraq. We need some sensible way to admit the truth and begin to get out.

I think it would be very helpful if everyone could manage to agree on what the truth is.

Why hasn't President Bush been able to pull off building such a consensus? Partly because he was hobbled by Democratic bitterness over the razor-close election results in Florida in 2000. Partly because our enemies in Iraq were able to play our media much better than our own government could.

Hopefully both of those factors could be ameliorated under a Thompson administration.

You tossed out the 'baby bonds' policy and didn't even bother to explain why it's such a bad idea. In fact it's actually quite a conservative idea. Remember, equality of opportunity rather than equality of results?

It is not conservative to create a new entitlement, however modest, while ducking the issue of taming Social Security and Medicare.

And of course, baby bonds are not even the tip of the iceberg. They are just a slight trial-balloon pander serving as a warm-up to the main event: far-reaching new government regulation and funding of our massive health-care and health insurance sectors.

If you can't stand to see people get punched a bit stop buying tickets to the boxing matches. What I dish out is small potatos.

Fair point. But I am still repulsed by the bile in your referring to Rush as a "has-been drug addict radio dj".

Rush has paid a price for his addiction and has publicly repented as well. If you can't move on from that particular point, then it says something about you, not him.

I wouldn't refer to Giuliani as a cross-dressing philanderer, mainly because he hasn't been philandering for many years now. But if Joe is offended by Giuliani's cross-dressing humor, and even more offended by his lack of atonement for his long-ago philandering, then that is not bile and illiberality, that is just holding Giuliani accountable for his actions when he is asking to assume the most responsible position in the land.

Thanks for reminding me. So the rule is Rush and Ann are off limits because they are 'political warriors'? Again how many sacred cows are you going to worship here on this Christian blog?

I didn't say they were off limits. I'm advising you not to stoop down to their level when you are trying to say that you hold the moral high ground. And I'm also explaining why their provocative rhetoric doesn't bother me a whole lot. Of course it would bother you, because their rhetoric is expressly designed to bother you.

Perhaps but the authoritarian nutjob issue isn't ideological but personality.

We have come to a point of agreement, my friend. But I think that Dobson's attacks on Giuliani make him look good by comparison on both ideological and personality grounds. Since Giuliani will need all the help he can get, this is not a trivial point, and could well tip the balance in his favor.

You know what unity is -- we saw it after 9-11. The nation had shared a deeply meaningful event and was struggling together to make sense of it and come up with a proper response.

Unity that was not created by leadership but by common experience. While its important to remember it, it is more important to remember that is not normal nor should it be. It's also slightly disrespectful to be asserting that such an emotional period will be recreated by, what, Thomson's 'amazing' personality.

Who would have thunk that that old Nazi-baiter imperialist dinosaur Winston Churchill could have had such tremendous success unifying Britain during its death match with Hitler?

We are not in a death match with Hitler, nor anyone else for that matter. Leadership here involves being more realistic rather than pushing hysteria for the sake of short term political gain.

It is not conservative to create a new entitlement, however modest, while ducking the issue of taming Social Security and Medicare.

Medicare Part D? Anyway it may be technically an entitlement but functionally it's quite different. Entitlements, for the most part, are on autopilot so their costs are unpredictable and essentially uncontrollable. If medical care gets more expensive so does Medicare. This one is a fixed sum. Actually very conservative plus considering that many people might just let the endowment ride all the way to age 65 it could end up being a useful tool in tackling Social Security & Medicare in the distant future.

I wouldn't refer to Giuliani as a cross-dressing philanderer, mainly because he hasn't been philandering for many years now. But if Joe is offended by Giuliani's cross-dressing humor, and even more offended by his lack of atonement for his long-ago philandering, then that is not bile and illiberality, that is just holding Giuliani accountable for his actions when he is asking to assume the most responsible position in the land.

Exactly why does Giuliani have to atone to Joe for philandering? Joe is not his first wife nor a member of his family and JOe certainly isn't God. You're stretching pretty hard here to explain why Rush should be excused from being called a drug addict but Giuliani is fair game. If I recall any suffering Rush endured was his own doing by choosing to committ crimes. He made a brief statement telling his listeners that he was checking into rehab to get treatment. His lawyer was indignant that Florida could possibly consider charging him with a crime and he fought charges at every turn until he basically took a deal to pay off the state in exchange for not filing charges (but agreed to submit to random drug testing). To the end he allged he was being unfairly prosecuted rather than admitting he had brought this on himself. Needless to say I also don't recall any apology or atonement made to his housekeeper, who I believe he was paying to supply him with drugs. While you probably didn't think of it, that was a bad abuse of the employer-employee relationship essentially putting her at risk.

As I said, your empathy for victims of bile is remarkably selective.

I'm advising you not to stoop down to their level when you are trying to say that you hold the moral high ground. And I'm also explaining why their provocative rhetoric doesn't bother me a whole lot. Of course it would bother you, because their rhetoric is expressly designed to bother you.

This wasn't about whether or not their provacative rhetoric bothers me but why you seem to get so excited by a rather minor criticism of one of them by Hillary....a criticism that had nothing to do with the 'bile' you accuse me of. Again I suspect HDS, too bad we can't consult Doctor House for a second opinion.

We have come to a point of agreement, my friend. But I think that Dobson's attacks on Giuliani make him look good by comparison on both ideological and personality grounds. Since Giuliani will need all the help he can get, this is not a trivial point, and could well tip the balance in his favor.

Indeed here we agree. Giuliani's biggest problems, IMO, are his personality. But this seems to indicate a larger malise with the GOP. What's kind of ironic is that personality wise Dobson is probably more normal than Giuliani. The field is so much in play, I think, because all the candidates are exceptionally weak and directionless.

And also smm, I didn't hold McBeth up as anything but a liar and petty criminal. The example I held up was the soldiers who wrote the editorial to the NY Times, two of whom I understand were sadly killed in action and another was wounded from a shot in the head. It wasn't right for Rush to imply they were 'phony soldiers' and it isn't right for you to imply those that cite them don't care about the difference between real and phony soldiers.

And one more thing. Why do pinheads have such an inflated view of themselves?

It wasn't right for Rush to imply they were 'phony soldiers' and it isn't right for you to imply those that cite them don't care about the difference between real and phony soldiers.

Rush didn't, and you and the rest of you who won't quit saying he did are the real problem. You are the ones who are equating them with phony soldiers, not Rush.

Yes, and again, you choose to ignore it.

I personally don't see what we hope to gain by supporting Republicans who don't support our values. "Pro-choice", illegal immigration, and anti-mariage politicians will not bring the party back in line with us. Register Constitution party and send a message that there are conservative christians in this country and our votes are not to be taken for granted. You want our support, you have to support us. If Rudy gets the nomination, vote third party or stay home, that's my view at least.

Why didn't Boonton share the entire transcript?

Here is the entire transcript

"CALLER: No, it's not. And what's really funny is they never talk to real soldiers. They like to pull these soldiers that come up out of the blue and spout to the media.

RUSH: The phony soldiers.

CALLER: The phony soldiers. If you talk to any real soldier and they're proud to serve, they want to be over in Iraq, they understand their sacrifice and they're willing to sacrifice for the country.

RUSH: They joined to be in Iraq.

RUSH: It's frustrating and maddening, and why they must be kept in the minority. I want to thank you, Mike, for calling. I appreciate it very much.

Here is a Morning Update that we did recently, talking about fake soldiers. This is a story of who the left props up as heroes. They have their celebrities and one of them was Army Ranger Jesse MacBeth. Now, he was a "corporal." I say in quotes. Twenty-three years old. What made Jesse MacBeth a hero to the anti-war crowd wasn't his Purple Heart; it wasn't his being affiliated with post-traumatic stress disorder from tours in Afghanistan and Iraq. No. What made Jesse MacBeth, Army Ranger, a hero to the left was his courage, in their view, off the battlefield, without regard to consequences. He told the world the abuses he had witnessed in Iraq, American soldiers killing unarmed civilians, hundreds of men, women, even children. In one gruesome account, translated into Arabic and spread widely across the Internet, Army Ranger Jesse MacBeth describes the horrors this way: "We would burn their bodies. We would hang their bodies from the rafters in the mosque."


Now, recently, Jesse MacBeth, poster boy for the anti-war left, had his day in court. And you know what? He was sentenced to five months in jail and three years probation for falsifying a Department of Veterans Affairs claim and his Army discharge record. He was in the Army. Jesse MacBeth was in the Army, folks, briefly. Forty-four days before he washed out of boot camp. Jesse MacBeth isn't an Army Ranger, never was. He isn't a corporal, never was. He never won the Purple Heart, and he was never in combat to witness the horrors he claimed to have seen. You probably haven't even heard about this. And, if you have, you haven't heard much about it. This doesn't fit the narrative and the template in the Drive-By Media and the Democrat Party as to who is a genuine war hero. Don't look for any retractions, by the way. Not from the anti-war left, the anti-military Drive-By Media, or the Arabic websites that spread Jesse MacBeth's lies about our troops, because the truth for the left is fiction that serves their purpose. They have to lie about such atrocities because they can't find any that fit the template of the way they see the US military. In other words, for the American anti-war left, the greatest inconvenience they face is the truth."

So when Boonton writes;

" Nor did he cite the case of Jesse Macbeth who got 5 months in jail for collecting $10K in Iraq benefits that he did not earn."

He's lying to you. Flat out lying to you. Rush did cite specifically Jesse McBeth. Its right there in the transcript.

As Reagan would say, "Trust but verify" although i'm not so sure about why anyone would trust Boonton at this point.

Boonton,

You may have missed my comment 41, which addresses the "phony soldier" quote and why I believe you are mistaken. It took a couple of days for the comment to clear Joe's filter and hit the comment thread.

[Matthew said:] I'm advising you not to stoop down to their level when you are trying to say that you hold the moral high ground. And I'm also explaining why their provocative rhetoric doesn't bother me a whole lot. Of course it would bother you, because their rhetoric is expressly designed to bother you.

[Boonton:] This wasn't about whether or not their provocative rhetoric bothers me but why you seem to get so excited by a rather minor criticism of one of them by Hillary....a criticism that had nothing to do with the 'bile' you accuse me of. Again I suspect HDS, too bad we can't consult Doctor House for a second opinion.

It wasn't a minor criticism. It was part of a co-ordinated attack on the floor of the Senate, which included speculation by Senator Harkin that Mr. Limbaugh was high on drugs.

Most importantly, it was part of a co-ordinated attack by one branch of the government on an influential private individual. It was retaliation against a powerful private individual as a reward for his being an effective critic.

Like I said, I don't care a whole lot for Rush's rhetoric. If Al Franken or Chris Matthews had roasted him, I wouldn't have paid the least bit notice. But Hillary and the "Democrats" have been making noises about bringing back the "Fairness Doctrine" for radio talk-shows, and that is something I adamantly oppose, and Hillary can go to h--l if she thinks I'm not going to call her out on it.

Of course, you are tempermentally opposed to the "Fairness Doctrine" because you believe that free speech should generally not be regulated by the government.

But you also know that talk-radio has been vastly more successful for conservatives than for liberals, so I suspect that as a left-leaner you are probably torn a little bit inside and don't want to condemn the "Fairness Doctrine" out of hand.

I find it interesting that you accuse me of over-reaction over the Rush kerfuffle when your comments have slipped into ad hominem attacks against not only Rush, but against myself and President Bush as well.

Here's a psychological hypothesis which might explain your projection: Rush is a wildly successful popper of balloons in a media-world dominated by liberal commentary and news outlets. You are an aspiring popper of balloons in the blog-world. Subconsciously, you recognize yourself in Mr. Limbaugh, but you recoil at the fact that he is on the wrong side of just about everything. You feel particularly betrayed that someone should promote himself as an iconoclast when you want to dismiss him as a foolish partisan blowhard.

When I defend Mr. Limbaugh on simple humanitarian grounds, you rush in to poke at the perceived illogic in my reaction: I'm defending a brute from brutality. But of course, you would do the same thing if he were a liberal brute, and you probably wouldn't even think twice about it. A conservative brute, though, elicits a harsh reaction from you.

But of course, as I explained above, when I defend a powerful, wealthy, and admittedly flawed brute, I'm actually defending everyone, you and me included, from the tendency of people in government to want to silence, or at least mightily inconvenience, their critics.

That isn't Hillary Derangement Syndrome, that's just taking a stand for freedom before the opponents of freedom can build a lot of momentum.

Hasta luego, amigo,
Matthew

Boonton,

Again if your assertion is correct you've simply demonstrated Rush to be a scumbag since he's essentially saying its ok to be a phony soldier as long as you're advocating the right policies.

Umm, now you're just being silly Boonton.

Even if on the inside Rush happened to be pleased by a phony pro-war soldier, he would never say so publicly. And of course we have no reason to believe he would approve of a phony pro-war soldier; Rush would probably resent him for disrespecting the troops and for being a propaganda point for the other side.

Use the preview button a little more diligently, or people will start disbelieving you here :-)

But the brute is not being attacked with brutality. If someone supports the fairness doctrine that may be a wrong position but that isn't in itself brutality nor is it brutality to complain about what Rush said.

It also isn't brutality for me to call Rush as I see him, a has-been, drug addict shock jock. And no remember Rush didn't get any reaction out of me, what I reacted to was your idea that the most important thing about Hillary was that she dared criticize Rush.

Boonton, read my comment again. I wasn't talking about you, I was talking about Senator McCarthy -- oops, I mean Senator Clinton -- and Senator Harkin and all the other inspirational congressional leaders.

But of course, your opinion matters too, because we get the representatives we deserve. If enough Americans approve of the Fairness Doctrine, then that enables the Hildabeast and her allies to push it through.

When I said you would defend a brute if he were liberal instead of conservative, I didn't know you would be so eager to prove me right by jumping right in and defending MoveOn's smear of General Petreaus. Have you no sense of cognitive dissonance, sir -- at long last have you no sense of cognitive dissonance?

I didn't say that Rush never mentioned McBeth. I pointed out in post 43, in fact, he did mention him.

I noticed that, and you also mentioned that the transcript provided by Rush is misleading because it leaves out about a minute and a half between the two segments. So I vouch for your good faith.

But I still disagree with you about the "phony soldiers" quote.

Rush wasn't making a general claim about all anti-war soldiers, he was making a clumsy attempt to bridge into the upcoming Jesse MacBeth segment. It was an attempt that was easy to misinterpret, and which the Senate Democrats were anxious to misinterpret.

McBeth never showed up in the media as an advocate of withdrawl, ...

This isn't as silly as the first comment of yours that I quoted above, but it is very close.

Of course Jesse MacBeth did show up in the media. He was interviewed about alleged atrocities which he eyewitnessed, and the media accounts I saw passed along his testimony without raising questions about his reliability or accuracy (before he was exposed as a con-artist).

If someone appears in the media and makes up eyewitness testimony about alleged war crimes, then he is not an advocate against the war in your opinion? Remember the preview button, Boonton, it is your friend.

[MacBeth] ... is only a single person (Rush complained about 'phony soldiers' not 'the phony soldier' or 'this phony soldier') ...

Boonton, it's called giving an example. It happened to be a topical example because MacBeth had been sentenced a couple of days previously.

I do agree with you that Rush's argument is overstated and inflammatory. But by no means is it "anti-soldier", which is what Clinton & Co. were insisting on the floor of the Senate.

... and, of course, it's rather strange to be asserting that the problem with McBeth was that "not possible, intellectually, to follow" him....IT'S THAT THE DAMM GUY WAS FAKING BEING A SOLDIER!

If you read the transcript or listen to the clip, it's clear that Rush was referring specifically to the following anti-war argument: we shouldn't have gone into Iraq, so therefore we should leave right away, even if it makes things a hell of a lot worse. And that is precisely the argument that I have heard anti-war soldiers and politicians make.

Here we go again with the Rush is a Martyr routine. Did you have this same opinion when Rudy demanded that everyone under the sun vote to condemm Moveon.org for their General Betray Us ad? Forgive me if it still seems like the sacred cows are on one side of the political spectrum here.

Rush is not a martyr (you also labeled him a has-been, which is also incorrect). Rush is a canary in the coal-mine.

First they went after the overweight, pompous media titans -- and I said nothing. Then they went after all the talk-show jockeys and news broadcasters -- and I said nothing. Then they went after the bloggers and the blog commenters -- and there was no one left to say anything [cue the scary music].

As for MoveOn and the Petreaus ad, you can defend it if you like, and you do. But if a political advocacy group with close ties to Clinton & Co. is going to accuse our commander in the field of dishonesty/unreliability, and imply that he is disloyal to his country, I would hope you would demand they have some evidence first. But you are free to choose whatever standards make you happy.