NEO-CONS GRAVITATE TO MITCH DANIELS BECAUSE HE ESCHEWS SOCIAL ISSUES…SETTING STAGE FOR THIS QUESTION:

 

   Does the GOP Go After Obama Without Evangelical Troops—Just the Country Club (Who’ll Likely Forget  to Register and Vote, God Help Us)?
        Q.  Who are the Neo-Cons Who Tout Daniels?  And what issues are they forgetting?
        A.  Paradoxically a majority of philo-Semitic journalists and opinion-meisters most solicitous of political foot-soldiers to beat Obama so as to elect a Republican president who among other issues would be prone to defend the future of Israel…in which I am to be at least passively counted (Israel to my taste anyhow  ranking well down the list of things I want a conservative president would support) …are stupidly blind to the source of such indispensable people-power.  These are the evangelical Protestants (certainly not secular or semi-observant Jews nor conservative Catholics).     
         Evangelicals believe implicitly that the future of their salvation and of the world’s is tied to the continuance of Israel…and when Israel was founded in 1949 and survived attempts of Arab nations to drive it into the sea…a religious determinism was inculcated in the evangelicals to see that the doughty little nation succeed.   Therefore it is not understandable to me such influential commentators such as Charles Krauthammer fails to understand the utter necessity of returning filial love of evangelicals who embrace pro-life, anti-gay rights etc. with at least a modicum of support for those issues.
       But no, Charlie the Kraut whose very determinative presence on TV demonstrates his first love…approaching a dual-fealty (U.S. and Israel) is geared to what he adjudges as our success in the Middle East gives no ground.   In fact he is for Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels.  Daniels is a remarkably successful governor who brought his state back from the fiscally dead. Moreover he is an expert on the U.S. budget having served as OMB director under Bush II.   In addition he has a sparkling pedigree as a pro-lifer.
         My problem with Krauthammer is this. Are you so wrapped up in your personal secular neuter morality—your obsessive worry that somehow Christians may force their opinions on the country …particularly in gay-rights on non-practicing Jews… that you can’t understand the implications of what Daniels has said?  Specifically ignoring the fact that this abstruse little balding auditor lookalike of Syrian extraction…so dull a speaker you will have to watch the wall-paint dry… has given the finger to all discussion of social issues in a presidential campaign were he to be the Republican nominee?
          Do you apprehend, you otherwise brilliant but on this issue ineffably dumb Charlie Kraut, that this will deprive the GOP in 2012 of many thousands of evangelicals who otherwise pound the pavements, go door-to-door, run the phone-banks, stuff the envelopes, speak to Sunday congregations, write pamphlets, compose letters to the editors, call radio talk shows? 
       Moreover do you not understand that a unilateral truce on defense of social issues by Daniels will not receive treatment in kind from Obama and the Democrats?    That they will certainly not stop saying that conservatives want to slaughter women, that they want to arrest women who procure abortions.  That it will not stop the military gay-rights campaign marching under the banner of Human Rights to invade the precincts? To all of these things your precious Mitch Daniels will be mute?
        Finally do you understand…even remotely in your closed secular-dominated mind…that even if a president who could somehow be elected without reference to the social issues…would still have to deal with matters that involve them on virtually a day-by-day basis?     Example:  There comes a vacancy on the Supreme Court which could either topple the one-vote majority—depending on what side of the bed Anthony Kennedy gets up on a crucial morning.  A President Daniels—to keep his pledge—dismisses abortion and gay marriage as unworthy of consideration.
       I guess my question to you, Charlie Kraut, is this.  Are gay and unrestricted abortion rights so dear to  you that the 2012 chance to ditch Obama, set right the economy and continue to preserve Israel worth your fear that abortion will be severed and gay rights negated?
       I mean it. Which comes first for you,  Charlie Kraut?  Your eagerness to continue indubitably secular along with your pro-Israel buddies…or changing the direction of this country whereby you’d have to accept a bit of social conservatism?   You’re a brilliant guy, Charlie Kraut. I marvel at your foreign policy sophistication, your mastery of the health care issue stemming from your expertise as an MD and psychiatrist.    Why the hell can’t get grasp this and get it through your granite noggin that this election thing is not zero-sum?
    
         Q.  Is it just Charlie Kraut?
        A.  No.  But Norm Podhoretz’s got the message.  He says just as when Moses came down from the mountain carrying the stone tablets and saw the Israelites dancing around the golden calf, led  by his brother Aaron and God whispered in Moses’ earwhat a stiff-necked people most contemporary Jews have surrendered the Torah for the liberal secular state.   But The Weekly Standard people are largely with Charlie Kraut. Even Stephen Hayes who nods obediently to Charlie’s support for dumping Don’t Ask Don’t Tell.  Then there is the Cheshire Cat boss, Billy Kristol.  He has a little more savvy than Charlie Kraut and says maybe a good pro-lifer running for veep with Daniels could balance things. Yeah, right, Billy.  So far as I can tell Fred Barnes is okay—but damned quiet.  I can tell you—unless the Standard crowd puts defense of Israel on a par with social values in support of a  candidate, which means dumping this Short Stuff Harley-Davidson riding Syrian, they’re going to in effect be the greatest allies Obama will have.
        Q.  And is it just the Weekly Standard crowd?
        A.  No.  There is the upper reaches of The Wall Street Journal.
       Q.  Now that Haley Barbour is out and Ron Paul is in, what do you think of the Republican presidential list?
       A.  I’ve never thought all that much about Haley Barbour.  If anyone was a deadringer for the TV cartoon of a fat Mississippi sheriff with a puffy red face, sweat dripping off his nose, leaning at the open car window of a black driver he stopped saying in that orotund grits and chintlings Yazoo voice `Pears to me you’re in a heap-a-trouble, boy I haven’t seen a better gift for Obama to face.   That and an ex-tobacco lobbyist who whenever he goes to D.C. hangs out at the old firm.  He’s echoed Daniels on ditching all mention of social issues…which discounts his great reputation as a political strategist in my mind.  He’s about to announce he will be chairman of Mitch’s expected presidential run which causes Charlie Kraut’s and Billy Kristol’s hearts to beat rapidly in three-quarter time.
      My prediction is that this crowd with the exception of Pawlenty…who just might catch fire I-hope-a-hope-a-hope…needs reinforcements.   And of course you know my hope—Christie and Ryan.
       Q. Why not Ryan for President?
       A.  A House member…particularly one this young however brilliant...can’t really do well running nationally:  too inexperienced.  No administrative experience.  I can see Pawlenty and Ryan.   But the field has to be broadened.