Delaware Policy & Politics

A few weeks back, Wanda asked me if he/she could come on the blog as a contributor. Knowing him/her from a past life, I agreed. Wanda then brought up the work he/she was doing on Christine O’Donnell. I reviewed it and said that it was fine to post so long as Wanda documented his/her claims. If he/she would do that, I’d stand behind it. And I’m confident that Wanda has met that burden, so I continue to support that effort 100%. Especially since no proof whatsoever has been offered to refute the documented claims in Wanda’s posts.

That said, those posts have unleashed a bout of nastiness unseen in my 30+ years in politics. What’s happened on the surface and behind the scenes is just not worth the hassle. So Wanda has broken off and started his/her own site at Delaware Republican Record, so that he/she may continue her revelations about the real Christine O’Donnell without bringing the wrath of the pathetic, no-life, bottom-dwellers on the rest of us. Also at the new site you can see several prominent Delaware bloggers confirm that Wanda is not Mike or myself, despite what has been alleged by the loser trolls of the blogosphere.

That’s all for now. Have fun with Wanda.

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The Lord allowed me to drink some more
He said what I am searchin’ for are
The answers to all which are in front of me
The ultimate truth started to get blurry
For some strange reason it had to be
It was all a dream about Tennessee

-Tennessee, Arrested Development

Tennessee, a state in the middle of the GOP South, is showing Republicans the way today. In primary elections yesterday, GOP voters in Tennessee chose moderate Knoxville Mayor Bill Haslam to be their candidate for Governor over Rep. Zach Wamp and Lt. Gov. Ron Ramsey.

Primary voters also chose state Sen. Diane Black over Lou Ann Zelenik, who made opposition to a Muslim Center a centerpiece of her campaign. She said that the Islamic Center “is not part of a religious movement; it is a political movement designed to fracture the moral and political foundation of Middle Tennessee.”

Finally, Sarah Palin-backed candidate CeCe Heil finished third in her primary.

And the rejection of extremism didn’t reside only on the right, Rep. Steve Cohen trounced former Memphis Mayor Willie Herenton, who made race a central part of his campaign, saying that the majority-black district needed a black Congressman.

If extremism can be rejected in Tennessee, surely it can be done here.

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American military dominance on land, sea, and air, has been a given since at least the end of the Cold War.  Indeed, a case can be made that the end of the Cold War was hastened by the widening gap separating our strategic and conventional capabilities from those of the USSR.

Since the end of the Cold War, we have lived in a uni-polar world.  One in which no nation, particularly in terms of conventional capabilities, can mount a credible challenge to us.   As such, we have seen the emergence of asymmetric challenges mounted by both state and non-state actors.  While often ingenious or novel, asymmetric threats are a sign of, and a reaction to, our overwhelming conventional superiority.  Moreover, counter-insurgency operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the global Long War against Wahhabi inspired terrorism,  have re-oriented some of our defense policies and doctrine  away from traditional conventional  combat and towards more flexible forces better able to deal with missions in places like Somalia, Bosnia, Kosovo, Iraq, and Afghanistan.

In other words, we have shifted away from developing the heavy conventional weapons needed to fight an armored war in Central Europe and an air war against a well equipped and trained Soviet military.  This is reflected in our weapons systems procurement.  The cancellation of the Crusader program is an example, as is the decision to cease production of the F-22 Raptor.

However, lurking in the background, is the threat that a new near-peer competitor will emerge.  Of course, from one perspective, our dominance across a range of areas seems insurmountable.  Would any state really invest the resources necessary to develop weapons systems on par with our own in the air, on the ground, or at sea?  Building aircraft carriers, for example, those penultimate symbols of American military might, and then training crews to actually operate them, would be an extremely costly endeavor- and one with a long time horizon.  Indeed, the time horizon separating the emergence of the potential threat and the threat reaching full operational maturity probably spans more then a decade. [click to continue…]

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For the record, no one on this blog has received or expects to receive any compensation, financial or otherwise, from Mike Castle, the Castle Campaign or the Republican Party or any division thereof. We were not asked to intervene in this case, and we will not accept payment for writing on this blog.

The claim that we are being compensated was made today on the Rick Jensen show by credibility-free blowhard and O’Donnell minion Evan Quietsch, who immediately upon being challenged for proof admitted he had none.

No, Evan, the only people with proof in this situation is us. All you have is conspiracy theories, wild accusations with no proof and more “attack the messenger” politics. And trying to bring Stafford’s employer into the conversation is the worst kind of awful there is. He didn’t even have anything to do with Wanda’s post. Should we start talking about your employer & what you do for a living?

Memo to Christine: your hangers-on and staff members continue to make this situation worse for you. I was planning to move on to other things (to the extreme dismay of Miss Wanda), but being personally attacked today has changed my mind.

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Guest post by Michael Fleming:

Scout Oath

On my honor, I will do my best
To do my duty to God and my country;
To obey the Scout Law;
To help other people at all times;
To keep myself physically strong, mentally awake and morally straight.

When the British General and Boer War hero Robert Baden-Powell essentially invented the idea of scouting in 1907, he could never have predicted the lasting impact his conception would have on his American cousins across the pond.  Like many English institutions – well, perhaps with the exception of tea, scones and polite cabbies – in typical fashion, the good ole’ US of A seized on the idea, and took it to the next level.

Indeed, three years later a trio of American idealists led by a Chicago publisher joined forces to incorporate the Boy Scouts of America, bringing together several nascent scouting organizations into one new entity focused on service, character development and community leadership.

One hundred and fourteen million scouts later, the Boy Scouts of America are celebrating their Centennial.

This past weekend, the New York Timesfound the Boy Scout’s big anniversary to be an opportune moment for a snarky article headlined: “At Boy Scouts, A Call to Find the Way Back to Relevance.”   The sub-head was even more dismissive: “Facing Challenges, Group Redefines Itself.”

(Quick aside: The Times’ condescension calls to mind Bobby Kennedy’s famous quip that Time’seditors’ idea of a perfect story was, “More Nuns Leave Church.”  Further aside: This piece was reported by Katharine Q. “Kit” Seelye.  The flip, negative tone isn’t surprising.  I well remember Ms. Seelye coming to Delaware back in 1994 to cover the Roth-Oberly Senate race and doing so in a similarly cutting fashion.)

The article went on to paint a very dim picture of the BSA’s current state, cataloguing its “plunge” in membership since its 1973 high.  According to the Times,

The declines reflect the difficulties of keeping up with changing times and shifting demographics, as well as battling a perception that the organization is exclusionary…

The article’s less-than-positive characterization caught my eye – and ire – because, after a three-decade hiatus, I recently become re-acquainted with scouting through the enthusiastic engagement of my youngest child, a nine-year-old boy.  That exposure has been nothing but terrific for both father and son, I might add, leaving me convinced that scouting is in anything but a “decline.” [click to continue…]

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