As if the campaign hasn’t seen enough blasts from the past comes this from the Indy Star:

The most contentious part of the debate came when, in his closing remarks, Coats called out Hostettler for his answer on a previous question, in which he criticized former President George W.Bush’s decision to go to war in Iraq.

Hostettler stressed the lack of intelligence to justify that weapons of mass destruction existed under Sadaam Hussein and reminded those in the room he voted against the Iraq war, but backed efforts in Afghanistan, because of the direct link to the Taliban and Al-Qaeda.

“I started as ambassador (to Germany) two days after 9/11 …

“John, you and I need to have a good debate about Iraq and about weapons of mass destruction, because I fundamentally disagree with you in terms of why we went in there,” Coats told Hostettler. “I started every day in Germany with collection of intelligence from the U.S., German, French, British and even countries that didn’t support us. The evidence that was before us.”

Hostettler countered that it wasn’t and cited Bush’s statement that if he could have one “do-over” of his presidency, it’s that he could have “changed the intelligence” he had about Iraq.

George W. Bush quit trying to make the case for the invasion of Iraq several years ago, so why is Dan Coats trying to make an issue out of it now?

Does he expect Hoosier primary voters to punish John Hostettler today for coming to a judgment that happened to be correct eight years ago (as much as it was unpopular at the time)?

And would not Coats looking to the past to criticize Hostettler for past votes open the door for Hostettler and the other candidates to criticize Coats for past votes he has made (some of which happen to be hugely unpopular with certain elements of the Republican primary electorate)?

Maybe Hostettler brought up Iraq and baited Coats; the article isn’t clear on that and I didn’t attend the debate to be able to say. But if Hostettler brought it up, he might as well have been playing Br’er Rabbit begging not to be thrown into the Briar Patch.

Anthony Stevens-Arroyo argues that nuclear disarmament is a pro-life issue and that pro-lifers should support nuclear disarmament with the same zeal that we oppose abortion. He is correct that there would be no winners in a nuclear conflict, only victims. Leaders of nuclear-armed nations, like all leaders, have been put into power under the authority of God (Romans 13:1) and face a special responsibility to not pursue policies that harm noncombatants.

But here’s the problem: nuclear disarmament is simply not a realistic goal. There will always be rogue states (such as Iran now, or Iraq under Saddam Hussein) which will seek to acquire the means to produce nuclear weapons. World powers such as Russia are not going to give up their nuclear deterrent, and perennial enemies such as India and Pakistan (or India and China) will not give up the primary deterrent they have to military aggression from the other. While we can seek to prevent the further proliferation of nuclear weapons through various policies, the genie is out of the bottle on nuclear-capable nations, so to speak. You can’t put the genie back in the bottle.

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Roll Call Vote #411, on House Resolution #560, “Expressing support for all Iranian citizens who embrace the values of freedom, human rights, civil liberties, and rule of law, and for other purposes.”

Reading as follows:

Expressing support for all Iranian citizens who embrace the values of freedom, human rights, civil liberties, and rule of law, and for other purposes.

Resolved, That the House of Representatives—

(1) expresses its support for all Iranian citizens who embrace the values of freedom, human rights, civil liberties, and rule of law;

(2) condemns the ongoing violence against demonstrators by the Government of Iran and pro-government militias, as well as the ongoing government suppression of independent electronic communication through interference with the Internet and cellphones; and

(3) affirms the universality of individual rights and the importance of democratic and fair elections.

The bill passed. The Yeas were 405.

The Nays were 1 (Ron Paul of Texas).

Two members of Congress voted Present.

Brad Ellsworth was one of them.

Riddle me this: what on earth does Brad Ellsworth have against such a simple resolution? Why vote present? In short, why emulate Obama?

Now, John Hostettler had his quirky moments, so maybe there’s something in the water in the office of whoever represents the 8th District. But I’d have a hard time seeing even John Hostettler voting present on a rather mild, straightforward, and blatantly obvious resolution as this.

Heck, if John Hostettler was opposed to something, he’d at least have the spine (like Ron Paul) to vote no. Brad Ellsworth gives a wishy-washy and craven “present.”

Why?

From Media Bistro:

When BayNewser heard that someone from the State Department had emailed Twitter to ask them to delay maintenance to allow Iranians to continue tweeting, we pictured some fusty old guy at Foggy Bottom in a rumpled Brooks Brothers suit and wayward spectacles.

Imagine our surprise, then, when we learned that, instead, it was a 27-year-old whiz kid whose job is to advise the State Department on how to use social media to promote U.S. interests the Middle East.

And imagine our further surprise when we learned this young gentleman wasn’t one of Barack Obama’s social media geniuses, but instead was a Condi Rice pick hired specifically to advise the State Department on young people in the Middle East and how to “counter-radicalize” them.

According to the New York Times, it was Jared Cohen, a member of the Policy Planning Staff, who contacted Twitter on Monday, inquiring about their plan to perform maintenance in what would be the middle of the day, Iran time. Following that contact, Twitter decided to postpone their maintenance so that it would take place in the middle of the night Iran-time, even though that meant it would be the middle of the day U.S. time.

The Times noted that the move marked “the recognition by the United States government that an Internet blogging service that did not exist four years ago has the potential to change history in an ancient Islamic country.”

So we wondered, who was this young guy with this remarkable insight?

Cohen was only 24 when he was hired into the Policy Planning Staff back in 2006. He’d received an undergraduate degree from Stanford and a master’s degree from Oxford, where he’d been on a Rhodes Scholarship. Oh, and he’d also talked his way into a visa for Iran (according to a December 2007 New Yorker profile), where he met young people his own age who threw underground house parties and made alcohol in bathtubs.

“Iranian young people are one of the most pro-American populations in the Middle East,” Cohen told the New Yorker. “They just don’t know who to gravitate around, so young people gravitate around each other.”

Good job!

That’s at least one smart hire by the Bush administration, and one whose unique expertise is bringing all sorts of interesting results.

Hot Air catches this one:

I don’t recall any other news agency picking up on the fact that either the President didn’t bother to find out when the botched Bay of Pigs invasion occurred — or forgot his own birthday. Neither made Obama look like a genius:

Ortega denounced the U.S.-backed attempt to overthrow Fidel Castro’s new Communist government in Cuba in 1961, a history of US racism and what he called suffocating U.S. economic policies in the region.

In his 17-minute address to the summit, Obama departed from his prepared remarks to mildly rebuke Ortega.

“To move forward, we cannot let ourselves be prisoners of past disagreements. I’m grateful that President Ortega did not blame me for things that happened when I was three months old. Too often, an opportunity to build a fresh partnership of the Americas has been undermined by stale debates. We’ve all heard these arguments before.”

Actually, the president misspoke on the sequence of events in Cuba. The invasion of CIA-trained rebels at the Bay of Pigs in Cuba occurred in April 1961. Obama was born August 4, 1961.

Even forgiving the stupid (and easily checkable) mistake on the dates, Obama’s insistence on personalizing the criticism seems very strange. He went to the Summit of the Americas to represent the United States of America, not Barack Obama. Who cares when Obama was born? What does that have to do with the price of sugar in the Western Hemisphere, anyway? And why was the only significant rebuttal to Daniel Ortega’s anti-US diatribe from Obama focused on himself personally, and not defending the United States?

And honestly, how hard is it to study a little on the bigger events in Latin American history and get the dates right before opening his mouth and proving himself embarrassingly ignorant?

It’s all about him, even when it isn’t, and even when he can’t even get the facts (as they relate to him) correct.

*sigh*

At a news conference afterward, Obama said his debut on the international stage had convinced him that “political interaction in Europe is not that different from the United States Senate,” where he served before entering the White House.

“There’s a lot of — I don’t know what the term is in Austrian — wheeling and dealing, and people are pursuing their interests, and everybody has their own particular issues and their own particular politics,” he said in response to an Austrian reporter’s question.

The preening buffoon continues his march across Europe, impressing everyone he sees.

For those of you from Kentucky that don’t know (and for those of you from posh Hyde Park suburbs of Chicago that also obviously also don’t know), Austrians speak German.

Over the weekend Sharrod Brown, a Democratic Senator from Ohio, appeared on ABC’s “This Week” and appeared to blame President Bush for being partly responsible for the conflict that is taking place between Israel and Hamas right now.

Brown: “But I’m hopeful that with a new president — you know, you look at President Bush is now in a pretty weakened state, and countries around the world know that. I’m hopeful that as this transition comes, as we look to January, that strong presidential leadership can make a difference here.”

Does Senator Brown actually think that the inauguration of Senator Obama on January 20th will lead to a more peaceful and stable situation in the Middle East? Certainly the period surrounding a presidential transition can give rise to more unrest in certain regions of the world. But I think the world knows by now that President Bush, for whatever other flaws he may have, is not someone who tolerates terrorism by radical Islamic groups.

If anyone is being tested during this transition period it is probably Senator Obama. The incoming Vice President, Joe Biden, declared during the campaign that shortly after taking office a crisis will occur somewhere in the world to test the resolve and strength and skills of the new president. Of course, the current conflict between Israel and Hamas does not have as its focal point the US Presidential transition, there are other political and historical factors far more important than the recent U.S. election at play here. But if the transition has anything to do with the conflict, it seems that Senator Biden, and not Senator Brown, has the more likely explanation.

One wonders what liberals will be able to complain about after January 20th. There will be no more President Bush to blame for the problems of the moment. I’m sure they will think of something, but the “Bush’s fault” line was a nice line for them when they wanted to short-circuit a careful explanation of their opinion.

As for the ongoing developments in the Middle East, I strongly support Israel’s decision to take decisive action against Hamas. Hamas is a terrorist organization that has not chosen to adopt peaceful and diplomatic means to resolve the problems that it is facing. It is simply unacceptable for any organization, group, or country to continually assault a neighboring country day after day while violating basic standards of morality and international laws of warfare.

Benjamin Netanyahu makes the case for Israel’s actions much more eloquently here:

By: Luke Puckett

Recent events have showed us how important it is that we become energy independent not only for our own economic prosperity but also for our own security. Over 30 years ago our nation experienced a severe energy crisis because 12% of our annual oil supply was provided by foreign sources of oil. Today, we are even more vulnerable as nearly 70% of our oil energy needs are met by foreign sources that are all too often hostile to our interests and our values.

The threat posed by our reliance on foreign oil is illustrated by the recent conflict between Russia and our brave but small ally Georgia. Russia’s irresponsible, unfortunate and inappropriate bullying of Georgia is not about liberating some radical groups from imagined atrocities. It is about Russia’s expansion of power not just into neighboring states but into the global scene.

A key network of oil and natural gas pipelines stretches across Georgia. This network, which was due for an expansion until Russia’s aggressive destruction jeopardized the construction of new pipelines, is a vital link between Caucasus oil and natural gas resources and the energy users of Europe and the United States. Russia’s drastic invasion has allowed them to seize strategic control of the pipelines and it has given them the power to negotiate for world acceptance of their heavy-handed and anti-freedom actions.

Also looming large as a threat to our security is Iran’s control of the flow of roughly 40% of the world’s daily oil output. Iran’s leaders have stated that it is their aim to end America and destroy the ideals of liberty. We may consider these thugs crazed and incoherent, but we must take their apocalyptic declarations seriously because they are even now building and honing their capacity to execute their dark visions.

The time for words should be over; the time for action is now. We must put the world on notice that we will not sacrifice the strength of our national security on the altar of outdated government red-tape regulations that form a nearly impenetrable dam to the flow of our own domestic energy resources. We must move boldly and quickly to allow for a dramatic expansion of environmentally responsible domestic oil drilling.

Our children should not have to grow up in a world where their freedom and their mobility is dictated to them by backward looking tyrants who desperately seek to maintain some semblance of control in a world where their ideology has been discarded as a failure. You and I have a responsibility to strengthen our security and secure our future. I pledge to you that if you elect me to Congress this November, I will go to Washington to fight out of touch politicians to lower your gas prices.

Luke Puckett is running for Congress in Indiana’s 2nd Congressional District on a platform of common-sense solutions. You can learn more about him by visiting his website at www.puckett08.com.

From Investors Business Daily, earlier this month (before Sarah Palin was even on any VP speculation lists):

As congressional Democrats dither on a vote for oil drilling, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin has pushed through a gas pipeline project to bring new supply and price relief to the lower 48.

On Aug. 1, the same day the call for a vote on drilling began on the House floor, the Alaska state Senate approved a package of measures to license a new natural gas pipeline. House Bill 3001 lets Palin award the Alaska Gasline Inducement Act license to TransCanada Alaska, a pipeline builder that cast a winning bid of five.

The legislature had been trying for 30 years to authorize something like this and, up until now, had blown it. Palin got it through. Getting it off the ground, the state says, will be the biggest construction project in U.S. history.

(Read more after the leap)

It’s over! We finally know. Plenty has been blogged/reported/tweeted, Birch’s boy, I’m sure, shed many a tear (though the coif remained resilient as ever) over not getting picked and for some reason, Republicans and Democrats rejoiced at the choice of Senator Joe Biden at Barack’s running mate.

Why could a liberal Democrat senator from Delaware bring these two groups together?  It’s because we each got what we wanted.

Obama and the nutroots got their attack dog (rather than the lapdog Bayh would have been) who has the experience in foreign policy that Obama sorely lacks, he’s a vocal critic of the war even though he initially supported it, plus he brings more experience in general to the ticket. Yay, for Democrats.

What did Republicans get that makes us almost giddy over the choice of Joe Biden?

Fellow contributor Scott Fluhr notes over at Hoosier Pundit (via the Campaign Spot)

It’s hard for Obama supporters to play the age card any longer, as their potential veep is all of six years younger than McCain.

The candidate of hope and change selected a running mate who was first elected to public office when Obama was 9 years old. He was elected to the Senate when Obama was 11.

The bottom of the ticket running on change has been in Washington forever.

He voted for the Iraq War — which Obama touted as the most important decision since the end of the Cold War.

Biden supports a ban on partial-birth abortion. He supports deploying U.S. troops to Darfur in Sudan.

His mouth will be an absolute time bomb. Will he refer to Delaware as a “slave state” again?

And of course, there’s this:

(H/T – Hoosier Pundit)

Evan Bayh appeared Sunday morning on Face the Nation on CBS.

Let’s just charitably say it wasn’t his best performance.

The transcript isn’t up yet, so I’ll settle for the reporting on the Indy Star.

Interviewed on CBS’ “Face the Nation,” the Indiana Democrat said McCain is given to “bellicose rhetoric which has a tendency to inflame conflicts rather than to defuse them.”

This “bellicose rhetoric which has a tendency to inflame conflicts rather than defuse them” would stem from McCain supposedly, according to The One’s own advisers and surrogates, having “roughly the same position” as the Obamassiah?

From the Washington Post:

Richard Holbrooke, an ambassador to the U.N. in the Clinton administration and an Obama supporter, objected to the suggestion that Obama had been late in coming to a tough condemnation of Russia. Obama and McCain are now more or less on the same page in decrying the aggression, he said.

“It is based on an exaggerated and deliberately misleading perception of Senator Obama’s initial statement, which was issued early, while the crisis was unfolding,” he said. “This is an attempt by people supporting Senator McCain to politicize a great international tragedy and it’s not worthy of the dimensions of the problem, especially when both candidates have roughly the same position.”

Perhaps Evan Bayh should explain himself.

Which is it?

Does Barack Obama have “roughly the same position” as John McCain?

Are they “more or less on the same page in decrying the aggression”?

How do such statements square with Bayh’s assertion that McCain is engaging in “bellicose rhetoric”?

(Read more after the leap)