Whether you like him or not, Gingrich doesn’t know the meaning of the word quit. Everyone said he was done last summer when Newt and wife number three took a long cruise rather than raising money. They said he was done when his staff resigned, accusing Newt of lacking the necessary discipline. His campaign was mocked, even when he was surging late in the fall. After his dismal fourth place finish in Iowa and his meager showing in New Hampshire they again claimed that the former Speaker’s candidacy was finished.

Then the unthinkable happened. Gingrich—a man who many thought was forever left in his electoral grave after resigning in from Congress in disgrace—again rose like Nixon from the political dead. A week before last Saturday’s South Carolina primary Mitt Romney held a ten point lead. One day before the election experts in that state predicted a five point Gingrich upset. The actual numbers told a much more incredible tale as Gingrich thumped Romney by about 13 points, essentially gaining 23 points in less than seven days.

In the Superman comics Bizarro World was the place where things are upside down; black is white, light is dark, and everything reflects an inverted image of reality. In the 2012 campaign Bizarro World, uber-establishment Beltway insider Newt Gingrich has reinvented himself as the anti-establishment, populist hero of working class, blue collar Americans. And in the process he has sent presumptive frontrunner Mitt Romney into panic mode.

Why is Gingrich so good at appealing to base voters while Romney is not? Gingrich exudes passion and determination. Romney plays it safe by saying only what he must. Gingrich radiates anger and frustration with the Obama agenda. Romney goes to great lengths not to speak in hyperbole or red-meat laced rhetoric. On the stump and in the debates Gingrich is electric while Romney is dull and dispassionate. Newt has showed them that he is ready to debate President Obama immediately without giving any ground. Romney has been less convincing.

The election night speeches given by Gingrich and Romney following the stunning South Carolina vote last Saturday present a fascinating case study. Romney delivered a subdued, monotonous message that perfectly followed the campaign’s formula: play it cool, be calm, take some weak shots at Obama and Gingrich, and avoid raising anyone’s hackles. It was a smart speech to give if you’re the guy who’s up by 20 points and safely on the path to the nomination, but not if you’re the guy who is fighting for his life.

The Gingrich speech was the extreme opposite. Before a raucous crowd he waxed blissfully about his days as Speaker, again reminding all that in 1994 he led the party out of the wilderness and into power. He took credit for the private sector jobs created in the Reagan and Clinton years, clearly articulated his complaints about the Obama administration, built a case for why he should be the nominee, and stared down the press who loathe him with every fiber of their being.

The speech was a Gingrich classic and reminiscent of his tactics from decades past that drove his enemies to madness. Gingrich took shots at the liberal media, chided the New York and Washington power elite, jabbed at Romney as being chronically out-of-touch, and slammed Obama as the “food stamp President” presiding over America’s decline. He bashed Hollywood and San Francisco with ease and cast himself as the happy warrior battling for his cause.

In his speech, Gingrich did what a master pol does best: he worked to build his base. After indirectly stating that his opponents were unelectable, Gingrich tried to co-opt their supporters by extending an olive branch, knowing that he needs a chunk of each of their votes to win the nomination. He praised Ron Paul for his fight for sound money, thanked Romney for his service in rescuing the Olympic Games, and extolled Rick Santorum’s irrational hawkishness towards Iran.

He slammed the moral relativists, excoriated the secularists, and re-issued the stern warning that President Gingrich would purge from the judiciary those who dare disagree with him. The intended recipients of Gingrich’s words were the most highly biased voters in the country who just want someone, anyone to defeat Obama. And they were listening rather than chuckling.

Ultimately, we can draw three conclusions from South Carolina where Newt staged one of the most incredible comebacks in modern campaign history:

First, we know that Romney has a glass jaw susceptible to fracture when challenged directly. Gingrich is unlikely to deliver the knockout punch to Romney, but he has helped show Obama how to do just that. The more the Democrats see of the exposed, fragile Romney, the easier it will be for them to tear him to pieces this fall.

Second, for Romney it is time to get tough or get out. He has to remove the gloves and personally hammer Gingrich instead of hiding behind his “uncoordinated” Super PAC ads aired by his millionaire pals. If he can’t hack it, he should step aside and let the Republicans find someone else before it is too late.

Finally, we’ve learned that Gingrich cares more about promoting himself than he does anything else. His candidacy is one big ego trip and lots of unsuspecting middle class and blue collar voters have been fooled into going along for the ride. I guess they know little of the man’s true history.

Meanwhile back at the ranch, Republicans anxious for a win this fall are left waiting with anxiety for Newt Gingrich, Supreme Ruler of Bizarro World to learn the meaning of the word “quit.”

[Note: Politico’s Jonathan Martin has written an extraordinary piece on how Gingrich is running a neo-populist campaign against the country club-like Mitt Romney. You can read it here: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0112/71987.html]

We all know the basic facts about the Iowa Caucus results. Now that the smoke has cleared it’s possible to make a few observations.

First, the press has once again ignored a momentous showing by Texas Congressman Ron Paul. Just as the media brushed aside Paul’s narrow second place finish at the Ames Straw Poll in the summer, they have again written off Paul’s Tuesday performance as a mere afterthought.

Paul’s vote on Tuesday was evidence of an extraordinary surge. Four years ago Paul won 11,817 votes, one county, and 9.93 percent of the vote. This year he won 26,219 votes, 17 counties, and 21.4 percent. In 2008 Romney won 29,949 votes, 25 counties, and 25.19 percent. This year he won 30,015 votes, 17 counties, and 24.6 percent. If anyone should be touted as having made legitimate gains in Iowa, it was Paul and not Romney.

Paul’s campaign theme was largely an anti-war, pro-civil liberty, limited government message. His strong showing this week could spell trouble for the Republicans in the fall should a pro-war candidate who is weak on civil liberties emerge as the party’s nominee. If Romney, Santorum, or Gingrich are nominated and tack hard to the neoconservative right on defense and display an Bush/Obama-like disregard for civil liberties it is conceivable that a third party candidate running on a Paul-friendly platform could wreak havoc on the Republicans in Iowa (and elsewhere). If Paul’s supporters stick to their guns, they could give a third party candidate like former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson a great base of support in this swing state.

Second, Rick Santorum remains an unelectable candidate who will greatly damage the Republican Party’s future. Santorum’s scrappy, grassroots campaign in Iowa was commendable, but it should not be viewed as a mandate for him to claim a place in the top tier. In 1988 Pat Robertson finished second with 25 percent. Pat Buchanan took 23 percent in 1996. Uber-religious right candidates Alan Keyes and Gary Bauer combined for 23 percent in 2000. Mike Huckabee scored 34 percent of the vote in 2008. All of them soon faded after their strong Iowa performances. Santorum’s 25 percent came in the tradition of other hardliners who surged in the heartland but were squashed when having to face more suburban, cosmopolitan, and moderate voters elsewhere.

Santorum is flying high at the moment, but he will soon fall back to earth as his record is scrutinized. According to the right-leaning Club for Growth, “His record is plagued by the big-spending habits that Republicans adopted during the Bush years of 2001-2006,” including support for No Child Left Behind, Medicare Part D, and the infamous Bridge to Nowhere on a remote Alaskan island. He also voted repeatedly to give Bush and Cheney a blank check to finance wars in Afghanistan and Iraq that are highly unpalatable with the voting public.

Santorum also signed a controversial pledge in 2011 stating that black children were better off under slavery than under Obama. He even used his post-Iowa caucus speech to compare Obama’s America to Mussolini’s fascist Italy of 1925. Santorum has equated homosexuality with bestiality and opposes abortion in the cases of rape, incest, or to save the life of the mother. He also favors greatly expanding presidential powers, casting votes while in Congress granting the president line-item veto power, favored presidential fast-track trade negotiating authority, and said that he would repeal “Obamacare” through an executive order rather than via the legislative process.

Third, Mitt Romney is in danger of openly embracing the establishment label in a year when the establishment is toxic. The smart money is on Romney to win the nomination. He has the money, organization, and name identification to outlast the other lesser known candidates and can go up on television in all of the remaining states simultaneously while the others cannot. Despite this, it is unclear how he will play in Dixie. He hasn’t made the final sell to get the necessary number of conservative voters on his team. Most seriously, he is quickly becoming viewed as the “establishment” candidate as the likes of Karl Rove, George H.W. Bush, and John McCain sing his praises.

In a regular year, these things would be helpful, but 2012 is not regular. The “establishment” is seen by many Tea Party types and grassroots activists as having caused the tensions in the party and led the GOP to becoming Democrat-Lite on spending and social issues. If the non-Romneys narrow to one person, that candidate may mount an outsider versus establishment insider campaign, preying upon Romney’s “changes of heart” on guns, abortion, health care, and gay rights.

Fourth, Newt Gingrich is an unelectable bully. The old saying suggests that nice guys finish last. While the merit of this axiom is debatable, nobody believes that bad, nasty guys finish first.

Gingrich’s speech on Tuesday night and his recent, vitriol-laced statements prove that he doesn’t know how to be gracious, humble, or conciliatory. Gingrich made his career by tearing people down, but as soon as the Romney campaign ran a series of factual ads about his record he whined and cried like a petulant child. Gingrich will never be president and his best chance to influence the race is to be the grumpy crank tossing bombs from the sidelines. It is quite remarkable how a once powerful Speaker of the House has fallen. Would respectable men like Sam Rayburn and Tip O’Neil have allowed this to happen to their own careers?

Republicans have a long road to travel to defeat Barack Obama. Michele Bachmann said during all of the debates and during her Jan. 4 departure speech that it is certain that Barack Obama will be a one-term president. Nothing could be further from the truth.

In order to win the presidency the GOP must discern that they can’t beat something with nothing.

Obama has the bully pulpit of the presidency and the inherent advantages of being an incumbent president. The Republicans have a flock of flawed frontrunners: an establishment type strongly opposed by a large swath of the party, a hubristic bully agitator, and a religious fundamentalist ideologue that lost reelection in his home state by nearly 20 points. Meanwhile they have brushed aside candidates like Jon Huntsman who is serious and studious and Ron Paul who performs exceptionally well with young people, new voters, and independents who the Republicans need to win. Is this any way to win an election?

All that we can be sure of today is that Barack Obama must like his odds.

A national Gallup poll conducted between November 28 and December 1, 2011 shows that a significant majority of Americans fear Big Government as opposed to Big Business and Big Labor. When asked the question, “In your opinion, which of the following will be the biggest threat to the country in the future,” Big Government gets the nod with 64 percent to 26 percent for Big Business and just eight percent for Big Labor.

Gallup has been tracking this question since 1965 and the results are quite stunning. The graph below (compliments of Gallup’s polling site) shows that while Big Government has been consistently in the lead for the last 46 years, a significant gap has developed between the three options over time. Despite edging out Big Business by just six points in 1965, public fear of Big Government as a threat to the country’s future has grown steadily.

Gallup’s Elizabeth Mendes wrote on December 12 that despite the high-profile shenanigans of the Occupy Wall Street enthusiasts around the country, “the majority of Americans do not view big business as the greatest threat to the country when asked to choose among big business, big government, and big labor. In fact, Americans’ concerns about big business have declined significantly since 2009.” Additionally, “Republicans, independents, and now close to half of Democrats are more concerned about the threat of big government than that coming from big business,” writes Mendes.

Correlated with these results are a number of other polls showing the country’s lack of confidence in our institutions, elected officials, and policymakers. Consider this: a paltry nine percent approve of Congress according to a CBS News Poll conducted in November. Last month’s CNN poll showed a ten point gap between those saying they approve of the job being done by President Obama (44 percent) and those who disapprove (54 percent). A December CBS Poll found that a whopping 75 percent believe the country is on the wrong track.

The American people don’t trust the politicians. They think Congress is doing a crummy job. More people disapprove of Obama’s presidency than approve. They believe the country is on the wrong track. These tremendous levels of fear and distrust suggest that the public is not convinced that government and the people in it can solve problems or make smart choices. Some legitimate examples highlight the causes for this distrust, dislike, and disagreement with government today:

• Last week the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) proposed sweeping, national rules prohibiting motorists from using any type of cell phone—even hands free—while driving. This would require enforcement mechanisms that would bog down police, preventing the pursuit of legitimate criminals. How can government expect the public to trust it or have confidence in it when it proposes unreasonable guidelines that lack basic common sense?

• Just days ago presidential candidate Newt Gingrich—identified by some as the Republican frontrunner—stated that if elected he would refuse to obey the decisions of the judicial branch should he disagree with their rulings. He even said he would dispatch federal marshals to arrest them and haul them before Congress for a tongue-lashing if they deviated from Gingrich’s ideology. When leading politicians wantonly engage in such buffoonish behavior the public is unlikely to express anything but fear or distrust in what they observe.

• This week Washington brought to a close a very expensive and highly unnecessary war in Iraq that has bled dry our nation’s treasury and is responsible for the significant loss of life among our own men and women in uniform and countless civilians in that nation. While we were spending a trillion dollars blowing up Iraq, our own bridges, roads, and infrastructure were left to crumble. These are not attributes likely to instill positive feelings towards governmental decision-making.

• In Pennsylvania the state legislature and Governor Tom Corbett have exerted an infinite amount of political capital to ensure that natural gas extraction companies are permitted to engage in endless drilling and fracking without proper oversight, without necessary extraction fees, and little if any accountability for the inevitable environmental disasters that may impact the people of the Commonwealth, her land, and her water. Trust in government is bound to suffer when the public interest is scuttled in lieu of deep-pocketed interests who flex their political muscle in the halls of the State Capitol Building.

• Locally, former Philadelphia School Superintendent Arlene Ackerman badly bungled her job and failed to improve the quality of education in the city. When the School Reform Commission dismissed her, it was revealed that Ackerman was given a nearly $1 million “buy-out” on her contract. This came on top of news that she was being paid $500,000 in taxpayer dollars in 2011 with 34 days of paid vacation while simultaneously overseeing huge cuts in spending on classroom instruction. It was reported in November that the Million Dollar Woman had the gall to file for unemployment benefits! The public will never trust government officials doing well and living high on the hog while they—and their children—are suffering.

These examples help highlight the fact that government is suffering from a series of self-inflicted wounds that cannot be repaired or healed without those in power changing their ways. They must acknowledge that public service supersedes self-service, replace senseless decisions with ones rooted in common sense, and employ sound judgment when expending vital resources like money or military resources.

In this season when we conventionally declare our New Year’s Resolutions, those in government who have contributed to these feelings of trepidation, apprehension, and mistrust must resolve to show the American people that government exists to preserve and improve the common good. Until this happens there is little chance to change the country’s dismal outlook of its own government, institutions, and future.

Perhaps we’ve all pegged it incorrectly. While it is fair to suggest this is the worst Congress in history, we may have been wrong in our assessment of why this is so. Forget the argument about their struggle to bargain, compromise, and negotiate. When they do decide to behave in such a manner, the public finds itself calling into question their competence and trustworthiness.

In short, they stink when they don’t take action and stink worse when they do.

While Americans were busy getting back to their lives after a restful Thanksgiving holiday, the Senate voted on November 29 to advance Senate Bill 1867—also known as the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012 (NDAA). This annual legislation is required to appropriate money to the Department of Defense, set military personnel policy, update the Uniform Code of Military Justice, and a handle a host of other necessary housekeeping items.

Thanks to a provision arranged with little (if any) deliberation by Senators John McCain (R-AZ) and Carl Levin (D-MI), this year’s NDAA legislation will, as described by Charlie Savage at the New York Times, establish “a federal statute saying the government has the legal authority to keep people suspected of terrorism in military custody, indefinitely and without trial.” While our current policy towards terror suspects permits such actions towards non-Americans, the new provision shockingly “contains no exception for American citizens,” says the NY Times.

Critical to this provision, writes Lisa Mascaro of the Los Angeles Times is something that should concern all Americans: the federal government would be granted “greater authority to use military custody, rather than civilian law enforcement and courts.” This means a rejection of civilian court trials for potential cases involving American citizens arrested by the military on American soil.

Concerned by these developments, U.S. Senator Mark Udall (D-CO) offered an amendment to the legislation on the floor of the Senate to delay the detainee provisions pending a thorough review. Said Udall, “The least we could do is take our time, be diligent and hear from those who will be affected by these new, significant changes in how we interrogate and prosecute terrorists.”

One would think they could deliberate like adults and seek out facts before making a decision like regular people do on a daily basis. Then again, this is the 112^th Congress. Despite support for Udall’s amendment by the Department of Defense, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and civil libertarians, the Senate defeated the Udall amendment—Senate Amendment 1107—by a lop-sided vote of 60 in opposition and just 38 in support (you can see how your Senator voted here).

According to the online resource That’s My Congress, the Udall amendment “would have removed the legislation’s unconstitutional power of imprisonment without criminal charge” for U.S. citizens arrested on American soil. They suggest that the NDAA bill in its current state “grants the U.S. military the power to put American citizens within the borders of the United States into prison without any criminal charge, without any time limit. All that the federal government will need to do to imprison Americans will be to merely accuse them of terrorism, without substantiating those charges with any evidence.”

Congress, despite months of gridlock and partisan wrangling, has come together to advance this particular legislation which makes a mockery of the civil liberties enshrined in the U.S. Constitution. It would be comical if it weren’t so tragic. When will the country finally boot out this collection of amateurs and loony tunes?

If you are thinking that perhaps we can rely on the House of Representatives to fix this detainee mess, you best think again. The lower chamber voted 322-96 on May 26, 2011 to pass House Resolution 1540, which is virtually a carbon copy of the Senate bill.

Meanwhile, the Senate voted the day after defeating the Udall amendment by an even more lop-sided margin of 88-12 for cloture, effectively ending debate on the bill (you can see which of the initial 38 who voted for the Udall amendment flip-flopped and voted for cloture by clicking here).

If you think that maybe President Obama will ride to the rescue, you’re wrong on that too. An AP article from December 1 suggests that if anything, the Obama administration would prefer an even broader ability to detain whoever they want—regardless of American citizenship or arrest on American soil. The report says that the Pentagon’s legal counsel claims that “the executive branch, not the courts, is equipped to make military battlefield targeting decisions about who qualifies as an enemy.” Hooray for the Third Bush Term.

We’ve had it all wrong. This isn’t the worst Congress in history due to their inaction. They’re the worst Congress in history because when they do take action we get a dysfunctional “Super Committee,” a reauthorization of the Patriot Act, a proposed phony balanced budget bill, and disgraceful outcomes like this dubious defense legislation that empowers the government to potentially detain indefinitely American citizens, leaving the door open to streets patrolled by the military in an endless state of war.

That weird odor you smell right now isn’t the spoiled turkey in the rear of the fridge. It’s the 112^th Congress doing what it does best. Bargaining, compromise, and negotiation are clearly necessities in politics, but based on how these things have worked in the 112^thCongress, I believe that gridlock is truly preferable.

Gallup’s daily presidential approval tracking poll from November 1-12 shows Obama averaging 42.6 percent approval and 49 percent disapproval. Unemployment remains at nine percent, a deal on deficit reduction has not happened, and a whopping 86 percent told Gallup last week that the country is headed in the wrong direction. Despite these serious setbacks for Obama’s reelection bid, his potential Republican rivals are working dutifully to help the president’s chances.

Organizational and fundraising strength aside, Mitt Romney cannot break out of the twenties in most national polls. The conservative wing of the party has been experimenting with various anti-Romney candidates all year. Earlier this summer Michele Bachmann was the alternative until people realized she was far too wacky for their tastes. Soon Rick Perry entered as the darling of the right, but stumbled out of the starting gate like a drunken race horse with extremely weak debate performances and incoherent speeches leaving potential supporters wondering how he won so many Texas elections.

Picking up the pieces after Perry’s swift collapse was Herman Cain. Short on substance, high on pomposity, and light on seriousness; Cain has exhibited a remarkable inability—or unwillingness—to learn about policy issues foreign and domestic or explain the nuances of his own tax plan. He has also failed miserably to address legitimate questions surrounding sexual harassment settlements reached several years ago. And thus the Cain Train became the next campaign train wreck.

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich is now up-to-bat for the right. He’s tied with Romney in some national polls and gaining strength in early states. If the pattern holds true, Gingrich too will fall by the wayside as voters become aware of his past ethical lapses, significant contributions to the country’s increased partisan polarization in Washington, and lack of a serious campaign operation. It is also unlikely that voters will propel a man with Newt’s egomaniacal impulse into the White House. This is the guy who once referred to himself as “the definer of civilization, Teacher of the rules of civilization, arouser of those who fan civilization” and “leader (possibly) of the civilizing forces.” Such hubris rarely plays in Peoria.

Where should Republicans go from here?

Consider this: just six percent told an October Time poll that they are followers or members of the Tea Party. Bachmann, Santorum, Perry, Gingrich, Cain, and (more frequently than ever) Romney are disregarding the 94 percent who aren’t Tea Party acolytes. With the exception of former Utah Governor and Ambassador Jon Huntsman, the Republicans are appealing to the small Tea Party minority rather than the larger electorate.

Simple Electoral College math suggests Republicans are on the wrong track. Let’s assume for a moment that the eventual Republican nominee will win the 179 electoral votes garnered by John McCain in 2008 (he actually won 173 electoral votes, but McCain’s states gained six after the 2010 Census). Somewhere, somehow they will need to find 91 additional electoral votes to get them to the magic number of 270 to win.

Public Policy Polling ranks nine states that Obama won in 2008 as being susceptible to “swinging” away from the president and towards the Republican nominee. These states are Pennsylvania, Florida, Colorado, Virginia, Ohio, North Carolina, Iowa, Nevada, and Wisconsin. Since the total combined electoral votes among these nine states are 126, the GOP must focus clearly on a path to winning at least 91 of these 126 votes.

They need a candidate for the 94 percent. Whenever a Republican presidential hopeful says or does something insane that caters exclusively to the six percent, they are preventing the party from reaching the goal of winning at least 91 of those swing state electoral votes and thus are implicitly helping Obama’s reelection effort.

When Gingrich says he favors jailing Congressmen who authored the banking reform legislation, it jeopardizes the GOP’s chances of winning those swing voters. The same is true when Romney says he wants a federal constitutional amendment banning gay marriage or endorses Ohio’s anti-public worker law that was swept out in a landslide last week. Ditto for Bachmann when she says she will shut down the EPA, when Cain says he won’t hire or appoint any Muslim Americans, when Ron Paul fails to voice concern for the dying person without health insurance, or when Rick Perry thumps his chest over his execution rate.

Same goes for when Cain and Bachmann assert their support for engaging in the anti-American practice of torture, when Romney says that he’ll launch a war against the Iranians, or when Paul says that federal government shouldn’t provide for safe food and clean air. In short, these displays of goofiness help Obama’s chances tremendously.

In the remaining weeks before the first votes are cast, Republicans must ask two questions. First, who can win the most swing state electoral votes and add to the party’s slice of the Electoral College pie? Second, which candidate has avoided and will continue to shun the fanatical crazy talk that voters in these critical states—and others—recognize as pure nonsense?

The answer to both questions is Jon Huntsman. To paraphrase Dick Nixon’s 1968 slogan: Huntsman’s the One.

He’s balanced, composed, restrained, and capable. Huntsman represents a steady hand on the tiller and an intelligent voice of reason at a time when it’s needed most. He can appeal across the board to Democrats, Republicans, and Independents because he’s a problem solver who brings people together and does not believe that compromise is a political sin.

There is still enough time remaining for primary voters to get this right.

President Obama announced on Friday, Oct. 22 that all American troops—with the exception of 150 to safeguard our embassy—will be out of Iraq and stateside by Christmas. The wise decision to withdraw the troops and wind down this war was a courageous call by the president, whom this column has excoriated for clinging to the ruinous Bush policies of “staying the course.”

Obama’s announcement last Friday moved me greatly. You see, back on March 20, 2003 when President George W. Bush launched the Iraq War, I was firmly in agreement with the goals that Bush, Dick Cheney, Richard Perle, and Tony Blair artfully laid out. Iraq—I thought eight years ago—was a war of necessity. Saddam Hussein, we were told, possessed nuclear weapons capable of inflicting damage on our people and our allies.

They said he possessed poison gas, biological weapons, and was partly responsible for the tragedy of September 11, 2001. The Bush administration told the U.S. Senate on the eve of their vote authorizing military action against Iraq in Oct. 2002 that Saddam’s weapons were capable of striking the eastern seaboard of the United States. We had to stop him before another attack on American soil, and thus the administration was given a blank check. I, along with a majority of Americans at the time, accepted the false narrative and went along.

Soon after the American tanks rolled into Iraq, the count of dead and wounded American soldiers increased, casualties among innocent Iraqi civilians soared, and the extreme strain on our national treasure became evident. Bush’s case for war crumbled under the awesome weight of the truth. The weapons of mass destruction, the nukes, the poison gas, the link between Saddam’s Iraq and 9-11 were immense lies. They were convenient contrivances exploited by a war-hungry and logic-impaired presidency, controlled like a puppet by the military industrial complex that a genuine hero named Eisenhower warned us about in 1961.

Scores of Americans were duped into supporting a war that did not serve our national interest, helped bankrupt the nation, and weakened our own position in the world. Using a deceptive political marketing model, the Bush folks twisted the truth in order to capitalize on the fact that Americans were willing to rush into a costly war in Iraq. In an April 2002 CBS poll, 73 percent said they would approve of U.S. military action against nations believed to be harboring terrorists. 94 percent told an NBC/Wall Street Journal poll the same month that the war on terror thus far had been successful.

The stage was set for the Bush administration to market the need for an unprovoked, unnecessary war to a public which was already highly supportive of military action against states believed to sponsor terror. The caveat was that this had to be done in a way which advanced the narrative of Iraq being the “front line” in the Global War on Terrorism in order for the public to go along for the ride. Just a month into the war in April 2003, 75 percent told the ABC/Washington Post poll that they approved of Bush’s handling of Iraq. By April 2004 that number had dipped to 45 percent and then down to 37 percent by April 2006. The low point came in April 2007 as just 29 percent approved of the government’s handling of the war.

These numbers never rebounded. The Republicans soon lost their long-coveted national security gap over the Democrats in 2008 as 47 percent said they’d sooner trust the Democrats to handle the Iraq War as compared to 38 percent for the Republicans (according to a February 2008 Pew Poll). That same month, a USA Today/Gallup Poll found that an astonishing 60 percent were demanding a clear timetable for withdrawal. Fast forward to 2011 when 66 percent in a CNN poll said they now opposed the Iraq War.

Most shockingly, an October 2011 Pew Survey found that “only about 34 percent of veterans have considered the Iraq-Afghanistan war as worth fighting and the rest all considered that the war was not worth fighting at all.” As the fiction and fabrications that led the country into the Iraq War crystallized, so did opposition from the public and now from those who bravely did the fighting.

Those of us who came to our senses and joined in opposing the war did so at different times. For me it was in the fall of 2005 when we could somehow afford our efforts in Iraq while neglecting to relieve and rebuild for those whose lives and communities were ravaged by Hurricane Katrina. As a supporter of this war at the outset, I personally experienced a great sense of relief while listening to Obama’s Friday speech; however, I also felt a very deep sense of personal guilt.

Those who supported the Iraq War at the start must live with the fact that on one of the most critical issues of our time, we had it wrong.

When the country needed us to speak up against the consolidation of power in the executive branch, the wasteful spending, the loss of American and Iraqi civilian life, and the depredation of our national reputation, we were not there. I will always be disappointed in myself for failing to realize the senselessness of my initial position on Iraq, but I will forever be most disappointed in the Bush administration and the feckless pols who continued supporting this monstrosity with each passing year.

Nine years after the Congress passed the Joint Resolution to Authorize the Use of United States Armed Forces Against Iraq, eight years after combat began, and almost five years after Saddam Hussein’s death we can look at this war in only one reasonable way: an absolute failure that has reduced America’s standing in the world as a source of good, hobbled our national budget, and altered the way foreign policy is address for the foreseeable future.

The results are clear and unfortunate. The neoconservative folly in Iraq concludes with 4,479 Americans dead, 32,200 Americans wounded, and a $800 billion hole (and still growing) blown out of our national budget. Civilian losses in Iraq are beyond computation, but estimates from IraqBodyCount.org range between 103,558 and 112,724 documented civilian deaths since the start of the war. These numbers are shocking and disgraceful given that this entire project was crafted and perpetuated on a set of calculated falsehoods.

I will forever be disappointed in myself for not sooner urging an end to this catastrophic war. My head was planted in the sand for over two years before I realized we were on the wrong course. For that I apologize to my country and countrymen. I now await a similar act of contrition from people with names like Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, and congressional and Defense Department officials responsible for this war. They will always have blood on their hands, but apologies—no matter how late in coming—help clear the conscience.

What exactly makes this Occupy Wall Street movement so extreme? Their “Proposed List of Demands” posted on http://occupywallst.org last week suggests a utopian program assembled during the course of a bad acid trip rather than in a state of sober political realism.

Among the “demands” of these able-bodied young folks who are protesting corporate greed while dressed in zombie costumes instead of pulling down paychecks: a “living wage income” for those both employed and unemployed, “free” college education for all, a trillion dollars in infrastructure spending, another trillion in “ecological restoration” spending, complete debt forgiveness for all citizens, criminalizing credit reporting agencies, increasing the minimum wage to $20, and “open borders migration.” Missing are the details about who will pay for this, how it will work, or why anyone to the right of Trotsky should buy into it.

Most Americans generally agree that significant problems exist in our economic system, which is reflected through the highly pessimistic views surrounding the economy and our financial institutions in the public opinion polling. However, this manifesto is not a recipe for building a stronger coalition, but instead a warning for those who don’t agree completely to stay far, far away. It is counterproductive, irrational, and lacking any semblance of public relations planning. In short, this movement lacks adult supervision, the kind which would encourage them to craft a message capable of convincing those outside the nuthouse’s walls that this project is worth considering.

Since the inception of the Tea Party movement in 2009, Democrats have tried to court centrist voters by highlighting the most absurd statements and actions of that movement’s loyalists. Their goal has been to lure those in the center away from the Republicans by using the Tea Party as an example of how conservatives are detached from political reality. Now the radical left wing is on the verge of causing those who were somewhat put off by the red hot Tea Party rhetoric to consider that the pasture may not be any greener on the other side of the fence.

The clash of the Tea Party and the Occupy Wall Street movement is a battle royal of those on the polar extremes of the ideological spectrum. This clash leaves the majority of citizens out in the cold and wondering who will speak for them. One side is reflexively against anything the government does and the other side is automatically against everything the private sector does. Their weaknesses lie at the heart of their orthodoxy, which assumes the need for dogmatic opposition to anything beyond their own ideological leanings. In reality, citizens know that neither the government nor the private sector is right or wrong one hundred percent of the time.

Unfortunately for the Occupy Wall Street crowd, the numbers are not on their side. The Gallup tracking poll that asks citizens to place themselves on the spectrum as being either liberal, moderate, or conservative shows that the left is a clear minority in this country. A combined 77 percent reported to be either conservative or moderate with a scant 21 percent claiming to be “liberal” as of August 1, 2011. Perhaps the other two percent are already zombies.

If a movement like Occupy Wall Street wants to have a lasting impact on American politics in a way that is conducive to the formulation or reformulation of public policy, they must make an effort to appeal beyond the fraction of citizens already in agreement with them. If not, their efforts will be in vain as they will inadvertently inflict political damage on their guy Barack Obama and the Democrats who run the risk of being identified with a movement that is far outside the mainstream of American politics.

The radical Occupy Wall Street left and the Tea Party right (along with the Ayn Rand anti-government acolytes) continues waging an ideological war over utopian goals of either crippling the capitalist system or bringing the wheels of government to a grinding halt. Meanwhile, the rest of us are asking for real answers, genuine solutions, and sober leadership. Deliberation, compromise, prudence, and moderation must come ahead of extremist political poppycock. Both sides need to depart the Land of Make Believe and rediscover the world of political reality.

Since I was not invited to join Williams and Harris in moderating tonight’s contest, here are ten questions they should ask of those aspiring to be the GOP’s nominee to take on Barack Obama next November:

1. Grover Norquist’s Americans for Tax Reform pledge allegedly bans Republicans from supporting any tax increases. However, Congressional Republicans support increasing the payroll tax on the middle class from four to six percent. Do you support this tax increase? If so, what differentiates this tax increase from a tax increase on those who can afford to pay more like the upper one percent of wage earners?
2. Congresswoman Bachmann, you have long claimed to be the anti-government candidate in this race. However, you said that you will use the power of the federal government to magically reduce gas prices to $2 per gallon. Isn’t it hypocritical to embrace Big Government when it suits your purpose? And how exactly will you reduce gas prices to this level?
3. Just 12 percent told a Quinnipiac Poll in mid-August that they consider themselves members of the Tea Party movement. Those seeking the GOP nomination seem to cater to the wishes of the Tea Party on every policy issue rather than the 88 percent who are not in that movement. Why have you allowed yourselves and the party to be held hostage by a small, yet vocal Tea Party minority?
4. Governor Perry, you claim that Texas leads the nation in job creation, yet most of the jobs created on your watch are government jobs or minimum wage jobs that don’t pay enough for families to be self-sufficient. Does this mean that you are in favor of government jobs when it suits your interests? Why should we count minimum wage jobs as actual “jobs” created?
5. All of you claim to favor less federal spending and limited government, yet many of you continue to support the $3 trillion wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Aside from the tragic loss of American lives, more than one million Iraqis have died and our policies have led to 1.8 million refugees and 1.7 million displaced people in both countries says Professor Joseph Stiglitz. Why are you supportive of such fiscally and morally irresponsible policies yet willing to continue calling yourselves “fiscal conservatives,” “pro-life Republicans,” or “religious conservatives?”
6. Governor Romney, for the last several years you have been viewed by many pundits and the press as one of the most electable candidates because of your ability to appeal to independents and moderate voters. However, in recent months you have swung to the far right of the Tea Party wing of the GOP. How do you get back the ground you lost in pandering to the Tea Party?
7. You all claim that you want to “change” Washington, yet the Obama administration has been a continuation of the Bush administration and has largely preserved the status quo. Does this mean that you oppose the Patriot Act, will end No Child Left Behind, will get us out of the wars, and oppose nation building and “exporting” democracy abroad?
8. The EPA is an agency created by a Republican President with a very demanding and significant mission: to protect the land, air, water, and God’s natural creation in the United States. The mission of the EPA is best described as being a conservative one, yet several candidates on stage tonight claim that the EPA should be eliminated, defunded, or scaled back. How do you take this position and still claim to be a “conservative” candidate?
9. Show of hands: who would take a “deal” in which the ratio of spending cuts to tax increases was 50 to 1 favoring spending cuts? 100 to 1? 10,000 to 1? Why aren’t you raising your hands?
10. Over the past several decades—and especially under former President George W. Bush and continued under President Obama—we have seen an explosion in the scope and power of the executive branch. As candidates who claim to favor limited government, what will you do to reduce the power of the presidency as exercised through signing statements, executive orders, a bloated executive office staff, undeclared wars of occupation, and restore the constitutionally intended balance between the executive, legislative, and judicial branches that has been supplanted with a unitary executive model of governance?

History reminds us of King’s leadership, sacrifice, patriotism, and dedication to equality and opportunity in the United States. Meanwhile, the opening of the monument bearing his image is marred with controversy as American labor was rejected for the project’s construction. The commission headed by King’s son opted to outsource the labor to a sculptor from China’s Hunan Province named Lei Yixin.

Although Lei Yixin may be a master of his craft, legitimate reasons exist for questioning the preference to outsource a project honoring one of America’s most gallant figures of the modern era. Namely, while Lei Yixin, 110 granite stones, and 100 Chinese laborers and stone masons were shipped in to complete the work, American firms that employ American workers were bypassed.

The simple, but necessary question that must be asked is this: where is the patriotism in outsourcing the building of a monument to a true American patriot?

Adding insult to injury, the U.K.’s Telegraph reported earlier in the week that it remains unclear if any money was actually saved by outsourcing the job to China. This wasn’t a decision rooted in cost-savings, it was a decision rooted in insufficient patriotism and a lack of respect towards our own working people. Instead of patriotism and respect, it represents betrayal and contempt.

You see, while the King Memorial was being crafted 13.9 million unemployed Americans—or over nine percent of our country’s population—were sitting idle. This figure represents nine percent of all men, 7.9 percent of women, 8.1 percent of whites, 11.3 percent of Hispanics, and a stunning 15.9% of blacks, according to an August report by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Another 2.8 million were categorized as “marginally attached” to the workforce and unable to find a job capable of sustaining themselves and their families.

With Labor Day upon us, one must only imagine the reaction to this slap in American labor and industry’s face around the country. What must they think in towns like Youngstown, Pittsburgh, Bethlehem, Detroit, and others that have experienced a catastrophic economic loss of their industrial and manufacturing sectors over the past three decades thanks to self-inflicted policies generated by our own leaders?

What is the sentiment among organized labor throughout America, the people whose ancestors King stood with in organizations like the AFL-CIO and AFSCME? Do we forget that Dr. King visited Memphis to stand with the striking sanitation workers who were seeking the right to unionize when he was struck down in 1968? Today the descendants of these very people—working American men and women—are told their labor is insufficient to craft a monument to the very man who gave his last breath standing shoulder-to-shoulder with them.

This is a blunder of the highest order and a shot across the bow telling American labor that their skills, abilities, and expertise at their craft are no longer sufficient. The dictum that American workers are capable of achieving any goal has gone the way of the dodo bird. It’s been replaced with an assumption that China (or someone else) can do it better. Outsource just for the hell of it—even if it no longer means saving money—and put the screws the American firms and workers; economic patriotism be damned.

This situation is instructive to those in Washington and around the nation who lament our inability to recover from this endless economic downturn. When we can’t even commission American firms and workers to build a national monument we shouldn’t be surprised when there is no recovery. We shouldn’t be shocked to find a dwindling pride in our country and a belief that our problems can be resolved.

America First is no longer a tenable attitude. We’re told that we have to settle for and accept America second, third, or fourth. It is now one year after we were promised a “Recovery Summer” and America continues to stand still. Economic Patriotism remains a fantasy.

Consider the facts:

There’s no vision to build or grow America’s potential beyond the current or next election.

We can’t even erect an American-made monument on our own National Mall.

There’s no serious effort to protect or enhance our own industrial base.

The corporate leaders responsible for shipping jobs abroad have not been reigned in.

The protectionist policies needed to restore jobs for Americans are not on the agenda.

Meanwhile, our own policymakers continue twisting the knife into the backs of the American economy and the nation’s workforce. The sad truth is that while Dr. King marched with American workers, our own government and our own business leaders march over them.

A Happy Labor Day, indeed.

Suburbs will go for Huntsman

Michael Smerconish is absolutely correct: The suburban vote is the key to the 2012 presidential race (“Pa. suburbs are key to the Republicans,” Friday). Former Utah Gov. and Ambassador to China Jon Huntsman is the candidate capable of capturing purple states and the suburbs. His is a substantive record of advancing reasonable policy goals and running the state rated by the Pew Research Center as the best-managed in America.

He was the only GOP candidate to support the debt-ceiling compromise instead of spouting tea party bunkum. Huntsman believes in environmental protection and in finally drawing down American troops in Afghanistan. While he was governor, Utah saw employment increase by 5.9 percent. Republicans ought to act prudently and nominate the electable candidate most committed to sound, practical governance.

Nathan R. Shrader
Philadelphia
Nathan@NathanShrader.com

The writer is a member of Republicans for Environmental Protection.

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