What we are seeing is the usual last minute supposed tightening of the polls. Isn’t it a little hard to believe that the paranoid left that dominates the democrat party primaries has suddenly come to its senses, and the wacko rhetoric that attracted them to Dean in the first place has inexplicably lost its appeal? Carol Mosely Braun, who split the black vote in the DC (nonbinding) primary to prevent Reverend Sharpton from winning, as he would have done, now ends her campaign having accomplished her DNC assigned mission and throws in with Dean, whom she sees as the inevitable annointed candidate. Dean is hard left, or more specifically, willing to take orders from the hard left leadership of the government employees unions (AFSCME, SEIU), and AFL - CIO boss Sweeney, who came from SEIU. Iowa caucuses turn on who gets their people out, and it will be a battle between the growing government employees unions and the dying industrial unions who are in Gephardt’s camp. Washington establishment democrats, sensing a looming electoral disaster, now have their media wing trying to check Dean - witness ABC’s publishing the trooper business. My guess is the Kerry - Gephardt - Edwards boomlet is a fiction, and Dean will prevail in Iowa.

Compared to questions of war and peace, this may seem trivial, but it helps show how pathologically dishonest the Democratic front runner Howard Dean really is. He doesn’t just contradict himself from one speech to another. He contradicts himself from one sentence to another.

In an interview with People Magazine, Dean said:

“In my family, when we were little, television was somewhat of a bonding experience. When we were young my father was very busy, he came home late every night and he didn’t see us much. But when he came home, we’d watch The Three Stooges together, Abbott and Costello. We thought that was just terrific stuff. We’d just sit there and watch it together.”

In the very same interview, he also said:

“In general, I’m not a fan of TV. I grew up without a TV.”

http://people.aol.com/people/features/peoplespecial/0,10950,576954-3,00.html

I think you will find that Drudge took some of Clark’s quotes out of context and inserted sentences that Clark did not speak.

What I read, and not just at Drudge, were entire, paragraph-length passage from Clark’s testimony before Congress two weeks prior to the vote on the war resolution. He was strongly PRO war.

Here’s one passage of Clark’s to Congress in September 2002:

“Our President has emphasized the urgency of eliminating these weapons and weapons programs. I strongly support his efforts to encourage the United Nations to act on this problem. And in taking this to the United Nations, the President’s clear determination to act if the United Nations can’t provides strong leverage undergirding further diplomatic efforts.”

It couldn’t be clearer. Bush was determined to act if the UN refused to, and Clark _approved_ of that. He also urged Congress to “adopt a resolution expressing US determination to act if the United Nations will not.” As Best of the Web points out, “this is completely at odds with what he’s been saying since he became a candidate for the presidency.”

http://www.opinionjournal.com/best/?id=110004560

It seems Machiavelli was right all along. Politics is not about fairness but about raw power. How else can we explain the success of liars like the Clintons, Wesley Clark, Howard Dean, Pol Pot, Adolph Hitler, Joseph Stalin, La Raza, feminists, Al Sharpton, etc.? Hopefully traditionalists will recognize this fact and do what is necessary instead of what is nice. Political war is hell on earth but does not preclude us from being forgiving and merciful once we have won.

I propose that the acceptance of Machiavelli’s idea is essential to victory by traditionalists.

On one hand, politics is certainly about power, about attaining it and using it. But if it’s only about power, then it will serve bad ends. Good politics means power attained and used in pursuit of justice. That is something which I don’t think is understood by Macchiavellians such as James Burnham and Sam Francis, who tend to reduce politics to power, period.

On the subject of politics and power, I recall an interview of the late Balint Vazsonyi I saw on the former America’s Voice Network in 1998. Vazsonyi was discussing the contrast between the USA and Europe he found on arrival in this country in the late 1950’s.

“I met a congressman and was surprised that this congressman considered himself a public servant,” Vazsonyi said. He continued, “In Europe that doesn’t occur. European politicians consider themselves purveyors of power. Being a public servant doesn’t enter into it.” Vazsonyi went on to say that Bill and Hillary Clinton were power seekers in the manner of European Socialists, and had no thought of being servants of the American public. It would seem that the Bushes are just like the Clintons in this respect.

I gather that Vazsonyi was speaking of Eastern European Communist politicians and perhaps of Western European socialist politicans, but not, say, of democratic (I hate that word, but what other word can I use?) West German or British politicians.

I’ll go back and watch the tape again, but it was my impression that Vazsonyi was speaking of ALL European politicians. Vazsonyi felt that all European states are socialist entities to some degree. He also said that the citizens of European countries had a socialist mindset. Vazsonyi said, “In America when someone sees his neighbor become prosperous, he thinks that by hard work I too can be prosperous. In Europe, when a man sees another better off than he, he thinks if I don’t have it the other man shouldn’t either.”

Vazsonyi believed this way of thinking was gaining ground in America. It would seem that uncontrolled immigration speeds this process along.