The increase in the left’s power in Washington came about as a result of Republican potentates acting more like Democrats after Reagan was gone. The Republican pork fest was the perfect breeding ground for Barney Frank & co. taking over the mortgage market with a wink and a nudge, Murtha and his ilk pouring billions into the coffers of his friends. Then it was a simple case for the Dems to win on an agenda which paints the Pubs as just as bad as the Dems. The MSM was more than happy to run with that meme. Unfortunately it was all too true in so many cases.

The power of the Republicans (hah) is in fighting the big spending pork barrel corruption of the Washington elite NOT in joining in and NOT in supporting all of the big Dem pork barrel. The Rockefeller Republicans were happiest back in the ’60s & ’70s when they could stand on the sidelines and revel in their own “principled” non-partisanship while criticizing the right-wing more than they criticized the left. Good old “go along to get along” was the mantra of the Pub establishment then and now.

Oh, in the ’70s I had my small construction business run into the ground by Carternomics. It never really got off the ground with the interest rates and their effect of drying up all work for anyone not politically connected.

The oligarchs of the Dems find way too much common cause with the oligarch wannabe “moderate” Pubs.

Unfortunately the true elite party in the country is the one that resides primarily within the DC beltway, a geographic area to which all these types aspire. The motto of this group seems to be “What’s mine is mine and what’s yours is mine”.

Now, it sounds like you might not be left yourself so don’t you think that electing Republicans that will actively help “Who cares that Obama is Commander-In-Chief and Pelosi and Reid are poised to take over the economy?” is just a trifle counter productive?

Leftists have never met a totalitarian tyrant, thug, and/or brutal mass murderer that they wouldn’t prop up, grovel beneath and provide conspiratorial cover for…no matter where in the world they reside.

The blood on their hands is not from the brutality and genocide…it’s from being an “agrarian reformer” in the fields…making the world “green” (instead of flowing red with innocent blood)

Hollywood’s mental midgets, including imbeciles like “The Mouth that Roared”, Sean Penn…the “West Wingnut”, Martin Sheen, “Hanoi Jane”, …and the double agents who have littered the landscape at the NYTimes…have trailblazed America into a deep bow all the post-modern Caesar’s….great revisionist writers that they are.

Obama’s behavior is consistent, however. Consistently anti-democratic.

Perhaps for domestic U.S. reasons unconditional surrender was required.

“Both Winston Churchill and Joseph Stalin disapproved of the demand for unconditional surrender, as did most senior U.S. officials (except General Dwight D. Eisenhower). It has been estimated that it helped prolong the war in Europe through its usefulness to German domestic propaganda that used it to encourage further resistance against the Allied armies, and its suppressive effect on the German resistance movement since even after a coup against Adolf Hitler there was no “assurance that such action would improve the treatment meted out to their country”. It has also been argued that without the demand for unconditional surrender Central Europe might not have fallen behind the Iron curtain.” (source Wikipedia and their source “Another Look At Unconditional Surrender” by Micheal Balfour)

As a tactic in war it maybe overrated, though WWII is a special case.

As for Obama messing things up vis-a-vis the Democracy movement in Iran, I think he could do a whole lot worse but also a whole lot better. What I’m asking is how can we help to support those elements fighting the regime as a nation which is much disliked by many in Iran? Perhaps Roger and you Robin have some ideas. If so please share them and maybe if enough of us push the Obama administration to do more we can aid these brave liberal Muslims in their fight for freedom.

Unconditional surrender was exactly the right course in WWII. It was a hard won lesson from the failures of WWI. WWI was a horrific war which saw a negotiated peace which solved none of the underlying problems. The unhealed wounds of WWI festered until they burst in an even greater explosion of violence and hatred. In contrast, the unconditional surrenders after WWII allowed for unprecedented nation (re)building that arguably forms the foundation for what degree of prosperity and peace the industrialized western world enjoys today.

Iran and North Korea are thorny problems that will not be easy to sort out by any means. The Korean peninsula has effectively been an ongoing hostage crises for the last 6 decades, as any attempt to depose the North Korean regime by force would risk a conventional attack on Seoul that would almost assuredly kill millions of innocent South Korean civilians. With the chemical and nuclear weapons we know North Korea possesses, combined with their fairly advanced ballistic missile technology, added into the equation death tolls of tens to hundreds of millions in South Korea and Japan are not out of the question. Given such harsh realities it’s no wonder that the insane and brutal North Korean regime yet survives.

Iran is a different case but realistically it would be at least as difficult to invade and maintain order as it has been in Iraq. Not to mention that given the current state of internal conflict inside Iran, invasion may not be the best option for overthrowing the current regime (though don’t look at me as to what the best option actually is).

I don’t know what’s going to happen in/with Iran but I do know that the Obama administration could hardly have done worse in the way they are handling both the Iranian regime’s pursuit of nuclear weapons and the Iranian public’s discontent with that regime.