Tom Roeser offers an arresting, apocalyptic view of what would happen if Dems win the WH in ‘08.  Context is answering why Giuliani has social conservative support:

[They] may have some questions about Giuliani but they know for positive certain that no matter what Democratic president gets in, the goals of the movement will be certifiably ended-especially with appointments to the Court. There’s not even a question about that. The courts would go Left, national security would go passive, the Islamo-fascists would take heart at seeing the country repudiate the Bush legacy. Domestic terrorist strikes would increase. And something which is quite hard for the Catholic in me to rationalize-the future of Israel which is so close to the evangelical heart would be jeopardized while an ambivalent Hillary or worse yet Hamlet-like Obama would allow things to happen.

Is that grim enough for you?

“The Clinton campaign obviously views tough, unscripted questions the way a vampire does a crucifix,” says John Fund in Opinion Journal’s Political Diary — subscription only, cheap at twice the price — writing about “Plant Gate,” in which questions are planted in Iowa, where tall corn grows when you plant it.

It’s been this kind of talk from Giuliani that has had me on his side from the start, tentatively of course, and tentatively still, but less and less so.  It’s the Islamo-fascist threat, stupid.  That and Democrat tax-and-spend-ism:

Giuliani said [Thursday in Las Vegas] the “threat of Islamic terrorism” was “something that we just have to face and be realistic about, and the reality is that many of the Democrats are not being realistic.”

He accused Democratic candidates of not being able to utter the phrase “Islamic terrorism” for fear of appearing politically incorrect.

“I’m not suggesting that any religion is bad,” he said. “We’re intelligent enough to understand that. We’re intelligent enough to make that distinction and not turn it into some kind of prejudice.”

Giuliani said it was better to err on the side of caution. “This country has never, ever, I believe, gotten in trouble by exaggerating a threat,” he said. “We’ve gotten ourselves more into trouble when we underestimate a threat.”

The Democrats, he said, are exhibiting an “almost embarrassing” eagerness to negotiate with America’s enemies.

From Reader D:

I’m open to Giuliani — for the reasons you are, plus he will not be afraid to be in Hilary’s face. I do not want a “Gentle-man” to pussy-foot around her.

I wish Mrs. Romney was married to Rudy! I heard her the other night, and she deserves to be first lady. I hope Rudy’s Mrs. is not a bimbo. I haven’t heard her say a word so it’s all subjective.

The bishops are coming out with some voting blah blah that makes me think they will again twist gullible Catholics into staying home. I want to hear that [Pope] Benedict quote from a couple years ago about — if there are 2 pro-choice candidates, you have to vote for the one that has the better platform aside from abortion.

My bumper sticker will be: “It’s pragmatism, stupid!”

Peggy Noonan on Hillary playing the female card after her recent lambasting at a candidates’ debate:

The point is the big ones, the real ones, the Thatchers and Indira Gandhis and Golda Meirs and Angela Merkels, never play the boo-hoo game. They are what they are, but they don’t use what they are. They don’t hold up their sex as a feint: Why, he’s not criticizing me, he’s criticizing all women! Let us rise and fight the sexist cur.

 

Picture Daley saying this in Bridgeport about political hiring and other corrupt practices:

Standing in an intersection in the Back of the Yards neighborhood Wednesday, Mayor Richard Daley reprimanded the community for not identifying the shooters who killed a pregnant woman in front of her three young children on Halloween.

“You know who did it,” he said. “Don’t be blaming the police. Look in the mirror and say, ‘I can do better.'”

I can’t.

Longtime reader, third– or fourth-time writer (WRITE ME, I’M LONELY!) Phil put me on to today’s David Brooks column and its brilliant reportage on the recent debate between Democrat runners-for-office, which includes this from the Man from Poverty:

EDWARDS: I worry about the two Irans. For while the corporate Jihadis are building nuclear weapons, the working-class extremists are shivering in doorways and making do with sharp sticks.

Lots more here, including a closing paean from Tonto:

GOV. BILL RICHARDSON: That was beautiful, Hillary. I love you

Who says the NY Times sucks?

. . . with my two favorite Chi Trib columnists, Krauthammer and Byrne:

* With K, who would never vote for Hillary even tho she would do good things, because her motivation is bad: The definition of a good candidate is what she is expected to do, not why.

* With B, who lays out too clearly overspending and overtaxation by state, county, and city government and hopes for voters to get smarter: Yes, but as Royko wrote in his column the day after Richard J. Daley died, Chicagoans had got what they deserve in him.  The fault, dear Dennis, lies (maybe permanently) in themselves.

This is lovely about the putative future first husband, Bill, here contrasted with his wife the candidate:  Bill

is an oleaginous people pleaser, a cross between Franklin Roosevelt and the guy looking for a free drink at the end of the bar.

Jonah Goldberg could have stopped right there.  We would have known what he meant.  However, for people not like us, he added:

If he sidles up to someone who loves Tito Puente, he’ll be quick to say, “Oh, I’ve been listening to him for years!” If he meets someone who hates Tito Puente, he’ll shed a single tear and bite his lip that he just couldn’t get Puente’s albums banned, because of that awful Republican-controlled Congress. And sometimes he’ll please both parties simultaneously. To paraphrase Yogi Berra, when Bill comes to a fork in the road, he takes it. But in his eagerness, you can sometimes catch the duplicity.

I give him an A-minus, which is not bad from a former Jesuit English teacher.

Roe Conn just now on WLS-AM, saying he liked having Bill Clinton lie to him, but not Hillary.  He doesn’t like her, he said, “and you know why?”

She’d be yellin’ at me all . . . day . . . long.

He’s got it about her.  It’s a masculine remark but not sexist.  And it’s her.  That look.