MY RETRACTION AND APOLOGY TO SEN. LARRY CRAIG

"It does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority keen to set brush fires in people’s minds." --Samuel Adams

This column, originally one about "President Hillary Rodham Clinton" (yikes) will change on Saturday and Sunday. I was one of the first bloggers to call for the resignation of Senator Larry Craig. He has resigned effective September 30 of this year, but now I believe my initial comments were hasty -- and, frankly, uninformed. I had assumed was some evidence of verbal solicitation or groping of the undercover policeman. In fact, there was NO SUCH EVIDENCE. The policeman was totally out-of-bounds in making pop-psychology assumptions about Craig's character. I rushed to judgment, and my readers have a right to expect more. (Note: The policeman said he didn't care about Craig's supposed "sexual preference," itself a loaded and arguably homophobic term). What what exactly were the police doing in the men's room? It now looks like entrapment to me. ) If you'd like to read the ENTIRE transcript of the exchange between Sen. Craig and the policeman, you won't hear it on the MSM. You can, however, find it by going to the following site (managed by a gay conservaive activist in Ottawa, Canda: http://gayandright.blogspot.com/ I urge you to read the transcript. You may well end up agreeing with "Fred" from Ottawa, who says, "No crime occurred here." As for straight Steve in Ambridge, PA (i.e., me), I agree that no crime occurred, but I also agree with Senator Craig's decision to resign -- mainly because of his misguided guilty plea. The story of Larry Craig may die, but it shouldn't, because it appears to be a major miscarriage of justice.








Welcome to all supporters of the Republican Party -- and supporters of any the five candidates discussed below. At the present time, I'm not endorsing any specific individual for the presidency (hoping only that HE will be a Republican). Like many others, I'm strongly encouraging consideration of Alaska Gov. Sarah Heath Palin for the second-spot on the Republican ticket.

As a favor to Gov. Romney, I'm not charging him $10,000 for my "Romneyites Unite" slogan. (Romney supporters, note the bottom of this column.)

In another piece, I recently mentioned my commitment to vote for the candidate nominated in 2008 by the Republican Party -- something that will happen "de facto" about February 5 (Super Tuesday of next year. Some people with a penchant for fantasy believe that all Republicans have to do is to nominate Mitt Romney, or Mike Huckabee, or Rudy Giuliani, or Fred Thompson, or John McCain (whose ship is listing badly these days), and we will cruise to an easy victory over Hillary Rodham Clinton.

In fact, the most reliable opinion surveys (Pew Research, Gallup, Stan Greenburg) show just the opposite, not only in their "snapshot" (day-by-day) forms but -- most ominously -- in their trend lines. I don't find many (read: ANY) expert analysts, conservatives or liberals, who disagree with me. We are also poised to take a major skunking in Congress, losing several Senate seats.

Granted, some folks (my GWB word for the day) may look at me as the boy crying "Wolf." However, the last time I "cried wolf" was in the election of 2006 when, you may recall, a wolf came and ate the Republican Party. A bigger, hungrier, meaner wolf could very well be licking his chops in November, 2008.

Why so much emphasis on Sarah Heath Palin, the wildly popular Republican Governor of Alaska, as a choice for the vice-presidential nomination on the Republican ticket? (Her approval rating of 90% is one GWB or any other elected official would pronounce "to-die-for.")

To explain the critical question "why," Let's look at the five distinguished Republican gentlemen I noted above: Huckabee, Romney, Giuliani, Thompson, and McCain. There's zero evidence any of them running on their own they can defeat Mrs. Clinton. Outside their immediate families, not many people believe victory is in the cards. Let's face it: Just because an individual -- say, you -- likes a candidate or even adores him doesn't guarantee more than one vote, yours.

Politically, Mrs. Palin -- the choice of all those intrepid souls on my blogroll -- resembles what in football terminology is called a "wedge-buster." That's the individual on the kickoff or punt team that races downfield to break up group of blockers (the "wedge") that's safeguarding the kick-returner.

There is a wedge -- one based on bad decisions and missed opportunities in the past -- walling off the Republican Party from a host of critically important voting groups: women professionals (teachers, journalists, nurses, doctors, lawyers, businesswomen), Blacks, Hispanics, young people (34 and under), non-white evangelicals, union members, and moderate-to-liberal Roman Catholics.

People in those groups probably make up 200-million plus of the 300-million Americans. (The Census Bureau has said there are now 100 million legal minorities in the U.S., the largest group being Hispanics --45 million -- with Blacks fairly close behind).

Gov. Sarah Palin can help us break through the political wedge and get to these groups. She would have appeal to all of the above segments, especially women professionals and younger people. Naming her to the vice-presidential ticket would be indicating something that would surprise a lot of voters: that we aren't just a bunch of aging white Caucasians offering the same programs as the Democrats but with slightly less funding.

If we become the Party of the "angry, old white guys," Heaven help us. We're headed in that direction, and we need to change course in a hurry. (As an occasionally cantankerous older white guy, I believe I can say that.)

As a communications major in college, Sarah Palin knows talk is cheap. Best of all, she doesn't blather on with abstractions about family values.

In fact, as a committed wife and the mother of four children, she LIVES those values. As a person who revealed ethics violations by noted Alaska Republican politicans, she's going way beyond pious platitudes about honesty being "the best policy." In terms of her character and fidelity to God and family this woman is bullet-proof.

If you're interested in learning more about Sarah, please read any of the following, including the several essays by nationally recognized columnists, including Fred Barnes of FOX News and The Weekly Standard.

You can indicate your support for Sarah for V-P by leaving a comment either on my blog, or on Adam's at http://palinforvp.blogspot.com/. You can also send an e-mail to me at: TalkTop65@aol.com. Thanks for your interest.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarah_Palin (Short and accurate biographical information)

http://weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/013/851orcjq.asp (outstanding piece on Sarah by Fred Barnes, executive editor of The Weekly Standard and FOX News analyst)

http://blogcritics.org/archives/2007/08/17/235529.php (SJ Reidhead (Cindy), Article by the "Queen of the Blogosphere" on the Character and Potential of Sarah Palin)

http://columbian.com/opinion/news/07252007news173060.cfm (Essay by editor emeritus Tom Koenigger on Alaska and its remarkable Governor)

http://pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/opinion/columnists/vassilaros/s_517252.html (Essay by conservative columnist Dimitri Vassilaros in praise of the GOP's "Beacon of Hope")

http://kazoolist.blogspot.com/2007/08/palin-for-veep.html (A piece by the newest blogger for Palin -- signed up yesterday -- with a discussion of why he's doing so)

It might take 30-35 minutes to read and digest all the above pieces. It will be time well spent, because Sarah is at least a step ahead of nearly ever elected official in our nation.


In the next 4-5 days, I'm going to be asking Mitt Romney supporters to back Sarah. I don't know how many of them will -- somewhere between none and a few, perhaps -- but I'll make the best case I can. Do I believe Mitt Romney is a Christian? Well, he says he is, and that's good enough for me, since the ultimate issues of faith are between an individual and his or her God. Heck, my brother (not a Mormon) went to BYU, and that should count for something.
ROMNEYITES UNITE (behind Sarah).