All the talk about the delegate count and whether or not Newt Gingrich should get out of the race between Rick Santorum and Mr. Gregory this morning is a bit frivolous in as much as there's no telling at this moment where the Republican primary race is going to go. Mr. Santorum mentioned uncommitted delegates and super delegates that are still up in the air, but the fact of the matter is that the primary races have to play out and delegates are going to go with the proportional winners. As for Mr. Gingrich, and Mr. Santorum for that matter, there is no reason to get out of the race when you have the structure of financial backing that these two candidates have, which is to say that both of their campaigns rely on a single mega-donor, Sheldon Adelson and Foster Freiss respectively. In this new climate, candidates will ride all the way to the convention and then try to leverage their delegates for their own goals.
What we find ridiculous, and for Rick Santorum in particular, is the Senator's take on the President's energy policy, calling him the leader of a radical environmental movement in the United States, so much for God's Green Earth we guess. The rhetoric is on the Republicans' side, but the numbers and the reality is on the Democrats side. If you know nothing else, know that all the oil produced gets put onto the world market, a world market where the United States doesn't set the price Also, when you consider the fact that the United States produces 2% of the world's oil and uses over 20% of the world's supply then oil prices are going to be high. Also, high gas prices are completely relative. Gasoline in the United States is cheap comparatively to many industrialized countries around the world.
Americans were upset when the BP oil spill severely damaged the Gulf Coast, so why is it unacceptable when we take time to pause and evaluate the environmental effect on more drilling or an oil pipeline installation? Money drives judgment but every decision can not be made with respect to money. This may come as a shocker, but money doesn't fix everything, especially when it comes to the environment, just ask the Japanese. Opening up all the spigots right here, right now is not going to lower gas prices.
Mr. Santorum also mentioned regulations that are damaging business and getting in the way of it, and what he's talking about is the Dodd-Frank bill, which was created presumably so that we do not repeat the mess that we got into in 2008, which was driven by credit default swap where no one was held accountable at margin call. What Mr. Santorum is talking about is a regulation boogie-monster.
Lastly, and ever-present in an interview with Rick Santorum is the discussion of 'Obamacare,' which he sites as the overriding factor to his calling to run for President. Mr. Santorum says that 'Obamacare' would neglect his special needs child, and marginalize that child as unproductive and not worth the time. He continues that intrusive government is making that judgment,'government running people's lives' he said, and its unacceptable. However, at odds with this is Mr. Santorum's stance on women's reproductive rights.
Governor McDonnell, tactfully circumvented the question about the invasive procedure that his state legislature mandated within Virginia's new law that required an ultrasound for women seeking an abortion. Mr. Santorum is for this procedure, but as Mr. Gregory pointed out, this is a government mandate on a health issue. This leads to the biggest problem the Republican party has right now, and that is what conservative columnist Peggy Noonan deemed as a lack of respect toward women. She didn't specifically point the finger at anyone, but this misogyny against women, as she also termed it, is going to be the ruination of the Republican Party. The optics, the rhetoric and the policy initiatives are all at odds with the natural evolution of society in the United States. We could go into all the rhetorical angles illustrating why this is bad for the country, but frankly, and simply, men, only men, should not be making laws and about women's reproductive health, and the debate on contraception takes most Americans back to a time they can't remember. And you know why they can't remember that time? Because it doesn't make sense since they weren't even born yet.
MSNBC’s Al Sharpton, Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), Washington Post’s EJ Dionne, and the Wall Street Journal’s Peggy Noonan
Postscript: During today's program, there was a report on a U.S. soldier in Kandahar, Afghanistan who left his post and shot 16 Afghan civilians, which included women and children. The bottom line is that the sooner we get out of this country (and end our warring) the better. Because of our military having to overextend itself, we've lowered recruiting standards, we've asked soldiers to do multiple tours - meaning years and years of war for each individual, and increased the stress level for our people and cemented resentment in their people.
The story of the Koran burning, on its face, was bad enough but there are stories that the Korans in question had been used to pass messages to plot against American soldiers. The books were defaced by their own proponents. However, this murder rapage, no matter how you would attempt to spin it, is the moment where we need to turn it all around and turn it back. It is not in our national interest to be there in these numbers anymore.
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