Rick Steves was ambushed in San Jose, California by a Marine wanting to know if Rick took back his negative comments about the Iraq War now that peace and security had returned to the country. Rick replied that he "[sees] our nation acting like an empire."

It is an interesting argument and has generated 120+ comments at his blog. I don't completely disagree with Rick. But his argument brings up a fundamental problem with liberalism of the 21st century. The inability to come up with a solution for evil in the world. Rick details the sins of America with:

We maintain military bases in 130 countries as if it’s our right to do so. In many foreign lands, the biggest and most fortified building in the entire country is the embassy of the USA. Only we can declare the natural resources of another nation on the opposite side of the globe (e.g., oil in the Middle East) “vital to our national security interests.”

And he's got good complaints, but he doesn't deal with the reason America has bases in 130 countries or why our embassy is fortified. It is because there is evil in the world. read more »

It has been 1 week since Governor Richardson gave up his effort to be the Democratic nominee and I have been doing a lot of soul searching and trying to figure out what I had been doing for the last 15 months. It has been very difficult to figure out what the point was. What about the hours I spent recruiting people online? Or the "sick" days I took to work on local events? Or the money I spent on phone bills and swag?

Was it all wasted?

My initial feelings were that it was all a waste. Sure, I made some nice contacts and had some unique experiences, but what did the Richardson candidacy achieve? It didn't achieve the goal it set out to - win the White House. Therefore it was a failure. read more »

The Michigan Democratic primary last night was unimportant for delegates to the convention, but it did show two very interesting results.

The first is that she clearly doesn't have a lot of support, even in the Democratic party. She only earned 55% of the vote in a virtually uncontested race. Uncommitted earned 40% of the vote. I know that turnout was light, but 55% in an uncontested race doesn't give me a lot of confidence that Hillary can win a contested race. Is she really as electable as some of her supporters say she is? read more »

I know we have some Luddites here at Page 132, but the truth is that the future is cell phones, and smartphones at that. In 2007, the iPhone was introduced and brought the smartphone from the business suit to the jean pocket. That spawned similar phones like the Sidekick and the Moto Q. Combined with the ubiquitous BlackBerry in the work world, the newest phones will have internet access, e-mail and a QWERTY keyboard. read more »

I find it interesting that the biggest newspaper in both Iowa and New Hampshire area both endorsed losing candidates. The Des Moines Register backed Hillary Clinton, who finished a disappointed 3rd in Iowa. In New Hampshire, the biggest paper in the region, the Boston Globe, endorsed Barack Obama. Obama also garnered the endorsement of the Nashua Telegraph. Yet, he finished 2nd to Hillary in New Hampshire. read more »

AP is reporting that Governor Richardson is withdrawing from the presidential primary race. I haven't got any official confirmation from the campaign, but I am not surprised. The money has probably dried up and with Obama getting two vital endorsements in Nevada today, the road is just too difficult to go forth.

I took today off for a "mental health" sick day because I knew this was coming. I haven't had too much time to think about this, but I know that I had a hell of a time and I'd do it all again. In fact, if Gov. Richardson needed me tomorrow, I'd be there. read more »

I'm still very tired and I'm back at work now so I won't have time to blog my thoughts and days from Keene, but I wanted to give folks a little taster of what I did there.

The write-up of the event was covered by the local paper with this headline : Richardson energizes Keene audience

And probably the most memorable event of the 5 days can be summed up this way...

"Two broken snowblowers - $65, Central Square Rental - $7, Shovelling Central Square for the Gov you love - Priceless." Check out the video of us shoveling the Central Square in Keene, New Hampshire. If you look real close, you can see me in a blue ski hat with a red shovel (:57-1:03ish). read more »

As we are only 1 week from the Iowa caucuses, I thought it would be fun to lay out my order of preference as if I was going to the Iowa caucuses myself. Number 1 will come as no surprise to anyone, but after that you might be a little stunned.

1) Bill Richardson - if you don't know why I like him, you must have just joined us on Good Will Hinton. Try here and here for some of the best arguments why Bill Richardson should be the next President of the United States.

2) Chris Dodd read more »

Dear Richardson supporter,

Out here in Iowa it feels like we're in the middle of a whirlwind -- there is so much going on, and so much to do in the 8 days leading up to the Iowa caucuses.

And the Governor wants to tell you about it personally. Can you join the Governor, me and Amanda tonight on a conference call?

The call begins at 9:20 PM ET / 7:20 PM MT.

Please RSVP if you can join.

At this point we're trying to reach out to as many voters as possible, and this is something we're hoping you can help out with. Just this morning hundreds of Richardson Roadrunners left New Mexico to join us in Iowa in this last sprint to the caucuses. I understand you all can't personally make it to Iowa this week, but I hope you'll take a few moments to help the Governor get his message out from wherever you are by joining our voter contact team. read more »

The New York Times is rightly concerned by Democrats talk about trade protectionism. From their editorial - Trade and Prosperity -

Democrats have been most tempted by the protectionism. John Edwards likes to talk about how trade agreements like Nafta “have hurt workers and families while helping corporate insiders.” Senator Hillary Clinton has suggested that the economic theories underpinning the cause for free trade no longer hold, and has said she would review all of the United States’ trade agreements.

It is very easy to blame trade on economic hardships, but the realities are much more complicated. Since NAFTA has been passed, American unemployment has averaged 2% lower than in the decade before it. Some industries have been extremely hard hit, like textile manufacturing. However, others have benefitted, like auto manufacturing. read more »

Ezra Klein has this nice graphic representing how many cloture votes the Republicans in Senate have stopped. Basically, Senate Republicans are the best all-time in fillibustering.

read more »

CNBC reports that Congress Gives AMT Relief For 20 Million Taxpayers because the AMT (alternative minimum tax) was designed for the super, super rich ( less than 1% of all taxpayers), but wasn't indexed to cost of living and thus about to hit middle class taxpayers this year. read more »

Driven by an offline conversation with my dad and the very astute comment by The Old Man, I wondered how much the United States debt had actually grown under "fiscal conservative" President George W. Bush.

It isn't pretty. According to the Treasury Direct (which is a website for the Bureau of Public Debt for the United States' Treasury), when George W. Bush started in 2001, the federal debt was 5,807,463,412,200.06. That is the combined debt of America under the 42 presidents prior to George W. Bush ran up the credit card bill to just under 6 TRILLION dollars. read more »

In 1967, a small region of south-eastern Nigeria broke away and declared its independence. That region was known as Biafra and it was made up of an ethnic group different than the one in power in Lagos. Nigeria, like many African nations, was a false construct from their European colonial overlords. This led to much internal political conflict and

The discovery of large quantities of oil in the delta of the Niger river, a sprawling network of rivers and swamps that was the southern-most tip of the Country hedged between the South eastern and South western regions, had led to the prospect of the southeast annexing this region to become self-sufficient and increasingly prosperous. However, the exclusion of easterners from power made many fear that the oil revenues would be used to benefit areas in the north and west rather than their own...This further fuelled Igbo [ethnic tribe of Biafra] fears that the northerners had plans to strip eastern oil to benefit the North. read more »

At 1 o'clock this afternoon, the Des Moines Register is hosting the final Democratic debate prior to Iowa (thank the Lord!) and most media accounts have the Clinton campaign in disarray as their strategy has fallen apart.

Let's review the Clinton strategy. Twin pillars. The first is that she is unshakable and the second is that her nomination is inevitable. read more »

I'm so grumpy. I had a blog post queued up for months about "The Case for Mike Huckabee", but never got around to it. Mostly I just didn't care that much about the Republican side of the field.

But now, it appears, Governor Huckabee is way out in the lead in Iowa. He can't be ignored. In fact, Time has just rolled out Why They Love Huckabee and it is exactly what I would have written. read more »

It is probably just a coincidence that I'm reading the contributions to the Ron Paul discussion AND teaching about the American Civil War at the same time.

However, it does strike me that many of the same arguments about the substance of Ron Paul's answer are similar to answers that States' Rights supporters gave in the 1850s. I'm not trying to be inflammatory and say that the arguments are the same. In fact, they are not. However, the underlying message seems to be similar.

• Further union will destroy our economy (southern planatation arguments regarding the industrial revolution in the North and the arguments against NAFTA heard on GWH)

• Further integration with "the others" will ruin our culture. Southerners were worried about their agrarian life and concern about civil liberties being revoked is on the other discussion thread

• The whole conspiracy thing. Southerners subscribed to all sorts of conspiracy theories involving freed slaves, northern politicians and the like. On the comments here, there are several allusions to conspiracy theories.

I want Ron Paul supporters (and detractors) to know that I'm not trying to disparage them here. read more »

Hans Rosling: Debunking third-world myths with the best use of stats you've ever seen (video - 20 minutes, but worth it)

I'm thinking of trying to figure out how to use this in my Geography classroom. What do you think of the technology? What do you think of the data and his conclusions?

A little birdy that works with the RNC told me that the RNC has been doing some test messaging against Hillary for the general election. It boils down to two "i"s - Insecurity and Infidelity

In fact, the entire message is "Insecurity and Infidelity. Return it to the White House?"

The message is textbook Republican. It goes after the opponents strength and gives the voters a very easy frame for obvious decision making.

How would it work?

On Insecurity - The Republicans will remind Americans that Al-Qaeda hit American targets in Kenya and Tanzania, Gulf of Aden and planned the WTC attacks during the Clinton administration. They will role out the old chestnut (but totally untrue) that Clinton could have shot down OBL when he moved from Sudan to Afghanistan. Assuming that no further attacks on American soil take place, the Republican nominee will be able to say that America is safer with X number of Al-Qaeda bigwigs in jail or killed. read more »

After watching nearly all the Democratic Presidential debates to this point, I've begun to project forward to January 2009 and wonder what kind of presidency each of the candidates would have. Here's my thoughts, with the candidates in alphabetical order.

Biden - The Hawk - He's the most hawkish of the candidates and the only one who won't declare a withdrawal of Iraq. One can assume he'll continue to use American military as a tool. On international issues, Biden has always been hawkish and would probably commit American troops to foreign problems and issues. On the domestic side, we don't know as much, but his recent debate performance has shown that he is the least likely to be an agent of change. His common refrain is "tell the people the truth" whenever anyone suggests that DC politics can be done differently. read more »