The Democrat Circus continues to be the zaniest show in town.  Obambi exults the nomination is barely his while Hillary the Loser angrily demands she be his running-mate.  Angrily demanding something is rarely the most effective negotiating technique to get what you want.  A smart person will use it only when both the anger and the demand are a pretense, when you want your demand rejected, not accepted. Yes, intimidation often works when your opponent is a pussy.  Obambi is indeed a pussy, and voters' suspicion that he is would only be confirmed if he capitulated to Clinton intimidation - which is why he has to reject her, even though he knows she wants to be rejected. It's not complicated once it's understood what Hillary's game plan is now - and the pact she's making with John McCain to achieve it.  So the plan works like this. 

Who? When?  Republicans, including Sen. McCain himself I would imagine, are asking these questions about his selection of a vice presidential candidate. Ideally, a presidential candidate wants a running mate who will help him win the election, and (maybe) to govern afterwards.  But most will settle for a veep who isn't a drag on the ticket, as Dan Quayle was for the first President Bush. Traditionally, a presidential nominee has chosen a running mate to balance the ticket geographically, or to appease a faction of the party.  The most successful example of this was when John F. Kennedy picked Lyndon Johnson, though neither liked the other, and LBJ joined the ticket only because he thought Kennedy would lose. Bill Clinton broke with this tradition when he chose another young (purported) moderate from a neighboring southern state.  By picking Al Gore, he hoped to reinforce his campaign theme of generational change. Which way will Sen. McCain go? The potential running mates most often discussed have downsides nearly as great as their upsides.  There's an exception, however, who has virtually no downside.  Those conservatives who've heard of her - yes, her - were delighted to learn that McCain advance man Arthur Culvahouse was in Alaska recently, because they surmised he could only be there to discuss the vice presidential nomination with Gov. Sarah Palin.

Wasn't it just a couple of weeks ago that the HFR was trying to shake a couple of drops out of its far-from-even-half-full glass?  Well, fill up the flagon, barkeep, we're going to hoist a few this week. We have a selection of heroes to toast.  Let's start with a tankard of Pilsner Urquell for the President of the Czech Republic, Vaclav Klaus... We follow that with a chalice of Brennan 2006 Viognier with its bouquet of bluebonnets and West Texas crude to that good ol' boy from Wichita Falls, Rex Tillerson, chairman of Exxon-Mobil...  Finally, a tumbler of Glen Morangie single-malt (no defiling it with ice or water - the Scots consider that a "mixed drink") to a spy coming in from the cold, CIA Director Michael Hayden...  That's the last of the good stuff for now.   The HFR pours instead a cup of contempt for bimbo-airhead actress Sharon Stone...  Here's the fun episode of the week.  The HFR guzzles a goblet of glee over Obambi's latest embarrassment, Father Michael Pfleger... Let's close with a potpourri of good news, because if drank to each one we'd get seriously wasted... One last item.  Your humble HFR author takes personal satisfaction in the new movie, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull .

Even though they still call themselves communists, and the Communist Party rules the country, classical fascism should be the starting point for our efforts to understand the People's Republic. We are certainly not dealing with a Communist regime, either politically or economically.  Chinese leaders are keeping a firm grip on political power while permitting relatively free areas of economic enterprise. Their political methods are quite like those used by the European fascists 80 years ago. The short history of classical fascism suggests that it is only a matter of time before China will pursue confrontation with the West. That is built into the DNA of all such regimes. Sooner or later, Chinese leaders will feel compelled to demonstrate the superiority of their system, and even the most impressive per capita GDP will not do. It follows that the West must prepare for war with China, hoping thereby to deter it. A great Roman once said that if you want peace, prepare for war:  Si vis pacem, para bellum. This is sound advice with regard to a fascist Chinese state that wants to play a global role.

"We have not exhausted our non-military options in confronting the Iranian threat; in many ways, we have yet to try them," Sen. Barack Hussein Obama says on his Web site. "If Iran abandons its nuclear program and support for terrorism, we will offer incentives like membership in the World Trade Organization." It was Albert Einstein who first defined insanity as "doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." "Perhaps Mr. Obama is unaware that one of (Iranian President Mahmoud) Ahmadinejad's first acts was to freeze Tehran's efforts for securing WTO membership because he regards the outfit as 'a nest of conspiracies by Zionists and Americans'," wrote Amir Taheri in the Wall Street Journal Wednesday (5/28). Sen. Obama can escape Einstein's charge of insanity by pleading ignorance. He didn't know about U.S. overtures to Iran, or Mr. Ahmadinejad's rejection of them.  But shouldn't a candidate for president know these things? It's gotten so absurd that, after Sen. Obama took opposite sides on successive days last week on whether Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez should be engaged or isolated, ABC's Jake Tapper described him as "a one-man gaffe machine." And that was before The Amazing Gaffe-Man's Memorial Day twofer.

Rupert Murdoch is one of the world's savviest businessmen - but his prediction today (5/29) that Obambi will defeat McCain next November in a landslide is straightforward idiocy. Someone could make an intelligible argument that he could come out on top in a close contest - but a landslide?  That's nuts.  For the odds are far, far greater that it will be the other way around.  McCain is going to wipe the electoral floor with Obambi. Obambi is going to be torched by white women, Reagan Democrats, Hillary supporters, and most everybody else except blacks, academics, college kids being taught by the academics, and urban-elitist liberals whose brains have been similarly damaged by the academics.  He'll carry Oregon, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Vermont, and maybe New York - maybe.  Not a lot more.  Not even California. Murdoch would have been on much firmer ground predicting a Dem landslide in the House and Senate - but that wouldn't be news, for that's the universally accepted wisdom.  Predictions are ubiquitous that the Pubs are going to lose 10 to 20 House seats and 4 to 6 Senate seats at a minimum.  It could be much worse, a lot worse. So much worse that the Dems will gain a filibuster-proof majority of 60+ seats in the Senate, preventing the passage of any decent McCain legislation or the confirmation of any decent McCain judicial appointment. How ironic, then, that the hero who can save the day and rescue the helpless Pubbies from certain disaster is... the Dems' very own champion, Hussein Obambi.