There was a brief rumor going about that the recent diagnosis of a blood clot in Vice President Cheney’s left leg could cause him to resign his office. Rumor further went on that SecState Condoleeza Rice would then be nominated to take the veep’s office.

Which leads me to a political thought experiment. Let’s assume the following - all huge assumptions at this time, but this is, after all, a thought experiment.

1. Cheney does resign for health reasons (or any other reason you care to imagine) by the end of spring.

2. President Bush nominates not Rice, but former SecState Colin Powell to assume the vice president’s office. Powell accepts and is quickly confirmed by the Senate.

3. In early 2008, Powell announces he’s running for president.

4. Barack Obama becomes the Democrats’ presidential nominee.

Who wins the election in November 2008? Leave a comment.

Nota bene: I will delete all comments that attempt to change the terms of the thought experiment. Don’t bother writing that Powell will never accept high office again, he won’t ever run for president, or that Rice would be better than Powell, etc. Not interested. The terms are the terms. If you wish to run a thought experiment with different terms, fine, email (not comment) me the link and I’ll be glad to post it here as an addendum.

Now, comment away.

… offer excellent commentary on current events.” Someone said something like that, I don’t know who. I didn’t make it up; it just seems pertinent in light of the latest minor kerfuffle over Frank Gaffney’s attribution to Abe Lincoln this quotiation in a Washington Times piece this week:

Congressmen who willfully take actions during wartime that damage morale and undermine the military are saboteurs and should be arrested, exiled, or hanged. — President Abraham Lincoln

The only problem, as Editor and Publisher explains, is that Lincoln never said it. It seems that one Brooks Jackson at FactCheck.org tracked it down thus:

… “The conservative author who touched off the misquotation frenzy, J. Michael Waller, concedes that the words are his, not Lincoln’s. Waller says he never meant to put quote marks around them, and blames an editor [at the magazine Insight] for the mistake and the failure to correct it. We also note other serious historical errors in the Waller article containing the bogus quote.”

Yeah, blame it on the editor. That’s right up there with ‘my dog ate it.’ Speaking of bogus quotes, remember this one?

Beware the leader who bangs the drums of war in order to whip the citizenry into a patriotic fervor, for patriotism is indeed a double-edged sword. It both emboldens the blood, just as it narrows the mind. And when the drums of war have reached a fever pitch and the blood boils with hate and the mind has closed, the leader will have no need in seizing the rights of the citizenry. Rather, the citizenry, infused with fear and blinded by patriotism, will offer up all of their rights unto the leader and gladly so. How do I know? For this is what I have done. And I am Caesar.

That was Barbra Streisand slamming GW Bush in September 2002. But, of course, there’s not a scintilla of evidence that Caesar ever said it, nor do the words appear in any of Shakespeare’s plays, to whom the bogus quote is sometimes attributed, presumably from his play, “Julius Caesar.”

Ralph Keyes wrote about misquotations in The Quote Verifier.

Misquotation is at least as common as accurate quotation, and for perfectly good reasons. The primary reason is that when using quotes, the reference we’re most likely to consult is our memory. This is a hazardous form of research. Our memory wants quotations to be better than they usually were, and said by the person we want to have said them.

As Lincoln said, “That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.”

The Weekly Standard as an article about the kerfuffle over Southern Methodist University’s bid to host the G.W. Bush library.

LATE LAST YEAR, dozens of faculty members at Southern Methodist University publicly opposed plans by President Bush to locate his presidential library on SMU’s campus in Dallas.

Now, ten bishops of the United Methodist Church, which owns the school, and of which President Bush is a member, are urging SMU to reject the library and are circulating a petition for others to sign.

A chief organizer in stopping the Bush library is a former professor at SMU’s Perkins School of Theology, who told the Dallas Morning News that he doesn’t want his school to “hitch its future star” to the war and other aspects of President Bush’s legacy.

President and Mrs. Bush are members of Highland Park United Methodist Church in Dallas. Its pastor, the Rev. Mark Craig, is an SMU trustee who supports the library at SMU. The whole thing is, of course, just another example of Bush Derangement Syndrome, but here’s the kicker:

For decades, United Methodist bishops have largely declined to criticize their denomination’s schools as they slipped away from their Christian moorings and became virtually secular institutions. Typical campus life at Methodist schools is not behaviorally different from most other major universities. The faculty, who often adhere to the same academic fads and ideologies of secular schools, are rarely expected to sign faith statements, belong to churches, or even be reverent towards religion. Even United Methodist seminary professors sometimes reject Christian orthodoxy. Some even reject theism itself.

Bishops have almost always defended their schools’ academic independence, even as they often served on the schools’ boards and helped channel church funding to them. But hosting the presidential library of President Bush, a fellow church member, is apparently a bridge too far for some of the church’s bishops and the 4,000 other signatories to the anti-Bush library petition.

They’ve finally found a heresy which they cannot accept.

As long-time readers here know, I am an ordained pastor on the UMC and while I am utterly unsurprised at the knee-jerkiness of the 10 bishops, I am also heartened to see that at last, at last, dear heaven, they have actually decided to stand firmly for something. Okay, against something, but still . . .

As has been well reported, some Republican senators voted along with Democrats on a resolution opposing sending additional troops to Iraq. How did Tennessee’s two Republican senators come down on the issue?

Lamar Alexander emailed Nashville blogger Bill Hobbs,

The situation in Iraq is worse, and the time has come to change our strategy. I have read the bipartisan Iraq Study Group report, heard recommendations from leaders in the military, and I listened carefully to President Bush’s proposal for success.

Sending 21,500 more American troops temporarily into Iraq to try to stop sectarian violence is not, by itself, new or a strategy for success.

Lamar made it clear that he strongly opposes sending more troops, but when it came time to go on the record with his vote, he did not vote for the resolution. So does he or doesn’t he support or oppose the increase? Who knows?

Our state’s freshman senator, Bob Corker, also voted against the resolution. But what does he really think? His position either has changed since the vote or it wasn’t reported accurately by media to begin with (I’ll give 50-50 either way). Soldier’s Mom reports that at first Corker was quoted thus:

Republican Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., said he didn’t support the resolution because he didn’t believe it would affect administration policy. Instead, he said next time he talks to Tennessee soldiers he will tell them, “I oppose what you are doing but I thank you for your service.”

That was from version one of an FNC story. But now the story has been edited and quotes Corker this way:

Republican Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., said he didn’t support the resolution because he didn’t believe it would affect administration policy, and he believed it wouldn’t give troops the right message.

“So, in essence, what I’ll be doing the next time if I see them, if I vote for this resolution, is to say: I’m opposed to you being there, but thank you for what you’re doing,” Corker said.

That does change the tenor of his position. But it leaves open the question of whether he would have voted aye if he had thought it would change the administration’s policy.

Thanks for taking such a clear stand, guys.

Bill Hobbs says that on the only part of the speech that really matters, the war, President Bush “absolutely nailed the big issues at stake.”

In that part of the speech, Bush said,

And whatever you voted for, you did not vote for failure. Our country is pursuing a new strategy in Iraq, and I ask you to give it a chance to work.

Stephen Green, who sadly (luckily?) does not think governmentally, observes of Bush’s plea, “I don’t remember any stories about FDR talking up D-Day before the fact, and trying to weasel support out of Congress for it.” Well, back then, no one was claiming that FDR and the US military were the ones who carried out the Pearl Harbor attack and that the “New York money people” (cough , Jews, cough) had engineered America’s entry into war to stop the Holocaust or something. Neither was more than a third FDR’s opposition party - and tenth of his own - actually wanting FDR’s military strategy to defeat the Axis to fail. Nor was anyone of either party calling for the withdrawal of US troops from the combat theaters before the enemy was beaten.

Jules Crittenden, blogger and bona fide journalist (excelling at both), is less impressed by media reportage of the speech than by the speech itself. Read it all. He also quotes Stratfor’s excellent point:

“Bush’s poll ratings have now become a geopolitical issue. …

“Bush’s strategy in Iraq, to the extent that it has any viability, depends on the Iraqi — and Iranian — perception that Bush retains control of U.S. policy and that he has freedom to maneuver. Iraqi and Iranian politicians are watching the polls and watching Congress. …

“Bush is now edging from the area where we can call him a crippled president — if not a failed one — to an area where he could genuinely lose the ability to govern.”

Folks, this is not a good thing, no matter where you stand politically.

Joe Gandelman says that Bush’s speech was “less partisan” than before (as if he had a choice) and offers other thoughts as well as a typically link-rich survey of thoughts across the media and the b’sphere.

My own take: despite that the president delivered the speech well, despite its clarity and simplicity, and despite its actual forcefulness on the stakes of the war, the speech was that of a clearly hobbled lame duck. My evidence? When Bush asked Congress to reauthorize the No Child Left Behind Act, Republicans applauded tepidly and Democrats not at all. This despite the fact that NCLB was the most bipartisan intiative this president has ever achieved and the Act itself was practically written by Teddy Kennedy. I was genuinely mystified why the Democrats were silent at this point - not only was NCLB written mainly by their party but it strengthens the federal grip on local education more than ever. Then at Instapundit I read Ruth Marcus’s observation regarding the health care part of the speech:

Listening to Democratic reaction to Bush’s new health insurance proposal, you get the sense that if Bush picked a plank right out of the Democratic platform — if he introduced Hillarycare itself — and stuck it in his State of the Union address, Democrats would churn out press releases denouncing it.

That sounds about right. This president is so politically isolated that the opposition party neither wants nor needs to appear to support him, even when he’s carrying their water.

Pessimism abounds these days and if you are one who understands the gravity of the threat of our enemies in the War on Terror you have reason to be pessimistic Too many don’t even believe we are really in a war. Our leaders who know we are at war are taking a minimalist approach to the war. No one with access to a bully pulpit is effectively articulating what is at stake in the war. God bless President George W. Bush but even as he has had the courage to take the punches of the opposition he still has failed to communicate effectively with the nation and to commit fully to victory.

I am reminded of the 1970s - a time when not only many in America were rooting for communism but when many actually believed we had lost the moral high ground and that it would be democratic capitalism eventually left on the ash heap of history. Fortunately we found a leader who effectively reminded us of the goodness of our system and values and who had the courage to commit to victory. We are fortunate that he was able to lead us to victory by committing the necessary resources - and thereby prevented us from ever having to commit the ultimate resources of total war against communism.

We are there again. We are really nowhere new. Today many of our own doubt our nation’s moral standing, many are rooting against our victory, and many believe we have already lost. Once again we need a leader who reminds us of who we really are as a nation, who can communicate articulately what is at stake, who like Bush is willing to take the punches, and who is willing to commit the resources necessary to achieve victory before we find ourselves in the corner with only the resource of total war left to use. I am waiting for that leader to emerge to inspire us to believe what is good about us and to inspire us to victory.

So with all of that in mind, with our minimalist approach to terrorism (Islamic militancy, jihadism, your term of choice…) and the lack of national unity we are seeing in our government today, the following is the speech I’d like to hear and the plan I’d like to see:

There is great fear that exists in the world today.

Here at home in these United States many fear we are revisiting the unpleasant times of Vietnam - that we are being dragged into a quagmire in which we cannot win. But in fact we have more in common with the unpleasant times of the late 1930s that led to the abandonment of free nations - Austria, Czechoslovakia, Poland, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Norway, and others to Nazi tyranny and millions of people abandoned to die horrifically in the Holocaust. Out of our fear of a despotic dictator not even 100 years ago we abandoned others, thinking we could buy our own national security. But in the process of that fearful appeasement and isolationism we were abandoning our own security, that is, until a man who had the courage to tell us that we had nothing to fear but fear itself led us out of fear. That man led us from the fear of economic collapse when he first came to office with those words and his words were every bit as applicable a few years later when he led us out of our fear of Nazism. Then a nation that was divided at that time - with 82% of Americans opposing potential war with the Nazis and thus unwilling to face the truth of the threat - finally united in a common cause for the survival of our freedom. Roosevelt refused to be led by that fear and instead led us out of fear as the institutions of America united behind him seeing the security of Americans at stake. Roosevelt saw the moral imperative of the victory of freedom over the evil of tyranny.

Today there is also fear abroad. But it is not us our enemies fear. What they do fear is what we stand for. Today medieval powerbrokers fear granting women rights. Today medieval powerbrokers fear educating their people. Today medieval powerbrokers fear the economic independence of their people. Today medieval powerbrokers fear liberty for their people. Today medieval powerbrokers fear allowing people to worship in different ways. It is not that these medieval powerbrokers do not understand our ways and the ways of freedom. They fully understand and they fully reject it because it threatens their medieval position of domination.

There is also another fear abroad. A fear of the people dominated by these overlords. They fear that we will abandon them to these medieval powerbrokers as we abandoned over 65,000 free people to be executed by communists in South Vietnam after 1975; as we abandoned over 250,000 South Vietnamese to communist reeducation camps, as we abandoned over two million Vietnamese who said “you will not abandon us and we will not abandon freedom” as they became the boat people of the 1970s. They fear abandonment as we abandoned Beirut in the early 1980s after we were attacked there; as we abandoned Afghanistan once we saw their purpose as served in the late 1980s; as we abandoned Somalis in Mogadishu and Shiites in Iraq in early 1990s. They fear they too will be abandoned as we abandoned so many in the West when we were willing to abandon Eastern Europe to communism until a man said to tear down the wall that represented the enemy’s fear of liberty.

Our allies fear we will abandon them and our enemies are counting on that. Today - sad to say, but this is the ugly truth - our allies and enemies alike wonder if we are gutless. They believe we lack will and perseverance.

So today to answer that question we have to face the facts of our sad actions - and inactions of our past - that the fearful policies of appeasement, isolationism and abandonment have never worked when we’ve tried it and are in fact immoral. Those policies empowered our enemies and cost more lives in the long run. The policies of Churchill, Roosevelt and Reagan are our model if we want security at home and abroad. We have to face the mistakes of our past when we acted fearfully but we can also look to our past for hope when we finally acted with courage and confidence.

We are not gutless. We know - the American people know - that when we abandon our friends that we are then abandoning our own security. After the 1930s we realized we needed willpower and perseverance and we freed the world from the Nazi yoke. During the 1980s we realized we needed willpower and perseverance and we freed millions from the shackles of communism. And we maintained our peace and security. As in the 1930s and 1980s, we today have the ability to summon the superior industry, technology, military doctrine, and moral superiority of liberty that no other nation on earth can do. So the question today is will we once again have the will and perseverance.

Let me tell you something. Way down deep Americans always have and Americans always will. Americans know that ours is a unique place in history that respects life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. We know we are the nation the world turns to when earthquakes and tsunamis occur. We know we are the nation even whose poor are the envy of third world nations. We know we are the nation who gives more in aid - both public and private - than any other nation on earth. We know we are the nation to whom the oppressed look for hope and help. We are the nation to whom the sick throughout the world look for cures. We are the nation where churches, synagogues, mosques, and secularists live side by side without constant fear of firebombings or death squads. Ours is a nation where a speech like this can be given without the fear of literally having ones tongue cut out. Americans know that is why today we simultaneously fight a battle with medieval powerbrokers who fear those principles while we also fight to control our borders as people from all over the world invade those borders not to suppress liberty but to find it. We know ours is a nation worth defending and of values worth promoting. We count on it and our friends and those who yearn for liberty count on us.

Americans deserve leaders who have as much guts as they have. Americans deserve leadership that is farsighted and not shortsighted, that can see past the next election, that can see the ramifications tomorrow of abandoning your friends today. Americans of tomorrow deserve leadership today that will not abandon them. My friends, if we do not have the will and perseverance demanded to protect and secure our liberty today then we had better hope our children have it because they will need every ounce of it. Roosevelt told us not to fear our own fear. Reagan told us we could have peace by standing strong and looking to the future with hope and confidence.

Today I present a five point plan that puts our fear behind us and that calls for national unity for the security of our values. We have been nickel-and-diming our security and future. In many cases we have refused to see the seriousness of our enemies. That is a policy of fear and the path to failure. Today we must:

One, keep our enemies out of America by defeating them abroad wherever they may be. This means in the Philippines, in Somalia, in Afghanistan, in the Horn of Africa, and yes in Iraq. We must strike at terrorist cells and confront the nations that support them. In Iraq we must seal her borders and crush the militias with whatever it takes including the broad use of US military might. Telling the Iraqis they must fend for themselves is like telling an alcoholic to remain sober in a bar. These long suffering people are addicted to survival and if we do not assist them they will survive in whatever way they can. The patrons in their neighborhood fear liberty as the drunks in a bar fear the wagon. Our allies will only fight with us if they believe we will stick by them. Our friends who desire liberty need our help and it is the only way we will maintain our own liberty.

Two, we must unleash the free market which leads to freedom. We must do more in Iraq and Afghanistan and elsewhere with a responsible and aggressive Marshall Plan. We must provide security so that these programs have the opportunity to take root. We must cut out bureaucracy and we must increase the presence of our civilian agencies in addition to our military in these regions.

Third, we must fight an aggressive economic and energy war against terrorist groups and the nations that support them - including especially Iran, North Korea and Venezuela. Our energy and economic polices must not enable our enemies. In some cases this will cause short term losses for some American interests and hardships for our people but is crucial to causing the collapse of our enemies and our long term viability. We must isolate our enemies economically and become more self-sufficient ourselves.

Four, we must rebuild our military in a robust way. Transformation does not mean tiny. What is does mean is more flexibility, greater mobility, and soldier skills that relate to effectiveness in different cultures. But we need boots on ground to build relationships and trust and mutual security. Today our nation spends less of its GDP on national defense than at any time since Pearl Harbor. That is unconscionable in a day when we are actively at war. In a world in which our enemies seek our total destruction we can only achieve peace through strength. Strength is what they respect. And they must fear us. Diplomacy is preferred but it only works when it has teeth.

Finally, we must use our bully pulpit. We need to call upon the leaders of the world religions for regular and public summits between the leaders of Islam, Christianity, and Judaism. The religious leaders of the world need to come out of their ivory towers while their people are suffering. We must support groups who seek liberty throughout the world with moral, economic, and every level of support necessary. We must announce hope to all those who seek liberty across the airways of a Radio Free Liberty that gives hope to the oppressed throughout the world. We must speak directly to the peoples of the Middle East and across the world that we stand by them even as their own governments oppress them and impoverish them for the sake of their own personal power. We must kindle their hopes for when the time comes that they too may be free.

Essentially, we must make our enemies afraid and must give the people of the world hope. There was a day when so many feared Hitler, when so many later feared Brezhnev, and then Saddam. Today many fear Bin Laden, Ahmadinejad, Kim Jong-Il and Chavez. But the day came when Hitler feared us, Andropov feared us and Saddam feared us while those they oppressed found their hope in us. If these tyrants of today are smart then Bin Laden, Ahmadinejad, Kim Jong-Il and Chavez will fear us too while we bring hope to others and security to ourselves.

Our best days are ahead. The best days of all humanity are ahead. Do we have the will and perseverance to make those days happen or will we abandon our challenge and leave our children to do tomorrow what we refuse to do today? Will we leave them to carry out the last resort because we failed to carry out lesser but no less necessary measures today?

You know the answer and so do I. Let’s do what we have to do. Americans - have no fear. Friends - have no fear. And to our enemies - you have once again awakened a sleeping giant. Freedom and security are on the march once again. History has brought us here. Today the wolves have entered the sheepgate and they must be engaged. We are morally compelled to do so. Jefferson said the cost of freedom is eternal vigilance. McArthur said there is no substitute for victory. Make no mistake. We will conquer our fear. Liberty will triumph over oppression. We will be secure. Yes, we do have the willpower and we will persevere.”

That’s a presidential speech I’d like to hear, and soon. Today, from what I can see, John McCain and Joe Lieberman may be the only people at the levels of high political leadership who get this to a great degree. Bush understands the threat but it seems only McCain and Lieberman understand that we must go all out. One of the problems is that ours is largely a nation that goes about its business as if there were no threat looming over us - at the recommendation of the Bush administration by the way. A mistake, a big mistake in a day when people must understand what is at stake. Ours is the only nation that can morally stand up to tyranny. However it happened - and whether you like it or not - history has brought us here. Others depend on us and believe it or not we depend on others if we are to maintain security and a viable economy such as the one we are accustomed to. It is a moral imperative that stand for and commit to liberty.

Someone needs to make that clear and to commit us to preserving just that.

In my recent post, “The gloomy months ahead,” I wrote that “I am, for the first time, deeply pessimistic about the future of this country.” My synopsis of why was pretty brief; the post was more a cri de couer than anything else, not by any means a structured look at the underlying reasons.

AJackonian has used the post a a springboard to his own analysisof the national situation, using considerably more rigor. “The Oncoming Storm” covers the issue in 11 detailed sections. I am not saying that I endorse absolutely every point he makes, but I think it makes scores of excellent ones. It’s a long post, but well worth the time. Bottom line, both mine and (I think) his? As a national people, we are far from unified on what “America” really means, what America is for or what it stands for. “America,” said British statesman Edmund Burke, “is the only nation founded upon idea.” I don’t think we know what that idea is any more. Read his piece and see whether you agree.