Pot. Kettle. Black.

A print ad created by DDB Brazil for the World Wildlife Fund (which denies approving it and condemns it) portrays the pre-9/11 New York skyline with a multitude of planes descending toward the World Trade Center towers.

Message: "The tsunami killed 100 times more people than 9/11. Conserve the planet. It's brutally powerful."

It's disgusting. It's shamelessly exploitative of the murder of thousands of human beings, and on top of that it's ineffectually so. I'd call it opportunistic if it conveyed anything resembling a coherent message. Since it doesn't, it's merely crass and meritless.

If you want to see it, knock yourself out. I'd run a Flash embed of the final scene of Pink Flamingoes before I'd plaster that garbage onto this page. It's that bad.

BUT!

Those who've danced on the graves of the dead of 9/11 for lo on eight years now don't get to say that, at least not without me pointing at them and calling them out as the hypocrites they are.

Michelle Malkin, for example, who parlayed 9/11 into two best-selling volumes of Know-Nothing paranoia and a continuing career as the blogosphere darling of the "they changed the terror alert color -- everyone squat, pee and beg for more police state!" set.

Or the neo-Trots at the warfare-welfare state's journal of record, The Weekly Standard, who've been waving the shirt since long before the policies they always advocated got it good and bloodied for them.

Or, preemptively, former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani, who tried to transmute 9/11 from a showcase of his failures as mayor into the basis of a presidential campaign with sound bytes consisting entirely of (as Joe Biden put it) "a noun, a verb, and 9/11." You just know he's casting about for a microphone right now.

Those folks don't rate to criticize this ad. Or at least they don't rate to have their criticisms taken seriously. They've spent the last eight years dining on the flesh and drinking the blood of the 9/11 dead. Anything they have to say versus WWF carries precisely the same moral stature as the argument of one cannibal contesting possession of a particularly meaty human femur with another.

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Florida: GOP primary prediction

Running a little late here (I wanted to give Kubby's State of the Union address as much time up top as possible), but the usual format -- first my unrealistic October prediction, then my final call.

From October, pre-Huckabee-surge, etc.:

1st - McCain (~55%)
2nd - Romney (~30%)
3rd - Ghouliani (~10%)
4th - Paul (~5%)

My final call:

1st - McCain (~38%)
2nd - Romney (~30%)
3rd - Giuliani (~15%)
4th - Huckabee (~12%)
5th - Paul (~5%)

Surprised / Not Surprised

- Surprised if Romney beats 30%.
- Not surprised if Romney nosedives to 25% or less.

- Surprised if McCain garners an absolute majority.
- Not surprised if McCain breaks 40%.

- Surprised if either Giuliani or Huckabee beats 15%.
- Not surprised if they switch places from my prediction -- Hucks small base looks pretty solid, Giuliani's was built on sand and has completely shattered.

- Surprised if Paul hits 10% or falls below 2%.
- Not surprised if Paul gets as much as 8% or as little as 2%.

From here on out, McCain runs the big-state table. Super Tuesday is anti-climax -- Florida is where the deal is sealed.

I originally called Giuliani to win New York and New Jersey, but he's already disintegrating in both those states and after today their walk away from him will become a stampede. His smartest move would have been to drop out and cut a deal before today. After Florida, McCain doesn't need Giuliani and Giuliani doesn't bring anything with him that can save Romney. The GOP nomination fat lady is warming up. Concert's tonight.

Nevada, South Carolina predictions

As of last October, I had Ron Paul picked to place second in South Carolina and first in Nevada.

Those picks were messed up for much bigger reasons than "the newsletter affair." If anything, that mini-scandal may help Paul in South Carolina ... but it's mostly a fringe teapot tempest (yes, I admit to being "fringe"). My main screw-ups were assuming that Thompson would not be a factor by this point, and that Huckabee wouldn't be a factor at all.

So, first, my absurd and outdated October predictions:

Nevada

1st - Paul (~40%)
2nd - McCain (~30%)
3rd - Romney (~20%)
4th - Giuliani (~10%)

South Carolina

1st - McCain (~35%)
2nd - Paul (~30%)
3rd - Romney (~25%)
4th - Giuliani (~10%)

Now my revised predictions (and yes, so far I've been about as wrong as it's possible to get -- I had also predicted McCain to win Michigan, and stuck by that one, but didn't blog on it).

Nevada:

1st - McCain (~30%)
2nd - Romney (~26%)
3rd - Paul (~14%)
4th - Huckabee (~12%)
5th - Thompson (~10%)
6th - Giuliani (~8%)

South Carolina:

1st - McCain (~32%)
2nd - Huckabee (~24%)
3rd and 4th - Too close to call, Romney and Thompson both in the 15% range
5th - Paul (~10%)
6th - Giuliani (~4%)

I won't be terribly surprised if Paul does better that I predict in either state, or if Romney upsets McCain in Nevada. I will be surprised if Thompson places better than a distant third in either state, or if Giuliani breaks out of single digits in either state.

I still don't expect Giuliani to make a comeback start in Florida. He'll do better there than he has so far, but he'll be struggling with Romney for a second place finish behind McCain, and almost certainly losing that struggle. Good riddance to bad rubbish. "Super Duper Tuesday" will effectively be a McCain/Romney showdown, advantage McCain. Giuliani might boost Romney a wee bit if he has the brains to cut a deal and do the "drop, endorse" routine, unwisely choosing Romney as his partner. But I'm still convinced that McCain will get the GOP nod.

New Hampshire primary picks

Back in October, I had New Hampshire called as follows:

1st - McCain (~35%)
2nd - Paul (~30%)
3rd - Romney (~25%)
4th - Giuliani (~20%)

With the rise of Huckabee, the fall of Giuliani, and the inexplicable staying power of the substanceless Thompson, I'm updating that prediction ... but it's not changing as much as you'd think:

1st - McCain (~30%)
2nd and 3rd - Paul and Romney in a close and unpredictable fight, (average 23% each)
4th - Thompson (~10%)
5th - Huckabee (~8%)
6th - Giuliani (5%)
7th - Hunter (~1%)

I originally had Romney picked in third, but I've got mixed feelings about him now. He wasn't able to buy victory in Iowa as I predicted he would do, and Thompson is cutting into his "let's vote safe and comfortable" market share. On the other hand, he's picking up some of Giuliani's lost "establishment" mojo, and I suspect that there's some Huckabee backlash brewing for Tuesday. Huck was the "real conservative protest vote" darling for a bit, but not many people are shithouse rat crazy enough to actually want him to win.

Democrat side: Clear win for Obama, Edwards in credible second, Clinton back in third and does not manage a "comeback kid" turnaround a la Bill.

Of course I'm 0 for 2 on the GOP side and 0 for 1 on the Democrat side so far, so I wouldn't advise running these picks and a fist full of cash over to your bookie.

Any way you cut it, my October picks are becoming less and less relevant. There's blood on the floor now and it's slippery all around, but I don't see Giuliani pulling anything like my October prediction in Michigan, or Paul doing as badly there as I initially predicted. How Romney does is largely up to how Thompson and Huckabee do in New Hampshire. I certainly won't be pulling for Romney, but I'll be honest: Huck scares me, and Giuliani would scare me if he was still a factor.

On the Democrat side, it's getting more and more interesting. I predict an anti-Obama backlash after New Hampshire, but Edwards rather than Clinton will be the beneficiary.

Wyoming Caucus: Romney 8, Paul 0

I picked Ron Paul to win the Wyoming GOP caucus today ... and it was a really stupid pick. Romney romped.

Mea culpa -- I didn't do my research. I assumed that the caucus was open to Republican voters in general (by registration or self-identification), like the Iowa caucus. I thought Paul had a chance because normal Wyomingans (Wyomingians? Wyomingites?) supposedly fall more toward the libertarian side of the political spectrum. Turns out that this "caucus" is merely a vote of ward heelers party officials, who could hardly be expected to go for an "anti-party-establishment" candidate like Paul.

Do the Wyoming results mean anything in the big picture? Not really. While neither Iowa nor New Hampshire can be considered snapshots of the American electorate, at least they're snapshots of their own electorates. Wyoming isn't even that. It's just a party-insider log roll, and whatever dissident elements exist in the Wyoming GOP machine apparently decided on a meaningless banzai charge for Duncan Hunter (one delegate) rather than for more credible "anti-establishmentarians" like Paul, Huckabee or McCain.

The Wyoming result does show that Rudy Giuliani has lost not only his mo with real voters (as Iowa demonstrated), but his darling status with the party elite as well. If Giuliani drops out before New Hampshire and throws his support to McCain, he might be able to get a sinecure. I doubt if he can draw the veep slot for it since he's obviously falling to tail-end Charlie anyway, but maybe some token secretaryship with good graft opportunities. Right up his alley.

[N.B. I'm sure some of you are asking yourself if Kn@ppster is going soft on Ron Paul. The answer? No, not really ... but I do hope he can break through the GOP's pro-big-government party machinery, appeal directly to those GOP voters who favor the smaller government their party promises but never delivers, and hasten the demise of the GOP -- which is, at this point, beyond being able to lead, follow or get the hell out of the way.]

Iowa caucus: Hot washup

So, how did I do with my predictions? Not very well. Here are the actual results.

I thought Romney would pull it out and beat Huckabee -- he completely tanked instead.

I didn't think that McCain would do well at all, seeing as how he has been an Iowa scoffer/semi-non-participant for two presidential campaigns in a row. But, with 96% of precincts reporting, he's in a dead heat with Thompson for third. I had McCain picked to be around where Giuliani actually ended up. I thought Thompson would be contesting 3rd/4th place with Ron Paul. Paul's firmly in 5th place at ~10%.

The biggest surprise for me was how poorly Giuliani fared. A lot of GOP pundits are going to be telling you "don't stick a fork in him ... he's not done." They're wrong. He is done.

Giuliani's plan was to lie low in Iowa and New Hampshire, coasting to third or fourth place finishes but showing a firm base of support -- 10-15%; then open up the can of whipass in Florida. He outsmarted himself: Florida might have waited around for him if he had remained in the top tier, but he's in Duncan Hunter low-single-digit territory now, and it's tough to come back from that when you were the alleged frontrunner. His Iowa outcome kills his already shaky New Hampshire third place prospects, and by January 29th the word in Florida is going to be "Rudy who?"

Florida is full of voters who, being older themselves, are unlikely to hold age against a candidate they otherwise respect. The big beneficiary of Giuliani's early breakdown will be John Mccain.

Speaking of which, I first (almost as a joke, but still) predicted that McCain would secure the GOP presidential nomination (and likely the presidency itself) on May 29th, 2007, when his campaign was at its lowest point, and have been seriously predicting that since at least as long ago as October. It's nice to see the pundits catching up with me the last week or so.

McCain will probably take 1st or 2nd place in New Hampshire (Romney's not dead yet, but he's lying on the ground twitching and bleeding -- New Hampshire will be his last hurrah). McCain will do well in South Carolina, and he'll friggin' romp in Michigan and Florida. He very well may run the table on Super Duper Tuesday (I had him picked to win several big states that day, but it turns out I was under- rather than over-estimating him). Knock off the brokered convention jabber. I predict that McCain will secure an absolute majority of convention delegates before Memorial Day at the latest, and possibly as early as February. Running mate? Colin Powell. And no, I'm not kidding.

On the Democratic side, I did poorly as well. I pegged Hillary's percentage, but didn't project that percentage putting her in third place, or Obama breaking out 8 points ahead of her. It's too early to call her dead in the water, but Obama and Edwards both get a big boost out of Iowa; she doesn't.

OK, back to the GOP side, because we have to talk about Ron Paul. He didn't do as well as I predicted, but he exceeded his polling numbers. He got 10% ... Bill Clinton polled 3% in the Iowa Democratic Caucus in 1992. No, I'm not saying Paul is going to pull it out and get the GOP nomination, but I think he did well enough to keep his activist base energized. He has a shot at coming in 2nd or 3rd in New Hampshire. After Super Duper Tuesday, he'll almost certainly be clearly out of the running ... for the GOP nomination. So, I'm adjusting the odds of his seeking (and getting) the Libertarian Party's presidential nomination up from 95% to 97%.

Incredibly Stupid Statement of the Day, 06/07/07

Yep, it's Hewitt:

Here is the secret of Campaign 2008: Republicans are sick of being patsies, especially when confronted with the likes of Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi, Hillary and John Murtha, and everyone in the MSM. GOP voters don't want any more deals, any more "grand compromises," any more apologies for winning the past two presidential elections and for believing in victory in war. They are looking for a candidate unafraid to defend the idea of winning in Iraq, confronting the nutters running Iran, or of securing the border. They want a spokesman eager to defend the inherent good of America against European elites, a candidate willing to speak boldly on behalf of marriage, children, and faith. They want another Reagan. Thus far that candidate has been Mitt Romney, with Rudy Giuliani in a very close second.

I carry no brief for the Eternal and Undying Greatness of Ronald Reagan, but get real: Romney and Giuliani are about as far from Reaganesque as it's possible to get. I'm with Al Newberry on Giuliani -- he's Gollum, if Gollum had been penciled in for Jack Nicholson's role in The Departed. And Romney? Joe Isuzu, Massachusetts Mormon Edition.

Ronald Reagan saw the light and withdrew US forces from Lebanon after the 1983 Beirut barracks bombing. He'd never have been stump-stupid enough to get the US into Iraq, and if he had had that kind of brain fart, he'd have brought the troops home within months, if not weeks, of toppling Saddam.

Ronald Reagan's administration worked deals with Iran ("arms for hostages"). Yes, there was also some sabre-rattling, but nothing approaching the level of moronic brinksmanship practiced the last few years by the Busheviks and their Osama-Enablertarian supporters in the GOP.

Immigration? You have got to be shitting me. Reagan proudly and publicly embraced immigration freedom, including the very term that the current crop of little men with big aspirations is running like hell from: Amnesty.

Here's a Ronald Reagan quote on immigration -- hat tip to Patrick Ruffini at Hewitt's own blog for making the find easy:

I've spoken of the shining city all my political life, but I don't know if I ever quite communicated what I saw when I said it. But in my mind it was a tall, proud city built on rocks stronger than oceans, windswept, God-blessed, and teeming with people of all kinds living in harmony and peace; a city with free ports that hummed with commerce and creativity. And if there had to be city walls, the walls had doors and the doors were open to anyone with the will and the heart to get here. That's how I saw it, and see it still.

For Reagan, "the fence" would have been at best a distasteful compromise. It sure as hell wouldn't have been a pander point for use in getting out the Know-Nothing vote.

One reason that Ronald Reagan was able to defend the inherent good of America against European elites was that Reagan didn't bog America down in European-style colonial/imperial/interventionist/adventurist swamp slogs -- said slogs being a defining characteristic of the current administration and, by endorsement, of the "front-runner" Republican campaigns to succeed that administration in office.

Marriage, children and faith? Okay, I'll give up some points there. Giuliani obviously likes marriage -- he's fallen for it damn near as many times as I have. And yes, Romney's faith is centered around marriage ... lots of marriage, even if only in the Celestial Kingdom ever since Wilford Woodruff wussed out to the feds back in 1890.

I did not know Ronald Reagan. Ronald Reagan was not a friend of mine. But I'm not blind ... Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani are no Ronald Reagans.

Incredibly Stupid Statement of the Day, 05/28/07

And the winner of our first presentation of this new award is ... Dr. Clifford Thies, with this howler from a piece comparing Rudy Giuliani to George S. Patton over at Libertarian [sic] Republican.

I get the idea that Rudy sees the War in Iraq as part of the War on Terror, the way the Korean War or the Vietnam War were parts of the Cold War. If this is so, we will win because freedom is productive, and we can sustain an overwhelming military force out of a few percent of our GDP, whereas they're incapable of sustainsing [sic] any kind of economy at all.

Apparently Dr. Thies was absent from history class on the day that it was explained that the US lost Vietnam, that the war in Korea has remained in "temporary ceasefire" and stalemate for more than 50 years now, that China and a number of other countries remain in communist slavery, and that the USSR collapsed in spite of, not because of, US maintenance of "an overwhelming military force" (and exactly in the way and for the reasons predicted by libertarians from the 1950s on, including but not limited to Murray N. Rothbard and L. Neil Smith).

Also of interest -- but not part of the Stupid Statement award, since it came from Giuliani's mouth and not Dr. Thies's pen, since it's just a lie and not a stupid statement, and since Giuliani's propaganda machine is smooth enough that it's not surprising that Dr. Thies wouldn't know why Giuliani doesn't spend much time in his old city any more:

[Giuliani] offered his condolecenses [sic] for the families of the students and alums of the Citadel who have fallen in the War on Terror, and said he knows their hurt having lost so many policemen and firemen on 9-11.

He didn't "lose" those policemen and firemen -- he sacrificed them to his own incompetence and corruption. Giuliani's not fit to kiss the shoes of those who have lost their loved ones to the idiotic policies of people like himself, let alone compare himself to them.

Rudy Giuliani: Unfit For Command

This piece was originally published at Free Market News Network. This version has a slightly different title and includes some minor edits.

Rudy Giuliani's pointed exchange with US Representative Ron Paul at the May 15th Republican presidential debate has been quite the hot topic, and while Giuliani scored some cheap points that night, over time both public and punditry seem to be rightly concluding that Giuliani came out of the exchange looking worse than when he went in.

While it's encouraging that that exchange has contributed to a better understanding (on the part of everyone except, apparently, Giuliani himself) of the implications of US foreign policy, the incident puts the spotlight on a practical, rather than ideological, matter: Giuliani's essential incompetence and obvious unfitness to serve as Commander in Chief of the armed forces of the United States.

The Paul-Giuliani brouhaha clued us in to Giuliani's fundamental unwisdom on issues of foreign policy, military policy, war and terrorism. As "America's Mayor," he's been allowed -- nay, encouraged -- to conceal his poor mastery of those issues for the last six years under a halo of faux moral clarity. Rudy's halo is now showing its tarnish; while the moral high ground is a great place to pitch one's tent, at some point we also expect those who want to run things to demonstrate that they understand what the hell is going on and why.

The President of the United States is both Commander in Chief of the armed forces and the interface between those armed forces and a Congress awaiting information. The President must understand the threats America faces in order to evaluate the readiness of the armed forces to respond to those threats; to pass that information to Congress with applicable budget recommendations; and to sign or veto the appropriations and other legislation applicable to military readiness which Congress places on his desk. And, finally, as Commander in Chief, he must competently dispose the troops at his command to meet those threats. Having proven his unwillingness or inability to grasp the former, Giuliani has likewise proven his incompetence to act on any of the latter.

While the Paul-Giuliani exchange was informative in this respect, it was by no means the first clue. Giuliani's record of executive incompetence in comparable positions goes back at least 14 years, to his campaign and first days as mayor of New York City.

Giuliani's election as mayor -- like his exit from that office -- took place in the shadow of a terror attack on the World Trade Center. Coming into office less than a year after the 1993 WTC bombing, one of Giuliani's obvious priorities was (or at least should have been) to turn the "lessons learned" from that attack into concrete preparedness measures against future such attacks.

How did Giuliani handle his duties?

He located the city's "crisis management center" in the World Trade Center complex ... the site of the first attack and the likely target of future attacks ... Ground Zero. On 9/11, that command post (in WTC 7) had to be abandoned due to fire. Yes, New York City survived the collapse of its government's primary command and control center ... but how many New Yorkers didn't? How many died because Giuliani's crisis managers were busy relocating during a crisis which deserved and demanded their full attention?

It's unclear whether Giuliani simply failed to follow through on another recommendation, or declined to do so due to patronage contract concerns, or allowed himself to be ignored by his underlings in New York's "first responder" services ... an equivalent relationship, for practical purposes, to the relationship between the Commander in Chief and the armed forces. In any case, the recommendation -- that police, fire and other "first responder" units be equipped with compatible radios and use a common communications channel when responding to large-scale emergencies -- was not implemented. As a direct result of this failure, more than 100 firefighters in the north tower of the World Trade Center did not ... could not ... receive the police department's warning to evacuate that tower before it collapsed.

Adaptive preparedness is obviously not one of Giuliani's strengths, even when things don't have to be figured out from scratch. As mayor of New York, he didn't just fail to anticipate the unknowable -- he failed to respond appropriately to the known, and the cost of that failure was an unknown number of human lives -- the lives of men and women under his command, and the lives of the civilians whom those men and women were dedicated to serving and protecting.

Is there any reason -- apart from his claims of moral superiority to the enemy of the moment -- to believe that Rudy Giuliani would prove more competent as Commander in Chief of the US Army, US Navy, US Air Force, US Marine Corps and US Coast Guard than he was as the executive who disposed of the efforts of the NYPD and FDNY?

Another important factor in determining whether or not a candidate is qualified to fulfill the duties of Commander in Chief goes to character rather than to competence. We expect that the Commander in Chief will forge a strong bond of trust and loyalty with the troops he ultimately commands. Even if some of the troops don't find wisdom in the decision to go to war (a decision which, of course, is supposed to be made by Congress), it's important for those troops to believe that the President will keep good faith with them.

Example: For more than 30 years, the US has resolutely sought the return of US military personnel lost in Vietnam. Investigations and expeditions have been mounted to determine whether or not POWs remain alive and in captivity, and to recover the remains of the dead. The American promise to its troops is that "none shall be left behind," and the President of the United States is expected to be the personification of that promise. The troops are assured that if they are wounded in battle, a grateful nation will provide them with the best care available and honor them rather than turn its face from them upon their return. Once again, the President is the face of that promise.

Compare and contrast those promises with Rudy Giuliani's comportment as mayor of New York City after 9/11.

According to Wikipedia, citing the New York Daily News, "[b]y April of 2007 it was reported that Giuliani had been forced to limit his appearances in New York City due to the increasing protests by family members of 9/11 victims, particularly police, fire and other emergency workers."

Why? Some of the reasons are listed above: Giuliani's "troops" learned on 9/11 that their leader had failed them. The aftermath was no prettier.

Once the recovery of valuable property from Ground Zero was complete, Giuliani issued orders to put a rush on remaining cleanup operations, leaving the bodies of many -- including New York City emergency workers -- unrecovered.

While America's soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines accept that their bodies may never be found if they are killed in the line of duty, they believe ... and they need to believe ... that no effort will be spared when it comes to finding them, dead or alive. They assure their families ... and they need to be able to do so ... that whether they return with their shields or on those shields, they will return and that their commanders will see to that.

Rudy Giuliani robbed his "troops" of that kind of assurance. He robbed the families of the fallen of a closure which it was his duty, as the executive, to guarantee. He broke that faith as mayor. Would he keep it as Commander in Chief?

Giuliani's post-9/11 haste also precluded enforcing, authorizing and funding appropriate health and safety measures in the toxin-laced atmosphere of the atmosphere around Ground Zero. Declaring the air in the area "safe" in blatant contradiction to the known facts, he placed the health and lives of his troops (the Ground Zero cleanup crews) at unnecessary risk ... and left his successors to deal with the (literal and figurative) fallout.

In the aftermath of 9/11, Giuliani showed one face -- the face of the superior moralizer who commands support -- to the American public. He showed quite another -- the face of the corrupt power-seeker with no compunctions against sacrificing the lives, welfare and honor of his "troops" to his personal political interests -- to those whom he presumed to "lead."

It is seldom possible to establish a prospective Commander in Chief's good character and high level of competence beyond reasonable doubt; but to accept the application of a candidate whose record reflects equal measures of bad faith and gross incompetence, would be sheer insanity. Rudy Giuliani is unfit for command.