Obama: Oh, Hey, I Just Realized Beating Islamist Terror Will Take a While
Obama: Oh, Hey, I Just Realized Beating Islamist Terror Will Take a While Then-Senator Obama, March 19, 2008: What more could America's enemies ask for than an endless war where they recruit new followers and try out new tactics on a battlefield so far from their base of operations? That is why my presidency will shift our focus. President Obama, Monday: "This will not be quick. This is a long-term campaign. (ISIS) is opportunistic and it is nimble....This larger battle for hearts and minds is going to be a generational struggle." The guy who mocked his predecessor for getting America into an "endless war" now recognizes that the battle against radical Islam will be a "generational struggle." Allahpundit: This is the sort of thing you say when you're trying to break it to people that victory in the new war won't come soon, and may not come ever. It's the foreign policy equivalent of another of Obama's favorite sayings, the old leftist bromide about being on "the wrong side of history": The enemy's backwardness is plain and our moral superiority is obvious, so ultimate triumph is assured even in the teeth of immediate defeat. All I could think of while watching this was those photos you see online sometimes of Afghanistan or Iran circa 1960, with all the women in blouses and skirts, and photos of the same two countries today, with women in head coverings or even full burqas. Better ideas don't always win. Especially if they're defended by weak leadership. He's thinking of pictures like this one of Tehran university students in 1971... 
At this link, you'll see a 1950s Iranian woman that will quicken a man's pulse — safe for work, just...very different from what we see today. Here's Afghan women in 1970: 
If you believe "the arc of history bends towards justice," it's a relief; God or Fate or Destiny will make sure things turn out okay. But if you believe the arc of history can be a squiggly line, or the door of history swings both ways, you don't have the luxury of being so passive. Other ISIS news: The Islamic State militant group is no longer a terrorist group, but rather has morphed into a 'terrorist army,' the French minister of defence said Monday. President Obama, yesterday: "Ideologies are not defeated with guns, they are defeated by better ideas. We will never be at war with Islam." LaHood vs. Flynn in Illinois's Special Congressional Election It's primary day in Illinois. If you had told me a year ago that a GOP House primary would feature a former Breitbart.com editor, up against the son of an Obama cabinet official, and that most grassroots conservatives would be pretty "meh" about it...I would not have believed you. "Eh, it's just a special House election, the stakes aren't that high," you say? Well, Dede Scozzafava vs. Doug Hoffman was a special House election, too. Is it that after a disappointing 2014 cycle for primary challengers, the Tea Party just doesn't feel like putting that much effort into a primary? Is it that Darin LaHood just doesn't seem like that bad a guy? Is it that he's seen as the "favorite son" candidate? The LaHood name is a familiar one to voters in central Illinois. LaHood's father, Ray, served as the district's Republican congressman from 1995 until 2009, when he was named as Democratic President Barack Obama's transportation secretary — a position he left in 2013. Before his election to Congress, Ray LaHood was chief of staff to his predecessor, Robert Michel, who was House Republican leader. Is Mike Flynn that flawed a candidate for the conservative banner? Politico suggests this race was never that competitive after all: Flynn is facing a steep uphill fight against state Sen. Darin LaHood, who raised $718,000 in the two-and-a-half months before the primary — more than 10 times what Flynn pulled in. LaHood has won endorsements from GOP Gov. Bruce Rauner and six of the state's seven Republican congressmen. And he stands to benefit from his well-known last name — LaHood's father, former GOP Rep. Ray LaHood, represented the district for seven terms before President Barack Obama tapped him in 2009 to be transportation secretary. In a telephone interview, Flynn characterized his chances in the Republican primary on Tuesday as "about a 50-50 proposition right now" — but GOP operatives in Illinois are far less optimistic about his odds. "He doesn't have a chance," said Patrick Brady, a GOP consultant in Chicago and a former chairman of the Illinois Republican Party. "Darin LaHood has exponentially more name I.D., exponentially more money and exponentially more relevant experience," said Doug O'Brien, a Republican consultant in the state who counts Flynn as a friend. If LaHood wins today, you know some lefty site is going to suddenly discover his father's past work in the Obama cabinet and declare, "Obama still plays in Peoria — even among Republicans" or even "Obama defeats Breitbart." Ace of Spades knows Flynn well and has been particularly passionate in his endorsement; but he's also argued that this House primary — this easily ignored, seemingly low-stakes House primary — is a useful measuring stick for just how badly the conservative grassroots wants to change things. As Flynn said, when he told me about his plans to run: We can't just keep electing Democrats in Disguise and then whine that we're not advancing conservative politics. At some point, we have to either make different choices, or admit to ourselves that we actively wish to be ruled by Boehner and Barack. The Times Says 'Never Mind' on That Walker-Moore Immigration Chat Remember that phone call between Scott Walker and the Heritage Foundation's Stephen Moore? Jonathan Martin of the New York Times now reports...eh, never happened, never mind: In the interview on Wednesday in which he had recounted Mr. Walker's assurances that he was "not going nativist," Mr. Moore said their conversation had occurred in "the last three or four weeks." Asked if it had been in person or on the phone, Mr. Moore said: "I chatted with him on the phone." The article detailing Mr. Walker's shifts in his positions, including Mr. Moore's account of his conversation with the governor, was published online early Thursday morning. Mr. Walker's advisers contacted Mr. Moore about his comments in The Times article that afternoon, one of them said the following day. But it was not until Sunday afternoon that Mr. Moore emailed this reporter to say he had "miscommunicated something to you in our interview." "The conversation that Scott Walker had on immigration wasn't with me but one of the principals of our Committee to Unleash Prosperity," Mr. Moore wrote. "In that conversation it became clear that as I said 'he is not going in a nativist position on immigration.' " Greece Is the Word, Is the Word, Is the Word... Heather Conley of CSIS notices that the United States government doesn't really seem to give a hoot about Greece: Some have suggested that the United States is a "helpless bystander" to this modern, Greek tragedy, but in reality, the United States has become an increasingly detached, indifferent and self-absorbed power that has expended enormous blood and treasure over the past century to support European stability but now seems perfectly contented to walk away. America is a European power in the sense that much of its economic, political and military strength is amplified by a strong Europe and reduced by a weakened Europe. America's geopolitical and geo-economic exposure to the impact of events in Greece and Europe today are great — a reality that President Truman and Secretary George Marshall understood so well, but which seems lost on this generation of U.S. leaders. Some of us aren't that indifferent. Some of us see a giant "teachable moment" about the consequences of runaway spending, reckless borrowing and debt, the erosion of the work ethic, public addiction to generous entitlement and spending programs, and a widespread general disregard for economic reality. But the lessons of that "teachable moment" are very inconvenient to this administration and to its media and financial allies. ADDENDA: The good folks at Americans for Prosperity have asked me to speak at their Defending the Dream summit in Columbus, Ohio on August 21, about writing books and the long, sometimes challenging process of taking a book from an idea to the bookstore shelf. Two books done — one available for a penny from some sellers, one still out there, and another co-written one currently on the editor's desk. Oh, no! Sharknado 3 will air on SyFy, July 22, when I and a lot of my NR colleagues will be on the cruise. Ann Coulter is playing the Vice President of the United States. Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban plays the president. For those of you who didn't see the previous Sharknado movies, keep in mind that they're intentionally terrible and ridiculous; easily half the fun is watching them while keeping an eye on Twitter, where everyone in the world mocks how terrible they are. The other half of the fun is the cute inside-joke casting — having Robert Hays of Airplane play an airline pilot, Judd Hirsch play a taxi driver, and so on. Oh, and then they get Al Roker and Matt Lauer to kill sharks. 
Speaking of sharks, David Frum on Hillary: No one becomes more accessible, more forthcoming, more candid, more unentitled in office than as a candidate. A candidate who is already the inaccessible, unforthcoming, uncandid, and highly entitled will only become that much more so if elected. The voters have been warned—and will continue to be warned. But will they care? And a good observation from Lisa de Pasquale: Just how out of touch is Clinton? In her defense that she and her ideas aren't old and tired, she quoted the Beatles' song 'Yesterday,' a song that's older than most of the top-tier Republican primary candidates. | 
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