I hereby seal and deliver this edict today, Saturday, the 27th of October, in the year of our Lord 2007.

Amid all the pessimism, some are holding on to hope because of what they consider to be the trump card in next year's election - The Hillary Rally Factor.  Of course, we're not talking about Hillary rallying the Democrats to her.  No, this is about rallying the GOP against her.  For sure, few people can elicit the unifying front in the opposition like Mrs. Clinton.  But will it be enough?  Two writers - both conservatives - have recently attempted to answer this question.  Jonah Goldberg contends that a Hillary candidacy will be good for the GOP.

...there's something deeply advantageous about having her as an opponent.  So far, the commentary about the Republican offensive against Hillary has focused mostly on how it reflects poorly on the GOP (those Clinton-hating wing nuts are at it again!).  What's not been fully grasped is how Hillary gives the GOP its best chance at being the party of change.

While he doesn't specifically call out the anti-Hillary sentiment per se, he does point to Hillary's entrenched Washingtonian heritage as a serious vulnerability in the general election.  It falls then on the GOP to take advantage of this weakness.

David Weigel of The American Conservative says that Hillary-hate will not be enough to avoid another Clinton presidency.  He asserts that stories of scandal and corruption surrounding the Clintons have grown stale and that running against her alone will not be a winning formula for them.

In the nearly three years since [2004], Hillary has been the de facto Democratic candidate.  The Right's efforts to attack her have fallen completely, pathetically flat.  Her popularity is low, but not much lower than Bush's was in 2004.  If the linchpin of a 2008 campaign is unifying Republicans in the cause of defeating Hillary, it might be enough to stitch together most of the conservative movement - but not enough to win.

I believe Hillary Clinton will present the GOP with a unique opportunity to keep the White House in 2008 even under these current dismal circumstances for the party.  However, I do not believe - as some conservatives do - that the name "Hillary Clinton" on the ballot will make another GOP term a foregone conclusion - not by any stretch.  What both these men have written rings true to me.  While Hillary definitely carries quite a few negatives into the race, only an effective agenda-driven campaign of substance will transform anti-Hillary sentiments into a non-Hillary president in 2008.

In addition, many of the posts from "the other side" are distortions and exaggerations which, in my opinion, leave people with the wrong perception of reality.  I simply don't have the time to effectively expose and refute the inaccuracies when I and my like-minded contributors are so far outnumbered.  The end result is that this site has become a place where one is more likely to be persuaded to believe that the merits of liberalism outweigh the merits of conservatism than the other way around.  That's something this blogger cannot bear.  Therefore, I have decided to close comments indefinitely.

Before I close, there is something I want to point out.  Many of the commenters, in fact most, seem to be very intelligent and articulate and take justified exception to my posts when I am wrong.  An excellent case in point recently was my lengthy commentary on global warming in which I referenced a discredited graph.  My readers spoke up; I took down the post.  I hope folks will continue to provide such oversight as I do want this website to be as accurate as possible.  Email is a great way to bring to my attention any discrepancies you see in my posts.  I hope you will use it when the need arises.

Drum roll please....

The Nobel "Peace Prize!"

(Won't someone please bring back the sanity?)

Update:  Since many folks will not click on the link and read the story there, I think it is important for me to post some of it here.  First, here are the requirements which must be met by British schools before Gore's film can be shown:

In order for the film to be shown, the Government must first amend their Guidance Notes to Teachers to make clear that 1.  The Film is a political work and promotes only one side of the argument. 2.  If teachers present the Film without making this plain they may be in breach of section 406 of the Education Act 1996 and guilty of political indoctrination. 3.  Nine inaccuracies have to be specifically drawn to the attention of school children.

And here are the nine inconvenient untruths (I previously reflected an error in the original article which claimed eleven inaccuracies - see the explanation here.)

• The film claims that melting snows on Mount Kilimanjaro evidence global warming.  The Government's expert was forced to concede that this is not correct.
• The film suggests that evidence from ice cores proves that rising CO2 causes temperature increases over 650,000 years.  The Court found that the film was misleading: over that period the rises in CO2 lagged behind the temperature rises by 800-2000 years.
• The film uses emotive images of Hurricane Katrina and suggests that this has been caused by global warming.  The Government's expert had to accept that it was "not possible" to attribute one-off events to global warming.
• The film shows the drying up of Lake Chad and claims that this was caused by global warming.  The Government's expert had to accept that this was not the case.
• The film claims that a study showed that polar bears had drowned due to disappearing arctic ice.  It turned out that Mr. Gore had misread the study: in fact four polar bears drowned and this was because of a particularly violent storm.
• The film threatens that global warming could stop the Gulf Stream throwing Europe into an ice age: the Claimant's evidence was that this was a scientific impossibility.
• The film blames global warming for species losses including coral reef bleaching.  The Government could not find any evidence to support this claim.
• The film suggests that sea levels could rise by 7m causing the displacement of millions of people.  In fact the evidence is that sea levels are expected to rise by about 40cm over the next hundred years and that there is no such threat of massive migration.
• The film claims that rising sea levels has caused the evacuation of certain Pacific islands to New Zealand.  The Government are unable to substantiate this and the Court observed that this appears to be a false claim.

So we finally have a legal test of the claims of the global warming alarmists, not just scientific interpretation subject to bias and agenda.  This is the real test.  And the real news is that the claims just don't stand up to legal scrutiny.  Given the enormous cost in technological and human development at stake if the global warming hysteria is allowed to run its full course, this verdict should be front page news...but I bet most of you, especially those who don't listen to talk radio, didn't even know Gore's film was on trial.

If everything remains as it is now, it's easy to see substantial losses in both the Senate and the House next year - and Hillary in the White House - and hard to see anything else.

Adequately articulate, strongly principled and "outside the beltway," he may just be the type of candidate who could fire up the depressed GOP base - especially against a polarizing figure like Hillary.  Don't misunderstand - I am nowhere near ready to predict a Huckabee win in Iowa, much less at the GOP convention in September.  However, I think he is proving that his candidacy has some legs under it.  He shouldn't be counted out off hand just yet.  Remember 2004; at this point in that cycle, one John Kerry didn't appear to have much chance of capturing the Democratic nomination until a surprise result in Iowa vaulted him to the forefront.  We'll have to wait and see if another surprise is in the offing.

If you did subscribe, please include your thoughts on it in the comment thread below.  If you're interested in subscribing but have questions, use the comment thread to ask them.  I'll have more bells and whistles and fun stuff next year, so I'm hoping to improve on the subscription rate.  Let me also add that those of you who sent in larger amounts were critical to the success of the program last year.  I hope I can count on your generosity again in 2008.  Thank you!

If there is a ray of hope in all this, it is simply the fact that we still have 13 months to go before the votes are cast.  Things better change between now and then or we Republicans might find ourselves next November 5th pining for the good ol' days of 2006.

I guess I need to start looking into a place overseas for a nice permanent vacation....just kidding!

• Bush
• Surge

The Associated Press writer decided to use "Washington" instead of "Bush" and "infusion" instead of "surge".  No doubt his choice of words would have been different if the casualty numbers had been higher than the month before.  It may seem like a trifling detail, but the effect isn't.  Readers finish the article without a sense - unless they are politically-minded and able to read between the lines - that it is President George W. Bush's plan to win the peace in Iraq by authorizing a surge of troops that may actually be working.  I read several different accounts of this news as I surfed the web last night.  While you will see the term "surge" used here and there, you'll be hard pressed, in any mainstream media account, to find a reference to President Bush.  But of course, we can't have people reflecting positively on anything Bush does, now can we?

NRO's Pete Hegseth has published a great read on just why the surge is working.  In it, he points to the relative silence of the media recently about Iraq.

As the director of an Iraq and Afghanistan veteran's organization, I follow the headlines from Iraq very closely.  So, it's always news to me when there is little news from Iraq ... at least from the mainstream media. Over the last few weeks, with the exception of the unfortunate Blackwater story, headlines from Iraq have been few and far between.

He goes on to describe how the surge coupled with a change in tactics is really making a difference.  He ends his piece with this choice tidbit...

This is good news - and the kind of news that everyone following the Iraq war debate should know.  But I'm satisfied with silence, because the sounds of silent progress in Iraq will eventually overcome the steady drumbeat of defeat here at home. Unless Congress surrenders first...

Indeed.

By the way, if you look back over the last two or three months - when the surge appeared to be having trouble - it isn't hard to find Bush's name in mainstream media reports.

Update:  Due to a lot of posts in the comment thread, I think I need to make a clarification on the nature of this poll.  This is not a question about whether the United States should split up Iraq.  It is not a question about who has the authority to decide whether Iraq should be split up.  I am simply asking your opinion about whether or not you think splitting Iraq into territories is a good idea.