Brilliance from Lee over at Right-Thinking:

Here’s one VERY important distinction. Reagan had been formulating his plan for dealing with the Soviets for about 40 years. You can hear it in his radio commentaries for GE, which are available for download on iTunes if you’re interested.

This is an issue he thought and thought and thought about. He didn’t get into office and say, “Okay, what do we do about the economy and the USSR?” He was elected with a solid purpose and plan for dealing with these two issues.

This is the POLAR OPPOSITE of Bush. Bush had no idea what he wanted to do about terrorism, other than basically continue the policies of the Clinton administration. Then, after 9/11, every discredited and debunked national security idea that had been floating around was slapped together and called the Patriot Act. We went from widespread global support for the invasion of Afghanistan into a global pariah for our invasion of Iraq. Bush rolled the dice on Iraq because he was convinced that democracy would magically spring out of the ground.

Comparing Reagan and Bush is apples and oranges. Reagan knew what he wanted to do, he just wanted the opportunity to do it. Bush wanted the power, and 9/11 gave him a reason to grab it.

A hilarious overview:

Like Castro, like Ceausescu, like many other politicians, Mrs. Clinton prefers to be photographed surrounded by schoolchildren, an image that suggests either a kid’s birthday party or a hostage situation, depending on your point of view. I got past the cover photo, with its army of youngsters and Mrs. Clinton’s mandible-cracking smile, to search through the actual text, in hopes of finding some mention of Barbara Feinman who, in addition to other professional accomplishments, wrote the book. A decade ago, when Village was first published, Feinman was much talked about for having gone unmentioned.

Shortly before the book came out, Mrs. Clinton boasted of having “written a 320-page book in longhand over the last six months.” This came as a surprise to her ghostwriter. Feinman had often worked late nights at the White House and even followed Mrs. Clinton on vacation in hope of picking up stray thoughts she could use to bulk up the manuscript, and she had been assured her role as ghost would be generously acknowledged. Yet when Village finally appeared there was no mention of Feinman either on the cover or in the Acknowledgments. News stories appeared detailing Feinman’s role, but White House spokesmen backed the first lady in her contention that the book was her work alone.

It became a minor controversy, stoked not only by Mrs. Clinton’s political adversaries but also by Feinman’s friends in the Washington press corps (she’s a former researcher for Bob Woodward). With Mrs. Clinton’s claims of sole authorship long ago disproved, I picked up this expanded edition of Village to see whether she had expanded it enough to make room for Barbara Feinman. Nope: Mrs. Clinton still believes that while it takes a village to raise a child, it takes nobody worth naming to write her book for her.

We are left, unhappily, with the book itself, turgid and sanctimonious. It remains what its author called it in a speech a few years ago: “At best a mediocre political tract on the virtues of governmental responsibility in the raising of children.” I’m quoting Barbara Feinman, of course, not Mrs. Clinton. Anyway, the episode is worth recalling, and Village is worth keeping at hand, as another instance of the creepy, and often self-defeating, pettiness that marks every phase of the Clintons’ public life.

But … but … she’s a woman!

His review of Huckabee’s book hits everything I dislike about the man.

You know how Scotland’s smoking ban dropped the rate of heart attack? Bullshit

Jonah Goldberg does it right:

What’s troubling about The Man From Hope 2.0 is what he represents. Huckabee represents compassionate conservatism on steroids. A devout social conservative on issues such as abortion, school prayer, homosexuality and evolution, Huckabee is a populist on economics, a fad-follower on the environment and an all-around do-gooder who believes that the biblical obligation to do “good works” extends to using government — and your tax dollars — to bring us closer to the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth.

For example, Huckabee has indicated he would support a nationwide federal ban on public smoking. Why? Because he’s on a health kick, thinks smoking is bad and believes the government should do the right thing.

And therein lies the chief difference between Paul and Huckabee. One is a culturally conservative libertarian. The other is a right-wing progressive.

Whatever the faults of the man and his friends may or may not be, Paul’s dogma generally renders them irrelevant. He is a true ideologue in that his personal preferences are secondary to his philosophical principles. When asked what his position is, he generally responds that his position can be deduced from the text of the Constitution. Of course, that’s not as dispositive as he thinks it is. But you get the point.

As for Huckabee — as with most politicians, alas — his personal preferences matter enormously because ultimately they’re the only thing that can be relied on to constrain him.

In this respect, Huckabee’s philosophy is conventionally liberal, or progressive. What he wants to do with government certainly differs in important respects from what Hillary Clinton would do, but the limits he would place on governmental do-goodery are primarily tactical or practical, not philosophical or constitutional. This isn’t to say he — or Hillary — is a would-be tyrant, but simply to note that the progressive notion of the state as a loving, caring parent is becoming a bipartisan affair.

Amen.