Webster's Recommended Blog Posts partially updated

I finally updated that section with some fresh posts this morning, as well as removed an equal number of the old ones. I'll continue to add more once I've had a chance to make a few more rounds. Also, see my AFB post from this morning, Fred Thompson and Balanced Government.

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Fred bows out of race; Endorses no-one

As my fellow AFBers can tell you, there's not a whole lot of love lost between myself and former legislators with no executive experience running for president. Or for that matter, U.S. Supreme Court nominees who have no actual experience as Supreme Court justices on their State's High Court. ie, Harriet Miers. Oh, I make the occasional exception, as with Tancredo, but as I've written before, I would have preferred that Tom Tancredo had served as Governor of his State prior to running for President of the United States. And I hope he does so: runs for Governor and wins, then enters the Presidential race again at some future date.

I just see Fred's dropping out of the race more or less as another Republican legislator out who probably shouldn't have been in the race to begin with.

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Who would be your second choice ... for President?

(Note: The discussion initiated by Mr. Auster's question on supporting a top tier candidate has been moved here.)

Just on a quick roundup of the relatively few blogs that I frequent, I note that all of them express a preference, or a pretty solid number one candidate for the presidency. While none of them, including this blog, seem to have a solid number two...

I'll start the roundup over at the AFB. Fellow AFBer Mike Tams seems to be leaning toward Mitt Romney as his second choice. He would probably prefer someone like Duncan Hunter to Romney, but Romney seems to appeal to Mike very much. I don't think Mike has totally committed himself to Romney as yet, but this seems to be the direction in which he is leaning.

Over at VFR, Lawrence Auster has repeatedly endorsed Tom Tancredo. In this recent VFR entry Auster mentions both Fred and Romney as preferable to Giuliani. But he doesn't tell us which of the two (Fred or Romney) he would prefer.

Meanwhile, VA has said many good things about Ron Paul and Tom Tancredo. These two seem to be VA's top two candidates, but it's still a bit unclear in what order she would put them. I tend to think, from what I read at VA's, that she would place them in the order that I've placed them in the first sentence of this paragraph.

The Maritime Sentry strongly endorses the candidacy of Mike Huckabee. But I don't recall reading there an endorsement of a second choice or preference.

I'm not at all sure about Wise Man's Heart. I don't know whether Hermes has broached this topic or not. But I'll go check it out. (Hat tip to John Savage for reminding me of this post over at WMH, where Hermes expresses his like of Tancredo and Paul)

John Savage at Brave New World Watch is a strong supporter of Tom Tancredo. Don't miss his lengthy roundup of Tancredo related blog posts in his right sidebar. But like the rest of us, John has yet to name a second preference from the list of candidates.

And to complete the roundup, here at Webster's I've endorsed Tancredo on a number of occasions as my first choice. I've never said, however, who my second choice would be.

I don't think I can nail down a second choice just yet. I need to do a lot more research and reflection on the remaining candidates. I think Ron Paul is interesting, but at this point I don't think I could name him a second choice. Giuliani isn't even on my radar as someone I could ever cast a sacred vote for. And Fred doesn't rate much higher with me at this point than Giuliani. I don't think Fred can make up any ground with me either, but we'll see.

Basically I'm left to decide between Romney, Mike Huckabee, and Ron Paul as secondary choices to Tom Tancredo. And like I said, I'm just going to have to commit to doing a lot more research on all three of these candidates.

In any event, I can say this. If Giuliani were to get the Republican nomination (which seems to be the general consensus at this point) I could not vote for the man. I would be forced to vote third party, or to write in a candidate. This is a scenario where someone like Ron Paul might actually get my vote. But if I were forced to write in a candidate, Tancredo not being on the ballot, then I would write in the name Tom Tancredo, and let the chips fall where they may.

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Auster expresses shock that Dobson won't support Fred

I was a little surprised to hear him say it too when I watched the interview. I reported on this earlier today here. Auster has posted the link to the FNC Transcript of the interview in this VFR entry.

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Update on Sean Hannity interview with Dr. James Dobson

(Note: I've posted more on this under the read more section of this post.)

Something Dr. Dobson said in answer to Hannity near the end of the interview struck me...

Dr. Dobson, in Lawrence Auster fashion, said that if Giuliani wins the presidency, the pro-life, pro-family movement is dead. Whereas, under a Hillary presidency it is alive because there will be a strong resistance to Hillary's anti-family policies.

I'll try to put the transcript up later, if I can locate it.

End of initial post.

Regarding Fred Thompson's presidency, as I said, Dobson refused to agree with Hannity. Hannity played a portion of his previous interview with Thompson where he raised the question of Dobson's stated disagreement with the candidacy of Thompson, after which Dobson replied. Thompson's answer to Hannity in the previous interview revealed a deeply held animus toward Dobson. But Dobson would not relent. He was standing on principle.

FNC does have posted a video of the interview for anyone who cares to watch it.

Also, I do want to note that I didn't agree with everything Dr. Dobson was saying. For instance, he asserted that non-support of the FMA (Federal Marriage Amendment) by Thompson, Giuliani, et al., preferring that the States decide the question for themselves, would destroy the institution of marriage in this country. I think Dobson fails to recognize that as many as 17 or 18 (by my last count, which has been a while now) individual States have already crafted their own Marriage amendments protecting the basic traditional concept of marriage as between one man and one woman. So, to the contrary of what Dobson asserts, I believe a stronger protection of the institution of marriage emanates from the States rather than the federal government, which can't even agree to protect our borders, much less pass a Federal Marriage Amendment.

I'll do a search later on State Marriage Amendments which have already passed. But if anyone has any information on this in the interim, please do not hesitate to post it.

Okay, I did a quick search and this is what I came up with. Sorry about the nature of this particular site, but it's the only one I could get to come up for me. I'll keep trying.

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Where do the Candidates Stand?

Here's an informational site that's definately worth your time to visit: On the Issues. I ran across it while doing a search for information on Fred Thompson. Speaking of which, as I've shared with my brothers, Mike and Edmund, off blog, I happened to catch just a few minutes of an interview conducted with Fred on Fox News' "Hannity and Colmes" one night a few weeks ago. Sean Hannity conducted the interview.

Truthfully, I can't recall what about Thompson's responses to Hannity's questions left me with an overall feeling of 'this guy ain't impressing me' (perhaps he was too vague in his answers, or maybe he had some 'left-leaning' ideas that I picked up on; I just don't really recall to be honest.), but that's the feeling I came away with during the short time I half-heartedly listened to the interview.

To be fair, I should make it perfectly clear, if I haven't already, that I wasn't paying real close attention to the interview with Thompson. As I said, I just happened to catch the interview somewhere in the midst of it, and as I recall I was working on something else at that moment and Thompson failed to redirect my full attention away from my other work, and toward the interview.

I also understand that short interviews like that, due to the constraints of time and so forth, make it very difficult to get a clear picture of a candidate's stance on the numerous issues that are generally touched upon within the context of the interview itself, or to get a grasp on the candidate's command of a given subject, or the lack thereof. Not to mention that the interviewer himself is constrained in what questions to ask, how general or specific he may be, and so on and so forth due to the same time constraints.

So in essence what I'm saying is that though I came away from that interview with a general feeling of disappointment in Thompson's performance in a rather friendly atmosphere, given all the hype surrounding his possible candidacy, I also recollect that my attention was a bit distracted away from the interview at the time, which probably accounts for some of disappointedness I was left feeling. That probably doesn't speak very well of me and my ability to focus my undivided attention on something that warrants it, but I'm just being honest here, and I'm willing to take the risk of seeming a little scatter-brained at times. Indeed, I own that I am once in a while.

Notwithstanding that, the site that I provided the link to at the top of the post is indeed, as I said, worth your time to visit. The positions of all the candidates ('big boys' and 'little boys' alike) on all the major issues are provided under generalized headings for each individual candidate. Each candidate has his/her own page devoted to providing a record of their votes on specific issues and pieces of legislation under more generalized headings. A short synopsis is given of the paticular issue or legislation in question, along with the vote of the candidate in question. And a more detailed explanation of the candidate's position is further expounded upon by clicking on one of the links provided under each heading.

Here's a sample randomly chosen from Fred Thompson's page:

Fred Thompson on Abortion

Click here for 6 full quotes on Abortion OR other candidates on Abortion OR background on Abortion.

• Roe v. Wade was bad law and bad science. (Jun 2007)
• Appoint strict constructionist judges. (Jun 2007)
• Has never been pro-choice despite 1994 news reports. (Jun 2007)
• Voted YES on maintaining ban on Military Base Abortions. (Jun 2000)
• Voted YES on banning partial birth abortions. (Oct 1999)
• Voted YES on banning human cloning. (Feb 1998)

Hope y'all get some good use out of the site...

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