Exactly what it sounds like.
Mitt Romney is starting to look a lot more inevitable again, what with Newt's numbers falling like a brick balloon in Iowa. Prediction: Ron Paul wins Iowa, Romney comes is second, and Newt a distant third. Then look for Gingrich to skip New Hampshire altogether to make his stand in South Carolina. He wins there, but not decisively, Then Mitthead ekes out a win in Florida and goes on to trounce Gingrich in Nevada and Maine. Gingrich's campaign will limp on to Arizona, where he has his best chance for a win. But after a protracted battle, Romney emerges the victor, possibly assisted by a continued Ron Paul presence which draws support from likely Gingrich voters. He will carry on to Super Tuesday, maybe even winning a few, particularly in the South, but by then the writing will be on the wall, and by April Romney will have the nomination locked up. Sometime after the last primary, Utah (a victory lap for the nominee-to-be), in June, Romney will announce a running mate. That person will be an evangelical Christian. My money's on SD Senator John Thune.
Hey, I said "prediction."
Back on our side of reality, the president's approval numbers have risen, to 49% in the most recent poll. Kind of sad to be in a position where a 49% approval rating less than a year before an election is a reason to celebrate, but there you are. The Republicans' recalcitrance in the face of all reason on the payroll tax cut, not to mention the ongoing shenanigans of their presidential candidates, have dealt a serious blow to the GOP's already anemic approval. Strange how a party that claims to speak for the people is so unpopular amongst those self same, you know, people. Bottom line: No one buys their bullshit defense of actually OPPOSING a tax cut, and no one cares which undescended testicle of political thought, Romney or Gingrich, gets the nomination. They're both douchebags anyway, and everyone knows it.
Kim Jong Il is dead. Funny how everyone's acting like it was such a surprise -- didn't we know like two years ago that he was sick? In fact, weren't there reports a while back that he was on is deathbed? Those proved to be false, of course, but the point is that I don't think anyone thought Kim was long for this world. But now he's gone, and his socially-awkward-looking kid has taken over. He's so mysterious that no one is even sure how old he is, either 28 or 29. Supposedly he attended private schools in Europe under false names. Yeah, son of a dictator who claims to be a god, shipped off to boarding school under a fake name: Not exactly a recipe for growing up normal. So it's not surprising that people are alarmed. Still, I cannot shake the feeling that this is the last Kim to rule North Korea. I don't see him ruling for decades, in fact I wouldn't be surprised if the regime lasted five years. The times, they are a-changin', even in North Korea. If Li'l Kim isn't careful, he could go the way of Qaddafi. Meanwhile, I found out today that there is tourism is North Korea! I'm tempted to book a trip just to see the place in person. Also maybe I could get one of those grey jumpsuits.
A poll finds 20% of Democrats unhappy with President Obama. In fairness, it's from the Salt Lake Tribune, so who knows how reliable those numbers are. But I bet they're right, or at least pretty close. I know a lot of Democrats who are frustrated with the president. I'm one of them. I've said so here many times, and often in less than charitable ways. But I think we have good reason. This is a president who seems to have little regard for civil rights, continuing and even expanding Bush policies on treatment of terror suspects. They sure as hell didn't close GITMO. They have taken secrecy to a whole new level. And they have -- in violation of a campaign promise not to do so -- initiated a brutal crackdown on the LEGAL marijuana industry in California. Yet there is no such show of strength when confronting Congressional Republicans, who continue to wring concessions out of the president all the while complaining of what an intractable socialist he is. So, yeah, I think we have a right to be mad.
The war in Iraq is over. Except not really. Yes, the troops are coming home, allowing the president to claim fulfillment of a campaign promise. But 17,000 Americans remain in Iraq, including 5,000 private mercenaries hired by the American government. Our embassy there is the biggest in the world, appropriate to its true function as a viceregal palace. And we'll still have plenty of old-fashioned GIs right across the border in Kuwait. We're not going anywhere.
And anyway there's still a war in Afghanistan, where a lot of those "returning" troops will likely end up. My guess is we'll "surge" there long enough to impose a half-assed semblance of normalcy, then hightail it out. That's both good and bad. Good because we won't be there for the shitstorm that's about to erupt, engulfing Afghanistan and Pakistan and making Iran very, very nervous. If ever there was the chance of a rogue Pakistani nuke getting loose, this would be the time. But even if that doesn't happen, some outside force will have to step in to restore order. Who will it be? The United States? I have a feeling we'll have lost our stomach for intervention at that point. Call it a hunch, but I think we're about to lapse into one of our periodic isolationist phases. Which leads us to the bad: Without US intervention, someone else will step up. And we may not like who that someone is.
George Friedman, author of The Next 100 Years, says the United States' overriding geopolitical goal is to maintain its global dominance by preventing any other power from gaining a regional hegemony in some part of the world. Every war we've fought since WW2 has been with that goal in mind. Yet that might be exactly what happens if the Middle East destabilizes. The question is, who? As I see it, there are four possibilities: Iran, Russia, China, or Turkey. Any one of them expanding their sphere of influence in the region is likely to ruffle American feathers. Wars have started over less.
Meanwhile, Piers Morgan is running ads touting a Christmas Eve special featuring the "biggest music makers of the year," then showing a picture of Donny Osmond. Did I miss something this year?