Funny, I never knew what an elephant pile looked like until right this very moment. But dutifully do I have to report it, with my two cents each.
1): New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, who is either seeking to preempt any stupid "knowing what we know now, was Operation Iraqi Freedom a mistake?" questions or infringing upon Senator Graham's gimmick:
Governor Christie criticized President Obama, Vladimir Putin, and the Iranian regime during a speech laying out his vision for U.S. foreign policy on Monday.
“When a threat appears from over the horizon, our country gets ready – not when that threat arrives on our doorstep or when it’s popular,” Christie said in the prepared remarks. “We have never ignored the crises in the world around us.
Actually, Governor, we have - do the 1930s ring a bell? - and every time we've done so, the results have been disastrous.
Throughout history, leaders in both parties have based our foreign policy on these principles - strength, leadership and partnership with the people and nations who share our values.”
....until Bill Clinton, and especially Barack Obama, "anti-war" pied pipers most of the rest of the Republican field is retroactively chasing after. So kudos to the Big Man for resisting that craven urge, and for trying to distract from his heretical off-the-reservation positions ("climate change" comes immediately to mind. Since Christie is a two-term governor, he's on my list, but his fat ass ballasts him to the bottom of it.
2) Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC), evidently because former U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. (and eventual Walker Administration Secretary of State) and national security specialist John Bolton manifested a strong grasp on reality and decided not to bother. Although three-term former New York Governor George Pataki looks like he won't follow suit.
And yes, that I immediately drifted away from John McCain's mini-me should tell you all you need to know about Graham's intelligence-insulting candidacy:
Senator Lindsey Graham said Monday that he will announce his decision about whether to run for president on June 1st in his hometown of Central, South Carolina, but left little doubt about his intentions by saying “I’m running.”
“I’m running because of what you see on television; I’m running because I think the world is falling apart; I’ve been more right than wrong on foreign policy,” he said on CBS This Morning, when asked if he was running because he was unimpressed with the rest of the field (and appearing to dispense with the pretense that he hasn't decided whether to jump in). “It’s not the fault of others, or their lack of this or that that makes me want to run; it’s my ability in my own mind to be a good commander in chief and to make Washington work.”
In other words, he's running as George W. Bush, whose underlying 2000 platform philosophy was virtually identical. That would go over like a fart in church, even if he did have a ghost of a chance. And the "make Washington work" comment should be immediately disqualifying, as that's code language for "sell out to Democrats on every non-national security issue at every opportunity".
And maybe even on national security as well:
Graham was also asked whether he would have gone into Iraq if he had known of the intelligence failures that are widely known now. It’s a question that has tripped up several other 2016 contenders, including Jeb Bush and Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL).
“Going into Iraq, if I’d known … then what I know now, would I have launched a ground invasion? Probably not,” he said, adding that if he knew the “intelligence was faulty,” he would have “reconfigured” his approach to taking on Saddam Hussein, who “needed to go.”
Which could only be carried out via a ground invasion. But leave that aside as I state this warning yet again to all GOP "hopefuls": STOP DIGNIFYING, MUCH LESS ANSWERING, THIS DUMBASS QUESTION. No president EVER has complete information during a national security crisis; thus asking hindsighted questions about past national security crises is a pointless irrelevancy in any substantive sense. The answer to such a question should be to counter with the question the media should be asking, which is whether the candidate being interviewed would err on the side of caution and let national security crises grow and metastasize through that dithering, or would they err on the side of U.S. national security and do what needed to be done? President Bush did the latter based on the best available intelligence (which gibed with that of all our allies), and he made the right call. Would he have ordered the invasion of Iraq "knowing what we know now"? Who knows? And who cares? What matters is strong, decisive leadership and the ability to make quick adjustments as more intel becomes available. The latter of which Dubya didn't display by failing to order the "Surge" several years earlier, but better late than never: when he left office, the war had been won, and Iraq was stable and at peace.
By dignifying the dumbass question, any GOP candidate who actually does reach the White House has opened him/herself up to even more rabid media Monday-morning-quarterbacking than we've seen already, and the high likelihood of a destroyed presidency.
Fortunately for Senator Graham, he doesn't have to worry about that eventuality.
3) Ohio Governor John Kasich....for the hell of it?:
John Kasich is “virtually certain” to jump into the race for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination, sources close to the Ohio governor tell ABC News.
Kasich has said his wife and daughters have given him a green light to run and in recent days Kasich has told his political advisors to begin preparing for a likely campaign. Kasich travels to New Hampshire in early June and recently did a fundraising trip to California. If he makes the final decision to run, he will make the announcement in late June or July.
As a Republican elected twice as governor of the critical battleground state of Ohio, Kasich is a potentially formidable candidate. But he has also angered conservative Republicans with his decision to accept an expansion of the Medicaid program under ObamaCare. He has also supported the Common Core educational standards, something derided by some conservatives as “Obamacore.”
The last 'graph pretty much sums it up. And since Governor Walker is unlikely to choose a RINO version of himself as a running mate....why is Kasich running? Boredom?
But as a two-term governor, he is on the list, at the bottom sitting on Governor Christie's lap.
4) Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, whom I like and respect and isn't a RINO and is a two-term governor and thus on the list, and higher than Governors Christie and Kasich.....
Bobby Jindal announced Monday that he’s forming a presidential exploratory committee for a potential run for the 2016 Republican nomination.
The Louisiana governor, a fierce social conservative who has been active in the early nominating states, will make a decision after the state’s legislative session ends on June 11th.
“For some time now, my wife Supriya and I have been thinking and praying about whether to run for the presidency of our great nation. We’ll make a final decision in June,” Jindal said in a statement sent to reporters.
....but is subterranean in the polls, a lame duck in his own State, and at the rate "hopefuls" are cannonballing into the primary campaign pool, unlikely to make any splash by the time he does take the plunge. Perhaps he's really running for veep? Not much of a shot there, either, since, let's face it, Marco Rubio has that spot pretty much locked up.
President Walker's HHS Secretary? NOW you're getting warm.....
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