With John McCain headed for the nomination on the Republican side of the U.S. presidential race, Politicoreports that the Democrats’ strategy for beating him in November will be to use McCain’s own words against him. “The issue of economics is not something I’ve understood as well as I should,” McCain said late last year. “I’ve got Greenspan’s book,” he quipped. Another comment Democrats believe will hurt him later is saying he “would be fine” with having American troops stationed in Iraq for 100 years.

Meanwhile, the conservative wing of the Republican Party views McCain as a liberal in conservative clothing. His unpopularity has many conservatives toying with the idea of sitting out this election cycle, as Daniel Henninger noted in the Wall Street Journal:

There are murmurs of heading into the political wilderness. Sit this one out. Rather than sell the party’s soul to John McCain, let Hillary have it, or Barack. Go into opposition for four years while the party gets its head together and comes up with an authentic conservative candidate. If this sourness takes hold at the margin, say among gop anti-immigrant voters, it might happen.

As for the Democrats, Super Tuesday indicated the race going to the wire, which may or may not hurt the party. On the one hand, a photo finish gives them less time to coalesce behind one leader in an attempt to take back the White House. On the other hand, the close race between Clinton and Obama is stirring up huge interest in the Democratic base, leading to record turnouts at the polls.

Right now, Obama appears to have the edge. Over the weekend, writesTime, Barack Obama had a “Super Saturday,” winning all three states that were up for grabs.

The Illinois senator also won caucuses in the Virgin Island, completing his best night of the campaign. His winning margins were substantial, ranging from roughly two-thirds of the vote in Washington state and Nebraska to nearly 90 percent in the Virgin Islands. With returns counted from more than one-third of the Louisiana precincts, he was gaining 53 percent of the vote, to 39 percent for the former first lady.

Obama’s campaign, now flooded with cash , is expected to build momentum throughout February, which has the Clinton camp in a state of “panic,” according to the Telegraph: “The Clinton camp is braced for Mr. Obama to win a series of primary elections over the next three weeks, which they fear could hand the Illinois senator unstoppable momentum in the race for the White House.

One striking note about the campaign coverage this weekend is that none of it discusses the actual issues—only the details of campaigning: the number of delegates needed, planned election strategy, nbc’s comments that the Clinton campaign “pimped out” Chelsea and the campaign’s threat to pull out of msnbc debates. No one is discussing what any of these candidates actually think about important issues—notably Barack Obama, whose platform doesn’t appear to be a major factor in his candidacy. Some commentators are concerned about more than just the apparent lack of substance in Obama’s campaign. Last week, Joe Klein made this comment in Time:

“We are the ones we’ve been waiting for,” Barack Obama said in yet another memorable election-night speech on Super-Confusing Tuesday. “We are the change that we seek.” Waiting to hear what Obama has to say—win, lose or tie—has become the most anticipated event of any given primary night. The man’s use of pronouns (never I), of inspirational language and of poetic meter—“WE are the CHANGE that we SEEK”—is unprecedented in recent memory.

Later, Klein wrote, “there was something just a wee bit creepy about the mass messianism.” Kathleen Grier, who voted for Obama, admitted to being “increasingly weirded out” by some of Obama’s supporters. “Barack Obama is not Jesus,” she wrote.

Why Didn’t He Give This Speech Before Quitting?

A few choice excerpts from Mitt Romney’s concession speech on Thursday:

The threat to our culture comes from within.In the 1960s, there were welfare programs that created a culture of poverty in our country. Now, some people think we won that battle when we reformed welfare. But the liberals haven’t given up.At every turn, they tried to substitute government largess for individual responsibility. They fight to strip work requirements from welfare, to put more people on Medicaid, and remove more and more people from having to pay any income tax whatsoever.Dependency is death to initiative, risk-taking and opportunity. Dependency is culture killing. It’s a drug. We’ve got to fight it like the poison it is.The attack on faith and religion is no less relentless. And tolerance for pornography, even celebration of it, and sexual promiscuity, combined with the twisted incentives of government welfare, have led to today’s grim realities: 68 percent of African- American kids born out of wedlock, 45 percent of Hispanic kids, 25 percent of white kids.How much harder it is for these kids to succeed in school and in life. A nation built on the principles of the founding fathers cannot long stand when its children are raised without fathers in the home.The development of a child is enhanced by having a mother and a father. Such a family is the ideal for the future of the child and for the strength of the nation.I wonder how it is that unelected judges, like some in my state of Massachusetts, are so unaware of this reality, so oblivious to the millennia of recorded history.

Britain’s War Against Law

“Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, had better hope shariah law never takes hold in Britain,” writes Lorne Gunter in the National Post, “otherwise, as the leader of an infidel faith, he’ll be among the first to be flayed alive in Ayatollah Khomeini Public Assemblage Area (formerly Trafalgar Square).”

Speaking at a conference at the Royal Courts of Justice and then during a radio interview last week, Dr. Williams, the increasingly impotent leader of the Anglican Church, said that it now “seems inevitable” that elements of Islamic law would eventually be incorporated into British law.

Especially astonishing, says Gunter, was the venue at which the archbishop chose to declare his animosity for British law. Dr. Williams was asked by the Royal Courts to bring a religious perspective to a debate on civil and religious law in England. Instead, he chose as his topic the “explanation of the inevitability of shariah law.”

Melanie Phillips attended the Williams lecture and shared her thoughts on her blog at the Spectator, which you can read here and here. The implications of the archbishop’s assault on law and British national sovereignty are staggering, argues Phillips:

One law for all is the very basis of legal and social justice and is the glue that binds a society together. Law is the expression of a society’s cultural identity. If there is no one law, there is no one national identity and therefore no society but instead a set of warring fiefdoms with their own separate jurisdictions. To enable people to chop and choose between two jurisdictions would destroy the unitary nature of British society and fragment the country.

The archbishop’s remarks were indeed an assault on British law and British national sovereignty. What few understand, though, is that the archbishop’s assault on law in Britain is merely a single theater in a broader war being waged in the West against law and morality. You can read about this war against law in No Freedom Without Law.

Inevitable “Honor” Killings?

Hot on the heals of the archbishop of Canterbury’s comments, today’s Independentreports that 17,000 women are victims of “honor” related violence in the UK every year. Most examples in the article refer to the pre-arranged and often forced marriages involving Britain’s Muslim and Sikh community.

According to the article, Muslim women in the UK are being victimized by forced marriages, kidnappings, sexual assaults, beatings and even murder by relatives intent on upholding “honor.”

The influx of immigrants to Britain is causing a wide range of problems, as we have previously reported. To read about how this problem was actually prophesied in your Bible, click here.

May Day! May Day!

President Bush’s $167 billion economic “stimulus” package made it through Congress on Thursday. Americans should be receiving their tax rebates in May. In a pleasant surprise, according to a survey cited by cnn, only about one fourth of Americans are planning to spend the money.

Nearly half (46 percent) said they plan to use the rebate to pay off debt and a quarter (28 percent) would save the money, according to the International Council of Shopping Centers and UBS Securities, which jointly commissioned the study of 1,005 households between January 31 and Sunday. …The crushing weight of Americans’ debt load was underscored Thursday when the Federal Reserve reported Americans owed a record $943.5 billion in credit card debt at the end of December.Including loans other than mortgages and home equity lines of credit, Americans are shouldering a record $2.5 trillion in debt.

Kosovo’s Bid for Independence

The Christian Science Monitorreports that preparations for Kosovo’s bid for independence—egged on by Europe—continue to move forward. The new state’s constitution, flag and national emblem will be decided in parliament in coming days. Among the flag designs being considered is “an outline of a map of Kosovo on a blue background, with yellow stars representing the aspiring state’s ambition of eventual membership in the European Union.”

Al Qaeda’s American Recruits

Al Qaeda camps in Pakistan have taken on an influx of recruits from the West, including American citizens, according to thisChristian Science Monitor article. “These recruits would be able to more easily enter and move about the U.S. than foreign operatives,” it warns.

Director of National Intelligence Michael McConnell says, “Al Qaeda is improving the last key aspect of its ability to attack the U.S.: the identification, training, and positioning of operatives for an attack on the homeland.” The article continues,

U.S. security officials and experts outside government have long been concerned that a few Western recruits could give Al Qaeda a flexibility that has eluded it so far. Terrorists with U.S. passports, able to easily melt back into American society, would be difficult for current homeland security measures to detect.Over the years, the group has lost its Afghanistan training camps, and much of its senior leadership, including key operational planners. But Osama bin Laden and his top lieutenants have been able to retreat to the sanctuary of Pakistan’s wild border areas.

Hypocrisy in Its Purest Form

Nineteen years ago, when the late Yitzhak Rabin, Israel’s defense minister at the time, responded to a violent Palestinian uprising by vowing to “break their bones,” the international community ridiculed his response as being over the top, provocative and way too harsh.

In stark contrast, when Egypt’s foreign minister told Gaza residents last week that any person crossing illegally into Egypt would get their legs broken, the world’s response was muted.

The New Arms Race

Russian Foreign Minister Sergai Ivanov warns of new cold war over the planned U.S. missile shield in Eastern Europe. Tensions are already high between Moscow and Washington, but the planned shield will undoubtedly add to EU-Russian tensions. Vladimir Putin is blaming the West for forcing Russia into a “new arms race.” The Financial Times reports:

In a speech just weeks before March 2 presidential elections in which his handpicked successor is expected to sweep to victory, the Russian president launched a blistering attack on the west’s foreign policy. He said Nato and the U.S. had failed to respond to Moscow’s security concerns and had used consultations merely as “diplomatic cover for implementing their own plans.””In effect we are being forced to retaliate,” he said in a speech to Russia’s influential State Council, a gathering of political and business leaders. “Russia has, and always will have, responses to these new challenges,” he said to applause.”Over the next several years, Russia should start the production of new types of weapons systems, which are in no way inferior to what other states have, and in some cases are superior.”

Elsewhere on the Web

Victor Davis Hanson serves up a delicious bit of satire: “A Modest Proposal for Middle East Peace.” The piece highlights the ridiculous double standards the international community applies toward Israel in demanding that it make concessions for peace.

Another piece by Mr. Hanson points out how weird the U.S. election campaign has been in recent months.

The International Herald Tribune reports here about the U.S. economic woes spreading beyond its borders.

The Washington Times has an editorial here about a judge’s decision that prevents the U.S. Navy from using sonar signals in order to protect whales and dolphins.

And Finally …

In an interview with the Associated Press last week, Army Col. Bruce Vargo discussed a few new policies intended to ease frustration and anger among terrorists being detained at Guantanamo. “Make no bones about it, these are very dangerous men,” Vargo said in the interview, referring to a number of violent clashes that have occurred between terrorists and guards. “But at the same time, you have to provide them with some type of out.” Vargo is reaching out to Taliban and al Qaeda terrorists by exposing them to more television and movies.

But isn’t America’s culture one reason why they hate us so much?