I was flipping around the channels after the SOTU last night and happened to catch Anderson Cooper with John McCain. Of course McCain was still on the attack against Romney, but I think he may have fired a giant hole in his port side.

Let’s go to the transcript.

COOPER: And welcome back. Our political coverage continues; a very big political night; a very big political week to say the least. Ordinarily, Senator John McCain would have been sitting in the audience at tonight’s State of the Union address. But on the eve of this crucial Republican primary in Florida he was watching from Tampa after a day of heavy campaigning. Some pretty rough shots from Mitt Romney including the allegation that he is not really a conservative. Take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)

MCCAIN: Their major concern is the transcendental threat of radical Islamic extremists and how to keep this nation safe. They know that Governor Romney wanted to set a timetable to get out of there when things were really going tough.

Look, he — he ran millions of dollars in negative ads against Governor Huckabee, he has run them against me and they aren’t going to succeed in Florida. And then people are going to be looking at his record as governor; very weak economy, jobs fleeing the state, loss of manufacturing jobs, $730 million in tax increases, and now they’re saddled with the $245 million debt from his government mandated health care system.

So, look — I’m giving my positive vision. There is a lot of people here in the state of Florida that reject this kind of attacks that he has been engaging in. And I’m confident that we are going to do well tomorrow. Though I think it will be close.

Do you notice how he attacks Romney, then says he is not going negative?

COOPER: You said that he wanted to set a timetable. There are a lot of folks who — even those who support you — say that is not the straight talk they’re used to. I know you are referring to –

MCCAIN: It is absolutely straight talk. It is absolutely straight talk. It is –

COOPER: He gave a quote in April. He said –

MCCAIN: It is absolutely straight talk. Yeah. It is absolutely straight talk. He said he wanted to set a timetable. I read it many times I would be glad to read it again.

COOPER: Well, he said — right here it says, “There’s no question that the president and Prime Minister Al-Maliki have to have a series of timetables and milestones that they speak about. But those shouldn’t be for public pronouncement.”

I mean he is not saying –

(Note this for later in the post)

MCCAIN: No, you have to read the rest of the quote.

COOPER: — timetable for withdrawal.

MCCAIN: You have to read the rest of the quote where he says we are not going to tell the enemy when we are going to be gone. That is an important part of that quote. If you’d read it and it is obvious that he was ready for the timetables.

That was the toughest time; that’s when the Democrats declared the war lost. That was when timetables were the buzzwords.

Am I wrong or is McCain reaching on this one? Is McCain insane on his line of attack, or did he get the quote wrong?

Searching through YouTube, I see both McCainiacs and Hucksters cherry picking the quote that was part of an ABC interview last April. Of course they cut off the video immediately at the point where he says timetables. (see note above in the transcript)

When Cooper was reading McCain what Romney said, McCain made the point of saying you had to read the rest of the quote. McCain even went on to say the part about the timetables being private. Is McCain saying he wouldn’t have benchmarks or goals with his military leaders and coalition allies?

Anyways, here’s the clean video from the Romney interview uncut.

Frankly I think Romney sounds pretty good there. He was not sounding like a Democrat calling for public timetables for withdrawal, but rather having strategic goals with the leader of our coalition partner nation in Iraq. I’m sorry, but that is kinda what a Commander in Chief is supposed to do.

I think McCain is aware of the situation on the campaign ground, and now that the race turns to states where it is a Republican;ican contest that can’t be swayed by Democrats and Independents alone, he knows he is in deep deep trouble. His campaign has picked this one quote to make the cornerstone of their case against Romney. It is a weak case, but unfortunately it is the only thing they have to hang their hat on, so they are committed to making it mean something.

Unfortunately, all it is really doing is showing how desperate and nasty Sen. McCain is to his fellow Republicans, and on an issue that the differences are barely noticeable. Too bad he has yet to show the same disdain when his Democratic colleagues in the Senate have said far worse and more surrender monkey stuff, on the floor of the US Senate, or over the airwaves for our troops to see.

I think the Romney video from April speaks for itself, and McCain is straight talking himself right out of credibility.

Sue Jeffers and I will be on FM100.3 KTLK this Friday February 1 from 9 to 11 AM. We’ll be filling in for Dan Conry. Sue and I will be discussing Precinct Caucuses and the importance of fiscal conservatives showing up. We’ll go over some of the process as well as discus the Republican Party Platform and some resolutions to change it.

Tune in Friday 9 to 11 AM on FM100.3 in the Twin Cities area, or listen online. And feel free to call in 651-989-KTLK.

Leo lost his Father this week. He posted a moving Eulogy he gave for his Dad. My best to you Leo, I know what it is like. It was 9 years ago next Monday that I lost my Father.

All I can say that may matter right now is hang in there. As time goes by and emotions subside you will learn a very important thing. Your father is not gone, he lives on in and through you. We often rebel against our fathers. Most of us swear never to be like them in our youth, then refusing to listen to them in our young adult lives. Then, as the reality of life becomes clear to us, we find we did listen and learn.

All those chats and lectures we suffered through as youth end up being worth it in the long run. A lesson learned is never realized until it can be made useful. I did say I never wanted to be like my father when I was young, but now that I too am a man, I’m filled with pride to finally understand what my Father taught me.

“Tellin’ it like I see it” was my Father’s stubborn reply whenever I may have tried to refute his opinion or words. He believed what he believed and always did what he felt was right. In the end you judge a man by how he is remembered. Leo did his namesake and father proud with his words at his burial, but that is not the end. His father gave the world a being in his own likeness. He molded him. He taught him. He did well. Like his Father, Leo is a good man.

Though his smile is gone forever,
and his hand we cannot touch,
still we have so many memories
of the one we love so much.

His memory is our keepsake
with which we will never part.

God has him in his keepings,
we have him in our hearts.

That was the inscription on his funeral handout. Here is my Eulogy.

Good morning, my name is Andy. Most of you know me as the baby. For those of you who don’t know me, I am Richard’s youngest son. My brothers and I would like to share some of our feelings about our Dad. As I matured in life, people started telling me I look a lot like my Father. Other people paid me an even more impressive compliment. People have been saying that I am turning into a 23 year old version of him. Which is the most flattering compliment I have been paid.

If we look around the Church here today, we are seeing some new faces, some recognizable, and some familiar ones. We may not know each other’s names. We may not be sure who everyone is, but my father probably knew them, more than just know them, he was their friend. This was one of his most impressive traits.

My Mom has told me stories about the trips they would take. On these trips, he always had a friend to do things with. If these friends weren’t ones that were suspiciously staying at the same hotel, he just made one. Anywhere in the world he went, he made friends. It was almost like he was planning on his wife getting a little too sassy for him. This way he could still go out and have a good time. Not that this happened all the time. But he always made sure he wouldn’t be alone.

Through out his entire life, he was never really alone. Look around the Church again. One of the people you see, if not you yourself, was always with him. It didn’t matter what he was doing, he always had a friend or relative with him.

So now as we lay his body to rest, and say good bye to: a husband, dad, grandfather, uncle, cousin, boss, and importantly friend, we should not grieve our loss. We have to remember that he is going to pay us back for every minute we spent with him and more. We made it so he was never alone, now it is his turn. Richard Aplikowski will always be with us, looking over our shoulder. In case we feel alone.

Now I wrote that 9 years ago when I was a young pup of 23. I delivered it  looking into the eyes of a crowd of hundreds who knew my Father. My 2 brothers and I had the honor to speak that day. I was the first, and despite my promise not to cry to my borthers, I didn’t make it to the end of my part with out tears coming to my eyes and taking over my voice.  Having just retyped it here, I wouldn’t change hardly a thing (minus a few spelling errors).

And looking back at the 9 years since my Father’s passing, I would like to add that I am so proud to be my Father’s son. Both my Mother and Father did me right. They taught me to always do the right thing in my heart. They taught me to be true to myself. Never a day goes by that I don’t wish my Father was around to see what I have made of myself, or the way I have affected the world around me. Or to tell me how wrong my heart may have been.

Maybe he wouldn’t have agreed with every decision. And sure he would have had his own opinion on some. But at the end of the day, as the sun sets, and I think about what my life would have been like had I not been my father’s son, I can’t imagine. He taught me that at the end of the day, you need to look yourself in the mirror and answer to yourself.

My Father gave everything he could to make the world a better place for me, my family, and everyone around him and even those he did not know. His spirit and good will live on through not only me, but everyone else his big, albeit private, heart touched.

It is the duty and honor for sins and daughters to carry on the spirit of our fathers. It is our responsibility to let their spirit live on both in and through us.

You are a fine man Leo. Right now it may seem impossible, but know your Father can always watch over at you, marveling at the great success his little boy has become, and watch him from up above carry on his own legacy, in his own way, with a bit of input from his Father.

God Bless Leo, and please let me know if there is anything I can do.

Too bad Bush finally got his groove back. Tomorrow we get the Executive Order on earmarks. No more pork crammed bills. (OK, given he is still on NCLB) But no tax increases will be signed.

So far, a few minutes in we can clearly see Bush is finally getting the message.

Update:

It was a fine speech and may be one of the most important ones given what America faces. You can read the whole thing here, via Drudge.

This Is Not An Endorsement

Rudy has a great new ad out regarding those newspaper endorsements.

And in case you haven’t heard, John McCain is now hitting below the belt on Mitt Romney.

I am one who is being forced to abandon my core principles to re-analyze the field. I’m extremely disappointed in everyone’s energy and environment agenda. Rudy and Romney are ok on defense. They are also both “sounding” good on immigration…. (ahem) now! It is coming down to domestic agenda to set them apart or ahead for me. As I said last night, I miss Fred. He was the complete package for me.

Now, I have to pick and choose and hold out hope that the past is history when it comes to the Republican choices.

On the one hand we have a former NY mayor who the liberal media hates but is pretty lax on some core conservative issues, on the other we have a former big government Republican Governor who is now talking about free market solutions by having all sides sit around a table and hash out an agreement ….. wait, that ain’t very free market, and before that he used to say he was going to assemble a team of lawyers to advise him about national defense issues and decisions. OK, that made it even harder trying to think about them.

But there are a couple of absolutes for me when it comes to POTUS on the right. John McCain is a sleezeball. I know, it is harsh fto say that about a war hero, and it is not intended to reflect on his military service. Frankly he is trying to hide behind that most days, and well he’s running to be POTUS, not war hero in Chief.

I don’t like him, and I do not trust him. He and his surrogates are running around calling Romney a flip flopper, and it turns out that one of the things they is attacking Romney is something McCain himself has flopped on too, benchmarks. McCain was for them, before it was popular to be against them. He’s an enemy of the conservative movement. His Senate career is a kin to a red-state Democrat. Good on pork spending and defense, terrible on the size of government. He’s a paygo guy who says he hates pork, but has tried to increase the regulatory burden and squash freedoms and liberties for years by expanding government in liberal agenda areas. He is not to be trusted as a Republican and I don’t think I could even hold my nose and vote for him. J

Huckabee is still a liberal Republican tax and spend nanny state theocrat who drinks the global warming kool aid and blames America first… who also believes the fringe leftist rhetoric that Guitmo must be closed and terrorists need to be brought to America and put into our court system. No Hucking way.

So who does Andy Aplikowski endorse? Bacon is sounding much better every day. I may just have to announce my 2012 AAA 4 Prez Exploratory Committee now.

A few people are questioning whether or not MNGOP Chair Ron Carey hosting an event for Mike Huckabee is a breach of the agreement he made with the State Executive Committee on January 10th. Now I think the Executive Committee went limp wristed personally back then.

RF Flashback:  Back Tracking, Underwhelmingly

Here’s the jist of that agreement as I understand it.

• Not take an ‘active’ role in the Huckabee campaign, thus the bump down to “Honorary”
• Not speak at any Huckabee event
• Not do any fund raising for Huckabee
• Not use any Party time or resources for the campaign
• Not represent Huckabee at any official or public MNGOP events

Thoughts?

A dedicated reader of ResidualForces.com sent an email that Janet Huckabee, Mike Huckabee’s wife, was in town yesterday for an event for home schoolers. There was an email sent out that implied it was an open public event available to any home schoolers.

Dear Home Schooler Friends

You are welcome to join an opportunity to meet the next First Lady of the United States of America!

Please join us in meeting Janet Huckabee, wife of Governor Mike Huckabee, on Sunday, January 27th.

Please forward to other home schoolers friends.

Gary Borgendale
Minnesotans for Huckabee

Other portions of the forwarded email include directions to the event in Ham Lake and pleas to spread the word since it was on short notice, for attendance. I am told the directions take you to Republican Party Chairman Ron Carey’s front door. Ron Carey has endorsed and is the “honorary” Chair of Huckabee’s Minnesota campaign.

The Strib has finally caught on to the scam that is Renewable fuel (aka Ethanol). Its bad for the environment.… who knew?

With a flood of ethanol plants headed toward Minnesota, there’s growing concern about whether there will be enough groundwater to satisfy the booming industry’s thirst.

The issue was brought into focus last year in Granite Falls, where an ethanol plant in its first year of operations depleted the groundwater so much that it had to begin pumping water from the Minnesota River.

It takes between four and five gallons of water to produce a gallon of ethanol at a biofuel plant, and with 17 ethanol plants now operating in the state, six under construction and 10 more proposed or in the planning stages, the threat of more drains on underground water are rising.

Now RF readers will remember I posted about this already.
RF Flashback: Take Your Cob And Shove It: 1700 To 1 - Is Ethanol Worth It?
Politicians are on a populist kick and pushing this crap faster than the subsidy checks can get printed. Of course we all know it is about getting reelected and keeping the approval ratings above 50%. That’s why so many people are losing all respect for Government officials and politicians today.

The science behind Ethanol is junk at best. It cannot replace oil in America. Ethanol is a product that only replaces one of the 1,000s that come from crude oil. But that isn’t stopping politicians like Gov. Pawlenty & Sen. Coleman from pushing for more Ethanol.

It is a damn shame that the 2 leading Republicans in Minnesota are now at the helm of one of the biggest scams ever perpetrated on man, let alone one that may end up leading to another dustbowl era in America. One would hope they would stand for what is right, rather than what is politically expedient.
Remember way back in the early 20th  when we over farmed our land and faced droughts? Me neither, but I did read about those days in History class in school. I also read about how bad it is for the land to farm the same crop over and over. And how bad it is to use pesticides and herbicides because they runoff into lakes and rivers from farms. Basically everything I ever learned about being nice to Mother Nature is at odds with the current political winds.

And on top of the pollution and environmental stress put on the land in the production of the immense amounts of corn to make ethanol, the huge amounts of water and energy that is needed to refine the corn into actual Ethanol is another looming disaster. It takes more energy to produce Ethanol than it actually will produce as an end product.

Coupled together with the growing and harvesting of the corn and the refining it into Ethanol, we literally have to ignore all of the warnings about good stewardship of the Earth and conservation being preached by so many, and all to kill the Oil industry for cheap political points for a few career politicians and corporate farm lobbyists.

Is it really worth it? Is it worth it for Pawlenty and Coleman and their Cob pushing brothers and sisters in Minnesota’s capital and in DC in order to sound hip and popular, if it means potentially destroying our economy, our environment, and our way of life?

It is worth noting that as I understand it, ALL candidates for the Presidency are on board with the green lunacracy. McCain, Romney, Rudy, Huckabee, Paul, Clinton, Obama, and Edwards are all making the case for Ethanol over oil. Sure they vary in their degrees of Lunacracy, but none of them are trying to stop this nonsense before it is too late.

I miss Fred.

Call me crazy but we need to stop this lunacray before it destroys us! 

El Tinklenberg, who said he wasn’t going to run for the 6th before he announced he was going to, is simply recycling what DFler Jim Oberstar (D MN8) is saying on the 35W bridge.

Former Ventura Transportation Commissioner Elwyn Tinklenberg questions whether the recent preliminary findings by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) on the I-35W bridge collapse — a finding that suggested a design flaw likely brought down the bridge — has answered anything.

The NTSB’s asserts that the use of thinner connector plates in the bridge design — half-inch thick plates instead of inch thick — could have been a fatal design flaw.

But Tinklenberg explained that there’s also the issue of metallurgy.

Depending on how steel is tempered or otherwise fashioned, a half-inch steel plate can actually be stronger than an inch thick steel plate, Tinklenberg opined.

Further, NTSB didn’t explain exactly why the bridge fell last summer instead of 20 years ago, or 30 years ago, he added.

“It doesn’t explain 40 years,” Tinklenberg said, adding the issue of bridge maintenance is still open.

Maybe the gussets were made with Transparent aluminum.  Oberstar and Tinklenberg are so hell bent on casting blame in this bridge collapse, that themselves may actually taint the results. Both of them have from day one said that had gas tax increases been passed prior, the bridge wouldn’t have fallen (more or less). What proof do they have?

Does Tinklenberg have the missing design notes that may state the gussets were in fact super special steel? Or is he grasping at straws to make this as political and partisan as possible?

The two of them want a gas tax so badly, they are willing to say and do anything.

Carl Cameron is reporting that Fred Thompson had his eyes on #2 all along.

Back in March of 07 at the CPAC convention in DC several former Fred Thompson Congressional staffers told me Fred Thompson was thinking about a run. Some of his Tennessee cronies had been talking him up too.

I reported first that he was eyeing a White House bid. At the time several insiders told me OFF THE RECORD that it was largely a trial ballon to guage his popularity and float his name as a possible vice presidential nominee. I was sworn to silence.

Those insiders have now lifted the conditions on our conversations. From March to August of 07 through postponed announcement days, staff changes, firings, resignations and general disarray the Thompson camp was stunned by the incredibly positive response and didn’t really know how to manage it. The trial balloon soared mighty high and he found himself being dragged into a race that he was not even sure how to run.

He took third in Iowa and Third in South Carolina, after which his aides openly suggested the #2 slot on the ticket. The circle has been closed, and Fred Dalton Thompson is waiting to see if he gets the call from the eventual nominee.

He has not said who he will endorse. He is friends with John McCain. But if he doesn’t throw his support behind anyone …it makes it easier to be picked by everyone.

Move over Timmy, there’s competition for the VP slot. Yes, I’m hearing rumors of Pawlenty also angling for the #2 slot with the VP search committee, but he did pick a candidate. He’s stayed above the fray as far as the attacks though, so as not to drive a wedge when his pal McCain doesn’t win.

Personally, I don’t know if a (fill in the blank)/Thompson ticket is a winner for me. It depends on who is the filler on the ticket.