Kay Bailey Hutchison

   Ever wondered what happened to the guy that was in charge during the Abu Ghraib detainee abuse debacle. Well obviously  he is eyeing Republican Kay Bailey Hutchinson's Senate seat in Texas, and getting help from Dems. The Former three star general Ricardo Sanchez stated in a press release on Monday, that he is considering running for the U.S. Senate in Texas as a democrat, and he even agreed that Democrats may have recruited him to force Republicans to pour money into the race.

        Sanchez a self admitted "progressive", and Fiscal Conservative has stated that he will run as a democrat, not because of the push from the left to make its presence felt in the ever red state of Texas, but because of his upbringing in the border town of the Rio Grande City  were he was born to poor Mexican parents. As reported on Chiron.com Sanchez stated that:   

“The people need to hear the truth. . . . .  They may not be receptive, they may not like it,” Sanchez said. “That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t tell the American people, and the people of Texas, what the truth is. . . .

“You can’t shy away from the difficult issues. You have to lay out the difficulties and the variables that must be changed to control the situation and to restore America’s and Texas’ greatness.”

“I came from a broken home. I attended public schools my entire time. My family was on welfare most of my days growing up here in Texas,” Sanchez said.“So I understand the processes, the challenges, the factors that play on our poor. I understand the despair and also the desire to succeed and to try to get out of poverty."

“And it’s about providing opportunity, and it’s not about blaming the people who are poor for being poor because of broken family structures or whatever,” he added. “It’s about being able to give them that opportunity that will break the cycle of poverty, give them the education they need to be able to open those doors that will make them successful.

“It’s about reinforcing family values that help America across the board and also allows us to reinforce the greatness of the country.”

 The facts are that Texas is getting younger, and the Hispanic population is on the rise. Which Sanchez knows will give him a slight edge over the GOP front runner Texas LT.Governor David Dewhurst.

“Both of those groups have been pretty favorable to Democrats recently,” he said. “Obviously, the caution for them is they don’t know when in the future it’s going to cross over and become a competitive state. Right now, it’s still a Republican state.”

    On paper Sanchez looks strong except his decision making ability, and willingness to bend the rule to fit his needs. In 2004 accounts of torture taking place in Abu Ghraib Prison in Iraq were released. Picture depicting prisoner with leashes around there necks, and being stacked on top of one another nude were seen in the press.   In 2004 Washington Post reported that documents clearly stated what tactics were to be used, but the then General saw the need for very little oversight in implementing the interrogation tactics used on prisoners in Abu Ghraib.                 

    "One of the documents, an Oct. 9 memorandum on "Interrogation Rules of Engagement," which each military intelligence officer at Abu Ghraib was asked to sign, sets out in detail the wide range of pressure tactics approved in September and available before the rules were changed on Oct. 12. They included methods that were close to some of the behavior criticized this March by the Army's own investigator, who said he found evidence of "sadistic, blatant and wanton criminal abuse" at the prison.

The document states that the list of tactics in the memorandum is derived from a Sept. 10, 2003, "Interrogation and Counter-Resistance Policy" approved by Combined Joint Task Force-7, which Sanchez directs. While the document states that "at no time will detainees be treated inhumanely nor maliciously humiliated," it permits the use of yelling, loud music, a reduction of heat in winter and air conditioning in summer, and "stress positions" for as long as 45 minutes every four hours -- all without first gaining the permission of anyone more senior than the "interrogation officer in charge" at Abu Ghraib.

               Why would Americans want another politican to feel the need to make life changing decisions for them without actually hearing what the people wanted, or deceiving them all together. Although Sanchez has pulled himself from the depths of poverty to rise to the heights of becoming a Three Star General. A man still has to be judge by his actions, and Sanchez's actions cost many their careers, respect, and altered lives forever for the worst not only for the Abu Ghraib Prisoners, but the American Soldiers under his command. 

Governor Perry went to 3 separate tea parties yesterday.

Just got off the phone with her office, who confirmed that Washington D.C. Senator Huchison ("R"-D.C.) didn't have the guts to attend a single tea party yesterday.

Vote Rick Perry!!!

I can't believe they pulled this off.  This is major league bad news.  For all intents and purposes, the Democrat Party now controls the Texas House of Representatives.

Conservative Stalwart Tom Craddick has lost his seat to San Antonio Pro Abortion RINO Joe Straus.  The Good News is that we still hold the Governor's Mansion and the State Senate (and a technical, if not practical, 76-74 majority in the state house).  Thus, I nominate the Texas House of Representatives to be part of Flip4.org.

This is a serious wake up call.

One of the first rules of politics is not to mess with what works. Early in the campaign the McCain team was putzing around with press-friendly events on poverty, trade, and global warming. And making up no ground on Obama.

Then the lightbulb went off that maybe they might want to get a few conservative votes. Suddenly, the focus went on Obama's lefty agenda and his tissue thin resume.  Now we are in a horserace.

Why in Wicca's name would one want to disrupt this?

The rumor out there is that Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX) might be Mac's pick.

Here's Larry Kudlow

Sources tell me that the two finalists for Mac’s veep are Tim Pawlenty and Kay Bailey Hutchison. Obviously, with the Hillary women’s revolt on the floor of the DNC and outside, McCain has a great opportunity if he nominates a woman

http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MzM5ZmU0YjJhMTUzNjhhNjIwMjU2ZWM3YmRhY2M1MDA=

I've already said this was one of Mac's "bad picks "

2.  Kay Bailey Hutchison  If we want a pro-choice candidate, a non Texan might have a better shot of trying to end up in the net vote dept. Much of America says "No New Texans"

http://www.thenextright.com/ironman/macs-bad-picks

Evidently the theory herein is that making a woman the running mate will suddenly rope in all the disgruntled female Hillary supporters. There's a simple reason it won't work.

They aren't from Texas.

"Texas" now has an image among moderates and weakly aligned Democrats inseparable from "Bush".  Putting a Texan on the ticket this year allows the Democrats to change the subject from one they are drowning on ---Is Obama qualified?--to one that will drown us---does America want four more years of a Bush-style presidency?

Pro-choice women unsure of voting Obama will automatically equate their poor opinion of Bush with Hutchison,

This is why Hutchison is a worse pick than Ridge or Lieberman . Both could arguably move numbers in a swing state (I believe Lieberman created the 2000 chad fest by juicing Gore's numbers in Broward and PB Counties)   If TX is remotely competitive the election will be called before sundown.

As we've seen in recent years, mastering the art of getting  big numbers in TX doesn't prove much about appealing to voters in the other 49 states.  There simply isn't a blue collar white Catholic bloc in TX and the yuppie female independents are a far smaller piece of the electorate than places like MI and PA.

Besides, Hutchison's abortion record isn't a whole lot different than Ridge's (it is better than Lieberman's) so why won;t the same folks blackballing Ridge go ballistic over her pick?

I recall she is a bit of a squish on immigration as well, so we get Michelle Malkin and co. lobbing rocks at the pick.

A pick that alienates conseratives for sure with a very speculative chance of gaining offsetting moderate votes-----that will remind people of the President they can't wait to see leave office?

Doesn't compute for me 

I am concerned with much of the argument about V.P. picks. It seems sadly reminscent to me of the Miers debacle, where a host of well qualified  jurists had their names floated and then saw the shots come in (too old, too young,  too hard-line, wrong gender etc. ) So we saw the sad spectacle of the Bushies trying to pass off a close friend as a top level jurist--mostly because it appeared Harry Reid sorta didn't much mind her. 

The downside of punching holes in the rationale for Romney and Pawlenty is we might well get some second tier candidate whom the McCain team incorectly thinks is a good pick because they haven't been bashed lately--perhaps because the punditocracy, the party establishment and the blogosphere perceive the candidate as so unviable as to be unworthy of criticism.

We need to "Miers-proof" this process as well as critique the frontrunners. So here are my list of very lame dark horses---the type of picks that will put Mac in a deep hole he can;t dig out of .

Some of these people are great in their field. But they would not be of any use in getting Mac elected.

1. Lindsey Graham. No redeeming social value to this pick . At all.http://rightblog.zubrcom.net/ironman/the-worst-possible-mac-veep-pick

2.  Kay Bailey Hutchison  If we want a pro-choice candidate, a non Texan might have a better shot of trying to end up in the net vote dept. Much of America says "No New Texans"

3.  Haley Barbour A great example of politics being very unfair. One of the best Governors in America, but past life as a lobbyist and an accent you could cut with a fork, well... as I said, not fair, but.

4.Fred Smith of Fed Ex : You do not want to know how hated Fed Ex is amongst the union movement. Lots of working stiffs will covertly stiff Obama in the comfort of the polling place unless we throw a red flag like this at them. 

5. John Engler. Wife on Freddie Mac board. Since I expect them to be seeing Hank Paulson with the tin cup to start Q 4....nope.......   .

6. Jon Huntsman  the Mormon Governor nobody knows. UT is our best state already.

7. Joe Lieberman. One more time. He won't flip CT, but will flip out much of the base.

Let's air the dark horses now and get this out in the open. I do not want another "Miers moment" August 29.