The GOP lacks a standard-bearer for 2012—but the list of contenders will be growing in the fall.

Fred Barnes "Texas governor Rick Perry’s impressive primary victory over Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison is a signal. After the midterm election this November, the field of candidates for the Republican presidential nomination in 2012 (or later) is going to get bigger and possibly better. The list is long..."

The ‘I Am Not George Bush’ Policy

Victor Davis Hanson "The apparent subtext is that the Left in the past really had no problems with renditions, targeted assassinations, Guantanamo, tribunals, Predators, or the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan — only that George Bush presided over them. Take the latter away, and so too vanishes criticism of the former.".... "Is it a brilliant effort by the U.S. military that removed Saddam, defeated an insurrection, helped to wipe out thousands of al-Qaeda terrorists, and birthed a viable consensual government? Or is it still “Bush’s war,” which somehow morphed into Obama’s “greatest achievement” by some mysterious and yet unspoken process?"Emphasis added.

We Have Race on the Brain

Victor Davis Hanson "I remembered also that the Rev. Wright tapes were disturbing not just because of his lunacy, but due to the standing ovations from his congregation who were ecstatic in praise of his racist and anti-American hatred. This week the Internet is alive with a tape of an elderly white Vietnam veteran duking it out with an African-American bully on an Oakland bus — with plenty of commentary and racial epithets from the observers on the bus."

Homeschooling vs. Howard Zinn

Pajamas Media "If my child were in a public school, what would they be learning from? One of the more popular texts is The People’s History of the United States by the late Howard Zinn, a radical Marxist. As noted on Big Hollywood, Zinn not only admitted his text is biased, he said he wanted it to be “part of the social struggle”...."While the untrained homeschool dad is teaching his children about American history from two authors who focus on facts, the trained teacher is busy educating students about how terrible America has been from its creation, because the author of their text “wanted to be a part of history.”"

Getting Out of Medicine

Thomas Sowell, NRO "Some of these young people might prefer becoming a doctor, other things being equal. But the heady schemes of government-controlled medicine, and the ever more bloated bureaucracies that these heady schemes will require, can make it very unlikely that other things will be equal in the medical profession. Paying doctors less and hassling them more may be some people’s idea of “lowering the cost of medical care,” but it is really just refusing to pay the costs — and taking the consequences."

Obama's 'engagement' with Syria met with laughter

Rick Moran , AT "It may make Obama and his liberal base admire themselves for their forbearance and magnanimity in giving Syria so much while getting nothing in return but mocking laughter. But it alarms and depresses our friends in the region that America may be willing to sell them out for little or nothing."

Is Capitalism Evil?

American Thinker "If you think capitalism is at fault for bad management, you know nothing of human nature. To paraphrase Steve Forbes: If government run business was better than privately run business, then Communist Russia would have won the Cold War."

The role for reconciliation

Rep.Kent Conrad D-ND "Reconciliation is not being considered for passing comprehensive health-care reform. Major health-care reform legislation passed the Senate without reconciliation on Christmas Eve. If the House now passes that legislation, it can go immediately to President Obama's desk to be signed into law. What the president and others have suggested is that, after the House acts, reconciliation could then be used to pass a much smaller "fixer" bill to allow for modifications to the comprehensive bill that will have passed under regular order." "Call, write, protest. We Have To Stop The House!" Weasel Zippers

The Left and Its Cheap ‘Racism’ Charge — the Last Refuge of Scoundrels and ‘Media Matters’

Big Journalism "James O’Keefe has to be destroyed in some way. And the best way you can attack an effective conservative in America today is to call him a racist . In the past year the tactic has been used against Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Andrew Breitbart, Bill O’Reilly, Scott Brown, the entire Tea Party movement and, all those who oppose President Obama’s health care scheme (the last charge was leveled by none other than a former President)." To protect this man's reputation, he will be known only by the code name J---y C----r.

Low-tax Texas beats big-government California

Michael Barone "Now it is California's ruinously expensive and increasingly incompetent government that seems dysfunctional, while Texas' approach has generated more creativity and opportunity. So it's not surprising that Texas voters preferred Perry over an opponent who has spent 16 years in Washington. What's surprising is that Democrats in Washington are still trying to impose policies like those that have ravaged California rather than those that have proved so successful in Texas."

Iranian Clocks, Tick Tock, Tick Tock

Michael Ledeen "Some of those pious people who bleed oceans of ink for the sweet “victims of Guantanamo” would be more convincing if they could spare a few harsh words for the monsters who govern Iran, and who seek our death and destruction. "