In the crush of the 2008 presidential election campaign, the MSM made a lot over Obama’s “cool” and “nuance.”  As opposed to McCain’s high stung temperament and “gut” reactions.

Now, with Iran, we can truly see what “cool” and “nuance” are really worth.  Because in the world of power politics where there is evil and real enemies.  Where there are people who will just as soon as kill you as look at you.  Where there are evil people who have the means to kill you; and a thousand times over.  You need the guts of a fighter pilot closing in at 400 knots.  The guts of a fighter who know you have one chance to get it right.  Someone who’s already thought through the complex permutations and can render judgement without hesitation.  Because at 400+ knots, if you hesitate, you’re dead.  You are now in the world of brutal black and white, where you need to make definitive yes and no decisions.  This is real executive decision making.  And, this is no longer the midnight dorm room bull session where you mixed pot, alcohol and trendy discussion on some vogue Marxist theory.

This is the world of Churchill, May 1940.  Dunkirk, France.  330,00 of your forces trapped on the beaches.  What do you do?  Sue for peace?   Become Vichy England?  There are historians that theorize that Hitler pulled his punches at Dunkirk to work out a peace deal.  Or, with little to hope for, evacuate, re-group and hope for better fortunes in battle; hope for eventual victory.  D-day, the 8th Air Force, V-E day with Britain as one of Berlin’s occupiers were, in 1940, dreams that would buy a ticket to a padded cell.

Yet, this is real history.  As Mark Steyn once pointed out, crucial decisions at crucial junctures of history are never clear distinctions between unalloyed good and unalloyed bad.  In many cases, in the maw of the circumstances of that decision, you have no idea that your decision will be the crucial tipping point.

So, what’s it going to be?  Yes or no?  Surrender to the Nazis or fight on?  Pick sides with the “street” that is literally dying in its challenge of the mad mullahs that run Iran or throw you lot with the power establishment–the ruling Mullahs?  The fact is that neither presidential candidate–Ahmadinejad or Mir Hussein Mousavi–is some paragon of Jeffersonian democracy.  Both have had active roles in setting policies that makes Iran the pariah it now is.

Both candidates are just two flavors of dung, take your pick.  Both required approval by the ruling mullahs to even run in the first place.  But, the significance is that the “street” is taking this debate beyond the a presidential election.  Now, the people are asking for accountability from the ruling mullahs.  And, in this respect, Obama’s been handed a gift.  Because there is a clear choice; to come down on the side of an electorate that wants accountability.  To come down on the side of true democracy.

Yet, all we get, after a week of waffling, is Obama steps up to the plate. And, we get a kumbaya response.  Let’s just all get along.  The folks on the street are dying so they don’t have to get along.  Instead of a response of solid and unequivocal support for the demands of accountability, Obama publicly urinates on the sacrifice of those protesters demanding that accountability; demanding the right to a vote equal to anyone else’s.

This is the 3 a.m. phone call; launch missiles or not?  As far as 3 a.m. phone calls go, this is a relatively simple choice.  You blow this choice and the next 3 a.m. phone call won’t be as easy.  Maybe an Israeli nuclear retaliation against an Iranian nuclear attack.  Standing on the side of democracy is generally the best default position you can take because democracies generally don’t make war on democracies.

But, Obama and many of his supporters have had little to do in the world of hard decision making.  In the brutal world of decision making were, you as president, have your options winnowed down to two, yea or nay.  Nuance has other words and synonyms.  Trying to have your cake and eat it.  Dithering.  Waffling.  Bullshitting.  Intellectual Masturbation.  Obama’s out of the bubble of unreality of Chicago machine politics where decisions are made by the bosses and “ratified” by bought elections to maintain the thin veneer of democracy–like Ahmadinejad’s election.  But, whereas Chicago machine politics has just run a city into the ground, here we have a high stakes nuclear game afoot, a game being run by a two-bit machine politician who’s idea of high negotiation is greasing the right palms.

Sins of omission are venial; sins of commission are mortal.  Except the sin of omission that allowed Obama, with a knowing wink from the MSM, to hide the true ideologic identity of his impending presidency during the last campaign.  The omission was done wiht the intent to deceive; both Obama and the MSM knew that.

Change, change, change.  That was not fair warning because every presidental candidate has always projected himself as such an agent.  Seriously, when’s the last time a presidential candidate say “Vote for me because I’m a stick-in-the-mud like the guy I want to replace.”

No, this promise of “change” was purposely kept vague to hide an agenda that only now have become utterly manifest.  An agenda that amounts to transforming America into a EU social-welfare democracy.  To be sure the mask slipped a few times; the “spread the wealth” remark to Joe-the-plumber and Obama’s interview about bankrupting companies wanting to burn coal to generate electricity with “cap and trade.’

But, there was plenty of evidence that Obama was in the pocket of his socialist and Marxist mentors and professors.  There was no way that Obama didn’t know what Bill Ayers true views and background were.  He served as co-chair with Ayers on the Chicago Annenberg Challenge to distribute some 100 million dollars of grant money.  There was evidence all over that Obama was an unreconstructed Marxist from the beginning.  But, like Carter, like Clinton, those embarrassing past fact were papered over by a compliant and fully knowing MSM.  We knew more about a pregnant 17 year-old, who couldn’t even vote, because she happened to be the daughter of a vice-presidential candidate.

Then came January 20th and the most expensive bait-and-switch in world history was unveiled–the economic “stimulus” bill.  This wasn’t creeping socialism; this was a full bore, in your face, coup d’etat.  Jefferson, Madison, take a hike, you’re history.  

So, now, the Democrats are trying to push this bill through before public opinion really trashes its chances of passage.  As I write, three Republicans have broken ranks and the Senate version will probably pass tomorrow.  I predict that the bill that will emerge from conference will merge the differences by authorizing spending for everything in the Senate and House versions; creating a bill that will almost definitely break a trillion dollars.

But, figures, especially one trillion, never lie and liars never figure.  The silver lining is that this bill, if it passes, will expend the good will and credibility, almost entirely, of Obama’s nascent administration.  All within the first month.  Bait-and-switch has a way of pissing people off.  

And, in the end, Obama will have been rolled, not by the GOP, but by his own party.  And, the credibility that will be needed to try to enact the rest of his agenda will no longer be present.

From Power Line, we have the NYT reduced to junk bond status with its latest infusion of cash from Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim Helu; six-year notes at 14 percent interest.  This gives Mr. Slim control of another 18 percent of the company in addition to the 6.9 percent he already controls.  I suspect, if things continue to go south, Slim will be in a position to demand voting shares in the company, now controlled by the Sulzberger family.

And, it would be fitting to see those voting shares finally released outside the Sulzberger family because they simply have been atrocious stewards of New York Times Corp.  

Last summer, The Atlantic had an article about Murdock’s purchase of the Wall Street Journal.  The article describes Murdock, the then new owner, making an appearance to the employees of the Wall Street Journal in their newsroom and exhorting them to “get the scoop.”  

Get the scoop.  Get the news.  Get information that people will want to buy.  Note this has nothing to do with ordination into the Holy Order of Journalism.  You know, the degree you get by going to college for four years to learn to write fast.  You should be going to school to learn history, economic and the whole pantheon of what is Western Civilization.  Instead we have trade schools all dolled up as schools of “Journalism.”  Nor, does this exhortation have anything to do with getting the “narrative” or getting the interpretation.  People aren’t stupid; they are quite capable of receiving information and drawing their own conclusions.  To such people, propaganda is a blatant insult to their intelligence.  You don’t exactly make a profit by insulting your customer’s intelligence.

The fundamental business paradigm the Sulzbergers are missing is that people will pay good money for news; the scoop, information.  The NYT dished out liberal propaganda posing as news.  And, readership plummeted because propaganda is to be given out for free.  The day the NYT starts selling information is the day its balance sheet will start to loft upwards like warming currents of carbon dioxide.

Finally, remember the big controversy over the purchase of domestic port facilities by Dubai?  Yet, here is the newspaper of “record” willingly handing control of itself to a foreign source?

The Market slide continues.  The MSM has successfully hidden a lot of the truth of Obama and his socialist, that is, Democratic Party fellow travelers.  But, the markets don’t lie and the truth is slowly leaking out.  Unfortunately, while a lie will travel half way around the world while the truth is just saddling up.  And, one week till the election is just too short a time for the truth to truly resonate.

What is being discounted?  Foremost is the slow accretion of policies that have diverged from the simple message of Reagan of low taxes and low regulation. 

First, the markets are discounting the fundamental deceit of socialism.  The whole premise of socialism is using the coercive power of government to take from what are deemed less deserving groups and giving what is taken to what are deemed more deserving groups.  What is deemed more or less deserving is entirely left to the whim of the self-made philosopher kings of Obama and his party stalwarts.  

But, in making those distinctions, some how a lot of cash manages to remain in the pockets of those philosopher kings.  Like Franklin Raines recent multi-million dollar condo purchase.  Like Obama’s 1.5 million dollar mansion with some discounting courtesy Rezko and a sweet heart mortgage.  Like Michele’s job promotion and a doubling her salary to $300,000 per annum.  Like the hundreds of thousands of dollars of campaign cash to each of the Democrat congressional leaders from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Or, the special loans to Dodd, Senator from the great state of Countrywide.  This is no different than the Communist Party leaders of the old USSR being whisked to work in their Zil limousines or spending their weekends in their country dachas. 

This is crony capitalism.  Or, for a party hacks like Obama, this is Chicago Machine party graft and favors.  Obama mastered that system and is being richly rewarded.

Restraint in taxing and spending is dictated by maintaining a delicate symbiosis between the host that is the private sector and the parasite that is the government.  It about fleecing your sheep to within an inch of their lives; yet keep your sheep alive to so as to have something to continue to fleece.

There was a very successful economic paradigm established by Reagan that the Democrats managed to destroy by their corruption.  Now they are on the verge of seizing power trying to sell the proposition that the current economic crisis is a failure of free market economics.  Only, the markets are not buying that the what has worked so well for the last thirty years is now suddenly decrepit and will be replace by a socialist economic paradigm that will, in spite of its abysmal record over the last century, all of a sudden perform in a manner that will completely belie its past performance.

The next issue is energy.  This is tightly tied to the conceit of environmentalism and it current bandwagon of global warming.  And, this will be one of the principal vehicles to burden our economy with regulations that will allow  economic micro-management right down to the carbon footprint of the weed whacker in your garage.  It will also create vast opportunities for graft and favors as business, large and small, will need to pay tribute to the cap-and-trade commissars that will stand astride all business and economic aspirations of all of our Joe-the-Plumbers.

Attempt after attempt has been made to come up with a rational energy policy that have been stymied by the very forces that now threaten to control the White House and both houses of Congress.  In fact, if it weren’t political suicide, you’d have European style gas taxes and five, six, seven dollar per gallon gas years ago.  In fact, for many of these same Democrats, the four-dollar per gallon gas of last summer was a dream come true.

All of this mess concerning energy comes down to down the line opposition to domestic offshore drilling; we couldn’t have oil derricks spoiling the view from all of the multi-million Malibu mansions of Barack’s Hollywood donors.  No ANWR, oil shale or nuclear power.  Detroit’s big three auto manufacturers were actually in the process of recovery until this latest energy crunch and four-dollar gas totally upended those plans.  And, even before the mortgage crisis really hit, high priced energy, due to this purposeful inaction, was already starting to drag down our economy.

Third factor that the market is discounting is that the Democratic leadership about to take control is economically ignorant.  As in rank ignorance.  Both Obama and Biden never worked out side of a career that involved spending other people’s money. Obama’s career has been organizing vote fraud through his connections at ACORN.  Or, working with his pal Ayers on the Chicago Annenberg Challenge to distribute $100 million in graft.

Biden graduated from law school in 1969 and was elected to the Senate in 1972; a man who has spent his entire adult life as a Senator.  For the last 36 years, for essentially all his life, Biden has drawn a paycheck from the Senate; his only job. A community organizer with the honorific of “Senator.”

McCain has been in government employ for all of his life–Naval officer, congressman, senator.  But, he has the decency to at least not presume to tell others how to live their lives or earn their livings.  He has the decency, in private economic affairs, to keep his mouth shut and his hands to himself.

And, Palin; probably one of the few politicians on the Washington scene who isn’t a millionaire.  Probably one of the few politicians who’s net worth is comfortably this side of $500,000.  A politician, who with her husband, actually ran a business.

We have a whole Democratic hierarchy who simply has no clue as to what Joe-the-plumbers go through on a day to day basis to juggle business demands, payrolls, rent, taxes, and the like.  Obama’s proposal to grant a $3000 tax credit two years running for every new job created amply demonstrates this vast void of economic understanding. 

From my point of view, as a small businessman, a new employee will cost my business $50,000 to $70,000 per year.  For my practice to hire a nurse will cost about $25 per hour.  That works out to $1000 per week; or $50,000 per year.  Then you add in medical benefits, Social Security, safe-harbor 401K contributions and you’re easily adding another $20,000.  Barack’s proposed $3000 chickens–t check is not going to sway a single business to add a single job.

Or, again the ridicule heaped on Joe-the-Plumber, by Biden, for the temerity to have aspirations in excess of $250,000 again reflects a complete ignorance as to what it takes to run a business.  Even in “small” business, $250,000 is not a lot of money.  Between trucks, tools, inventory, shop facilities, employee wages and warehousing $250,000 gets eaten up very rapidly.  Remember, business expenses have to be paid up front; you don’t maintain inventory on consignment.

Economic knowledge for the likes of Obama and Biden was having supply and demand concepts learned in Econ 101 deconstructed by some Marxist professor.  For much of the claque that seems poised to run the White House and both Houses of Congress, intellectual discourse is the college dorm room bull sessions now continued in the Hamptons over white wine and brie.  Indeed, what passes for profound intellectual insight, is really abject fear over getting knocked off the social A-list for uttering the truth that Adam Smith economics still matters.  That, what Joe-the-Plumber says actually reflects the real truth about basic economic concepts so derided by many an ivory-towered intellectoid professor.

Then, we get into the intrusion of the outside world.  After Russia’s invasion of Georgia this summer, we have two rogue powers–Russia and Iran–that have control of significant portions of known oil production from the Artic Circle to the Straits of Hormuz.  One of those powers is already nuclear.  The other, in the grips of an Islamic death cult, is perhaps only a year away. 

What if Iran detonates a nuclear weapon over an American carrier task force in the Persian Gulf?  What will Obama’s reaction be?  Will he be prepared to mitigate the sudden rise in energy prices?  Will he be willing to acknowledge an act of war as such?  Will he be willing to then act in a manner appropriate to an act of war?  The markets know, just as does the MSM, what the real response will be; except the market are not hiding the answer.

William F. Buckley, Jr. once remarked, to the effect, that he rather be ruled by the first one hundred names out of the Cambridge phone directory that by the Harvard faculty.  In that vein, the markets are saying the same; that they rather be ruled by the likes of Sarah Palin and Joe-the-Plumber than by the Georgetown cocktail circuit.

In the end, the only way out of this crisis is the promotion of economic growth.  You know, the boring mantra a low taxes, low regulation and free trade.  It just hasn’t the sparkle to get you into the Getty digs like Barack last spring. This is one of those situation where the more you do, the worse it gets.  In some respect, you get a perverse pleasure in the prospect that the guilty parties will have the full responsibility of this economic mess thrust upon them.  And, Obama will have the unique opportunity to create a legacy that will double up on Carter and Hoover.

So, goes the line from the Talking Heads. As in Obama’s lifetime. 

It is still mystifying as to why Obama, in the midst of this financial meltdown still fails to close the deal and utterly pull away. There’s no doubt this is a Democratic year. Polls for the House and Senate paint some very scary scenarios for the GOP, including a filibuster proof Democratic majority. Yet, Obama in a number of polls is only barely out of the statistical margin of error.  Was it McCain by staying even that actually won the last debate?

Probably the biggest reason, despite the mighty efforts of the MSM to conceal, is that Obama’s past is finally starting to leak out and a vetting process is only starting to begin. Suddenly, in the last three weeks the underbelly of Obama past is starting to pile up.

The sub-prime crisis is still a big millstone around the GOP’s neck. But, the corruption, facilitated by the Democratic party, is finally beginning to register. One of the biggest players in setting the stage for the sub-prime crisis, ACORN, is also being implicated in systematic voter fraud. This is the same organization the Obama’s campaign funneled $800,000 to for voter registration. There may be a lot of scared folks who want to “throw the bums out.” But their actions are checked by the fact that many are 401K owners who display a good deal of sophistication with regards to things of Wall Street. 

Then, there’s the situation when Obama’s mask really slipped, when we told Joe the plumber he wanted to spread the wealth around.

Responsible vetting would have tossed Obama on the trash heap sometime last February. But, Obama and his MSM enablers managed to try to keep his true bona fides hidden till almost the election. Yet, with the game clock under two minutes, the past starts to leak out. The truth of a very ordinary and very venial Chicago Machine politician starts to come to the fore.

So, where do we stand. First, we are driving with the windows painted over. With the MSM so in the tank for Obama, we frankly have no way of gauging Obama’s and McCain’s relative standings. Even the polls are suspect since many of them have MSM sources for clients. You think that the NYT is going to commission a poll that says that McCain is kicking Obama’s butt?

Then, we have the pundits and the like. They judge the debates as professionals judging professionals. Even the folks at Power Line, whom I respect, are lawyers judging the performance of another lawyer. Mr. Katz of Urgent Agenda judges debate performances with the eye of a show business professional. And, I’d have to agree that Obama puts on a very smooth, professional performance. Show business and particularly law are peopled with self-selecting folks who first cut their teeth on the high school debate team. But, do others really look at this election as scoring points on the debate team for a technical knock out? 

But, as the seamy truth continues to leak out, when does smooth and professional become oily and slick? When does metro-sexual cool become cold and calculating? And, the fine line between smooth and professional and oily and slick became a chasm when Obama confronted Joe the plumber. We found that the emperor really had no clothes when Joe, of bitter America, showed up the One for the BS artist he really is.

Conventional wisdom tells you that the GOP should really get shellacked in this election. But, you have so much of America that’s been systematically dissed by Obama and his fellow travelers. The PUMA’s. Women who may not agree with Palin but are profoundly insulted by her treatment by the MSM. The “bitter” Americans. The Joe the plumbers who have no interest in European class warfare but have plans to be their own bosses. 

You talk to folks around you. You begin to sense a change and a shift. Its not statistics, just a feeling. Its going to be a cliff hanger right to the end. But, you sense McCain is going to pull this win out at the last minute. 

I missed the debate last night–again. I spent the evening going over math homework with my older daughter, reading with my younger daughter and then finished the night reading the fourth book of the Sisters Grimm to both of my daughters. Frankly, it beat watching Obama’s oleaginous delivery of platitudes that, if implemented, will further run our economy into the ground. 

Maybe it’s wishful thinking. And, maybe I’m falling prey to some conspiracy theory. But, I’m beginning to believe that the polls and the debates are just extensions of an MSM in the tank for Obama. Frankly, I wouldn’t put it past the MSM to have slipped the Obama camp some crib notes on the topics for the upcoming debates. He’s too smooth, too prepared. And, from To Kill a Mockingbird, you’ve got the comment that a lawyer never asks a question of the witness unless he know the answer. What answers does lawyer Obama know?

Then the polls. Who do these guys work for? Or, should I say that many of their polls are commissioned by any of a number of MSM outlets and are their results tailored for their clients? Are the polls reporting the news or there to create news; creating or continuing a narrative to create a specific outcome rather than just report on it.

The GOP is going to need to more systematically develop an alternate communication system. Talk radio and the internet are two key components. With all these papers tanking, maybe the GOP can pick a few of them up on the cheap. Said papers, could serve as summer internships budding conservative journalists.

And, the debates. With the possible exception of Ronald Reagan in October 1980, these affairs are at best break even for the GOP. The original Kennedy-Nixon debate turned out to be a campaign dirty trick; some one turned up the heat in the studio to make Nixon look sweaty, old and haggard. And, the GOP is not the party of fast-talking trial lawyers. If these dreadful affairs are going to continue, it time that the GOP insist that their people start moderating too. How about a prominent member of the media that draws 20 million listeners? How mainstream is that? If you’re going to call a tax-subsidized joke like PBS Lehrer mainstream, then Rush Limbaugh more than deserves to moderate.

But, where do we stand in this election? Frankly, only the GOP and Democratic internal polls know. I just know that I have a lot of casual conversations that have people casting doubt our Messiah, Obama. Yeah, I know that’s not statistically valid. But, neither is the MSM’s cooking the books.

Polls have Obama up. And, I’ve even beginning to doubt the polls for their accuracy. After all, many of these polling firms contract out to major MSM outlets. So, you wonder as to whether these polls are commissioned to report news or to create news. Like everything else in the MSM, you no longer have an accurate take on the news. In many respects this election is like driving your car with the windows painted over.

But, with the Dow now below 10,000 you have one accurate poll on Obama’s performance. With real money on the line, the markets will always reflect the current state of the economy with unerring accuracy. 

What the markets detected was a governmental intrusion into the private sector that forced economically untenable mortgage assets into the free market by governmental fiat. This governmental intrusion was nothing but crony capitalism with the Democrats running interference for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. And, the party that caused this mess stands to make large electoral gains with little to check their propensity to further intrude into the private sector.

It’s also interesting to see how international markets have tanked over the recent weeks. It seems that Obama may be Europe’s big rock star, but even Europe won’t bet a plug nickel on the Messiah.

The markets are expecting high taxes, high inflation and increased regulations come November fourth. I doubt we’ll see the Dow much above 9000, if we’re that lucky, for at least the next two years. Then, the Bush tax cuts will expire…

Others made a similar comparison.

That is the comparison to the 1976 election between Ford and Carter. The electorate is sour. In 1976 the there were economic issues, principally inflation. In some respect, the electorate had more justification to be sour, coming off the Watergate scandal.

But, interestingly, it wasn’t that the Democrats were innocent, since many of the shenanigans that Nixon pulled were done by the Democrats as well. Kennedy taped conversations in the Oval Office. Nor, was Kennedy’s election clean; a certain Irish Catholic mayor of Chicago, stole the election for him. Johnson’s rise to power never came from his luster of Mr. Clean. In fact, of the entire crowd of Democratic presidential candidates in 1976, Carter was the only plausible candidate that could actually beat Ford. 

In fact, Ford was the really clean candidate. But, he pardoned Nixon. He did the country a favor, in the long run, by ending Watergate. But, in placing the long term good of the country ahead of his personal ambitions, he cost himself the election. The pardon prevented the criminalization of your opponents acts in office. Yes, Nixon violated laws; such as obstruction of justice. But, the prosecution, had it been allow to proceed, would have hijacked by his enemies for the sole purpose of settling scores with old “tricky Dick” over policy. It could very well have set a precedent of show trials for your political rivals, banana republic style. 

So, along came Carter. Like Obama, his true very leftist roots were masked by a compliant MSM as a Southern-conservative-born-again-Democrat.

What we got was a dangerously naive, but arrogant, mean-spirited man that just about drove the country off the cliff. And, with comfortable majorities in both Houses of Congress for 1977 and 1978, we were launched into the era of double digit inflation. Employment that approached double digits as well. This was the era of “bracket creep.” Remember? The hollow military. The debacle of Desert One. Carter’s “misery” index doubled under his watch. 

And, we got two things that haunt us to today. First, was the overthrow of the Shah; aided and abetted by the blame-America-first crowd that filled the Carter administration. The second was the Community Reinvestment Act. The former gave us the mad mullahs of Iran who are now on the verge of nuclear weapons and a will to use them against Israel. The latter served, with the corrupt lack of oversight by the Democrats, to give us the financial meltdown that may very well lead us into a severe recession, the first since Carter’s administration.

We’ve come a full revolution and now we have Obama, another arrogant and corrupt politician. A man who’s true bona fides are being actively hidden by the MSM. A man who may very well be elected by a financial crisis that had its origins in the Carter era. A man, who when he arrives in the Oval Office, is ready to accept a nuclear Iran as “reparation” for the “evil” of American “imperialism.”

And, unlike Nixon, the GOP’s troubles stem, not from presidential corruption, but Bush’s insistence to stay a course against the existential threat of Islamic imperialism. A staying of that course in the face of adverse opinion polls–aided by just this side of treasonously biased MSM reporting. Knowing that our failure to act now will only result in a bigger and bloodier war to come. A staying of the course based on historical presidents from the 1930’s; had Hitler been stopped at any one of multiple times prior to Chamberlain’s appeasement in 1938 in Munich WW II could have been prevented.

But, the Obama presidency will only be transitional in nature. FDR only inherited the Great Depression after Hoover failed to come to grips with that depression from 1929 to 1932. Obama will have his name associated with this economic downturn, recession or otherwise, because it will contemporaneous with his occupancy of the Oval Office.

Nor can the loyal foot soldier of the Chicago Democratic political machine can be likened to Truman. Truman was a product of the Pendergast machine from Kansas City, but he never personally partook of machine graft. Compare that to Obama’s 1.5 million house, a sweetheart mortgage deal and Michelle’s “promotion” and the doubling of her salary at the University of Chicago to $300,000 per year.  And, long before he rose to the presidency, Truman made himself a respected Senator from Kansas, not Pendergast, by such activities as the “Truman Committee.” And, it was Truman that made the decision to use the atomic bomb. Obama’s no Truman.

So, here we are today. The GOP getting tagged with a war and a financial mess for reasons that are really the GOP’s fault. The electoral loss by the GOP by both Houses of Congress were deservedly due to the GOP’s straying from their small government roots. The war has been portrayed as another Vietnam “quagmire.” The MSM narrative was another America exploiting another “morally superior” non-European, non-Christian culture. Never mind that what we extol as individual liberty, freedom of worship and liberation of women from the status of chattel are completely alien concepts in large swaths of the Muslim world.

Then, we have the financial crisis, all directly related to governmental involvement in the private sector (the Community Redevelopment Act) and then supercharged with the corruption of Fannie and Freddie. The only solace from this crisis is that Obama will have his options and legislative testosterone greatly constrained by the fact that he got his tax hike, all 700 billion, and his buddies at ACORN already spent it.

And, then we have Obama, walking into the presidency by virtue of being the last man standing. Again, like 1976, he’s the only Democratic candidate that can realistically win. His competition was Hill, whose political career was only possible by a name acquired in marriage. And, who is as corrupt as her husband. 

Then, we’ve got Edwards, our ambulance chasing friend from North Carolina. Thanks to the MSM, his love child peccadillo was hidden for something like a year. And, of course there was Senator Dodds from the great state of Countrywide.

Attributed to Mark Twain, profanity provides relief denied even in prayer. But, while in the heat of the moment, ventilating anger feels incredibly good, you generally regret the outburst for having said or done things you wished you hadn’t. A lot of people are going to vote for Obama for “change.” For the feel good opportunity to “stick it” to Washington and “throw out the bums.” But, with Obama in the White House, there’s going to be one heck of a hangover on January 21st.

Obama’s margin of victory, for the Democrat nomination, centers on winning Red State caucuses and using the preponderance of the black vote among Democratic primary voters, in the South, to win those Red States. With the Democratic party grandees to afraid to offend a voting block that consistently votes ninety plus percent Democratic and a compliant MSM, Obama stumbled across the finish line first. Or, more accurately the MSM dragged him across.

Everyone was just supposed to step aside and fade as the anointed one steps up to the throne; just like in Chicago when your the machine endorsed candidate.  Remember all the rancor when Hillary kept the campaign going right out to June. 

Throughout this campaign, Obama has been a Johnny-one-tone. “Inspirirational” but vague pronouncements about “change.” “Change” turns out to be a very perishable product that depended on his getting across the finish line fast and before it spoiled. It depended on coasting on the discontent of an electorate fed up with a GOP that foolishly squandered its capital on big government. And, most recently, it depended on taking this financial meltdown, borne of Democratic Party corruption, and riding it out to November 4th.

As distasteful as it was, the bailout legislation had to be passed. Regardless of the future consequences, and those consequences will haunt us for years to come, McCain had to take this financial meltdown off the table; and fast. His coming off the campaign trail was more than a gimmick. I was a necessary maneuver to force immediate action to give his campaign and that of the GOP time to recover. His presence in Washington DC forced Obama and Biden to react and do the same. Moreover, his presence so spotlighted the problem that the Democrats could no longer allow the problem to fester–until November. And, the public spotlight coming from McCain’s anti-corruption credentials force necessary revisions that prevented this bailout from becoming a ACORN earmark. (I know, there was a lot of pork anyway. But, there were some tax breaks put in the bailout.) 

Now, if played out right, it can show McCain as the leader and man of action who played a role in sorting this problem.  His trip to Washington, seen over the events of the last two weeks can now be seen as a plus; meaningful action to start to settle this financial mess.

Palin played a very important role. Her performance serves to bracket this crisis giving she and McCain time to contrast their anti-corruption credentials with the Obama/Biden status quo that created this mess in the first place. And, an energetic Palin against Biden served to heighten a contrast of reform versus status quo. A contrast of Senate-ese with the clarity of an American untouched by the “sophistication” of the power enclaves of our bi-coastal elites. A contrast that left Biden just looking so yesterday.

But, Palin gave McCain the opening. He’s still got to run the ball. And, he’s got to take the attack to Obama who’s going to continue to try to do as little as possible to allow the MSM, events and the clock carry him to victory. Obama’s the quarterback, who in the last 29 seconds of the game falls on the ball to preserve his team’s two point victory. But, he’s a quarterback who has only the “change” play in his repertoire. A quarterback whose only contribution to the financial meltdown was “give me a call if you need me.” And, truth be known, the last thing he wants is a solution to this crisis, at least until November 4th.

Infill’s book, coming out on January 20, 2009 is creating a conflict of interest since her performance this Thursday will have an impact on an election that will in turn have an impact on her book sales.  But, journalistic ethics has been rendered an oxymoron by this election.  

I remember an article, years back, in the American Heritage, written by a journalist whose job in the immediate post-war Germany was to participate in de-nazification programs.  One of his proudest accomplishments was to establish American style journalism of “objective” reporting with a separate editorial page.  The practice in Germany, at the time, was that a given newspaper was the wholly owned creature of a given political party. 

One wonders, given the state of in-the-tank-for-Obama MSM journalism whether this was such an innovation.  At least, in pre-war Germany, you knew in picking up a given newspaper, exactly what you’re getting.  Maybe that true here now, anyway.  You sure as hell know what you’re getting with the New York Times or CNN…