Iran, Obama and Intellectual Masturbation

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.

The Liar

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.

New York Times; Propaganda, Inc.

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?

Market Wisdom and the Discounting of the Democrats

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.

 

 

 

I Feel My Lifetime Piling Up

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. 

What’s Flying Under the Radar

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.

The Discounting of Obama

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…

The Temper Tantrum Election

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.

 

Running Out the Clock

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.

The Infill Conflict of Interest

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…

 

The Sallie Mae/ACORN Tax Increase

Yesterday’s failure of the bailout in the House doesn’t end the crisis. But, the crisis and the cause, Democratic party corruption, still remain. In the long run, this crisis will redound against the Democrats, but the time is too short for it to have an effect on this election. Yesterday’s vote probably cost McCain the election.

Pelosi’s role in engineering the bailout’s defeat (she didn’t “whip” the vote) was very shortsighted. The Republican caucus knew that Pelosi wasn’t pushing party discipline and loyalty to get a winning vote. Pelosi’s venom in the speech just prior to the vote only served to confirm the fact that she was going to use this crisis to partisan advantage. And, long after the finger pointing, what will be remembered is that the coming recession, and possibly depression, is Pelosi’s and Obama’s.

But, this crisis remains a creature of the Democratic party. It is the creature of the likes of Dodd, Frank, Reid and Pelosi.  The longer the problems remains unsolved the longer it festers. The MSM can hide the problem only so long. Then the corruption underlying the problem will come out.

Obama and the Democrats, with the help of the MSM, are trying to run the clock until November 4th. In the long run, no amount of ACORN slush funds will hide the reality of the damage that corruption emanating from a badly mismanaged Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. 700 billion dollars of corruption will, in some way, wash through our economy. Whatever plans the Democrats had for their triumphant re-entry in January 2009 will be very badly constrained by that fact.

Obama got his wish for a tax increase; a 700 billion tax increase. A 700 billion tax increase courtsey his friends from Sallie Mae and ACORN (you know, he used to work for the latter). The problem is that his friends at ACORN have already spent the money. And, there’s no more money. The slack that Reagan’s economic policies engendered is gone.

There’s no more money for any more of his social programs he’s promised. We’re already in for a recession; at the very least. And, it will be Obama’s, not Bush’s, recession. His options will be constrained by the reality that any move he takes could turn his recession into a depression. This is the knife edge that Obama’s presidental legacy will reside.

Remember, Hoover got tagged with the Great Depression because is was his from 1929 to 1932. This recession (and perhaps depression) will coincide with Obama’s assumption of power in 2009. The economic conditions will squarely be associated with the man who occupies the Oval Office as of January 2009. Even now, Bush is a faded memory.

Yes, Obama, to his own detriment can listen to his loony-left supporters and proceed with all sorts of taxing and spending–above and beyond the 700 billion tax and spend by his friends at Fannie Mae and ACORN. And, the Democratic party will come to a sudden halt in November 2010. I think that even Pelosi isn’t that crazy. 

Yes, Obama can toe the line with the fringe global warming crowd. But, very soon, he’s going to start hearing about the high price of home heating oil from the Blue State Northeast. That’s above and beyond four dollar gasoline. And, California actually has offshore oil that can come on line in under a year. Obama better start really leaning on the California Congressional delegation.

And, despite the venom Pelosi directed at Bush yesterday, Obama better start, right now, making real nice with Bush. Because Obama is going to need a really big favor from Bush–bombing Iran before January 20th.

But, McCain still has a very important job to do. That is to continue to help the GOP maintain strength in both houses of Congress. Win or lose, he is the head of the GOP. He has a responsibility, in the next thirty days to campaign as hard as possible to keep this election close because, for the sake of this country and his party, he needs to maintain a viable opposition. In particular, he needs to deny the Democrats a filibuster-proof Senate.

McCain needs to concentrate on one mantra for the next thirty days: Democrats-corruption-Sallie Mae. Regardless of the questions asked on the remaining three debates; Democrats-corruption-Sallie Mae.

 

Polls, Polls Everywhere and Not a Drop to Drink

The polls have had a very unsettling effect for we McCain partisians. But, face it. The financial meltdown with a Republican in the White House and the MSM totally pushing the Democratic version of events is going to take a toll.

Frankly, it’s a wonder it isn’t worse. And, it isn’t worse because there is a blogosphere and talk radio to counter what was the MSM monopoly on information.

Also, we have to give McCain credit for using his position and prestige to come off the campaign trail and bring the glare public scrutiny on a bail out plan that was being turned into a pork barrel vehicle for even further corruption. This scrutiny has only further heightened the public disgust with this whole sordid affair. So much so that Pelosi, though she has the votes to work without the GOP, needs strong bipartisan cover to pass any bailout plan. This in turn as given the GOP in the House the leverage to re-craft the bailout to more cleanly address the specifics of the financial meltdown with out the pork such as payout to ACORN. That leverage, with his strong anti-pork and anti-ear mark bona fides, comes from McCain’s presence in Washington last week. 

While the MSM narrative is that McCain messed up a done deal, he in fact did. By messing up the deal on the table, he created the opening for the House GOP to step up and significantly alter the bailout. McCain did not receive any immediate benefit. But, the benefit will accure over the next several weeks. Fortunately, there is time before the election for McCain’s crucial role to become manifest to the electorate.

But, McCain’s got to do the following:

First, the deal, as imperfect as it may be, must be complete by this Monday. There has to be a closure so passions can cool; which is probably the real reason for Obama’s rise in the polls. Also, once the deal is complete, McCain’s role can become more evident.

Second, blame must be pinned on the Democrats. The vice-presidential debate will be a great place to do this because of Palin’s credentials as a reformer and corruption fighter. This is no time for “reaching across the aisle.” That’s being done now in cutting the bailout deal in order to prevent plunging this country into a recession or even a depression. But, once the deal is completed, it will be time to make the guilty parties take responsibility. If for no other reason to try to prevent a repeat of this whole mess. And, to demonstrate that the melt down was not a failure of free markets but of corrupt governmental meddling in the free market.

Third, McCain must use this deal to show how he is the anti-corruption fighter. He must use his role in the bailout to show that he saw this coming as participated in legislation, in 2005, to better oversee Sallie Mae and Freddie Mac. And, how this oversight legislation failed on a straight party line vote.

The third presidential debate will be focused on economics. This will be the time to pull the rug out from under Obama by showing the campaign cash Obama collected from Sallie Mae and Freddie Mac. It will be the perfect time to demonstrate the abysmal economic stewardship, on the part of the Democrats, in their role to properly supervise Sallie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Crisis Over; Palin Trashing Resumes

The markets just closed up 400 points yesterday. Its up about 300 points today. Crisis over. Obama is going to have to find a new “crisis” to try to pin on the GOP. So, its back to kicking that little upstart hillbilly from Alaska in the butt (here and here). Oh, Michelle Obama contributed as well. Here’s the contrast of competence with the empty words of Obama.

On one hand we had a financial crisis that could have, like in 1929, triggered a major recession if not depression. But, thanks to the hard work of the Treasury Department and the Fed, this crisis was averted. Were all the judgements correct? Perhaps debatable. Will there be further problems? Probably. But, for the last week we had a lot of individuals making the best of bad alternatives to try to cobble together a workable solution.

But, what occurred at the Treasury and the Fed were consummate professionals putting the resolution of a serious crisis ahead of any personal or partisan animus. I’m sure that there are many guilty parties in this whole mess. Likely,many of these same said parties actually played a role in the resolution of this crisis. And, many of these guilty parties may be prosecuted for acts of malfeasance that precipitated this crisis. But, agendas weren’t the agenda; keeping an economy going was.

This has been the hallmark of Bush’s leadership. Fix on a problem and solve it–without any grandstanding. But, don’t worry. What good work was done, since it was done on Bush’s watch will never see praise in the MSM.

Contrast that to the “change” candidate from the Chicago Democratic machine and his MSM amen chorus (on both sides of the pond). Obama was riding this crisis for the sole purpose of jacking up his poll ratings with non-stop denouncements of the “failure” of our market system and Bush’s oversight (with the implication that McCain will be more of the same). Our European “friends” were gleefully piling on about the “collapse” of America and free markets. Congress, with Pelosi in the lead, said it wasn’t their fault, couldn’t do anything and left town.

We are lucky that this problem didn’t happen with Obama in charge. There, the solution of the crisis would be to use it to further advance Obama’s and his fellow travelers’ agendas. Just like the New Deal which only managed (and did not solve) deprivation to the furtherance of a big government agenda. It was fortunate that this crisis was solved in an Obama, Pelosi and Reid free environment.

MSM; The Dying Beast

Maybe the MSM is in the tank for Obama, but maybe their particularly vindictive zeal to get him elected has more to do with their own survival and sense of relevance. Here’s a sample of some the garbage that passes for news: (WaPo courtsey Power Line) (NYT via Power Line) (Jennifer Rubin; RCP)

It’s no secret that the MSM is being trashed, financinally by all sort of alternate media outlets. Stock prices for NYT and the LA Times continue to plummet. Advertising page sales continue to drop. Talk radio and the internet increasingly replace print and broadcast MSM media.

And, the alternate media continues to take a bite out of the MSM by catching them in their lies and inaccuracies. Now, significant scoops are being brought to the publics attention by the same alternate media. It was the internet that brought Dan Rather down in under twenty four hours over the faked Texas Air National Guard letters. It was Drudge that broke the Monica Lewinski story.

It is the alternate media that is exposing all of Obama’s shortcomings. Shortcomings that in the age of Walter Cronkite would have been buried, totally.

The MSM is having their influence slowly eroded as people come up with new ways to circumvent their once total lock on information. In the late 70’s and early 80’s it was direct mail. Then, talk radio. Finally, the internet.

At the same time, the really big names anointed themselves as the high priests of their cloistered world. We have whole rafts of people believing their special status with their profession certified by degrees and schools of journalism. Whereas, instead of majoring in a true course of study in liberal arts, most of our journalist acolytes majored in a degree that teaches them how to write a story, fast. What they really missed, in studying for their journalism degrees, was the fact that they needed to stow their prejudices and just provide facts. Somehow, the rest of the world is just as full of prejudiced people who have figured out that you go to work to get a job done and not color job performance with political bias.

In a recent article, in The Atlantic, concerning Murdoch’s purchase of the Wall Street Journal, there a remark by Murdoch to the WSJ staffers that their job was to get the scoop. Murdoch got it right. The business is about getting and selling accurate information. Now that people have alternatives for accurate information, publications like the NYT are tanking because people will not pay for propaganda.

But, the MSM’s big egos are getting in the way, so heavily invested their role as the propaganda arm of the Democrat party. A job that goes back to the days of FDR. With each election cycle, their influence wanes. Stopping McCain is now their last hurrah. If McCain wins, the MSM is going to finally have to come out of their cocoon, willing or not, and face the facts that their real job is to provide information or go belly up.

 

MSM Bias, Thy Name is Charlie Gibson

“Is it not enough to know that they are servants of the Enemy?… Flee them! Speak no words to them! They are deadly!”

So is Gildor’s advice to Frodo concerning the Black Riders from Tolkien’s The Fellowship of the Rings. 

And, such is the advice any GOP candidate, especially Palin, should heed when dealing with the MSM. The problem with agreeing to be interviewed with Gibson was that it would not further your candidacy. All you could hope to do, at best, is come out even.

I’ll leave it to someone like William Katz to point out the aspects of staging and showmanship that puts Palin at a disadvantage and the need to create some distance between the performer and the audience. Palin needs, like Reagan, to talk over the heads of the MSM directly to the American electorate. Anything filtered through the MSM will be distorted, badly, to that conservative’s disadvantage. Here’s a comparison of Palin’s questions from Gibson as compared to the softball questions he asked Obama. (see Nancy Kallitechnis on the Hillary Clinton Forum)  Then, here’s Allesandra Stanley’s take from NYT courtesy Urgent Agenda:

Mr. Gibson, who sat back in his chair, impatiently wriggling his foot, had the skeptical, annoyed tone of a university president who agrees to interview the daughter of a trustee but doesn’t believe she merits admission.

Finally, here’s a transcript of what actually went on the air and what would up on the cutting room floor. Here’s one quote that never made it on TV:

But NATO, I think, should include Ukraine, definitely, at this point and I think that we need to — especially with new leadership coming in on January 20, being sworn on, on either ticket, we have got to make sure that we strengthen our allies, our ties with each one of those NATO members.

We have got to make sure that that is the group that can be counted upon to defend one another in a very dangerous world today.

GIBSON: And you think it would be worth it to the United States, Georgia is worth it to the United States to go to war if Russia were to invade.

PALIN: What I think is that smaller democratic countries that are invaded by a larger power is something for us to be vigilant against. We have got to be cognizant of what the consequences are if a larger power is able to take over smaller democratic countries.

And we have got to be vigilant. We have got to show the support, in this case, for Georgia. The support that we can show is economic sanctions perhaps against Russia, if this is what it leads to.

It doesn’t have to lead to war and it doesn’t have to lead, as I said, to a Cold War, but economic sanctions, diplomatic pressure, again, counting on our allies to help us do that in this mission of keeping our eye on Russia and Putin and some of his desire to control and to control much more than smaller democratic countries.

His mission, if it is to control energy supplies, also, coming from and through Russia, that’s a dangerous position for our world to be in, if we were to allow that to happen.

This whole affair, this interview, was, in a genteel way, set up to destroy Palin. The crude attacks on her 17 year-old daughter didn’t work. So, it was now Gibson’s task to politely strangle Palin in a beautiful living room setting. Gibson’s body language, camera angles, facial expressions, tone of voice were all calculated to place Palin in as bad a light as possible.

Oh, it couldn’t be too over the top. ABC and Gibson knew that such treatment would only serve to reinforce the impression of gender bias. And, that would defeat the whole purpose of Gibson’s interview. But, fortunately, the bias leaked through.

Frankly, this no longer the era of the big three networks and the NYT. I can never figure out why conservatives need to prove themselves or seek the approval of the MSM. There’s talk radio, the internet and Fox to provide favorable, or at least unfiltered, channels of communication. Most people have figured out that the MSM merely channels propaganda. That’s why NYT’s stock in tanking. People who need accurate information have learned to sift through a number of sources to get to the truth. It’s almost getting to be like Pravda in the old USSR–you assume the opposite of what the MSM is saying is the truth.

 

Palin Envy

It’s coming out of the mouth of Biden himself.  He’s flat out admitted that Hill would have been a better choice for veep. I guess if you’re buried and flattened by the Palin steamroller, you’ll do anything for publicity. Seriously, he’d so fallen off the media radar in the last week or so that I thought his picture was going to wind up on the side of a milk carton. Now more speculation of dumping Biden from the ticket for Hill or perhaps another woman politician. And, that’s not the first time that little story’s come up. Rush Limbaugh made mention of such rumors even before the GOP convention died down.

What is so funny about this will be the Ahab-like search for the liberal Sarah Palin by the Democrats. This going to be like the search for the liberal Rush Limbaugh that ended in the Air America/Al Franken debacle. In their frustration, the Democrats are calling for the restoration of the “fairness doctrine” to silence Rush.

Maybe the Democrats can have the Palin fairness doctrine. You can’t run a candidate like Palin unless the opposition can find a similarly dynamic woman with an equal number of kids and similar marksmanship bona fides.

The search for the liberal Palin will be in vain of course. Because Palin, unfettered by political correctness, unfettered by the compound mentality, unfettered by the abject fear of being banished from the bi-coastal social A-list, simply lived her life according to her best lights. Such women do not exist in liberal land.

Frankly, the novelty of a woman handling a gun with skill is not news in huge swaths of middle America. Likewise, a woman being active in the PTA, her church, on the local city council, serving as mayor are again, for most of middle America unremarkable. It was the MSM, swooning over these things that magnified them to the tsumni that is now washing away the Obama campaign. I pass over the inherent patronizing in such MSM coverage that many women find insulting. 

It only gets better (or worse) for Barry and Hill. By the time 2012 rolls around, both Barry and Hill are going to be so yesterday in the Democratic rush to find the this liberal Palin. The too desiccated Governor Sebelius won’t make the cut either.

In any event, Biden’s not going to last beyond October because (from Palin Facts):

         “Sarah Palin’s finishing move in the VP debate will be pulling Biden’s

       still beating heart from his chest & taking a bite.”

We are (not) the World

More drivel from foreign commentators, Jonathan Freedland, about how necessary it is to elect a president that the world will love and respect. That president being Obama. Otherwise expect a “harsh” verdict from the rest of the world! Cringe. 

As pointed out by former UN ambassador Bolton, there is a philosophy of “norming” in which US policy, both foreign and increasingly domestic, needs to conform to some international consensus. And, quite frankly, Obama’s their man since he’s going to jump into this norming paradigm with both feet. He’s already made it quite clear that America somehow has to trim its sails in so many areas–economic and military–out of a frank rejection of American Exceptionalism.

I might expect this out of a commentator on the continent itself, rather than from Britain.  But, it seems the Britain of the “thin red line” is long lost in the mists of history. And, the philosophies of such persons as Locke and Smith are no longer welcome in their own land and now must find refuge in the one country that takes the British legacy of the rule of law and the rights of the individual seriously.

America is a country made up of people that rejected the world. It started with our Founding Fathers who turned their resignations as Brits when they signed the Declaration of Independence. Their wisdom as been repeated millions of times over as the huddled masses from around the world came to our shores to become, like Washington, Americans.

And, we are exceptional, because of a winnowing process, that systematically cleaned every society on this earth of its best and brightest. For, only a certain intrepid sort of individual would bet their life and future on a one way steerage ticket to the new world.

We’re here to elect the president of the US. The harsher the world verdict, the more it speaks to McCain’s fitness, over Obama, to serve as president. We’re here to find a leader who will uphold a Constitution and Bill of Rights that trumps every declaration of “human rights” that the UN cares to issue. Want real human rights? Try the first two sentences of the Declaration of Independence. Try the Bill of Rights.

 

Miss Piggy

“You can put lipstick on a pig. It’s still a pig.” (Porcine thoughts; Power Line) It’s getting harder to come up with the defining quote that’ll put Obama into Bartlett’s. I thought it was going to be the bitter comment he made at the Getty digs in San Francisco. 

Mr. “Nuance” Obama isn’t. In fact, he’s just canceled out the seven houses gaffe; and then some. 

What comes out of a person’s mouth will go a long way to truly define that person and reveal his innards. In fact, a long-winded dissertation is not a revealing as a simple phrase in an unguarded moment. Moreover, what is said under pressure is really the measure of the man.

Until now, and for just about all of his political career, Obama’s coasted. In the Chicago machine, there’s no real opposition because the GOP is non-existent in Chicago. As long as you have the machine showering favor on you, you’ll look good. Now, for the first time, Obama is up against real opposition sans help from some goons from the neighborhood local. And, Obama’s not the sure-footed orartor he’s cracked up to be.

Moreover, this is a guy with an Ivy League education and a Harvard law degree. An attorney, for heaven’s sake. The very profession that parses the meaning of words down to the last scintilla. And, yet he couldn’t see this freight train roaring at him at sixty miles per hour. He’s already in trouble for his perceived “sexist” mistreatment of Hillary. Now, he comes up with a gaffe in which he calls a woman a pig. Maybe Obama’s intention was not to call Palin a pig. But, he should have known that what he meant didn’t matter; it’s what his audience thinks he meant that matters.

This name calling, along with the MSM attacks, are so egregious, that whatever is opposition research turns up in Alaska simply won’t matter. These attacks and cheap shots are having the effect of having the GOP and women voters circling the wagons. Frankly, at this point, opposition research could reveal that Palin is really Godzilla in drag and it won’t matter. Sometimes nuance gives way to the simples lessons, on credibility, of childhood stories like “The Boy Who Cried Wolf.” 

Words have meanings. Meanings have consequences. Wars have been started over words. In the thousands of words a politician may speak over the course of a campaign, you’re going to make mistakes. But, in Obama’s case, these are beginning to pile up. And, under pressure of having, for the first time in his life, formidable opponents such McCain and Palin, we’re beginning to see this candidate starting to run with one wheel in the sand.

Finally, most people understand mistakes. It is just as much a measure of the man to simply to admit to a mistake. Obama already showed this lack of flexibility by continuing to refuse, in the light of the surge’s success, to admit he would have approached the issue of the surge differently with the hindsight of this success. The handling of the “pig” statement merely encapsulates that inflexible, I’m-incapable-of-mistakes mindset.

This entire episode could have instantly gone away if he just apologized. No nuance, just a simple “I’m sorry.”

President (of the World) Obama

Drudge gives a a cross link via ABC News of an international poll done by the BBC that Obama is favored over McCain for president.  Maybe that’s news for the BBC and Reuters, but other than more MSM bias, why would ABC even regard this as news.

But, American Exceptionalism isn’t even on the radar for the folks at ABC.  Such America-is-full-of-rubes reporting is what keeps the top executives at ABC on the social invite A-list out in the Hamptons and Napa Valley. And, these same-said executives would never visit the hovel occupied by Obama’s half-brother without having a luxury hotel to flee to at the end of the day. Yet, the world’s opinion somehow should matter in a country that has been a stick in world’s eye ever since Thomas Jefferson penned the Declaration of Independence. The day the rest of the world really takes life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, as endowments from our Creator, seriously, is the day I’ll deign to listen.

You know, Obama will not be our first black president. That honor already goes to Bill Clinton. But, Obama, if elected, can claim the honor of the first UN General Secretary to occupy the Oval Office.  Or, maybe the first EU president in the White House.

Thank You MSM

McCain’s going to win.  All because of faulty vetting by the MSM of the Democratic party.  As much as the liberal bias of the MSM has been an undying source of frustration to the GOP, the beneficial result has been to weaken the Democrats and strenghten the GOP.  The MSM has been relentless in scrubbing the GOP of its weaker members by enthusically reporting every and any lapse by any conservative.  The net result is a contingent of GOP politicians that are really tough in a very Darwinian sense.

The other result is that the Dems have a lot of deadwood piled up in their ranks.  This is no better demonstrated by this presidential election cycle.  

First, you have “love child” Edwards.  Had McCain been Edwards shoes, the NYT would not have been so diffident in reporting this “minor” picidillo.  It would have been front page news one nanosecond after the union of sperm and ovum.  Frankly, the Dems were fortunate that Edwards didn’t catch fire. Can you imagine the problems for the Dems if that news broke at the convention and he was the nominee?  Those styrofoam pillars would have taken on a whole new meaning.  To paraphrase Dolly Parton:  “you don’t trust no southern backwoods lawyer.”

Then, there’s Hill.  Probably the strongest of the very shallow Dem bench.  But again, what did she have to offer? A lawyer from Arkansas who owes her entire career to a name she acquired through marriage.  Some feminist.

Finally, Barry.  Anyone who knows anything about Democratic machine politics in Chicago will smell another machine politician from ten miles off.  Any participation in Chicago machine politics makes you dirty automatically. All of your associates have skeletons in their closets. Rezko. Ayers. Wright.  I know.  I grew up there. I have relatives who were patronage workers.  

But, while the MSM was “vetting” Sarah Palin by trashing her 17 year-old daughter (Bristol’s not even old enough to vote), the MSM failed for decades to vet its own (face it, they’re a wholly owned Democratic party subsidiary). Leaving the Democratic party unable to field candidates any better than Love Child, Hill and Barry.

Then Barry picks Biden.  What’s Biden done?  Just gets re-elected and re-elected so he built up enough seniority to wind up as chair of the foreign relations committee.  Foreign policy experience; try peter principle.

Finally, in the spirit of enlightened self-interest, the MSM has been the their own worst enemy in promoting their liberal agenda.  Moreover, it has badly tarnished its own brand name.  The MSM is increasingly being discounted as an accurate source of news.  And, by its bias, it has stimulated the rise of alternate sources of news and information.  What was it?  Twenty-four hours before the internet demolished Dan Rather?

There is a reason that stock prices for such propaganda organs such as the NYT are sinking faster than a drowning polar bear in the globally-warmed, ice-free Arctic.  That reason is that people will pay, and pay well, for information.  As in accurate information.  But, people will not pay for propaganda; propaganda is to be handed out for free.