Colecurtis The McCain Monitor

Mr. Rangel’s Many Friends

2008-07-19T09:03:00.001-04:00

For all his angry denial of any wrongdoing, it is commendable that Representative Charles Rangel is calling for an ethics inquiry into his use of Congressional letterhead to trawl for financial support for an academic center, the Charles B. Rangel Center for Public Service at the City College of New York, which is expected to cost tens of millions of dollars.

At the same time, it’s puzzling that Mr. Rangel insists that there is no need for any vetting of another case of his relying on the kindness of well-heeled friends — for years he has leased four rent-stabilized apartments at below market rates from a New York landlord who seems to favor politically elite tenants.

The Washington Post reported that Mr. Rangel, the powerful Ways and Means Committee chairman, wrote to scores of foundations and business leaders requesting their support “to locate the inspirational aspects of my legacy in my home Harlem community.” Mr. Rangel scoffs at the possibility that any generous contributor might ever try to seek a quid-pro-quo favor from his committee.

The separate household controversy arose after The Times disclosed how much better a deal Mr. Rangel is getting than other less-well-connected tenants. Critics, understandably, question how this jibes with Congressional ethics regulations governing gifts to lawmakers. This also deserves a thorough inquiry. (Perhaps the House ethics committee might be stirred to rise above its flabby record in investigating its own?)

Both controversies reflect the vainglory that overtakes far too many lawmakers: the sense of entitlement that comes with political power. Mr. Rangel has an excellent record of public service. His best defense of it would be enhanced only by a full ethics inquiry.

Obama's CEOs

2008-07-19T08:40:00.002-04:00

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Sen. Barack Obama has been meeting secretly with heavy industry CEOs in Washington to discuss issues that he would face as president.

On the campaign trail, Obama has been highly critical of corporate executives and promised them nothing but tougher regulation and higher taxes. But the unannounced, small evening sessions with them since he clinched the Democratic nomination have been non-confrontational and cordial.

Obama scheduled the meetings without any hopes of winning the captains of industry over from Sen. John McCain, but to show them they would be able to do business with him in the White House and that the president's door would be open to the corporate leaders. Their consensus was that he has largely succeeded in that purpose.

MCCAIN AND GRAMM

After Sen. John McCain publicly repudiated his close friend and adviser Phil Gramm's comments about a "nation of whiners" and a "mental recession," the two old political comrades patched up their relationship.

Gramm apologized to McCain for his remarks that gave Democrats an opening against the Republican presidential candidate and provided several days of ammunition for blogs, cable television and radio talk shows. McCain told Gramm not to worry about the expected pitfalls of a campaign surrogate. Gramm will continue as an adviser and surrogate. Gramm has since stepped down from his position on McCain's campaign so as to remove "this distraction."

Gramm remained a steadfast supporter last year when it appeared that McCain's campaign had collapsed. McCain was a loyal backer of Gramm's failed 1988 campaign for president and did not leave until the candidate dropped out of the race.

DUMPING GRASSLEY

Evangelicals and their allies, dominating last weekend's Iowa Republican state convention, dumped their critic, Sen. Chuck Grassley, from the state's delegation to the national convention in St. Paul, Minn. The five-term senator is Iowa's senior Republican elected official.

Grassley has aroused the ire of Christian conservatives by launching a Senate Finance Committee investigation of six televangelists for alleged lavish spending. Leading conservatives, headed by Paul Weyrich and Ken Blackwell, have charged Grassley with violating the First Amendment religious freedom guarantee.

The 74-year-old Grassley once was considered the leader of the Iowa Republican Party's conservative wing but has been at odds with increasingly influential evangelical elements in the party. Continued...click my title to read entire article.

Big Speeches, Few Answers

2008-07-19T08:31:00.001-04:00

Barack Obama is running on a platform of Hope and Change™ but the only clear change seems to be in his policy positions. And the angry liberal base of the Democratic Party is left with the ironic hope that Obama is just doing what it takes to get elected. They have been wincing as the once unapologetic liberal attempts to morph into a safe and moderate centrist reversing himself on municipal gun bans, the death penalty, welfare reform, NAFTA, meeting with dictators, intelligence surveillance laws, and even his commitment to withdrawing troops from Iraq.

To the consternation of the Obama camp, however, the media have rediscovered their natural cynicism toward politicians who shift positions for electoral gain. Words like slippery, evasive, inconsistent, and even flip-flop have surfaced. When criticisms mounted surrounding his changing positions on Iraq it became clear it was time for Obama’s reflexive response to a buildup of bad press: a big speech.

When the toxic sermons from his former church threatened to derail his campaign he gave a speech on “Race in America.” He conveniently avoided the original issue, his relationship with Wright, but the speech was lauded by a swooning media.

Next up was questions surrounding his patriotism. There were a lot of questions bouncing around: why didn’t he wear a flag pin? Why did he start wearing one again if they were an example of false or easy patriotism? Why did his wife say in that watching him run for president she was proud of her country for the first time? How could he be a friend and colleague with an unrepentant terrorist like William Ayers who stands on the American flag? So once again Obama took to the stage for a big speech.

Like his speech on race, Obama’s “patriotism” speech contained some worthwhile sentiments but avoided answering the very questions that prompted it. There was no explanation for his convoluted answers about wearing the flag pin. He deplored the sixties radicals who had attacked America but never explained his relationship with Ayers. He praised those who serve in the military, and rejected those who question their service, but failed to explain why his surrogates – nearly a dozen by now - have developed a pattern of doing just that to John McCain.

No sooner had he given that speech, however, than a new controversy emerged when Obama spoke of “refining” his position on the war in Iraq. Was Obama preparing to shift to the center as he had on countless other issues? Was he going to abandon his strident anti-war position in the face of persistent evidence that the surge was in fact working?

The supposedly masterful rhetorician struggled mightily to achieve a consistent understandable answer. After two hastily called press conferences no one seemed sure exactly what he meant. And so it was back to the big set speech; this time accompanied with an Op-Ed in the New York Times.

And once again Obama managed to avoid the original issue and attempted to pretend it was all just one big misunderstanding. Obama claimed that he always knew the surge would work, on a tactical level, despite having opposed it and promised that it would fail to bring an increase in security or political progress. He shamelessly pivoted from “the war is a lost cause and we must get out” to “we are winning so we must get out.”

Just like in all his other major speeches Obama sought to change the subject and erase his contradictory and confusing answers. He declared the war a distraction from the real battle in Afghanistan. He continued to ignore the strategic ramifications of the growing progress in Iraq, and the folly of giving up now, even as he grudgingly admitted to some success.

Caught between the strident anti-war position that helped him win the primary and the clear changing of facts on the ground Obama once again waffled and insisted he was perfectly consistent. This was just one more attempt to rewrite history and his record. This time, however, it is not about his offensive pastor or the wearing of a flag pin, but about a central national security question. That should trouble even his most ardent supporters.

In his speeches Obama often touts his faith in the wisdom of the American people. But his actions in this campaign indicate that what he is really counting on is their short term memory.

This may be a successful short term electoral strategy, but it is a shallow and dangerous one in the long term.

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The True Face Of Obama?

2008-07-18T10:40:00.002-04:00

McCain Team -
Click Title To See Obama In His True Element
As Senator Obama finally heads overseas to see the situation in Iraq first-hand, we are releasing a new video, "The Obama Iraq Documentary: Whatever the Politics Demand" that explores Senator Obama's record of shifting political positions on the critical national security issue of Iraq.

Over the past year, both Barack Obama and John McCain have taken part in a great national debate over the war in Iraq. It quickly became clear that the Bush Administration was pursuing a failed strategy in Iraq and we needed change. John McCain alone had the courage and judgment to stand up and call for a surge of troops and a new strategy to win the war in Iraq - a strategy that is succeeding. Barack Obama repeatedly opposed the surge strategy, saying it would fail. John McCain made the right call at great political risk - he put his country first.

Today, we know Senator Obama was wrong, and rather than admit his mistake, Barack Obama is now trying to pretend that he was for the surge all along. Click here to watch our new documentary and see his record for yourself.

Sadly, Senator Obama's actions are just more politics as usual. I don't know who should be more disappointed - the supporters whose faith in Senator Obama has already been betrayed, or the people who Senator Obama now expects to believe his new sales pitch. Either way, one thing is clear - Senator Obama has shown that he is just another politician.

Regards,

Rick Davis
Campaign Manager

Click Title to watch Obama in his True Element

Leading Any Way the Wind Blows

2008-07-18T10:27:00.001-04:00

A year ago the Democrats were ecstatic over the prospect of tying the Republican presidential candidate to George Bush and his supposedly failed war in Iraq. Today the subject of the war has returned to the forefront of the campaign, but it is John McCain who is making an issue of it. Over the past week the McCain campaign has called as much attention as possible to Barack Obama’s recent attempt to reconcile the things he has said about Iraq over the past few years to today’s reality on the ground. Obama has even changed the Iraq page on his website to remove previous criticism of the successful troop surge and to delete the reference to removing troops from Iraq beginning “immediately.”

One doesn’t need a long memory to recall Obama’s multiple positions on the war in Iraq. Before we went into Iraq, Obama favored rolling the dice and trusting Saddam Hussein’s word on the threat he posed to the United States. Obama won the Democratic nomination in large part by criticizing Hillary Clinton for her initial support of the invasion of Iraq. I wonder how many Democrats would have predicted that Hillary Clinton’s Iraq position would be the one vindicated by events in the final months of the election. Her predictions were certainly more accurate than any of Barack Obama’s.

In January of 2007, Obama did not believe the troop surge in Iraq would work. On MSNBC he said, “I am not persuaded that 20,000 additional troops in Iraq is going to solve the sectarian violence there. In fact, I think it will do the reverse.” On Face the Nation, he said, “We cannot impose a military solution on what has effectively become a civil war. And until we acknowledge that reality -- we can send 15,000 more troops, 20,000 more troops, 30,000 more troops, I don't know any expert on the region or any military officer that I've spoken to privately that believes that that is going to make a substantial difference on the situation on the ground.” Less than a year ago, Obama was ready to declare defeat and pull the troops out of Iraq.

To know what he might be willing to do a year from now (or even a month from now), it would be necessary to know what the public opinion polls will say then. Bill Clinton led by opinion poll and the public seemed to be just fine with that, but at the same time Bill Clinton was admiring his 60 plus percent approval ratings (taking out just enough time from his legal defense to preach the virtues of school uniforms) the 9/11 terrorists were conceiving the most deadly attack on U.S. soil in the history of the nation. Public opinion polls obviously do not a successful foreign policy make. In fact, they don’t even make for a successful presidency. Just ask President George Herbert Walker Bush who enjoyed sky high approval ratings following the Gulf War, but went on to lose re-election. As quickly as public approval can be bestowed upon a candidate, it can be withdrawn.

Even if it were smart political calculation, when a candidate decides their position on foreign policy according to public opinion they take a huge political risk. Public opinion can change on a dime, but candidates changing their positions on such important issues find themselves with some explaining to do.

This week even the Washington Post recognized Obama’s confusing position on the issue of Iraq policy: “…At the time he first proposed his timetable, Mr. Obama argued -- wrongly, as it turned out -- that U.S. troops could not stop a sectarian civil war. He conceded that a withdrawal might be accompanied by a "spike" in violence. Now, he describes as “an achievable goal" that ‘we leave Iraq to a government that is taking responsibility for its future -- a government that prevents sectarian conflict and ensures that the al-Qaeda threat which has been beaten back by our troops does not reemerge.’ How will that "true success" be achieved? By the same pullout that Mr. Obama proposed when chaos in Iraq appeared to him inevitable.”

The situation in Iraq today is far from what Barack Obama predicted. Today it appears a successful outcome there is possible. Following a recent trip to Iraq, Frederick Kagan, Kimberly Kagan and Jack Keane wrote: “All of the most important objectives of the surge have been accomplished in Iraq. The sectarian civil war is ended; al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) has been dealt a devastating blow; and the Sadrist militia and other Iranian-backed militant groups have been disrupted. Meanwhile, the Iraqi government has accomplished almost all of the legislative benchmarks set by the U.S. Congress and the Bush administration. More important, it is gaining wider legitimacy among the population. The attention of Iraqis across the country is focused on the upcoming provincial elections, which will be a pivotal moment in Iraq's development. The result is that we have an extraordinary – but fleeting – opportunity to advance America's security and the stability of a vital region of the world.”

The key word there is “fleeting.” There is no time to take a poll or put together a focus group. The opportunity for a successful outcome in Iraq is now at hand and anything less than a firm, resolute and immediate commitment to succeed there will most likely result in horrible consequences. Not only does the flailing about Obama has done recently on the issue of Iraq show he is ill suited to make such a commitment, but it also shines a light on his various positions on policy regarding Iran and elsewhere. With the current situations in Iraq, as well as Iran and Afghanistan and elsewhere in the world, now is not a time America can afford to elect a president whose foreign policy appears to move with the winds of changing public opinion.

Obama: Right Wing to Blame for Wife's Negs

2008-07-18T10:26:00.002-04:00

In October’s installation of Glamour Magazine, Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama blames conservative-leaning media outlets for driving up his wife’s negative ratings.

“What happened was that the conservative press — Fox News and the National Review and columnists of every ilk — went fairly deliberately at her in a pretty systematic way,” Obama told Glamour’s editor-in-chief Cindi Leive. The women’s magazine published excerpts of the Obama interview on their political blog Glamocracy on Thursday morning. [Full disclosure, I blog there every Tuesday]

“It took a toll,” Obama said. “If you start being subjected to rants by Sean Hannity and the like, day in day out, that'll drive up your negatives.”

A joint poll conducted by the Associated Press and Yahoo released July 2 found 35 percent of voters had an unfavorable impression of Mrs. Obama. 30 percent viewed her favorably.

Michelle Obama made headlines earlier this year for saying her husband’s candidacy made her proud of her country for “the first time in my life” and encouraging women to “move out of the money-making industry into the helping industry” in Zanesville, Ohio — one of the poorest areas of the nation. Her thesis on race relations, which she wrote as a student at Princeton University, is also considered controversial by some outlets.

News outlets across the political spectrum have covered these stories.

Leive asked Obama if he believed his GOP presidential rival John McCain “had a hand in the attacks on Michelle.” Obama said, “I wouldn’t say the McCain campaign itself” and then posited the “vast-right wing conspiracy” theory coined by his former Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton. “I would say that the apparatus of conservative columnists, blogs and the like. Talk shows, talk radio? When you see in the span of two or three or four weeks essentially the same talking points being used on a whole variety of shows or a whole variety of columns, over and over again....Hillary Clinton was subject to this, others have been subject to this in the past.”

Obama also singled out blogs and email because “the internet allows rumors, myths, attacks to get out there very quickly to a lot of people.”

The Untouchables

2008-07-18T10:18:00.001-04:00

To watch the contortions over that New Yorker cover cartoon of the Obamas is to understand whom it is impermissible to offend in the America of 2008.

The cartoon is a caricature of Michelle as an urban terrorist in an Angela Davis afro with an AK-47 slung over her back and a bandoleer of ammo in the Oval Office doing a fist-bump with a Barack decked out in turban and Muslim garb. On the wall hangs a portrait of Osama bin Laden. Blazing away in the fireplace is the American flag.

"President Obama and First Lady -- as Seen From the Right-Wing Point of View" might have been the caption. Phil Klein of American Spectator nailed it: "This cartoon is intended to make fun of conservatives as ignorant racists and essentially marginalize any criticism of Obama as moronic."

Unfortunately for the New Yorker, the cartoon misfired. Blow-ups are likely to be as pandemic in right-wing dorms this fall as were posters of "Che" Guevara in left-wing dorms in the 1970s.

Indeed, to a goodly slice of the media, this cartoon is no joking matter. Michelle and Barack had been dissed!

For 48 hours, editors Rick Hertzberg and David Remnick fended off attacks, assuring media interrogators the cartoon's purpose was not to satirize the Obamas but to satirize the caricature of Michelle and Barack in the mind of the paranoid right. Remnick insisted to The Huffington Post, "It's not a satire about Obama -- it's a satire about the distortions and misconceptions and prejudices about Obama."

Why did progressives recoil? Because the more savvy among them sense that, like much humor, this cartoon was an exaggeration that contained no small kernel of recognizable truth.

After all, Barack did dump the flag pin. Michelle did say she had never been proud of her country before now. Barack did don that Ali Baba outfit in Somalia. His father and stepfather were Muslims. He does have a benefactor, Bill Ayers, who said after 9-11 he regrets not planting more bombs in the 1960s. He did have a pastor who lionizes Black Muslim Minister Louis Farrakhan. Put glasses on him, and Barack could play Malcolm X in the movies.

And assume the point of the cartoon had been to satirize the Obamas. Why would that have been so outrageous?

Journalists, after all, still celebrate Herblock, the cartoonist who portrayed Richard Nixon with the body of a rat climbing out of a sewer.

Bill Clinton is still denounced as a racist for saying Barack's claim to have been consistent on Iraq was a "fairy tale" and for comparing his South Carolina primary victory to Jesse Jackson's.

Hillary Clinton has been compared to the sex-starved Glenn Close character in "Fatal Attraction." George Bush's verbal gaffes are endlessly panned by late-night comics and Comedy Central. But Barack gets the special-ed treatment. Our first affirmative action candidate.

The New Yorker made a "damn-fool decision," said George Lockwood, a lecturer on journalistic ethics. Continued...Click title to read entire article.

Poll Shows Americans Afraid of Obama as Commander-in-Chief

2008-07-18T10:11:00.001-04:00

On the night of January 20, 2009, a new commander-in-chief will leave the inaugural podium, parade, and festivities for the Oval Office. A national security staff ready with the latest “threat briefing” will join him there. On his desk, they will place a thick binder of reports, each focusing on real or emerging threats to our national security. In the quiet of the Oval Office -- in the presence of these stern-faced, deadly serious briefers and advisers -- Barack H. Obama, should he be the next president, will come face-to-face with reality.

Americans are afraid of this scenario, Barack H. Obama as commander-in-chief. The New York Times and CBS News released a poll this week; in it, Americans answered detailed questions about this possibility.

The poll’s answers shocked the strategists at the Obama campaign headquarters in Chicago. An intensive international travel schedule for Obama and a refocus of the campaign’s message on defense and foreign policy speaks to this fear.

The poll says Americans consider him lacking in the abilities necessary to run the armed services. Conversely, the polls show John McCain blows Obama out of the water as a good commander-in-chief. Forty-six percent of respondents thought McCain would very likely “be effective” as commander-in-chief, as opposed to only 24 percent saying the same of Obama. In fact, 36 percent think it is “not likely” Obama will be effective in the position.

Obama’s talents lie in his gift of oratory and his ability to move people with emotion, but this does not necessarily make for a good commander. The chief executive’s job requires forward thinking, realistic assessments of the world’s threats, and the maturity to make judgments in a crisis.

The USS Gerald R. Ford, an aircraft carrier, is now under construction in Hampton Roads, Va. It will be ready to join the fleet in 2015, replacing a carrier launched 47 years ago. Do we know that the USS Ford will be needed in 2015?

No, we do not. But can we afford to bet against it?

Obama thinks so. According to his own campaign literature, he is willing to let the USS Ford, and many more of tomorrow’s defense technologies, rust at the pier.

The decision to build the aircraft carrier is based on the concept of preparing America for the next war to come. Commanders must anticipate the evil designs of irrational lunatics. It’s always a tricky business, trying to anticipate future unknowns. Nevertheless, the president’s oath is to protect and defend the United States.

A president who hasn’t had any experience in military strategic planning is going to find himself in deep trouble if he finds his strategic armories empty in the face of an advancing enemy. Continued...Click title to read entire article.

Energy Woes Could Mean Dems 'Oil' Washed Up

2008-07-18T10:08:00.001-04:00

WASHINGTON -- Gasoline prices are flattening consumer wallets and hobbling our economy, while the Democrats sit back and play politics with the issue.

Voter surveys show that the economy and gas prices top the list of the most critical issues facing our country. A Washington Post/ABC News poll reported last week that 85 percent of voters polled said gas prices will be either extremely or very important to their vote in this year's elections. And with good reason: Americans are getting walloped with huge gas bills, while utilities, buckling under ever-higher energy prices, are raising electricity rates to historic levels.

Other industries are getting hit, too. Airlines are cutting back on flights and services as higher fuel costs eat into declining revenues. Increased trucking costs are driving up the price of nearly everything that's shipped. Tighter budgets mean consumers are cutting back on discretionary spending. Retail sales barely budged last month, even despite government tax rebates.

Part of the answer to rising oil prices is to boost domestic production. President Bush has been pressing that solution almost weekly, but to no avail among Democrats on Capitol Hill.

While Bush and the Republicans have kept up a steady drumbeat for sharply increased oil production, the Democratic majority has sat on its hands, refusing to deal with the crisis. The reason: Barack Obama and the Democrats in Congress are dead set against offshore drilling. Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid are more than happy to let Bush and the Republicans suffer the political consequences.

"They're running out the clock until November, to the detriment of all of us and our economy, because they think it will help them at the ballot box," said a Republican leadership official.

Last week, Bush lifted the executive ban on drilling for oil on the Outer Continental Shelf that was imposed by his father. The next step must be to end the ban by statute, but Pelosi and Reid apparently have no intention of acting on any energy bill, no matter how critical the situation becomes.

The response in Democratic cloakrooms seems to be "let Bush and Republicans turn slowly, slowly in the wind" -- an apt turn of phrase that fits into the Democrats' rigid energy orthodoxy, which supports biofuel, solar and wind, spurns oil production at home.

The Obama and Pelosi Democrats are captives of their global-warming special interests, who are dead set against drilling. Obama never mentions oil except when he attacks Bush and the Republicans as captives of the oil lobby. He is all solar panels, witchgrass and windmills. The specious argument against drilling asserts that it would have no effect on the supply or price of oil for years. Well, we may not see the full result of cancer research for many years, but that didn't mean we should have given up. Continued...Click title to read entire article.

The Liberal Establishment's Race Race

2008-07-18T10:02:00.001-04:00

One would have hoped that Barack Obama's presumptive capturing of the Democratic presidential nomination would have dampened the mainstream media's obsession with race, but instead, they've figured out a way to obsess even further about it since Obama's putative victory.

You almost can't read election headlines in a major newspaper without some reference to race issues. Earlier this week, Google News featured three back-to-back stories in its "Elections" section highlighting race:

"McCain looks to make gains among black voters," "Race, Foreign-Policy Plant Doubts for Obama" and "Poll Finds Obama Isn't Closing Divide on Race."

The last one is a New York Times article analyzing results from the latest New York Times/CBS News poll. It proves the Times just can't let race go, whether it's because of the liberal guilt of its reporters and editors or because they want to keep the racial pot stirred for purposes of newspaper sales or because they deem racial polarization advantageous to Obama.

The story's lead paragraph reads: "Americans are sharply divided by race heading into the first election in which an African-American will be a major-party presidential nominee, with blacks and whites holding vastly different views of Senator Barack Obama, the state of race relations and how black Americans are treated by society, according to the poll."

Tell me: Do we really need a poll, much less elitist analysts, to tell us that "Americans are sharply divided by race" when it comes to any presidential election? What is newsworthy here? Is it not true that upward of 90 percent of black voters have been voting Democratic in all presidential elections of recent memory? Quite apart from Obama's race, blacks vote Democratic and the white vote is split.

If liberal journalists had just a little more intellectual honesty and an ounce of intellectual freedom, they could first recognize, then report, that there do not appear to be similar feelings of race alienation among whites as there are among blacks. Yet the Times article, including its title, implies there is complete mutuality.

The Times admits that part of the "polarization" is political but says the poll also "underlined the racial discord." For example, "More than 80 percent of black voters said they had a favorable opinion of Mr. Obama; about 30 percent of white voters said they had a favorable opinion of him."

But how does the 80/30 dichotomy necessarily support the Times' conclusion that it's a result of racial discord? As to the 80 percent of blacks supporting Obama, even some black conservatives are suggesting they are attracted to his candidacy -- mystifying as that is -- because he would be the first black president (apologies to Bill Clinton). As conservative black Michael Steele said on "Hannity & Colmes" recently, this "is not rocket science." Obama could be "elected the first African-American president of the United States."

But the dubious 30 percent favorable rating among whites, even if accurate, can't automatically be attributed to Obama's race. Obama is an extreme liberal who is running in a center-right nation and has insulted a large part of America's population with his Bittergate remarks and attended a church whose pastor condemned America. While the latter involves a racial component, it issues from Obama and his former church, not from whites. Continued...Click title to read entire article.

Who Does He Think He Is?

2008-07-18T09:57:00.001-04:00

WASHINGTON -- Barack Obama wants to speak at the Brandenburg Gate. He figures it would be a nice backdrop. The supporting cast -- a cheering audience and a few fainting frauleins -- would be a picturesque way to bolster his foreign policy credentials.

What Obama does not seem to understand is that the Brandenburg Gate is something you earn. President Reagan earned the right to speak there because his relentless pressure had brought the Soviet empire to its knees and he was demanding its final "tear down this wall" liquidation. When President Kennedy visited the Brandenburg Gate on the day of his "Ich bin ein Berliner" speech, he was representing a country that was prepared to go to the brink of nuclear war to defend West Berlin.

Who is Obama representing? And what exactly has he done in his lifetime to merit appropriating the Brandenburg Gate as a campaign prop? What was his role in the fight against communism, the liberation of Eastern Europe, the creation of what George Bush 41 -- who presided over the fall of the Berlin Wall but modestly declined to go there for a victory lap -- called "a Europe whole and free"?

Does Obama not see the incongruity? It's as if a German pol took a campaign trip to America and demanded the Statue of Liberty as a venue for a campaign speech. (The Germans have now gently nudged Obama into looking at other venues.)

Americans are beginning to notice Obama's elevated opinion of himself. There's nothing new about narcissism in politics. Every senator looks in the mirror and sees a president. Nonetheless, has there ever been a presidential nominee with a wider gap between his estimation of himself and the sum total of his lifetime achievements?

Obama is a three-year senator without a single important legislative achievement to his name, a former Illinois state senator who voted "present" nearly 130 times. As president of the Harvard Law Review, as law professor and as legislator, has he ever produced a single notable piece of scholarship? Written a single memorable article? His most memorable work is a biography of his favorite subject: himself.

It is a subject upon which he can dilate effortlessly. In his victory speech upon winning the nomination, Obama declared it a great turning point in history -- "generations from now we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment" -- when, among other wonders, "the rise of the oceans began to slow." As economist Irwin Stelzer noted in his London Daily Telegraph column, "Moses made the waters recede, but he had help." Obama apparently works alone.

Obama may think he's King Canute, but the good king ordered the tides to halt precisely to refute sycophantic aides who suggested that he had such power. Obama has no such modesty. Continued...Click on my title to read entire article.

A President for America, Not for Hollywood

2008-07-18T09:52:00.001-04:00

It was fun interviewing Sen. John McCain this week on my radio show.

Sen. McCain isn't someone who strikes you as a particularly dynamic speaker. He doesn't seem to like the formality of giving speeches. He clearly isn't too comfortable reading off a TelePrompter. In other words, this isn't a guy who would be cast as a U.S. President on a TV show.

Barack Obama would fit that description.

Come to think of it, the actor who played a president on the hit TV show "24" resembles Sen. Obama a bit. No, not because they're both black (I can almost hear Al Sharpton's howls of protestation...please leave my private parts alone, Jesse Jackson). But the fictional president possessed some of the same characteristics as Obama: tall, lanky, self-assured, photogenic; a smooth delivery and a warm demeanor.

Yes, Barack Obama could easily be cast as an American president in a movie or TV show.

But this ain't Hollywood. And we're far from the world of pretend and make-believe.

When you get John McCain going about the war against terror, he comes alive. That's when it gets fun. He rattles off the statistics, he showcases his wealth of military experience, and he doesn't recognize the concepts of defeat or surrender.

And when you ask him about the military and foreign policy experience of his opponent, he bristles.

This week, Sen. Obama delivered a foreign policy address that struck Sen. McCain as more than a little odd. "How can Sen. Obama continue to declare that Afghanistan needs to be more of a focal point than Iraq on fighting terrorists when he has never even been there?", McCain asked me.

That strikes me as odd, too.

After all, it doesn't take much for a sitting U.S. Senator to hop on a plane and visit a war zone. Sen. McCain has done it over and over again.

I did some checking, and it turns out McCain was absolutely correct. Sen. Obama has never once traveled to Afghanistan. He has been to Iraq -- once -- about two years ago. Now that he has finally decided to return, get ready for a news media that will act as if Jesus Christ has returned and will be raising people from the dead or multiplying the loaves and fishes.

Wouldn't one think that getting a military tour of the battleground with one-on-one briefings from the commanders whose troops have their boots on the ground in either Afghanistan OR Iraq would be beneficial?

No, not if your entire presidential campaign is already grounded in the belief that we need to tuck tail and retreat from Iraq like a bunch of whipped puppies. Sen. Obama doesn't want a few little pesky facts, like the ongoing success of the Iraq surge, to get in the way of a good old fashioned act of waving a white flag of surrender.

During his foreign policy address this week, he managed to snatch defeat out of the jaws of victory over the surge issue, too. While everyone of all political stripes are admitting that the surge is working and dramatically reducing the level of bloodshed in Iraq, Obama managed to complain that the Iraqis aren't spending as much in rebuilding their own country as a result of the surge.

It's a funny thing, the old school media's infatuation with Obama. Sometimes it's obvious, like Chris Matthews admitting to the thrill up his leg when the anointed one speaks; other times, it's fairly subtle.

This week, the New York Times breathlessly revealed the results of a survey that suggested that 80% of black Americans have a favorable impression of Obama compared with 30% of whites.

The clear insinuation in the article is that white America is so bigoted that it couldn't possibly vote for a black man. Remember how West Virginia was pummeled in the press during the primary election there?

And yet, there is certainly another racial reality at play here. Isn't it possible -- even likely -- that many black Americans are supporting Sen. Obama simply because he is black? Continued...To read entire article click on my title.

Straight From John Ruberry's The Marathon Pundit/Another thing for Obama to be silent on: Cook County summer jobs going to pol's kids

2008-07-17T21:14:00.002-04:00

In his now legendary (to some) years as a community organizer on Chicago's South Side, one of the things Barack Obama fought for was a summer jobs for the young people there.

Do you want to know where a fabulous summer jobs program exists in 2008? At Cook County's Metropolitan Chicago Water Reclamation District.

It's controlled by elected Democrats.

But to score one of these jobs, which pays $13 an hour, it helps--a lot--if your parent is a Cook County politician.

Fox Chicago's Dane Placko says "According to insiders, each (Water Reclamation District) commissioner is allowed submit more than a dozen names for jobs each summer."

The summer jobs, there are about 200 of them, are not publicized. Imagine what Obama the community organizer would have said about that!

And it's not just Water Reclamation District commissioners taking advantage of this jobs program. Aldermen, high-ranking city employees, state legislators, union leaders, and ward committeemen all have relatives who are employed by the District this summer. Several campaign contributors of District President Terrence O'Brien, let me use my favorite Chicago word, "coincidentally" have summer jobs with the MWRD.

From Fox Chicago:

With the economy hurting and employment at a premium, Better Government Association President Jay Stewart says those jobs should be available to the children of all taxpayers. "You get these politicians saying we need a summer jobs program," Stewart said. "For who? Them or everybody else?"

Watch part one of the Fox 32 segment here:http://www.myfoxchicago.com/myfox/pages/Home/Detail?contentId=6981825&version=1&locale=EN-US&layoutCode=VSTY&pageId=1.1.1 And then check out part two here:http://www.myfoxchicago.com/myfox/pages/Home/Detail;jsessionid=C7B316D68B6B0E85D13B05EC31CA6A7C?contentId=6990794&version=2&locale=EN-US&layoutCode=VSTY&pageId=1.1.1&sflg=1

When will Barack Obama speak out on the jobs-for-pols' kids farce?

Don't hold your breath.

Obama's Pander on Immigration

2008-07-17T16:08:00.000-04:00

When Barack Obama addressed the National Council of La Raza on Sunday, he pandered when he said America's immigration system "isn't working ... when companies hire undocumented immigrants instead of legal citizens to avoid paying overtime or to avoid a union; when communities are terrorized by (U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency) raids -- when nursing mothers are torn from their babies, when children come home from school to find their parents missing, when people are detained without access to legal counsel."

When Obama accuses the men and woman who administer federal laws of viciously tearing nursing babies from their mothers' breasts and abandoning young children, his words eerily echoed a 1995 NRA fundraising letter that claimed that a federal ban on some semi-automatic weapons "gives jack-booted government thugs more power to take away our constitutional rights, break in our doors, seize our guns, destroy our property, and even injure or kill us."

NRA exec Wayne LaPierre took a lot of heat for demonizing federal agents. Will Obama have to answer for calling ICE agents child-abusing thugs?

As happens, Obama was trying to have it both ways. The Change Candidate started off criticizing a system that failed to stop employers from hiring illegal workers. Then in the next breath, he slapped ICE officials for making arrests at workplaces believed to flout the law.

And to get there, he trashed the very people who risk their safety enforcing laws enacted by the people's representatives.

Or as U.S. Attorney Joe Russoniello noted, "Criticizing law enforcement officers for carrying out their sworn duty is unfair." After all, "they didn't create the crisis."

ICE spokesman Tim Counts sent me this response to Obama's remarks: "Our procedures for addressing humanitarian issues, including child-care situations, go far beyond what any other law enforcement agency has in place. We routinely conditionally release parents so that they can care for their children. We have great compassion for the children involved. Quite simply, however, parenthood does not make you immune from having to comply with the nation's laws, and the responsibility for any family disruption lies squarely with the violator."

I read the Obama quote to John Trasvina, president of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, and asked: Is the situation that bad? Continued... To continue reading article click on title.

The Gathering Threat to Freedom

2008-07-17T15:59:00.000-04:00

House Speaker Pelosi is hinting at reinstating the Fairness Doctrine, and many of her liberal colleagues in Congress are doing the same in both chambers. Alleging the press isnt balanced, they say government should be making sure all viewpoints meaning the lefts are fairly represented. I agree the press isnt balanced, but Mrs. Pelosi has it backward; liberalism dominates the press, including the three major networks and most major newspapers.

Though originally the Fairness Doctrine did not require opposing time be equal, it came to be the standard. The concern at the time was the prevention of a single viewpoint from dominating the news and biasing the people.

By the 1980s, there were many radio and TV stations available. And many believed the Fairness Doctrine was unconstitutional in any event. So in 1987, Ronald Reagans Federal Communications Commission repealed the Fairness Doctrine, opening every press outlet to freely decide what content to carry. The Democrat-controlled Congress at the time passed legislation to reinstate the Fairness Doctrine, but President Reagan vetoed the bill.

This led to the birth of talk radio.

The doctrines reinstatement would kill conservative talk radio. Radio stations that carry Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and Glenn Beck would have to create liberal shows of equal length. And when those shows fail to make money and the stations take a loss, their only option in cancelling those shows would be to cancel the conservative shows as well.

Free speech would lose. Americans would lose.

Religious freedom is also under assault. Center stage is Californias same-sex marriage policy imposed by an activist judiciary. Already activist groups are talking about going after the tax-exempt status of churches that refuse to perform same-sex marriages. Others discuss how they can sue business vendors who refuse to provide services to same-sex marriage ceremonies or receptions. Still others are talking about making charities run by churches that oppose same-sex marriage ineligible to continue as non-profit organizations.

This line of thinking and liberal assault also is found in what Senator Barack Obama promises to do with faith-based initiatives. He says he would institute new regulations under which an organization cannot base hiring decisions on the applicants beliefs and still be eligible for aid. In other words, a Baptist homeless shelter could not refuse to hire an atheist for not believing Baptist or any religious articles of faith.

All these actions cut to the core of the First Amendment. In the 1970s, pop psychologists used the term micro-debilitating aggressions. It referred to the compounding of negative threats until the result was much worse than each threat taken on its own. The left is doing the same with its attack on our free speech and religious liberty. Continued...click title to read entire article.

Obama Surrogate Targets Mrs. McCain

2008-07-17T15:54:00.000-04:00

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama has promised he would not make his GOP rival John McCain’s wife a political issue, but at least one of his television surrogates is trying to make her personal wealth a major campaign issue.

“I would never consider making Cindy McCain a campaign issue and if I saw people doing that---I would speak out against it,” Obama said in an interview with the Christian Broadcasting Network on June 18.

Now, less than a month later, an Obama loyalist deployed by the Democratic National Committee to various television shows for the purpose of promoting Obama’s candidacy says Mrs. McCain’s wealth presents a “red flag.”

Jamal Simmons, a communications consultant for the DNC, blasted Mr. McCain on CNN Tuesday evening because “he doesn’t talk about what’s going to happen to Cindy McCain if he goes into the White House” and “he’s not leading a transparent campaign.”

He complained about Mrs. McCain’s credit card bills, the houses her husband lives in with her and discounted price the McCain campaign has paid to travel on his wife’s corporate jet to campaign events.

“That month where he was spending $750,000 on credit card debts was from March 2007 until the beginning of 2000 -- middle of 2008,” Simmons claimed. “And that's when they were spending all this money on credit cards. They would not have been able to keep the John McCain campaign alive had he not had this personal wealth.”
Mrs. McCain is reportedly worth more than $100 million due to the beer distribution company she inherited from her parents, Hensley & Company. The McCain’s keep their finances separate and Mr. McCain has recused himself from Senate votes on alcohol issues.

Mrs. McCain’s money has come under recent scrutiny because of the windfall her company will get from the $52 billion sale of Anheuser-Bush to the Belgian brewing company InBev. It is unknown how much that sale will directly benefit Hensley & Company, but is speculated to be between $1 million and $2 million.

Some Democrats, like Simmons, say the McCain campaign is hiding information Mrs. McCain’s wealth. Ironically, the information about her credit card debt comes from Mr. McCain’s Senate financial disclosure forms, readily available on the internet through the Center for Responsive Politics.

McCain’s 2008 report, which includes tax information for the previous year, is 51 pages long. By comparison, former Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s 2006 report, which contained information about her former President husband’s international speaking fees and their joint finances, is 11 pages long. Her 2007 form is unavailable although it was due last May. She filed for an extension on May 12.

Obama’s 2007 Senate financial disclosure forms are 8 pages long.

SMOKING GUN on RMGN!!!

2008-07-17T15:33:00.000-04:00

Thanks To Right Michigan for this great story!

By Nick, Section News
Posted on Thu Jul 17, 2008 at 11:38:30 AM EST

The Mackinac Center just found the smoking gun on the lefty extremists' Reform Michigan Government Now scheme.
They were doing routine research on union operations and dug up this powerpoint presentation on a UAW website. Click the Mack Center link above to view the document in it's horrifying "glory."

The Presentation is titled:

GOVERNMENT REFORM PROPOSAL

Changing the rules of politics in Michigan to help Democrats
Among the shocking admissions in the document:

RMGN seeks to grant permanent governmental control to Democrats in the Governor's office, the House, the Senate and the Michigan Supreme Court.

RMGN seeks to overcome Democrat fears that voters will hold the Dems accountable for their pro-tax-hike votes in 2007.

The sundry "reforms" in RMGN are nothing but a front... "To succeed, redistricting reform must be a small part of a larger, popular state government reform proposal."

Their goal? "In 2008, use the public's very negative mood and high level of discouragement about state government (the worst in 25 years) to enact a ballot proposal which comprehensively reforms state government, including changing the structural obstacles to Democratic control of state government in 2012-2021."

The document states plainly and matter-of-factly that Republican judges alone are targetted. According to Slide 18:
--Add 10 judges to the lower courts

--Reduce the number of Supreme Court Justices from seven to five; two GOP Justices eliminated

--Reduce the Court of Appeals from 28 to 20 judges, most of them Engler appointees

Slide 25: "The key to its passage is packaging it with the other very popular reforms."

A detailed budget breakdown puts the estimated expense at $4.911 million not including many line items labeled "MDP In-Kind."
The document concludes with a statement about the relative frugality of a proposal that changes the rules when one considers the cost associated with actually defeating Republicans at the polls. Way to be, Big Labor. Way to be.

Mad props (as they say in my hood, circa 1996) to the Mackinac Center on this one!

There are already serious drafting issues that make certification at the Board of Canvassers level unlikely. Little things like reforming the constitution by using parts of the constitution that don't even exist. Tiny little details.

Now that Big Labor and the MDP have been exposed this thing is one step deeper into an open grave. And looking at the time, effort and expense that are outlined in this document? The polling, the focus groups, the cash already spent, the months drafting, the effort to keep it under the radar... if this thing fails to make the ballot? Said it before... EPIC. FAIL.

Big Mitch-Stand Up

2008-07-16T19:49:00.000-04:00