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June 21, 2008

Exclusive: Saturday, June 21

Presidential Watch

Take a look at election predictions - Read article.

Obama bypasses public money _ 1st since Watergate

Jim Kuhnhenn, My Way.com

Barack Obama is abandoning public financing for his presidential campaign, reversing his earlier stance in bold certainty he can raise millions more on his own as the first major-party candidate to bypass the tax-checkoff system that was hurried into place after the Watergate scandal.

Obama has shattered fundraising records during the primary season, and he promptly showed off his financial muscle Thursday with his first commercial of the general election campaign. The ad, a 60-second biographical spot, will begin airing Friday in 18 states, including historically Republican strongholds.

Though it opens him to charges of hypocrisy, Obama's fundraising decision was hardly a surprise, given his record in raising money from private sources. Some $85 million in public money is available to each major party nominee during the fall campaign if they agree to forgo other contributions.

McCain told reporters in Minnesota on Thursday, "We will take public financing."

As for his opponent, he said Obama "said he would stick to his word. He didn't." Read article.

Oil Prices Looming Over Election

Morris & McGann, NewsMax.com

Gas prices are the first important issue in the 2008 elections. But both parties have been pathetic in their solutions and, one suspects, in their understanding of what is going on.

Democrats call for windfall profits taxes. Bad idea. How can you get oil companies to explore and drill if you tax away their profits? Republicans focus on a gas tax "holiday," an 18 cent palliative to gas prices that now top $4.50.

Fadel Gheit, managing director of oil and gas research for Oppenheimer and Co. and Jim Norman, author of the book "The Oil Card," coming out next month, say that speculation is responsible for a huge part of the run-up in prices.

The Senate recently tried to force CFTC regulation of all commodities speculators but the bill was loaded down with a windfall profits tax so the Republicans killed it.

McCain needs to get with this program. In his town hall meeting in New York City last Thursday night, he attacked speculators for driving up oil prices but didn't propose remedies or really explain the problem. Americans will pay close attention if he does. For McCain this is the issue and now is the time to use it. Read article.

McCain's Energy Drill

Review & Outlook, Online WSJ.com

Behold, a miracle: Public anger over $4 gas is forcing at least some of our political class to confront their energy contradictions. Last week, Republicans Jim Walsh of New York and Roscoe Bartlett of Maryland -- two longstanding opponents of offshore drilling -- asked for a mulligan. We can now add John McCain to the roll: In a speech in Houston yesterday, the Senator finally came out in favor of increasing domestic energy supplies.

This is progress, even if it did come dressed in some of Mr. McCain's familiar policy confusions. In the past, the Republican has been a chief opponent of opening up the vast U.S. offshore regions and other federal lands where oil-and-gas exploration and production are prohibited, especially the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. But oil at $135 a barrel is a powerful political motivator.

The candidate now says we must drill for more domestic oil "as a matter of fairness to the American people." He did not back off from his sentimentality about ANWR -- leaving off-limits nearly half of the proven reserves of the entire U.S. at 10.4 billion barrels. But he did propose to open most of the Atlantic and Pacific coasts to development, so long as the nearby states were in favor. This could open up as much as 420 trillion cubic feet of natural gas and 86 billion barrels of oil on the Outer Continental Shelf to development. That's a big deal considering that we now consume nearly 10 billion barrels a year. Read article.

Obama's America Is September 10th America - His latest remarks betray an alarming ignorance.

Andrew C. McCarthy, NRO.com

This is June 2008. That means it marks the ten-year anniversary of Osama bin Laden's indictment.

He was first charged by my old office, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York, in June 1998. That was before the bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania (hundreds killed), before the bombing of the U.S.S. Cole (17 U.S. members of the U.S. Navy killed), and before 9/11 (nearly 3000 Americans killed). So it's fair to ask: How is that strategy of prosecuting him in the criminal-justice system working out?

That's a question Sen. John McCain ought to be putting to Sen. Barack Obama every day.

Sen. Obama, the Democrat's presumptive nominee, made some astounding statements yesterday which provided his views on confronting the most urgent challenge facing the American people - that of radical Islam.

Taking aim at the Bush approach of regarding our terrorist enemies as, well, enemies, rather than criminal defendants clothed in all the rights and privileges of those American citizens whom these enemies pledge to kill, Obama asserted:

"What we know is that, in previous terrorist attacks - for example, the first attack against the World Trade Center, we were able to arrest those responsible, put them on trial. They are currently in U.S. prisons, incapacitated."

This is a remarkably ignorant account of the American experience with jihadism. In point of fact, while the government managed to prosecute many people responsible for the 1993 WTC bombing, many also escaped prosecution because of the limits on civilian criminal prosecution.

But let's assume incorrectly, for argument's sake, that everyone was brought to justice in that case. What about Khobar Towers, Sen. Obama? After Iran and Hezbollah, perhaps with al-Qaeda's assistance, killed 19 members of the United States Air Force, the Clinton administration responded with ... a criminal investigation. The result? No arrests - in fact, no indictment was even filed until 2001. Read article.

Rudy Giuliani enters the fray

Mark Murray, MSNBC.com

In addition to the earlier back-and-forth over Obama's remarks yesterday on prosecuting terrorism, former presidential Rudy Giuliani -- remember him? -- has now weighed in.

"Throughout this campaign, I have been very concerned that the Democrats want to take a step back to the failed policies that treated terrorism solely as a law enforcement matter rather than a clear and present danger," Giuliani said in a statement released by the McCain campaign.

"Barack Obama appears to believe that terrorists should be treated like criminals -- a belief that underscores his fundamental lack of judgment regarding our national security. In a post-9/11 world, we need to remain on offense against the terrorist threat which seeks to destroy our very way of life. We need a leader like John McCain who has the experience and judgment necessary to protect the American people."

As Politico's Ben Smith notes, both John Kerry and former counter-terrorism official Richard Clarke fired back in defense of Obama. Said Kerry: "[McCain] has fully embraced, willfully, openly, fully embraced the failed tragic policy of the Bush Administration over the last 7 and a half years, and he's really defending a policy that's indefensible. Read article.

Metaphors for Dummies*

Mary Grabar, Townhall.com

It appears that my use of war metaphors in the opening paragraph of my last column confused a number of people, including someone who blogs at both the American Spectator and the Huffington Post.* * My sentence, "Obama's advance troops have already taken over our college campuses, have bound and gagged our conservative professors, have ravished our virgins, have pillaged our stores of wisdom, and have ensconced themselves in the thrones of power in deans', presidents' and department heads' offices" was circulated around the blogosphere and set off a chorus of chortling.

"Obama's advance troops" are the tenured radicals who have left their legacy on college campuses. Their takeover began in the 1960s, but their protégés now control hiring, tenure, and curriculum choice. They have dispensed with the study of dead white men unless it is in innovative ways, like a conference on "Faulkner's Sexualities," for which they pin up posters on their office doors. William Faulkner, as you may recall, was the Nobel-prize-winning Southern novelist. Old-fashioned scholars used to study him for his innovative writing style, his mark on the modernist movement, as well as for the ideas he presented in his work. Read article.

"Change You Can Believe In" -- Or "Change You Just Won't Believe"?

Carol Platt Liebau, Townhall.com

Barack Obama may be lacking in judgment and experience - most recently demonstrated by the selection of former Fannie Mae CEO Jim Johnson to vet his veeps (along with Eric Holder, who signed off on Bill Clinton's pardon of Marc Rich). But he's a quick study, and he knows there's a lot he doesn't know. Because revealing the gaps in his understanding could be devastating to Obama's presidential hopes, understandably he's doing everything he can to conceal them. That involves not only stiff-arming the same Democrat and media establishment that has rushed to embrace him. It also undermines the reformist overtones of his slogan of "change you can believe in."

Just this week, Obama announced plans to move key elements of the Democratic National Committee operation to his own home turf of Chicago, where presumably he'll have more mastery over it. The decision is revealing. As Politico put it, "Then and now, [Chicago is] a city whose central political feature - top-down machine control - is one legacy Obama has taken from his allies in the reigning Daley family."

In relocating key elements of the committee from D.C. to his own home turf, the Democrat nominee has reshaped the DNC to fit his own emerging "machine." He's also made it clear that its independent functions are secondary to what he apparently sees as its primary mission: To serve him. Read article.

So Stuck on Stupid

Erik Rush, NMJ.us

Whether one attributes the success of Democrat presidential nominee Barack Obama to savvy maneuvering on the part of the Democratic National Committee and the Obama campaign, Republican ineptitude, a biased press or the influence of shadow governments, in the end the November election's outcome is going to come down to Americans' capacity - or lack of capacity - for critical thinking.

Despite the last several years of Americans' synaptic pathways being deluged by how much the Bush administration and Republicans employ vacuum-related techniques, in the aggregate they have more than enough evidence that conservative principles have proven themselves more fruitful than so-called progressive ones.

The rub, as it were, lies in the fact that conservative principles have not been a benchmark of the Bush administration nor have they guided the Republican Party for some time. It is fortunate for the American people that Bill Clinton was more of a narcissist than an idealist, responding to the will of the people in such areas as taxes and entitlement programs in order to secure a viable legacy. Had this not been the case, Democrats would now have even more woes to heap at the feet of George W. Bush.

The election of a Democrat president - Obama in particular - would mark a perilous quantum leap toward socialism and an ever-weakening presence on the global stage, particularly if Democrats retain control of Congress and gain more seats in the House and Senate. Read article.

Moment of truth

Paul Greenberg, JWR.com

There is no test of character quite like running for public office. For in any political race of consequence, there always comes that moment of truth when the candidate must decide just how far he will go to curry favor with the voters. How much principle, or just simple dignity, is he willing to sacrifice?

That's the moment aficionados of moral drama look for. It reveals so much. About character, about the awful wanting to win, about the person's moral priorities versus the candidate's sheer ambition.

In the quadrennial passion that is an American presidential election, there will always be those who conceive of their candidate as perfect in every way. Listen to the messianic nominating speeches at national conventions. Hear the roar of the adoring crowd. Remember the wave of Obamamania that swept the country earlier this year? People get swept away.

It's natural enough. There is something in the human condition that wants to worship something better than ourselves, that demands The Hero, and if there isn't one available, we'll invent one. We can see a Sir Galahad in a ward-heeler. Read article.

Democratic Candidate Leads but Still Struggles to Win Over Key Groups

Jake Tapper, ABC News.com

Sen. Barack Obama has emerged from his bruising battle for the Democratic presidential nomination with only a six point lead over Sen. John McCain and claiming his Republican rival has been getting a "pass" from the media.

A ABC News/Washington Post poll shows Obama, D-Ill., leading McCain, R-Ariz., by a margin of 48 percent to 42 percent. It is a surprisingly small lead considering that the incumbent Republican president George Bush is at record lows and public opinion overwhelmingly feels the country is on the "wrong track".

No Bounce, Resistance from Clinton Supporters

The poll indicates that Obama did not get the traditional "bounce" in the public's opinion by finally defeating Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., and getting her endorsement as the Democratic presidential candidate.

While leading among young voters and other key demographics, ABC News chief Washington correspondent George Stephanopoulos saw what he called "danger signs" for Obama. Read article.

Democracies Can't Compromise on Core Values

Natan Sharansky, Online WSJ.com

As the American president embarked on his farewell tour of Europe last week, Der Spiegel, echoing the sentiments of a number of leading newspapers on the Continent, pronounced "Europe happy to see the back of Bush." Virtually everyone seems to believe that George W. Bush's tenure has undermined trans-Atlantic ties.

There is also a palpable sense in Europe that America will move closer to Europe in the years ahead, especially if Barack Obama wins the presidential election.

But while Mr. Bush is widely seen by Europeans as a religious cowboy with a Manichean view on the world, Europe's growing rift with America predates the current occupant of the White House. When a French foreign minister, Hubert Védrine, declared that his country "cannot accept a politically unipolar world, nor a culturally uniform world, nor the unilateralism of a single hyper power," President Clinton was in the seventh year of his presidency and Mr. Bush was still governor of Texas.

The trans-Atlantic rift is not the function of one president, but the product of deep ideological forces that for generations have worked to shape the divergent views of Americans and Europeans. Foremost among these are different attitudes toward identity in general, and the relationship between identity and democracy in particular. Read article.

Gulliverian to the Core

A.J. DiCintio, NMJ.us

In "The Good American and Monsieur Obama," Roger Cohen happily informs us that the French "have always cherished a class of people called les bons Américains," a class, according to Cohen, that includes Woody Allen (for his "European urbanity and wit"), Michael Moore (for his "European vehemence on the Iraq war") and Al Gore (for his "European environmentalism").

Despite its height, Mr. Cohen considered his pile of horse dung only an introduction because mention of "les bons Américains" led him to speak of Barack Obama, le bon Américain quintessenciel over whom all of Europe is gaga with the audacity of hope.

Mention of the rise of Obama then led his stream of consciousness to speak of "the fall of the jingoistic elements of the conservative, Republican wave that has been the dominant force in U.S. politics since Nixon."

Now, if I were asked to name Americans the French cherish, I'd say it was every American responsible for the fact that the official language of France isn't German, especially the Americans who lie buried in la terre française.

But it isn't just Cohen's list of Americans the French find admirable that ought to cause all of us to boil, it's the manurial quality of his entire piece.

Think of it.

"les bons Américains"? Cohen should have mocked the arrogant stupidity of this term. Instead, he knee-jerked his love of anyone who condemns most of America even to the point of embracing the notion that Nature (not God, out of respect for his European secularism) has selected the French as the Chosen People whose most important job is to identify the good human beings who live outside perfect France.

"European urbanity and wit"? A real intellect would mock the small-minded, parochial citizens of the small nation called France for boasting they are great lovers of wit while never turning it on their arrogant, pretentious selves. Read article.

Obama numbered among 'false prophets'

Jody Brown, One News Now.com

In a column published last week, Cal Thomas took a verbal swing at Barack Obama's claim to be a committed Christian. "He can call himself anything he likes," wrote the syndicated columnist, "but there are certain markers among the evangelicals he is courting that one must meet in order to qualify for that label."

The "courting" that Thomas referred to is the Democratic presidential candidate's "Joshua Generation Project" -- his campaign's wooing of the conservative Christian vote, which in recent elections has tended to favor the Republican candidate. But "Obama is no Joshua," as the column title states. Thomas supports his argument by quoting from an interview the Illinois senator gave to Chicago Sun-Times religion editor Cathleen Falsani.

"I'm rooted in the Christian tradition," Obama told Falsani. "I believe there are many paths to the same place, and that is a belief that there is a higher power, a belief that we are connected as a people." The latter part of that statement, says Thomas, would likely be viewed by most Christians as universalism.

Thomas concludes the column with biting criticism of Senator Obama's statement of faith:

"... [T]here is a clear requirement for one to qualify as a Christian and Obama doesn't meet that requirement," stated Thomas. "One cannot deny central tenets of the Christian faith, including the deity and uniqueness of Christ as the sole mediator between God and Man and be a Christian. Such people do have a label applied to them in scripture. They are called 'false prophets.'" Read article.