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July 2, 2008

Exclusive: Wednesday, July 2

Presidential Watch

Obama birth certificate mystery solved? (Interesting blog discussion HERE.)

Google Shuts Down Anti-Obama Sites

Atlas Shrugs.com

I have long been warning of the agenda Google pursues. Too long. Well they have really come out of the liberal fascist closet on this one. BTW, got a gmail account? I wouldn't. They are a dangerous company. Go here and scroll. This is proto-typical of the left. They cannot compete - they cannot debate. What is this but a club to the tenets of free speech? What is the fairness doctrine but a club to the free market of ideas? Read article.

General Recklessness: Wesley Clark on the trail.

Kathryn Jean Lopez, NRO

‘I don't think riding in a fighter plane and getting shot down is a qualification to be president," former NATO Supreme Allied Commander Wesley Clark told Face the Nation on Sunday.

Clark explained: "In the matters of national security policy making, it's a matter of understanding risk." The Hillary-Clinton-turned-Barack-Obama-supporter continued: "It's a matter of gauging your opponents and it's a matter of being held accountable. John McCain's never done any of that in his official positions. I certainly honor his service as a prisoner of war. He was a hero to me and to hundreds of thousands and millions of others in the armed forces, as a prisoner of war."

Clark went on to say: "That large squadron in the Navy that he commanded - that wasn't a wartime squadron."

If this is a serious strategy on the Left for defeating McCain, Republicans may yet surprise in November. Read article.

Let McCain Be McCain

Peggy Noonan, Online WSJ.com

The big political headline this week, of course, involves John McCain's endless and humiliating attempts to placate Mitt Romney by bowing to demands he hire his operatives and pay his campaign debt. So far all he's got is a grudging one-sentence endorsement from that rampaging rage-aholic Ann Romney.

Oh wait, got confused, that's Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.

The way it used to be is you ran and lost and either disappeared or pitched in. Mrs. Clinton continues making Mr. Obama look the dauphin to her embittered and domineering queen.

What a hothouse of egos and drama the Democratic Party has become.

Mr. McCain just can't get as much coverage as Mr. Obama, or the coverage is dutiful and therefore deadly. "McCain Unveils Proposal." "McCain Responds." At Google News there are 97,000 stories on Mr. McCain as I write this column, 138,000 on Mr. Obama. You know Mr. McCain's problems. He's old, he's angered everyone along the way, he never seems to mean it. His stands seem like positions. He bebops from issue to issue and never seems fully engaged in the real meat of policy, the content of it.

Also, we all know him. This, in time, will become a benefit to him-a big one. At the moment, early on, it's not. Mr. Obama has the lightning, he's new, he's still just being discovered. Read article.

McCain Gaining Support of Conservatives

Ronald Kessler, NewsMax.com

John McCain is making progress in wooing the center-right coalition, key conservative leaders Dave Keene and Grover Norquist tell Newsmax.

"McCain is gaining more support among conservatives," says Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform. "He is generally moving in the right direction. He came and spoke to the National Rifle Association board meeting. Interestingly, President Bush never did that in eight years. McCain came and spoke to the Conservative Political Action Committee conference this year. Bush only did that in his final year in office."

The McCain campaign regularly sends a representative to the off-the-record Wednesday meeting of about 150 conservative leaders, Norquist says.

"John McCain has made some progress in his effort to attract conservatives to his cause," says Keene, president of the 1-million-member American Conservative Union. "But," he says, "he has yet to win the sort of enthusiastic support he'll need before the votes are actually cast in November."

While some conservatives voice doubts about him, "This will change to some degree as the campaign develops and McCain's operation matures," Keene says. "But the fact remains that the prime motivator of conservatives is probably going to continue to be not John McCain but a fear of the consequences of a Barack Obama victory." Read article.

No, McCain Isn't 'Doomed'

John Fund, Online WSJ.com

Some pundits claim John McCain has no chance of beating Barack Obama. "The current bundle of economic troubles should doom any Republican hoping to succeed George Bush," says NBC's Chris Matthews. "It's almost impossible to believe that another Republican could get elected," insists Katty Kay, the BBC's Washington-based correspondent. They need to better understand the rhythms of presidential campaigns and show more humility in a year that's been chock full of political surprises.

Some Democrats claim new polls by Newsweek and the Los Angeles Times showing Sen. McCain trailing by 15 points in each seal the deal on an Obama presidency. But both polls appear to be outliers. Other polls show the race to be close.

Both surveys polled registered, not likely, voters. Normally, only two-thirds of those end up casting ballots, and nonvoters lean Democratic. Second, Democrats had a 14-point advantage in Newsweek's sample, and a 17-point advantage in the Times poll, with Republicans making up only 22% of respondents. That's an unusually low number. Most other polls have the party ID gap with a significantly smaller Democratic edge.

Republicans shouldn't panic, but they should be worried. The McCain campaign reflects the candidate's impulsive nature and hasn't articulated a consistent reform agenda.

There is evidence that fall campaigns, which tend to focus voters on big-picture issues, usually help Republicans. In 1976, Gerald Ford was seen as a goner during the summer but rallied to finish only two points behind Jimmy Carter. A dozen years later, Michael Dukakis led George H.W. Bush in June and July. He lost by eight points in the fall. In 1992, Bill Clinton had a 10-point lead around Labor Day. He won by only five and a half points. Even Bob Dole closed a 12-point Labor Day gap to only eight points by November 1996. If that history is a guide, a focused McCain campaign that clearly contrasts conservative and liberal approaches to the issues should have a good chance of winning.

After all, it isn't easy for Democrats to win in a two-person race for president. Since FDR's last victory in 1944, only one Democrat - Lyndon Johnson in 1964 - has won 50.1% or more of the popular vote. Both of Bill Clinton's victories were aided by Ross Perot's presence on the ballot. Read article.

On Many Issues, Americans Favor McCain's Solutions

Donald Lambro, Townhall.com

If the presidential election hinged on who could best protect us from terrorism, veteran Sen. John McCain would probably defeat freshman Sen. Barack Obama.

The Arizona Republican beats the Illinois Democrat by 19 points (52 percent to 33 percent) when voters are asked who would do a better job on that issue, according to the latest USA Today/Gallup Poll.

On the bedrock issue of terrorism, Americans trust the decorated war veteran, fighter pilot and national-security leader far more than they do the youthful, inexperienced former neighborhood organizer from Chicago.

But terrorism is not the leading issue in the country today. It ranks fifth among the eight election issues that are most important to the American people. Obviously, it would climb to the top of the list if we were attacked, but that isn't likely to happen while George W. Bush is in the White House. Whatever his deficiencies as president, he will leave office in January with the vast majority of Americans acknowledging that "he has kept us safe" since Sept. 11, 2001. Read article.

Liars' Round-up - On Security, Facts Matter

Ralph Peters, NY Post.com

The facts about your security are being torn to shreds by activist liars. And they think that you're too stupid to know the difference.

Let's lay out the worst current examples of media make-believe and election-year truth-trashing:

Whopper No. 1: America is less safe today than it was on Sept. 10, 2001. Oh, really? Where's the evidence? The Clinton years saw New York City attacked and Americans slaughtered by terrorists around the globe. Nothing was done to protect us.

And the true end of the Clinton era came on 9/11.

A record to be proud of.

As president, Barack Obama would bring positive change to our foreign policy - and John McCain's too old to get it.

Hmm: Take a gander at Obama's senior foreign-policy advisers: Madeleine Albright (71), Warren Christopher (82), Anthony Lake (69), Lee Hamilton (77), Richard Clarke (57) . . . These are the people whose watch saw the first attack on the World Trade Center, Mogadishu, Rwanda, the Srebrenica massacre, a pass for the Russians on Chechnya, the Khobar Towers bombing, the attacks on our embassies in Africa, the near-sinking of the USS Cole - oh, and the US bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade.

Their legacy climaxed on 9/11.

You couldn't assemble a team in Washington with more strategic failures to its credit. Read article.

RICE TO OBAMA'S AID

Judith A. Klinghoffer, Political Mavens.com

If president Bush made Condi Rice a secretary of state in the hope that she can tame Foggy Bottom, he over estimated her. She is now as house broken as has predecessor has been. Either that or race is thicker than water. How else can one explain her hand in floating the trial balloon that the US considers opening interests section in Iran that would be 1st diplomatic post in 3 decades in the middle of the election season.

The interests section concept is an old idea now being revisited by a very small group of diplomats and political officials at the State Department, with the blessing of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

Let us not forget that Obama advocates a change in the accepted US policy with Iran. He advocates direct negotiations without any preconditions. McCain rejects the idea as do many Democrats.

What does Rice do? She takes the sting out of Obama's discredited notion by suggesting that it is time the US entrust a new group of American diplomats to Iran's tender mercies. Read article.

Obama's Taxes: A $2 Trillion Trip Back to the 70s

Tom Blumer, Pajamas Media.com

With President Obama in office, the days of governments extracting a top marginal rate of 60% will return. Could bell bottoms be far behind?

Remember how the press made George Bush's tax rate cuts look so "huge" in 2001 and 2003?

A March 10, 2001, New York Times article by reporters Frank Bruni and Richard W. Stevenson typified the approach. The trick was to talk about the (scary) $1.6 trillion impact of the "cuts" while minimizing attention to their time frame. At the linked article, the reporters waited until the ninth paragraph to tell us that it was a "$1.6 trillion, 10-year package" - that is, a less intimidating average reduction of $160 billion a year.

Using consistent language, Barack Obama's tax proposals involve tax hikes of at least $2 trillion, and possibly $3 trillion, over the next 10 years.

Obama would bring tax policy back to the 1970s, or about where we were before the Reagan-era tax rate cuts that triggered the Seven Fat Years of 1983-1989.

If a President Barack Obama gets his desired tax increases, he will show us that supply-side economics has a painful reverse gear. Just as Uncle Sam never had to do without the $1.6 trillion the New York Times and the rest of the media fretted over in 2001, an Obama administration will never see anywhere near the multi-trillion-dollar tax increase windfall it hopes for.

Let's look at the static Obama numbers. Read article.

Winning Sam's Club Voters

Republicans must find new ways to speak to the real anxieties of working-class voters.

Rich Lowry, NRO.com

White working-class voters typically aren't in vogue, with the political chatter tending to revolve around "soccer moms," the "youth vote," or other boutique demographic groups of the moment. But the late charge of Hillary Clinton's doomed presidential campaign made white working-class voters surprisingly fashionable.

They'll stay that way if the important new book Grand New Party, by two young writers for The Atlantic, Ross Douthat and Reihan Salam, has the impact on the political debate that it should. In an incisive analysis of the past 30 years of our politics, Douthat and Salam puncture self-comforting delusions of both the Right and the Left, and persuasively advocate a reorientation of the GOP to address working-class concerns.

They define working-class voters - "Sam's Club" voters, in the phrase they borrow from Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty - as that half of the electorate that lacks a college education. Neither party has been able to build a durable majority, Douthat and Salam write, because of "the refusal of America's working class to pick a side and stick with it." These voters supported Nixon in 1968, Reagan in 1980 and Gingrich in 1994 - before defecting back to the Democrats for Jimmy Carter in 1976, Bill Clinton in 1992, and Nancy Pelosi and Co. in 2006. Read article.

New Featured Column - Obama Watch

Lisa De Pasquale, Human Events.com

Last week Senator Barack Obama announced that he is opting out of the public financing system and spending limits and instead relying on private donations. He gave a litany of phony reasons and mischaracterizations of the financial picture on both sides. In a video to his supporters and the rest of world, Obama said:

"It's not an easy decision, and especially because I support a robust system of public financing of elections. But the public financing of presidential elections as it exists today is broken, and we face opponents who've become masters at gaming this broken system. John McCain's campaign and the Republican National Committee are fueled by contributions from Washington lobbyists and special interest PACs. And we've already seen that he's not going to stop the smears and attacks from his allies running so-called 527 groups, who will spend millions and millions of dollars in unlimited donations."

On several occasions during the primary season, Obama said he would "aggressively pursue" a public financing system if the Republican candidate also agreed to do so. In his 2006 book, "The Audacity of Hope," Obama wrote of the importance of embracing the changes of a publicly financed campaign system. "But none of these changes can happen of their own accord," he wrote, "Each would require a change in attitude among those in power... Each would require from men and women a willingness to risk what they already have."

Gambling away the Obama campaign's nearly $300 million raised is a big risk. A change in action was made based on what benefited him, not on "reforming a broken system." In short, joining the public financing system is change Obama can't afford. Read article.

What's In a Name?

Paul Beston, TCS Daily.com

The Democrats may yet survive their primary blood feud to capture the White House, but it doesn't follow that liberalism will recover with them. If it does, it will be a liberalism that still cannot be named as such. Even in 2008, in what shapes up as a terrible year for the Republican Party, leading Democrats are still reluctant to identify their policy proposals with the "liberal" moniker. By contrast, while the Republican Party may well be headed for a bloodbath in November, its leaders grasp to the term "conservative" as if it were a lifeline.

Presumptive Democratic nominee Barack Obama has not only had his hands full trying to distance himself from his pastor, Jeremiah Wright, but also trying to obscure his identity as a political liberal - which he most assuredly is. National Journal rated him the most liberal senator in 2007.

"A lot of these old labels don't apply anymore," Obama told the New York Times recently, referring to political terms like "conservative" and "liberal." In his stump speeches during the campaign, he has frequently championed policy goals by claiming that they aren't in fact liberal: "There's nothing liberal about wanting to reduce money in politics," he has said. "That is common sense. There's nothing liberal about wanting to make sure [our soldiers] are treated properly when they come home . . . . There's nothing liberal about wanting to make sure that everybody has healthcare. We are spending more on healthcare in this country than any other advanced country, but we've got more uninsured. There's nothing liberal about saying that doesn't make sense, and we should do something smarter with our healthcare system."

In arguing that "labels don't apply anymore," Obama is making the same claim, nearly verbatim, that Michael Dukakis, John Kerry, and other Democrats have made over the years, stretching back over a generation. What these candidates found out the hard way was that labels mean plenty, especially when they refer to something that people understand--like liberalism. Read article.

Why Liberals Lie About What They Believe

John Hawkins, Townhall.com

Once you've watched liberals long enough to understand how they think -- scratch that, how they feel -- they become extraordinarily predictable.

To begin with, the liberal agenda is, in many respects, the same as it was in the thirties. Whether you call it communism, fascism, socialism, liberalism, or progressivism, the only real difference is how much they believe they can get away with, the way they sell it to people, and the latest trendy name for what they believe.

So, once the liberals pick a policy from their stale program to push, the next step is to get it implemented. This is where liberals have problems because whether a policy makes sense, is practical, or actually improves people's lives is of secondary importance to them. What is important to liberals is whether supporting or opposing that policy makes them feel good about themselves.

This is why liberals continue to support dysfunctional policies that have been failing miserably for decades and why they often oppose common sense programs that have been proven to work time and time again -- because it isn't about whether it works or not, it's about how it makes them feel. Read article.