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July 4, 2008

Exclusive: Friday, July 4

Presidential Watch

Glenn Beck's discussion with Ken Blackwell & Ann Coulter - GO HERE.

See Dick Morris's Electoral College Predictions - HERE.

A not-so-public man: the private character of John McCain

Abraham Katsman, Jpost.com

It's pretty amazing when you think about it. War hero John McCain has been in the public eye almost his entire adult life. He's run numerous campaigns, served in Congress for 25 years, and is in his second run for the presidency.

Yet, there is so much of his life that reveals an absolutely sterling character, but remains largely unknown to the public. And in spite of the tremendous political advantages that publicity could confer, McCain instinctively keeps that information private. Although as a presidential candidate he may be forced to overcome this reticence, he honorably shies away from using his personal heroics for political gain.

How aware is the public that McCain has raised seven children? Or that he adopted his two oldest sons as small boys (children from his wife's prior marriage)? Or that he has raised a Bangladeshi girl with severe health problems adopted from Mother Theresa's orphanage? Or that his own sons have served in the military, including in Iraq? Read article.

Formed On The Anvil Of His Captivity

Tony Blankley, GOP USA.com

As of today, Sen. Barack Obama is about halfway through his "patriotism theme week" message cycle. As of 2008, Sen. John McCain is about seven-ninths through his patriotism theme life cycle. I guess that is the difference between the new politics and the old patriotism.

The Obama campaign launched its new politics patriotism week last Sunday, with retired Gen. Wes "Speichellecker" Clark smearing John McCain's war record -- even to the point of the former general saying that "riding" in a fighter plane and getting shot down are not qualifications for being president. Well, in fact, McCain wasn't riding, of course. He was the pilot in his 23rd mission over heavily defended enemy territory when he was shot down by a Soviet missile. But when Wes "Camera Hound" Clark goes on a mission, he always aims low.

This is the same Gen. Clark who, while leading the bombing campaign against Serbia from his desk, was reprimanded by President Clinton's secretary of defense, William Cohen, to get his "f------ face off the TV. No more briefings, period. That's it." During that bombing campaign, Gen. Clark didn't even go along for the "ride."

And it is the same general who was removed prematurely from his European command on the following explanation of then-chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Hugh Sheldon: "The reason he came out of Europe early had to do with integrity and character issues." Read article.

McCain's unorthodox campaign

Mark Z. Barabak, LA Times.com

This week, when Barack Obama campaigns in Ohio and Colorado, John McCain will be visiting Colombia and Mexico. It's an unusual path for McCain to follow. But even more, it's a risky strategy for his presidential campaign.

Such seemingly contrary tactics as focusing on national security and foreign affairs when voters are most concerned about the domestic economy have provoked consternation among fellow Republicans.

Not since Richard M. Nixon traveled to all 50 states in 1960, fulfilling a pledge he came to regret, has a presidential candidate followed an itinerary that appears so at odds with his political needs.

For starters, and most obviously, there are no electoral votes to be had in Latin America or Canada, another country McCain recently visited. Even more puzzling to observers is McCain's emphasis on national security and foreign affairs -- Saturday he met with the leaders of Iraq and the Philippines -- at a time when domestic matters have surged to the fore of voter concerns.

"You can't shoehorn in an issue the American people aren't focused on every day at their kitchen table," said Matthew Dowd, who ran President Bush's 2004 reelection campaign, which centered on fighting terrorism at a time when Sept. 11 was far more resonant. "The danger is you miss being where people are at."

On Saturday, Obama announced his own foreign tour, a trip to Europe and the Middle East. There are risks for the Illinois senator, if he seems cocky or his journey takes on the air of a victory lap. But the trip makes sense politically, addressing a gap in Obama's résumé.

McCain is attempting something far more difficult: driving the campaign in a direction that voters, at least for now, don't wish to go. Read article.

Dick Morris: McCain in Trouble

Phil Brennan, NewsMax.com

In their book "Fleeced: How Barack Obama, Media Mockery of Terrorist Threats, Liberals Who Want to Kill Talk Radio, the Do-Nothing Congress, Companies that Help Iran, and Washington Lobbyists for Foreign Governments Are Scamming Us . . . and What to Do About It," top political guru Dick Morris and his wife Eileen McGann write chillingly of the ways Americans are being scammed by politicians, especially Barack Obama, by big business, big labor, and by credit card companies. Obama, the authors warn, will adopt European socialism as his model.

In an exclusive interview with Newsmax, Morris discusses the perils of an Obama administration, especially when bolstered by a Congress tightly controlled by the liberal Democrats. Morris also was critical of John McCain's present style of campaigning.

Newsmax: What does John McCain have to do win?

Morris: I think he needs to focus on the very specific record of promises that Obama has made. The most significant attack should be that Obama is going to extend health insurance to all the illegal immigrants in the United States. He says he's going to extend it to 47 million uninsured Americans and that statistic includes 10 million to 15 million illegal immigrants. Read article.

John McCain's JFK Opportunity

William McGurn, Online WSJ.com

One presidential candidate says our Latin American neighbors are "drifting away" because we do not support our democratic friends. That "our failure to help the people of Latin America to achieve their economic aspirations" is a moral and strategic tragedy. And that we need to confront those who are "exploiting domestic distress and unrest, encouraging growing dislike of the United States, working to impose Communist rule."

No, the words are not John McCain's. They are John F. Kennedy's. But on the day that Sen. McCain leaves for a quick trip to Colombia and Mexico, they present him with an opportunity: The chance to remind American voters that his opponent has more in common with the party of Ted Kennedy than the party of John Kennedy.

JFK spoke the words quoted above on the steps of a Tampa, Fla., courthouse during the 1960 campaign. As president, he would transform those words into a new Latin American policy. Though it covered many parts, the gist was that only freedom could transform Latin America, and that both our interests and our ideals compelled us to support those making brave stands for freedom. Read article.

When in the Course of Political Doublespeak

Jon Sanders, Townhall.com

In recent weeks, Sen. Barack Obama has found himself having to make two major speeches to address significant, unavoidable issues facing his campaign. The first was his original attempt at addressing his race-mad mentor, pastor, and family friend, Rev. Jeremiah Wright. This week has seen his answer to questions about his patriotism.

Both speeches use the same formula: hearken to America's founding, hail the shining ideals of America's revolutionary liberty, invoke the greatness and even the rhetoric of American luminaries gone by, and then subtly change the focus to suggest that the next step for American liberty is to become a socialized nanny state for the greater good.

Appealing to America's founding freedoms is a mere matter of form in Obama's speeches; it's the sort of thing he uses to make his call for nanny statism seem "American" rather than just more rehashed European nonsense. Obama speaks almost reverently of liberty, and in this speech he especially praises America's founding protections of the pursuit of happiness ("the right to pursue our individual dreams," "we are not constrained by the accident of birth but can make of our lives what we will"), but then he puts forth as "patriotic" manifold ways to curtail those very freedoms. Read article.

Obama campaign site: Free Islamic terrorist!

Aaron Klein, WND.com

A blog posting on Sen. Barack Obama's official campaign site urges Americans to take action to secure the release of imprisoned terrorist fundraiser Sami Al-Arian, comparing the controversial former professor to Martin Luther King and Malcolm X.

The posting is just a sampling of a large volume of racist, anti-Semitic and pro-Palestinian rhetoric published on the user-friendly MyObama community blog pages. The Obama campaign does not monitor all blog material, which is posted by registered users, but says it removes offending posts that are brought to the attention of the administrators.

In a blog post on Obama's site titled, "We are all Palestinians," user Ulf Erlingsson laments what he calls the "harsh" conditions of Al-Arian's imprisonment - explaining he "lives in segregation ... is not allowed any visitors and is given only two phone calls a month."

The posting quotes Agha Saeed, chair of the American Muslim Taskforce on Civil Rights and Elections, comparing Al-Arian to King and Malcom X, who "symbolized the struggle for human rights in the fifties and sixties. Dr. Sami Al-Arian has come to symbolize the current struggle for human rights." Read article.

Obama vs. Europe: O's Unilateralism Outrages EU

Amil Taheri, NY Post.com

Does Barack Obama intend to break the united front that the Bush administration has built to deal with Iran's nuclear ambitions? The question, posed by US allies in Europe and the Middle East, shows the growing concerns about Obama's contradictory remarks on the issue.

Initially, Obama announced that he'd seek unconditional talks with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Later, he changed that to talks with "appropriate Iranian leaders" and tried to skirt the "unconditional" bit of his pledge by saying that some "preparatory work" might be needed before he'd sit with an Iranian interlocutor.

What isn't clear is whether Obama would insist that Iran respect the unanimous decision of the UN Security Council to stop uranium enrichment.

The new UN compromise package, presented by the European Union foreign-policy czar Javier Solana to the mullahs this month, is structured around the demand that Iran stop enrichment as prerequisite for dialogue.

Tehran, however, insists that the enrichment issue is "closed for ever" - clearly hoping that an Obama administration would endorse that position. If the US is likely to drop that key demand soon, there's no reason why Iran should meet it now.

Obama, in other words, pulled the carpet from under Solana's feet while the mullahs watched and chuckled. Read article.

Obama's Leftist Armies

David Limbaugh, David Limbaugh.com

Be afraid; be very afraid. If you think Barack Obama is arrogant and leftist, you ought to see those he will have to cater to if elected -- and, according to them, even to get elected in the first place.

These leftist "netroots" are none too pleased with Obama's feint to the center the past few weeks, his "capitulation" on retroactive immunity for telecoms for cooperating with the government to monitor terrorist communications, his alleged disagreement with the Supreme Court for invalidating the death penalty for child rapists, and his flip-flop on the D.C. handgun case.

They are abuzz about the messiah's apparent abandonment of their orthodoxy. Interestingly, though, not many of the complainers really believe Obama has left them. Like Obama's longtime pastor, Jeremiah Wright, they realize Obama is quite willing to mask his inner self to get elected. But many are disgusted that he's even playing the game.

One blogger at The Huffington Post writes: "Sen. Barack Obama is risking his brand as a political reformer, according to reports today in the Los Angeles Times and the Washington Post. In recent weeks, he has moderated or changed positions on a number of politically-charged issues, leading to criticism from demoralized Democratic activists." Read article.

Obama's Dry Hole

Review & Outlook, Online WSJ.com

"I want you to think about this," Barack Obama said in Las Vegas last week. "The oil companies have already been given 68 million acres of federal land, both onshore and offshore, to drill. They're allowed to drill it, and yet they haven't touched it - 68 million acres that have the potential to nearly double America's total oil production."

Wow, how come the oil companies didn't think of that?

Perhaps because the notion is obviously false - at least to anyone who knows how oil and gas exploration actually works. Predictably, however, Mr. Obama's claim is also the mantra of Nancy Pelosi, Barbara Boxer, John Kerry, Nick Rahall and others writing Congressional energy policy. As a public service, here's a remedial education.

Democrats are in a vise this summer, pinned on one side by voter anger over $4 gas and on the other by their ideological opposition to carbon-based energy - so, as always, the political first resort is to blame Big Oil. The allegation is that oil companies are "stockpiling" leases on federal lands to drive up gas prices. At least liberals are finally acknowledging the significance of supply and demand.

To deflect the GOP effort to relax the offshore-drilling ban - and thus boost supply while demand will remain strong - Democrats also say that most of the current leases are "nonproducing." Read article.

Romney: Obama Shows 'Frightening Naiveté'

Ronald Kessler, NewsMax.com

Barack Obama's approach to the war on terror shows "frightening naiveté," Mitt Romney tells Newsmax.

"Even the peaceniks of the last decade have recognized that the pre-911 thinking of the early 1990s was wrong," Romney says. "The great majority of those who opposed the conflict in Iraq nevertheless recognize that it is a war against a radical, violent Islam. But Barack is one of the few who has still refused to speak out against radical violent Islam and jihadism."

To suggest, as Obama has, that the way to deal with terrorists is to prosecute them "bespeaks a remarkable lack of understanding of the threat which we face," Romney says.

Obama has said the government can crack down on terrorists "within the constraints of the Constitution." He has said, "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."

In the 1993 World Trade bombing, while some perpetrators were prosecuted, others, like Osama bin Laden, were not, Romney points out. Moreover, Romney says, since the 9/11 hijackers did not care if they were killed or sent to jail, and all died in the attack, it is foolhardy to suggest that the threat of prosecutions would be a deterrent. Read article.

Obama: Man of the World

Nicholas Kristoff, NY Times.com

"I Will Have Credibility With Muslim World"...Obama

"I was a little Jakarta street kid," he said in a wide-ranging interview in his office (excerpts are on my blog, www.nytimes.com/ontheground). He once got in trouble for making faces during Koran study classes in his elementary school, but a president is less likely to stereotype Muslims as fanatics - and more likely to be aware of their nationalism - if he once studied the Koran with them.

Mr. Obama recalled the opening lines of the Arabic call to prayer, reciting them with a first-rate accent. In a remark that seemed delightfully uncalculated (it'll give Alabama voters heart attacks), Mr. Obama described the call to prayer as "one of the prettiest sounds on Earth at sunset."

Moreover, Mr. Obama's own grandfather in Kenya was a Muslim. Mr. Obama never met his grandfather and says he isn't sure if his grandfather's two wives were simultaneous or consecutive, or even if he was Sunni or Shiite. (O.K., maybe Mr. Obama should just give up on Alabama.) Read article.

Patriotism Again

James Taranto, Online WSJ.com

Four years ago we wrote an essay for The Wall Street Journal titled "The Democrats' Patriotism Problem," in which we noted that Democrats "are awfully defensive about their patriotism." We singled out John Kerry, Max Cleland and Michael Dukakis as Democratic politicians whose "whining about imagined attacks on patriotism" had proved (or would prove, in the case of Kerry) an unproductive political tactic.

Yesterday, on the eve of Canada Day, Barack Obama gave a speech on patriotism that seems in some ways to fit the pattern:

At certain times over the last 16 months, I have found, for the first time, my patriotism challenged--at times as a result of my own carelessness, more often as a result of the desire by some to score political points and raise fears about who I am and what I stand for.

While Obama's prickliness about his own patriotism sounds familiar, there are some differences this time around.

One is that Obama actually has had his patriotism questioned, albeit not by John McCain or even Hillary Clinton--or, as far as we know, by people working for them or any other of his political opponents. Rather, the questions have come from individual cranks, their voices amplified by the power of a certain world-wide computer network that Al Gore took the initiative in creating. One could argue this point either way, but we tend to think Obama made a mistake by responding to these rumors, thereby elevating them.

At the same time, Obama arguably has good reason to feel defensive. In our 2004 essay, we asked, "Why do Democrats feel so vulnerable on the issue of patriotism?" Read article.