May 9, 2008

Exclusive: Saturday, May 10

Presidential Watch

Magic or Meat Loaf, Senator McCain

Arnold Ahlert, Political Mavens.com

Is it just me, or is John McCain as inspiring as left over meat loaf?

Right now, if the election were a choice between McCain and meat loaf, I'd be bringing a knife and fork to the voting booth. No doubt there's a certain lack of media coverage of McCain's campaign, due to the fireworks going on between Obama and Clinton. And no doubt a liberal-tilted media would like to keep him on the down low as much as possible, all the way up to election day.

But if truth be told, Sen. McCain seems to be doing little to fire up the electorate. The tragedy of this is that right now, he's got a clear field due to the aforementioned Democratic debacle. He could be setting the tone for the entire campaign, forcing his Democratic opponent to play catch up. At the very least, he could be outlining the stark differences between capitalism and socialism, and why America can't afford to elect either Democrat as president. So why is he essentially sitting on his hands? Read article.

Obama's Low-Key Blowout - Inside the North Carolina victory

Byron York, NRO.com

You've seen those Barack Obama rallies where thousands and thousands of people are packed into this arena or that stadium. This isn't one of them. At the rich-in-basketball-history Reynolds Coliseum on the campus of North Carolina State University, Obama is standing roughly where one basket would be, and the crowd ends somewhere between the foul line and half-court. The great majority of the seats are roped off and empty.

On stage, there's no hoopla. There are no lines of local pols testifying to Obama's fabulousness, no adorable kids to lead the pledge of allegiance, no nothing, beyond one brief introduction of Obama and wife Michelle. This is, in fact, what it appears to be - a hastily thrown-together gathering, announced at the last minute as Obama kept open the option of a victory celebration in Indiana. When it looked like that wouldn't happen, he ended up here. In the end, it seems a little small for a celebration of what might be the decisive victory in the long race for the Democratic nomination, but here it is.

In the days leading up to the election, a lot of people in North Carolina sensed momentum for Hillary Clinton. The polls seemed to show a narrowing gap between her and Obama. Bill Clinton was racing like mad through the small towns of the state, giving a hot stump speech to solid crowds in picturesque settings. There was a lot of talk about the possibly negative after-effects of the Rev. Wright controversy. So it appeared that Clinton might make this a closer-than-expected race.

Wrong. At Reynolds Coliseum, the crowd lights up when the big-screen TVs show the networks calling North Carolina for Obama right off the bat. It's a blowout, with Obama winning by 16-percentage points - more than 230,000 votes. His margin here is bigger than Clinton's was in Pennsylvania. Read article.

One Down, Two to Go

Ann Coulter, Townhall.com

Well, it looks like it's the end of the road for Hillary. Time for her to pack up her pantsuits and go back to ... wherever it is she's pretending to be living these days. Now we just have to get rid of the other two. Perhaps if I endorse Obama ...

This week, Bill Clinton lost his second presidential election for a protégé.

Ronald Reagan was so popular, he not only won a 49-state landslide re-election for himself, but he also won a symbolic third term for his boob of a vice president, George Herbert Walker Bush (who immediately blew it by breaking his own "no new taxes" pledge).

By contrast, in addition to not being able to get half the country to vote for him in two tries, Clinton's connection to any other presidential candidate spells utter doom. Both his vice president and his wife have been defeated in elections they should have won, but lost because of their unfortunate association with him. The country has spoken. It wants to be rid of the Clintons.

In a Time magazine poll taken earlier this year, more than twice as many voters said Bill Clinton's involvement in Hillary's campaign made them less likely to vote for her as said they were more likely to vote for her.

So before remembering that we are now left with two dangerous choices for president -- a young liberal who is friendly with terrorists or an old liberal who is friendly with Teddy Kennedy -- take a moment to revel in the fact that our long national nightmare is over. It turns out getting rid of the Clintons was the change we've been waiting for. Read article.

Hillary's Hilarious Case for Fighting On

George F. Will, NY Post.com

After Tuesday's split decisions in Indiana and North Caro- lina, Clinton, the Yankee Clipperette, can, and hence eventually will, creatively argue that she is really ahead of Barack Obama - or at any rate she is sort of tied, mathematically or morally or something, in popular votes, or delegates, or some combination of the two, as determined by Fermat's Last Theorem, or something, in states whose names begin with vowels, or maybe consonants, or perhaps some mixture of the two as determined by listening to "Help Me, Rhonda" played backward.

Gen. Douglas MacArthur said that every military defeat can be explained by two words: "too late." Too late in anticipating danger, too late in preparing for it, too late in taking action. Clinton's political defeat can be similarly explained - too late in recognizing that the electorate doesn't acknowledge her entitlement to the presidency, too late in understanding that she had a serious challenger, too late in anticipating that she would not dispatch Barack Obama by Super Tuesday (Feb. 5), too late in planning for the special challenges of caucus states, too late in channeling her inner shot-and-a-beer hard hat.

Most of all, she was too late in understanding how much her party's mania for "fairness," as mandated by liberals like her, has, by forbidding winner-take-all primaries, made it nearly impossible for her to overcome Obama's early lead in delegates. Read article.

Even missionaries botch their facts

Amy Hollyfield, Politifact.com

American missionaries who lived in Kenya have spun a conspiratorial tale about Barack Obama that's bouncing around the Internet, but the allegations don't hold up to scrutiny. Sound familiar?

The letter is personal, a friend or relative confiding to another about something important. It is written by an American missionary, offering insight from Africa.

"Thanks for sending out an alert about Obama," Celeste Davis writes in an e-mail. "We are living and working in Kenya for almost twelve years now and know his family (tribe) well. They are the ones who were behind the recent Presidential election chaos here."

Loren Davis, Celeste's husband, says the letter was never meant to be forwarded to thousands, plastered on blogs and put up as the God's truth about Sen. Barack Obama.

Before you read any more excerpts of the letter, understand that its contents are a gross distortion of a few kernels of truth, another example of the fierce, mostly anonymous chain e-mail attacks prevalent in this presidential campaign. This one differs in that it's signed by a real person, a Christian missionary. That fact alone brings it more credence in the blogosphere. Read article.

CBS: 'Unpatriotic' Works, Even Against Purple Heart-Earning Kerry

Brent Baker, NewsBusters.org

Demonstrating how the mainstream media will view criticism of Barack Obama through the prism of past attacks on Democrats they consider illegitimate, Dean Reynolds concluded a Sunday night CBS Evening News story on Barack Obama by suggesting Democrats are well-justified in fearing Republicans will succeed in portraying Obama as "out of the mainstream,'" which Reynolds described as "code for 'unpatriotic'" in forwarding the red-herring, since it has worked "even against those who've received the purple heart." To make his reference clear, as he spoke viewers saw video from the 2004 campaign of John Kerry.

Reynolds had relayed how Obama has "been mocking suggestions that he's out of the mainstream." CBS then played a clip of Obama, in a stump speech, repeating the questions about him: "'We're not sure he shares our values.' 'We haven't seen him wear a flag pin lately.' 'His former pastor said some terrible things' and so, you know, 'can we really trust this guy?'" Read article.

Is Barack a Team(ster) Player?

David Limbaugh, David Limbaugh.com

Almost every week, a new damaging story emerges about Barack Obama. Lucky for this wounded "messiah" that his disciples in the mainstream media neglect, until the last possible minute, their duty to investigate these reports. This week, there's a brand-new one, which has surfaced too late to affect the critically important Indiana and North Carolina primaries, but demands scrutiny nonetheless.

The Wall Street Journal -- admittedly a mainstream media outlet, save the editorial page -- has started the ball rolling on this one with a May 5 article examining the possible reasons behind the International Brotherhood of Teamsters' endorsement of Obama. We'll have to see whether Barack's disciples follow up.

The public line -- both of Obama and the Teamsters -- is that Obama secured the union's support by strongly condemning NAFTA, which the Teamsters believe results in the exportation of jobs. Hillary Clinton has been critical of NAFTA, as well, and even says she opposed it from the beginning. But her assertion is almost as incredible as the Bosnian sniper-fire tale because she and her two-for-one co-president were instrumental in bringing the trade agreement to fruition.

Read article.

The dubious 'popular vote'

Larry Sabato, BBC.co.uk

Give Hillary Clinton credit. She has shown toughness, stamina, and persistence in one of the longest presidential campaigns in American history.

She has fought hard and come back time and again in the 2008 primary season, defying the pundits who insisted on writing her political obituary prematurely. She has held the charismatic phenomenon named Barack Obama almost to a draw in the fight for votes and delegates in the Democratic party's nominating battle.

As some of Obama's weaknesses become more apparent, her arguments are drawing new attention, and at least a few Democratic leaders are considering them.

No one is likely to agree on exactly what the popular vote is, or how it should be counted - the notion ought to be shelved.

All that being true, it's still very unlikely she will overcome Obama's lead. Read article.

Obama's Marxist Axis Of Friends

IBD Editorials.com

Election '08: Barack Obama wishes questions about his associations with Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Bill Ayers and other radicals would end. But maybe the reason they won't is that there's a pattern: Marxism. It's not hiding.

When one looks at Obama, it's shocking how radical and anti-American his closest associates are. Taken separately, the black liberation theology of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, or fundraiser William Ayers' unrepentant past as a 1960s terrorist or Obama's openly pro-Che Guevara volunteers in Houston might be dismissed.

But taken together, and given Obama's closeness to his friends, it's fair to ask whether Obama doesn't share their extreme-left views. Yet whenever he's asked, he gets mad and avoids the issue.

Maybe that's not surprising, given that Obama himself began his career as a Chicago community organizer and worked on projects there influenced by Saul Alinsky. The Marxist Machiavellian of the Chicago scene advised budding revolutionaries in his 1971 book "Rules For Radicals" to conceal their radical affiliations to attain greater power. That works well for Marxists.

But Obama's friends seem to be giving him away. This stinks, frankly. Why does someone who says he represents "change" have so many Jurassic Marxists in his camp calling the shots? He needs to repudiate this crew now. Read article.

Give voters a clue

Jonah Goldberg, JWR.com

Unlike the proposal by John McCain, who also stupidly supports a gas-tax "holiday," the Clinton plan has the added benefit of punishing those evil oil companies by making them pay the tax, even though those pointy-headed economists say it will actually reward them. Big Oil would simply pass that cost back to consumers, and the "holiday" would artificially hike demand for gas so that pump prices would jump right back up.

Clinton says she doesn't mind if economists agree that her proposal would do nothing to alleviate high gas prices. Indeed, when Stephanopoulos pressed her to name one - just one! - credible economist who thinks this idea has merit, she responded: "Well, I'll tell you what, I'm not going to put my lot in with economists." Instead, she explained, she's going to break with the "government power and elite opinion" and side with the little guy. Read article.

The Democrats' Ex-Presidents

J. R. Dunn, RCP.com

Jimmy Carter returned from his visit to Hamas, having embarrassed his country, infuriated the Israelis, and accomplished nothing. The meeting was historic in one sense, marking the first time an American leader actually embraced a head official of a terrorist cult (Nasser Shaer, in Ramallah). Carter told the media that he had solved the problems of the Middle East to his own satisfaction. He was immediately repudiated by Palestinian spokesmen.

Al Gore appears to have taken a break from saving the world, having convinced large numbers of otherwise sensible people that something called "global warming" exists. He can be expected back in short order.

Al's former boss, Big Bill, threatens to sink his wife's presidential campaign with every word he utters. But utter them he does, loudly, repeatedly, and without the least visible effort at self-control. You can't make Bill Clinton shut up. He used to be President, you know.

Why is it that so many Democratic leaders find it necessary to continue making spectacles of themselves after they leave office? Read article.

Clinton Library Won't Release Berger Documents

Fred Lucas, CNSNews.com

The William Jefferson Clinton Presidential Library will not make available to the public the documents that former National Security Advisor Sandy Berger illegally took from the National Archives in 2003.

A letter from the library said the total 502 pages from the Millennium Alert After Action Review (MAAR) are "restricted in their entirety," under federal law and that the documents are "classified in the interest of national defense or foreign policy."

Further, the library stated the documents contain "confidential communications requesting or submitting advice between the president and his advisors, or between such advisors." Read article.