Dan Green on Politics

'Nothing succeeds like failure' GOP race over

2009-01-30T22:39:00.000-08:00

A corollary to the Peter Principle is that "nothing succeeds like failure." What a perfect description of the field in today's face for Republican National Chairman. In a deeply flawed field, we can only hope that through some stroke of luck, the cream rose to the top. There isn't a lot of room for optimism.

The only success running was the South Carolina state chairman. No one wanted a chairman from the deep south, as the party is regionalized there enough all ready. But at least he carried his state for McCain-Palin, elected and re-elected a GOP governor, U.S. Senator and a majority of the state's congressional delegation and legislature. No other candidate running could come even vaguely close to that achievement.

The "winner" of the race was black former Maryland Lt. Gov. Michael Steele. He lost a race he should have won in a decent GOP year for the U.S. Senate. The best that can be said is that a timid and incompetent GOP National Committee let him down by not pouring in the $2-5 million in the last week that could have won the election for him.

He has a very checkered career in low level posts, and no proven ability as an inspired leader, manager or administrator. We can only hope he is not a token black, chosen in a pale attempt to keep up with The Messiah.

The rest of the field was even more laughable. For the GOP to find its future, it will not only take a visionary leader, but Democratic missteps that the GOP is bold and able enough to capitalize on.

Candidate Ken Blackwell, also black, had been the Ohio Secretary of State that did such a shaky job counting the vote for Bush in 2004 that Democrats could claim they actually carried the state. His woeful campaign for Governor two years later, in a bad GOP year, confirmed what they'd said.

Michigan GOP chairman Saul Anuzis lead a complete wipeout of the GOP there. When was the last time in memory a major statewide office went Republican or the GOP presidential nominee carried that state? Certainly not on Anuzis' watch.

Tennessee chairman Chip Saltsman had some success with Mike Huckabee's presidential campaign, but not with his state's governorship. He was never a factor after he sent out a Paul Shanklin comedy disc, which was harmless, but gave the liberal press a field day. (See next blog post).

The last candidate was the incumbent, Mike Duncan, who surprising had the guts to actually run again. After the party was wiped out in both the 2006 and 2008 campaigns, the best thing he can do is find a career outside of politics. Hopefully he has a happy life.

The GOP National Committee? We better say some prayers on that score.

Foolish consistency to resurface

2008-12-30T20:57:00.000-08:00

Disgraced, corrupted Democratic Gov. Rod Blagojevich of Illinois, caught on wiretaps brokering President-elect Obama's Senate seat for campaign contributions, has just put his party in a vice--and particularly U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who said the party will never seat a Senator appointed by Blago.

He named former Illinois Attorney General Roland Burris, 71, to the seat. A revered figure in Illinois Democratic politics and trailblazing black officeholder, the Democrats will look terrible if they disallow the appointment of their body's only black member. They will also look terrible if they go back on their word, and seat a Blago nominee.

The problem is that the wheels of justice grind slowly, if at all, in Illinois and at the rate the legislature is moving to impeach and try Blago for his many crimes, it could be March or April before he's out of office. Then the Lt. Governor would take over and appoint a Senator. With the theft of a Minnesota Senate seat for comedian Al Franken likely to come up for a vote, the Democrats need the seat from Illinois filled as soon as possible.

Many members of the legislature in Illinois are bound up in Blago's transgressions, and as beholden as Blago is, to the Chicago Daily machine. They clearly see the truth of the scripture: "There, but for the grace of God, goeth I." Many would look like total hypocrites to impeach and convict Blago, but carry on their own transgressions.

The face-saving way out is to pass a bill setting up a special election, which Blago has said he will sign. Democrats in Washington hate this alternative, because in a single-shot election, given their total screwing up of the Senate seat, a Republican could well be elected to it.

Thoreau said "Foolish consistency is the hobglobin of little minds." This probably rings true to U.S. Senate Democrat ears, who are looking for a fig leaf to cover the acceptance of Roland Burris as the junior U.S. Senator from Illinois.

Obama birth flap a nonstarter

2008-12-22T18:42:00.000-08:00

There is substantial evidence that Barack Obama was born in Kenya. There is testimony from his paternal grandmother of having attended the birth. There is a monument there, recognizing his birth. Since his white mother from Kansas was under 18 at the birth, the father's citizenship determines that of the son.

The other scenario is that paperwork exists that Obama's stepfather, an Indonesian citizen, signed to get Barack into the Muslim madrassa, where he went to elementary school, certifying that Barack was an Indonesian citizen.

Either of these scenarios, if true, would disqualify Obama, under the U.S. constitution, from serving as President.

Obama claims he was born in Hawaii, and shows a copy of a birth certificate from there. It is not a certified state original, however. He could easily clear up the whole matter, by simply having the State of Hawaii issue a certified, official birth certificate and put the whole matter to rest. The fact that they haven't probably means they can't.

Afterall, most anyone, such as this author, has had to run down to his local county clerk's office to get a certified birth certificate when applying for a passport. It took a good 3 minutes (and $10) for them to shell one out.

There are 9 different court cases filed against Obama and his campaign, alleging that he is unable to serve as President. The campaign is spending millions to defend them. They are copiously documented. No court has even heard a case, dismissing them out of hand. The U.S. Supreme Court declined to rule on the one case that has reached them so far, and another is scheduled there on January 9, 2009. Since this is three days after the Electoral College has met and certified Obama's election, it is considered highly unlikely that they will act.

Just because something looks right, doesn't mean you can find a government official with the guts to rule. At least 9 Americans are finding that out the hard way.

Blagojevich a piker, comparatively

2008-12-18T19:40:00.000-08:00

Compared to the real pros who populate Washington D.C., Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, accused of conducting a public auction for President-elect Obama's former U.S. Senate seat, is a piker. He was only seeking a few hundred thousand in campaign contributions to his re-election, and only modestly well-paid jobs for he and his wife.

Former Democrat Bill Clinton has been forced by Obama to release the list of some 205,000 contributors to his private foundation and presidential library. It is rife with conflicts of interest among its some $200 million in gifts. It is loaded with foreign benefactors, led by Saudi Arabia.

You cannot say with a straight face that these folks were all normal, civic-minded citizens with no interest in buying influence.

Ha! If anything, the appointment of Hillary as Secretary of State will allow Bill to reload the arsenal. If it made sense to lavish $200 million on a former president, think how much more valuable a contribution will now be, with his wife as Secretary of State.

Blago, you think too small! The gov now says he will sign a bill from the legislature calling for an immediate special election for the seat, since Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid says the Democratic majority will refuse to seat any nominee selected by Blago. Talk about screwing up a sure thing. Impeachment proceedings against Blago are bogged down in the sewer of the Democratic-controlled Illinois legislature, and even the state supreme court has turned down the pleas of the opportunist Democratic Attorney General, to get involved.

Instead of a reliable liberal appointed by a Democratic governor, now the Republicans, in light of the scandal, will have a real shot at electing a U.S. Senator from Illinois in a few weeks in a special election.

Even in its atrophied, enfeebled, severely decayed state, the GOP managed to pull it together enough to elect a conservative Vietnamese immigrant to the seat of the freezer king, Democratic Rep. William Jefferson of Louisiana, last week. This is a district that is 75% black and 80% Democratic.

As incompetent as Illinois Republicans have been in recent years, the turf is not near as bad as Jefferson's district, and don't think for a minute they can't pull it together in a special election. In fact, two GOP congressmen are already licking their chops, eager to make the race.

The squeaky clean, deft Obama ship is leaking oil. What a gas!

It's a riot to see Obama and the boys tapdance

2008-12-11T19:25:00.000-08:00

As the old style, Chicago Machine style, politics bubble to the surface once again in Illinois and in the budding Obama administration--it's a riot to see Barack and his team tapdance out of the way, to try to contain the damage.

What we're seeing in the indictment of Gov. Rod Blagojevich for trying to sell Obama's Senate seat to the highest bidder, along with his chief of staff John Harris and others, is based largely on the gut-spilling recollections of the major fundraiser he and Obama share: convicted felon Tony Rezko. The fawning Obama media hide the facts, but any reading of the 79-page indictment and the various insections in Blagojevich and Obama's careers, cannot fail to point out the obvious.

Assuming he goes to jail, Blago will make it four out of the last five Illinois governors who have heard the jail doors clank behind them. Several other prominent Chicago Machine politicians like Rep. Dan Rostenkowski, chairman of the U.S. House Post Office Committee when it ran up the huge postal account deficit scandal that snarled many solons, have done time too.

This is where Obama comes from, and had to trip through the Chicago Machine minefield, to get where he is today. He, Rezko and his chief campaign advisor David Axelrod, ran Blago's first campaign for Governor in 2002. He was re-elected overwhelmingly in 2006, dragging in one Barack Obama on his coat tails to the U.S. Senate. In fact, Blago and his father-in-law, Chicago Alderman Richard Mell, were major players in getting Obama's primary opponent off the ballot, so he could trot unimpeded to the Democratic U.S. Senate nomination.

Blago's wife Patty was the real estate broker of record when Obama purchased his Chicago mansion, with the significant financial help of Rezko.

There are many other ties on record. Just as the compliant liberal media has refused to probe Obama's college writings at Columbia and the Harvard Law Review, his tangled birth records, his William Ayres and Chicago machine connections--they are quickly cordoning off the Blago mess from Obama.

Why should we be surprised?

Chapter 11: car companies a textbook case

2008-12-04T12:43:00.000-08:00

The charade playing out today on Capitol Hill in Washington D.C. on whether or not to bail out Detroit's Big 3 auto manufacturers is a farce. Of course they will be bailed out. The question is whether it will be on a more moderate basis that President Bush would be willing to sign right away, or on far more grandiose terms the United Auto Workers-beholden Democrats vote in after the new Congress takes office in January.

Make no mistake about it: this is a bailout of the extremely-generous pension funds, health benefits and other perks of the United Auto Workers (UAW) union members, and not of the companies themselves. They are dead meat, and the Democrats could care less about them. But their handmaidens in the UAW? How much do you need?

Just as the airlines, steel manufacturers and other industries survived and got stronger after filing Chapter 11, the auto manufacturers would too. The only hope that have, just as with these other industries, is to shed their onerous, burdensome UAW contracts and get busy competing with the Japanese, Korean and German firms already operating efficiently and profitably in the largely non-union southern United States.

The only way to shed these Big Labor behemoths is through bankruptcy court. The UAW had made a few "window dressing" changes in their contracts, but major surgery is needed, and only a bankruptcy judge can force that.

This would not be the unmitigated disaster the bleaters and moaners in Congress are bellowing about today. There are ready buyers for the profitable parts of GM, Ford and Chrysler, who would continue to buy parts and components to build cars from the Big 3's current suppliers. This realignment is the future of the business, and it ought to be done now with minimal taxpayer dollars, rather than later, after the feds have poured $25-$50 billion of your money down the UAW rathole.

If Congress does nothing now, it might accidently force at least GM into bankruptcy court, to get the process started. If Congress passes some stopgap plan now that Bush will sign, they'll almost certainly hang on for a major Democratic handout come January.

Salazar would continue Obama moderate appointments

2008-12-04T12:10:00.000-08:00

The news that president-elect Barack Obama has put Colorado U.S. Rep. John Salazar on the short list for Secretary of Agriculture continues a trend of much more moderate appointments to the posts in his budding administration that we have had any reason to expect.

They're all liberal Democrats, of course, but not from the left-most perch of the Democratic Party. The foreign policy team of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, White House Foreign Affairs advisor Gen. James Jones,and Defense Secretary Robert Gates are all relative hardliners on terrorism, Israel and the United States position in the world. Jones, a former commandant in the Marine Corps who turned down a Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff offer from President Bush because of his policy disagreements with then Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, is far more conservative than such previous Democratic holders of the post like Sandy Berger in the Clinton administration or Zbigniew Brezinski in the Carter regime.

In some circles (certainly not mine) the Salazar family are considered political wunderkinds in Colorado. Ken Salazar is the senior U.S. Senator from the state and a former Attorney General. He won each of his races after a divisive, bruising Republican primary election for the post, and therefore was elected by modest margins as a result. His brother, U.S. Rep. John Salazar, represents the heavily GOP western slope district of Colorado.

He got elected as a successor to moderate GOP Rep. Scott McGinnis after the former went to the mat for his brother-in-law in the primary, who lost. With the moderate Republicans sitting on their hands in the general election, Salazar squeaked to victory, and with a Republican district to defend, has been a very moderate Democrat, voting much as McGinnis did before him.

John is certainly the more conservative of the Salazar brothers, and as a working potato farmer and rancher, qualified to be USDA Secretary. Obama is looking for more Hispanics for his cabinet, and Salazar would certainly be a far better one than we Republicans could have expected. Both Salazars have the maddening propensity to vote conservative on "no-hoper" issues like the flag burning amendment and liberal on the important stuff, and then claiming to be moderates.

Ken Salazar is up for re-election in 2010, so we can expect his votes for the next two years to inch to the middle, as Rep. Mark Udall of the Citizens Republic of Boulder, certainly did in getting elected to the Senate this year, replacing U.S. Sen. Wayne Allard.

John Salazar has voted a relatively conservative line on natural resource, grazing, water rights and other ag issues, so could be a far more friendly USDA Secretary than we might have expected. He is also from the West, which would be a big help, as opposed to a southern cotton, peanut or tobacco farmer, or midwestern corn farmer.

He'd sure have my vote, for what little that's worth.

Clintonistas returning to Washington

2008-11-27T19:09:00.000-08:00

I don't believe President-elect Obama has named a single cabinet secretary or other official to date, that doesn't have a strong pedigree in the Bill Clinton administration.

For the great apostle of change and hope, pledging to lead America on a new path, it is hard to see anything new. What possibly would be different, if, instead of becoming Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton had won and was staffing the new administration?

The liberal press, deeply embedded in Obama's pocket, sees this as wisdom, appointing experienced--and in their mind, distinguished--public servants to the new administration. But where is the change and exciting new direction?

For all the political bilge that many could see through as it rolled from Obama's lips, about America entering a post-partisan era without rancor or discord, what we are seeing is "the same old, same old."

That is not to say that this is all bad. In this perilous time economically and internationally, a good argument can be made that the stability of experience and familiarity is just what the times demand. From a John McCain administration, this is exactly what we were promised and would have expected.

But for the great agent of change, who rolled up some 57% of the popular vote and an even bigger margin in the electoral college, and arguably drew this strong endorsement because he promised something new--such a result would be disappointing and questionable, at least to a less fawning, and more objective news media assessment.

As a conservative, I like the looks of the Obama Administration a lot more than I thought I would, so far. And the far left is squealing in the blogosphere about Obama's more middle-of-the-road approach. But it's full steam ahead in the mainstream media, puffing each Obama appointee just a little higher than the last one.

Campaign promises are always tossed aside after the election is over. But Obama is setting a record for speed.

Left apoplectic at early Obama appointments

2008-11-20T20:37:00.000-08:00

The far left constituency that elected Barack Obama as president-elect, is coming unwired on the internet and blogs, at his early appointments to the White House staff and cabinet.

It is turning out to be a business-as-usual, garden variety, middle-of-the-road Democratic administration. He is looking to govern from the center, as Bill Clinton tried to do, rather than larding up the administration with zealots and Georgia good old boys, as Jimmy Carter did. (Remember OMB head Bert Lance? Remember Carol Tucker Foreman, head of the radical Consumer Federation of America, as Ag Secretary? Obama is considering farmer-friendly former Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack. A huge difference.)

Obama's first appointment, Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, is no ideologue. He is a hard-edged, sharp-elbowed Washington insider. A scion of the Clinton administration, he brokered the conservative Welfare Reform bill that got Clinton re-elected, and brought in Republican Dick Morris to the White House, to shine up Clinton's strategy after the congressional election debacle of 1994, when Newt Gingrich and the Contract with America, swept control of both houses of Congress.

Obama's nomination of Eric Holder as Attorney General has the left beside themselves. He worked out the presidential pardon of international criminal wheeler-dealer Marc Rich. He is hardline on terrorism and internal security. (Despite what the Obama sycophants in the liberal press are reporting, Holder IS NOT the first black Attorney General. Edward Levi in the Gerald Ford administration was.)

Hillary Clinton as secretary of state is more of a hard liner on Iraq and terrorism. If he keeps Bush's Defense Secretary, Bob Gates, as he is hinting at this writing, it is shaping up as a reasonably hardline team.

All these people are well left of my preferences, but are not near as scary as who Obama might have appointed. If anything, it looks nearly identical to what we might have expected Hillary to set up, if she had been elected. All his transition team and the appointments so far, are old Clinton hands.

It sets up his administration as governing from the middle, and throwing very little red meat to his most ardent adherents. What a pleasant surprise!

Media already rehabilitating Bush, Cheney

2008-11-13T19:53:00.000-08:00

Now that the White House is passing safely back into liberal Democratic hands, the unapologetically-pro-Obama mass media is starting to say nice things about George W. Bush, and yes, even Vice President Dick Cheney.

Presidents frequently rise when historical perspective sets in, as has already happened with Harry Truman and Ronald Reagan. It will take a while, but President Bush will go down as one of the great occupants of the office.

The current media is only admitting that he is gracious, and a nice guy, in hosting the Obamas at the White House. There is also a few references to how the Bush team is being a lot more cooperative with the incoming Obama transition group, than President Bill Clinton was with the incoming Bushies.

Clinton, as you'll recall, stripped the White House of furniture, nick nacks and trashed the West Wing offices, leaving communications systems and computers inoperable. It was so bad that the Justice Department forced the Clintons to return a lot of things.

What will take longer is to give proper credit to the significant accomplishments of the Bush White House: keeping America safe, as there have been no further terrorist attacks on U.S. soil since 9/11. For bringing the Iraq and Afghanistan wars to a place where democracy can flourish in those former dictatorships. For appointing John Roberts and Samuel Alioto to the U.S. Supreme Court, both distinguished legal scholars, regardless of philosophy.

Dick Cheney has been one of the strongest vice presidents in history, which is why the Democrats like to bash him so much. As a former leader in the U.S. House, Defense Secretary and White House Chief of Staff, Cheney had the institutional knowledge to see the value in restoring the power and prerogatives of the executive branch, and has worked from the inside to burnish the presidency. He has been the power behind the throne on terrorism, a strong hand for President Bush.

History will cut through the present day politics, and clawing for partisan advantage, to record what a strong presidency the George W. Bush administration really was.

Intellectual snobbery behind Palin blasts

2008-11-08T19:59:00.000-08:00

The liberal media intelligentsia has seized upon the sour grapes of moderate McCain staffers, to slur the name of Sarah Palin, the GOP vice presidential nominee.

The backbiting and internal skullduggery of any campaign organization of human beings is always a sight to behold. You haven't heard about Obama's yet because they won the election. Believe me, it does exist and at some inopportune time for Obama, it will become public. The rivalries and clawing for attention exist in any campaign, and are only subdued by success--and then, only temporarily. Such is the human condition.

Sarah Palin proved to be a potent, able public figure. Her energizing of the conservative base of the Republican Party powered McCain to a respectable loss, rather than a complete blowout. By himself, or paired with some vanilla establishment GOP figure like Mitt Romney, McCain could never have garnered 163 electoral votes in the present political climate. Before Palin, the GOP base was sitting on its hands, prepared to do nothing.

This scares liberals witless. At only 44 years old, and the first natural politician the GOP has turned up since Ronald Reagan, Palin has unlimited potential. GOP moderates and the liberal media who never support Republicans of any stripe, have united to bury Palin before she has the opportunity to do them even more damage.

Using the anonymous leaks out of the remains of the vaunted McCain "organization," about Palin's alleged lack of intelligence (a complete lie), sophistication and worldliness, the liberal media is having a hay day. This will die down, as the Obama media drumbeat gets even stronger toward Inauguration Day, and crowds out all other "news."

By that time, the Democrats in charge of the U.S. Senate will have expelled the newly re-elected felon U.S. Senator, Ted Stevens, and Palin will be running in the special election. If they thought Palin was a thorn in their side as the veep nominee, wait until she is a new U.S. Senator from Alaska.

It ought to be delicious! I can hardly wait.

The divisive first Obama appointment

2008-11-06T20:35:00.000-08:00

President-elect Obama (doesn't that sound strange?), certainly tossed his campaign rhetoric about bringing us together, reaching across the aisle, and entering a post-partisan era, overboard--as he made the first appointment of his administration the sharp-elbowed, abrupt, overbearing, hyper-partisan Rahm Emanuel as Chief of Staff.

The number three in the U.S. House Democratic leadership, Emanuel is known as a man who gets things done, but establishes a rather super-partisan, far left, confrontational tone for the new administration.

An old Clinton hand, Emanuel is also a well-connected member of the Chicago Democratic Machine and close friend of Obama's. While Obama downplayed the extent to which he had sold out to the Dailey machine to build his Illinois political career, instead playing up his roots as an outsider "community organizer," this appointment shows his true roots.

Emanuel was tight with Bill Clinton, but just the opposite with Hillary. In terms of healing the Democratic Party, for a united front in getting the new administration off the ground, there are a lot of aggrieved Democrats laying around in the bushes, who got in Emanuel's way over the years, and got run over.

It is fortunate Emanuel is a liberal Democrat, or the press would savage him for his success in private business, which rivals Hillary's career in commodities trading. In less than two years as a Wall Street bond trader after he left the Clinton White House, Emanuel wracked up some $16.2 million in commissions.

This rivals what Dick Cheney made in his brief career at Halliburton, and for which he has been continuously strafed by the left and their handmaidens in the mass media.

Emanuel's appointment does signify an aggressive start to the Obama administration, but not exactly what was promised in all the new prexy's soaring rhetorical flourishes.

No veto-proof Senate, at least

2008-11-04T21:24:00.000-08:00

In a bleak, tragic night for the Republican Party the only ray of light is that it held on to 42-44 U.S. Senate seats. This means that with strong, courageous, able leadership (lacking for the last several years). the GOP could sustain filibusters of Obama, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid's most odious legislation.

However, Republicans seem to have a death wish, as evidenced by the atrocious McCain campaign and the total chaos and lack of organization by the National Republican Committee and many state parties. This was not a Democratic victory--it was Republican loss.

Until the spirit of Newt Gingrich and Tom DeLay is restored to the GOP leadership, instead of the present "to get along, go along" crowd that run the party, losses of this magnitude will become the norm.

It's time for the GOP to clear out the old hacks, cronies and fossils in the congressional and statehouse leadership--as well as the party organization--and usher in new ideas, new methods and fresh-faced, young leadership.

I'm not holding my breath, because I don't like to turn blue, but just maybe this devastating Republican defeat will usher in desperately-needed change.

McCain-Palin ticket closing strong

2008-10-31T19:40:00.000-07:00

John McCain and Sarah Palin have put all their apples in the Ohio and Pennsylvania baskets. McCain did six rallies today in Ohio and Palin has made similar appearances in Pennsylvania. They will continue through the weekend.

It is highly unlikely that they can win without carrying both states. If they carry both states, they can afford to lose Virginia or a couple of small western states like Colorado, New Mexico or Nevada.

There are no polls showing them ahead at this late date in any of these states. What the late polls do show is that the ticket is closing strong, and at least a couple of polls, including the esteemed Gallup Poll, put them within two points of Obama nationally.

At this point, several factors could break McCain's way. One is that voters under 25 to do not traditionally make voting a high priority. This is where Obama is strongest. Senior citizens, where McCain is strongest, vote--come hell or high water.

Another is that Hispanic voters are the least accurately polled bloc of voters. McCain should be strong with Hispanic voters. He was on their side in the immigration debate, supporting and introducing amnesty legislation. If he runs more strongly than the polls show with this bloc, it could help him carry Colorado, New Mexico and Nevada.

The special interest groups, particularly the National Rifle Association and the National Right to Life, are suddenly running hard line anti-Obama commercials. This should pull White Catholics and rural hunters--both crucial blocs of voters in carrying Ohio and Pennsylvania.

The election is tightening up on this final weekend, and some think there still could be a surprise come next Tuesday.

Embarrassing Obama tapes surface

2008-10-27T19:25:00.000-07:00

Reportedly the Obama power brokers are livid--all the circuit breakers going off--over two recently-discovered and long lost Obama tapes. One is from a public radio interview on a call-in show from 2001, which was posted online by Matt Drudge and is the hit of the blogosphere. It has been reported on Fox, but ignored by the other major media.

The second is a videotape of the going-away party for pro-Arab Israel basher Rashid Khalidi from 2003, which was addressed by Illinois State Sen. Barack Obama, as well as his good friends William Ayres and his wife, Bernadine Dohrn. Khalidi was leaving the University of Chicago faculty to go to Columbia to head a Middle East studies center, where he has maintained to this day a virulent anti-Semitic, anti-Israel diatribe.

In both these tapes, Obama says grossly embarrassing things for his presidential campaign. On the 2001 talk show, he blasts the nation's founding fathers, the U.S.constitution, and says the Earl Warren Court was too conservative for failing to implement redistributionist schemes. On the 2003 tapes, he gushes about his good friends the Khadilis, who babysat his daughters, as well as Ayres and Dohrn--who he has said in his presidential campaign that barely knew.

At best, Obama comes off as far left, and at worst, Anti-America, Anti-Jew and Pro-Arab.

The mass media has conspired with the Obama campaign to keep these, and other embarrassing documents, under wraps until after the election. Such documents include his writings for the Harvard Law Review, term papers from his Columbia and Harvard days, and full details of the place of his birth and the possibility that he held dual citizenship in either Indonesia or Kenya--making him ineligible to serve as President.

That Drudge and other conservatives are finally unearthing these truths at this late hour, is driving the Obama campaign bonkers. It just might not be too late for a McCain rally.

Wright omission a serious McCain error

2008-10-26T20:08:00.000-07:00

If the McCain campaign goes ahead and loses, as all the polls say it will, it will have missed a historic opportunity.

By declaring the rantings of Obama's 20-year pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, off limits--McCain will have effectively blown one of the prime issues available to discredit Obama as a future president. Wright is so far beyond the pale, and known to most Americans from all the spring's heavy TV play of his racist, incendiary sermons, that he is a legitimate issue. His tight ties with Muslims like Louis Farrakhan and Moamar Khadafi--as well as his replacement upon retirement by Obama friend, the Black Nationalist Otis Moss--would shock the sensibilities of a lot of Americans, if they were reminded.

At the very least, a 2008 version of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth is needed, to replay the Wright tapes and remind voters of the truly radical ties Obama has. William Ayres is certainly a bad friend for Obama to have, but anyone under the age of 55 doesn't even know who he is. Ayres and his wife Bernadine Dohrn were violent terrorists in the anti-Vietnam War protest days and have refused to repent for their actions, but most voters in 2008 didn't live through that.

Letting Obama off the hook for his ties to Rev. Jeremiah Wright, who conducted his wedding to Michelle and baptized his children, is missing a great opportunity. With all the videotapes around of Wright's rabid radicalism--the most famous of which was his rant God Damn America--Obama can only claim that he was a very poor church attender or that he slept through the sermons.

And as fiery as Wright is, that would defy credulity.

It's not much of a shot, but it's a shot

2008-10-25T19:54:00.000-07:00

I've got the stratagem for John McCain and Sarah Palin to pull out the election here in the last 10 days.

The polls mostly show Obama and Biden comfortably ahead. But they also show that the duo really hasn't closed the deal, as many of their backers, when questioned more deeply, still express vague doubts.

The line is this: America has a proud democratic tradition of a government of checks and balances. There won't be any if the Democrats gain the presidency, 60 seats for a veto-proof majority in the U.S. Senate and pick up 20 seats in the U.S. House. The Democrats are going to control Congress in all likelihood, so the only check and balance on congressional power is John McCain as president.

To some extent, this throws GOP candidates for the Senate and House under the bus, but many are going to lose anyway. Sen. Elizabeth Dole in North Carolina is already using this line in her latest ads, saying the Senate needs her to keep it from having a veto-proof 60-vote Democratic majority. As long as Republicans have at least 41 seats, they can sustain a filibuster.

The tax argument that McCain is using does have some resonance, but the checks and balances argument is even stronger. It's not tool late for Americans to rethink what they're doing, and pull out a narrow McCain victory,

He'd probably lose the popular vote, as Obama will sweep some states like Illinois and Massachusetts by huge margins and McCain will carry enough to win, but by very tiny margins. But that's the way the electoral college works--it takes 270 votes to win, and if you carry enough states to make that happen, that's all that counts.

McCain has a very narrow window of opportunity, with very few good options. He must carry all the states Bush carried, or lose a couple small ones and carry a big state like Pennsylvania.

It's not much of a shot, but it's a shot.

Why is Associated Press not joining liberal pack?

2008-10-23T14:17:00.000-07:00

Associated Press, a normally reliably liberal news source, for some reason has an accurate poll on the presidential election, showing McCain and Obama tied. All the new-method polls, with various adjustments to them to account for the new legions of black voters, youth voters with cell phones only, etc., show Obama 10-14 points ahead.

McCain supporters are more energized, according to the AP poll, and Obama supporters less so. The GOP candidate has been shown behind at this stage in all the recent presidential elections, and has either won or come much closer than the polls show.

Only the AP has picked up this happening again.

The liberal pollsters, and of course the liberal press, like to the make the Democratic nominee look as good as possible.

The only mystery is why the AP isn't participating this time.

The election is not over, and with the Bradley Effect to boot, McCain still has an excellent opportunity to be elected.

Gross media distortion hides inconvenient truths

2008-10-18T14:37:00.000-07:00

Let a Republican even attempt, much less pull off, what Barack Obama and Joe Biden have gotten away with--and the liberal media would be screaming bloody murder. Because its Obama and Biden, it's "no harm, no foul."

The outrageous whoppers Biden pulled off in the debate with Sarah Palin were barely acknowledged in the mass media. He re-wrote history, told of eating at a restaurant the other day that's been closed 20 years, and completely mischaracterized the U.S. constitution and what it says about the power an duties of the vice president. Sarah Palin had it right and Biden wrong, but neither the pro-Obama moderator nor the liberal media afterward even acknowledged it.

Biden is the one in the early Democratic debates who referred to his own running mate as "a clean black candidate," and continuously savaged him for his thin resume, lack of foreign policy experience and questionable Chicago machine connections. Yet he lied about what Obama said in the early debates about meeting with no conditions attached, with the brutal dictators of Cuba, Iran and North Korea.

Obama will have raised over $600 million for his campaign by the time its over. This is obscene, and would be blasted if a Republican did it, as pandering to the special interests, selling out to Wall Street and taking payoffs from America's enemies. By the way, even though its illegal, Obama has received contributions from over 160,000 foreign nationals, according to his required campaign finance filings.

Obama is outspending McCain 3 to 1 in the battleground states for TV commercials. This is because McCain accepted federal funds, limiting his take to $85 million. If a Republican had refused federal funds as Obama has, he would be tarred and feathered.

Obama has been given the star treatment by the media, not having to answer inconvenient questions about his Muslim elementary education, the disappearance of any of his college writings from Occidential, Harvard and Columbia universities, his 20-year relationship to Rev. Jeremiah Wright who hates whites and preaches black liberation theology, his cavorting with terrorists like William Ayres and crooks like the Syrian national Tony Rezko.

The hypocrisy and double-dealing of Obama and the mass media is nothing short of breathtaking. No matter how hard the mass media has tried, McCain is still within two points in some polls and the trends seem to be going his way.

Sen. Ken Salazar: master of cheap shots, piling on

2008-10-17T17:57:00.000-07:00

Colorado's embarrassing, soon-to-be-senior U.S. Senator, Ken Salazar, is at it again. He is the master of harvesting cheap political hay at the drop of a hat.

Today alone, he piled on two situations that are already on their way to be being resolved, and don't require his intervention. But alas, he's up for re-election in two years and needs to garner all the favorable publicity he can get.

Most noted for his ridiculous cowboy hats and boots, as well as his inarticulate, painful speaking style, Salazar works his Hispanic heritage for all its worth. Salazar certainly is not a cowboy, but a 17th street lawyer. Presumably, the cowboy hat covers up his failed comb-over, and serves as some sort of badge of identification--a politcal brand, if you will.

The real problem is that his head and stature are too small for the big hats, making real cowboys laugh.

Even worse are his political cheap shots and piling on. Today he called for the resignation of Chief Federal District Judge Edward Nottingham, a great jurist who has diminished himself by consorting with prostitutes in strip clubs and lying about it.

The system already has this one well in hand, and Salazar is simply piling on, trying to belatedly get on the correct side.

Similarly, he has called for a congressional investigation of soldiers from Fort Carson serving in Iraq. Too little, too late--Salazar's simply trying to get his mug on the news, playing tough guy.

Salazar has been a farce in the Senate. He claims to be a moderate. He accomplishes this hollow feat by voting conservative on no-hoper bills like the flag burning amendment, while voting liberal on everything else. He joins Barack Obama with one of the most liberal voting records in the U.S. Senate. There are no major bills, threads of vision or leadership in the Senate from Ken Salazar.

The product of a bitter GOP primary between Peter Coors and Bob Schaffer, Salazar was a fluke when he was elected, and hasn't gotten any better in office. Even as severely atrophied and emaciated as the Colorado Republican Party is, surely they can figure out how to bump off this ripe target in 2010.

Anecdotal evidence piles up of false polling data

2008-10-16T19:23:00.000-07:00

While all the polls continue to predict an Obama victory in the presidential race, there are at least two things wrong this year, that probably render the polls inaccurate and unreliable.

Precinct worker after precinct worker continues to report that people won't put out yard signs or put on bumper stickers for McCain this year, winking to the worker and saying "of course we're voting for McCain, but we can't afford to risk publicly showing it." Voters are spooked about publicly opposing America's first Black major party nominee.

This also is skewing the polls, as people lie to the poll taker. They are hyper-sensitive about appearing racist. The safest thing to do is lie, and say "Obama" when they ask. This is a lot different situation than what voters will face in the privacy of the voting booth or at their kitchen table filling out their mail-in ballot. The so-called Bradley Effect is real, and no amount of liberal press wishful thinking will make it go away. Black candidates always run worse than the polls show, particularly in high profile races like President of the United States--and it is named after the loss Black Mayor Tom Bradley of Los Angeles suffered for the California governorship, when the polls showed him leading convincingly.

The second factor that is becoming increasingly crucial in polling today, is the extent to which cell phones are taking over from land lines. There is no directory of cell phone numbers. A lot of people have them precisely for that reason. Pollsters find it increasingly difficult to get people to answer poll questions at all, and those they're able to reach are not a true cross-section of the American populace.

Of all years, 2008 has proven to provide the diciest polling atmosphere in history. At least John McCain hopes so.

Sharp contrasts evident in last debate

2008-10-15T20:30:00.000-07:00

Obama and McCain went at it hammer and tongs in the last presidential debate of the 2008 campaign, drawing sharp contrasts for anyone who cared enough to actually pay attention and listen. The two differed dramatically on abortion, vouchers, taxes and a plethora of other issues.

But for John McCain, it was the same problem as the other two debates: no major mistakes were made, neither candidate made any major gaffes and neither scored any major, obvious debating points over the other. That means the liberal media will declare Obama the winner and McCain will have lost one of his last big opportunities to break through in the election.

McCain tried valiantly to differentiate himself from President Bush and his policies. It is quesionable if he did it strongly enough, decisively enough, to establish himself as a true maverick in the public's mind.

The debate never really got around to McCain's strong points: experience and fighting terrorism. McCain set forth his economic recovery plan, but it was belittled by Obama, and that's what the media will report.

McCain failed to make the dramatic, master stroke, game changing breakthrough.

We can only hope its not too late, and that events will provide him another chance. He's risen from the dead at least twice in this present campaign, and with 21 days to go, he still needs one more miracle.

60 Demo votes in Senate a disaster

2008-10-14T18:38:00.000-07:00

The Republican National Committee is borrowing several million dollars to shore up the campaigns of embattled Republicans in tight U.S. Senate races. It is a little late to be thinking of this, but speaks to the disorganization and calcification of the party apparatus.

That it should even come to this, is an embarrassment. There should have been excellent candidate recruitment, party building and training within each state where a Senate seat might be winnable over a year ago. This late in the game, the usefulness of a few extra bucks, without having laid the groundwork earlier, is open to question.

It shows the increasing desperation that is creeping into GOP ranks. There is no question, due to prospective Supreme Court ratifications, New Deal type social programs and reigning in taxes, a veto-proof Democratic majority in the Senate would be a disaster. Somebody should have thought about that a long time ago.

The Senate has been the main line of defense in the last two years of the Bush presidency, where the minority GOP forces could at least mount or threaten a filibuster to keep the Democrats in line. With 60 Democratic votes suddenly looking very feasible, an Obama presidency could not be kept in check.

When combined with the weak-kneed Republican leadership in Congress (to get along, go along), such a loss of seats would be an unmitigated disaster. Things could only be saved if such a Democratic wipe-out led to overconfidence and over-reaching, becoming a four-year Jimmy Carter type reign.

We can only hope.

Nobel prize goes for politics over science again

2008-10-13T17:43:00.000-07:00

The liberal news media love to trumpet the importance of the Nobel prizes from Sweden, gushing and fawning over each fellow liberal recipient, as if they were fresh with newly-revealed truth.

Such a scene has repeated itself once again this year, as leftist New York Times columnist and sometime academic Paul Krugman won the Nobel Prize for Economics. Well known for blasting President Bush, deregulation of the economy and free enterprise economics, Krugman is hardly the distinguished economic scientist the prize was meant to reward.

More likely, the Swedish socialists behind the award, are trying to inject themselves into the U.S. election in 27 days, by bringing favorable news coverage to their pet nostrums and proponents. If the glory of the Nobel can some how rub off Krugman on to loyal foot soldier Barack Obama, so much the better.

That's why the Nobel prizes have become so hollow and predictable, done less for merit than political correctness.

Even Sweden has had to back away from socialism, as the rampant costs and deficits threaten to bankrupt the country. This doesn't keep the fellow travelers who lavish the Nobel cash on their friends from carrying on.

They are shameless.

Bill Ayres ghostwrote Obama's book

2008-10-12T19:41:00.000-07:00

There's a bombshell out that you probably won't hear or read of in the mass media.

Weatherman Bill Ayres, a University of Chicago English professor, and unrepentant terrorist from the 1970s, ghostwrote "Dreams From My Father", Obama's first book, that drew in over $2 million in earnings to him and has been called the best written political autobiography in history.

Jack Cashell, is a syndicated columnist, PhD and author of the book "Hoodwinked", a tomb on how to detect fraud in writing. He has run Ayres' book "Fugitive Days" and Obama's "Dreams From My Father" through three different computer programs that gage reading difficulty, syntax and sentence construction.

He ran them after he read both books, and found them to be remarkably similar in imagery and literary style. It immediately struck him what a talented writer Ayres is, and how poorly Obama had written in the Harvard Law Review and in an Occidental College poetry magazine.

Obama's book is full of marine imagery, just like Ayres' book. There is no comparison in style between Obama's previous writing and that in "Dreams". Obama returned a $135,000 advance from Simon and Shuster, because he had writer's block and couldn't produce anything. That he would be suddenly turned into a literary genius who would be capable of producing the best selling "Dreams" defies rationality.

Obama's friendship with his neighbor Bill Ayres, holding his maiden political coming out party at Ayres' home, serving together with him on two non-profit boards and as a fellow faculty member at the University of Chicago. In addition to the literary similarity of their books, they had a close enough relationship for talented writer Ayres to ghostwrite the book.

Cashell is still analyzing Obama's second book, "The Audacity of Hope," a title cribbed from a sermon by Obama's 20-year pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

If this research draws more corroborative evidence from Obama, Ayres or a knowledgeable third party, it would be a bombshell. Vice Presidential candidate Joe Biden's first presidential campaign was shot out of the water by a proven plagarism in his main campaign speech, cribbing it from British pol Neil Kinnick.

Obama is already in trouble for consorting with the radical Ayres, Rev. Wright, shadowy Syrian financier Tony Rezko and prominent Muslims like Louis Farakhan and Moamar Khadafi. He has claimed that Ayres is a distant acquaintance, at best. This might shoot that duck out of the water.

Liberal hypocrisy running rampant

2008-10-11T20:28:00.000-07:00

The supposed cries of racism and advocating violence toward McCain supporters at recent rallies reeks of hypocrisy.

At any peace rally or other liberal event, George W. Bush is hung in effigy at a minimum, and the calls for his assassination are usually not too far behind. Some knowledgeable people have said that all that has kept Bush from being knocked off is that Dick Cheney would become President.

Just because some Americans have the temerity to oppose Obama doesn't make them racists. Just because some even take on the liberal press and expose its well-known bias, doesn't make them hicks and thugs.

The Hate Bush movement has been operating and hailed ever since he defeated Al Gore in Florida in 2000. They have since become even more vituperative and outraged since Bush was re-elected in 2004. That he was able to get two relatively young, solid conservative U.S. Supreme Court justices confirmed--the high water mark of his administration--makes them even more livid.

That's why Obama tries so hard to tie Bush to McCain. He thinks there's political capital to be raised there.

This is a ludicrous comparison, because McCain ran against Bush in 2000, and has opposed many of his major initiatives, including the tax cuts, in the Senate. To the chagrin of many conservatives, McCain is not a carbon copy of Bush.

McCain is not dead yet, the election is still 30 days away. The liberal media is in the tank for Obama and trying its best to destroy McCain, but they may well be overdoing it, and the backlash will benefit the GOP ticket.

Alaska witch hunt ties to embarrass Palin

2008-10-10T18:29:00.000-07:00

The illegal super-panel of the Alaska legislature that released its 263-page report today on Gov. Sarah Palin's firing of the state police commissioner, was a political document, designed solely to embarrass her. There was no good reason for the so-called nonpartisan panel not to postpone its deliberations until after the election, to end all possible appearances of partisan taint and seeking politcal advantage. There is no way, in four brief hours, the panel could possibly have read and digested the entire 263 pages.

You must remember that the panel was evenly balanced between Democrats and Republicans, with the chairman of the panel a very partisan Democrat. You must also remember that Palin was elected Governor in the first place by beating not one, but two, establishment pols in the GOP primary and then beat a prominent former Democratic Governor, Tony Knowles, in the general election. The State Senate majority leader and the majority of Republicans on the super-panel were not Palin Republicans to begin with.

A big part of her own party, and certainly the Democrats, were never Palin fans in the first place, and relished the chance to derail her vice presidential ambitions. That's why the panel barged ahead before the election, to extract its maximum pound of flesh. All Palin has ever had were the people of Alaska, who gave her an astonishing 80% approval rating in the polls.

The Alaska state government has a permanent body in place to handle such investigations, the State Personnel Board. For this partisan creation of the legislature to handle it instead, is highly irregular. Two Alaska courts, with judges appointed by Palin's predecessor, the disgraced Frank Murkowski, merely declined to intervene. They never ruled on the legality of the legislative panel.

The liberal media, who have disdained Palin all along, will have a field day with this report, without putting it in proper context. Read and hear the ensuing Palin lynch mob in the mass media with a big grain of salt.

But once again, Democrats have overplayed their hand. Just like the nationally-televised, highly partisan "funeral" for Minnesota Sen. Paul Wellstone, which resulted in St. Paul Mayor Norm Coleman defeating former vice president Walter Mondale for Wellstone's Senate seat, this partisan hatchet job on Palin is likely to ignite a huge backlash of sympathy and understanding, in light of the eager piling-on.

Obama background finally coming out

2008-10-09T19:37:00.000-07:00

There is no secret, or sudden, rush of anti-Obama smears gushing forth, as he'd like you to believe.

For whatever reason, the mainstream press is finally giving some scant space to what has been known from the getgo--the strange background of Barack Obama. It is no freshly discovered truth about Obama's close relationships to Weatherman Bill Ayres and his wife Bernadine Dohrn. That's been public and documented for years.

It is no secret either, about Obama's relationship with shadowy Syrian financier Tony Rezko--who put up the dough so Obama could buy a mansion he couldn't otherwise afford, and has poured hundreds of thousands of dollars into his poliitical campaigns. The only new information is that Rezko was indicted and convicted of fraud in the last few months. That the press has chosen to virtually ignore it is all that makes it seem like a fresh revelation now.

The blackout on Obama's world tour with the radical left after he quite Occidental College in California, his writings and activities at Columbia and Harvard Universities, and his role with the socialist New Party in Illinois--the facts are just waiting to be brought out.

Obama's juvenile drug use--which has has written of in his two books--has been roundly ignored in the mainstream media, but should spark at least legitimate questions.

Obama's extensive ties to Muslims and terrorists are also a legitimate area of questions. His Muslim half brother in Africa, his Muslim half sister in Hawaii. His attendance in Muslim schools until the sixth grade. His relationships with Rev. Jeremiah Wright and Louis Farakhan and Moamar Khadafy, the brutal Muslim dictator of Libya. All these are legitimate areas of concern and questions that the mass media has given Obama a pass on.

What if John McCain had a 20-year friendship with Klansman David Duke, or was tight with right wing religious figures like Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson or James Dobson? Just the opposite is actually true--but how wild would the mass media go if anything like this could be said about McCain?

Let's face it: Barack Obama is one of the least vetted, least tested and most fawned over by the mass media, presidential candidates in history.

That someone--anyone--is now questioning this, is more than they can take.

McCain has got to shuffle the deck

2008-10-08T19:50:00.000-07:00

The boring bomb of a debate last night is, as predicted, being chalked up as a win for Obama.

McCain must develop what one CB radio brand advertised, back when those were popular. (CB radios were probably done in by cell phones--Breaker, Breaker, good buddy . . .)

That brand advertised itself as having Punch--being able to break through the clutter. That's exactly McCain's problem--he has to develop Punch to get his message through all the mass media chatter, the web chatter and the neighbor-to-neighbor buzz.

There's plenty of problems with Obama--he's far to the left of most Americans. He is a typical corrupt Chicago machine pol, having taken money from all kinds of unsavory characters and done them favors in return. His resume is so thin as to be hardly in existence at all. His ties to Muslim extremists and his own faith are very troubling.

McCain's done it at least twice already, quite successfully. One was backing the surge in Iraq and the other was selecting Sarah Palin. They were gambles that paid off. Returning to Washington to solve the economic schmozzle was not so successful.

A terrorist attack on U.S. shores would certainly tip public attention McCain's way. None of us want that, but it could happen.

Something less drastic than that is needed, and McCain's brain trust has just a few days to figure it out.

Steadiness, experience show in debate

2008-10-07T19:18:00.000-07:00

The mass media will undoubtedly figure out a way to spin an Obama victory in tonight's presidential debate. That was obvious before the first question was even asked at Belmont University in Nashville.

But listening to it, forming an overall impression of the debate as a whole, leads to a conclusion quite different from the media spin, the clever answers to "gotcha" questions and the regurgitation of campaign talking points--all in abundant supply at this media spectacle.

Against the backdrop of the U.S. financial debacle, the shaky national security situation with terrorist attacks in Pakistan and the unresolved wars in Iraq and Afghanistan--Americans will decide, in the secrecy of the voting booth or with their mail-in ballot at the kitchen table, how much change will they really want in these unsettled times?

John McCain is not flashy, certainly looks his age and is not a creative, gee-whiz kind of guy--but he does give off a strong aura of steadiness, familiarity, experience and heroism that in the final gasp, will reassure a majority of Americans.

Obama certainly acquitted himself well in the debate, avoided any obvious gaffes and was the smooth, calm politician he has the reputation of being. The silent role of race, which Americans won't talk about or even lie about to pollsters--is very evident in watching the debate and will influence many citizens final decision, whether they admit it or not.

People reach for a reassuring father figure in times of crisis, like they did FDR in the Great Depression, Dwight Eisenhower in the early Cold War and Ronald Reagan during the economic crisis and hostage holding in Lebanon at the end of the Carter years.

With 29 days until the election, McCain has a tough row to hoe. But Obama has problems too, with his race, age, radical associations and slim resume. But in the final analysis, Americans will be seeking comfort and assurance, and the question will come down to who can best give that to them.

Obama beginning to squeal as truth emerges

2008-10-06T20:11:00.000-07:00

Barack Obama is beginning to squeal as finally the truth is coming out about his relationships with shady characters like Bill Ayres, Rev. Jeremiah Wright and Tony Rezko. Their cozy relationships with Muslim terrorists, the big money raised to support them, and the hatred for America that permeates their public utterances--it's all coming home to roost.

The company we keep, and the causes we support, do matter and count for something. If such things turn out to be embarrassing, well--we should have thought about that before we did it. The record is the record.

Obama is accusing the McCain campaign of trying to get the focus off the economy, of smear tactics and anything else it can think of, since he cannot deny the basic truth.

These were his friends, the ones who put him where he is today. There are too many public records, too many video tapes and too many documented news stories in creditable media to deny it. The facts have been there all along, but only now is the mass media beginning to report it.

Is it too late? Will Obama's radicalism register with the public now? Will the state of the economy trump Obama's record?

It ought to be an interesting three weeks, until the election.

Media injects race into presidential contest

2008-10-05T19:53:00.000-07:00

A thoroughly predictable response by the liberal mass media to the truth coming out about Barack Obama has arisen: race baiting.

As it is increasingly documented that Obama does keep company with terrorists, like whites Bill Ayres and Jeremiah Wright, with Muslims, and outright crooks like Tony Rezko-- the liberal mass media, already in the tank for Obama, declare that such a line of questioning is racist and out of bounds.

Led by the Associated Press, the media is shreeking "don't confuse us with the facts" because we don't want the facts to rain on our parade or interfere with our coronation of Obama.

There is no factual, legitimate defense to the truth of Obama's associations. He did what he did. It is on videotape, published in respected publications and available in his voice on audio tape or in his own handwriting in his books, from which he's made some $6 million in the last two years.

Added to his ultra-thin resume of either executive or legislative experience, the Obama candidacy is thin gruel indeed.

Just don't dare point it out. You will be tarred with the racist brush.

McCain, Palin need to hit Obama harder

2008-10-04T19:22:00.000-07:00

Finally, with just three weeks left until the election, Sarah Palin pointed out the obvious: that Barack Obama pals around with terrorists, who hate this country.

She was referring to Bill Ayres, the Weatherman founder, who was acquitted of terrorism charges back in the 1960s, although his wife Bernadine Dorn, did time for terrorism and attempted murder. Ayres and Obama did one of his "community organizing" gigs together, involving millions of federal dollars and private foundation money. Obama took over $150.000 out of the program for personal expenses. Ayres and Dorn are his neighbors in Chicago, and hosted campaign events for his Senate race.

Ayres and Obama were both on the faculty of the University of Chicago, where they became friends. Ayres has written a radical book excoriating the U.S. education system, preferring a system more similar to Israeli kabutzes, where its easier to indoctrinate children in his far-left dogma. Ayres has no business being close to a U.S. President, since he hates this country and what it stands for, and has only regretted not going far enough in trying to bring the government down in the 1960s.

This is far from the only evil relationship Obama has maintained. The big financier of his Chicago campaigns was convicted felon Tony Rezko, as well as the one who financed the mansion purchase Barack and Michelle live in. Much more needs to be said about his pastor, Jeremiah Wright and his extremist, pro-Muslim views and their friendship with Louis Farrakhan and other Muslims. More needs to come out about Obama's early Muslim education, and the extremist views of his late father, carried on today by his half brother and sister.

Fortunately, the same people who were behind the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth in the Kerry campaign four years ago, are starting to crank up the commercials and campaign to bring out the truth about Obama. Books by David Federoso and others have been predictably buried by the mainstream media--but the truth is slowly leaking out.

It is completely appropriate for McCain and Palin to acknowledge the facts--and expect the mass media to blast them for doing so. Actually, they are doing the job the mainstream media refuses to do, which has given Obama almost a complete pass on his early life.

Only the voters thought Palin won

2008-10-03T20:42:00.000-07:00

The prognosticators and the pollsters have done their best to give Joe Biden the victory in last night's vice presidential debate.

All their blizzard of data and spin proclaimed the Biden victory, but two things stand out that really matter: this debate was watched by about the twice the audience the first presidential debate was, and secondly, most viewers were spectators, not intellectual tit-for-tat fact checkers.

On this basis that John Q. Public (and Joe Six Pack) used to score the debate, Sarah Palin came across as a nice person they could relate to, with incredible charisma, warmth and charm. Joe Biden was the archtypical 36-year Washington hand, all wrapped up in himself, facts and figures--blustering on, but seemed terribly "old politics" and "old school." The world has changed in the internet age.

Political decisions are made in that narrow window when the public is actually paying attention and focusing on the matters at hand. And with early voting procedures now days, many were filling out their mail-in ballots as they watched the debate.

John McCain would be an idiot not to use Sarah Palin in a different way in the campaign now, than he has in the last two weeks. She has recaptured the magic from her GOP national convention speech, and never has stopped drawing incredible crowds where ever she appears.

Sarah Palin has turned things around for the Republican ticket once already, and now has done so again

Pay attention!

Palin wins veep debate, hands down

2008-10-02T20:15:00.000-07:00

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin was bright, enthusiastic and factual in her vice presidential debate tonight. She made no gaffes, as even the liberal pundits acknowledged, but was very strong and confident, with no lapses, hesitation or halting.

Joe Biden was the old Washington hack he is. The consummate 36-year U.S. Senator, he looked old and tired, lapsed into the standard "hate Bush" lingo, and looked insincere in going after one of his best friends in the Senate, Sen. John McCain.

The mass media pundits were beside themselves to discredit Palin, since there was little to attack her for. They were forced to resort to how she dropped her g's, talked about her family and how uncharacteristic Alaska is.

Palin, due to low expectations, would win the debate just by holding her own, making no mistakes and looking presidential.

She did much better than that. She showed an easy and relaxed command of the facts, was almost casual, in playing to her strength as a Washington outsider and scion of the middle class.

Biden prefaced every answer with a gratuous attack first on Bush and then McCain and tying them together. He was great at rehashing the Obama campaign talking points and bringing up the past, but did not paint a picture of the future.

Sarah Palin built impressively on her strong performance in her GOP convention acceptance speech, and continued to fire up the base, as well as appeal to the majority of women--that is, all but the most radical women's lib fringe.

The contrast with Biden was stark--the past versus the future.

Senate bail-out vote resurrects tax cuts

2008-09-30T21:10:00.000-07:00

The U.S. Senate has suddenly scheduled a vote for tomorrow night on the Wall Street bail-out plan, which has been sweetened with raising the federal insurance on bank accounts from $100,000 to $250,000, and a tax cut package. They evidently think they can get it through the Senate, which would put pressure on the House to switch at least 12 votes and pass it too.

The hope is to switch House Republicans based on the tax cuts, which the House previously rejected, and the added bank account insurance.

John McCain, Barack Obama and Joe Biden all plan to fly to Washington and vote on the Senate floor. That alone, puts a lot of pressure on the House.

Just a whiff of the possibility of the bail-out resurrection in the Senate hit Wall Street today, and it recouped 485 points of Monday's record 755 point drop in the Dow Jones Industrial average.

No one should pinch themselves yet at their good fortune. No one knows how much the bail-out will really help the economy. The tax cuts could do more than the bail-out, and anyone with $250,000 in spare cash to put in a bank account can do a whole lot better with it than leaving it in a federally-insured bank account.

The whole thing is probably smoke and mirrors. The appearance of action is more important than the action itself. Such is life.

The overwhelming hypocrisy of this whole mess still is astounding. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are at the bottom of the whole mess, quasi-government agencies that buy mortgage loans. Barney Frank, Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi and many others took major political contributions from the agencies, and then loosened up the lending standards and oversight, allegedly to facilitate more minority and low income homeowners.

That now these people now would be bailing-out their own incompetence and conflict of interest, defies credulity. But what can I say--welcome to Washington D.C.

Pelosi sabotaged bail-out package

2008-09-29T19:26:00.000-07:00

Democrats are famous for over-playing their hand. The classic was the "funeral" for Minnesota Sen. Paul Wellstone, killed in a plane crash, and enmeshed in a tight re-election campaign with now-Sen. Norm Coleman.

The "funeral" was nationally televised, and the Democrats took it as a time to beat up on Republicans in prime time. There was no spiritual side to the event, precious little mourning of Wellstone or comforting of his family. It was just a steady drumbeat of digs at President Bush and the Republicans in Congress--and showcasing their replacement nominee for Wellstone, former Vice President Walter Mondale. It was crass, naked politics from the get-go, and the public wasn't buying.

Mondale was defeated handily by Coleman, and Republicans ran better than expected in races across the country.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi performed a similar act today, in her pre-vote speech on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives, excoriating President Bush and the Republicans for the present financial crisis. The votes were counted for a tight win on the bail-out bill, or it would never have been brought up for a vote. Pelosi poured gasoline on the fire, rather than doing what she claimed to want to do: reach across the aisle for a bipartisan solution.

Of course she drove away at least the 12 Republican votes that could have passed the package. It was as transparent and real as if she had clobbered 12 solons over the head with a baseball bat. But it was overkill.

Americans are already weighing in that the bill was a heavy-handed federal power grab that socializes the economy and does irreparable damage to the free enterprise system. Republicans who defeated it are already being cast as heroes.

The tide is turning away from the Democrats, who increasingly look like the power-mad opportunists they actually are, and are about to suffer a fate similar to Mondale's.

Mark my words--Pelosi overplayed her hand. She snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.

Low Palin debate expectations her trump card

2008-09-27T20:35:00.000-07:00

The 36-year Washington hand, Delaware Sen. Joe Biden, should wipe the floor with Sarah Palin in the vice presidential debate this week. He is the vaunted chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, with depth and experience, who looks like a Commander-in-Chief.

Some 20 years older than Palin, with only a few years in politics in Alaska under her belt, his persona and swagger should carry the day.

But that's been the problem with Joe Biden, and why neither of his two presidential campaigns have approached even a 10% standing in the polls. He can lecture for hours, seem arrogant and upper-handed, suffering fools badly.

This is the perfect situation for Sarah Palin to walk into. The press thinks she is a lightweight, and cannot possibly stand up to the beknighted Biden.

Mrs. Palin is very glib and good on her feet, looks as charismatic and inviting as Biden does old and dull. She won't have to say much to steal the show. Especially if Biden Lords it over her, and is as condescending as he's been known to be.

As long as Palin does not commit a major gaffe, and is as charming, self-assured and vital as usual, she should handle Biden just fine. In fact, he is usually his own worst enemy.

Prepare to be surprised.

McCain looked, acted presidential in debate

2008-09-26T20:45:00.000-07:00

John McCain looked like, and acted, like a president in the first televised debate this evening, while Obama was very stern and steely-eyed, he did not have the ready smile or easy command of the facts that McCain did.

Obama's inexperience showed, as he was constantly snipping and sniveling at McCain, and mainly repeating familiar Democratic talking points in an attempt to parry McCain's thrusts.

The hardbitten liberal JIm Lehrer, the very nominally objective moderator of the debate, did his best to cut McCain off when he was scoring points, and to keep Obama in the debate, but McCain was still able to overcome the double whammy.

Just as McCain was the leader in going back to Washington to do what he could in the Wall Street bail-out debate, while Obama said he was staying in touch by phone, McCain showed again in tonight's debate that he is a leader and Obama a follower.

The Democratic lie to try and over for Obama's incompetence in the bail-out debate, that a deal was in place until McCain came back and screwed it up--is just that, a lie. Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown, a rookie Democrat, let the cat out of the bag, pointing out that no deal was in place for McCain to screw up.

As expected, the liberal mass media is doing its best to cut down McCain and build up the pedestrian performance of Barack Obama. But the voters saw what actually happened, and the media spin won't cover it over.

House GOP holds up bail-out deal

2008-09-25T19:54:00.000-07:00

In a strange time for suddenly standing up for principle and the taxpayers, House Republicans stand in the way of a bail-out deal that can pass Congress. It is strange, because all during the last two years, the House GOP has been the handmaidens of Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid--rarely standing up for anything, until the end of summer, when they blasted the summer recess, when so much business remained undone.

There has been some success from the venture, particularly the focus on Pelosi failing to allow a vote on lifting the ban on off-shore oil drilling. Democrats came back from the recess with the word from constituents that drilling must proceed. The Democratic plan would only have allowed limited drilling, if any at all, but the ban expires Sept. 30 anyway and so by doing nothing, the pro-drilling forces win.

The real problem is that the bail-out focus has been wrong from the gitgo, and now the House GOP is in open rebellion against the rest of the party. The focus should be on how little the bail-out might cost, since restoring liquidity to the nation's financial system should raise housing prices and stabilize the market.

This, as much as anything, is what will assure that taxpayers get hit the least for the bail-out, since the houses underlying the mortgages will be able to be sold off for more than is owed on them. Over a period of time, with wise management of the bail-out, taxpayers could pay little or nothing.

The focus instead has been on the $700 billion cost to taxpayers, which is unlikely even in the worst of circumstances, allowing the whole proposal to be weighted down in presidential and congressional campaign politics--and a quickly approaching recession and national pain the likely result.

John McCain tried to step forward as a statesman and bring a positive resolution, but it may be too bogged down, with too much baggage, to be salvageable.

Pot calling kettle black on the bail-out

2008-09-24T20:32:00.000-07:00

The genesis of the loosened lending standards and defaulted home mortgage loans lies with the liberal Democrats in Congress, who passed legislation directing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to expand minority and lower income home ownership in the U.S. by easing qualification for loans and financing up to 100% of a home's purchase price.

Almost any good professional banker could tell you that this was a recipe for disaster, before the first loan was ever made. The more of his own money a buyer has in a property, the more committed he is to making the sacrifices necessary to stay with it. Without any of his own money involved, there is no commitment. He sees the home like a rental, that he can easily walk away from, and tens of thousands have.

Additionally, the Clinton administration used Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac as sinecures for their friends who needed jobs, elbowing out the professional, knowledgeable lenders who could have prevented the crisis. Franklin Raines, Jamie Gorelick and James Johnson were up to their elbows in the mess. They also led the lending concerns in making generous political contributions to their friends on Capitol Hill, and the likes of Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton.

The whole system, as it degenerated to the present day, was almost a prescription for disaster.

The massive hypocrisy coming out now in Congress, in lambasting Bush's plan to rescue the system, would be laughable, if it wasn't so tragic. Those who have the least right to say anything, given their votes to create the present system and take campaign money from it, are running the show in Congress.

John McCain is scaring Democrats to death, suspending his campaign and returning to Washington to exercise his role as a Senator and try to craft legislation to solve the problem. Duty to country by putting it first, and politicking second, is totally foreign to the standard Washington modus operandi. Just as with the selection of Sarah Palin, Democrats don't know who to act.

It ought to be an interesting next few days.

Taxpayers could profit from mortgage bail-out

2008-09-23T18:19:00.000-07:00

Lost in all the verbal-overkill of the news coverage of the proposed $700 billion bailout of bad home mortgages, is that the federal government could wind up making a profit, rather than costing the taxpayers anything.

The most famous case was the bail-out of Chrysler Corporation in 1987. In the form of loan guarantees, it provided the capital the firm was unable to raise on its own at the time. Later, when the company was sold to the German firm Daimler, the federal government made over $300 million for its effort.

Lost in all the media onslaught, is the fact that each of the troubled home mortgages is secured by a home, which has value and will be sold. That will bail out a big portion of the loan by itself. Some additional funds will be raised by a deficiency judgement against each borrower for the difference between the amount of the loan and what the home sold for.

Those deficiency judgements will be bundled up and sold by the feds to private firms at a steep discount, who will then profit from collecting them.

This is how the old Resolution Trust Corporation (RTC) worked, which was the bail-out of the failed Savings and Loan institutions back in the 1990s. It did wind up costing the taxpayers some money, but nothing like the total amount authorized by Congress.

A similar outcome, maybe even a profitable one, can be expected from this latest bail-out, if Congress ever gets around to approving it.

Congress' own balky, nefarious, self-serving hand wringing is deepening the crisis by the hour. Today, the stock markets actually opened up over 100 points, but by the time all the distinguished solons seeking facetime on television had performed in Congress, the market dropped like a rock.

The time is here for courageous action--admittedly not a strong suit in Washington--and less personal aggrandizement, even if it is an election year.

What's the alternative?

2008-09-22T07:01:00.000-07:00

Life is full of so-called Hobson's Choices. My history knowledge has faded enough that I don't remember who Hobson was, or how he had the discovery, but I do know what it means. I face it everyday, and I'm sure you do too.

A Hobson's Choice is the often-faced dilemma of picking between two equally bad alternatives. There is no good thing to do, but simply selecting the least worst thing to do.

That's what's facing Congress this week with the $700 billion bail-out of bad mortgage loans. As costly and hideous as the bail-out is, what does the alternative look like?

A complete crash of the world's financial system would not be a pretty sight. People are not steeled, as they were during the Great Depression of the 1930s, to saving and scrimping by. Americans today have never had to do without, or make do. They may have to select a less costly choice, but basically get what they want.

The liberal Democrats have treated Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac as personal piggybanks for years, funding whatever social schemes and dreams they wanted, and setting up lucrative sinecures for their buddies like Franklin Raines, James Johnson and Jamie Gorelick, when they needed a soft place to land.

The liberal orthodoxy was to get women and minority groups into home ownership, and wave the credit qualifications to do it. Fannie and Freddie bought the dubious loans from private lenders, which gave them the privilege of being the first ones to be bailed out in the current wave.

Franklin Raines, in particular, havested up huge salary and bonuses during his tenure there, as did Johnson and Gorelick. It was so odious that Al Gore had to pay the price for his friendship with Raines, and Obama had to remove Johnson from his vice presidential search committee, he was so tainted. Gorelick could well have caused 9/11, when as number two at the Department of Justice, she put a wall between the CIA and FBI to keep them from sharing information, crippling our national intelligence gathering capabilities. She was even able to cover for herself, when as a member of President Bush's task force, she could oversee the whitewashing of her role.

Now, we taxpayers are on the hook for $700 billion to cover the liberal's chicanery. You won't read that in the popular press.

Biden, mercifully for Dems, anonymous so far

2008-09-21T16:23:00.000-07:00

The forgotten man so far in the 2008 presidential campaign is the Democratic vice presidential nominee, Delaware Sen. Joe Biden. They're even having trouble getting reporters to ride on his campaign plane, with only six present on a recent foray. GOP veep candidate Sarah Palin's plane was recently overweight, so many reporters were along, and a few had to be asked to ride commercial to the next stop.

This isn't a problem for the Democrats, but for the Republicans. Biden, famous for sinking his own presidential campaigns, has already made so many gaffes that the Obama-Biden ticket should be sunk already. Due to the lack of publicity, Obama has snuck by. It isn't just the liberal bias of the press keeping Biden's verbal slips quiet--they weren't even there.

A staunch Obama supporter is Missouri State Sen. Chuck Harrison, who is confined to a wheelchair. At a recent rally, Biden enthusiastically shouted out the names of prominent people at the rally, from a list provided by local supporters. With great bonhomie, Biden introduced Harrison, bellowing "Stand up Chuck, let the people see you!" Horrified local Democrats rushed to Biden, who tried to recover by trumpeting Harrison's courage in the face of adversity.

At another stop, Biden said Hillary Clinton would have been a better vice presidential pick. He was right, but did nothing for Obama's reputation for decision-making by pointing out the obvious. (I can't blame Obama. Can you imagine being president, with Hillary Clinton a heartbeat away from the presidency, after what happened to Commerce Secretary Ron Brown and Presidential Counselor Vince Foster? The strain on the Secret Service, alone, would be unbelievable.)

Biden has always had a magnificent facility for saying the wrong thing at the wrong time. As chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, he called for dividing Iraq into separate Sunni, Shiite and Kurd states. It was widely panned, particularly by the Iraqis themselves, and considered wrong by many noted foreign policy scholars and experts.

Biden's first presidential campaign blew up after it was disclosed he plagarized a speech by British Foreign Secretary Neal Kinnock, delivering it as his own. Biden is famous for his long-winded, overblown speeches at the drop of a hat--rarely being brief enough to produce the pithy, treasured 30-second television soundbite for the evening news shows.

It's merciful for the Democrats that Biden is out of the loop.

Desperate Dems grasping at straws

2008-09-20T20:12:00.000-07:00

The national news media is doing its best to keep Barack Obama positioned in the presidential race, but it may be a losing battle. Despite polls such as the CNN composite "poll of polls" showing the race with John McCain within a point or two, state polls in key battlegrounds are not nearly so accomodating.

The race is decided in the Electoral College, not the popular vote, and McCain is running like a trojan in key Democratic strongholds, where President Bush never did win. In Minnesota, Michigan, and Pennsylvania, McCain is well within the margin of error in local polls. If he and Obama each carry just the states Bush and Kerry did four years ago, and McCain carries any one of these states, he wins the election.

There isn't much danger of Obama carrying any major Bush states. McCain is running strong in states Obama likes to claim he is fighting in: Virginia, Ohio, Georgia, North Carolina and Florida. Sarah Palin solidified McCain's base and then some, greatly narrowly what little chance Obama had in these states. I'm glad to see the media paint Colorado, New Mexico and Nevada as deciding the election, so we get to see the candidates in here so often.

However, if McCain carries any one of the big Democratic states he is within striking distance of, these smaller Western states won't matter. In fact, its folly to think that neighbor John McCain, who's home state of Arizona borders these three states, would lose all three. There's a greater likelihood he'll carry all three.

The economic crisis really isn't playing out in Obama's favor. The Democrats in Congress do not dare politicize the legislation coming through this week to deal with it, as the public is accepting that it is a dire national emergency and that action is needed urgently.

The elephant in the room, which nobody except me is brave enough to talk about, is that Black Democratic candidates usually run about 5% behind what the polls show, as a lot of white folks talk a good game to pollsters, but their prejudices come out in the secrecy of the voting booth. If this proves to be true, Obama needs to show up at least 5% better in the polls than McCain. Ask Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley, if he were still alive, about his campaign for Governor and former Virginia Gov. Doug Wilder about his narrow win, after leading stealthily in the polls.

As they say, its never over 'til its over--but McCain looks like a pretty good bet at this juncture.

It's socialism any way you slice it

2008-09-19T22:20:00.000-07:00

The sense of inevitabiliy and sighing by John Q. Public in accepting the federal bail-out of financial institutions and the economy is breathtaking. The mass socialism being foisted on us by the pols, and our meek acceptance of it, is unprecedented.

You'd hope people would fight if Vladimir Putin marched onto U.S. soil and did the the same thing to us, imposing his collectivist will by military might. The old saying is that there are two ways to rob a man--with a gun or with a fountain pen.

Our freedom is being taken by the latter, and yet there is barely a whimper.

The notion that only government can save us from ourselves has never been generally accepted before. Today, everyone is laying down and saying "kick me one more time, it feels good."

The Weimar Republic in Germany and numerous other governments have fallen, and systems came crashing down, by diluting the soup of the currency with the government printing press. But that's what we're doing now, and no one seems to be the wiser.

It is like Nikita Krushchev, the grizzled shoe-pounding Soviet dictator, said in the 1960s, "We'll bury you, and some capitalist will hand us the shovel."

We're doing that to ourselves right now, right before our very eyes--and no one is lifting a finger to protest or complain. We've seen the enemy, the old warrior said, and it is us.

And this too shall pass

2008-09-17T21:27:00.000-07:00

The gloom and doom on Wall Street, which Obama and the Democrats are trying to hard to exploit for political gain, will pass.

The market has over-reacted, as it frequently does, to some tough economic news, and it will recover, probably before the November election. What goes up must come down.

While McCain is backtracking from his assertion that the economy is fundamentally sound, he was right. A temporary burble or two does not a depression make.

The U.S. economy has been in far worse shape than it is now, and probably will be again some day. As long as the feds can print money to cover collapses like AIG and Goldman Sachs, and force deals like the sale of Merrill Lynch to Bank of America and Lehman Brothers to Barclay's--the economy will not crater.

The housing crisis, the burst bubble behind the current problems, was manufactured by liberals in Congress, who forced lenders to end redlining and make housing loans to unqualified borrowers. They subsidized it through quasi-federal agencies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and bailed them out too, when they got in trouble as a result.

The answer is to let free markets operate unfettered, and let lenders restore reasonable credit standards to making loans.

It will strengthen the economy and restore the stock market. The economy doesn't need a political solution--if there is such a thing. It needs to be left alone, and allowed to heal up and recover on its own.

Election excitement hits Colorado

2008-09-16T17:59:00.000-07:00

For whatever reason, Colorado with its nine electoral votes, is "in play" this year, as a key determiner in the presidential contest.

For years, candidates flew over the Rocky Mountain and plains states, on their way from the vote-rich East and Midwest, on their way to California. Barack Obama spoke in Grand Junction, Colorado yesterday, the first Democrat since Harry Truman to campaign there as a presidential candidate.

This still seems questionable on a raw numbers basis, as big states like Michigan, Pennsylvania and Ohio are very close in the polls. It takes all the Rocky Mountain states together to equal what one of the biggies will do for your campaign in the Electoral College. And yet, Colorado broadcast airways are full of expensive presidential campaign commercials.

After Obama was here for the Democratic National Convention in late August, John McCain and Sarah Palin together were in Colorado Springs a week ago. This week, Palin was in Golden Monday, while Obama spent a day and a half here, visiting Golden again and Pueblo, in addition to the Grand Junction stop.

Colorado has a narrow plurality of registered Republicans, with Independents next and Democrats third among the registered voters. Bush carried the state both times, but more recently we have elected a Democratic governor in Bill Ritter, U.S. Senator in Ken Salazar and a majority of the seven-member congressional delegation are currently Democrats. That's why Obama thinks there's hope.

We undoubtedly have not seen the last of the major party candidates in the remaining 49 days until the election, unless one or the other jumps out into a big lead in the polls. McCain is from neighboring Arizona, so should sweep the Rocky Mountain states--but such a trend is not apparent yet.

We'll just continue to bask in the glow of all the attention.

Obama drops vision, becomes attack dog

2008-09-15T20:34:00.000-07:00

The old saying is "dance with the one who brung ya."

Obama has abandoned the soaring rhetoric, the gauzy, fuzzy, feel good phrases in his stump speeches. He sounds like Al Gore or John Kerry, in the old liberal attack dog mode of "Hate Bush." Having little luck running against John McCain and Sarah Palin, he has fallen out of the visionary, futuristic "dream with me" of his early campaign, back into the same old Democratic tactics.

They failed in the last two elections, and almost certainly will this time. George Bush is term limited and can't run again. He is not a candidate in this election, and America is ready to move on. Obama is virtually abandoning the change theme to McCain and Palin.

As tragic as the big Wall Street blowout was today, and the inevitable collapse of Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch, blaming it on Bush is hardly going to gain credibility with the American people. Particularly since it was the liberals in Congress who outlawed redlining and virtually demanded that lenders make housing loans to unqualified people.

When the loans defaulted and brought the collapse of the lenders, hardly a surprise, it can't be credibly put at Bush's door. Obama has got to do better than that.

America is tired of sniveling and finger-pointing. They want solutions and and liberation from the past. McCain and Palin have seized on that, co-opting Obama's own message and rhetoric. Unless he returns to the vision and future message, he is a dead duck.

Stock market shakeout helps Obama

2008-09-05T20:36:00.000-07:00

The last week's plunge of the Dow Jones Industrial average has left investors counting their pennies, and looking at their hole card.

It hasn't been a real rippy-dippy year in the Stock Market anyway, and the last week makes it much worse. There are always jitters at elecction time, and this will be the shortest presidential campaign in history, with just 60 days left until the election. Then the stock market will settle down at some level or another.

I'm no stock picker or market timer, but at some point investors will find stocks cheap and leap back into the market and it will go up. Are we at such a bottom right now? If I knew the answer, would I tell you?

The conventional politics is that a lower stock market helps Obama and hurts Republicans. Probably this is true, but so far the year is not running true to form. Republicans should have no chance whatsoever, given President Bush's unpopularity, the Iraq war's lack of broad-based public support and the economic slowdown.

However, the conventional choice of Hillary Clinton and Mitt Romney didn't hapen, and now McCain has upset the apple cart again with his selection of a running mate in the person Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin. She is wildly popular with values voters and has changed the chemistry of the race.

It's too early to tell, but seemingly Obama got very little bounce out of the Democratic convention, trumped by the Palin announcement. Her appeal to Rust Belt, gun-toting hunters is sterling, and to a lesser extent, snubbed women voters backing Clinton.

With all the bad economic news, Obama would be the conventional beneficiary, but 2008 is proving to be a very unconventional year.

McCain's speech very strong

2008-09-04T21:05:00.000-07:00

Perhaps John McCain didn't hit the home run his running mate Sarah Palin did last night, but his speech was strong, positive and showed him to be very statesman-like, looking and sound like a President. He is not, and never will be Mr. Charisma and Charm, but came across warmly and professionally.

His minor jabs at Obama left a good impression, and his specifics about the economy, Republican failings in recent years, Iraq, energy policy, opportunity and the future set a good tone.

The CBS poll shows he and Obama tied going into the speech tonight, which is much stronger than anyone expected at this point. He and Palin look well positioned at the start of the campaign, and with Arnold Schwartzenegger's man Steve Schmidt leading the way, there is reason for hope. The Democrats will continue to control Congress, but the GOP team may well eek out a respectable victory. McCain's base in the Republican Party and with the Christian Right is very strong and energized, as it hasn't been since Reagan.

This is a seminal, change election, with no incumbent on either ticket for the first time in decades, and we will wind up with either a Black president or female vice president for the first time ever.

It is going to be an exciting fall.

Palin hits a home run

2008-09-03T21:01:00.000-07:00

Having just turned off Sarah Palin's acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention in St. Paul, I can make several observations:

1. She was strong and confident, tough but charming. Democrats are going to have their hands full, messing with her.

2. She said it all with her joke about hockey moms--the only difference between a Pit Bull and a Hockey Mom is the lipstick.

3. She demonstrated outstanding grasp of the energy issues, and heavily exploited her experience and knowledge in the oil rich state of Alaska. She was very effective talking about the $40 billion natural gas pipeline she signed the deal to build.

4. She shone brightly compared to the speakers ahead of her--Mitt Romney, Rudy Giuliana and even Mike Huckabee. Huck was funny and the most effective of the trio, but didn't light up the crowd like Palin. Romney never caught fire, just like his presidential campaign, and Giuliani may have pushed the bounds of good taste in going after Obama.

Palin really comes across as Every Woman, warts and all. A lot of Americans can relate to that. She will give Obama and Biden fits, trying to figure you how to handle her, without destroying themselves in the process.

Where was this Fred Thompson a year ago?

2008-09-02T20:29:00.001-07:00

Tonight at the Republican National Convention in St. Paul, former Tennessee Senator and Law and Order star Fred Thompson delivered the keynote address.

He was animated, alive and delivered a real stemwinder, blasting Barack Obama, and playing up John McCain and Sarah Palin. He was very effective, both on television and in the hall. in front of the GOP base.

Thompson has always had this ability, and displayed it numerous times in being elected and re-elected to the U.S. Senate from Tennessee. There were times when he rose up and took a leadership position on some issue in the Senate, but most of the time he was just going through the motions, a very diffident, lackadaisical solon, at best.

So it was with his ill-fated presidential campaign last year. Some said his best speech was his withdrawl speech. Fred was laconic on the stump, ill-prepared and seemingly very unconcerned. He just walked through the debates, frequently unprepared and uninspiring. It seemed like his young trophy second wife wanted badly to be first lady, but that he was just going through the motions, to please her but not have to serve as President.

We Fredheads (As his backers were known) are asking, after watching him at the GOP convention tonight "Where was this Fred Thompson a year ago?"

Liberals fit to be tied

2008-09-01T20:09:00.000-07:00

As Barack Obama's post-convention bounced never occurred or evaporated--take your choice--liberals are starting to panic. The uncoordinated, scattergun approach to what to do about McCain, and particularly his running mate Sarah Palin, shows desperation and uncertainty.

The Zogby poll shows McCain and Palin two points ahead--when a winning Democrat normally comes out of his convention with a 10-15 point bounce, a cushion to get them through the fall. They are apoplectic.

Former national chairman Don Fowler said Hurricane Gustav is a "gift from God." It is, but not as Fowler thinks. Instead of disrupting the GOP national convention, it is legitimately keeping George Bush and Dick Cheney away to take care of hurricane business, allowing the party to look very humanitarian in raising money for disaster relief and eschewing partisan politics. We don't know how the rest of the week will play out, but so far so good.

The only real negative is the protestors, who the Denver police had under control at the Democratic convention in their city, but are much more violent in St. Paul, throwing bleach at the Connecticut delegation, resulting in 80 arrests in one day--when Denver barely broke 100 for the week.

McCain and Palin look much more the change than Obama and his tired old-Washington-hand veep nominee, Joe Biden. The right is rallying around Palin in supporting her pregnant unmarried daughter, proving her anti-abortion credentials not once, but twice. This has forced Obama to declare family members off limits--ordering his staff not to politicize Palin's daughter.

It still looks like the perfect storm to this blog, with McCain having things well in hand.

Stars aligning right for McCain

2008-08-31T19:23:00.000-07:00

Regardless what you think of John McCain or his selection of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate--the one thing that cannot be denied is that the stars are aligning right for the ticket at this moment in time.

Nobody wants to see a Hurricane Katrina repeat in New Orleans with Hurricane Gustav, but this just in: due to the impending possible disaster, and its attendant heavy responsibilities, President George Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney will be unable to attend the Republican National Convention this week in Minneapolis. (Wink, Wink. Nod. Nod.)

Now the liberal press will have to use four-year-old pictures of Bush and McCain bear-hugging, as the Prez is just too busy to go to Minneapolis. And Cheney can't be there either, gol darn it! And just when the liberals really wanted to get Bush's imprimateur all over the McCain campaign. Tough luck.

It even looks like McCain might have to do his acceptance speech by video from the Gulf Coast, due to the disaster. That means he's only leaving behind his running mate, Gov. Sarah Palin, to fire up the troops there on the ground in Minneapolis. Oh, the crushing weight of the call of duty, the sacrifices that must be made to put America first . . .

Not to be too cold and cynical, of course. But while the liberal media is doing its best to downplay it, the conservative GOP base has not been this fired up since the first Reagan campaign. As one old warrior told me, who has not been active in many years: "Stand back son, I'm lacin' up my cleats!"

If poor little Sarah Palin is there all alone in Minneapolis, to hold the hands of the 10,000 ecstatic Republican activists who are assembling as we speak . . .boy, that'll be a real downer.

Even more, looking around the television and Sunday papers, has anybody seen anything of Barack Obama or Joe Biden lately?

Obama-Biden second fiddle again

2008-08-30T20:29:00.000-07:00

For the second day in a row, Barack Obama and his running mate Joe Biden's bus tour of the rust belt has played second fiddle in the media to John McCain and his new running mate Sarah Palin's tour of Pennsylvania.

While I personally think Palin will acquit herself well as a campaigner and debater, the jury is still out, but her star quality and the power of the unexpected has she and McCain in the lead position of the news for the second day in a row.

This is bound to blunt the post-convention bounce in the polls Obama would normally get. In fact, the early polls have him up only 4-8 points, much less than normal and not the cushion a winning Democrat takes into the fall. As it stands right now, the GOP will have a much more joyous, colorful convention than it would have been without Palin, and McCain's the one who could get the big post-convention bounce.

Assuming Palin doesn't stub her toe on the national stage, an unknown at this point, and fades into relative obscurity as vice presidential candiates usually do, McCain would be looking good come November.

Obama, and particularly his surrogates. will haul out the heavy inexperience timber from now until the election, but whether it sticks depends largely on how well Palin plays her role. Without any major miscues on her part, Obama has no room to talk about experience, and it will fade into oblivion as an issue.

In any case, what was shaping up as a dull, boring campaign has been supercharged with Sarah Palin thrown into the mix, and it should be an exciting fall.

McCain hits grand slam with Palin

2008-08-29T20:20:00.000-07:00

And the hits just keep on comin' . . .

The McCain campaign has kicked it up several notches ever since they hired Arnold Schwartznegger's campaign manager. Better anticipation, better response and better advertising, better timed--all have kicked in since Steve Schmidt took over.

So it was no surprise today when McCain kicked Obama and Biden off the front pages and the TV newscasts with the selection of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate. It was such a shock to the mass media, who have been ignoring her obvious assets for months, that they barely knew how to respond.

She is only 44, three years younger than Obama, an excellent and engaging speaker and has over twice as many years in public office as he has. She also has been a success in private business--and of course, Obama has yet to earn his first private enterprise dollar. She is pro-life, a lifetime member of the National Rifle Assn., a crack shot, a hunter and fisherman.

In fact, she and her husband haven't talked the talk in being pro-life, but knowing that their fifth child would have Downs Syndrome, they allowed him to be born and he is an honored member of their family. She said something about honoring God's Creation--what a novel concept!

As Governor, when rising oil prices gave the state a big surplus, they gave it back to the taxpayers. She overturned the Bridge to Nowhere, refusing the federal money. She signed into law a stringent anti-corruption law, full of public disclosure requirements for public officeholders.

She is highly intelligent and a breath of fresh air. The libs will quickly find that she is tough, quick witted and nimble. She is more than up to the task, including winning the televised debate with Joe Biden.

John McCain has shuffled the deck, and changed the whole dynamic. Which is the campaign of change now? The one with the 36-year insider U.S. Senator for veep, or the one with the youthful female outsider reformer?

Obama: the old class warfare bromides

2008-08-28T19:39:00.000-07:00

The Greco-Roman stage built for Barack Obama to speak from at Denver's Invesco at Mile High stadium was impeccable. The roaring crowd was just right. The stage management of interspersing Colorado's boring, pedestrian Democratic pols with old rock groups kept everyone's interest from the 2 p.m. when they had to be in their seats, until Obama finally spoke at 8:20 p.m.

Obama was his usual engaging self at the teleprompter, and read his lines flawlessly.

The problem was the Obama message of Hope and Change--somehow got lost in the standard, traditional Democratic class warfare digs at George Bush and John McCain-- as well as tearjerking stories about citizens who lost their jobs through no fault of their own, and digs at how rich they are and how poor we are.

It could just as easily have been FDR, Harry Truman, Bill Clinton speaking--the message was the same. Us versus them. They're the haves, we're the have-nots. Woe is us.

The Hope and Change faded into in the same old, same old. Long on rhetoric, short on vision and dreams. Barack ran them up the flagpole all right--but how many will salute?

Demonstrators a mere shadow of yesteryear

2008-08-27T20:34:00.000-07:00

We who live in Denver year around are consumed by having the Democratic National Convention in our city.

It's hard to get news or information about much else. Katrina II may be closing in on New Orleans, and the Colorado Rockies may be making another late season miracle run for the playoffs--but you're hard-pressed to find out about it.

Millions of dollars of taxpayer money have been lavished on extra cops, equipping them with riot gear and high tech security apparatus--all to fend off the anarchists, rioters and demonstrators who are drawn to national political conventions like moths to a bright light.

So far, knock on wood, those drawn to Denver have been a major disappointment. They can be counted in the hundreds, not the tens of thousands, and except for the press, would attract very little attention or notice. They have not been disruptive, or even disrespectful. What they've really been is pathetic.

The salad days of demonstrating may be over. The internet and social networking sites like MySpace, Facebook and UTube may well have eclipsed street demonstrations. Blackberries, cell phones, I-phones and texting have made communication so personal, so quick and intense, that putting on a show in the street for the evening TV audience may not matter as much anymore.

The overwhelming sense you get from what demonstrators are out there, is that they're old and trying hard to recapture the glories of yesteryear. There are very few young protestors and demonstators, who seem to have moved on to the impersonalization of high tech, which has become their mantra.

MoveOn.org and their ilk seem a lot more powerful, and to have captured the younger generation, than street demonstrations, arrests and provoking the police.

With one day to go, maybe there will still be a major street ruckus, but it really feels like the world has changed. Just as the anachronistic roll call of states at the convention lacked its old drama, which Hillary Clinton's motion mercifully put out of its misery, street rumbles aren't what they once were, either.

Knowing how to set the table

2008-08-26T20:18:00.000-07:00

The Democrats blew it in the staging and arrangement of the first night of their convention.

I've organized my share of conferences, conventions, retreats and church services in my day--and you can set them up for emotional impact, leaving everyone with a memorable experience and asking for more. Or you can just hodgepodge it call together, "take it as they come" and everyone will be shuffling their feet and looking at their watches.

Particularly, when it is televised, you want the best parts in prime time on the air.

The early part of the day one Democratic agenda was the predictable droll speechifying, dragging out every superlative in the book. Sort of as one of the ancient sages like Aristotle remarked "how many angels can you get on the head of a pin?"

But then they honored Massachusetts Sen. Ted Kennedy, with a well done video and speech by his niece, Caroline Kennedy. The predictable crescendo erupted when brain cancer-stricken Ted himself made it to the podium, and limited himself to just 7 minutes of trademark Kennedy bombast.

The table was set, as they say, and that was the moment to bring on Michelle Obama and crown the evening. Or in a church, service, the moment when you receive the offering. Or when the chairman moves immediately to a vote, while his side has things rolling his way.

Instead, the Democrats then trotted out former Iowa Republican Rep. Jim Leach, chairman of the Republicans for Obama. He always was a lousy speaker, and after running weaker and weaker, election after election, was finally defeated for re-election by Iowa voters. Leach droned on and on, settling old political scores and doing little to advance Obama's cause, as few--if any--Republicans and Independents were watching.

This drove the emotional climate into the floor, and the time in the East past 11 p.m. by the time they finally brought on Michelle Obama. Rare is the speaker who can wake the dead, much less resurrect the spirit that has gone flat. Michelle certainly is not one of them, and particularly when she has been instructed to take her happy pills, in order to douse her public image as a sniveling, angry black woman.

In prime time, when everyone was on fire from the Kennedy contretemps, Michelle could have been kind of endearing, warm and fuzzy--and done a lot of good to buff the Obama family image.

Everyone was yawning and looking at their watches by the time she got through, and chatted with Barack and the girls through the miracles of modern technology--even if Dad wasn't sure which city he was in.

As a McCain fan, I thought it was great. If I was a Democrat, I'd be reaching for the panic button.

Demos not winning any friends in Denver

2008-08-25T19:54:00.000-07:00

Those denizens of downtown Denver without the foresight to take vacation time during the Democratic National Convention, are paying the price in inconvenience, delays and uncertainty.

The police have conflicting orders on what street is open when, and where it is legal to walk and where it isn't. If you want to do something and don't like the answer from one officer, go ask another one and you'll probably be allowed. With the main drag into downtown Denver, Speer Boulevard closed, and other lesser streets in various stages of restriction, the smart locals stay far from downtown.

Those intrepid souls who ride the bus or light rail are even more lost. Schedules have been turned upside down, as well as stations closed close to downtown. One downtown worker who normally has a one block walk from the light rail stop to work now has 11 blocks--each way.

The press seeks out the happy people, who are gaa-gaa over having so many celebrities in town, so to watch TV or listen to the radio, you'd think everything is ducky. This is just the first day, so you can imagine how thin patience will be after four more days of this.

Particularly pathetic to see are the professional protestors trying to whip something up in the parks and the caged-in area where they are allowed near Pepsi Center, site of the conventioin. Many of them are downright elderly, and their shopworn cliches from the 1960s and 1970s have gotton old along with them. The public long ago saw the folly of the protests and attempts to foment violence, and gives them short shrift. They are wasting everybody's time.

To see the media, you'd swear everybody was singing FDR's old tune, Happy Days Are Here Again. But if you actually live and work in downtown Denver, it's a whole different matter.

McCain campaign response to Biden brilliant

2008-08-24T20:04:00.000-07:00

The shakeup of the McCain campaign, bringing in Arnold Schwartznegger's former campaign manager, is paying off in spades, as it has become nimble, gutsy and provocative in recent weeks.

This has been evident in many recent events, but never more so than in Joe Biden's selection as Obama's running mate. The McCain campaign had radio and TV spots up within hours of the selection that were hardhitting and well conceived. One was Biden in 2005, praising McCain and saying he'd be honored to run with him. The other one that played upon the anger of the Hillary Clinton crowd, stressing how shabbily she was treated in the Biden selection.

The Biden selection was a safe, if not inspired, choice by Obama. Biden is a scion of the liberal foreign policy establishment and shores up one of Obama's most glaring weaknesses. How it must grate on a 36-year Senator like Biden to take second fiddle to a four-year Senator of very limited accomplishment and experience.

Politically, the choice severely damages Obama's mantra of hope and change. The idealistic young folks who put him where he is cannot be inspired by a veep 65 years old, who has never risen out of the single digits in two presidential runs. Obama would carry Biden's home state of Delaware without him, and Biden adds no electoral muscle in any other state.

There is great potential for Republicans in Biden, as he is a loose canon with a microphone in his hand and has enough baggage to fill a semi. Biden is almost sure to say something embarassing to Democrats before the campaign is out, if not get in a mess such as plagarizing his stump speech in 1988.

McCain's sure-footed response just shows the confidence the Biden pick has given him.

Obama's reach for "gravitas" with Biden

2008-08-23T05:02:00.000-07:00

In 2000, the liberal press, like faithful lap dogs, picked up the Bill and Hillary Clinton line that then-Texas Gov. George W. Bush lacked the "gravitas" to be president. Rush Limbaugh put together an audio montage of national radio and TV anchors, each repeating the charge of Bush's supposed lack of "gravitas."

Bush was a veteran pro, at that point, compared to Barack Obama today. At least he had been around the White House with his parents, been active in presidential politics with them, and been Governor of Texas for eight years--a large state with large responsibility. Bush had also been a successful businessman, making a fortune in the oil business and owning the major league Texas Rangers baseball team.

He solved his alleged "gravitas" problem, in the eyes of the press, by selecting Dick Cheney as his vice presidential nominee, who had "gravitas" from his 20 years service in the U.S. House, rising to minority Whip, Ford White House Chief of Staff, and Bush 41 Defense Secretary.

Roll the cameras to 2008, and we find Obama, with a much worse lack of "gravitas" than Bush every thought of having. The liberal press has never even breathed the term, until suddenly Russia reimerges as its old self and invades its former colony Georgia. A genuine foreign policy crisis.

Obama was quickly in deep water, over his head, and made a few naive, inexperienced remarks about it that made him look like the rookie he is. A genuine lack of "gravitas." His GOP opponent John McCain, a certifiable heavy in foreign policy, responded sure-footedly as expected, and rose to tying and even leading Obama in the polls.

While the term has not been heard, as Obama is a rock star liberal with the press wrapped around his fingers, Obama solved his "gravitas" problem by abandoning his first choice for vice president, Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine (who had an even lighter resume than Obama's--three years ago he was Mayor of Richmond), and selecting 36-year Delaware Sen. Joe Biden as his running mate, who is chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and ran for president in both 1988 and 2008 without gaining much traction either time.

What his brief campaigns are most famous for is being exposed by his opponent, liberal Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis, for plagarizing his stump campaign speech from Briish Labor Party Secretary Neal Kinnock in 1988, and in 2008 calling Obama "the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy."

Biden is a typical windy, bloviating, out-of-touch veteran Senator--what happens to all of them, like Ted Kennedy, John Kerry and Chris Dodd, when they serve too tong. Witness Indiana Republican Sen. Richard Lugar of Indiana today, congratulating Biden as a friend and lamenting that his fellow Hoosier Democrat, Sen. Evan Bayh, wasn't selected. (What about his fellow Republican, John McCain?)

It'll be fascinating to see the results of Obama's reach for "gravitas."

Clintonistas making last gasp stand

2008-08-22T20:59:00.000-07:00

The old saying is "Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned." Hillary Clinton and her primarily female backers are proving the truth of this old saw.

Only 50% of Clinton backers in a recent poll, are actively endorsing Obama at his point, and one fifth of her supporters say they will vote for John McCain.

The Clintonistas have a litany of complaints, including lack of fundraising by Obama to pay off Hillary's $20 million campaign debt, lack of inclusion of former Clinton backers in prominent roles in Obama's campaign, and failure to properly recognize Hillary and her accomplishment as the most successful female presidential candidate in history.

While the Clinton folks undoubtedly do have some legitmate concerns, Obama has bent over backwards to the Clintons, giving both Bill and Hillary major speaking roles in prime time at next week's Democratic National Convention in Denver, and allowing Hillary's name to be placed in nomination, and a rollcall vote held.

Assuming Hillary is not Obama's choice for vice president, as most experts assume, the situation is expected to come to a head next Wednesday night at the convention when Bill Clinton is to speak, followed by the vice presidential nominee. The poor nominee is expected to have a tepid, if not hostle, response from the 2,000 delegates who supported Hillary.

The indication is that the split in the Democratic Party is not healed yet, and the Denver confab may exacerbate the situation, as at least some of Hillary's backers are planning.

It ought to be fun to watch.

Serious character issues surface with Obama

2008-08-21T20:16:00.000-07:00

Serious character issues about Barack Obama have surfaced, at the same time the Zogby poll has McCain pulling in front of Obama for the first time, by 5 points. It is thought the Russian invasion of Georgia has raised serious national security concerns about Obama, and his less-than-stellar performance on the interview with Pastor Rick Warren last Saturday, led to the McCain surge.

One character question is the refusal of Obama to support his half brother George Hussein Obama, who lives in Kenya on $1 per month, in a 6 foot by 9 foot box. Surely the multi-millionaire author, U.S. Senator and presidential candidate, whose wife Michelle's last job paid $370,000 per year, could send $100 a month or so to support his brother.

Another question is about an education program he ran, which was chaired by former Weatherman Bill Ayres, who is married to Bernardette Dohrn. Both were convicted of acts of terrorism during the the Vietnam War protest days. The program showed no increase in test scores in the Chicago schools in which the program was active, despite spending nearly $100 million. There were serious financial questions about the disposition of the funds, as well. The private foundation that funded half the tab, and the federal government the rest, is refusing to release the records of the program.

It has also surfaced that Obama was "elected" to his term in the Illinois State Senate by challenging the nominating petitions of the other candidates in the heavily Democratic district, including the incumbent, and getting them thrown off the ballot. He was then unopposed for the seat. Classic Chicago machine politics.

None of these situations has made headlines in the major news media, and the Obama campaign refuses to answer questions aobut them. The real question is, what would the news media have done if John McCain had done these things, instead?

Denver: Dem confab is definitely in the air

2008-08-19T20:11:00.000-07:00

With people already arriving in the Mile High City for the Democratic National Convention, which will actually start in less than a week, there is definitely something in the air.

For some people, it is excitement that Barack Obama will be nominated here and Denver will have its first national major party convention since 1908, when the Democrats met and nominated William Jennings Bryan.

For others, there is dread, as all the crowds, security and congestion will make it harder for them to get to work and tax the restaurants and other facilities they frequent on a daily basis. Most wouldn't care if it was the Democratic or the Republican convention meeting here, it is strictly a matter of convenience.

By far the biggest mess will come on Thursday of convention week, when Obama delivers his acceptance speech at Denver's Mile High Stadium to over 80,000. It is hard to believe, but they are actually going to completely shut down Interstate 25 from 6th Avenue to Interstate 70 from 5:30 to 9 p.m. for security reasons.

You have to be familiar with Colorado and Denver to catch the import of this, but Colorado is bisected from the south border to the north border by I-25, and from the east border to the west border by I-70. These are the major freeways in the state. and the only fast way to navigate central Denver. To fully close I-25 for a few hours--not just shut down a lane or two--is a major crisis for the people who actually live and work here. The surface street alternatives, many of which will be constricted too, can't begin to handle the capacity.

That's why you have the third group in the air, leaving town for a week and avoiding the whole mess. They are not just Republicans, but people who can afford it and purposely planned their vacation to coincide with the Dem confab. All the hub-bub, delays and inconvenience--you can't do anything about it or mitigate it, why not miss it?

There's anticipation in the air, all right, for the Democratic National Conventin in Denver--but among locals, it's very mixed feelings, at best.

Pelosi's religious oratory over the top

2008-08-18T20:36:00.000-07:00

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi got carried away with hyperbole yesterday, introducing Barack Obama to a crowd of wealthy political contributors as "a leader sent to us by God, as a blessing to us."

Already derided as "Obamassiah," and other "from on high" references, the last thing the elitist, upper crust Obama needs is more proof of the truth of John McCain's television commercial comparing him to Brittany Spears and Paris Hilton. Hilton's hilarious You Tube video in response only prolonged the fun.

After Obama's windy, convoluted answers to Pastor Rick Warren's questions last Saturday night, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee has enough problems on spiritual matters, without overblown crooning by Nancy Pelosi.

The liberal Associated Press is now circulating the registration forms from when Obama was six years old, which his parents signed to certify that he was a citizen of Indonesia and a Muslim. This does not necessarily imperil the legality of his eligibility to serve as President, but the refusal of his campaign to comment on the form certainly raises suspicions.

He could well have had dual citizenship in the U.S. and Indonesia, since his mother was a white American. And certainly being a Muslim doesn't disqualifiy anyone from serving as President. But the whole flap does lend credence to author Jerome Corsi's charges in his new book Obama Nation, which opened as the number one best seller on the New York Times list.

Obama needs to be perceived as an ordinary guy, who speaks truth to the American people. Neither Nancy Pelosi's rhetoric nor his own refusal to come clean about his Muslim roots, helps him do that.

McCain aces Rick Warren interview

2008-08-17T20:05:00.000-07:00

Evangelicals, and the Christian Right in general, are quite justifiably uncomfortable with John McCain.

From years gone by, right up the present moment, has has blasted them, at one time or another, from the late Jerry Falwell to Pat Robertson to Bob Jones University to John Hagee to Focus on the Family. The main thing McCain has had going for him is that on most of the issues they care most about, Barack Obama was even worse.

So it came last night, with Pastor Rick Warren of Saddleback Community Church in California and author of The Purpose Drive Life, that McCain and Obama were each separately interviewed for an hour on spiritual and moral issues. The overall impression was that McCain was very direct and to the point, dodging no questions, while Obama talked much longer and beat around the bush.

Obama comes out of a very liberal Christian background at best. His 20-year pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, is into black liberation theology and is a close friend of Muslims like Louis Farakhan and Libyan dictator Moamar Quaddafi. Naturally Obama would be quite uncomfortable with the evangelical Warren and obviously had his guard up.

McCain told stories from his personal experiences, such as his time in the North Vietnamese prison and his first marriage, that were touching and related very well to the audience. Obama was much more theoretical and distant, mainly trying to avoid a fatal misstep.

To the extent that McCain shored up his base with the Christian Right, he was the victor. Obama did avoid a fatal misstep, particularly in the eyes of the liberal media.

Computer literacy a campaign issue?

2008-08-16T20:42:00.000-07:00

Much is being made in the media of John McCain's near-total lack of internet savy, while Barack Obama is a Blackberry addict. He can be seen constantly thumbing away, whenever he is away from the podium or not gladhanding folks on the campaign trail.

Even President Bush told Maria Bartiromo that he "uses the Google."

This is probably a non-issue. A president is swarmed with aides and secret service personnel, who are computer savy and will cheerfully do what ever he needs done, instantly. Maybe a guy as hooked as Obama appears to be on Blackberry, may find himself as Jimmy Carter did--too immersed in details to see the big picture.

While Jimmy was busy keeping the schedule for use of the White House tennis courts, Iran seized Americans hostage and interest rates shot up to 22%.

A President needs time for reflection and contemplation, the ability to see the totality of things, and to let his underlings take care of the details.

Statistics show that some 82% of Americans use the internet to at least some degree. This is up from 41.5% when Bill Clinton assumed the presidency in 1992. Once Al Gore got the internet invented, it sure spread like wildfire!

Internet savy is probably not a defining issue in the presidential campaign. Just something for the pundits to have fun with.

Stench of Edwards' affair gets stronger

2008-08-15T19:56:00.000-07:00

Former North Carolina Democratic Sen. John Edwards, who also has run in 2004 and 2008 for the presidential nomination and was the 2004 vice presidential nominee under John Kerry, has admitted he had a 2006 affair with a staffer, Rielle Hunter. By all appearances his chief fundraiser and close personal friend, Dallas trial lawyer Fred Baron, paid her off to keep quiet about the affair.

Hunter had a baby girl in February, 2008, which it is claimed was fathered by another Edwards campaign staffer, Andrew Young, who is married and has chilren in that marriage.

Hunter took her name from her first husband, lawyer Alexander Hunter III, the son of the controversial former Boulder, Colorado district attonery, Alex Hunter. The elder Hunter was most famous for being unable to solve murder cases in his bailiwick, including the cases of Jon Benet Ramsey and the murder of actor Robert Redford's son's girlfriend. The elder Hunter was a classic limousine liberal Democrat, who fit right in with the jocularly-nicknamed Citizens Republic of Boulder, home of the ultra-liberal University of Colorado.

Edwards disclaims any knowledge of payments from Baron to Hunter, and says he will not discuss any aspect of the affair again. He could face criminal charges under federal campaign finance statutes, as his political action committee paid Hunter at least $28,000 to shoot web videos for his campaign, as well as the funds Baron sent her.

It has been like pulling teeth to get the seamy scandal out into the open. It has been well documented on the web for months, but only very recently did ABC News, then the Washington Post and then the New York Times run highly-sanitized versions of the story. There is ample evidence that the affair was public knowledge and reported on the web before Edwards' campaign crashed and burned, but the mainstream media ignored it.

It pays to be a trial lawyer who made millions suing everyone in sight. The liberal press, in addition to ideological bias in conspiring to keep the affair quiet, was cowed into fearing litigation if it dared publicize the elicit wrongdoing.

Taken by itself, the affair was bad enough--if nothing else, just because Edwards' wife Elizabeth has been fighting breast cancer for the past five years. The active coverup, financed with campaign funds and by the major donor Baron, puts it in the criminal category. But does anyone have the courage to prosecute it?

Press hides truth on Denver cyanide death

2008-08-14T20:05:00.000-07:00

While the Denver media, and therefore the national media, have lazily pooh-poohed the death in a hotel room at the toney Burnsley Hotel of a Candian national of Somali descent from cyanide poisoning, with the Democratic national convention coming to town next week--even President Bush has been briefed about the incident, as the FBI, Homeland Security and the State Department are involved in the investigation.

The man had one pound of cyanide cystals in his room--even to kill thousands if mixed with sulphuric acid in an enclosed public space like a shopping mall, sports arena or church. Instead, he seems to have only killed himself, but the quetion remains: what on earth was a doing with a quantity that great in room 408 at a classy Denver hotel?

Naturally, his family in Ottawa says he is harmless and was on vacation in Denver. Right--I suppose all of us have packed away a pound or two of cyanide at one time or another, in our vacation luggage.

See how ludicrous this situation is? With the eyes of the world on Denver for the Democratic National Convention, what a perfect time and place to pull off a terrorist hit.

Whether it comes out in the media or not, there is a lot more to this seemingly inocuous news story than has been reported so far. Stay tuned.

The best Congressman money can buy

2008-08-13T11:15:00.000-07:00

Colorado Democrat Jared Polis, after spending over $5.2 million of his own greeting card fortune, won the primary for the second congressional district seat over State Senate Majority Leader Sen. Joan Fitzgerald, backed by Big Labor, and self-styled conservationist Will Shafroth.

Regardless of where you stand on gay rights, Polis probably sealed his political future at "Congressman from Boulder" and no more, as the Rocky Mountain News ran a front page, full page color picture of Polis at his victory rally, holding up the arm of his life partner, Marlon Reis, at the podium--in the traditional political style of man and wife.

This undoubtedly will consign Polis to the narrow dustbin of political lore occupied by Massachusetts Democratic Reps. Barney Frank and Garry Studds, and Arizona Republican Rep. Jim Kolbe. Representing liberal, University town districts like Polis will from the home of the University of Colorado, they kept getting re-elected by their ultra-liberal university constituents, but could go no further.

Polis replaces Rep. Mark Udall, who is running for the U.S. Senate, and faces a similar problem statewide, as a denizen of what locals call the Citizens Republic of Boulder. A far-left representative in his own right, Udall is joining presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama in sprinting toward the center, at least until the election's over.

Polis can claim that he has already won statewide once, as he spent over $1 million of his own money to be elected to the State Board of Education, an unpaid post. The difference is, he hadn't come out of the closet yet, in that race.

There is a Republican sacrificial lamb, school teacher Scott Starin, running in November for the second district seat, but the Democratic registration and left-leaning independents out-number Republicans about 2-1.

And multi-billionaire Polis can unlimber the old wallet for whatever's necessary to dispatch him.

So what? RINOs back Obama

2008-08-13T10:53:00.000-07:00

Only a very minor problem in the plethora of crises facing the Republican Party is what any loyal party knows as RINOs--which is shorthand for Republicans in Name Only.

These are officials elected as Republicans, who consistently vote in their career with the Democrats. Two of them sported their true colors, as if it was a big surprise, yesterday--and announced their endorsement of Barack Obama for president.

Former Iowa Rep. Jim Leach, a longstanding thorn in the side of House Republicans, and former Rhode Island Sen. Lincoln Chaffee, as a well as an obscure mayor--so obscure most media didn't even give his name--came out of the closet and did what they've been doing for years anyway, and endorsed Obama. The liberal mass media predictably played it up like it was a big deal.

The trio will head a Republicans for Obama, which probably won't affect the election much, one way or the other.

Connecticut Democratic Sen. Joe Lieberman has already endorsed, and is actively campaigning for, the presumptive GOP nomnee, Sen. John McCain. He is a much bigger hitter, in the overall scheme of things, than any of the RINOs. In fact, he still holds office and has four years to go. He was the vice presidential nominee under Al Gore, and was re-elected in Connecticut to his latest term over both a Republican and a liberal Democrat, who had beaten him the primary. Running as an independent, Lieberman bested everyone.

Lieberman has a much better shot at shaking loose moderate and conservative Democrats for McCain, than the RINO trio does at generating much support for Obama. Lieberman is much more in the mainstream of the Democratic Party than Leach and Chaffee ever were in the GOP. McCain is much more moderate and mainstream in the GOP, while Obama is firmly rooted in the far-left reaches of the Democratic Party.

A big yawn to the Republicans for McCain, who are probably caucassing today, in a phone booth near you.

Georgia shows ruskies don't change

2008-08-12T20:27:00.000-07:00

Those in the foreign policy establishment that have naively believed that ex-KGB nabob Vladimir Putin had changed his spots, have led us down the primrose path once more. The hardline old Red has used his bombs and troops to club a neighbor into submission again, this time in Georgia.

Putin has been moving the post-Soviet government away from democracy and back toward its Marxist ways for some years, just as the foreign policy establishiment in the U.S. was pooh-poohing it. These are the same folks who naively believed that Putin taking the number two spot in the last election meant he'd actually be the number two. Ha.

With the media focused on the sanitizing of another hardline Communist regime, with the Olympics in Red China, Putin thought he could take the occasion to square away the democrats in Georgia, who, unlike Putin, were actually trying to run a democracy. Mostly likely, Putin has gotton away with it, with less damage in the court of world opinion than he would have suffered otherwise.

The point is, the temporizers and hand-wringers at Old Foggy Bottom (the U.S. State Department) were wrong about their new-found friend Putin, and the hardliners who thought very little had changed in Russia, were right.

McCain, if he wins, will have short coat tails

2008-08-11T20:41:00.000-07:00

Even if John McCain eeks out a narrow win for the presidency over Barack Obama, substantial Democratic majorities are still expected in the U.S. House and Senate.

This odd behavior by the voters guarantees another four years of stalemate and politcal grandstanding, instead of the constructive legislative action needed to deal with the country's problems.

Congressional Republicans certainly have not helped themselves, availing themselves of all the perks and privileges of power, and showing no signs of either discerning the problem or fixing it. Republican incumbents cannot talk about earmarks, wasteful federal spending, misplaced budget priorities or scandals caused by these abuses--because they are at least as guilty as the majority Democrats in propagating them.

The indictment of Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens for taking oil company construction on his private home, in return for earmarks in the federal budget--just confirms that Republicans are the problem. The liberal mass media takes special care to transmit this message repeatedly. The Democrat's crooks, like Louisiana Rep. William Jefferson, who was found with over $90,000 in cash in his freezer at home, and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's participation in questionable Nevada land deals--are swept under the carpet by the compliant press.

It is a fact of life Republicans have to contend with. The solution is to return to their small government, tight spending roots, and give the voters the responsible leadership they are looking for in Congress.

Is that too much to ask?

Media could no longer ignore Edwards affair

2008-08-10T20:53:00.000-07:00

As reported here weeks ago, and throughout the blogosphere, former Democratic senator and presidential candidate John Edwards had an extra-marital affair with a lady several years his junior in California. He has now admitted it. It happened before his latest presidential bid, which meant he was lying about it in the campaign, and fighting hard to keep it hidden so it wouldn't jettison his already-slim chances.

What great moral character, with his wife dying of breast cancer in North Carolina. What a solid foundation to build a presidency on. At least he had the excellent example of Bill Clinton to follow. Frankly, Edwards always has come off as a little too eager to please, and too much of the bootlicking trial lawyer--the type who shines his shoes on the back of his pants legs, claps his hands, and says "Oh gee whiz, have I got a deal for you!"

As bad as Edwards' behavior is, the behavior of the national press is even more despicable. The Washington Post has used the fig leaf that Edwards is a private citizen, so was entitled to privacy for his personal behavior. If he weren't running for President, that might be a marginally acceptable excuse--but we were supposed to be vetting a potential president, and the media wasn't bringing us all the relevent facts. Edwards is usually identified as a former senator, not a Democrat.

This is very two-faced, because the slightist foible by a conservative or Republican, the party label is the first thing reported. Witness Idaho Sen. Larry Craig, Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens, House Speaker Newt Gingrich, Rep. Mark Foley, Rep. Bob Livingston, evangelists Ted Haggard and Jimmy Swaggart, and the others.

It is probably too much to ask, to have fair and even-handed treatment of philandering politicians of both parties. Dream on.

Gross media bias in religious coverage

2008-08-07T08:20:00.000-07:00

The mass media loves to attack the Christian Right, the evil, bigoted, narrow-minded opponents of abortion-on-demand, homosexual rights, same sex marriage, etc.

They regularly tie the can to Focus on the Family and its head, Dr. James Dobson, as well as other groups who dare take a public stand on such issues. They turned up the heat on John McCain so high, that after he was endorsed by San Antionio tele-evangelist Dr. John Haggee, he repudiated the endorsement. McCain shuns discussion of spiritual matters for this reason, in the past having blasted Pat Robertson and Bob Jones University, among others.

But if you're a good liberal, particularly one of color, that has the full sympathy and adoration of the mass media, you can get away with anything and it will go unnoticed. Textbook example number one is Leah Daughtry, head of the Democratic National Convention in Denver.

She is black and a pentecostal preacher with her own church in New York City. As a pentecostal myself, I can tell you that the liberal media loves to expose all the excesses of what they call "the holy rollers," for speaking in tongues, loud enthusiastic worship, bombastic preaching and heavy-handed fund raising.

There has not been a word anywhere in the media about Leah Daughtry's church, her pentecostal beliefs or any other matter. Believe me, as a great fan of black pentecostal churches, which I've attended a lot, their worship style, preaching style and audience response is much more over the top than anything the media goes after the Christian Right for. Daughtry has flown home to New York from Denver on weekends for a year to preach on Sundays. There is no mistaking what she is and where she comes from.

The media has just chosen to give her a free ride.

Tire gauges no energy policy

2008-08-06T21:16:00.000-07:00

Presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama made a major gaffe when he said checking tire pressure and tuning engines would save as much oil as new drilling would create.

He missed the whole point of the argument, showing his economic illiteracy and leftist slant that will not allow him to understand the supply-and-demand dynamics of the free enterprise system.

As Presidenti Bush showed by lifting the presidential ban on offshore oil drilling, it scared the Arab shieks and petty despots who control the international oil market to the point that they shaved some $27 a barrel off oil prices. That's merely the threat of increasing domestic supply--not a single drop of actual oil had been created.

A similar congressional action on their ban on offshore drilling, would undoubtedly drop oil prices even more. The point is, the discussion is about actions that immediately drop oil prices, not necessarily actual drilling.

These are subtle nuances of international economics we're talking about here, not actual barrels of oil. That Obama is unable, or unwilling, to grasp such complexities does not bode well for his understanding of world affairs.

You have the McCain people out handing out tire pressure gauges as a symbol of Obama's energy policy. Combined with the Paris Hilton-Britney Spears commercial making fun of Obama's rock star celebrity image, this shows a shaky beginning for the Obama campaign juggernaut.

Loose lips sink ships

2008-08-05T20:56:00.000-07:00

Even in the internet era, the old saw "Loose lips sink ships" remains even more true than ever.

Such loose lips have plagued Democratic Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter, as his son posted questionable party pictures on Facebook from a blowout he threw at the stately Governor's Mansion, and now, GOP U.S., Senate candidate Bob Schaefer's son has posted racist and anti-Jesus jokes on his collegiate Facebook page.

Old newspaper columns, recordings from speeches at meetings years ago and obscure news stories from small town newspapers when the candidate spoke in a backwater somewhere years ago--all have resurfaced in the heat of political battle for years.

The problem is much worse in the modern internet age, and with bloggers whose veracity could be open to question. With
Google and the worldwide web, everything is available now days and little or nothing is private.

Containing rumors and questionable stories, all of which may be total falsehoods, is next to impossible with the web. Legitimate, but embarassing information, is equally hard to quash.

The only real answer for the candidate is that in this era of information overload, people turn a deaf ear quickly and memories are short, so it's easier to ride things out than ever before. By doing nothing, chances are the massively overdone coverage of some new, relatively minor event will quickly overtake controversy and bury it.

Ask Bill Clinton. It only hurts for a little while, and the tide of events quickly puts it "out sight, out of mind." He's relied on, and even prospered, from that for years.

Veep speculation best part

2008-08-04T19:58:00.000-07:00

Short of committing a serious error in selection of a vice presidential running mate, a rare occurance, the most helpful a potential veep is to electing his ticket is right now.

Even Sprio Agnew helped elect Richard Nixon twice. His shady past did not lead to his resignation until after being re-elected to a second term. Vice President Dick Cheney, roundly unpopular now, was very helpful in adding heft to the ticket with President Bush in his two victories. But did these men make a difference in the outcome of the election? Probably not.

Favorable mention as a possible running mate builds chits for later redemption for the presidential candidate. Rarely does a vice president carry a state that decides the election. It is easily forgotton by the liberal press, but the Clinton-Gore ticket lost Al Gore's home state of Tennessee in both elections.

Barack Obama is mentioning Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine as a running mate, figuring he could help carry the normally GOP state of Virginia for the ticket. Kaine was only narrowly elected governor over a flawed GOP nominee, and is not all that popular as he faces a tough re-election campaign in two years.

McCain is trumpeting Mitt Romney for vice president, but he didn't even run for re-election as Governor of Massachusetts, it was so likely he would lose. Would he carry the state now for McCain? Highly unlikely. Some say he might help carry his home state of Michigan, where his father was a popular governor, but his mother lost a U.S. race there. McCain also builds up Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, a crucial state in the election. But Pawlenty was only narrowly re-elected and has a marginal approval rating in the polls as governor. It's dubiou he could help McCain carry the state.

The point is, all this talk builds up the people being talked about, that their party thinks enough of them to be considered--but when the actual vice presidential nominee is chosen, he sinks out of sight and rarely influences the actual election-- positively or negatively.

Left doesn't get it, as Obama stalls

2008-08-03T17:02:00.000-07:00

The scurrying around on the left, to try and diagnose what's happened to the surging Barack Obama and fix it--is a sight to behold. As that reality sinks in that gasoline is $4 a gallon, that food costs at the supermarket are surging and that the Iraq War is being won, the public is seeing that Obama was wrong on all the major issues.

Obama's trying to scramble: admit that maybe the surge in Iraq did work, that maybe a little offshore drilling would be acceptable and that maybe that great environmentalist hype of ethanol from corn is driving food prices higher.

This undercuts the veracity of his whole campaign message to date. The public is finding out sooner, rather than later, that the old liberal bromides were wrong and that Obama is wrong on the major issues of the day.

Even the very minor moves by Obama to accept a little drilling, delay an Iraq pullout just a little bit--have driven the left into a frenzy, starting to feed on their own, crying the mantra that Obama is selling out.

I wish it could be said that this was the result of a brilliant McCain campaign, strategically boxing Obama in on the issues at just the right moment.

Rather, McCain is a beneficiary of good luck. There's no evidence that his campaign gets it either. He just happens to be in the right place at the right time. What happens in November will mainly be a matter of who falls apart the least.

The audacity of hope, and the maverick Republican the mass media loves--the tires are coming off both. Who will recover first?

McCain loose lip leads to trouble

2008-08-02T20:16:00.000-07:00

Presumptive GOP presidential nominee John McCain prefers "town hall style" campaign events, where he takes questions from the audience and avoids set speeches and prepared remarks. This gives him an open, forthcoming image, but the lack of structure leaves him unfocused, off message and chasing rabbit trails too many times.

The keys to the election are taxes and gasoline prices. Obama wants to raise taxes and resist additional oil drilling. These are very unpopular positions, which he is already trying to back away from, but give McCain a big advantage if he can capitalize.

But shooting from the hip, as he likes to do, tends to undercut the efforts of his campaign handlers to stay on message and take advantage of Obama's unpopular stances. Just yesterday, McCain allowed as how increasing social security withholding taxes might be feasible. This lets Obama off the hook, for his calls for higher taxes "on the rich," whoever they are.

Obama's flip flops, as he is already doing on oil drilling and a long list of other issues are as important as the issue itself, if McCain can be consistent and not get himself in trouble with sideshows about race and other non-core issues.

Prepared speeches are the best way to avoid this problem, but McCain resists them like the plague. He also looks canned and programmed with a prepared text. Obama falls apart without one.

It is nothing short of a miracle that McCain has made it this far, and amazingly, is still in the race. He has actually been rising in the polls in recent days, as Obama fails to warm up the voters.

This won't continue, unless McCain becomes a great deal more focused and targeted in his remarks. The scattergun approach will come under the microscope as the election draws nearer, and McCain will fall under major attack. To take advantage of what look to be major Obama problems, McCain will need to clean up his own act.

Avoiding the real gas cost solution

2008-08-01T20:33:00.000-07:00

The press downplays it and outright ignores it, but Congress has tied itself in knots to avoid dealing with the only realistic solution to high gas prices.

Selling out to its environmentalist toadies and seeking to play out the global warming fiction to the hilt, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi have refused to put legislation allowing offshore and ANWR oil drilling on the floor, to come to a vote.

They know enough of their own Democratic members would join Republicans to pass it. They refuse to acknowledge the unbridled success of President Bush's lifting of his executive order to ban offshore drilling. Just the threat of more domestic oil supplies has driven oil down over $27 a barrel on world markets in two weeks.

A full congressional approval of more drilling would undoubtedly drive down oil prices even more. The Arab shieks, Venezualan dictators and Russian thugs that are artificially holding up the price of oil, cannot continue to do so, when the U.S. quits being the wounded soldier at their beck and call. The U.S. must be pro-active, taking matters into their own hands.

The American public overwhelmingly supports more drilling. They will show it this fall in the elections, as the issue has already levelled the polls between Barack Obama and John McCain.

Obama must cowtow to his far-left environmentalist backers and maintain the fiction that alternative energy is the only answer to high gas prices. McCain has awakened to smell the coffee and reversed his previous spotty record on drilling, and now backs it, full steam ahead.

Congress is leaving Washington for an undeserved month-long summer recess today, having accomplished virtually nothing for the American taxpayer that elected them. Massive amounts of badly-needed legislation are languishing in Congress, all because it has wasted all its time passing commemorative resolutions, memorials and debating meaningless legislation like curbing alleged oil speculators--while doing nothing to actually solve problems.

Harry Truman got re-elected despite the polls in 1948 by decrying the "Do-nothing Republican Congress" in his famous Give 'Em Hell Harry pose. It's time for McCain and the Republicans to turn the tables, and lay high gas prices at the door of the present do-nothing Democratic Congress.

Obama just not a likeable guy

2008-07-31T17:35:00.000-07:00

Barack Obama's elitist, upper crust mentality is catching up to him, as John McCain has caught him in the latest polls. McCain has even moved ahead in the polls in key battleground states like Ohio and Florida.

Obama comes across as cold and forbidding, and fumbles almost any verbal message when its not printed out on a teleprompter in front of him. He lacks a sense of humor and ability to relate to the everyday difficulties of the common man. This has proven particularly intractible with white blue collar males, and women over the age of 50--who could swing the election to McCain on their votes alone.

Off-hand cracks like, when asked about food prices, Obama said "have you checked the price of argula at Whole Foods lately," are hardly something average Americans can relate to. Nobody but the yuppie upper crust shops at Whole Foods, and argula is a very expensive vegetable beyond the means of the average family.

Similarly, at a big dollar Hollywood cocktail fundraising party, Obama took a shot at the blue collar workers in Pennsylvania, accusing them of being obssessed with God, beer and guns. There's way more blue collar guys like that, than wealthy Hollywood liberal stars, that will cast votes in November.

This is to say nothing of Obama's brassy, angry wife Michelle, who has caused him no end of grief on the campaign trail, complaining about the cost of student loans and day care, when she was making over $300,000 a year at a Chicago Hospital and Barack has taken in over $4 million from writing and selling his two books.

He won't be helped by shunning veteran Democratic politicians who could help him, like Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland or Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell, to favor Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine for his vice presidential running mate.

Kaine has been governor two and one-half years, and was Mayor of Richmond before that. He has an even thinner political resume than Obama has, and neither has any foreign policy or national security or national defense experience. Against McCain's impressive pedigree in these areas, an Obama-Kaine ticket would look weak indeed.

That's why Obama is languishing in the polls and the "Nobama" bumper signs are becoming more prominent.

Leftist protesstors plague conventions

2008-07-29T20:23:00.000-07:00

Denver and Minneapolis, hosts of the Democratic and Republican national political conventions, are both fighting it out with the demonstrators and protestors in court--and we're still a month away from show time.

Recreate '68 and Tent State University are in court in Denver right now, suing the City and FBI over the site of demonstrator parades and protest marches that are out of the sight line of convention delegates. The ACLU is saying this violates the demonstrator's free speech rights, while the city and cops are just trying to keep a lid on things, so violence and bloodshed is kept to a minimum.

The City and Country of Denver has refused to allow the 50,000 Tent State demonstrators to camp over night in City Park, saying they will turn on the sprinklers at 10 p.m. each night to drive the protestors out. There would be a horrible lack of sanitary facilities and emergency vehicle access in City Park if camping was allowed. The public safety would be severely compromised.

Thr real question is why the Democratic Party or the Host Committee has to provide housing for outside protestors at all. The convention delegates will all have hotel rooms, and the lobbyists and others seeking influence will have rented hotels, people's homes, etc. Why should demonstrators be any different?

Minneapolis is going through similar contortions with the GOP coming to town two weeks later.

The conventions are a media circus and charade to start with--any serious races or contests have long since been decided. The confabs are strictly for show and free television coverage. The political parties have got to get a handle on this, or they will run out of cities willing to host their conventions.

Public Barack-lash due to fawning press

2008-07-28T20:23:00.000-07:00

Early indications are that the fawning, over-the-top press coverage of Barack Obama's world tour has backfired with the public. Treating him like a rock star and conquering hero, when actually his speeches were very mundane, his non-scripted comments bordering on the inane and his lack of knowledge appalling--even the uninitiated have seen through the media puffery.

There is still a certain level of decorum, propriety and class Americans expect of their leaders, and over-reaching to look like a president when you aren't even nominated yet, does not go over well. His big trip was historic all right--and crass.

Perhaps Obama can be given the benefit of the doubt, that he was quietly, humbly trying to get educated on foreign affairs. The big media spoiled it, and he is blameless. But this explanation stretches credulity.

Obama is in trouble to start with, due to his thin resume and lack of accomplishments in his two public positions: as a state senator in the Illinois legislature and four years as a U.S. Senator. His time was spent politicking for the next job, rather than digging in to the mundate and difficult task of legislating.

The balloon is bound to burst at some point, whether it's over this staged media circus trip, or some other rookie mistake yet to come.

Ludicrously expensive political conventions

2008-07-27T19:28:00.000-07:00

We here in Denver know first hand how badly out of control the costs of national political conventions have become. We are hosting the Democratic national confab in a few weeks, and the costs keep escalating.

Denver was supposed to raise some $40 million to underwrite the confab, and at last tally, was about $11 million short. But that doesn't mean the expenses don't continue to shoot out of control. The latest hit was the decision by probable nominee Barack Obama to give his acceptance speech at Denver's 80,000 seat Mile High Stadium, instead of the indoor Pepsi Center, where the rest of the convention is.

It will cost an estimated $4 million extra to outfit Mile High with the security, stage, media plugins, etc. for this hour and a half extravaganza. Obama just had to give the word, and somebody in Denver has to snap their fingers and spend another $4 million.

Congress appropriated $50 million to each host city for the Democratic and GOP conventions, but that is quickly spent up just in police salaries and overtime, riot gear and other security equipment. The $40 million is in addition to this, and must be begged, borrowed and stolen off private businesses seeking favors from the parties. It is a fundraising outrage, that McCain-Finegold outlawed for candidates but still allows for political conventions. It is ripe for all kinds of mischief.

The inconvenience of closed streets, congested highways and sold-out hotels and restaurants is bad enough for the host cities, but the cost is beyond the pale. It is time for someone to reign in these mass media orgies called political conventions--which are cut-and-dried, and decided in advance, anyway.

It's gas prices, stupid

2008-07-26T22:33:00.000-07:00

While Congress has passed a massive, deficit-busting housing bail-out bill for the 6% of home mortgages that are in default (That's right, 94% of home mortgages are current), the public has turned their attention away from the mortgage crisis and the war in Iraq, to seeth each time they pay $4 a gallon to fill their car tank with gas.

Congress thinks they've bought themselves political cover for re-election this fall, with the housing bill and reauthorization of spending for the war in Iraq, but have done nothing about gas prices. President Bush showed what will work, when he lifted the executive order on offshore drilling.

Just the prospect of greater supplies has driven oil prices down some $27 a barrel in two weeks. This isn't reflectd yet in retail gas prices, although they're down a few cents a gallon, below $4 slightly, in most places.

Even greater oil price drops would come quickly, if Congress passed legislation allowing offshore drilling, arctic drilling and ANWR drilling. Just let the Arab shieks get wind of the U.S. buying one to two-thirds less oil from them, and then watch prices drop. We probably wouldn't even have to go through with any actual drilling.

But no, the environmentalists and Big Government do-gooders have House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid in their back pockets, and they wouldn't allow any such bills to come to a vote in Congress. They know too many Democrats recognize the public's ire over gas prices, and they'd join enough Republicans to open up drilling.

I believe the voters will make them pay for their short-sightedness this fall. Gas prices trump the mortgage crisis and Iraq in voter's minds, and Reid and Pelosi are missing the boat.

Obama world tour leads to McCain gains

2008-07-25T20:03:00.000-07:00

Overkill. Like eating a bowl of frosting or nursing a bad hangover the morning after, there is such at thing as too much of a good thing. Barack Obama seems to have discovered that.

His much ballyhooed world tour, with the U.S. press fawning all over him in rapt adoration, seems to have bombed with John Q. Public. Rather than a humble listening tour, as billed, Obama has thrust himself out in front, like a rock star. For many Americans, it is unseemly to see a pretender doing what only the actual U.S. President should do.

Obama isn't president yet, and may have presumed too much. A funny thing happened on the way to the White House . . .

The newest polls show that Americans are most concerned about gas prices at the pump. They view the surge as having worked, and Iraq as no longer America's biggest problem. Obama has joined his fellow leftist-fringe Democrats in being on the wrong side of the oil drilling question. John McCain is having a mini=surge in the latest polls.

As President Bush showed by lifting the presidential executive order to ban offshore oil drilling in U.S. waters, it is the prospect of increased supplies, not the actual oil online, that lower prices. Oil is down some $27 a barrel from its spring high, since Bush's order.

Obama and the Democrats oppose all drilling and supply enhancement. They only support so-called "alternative energy" and are no-so-secretly glad oil prices are high to cut consumption. This is not what the public wants to hear.

The Demorcratic leadership in Congress will not allow bills to allow offshore or arctic oil drilling to come to the floor. They know they'd lose enough Democratic votes to pass them. Today Republicans stalled the Demo's phony "speculator" bill in the Senate, so now Democrats have to fish or cut bait.

Obama has been out of the country, and missed the shift of public sentiment from Iraq to oil prices. He could be in trouble.

Rush draws blood on Sen. Ken Salazar

2008-07-24T20:47:00.000-07:00

Colorado's self-proclaimed "moderate" Democratic Sen. Ken Salazar, screams like a wounded elk whenever anyone questions his moderate credentials. Conservative nationally syndicated talk show host Rush Limbaugh, in his morning commentary yesterday, fingered Salazar for keeping oil shale lands from being leased in western Colorado, despite their 800 billion barrels of oil--badly needed in the current energy crisis.

Salazar shot back that the technology isn't developed yet to exploit them, and reverted to the liberal Democratic mantra of attacking the oil companies. The voters are getting wise to Salazar and the other liberals, however.

Having seen that President Bush's lifting of his ban on off-shore oil drilling has peeled $27 a barrel off oil prices in two weeks, they can see that it is the threat of new supplies, not actual oil, that scares the Middle East sultans of the oil trade. Full-speed-ahead development of all possible sources of oil, not the actual oil itself, brings down the price of energy.

The latest presidential preference polls in Colorado have John McCain pulling out ahead of Barack Obama for the first time, largely because he has advocated drilling and exploration as the answer to high gas prices, while liberal Democrats like Obama and Salazar dither about the environment, oil company profits, ad nauseum--with no answers.

The voters are up in arms about $4 gas and $5 diesel. Democrats are thrilled to see it, to cut consumption. Voters see what the answer is, as they are strapped to meet the high fuel prices, and are moving to vote that way.

I wonder if Obama and they boys will wake up and smell the coffee, before its too late.

Bush sells out on housing bailout

2008-07-23T21:31:00.000-07:00

The skids have been greased in Congress and the White House to pass a massive bailout of mortgage lenders, including the quasi-federal Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. It will add billions to the deficit, reward the most scandalous of the lenders and the least responsible of the borrowers.

The dumbest thing you could have done, as it turns out, is scrimp and save to pay your mortgage on time, even putting your wife and kids to work, in order to meet the higher payments as your adjustable mortgage goes up. How Norman Rockwell and sappy. You should have just waited it out, and put it on the cuff, with everybody else.

A typical presidential election year vote-getting ploy, the bailout is a slap in the face to the 94% of American mortgage holders whose payments are current and are not close to default.

That President Bush would sign off on this abortion of a bill, greatly lowers him in my estimation. History will prove him to be a hero in the war on terror, but a disaster in handling money. This proves it.

McCain closing in on veep?

2008-07-22T20:02:00.000-07:00

The national press is all a'twitter that the tea leaves are reading like John McCain, the presumptive GOP presidential nominee, will seek to steal the thunder from Barack Obama's European vacation by naming his vice presidential running mate this week. He has a press conference Thursday, which might provide the forum.

Naturally, the speculation is on who that might be. Rudy Giuliani has been mentioned. Too many wives and unable to carry New York for the ticket. Mitt Romney is a hot prospect who genuinely seems to want it. His Mormonism and eagerness work against him, along with the personal antipathy McCain felt toward him in the primary season. Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindahl, the 37-year-old wunderkind, is meeting with McCain this week.

McCain will probably surprise us all, by either not naming a candidate this week, or naming someone that isn't rife with speculation.

Jindahl would be a bold choice. Nearly 10 years younger than Obama, he has been on a steep upward curve since he was named to a major Health, Education and Welfare post in Washington D.C. at age 26. He's also been head of the Louisiana university system and a two-term congressman. He was born in the U.S. of parents from India, is a staunch Catholic and has a wife and two kids.

He is a dynamic, exciting public speaker, and widely touted as the GOP nominee in 2012, whether he's named veep or not. He is a hard core conservative and policy wonk extraordinare. The only knocks on him are his age, lack of foreign policy experience and being from a state McCain will carry anyway.

It would be a very unconventional choice, but would answer Obama's ethnicity and age. It would leave McCain as the unchallenged foreign policy, defense and terrorism expert on either ticket.

Hmmmm . . .

More than he bargained for

2008-07-21T20:30:00.000-07:00

Colorado's Democratic Gov. Bill Ritter has to be shaking his head, wondering what he's gotton himself in for.

Here it is some six months until the fall election, but the radio and TV airwaves are already hot with oil industry-funded commercials blasting the Governor and his office for trying to put them out of business. Two initiatives are serious problems for oilmen in Colorado: first was a complete rewrite of oil and gas exploration and production regulations, dramatically increasing the cost of doing business in the state. Now the Governor's friends are trying to petition an initiiative onto the fall ballot to raise serverance taxes on oil and gas, that the industry says could cost some $340 million a year.

It would largely fund college scholarships for Colorado high school graduates, plus some renewable energy initiatives the Governor has been pushing. Colorado college presidents are livid, as they wanted the proceeds to go directly into their budgets, rather than indirectly through student scholarships.

This is shaping up to be a very costly, loud campaign and the colleges may wind up with nothing. The Governor has stirred up a hornet's nest in taking on the oil industry, and the failure to get the college presidents on board before announcing his initiative may have doomed it to failure.

This whole mess may be a bad omen for the Governor's re-election campaign two years from now, if the centerpiece of his agenda crashes and burns in 2008.

McCain must get a handle on the economy

2008-07-20T20:45:00.000-07:00

Polls are increasingly showing that it's the economy, stupid. The Iraq War is sinking from the public conciousness, as the situation there continues to improve. Just yesterday, the main Sunni political party has agreed to rejoin the Shiite governing coalition in the Iraq government, bringing more peace and stability to the country.

It's in place for Obama to report from his current World Tour, in such a way that it further minimizes the terrorism threat, and maximizes concern for the economy. This falls right into the current public perception, which is great for Obama and of real concern for McCain.

McCain has admitted his real expertise is national security, defense and terrorism. He hasn't specialized in the economy and domestic affairs. In truth, Obama's resume is too short and his experience too brief to have specialized in anything, but he is naturally laying it on thick and heavy, that only he has the expertise to fix the economy.

Naming his vice presidential running mate will be doubly crucial for McCain. It needs not only to be someone younger than he is, but someone with creditable economic expertise. Some are talking Mitt Romney, due to his demonstrated expertise in business and as Governor of Massachusetts. But McCain doesn't like him personally, and the religious right will be up in arms because he is a Mormon. He couldn't carry Massachusetts, but might help in Michigan, another crucial state.

Former Congressmen Rob Portman of Ohio and Christopher Cox of California are now bureaucrats in the Bush administration, and have demonstrated economic expertise, but probably would tie McCain too tightly to Bush's unpopularity. Portman might help McCain carry Ohio, but Cox would be unable to cause the ticket to carry California.

Governors Charlie Crist of Florida, Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota and Mark Sanford of South Carolina might be of some help on economic expertise. Gov. Haley Barbour of Mississippi would help the most, given his state's rapid recovery from Hurricane Katrina, but he carries a lot of baggage from his years as a Washington lobbyist and wheeler-dealer, and McCain will probably carry Mississippi anyway, as he will Florida and South Carolina. Pawlenty probably can't guarantee carrying Minnesota, another crucial swing state, either.

McCain faces some critical decisions, on the veep and the economy, in the next few days and weeks--and they may well determine the outcome of the election.

The Obama world tour

2008-07-19T21:14:00.000-07:00

Sen. John McCain, a deeply knowledgeable, experienced foreign policy, defense and national security expert, is lucky to draw a few minor political beat reporters on his foreign trips or to U.S. policy speeches.

Then you have Sen. Barack Obama, with no credentials in these areas whatsoever, drawing three major "news" anchors and planeloads of major reporters on his rookie familiarization trip to Afghanistan, Iraq and all politically-advantageous points in between. Obama says he's there to listen, which is about all he can do, since his knowledge and expertise in these areas is so thin.

That the networks would foot the bill, and allow their most prominent, frontline anchors and reporters to serve as props for Obama's video footage for future "foreign policy expert" TV commercials, is bizarre. They will cover, I'm sure, for all the rookie gaffes and missteps Obama is bound to make on the trip, just out of naivete and inexperience, if nothing else.

Meanwhile, McCain wanders around on the domestic front, anonymously and quietly, so Big Media can properly worship, bow and scrape at the feet of the Obama World Tour. McCain should be particularly offended that his urstwhile Senate buddy, "Republican" Sen. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, is at Obama's side, properly fawning and bootlicking, in hopes of a cabinet job and maybe even vice presidential slot, in an Obama administration. Hagel's Senate term can't end too soon.

All is not lost for McCain, however, as Obama, with his dearth of experience and credentials, is almost certain to make some serious errors--whether it's on this trip, or in the campaign afterwards.

There's a reason most presidential candidates of major parties have served years in local, state and congressional posts, even cabinet posts, before they run. You make your amateur mistakes, and learn the hard lessons, out of the public glare, before the scrutiny of a presidential campaign sets in.

Obama's about to find that out, in a painful, very personal, way.

Fundraising huge, despite McCain-Feingold

2008-07-18T20:23:00.000-07:00

Neither Barack Obama or John McCain is hurting for money, despite John McCain's daffy McCain-Feingold "campaign finance reform."

Ringleading the winks and nods about McCain-Feingold has been none other than John McCain himself, as his campaign has concocted a scheme to get around the $2300 per person limit on contributions to a presidential campaign, that allows a maximum $108,000 per person limit. By dividing the bread between McCain's campaign, the Republican National Committee and the state Republican parties in 17 key states, it skirts McCain-Feingold and thus far has allowed McCain to stay even with Obama in fundraising.

Thus far, over 70 McCain supporters have shelled out the $108,000. A couple have given even more than that, by putting money in their wive's names in addition to their own.

Obama's campaign continues to ring up huge totals on the internet, as it stacks up the big bucks since he has gone back on his word to accept federal funding of his presidential campaign.

Such is that state of "campaign finance reform" in America. Both candidates are openly flouting the system for their gain, taking advantage of every loophold and shortcut to get around the law. The truth is that there is no law that cannot be gotton around, if a candidate is of a mind to do it.

By shutting off large contributions to presidential campaigns directly, it created 527 committees, that can accept unlimited contributions, with no reporting requirement as to who gave or what they gave. Outlaw 527s, and some new way will be found to skirt the law. You can count on it.

It's time to end the farce, and allow unlimted contributions, as long as they are publicly reported.

Americans still not engaged

2008-07-17T20:06:00.000-07:00

Labor Day is over a month away, and that's the traditional time that Americans engage in an election year, and really pay attention to what's going on. Polls before that time are generally held to not mean much, when the vast majority of the public isn't paying attention yet.

That's why all the gaa-gaa media types oohing and awwing over every point or two change in the presidential polls between Obama and McCain are so much hot air at this point. Polls are increasingly suspect, as America becomes a nation of cell phones that can't be reached by pollsters.

This factor, when combined with the pre-Labor Day we're still in, makes the polls meaningless. Obama will get a boost out of the Democratic convention in Denver, and McCain will get one a couple of weeks later after the GOP fete in Minneapolis. After those artificial burbles wear off, about Oct. 1--then we'll have some definitive idea of what's really happening.

Much is being made about how McCain has pulled even with Obama in the polls in the last week, which may or may not be significant. The campaigns are still trying out themes and ideas, seeing what engages and moves the public, so they'll be ready for prime time after Labor Day.

It behooves you to keep your powder dry until then.

Obama policy shifts anger ardent supporters

2008-07-16T21:24:00.000-07:00

It looks like the national news media's love affair with Barack Obama is starting to fray.

Time magazine this week actually has allowed an article to be printed listing 8 major issues Obama has changed his position on since he because the presumptive nominee of the Democratic Party. To date, Obama has largely been free of bothersome press scrutiny, as they fawned over his every move.

It's only normal for politicians to move toward the middle once they've won the nomination. Republicans start moving from the right to the center, Democrats from the left to the center. John Kerry destroyed himself doing that, and Obama is certainly in danger. You have to be deft and clever, like Bill Clinton, to get away with it. He called it "triangulation" which caught the media's fancy in his day, and was portrayed as one who was such an intellectual that his positions evolved with time.

The left is miffed as Obama has moved to the center on Iraq, implying he might leave some troops there for a while. The real purists are turned off by his switch on accepting federal funds for his fall campaign. This is the group who have brought the energy and heft to his campaign. He angers them at his own peril.

The natural bent of the national news media would be to blink and ignore what's happening. But once again the blogosphere and the blatantness of Obama's shifts have forced their hand and they can't ignore it.

And by bringing in Arnold Schwartznegger's main political guru, John McCain might just be suddenly positioned to take advantage of it. The ABC new poll and a couple of others show the race even, after earlier showing 8 to 12 point Obama leads.

Fasten your seat belt. This might be a race yet.

Denver police gear up for Democrat confab

2008-07-15T20:30:00.000-07:00

You taxpayers, also known as the federal government, have put up $50 million for security at the Denver Democratic National Convention the middle of August.

The Denver Police Department will be augmented by all the suburban departments in the metro area, to the tune of several hundred officers, and specialized units in riot control, domestic terrorism, etc. from as far away as Colorado Springs (sending their horse mounted patrol) and the Wyoming National Guard's terrorism unit.

All kinds of riot control gear, sophisticated communication equipment and other high tech gadgets have been purchased for use by the combined force to control the expected huge crowds, and the demonstrators led by groups like Recreate '68, Tent State University and the Pink Brigade.

In the name of giving the Denver Police the tools they need to control the situation, the Denver City Council is passing an ordinance, allegedly to toughen laws to cover those arrested. However, some ultra-liberal ACLU types on the Council, led by Councilman Doug Linkhart, have more concern for the rights of the protestors than either the police or the citizens of Denver who pay them.

He is proposing to allow the demonstrators to wear gas masks and armor, allegedly to protect them from the police. Of course, this would allow the demonstrators to continue their civil disobedience, even as the police are trying to break it up and restore order. Such a bill is, of course, outrageous and we can only hope cooler heads prevail before the Council sends a bill to Mayor John Hickenlooper, who could then veto the wrong kind of ordinance.

Whether he would or not, is open to question, as Hickenlooper is a good liberal himself, and with only one Republican on the 13-member City Council, could get overridden if he did the wrong thing. Hickenlooper mainly likes to avoid controversy, so he has already removed himself from the state Democratic delegation to the convention. He's a "to get along, go along" type, so chances are better on the Council before they pass a bill, than to rely on Mayor Hick.

It ought to be a long, hot summer in Denver. And you'll get to watch the whole thing live on your television and computer, seeing first hand how it plays out.

Thin-skinned Obamas come unhinged

2008-07-14T20:21:00.000-07:00

A clear cartoon parody on the cover of the avant garde magazine New Yorker of Barack and Micelle Obama has their campaign, and the candidate himself, in a major tizzy.

If you haven't surfed the web and seen it yet, the cartoon depicts the Oval Office, with Barack standing their in full Muslim dress with a turbin, and Michelle in full Angela Davis mode--complete with an exaggerated Afro, AK47, and full terrorist gear. A painting on the wall is of Osama Bin Laden, and an American flag is burning in the fireplace.

The cover is so obviously a take-off on current events, printed to sell magazines and draw attention to the New Yorker, that's it's hard to take seriously, if you're anyone other than Obama. There is no companion article inside the magazine that the cartoon calls attention to, a common magazine ploy. There is a 15,000-word tomb on Obama's days in Chicago, but it doesn't tie in to the cover cartoon.

The over-the-top reaction of the Obamas (the magazine doesn't even hit the newsstands until tomorrow), suggests that maybe some of the internet rumors are true. Maybe Obama is a closet Muslim. Maybe Michelle does hate America. Maybe their Chicago friendship with Weathermen Bill Ayres and Bernadette Dorn, and all the radical hate-America spewings of their 20-year pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright--they support.

Where there's smoke, there's fire. When you're not able to look at an obvious parody and have a good belly laugh, no matter how close it hits to home--you're taking yourself too seriously.

We're still nearly 5 months from the election. This is just a minor hit, compared to what's undoubtedly coming. If the Obamas aren't tough enough to stand up to this minor brushfire, they're in bigger trouble than anybody thought.