'Nothing succeeds like failure' GOP race over

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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?

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

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

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.