John Campanile, NY Post.com

 

In a bold bid to win over female voters, John McCain has tapped Alaska's freshman Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate.

 

McCain was to announce his choice at a rally in Dayton, Ohio today.

 

"Her experience in shaking up the status quo is exactly what is needed in Washington today," an announcement from his campaign said.

 

Palin has a strong anti-abortion record, and her selection was praised warmly by social conservatives whose support Mccain needs to prevail in the campaign for the White House.

 

"It's an absolutely brilliant choice," said Mathew Staver, dean of Liberty University school of Law. Read article.

 

Fox News.com

 

Sarah Palin, John McCain’s vice presidential pick, became the first female governor of Alaska in 2006, as well as its youngest.

 

A 44-year-old mother of five, her anti-abortion stance is certain to appeal to evangelicals, while her views on the threats of climate change mirror McCain’s.

 

“Palin is becoming a star in the conservative movement, a fiscal conservative in a state that is looking like a boondoggle for pork-barrel spending,” Republican pollster Kellyanne Conway has said. “She’s young, vibrant, fresh and now, a new mother of five. She should be in the top tier. If the Republican Party wants to wrestle itself free from the perception that it is royalist and not open to putting new talent on the bench, this would be the real opportunity.”

 

Democrats will point out that she has no foreign policy credentials or experience, but her presence adds youth to a McCain ticket and her gender could help sway women, especially the “security moms” who helped President Bush win re-election in 2004, to vote GOP. Read article.

 

Krissah Williams Thompson, Washington Post.com

 

The HillBloggers -- stalwart online supporters of Sen. Hillary Clinton -- are fired up this morning by the announcement that Sen. John McCain has chosen Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate.

 

The common refrain: "Obama will regret not choosing Hillary now!"

 

On the group blog Feministe, Jill Filipovic, a 20-something New Yorker, worried that the Palin pick would "woo white suburban politically moderate female voters" from the Dems.

 

Palin "has a solid resume. She's not an old white dude, which makes McCain look less stodgy. Biden will have a harder time debating against her without coming across as a bully (especially since he's something of a loose cannon prone to idiotic slips of the tongue, despite being an excellent debater). She could potentially woo white suburban politically moderate female voters. She's likable and has a very all-American story. She has a son in the military. The media is already swooning over her. Read article.

 

Susan Jones, CNS News.com

 

Talk about a Washington outsider: Alaska is about as far from Washington as a politician can get. And that’s where Sen. John McCain’s running mate is from.

 

Sarah Palin, 44, a mother of five, a conservative Republican who is two years into her first term as Alaska’s governor -- will be John McCain’s running mate, Fox News confirmed Friday morning -- about an hour before McCain appears with his running mate in Dayton, Ohio.

 

“Excellent choice,” said one. “Good pick,” said another. “Pro-life, home-schooling mother of five, life-time NRA member, fiscally conservative. What's not to like !!!!!,” said a third Freeper. Read article.

 

Dick Morris, Vote.com

 

Many political campaigns run against the wrong candidate. The opportunity to pick on a vulnerable target is so tempting that they are lured into attacking someone who isn't running. In 1992, the Republicans unleashed their convention barrage at Hillary and left Bill unscathed. In 1996, Dole still ran against Clinton the liberal and ignored the changes in his political positioning. Campaigns go after the flaming red cape, so glittering a target, and leave the matador alone.

 

That's what the Democratic convention has been doing in Denver. They are so anxious to run against Bush, their animosity is so pent up, that they persist in running against a man who is not seeking a third term. In speech after speech, the Democrats knock the Bush record and then add, lamely, that McCain is the same as Bush. Or they call the McCain candidacy Bush's third term. It was no accident -- or Freudian slip -- when Joe Biden spoke of John Bush instead of George in his litany of attacks.

 

This pattern of shooting at the decoy, not the duck, gives McCain a bold strategic opportunity. He can nullify the impact of the entire Democratic convention simply by distancing himself from Bush.

 

The truth is, of course, that McCain is the most unlike Bush of any of the Republican senator. (When Obama's people claim that Bush and McCain voted the same 94 percent of the time, they forget that most of the votes in the Senate are unanimous.) Read article.

Michael Medved, Townhall.com

 

Is the United States a land of limitless horizons, where hard work and big dreams enable people of humble background to scale dizzying heights of privilege and power?

 

Or is this a society of slammed doors and blocked opportunities, of a trapped middle class and shattered hope, where ordinary people can only provide a better life for their children with the help of an activist government and dramatic new policies?

 

The Denver Democrats insist that both descriptions are true, and they fail to acknowledge the obvious contradiction in the two primary messages of their convention.

 

On the one hand, they want Americans to believe that we live in a dark, destitute moment in our history, with no chance for prosperity or progress unless a Democrat captures the White House.

 

On the other hand, they celebrate dozens of inspiring rags-to-riches stories (like those of the party’s sweethearts, Barack and Michelle Obama) proving that traditional American values still bring spectacular and gratifying results.

 

First, they suggest that ordinary Americans can’t possibly achieve their dreams without government help.

 

But then, sometimes in the very same speeches, they brag about their own classic American stories in which family and faith conquer every obstacle. Read article.

The Editors, NRO.com

 

While the Obama coronation proceeds apace in Denver, it is in Chicago that Americans are getting a disturbing demonstration of his thuggish methods of stifling criticism.

 

Stanley Kurtz, a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, is a Harvard-educated social anthropologist and frequent contributor to National Review, among other publications. He is widely respected for his meticulous research and measured commentary. For months, he has been doing the job the mainstream media refuses to do: examining the background and public record of Barack Obama, the first-term senator Democrats are about to make their nominee for president despite the shallowness of his experience and achievement.

 

Kurtz has written extensively, and with characteristic attention to factual detail, about Obama’s early career as a “community organizer,” his cultivation of benefactors in the most radical cauldrons of Chicago politics, his long-time pastor’s immersion in Black Liberation Theology, his ties to anti-American zealots, and the years in the Illinois state legislature this self-styled agent of change spent practicing the by-the-numbers left-wing politics of redistribution and race-consciousness, remaining soft on crime and extreme on abortion.

 

This has led Kurtz, naturally, to scrutinize the relationship between Obama and one of his early political sponsors, William Ayers. Ayers, as we have previously detailed, is a confessed terrorist who, having escaped prosecution due to surveillance violations that came to light during his decade on the lam after a bombing spree, landed an influential professorship in education at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC). As he has made clear several times before and after helping to launch Obama’s political career, Ayers remains defiantly proud of bombing the Pentagon, the U.S. Capitol, and other targets. He expresses regret only that he didn’t do more. Read article.

Robert Spencer, Human Events.com

 

Now that Obama has made his momentous choice, it is useful to recall that during a Democratic presidential candidates’ debate in April 2007, Biden was among those who did not raise his hand to affirm his belief in the existence of a “global war on terror.”

 

In this, Biden and the head of the ticket appear to be completely simpatico. This has been clear from the beginning of the presumptive Democratic nominee’s campaign: analyzing an Obama speech at the same time that Biden was denying the existence of the war on terror, a Washington Post editorial noted that the candidate “does not use the phrase ‘war on terrorism.’ More remarkably, he doesn’t mention Islam, much less Islamic extremism -- which Mr. Bush has described as a critical ideological threat to freedom inside and outside the Muslim world.”

 

Actually, given the Democratic Party’s position on the global jihad, it would have been more remarkable if Obama had mentioned Islam. And his new running mate offers more of the same. Biden recently offered some hope of insight when he declared that “terrorism is a means, not an end, and very different groups and countries are using it toward very different goals. If we can’t even identify the enemy or describe the war we’re fighting, it’s difficult to see how we will win.” Read article.

 

Editorial, NY Post.com

 

It looks like convicted Chicago power merchant Tony Rezko could have two friends in the White House come Jan uary - if the Democratic ticket is elected, that is.

 

Barack Obama's ties to the prolific fund-raiser and developer - who faces up to 20 years behind bars following his June conviction for wire fraud, mail fraud, money-laundering and soliciting bribes - are relatively well-known.

 

Over the years, Rezko raised some $250,000 for Obama's campaigns. And, in 2005, he helped Barack and Michelle Obama by buying a lot they couldn't afford right next to the home they'd just purchased - then selling them part of the property.

 

Obama, who severed his ties to Rezko just as he started running for president, avers now that the purchase was "a bone-headed move."

 

But it seems that he's not the only "bonehead" on the ticket. It turns out that Obama's running mate, Sen. Joe Biden, is tied into the Rezko network, too.

 

The Chicago Sun-Times reports that Biden has for 30 years been a close friend of Chicago lawyer Joseph Cari - a key player in the Rezko scam who pleaded guilty to extortion and admitted taking part in an $850,000 kickback scheme.

 

In fact, Cari was the Midwest field director for Biden's aborted 1988 presidential bid. The Delaware senator has described him as "a friend, and he's an honorable guy," but added: "I don't know anything beyond that." Read article.

Kenneth R. Timmerman, NewsMax.com

 

Sen. Barack Obama and his newly-picked running mate, Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware, may have sparred during the primaries. But on one issue they are firmly united: the need to forge closer ties to the government of Iran.

 

Kaveh Mohseni, a spokesman for the Student Movement Coordination Committee for Democracy in Iran, calls Biden “a great friend of the mullahs.”

 

He notes that Biden’s election campaigns “have been financed by Islamic charities of the Iranian regime based in California and by the Silicon Iran network,” a loosely-knit group of wealthy Iranian-American businessmen and women seeking to end the U.S. trade embargo on Iran.

 

“In exchange, the senator does his best to aid the mullahs,” Mohseni argues.

 

Biden’s ties to pro-Tehran lobbying groups are no secret. But so far, the elite media has avoided even mentioning the subject.

 

Just recently, Biden was one of 16 U.S. senators who voted against a bill that would add Iran’s Revolutionary Guards corps to the State Department’s list of international terrorist organizations, because of its involvement in murdering U.S. troops in Iraq. Read article.

Andrew Walden, AIM.org

 

Why aren’t the American media investigating the role of British billionaire businessman Nadhmi Auchi in supplying loans to Barack Obama fundraiser Tony Rezko? Some point to media bias, but there is another factor. Working for Auchi, who was born in Iraq, attorneys from London law firm Carter-Ruck have for several months been flooding American and British newspapers and websites with letters demanding removal of material they deem “defamatory” to their client.

 

In its June 28 edition, British satirical magazine Private Eye explains: “Until Carter-Ruck and Partners and England’s stifling libel laws got to work, the few American journalists not caught up in Obama-mania were turning to the archives of the British press to answer an intriguing question: who is Nadhmi Auchi?”

 

The Obama campaign recently issued a non-denial denial in response to claims that Obama met with Auchi―contained in Jerome Corsi’s bestseller, The Obama Nation.

 

A secret $3.5 million loan from an Auchi company to key early-money Barack Obama fundraiser Antoin Rezko was exposed while Rezko was awaiting trial on fraud and money-laundering charges earlier this year. Rezko’s bail was revoked and police showed up banging on the doors of his Wilmette Chicago mansion to drag him off to jail early in the morning of January 28th. Auchi’s loan to Rezko had come on May 23, 2005 but had not been disclosed to the Court as required in his bail agreement. Three weeks later, on June 15, 2005, Rezko’s wife assisted the Obamas in the purchase of their South Chicago mansion by purchasing a next-door undeveloped lot being sold with the house. Read article.

Cliff Kincaid, AIM.org

 

Covering a sensitive and explosive subject that has been off-limits for the major U.S. media, the London Daily Telegraph is now claiming that Communist Frank Marshall Davis was a strong influence over a young Barack Obama for nine years of his life, rather than just four, and was a sex pervert and pothead. The Telegraph article alleges that Davis was a bisexual engaged in “sordid” sexual activities and had repeated sexual encounters with a 13-year-old girl.

 

In an article headlined, “Frank Marshall Davis, alleged Communist, was early influence on Barack Obama,” writer Toby Harnden confirms everything Accuracy in Media has been reporting since February about the mysterious “Frank” in Obama’s book being Communist Party USA (CPUSA) member Frank Marshall Davis. Harnden is the Daily Telegraph’s U.S. Editor, based in Washington, D.C.

 

The word “alleged” in the headline is misleading, since there is no doubt that Davis, who was investigated by the FBI and various congressional and official inquiries, was a CPUSA member. In fact, as AIM has documented, Davis was involved in the CPUSA or its front activities, before, during and after World War II, and became a member of a secret communist apparatus in the 1950s after the CPUSA in Hawaii was reorganized on an underground basis. Davis died in 1987.

 

“Although identified only as Frank in Mr. Obama’s memoir Dreams from My Father, it has now been established that he was Frank Marshall Davis, a radical activist and journalist who had been suspected of being a member of the Communist Party in the 1950s,” Harnden reported. Read article.

 

Daniel Pipes, JWR.com

 

How do Muslims see Barack Hussein Obama? They have three choices: either as he presents himself - someone who has "never been a Muslim" and has "always been a Christian"; or as a fellow Muslim; or as an apostate from Islam.

 

Reports suggests that while Americans generally view the Democratic candidate having had no religion before converting at Reverend Jeremiah Wrights's hands at age 27, Muslims the world over rarely see him as Christian but usually as either Muslim or ex-Muslim.

 

Lee Smith of the Hudson Institute explains why: "Barack Obama's father was Muslim and therefore, according to Islamic law, so is the candidate. In spite of the Quranic verses explaining that there is no compulsion in religion, a Muslim child takes the religion of his or her father. … for Muslims around the world, non-American Muslims at any rate, they can only ever see Barack Hussein Obama as a Muslim." In addition, his school record from Indonesia lists him as a Muslim.

 

Thus, an Egyptian newspaper, Al-Masri al-Youm, refers to his "Muslim origins." Libyan ruler Mu'ammar al-Qaddafi referred to Obama as "a Muslim" and a person with an "African and Islamic identity." One Al-Jazeera analysis calls him a "non-Christian man," a second refers to his "Muslim Kenyan" father, and a third, by Naseem Jamali, notes that "Obama may not want to be counted as a Muslim but Muslims are eager to count him as one of their own." Read article.

 

Amanda Carpenter, Townhall.com

 

There are many videos available on the internet featuring a man named Khalid Al-Mansour, who describes himself as an author, scholar and businessman, blasting the Jewish culture and Christianity and preaching the virtues of Islam, reminiscent of the controversial clips discovered of Obama’s longtime friend and former pastor Rev. Jeremiah Wright that rocked headlines earlier this spring.

 

In one of the videos, titled “Christians Designed Discrimination” uploaded by a YouTube user named IslamStudios, Al-Mansour said, “White people don't feel bad, whatever you do to them, they deserve it, God wants you to do it and that's when you cut out the nose, cut out the ears, take flesh out of their body, don't worry because God wants you to do it."

 

Civil rights activist Percy Sutton recalled being solicited by Dr. Khalid A-Mansour to write a letter of recommendation to help Obama gain acceptance into Harvard Law. Read article.

 

Ben Shapiro, WND.com

 

Campaigns usually collapse because of gaffes – off-the-cuff actions that accidentally reveal the true nature of candidates. And the Barack Obama campaign has had more than its share of revealing gaffes: Obama's statement that rural voters turn to God, guns and racism because they have no jobs; his explanation that proper tire gauge use would fix high gas prices; his self-aggrandizing exhortation that he has "become a symbol of the possibility of America returning to our best traditions"; his associations with Jeremiah Wright and Bill Ayers and Tony Rezko; the list goes on and on.

 

But gaffes are not the real reason for the stagnation of the Obama campaign. That stagnation is due to one factor: successful distribution of the Obama message.

 

Gaffes highlight the discrepancy between the message a campaign seeks to push and the message the campaign actually believes. When Americans recognize such discrepancies, they sense dishonesty and vote against it.

 

The last several weeks demonstrate one vital fact: The Barack Obama campaign is floundering not because of gaffes, but because of its success. They have portrayed their candidate and his message precisely the way they want to. They have controlled every media situation. They have not been plagued by a rash of mistakes in the last few weeks. The Obama campaign is drowning because Americans simply do not like the message. Read article.

 

George F. Will, NY Post.com

 

The fact that Barack Obama lost nine of the final 14 primaries might have something to do with the fact that, when he descends from the ether to practicalities, he reprises liberalism's most shopworn nostrums.

 

Russia, a third-world nation with first-world missiles, is rampant; Iran is developing a missile inventory capable of delivering nuclear weapons, the development of which won't be halted by Obama's promised "aggressive personal diplomacy." Yet Obama has vowed to "cut investments in unproven missile-defense systems."

 

Steamboats, railroads, airplanes and vaccines were "unproven" until farsighted people made investments. Furthermore, as Reuel Marc Gerecht of the American Enterprise Institute notes, Democrats will eventually embrace missile defense in Europe because they "will have nowhere else to go short of pre-emptive strikes against Iran's nuclear facilities."

 

Obama, who might be the last person to learn that schools' cognitive outputs aren't simply functions of financial inputs, promises more money for teachers (who, as usual, are about 10 percent of the Democrats' convention delegates and alternates). He waxes indignant about approximately 150,000 jobs sent overseas each year - less than 1 percent of the number of jobs normally lost and gained in the creative destruction of America's dynamic economy. Read article.

Thomas Sowell, Townhall.com

 

We take it for granted that a vote means a secret ballot but it was not always that way. Moreover, it will not remain that way for workers who vote on whether or not they want a labor union, if legislation sponsored by Congressional Democrats and endorsed by Senator Barack Obama becomes law.

 

This legislation passed the House of Representatives last year but did not make it through the Senate. "I will make it the law of the land when I'm President of the United States," Barack Obama has said to the AFL-CIO. Senator Obama has also said many times that he is against "special interests." But, like most politicians who say that, he means that he is against other politicians' special interests. His own special interests are never called special interests. Read article.

 

Rich Tucker, Townhall.com

 

Some questions answer themselves.

 

For example, the cover of the September issue of The Atlantic magazine asks, “Who’s the real Unifier,” Barack Obama or John McCain. “Obama and McCain both say they want to usher in a new, less divisive brand of politics. Which of them has the better chance?” the story’s introduction asks.

 

The entire piece could have been two sentences long. “Since arriving in the Senate, in 2005, [Obama] has voted with a majority of Senate Democrats almost 97 percent of the time, according to Congressional Quarterly,” writes longtime political commentator Ronald Brownstein. Meanwhile, “McCain has voted with a majority of Republicans 85 percent of the time since entering the Senate, in 1987.” That record provides your answer. McCain has often taken positions that angered conservatives, and he’s reached out to liberals for help on everything from federal judges to campaign finance reform. If either man can “unify” the country -- and that’s unlikely -- it’s McCain.

 

That record provides your answer. McCain has often taken positions that angered conservatives, and he’s reached out to liberals for help on everything from federal judges to campaign finance reform. If either man can “unify” the country -- and that’s unlikely -- it’s McCain. Read article.