Amir Taheri, NY Post.com

 

While campaigning in public for a speedy withdrawal of US troops from Iraq, Sen. Barack Obama has tried in private to persuade Iraqi leaders to delay an agreement on a draw-down of the American military presence.

 

According to Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari, Obama made his demand for delay a key theme of his discussions with Iraqi leaders in Baghdad in July.

 

"He asked why we were not prepared to delay an agreement until after the US elections and the formation of a new administration in Washington," Zebari said in an interview.

 

Though Obama claims the US presence is "illegal," he suddenly remembered that Americans troops were in Iraq within the legal framework of a UN mandate. His advice was that, rather than reach an accord with the "weakened Bush administration," Iraq should seek an extension of the UN mandate.

 

While in Iraq, Obama also tried to persuade the US commanders, including Gen. David Petraeus, to suggest a "realistic withdrawal date." They declined.

 

Obama has made many contradictory statements with regard to Iraq. His latest position is that US combat troops should be out by 2010. Yet his effort to delay an agreement would make that withdrawal deadline impossible to meet. Read article.

 

Obama oops: War injuries prevent McCain from e-mailing

WND.com

 

A Barack Obama ad that mocks John McCain for not being able to use a computer and send an e-mail apparently didn't take into account the fact that the Republican presidential nominee can't use a keyboard because of the severe injuries he suffered as a Navy pilot and POW during the Vietnam war.

 

A Boston Globe report eight years ago cited by the National Review's Jonah Goldberg said McCain's "severe war injuries prevent him from combing his hair, typing on a keyboard, or tying his shoes."

 

But the Obama campaign ad posted on the Internet today poked fun at McCain for admitting "he still doesn't know how to use a computer, can't send an e-mail." Read article.

Clarice Feldman, Pajamas Media.com

 

While running in the Democratic primaries Obama pointed to one of his very, very few legislative endeavors and — in his post partisan, post-racial mode — posed as someone who championed it:

 

“It’s no secret that most Americans think the country is on the wrong track,” Obama told the group. “But the reason isn’t just failed policies. It’s a system in Washington that has failed the American people."

 

It’s a decent, good government position to advance, but there’s nothing in the record of the candidate or his close associates to suggest that what they mean is that they want to lift the curtain on the doings of others while keeping their own activities hidden behind the screen.

 

His record for opaqueness was clear early on in the campaign. He tried to hide who managed his PAC — Hopefund — which received money from lobbyists. And when he finally stopped stonewalling, it was evident that the PAC was being used to advance his presidential ambitions. Nor was he open about campaign events with his most generous donors.

 

The latest example of the lengths to which Obama and his associates have gone to keep whatever still extant records of his early life from reaching the public involves the failed Chicago Annenberg Challenge records — virtually the only records of his pre-US Senate career not claimed to be missing or destroyed. Read article.

 

Jennifer Rubin, Pajamas Media.com

 

The mainstream media is not much interested in probing Barack Obama’s record before he arrived in the U.S. Senate in 2004. For example, they have studiously ignored the eminently well-researched book by David Freddoso, The Case Against Barack Obama. There is no shortage of material or information which might be relevant to voters. One aspect of Obama’s past in particular provides insight into Obama’s modus operandi in the world of Chicago politics: his service on the board of the Woods Fund.

 

The Woods Fund is a non-profit foundation which declares its goal to “increase opportunities for less advantaged people and communities by giving money primarily to not-for-profit groups involved in housing, the arts and other areas.” Obama joined the board of the Woods Fund in 1993 and remained until 2002. But Obama didn’t merely use the Woods Fund to help his fellow man — he used it to further his career. Read article.

 

Matthew Vadum, Canada Free Press.com

 

There does indeed seem to be a “hidden Soros Slush Fund” in the Democratic Party’s official platform, as commentator Michelle Malkin recently pointed out.

 

At page 56 (PDF) of the platform document “Renewing America’s Promise,” the party proposes the creation of a “Social Investment Fund Network”:

 

Partnership with Civic Institutions

Social entrepreneurs and leading nonprofit organizations are assisting schools, lifting families out of poverty, filling health care gaps, and inspiring others to lead change in their own communities. To support these results-oriented innovators, we will create a Social Investment Fund Network that invests in ideas that work, tests their impact, and expands the most successful programs.

 

We will create an office to coordinate government and nonprofit efforts.

 

Barack Obama proposed creating a Social Investment Fund Network last year. Read article.

 

IBD Editorials.com

 

Barack Obama has joined forces with a white socialist he calls a "good friend" — the Rev. Jim Wallis, founder of "Sojourners." He too believes in "liberation theology," sans the black nationalism. In fact, Wallis is the white version of Jeremiah Wright, sans the black rage.

 

In addition to publishing "Sojourners" magazine, Wallis runs Call to Renewal — a network of liberal churches and activist groups "committed to ending poverty and racism."

 

Wright once joined Wallis at the U.S. Capitol in an anti-poverty "preach-in" sponsored by Call to Renewal.

 

Wallis and his Washington-based operation have essentially replaced Wright and his militantly Afrocentric Chicago church, which Obama expediently dumped in the heat of the primary race after videos surfaced of his fire-breathing preacher damning America.

 

The avuncular, noncombative Wallis offers Obama a voting bloc that Wright could never help deliver: white Christian evangelicals, if in Birkenstocks.

 

At the Democratic National Convention in Denver, Obama tapped Wallis to oversee the drafting of the faith-based plank of the party platform (which, by the way, champions outreach programs for "ex-offenders"). Read article.

 

Terence Jeffrey, Townhall.com

 

Take a leap of faith. Assume Sen. Joe Biden is an intellectually rigorous man who never fails to act on his own convictions when he votes in the Senate -- and that he is especially careful in thinking things through when he votes on matters of life and death.

 

Now, try to entertain Joe Biden's logic -- on a matter of life and death.

 

"I'm prepared as a matter of faith to accept that life begins at the moment of conception," Biden said on NBC's "Meet the Press" on Sunday. "But that is my judgment."

 

Biden's implication is that it is equally plausible to conclude that life does not begin at conception and that this conclusion ought to command as much respect from rational people as the conclusion that life does begin at conception. For Biden -- if you take him at his word -- the question of when life begins is not determined by science but by religion. It is not only a multiple-choice question, but a question with multiple correct answers.

 

"It's a personal and private issue," he said. "For me, as a Roman Catholic, I'm prepared to accept the teachings of my church. But let me tell you. There are an awful lot of people of great confessional faiths ... who have a different view. ... They believe in their faith, and they believe in human life, and they have differing views as to when life (begins)."

 

Now, try applying Biden's reasoning to a mammal other than homo sapiens. Read article.

 

Review & Outlook, WSJ.com

 

One rap on Sarah Palin's qualifications to be Vice President is that she governs one of our least populated states, with a budget of "only" $12 billion and 16,000 full-time state employees. On the other hand, it turns out that the Governor's office in Alaska is one of the country's most powerful.

 

For more than two decades Thad Beyle, a political scientist at the University of North Carolina, has maintained an index of "institutional powers" in state offices. He rates governorships on potential length of service, budgetary and appointment authority, veto power and other factors. Mr. Beyle's findings for 2008 rate Alaska at 4.1 on a scale of 5. The national average is 3.5.

 

Only four other states -- Maryland, New Jersey, New York and West Virginia -- concentrate as much power in the Governor's office as Alaska does, and only one state (Massachusetts) concentrates more. California may be the nation's most populous state, but its Governor rates as below-average (3.2) in executive authority. This may account in part for Arnold Schwarzenegger's poor legislative track record. The lowest rating goes to Vermont (2.5), where the Governor (remember Howard Dean) is a figurehead compared to Mrs. Palin. Read article.

 

P.J. Gladnick, NewsBusters.org

 

A transcript [1] of the unedited interview of Sarah Palin by Charles Gibson clearly shows that ABC News edited out crucial portions of the interview that showed Palin as knowledgeable or presented her answers out of context.

 

This unedited transcript of the first of the Gibson interviews with Palin is available on radio host Mark Levin's website [2]. The sections edited out by ABC News are in bold. The first edit shows Palin responding about meeting with foreign leaders but this was actually in response to a question Gibson asked several questions earlier: Read article.

 

Peggy Noonan, Online WSJ.com

 

Democrats, hit reset. Accept the fact that the race has changed utterly, that you're up against a ticket that has captured the public imagination. Now you must go out and recapture it.

 

Out of the shirtsleeves, into the suit. Stop prowling the stage with what looks like Phil Donahue's old mic. No more scattered, listless riffs; back to the podium and the prepared—and focused—speech. Campaign as a duo, Obama-Biden, together again. Obama alone looks like he's part of nothing.

 

You must aim your fire at the top of the ticket, John McCain, and not at this beautiful girl, Sarah Palin, about whom you can do nothing.

 

You can never kill her now. Forget it. She can hurt herself, but in terms of Democratic attacks she is bulletproof. You made her that—she wasn't that way when she walked in. Read article.

C. Edmund Wright, American Thinker.com

 

It is pretty obvious that the liberal media's reaction to Sarah Palin is driven by their two camps: those who don't understand her, and a small but growing number who do and are scared to death. Either way, their shallow analysis that Sarah Palin was picked as a calculated decision to "appeal to the base" and to "disaffected Hillary supporters" is to miss the point of the relationship between thermometers and thermostats.

 

Palin clearly does appeal to the base, and an opportunistic appeal to Hillary voters is wise, since a flip of merely 10% of her primary voters means a net gain to McCain of the margins of the 2000 and 2004 elections combined.

 

Sarah Palin, however, is more than a pawn in a one dimensional chess game to figure out where the electorate tailwinds are and help the McCain ticket get in front of it. The choice of Palin is a potential reboot of the political thermostat. She has turned the heat up on conventional political wisdom across the country as she has done at every level of her new but accomplished political career.

 

Make no mistake about it: Sarah Palin is the base, as in those who believe in the basic principles of smaller government, lower taxes and a strong national defense. She is more of the base than George Bush 41 or 43. She lives a Reagan life. She lives a Contract with America life. She lives the life the Founding Fathers envisioned when they crafted a Constitution to guarantee everyone a shot at such a life.

 

The base instantly recognized her as one of them and fell in love. No one has done this since Reagan. Bush was never this loved or considered "one of us," but next to Al Gore and John Kerry he was positively adorable. He was a diluted representative from the start and continued to go out of his new tone way to "de-base" himself, causing a substantial fraction of the country not to like him and more importantly, distorting what it means to be part of the base in the process. Read article.

Lisa Schiffren, NRO.com

 

The New York Timesreports that the Obama campaign has asked Hillary Clinton to speak to her disgruntled loyalist female voters who may be inclined to support Sarah Palin’s ticket. Hillary will be campaigning for Obama in Florida soon, as she had agreed to do before Palin was put on the GOP ticket. But her aides have informed the Obama campaign that they shouldn’t count on her, because she has “a busy fall.” The O campaign will also be turning to a bunch of Midwestern female governors, like the riveting Kathleen Sebelius of Kansas and the charismatic Janet Napolitano of Arizona, to woo back offended Hillary voters. Good luck with that.

 

Let’s just stipulate that those hard-core female liberal ideologues, as well as the abortion voters, will stay with the Democratic ticket, come what may. As they tell us, they vote issues, not gender.

 

To Hillary I say: Don’t go there. You owe Obama nothing. He elbowed you out of the way. You could have won the election and he probably cannot. He needs you, and you don’t need him. Those boots were made for walkin’. . . Read article.

 

Susan Jones, CNS News.com

 

We can afford to pay higher taxes. They can’t. That’s the gist of Sen. Barack Obama’s tax plan, which he discussed with Fox New Channel’s Bill O’Reilly in an interview that aired Monday night.

 

Obama has campaigned on a promise to reverse the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans, while protecting tax cuts for poor and middle class families. He favors a return to the 39 percent income tax bracket for the highest earners -- including himself and O’Reilly, he said.

 

“You can afford that. That’s point number one,” Obama told O’Reilly. In exchange, Obama said he would cut taxes for 95 percent of Americans.

 

“If I am sitting pretty, and you’ve got a waitress who is making minimum wage plus tips, and I can afford it and she can’t -- what’s the big deal for me to say, ‘I’m going to pay a little bit more.’ That is neighborliness,” Obama said.

 

‘Robin Hood Obama’? Read article.

 

Salena Zito, Pittsburgh Live.com

 

Perhaps finding out what really is going on in Pennsylvania is for me to look no further than my own backyard, literally.

 

At some un-godly hour this morning before the sun even thought about coming up I pulled out of my drive-way and started up the tree-lined street where I live. Immediately I was struck by three of my neighbors, all who live across the street from me, having three distinct campaign signs in their yard.

 

The first was your average run of the mill Obama sign, next door to that was a "I am a bitter gun owner and I vote sign" and two doors up from them was a stately old home with three "Hillary" signs prominently displayed on their front lawn.

 

Pretty much describes the state of the Pennsylvania voters mind right now. In an upcoming story on Pennsylvania, AFL-CIO president Billy George told me that he was "feeling pretty good" that Obama would win Pennsylvania -- his eight-point program is a fascinating study on just how hard the unions are working to persuade their members to vote for Obama. Read article.

 

 

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