Little John, Daily Mail.co.uk

 

Frank Sinatra would have got the joke. In the words of the great political philosopher, they all laughed at Christopher Columbus when he said the world was round.

 

They're all laughing, too, at John McCain for choosing Sarah Palin as his running mate. The usual suspects took one look at this pistol-packin' momma and reacted like John McEnroe to a disputed line call: you cannot be serious!

 

Certainly, the pick came, as the Americans say, out of left field. But Sarah Palin is centre stage now, and suddenly it's game on.

 

You couldn't make her up. Law And Order's Fred Thompson, once a presidential candidate himself, hit the baby seal on the head when he said the Left were in a blind panic over what to do about Palin.

 

When Palin talks about shattering the glass ceiling, the sisters are supposed to cheer - except most of them suspect her idea of shattering a glass ceiling would be with a both barrels blast from a 12-bore.

 

She epitomises the 'God and guns' mentality at which Barack Obama and his supporters sneer. They use 'small town' as a pejorative term. That's not how Middle America sees it. Read article.

Online WSJ.com

 

If nothing else, the media meltdown over Sarah Palin's candidacy for the vice presidency has exposed the not-unsuspected truth that, when it comes to historical ignorance and political amnesia, our cultural panjandrums are in a class by themselves.

 

ABC's Charlie Gibson is only the latest to offer himself upon the altar of self-parody with his pop-quizzing of the Alaska governor during their interview last week.

 

Gibson: "Do you agree with the Bush doctrine?"

 

Palin: "In what respect, Charlie?"

 

Which was a sensible answer, given that no higher authority than Jacob Weisberg of Slate has counted six versions of the thing (including "absence of any functioning doctrine at all").

 

Further pressed on the subject, Gov. Palin explained that "what President Bush has attempted to do is rid this world of Islamic extremism," which better sums up the gist of Bush policy than Mr. Gibson's cramped definition of the doctrine as "anticipatory self-defense."

 

And so the candidate, without so much as the benefit of a junior year abroad, managed (maybe luckily, though luck is often a function of wit) to get the better of the anchorman, Princeton '65. Read article.

 

McCain-Palin Landslide in the Making

David Horowitz, FrontpageMag.com

 

Here is the electoral map as it looks to me -- not close but a landslide in the making.

 

Not being a pollster I have little to lose by predicting the race, and of course there's a lot of water yet to pass under the bridge -- events, debates, revised strategies etc. But right now I don't see this as a close race. If the present trend holds, McCain-Palin will win 331 electoral votes to 203 for Obama-Biden.

 

I think it's already evident that the current toss-up, lean-McCain and lean-Obama states likely to fall to McCain include Florida, Nevada, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Washington, Montana, North Dakota, Colorado, and Ohio. If you add Michigan, the above total becomes 348-186.

 

The pivotal state in these calculations is Pennsylvania which has twenty crucial electoral votes and hasn't gone Republican in a presidential election since 1988. A Zogby poll today shows McCain up by 5 points in Pennsylvania. Zogby and most of the other polls have a long history of underestimating Republican strength. If Pennsylvania goes for McCain it's a pretty safe bet that the other states mentioned will also go McCain.

 

If McCain-Palin win in a landslide, you read it here first. Read article.

 

Politicak Ticker.blogs.cnn.com

 

It appears Barack Obama's teleprompter is hitting the campaign trail.

 

The Democratic presidential nominee has never tried to hide the fact he delivers speeches off the device, though normally he doesn't use one at standard campaign rallies and town hall events.

 

But the Illinois senator used a teleprompter at both his Colorado events Monday — making for a particularly peculiar scene in Pueblo, where the prompter was set up in the middle of what is normally a rodeo ring. Read article.

Noel Sheppard, NewsBusters.org

 

The photographer that viciously smeared John McCain at her website might be facing a lawsuit for violating the terms of agreement in her contract with The Atlantic magazine.

 

As NewsBusters reported Saturday, Jill Greenberg not only admitted to taking a rather sinister picture of the Republican presidential candidate that she hoped The Atlantic would use on its October cover, but she also generated some truly disturbing and disgraceful images of McCain which she proudly displayed at her website.

 

The magazine's editor, James Bennet, told Fox News's Megyn Kelly Monday that he was deeply sorry about this incident, and that The Atlantic isn't taking it lying down. CLICK HERE to access article and AUDIO.

Melanie Phillips, Spectator.co.uk

 

Andrew Bolt in Australia’s HeraldSun entertainingly fisks the media's attempt to destroy Sarah Palin by pouncing upon her first TV interview on foreign affairs to find out whether she knows who Putin is. As Bolt shows, the joke however is on them.

 

As James Taranto writes on the WSJ blog, the Obamasphere is descending from hysteria to depravity by using Palin’s decision actually to give birth to her son Trig as apparent proof of her unfitness for office. When they look at Trig, they don’t see a small and vulnerable human being; they don’t see the power of love triumphing over adversity; all they see is a handicapped thing that should never have been allowed to live.

 

Offensive and disgusting, indeed – and how revealing about the ‘liberal’ conscience -- but what it also shows is that the chattering classes have understood that this election might just call a halt to the agenda of social and moral nihilism that masquerades as progressive politics. Hence the weeping and wailing and rending of garments, in between firing the poisoned darts at Sarah Palin, on both sides of the Atlantic.

 

And that’s why social conservatives everywhere – aka people who prefer truth over lies, right over wrong, morality over anarchy and the continuation of western civilisation over the forces of totalitarianism that threaten it – have suddenly raised their heads above the sandbags and seen a sign they never thought they’d see: that civilisation might just be fighting back. Read article.

Tod Lindberg, Weekly Standard.com

 

Historians looking back on these tumultuous times will no doubt argue over the precise date on which the Age of Palin began. Her speech at the Republican National Convention on September 3 certainly catapulted her to national renown. But there is a good case to be made for her introductory appearance in Dayton, Ohio, five days before.

 

It's all there: You have the same poise and panache Palin exhibited at the convention. You have the self-assurance of a champion high-school athlete who went on to bigger and better things (unlike in the gloomy Democratic, Bruce Springsteen version of life, in which it's all downhill after your Glory Days). There's the ability to deliver a barb with a smile. And above all, that day inaugurated arguably the most incoherent and blubbering partisan response to a candidate in the history of American politics--against which the charms of the candidate stood out even more clearly.

 

Let's get this straight: Your party has just nominated for president a fellow who has been elected exactly once to the United States Senate, in an uncompetitive race, following a garden-variety stint in a state legislature. And your response to the GOP nominee's choice for vice president--someone who has been elected once as governor following a stint as a small town mayor--is to decry the lack of experience? Nobody ever said Barack Obama was unqualified for the No. 2 spot on the ticket.

 

Had Hillary Clinton won the nomination and selected Obama as her running mate--which, being a savvy politician she would certainly have done, in order to fire up his 18 million primary supporters--Obama would have been perfectly positioned. Either he would be preparing himself as vice president for his run for the Oval Office eight years hence. Or he would be experienced and tested in a national campaign that he would never be held responsible for losing, with a fundraising base beyond the imagination of Croesus. Instead, it's McCain-Palin with the wind at their backs, and Palin who is being prepared as the outstanding future prospect for her party. Read article.

 

Tony Rubolotta, NMJ.us

 

Had John McCain selected a run of the mill Republican as a running mate, they would have been annihilated by the media amplified and distorted Obama. Messiah Obama could have selected Daffy Duck as a running mate and it wouldn’t have mattered because Obama would just unleash his mystical, mesmerizing powers to make Daffy a symbol of liberal tolerance and diversity. A vote against Daffy was a vote against liberal principles. With the McCain-Feingold cones of silence about to descend, the media would have an essentially unchallenged say on what they wanted to be the issues and who received media attention. That was until Sarah Palin.

 

The media dirt machine is working full time now and the candidate most of us didn’t know before her nomination is getting the kind of attention that will backfire on those purveyors of misinformation trying to manipulate this election. Even garden variety liberals can identify with Sarah Palin and see what the media is trying to do.

 

The contest of Ho-hum McCain versus Messianic Obama was a no-brainer. The contest of a principled citizen politician and reformer Palin versus an old-boy entrenched political hack Biden is another matter. The fact is the media cannot ignore Palin as they would like. Palin’s message is solid, inspiring and not based on manufactured media-hype to promote a third-rate “community organizer”. Sarah is the spoiler because I think most Americans can still recognize substance over symbolism, though Palin does very well on both counts. Read article.

 

Change to Think Twice About: What Obama could destroy.

Mona Charen, NRO.com

 

I was polled last night. Yes, it happens. I spent half an hour on the telephone with a representative of the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press. The results will be made public in a few days. One question stands out. They asked, “Do you know what Barack Obama’s religion is?”

 

Don’t you get the feeling that you can already write the post-election analysis if Obama loses? “A nation still unable to shake its legacy of racism and discrimination ... a nation so xenophobic about anyone with a foreign-sounding name could not be elected ... Obama could not correct the misimpression that he was a Muslim.” It would almost be worth having Obama win to avoid the nauseating analysis that will certainly follow his loss.

 

But not quite. It is hard to think of any issue dear to the hearts of conservatives on which Barack Obama is not planted firmly on the other side — the power of diplomacy vis-a-vis aggressors, the proper care and feeding of teachers unions, the threat of terrorism, affirmative action, the importance of free trade, immigration reform — I could go on. If elected, President Obama, arm in arm with Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, would be in a position to do serious damage to the country on a number of fronts. His convention speech removed any doubt that he is an orthodox, big — no, huge — government liberal. Read article.

 

Michael Goodwin, NY Daily News.com

 

With top Dems fearing Barack Obama is in a hole, the Obama campaign has made a weird decision. It's going to dig that hole deeper, harder and faster.

 

No more Mr. Nice Guy, Obama vows. He's going to really start hitting John McCain now. He's going to make voters understand that McCain equals four more years of George Bush.

 

It's a weird decision because Obama has been doing exactly that for four months. The problem is not that Obama hasn't hit McCain hard enough or linked him to Bush often enough. The problem is that he hasn't done anything else.

 

How about a new idea? How about putting some meat on the bony promise of "change"?

 

The decision to stick with a mostly-nasty approach should finally end the myth that the Obama campaign is a flawless machine. It had an extraordinarily appealing candidate, a message of change to an unhappy nation and made brilliant tactical decisions that defeated the Clintons.

 

But that was last season. Since then, it has frittered away four months and, even before Palin rocked the race, Obama was coasting as the presumptive President. He secured his base in Europe, but neglected West Virginia, where Clinton beat him by 40 points. Poll-wise, he remains where he was when Clinton quit in June. Read article.

 

Paul West, Baltimore Sun.com

 

John McCain's fresh momentum is changing the contours of the presidential contest and making a close finish more likely than ever.

 

With the race a virtual dead heat in national polling, the presidency could, once again, be riding on the voters of a single state. In 2000, Florida was pivotal. Last time, it was Ohio. This fall, the place to watch may be out west.

 

Colorado could be the ultimate swing state of 2008.

 

Statewide polling puts it squarely in the tossup category. Frequent visits by both presidential tickets attest to the importance of winning there. But it's the electoral arithmetic that shows why Colorado could decide it all.

 

From Alaska to Georgia, Barack Obama appears to be abandoning plans to spread the playing field and put McCain on the defensive in traditionally Republican places. McCain never really took the bait. Now, Obama may be forced to devote a lot more resources to Democratic areas where Sarah Palin is reaching out to culturally conservative whites. Read article.

 

L.L Brasier, Detroit Free Press.com

 

Several municipal clerks across the state are reporting fraudulent and duplicate voter registration applications, most of them from a nationwide community activist group working to help low- and moderate-income families.

 

The majority of the problem applications are coming from the group ACORN, Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, which has a large voter registration program among its many social service programs. ACORN's Michigan branch, based in Detroit, has enrolled 200,000 voters statewide in recent months, mostly with the use of paid, part-time employees.

 

"There appears to be a sizeable number of duplicate and fraudulent applications," said Kelly Chesney, spokeswoman for the Michigan Secretary of State's Office. "And it appears to be widespread."

 

Chesney said her office has had discussions with ACORN officials after local clerks reported the questionable applications to the state. Read article.

 

Kevin Ferris, Philly.com

 

What a strange country.

Last month, one of our two major political parties nominated an African American as its candidate for president of the United States.

 

Historic progress to be celebrated?

 

Apparently not. A few weeks and polls later, and some are already bemoaning the rampant racism that might keep a black man from ascending to the presidency.

 

Hey, Barack Obama could not have clinched the nomination without votes from white Americans. The other party isn't supposed to just concede the election based on skin color. Voters shouldn't have to choose based on race when they disagree on issues or believe a candidate isn't up to the job.

 

But expect to see the bemoaners looking to the heavens and saying, "We're not ready."

 

Baloney. Maybe it's Obama who's not ready and the people who recognize that - men and women, whites and blacks, Hispanics and Asians - are just fine.

 

There was no racial angst when three black Republicans fell short in statewide races in 2006. No "Shame on you, America" when Ken Blackwell and Lynn Swann lost for governor in Ohio and Pennsylvania, respectively, and Maryland Lt. Gov. Michael Steele was defeated in his U.S. Senate race.

 

Republicans and conservatives don't count on the racial scorecard? Read article.

 

Review & Outlook, Online WSJ.com

 

Now that even Barack Obama has acknowledged that President Bush's surge in Iraq has "succeeded beyond our wildest dreams," maybe it's time the Democratic nominee gives some thought to how that success actually came about -- not just in Ramadi and Baghdad, but in the bureaucratic Beltway infighting out of which the decision to surge emerged.

 

That's one reason to welcome "The War Within," the fourth installment in Bob Woodward's account of the Bush Presidency. As is often the case with the Washington Post stalwart, the reporting is better than the analysis, which reflects the Beltway conventional wisdom of a dogmatic and incurious President. But even as a (very) rough draft of history, we read Mr. Woodward's book as an instructive profile in Presidential decision-making.

 

Consider what confronted Mr. Bush in 2006. Following a February attack on a Shiite shrine in the city of Samarra, Iraq's sectarian violence began a steep upward spiral. The U.S. helped engineer the ouster of one Iraqi prime minister, Ibrahim al-Jaafari, in favor of Nouri al-Maliki, an untested leader about whom the U.S. knew next to nothing. The "Sunni Awakening" of tribal sheiks against al Qaeda was nowhere in sight. An attempt at a minisurge of U.S. and Iraqi forces in Baghdad failed dismally. George Casey, the American commander in Iraq, believed the only way the U.S. could "win" was to "draw down" -- a view shared up the chain of command, including Centcom Commander John Abizaid and then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. Read article.

 

 

 

 

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