Byron York, NRO.com

 

You can talk all you want about Joe the Plumber, but the moment of the final presidential debate, held last night at Hofstra University on Long Island, came when John McCain said, quickly and cleanly, “Sen. Obama, I am not President Bush. If you wanted to run against President Bush, you should have run four years ago.”

 

McCain has been trying for two years to highlight his differences with George W. Bush, but only tonight, 20 days before the election, did he come up with a formulation so straightforward. It wasn’t an accident. “We discovered that the arguments we were making weren’t soaking in, that people weren’t getting it, that he isn’t George Bush,” a key McCain aide told me shortly after the debate.

 

It’s fair to say Team McCain was delighted with the way the Bush line came out, and they were also happy that McCain was able to steer so much of the debate to the issue of Joe Wurzelbacher, a.k.a. Joe the Plumber, an Ohio man who confronted Obama this week with concerns that Obama’s proposals would raise taxes on the business Wurzelbacher hoped to buy. In that encounter, Obama told Wurzelbacher, “I think when you spread the wealth around, it’s good for everybody.” It wasn’t exactly what Wurzelbacher wanted to hear, and it made Obama sound like a classic income-redistributing Democrat. Read article.

 

A.M.Siriano, American Thinker.com

 

By the end of the final Presidential debate, I was pretty pleased with John McCain's performance and happy that Barack Obama had been outed as an odious leftist. Stylistically speaking, Obama was smooth, but not as smooth as in the other two debates, and he struggled to find his words on more than one occasion.

 

He presented the same old deceptions. He lied about his record. He dodged very serious allegations about past associations. And his attempts to paint himself as a moderate did not match his record. Nothing new under that sun-everyone would see it, right?

 

I didn't expect style from Senator McCain, so I hardly thought about his delivery. Instead I focused on substance. To me, in that category -- which is truly the only one that should count -- it was a smack-down. He hammered on spending and the need for the hatchet.

 

He painted Obama as a big-government liberal. He brought out other pressing issues besides the economy (which, by the way, will fix itself if every "Senator Government" would just get out of the way). At the end I, as my own imaginary ref, was holding McCain's shattered arms up as high as they could go. Read article.

Ann Coulter, HumanEvents.com

 

With an African-American running for president this year, there has been a lot of chatter about the "Bradley effect," allowing the media to wail about institutional racism in America.

 

Named after Tom Bradley, who lost his election for California governor in 1982 despite a substantial lead in the polls, the Bradley effect says that black candidates will poll much stronger than the actual election results.

 

First of all, if true, this is the opposite of racism: It is fear of being accused of racism. For most Americans, there is nothing more terrifying than the prospect of being called a racist. It's scarier than flood or famine, terrorist attacks or flesh-eating bacteria. To some, it's even scarier than "food insecurity."

 

Political correctness has taught people to lie to pollsters rather than be forced to explain why they're not voting for the African-American.

 

Reviewing the polls printed in The New York Times and The Washington Post in the last month of every presidential election since 1976, I found the polls were never wrong in a friendly way to Republicans. When the polls were wrong, which was often, they overestimated support for the Democrat, usually by about 6 to 10 points. Read article.

Melanie Phillips, Spectator.co.uk

 

The contrast between, on the one hand, the huge amount of material about Obama’s radical associations that has been published in on-line journals and in a few brave newspapers, and on the other the refusal by big media to address it and to vilify those who do, becomes more astounding by the day. The Obamaniacs are spinning the relationship between Obama and William Ayers, former of Weather Undergound Terrorism Inc, as of no consequence because this was supposedly a chance acquaintance and because the educational project they worked on, the Annenberg Challenge, was a worthy one.

 

Stanley Kurtz now nails that canard by showing how, through the Annenberg Challenge, Obama and Ayers channelled funds to extremist anti-American Afrocentric ‘educational’ programmes which were a carbon-copy of the world view of Pastor Jeremiah Wright, Obama’s black racist mentor who, under pressure, Obama was forced to repudiate. These programmes promoted, amongst other radical ideas, the ‘rites of passage’ philosophy which attempted to create a ‘virtually separate and intensely anti-American black social world’ in order to ‘counter the potentially detrimental effects of a Eurocentrically oriented society.’

 

You have to pinch yourself – a Marxisant radical who all his life has been mentored by, sat at the feet of, worshipped with, befriended, endorsed the philosophy of, funded and been in turn funded, politically promoted and supported by a nexus comprising black power anti-white racists, Jew-haters, revolutionary Marxists, unrepentant former terrorists and Chicago mobsters, is on the verge of becoming President of the United States. And apparently it’s considered impolite to say so. Read article.

 

The Brutal Reality of Obama's 'Tax Cuts' is Severe and Complete Economic Peril

Brad O'Leary, PennPatriot.Blogspot.com

 

On Monday, The Wall Street Journal confirmed the accuracy of the figures detailed in my book, The Audacity of Deceit: Barack Obama's War on American Values, (released earlier this year) that show how Barack Obama's tax cuts and deductions would increase the number of those who pay no federal income taxes from 30 percent to 44 percent. This critically important, yet long overlooked, information is finally making its way to center stage as the debate over the economy heats up. It can no longer be dismissed as political fiction. It must be seriously taken as brutal reality.

 

If Barack Obama is allowed to set the nation's economic policies and priorities, he will throw a wrench into the gears of our economic machine and America will face a new war. Call it Obama's "War on Success."

 

Currently, 30 percent of all Americans who file a tax return pay no federal income tax but receive credits, handouts and deductions. With a $100 billion price tag, Obama’s plan provides senior citizen tax credits, college credits, childcare credits, home buyer credits and $1000 per family credits. The percentage of tax filers who do not pay any income tax under Obama would rise from 30 percent to roughly 44 percent. Riding for free, nearly half of America will consume a majority of government handouts and services, while the other half foots the entire bill and covers the entire cost of government. Read article.

Larry Johnson, NoQuarterUSA.net/blog

 

We broke the story about the Obama Campaign’s mysterious payment of more than $800,000 to Citizen Services Inc. The payments ostensibly were for “STAGING, SOUND, and LIGHTING.” A reporter for the Pittsburgh Tribune, David Brown, agreed to look into the matter and was told by the Obama campaign:

 

U.S. Sen. Barack Obama’s presidential campaign paid more than $800,000 to an offshoot of the liberal Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now for services the Democrat’s campaign says it mistakenly misrepresented in federal reports.

 

An Obama spokesman said Federal Election Commission reports would be amended to show Citizens Services Inc. — a subsidiary of ACORN — worked in “get-out-the-vote” projects, instead of activities such as polling, advance work and staging major events as stated in FEC finance reports filed during the primary.

 

But that is a lie. Citizen Services passed the money to ACORN. I know this because the head of Citizen Services told me so. Read article.

 

Weekly Standard.com

 

Okay...I use the word "discovered" a bit loosely--the way one might "discover" a Big Mac at McDonald's. But now that I have your attention, the point is that most voters don't have a clue that Obama writes in his memoir that the very first time he attended Trinity United Church, he heard Rev. Wright rant that "white folks' greed runs a world in need."

 

As you may recall, Obama said, following Rev. Wright's infamous press club appearance in April, that "The person I saw yesterday was not the person that I met 20 years ago." The racist Rev. Wright quote included in Dreams from My Father contradicts this statement. While some bloggers and opinion journalists were quick to draw attention to this passage in Dreams from My Father shortly after the Wright story broke in March, this quote was never reported on NBC, CBS, ABC, CNN, or PBS, according to Nexis.

 

I bring attention to this fact because McCain and Palin are saying that Obama's statements about his relationship with Bill Ayers call into question Obama's judgment and truthfulness.

 

The press of course will say that it is racist to point out that Obama listened to Rev. Wright make racist remarks in the first sermon he ever attended. But most people realize that if McCain had chosen a racist pastor to be his mentor for 20 years, it wouldn't make any one a racist to point that out.

 

Exit quotation: "There are reasons not to talk about Ayers, Wright, Khalidi, etc. — not to talk about Obama and radicalism. But there are reasons for doing so, too. And I ask this: If not now, when? (If not us, who?!) After November 4, it will be too late. Isn’t now the time to talk about it, discuss it, air it? Let Obama address it? What are campaigns for?" Read article.

 

Christopher Cook, Modern Conservative.blog.com

 

What can derail Obama on his crazy-train ride to becoming America's Dear Leader President?

 

Well, the first point has to be that given the climate, he should be ten points out in front. After eight years of the media and the left cranking the permatantrum™, the ever-swinging swing voter should be ready to give in and give the tantrum-throwing baby whatever it wants. And yet, not surprisingly, they haven't yet fully bought the Obamaessiah. 

 

Barack Obama is an appallingly bad candidate, and in most any other circumstance, he'd be way behind. Only in a year that should be a Democrat blowout is he ahead, and then by not nearly so much as a generic Democrat ought to be.

 

We all know the problems: He's a socialist, groomed by the hard-left for the job. (Americans, if fully aware of that fact, would never go for him in sufficient numbers, so he is relying on the media and those guarding his records (like the Annenberg Challenge) for cover. He's got plenty of problematic associations, including Wright Rezko, Ayers, Dohrn, etc.

 

He's all wrapped up in Chicago machine politics, radical leftist politics, and, through his church, radical racialist politics. He's lost without a teleprompter, he's arrogant and—to anyone with a bit of discernment—kinda creepy. A culktlike following has developed around him that isn't normal, and that doesn't comport with the kind of thing that average Americans normally like. He's an awful candidate who wouldn't have a prayer of this weren't (allegedly) the perfect storm year for Democrats. Read article.

Colonel Bob Pappas, USMC, Ret., Gulf1.com

 

It is fascinating, if not infuriating that a dictator to the South would tell us that we need to rewrite our Constitution, one supposes along socialist or communist lines. Is it surprising that Obama wants to sit down with Hugo Chavez without pre-condition?

 

As one who did his time in the hell of Vietnam and has an abiding love and appreciation for our Armed Forces, the Constitution and Nation that they uphold and defend, to walk away from Iraq at this juncture is not only an insult, it would be one more nail in the nation's coffin. The first nail was painfully and clearly driven by the Democrats in 1975 when they cut off funding for the beleaguered people of South Vietnam; with Harry Reid and Senator Obama using the same logic if not the same words with regard to Iraq that were used during that cowardly abandonment.

 

Senator Obama's desire to take from those who work for a living and "spread it around" to those who don't is the worst economic nightmare that has come upon this country. Ever! Read article.

 

Just One Minute.com

 

What did Barack Obama do while at Columbia from 1981 to 1983 and in the year after his graduation? That part of his life is scarcely mentioned in "Dreams From My Father"; the Wall Street Journal remarked in the mystery a month ago and the NY Times puzzled over it a year ago.

 

Let me just toss out the outlines of a theory that has just hit my inbox and left me agog. First, the usual disclaimers - this is speculative, there are gaps and leaps of logic, and nothing can be proven. However, that said... well, see if you are agog as well.

 

From Dreams From My Father and other sources we know that Obama was interested in South Africa divestment in the early 80's. For example, he had a moment of awakening at Occidental College when he gave a brief but well-received speech to kick off an anti-apartheid demonstration. Other sources indicate he maintained that interest while at Columbia.

 

When the Times peered into Obama's Columbia past they found this:

 

In a long profile of Mr. Obama in a Columbia alumni magazine in 2005, in which his Columbia years occupied just two paragraphs, he called that time “an intense period of study.”

 

“I spent a lot of time in the library. I didn’t socialize that much. I was like a monk,” he was quoted as saying.

 

Odd. Here was a guy who had spent his life hanging with radicals and seeking out causes. Now, at what was practically Ground Zero for campus activists, he decides to hide in the library. Read article.

Dick Morris, Vote.com

 

As Obama lengthens his lead, the Republicans are praying that the election becomes close enough for the Democrats to steal. But meanwhile, ACORN, the radical community group, is becoming an embarrassment for Obama. It is not as if its shenanigans are likely to tip the result, with the Democrats so far ahead. But as it is raided by the FBI in state after state (11 so far), it is becoming identified as the electoral equivalent of Greenpeace, extremists who will stop at nothing to get their way.

 

What makes ACORN particularly embarrassing for Obama is that he used to be one of them. He served as general counsel for ACORN in Illinois, channeled millions to the organization from the Chicago Annenberg Challenge (whose funds he distributed) and has lately spent $800,000 of his campaign money to subsidize the group's activities. For this emolument, ACORN has registered voters 15 times over, canvassed the graveyards for votes and prepared to commit electoral fraud on a massive scale.

 

With friends like this, Obama doesn't need enemies. As their radical activities make headlines every day, Obama's intimate involvement with these radicals becomes more and more of a political liability. Read article.

 

Joshua Muravchik, Online WSJ.com

 

Introducing himself to the nation at the 2004 Democratic National Convention, Barack Obama spoke not only of his black father, "born and raised in a small village in Kenya," but of his white mother, "born in a town . . . in Kansas" to a father who "worked on oil rigs and farms through most of the Depression" before enlisting in military service "the day after Pearl Harbor."

 

Four years later, Mr. Obama is the Democratic nominee, and even his occasional shrill attacks on his opponent seem to have chipped away little of the cornerstone of his own candidacy: the promise to bring us, all of us, together. Can he do that? Is he well-suited to raise the curtain on a new postpartisan, postideological era?

 

The Senate has a particularly rich tradition of such bipartisanship, but Mr. Obama appears never to have participated in it. On the contrary: according to Congressional Quarterly, which measures how often each member votes in accordance with or at variance from the majority of his own party, Mr. Obama has compiled one of the most partisan of all voting records.

 

Mr. Obama comes to us from a background farther to the left than any presidential nominee since George McGovern, or perhaps ever. This makes him an extremely unlikely leader to bridge the divides of party, ideology or, for that matter, race. If he loses, it will be for that reason.

 

 But the enduring importance of that landmark event will depend on the subsequent effectiveness of his presidency. If his tenure—like that of, say, Richard Nixon or Jimmy Carter—should end by inviting scorn, then it may open as many wounds as it heals. On the other hand, it is not unimaginable that he may rise to the challenge of the office and govern from the center, as he will have to do to succeed. This, however, would truly involve reinventing himself, a task for which his intellectual and ideological background furnishes few materials. Read article.

Salena Zito, Pittsburgh Live.com

 

On the eve of the Democratic convention, Trib colleague David M. Brown reported that Sen. Barack Obama's presidential campaign paid more than $800,000 to an offshoot of ACORN for services the Democrat's campaign says it “mistakenly misrepresented” in finance reports.

 

An Obama spokesman said then that the FEC reports would be amended to show Citizens Services Inc. -- a subsidiary of ACORN -- worked in "get-out-the-vote" projects.

 

The original FEC finance reports listed the ACORN underling activities as polling, advance work and staging major events.

 

Blair Latoff, spokeswoman for the Republican National Committee said at the time that "Barack Obama's failure to accurately report his campaign's financial records is an incredibly suspicious situation that appears to be an attempt to hide his campaign's interaction with a left-wing organization previously convicted of voter fraud.”

 

Latoff went on to question Obama's claim of practicing ‘new’ politics when his FEC reports look an awful lot like the 'old-style' Chicago politics of yesterday. Read article.

 

Frank Pastore, Townhall.com

 

Frank Pastore from KKLA in Los Angeles interviews Wall Street Journal columnist John Fund.

 

Frank Pastore: ACORN is an acronym that stands for the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now. They are up to their eyeballs in voter fraud. When the subject of voter fraud is mentioned there is one expert in America that nearly everyone turns to and he is John Fund of the Wall Street Journal, and his book “Stealing Elections: How Voter Fraud threatens Our Democracy….”

 

Give us an overview—a lay of the land…. John Fund: ACORN is the left-wing housing lobby that was at the heart of the sub-prime mortgage crisis. They pushed Congress, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and banks to put out loans to people who weren’t credit worthy, they helped tip this crisis into the disaster that we have now. And they are out registering voters, mostly for Barack Obama, and in 12 states there are investigations into their fraud. Read article.

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