Exclusive: Friday, June 20

by PRESIDENTIAL WATCH June 20, 2008

Compare Polls June/July 2004 vs. 2008 - GO HERE.

From Reagan's Berlin Wall Speech: Message For Today's GOP

Star Parker, GOP USA.com

For conservatives and Republicans who are wondering what in the world happened to their party, we should recall June 12, 1987.

That day, 21 years ago, President Ronald Reagan stood before the wall dividing East and West Berlin and directed his famous appeal to the leader of the then Soviet Union, "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall."

The rest, as they say, is history. Two and half years later, the wall was down and a new chapter begun.

It's always worth recalling Reagan's courageous act and words of that time. But we particularly should consider it now in light of today's Republican conundrums.

I turn to the well-known account of Peter Robinson, then a Reagan speechwriter, of how it all came about.

The story of Reagan's Berlin speech, as recounted by Robinson, is about change and fighting the Washington establishment - exactly the themes we're hearing almost every day now from our current presidential aspirants.

Robinson wrote the speech for President Reagan, including the famous "tear down this wall" line, and submitted it for review. The opposition to it from the administration's entire foreign policy establishment was uniform and adamant. Read article.

What's next for Bill Clinton?

Alan Silverleib, CNN.com

What a long, strange, unhappy trip it's been for Bill Clinton.

When Sen. Hillary Clinton officially launched her drive for the White House 17 months ago, the former president's possibilities seemed endless. His wife's nomination by many of the party faithful was seen as a virtual certainty.

When the Clintons moved back into 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., the political world would once again be Bill Clinton's oyster. Maybe there would even be a co-presidency.

Perhaps he would get another crack at settling the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Some even speculated that he would follow in the footsteps of William Howard Taft and become the second ex-president to serve on the Supreme Court.

Suddenly many of those possibilities are gone, or at least significantly reduced. The 42nd president's reputation as a master politician and respected elder statesman has been damaged. Some Clinton partisans are privately grumbling that he helped sink his wife's presidential campaign.

How did this happen? How did it all go so wrong for the man who almost single-handedly led the Democrats out of the political wilderness 16 years ago? Read article.

Why some men dislike Hillary

Bradley R. Gitz, Arkansas Democrat Gazette.com

With her campaign finally thankfully kaput, prepare for the claim that Hillary Clinton lost because men simply weren't ready for a strong woman. The claim is based on a kernel of truth in the sense that undoubtedly there are some men who won't, under any circumstances, vote for a woman for public office, let alone the presidency. But to note this is to say nothing of any significance because it will be possible to say the same thing 500 years from now if America is lucky enough to still exist and still be a democracy. Such observations are irrelevant because they do nothing more than reaffirm that sexism, racism and other prejudices will always be with us.

More to the point, they fail to provide much explanation for why a particular voting bloc, in this case men, didn't provide many votes for a particular candidate, in this case Clinton, in a given election year. In reality, it isn't strong women that men dislike, it's radical, left-wing feminists like Clinton. Men almost certainly would have welcomed the opportunity to vote this election year for a female candidate like Condoleezza Rice, whose accomplishments are both vastly more substantial and more the consequence of her own efforts than are Clinton's. Read article.

Obama von Bismarck

Peter Ferrara, Spectator.org

For all his talk of a new politics of change and unity across partisan lines, Barack Obama said last week that as President he would deny working people the freedom to choose a better deal for Social Security. No real change for that program, adopted over 70 years ago, following the model adopted by German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck in 1889.

Indeed, Obama even voted against legislation to stop the longstanding raid on the Social Security trust funds. The supposedly old and stodgy John McCain, however, voted for the legislation to stop the raid, and supports allowing each worker the freedom to make their own choice regarding personal accounts.

This reveals yet again the sad truth about Barack Obama. Despite all of his empty rhetoric, he supports no change whatsoever from the liberal left welfare state adopted in the 1960s, and even the 1930s, based on the cutting edge social theories of the late 19th century. Instead, what he really wants is to go back to the old, outdated policies of those bygone eras with a rigid vengeance. Read article.

Clinton Insiders Take Umbrage at Solis Doyle Move

Anne E. Kornblut, Washington Post.com

The nomination fight is over, but the warring between the Obama and Clinton campaigns lives on.

The Obama team announced today that it had picked former Clinton campaign manager Patti Solis Doyle to serve on its general election staff. Fair enough: Solis Doyle is a native Chicagoan with deep ties to many senior Obama aides.

But Solis Doyle -- who after her firing midway through the primaries is no longer on speaking terms with much of the Clinton inner circle, including the senator herself -- has been tapped to serve as chief of staff to the future vice presidential running mate. Not exactly a signal that Obama is considering Hillary Clinton for the job.

At least that's how Clinton loyalists see it. "It's a slap in the face," Susie Tompkins Buell, a prominent Clinton backer, said in an interview. Read article.

Rendell vs. Ridge

Salena Zito, Pittsburgh Live.com

Could Pennsylvania be the keystone to the vice presidency?

Both Tom Ridge and Ed Rendell are reported as in the hunt to be on the national tickets of their parties' presidential nominees. Ridge is Pennsylvania's former two-term Republican governor and one-time national homeland security director; Rendell is now in his second term as the state's Democrat governor.

Both are very popular in their own rights -- and very effective politicians. Yet they have never met on a political battleground.

But what if their parties' nominees were to pick them as their wingmen?

"It would be the dramatic match-up that Pennsylvanians never got to see," says GOP political strategist John Brabender.

Brabender gives an ever-so-slight edge to Ridge, based on his national experience, but says Rendell's turn as head of the Democratic National Committee during the 2000 recount and his stunning barnstorming for Clinton in Pennsylvania in April probably keeps that edge slim. Read article.

Countering Democrats on Drilling

Patrick J. Casey, American Thinker.com

The Democrats have a standardized talking point against any domestic drilling (in ANWR, the Midwest oil shales and off-shore), settling on the comeback: "It won't help us today." Energy-savvy Republicans too often respond "If Clinton hadn't vetoed ANWR, that oil field would have been producing three years ago." While technically correct, the retort doesn't hit the Democrats where they are weakest.

Battle of the Narratives

Blame for the rise of gasoline prices (and everything else dependent on petroleum) is a political commodity right now, with each side seeking to hold the other culpable. The Democrats are avoiding their traditional environmental arguments for good reason.

If the voters see environmentalists, tree-huggers, and their Democratic political minions as causing $4 or $5 dollar a gallon gasoline, along with the rise in consumer prices across the board because of the increase of the cost of oil used as an ingredient in many products, they will blame the Democrats.

And frustration with environmentalism is starting to show up in the polls, which are indicating an increasing call for domestic drilling from the American public. Read article.

AWOL on ANWR

Jack Kelly, JWR.com

Sen. John McCain plans to visit Colombia and Canada this summer, presumably to contrast his views on free trade with those of Sen. Barack Obama. He may also visit Iraq, in part to remind people Sen. Obama hasn't been there in more than two years.

Sen. McCain should add one more stop on his summer travel itinerary. He should visit the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, an area about the size of South Carolina in Alaska's far north.

Oil companies want to drill in a portion of ANWR roughly the size of Dulles airport, where the U.S. Geological Survey thinks there may be 10.4 billion barrels of recoverable oil, an amount equivalent to 37 percent of the current U.S. proved reserves of 21.7 billion barrels. But Sen. McCain says he'd no sooner drill in ANWR than in the Grand Canyon.

Parts of ANWR are beautiful. But not that small portion of the coastal plain where the oil companies want to drill. It's treeless tundra and bogs, mosquito infested in the short summer, frightfully cold (up to 70 degrees below zero) in the long winter.

Sen. McCain seems to be unaware that uranium was mined in the "pristine" Grand Canyon from 1953 to 1969, quite near to where most of the tourists go. It hasn't seemed to have spoiled their view.

Sen. McCain supports Arizona Power's plan to build the world's largest solar electricity plant on 1,900 acres of desert near Gila Bend, Arizona. "What's the difference between 'despoiling' 2,000 acres of pristine desert with a giant farm of solar panels and 'despoiling' 2,000 acres of frozen tundra with a few drilling rigs?" asked a reader of National Review Online. Read article.

Obama Campaign Plans Fundraisers in China

Matthew Mosk, Washington Post.com

Sens. Barack Obama and John McCain are in the midst of a fundraising binge, and it appears there is nowhere the two White House hopefuls won't go in search of dough.

Next week, the Obama campaign will hold two fundraising events in China.

The candidate himself won't be making an appearance. Instead, guests at the Bejing home of David Brooks, a Coca Cola executive there, will hear from two senior foreign policy fellows from the Brookings Institution who advise the Obama campaign, Ivo Daalder and Phil Gordon. If the June 17 appearance does not satisfy, American expatriates in China can hear the two foreign policy experts opine at an event on June 19 in Shanghai hosted by Ted Hornbein, an executive a Richco, a company that manufactures electronic components for cell phones and the like.

No rules prohibit fundraising abroad, so long as the donors are American citizens. And a number of the 2008 presidential contenders engaged in overseas fundraising during the past 16 months. Read article.

Obama funding of cronies

Judith A. Klinghoffer, Political Mavens.com

This is not my usual cup of tea but the sourcing the circulating email seems reliable. It deals with certain iffy Democratic candidate Obama's earmarks and grants Practices. Say what you wish, new "hopeful" kind of politics this ain't.

Rezko, Pfleger, Khalidi, FORUM, Inc, Emil Jones, Michelle and U. of Chicago hospitals, political supporters, ex-boss Allison S. Davis. [Read eye opener! - CLICK HERE. ]

Meet Obama's new albatross: Supporter backs Iraqi terror

WND.com

An American citizen who returned to Iraq after the fall of Saddam Hussein to become minister of electricity has called for support of the terrorist insurgency and claims to have contributed the maximum amount under the law to the presidential candidacy of Barack Obama.

Ayham al-Samurai, a Sunni Muslim and former Iraqi exile who lived in the U.S. for 20 years, held a press conference in Amman, Jordan, yesterday saying he hoped the terrorist insurgents in Iraq "would continue against occupation and avenge the Iraqi people."

The former Chicagoan added, in remarks carried by Radio Sawa, that he had contributed $2,300 to Obama's campaign.

Obama's opponent, Sen. John McCain, has been making much of the support offered the Illinois senator's campaign by Hamas's top political adviser, Ahmed Yousuf, in an exclusive interview with WND's Jerusalem bureau chief Aaron Klein. News that a fellow Chicagoan is both supporting him politically as well as the insurgency in Iraq is not expected to be welcome news in the Obama camp.

However, al-Samurai's ties to Illinois and Obama don't stop with the financial contribution.

While serving as minister of electricity, al-Samurai brokered deals with Antoin Rezko, the Syrian-American millionaire who backed Obama politically and personally. Rezko was convicted of fraud in Illinois the day Obama unofficially declared himself the winner of the Democratic nomination. Read article.

LBJ's List and the Conservative Challenge

Jeffrey Lord, American Spectator.org

Somewhere, Lyndon B. Johnson is insulted.

Claiming victory in the race for the Democrats' nomination, Senator Barack Obama said this:

"Because if we are willing to work for it, and fight for it, and believe in it, then I am absolutely certain that generations from now, we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment when we began to provide care for the sick and good jobs to the jobless; this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal."

Excuse me? You mean all those LBJ Great Society programs weren't enough for Obama?

Just as oysters need irritation for pearls, the next golden age of conservatism hovers at the edge of an Obama presidency.

Yet whether Obama or McCain wins the White House, the challenge for conservatives in 2008 is to illustrate conservative principles with a sharp and vivid clarity. To understand them, to teach them -- and yes to fight for them. Relentlessly, no matter who is president or who controls the Congress. To fight in Washington, sure. On the campaign trail, yes. But most particularly in the media, making the case no matter what Republican candidates or office holders do or do not do.

If the Republican Party of 1964 learned anything -- and they didn't learn it all at once way back then either -- it is that elections are about principles, not candidates. The paradigm-shifting 1964 election was not about Goldwater any more than the 1980 election was about Reagan or the 2008 election is about McCain. In the post-1964 world, conservative principles faithfully understood and represented will win. When you run from them, in an elusive search for the fool's gold of a phantom popularity with liberals, you will lose. You will lose an election or you will lose your office or you will lose your legacy.

More to the point? If you call yourself a conservative yet think it's your job to add to LBJ's list, you will deserve to lose. Read article.

Energy Crisis, Congressional Stupidity, And Election 2008

Austin Hill, Townhall.com

It's no mystery that the United States is home to its own substantial oil and gas resources. It is also true that oil corporations, themselves, are NOT the villains behind the skyrocketing fuel prices. The problem is, without a doubt, the United States Congress.

Currently, it is a violation of federal law to search for oil in the Pacific Ocean, in the Gulf of Mexico, in the Atlantic Ocean, and in Alaska. Similarly, it is against the law to search for oil shale in the continental United States. Congress has the power to change federal laws that restrict such energy exploration and development, but has chosen not to do this.

And if "Congress" is to blame for these harmful laws, that means that there is plenty of blame to go around among Republicans and Democrats alike. Republicans controlled the Congress for nearly twelve of the last thirteen and a half years, and during that time the stupidity on energy policy remained intact.

Yet for the past seventeen months, Democrats have been in control of Congress. And what has been the response from our nation's legislative body regarding our most recent energy crisis? For one, the Democrats introduced legislation that would raise taxes on oil companies. Read article.

Michelle Obama Looks for a New Introduction

Michael Powell & Jodi Kantor, NY Times.com

Michelle Obama's eyes flicker tentatively even as she offers a trained smile. As her campaign plane arcs over the Flathead Range in Montana, she is asked to consider her complicated public image.

Conservative columnists accuse her of being unpatriotic and say she simmers with undigested racial anger. A blogger who supported Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton circulates unfounded claims that Mrs. Obama gave an accusatory speech in her church about the sins of "whitey." Mrs. Obama shakes her head.

"You are amazed sometimes at how deep the lies can be," she says in an interview. Referring to a character in a 1970s sitcom, she adds: "I mean, ‘whitey'? That's something that George Jefferson would say. Anyone who says that doesn't know me. They don't know the life I've lived. They don't know anything about me."

Now her husband's presidential campaign is giving her image a subtle makeover, with a new speech in the works to emphasize her humble roots and a tough new chief of staff. Read article.