Exclusive: Monday, July 14

by PRESIDENTIAL WATCH July 14, 2008

Is Obama planning to disarm America? - GO HERE.

Obama's Iraq Problem: Change That Works For Him (COMPARE) - VIEW THIS. .then VIEW THIS!

True or false that Michelle Obama's Princeton thesis was restricted from release until Nov. 5, 2008? FIND THE ANSWER HERE.

They used to be close. Kind of. Jesse and Barack's awkward past.

Allison Samuels, Newsweek.com

There was a time when Jesse Jackson and Barack Obama were, to all appearances, good friends. In the '90s, as Obama was rising in Illinoispolitics, he and Jackson would often attend community events and fund-raisers together. They went out to dinner and invited each other to family birthday parties.

In private, though, the relationship was more complicated, and not as close as it seemed. The men had different approaches to politics: Jackson was old school, an unyielding civil-rights-era fighter ever on the lookout for injustice to denounce. Obama-like other younger black politicians who came up after Jim Crow-was less heated, a results-oriented pragmatist who was willing to compromise and who saw the old guard's combative style as obsolete. Obama did not consider the reverend as his mentor; when Obama ran for Congress in 2000, Jackson backed his rival. Yet Obama was careful not to push Jackson away. He was a powerful figure in Chicago, a man better to cultivate than alienate.

Now it's Jackson who has to worry about alienating Obama. Read article.

It's the Oil, Stupid

Hugh Hewitt, Townhall.com

The economic mess the country confronts can be laid at the feet of Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid. The Don't Drill Democrats are forcing deindustrialization through depression brought about by soaring energy costs. This is a man-made meltdown, and make no mistake: The Democrats could halt and reverse the skyrocketing cost of oil, but they are choosing not to.

The impact of the massive oil shock brought about by the rise of oil to more than $140 a barrel has just begun to be felt. The airline industry has gotten organized to alert everyone it can that it cannot continue to stagger along at this price. Eight airlines are completely gone that flew a year ago, and many others are on the brink. Layoffs and new charges to battle soaring costs are hardly worth noting they arrive so frequently.

Tremors continue to course through Wall Street as investors shunned mortgage giants Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae and yesterday worried Congressmen throw questions at the Fed Chairman and the secretary of the Treasury: How bad can it get? Read article.

Barack W. Bush? - Of late, Obama seems to be promising a third Bush administration.

Victor Davis Hanson, NRO.com

Almost everyone is talking about Barack Obama's flip-flops, as the Senate's most liberal member steadily moves to the political center and disowns firebrands like Rev. Jeremiah Wright and Fr. Michael Pfleger.

But less noticed is that Obama is not just deflating John McCain's efforts to hold him to his long liberal record, but also embracing much of the present agenda of an unpopular President Bush on a wide variety of fronts.

Take social issues. Obama is now a gun-rights advocate. Like Bush, he applauded the Supreme Court's overturning of a Washington, D.C., ordinance banning the possession of handguns.

Obama is changing so fast and so radically that it's hard to believe he really knows who he is - or who he would be as president. In fact, Obama is sounding a lot these days like those red-state, small-town conservatives he once caricatured in his infamous comment about Pennsylvanians who "cling" to such hot-button, but extraneous, social causes. Read article.

Obama Steps on Political Land Mine!

Alipac.us

Following the hard lessons of New York Governor Elliot Spitzer's failed attempt to give licenses to illegal aliens and John McCain's close call with political destruction for supporting Comprehensive Immigration Reform Amnesty in 2007, Barack Obama has stepped on a political land mine stating Americans should be forced to learn to speak Spanish.

YouTube videos showing his speech have gone viral and the new media is quickly distributing his comments which are opposed by approximately 4 out of 5 Americans according to Rasmussen Report polling from last month which shows Eighty-three percent (83%) place a higher priority on encouraging immigrants to speak English as their primary language. Just 13% take the opposite view and say it is more important for Americans to learn other languages.

Obama says in the video "instead of worrying about whether immigrants can learn English," Americans "need to make sure your child can speak Spanish."

You can view the video at this link. This copy has gone viral and already been viewed over 200,000 times in one day reaching the #1 most discussed and #2 most viewed video on Youtube! CLICK HERE.

Obama, Fonda and the "Patriotism of Dissent"

Don Feder, GrassTopsUSA.com

On June 30, Barack Obama gives a speech in Independence, Missouri proclaiming his "deep and abiding love for this country," and daring anyone to question his patriotism.

The July 7 issue of "Time" Magazine has a cover story ("The New Patriotism") asserting, "And no matter how they define patriotism, Americans should tremble before insisting that any fellow citizen lacks it." If the mainstream media got talking points from the Democratic National Committee, they could hardly be more on-message.

At the Independence rally, standing in front of not one but four American flags, lapel pin firmly in place, hand over heart -- all that was missing was John Philip Sousa and the Mormon Tabernacle Choir -- Barack Hussein Obama "tried to reassure voters about his patriotism" (in the words of ABC News).

When was the last time a presidential candidate had to reassure voters that he actually liked his country? Do you wonder, then, that the Democrats consider patriotism Obama's Achilles heel?

Just because he refused to wear an American flag lapel pin last year, just because he wouldn't hold his hand anywhere near his heart while the National Anthem played, just because Frau Obama suggested that she never had a reason to feel pride in America until her husband's presidential campaign, just because his minister of 20 years regularly reviled the United States from the pulpit, is that any reason to question Obama's patriotism? That's a rhetorical question.

"At certain times over the last 16 months, I have found, for the first time, my patriotism challenged," Obama disclosed to gasps of astonished outrage from the audience. Read article.

Barack's Patsies - Obama's Astounding Bad Faith

Rich Lowry, NY Post.com

The signature moment of Barack Obama's primary campaign came last November in Des Moines, Iowa.

He gave a speech at the Jefferson-Jackson Dinner that electrified the crowd and gave his campaign a kick that helped win the Iowa caucuses - a victory without which he wouldn't be the Democratic nominee.

Obama declared that "the same old Washington textbook campaigns just won't do." Deploring "triangulating and poll-driven positions," he said,"telling the American people what we think they want to hear instead of telling the American people what they need to hear just won't do." The Democratic Party had been at its best, he told the crowd, when "we led, not by polls, but by principles; not by calculation, but by conviction."

What makes Obama's "textbook" dash to the center so extraordinary isn't just its speed, but how it falsifies the very essence of his candidacy.

Has there ever in recent political memory been so much calculation and bad faith by a politician who has made so much of eschewing both? Read article.

Flip-Flapping

George Neumayr, Spectator.org

Whenever Obama moves "to the middle," it is to not to stay there, but to collect new voters and bring them back with him to the left. Toward this end, he engages in a constant stream of throat-clearing rhetoric heavy with slow and solemn qualifiers, lest his liberalism appear too stark and off-putting.

The windier Obama gets, the more obvious it becomes that he is trying to triangulate liberal positions without changing them. He likes to load his statements with something for everyone, but insert just enough liberal substance in them to make sure that his base knows where his true position lies.

The pattern so far seems to be: He makes an ostensibly bold and new statement, suggesting to moderates and conservatives that he is a "post-partisan" Democrat open to compromise, followed by a day or two of mop-up work designed to reassure anxious liberals that he hasn't moved to the middle at all.

This style of misdirection works in his favor for the most part. Many voters aren't interested in unscrambling tedious, what-exactly-did-he-say? controversies. Read article.

Limbaugh Begins Second Phase of 'Chaos'

Steven Portnoy, ABC News.com

Rush Limbaugh, opening the second phase of his "Operation Chaos" campaign to make mischief within the Democratic Party, called on his millions of listeners Wednesday to take part in the Sen. Barack Obama campaign's effort to democratize the party platform.

In announcing his latest "orders from headquarters," Limbaugh called "all forward position troops in the 50 states - make that 57 states" to alert. (During the primary campaign, Obama mistakenly said that he had visited "57 states.")

Limbaugh, who is now referring to the presumptive Democratic nominee as "the Most Merciful Messiah, Lord Obama," urged his audience to attend open meetings at which the Democratic platform will be discussed.

"This year, with the blessings of the Messiah, Lord Obama, the process of writing the Democrat party platform will be open to the public. Do you see where we're headed here?" the nation's number-one commercial talk radio host suggestively asked. Read article.

Michelle Obama praises husband's support for homosexual causes

Catholic News Agency.com

Michelle Obama, wife of Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama, on Thursday told the Democratic National Committee's Gay and Lesbian Caucus that her husband wants to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) and reverse the rule on homosexuals in the military.

In her speech, she also compared homosexual advocacy groups with the civil rights movement, referring to events "from Selma to Stonewall" as a progression of justice.

Cybercast News Service reports that Michelle Obama began her speech by praising the 2003 U.S. Supreme Court decision Lawrence v. Texas, which struck down anti-sodomy laws. Because of the decision, she said, "same-sex couples would never again be persecuted through the use of criminal law."

"We are all only here because of those who marched and bled and died, from Selma to Stonewall," she said. [Can we say "overblown?"] Read article.

Don't Misunderestimate Obama

Patrick J. Buchanan, Townhall.com

With 68 percent of Americans believing George Bush has done a poor job, and 82 percent saying the country is on the wrong track, the election of 2008 will turn on one issue: Barack Obama.

If Sen. Obama can convince the people he is "one of us," and not some snooty radical liberal from Chicago's Hyde Park, who looks down upon white America as a fever swamp of racism and reaction, a la the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, the senator will be the next president.

The election of 2008 thus mirrors the election of 1980.

Then, the country wanted Jimmy Carter gone. Americans had had enough of 21 percent interest rates, 13 percent inflation and 7 percent unemployment. They wanted the Iranian hostage crisis ended, violently if necessary. After the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, America wanted a leader who would not kiss Leonid Brezhnev on the cheek but reassert American power.

The issue then was Ronald Reagan. Portrayed as some Al Capp cartoon of a crazed right-winger and B-Grade Hollywood actor given to spouting Reader's Digest bromides, Reagan was regarded as ridiculous by much of the media and too big a risk by much of the nation.

In one debate with Carter, Reagan erased the misperceptions and turned a close race into a cakewalk. That is Barack's opportunity.

A savvy politician, he has measured correctly the hurdle he must surmount and is moving expeditiously to alter an image of him forged by his own past associations and policy positions. In three weeks, he has jettisoned his new politics in a stunning display of raw pragmatism. Read article.

The Trojan Candidate

Julian Krasta, Novus Ordo Seclorum.BlogTownhall.com

The intellectual communities all over the world are waiting in an agony of suspense as to whether John McCain or Barack Obama will be elected the next President of the United States. The suspense is rooted in the hope for granite security and the prospect for lasting peace, which could altogether vanish if, in January 2009, the wrong man raises his hand and takes the oath.

Senator McCain is uncomplicated with respect to the leadership and defense of our country. His fearless patriotism was formed and hardened by an irrefutable fact: The American People's collective resolve coupled with the actions of our awesome military, in their harshest terms, are proof to our enemies - of the past, present and, yes, future - that we play in a bigger and badder league than they could ever dream.

By stark contrast, Obama requires a daily diet of total compliance and idolization. His word salads are a gross national product of cants and fantasies, and is devoted to injecting chaos into the jellied minds of the crowds of people (here and in countries such as Syria) that play into his fantasies. He has successfully accomplished this because his is a cocktail personality, meaning: He senses other people's vulnerabilities, he reads their personalities, and performs accordingly. It is the classic sign of a sociopath. Read article.

Behind Enemy Lines

David Limbaugh, David Limbaugh.com

While everyone is focusing on Barack Obama's shifting positions on issues such as campaign finance, NAFTA, telecom immunity and Iraq, we're missing his incursion into enemy territory to capture those reviled, though politically coveted values voters.

His recent proposal to adopt a modified version of President Bush's faith-based initiative is just another piece of his strategic plan to seduce evangelical voters to his cause.

Obama is aiming for a threefer: wooing values voters, reconciling with small-town Americans, and neutralizing the taint of Jeremiah Wright and turning the religious issue into a net plus for his campaign. Hey, no one says this guy is politically naive.

You see, most liberals aren't really concerned about the intermixture of church and state unless it involves the Christian church, and only then if it involves the promotion of biblically based ideas and values. They have no problem with the government's endorsement of the values of other religions, New Age, or secular humanism. Even the state's or politicians' endorsement of nominally Christian values don't bother them, as long as they are watered down enough to detach them from any legitimate connection to Bible-centered Christianity and reframed to embrace the secular liberal worldview. Read article.

Obama's Tragic Flaw - Reality!

Geoff Metcalf, NewsWithViews.com

Barack Obama, who has been reiterating the "change" refrain like a minister calling for an "Amen!" is now amending and revising his doctrine.kinda/sorta. And the sycophant faithful who embraced the certitude of their rock star candidate don't like that change is subject to change. Once again, words apparently do have meaning.

The New Barack Obama:

1. Iraq may take longer?

2. Pro Gun

3. Pro Religion

4. Pro Death Penalty

5. Pro expanding eavesdropping programs

6. Anti-public campaign funding

Once upon a time, Bil Gilbert wrote (about John Audubon, the bird guy), "Audubon biographers and scholars [have noted], by various euphemisms, that all great men have their flaws, and their man's principal flaw was that he, well, he lied a lot."

So Obama is in good company with Audubon, Bill and Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, and yes, equal numbers of Republicans. Read article.

Economics for Middle America

Editors, NRO.com

Competitiveness, prudence, and growth: These are the watchwords of John McCain's economic policy. He would reduce the corporate tax rate to a level comparable to those of our major trading partners, making American businesses competitive. He promises to balance the budget by 2013 and to eliminate earmarks immediately. He would keep taxes on investment low so that the economy will flourish.

The sophisticates in the press will of course scoff that it is impossible to cut taxes while balancing the budget. But let's not overestimate the difficulty of getting rid of the deficit. Earlier this year Kevin Hassett simulated what would have happened had President Bush and Congress kept discretionary spending to the level envisioned by the Congressional Budget Office in 2001.

The result: "[W]e could have had the prescription-drug plan, the Iraq war and the war against terrorists. We could have kept all the Bush tax cuts, made them permanent, repealed the AMT and added the stimulus package and still ended up with a balanced budget from 2008 to 2017." If Hassett is in the right ballpark, we should be skeptical about the predictions that McCain's plan cannot work.

Our own worries about the McCain plan are different. It offers very little in the way of direct benefits to Americans in the middle of the income scale. Controlling spending and cutting corporate tax rates may benefit them a great deal - but only indirectly and eventually. Republicans have won on the tax issue when they have also put money in people's pockets. Read article.