Exclusive: Tuesday, July 15

by PRESIDENTIAL WATCH July 15, 2008

Are foreigners "superior to Americans?" See what Barack Obama thinks - CLICK HERE.

See clip of Obama's speech to "La Raza" - GO HERE.

See Barack Obama's plan to disarm America - GO HERE.

Daily Presidential Tracking Poll

Race for the White House is tied. Sunday's numbers show Barack Obama and John McCain each attracting 43% GO HERE.

Birth certificate petition shut down by threat from Obama supporter

Snorphty.Blogspot.com

forged birth certificate. This is worrisome for a number of reasons. First off, that he and/or his campaign staff thought the general public was that stupid/gullible (well, on second thought, he DOES have a lot of supporters, maybe a lot of them ARE that stupid.), and secondly why on earth would they feel that they needed to submit a forgery? Is he a native US citizen or not? Or is this about his name? or his parent's religion?

Either way, it is a reasonable thing to look at since after all, there is that little legal requirement that he be a native US citizen, and not just a naturalized one. One person put up a website for an online petition calling for the REAL birth certificate to be released, but within hours of it going up, someone, using the site operator's home address, left a veiled threat against the site operator and his family.

""Petition Closed

A veiled threat was made against myself and my family, which included our home address, so I have decided to close the petition for good. It is truly sad that political discourse in our country has come to this." Read article.

Lurching with Abandon

Bob Herbert, NY Times.com

Senator Obama is not just tacking gently toward the center. He's lurching right when it suits him, and he's zigging with the kind of reckless abandon that's guaranteed to cause disillusion, if not whiplash. Outstanding analysis of McCain vs. Obama on spending!

"What's he doing?" is the most common question heard recently from Obama supporters.

For one thing, he's taking his base for granted, apparently believing that such stalwart supporters as blacks, progressives and pumped-up younger voters will be with him no matter what. A taste of the backlash this can produce erupted on the candidate's own Web site.

There has been a reluctance among blacks to openly criticize Senator Obama, the first black candidate with a real shot at the presidency. But behind the scenes, there is discontent among African-Americans, as well. Mr. Obama is betting that in the long run none of this will matter.

He seems to believe that his shifts and twists and clever panders will entice large numbers of independent and conservative voters to climb off the fence and run into his yard. Read article.

Obama's Next Pivot?

James Taranto, Online WSJ.com

"Faced with mounting pressure from voters to respond to record gasoline prices, some senior Democratic lawmakers Tuesday opened the door to a compromise with Republicans that would open more land on and offshore to oil and gas exploration and production," The Wall Street Journal reports:

Speaking to reporters Tuesday, Senate Majority Whip Richard Durbin (D., Ill.), said "I'm open to drilling and responsible production," adding that he and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, (D., Nev.), could support a modest expansion of offshore production.

What's behind this? Durbin is the senior senator from Illinois. The junior senator from Illinois, Barack Obama, has clinched the Democratic nomination for president. On Sunday Obama's Republican counterpart, John McCain, issued an ad faulting Obama for, among other things, his opposition to offshore drilling:

Record gas prices. A climate in crisis. John McCain says solve it now with a balanced plan: Alternative energy, conservation, suspending the gas tax, and more production here at home. He's pushing his own party to face climate change. But Barack Obama? For conservation, but he just says no to lower gas taxes, no to nuclear, no to more production. No new solutions. Barack Obama: Just the party line. Read article.

Obama backers on the left are doing the wincing now

John Kass, Chicago Tribune.com

When Jesse Jackson's Castrato-gate or the Barack Obama Nuts Controversy or whatever you want to call it erupted last week-as captured by the hot microphones of Fox News-terrible cries of pain went unnoticed.

Not from Obama, who, as presidential historians will tell us after his inauguration in January, was the great beneficiary of the rhetorical Jacksonian castration, and no cries from Jackson, either.

Jackson's too busy to shriek. He's suffering the ambition of African-American politicos eager to replace him as America's race broker.

The cries of pain came not from Obama or Jackson but from the American political left, from scribes and liberal editorial writers and broadcast analysts and eager bloggers. The true believers who evangelized that Obama would transcend politics as we knew it are suffering a Barackian hangover.

Obama used them to crush the Clintons, but now the left is finally realizing it's been betrayed, on issue after issue, with Obama changing his positions in order to defeat a tired and disillusioned Republican Party in November.

They're at the dance now and he's the one with the keys and he's the only ride they've got. And they don't like it. Read article.

Staggering Obama Hypocrisy on Iran

Weekly Standard Blog.com

Readers may recall that the question of whether to impose tougher economic sanctions against the IRGC came before the Senate late last year, in the form of the Kyl-Lieberman amendment. The overwhelming bipartisan majority of the Senate embraced the measure--including Harry Reid, Hillary Clinton, Chuck Schumer, and Obama's fellow Illinois liberal Dick Durbin. But not Obama.

On the contrary, Obama was one of the few senators who opposed the amendment--and vociferously at that--calling it "saber rattling" and building his opposition to the measure into one of the centerpieces of his primary campaign. To this day, his website brags "Obama opposed the Kyl-Lieberman amendment," which imposed sanctions on the IRGC.

With the IRGC firing missiles that could hit Tel Aviv and sponsoring attacks on American soldiers, you'd think the MSM might want to ask Obama--why exactly did he so strongly oppose an amendment imposing economic sanctions on the IRGC last fall, if he is in favor of economic sanctions on the IRGC? Why, if he thinks Iran is such a "great threat," did he say Iran doesn't "pose a serious threat to us" during the primary campaign? Why, if he is concerned about the IRGC, did he fight so strongly against the legislative measure that represented the Congress' single greatest effort to date to go after the IRGC? Read article.

John Bolton: Obama presidency dangerous:

Former U.N. ambassador fears Democrat will impede Israel's war against terrorists

Aaron Klein, WND.com

A Barack Obama presidency would spell danger for the Middle East and for America's interests in the region, former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton told WND in an interview.

Bolton expressed concern Obama will not support the use of force to fight terrorism by U.S. allies, such as Israel.

"Obama may cause a real problem with our friends or allies who see the world as a more difficult place, such as those dealing with terrorist acts in Gaza, the West Bank or Hezbollah in Lebanon," said Bolton.

"All these things can be handled by talks, according to Obama. But when it is necessary to resort to force or self defense, Obama would look on in disfavor," Bolton said.

Bolton argued Obama holds a "broad conviction" that "everything can be negotiated and can be solved through negotiations." Read article.

The Obama Glissade

Tony Blankley, Townhall.com

Way back in June, Sen. Barack "middle name not permitted to be mentioned" Obama campaigned on the theme of "Change We Can Believe In." Now, several days later, his theme should be "Change We Can't Keep Up With." Apparently, the change he was calling for was not for Washington politics, but for his primary campaign positions.

Abortion, gun control, capital punishment, FISA laws, the status of Jerusalem, faith-based federal programs, public financing of his campaign, welfare, NAFTA and free trade, and his commitment to the Rev. Jeremiah Wright and his Trinity Church all have fallen to reconsideration, rephrasing, changed rhetorical modulation, and other semantic miracles.

As a conservative, of course, I like all his changed views except for the fact that he doesn't believe his current iteration of principle any more than he believed his previous iteration. Which brings us, as it always does in such circumstances, to America's greatest fraud sniffer, H.L. Mencken. He defined a demagogue as "one who preaches doctrines he knows to be untrue to men he knows to be idiots." Read article.

Why do Congressional Democrats fear free speech?

Ed Morrissey, Hot Air.com

Efforts in both chambers of Congress have Republicans wondering why Democrats seem to fear free speech. Rep. Michael Capuano (D-MA) has proposed limitations on how Representatives can post information to the Internet in a time when we should be demanding more transparency, not less. According to a source in the Senate, Dianne Feinstein has begun her own campaign to force Senators to seek permission before communicating over the Internet.

Soren Dayton at The Next Right has the story from the House:

In typical fashion, House Democrats are trying to pass rules that stifle debate and require regulation. Rep. Michael Capuano (D-MA) sent a letter to the Chairman of the Committee on House Administration Robert Brady (D-PA). The letter is a response to a debate about whether the House should allow members to use YouTube, first raised by Rep. Kevin McCarthy back in April. .

Well, Capuano's proposal is a disaster. It creates a list of sites, maintained by the Committee on House Administration that members are allowed to post material. Except, those sites have a caveat

In the Senate, the problem gets even worse. Feinstein (D-CA) would have the Rules Committee act as a censor board, forcing members to get approval for the act of communicating on external websites. Further, it would appear that the Feinstein proposal would attempt to exercise editorial control over these sites. Read article.

Boom Vs. Gloom

IBD Editorials.com

McCain shouldn't be "choosing" between low taxes and spending cuts. Both are needed. And on economics, Obama loses. Blind to the entitlement crisis, his new spending would mean crippling new taxes.

According to the New York Times, John McCain's economic advisers are agonizing over whether their candidate should balance the budget, as he recently promised to do by 2013, or extend the Bush tax cuts?

Then, at the end of an article on the supposed competition between supply-siders and deficit hawks, came the definitive answer from McCain senior economic adviser Douglas Holtz-Eakin: "You'll never have successful deficit-reduction without strong economic growth."

With unacceptably high fuel costs and an economy throttling down from the tax-cut-powered Bush expansion, this is no time for big tax hikes and a 21st-century version of LBJ's Great Society domestic spending spree. Read article.

McCain Vs. Obama: A Big Difference On Spending

Right Wing News.com

If you believe that the expansion of government and deficit spending are serious issues, then there almost could not be a starker difference between the two candidates for President.

Given the nature of how the price tags for government programs almost always dramatically expand, if Obama is saying he is proposing $130 billion a year in new spending, you can safely assume the initial amount is somewhere around $260 billion and rising.

Then there's McCain, who has one of the best records of fiscal conservatism in the Senate and who "has proposed relatively little new spending."

Controlling spending is like securing the borders. Every politician says that they want to do it, but then when it comes right down to it, you find that most of them don't believe what they say. Given that he's proposing all that new spending, Obama certainly isn't going to cut the deficit. On the other hand, McCain is promising to balance the budget in four years and he has proven time and time again that he will walk the walk on this issue. Read article.

The ultimately incorrigible John McCain

Byron York, The Hill.com

Last October, when John McCain's presidential campaign was nearly dead, I went to Iowa to follow him around for a few days.

The story felt like a eulogy. Few observers believed McCain could come back from the twin disasters of his campaign nearly running out of money and his disastrous stand on comprehensive immigration reform.

Riding in a van from Sioux City to Sheldon, I asked McCain what had gone wrong.

"The biggest detriment to our campaign so far - by far - was the immigration issue, because it's an emotional issue with our Republican base," he told me.

"I can show you the polling numbers - that it really didn't have anything to do with the financial situation, that as the immigration issue became hotter and hotter among Republicans, I started down.

"And it's still out there."

Boy, was that true. But McCain managed to survive. He won the nomination on the strength of his national security credentials, but he gave Republican base voters just enough reassurance on the immigration issue when he pledged to "secure the border first."

McCain succeeded as a result of what might be called a legitimate flip-flop. Read article.

Internal Politics Heat Up at McCain Campaign

Adam Nagourney, NY Times.com

Senator John McCain's campaigns have long been defined by internal squabbling and power plays, zigzagging lines of command and a penchant by the candidate for consulting with former advisers without alerting current ones, always a recipe for disquiet.

After a period of relative calm on that score, it is becoming clear that his campaign is once again a swirl of competing spheres of influence, clusters of friends, consultants and media advisers who represent a matrix of clashing ambitions and festering feuds.

The cast includes the surviving members of Mr. McCain's 2000 campaign, led by Rick Davis and Mark Salter; a new camp out of the world of Karl Rove, led by the recently ascendant Steve Schmidt; and on the periphery, the ever-present Mike Murphy, Mr. McCain's strategist in the 2000 presidential race who has been dispensing advice to the candidate to the annoyance of the other camps, and is the subject of intensifying rumors in Republican circles that he is about to re-enter the campaign.

Mr. McCain is uncomfortable firing people or banishing them entirely. His orbit remains filled with people who have been demoted without being told they are being demoted, like Mr. Davis, who continues to hold the title of campaign manager even as Mr. Schmidt manages the campaign. Yet, Mr. McCain inspires uncommon loyalty in those who serve with him. Read article.

Obama would, in fact, govern from the left

Dick Morris, Vote.com

The list of issues on which Barack Obama has flipped now that the primaries are over is long and growing rapidly.

• He says he believes in a Second Amendment right to bear arms.

• He now opposes late-term abortion.

• He suddenly is a devotee of using faith-based institutions to deliver public services.

• He now says that he won't raise Social Security taxes on anyone making less than $250,000 a year. In the primary, he said he'd eliminate the threshold entirely, including on people making as little as $100,000.

• He recently opposed the Fairness Doctrine for talk radio.

• Now he says he's going to consult with the military before pulling out of Iraq.

But so extensive a list of flip-flops, all in the past few weeks, begs the basic question: Was he lying before when he was a liberal, or is he prevaricating now? Read article.

Obama's Jimmy Carter Disaster

Slater Bakhtavar, RightBias.com

Barack Obama has said that he is inclined to meet with the internationally controversial Iranian President at the right time after due preparation and advance work by US diplomats. Contrary to mainstream media views, the President of Iran is virtually powerless.

Any candidate for the presidency of Iran must first be vetted by a hard-line group of twelve clerics who are controlled by the un-elected Supreme Leader of Iran, Ayatollah Khamenei. During the recent election for President of Iran the members of the Guardian Council disqualified over ninety-eight percent of the candidates, including all female candidates and virtually every single reformist.

Hence, although Iran has elections, these elections are simply fodder for the mainstream media, providing straw figures to distract foreign politicians like Barack Obama. Many of Barack Obama's national security policies are sideways backward-looking and retreads from the Carter Administration. Read article.