May 22, 2012
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Exclusive: Saturday, August 9
by PRESIDENTIAL WATCH August 9, 2008
Incompatible: President of the United States and "Citizen of the World"
Arnold Ahlert, Political Mavens.com
“Tonight, I speak to you not as a candidate for President, but as a citizen - a proud citizen of the United States, and a fellow citizen of the world.”–Barack Obama, Berlin July 24, 2008
Some people can say virtually anything and get away with it. A “fellow citizen of the world?” Perhaps Barack Obama believes such a lofty characterization of himself is above scrutiny. Has it occurred to Sen. Obama and his followers that such a definition applies to everyone? Aren’t Osama Bin Laden, Robert Mugabe, Kim Jong Il and other assorted mass murderers, ruthless dictators and crackpots “fellow citizens of the world?”
The world has never been at a loss for dreamers who believe all of mankind is just one “inspirational” idea away from total harmony and everlasting peace. It is one thing when such people inhabit coffee bars, college campuses and candlelight vigils.
It is quite another when one presumes to inhabit the Oval Office.
In that world, such doe-eyed thinking is the antithesis of being responsible for keeping 300 million Americans safe from the “fellow citizens of the world” whose sole purpose in life is working towards our annihilation. They are not now, nor have they ever been, the least bit interested in “tearing down the walls that separate us,” “knowing the dream of freedom,” or “drying up the wells of terrorism.” Read article.
The Green Hornet
Review & Outlook, Online WSJ.com
On Monday, Mr. Obama said that the U.S. must "end the age of oil in our time," with "real results by the end of my first term in office." This, he said, will "take nothing less than a complete transformation of our economy." Mark that one down as the understatement of the year. Maybe Mr. Obama really is the Green Hornet, or some other superhero of his current political myth.
The Senator calls for $150 billion over 10 years to achieve "energy independence," with elevated subsidies for renewable alternatives and efficiency programs. He also says he'll "leverage billions more in private capital to build a new energy economy," euphemistically referring to his climate plan to tax and regulate greenhouse gases. Every President since Nixon has declared "energy independence," as Mr. Obama noted. But this time, he says, things will change.
They won't. And not because of "the old politics," or whatever. Currently, alternative sources -- wind, solar, biomass, hydroelectric and geothermal -- provide less than 7% of yearly domestic consumption. Throw out hydro and geothermal, and it's only 4%. For the foreseeable future, renewables simply cannot provide the scale and volume of energy needed to meet growing U.S. demand, which is expected to increase by 20% over the next two decades. Even with colossal taxpayer subsidies, renewables probably can't even slow the rate of growth of carbon-based fuel consumption, much less replace it. Read article.
Obama's Plans Spell Economic Doom
Morris & McGann, NewsMax.com
Barack Obama had it half right when he said that the McCain campaign would focus on raising voters' fears about him.
He was wrong in saying that the chief point of attack would be that he "doesn't look like all those other presidents on dollar bills." He wishes that were it.
But McCain does need to raise fears about Obama; that is, play on voters' worries about electing a man they don't know who has only a few years of experience in federal office. (Indeed, Obama's only been in the Senate since 2005, and he spent most of 2007 and 2008 running for president, paying almost no attention to his duties in the Senate, as witness his absentee record.)
These fears will focus on two key areas: the economy and national security.
McCain needs voters to hear repeatedly, from top economists and office-holders, that Obama's tax-hike plans spell economic doom. The campaign must explain that Obama is not simply raising taxes on the rich, he's crippling their ability to generate jobs, make investments and produce wealth. Read article.
Barack Obama's Lost Years
Stanley Kurtz, Weekly Standard.com
The senator's tenure as a state legislator reveals him to be an old-fashioned, big government, race-conscious liberal.
Barack Obama's neighborhood newspaper, the Hyde Park Herald, has a longstanding tradition of opening its pages to elected officials-from Chicago aldermen to state legislators to U.S. senators. Obama himself, as a state senator, wrote more than 40 columns for the Herald, under the title "Springfield Report," between 1996 and 2004. Read in isolation, Obama's columns from the state capital tell us little. Placed in the context of political and policy battles then raging in Illinois, however, the young legislator's dispatches powerfully illuminate his political beliefs. Even more revealing are hundreds of articles chronicling Obama's early political and legislative activities in the pages not only of the Hyde Park Herald, but also of another South Side fixture, the Chicago Defender.
Obama moved to Chicago in order to place himself in what he understood to be the de facto "capital" of black America. For well over 100 years, the Chicago Defender has been the voice of that capital, and therefore a paper of national significance for African Americans. Early on in his political career, Obama complained of being slighted by major media, like the Chicago Tribune and the Chicago Sun-Times. Yet extensive and continuous coverage in both the Chicago Defender and the Hyde Park Herald presents a remarkable resource for understanding who Obama is. Reportage in these two papers is particularly significant because Obama's early political career-the time between his first campaign for the Illinois State Senate in 1995 and his race for U.S. Senate in 2004-can fairly be called the "lost years. Read article.
What if Obama Loses? The question Obamaniacs Refuse to Consider
Maureen Callahan, NY Post.com
As it turns out, there is a way to render the most vocal Obamamanic speechless: Ask if the possibility - however slight, however remote - of their candidate losing is something that may have ever, for the briefest moment, crossed their mind.
As with the 1932 election - when anti-Hoover, anti-GOP sentiment was at its apex - "this election is about George W. Bush," says presidential historian Robert Dallek (who predicts an Obama victory by the slimmest of margins). "It's a repudiation of this presidency, the war, the state of the economy." But curiously, a recent Fox poll showed that among registered voters, McCain and Obama were nearly tied - yet 51% of those same voters expect Obama to win the presidency. That perception gap between the number of people who will vote for him versus the number of people expected to vote for him could lead to a disappointing November. "If Obama loses, it will deepen the cynicism and frustration of Democrats in general and particularly his supporters," Dallek says. "And I think there will be a feeling that race sunk him." Read article.
A perfect match: Barack Obama and the dogma-lite elite
Philip Delves Broughton, TimesOnline.co.uk
America’s young super-rich are drawn to Obama because he lives and networks just like they do.
Barack Obama’s presidential campaign has rested on two very different sources of financial support. The first has been well documented: the million or so small donors who gave less than £100 each, largely through Obama’s peerless website and social networking efforts.
The second is less well known, but far more significant in terms of his future administration. These are the financiers, entrepreneurs and venture capitalists who perceive in him not only a likely winner, from an investment perspective, but also a man whose rise and ideology-lite politics closely mirror their own. They include men like Ken Griffin, the baby-faced, 40-year-old billionaire who runs Citadel Investment Group, one of the largest hedge funds in the US.
Griffin is one of those profiting from America’s financial ailments by buying up distressed debt – of which there is a great deal at the moment. But he is also a fierce critic of traditional Wall Street, accusing it of “dropping the ball” and causing a mess that is rebounding on all of America. He should be an ideal candidate for an Obama-era Treasury secretary. Read article.
Obama and the United States of Africa
Rev. Lainie Dowell
This is the pièce de résistance that shall make every English-speaking nation say "merci beau coup." And, what a coup it will be.
I challenge anybody to read the plans of Obama and his Kenyan cousin, Raila Odinga, side by side. They would quickly realize that the same "Leadership Themes 2007 - A Bridge to the Kenyan Dream," as articulated supposedly by Raila Odinga, is a mirror image of Sen. Barack Obama's later published, "The Blueprint for Change: Barack Obama's Plan for America." This discovery represents foreign collusion which is too telling to either overlook, ignore, or dismiss as conspiracy theory -- especially when this nation is considering Obama as a candidate for the Office of President in America.
Under the leadership of Kofi Annan, then Secretary General of the United Nations, 43 of 54 heads of African states along with Min. Louis Farrakhan and other dignitaries, celebrated the beginning of the African Union in 2002.
Without all of those taxpayer dollars that Obama and others want to place in the hands of Africa and the United Nations under the pending 2007, but not as yet approved, Global Poverty Act, for more than $800 billion, (S.2433 Obama, Hagel, Cantwell), how do you think their plan would come to fruition? It will only be done at the expense of the already burdened down American citizens. Read article.
Polls show voters' uncertainty about Obama
Cokie & Steve Roberts, Billings Gazette.net
Is Obama one of us?
That's the question many voters will be asking themselves over the next three months. How they answer it will probably decide who takes the oath in January.
Barack Obama's spectacular world tour - ecstatic crowds, brilliant visuals, a virtual endorsement from the French president - has convinced the infatuated intelligentsia that balloting is a mere formality. But don't be fooled. This election is far from over. And in his cooler moments, Obama is a shrewd politician who knows that those 200,000 adoring Berliners don't vote in Dayton or Daytona.
"This is going to be a close election for a long time," he told a fundraiser this week, "because I'm new on the national scene and some people sort of like what they see but they're still unsure."
They sure are unsure. Read article.
What's in a Name?
Paul Beston, TCS Daily.com
"A lot of these old labels don't apply anymore," Obama told the New York Times recently, referring to political terms like "conservative" and "liberal."
In arguing that "labels don't apply anymore," Obama is making the same claim, nearly verbatim, that Michael Dukakis, John Kerry, and other Democrats have made over the years, stretching back over a generation. What these candidates found out the hard way was that labels mean plenty, especially when they refer to something that people understand--like liberalism.
Americans learned over several decades what liberalism, at least modern liberalism, was all about. Contrary to some claims that conservatives, in a sinister plot, defamed the word, liberalism did a pretty good job defaming itself: from the anything-goes ethos of the 1960s to radical war protestors, from tax-and-spend government and welfare policies to lax criminal justice, pacifism abroad, and a wide-ranging contempt for the institutions and values of American life, liberals took what had been the dominant political current in American politics and made it into a pejorative term.
Today, while centrist American voters may blanch at some of the Republican Party's positions, they have no wish to go back to governmental progressivism. Read article.
Beware the Ides of August
John Avlon, Politico.com
August traditionally is considered a quiet month before presidential campaigns kick into high gear at the conventions and then rocket on to Election Day.
But politics never takes a vacation, and the last month of summer has been a killer to more than one presidential campaign — just ask would-be presidents Dukakis and Kerry.
Both men were well ahead of their respective Bush opponents at the beginning of August. Both campaigns thought they could take just a bit of time off from the intense pace they had sustained through the primaries. Both men found a harsh reversal of fortune during the hottest month.
“August seems to be a jinxed month,” attests Democratic mandarin and Kerry campaign guru Bob Shrum. “People go away on vacation and they think there's no news being made. . But time and time again, there's a big political story that breaks in August.”
McCain has been faring far better than the damaged Republican brand, polling well ahead of his party and its incumbent president. If Obama is a bridge-builder, McCain is a survivor.
In recent weeks, Republicans have reached back into their mid-summer bag of tricks, attempting to paint Obama with weirdly sarcastic variations on the “entitled-liberal-effete-elite” label. This style versus substance contrast may win converts, but McCain is playing a dangerous game: He gained credibility with independent voters by holding himself above partisan gutterball politics. Any low blows could be seen as a sign of desperation, which would only feed the “angry old man” and “Bush 3” labels that Democrats are trying to pin on him. The Obama campaign is disciplined and they’ve got money to burn.
This campaign is only going to heat up. So both campaigns should beware the Ides of August — it’s primetime for character assassination. Read article.
Where's McCain's message?
Salena Zito, Pittsburgh Live.com
An old political adage says, "He who sets the debate wins the election."
If the presidential election was held tomorrow, it would be hello President Barack Obama because, so far, John McCain is handing him a victory.
McCain is better than the campaign he has run so far. Most people admit that McCain is an inspirational figure -- even Obama has admitted that -- so why isn't McCain telling voters where he wants to lead them?
Instead, his campaign is all about his opponent.
"He himself is reinforcing that this campaign is all about Obama," says Democrat strategist Mark Siegel. "His ads and his message are all negatives. The problem with that is, it is driving his own negatives up as well."
GOP strategist David Carney disagrees; he says the McCain campaign has no choice but to do what it can to bring down Obama by constantly introducing him to voters through his flaws. "There is no positive that will help McCain," he insists. Read article.
The Senate Mentality of John McCain
JR Dieckmann, Great American Journal.com
John McCain just doesn’t seem to get it. Barack Obama is the embodiment of everything that is wrong with the Democrat party. McCain is the embodiment of everything that is wrong with the Senate, and he is campaigning for president with a Senate mentality.
Senators are team players; they are not leaders. The team consists of not just their own political party, but rather it is the entire senate. When one side wants to go left, and the other side wants to go right, what do they do? They compromise. They end up going nowhere, but don’t hesitate to bestow accolades and praise upon each other for their great accomplishment in producing “bipartisan” legislation that does absolutely nothing for the American people. This has been the history of the U.S. Senate ever since George W. Bush was elected president and assumed office in 2001.
For example, last week Senator McCain pledged that if elected president, he would work closely with Nancy Pelosi whom he characterized as an “effective leader” and an “inspiration to millions of Americans.” Perhaps this is the way McCain sees Pelosi, but coming from a Republican presidential candidate who should be opposed to everything Pelosi has tried to do in the House, this is absurd! But then McCain is known for frequently praising Democrats with rarely a positive word for Republicans. Read article.
Clinton Embraces Return to Ambassador Role
Anne E. Kornblut, Washington Post.com
There will be no Clinton restoration -- not this year, at least. But the rehabilitation of Bill Clinton has begun.
The former president in many ways ended the Democratic primary campaign more isolated than his wife, with his own friends and allies unhappy with his flashes of anger and ill-chosen words and blaming him in part for Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's defeat. With a negligible relationship with Sen. Barack Obama -- he has spoken to him just once since the primaries -- Clinton has been shut out of the Obama campaign almost entirely and does not know even basic things, such as the role he will play at the Democratic convention.
It is uncharted territory for the most successful Democratic politician of his generation, and part of the reason he was in Kigali on Saturday, the latest stop in a grueling journey across Africa to visit some of the places where his charitable foundation has been active -- and in the process re-establish his role as a global elder statesman. At the same time, Clinton began, slowly, to discuss the bruising Democratic primary season that ended two months earlier.
In his first extended interview since his wife exited the campaign in defeat, Clinton said he was glad to be back doing international foundation work. "This is my life now, and I was eager to get back to it, and I couldn't be happier," Clinton said in a hotel suite, with three aides looking on.
In a session that lasted more than 45 minutes, Clinton described his role in the 2008 campaign as "a privilege, an honor," and said, "I loved it," but he declined to discuss any of his own possible mistakes, describing them as a distraction. "Next year, you and I and everybody else will be freer and have more space to say what we believe to be the truth" about the primaries, he said.
Clinton volunteered very little praise of Obama, beyond describing him as "smart" and "a good politician" when asked about him toward the end of the interview. He did, however, muse at length about the role that race could play in the general election. Read article.
Rove protégé unleashing Obama attack
Geoff Elliott, Australian,com.au
Democrats are worried Barack Obama is not doing enough to hit back at John McCain in the face of a barrage of personal attacks mocking the candidate - crafted by the same people who helped scuttle John Kerry's presidential ambitions in 2004.
Senator Obama's rival launched a new ad on the internet at the weekend that mocked Senator Obama as "the one", showing clips of the candidate at his more hubristic moments, which critics say have given his campaign a messianic quality.
Amid crowd chants of "Obama!", the ad shows bright-lit stairways and notes 2008 will be the year the world will be "blessed". It also replays clips of Senator Obama's speeches claiming how his presidency could help put an end to global warming, cut-in with footage of the late Charlton Heston playing Moses and parting the sea.
The narrator says "Barack Obama may be the one. But is he ready to lead?"
The McCain camp's tactical move in the past week to negative campaigning with biting advertisements has dominated the airwaves and is credited to Steve Schmidt, who is leading McCain's new push after formally taking up a role in the campaign last month.
Mr Schmidt, 37, was a chief player in the George W. Bush re-election campaign in 2004 and seen as a Karl Rove protege, who President Bush dubbed "the architect" of his victories. Mr Schmidt was one of the masterminds of the attack ads on Senator Kerry in 2004, including the infamous windsurfing advertisement, which portrayed him as a weak leader going where-ever the wind blowed.
Senator Obama's speeches have given the McCain team plenty to work with as some party insiders urge him to tone down his rhetoric. Read article.
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The #twittergulag saga continues: @gopfirecracker suspended, others still trapped
May 21, 2012 11:54 PM
#freegopfirecracker #freegopfirecracker #freegopfirecracker #freegopfirecracker— Dale Holt (@DaleHolt8) May 22, 2012 Come on conservatives! Everyone rallied around @ChrisLoesch when he was suspended! Now its @gopfirecracker so stand up! #freegopfirecracker— Schmoop (@RGSchmoop) May 22, 2012 Hey @twitter and @support – #FreeGOPfirecracker's account has been suspended. Please fix this mishap. Thank you.— Gabriella Hoffman (@Gabby_Hoffman) May 22, 2012 [...]
Cory Booker tweets #IStandWithObama; Hashtag hijackers flood the zone
May 21, 2012 11:39 PM
Newark, N.J., Mayor Cory Booker, the Democrat who defended Bain from the Obama campaign's attacks yesterday morning, has been backpedaling more furiously than a clown on a high wire. Tonight, in an effort to mollify his critics on the Left, he posted four tweets that included the hashtag #IStandWithObama. Conservatives immediately took over the #IStandWithObama hashtag to mock President Obama, and within an hour it became a trending topic.
Cory Booker tries to clear up his position on Bain attacks
May 21, 2012 10:25 PM
Cory Booker continued his quest to run screaming away from the apparently too candid comments he made on Meet the Press on Sunday. Despite attempts earlier today to #FreeCoryBooker from those trying to force him to apologize Booker went on the Rachel Maddow show to do everything he could to walk back what he said. Que the mockery.
Obama's 'When you're president' picture spawns hashtag
May 21, 2012 09:59 PM
"When you're president, as opposed to the head of a private equity firm, then your job is not simply to maximize profits. Your job is to figure out how everybody in the country has a fair shot." -Barack Obama
Cue #WhenYouArePresident
Obama takes anti-Romney rant to Twitter
May 21, 2012 09:49 PM
It started off this morning with a video of a woman named Valerie from Indiana posted by Barack Obama’s official Twitter account. 12 hours, 12 tweets and a failed hashtag later, Obama’s reelection team took the day to tweet ongoing misinformation about Mitt Romney’s record in the private sector, specifically Bain Capital’s work with the [...]
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