May 22, 2012
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Exclusive: Thursday, August 14
by PRESIDENTIAL WATCH August 14, 2008
7 worrisome signs for Obama
Glenn Thrush, Politico.com
A few weeks back, Time magazine was musing that John McCain was in danger of sliding from “a long shot” to a “no-shot.” Around the same time, a hard-nosed former Hillary Clinton insider declared the race “effectively over” thanks to the McCain campaign’s ineptitude, the tanking U.S. economy and Obama’s advantages in cash, charisma and hope. And Obama, up by three to six points nationally, was about to leverage a much-anticipated trip to Iraq, Afghanistan and Europe into a pre-convention poll surge.
Instead, his supporters are now suffering a pre-Denver panic attack, watching as John McCain draws incrementally closer in state and national polls – with Rasmussen’s most recent daily national tracker showing a statistical dead heat.
Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton has been privately enumerating her doubts about Obama to supporters, according to people who have spoken with her. Read article.
Democrats Fret about Obama's Small Lead in Polls
Ewen MacAskill, Guardian.co.uk
Barack Obama, before flying with his family today for a week's holiday in Hawaii, the state where he grew up, expressed concern about taking a break in election year. "During the middle of a campaign you're always worried about taking some time off," he said.
He is not the only one worried. He leaves behind a Democratic party that over the last fortnight has been showing signs for the first time of nervousness about the November 4 election. For them, this is supposed to be the Democrats' year, an inevitable march towards the White House after the catastrophic defeats of 2000 and 2004. Almost everything seems to be going their way: unpopular president, disenchantment with the Iraq war, faltering economy and an inspirational Democratic candidate.
What is worrying the Democrats is that, in spite of all these pluses, is that Obama's poll lead has remained stubbornly small. A tracking poll by RealClearPolitics published today has Obama on 46.9% compared with John McCain's 43.3%.
"I think there are a lot of Democrats who are nervous," said Tad Devine, chief strategist for the failed John Kerry White House bid in 2004. "I think they thought this election would fall into their laps." Read article.
The McCain Veepstakes
Online WSJ.com
Our view is that vice presidential nominees rarely matter much to election prospects because voters focus on the top of the ticket. A bad selection can hurt, of course, and veep nominees can be very important both to governing and especially to the future of the party. We'd advise Mr. McCain to make his choice based mainly on the latter two criteria, especially because at his age he could be a one-termer.
This means choosing someone who voters think has the stature to be President from the outset, and also doesn't give up Mr. McCain's clear experience edge over Mr. Obama. That probably rules out a pair of young, attractive Governors, Bobby Jindal of Louisiana and Alaska's Sarah Palin, despite their potential and appeal as GOP reformers.
Experience also argues against tapping nonpoliticians like eBay's Meg Whitman or FedEx's Fred Smith. Both have undeniable appeal as successful entrepreneurs who could help Mr. McCain's economic bona fides. But the magnitude of press scrutiny that any nominee must endure today is a lot to ask of someone who's never sought elective office. Even Presidential nominees get to spend months auditioning off-Broadway in the primaries, while Dan Quayle knows all about the way the press corps treats unknown GOP veeps. Read article.
Cold and calculating – that's Obama. You have to read this to believe it. GO HERE.
Pro-Obama-lematic Media Coverage
Mark Hemingway, NRO.com
Obama’s record is “tissue thin.”
The fact is, before his brief sojourn on Capitol Hill, Obama spent several years as a willing tool of the Chicago political machine. His time there does little to indicate that Obama gave Chicago residents any hope that he would change the city’s legendarily corrupt politics. Obama spent those years prostrate before the city’s notoriously unethical and avaricious political bosses.
He wasn’t just a cog in the machine, either; he worked the system to his own benefit, enriching himself in exchange for political favors, as is clearly the case with Tony Rezko — a telling episode the media now regards as speed bump on Obama’s way to the White House. Obama hasn’t even tried to wash off the stink of Chicago politics. At the same time that he’s running ads claiming McCain has oil lobbyists raising money for him, Obama has a Chicago politician named Alexi Giannoulias — who has ties with organized crime that have been widely publicized in Chicago newspapers, and who has even been connected to a mob hit — working as a “bundler” raising thousands for his campaign. But when you mention Obama’s record in Chicago, journalists stick their fingers in their ears and start saying “La, la, la. I can’t hear you.” Read article.
World Citizenship?
Warner Todd Huston, Mens News Daily.com
Responding to Senator Obama, Citizen of the World, a reader emailed this observation:
June 17, 1982 - Ronald Reagan speaking to the United Nations General Assembly, “I speak today both as a citizen of the United States and of the world. I come with the heartfelt wishes of my people for peace, bearing honest proposals and looking for genuine progress.”
Would you care to come to the same conclusions about President Reagan?
My response is that the difference between Senator Obama’s usage and President Reagan’s is a matter of intent.
If Ronald Reagan said, for example, that he believed in fair play, he would have meant that every individual, without affirmative action, is entitled to an equal opportunity and equal treatment under the law.
When liberal-progressive-socialists like Senator Obama, and the ruling element of the Democrat/Socialist Party, say that they are in favor of fair play, they mean something very different: that the government should intervene in the normal processes of human activity in order to give special treatment to favored economic and social classes and to redistribute income in the name of social justice.
It is undeniable that, for more than three generations, students in our colleges and universities have been schooled in the religious beliefs of socialism, which broadly looks to the restructuring of society by collectivized government. The meaning of multi-culturalism and environmentalism, drummed into kids from kindergarten onwards, is that all cultures are equally valid and that they should think of themselves as inhabitants of the planet earth. From there, it’s only a short step to the one-worldism inculcated at the college level.
That is precisely the cultural milieu that shaped Senator Obama and his wife.
If you believe in the secular religion of socialism, you worship the collectivized political state, and the greater the collectivism, the better, the end point being a single world government. Read article.
Baseless Racism Charges Belong on Ash Heap of History
Deroy Murdock, Human Events.com
Beyond its myriad legal victories, one of the civil rights movement’s more intangible triumphs is its transformation of racism into America’s ultimate taboo. Being branded a racist in 2008 triggers opprobrium exceeded only by that reserved for child molesters, rapists, and murderers. Thus it is vital that politicians and pundits not throw racism charges around like horseshoes.
Last week, Senator Barack Obama (D – Illinois) pitched three such horseshoes at Senator John McCain (R – Arizona). McCain did exactly what he needed to do: He hurled them right back at Obama. As Rick Davis, McCain’s campaign manager, put it: “Barack Obama has played the race card, and he played it from the bottom of the deck. It’s divisive, negative, shameful and wrong.”
Until this fracas, Obama generated little controversy when he reminded people (as he did in Berlin on July 24) that “I don’t look like the Americans who’ve previously spoken in this great city.” While critics might call this an appeal to racial identity, or perhaps a manipulation of white guilt, the more generous interpretation is that Obama’s words honor a country in which -- agree with him or not -- a member of a minority group is about to receive the presidential nomination of one of our two major political parties. Read article.
A Blank Screen and An Empty Suit
Greg Garrison, Human Events.com
In his most recent study in vapidity, The Audacity of Hope, Barack Hussein Obama does a remarkably terse and honest job of describing himself. If only Americans were to take him at his word: “I serve as a blank screen on which people of vastly different political stripes project their own views.” Indeed. Of course, one’s first reaction might be, “What the hell is that supposed to mean?” But, in point of fact, we find ourselves articulating such queries daily with Kid Wonder; all that blather about “change we can believe in,” “hope we can change with. . .change we can hope for. . beliefs we can change with” or whatever, seems to have mystified folks all over the fruited plain, making his “blank screen” metaphor spot on.
It is just that entirely vacuous theme which keeps dogging the media’s most recent incarnation of the Great Liberal Hope; his suit is as empty as a beer keg after a frat party.
There is a little-reported piece of polling data floating around from a recent Rasmussen piece that asked folks about their “comfort” level with each of the candidates. 55% of voters said they would be comfortable with John McCain as president, but only 39% said so of Obama. Hmm. . .could it be that at some point the American voter is going to come face to face with that -- well, uh. . .that blank screen? And when it happens, just how comfortable can we expect said voter to be? But there is more Read article.
Blind to reality - Obama's failure to report facts
Iraq War veterans Pete Hegseth, David Bellavia, Joel Arends, Erik Swabb, Kate Norley, Shawn Bryan, Daniel Bell, Ben Hayden, Washington Times.com
In May, our organization - the largest group of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans in America - urged Sen. Barack Obama to visit Iraq. Our argument was simple. The presumptive Democratic nominee had only taken the time to visit the war zone once since coming to the Senate - more than two years ago and before the appointment of Gen. David Petraeus as commander there and the shift in strategy known as the surge.
Our hope, as veterans, was that Mr. Obama would take the time to listen to our commanders and our fellow troops on the ground, to see firsthand the hard-won gains they have achieved, and then consider how he might revise or refine his approach to the war and close the gap between his rhetoric and reality on the ground.
To his credit, Mr. Obama initially suggested that he would do exactly this. Unfortunately, he was immediately and furiously attacked for doing so by anti-war groups like Moveon.org that fueled his campaign's rise. Rather than showing the political courage to stand up to his base, Mr. Obama instead quickly appeased them.
As a result, rather than going to Iraq, talking to Gen. Petraeus, assessing the facts on the ground and then announcing his new strategy, Mr. Obama instead delivered a high-profile speech before he left for Iraq, in which he announced what his conclusions would be. Read article.
Old media dethroned
Tim Rutten, LA Times.com
Edwards' admission signals the end of the era in which traditional media set the limits of acceptable political journalism. When John Edwards admitted Friday that he lied about his affair with filmmaker Rielle Hunter, a former employee of his campaign, he may have ended his public life but he certainly ratified an end to the era in which traditional media set the agenda for national political journalism.
From the start, the Edwards scandal has belonged entirely to the alternative and new media. The tabloid National Enquirer has done all the significant reporting on it -- reporting that turns out to be largely correct -- and bloggers and online commentators have refused to let the story sputter into oblivion.
So far, so sordid.
But what's really significant here is the cone of silence the nation's major newspapers -- including The Times -- and the cable and broadcast networks dropped over this story when it first appeared in the tabloid during the presidential primary campaign. Next, the Enquirer reported that the unmarried Hunter was pregnant. Still no mainstream media interest. Indeed, never in recent journalistic history have so many tough reporters so closely resembled sheep as those members of the campaign press corps who meekly accepted Edwards' categorical dismissal of the Enquirer's allegations.
Suddenly being green is not cool any more
Alice Thomson, TimesOnline.co.uk
When David Cameron became leader of the Conservative Party he said that green issues were at the top of his agenda. His slogan for the local elections last year was “Vote Blue, Go Green." Once he used to talk about putting a £3,000 windmill on top of his house. Now the message is not about conserving the planet but preserving his bank balance.
When Barack Obama first decided to run for the presidency, he embraced the green cause. Al Gore's film, An Inconvenient Truth, about global warming had just become the biggest grossing documentary in history and Mr Gore had won the Nobel prize. But recently Mr Obama has been talking more about thrift than trees. Instead of showing off his recycling skills, he explains that his children don't receive Christmas or birthday presents.
It's not just the economic downturn that has harmed the green order. People have become wary of environmental causes that can turn out to do more harm than good. Read article.
Anti-Obama Book Flies off Bookstore Shelves
Jim Meyers, NewsMax.com
A just-released book critical of the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, “The Case Against Barack Obama,” is selling fast and has already shot into the top 20 on Amazon.com’s list of best-sellers.
Written by David Fredosso, a reporter for National Review Online, “The Case Against Barack Obama: The Unlikely Rise and Unexamined Agenda of the Media’s Favorite Candidate,” was officially published by Regnery Publishing, Inc. Tuesday and has nearly 300,000 copies in print, according to The Chicago Sun-Times.
“There’s a pent-up demand from people on the right side of the aisle who feel that the mainstream media is effusively covering Barack Obama and not critically covering him,” says Marji Ross, president and publisher of Regnery Publishing.
Two other anti-Obama books are also on Amazon.com’s Top 20 list despite receiving little critical attention or mainstream media coverage.
They are Jerome Corsi’s, “The Obama Nation: Leftist Politics and the Cult of Personality,” and Dick Morris,’ “Fleeced: How Barack Obama, Media Mockery of Terrorist Threats, Liberals Who Want to Kill Talk Radio, the Do-Nothing Congress, Companies That Help Iran, and Washington Lobbyists for Foreign Governments Are Scamming Us . and What to Do About It.”
Corsi co-authored “Unfit for Command,” an attack against the war record of 2004 Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry, and Morris is a former presidential adviser, veteran political analyst and author.
Corsi’s book is in its third printing, and Morris’ work is in its eighth. Read article.
The Audacity of Haughty
Rich Lowry, NRO.com
Obama is now such a puffed-up figure that he’s vulnerable to the pinprick of ridicule.
‘It’s almost as if they take pride in being ignorant,” Barack Obama mused the other day, blasting Republicans for ridiculing his exhortation to the nation to make sure its tires are properly inflated.
Ah, behold the open-mindedness and cross-partisan understanding. Remember two years ago when Obama was only a media darling and not yet The Anointed One? Back then, his appeal was the extraordinary sensitivity he had for the views of others. He wrote a best-selling campaign book called “The Audacity of Hope” that was carefully unaudacious in its on-the-one-hand, on-the-other-hand weighing of the issues of the day, giving the impression that nothing pained him so much as not being able to agree with the other side, though he thoroughly understood and respected its arguments.
That iteration of Obama was tossed under the bus long ago. It's been replaced by an Obama who — between pauses gazing regally into the middle-distance during his orations — betrays a dismissive contempt for all differences of opinion. Read article.
McCain's Last Frontier: What’s the matter with Alaska?
Jonah Goldberg, Patriot Post.us
Sarah Palin, the popular governor of Alaska, plausibly claims to stand athwart that culture. In a talk in Juneau last weekend, she called for a new compact with the federal government. She exhorted Alaskans to become “less dependent on the federal government.” Let Alaskans control their own resources, and Alaskans in turn will stop treating the nation’s taxpayers like a national resource. (One reason Alaska is in danger of turning into a blue state — though not any time soon — is that its government-centric culture leads to government-centric voters, and the Democratic Party remains the party of government).
McCain, the self-styled maverick and environmentalist, is famously — and foolishly — opposed to drilling in ANWR, even though drilling technology is extremely safe, and oil and gas reserves there could be enormous. (A fully exploited Alaska could produce seven years of complete crude oil independence, according to Palin.) One motivation rarely discussed outside of the Senate cafeteria is McCain’s intense dislike for Ted Stevens. Stevens represents nearly everything McCain loathes about Washington: business-as-usual coziness with lobbyists, (alleged) bribery, pork barrel spending, backroom deals, etc. McCain should openly campaign against Stevens while simultaneously embracing reform agenda that would include opening up ANWR. Read article.
McCain Out Front
Editorial, NY Sun.com
The speed with which Senator McCain seized the leadership in the first foreign policy crisis of the presidential campaign may not be surprising. Mr. McCain after all, backed the surge strategy in Iraq, while Senator Obama and many others were opposing it. But his emergence on the Georgia crisis is no less impressive. When Russia took advantage of the Olympics to launch an operation aimed at ousting the democratically elected government in a neighboring country that is an aspiring NATO member, Mr. Obama, vacationing in Hawaii, initially called on both sides to exercise restraint. Mr. McCain saw it immediately for what it was, Russian aggression.
Some might argue that America's interests lie with letting Moscow do what it wants, as it is a stronger power than Georgia. But if America is just going to abandon a friendly nation that sent troops to fight in Iraq — well, then American friendship will come to be devalued around the world, which will have its own great cost to America's interests.
Mr. McCain grasped as much in his statement yesterday, saying, "Russia is using violence against Georgia, in part, to intimidate other neighbors such as Ukraine for choosing to associate with the West and adhering to Western political and economic values. As such, the fate of Georgia should be of grave concern to Americans and all people who welcomed the end of a divided of Europe, and the independence of former Soviet republics." Read article.
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Ky. primary has Barack Obama doing battle with a phantom; Let the mockage begin!
May 22, 2012 07:50 PM
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