May 22, 2012
FSM HOT TOPICS
Exclusive: Monday, August 18
by PRESIDENTIAL WATCH August 18, 2008
Is Barack Obama mocking the Bible? - VIEW VIDEO HERE.
Could the McCain-Obama race end up like this fight did? It’s a “must see!” GO HERE.
After Russia's invasion of Georgia, what now for the West?
John R. Bolton, Telegraph.co.uk
Russia’s invasion across an internationally recognised border, its thrashing of the Georgian military, and its smug satisfaction in humbling one of its former fiefdoms represents only the visible damage.
As bad as the bloodying of Georgia is, the broader consequences are worse. The United States fiddled while Georgia burned, not even reaching the right rhetorical level in its public statements until three days after the Russian invasion began, and not, at least to date, matching its rhetoric with anything even approximating decisive action. This pattern is the very definition of a paper tiger.
Let us have a full general election debate over the implications of Russia’s march through Georgia. Even before this incident, McCain had suggested expelling Russia from the G8; others have proposed blocking Russia’s application to join the World Trade Organisation or imposing economic sanctions as long as Russian troops remain in Georgia.
Obama has assiduously avoided specifics in foreign policy – other than withdrawing speedily from Iraq – but that luxury should no longer be available to him. We need to know if Obama’s reprise of George McGovern’s 1972 campaign theme, “Come home, America”, is really what our voters want, or if we remain willing to persevere in difficult circumstances, as McCain has consistently advocated. Querulous Europe should hope, for its own sake, that America makes the latter choice. Read article.
The 3 a.m. Phone Call is Real
Mona Charen, RCP.com
Hillary Clinton's best anti-Obama ad came to be known as the "3 a.m. phone call." It stoked voter worries that in the event of an international crisis, the first-term junior senator from Illinois might be out of his depth. On Aug. 8, the White House phone did ring, alerting President Bush that the Soviet Union, um, that is, Russia, had just sent columns of tanks and armored personnel carriers across the internationally recognized border of Georgia (formerly the Soviet Socialist Republic of Georgia), a tiny, democratic, America-friendly, Western-leaning country in the Caucasus mountains.
It was a near perfect laboratory test -- the sort that real life rarely provides until it's too late -- for how the two nominees for president would respond to an international emergency. (It also tested the current president -- more on that in a moment.) Sen. Obama flunked. His first response was to urge restraint upon "both sides" -- that is upon the rapist and the rape victim.
The answer to this blatant and brutal violation of Georgian sovereignty was to -- anyone? -- alert the United Nations. "The United States, Europe and all other concerned countries must stand united in condemning this aggression, and seeking a peaceful resolution to this crisis," Obama said in a statement. "We should continue to push for a United Nations Security Council Resolution calling for an immediate end to the violence." Read article.
Dangerous Times In Georgia Demand Serious Leadership
Fred Thompson, Townhall.com
My mind goes back to August 2002 in Tbilisi, as I visited Georgia with John McCain. I remember it feeling rather dark and secretive, with the former-Soviet Union’s heavy hand still making its presence felt. President Eduard Shevardnadze, formerly Soviet minister of foreign affairs, presented a friendlier face to the United States, but was beset by economic problems and corruption charges. At the time I did not fully appreciate the power of the democratic impulses that were just beginning to bubble up and would lead to the democratic Georgian government we now see threatened.
What has happened in Georgia since that time should not be surprising to anyone.
While this crisis plays out we should also note that these events give evidence of a larger reality: the next American President is going to face an international landscape that is more difficult and treacherous than we have ever faced. By now most Americans appreciate the dangers of international terrorism and the fact that a small number of people can wreak unimaginable havoc upon our country and our people if they get their hands on the right kinds of weaponry. Read article.
McCain Making Gains with GOP Base/Low-Income Voters
Pew released an interesting poll yesterday, documenting the anatomy of the tightening presidential race. Like other recent national polls, the overall the survey shows a near dead heat (Obama leads 46 percent to 43 percent among registered voters with a +/- 2.5% margin of error).
But looking behind the numbers reveals the basis of the McCain improvement in the past month. Pew believes two dynamics account for the Republican Senator’s enhanced fortunes in several national polls: Read report here.
Obama's proposals are either counterproductive or not achievable
Jack Kelly, JWR.com
Sen. Barack Obama's efforts to explain his energy policy indicate why his campaign has emphasized celebrity over issues. The liberal San Francisco Chronicle says he is offering "more flip-flops than a Lake Tahoe souvenir stand."
Speaking in Florida Aug. 2, Mr. Obama said he'd be willing to support drilling off the coast of Florida if it were part of a "comprehensive" energy strategy. Just two days before in Springfield, Mo., Mr. Obama had denounced offshore drilling as a "scheme," and said that Americans would be better served by more often checking their tire pressure.
What could have changed Mr. Obama's mind? The day he was dismissing offshore drilling in Missouri, a Quinnipiac poll of 1,248 likely voters was released that indicated 60 percent of Floridians favor offshore drilling.
In a speech in Lansing, Mich., on Monday, Mr. Obama called for the release of 70 million barrels of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. As the AP's Tom Raum noted, this was a reversal of a position he had taken less than a month before. Read article.
25 Hints You're Not Voting for Obama
Peter Kirsanow, NRO.com
A recent Rasmussen daily tracking poll has 80% of Democrats supporting Obama and 87% of Republicans supporting McCain. There are still a healthy number of undecideds. This conflicts with the stream of media reports that Obamacons, evangelicals, black conservatives and independents are flocking to Obama.
If you're an independent, moderate or conservative on the fence about whether to vote for McCain or Obama, here's a helpful guide:
It's unlikely you'll vote for Obama if you
1. aren't a news anchor.
2. read the New York Times for pretty much the same reason the NSA monitors radio transmissions.
3. automatically conclude that the person laughing in the car next to you must be listening to Rush. Or maybe Obama off teleprompter.
4. dislocated your shoulder trying to explain Obama's position on Iraq to co-workers. Read article.
Obama Will ‘End 30 Years of Ultra-Right Rule,’ Communist Paper Says
Fred Lucas, CNS News.com
The Communist Party USA’s newspaper is defending Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama against potential defectors on the left, saying his candidacy represents a “broad multi-class, multicultural movement.”
In a July editorial, “Eye on the Prize,” the People’s Weekly World, the official newspaper of the Communist Party USA, admonished anyone on the left who might consider abandoning Obama.
The editorial, though never using the word “endorse,” expressed excitement about his candidacy. It also used numerous slogans from the Obama campaign such as “hope,” “change” and “third Bush term.”
“The struggle to defeat the ultra-right and turn our country on a positive path will not end with Obama’s election,” the editorial said. “But that step will shift the ground for successful struggles going forward.
The De-Branding of Barack Hussein Obama
Beacon Street Journal.com
The recent McCain ad mocking the celebrity status of Barack Obama, oddly, seems to have served as a catalyst for a revelation of a number of trends that have recently come to the fore. First, despite his whirlwind world tour and unprecedented amount of favorable media coverage, it appears that Obama has hit a ceiling in the national poll numbers. In short, he is stalled. Additionally, it appears that the public is suffering from Obama fatigue.
The media blitz seems to have backfired, as many voters, weary from absorbing so much Obama deification have proclaimed: Enough! The telling significance of McCain’s “negative” ad is that it has helped explode the myth of Obama. A myth that has been cultivated assiduously by his campaign in concert with a fawning media. What the confluence of recent events, unfavorably disposed for Obama, demonstrates is the following:
Pay no heed to the wailing of mainstream media journalists who bemoan that McCain is going “negative” against Obama.
After years of witnessing the left-wing Democratic bias of the major broadcast newsrooms, most Americans are astute enough to realize that Obama is the mainstream’s media’s candidate of choice and any reporting is going to be skewed in his favor. Read article.
President of the World?
Tom Tancredo, Townhall.com
In Berlin, Obama credited the “people of the world” for bringing down the Berlin Wall. That will be surprising news to the people of Mexico, Switzerland and dozens of other nations who not only sat out World War II as "neutrals" but never gave one penny to support the 1949 Berlin Airlift or NATO. Contrary to Obama’s rosy Code Pink revisionism, the “people of the world” were bit players in the 40 year struggle against Soviet occupation of East Berlin and Eastern Europe.
But Obama's misunderstanding of the Cold War is not the root of his effusive one-world utopianism. Obama is an American by birth and a multicultural globalist by choice. He finds it hard to praise the United States for any achievement without mentioning some sin or grave shortcoming for balance.
Obama's leftist tilt toward moral equivalence is troublesome enough in a United States Senator, but as the guiding principle of U.S. foreign policy it would be catastrophic. Obama's utopianism leads him to grandiloquent expressions of global ambition. If we are to take his words seriously, he aspires not only to be President of the United States but also president of the world. Read article.
He may be reluctant to admit it, but Obama needs Bill Clinton.
Howard Fineman, Newsweek.com
Soon after he wrapped up the Democratic nomination in June, Sen. Barack Obama invited some of Sen. Hillary Clinton's key financial supporters—"bundlers" in the trade—to a private cocktail party and dinner in Washington. These were the more practical types, many of them women, who loved Hillary but the Democratic Party even more. They felt the need to give face-to-face advice to their new champion.
One of them, speaking to me on condition of anonymity, said she pleaded with the senator to spend quality time with a wounded and therefore potentially disruptive Bill Clinton. "I told Barack, 'Have dinner. Clear the air. Win him over'." Obama didn't seem eager, but he did make a brief call a month later. The bundler pressed him to do more. "Barack told me it was hard to find the time, and I said, 'You'd better!' " Last week Obama called a second time, and the result was a deal for Clinton to speak at the convention in Denver. Still, there are no plans for them to sit down alone.
Everyone knows there is bad blood between the Obamas and the Clintons. But politics is the art of turning the sanguinary into the sanguine. Obama could use the Clintons' help, even if he is reluctant to admit it, and the Clintons need to cheerfully join the team (or do a good job of faking it) if they do not want to be dismissed as whiners—or blamed as Machiavellian backstabbers if he loses. Read article.
Why Sen. Obama Passed on Town-Hall Style Debates
Arnold Ahlert, Political Mavens.com
Barack “The One We Have Been Waiting For” Obama has decided to take a pass on any town-hall style debates with John McCain. Quite frankly, it’s a no-brainer for Sen. Obama.
First, let’s dispense with Barack Obama’s most obvious rationale for doing so: when you’re ahead in the polls, (even barely, as of this writing) you give your opponent as few chances as possible to catch up. For many of his supporters, and no doubt his campaign managers as well, this is all that matters.
But this isn’t a typical presidential campaign between an incumbent and a challenger. Both men are challengers, and as such the American public ought to be as informed as possible about each of them before November.
Therein, however, lies Sen. Obama’s Achilles Heel. He doesn’t want the electorate to know Obama, the man. He believes they should cast their votes based on Obama, the image. Image allows for all sorts of political positions, even those that are diametrically opposed to each other, as his recent “vacillations” on energy policy indicate. And an in-the-tank mainstream media can always “rehabilitate” image.
Obama, the man however, is quite vulnerable. How vulnerable? Ask yourself this: would Barack Obama even be the Democratic standard-bearer for president if Hillary Clinton hadn’t completely blown the question about driver’s licenses for illegals asked by the late Tim Russert? In that moment, Hillary Clinton’s “inevitability” was completely undone. Such is the ability of one gaffe to completely alter carefully construed perceptions. Read article.
The Anti-Obama
David N. Bass, Spectator.org
Shortly after Bobby Jindal seemingly took himself off John McCain's short list of vice presidential picks, pundits began throwing around the Louisiana governor's name in connection with another high profile position: the keynote speaker at the Republican National Convention.
The Politico is floating. The New Orleans Times-Picayune reports that Roger Villere, Louisiana Republican Party Chairman, says there is a "good possibility" that Jindal will deliver the keynote. And CNN uses unnamed GOP sources to suggest .
The possibility of a keynote address raises the inevitable question: Is the GOP grooming Jindal to be the anti-Obama?
The parallels between Jindal and the Democrats' faux-messiah are too striking to ignore. When Obama gave his "rock star" performance at the Democratic National Convention in 2004, he was a 42-year-old, African-American state senator from Illinois with no experience on the national stage. If Jindal delivers the keynote at the RNC, he will be a 37-year-old, Indian-American governor from Louisiana with only eight months experience in office. Read article.
The charisma gap
Michael Goodwin, NY Daily News.com
Forget the issues of race, all the money and maybe even the economy and Iraq. The 2008 campaign might well come down to a single question: Can Barack Obama take a punch?
We're about to find out, because John McCain's team seems to have concluded that the GOP nominee can win only by beating up on Obama. To judge from the last two weeks, McCain is following Leo Durocher's warning that "nice guys finish last."
Not that he has much choice.
Although almost all the national horse-race polls show a virtual tie, underlying voter sentiment still tilts heavily toward Obama in key measures of appeal. His advantages add up to a charisma gap that McCain, the "wrinkly, white-haired guy" in Paris Hilton's memorable words, can never hope to close.
The gap is captured in a recent Time magazine poll. Asked which man they found more likable, voters picked Obama in a landslide, 65% to 20%. That doesn't mean they will vote for him, but it does mean McCain has a tough sell if he wants to be the man Americans invite into their living rooms every day for the next four years. Read article.
LETTER TO EDITOR: No politics in the military
Susan Percy, Washington Times.com
Michelle Obama is having "round table" discussions at various sites near military bases to discuss issues faced by military families ("Michelle Obama courts vital military families," Politics, Thursday). A group known as Blue Stars for Obama, largely made up of military wives, has been asked by the Obama campaign to contact other military spouses and enlist/encourage them to attend and to, in turn, contact other military wives and ask them to do the same. It's an attempt to infiltrate and extend support for Sen. Barack Obama in what has traditionally been a more conservatively leaning group, although the military is not as monolithic politically as many would think.
General knowledge of how the military leans is primarily conjecture, even if correct, because military members and families have historically — and for good reason — refrained from open participation in political campaigns under the mantle of their military position or venue. It is forbidden for active-duty members.
Mrs. Obama probably is not aware of that aspect of military protocol. However, it is upsetting to many military wives - those who honor the protocol and also believe in their own right to support any political person or ideology they choose as long as they don't proselytize as representatives of the military - that the time-honored practice is being subverted by the Obama campaign and by military spouses who seem not to understand the line they are crossing. Read article.
Voters Should Pass A Minimal Civics Test
Doug Patton, GOP USA.com
I have never been an advocate of the popular notion that "everyone should vote." Some people look at me as if I am somehow un-American when I say that I am not in favor of encouraging people to vote who would otherwise never darken the door of a polling place. I really don't want someone on the streets of Hollywood, who just failed to identify the vice president of the United States on one of Jay Leno's "Jay-Walking" segments, helping to select the person who will lead my government for the next four years.
So here is a basic, common-sense test that every American wishing to exercise the right to vote should answer (I'm sure in this dumbed-down era in which we live we will have to come up with multiple choice answers to make it easier, but here are some preliminary questions): Read article.
Rasmussen: Voters Say Media Bias Bigger Problem than Campaign Money
Tom Blumer, NewsBusters.org
Based on Rasmussen poll results reported today, it looks like twenty or so years of very hard work by the Media Research Center and affiliates, including just over three years at NewsBusters, has paid some dividends.
Despite the years of hype over how money is the root of all campaigning evil by the press, the respected polling organization reports voters' belief that there is a bigger problem in political campaigns: media bias.
Voters overwhelmingly believe that politicians will “break the rules to help people who give them a lot of money,” but most say there’s a bigger problem in politics today—media bias. The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that 55% believe media bias is more of a problem than big campaign contributions. Thirty-six percent (36%) disagree and think that campaign cash is a bigger problem. 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
Vote-counting for the Kentucky primary is underway, and Obama is leading among preferred Democratic presidential candidates. But ah, ah, ah … not so fast there, Barack. Looks like not everything’s comin’ up roses in the Bluegrass State. ONE FOR UNDECIDED: Bath County, Kentucky Democrats take "Undecided" over President Obama by 725-715 votes— Jamie Dupree (@jamiedupree) [...]
May 22, 2012 04:29 PM
The South Carolina AFL-CIO president is on video beating an effigy of Governor Nikki Haley with a bat. War on women, indeed, and it comes from the Left as always. To Leftist thugs and union goons, she was asking for it, you see. That "uppity" woman won't keep her mouth shut and all. Scratch a Leftist and you will find not only a misogynist, but a racist.
Media still covering for no Biden access for press, blame Romney
May 22, 2012 03:39 PM
Media bias alert! RT @zekejmiller: Worth noting, given Romney flap last week, press not given rope-line access to Biden event here in NH— Sarah Huisenga (@SarahH_CBSNJ) May 22, 2012 Um. After the “Romney flap?” You mean the “flap” that the media breathlessly and endlessly reported all while ignoring the fact that reporters were shooed off [...]
May 22, 2012 03:08 PM
I'll see your Cory Booker and raise you a Joe Biden.— David Freddoso (@freddoso) May 22, 2012 Rut roh! Shall we add him to “hostage watch?“ Biden: When Bain companies failed, it cost taxpayers money in unemployment insurance, pension costs.— Mike Memoli (@mikememoli) May 22, 2012 Uh. When they are “too big to fail” and [...]
Dan Savage: Marriage is make-believe just like BDSM
May 22, 2012 02:46 PM
That oh-so-deep thought on marriage was a followup to Savage’s 140 character thoughts on BDSM: Some BDSMers take BDSM very, very seriously, of course, and strive to make it as real as possible. But it's still make-believe.— Dan Savage (@fakedansavage) May 22, 2012 And I respect BDSMers who take it seriously. They're fucking hot. xo— [...]
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