May 22, 2012
FSM HOT TOPICS
Exclusive: Monday, August 25
by PRESIDENTIAL WATCH August 25, 2008
See McCain & Obama on National Defense HERE.
Watch John McCain’s response to Obama’s choice of Joe Biden - GO HERE.
Biden Adds Comicus
Ralph Alter, American Thinker.com
If Dick Cheney added gravitas to George W. Bush's candidacy, Obama's limping selection of the irascible Senator Joe Biden of Delaware promises to be more likely to provide comicus, or comic relief.
With about 70 days left until Election Day, the Democrats are down to a shrinking group hard-core supporters:
1.) The Black Vote. Sure, Obama continues to poll solidly amidst blacks. But so does every other ordinary Democrat in every other election. Any delusions the Republicans have of prying loose this constituency are purely hallucinatory. Democrat candidates historically gather 85-90% of the black vote and they will do so again this election or slightly better.
2.) The Watermelon Vote. Green on the outside and red on the inside, the so-called "Green" movement isn't so much pro-ecology as it is anti-capitalist. According to these neo-Marxists, we can't drill our way out of our problems, we can't work our way out of our problems and we can't pray our way out of our problems. Our only hope, according to the Greenies, is to elect confiscatory crackpots to balance our budget more squarely on the backs of the wealthy and industry. Once we have sucked them both dry, America will resemble the withered Western European social democracies so admired by the Watermelons. Read article.
Biden pick shows lack of confidence
Ron Fournier, AP.com
The candidate of change went with the status quo.
In picking Sen. Joe Biden to be his running mate, Barack Obama sought to shore up his weakness — inexperience in office and on foreign policy — rather than underscore his strength as a new-generation candidate defying political conventions.
He picked a 35-year veteran of the Senate — the ultimate insider — rather than a candidate from outside Washington, such as Govs. Tim Kaine of Virginia or Kathleen Sebelius of Kansas; or from outside his party, such as Sen. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska; or from outside the mostly white male club of vice presidential candidates. Hillary Rodham Clinton didn't even make his short list.
The picks say something profound about Obama: For all his self-confidence, the 47-year-old Illinois senator worried that he couldn't beat Republican John McCain without help from a seasoned politician willing to attack. The Biden pick is the next logistical step in an Obama campaign that has become more negative — a strategic decision that may be necessary but threatens to run counter to his image.
Democratic strategists, fretting over polls that showed McCain erasing Obama's lead this summer, welcomed the move. They, too, worried that Obama needed a more conventional — read: tougher — approach to McCain. Read article.
In the dead of night, Obama announces VP choice
Ed Morrissey, Hot Air.com
Democrats want Biden because they want an attack dog, since Obama supposedly is too nice to fight back — despite spending the summer smearing John McCain as a racist. As I noted earlier this week, Biden told serial lies on the campaign trail in 1987 about his background and education, rudely dismissed a voter by telling him that he (Biden) had a “bigger IQ”, and most notoriously plagiarized a speech from British Labour Party leader Neil Kinnock. All of this will come out in this election.
But in the end, one has to wonder how Hope and Change and “cleaning up Washington” fits with selecting a running mate who’s been there longer than John McCain.
More than half of Biden’s 66 years have been spent in the Senate; he took office during the Nixon Administration. All of those ads about how John McCain was responsible for the state of the nation because he’d been in office for over 25 years now apply equally to Barack Obama’s running mate. Why not pick a governor like Bill Richardson, who had plenty of foreign-policy experience, or even Kathleen Sebelius, who may have bridged the gap between himself and most of the women angry with Hillary Clinton’s defeat? Read article.
Biden Selection A Mixed Bag For Obama
Vaughn Ververs, CBSNews.com
You may remember Delaware Senator Joe Biden from political blockbusters of the past such as, “The Clarence Thomas Hearings,” the “1988 Presidential Campaign,” or “The Clean And The Articulate.” Now he’s back for his greatest role as Barack Obama’s vice presidential running mate.
Obama’s decision to select a politician who has served in the United States Senate for 35 years to be his vice presidential running mate shows just how dramatically the political ground has shifted in the two short months since the Illinois senator wrapped up the Democratic nomination based on a message of changing the way politics works in Washington. The “change” candidate has found the need for some “inside the Beltway experience” after all.
A staple on the “short list” of potential running mates for Obama, Biden’s selection is still something of a surprise for a candidate who has built his candidacy on the premise of not only change, but of reshaping the partisan political landscape that has dominated American politics for a generation.
Biden fits the description the candidate has laid out in recent days - ready to be president, willing to push back against the boss and show his independence and in-touch with how most Americans live. At first glance, it’s both a wise and a risky choice. Read article.
Obama May Have Played It Too Safe
Debra Saunders, RCP.com
Joe Biden? I feel the same way I did at the end of the last episode of "The Sopranos." Sure, some people considered the go-to-black ending nuanced, but as far as I was concerned, the producers punted. They chose a non-ending because they couldn't decide on a strong ending.
I confess. I thought Barack Obama would pick Hillary Rodham Clinton as his vice presidential running mate, not because he likes her - word is, he doesn't - but because he needs the backing of the 18 million or so voters who supported her. It would have been the smart move for victory in November. My second wrong guess was Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine - a gutsy pick that would have gone against the punditry argument that Obama had to pick a candidate weighted with experience and may have put Virginia in play. Such a pick would have reinforced Obama's message of change.
Instead, Obama chose a man who, months ago, was shooting for a third- or fourth-place finish in Iowa - but came in fifth, and dropped out after he failed to garner 1 percent of the vote.
Yes, Biden is considered a statesman with strong foreign-policy credentials. Also, in a political world teeming with craven opportunists, Biden is a very decent man, who has been able to work with Democrats and Republicans. Alas, he also is a statesman with a gift for putting his foot in his mouth in his own backyard. Read article.
Bracing for the Goo
L. Brent Bozell, NewsBusters.org
When Sen. John Kerry arrived in Boston for the last Democratic convention, the TV news stars thought they’d died and gone to political heaven. Dan Rather said Kerry’s speech drove the crowd in Boston into “a three-thousand-gallon attack about every three minutes,” and Newsweek’s Jon Meacham was comparing Kerry to Abraham Lincoln on MSNBC. If media liberals can get that excited over Kerry, viewers may have to worry about the anchors lapsing into diabetic comas over Barack Obama’s ascension convention in Denver.
It’s easy to forget just how “tick tight,” as Rather once put it, the primary race was between Obama and Hillary Clinton. It ended up with a vote gap of just one tenth of a percentage point. The real difference-maker in the 2008 race was the Obama favoritism of the national media, led by the television networks. It was his margin of victory.
Rich Noyes of the Media Research Center spent weeks crunching numbers from an exhaustive study of ABC, CBS, and NBC coverage of Barack Obama, from his first network soundbite in 2000 through the end of the primaries, a study of more than 1,300 stories. “Coverage” is too bland a word. “Anointing” might be more appropriate.
Obama received his best press when it mattered the most. How could someone with his utter lack of national expertise and name identification seem to become an overnight heavyweight? Read article.
Can Biden provide the 'Scranton' effect?
Salena Zito, PittsburghLive.com
When most people think of Joe Biden, they think Senate longevity, confidence, a liberal with a free-wheeling impulse to give you his never-to-be-humble opinion.
What they don't think of is a man who could have a great impact in Pennsylvania. The question becomes: Can he make his impact as broad as Hillary Clinton -- another Scranton native -- did in the Pennsylvania primaries?
"Biden has been a fixture in the Philadelphia media market for 30 years and is as well known as Sen. Specter or Gov. Rendell," he said. "Northeastern Pennsylvania still considers him one of their own, and you saw what they did for Hillary Clinton."
While the Obama campaign might not have initially thought of the Pennsylvania impact as part of the consideration, it is a nice addition to the Obama package.
This makes you wonder if the Biden choice puts pressure on presumed Republican nominee John McCain to reconsider former Gov. Tom Ridge as his running mate. Read article.
How Will McCain Respond?
Tom Bevan, RCP.com
Okay, while others are digesting the Biden pick, let's skip ahead to the next question: how does John McCain respond? While Biden is a solid pick for Obama, he is not a game changer. Though Biden is a white Catholic with some family roots in Pennsylvania, he doesn't bring any state directly into play. He may or may not help Obama assuage the anger of the Hillary holdouts.
Taking all of this into account, what will McCain do? The names on his short list, from what we know right now, are Pawlenty, Romney, and Lieberman - not necessarily in that order. Ridge was ruled out by an anonymous RNC official last week - which doesn't necessarily mean he's off the list - and after the push back from conservatives over the possibility of a pro-choicer on the ticket, I would suspect Lieberman's chances are slim to none.
Given that McCain is so close in the polls - well ahead of where his campaign probably thought they'd be at this point in the race - there really isn't any need for a a Hail Mary, "game changer" type pick - especially a pro-choice candidate who would alienate the conservative base. That's even more true now that Obama went with a "safe" choice as opposed to picking a game changer of his own - like Hillary.
So McCain should pick a pro-life running mate, probably from a key battleground state. Economic experience and/or youth would be preferable, but not absolutely necessary. That leaves Romney and Pawlenty in the mix, probably in that order. A story last week about a possible McCain rally in Ohio on August 29 brought Rob Portman's name to the forefront of the discussion. But the person who might make the best pick of all for McCain is John Kasich. Read article.
Why Obama Really Voted For Infanticide
Andrew C. McCarthy, NRO.com
There wasn’t any question about what was happening. The abortions were going wrong. The babies weren’t cooperating. They wouldn’t die as planned. Or, as Illinois state senator Barack Obama so touchingly put it, there was “movement or some indication that, in fact, they’re not just coming out limp and dead.”
No, Senator. They wouldn’t go along with the program. They wouldn’t just come out limp and dead.
They were coming out alive. Born alive. Babies. Vulnerable human beings Obama, in his detached pomposity, might otherwise include among “the least of my brothers.” But of course, an abortion extremist can’t very well be invoking Saint Matthew, can he? So, for Obama, the shunning of these least of our brothers and sisters — millions of them — is somehow not among America’s greatest moral failings.
No. In Obama’s hardball, hard-Left world, these least become “that fetus, or child — however you want to describe it.”
Most of us, of course, opt for “child,” particularly when the “it” is born and living and breathing and in need of our help. Particularly when the “it” is clinging not to guns or religion but to life. Read article.
Obama's Swift Boat?
Russ Vaughn, American Thinker.com
A week ago an old Marine buddy sent me a link to a You tube video that after viewing it, caused me to sit momentarily stunned by the horror of what I had just seen and heard. The video was that of nurse, Jill Stanek, who had in a completely straightforward and highly effective manner related how she had cradled a dying infant that had been dumped in the dirty laundry room of the Chicago hospital where she worked, following an abortion procedure the unfortunate baby had just survived.
Stanek's wrenching account of how that baby had fought for forty-five minutes to live but finally died in her arms, is one of those rare experiences that reaches into you and grabs you like a heart attack. If you have not seen it by now, HERE IT IS.
Obama's Illinois Senate Speech Supporting Infanticide
Erik Erikson, RedState.com
In discussing whether or not Barack Obama supported infanticide - the killing of a child living outside his mother's womb - most people have focused on the floor debate from the Illinois State Senate in 2001.
Barack Obama, speaking at Saddleback Community Church told Rick Warren, "We still don't abide by that basic precept of Matthew that whatever you do for the least of my brothers, you do for me." Maybe he should practice what he preaches. Read article.
Who Is Barack Obama?
AJ DiCintio, NMJ.us
Before mentioning the simple, accurate, and powerful way to categorize Barack Obama, it is useful to examine some other empty, dangerous words uttered by similar frauds whose history of refusing to tell the truth about themselves began long before postmodernism infected American culture.
If we have learned anything about Barack Obama thus far, we have learned he absolutely refuses to tell us who he is except to say he’s a “progressive” kind of guy. The problem, of course, with this lack of courage and honesty is that when a candidate aspires to the presidency, the American people want to know exactly who the person is.
In fact, the public so much wants to know the answer to the question Obama refuses to answer that millions have stepped up to do the job for him, among them the National Review’s Jonah Goldberg, who revealed his thoughts about the problem in a recent USA Today piece.
Mr. Goldberg first points out that many people believe Obama is fundamentally a person with a “God complex” or a person who is “hopelessly arrogant.” Why? Because Mr. Obama says things such as this: “[Sin is] being out of alignment with my values.”
“My values”? Read article.
The Other Obama
R. Emmett Tyrrell, NY Sun.comj
The press has discovered Senator Obama's long-lost half brother, George Hussein Onyango (also spelled Owango) living quietly in Kenya. Among the rustics who compose the Democratic base, this discovery can only help Senator Obama.
According to the Reuters/Zogby poll, the Democratic frontrunner has slipped with almost every category of Democratic voters: Catholics, Evangelicals, vegetarians, nudists, flagpole sitters — you name it. Yet the slippage has been greatest among the senator's core supporters, the liberals.
Among them he has dropped 12%. Part of the reason for this drop, Zogby speculates, is owing to the candidate's efforts to sidle toward the political mainstream. Zogby mentions Mr. Obama's switch from opposing all offshore oil drilling to accepting limited drilling.
Brother George will assuage the concerns of many of these liberals. According to the Italian edition of Vanity Fair, George lives in a hut in bucolic Hurma, Kenya, a few miles outside Nairobi. His residence is the epitome of "green," using no electricity, cooled solely by gentle breezes, and with no plumbing to pollute nearby waters, if there are nearby waters. Read article.
Teleprompting Obama
The Prowler, Spectator.org
SCREEN SAVORER
According to several Democrat political consultants presumptive Democrat presidential nominee Barack Obama spent part of his Hawaiian vacation working on weaning himself from a heavy dependence on teleprompters. Even in what are staged as "town hall" events for Obama, remarks are scripted or formatted into bullet points that scroll on teleprompter screens. Obama has had several embarrassing events where the teleprompter either malfunctioned or the screens were not fully visible.
"He just locks down and can't get the words out," says one political consultant. "For such a fine speaker, it's really quite remarkable that he's had issues."
Obama's troubles with unscripted moments contributed to his campaign's refusal to participate in town hall format debates or discussions with Sen. John McCain, who feels much more comfortable in the unscripted moments. Read article.
Loserville: How Obama Blew His Lead Over McCain
Dave Lindorff, Organic Consumers.org
Well, it's happened, and it's no surprise.
Barack Obama, the prospective Democratic presidential candidate, has managed to turn a 5-8 point lead over prospective Republican opponent John McCain into a 7-point deficit-a double-digit slide-in just two and a half months following a campaign that had voters really excited over his candidacy.
How did he manage this feat (which is documented in the latest latest Reuters/Zogby poll)?
Simple: he followed the tried-and-true strategy of Democratic centrist advisers who have increasingly dominated his campaign since the end of the primaries, and who have a proven track record of producing Democratic electoral disasters now for several decades.
One might think that after watching Democratic candidates lose the last two presidential elections by following exactly this kind of "strategy," if it can be called that, Obama and his campaign managers would have decided to try something different, but it appears that the Democratic Party at the top is hopelessly in the grip of corporate interests that favor war, free-market nostrums and corporate welfare. Read article.
Why Bam's Having Trouble
Jonah Goldberg, NY Post.com
The Democrats are having their flop-sweat moment.
Barack Obama should be way out in front. The Republicans are in terrible shape. They've nominated an old white-haired dude who'll be the kind of president who'll yell from the Oval Office window, "You kids get off my lawn!" The economy is like wounded roadkill, flopping around, unable to get going but unwilling to lay down and die. Yet John McCain is pulling ahead of Obama.
The latest Reuters poll has Grandpa Munster up five percentage points over our secular messiah. The Real Clear Politics average of polls has the two in a virtual tie. If the race were held today and McCain took the toss-up states where he's now ahead, he'd be the next president.
Yes, it's early. McCain has had a good couple weeks. But these were his first good couple weeks since he secured the nomination. Meanwhile, with the exception of the Jeremiah Wright unpleasantness, Obama has had a good couple years.
The winds at the Democrats' backs are hurricane-force, and yet Obama's holding steady.
Ask the typical Obama supporter why this should be so and you'll get a range of answers. Some mutter about Fox News conspiracies and how Karl Rove-like aliens are doing terrible things with probes of proctological exactitude. Others shake their heads at the racism of anyone who could have a problem with a left-wing pol with almost no experience, who often sounds like his campaign slogan is: "People of Earth! Stop Your Bickering. I Am From Harvard, And I'm Here To Help."
Perhaps therein lies the answer: Obama's problems are the ones Democrats always have at the presidential level: He's an elitist. Read article.
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The 15 best liberal fairy tales
May 22, 2012 09:03 PM
#LiberalFairyTales are all the absurd stories that liberals tell themselves and, sadly, everybody else. Here are the absolute best ones twitterers ever did tweet.
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 [...]
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