Even MORE Postmortems

A lot of folks… me included… typically respond with “Who gives a shit?” when Euro-Weenies opine on American politics. But there ARE exceptions to the “Who gives a shit?” rule, especially when it comes to the Brits. It’s that “special relationship” in play, in large part, and the fact that the Brits tend to look at America and see the best in us, rather than the worst (other Europeans do, too, although they’re in the minority on “the continent”). One such exception appears in today’s Daily Mail, under the heading of “The night we waved goodbye to America… our last best hope on earth.” Excerpts:

Anyone would think we had just elected a hip, skinny and youthful replacement for God, with a plan to modernise Heaven and Hell – or that at the very least John Lennon had come back from the dead.

The swooning frenzy over the choice of Barack Obama as President of the United States must be one of the most absurd waves of self-deception and swirling fantasy ever to sweep through an advanced civilisation. At least Mandela-worship – its nearest equivalent – is focused on a man who actually did something.

I really don’t see how the Obama devotees can ever in future mock the Moonies, the Scientologists or people who claim to have been abducted in flying saucers. This is a cult like the one which grew up around Princess Diana, bereft of reason and hostile to facts.

It already has all the signs of such a thing. The newspapers which recorded Obama’s victory have become valuable relics. You may buy Obama picture books and Obama calendars and if there isn’t yet a children’s picture version of his story, there soon will be.

Proper books, recording his sordid associates, his cowardly voting record, his astonishingly militant commitment to unrestricted abortion and his blundering trip to Africa, are little-read and hard to find.

If you can believe that this undistinguished and conventionally Left-wing machine politician is a sort of secular saviour, then you can believe anything. He plainly doesn’t believe it himself. His cliche-stuffed, PC clunker of an acceptance speech suffered badly from nerves. It was what you would expect from someone who knew he’d promised too much and that from now on the easy bit was over.

He needn’t worry too much. From now on, the rough boys and girls of America’s Democratic Party apparatus, many recycled from Bill Clinton’s stained and crumpled entourage, will crowd round him, to collect the rich spoils of his victory and also tell him what to do, which is what he is used to.

Dang. That’s harsh. Author Peter Hitchens (Christopher Hitchens' brother, oddly enough) goes on at some length, and his op-ed is pretty much on the money, for the most part. I tend to disagree with his evaluation of The One’s acceptance speech, but NOT with his views on The One’s qualifications for office. I’m also in semi-agreement with his views on how things are likely to unfold in an Obama administration, but less so with his gloomy outlook on what this all means. Peter Hitchens delivery tends to be a little hyperbolic, but he does articulate my objections to The One fairly accurately. The op-ed is worth a read.

―:☺:―

The postmortems continue… and my favorite author P.J. O’Rourke weighs in with his postmortem in the November 17^th edition of the Weekly Standard (“We Blew It. A look back in remorse on the conservative opportunity that was squandered.”). And Boy-Howdy…is it ever a good one! Excerpts:

Let us bend over and kiss our ass goodbye. Our 28-year conservative opportunity to fix the moral and practical boundaries of government is gone--gone with the bear market and the Bear Stearns and the bear that's headed off to do you-know-what in the woods on our philosophy.

An entire generation has been born, grown up, and had families of its own since Ronald Reagan was elected. And where is the world we promised these children of the Conservative Age? Where is this land of freedom and responsibility, knowledge, opportunity, accomplishment, honor, truth, trust, and one boring hour each week spent in itchy clothes at church, synagogue, or mosque? It lies in ruins at our feet, as well it might, since we ourselves kicked the shining city upon a hill into dust and rubble. The progeny of the Reagan Revolution will live instead in the universe that revolves around Hyde Park.

[…]

It's not hard to move a voting bloc. And it should be especially easy to move voters to the right. Sensible adults are conservative in most aspects of their private lives. If this weren't so, imagine driving on I-95: The majority of drivers are drunk, stoned, making out, or watching TV, while the rest are trying to calculate the size of their carbon footprints on the backs of Whole Foods receipts while negotiating lane changes.

People are even more conservative if they have children. Nobody with kids is a liberal, except maybe one pothead in Marin County. Everybody wants his or her children to respect freedom, exercise responsibility, be honest, get educated, have opportunities, and own a bunch of guns. (The last is optional and includes, but is not limited to, me, my friends in New Hampshire, and Sarah Palin.)

Reagan managed to reach out to blue collar whites. But there his reach stopped, leaving many people on our side, but barely knowing it. There are enough yarmulkes among the neocons to show that Jews are not immune to conservatism. Few practicing Catholics vote Democratic anymore except in Massachusetts where they put something in the communion wafers. When it comes to a full-on, hemp-wearing, kelp-eating, mandala-tatted, fool-coifed liberal with socks in sandals, I have never met a Muslim like that or a Chinese and very few Hispanics. No U.S. immigrants from the Indian subcontinent fill that bill (the odd charlatan yogi excepted), nor do immigrants from Africa, Eastern Europe, or East Asia. And Japanese tourists may go so far as socks in sandals, but their liberal nonsense stops at the ankles.

We have all of this going for us, worldwide. And yet we chose to deliver our sermons only to the faithful or the already converted. Of course the trailer park Protestants yell "Amen." If you were handling rattlesnakes and keeping dinosaurs for pets, would you vote for the party that gets money from PETA?

In how many ways did we fail conservatism? And who can count that high? Take just one example of our unconserved tendency to poke our noses into other people's business: abortion. Democracy--be it howsoever conservative--is a manifestation of the will of the people. We may argue with the people as a man may argue with his wife, but in the end we must submit to the fact of being married. Get a pro-life friend drunk to the truth-telling stage and ask him what happens if his 14-year-old gets knocked up. What if it's rape? Some people truly have the courage of their convictions. I don't know if I'm one of them. I might kill the baby. I will kill the boy.

[…]

But are we men and women of principle? And I don't mean in the matter of tricky and private concerns like gay marriage. Civil marriage is an issue of contract law. A constitutional amendment against gay marriage? I don't get it. How about a constitutional amendment against first marriages? Now we're talking. No, I speak, once again, of the geological foundations of conservatism.

Where was the meum and the tuum in our shakedown of Washington lobbyists? It took a Democratic majority in the House of Representatives 40 years--from 1954 to 1994--to get that corrupt and arrogant. And we managed it in just 12. (Who says Republicans don't have much on the ball?)

Our attitude toward immigration has been repulsive. Are we not pro-life? Are not immigrants alive? Unfortunately, no, a lot of them aren't after attempting to cross our borders. Conservative immigration policies are as stupid as conservative attitudes are gross. Fence the border and give a huge boost to the Mexican ladder industry. Put the National Guard on the Rio Grande and know that U.S. troops are standing between you and yard care. George W. Bush, at his most beneficent, said if illegal immigrants wanted citizenship they would have to do three things: Pay taxes, learn English, and work in a meaningful job. Bush doesn't meet two out of three of those qualifications. And where would you rather eat? At a Vietnamese restaurant? Or in the Ayn Rand Café? Hey, waiter, are the burgers any good? Atlas shrugged. (We would, however, be able to have a smoke at the latter establishment.)

Those are lengthy excerpts from an article that is long, and I’ve barely scratched the surface. Yes, the article is long, but more importantly… it’s GOOD. I don’t believe I’ve read a more perceptive (and humorous) catalog of conservative failings… ever. There’s more than one reason I claim P.J. as one of my favorite authors… not the least of which is his sense of humor… but I love him primarily because of his sensibilities and his uncanny ability to put his finger directly on the pulse of sensible conservatives. “Sensible conservatives,” of course, is defined at El Casa Móvil De Pennington as me and those who think like me. My tongue isn’t completely in my cheek as I write this, ya know. I've been having friendly discussions (heh) with other, more strident conservatives in this space throughout the election season. To no avail, mostly.

I know a lot of folks who visit EIP don’t chase all the links I post. We all have limits on our time… understood. But if you read anything I link at all, then please read this. Especially if you claim to be a conservative… and even if you’re not (Lori!). You may disagree with O’Rourke in the end, but I’ll wager he’ll give you a LOT to think about.

Post-Mortems

Brevity is the soul of wit Saturday… since it’s Football Day and I’m otherwise occupied. But here are a few items for my politically-minded readers (both of ya!) that you’ve probably already read. First… the inimitable Charles Krauthammer with “The Campaign Autopsy” (via memeorandum and Real Clear Politics). Excerpts:

WASHINGTON -- In my previous life, I witnessed far more difficult postmortems. This one is easy. The patient was fatally stricken on Sept. 15 -- caught in the rubble when the roof fell in (at Lehman Brothers, according to the police report) -- although he did linger until his final, rather quiet demise on Nov. 4.

In the excitement and decisiveness of Barack Obama's victory, we forget that in the first weeks of September, John McCain was actually ahead. Then Lehman collapsed, and the financial system went off a cliff.

[…]

We don't yet appreciate how unprecedented were the events of September and October. We have never had a full-fledged financial panic in the middle of a presidential campaign. Consider. If the S&P were to close at the end of the year where it did on Election Day, it will have suffered this year its steepest drop since 1937. That is 71 years.

At the same time, the economy had suffered nine consecutive months of job losses. Considering the carnage to both capital and labor (which covers just about everybody), even a Ronald Reagan could not have survived. The fact that John McCain got 46 percent of the electorate when 75 percent said the country was going in the wrong direction is quite remarkable.

Senator McCain might as well have had one of those “Born to Lose” tats on his shoulder after the financial meltdown. As Krauthammer notes, even Reagan couldn’t have pulled this one off after the financial system…not just “the market”… tanked. Mr. Krauthammer has more and it’s good stuff… as usual.

Reading Krauthammer makes one think “How now, Brown Cow?” Well… Investor’s Business Daily has a few answers in its op-ed “Road Still Leads Back to Reagan in Republicans’ Latest Soul Search.” (via Real Clear Politics) Excerpts:

Few will claim that "big government Republicanism" — or, as Goldwater referred to it, a "Dime Store New Deal" — is the wave of the future. Conservatives know that competing for the affection of voters by leasing their souls to corrupt lobbyists has been a fool's errand. Within days will come a restatement of minimalist government principles, especially by the economic right.

This will resonate immediately as President-elect Obama has espoused the most collectivist philosophy of any presidential candidate since George McGovern in 1972. As the newspapers are filled each day with articles detailing the failures and corruption of government at every level, it will be easy to hang the Democrats with this issue.

[…]

The social right will have a more difficult time putting the genie back in the bottle after eight years of being promised that the national government could achieve what they had been working for years to achieve at the state level. Yet again, since the national levers of power are now gone, practicality will force the social conservatives to go back to basics, and win the war for the culture at the local level.

From a practical standpoint, the results of the Nov. 4 election should not be disheartening for the Right. When Obama stuck to his teleprompter, he talked about tax cuts, family values, the Second Amendment and strong national defense. Without his teleprompter, he talked about a national police force, overturning state conceal carry laws, how health care is a "right" while his supporters salivate at the prospects of censoring, smearing and criminalizing conservatism.

Unlike Republicans, the Democratic leadership of Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer and Harry Reid understand power. Liberals will move to shut down talk radio, dressed up in the nicest of language of course. Only a few days ago, Schumer equated Rush Limbaugh with pornography.

I agree with nearly all of what the IBD has to say in this space, particularly with its view on the social conservatives’ agenda. State and local gub’mint is the place to go for this sort of stuff, not the federal gub’mint. But then again I’ve always thought this way… when I think about a “social agenda” at all, which is rare, indeed. I’ve never taken the trouble to lay out my political beliefs in detail (who the Hell cares, anyway?), so I’ll just repeat what’s in my Blogger profile: “Politically moderate, I'm conservative on foreign policy and national defense issues (surprise!) and liberal on social issues.” It all comes back to that ol’ saw: “You can’t legislate morality.” You shouldn’t even try. My mini-rant aside… there’s much to like in the IBD op-ed.

And finally... something for us 27-percenters: “Why I'll Miss President Bush,” in today's WSJ. Excerpt:

President Bush will soon be heading home and for many that day cannot come soon enough. Count me among those who will miss him and his bedrock decency.

He had a rough road from day one. His first inauguration struck me as a portent. I was there, shivering in the grandstands on Pennsylvania Avenue. At the exact moment the president heard "Hail to the Chief" for the first time and was announced to the audience, a sleet storm descended from the skies.

It has never let up.

Through it all Mr. Bush kept his head up and soldiered on. He took the criticism in stride.

All too true, dat. And you know there's more...

Lost Another One (Sorta)

Jules Crittenden:

So I was thinking, maybe it’s time to do what all the other guys are doing. Colin Powell, Ken Adelman, Douglas Kmiec, Christopher Hitchens … OK, he’s just going back where he came from … Charles Fried, Francis Fukuyama, Chuck Hagel, Bruce Bartlett kind of, Bill Weld, Lincoln Chafee, Scott McClellan, Christopher Buckley … damn, there’s a lot of them. Looking at that very long list of august names, considering where we stand at this important portal in history, I think the question anyone at all progressively minded should be asking is … hey Condi, why don’t you grow a set?

You know what Mom always said, if everyone else was jumping off a cliff …. But maybe it is time, right now, in 2008, to do what everyone else is doing. Shrug, say what the heck, get on the Bush-bashing wagon … you have to admit, that does look like fun … and finally acknowledge what the deep booming voice from that opening in the clouds with all the blinding rays of light has been telling us. Obama is the Anointed One.

Heh. OK, Jules ain’t David Burge (aka Iowahawk) but he’s pretty danged good today. You could do a lot worse…

(h/t: Lex)

A Couple of Political Items...

As if we needed yet another reason to NOT vote for The One… along comes the WSJ with this op-ed (Will Obama Gut Defense?... Capitol Hill Democrats want to target the Pentagon). The lede grafs:

Barney Frank will not soon be named secretary of defense or, insha'Allah, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee. So there's really no reason to fear that his recent call to cut defense spending by 25% is a harbinger of what to expect in an Obama administration.

Then again, maybe there is.

When it comes to defense, there are two Barack Obamas in this race. There is the candidate who insists, as he did last year in an article in Foreign Affairs, that "a strong military is, more than anything, necessary to sustain peace"; pledges to increase the size of our ground forces by 65,000 soldiers and 27,000 Marines while providing them with "first-rate equipment, armor, incentives and training"; and seems to be as gung-ho for a surge in Afghanistan as he was opposed to the one in Iraq.

And then there is the candidate who early this year recorded an ad for Caucus for Priorities, a far-left outfit that wants to cut 15% of the Pentagon's budget in favor of "education, healthcare, job training, alternative energy development, world hunger [and] deficit reduction."

"Thanks so much for the Caucus for Priorities for the great work you've been doing," says Mr. Obama in the ad, before promising to "cut tens of billions of dollars in wasteful spending . . . slow our development of future combat systems . . . not develop new nuclear weapons."

Joe Biden also cut an ad for the group that was even more emphatic: "I'll tell you what we cannot afford . . . a trillion-dollar commitment to 'Star Wars,' new nuclear weapons, a thousand-ship Navy, the F-22 Raptor."

MY emphasis is on Ol’ Joe’s comments in that last paragraph. The National Missile Defense program has made some impressive progress over the course of the last few years, the Airborne Laser is in the flight testing stage of its development as we speak, and the Navy’s AEGIS/Standard Missile system proved it’s worth earlier this year. And that’s just one item on Ol’ Joe’s hit-list. Frequent readers of EIP should know how I feel about the Raptor, given as how the F-22 is something of a recurring theme for bitch-moan-and-complain posts in these parts.

As a military “survivor” of the Carter years I know only too well the negative effects of active cuts in the defense budget. Other, more recent veterans can attest to the impact “benign neglect” can have on national defense, as well… think Clinton, if you will. So… there’s ample reason and precedent for worry should the Democrats win the White House AND working majorities in Congress… not to mention the Democrat candidates’ own words in this space. As I said in the opening paragraph of this post: yet another reason not to vote for The One.

But Hey! What the Hell do I know, anyway? Well… it seems I know a little more than Joe Biden, if nothing else.

―:☺:―

I find I’m a little bit out of it when it comes to politics, of late. A great good deal of my disinterest has to do with the fact the election is over for me. I cast MY ballot last week and I’ve done all I can do… personally… to affect the outcome. So my mindset is “let’s just get this shi’ite OVER with, if you please.” The sooner, the better. Just one more week and then it’ll either be cryin’ time or slack-jaw amazement at one of the greatest comebacks in American political history. I’m still holding out hope for the latter, ya know.

Speaking of politics… Blog-Bud Phlegmmy has come up with her very own and oh-so-unique way of harvesting Presidential Timber from the political forest, and calls it “The Toothpick Test.” Her first installment is here, the second is here. Here’s a sample, just to whet your appetite, Gentle Reader:

Some have expressed surprise at the elevation here of toothpick to political barometer, but it is indeed a very humble and yet marvelous device on closer examination. Let us consider the lowly toothpick which has been with us as long as the domesticated feline. Paleontologists have found scrapings on the teeth of neanderthals, which would seem to indicate that the dilemma of dislodging chunks of meat and veg from the grille predates such modern fancy grooming niceties as Dippity-Do, eyelash curlers and banana clips.

Picture the poor average guy (Joe the Caveman) out dragging his knuckles around just for giggles, hoping one day his descendents will quit inbreeding long enough to vote republican, except that he can't quite concentrate on such abstract concepts because he's got a bit of wolverine rib meat stuck between his molars. Ouch! Perhaps Joe picked the spine from an obliging nettle or succulent, and thus was the first toothpick born.

Phlegmmy’s on-going series is the brightest spot in what has become a dark, dark political scenario… she’s both enlightening and entertaining, to say the VERY least… with Art!

Do go…

Your Mileage May Vary

Which, of course, is the tag line I add to most of my… ummm… “controversial” posts and/or ideas. I do this out of a sense of politeness, a written recognition that opinions are like noses, everyone has one and no two are exactly alike. (Yeah, I know… the original quote wasn’t about noses at all. But leave us not digress.) So, with the explicit understanding that your mileage may indeed vary, here’s my take on Governor Palin and the media.

I’ve sensed over the last few days that Governor Palin is being cited by a lot of folks as THE reason they won’t vote for a McCain/Palin ticket. As a matter of fact, one of my Blog-Buds is firmly in this particular camp, as demonstrated in his comments here (first comment in the thread). But… here are a couple of items I find noteworthy in this particular space. First, a few excerpts from Brit Hume’s Special Report panel discussion… specifically what Charles Krauthammer has to say (highlighted):

KRAUTHAMMER: What's remarkable about the reaction to Palin is not only the unfavorable. It's the loathing, the absolute hatred that you hear, especially from intellectuals, feminists, sort of east coast, west coast, pointy headed. And this is because —

EASTON: But some conservative women, too.

KRAUTHAMMER: But this had a pedigree. It didn't just start.

In the '80's, you had the Margaret Thatcher and Jeane Kirkpatrick who were considered because they were not liberal, they were conservative.

They were actually — it was said of them as has been said of Sarah Palin, they were not women because you couldn't be. If you were a conservative. You were, by definition, a patriarchal thug. And if you happened to be a woman, it was simply in women's threads.

EASTON: That is not true. There is a lot of respect for Jean Kirkpatrick. There was. There was a lot of respect for her.

KRAUTHAMMER: The viciousness with which she was attacked as a contradiction in terms, a conservative woman.

In Palin's case, I think what adds to it is her decision at her age with four other children to have a down syndrome child. This, too, as Joseph Epstein wrote, in feminist circles if abortion is not about this, what's it about?

And they look at her as sort of a back room — a backwater hick, who, for religious reasons, went ahead and had a child that they would never have.

Underneath it, I think, deep underneath it, I think it's a self-loathing on the part of these feminists, knowing that what she did is virtuous and a generous act that they would have never have undertaken. And her having undertaken it is an affront to them, a silent rebuke.

Keep in mind… Krauthammer is a licensed (although non-practicing) psychiatrist, so he should/would know from whence he speaks, particularly in this space. But Mr. Krauthammer only addresses one small slice of the anti-Palin pie, albeit perhaps the most vocal group in opposition to Governor Palin. But the anti-Palin mob is much deeper and wider than pissed off radical feminists. And how could your average American not be disenchanted with Alaska’s Guv’nor, given all the negative press she’s received? (Assuming, of course, one lives somewhere other than Alaska, where her approval ratings are still high, although they’re lower than they used to be. Dubya would probably kill for her current numbers… just sayin’.)

Enter Newt Gingrich. A lot of EIP readers will have already seen this video, since a lot of you watch Faux News, myself included. But Ol’ Newt is on an absolute tear in this video… ranting about the media’s coverage of Governor Palin. This video is just one of two vids… but the meat is in the first installment, which I’ve chosen to publish here. The video is about nine and a half minutes long…

Part Two is here. I’ve said this elsewhere… but when the history of Campaign 2008 is written, the media campaign against Governor Palin will go down as one of the most successful media campaigns… ever. It doesn’t really matter if it’s the truth or not… it’s whether the media’s campaign succeeded or failed. In this case, and at this point in time, when all the sticks seem to be falling in Obama’s favor… one would HAVE to conclude the campaign is successful beyond The Left’s wildest expectations.

Shame. Shame on them. My contempt for today’s media… teevee AND print… knows no bounds.

The Incredible Lightness of Being... A Dim-o-crat

I’m not the first person to note that some of the more perceptive comment on our presidential election comes from beyond our shores. There’s a lot to be said for a “disinterested” perspective… or as disinterested as one can be about an American presidential election (and no, that’s not ethnocentric hubris. It’s just fact). Case in point… Clive Crook, writing in Sunday’s Financial Times (free registration required):

For Mr McCain to win the election against the odds that faced him pre-Palin – with the economy in the tank and the incumbent Republican president setting records for unpopularity – would be sensational enough. For this to happen because of his vice-presidential pick, a decision that is usually of next to no consequence, beggars belief. The Democrats had to bring all their resources to getting themselves into this fix. They proved equal to the task.

As I argued last week, Mr Obama’s own initial reaction to the Palin nomination was exactly right. All the party had to do was follow his lead. Mr Obama, in effect, would give her enough rope; her inadequacies would reveal themselves in due course; it cost nothing, in the meantime, to be courteous, and to keep pressing on the issues, where the Democrats still enjoy an advantage with most voters. Ms Palin’s first television interview last week, an adequate but far from stellar performance, affirmed the wisdom of that course.

But the Democratic talking-heads had to exult in their disdain for Ms Palin and all she represents – namely, a good part of the electorate whose support Mr Obama needs. In the space of a few days, they irreversibly damaged Mr Obama’s candidacy and transformed this election.

[…]

Certainly, the Democrats can see they are in a hole. Somehow, though, the word has gone out: “Keep digging.” Mr Obama is also urged to be less cool and lose his temper. Voters adore an angry candidate, you see. “Dig faster, and be more angry,” is the advice coming down from the political geniuses who decided it was a fine idea to laugh at Ms Palin in the first place. A recurring television image in the past few days has been the split-screen contrast between a serenely smiling Republican operative and a fulminating red-faced Democrat about to have a stroke.

Mr. Crook puts his finger on something that frankly has amazed me over the past week or ten days. You don’t have to be a frickin’ rocket scientist to realize that dissing Mrs. Palin ain’t exactly… umm… smart. One could possibly cut the Democrats some slack for their initial reactions to Governor Palin… but to keep on keepin’ on like they've been doing? It's absolutely, positively inexplicable to anyone with three inter-connected, fully-functioning synapses.

A quick look at any of the recent polls would tell ya Mrs. Palin is a bona fide phenomenon. The woman struck a chord with the conservative electorate and that chord has yet to quit resonating throughout the Right and the entire nation, actually. And the Democrats seemingly just don’t get it. On the other hand, I think they DO get it. But the fact is they can neither help… nor stop… themselves in expressing their utter contempt for a woman like Sarah Palin and those terribly unsophisticated rubes who identify with her. And that, Gentle Reader, is real hubris at work.

Keep digging, Lefties. It’s oh-so-amusing to watch your slow-motion train wreck in progress. As it will be to watch you rend your garments, don your ritual sackcloth and ashes, and listen to your wails of agony at having lost yet another election, come November. The fact of the matter is Middle America doesn’t much like you or your policies. But we most especially dislike your condescension.

―:☺:―

Related: “The Audacity of Defeat." Excerpt:

It’ll be far more acrimonious this time around if the GOP wins. Already mainstream commentators (on the liberal side) are preparing for the bitterness and reprisals with premature eulogies of Obama’s campaign. On Sept. 14, The Washington Post’s David Ignatius said, by choosing Palin, McCain had sold his soul to the devil to win the election. Richard Cohen, a colleague of Ignatius at the Post, implied that Obama was “too cool” to fight back against Palin’s “jibes, her sarcasm, her smug provincialism, her exploitation of mommyhood” and so on. The Times’ Paul Krugman, incredibly, wrote on Sept. 12 that McCain’s “lies” were worse than those of Karl Rove and Bush. “The Bush campaign’s lies in 2000 were artful—you needed some grasp of arithmetic to realize you were being conned.” Yet, according to Krugman, McCain’s campaign is so dishonest that should he and Palin win the White House, their administration would be “much, much worse” than Bush’s.

And you thought Bush Derangement Syndrome was bad, eh? Just wait. You ain't seen nuthin' yet! Heads are gonna explode, and lots of 'em, too.

(via Real Clear Politics)

―:☺:―

Kinda-sorta related… Didja see this?

It's time to dump Biden and replace him with Sen. Hillary Clinton. I don't care how it's done. Campaign chief David Axelrod can figure that out. And the sooner the better. Because I'm starting to think that if Team-Obama doesn't do something dramatic fast, it's gonna lose this election. There's a worrisome shift in momentum and in the polls. The Palin phenomenon, while truly unfathomable to Democrats (ed: See?), has energized McCain's campaign and allowed him like Houdini to snatch Obama's "change" theme right out from under him. It's time to snatch it back.

Conventional wisdom says replacing Biden with Clinton can't be done. That it's too late. That it'll make Obama appear indecisive, impulsive and lacking good judgement (sic). Many Democrats believe this would cause irreparable harm to the campaign, ringing Obama's death knell. But this couldn't be further from the truth. In fact, it'd be a freakin' coup for Obama, and would instantly melt Palin's undeserving outsize political ice cap.

[...]

Obama should do what the Republicans would do in this situation. In fact, he should do exactly what his opponent did. Shake things up. Be unconventional. Roll the dice. Out-McCain McCain. Who cares how it looks.

Oh, YES! Please, please DO!! What a capital idea!

[Pssst! Senator Obama! Over here!

This is really, really GOOD advice…and, trust me… you should take it! Seriously. Yes, I know this sounds strange coming from a McCain supporter, but really… I have your best interests at heart. I want to see you keep this thing close, ya know. We don’t wanna see any McGovern-like blow-outs, now, do we? That would be truly embarrassing and would… for all intents and purposes… end your brilliant political career just as it was beginning. Keep in mind: you’re a young man and 2012 ain’t that far away. Pick up that phone. Go on… call her. You know she wants to hear from you. It’s what’s best for the country the Party you, and Joe won’t mind. At all.]

(Snerk) (Smirf) gag… grwun… snork… Bwah-wah-HA-HA-HA!

Oh shit, Oh Dear.

I can’t even type this with a straight face.

Low and Slow

There aren’t a whole helluva lot of good things one can say about September 11^th, speaking of the calendar date itself. The anniversary of the attack on our nation, by definition, invokes sad and ugly memories interspersed with images of heroism and sacrifice by those who responded in both New York City and the Pentagon on that day in 2001. Be that as it may, I’m grateful that both the McCain and Obama campaigns declared a moratorium on politics yesterday, at least where the principals were concerned. Yesterday was relatively free of the increasingly absurd point/counterpoint sound-bite politics that dominated the first part of this week. And I’m grateful for that.

Our pundits didn’t seem to let up all that much, though. Much is being made today of Charlie Gibson’s “exclusive” interview with Governor Palin, and much of the comment is coming from our Dear Friends on the Left who are in full-rant mode, seeing what they want to see and twisting words and meaning to fit the narrative… as they see it, or prefer to see it. So… yesterday was “game on” and BAU for a lot of folks. And that’s sad.

But… one of the better things I’ve read today comes from Peggy Noonan, writing in today’s WSJ. Excerpts:

After the past 10 days, it is not remarkable that Mr. McCain has caught up with Mr. Obama. It is amazing that Mr. Obama is still roughly even with Mr. McCain.

There is no denying that Mr. Obama is in a bad place, that he must now be considered the underdog, that he's wearing Loser-Glo. The slide started with the Rick Warren interviews in August, just as America was starting to pay attention. Verdict? McCain: normal. Obama: odd.

Then Mrs. Palin, and the catastrophe of the Democratic and media response to her. Books will be written about this, but because it's so recent, and so known, we're almost not absorbing how huge it was, and is. Here was the central liberal mistake: They used the atom bomb just a few days in. They used it so brutally, and yet so ineptly, in a way so oblivious to the true contours of the field, that the radiation blew back over their own lines. They used it without preliminary diplomatic talks, multilateral meetings or Security Council debate. They just went boom. And it boomeranged.

The atom bomb was personal and sexual perfidy, backwoods knuckle-draggin' ma and pa saying, Tell the neighbors the baby's ours. Then the ritual abuse of the 17-year-old girl. Then the rest of it—bad mother, religious weirdo. (On this latter it must be noted that Mrs. Palin never told a church that the Iraq war was God's will; she asked them to pray that it was God's will. It wasn't the sound of Republican hubris, it was the sound of Christian humility: We can't know the mind of God, we can only pray we are in accord with it.)

All of this was unacceptable to normal Americans. They experienced it as the town gossip spreading rumor and slander before the new neighbor even got to put down her bags. It offended the American sense of fairness. And—it still lives!—gallantry.

Most crucially, the snobbery of it, the meanness of it, reminded the entire country, for the first time in a decade, what it is they don't like about the left. Really, America had forgotten. Mr. Obama's friends reminded them. Unforgettably.

Yep. What she said. And Ms. Noonan has more… in the way of amplification and interpretation, at the link.

―:☺:―

Apropos of not much… I’m posting the following excerpt from Brit Hume’s Special Report panel discussion on this past Tuesday’s ludicrous “lipstick on a pig” tempest in a teapot, but only to fulfill a promise I made during some heated discussion in comments over at Blog-Bud Morgan’s place. So, without further ado, here it is:

KRAUTHAMMER: Dissertations will be written on the "pig in lipstick" incident. But clearly Obama had no intention of maligning her or referring to her.

However, something happened after he said it. The audience stood up and cheered and stomped, meaning the audience interpreted it as a backhanded swipe at Palin. He didn't intend it, I'm absolutely sure, and perhaps at the time, given the audience reaction, he should have said, "oh, no —

HUME: "Don't get me wrong."

KRAUTHAMMER: Exactly. "I wouldn't imply that." Or perhaps he was enjoying the reaction. Or perhaps he just isn't as quick as you expect him to be, although to think of that on the spot and to imagine what it is going to cause is pretty hard to do.

The McCain ad is clearly a cheap shot. However, in their defense, the Democrats spent a half a year attacking McCain as a man who wanted to continue the war in Iraq for 100 years, which was a gross lie about his position.

And if the Democrats are going to play a dirty on an issue as serious as the Iraq war, I give the McCain camp a slight amount of leeway on playing loose on lipstick and pigs.

I won’t repeat what I said… at some length… at Morgan’s House. Except to say I’m very disappointed that the McCain campaign has donned the mantle of The Perpetually Offended. That’s the Democrat’s shtick. We… the conservatives… are supposed to be the adults in the room here, and I would expect us to act accordingly. But I agree with Mr. Krauthammer, to a point. I’m willing to cut the McCain campaign some slack over this tactical error. My viewpoint seems to be in the minority, though, amongst my fellow-travelers. Such is the danger of being a moderate in an extreme world.

―:☺:―

I’m pretty low and slow, personally speaking… still relatively deep in the process of recovering from Wednesday’s surgery. I find it interesting that our weather has mirrored my physical state: yesterday was gray, overcast, and cloudy until late in the afternoon, at which point the bottom sorta fell out. We got over an inch of rain last evening… and while that probably doesn’t sound like much to those of you who live in more temperate climes, it’s a lot in a single sitting for The High Plains of New Mexico. The upside is our temps have been moderate… we’re talking low 70s… and the wind has, too. As I said: the weather fits my mood and physical being.

But, I’m not all that bad… all things considered. I don’t have a hurricane bearing down on me. Ike looks like it’s gonna kick the livin’ Hell out of Galveston and maybe even Houston, too. This is a BIG storm, to say the very least.

―:☺:―

More Tales From The Front… excerpts from e-mail conversations with SN1:

This place is actually a little slow right now. Groundhog day...my routine seems to be I get up at 0300, drink coffee, head to the gym between 0400-0430 and lift for a little while, or run a couple of miles. Quick stop by the chow hall for a "to-go" breakfast I eat at my desk. Then it's review a slideshow my guys work for me, make changes, 0800 meeting then just about nothing until lunch. I review another slideshow at 1500 for the 1600 meeting.

[…]

I've got a couple of additional duties, but the SMSgt and I are primary/alternate (and vice versa) for vehicles and security. He's sharp. Just about the time I start to work something, he's already working it. Makes my life a little TOO easy. But we'll find our stride soon.

It's becoming boring fast...

[…]

Here's the contrast to the last pic of me at the desk...I couldn't stand it and had to clean the whole damn office!

I feel much better about it...

Ah… plus ça change and all that, concerning the comment about the Senior Master Sergeant Buck works with. That’s what we NCOs do, ya know… work the Boss’s problems. And I knew it would only be a matter of time before Buck got things shipshape in his personal environment. It’s in the genes, ya know. Here’s the new workspace:

Much better, eh?

A Brief Introduction...

... to David Burge's latest masterpiece:

The Idiossey

The Not-Really-That-Epic Poem of Obamacles

(with Apologies to Homer)

Book the First: A question for the Muse

Speak to me, O Muse, of this resourceful man
who strides so boldly upon the golden shrine at Invescos,
Between Ionic plywood columns, to the kleig light altar.
Fair Obamacles, favored of the gods, ascends to Olympus
Amidst lusty tributes and the strumming lyres of Media;
Their mounted skyboxes echo with the singing of his name
While Olbermos and Mattheus in their greasy togas wrassle
For first honor of basking in their hero's reflected glory.
Who is this man, so bronzed in countenance,
So skilled of TelePropter, clean and articulate
whose ears like a stately urn's protrude?
So now, daughter of Zeus, tell us his story.
And just the Cliff Notes if you don't mind,
We don't have all day.

Said the Muse:

I will tell the story of Obamacles through my scribe Iowahawk.
But this shit is copyrighted, so reproduce at your peril.

Fair Use, David... Fair Use.

A Couple of Things From Inside the Beltway

I think it’s safe to say the love affair is over. From Dana Milbank, writing in today’s WaPo:

Barack Obama has long been his party's presumptive nominee. Now he's becoming its presumptuous nominee.

Fresh from his presidential-style world tour, during which foreign leaders and American generals lined up to show him affection, Obama settled down to some presidential-style business in Washington yesterday. He ordered up a teleconference with the (current president's) Treasury secretary, granted an audience to the Pakistani prime minister and had his staff arrange for the chairman of the Federal Reserve to give him a briefing. Then, he went up to Capitol Hill to be adored by House Democrats in a presidential-style pep rally.

[…]

The 5:20 TBA turned out to be his adoration session with lawmakers in the Cannon Caucus Room, where even committee chairmen arrived early, as if for the State of the Union. Capitol Police cleared the halls -- just as they do for the actual president. The Secret Service hustled him in through a side door -- just as they do for the actual president.

Inside, according to a witness, he told the House members, "This is the moment . . . that the world is waiting for," adding: "I have become a symbol of the possibility of America returning to our best traditions."

As he marches toward Inauguration Day (Election Day is but a milestone on that path), Obama's biggest challenger may not be Republican John McCain but rather his own hubris.

And it’s about freakin’ time, innit? A lot of the things I’m reading in the MSM today is simply repetition of stuff that’s been said in the right-wing blogosphere for quite some time now. The upshot of all this is The Candidate is beginning to believe his own press, apparently, and that’s a great good thing for Senator McCain. “Pride goeth before a fall,” and all that.

Heh. Couldn’t happen to a more deserving guy, methinks.

Ah… but wait. There’s more. Even Maureen Dowd is smacking The Obamanon around. I got a chuckle out of this:

I asked him what presents he takes home to his daughters. “Anytime I make a stop, Sasha gets snow globes and Malia gets key chains,” he said. “Somebody is assigned to that.”

“You have a snow globe aide?” I marveled.

Now there’s as unlikely a job title as I’ve ever seen: “Chief of Snow Globe Procurement.” Or whatever it is the aide is officially called.

―:☺:―

Eye candy for political activists. Hell, it’s eye candy for the REST of us, too! I’m speaking of The Hill’s annual “50 Most Beautiful People on Capitol Hill.” Here’s an example:

Name: Brecke Latham
Age: 28
Hometown: See explanation below
Political party: Republican
Dating status: Single

Dang. Her politics are correct, too. What more could a guy ask for? In case you’re wondering… the piece has pulchitrude for the distaff side of the house, too. This IS America we’re talking about, ya know. Equal time, and all that.

And apropos of nothing… if you’ve never laid eyes on Mrs. Dennis Kucinich, you should… as she makes the cut at Number Four. That’s all and everything I’m gonna say on the subject. Except for perhaps… Yowza!

(h/t: memeorandum)

How in God’s Name Did I Miss This?

In the process of cruising around these inter-tubes I came across a piece by Byron York in today’s NRO (Go Ahead, Laugh at Obama). Excerpt:

Just a few weeks ago, it seemed nobody could make a joke about Barack Obama. The New York Times published a front-page story declaring that “there has been little humor” about Obama because “there is no comedic ‘take’ on him, nothing easy to turn to for an easy laugh.” Television comedy writers fretted that audiences didn’t want to hear anything even slightly negative about the Democratic nominee. The political press corps went nuts over a satirical New Yorker cover that wasn’t even directed at Obama.

And this was about a man who made up his own pretend presidential seal and motto, Vero Possumus; a man who, upon securing the Democratic nomination, said, “I am absolutely certain that generations from now, we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal”; a man who has on a number of occasions seemed to forget that he is not, or at least not yet, the President of the United States, who has misstated the number of states in his own country, who has forgotten on which committees he serves in the U.S. Senate. Professional comedians — and their audiences — couldn’t find anything funny about any of that?

[…]

Last week, Jon Stewart on The Daily Show got an enthusiastic reception from his audience with a routine about Obama’s media entourage. Stewart tossed to the team of reporters who were said to be traveling with the Obama campaign, some of whom had abandoned John McCain to cover the more exciting Democrat. They were positively giddy about Obama.

“The commander-in-chief,” said one.

“Did you see when the president hit that three-pointer?” asked another.

“Nothing but net,” said a third.

Stewart interrupted. “He’s not the president.” Pause.“Barack Obama’s not the president.”

A confused silence. “Are you sure?” the reporters asked.

Oh, and it just gets better and better. Mr. York wrote a truly great piece with this one, and that’s not unusual at all. But, that said, the absolute BEST part of Mr. York’s article was a tip about a Gerard Baker op-ed that appeared in the July 25^th edition of The Times (UK). And this lil bit of satire is a must-read for anyone and everyone who’s even the least lil bit skeptical about The Obamanon. Here are a few paragraphs:

And it came to pass, in the eighth year of the reign of the evil Bush the Younger (The Ignorant), when the whole land from the Arabian desert to the shores of the Great Lakes had been laid barren, that a Child appeared in the wilderness.

The Child was blessed in looks and intellect. Scion of a simple family, offspring of a miraculous union, grandson of a typical white person and an African peasant. And yea, as he grew, the Child walked in the path of righteousness, with only the occasional detour into the odd weed and a little blow.

When he was twelve years old, they found him in the temple in the City of Chicago, arguing the finer points of community organisation with the Prophet Jeremiah and the Elders. And the Elders were astonished at what they heard and said among themselves: “Verily, who is this Child that he opens our hearts and minds to the audacity of hope?”

[…]

He travelled fleet of foot and light of camel, with a small retinue that consisted only of his loyal disciples from the tribe of the Media. He ventured first to the land of the Hindu Kush, where the

Taleban had harboured the viper of al-Qaeda in their bosom, raining terror on all the world.

And the Child spake and the tribes of Nato immediately loosed the Caveats that had previously bound them. And in the great battle that ensued the forces of the light were triumphant. For as long as the Child stood with his arms raised aloft, the enemy suffered great blows and the threat of terror was no more.

From there he went forth to Mesopotamia where he was received by the great ruler al-Maliki, and al-Maliki spake unto him and blessed his Sixteen Month Troop Withdrawal Plan even as the imperial warrior Petraeus tried to destroy it.

And lo, in Mesopotamia, a miracle occurred. Even though the Great Surge of Armour that the evil Bush had ordered had been a terrible mistake, a waste of vital military resources and doomed to end in disaster, the Child's very presence suddenly brought forth a great victory for the forces of the light.

Those excerpts might be a lil bit more than “Fair Use,” but I wanted to give you maximum encouragement to go read, assuming you haven’t read this already. Mr. Baker’s piece is new-to-me, but I’m so far behind the political power-curve I may never catch up. Or not.

We’ll see. But in the meantime, do yourself a favor and go read Mr. Baker. You could do a lot worse.

Obama and Iraq

So… Senator Obama publishes his “Plan for Iraq” as an op-ed in today’s New York Times. And, as might be expected, the ‘sphere erupts in comment. Here's some of the best I’ve read in this space today, beginning with Uncle Jimbo, writing at Blackfive:

(Ed: Quoting Obama’s Op-ed)

But this is not a strategy for success — it is a strategy for staying that runs contrary to the will of the Iraqi people, the American people and the security interests of the United States. That is why, on my first day in office, I would give the military a new mission: ending this war.

And there you show why you are unfit to be Commander in Chief. You don't even understand the fundamental concept of war and you would give the military a mission that doesn't exist. You want them to "end" the war which to you means simply pack up our toys and come home so your kids don't have to see those awful stories on the news. Well let me make one thing perfectly clear to you Senator. You can't end wars, you either win them or lose them. Your shameful naivete would endanger the lives of every military member worldwide. Once oue enemies know we have a clueless muppet at the helm, they will be empowered to act without fear of retribution.

Hmm. That sounds a lil bit familiar, nu?

And then Captain Pete Hegseth, who served in Iraq with the 101st Airborne Division from 2005 to 2006, and is the executive director of Vets for Freedom, weighs in at National Review Online:

As someone who monitors the Iraq-war-policy debate closely, I was puzzled to open the New York Times and see an oped authored by Sen. Barack Obama entitled “My Plan for Iraq.” Besides the seemingly moderate tone — and calling for an Afghanistan “surge” (an idea I agree, and one proposed by Sen. Joe Lieberman in March) — not much in the piece is new or newsworthy. In the final analysis, the oped is another dogmatic addendum to Obama’s “withdrawal at any cost” position.

In fact, just one question entered my head when I finished reading: Why now? Why would Sen. Obama — or any legislator, for that matter — write such a piece before visiting the country for himself, seeing the situation with his own eyes, and speaking with commanders and troops who actually know what’s going on?

It strikes me that only someone who is signaling no interest in consulting with commanders on the ground would spell out his “plan” for Iraq just one week before he visits the country for the first time in 918 days. Only someone who is arrogant enough to believe he always knows best would outline his Iraq policy before once meeting one-on-one with General David Petraeus.

The only conceivable answer to the question is that Sen. Obama believes he can capitalize on Prime Minister Maliki’s recent comments about a timeline for U.S. withdrawal. Maliki’s comments, important primarily because they demonstrate increased Iraqi strength and confidence, have been diluted by the fact that he didn’t actually call for a timeline after all. All withdrawal talks will be tied to conditions on the ground.

Yeah, the timing is strange, innit? Obama is going to Iraq this week, so why release an op-ed today, which amounts to nothing more than the “same ol’, same ol’”? Why not wait until next week… a mere eight or ten days… when the op-ed could have included the words “I’ve just returned from Iraq, where I consulted with General Petraeus and other commanders on the ground…”? Is there more here than meets the eye? Is this op-ed a way for Obama to re-focus the nutroots after his FISA vote? Or, are they (the Obama camp) just totally confused? Dean Barnett, writing in The Weekly Standard’s “The Blog:”

On Iraq, Team Obama has become stuck in a quagmire of confusion. On Meet the Press yesterday, leading Obama surrogate Claire McCaskill said that Obama’s 16 month surrender plan in Iraq is a “goal” and added it would be “irresponsible for a commander-in-chief to set a date in stone.”

And yet today, the titular head of Team Obama took to the pages of New York Times and declared:

We can safely redeploy our combat brigades at a pace that would remove them in 16 months. That would be the summer of 2010 — two years from now, and more than seven years after the war began. After this redeployment, a residual force in Iraq would perform limited missions: going after any remnants of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, protecting American service members and, so long as the Iraqis make political progress, training Iraqi security forces. That would not be a precipitous withdrawal.

That sounds sort of “set in stone” to me. Meanwhile Obama is trotting off to Iraq this week with “Republican” Chuck Hagel in tow to lend the voyage some military bona fides. Hagel’s the guy who long ago called the surge, “The most dangerous foreign policy blunder in this country since Vietnam." Then again, I guess Hagel still makes a far more credible traveling companion than Harry Reid would.

And what’s the purpose of this trip? Ostensibly to talk to the commanders so Obama can further refine his plan which isn’t set in stone. Unless you like it as is, in which case you may consider it set in stone. Until further notice.

There’s much more in the “Required Reading” entry linked above, including some comment on that Barry – Michelle New Yorker cover that’s causing a lot of buzz elsewhere today. Even though it’s off-topic for this post, I liked the following:

It (ed: the cover) doesn’t mock the Obamas – it mocks idiots who see the Obamas as the type of people who burn the American flag in their study while engaging in a terrorist fist-bump.

Not everyone has gotten the joke. My favorite reaction to date has come from Pandagon.net, the blogging home of Amanda Marcotte, the Edwards campaign’s controversial blogger that you may remember from last year. Pandagon is home to perhaps the shrillest version of feminism on the web, and yet the site’s Jesse Taylor responded to the cartoon with a lecture on humor. “The hallmark of good satire,” Taylor scolds, “is that it’s good enough to perhaps be taken credulously by those who aren’t too swift, but also ridiculous enough to show that whoever does take it seriously is a bit slow in the head. This is not good satire.” Strident and perennially outraged feminists posing as the arbiters of good humor? Take it from one who knows – if those comments were themselves intended as satire, they would be the equivalent of satire gold.

Going even further a field… Barnett’s comment about the oxymoron-ish nature of “feminist humor” struck me as particularly observant, if not unique. There are NO more humorless people on the face of God’s Green Earth than supposedly “radical” feminists. OTOH, Barnett makes a pretty convincing case that BHO is just as humorless. And that’s not a Good Thing in a leader, Gentle Reader. Particularly one who aspires to leading the entire Free World.

So… we end with a massive digression, eh? But… if you’re in need of more and better comment on The Obamanon and his “Iraq Plan,” there’s all these guys (via memeorandum, some of which already linked above):

Firedoglake, MoJoBlog, The Carpetbagger Report, Washington Post, The Swamp, The Hill's Blog Briefing Room, The New Republic, Marc Ambinder, USA Today, Informed Comment, The Trail, The Moderate Voice, MSNBC, Taylor Marsh, TownHall Blog, Comedy Central, Think Progress, Newshoggers.com, Weekly Standard Blog, TalkLeft, Political Radar, Swampland, democracyarsenal.org, The Reaction, Pajamas Media, Commentary, Matthew Yglesias, The Corner, Hot Air, Riehl World View, Booman Tribune, All Spin Zone, protein wisdom, The Glittering Eye, Needlenose, BLACKFIVE, Democrats.com, The Strata-Sphere, Veterans For America, MyDD, GregsOpinion.com, The Washington Note, Gateway Pundit, Confederate Yankee and Political Machine

That ought to hold ya for an hour or ten.