Along the lines of my post yesterday about the media's shameless backing of Barack Obama, here's another example:

A Top Obama Fund-Raiser Had Ties to Failed Bank
By JOHN R. EMSHWILLER
July 21, 2008; Wall Street Journal Page A10

For the Pritzker family of Chicago, the 2001 collapse of subprime-mortgage lender Superior Bank was an embarrassing failure in a corner of their giant business empire.
Billionaire Penny Pritzker helped run Hinsdale, Ill.-based Superior, overseeing her family's 50% ownership stake. She now serves as Barack Obama's national campaign-finance chairwoman, which means her banking past could prove to be an embarrassment to her -- and perhaps to the campaign.

Superior was seized in 2001 and later closed by federal regulators. Government investigators and consumer advocates have contended that Superior engaged in unsound financial activities and predatory lending practices. Ms. Pritzker, a longtime friend and supporter of Sen. Obama, served for a time as Superior's chairman, and later sat on the board of its holding company.

Sen. Obama has long criticized predatory subprime mortgage lenders and urged strong actions against them.
Just another case of Obama's "Do as I say, not as I do" campaign. But I noticed -- other than this story only appearing in the WSJ, not saturated daily in the NYT and every 10 minutes on CNN -- that this was run on page A10.

Dollars to donuts, had Obama been Republican you can bet this would have made page 1.

Labels: 2008, corruption, media bias, Obama

The New York Times has declined to publish an op-ed by Presidential nominee Sen. John McCain, Drudge reports. Why? According to the explanation by the NYT Op-Ed editor, David "Chicken" Shipley, it just wasn't Obama enough. Chicken Shipley said that if McCain would rewrite it so that it "mirrors Senator Obama's piece" - yes, no joke, he actually wrote that - the NYT would be pleased to run it.

Why refuse to run it? Because in the marketplace of free ideas the left routinely gets it's collective butt kicked. And they know it.

This egregious case of leftward media slant, denying any evidence of victory in Iraq which McCain cites in his op-ed, is proof of that. They simply can't compete. Worse, the NYT and their Copperhead ilk spent so much ink and whining promoting defeatism in Iraq for 5 years that rather then admit wrong and premature commitment to defeat they just avoid the facts on the ground in Iraq. Period.

They redefine diversity, inclusiveness, open-mindedness, enlightenment, intellectualism, all the other leftist buzzwords, etc., to mean that they'll just refuse to acknowledge any opinion that doesn't neatly fit their "progressive" point of view. Well, I'm laughing at their superior intellect.

Because, for conservatives, having the New York Times refuse to publish your opinion is a badge of honor. Shipley, such the schmuck that he is, will probably help McCain by promoting his op-ed, and getting more people to read it, than would have happened had they just run the piece. What a moron.

Here's the McCain op-ed which the NYT was too scared to run.

In January 2007, when General David Petraeus took command in Iraq, he called the situation "hard" but not "hopeless." Today, 18 months later, violence has fallen by up to 80% to the lowest levels in four years, and Sunni and Shiite terrorists are reeling from a string of defeats. The situation now is full of hope, but considerable hard work remains to consolidate our fragile gains.

Progress has been due primarily to an increase in the number of troops and a change in their strategy. I was an early advocate of the surge at a time when it had few supporters in Washington. Senator Barack Obama was an equally vocal opponent. "I am not persuaded that 20,000 additional troops in Iraq is going to solve the sectarian violence there," he said on January 10, 2007. "In fact, I think it will do the reverse."

Now Senator Obama has been forced to acknowledge that "our troops have performed brilliantly in lowering the level of violence." But he still denies that any political progress has resulted.

Perhaps he is unaware that the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad has recently certified that, as one news article put it, "Iraq has met all but three of 18 original benchmarks set by Congress last year to measure security, political and economic progress." Even more heartening has been progress that's not measured by the benchmarks. More than 90,000 Iraqis, many of them Sunnis who once fought against the government, have signed up as Sons of Iraq to fight against the terrorists. Nor do they measure Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki's new-found willingness to crack down on Shiite extremists in Basra and Sadr City—actions that have done much to dispel suspicions of sectarianism.

The success of the surge has not changed Senator Obama's determination to pull out all of our combat troops. All that has changed is his rationale. In a New York Times op-ed and a speech this week, he offered his "plan for Iraq" in advance of his first "fact finding" trip to that country in more than three years. It consisted of the same old proposal to pull all of our troops out within 16 months. In 2007 he wanted to withdraw because he thought the war was lost. If we had taken his advice, it would have been. Now he wants to withdraw because he thinks Iraqis no longer need our assistance.

To make this point, he mangles the evidence. He makes it sound as if Prime Minister Maliki has endorsed the Obama timetable, when all he has said is that he would like a plan for the eventual withdrawal of U.S. troops at some unspecified point in the future.

Senator Obama is also misleading on the Iraqi military's readiness. The Iraqi Army will be equipped and trained by the middle of next year, but this does not, as Senator Obama suggests, mean that they will then be ready to secure their country without a good deal of help. The Iraqi Air Force, for one, still lags behind, and no modern army can operate without air cover. The Iraqis are also still learning how to conduct planning, logistics, command and control, communications, and other complicated functions needed to support frontline troops.

No one favors a permanent U.S. presence, as Senator Obama charges. A partial withdrawal has already occurred with the departure of five "surge" brigades, and more withdrawals can take place as the security situation improves. As we draw down in Iraq, we can beef up our presence on other battlefields, such as Afghanistan, without fear of leaving a failed state behind. I have said that I expect to welcome home most of our troops from Iraq by the end of my first term in office, in 2013.

But I have also said that any draw-downs must be based on a realistic assessment of conditions on the ground, not on an artificial timetable crafted for domestic political reasons. This is the crux of my disagreement with Senator Obama.

Senator Obama has said that he would consult our commanders on the ground and Iraqi leaders, but he did no such thing before releasing his "plan for Iraq." Perhaps that's because he doesn't want to hear what they have to say. During the course of eight visits to Iraq, I have heard many times from our troops what Major General Jeffrey Hammond, commander of coalition forces in Baghdad, recently said: that leaving based on a timetable would be "very dangerous."

The danger is that extremists supported by Al Qaeda and Iran could stage a comeback, as they have in the past when we've had too few troops in Iraq. Senator Obama seems to have learned nothing from recent history. I find it ironic that he is emulating the worst mistake of the Bush administration by waving the "Mission Accomplished" banner prematurely.

I am also dismayed that he never talks about winning the war—only of ending it. But if we don't win the war, our enemies will. A triumph for the terrorists would be a disaster for us. That is something I will not allow to happen as president. Instead I will continue implementing a proven counterinsurgency strategy not only in Iraq but also in Afghanistan with the goal of creating stable, secure, self-sustaining democratic allies.

Labels: 2008, Iraq, mccain, media bias, NYT, Obama

Barack Obama purges Web site critique of surge in Iraq
BY JAMES GORDON MEEK
DAILY NEWS WASHINGTON BUREAU

Monday, July 14th 2008, 8:10 PM

WASHINGTON - Barack Obama's campaign scrubbed his presidential Web site over the weekend to remove criticism of the U.S. troop "surge" in Iraq, the Daily News has learned.

The presumed Democratic nominee replaced his Iraq issue Web page, which had described the surge as a "problem" that had barely reduced violence.

"The surge is not working," Obama's old plan stated, citing a lack of Iraqi political cooperation but crediting Sunni sheiks - not U.S. military muscle - for quelling violence in Anbar Province.

The News reported Sunday that insurgent attacks have fallen to the fewest since March 2004.

Obama's campaign posted a new Iraq plan Sunday night, which cites an "improved security situation" paid for with the blood of U.S. troops since the surge began in February 2007.

It praises G.I.s' "hard work, improved counterinsurgency tactics and enormous sacrifice."

Campaign aide Wendy Morigi said Obama is "not softening his criticism of the surge. We regularly update the Web site to reflect changes in current events."

GOP rival John McCain zinged Obama as a flip-flopper. "The major point here is that Sen. Obama refuses to acknowledge that he was wrong," said McCain, adding that Obama "refuses to acknowledge that it [the surge] is succeeding."

Labels: 2008, Iraq, mccain, Obama, Petraeus

The following regards Barack Obama's argument that Iraq is not the central front on the war on terror, rather that Afghanistan/Pakistan is (more to that in a moment).

Of course, the very first problem with this is that Osama bin Laden and other al Qaeda leadership have plainly stated on several occasions prior to this that Iraq is indeed the central front on the war on terror.

The next problem for Obama, is that those experts on the subject, including those experts who are endorsing Obama, likewise believe that Iraq is the central front for the war on terror.

The following I took from the blogger Mad Irish:

All: Please note that Lee Hamilton, who introduced Sen. Obama at his speech in Washington today, disagrees with Sen. Obama on at least two central issues addressed in his speech today. Specifically, Sen. Obama today denied that Iraq has ever been a “central front in the war on terror,” despite the fact that Hamilton described Iraq as “a central front in the war on terror” in testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee while he was co-chairing the Iraq Study Group. Further, three months ago in April 2008, Hamilton said he opposes “target dates” for withdrawal in Iraq -- something Obama is clearly continuing to embrace today with his 16-month timetable:


Obama vs. Hamilton On Iraq As “A Central Front In The War On Terror”

Obama Today: "In fact – as should have been apparent to President Bush and Senator McCain – the central front in the war on terror is not Iraq, and it never was." (Barack Obama, Remarks, Washington, D.C., 7/15/08)

In December 2006, Hamilton Told The Senate Armed Services Committee That Iraq Was “A Central Front In The War On Terror.” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC): “If you asked the 10 members of the commission the question: “Is Iraq the central battlefront in the war on terror,” what answer would you have received?” … Hamilton: ‘I would strike the word “the” and use “a.” It is a central front. Look, al Qaeda today is a important part of the violence, but not as important as sectarian violence. It is a central front in the war on terror, but to make it THE central front overstates it.” (Lee Hamilton, Committee On The Armed Services, U.S. Senate, Testimony, 12/7/06)

Obama vs. Hamilton On Timetables For Iraq Withdrawal

Obama Today Attacked Those Who Oppose Timetables, And Offered His Own 16-Month Timetable: “We Can Safely Redeploy Our Combat Brigades At A Pace That Would Remove Them In 16 Months.” “George Bush and John McCain don’t have a strategy for success in Iraq – they have a strategy for staying in Iraq. They said we couldn’t leave when violence was up, they say we can’t leave when violence is down. They refuse to press the Iraqis to make tough choices, and they label any timetable to redeploy our troops “surrender,” even though we would be turning Iraq over to a sovereign Iraqi government – not to a terrorist enemy. Theirs is an endless focus on tactics inside Iraq, with no consideration of our strategy to face threats beyond Iraq’s borders. … We can safely redeploy our combat brigades at a pace that would remove them in 16 months.” (Barack Obama, Remarks, Washington, D.C., 7/15/08)

Hamilton In April 2008: "I'm not a great fan, incidentally, of target dates in foreign policy as a rule and in Iraq specifically." (MSNBC's "MSNBC Live," 4/11/08)
It's bad enough Barack Obama is attempting to revise history by acting as though he's always been an advocate of the Petraeus Surge (he has, for instance, now scrubbed his campaign website of all comments that were negative regarding the Surge), but that he's dictating policy and offering a plan on Iraq before actually traveling to Iraq and talking to General Petraeus is not just counterproductive but a foolish campaign move too.

A final point regarding the Obama camp's claim that Iraq is not the central front on terror, or only became the central front on terror after the US invaded Iraq -- FLYPAPER.

It was smart strategy to lure our enemies into the open from out of the shadows of Saudi Arabia or the caves of Afghanistan, or mosques in Europe for that matter.

If Democrats are going to get all queasy about 4,000 dead in Iraq, where the terrain is flat and far more friendly to US technology, how would they ever stomach a war in the miserable terrain of the Hindu Kush mountains, where our advantages like helicopter warfare would become neutralized due to climate and terrain?

Labels: 2008, Afghanistan, Iraq, mccain, Obama, Petraeus, war on terror

Barack Obama isn't bilingual. Neither are his children. But he's "embarrassed" because the rest of us are just like him. More condescending nonsense from the Obama camp:

[Investors Business Daily] Obama peddled his Ameriphobic nonsense at a town hall meeting Tuesday morning in Powder Springs, Ga. Asked a simple question about what he'd do to stop teenagers from dropping out of school — more of a job for a student body president than a U.S. president — he lost the plot, as the (English-speaking) Australians like to say, venturing into dangerous (for him) no-teleprompter territory.

"I agree that immigrants should learn English," he ranted. "But understand this: Instead of worrying about whether immigrants can learn English — they'll learn English — you need to make sure your child can speak Spanish. "You know, it's embarrassing when Europeans come over here, they all speak English, they speak French, they speak German. And then we go over to Europe, and all we can say (is), 'Merci beaucoup.' "

Does he think that one day the rest of the world will stop speaking English just to keep single-language Americans out of the loop? Is he aware that English, as an example, is the worldwide official air-traffic-control language? Has he ever talked to foreign businessmen — or any businessman at all, for that matter — who have different native tongues, yet speak English to each other so they can be understood? Or is he trying to establish some cosmopolitan street-cred with the hipsters who fawn over him?

English became the global language because Britain spread its mother tongue through colonization and trade. And the U.S. sailed capitalism, ambition, a tireless work habit, fairness, justice, the rule of law and a rigorous military defense against tyranny to the top of the world. It's not fashionable to say so in the circles that Obama travels in, but the power and universality of the English language confirm — and strengthen — America's way of life.
Exactly. The world's citizens don't learn English because they have some enlightened attitude that Americans do not. They learn it because so many of them, for several hundred years, had to in order to be successful and compete. Example, just as a greater percentage of American military and politicians spoke French, say, circa 1780 -- it served a necessity! Today, Europeans learn English because the United States conducts business globally, has an annual Gross Domestic Product of $13 trillion -- grossly more than any other country on the planet -- and because they're (Europeans) more likely to vacation here than we are there.

And here I was told that Obama was supposed to be brilliant. His opening comment, the idea that if we learn Spanish our overwhelming influx of illegal immigrats -- mostly from Mexico -- will be more likely to learn English, is juvanile. If Bush said such a thing, he'd be ridiculed, and justly so.

On the contrary to Obamanomics, the opposite is true. Why bother learning English if everyone speaks Spanish? Were you to move to Japan you'd learn Japanese because you'd have to do so, but you wouldn't bother if they all spoke English, right? Else, what's the point?

And while we're on the topic, why should any American bother learning a European language, especially French? The last time I checked, France wasn't exactly becoming an economic powerhouse. Seems to me, if you're going to make the argument, we better learn Chinese.

Finally, Obama's point doesn't sit well with Americans at large (hat tip to Jim Geraghty)

Eighty-three percent (83%) place a higher priority on encouraging immigrants to speak English as their primary language. Just 13% take the opposite view and say it is more important for Americans to learn other languages.
But what do they know? I mean, how dare they question the hypocrisy of the messianic Rockstar-in-Chief Barack Obama.

Labels: 2008, academic bias, Economics, media bias, Obama

The fatal defeatists of Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, etc., may all believe we're losing in Iraq, but apparently Iraq's neighbors do not:

[WSJ] The Prime Minister is also making it clear to his Arab neighbors that his government is not about to collapse. Apparently, they believe him: Jordan, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates have announced plans to break the Arab diplomatic embargo of Iraq and return their ambassadors to Baghdad; the UAE has also forgiven $7 billion of Iraqi debt. Perhaps Saudi Arabia and Egypt will follow.
Ho-hum, more just desserts from the Petraeus surge and not a word from our mainstream media regarding it. Indeed, antiwar liberals as a whole have invested so much in our defeat in Iraq that they choose to ignore any facts of success, especially since good news in Iraq translates to a more competitive campaign from John McCain. And the mainstream media certainly can't have anyone ruining the promotion of their favorate rock-star-in-chief, Barack Obama.

Example: what hardball toics did NBC Today Show co-anchor Meredith Vieira press upon Obama? His shopping habits and that he liked pie over candy and junk food. Tough stuff.

The, ahem, hard-hitting program spent 20 minutes on the Obama family. Can the McCain family expect equal time from NBC? Of course, that might be more difficult since McCain's two sons are both serving in our armed forces, one having served in Iraq.

But back to the lecture at hand, the MSM's obvious antiwar slant in its Iraq coverage.

Gerard Baker of the UK Times explains:

the evidence is now overwhelming that on all fronts, despite inevitable losses from time to time, it is we who are advancing and the enemy who is in retreat. The current mood on both sides of the Atlantic, in fact, represents a kind of curious inversion of the great French soldier's dictum: "Success against the Taleban. Enemy giving way in Iraq. Al-Qaeda on the run. Situation dire. Let's retreat!"

... Since it is remarkable how pervasive this pessimism is, it's worth recapping what has been achieved in the past few years.

Afghanistan has been a signal success. There has been much focus on the latest counter-offensive by the Taleban in the southeast of the country and it would be churlish to minimise the ferocity with which the terrorists are fighting, but it would be much more foolish to understate the scale of the continuing Nato achievement. Establishing a stable government for the whole nation is painstaking work, years in the making. It might never be completed. But that was not the principal objective of the war there.

Until the US-led invasion in 2001, Afghanistan was the cockpit of ascendant Islamist terrorism. Consider the bigger picture. Between 1998 and 2005 there were five big terrorist attacks against Western targets - the bombings of the US embassies in Africa in 1998, the attack on the USS Cole in 2000, 9/11, and the Madrid and London bombings in 2004 and 2005. All owed their success either exclusively or largely to Afghanistan's status as a training and planning base for al-Qaeda.

In the past three years there has been no attack on anything like that scale. Al-Qaeda has been driven into a state of permanent flight. Its ability to train jihadists has been severely compromised; its financial networks have been ripped apart. Thousands of its activists and enablers have been killed. It's true that Osama bin Laden's forces have been regrouping in the border areas of Pakistan but their ability to orchestrate mass terrorism there is severely attenuated. And there are encouraging signs that Pakistanis are starting to take to the offensive against them.

Next time you hear someone say that the war in Afghanistan is an exercise in futility ask them this: do they seriously think that if the US and its allies had not ousted the Taleban and sustained an offensive against them for six years that there would have been no more terrorist attacks in the West? What characterised Islamist terrorism before the Afghan war was increasing sophistication, boldness and terrifying efficiency. What has characterised the terrorist attacks in the past few years has been their crudeness, insignificance and a faintly comical ineptitude (remember Glasgow airport?)

The second great advance in the War on Terror has been in Iraq. There's no need to recapitulate the disasters of the US-led war from the fall of Saddam Hussein in April 2003 to his execution at the end of 2006. We may never fully make up for three and a half lost years of hubris and incompetence but in the last 18 months the change has been startling.

The "surge", despite all the doubts and derision at the time, has been a triumph of US military planning and execution. Political progress was slower in coming but is now evident too. The Iraqi leadership has shown great courage and dispatch in extirpating extremists and a growing willingness even to turn on Shia militias.

Basra is more peaceful and safer than it has been since before the British moved in. Despite setbacks such as yesterday's bombings, the streets of Iraq's cities are calmer and safer than they have been in years. Seventy companies have bid for oil contracts from the Iraqi Government. There are signs of a real political reconciliation that may reach fruition in the election later this year.

The third and perhaps most significant advance of all in the War on Terror is the discrediting of the Islamist creed and its appeal.

This was first of all evident in Iraq, where the head-hacking frenzy of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and his associates so alienated the majority of Muslims that it gave rise to the so-called Sunni Awakening that enabled the surge to be so effective.

But it has spread way beyond Iraq. As Lawrence Wright described in an important piece in The New Yorker last month, there is growing disgust not just among moderate Muslims but even among other jihadists at the extremism of the terrorists.

Deeply encouraging has been the widespread revulsion in Muslim communities in Europe - especially in Britain after the 7/7 attacks of three years ago. Some of the biggest intelligence breakthroughs in the past few years have been achieved from former al-Qaeda supporters who have turned against the movement.

There ought to be no surprise here. It's only their apologists in the Western media who really failed to see the intrinsic evil of Islamists. Those who have had to live with it have never been in much doubt about what it represents. Ask the people of Iran. Or those who fled the horrors of Afghanistan under the Taleban.

This is why we fight. Primarily, of course, to protect ourselves from the immediate threat of terrorist carnage, but also because we know that extending the embrace of a civilisation that liberates everyone makes us all safer.

Every death is an unspeakable tragedy. It's right that each time a soldier is killed in action we ask why. Was it really worth it?

The right response to the loss of brave souls such as Corporal Sarah Bryant, the first British woman to die in Afghanistan, is not an immediate call for retreat. It is, first of all, pride; a great, deep conviction that it is on such sacrifice that our own freedoms have always rested. Then, defiance. How foolish is the enemy that it might think our grief is really some prelude to their victory? Finally, confidence. We are prevailing in this struggle. We know it. And everywhere: in Afghanistan, in Iraq, and among Muslims around the world, the enemy knows it too.

Labels: 2008, Iraq, mccain, media bias, Obama, Petraeus

[WSJ] "I want you to think about this," Barack Obama said in Las Vegas last week. "The oil companies have already been given 68 million acres of federal land, both onshore and offshore, to drill. They're allowed to drill it, and yet they haven't touched it – 68 million acres that have the potential to nearly double America's total oil production."

Wow, how come the oil companies didn't think of that?

Perhaps because the notion is obviously false – at least to anyone who knows how oil and gas exploration actually works. Predictably, however, Mr. Obama's claim is also the mantra of Nancy Pelosi, Barbara Boxer, John Kerry, Nick Rahall and others writing Congressional energy policy. As a public service, here's a remedial education.

Democrats are in a vise this summer, pinned on one side by voter anger over $4 gas and on the other by their ideological opposition to carbon-based energy – so, as always, the political first resort is to blame Big Oil. The allegation is that oil companies are "stockpiling" leases on federal lands to drive up gas prices. At least liberals are finally acknowledging the significance of supply and demand.

To deflect the GOP effort to relax the offshore-drilling ban – and thus boost supply while demand will remain strong – Democrats also say that most of the current leases are "nonproducing." The idea comes from a "special report" prepared by the Democratic staff of the House Resources Committee, chaired by Mr. Rahall. "If we extrapolate from today's production rates on federal lands and waters," the authors write, the oil companies could "nearly double total U.S. oil production" (their emphasis).

In other words, these whiz kids assume that every acre of every lease holds the same amount of oil and gas. Yet the existence of a lease does not guarantee that the geology holds recoverable resources. Brian Kennedy of the Institute for Energy Research quips that, using the same extrapolation, the 9.4 billion acres of the currently nonproducing moon should yield 654 million barrels of oil per day.

Nonetheless, the House still went through with a gesture called the "use it or lose it" bill, which passed on Thursday 223-195. It would be pointless even if it had a chance of becoming law. Oil companies acquire leases in the expectation that some of them contain sufficient oil and gas to cover the total costs. Yet it takes years to move through federal permitting, exploration and development. The U.S. Minerals Management Service notes that only one of three wells results in a discovery of oil that can be recovered economically. In deeper water, it's one of five. All this involves huge risks, capital investment – and time.

If anything, the Democrats ought to be dancing in the streets about "idle" leases. It means fewer rigs. The days of hit-or-miss wildcatting have been relegated to the past by new, more efficient technologies, such as seismic imaging, directional drilling (wells that are "steered" underground) and multilateral drilling (multiple underground offshoots from a single wellbore).

At the same time, finding new reservoirs has become far more complex. Except for a few very large fields discovered decades ago like Prudhoe Bay, most recent discoveries have been smaller, deeper and less concentrated. The U.S. needs a continuous supply of discoveries to replace declining wells.

Yet companies are not allowed to explore where the biggest prospects for oil and gas may exist – especially on the Outer Continental Shelf. Seven of the top 20 U.S. oil fields are now located in analogous deepwater areas (greater than 1,000 feet) in the Gulf of Mexico. In 2006, Chevron discovered what is likely to be the largest American oil find since Prudhoe, drilled in 7,000 feet of water and more than 20,000 feet under the sea floor. The Wilcox formation may have an upper end of 15 billion barrels of recoverable oil and should begin producing by 2014 – perhaps ushering in a new ultradeepwater frontier.

Likewise, in April, the U.S. Geological Survey revised its estimate for the Bakken Shale, underneath the badlands of North Dakota and Montana. The new assessment – as much as 4.3 billion barrels of oil – is a 25-fold increase over what the Survey believed in 1995. Such breakthroughs confirm that very large reserves exist, if only Congress would let business get at them.

All of which has Democrats sweating bullets. The leadership is desperate to avoid debating a Department of Interior spending bill, because they know Republicans will offer amendments lifting the drilling moratorium that may peel off some Democrats. Last week, Chairman David Obey shut down the Appropriations Committee rather than countenance more domestic energy production. Given Democratic energy illiteracy, this is a fight the GOP can win if it keeps up the pressure.

Labels: 2008, democrats, energy, Obama, Oil

[AFP] Saudi Arabia said Thursday it planned to increase daily oil output by 200,000 barrels per day, according to a statement posted on the country's London embassy website.
The Saudis are increasing output because they're worried that the United States will increase -- long term -- the amount of domestic oil we drill and refine. This puts Democrats on the same side of the political fence as Saudi Arabia -- they both oppose more US domestic oil production.

Brilliant job, Democrats! We'll see how that works out for you come November...

Meanwhile, I'm sure you've heard it by now -- US oil companies, say the opponents of more drilling for domestic oil, already have access to the vast majority of federal lands, but are choosing not to drill for oil.

Here's the rest of the story:

[WSJ]...it is true that only 0.46% of the Outer Continental Shelf is producing oil (though only 2.3% is under lease). But because of the exploration ban, oil companies go in more or less blind, not knowing the extent of the available resources. Millions of acres lack oil or gas, which is why it's called "exploration." Federal law stipulates that an oil company must sink a producing well within 10 years or lose the lease; it often takes nearly a decade to navigate the geography, not to mention the long process of environmental and regulatory review. Or coping with multiple lawsuits from the green lobby.
So, Democrats would have the US oil companies invest billions of dollars of their capital to explore areas that have no *proven* oil reserves, while blocking access to those lands that *have* proven oil reserves.

Labels: 2008, democrats, energy, Obama, Oil

Sure, sure, Karl Rove is evil and all that, or so we're told. But as it's been said, facts are stubborn things. Here's a few from Mr. Rove, regarding the "windfall profits tax":

Instead ask this: Why should we stop with oil companies? They make about 8.3 cents in gross profit per dollar of sales. Why doesn't Mr. Obama slap a windfall profits tax on sectors of the economy that have fatter margins? Electronics make 14.5 cents per dollar and computer equipment makers take in 13.7 cents per dollar, according to the Census Bureau. Microsoft's margin is 27.5 cents per dollar of sales. Call out Mr. Obama's Windfall Profits Police!

It's not the profit margin, but the total number of dollars earned that is the problem, Mr. Obama might say. But if that were the case, why isn't he targeting other industries? Oil and gas companies made $86.5 billion in profits last year. At the same time, the financial services industry took in $498.5 billion in profits, the retail industry walked away with $137.5 billion, and information technology companies made off with $103.4 billion. What kind of special outrage does Mr. Obama have for these companies?

Labels: Economics, Obama, taxes

[UK Telegraph] The actress Scarlett Johansson has revealed that she has regular email contact with presidential hopeful Barack Obama in which she offers advice and consoles him after difficult debates.

The Hollywood starlet said she had been communicating with the Democratic candidate for months and was "amazed" that he always found the time to reply.
"You'd imagine that someone like the senator who is constantly travelling and constantly 'on' - how can he return these personal emails?" she told the Politico website.
Wow, she is as naive as she is pretty apparently... I mean to other men. Not me.
I have to go now. My wife is asking me a question...

Labels: Obama

Which do you remember? the "Party of corruption" or Tony Rezko? Likely the former (what Nancy Pelosi termed Republicans in the Democrat's sweep of the House). Why would most Americans remember one more than the other? Because when it's a Democratic presidential candidate involved there's always a few free passes first. We'll see how the AngeloGate goes.

Blatant hypocrisy is something even the left leaning media has a tough time swallowing. And hypocrisy is hiring an advisor from the very company one was demonizing just days before. Obama said Jim Johnson, who resigned hours ago from conducting Obama's VP search, didn't work for him. For whom did he work then, senator, as he was helping you choose your VP?

WSJ Countrywide Financial Corp. makes mortgage loans through a vast network of offices, brokers and call centers. But a few customers have gotten their loans a special way: through Countrywide Chief Executive Angelo Mozilo.

These borrowers, known internally as "friends of Angelo" or FoA, include two former CEOs of Fannie Mae, the biggest buyer of Countrywide's mortgages, say people familiar with the matter.

One was James Johnson, a longtime Democratic Party power and an adviser to Sen. Barack Obama's campaign, who this past week was named to a panel that is vetting running-mate possibilities for the presumed nominee. Another was Franklin Raines, a onetime Clinton administration budget director, who left Fannie Mae amid an accounting scandal in 2004.

There is nothing illegal about a mortgage firm treating some borrowers better than others. But if Fannie Mae officials received special treatment, that could cause a political problem for the government-sponsored, shareholder-owned company.

The Wall Street Journal editors pile on, justifiably so:

Barack Obama may have come up with a creative way to solve the housing recession: Let everyone buy property at a discount the way he did from Tony Rezko, and give everyone in America a discount mortgage the way Angelo Mozilo of Countrywide did for Fannie Mae's Jim Johnson. Team Obama's real estate and mortgage transactions are certainly a change from business as usual. They suggest old-fashioned back-scratching below even current Beltway standards.

A former CEO of mortgage financing giant Fannie Mae, Mr. Johnson is now vetting Vice Presidential candidates for Mr. Obama. But he is also a textbook case for poor disclosure as regulators sifted through the wreckage of Fannie's $10 billion accounting scandal. Despite an exhaustive federal inquiry, Mr. Johnson managed to avoid disclosing one very special perk: below-market interest-rate mortgages from Countrywide Financial, arranged by Countrywide CEO Angelo Mozilo. Journal reporters Glenn Simpson and James Hagerty broke the story this weekend.

Fannie Mae tells us that Mr. Johnson did not inform the company's board of these sweetheart mortgage deals, nor did his CEO successor Franklin Raines, who also received such loans. We can understand why. Fannie bought mortgages from loan originator Countrywide, and then packaged them into securities for sale or kept the loans and profited from the interest. Mr. Mozilo told Dow Jones in 1995 that he was "working very closely . . . with Jim Johnson of Fannie Mae to come up with a rational method of making the process more efficient by the use of credit scoring."

Since Fannie was buying Countrywide's loans, under terms set by Mr. Johnson and later Mr. Raines – or by people in their employ – the fact that Fannie's CEO had a separate personal financial relationship with Countrywide was an obvious conflict of interest. The company's code of conduct required prior approval of such arrangements. Neither Mr. Johnson nor Mr. Raines sought such approval, according to Fannie.

Even if they had received waivers from the board to enjoy these perks, conscientious board members would then have wanted to disclose the waivers to investors. Post-Enron, the Sarbanes-Oxley law requires such disclosures. But even in the late-1990s, when the Friends of Angelo loans began, board members would likely have raised red flags.

Former SEC Chairman Harvey Pitt tells us that "the best way to deal with issues like this is not to have these kinds of relationships. From both the Countrywide and the Fannie perspective, it is simply bad policy to permit loans to 'friends' on more favorable terms than others similarly situated would be able to get."

One question is whether Messrs. Johnson and Raines were using their position to pad their own incomes that were already fabulous thanks to an implicit taxpayer subsidy. (See the table nearby.) But the bigger issue is whether they steered Fannie policy into giving Mr. Mozilo and Countrywide favorable pricing, which means they helped to facilitate the mortgage boom and bust that Countrywide did so much to promote. A further federal probe would seem to be warranted, and we assume Barney Frank and his fellow mortgage moralists will want to dig into this palm-greasing from Capitol Hill.

The irony here is that Mr. Obama has denounced Mr. Mozilo as part of his populist case against corporate excess, calling Mr. Mozilo and a colleague in March "the folks who are responsible for infecting the economy and helping to create a home foreclosure crisis." Obama campaign manager David Plouffe also said in March that "If we're really going to crack down on the practices that caused the credit and housing crises, we're going to need a leader who doesn't owe these industries any favors." But now this protector of the working class has entrusted his first big task as Presidential nominee to the very man who received "favors" in return for enriching Mr. Mozilo.

Yesterday, ABC News asked Mr. Obama whether he should have more carefully vetted Mr. Johnson and Eric Holder, who is working with Mr. Johnson on veep vetting.

Correspondent Sunlen Miller noted Mr. Johnson's loans from Countrywide and Mr. Holder's involvement as Deputy Attorney General in the Clinton Administration in the pardon of fugitive Marc Rich. Said Mr. Obama: "Everybody, you know, who is tangentially related to our campaign, I think, is going to have a whole host of relationships – I would have to hire the vetter to vet the vetters."

Vetting Mr. Johnson's finances would have been time well spent, judging by a May 2006 report from Fannie Mae's regulator, the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight (Ofheo). Even if Mr. Obama considers the advisers helping him select a running mate "tangentially related" to his campaign, he might have thought twice about any relationship with Mr. Johnson.

Addressing the company's too smooth (and fraudulent) reported earnings growth in the late 1990s and early 2000s, Ofheo reported: "Those achievements were illusions deliberately and systematically created by the Enterprise's senior management with the aid of inappropriate accounting and improper earnings management . . . By deliberately and intentionally manipulating accounting to hit earnings targets, senior management maximized the bonuses and other executive compensation they received, at the expense of shareholders."

The regulator described how, despite an internal Fannie analysis that valued Mr. Johnson's 1998 compensation at almost $21 million, the summary compensation table in the firm's 1999 proxy suggested his pay was no more than $7 million. Ofheo found that Fannie had actually drafted talking points to deflect such media questions as: "He's trying to hide how much he's made, isn't he?" and "Gimme a break. He's hiding his compensation."

To this list we would add one more, directed at Mr. Obama: Is this what you mean by bringing change to Washington?

Labels: 2008, Countrywide Financial, Hypocrisy, Obama, rezko

I read these headlines and I just am dumbfounded.

Obama says he would impose oil windfall profits tax

McCain wants... regulated CEO pay.
Windfall profits tax? Regulated CEO pay? How does one propose we do that, exactly? Or, better yet, we can just cap prices, let we tried back in the 1970s so unsuccessfully. Somewhere Karl Marx is howling with laughter.

Once more, arrogant politicos wish to legislate what is good for us, rather than letting us decide. How does one subjectively judge what is a "windfall profit" or salary versus what is not? (To be fair to McCain, the lesser of two evils on your wallet to be sure, at least he acknowledges that our current corporate tax rate - second highest in the world - is damaging our economy.)

The truth is they're not econ-ignorant. I don't think they really believe this, because anyone who's ever taken Eco 101, or lived through the 70s, understands that when you cap prices, whether CEO pay or a commodity like oil, you create artifical shortages. There's simply no incentive to produce more.

Rather, and I think this is especially true of McCain in part to live up to his "maverick" identity, these guys know that a large segment of the voting population goes along with what sounds good, what is populist. It's far easier to say "hate CEOs!" than to explain economics.

But facts are stubborn things:

"Though the market is surely not flawless, and government interferences often have praiseworthy goals, good intentions are not enough. Any government that sets out to repair what it sees as a defect in the market mechanism runs the risk of causing even more serious damage elsewhere... In case after case where legal price ceilings are imposed, virtually the same series of consequences ensues. . . . A persistent shortage develops because quantity demanded exceeds quantity supplied. . . . An illegal, or 'black,' market often arises to supply the commodity. . . . Investment in the industry generally dries up. Because price ceilings reduce the monetary returns that investors can legally earn, less capital will be invested in industries that are subject to price controls."

-- Alan S. Blinder, former member of the Council of Economic Advisers and Vice Chairman of the Federal Reserve.
Blinder, by the way, was praised by none other than President Bill Clinton as "a brilliant contributor to our efforts to improve the economy."

Do people really believe this populist crap? And why stop there? What about you, reading this blog? Why not have McCain or Obama decide through presidential fiat or Congressional law when you, personally, have made enough money?

John Hinderaker, over at Power Line Blog, wonders, what of a windfall profit for authors:

Barack Obama said yesterday that he wants to impose a "windfall profits tax" on American oil companies. This is a stupid idea, unless you want to reduce the supply of oil and thereby increase prices even further.

But it did cause me to wonder why we don't have a windfall profits tax on authors. Think about it: it takes as much work to write a 300-page book that sells 1,000 copies as to write one that sells 1,000,000. Yet the former author is paid almost nothing, while the author who happens to write a best-seller gets rich. Where is the fairness in that? Besides, the oil companies need their profits to make huge capital investments in oil drilling equipment, ocean platforms, pipelines, and so on. What capital investment does an author need his windfall profits in order to make? A new pencil? An author could easily pay extra taxes on his windfall profits and have plenty of capital left over for his next book.

A windfall profits tax on authors seems like a no-brainer. Coincidentally, Barack Obama's 2007 income of around $4.2 million came almost entirely from book royalties. Now, that's what I call a windfall! If authors' windfall profits are taxed at 90%, Obama can write a check to the Treasury for around $3.2 million. What do you say, Barack? Why not a windfall profits tax on authors?
Pretty audacious. Obama is a guy who just a few weeks ago told a Wesleyan commencement that he hopes those graduating students do not "take your diploma, walk off this stage, and chase only after the big house and the nice suits and all the other things that our money culture says you should buy." No, Obama said, don't do that because "our individual salvation depends on collective salvation."

$4.2 million windfall profit book deal. Do as I say, not as I do, eh Obama?

The only difference between Karl Marx and Barack Obama is that Marx actually practiced what he preached. At least he was an honest communist.

Check out this post, too, by Hinderaker.

What we need, of course, is oil companies with bigger profits, not smaller. Then we need them to invest those profits in drilling for more oil in places like ANWR and the coastal shelf, as well as developing shale oil reserves. The problem with America's oil companies is not that they're big, the problem is that they are tiny, as this chart shows; click to enlarge:



Our oil companies control tiny amounts of petroleum (relative to the world's big players) because they are shackled by Congress, which prohibits them by law from accessing America's abundant petroleum reserves. If you want gasoline prices to come down, write, call and email your Congressman and Senators and tell them to allow the oil companies to do what only they can do: bring us more oil.

Labels: energy, Obama, Oil, taxes

Why Obama Must Go to Iraq
By PETE HEGSETH

Earlier this year, I spent five days in Iraq, walking the same streets in Baghdad where I had served two years earlier as an infantry platoon leader in the 101st Airborne Division.

The visit reinforced for me not only the immense complexity of the war – so often lost in our domestic political debate – but also the importance of taking the time to visit Iraq to talk with the soldiers and Marines serving on the front lines in order to grasp the changing dynamics of a fluid battlefield.

It is for this reason that the failure of Sen. Barack Obama to travel to Iraq over the past two and a half years is worrisome, and a legitimate issue in this presidential election.

Since his election to the United States Senate in 2004, Mr. Obama has traveled to Iraq just once – in January 2006. This was more than a year before Gen. David Petraeus took command and the surge began. It was also several months before Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's government came into office. Although Mr. Obama frequently criticizes the Iraqi leader on the campaign trail, he has never actually met him.

Mr. Obama's conduct is strikingly different from that of Sen. John McCain, who has been to Iraq eight times since 2003 – including three times since surge forces began to arrive in Baghdad. The senior senator from Arizona has made it his mission to truly understand what is happening on the ground, in all its messy reality.

Mr. Obama has dismissed the value of such trips, suggesting they are stage-managed productions designated to obfuscate, not illuminate, the truth. This has become an all-too-common sentiment within the Democratic Party leadership, especially since the surge began to transform conditions on the ground for the better. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has denied that there is any value in visiting the troops in Iraq, and has never done so.

In fairness, there are a number of Democrats who visit Iraq frequently – namely Sens. Joe Biden, who has made eight Iraq trips, and Jack Reed, with 10 trips. Mr. Obama's absence and cynicism stands in stark contrast to their serious approach. It is especially problematic given his intention to become our next commander in chief.

As anyone who has spent time on the ground in Iraq – speaking with troops of all ranks and backgrounds – can tell you, it is hardly a mission impossible to get them out to speak bluntly and openly about the problems they face.

Indeed, Mr. McCain's own frequent and vociferous criticisms of former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and his warnings, as early as 2003, that the Bush administration was pursuing a flawed strategy in Iraq, were directly informed by his firsthand interactions during his trips to Iraq. Troops and commanders warned him that we lacked sufficient forces to defeat al Qaeda and Iranian-backed militias, and they were correct.

In turn, Mr. McCain's early advocacy for the surge and his prescient conviction that it would succeed were rooted not only in his extensive knowledge of military affairs, but in his close consultations with troops serving in the theater. They recognized that the new strategy was succeeding far before the mainstream media in the U.S. was willing to acknowledge these gains.

That Mr. Obama apparently doubts his ability to distinguish spin from reality, and to draw bad news out of subordinates, does not bode well for his possible future as our nation's chief executive. As I'm sure he will discover, if he wins the White House, these are among the most important skills for a president to possess.

Even more astonishing than Mr. Obama's absence from Iraq, however, is the fact that he has apparently never sought out a single one-on-one meeting with Gen. Petraeus. The general has made repeated trips back to Washington, but Mr. Obama has shown no interest in meeting privately with him. It's enough to make you wonder who exactly Mr. Obama listens to when it comes to Iraq?

Mr. Obama frequently decries the danger of "dogmatists" and "ideologues" in public policy, yet he himself has proven consistently uninterested in putting himself in situations where he might be confronted with the hard complexities of this war. It suggests a dangerous degree of detachment and overconfidence in his own judgment.

After all, Mr. Obama was among those in January 2007 who stridently opposed the surge and confidently predicted its failure – even going so far as to vote against funding our soldiers in the field unless the Bush administration abandoned this new approach. It is now clear that Mr. Obama's judgment on the surge was spectacularly wrong.

Yet rather than admit his mistake, Mr. Obama has instead tried to downplay or disparage the gains our troops have achieved in the past 12 months, clinging to a set of talking points that increasingly seem as divorced from reality as some in the Bush administration were at the darkest moments of the war.

Mr. Obama continues to insist that "Iraq's political leaders have made no progress in resolving the political differences at the heart of their civil war" – despite the passage of numerous pieces of benchmark legislation by the Iraqi Parliament and unequivocal evidence of grassroots reconciliation across the country.

Mr. Obama also continues to claim that America has "simply thrown U.S. troops at the problem, and it has not worked" – despite the dramatic reduction in violence in precisely those areas of Iraq where American forces have surged, and since handed over to Iraqi Security Forces.

And of course, Mr. Obama persists in his pledge to withdraw all combat forces from Iraq, on a fixed timeline, beginning the moment he enters office – regardless of the recommendations of our commanders on the ground, regardless of conditions on the ground, and regardless, in short, of reality.

America is longing for an informed and principled debate about the future of Iraq. However, such a debate seems unlikely if the Democratic nominee for president won't take the time to truly understand the dynamics on the ground, let alone meet with commanders.

The time for talking points is over. Too much is at stake. When will Mr. Obama finally return to Iraq and see the situation for himself?

Mr. Hegseth, chairman of Vets for Freedom, served in Iraq with the 101st Airborne Division and returned as an embedded reporter.

Labels: 2008, Iraq, Obama

Great comment regarding the convoluted election mess during the Democrat primary cycle from Dennis Miller during his Tuesday broadcast:

If the Democrats can turn their own election process into this kind of Rube Goldbergian process, imagine what they can do with nationalized health care."

Labels: 2008, Clinton, democrats, healthcare, Obama

Here's a rather odd splitting of hairs -- Time Magazine's "objective" reporter Joe Klein takes John McCain to task because Barack Obama has never said he'd talk with Ahmadinejad specifically, just Iran's leaders, which is to say Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.

Um, Joe, how is that better than talking to Ahmadinejad?

[From Joe Klein's Time.com blog] At a press conference here, I just asked John McCain about why he keeps talking about Obama's alleged willingness to talk to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who has no power over Iranian foreign policy, rather than Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, who does. He said that Ahmadinejad is the guy who represents Iran in international forums like the United Nations, which is a fair point. When I followed with the observation that the Supreme Leader is, uh, the Supreme Leader, McCain responded that the "average American" thinks Ahmadinejad is the boss. Didn't get a chance to follow up to that, but I would have asked, "But isn't it your job to correct those sorts of mistaken impressions on the part of the American public?" Oh well... As I said below, there is a real debate lurking beneath all this bluster--whether we directly engage our adversaries, as we did during the cold war. McCain says no. Obama says yes. They should have it out in debate.
Again, nonsensical hair splitting.

Sure, technically, the Ayatollah and his Supreme Council (i.e., the Ayatollah and 11 mullahs) call all the shots. But Ahmadinejad, as McCain pointed out, is their boy, and he's hardly powerless.

In any event, this is irrelevant.

What is relevant is Klein's second point - that we "engaged" our adversaries during the Cold War. The thing is, Klein is backwards on his conclusions. Then again, reporters are often ignorant of history.

Many key points:

* Iran is not the Soviet Union. It is nowhere near as powerful or influential and thus it's a mistake to elevate them as such.

* We didn't have direct talks with the Soviets and Chinese because we wanted to. We did so because we had to. See point one.

* This isn't the Cold War. Under Nixon, we talked with China in large part to leverage them off of the Soviets. We correctly identified a weakness in their supposed Communist alliance. Thus, we didn't talk with our enemies out of anything but a strategy to undermine them, not because of some highbrow liberalism like Obama and company propose.

* Finally, Reagan didn't get elected, pick up the telephone and start talking to the Soviets, as our misinformed revisionist-history liberal friends keep stating. Indeed, Gorbachev wasn't even leader of the USSR when Reagan took office, Leonid Brezhnev was. Reagan met with Brezhnev with preconditions (namely, the US brazenly placed scores of Pershing II missiles in Europe), not without preconditions, as Barack Obama's own website claims he'd do with Iran (Obama's website: "Obama is the only major candidate who supports tough, direct presidential diplomacy with Iran without preconditions.")

* It wasn't until Gorbachev took office that Reagan got anywhere with the Soviets, because the West recognized that Gorby was someone we could reason with. So even if one wants to elevate Iran to the status of the USSR (folly #1), neither the Ayatollah nor Ahmadinejad are anywhere near the reasonable guy that Gorby was (folly #2).

* At bare minimum, Reagan only talked with his enemies from a position of strength (did I mention the Pershing II missiles parked in Russia's back yard?). He likewise didn't fail to call a spade a spade. He reminded the Soviets at every turn of their cruelty - calling them the "Evil Empire," or telling them that "the march of freedom and democracy" would "leave Marxism-Leninism on the ash heap of history." I don't see any strength like that from Obama or Democrats in general. In fact, they go out of their multi-cultural, diversity-lovin', kumbayah way NOT to dare insult the Iranians. With the exception of far left Kool-Aid drinkers, the Obama camp looks whimpy to everyone, espeically to the Ayatollah and Ahmadinejad.

In summary: Joe Klein needs to open up a frakin' history book, because his knowledge has been found lacking.

Labels: 2008, folly, foreign policy, mccain, media bias, Obama, Reagan, Russia

Candidates Vie to Be The Anti-Lobbyist
Obama Cites Conflicts in McCain Camp

BILLINGS, Mont., May 19 -- Sen. Barack Obama accused Sen. John McCain on Monday of running a presidential campaign bought and paid for by lobbyists and criticized the presumptive Republican nominee for waiting more than a year to address the conflicts of several key advisers.

During a speech at a high school here, Obama said voters should be concerned that "after nearly three decades in Washington, John McCain can't see or won't acknowledge what's obvious to all of us here today -- that lobbyists aren't just part of the system in Washington, they're part of the problem."

McCain's campaign shot back quickly, challenging Obama to "shed light on the long list of federal lobbyists advising him on policy issues" and accusing him of diverting attention from more serious matters.
There are two important points to make regarding demonization of lobbying.

Point #1: Whether you philosophically agree with it or not, and whether you like it or not, the US constitution protects lobbying. Period. There's no debate on this, and so race to see which politician lobbys the least is a collossal waste of time. The First Amendment gives the "right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances." Petition the government for a redress of grievances is what we today call "lobbying."

Point #2: We don't need more regulation because of lobbying. Rather the reverse is true: We have a lobbying juggernaut exactly because the government interferes so much and so often in the private sector. The day that government butts out of commerce is the day that companies and businesses don't find it necessary to spend so much of their precious resources "petitioning the government"!

You don't like lobbying, Sens. McCain and Obama? Then get the heck out of our lives!

Labels: Congress, government, mccain, Obama

Shakespeare once wrote, "Methinks the lady doth protest too much." Protesting too much is exactly what faux-outraged Democrats are doing in response to a speech in which President Bush told the Israeli Knesset that, "We also believe that nations have a right to defend themselves and that no nation should ever be forced to negotiate with killers pledged to it's destruction." He referenced Neville Chamberlain, and that appeasement never worked with Nazis. That's it.

What's fascinating in all this is that Bush (1) made no mention of Barack Obama or any Democrat, and (2) simply repeated what American presidents have been saying about our Israeli relationship since Harry Truman more than 60 years ago.

That Democrats are so oddly defensive when no attack was made simply underscores that they are as weak in the face of autocracies from Burma to China to North Korea to Tehran as everyone suspects.

Labels: 2008, democrats, foreign policy, Israel, Obama, war on terror

[Rev. Jeremiah] Wright attacks capitalism throughout his sermons, an odd ideological target for a man who reportedly drives a Porsche and whose grateful congregants are building him a $1 million, four-garage home in a predominantly white suburb of Chicago (so much for being “unapologetically black”). He has also praised Cuba’s Fidel Castro and Libya’s Muammar al-Qadhafi. So it’s really no wonder that a huckster such as Wright has emerged as some sort of “reality-based community” folk hero. The political left finds common cause with the religious left and is apparently willing to overlook exactly the sort of racist sectarianism that it would be so quick to condemn were its perpetrator a white conservative.

-- James Kirchick, The Politico

Labels: 2008, Economics, Hypocrisy, Obama

'Unity is the great need of the hour," insists Barack Obama. Unity and the hope for unity and the need for unity in the pursuit of hope and the hope that our unified hopefulness will carry us to ever greater heights of hopeful unity until each and every one of us is the person he longs to be: That's what Barack Obama is all about. And don't you dare say otherwise. These are not "just words."

One might be forgiven for asking, What the heck do these words mean? Specifically, what's so special about unity? Unity for what? Unity around what? Obama has an answer: We need unity "not because it sounds pleasant or because it makes us feel good, but because it's the only way we can overcome the essential [empathy] deficit that exists in this country." His wife, Michelle, dilates on the subject: "We have to compromise and sacrifice for one another in order to get things done. That is why I am here, because Barack Obama is the only person in this who understands that. That before we can work on the problems, we have to fix our souls. Our souls are broken in this nation."

If you go on to read or listen to more of this stuff, you'll eventually see what they're getting at: Americans need to rally around Obama and his platform if they are going to mend their souls and make this a better country. You might buy this or you might think it's hogwash, and there's no shortage of arguments out there for both perspectives, but what is it with this obsession with unity? American politicians used to have a word to describe their appeals to collective action for the betterment of the whole society. They called it patriotism. But that word summons the banshees of the Democratic party. To raise the issue of patriotism, say the Democrats, is to question whether someone is patriotic at all — at least when Republicans do it.

Except that Republicans don't actually use the word "patriotism" very much. Nevertheless, Democrats hear it in almost everything Republicans say. When Republicans disputed John Kerry's commitment to national defense, Democrats said they were questioning his patriotism. When John McCain released an ad calling himself the "American president Americans have been waiting for," one could hear outraged caterwauling from the Democratic jungle: What's John McCain trying to say? We're un-American? Who's he calling unpatriotic? Fred Barnes, writing in The Weekly Standard, calls this anticipatory offense "patriotism paranoia." Indeed, there does seem to be psychological insecurity on display. If I say to a male friend, "Those are nice shoes," and he responds with "How dare you call me gay!" it's fair to say he's the guy with the issues.

Obama himself has gotten in on this act: "In this campaign, we will not stand for the politics that uses religion as a wedge and patriotism as a bludgeon." His campaign manager, David Plouffe, chimed in later: "Questioning patriotism is something we don't think has a place in this campaign."

This is a mess. Barack Obama and other Democrats use the word "unity" as a substitute for something like "patriotism." They consider "questioning the patriotism" of Democrats — even when it's not actually being questioned — beyond the pale and "divisive." All the while they use the word "divisive" with diuretic abandon as code for "unpatriotic." And if that's not confusing enough, many Democrats routinely declare flat-out that Republicans are unpatriotic. For example, Howard Dean, when running for president, insisted that John Ashcroft was "not a patriot. John Ashcroft is a direct descendant of Joseph McCarthy." John Kerry complained that Bush's "creed of greed" led him to "unpatriotically" allow corporations to move overseas. And what is the "chickenhawk" epithet if not an attack on the patriotism of war supporters who do not enlist, lubricated with the spittle of anti-hypocrisy hysteria?

Perhaps we should "unpack" some of these concepts, as the academics say.

DEFINITIONS GOOD AND BAD

Suppose there were someone who believed it might do America "a ton of good to have our butts kicked" (in the words of left-wing novelist Tom Robbins). Or that the world would benefit from "a million Mogadishus," and that "the only true heroes are those who find ways to defeat the U.S. military" (Columbia professor Nicholas De Genova). Or that America is "just downright mean" — brimming with "broken souls" — and hasn't done anything worthy of pride in her lifetime (Michelle Obama). Or that because of the racism of "U.S. of KKK A" at home, and its cruelty abroad, we shouldn't sing "God bless America" so readily as "God damn America" (Rev. Jeremiah Wright). It would stretch the bounds of neither reason nor decorum to say these people are less in love with America than is your typically patriotic person. Try replacing "America" in the above quotes with just about any other noun. "The only true heroes are those who find ways to defeat the New York Yankees!" "Cleveland is downright mean!" "God damn my KKK-car!" And so on. In any of these instances, a reasonable person might question the speaker's love for the Yankees, Cleveland, or Chrysler. But no reasonable person may ever — ever! — question someone's love of country when he attacks it with similar words.

If patriotism is a thing, if it has meaning as a concept and as a description of attitudes or behaviors, it isn't surprising that some people will be more patriotic than others — whatever definition we finally settle on. And we need not settle on just one, because there are many kinds of patriotism. Walter Berns argues in his book Making Patriots that, because America is a nation founded on individual rights, American patriotism differs markedly from, say, Spartan patriotism, which extolled loyalty to the collective and the state above all else. Many liberals would agree with this at first blush. But they can't seem to hold on to the idea that American patriotism has something to do with America.

John Edwards, whose bifocal vision of "two Americas" involves pity for one and contempt for the other, says, "Patriotism is about refusing to support something you know is wrong, and having the courage to speak out with strength and passion and backbone for something you know is right." Well, no. Dissent is about all that. Patriotism is about loving your country. So, yes, dissent could be patriotic — or it could be treason. Everyone from American Communist spies and saboteurs dedicated to the overthrow of the U.S. government during the Cold War to the protesters carrying signs saying "Bomb Texas, Not Iraq" at your typical ANSWER rally is patriotic, according to Edwards's definition, which is 200-proof nonsense.

Or consider this supposedly brilliant bumper-sticker insight: "Dissent is the highest form of patriotism." Mark Steyn has had great fun with that line, pointing out that Thomas Jefferson — usually credited as its author — never said anything of the sort. Steyn traces the fakery back to a 1991 quote from Nadine Strossen, the head of the ACLU, an organization with a vested interest in putting the founders' imprimatur on relentless knee-jerk complaining. (The oldest reference I can find in major newspapers is a 1969 line from New York mayor John Lindsay, who was congratulating anti-Vietnam protesters at Columbia for their patriotism. He was booed after he left the stage, and Paul Boutelle — a cab driver and Socialist Workers party mayoral candidate known after 1979 as Kwame Montsho Ajamu Somburu — vilified him in absentia. The crowd loved it.)

It is worth pointing out that if Jefferson had in fact said something like that, he would have been what social scientists call a moron. As John O'Sullivan once noted, tongue firmly in cheek, "Dissent is the highest form of patriotism. Treason is the highest form of dissent. Therefore treason is the highest form of patriotism." Yet when you listen to the verbal contortions many on the left go through to defend the New York Times's efforts to reveal national-security secrets, or to journalists who think expressing open sympathy for America in the international arena is a grave sin, or simply to the usual battiness of countless America-haters, you can appreciate the wisdom of the Italian proverb that the truest things are said in jest.

Like the layers of steel in a Japanese sword, the logic of "Jefferson's" wisdom folds in on itself until one is left with an adamantine blade of invincible ignorance and razor-sharp asininity. For example, if George Bush and conservatives are little better than Prussian heel-clickers for wearing their patriotism on their sleeves, what does it say about you when you wear your patriotism on your bumper? After all, "Dissent is the highest form of patriotism" is bandied about almost exclusively by self-styled dissenters. "This is not the first time in American history when patriotism has been distorted to deflect criticism and mislead the nation," harrumphed the Great Dissenter John Kerry in 2006. "No wonder Thomas Jefferson himself said: 'Dissent is the greatest form of patriotism.'" Get it? John Kerry is bragging about what a great patriot he is by calling attention to what a wonderful dissenter he is. "I am more patriotic than thou" sneaks up on us in the Trojan Horse of "I dissent more than thou."

Now it must be said that no conservative standing upon the shoulders of Burke, Nock, Buckley, Hayek, Goldwater, and Reagan would for a moment dispute the suggestion that dissent for the right reason can be one high form of patriotism. But it depends on the reason. The dissenter-for-dissent's-sake is among the most common species of pest in the human ecosystem. The reflexive contrarian who cares not what he is contradicting is quite simply the most useless of citizens.

When confronted with the assertion that the Soviet Union and the United States were moral equivalents, William F. Buckley Jr. famously responded that if one man pushes an old lady into an oncoming bus and another man pushes an old lady out of the way of a bus, we should not denounce them both as men who push old ladies around. Likewise, we should not say that the man who dissents from a church-burning mob and the man who dissents from a fire brigade are morally equivalent "dissenters."

"FASCIST," YOU SAY?

Part of the problem is that many on the left think patriotism is essentially fascist, another name for nationalism and jingoism. And some may use it that way — but some may also call a duck a "cat," which doesn't mean we should all be hostage to this usage. The misuse of "patriotism" and "dissent" is worse, because a country without a word to describe its love for what is best within it is a country ill-equipped to defend what is best within it. And, for the record, it should be noted that fascism wasn't about patriotism, but nationalism. Hitler himself insisted he was no patriot, but a nationalist. In the United States, a creedal nation dedicated to limited government and individual rights, fascist nationalism is almost the complete opposite of patriotism.

Alas, that's too much for many liberals to process, so they have come to extolling the word "unity." But here's the thing: Unity by itself has no moral worth whatsoever. The only value of unity is strength, strength in numbers — and, again, that is a fascist value. That's the symbolism of the fasces, the bundle of sticks that in combination are invincible. Rape gangs and lynch mobs? Unified. The mafia? Unified. The SS? They had unity coming out the yinyang. Meanwhile, Socrates, Jesus, Thomas More, and an endless line of nameless souls were dispatched from this earth in the name of unity. Returning to Buckley, the mob that pushes old ladies in front of a bus and the posse that tries to stop the mob are not morally equivalent. Indeed, the lone man who faces the mob with justice on his side is the greatest of heroes.

American patriots pay heed: The founding fathers dedicated a great deal of thought to the subject of unity, and they found it was something to view with skepticism at best and, more often than not, with fear. Hence we have a constitution designed to thwart the baser forms of unity. Our government is set up so that the Senate cools the populist passion of the House, the executive thwarts the passions of the legislature and vice versa, and the Supreme Court checks the whole lot, to which its composition is in turn ultimately subject. "Divisiveness" — the setting of faction against faction, one branch of government against another, and the sovereignty of the individual above the group — was for the founders the great guarantor of our liberties and the source of civic virtue.

Rightly ordered unity in a democratic republic is the end result of ceaseless debate and discussion. But today, ceaseless debate and discussion is precisely what many liberals object to. As Al Gore is fond of saying about global warming, "The time for debate is over." Legions of liberals insist that we must move beyond ideology and partisan differences on this, that, and the other. But have you ever heard anyone say that we need to "move beyond ideology" for the sake of bipartisan unity and then abandon his own position? Of course not. When someone says that we need to get past labels and move beyond ideology, what he means is that you need to drop your principled objections and get with the program. That is why Time magazine heralded Arnold Schwarzenegger and Michael Bloomberg as "new action heroes": These "post-partisans" had dropped any pretense of a Republican vision and simply embraced the liberal agenda. That's what the AARP intends when its ad campaign for health-care reform proclaims: "Divided we fail." The mascot for this campaign is a chimera, the GOP elephant's head and the Democratic jackass's body. Of course, such a creature cannot be created without shrinking the Republican brain or vastly inflating the Democratic ass.

The fact that we take liberals seriously when they talk about patriotism doesn't mean they are doing the same. John Edwards wouldn't call a Communist saboteur a patriot, and Barack Obama's love of unity would hardly drive him to praise the virtue of the mob. But what's important to understand is that it is the Left, not the Right, that speaks in code. The supposedly neutral language of "unity" and "division" is not neutral at all. "My rival in this race," Obama proclaimed early in 2007, "is not other candidates. It's cynicism." His insistence that "divisiveness" is his greatest enemy is belied by the fact that he is unwilling to repudiate Jeremiah Wright, who is about as divisive a character as we've seen in American politics in a generation. Meanwhile, Obama sees nothing wrong with demonizing Geraldine Ferraro — or even his own grandmother — for crass political purposes. He uses seemingly conciliatory language to give the impression that he is above the fray, transcendent and enlightened. Only those who see through his act are cynical, only those who disagree with his agenda are divisive. But he won't name names, because that would spoil the illusion. "It would," in the words of Andrew Ferguson, "at last be plain that his politics of unity, his politics of 'addition not subtraction,' is simply another way of recasting the old 'politics of us vs. them' that he says he disdains."

It's worth asking, then: If Obama and the Democrats believe unity in all things is the supreme political value, but the American tradition holds that liberty is a greater good, then could it not be argued that Barack Obama's rival in this race is not the other candidates, but patriotism?

Labels: 2008, Obama