(It seems like slavery and the Great Depression are around every corner to Democrats. It must be a hard life to live with a lot of self-loathing and pity. Maybe that’s why I’m not one of them.)
Anyway, the McCain campaign was obviously upset by this and demanded Obama distance himself from Lewis. Obama’s people did, using the occasion to attack McCain in the process. If Obama is walking into a coronation, then why are the Libs getting so uptight about feisty crowds and “desperate” rhetoric from a challenger and his MILFy running mate who have no chance to win? Maybe they know something we don’t about these polls or the remnants of Obama’s pocket book.
Every major poll shows Barack Obama ahead of John McCain, some more than others. This comes as no surprise since some polls are more reliable than others. There is no doubt McCain is behind, but there is no way he is trailing by as much as Gallup and Newsweek claims he is. As I discussed before, Gallup’s party identification numbers have for years been too much like a roller coaster to be even close to reliable. As for Newsweek, they are simply in the tank.
The official legpergateislative report on troopergate tasergate was released yesterday, accusing Gov. Palin of abuse of power. The report itself is contradictory and does not hold up logically, and does not hold up under the law. The report by investigative attorney Steve Branchflower, is 263 pages in length (PDF) that basically can be summarized in two contradictory paragraphs. Bill Dyer at Townhall.com has an extensive analysis of the report, but to summarize, this is nothing but a smear against Sarah Palin, filled with innuendo and conjecture. Looking at the facts:
Before a single witness had been called, Hollis French, the legislator in charge of the report who selected Branchflower, promised an October Surprise that would create havoc for the McCain-Palin campaign.
The report boils down to a guess on what Sarah Palin was thinking in the firing of Walt Monegan, even though there are relevant facts which support Palin’s claim of legitimate reasons for the firing.
Monegan was never fired by Palin. He was reassigned to another post, and then he resigned.
Logically, how can Palin have the right to fire someone and reasons to fire him, yet still be accused of an abuse of power? If you follow Branchflower’s argument, if Monegan had murdered someone, or broken the public trust in some way, and Sarah had fired him (which she never did), then she still would have abused power beecause she had a personal stake. This is absurd.
Dyer makes a good point; Monegan himself has stated that no one in the administration ever asked him to fire the trooper who was tasering his child and had threatened the life of the Todd Palin’s sister. How does anyone know that the Palin’s didn’t just want him to get counseling or something?
The entire report is based on guesses, innuendos, and inferences. There is no evidence whatsoever in this report that Sarah or Todd Palin did anything wrong, improper, unethical, or illegal. Dyer goes on to completely deconstruct the report, showing that it is completely and utterly false, misleading, and can only therefore be political. Additionally, he points out that the news reports are in error. The committee did not find that Sarah Palin had abused her authority, nor did it vote to confirm the report. Rather, it voted that it be released and put forth to the full legislative body for review.
Unfortunately, there will likely be political fallout from this dubious report. Most average voters will only see the headline or hear the soundbite “Palin Abused Power.” That will have short-term political impact right before an election. I doubt that it will affect her long-term future political chances, however, as there will likely be no other legal or political fallout.
Isn’t it interesting, however, how troopergate tasergate gets front page news, yet Obama’s ties to ACORN and voter fraud get virtually no airtime in the Drive-By Media. It’s up to ordinary citizens like you and me to fight and spread the word about the truth of tasergate so that Palin’s good name is not smeared.
At a joint town hall appearance today in Wisconsin, John McCain and Sarah Palin got a dose of the folk’s frustration, not just with the economy, but with the Republican ticket not stepping up their attacks on an obviously weak and potentially dangerous set of candidates. One fellow got up and said the following:
“I’m mad. I’m really mad, and what’s going to surprise you is it’s not the economy. It’s the socialists taking over our country. [Applause with standing ovation]
[To the crowd] “Sit down, I’m not done….
“When you have an Obama, Pelosi and the rest of the hooligans up there gonna run this country, we gotta have our head examined. It’s time that YOU TWO are representing US, and WE are mad, so go get ‘em!”
[Cheers and chants of USA, USA, USA!]
Click the link to see the video. It’s awesome! I hope McCain-Palin get the message and McCain really comes out swinging at the last debate this coming Wednesday.
In other election news, some Dems, Libs, and the MSM have been calling Republican attacks on Obama “racist” or “coded”. In truth those attacks are simply contrasts and important points that should have been discussed 15 months ago. These charges should not dissuade McCain-Palin from keeping the attacks coming hard. As it turns out I was reading Mark Steyn today and he had a great line which nails down how I feel about these latest ”racist” charges:
“…’Racist’ is now no more than the cry of a western liberal who can’t stand his illusions being disturbed.”
Many people argue that using term “Socialist” to describe Barack Obama is no more than just projecting the label that best describes Barack Obama’s views. But in reality, it turns out to be a fact. Much was made last ago when Sarah Palin once spoke to the Independence Party in Alaska, a separatist party in Alaska, and that her husband Todd belonged to it at one time (except that Todd Palin is not running for anything). Truth be told, Sarah has always been a member of the Republican party. Well, if we can go back and look at old party affiliations, let’s look at Barack Obama’s.
It appears that Barack Obama was a member and collaborator with the Chicago New Party, an offshoot of the Democratic Socailists of America, an organization committed to “implement Socialist Rule in the United States and was established to counteract the influence of a Democratic Party that they viewed as too moderate and too centered.” This surfaced earlier in the summer, but was flatly denied by both the Democratic Socialists of America and the Obama campaign. Now it appears that there was a concerted effort to remove this information from the internet and from the DSA websites. The evidence gathered includes:
A New Party Newsletter on candidates of the New Party running for office — Barack Obama was mentioned.
A 1996 article from Progressive Populist magazine
An article from the DSA Newsletter
Finding source materials in the Internet Archive, Powerline Blog and Politically Drunk on Power have documented and found supporting evidence to show Obama’s affiliation with the party that was described by the Green Party as “a fringe group” (think about that, to be called a fringe group by the Green Party. Wow). Again, this is yet another example of Obama’s real worldview, and what we have to look forward to if he becomes President. McCain may not be perfect, but Obama is an avowed Socialist - in belief and in name. Let’s see if the Drive-By Media give as much attention to this as they gave to Sarah’s now-debunked membership in the Independence Party.
Last night, when trying to point out Obama’s voting record on a 2005 energy bill, John McCain referred to The One as “that one.” Every line is potentially an issue in today’s hyper-charged environment!
To those of us who don’t look at every gesture at these debates under an electron microscope, it seemed harmless enough. But it did remind me of Grandpa talking to one of his old buddies about some guy who recently irked him about something. Or Grandpa complaining to a half-asleep Grandma about some jerk on the news. It was very “old-man” to me, which unfortunately seems to fit McCain’s image.
In school today, one of my students said McCain was potentially being racist because of the line. I instructed the young skull-full-of-mush that McCain is not a racist and his statement was probably only meant to be a condescending way to underscore Obama’s limited experience.
I didn’t hear any racism in that phrase and those who were looking for some kind of racist beast to emerge out of the head of the war-hero probably heard what they wanted to hear anyway. The mantra’s already spreading that if Obama loses, it’s because America’s racist, and riots may even ensue. Don’t the Libs have such a high opinion of the voters! Who’s side is using the ”fear” card now?
Yet, it was condescending, but perhaps more because Obama is used to being referred to as “The One” rather than “That One.” To an ego as large yet fragile as Obama’s, the “that“ in question might really hurt, which probably led strategist David Axelrod to deem the phrase “odd” when asked about it later.
This past Saturday, SNL had a funny and dead-on skit about the bailout bill. It was staged as a press conference featuring President Bush, Speaker Pelosi, and Rep. Barney Frank, and also featured an appearance by George Soros. The skit does a very good job at looking at the primary people who caused the mess, from people who really had no business buying homes, to speculators who made fortunes on the market. Most damning, however, is how the skit pins the whole sub-prime mess on the Democrats:
Bush: W-w-w-w-ait. Wasn’t it my administration that warned about the problem six years ago? And it was the Democrats that refused to listen?!
Pelosi: What? Who told you that? That’s crazy. It was completely the other way around.
Frank: Actually. This time, he’s sort of right.
Pelosi: Shhh! Don’t say anything. He doesn’t know.
The skit was viewable on NBC’s SNL page – until yesterday. The skit has since been taken down, and now any comments looking for the missing skit are being deleted from the NBC Message Boards.
This is censorship at its peak. Why is NBC taking the skit down? Some are speculating that it is a result of a lawsuit from the yuppie-liberal couple depicted in the skit who made a fortune on sub-prime mortgages, others speculating George Soros. While both of these may have merit, it is also interesting that the skit disappeared the evening after McCain started talking up the Democrat’s role in the sub-prime crisis. NBC has been fairly in-the-tank for Obama this year, and if nothing else, this only fuels that narrative. NBC should re-post the parody for all to see, just as they are highlighting the VP Debate sketch which mocks Sarah Palin’s western accent and colloquialisms.
UPDATE: Michelle Malkin is reporting that the skit will be back online soon, albeit edited to remove the “They should be shot” line in the sketch. I happen to agree with this change. It is in poor taste considering that the people in question were real people and not just parodies. However, we shall wait and see if that is all that is edited. I would think that after all the uproar that has ensued, they will make sure that it is the only item removed.
Finally, it seems like someone on the McCain-Palin ticket actually wants to win this election! In her latest rounds of stump speeches, Palin is highlighting Obama’s unsavory connection to Weather Underground terrorist William Ayers. It’s about time that this relationship be vetted.
The Obama Campaign is trying to laugh this off, calling it “desperate” and their friends in the MSM are loyally writing it off as well. Yet for the McCain campaign to be bringing up terrorist ties to a relatively unvetted Presidential candidate whose middle name is “Hussein” and whose first name kind of rhymes with “Osama,” this could have an impact if it lingers; hence the Obama people are trying to squash this ASAP. Let’s face it, both sides have voters that react to these simplistic things: ex- McCain’s too old, Obama’s a Muslim, etc.
However, to quote from the above NY Slimes article:
“If you’re in public life, you ought to say, ‘I don’t want to be associated with this guy.’ ” … “If John McCain had a long association with a guy who’d bombed abortion clinics, I don’t think people would say, ‘That’s ancient history.’ ”
This isn’t ”dirty” campaigning at all. Rather, it’s strategic, gutsy, and demonstrates a contrast between the candidates. The MSM was happy to let this tie die a premature death during the primaries, but how many people are really aware about the Obama and Ayers relationship at all? Why was it Obama’s impulse to seek support of this particular guy when running for State Senate? Maybe it was simply local politics, but add this tie to twenty years with Reverend Wright and we see a distinct pattern of radical associations during his formative years. If Vietnam shaped McCain in his formative years, surely Wright and Ayers affected Obama in some way, considering how liberal Obama was in the primaries.
It’s about time this becomes part of the national discussion. If this issue gets this same amount of attention in February 2007 (when it should have), we’d be running against She Who Must Not Be Named. Plain and simple.
Without giving anything away, I must say this about the film: it’s got some really great political satire and sweet moments with great Americans-past, but much of the movie is Zucker-style Naked Gun-type jokes, juvenile and kind of stupid. There are plenty of laugh-out-loud moments and “Michael Malone” (aka Michael Moore) says a few Lefty lines that perfectly encapsulate the mindset of today’s Liberal. Example:
“I love America. That’s why it needs to be destroyed.”
Plus, I love the way Zucker portrays the ACLU!
I thought it was very good political satire, making Libs seem as silly as they are, while underscoring the sacrifices people make in order to defend this country and our way of life. This movie should make a few bucks. There have been so many anti-American movies out of Hollywood lately that this movie, despite its occasionally juvenile humor, is bound to do pretty well.
This one’s tough to grade. A- for relevant political satire, but C for occasionally being too silly. If you see it, please feel free to grade the film in the comments. Since I’m a teacher, I use the A-F scale, no stars.
Journalists continue to ask, “What was John McCain thinking in selecting the gaffe-prone Gov. Sarah Palin?” In what has now become a disturbing pattern, the Alaska governor seems either unable or unwilling to avoid embarrassing statements that are often as untrue as they are outrageous. Recently, for example, in an exclusive interview with news anchor Katie Couric, Palin gushed, “When the stock market crashed, Franklin D. Roosevelt got on the television and didn’t just talk about the, you know, princes of greed. He said, ‘Look, here’s what happened.’ ” Apparently the former Alaskan beauty queen failed to realize that in 1929 there was neither widespread television nor was Franklin Roosevelt even President.
When Biden makes these gaffes, the media laughs it off as you would laugh at an absent-minded, yet beloved, old uncle. Yet when Sarah makes even the simplest mistake, she is crucified.
I wonder what the world would look like today if the media treated Democrat and Republican candidates equally over the past 30 years?
1290 WJNO found this Live Leak video of an upcoming episode of The Simpsons, set for the Sunday before Election Day, where Homer tries to vote for Obama, but ends up voting for McCain multiple times before the machine chews him up and spits him out bloodied. It’s a funny scene with a preemptive slight on Ohio and another hit on the “change” theme. Grampa’s sign in the clip is the best!
It’s funnier than anything on SNL this season, and funnier than what most Simpsons episodes have been recently. The only danger for those of us on the Right is that it reflects the perceptions of the pop culture which the MSM plays up — Obama is for “change” and has lots of money, while McCain won’t be able to win honestly because he has no shot anyway.
Or maybe the subtle message is this: Homer Simpson is voting for Obama. What could the writers be inferring about Obama’s supporters — regular Joe’s or drunk, irresponsible rubes? I’ll have to chew on that one.
While looking at Salinger’s Google 2001 “timesuck”, I discovered something that isn’t a timesuck at all. After Googling “Osama Bin Laden Iraq” on Google’s 2001 site and index, I found this article from 2000 in the Guardian about the connections between Al Qaeda and Iraq on the USS Cole bombing.
So let me get this straight. In 2001, the first page results of a search on the liberal Google search engine for “Osama Bin Laden Iraq” led to the left-wing Guardian’s article about a connection between Iraq and Al Qaeda, all before Bush was President. The same people who have calling the President a liar for the last eight years?
What’s even better is that the search took about four and a half seconds. I wonder what a twenty second search would have revealed? Seems like Google forgot to rewrite their history on this one.
The Vice-Presidential Debate is this Thursday between Gov. Sarah Palin and Sen. Joe Biden, and moderated by Gwen Ifill. While it is common knowledge that most members of the media are in the tank for Obama, some are more obvious about it than others. Gwen Ifill falls in the Chris Matthews/Keith Olbermann camp. Michelle Malkin chronicles multiple examples of her open bias for Obama, including a book that she has written entitled “Breakthrough — Politics and Race in the Age of Obama.” Excuse me? Here is Ifill talking about her book, by way of GatewayPundit:
She also gave this extremely well-balanced review of Sarah Palin’s speech. Jim Lehrer even looks uncomfortable after her “review”.
Now, I don’t know about you, but I don’t detect a hint of bias there. (As Rush would say, for those of you in Rio Linda, that’s a bit of Sarcasm). In reality, it is so obvious that she is in the tank for Obama, that she shouldn’t have even been considered as a moderator for Thursday’s debate.
Why on earth did the McCain camp consent to having her as the moderator? Why do Republican Presidential Candidates always acquiesce to playing by the Democrat’s rules? Why isn’t there a debate moderated by Chris Wallace, Britt Hume, or, if we’re going to go the Gwen Ifill route, Sean Hannity or Rush Limbaugh?
Thursday night, Palin should not just answer the questions, but challenge the premise of any questions that are obviously biased. It is time that our candidates stood up to the Drive-By Media, instead of cowering to them because they are journalists. McCain is realizing that his love-affair with the media is over, and he and Sarah should do everything they can to combat them, because at this point, they are nothing more than disciples of Obama.
It’s no secret that Barack Obama is trying to overcome the perception that he suffers from a God complex. It’s also no secret that Obama supporters have been known to display cult-like behavior. Maybe some of the One’s followers don’t have enough blood in their Kool-Aid stream, but you’d think that supporters of a candidate with Che Guevara banners in a campaign office would at least refrain from enrolling their kids in Obama Youth.
We could follow hastily concocted debate-night tracking polls or even overanalyze focus groups with minuscule sample sizes; or we could take a look at today’s tracking polls to see where John McCain and Barack Obama stand today relative to where they did before. Today is the day to do this because today is the first day when all of the valid tracking polls were conducted entirely after the first debate.
I’m using Saturday as the pre-debate number since the overwhelming majority interviews were conducted before the debate (remember: it ended at 10:30 p.m. on the east coast). Well, here’s the before and after.
The media tells us the debate was a tie and therefore Obama won. If we take the media at their word, stop laughing, taking them at their word, Obama’s debate triumph should have caused his lead to spike. Unfortunately for them, Obama received only a one point bump in Gallup, four points in Battleground, and ZERO in Rasmussen.
But wait, there’s more. The media also tells us that the financial crisis and Palin’s “gaffes” also help Obama. No spike though. What gives?
Could it be that McCain really won the debate, thereby mitigating Obama’s crisis bump? Could it be that McCain’s handling of the crisis mitigated his um, tie in the debate. Could it be that Sarah Palin’s gaffes pale in comparison to Joe Biden’s? It could be that the media is simply full of crap.
