Food for thought

Sarah Palin has more executive experience (the gold standard in a presidential candidate) than Barack Obama, Joe Biden and John McCain combined.

Tonight's Music

This is the Talitha MacKenzie Band performing Hoireann O (pronounced har-an ah).

Early I arose
I went out by the glen of branches
I came back by the glen of the flocks
I found the brown-haired girl still in bed
I folded her in my own plaid
And vowed that she need fear no harm
That I would give her to her own mother
How distressed I was, my love
But if I come back from Ireland
What presents you will get.

Conservative America's new best girl

The Times Online published this profile of Sarah Palin:

When Sarah Palin stepped into the spotlight as John McCain’s running mate in Dayton, Ohio, and promised that women could “shatter that glass ceiling once and for all”, it was an electrifying moment in a presidential election that had already produced its share of upsets and surprises.

History was on the march again the morning after Barack Obama became the first African-American to accept his party’s White House nomination. After the fireworks, the 80,000-strong crowd who had cheered Obama to the skies at the Mile High stadium in Denver woke up with a hangover.

“We may be seeing the first woman president. As a Democrat, I am reeling,” said Camille Paglia, the cultural critic. “That was the best political speech I have ever seen delivered by an American woman politician. Palin is as tough as nails.”

With her beehive hairdo and retro specs, Palin, 44, has a “naughty librarian vibe”, according to Craig Ferguson, the Scottish comedian who stars on late-night US television. However, the selection of Palin, the governor of Alaska and a mother of five, as the first female Republican vice-presidential nominee is no joke for the Democrats.

Rush Limbaugh, the conservative radio chat show host, exulted, “We’re the ones with a babe on the ticket” — one, moreover, with a reputation as a tax-cutter and corruption buster in her job as the first woman governor of Alaska.

Palin’s selection on the eve of the Republican convention in St Paul, Minnesota, has set the stage for an epic battle for the votes of women, African-Americans, evangelical Christians and the young. The demographic wars that dominated the contest between Obama and Hillary Clinton are now set to be replicated in the national election.

Will America fall in love with Palin or will she fizzle, like Dan Quayle, the vice-president to George Bush Sr who could not spell “potatoe”? Can she help McCain to defeat Obama, a modern political phenomenon, who drew a record-shattering television audience of nearly 40m — more than the Olympics opening ceremony in Beijing — to watch his convention speech?

“Good Lord, we had barely 12 hours of Democrat optimism,” said Paglia. “It was a stunningly timed piece of PR by the Republicans.”

Whether Palin’s selection is more than a political stunt depends on how she handles the electoral pressure cooker. With the election in November, there is no time for on-the-job training. Karl Rove, Bush’s former aide, offered a guarded welcome to the “gun-packing, hockey-playing” governor, sayhing: “We’ll get a taste in the next five days of how well she does in the 62 days that follow.”

After Obama’s acceptance speech was wiped from the front pages, even he was forced to acknowledge that she “seems like a compelling person . . . with a terrific personal story”. Republicans are hailing their potential new vice-president as the all-American girl of their dreams.

Palin is gunning for the 18m women who voted for Hillary Clinton — a third of whom have not made up their mind to back Obama, according to the latest polls. McCain specifically deployed the language of feminism and civil rights when announcing her candidacy. “She stands up for what’s right and she doesn’t let anyone tell her to sit down,” he said.

Palin’s parents learnt that she had been selected by McCain while they were heading for a remote camp in Alaska to hunt caribou. “I was speechless,” her father said. The skin of a grizzly bear that he shot drapes the sofa in her office.

The more Republicans examined Palin’s record, the more they liked it, although some are fearful of buyer’s remorse. She was born in the conservative heartland of Idaho before moving to Alaska as a baby. At school she was nicknamed Sarah Barracuda on the basketball court because she was so competitive and she led the prayers before each game.

She was a “hockey mom” who cut her teeth at the parent-teacher association before becoming mayor of Wasilla, a suburb of Anchorage with a population under 7,000. In 2006 she beat the corrupt male establishment in Alaska to win the governorship. She opposes same-sex marriage, but one of her first acts in office was to veto a bill blocking health benefits for gay lovers of public employees.

She hunts, ice-fishes and is a crack shot who knows how to fire an M16 rifle. “I was raised in a family where gender was not going to be an issue,” she said. “The girls did what the boys did. Apparently in Alaska that’s quite commonplace.” No softy, she sued to stop the federal government making polar bears an endangered species and favours drilling for oil in the Arctic wildlife refuge. However, she also levied a windfall tax on oil companies.

Palin was glamorous enough to have entered beauty contests to earn money for college. She was crowned Miss Wasilla in her home town and was runner-up in the 1984 Miss Alaska contest. “They made us line up in bathing suits and turn our backs so the male judges could look at our butts. I couldn’t believe it,” she told Vogue, more amused than outraged.

Counterbalancing McCain’s reputation as a political dinosaur, Palin smoked pot when it was legal in Alaska, admitting, “I can’t claim a Bill Clinton and say I never inhaled”, and her children, Track, 19, Bristol, 17, Willow, 13, Piper, 7, and Trig, four months, have hippie-sounding names. Track, who joined the US infantry in September last year, is about to be deployed to Iraq. “It has really opened my eyes to international events and how war impacts everyday Americans like us,” she said.

On stage in Ohio, the Palin family looked every bit as photogenic as the Obamas on their big night in Denver. Todd, her rugged husband, is part Yupik Eskimo and is four-time champion of the 2,000-mile Iron Dog snowmobile race. If that is not macho enough, he is a member of the steelworkers’ union and a seasonal oil production operator for BP, from which he earned $93,000 last year. He also helps to run the family’s commercial fishing business. They eloped in 1988 to avoid the cost of a wedding. “We had a bad fishing year so we didn’t have any money,” he said.

Like his wife, he is able to swap the traditional roles. “My husband loves being a dad as much as I love being a mom,” Palin said. “I’ve got great help there.”

She needs it. They “wanted enough kids for a basketball team”, she once said, but Trig was born this year with Down’s syndrome. Palin knew there were complications while she was pregnant but never considered an abortion. When he was born, she said, “I’m looking at him right now and I see perfection. Yeah, he has an extra chromosome. I keep thinking: in our world, what is normal and what is perfect?” Undaunted, she held a meeting as governor three days after giving birth. “I just put down the BlackBerrys and pick up the breast pump,” she said of her life as a working mother.

Left-wing websites such as the Daily Kos are leading the chorus of disapproval for now. “Having had two children at home at the age of four months, I know how much help they need even without unfortunate medical conditions,” said one tut-tutter.

Republican women, however, are delighted by Palin’s example. Kellyanne Conway, 41, a Republican pollster and mother of three, said, “I really feel mother knows best without the peanut gallery giving unsolicited advice. She strongly conveys to women today that you don’t have to choose between a successful career and motherhood. You do have to make sacrifices, but you can have it all.”

Evangelical Christians could turn out in droves for Palin, a member of Feminists for Life who opposes abortion even in cases of rape or incest, if she maintains her promise.

Deborah Fikes, a board member of the National Association of Evangelicals, said: “I would just trust that the child is not neglected in any way. There are millions of women who work. Why is it that the father cannot provide the same standard of care? There has been an evolving view of working women even in conservative Christian circles.”

Fikes said Palin was an inspiring choice: “I didn’t think the Republicans would pick a female candidate for another decade, but John McCain is not a typical conservative leader.”

Other conservative women have pointed out that Palin was a much more effective counterweight to the super-competent and glamorous Michelle Obama than Cindy McCain, wife of the Republican candidate.

Cindy, a beer industry heiress who bought the seven homes that McCain cannot remember and once said the only way to travel around her home state of Arizona was by private plane, was under fire last week from her own half-sister. She said she was voting for Obama after Cindy had repeatedly claimed to be an “only child” and never expressed regret that her father had ignored her half-sister in his will.

In fact, even though the Clinton aides could barely conceal their satisfaction when she was chosen, the woman who Palin upstages most of all is Hillary. If Obama wins the election, Hillary will have to wait until 2016 to stand again. And if he loses, Palin will be first in line to become America’s first woman president.

This may very well be the first presidential election in the history of this republic which will turn on the vice presidential candidate of one of the parties.

Tonight's Music

This is Celtic Crossroads performing As I Roved Out at the Black Box Theatre, Galway, Ireland.

There are two versions of this song. They are very similar but one is from the soldier's perspective and the other is from the maiden's.

Another reason to love Sarah

There's just something about a beautiful woman with a machine gun.

Who to fill all the jobs which will be opening up

When John McCain's campaign confirmed that Sarah Palin was going to be his choice for vice president I felt, for the first time this campaign season, a sense of confidence that the GOP would hold on to the White House for another four years and at the same time a lack of fear that a McCain presidency would spell the end of the Republican party as a home for the conservative movement.

I give McCain credit for realizing that going with his first choice of Joe Lieberman would have been suicidal to his candidacy and for having the courage and good sense to cross the ideological aisle and pick a true conservative as his running mate.

Now that the prospect of a McCain presidency appears likely and doesn't make a true conservative want to retire to the bathtub with a bottle of scotch and a straight razor it is possible to indulge in some of the enjoyable pursuits of those who anticipate having their party control the White House for another four years.

Of course one of the most enjoyable of these activities of which I speak is the old game of matching cabinet posts to people. To that end I have some suggestions:

Secretary of Defense - Joe Lieberman. Lieberman was far too left-liberal to be the vice president but Secretary of Defense is a position which does not touch on domestic policy in any way and the one area where Lieberman leaves the liberal reservation is his staunch support for the war in Iraq, the war against Islamofascist terrorism and his support for the state of Israel.

Lieberman's lack of military service is no obstacle in that SecDef is an administrative position which is concerned with implementing the president's policies. McCain's defense policies will be set by McCain who for all his other faults is an expert on military affairs.

Liebeman has been a fierce ally of the president and Senator McCain on the war and has paid a heavy price for it. He deserves to be rewarded with an important cabinet post and Defense is a place where he could do much good and no harm.

Secretary of Homeland Security - Rudolph Giuliani. Rudy is an ideal pick for Homeland Security. The man who dragged the New York City establishment kicking and screaming toward fiscal responsibility and effective crime control is just the man to bring sanity to the dysfunctional DHS.

And make no mistake DHS is dysfunctional. The department is an amalgamation of various formerly separate agencies which have never reconciled themselves to working together. The problems of internal communication alone (some parts of the Department simply refuse to share any information with other parts of the Department) are virtually paralysing some of the Department's most important functions.

The fact is that a strong leader could solve most of these problems by informing the various heads of the different components within the Department that their continued employment depended upon resolving these issues.

This could have and should have already been done, but the current head of DHS, Michael Chertoff, is a man whose weakness is exceeded only by his incompetence.

Another advantage of making Giuliani the head of DHS is that it would keep him from the Attorney General's job. Giuliani would be hell on wheels fighting terrorists but we don't want a pro-abortion gun grabber as AG.

It is possible, if not likely, that Giuliani intends to run for Governor of New York and will not wish to take on any job in the McCain administration. However the offer should be made.

Attorney General - Fred Thompson. Fred's name has been tossed out as a possible Supreme Court Justice, but the Harriet Meiers debacle has raised the bar on what are considered to be the minimum qualifications for a seat on the Supreme Court and Thompson's lack of experience as a judge would make him a tough sell. That plus his advanced age (we want a conservative with at least 20 years of service ahead of him) make him a poor fit for the Court.

However Thompson has served as an assistant US Attorney where he prosecuted a number of criminal cases and as an attorney in private practice he was instrumental in bringing down the corrupt administration of Tennessee Governor Ray Blanton.

Mr. Thompson would bring seriousness and stature to an important office which has been filled by a genuinely competent man (John Ashcroft) only once in the past 16 years.

Secretary of State - John Bolton. John Robert Bolton is the best ambassador to the United Nations that the US has had since Jeane Kirkpatirck. OK, that's not saying a great deal but still he would be a great Secretary of State. Bolton has one of the keenest grasps of international affairs of any man alive and possesses the courage and determination (and sheer orneriness) to bring massively needed reform to the Department of State (which seems to have a great deal of trouble remembering exactly which state it is supposed to be serving).

Secretary of Education - No specific person in mind, but I do have a list of qualifications. The post should be filled by a woman who is attractive and articulate and who is holding or has held an elective office at the state or federal level. She should not be a professional teacher and not a member of the NEA (the teacher's union). The NEA is the single factor which has destroyed public education in America and is the single factor which most stands in the way of meaningful reform of education in America.

The new Secretary of Education should be someone who has homeschooled her own children and seen them admitted to, and graduate from, elite colleges. This would give her the standing to say that she knows whereof she speaks on the issue of teaching children.

It would also help if she had been a leader in an organization of home schooling parents.

Director of Central Intelligence - Again no specific person but this would be the backup position for either Fred Thompson, Rudy Giuliani or John Bolton. All would do well here.

That's all I have for now. Feel free to add your own suggestions.

Oh, I'll just say one more thing. Sarah Palin needs to be utilized as fully as Dick Cheney has been. The office of Vice President has changed under Cheney from being an almost superfluous ceremonial position to being an active and integral part of the president's management team. That practice needs to be continued, especially with a VP as competent as Palin is going to be.

Fred on Sarah

Fred Thompson released this statement on Sarah Palin:

"I am absolutely delighted by this selection. Once again, John McCain has shown that he is an independent thinker who paints in bold strokes. Sarah Palin is a conservative reformer with executive experience who will bring a breath of fresh air to Washington. She will be an ideal running mate for John McCain, and will make a major contribution to our country's future."

I agree.

Does anyone remember Obama's speech?

In all the excitement over Sarah Palin everyone seems to have forgotten B. Hussein Obama's "speech of a lifetime". Of course there is analysis of it out there, written before McCain's big announcement.

DENVER (AP) - Barack Obama, whose campaign theme is "change we can believe in," promised Thursday to "spell out exactly what that change would mean."

But instead of dwelling on specifics, he laced the crowning speech of his long campaign with the type of rhetorical flourishes that Republicans mock and the attacks on John McCain that Democrats cheer. The country saw a candidate confident in his existing campaign formula: tie McCain tightly to President Bush, and remind voters why they are unhappy with the incumbent.

Of course, no candidate can outline every initiative in a 35-minute speech—especially one that also must inspire voters, acknowledge key friends, and toss in some autobiography for the newly-interested. And Obama did touch on nitty-gritty subjects, such as the capital gains tax and biofuel investments.

He said he would "find ways to safely harness nuclear power," a somewhat more receptive phrase than he typically uses for that subject.

But most of his address echoed and amplified the theme that dominated the four-day Democratic nominating convention here: George Bush.

This is the problem with the Democrats entire approach. George Bush is not on the ticket this year. Mr. Bush is finishing his second term and getting ready to ride off into that sunset of dignified presidential retirement (somethign that William Clinton and James Carter badly need lessons in - although Carter seemd to get it at first).

In a way the brilliantly timed announcement of Sarah Palin as McCain's VP did Obama a favor in that it took his mediocre performance off the table.

Dobson on Palin

Dennis Prager with James Dobson from TownHall:

Earlier this year Dr. Jim Dobson, President of Focus on the Family made news when he announced on “The Dennis Prager Show” that he “cannot and will not vote for Senator John McCain.” Today, on The Dennis Prager Show, the conservative leader changed course and announced his enthusiastic support on the heels of the announcement by Senator McCain of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as his vice presidential running mate.

Dennis Prager: I have a guest here who’s extremely significant in American life, whether you call it American political, certainly American religious life, one of the best known Christians in America— Dr. James Dobson who is president and founder of Focus on the Family…. The last time you were on was a very serious conversation about your feeling at the time that you just couldn’t vote for John McCain, and where do you stand now?

Dr. James Dobson: Well, Dennis, I shared with a colleague just a few minutes ago exactly what you said about the period of time when Ronald Reagan had broken onto the scene and I was in Washington D.C. the day he was inaugurated. That was one of the most exciting days of my life, because everything that we had hoped for and been working for had come to pass. I feel very much that way today. Maybe that’s an overstatement. Maybe time won’t validate it, but this is a very exciting and encouraging day for conservatives and pro-family activists. I am just very, very pleased.

Prager: In light of that, may I infer that when you enter the voting booth—and I am putting you on the spot. I fully acknowledge, and you’re certainly free to say it’s a secret ballot you don’t want to say, but you’re too public to really get away with that, so what’s the story right now?

Dobson: Well, you know I did a radio program about a month ago with Dr. Albert Mohler, and we talked about what was at stake in this election and our concerns about the policies that Barack Obama would implement. The more I hear the more I learn, the more concerned I am, and so on that program Dr. Mohler and I talked about the fact that John McCain is not the perfect candidate. He’s certainly would not be my choice and, for over a year, I did not feel that I could vote for him. But I said in that radio program that “I can’t say it now”—which was then, because I didn’t know who his vice presidential choice would be, and he if would come up with Lieberman or Tom Ridge or somebody like that, we’d be back in a hole again. But I said for the first time “I might, I might.” And some people call that a flip-flop. If they do, so be it. Campaigns are long. You get information. You find out what the choices are. So I’ve been moving in John McCain’s direction. I don’t know if anybody cares, but for me…

Prager: Plenty, plenty of people care and that’s why I am having you on. I care, many people care and you have a lot of followers. You have earned the right to that respect. So are you prepared to say, “Folks, look, given this pick and all I have learned about what would happen with a Democratic victory we have no choice, but to enthusiastically work for the McCain-Palin ticket?”

Dobson: You know, I have only endorsed one presidential candidate in my life and that was George Bush in the second term after I had watched him for four years. I did not do that in his first term. So I’m very reluctant to do that. You marry a politician you can be a widow pretty quickly.

Prager: That’s right.

Dobson: But I can tell you that if I had to go into the studio, I mean the voting booth today, I would pull that lever.

Prager: Well this is a very big deal.

Dobson: And that’s a long way’s from where I told you a year ago.

Prager: No kidding. No kidding. I am honored that you used this show to make that statement.

Dobson: You know, Dennis, the things that concern me about John McCain are still there. I made those comments not just based on emotions, but based on his record and some of the things that took place—embryonic stem cell research, and other things, the campaign finance, and other things. Those are still there. So, there’s still concerns. But I tell you, when I look at the choices that are ahead and what the implications are for this country, and now especially with this selection, with just an outstanding V.P. candidate as a running mate, I tell you what I am relieved and very excited.

Prager: Well, if you’re very excited given your previous reservations then I have to believe, and certainly based on the handful of calls I’ve been able to take the first hour before my “Happiness Hour,” I took the calls and people were so excited, palpably excited. Jim Dobson, and I got to tell you… if your base is energized then that is the biggest nightmare that the left has.

Dobson: I was just with about 300, maybe 400 people in a large auditorium, and they put Sarah Palin’s speech on the screen and we sat there and watched. I’m telling you it was electric. These were conservatives, you know. They were mostly Christian, but not all of them were. I mean to tell you, it set that crowd on fire. If that’s any indication, I think we are going to see some things.

Prager: We sure are. Well, you made my day. I just want you to know that.

I find myself in agreement. I will never vote for John McCain, but I will vote for Sarah Palin. As far as I'm concerned the McCain presidency is just an annoying prelude to the Palin administration.

What conservatives have been waiting for is someone they could vote for and Mrs. Palin is that person.

McCain campaign confirms Palin

Before I post my public apology to Mr. McCain for underestimating him in this matter and give my impressions of Mrs. Palin I want to hear the thing out of McCain's own gob.

But I want to get this prediction in early because I don't think it will take long for the left-wing blogosphere to jump on it.

Mrs. Palin has five children and the youngest is only a few months old and has Downs Syndrome. Mrs. Palin is 44 years-old and women in their forties have an elevated chance of having children with Downs Syndrome.

I believe that it will only be a short time before leftist wackjobs start criticising the Palins for being "selfish" in choosing to have a child when she was so "old". They will imply that it was her "doctrinaire pro-life extremism" which led her to allow the pregnancy to come to term making the baby a "prop" in her "anti-woman fundamentalist agenda of intolerance".

We will be told about what a low quality of life a child with Downs Syndrome has and I wouldn't be surprised if some of the more stupid and thuggish Dim commentators start referring to the baby as a "mongoloid" (this is the kind of thing that Michael Moore does so well).

Do not doubt me in this. I may have underestimated McCain but one literally can not have too low an opinion of left-liberal Democrats. There is absolutely no moral depth to which they are not compelled to dive.

McCain to announce VP choice today

WASHINGTON — Sen. John McCain will hold an 11 a.m. CDT rally with his running mate today in Dayton, Ohio, kicking off his "Road to the Convention" tour in front of thousands of supporters at Wright State University.

The identity of McCain's partner remained secret Thursday night even as McCain's campaign arrived in the crucial battleground state in advance of the rally. Next up will be appearances in Pennsylvania and Missouri.

McCain aides have said they hope to use the announcement of the GOP vice presidential candidate to slow the political momentum from the Democratic National Convention, which ended Thursday night.

As the secret held, furious speculation about McCain's choice for a running mate centered Thursday on two conservative Republicans: Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney.

Pawlenty abruptly canceled his schedule Thursday afternoon, while reports of Secret Service sweeps of a Romney family member's home in Michigan suggested it was him instead.

[. . .]

Some lobbyists, consultants and Republicans on Capitol Hill said they think Romney is the most likely pick for McCain, in part because he would be a do-no-harm candidate.

"Mitt by far and away is the most logical pick," a GOP consultant said. "Look at the polling nationwide. The only guy that helps at all is Romney."

A poll released Thursday night found Romney had the support of nearly 40 percent of Republican delegates heading to their convention next week in St. Paul, far more than any other contender.

The New York Times/CBS News poll found 30 percent of delegates did not offer a preference, and no other candidate won more than 7 percent support. The breakdown:

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee was named by 7 percent.

Ridge and Pawlenty were the choice of 4 percent each.

Gov. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska were cited by 2 percent each.

I hope that I'm wrong about this but I do not believe that McCain will pick Romney. The fact is that Romney and McCain hate each other and while I can see Romney rising above his emotions for the good of the nation I cannot see McCain doing so.

Ever since 2000 John McCain's entire existence has been focused with laser like precision upon upon his all-consuming goal of destroying the conservative movement to avenge the humiliating defeat he suffered in the South Carolina primary. He is simply going to be incapable of picking the conservatives choice as his running mate.

All we really need to know about McCain is that his true first choice, the man he longs to have standing by his side, the man he aches to place one heartbeat away from the presidency, the man he burns to set up as the man who will take the Oval Office after McCain's time there is the far left-liberal Joe Lieberman.

Lieberman. The man that Harry Reid says agrees with him on everything except the war in Iraq.

Sarah Palin would be McCain's best choice. She is a woman and a true conservative and a passionate advocate of drilling for all of our domestic oil reserves, including those in Alaska. Palin would give McCain the perfect cover to change his position on drilling in ANWAR. She could take him on a tour of the proposed drilling site and sit him down with Alaskan wildlife biologists and representatives of the native Inuit people and they could explain to him how the pipeline has actually helped the wildlife and how much good it has done for the native Alaskans and the state's general economy. Then McCain could have a public epiphany and become a full bore advocate for drilling in ANWAR. Cast this way it could be presented as growth rather than a flip-flop.

The presence of an accomplished woman on the ticket would create enormous buzz and quickly wipe out the puny 6 point bump which Obama got from his convention. It would reassure conservatives while at the same time giving disgruntled Hillary supporters another reason to vote Republican this time around.

But McCain will not pick her.

McCain will be McCain and since he can't have Lieberman he will go with the next best thing and pick Tim Pawlenty. For those of you who don't know Pawlenty is one of the leaders of the "Reagan is dead and rotting in the ground, get over him, move on move on, to the LEFT, to the LEFT" wing of the Republican party.

In other words Pawlenty is a McCain Republican and in the absence of the true man of the left the McCain really wants he will find RINO Pawlenty irresistible.

Pawlenty will not deliver Minnesota to the Republicans this November.

Pawlenty will not create the kind of stir which will quickly wipe out Obama's lead.

Pawlenty will not inspire embittered feminists to vote for the GOP this year.

When conservatives look closely at Pawlenty he will sour in their bellies like a pint of tainted cottage cheese and they will have one more reason to stay home this election.

UPDATE:

Sarah Palin may be the one after all. If I was wrong about McCain's inability to rise above himself I'll be the first to appologise.

Here is what the AP is saying:

DENVER - John McCain kept his vice presidential pick a closely guarded secret hours before the high-stakes announcement Friday as top prospects seemed to drop away and speculation moved to darkhorse candidate Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin.

Two GOP strategists close to the McCain campaign said all indications pointed to Palin, 44, a self-styled "hockey mom" and political reformer. The strategists spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized by the McCain camp to discuss the matter. There was no confirmation from McCain or his advisers.

With an announcement scheduled in Dayton, Ohio, an associate of Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty said the governor had been informed he is not McCain's pick. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak for Pawlenty, who had all but ruled himself out.

The problem is that these "McCain insiders" are leaking like sieves but what they're saying isn't what they know to be true, but what they hope to be true. They are attempting to use the leaks to influence McCain's decision.

If McCain keeps to his timetable we will know in around an hour and a half anyway.

Here is a photograph of Gov. Palin at her swearing in. The man holding the Bible for her is her husband, Todd.

Obama's terrorist ties

Here is Stanley Kurtz's original NRO piece about the records which tie Obama and Ayers closely together:

The problem of Barack Obama’s relationship with Bill Ayers will not go away. Ayers and his wife, Bernardine Dohrn were terrorists for the notorious Weather Underground during the turbulent 1960s, turning fugitive when a bomb — designed to kill army officers in New Jersey — accidentally exploded in a New York townhouse. Prior to that, Ayers and his cohorts succeeded in bombing the Pentagon. Ayers and Dohrn remain unrepentant for their terrorist past. Ayers was pictured in a 2001 article for Chicago magazine, stomping on an American flag, and told the New York Times just before 9/11 that the notion of the United States as a just and fair and decent place “makes me want to puke.” Although Obama actually launched his political career at an event at Ayers’s and Dohrn’s home, Obama has dismissed Ayers as just “a guy who lives in my neighborhood,” and “not somebody who I exchange ideas from on a regular basis.” For his part, Ayers refuses to discuss his relationship with Obama.

Although the press has been notably lax about pursuing the matter, the full story of the Obama-Ayers relationship calls the truth of Obama’s account seriously into question. When Obama made his first run for political office, articles in both the Chicago Defender and the Hyde Park Herald featured among his qualifications his position as chairman of the board of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, a foundation where Ayers was a founder and guiding force. Obama assumed the Annenberg board chairmanship only months before his first run for office, and almost certainly received the job at the behest of Bill Ayers. During Obama’s time as Annenberg board chairman, Ayers’s own education projects received substantial funding. Indeed, during its first year, the Chicago Annenberg Challenge struggled with significant concerns about possible conflicts of interest. With a writ to aid Chicago’s public schools, the Annenberg challenge played a deeply political role in Chicago’s education wars, and as Annenberg board chairman, Obama clearly aligned himself with Ayers’s radical views on education issues. With Obama heading up the board and Ayers heading up the other key operating body of the Annenberg Challenge, the two would necessarily have had a close working relationship for years (therefore “exchanging ideas on a regular basis”). So when Ayers and Dorhn hosted that kickoff for the first Obama campaign, it was not a random happenstance, but merely further evidence of a close and ongoing political partnership. Of course, all of this clearly contradicts Obama’s dismissal of the significance of his relationship with Ayers.

Unfortunately, I don’t yet have access to the documents. The Special Collections section of the Richard J. Daley Library agreed to let me read them, but just before I boarded my flight to Chicago, the top library officials mysteriously intervened to bar access. Circumstances strongly suggest the likelihood that Bill Ayers himself may have played a pivotal role in this denial. Ayers has long taught at UIC, where the Chicago Annenberg Challenge offices were housed, rent-free. Ayers likely arranged for the files of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge to be housed in the UIC library, and may well have been consulted during my unsuccessful struggle to gain access to the documents. Let me, then, explain in greater detail what the Chicago Annenberg Challenge (CAC) records are, and how I have been blocked from seeing them.

Go read the rest.

Note also that Mr. Kurtz has now been granted access to the records and will be publishing details soon.

Obama's Gestapo tries to shut down opposition media

DENVER -- Sen. Barack Obama's campaign organized its supporters Wednesday night to confront Tribune-owned WGN-AM in Chicago for having a critic of the Illinois Democrat on its air.

"WGN radio is giving right-wing hatchet man Stanley Kurtz a forum to air his baseless, fear-mongering terrorist smears," Obama's campaign wrote in an e-mail to supporters. "He's currently scheduled to spend a solid two-hour block from 9:00 to 11:00 p.m. pushing lies, distortions, and manipulations about Barack and University of Illinois professor William Ayers."

Kurtz, a conservative writer, recently wrote an article for the National Review that looked at Obama's ties to Ayers, a former 1960s radical.

The magazine had been blocked in its initial attempts to obtain records from the University of Illinois at Chicago regarding the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, which Obama chaired and Ayers co-founded. The school later reserved its position and made the records available Tuesday.

Obama's campaign urged supporters to call the radio station to complain.

"Tell WGN that by providing Kurtz with airtime, they are legitimizing baseless attacks from a smear-merchant and lowering the standards of political discourse," the note said.

"It is absolutely unacceptable that WGN would give a slimy character assassin like Kurtz time for his divisive, destructive ranting on our public airwaves," the note continued. "At the very least, they should offer sane, honest rebuttal to every one of Kurtz's lies."

Zack Christenson, executive producer of "Extension 720 with Milt Rosenburg," said the response was strong.

"I would say this is the biggest response we've ever got from a campaign or a candidate," he said. "This is really unprecedented with the show, the way that people are flooding the calls and our email boxes."

Christenson said the Obama campaign was asked to have someone appear on the show and declined the request.

"He got into the files just yesterday, so we wanted to have him on to find out what he found. And, if at all possible, we wanted to get the Obama campaign, to get their side of the story," Christenson said. "That's why the uproar is kind of amazing, because we wanted the Obama campaign's take as well."

The show's producer said the calls dropped off after the show's first hour. He did not have a count of calls, but said it was "non-stop."

Obama's campaign has launched similar offensives against stations that have run campaign ads that it did not like.

Notice that although there are many personal attacks against Mr. Kurtz and negative characterizations of his research, "right-wing hatchet man", "baseless, fear-mongering terrorist smears", "lies, distortions, and manipulations", "baseless attacks from a smear-merchant", "a slimy character assassin", "divisive, destructive ranting", what is completely lacking in the Obama campaign's statement is any refutation whatsoever of Mr. Kurtz's facts.

Go back and read the thing over again. Obama's stooges spew a huge amount of bile, but don't offer so much as one fact in opposition to Mr. Kurtz's conclusions!

They want WGM to "offer sane, honest rebuttal to every one of Kurtz's lies" but they don't offer so much as a suggestion to what that rebuttal might be.

In other words they can't refute any of Kurtz's charges and so they are attempting to distract the public by launching ad hominem attacks and insisting that the media find, or invent, a rebuttal to Mr. Kurtz.

Notice that the Obama campaign refused to send a surrogate to the radio station to face Mr. Kurtz directly. This can only mean that there is no legitimate rebuttal to the information about the ties between Ayers and Obama which Kurtz has unearthed.

And notice one more thing. Obama is still referring to Ayers as "University of Illinois professor William Ayers" rather than as "unrepentant terrorist bomber and communist revolutionary William Ayers".

Obama did not, does not and probably never will, have a problem with what Ayers did! Obama, like other members of the extreme left, think of Ayers as a counterculture hero. Why else did the University of Illinois make him a professor? Why else a did young Obama need to have Ayers blessing in order to begin his political career as an Illinois Democrat? Why else have Democrat elected politicians and other movers and shakers in the party conceded so much power and influence to Ayers, who says that he is proud of what he did and regrets nothing, if they don't agree with him?

This is first and foremost about what kind of man Barack Obama is as revealed by the kinds of friends and associates he chooses for himself. But it is also about Democrats in general in that they tolerate someone like Ayers in a position of such influence in their party.

And last but not least it is about how Obama would govern as president if his first reaction to any critic is not to debate of disprove, or even to ignore, him but rather is to attempt to silence him by abusing the law or by resorting to these kinds of gutter tactics.

In the final analysis Barack Obama is nothing more than a typical cheap sleazy corrupt Chicago politician and he is completely at home in the Democrat party.

Obama's KGB makes an arrest in Denver

From ABC:

DENVER -- Police in Denver arrested an ABC News producer today as he and a camera crew were attempting to take pictures on a public sidewalk of Democratic senators and VIP donors leaving a private meeting at the Brown Palace Hotel.

Police on the scene refused to tell ABC lawyers the charges against the producer, Asa Eslocker, who works with the ABC News investigative unit.

(Click here to watch video of the arrest.)

A cigar-smoking Denver police sergeant, accompanied by a team of five other officers, first put his hands on Eslocker's neck, then twisted the producer's arm behind him to put on handcuffs.

A police official later told lawyers for ABC News that Eslocker is being charged with trespass, interference, and failure to follow a lawful order. He also said the arrest followed a signed complaint from the Brown Palace Hotel.

It was two hours later when Denver police arrived to place Eslocker under arrest, apparently based on a complaint from the Brown Palace Hotel, a central location for Democratic officials.

During the arrest, one of the officers can be heard saying to Eslocker, "You're lucky I didn't knock the f..k out of you."

Eslocker was released late today after posting $500 bond.

Eslocker and his ABC News colleagues are spending the week investigating the role of corporate lobbyists and wealthy donors at the convention for a series of Money Trail reports on ABC's "World News with Charles Gibson."

Add this to the Obama campaign's attempts to use legal means to force the McCain ad which draws attention to Obama's ties to terrorist William Ayers off the air and the Democrat party's burning desire to bring back the misnamed "fairness doctrine" for radio (and television and apparently the Internet as well), which would make it far too complex and risky for radio stations to continue carrying talk radio programs, and you see a clear pattern emerging.

The Democrat party cares no more for our First Amendment rights of freedom of speech and freedom of the press than they do for our Second Amendment rights to own and carry firearms.

They really are the party of Joseph Stalin.

There is also a lesson here for conservatives who tend to be reflexively pro police.

Any police department or individual police officer who will enforce one unconstitutional law or carry out one unconstitutional order will enforce any unconstitutional law or carry out any unconstitutional order.

Any cop who will carry out an illegal order to detain journalists who are just doing their jobs or enforce any unconstitutional gun control law (and they are all almost all unconstitutional) will also break into a newspaper office and smash the printing press then haul the reporters off to the Gulag. They will also break up church meetings and beat and even kill the worshipers. They will find out were the Jews are hiding and take them, and the Gentiles who are sheltering them, off to the "showers". They will capture runaway slaves and return them to their masters. They will stand at the polling place and inspect the ballots of every voter to see that they have dutifully placed an "X" in the box next to the name of the one apporved candidate for each office.

I repeat. Any police officer who will betray his oath to the constitution in one area will betray it in any area.

Monks attacked

From the TimesOnline:

Italians have been left shocked by a ferocious assault on Franciscan monks by hooded thugs at a monastery in the foothills of the Alps, which has been compared to incidents seen in the film 'A Clockwork Orange'.

Father Sergio Baldini, 48, the guardian of the San Colombano Belmonte monastery near Turin, and three elderly monks from the Franciscan order of Friars Minor, were having their evening meal when they were attacked by three hooded men who gagged and bound them before punching, kicking and beating them with clubs.

Father Baldini suffered severe head injuries but also has "serious respiratory problems" because he choked on his food while being assaulted, doctors say. He has had brain surgery and was in a coma.

Father Salvatore Magliano, 86, Father Emanuele Battagliotti, 81, and Father Martino Giurini, 76 suffered less serious injuries, but were still being treated in hospital today.

Speaking from his hospital bed, Father Battagliotti said the monks had been eating "a dish of spinach" when they heard noises outside.

"I got up to have a look, but the moment I got to the door I was attacked - suddenly, immediately. I was struck on the head with a blow which made me totter," he said.

"Father Sergio (Baldini) came to my aid. He put himself in front of me to try and defend me, but he too was knocked down without mercy. They hit him until he stopped crying out. Then they beat Father Salvatore and Father Martin as well. It was terrible."

Cardinal Severino Poletto, the Archbishop of Turin, who visited the victims in hospital, said the attack was "beyond comprehension". The only possible explanation was that the assailants had been "either drugged or possessed, or both", he said.

Police said the motive appeared to robbery, although the monks only had "small amounts of money". A spokesman said: "Presumably the attackers thought they would find riches at the monastery."

Italian media compared the attack to A Clockwork Orange, Anthony Burgess's story of violent young thugs, filmed in 1971 by Stanley Kubrick.

Father Gabriele Trivellin, provincial head of the Friars Minor, said the assault amounted to "mindless, savage and gratuitous violence". He said the hooded men had carried on beating the monks even though they offered no resistance.

Colonel Antonio De Vita, head of the Carabinieri in the province of Turin, said a manhunt was under way for the perpetrators, with road blocks set up in the area of the monastery.

One of the areas where the Europeans unquestionably do a better job than America is in public education. However I still doubt that a bunch of thugs would be literate enough to have read A Clockwork Orange, although I suppose that it is possible that they saw the movie.

What I find much more likely is that the punks were Muslims out to recreate the glories of jihad by looting a monastery just like the great heros of the faith like Mehmed and Saladin. The only thing missing was the demand that the monks convert or die.

That there is nothing about this in the press reports is meaningless. The European police and press are even more reluctant than their American counterparts to say anything remotely critical of Islam.

If I am right about this it cannot even be called a "disturbing development" in that it represents nothing more than the continuation of well established behavior patterns among Europ's Islamic population.

Miss Ann is talking

That means that YOU are listening!

Vice presidential candidate Joe Biden's speech at the Democratic National Convention was great. As I write, he hasn't given it yet, but these are my favorite parts:

"General Secretary Gorbachev, if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, if you seek liberalization: Come here to this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!"

"Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth, upon this continent, a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal."

"These Republican leaders have not been content with attacks on me, or my wife, or on my sons. No, not content with that, they now include my little dog, Fala. Well, of course, I don't resent attacks, and my family doesn't resent attacks, but Fala does resent them. You know, Fala is Scotch, and ... his Scotch soul was furious. He has not been the same dog since."

Everyone acts as though Biden's outrageous plagiarism of British Labor Leader Neil Kinnock's speech during the 1988 presidential campaign was just a mistake, a slip of the tongue. Biden, his defenders say, had credited Kinnock in other speeches, but simply forgot to add the attribution one time.

First, Biden had failed to mention Kinnock more than once. Second, it was not just a matter of adding an attribution. On the occasions when Biden failed to credit Kinnock, he also had to alter Kinnock's speech to act as if he were describing the Biden family.

Kinnock said: "Why am I the first Kinnock in a thousand generations to be able to get to university? Why is (my wife) Glenys the first woman in her family in a thousand generations to be able to get to university? Was it because all our predecessors were thick?"

Biden said: "I started thinking as I was coming over here, why is it that Joe Biden is the first in his family ever to go to a university? Why is it that my wife who is sitting out there in the audience is the first in her family to ever go to college? Is it because our fathers and mothers were not bright?"

Kinnock's speech continued: "Those people who could sing and play and recite and write poetry? Those people who could make wonderful, beautiful things with their hands? Those people who could dream dreams, see visions? Why didn't they get it? Was it because they were weak? Those people who could work eight hours underground and then come up and play football? Weak?"

Biden's speech continued: "Those same people who read poetry and wrote poetry and taught me how to sing verse? Is it because they didn't work hard? My ancestors, who worked in the coal mines of Northeast Pennsylvania and would come up after 12 hours and play football for four hours?" Biden's Welsh accent was as phony as Madonna's British accent.

If this were merely a failure to cite Kinnock, why was Labor Leader Neil Kinnock talking about the Biden family and the coal mines of Pennsylvania?

Biden not only lifted -- as The New York Times reported -- Kinnock's "phrases, gestures and lyrical Welsh syntax intact," but also his entire life story.

Dismissing his theft of Kinnock's speech, Biden said at the time: "So what if I didn't attribute it to Kinnock? I can't quite understand this. If I was making up who I was, then that's one thing."

But Biden was making up who he was. And he was making up what kind of country this is. The whole point of Kinnock's speech was to denounce the English class structure, where his grandfather couldn't get ahead, despite his talents. Thus, Kinnock concluded by saying his parents and grandparents couldn't advance "because there was no platform upon which they could stand."

That has never been true in this country. We have no class structure. People do get ahead by being smart and working hard.

The other side of the coin is that those born well are perfectly capable of falling from their perch of privilege, as expressed in the peculiarly American expression: "Shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves in three generations." Which is precisely what happened to the Biden family.

According to Vice Plagiarist Biden's own autobiography, his father was to the manor born. Biden's grandfather was an executive with the American Oil Co., and his father had all the advantages in life. "My dad," Biden writes in "Promises to Keep," "grew up well polished by gentlemanly pursuits. He would ride to the hounds, drive fast, fly airplanes. He knew good clothes, fine horses, the newest dance steps."

But, in the blunt language of the Vanity Fair election blog, "he pissed away his fortune and Joe and his siblings grew up in a decidedly, and proudly, working-class Catholic home."

So why was Biden concluding his Kinnock-"inspired" speech with clenched fist, claiming that his family "didn't have a platform upon which to stand." The executive offices at the American Oil Co. sound like a pretty good platform.

The problem wasn't that Biden's father didn't have a platform, but that he fell off the platform. Far from sharing Kinnock's life story, the Biden family would have benefited from a strict British class system that holds up talentless aristocrats while keeping down the talented low-born.

No wonder the platform of the Democratic Party is to destroy capitalism: It allows people to get ahead on their talents and not their names.

This is something of a departure for Miss Ann in that she doesn't use her favorite technique of hyperbole to blast Mr. Biden. But then with a target as easy to hit, and as self-destructive, as Joe Biden one doesn't really need to do anything but get out of his way and let him shoot himself.

Put this incident next to the one in which Biden responded to a reporter's question about his education and class standing in college with an arrogant claim that "my IQ is higher than yours" and a list of impressive accomplishments - all of which turned out to be flat out bald-faced lies - and you know all you need to know about Mr. Biden's character.

Arrogance is an unattractive trait even in someone who has a list of talents and accomplishments to justify their high opinion of themselves. In a stupid and vain man like Biden they are especially ugly.

We do not want this man one heartbeat away from the presidency.

McCain still wants Lieberman

Bob Novak has announced that he will still be writing the occasional piece (this is good news). Here is the first of his post-retirement essays:

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Reports of strong support within John McCain's presidential campaign for Independent Democratic Sen. Joseph Lieberman as the Republican candidate for vice president are not a fairy tale. Influential McCain backers, plus McCain himself, would pick the pro-choice liberal from Connecticut if they thought they could get away with it.

But they can't get away with it -- and this has been made clear to McCain by none other than Joe Lieberman himself.

Lieberman surely doesn't know that much about Republican politics, but he has close Republican friends. One of them prevailed on Lieberman to tell McCain that a McCain-Lieberman ticket would be a disaster for all concerned, and especially for the GOP.

Actually, Lieberman is a heroic figure among Republicans for having risked his Senate seat to support President George W. Bush's war policy. But aside from the war, he votes the straight liberal line, including pro-choice on abortion. Lieberman's Republican friend told him that the Republicans would leave Minnesota in a state of disarray with a McCain-Lieberman ticket, alienating social conservatives who now make up the core of Republican voters.

At the heart of the desire for Lieberman as running mate is a basic strategic disagreement between the Bush and McCain high commands.

McCain's top strategists argue that the Bush coalition that won the last two presidential elections is dead and must be replaced by a new one that extends to the left, as Lieberman would.
Bush strategists disagree, asserting that McCain is getting around 90 percent of the old Bush vote and can win the election with a few moderates added in.

The Republican operative who urged Lieberman to dissuade McCain from picking him believes that there is still a very useful role for the maverick Democrat in this campaign: as McCain's secretary of state. While an announcement in St. Paul of Lieberman as vice president would bring groans from the assembled Republicans, placing him at the State Department would evoke a standing ovation.

At this writing, nobody knows McCain's choice. He is keeping the selection process secret, and his closest aides are in the dark. Could he still name Lieberman after being told by Lieberman himself that it is not a good idea? Nobody absolutely rules it out.

Selecting a vice presidential nominee from the opposite party has not fared well, partly because the two most prominent such selections quickly succeeded to a vacant presidency.

In 1864, Republican President Abraham Lincoln picked a pro-Union Democrat, Andrew Johnson, as his running mate. Johnson clashed continuously with the Republican Congress and became the first president to be impeached. In 1840, Whig President William Henry Harrison selected Democrat John Tyler for vice president. Tyler became president upon Harrison's death in 1841. Tyler found himself surrounded by old political enemies in a Whig Cabinet.

Those problems might be less serious for Lieberman should he quickly succeed to the presidency, however. He is on intimate terms with the McCain inner circle, especially Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina.

Still, Republicans assembling in St. Paul have their fingers crossed that McCain will not press his luck by naming Lieberman as his running mate.

Friends, this is why I have warned you and warned you and warned you that John McCain represents the death of the Republican party.

John McCain wants to be a man of the left so badly that it is literally like a physical ache within him. Bob Novak doesn't lie and he doesn't get stuff like this wrong. McCain longs to make Joe Lieberman his running mate and the only thing which (might) stop him is the fear of losing the election.

If John McCain is elected he will use all of his power as the leader of the party to restructure the party so that there is no place within it for movement conservatives. He will install his people at the RNC and they will recruit McCain style left-wing Republicans to run for open seats and they will grant aid to incumbent Republicans in direct proportion to how far to the left they are willing to swing.

As the Republican party drifts further to the left the Democrats will be forced even further to the left to protect their brand. If you want an image of what the Senate will look like in 2016 at the end of McCain's second term think of 34 Lindsey Grahams sitting in the middle of 66 Barack Obamas.

That's what it will look like a bunch of center-left Republicans in a sea of far-left Democrats.

A nerve has been struck

DENVER (AP) - Barack Obama is striking back fiercely and swiftly to stamp out an ad that links him to a 1960s radical, eager to demonstrate a far more aggressive response to attacks than John Kerry did when faced with the 2004 "Swift Boat" campaign.

Obama not only aired a response ad to the spot linking him to William Ayers, but he sought to block stations the commercial by warning station managers and asking the Justice Department to intervene. The campaign also planned to compel advertisers to pressure stations that continue to air the anti-Obama commercial.

It's the type of going-for-the-jugular approach to politics many Democrats complain that Kerry lacked and that Republicans exploit.

Obama's target is an ad by the conservative American Issues Project, a nonprofit group that questions Obama's ties to Ayers, a founder of the Weather Underground organization that took credit for a series of bombings, including nonfatal explosions at the Pentagon and U.S. Capitol four decades ago.

The lone financier of the anti-Obama ad, Texas billionaire Harold Simmons, was also one of the main funders of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth who targeted Kerry. Simmons, a McCain fundraiser, contributed nearly $2.9 million to the American Issues Project, according to documents filed by the group with the Federal Election Commission.

Fox News and CNN have declined to air the anti-Obama ad. But by Monday afternoon, the ad had run about 150 times in local markets in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Virginia and Michigan, according to Evan Tracey, head of TNS Media Intelligence/Campaign Media Analysis Group, an ad tracking firm.

Obama spokesman Tommy Vietor said Obama supporters have inundated stations that are airing the ad, many of them owned by Sinclair Communications, with 93,000 e-mails. He called the ad false, despicable and outrageous.

"Other stations that follow Sinclair's lead should expect a similar response from people who don't want the political discourse cheapened with these false, negative attacks," Vietor said.

The problem, for Obama, is that every word in the ad is true.

Bill Ayers was a founder of the Weathermen. He did bomb the capitol, NYPD headquarters and the Pentagon. He does say that he is not sorry for what he did but wishes that he had done more. Obama and Ayers served on the board of a left-wing organization and worked closely together on another left-wing project called the Annenberg Challenge (its purpose was to further screw up the Chicago public schools). And Obama's political career was launched in Ayers house at a party which Ayers and his wife, fellow Weather Underground terrorist Bernadine Dhorn, hosted to introduce him to the movers and shakers in the Illinois state senate district where he was running.

Here is the ad:

To put this in perspective think back to the 1967 bombing of the Beth Israel synagogue in Jackson, Mississippi. What if one of the planners of that attack and founders of the Klan chapter which perpetrated the bombing had been arrested but not prosecuted because of a legal technicality and John McCain was a friend and political ally of that man?

The situations are EXACTLY THE SAME.

The mainstream media cannot see it in this light because to them Ayers was a good man working for what they consider to be the absolutely right goal, but just going - perhaps - a bit too far in his methods.

After all, the typical media liberal reasons, Nixon was president! We were in Vietnam! Ayers was trying to stop all of that and bring about socialism in America!

As far as most of the media is concerned Ayers is a tragic hero, far more like John Brown than Osama bin Laden.

But Ayers is not a hero, tragic or otherwise. He is a murdering thug. William Ayers is an unrepentant terrorist and and unrepentant communist and he is not better than the Klansmen who blew up synagogues and burned churches and murdered civil rights workers. The fact that the evil which Ayers was working to achieve was a bit different in character than the evil the Klan was working to achieve is irrelevant. They are just sightly different kinds of monsters. Nothing more and nothing less.

The issue is not whether Barack Obama shares all of William Ayers views and supports all of Ayers methods. The issue is that Obama knew what Ayers was and still considered him a worthy friend and political ally. Barack Obama wanted to be in the Illinois State Senate so badly that he was willing to go to Ayers house and publicly kiss Ayers ring to get there.

Let me state this again for the slow witted (Democrats drop by here once in a while). Barack Obama knew what Ayers was and what he had done and at the very least didn't care

What would the mainstream media, the Obama campaign and the Democrat party (I know, redundant) be saying about John McCain right now if he had been friends with that synagogue bombing Klansman?

What they would be saying about McCain would be harsh, but also totally true and deserved and whatever they would be saying about McCain can also be said about Obama and it will be equally true and equally deserved.

Whittaker Chambers once observed that it is not the innocent who utter shrieks of outrage but the guilty.

A former Marine once told me that in combat if you find that you've kicked the enemy where it hurts then you should keep kicking them there.

The Republican party needs to keep up this line of attack. The outraged shrieks coming from the Obama campaign and the mainstream media (I know, redundant) prove both Obama's guilt and the fact that he knows that this can sink him. So he has been kicked where it hurts all the GOP has to do now is keep kicking.

Live blogging the Democrat convention

I thought about doing this for about two seconds. Then decided not to torture myself. I already know all I need to know about Obama and I already know how I'm going to vote (leave the top spot blank and vote Republican down the ticket). I don't need to waste one second of my life watching the big overproduced campaign commercials put on by either party.

McCain still leads

PRINCETON, NJ -- It's official: Barack Obama has received no bounce in voter support out of his selection of Sen. Joe Biden to be his vice presidential running mate.

Gallup Poll Daily tracking from Aug. 23-25, the first three-day period falling entirely after Obama's Saturday morning vice presidential announcement, shows 46% of national registered voters backing John McCain and 44% supporting Obama, not appreciably different from the previous week's standing for both candidates. This is the first time since Obama clinched the nomination in early June, though, that McCain has held any kind of advantage over Obama in Gallup Poll Daily tracking.

This surprises me. Usually the candidate, any candidate, gets a bump out of his convention and his vice presidential pick.

This is even more surprising when you consider that the liberal mainstream media (I know redundant) is able to whip up enough enthusiasm for the Democrat to have him leading at this point in any election.

But it seems that the better the public gets to know B. Hussein Obama the less they like him.

And Yet. . .

From Bloomberg:

``Watergate is the last time things were so overwhelmingly tilted against the Republicans,'' said David Rohde, a political scientist at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina.

Democrats kick off their nominating convention in Denver today expecting strong gains up and down the ballot, even in many historically Republican counties and states. Their optimism is fueled by widespread discontent with the Bush administration, anxiety over the economy, rising Democratic registration, unprecedented turnout in primaries and record fundraising by Obama.

The political energy is on the Democrats' side. In a Bloomberg/Los Angeles Times poll published Aug. 19, 55 percent of party voters said they are ``very enthusiastic'' about their presidential candidate, compared with 29 percent of Republicans.

And yet the race is in a statistical tie with McCain actually leading in some of the most reliable polls.

And yet Susan Page writing in USA Today tells us that their polling shows that fewer than half of Hillary Clinton's voters have made up their minds to vote for Obama with 30% of Hillary's primary voters saying that they have definitely made up their minds not to vote for Obama.

And yet the RCP state by state polls show McCain ahead in Ohio, which was supposed to be an easy Democrat pickup, leading in Florida, a state the Democrats were hoping to turn blue this year, and tied in Virginia, which was supposed to be another Democrat pickup.

And yet Obama felt compelled to pick a gray-haired white man to be his VP even though that gray-haired white man was on record as saying that Obama wasn't ready to be president and that he would be honored to be John McCain's running mate. All because Obama knows that he simply can't win on his own - and I suspect because he knows somewhere deep in his heart that he can't govern on his own either.

McCain pitches to the Hillary crowd

Here is the new McCain ad:



Some people may think that it is smart of McCain to make a play for disgruntled Hillary voters. It is, but not this way. Reminding the conservative base that anyone who thinks that Hillary Clinton would have made a good president will also probably think that John McCain will make a good president is not a good idea.

The way to play to angry Hillary supporters is to use surrogates to keep reminding everyone just how shabbily the Democrats treated Hillary. That way you motivate the feminists to vote against Obama while not drawing unnecessary attention to the fact that a McCain presidency would be like a third term for Bill Clinton, only without the sexual perversions.

Blogs for Borders video blogburst

our weekly vlog -- podcast on illegal immigration and border security issues. In this weeks edition...

You Do The Math: Is the ID theft associated with illegal immigration really a 'victimless crime?' We investigate.

Welcome to post America: LA slides further into the abyss.

100% Preventable! Americans continue to pay the bloody price for open borders, when will the madness end?

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Biden gets the #2 spot

I'll say this about Joe Biden. During the Democrat presidential debates there were several times when he came off as the only adult on the stage.

This really doesn't help Obama because he was one of the people that Biden looked mature and reasonable in comparison to.

And it also gives McCain some excellent ammunition to use in ads, as we see here:



This ticket looks upside down with the guy who should be running for president actually running for vice president and vice-versa.

I find myself agreeing with Ron Fournier:

In picking Sen. Joe Biden to be his running mate, Barack Obama sought to shore up his weakness - inexperience in office and on foreign policy - rather than underscore his strength as a new-generation candidate defying political conventions.

He picked a 35-year veteran of the Senate - the ultimate insider - rather than a candidate from outside Washington, such as Govs. Tim Kaine of Virginia or Kathleen Sebelius of Kansas; or from outside his party, such as Sen. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska; or from outside the mostly white male club of vice presidential candidates. Hillary Rodham Clinton didn't even make his short list.

The picks say something profound about Obama: For all his self-confidence, the 47-year-old Illinois senator worried that he couldn't beat Republican John McCain without help from a seasoned politician willing to attack. The Biden selection is the next logistical step in an Obama campaign that has become more negative - a strategic decision that may be necessary but threatens to run counter to his image.

[. . .]

So the question is whether Biden's depth counters Obama's inexperience - or highlights it?

After all, Biden is anything but a change agent, having been in office longer than half of all Americans have been alive. Longer than McCain.

And he talks too much.

On the same day he announced his second bid for the presidency, Biden found himself explaining why he had described Obama as "clean."

And there's the 2007 ABC interview in which Biden said he would stand by an earlier statement that Obama was not ready to serve as president.

It seems Obama is worried that some voters are starting to agree.

Russia still in Georgia

When I first posted about the Russian invasion of Georgia a reader left this in the comments:

What makes you think we haven't been sufficiently tough? I don't think that you have really watched Bush very closely since 2001.

Remember when Pakistan had an epiphany - the Taliban, which they founded, trained and supplied, were really not such nice people and henceforth Pakistan stands foursquare with the US? That followed a personal visit from Darth Cheney.

It is the Bush way to let the other guy save face - anyway he chooses - as long as he cooperates. When Bush said he demanded that the Russians withdraw many said that it was not sufficiently strong. Bush chooses his words very carefully. World leaders know that he is a most serious hombre. The real message, as he announced by having a very public heated but inaudible discussion with Putin at the Olympics, is that Russia really crossed the line and he was not going to put up with it.

Bush has a reputation of being an astute poker player. He is more than willing to give the other guy bragging rights. As long as he puts the chips in his own pocket.

I didn't respond at the time because I knew that the next few days would provide all the proof of whose take on the events was correct.

Well the results are in:

POTI, Georgia (AP) - Russian troops held their position in the key town of Gori and were digging in deeper in other strategic areas of Georgia on Friday, the day that Russia's president said a pullback would be complete.

In Igoeti, a major checkpoint on the road from the capital Tbilisi to Gori, Russian troops were allowing aid organizations and local traffic through on Friday.

Red Cross vehicles, mine-clearing jeeps and trucks carrying peaches were seen heading into Gori early Friday. Russian military helicopters buzzed overhead as military trucks shuttled in and out of Gori past the checkpoint, where Russian flags were flapping in the wind.

Further west, near a base at the key Black Sea port of Poti, Russian troops were seen digging large trenches near a bridge that provides the only access to the city. Five trucks, several armored personnel carriers and a helicopter were parked nearby. Another Russian position was seen in a wooded area outside the city.

It would seem that Mr. Bush needs to brush up some on his poker playing.

The Russian Empire is back. It took a brief vacation after the Tsar was overthrown and Russia was governed by an elected Duma then it came back a few months later when the communists staged a counterrevolution and sized power. The Russian Empire took another little vacation unter Yeltsin but now Putin is busy rebuilding it.

The Russian's goal is to reassert control over all the territory that was once part of the Soviet Union. Georgia is the first but it will not be the last. If the United States does not want this to happen we need to do something about it - if we have the resolution and the courage.

Miss Ann is talking

That means that YOU are listening!

This week, Barack Obama's challenge is to select a running mate who's young, hip, and whose accomplishments in life don't overshadow Obama's. Allow me to suggest Kevin Federline.

The only thing we can be sure of is that Obama will choose someone who is the polar opposite of all his advisers until now. In other words, it will be a very, very white male who was probably proud of his country even before being chosen as Obama's running mate.

Obama's got a lot of ground to make up following that performance last weekend at the Saddleback presidential forum with pastor Rick Warren.

After seeing Obama defend infanticide with the glib excuse that the question of when life begins is above his "pay-grade," Rev. Jeremiah Wright announced that although he's known Obama for 30 years, he only recently became aware of how extreme the senator's viewpoints were. Wright, after all, has his reputation to consider.

Network heads responded by dashing off an urgent memo: During the main presidential debates this fall, ask NO questions about abortion, ethics or evil! Morality isn't the Democrats' forte.

Obama's defenders spin his abominable performance in the Saddleback forum by saying he's just too smart to give a straight answer. As Rick Warren charitably described Obama's debate performance: "He likes to nuance things ... He's a constitutional attorney." The constitutional lawyer "does nuance," as Bill Maher said on "Larry King Live," "and you saw how well that goes over with the Rick Warren people."

If that's Obama's excuse, he ought to know a few basics about the Constitution.

Did the big constitutional lawyer whose "nuance" is too sophisticated for Rick Warren's audience see the letter his wife sent out on his behalf in 2004? Michelle Obama denounced a federal law banning partial-birth abortion, writing that "this ban on a legitimate medical procedure is clearly unconstitutional." Clearly!

The Supreme Court later found the law not "unconstitutional," but "constitutional" -- which I believe may have been the precise moment when Michelle Obama realized just how ashamed she had always been of her country.

But most stunningly, when Warren asked Obama if he supported a constitutional amendment defining marriage as between a man and a woman, Obama said he did not "because historically -- because historically, we have not defined marriage in our Constitution."

I don't care if you support a marriage amendment or not. That answer is literally the stupidest thing I've ever heard anyone say. If marriage were already defined in the Constitution, we wouldn't need an amendment, no?

Say, you know what else was "historically" not defined in the Constitution? Slavery. The words "slavery" and "slave" do not appear once in the original Constitution. The framers correctly thought it would sully the freedom-enshrining document to acknowledge the repellent practice. (Much like abortion!)

But in 1865, the 13th Amendment banned slavery throughout the land, in the first constitutional phrase ever to mention "slavery": "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction."

On Obama's "historical" argument, they shouldn't have passed the 13th Amendment because the Constitution "historically" had not mentioned slavery.

Do we know for a fact Barack Obama has read the Constitution? Obama's Facebook profile: "I'm pro-infanticide, I love sunsets, and I don't get the 13th Amendment!"

This is the guy who thinks he can condescend to Clarence Thomas? Asked at the Saddleback forum which Supreme Court justice Obama would not have nominated, Obama said ... the black one!

In Obama's defense, he said he thought Thomas wasn't experienced enough "at the time." So I guess Obama thinks Thomas should have to "wait his turn."

By contrast, Obama has experience pouring out of those big ears of his. Asked last year by Robin Roberts on ABC's "Good Morning America" about his lack of experience in foreign policy, Obama took umbrage.

Swelling up his puny little chest, Obama said: "Well, actually, my experience in foreign policy is probably more diverse than most others in the field. I'm somebody who has actually lived overseas, somebody who has studied overseas. I majored in international relations."

He actually cited his undergraduate major as a qualification to be president.

But on Saturday night, Obama said he didn't think Clarence Thomas was a "strong enough jurist or legal thinker" to be put on the Supreme Court.

I bet Thomas has heard of the 13th Amendment!

Obama did hurt himself badly with his performance at the Saddleback Church event. His campaign spokesmen, both the official ones (those who are paid by his campaign) and the unofficial ones (those on the payroll of various mainstream media orgainzations) tried to spin his terrible performance by blaming it on the fact that McCain cheated.

Because McCain was a few minutes late to the event Democrats say that he might have heard some of the questions that pastor Warren asked Obama by listening to the event on the radio.

I don't believe this. This is one of the kinds of things that McCain tends to be obsessively honest about, believing that such things define his personal honor and integrity (promising the people back in Arizona that you will govern like Ronald Reagan then getting to Washington and governing like Lincoln Chafee apparently doesn't - violate McCain's sense of honor and integrity, but that's a rant for another post).

However let us stipulate for the sake of discussion that McCain had advance copies of all the questions - and that he got them several days in advance so that he had lots of time to study up.

I have two questions:

1. How does having more time to study help someone come up with answers like "life begins at conception" and "evil must be defeated"? These are things that one either believes or not. If you believe them you say them in plain language. If you do not believe them, but are afraid of the political consequences of admitting that you do not believe them, then you hem and haw and nuance until you sound like a know-nothing jackass.

2. Even if McCain did so well because he had the questions in advance how does that explain why Obama did so wretchedly? Obama, after all, went first. Nothing about McCain's performance could have had the slightest effect upon how Obama answered the questions. Obama blew the event all by himself.

This second point is the reason why Obama's kool-aid drinking sycophants (otherwise known as the mainstream media) have stopped talking about McCain's "cheating" and tried to shove the whole affair down the memory hole. Whether McCain knew the questions a few minutes early or not had nothing whatsoever to do with Obama's horrible performance. That was 100% due to the fact that Obama is an inexperienced know-nothing who can't speak coherently without a teleprompter and who must at all costs conceal his true beliefs from the American people if he is to have a hope of being elected.