About damn time

PHOENIX (AP) - Former Arizona Congressman J.D. Hayworth says he's planning to run against John McCain for his U.S. Senate seat.

Hayworth told The Associated Press late Friday that he stepped down as host of his radio program on KFYI-AM, a conservative radio talk show in Phoenix. Legally, he wouldn't be able to host the program and be an active candidate.

Hayworth was ousted from his Congressional seat in 2007 after 12 years in office by Democrat Harry Mitchell, and has hosted the radio show for the past few years.

Hayworth says he's not formally announcing a run for the Senate seat, but that "we're moving forward to challenge John McCain."

He added that he's had a wonderful time at KFYI, but "it's time to enter public life again."

This story dovetails well with two postings on American Thinker, one in the articles section from yesterday and one in the blog from today:

John McCain: Palin's Political Bridge to Nowhere

Sarah Palin's decision to campaign for John McCain's reelection bid is dismaying some of her staunchest allies and defenders on the web.

This serves as a much-uninvited buzz-kill to conservatives, who finally had the beam of hope shone on them Tuesday night. Grassroots conservatism made a historic comeback with Scott Brown, who defeated Martha Coakley for Edward Kennedy's Senate seat in the very liberal state of Massachusetts.

Aside from her personal allegiance to John McCain, it is incomprehensible what Palin thinks this will do for the country or her political career, which has made her one of the main inspirations of grassroots enthusiasm.

Why has Sarah Palin agreed to campaign for McCain?

Go figure. Why would Sarah Palin agree to stump for McCain in Arizona? She must have learned through hellfire that loyalty in politics is an oxymoron, yet, she can't let it go. She is the real deal. An honest Sarah bemuses the political elites, but at the same time plays right into their power grabbing hands.

Here's the deal on why Mrs. Palin is supporting John McCain in his (hopefully unsuccessful) bid for reelection.

Sarah Palin is a gracious lady who will not turn her back on a friend no matter what the cost.

She recognizes that if it were not John McCain choosing her to be his running mate that the average American's response to hearing her mentioned as a possible presidential candidate would be, "Sarah who?".

When her autobiography was attacked by former members of the McCain campaign John stepped up and pronounced it a "very accurate" account.

I'm sure that Governor Palin also understands that if she does not honor Senator McCain's request that she campaign for him that she will be attacked by her detractors as disloyal and ungrateful and the attacks will have enough of a ring of truth about them to stick.

I agree with those who say that it is time for Mr. McCain to return home to Arizona and enjoy what I hope will be a long and healthy retirement. I look forward to being able to look at him and see only a war hero and not a RINO lose cannon.

I really doubt that this will harm Mrs. Palin in any way.

Mac is back indeed

From the Washington Post:

A joke made its way around the Capitol yesterday: How do you know the 2008 election is really over? Because John McCain is causing trouble for Republicans again.

Two and a half months removed from his defeat in the race for the presidency, colleagues say, McCain bears more resemblance to the unpredictable and frequently bipartisan lawmaker they have served with for decades than the man who ran an often scathing campaign against Barack Obama. In some instances, he's even carrying water for his former rival.

"Mac is back!" one of his devoted friends in the Senate declared as McCain walked into the chamber Wednesday to deliver his first speech of the 111th Congress: a blunt admonishment of Republicans delaying Hillary Rodham Clinton's confirmation as secretary of state.

"I remind all my colleagues: We had an election," McCain noted. "I think the message the American people are sending us now is they want us to work together, and get to work."

[. . .]

The surest sign of McCain's return to his "maverick" ways came when he caught wind of an effort by Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.) to delay Clinton's confirmation vote by a day, pushing it from Tuesday to Wednesday because he was seeking greater disclosure about foreign donors to former president Bill Clinton's charitable foundation. McCain found the objection gratuitous -- despite policy disagreements with Clinton, he and most Republicans consider her well qualified -- and said so publicly.

"I think that's indicative of the role that John McCain is going to play," said Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), who hatched the push-back against Cornyn's gambit over dinner with McCain on Tuesday night, and who followed him to the floor to support Clinton's confirmation. "He's going to play a very active role. He's going to try to forge bipartisan coalitions. And he won't shy away from controversy."

So in the diseased imaginations of Crazy John McCain and left-wing liberal RINO Susan Collins "winning an election" means that corruption and conflicts of interest are no longer relevant?

To say that many of the donors to the Clintons campaigns, library, legal defense fund and other entities are of questionable character and associations is an understatement worthy of a British comedy sketch. Under the deal worked out with the Obama administration Hillary will only have to disclose donations which are higher than usual for any particular donor. That means that if an al Qaeda front group or the Red Chinese military has been giving Hillary and Bill millions they can remain silent about it unless they start giving billions.

But of course insane evil John McCain and his RINO sycophants have no problem with this.

Yet the GOP is supposed to make the "survival of Northeastern Republicans" their top priority and not oppose the little messiah over the next two years.

Let me say this loudly and clearly:

THE GOP DOES NOT NEED PEOPLE LIKE SUSAN COLLINS AND IT CERTAINLY DOES NOT NEED PEOPLE LIKE CRAZY JOHN MCCAIN! WE ARE ALREADY IN THE MINORITY. WE ALREADY LACK THE NUMBERS TO STOP ANYTHING ON A PARTY LINE VOTE SO WE DO NOT NEED TO BE WEAKENED BY LIBERAL REPUBLICANS LIKE COLLINS AND MCCAIN.

The GOP is better off because McCain lost the election and the nation is too. It is clear now that there is very little (if anything) that the little messiah will do in office that McCain would not have done had he been elected. It is far better that these things come from a Democrat than from a nominal Republican. This preserves the GOP's potential status as a viable alternative to the Democrats utter incompetence.

That is unless we become nothing more than rubber stamps for the left. There are very good reasons to oppose Hillary Clinton's appointment as Secretary of State - starting with the fact that there is nothing in her background to prepare her for the job and ending with the fact that she and her husband are criminals who are on the payroll of our nation's enemies.

To meekly roll over and accept her is the height of folly. How can we stand up in 2010 and 2012 and denounce the Obama administration's wretched and terrible lack of judgment in appointing her when we raised no objections to her now when it counts?

So I say again, and not for the last time, kick John McCain's crazy evil ass out of the Republican party right damn now! He does us no good and much harm. We do not and never have needed him.

The return of the Real McCain

Rick Santorum published an opinion piece in the Philadelphia Enquirer called The Elephant in the Room: McCain May be Obama's Secret Weapon. Here is the meat of it:

Obama was a candidate of scant accomplishment but grand promise. Promise won, but promising to be a unifying, transformational force creates high expectations. Rolling Republicans right away would shatter that Hollywood story line.

Obama also faces the reality of needing at least one Republican senator to join him to break filibusters. Many speculate that three moderate Republicans will provide the necessary Senate votes and the imprimatur of bipartisanship.

Still, Obama and the GOP moderates will not produce the kind of post-partisan harmony that Obama promised and the public now expects.

But I believe Obama has an ace in the hole among Senate Republicans. This unlikely ace can deliver not only the GOP moderates needed to break a filibuster, but also the stamp of bipartisanship: the 2008 GOP standard bearer, John McCain.

McCain was once the mainstream media darling, back when he joined Democrats on a host of issues. He prized his maverick moniker and used it to propel himself onto the national scene in the 2000 Republican presidential primary. Early in the Bush years, he shored up his status as the media's favorite Republican by opposing Bush on taxes and the environment.

But this love fest came to a halt when McCain became the front-runner for the GOP nomination. First he began to sound more like a conservative by altering his stands on immigration, the environment and taxes. Then he named Sarah Palin his running mate. It was too much for a media that had fallen head over heels for Obama. The media had a new darling.

In McCain's mind, however, losing the presidency will not be the final chapter of his life story. He knows the path to "Big Media" redemption. Working with the man who vanquished him in November will show them all the real McCain again.

Remember, it was this onetime prisoner of war who led the charge to open diplomatic relations with Vietnam. If that past is prologue, and McCain's legislative record is any guide, he will not just join with Obama but lead the charge in Congress on global warming, immigration "reform," the closing of Guantanamo, federal funding for embryonic-stem-cell research, and importation of prescription drugs.

But McCain won't stop there in his effort to rehabilitate himself in the media's - or maybe his own - eyes. He will forge common ground on a long list of initiatives that go far beyond where he has gone before, including the stimulus package.

This is why I and so many others shouted ourselves hoarse warning the Republican Party not to commit suicide by nominating this odious and detestable RINO to be our candidate in last year's election. But the party failed to listen to wisdom and so went down to an utterly predictable defeat.

Evidence that Mr. Santorum (who lost his bid for reelection to the United States Senate because he angered Pennsylvania conservatives by backing liberal RINO Arlen Specter in a primary fight against Reagan-conservative Pat Toomey) is likely correct in his analysis could be seen in the look of pure orgasmic bliss on John McCain's face during his concession speech as he spoke of how much he was looking forward to helping Barack Obama when he returned to the Senate. And why shouldn't McCain help Obama with his legislative agenda. He and the little messiah agree on a very broad range of issues.

Like Obama, McCain worships in the Church of Man-Made Global Warming. They line up side-by-side to receive green communion (baked in a carbon free solar oven) from its High Priest, Al Gore. Obama and McCain also agree on the issue of immigration reform. Both of them wish to see America's borders opened to an endless wave of Third World peasants who will come to the US and consume vast oceans of taxpayer dollars, lower wages, drive up crime and, once they complete the new streamlined path to citizenship, vote in such a way as to give the left wing of the Democrat party unbreakable control of every part of American government for at least the next 50 years.

Like Obama, McCain believes that the path out of our current economic difficulties is not to leave the market alone and let it self-correct (as it would do within 18 months to 2 years) then begin growing again. Instead the two of them believe that the path back to prosperity is massive government spending, you know the same strategy which Hoover and FDR used to turn the serious recession of 1929-1930 into the Great Depression of 1929-1950.

McCain agrees with the little messiah on other important issues like closing Gitmo and bringing the hard-core murdering terrorists warehoused there back to the US where they can be given full due process, just like American citizens. That this means most of them going free due to the fact that the evidence which proves their guilt cannot be revealed in open court without compromising important intelligence gathering sources and methods is of no concern. At least when you are a left-wing loon like Obama or a just-plain loon like McCain. After all it is far more important that America restore its reputation in the world by proving to every rogue-state Dictator and terrorist madman on the globe that we will do nothing effective to protect ourselves.

Yes, everything we know about John McCain tells us that the most enjoyable and rewarding part of his life will be acting as B. Hussein Obama's hand-puppet in the United States Senate.

Why we lost

The election of 2008 is over and now conservatives can begin their real battle. There is a war going on for the soul of the Republican party and the moderate/centrist/liberal wing of the party is going to do everything in its power to cement their control and drive out social conservatives, gun owners and religious believers.

You might think that this will be difficult for them since their chosen candidate, John McCain, just went down to a humiliating defeat. However defeat doesn't bother this bunch. They KNOW that if they get their way that the Republican party will be a permanent minority and they are fine with that.

They will have enough power on the fringes to get the things they really care about done, like having loopholes inserted into the tax code so that they can hide their personal wealth and they will be invited to all the right cocktail parties and they won't be embarrassed by having people at those parties ask them to "explain" Jerry Falwell or Sarah Palin.

One of the tactics that the Defeat Wing of the Republican party is going to use is the attempt to make any rational analysis of the Republican defeat off limits by disallowing any effort to blame McCain. The next thing they are going to do is attempt to destroy Sarah Palin because they see in her another Ronald Reagan who has the potential to capture the heart and the imagination of the nation and pull the party and the nation back to the right.

I The following article by George Neumayr from the American Spectator's website touches on the truth about why the GOP lost this election and reveals some of the Defeat Wing's opening salvos against Governor Palin.

According to Newsweek, "On the Sunday night before the last debate, McCain's core group of advisers -- Steve Schmidt, Rick Davis, adman Fred Davis, strategist Greg Strimple, pollster Bill McInturff and strategy director Sarah Simmons -- met to decide whether to tell McCain that the race was effectively over, that he no longer had a chance to win. The consensus in the room was no, not yet, not while he still had 'a pulse.'"

This spirit of defeat explains why McCain staffers spent the last week or so of the campaign leaking against Sarah Palin. By the end of the race, the choicest pieces of inside-the-beltway elitism were coming not from Barack Obama but from McCain's own staffers. Palin and family, the staffers let it be known, were clinging to their God, guns, and newfound Neiman Marcus items.

"Wasilla hillbillies looting Neiman Marcus from coast to coast." That is the description Newsweek received from an "angry aide."

That the staffers had given up by October also explains why the most potent attack on Obama came not from the campaign but from pure happenstance outside it: Joe the plumber's accidental meeting with Obama.

McCain acted like that was the first time he had ever heard Obama's thoughts on economic redistribution. Had the campaign exhausted its opposition research budget at Neiman Marcus? To anyone even remotely paying attention, Obama's understanding of taxation as tool of economic redistribution was clear long before Joe the plumber arrived on the scene. Obama had used the word redistribution repeatedly in his writings and speeches.

McCain's last-minute reliance on the gimmick of Joe the plumber made it easy for the media to dismiss his charge of "socialism" against Obama as feeble name-calling. Many months early, the McCain campaign could have been developing that case, and it wouldn't have taken much effort: Obama had let slip socialist, even Marxian, assumptions in his thinking several times, from his Marxian description of religion as an opiate for the masses to his bald calls for "confiscating" the profits of oil companies to his open class warfare.

By the end of the race, the McCain campaign seemed to depend on the latest Drudge Report links for the few talking points it could rouse itself to make. Obama's casual comment about bankrupting the coal industry had been gathering dust for months, only becoming an issue via Drudge at the last moment.

Even when the campaign occasionally stumbled down a promising avenue of attack, it would stop and dart down a new cul-de-sac. Take the ad it ran early on about Obama's work with Planned Parenthood to spread sex-ed propaganda in elementary schools. That ad hit its target squarely enough to generate days of grousing from Joe Biden and, in a rare moment of irritation, Barack Obama. Obama's surrogates in the press also spent days frowning over the ad, another measure of its effectiveness. But where was the follow-up?

The McCain campaign could have rolled out a series of such ads. Instead, social conservatism was henceforth treated by the McCain campaign as a no-go area. For example, the day after the Connecticut Supreme Court imposed gay marriage on the people there, McCain said nothing about the decision. Not a word as far as I could tell was even spoken during the campaign about Obama's de facto support for gay marriage.

Meanwhile, Obama was running ad after ad about his belief in "parental responsibility," crafting an unchallenged image of himself as a centrist. Accidentally, Obama ended up doing more to pass the traditional marriage initiative Proposition 8 in California than McCain: the high turnout of blacks to vote for Obama meant they also voted on Proposition 8, which they supported overwhelmingly.

That McCain lost while traditional marriage amendments across the country, no thanks to him, won is a fitting final note to the haplessness of his campaign. The media perked up briefly in October at the possibility of a rift when Palin strayed from the McCain script by endorsing the marriage amendments. But that quickly passed and the campaign staffers got back to topics of more interest to them, such as, if Newsweek is right, Palin's jackets and John McCain's inevitable defeat.

Of course the Defeat Wing's attacks against Sarah Palin are nothing but a pack of lies. The unfailingly cheerful and energetic Sarah Palin the nation saw on the campaign trail bears absolutely no resemblance to the fictional construct of the Defeat Wing's diseased imagination.

This is an attempt to be the first out of the gate with an "official narrative" of why McCain lost and to have the blame fall squarely on the conservative Palin rather than the RINO McCain.

I voted

While I am not really a fan of early voting the opportunity to vote against Barack Obama and for the eventual presidency of Sarah Palin was too great to resist.

The line at the Board of Elections office was long, but moved quickly. The only people there whose vote I felt certain was going one way or another were the young black man in the Che t-shirt who I was sure was an Obama supporter and the uniformed Marine NCO from the local recruiting office who I was equally sure was a McCain/Palin man. Oh, there was also the woman with the developmentally disabled son who I would bet was there to vote for Sarah Palin and whatever guy was on the ticket with her.

The truth is that I have little doubt that the majority of people there were going to vote for McCain. As you drive around my county you notice the couple of Obama yard signs because they stand out so starkly against the sea of McCain/Palin signs.

I see the same thing in Eastern Tennessee in my travels there. This is one reason why I simply can't believe those polls which were showing Obama with a 10 point lead or more. And you shouldn't believe them either. When you look at the internals of those polls you see that the way that the Obama lead was obtained was by significantly over counting African-American voters and registered Democrats or by sampling registered voters instead of likely voters.

A fair sampling of likely voters has never given Obama more than a five point lead and the most credible polls have shown him with a less than four point advantage. In fact Drudge is reporting that Gallup is now showing Obama with a TWO POINT lead among likely voters, a number which is within the poll's margin of error.

The fact is that the efforts to get the truth about Obama out before the public are paying off. Rather than "backfiring" as the mainstream media had been claiming they have eroded Obama's support among undecided voters and independents.

With the race less than three weeks away people are looking hard at the candidates and the American public instinctively knows that the character of a candidate has an enormous amount to do with whether he will make a good president. They also know that a man is revealed by both the friends and enemies that he makes as he travels through life.

This scrutiny is causing people who thought that Obama might actually represent something new, some genuine hope and chance for change to turn from him in disgust.

I believe that this trend of turning away from Obama will continue until election day and see John McCain win with a 3.5 to 5 point margin of victory.

There it is in black and white. The Hillbilly White Trash election prediction. If I am wrong you may ridicule me but I don't think I am.

The race narrows, again

CBS reports:

(CBS) In a sign that the race for president has returned to about where it was before the first presidential debate, the Obama-Biden ticket leads the McCain-Palin ticket 47 percent to 43 percent among registered voters in a new CBS News poll.

The Obama-Biden ticket led by a wider margin, nine percentage points, in a CBS News poll released last Wednesday, before Joe Biden and Sarah Palin faced off in the vice presidential debate. Obama-Biden led by five percentage points on Sept. 25.

In the new poll, the Democratic ticket leads by 3 percentage points, 48 percent to 45 percent, among likely voters.

Zogby finds the same thing:

NASHVILLE, Tennessee (Reuters) - Democrat Barack Obama has a narrow 3-point lead in the U.S. presidential race on Republican John McCain less than a month before the election, according to a Reuters/C-SPAN/Zogby poll released on Tuesday.

Obama leads McCain among likely U.S. voters 48 percent to 45 percent in the national poll, which has a margin of error of 2.8 percentage points. Four percent of voters said they were still undecided.

Notice that the Obama lead, which was never very big to begin with and was only caused by the public's reaction to the current financial meltdown, is shrinking. I think there are several reasons for this.

One is that the public is beginning to really pay attention and look into both candidates. Anyone who looks closely at Barack Obama cannot help but see an inexperienced and foolish man whose associations call his character and judgement (not to mention his patriotism) into serious question. The fact that Obama naturally gravitates to people like unrepentant communist revolutionary and terrorist bomber William Ayers and the racist merchant of hate Jeremiah Wright and the sleazy corrupt businessman Anthony Rezko should give any unbiased observer something very serious to be concerned with.

John McCain, on the other hand, is not "interesting" or "exciting" but he is solid, dependable, experienced and honest. He has worn the nation's uniform and faced combat and captivity in the service of our nation. He is a genuine patriot, not thinking that the nation is perfect but loving it just as it is, warts and all. He is an expert on military affairs and foreign relations and is feared by our enemies. He is a man with the courage to follow his convictions even when it seems to be political suicide.

Looking at the number two spot we find another sharp contrast. In Joe Biden we find one of the most dangerous types of people to entrust with power. Biden is a man who believes himself to be possessed of superior intellect and deep reserves of knowledge. What he is in reality is an extremely mediocre intellect and a very large part of what he holds to be knowledge is wrong in whole or in part. There is an old parable which goes in part, "the man who knows not and knows that he knows not is ignorant, teach him; the man who knows not and knows not that he knows not is a fool, avoid him". By this standard Biden is clearly a fool and should be avoided.

Governor Palin, however, is the very picture of competence. As a mayor and then Governor Palin's career in public service is very nearly an unbroken chain of successes. She possess more executive experience than Mr. Obama and Mr. Biden combined (in fact you could add in John McCain's executive experience with the other two and she would still come out on top). Obama, McCain and Biden all three belong to a legislative body whose approval rating is hovering near the single digits while Mrs. Palin has an 80% approval rating as Governor of Alaska.

The single deficiency Sarah Palin has in regard to her fitness to be president is her lack of foreign policy experience. All she has to her credit in that regard is the fact that she successfully negotiated a complex pipeline deal with the Canadian government. Of course this gives her more actual foreign policy experience than Barack Obama. And Joe Biden is on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, but most of his stated positions on foreign policy issues for the past 20 years and more have been completely wrong so does that count? I mean is experience being wrong the kind of experience we want?

Another reason for the falling Obama poll numbers is the fact that people are beginning to look closely at the two parties. The financial crisis initially helped Democrats but the left-wing mainstream media has lost its monopoly on the dissemination of information. Talk radio and the Internet have been working virtually 24/7 to get the truth about the actual origin of this crisis out before the public and the effort is enjoying a large measure of success.

More and more people are being awakened to the fact that this meltdown is the handiwork of the Democrat party. Rather than a failure to regulate enough it is a result of bad regulations which required lenders to make bad loans which they could then sell to a giant government created and backed entity. The success of the efforts to get the truth out is seen in the fact that Barny Frank, one of the architects of the current crisis, is attempting to cast truth-telling on this matter as racism (this, BTY, is how you tell that Democrats have lost an argument - they start accusing their opponents of racism or sexism or homophobia or being against the poor).

The final reason that the public seems to be turning away from Obama is all the creepy behavior from his followers. All those YouTube videos of children and teens acting like fanitical Hitler Youth are scaring the pants off normal people. The fact that Obama's minions are willing to act this way when the election is still in doubt has ordinary Americans wondering what they will do if Obama gains real power. An American Reich is seeming to be a realistic possibility especially given the fact that the home of antisemitism in the Western World is with the political left today.

The election is still too far away to call and the polls are still too close together to say that either candidate has the clear advantage but the trends seem to favor McCain/Palin at the moment.

In the end the election will be decided by which side cares enought to go out and vote in the greater numbers. I urge all my readers not to let someone like B. Hussein Obama lead this nation.

Double Standard?

(CNN) — Democrats eager to portray John McCain as out of touch with average Americans and as a flip-flopper seized on a report Sunday the Arizona senator and his wife, Cindy, own more than a dozen cars — including several foreign-made automobiles.

13 cars! Oh my! Obviously a man who can afford 13 cars is out of touch with ordinary Americans and should in no way ever become president!

Meanwhile:

B. Hussein Obama shows off his new 757, a 65 million dollar aircraft.

The media turns on McCain

I've been waiting for this to happen:

A turning point in the presidential race came when the McCain campaign ended its candidate's habitual informal interactions with the press. The area of the campaign plane where a couch was installed so the Arizonian could hold court with journalists was cut off with a dark curtain, marking the end of an era.

Since 2000, John McCain had thrived on his irrepressible chattiness with the press, talking about anything reporters wanted for as long as they'd listen. The press loved the access and avoided "gotcha" coverage, letting McCain explain any seeming gaffes. The arrangement worked beautifully - until McCain became the GOP nominee.

Suddenly, he didn't get the same old courtesy from reporters, and he had to go about the grim business of driving a daily message. With the end of the running bull sessions, a trial separation began with the press that became a divorce that became a feud.

The enduring scandal of the McCain campaign is that it wants to win. The press had hoped for a harmless, nostalgic loser like Bob Dole in 1996. In a column excoriating Republicans for historically launching successful attacks against Democratic presidential candidates in August, Time columnist Joe Klein excepted Bob Dole - not mentioning that Dole had been eviscerated by Clinton negative ads before August ever arrived.

The press turned on McCain with a vengeance as soon as he mocked Barack Obama as a celebrity. Its mood grew still more foul when McCain's campaign took offense at Obama's "lipstick on a pig" jab. "The media are getting mad," The Washington Post's Howard Kurtz wrote. "Stop the madness," urged ABC News' Mark Halperin, exhorting his fellow journalists to fight back against the McCain campaign's manufactured outrage.

The lipstick controversy indeed represented a silly bit of grievance-mongering. But had the Obama camp's tendentious interpretation of Bill Clinton's "fairy tale" put-down as a racial slight generated similar push-back from the media? Had Obama's ridiculous depiction of Geraldine Ferraro as a quasi-racist? Had Obama's repeated contention - with no evidence - that Republicans were attacking him for looking different?

The media have made it gospel that McCain is attacking Obama dishonestly. Of course, campaign ads are the last place to look for a dispassionate rendition of the facts. McCain's ads are no different. But they are no worse than Obama's spots.

When Obama distorted a McCain remark about staying in Iraq for 100 years - if we were taking no casualties - into an endorsement of endless war, the media generally tsk-tsked that McCain should be more careful about what he says. Obama just ran an ad saying McCain would cut education funding - with no evidence. His response to McCain's supposed out-of-control negativity is a new negative ad misleadingly creating the impression that McCain aides are lobbying for special interests.

What has truly driven the media batty is McCain's selection of Sarah Palin. The days after her announcement brought gross misreporting and personal smears; followed by a Charlie Gibson interview during which he appeared disgusted that he even had to talk to such an unworthy personage; followed by front-page Washington Post and New York Times reports on her tenure in Alaska that were so hostile they left it a mystery why she has an 86 percent approval rating as governor.

Palin will forever be a target. A pro-life, pro-gun evangelical with five kids, Palin has made the race even more into a culture war. Not only do national journalists resent that, they are, as urbanites and self-styled sophisticates, largely on the other side of that war as a matter of lifestyle and conviction. Because cultural matters cut so close to the core, it's nearly impossible for them to hide their allegiance.

Whatever affection they still have for McCain is now expressed in self-interested yearning: Where is the McCain of old, the one who could be reliably counted on to lose?

McCain still has not completely internalized the fact that the media are now his blood enemies. When he has really and truly accepted the fact that his old friends in the press were never really his friends but were only using him that rabid-dog rage that simmers at the very core of his person will boil to the surface and he will begin to treat the left the way he has spent the last eight years treating his fellow Republicans.

I'll buy a ticket to watch that.

And bears go potty in the woods too. . .

On "Morning Joe" today, Sen. John McCain accused (MSNBC talking head) Mika Brzezinski of being "a supporter for Obama" and ribbed her for never visiting McCain's website to research the issues.

In related news Senator McCain also accused the Pope of being a Roman Catholic and said that Osama bin Laden was a Muslim.

Talk about putting your foot in your mouth

So John McCain doesn't know how to send an email. Want to know why?

From the March 4, 2000 edition of the Boston Globe:

McCain gets emotional at the mention of military families needing food stamps or veterans lacking health care. The outrage comes from inside: McCain's severe war injuries prevent him from combing his hair, typing on a keyboard, or tying his shoes. Friends marvel at McCain's encyclopedic knowledge of sports. He's an avid fan - Ted Williams is his hero - but he can't raise his arm above his shoulder to throw a baseball.

Interesting isn't it. You will not see a photograph of either John McCain or Barack Obama saluting the flag at a campaign event. Obama because he doesn't think the flag is worth it. McCain because he was crippled serving under it.

Who would you rather have running the country.

H/T to Jonah Goldberg by way of Drudge.

A five-star imbecil

whoopi slavery
by dollarsandsense123

One has to wonder if Woopie understands that slavery was abolished by constitutional amendment, not judicial activism. This is a serious question. The woman has proven herself to be an idiot time and time again so I honestly wonder if she is ignorant of the fact that there is an amendment process for the constitution.

I also wonder why McCain didn't point that out to her. I'm afraid that the sad fact is that John still hasn't gotten all of the sucking up to the left-wing media out of his system.

An Iraq war veteran has a message for the little messiah

McCain/Palin take the lead

From USA Today:

WASHINGTON — The Republican National Convention has given John McCain and his party a significant boost, a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll taken over the weekend shows, as running mate Sarah Palin helps close an "enthusiasm gap" that has dogged the GOP all year.

McCain leads Democrat Barack Obama by 50%-46% among registered voters, the Republican's biggest advantage since January and a turnaround from the USA TODAY poll taken just before the convention opened in St. Paul. Then, he lagged by 7 percentage points.

The convention bounce has helped not only McCain but also attitudes toward Republican congressional candidates and the GOP in general.

"The Republicans had a very successful convention and, at least initially, the selection of Sarah Palin has made a big difference," says political scientist Larry Sabato of the University of Virginia. "He's in a far better position than his people imagined he would be in at this point."

[. . .]

In the new poll, taken Friday through Sunday, McCain leads Obama by 54%-44% among those seen as most likely to vote. The survey of 1,022 adults, including 959 registered voters, has a margin of error of +/— 3 points for both samples.

Zogby is also showing McCain/Palin leading:

The McCain/Palin ticket wins 49.7% support, compared to 45.9% backing for the Obama/Biden ticket, this latest online survey shows. Another 4.4% either favored someone else or were unsure.

In the two-way contest in which just McCain and Obama were mentioned in the question, the result was slightly different, with McCain leading, 48.8% to 45.7%.

This is a better bounce than the Dems got from their convention and I think it represents the way the race is going to trend right up until election day.

The real question is will Palin have coattails? Can she limit the losses the Republicans are almost certainly going to have in the House and Senate?

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.

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.

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.

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.