Senator Barack Obama, the uber-community organizer and Oak Tree of the radical left, is dropping little ACORNs all over the place. Yet, his campaign remains poised to best Senator John McCain in some critical states. Once unheard of, Howard Kurtz reports this morning that North Carolina, Ohio, Florida and even Virginia are tilting Obama’s way.

With the economy in crisis, McCain and Republicans are facing an uphill challenge. Character still counts - but folks will vote in what they believe is their own self-interest. Generic Dems almost always are seen as better on the economy - because the Left has been so successful in convincing average folks that Government will save you - from problems bad governance CAUSED. Talk about cognitive dissonance.

Obama continues to tell us how being a Community Organizer transformed his life. The main stream press can focus only on the negative story of the day, never mind their ethical responsibility to cover ALL the issues facing us. From Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Florida, and many other states according to The Washington Times.

The FBI has raided ACORN offices in Nevada. Investigations in Wisconsin, North Carolina, New Mexico, Michigan, Ohio and Missouri are underway. Many of Obama’s fellow “community organizers” are emerging, like Tony Rezko before them, as very shady characters indeed.

Look, I believe voter registration is critical. The more the merrier. But… we should want REAL voters. Not lies, false registrations, and strong-arm Chicago style politicking to benefit one guy. Elections are about all Americans, coming together to do what we believe is in the best interests of our nation. I want Obama and McCain supporters to both be fired up. But Obama’s supporters fervor for their man has led to a massive breakdown in ethics. Ethics, character, integrity matter far more than any promise of magic solutions from the government.

Fair or not, you are judged by the country you keep. And so shall Obama and McCain be.

—Media Lizzy

Maybe it’s stubborn optimism. Perhaps it’s simply not wanting to be left with nothing to write or talk about for the next four weeks. But suddenly there has appeared a boomlet attempting to make the case that the 2008 presidential election is not quite over just yet.

Leading the parade, as per usual, is the sunny partisan hack, Hugh Hewitt, grasping the straw of an outlier CBS News/New York Times poll showing McCain within the margin of error. His post headline even sounds a tad gloating. And, yes, if you adjust the partisan weighting of the poll’s sample to the 38% Donk/35% GOP/27% Independent proportion that has been set in stone for all but one presidential election of the past generation, McCain actually comes out half a point ahead. But that is, as I say, an outlier; most national surveys have Obama up five to eight points.

Hugh’s latest padawan, Beldar, tries to make lemonade from urine by spinning another McCain-Obama debate draw as an ominous failure of The Chosen One to deliver a “knockout blow”:

[BO] had huge momentum and a big lead during the Democratic primaries, too — and still managed to barely win his party’s nomination, despite the fact that his early delegate lead was banked and not subject to the erosion of new doubts.

The canaries in the coal mine here are the secondary post-debate headlines, the ones on the “analysis” pieces, from his very bestest of friends, the websites of the mainstream media:

The Washington Post: Showdown Is More of a Letdown.

The Washington Post: New Crisis. Old Ideas.

The Washington Post: Hunting Small Game.

The Los Angeles Times: Economic Issues Dominate Second Debate, Yet McCain and Obama Battle Mostly to a Draw

The New York Times: Downturn in Decibels, Too.

Doncha know, friends and neighbors, that they want to write “Obama Obliterates McCain: Old Guy Led Drooling from the Stage”?

“He should be leading by twenty points by now — in this economy, after eight years of George W. Bush, this should be our year for a blow-out!” This is the secret whisper of every politically knowledgeable Democratic partisan. They worry that too many late deciders will decide against him.

They’re right to worry.

Eh. If you say so, Bill. But False Messiah doesn’t have to win in a landslide in order to win. He doesn’t need to win by TKO if he’s already ahead on points on all judges’ cards. All you’re really saying is that Barry hasn’t put Maverick away yet. But if he just trades baskets with Sailor this month and runs out the clock, he’ll win just the same. If McCain is to come from behind, he’ll have to do things of which I just don’t think he’s capable - like become a born-again Reaganite, hang blame for the economy by sheer repetitive volume around the necks of the Democrats, proclaim supply side/pro-growth economic policies as the way back from the depressionary cliff, drop this “country first”/I’m more bipartisan than my opponent” drivel and give voters a reason to not just vote against Obama, but FOR him. Be honest, dude: have you EVER seen this version of John Sith McCain?

In another post, Beldar invokes a historical analogy that dramatically redefines the threshold of optimism downward:

Instead, as Hugh noted earlier today, the polls remain whisker-tight, vibrating like a high note being played on a violin string. The Democratic “strategists” being interviewed for these articles are all cooperating in a very deliberate expectations game — hoping to depress their opponents psychologically to depress their voting turn-out statistically — but at some point that vibrating violin string must begin to seem like those shrieking notes from the shower scene in Alfred Hitchcock’s classic 1960 movie, Psycho. And — to stretch the analogy one delicious bit further — 1960 was the year in which the charismatic (but inexperienced) young Democrat was supposed to swamp the sweating and stubble-faced (but more experienced, especially in foreign affairs) Republican — and that race came down to a few tens of thousands of questionable votes in Daley-dominated Chicago and the Rio Grande Valley of Texas. [emphasis added]

In other words, if the race DOES narrow down the stretch, we’re right back to ACORN stealing the election for Barry O. THIS is supposed to be encouraging?

But to be fair, Double-H and his cronies aren’t the only righties putting a rose on the not-quite-yet-filled McCain political grave. Jim Geraghty took his turn in the batting cage to whiff at Sidd Finch fastballs. Summarized (since this post was so constructed as to make blockquoting all but impossible) is his spin:

1) It’s a good thing we’re at war with a collapsing economy, otherwise Obama would be up by twenty points. Of course, the public incorrectly blames the GOP for the war and the collapsing economy when it’s the Dems that are ultimately responsible for both, and if there was the perception of peace and prosperity the credit would redound much more to McCain than to B.O., just as it did for Bush41 running as the heir to the Reagan Revolution. But other than all that, J-Ger’s first point makes perfect sense.

2) The Taliban may have turned against its al Qaeda allies, which would mean that the situation in Afghanistan isn’t quite as morose as has been depicted by our Democrat “friends”. But who the hell is paying any attention to that hellhole, or foreign policy at all, when transfixed by watching the Dow plummet as hair-raisingly as filling station price boards were skyrocketing this summer?

3) Everything has gone right for Obama, everything has gone wrong for McCain, and the media is so far up Barry’s ass they can see what he’s having for breakfast before he does, and yet McCain has not been “mathematically eliminated”….yet. Kind of a variation on Beldar’s “no knockout” argument above.

4) Team Hussein and its party and its media propagandists have so overplayed the race card that a significant Bradley Effect may be overstating Obama’s polling by anywhere from two (his approximate underperformance versus polling in the Dem primaries) to as much as eight (Juan Williams’ paranoia) percentage points. But then J-Ger isn’t really convinced it exists at all, unless he was attempting to seed a little pragmatic yet stereotypical racism for partisan political purposes.

I thought about building a small Bradley effect into my composite of state polling composites. Actually, I DID build it in - as a proportionate offset to the ACORN (vote fraud) Effect, which had the additional happy benefit of simplifying the composite formula.

Then there is Geraghty’s pseudonymical election season savant “Obi Wan Kenobi,” who has proven to have a pretty good track record in ‘04 and ‘06 on crystal-balling where campaigns are REALLY headed, and he outright scoffs at any premature burial of, um, Darth Queeg:

“Any pessimism now is dumbness,” he said as he appeared to me recently. “A few weeks ago every swing state was coming McCain’s way and he had a national lead. And some polls showed him four points and six points behind in New Jersey and New York. And now all that has gone away? Politics doesn’t work like that. The American people, even in the midst of an unprecented economic crisis, don’t react like that for any sustained period. Those patterns can reassert themselves.”

Obi Wan talks to other Republicans, and back in July when Obama was way ahead and Republicans gloomy he said that the whole picture was likely to change dramtically by early September and McCain “would have a lead that lasted longer than just convention bounce.”

Sobbingly relieved yet? I might have allowed myself a small sigh if he had used the word “will” instead of “can” (see emphasized word above). I’d also be a bit more impressed if he had shared his mid-summer prognostication with J-Ger in, you know, mid-summer, rather than retroactively. But again, whoever this really is does have a pretty good track record.

I write the above to stoke you up to withstand what is becoming a recurring pattern with all of this forced optimism:

“First, Obama did not have a good debate. He didn’t do what he needed to do. Be reassuring. His gestalt was shaky.” He thinks Obama needed (and still needs) to go out and emulate John Kennedy in the 1960 debate. The popular perception today is that Kennedy was smooth and charismatic, but that wasn’t what “sold” him, in Obi-Wan’s assessment. He suggests it was almost the opposite — it was Kennedy’s seriousness, a demeanor that almost bordered on dour or grimness.

I.e. Obama didn’t deliver a “knockout”. And if perceived “shakiness” was a knock on The One in the first bout, he improved on that score in the second.

As to “reassurance,” remember upon which candidate’s party the public is blaming the financial meltdown. If you have two choices to lead the country, and you perceive one to be from the party that let the economy fall apart, s/he is not going to reassure you now matter how stalwart and experienced a leader s/he is. You’ll go with the other candidate simply because s/he is the other candidate. AKA the “S/he can’t do any worse” factor.

Second, Obi says the Palin phenomenon is for real. “Not only because she is so effective or appealing but because it spotllights McCain’s decision-making. He can throw a tenstrike at the critical moment. McCain’s campaign has missed a few but basically it has shown resilence.”

And if she was at the top of the ticket, I daresay Obama wouldn’t be running away with the election, either. But she’s the running mate, and despite the length, breadth, and depth of Palinmania, people still do not vote for the bottom of the ticket. Nor does the candidate at the top of the ticket get “dragged across the finish line” by anybody but themselves.

Third, Obi-Wan has an indefatigable faith in the American people. “The American people figure this out, as long as you put the facts in front of them.” He agreed with my assessment that the Republican Party is not the side you expect to sign off on large taxpayer-backed loans to those with no income, no job, and no assets. The media has spent decades portraying the GOP as heartless tightwads; now we’re supposed to believe they were the ones urging Fannie and Freddie to give a half-million mortgage to cousin Louie who you wouldn’t loan $200 to. “American voters pile up a knowledge bank.” And Obi wonders why some Reaganites “forget to trust the people. They are already starting to figure it out. They dislike the Democrats in Congress already and they eventually sort it all out. Again, the economy can play McCain’s way.”

But…the American people DON’T have all the facts in front of them. And even if they did, they’re spending too much time panicking to pay attention, much less ponder them. The American people are also the same bunch that twice elected Bill Clinton, and handed Congress back to the neoBolshevik Pelosi/Reid Democrats last cycle. That doesn’t make the American people “stupid,” but it does mean they - we - are far too fallable for our own good.

In short, we get it right more often than not when it is clearly explained to us. But whom do we have to not just explain the truth about the financial mess but also unravel and/or cut Gordianly through the thicket of lies the Donks have woven around it? The man who has neither the ability nor the inclination to do so; the man whose answer to seemingly every economic-related question is to piss on earmarks; and whose answer to just about every OTHER question is to preach a “We’re all Americans” bipartisanism that would be teeth-gnashingly out of place in any PARTISAN election campaign but has been rendered functionally irrelevant by recent meltdown-related events, and their likely congressional electoral consequences.

Fourth — for me this was the the kind of insight that makes him as a Jedi Master — “Media bias may be McCain’s biggest asset in this race. First, [for the past eight years] they built McCain up into the Maverick hero [every time he disagreed with Bush] and that insulates him from the too-close-to-Bush charge. Then they can’t leave Palin alone and she keeps hitting out of the park just as they build her audience up. And now they’ve decided the election is over and given Obama an eight point lead. So if he starts to fade at any point in the next month that seems like a crash and cause a panic.”

“I guarantee you, right now there is some realist in the Obama camp who is petrified of any falloff in the polls. Because if Obama slips, he could fall fast. McCain’s already gotten up off the mat once this cycle, when he was supposed to be dead in the primary. He faced a meltdown and it didn’t happen; you almost never see candidates and campaigns who can pull out of a crash dive . . .

Yes, McCain did get up off the mat once this cycle. But that took place over the course of SIX MONTHS, not four weeks, and was influenced by many factors - Rudy Giuliani’s curious and ultimately fatal “wait ’till Florida” strategy, Mitt Romney’s “peak too soon” strategy, and Mike Huckabee’s out-of-left-field wildcard/divide & conquer dynamic that kept Romney from unifying the conservative GOP primary vote, leaving the door open for Maverick to abscond with the nomination. Right now and through November 4th it’s going to be the “economic crisis” 24/7, and despite taking some token swipes at economic straight talk, McCain simply isn’t telling that story. Even if he did, and was any good at doing so, his “brand” was as demolished by his disastrous campaign suspension and foray into the bailout negotiations as that of his party even before Wall Street collapsed. And if memory serves, the (original) distinctiveness of his “brand” was the top selling point for his candidacy.

Even I can’t swallow the “media bias is McCain’s biggest asset” whopper. Instead I direct your attention to one word in Obi-Wan’s last ‘graph: “If”. Now tie back into the media bias factor. If Obama isn’t as far ahead as Enemy Media polling portrays, do you really think the press will stop depicting and pushing a “messianic” landslide meme? Even to the point of sacrificing the professional credibility they already flushed down the “leg-tingling” commode months and months ago? This cycle pollsters won’t get serious at the end to save public face if the race is actually closer than it’s being suggested. That’s the only way they have to ensure that it won’t be close. And if they’re wrong, to the extent of McCain actually winning, nobody remembers that kind of thing in the next cycle. After all, they have more Democrats to get elected by any means necessary.

Think of it as the Enemy Media dragging Senator Hussein’s dead weight across the finish line.

Last, and probably least, is the Toe-Sucker himself (who predicted an Obama win way back in the midst of McCain’s convention bounce and brief national lead), who actually makes about the best “don’t give up hope” argument of the bunch:

October may see the end of Obama’s surge: He’s peaking too soon.

Once the Democrat is seen as the clear leader and likely winner, the spotlight will inevitably shift to him. And he may not benefit from the increased attention.

Obama didn’t do well when he last emerged on top, in later Democratic primaries. The more it appeared that Hillary Clinton would lose, the more voter concerns over Obama’s relationship with the Reverend Jeremiah Wright cost him state after state in the later primaries.

Obama still beat Clinton because he’d already amassed a sufficient delegate lead earlier on. That dynamic doesn’t apply in the general election.

Put another way, September surprises aren’t as politically handy as October surprises. And if these were ordinary circumstances, I would share the hope that enhanced scrutiny of Obamanomics in a Great Depression context and the recurring theme of B.O.’s serial dalliances and discipling with Marxist radicals would generate sufficient voter heebie-jeebies that a McCain close wouldn’t be a matter of if, but of how big.

Unfortunately, these are not ordinary circumstances. And the Republican candidate is ill-equipped to overcome them.

So am I now in the Allahpundit Pessimism Underground? Well, you know me, every election season I crunch my own polling numbers so as not to have to endure the daily rollercoaster morale ride. Take a gander at the left sidebar widget: I project Obama with a one point popular vote lead but a huge lead in the Electoral College. The popular vote figure is based upon polling composites of all fifty states weighted by percentage of the total Electoral College vote, with each polling composite being the average of the most recent seven days’ likely voter poll results.

The good news?

(1) The race never really stopped being “tight,” but rather has oscillated within a very small range.

(2) I’m showing McCain trailing but within the margin of error in enough “battleground” states that if he ran that particular table, he’d reach 288 Electoral Votes. Also, it appears that his slide since the Wall Street Meltdown has finally bottomed out.

The bad news?

(1) Given the true elasticity of the race, an apparently small lead is much bigger than it looks.

(2) I’ve yet to see a “tightening” where it would matter, i.e. in the aforementioned “battleground” states. Obama has run away with the “blue” battlegrounds, and he’s flipped eight of the “red” ones at last count. Those are the ones McCain has to somehow get back. And I have no earthly idea how he does that.

Bottom line: Is it over? No. A McCain comeback is still possible. But it is also highly unlikely. And I am not about to allow a bunch of faux sunshine to be blasted up my bloomers.

All I’ll ultimately be left with is the lamentation I offered eight months ago and the might-have-beens of what a Fred Thompson-Sarah Palin ticket might have been able to accomplish. That’s pretty thin gruel to take with me into the indefinite, self-inflicted national purgatory to come.

[cross-posted at ]

McCain is losing, and Obama is pulling away. Is that concise enough for you?

Oh, you want to know why, do you? Okay, let me lay it on you.

The Republican nominee was always going to be a huge underdog in this cycle because every historical factor is working against the GOP. We’re at the end of a two-term Republican administration that has become vastly unpopular due to the retiring president’s public relations obtuseness and indifference; a twelve-year run of GOP control of Congress ended only two years ago; the success of our war efforts against al Qaeda in Iraq and elsewhere combined with the absence of any 9/11 sequels has muted the natural GOP advantage on foreign policy and national security. Throw in the fact that that Republican nominee was going to have a much more difficult time holding and motivating his party’s base supporters, and you had the fixin’s for a Donk landslide, no matter who the other party put up.

However, John McCain and his campaign braintrust proved themselves to be shrewder than I ever gave them credit for. Between Independence Day and mid-September, they undertook two crucial steps that not only closed the gap between Darth Queeg and B.O, but actually lifted him into a small lead.

First, by employing light-hearted ridicule of Obama’s ego and hyped “messiah” image (the “celebrity” angle, the Britney Speares and Paris Hilton spots, etc.), they were able to define The One as precisely what he is: an empty suit whose self-opinion is at stark contrast with his modest intellect and meager experience. Barry’s thin-skinned reactions, to say nothing of his seemingly endless parade of gaffes, only fueled that dynamic.

Second, he simultaneously thrilled the GOP base and made a play for disgruntled Hillarynistas by selecting Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as his vice presidential running mate. In one fell swoop he locked up and motivated grassroots conservatives (at least vicariously) and further bolstered his appeal to independents by partnering with a fellow “maverick” reformer who also brought to the ticket genuine conservatism and all the charisma and political talent he lacks. A fact that I speculated might make for, shall we say, a lopsided ticket that would throw the man at the top into the deep shade.

Apparently that thought occurred to Team Sith as well, for after the wildly successful launch of Palinmania at the GOP convention, the McCainiacs all but put Governor Palin in solitary confinement with the exception of their two Enemy Media indulgences at the hands of Charlie Gibson and Katie Couric. A mode of “communication” guaranteed to deny ‘cuda her ability to follow the Reagan template and talk past the EM directly to the American people. Tellingly, she was completely absent from mainstream media appearances on local and national talk radio programs. No Limbaugh, no Hannity, no Hewitt, no Ingraham, no Medved, no Levin, no Prager, no nothing. Sarah might as well have been on the sides of milk cartons across the country, while the EM was systematically “Quayleizing” her functionally unopposed.

Some unnamed individual supposedly told Bill Kristol that McCain was “unhappy with his staff’s handling of Palin”. What does it say about Maverick that it takes him a full month, in the latter half of which his poll numbers have cratered, to figure out that his best political asset has been not just holstered, but practically bound and gagged? And isn’t it a far more plausible explanation that it was Sailor that did this to Governor Palin because the only reason he picked her was as a sop, a bone, a token to satiate the knuckle-dragging Neanderthal evangelicals he can’t stand but hasn’t a prayer of winning without? Oh, yes, and because she has a second X chromosome?

Look what happened when Sarah was released from the proverbial cone of silence. First Hewitt, then Hannity, and suddenly Palinmania was back. Or, on the other hand, maybe the calculation was that they had to bring her out of mothballs for the veep debate with Joe Biden anyway, and the grumbling on the right about Sailor’s disinclination to “fight” was growing, so like another diamond to Ron White’s spouse, a fresh dose of the ‘cuda would “shut ‘em up”.

Still, McCain was slightly ahead up until three weeks ago. And we all know what financial hypercane hit the country three weeks ago, don’t we? A Wall Street Meltdown that the Arizonan never got out in front of, never defined truthfully before the Dems could smear culpability on Bush, the GOP, conservative free market economics, and therefore McCain. He compounded that folly by absurdly gambling his “reformer/bipartisanist/I can get things done” reputation on the fool’s errand of suspending his campaign to return to Washington to put together a bailout/”rescue” deal on which the Democrats were holding all the cards. They easily ambushed and humiliated him on his “White House summit” idea, then double-crossed the compromise he helped put together a week ago. Now not only do the American people blame McCain and his party for the Democrats’ destruction of the financial sector, but the very core justification of his candidacy has been disemboweled.

And STILL he won’t engage on the origins of the subprime collapse. In God’s Name, WHY?, you ask? Apparently, because placing the blame for this mess where it belongs would be “too partisan“:

Picture the ad:

Barney Frank: “I want to roll the dice a little bit more in this situation towards subsidized housing.”

Announcer: He rolled the dice, and lost. And now you’re paying the bill.

Instead, these are the ads he’s running:

“What a week,” McCain says into the camera. “Democrats blamed Republicans. Republicans blamed Democrats. We’re the United States of America. It shouldn’t take a crisis to pull us together.”

It is tough to win an election, where the public is asked to choose between two parties, on a theme of “bipartisanship.” “My side is no better than theirs” really isn’t a winning rallying cry one month before an election.

And even if it wouldn’t be too partisan, it would be, you know, really hard to explain:

Americans are furious over the financial mess, and eager to blame somebody. The McCain campaign would be doing the nation a service by spelling out exactly whose bad decisions helped get us into this mess and how.

The excuses given by an unnamed source to U.S. News and World Report will not fly, and Spruiell’s objections are spot-on. I might even be harsher - does McCain want to be president and lead on all issues, or does he just want to handle the easily-explained issues? If John McCain doesn’t feel that the Democrats’ refusal to confront mismanagement of government-backed institutions that gambled and lost, requiring a massive infusion of taxpayer dollars, is worth making an argument about, then you might as well let Obama have the presidency. [emphases added]

Gosh, I could have sworn that’s pretty much what the Sith Master is already doing. Almost as if he’d rather run “an honorable [i.e. weak] campaign” and lose than do whatever it takes to win and save his country from a man who would systematically destroy it. Either that or he’s deliberately taking a dive.

Sorry if this is depressing you - think of it as misery loving company. If you want a bucking-up, you can always surf on over to Captain Optimist for a feeling-of-doom-ectomy. He says that the parallel to this campaign is 1976, only with the opposite result. Why….?:

Because the country cannot afford the greatest gamble in its modern history at this moment in time.

A confrontation with Iran looms and instability in Pakistan grows. The Islamist threat has been beaten back in Iraq, but continues to nurse its fanatical hatreds in many other places, from Waziristan to London. Israel is ringed not with an enemy that wants a state but by two enemies that want Israel to be destroyed.

The world’s financial system is teetering, and the estrangement between the American people and their government has never been this deep in modern times.

The cost of energy has soared and will continue to climb. The entitlement trap has only grown worse in the three years since George Bush asked the Democrats to work with him on Social Security and they said no. The corrupt, self-dealing culture of the Beltway has poisoned the decision-making of many bureaucracies and in ways only the burdened know, and the credibility of the big media is shattered even as their audiences shrink and many of their news rooms come close to shuttering.

So, despite the rapture of college students and the registration of the homeless in Ohio, the common sense of Americans will override curiosity about Barack Obama and infatuation with his celebrity, and trust John McCain to pilot the country for the next four years.

Do you recognize the mentality put on display by Double-H here? I do; it’s the same one I had in 1992, and again in 1996. It’s a not-too-distant cousin to the incredulity of the Democrat woman after the 1972 Nixon landslide who lamented, “How could Tricky Dick have won again? Nobody I know voted for him.” It is a myopic focus on one’s own superlatively informed view of the race and the candidates and an accompanying blindness to any recognition that most other voters are either (1) not nearly as informed and/or (2) don’t care in any case. I remember the same things being said about Clinton in ‘92 as Obama now - “He’s the most radically left-wing major party candidate in history; he’s a draft-dodger; he and his wife had radical associations in their past; the common sense of Americans won’t let them REALLY roll the dice on electing this guy….” etc. And yet, they did - twice.

The difference between 1992, or even 1976, and now is, of course, the economic precipice on which the nation is teeteringly perched. A full blast of Obamanomics (higher taxes, bigger government, tighter money, and neoprotectionism) now will take a recession of undetermined strength and length and turn it into a second Great Depression.

But what is McCain still talking about? Earmarks and “Wall Street greed.” And Obama?:

Taking a jab at the deregulation that the market has undergone during the previous eight years, Obama said that, “They wanted to let the market run free, but instead they let it run wild.”

Bullbleep. It was Dems who wrote regulations requiring mortgage lenders to make ruinously risky loans or face equally ruinous federal fines and penalties, fed those loans into Fannie and Freddie and got rich off the resulting real estate bubble, and all the while RESISTED repeated efforts by McCain and the Bush Administration to rein it in with increased regulatory oversight before it could burst.

But most Americans don’t know this is bullbleep, because Darth Queeg isn’t telling them. And like it or not, he’s the only one that can - if, indeed, even he hasn’t already lost the credibility to do so.

Oh, I suppose the “taking another look” factor could kick in over the remaining month of the campaign. Gerald Ford made up all but one point of a thirty-three point deficit in 1976; Bush41, down by over twenty-five points to Mr. Bill after the ‘92 Donk convention, actually caught Clinton by the Friday before Election Day, only to be dirty-tricked out of one of the greatest comebacks in American political history by the frivilous Iran-Contra re-indictment of Caspar Weinberger, which was thrown out just two weeks later. Even Bob Dole cut his eighteen-point 1996 deficit to Sick Willie in half in the final three weeks of that sad, doomed effort. By contrast, Lord Queeg’s deficit is “only” in the mid to high single digits. And we already have evidence from the summer of how brittle and glass a jaw the Chicago Cherubim sports. I simply question whether Maverick has that kind of gumption in him.

Am I calling the man who survived seven years at the Hanoi Hilton a coward? Not as such; in Nam Lieutenant Commander McCain had to endure unimaginable suffering; over the next four weeks would-be President McCain has to politically inflict it, with skill and ruthlessness. He’s got to be the very thing he most rails against: a hyperpartisan. He’s got to “take off the gloves,” which is to say, stop being “civil” and “comitous” and sock Barry in the balls as many times as he possibly can.

As I say, I don’t think he has that in him. Nor the skill, judging by the fact that Team Sith quit Michigan without bothering to inform the ticket’s vice presidential nominee, who had to find out about it during a Fox News interview and clearly did not agree with the decision. That, gentlebeings, is the stink of a campaign in disarray such that one almost doesn’t need to check the Electoral College map and behold that they’ve fallen behind in seven “red” states over the past three weeks and the “purple” ones have all fallen out of reach.

Can McCain-Palin turn this around? Theoretically. Some Jesuslanders must think it doable, because there are suggestions. But that’ll keep until tomorrow when the bailed-out Dow soars back over eleven thousand - right?

[cross-posted at ]

Democrats destroy the financial sector and Republicans take the blame - Is the Wall Street Meltdown the perfect political crime?

One thing remains secure - nobody, but nobody….

….will make a patsy out of him.

Saturdays, 1PM Eastern/10AM Pacific

and/or

Sundays, 6PM Eastern/3PM Pacific

I’m actually not all that outraged that PBS talking head Gwen Ifill will be “moderating” tomorrow night’s Sarah Palin-Joe Biden smackdown. Certainly not surprised. Yeah, she’s written a gushingly adoring prequal book on the upcoming Hussein presidency, so she has not just the usual ideological conflict of interest that any Enemy Media jackal would bring to this role, but a financial one as well. If anything, the wonder is that she isn’t moderating one of the three McCain-Obama bouts so that she could throw her panties directly at the feet of the man she had a prominent hand in depicting as the Heathcliff Huxtable of the Beltway. But really, would Chris Matthews or Bob Schiefer or pretty much any journo outside of Fox News be any less likely to start off the debate by asking Governor Palin when she stopped masturbating herself with severed moose antlers under the table at gubernatorial policy meetings? The fact that Ifill is black, and therefore officially immune from any and all criticism for any shafting of Barracuda that ensues - any and all criticism PERIOD, actually - is putrid icing on a really rotten cake.

But I am somewhat taken aback by this:

I confirmed for us here on GretaWire: the McCain campaign did NOT know about Gwen Ifill’s book (I think I told them when I made my efforts - emails about midnight - to find out!) I am stunned….the campaign (actually both) should have been told before the campaign agreed to have her moderate. It simply is not fair - in law, this would create a mistrial.

They didn’t know? The negotiations for and vetting of debate moderators and other stipulations took place as much as two months ago; Ifill’s literary fellation of The One was announced back in July. How could Team Sith possibly not know about this? Does nobody ELSE in that campaign know how to email, or use Google? For a shop that was on its way to winning the unwinnable before Wall Street collapsed, I find that more than a little implausible.

A/P’s theory is more believable, though no less teeth-gnashingly aggravating:

[I]s this a case of Team Maverick deciding that the racial demagoguery they’d get from the left for trying to have her removed because of a pro-Obama book made it simply not worth the aggravation?

Y’know, given the ubiquity that Barack Hussein Obama’s race is going to have in his administration, and the PR weapon of mass destruction that it will be used as against any and all criticism of his decisions, actions, rhetoric, and policies over the next four years, if a Republican presidential candidate is too chicken to incur the Left’s racial demogoguery over the choice of a hopelessly ethically compromised moderator in a vice presidential debate before False Messiah ever takes office, should we start taking bets on whether the GOP will even have the courage to field a candidate against his re-election bid in 2012?

[cross-posted at ]

I would like people to know the type of impact this election could have. I agree that on domestic policies “how much damage could be done in 4 years”? People would see how bad Obama is and oust him. HOWEVER, it is much harder to re-invent the wheel and correct mistakes abroad. “Mistakes abroad” is esentially Obama’s only chance at winning. That is why you hear the “Bush 3rd term” garbage so much.More is to come later on this topic, with details (listen I sound like a politician mom!). lol

My question is why would Israel be allowing FBX-T radar along with 100-120 US personnel on their soil… if they did not believe that missile defense CAN, DOES, and may HAVE to work against Iran. Right now the US is lucky, we are fairly safe with the exception of being hit by the USSR… Israel is the one looking down the barrel on a daily basis. They think it can work and have faith in the THAAD system. Why doesn’t Obama and the left?

(Can’t seem to publish the Youtube here…so: Conservative Intelligence Report.)

Beldar takes note of what John McCain was doing yesterday after the first presidential debate:

Senior adviser Mark Salter said the Arizona senator spent the morning at his campaign headquarters placing calls to congressional leaders and White House officials involved in finalizing a multibillion-dollar deal to bail out failing financial firms. Earlier in the week McCain suspended most campaign activities to help develop a bipartisan agreement….

“He can effectively do what he needs to do by phone,” Salter said Saturday. “He’s calling members on both sides, talking to people in the Administration, helping out as he can.”

Two questions come instantly to mind after reading that quote:

1) If McCain “can effectively do what he needs to do by phone,” why did he suspend his campaign and take the bipartisan cavalry tearing off to the Beltway last week?

2) Wasn’t that pretty much the alibi Barack Obama came up with last week to excuse his blowing off McCain’s invitation to join said cavalry?

Beldar’s reaction to that quote is unwittingly telling, I think:

Once again, faced with the choice between country and career, John McCain chose country. He’d rather lose a campaign than risk our country’s fundamental economic security.

And thanks to his rank negligence in failing to realize that, especially in a campaign like this one, when he advances “career” he advances “country” at the same time, John McCain is guaranteeing the loss of both.

Meanwhile, what was The Chosen One doing? What a presidential candidate is SUPPOSED to be doing:

Obama, meanwhile, stuck to his campaign schedule which will take him and Biden from here to two other swing states this weekend: Virginia and Michigan….

Though he has dismissed the presidential candidates’ intervention in the bailout talks as counterproductive grandstanding, Obama expressed forceful opinions about what the deal should — and should not — include.

“I will not allow this plan to become a welfare program for Wall Street executives,” he told the crowd here. And he suggested an additional $50 billion in aid for the unemployed and investments in infrastructure should be part of the deal.

“Washington has to feel the same sense of urgency about passing an economic stimulus plan” as it does about rescuing mega-investors, said Obama, who spoke by phone Saturday about the state of the negotiations with Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-NV, and House Financial Services Chairman Barney Frank, D-MA.

Beldar rips Obama for not following McCain’s selfless example. But isn’t it already long established that B.O. isn’t a leader? Has no political or any other sort of courage? Has the character and integrity of a hyena?

I’ll tell you, though, what he realizes of which Beldar and many of us on the Right have lost sight: False Messiah doesn’t NEED to stick his neck out like McCain has because his party is using this financial crisis to drive the electorate in his direction. Don’t forget that McCain was lured back to D.C. by the Democrats and then double-crossed when he got there; or how much ground that’s cost him in the polls in the past few days. If Sailor had done what he’s doing now, making phone calls behind the scenes and otherwise staying on the campaign trail where he belonged, he’d still be in this race, and perhaps more pressure would be on Barry to be more proactive. But as things are turning out, why should he be? His congressional allies have fatally wounded his opponent and have turned the polls in his direction. Tactically speaking, he has every incentive to keep his mouth shut about this issue and stay out of the way.

Perhaps too many on my side of the aisle have imbibed the “country first” Kool-Aid. Maybe they didn’t even realize they were doing so. But my reading of history, particularly that of contemporary American politics, is that the sort of selfless statesmanship that John McCain personifies is rarely honored at the time it is offered. It is only seen as such long after the fact, whereas crass, manipulative, hardball, partisan politics has maximum impact precisely at the time it is most needed. That’s why conservatives are always left spluttering in outrage and frustration that voters can’t SEE how unfit, unqualified, and unworthy a man like Barack Obama is to lead the Free World and elect such men to the highest office in the land, and how voters also seem incapable of recognizing what soulless zombies Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid and their party are when they put the Dems in charge of Congress.

There is a difference, in short, between politicking and governing. You don’t get to do the latter without successfully doing the former. And you can’t successfully do the former if you’re stopping in mid-stream and trying to do the latter at the same time.

Many believe John McCain can be a great president. Maybe they’re right. But in order to show what a great leader and statesman he can be as president, he has to get elected first. And that means putting “career” first. If he does that, trust me, country will be along for that triumphant ride. If he doesn’t, country will crash and burn as well.

[cross-posted at ]

The Paulson Sting holds the American economy hostage, hoists John McCain on his own “country first” petard, and guarantees a generation of unchallengable Democrat rule.

A scheme so nefarious and diabolical….

….as to put even this devastatingly handsome ghost villain to shame.

Saturdays, 1PM Eastern/10AM Pacific

and/or

Sundays, 6PM Eastern/3PM Pacific

My fellow Americans, the “New Tone” chickens have finally, fully, devastatingly come home to roost. And their name is Henry Paulson.

You remember the “New Tone,” right? It’s what President George W. Bush wanted to bring to Washington, D.C. after years of “partisan bickering” between congressional Republicans and the Clinton administration. He wanted things in the nation’s capital to work the way he made them work in Texas state government: friendly, cordial, civil - one might even say “post-partisan”. In Austin, Dubya succeeded, because the Democrats he worked with there weren’t the same kind of Democrats he was inheriting in Washington. In Texas, most Dems are “blue dog” centrists, not very far philosophically or ideologically from Bush himself. In Washington, most Dems are vicious, corrupt, Marxist scumbags. And they had the long knives out for him from day one after the failure of Al Gore’s Florida Insurrection.

But the President persevered anyway. It’s cost him again and again over the past eight years. It’s a wonder - neigh MIRACLE - that it didn’t cost him a second term. It’s the reason that his approval ratings have been subterranean almost ever since he was re-elected, arguably a factor in the GOP losing Congress in 2006, and why John Sith McCain has such a steep hill to climb to somehow succeed him in five and a half weeks.

But never has it cost his party and his possible successor more than it has with the Paulson Sting.

Henry Paulson is George W. Bush’s third Secretary of the Treasury. Bush has never had a free-market conservative SecTres. I have no idea why. For a President that ran on supply-side tax-cutting, one would have thought he’d have dialed up Steve Forbes or Larry Kudlow even before he got on the blower to Colin Powell to ask him to run Foggy Bottom. Instead he has invariably tapped either non-ideological or ideologically hostile types like the ever-loyal Paul O’Neill, the non-descript John Snow, and the now-treacherous Hank Paulson.

Paulson’s selection two years ago was particularly pregnant given current circumstances. As the ex-chairman of Goldman Sachs, he’s not exactly a neutral, disinterested observer in the “Wall Street Meltdown,” and as a Democrat, his loyalties to President Bush would, to any other Republican but he, have to be considered questionable at best.

I wouldn’t go so far as to say that Paulson has horns, a pitchfork, hooves, and a pointed tail. But in light of what took place yesterday, he sure looks like a Donk mole in the heart of the “enemy” camp.

Let’s reestablish the week’s baseline, shall we?

1) TUESDAY: Paulson calls South Carolina Republican Senator Lindsey Graham - one of Darth Queeg’s RINO Sith apprentices - and begs him to get McCain involved in the b[uy]out negotiations. More specifically, to talk House Republicans into getting involved in the b[uy]out negotiations (even though the Dems had pointedly excluded them to that point) because without them, according to Paulson, no “bipartisan” deal will be possible (flag this in your thoughts for immediate future reference).

2) WEDNESDAY: Graham relays Paulson’s message. McCain, incapable of resisting a “call to duty” and any opportunity to “put country above party” - EVEN IN THE MIDDLE OF A PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN - answers the call, and just as predictably calls Barack Obama and invites The One to join him in a show of bipartisan unity in the midst of a national “crisis”. Barry blows him off, and Maverick suspends his campaign (including pulling down all his ads) anyway and jets back to D.C.

Later in the day, at McCain’s urging, President Bush invites both him AND Senator Hussein, along with the party leaders and Banking Committee Chairs and ranking members of both houses, to a “bipartisan crisis summit” at the White House to hammer out a “bipartisan deal” that will “save the country”. Having been directly summoned by the President of the United States, B.O. decides that invitation is too big and too public to snub.

3) THURSDAY: I’m listening to Sean Hannity on the way back from lunch. He says that the big powwow at the White House has broken up. McCain and Obama were supposed to come out and jointly speak to the press hordes on the front lawn, but Hannity reports that McCain exited via the West Wing, ducked into his transportation conveyance, and sped away without a word. I figured Obama would come out and brag about having “saved the day” himself, and wondered why McCain would let him do that, but evidently Barry didn’t have much to say, either.

This morning we found out why:

When Senator Barack Obama was given the floor to speak during White House negotiations, according to White House aides, he did so raising concerns about a House Republican alternative to the Paulson/Bernanke $700 billion bailout. But those concerns weren’t necessarily his, as he was not aware of the GOP plan before reviewing notes provided him by Paulson loyalists in Treasury prior to entering the meeting.

According to an Obama campaign source, the notes were passed to Obama via senior aides traveling with him, who had been emailed the document via a current Goldman Sachs employee and Wall Street fundraiser for the Obama campaign. “It was made clear that the memo was from ‘friends’ and was reliable,” says the campaign source.

The memo allowed Obama and his fellow Democrats to box in Republican attendees and essentially took what President Bush had billed as a negotiating meeting off the rails.

“Paulson and his team have not acted in good faith for this President or the Administration for which they serve,” says a House Republican leader who was not present at the White House meeting, but who instead is part of the team hammering out the House GOP alternative. “We keep hearing about how Secretary Paulson is working with Democrats on this or that, yet he never seems to consider working with the party that essentially hired him. Perhaps he’s auditioning for a Democratic administration job. Our proposal didn’t just spring forth fully formed; we’ve been working on this for several days, and Treasury staff has known about it.” [emphases added]

Here’s Limbaugh’s version, with some interesting additional details:

The President, in order to let everybody be heard, deferred to various Democrats, and every one of the Democrats - Pelosi, Reid, Dodd, and Frank - declined to speak and deferred to Obama. So Obama became the official Democrat spokesman in the meeting. This was to hype Obama’s leadership and presidential aura and so forth. What happened next, the first thing out of Obama’s mouth - Paulson is in the meeting - is he starts ripping the House Republican proposal and asks Paulson what he thinks of it.

This led Boehner and the other Republicans in there to think they have been sandbagged. We found out this morning that Obama had no clue - because he was in transit doing other things, he had no clue - what the House Republican position was….It ended up with Obama essentially chairing the meeting, with the meeting falling apart. The President was described as “beleaguered,” trying to regain control of the meeting. McCain [hardly said] anything. Everybody was yelling and screaming in there. McCain did not. He said, “We’ve gotta put these differences aside, work together,” you know, typical McCain. [emphases added]

How pathetic is that? If you had any doubts about just how lame a duck George W. Bush has become, this ought to lay it to nauseating rest. Once again, Dubya “deferred” to these creatures; once again he tried to “reach out” to them to “put partisan differences aside” to “work together” to “do what’s best for the country.” And once again they pissed in his face and kicked him in the nuts. The “New Tone” produces its latest harvest of bitter, foolish fruit.

No, wait, I take that back; the Dems acted like Bush wasn’t even there. As far as they were concerned, this was Obama’s meeting. Consequently, it was McCain they were humiliating.

Here, though, is where I diverge from the Maha Rushie’s take:

So this whole meeting yesterday essentially was established to show off Obama’s leadership skills and negotiating skills, and he blew it! People who disagree with him, he has no idea how to negotiate with. Even Obama ended up last night on TV. I think the Democrats were so frightened that the truth would come out about what happened in this meeting.

Departure #1: The Democrats own majorities in both Houses of Congress. On the House side, the minority is essentially powerless to stop the majority, and the majority can do anything it wants. Consequently, Speakerette Pelosi could simply bring the House GOP counter-proposal to a vote, crush it, then ram through the Donk/Paulson nationalization bill on a party line vote and take all the credit for having “saved the country” from another “Great Depression”. What need is there to get House ‘Pubbies to “negotiate”?

Three letters: C…Y…A. Polls are showing the public substantially if not overwhelmingly against a Donk/Paulson-style b[uy]out, which also helps explain why Lucifer wants to tack on an extra $50 billion of worthless deficit spending (i.e. to make sure there’s something in it for “Main Street” as well as “Wall Street”). As per usual, House Pachyderms are responding to the will of the people, heeding the voice of “Main Street,” and Donks are trying to scheme there way around it. The most direct route to doing so is to [DRUMROLL] “sandbag” House GOPers into caving in order to provide “bipartisan” cover for a Wall Street b[uy]out Main Street doesn’t want, after which any credit will be glommed by the Dems and any blame will fall on Republicans.

Departure #2: I don’t think Obama “blew” anything. I think Pelosi and Reid and Dodd and Frank knew he was clueless about the House GOP proposal and used that cluelessness AND their nominee to DELIBERATELY SABOTAGE A DEAL and then MAKE SURE McCAIN WAS BLAMED FOR IT.

Scroll down the Limbaugh link. After echoing Paulson earlier in the week that McCain’s presence was absolutely crucial to getting a deal done, there were Dirty Harry and close Paulson pal Chucky Schumer and other Donks this morning claiming that they already HAD a deal done (which was BS) and McCain blew it up by not ordering House ‘Pubbies to surrender (or failing to compel their compliance). Indeed, Schumer actually “respectfully” instructed President Bush to tell McCain to “get out of town.” Which, of course, Sailor had little choice but to do.

What have I been saying all week about McCain’s “bailing out for the b[uy]out? That he was setting himself up to fail because the Democrats have exactly ZERO reasons to negotiate and EVERY reason to hold out and, if it happens, let the economy collapse.

Let’s review:

1) In any negotiation, the side that can afford to wait longer ALWAYS has the upper hand.

2) The Democrats are going to gain seats in Congress in November no matter how this b[uy]out business turns out, and in the event of a total economic meltdown they’ll benefit from that even more. And in the meantime, the longer they hold out, the greater their chance of getting everything they want in a deal and more.

Consequently the Democrats have had the upper hand in the whole Wall Street Meltdown from day one (conceded to them by John McCain’s RINO fecklessness), arguably promulgated the policies that created it with such an eventual outcome in mind, and used their man in the Bush Cabinet, Henry Paulson, to lure John McCain into a trap that would destroy both his credibility and his candidacy on the issue that will dominate the rest of the campaign, and thus guarantee the election of Barack Hussein Obama as the next president of the United States.

The Democrats have achieved what may be the ultimate coup: they will be the ones responsible for destroying the economy, and their reward will be total, unchecked power over it. And they have exploited John McCain’s own maverick gimmick to pull it off.

A fitting end for a decade of perfidy against his own. A bitter tragedy that the rest of us have to accompany him to this political perdition.

[cross-posted at ]

McCain will suspend his campaign and will go back to the Senate and debate the bail out bill.

H/T to Leslie Carbone

FOX News is reporting that John McCain has realized that the Bush Administration’s outrageous plan to burden the taxpayers with a bail-out for irresponsible banks and borrowers cannot pass Congress. Sen McCain has requested a delay of this Friday’s presidential debate, plans to suspend his campaign tomorrow night and return to Washington for bail-out talks, and has challenged Barack Obama to do the same.

Here is McCain via Drudge

MCCAIN: America this week faces an historic crisis in our financial system. We must pass legislation to address this crisis. If we do not, credit will dry up, with devastating consequences for our economy. People will no longer be able to buy homes and their life savings will be at stake. Businesses will not have enough money to pay their employees. If we do not act, ever corner of our country will be impacted. We cannot allow this to happen.

Last Friday, I laid out my proposal and I have since discussed my priorities and concerns with the bill the Administration has put forward. Senator Obama has expressed his priorities and concerns.This morning, I met with a group of economic advisers to talk about the proposal on the table and the steps that we should take going forward.I have also spoken with members of Congress to hear their perspective.

It has become clear that no consensus has developed to support the Administration’ proposal. I do not believe that the plan on the table will pass as it currently stands, and we are running out of time.

Tomorrow morning, I will suspend my campaign and return to Washington after speaking at the Clinton Global Initiative. I have spoken to Senator Obama and informed him of my decision and have asked him to join me.

I am calling on the President to convene a meeting with the leadership from both houses of Congress, including Senator Obama and myself. It is time for both parties to come together to solve this problem.

We must meet as Americans, not as Democrats or Republicans, and we must meet until this crisis is resolved.I am directing my campaign to work with the Obama campaign and the commission on presidential debates to delay Friday night’s debate until we have taken action to address this crisis.

I am confident that before the markets open on Monday we can achieve consensus on legislation that will stabilize our financial markets, protect taxpayers and homeowners, and earn the confidence of the American people. All we must do to achieve this is temporarily set politics aside, and I am committed to doing so.

Following September 11th, our national leaders came together at a time of crisis. We must show that kind of patriotism now. Americans across our country lament the fact that partisan divisions in Washington have prevented us from addressing our national challenges. Now is our chance to come together to prove that Washington is once again capable of leading this country.

Developing…

Wall Street melts down per Democrat design, Team Sith flounders for several days, but Team Messiah blows its big chance. A wash, or a dress rehersal for an even bigger meltdown to come?

Also, this entity….

….had a bit of a meltdown himself.

Saturdays, 1PM Eastern/10AM Pacific

and/or

Sundays, 6PM Eastern/3PM Pacific

In March of this year, there was a “panic” sale of Bear & Stearns. The sub-prime housing crisis continues to threaten the economy. Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac were bailed out with our tax dollars. Today, Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy. AIG is seeking a major cash infusion. Merrill Lynch is being bought in a stock-only transaction by Bank of America.

The presidential campaigns of John McCain and Barack Obama issued statements, President Bush delivered remarks in the Rose Garden. Talking heads on TV and Radio are going nuts. Former Federal reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan celebrated, err… discussed the economic crisis by making a quick TV book tour - noting the release of the paperback edition of his book. Apparently, Alan is still hoping consumers will spend a little of their capital on him.

Be warned: the Obama campaign has a message. They are “taking the gloves off.” Which unfortunately was not a reference to the happenings during Fashion Week in Bryant Park a few days ago. Instead, it’s a warning to the McCain campaign that Obama and Joe Biden are going to hit McCain on the Bush economic policies. Never mind that McCain is not a part of the Bush Administration. Never mind that in the last 18 months, while Democrats controlled Congress - with a sizable majority - Americans, and our financial institutions, have lost hundreds of millions in our equity. Home equity, land equity, finance and investment equity.

Don’t get me wrong, the McCain campaign will hand out their share have hard-hitting language. Hitting Obama on higher taxes and his liberal political philosophy. And on higher taxes…. let’s be clear: if you let the tax cuts instituted since 2001 expire - that is a tax hike. You will pay more. Now, Obama wants us to believe he’ll get the US Congress to pass a tax cut for “everyone” or “95 percent” - either way, there isn’t a real chance any candidate will get everything they want.

Ask yourself, which candidate do you trust more? trust to build a coalition with you and your fellow Americans for a better, brighter, and more solvent future? Which candidate is making promises he can’t possibly deliver on? Is hope just hope, or is it hope with substantive chance of making a difference?

—Media Lizzy

Our Military On Political Pistachio Radio

On The Radio This Week!

ONCE A MARINE - An Iraq War Tank Commander’s Inspirational Story of Combat, Courage, and Recovery. Nick Popaditch appeared in an AP photo on April 9, 2003. The striking image was of the Marine tank commander smoking a victory cigar in his tank, the haunting statue of Saddam Hussein hovering in the background. “Gunny Pop” was immortalized forever as “The Cigar Marine.” A year later he fought heroically in the First Battle for Fallujah and suffered head wounds that left him legally blind and partially deaf. The United States Marine Corps awarded him a Silver Star for his valor and combat innovation. Coming home, however, is when the toughest fight of his life began - a battle to remain the man and Marine he was. Join Political Pistachio Radio on Tuesday Night at 10:00 pm Eastern Time/7:00 pm Pacific for a riveting interview with Nick Popaditch, a Marine’s Marine, a man who embodies everything noble and proud in the Corps’ long tradition.

What You Missed Last Week:

Saturday Sgt. Michael Volkin joined us to discuss his latest book, The Accomplishments of Senator Barack Hussein Obama. (From the book’s site, www.obamaresearch.com) The Accomplishments of Senator Barack Hussein Obama is a comprehensive, factual book about presidential candidate Barack Obama. The book is based on hours of research, dozens of speeches and listening to dozens of his supporters. The Accomplishments of Barack Hussein Obama accounts for all the presidential qualifications of Senator Barack Obama.

Some of the various topics this book discusses are:

+ His Detailed Plans of Change
+ His Senate Accomplishments
+ His Presidential Qualifications
+ Important Points He Has Made Without a Teleprompter or Prepared Script

This book includes title page, copyright page, a complete table of contents, running page headers, and a conclusion. Each book’s chapters, however, are BLANK!

Michael Volkin was the guest last Saturday on Political Pistachio Radio.

Also Last Week:

Mr. and Mrs. Cyber-Pastor’s adventures at the Republican National Convention
Mr. and Mrs. CP on PPR

9/11 Anniversary with the Executive Director of Let’s Get This Right .com, Sheridan Folger.
9/11 and Sheridan Folger on PPR

The Political Director, Dr. Bill Smith, of Let’s Get This Right .com joined us to discuss the Republican National Convention, Election 2008, and how the New Media is becoming a major force in shaping the public’s opinion and the rebirth of the Conservative Movement.
Dr. Bill Smith, Political Director of LGTR on PPR

Paul Volosen of www.mccainpalin2008.blogspot.com joined us to discuss the rise of Sarah Palin, as well as the continually changing upcoming election.
McCain/Palin 2008 on PPR

Amateur Kick Boxer Scott Venrick joined Political Pistachio to answer the question, does violence beget violence?
Does Violence Beget Violence? Let’s Ask A Kick Boxer on PPR

Alfonzo of MachoSauceProduction joins us to talk about being a black conservative, and why Conservativism is on the rise.
Macho Sauce Production on PPR

On the Blogs:

Doug Battles As He Adjusts To His New Life as a Trucker.

Newt Gingrich Shuts Up MSNBC.

I Remember 9/11.

See you next weekend (or earlier should a key guest come up) -

Doug
www.politicalpistachio.com

J-Ger notices an intriguing nugget in the latest Fox News poll:

Do you think Barack Obama is a talker or a doer?

Overall: Talker 49%, Doer 34%. Among independents, 55% talker, 26% doer.

Do you think John McCain is talker or a doer?

Overall: Talker, 30%, doer, 54%. Among independents, 21% talker, 58% doer.

Interrrrrresting, as Artie Johnson used to say on Laugh-In.  With McCain having his base locked up, and Obama, well, not, but not hemorrhaging either, the Indy vote is (much as I resent having to concede the cliched wisdom in this instance) where the election will be determined.  This suggests two possible outcomes: if a majority of Indies like what McCain promises, they know he’ll do what he says, and he should win; if a majority of Indies decided they don’t like what McCain promises, Obama should win.  Except that they don’t think he’ll actually do much of what he promises, which perhaps would make him seem like a safer choice, even though all he really is promising to do is….talk.

Perhaps the remainder to the cited results will shed some light on the conundrum:

If you had to make the toughest decision of your life, who would you rather get advice from?

Obama, 34%; McCain, 50%. Among independents it’s Obama 22%, McCain 52%. Interestingly, Biden matches up fairly well against Palin, 39% to her 43%.

This is the “wisdom” question.  McCain beats Barry because he’s ninety - okay, twenty-five - years older than god, who’s only a callow forty-seven, and lived orders of magnitude more than Messiah could ever imagine.  Interesting that that same dynamic doesn’t play out in the Rogaine-’cuda question.  Guess making that “tough” decision not to have Trig scraped out of her innards is counting for more than the nutters want to admit.

Which ticket has more experience combined?

Republicans 52, Democrats 34. Among Independents, it’s Republicans 57, Democrats 25.

Fascinating!  The logic of this answer is that experience is more than just the linear elapsing of time, but has definite qualitative aspects as well.  See “doer vs. talker” and “tough decision advice” above.  Perhaps two years as a Senate dilletante plus a year and a half as a professional presidential candidate, and three and a half decades as the poster boy for term limits is not, after all, the gravitas juggarnaut the Dems and the Enemy Media would have us believe.  Say it ain’t so, Joe!  You know you’re gonna.

But here’s the big uh-oh for Team Hussein: 

Which ticket has better judgment combined?

Republicans 47, Democrats 43. Among independents, it’s Republicans 51, Democrats 32.

BO is counting on his “judgment” as being the stand-in for his complete dearth of relevant experience.  He put Joe Biden on his ticket, ostensibly, to compensate for that rookie-ism, presumeably because the “judgment” angle was, and is, a flop.  Now he trails by nineteen on judgment and thirty-two on experience with the demographic he HAS to have even with Biden and Palin included, and after the latter has been hacked to bits with a rusty bat’leth?  Not good, boys and girls, not good.

But chin up, fever swampers, it’s not a complete washout:

Which ticket will bring the right change to Washington?

The Democrats still lead, 46-39. But among independents, it’s Democrats 36, Republicans 38.

Translation: President McCain and Vice President Palin will have to deal with a Donk Congress.

Sounds like a maverick’s dream come true.

[cross-posted at ]

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