Is race a bigger factor than the polls suggest?

Mr. Obama's campaign concedes it has no clear example of a Republican attack that expressly cites Mr. Obama's name or race. Yet in the last few days some Obama supporters were at it again, suggesting that a McCain ad attacking Mr. Obama as little more than a "celebrity," by featuring young white women such as Britney Spears, is an appeal to white anxiety about black men and white women.

The race issue is clearly not going away. And the key reason -- to be blunt -- is because there is no telling how many white voters are lying to pollsters when they say they plan to vote for a black man to be president. Still, it is possible to look elsewhere in the polling numbers to see where white voters acknowledge their racial feelings and get a truer measure of racism.

In a Wall Street Journal poll last month, 8% of white voters said outright that race is the most important factor when it comes to looking at these two candidates -- a three percentage point increase since Mr. Obama claimed the Democratic nomination. An added 15% of white voters admit the candidates' race is a factor for them. Race is even more important to black voters: 20% say it is the top factor influencing their view of the candidates, and another 14% admit it is among the key factors that will determine their vote. All this contributes to the idea that the presidential contest will boil down to black guy versus white guy.

Consider also a recent Washington Post poll. Thirty percent of all voters admitted to racial prejudice, and more than a half of white voters categorized Mr. Obama as "risky" (two-thirds judged Mr. McCain the "safe" choice). Yet about 90% of whites said they would be "comfortable" with a black president. And about a third of white voters acknowledged they would not be "entirely comfortable" with an African-American president. Why the contradictory responses? My guess is that some whites are not telling the truth about their racial attitudes.

A recent New York Times poll found that only 31% of white voters said they had a favorable opinion of Mr. Obama. That compares to 83% of blacks with a favorable opinion. This is a huge, polarizing differential.

But polling can be tricky. In May, a Pew poll asked voters about Mr. Obama but did not give them the option of saying they are undecided. In that poll, whites split on the candidate, 45% saying they had a favorable opinion, 46% unfavorable. When white voters had the option of being undecided, as they did in the Times poll, 37% of whites said they had an unfavorable opinion of him, but 26% said they were undecided.

To win this campaign, Mr. Obama needs to assure undecided white voters that he shares their values and is worthy of their trust. To do that he has to minimize attention to different racial attitudes toward his candidacy as well as racially polarizing issues, and appeal to the common experiences that bind Americans regardless of color.

Mr. Obama has shown an unprecedented ability to cross the racial divide in American politics. He did particularly well in managing caucus states, such as Iowa, where highly energized supporters, especially idealistic young white supporters, minimized the impact of negative racial attitudes with passionate participation.

But the white Democratic caucus voters in Iowa, where there are relatively few racial issues, are decidedly more liberal than white voters nationally. In primary states from New Hampshire to Texas and California, Mr. Obama lost when one of two things happened. Either working-class white voters did not participate in polls, or some white voters lied and told pollsters they planned to vote for him before casting their votes for another candidate.

There are going to be more of those wobbly white voters in November. The size of the white vote in a general election race dwarfs the white vote in the Democratic primary. Based on the 2004 presidential contest, whites make up about 77% of voters and blacks 11%.

In the Democratic primaries there were states, especially in the South, where blacks made up nearly half of the electorate. But in the general election there are no states where blacks make up so large a percentage. Even in Southern states such as Georgia and North Carolina, where blacks made up about a quarter of the vote in the last presidential election, it will be an upset if Mr. Obama manages to win. Those states have a history of Republican dominance in presidential contests. Even an energized black vote is unlikely to make Mr. Obama a winner anywhere in the South, although some Democrats hold out hope for Virginia.

In 2004, John Kerry had a 46% favorable rating among white voters, barely better than Barack Obama's. But Mr. Kerry lost. Mr. Obama needs to do better with whites. But the white voters' view of him is still clearly unsettled.

Polls show white voters struggling to identify with him as a fellow American who, to quote Bill Clinton, is able to "feel your pain." When the New York Times poll asked whether Mr. Obama cares about "the needs and problems of people like yourself," 70% of whites answered "a lot" or "some." But 28% of whites said Mr. Obama cared about them "not much" or "not at all." Compare that with the 72% of black voters who said Mr. Obama cared about them "a lot." The same Times poll had Mr. Obama leading Mr. McCain by six percentage points, 45-39, but trailing by nine points among white voters, 37-46.

After Jesse Jackson's vicious comments about Mr. Obama, some political strategists suggested that a split with Mr. Jackson and his racially divisive politics could help Mr. Obama with white voters. But polls have yet to reveal this.

Could a Jackson-Obama split cause black voters to lose enthusiasm for him -- dividing their loyalties between the two most prominent black political voices of this era? Opinion surveys do not indicate this is likely. Polling done by Gallup just before Mr. Jackson's outburst indicated that 29% of black Americans chose Mr. Obama as the "individual or leader in the U.S. to speak for you on issues of race." Mr. Jackson came in third with only 4% support (behind Al Sharpton, who had 6%). Last year, a Pew poll focusing on racial attitudes found 76% of blacks judged Mr. Obama a "good influence," a full eight points higher than Mr. Jackson.

Jodie Allen, a senior editor at Pew, wrote recently that a poll Pew conducted last November showed clearly that "the black community is at least as traditional in its views as the larger American public." Blacks in the Pew poll were just as likely as whites to take a hard line opposing crime (as long as black neighborhoods are not unfairly targeted), to condemn the shocking number of children born out of wedlock and express disgust with the violence and misogyny in rap music.

Mr. Obama needs to hammer home these conservative social values to capture undecided white voters. He might lose Mr. Jackson's vote. But he won't lose many black votes, and he will win the undecided white votes he needs to become America's first African-American president.

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Document Expert Discovers Another Person's birth certificate Used To Forge Obama's

The evidence that the certificate of live birth (COLB) produced to prove the date and place of Sen. Barack Obama's birth is a forged document just keeps getting more damning. A board-certified computer forensics examiner with more than 20 years experience, including clearance by the U.S. Department of Justice for sensitive work, has determined that the Obama COLB is a digitally modified forgery based on a COLB belonging to another person. The expert, using the pseudo name "Techdude", intends to disclose the identity of the person to whom the COLB belongs if the responsible person does not come forward and accept responsibility for the forgery. Techdude writes at the Texas Darlin blog, a pro Clinton blog, as follows:

For a quick preview - the original COLB used to create the KOS COLB image belongs to a female and does not belong to Obama. Another follow up report will reveal exactly who the original underlying COLB did belong to. Trust me when I tell you it is going to be one hell of a major twist that no one would have seen coming. I had to quadruple check my results because I did not even believe it and I currently have a few other people double and triple checking my results as well just to be 100% sure.

That said, and in the interest of fairness, if the people responsible for forging the COLB come forward and admit their liability the name of the original COLB owner will not be released publicly. It is only fair to give the guilty parties a chance to take responsibility for their actions before it embarrasses a lot of people and ruins some people's reputations.

As a heads up to the guilty parties - the names and dates have already been restored - as has the fact the owner is a female born in the 70's. That is all that will be revealed publicly for now. Besides if I turn up in a ditch someplace the information is already in a few 3rd party hands and they will just release it in my place. If anyone still believes the KOS COLB is legitimate after reading this article they should seriously think about seeking professional help.

Techdude, since surfacing on the Texas Darlin blog in recent weeks to question the authenticity of the Obama COLB, has been criticized by pro-Obama supporters for refusing to identify himself. "My full name and contact information will be released shortly once the entire set of facts has been released to the public," Techdude writes. "This way if I end up at the bottom of a construction site someplace in NJ the world will still have all the information I was going to provide." Earlier, Techdude reported that pro Obama supporters had tracked down his home address, vandalized his car and hung a dead rabbit over his doorway.

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Co-operation with Europe: More Obama ignorance shown up

LAST weekend, Barack Obama dazzled crowds in Europe. Discussing international security, he spoke eloquently about needing an American-European partnership to defeat terrorism. In Paris, he said that "terrorism cannot be solved by any one country alone," and that we should establish partnerships. In Berlin, he expressed hope that Europeans and Americans "can join in a new and global partnership to dismantle the networks" of terrorists worldwide.

But there's one problem. We already have a counterterrorism partnership with the European Union. And it works. Indeed, despite news media caricatures of aggressive Americans feuding with pacifist Europeans, both groups are quite serious about protecting citizens by working together. The urgency of this partnership became clear after investigators discovered that a cell in Hamburg, Germany, had helped in Al Qaeda's attacks against America on Sept. 11, 2001. After bombings in Madrid and London, the partnership expanded. Since then the number of attacks and plots aimed at our European allies has dropped. And here in the United States, of course, Al Qaeda has been unable to attack since 9/11.

Officials in the American and European military, intelligence and law enforcement communities created this success, and a strong counterterrorism partnership made it possible. The key pillars are better intelligence sharing and closer law enforcement cooperation. I have witnessed this success firsthand. In 2005, I was the Pentagon's lead intelligence specialist in Iraq focusing on terrorist networks that used improvised explosive devices. Many Americans may recall the increasing casualties from these homemade devices. Despite our huge investments in technology to combat them, terrorist networks kept learning to adapt.

One challenge we had was to find where the research and testing of new bombs was taking place. Eventually, American intelligence and European law enforcement officials discovered together that much of the work was being done outside Iraq with the results transmitted via the Internet. Acting on this information, the police in France arrested electrical engineering students at a French university who had been recruited by their local mosque leaders. After these arrests, American tactical countermeasures and improvements in technology became more effective and the number of casualties from certain types of explosives declined.

Such close collaboration between the United States and France against terrorist cells in Iraq may surprise those accustomed to digesting easy sound bites of "cowboy diplomacy" and "unilateralism." But the partnership is real, and not just with France. The Germans contribute as well. I also worked on counterterrorism operations in southern Europe to stop a plot against American interests there. Thanks to German intelligence and law enforcement officials, a planned attack modeled on the 1983 truck bombing against United States marines in Lebanon - but several times larger - never happened.

Another Obama straw man is shredded. Democrats have tried to denigrate the Bush administrations achievements and its diplomacy. To do so they are willing to ignore the facts and focus on issues that have long ago been resolved. It is part of their politics of fraud.

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Obama's Gift to the Late Night Hosts

Blasting McCain's latest ad, Obama meant to say the 30-second spot featured Britney Spears. Instead he said Hillary Clinton. Oops, he did it again. Check it out:

"Now we've got ads about Britney and Paris," Obama said referencing McCain's new ad comparing his opponent to the young celebrities, Spears and Hilton. "At a time when we've got bigger challenges than any time in our history and you're running ads with Hillary and er - with Britney and ah Paris in it. I mean come on. The American people deserve better."

When McCain messes up, it's because he's old, he's confused, and he's possibly got Alzheimer's. But when Obama makes a gaffe, it's because he hasn't gotten his beauty rest. Fawning journalists are awash with concern about how tireless the One is working -- not just for the sake of America, but the entire world! Under the headline, "Is Obama Getting Enough Sleep," CBS News' Michelle Levi reports, "the Illinois senator is showing signs of fatigue." Well, perhaps White House schedulers -- I mean Obama's campaign staffers -- can work in a little nap time for Obama in between his trips to the gym.

Last year, after saying Kansas tornadoes killed 10,000 people instead of the 12, Obama told reporters (eager to lap up his explanations), "There are going to be times when I get tired," he said. "There are going to be times when I get weary. There are going to be times when I make mistakes." Obama used the same explanation when he said only nine or ten people died in the Holocaust -- omitting the crucial word million -- and journalists once again lapped it up. When Obama said there were 57 states too, the media didn't poke fun of him (was he thinking about varieties of ketchup?) so much as express concern with his physical well-being. Which isn't to say Obama's explanation is all that far-fetched. My problem is just that when McCain says Sunni instead of Shia, reporters leap on it as if it revealed a lack of expertise -- as if it were some window into McCain's soul.

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"Racially Tinged"? The New York Times Demonstrates Why It Is Bleeding Money

The McCain ad smacking Obama for his "all hat, no cattle" resume has generated a lot of controversy, but the New York Times' assertion that the ad is "racially tinged" tells you everything about the Times and nothing about John McCain.

No American with a brain seriously thinks John McCain would ever approve a "racially tinged" ad, and the attempt to smear McCain as a racist will backfire on the Times and Obama. There's lots to object to in McCain's record whether you are left, right or center --my writing throughout last year detailed the objections of conservatives-- but the idea that Senator McCain would ever countenance an appeal to base instincts will be instantly rejected by voters left, right and center. McCain's been around a long, long time, and voters know him. He's an honorable man, as honorable a man as has ever run for the office. The paper's credibility (and profits) have never been lower, but this sort of absurd attack proves you can indeed fall off the floor. Even as other MSMers are waking up to Obama's many flaws, the Times endorses the pathetic playing of the race card by Obama, and proves that the most elite of elite media is not merely biased towards Obama. It is owned by him.

"Dollar Bill" Obama had a bad few days and reflexively appealed to race, and not for the first time. ("And did I mention, he's black?") Because racism is immoral, the attribution of it to a person innocent of the charge is a slander, and Obama has slandered John McCain and a lot of people as a result. This will not sit well with voters who have deep reservations about the inexperienced, untried "citizen of the world" peddling pompous rhetoric to Europeans while skipping out on meetings with wounded troops. John McCain's "energizer bunny" campaign excites very few people even as it reassures millions, and Obama's impulse to self-destruct should not be under-estimated. Perhaps a majority of Americans still understand that we remain at war with a committed and ruthless enemy, and that sending in a rookie who can't even handle a hard-hitting television ad is not exactly the best bet for the country's safety.

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Rove protege unleashing Obama attack

DEMOCRATS are worried Barack Obama is not doing enough to hit back at John McCain in the face of a barrage of personal attacks mocking the candidate - crafted by the same people who helped scuttle John Kerry's presidential ambitions in 2004. Senator Obama's rival launched a new ad on the internet at the weekend that mocked Senator Obama as "the one", showing clips of the candidate at his more hubristic moments, which critics say have given his campaign a messianic quality. Amid crowd chants of "Obama!", the ad shows bright-lit stairways and notes 2008 will be the year the world will be "blessed". It also replays clips of Senator Obama's speeches claiming how his presidency could help put an end to global warming, cut-in with footage of the late Charlton Heston playing Moses and parting the sea. The narrator says "Barack Obama may be the one. But is he ready to lead?"

The McCain camp's tactical move in the past week to negative campaigning with biting advertisements has dominated the airwaves and is credited to Steve Schmidt, who is leading McCain's new push after formally taking up a role in the campaign last month. Mr Schmidt, 37, was a chief player in the George W. Bush re-election campaign in 2004 and seen as a Karl Rove protege, who President Bush dubbed "the architect" of his victories. Mr Schmidt was one of the masterminds of the attack ads on Senator Kerry in 2004, including the infamous windsurfing advertisement, which portrayed him as a weak leader going where-ever the wind blowed.

Senator Obama's speeches have given the McCain team plenty to work with as some party insiders urge him to tone down his rhetoric. In his victory speech on June 3, when he finally emerged victorious over Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primary, Senator Obama spoke in now familiar epochal terms. "I am absolutely certain that generations from now," he said, "we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment when we began to provide care for the sick and good jobs to the jobless; this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal." On the internet, fawning blogs have even created sites dedicated to Obama as a "messiah", while others mock him.

Many Democrats are worried that despite this being an election for the Democrats to lose - given an imploding economy and the public disenchantment with the Iraq war - Senator Obama is only marginally ahead of Senator McCain in the polls. And in the past week, as the negative campaigning started in earnest, those poll numbers have slipped, too. In one poll last week, Senator McCain took a small lead among registered voters. "Some Obama backers are right to worry the relentless daily attacks on the candidate will take their toll on the campaign," says Donna Brazile, Al Gore's campaign manager in 2000. "These types of campaigns - which the media often helps todrive as it analyses the effectiveness of the attacks before questioning the accuracy of theinformation - will continue from now until election day (on November 4)," she said. "And it's time for the Obama campaign to build a political firewall by using outside surrogates unaffiliated with the candidate to debunk these misleading attacks."

The attacks also come as Senator Obama has announced several policy shifts in the past month that take him back to the centre of US politics, supporting, for instance, controversial domestic surveillance legislation as well as championing a more nuanced position on the Iraq Warthan he did during campaigning in the primaries against Senator Clinton.

Respected US political observer Michael Barone wrote at the weekend that polls now indicate "there is some evidence that the balance of enthusiasm has shifted and that young people - who seemed to turn out and vote for Senator Obama in unusually high numbers in the primaries and caucuses - are no longer so enthusiastic about him". An ABC/Washington Post poll last month asked registered voters if they were "certain" to vote. Only 46 per cent of voters under 30 said they were, which compared with 66 per cent in February when Senator Obama's victories against Senator Clinton electrified the electorate. And Mr Barone notes that the 46 per cent of young voters saying last month they were certain to vote was far lower than the 79 per cent of voters aged 65 and over who said they were. Senator Obama, at 46, is widely expected to sweep the youth vote while Senator McCain is 71 and appeals to older voters.

Asked yesterday about the McCain camp's portrayal of him as arrogant, Senator Obama said: "It's not really clear exactly what it's based on. "I think they are cynical and want to distract people from talking about the real issues." But he also admitted yesterday that his personality is ripe for attacks that try to redefine him, saying: "I'm young, I'm new to the national scene, my name is Barack Obama, I'm African-American, I was born in Hawaii, I spent time in Indonesia. "I'm sort of unfamiliar and people are trying to still get a fix on where I am, where I came from, my values and so forth in a way that may not be true if I seemed more familiar."

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Obama gets a little clearer on reparations

No checks in the mail but lots of indirect favouritism for losers

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama opposes offering reparations to the descendants of slaves, putting him at odds with some black groups and leaders. The man with a serious chance to become the nation's first black president argues that government should instead combat the legacy of slavery by improving schools, health care and the economy for all. "I have said in the past - and I'll repeat again - that the best reparations we can provide are good schools in the inner city and jobs for people who are unemployed," the Illinois Democrat said recently.

Some two dozen members of Congress are co-sponsors of legislation to create a commission that would study reparations - that is, payments and programs to make up for the damage done by slavery.

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People supports the legislation, too. Cities around the country, including Obama's home of Chicago, have endorsed the idea, and so has a major union, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees.

Obama has worked to be seen as someone who will bring people together, not divide them into various interest groups with checklists of demands. Supporting reparations could undermine that image and make him appear to be pandering to black voters.

"Let's not be naive. Sen. Obama is running for president of the United States, and so he is in a constant battle to save his political life," said Kibibi Tyehimba, co-chair of the National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations in America. "In light of the demographics of this country, I don't think it's realistic to expect him to do anything other than what he's done." But this is not a position Obama adopted just for the presidential campaign. He voiced the same concerns about reparations during his successful run for the Senate in 2004. There's enough flexibility in the term "reparations" that Obama can oppose them and still have plenty of common ground with supporters.

The NAACP says reparations could take the form of government programs to help struggling people of all races. Efforts to improve schools in the inner city could also aid students in the mountains of West Virginia, said Hilary Shelton, director of the NAACP's Washington bureau. "The solution could be broad and sweeping," Shelton said.

The National Urban League - a group Obama addressed Saturday without mentioning the issue in his speech - avoids the word "reparations" as too vague and highly charged. But the group advocates government action to close the gaps between white America and black America.

Urban League President Marc Morial said he expects his members to press Obama on how he intends to close those gaps and what action he would take in the first 100 days of his presidency. "What steps should we take as a nation to alleviate the effects of racial exclusion and racial discrimination?" Morial asked.

The House voted this week to apologize for slavery. The resolution, which was approved on a voice vote, does not mention reparations, but past opponents have argued that an apology would increase pressure for concrete action. Obama says an apology would be appropriate but not particularly helpful in improving the lives of black Americans. Reparations could also be a distraction, he said. In a 2004 questionnaire, he told the NAACP, "I fear that reparations would be an excuse for some to say, 'We've paid our debt,' and to avoid the much harder work."

Taking questions Sunday at a conference of minority journalists, Obama said he would be willing to talk to American Indian leaders about an apology for the nation's treatment of their people.

Pressed for his position on apologizing to blacks or offering reparations, Obama said he was more interested in taking action to help people struggling to get by. Because many of them are minorities, he said, that would help the same people who would stand to benefit from reparations. "If we have a program, for example, of universal health care, that will disproportionately affect people of color, because they're disproportionately uninsured," Obama said. "If we've got an agenda that says every child in America should get - should be able to go to college, regardless of income, that will disproportionately affect people of color, because it's oftentimes our children who can't afford to go to college."

One reparations advocate, Vernellia Randall, a law professor at the University of Dayton, bluntly responded: "I think he's dead wrong." She said aid to the poor in general won't close the gaps - poor blacks would still trail poor whites, and middle-class blacks would still lag behind middle-class whites. Instead, assistance must be aimed directly at the people facing the after-effects of slavery and Jim Crow laws, she said.

"People say he can't run and get elected if he says those kinds of things," Randall said. "I'm like, well does that mean we're really not ready for a black president?"

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Leftists think Obama's oil drilling pivot is a loser

Tokenistic though it is



Obama's flip on drilling strikes me as a major error. Even when analyzing it entirely as a political move, where the specifics of the legislation and the popularity of drilling are irrelevant, it still comes off very poorly. Straight up, it just looks like he caved. That is a terrible image for any politician to radiate. It isn't about moving to the left, right and center. It is about not moving away from yourself. That looks bad, no matter what the bill is, and no matter how popular is may be.

This won't help him get elected. This will do the opposite. Last week, after the Berlin speech, I thought there was no way Obama could lose the election. Now, I worry it might be a toss-up.

About the only thing that could save Obama in this case is that McCain did the exact same thing on this issue earlier in the year. So, they look equally bad, and it is mentioned in the coverage:

Republican rival John McCain, who earlier dropped his opposition to offshore drilling, has been criticizing Obama on the stump and in broadcast ads for clinging to his opposition as gasoline prices topped $4 a gallon.

But, that is in the third paragraph, while title reads "Obama shifts, says he may back offshore drilling."

Oh yeah, it is a really sucky idea, too. While allowing Republicans to go through with all of their sucky ideas has actually been an electoral boon for Democrats of late, since the ideas cause major problems. Then again, there is also the problem that those ideas cause major problems. In this case, Obama will help the creation of a major problem along, but actually receive a negative electoral benefit from it. And that is a big-time political error.

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Democrats anxious for Obama to widen lead

In 1980, Ronald Reagan asked voters whether they felt better off than four years earlier. He went on to defeat Jimmy Carter a few weeks later. On Friday Barack Obama raised the same question: "Do you think that you are better off now than you were four years ago or eight years ago?" he asked voters in Florida. "And if you don't . . . do you think you can afford another four years of the same failed economic policies that we've had under George W. Bush?"

With unemployment on Friday jumping by 51,000 to take this year's job losses to almost half a million, Mr Obama is mining a potentially rich seam. But a number of Democrats, including advisers to the Obama campaign, are worried that the Democratic party's overall electoral advantage this year has not yet translated into comfortable leads for Mr Obama. On Friday Gallup showed Mr Obama just one point ahead of John McCain - a significant tightening in the past two weeks.

Mr McCain's improving fortunes have coincided with a strikingly negative turn in his campaign's tactics, with the launch last weekend of an advertisement criticising Mr Obama for failing to visit wounded soldiers when he was in Germany because the Pentagon refused to permit the media to accompany him. That allegation has since been debunked.

But the signs are that Mr McCain's continuing attacks - most recently in a commercial that portrayed Mr Obama as a vapid celebrity against images of Paris Hilton and Britney Spears - may be striking a chord with the white working class voters who shunned Mr Obama so emphatically in many of his primary contests with Hillary Clinton.

With just one month to go before Labour Day - the traditional beginning of the general election - and only three weeks before the Democratic convention, many Democrats fear that time is running out for Mr Obama to overcome the suspicions of this key swing vote.

"We have got to move away from these beautifully choreographed speeches which appeal to groups of voters who are unassailably in the Obama camp already," said a non-staff adviser to Mr Obama. "What plays well with the educated liberal voter sometimes grates with the blue-collar folk, whom we need on our side if we are going to win."

The numbers back up the concern. Although Mr Obama has a good shot at winning traditional Republican states such as Colorado, Virginia and even North Carolina, he cannot capture the White House if he loses more than one of Pennsylvania, Ohio or Michigan - the more traditional, blue-collar swing states, which Mrs Clinton won by huge margins in the primary contests. Polls suggest these states are too close to call.

At this stage in the 1988 presidential race, Michael Dukakis, the Democratic candidate, had a 17 percentage point lead over George H.W. Bush, who went on to win the election. John Kerry emerged from the 2004 Democratic convention with a strong lead over George W. Bush only to lose the election as well. In 2008, conventional wisdom says Mr McCain is running a much less effective campaign than either of the Bushes.

That only reinforces disquiet about Mr Obama's inability so far to take a decisive lead. "Even on his worst day, Bill Clinton was able to signal that he understood voters' concerns and that he felt their pain," said Douglas Schoen, a Democratic consultant. "Obama has no trouble with the campaign stagecraft. But this isn't Harvard, it's the beer hall. He has to talk in language that people understand."

Conventional wisdom also suggests Mr McCain's campaign overstepped the mark by moving on to direct negative attacks on Mr Obama's character. But Mr Obama has also kept up a stream of material for them to exploit. At a meeting with Democratic lawmakers on Tuesday, he said he represented the world's hopes for America. "This is the moment the world is waiting for," he said when asked about his overseas trip. "I have become a symbol of restoring America to its best traditions."

The Obama campaign says the remarks were taken out of context. But reports such as this can still play badly in communities that pay little attention to foreign policy and are looking for empathy with their economic situation, say analysts. "Look, Obama has pulled off a good tour of Europe and it was probably necessary," says a Democratic consultant who backed Mr Obama against Mrs Clinton. "What we need now is campaign events in hospital emergency rooms and in unemployment offices and small town diners. These people have a vote."

Given the McCain campaign's barely concealed contempt for Mr Obama and Mr Obama's occasional tendency to present his candidacy in soaring, epochal terms, many believe the pattern of negative attacks is now here to stay. "Obama obviously thinks very highly of himself," says Juleanna Glover, an adviser to Mr McCain. "Not everybody shares that view."

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On the Offense

I have no idea what the general reception of McCain's "The One" ad about Barack Obama will be; but I thought it was clever and effective. Humor is one of the best and most under-utilized assets in a presidential campaign; when a clever and/or humorous charge embodies a widespread feeling or concern about a candidate, it can be extremely effective, and sometimes even crippling.

It's of course important to criticize Senator Obama on the issues and on his philosophy; but in politics, campaigns need to provide its supporters, and undecided voters, with a thematic - a broad truth about a candidate which is strengthened by evidence and by that candidates own actions and words.

Those who control the narrative often control the outcome of a race.

Obama is a very skilled campaigner, among the best we've ever seen, and a candidate who is frankly hard for his opponents to tag. He is, in the vernacular of boxing, a very good bobber and a weaver. But the McCain campaign is, I think, zeroing in on one of Obama's real weaknesses - the sense people have that he's a World Celebrity, glitzy and hip, and that his campaign is more about a mood than a set of ideas. There is the sense that Obama is about style and aesthetics rather than substance and solid judgment. And of course there is Obama's supremely high opinion of himself. As I pointed out here, Obama at times seems to view himself and speak of himself in almost quasi-Messianic terms (he is "the moment that the world is waiting for" and "a symbol of the possibility of America returning to our best traditions," the healer of the planet and, to quote Charles Krauthammer, the Lord of the Seas).

This kind of thing ought to be mocked - and, in McCain's latest ad, it is. My sense is that in the last couple of days - as evidenced by Obama's deeply unfair and harmful (for Obama) use of the "race card" - the community organizer from Chicago is getting a bit rattled. The fact that the polls are closing when the Obama people must surely have thought the gap would be widening can't help matters.

John McCain, while still the underdog, has a chance to pull out this election. He's gotten more aggressive in the last week or so and it is, I think, beginning to pay dividends. Stay tuned.

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That Dollar Bill Thing? Obama admits it was racial -- letting down his defenders

After spending a couple days denying that obvious, Obama admits that his "You know, he's new, he's... doesn't look like the other presidents on the currency, you know, he's got a, he's got a funny name" remark did refer to his being black.

"I don't think it's accurate to say that my comments have nothing to do with race," Obama said. "Here's what I was saying and I think this should be undisputed: That I don't come out of central casting, when it comes to presidential races. For a whole range of reasons. I'm young, I'm new to the national scene, my name is Barack Obama, I am African American, I was born in Hawaii, I spent time in Indonesia. I do not have the typical biography of a presidential candidate. What that means is that I'm sort of unfamiliar and people are still trying to get a fix on who I am, where I come from, what my values are and so forth in a way that might not be true if I seemed more familiar."

I love the contorted double negative at the beginning. So, let's do the under the bus body count on this one...his own spokesman, the blogging editors of the NY Times and most of the rest of the media. Andrea Mitchell, who volunteered to serve as Obama's chief defender and attacker of McCain on this matter, was unavailable for comment.

A note to the Obama masses in the media...in case you haven't noticed you and what credibility you have are disposable. But fear not, for while you may be laughed at in this lifetime, the Obamassiah will surely reward you in the next.

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It is time to attack Obama's policies

McCain needs to make voters afraid of Obama. Not, as he suggests self-servingly, by emphasizing that he "doesn't look like all the other presidents on dollar bills," but by hitting him on the two fronts where it would really hurt -- the economy and national security. Obama's inexperience and the wildly liberal proposals he has made in his primary campaigning, both set him up for a crippling blow this month.

Oil drilling is an issue, but it does not provoke the fear that the McCain campaign needs to elicit to win. It's just an issue disagreement with bad consequences for the nation. Obama's position on the issue is not a recipe for national disaster.

But his tax plans and their likely economic consequence are very much a plan for catastrophe. Doubling the tax in invested capital, and ratcheting up the top tax bracket to an effective 60%, will plunge the nation into a real depression. Not a recession or a downturn or a correction or a slowdown. A depression. McCain needs to hammer this point home again and again and again in his advertising. He has to put top level economists on television talking about what the Obama tax program will mean to America. Obama is suspect as an ideological liberal, anyway. And nobody thinks he has the experience to be a good president. So the potential to scare voters by accurately elaborating what his tax plans will mean to the entire country -- not just the rich on whom the burden will directly fall -- is enormous.

When Obama says he will only tax the rich, it's like saying he won't shut down the entire ship, just the engine room. If McCain just talks about Obama's tax program in the abstract, most voters will shrug and note that the tax hikes won't really apply to them. Only 2% of Americans earn more than $200,000 a year and only 6% make more than $100,000. But if McCain explains the economic impact of Obama's tax proposals on all Americans, he will score points and could score a knockout.

The national security offensive should have two parts. First, McCain's ads should portray Obama as naive. By taking off on his comment that Iran is a "tiny country" that couldn't hurt the US much, he can show how the Democrat is not prepared to cope with the serious national security problems which will face the next president. The more the crisis with Iran ratchets up, the more dividends this approach will reap for McCain. But, as with the argument of an impending depression if Obama wins, McCain needs to begin the argument now and let it pile up by the fall.

Secondly, McCain should take Obama's proposed changes in the Patriot Act and show how they would weaken us in the face of domestic terror threats. Don't let the liberal media fool you. Bush's domestic security initiatives are very popular. How will Obama explain his legislation to notify suspected terrorist groups seven days after Homeland Security begins an investigation of them? Or how will he explain his opposition to the wiretapping that saved the Brooklyn Bridge from destruction. McCain needs to paint Obama as weak on homeland security.

I think McCain's celebrity ad was brilliant and has taken Obama off his game. It also discombobulated his media sycophants. It took what was seen as a positive and raised questions about it.

That said, Morris does suggest some lines of attack where Obama should be vulnerable and it would put him to the task of defending his liberalism. McCain needs to listen to this advice.

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(For more postings from me, see DISSECTING LEFTISM, TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, EYE ON BRITAIN and Paralipomena . My Home Pages are here or here or here. Email me (John Ray) here.)

Obama grudgingly endorses energy compromise that includes offshore drilling

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama said Friday he would be willing to support limited additional offshore oil drilling if that's what it takes to enact a comprehensive policy to foster fuel-efficient autos and develop alternate energy sources. Shifting from his previous opposition to expanded offshore drilling, the Illinois senator told a Florida newspaper he could get behind a compromise with Republicans and oil companies to prevent gridlock over energy.

Republican rival John McCain, who earlier dropped his opposition to offshore drilling, has been criticizing Obama on the stump and in broadcast ads for clinging to his opposition as gasoline prices topped $4 a gallon. Polls indicate these attacks have helped McCain gain ground on Obama.

"My interest is in making sure we've got the kind of comprehensive energy policy that can bring down gas prices," Obama said in an interview with The Palm Beach Post. "If, in order to get that passed, we have to compromise in terms of a careful, well thought-out drilling strategy that was carefully circumscribed to avoid significant environmental damage - I don't want to be so rigid that we can't get something done."

Asked about Obama's comment, McCain said, "We need oil drilling and we need it now offshore. He has consistently opposed it. He has opposed nuclear power. He has opposed reprocessing. He has opposed storage." The GOP candidate said Obama doesn't have a plan equal to the nation's energy challenges.

In Congress, both parties have fought bitterly over energy policy for weeks, with Republicans pressing for more domestic oil drilling and Democrats railing about oil company profits. Despite hundreds of hours of House and Senate floor debate, lawmakers will leave Washington for their five-week summer hiatus this week with an empty tank.

"The Republicans and the oil companies have been really beating the drums on drilling," Obama said in the Post interview. "And so we don't want gridlock. We want to get something done." Later, Obama issued a written statement warmly welcoming a proposal sent to Senate leaders Friday by 10 senators - five from each party. Their proposal seeks to break the impasse over offshore oil development and is expected to be examined more closely in September after Congress returns from its summer recess.

The so-called Gang of 10 plan would lift drilling bans in the eastern Gulf of Mexico, but retain an environmental buffer zone extending 50 miles off Florida's beaches and in the South Atlantic off Virginia, the Carolinas and Georgia, but only if a state agrees to the oil and gas development along its coast. The states would share in revenues from oil and gas development. Drilling bans along the Pacific coast and the Northeast would remain in place under this compromise....

Earlier in the day, Obama pushed for a windfall profits tax to fund $1,000 emergency rebate checks for consumers besieged by high energy costs, a counter to McCain's call for more offshore drilling. The pitch for putting some of the economic burden of $4-a-gallon gasoline on the oil industry served a dual purpose for Obama: It allowed him to talk up an economic issue, seen by many as a strength for Democrats and a weakness for Republicans, and at the same time respond to criticism from McCain that Obama's opposition to offshore drilling leads to higher prices at the pump.

"This rebate will be enough to offset the increased cost of gas for a working family over the next four months," Obama said during a two-day campaign swing in Florida. "It will be enough to cover the entire increase in your heating bills. Or you could use the rebate for any of your other bills, or even to pay down your own debt."

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Why is Obama foolishly evoking race time after time?

By Victor Davis Hanson

And it's still only July...

Obama's problems with race have nothing to do with his half -African ancestry or his own experience with racism and unfairness, but boil down to his deftly wanting it both ways: reminding the Germans he is a different sort of American from what they're used to (false, they knew Rice and Powell well enough), while preempting by suggesting others will evoke race, but in a negative context. But his polls, I wager, will begin to slip from all this, because all this sophisticated triangulation is about to blow up in the public mind.

1) The voter is starting to hear serially from Obama about race; they were promised a racially transcendent candidate, but so far Obama seems obsessed with identity, either accusing others of racism, or using heritage himself for political advantage. This is a tragic blunder.

2) He has the same want-it-both-ways with odious racists: Rev. Wright is a former spiritual advisor, and "brilliant" scholar who nevertheless serially slurs America, whites, Italians, Jews, etc. Ludacris is "a great talent" and "talented" to such an extent Obama wants him in his I-pod menu, and has met with him-but also a racist to be shunned. Ditto Pfleger. A pattern is emerging: Obama associates with or tolerates racists when such quasi-intimacy cements street-cred as an authentic minority or someone cool in the anti-Bush mode; but then when they inevitably revert to form, he not merely casts them off, but is "shocked" at their usual expression, and so like speed bumps they litter the roadway as he barrels ahead.

3). The "typical white person", grandma under the bus riff, Pennsylvania "clingers" rant etc. , 'no more disown Rev, Wright/ but now leaving Trinity Church', etc. themselves are immaterial, but in toto provide a thin margin of tolerance when something like Ludacris or Obama's latest accusation of racism surfaces.

4) Right now Obama does not need to solidify his 90% African-American base or the Moveon.org white liberal adherents; but instead he must remember why he lost all those primaries to Hillary and to what degree his campaign since then has addressed those concerns that lost him those electorates. When a West Virginian hears that Obama is accusing others of racism, or hears him promise that racial reparations will now be a matter of government deeds not words, or a rapper brags he is a favorite of Obama and then slurs Clinton, McCain, Bush in thinly disguised racist terms, it starts to create an image of someone who is not bringing people together, but precisely the opposite.

Why all this? Inexperience and hubris-the same overconfidence that makes him say we need a Pentagon-sized new civilian aid department, to inflate our tires to avoid drilling, and must stop merely talking about reparations and starting doing something about them. His handlers need to return to the teleprompter, since all these incidents have in common the impromptu moment.

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Some good Obamology from Taranto

This is rich. A dispatch by the Associated Press's Mike Glover, filed from Rolla, Mo., during the wee hours this morning (4:39 a.m. Eastern Time), seems to be the latest example of "accountability journalism." Glover credits Barack Obama for his high-minded, if possibly unpopular, approach to the problem of high gasoline prices:

Obama is once again betting that his eloquence can persuade price-weary consumers--read that as voters--to take the long view and not jump at a short-term fix when it comes to soaring energy prices.

It worked in his presidential primary contest against New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton when she proposed a "gas tax holiday" for the summer, a pitch he opposed despite its popularity with many voters. But that was in April before gasoline shot past $4 a gallon. . . .

At issue for Obama's Republican opponent, Sen. John McCain, is opening up offshore drilling to boost production, a move McCain and others GOP lawmakers say would increase supply and help control soaring gasoline prices. Opponents, including Obama and many other Democrats, say new offshore oil would be years away from reaching consumers and even then would make little difference in prices and the ongoing U.S. need for foreign oil. . . .

Obama seeks to turn the issue on its head, arguing that McCain and Bush are practicing the old politics of simply promising people something that's symbolic without addressing the real problem. Discounting drilling, he proposes energy rebates, a crackdown on oil speculators who manipulate the market and a renewed focus on energy alternatives.

Obama was right about the gas-tax holiday, a temporary measure that would have lowered the retail price of gasoline only temporarily and by only about 5%. But drilling would increase supply, and therefore lower prices, over the long term--and the mere promise of a change in policy vis-…-vis drilling has already reduced oil prices in the past few weeks.

As for Obama's opposition to gimmicks, that promise lasted less than seven hours. In another Glover dispatch, filed from St. Petersburg, Fla., at 11:01 a.m. Eastern, the AP reports on Obama's latest brainstorm:

Obama on Friday called for a $1,000 "emergency" rebate to consumers to offset soaring energy costs amid fresh signs of a struggling economy with the nation's unemployment rate climbing to a four-year high. Obama told a town-hall meeting the rebate would be financed with a windfall profits tax on the oil industry.

It doesn't seem to occur to Obama that the oil companies would pass the "windfall profits tax" on to consumers. What a great plan: You get relief from $4-a-gallon gas, and the only downside is $5- or $6-a-gallon gas!

Celebrity-Americans Cry Foul

Barack Obama complained of racism when John McCain aired an ad calling Obama a celebrity. The Los Angeles Times reports from Hollywood that Celebrity-Americans are also aggrieved over the ad:

Just for a start, industry types say the ad is wrong: In the Hollywood lexicon, Obama is not a celebrity. He's a rock star. . . .

McCain's latest attempt at discrediting his handsome, photogenic young rival particularly galls stars and executives with a memory, because only eight years ago, McCain was a fixture in Hollywood fundraising circles when he tried to raise money from the very people his ad now ridicules. . . .

Most of Hollywood won't return McCain's calls nowadays because many of the stars and executives he initially impressed now believe the maverick stance they found so attractive was just a pose. Hollywood doesn't object to a good pose--unless, of course, it doesn't work. . . .

Meanwhile, Hollywood is gearing up for pro-Obama events--concerts, parties and galas--between now and November. A soundtrack CD with songs dedicated to Obama is in the works (think of all that musical hope available for download to your iPod.) A black and white ball is planned for Aug. 21 in Beverly Hills where celebrities are being invited to celebrate Obama's candidacy. Some of the celebrities who've already signed up to attend the ball, which is being organized independently of Obama's campaign, include: Lucy Liu, Ashley Judd, Jessica Alba, Don Cheadle, Khaled Hosseini, Shohreh Aghdashloo, Dennis Haysbert, Kathy Griffin, Zach Braff, Regina King, Hill Harper, Ben McKenzie, Melanie Brown and "many executives and industry professionals," according event chairwoman Asal Masomi.

This sort of proves the point of the McCain ad, doesn't it? Meanwhile, the Denver Post reports on an exciting event planned for the Democratic National Convention:

In an historic pairing, former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and acclaimed actor Ben Affleck will appear together at the 2008 Democratic National Convention to discuss international relations.

It's a bit of a mismatch, pairing an acclaimed actor with a mere former secretary of state. What does the latter know about international relations, anyway?

Triumph der Aenderung?

Yesterday we noted that some liberal bloggers were complaining John McCain's "celebrity" ad was racist because it depicted Paris Hilton and Britney Spears in a negative light. Now other liberal bloggers have come up with a new complaint: The ad reminds them of the Nazis. Blogress Eve Fairbanks of The New Republic asks: "Was I the only one who thought it mimicked the end of 'Triumph of the Will'?":

Play the beginning of "Celeb" and then cue this clip to 9:20. The two shots--featuring a rhythmically chanting crowd in a long, perspectival column--are practically the same.

"Triumph Des Willens" is, of course, Leni Riefenstahl's infamous 1935 Nazi propaganda film, frequently praised on technical grounds even though National Socialism has been discredited. Blogger Rick Perlstein of the Campaign for America's Future saves you the trouble of watching the YouTube videos by providing stills from the McCain ad and the Nazi film.

Somehow, though, a crucial distinction seems to elude both Fairbanks and Perlstein. Whereas "The Triumph of the Will" uses the crowd scenes to portray the speaker in a positive light, "Celeb" does exactly the opposite.

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A history lesson from Cuba

History has its lessons. A Fourth of July letter to the editor of the Washington Times-Dispatch became something of an internet sensation, forwarded via email and read aloud in a YouTube video. The writer, Manuel Alvarez Jr. of Sandy Hook, describes himself as a refugee from Castro and recalls what it was like back then:

The election-year rhetoric has made me think a lot about Cuba and what transpired there. In the late 1950s, most Cubans thought Cuba needed a change, and they were right. So when a young leader came along, every Cuban was at least receptive.

When the young leader spoke eloquently and passionately and denounced the old system, the press fell in love with him. They never questioned who his friends were or what he really believed in. When he said he would help the farmers and the poor and bring free medical care and education to all, everyone followed. When he said he would bring justice and equality to all, everyone said "Praise the Lord." And when the young leader said, "I will be for change and I'll bring you change," everyone yelled, "Viva Fidel!"

Nobody is saying anything about Obama being like Fidel. Nobody even has to mention Obama. The point is that blindly placing your faith in an eloquent guy who offers promises of transformative change and sets hearts on fire is a bad bet in most cases. Where are all the successful examples of leaders who quickly swept to power based on a cult of personality and vague promises of tranformative change?

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Keep that policy gap wide

My goodness - was it only yesterday I was urging Team McCain to push his energy plan? And now Obama is tossing in the towel on his opposition to off-shore drilling. This may simply be another manifestation of an Obama campaign tactic - adopt every position held by McCain and then ask voters to choose their next President on the basis of youth, energy, and speaking skill. Could work!

But while I am still feeling eerily prescient, let me suggest that McCain's campaign should focus on a domestic agenda. Energy is a real problem requiring leadership from Washington on a number of fronts (trying building a nuclear plant without a Presidential wind at your back). McCain should be able to make the national security and economic cases for increased production, conservation, and alternative energy without annoying his base by getting sucked into Al Gore's global warming fantasies.

As a second topic I would urge McCain to talk about education reform. Yes, this takes us a long way from the days when Reagan promised to dismantle the department of Education, but...

Education is a high-impact mom-friendly issue that has a relatively low budget impact, so it can represent compassion and caring on the cheap. That said, it also represents a slow-motion crisis (or opportunity!) as David Brooks explained recently.

Finally, I think the McCain camp might enjoy taking the national press on a voyage of discovery down the mysterious waters of Obama's forays into education reform in Chicago. There was his failed effort as chairman of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge in 1995-2001 [my post, Wikipedia]. And dare we mention that Obama was tapped as chairman of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge by unrepentant Weatherman Bill Ayers, with whom he subsequently worked for about five years? Or a longer conversation about Obama and education would take us back to his first alliance with Bill Ayers back in 1987, an earlier failed stab at reform.

Obama's website offers a pleasing menu of high-minded platitudes on education. Back in reality, Obama teamed up with Bill Ayers twice on education reform and accomplished nothing twice. I wonder if voters will be more impressed by words (Just words?!?) or deeds? I think McCain ought to find out.

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McCain Report Rips "Hysterical" NYTimes Editorial

Michael Goldfarb tears into the New York Times editorial board for writing that the McCain campaign's "Celeb" ad was racist. He leaves nothing but a trail of Cheeto dust in his wake:

That the Times made this allegation in a blog post rather than running it on the editorial page indicates that they either knew the charge was bogus or they didn't have the nerve to make their case in full view of the public. But in their new role as bloggers, the paper's editors seem to have all the intelligence and reason of the average Daily Kos diarist sitting at home in his mother's basement and ranting into the ether between games of dungeons and dragons.

In case you missed it, the Times editors argued that the ad was a "racially tinged attack" on Obama because it juxtaposed the senator with Britney Spears and Paris Hilton. Oh, and the editors also wrote that McCain campaign manager Rick Davis peddled a subliminal racist message when he said that Obama had played the race card "from the bottom of the deck" -- because that phrase "entered the national lexicon during the O.J. Simpson saga."

For what it's worth, though the phrase was popularized following the Simpson trial, a quick Nexis search shows that it was first employed by a Tulane law professor criticizing David Duke in a 1991 Chicago Tribune article.

And following Barack Obama's comments just last month that Republicans would employ racist attacks, Donna Brazile said on ABC's This Week that the race card is "always played ... from the bottom of the deck and sometimes in the middle of the deck." However you cut the deck, sounds like they need to do some reshuffling at the Times.

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(For more postings from me, see DISSECTING LEFTISM, TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, EYE ON BRITAIN and Paralipomena . My Home Pages are here or here or here. Email me (John Ray) here.)

My concerns for America

by Jon Voigt

We, as parents, are well aware of the importance of our teachers who teach and program our children. We also know how important it is for our children to play with good-thinking children growing up. Sen. Barack Obama has grown up with the teaching of very angry, militant white and black people: the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Louis Farrakhan, William Ayers and Rev. Michael Pfleger. We cannot say we are not affected by teachers who are militant and angry. We know too well that we become like them, and Mr. Obama will run this country in their mindset.

The Democratic Party, in its quest for power, has managed a propaganda campaign with subliminal messages, creating a God-like figure in a man who falls short in every way. It seems to me that if Mr. Obama wins the presidential election, then Messrs. Farrakhan, Wright, Ayers and Pfleger will gain power for their need to demoralize this country and help create a socialist America.

The Democrats have targeted young people, knowing how easy it is to bring forth whatever is needed to program their minds. I know this process well. I was caught up in the hysteria during the Vietnam era, which was brought about through Marxist propaganda underlying the so-called peace movement. The radicals of that era were successful in giving the communists power to bring forth the killing fields and slaughter 2.5 million people in Cambodia and South Vietnam. Did they stop the war, or did they bring the war to those innocent people? In the end, they turned their backs on all the horror and suffering they helped create and walked away.

Those same leaders who were in the streets in the '60s are very powerful today in their work to bring down the Iraq war and to attack our president, and they have found their way into our schools. William Ayers is a good example of that.

Thank God, today, we have a strong generation of young soldiers who know exactly who they are and what they must do to protect our freedom and our democracy. And we have the leadership of Gen. David Petraeus, who has brought hope and stability to Iraq and prevented the terrorists from establishing a base in that country. Our soldiers are lifting us to an example of patriotism at a time when we've almost forgotten who we are and what is at stake.

If Mr. Obama had his way, he would have pulled our troops from Iraq years ago and initiated an unprecedented bloodbath, turning over that country to the barbarianism of our enemies. With what he has openly stated about his plans for our military, and his lack of understanding about the true nature of our enemies, there's not a cell in my body that can accept the idea that Mr. Obama can keep us safe from the terrorists around the world, and from Iran, which is making great strides toward getting the atomic bomb. And while a misleading portrait of Mr. Obama is being perpetrated by a media controlled by the Democrats, the Obama camp has sent out people to attack the greatness of Sen. John McCain, whose suffering and courage in a Hanoi prison camp is an American legend.

Gen. Wesley Clark, who himself has shame upon him, having been relieved of his command, has done their bidding and become a lying fool in his need to demean a fellow soldier and a true hero.

This is a perilous time, and more than ever, the world needs a united and strong America. If, God forbid, we live to see Mr. Obama president, we will live through a socialist era that America has not seen before, and our country will be weakened in every way.

Jon Voight is an Academy Award-winning actor who is well-known for his humanitarian work

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A Few Questions for Barack Obama

- In February, you said you might support vouchers and charter schools if empirical data showed that they improve education (some studies show that they do). Admirably, your position was, "I will not allow my predispositions to stand in the way of making sure that our kids can learn." After pressure from the teachers unions, you quickly backed off from that position, stating that your campaign doesn't support vouchers "in any shape or form." What prompted that change? And if it's important that we not "throw up our hands" and "walk away from the public schools," why do you send your own kids to private schools?

- Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton intends to terminate D.C.'s federal school voucher program, even though those vouchers are paid through a separate fund that takes no money at all from D.C.'s public schools (which already spend $10,000 more per pupil per year than the city's private schools). Del. Holmes Norton says the program undermines the public schools. You've signed on to the plan to eliminate the program. But given that the program takes no money from the city's already bloated public schools, isn't it only "undermining" the public school system by exposing how unhappy D.C. parents really are with the schools' performance? Isn't that a good thing?

- You've expressed support for the idea of a "no fly" zone over Darfur because of human rights abuses. What's happening in Sudan is certainly tragic and abhorrent. But what is our national security interest there? Should we send the U.S. military every time there are wide-scale human rights abuses happening anywhere on the globe? Should we send troops to Myanmar? Uzbekistan? Turkmenistan? Iran? Saudi Arabia?

- You not only supported the latest federal farm bill, you commended it, stating that it "will provide America's hard-working farmers and ranchers with more support and more predictability." Critics have called that $307 billion monstrosity an orgy of earmarks, corporate welfare, and protectionism. It actually increases subsidies to huge agribusinesses in an era of record grain prices - subsidies that are already crushing farmers in the developing world. The New York Times called it "disgraceful." The Wall Street Journal called it a "scam." How does the "change" candidate justify supporting a bill larded with sweetheart deals for big agribusiness when just about everyone not getting a check from the bill opposed it?

- You continue to support ethanol subsidies despite the fact that corn-based ethanol is inefficient, environmentally unfriendly, and part of the cause of rising food prices. Even liberal New York Times columnist Paul Krugman calls ethanol "[b]ad for the economy, bad for consumers, bad for the planet." Perhaps your support stems from you representing a corn producing state. But is supporting a wasteful policy to win votes "change we can believe in," or is it a good sign that you're just another politician?

- In your autobiography, you admit to using marijuana and cocaine in high school and college. Yet you largely support the federal drug war - a change from several years ago when you said you'd be open to decriminalizing marijuana. Would Barack Obama be where he is today if he had been arrested in college for using drugs? Doesn't the fact that you and our current president (who has all but admitted to prior drug use) have risen to such high stature suggest that the worst thing about illicit drugs is not the drugs themselves, but what the government will do to you if you're caught?

- In a speech to Cuban-Americans in Miami, you called the Cuban trade embargo "an important inducement for change," a 180-degree shift from your prior position. The trade embargo has been in place for 46 years. Did denying an entire generation of Cubans access to American goods, culture, and ideas induce any actual change? Wasn't the real effect just to keep Cubans poor and isolated? In communist countries like Vietnam and China, trade with the U.S. has ushered in economic reform, and vastly improved the standard of living. Why wouldn't it be the same if we were to start trading with Cuba?

- In addition to the drugs, Cuba, and school voucher issues, you have also changed or revised your position in recent months on the war in Iraq, government eavesdropping and immunity for the telecom companies, and holding employers accountable for hiring illegal immigrants. Under some circumstances, changing or revising one's position can show admirable introspection - the ability to revise prior conceptions with new information. Some of your new positions are more conservative. Some are more liberal. But they do seem to have one thing in common: Should we be concerned that your shifts have been to those positions that give more power and influence to government? Are there any areas where you'd actually roll back the federal government?

- In October you asked a congregation in South Carolina to help you become "an instrument of God," and to join you in building a "Kingdom, right here on Earth." Is such lofty, sanctimonious rhetoric really appropriate from a would-be president? Why shouldn't we be suspicious of a man who believes politics - indeed, his politics - are God's politics? Isn't using the political process to build a "Kingdom on earth" the sort of thing we're used to hearing from the religious right? Should we be cautious of political leaders who believe they're agents of the Divinity?

- You have called for a "civilian national security force," essentially a non-military public service corps that in your words is "just as powerful, just as strong," and "just as well-funded" as the military. Northwestern University law professor James Lindgren has estimated that your proposal would cost somewhere between $100 and $500 billion-or between 10 and 50 percent of all federal income tax revenues. How do you plan to pay for this program?

- Your wife said that as president, "Barack Obama will . . . demand that you shed your cynicism . . . That you come out of your isolation, that you move out of your comfort zones. That you push yourselves to be better. And that you engage. Barack will never allow you to go back to your lives as usual . . ." How is any of this remotely the responsibility of the president? Where in the Constitution does it say that the president should be our personal motivator and spiritual leader? Will you help us lose weight and eat our vegetables, too?

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McCain ad likens Obama to Britney

With a new ad comparing Barack Obama to celebrities Britney Spears and Paris Hilton, John McCain is launching a campaign aimed at portraying his rival as an international star without the heft necessary to become the US commander-in-chief. A 30-second advertisement that hit television and the internet overnight calls Senator Obama "the biggest celebrity in the world," then asks ominously, "Is he ready to lead?"

Senator McCain's strategy is to leverage the adoring crowds and personal charisma that have created excitement around Senator Obama's campaign and use this celebrity to raise questions about the Democrat's depth. Over the past week, Senator McCain has begun toughening and sharpening his message against Senator Obama. He suggested that Senator Obama would be willing to lose the Iraq war in order to win the election, and he ran a television ad blaming him for high petrol prices and criticised him for skipping a meeting with injured US troops in Germany because he couldn't bring television cameras along.

All of these charges were heatedly disputed by the Obama campaign, and all have been criticised by independent fact-checking organisations. "Senator McCain is an honorable man who is increasingly running a dishonorable campaign," said Obama spokesman Tommy Vietor. "He said he wanted a civil campaign about the issues. I think a lot of people are wondering what happened to him."

The harsher attacks create some risk for Senator McCain, analysts said, since he may come off as overly negative. But the Republican appears to be gambling that the public's image of him is firmly set and that its doubts mostly relate to Senator Obama, who has been on the national stage a much shorter time.

But even some Republicans question the tenor of the critiques. "The point of this campaign is not about personalities, it's about the contrast on the issues," said David Winston, a Republican pollster. "Where's McCain on taxes, where's Obama on taxes? That's a good contrast for McCain. If he focuses on the personality side, he's not arguing from his strong suit."

Ed Rollins, a longtime Republican strategist, said McCain sometimes appears frustrated and angry when he talks about Obama, especially when complaining that the press does not treat him fairly. "John needs to be the deliberate, experienced veteran and not the grumpy old man," Mr Rollins said. "If he's the grumpy old man, angry that the media is not in love with him anymore because they're in love with Barack Obama, that's not going to play well with the public." McCain officials say they are levying legitimate criticism as well as making up for the media's failure to do so.

Senator Obama has attained such a high celebrity status that the press has abstained from scrutinising his own words and actions, they say, even as he has done such things as speak behind a symbol resembling a presidential seal. McCain aides dismissed the accusation that McCain had become overly negative, saying he was only responding to Senator Obama's attacks.

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Obama's Bad Turn

Is there a way that Barack Obama and John McCain could reboot the Presidential campaign? Both men this week have locked up in modes that surely have little interest to voters. Senator McCain's latest "inexperience" TV ad about his opponent opened with fleeting images of celeb babes Britney Spears and Paris Hilton, who likely don't know who he is. The celebrity link was a leap that fell flat.

If that was silly, Senator Obama's verbal crackback at his opponent's criticism was more troubling. Campaigning in Missouri, he said: "So what they're going to try to do is make you scared of me. You know, 'He's not patriotic enough, he's got a funny name,' you know, 'He doesn't look like all those other Presidents on the dollar bills.'"

The Obama camp says the reference to dollar-bill portraits wasn't meant to suggest that all of them are white and he is black. We might give him the benefit of the doubt on this were it not that it's the second time Mr. Obama has used this device. In late June in Florida he said: "They're going to try to make you afraid. They're going to try to make you afraid of me. 'He's young and inexperienced and he's got a funny name. And did I mention he's black?'"

For starters, this sounds Clintonesque, almost literally so. Recall how the Obama camp went ballistic at the former President's racial insinuations after the South Carolina primary this year. For the record, Senator McCain at no time has said anything remotely touching on his opponent's race.

It would be not only good for this campaign but also in Senator Obama's political self-interest if he dropped this unattractive implication about his opposition. The more he tries to use race as a shield from criticism, the less he'll look like a potential leader of the entire country and more like a traditional liberal playing racial politics.

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More Women Choosing McCain Over Obama

If soccer moms determined the outcome of the 1996 presidential race and security moms tipped the balance in 2004, it is beginning to look as if older moms are the key to the 2008 contest. Obama has a problem among women over 40 and a big problem among women over 50. These groups, normally the staunchest of Democratic supporters, are showing a propensity to back McCain.

According to the latest Fox News survey, Obama is winning among women under 40 by 13 points, but McCain is winning among women aged 41-45 by four points. Among women 50 and over, McCain is three points ahead. Obama's 48-35 lead among women under 40 is normal for a Democrat, but to trail among women in their 40s by 45-41 and by women over 50 by 38-35 is extraordinary. The problem is that older women don't like Obama as much as younger women do. While 70 percent of women under 40 have a favorable opinion of the Democratic candidate, only 58 percent of women in their 40s feel the same way, and only 52 percent of those over 50 view him favorably.

For a Democrat to be losing among women over 40 is without precedent in the past 20 years. In fact, the gap between male and female voting preference in this election is far lower than it normally is. Among people under 40, men back Obama by eight points and women support him by 13. Among those in their 40s, men back McCain by 11 points and women support him by four. And for those over 50, men vote for the Republican by a nine-point margin while women prefer him by three points.

Usually, the gender gap runs at least 10 points in each age group and, more usually, averages a 15-point differential. The lower gap in this race does not indicate any special popularity for McCain or negatives on Obama among men. Men are voting the way they usually do. It's women who are making the big difference and keeping this race tied.

Part of the problem may stem from Obama's defeat of Hillary Clinton during the primaries. Hillary drew her strongest support from older women who still remembered the sexism of their youth and their struggles to pierce the glass ceiling. For younger women, sexism has much less personal relevance and they were less drawn to her candidacy.

But a bigger problem may be a cultural alienation older white women feel toward Obama. The Rev. Jeremiah Wright may linger as a worry in their increasingly gray heads as they contemplate an Obama presidency. This fear of the unknown and the gap they seem to feel with Obama is so strong that it is overcoming their normal proclivity to back Democrats.

Of course, McCain is a uniquely attractive candidate to the Democratic and independent base. Long regarded as a maverick Republican, he attracts these swing voters and is ideally positioned to exploit the estrangement between older women and Barack Obama.

Would choosing Hillary as a running mate assuage the concerns of older white women? It might. They could get enthusiastic, one would think, about seeing a woman sitting a few feet away from the president in the Oval Office (again!). But Hillary would bring with her a different set of problems. Her candidacy would invite scrutiny of Bill's financial dealings, most recently exposed in The Wall Street Journal's coverage of the incredible corruption of his buddy, the president of Kazakhstan.

The problem is Obama. And it can only be solved by Obama, not by his running mate. For his part, McCain should take dead aim at this demographic, perhaps by selecting a female running mate who would appeal to them. The current favorite, Mitt Romney, does him no earthly good with these folks, and his Mormonism is likely to be a big turnoff. But McCain could choose Condi Rice or any number of other Republican women (like Kay Bailey Hutchison, the Texas senator) and attract these dissident women.

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Obama Opposes California Marriage Amendment While McCain Supports It

As the California Marriage Amendment debate heats up Barack Obama and John McCain have made clear their respective positions on the issue. Two weeks after the California Supreme Court announced its decision to allow same-sex couples to "marry", opponents of same-sex marriage succeeded in placing on the November ballot a proposed constitutional amendment which states: "Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California." If passed, the measure would reverse the recent court decision.

Mr. Obama recently made his position public in a letter sent to a San Francisco homosexual activist group. "I oppose the divisive and discriminatory efforts to amend the California Constitution, and similar efforts to amend the U.S. Constitution or those of other states," wrote Mr. Obama, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee.

At the same time John McCain has announced his support for the California Protection of Marriage initiative in an email received by the ProtectMarriage.com campaign. "I support the efforts of the people of California to recognize marriage as a unique institution between a man and a woman, just as we did in my home state of Arizona. I do not believe judges should be making these decisions," Mr. McCain stated.

In a press release commenting on the endorsement of Senator McCain, ProtectMarriage.com Chairman Ron Prentice said, "We are honored to have the support of Senator McCain. As a leader in the United States Senate and the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, Senator McCain's position will be an important factor to millions of Californians." "Senator McCain has articulated a key feature of the initiative campaign, which is that voters and not judges should be determining this issue."

"Over 61% of the electorate has already voted to reaffirm marriage as between a man and a woman. Four activist judges on the California Supreme Court in San Francisco wrongly substituted their own narrow views for the opinion of over 4 million California voters. Fortunately, voters will be able to correct that mistake in November and restore the definition of marriage to our constitution." "We look forward to working with Senator McCain and many other elected leaders to accomplish this. We hope that U.S Senator Barack Obama will join Senator McCain in endorsing the initiative, and would welcome his support as well."

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(For more postings from me, see DISSECTING LEFTISM, TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, EYE ON BRITAIN and Paralipomena . My Home Pages are here or here or here. Email me (John Ray) here.)

Fake Christian group endorses Obama

Mara Vanderslice is a frenetic far-Leftist who worked for the Kerry campaign in 2004 -- also then trying to con Christians into voting Democrat. Background on her here



A new political group that claims to be a Christian organization has endorsed pro-abortion presidential candidate Barack Obama. The Matthew 25 Network plans to run ads for Obama on Christian radio stations and in newspapers and magazines that appeal to Christians. The object is to try to pry away evangelical voters from supporting John McCain, who has already received the endorsement of a number of evangelical and Catholic groups and leaders.

Mara Vanderslice, the head of the political action committee, told the Wall St. Journal the group plans to spend $500,000 in advertising for Obama between now and the November elections.

Ads will appear in publications like the National Catholic Reporter and Relevant Magazine and a one-minute radio ad will play on Christian stations in battleground states like Ohio, Michigan, and Colorado. The radio ad campaign will eventually expand to Pennsylvania, Virginia, Missouri, and North Carolina. "You know it's an election year when certain people start grabbing headlines by attacking the faith of presidential candidates, with all these stones being cast at Barack Obama it can be hard to know what to believe," the ad says. It includes a clip of an Obama speech where the candidate says "I think we make a mistake when we fail to acknowledge the role of faith in people's lives." The group is named after the Bible verse that quotes Jesus saying, "I tell you the truth, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me."

However, the group appears uninterested in protecting the "least of these" -- unborn children -- and one advocate for the organization admitted to the Journal that he hopes to move the debate away from abortion.

Bart Campolo, an urban minister, said he's "uncomfortable" with evangelicals marching in "lock-step" with the Republican Party because of its pro-life candidates for president. He said the Matthew 25 Network is trying to move evangelical voters away from pro-life issues. "What I'm excited about at this stage of the game, it seems like the evangelical community is waking up to the deeper and broader approach," he said, according to the newspaper.

Proving its pro-abortion credentials, two leading abortion advocates in Congress, Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut and Majority Whip James Clyburn of South Carolina, are involved in the group. DeLauro is a former staff member for NARAL, a leading pro-abortion group that, like Obama, supports unlimited abortions paid for at taxpayer expense and vigorously opposed the partial-birth abortion ban.

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Obama's Iraq Fumble

By KARL ROVE

In a race supposedly dominated by the economy, both Barack Obama and John McCain have spent a lot of time talking about Iraq. Why? Because both men have Iraq problems that are causing difficulties for their campaigns. How each candidate resolves his Iraq problems may determine who voters come to see as best qualified to set American foreign policy.

If Mr. McCain wins the argument on Iraq, he will add to his greatest strength -- a perceived fitness to be commander in chief and lead the global war on terror. As the underdog, Mr. McCain needs to convince voters that he is overwhelmingly the better choice on the issue.

Mr. Obama needs to win the argument because his greatest weakness is inexperience and a perceived unreadiness to be president. That's dangerous. Voters believe keeping America safe and strong is a president's most important responsibility.

Mr. McCain's first Iraq problem is that he favored removing Saddam Hussein when it was popular -- 76% of Americans thought it was worth going to war in April 2003 -- and has maintained his support of the war even as it grew to be unpopular. In January, only 32% of Americans said the war was worth it.

Mr. McCain's second Iraq problem is that the success of the surge he advocated has made it easier for voters to believe we can accelerate the drawdown of U.S. troops. This belief makes Mr. Obama's proposal to withdraw in 16 months seem more reasonable.

Mr. McCain's position was further complicated recently when Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki seemed to give a semiendorsement of Mr. Obama's withdrawal plan. Mr. Maliki actually agrees with Mr. McCain that a timetable should be aspirational and based on conditions on the ground, which is why he said U.S. troops should be withdrawn by 2010 "if possible."

Some Iraqis are anxious to have American troops leave and some are not -- which is why Mr. Maliki treads a fine line on withdrawal. Unfortunately for Mr. McCain, this only complicates things for his campaign.

Mr. Obama's problem is he opposed the policy that created the progress that makes victory in Iraq possible. Mr. Obama's unbending opposition to the surge undermines his fundamental argument that he has better judgment on national security. Mr. McCain needs to use Mr. Obama's retrospective mistake to shape voters' prospective conclusion, convincing them that Mr. Obama's badly flawed judgment on the surge shows he cannot be trusted with major foreign-policy decisions.

Mr. Obama also created a problem by canceling a visit to U.S. soldiers who were wounded in Iraq and are now recuperating at Landstuhl hospital in Germany. His campaign has offered a welter of explanations. What's the real one? My rule is that when in doubt, see what a candidate said at the time and judge his candor. In a July 26 London news conference, Mr. Obama explained: "I was going to be accompanied by one of my advisers, a former military officer. And we got notice that he would be treated as a campaign person, and it would therefore be perceived as political because he had endorsed my candidacy, but he wasn't on the Senate staff."

The solution was obvious. Leave the campaign adviser behind and visit the wounded troops. Mr. Obama's decision to work out in the hotel gym instead adds to his growing reputation for arrogance. Most importantly, Mr. Obama missed the opportunity to show he can admit a mistake. He could have said that what he saw on his visit to Iraq convinced him that the surge was right and its success now allows U.S. troops to be safely drawn down. Instead, he insisted he was right to say the surge wouldn't work. That may give voters pause. If Mr. Obama can't admit the surge worked after the fact, how can voters count on him to keep his mind open to the facts on other important foreign-policy decisions?

Mr. Obama should not be misled by polls showing support for a timetable. Opinion surveys are notoriously unreliable in gauging public opinion on a complicated question like Iraq. Americans can simultaneously support a withdrawal timetable and also insist that the withdrawal occur only when conditions justify it and military leaders recommend it. For instance, Gallup polls have shown that 69% of Americans think we should set a timetable for withdrawal, but 65% also want to establish stability and security before withdrawing. Like Messrs. McCain and Maliki, Americans are for an aspirational and conditional timetable. They want to win.

The conventional wisdom has been that this election will be decided on the economy. That will be crucial, but so is Iraq. And it makes perfect sense. We are, after all, a nation at war. And in wartime, electing a president who will win should matter most of all.

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Defining Obama down

After spending much of the summer searching for an effective line of attack against Senator Barack Obama, Senator John McCain is beginning a newly aggressive campaign to define Mr. Obama as arrogant, out of touch and unprepared for the presidency.

On Wednesday alone, the McCain campaign released a new advertisement suggesting - and not in a good way - that Mr. Obama was a celebrity along the lines of Britney Spears and Paris Hilton. Republicans tried to portray Mr. Obama as a candidate who believed the race was all about him, relying on what Democrats said was a completely inaccurate quotation.

The Republican National Committee began an anti-Obama Web site called "Audacity Watch," a play on the title of Mr. Obama's book "The Audacity of Hope." And, in a concerted volley of television interviews, news releases and e-mail, campaign representatives attacked him on a wide range of issues, including tax policies and energy proposals.

The moves are the McCain campaign's most full-throttled effort to define Mr. Obama negatively, on its own terms, by creating a narrative intended to turn the public off to an opponent.

Although Mr. Obama has been under an intense public spotlight for the last year, he is still relatively new on the national scene, and polls indicate that for all the enthusiasm he has generated among his supporters, many voters still have questions about him, providing Republicans an opening to shape his image in critical groups like white working-class voters between now and Election Day.

Mr. McCain's campaign is now under the leadership of members of President Bush's re-election campaign, including Steve Schmidt, the czar of the Bush war room that relentlessly painted his opponent, Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts, as effete, elite, and equivocal through a daily blitz of sound bites and Web videos that were carefully coordinated with Mr. Bush's television advertisements.

The run of attacks against Mr. Obama over the last couple of weeks have been strikingly reminiscent of that drive, including the Bush team's tactics of seeking to make campaigns referendums on its opponents - not a choice between two candidates - and attacking the opponent's perceived strengths head-on. Central to the latest McCain drive is an attempt to use against Mr. Obama the huge crowds and excitement he has drawn, including on his foreign trip last week, by promoting a view of him as more interested in attention and adulation than in solving the problems facing American families.

"I would say that it is beyond dispute that he has become the biggest celebrity in the world," Mr. Schmidt said in a conference call with reporters on Wednesday. "The question that we are posing to the American people is this: `Is he ready to lead yet?' And the answer to the question that we will offer to the American people is: `No he is not.' "

This line of attack has the added benefit of being true. What is interesting is that in their pre campaign strategy sessions on the race the Obama team did not see it coming. They were too arrogant to notice.

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Why Obama waffles so much

The other day, I heard a brilliant analysis of Obama by Rush Limbaugh. He was pointing out that the reason he is reduced to such a stuttering prick (to quote Tommy DeVito) when off the teleprompter, is that he is a deeply divided person, either consciously or unconsciously (and undoubtedly both, in my opinion). He is the polar opposite of, say, Ronald Reagan, who always knew what he thought and could answer any question, for it was simply a matter of returning to first principles and applying them to the problem. Very scientific, if you will.

But one of the intrinsic problems in being a liberal is that you can never reveal your first principles, because if you explicitly articulate them, people will be repelled at what a contemptuous and supercilious asshat you are. Therefore, you must always couch them in terms of "compassion," or "helping the little guy," or "healing the planet," or "unity," or some other such blather. So in that regard, Obama is dealing with a more general problem that is intrinsic to liberalism, which is How to Fool the Idiots. One must be very cautious, because even the idiots are only so stupid. Thus Obama's constant verbal ticks: "uh, uh, uh, let me, uh, say this, uh, uh, I've been completely, uh, consistent about this, blah blah blah."

Being that liberalism is the political embodiment of multiplicity (or of an oppressive "bad unity" to try to heal it), it should not be surprising that its adherents are so intrinsically inconsistent. It's not so much that they are dishonest, but that the whole ideology is dishonest -- it is a lie from the ground up. Which is also why, the worse your character (or the less your intelligence), the better you will fare as a liberal politician, because you will be able to lie with great ease and even fool yourself.

Anyway, in Rush's analysis, he was pointing out that Obama is running several campaigns simultaneously, and that it is obviously a struggle for him to keep them all straight in his head, thus the great difficulty in being consistent and giving straight answers. Because of this, he is always one gaffe away from a major meltdown. For example, he's running one campaign for blacks, but an entirely different one for whites. (I won't even review the whole list, because it would take too much time, and I've already made my point; here is a list of the various irreconcilable positions which Obama must hopelessly try keep straight in his mind.)

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Governing From Guilt, Not Greatness, And MSM's Fatal Attraction For Obama

This article from Monday's Honolulu Star Bulletin is a keeper in that it reports Obama's commitment to reparations in the course of a general display of a leftist's understanding of history:

"There's no doubt that when it comes to our treatment of Native Americans as well as other persons of color in this country, we've got some very sad and difficult things to account for," Obama told hundreds of attendees of UNITY '08, a convention of four minority journalism associations.... "I personally would want to see our tragic history, or the tragic elements of our history, acknowledged," the Democratic presidential hopeful said. "I consistently believe that when it comes to whether it's Native Americans or African-American issues or reparations, the most important thing for the U.S. government to do is not just offer words, but offer deeds."

The other noteworthy aspect of the report is its candid coverage of MSM's embrace of the Dalibama:

When Obama walked on stage at the McCormick Center, many journalists in the audience leapt to their feet and applauded enthusiastically after being told not to do so. During a two-minute break halfway through the event, which was broadcast live on CNN, journalists ran to the stage to snap photos of Obama.

Bravo to the honest journalists willing to display their Obama-love openly. "Being told not to do so" is the great give-away. The grey beards know they aren't supposed to be cheering the hardest left major party presidential candidate in history, but, hey, reporters and editors have been waiting a long time for someone as far left as they are to run for the presidency.

Obama's understanding of American history --his need to deplore trumps any instinct to elevate and celebrate every time-- frames the choice between McCain and Obama. A McCain presidency would be grounded on the firm conviction of American greatness and exceptionalism, as well as the uniqueness of the American mission in the world. Obama's would be built on the "mature" understanding of America's many past sins, its enormous greed and grasping, its unfair use of vast quantities of resources and its need to respect world opinion and world institutions even when those opinions and institutions are at cross-purposes with American national interests.

Is American greatness the engine of the world, or American guilt an explanation for it?

Obama is rightly getting hammered for skipping a meeting with wounded American warriors in German --the WaPo tries to give Obama some cover, but the only fact that matters is that Obama committed to going and then he didn't go-- but the real story of the past ten days is his full unveiling as Europe's candidate for the presidency, with an attitude and a platform indistinguishable from the standard critique America has been receiving for fifty years from the people it rescued sixty years ago.

The rapidly spreading understanding of Obama as an arrogant elitist with an enormous sense of entitlement combined with an awesome contempt for America as it has been in the post World War II era accounts for the air escaping from the Obama boomlet. Tromping through Europe to the wild applause of the anti-America left is a big flare for most voters. "Who is this guy, and why isn't he lecturing Europe on its gratitude gap?"

The risky nature of a vote for Obama became more palpable last week, and Monday's pda for him from the MSM, minority journalists division, reminds us that we haven't been given the whole story on Obama, that the Manhattan-Beltway media elite is blocking for him in extraordinary ways.

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Get This Man A Teleprompter!

Barack Obama is a lot like Sean Penn or George Clooney. If you give him a script, he can deliver it pretty well. But if he tries to talk without a script that has been written for him by others, he quickly reveals that he is poorly-informed if not downright ignorant. Today he delivered another classic, by claiming that if only we would all properly inflate our tires, we could save as much gasoline as "all the oil that they're talking about getting off drilling." Seriously: The stunned silence with which the crowd greets this howler suggests that most Americans have a more practical understanding of energy consumption than Obama.

Just for fun, I did the math. Properly inflating your tires can improve gas mileage by 3%. Of course, many people already keep their tires properly inflated, and many more are at least close to being properly inflated. Let's be generous and assume that one-half of the total possible savings would be realized if we all inflated our tires properly; that's a net gain of 1.5% fuel efficiency.

Americans drive approximately 2,880 billion miles per year. If we average 24 mpg, we use around 120 billion gallons of gasoline in our vehicles. If, through perfect tire inflation, we improved our collective fuel efficiency by 1.5%, that would be 1.8 billion gallons. A barrel of oil produces around 20 gallons of gasoline, so the total savings available through tire inflation is approximately 90,000,000 barrels of oil annually. How does this stack up against "all the oil that they're talking about getting off drilling?"

* ANWR: 10 billion barrels
* Outer Continental Shelf: 18 billion barrels (estimated; the actual total is undoubtedly much higher, since exploration has been banned)
* Oil shale: 1 trillion barrels

So, on the above assumptions, it would take only 11,308 years of proper tire inflation to equal "all the oil that they're talking about getting off drilling."

Obama is a curious case. He gives the impression of being an intelligent guy, but through his unscripted comments we have learned that he knows little about history, science or mathematics. He also seems rather shockingly short on common sense, as this most recent gaffe illustrates.

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(For more postings from me, see DISSECTING LEFTISM, TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, EYE ON BRITAIN and Paralipomena . My Home Pages are here or here or here. Email me (John Ray) here.)