Presidential election may be up for grabs

[GAP]

Barack Obama's excellent adventure
By Muhammad Cohen Jul 22, 2008 
Article Link

HONG KONG - As he began his tour of overseas war zones present and past, the Iraq issue bounced Senator Barack Obama's way. As he demonstrated with US troops in Kuwait on Saturday, presidential hopeful Obama knows basketball, and in hoops, as in politics, it's not the bounces but putting the ball in the basket that matters.

On this trip, the all-but-official Democratic presidential nominee needs to show more than just a dazzling floor game. Obama needs to score throughout the trip, not just with foreign leaders,

 
their constituents, US troops in the field, and the media troupe in tow, but with American voters who are staying home because petrol above US$4 a gallon makes it too expensive to go out.

Obama got off to a good start with the release on an interview with Iraq's Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki in Germany's Der Spiegel magazine. Obama is due to stop in Germany and meet with Chancellor Angela Merkel on Thursday.

Obama's 'right timeframe'
In the interview, Maliki said he wants US troops withdrawn from Iraq as soon as possible. Asked specifically about Obama's 16-month schedule for pulling out, Maliki called it "the right timeframe for a withdrawal". Obama can welcome this Arab leader's endorsement of his plan, in contrast to the kind words about his candidacy from Hamas adviser Ahmed Yousuf that Republicans claim makes Obama the terrorist candidate.

Despite feeble efforts to deny the quote, Maliki's words seemingly cut the legs out from President George W Bush, who has maintained that US troops will remain in Iraq only as long as the host government wants them there, and putative Republican nominee Senator John McCain, who advocates fighting to a yet undefined "victory" in Iraq. Republicans have been adamant in rejecting a timetable for withdrawal that Democrats want and last week tried to fudge the issue in talks with Iraqis. But, while they've been disastrous in handling the war, Bush and his party have been adept at manipulating the American public on Iraq.
More on link

 

[a_majoor]

What he said:

http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fullcomment/archive/2008/07/25/david-frum-on-obama-s-berlin-speech-mixed-metaphors-and-soggy-logic.aspx

David Frum on Obama's Berlin Speech: Mixed metaphors and soggy logic
Posted: July 25, 2008, 11:06 AM by Dan Goldbloom
David Frum

An American presidential candidate travels to the very center of Europe and draws a huge cheering crowd. George W. Bush obviously could never do that. Nor could John McCain.

For the many Americans sick to death of eight years of confrontation and quarrelling with friends and allies, Barack Obama’s visit to Berlin presented an exciting and hopeful picture. This is how things should be!

It was a great moment — so long as you viewed it with the sound off.

But if you listened to the speech, you heard an ominous and disturbing statement, one that raises the same unsettling question Hillary Clinton raised: Is this man really capable of meeting the responsibilities of commander-in-chief?

Many commentators have observed that the speech was an unusually poorly written one, filled with weak language and mangled metaphors. Obama at one point announced: “This is the moment when we must defeat terror and dry up the well of extremism that supports it.” In my experience, when you try to use a well to support something, that thing tumbles 30 or 40 feet below ground and lands with a splash.

But it’s not just Obama’s language that is soggy. The Berlin speech revealed more starkly than ever the most dangerous weaknesses in Obama’s thinking about the world.

Here he is talking about the early days of the Cold War: “The Soviet shadow had swept across Eastern Europe ….” Here he is discussing current threats to security: “Poorly secured nuclear material in the former Soviet Union, or secrets from a scientist in Pakistan could help build a bomb that detonates in Paris.” Here is his summons to combat terrorism: “If we could create NATO to face down the Soviet Union, we can join in a new and global partnership to dismantle the networks that have struck in Madrid and Amman; in London and Bali; in Washington and New York.”

In all these phrases — and many more — there is always something missing: human beings. It was not a “shadow” that spread across Eastern Europe in 1945. It was an army. Nor is it “materials” and “secrets” that build bombs — it is bomb-makers. It was not “networks” that struck in Madrid and London and the rest. It was terrorists acting in the name of Islam.

Listen now to this:

“If we could win a battle of ideas against the communists, we can stand with the vast majority of Muslims who reject the extremism that leads to hate instead of hope.”

It is alas tragically untrue that the “vast majority” of Muslims reject extremism. By every measure, extremism is accepted by very large numbers within the Muslim-majority world — and by even larger numbers of the Muslim minority in Europe.

Now this:

“In this century — in this city of all cities — we must reject the Cold War mindset of the past, and resolve to work with Russia when we can, to stand up for our values when we must, and to seek a partnership that extends across this entire continent.”

Russia has reverted to authoritarian rule. It uses its oil and gas to muscle its neighbors. The rulers of Russia are almost certainly responsible for the assassination of one of their most effective critics on British soil — and for the murder of dozens of journalists at home. These are facts, not delusions born of some “Cold War mindset.”

Next: “We must support the … Israelis and Palestinians who seek a secure and lasting peace.” Which Palestinians would those be? And what if Israel elects a government that does not believe a “secure and lasting peace” is achievable anytime soon? Does Israel forfeit “support” if it recognizes reality?

Last, consider this: “And despite past differences, this is the moment when the world should support the millions of Iraqis who seek to rebuild their lives, even as we pass responsibility to the Iraqi government and finally bring this war to a close.”

The insurgency in Iraq was launched not by the United States, but by Baathists and al-Qaeda. If that war is coming to an end, it is because the atrocities of the terrorists alienated former supporters — and because the surge of American military power inside Iraq has hunted and harried the terrorists almost to extinction.

Obama’s vague language is the product of an unrealistic mind. He denies the reality of conflict — and flinches from the obligations of self-defense. Obama has risen to power by using a soothing cloud of meaningless words to conceal displeasing truths and avoid difficult choices. His more worldly supporters will quietly whisper that Obama thinks more incisively than his speeches suggest. Let’s hope so. Yet the speech in Berlin should cause us all to wonder: Maybe Obama’s mind really is as foggy as his language.

There could be hard days ahead....

 

[time expired]

Maybe I could bring a little light on how Obama could bring
150,000 people onto the streets of Berlin.Berlin throughout,
the cold war, was the place people went if they wished to ,
avoid serving in the Bundeswehr,paying taxes,or go to a
university until they were 50+ at the tax payers expense.It
became Germany's version of a larger Berkeley the scene
of constant unrest, riots,etc.by mostly left wing groups.They
have at various times sympathized with such world shakers
as Mao,Ho Chi Min,Arafat,Saddam Hussein,and now Obama,
obviously suckers for "soothing clouds of meaningless words",
that was all I could gain from this speech.To compare it to JFK's.
speech is something only the most uninformed journalist could
possible do,however that is what happened here in Germany.
                        Regards

 

[GAP]

A Poll the MSM Will Never Take
by Douglas MacKinnon
Article Link

Over the last few weeks, I ran a very basic resume poll. I knew the only way this poll would work would be to talk to people outside of the egotistical, out-of-touch bubble that is our nation's capital. To get an honest reaction, I'd have to talk with average Americans who are more concerned about real life and the welfare of their families, than the names, education, wealth, or accomplishments of those who seek their support.

My premise was very simple. You have two people who are being considered to run your county, head up your local school board and manage your police force. Based on the background and experience listed below, who would you choose?

Candidate A: Middle-aged. Studied overseas. Attended two different colleges in the U.S. before getting a degree. Went on to get a law degree. Worked community affairs in his adopted home city. Was elected to local office. Served in local politics for just over six years. Got elected to a federal state-wide office. Has one real year of experience in that job.

Candidate B: Middle-aged. Went to college and got a degree. Served in the National Guard for six years. Became a sergeant. While in the National Guard, earned a law degree. Became an investigator for a consumer-protection division. Was elected to a federal office. Was re-elected to a federal office. Was elected to a federal statewide office. Was re-elected to a federal state-wide office. Served in the executive branch for four years

Either in person or over the phone, I showed or recited exactly as written above, the background of these two candidates to voters who don't follow politics very closely. I ended up speaking with twenty different people from diverse backgrounds.

To be sure, some of those I spoke with rightfully said, “In reality, I'd need to know a lot more than you're giving me.” Accepting that caveat, all 20 people picked Candidate B.

Candidate B is Dan Quayle.

Candidate A is Barack Obama.
More on link

 

[tomahawk6]

A new poll out by USA Today/Gallup taken since Obama's world tour shows McCain with a 4 point lead. While polls at this stage dont mean alot it does show that Obama continues to have a problem with white voters. As we get closer to November the Obama campaign will alter their message to say that white voters are racists if they dont vote for Obama. The problem is white voters dont like Obama's mixed messages,his lack of experience and his radical background/politics. He hasnt won over Clinton supporters as of yet and there still is a chance that Obama wont get the democrat nomination - he doesnt have enough delegates to win on the first ballot. I think Clinton's people have been working the super delegates. So the convention may get very interesting. The fear among democrats is a McCain landslide if Obama is the nominee. Usually landslides have a coat tail effect which could see democrats losing power in the House and Senate. The democrats are on the wrong side of the oil drilling issue which might be the biggest motivator for the average voter.

 

[TCBF]

... The democrats are on the wrong side of the oil drilling issue which might be the biggest motivator for the average voter.

- And on the wrong side of the snatching corn out of the mouths of the world's poor and making bio-fuel out of it issue.

- As for the oil, if you factor in the oil shale reserves in the USA, PLUS the oil reserves in the vast offshore areas in which drilling is banned, there is no shortage of oil in the USA.  With all of the known oil reserves in NAFTA countries, the mid-east is looking more and more like we don't need it. 

 

[a_majoor]

Identifying a possible avenue of attack for Senator McCain

http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=27720

McCain Campaign Should Become More Sun Tzu and Less Sun Dole
by Charles Adler (more by this author)
Posted 07/28/2008 ET


While the mainstream media continues to guzzle  Barack Obama's bath water, it is high time for John McCain to douse heartland voters with the  cold shower of truth.

Senator McCain ought to enunciate these 7 indisputable truths.

1)  The genius of  American governance lies in the concept of checks and balances.

2)  The  greatest threat to checks and balances is undivided government, in which all three branches all held by the same party

3)  There is no doubt about which party  will control the legislative branches for the next two years. The only mystery remains who will be in the White House to check  and balance the Pelosi/Reid Democrats.

4) Americans have identified the economy as the number one  issue  in this campaign

5) The number one threat to a growing economy is the high price of energy.

6) The Republicans are for drilling offshore.

7) The Pelosi/Reid Democrats won't even allow a vote on it.


Barack Obama in recent days has been pursuing a strategy that  Leonard Cohen would give high marks too, "First we take Manhattan. Then Berlin." With all due respect to the Canadian poet, Senator McCain should take his inspiration from the second century Chinese realist, Suz Tzu. In the "Art of War," he offers two pronged strategic path  that the McCain campaign needs to take.

1) To be certain to take what you attack, attack where the enemy cannot defend.

2) To achieve the advance that cannot be hampered, rush to his weak points.

The enemy for John McCain may be Barack Obama.  But the territory that Obama cannot defend is the Democratic Congress, which for the last two years has been about anything but change. If Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid have steadfastly opposed increasing the supply of  American oil to a country that is starved for it, why should anyone believe that they will remove their feet from their ideological cement with Democrat Barack Obama in the Oval Office. If John McCain wants to advance in a way in a way where he is relatively
hampered, he must rush to Obama's weakest points. They are the Democrat inaction plan on on oil exploration and Obama's own lead footed approach. 

Only two weeks ago after President Bush lifted the Presidential ban on offshore drilling and called on Congress to do the same, Obama said that such an action on the part of Congress would "merely prolong the failed energy policies we have seen from Washington for 30 years," Obama is responding to a public need with a slogan. That's not public service and it certainly isn't Change that anybody driving a car or heating a home can believe in. Senator McCain ought to wake up and the smell the fumes.

We all know what Senator McCain refuses to do in this compaign.  He won't  play the character card on Obama. His  political calculus tells him that attacking an opponent's character can drive up the unfavorables for both the opponent and the attacker.

McCain is not only willing but almost singularly focused on the Iraq card. Unfortunately for him, it would appear that two fellows named Maliki and Bush may have made weakened his hand. The leader of the free world and the Sheriff of Baghdad both now seem to be talking a talk that seems closer to Obama's  exit strategy than McCain's. President Bush is now using words like time horizons. Only the hair splitting wing of American punditocracy thinks there is a dime's worth of difference between time horizons  and time tables. The newly refined Bush position in response to Maliki's almost outright endorsement of Obama's 16 month plan, has now turned the tables on McCain's, "We're stayin' till the last terrrorist dog dies" strategy.

With the Iraq and character cards removed, the Arizona senator needs to play the card that  is most available and ultimately most useful. He must attack the leadership of the Democratic Congress and identify Obama as their  supplicant. McCain has lots of experience in attacking Republican members who don't want to be part of his various adventures.

But winning the White House is as similar to getting a bill passed as a Heart Attack is similar to a common cold.  McCain needs to strengthen the arteries in his Republican heart and at Pelosi like decibels, scream the message that on the  issue of Energy security, Obama is not an agent of change.

On the issue of finding the lifeblood of the economy, new oil, Obama is  an agent of intolerance.  It's been eight years since McCain used those words. There is a major difference between then and now. The last time he used them, he unwittingly fired his weapon at the    heart of the Republican base. This time he would be not only firing up the base but forcing a conversation that would go well beyond the base, with the truth of the matter being on his side. Obama's two key weaknesses are the  partnership with Pelosi and Reid, the Larry and Curly of government, and the Illinois senator's stated opposition to exploration for new American oil.

There is only one fly in  the political ointment here for John McCain. He is a man who is extremely uncomfortable with doing the uncomfortable. He doesn't  like the idea of taking on Congress. It is a club that he has belonged to for most of his post Vietnam life. But with Obama's campaign reported to be already hiring a transition team, it's time for John McCain to see himself as President McCain.  The senator seems at times to have a Bob Dole like stomach when it comes to scorching the congressional earth.

Those who are not looking forward to an Obama presidency need to hope that in the coming days the McCain campaign becomes more Sun Tzu and less Sun Dole.   

Mr. Adler is the host of "Adler on Line," a national talk radio show on Canada's Corus Radio Network. You can contact him through his website at www.charlesadler.com or email him at adleronline@gmail.com.

 

[tomahawk6]

Congress' approval rating has dropped to the single digit's. A recent poll shows that 75% of americans now approve of more oil drilling and 71% want more offshore drilling.Still the democrats in Congress are ignoring the will of the people. We are spending $700b annually buying oil which weakens the dollar.By reducing this with increased domestic production we will strengthen the economy.

 

[Fishbone Jones]

When you are faking a pose  for a camera photo opportunity with the American  flag, always remember.....

...at least get the phone turned in the right direction!!!

 

[GAP]

This is almost as good as a "Victory Yell" !!

 

[a_majoor]

Here I was thinking the Illuminati were in control of the US government...

http://dustmybroom.com/content/view/4824/1/

One for your Summer "Must-Read" list
Written by WL Mackenzie Redux   
Tuesday, 29 July 2008
 
Here's one for the summer vacation cottage reading. Brush up on the real connections and power broker background of the "miricle" candidate. The old Maxim goes: " if something appears to be too good to be true chances are it is."

Editorial Reviews:

Barack Obama is a deeply troubled personality, the megalomaniac front man for a postmodern coup by the intelligence agencies, using fake polls, mobs of swarming adolescents, super-rich contributors, and orchestrated media hysteria to short-circuit normal politics and seize power. Obama comes from the orbit of the Ford Foundation, and has never won public office in a contested election. His guru and controller is Zbigniew Brzezinski, the deranged revanchist and Russia-hater who dominated the catastrophic Carter presidency 30 years ago. All indications are that Brzezinski recruited Obama at Columbia University a quarter century ago. Trilateral Commission co-founder Brzezinski wants a global showdown with Russia and China far more dangerous for the United States than the Bush-Cheney Iraq adventure. Obama's economics are pure Skull & Bones/Chicago school austerity and sacrifice for American working families, all designed to bail out the bankrupt Wall Street elitist financiers who own Obama. Obama's lemming legions and Kool-Aid cult candidacy hearken back to Italy in 1919-1922, and raise the question of postmodern fascism in the United States today. Obama is a recipe for a world tragedy. No American voter can afford to ignore the lessons contained in this book.

BTW:  Zbigniew Brzezinski was the co-founder of the CFR along with David Rockefeller, whose vast family fortune funds the Ford foundation...connection, connections, connections.

 

[CougarKing]

When you are faking a pose  for a camera photo opportunity with the American  flag, always remember.....

...at least get the phone turned in the right direction!!!

uh-huh. While McCain recently called Russian President Putin the President of Germany.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kvk0IhGBXbs

 

[Fishbone Jones]

uh-huh. While McCain recently called Russian President Putin the President of Germany.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kvk0IhGBXbs

I'm an equal opportunity employer when it comes to poking fun at politicos. Probably explains much of my fondness for Bush Jr

 

[vonGarvin]

McCain and Obama in dead heat.
"Intensified attacks by Republican John McCain on the character of his Democratic opponent have coincided with Barack Obama losing a nine percentage point advantage in a national poll, which showed the candidates running dead even over the weekend."


I know it's only a poll, and I know it's a long way from November, but this looks as though it will be a race to the White House, vice a coronation of Barack Obama.

 

[observor 69]

This is one of the more respected sources of poll numbers and it looks like Obama by a little over of 2%.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/

 

[TheHead]

When you are faking a pose  for a camera photo opportunity with the American  flag, always remember.....

...at least get the phone turned in the right direction!!!

About as real as this one is.

 

[Kalatzi]

Seems Paris Hilton has responded to McCain's Ad. Says she enterered the race
Link here

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080806.wparismccain0806/BNStory/Entertainment/home

CNN is running a poll on the energy policies
Mcain 27%
Obama 33%
Hilton 39%

Never thoiught I'd say good on her.

 

[vonGarvin]

In my opinion, John McCain's ad was bang on.  Barack Obama's celebrity status is no different from persons such as Paris Hilton, who has no credibility at all, other than as a fellow human being.  In other words, people like Obama for president for all the wrong reasons.  He is photogenic, he is a good speaker with plenty of personality.  Now, in the words of Aristotle, the skillset required to run for office is a different skillset required to lead from office.  That's McCain's message, anyway.

 

[observor 69]

August 6, 2008
Op-Ed Columnist
McCain’s Green-Eyed Monster
By MAUREEN DOWD
WASHINGTON

Not since Iago and Othello obsessed on the comely Cassio, not since Richard of Gloucester killed his two nephews, not since Nixon and Johnson glowered at the glittering J.F.K., has there been such an unseemly outpouring of boy envy.

Bill Clinton, Jesse Jackson and John Edwards have all been crazed with envy over the ascendance of the new “It” guy, Barack Obama.

Unlike his wife, Bill Clinton — the master of fake sincerity — still continues to openly begrudge his party’s betrothed.

Asked by Kate Snow of ABC News in Africa whether Obama was ready to be president, Clinton gave a classic Clintonian answer: “You could argue that no one’s ever ready to be president.”

As always, the Big Dog was more concerned with himself — asserting that he’s not a racist — than his party. Bill Clinton is not a racist. We can posit that. But he did play subtle racial politics in the primary. It’s way past time for him to accept the fact that there’s a new wunderkind in town.

Just as Bill Clinton looks at Obama and sees his own oblivion, so does Jesse Jackson. As Shelby Steele wrote in The Wall Street Journal, Jackson and his generation of civil rights leaders “made keeping whites ‘on the hook’ the most sacred article of the post-’60s black identity,” equality pursued by manipulating white guilt.

Now John McCain is pea-green with envy. That’s the only explanation for why a man who prides himself on honor, a man who vowed not to take the low road in the campaign, having been mugged by W. and Rove in South Carolina in 2000, is engaging in a festival of juvenilia.

The Arizona senator who built his reputation on being a brave proponent of big solutions is running a schoolyard campaign about tire gauges and Paris Hilton, childishly accusing his opponent of being too serious, too popular and not patriotic enough.

Even his own mother, the magical 96-year-old Roberta McCain, let slip that she thought the Paris Hilton-Britney Spears ad was “kinda stupid.”

McCain’s 2000 strategist, John Weaver, was equally blunt with Newsweek’s Jonathan Alter: “It’s hard to imagine America responding to ‘small ball’ when we have all these problems.”

Some of McCain’s old pals in the Senate are cringing at what they see as his soulless transformation into what he once scorned.

“John’s eaten up with envy,” said one. “His image of himself was always the handsome, celebrity flyboy.

“Now somebody else is the celebrity,” the colleague continued, while John looks in the mirror and sees his face marred by skin cancer and looks at the TV and sees his dashing self-image replaced by visions of William Frawley, with Letterman jokes about his membership in the ham radio club and adventures with wagon trains.

For McCain, being cool meant being a rogue, not a policy wonk; but Obama manages to be a cool College Bowl type, which must irk McCain, who liked to play up his bad-boy cool. Now the guy in the back of the class is shooting spitballs at the class pet and is coming off as more juvenile than daring.

Around the McCain campaign, they grouse that Obama “hasn’t bled.” He hasn’t bled literally, in military service, just like W., the last holder of an E-ZPass who sped past McCain. And he hasn’t paid his dues in the Senate, since he basically just stopped by for directions to the Oval Office.

As a new senator, Obama was not only precocious enough to pounce on turf that McCain had invested years in, such as campaign finance lobbying, ethics reform and earmarks. When Obama did reach across the aisle for a mentor, it was to the staid Richard Lugar of Indiana, not to the salty Republican of choice for Democrats, McCain.

When the Illinois freshman took back a private promise to join McCain’s campaign finance reform effort, McCain told his aide Mark Salter to “brush him back.” Salter sent an over-the-top vituperative letter to Obama. “I guess I beaned him instead,” Salter told Newsweek’s Howard Fineman.

McCain could dismiss W. as a lightweight, but he knows Obama’s smart. Obama wrote his own books, while McCain’s were written by Salter. McCain knows he’s the affirmative action scion of admirals who might not have gotten through Annapolis without being a legacy. Obama didn’t even tell Harvard Law School that he was black on his application.

McCain upbraids Obama for being a poppet, while he’s becoming a puppet. His mouth is moving but the words coming out belong to his new hard-boiled strategist, Steve Schmidt, a Rove protégé, nicknamed “The Bullet” for his bald pate.

Schmidt has turned Mr. Straight Talk into Mr. Desperate Straits. It’s not a good trade.


http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/06/opinion/06dowd.html?_r=1&hp=&oref=slogin&pagewanted=print

 

[a_majoor]

Never, ever, count out the Clintons, until you see the bodies and have DNA.....

http://strongconservative.blogspot.com/2008/08/is-hillary-scheming.html

Is Hillary Scheming?

It is increasingly appearing that Barack H. Obama can't finish. Hillary beat Obama badly in almost every state in the dying days of the Democrat primary, unfortunately for her it was too little too late. Meanwhile, McCain is the comeback kid. Early on in the campaign he was suffering from money problems and it was speculated he might have to drop out.

Victor Davis Hanson points out Obama's weakness in a great column today:

If the polls are right, a public tired of Republicans is beginning to think an increasingly bothersome Obama would be no better -- and maybe a lot worse. It is one thing to suggest to voters that they should shed their prejudices, eat less and be more cosmopolitan. But it is quite another when the sermonizer himself too easily evokes race, weekly changes his mind and often sounds like he doesn't have a clue what he's talking about.

There are also rumors that Hillary's camp is up to no good and is scheming for the Democrat Convention. Die-hard Clinton backers might be planning on forcing a vote at the convention in light of Obama's stagnating poll numbers. If that scenario occurred and she won, the whole Democratic Party would be thrown into upheaval. Hillary denies the possibility of any such scenario, but it not beyond the realm of possibility.

The longer Obama stays neck and neck with McCain the more gloomy his chances of winning in November become. This is a Democrat year, it's Obama's election to lose.