Bush’s Third Term?

Interesting read.

The Left Has It All Wrong

Democrats have been led to believe that after this election, no longer will we Americans (much less our highly valued allies who have had to suffer right along with us) have to put up with a president who came into office without relevant experience. One who had used drugs and alcohol more than experimentally and who only came to find God later in life. One who spends an inordinate amount of time exercising and vacationing. One who has had lifelong psychological issues concerning his father. One who is so stubborn and inflexible that he is unwilling to admit his mistakes. Nor will we have to live with a president so naïve about the world. One forced to select an aged and “experienced” running mate to lend his ticket gravitas. Worse yet, one who believes people worldwide yearn for liberty and would foolishly make that yearning a cornerstone of U.S. policy. Nor will we have to put up with a leader who would take his eye off the ball in one war to go fight another one of choice elsewhere. We won’t have to put up with a president who is choreographed by a behind-the-scenes wizard of presumed “evil” intent — one who measures what the public can be sold and how to play on their fears for maximum advantage. No more propping up an obviously unqualified candidate to serve the agenda of the powerful.

High roads, low roads, pots, kettles

The Reclusive Leftist has an intriguing series called “If you vote for Obama this is what you’re voting for.”  So far the series has 11 “reminders.”

This Link will take you to all of them except for #6. Click here for that one.

The latest (#11) covers the names being bandied about as being on Obama’s short list for cabinet and SCOTUS positions. Oy.

Incompetent Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick is on the short list for Attorney General, which makes me wonder if Obama and Patrick chipped in together for some kind of package deal with Axelrod. Obama’s entire propaganda line (hope and change, etc.) was an ad campaign dreamed up by Axelrod and first used by Patrick. Obama bought the whole shtick second-hand — even the text of the speeches — and we can only hope he got a good used-car price on the deal. I see no earthly reason for Patrick to be in an Obama administration, unless maybe that was in the fine print back when Obama purchased the rights to Patrick’s speeches.

But the number one pick for Attorney General isn’t Deval Patrick, but Virginia Governor Tim Kaine. That’s right, Tim Kaine: the pro-life, anti-abortion, pro-abstinence-education Tim Kaine. For Attorney General. Hey, you Stockholm Syndrome ladies over at NOW — are you paying attention? Maybe ask the patriarchy to adjust the duct tape so you can see better, ‘kay?

The Supreme Court short list includes Deval Patrick again (definitely some kind of package deal thing there), but the most terrifying possibility, and the real front-runner, is Cass Sunstein. Sunstein is an intellectual trainwreck of a man who is notorious for defending President Bush’s right to torture, imprison, and spy on anydamnbody he wants to with impunity.

Number 10 starts with the Bobby Kennedy smear, and then touches on all the smears of the Obama campaign during the primary.

Obama’s team pushed the RFK smear aggressively, just as they had pushed all the other smears against Hillary: the Somali garb smear, the Muslim smear, the darkening of Obama’s photo smear, the Bosnia smear, the fairytale smear, the MLK/LBJ smear, and on and on and on. The Obama machine functioned smoothly in all its parts, from campaign headquarters to media outlets, from netroots astroturfers to hysterical commenters shrieking for blood. They’d done it all before, but the RFK business ratcheted things up to a new level. The public hatred of Hillary reached a fever pitch. The sheer noise drowned out all rational speech. And the Obama camp’s cynical exploitation of race, history, and our nation’s tragedies made it virtually a thought-crime to point out that the whole thing was a put-up job — not to mention that if anyone was playing the role of Bobby Kennedy in this election, it was Hillary herself.

People who had been watching the race closely (as opposed to watching Obama campaign ads and gazing adoringly at copies of Dreams of My Father) already understood that behind the “hope and change” propaganda, the Obama folks were hard-core Chicago machine types, experts in dirty politics, ruthless and utterly without scruple. About as far from “a new kind of politics” as you could possibly get. But even so, the RFK smear was eye-opening.

This alone would have been enough to turn my heart stone-cold toward Barack Obama. Aside from all his flip-flops (FISA, public financing, et al), the smears against the Clintons and Hillary’s supporters were unconscionable, and not something to which I could ever give my approval or think of condoning with my vote.  Worse yet, we hear Obama, who has willingly allowed all of this to go on in his campaign, NOW saying that he did once admire John McCain – in 2000 – when he [McCain] ran a “clean” campaign against George W. Bush.  He thinks McCain has run a “dirty” campaign? Wow. Is this the pot calling the kettle black? (Am I a racist for using that age-old adage?)  Frankly, I’m amazed that the RNC has’t been running Reverend “God Damn Ameri-k-k-k-a” Wright ads 24/7. Frankly, it’s what I expected from the Republicans (based on past history).  If John McCain were running those sorts of ads, I might consider that he had taken the low road. But he has held back. Oh yeah, sure, he’s running the usual mantra that Obama will raise your taxes (standard Republican talking points, really, and to be expected), but he hasn’t gone for the jugular. And it’s not as though Obama hasn’t provided him with plenty of ammunition (Wright, Ayers, Rezko).  Still Obama accuses McCain of “slash-and-burn, say-anything, do-anything politics.”  Sound familiar? It should. It’s what they said about Hillary too.

Barack Obama has wasted no amount of air time to tell us constantly the John McCain voted with Bush 90% of the time [omigod, that ad is on every fifteen minutes, I swear]. Click here for what Barack doesn’t tell you about his voting record in the Senate. Hint: 40% no vote and an amazing rate of avoiding controversial votes (ie: 75% no vote on choice issues) - post at link cites Project Vote Smart. 

And then there is the question of Barack Obama’s fundraising. Though he is not required to do so, McCain released the names of all his small donors. Obama will not. Why not? It’s a legitimate question. Especially in light of this Washington Post story.  Are we talking campaign finance fraud? Money laundering? 

So, no, I do not approve, condone, nor rationalize that the “ends justifies the means.”

What Dawn said

Always a Bridesmaid, Never a Bride (or Reason #53 why you’re a Registered Independent)

It’s hard to remain open-minded toward John McCain when he’s steering a discussion about recently out-of-work 50-something women who are afraid of losing their health care back to Joe the Plumber and his vexing tax problem (or math problem—depending), or when he’s putting scare-quotes around “women’s health”, but for many feminists who intend to do so, voting for McCain/Palin is not about McCain. It’s about abandoning a party that doesn’t represent their interests. It’s about supporting a woman running for public office. It’s about the realization that if we keep going along with business as usual, we’ll never get anything else.

[...]

Call it a marriage of convenience, a cold, political calculation, or a promise kept—I know that some of you will cheerfully vote for Palin/McCain this election. I know you’ll also keep your Independent status, and win or lose, you’ll be prepared to vigorously promote The New Agenda to whatever administration takes power.

Because it’s not about McCain or Palin or Obama or even Hillary Clinton. It’s about women taking what is rightfully ours, what is long overdue to come into our possession, about taking it no matter who objects or gets in the way or thinks we’re going about it the wrong way and won’t we just sit down and be patient and they’ll get to our needs shortly?

No. We will not.

The waiting patiently portion of our program is over.

In the comments, yttik writes:

I actually agree with McCain on this, but perhaps for differant reasons. In many ways I think Palin is a good wake up call for the liberal feminist agenda. I think it’s time for some re-evaluation, liberal feminism has become a rather exclusive club. I see it in the way Cindy McCain was immediately dismissed as a blond beer heiress, a bimbo, by feminists that apparently have this automatic reaction to women who are attractive. There’s an assumption that they lack depth. You hear it again in the way Sarah Palin is dismissed as nothing but a beauty queen, another bimbo. Cindy McCain has actually worked hard to promote a global feminist agenda and written about it in her essays about Rwanda. Her words nearly echo those of Hillary at the Bejing conference.

Feminism for me has always had more of a libertarian leaning then a liberal one. We fought for the right to vote because the government has no business taking away our individual rights. We fought for choice because the government has no business regulating our bodies. We fought for access to birth control because the government has no business forcing us to reproduce.

I think feminism needs to stop being an exclusive club. You cannot join together in sisterhood and fight for something better if you’ve got all these restrictive membership reqirements.

They finally did it.

Just when I was starting to waver. Just when I was beginning to consider, possibly, just maybe, voting for Obama…the New Democratic Party™ got in my face again. I’m done.

Joe Cannon says it all for me.

Remember the “Al Gore’s a liar” campaign? The oft-heard accusation had no basis in fact, but sheer repetition caused it to lodge in the American consciousness.

Same shit; different party. Sarah Palin does not believe in “abstinence only,” and she is not a Dominionist Christian. Nevertheless, those ideas have lodged in the left-wing brain, and not even a surgical operation will dislodge them.

Why is it suddenly acceptable to wear “SARAH PALIN IS A CUNT” t-shirts? No-one (thank God) would dare to wear a shirt emblazoned with the message “BARACK OBAMA IS A NIGGER.” In fact, no-one would feel comfortable wearing a shirt bearing the value-neutral message “BARACK OBAMA IS AFRICAN-AMERICAN.” Yet lefties now consider “SARAH PALIN IS A CUNT” to be high fashion. I’d love to hear someone offer an excuse for that exercise in hypocrisy. Strained rationalization is my favorite form of humor.

The left has turned into an emetic morass of human sewage. When you go into the voting booth, picture the faces of the smug, haughty young creeps pictured in the photo above. They represent the new Democratic party. They are the reason why this lifelong Dem left the party. If you reward the Obots with your vote, you are saying: “I want the Democratic party to keep acting like that.”

Obots would have us believe that Palin’s alleged attempt to get rid of a bad-apple taser-happy state trooper is worthy of infinite investigation. Ah, but when the subject turns to Obama’s unquestioned efforts to change Illinois state law in order to give crooked cronies a chance to grab state funds, we’re told that matter is unimportant. Nothing to see here; move along. Kos and Josh Marshall would support Duke Cunningham for president if Duke were a Dem — and chic-ly black.

[...]

I haven’t changed. I’m still a liberal. But the political world has shifted around me.

Don’t call my vote for John McCain a protest vote, although there will nevertheless be some pinching of the nostrils. For all of his faults, McCain is the better candidate — and, no matter what the prog brainwashers would have you believe, he has run a far more honest campaign. Neither candidate is a liberal, but — if we discount Obama’s lie-filled rhetoric — McCain is the more liberal of the two. I suspect that he may be another Eisenhower — a get-things-done military man who will choose economic pragmatism over a strict laissez faire ideology, thereby infuriating the hard rightists.

I too will be voting for John McCain and Sarah Palin. Deal with it.

On Edit: It gets worse.

Bailouts and Ideology

I am not an economist, so I can only watch the financial meltdown with the horror of a civilian caught in the crossfire, but I’ve been reading…

Harry Reid may not know what to do, but there are some voices out there that are definitely worth a listen.

If you haven’t read Anglachel’s post, Financial Crisis and Political Opportunity, go, do it. Now.

The market turmoil of the last few days has led to some extreme reactions among both left and right commenters. The meme I keep seeing in various forms is that the financial system has been “nationalized”, with much wringing of hands and gnashing of teeth. Oh, corruption of the pure markets! Oh, run away, run away from the power grab of the state! Oh, look at the completion of the whatever conspiracy it is to make the evil gummint in charge of all our moneys! It’s particularly thick on the ground with the people who have been screaming for a few months that poor people don’t deserve loans and should go back to the ghetto/barrio/Mexico/trailer park/[insert favorite cultural/ethnic slur here] where the losers belong. I’m always amused at the posts of one guy who I personally know who rails at the financial irresponsibility of others while failing to subscribe to any of those standards to himself. My point here is that paranoia and schadenfreude are not a very helpful combination for assessing the mess. More important, they do not lend themselves to seizing a moment of political opportunity.

It’s a long read, but well worth the time. As usual, Anglachel brings her laser beam focus to the issue. She cites Krugman, Calculated Risk and ends with Hillary Clinton’s plan. Yes, while Obama is fumbling and gathering his experts, Hillary is actually ready (on day one?) to get to work on this. Hey Harry, pick up the phone and give the wonky girl in the back of class a call!

Keep reading…

Karl Rove offers advice to Obama

Damn. Up is down and black is white and I’m agreeing with Karl Rove. My inbox is full of Palin slams and emails screaming about “McSame.”  They don’t serve to convince me to vote for Obama.

From the Wall Street Journal: Obama Needs to Sell Himself, Not Attack McCain

It is a mistake for Mr. Obama to spend a lot of time attacking Mr. McCain. In the past week, he, his surrogates or his ads have mocked Mr. McCain’s inability to use a keyboard (an activity, like combing his hair or tying his tie, that Mr. McCain has difficulty with because of war wounds), claimed his administration would be riddled with lobbyists, tried to make an issue of his age and successful cancer treatment, missed no chance to suggest he’d be President George W. Bush’s third term, and called him “dishonorable.” This last charge is particularly foolish. It’s one of the last things voters will believe about John McCain.

The people who can be won over by shouting “McCain is Bush” long ago sided with Mr. Obama. That message does not resonate with undecided voters. The Democrat should instead spend every moment spelling out what he would do to address the country’s challenges.

This election is not fundamentally about Mr. McCain. It is much more about people’s persistent doubts concerning Mr. Obama. The only way to reassure them is to provide a compelling, forward-looking agenda. That sounds obvious, but the Obama campaign seems to be betting on making Mr. McCain an unacceptable choice by striking at his character. Mr. McCain has absorbed many harder blows than anything the Obama campaign can throw his way.

New York?

Poll shows Barack Obama’s lead over John McCain in New York falling

“As voters begin to focus on the race, New York’s overwhelming Democratic enrollment advantage is not reflected in how voters tell Siena they plan to vote,” Siena poll spokesman Steve Greenberg said.

And from the NYT: Dead Heat

The latest poll by The New York Times and CBS News, released tonight, shows the presidential candidates in a dead heat as they shift gears toward their national conventions and move full speed into the fall election cycle.

The Times’s Michael Cooper and Dalia Sussman describe voters as focusing “overwhelmingly” on economic issues but also believing that Senators Barack Obama and John McCain aren’t paying enough attention to their priorities.

There are lots of interesting details in the poll. For example, the two write that while Mr. McCain is closely linked by voters to “the deeply unpopular President Bush,” they widely view Mr. McCain as better prepared to be president than Mr. Obama and more likely to be an effective commander-in-chief.

What Alegre said

There’ve been more than one or two commenters here that have assumed that because I’ve defended Sarah Palin against misogynistic attacks I plan on voting McCain/Palin. Please show me where I’ve indicated that any place on this blog.

I’d put myself squarely in Alegre’s camp on this one:

I’m sorry but when I stack up her lack of specifics and her almost non-existent record when it comes to advocating for special needs kids against her neo-con background and the things her party has stood for over the past 3 or 4 decades, there’s no contest.

She might take concrete steps to increase services to children with special needs.  Of that we have no guarantee or real promise.  No specifics and no real record of action on this front other than signing a couple bills into law.

But she most certainly will continue the GOP tradition of working to erode our reproductive rights, continue Bush’s illegal war in Iraq, allow big business to destroy our environment, sack our treasury with tax cuts to the wealthy, all but ignore the housing crisis and our broken economy, push for school vouchers thereby depriving our public schools of much needed funding…

Folks the list goes on and on and on.  I can’t back a candidate based on a promise of fluff and sweetness after watching their party in action since the 1970s.  No way – not gonna happen.  Doesn’t matter how many promises she makes to parents like me.

At the same time, I’m waiting for BHO’s camp to reach out to Democrats like me and invite us on board.  So far all I’ve seen are assumptions and the attitude of “feck ‘em – they’ve got nowhere else to go so we’re assured of their vote in November.”

Ya know what boys… that’s not how it works.  There are other options and until you reach out to us to bridge that gap you’ve created during primary season, millions of Hillary’s supporters will withhold our vote in this presidential contest.  Down-ticket Democrats will get our vote – they’ve earned it.  You lost it and seem to have zero interest in winning it back.  If I were you, I’d get to work and fast.

Monday Morning Meanderings

Pan Metron reviews Kirsten Powers’ NY Post oped (read it!) and has a few words to add.

As for Obama, he has a tough row to hoe as they say: he and his supporters can no longer run a campaign on being the anti-Clinton. They have to 1) stop demonizing Hillary and accept her, and her supporters, as whole-heartedly as she’s accepted Obama’s nomination, and 2) figure out how to make the case for Obama, the man who wants to be President, not in reference to someone else but on his own specific terms.

Ani on The Transcendence and Inconvenience of Principles – a tour de force! (bitterpoliticz)

As to my principles, no, I will not keep silent, even if it is inconvenient.

I know many thoughtful, caring and educated people who have actually lost friends because they are not willing to drink the stuff the DNC is selling. I am not happy that a couple of my friends who are still sipping the “Democrats only” kool-aid think I’m over the top. I understand why. It is entirely too frightening for them to conceive of the fact that they cannot trust the only group they’ve ever trusted. Nobody likes their world turned upside down. First of all, it’s too much work to fix it.

More meanderings on the flip side

Pondering Palin

I’m still working on a post about McCain’s pick, but I’ve spent a good portion of the day slogging around the blogosphere and I’ve found some interesting points of view…

Anglachel on McCain’s pick says, contrary to Democrats wailing and gnashing of teeth, this is about McCain shoring up his base, not picking off PUMAs. Please read her whole post, I think she’s nailed this one.

First and foremost, this is not about Democrats. This is about tensions and contests within the Republican Party. McCain is handling his intra-party conflicts better than Obama. There is doubt about where to take the party after the failures of Gingrich and Bush/Cheney, and McCain is answering them.

[...]

…McCain is protecting himself from electoral defections from his own side. His least committed constituents are cultural conservatives. These are the people who would go with Bob Barr. With Palin on the ticket, McCain neutralizes that effect, probably changing what would have been a higher attrition level compared to Obama’s vis-a-vis Naderite/Green voters to a lower one.

Absolutely agree. And it is confirmed by this email that I received within hours of Palin’s selection: Richard Viguerie, a conservative and harsh critic of the current incarnation of the Republican Party:

She’s perfect

With VP pick, McCain “unites the GOP, gives conservatives a stake in the election, and puts a real reformer on the ticket”

(Minneapolis, MN) The selection of Governor Sarah Palin as John McCain’s vice presidential running mate unites the Republican Party and energizes its conservative base, Richard A. Viguerie said.

“McCain has chosen to balance his ticket with a principled conservative. Governor Palin’s life story is one of sticking to principle. She is living proof that a person can take on the corrupt political establishment – including corrupt leaders in her own party – and achieve great things,” he said.

Viguerie, the Chairman of ConservativeHQ.com, added: “There’s an old expression in politics: Go along to get along. Not this time. The selection of Sarah Palin is one big kick-in-the-pants to the corrupt establishment in both parties.

“Congratulations to John McCain for hearing and responding to conservatives. Conservatives, the base of the party, have been listless. But, now, nearly all will work enthusiastically for the McCain-Palin ticket. In fact, this is the most enthusiastic conservatives have been since the era for Ronald Reagan.”

He concluded: “This is a grand-slam home run. Conservatives’ feet haven’t touched the ground since this announcement.”

Richard A. Viguerie pioneered political direct mail and has been called “one of the creators of the modern conservative movement” (The Nation magazine), one of the “conservatives of the century” (The Washington Times), and one of 2008’s “top 25 influencers” among Republicans (NewsMax magazine). His latest book is Conservatives Betrayed: How George W. Bush and Other Big-Government Republicans Hijacked the Conservative Cause.

More on the flipside