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Barack Obama Mania
Obama's Magic  Custom Search Custom Search October 10, 2008 By Kimberley Strassel Full article Kimberly Strassel WSJ Excerpts: And now, America, we introduce the Great Obama! The world's most gifted political magician! A thing of wonder. A thing of awe. Just watch him defy politics, economics, even gravity! (And hold your applause until the end, please.) To kick off our show tonight, Mr. Obama will give 95% of American working families a tax cut, even though 40% of Americans today don't pay income taxes! How can our star enact such mathemagic? How can he "cut" zero? Abracadabra! It's called a "refundable tax credit." It involves the federal government taking money from those who do pay taxes, and writing checks to those who don't. Yes, yes, in the real world this is known as "welfare," but please try not to ruin the show. For his next trick, the Great Obama will jumpstart the economy, and he'll do it by raising taxes on the very businesses that are today adrift in a financial tsunami! That will include all those among the top 1% of taxpayers who are in fact small-business owners, and the nation's biggest employers who currently pay some of the highest corporate tax rates in the developed world. Mr. Obama will, with a flick of his fingers, show them how to create more jobs with less money. It's simple, really. He has a wand. CNN: Obama’s lying about William Ayers posted on October 7, 2008 by Ed Morrissey ..."You’ll want to double-check the logo at the bottom left corner during this report. It really is CNN and Anderson Cooper fact-checking Barack Obama’s claims to have barely known William Ayers — and calling it dishonest. Stanley Kurtz even gets to make an appearance on a network other than Fox for this report (via Dirty Harry’s Place): Drew Griffin runs down most of the salient points raised by people like Kurtz, David Freddoso, Jerome Corsi, and others. Obama’s admission in a debate that he briefly served on “a board” with Ayers with little contact gets shot down. CNN followed up on Kurtz’ work with the Chicago Annenberg Challenge and debunks that notion. They also — amazingly — report on the nature of the grants made by the CAC while Obama ran it to Ayers’ favored schools with radical agendas."... The Boston Globe Seeing through Obamanomics By Jeff Jacoby Globe Columnist / September 14, 2008 Full article Jeff Jacoby The Boston Globe Excerpts: ALL THROUGH the spring and summer, opinion polls tracked a growing confidence that Barack Obama could handle the economy better than John McCain. Just before the Democratic convention in August, Gallup had Obama leading McCain on the economy, 54-38 - a 16-point margin. But now Obama's lead has nearly vanished. Gallup's latest numbers show the candidates nearly tied. Just 48 percent say Obama would be more adept at superintending the economy; 45 percent choose McCain. Looks like voters have started paying attention to Obama's economics. On Sept. 8, Fox News broadcast an interview between Obama and Bill O'Reilly that focused on taxation and the economy. Obama repeated his pledge to cut taxes for 95 percent of Americans, while raising taxes on the tiny fraction who earn more than $250,000. Tough Truths About Obama's Character INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY Friday, September 12, 2008 4:20 PM PT Election '08: Barack Obama's campaign is crying foul over John McCain's new hard-hitting ads. But the Democratic nominee has no one but himself to blame for his statements and his behavior. Full article INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY Excerpts: One new spot slams Sen. Obama for riling up a crowd with his "lipstick on a pig" jibe on Tuesday, just days after GOP running mate Gov. Sarah Palin brought the house down at the Republican convention in St. Paul with her line about lipstick being the only difference between a hockey mom and a pit bull. Another ad hits the former community organizer for voting when a state senator for sex education for kindergarteners. A third commercial compares dozens of Democratic Party operatives sent to Alaska looking for dirt on Gov. Palin to ferocious wolves on the hunt in the Alaskan wilderness. Obama has accused the McCain camp of "lies." But a careful look at the video of the full Obama lipstick statement to a rally in rural southwestern Virginia indicates that it was not innocent, but exactly what Sen. McCain is accusing it of being. Senator Biden’s Delaware Funding Requests for FY 2009
Assessment of Juvenile Violence and Substance Use in Delaware Center for Drug and Alcohol Studies, University of Delaware, Newark, DETo supplement one of the most comprehensive state youth social indicator sources in the country, the Delaware School Survey, with the ability to report on new developments (e.g., prescription medication abuse, youth gambling, internet drug access), investigate and track emerging trends in youth substance use.Request: $65,000. • Center for Sensitive Optical Detection TechnologiesDelaware State University, Dover, DelawareThis multi-year project will develop a Center to research the sensitive detection of specific proteins, biomarkers, fluorescent labels, and/or atomic and molecular traces, all of which play crucial roles in characterizing complex samples and detecting early signs of dangerous diseases or other potential threats to national security.Request: $1,000,000 • Crime Scene and Evidence Tracking ProjectDelaware State University, Dover, Delaware,To continue work on the Crime Scene and Evidence Tracking Project which leverages the use and integration of several emerging and current technologies, products and solutions focused on homeland security, critical incidents and emergency response.Request: $2,000,000 • Downtown Video Surveillance CamerasCity of Newark Police Department, Newark, Delaware,For video surveillance cameras in the downtown area to assist in crime prevention, detection, and the identification and apprehension of suspects.Request: $115,420 • Gunshot Locator SystemDelaware State Police, Dover, DelawareFor the purchase of a mobile gunshot locator system that utilizes technology to detect weapons-fire over large, complex environments and instantly identify, locate and give a visual of the location of a gunshot event.Request: $1,500,000 For the purchase, installation and implementation of a High Power Voice and Siren System in the boundaries of the City of Newark. The goal of the project is to implement an extremely effective option for warning the public that will enable Newark to effectively communicate during events which may threaten the health and safety of the citizens and visitors, including over 20,000 University of Delaware students.Request: $300,000 • In-Car Cameras and Digital StorageDelaware State Police, Dover, Delaware,For the purchase and installation of in-car cameras and related equipment.Request: $512,000 • Incident Command Vehicle ProjectDelaware State University’s Department of Public Safety, Dover, DelawareFor an incident command vehicle to be used as a mobile command center for large incidents and events.Request: $240,000 • Message Switcher UpgradesDelaware State Police, Dover, DelawareTo perform preliminary engineering assessments for upgrading the state portal to The National Crime Information Center in response to FBI upgrades to the system and new security standards.Request: $100,000 • Utility of Technology License Plate Scanning InitiativeNew Castle County Police Department, New Castle, DelawareTo enhance information sharing capabilities and assist law enforcement by upgrading the current mobile data terminals in the field and implement the Automated License Plate Recognition System.Request: $896,000 Building Opportunities for Delawareans • Delaware Aerospace Education FoundationDelaware Aerospace Education Foundation, Smyrna, DEFor earth and space education using two unique outdoor exhibits as a focal point for school programming, professional development and public outreach.Request: $545,000 • Delaware Art MuseumDelaware Art Museum, Wilmington, DETo establish a program that ensures access to the museum for youth and adults by integrating museum visits into school curricula and increasing outreach to underserved communities in Wilmington.Request: $250,000 • Delaware Biotechnology InstituteDelaware Biotechnology Institute, Newark, DETo support Delaware’s growing life sciences industry by acquiring state-of-the-art research instrumentation.Request: $1,400,000 • Delaware Children’s MuseumDelaware Children’s Museum, Wilmington, DE Supply-Side Slip By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY Monday, September 08, 2008 4:20 PM PT Obama On Taxes: The candidate now suggests he might not start squeezing the "rich" until the economy's in better shape. If only he would follow that logic further. Full article INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY Excerpts: "My tax cuts will create jobs. His tax increases will eliminate them." So said John McCain last week in accepting the Republican presidential nomination, and — get this — Barack Obama agrees with him. Not that Obama would ever admit as much. But consider this exchange between Obama and ABC News' George Stephanopoulos on Sunday. We pick up where Obama has just explained that he wants to "stabilize" the deficit and "give a tax break to middle-class families" to get the economy growing again: Stephanopoulos: "So even if we're in a recession next January (and) you come into office, you'll still go through with your tax increase?" REAL CLEAR POLITICS September 05, 2008 Why Obama's "Community Organizer" Days Are a Joke By Michelle Malkin Full article Michelle Malkin RCP Excerpts: Rudy Giuliani had me in stitches during his red-meat keynote address at the GOP convention. I laughed out loud when Giuliani laughed out loud while noting Barack Obama's deep experience as a "community organizer." I laughed again when VP nominee and Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin cracked: "I guess a small-town mayor is sort of like a 'community organizer,' except that you have actual responsibilities." Team Obama was not amused. (Neither were the snarky left-wingers on cable TV who are now allergic to sarcasm.) They don't get why we snicker when Obama dons his Community Organizer cape. Apparently, the jibes rendered Obama's advisers sleepless. In a crack-of-dawn e-mail to Obama's followers hours after Giuliani and Palin spoke, campaign manager David Plouffe attempted to gin up faux outrage (and, more importantly, donations) by claiming grave offense on the part of community organizers everywhere. Fumed Plouffe: "Both Rudy Giuliani and Sarah Palin specifically mocked Barack's experience as a community organizer on the South Side of Chicago more than two decades ago, where he worked with people who had lost jobs and been left behind when the local steel plants closed. Let's clarify something for them right now. Community organizing is how ordinary people respond to out-of-touch politicians and their failed policies." Barack Obama is still trying to explain his relationship with the unrepentant Weather Underground terrorist bomber William Ayers. In an April debate, Obama clained Ayers was a casual acquaintance. But some recent data from the Chicago Annenberg Challenge education program seem to tie Obama much closer to Ayers. The Obama campaign has tried to get the ads discussing the relationship off the air. There is also Obama's 2003 vote against a bill, "virtually identical" as the Obama campaign admits, to one that passed the U.S. Senate 98-0, banning the killing of fetuses who have survived abortions. In one example of this horrible practice a baby lived for 45 minutes after the procedure. The bill supported by Barack's bill would necessitate killing the baby even after it's born. CATO@LIBERTY Obama Tax Proposals Full article CATO@LIBERTY Excerpts: Candidate Obama has introduced an array of tax proposals, which he discusses in various places on his campaign website. There are four overlapping themes in the Obama tax proposals the way I see it: 1. Social engineering. 2. Discrimination. 3. Economic micromanagement. 4. Empty populism. Under social engineering, I would put Obama’s plan to greatly increase the dependent care tax credit. That would further encourage parents to find institutional day care for their children, rather than providing care themselves. Under discrimination, I would put Obama’s proposed special tax break for the elderly. The federal fiscal system is already heavily tilted in favor of the elderly, thus it is unclear why Obama would want to further discriminate against the young. REAL CLEAR POLITICS August 26, 2008 Obama Needs to Explain His Ties to William Ayers By Michael Barone Full article Michael Barone RCP Excerpts: It doesn't help the Obama campaign that William Ayers is back in the news. Ayers, you'll recall, was the Weather Underground terrorist in the late 1960s and '70s whose radical group set bombs at the Pentagon and U.S. Capitol. During the April 16 Democratic debate, Barack Obama explained his past association with Ayers by saying he was just a guy "in my neighborhood," meaning the University of Chicago enclave known as Hyde Park. But is that end of it? This is, after all, Chicago we're talking about; where political patronage and nepotism are the only ways one moves up the power ladder. Decades after his radical youth, Ayers was one of the original grantees of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, a school reform organization in the 1990s, and was co-chairman of the Chicago School Reform Collaborative, one the two operational arms of the CAC. Obama, then not yet a state senator, became chairman of the CAC in 1995. Later in that year, the first organizing meeting for Obama's state Senate campaign was held in Ayers's apartment. You might wonder what Obama was doing working with a character like this. And you might wonder how an unrepentant terrorist got a huge grant and cooperation from the Chicago public school system. You might wonder--if you don't know Chicago. For this is a city with a civic culture in which politicians, in the words of a story often told by former congressman, federal judge, and Clinton White House counsel Abner Mikva, "don't want nobody nobody sent." August 28, 2008 The Devils in His Details By George Will Full article George Will Real Clear Politics Excerpts: DENVER -- When Barack Obama feeds rhetorical fishes and loaves to the multitudes in the football stadium Thursday night, he should deliver a message of sufficient particularity that it seems particularly suited to Americans. One more inspirational oration, one general enough to please Berliners or even his fellow "citizens of the world," will confirm Pascal's point that "continuous eloquence wearies." That is so because it is not really eloquent. If it is continuous, it is necessarily formulaic and abstract, vague enough for any time and place, hence truly apposite for none... ...Russia, a third-world nation with first-world missiles, is rampant; Iran is developing a missile inventory capable of delivering nuclear weapons the development of which will not be halted by Obama's promised "aggressive personal diplomacy." Yet Obama has vowed to "cut investments in unproven missile defense systems." Steamboats, railroads, airplanes and vaccines were "unproven" until farsighted people made investments. Furthermore, as Reuel Marc Gerecht of the American Enterprise Institute notes, Democrats will eventually embrace missile defense in Europe because they "will have nowhere else to go short of pre-emptive strikes against Iran's nuclear facilities." Obama, who might be the last person to learn that schools' cognitive outputs are not simply functions of financial inputs, promises more money for teachers, who, as usual, are about 10 percent of the Democrats' convention delegates and alternates. He waxes indignant about approximately 150,000 jobs sent overseas each year -- less than 1 percent of the number of jobs normally lost and gained in the creative destruction of America's dynamic economy. U.S. exports are fending off a recession while he complains about free trade. He deplores NAFTA, although since it was implemented in 1994 the U.S., Mexican and Canadian economies have grown 50 percent, 46 percent and 54 percent, respectively. August 25, 2008 It's Joe Biden Sunday, August 24, 2008 Biden [Yuval Levin] Full article Yuval Levin NRO Excerpts: For me, the most striking line in Obama’s introduction of Biden today was: “Joe Biden is what so many others pretend to be — a statesman with sound judgment who doesn't have to hide behind bluster to keep America strong.” Hmmm…now who do we know who pretends to be a statesman? The entire event made roughly the same point: boy, Obama is inexperienced and light. The Biden pick is obviously meant to compensate for precisely that worry, but it seems far more likely rather to exacerbate it. Biden, after all, is not in fact some kind of celebrated statesman, and not a single person in America (except perhaps Joe Biden) thinks he is. But even he might appear that way in comparison with Obama.
on the Internet-Learn More-Click Photo August 19, 2008 INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY Thursday, August 14, 2008 Obama's Radical Roots And Rules Election '08: Most Americans revile socialism, yet Barack Obama's poll numbers remain competitive. One explanation: He's a longtime disciple of a man whose mission was to teach radicals to disguise their ideology. Excerpts: The presumptive Democratic presidential nominee's choice of the word "change" as his campaign's central slogan is not the product of focus-group studies, or the brainstorming sessions of his political consultants. One of Obama's main inspirations was a man dedicated to revolutionary change that he was convinced "must be preceded by a passive, affirmative, nonchallenging attitude toward change among the mass of our people. They must feel so frustrated, so defeated, so lost, so futureless in the prevailing system that they are willing to let go of the past and change the future."Saul Alinsky, circa 1946: Like Obama, he wanted "change." Saul Alinsky, circa 1946: Like Obama, he wanted "change." Sen. Obama was trained by Chicago's Industrial Areas Foundation, founded in 1940 by the radical organizer Saul Alinsky. In the 1980s, Obama spent years as director of the Developing Communities Project, which operated using Alinsky's strategies, and was involved with two other Alinsky-oriented entities, Acorn and Project Vote. REAL CLEAR POLITICS August 13, 2008 The Galbraith Effect? By Thomas Sowell Full article Thomas Sowell RCP Many years ago, when I was a college student, I took a course from John Kenneth Galbraith. On the first day of class, Professor Galbraith gave a brilliant opening lecture, after which the students gave him a standing ovation. Galbraith kept on giving brilliant opening lectures the whole semester. But, instead of standing ovations, there were now dwindling numbers of students and some of them got up and walked out in the middle of his lectures. Galbraith never got beyond the glittering generalities that marked his first lecture. After a while, the students got tired of not getting any real substance. Senator Barack Obama's campaign this year reminds me very much of that course from Professor Galbraith. Many people were ecstatic during the early primaries, as each state's voters heard his glittering generalities for the first time.REAL CLEAR POLITICS August 11, 2008 The Obama/Wright/Kilpatrick Collision By Steve Mitchell Full article Steve Mitchell Excerpts: Two percent. That's the percent of voters outside the "Motor City" that have a favorable impression of embattled Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick. You don't have to be a pollster to understand how strongly disliked Kilpatrick is throughout Michigan. Sit in any restaurant or bar, and all you hear is people talking about Kilpatrick's troubles. Indicted in March on eight felony counts for committing perjury during a whistleblower trial that eventually cost the city about $9 million, the Mayor spent one night in jail on August 7th for violating his bond and then was arraigned the next day for a new crime. In the latest charges, Kilpatrick is accused of assaulting two sheriff's deputies as they were trying to serve one of his close friends with a subpoena. And, what does this have to do with Barack Obama? Although Kilpatrick has distanced himself from Obama and Obama has distanced himself from Kilpatrick, they are both inextricably linked to Rev. Jeremiah Wright. And, that is Obama's problem. UnionLeader.Com Drew Cline School Choice For Me, But Not For Thee Saturday August 02nd 2008, 8:05 am Filed under: Blog Posts I know you’ll be shocked to learn this, but Barack Obama sends his two daughters to an extremely expensive (elite!) private school run by the University of Chicago. The tuition bill for both kids: $38 grand a year. And, oh yes, Obama opposes school choice. Can’t have people abandoning the public schools. As Obama says, we must devote our resources to improving them, not abandoning them. Like, um, he did. By “we,” he means, “you.” His kids are outta there. Yours are stuck there. Good luck to them. Saturday August 02nd 2008, 8:05 am NEW YORK POST BARACK LOWERS HIS WORTH WITH CHEAP 'DOLLAR' SHOT By CHARLES HURT BARACK LOWERS HIS WORTH WITH CHEAP 'DOLLAR' SHOT By CHARLES HURT August 1, 2008 WASHINGTON - Barack Obama committed the worst blunder of his campaign by wrongly accusing President Bush, John McCain and other Republicans of trying to make voters fear him because he's not "like all those other presidents on the dollar bills." This racial calumny is completely unfair, diminishes his own campaign, and certainly is the worst possible way to win over those blue-collar white Democrats in Ohio and Pennsylvania who picked Hillary Rodham Clinton over him in the primary. And it's certainly not how he's gotten this far. REAL CLEAR POLITICS Poof! The Bounce is Gone br> Posted by TOM BEVAN Full article Tom Bevan RCP Excerpts: Is the bounce gone, or was there ever a bounce to begin with? After the Gallup tracking poll came out last Friday afternoon showing Obama's lead widening to 6 points from two points, I noted that we were seeing the first signs of what might be considered a "bounce" for Obama. Coupled with an up tick in Rasmussen's tracking poll on Friday, Obama's lead in the RCP National Average moved up to 4.8%. Obama's lead extended to 5.0% in the RCP Average over the weekend as Gallup's track went from 6 points on Friday to 7 points on Saturday and 9 points on Sunday, while Rasmussen ticked up to 6 on Saturday and back down to 5 on Sunday. What a difference 48 hours makes. With the release of the Gallup/USA Today shocker yesterday afternoon showing McCain leading by 4 points among likely voters, coupled with Rasmussen tightening down to just a 1-point Obama lead today and Gallup's tracking poll falling back to 6-points, Obama's lead in the RCP National Average is back down to 2.5% - the tightest it's been since June 7. From The Sunday Times July 27, 2008 American Account: Obama plays into the hands of the protectionists Irwin Stelzer Full article Irwin Stelzer The Sunday Times Excerpts: He came, he saw, and as they say in showbiz — for that was what Barack Obama’s European trip was all about — he knocked them dead. Having given the Germans an opportunity to adore him; traded views with Tony Blair on the plight of less charismatic politicians in the Middle East and, dare it be said, in Britain; heard Gordon Brown extol the virtues of the British healthcare system; and compared views on the role of individual responsibility with David Cameron, Obama returns to the United States to continue to persuade voters that he has the answers to their economic malaise. He starts with a real advantage. Although unemployment remains low and the economy continues to grow, voters are worried. A bank has failed, the financial news channels pump out dark tales of foreclosures and write-offs, petrol prices are crushingly high, and food prices are soaring. Most Americans say the economy is the most important issue in this election, and three out of four think we are in recession. Add that the Republicans are no longer in a position to chide Democrats for being wild-eyed spenders, for subverting the free-market system and for favouring heavy-handed regulation. President George W Bush has presided over the most expensive expansion of the welfare state since the days of Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society programmes, acquiesced in elaborate plans to bail out troubled financial institutions rather than leave their fates to the market, and along with his Treasury secretary, Hank Paulson, has rolled out myriad regulations covering short-selling, capital requirements and conduct of mortgage brokers, to mention only a few. Bush has also approved a stimulus package designed to shore up consumer spending, proving that Richard Nixon was on to something when he said “We’re all Keynesians now”. LOS ANGELES TIMES One world? Obama's on a different planet The senator's Berlin speech was radical and naive. By John R. Bolton July 26, 2008 Full article John R. Bolton Los Angeles Times Excerpts: SEN. BARACK OBAMA said in an interview the day after his Berlin speech that it "allowed me to send a message to the American people that the judgments I have made and the judgments I will make are ones that are going to result in them being safer." If that is what the senator thought he was doing, he still has a lot to learn about both foreign policy and the views of the American people. Although well received in the Tiergarten, the Obama speech actually reveals an even more naive view of the world than we had previously been treated to in the United States. In addition, although most of the speech was
substantively as content-free as his other campaign pronouncements, when substance did slip in, it was truly radical, from an American perspective. Guardian.co.uk Obama, too at home in Berlin Barack Obama's unmemorable speech in the German capital may reinforce the idea that he's out of touch with AmericaAll comments July 25, 2008 Full article Guardian.co.uk Excerpts:
There's a famous story in American media and politics told by Lesley Stahl, the longtime CBS television reporter. During the Reagan administration, she did a very tough piece on the effect of Reagan's budget cuts to nursing homes and facilities for children with disabilities. After it aired, she got a call from Dick Darman, a Reagan official. She was braced for a blast of criticism, but lo and behold Darman told her the segment was great. Stahl asked: what are you talking about? He explained that the segment's visuals had consisted of pictures of Reagan smiling while cutting ribbons at healthcare centres and nursing homes, and the visuals were all that mattered: "Nobody heard what you said." I'm not sure that's quite as true today as it was in 1984. I think people are somewhat savvier news consumers now. But assuming it's mostly still true, then Barack Obama probably got what he needed today out of the much-hyped Berlin speech. REAL CLEAR POLITICS July 21, 2008 Obama's Iraq Spotlight By Robert Novak Full article Robert Novak RCP Excerpts: WASHINGTON, D.C. -- I asked one of the Republican Party's smartest, most candid heavy hitters this week whether John McCain really has a chance to defeat Barack Obama in this season of Republican discontent. "No, if the campaign is about McCain," he replied. "Yes, if it's about Obama." That underlines the importance of Obama's visit to Iraq, beginning weeks of scrutiny for the Democratic presidential candidate under a GOP spotlight. Four years ago nearly to the day, I asked the same question to the same Republican leader about George W. Bush and John Kerry, and he gave the same answer. He proved prophetic because Bush's campaign made Kerry the issue, and the 2004 Democratic presidential candidate flunked the test. Obama is a far more interesting personality and an incomparably more appealing candidate than Kerry. But why then, in a year where the nation clearly has rejected the GOP as a party, does McCain have a real chance to be elected? Why does Obama have trouble breaking the 50 percent barrier, nationally and in battleground states? The Boston Globe Joan Vennochi July 20, 2008 The audacity of ego Full article Joan Vennochi Boston.com Excerpts: JUST LIKE the Obama girl, Obama has a crush on Obama. Barack Obama always was a larger-than-life candidate with a healthy ego. Now he's turning into the A-Rod of politics. It's all about him. He's giving his opponent something other than issues to attack him on: narcissism. REAL CLEAR POLITICS July 19, 2008 Obama's CEOs By Robert Novak Full article Bob Novak RCP Excerpts: WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Sen. Barack Obama has been meeting secretly with heavy industry CEOs in Washington to discuss issues that he would face as president. On the campaign trail, Obama has been highly critical of corporate executives and promised them nothing but tougher regulation and higher taxes. But the unannounced, small evening sessions with them since he clinched the Democratic nomination have been non-confrontational and cordial. Obama scheduled the meetings without any hopes of winning the captains of industry over from Sen. John McCain, but to show them they would be able to do business with him in the White House and that the president's door would be open to the corporate leaders. Their consensus was that he has largely succeeded in that purpose. ST. PETERSBURG TIMES Don't dare disagree with Obama Bill Maxwell Thursday, July 17, 2008 Full article Bill Maxwell ST. PETERSBURG TIMES Excerpts: You had better mind your manners with regard to Barack Obama, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee. You can't disagree with him. You can't question the legitimacy of his many platitudes and promises. And you had better watch it when you offer a litany of his flip-flops or point out his crass opportunism. Be forewarned: If you say, sing, write, draw, paint or sculpt anything unflattering about Obama, expect the Spanish Inquisition. The salvational fervor and unfiltered euphoria surrounding the man have cast a halo around his head. A halo, as you know, suggests something otherworldly. NEW YORK TIMES May We Mock, Barack Maureen Dowd July 16, 2008 Full article Maureen Dowd New York Times Excerpts: When I interviewed Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert for Rolling Stone a couple years ago, I wondered what Barack Obama would mean for them. “It seems like a President Obama would be harder to make fun of than these guys,” I said. “Are you kidding me?” Stewart scoffed. REAL CLEAR POLITICS July 15, 2008 Planning to Ignore the Facts By Rich Lowry Full article Rich Lowry RCP Excerpts: At some point, Democrats decided that facts didn't matter anymore in Iraq. And they nominated just the man to reflect the party's new anti-factual consensus on the war, a Barack Obama who has fixedly ignored changing conditions on the ground. It's gotten harder as the success of the surge has become undeniable, but -- despite some wobbles -- Obama is sticking to his plan for a 16-month timeline for withdrawal from Iraq. He musters dishonesty, evasion and straw-grasping to try to create a patina of respectability around a scandalously unserious position. Obama spokesmen now say everyone knew that President Bush's troop surge would create more security. This is blatantly false. Obama said in early 2007 that nothing in the surge plan would "make a significant dent in the sectarian violence," and the new strategy would "not prove to be one that changes the dynamics significantly." He referred to the surge derisively as "baby-sit(ting) a civil war." NEWSWEEK Is Obama's Glow Fading July 12, 2008 Jonathan Darman Full article Jonathan Darman Newsweek A month after emerging victorious from the bruising Democratic nominating contest, some of Barack Obama's glow may be fading. In the latest NEWSWEEK Poll, the Illinois senator leads Republican nominee John McCain by just 3 percentage points, 44 percent to 41 percent. The statistical dead heat is a marked change from last month's NEWSWEEK Poll, where Obama led McCain by 15 points, 51 percent to 36 percent. Obama's rapid drop comes at a strategically challenging moment for the Democratic candidate. Having vanquished Hillary Clinton in early June, Obama quickly went about repositioning himself for a general-election audience--an unpleasant task for any nominee emerging from the pander-heavy primary contests and particularly for a candidate who'd slogged through a vigorous primary challenge in most every contest from January until June. Obama's reversal on FISA legislation, his support of faith-based initiatives and his decision to opt out of the campaign public-financing system left him open to charges he was a flip-flopper. In the new poll, 53 percent of voters (and 50 percent of former Hillary Clinton supporters) believe that Obama has changed his position on key issues in order to gain political advantage. More seriously, some Obama supporters worry that the spectacle of their candidate eagerly embracing his old rival, Hillary Clinton, and traveling the country courting big donors at lavish fund-raisers, may have done lasting damage to his image as an arbiter of a new kind of politics. This is a major concern since Obama's outsider credentials, have, in the past, played a large part in his appeal to moderate, swing voters. In the new poll, McCain leads Obama among independents 41 percent to 34 percent, with 25 percent favoring neither candidate. In June's NEWSWEEK Poll, Obama bested McCain among independent voters, 48 percent to 36 percent. REAL CLEAR POLITICS July 11, 2008 Obama's Changes Raise Issue: Can You Believe in Him? By Mort Kondracke Full article Mort Kondracke RCP Excerpts: Maybe the biggest question of the 2008 presidential campaign is "Who is Sen. Barack Obama really?" Of late, the mystery is deepening. It's customary for presidential candidates to move to the center for the general election after they've pandered to their party's base in the primaries -- but the Illinois Democrat has claimed not to be your customary candidate, but someone who was going to usher in a new politics. He has eloquently promised "change we can believe in," but lately he's changing his tune on so many issues it's becoming a legitimate question: Can voters really believe in him? ECONOMIST.COM Jul 10th 2008 Full article THE ECONOMIST Excerpts: The only problem with Barack Obama’s move to the centre is that he’s not moving far enough THE reaction to Jesse Helms’s death on July 4th is a reminder of how bipolar American politics has become. The right praised him as a man of principle who also overflowed with the milk of human kindness. The left retorted—rightly, in our view—that he was also a bigot and a bully (see article). But at least conservatives and liberals have discovered one thing they can agree on: that Barack Obama is a cynical opportunist, a flip-flopper and a shape-changer, a man who brushes aside his principles with the same nonchalance that lesser mortals reserve for their dandruff. Bob Herbert of the New York Times worries that Mr Obama is “not just tacking gently to the centre. He’s lurching right when it suits him, and he’s zigging with the kind of reckless abandon that’s guaranteed to cause disillusion, if not whiplash.” Some 22,000 people have protested on his website about his change of heart on wiretapping. A group called “Recreate68” promises to complain about his move to the centre at the Democratic convention in Denver in August. For its part, the right has discovered that Mr Obama is not a “hard left” liberal, as it had previously thought, but a standard-issue politician who will “say and do anything to get elected”. Charles Krauthammer calls him a “man of seasonal principles”. Bo Snerdley, Rush Limbaugh’s sidekick, describes him as “the first black Clinton”. “Has there ever in recent political memory been so much calculation and bad faith by a politician who has made so much of eschewing both?”, asks Rich Lowry, the editor of the National Review. REAL CLEAR POLITICS July 09, 2008 Obama Would, In Fact, Govern From Left By Dick Morris Full article Dick Morris RCP Excerpts: The list of issues on which Barack Obama has flipped now that the primaries are over is long and growing rapidly. He says he believes in a Second Amendment right to bear arms. He now opposes late-term abortion. He suddenly is a devotee of using faith-based institutions to deliver public services. He now says that he won't raise Social Security taxes on anyone making less than $250,000 a year. In the primary, he said he'd eliminate the threshold entirely, including on people making as little as $100,000. He recently opposed the Fairness Doctrine for talk radio. Now he says he's going to consult with the military before pulling out of Iraq. But so extensive a list of flip-flops, all in the past few weeks, begs the basic question: Was he lying before when he was a liberal, or is he prevaricating now? THE WEEKLY STANDARD THE BLOG Barnes: Obama's Tack To The Center Full article Fred Barnes Excerpts: Barack Obama's tack to the center is quite clever for three reasons (and maybe more, but three is all I could think of). One, it may cause moderate and centrist voters to feel more comfortable about voting for him. That's the big one. Two, he's better off being attacked by John McCain as a flip-flopper than as an unrepentant liberal. And three, he gave up practically nothing in the process. The tack to the middle has been mostly a fuzzy feint that didn't lock him into any new positions. Start with Iraq. He says he'll consult the generals before ordering troop withdrawals. No kidding! Any president would do that. The only new thing in his formulation on ending the war is that "stability" would be a consideration. But of course "stability" is a vague concept. Stability in Iraq in January 2009 will be in the eye of the beholder. Obama's Iraq problem will come later in the campaign after his promised visit to Iraq. He'll find, contrary to his assurances last year that the surge would fail militarily and politically, that the civil war is over, al Qaeda largely beaten, and the Maliki government considerably less sectarian and dysfunctional than it had been. That's likely to be the reality that Obama will have to adjust to. REAL CLEAR POLITICS July 06, 2008 Obama Strikes First By Dick Morris and Eileen McGann Full article Dick Morris and Eileen McGann RCP Excerpts: The campaign of 2008 started on July 1 when Obama launched his first national advertising buy of the season. How McCain responds and whether or not he does, will have a big impact in determining whether Obama can solidify or expand his current lead in the polls. As always, the media fails to cover the significant events of the campaign -- but this is one of the most critical. The Obama ad, which introduces him as someone who worked his way through college, fights for American jobs, and battles for health care also seeks to move him to the center by taking credit for welfare reform in Illinois which, the ad proclaims, reduced the rolls by 80%. But there's one problem - Obama opposed the 1996 welfare reform act at the time. The Illinois law for which he takes credit, was merely the local implementing law the state was required to pass, and it did, almost unanimously. Obama's implication -- that he backed "moving people from welfare to work" -- is just not true. REAL CLEAR POLITICS July 04, 2008 A Man of Seasonal Principles By Charles Krauthammer Full article Charles Krauthammer RCP Excerpts: You'll notice Barack Obama is now wearing a flag pin. Again. During the primary campaign, he refused to, explaining that he'd worn one after Sept. 11 but then stopped because it "became a substitute for, I think, true patriotism." So why is he back to sporting pseudo-patriotism on his chest? Need you ask? The primaries are over. While seducing the hard-core MoveOn Democrats that delivered him the caucuses -- hence, the Democratic nomination -- Obama not only disdained the pin. He disparaged it. Now that he's running in a general election against John McCain, and in dire need of the gun-and-God-clinging working-class votes he could not win against Hillary Clinton, the pin is back. His country 'tis of thee. In last week's column, I thought I had thoroughly chronicled Obama's brazen reversals of position and abandonment of principles -- on public financing of campaigns, on NAFTA, on telecom immunity for post-Sept. 11 wiretaps, on unconditional talks with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad -- as he moved to the center for the general election campaign. I misjudged him. He was just getting started. Last week, when the Supreme Court declared unconstitutional the District of Columbia's ban on handguns, Obama immediately declared that he agreed with the decision. This is after his campaign explicitly told the Chicago Tribune last November that he believes the D.C. gun ban is constitutional. ABC NEWS Obama Shifts on Welfare Reform July 01, 2008 12:19 AM Full article Teddy Davis and Gregory Wallace ABC News Excerpts: ABC News' Teddy Davis and Gregory Wallace Report: Barack Obama aligned himself with welfare reform on Monday, launching a television ad which touts the way the overhaul "slashed the rolls by 80 percent." Obama leaves out, however, that he was against the 1996 federal legislation which precipitated the caseload reduction. "I am not a defender of the status quo with respect to welfare," Obama said on the floor of the Illinois state Senate on May 31, 1997. "Having said that, I probably would not have supported the federal legislation, because I think it had some problems." Obama's transformation from critic to champion of welfare reform is the latest in a series of moves to the center. Since capturing the Democratic nomination, the Obama campaign has altered its stances on Social Security taxes, meeting with rogue leaders without preconditions, and the constitutionality of Washington, D.C.'s, sweeping gun ban. WASHINGTON TIMES Obama's America is Canada Sunday, June 29, 2008 Full article Washington Times Excerpts: What kind of "change" does Barack Obama want? He seeks to transform America into Canada. Mr. Obama is not proposing "new politics," but is a champion of the well-known, already enacted policies in the Great White North. His proposals are more reflective of Canadian values than American national ideals. For example, Mr. Obama's economic plan consists of attempting to redress the disparities of wealth in the United States. He also wants to help the middle class, whom he states has been "squeezed" in the last decade. He rails against overpaid CEOs and an economy that is "out of balance." He will therefore impose higher taxes on those who make more than $250,000 per year, he will increase the capital-gains tax, he will cut taxes for the middle class and ensure that low-income seniors pay no tax. In other words, he will make America a more temperate nation — one in which the lows for those who do not succeed on their merits are not so low, and the highs for those who soar, are not so high. Mr. Obama's policies will result in stifling initiative and rendering America less meritocratic. This economic plan will have detrimental long-term effects, as has occurred in Canada. Canada suffers from a large "brain drain": Every year, many of the most talented, dynamic and enterprising individuals flock to America in order to escape the stagnation and limitations imposed on them by their government. WASHINGTONPOST.COM Pretzel Logic By Howard Kurtz Washington Post Staff Writer Friday, June 27, 2008; 9:31 AM Full article Howard Kurtz Washington Post Excerpts: Barack Obama is under hostile fire for changing his position on the D.C. gun ban. Oh, I'm sorry. He didn't change his position, apparently. He reworded a clumsy statement. That, at least, is what his campaign is saying. The same campaign that tried to spin his flip-flop in rejecting public financing as embracing the spirit of reform, if not the actual position he had once promised to embrace. Is this becoming a pattern? Wouldn't it be better for Obama to say he had thought more about such-and-such an issue and simply changed his mind? Is that verboten in American politics? Is it better to engage in linguistic pretzel-twisting in an effort to prove that you didn't change your mind? WALL STREET JOURNAL It's All About Obama By KARL ROVE June 26, 2008; Page A13 Full article WSJ Excerpts: Many candidates have measured the Oval Office drapes prematurely. But Barack Obama is the first to redesign the presidential seal before the election. His seal featured an eagle emblazoned with his logo, and included a Latin version of his campaign slogan. This was an attempt by Sen. Obama to make himself appear more presidential. But most people saw in the seal something else – chutzpah – and he's stopped using it. Such arrogance – even self-centeredness – have featured often in the Obama campaign. Consider his treatment of Jeremiah Wright. After Rev. Wright repeated his anti-American slurs at the National Press Club, Mr. Obama said their relationship was forever changed – but not because of what he'd said about America. Instead, Mr. Obama complained, "I don't think he showed much concern for me." WALL STREET JOURNAL Obama's Social Security Fine Print By DONALD L. LUSKIN June 25, 2008; Page A15 Full article WSJ Excerpts: Last week, Barack Obama revealed his plan to shore up Social Security's shaky finances by raising the income level on which the payroll tax is applied. Currently, incomes above $102,000 are exempt, with that threshold rising every year indexed to wage inflation. Mr. Obama would keep that limit in place, but then assess payroll taxes on incomes above $250,000, which his campaign claims would apply to only the richest 3% of Americans. Mr. Obama angered liberals last year when he admitted that there was a "Social Security crisis." But at least Mr. Obama's base should be appeased now that his solution to the "crisis" is to soak the rich. One liberal columnist actually noted with glee the fact that this would take us back to top tax rates not seen since the 1970s. According to the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center, Mr. Obama's new tax would siphon off 0.4% of gross domestic product annually. Combined with Mr. Obama's other tax-hike initiatives, "the total tax on labor would be close to 60 percent. In high-tax states like California and New York, the top rate would be even higher." FORTUNE What Obama means for business He slammed big companies and free trade in the primaries, but Barack Obama insists he just wants to show corporate America some tough love. We go behind the scenes to see how he plans to make the U.S. a land of opportunity once again. By Nina Easton, Washington bureau chief Last Updated: June 23, 2008: 11:22 AM EDT Full article Nina Easton Fortune Excerpts: (Fortune Magazine) -- Barack Obama is shaking his head. "No, no, no, no, no." His slim figure had been bent forward in a folding chair (prime position to radiate outsized charm). But my question - does he consider corporate America a destructive force? - prompts him to bolt upright to a more defensive pose. It's a purposely provocative query, but a fair one: When Obama talks about business, it's usually to complain about corporate tax breaks or trade deals or jobs shipped overseas. High-paid CEOs are the familiar villains in his stump speeches, including the one he has just given on this Raleigh fairground. Free-market critics look at his varied plans to raise taxes and pronounce him hostile to wealth creation and market growth. And in a small but telling episode during the Indiana primary, his campaign used a 2007 Fortune cover story - "Business Loves Hillary" - to attack Clinton, as if "business" were a dirty word, not the nation's economic engine. WALL STREET JOURNAL Obama Turns FDR Upside Down By LAWRENCE B. LINDSEY June 20, 2008; Page A13 Full article Lawrence B. Lindsey WSJ Excerpts: Sen. Barack Obama has a bad idea for "extending the life of Social Security." He has proposed applying the Social Security tax to incomes above $250,000, in addition to the current tax on incomes up to $102,000. It's unfair, he explained, for middle-class earners to pay Social Security tax on "every dime they make" while the very rich pay on "only a very small percentage of their income." Reporters cited the Obama statement without asking for the logic behind having someone making $100,000 pay on every dime and someone making $250,000 pay on just 41% of income, while someone making $10,000,000 would pay on 98.5% of income. There is no economic principle or theory of tax law that would endorse such a result. Sen. Obama's logic is fairly obvious, although it hardly makes him an exemplar of the "new politics." The $100,000 to $250,000 group is a targeted voter demographic, and he really didn't want to sock them with a 12.4 percentage point hike in their tax rate. But, as Sen. Obama himself noted in his June 13 announcement, just 3% of workers make more than a quarter-million. NEW YORK POST EVER-CHANGING 'CHANGE' Full article New York Post Excerpts: June 21, 2008 -- Awash in campaign cash, Barack Obama this week announced that he's opting out of the public-financing system for presidential campaigns. He'll be the first general-election candidate to do that since the system was set up. This gives new meaning to the notion of "politics of change." "In February 2007, I proposed a novel way to preserve the strength of the public-financing system in the 2008 election," he wrote in November. "My plan requires both major party candidates to agree on a fund-raising truce, return excess money from donors and stay within the public-financing system for the general election." So much for that. NEW YORK POST Obama Vs. Osama Ralph Peters Full article Ralph Peters New York Post Excerpts: June 19, 2008 -- NAME-BRAND journalists have let Barack Obama make any claim he chooses about Iraq, Afghanistan or coping with terrorism without pinning him down for details. Yet many of his comments and positions seem stunningly naive about national security. Given that this man may become our next president, shouldn't he explain how he'd do the many impressive things he's promised? This week, Obama claimed, again, that he'd promptly capture Osama bin Laden. OK, tell me how: Specifically, which concrete measures would he take that haven't been taken? How would he force our intelligence agencies to locate bin Laden? And he can't just respond, "That's classified." REAL CLEAR POLITICS June 13, 2008 Why Won't Obama Agree to Townhalls? By Mort Kondracke Full article Mort Kondracke RCP Excerpts: Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) got an answer from Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) Tuesday on his proposal for 10 town hall-style debates: Not going to happen. That's too bad - and, the fewer there are, the more Obama should suffer for it politically. The town halls not only would give ordinary citizens a chance to ask the candidates some pointed questions (see suggestions below), but - because they would be nationally televised - they would let voters nationwide see how the candidates handle challenges from across the political spectrum. When Obama was debating Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY) and - in the distant past - when McCain debated his GOP rivals, the Democrats rarely got tough questions premised from the right, or the Republicans, from the left. Obama doesn't want to give deductions against those who actually pay "net taxes". You don't have to pay taxes to get the "Unearned Income Tax Credit." Bill Clinton also did this and called it middle class tax cuts. They were nothing but increased welfare payments NATIONAL JOURNAL MAGAZINE The Democratic Gamble by Ronald Brownstein Sat. Jun 7, 2008 Full article Ronald Brownstein National Journal Magazine Excerpts: It’s difficult to overstate Barack Obama’s achievement in wresting the Democratic presidential nomination from Hillary Rodham Clinton—or the magnitude of the gamble he represents for his party. Obama is the first true insurgent to win either major party’s nod since Democrat Jimmy Carter in 1976. In the modern primary era, the only other insurgents to capture nominations were Republican Barry Goldwater in 1964 and Democrat George McGovern in 1972. And none of those three defeated a front-runner as formidable as Clinton. Obama’s campaign will likely be remembered as the most successful primary insurgency ever. That itself defines some of the Democratic gamble. An insurgent campaign inherently upsets existing arrangements and assumptions. It trades the comfort of the familiar for the exhilaration and unpredictability of the new. Obama’s campaign is no exception. He offers Democrats new electoral opportunities with the enormous passion and activism he inspires. But his hold on some voting blocs and states that the party traditionally targets looks shakier than Clinton’s might have been. Obama almost certainly presents Democrats with a better chance to redraw the electoral map and expand their coalition if all goes well. But, in a year so tilted toward Democrats, Clinton might have represented a safer bet to accumulate the bare minimum of 270 electoral votes needed to win the White House. Compared with Clinton, “Obama has a much bigger upside,” says Robert Borosage, co-director of the liberal Campaign for America’s Future. “And a much bigger risk.” The Democratic Gamble WALL STREET JOURNAL The Obama We Don't Know June 4, 2008; Page A20 Full article Wall Street Journal Excerpts: With Barack Obama clinching the Democratic Party nomination, it is worth noting what an extraordinary moment this is. Democrats are nominating a freshman Senator barely three years out of the Illinois legislature whom most of America still hardly knows. The polls say he is the odds-on favorite to become our next President. Think about this in historical context. Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton were relatively unknown, but both had at least been prominent Governors. John Kerry, Walter Mondale, Al Gore and even George McGovern were all long-time Washington figures. Republican nominees tend to be even more familiar, for better or worse. In Mr. Obama, Democrats are taking a leap of faith that is daring even by their risky standards. No doubt this is part of his enormous appeal. Amid public anger over politics as usual, the Illinois Senator is unhaunted by Beltway experience. His personal story – of mixed race, and up from nowhere through Harvard – resonates in an America where the two most popular cultural icons are Tiger Woods and Oprah. His political gifts are formidable, especially his ability to connect with audiences from the platform. WASHINGTON POST.COM Lou Cannon Reagan's Choice From 1976, a Question for Obama and Clinton June 3, 2008 Full article Lou Cannon Washington Post Excerpts: Gerald Ford went to his grave believing that Ronald Reagan's challenge for the Republican presidential nomination cost him the White House in 1976. In truth, Reagan sharpened Ford as a candidate, much as Hillary Clinton's campaign has sharpened Barack Obama in 2008. What damaged Ford in his effort to overtake Democrat Jimmy Carter was not what Reagan did to him in the spring of 1976 but what he failed to do in the fall. Similarly, the question now is what role Clinton will play after Obama has formally secured the nomination. The roller-coaster nature of this year's marathon contest for the Democratic nomination has many echoes of the GOP race of 1976. While Ford had the advantage of incumbency, he was to the GOP's conservative wing an accidental president who held the office only because Richard Nixon had been forced to resign. These conservatives favored Reagan, who was expected to win the first primary, in New Hampshire. But Ford upset Reagan, as Obama upset Clinton in this year's Iowa caucuses, and he parlayed his victory into a string of primary wins. Ford's nomination seemed assured until Reagan climbed off the mat and won the North Carolina primary. That began a protracted struggle, as Clinton's comeback win in New Hampshire did in this year's Democratic race. Reagan won a slew of primaries in important states, as Clinton has, without ever quite catching Ford, who was nominated at the Republican National Convention in Kansas City by little more than a hundred votes. By the time he became the nominee, Ford was a better candidate than he would have been without the Reagan challenge, much as Obama has benefited from Clinton's challenge. In 1976, Ford had never run for office beyond his Grand Rapids congressional district; while an estimable human being and an underrated president, he was a plodding campaigner and often a dreadful public speaker. His speechwriters once tried to improve his delivery by writing the words "WITH EMPHASIS" in the margin of his text. Ford, denouncing something or other as "nonsense," incorporated the notes into his speech and told a startled audience: "I say to you this is nonsense with emphasis!" ChicagoTribune.COM Originally posted: May 30, 2008 Pfleger's vile sermon You can read the Tribune's Saturday editorial regarding the news surrounding Rev. Michael Pfleger here. Full article Michael Phleger Excerpts: When Barack Obama announced his campaign for president, you could anticipate that ugly racial stereotypes would rear up. You probably couldn’t anticipate that some of his strongest supporters would promote the worst of it. That’s what the nation saw as video surfaced of a sermon Rev. Michael Pfleger gave last Sunday from the pulpit of Obama’s church in Chicago. Pfleger talks of exposing “white entitlement and supremacy wherever it raises its head, and then theatrically mocks Sen. Hillary Clinton. NEW YORK POST Adam Brodsky May 30, 2998 BAM'S LAND OF LOSERS HIS PATHETIC ADVICE TO GRADS Full article Adam Brodsky NY Post Excerpts: FOR all his soaring, hopeful rhetoric, Barack Obama chose an odd message this week to send Wesleyan's graduating seniors. Face it, kids - he basically said - Americans are losers. Pathetic, needy dependents who can't make it without help. So forget your dreams, dear graduates. Go forth and aid your fellow deadbeats. Never mind "The Audacity of Hope." Obama was trumpeting "The Ubiquity of Failure." "The Equality of Need." "The Endlessness of the Dole." REAL CLEAR POLITICS May 29, 2008 Obama's Woes: A Tale of Three States By Richard Baehr Full article Richard Baehr RCP Excerpts: If you want evidence that the Democrats are taking a huge gamble by nominating Barack Obama as their Presidential candidate, you need look no further than the current state of the race in three Southern/border states. In 1992 and 1996 Bill Clinton won Kentucky, West Virginia and Arkansas. In 2000 and 2004, George Bush won all three states. In the current Democratic Party nominating contest, Hillary Clinton won all three states by huge margins -- 30 points or more in each case. West Virginia (3%), and Kentucky (7%) have relatively small black populations. Arkansas is just over 15% African American (in the same range as Florida and Tennessee). The three states have 19 Electoral College votes among them, almost as many as Ohio (20). In 2004, Bush won the Electoral College by 286-252. Had he lost Ohio, Kerry would have been elected. In 2008, Ohio will undoubtedly be a battleground again. May 29, 2008 Obama's Need for a Loyal Caucus By David Broder Full article David Broder Excerpts: WASHINGTON -- A year after Jimmy Carter lost his re-election race to Ronald Reagan, Hamilton Jordan, his former White House chief of staff, sat down for a lengthy interview with scholars at the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia. Last week, after hearing the news of Jordan's death, friends at the center sent me a transcript of that 27-year-old interview. As they predicted, it was of intense interest for current politics, and particularly on the challenge facing Barack Obama. The main theme of Jordan's interview was this intriguing observation: "Only because of the fragmentation that had taken place" in the Democratic Party and its allied groups was Carter able to be nominated and elected in 1976. But that same fragmentation made the challenge of governing so difficult that he was almost doomed to fail. TOWNHALL.COM Tuesday, May 27, 2008 Obama's WWII Uncle Flap By Amanda Carpenter Full article Amanda Carpenter Townhall.Com Barack Obama’s campaign staff is scrambling to explain a family story Obama told on the campaign trail that rivals say is untrue and warrants explanation. At a Memorial Day campaign stop Obama told a story about his WWII veteran uncle who allegedly liberated Auschwitz. Upon returning to the United States, according to Obama family lore, the uncle spent months alone in his attic. “Now obviously, something had really affected him deeply, but at that time there just weren’t the kinds of facilities to help somebody work through that kind of pain,” Obama said. “That’s why this idea of making sure that every single veteran, when they are discharged, are screened for post-traumatic stress disorder and given the mental health services that they need – that’s why it’s so important.” The trouble is, the Red Army liberated Auschwitz and Obama’s mother is an only child. (His father left him at a young age, so it was unlikely the uncle in question was related to his father.) REAL CLEAR POLITICS May 27, 2008 Mascot Politics By Thomas Sowell Excerpts: Years ago, when Jack Greenberg left the NAACP Legal Defense Fund to become a professor at Columbia University, he announced that he was going to make it a point to hire a black secretary at Columbia. This would of course make whomever he hired be seen as a token black, rather than as someone selected on the basis of competence. This reminded me of the first time I went to Milton Friedman's office when I was a graduate student at the University of Chicago back in 1960, and I noticed that he had a black secretary. This was four years before the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and there was no such thing as affirmative action. NEWSWEEK CAMPAIGN 2008 Obama’s Lobbyist Connection By Michael Isikoff Jun 2, 2008 Issue Full article Michael Isikoff Excerpts: When Illinois utility Commonwealth Edison wanted state lawmakers to back a hefty rate hike two years ago, it took a creative lobbying approach, concocting a new outfit that seemed devoted to the public interest: Consumers Organized for Reliable Electricity, or CORE. CORE ran TV ads warning of a "California-style energy crisis" if the rate increase wasn't approved—but without disclosing the commercials were funded by Commonwealth Edison. The ad campaign provoked a brief uproar when its ties to the utility, which is owned by Exelon Corp., became known. "It's corporate money trying to hoodwink the public," the state's Democratic Lt. Gov. Pat Quinn said. What got scant notice then—but may soon get more scrutiny—is that CORE was the brainchild of ASK Public Strategies, a consulting firm whose senior partner is David Axelrod, now chief strategist for Barack Obama. Last week, Obama hit John McCain for hiring "some of the biggest lobbyists in Washington" to run his campaign; Obama's aides say their candidate, as a foe of "special interests," has refused to take money from lobbyists or employ them. Neither Axelrod nor his partners at ASK ever registered as lobbyists for Commonwealth Edison—and under Illinois's loose disclosure laws, they were not required to. "I've never lobbied anybody in my life," Axelrod tells NEWSWEEK. "I've never talked to any public official on behalf of a corporate client." (He also says "no one ever denied" that Edison was the "principal funder" of his firm's ad campaign.) But the activities of ASK (located in the same office as Axelrod's political firm) illustrate the difficulties in defining exactly who a lobbyist is. In 2004, Cablevision hired ASK to set up a group similar to CORE to block a new stadium for the New York Jets in Manhattan. Unlike Illinois, New York disclosure laws do cover such work, and ASK's $1.1 million fee was listed as the "largest lobbying contract" of the year in the annual report of the state's lobbying commission. ASK last year proposed a similar "political campaign style approach" to help Illinois hospitals block a state proposal that would have forced them to provide more medical care to the indigent. One part of its plan: create a "grassroots" group of medical experts "capable of contacting policymakers to advocate for our position," according to a copy of the proposal. (ASK didn't get the contract.) Public-interest watchdogs say these grassroots campaigns are state of the art in the lobbying world. "There's no way with a straight face to say that's not lobbying," says Ellen Miller, director of the Sunlight Foundation, which promotes government transparency. THE AUSTRALIAN Greg Sheridan Foreign editor May 24, 2008 Full article Greg Sheridan The Australian Excerpts: SO now it's all but official. November's presidential election will be a historic bout full of symbolism and substance and the clanging bells of history.The first black candidate for a major party, Barack Obama for the Democrats, will confront the oldest non-incumbent to run for the presidency, John McCain. The historic firsts are everywhere and full of meaning. They are also full of weird synchronicities. This will be the first presidential race in which the two main candidates have both lived in Southeast Asia. Obama spent several years in Indonesia as a child, and McCain spent five years in Vietnam as a prisoner of war. It is all set as a battle royal between two of the most appealing candidates in presidential history. No one could be blind to what it means to have a black candidate with a good shot at the presidency. Similarly, no one with a heart could fail to admire the heroism McCain displayed as a prisoner of war, tortured and in solitary confinement for years, declining an offer of early release out of solidarity with his fellow prisoners. BLOOMBERG.COM Icahn Says Obama Would Be `Terrible' U.S. President (Update1) By Michael McKee May 22, 2008 Full article Michael McKee Bloomberg.Com Excerpts: Billionaire investor Carl Icahn said Barack Obama would be a ``terrible'' U.S. president whose election would bring higher interest rates and a loss of international confidence in the dollar. ``I don't normally get involved in politics, but this time I am,'' Icahn told an investors conference in New York last night. ``I don't think Obama really understands economics.'' The Obama campaign referred a request for comment to UBS Americas Chairman Robert Wolf, a fundraiser. ``Senator Obama has a very smart plan to help our nation come out of and recover more quickly from our economic downturn,'' Wolf said in an e-mail. INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY Obama's Social Insecurity Plan May 20, 2008 Full article INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY Excerpts: Entitlements: In trying to tie John McCain to the third rail of American politics by pandering to seniors, Barack Obama shows the only thing he's consistent on is his desire to raise our taxes. We suspected that the No. 1 liberal in the U.S. Senate would get around to playing the granny card as he shook Hillary off and focused on John McCain. That moment came in Gresham, Ore., on Sunday when he promised to protect "the promise that FDR made" and "preserve the Social Security Trust Fund." He warned that McCain would raise the retirement age and privatize Social Security a la President Bush. How does he demagogue the issue? Let us count the myths. Fact is, Social Security is all trust and no fund. There's no stash of your cash in an account with your name on it that nobody can touch. The money beneficiaries get comes from the paychecks of their children, grandchildren, friends and neighbors. But with private accounts there would be cash in an account. ORANGE COUNTY OC REGISTER Saturday, May 17, 2008 Obama an appeaser? How dare you By MARK STEYN Full article Mark Steyn OC REGISTER Excerpts: "That's enough. That – that's a show of disrespect to me." That was Barack Obama, a couple of weeks back, explaining why he was casting the Rev. Jeremiah Wright into outer darkness. It's one thing to wallow in "adolescent grandiosity" (as Scott Johnson of the Powerline Web site called it) when it's a family dispute between you and your pastor of 20 years. It's quite another to do so when it's the 60th anniversary celebrations of one of America's closest allies. President Bush was in Israel the other day and gave a speech to the Knesset. Its perspective was summed up by his closing anecdote – a departing British officer in May 1948 handing the iron bar to the Zion Gate to a trembling rabbi and telling him it was the first time in 18 centuries that a key to the gates of the Jerusalem was in the hands of a Jew. In other words, it was a big-picture speech, referencing the Holocaust, the pogroms, Masada – and the challenges that lie ahead. Sen. Obama was not mentioned in the text. No Democrat was mentioned, save for President Truman, in the context of his recognition of the new state of Israel when it was a mere 11 minutes old. Nonetheless, Barack Obama decided that the president's speech was really about him, and he didn't care for it. He didn't put it quite as bluntly as he did with the Rev. Wright, but the message was the same: "That's enough. That's a show of disrespect to me." And, taking their cue from the soon-to-be nominee's weirdly petty narcissism, Nancy Pelosi, John Kerry, Joe Biden and Co. piled on to deplore Bush's outrageous, unacceptable, unpresidential, outrageously unacceptable and unacceptably unpresidential behavior. Honestly. What a bunch of self-absorbed ninnies. Here's what the president said: INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY Thursday, May 15, 2008 Hitting A Nerve Full article IBD Excerpts: Foreign Policy: Barack Obama claims he's not an appeaser. But when President Bush attacked those who "seem to believe we should negotiate with terrorists," why was the senator sure he was talking about him? Read More: Election 2008 "The lady doth protest too much, methinks" is the famous Hamlet quote referring to pleas of innocence that actually indicate guilt. Did Obama, the near-certain Democratic Party nominee for president, "protest too much" in complaining about Bush's speech to Israel's Knesset on Thursday? Addressing lawmakers in Jerusalem in a special session of the legislature commemorating the 60th anniversary of the establishment of the state of Israel, the president made comments with which few Americans could find fault. REAL CLEAR POLITICS Obama: "I Will Raise Taxes" By Amanda Carpenter Thursday, May 8, 2008 Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama flatly promised to raise taxes in a television interview Thursday afternoon. “I will raise CEO taxes,” Obama told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer on “The Situation Room.” Full article Amanda Carpenter Excerpts: US Democratic presidential candidate Senator Barack Obama (D-IL) speaks at his North Carolina and Indiana primary election night rally in Raleigh, North Carolina May 6, 2008. REUTERS/Chris Keane (UNITED STATES) US PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION CAMPAIGN 2008 (USA)Related Media:VIDEO: Obama, Clinton Split Primaries “If you’re a CEO in this country you’ll probably pay more taxes,” Obama said. Obama speculated his CEO tax rates “won’t be prohibitively high, you’ll pay roughly what you did in the 90’s when they were doing fine.” Obama also said he would eliminate the Bush tax cuts and install what he called a “middle class tax cut.” May 03, 2008 Obama, Clinton vie in Guam Democratic caucuses Obama Gets Slight Win The Associated Press Full article Real Clear Politics Excerpts: Barack Obama defeated Hillary Rodham Clinton by seven votes in the Guam Democratic presidential caucuses Saturday. The count of more than 4,500 ballots took all night. Neither candidate campaigned in the U.S. island territory in person, but both did long-distance media interviews and bought campaign ads for the caucuses. Results of the count completed Sunday morning Guam time show delegates pledged to Obama with 2,264 votes to 2,257 for Clinton's slate. That means they'll split the pledged delegate votes. Obama's slate won in 14 of 21 districts.The New York Times May 1, 2008 Op-Ed Columnist Desperately Seeking Street Cred By MAUREEN DOWD Published: April 27, 2008 WASHINGTON Full article Maureen Dowd NY Times Excerpts: Maybe I’ve been reading too many stories about the fad of teenage vampire chick lit, worlds filled with parasitic aliens and demi-human creatures, but there’s something eerie going on in this race. Hillary grows more and more glowy as Obama grows more and more wan. Is she draining him of his precious bodily fluids? Leeching his magic? Siphoning off his aura? NATIONALREVIEWONLINE April 25, 2008 4:30 PM Not Everything Is About Race A wrong and reckless approach. By Peter Wehner
Full article Peter Wehner NRO Excerpts: In his Friday column, E.J. Dionne of the Washington Post writes this: Republicans clearly know that they can find ways to play on racial feeling while fully denying they are doing so. On Wednesday, the North Carolina Republican Party released a television ad showing Obama's former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, giving his now-famous sermon in which he declared, "God damn America." Of course Wright's comments were offensive, but to pretend that the ad does not have racial undertones would be to deny the obvious. After all, why didn't North Carolina Republicans focus instead on attacking Obama's alleged "elitism" or his foreign policy views? But the ad in question doesn’t mention race anywhere; rather, it includes a clip of Reverend Wright’s incendiary words. Wright happens to be black — but his race is not the reason he’s in the ad. His words are — and if Wright were white, his words and picture would still be used. Dionne argues that racism has to be the motivation of the North Carolina Republican party because the ad showed Wright’s comments instead of focusing on Obama’s foreign-policy views. But perhaps the reason for that is that Wright’s words insisting that God “damn America” — which Dionne himself concedes are “offensive” and has elsewhere described as “anti-American,” “lunatic,” “pernicious,” and ones we should “loathe” — are far more troubling to many Americans than Obama’s stand on the U.N. or the E.U. April 26, 2008 Full article Pete DuPont Wall Street Journal Every Voter In America Should Read This Article Obama's America He promises higher taxes, more regulation, less trade and less opportunity. By PETE DU PONT April 23, 2008 10:18 p.m. Excerpts: Nine months from now, the 44th president will be inaugurated. Looking at the debates, votes cast and money raised in this year's presidential primary races, the next president may not only be a Democrat, but Barack Obama, the most liberal of the 100 members of the U.S. Senate. Add the announced retirement of six Republican senators and 29 Republican House members (compared with just seven House Democrats) and the Democrats are likely to control both the House and the Senate with much bigger majorities than they do today. So both the next president and the new congressional majorities will be much more liberal than the officeholders they have replaced, and that will result in a broad-reaching, socialist-leaning, greatly expanded American government. ### SALON.COM Joan Walsh Thursday April 24, 2008 07:30 EDT Looking past Pennsylvania Full article Joan Walsh Salon.Com Excerpts: As I continue to think about the lessons of the Pennsylvania primary, and their relevance to the races ahead, I found myself thinking about the hours I spent last Saturday watching CNN's "Ballot Bowl" -- long live clips of John McCain, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton out on the campaign trail, rarely mediated by cable chatterers. I was also reading angry letters about my post on the ABC debate and recovering from three college visits in a week with my daughter. I share that TMI because the context was important. I was tired and a little bit cranky (I know, that makes me Clinton's demographic!), but I had an epiphany about the race between Clinton and Obama that stayed with me. I was multitasking and not paying that much attention to the TV in the background, but Clinton is just a campaign jackhammer, shattering your resistance with detail. I tried to tune her out, but I found myself listening to her long lists of what she'd do to solve the healthcare crisis, the mortgage crisis, the college education affordability crisis. And suddenly, hey! She's talking to me! She told me she'd do away with FAFSA, the Free Application for Federal Student Aid! Everyone hates FAFSA! She doesn't want me to take money out of my house to pay for college, either. I felt like I was watching Suze Orman (another one of my guilty zone-out TV pleasures). Clinton said she would solve problems I didn't even know I had. Then I watched Obama. I love listening to Obama. Once again, I really got his theory of change: His campaign is not about cobbling together a laundry list of policy-wonk solutions and then trying to squeak them through Congress; it's about thoroughly changing the terms and conditions of our political debate. His dream coalition includes decent Republicans and independents, along with young people, African-Americans and lots of new voters who've been turned off by the polarization of the Clinton-Bush years. His speeches are heavily about process, and they're inspiring. If you think our process is corrupt and broken, he's your man. If you're either fine with the process or too busy to think about it (filling out your FAFSA, trying to save your house from foreclosure, breaking up your kids' latest fight), he might lose you. WASHINGTON POST.COM Obama's Gloves Are Off -- And May Need to Stay Off By Jonathan Weisman Washington Post Staff Writer Wednesday, April 23, 2008; A01 Full article Jonathan Weisman Excerpts: Unable once again to score a knockout, Sen. Barack Obama is likely to make his new negative tone even more negative -- with a sharp eye on trying to end the Democratic presidential nomination fight after the May 6 primaries in Indiana and North Carolina. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's victory yesterday in Pennsylvania has only accentuated the quandary that Obama faces: Stay negative and he risks undermining the premise of his candidacy. Stay aloof and he underscores Clinton's argument that he will not be able to beat a "Republican attack machine" sure to greet him this summer. Obama campaign manager David Plouffe indicated last night which of those options they would take. "We've done a lot of counterpunching. We've been swift and effective," he said. "For Democrats judging how we're going to perform as the nominee, we have been relentless." REAL CLEAR POLITICS April 22, 2008 Is Obama JFK or Adlai Stevenson? By E. J. Dionne Full article E.J. Dionne Real Clear Politics Excerpts: DOWNINGTOWN, Pa. -- The result of the 2008 election may come down to how voters decide to define Barack Obama. Is he Adlai Stevenson or John F. Kennedy? Is he a detached former law review editor or a passionate agent of change? Is he an upscale reformer focused on process or a populist who will turn Washington and the country around? One of the central lessons of the Pennsylvania primary campaign is that Obama's personality is now far more important than either Hillary Clinton's or John McCain's. That's true not only because voters have a longer history with Clinton and McCain, but also because so much of the energy and novelty of 2008 is the product of Obama's rapid breakthrough to wide acclaim. As a result, almost all of the turns in this contest have been driven by how Obama presented himself and how voters perceived him. The Senator has said repeatedly he would not raise taxes on middle-class earners-his definition-"people with annual income lower than between $200,000 and $250,000." On Wednesday night, he reiterated that pledge. "I not only have pledged not to raise their taxes," he said, "I've been the first candidate in this race to specifically say I would cut their taxes." Barack Obama contradicts that by saying "he's open to raising the current top capital gains tax rate of 15%, to 28%", almost doubling it. This would be a tax hike on approximately 100 million Americans who own stock, tens of millions of whom fall within Mr. Obama's definition of middle class. Mr. Gibson reminded Obama a second time that cuts in the capital gains rate have consistently increased revenues while increases in those rates have decreased revenues. Irresistible Democratic Class Warfare Kicks In Showing that Democrats can never control their class warfare rhetoric, Barack cited hedge-fund managers suggesting their making too much money and suggesting that what we could get from them would pay for his health care proposals. This answer was as evasive as it was dishonest. Taxing hedge fund managers at that higher rate would possibly bring no extra revenue but if it did, would be a trickle. Its effect would not be much more than something like giving one dollar a day toward reducing the $9.41 trillion dollar debt. Will Bunch a Leftist, says this on his blog-Attytood. I believe Mr. Bunch writes regularly for The Philadelphia Daily News Here is his headline and some excerpts: "An open letter to Charlie Gibson and George Stephanapoulos Dear Charlie Gibson and George Stephanopoulos, It's hard to know where to begin with this, less than an hour after you signed off from your Democratic presidential debate here in my hometown of Philadelphia, a televised train wreck that my friend and colleague Greg Mitchell has already called, quite accurately, "a shameful night for the U.S. media." It's hard because -- like many other Americans -- I am still angry at what I just witnessed, so angry that it's hard to even type accurately because my hands are shaking. Look, I know that "media criticism" -- especially when it's one journalist speaking to another -- tends to be a genteel, collegial thing, but there's no genteel way to say this. With your performance tonight -- your focus on issues that were at best trivial wastes of valuable airtime and at worst restatements of right-wing falsehoods, punctuated by inane "issue" questions that in no way resembled the real world concerns of American voters -- you disgraced my profession of journalism, and, by association, me and a lot of hard-working colleagues who do still try to ferret out the truth, rather than worry about who can give us the best deal on our capital gains taxes. But it's even worse than that. By so badly botching arguably the most critical debate of such an important election, in a time of both war and economic misery, you disgraced the American voters, and in fact even disgraced democracy itself. Indeed, if I were a citizen of one of those nations where America is seeking to "export democracy," and I had watched the debate, I probably would have said, "no thank you." Because that was no way to promote democracy. You implied throughout the broadcast that you wanted to reflect the concerns of voters in Pennsylvania. Well, I'm a Pennsylvanian voter, and so are my neighbors and most of my friends and co-workers. You asked virtually nothing that reflected our everyday issues -- trying to fill our gas tanks and save for college at the same time, our crumbling bridges and inadequate mass transit, or the root causes of crime here in Philadelphia. In fact, there almost isn't enough space -- and this is cyberspace, where room is unlimited -- to list all the things you could have asked about but did not, from health care to climate change to alternative energy to our policy toward China to the deterioration of Afghanistan to veterans' benefits to improving education. You ignored virtually everything that just happened in what most historians agree is one of the worst presidencies in American history, including the condoning of torture and the trashing of the Constitution, although to be fair you also ignored the policy concerns of people on the right, like immigration issues. Real Clear Politics-From: WASHINGTON TIMES Full article Walter E. Williams Washington Times Foreign trade angst By Walter E. Williams April 16, 2008 Excerpts: Presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, pandering to anti-trade activists, suggest should they become president they will restrict trade agreements. Before you buy into their promised paradise, you might consider a few trade questions. Suppose you were choosing a country to live in. Would you prefer a country the world is champing at the bit to put its money into or one where the world is unwilling to invest? Let's look at the numbers. The United States is the world's largest recipient of foreign direct investment. According the Economic Report of the President, in 2004, foreigners owned $5.5 trillion in U.S. assets and had $2.3 trillion in sales. They produced $515 billion of goods and services, accounting for 5.7 percent of total U.S. private output, and employed 5.1 million workers, or 4.7 percent of the U.S. work force in 2004. According to the Congressional Research Service, in 2006 alone, foreign investors spent $184 billion investing in U.S. businesses and real estate, the highest amount foreign investors have spent since 2000. My question to Mrs. Clinton, Mr. Obama and the anti-trade lobby: Would Americans be better off if there were no foreign investment in our country? Data separate from Mr. Williams article, but see much more related data if you click through to the remainder of his article. In addition to the jobs mentioned above 40% of the entire U.S. workforce is employed by export-related jobs at a wage 13-18% higher than the national average. By Charlie Cook, NationalJournal.com © National Journal Group Inc. Tuesday, April 15, 2008 Summary: "For Clinton, the odds are the incident is too late to save her candidacy. But more Bittergates would increase her chances of drawing enough support in the April 22 Pennsylvania primary to justify, or even guarantee, her continued run. There are likely to be more gaffes for each of the candidates as this campaign progresses, but in a race like this, each one is exceedingly costly and, cumulatively, can become fatal. As of now, I still believe that Barack Obama has about a 95-percent chance of clinching the Democratic nomination. The only way Clinton can win is to get enough pledged delegates through the remaining primaries and caucuses so that superdelegates can perceiv |
