HERE'S WHY PLAIN AND SIMPLE!!!!!!

From Which of These Guys Would You Buy a Used Car?

September 30, 2008

By Kyle-Anne Shiver

This presidential election has been spun in every way under the sun by pundits from coast to coast. But if one were to boil this huge pot of verbosity down to the only solid matter left, what single question would remain?


When it comes to politics, my grandfather's election question has always been the most reliable:


"From which of these guys would you buy a used car?"


As my grandfather would explain, honesty and character are truly the only things one can count on in a candidate. Once a man is in office, everything else -- promises, platforms, programs -- can be left at the polling-place door. But character and integrity are indispensable, not easily shed behind even the grandest closed doors.


J. C. Watts is a man after my grandfather's heart, especially on "character":


"Everyone tries to define this thing called ‘character.' It's not hard. Character is doing what's right when nobody's looking."


Which is precisely why 2008 may be the easiest choice Americans have had in a long, long time. And the current financial crisis provides the perfect test case for my grandfather's used-car-lot question.


A Tale of Two Salesmen


Even without his teleprompter last Friday night, Barack Obama cut a fine figure of a man and gave one pretty terrific sales pitch on the financial crisis. He managed to smoothly use his "Bush's fault" mantra, adding the other tried-and-successful-so-far line about McCain "voting with Bush 90% of the time." He even managed to throw in the pitch about being the guy who will protect "the middle-class," which he has already turned into a TV sales ad.


What a heap of lying balderdash!


Such brazen lies have not been seen in public since Slick Willy's, "I did not have sex with that woman."


As clearly evidenced by on-the-record events from the past decade, this debacle is only the fault of Republicans in so far as they failed in their numerous attempts to rein in the financial fraud being committed by Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, the Democratic Black Caucus, the Democratic leadership in Congress, and yes, even Barney Frank and Barack Obama, personally. At this point, we could call Frank and Obama the it's-all-their-fault-finger-pointing twins.


We now know that the entire sub-prime mortgage meltdown that caused this crisis can be laid directly at the feet of Democrats in the Clinton Administration, especially Franklin Raines and Jaime Gorelick. We know that Wall Street can hardly bear all the blame, when Congress forces lending institutions to make loans to people who could never afford to pay them back. And it was this huge influx of money into the housing market that inflated the bubble, which crashed last month, and still hasn't stopped wrecking our economy and credit markets, like a line of falling dominoes.


Do Democrats simply fail to understand that trust is the commodity that actually makes our economy sound?


That lost trust cannot be instantly restored?


We now know that lots of political fat cats have gotten rich on this housing scam, and that taxpayers are being railroaded into taking the fall for them. We know that Barney Frank, Chairman of the Banking Committee, was a chief enabler of the phony mortgage house of cards that has finally come crumbling to the ground, and now threatens every one of us.


And we know that the top three recipients of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac lobbyist -- yes, Senator Obama, lobbyist! -- money for all this protection of Fannie/Freddie fraud, were Democrats. Chris Dodd, who tried to ram the bailout through without a public airing, has been the #1 recipient since 1989, at a walloping $165,400.


(Open Secrets.org has the whole list here.)


Senator Obama, of the oh-so-squeaky-clean conscience crowd, comes in as the #2 recipient, at $126,349, after less than 4 years in the Senate. Does Senator Obama not understand the meaning of the word, "lobbyist," any better than Bill Clinton understood the meaning of the word, "is"? It would certainly seem so.


Not only that, but Barack Obama has also been in the tidy Chicago bed of the Pritzker family since 2002, that Pritzker family with a banking fortune in excess of $15 billion. Penny Pritzker, who is currently Barack Obama's campaign finance Chairwoman, was also on the board of Superior Bank of Chicago (part of the Pritzker financial empire), when it failed in 2001, due to the same problem we have now. Overinvestment in sub-prime mortgages.


As meticulously summarized last week by Edward Sisson, at the American Spectator, Obama's finance Chair was actually the very person, who persuaded federal regulators to go along with these speculative ventures in risky loans, a move that resulted in the bank's failure and a loss of hundreds of millions of dollars. Yet Senator Obama thinks it's just fine and dandy to have her as his finance Chairwoman, and said Sunday that on the financial crisis, Senator McCain is "out of touch."


Now that's audacity with a capital A!


Obama's claiming to be above dirty politics, while shamelessly taking hundreds of thousands from these lobbyists and surrounding himself with public shysters seems downright hypocritical.


Buy a used car from Obama?


At this point, I would not buy a mechanical pencil from the man, much less an automobile.


John McCain, on the other hand, seems to have a very clear record when it comes to the current financial mess. It is not 100% blot-free; he has received $21,500 from Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac since 1989. This is not really very much, especially compared with Senator Obama's $126,349 in less than 4 years.


And Senator McCain also made a pretty bold attempt to head off the current meltdown by co-sponsoring legislation that would have overhauled the regulatory body that oversaw the sub-prime housing debacle. In 2005, McCain spoke passionately about the need for this action to avoid the current crisis:


"I join as a cosponsor of the Federal Housing Enterprise Regulatory Reform Act of 2005, S. 190, to underscore my support for quick passage of GSE regulatory reform legislation. If Congress does not act, American taxpayers will continue to be exposed to the enormous risk that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac pose to the housing market, the overall financial system, and the economy as a whole.

"I urge my colleagues to support swift action on this GSE reform legislation."


The bill that could have avoided this crisis died, however, as reported by Ed Morrissey at Hot Air:


"It never made it out of committee. Chris Dodd, then the ranking member of the Banking Committee and now its chair, was in the middle of receiving preferential loan treatment from Countrywide Mortgage, one of the companies gaming the system in the credit crisis."


Senator McCain, other Republicans in Congress and even President Bush all tried to warn of the coming crisis, urged regulatory reform, and were fought at every juncture by Democrats.


No wonder John McCain was having such a hard time containing his utter disdain for Barack Obama on the stage at last Friday's debate. When John McCain suspended his campaign to return to Washington, it was to make sure that the Democrats responsible for the putting our Country in such a fix did not ram through an even worse fix-it bill, without any protections for us taxpayers. They had plenty of votes to do it, and the President was evidently prepared to do anything to keep the entire Country from going down.


Senator McCain even graciously tried to give the whole thing an aura of bi-partisanship. Evidently, he does understand that trust is the foundation of our economy, even if Democrats do not.


Our media elites can play cover-up for their Democratic Party darlings all they want. I'm just glad that there are at least a few Americans left who are willing to put the Country first. Senator McCain is definitely one of them.


At this juncture, I haven't a single doubt about which of these two men -- Obama or McCain -- I would choose to sell me a used car.


Do you?


Kyle-Anne Shiver is an independent journalist and a frequent contributor to American Thinker. She blogs at kyleanneshiver.com.

HOW McCain Wins?

By William Kristol

Monday, September 29, 2008
John McCain is on course to lose the presidential election to Barack Obama. Can he turn it around, and surge to victory?

He has a chance. But only if he overrules those of his aides who are trapped by conventional wisdom, huddled in a defensive crouch and overcome by ideological timidity.

The conventional wisdom is that it was a mistake for McCain to come back to Washington last week to engage in the attempt to craft the financial rescue legislation, and that McCain has to move on to a new topic as quickly as possible. As one McCain adviser told The Washington Post, "you've got to get it [the financial crisis] over with and start having a normal campaign." Wrong.

McCain's impetuous decision to go to Washington last week was right. The agreement announced early Sunday morning is better than Treasury secretary Henry Paulson's original proposal, and better than the deal the Democrats claimed was close on Thursday. Assuming the legislation passes soon, and assuming it reassures financial markets, McCain will be able to take some credit.

But the goal shouldn't be to return to "a normal campaign." For these aren't normal times.

We Americans face a real financial crisis. Usually the candidate of the incumbent's party minimizes the severity of the nation's problems. McCain should break the mold and acknowledge, even emphasize the crisis. He can explain that dealing with it requires candor and leadership of the sort he's shown in his career. McCain can tell voters we're almost certainly in a recession, and things will likely get worse before they get better.

And McCain can note that the financial crisis isn't going to be solved by any one piece of legislation. There are serious economists, for example, who think we could be on the verge of a huge bank run. Congress may have to act to authorize the FDIC to provide far greater deposit insurance, and the secretary of the Treasury to protect money market funds. McCain can call for Congress to stand ready to pass such legislation. He can say more generally that in the tough times ahead, we'll need a tough president willing to make tough decisions.

With respect to his campaign, McCain needs to liberate his running mate from the former Bush aides brought in to handle her - aides who seem to have succeeded in importing to the Palin campaign the trademark defensive crouch of the Bush White House. McCain picked Sarah Palin in part because she's a talented politician and communicator. He needs to free her to use her political talents and to communicate in her own voice.

I'm told McCain recently expressed unhappiness with his staff's handling of Palin. On Sunday he dispatched his top aides Steve Schmidt and Rick Davis to join Palin in Philadelphia. They're supposed to liberate Palin to go on the offensive as a combative conservative in the vice-presidential debate on Thursday.

That debate is important. McCain took a risk in choosing Palin. If she does poorly, it will reflect badly on his judgment. If she does well, it will be a shot in the arm for his campaign.

In the debate, Palin has to dispatch quickly any queries about herself, and confidently assert that of course she's qualified to be vice president. She should spend her time making the case for McCain and, more important, the case against Obama. As one shrewd McCain supporter told me, "Every minute she spends not telling the American people something that makes them less well disposed to Obama is a minute wasted."

The core case against Obama is pretty simple: He's too liberal. A few months ago I asked one of McCain's aides what aspect of Obama's liberalism they thought they could most effectively exploit. He looked at me as if I were a simpleton, and patiently explained that talking about "conservatism" and "liberalism" was so old-fashioned.

Maybe. But the fact is the only Democrats to win the presidency in the past 40 years - Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton - distanced themselves from liberal orthodoxy. Obama is, by contrast, a garden-variety liberal. He also has radical associates in his past.

The most famous of these is the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, and I wonder if Obama may have inadvertently set the stage for the McCain team to reintroduce him to the American public. On Saturday, Obama criticized McCain for never using in the debate Friday night the words "middle class." The Obama campaign even released an advertisement trumpeting McCain's omission.

The McCain campaign might consider responding by calling attention to Chapter 14 of Obama's eloquent memoir, "Dreams From My Father." There Obama quotes from the brochure of Wright's church - a passage entitled, "A Disavowal of the Pursuit of Middleclassness."

So when Biden goes on about the middle class on Thursday, Palin might ask Biden when Obama flip-flopped on Middleclassness.

WHOS THE WINNER

Barack Obama's own words: FROM DEBATE 9/25/08 AGAINST SENATOR JOHN MCCAIN.

Barack Obama:


You are right. I’ve been consistently clear on many of the same points that you make. But I must set the record straight on a few key issues. Just to reiterate my position and more clearly define my stance, a stance in which 95% of Americans agree with me by the way, is this… yes probably, but I doubt it.

I’ll say it again, because this election is too important for the direction of America to get caught up in 4 more years of George Bush policies. Yes probably, but I doubt it… applies to the most important issues facing this country. As the next President of the United States this will be the kind of clear judgement you will see from me. I hope this helps and I hope I get your vote on Nov. 5th. (Thank You Offbleacheers for pointing this out)


Sep 27, 2008 - 7:54 am

Clowns in the Cockpit

September 27, 2008

By Herbert E. Meyer
As you've probably noticed by now, the twenty-first century has gotten off to a rocky start. In 2001, on September 11, we were attacked. And now our country's financial system is collapsing. This makes for two "unimaginable" events within a decade.
How could 19 hijackers succeed against the world's greatest military power? And how could history's strongest and most productive economy seize up virtually overnight? Of course, there are complicated and highly technical explanations for each of these disasters. Some books have already been written about the causes of 9-11, and others are sure to come along in the years and decades ahead. No doubt publishers are already signing contracts for books about how today's financial meltdown happened.


But if you put both "unimaginable" events together, you'll see something that the experts won't ever see -- or won't say out loud because it sounds too simplistic and unsophisticated. Let me use an analogy to illuminate the common thread - what liberals would call the "root cause" -- that runs through both these "unimaginable" events:


Most of us fly from time to time, and the airplanes that carry us around the country, and the world, are marvelous pieces of equipment. Today's jetliners are the products of centuries of science, technology, business acumen and financial prowess. They are big, powerful -- and remarkably safe; the back-up systems have back-up systems.


The Pilots Pay Attention


These jetliners are also complicated pieces of equipment, which is why the pilots who fly them are not only technically competent but intellectually capable of concentrating on doing their jobs well. These pilots aren't sitting in the cockpit working on The New York Times crossword puzzle, or playing music on their iPods, or fooling around with the flight attendants. They are paying absolute, total attention to bringing their plane and its passengers safely to their destinations. If they see the plane drifting just one degree off course, or if they see the oil pressure in an engine dropping even slightly, they deal swiftly and effectively with this very minor problem before it becomes a major problem -- or perhaps a problem too big to resolve without catastrophe. It's hard work, and this is why pilots are exhausted even after an uneventful flight.


A modern country is like a jetliner. It's the product of centuries of human development, and it's a marvelous piece of equipment. In a sense, even the back-up systems have back-up systems. But a modern country is also a very complicated piece of equipment. Managing it successfully -- in other words, bringing its citizens safely into the future -- takes both technical competence and, perhaps even more important, intense concentration. You've got to spot little problems quickly, then deal with them effectively before they become too big to deal with.


Read the U.S. constitution, and you'll see that our country's "cockpit" isn't the White House; it's Congress. It's the Congress, not the President, which controls the money by raising taxes and enacting the federal budget. It's the Congress that makes our laws and oversees the executive departments and agencies that implement these laws and write the regulations that support them.


My fellow Americans: We've been putting clowns in the cockpit.


I don't mean this to be rude -- and I certainly don't mean this to be partisan -- but isn't it obvious that most of the people we've elected to the House and Senate haven't got the technical knowledge and the intellectual firepower to guide our country safely through the turbulent skies? And isn't it obvious that most of these preening buffoons spend nearly all their time lining their own pockets, showboating, raising money for their re-elections or running for higher offices -- in short, concentrating their energies and attention on everything except doing the jobs for which we've elected them?


Of course there are exceptions in both political parties. Every so often, you're watching some television news talk show and suddenly there's a member of Congress on camera you've never heard of before who actually knows what he or she is talking about. But the blond news anchorette with teeth like Chiclets keeps interrupting -- and by the time your spouse comes running into the room to see what you're shouting about the interview is over even before you've gotten the House or Senate member's name. And chances are you'll never see this splendid lawmaker on television again. There just aren't enough of these talented and dedicated lawmakers in Congress to get the job done.


We've let this go on for too long, and now we're in a real jam: Our economy is teetering on the edge of a cliff, we're in the midst of a war -- and we're relying on the people who got us into these unimaginable disasters to get us out of them. Fat chance.


A New Kind of Congress


We need to re-think the role of Congress, and fast. Given the inherent complexity of our country, and the world's political turbulence, we've got to start electing a different kind of person to the House and Senate. Whether we prefer candidates who are Republicans, Democrats, liberals, conservatives, independents, libertarians, or who subscribe to any other party or philosophy, we've got to be sure that these individuals have the competence to cope with the issues that confront us, and the willingness to concentrate their total attention on doing the job. And if this leaves them with insufficient time for enriching themselves, or for raising a re-election war chest, or planning campaigns for higher office -- so be it. Candidates who don't want the job under these conditions shouldn't be running for them. And those who already have these jobs and don't like the new criteria should get out of the way -- or he shoved out of the way by us -- to make room for better men and women. Our lives and our fortunes -- literally, in both cases -- depend on getting this right.


I used to be in the intelligence business, and when we sent our projections to the President we always told him whether we were "uncertain" or "reasonably certain" or "highly confident" that whatever we were projecting actually would happen. For the first time in my life, I'm going to make a political projection in which I have total, 100-percent confidence:


If we keep putting clowns in the cockpit, at some time down the road -- two years from now, or five years, or in a decade -- there's going to be a third "unimaginable" event.


Herbert E. Meyer served during the Reagan Administration as Special Assistant to the Director of Central Intelligence and Vice Chairman of the CIA's National Intelligence Council. He is host and producer of The Siege of Western Civilization and author of How to Analyze Information.
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Illegal Immigration And The Mortgage Mess

By Michelle Malkin
September 24, 2008

The Mother of All Bailouts has many fathers. As panicked politicians prepare to fork over $1 trillion in taxpayer funding to rescue the financial industry, they've fingered regulation, deregulation, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the Community Reinvestment Act, Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, both Bushes, greedy banks, greedy borrowers, greedy short-sellers and minority home ownership mau-mauers (can't call 'em greedy, that would be racist) for blame.

But there's one giant paternal elephant in the room that has slipped notice: how illegal immigration, crime-enabling banks and open-borders Bush policies fueled the mortgage crisis.

It's no coincidence that most of the areas hardest hit by the foreclosure wave -- Loudoun County, Va., California's Inland Empire, Stockton and San Joaquin Valley, and Las Vegas and Phoenix, for starters -- also happen to be some of the nation's largest illegal alien sanctuaries. Half of the mortgages to Hispanics are subprime (the accursed species of loan to borrowers with the shadiest credit histories). A quarter of all those subprime loans are in default and foreclosure.

Regional reports across the country have decried the subprime meltdown's impact on illegal immigrant "victims." A July report showed that in seven of the 10 metro areas with the highest foreclosure rates, Hispanics represented at least one-third of the population; in two of those areas -- Merced and Salinas-Monterey, Calif. -- Hispanics comprised half the population. The amnesty-promoting National Council of La Raza and its Development Fund have received millions in federal funds to "counsel" their constituents on obtaining mortgages with little to no money down; the group almost succeeded in attaching a $10-million earmark for itself in one of the housing bills past this spring.

For the last five years, I've reported on the rapidly expanding illegal alien home loan racket. The top banks clamoring for their handouts as their profits plummet, led by Wachovia and Bank of America, launched aggressive campaigns to woo illegal alien homebuyers. The quasi-governmental Wisconsin Housing and Economic Development Authority jumped in to guarantee home loans to illegal immigrants. The Washington Post noted, almost as an afterthought in a 2005 report: "Hispanics, the nation's fastest-growing major ethnic or racial group, have been courted aggressively by real estate agents, mortgage brokers and programs for first-time buyers that offer help with closing costs. Ads proclaim: "Sin verificacion de ingresos! Sin verificacion de documento!" -- which loosely translates as, 'Income tax forms are not required, nor are immigration papers.'"

In addition, fraudsters have engaged in massive house-flipping rings using illegal aliens as straw buyers. Among many examples cited by the FBI: a conspiracy in Las Vegas involving a former Nevada First Residential Mortgage Company branch manager who directed loan officers and processors in the origination of 233 fraudulent Federal Housing Authority loans valued at over $25 million. The defrauders manufactured and submitted false employment and income documentation for borrowers; most were illegal immigrants from Mexico. To date, the FBI reported, "Fifty-eight loans with a total value of $6.2 million have gone into default, with a loss to the Housing and Urban Development Department of over $1.9 million."

It's the tip of the iceberg. Thanks to lax Bush administration-approved policies allowing illegal aliens to use "matricula consular cards" and taxpayer identification numbers to open bank accounts, more forms of mortgage fraud have burgeoned. Moneylenders still have no access to a verification system to check Social Security numbers before approving loans.

In an interview about rampant illegal alien home loan fraud, a spokeswoman for the U.S. General Accounting Office told me five years ago: "[C]onsidering the size of Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, Houston and other large cities throughout the United States known to be inundated with illegal aliens, I don't think the federal government is willing to expose this problem for financial reasons as well as for fear of political repercussions."

The chickens are coming home to roost. And law-abiding, responsible taxpayers are going to pay for it.

---

The Story Behind Biden's Emergency Helicopter Landing in Afghanistan

September 22, 2008 6:19 PM

"Ladies and gentlemen, where are we now? Where are we now?" Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del., said to the National Guard Association today, talking about the war in Afghanistan.

"If you want to know where Al Qaeda lives, you want to know where Bin Laden is, come back to Afghanistan with me," Biden said. "Come back to the area where my helicopter was forced down, with a three-star general and three senators at 10,500 feet in the middle of those mountains. I can tell you where they are."

Biden said that Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., "says he’ll follow them to the gates of hell. You don’t have to go to hell. Just go to Pakistan. Just go to that area. That superhighway of terror that exists between Afghanistan and Pakistan."

We hadn't heard before about Biden's helicopter being forced down, so we did some Googling.

After all, earlier this month at a fundraiser, he made a similar remark, when discussing how he doesn't care about the Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's controversies like whether she sold a state plane on eBay, or when she went from supporting to opposing the Bridge to Nowhere.

"What I care about is: What in God's name is she going to do -- along with John McCain -- about the thousands of people who don't have health care?" Biden said according to the Chicago Sun-Times. Biden said he would ask Palin about "The superhighway of terror between Pakistan and Afghanistan where my helicopter was forced down...John McCain wants to know where Bin Laden and the gates of Hell are? I can tell him where. That's where Al Qaeda is. That's where Bin Laden is. It's not in the country of Iraq."

In February 2008, Biden -- along with Sens. John Kerry, D-Mass., and Chuck Hagel, R-Neb. -- was on a chopper that made an emergency landing in the mountains of Afghanistan.

A snowstorm had forced them down.

No one was injured, and the Associated Press reported at the time that "the senators and their delegation returned to Bagram Air Base in a motor convoy, and left for Turkey.

"The weather closed in on us," Kerry told the AP at the time in a phone interview from Turkey. "It went pretty blind, pretty fast and we were around some pretty dangerous ridges. So the pilot exercised his judgment that we were better off putting down there, and we all agreed...We sat up there and traded stories."

Kerry joked, "We were going to send Biden out to fight the Taliban with snowballs, but we didn't have to do it…Other than getting a little cold, it was fine."

-- Jake Tapper and Matthew Jaffe
Whats with these people?

Is life so awfully unfulfilled that the likes of John Kerry, Joe Biden, and Hillary Clinton all have a burning desire to show just how close to real live combat they have actually come. With the exception of Kerry, who did serve in Vietnam (although his combat experience is very questionable)Biden and Clinton appear to be guilt ridden. Now Hillary we can excuse. Her coming under fire appears to merely be a part of her male desire syndrome which is her obsession to be as much of a man as she can. But Biden, no excuse. His Chopper puts down in AFghanistan due to bad weather and he implies that it is a harrowing experience with innuendos of comparing it to real live combat and confrontation with the Taliban.

Those of us who have actually seen combat during a conflict know that the experience is truly not one of romance and glory. Bravery yes;if you rate bravery as overcoming a human instinctual fear and control over the fight or flight instinct opting for the latter. But the idea of romance goes out the window the moment the first round rings true to the senses.

There is a fair amount of anxiety what might be realized as an excessive amount of "stage fright" prior to any engagement of a hostile enemy force known or unknown. when one operates within an AO,(area of operation). The less the contact with the enemy the more the anxiety up to a point, and that point is being safely back at a secured base camp. Ones mind especially for a first timer, runs wild with the unknown. If you live long enough perhaps through the first of many fire fights or engagements of hostile forces you become acquainted with what to expect, but never does it become easy.

For some of us it takes years or sometimes never for the heightened response mode to leave our adrenal system. Actually I believe that this heightened state may be a contributing factor for earlier than average death of those soldiers with abundant combat experience. But like I've said it takes years for the senses of split second reaction to finally reach any normalization.

For those individuals like Biden, and Kerry, and not so much Hillary, this sense of anxiety to have almost reached out and touched real combat has in reality left them with is a heightened sense of imagination. Imagination of what it might have been like had a fire fight actually broke out.

The problem is that this imaginary sense is seriously diluted with the one thing that actual combat lacks the most, romance.For the likes of Biden and Kerry this romantic sense of non reality pollutes their mind with a false feeling of bravery as well. Mentioned earlier, bravery is merely the overcoming of real fear. It's overcoming this fear and directing ones energy to self survival, mainly by doing what you were trained to do.

Guys like Biden remind me of the garrison clerks who spent their year of so in Vietnam working safely behind a desk out of harms way for the most part, and never really ever experiencing the dread of real combat.

When we combatants would be on stand down and our field units would all gather at the watering hole to pay homage to our fallen brethren, these stay at home clerks would be surrounding the perimeter of drunken grunts and listen to the stories exchanged about how each one of the non returnees went down as told by their partner in arms who would have been within a visual at the time. You could see the envy in their eyes and I am told by many that the stories overheard were embellished and adopted by some non combatants and sent home in letters to their family and friends as representative of their own romantic fantasies and lies, as to what they were allegedly doing in Vietnam.

Guys like Biden and Kerry are of another breed altogether. They remind me of myself at ten years old. After having read the book and seen the movie twice "To Hell and back" I too was captured by the romance of being a war hero such as Audie Murphy. Only the star of the movie knew what the real story was about combat, but for the sake of Hollywood he was not clarifying the matter and of course it helped military recruitment. But when it came time to go off and do my part I found out how much combat really lacked in the romance department and I had grown up from ten year old thinking.

Biden and Kerry are still ten. For their lack of experience they cover up with romantic fantasy. I am sure that when that helicopter put down on that remote mountain top in Afghanistan with Joe Biden strapped into his flight seat. I'll bet he was scared.I'll bet his imagination was running wildly, imagining that although they were in a safe corridor for flight missions he thought at any minute the Taliban were going to capture him, violate him and then publicly behead him. Only the climax never came, and his imagination continued to run wild with fear until he safely arrived at the compound in Kabul. So Joe only knows what the anxiety is like not the bravery or the courage. When he was able to calm down and look back at the experience seeing as nothing really bad happened to him, he naturally romanticized it instead of taking a pensive focus as to how close he may or may not have come to a real live combat experience.

Had he done the latter he would naturally know that the only reference to such an experience is utter respect for those who have gone before him into the hell gates of war and paid homage to those brave souls and one of which would include John McCain. Instead Joe Biden did as John Kerry did before him and chose to glorify his fleeting experience of quasi combat for personal gain and personal disillusionment thus never actually having absorbed any meaningful life experience from it.

As would be the way of the male child who imagines that one day the glory and romance or war will make him superhuman and a powerful hero goes Joe Biden. But when one looks at his uncontrollable verbal outbursts and his past seemingly wild imagination one comes to the realization that this is to be expected from such a character, and nothing more.

Poll Junkies: Please Check Out This Diary-Review of 2004

Thank You So Much for This Article I borrowed.
Posted by: Nobama

Saturday, September 20, 2008 at 10:04AM
How Much Should We Trust Polls?

Sept. 20, 2008

Summary: On November 1, 2004, the day before the election, polls showed Kerry winning comfortably. The polls in 2004 all over-sampled Democratic voters in every single battleground state. There seem to be a significant percentage of people who vote Republican but either don’t like talking to pollsters or don’t have time to talk to pollsters.

Obama should listen to the “hand-wringers” in his party. Any state where polls show him with a lead of 1% to 4% should be considered a toss-up at best, or, more likely (due to the Bradley effect) “leaning McCain”.

From Rolling Stone Magazine (June, 2006):

On the evening of the [2004] vote, reporters at each of the major networks were briefed by pollsters at 7:54 p.m. Kerry, they were informed, had an insurmountable lead and would win by a rout: at least 309 electoral votes to Bush's 174, with fifty-five too close to call. In London, Prime Minister Tony Blair went to bed contemplating his relationship with President-elect Kerry.

As the last polling stations closed on the West Coast, exit polls showed Kerry ahead in ten of eleven battleground states -- including commanding leads in Ohio and Florida -- and winning by a million and a half votes nationally. The exit polls even showed Kerry breathing down Bush's neck in supposed GOP strongholds Virginia and North Carolina. Against these numbers, the statistical likelihood of Bush winning was less than one in 450,000. ''Either the exit polls, by and large, are completely wrong,'' a Fox News analyst declared, ''or George Bush loses.''

But as the evening progressed, official tallies began to show … disparities -- as much as 9.5 percent -- with the exit polls. In ten of the eleven battleground states, the tallied margins departed from what the polls had predicted. In every case, the shift favored Bush. Based on exit polls, CNN had predicted Kerry defeating Bush in Ohio by a margin of 4.2 percentage points. Instead, election results showed Bush winning the state by 2.5 percent. Bush also tallied 6.5 percent more than the polls had predicted in Pennsylvania, and 4.9 percent more in Florida.

From Ruy Texeira’s blog (11/1/2004):

Final Pre-election Poll Analysis

By Alan Abramowitz

The National Polls
In the 12 most recent national polls listed on pollingreport.com, among likely voters, Bush is leading in 7 polls, Kerry in 2, and 3 are tied. Average support was 48.2 percent for Bush, 46.7 percent for Kerry, and 0.8 percent for Nader. In the 7 polls that provide results for registered voters, however, Kerry is leading in 4, Bush in 1, and 2 are tied. Average support was 47.0 percent for Kerry, 46.7 percent for Bush, and 0.9 percent for Nader. Bottom line: Even in the samples of likely voters, Bush is well below the 50 percent mark generally needed by an incumbent. In fact, when Gallup allocates the undecided vote, their likely voter sample goes from a 49-47 Bush lead to a 49-49 tie. In the broader samples of registered voters, Bush is actually trailing in most of the recent polls. With a very high turnout expected tomorrow, the registered voter samples are probably more representative of the actual electorate than the likely voter samples.

The Four Major Battleground States
In Florida, there have been 11 polls since October 15. Bush led in 5, Kerry led in 5, and 1 was tied. Average support was 47.5 percent for Bush, 46.5 percent for Kerry, and 1.2 percent for Nader. Turnout in the early voting has been enormous, with a clear advantage for Democrats. Expect a huge turnout tomorrow as well that will put this state in the Kerry column. In Ohio, there have been 11 polls since October 15. Kerry led in 7, Bush led in 3, and 1 was tied. Average support was 47.2 percent for Bush and 48.3 percent for Kerry. Ralph Nader is not on the ballot. Turnout is going to be enormous and two federal judges ruled this morning that Republican political operatives cannot challenge voters in minority precincts. That was Karl Rove's last gasp in Ohio. The Buckeye state will go Democratic this year and no Republican has ever won a presidential election without carrying Ohio. In Pennsylvania, there have been 11 polls since October 15. Kerry led in 8, Bush led in 2 and 1 was tied. Average support was 46.8 percent for Bush and 48.7 percent for Kerry. Ralph Nader is not on the ballot. Pennsylvania looks solid for Kerry.

Finally, in Michigan, there have been 5 polls since October 15, including only the most recent release of the Mitchell tracking poll. Kerry led in all 5 polls. Average support was 44.2 percent for Bush, 47.2 percent for Kerry, and 1.0 percent for Nader. Michigan also looks solid for Kerry. Bottom line: George Bush's situation in all four of these key battleground states is dire. His support is well below 50 percent in all of them and he is currently trailing John Kerry in 3 of the 4. A clean sweep of all four states by John Kerry is a distinct possibility.

Posted by rteixeira on November 1, 2004 12:40 PM | Permalink

Conclusion: McCain is not in bad shape. I just got done reviewing the accuracy of polls taken immediately before the election in 2000 and I found similar discrepancies. That case is not an analogous one, however, as those who were old enough to vote then may remember. Al Gore set off his media-bomb on the Friday before the election: the revelation that his campaign had been sitting on for months that Bush had a DUI arrest back in the 1970's which had not been disclosed. This revelation significantly drove down Bush's poll numbers. We need to be ready for the Dem's media-bombs this time around. They seem to focus on personal/character issues. Especially those with a sex-scandal tinge (Mark Foley/Ted Haggard).

So be vigilant. Donate $20-$200 to McCain/Palin today. We need to keep BHO and the other jerk from taking over the country.

WHEN ALL ELSE FAILS TRY "RACISM"

Here we go here we go here we go. Because of Obama's inability to pull ahead of McCain in the race to the Presidency, the left has begun it mantra, racism, racism, racism.

This time though folks it is going to fall on deft ears. People are tired of hearing for forty years about race. If it were Colin Powell up there running for President there would be no mention of racism. First of all Powell would have no part of it . Secondly people genuinely don' t care what color you are.Third Powell is highly qualified and highly respected. He has earned his status.

Granted there are still pockets of dissenters who would outrightly say they wouldn't vote for Obama because he is Black. But that is a simplistic lazy answer, and the people uttering those negatives are folks who usually don.t vote or are ignorant as to the aspects that should be looked at when deciding who you will pick as your choice to be your leader. Its just a lazy escape.

The overall consensus though is that racism is just not a leading factor anymore. But the liberals will use it instead of accepting the facts that the public is not as stupid as they had calculated and is actually looking at the substance of the man.

Racism is the guilt trip of the liberals, after that it is apologetic America. And frankly people are tired of both. People are tired of environmental causes that just don't play out, to any significant personal realization but instead infringe upon people who as a rule are used to living and depending on their own self determination and in return expect to have their individual rights respected.

People are tired of the cause for the all instead of the cause for the one. The United States is becoming more crowded and more complicated with too many specialty scatter groups. Multiple languages, multiple customs and much non communication. There has been a conserted effort over the last forty years to make the United States not a unified country of like minded multicultural backgrounds who are striving for a united cause. But instead it has become an un united bunch of thug splinter groups who are hell bent on bringing down the very core of what it has always meant to be an American.

Racism is dead. But lets take that one step further. Racism among white voters is for all intents and purposes dead. The efforts of the civil rights movement has done a good job at reaching into the intelligence of the white American and educating him as to the utterly immoral attitude and damage done to a fellow American through racism.

But is racism dead among the black or Hispanic, or middle eastern or Asian American dead? Not a chance. There is much divide among those of newer races who have joined the ranks of almost or newly naturalized American. As would be expected the less the education the more the fear and skepticism of another's race. Much of this though is fueled by the likes of wackos like Jeremiah Wright and that whole bunch. There are many more Jeremia Wrights lingering around the poor ghetto neighborhoods who disparage the white American for what the majority has not done for the Black man but the truth is the white man has done enough.

It is up to the race unto itself to rise up and recognize who its real demon is. And usually they will find it is someone from their own corner, playing Machiavelli. Its one of the oldest games in the play book when it comes to exploitation of your own kind.

No if Obama losses and it looks like he will. It's not racism, that will be coming from the largest portion of the American white voter, but it is pure and simple Missourian. " Show Me" Obama just ain't produced. As for the other race's who knows but I sincerely believe that in particular among Black African American's there is a skepticism as to Obama's connection with them as well. They are more and more seeing him as the elitist, "look downer" that he is. Obama has done well for himself like Jeremia Wright and the bunch, but he has done it climbing up the backs of his (by his own declaration) people. And many of them are seeing that as this race drags on.

Perhaps if Obama hadn't started so early in his run for President he might have had a better chance at disallowing people to get to know him better. Despite the Press, and their left leanings blatantly displayed on evening television. Despite the media's refusal to bring out and intensive investigation of a man who has clearly fumbled in his rise to the top by association of many many not so savory characters. Despite the lack of substance of leadership in his political history. Obama has hurt Obama by believing he was what he purported to be. Some sort of Saviour and at the same time acted in a manner all too familiar with the knowledgeable public.

This race is not going to be lost because of race. It is going to be lost for Obama by Obama because he is too arrogant to accept the fact that people do look at your character by more than just your words. They look at your deeds, and he has none. At least none that rate when it comes to putting him in the Oval Office. Perhaps Obama should do in Chicago as Sarah Palin has done in Alaska, rise up against the corruption in his hometown government and run for Mayor, then Governor and then perhaps run for President If he were to do this though he would have to go against the very people with whom he has joined to grab at the present brass ring. Unlike Sarah Palin who went against her own party to clean things up. Obama went with his own party, joined in in the corruption, for his own personal gain, and now is slowly being exposed despite the best efforts of the left to cover up or destroy his past, and recreate a past that has spawned from the very bowels of the Chicago Corruption Machine.

Remember Barack Obama, the old saying " The truth shall set you free" had you tried that from the beginning I believe that as forgiving as the American People are you may have had a real chance at winning. Maybe not this time, but the next.

When you lose on November 4th you have driven your final nail for higher political office in Washington. Your chances to succeed as the guru of the Democratic Party are done. You need to return to Chicago and begin cleaning up there. Ten years from now when you are older and wiser you might try again. The people will have forgotten about your misdeeds provided you do no more, and will be more acceptable of your ways perhaps because you will have developed a track record hopefully of success for change as you preach. But this time around my tall dark and handsome stranger, you have not convinced the people of yourself worth, and you will lose not because of your color, but because of your principles. We are tired of the same old left whinings, and as if thats not enough, we are tired of the guilt that your party represents, and you as their standard bearer will suffer the consequences. Not for your personal race, but for the race that you are running.

So Who's Drawing the Crowd's ??

Palin Draws Crowd on First Solo Swing, Hews to Script (Update1)
By Nicholas Johnston

Sept. 15 (Bloomberg) -- Denny and Melanie Doyal got in line Saturday three hours before Sarah Palin's first solo campaign rally outside Alaska. They were among the latecomers.
Terril Tungate was at a Carson City, Nevada, park by 10:30 a.m., seven hours before the Republican vice presidential nominee took the stage. When Palin finished, Tungate emerged from the throng(Websters definition of a Throng is huge crowds, this event was conservatively 7000 people) clutching an autographed campaign sign.
``It was the bomb,'' the 52-year-old legal secretary shouted over the cheers. While she's long supported Republican presidential candidate John McCain, Tungate said, ``now it's 10 times better.''
As Palin set out over the weekend for her first campaign swing without McCain at her side, the 44-year-old Alaska governor attracted an exuberant audience and fired up hard-core Republican voters like Tungate. She stuck closely to scripted applause lines in her standard stump speech, avoiding unrehearsed statements to the public or the press.
More than two weeks after McCain picked Palin for the ticket, his campaign is still selective about sending her out alone. Since a short trip to Alaska that included two campaign events in her home state, Palin held just two solo rallies before rejoining McCain for another round of joint appearances.
``There's only man in this race who is ready to serve as our 44th president: he's my running mate and my friend, Senator John McCain,'' Palin said this morning in Golden, Colorado, during her second rally.
The Arizona senator, 72, has pulled even with or slightly ahead of Democratic nominee Barack Obama in most national polls since picking Palin on Aug. 29, and has been drawing the biggest crowds of his campaign.
`Drill Baby, Drill'
Before Palin's Carson City speech, Nevada Lieutenant Governor Brian Krolicki fired up the crowd. ``Is this what 10,000 people looks like?'' he asked. ``What does 10,000 people sound like?'' The audience roared in response.
When Palin took the stage to the sounds of Van Halen, the cheers were loud enough that nobody would mistake the rally for one of McCain's signature town hall meetings. Supporters chanted ``Sa-rah, Sa-rah,'' and ``drill baby, drill.''
``You're right, you are right -- drill baby, drill,'' Palin said as the crowd interrupted her speech with the McCain campaign slogan calling for increased U.S. oil and gas production.
Except for last week's television interview with ABC News's Charles Gibson, the vice presidential hopeful has been kept under wraps. Palin has drawn criticism for some comments to Gibson, including statements about possible war with Russia and shakiness on other issues.
Few Ad-Libs
With a few ad-libs, Palin's speech focused on the same points she's stressed in earlier campaign stops, touting her record in Alaska as governor and as mayor of Wasilla.
``I reminded people there that government is not always the answer; in fact, often, government is the problem,'' she said, echoing a line made famous by Republican President Ronald Reagan.
Palin said she has cut taxes, taken on oil companies and lobbyists, vetoed almost $500 million in state spending, enacted ethics reform, and ``tried to live by example.''
``As mayor I took a voluntary pay cut, which didn't thrill my husband; and then as governor I cut the personal chef position from the budget, and that didn't thrill my hungry kids,'' she said to laughter and cheers. ``And I put the state's checkbook online for all to see, and that didn't thrill the bureaucrats.''
`Bridge to Nowhere'
Palin stuck with her statement that she told Congress ``thanks, but no thanks'' on federal funding for Alaska's ``bridge to nowhere,'' after reports that she supported the structure while campaigning for governor and canceled the project after Congress failed to provide enough money. She stressed her opposition to federal spending earmarked for hometown projects, after seeking those appropriations as mayor and governor.
She introduced ``Alaska's first dude,'' her husband, Todd, and ran down his resume: commercial fisherman, oil-production worker, steelworker, and four-time champion of Alaska's 2,000- mile Iron Dog snowmobile race.
Palin called McCain, who has represented Arizona in Congress since 1983, ``the only man in this race who's got what it takes'' to change Washington.
``John McCain doesn't run with the Washington herd, he's willing to shake things up,'' Palin said. ``That's why we need to take the maverick out of the Senate and bring him to the White House.''
Supporting the Surge
In Alaska last week, Palin spoke at the deployment ceremony for her son Track's U.S. Army unit, which is shipping out to Iraq later this month for a 12-month tour. In Carson City, she reminded the crowd of McCain's support for President George W. Bush's ``surge'' strategy of sending more troops to Iraq to reduce violence there.
``It was John McCain who refused to break faith with our troops, who have now brought victory in Iraq right within sight,'' Palin said. ``As the mother of one of those troops, that is exactly the kind of man I want as commander-in-chief.''
After the speech, the Nevada crowd stuck around, taking pictures and passing signs and flyers forward for autographs as Palin and her husband worked the front of the stage.
The Doyals emerged from the scrum to say it was worth a three-hour wait to attend their first political rally.
``We love her,'' said Melanie Doyal, 42.
George and Judy Johnson, retirees from nearby Minden, had also attended their first campaign event. ``She brought us out,'' said George Johnson, 66. ``She really has the world excited.''
To contact the reporter on this story: Nicholas Johnston in Carson City, Nevada, at njohnston3@bloomberg.net

NOW LETS HEAR FROM JOE BIDEN'S COVERAGE OVER THE SAME TIME SPAN.
Speaking to hundreds of people in a sweltering high school gym in the Detroit suburb of St. Clair Shores, Biden decried what he said was "a culture in Washington where the very few wealthy and powerful have a seat at the table and the rest of us are on the menu."

ANOTHER SMALL MINDED ATTACK

Friday, September 12, 2008



Wondering No More [Jonah Goldberg]


Yep. The day after 9/11, as part of its "get tough" makeover, the Obama campaign is mocking John McCain for not using a computer, without caring why he doesn't use a computer. From the AP story about the computer illiterate ad:

"Our economy wouldn't survive without the Internet, and cyber-security continues to represent one our most serious national security threats," [Obama spokesman Dan] Pfeiffer said. "It's extraordinary that someone who wants to be our president and our commander in chief doesn't know how to send an e-mail."

Well, I guess it depends on what you mean by "extraordinary." The reason he doesn't send email is that he can't use a keyboard because of the relentless beatings he received from the Viet Cong in service to our country. From the Boston Globe (March 4, 2000):

McCain gets emotional at the mention of military families needing food stamps or veterans lacking health care. The outrage comes from inside: McCain's severe war injuries prevent him from combing his hair, typing on a keyboard, or tying his shoes. Friends marvel at McCain's encyclopedic knowledge of sports. He's an avid fan - Ted Williams is his hero - but he can't raise his arm above his shoulder to throw a baseball.

In a similar vein I guess it's an outrage that the blind governor of New York David Paterson doesn't know how to drive a car. After all, transportation issues are pretty important. How dare he serve as governor while being ignorant of what it's like to navigate New York's highways.

Update: Well, now the story is up on Drudge (You heard it here first!). Re: Mark's point about how the supposedly web-savvy Obama campaign can't handle Google, here's another story confirming he has difficulty using a keyboard. Ironically, it's from one of the most pro-Obama journalists out there, Jacob Weisberg, in an article in Slate in 2000:

"Six months ago, no one would have pegged McCain as the most cybersavvy of this year's crop of candidates. At 63, he is the oldest of the bunch and because of his war injuries, he is limited in his ability to wield a keyboard."

Now, in response to some angry criticism already coming in: Feh.

Some say, So what if he was handicapped? He could still learn how to send email.

Sure, but why would he? Bill Clinton sent two emails during his entire presidency and often admitted he didn't know squat about the internet.

One reader says "Steven Hawking knows how to use a computer!" Yes, because if he didn't he couldn't do his job or communicate. McCain, like Clinton, didn't have that problem. Here's a more sane version of t he same complaint:

You are ridiculous about this. While of course McCain probably can't type for long periods or in the manner in which many of us do, there are a tremendous amount of people that peck with just their index fingers. He also can surely use a mouse. How much typing do you really have to do to send emails and use the internet. Plus, when he was asked point blank about it he never said he couldn't type. I am sure he can't use a blackberry, but there are tons of people with far worse injuries than McCain that use a computer.

That's absolutely true, I'm sure. But they need to use computers to get through life. McCain doesn't. And the fact that he's not blaming his disability hardly sounds like a serious indictment. If he did blame his disability, many of the same folks yelling at me would be complaining that McCain's whining.

Now, I'd hardly be surprised if McCain could type for short stretches and all that. The point is, that it's perfectly understandable why he wouldn't get in the habit of it.

Oh one last point for now: Lord knows I think the chicken-hawk arguments are stupid. And I don't think the fact that Obama never served in the military should count against him in and of itself. But how stupid is it for the Obama campaign to claim that McCain is unqualified to be president because he can't grasp cyber-security issues based on the fact he has never sent an email when the McCain campaign can just as easily say Obama can't understand first order national security issues because he's never fired a rife, flown a plane, commanded men in battle, or faced an enemy? I mean which prepares someone to be commander in chief better, hitting "send" on AOL or fighting a war?

Update II: On the other hand: I don't know what to make of this interview with the New York Times. He sounds awfully web savvy in it, which makes the Obama ad sound unfair. And if you read it closely, it sounds like he knows how to surf with a mouse, but doesn't do much by way of typing.

Pamela Anderson ????

You have got to be kidding me!!!

For what sane reason would anyone really give a shit as to what Pam Anderson thinks politically??

The former over the hill, overdosed prescription junkie, botox silicon queen and Bay Watch bubble head was asked about Sarah Palin and in her usual limited four letter vocabulary replied what Palin could do. But she failed to be specific about how that phraseology should be applied.

Granted with the amount of liposuction that the imitation Lonnie Anderson has had she is probably obsessed with her need to constantly parrot the word she used in reference to Palin while unconsciously pointing to her own cellulitic areas that need tending too. Or maybe if she is still doing her side show act down in Las Vegas she continually uses that phrase in her performance. Do I have the right show or is Pam doing another type of show over on 4th street somewhere? Maybe someone has re released those naughty sex tapes of Pam hoping to pick up some extra jing for Anderson who seems to have stalled while reaching a new low in her performance carrier.

What is amusing is the fact that I don't even think Pam Anderson has become anything more than a permanent resident of the United States and actually can't vote her choice in our elections. Perhaps she should think about voicing her opinion of her own Presidential candidates up there in the Tundra land and leave the worrying about who is going to run the country that she so anxiously desires to live in up to voting Americans.

Maybe just maybe one of the many X husbands Pam has made such sound choices in marrying numerous instances, and divorcing just as quickly voiced a favorable comment about Palin. Seeing as Pam's vanity has grown much worse than it was in the past since she has leaped over the Forty year old mark, and as an aging former 50's retro queen with a torso that appears to have been drawn by some Anime illustrator, she is starting to realize how worn out she really is.

Pam whose VIP and Bay Watch clips now frequently appear on syndicated afternoon t.v. in between original reruns of "The Dukes of Hazard" and "The A Team" feels insecure about the the likes of Palin.Perhaps she should be. Palin a mom of five who has never thought about using botox or silicon to enhance that beautifully asymmetric and naturally radiant face of hers and who is older than Anderson by three years but yet looks 8 years younger, has a college degree and a vocabulary stretches beyond the "American book of Slang Swear words".

What I find very interesting is that not only the likes of Anderson but many of the other very insecure women who for years equal to those of Anderson's life span are now coming out against Palin. And what is the real reason for all this sudden ferociousness against Sarah?? Simple its beauty and jealousy.

It is resentment clear and simple. Palin is woman who is happy and content with everything that these women have rejected as supposed unhappiness. The problem is these other so called libbers have traveled the new road to women's freedom and only to find out that it was not what they were told it would be but even more faux. Now they look back and see Sarah Palin, following the principles that her parents laid down that she has adopted as her own way of life and not only has she found happiness but success.

Her is a mom, a working mother of five, who has accomplished the American dream to the point of reality and is three years older than Pam Anderson but not showing half the wear and tare that Anderson has at only forty-two.
Maybe its all that fresh air and sunshine Palin has absorbed all her life in Alaska. Oh wait Anderson is from similar weather up there in Toronto isn't she? Yes but it seems to be apparent that the two women have definitely chosen different life styles and much different roads to arrive at their final goals when it comes to healthy living. Pam Anderson's choice has most definitely taken it toll on her early on. Perhaps she should take some examples form Palin.

Lets see now does Anderson's opinion of Sarah Palin really matter?? Does she speak such bane words about a fellow liberated woman or perhaps more liberated than Pam could ever imagine, from all of her worldly experience in dealing with running her own household, city charter, or Governors mansion? Hmmm I thought not. So Pam perhaps you would be better off doing what you said Sarah Palin could do in your most recent 15 seconds of fame. After all from what has been revealed about your own history experience and background it seems you may be an expert in that field already and have been for many years. That's one hell of a retirement plan you have puckered up for there Pam. Good luck with that one.

As for Matt Damon, well I have a feeling he is merely trying to protect the rather fragile marriage he has gotten himself into by negatively commenting about Palin. After all if his wife realized that her husband had an eye for older motherly types she too might get a bit jealous and then Matt would have to call Bill Clinton for Monica's number. Oh wait he could just call Pam for some relief.

JOE MEET SARAH, UH OH JOE THATS ALL YOU'VE GOT!

If Hillary is stumping for Obama, why isn't the press inquiring what her after thoughts are about Sarah Palin more often than once.

Why is it that although there are briefs about Obama's whereabouts there is no daily coverage as to the whereabouts of Joe Biden, or Hillary, and their personal observations..

Who is the press trying to kid when they say the Republican's are hiding Sarah. Oh I get it the Dems are not hiding Biden or Hillary they both have found a hole to crawl into all on their own. Talk about trauma.

If I were those two I would think that it would be just reason to remain out of the headlines for the time being just for the survival of my political career. Sarah Mincemeat may make Barracuda stew out of you.

Sarah Palin is the epitome of bringing a fully automatic rifle to a knife fight. I can just picture Joe Biden, with his Bill Halley curl, Fonzi jacket, and James Dean boots, prancing around like he just learned the stroll and whipping his switch blade stiletto like a pair of nung chucks between his backhand and palm. Building up a sense of false courage before going into the dog pit with Palen. Here comes this quaintly dressed looker in a skirt with a smidgen of well placed make up, clean and shinny hair, unsmeared rose red lipstick , and stylish librarian glasses placed on the bridge of her nose. Up to him she walks, leans forward, eyes squinting with the ever so slight lip part for effect.

Gently placing one hand with extended arm upon Joe's right shoulder, she says excuse me, playing off of his chauvanistic male ego, a slight bit of body shift and skip for balance. With the other hand she reaches down slips a womens size 9 stiletto healed shoe off of her crossed leg knee high foot, and in one swift swing, carefully plants it right between Joe's eyes, knocking him on his ass while he watches the universe pass by his star bursting hollow cranium as the knife drops with a clink to the ground, and his body assumes the fetal position.

Sarah Palin has that effect on you. Reserved, well cultured middle class, but just enough on the wild side to be able to plant a Sunday on your glass jaw if need be. Her record proves it. She is not afraid to go to a knife fight but be warned suckka's she won't be bringin no boyscout foldup pocket can opener.

This lady is the real deal just ask her family. When her quiet and handsome husband was placed upon the podium to introduce Cindy McCain, he made one comment about his wife that should ring true with any self respecting husband who has made a success of long term marriage. He said " when Sarah makes up her mind about something, its best to just get out of her way". No truer words can be uttered.

Once I knew a man who had enjoyed 55 years of wedded bliss with the same woman, and most probably is still married to her if he has not check out and headed for the big Ponderosa. I told him that I admired couples especially men who could make such a long go of marriage and be successful. I also told him that I had never been so lucky as to have even one such long term marriage, and inquired as to what he attributed his success to. Knowing that I wasn't kidding and very sincere he pondered his answer for the longest time and then humbly replied. " A lot of yard work". These two men said the same thing in two very unique but knowledgeable ways.

If you as a man are looking for that special one a long term relationship with a truely liberated woman, a lesson can be learned from these proverbial utterances. Find the one who has a mind of her own, love her for it, and get out of her way. Sarah's guy knows it, and the rest of the country is about to find it out as well.

AH THE RETURN OF WOMANHOOD, ONLY WITH ADDED SPICE

Well I watched the V.P. acceptance speech Wednesday night with anxious pause just like every other McCain supporter who feels that John McCain will make an historic President. His introduction of his running mate Sarah Palin and her qualifications was everything anyone could hope for, she is a natural.

Remember now she has been on television before as a newscaster so this wasn't her first go at it. She did wonderfully, showing that she is the type of person who continually endeavors to do the best she can given whatever task it is.

I find it quite amusing that Barack Obama's people are still spastically knee jerking with comparisons of her to him. Correct me if I'm wrong or if something changed while I was asleep which I don't get much of these days, but I thought he (Obama) was running for President not V.P.. So whats the big deal?

I also remember that it was Newsweek, and Time that rushed out the articles about how unimportant the V.P. pick really was, immediately after Obama picked Joe Biden, and that no matter, the vice presidential pick was not the center piece for determination of who would be elected president.
The bias in the liberal media has become so blatant one has a hard time keeping his lunch down. Its almost tempting to become a vigilantist William Ayers, and bomb the news medias instead of the Pentagon and police stations, just to put them out of their current withdrawal suffering.

My initial political awareness began with the Kennedy assassination. The day he was shot I was cutting class with five other friends when it came over the radio. We were all stunned to say the least and went back to school only to find out that the entire high school had been sent home. We never got in trouble for that one.

I admired Kennedy so very much. Rumor has it my uncle and the Kennedy's were distantly related and I believe this rumor to be true. My uncle at the time was John McCormick's chauffeur and more. He would sit with Kennedy and McCormick when they had breakfast or lunch together in the White House.

The stories were wonderful and the Democratic corruption was rapid. But Kennedy was a people's president and so license to do what it took to get things done was condoned.

My first vote cast was when Nixon ran for the presidency, I was lying in a hospital bed in Japan, having been shipped there after being wounded in Vietnam. I was handed an absentee ballot. I didn't vote for him he wanted to pull us out of the war.

Anyway I may have voted for Nixon had I not read a book while lying in the jungled mountains
during patrols. It was called "Six Crisis" and supposedly authored by Nixon, ( I believe it was ghost written). After being exposed to the inner workings of how government was really run under the Kennedy administration and reviewing the shoddy cover up in the Warren report I was a born cynic.

Nixon's not so rational, rational, Disney World like naivety and how he perceived his misfortunes under the Eisenhower administration, plus his run for Governor of California instilled in me the belief that he was basically a lunatic and there could be no way he was right about pulling out of Vietnam before we had won or that his man could be considered for the Presidency.

Looking back now , many books, documentaries, exposee's, newstories, and just plain maturity, proves he was correct in doing so because he really had no choice in order to save many more American lives.
I believe to this day as many of my generation (but not knowing at the time) that Kennedy was killed for the similar reasons. That he was going to get us out of Vietnam before we got so deeply entrenched. Now let me make one point perfectly clear here and now. Vietnam and Iraq are in no way similar and cannot be compared so. That is unless the Democrats had been successful in cutting off funding to support the war as they did during the Vietnam era. And to the chagrin of most Democrats we have George W. Bush to thank for preventing another Vietnam like failure. Thank you George.

During my college years I had sworn to the not so famous position of Independent. I had taken a job as George McGovern's photographer for the Southern California Democratic precinct in San Diego to see what the man was all about, being as I was still realign from Nixon and winding down the war which I had recently returned from.

McGovern and Ernest Greening from Alaska were touring the Southern California Area securing handshakes and money of support from the regional Demo's. Again I was exposed to the back door corruption and dealings while photo opting union leaders, and party chairmen with McGovern as I listened to how corrupt the Republicans were while watching the brown bags in back room headquarters and parties.

Anyway to get back on topic, which is Sarah Palin. Never since my first voting experience or my attention to the pre election campaigning have I seen such amoral bias as I see right now with this first ever female Republican candidate for V.P.

There have been many rants and raves over the years but the outright fear displayed by the Democrats over Sarah Palin is stupendously over the top. It is hysteria pure and simple.

By picking Mrs. Palin John McCain has scattered the apples out of the Democratic cart of liberalism all over the parking lot .And it is guaranteed they will not be able to pick them all up with out loosing quite a few to passing motorists squishing them under their tires.

He graciously has given pluralists everything that they talk about giving women. He has given it to them through a woman, but not a liberal one, a conservative. Sarah Palin is an individual, a free thinking woman at that . And I might add although she believes in pro life, I think she would take a step back and allow another woman the right to free choice,. I believe she talks of only her personal choice.

She is the true emancipated woman the way it can and should be for all women. She clearly makes more money than her husband and she clearly has loftier goals than he, but yet at the same time holds him up equal to herself. In fact equal is not really a word or measurement that I think she uses for comparison. She looks at him as she says as "her guy", no truer words can be spoken for a committed relationship. They have each other, a joint relationship in which they share everything.

As social counselor and addiction specialist Terry Gorsky once mentioned that in American society ninety seven percent of the society suffers from being dysfunctional. Therefore if the majority of the society is this way it can be classified as the "norm" or more plainly put "normal". Not that any of us want to admit to being dysfunctional but many of my fellow peers would like to think of themselves as normal. Personally I would strive and do strive to be a part of the three percent who are not normal. This small percentage of them as Gorsky would put it are healthy. Also as he put it when you meet one of the three percentiles it is an enlightening experience.

Now Sarah Palin's family are your very typical American small town family comparative to those other small town families of the Western United States. For instance you won't find many early morning Moose hunting wives in downtown Manhattan where some typical American families still try to maintain an existence or perhaps it would be better suited to use Brooklyn as a comparative. There are many middle to working class families still clinging to their heritage and roots from that neck of a different kind of woods. The point being however that both of these locals as well as so many many other locals throughout the country have relatively similar issues as the Palin's and can relate to their trial and tribulations.

Are the Palin's dysfunctional? I don't know you be the judge. Are they more than likely in the ninety seven percentile? Probably. But Sarah Palin scores high on that scale closer toward the other three percent. Although she wears glasses her vision is not distorted, it is very clear and she sees things for what they are. For this she is called conservative and right wing. If she is the influence of dysfuntionality in her family it is slight, compared to the families and attackers who are in a panic about her appointment.

Sarah reminds me of the old time farmers of which my mother was one. Ask them a question and expect a direct unflowered answer. Short and sweet. That is why she can be compared to Harry Truman. A man of few words but words that were sharp clear and to the point. Not many adjectives to fumigate the answer.

The conservatives have not seen the likes of Sarah Palin since Teddy Roosevelt and Reagan. Even Michael Reagan the son of the late President and radio talk host has compared Sarah Palin to a resurrection of his father. If anything ever were to be considered a miracle and pull this election out of the hat for the Republicans it is Sarah Palin and the liberals are painfully aware.

It is very noticeable how she dresses too. No pantsuit like Hillary is so often seen wearing, but instead fair sized heels and a business dress, or skirt. Librarian glasses and the proverbial bee hive with the apparent display of rush, as if subconscious of her need to appear feminine but yet not so worried that the rest of her female physic will not suffice for a bit of messing quickly frumped hair conveniently stuck up on top of her head with maybe a letter opener, chop stick or borrowed clip board type retainer.

Coming from the generation who has been accused of so much chauvinism by the women of that generation who secretly strove to be more chauvinistic than we, it is such a pleasure to be introduced to a natural woman. A true feminine female, who is what she is, a woman and mother first, a best bud to her husband second, and a liberated conservative whose potential is so rapidly on the rise I believe there may be no stopping her. It is my prediction that we are now being introduced to the real first female President of the United States. The gods have bestowed favor on the Republicans and this is what has gotten the gargoyles within the left Demoncratic party so upset. There is not turning back now redemption is just over the horizon.

ALL HAIL THE COMMANDERESS AND CHIEF

Well I like most serious voters watched the V.P. acceptance speech Wednesday night with anxious pause just like every other McCain supporter who feels that McCain will make an historic President. His introduction of running mate Sarah Palin and her solo debut was everything anyone could hope for, she is a natural.

Remember now she has been on television before as a newscaster, so this wasn't her first go at it. She did wonderfully, showing that she is the type of person who continually endeavors to do the best she can given whatever task it is.

I find it quite amusing that Barack Obama's people are still spasmodically knee jerking with comparisons of her to him. Correct me if I'm wrong or if something changed while I was asleep which I don't get much of these days, but I thought he (Obama) was running for President not V.P.. So whats the big deal?

I also remember that it was Newsweek, and Time that rushed out the articles about how unimportant the V.P. pick really was, immediately after Obama picked Joe Biden, and that no matter, the vice presidential pick was not the center piece for determination of who would be elected president.Media wise that sentiment has drastically changed from two weeks ago.

The bias in the liberal media has become so blatant one has a hard time keeping his lunch down. Its almost tempting to become a vigilantic William Ayers, and bomb the news medias in retaliation for their leftist bias, instead of the Pentagon or police stations. Fear not however that will not happen.

My own initial political awareness began with the Kennedy assassination. The day he was shot I was cutting class with five other friends when it came over the radio that Kennedy had been shot. We were all stunned to say the least and returned to school only to find out that the entire high school had been sent home. We never got in trouble for that cut.

I admired Kennedy so very much. Rumor has it my uncle and the Kennedy's were distantly related and I believe this rumor to be true. My uncle at the time was Speaker John McCormick's chauffeur and more. He would sit with Kennedy and McCormick during breakfast's or luncheons together in the White House.

The stories he would relate were wonderful and the Democratic corruption was ramped. But Kennedy was a people's president and so license to do what it took to get things done was condoned.

My first vote cast was when Nixon ran for the presidency, I was lying in a hospital bed in Japan, having been shipped there after being wounded in Vietnam. I was handed an absentee ballot. I didn't vote for him he wanted to pull us out of the war.

Anyway I may have voted for Nixon had I not read a book while lying in the jungles and mountains of during routine patrols. It was called "Six Crisis" and supposedly authored by Nixon, ( I believe it was ghost written). After being exposed to the inner workings of how government was really run under the Kennedy administration and reviewing the shoddy cover up in the Warren report I was a born cynic.

Nixon's not so rational, rational, Disney World like naivety and how he perceived his misfortunes under the Eisenhower administration, plus his run for Governor of California instilled in me the belief that he was basically a lunatic and there could be no way he was right about pulling out of Vietnam before we had won or that this man could be considered for the Presidency.

Looking back now , many books, documentaries, expose's, new stories, and just plain maturity, proves Nixon was correct by doing so because he really had no choice in order to save many more American lives.

I believe to this day as many of my generation (but not knowing at the time) that Kennedy was killed for the similar reasons. That he was going to get us out of Vietnam before we got so deeply entrenched in order to save many American lives before they were lost.

Now let me make one point perfectly clear here. Vietnam and Iraq are in no way similar and cannot be compared so. That is unless the Democrats had been successful in cutting off funding to support the current war as they did during the Vietnam era. And to the chagrin of most Democrats we have George W. Bush to thank for preventing another Vietnam like failure. Thank you George.

During my college years I had sworn to the not so famous position of Independent. I had taken a job as George McGovern's photographer for the Southern California Democratic precinct in San Diego to see what the man was all about, being as I was still realign from Nixon and winding down the war which I had recently returned from.

McGovern and Ernest Greening from Alaska were touring the Southern California Area securing handshakes and money of support from the regional Demo's. Again I was exposed to the back door corruption and dealings while photo opting union leaders, and party chairmen with McGovern as I listened to how corrupt the Republicans were while watching the brown bags in back room headquarters and parties.

Anyway to get back on topic, which is Sarah Palin. Never since my first voting experience or my attention to the pre election campaigning have I seen such amoral bias as I see right now with this first ever female Republican candidate for V.P.

There have been many rants and raves over the years but the outright fear displayed by the Democrats over Sarah Palin is stupendously over the top. It is hysteria pure and simple.

By picking Mrs. Palin John McCain has scattered the apples out of the Democratic cart of liberalism all over the parking lot .And it is guaranteed they will not be able to pick them all up with out loosing quite a few to passing motorists of observers, rubbernecking the damage.

He graciously has given pluralists everything that they talk about giving women. He has given it to them through a woman, but not a liberal one, a conservative. Sarah Palin is an individual, a free thinking woman at that . And I might add although she believes in pro life, I think she would take a step back and allow another woman the right to free choice.

She is the true emancipated woman the way it can and should be for all women. She clearly makes more money than her husband and she clearly has loftier goals than he, but yet at the same time holds him up equal to herself. In fact equal is not really a word or measurement that I think she uses for comparison. She looks at him as she says as "her guy", no truer words can be spoken for a committed relationship. They have each other, a mutual relationship in which they share every bit of responsibility.

Social counselor and addiction specialist Terry Gorski once mentioned that in American society ninety seven percent of the society suffers from being dysfunctional. Therefore if the majority of the society is this way it can be classified as the "norm" or more plainly put "normal". Not that any of us want to admit to being dysfunctional but many of my fellow peers would like to think of themselves as normal. Personally I would strive and do strive to be a part of the three percent who are not normal. This small percentage of them as Gorski would put it are the healthys. Also as he put it when you meet one of the three percentiles it is an enlightening experience.

Now Sarah Palin's family and their problems are your very typical American small town family comparative to those other small town families of the Western United States. For instance you won't find many early morning Moose hunting wives in downtown Manhattan where some typical American families still try to maintain an existence or perhaps it would be better suited to use Brooklyn as a comparative. There are still many middle to working class families still clinging to their heritage and roots from that neck of a different kind of woods. The point being however that both of these locals as well as so many many other locals throughout the country have relatively similar issues as the Palin's and can relate to their trials and tribulations.

Are the Palin's dysfunctional? I don't know you be the judge. Are they more than likely in the ninety seven percentile? Probably. But Sarah Palin scores high on that scale closer toward the other three percent. Although she wears glasses her vision is not distorted, it is very clear and she sees things for what they are. For this she is called conservative and right wing. If she is the influence of dysfuntionality in her family it is slight, compared to the families and attackers who are in a panic about her appointment and whose long endured amorality is now threatened with exposure.

Sarah reminds me of the old time farmers of which my mother was one. Ask them a question and expect a direct unflowered answer. Short and sweet. That is why she can be compared to Harry Truman. A man of few words but words that were sharp, clear and to the point, not many adjectives to perfumigate the answer.

The conservatives have not seen the likes of Sarah Palin since Teddy Roosevelt and Reagan. Even Michael Reagan the son of the late President has compared Sarah Palin to a resurrection of his father. If anything ever were to be considered a miracle and pull this election out of the hat for the Republicans it is Sarah Palin and the liberals know it.

It is very noticeable how she dresses too. No pant suit like Hillary is so often seen wearing, but instead fair sized heels and a business dress, or skirt. Librarian glasses and the proverbial bee hive with the apparent display of rush, as if conscious of her need to appear feminine but yet not so worried that the rest of her female physic will not suffice, for a bit of messy quickly frumped hair conveniently stuck up on top of her head with maybe a letter opener, chop stick or borrowed clip type retainer.

Coming from the generation who has been accused of so much chauvinism by the women of that samw generation while they strove to be more chauvinistic than we, it is such a pleasure to be introduced to a woman.A woman mind you who was born in the last year of the baby boomers. A true feminine female, who is what she is, a woman and mother first, a best bud to her husband second, and a liberated conservative whose potential is so rapidly on the rise I believe there may be no stopping her. It is my prediction that we are now being introduced to the real first female President of the United States. The gods have bestowed favor on the Republicans and this is what has gotten the gargoyles within the left Demoncratic party so upset. There is not turning back now redemption is just over the horizon for the conservative movement.

McCain's Palin Strategy

September 02, 2008
By J.R. Dunn

Last Friday afternoon a close friend wise and cynical in the ways of New Jersey politics (his career as political tech and advisor going back almost to the epoch of Frank "I am the Law" Hague) got in touch to express some uncertainty concerning John McCain's choice of Sarah Palin as GOP vice-presidential candidate. Nothing serious, just a slight uneasiness, a sense of wariness as to how the choice would work out.


It's a feeling not at all difficult to understand. At first glance, it's possible to conclude that Governor Palin has slightly too much of a muchness -- that she's a little too close to being a superwoman, and that equivalent failings may be hidden below the surface. She's a beauty queen! She juggles five kids and the governor's office! She's a crack shot who hunts moose in the far north woods! (Shades of Dan'l Boone and TR there -- I wonder how many of our hypermacho male pols can match that?) She went toe to toe with a corrupt GOP establishment and made them blink! She negotiates her own agreements with foreign countries! (Palin signed an agreement for a new gas pipeline on August 27 with Canada, something that neither Barack Obama nor Joe Biden -- or John McCain, for that matter -- has ever done.)


Some of us may recall Betsy McCaughey, the New York lieutenant governor who had such a bright future in the GOP until, uhhh... it developed that her mental picture of the world was at odds with that of most people.


But Sarah Palin does not seem to be prey to any such problem. So until something turns up (and if it's there, the media will find it -- look how quickly they jumped on the "nude shots" that have been known to be fake for weeks, and Kos story that her latest baby was really her grandchild), we may take it for granted that the GOP has grabbed the gold ring.


But the most interesting fact is being generally overlooked in the legacy media: what it says about McCain. (Though not on AT -- see Charlie Martin's piece discussing McCain and the OODA cycle here.) Look at this from a strategic perspective. There is no huge convention bounce for Obama; the Rasmussen tarcking poll has Obama but three points ahead of McCain.


That smashing sound you heard was Obama's bounce being run over by a truck. McCain shoved it into the street, first by offering his "congratulations" in the middle of Obama's speech on Thursday night, then by dropping Palin on the Dems less than twelve hours later.

Every last campaign attempts to rain on the opposition's convention, but never in my experience has it been carried off as slickly and completely as this. Although the left and its press allies pretend Palin is a disaster for the GOP, the precise opposite is the case.

This is not the McCain of the 2000 election. That year, he was trying, like any other senatorial candidate, to bluster his way in. The problem with senators running for president is that they truly believe people are going to vote for them because of how wonderful they are. Call it the Bob Dole syndrome. They've been living in little bubbles for years, with everybody in sight kowtowing to them -- and when they get out in the big world and discover most of humanity has never heard of them, they can't adjust.


That was McCain in 2000. The McCain of 2008 is another story. He took his whipping from W, and instead of sulking (or pitching viagra), he learned from it. This time, he's working out this campaign move by move, thinking five or more moves ahead. He considered exactly what he could do with his VP choice. Two white dudes, no matter who, are still two white dudes (we'll skip over the fact that the choice this year among dudedom was not particularly inspiring). But pick a woman, after Obama's Hillary fiasco -- he could not possibly have handled it worse -- and it's hell among the yearlings, as we're seeing now. The Obama campaign acting as if any woman running in opposition is named "Hillary" (and then immediately having to step back), the DU and Kos netroots frothing at the mouth, the disgusting rumors and innuendos (the claim that Palin's Down Syndrome child was actually borne by her eldest daughter -- a claim seriously put forward on Kos on Saturday -- marks a stunning low in political discourse. But they'll figure out how to go lower, the media once again revealing their bias without having any clear idea that they're doing it. (This election is going be decided, as much as anything else, by public revulsion against Democratic netroot tactics. But more on that later, as it all unfolds.)


None of this simply happened. It was made to happen. And the man who made it happen is named McCain. McCain has this worked out all the way down the line. He's knows exactly how he's going to use Palin. And I think I've got an inkling. Palin's specialty is energy, this year's serious weak point for the Dems. Who sat around refusing a vote on allowing new drilling all summer while gas prices went through the stratosphere? What are they going to say to someone who has hands-on experience dealing with energy questions? Someone who has dealt with the industry on a daily basis? Someone who has actually negotiated energy matters with a foreign country?


I think McCain is sitting across the board and looking at Obama and thinking, "Your move, ace." McCain has moved out his queen, and she, as queens will do, is dominating the board. Let's see how the Dems deal with that.

J.R. Dunn is consulting editor of American Thinker.