Been There, Done That

clipped from corner.nationalreview.com First, Governor Palin is not merely, as Jay describes her, "all-American", but hyper-American. What other country in the developed world produces beauty queens who hunt caribou and serve up a terrific moose stew? As an immigrant, I'm not saying I came to the United States purely to meet chicks like that, but it was certainly high on my list of priorities. And for the gun-totin' Miss Wasilla then to go on to become Governor while having five kids makes it an even more uniquely American story. Next to her resume, a guy who's done nothing but serve in the phony-baloney job of "community organizer" and write multiple autobiographies looks like just another creepily self-absorbed lifelong member of the full-time political class that infests every advanced democracy. Likewise, on abortion, we're often told it's easy to be against it in principle but what if you were a woman facing a difficult birth or a handicapped child? Been there, done that.

Apparently You Have To Read The British Press ...

clipped from atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com It has been established that href="http://ibdeditorial.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=303605575673142">the" Frank" in Mr Obama’s memoir Dreams from My Father, was Frank Marshall Davis, a radical activist and journalist who had been suspected of being a member of the Communist Party in the 1950s. href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/uselection2008/barackobama/2601914/Frank-Marshall-Davis-alleged-Communist-was-early-influence-on-Barack-Obama.html">Frank Marshall Davis, alleged Communist, was early influence on Barack Obama  Telegraph [...] New details about a black poet in Hawaii who was a key early influence in Barack Obama’s life can be revealed by The Telegraph. In a surviving portion of an autobiographical manuscript, Mr Davis confirms that he was the author of Sex Rebel: Black after a reader had noticed the “similarities in style and phraseology” between the pornographic work and his poetry. s “ a voyeur and an exhibitionist” who was “occasionally mildly interested in sado-masochism”, adding: “I have often wished I had two penises to enjoy simultaneously the double – but different – sensations of oral and genital copulation.”

... to keep up with the latest about the Manchurian Candidate.

The (Saudi) Manchurian Candidate (Part 9,586,452)

clipped from pajamasmedia.com title="There must be some mistake" href="http://pajamasmedia.com/richardfernandez/files/2008/08/wrongman.jpeg">height=80 alt="There must be some mistake" src="http://pajamasmedia.com/richardfernandez/files/2008/08/wrongman.thumbnail.jpeg" width=80 align=left> There must be some mistake href="http://townhall.com/blog/g/c2df500d-0189-47d8-a454-54de9f6584c3">Townhall links to a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4EcC0QAd0Ug&eurl=http://townhall.com/blog">video in which civil rights activist href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Percy_Sutton">Percy Sutton claimed he was asked by a certain “Dr. Khalid al Mansour”, supposed adviser to ‘one of the richest men in the world’, to write a letter of reccomendation on behalf of Barack Obama to help him gain acceptance to the Harvard Law Review many years ago.  Mansour was raising money for Obama at the time,according to Sutton, a circumstance strange enough in itself. A search on the Internet showed another  href="http://www.africaventurepartners.com/news_p.htm">Dr. Khalid Abdullah Tariqhref="http://www.africaventurepartners.com/news_p.htm"> Al-Mansour’s whose biographical details fit the Sutton profile much better. Dr. Khalid Abdullah Tario Al-Mansour is an internationally acknowledged advisor to Heads of State and business leaders in Africa, Asia, the Middle East and North America. He has been actively involved in structuring investments and joint ventures worldwide for over 35 years.

But In Our Time

clipped from pajamasmedia.com title="Something wicked this way comes" href="http://pajamasmedia.com/richardfernandez/files/2008/08/storm.jpeg">alt="Something wicked this way comes" src="http://pajamasmedia.com/richardfernandez/files/2008/08/storm.thumbnail.jpeg" align=left> Something wicked this way comes href="http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSSEO2172420080826">North Korea has decided to suspend the decommissioning of its nuclear facilities because the United States has insisted on verification before removing it from the list of the state sponsors of terrorism.  This new crisis comes on the heels of Georgia and events in Pakistan. About the only good news is ironically from Iraq. What’s going on? The question is whether we are still in the End of History, at “the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow, and our planet began to heal,” or whether the stars are veiled; a sleepless malice is stirring, and a new menace is taking shape, not for the last time but in our time.

We Know

clipped from pajamasmedia.com But the digs didn’t end there. Clinton very pointedly mentioned crushing “credit card debt.” And Biden is pretty much a wholly-owned subsidiary of Delaware’s many credit card companies. Clinton knows that. The media know that. And pretty soon they’ll remind you of it, too. And then there was the claim about Obama’s “acute grasp of foreign policy,” which is sure to remind folks that Obama was against the surge before he admitted it’s working, and that Biden — like Hill — voted for the Iraq War. The secret to Bill’s speech was found right in the beginning when he smiled and told the crowd, “You know, I love this.” We know, Bill. We know.

So Did I

clipped from www.city-journal.org During the April 16 debate between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, moderator George Stephanopoulos brought up “a gentleman named William Ayers,” who “was part of the Weather Underground in the 1970s. They bombed the Pentagon, the Capitol, and other buildings. He’s never apologized for that.” Stephanopoulos then asked Obama to explain his relationship with Ayers. Obama’s answer: “The notion that somehow as a consequence of me knowing somebody who engaged in detestable acts 40 years ago, when I was eight years old, somehow reflects on me and my values, doesn’t make much sense, George.” Obama was indeed only eight in early 1970. I was only nine then, the year Ayers’s Weathermen tried to murder me. At the conclusion of his 2001 Times interview, Ayers said of his upbringing and subsequent radicalization: “I was a child of privilege and I woke up to a world on fire.” Funny thing, Bill: one night, so did I.

Blink. Blink. Blink. Crazy As A Cuckoo Clock. Blink. Blink. Blink.

clipped from www.powerlineblog.com So it's beyond dispute: Nancy Pelosi really does not understand that natural gas is a fossil fuel. This is truly shocking. Pelosi is one of the principal people responsible for setting the nation's energy policy. In the House of Representatives, she has blocked exploration and development of natural gas resources as well as other fossil fuels, thereby raising the price of gasoline at the pump and energy costs across the board. And she has wielded this immense power while being ignorant of the most basic facts about energy. She is not qualified to carry on an intelligent conversation about energy, let alone set the nation's energy policy. BROKAW: Sounds like we’re going to have offshore drilling. PELOSI: No, no, no.

Jimmah: Unable To Distinguish

clipped from www.powerlineblog.com but not before it paved the way for the removal of the Shah and the installation of Khomeni in Iran. Andrew Young, the Carter-appointed United States Ambassador to the United Nations, described Khomeini as “some kind of saint.” As href="http://www.hoover.org/publications/policyreview/4884331.html">Matthias Küntzel recalls, Young was not alone in his disposition toward Khomeni. Carter administration National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski was also favorably disposed toward Khomeni, since he seemed to Brzezinski to represent an effective barrier against Soviet influence. “We can get along with Khomeini!” was the motto in that summer of 1979. We contend with the consequences even today. Quoted by Horowitz and Johnson, Democrat Daniel Patrick Moynihan provided the most href="http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2006/12/13/cstillwell.DTL">trenchant critique of Jimmy Carter's foreign policy. Moynihan said of Carter in 1980: "Unable to distinguish between our friends and our enemies, he has essentially adopted our enemies' view of the world."

Not Fair To Stupid People

clipped from hughhewitt.townhall.com As David Freddoso noted in his book, Obama represents the merger of two of the worst aspects of Democratic politics --'60s radicalism and corrupt Chicago machine politics.  With the addition of Slow Joe Biden to the ticket, Obama has added to his unsteady candidacy an epic amount Beltway cluelessness and arrogance unsupported by anything except frequent flier miles and Delaware's love for a chuckle-headed fellow with a big smile. Rob Long asks "Isn't [Biden] sort of the stupid person's idea of the smart person's candidate?"  Yes, he is.  But that's not fair to stupid people.  Even stupid people who watched Biden embarrass himself during the Alito hearings --remember the "I hate Princeton" moment followed by the donning of the Princeton cap?-- know that Slow Joe is all tenure and no talent.

We Can Thank Him For PGP?!

clipped from news.cnet.com By choosing Joe Biden as their vice presidential candidate, the Democrats have selected a politician with a mixed record on technology who has spent most of his Senate career allied with the FBI and copyright holders, who ranks toward the bottom of CNET's Technology Voters' Guide, and whose anti-privacy legislation was actually responsible for the creation of PGP. But back to the Delaware senator's tech record. After taking over the Foreign Relations committee, Biden became a staunch ally of Hollywood and the recording industry in their efforts to expand copyright law. He sponsored a bill in 2002 that would have make it a federal felony to trick certain types of devices into playing unauthorized music or executing unapproved computer programs. Biden's bill was backed by content companies including News Corp. but eventually died after Verizon, Microsoft, Apple, eBay, and Yahoo lobbied against it.

California Luddites (Part 9,365,632)

clipped from science.slashdot.org Reader LM741N, pointing to a report released this month by California's Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment, writes "Gallium Arsenide has now been listed as a carcinogen. Given the increasing usage of gallium arsenide, the main constituent in LEDs, and their recent championing as more efficient light sources in recent news stories and Slashdot, there may be significant environmental concerns as related to their disposal. Morover, workers in industries using the substance may be at risk of cancer as well."

Betting On Wind

clipped from hughhewitt.townhall.com Obama had another terrible week.  His paean to the Chinese (he praised their "vastly superior" infrastructure on Thursday) his baffling equation of Russia's rape of Georgia with America's overthrow of Saddam, the new focus on his vote against the Born Alive Infant Protection Act, his close ties with unrepentant terrorist Bill Ayers and convicted felon Tony Rezko --all these things crowded in on him as he ran out of time to make a crucial decision.  Pushed to the wall, he picked an empty suit like himself, a nice enough fellow who has done one thing well in his entire life, which is win elections in Delaware. For Obama, it is all about politics and words, elections and poses.  Slow Joe is the perfect running mate on a perfect ticket for a party betting on wind to solve the energy crisis.

Slow Joe In His Own Words

clipped from article.nationalreview.com Biden, on a post-debate appearance on MSNBC, October 30, 2007: “The only guy on the other side who’s qualified is John McCain.” Biden appearing on The Daily Show, August 2, 2005: “John McCain is a personal friend, a great friend, and I would be honored to run with or against John McCain, because I think the country would be better off, be well off no matter who...” On Meet the Press, November 27, 2005: “I’ve been calling for more troops for over two years, along with John McCain and others subsequent to my saying that.” Biden on Meet the Press in 2007, on Hussein’s WMDs: “Well, the point is, it turned out they didn’t, but everyone in the world thought he had them. The weapons inspectors said he had them. He catalogued — they catalogued them. This was not some, some Cheney, you know, pipe dream. This was, in fact, catalogued.” On Meet the Press, January 7, 2007 “If he surges another 20, 30, or whatever number he’s going to, into Baghdad, it’ll be a tragic mistake

Did I Forget To Mention That He's The Senator From MBNA?

clipped from pajamasmedia.com It is unfortunate that if you were an underdog and looking for help from Senator Biden in getting out from under a load of debt by filing bankruptcy, you were given the back of his hand. It seems one of Senator Joe’s major contributors through the years was the bank holding company MBNA, the world’s largest issuer of credit cards who was pushing bankruptcy reform that would have been favorable to the credit card industry. Biden was one of the bill’s biggest proponents — and why not? MBNA executives contributed hundreds of thousands to his campaigns. And then there was the rather cozy personal relationship between Biden and MBNA executives: The relationship was also personal, with an MBNA executive’s buying Biden’s house at a favorable price, and one of his sons taking a job for a time as an MBNA management trainee, as the Wilmington News-Journal reported. Hey, it’s a small state.

The Joe In Their Wallets

clipped from pajamasmedia.com He spared no praise for the six-term senator, even going so far as making believe that 36 years in Washington and membership in the most exclusive club in the world — the select clique that runs the Senate of the United States — doesn’t affect the way such a man looks at the world: Joe Biden is that rare mix — for decades, he has brought change to Washington, but Washington hasn’t changed him. He’s an expert on foreign policy whose heart and values are rooted firmly in the middle class. He has stared down dictators and spoken out for America’s cops and firefighters. He is uniquely suited to be my partner as we work to put our country back on track. A real “Man of the People” — that’s our Joe. Except Obama, who has heavily criticized John McCain for his ties to lobbyists and for taking their dirty money, seems not to have noticed that the man whose “values are firmly rooted in the middle class” also has his hand firmly rooted in lobbyist’s wallets

The Patriotically Projecting Left

clipped from justoneminute.typepad.com But more fundamentally there would be no reason for anyone in the Special Collections Library to even question the validity of the gift of the CAC documents!  And a donor would never be allowed to know who or when someone is asking to review a validly granted gift of documents. That violates the confidentiality of library users. It reminds me of the concerns that civil libertarians have properly raised about the Patriot Act. That leaves only one possible conclusion:  Someone inside the UIC Library clearly was concerned that a critic of Barack Obama might be attempting to examine these public records. That led to an unprecedented and, in my view, highly inappropriate notice to the donor of the CAC documents that a potential political critic of Obama was interested in the documents. They told Glenn Reynolds that if Bush were re-elected no library user would have any privacy.  And they were right!

This from one of the comments nails it: "Projection-it's what's (always) for dinner. Leftists continually attribute their worst tendencies onto their political opponents. What would they do with all the powers of government (Patriot Act, etc)? Of course they'd use them to spy, browbeat, malign and otherwise marginalize opponents. Every criticism of Ashcroft et. al from the left should be read as an admission of intent on their part."

And A Moron For VP As Well

clipped from www.powerlineblog.com This lachrymose moment came during Biden's aborted presidential campaign in 1988, when reporters discovered several instances of plagiarism in his campaign speeches and in his law school record. Biden rehearses the episode in tormenting, if selective, detail, and true to campaign-book form, his account serves as the emotional center of the book. The memoir of every presidential candidate must describe a Political Time of Testing, some point at which, if the narrative arc is to prove satisfying, the hero encounters criticism, most of it unjust, but then rallies, overcomes hardship and misfortune and the petty, self-serving attacks of enemies, and emerges chastened but wiser--and, come to think of it, more qualified to lead the greatest nation on earth.

The Plantation

clipped from www.powerlineblog.com "This is not an opportunity to talk about difficult matters privately or in a closed environment. This is a circus. It's a national disgrace. And from my standpoint, as a black American, it is a high-tech lynching for uppity blacks who in any way deign to think for themselves, to do for themselves, to have different ideas, and it is a message that unless you kowtow to an old order, this is what will happen to you. You will be lynched, destroyed, caricatured by a committee of the U.S. Senate rather than hung from a tree."[ The "old order" is liberalism. Mr. Obama's cheap shot against Justice Thomas, which would be applauded in Cambridge and Hyde Park, is the most recent example of the stereotypical left-wing effort to keep minorities on the plantation.

More Corrupt Change You Can Believe In

clipped from www.pajamasmedia.com CHANGE YOU CAN BELIEVE IN: "Sen. Barack Obama's wife and three close advisers have been involved with a program at the University of Chicago Medical Center that steers patients who don't have private insurance -- primarily poor, black people -- to other health care facilities." I'm not sure the program is actually a bad idea when you read the details, but if a Republican did it, it would be evidence of cruel, racist, capitalism. Plus, it does seem a bit incestuous: Obama's top political strategist, David Axelrod, co-owns the firm, ASK Public Strategies, that was hired by the hospital last year to sell the program -- called the Urban Health Initiative -- to the community as a better alternative for poor patients. Obama's wife and Valerie Jarrett, an Obama friend and adviser who chairs the medical center's board, backed the Axelrod firm's hiring, hospital officials said.