Newsweek Is So Dumb That...

clipped from www.weeklystandard.com So according to the hatchet man/woman who talked to Newsweek, Palin is such an ideologue about drilling in ANWR that she won't stand next to Bradley, even though John McCain has the exact same position? And Palin is such an ideologue that she won't appear with pro-choice politicians, even though she attended events with pro-choice Clinton donor Lady Lynn Forester de Rothschild? And we're really supposed to believe that Palin is so dumb she doesn't know Africa is a continent, but she knew about the voting records of John Sununu and Jeb Bradley in the first place? Hmmm. I guess that might be remotely possible if it weren't for the fact that John Sununu has a 100 percent pro-life rating from the National Right to Life Committee. Glad to see that whoever leaked this story is too dumb to come up with a plausible smear. And kudos to Newsweek for dumping this whopper without bothering to check if Sununu is in fact pro-abortion.

The Job

clipped from www.qando.net One top McCain aide came to Palin’s defense today. Randy Scheunemann, McCain’s top foreign policy adviser, who helped prepare Palin for her vice presidential debate, praised Palin’s campaign effort and intelligence. “I’ve been working over 20 years in Washington and I’ve been around literally dozens and dozens of politicians. She is among the smartest, toughest, most capable politicians I’ve ever dealt with,” Scheunemann said. “She has a photographic memory.” She also has to broaden her appeal. One of the things no one seems to understand is the role she played, that of the attack dog, is the traditional role of a VP candidate. That. Was. Her. Job.

Snookered

clipped from www.qando.net even though I was an assistant editor (big doings at this “consulting firm”) and he was, well, he was doing something there, he certainly treated me like something less than an equal. Funny thing… A journalism/political science major… Writing about finance… Pretending in his book to be an expert on interest rate swaps. I remember trying to explain the nuance of these instruments to him in the cramped three Wang terminal space we called the bull pen. In contrast to his his liberal arts background, I had a degree in finance and Wall Street experience, so I knew what I was talking about. But rather than learn from a City College kid, the Ivy Leaguer just sort of rolled his eyes. Condescendingly. I’ll never forget it. God forbid he leave the impression that a mere editor like myself knew more about something than did Barack. He was like that… But the myth stands, and it is useful to trot out to calm the fears of those who have a sneaking suspicion they've been snookered,

OSearing Sirhan Sirhan

clipped from littlegreenfootballs.com In December 1997, Barack Obama gave William Ayers’ book on juvenile criminals a rave review. Just a few weeks before this review was published in the Chicago Tribune, Obama and Ayers appeared together on a panel about juvenile justice organized by Michelle Obama on November 6, 1997: Children who kill are called “super predators,” “people with no conscience,” “feral pre-social beings” — and “adults.” William Ayers, author of A Kind and Just Parent: The Children of Juvenile Court (Beacon Press, 1997), says “We should call a child a child. A 13-year-old who picks up a gun isn’t suddenly an adult. We have to ask other questions: How did he get the gun? Where did it come from?” Ayers will be joined by Sen. Barack Obama, Senior Lecturer in the Law School, who is working to combat legislation that would put more juvenile offenders into the adult system I find it very hard — no, make that impossible — to believe that Barack Obama had “no idea” who William Ayers really was

Let's give up on the Ayer's was just a guy in the neighborhood bit, OK? Even CNN has put the lie to that.

So why the title reference to Sirhan Sirhan?

Well, it turns out that one of the people Ayers' first book "Prairie Fire" is dedicated to is Sirhan Sirhan. That would be the assassin of Robert F Kennedy, Jr!

You can check it out at zombietime.

On Lipstick

For the past few months I had settled on "Mayor Daley with lipstick and a Che t-shirt" as my "polite" summary of the annointed one.

But now I will have to remove the "lipstick" part. If he had tried to take Sarah's lipstick he would have found himself wrong end up in a porcelain god!

I don't know? Maybe now it's "Mayor Daley with a tutu and a Che T-shirt"? I'm pretty sure Sarah doesn't own a tutu anymore. Or possibly ever.

But if she has given one to her daughter and the messiah tries to take it, watch out!

NOTE: This post was made on 9/4/08 and has been bumped to the top of the blog for now. Follow the link in the next post below to follow recent material on the blog...

UPDATE 9/9/08: W-o-w. He just tried to steal her lipstick! And called her a p-i-g! The politics of hope?

#24: Long March Update

clipped from proteinwisdom.com The Left has always been very good at one particular thing, committees, forming them, running them, setting up the underlying rules that govern them. One of “Ric’s Rules” is “the ants will find the sugar”. The changes to the rules made sure that only the most ruthless and aggressive ants could gain and hold onto the sugar. After that nature took it’s course and “will to power” became the way to rise. The first major results were seen in 1992. It was however premature and 1994 resulted. Those lessons have been learned. There will be a drive to make sure no Gingrich or Gingrich revolution can happen. “Never again” is not just a slogan for the “Holocaust Jews” only. The first 100 days of Obama will be some “interesting times”. What we call “the long march through the institutions” is the same adjustment of the committee rules applied to other institutions. Today I have dark thoughts and foresee dark times ahead. I pray I’m wrong and fear that I am right.

I Doubt #5 Will Ever Happen -- But You Can Count On The Second Holocaust

clipped from chizumatic.mee.nu 1. Obama's "hold out your hand to everyone" foreign policy is going to be a catastrophe. They'll love it in Europe. They're probably laughing their heads off about it in the middle east already. 2. The US hasn't suffered a terrorist attack by al Qaeda since 9/11, but we'll get at least one during Obama's term. 3. We're going to lose in Afghanistan. 4. Iran will get nuclear weapons. There will be nuclear war between Iran and Israel. (This is the only irreversibly terrible thing I see upcoming, and it's very bad indeed.) 5. There will eventually be a press backlash against Obama which will make their treatment of Bush look mild. Partly that's going to be because Obama is going to disappoint them just as much as all his other supporters. Partly it will be the MSM desperately trying to regain its own credibility and 6. Obama will not be re-elected in 2012. He may even end up doing an LBJ and not even running again.

Skeletons, Ash And Hubris

clipped from proteinwisdom.com But let’s not pretend you are being honest or principled. Graciousness is one thing; praise is another. This “good man” was involved in ACORN blackmail schemes. With an attempt to fraudulently undermine the Second Amendment by gaming court rulings. He got rich off of schemes that led to the mortgage crisis — then stood by and let others fix it in order to keep his hands clean during the final stages of an election. He has thrown in with race hustlers,”reformers” who believe that domestic terrorism was a valid form of expression, odious foreign potentates – There is nothing at all noble about praising a man and a party who reviles you simply because in doing so you appear noble. Jews have tried that. And it’s often ended with skeletons and ash, or the twisted wreckage of a bus in Tel Aviv. Sorry. But good men don’t lie, cheat, steal, and throw longtime supporters by the wayside just so they can rise to power The rest is hubris.

#14 (Rent Seeking)

clipped from pajamasmedia.com But why the support of the financiers and intelligentia for Sen. Obama? Rent-seeking. Is not this what the sub-prime mess is all about: arranging government policies and subsidies to work for you and your friends? Via Wikipedia: “In economics, rent seeking occurs when an individual, organization or firm seeks to make money by manipulating the economic and/or legal environment rather than by trade and production of wealth.” I.e., let’s spread the wealth.

#13

clipped from pajamasmedia.com Obama will kill a lot of business and economic lives. If you make anything for the military, or rely on electricity (Obama wants rates to skyrocket) or depend on cheap energy (Obama will make $10 a gallon gas a reality) or are involved in the auto or manufacturing business, Obama will do his best to make you unemployed. Simply put, Obama thinks “White Man’s Greed” creates “a world in need” and that the way to a proper society is to make “greedy” “White men” poor and “needy” people who are not White rich. He has no idea how markets work, how wealth is created, or the value of making things instead of just lawyering everything to death. He’s a total disaster. The market won’t get better. By the time Obama is through, paper currency will be worthless. Like German marks in the hyperinflation. He’s that stupid.

I'm The Selfish One

clipped from hughhewitt.townhall.com So let me get this straight. Millionaire Obama doesn't use his wealth to help his poor illegal alien Aunt get out of public housing, but if I complain about Obama wanting to raise my taxes to 'spread the wealth around' I'm the selfish one?

Charitable With Other People's Money

clipped from headingright.com Oh, I know you will say I am uncompassionate. Sorry, Mr. Obama, wrong again. You see, I’ve seen what the average percentage of your income has been given to charities over the years of 2000 to 2004 (ignoring the years you started running for office - can you pronounce “politically motivated”); you averaged of less than 1% annually. And your running mate, Joe Biden, averaged less than ¼% of his annual income in charitable contributions over the last 10 years. Like so many liberals, the two of you want to give to the needy, just as long as it is someone else’s money you are giving to them. I won’t say what I have given to charities over the last 25 years, but the percentage is several times more than you or Joe Biden (don’t you just hate goggle?). Tell me again how you feel my pain. In short, Mr. Obama, your political philosophies represent everything that is wrong with our country. You represent the culture of government dependence instead of self-reliance;

O The Scenes They Cut

clipped from www.powerlineblog.com

Nazi Time

clipped from littlegreenfootballs.com At about 15:30, Obama compares what was going on in the United States during the time of Brown vs. the Board of Education to ... Nazi Germany. Yes, really. Here’s the quote: “...just to take a, sort of a realist perspective...there’s a lot of change going on outside of the Court, um, that, that judges essentially have to take judicial notice of. I mean you’ve got World War II, you’ve got uh, uh, uh, the doctrines of Nazism, that, that we are fighting against, that start looking uncomfortably similar to what we have going on, back here at home.” There you have it. America is close to electing a President who compares his own country to Nazi Germany.

Very rich coming from the National Socialist candidate for president.

The Ivy League Idiots

clipped from www.qando.net A hedge fund manager who made about 80 million last year betting against the subprime mortgage market has decided to retire at 37, but not before he gave a shout out to those who were responsible for his windfall. In a letter he says: "The low-hanging fruit, ie idiots whose parents paid for prep school, Yale and then the Harvard MBA, was there for the taking," he wrote. "These people who were (often) truly not worthy of the education they received (or supposedly received) rose to the top of companies such as AIG, Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers and all levels of our government," he said. "All of this behaviour supporting the aristocracy only ended up making it easier for me to find people stupid enough to take the other side of my trades. God bless America." I forget who said it, and it certainly isn't true of all graduates of these fine educational institutions, but for, let's say, the bottom 2/3rds of the classes, it isn't about the education so much as the connections they make

All "Journalists"

clipped from althouse.blogspot.com As usual, Trooper understates the case against journalists. Just remember Goebbels, Trotsky, Marx, and Dan Rather were all journalists.

Caesar's Dreamland

clipped from www.davidwarrenonline.com Obama has presented himself from the start as a messianic, "transformational" leader -- and thus played deceitfully with ideas that belong to religion and not politics. That he has done this so successfully is a mark of the degree to which the U.S. itself, like the rest of the western world, has lost its purchase on the Christian religion. Powerful religious impulses have been spilt, secularized. In this climate, people tend to be maniacally opposed to the sin to which they are not tempted: to giving Christ control over the things that are Caesar's. But they are blind to the sin to which they are hugely tempted: giving Caesar control over the things that are Christ's. "Faith, hope, and charity" are Christ's things. They apply, properly, outside time -- to a "futurity" that is not of this world. They must not be applied to any earthly utopia. A Caesar who appropriates otherworldly virtues, is riding upon very dangerous illusions. Follow him into dreamland, and you'll be lucky to wake up

What's A Little Genocide After All?

clipped from drsanity.blogspot.com "The unconstrained vision is really an elitist vision," Sowell explains. "This man [Obama] really does believe that he can change the world. And people like that are infinitely more dangerous than mere crooked politicians." Indeed. That's the difference between href="http://drsanity.blogspot.com/2006/07/malignant-narcissism-sociopathic.html">malignant narcissism of the selfish variety and malignant narcissism of the idealist variety--the latter I refer to as "sociopathic selflessness". This malignant selflessness allows the Bill Ayers of the left to cooly contemplate killing 25 million people in order to usher in the leftist utopia. href="http://confederateyankee.mu.nu/archives/276377.php">What's a little genocide, after all ?

OFraud Update

clipped from hughhewitt.townhall.com But to my honest and patriotic Democratic friends, I must say this forthrightly, and I must say it now: There is a criminal element that is infesting your Party to a degree unprecedented in American history, and they are trying to buy the White House for your candidate through overtly criminal means. every honest Democrat should demand that everyone associated with the decision to disable the most basic anti-fraud mechanisms from the Obama-Biden campaign's credit-card donations systems be publicly identified and immediately fired. Every honest Democrat should demand the immediate and full cooperation from the campaign — pointedly beginning with Barack Obama — in seeing them prosecuted and convicted. You may not stay silent, watching your funds commingled with those obtained through criminal means, and keep your own honesty. You may not close your eyes and keep your own honesty. And you may not deny that this fraud is happening, and yet keep your grasp on reality and your sanity.

NYeT! NYeT! NYeT!

clipped from www.pajamasmedia.com "If this thing was running the other way, if Obama was taking the public money and McCain had opted out and raised $150 million in September, do you think The New York Times would have an editorial against it? Indeed.

Do bears do you know what in the woods?

What If

clipped from www.qando.net However, deficit hawk or no, we have Obama touting his tax increases and href="http://www.qando.net/Details.aspx?Entry=9537" target=new>Barney Frank saying taxes need to be increased as well. Any guess which group is most likely to prevail? Any guess as to why there is a great sell off going on on Wall Street right now? James Pethokoukis says: In 1980, anxious Americans voted for lower taxes and smaller government as the solution to the nation's economic ills. Would the opposite prescription also have led to a 25-year economic boom? With Obamanomics, voters may be about to play a fascinating game of "what if." Except it's for real. When Goldman Sachs ran a sophisticated economic simulation of the effect of a total repeal of the Bush tax cuts, the computer predicted a 3 percentage-point drop in GDP. Maybe investors fear that with perhaps a trillion-dollar budget gap ahead, revenue-hungry Dems will raise taxes further than Team Obama is suggesting—right into the teeth of a weak economy. What if, indeed.

A Small Circle Of OFriends

clipped from gatewaypundit.blogspot.com According to href="http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-na-obamamideast10apr10,0,1780231,full.story">Wallsten the evening not surprisingly turned into a classic Jew-bash: "During the dinner a young Palestinian American recited a poem accusing the Israeli government of terrorism in its treatment of Palestinians and sharply criticizing U.S. support of Israel. Barack Obama also praised the former PLO operative during the event. And, Obama confessed that his family often shared dinner with the Khalidis: His many talks with the Khalidis, Obama said, had been "consistent reminders to me of my own blind spots and my own biases... It's for that reason that I'm hoping that, for many years to come, we continue that conversation -- a conversation that is necessary not just around Mona and Rashid's dinner table," but around "this entire world." ...The event was videotaped, and a copy of the tape was obtained by The Times. Khalidi and the Obamas were great friends in Chicago and often shared meals together. By the way, Khalidi was also href="http://hughhewitt.townhall.com/blog/g/43474e3d-252a-4011-9044-2befe2e65e40">best friends with Bill Ayers.

Yet More National OSocialist Shock

clipped from www.pajamasmedia.com I'M SHOCKED, href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10/23/AR2008102303364.html">SHOCKED: The Miami trial of a Venezuelan entrepreneur who grew rich doing business with President Hugo Chávez's populist administration has exposed how some top government officials have profited from a corrosive web of corruption in the oil-rich country. Kickbacks, bribes and secret payoffs have become a feature in the socialist administration, which had claimed a break from the past but instead has seen several officials implicated in multimillion-dollar corruption schemes, according to testimony and conversations taped by the FBI. The trial has also revealed the Chávez government's determination to funnel state funds to its allies in Latin America and the lengths it will go to to keep the aid secret. Corruption among socialists? But they're for the people! Right?

Curing A Nearby Blind Child

clipped from jimtreacher.com Media Bubble, Oct. 23 -- Republican Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin has come under fire in recent days after it was revealed that earlier this year, a drive-through meal purchased by the Alaskan Governor contained more than the usual number of french fries. The discovery was made during a routine Associated Press search of drive-through security camera footage obtained from the McDonald's restaurant at 130 Front St. in Juneau, less than a mile from the governor's mansion. "Sarah Palin says she's just an ordinary working-class American. [laughter] Now it turns out she eats strips of potato that have been fried and salted. And if somebody offers her more of them for a slightly higher price... that's just fine with her. [boos] Pres. Obama then emitted a discreet puff of arugula-scented flatulence, curing a nearby blind child.

Barack On Whitey

clipped from www.youtube.com

Joe Blows Again

clipped from jimtreacher.com "I mean, the taxes, they're gonna be unbelievable. Holy f***. So we'll need your help with that. You're gonna have to pay 'em. There's no way we can repel a full-scale nationwide tax revolt without resorting to nuclear, biological, or chemical weapons, at least in the scenarios they've shown me, so we're countin' on you to do the right thing. "And I'd say to America, this land that I love: You've all seen what an agent of change Barack Obama is. He's brought together people from all walks of life. He's inspired every single person in this country, no matter who you are or what you look like or even if you're into, y'know, the funny stuff. [chuckle] Which is gonna be a great comfort when the Obama administration strangles the U.S. economy and sets off a long, terrifying race war. Biden added, "And don't forget Iran! They know he's a pushover. Which is one of the things I love about the guy, he's a pussycat, but these animals? Boy oh boy. Can you say 'suitcase nuke'?

Of Burke And Lewis And O

clipped from corner.nationalreview.com Or Edmund Burke who said: "I must bear with infirmities until they fester into crimes." And then there's this from C.S. Lewis, via a reader: Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.

Barkless

clipped from www.powerlineblog.com Then, part 2 took place today. The sellers of the CDS settled with the buyers. And NOTHING happened...or, rather, the sellers shelled out about $6 billion or so to the buyers and everyone went home. No CDS counterparty failed to perform! The cash collateral margining mechanism worked just fine. A handful of small hedge funds might fail...because they typically borrow to meet their CDS collateral margin calls...so lenders to those funds may have a problem, but NOT the CDS counterparty. But so far none has. And the overhang?...well almost all of it is HEDGED, i.e., offsets other obligations...when these were all netted....the actual required payout was LESS THAN 2% of the notional amount of the CDS contracts. I'll be waiting for the big news report on this in the MSM and their informed observers. There you have it.

Even Bad Weather

clipped from www.powerlineblog.com Your job, as journalists, is to tell the truth. That's what you claim you do, when you accept people's money to buy or subscribe to your paper. But right now, you are consenting to or actively promoting a big fat lie -- that the housing crisis should somehow be blamed on Bush, McCain, and the Republicans. You have trained the American people to blame everything bad -- even bad weather -- on Bush, and they are responding as you have taught them to. If you had any personal honor, each reporter and editor would be insisting on telling the truth -- even if it hurts the election chances of your favorite candidate. But the mainstream media--which is to say, most reporters and editors who work for "mainstream" news organizations--have no honor and are not interested in truth. They are, as Card says, "the public relations machine of the Democratic Party."

The Mudbath For Thee But Not For O

clipped from www.davidwarrenonline.com The question should naturally arise: Had he any significant early connections with persons who were not former Weather Underground terrorists, Chicago mobsters, corrupt party-machine fixers, race-baiting radicals, or systemic perpetrators of voting fraud? And, given a voting record in the U.S. Senate to the left of every other member, and a potentially controversial register of past campaign contributors, is there any indication that he has moved beyond the sordid political environment from which he emerged? Moreover, having granted that he is a smooth and engaging speaker, a paragon of cool, and the rhetorical master of the emotive empty phrase, what has he ever done to suggest he even might be presidential material? Nothing that I can find -- and this after a very long and excruciating campaign in which every candidate who has run against him (from Hillary Clinton to John McCain to Sarah Palin) has been subjected to an extended media mudbath.

Today's Nutshell

clipped from corner.nationalreview.com Abe Greenwald went to a "Democrats for McCain" event last night and liked the cut of speaker Bartle Bull's href="http://www.commentarymagazine.com/blogs/index.php/greenwald/39471">bullet points: -8 YEARS OF AN OBAMA-PELOSI-ACORN ADMINISTRATION WOULD GIVE AMERICA: -8 YEARS OF SPREAD-THE-WEALTH SOCIALISM, -8 YEARS OF CHICAGO-STYLE CORRUPTION, & -8 YEARS OF UNITED NATIONS-STYLE FOREIGN POLCY The case that never gets made is that the consistent political philosophy of Ayers and his associates continued to warp the mission of the Democratic Party long after the Weather Underground has become nostalgia, and that Obama is the philosophical offspring of the movement birthed by radicals such as Ayers.

Another Helping Of JFK For You Coming Up

clipped from hotair.com Kennedy’s assessment of his own performance was no less severe. Only a few minutes after parting with Khrushchev, Kennedy, a World War II veteran, told James Reston of The New York Times that the summit meeting had been the “roughest thing in my life.” Kennedy went on: “He just beat the hell out of me. I’ve got a terrible problem if he thinks I’m inexperienced and have no guts. Until we remove those ideas we won’t get anywhere with him.” What resulted?  The Berlin Wall and the Cuban missile crisis.  Kennedy wound up trading strategic intel and missile installations in western Asia in exchange for Soviet withdrawal of the nuclear missiles from Cuba.  The entire Kennedy administration turned out to be a foreign-policy disaster that was only overlooked because of the tragic assassination of Kennedy in Dallas in 1963. I agree with Biden.  Obama is exactly like Kennedy in this regard, and our enemies will test us by threatening our interests around the globe if we elect Obama.

Thanks for that Slow Joe.

Good News: 10% Of Bailout Funds To Go For Bonuses

clipped from www.247wallst.com No matter how badly the economy is doing and what shareholders in American financial firms have lost, it would be a shame to see investment bankers go without their bonuses. According to The London Observer, "Financial workers at Wall Street's top banks are to receive pay deals worth more than $70bn (£40bn), a substantial proportion of which is expected to be paid in discretionary bonuses, for their work so far this year - despite plunging the global financial system into its worst crisis since the 1929 stock market crash, the Guardian has learned. Staff at six banks including Goldman Sachs and Citigroup are in line to pick up the payouts despite being the beneficiaries of a $700bn bailout from the US government that has already prompted criticism."

Can't have the Reichstag fire arsonists get cold this winter now can we?

I'm sure Franklin Raines, Jamie Gorelick and the whole Fannie/Freddie crew will somehow end up with a cut too.

PDO Update

clipped from www.weatherquestions.com A simple climate model forced by satellite-observed changes in the Earth's radiative budget associated with the Pacific Decadal Oscillation is shown to mimic the major features of global average temperature change during the 20th Century - including two-thirds of the warming trend. A mostly-natural source of global warming is also consistent with mounting observational evidence that the climate system is much less sensitive to carbon dioxide emissions than the IPCC's climate models simulate. It is significant that the observed scale factor (1.9) that converts the PDO index into units of heating or cooling is just what the model required (1.7 to 2.0) to best explain the temperature behavior during the 20th Century. Thus, these recent satellite measurements - even though they span less than 6 years -- support the Pacific Decadal Oscillation as a potential major player in global warming and climate change.

Cold Snap

clipped from network.nationalpost.com Brazilian meteorologist Eugenio Hackbart explained that extreme cold or snowfall events in his country have always been tied to "a negative PDO" or Pacific Decadal Oscillation. Positive PDOs -- El Ninos -- produce above-average temperatures in South America while negative ones -- La Ninas -- produce below average ones. Dr. Hackbart also pointed out that periods of solar inactivity known as "solar minimums" magnify cold spells on his continent. So, given that August was the first month since 1913 in which no sunspot activity was recorded -- none -- and during which solar winds were at a 50-year low, he was not surprised that Brazilians were suffering (for them) a brutal cold snap. "This is no coincidence," he said as he scoffed at the notion that manmade carbon emissions had more impact than the sun and oceans on global climate.

Clock Stoppage

clipped from www.pajamasmedia.com In partiuclar, adultery (without regard to whether the spouse consents) is, without any further consideration, a legitimate topic to report. That inevitably has to lead to an even further erosion (if that's possible) of our political class, a further narrowing of the people willing to enter politics. And the vast disparity between the media resources and attention devoted to sleazy gossip like this versus actual investigation of true government corruption and crime seems to be growing by the day, such that behavior like this will further decay our already quite decadent journalistic class as well." Greenwald and I disagree about many things, but there's not much room to argue where the poor state of the political and journalistic classes (and the increasing lack of differentiation between them) is concerned.

No Point In Saving Their Credibility

clipped from www.pajamasmedia.com Honestly, I don't think they are going to be able to hit the reset button this time if their preferred candidate wins. It was easier for Republicans (and center/right folks who voted that way in 2000 and 2004) to let it slide a little in those years, because winning the election made it that much sweeter. If the press drags Obama across the finish line, there will be no forgiving or forgetting. It was way too blatant this year, largely thanks to the blogosphere. Yes, I thought they were in the tank in 2004, but this has been a whole different order of flacking. Partly I think it's because they actually like Obama, or at least the idea of Obama, while Kerry was just a not particularly well-liked means of getting rid of Bush. I think they also feel that as the big media lose viewers and circulation, this may be their last chance to swing an election, and so there's no point saving their credibility for future engagements.

The Price Of Freedom In The House Of Corruption

clipped from proteinwisdom.com Bush has been rightly excoriated by conservatives for his failure to veto, and for the social spending built in to “compassionate conservative.” At the same time, however — and even though I’ve been willing to pile on W about increasing government spending — I’ve had the nagging sense, which I’ve mentioned here on a few occasions, that Bush’s nearly singular focus has been what he sees as an existential battle between the west with its freedoms and those theocracies and authoritarian rules trying to launch a campaign aimed at re-establishing medievalist social contracts and fundamentalist religious law. If this feeling I have is correct, Bush’s tunnel-vision — which has to this point kept us safe (recall the feeling in the air after 911: when would the other shoe drop?) — came at a political cost: Dems and some Republicans problematized the war(s) against radical Islam to create leverage for getting what they wanted in exchange for their ultimate support for the war on terror.

In What Kind Of Nation?

clipped from politics.boogietrain.nl In “href="http://hotair.com/archives/2008/10/16/what-we-can-learn-from-the-joe-the-plumber-episode/">their rabid character assassination” as Ed Morrissey puts it, of Joe the Plumber, “a man who did nothing more than ask a question,” Obama supporters and their allies in the media remind us (yet again) of the tactics of all too many on the left.  Instead of challenging their conservative, independent or just plain non-orthodox leftists critics on the plain of ideas, they dredge up whatever they can find in an attempt to destroy our credibility. They just get upset with anything which upsets their narrative. They href="http://www.pajamasmedia.com/instapundit/archives2/025918.php">don’t want to investigate Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac because such an investigation might undermine their narrative that deregulation and Wall Street greed prompted the mortgage meltdown.  When conservative suggest that government programs might have precipitated the mess, for example, one leading Democrat href="http://www.gaypatriot.net/2008/10/07/has-barney-frank-no-shame/">accused such heretics to the media narrative of racism. In what kind of nation, do the media investigate critics more than candidates?