What Is This World Coming To?

A new article in Newsweek discusses the possibility of Senator Obama losing his Presidential bid and touches on the effect it will have on racial tensions in the United States.

In the African-American community, the thinking on Obama’s candidacy has gone something like this: In the beginning, there was disbelief that a black man could become president. Then, when Obama became the Democratic nominee and soared in the polls, listeners were concerned for his safety. Now that the race with John McCain is as tight as Sarah Palin’s smile, (the black community) has started to worry about Election Day itself. There is still a fair amount of optimism in the black community, but it’s being tempered by two words: what if. What if Obama loses? How should people respond? What should they feel?

The article also suggests that an Obama loss would automatically incite anger, but quickly drops the issue:

There’s not a lot of anger—yet—but you can start to sense the potential for it. “I’m going to be mad, real mad, if he doesn’t win,” says Daetwon Fisher, 21, a construction worker from Long Beach, Calif. “Because for him to come this far and lose will be just shady and a slap in black people’s faces. I know there is already talk about protests and stuff if he loses, and I’m down for that.”

This brings up the ever increasing certainty of racial relations AFTER the election… they won’t be good. In fact, they promise to be worse.  That is what Bob Parks of “Black and Right” fears:

I got this video link from my son-in-law in Oklahoma, with a note saying it was produced as an individual campaign commercial effort. You gotta love Youtube. Where else could a hero like this reach out to remind us directly of what sacrifice really is? One thing comes across loud and clear: “It was not a mistake.”

Oooops. That pretty much covers it. I thought it rather thoughtful of Stephanopolis to remind Obama that he was a Christian.

In an interview on the “O’Reilly Factor” on Fox News,  Barack Obama admitted, for the first time, that the troop surge strategy was successful “beyond our wildest dreams’.  That’s a fairly strong description for a policy that, until now, Obama denied was either successful or relevant.

“I think that the surge has succeeded in ways that nobody anticipated — by the way, including President Bush and the other supporters. It has gone very well,” Obama conceded. But, he added, it still hasn’t been a total success.

“We have reduced the violence, but the Iraqis still haven’t taken responsibility, and we still don’t have the kind of political reconciliation — we are still spending $10-$12 billion dollars a month,” Obama said.

In his interview with “The O’Reilly Factor,” Obama listed America’s enemies in the war on terror as Al Qaeda, the Taliban, and a “whole host of networks that are bent on attacking America who have a distorted ideology, who have perverted the faith of Islam — and so we have to go after them,” he said.

Ann Coulter

This week, Barack Obama’s challenge is to select a running mate who’s young, hip, and whose accomplishments in life don’t overshadow Obama’s. Allow me to suggest Kevin Federline.

The only thing we can be sure of is that Obama will choose someone who is the polar opposite of all his advisers until now. In other words, it will be a very, very white male who was probably proud of his country even before being chosen as Obama’s running mate.

Obama’s got a lot of ground to make up following that performance last weekend at the Saddleback presidential forum with pastor Rick Warren.

After seeing Obama defend infanticide with the glib excuse that the question of when life begins is above his “pay-grade,” Rev. Jeremiah Wright announced that although he’s known Obama for 30 years, he only recently became aware of how extreme the senator’s viewpoints were. Wright, after all, has his reputation to consider.

Network heads responded by dashing off an urgent memo: During the main presidential debates this fall, ask NO questions about abortion, ethics or evil! Morality isn’t the Democrats’ forte. Read the rest of this entry »

Investors Business Daily
It was only in May that Sen. Barack Obama cockily proclaimed he would debate Sen. John McCain “anywhere, anytime.” But in June, Obama said no to McCain’s challenge to have 10 one-on-one town hall meetings.

After what happened at Lake Forest, Calif.’s evangelical Saddleback megachurch Saturday evening, we may have found that debating is Obama’s Achilles’ heel. Whether or not you like the idea of such events being held in religious venues, the plain-and-simple method of questioning used by Saddleback pastor and best-selling author Rick Warren revealed fundamental differences between these two men.

“It’s one of those situations where the devil is in the details,” Obama said at one point. He could have been referring to his own oratorical shortcomings when a teleprompter is unavailable. We learned a lot more about the real Obama at Saddleback than we will next week as he delivers his acceptance speech in Denver before a massive stadium crowd.

The stark differences between the two came through the most on the question of whether there is evil in the world. Obama spoke of evil within America, “in parents who have viciously abused their children.” According to the Democrat, we can’t really erase evil in the world because “that is God’s task.” And we have to “have some humility in how we approach the issue of confronting evil.”

For McCain, with a global war on terror raging, there was no equivocating: We must “defeat” evil. If al-Qaida’s placing of suicide vests on mentally-disabled women and then blowing them up by remote control in a Baghdad market isn’t evil, he asked: “You have to tell me what is.”

Asked to name figures he would rely on for advice, Obama gave the stock answer of family members. McCain pointed to Gen. David Petraeus, Iraq’s scourge of the surge; Democratic Rep. John Lewis, who “had his skull fractured” by white racists while protesting for civil rights in the 60s; plus Internet entrepreneur Meg Whitman, the innovative former CEO of eBay.

When Warren inquired into changes of mind on big issues, Obama fretted about welfare reform; McCain unashamedly said “drilling” — for reasons of national security and economic need.

On taxes, Obama waxed political: “What I’m trying to do is create a sense of balance and fairness in our tax code.” McCain showed an understanding of what drives a free economy: “I don’t want to take any money from the rich. I want everybody to get rich. I don’t believe in class warfare or redistribution of the wealth.”

To any honest observer, the differences between John McCain and Barack Obama have been evident all along. What we saw last weekend was Obama’s shallowness juxtaposed with McCain’s depth, the product of his extraordinary life experience.

It may not have been a debate, but it was one of the most lopsided political contests in memory. No wonder Obama wants to keep debate formats boring and predictable.

Senator Barack Obama proclaimed last week that properly inflated tires and well-maintained engines “will produce all the savings we’ll need” - presumably as much as all the oil we could hope to obtain by all the drilling offshore, onshore, ANWR, and from shale.

“There are things that you can do individually though to save energy; making sure your tires are properly inflated, simple thing, but we could save all the oil that they’re talking about getting off drilling, if everybody was just inflating their tires and getting regular tune-ups,’ Obama said. “You could actually save just as much.”

The media, so mesmerized by Obama-speak that they didn’t notice how stupid that was until after they arrived home, and free from his charismatic spell, read what they had written in their notes. That’s right.

Could Obama’s national energy strategy really be mandatory tuneups and new tire gauges for all? Unsure if they had transcribed what they had heard, they put a lid on it and hoped Their Guy would come up with something a bit more, er, meaningful if they gave him time. Read the rest of this entry »

While the rest of us ponder Obama’s brilliant energy strategy proposals (who knew the incredible energy savings to be derived from properly inflated tires?)  Obama’s new campaign plane is a mirror of the candidate himself; elegant, ostentatious, a gas-guzzling monster fit to carry The One along his road to the White House.

His Boeing 757 was retrofitted to install four individual chairs that resemble La-Z-Boys. They are free-standing and made of plush leather with pockets on the sides. There is also a booth which seats four for a meeting or a meal.

His chair has his name and campaign logo embroidered on the back top — “Obama ‘08” on one line and “President” underneath. To one side is a small table stacked with newspapers ready for the candidate’s arrival. The table of the booth is always covered in snacks and cheese and is where Obama spends most of his time during flights meeting with staff and sitting for the occasional interview.

The next two sections are outfitted with expansive business class seats for senior and junior level staff including Obama’s media team, which films all of the candidate’s events for promotional purposes. Politico’s Mike Allen said that by comparison, Air Force One seems ‘claustrophic.’

But, he is The One. We should be grateful he deigns to come to the people, for if not, the people would surely come to him, to at least touch the hem of his garment, if nothing else.

O-Force One may not be a flaming chariot in the sky, but for the True Believers, it will have to do. For now.

by L. Brent Bozell

John McCain has figured out that one way to build enthusiasm among conservatives is to confront his former best friends in the liberal media. As the media glorify Barack Obama the “statesman” on his trip abroad, with the three network anchors lining up for interviews like a gaggle of smitten fan-club presidents, the McCain campaign suddenly acquired a surprising “Annoy The Media” flavor. Read the rest of this entry »

No, the media isn’t in the tank for Obama. That’s a myth made up by the vast, right-wing conspiracy now that they don’t have Hillary to kick around anymore. . . . This just in from the respected German news magazine, Bild

I Worked Out With Obama!” As thousands waited at the Sieges Saule monument in Berlin to hear Obama’s sensational speech, a BILD reporter met Barack all alone – in the gym! Here’s the incredible account of Judith Bonesky’s meeting…

Obama (with toned arms and a strong back) puts on his headphones for his iPod to listen to pop music. He hums quietly. Then he jumps on a fitness bike. He pushes three times on the pedals – but then can’t be bothered with it.

He goes and picks up a pair of 16 kilo weights and starts curling them with his left and right arms, 30 repetitions on each side. Then, amazingly, he picks up the 32 kilo weights! Very slowly he lifts them, first 10 curls with his right, then 10 with his left. He breathes deeply in and out and takes a sip of water from his 0,5 litre Evian bottle.

What an incredible account! OMG, OMG, OMG! What a man! Or is he just a man? Maybe he’s more than just a man. . . . From the London Times Online:

And it came to pass, in the eighth year of the reign of the evil Bush the Younger (The Ignorant), when the whole land from the Arabian desert to the shores of the Great Lakes had been laid barren, that a Child appeared in the wilderness.

The Child was blessed in looks and intellect. Scion of a simple family, offspring of a miraculous union, grandson of a typical white person and an African peasant. And yea, as he grew, the Child walked in the path of righteousness, with only the occasional detour into the odd weed and a little blow.

When he was twelve years old, they found him in the temple in the City of Chicago, arguing the finer points of community organization with the Prophet Jeremiah and the Elders. And the Elders were astonished at what they heard and said among themselves: “Verily, who is this Child that he opens our hearts and minds to the audacity of hope?”

In the great Battles of Caucus and Primary he smote the conniving Hillary, wife of the deposed King Bill the Priapic and their barbarian hordes of Working Class Whites.”

Noted this Associated Press dispatch about Obama’s Triumph of the Will in Berlin:

“In this city where John F. Kennedy, Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton all made famous speeches, Obama will find himself stepping into perhaps another iconic moment Thursday as his superstar charisma meets German adoration live in shadows of the Reichstag and the Brandenburg Gate. He then travels to Paris and London where he can expect to be greeted with similar adulation.

“It’s not only Obama’s youth, eloquence and energy that have stolen hearts across the Atlantic. . . . Obama has raised expectations of a chance for the nation to redeem itself.”

Seig Heil! “A slam-dunk success,” in the words of Time’s Joe Klein; “a real grand slam,” as Salon Editor Joan Walsh put it on “Hardball.”

Obama “confidently walked onto a stage at the foot of Berlin’s Victory Column to intermittent chants of ‘Obama, Obama, Obama!’ Some in the crowd compared the address to the rock concerts and sports events that sometimes draw hundreds of thousands of people to the Tiergarten.”

The Chicago Tribune says the setting “evoked historic addresses by Presidents John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan,” and “offered an opportunity” for Obama “to demonstrate his capacity to represent American ideals to the international public,” and USA Today says Obama “is betting he can win votes at home by proving he can win hearts abroad.”

All three networks led with the story last night. NBC Nightly News reported, “As one local journalist here put it, if the election were held today, Barack Obama could sail to victory by a margin of seventy percent or more as president of Germany, perhaps even all of Europe.”

The CBS Evening News reported, “They’ve been calling this the ‘Obama Show’ in Berlin. His appeal here, part exotic politician, part rock star. And a rock festival-sized crowd of more than 200,000 gathered to see him.” Obama “told them a lot of what they wanted to hear, that Europe and the US had drifted apart and that he would pull them back together.”

“The Obama phenomenon is so much the better story — an obscure African American senator from Illinois, little known to most Americans two years ago, emerges as very probably the next president,” says Terence Smith, a former correspondent for CBS and PBS.

“That is a fantastic story. Of course it’s going to get two or three times the space and attention and airtime of John McCain, who, while he may be a very appealing semi-maverick on his bus, is a much more conventional candidate.”

Last week, Obama penned an op-ed piece for the New York Times that outlined ‘his vision’ for America. It was free campaign advertising thinly disguised as ‘opinion’. Later that same week, John McCain penned a rebuttal to Obama’s piece and submitted it to the New York Times. The Times rejected it.

“We don’t use the Op-Ed page for people to respond directly to articles in the paper or other Op-Eds. That’s what letters to the editor are for,” said NYTimes editorial page editor Andrew Rosenthal.

So write a letter to the editor, John! Who do you think you are? Barack Obama?