Thank You, Boston!

I hope every WTKK listener takes a moment to read this morning's article by Jessica Heslam in the Boston Herald on talk radio and ratings. If you do, the loud cheering and clapping you hear in the background will be Jim Braude, Margery Eagan, Jay Severin, Michelle McPhee and I saying "thank you" for the tremendous success.

Longtime listeners of WTKK know that there has been almost constant change since I arrived at the station, some of them planned and some of them (thanks, Al Sharpton) foist upon us. One fact Jessica misses in her Herald article is that these new ratings numbers are the first with the finalized line-up in place.

It proves that our management, from Peter Smyth in the big chair, to Phil Redo and Grace Blazer, were right to commit to being live and local 13 straight hours every day. WTKK is one of the few talk stations in America to make that commitment to local programming, and I believe (to quote a Newton alderman) it's what the people of Boston expect and deserve.

So thank you, thank you, THANK YOU for making WTKK such a great success. The good news is--thanks to Obama, McCain and Mrs. Bill Clinton--it's only going to get better!

The Press And Obama: They Still Don't Get It

Graham Natural Truth #2: "You'll never explain to people who just don't get it, that the problem is they just don't get it."

As today's Natural Truth quote demonstrates, there are many, many people on the Left who just don't get the Barack Obama/Rev. Wright story at all. They still insist that neither man has done anything that should in any way impact Sen. Obama's presidential bid. And they blame any potential political damage on those evil Republicans.

In today's Boston Globe-Democrat, for example, Peter Canellos, says that, by continuing to support Rev. Wright for the past 12 months, "Obama gave his political enemies a chance to tie him to Wright's statements." Gee, Pete, you don't think the whole "attending his church for 20 years, making him your spiritual sounding board and giving him $50,000 over the past two years in donations" thing might have had something to do with tying Sen. Obama to this racist nutjob?

Scott Lehigh goes even farther. He admits that he would be "more comfortable if Obama had left the Trinity United Church of Christ during Wright's long tenure," but then insists that "it was never fair to read [Obama's] failure to do so as an endorsement of Wright's outlandish views."

So in Lehigh's world, I could regularly attend John Birch Society meetings for 20 years, but it would be unfair to assume I fear a blue-helmeted invasion of the US led by the Trilateral Commission? I could give $50,000 in 2006 and 2007 to Hamas, but it would be unfair to assume I support violent attacks on Israel?

Here's the deal: We have now reached the "eatin' ain't cheatin'" point of the Barack Obama candidacy. Democrats are going to nominate him, period. They can't do anything about his indefensible support for Black Liberation Theology or the ranting Rev. So they're doing what Clinton supporters did during the Lewinsky scandal. They've thrown their "cognitive dissonance" amp up to 11 and are convincing themselves for the moment that they believe the unbelievable.

During the Lewinsky story, several Lefty friends and acquaintances assured me that they absolutely believed Bill Clinton's claim that, while Monica might have been having sex with him, he was certainly not having sex with her. Therefore there was no perjury and Ken Starr was Satan, etc., etc. Today, those same Lefties insist they never said any such thing, that they knew Clinton was lying the whole time, blah, blah.

One year from now, when Barack Obama is NOT the elected Democratic president, liberal pundits will admit without embarrassment that there was never any way to justify the racist, anti-American lunacy of Barack Obama's chosen church. They will acknowledge that voters were completely justified in judging Sen. Obama for his long-standing relationship with this David Duke wannabe.

Until then, the Left's marching orders are: "Honesty in defense of Obama is no virtue, and idiocy in his defense is no vice."

"I Was Going To Have A Random Drug Test, But Then I Got High..."

Yesterday, more union stooges hit the streets of Boston to repeat their plan to protect us from deadly fires: "We'll keep sending stoned firefighters into burning buildings until you give us more money."

Do I exaggerate? Here is Scott Salman, spokesman for the Boston Firefighters Union:

“I’m sure [mandatory, random drug testing] will come up in our contract negotiations,” Mr. Salman said, adding that the Boston police received additional pay because of it. “We’d gladly do that if it were a contractual thing, if it were more money.”

Meanwhile, two firefighters with alcohol or drugs in their bloodstream died in West Roxbury; a firefighter was busted smoking pot while in a BFD vehicle; and another was just busted buying Oxy on the streets.

And yet Robert McCarthy, head of the Massachusetts firefighters union, says his union still refuses to agree to random, mandatory drug testing today. Why? "We want to be compensated."

Show me the money, he says, even after he's already been shown the dead, drunk and drugged up firemen.

As I asked of that greedy, gutless weasel Ed Kelly of the Boston firefighters union, "How many firefighters have to die before he will do the right thing? The answer, sadly, is 'more than two.'"

Contradictions

Sen. Obama is right that Rev. Wright's teachings are a "contradiction to everything my campaign is about," as he said in today's press conference. That's the problem.

It is simply not possible to reconcile the "post-racial, bring us together" premise of Obama's campaign with the "racist America is a terrorist nation" theology preached by Rev. Wright. And I don't find Sen. Obama's current argument compelling.

He's asking us to believe that Rev. Wright's behavior at the National Press Club--a man Sen. Obama has seen preach hundreds of times--came as a surprise to Barack Obama. That Obama had no idea what Rev. Wright believed until after the preacher speak to the National Press Club yesterday.

In other words, Sen. Obama's answer regarding Rev. Wright's lunacy is "Hey, it's all news to me."

So this is the NEW Rev. Wright? Is that what I'm supposed to believe?

What happened? Has Rev. Wright suddenly changed his medications? Has he suffered a recent trauma. I've watched excerpts of his sermons going back 10 years, and Rev. Wright is consistently paranoid and idiotic throughout. How can I believe that Sen. Obama is "shocked, shocked!" to discover that a racist maniac is, in fact, a racist maniac?

Today's press conference is the reason why Sen. Obama has tried to avoid this moment. How can Sen. Obama wipe away TWENTY YEARS? How can he change the fact that, when he announced his presidential race, it was Rev. Wright in the basement he was praying with beforehand? How can he deny the widely-quoted statements between Rev. Wright and Sen. Obama acknowledging before his campaign started that Rev. Wright's sermons would hurt the Obama campaign?

Sen. Obama is discovering a "natural truth" shared by H. L. Mencken almost 100 years ago: "Any man can bear injustice. What stings is justice."

Who Is The "Reverend" Of Which You Speak?

Geez, Graham, how long are you gonna keep pounding Barack Obama for this Rev. Wright thing? The Reverend retired, Sen. Obama has already said he doesn't agree with EVERYTHING the guy said. What more can Sen. Obama do, you racist moron?

Why, Barack hasn't used Rev. Wright to promote his campaign since...last week. It's ancient history!

That's right. Barack Obama was distributing campaign literature as recently as last week, touting his relationship with Reve. Wright.

Ben Smith at Politico.com has posted a flier paid for and distributed by the Obama campaign during last week's Pennsylvania primary. You can view the actual flier for yourself by clicking here.

The flier, handed out at black churches in the days before the primary, describes Sen. Obama as a "committed Christian," and specifically reports the following:

"So one Sunday I put on one of the few clean jackets I had and went over to Trinity United Church of Christ on 95th Street on the South Side of Chicago. And I heard Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright deliver a sermon called "The Audacity of Hope."

Why? Why re-print and distribute this specific text from Sen. Obama's book to black voters at the same time that Rev. Wright is denouncing the "U.S. of KKKA" and claiming that America's soldiers are just "Al Qaeda under a different flag?"

Does Sen. Obama believe that Rev. Wright's idiocy appeals to black voters? Is this why he refuses to reject Rev. Wright and his teachings as a whole? Does Sen. Obama see a political upside that he's trying to quietly exploit in the pews of black churches?

And--more importantly--when will the sycophants at CNN and MSNBC finally call Obama on this? When these same fliers show up next week in Gary, IN and Greensboro, NC?

Rev. Wright Round-Up

In today's Boston Herald, I drop the "N-bomb" on the Rev. Wright, and I do so without apology. Please send your complaints to michaelgraham@969wtkk.com .

Across the page from me, George Will makes the point that Rev. Wright "...is a demagogue with whom Obama has had a voluntary 20-year relationship that implies, if not moral approval, certainly no serious disapproval....[Wright] wants to be a central figure in this presidential campaign. He should be."

Meanwhile, Dem-friendly Washington Post has an excellent (and devastating) wrap up of Rev. Wright's most significant comments yesterday.

And Byron York reports that the whispers of "why would Sen. Obama take his CHILDREN to that hate church?" have gotten so loud, the senator is almost certainly going to be forced to leave TUCC.

Oh, and speaking of TUCC and Rev. Wright's practice of Black Liberation Theology, the Reverend once again mentioned his mentor, Dr. James Cone, in his press event yesterday. Here's a reminder of the "love" preached by Dr. Cone and his "theology."

The Natural Truth About Eco-Kooks

Are you prepared to see your lifestyle reduced to the level of Somalia, Haiti or Jordan? If not, then you're not a true Al Gore environmentalist. You're just, as Mark Steyn calls them, "poseur environmentalists."

Because, as every Hillary Clinton/Barack Obama supporter knows--and as the cartoon above claims--the only action we humans can take that will solve the alleged climate change problem is reducing carbon emissions by 80% before the year 2050. That's the "promise" Hillary and Obama have made, because if you don't want to do that, you won't remove enough carbon to stop the alleged warming.

So here, for your consideration, is the math on the "80-by-50" proposal, courtesy of Stephen Hayward in the Wall Street Journal:

Begin with the current inventory of carbon dioxide emissions – CO2 being the principal greenhouse gas generated almost entirely by energy use. According to the Department of Energy's most recent data on greenhouse gas emissions, in 2006 the U.S. emitted 5.8 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide, or just under 20 tons per capita. An 80% reduction in these emissions from 1990 levels means that the U.S. cannot emit more than about one billion metric tons of CO2 in 2050.

Were man-made carbon dioxide emissions in this country ever that low? The answer is probably yes – from historical energy data it is possible to estimate that the U.S. last emitted one billion metric tons around 1910. But in 1910, the U.S. had 92 million people, and per capita income, in current dollars, was about $6,000.

By the year 2050, the Census Bureau projects that our population will be around 420 million. This means per capita emissions will have to fall to about 2.5 tons in order to meet the goal of 80% reduction.

It is likely that U.S. per capita emissions were never that low – even back in colonial days when the only fuel we burned was wood. The only nations in the world today that emit at this low level are all poor developing nations, such as Belize, Mauritius, Jordan, Haiti and Somalia.

Now, it's always possible that Barack Obama may have a "magic electricity machine" he got from Farrakhan's last visit to the Mother Ship. But assuming he doesn't, are you prepared to run your house on less electricity than your grandmother used? Back when she had four electric appliances? Are you prepared to heat your home on less fuel than the colonists used in their log cabins?

If not, then you're an Earth-Mother-hating, Bush-loving, oil-company stooge. Shame on you!

To all Gaia-worshipping Gorons, I offer this simple and indisputable challenge: If you really love the Earth, you will do your part to reduce your carbon footprint to (almost) zero....and kill yourself. If you're right about climate change, it's our only hope.

UPDATE: By the way, the 2025 date in the cartoon above is particularly idiotic given that a) there has been no warming in 10 years; b)even the global panic kooks only claim the temperature will rise by no more than 1 degree C by 2050, assuming their meteorological models suddenly stop being wildly wrong. Will a degree change in temperatures--which has happened many times in human history--really drive us all into our HazMat suits?

Another Proud Member of "Redneck Nation"

I've received quite a few emails regarding Michael Hirsh's piece in Newsweek with the oddly-familiar title, "How The South Won (this) Civil War."

Gee, where have I heard that before?

If only Mr. Hirsh had read my book, he might have saved himself the embarrassment of writing this utterly wrong-headed analysis. His argument is essentially Sen. Obama's "they're clinging to their Bibles" argument, just more fully realized. And the reason America is the "radical nationalist" nation it is today is because Middle America shares the misguided, ignorant, backwards world view of the Deep South.

Reading Mr. Hirsh's argument, I laughed out loud several times as he inadvertently revealed himself to be the true (metaphorical) Son of the South.

First of all, he's whining about the Left losing. If that portion of America resistant to Hillary's politics or Obama's charms represented fewer than 250 electoral votes, we wouldn't be having this conversation. No, this is the "Oh, yeah--well, even if we lost, we're still better than you!" complaint heard from southerners daily since April 1865.

Secondly, he cannot escape the ultimate Confederate trap: identity politics. He doesn't argue that his liberal ideals are better for Texas and Tennessee and, therefore, he should work harder to reach those uniformed citizens. No, he argues--in similar fashion to the Confederates--that "it's a Northern thing, and you yokels will never understand." There's just something wrong with "them." (As opposed to Mr. Hirsh's enlightened "us.") So why should Obama waste his breath, right? Those red state rednecks will always be too dumb to get it.

And finally, Mr. Hirsh exposes a tin ear of Bull Connor proportions as he asserts, without irony or fear of offense, that Sen. Obama's relationships with a deranged racist mentor and unrepentant terrorist are so normal that they require no additional explanation:

Obama seems to be so leery of being identified as an urban Northern liberal that he's running away from the most obvious explanation of his association with the Rev. Jeremiah Wright and former Weatherman Bill Ayers: after Obama graduated from college he became an inner-city organizer in Chicago, and they were natural allies for someone in a situation like that.

Just as southern segregationists didn't understand the backlash they were creating when they used violence against black Americans fighting segregation, Mr. Hirsh and his friends truly don't get how truly bizarre it is for a major-party presidential candidate to have a racist lunatic for a mentor and an unrepentant terrorist for a political ally.

Parochial, ignorant, obsessed with identity politics and dismissive of those who are not like him, Michael Hirsh is a proud member of Redneck Nation.

"Fools" Is Right

I love this cartoon, which says so much about the big-government-types (think a certain junior senator from Illinois) who are far more focused on making themselves feel better than they are actually making the world better.

The "let's spend billions turning third-world food into ethanol for my Prius!" program is just one example of many. What makes this eco-stupidity stand out is the self-righteous arrogance of the greenies pushing it. They are literally taking food out of the mouths of poor people--and spending billions of tax dollars to do it!--and then accusing those of us who oppose them of not caring enough.

"If you really loved Mother Earth, you wouldn't mind a few food riots in Haiti..."

Right.

Speaking of fools, another person who belongs on the eco-idiot list is Newsweek's Evan Thomas. This is not news to anyone who's read more than a paragraph or two of his turgid prose and junior-high debate club rhetoric.

I was stunned when I saw a Newsweek headline today, "Global Warming's Curious Absence."

What? Was Newsweek finally going to report on the real climate change story of 2008, namely that global temperatures have either been flat or falling for a decade now? Were they going to report on the Nobel laureate who wrote the IPCC and urged them to read their own science instead of promoting global warming panic? Were they going to confront Al Gore with the question "Is the theory of global warming worth the price of real starvation in the world?"

Was Newsweek finally going to report the rest of the story?!

Uh....no.

The "global warming" Mr. Thomas is marking absent is the political issue.

National polls show that the environment ranks fairly low as an issue that moves voters. In the Pennsylvania primary global warming was such a peripheral issue that exit pollsters did not even bother to measure voter attitudes toward it.

Gee, you think maybe 10 years of NO WARMING might have something to do with that?

To his credit, Mr. Thomas does make the key admission that Gorons like Arnold Schwarzenegger and Deval Patrick will not:

President Bush talks about cutting the rate of growth by 20 percent or so. But that won't do much to keep the temperatures down or the seas from rising....The only way to get from here to there on slashing greenhouse emissions is by massively enforcing limits on consumption, which means heavy regulation, or much higher taxes. Or by developing breakthrough technologies, like a way to cheaply recapture carbon emissions or safer nuclear technology. (The technology has to be so cheap that China and India will buy it.)

Cutting emissions by 20% (imagine unplugging every 5th lightbulb in your house, or firing every 5th co-worker) will do nothing. Got it? The greenies will only accept massive, draconian measures that will cost, by their own estimates, trillions of dollars and cost millions of jobs.

All based on the theory that our ever-changing climate, which regularly cycles between sunny grasslands in Greenland and ice cover in Germany, is changing the "wrong" way this time, and it's all our fault.

Is there anything liberals won't do in the name of guilt?

We Must End The Scourge Of Guilt By Association!

We all know that old trick from what Lanny Davis calls the "Republican Noise Machine" (another great techno band from the '80s). You take a candidate, point out his church attendance or his participation in the Million Man March, etc., then smear HIM for things that were said at the church or by some minister recently returned from a conference on an alien spacecraft.

So unfair!

And now here it is, happening again.

Tony Zirkle is a longshot candidate in the GOP primary for Congress in Indiana's 2nd District. He gets an invitation to speak to a Chicago group celebrating Adolph Hitler's birthday. He stands in front of a painting of Hitler, addressing an audience whose members are wearing swastika armbands and now...he's under attack! Can you believe it?

"I'll speak before any group that invites me," Zirkle told a reporter. And why shouldn't he? Hey, we're not going to start holding people responsible for the churches they attend or the terrorists with whom they associate, now are we? Besides, do you and I really understand the plight of bitter, jobless neo-Nazis? I mean, really--who are we to judge?

I anxiously await the enthusiastic press release in defense of Mr. Zirkle from DNC and others engaged in the noble fight against the injustice of guilt by association.

To quote those great political philosophers, Jake and Elwood Blues: "Illinois Nazis? I hate Illinois Nazis."

New North Carolina Ad

This is the controversial ad launched in North Carolina by the state Republican party.

Boosters For Barack

I don't just mean Bill Press, who joins us this morning to talk about Hillary's big win in Pennsylvania. The media just cannot get over their man-crush on Barack.

Dorothy Rabinowitz covers the subject well in the Wall Street Journal today.

Rabinowitz calls out Philadelphia's Will Bunch, who continued his "Obama Uber Alles" scribblings even as Sen. Obama went down to defeat, insisting that, because Obama didn't lose by MORE, it must prove no voters care about Rev. Wright, his elitism, terrorist pals, etc.

Gee, Will, you don't think outspending Hillary by $8 million might have had something to do with that? Nah, it had to be that white, Catholic males in Scranton think attending a racist, anti-Semitic hate church for 20 years is no big deal.

The media are not biased re: Obama. They've moved beyond that. They are Boosters for Barack, promoting his candidacy and dismissing all criticism as a sign of moral failure by the critics. Olbermann and Matthews on MSNBC Tuesday night were in full moral outrage mode, for example, over reports that the North Carolina Republican Party is planning to demand that local Democratic candidates denounce Barack Obama's relationship with Rev. Wright and William Ayers. According to the Olbermann/Matthews brain trust, this is blatant racism, a return to "Jesse Helms" politics.

Excuse me? First of all, Bill Ayers is a WHITE guy. Second, Sen. Obama himself keeps saying he's renounced some of Rev. Wright's comments, they were bad, blah, blah. He sees the problem himself, obviously.

But it's racist when Republicans notice, too? The press are completely in the tank, and it's not pretty.

The News From Pennsylvania

'Nuff said.

Your Mandatory "Must Read" for Patriot's Day

Those of you who, like my son and I, have been watching the John Adams miniseries on HBO will love this link from the Boston Herald's Jules Crittendon. It tells the story of Patriot's Day--the shot heard 'round the world--in the words of some of the men who were there.

The world's greatest superpower ran into a few thousand farmers and shopkeepers in Massachusetts, and the birth of modern democracy began.

Interestingly, it would take more than a decade for the Americans to seize victory and expel the British entirely. And, interestingly (if you're paying attention in Iraq), nearly every day someone predicted that the Americans would fail, that the cause of democracy was too idealistic to prevail, that Gen. Washington's military strategy was a disaster, etc. etc.

Oh, and one thing that became clear during the Revolution, too: America would not seize a short-term victory without the involvement of the French. More proof that colonial Americans--like Iraqis today--couldn't possibly be ready for self-government? Some said so.

And yet, somehow the British were vanquished and, after many screwups and mistakes, the Constitution was adopted, and despite a successful re-invasion by the British less than 20 year after the creation of the US, America prevailed and...well, you know the rest of the story.

It's a story that began, right here in Massachusetts, on Patriot's Day. It's a story you and your entire family should know.

Terrorists Are People, Too!

Can someone explain to me the bizarre relationship between terrorism and the Left? Advocates of government "hate crimes" laws and speech codes like Sen. Obama--who kicked a delegate off his campaign for calling some kids playing by her house "monkey" (they happened to be black)--have no problem hanging out with unrepentant terrorist bombers like Ayers and Dohrn.

In fact, as Steve Chapman points out in the Chicago papers, Dohrn went to jail rather than testify against her fellow terrorists in an armored car robbery that left three people dead.

If the Left's attitude were one of "live and left live," if they were willing to, say, shrug off the comments of Don Imus or didn't insist that the phrase "illegal immigrant" should be banned, then they would at least have the virtue of consistency. But the same people who aren't sure about "calling a spade a spade" in cocktail conversation are prepared to negotiate with Hamas, literally as the missiles from Gaza are falling on schoolchildren in Sderot.

The same Mrs. Clinton, who claims she is horrified by Sen. Obama's terrorist pals had no comment when her husband granted pardons to terrorists while president.

Harvard University says that the US military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy is so offensive they sued to keep military recruiters off campus. Then they turned around and invited former Iranian president Khatemi--who helped create the terror group Hezbollah--to speak on campus. Not far from their completely non-offensive "no boys allowed" fundamentalist gym.

Put it together, and it makes no sense. Are American liberals the most easily offended people in the world, or are they IMPOSSIBLE to offend?

Please, Sen. Obama, make up your mind.

President Obama: A Supreme Disaster

Jonah Goldberg's latest column is a reminder as to why every rational America, regardless of politics or political leanings, should be horrified by the idea of Barack Obama as president.

Obama's statements on how he would appoint judges are simply embarrassing. As Goldberg points out:

The Democratic front-runner and former lecturer on constitutional law at the University of Chicago has explained his thinking toward judicial appointments thusly: “We need somebody who’s got the heart, the empathy, to recognize what it’s like to be a young teenage mom, the empathy to understand
what it’s like to be poor or African-American or gay or disabled or old - and that’s the criteria by which I’ll be selecting my judges.”

When defending his vote against Justice John Roberts’ confirmation, Obama explained that the standard for a justice must be “one’s deepest values, one’s core concerns, one’s broader perspectives on how the world works, and the depth and breadth of one’s empathy.”

Now that is a pure expression of the principle of judicial
fiat.

Setting aside the indefensible "What Would A Young Teenage Mom Do?" judicial theory, this maudlin sentiment that legal rulings should be made from the heart is more appropriate for the Lifetime Channel than a presidential campaign. How can any serious legal scholar even consider supporting this nut?

Did Obama Finger Hillary Over Her Debate Performance?

OK--do you see what I (and at least one reporter at the LA Times) see in this video of Sen. Obama's comments about Hillary after Wednesday's debate?

Watch what Sen. Obama does the first time he mentions Hillary, and also note how the crowd reacts. Then...you be the judge!

More Bad News On Global Warming

Well, it's bad if you're a Goron determined to put 1 million Americans out of work to fight "global warming." For normal people who want to keep their jobs and not fry to death in a climate change death-wok, this new science is great news.

The graph above shows the steady increase in atmospheric CO2 (that's supposedly bad) since 1998. The other two lines, bouncing up and down with no correlation to the CO2, are the latest, most accurate available measures of global temperatures.

The entire theory of "if you don't buy a mercury-filled lightbulb for your kid's bedroom, you're killing Mother Earth" is that more CO2 = higher temperatures.

They don't.

There are many other links to many other reports of much more science confirming that global warming kooks are creating a panic on thin--or even non-existent--evidence.

And then there's this from today's Wall Street Journal:

The fear of a sudden loss of ice from Greenland also makes a lot of news. A year ago, radio and television were ablaze with the discovery of "Warming Island," a piece of land thought to be part of Greenland. But when the ice receded in the last few years, it turned out that there was open water. Hence Warming Island, which some said hadn't been uncovered for thousands of years. CNN, ABC and the BBC made field trips to the island.

But every climatologist must know that Greenland's last decade was no warmer than several decades in the early and mid-20th century. In fact, the period from 1970-1995 was the coldest one since the late 19th century, meaning that Greenland's ice anomalously expanded right about the time climate change scientists decided to look at it.

Once again, I am not saying that there is no man-made climate change. I don't know. The point is, nobody does. The evidence is overwhelming that we have virtually no clue about climate change, and that previous climate models have been wildly wrong. Given that the entire "warming" over 100 years is about one degree Celsius, "wildly wrong" puts all of that "warming" within the margin of error.

So go ahead and get that Prius or stop buying Girl Scout cookies with palm oil, blah, blah, blah. That's fine. But stop trying to cripple the US economy over what is nothing more than a guess.

When you KNOW something, my kooky, Gore-loving friends, then we'll talk about throwing 1 million Americans out of work.

The Funniest Thing You Will Read Today

I wish I had written it, but it's by novelist Robert Ferrigno at National Review today. Hilarious!

My latest column for the Boston Herald isn't nearly as funny, but it is apparently making some Boston Catholics angry to the point of derangement. Just read some of the comments posted at the bottom of the column. Yikes!

Michael Yon Brings The Natural Truth From Iraq

Thank you to every 96.9 FM TALK listener who heard Michael Yon on my radio show today and ordered his book. It supports his vital mission as a truly independent journalist telling the Natural Truth about our soldiers and Marines in Iraq.

It's a great book, and every purchase goes to a great cause.

If You Want An Editorial Cartoon That Is Actually Funny...

Stick with Holbert in the Boston Herald.

The Left's New Obama Defense: "We Really ARE Better Than You!"

This cartoon from today's Boston Globe-Democrat is a perfect snapshot of where the American Left is today: Clueless, incompetent and condescending.

First of all, Wasserman is a mediocre talent at best, and this cartoon is typical of his level of performance. It's not clever, and it's not funny. It's just an obvious display of "Why, yes, you yokels really are a bunch of gun-toting cross-clingers" arrogance.

Ah, but he doesn't have to be entertaining or insightful. He's a liberal. It's enough that he is just so right.

The same is true of Barack Obama. Why, just ask that man of the people, Robert Reich of Havard and UCal-Berkeley. In a blog posting entitled Obama, Bitterness, Meet the Press, and the Old Politics Reich writes:

Are Americans who have been left behind frustrated? Of course. And their frustrations, their anger and, yes, sometimes their bitterness, have been used since then -- by demagogues, by nationalists and xenophobes, by radical conservatives, by political nuts and fanatical fruitcakes – to blame immigrants and foreign traders, to blame blacks and the poor, to blame "liberal elites," to blame anyone and anything.

Got it now? There are two groups of people: those who, like Sen. Obama and Professor Reich, share a fundamental resentment of America and suspicion about its people; and the "demagogues, nationalists, xenophobes, nuts and fruitcakes" who think America's a pretty great place that could be even greater.

George Will's column today lays out their worldview perfectly:

Obama’s dismissal is: Americans, especially working-class conservatives, are unable, because of their false consciousness, to deconstruct their social context and embrace the liberal program. Today that program is to elect Obama, thereby making his wife at long last proud of America...

When Democrats convened in San Francisco in 1984, en route to losing 49 states, Jeane Kirkpatrick - a former FDR Democrat then serving in the Cabinet of another such, Ronald Reagan - said “San Francisco Democrats” are people who “blame America first.”

Today, they blame Americans for America being “downright mean.”

So stop complaining, the MSM keep telling typical Americans, and admit it's true. You're mean! You're bitter! You're ignorant, lazy and racist!

Why, what other reason could you possibly have for not supporting Barack Obama? Well, other than his radical, extremist politics, total lack of executive experience, support for homegrown terrorists and his ongoing attendance at a whackjob church run by a racist lunatic.

Admit it, America--you're not good enough for Barack Obama! The Boston Globe, Robert Reich and Barack Obama know it, and you should admit it, too.

What Has Obama Done?

In the best analysis of Sen. Obama's "cling to God and guns" comments I've yet read, Bill Kristol in the NYTimes asks:

And what are the grounds for his supercilious disdain? If he were a war hero, if he had a career of remarkable civic achievement or public service — then he could perhaps be excused an unattractive but in a sense understandable hauteur. But what has Barack Obama accomplished that entitles him to look down on his fellow Americans?

Exactly.

For weeks I've been asking listeners at 96.9 FM TALK the same question, phrased this way: Is Obama worth it? Sure, you can vote for a guy who hangs out with terrorists, who spent 20 years at the feet of a raving, racist loony, who lives in the outer fringes of the leftwing politics of his own party, and who clearly has issues with how he feels about our country. Go right ahead.

But for what? What is it you believe Sen. Obama can accomplish that makes him worth the price? What can he do? What will he do? What has he ever done?

Every day, millions of Americans--many of them (shock!) white--struggle more just to get by and pay the bills than Sen. Obama has ever struggled in his entire life. Where does Sen. Obama get the audacity to condescend and speak down to them? Because he went to Harvard? Because he can give a good speech?

Big deal.

Can he keep a small business open, even while gas prices climb and the economy slips? Can he squeeze in an extra sales call and still make it home in time to watch the kids so his wife can get to her job on time? Can he find a way to keep his business competitive despite illegal competition from businesses using crimmigrant labor to undercut costs and avoid taxes?

And can Sen. Obama do all that, while listening to some pompous blowhard insult and demean him?

What gall. What nerve. What ignorant arrogance. And if you're still planning on voting for Sen. Obama...what the hell are you thinking?

The Obama Paradox

"I'm so much smarter than you, that's why I hang out with really dumb people." That's how Barack Obama seems to view the world.

As Victor Davis Hanson puts it in his analysis of Obama's "It's not their fault white people are racist, Bible-thumping gun kooks" comments:

So here we have the essential Obama, a walking paradox between the postmodern hip-Ivy-Leaguer who sneers at middle-class America’s supposed prejudices and parochialism, while at the same time courting an anti-Enlightenment, prejudicial demagogue like Jeremiah Wright.

For free trade or anti-free trade? For 2nd-amendment rights or not? Post-religious or pious and fundamentalist? For public campaign financing or not? A uniter of various groups or someone who sees America in terms of “they”? Straight-talking or someone who evokes "context" to explain away the explicable?
Again, we will see more and more of these condescending statements of the Michelle Obama strain, more and more of Revs. Wright, Meeks, Lee and others peddlers of division like them, and more and more clues to a long hostility to Israel—in what will eventually become the most disastrous chapter in recent Democratic history.

And pundits keep wondering why Hillary won't give up?

I agree with Professor Hanson that Hillary is clearly the better choice for Democrats who want to win in November (and she's a lousy choice, too). But I still see no future for her. It's already obvious that Sen. Obama is damaged goods, a candidate who presents the real possibility of a 40-state loss to John McCain. Every smart Democrat already knows it.

But who in the Democratic Party has the guts to take the nomination away from him? Who is going to walk into the lion's den of the Left's race-obsessed identity politics and say "The black guy has more votes, but he can't win in November?"

Not. Gonna. Happen.

Here's the best part for the GOP: The vetting of Barack Obama is just getting started. There are more quotes yet to come, more ministers spewing hate on his behalf, more anti-American whining from his wife, more radical votes from the Illinois legislature to discuss.

Since the Rev. Wright story began, Sen. Obama has been successful in keeping the campaign narrative mostly about race. This has benefited him, appealing as it does to two key Democratic primary voting blocs: Black voters, and guilty white liberals.

But Sen. Obama and his wife keep giving the press new reasons to look beyond race and at the candidate himself. Every time they do, every time another story like Obama's comments to San Fran libs breaks, more general election voters discover they don't like this guy.

And he, apparently, doesn't think much of them either.

Another Great Idea From Your Massachusetts Legislature!

Want to raise taxes on the poorest citizens?

And drive up health care costs on all Massachusetts taxpayers?

While simultaneously sending more local dollars to New Hampshire?

Then I've got the perfect idea: Raise the cigarette tax to $2.51 a pack!

Jacob Sullum at Reason magazine explains the math that our legislators simply cannot grasp. However, even the dopiest Beacon Hill bonehead should be able to anticipate what's going to happen at New Hampshire convenience stores when the price of a carton of smokes in Massachusetts goes up to $65. When a smoker can save $30 a carton by driving 10 miles, he'll be loading up minivan with Marlboros--even if gas hits $4 a gallon.

UPDATE: Several listeners have called into to claim that the 1997 NEJM study cited by Sullum can't still be true. So here's another study from way back in...2008. Smokers die faster and cost less money.

With Friends Like These...

Call it "guilt by association" if you like, but some voters are wisely asking questions about the company Sen. Barack Obama chooses to keep. Yes, it's true that similar questions haven't been asked about other candidates, like John McCain for example, but with good reason:

Most people running for president have actually DONE something.

Since Barack Obama has never had a significant private sector job, has never run a business, has never been an executive, has served in national government for less than three years and avoided 120 key votes during his brief service in the state legislature, it's hard to evaluate him on his non-existent record.

So voters are stuck evaluating the public choices he has made, and then calculating what sort of president he would make.

Our friend Andy McCarthy has a great piece today about the people Sen. Obama has chosen to embrace and their attitudes about America: Rev. Wright (of course), his wife Michelle (ditto), but also some folks that you probably haven't heard much about:

"...is it really all that startling that Sen. Obama enjoys a friendly relationship with Bill Ayres and his wife, Bernadine Dohrn, a pair of terrorists? I want to be clear here:

Not terrorist sympathizers. Terrorists.

The mainstream media, in their zeal to elect a Democrat, are assiduously airbrushing Ayres: “an aging lefty with a foolish past,” as the Chicago Sun-Times has so delicately put it. In fact, it is the press that is rife with foolish, aging lefties. Ayres, by contrast, is an unapologetic terrorist with a savage past...Ayres didn’t just carry a sign outside the Pentagon on May 19, 1972. He bombed it.

As his memoir gleefully recalled, 'Everything was absolutely ideal on the day I bombed the Pentagon. The sky was blue. The birds were singing. And the bastards were finally going to get what was coming to them.' Whether Pentagon bombing day was more or less ideal than other days, when he, Dohrn and their Weathermen comrades bombed the U.S. Capitol, the State Department, and sundry banks, police stations and courthouses, Ayres does not say. But on each occasion, there was surely optimism that the bastards were finally going to get what was coming to them.

There were lots of bombs. There is no remorse. 'I don’t regret setting bombs,' he told the New York Times in 2001, sorry only that he and the others “didn’t do enough.” Like what? We can’t be sure, though National Review Online’s Jonah Goldberg recounts Ayres’s sentiments back in the day: 'Kill all the rich people. Break up their cars and apartments. Bring the revolution home, kill your parents, that’s where it’s really at.' "

With friends like these, who needs enemas?

Caption Contest!

This photo of the angry latte liberal screaming at the poor Asian woman says so much about the arrogance and cluelessness of the San Fran Left, that I had to share it with my listeners. I offered them the opportunity to put their own captions on it, and here are a few of their suggestions:

"Tiny American flag - $.99, Placard - $14.99, Breath mint for a friend - PRICELESS"

"Hillary needs your donation right now!!!

"I don't care if you got here first, we need more white people in the shot!" (courtesy of an Obama staffer in Pennsylvania).

"BUSH SUCKS!!!"

"They're towing my Prius! What do I do"?

If you have any suggestions, please send them to michaelgraham@969wtkk.com !

Who Is Rev. Jeremiah Wright?

One of the complaints from Obama supporters about the discussion we've been having regarding the senator's spiritual mentor is that we're judging him based on "just a few soundbites."

"What about the context?" Obama supporters ask, implying that there is some context in which the statement "The government created AIDS to kill black people" would make sense.

Let's assume that the Obama campaign is serious, and that Sen. Obama continues to support Rev. Wright because he knows more about his minister than we do. Is it safe, then, to assume that Sen. Obama knew this:

From Wright and others, Obama learned that part of his problem as an organizer was that he was trying to build a confederation of churches but wasn't showing up in the pews on Sunday. When pastors asked him the inevitable questions about his own spiritual life, Obama would duck them uncomfortably. A Reverend Philips put the problem to him squarely when he learned that Obama didn't attend services. "It might help your mission if you had a church home," he told Obama. "It doesn't matter where, really. What you're asking from pastors requires us to set aside some of our more priestly concerns in favor of prophesy. That requires a good deal of faith on our part. It makes us want to know just where you're getting yours from."

After many lectures like this, Obama decided to take a second look at Wright's church. Older pastors warned him that Trinity was for "Buppies"--black urban professionals--and didn't have enough street cred. But Wright was a former Muslim and black nationalist who had studied at Howard and Chicago, and Trinity's guiding principles--what the church calls the "Black Value System"--included a "Disavowal of the Pursuit of Middleclassness.'"...

As a result, over the years, Wright became not only Obama's pastor, but his mentor. The title of Obama's recent book, The Audacity of Hope, is based on a sermon by Wright. (It's worth noting, however, that, while Obama's book is a coolheaded appeal for common ground in an age of political polarization, Wright's sermon, "The Audacity to Hope," is a fiery jeremiad about persevering in a world of nuclear arms and racial inequality.)

Rev. Wright's previous incarnation as a Muslim certainly puts his ongoing support for Louis Farrakhan in perspective. And yet again, the typical American--who finds Sen. Obama's continued membership at Trinity UCC indefensible--is told that our concerns are signs of bigotry or racism.

At what point, then, am I allowed to become concerned? As a person who would immediately reject a potential presidential candidate who attended a church of white nationalism, am I really a racist for rejection a parishioner from the church of black nationalism? Do you have to be a bigot to decry the bigotry and anti-Semitism of Sen. Obama's chosen church?

If it turned out Rev. Wright helped organize the Jim Jones Kool-Aid massacre, would racists be the only people criticizing him for it?

This is pure, partisan-driven stupidity by unthinking Obama supporters who are defending in their own candidate what they would denounce from any other.

What's REALLY Going On In Iraq?

The honest, Natural Truth answer is that nobody knows for sure.

However, when you compare Gen. Patraeus to Mrs. Bill "Willful Suspension of Disbelief" Clinton, it's obvious that some people knwo more than others. So as you listen to politicians and pundits blather on cluelessly--including yours truly--here are some stories and sources that I believe are adding to the conversation.

First is this AP story about the trouble the pro-Iranian Sadr extremists are in right now as the entire Iraqi government, including their former Shia allies, turns against them.

Second is this item by Rich Lowry at NRO quoting some observations from a knowledgable source.

Third, but perhaps most valuable, is Michael Yon's website. He's spent more time on the ground reporting the war than any other journalist. If you aren't reading his stuff, you cannot get a truly informed view of Iraq.

Fourth is Bill Roggio's Long War Journal. Once again, these sources aren't definitive, but they add information to balance the blatant, anti-war bias of the mainstream media.

There are many, many other great websites, journalists, etc., but these are a good start.

UPDATE: Here's another helpful view from inside Iraq that you should add to any conversation about our mission and its future.

UPDATE II: And you can read Gen. Patraeus' sworn testimony before the US Senate for yourself--always a good idea.

Those Who Can, Do. Those Who Can't, Teach.

And those who can't teach, teach anyway! Here in Massachusetts, that's called education reform.

Read all about it in my Boston Herald column today.

UPDATE: With an idea this dumb, you know Gov. Patrick's going to love it!

One day after the issue sparked derision and mockery on the Senate floor, the Patrick administration has indicated it is receptive to legislation that would allow aspiring teachers who fail the certification test three times to get licensed anyway.

S. Paul Reville, chairman of the state Board of Education, said yesterday that the administration is trying to figure out what other criteria it might use to judge candidates who cannot pass the test..."The test is one methodology - and we think it's a valid and reliable methodology for looking at people's level of skills and knowledge - but it isn't necessarily the best venue for everybody to demonstrate their competency," said Reville.

Girls Getting Ready To Go Wild

Massachusetts is a state that Hillary Clinton won, but has quite a few Obama superdelegates. Among them: Gov. Deval Patrick and the two US Senators, Kerry and Kennedy.

According to Boston Globe columnist Joan Vennochi (or as she's known here in Boston, "Ellen Goodman, Jr.") Massachusetts' female politicians are pushing the good ol' boys to support the idea that superdelegates should not be bound by the overall popular vote. Even as the Clinton campaign struggles, our local ladies are making lots of noise, demanding meetings with Kennedy, Patrick etc.

In fact, Vennochi claims that our state Senate leader, Therese Murray, and other prominent female Democrats "are threatening to withhold support for the party nominee, if they don't like the way the nominating process plays out."

Gov. Patrick is scheduled to meet with them this week, while Sen. Kerry "the Democratic presidential nominee still haunted by how the votes were counted in Ohio in 2004," according to Vennochi, "has yet to finalize a meeting with them."

By the way, is Sen. Kerry really "haunted by how the votes were counted in Ohio?" If so, I can see why, because the votes were, by all objective reports, counted in the most unfavorable way possible for Sen. Kerry:

Accurately.

Your "Crimmigrant" Euphemism Of The Day

Today's lesson in how to report on illegal immigrants without identifying them comes, not surprisingly, from the Boston Globe-Democrat. In today's article about the new pro-border-security policies of Rhode Island, the Globe-Democrat "reports" the following:

Many immigrants [?] who live in Massachusetts routinely travel to Rhode Island for work, to visit family and for doctor's appointments, and to frequent nightclubs, parks, and the multitude of shops in Providence and Central Falls selling cheeses, breads, and pastries from their homelands.

Now immigrant families without legal papers say Rhode
Island's move has prompted them to rethink their routines, fearful they will be arrested for a minor traffic violation and sent back to their native countries. Some who work in Rhode Island say they are even looking for jobs outside the state.

"People[?] are terrified," said Anibal Lucas, director of the Maya K'iche Organization in New Bedford, a nonprofit that aids immigrants. "If they go to work, they don't know if they'll end up in jail at the end of the day. It's horrible." [emphasis added].

Who is terrified? "PEOPLE?" Gee, I'm a "people" and I'm not afraid to go to Rhode Island. My friend, Mark Bedrosian, is opening an Italian deli selling his world-famous homemade sausage there in a few weeks, and I plan to be a frequent customer. And I am prepared to guarantee that I won't "end up in jail." The same is true of any "immigrants" who head to North Providence to sample Mark's delicious sausage. Citizens and legal visitors are all welcome!

So who is it the "reporter" is writing about in this story? It must be these strange beings, the "immigrant families without legal papers."

What "legal papers" are talking about here? Wills, testaments or rental agreements? Perhaps these immigrants all work in the paralegal industry and have forgotten some paperwork they need from the office?

Surely we're not talking about immigration documents like visas or green cards. After all, there's a handy, easy-to-use phrase the refers specifically to all "people" or members of "families" who are in the U.S. but who do not have permission to be here. It's "illegal immigrant."

I can't believe newspapers are hiring journalists who aren't familiar with this clear and accurate phrase. Not even the Boston Globe-Democrat.

From a writing standpoint, "immigrant families without legal papers" is a disaster. From a "avoiding the Natural Truth" standpoint, however, it does exactly what the "journalists" of the Boston Globe-Democrat are trying to achieve.

"It's 3 a.m. Do You Know Where Your Campaign Is?"

So asks Mark Steyn in his latest column, on the death throes of Mrs. Bill Clinton's campaign.

Like every other column writer in America, I hate Steyn and hope the jihadists eventually track him down and, if nothing else, destroy his laptop. Because once Steyn writes about a topic, there is usually nothing left worth saying.

Jeepers, will all business during this Clinton administration be transacted at 3 a.m.? Is it some union-negotiated flex-time deal? "Home foreclosures mounting"? We'd better wake the president. There are now so many foreclosures the banks can no longer foreclose on everyone they need to foreclose on during normal banking hours. "The First National Bank of Dead Skunk, Maine, has begun issuing midnight foreclosure notices, Madam President."

"OK, nuke 'em."

"Er, well, maybe this can wait till the regular afternoon meeting."

It's 3 a.m., and your children are safe and asleep. But there's a phone ringing in the White House. And ringing and ringing and ringing. Kim Jong-il No Dong missiles are heading for every major West Coast city, but the president's not picking up because at 2:57 a.m. the Secretary for Soccer Moms called to alert her to the growing crisis caused by the lack of federally mandated children's bicycling helmets.

When the powder keg goes up, who do you want in the White House? Hillary Rodham Clinton, whose customized MCI Friends & Family & European Foreign Ministers & Overseas Dictators plan allows her to receive unlimited incoming calls between 2 a.m. and 4 a.m.? Or John McCain, who'd bawl out the White House operator for waking him up to take a call from the Director of the Federal Bike Path Agency?

I know which one I want....

This Is What McCain/Obama/Mrs. Clinton Call "Logic."

If I complain because millions of foreigners illegally come to my country, stealing jobs, driving down wages and costing taxpayers trillions of dollars--I'm a bigot.

OK, fine. So what do open borders/amnesty advocates like all three of our presidential candidates think of this:

No one knows how many immigrants have left [Arizona]...But enough immigrants have left that the government of Sonora, the Mexican state bordering Arizona, has complained about how many people have arrived on its doorstep.

Wait--Mexican officials are complaining about an influx of Mexican citizens into...MEXICO?

This quote is from an LA Times story complaining about Arizona's new laws against hiring criminal immigrants. The LATimes is outraged that these laws actually...work!

This is the premise of the open borders/amnesty movement. Arizona's laws are encouraging crimmigrants to leave. That's a bad thing. Unless they're leaving Sonora to come to America illegally, in which case leaving is a good thing.

Laws that result in fewer lawbreakers are also bad. Amnesty, which will both reward current lawbreakers and create millions more, is a good thing.

If this (ahem) "argument" is difficult to follow, just consider the fundamental premise of the open borders/amnesty movement:

1--It is impossible to enforce our immigration laws ("you can't deport 12 million people!"), so we should grant amnesty.

2--Enforcing immigration laws works, driving crimmigrants out of local communities. That's not fair ("you're hurting families!"), therefore we should grant amnesty.

3--As an amnesty supporter, I'm too stupid to be expected that the two previous points are contradictory. Therefore...uh, what was I saying? Oh, yeah--"Bush sucks!"

Eventually (I hope), people are going to notice that immigration enforcement works everywhere it's actually tried. Even the LATimes accidentally makes the case.

Jorge Hernandez, a 32-year-old illegal immigrant from Mexico. He had been working in a Phoenix tire shop for years when in December his bosses told him they'd have to let him go because of the new law. Now he struggles to support his family by working as a day laborer and is thinking of leaving."I've been in
Arizona for 11 years," he said. "This is the worst one. For those years I worked every day. I had money, I had a car."

Hernandez dreams of moving to New Mexico, where friends have told him the economy is stronger and sentiment against illegal immigrants weaker. "They don't have E-Verify there," he said in Spanish.

E-Verify is the easy, simple-to-use and 99% reliable federal database available to any employer who wants to be sure he's not hiring crimmigrant labor and, therefore, breaking the law. Every employer in Massachusetts could use it today. Every employer in the state could be required to use it by the state legislature tomorrow.

But E-Verify represents the one kind of immigration enforcement Massachusetts liberals oppose most of all: The kind that actually works.

Our pal Jorge may have spent 11 years in America and never learned to speak English, but he's no dummy. If only Congress, or even the Massachusetts legislature, were as smart as he is.

(h/t Michelle Malkin)

Your "Must Read" For Today

Juan Williams of NPR writes a piece for the Wall Street Journal today bringing together the assassination of Martin Luther King 40 years ago with the candidacy of Sen. Barack Obama today.

You've got to read it, if you are seriously considering a vote for Sen. Obama. Here's a key 'graph:

While speaking to black people, King never condescended to offer Rev. Wright-style diatribes or conspiracy theories. He did not paint black people as victims. To the contrary, he spoke about black people as American patriots who believed in the democratic ideals of the country, in nonviolence and the Judeo-Christian ethic, even as they overcame slavery, discrimination and disadvantage. King challenged white America to do the same, to live up to their ideals and create racial unity. He challenged white Christians, asking them how they could treat their fellow black Christians as anything but brothers in Christ.

When King spoke about the racist past, he gloried in black people beating the odds to win equal rights by arming "ourselves with dignity and self-respect." He expressed regret that some black leaders reveled in grievance, malice and self-indulgent anger in place of a focus on strong families, education and love of God. Even in the days before Congress passed civil rights laws, King spoke to black Americans about the pride that comes from "assuming primary responsibility" for achieving "first class citizenship."

Our question today: Would Rev. King have been a member in good standing of Trinity United Church of Christ? Obviously not--and he lived through far more true oppression and hatred than Sen. Obama ever encountered.

So why is a man who could be our next president a member of that church today?

Doing Your Part To Fight "The Oppressive Gender Binary?"

If not, you need to read my column in today's Boston Herald. You wouldn't want to be "heteronormative," now would you?

“Among millennial students, whether it’s race, gender, or nationality, the borders are coming down,” James Baumann of the Association of College and University Housing Officers told the Globe. “The lines just aren’t there anymore.”

Get it? College kids don’t even notice each other’s sex anymore. That line has been erased, the gender-neutral utopia is here, hallelujah!

Why, if Angelina Jolie walked across the Brown campus naked today, the reaction would be “Who’s the lumpy guy with the big lips?”

Oh, No, It's The "Republican Attack Machine!" --NOT.

As I mention in my Boston Herald column on the Left's "War Against The Oppressive Gender Binary," it's not conservatives who've turned the word "liberal" into a pejorative. It's liberals themselves, through their own ridiculous behavior and beliefs.

Liberal Walter Shapiro makes a similar concession in Salon today, writing about Sen. Barack Obama:

It is not just the Republican attack machine that created the image of Democratic candidates camouflaging their inner being at the behest of their campaign consultants. From Walter Mondale playing down his liberal instincts in 1984 to Al Gore, who, in reality, did did go through a phony phase in the 2000 campaign of wearing earth tones, the Democrats often got caught by their lack of authenticity. (Out of a sense of mercy, we will not even mention the 2004 John Kerry campaign.) It is this trap that Hillary Clinton has fallen into with her exaggerated claims of dodging sniper fire in Bosnia.

Nearly every day I get an email (or 70) accusing me of "making Barack Obama look bad," by using meanspirited, unfair Republican Attack Machine tactics like, oh, reporting his actual voting record and quoting him accurately.

I'm just a big meanie, I guess.

So it's nice to hear a political hack who's in the bag for his party, like Mr. Shapiro, admit that some of the problems his party is having are related to their own behavior. Republicans didn't trick Sen. Obama into spending 20 years in the "First Church Of I Hate Whitey." Talk show hosts didn't force Obama into the most liberal voting record in the entire US Senate. These are just the facts.

More importantly, they are facts that a reasonable voter might take into consideration on Election Day. If that causes Sen. Obama to lose the election, he will have been a victim of his own poor judgment and radical politics, not a conspiracy of the Republican Attack Machine.

You Don't HAVE To Be Crazy To Be A Liberal, But...

...it certainly seems to be the trend here in the Loonybin of Massachusetts. Check out this letter to the editor in the Newburyport Daily News. A few highlights to remind you of the intellectual prowess of many Barack Obama supporters:

"The presidential candidacy of a black man is going to expose the people currently running the Republican Party for what they really are: a group of white, elitist, money-grubbing, power-hungry racists. I do not think of all Republicans this way, just those currently running the party. The party has polled its members to find out exactly how racist they can get when attacking Obama in the general election...[emphasis added] "

And what about Sen. Obama's 20-year membership in a racist, anti-American church?

"Regarding Obama and Pastor Wright: We all have friends who have views that are different from our own. We don't shun, disavow or disown a friend because they make comments we don't agree with."

So he thinks the US government created AIDS to kill black people and that 9/11 is linked to our decision to bomb Hiroshima--so what? Hey, don't we all have friends who are a little crazy?

This guy's friends certainly do.

Barack Obama And The "R" Word

It isn't "race" or even "Wright" (close enough). It's "radical." On issue after issue, from immediately abandoning Iraq to Al Qaeda to supporting a total ban on handgun ownership, Sen. Barack Obama is on the radical fringe of American politics.

This popped up again when Sen. Obama was confronted on the issue of abortion while campaigning among pro-life Democrats. He gave a weasley, mealy-mouthed answer, and attempting to clean that up led to his dopey "punished with a baby" comment. But as Michael Gerson points out in the Washington Post, Obama's record is clear:

Obama's record on abortion is extreme. He opposed the ban on partial-birth abortion -- a practice a fellow Democrat, the late Daniel Patrick Moynihan, once called "too close to infanticide." Obama strongly criticized the Supreme Court decision upholding the partial-birth ban. In the Illinois state Senate, he opposed a bill similar to the Born-Alive Infants Protection Act, which prevents the killing of infants mistakenly left alive by abortion. And now Obama has oddly claimed that he would not want his daughters to be "punished with a baby" because of a crisis pregnancy -- hardly a welcoming attitude toward new life.

At least 80% of Americans oppose partial-birth abortion. I've never seen a poll number, but I'd assume about 99% of Americans think a doctor should try to keep a baby alive who survives a botched(?) abortion.

In a normal election, issues like these would matter. Nominating a candidate from the fringe of either party is usually a way to lose votes. But once again, Sen. Obama's race is his ally. Sen. Obama is in Dennis Kucinich territory on issues and ideology, and you saw what happened to Dennis.

But Obama supporters dismiss virtually all criticism of their candidate as some form of racism. Sometimes they even apologize, arguing that "you're not TRYING to be racist when you point out Sen. Obama has no experience or accomplishments, but that's what you're doing."

Barack Obama, as a candidate for president, is a disaster. His recent stumbles and his repeated decision to resort to outright lying (McCain's "100 years of war"; NAFTA and Canada; the ILV questionnaire) show that Sen. Obama isn't even a particularly talented politician.

The media have been doing an excellent job ignoring, avoiding or shamelessly covering up Sen. Obama's problems. But in the new media era, the Boston Globe-Democrat and CNN can only do so much.

Just Because I Wrote It Doesn't Mean I READ It...

Last year, the folks at Politico.com ran across a candidate questionnaire from Barack Obama's 1996 campaign for the Illinois state senate. In it, Obama answered questions about whether he supported parental consent or even notification before a minor received an abortion (he answered "no"); supported the death penalty ("no"); or supported state legislation to "ban the manufacture, sale and possession of handguns." (Obama said "yes")

When Politico.com asked Sen. Obama about these radical, far-Left positions, Barack's campaign claimed that he "never saw or approved" the questionnaire. They also claimed that a staffer filled it out and simply got the answers wrong. Sen. Obama, they claimed, knew nothing about it.

Oops.

Turns out that, not only did Sen. Obama know about it, he was actually interviewed by the liberal group that sent out the survey. Those answers were then written down, reviewed and amended by Sen. Obama--in his own handwriting!

So how does Sen. Obama explain his claim that he knew nothing about the questionnaire and the answers weren't his?

According to Politico:

"Obama, who won the group's endorsement as well as the statehouse seat, did not dispute that the handwriting was his. But he contended it doesn't prove he completed, approved--or even read[!]--the latter questionnaire."
(emphasis added)

So let me get this straight: Sen. Obama attended a racist, anti-Semitic, anti-American church for 20 years...but he never heard the pastor say anything controversial. He sat for an interview, wrote on the subsequent questionnaire, submitted it to a far-Left organization, got their endorsement...but he never READ the questions or approved the answers?

Does anyone really believe that? Isn't the easier, simpler and more obvious conclusion that Sen. Obama is simply lying? Instead of suffering from some bizarre form of ADHD, where Barack suddenly lapses in and out of consciousness during church services and interviews, isn't it far more likely that a)Sen. Obama supported Rev. Wright for 20 years and was proud to be a member of the church, until he got caught; and b) really did have far-Left positions on guns, abortion and the death penalty, until he got caught?

Which brings us to the final question: Is there any lie so big that a Barack Obama supporter won't swallow it? Thus far, the answer is "no." And unlike Barack, you can quote me on that.

Barack Obama's Little Bundle of Punishment

In a conversation about HIV and sex education in Pennsylvania yesterday, Sen. Barack Obama shared this insight about his feelings on parenting:

"[Sex ed] should also include other, you know, information about contraception because, look, I've got two daughters, 9 years old and 6 years old. I am going to teach them first of all about values and morals. But if they make a mistake, I don't want them punished with a baby. I don't want them punished with an STD at the age of 16."

A sexually transmitted disease, a baby--what's the diff? They're both "punishments" that can follow sex, right?

The word "punishment" is an interesting term to inject into a conversation about abortion, particularly from a supporter of partial-birth abortion like Sen. Obama. (In fact, he voted against a bill in the Illinois legislature that would have mandated medical care for babies who survive an abortion--a law that was unanimously passed by the US Senate that same year.)

Nobody would describe childbirth as "fun," obviously. But if Sen. Obama calls what's happening to the mother a "punishment," how would he describe what happens to the unborn child in the third trimester when the 16-year-old shows up for her Obama-protected abortion?