Ken Berwitz

They're coming thick and fast now.  Here are the latest:

“Nobody thinks that Bush and McCain have a real answer to the challenges we face. So what they’re going to try to do is make you scared of me. You know, he’s not patriotic enough, he’s got a funny name, you know, he doesn’t look like all those other presidents on the dollar bills.”

Okayyyyyyy, let's see how this quote, which is all of 54 words, shakes out:

-No one thinks Bush or McCain has real answers?   NO ONE?  That's obviously ridiculous because, if you believe the polls, Obama and McCain are dead even.  Obama's "look at me I act just like a President" tour did exactly nothing for him.  Here are three polls, all released today, as evidence:

. In the Rasmussen poll, his one day bounce to a 6% lead on Sunday(46% - 40%) is now back to 2%.  That is less than the 4% lead he had before his trip started;

. In the Gallup poll, his one day bounce to a 9% lead on Monday ((49%-40%) is now 45%-44%.  That is less than the 3% lead he had before his trip started; 

. The Quinnipiac poll shows that McCain has erased most of Obama's lead in three all-important swing states, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Florida.

-They're going to try to make you scared of me?  I challenge you to show me a McCain ad that tries to do that.  You can't, because it doesn't exist.  Obama made this up out of thin air.

-You know, he's not patriotic enough?  Mr. Obama was nailed for refusing to wear a flag pin (until he realized it lost him votes and then started to) and was photographed not bothering to put his hand over his heart during the pledge of allegiance while every other politician on the stage did so.  Both of those accusations are demonstrably true.  But I have never heard McCain or any of his campaign people use the term "Unpatriotic" to describe Barack Obama.  Have you?

-He's got a funny name, you know?  Show me one quote of McCain or anyone on his campaign staff who ever said that.  You can't, because they didn't.  Like the "scared" comment, Obama made it up out of thin air.

-And my personal favorite:  "He doesn't look like all those other presidents on the dollar bills":

. How many presidents are there on dollar bills?  Do we get an assortment?  The last time I checked George Washington was the only one;

. All those OTHER PRESIDENTS?  He is literally referring to himself as President by saying this.  Read the quote again, remembering that its entire contents is supposed to detail what is being said about Mr. Obama personally.

Count 'em up, folks.  See how many gaffes and lies are in that 54 word quote.

Now, do yourself a favor and do not hang by your thumbs waiting for almost any part of mainstream media to look through, enumerate and expose these gaffes and lies.

Hey, that's what we have keith olbermann for.  I'm sure he'll do it.  That man is a paragon of evenhandedness, right?

Ken Berwitz

John Edwards apparently has fathered a love child with his mistress, while his wife is fighting cancer. 

Remember when Newt Gingrich brought divorce papers for his wife to sign while she was in the hospital recovering from cancer (yes, she was recovering and survived it)?  From then on, through the rest of Gingrich's political career and afterwards as well, media have not stopped reminding us of what a disgrace he is.

Well now we have John Edwards taking on a mistress and producing a child, as his cancer-ridden wife fights to stay alive -- with her survival seriously in doubt.  And those same media are burying the story for him and his party.

But listen to them squeal like stuck pigs if you call them biased.

Ken Berwitz

Here is a terrific article by Scott Johnson of www.powerlineblog.com, detailing the damage Hollywood personalities do to their careers by expressing thoughts outside the leftwing orthodoxy.  By all means click on the links, especially the one that leads you to Jeffrey Wells' commentary (along with his suckup supporters' comments) so you can see how deep it runs:

Early in his career, Jon Voight must have been stationed somewhere on the far left of the Hollywood crowd. When he came up to Dartmouth in the spring of 1970 for a showing of "The Revolutionary," he clearly identified with the film's hero. In the question-and-answer session following the showing of the film, Voight explained in all seriousness that we should know "the revolution" was going to begin in Washington on November 15. Voight's radicalism was obviously no impediment to his livelihood. Indeed, it may well have facilitated a career of great prominence and distinction, including an Academy Award for his performance in "Coming Home."

Voight's career withstood his foolish radicalism, but his turn to patriotism and the middle of the road has raised a red flag, so to speak, in Hollywood. In his Washington Times column condemning Barack Obama, Voight speaks from his own experience:

The Democrats have targeted young people, knowing how easy it is to bring forth whatever is needed to program their minds. I know this process well. I was caught up in the hysteria during the Vietnam era, which was brought about through Marxist propaganda underlying the so-called peace movement.

Such testimony is not appreciated in Hollywood, where it has elicited a remarkable column by Jeffrey Wells. Wells comments:

[I]t's only natural that industry-based Obama supporters will henceforth regard him askance. Honestly? If I were a producer and I had to make a casting decision about hiring Voight or some older actor who hadn't pissed me off with an idiotic Washington Times op-ed piece, I might very well say to myself, "Voight? Let him eat cake."

What's going on here? Roger Simon explores the phenomenon in "Hollywood's new blacklist," an excerpt from his forthcoming book. My friend Andrew Breitbart calls on the experience of his father-in-law Orson Bean to explain in "Blacklist then and now." Bean is a former Communist and current conservative. Bean has suffered under both the old and new regimes in Hollywood. Andrew has previously cited Bean's testimony that it's harder now to be an open conservative on a Hollywood set now than it was to be a Communist back then in the 1950's. In his Washington Times column this week, Andrew quotes Bean:

"When the blacklist hit, I saw actors walk across the street to avoid me. The doorman at 485 Madison Avenue (former CBS headquarters) turned his back as I walked by. But I never felt hated by the ring-wing blacklisters. They just felt we were terribly wrong," he said.

"These days, the left doesn't just disagree with right-wingers - they hate them. People actually shudder when I tell them I'm a Republican. I should have to carry a bell and yell, 'unclean.' It doesn't bother me, though. I've been on both ends. Being hated is like voodoo. It only works if you feel hated. And I just won't. I know it will pass."

I don't know how Jon Voight feels, but Jeffrey Wells seems representative of the current Hollywood state of mind described by Bean.

Funny thing, though;  the same Hollywood that has spent over 50 years doing theatrical and tv material about the blacklist of the 50's, has not done a single thing about its contemporary counterpart.  Now why do you suppose?

I'm guessing we'll see a flurry of activity on today's Hollywood blacklist just about the time when they make the first film about our actions In Afghanistan and Iraq that casts the USA in a positive light.  

Of course, in fairness, this could take some time.  Hell, all we did was remove the taliban and saddam hussein from power, liberate 50 million people and allow them to vote in the first free elections their countries ever had.  How can you expect Hollywood to find anything positive about that?

Ken Berwitz

You can always tell when a Republican candidate's strategy looks like it will be effective.  The Democratic candidate - and the media elite - quickly start trying to take it down any way they can.

Until now, the McCain campaign has tried, with much ineptitude and little success, to find a theme it can use to bring down Barack Obama. 

But the newest ad, which uses Mr. Obama's enormous celebrity status against him, appears to be a major achilles heel for Obama and is, therefore, terrifying both the Obama campaign and its media fans (which is to say most of the media). 

The idea is simple and effective.  Take those huge cheering throngs for Obama and get voters to see them in a negative rather than a positive light.   Here is how the McCain ad does it:

 

The story line is that Mr. Obama may be an international superstar of the first magnitude, but that doesn't mean he has any substance (this is where the Paris Hilton/Britney Spears reference kicks in).  It asks "can he lead?" and then suggests that Mr. Obama's gas and tax policies are wrong for the country.

The structure of the ad is brilliant.  Why?  Because what it seeks to accomplish (and, in my opinion, does very effectively) is turn what should be a positive for Mr. Obama into a negative.  It creates a situation in which every time footage is aired of Obama exciting large crowds and blathering out slogans about "change" (whatever that means), millions of voters will look at it less as inspirational and more as meaningless and ridiculous.

So how do media see this?  Here are two examples - one from the mainstream and one from the left wing blogosphere:

-I watched the Today show this morning and was treated to Matt Lauer interviewing a Democrat and Republican about the ad.  Before either of the two got a chance to say anything, Lauer defined the ad as "demeaning".  That was the start of his "neutral" segment.  I literally laughed out loud at the screen.

-The Huffington Post's Jason Linkins started his analysis of the ad this way:

There's a fine line between smart and clever, and a similar border between clever and stupid, and John McCain's campaign ads keep on standing on all the wrong sides. In their desperate attempts to undo the success of the overseas trip that would probably have never happened if the McCain campaign hadn't dared the Obama team to take it in the first place, McCain's ad people have decided to attempt to try to play Obama's popularity as a bad thing - comparing the candidate to Britney Spears and Paris Hilton. (Which is of real benefit to Spears and Hilton!)

But even beyond the numb-nutted concept behind this ad, look at all the things that are tactically wrong with it.......

There are many other examples like this.  You can easily find them on your own if you care to.

The bottom line for Mr. McCain?  When the people who are against you attack your ad this way, your ad is working. 

--------------------------------------------------------

UPDATE:  Incredibly, the latest effort at neutralizing the McCain "Paris Hilton" ad appears to be that it is racist!  I call that incredible because there is no mention or allusion to race in it.

Here's some sound advice for the Obama camp:  Every time you scream "racism" about something that has no racial component to it, you define your own candidate as being in the same boat as people like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton.  And that is guaranteed to lose him votes.

Ken Berwitz

You have to see the video to believe this.  Because in the absence of absolute proof you never will.

Today Barack Obama told an audience that if we would just properly inflate our tires, and get regular tuneups, we could save an amount of gas equal to what we could get from additional drilling.

I swear, he actually said that.

Here, courtesy of www.powerlineblog.com, is the video of Obama's incredibly nutty "solution".  I am also including John Hinderaker's comments about it.   

Please note the audience reaction - which Hinderaker correctly described as stunned silence.  And remember, this is HIS crowd:

Barack Obama is a lot like Sean Penn or George Clooney. If you give him a script, he can deliver it pretty well. But if he tries to talk without a script that has been written for him by others, he quickly reveals that he is poorly-informed if not downright ignorant. Today he delivered another classic, by claiming that if only we would all properly inflate our tires, we could save as much gasoline as "all the oil that they're talking about getting off drilling." Seriously:

The stunned silence with which the crowd greets this howler suggests that most Americans have a more practical understanding of energy consumption than Obama.

Just for fun, I did the math. Properly inflating your tires can improve gas mileage by 3%. Of course, many people already keep their tires properly inflated, and many more are at least close to being properly inflated. Let's be generous and assume that one-half of the total possible savings would be realized if we all inflated our tires properly; that's a net gain of 1.5% fuel efficiency.

Americans drive approximately 2,880 billion miles per year. If we average 24 mpg, we use around 120 billion gallons of gasoline in our vehicles. If, through perfect tire inflation, we improved our collective fuel efficiency by 1.5%, that would be 1.8 billion gallons. A barrel of oil produces around 20 gallons of gasoline, so the total savings available through tire inflation is approximately 90,000,000 barrels of oil annually.

How does this stack up against "all the oil that they're talking about getting off drilling?"

ANWR: 10 billion barrels
Outer Continental Shelf: 18 billion barrels (estimated; the actual total is undoubtedly much higher, since exploration has been banned)
Oil shale: 1 trillion barrels

So, on the above assumptions, it would take only 11,308 years of proper tire inflation to equal "all the oil that they're talking about getting off drilling."

Obama is a curious case. He gives the impression of being an intelligent guy, but through his unscripted comments we have learned that he knows little about history, science or mathematics. He also seems rather shockingly short on common sense, as this most recent gaffe illustrates.

Ken Berwitz

This week the house of representatives, in a non-binding voice vote, apologized to Black people for slavery.  No one in particular, just every Black person in the country.  Here, from an Associated Press account, is the key excerpt:

The House "apologizes to African-Americans on behalf of the people of the United States, for the wrongs committed against them and their ancestors who suffered under slavery and Jim Crow."

And here is what Barack Obama said about it while speaking to a gathering of minority journalists (bold print mine).

"I personally would want to see our tragic history acknowledged... we've got some very sad and difficult things to account for, I consistently believe that when it comes to whether it's Native Americans or African-American issues or reparations, the most important thing for the U.S. government to do is not just offer words, but offer deeds."

Does this mean Barack Obama wants reparations to be paid?  It doesn't exactly say so but heavily implies it. 

What a weaselly way to appease the audience he was speaking to without specifically taking a stand.  Very much like his pledge for an "undivided Jerusalem" to a cheering AIPAC gathering, after which he claimed that he didn't actually mean Israel should control the entire city.

If McCain and his people are smart, they will immediately demand to know if Obama does or does not, favor reparations.  Because this is an issue that can only help McCain and can only hurt Obama.

John McCain is sitting with maybe 5% of the Black vote, if that. And let's be honest, the few Black voters on his side are probably the hardest of hardliners to be there.  He has no downside at all.

But no matter what Obama's answer is it must hurt him:

-If Obama says yes to reparations he cleaves away a great many non-Black votes; 

-If he says no, he outrages his most monolithic voting bloc; 

-If he waffles in an effort not to take either position, voters on both sides of the issue will be furious.

In my opinion, John McCain should be stating what I would be stating if it were me:  that he personally is sorry that there was slavery and that Blacks have been mistreated in this country.  And he feels a generic apology was appropriate.  But there is no slave or slaveowner alive today, therefore no one to pay reparations to and no one responsible for paying them.  The concept that being White means you owe something to Blacks as a group, for actions you did not participate in and today's Black population was not subjected to, is as racist as slavery was.

Again, what does he have to lose? 

This is one of those wonderful situations where a politician can be perfectly honest without worrying about losing votes for it.  Not only that, but it puts new life into the premise that McCain is a straight shooter not afraid to speak bluntly about controversial issues.  What an opportunity!

Now a few thoughts beyond political strategy.

From a personal perspective, my family - both sides - came to this country a generation after the end of legal slavery because WE were being oppressed.  Who do I owe reparations to?

And even if you believe in our collective, five-generations-removed guilt, who gets the reparations?

-Do all Black people get them? 

-Does Barack Obama get half as much because his mother was White?  None because his mother was White and his father was from Kenya?

-What about the Haitian people who risked their lives to come here for a BETTER life, and rejected going to Black countries that were closer than the USA to do so?  Are we supposed to be giving them reparations too?

-Will the per-person amount of reparations be deducted from Black people's income tax forms so they wouldn't be paying reparations to themselves?  Would Barack Obama get a 50% tax break for because he is half Black?

Do you see how completely absurd this is?

One other thing:  Have there ever been any demands for reparations from Arab countries, since Arabs started the African slave trade and engaged in it for 1,000 years before Europe got into the act? 

Of course not.

The one and only reason no such demands are made is because, if they were, the Arab countries would collectively tell Black people to do something acrobatic. 

The one and only reason demands like this surface in the USA is because we are foolish enough to take them seriously.

Ken Berwitz

Palestinian Arabs live in exactly the same neighborhood as Israelis.  About 1.3 million of them live in the same country. 

This is what Israel does with its desert, and what palestinian Arabs could do if their efforts were moved in that direction.  It comes to us courtesy of Tal Barak, writing for www.bloomberg.com:

Blooming Deserts Turn Israeli Water Industry Into Money Magnet

By Tal Barak

July 30 (Bloomberg) -- At the end of a road winding through Israel's Negev desert, the entrance to Kibbutz Hatzerim is flanked by jojoba shrubs jutting from the arid earth.

The grove is the result of drip irrigation developed by Israeli engineer Simcha Blass in the 1960s that enabled the kibbutzniks to farm the desert. The company they started, Netafim Ltd., has sold the product in 110 countries from Germany to Peru.

``The founders were living in the middle of the desert and saw one agricultural failure after the other,'' Naty Barak, 64, a director at Netafim, said at the kibbutz visitors center. ``Back then it was their problem, but now it's a global necessity.''

Today, some 300 Israeli companies make equipment to deliver water or purify it with lasers or diffusion, putting them in a position to profit as climate change, population growth and food shortages strain supplies. With agriculture accounting for about two-thirds of global water use, the Israeli government predicts overseas sales of the technology will top $10 billion by 2017.

As a result, the businesses are attracting investors. Amiad Filtration Systems Ltd., which will help manage sewage treatment at the Beijing Olympics, is up 49 percent in the past year in London, giving it a market value of about $75 million.

Deere & Co., the world's largest maker of tractors and combines, on June 5 agreed to buy Israel's Plastro Irrigation Systems Ltd., Netafim's main competitor in agricultural irrigation, for an undisclosed sum.

`Track Record'

More than 1.1 billion people, mostly in Africa and Asia, don't have clean drinking water, according to the World Health Organization. Global food prices, meanwhile, surged 57 percent in March from a year earlier, United Nations data show.

``There is a growing lack of water in the world, and people are realizing now that it's an issue that's gaining momentum,'' said Nir Belzer, managing partner of Tel Aviv-based Gaon Agro Industries Ltd.'s $65 million clean-technology fund. ``In Israel, there's already a track record for water companies.''

Belzer's fund invested in closely held Desalitech Ltd., a Tel Aviv-based company that invented a way to take salt out of water using 20 percent less energy than standard reverse osmosis.

Amiad, founded 45 years ago on a kibbutz, developed what it calls ``suction scanning,'' a new way of filtering pollutants from water. It has a contract to remove iron from drinking water in Ramenskoye, a town near Moscow.

Atlantium Technologies Ltd. uses ultraviolet light to zap deadly organisms, a method employed by Coca-Cola Co.

`Conservative Market'

Two-thirds of Israel is desert. In the Arava region, south of Hatzerim, the average annual rainfall is less than 50 millimeters (2 inches). Wastewater there is cleaned for drip irrigation to grow fruit and vegetables, 80 percent of which are exported to Europe, Barak said.

Israel's Water Authority started a countrywide campaign in July to conserve resources as the Sea of Galilee, the main source of drinking water, dries up.

Israeli companies still face challenges finding investors and developing sales. While demand for water is high, few customers are willing to commit to new products, said Oded Distel, director at the Ministry of Industry, Trade & Labor.

``Israeli water-technology companies are dealing with a very conservative market that isn't always tempted to try the most innovative solutions,'' Distel said. ``Municipalities around the world are hesitant to try a new technology.''

With Netafim's system, farmers bury pipelines underground, allowing them to drip water and fertilizers directly onto the roots of their crops through devices that control the pressure and quality of the liquid.

Going Global

The company expects to double sales within a few years, according to Chief Executive Officer Ofer Bloch. Sales increased 25 percent to $500 million in 2007.

``An amazing agronomic knowledge has developed in Israel in the past 40 years, which we are now selling to the world,'' Bloch, 48, said at his Tel Aviv office.

One Netafim customer, Sociedad Agricola Drokasa SA in Peru, uses 10,000 miles of drip irrigation hoses. The company, known as Agrokasa, picked Netafim 12 years ago when starting production of avocados, asparagus and grapes.

``We contacted Netafim because we weren't just looking for hose, plastic or dripper suppliers, we were looking for a partner in technology,'' Jose Chlimper, Agrokasa's chief, said by telephone from the company's base in Lima.

The global water industry, which includes waste treatment, valves, pumps, filtration and desalination equipment, is worth about $400 billion, according to Francesca McCann, an analyst at Stanford Group Co., a Washington-based research company.

``There was little incentive to conserve water, but now with rising commodity prices and the climate change, that will boost demand for more efficient technologies,'' McCann said.

The market will reach $537 billion by 2010, according to Israel's Ministry of Industry, Trade & Labor.

At Kibbutz Hatzerim, surrounded by grass and trees, Barak displayed the first adapted hose used on the site.

``About 60 years ago, there was nothing here, only a dry wasteland,'' said Barak, a kibbutznik for four decades. ``This was the start of the development of a serious industry.''

There is no reason palestinian Arabs in Gaza and Judea and Samaria (the west bank) can't do the same.  They don't even need to innovate the technique, Israel has done that for them. 

The day palestinian Arabs, as a group, decide living decent lives is more desirable than killing Jews, is the day that peace might finally start to break out in that part of the world.

It can't happen too fast.

Ken Berwitz

From Reuters:

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert will announce on Wednesday that he will leave office in two months, Israel's Channel Two television reported.

The report said Olmert will not run in his Kadima party's leadership contest on September 17, clearing the way for rivals to try to form a new government. Channel Two said Olmert would step aside as soon as Kadima chooses a new leader.

That's two months more for Olmert to further damage his country.

I'm thrilled he's leaving.  And despair that it isn't immediately.

Ken Berwitz

Here is a new installment in the series detailing how our world will operate if radical Islam makes good on its threat to take over the world and end western civiliation.  It comes to us from Agence France Presse:

Pets used to 'pick up' women banned

From correspondents in Riyadh

July 30, 2008 11:50pm

Take a good look.  Because this is what will replace western civilization if we allow it to.  And it will be the way YOU live.

If we fight against radical islam we may win and we may lose.  If we do not fight, we will most assuredly lose because, either way, they will continue fighting.  And if they win, our culture and our civilization is over, to be replaced by what?  A society in which "religious police" patrol the streets to make sure someone with a pet doesn't have a relationship with someone who liked that pet?  And who ban the sale, thus ownership, of cats and dogs because they are so fearful this might happen?

God help the people who want to live this way.  I know I'm not one of them.  Are you?

We play political games with such lunacy at our own peril.

Ken Berwitz

Do you know what John McCain's health care plan is and what it does?  If you're counting on most mainstream media to give you the details, I doubt you ever will, so please keep reading.

Here is an article by John C. Goodman which explains the McCain health care plan.  Take a close look at its structure and see if you think it is better - maybe appreciably better - than what is being offered by Barack Obama:

McCain Is the Radical on Health Reform

By JOHN C. GOODMAN
July 30, 2008; Page A15

If you listen only to presidential campaign rhetoric, you might conclude that Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama proposed bold new changes for our health-care system, while John McCain is offering only small improvements. If so, you are in for a surprise. Most health-policy analysts believe that Mr. McCain is proposing the most fundamental health-care reform.

Right now the federal government encourages private health insurance primarily through the tax system -- handing out more than $200 billion in tax subsidies every year. Mr. Obama would leave this system largely intact. Mr. McCain would completely replace it with a fairer, more efficient system with a much better chance of insuring the uninsured and controlling health costs at the same time.

Under the current system, every dollar in health-insurance premiums paid by an employer is excluded from employee income and payroll taxes. Take an employee in the 25% income-tax bracket. Throw in state and local income taxes, add the 15.3% (FICA) payroll tax, and the tax exclusion for a middle-income family is worth almost 50 cents on the dollar. To make things a little better, employees can often pay their share of the premium with pretax dollars as well.

But this system is extremely arbitrary. There is virtually no tax relief for people who work for the 40% of employers who do not provide insurance, for part-time workers or people not in the labor market, or for anyone else who for any reason must buy his own insurance. The self-employed get a slightly better deal: They can deduct 100% of their premiums, but they get no relief from the payroll tax.

According to the Lewin Group, a private health-care consulting firm, families earning $100,000 a year get four times as much tax relief as families earning $25,000. In other words, the biggest subsidy goes to those who least need it, and who probably would have purchased insurance anyway.

The system is also wasteful. People can always lower their taxes by spending more on health insurance, and there is no limit to how bloated a health plan can be.

Under the McCain plan, no longer would employers be able to buy insurance with pretax dollars. These payments would be taxable to the employee, just like wages. However, every individual would get a $2,500 credit (and every family would get $5,000) to be applied dollar-for-dollar against taxes owed.

The McCain plan does not raise taxes, nor does it lower them. Instead, it takes the existing system of tax subsidies and treats everyone alike, regardless of income or job status. All health insurance would be sold on a level playing field under the tax law, regardless of how it is purchased.

The impact would be enormous. For the first time, low- and moderate-income families would get just as much tax relief as the very rich when they purchase health insurance. People who must purchase their own insurance would get just as much tax relief as those who obtain it through an employer. Whereas Mr. Obama would continue the current practice of giving the vast bulk of federal help to the rich (through tax subsidies) and the poor (through spending programs), the McCain tax credit would give the most new tax relief to the middle class.

The McCain plan would also encourage all Americans to control costs. The tax credit would subsidize the core insurance that everyone should have. It would not subsidize bells and whistles (marriage counseling, acupuncture, etc.) as the current system does. Since employees and their employers will be paying for additional coverage with aftertax dollars, everyone will have an incentive to compare the value of extra health benefits to the value of other things money can buy. When they eliminate health-care waste, they would get to keep every dollar they save.

The McCain tax credit would be refundable. People could apply $2,500 per person or $5,000 per family to the purchase of health insurance, even if they do not owe any income taxes. Families would not have to wait until April 15 the following year to get their credit. They could obtain the subsidy at the time the insurance is purchased.

The credit would also be transferable. Insurance companies and other intermediaries would be able to help families obtain their credit and apply it directly to health-insurance premiums.

The McCain health plan would allow people to buy insurance across state lines -- thus creating a competitive, national market for health insurance. It would provide additional federal money for people who have been denied coverage because of a pre-existing condition, making it easier for people who have lost their insurance to obtain new coverage. It would also encourage Medicare to become a smarter, more efficient buyer of care.

The McCain plan will not solve all our health-care problems. But it has a far better chance of positively reforming the system than any other plan that has been proposed in this campaign season.

Mr. Goodman is president of the National Center for Policy Analysis. He is an unpaid adviser to the McCain campaign.

.

Interesting, isn't it? 

I urge you in strongest terms to go over the details of this plan. 

It seems crystal clear to me that, like it or not, something major is going to be done regarding health care in the USA.  And both major party candidates have proposed their own plans. 

My suggestion is that you think long and hard about which of them is preferable to you.  Health care is one of the most important issues of this campaign.

Ken Berwitz

The remarkable personal evaluation below is reported by Johnathan Weisman of the Washington Post (which ain't exactly a member of the vast right wing conspiracy):

Obama's Symbolic Importance

By Jonathan Weisman
Perhaps he's beginning to believe the hype.

In his closed door meeting with House Democrats this evening, presumptive Democratic nominee Barack Obama delivered a real zinger. According to a witness, he was waxing lyrical about last week's trip to Europe, when he concluded, "this is the moment, as Nancy [Pelosi] noted, that the world is waiting for."

The 200,000 souls who thronged to his speech in Berlin came not just for him, he told the enthralled audience of congressional representatives.

"I have become a symbol of the possibility of America returning to our best traditions," he said.

What arrogance and self-importance.  What incredible arrogance and self-importance.

You don't need any explanation from me -- Mr. Obama certainly has made his attitude clear. But I do have just one question:

Does the quality of media coverage given Mr. Obama throughout his primary and now general election campaigns have anything to do with his hugely inflated self-image?

What do you think?

Ken Berwitz

By now I'm sure you know that Ted Stevens, REPUBLICAN senator from Alaska, has been charged with wrongdoing.  The media had no problem whatsoever reporting this and immediately identifying Mr. Stevens' party affiliation.

He has been convicted of nothing and claims he is innocent of all charges.  But that didn't stop media from featuring it in their news reports (illustratively, it is the lead story in today's New York Times).  Nor should it have.

Sharpe James is the former mayor of Newark, New Jersey.  He was convicted  - not accused, but convicted - of numerous misuses of public funds.  He is about to be sentenced to jail.   Have you seen or heard a story about James at all?  And if you have, did it mention his party affiliation?  I know the WNBC-TV New York report I watched last night didn't. 

And then we have John Edwards, a former US Senator, former Vice Presidential nominee and currently believed to be on the short list of possibilities as a VP nominee for "Mr. Sound Judgment", Barack Obama.  Have you heard or read a thing in mainstream media about his apparent mistress and "love child"? 

Well, even if the networks somehow haven't discovered this story, at least one network's on-air comedic talent has.  Read all about it, courtesy of P.J. Gladnick, writing for www.newsbusters.org:

NBC Comedians Crash MSM Wall of Silence to Tell John Edwards Jokes

For how many years have we been reminded that Newt Gingrich pursued a divorce while his wife was hospitalized with cancer? 

Well here is John Edwards, whose wife has cancer and is fighting for her life (Gingrich's wife recovered), apparently taking on a mistress and fathering her child.  And not a peep from media.

But listen to them squeal like stuck pigs if you call them biased.

Ken Berwitz

World Net Daily is a significant internet site.  But it certainly pales in its staff and resources when compared to, say, CBS, NBC, ABC, Fox, MSNBC, major news services like the Associated Press or major newspapers like The New York Times.

So how come Aaron Klein, writing for World Net Daily, can find this information when none of the above seem to be able to?

Here, complete with copious references to back it up, is what I am talking about:

ELECTION 2008
Obama tied to Iraqi government fraud?
Hundreds of millions in deals with candidate's associates

Posted: July 30, 2008
1:00 am Eastern

By Aaron Klein
© 2008 WorldNetDaily

.

Barack Obama's ties to antoin rezko are a matter of public record.  They have been pals for a long time.  I've blogged about their association for months and months.  Yet major media seem determined not to pursue this connection, even as rezko cools his heels in jail after being convicted on 16 counts:   12 of wire and mail fraud, two of money laundering and the other two of aiding and abetting bribery.

And let's remember that rezko was the man who facilitated the purchase of Barack Obama's home - at a below market value price - and then procured the plot of land next door so the property on his 1.6 million dollar home would be even larger.

If that were John McCain, media would be on it like flies on excrement. So where are they when it's Barack Obama?

Evidently they're hiding in the same place they hid when it came time to talk about jeremiah wright - a hate filled practitioner of "Black liberation theology".  How could they just accept Mr. Obama's continued lies about his relationship with wright and how much he knew of what wright was preaching. 

How could they not question Mr. Obama's judgment in subjecting his own two daughters to this hate-filled man's ravings for all their lives?  Isn't the Obama campaign based on his having sound judgment?

What we are seeing is the continuation of media bias, brought to a grotesque level by fawning journalists who would rather compromise the principles they are supposed to be upholding than seriously scrutinize Barack Obama.

But listen to them squeal like stuck pigs if you call them biased.

Ken Berwitz

I wrote about Barack Obama's opposition to the Born Alive Infant Protection Act (BAIPA) way back on February 16.  Now it is becoming a front burner issue in the campaign - as it damn well should and must.

First I will reprise what I wrote a half year ago.  Then I will show you a video of Bill Bennett outlining how devastating Mr. Obama's incredibly perverse position on BAIPA was and how damaging it will be during this campaign - if  more media grow some integrity and talk about it as CNN, to its credit, did in the video clip.

Here are the key excerpts from the blog I wrote in February :

OBAMA AND BAIPA

Ken Berwitz Most people, I suspect, have no idea of what BAIPA is.  But if Barack Obama wins the Democratic nomination for President, I guarantee that everyone will.  So I'm going to tell you what it is now, as a prelude to one of the most damning attacks that will be made against Mr. Obama. BAIPA is the Born Alive Infant Protection Act.  In simplest terms, it is legislation that prohibits the killing of live children if they survive an abortion procedure.  In other words, if the abortion fails and the child is delivered live, the doctor has no right to kill that live child outside the womb. Let's stop right here and think about this.  Is it just me, or does the idea of killing a live child in your arms sound like something out of the third reich playbook?   Is it even imaginable that a licensed, accredited doctor in the USA could legally kill a live child because the child was SUPPOSED to die inside the woman it came from (I refuse to call her a mother)? Well it is imaginable.  And it has been done.  A lot.  This is why BAIPA legislation was created.  To, literally, prevent the killing of live children for the crime of surviving an earlier attempt on their lives. With the above in mind, please read the following account by Jean Stanek, a nurse and pro-life advocate, of the procedure in action.  And of then -State Senator Barack Obama's efforts to prevent BAIPA from passing, so the baby killings could continue.  The curdling blood will be yours.  The bold print is mine: As a nurse at an Illinois hospital in 1999, I discovered babies were being aborted alive and shelved to die in soiled utility rooms. I discovered infanticide. Legislation was presented on the federal level and in various states called the Born Alive Infants Protection Act. It stated all live-born babies were guaranteed the same constitutional right to equal protection, whether or not they were wanted. BAIPA sailed through the U.S. Senate by unanimous vote. Even Sens. Clinton, Kennedy and Kerry agreed a mother's right to "choose" stopped at her baby's delivery. The bill also passed overwhelmingly in the House. NARAL went neutral on it. Abortion enthusiasts publicly agreed that fighting BAIPA would appear extreme. President Bush signed BAIPA into law in 2002. But in Illinois, the state version of BAIPA repeatedly failed, thanks in large part to then-state Sen. Barack Obama. It only passed in 2005, after Obama left. I testified in 2001 and 2002 before a committee of which Obama was a member. Obama articulately worried that legislation protecting live aborted babies might infringe on women's rights or abortionists' rights. Obama's clinical discourse, his lack of mercy, shocked me. I was naive back then. Obama voted against the measure, twice. It ultimately failed. In 2003, as chairman of the next Senate committee to which BAIPA was sent, Obama stopped it from even getting a hearing, shelving it to die much like babies were still being shelved to die in Illinois hospitals and abortion clinics. If you are horrified by this information, I'm glad.  You should be. If you are not horrified by this information I'm appalled.  You should be. I read a Chicago Tribune blog from 2004 about this, written during Obama's run for the US Senate.  The writer, Eric Zorn, was very sympathetic to Obama's votes against BAIPA because the Illinois state version did not have a declarative statement that it would not infiringe on any abortion right.  This is probably the tack Obama will take as a presidential nomineee. But it is a bunch of baloney that will not fly among even minimally intelligent voters.  The added statement was nothing other than political window dressing to reassure the pro-choice crowd.  With or without it, the Illinois BAIPA legislation made no mention of infringing on any abortion procedure.  Only the killing of live babies outside the womb.   So I ask you again:  Do you think that Barack Obama's votes against BAIPA will hurt him in a general election?  Some questions just plain answer themselves, don't they? --------------------------------------------- And here is the CNN video (please excuse James Carville's ridiculous non-answer.  He still thinks he can just sneer facts out of existence):

Ken Berwitz

This one speaks for itself.

Ken Berwitz

Robert Wexler, the loudmouth leftist congressperson from south Florida, has not lived in his district for years and years.  Wexler's flimsy end-around is that he claims to have lived in his parents' senior citizen residence all this time -- which is about as phony as it gets (his own children could not live there).

Last week Bill O'Reilly exposed this sham.  And today we have the following, courtesy of the Palm Beach Post:

Wexler bows to residency pressure

By George Bennett | Tuesday, July 29, 2008, 01:44 PM

Stung by claims that he doesn’t really live in Florida, Democratic U.S. Rep. Robert Wexler said today that he will lease an apartment in his congressional district rather than declaring residency at the West Delray home of his in-laws.

Fox News personality Bill O’Reilly last week accused Wexler of being a bogus Floridian. The O’Reilly Report, acting on research by Wexler’s Republican challenger, noted that Wexler owns a home in Potomac, Md., and enrolls his children in school there. Wexler is registered to vote at the Delray Beach address of his wife’s parents in a 55-and-older community.

Shortly after he was elected in 1996, Wexler sold his Palm Beach County home and moved his family to the Washington, D.C., area, saying that was the best way for him to spend time with his children.

In a statement released by his office this afternoon, Wexler again defended his Florida residency, but said he didn’t want the issue to be a distraction.

“My wife, Laurie, and I have decided to lease a residence of our own in Palm Beach County,” Wexler’s statement says.

“Although I am confident that I have represented my district as well anybody possibly could, I have heard the concerns of some of my constituents and do not want this issue to distract from my advocacy of the important issues facing our community and country.”

Wexler chief of staff Eric Johnson said the congressman is looking at a three-bedroom apartment in the Boynton Beach-Delray Beach area and could sign a lease as soon as next week.

Republican Ed Lynch brought the residency issue to O’Reilly’s attention. Former Broward County Commissioner Ben Graber, a longtime Democrat running for Wexler’s seat with no party affiliation, has also slammed the incumbent’s residency status.

There you go.  That resolves it.  All those years he was faking living in his district?  Doesn't count.  Move along sheeple, nothing to see here.

Look, my eyes are wide open here.  I have little doubt there are other congresspeople who live more in the DC area than they do in their home districts.  But this is ridiculous and makes a complete joke of the residency requirement. 

Now for the big question:  what if Robert Wexler were a Republican? 

Would this have been ignored for a week and only resurrected when he was shamed into doing something to resolve the issue?  Do media cut breaks like this for politicians with an "R" after their names? 

We both know the answer.

Ken Berwitz

Somehow I had a feeling that race would find its way into this. 

As more and more scientists and academics go public with their skepticism about global warming, the people who are pushing it need an additional piece of ammunition.  And what more reliable complaint than "you're a racist"?

Read the following excerpt from an article in today's www.businessandmedia.com.  See for yourself:

House Majority Whip: Climate Change Hurts Blacks More
Clyburn says African-Americans 'disproportionately impacted'; study recommends 'fee, tax or allowance auction on polluters.' 

By Jeff Poor
Business & Media Institute
7/29/2008 2:14:30 PM

    Climate change is no longer just an environmental issue. It’s now an issue of race, according to global warming activists and policy makers.

     “It is critical our community be an integral and active part of the debate because African-Americans are disproportionately impacted by the effects of climate change economically, socially and through our health and well-being,” House Majority Whip James Clyburn, D-S.C., said July 29.

     Clyburn spoke at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., to help launch the Commission to Engage African-Americans on Climate Change, a project of the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies.

     The launch came on the heels of a separate report by the Environmental Justice and Climate Change Initiative (EJCC), which claims African-Americans are more vulnerable to the effects of climate change. EJCC describes itself as a “climate justice” advocacy group.

    “Though far less responsible for climate change, African-Americans are significantly more vulnerable to its effects than non-Hispanic whites,” the report says. “Health, housing, economic well-being, culture, and social stability are harmed from such manifestations of climate change as storms, floods, and climate variability.

     “African-Americans are also more vulnerable to higher energy bills, unemployment, recessions caused by global energy price shocks, and a greater economic burden from military operations designed to protect the flow of oil to the U.S,” it says.

Look, I'm not Black and cannot, therefore, know how a Black person feels about things, I can only guess.

But spare me the ravings of Professionally Oppressed Blacks, who find something to whine about and make demands about in anything and everything. 

As someone who absolutely supports equality, it hurts to see ridiculous charges like these.  They do not help Black people.  They hurt them.  Badly.

How I wish they weren't being tossed around this way.

Ken Berwitz

Do you believe that pigs fly?  If so, you will certainly appreciate the excerpts I am posting below, which come from an article in Israel Today:

Monday, July 28, 2008 Ryan Jones

Gaza smuggling tunnels are for milk, say Palestinians Palestinian officials from the Gaza Strip have distributed a set of carefully-staged photographs they say are evidence that the smuggling tunnels running under the Gaza-Egypt border are for milk and other essential goods, not weapons. The photographs show masked Palestinian militants lifting jugs of milk and sacks of baby food from the entrance to one of the tunnels on the Gaza side of the border. Israel insists that the tunnels, of which intelligence estimates indicate there are hundreds, are used to import small arms and advanced weapons like heavy mortar shells, anti-tank missiles and anti-aircraft missiles. The tunnels are also said to be the conduit via which the Palestinians receive the material used to build their Kassam rockets. Hamas has acknowledged Israel's position by insisting during ceasefire negotiations last month that it would not agree to halt smuggling efforts as part of the truce. "We cannot talk about stopping smuggling because it is something beyond our ability as a government and we did not give a commitment in this regard," Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh told worshippers at a Gaza City mosque on June 25 as the Egyptian-brokered ceasefire was being finalized. Egypt, too, has never tried to claim the tunnels were for anything other than arms smuggling, and has even made a show of closing a handful of tunnels and confiscating the weapons found inside for public consumption. Also backing up the Israeli assertion that the smuggling tunnels could only exist for nefarious purposes are weekly and sometimes daily summaries published by the Israeli government of the quantities of humanitarian aid entering the Hamas-controlled territory. The Palestinians, say Israel, have no need to smuggle essential goods into Gaza because there is no shortage. Between 100 and 150 trucks carrying humanitarian aid from Israel and international aid organizations enter Gaza on a daily basis. Out of that number, the 50 or so daily shipments that enter via Gaza's central Sufa Crossing contain milk and baby food, according to the manifests.

Yep, that's credible all right.

Credible.  With a capital BS.

Ken Berwitz

The answer?  Completely.  But that isn't stopping him from trying to pretend otherwise.

Here is a combination of www.hotair.com's Ed Morrissey and Jake Tapper of ABC news, blowing his BS to smithereens:

Fact check: What did Obama say about the surge?

posted at 12:15 pm on July 29, 2008 by Ed Morrissey
Send to a Friend | printer-friendly

Barack Obama finds himself stuck between Iraq and a hard place on the surge.  Instead of just admitting that he miscalculated the potential effect of the surge when he opposed it in January 2007, he has instead tried rewriting history in order to prove himself correct.  ABC’s Jake Tapper looks at the Obama rebuttal — and demolishes it:

Sen. Barack Obama, D-Illinois, on January 10 2007 predicted that the surge of troops in Iraq would fail. “I am not persuaded that 20,000 additional troops in Iraq is going to solve the sectarian violence there,” he told MSNBC. “In fact, I think it will do the reverse.”

Four days later he told CBS’s Face the Nation that “we cannot impose a military solution on what has effectively become a civil war. And until we acknowledge that reality — we can send 15,000 more troops, 20,000 more troops, 30,000 more troops, I don’t know any expert on the region or any military officer that I’ve spoken to privately that believes that that is going to make a substantial difference on the situation on the ground.”

Asked about these predictions on Sunday’s Meet the Press, Obama told NBC’s Tom Brokaw that “I know that there’s that little snippet that you ran,” referring to the MSNBC clip, “but there were also statements made during the course of this debate in which I said there’s no doubt that additional U.S. troops could temporarily quell the violence. But unless we saw an underlying change in the politics of the country, unless Sunni, Shia, Kurd made different decisions, then we were going to have a civil war and we could not stop a civil war simply with more troops.”

But did he really?  As Tapper notes — no.  The best Team Obama could manage was a quote in March 2007, when he told an Iowa media outlet that we might see improvements in “certain neighborhoods” but that it wouldn’t affect violence across the country.  In fact, he told WQAD that the surge had already failed by that point — even though we hadn’t transferred most of the troops for the surge to Iraq by that point.

By that time, the Senate debate had long since concluded.  The House passed a resolution disapproving of the change in strategy and troop levels on February 16, 2007, on a party-line vote.  The Senate failed to reach cloture on their version of the resolution the next day, falling five votes short of the 60 needed.  Not once during this time or for months afterward would Obama acknowledge that an increase in troop levels would bring more security to Iraq, not less as he claimed in January 2007.

Put simply, Obama got the surge wrong, as did the House.  Obama cannot bring himself to admit that, however, since to do so would be to admit that he showed himself as inept in the kind of military strategy required for the Presidency.  Instead, he wants to pretend that he foresaw a lessening of violence but a political quagmire, which also is wrong, but is the meme du jour among Democrats on the defensive for having indulged in defeatism all during 2007.

Earlier today I wrote about the cynical political strategy of "boob-baiting the bozos".  This is Mr. Obama's attempt at it. 

Come November, we'll find out if it works.

Ken Berwitz

I am posting this as a public service, on behalf of Marine Lt. Colonel Jeffrey Chessani:

Dear Friend,

For the last two and a half years Lt. Colonel Jeffrey Chessani, USMC, has been investigated and prosecuted for his involvement in the so called “Haditha massacre” – a massacre that never happened.

Now – after devoting 20 years of his life to defend ours’ ─ he faces criminal charges as a result of a legitimate combat action taken by four of his Marines after being ambushed by insurgents in Haditha, Iraq, on November 19, 2005.

If convicted, he faces 2 ½ years imprisonment, dismissal from the Corps, and loss of all of his retirement pay.

You may have heard that last month a military judge dismissed all the charges against LtCol Chessani. 

But the government appealed. And yesterday they filed their brief.

Jeffrey Chessani is their political scapegoat and they’re embarrassed about the loss.

We now have 20 days to file a response brief. Your donation now (click here) sends a message to all our combat troops that you will stand with them when they need your help.

Your donation helps keep America strong!

It’s hard to believe the lengths to which the politicians in the Pentagon will go to convict an innocent Marine officer.  As you read on you’ll know why.

After all he has done for his Nation ─ for you and me ─ will you chip in $25 to help this Marine?  If you can give more, please do.  

He urgently needs your help – NOW.

Click here to donate to the LtCol Chessani Defense Fund.
Your donation is tax-deductible.

He has been defending our Nation for twenty years…often away from his wife and children… so that we could be safely with ours.

LtCol Chessani served three combat tours in Iraq.  He served in the First Persian Gulf War, and in Panama.  He is a committed Christian, husband, and father of 6 young children, ages 10 and under.  

I am certain that when you hear the facts, you will be as outraged as I am about what our government is doing to this courageous and loyal Marine.

So please read on…

On November 19, 2005, at approximately 7:15 a.m., a Marine convoy was rolling through Haditha, Iraq — a terrorist stronghold.  Suddenly, a roadside bomb went off destroying a Marine Humvee, killing one Marine and seriously injuring two others. 

The Marines immediately received fire from the ambushing insurgents, who were shooting from nearby civilian-occupied homes.

A four-man fire team responded as trained; they cleared several houses occupied by the armed insurgents, and in the ensuing room-by-room, house-by-house gun battle, it was reported that 8 enemy were killed.

Tragically 15 civilians also died ─ in urban combat, where insurgents purposefully use civilians as human shields, civilian casualties are tragic, but not uncommon.  In fact, sometimes the insurgents themselves kill civilians to achieve a propaganda victory by blaming the Americans.
 
LtCol Chessani was the battalion commander of these brave Marines ─ the 3rd Battalion (“The Thundering Third”), 1st Marines—one of the most decorated units in the history of the Marine Corps. 

As the Battalion Commander, LtCol Chessani was responsible that morning for approximately 2000 American and friendly Iraqi troops in an area of operations just about the size of South Carolina.
                       
He immediately reported the deaths of the 15 civilian Iraqis to his superiors.  

Not one of LtCol Chessani’s superiors hearing of the 15 civilian deaths ─ including top generals ─ considered it unusual.  Not one ordered a further investigation.

However, several months later, an inflammatory Time news article accusing the Marines of massacring innocent civilians caused public hysteria.  The story was planted by insurgent propaganda operatives who knew too well that the liberal anti-war media hungered for such stories.

Anti-war Congressman John Murtha, who wields tremendous power over military appropriations, jumped in and echoed Time’s story.  

He appeared on major television networks and publicly accused the young enlisted Marines of “cold blooded” murder and Marine officers of a “cover-up.”  He blamed it all on the stress of being in Iraq too long. 

Incredibly, these accusations were made even before the investigation was completed.
         
It’s clear ─ the government has turned the prosecution of Jeffrey Chessani into a never-ending persecution. 

The trumped-up charge: failing to properly report and investigate the November 19, 2005 incident.
    
The government is doing everything it can to convict LtCol Chessani.  He is the political scapegoat they must convict to satisfy Murtha and the press. 

The vast resources of the military are at its disposal.  The number of military investigators is virtually limitless.  Government prosecutors can go anywhere, talk to anyone, and get anything, all at government expense.  The Marine command structure is mandated to cooperate. 

So far, the government has spent millions of our taxpayer dollars, employed over 65 Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS) agents ─ the largest investigation in that agency’s history ─  and granted immunity to scores of witnesses, all in their attempt to make Jeffrey and the “Haditha Marines” political scapegoats.

But I’m sure you know that the impact of this case reaches far beyond the personal tragedy and injustice to Jeffrey and his family. 

You know it will drastically curtail the future ability of our combat men and women to defend our Nation.

Lt. Colonel Paul Ware, USMC, an Investigating Officer who heard testimony in several cases involving the charged enlisted Marines blasted the credibility of the government witnesses and expressed concern that the allegations were nothing but a tactic “to erode public support of the Marine Corps and mission in Iraq.”

He went on to say:

“Even more dangerous is the potential that a Marine may hesitate at the critical moment when facing the enemy . . . .”

Retired General Thomas McInerney, former Joint Force Commander and Vice Chief of Staff of the Air Force, called the prosecutions of the Haditha Marines “despicable.”  He warned:

“We cannot fight a war like that . . . We’re not taking care of our people.”

Regardless of how you feel about the war, LtCol Chessani was in Iraq because his country sent him there.  He defended us, now we must defend him. 

Just to give you an idea what this Nation has lost by the prosecution of LtCol Chessani, and why he deserves your support, I want to give you a few excerpts from his official Combat Fitness Report.
 
This is a required annual evaluation of a Marine officer’s performance prepared by his superiors.  It covers the period of September 2005 to February 2006 ─ which includes the date of the incident for which LtCol Chessani is facing criminal charges:

•  “Leads Marines from front in every operation.  Demonstrates moral courage everyday.  Doesn’t hesitate to report bad news fast or contest unrealistic plans/poor concepts.  Despite the complexity and size of his AO [area of operations], he always maintains a calm, cool demeanor.”

• “Always seeks advantage over complex, diverse insurgent enemy.  Truly one of the finer thinkers in this COIN environment.”
  
  
• “One of the top 3” infantry/cavalry battalion commanders “of 13 who have served with RCT –2 [the regiment] during OIF.  A superb leader, who knows his men, knows the enemy, knows his business.  Doesn’t attract a lot of fanfare; just gets the job done to an exceedingly high standard.”

• “Long ball hitter; recommend selection for promotion to Colonel and TLS [Top Level School].”

The Reviewing Officer, Major General Huck added his comments: “Top notch officer with outstanding potential.  Promote and select for TLS [Top Level School].  Post TLS slate for Regimental command and subsequent joint tour.  Unlimited potential and value to the Marine Corps.  Capable of the most challenging assignments.”

One distorted magazine article has devastated the life and family of this patriotic Marine officer… and could adversely affect our military for years to come. 
         
Simply put…

This case is about how our military fights and will fight in the future.

LtCol Chessani has willingly answered the call to serve his country.  That’s why he deserves the support of every Patriotic American today.

Click here to Donate Now.

Sincerely yours,

 

Richard Thompson
President and Chief Counsel, Thomas More Law Center

 

P.S.  It is urgent you donate now.  We have 20 days to file our response to the government brief.  We must also prepare for the inevitable trial.  The successful defense of Jeffrey Chessani is vital to the security of America and to all our military personnel we place in harm’s way. Your donation is tax-deductible.

P.P.S.  Please share LtCol Chessani’s story with others who will realize the gravity of this important case.  Click here to forward this article to a friend now.

DONATE NOW

Sign up now to receive updates on this important case.
Click here.

.

Please do the right thing.

And never ever forget the despicable words of that corrupt little toad john murtha, who accused, tried and convicted Lt. Col. Chessani and his 7 co-defendants without any trial at all. 

It was murtha, more than anyone else, who forced the Pentagon's hand in this case.  And, because of this, murtha remains free to merrily crap away our tax money by tossing defense contracts to his brother and his pals, while Lt. Col. Chessani fights for his freedom and his reputation.

It doesn't get sicker or sorrier than that.

Ken Berwitz

Earlier today I posted the latest Rasmussen polling data to show that Barack Obama did not get a bounce from last week's international tour.

Here is another part of what Rasmussen uncovered, which addresses an issue very different from whether or not a bounce took place:

Obama earns the vote from 78% of Democrats, McCain is supported by 86% of Republicans, and unaffiliated voters are evenly divided. McCain leads 50% to 44% among White voters and 51% to 43% among men. Obama leads 51% to 42% among women and 92% to 5% among African-Americans (see other recent demographic highlights).

If these data are correct, Barack Obama is competitive among White voters (he trails 50% to 44%), but virtually owns the Black vote (92% to 5%). 

Yes, I know Black voters are almost monolithically Democrats to begin with, but this disparity exceeds it.  Illustratively, President Bush got about double that percentage in 2000 and something like 7% in 2004.  

Put another way, Whites are about 9 times more likely to vote for the Black candidate than Blacks are for the White candidate.

The next time you get a lecture from someone about how much racism there might be in the 2008 presidential vote, it would be good to know where it is most likely to be coming from. 

Remember what you just read and know the truth.

Ken Berwitz

Today's Rasmussen daily tracking poll came out.  And that "bounce" for Barack Obama?  History:

 July 29, 2008

If you're an Obama operative, you probably will get on TV and tell the world that last week proved he can hold his own with world leaders and is at parity, maybe even ahead of, Mr. McCain on his ability to conduct foreign affairs.  That's what operatives do.

In private, though, operatives deal with the truth, not the spin.  And the truth is that, with a world stage, 200,000 deliriously cheering Germans and a press following the Pope would envy, Barack Obama got........nothing.

If that didn't move voters, what will?  Is there a ceiling beyond which Mr. Obama cannot go?  That's what an operative would be thinking.  And he/she would be right.

Ken Berwitz

That expression is pretty indelicate, isn't it?  But it's a good one because it describes a tried and true political strategy.

To boob-bait the bozos is to put out utter nonsense with the expectation that there are people gullible and/or ignorant enough to believe it.

With this in mind, please read today's editorial from the New York Sun.  Because it describes an effort by Democrats to do just that:

A Democratic Deficit

Editorial of The New York Sun | July 29, 2008
http://www.nysun.com/editorials/a-democratic-deficit/82808/

There is the strategy and there are the data. 

Someone is trying to make a boob out of you.  Is it the Democratic party or the New York Sun? 

You decide which of the two it is. 

Ken Berwitz

The olympic games are almost upon us.  And with the help of NBC, the network airing them, China will use this opportunity to "prove", on a world stage, that it not only can win a lot of medals, but it is a wonderful example of freedom and light.

Just in case you might buy into this baloney, here's are excerpts from an article in today's London Daily Telegraph that should bring you back to reality.  The totalitarianism is China's, the bold print is mine:

China dumps gold medallists from Olympics 'for political reasons'

More than half of China's gold medallists from the Athens Olympics have been purged from the country's current team, some allegedly for political reasons.

Do not make any mistake about this.  China may be trying to compete economically in the first world but, other than Hong Kong and possibly Shanghai, where it tries to present a western, relatively free society, its oppression of the Chinese population remains completely in force.

And oh that smog.  You know, the smog from massive pollution that, until President Bush finally got his way about it a month or so ago, China was going to merrily keep pumping into the environment even as the USA would have had to regulate and limit itself even more than it already does.

Incidentally, if you believe that China will abide by the kyoto accords or any otther accords that would prevent it from making $$$$$$$, you need another article from the Daily Telegraph.

Ken Berwitz

Fresh from his tag-a-long trip with Barack Obama, in which he joined Charles Gibson, Katie Couric and four-figures worth of other press, Brian Williams has decided that there is no actual media bias.

When John McCain went to Iraq, none of the news anchors bothered to go, and the press entourage was a small fraction of what Mr. Obama was treated to.  But bias doesn't exist.  Honest.  Just ask Brian.

Here is a piece on Mr. Williams' remarkable claim, written by Jeff Poor of www.newsbusters.org.  Read it and either laugh or shake your head in amazement.  Or both.

'Nightly News' Anchor: Pro-Obama Bias is 'In the Eye of the Beholder'

There you have it.  The Brian Williams version of "unbiased".

But listen to them squeal like stuck pigs if you call them biased.

Ken Berwitz

Sad news from the world of journalism today.  I just read this at www.humanevents.com, but I'm sure it is in many other places as well:

Robert Novak Hospitalized

07/28/2008

Robert Novak was admitted yesterday to a Boston hospital where he was diagnosed with a brain tumor.  In a written statement given to his publisher, Novak said:

“On Sunday, July 27, I was diagnosed with a brain tumor.  I have been admitted to Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, where doctors will soon begin appropriate treatment.

“I will be suspending my journalistic work for an indefinite but, God willing, not too lengthy period.”
 
Novak is the long-time editor of the influential newsletter, Evans-Novak Political Report, published by Human Events’ parent company, Eagle Publishing.  Novak is also a well-known columnist for the Chicago Sun Times and more recently a Fox News Channel contributor.  The 77-year-old Novak recently celebrated his 50th year as a Washington-based journalist.

Regardless of how individuals feel about Mr. Novak's reporting, I hope we can all join in wishing him a full, speedy recovery from this awful condition.

Ken Berwitz

Last week I wrote that the polls did not show any bounce for Barack Obama, despite his all-news-all-the-time adoration tour, with every network news anchor joining in the fun.

When I wrote it, that was accurate.  But in the next couple of days the two major tracking polls, Rasmussen and Gallup, both showed an upward bounce for Mr. Obama.  Rasmussen showed his lead doubling to 6% and Gallup had it more than doubling to 9%.

For that reason, today I was going to blog that I was wrong about the bounce.   And to the degree that Mr. Obama got a couple of days out of his trip, I remain wrong.

But the latest Rasmussen data just came out, and guess what?  Mr. Obama's lead is right back to the 3% he had jumped from.  Here is Rasmussen's analysis:

Ken Berwitz

Suppose there was a news article in your local paper that indicated all Black people are in favor of welfare.  Or all Irish people are big drinkers.  Or all Italian people use "badda bing, badda boom" in general conversation.  Would you have a problem with it?

I know I would.

So how am I supposed to feel when Jon Tevlin of the Minneapolis Star-Tribune puts up a feature article indicating that all Jews favor illegal immigration?

Do you think I'm exaggerating?  If so, here's the article.  Read it and try finding even one word suggesting that any Jew is on the other side of this issue:

 Twin Cities Jews join the battle

By JON TEVLIN, Star Tribune

July 28, 2008

There you have it, folks.  Those Jews just love illegal immigration.  Like the article says,  "Twin Cities Jews say supporting the workers is important because they were mistreated while supplying U.S. Jews with kosher meat".   

In other words, all Jews (not some, or a segment of, or many, or even most, just "Jews") support illegals, so they can get their kosher meat -- i.e. Jews don't care about the law if it means they can get something they want. 

joseph goebbels could have written that sentence.

So here I sit:  I'm Jewish, I'm against illegal immigration and I know a great many other Jews on both sides of the political spectrum who agree with me on this issue.  How am I supposed to feel about such a ridiculous, prejudiced pile of BS posing as news?

Articles like this create more anti-Semites than 100 david dukes ever could.  I wonder if Jon Tevlin spent even one second thinking about that. 

I hope not.  Because, if he did, it apparently is what he wants.

--------------------------------------------------------

UPDATE:  I contacted Jon Tevlin by telephone and expressed my views to his voice mail (he's either not in the office or not answering at this moment).  I'll let you know whether Mr. Tevlin replies and, if so, what he says.

FURTHER UPDATE:  It is now over 24 hours since I called Jon Tevlin.  He has not favored me with a reply.  Keep in mind, please, that I did not seek out his phone number, it was right there at the bottom of the article.  That means telephone access was offered to readers which, in turn, means he should have been prepared to respond to it.

I'll give it another day before concluding that he is a coward who writes trash and cannot defend it.

Ken Berwitz

How much longer must Israel endure ehud olmert?

Here is the latest outrage, from Aaron Klein writing for Wold News Daily:

Israel pardons murderer of Florida teen
Senior terrorists granted full amnesty by PM Olmert

Posted: July 27, 2008
7:51 pm Eastern

By Aaron Klein
© 2008 WorldNetDaily

I have read that polling data show olmert at unprecedentedly low levels.  Add to this the corruption charges against him that are traveling post-haste through the Israeli court system and it is incomprehensible that new elections have not been called yet.

Fifty five years ago Broadway lyricist Sheldon Harnick wrote the words to a rueful folk song about the condition of the world, titled "Merry Little Minuet".  It's last words are "What nature doesn't do to us will be done by our fellow man".

How ironic that what Israel's enemies are not doing to it is being done by its own leadership.

olmert must go.

Ken Berwitz

So I'm watching the Today show this morning, and the hosts are excitedly telling me that Brian Williams has an exclusive interview with mahmoud ahmadinejad, the religious fanatic, terrorist supporting, murdering liar who runs Iran.

I assumed that the only way ahmadinejad would ever agree to this would be if no hard questions were asked, no follow-ups were demanded if his answers were evasive or dishonest and, generally, that he would be given a national stage to pretend he is pleasant, reasonable guy just looking for a little understanding.

Was I right?  It was like shooting fish in a barrel.

I don't have the transcript yet, but Brian Williams had all the journlaistic aggressiveness of a member of Iran's state controlled press.  Williams gently asked ahmadinejad the questions he could hit out of the park and avoided anything that would trouble poor mahmoud's wiwoo sensibiwities.

The bottom line - the great piece of intelligence that Williams came away with - is that if only the United States would change direction (e.g. elect Barack Obama instead of John McCain), Iran would be an acquiescent little puppydog and happily be our best friend in the whole wide world.

This is what the Today show inflicted on its viewership and it is what Williams will inflict on his network news viewership, presumably in a longer form, tonight.

First Williams helped carry Mr. Obama's robe as he did his "I make a great speech, don't I" tour of the world, and now he's giving a major PR boost to a "man" who hates our guts and has told Israel in so many words that he will vaporize the country first chance he gets.

That is todays NBC, folks.  How do you like it?

Ken Berwitz

This comes to us from Scott Johnson of www.powerlineblog.com:

An Israeli operation in Hebron has resulted in the death of the terrorist mastermind of the suicide attack on Dimona earlier this year. Carl in Israel has posted a good round-up. The Jerusalem Post reports:

The IDF said that in a joint Border Police and Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) operation the forces surrounded a house where 25-year-old Shihab Na'atsha, a Hamas explosives engineer, was hiding. The IDF said Na'atsha had assembled the bomb belt used in the Dimona attack on February 4 that killed 73-year-old Lubov Razdolskaya and wounded 40 other people....

Troops surrounded the house in Hebron early Sunday morning and exchanged fire with Na'atsha, calling on him to exit the building. Once he refused to surrender and after hours of gunfire, the IDF bulldozed the house. His body was later removed from the rubble.

The IDF added that during the heavy exchanges of fire, troops heard explosions from inside the house, presumably from bombs stored inside. Two additional terror suspects were apprehended during the operation.

Na'atsha and his ammo dump somehow went undetected by the "security forces" of the Palestinian Authority, only to be discovered by Israelis in an operation of the kind that Secretary Rice finds to visit indignity on Palestinian Arabs.

This is what Israel is supposed to make peace with.

Tell me how.

Ken Berwitz

Here is the latest, from Ed Morrissey of www.hotair.com, on how the issue of oil drilling is starting to play out:

WSJ poll: It’s the energy, stupid — er, Pelosi

posted at 9:09 am on July 25, 2008 by Ed Morrissey
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The latest Wall Street Journal/NBC poll underscores what many of us already know about the most critical issue in this election — and it’s not Iraq.  Energy and fuel prices dominate the electoral choice for voters this fall, thanks to the sharp cost increase in just about everything connected with transportation.  And while Democrats have an edge in this area, it has sharply eroded:

Congress will likely break for the summer without passing legislation to curb high gasoline prices. But Americans are fashioning their own energy policy, founded on conservation and support for more production.

A new Wall Street Journal/NBC news poll finds that energy — including gasoline and utility costs — ranks as the economic issue that voters say affects them the most personally. ….

Polls indicate voters trust Democrats over Republicans, by substantial margins, to do a better job on energy. The Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll found that 42% of respondents preferred Democrats for dealing with energy policy, versus 22% favoring Republicans.

The poll indicated that Democrats’ edge on the issue may be slipping; the July poll gave Democrats a 20-point advantage on the issue, versus a 28-point lead in a January poll by The Wall Street Journal and NBC News.

If Congress does break for the summer without a debate on energy, expect those numbers to slip much farther. Americans want to start using more domestic supplies, and not just for price relief in the next few years. They have finally begun to realize that sending hundreds of billions of dollars overseas and inflating the price of oil benefit those whose don’t like Americans. It amounts to a price support for terror-funding regimes like Iran and Sudan, and in fact has helped Iran survive the international sanctions designed to stop their uranium-enrichment program.

Nancy Pelosi hasn’t gotten the message yet, and the Washington Post notices:

WHY NOT have a vote on offshore drilling? There’s a serious debate to be had over whether Congress should lift the ban on drilling in the Outer Continental Shelf that has been in place since 1981. Unfortunately, you won’t be hearing it in the House of Representatives — certainly, you won’t find lawmakers voting on it — anytime soon.

Instead of dealing with the issue on the merits, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), a staunch opponent of offshore drilling, has simply decreed that she will not allow a drilling vote to take place on the House floor. Why not? “What the president would like to do is to have validation for his failed policy,” she said yesterday when asked that very question. “What we’re saying is, ‘Exhaust other remedies, Mr. President.’ . . . It is the economic life of America’s families, and to suggest that drilling offshore is going to make a difference to them paycheck to paycheck now is a frivolous contention. The president has even admitted that. So what we’re saying is, ‘What can we do that is constructive?’ ”

If there is an explanation buried in there about why that makes offshore drilling off-limits for a vote, we missed it.

Right now the Democrats have become so frightened of this debate that they have attempted to ram through appropriations bills without debate or amendment to keep Republicans from forcing the issue to the floor.  As a result, both chambers may wind up adjourning without passing anything — appropriations or energy policy.  It would be the first time in almost 60 years that Congress went into its summer break without having passed any of the appropriations bills necessary for the next fiscal year.

Welcome to the do-nothing Congress, take 2.

Republicans have a wide opening here.  The Senate caucus looks firm in its insistence on keeping the energy debate open until a vote on drilling takes place.  If Democrats continue to obstruct it in either or both chambers, expect that 20-point lead on energy to dissipate rapidly.  The GOP and John McCain have already begun hammering Barack Obama on his refusal to countenance increased oil production in the US.  They will flood the airwaves to remind voters which party has blocked consideration of the option favored by 70% of the electorate.

I've said it before and I'll say it again:  Barring a terrorist attack or other major catastrophe, this is the wedge issue of the 2008 election.  Republicans are on the right side of this issue and Democratic leadership (apparently not all congressional Democrats, I'm happy to say) are on the wrong side, as demonstrated by this excerpted analysis by Michael Franc of the Heritage Foundation:

For the first time in a while, House Republicans are on the offense on an issue of national importance: removing obstacles to the production of more American energy.

House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey abruptly shut down his committee indefinitely rather than allow Republicans to offer an amendment to open more areas to drilling for new sources of oil and natural gas. Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid concur. According to the New York Times, she and Reid “appear intent on holding the line against calls to approve drilling in areas now off limits.”

Obey fears that the amendment, by drilling advocate Rep. John Peterson (R., Penn.), would win. As many as eight of the committee’s Democrats have supported similar amendments in the past, while only a couple of the committee’s Republicans (who represent well-heeled suburban districts) have stood with the environmental lobby.

Democratic defections, moreover, likely would spread beyond the Appropriations Committee. A careful analysis of previous floor votes on a wide array of energy production issues indicates that as many as 40 House Democrats would join the overwhelming majority of House Republicans in support of an agenda to increase American energy production dramatically…

…Quietly, in recent weeks House Republican leaders have adopted precisely this strategy. Rank-and-file Republicans have been filing one discharge petition per week (five thus far), demanding floor action on a far-reaching energy agenda. The agenda includes bills to construct new oil refineries; drill for oil and natural gas offshore as well as on a tiny portion of the Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge; repeal regulations that needlessly increase the price of gasoline; produce energy from alternative sources such as oil shale, tar sands and coal-to-liquid; and explore the next generation of oil and natural gas fields in deep-sea regions far off our coasts.

With little media coverage, and lacking the visible support of business groups, conservative organizations or talk radio, these petitions have nevertheless garnered as many as 153 signatures, with one Democrat — Rep. Neil Abercrombie (D., Hawaii) — even risking the wrath of his leadership by signing on.

An informal head count suggests there are an additional 75 to 100 House members, including those 40 Democrats, who, based on their previous support for proposals to increase American energy production, could be open to signing these petitions, thereby pushing the number of signatures over the required 218.

Should the conservative media, the conservative movement, and, yes, the president (his soapbox still carries weight) catch on to this strategy, pressure would increase on pro-energy lawmakers to sign on. Voters would learn that the Speaker’s word isn’t final. And we just might get a real debate on the merits of producing more American energy.

Keep watching.....

Ken Berwitz

Anyone can make a mistake.  But you get suspicious when the mistakes are always to one side, not the other.

With this in mind, read this:

USC "College Republican" Wasn't, CNN Admits

25 July 2008 10:27 AM, PDT

CNN was forced to apologize Thursday after it aired an interview on American Morning with a University of Southern California student whom it identified as Eric Pearlmutter, a College Republican, who said that there was little enthusiastic support for Sen. John McCain's candidacy on campus. Following the broadcast Ben Myers, president of the USC College Republicans, shot back saying that he had never met or seen Pearlmutter at a College Republican meeting and that Pearlmutter is not even a member. "As far as I know, he could be a Democrat," Myers told the Los Angeles Times. On Thursday night a CNN spokeswoman sent an email message to the newspaper confirming that it had "inadvertently" identified Pearlmutter as a member of USC College Republicans and that the network had invited Myers to appear on American Morning. Myers responded that "to claim that [McCain's] support is weak among young Republicans is just pure liberal media propaganda."

Keep waiting for a mistake like this to be made in favor of Republicans, not to their detriment.

Y'know, maybe that slogan has a point;  based on years and years of watching the network, when CNN makes this kind of "mistake" I do trust them as much as anyone to make it against the Republican Party.

Ken Berwitz

As you may know, Barack Obama did not visit our troops in Germany.  Not even in the Landstuhl hospital where injured troops are recovering from injuries sustained in Afghanistan and Iraq, the war zones his traveling promotional tour had just come from. 

Mr. Obama's explanation?  The Pentagon told him he could not do so as a senator campaigning for the presidency.

The Pentagon's response?  They told him he could do so without his campaign entourage.

So, in the absence of cameras and spin doctors to make it into a campaign stop, Mr. Obama decided not to bother. 

John McCain, understandably, is jumping all over this.  As he should.

Here, courtesy of www.powerline.com, is his latest youtube ad which skewers Mr. Obama for behaving this way:

In recent days, John McCain has stepped up the pace of his attacks on Barack Obama. Now he's lost no time in going after Obama for canceling his visit to wounded soldiers in Germany, even though he had time to go to the gym and sightsee in Berlin. This is the new YouTube ad:

Brutal. In the end, this character-revealing blunder may be the only thing voters remember about Obama's international excursion.

Mr. Obama's snub of our military has gotten some media attention in the USA, that is true.  But it is a tiny fraction of what it should have gotten.  Have you seen it at all?

But listen to them squeal like stuck pigs if you call them biased.

Ken Berwitz

Someone ought to.  And John Bolton, the former United Nations Ambassador who angered the do-nothings who run it by not playing ball with them - is the guy.

Here is his history lesson, from yesterday's Los Angeles Times :

If you think Barack Obama made a hit with his speech in Berlin, you'd love to see him make one at the UN.  They'd be off their seats cheering (and anything that can get these people off their seats, other than an expense-account meal in Manhattan, is really something).

But his ignorance and arrogance will not serve our country well if he is its President. 

I hope that, if Mr. Obama wins in November,  he figures out a way to overcome both of these attributes.  Frankly, I think only the ignorance is possible to overcome - and with his level of arrogance he may not consider it necessary.

Ken Berwitz

Do the voters understand how biased media are? 

Read this short piece from Brent Baker of www.newsbusters.org and see for yourself:

Fox Poll: Two-Thirds Recognize Journalists Want Obama to Win

By Brent Baker (Bio | Archive)
July 25, 2008 - 03:07 ET

Just days after a Rasmussen Reports survey was released showing more than three times as many likely voters “believe most reporters will try to help Obama with their coverage” than help John McCain, a Fox News/Opinion Dynamics poll taken July 22-23 of 900 registered voters discovered six times as many think “most member of the media” want Obama to win than wish for a McCain victory. On Thursday's Special Report, FNC's Brit Hume relayed: “67 percent of the respondents think most media members want Obama to win. Just 11 percent think most in the media are for McCain.”

A FoxNews.com article added this damning finding: “Only about 1 in 10 (11 percent) volunteers the belief that the media is neutral on the race to become the 44th President of the United States.” Those polled recognize the tilt in action: “When asked to rate the objectivity of media coverage of the campaigns, Americans feel Obama gets more of a positive spin by a better than 7-to-1 margin (46 percent more positive toward Obama; 6 percent more positive toward McCain).”

I can't help thinking that this is why, after a week of non-stop all-positive coverage of his globetrotting, Barack Obama's poll numbers have barely moved upward.

Most of us didn't go to Harvard as Mr. Obama did.  But it doesn't take a Harvard graduate to see what is in front of our faces.

Ken Berwitz

Earlier today I blogged about the need for Republicans in congress to force their Democratic counterparts to excrete or get off the pot on oil drilling (in private I might put that a slightly different way).

Well, unbeknownst to me at that moment, they did.  I just read the particulars - and Harry Reid's obnoxious reaction to it - courtesy of Ed Morrissey at www.hotair.com:

Senate Republicans hold the line on energy; Update: Reid falls apart

posted at 10:31 am on July 25, 2008 by Ed Morrissey

Senate Republicans kept their word today to defeat any energy bill that did not include an end to the Congressional moratorium on off-shore drilling.  By a 50-43 party-line vote, the bill that supposedly would curb “excessive” energy speculation failed to gain cloture.  Instead of allowing a pro-drilling amendment to get attached to the bill, the Democrats will bury it:

U.S. legislation to rein in excessive energy speculation failed a key procedural vote on Friday to move forward in the Senate, and now lawmakers will set aside the bill to consider other legislation.

The House of Representatives may take up its own anti-speculation bill next week, and then lawmakers will get ready to leave for their month-long recess in August. …

Senate Republicans strongly opposed the speculation bill, arguing the legislation should be modified to also boost U.S. oil production by allowing more offshore drilling and developing vast oil shale fields in the West. Republicans said tight petroleum supplies that were unable to keep up with demand were the cause of high energy prices.

Only Olympia Snowe (R-ME) crossed the party line to vote in favor of cloture.  Harry Reid (D-NV) voted against cloture, the only Democrat to do so, but only for procedural reasons.  His no vote will allow him to bring the bill back to the floor for another pass later in the session — if he chooses to do so.

Jim DeMint and Tom Coburn promised a tough line on energy, daring the Democrats to defy the overwhelming will of the electorate on increased domestic oil production.  The Democrats walked into the trap — and they may well find a way to lose a Congressional election that they had all but won this cycle.  If they adjourn for a summer break without allowing Republicans an opportunity to begin the long-term process of increasing domestic production and lowering gas prices, voters will hear all about it for the next four months … and they’ll let Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi hear about it in November.

Update: What does Harry Reid do when he gets caught in a vice?  He lashes out at reporters and distorts the truth:

At a “pen and pad” — a more casual, off-camera chat with reporters — Reid attacked and scolded correspondents in attendance, telling them he’s “really disappointed” in how they have been writing his energy plans, which include a bill to reign in speculation in the energy futures markets.

According to two Senate Democratic aides, Reid and other Democratic leaders were particularly stung by an article Thursday in The New York Times. It followed on several other reports that have highlighted Democrats’ attempts to fend off defections from their ranks to GOP-sponsored amendments, measures that would permit new drilling in the Outer Continental Shelf and in the West for oil shale. ….

Reporters tried to pin Reid down Thursday on the amendment issue.

In the exchange, Reid told one reporter she should “watch the [Senate] floor more often. … You might learn something.”

Another reporter explained she had watched the Senate proceedings and said it was not clear he was … offereing separate amendments, to which Reid asked the reporter if she “spoke English.”

“Turn up your Miracle Ear,” Reid added.

Reid may need to check his own comprehension of English. He did allow only two amendments on the bill, which Dick Durbin confirmed during a floor speech. If Reid can’t count to two, he should stop worrying about the English skills of reporters and get into a remedial math class.

It would be hard to overemphasize the importance of this issue to Republicans and Democrats alike.  If the Republican Party is perceived as the folks trying to get us our own oil so we don't pay a king (abdullah's) ransom to people who hate us, and Democrats are perceived as the folks trying to prevent this from happening, it could change votes - literally millions of them.

Well, that, in fact, is exactly where the two parties stand.  So keep your eyes and ears tuned in and let's see where it goes.  With a special attention to what Barack Obama has to say about it.

Ken Berwitz

This Johnny Dollar guy is really something.

He hates keith olbermann's guts. That, in and of itself, is neither newsworthy nor unique. 

But he also seems to have dedicated a great deal of time and effort to checking olbermann's accuracy and honesty.  As it turns out, when that is done we see that olbermann doesn't have a lot of either.

Here is the latest example, in which olbermann (again) lies to his audience's faces - complete with the videos that prove it:

Olbermann Lifts Newshound Lie, Airs It as Fact!

What a liar.  What a fraud.  What a joke. 

Call it "Smackdown, with Johnny Dollar"

Ken Berwitz

I don't agree with Bob Herbert a lot of the time.  And I don't fully agree with his latest column on John McCain.  But Mr. Herbert makes some very important points about Mr. McCain and it is well worth reading.  So here it is:

Getting to Know You

Ken Berwitz

Yesterday's Investors Business Daily had a powerful editorial on how to force the congress into action, or at least accountability, regarding the oil crisis.  Here it is:

Call Congress Back To Vote On Drilling

By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Friday, July 25, 2008 4:20 PM PT

Leadership: When it comes to giving relief at the pump by drilling for more oil, this is truly a "do-nothing" Democratic Congress. President Bush should give 'em hell like Harry Truman did.

IBD Series: Breaking The Back Of High Oil

Article II, Section 3 of the Constitution states that the president "may, on extraordinary occasions, convene both houses" of Congress. On more than two dozen occasions in our history, presidents have done just that, forcing the Senate and House of Representatives to meet on extraordinary matters of defense or economic peril.

Sixty years ago this month, President Truman called such a special session to shame into action what he labeled a "do nothing" Republican Congress. He dubbed it the Turnip Day Session, because of the day on which it began. According to folklore in Truman's native Missouri, "On the 25th of July, sow your turnips, wet or dry."

Congress refused to do Truman's bidding in the session, but the bold move saved the president's political skin. He defied the odds that November and was re-elected — largely because the public came to view the 80th Congress as in the grip of a cowardly paralysis.

Today's Democratic-controlled 110th Congress is just as paralyzed, but the stakes are far higher. Our irrational dependence on oil from foreign nations is squeezing American consumers and businesses with sky-high fuel prices. And it makes us vulnerable to blackmail by hostile, oil-rich regimes.

Americans use nearly 21 million barrels of oil a day. The U.S. Geological Survey has just identified 90 billion barrels of recoverable oil in the Arctic — nearly 30 billion barrels of it in Alaska. Yet House Speaker Nancy Pelosi refuses to allow a floor vote on drilling because the idea it would make a difference is "frivolous," she said last week.

Suffering consumers disagree. This month, an IBD/TIPP Poll of 920 adults found that by more than 3-to-1 Americans believe gas prices to be a bigger problem than global warming. A broad-based 64% of respondents favor offshore drilling, and 65% want oil shale development in the Western states.

A Rasmussen survey in June found 67% of voters in favor of drilling off the coasts of California, Florida and other states, and 64% believing gas prices would drop as a result. A Zogby poll last month found that 74% want offshore drilling in U.S. waters.

This is a potential political gusher, if only Republicans would fully tap into it. Bush has the opportunity to do so before this hot, cash-guzzling summer ends. Like Truman, he can use his constitutional authority to call this negligent Congress back once it embarks on its long August recess to campaign for re-election.

In so doing, he can demand that instead of nonsolutions like its failed attempt to release more oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve [SPR], Congress carry out the will of the vast majority of Americans by passing laws that authorize drilling.

In one fell swoop, a presidential recall of Congress would strengthen national security, boost our economy and maybe even turn things around for Republicans and avoid the losses being predicted for them this election year.

If giving 'em hell worked for Harry, you bet it can work for Dubya.

.

Barring a terrorist attack or a major catastrophe in Iraq or Afghanistan, I see energy - its cost, who we buy it from and whether we aggressively exploit the vast resources we have - as the single most important wedge issue of the presidential campaign.

John McCain is on the right side of this issue and Barack Obama is on the wrong side.

McCain advocates offshore drilling (he is against ANWR drilling, which is inexplicable to me - I have a feeling that will change during the campaign) and the construction of dozens of nuclear plants throughout the country. 

Mr. Obama is not only against these fastest-track solutions to the energy crisis, but is also saddled with years and years of his Democratic counterparts demanding HIGHER gas prices through more taxes on gas.

President Bush may not be the most popular guy in the world to share a stage with during this campaign.  But he can benefit John McCain incalculably by doing exactly what Harry Truman did in 1948.  And, not incidentally, if it shames the Democratic congress into action, we all will benefit.

I hope Mr. Bush reads the IBD editorial and acts on it immediately.

Ken Berwitz

I am not voting for Barack Obama and I am not a racist.  But I have no doubt that if Mr. Obama loses there are people - both White and Black - who will "know" that racism did him in.

Illustratively, just this past week I blogged about the incomparably nondescript Governor-by-resignation of New York, David Patterson, blaming criticism of Mr. Obama - and himself as well - on racism rather than the fact that there are things to criticize about both men. 

Matthew May, writing for American Thinker, outlines this issue very well.  Here is his article:

July 26, 2008

The Racism Cry Returns

By Matthew May

Having begun softly during the primary season, an incessant drumbeat has steadily gained strength and will soon reach its deafening crescendo as we march toward November: If you are white and vote for anyone other than Sen. Barack Obama (Savior-IL) for president you are a racist.

Joe Klein says that anyone horrible enough to suggest that Obama -- who isn't even the official nominee of his party -- is being a bit presumptuous in touring Europe and the Middle East automatically couples that criticism with "the subterranean tinge of racism."

Andrew Greeley says that black Americans (all, apparently) and the rest of the world will "scream racism" if Obama is defeated by John McCain. Greeley says that "Only the innocent and the naive think that the November election will not be about race."

New York governor David Paterson recently suggested at the national meeting of the NAACP   that an Obama loss is a racist victory.

I will not insult your intelligence and vainly attempt to assuage my supposed white guilt by claiming "some of my best friends are black," or revealing the racial background of my college roommate, and the artist who dominates my music collection. I refuse to do so not because it is a cliché, but because it is unnecessary for the non-racist to do so.

I do not compartmentalize my friends into categories other than that labeled "Friends." My friends and associates are nobody else's business or concern. I have sought and will continue to seek them according to their worth to me as individuals -- the values we share, the equality of life to which we aspire, and our mutual respect and admiration for one another as individuals.

Calling someone a racist is one of the most serious charges than be leveled against an individual. It is outrageous enough that such a charge is being and will be thrown at tens of millions of people. It demonstrates the naked contempt the left have for the individual mind and the individual voter who approaches an election with certain fundamental benchmarks that a candidate must meet to earn his vote.

As a conservative, I will not be overly enthusiastic about voting for John McCain on November 4 -- but I will be sprinting to the polling place to do so. And, surprisingly enough to those of you who cannot fathom it, this white American will be voting against Barack Obama not because he is black, but because he has repeatedly shown himself to be nothing more than a politician from the Daley cesspool. I have plenty of reasons*

To those whose every move in life is political and wrapped up in busily placing people in one identity group or another rather than as individuals, it is impossible to comprehend that perhaps part of the problem with Obama is not the color of his skin but its thinness. Across the spectrum of presidential leadership throughout our nation's history, Americans have desired -- and fairly demanded -- that their political leaders endure the slings and arrows of satire with good humor. Such a mindset harkens back to the classical American disgust with and fear of the individual with too much power, accompanied by a royal bearing.

Obama and his associates act as if the candidate is beyond reproach. George W. Bush has endured much worse without protest. Abraham Lincoln too, if Bush is not to your liking. Everyone is free to consider what this sensitivity to criticism tells us about the candidate's character.

I will not be voting for Obama in November and will be proud to deny him my vote. To the forthcoming outrageous, serious charge that I am a racist for doing thusly I do not wish to plead "not guilty" because I am, simply, not guilty.

++++

*A few reasons:

He has been wrong about the battle in Iraq and the war against jihad. Obama is devoid of knowledge of the duties of Commander-in-Chief. He offers tired, discredited pabulum in the way of economic policy and utopian nonsense. His gaffes, mistakes, misstatements, and backtracking have continued and Obama does not have any sense of humor about them or anything else for that matter. Despite his privileged education, Obama is not smart enough to be president. We've already seen this movie and the leading man was Jimmy Carter.

This is to say nothing of the seemingly endless sordid details of Obama's career and rhetoric; his association with unrepentant terrorists and slumlords; his stupendous arrogance (Obama said in Berlin that "Now the world will watch and remember what we do here" -- what was it Lincoln said about how the world would notice the dedication of Gettysburg?); the socialist realism posters; his wife telling us what "Barack will demand" of us; voting "Present" time after time.

I am not one to make predictions.  But this prediction I will make with absolute cosmic certainty:  A far greater percentage of White voters will be casting their ballots for Barack Obama than Black voters casting their ballots for John McCain. 

Are all of these Black voters racist?  Nope, but some of them are, just as there are White voters who will reject Mr. Obama out of hand for the color of his skin. 

It seems to me that, all too often, racism is seen as a one-way street travelled exclusively by White people in this country.  In reality that street open to the general public and, lamentably, there are people of all races travelling on it.

Let's not pretend otherwise. 

Ken Berwitz

The following article written by Lorne Gunter of Canada's National Post reminds us of just how hypocritical Al Gore is.  It also reminds us of just how unproven his global warming mantra is - the one that has earned him a fabulous fortune as he scares the bejeezus out of people (most especially politicians).  The bold print is mine:

Do as Al says, not as Al does

Lorne Gunter, National Post  Published: Monday, July 21, 2008

On Thursday, former U. S. vice-president Al Gore delivered a major address calling on his country to abandon all fossil fuels within 10 years. By 2018, U. S. electricity and fuel should come entirely from "renewable energy and truly clean, carbon-free sources," he said. Tickets to the event encouraged attendees to "please use public transit, bicycling or other climate-friendly means" to reach the lecture hall.

So how did Mr. Gore and his retinue arrive? In two Lincoln Town Cars and a full-sized SUV that sat idling with the air conditioners blasting while the Gore party was inside.

It was 34 C in Washington (NOTE:  in fahrenheit that is 93°). Al Gore can't be expected to get into an overheated vehicle after he's worked up a sweat telling others how to save the planet.

Remember, too, the Nobel prizewinning environmentalist lives in a Tennessee mansion that produces a carbon footprint 20 times that of the average American home. A sizeable chunk of his personal fortune comes from royalties on a zinc mine which had to be temporarily closed five years ago in part because the U. S. Environmental Protection Agency ruled it one of the worst-polluting mine sites in America. Illegal toxins were frequently discharged into nearby rivers.

Mr. Gore's Live Earth benefit concert last summer flew scores of rock bands to stages around the world in carbon-spewing private jets. To cover the emissions from his own frequent use of private jets, Mr. Gore set up a company that buys carbon offsets, so that in effect he is paying himself for his carbon indulgences, writing off the expense on one hand, while pocketing the proceeds on the other.

Apparently if the world is ever to reach the carbon-free future Mr. Gore dreams of, it will have to get there without Al's help.

But take heart, there is increasing evidence that man-made carbon dioxide may not be causing global warming. Indeed, there is increasing debate in the scientific community whether there is even any warming occurring at all. Mr. Gore might just be able to keep going from jet to limo to estate guilt-free (if not carbon-free) for as long as he wishes.

On Tuesday, the Associated Press reported that seven mountain glaciers in northern California were advancing. They joined glaciers in southern Norway, Sweden, the New Zealand Alps and the Hindu Kush mountains of Pakistan. Indeed, worldwide, there are nearly half as many glaciers advancing as retreating.

How did the AP explain this? Well, all the shrinking glaciers it mentioned in its story were melting due to global warming, while the growing ones were "benefitting from changing weather patterns." Glacier melt is proof of a climate crisis, while -- on the same planet, under the same global conditions -- glacier advance is chalked up as a mere natural phenomenon.

Facts that don't fit the global-warming dogma -- call them inconvenient truths -- are to be dismissed as unimportant. Only those that feed the environmental hysteria are proof of something ominous.

So I'm sure they're entirely inconsequential, but here, anyway, are some anecdotes that cast doubt on the notion that emissions from our SUVs and power plants are dangerously harming the climate.

Greenland isn't melting. And while Arctic sea ice may have thinned in the past three decades by about 3% per decade, according to the U. S. National Snow and Ice Date Center, Antarctic ice (which is about 20 times as voluminous as the Arctic kind) has grown by 1% per decade,

Also, after last summer's record melt in the Arctic, this summer's melt in Antarctica was the smallest on record. And NASA satellites have found that Arctic Sea ice coverage this year is more than one million square kilo-metres greater than last year's, greater than the average of the last three years and 10-20 centmetres thicker than in 2007. According to observations by the Danish Meteorological Institute, we "have to go back 15 years to find ice expansion so far south."

Snow coverage in North America this winter was greater than at any time in recorded history. China had its worst winter in a century, and the southern hemisphere its worst in the past 50 years.

And while global temperatures increased slightly in June, through the end of May, the nine-month decline in temperatures beginning in September was greater (0.8C) than all the warming of the 20th century (0.6C).

All of this may prove nothing (although if these signals pointed toward warming, you can bet they'd be billed as proof a coming climate catastrophe). But they should at least give Mr. Gore comfort that he need not sacrifice his high-carbon lifestyle just to prove he can walk the walk.

Maybe global warming is real.  Maybe the dark side of the moon is populated by three legged wombats.  Maybe maybe maybe.

Do we know?  Uh-uh.  But we're turning the whole word upside down just in case. 

Thanks Al.  How we miss your presidency.

Ken Berwitz

From the Jerusalem Post:.

An IDF elite unit operating in Jenin discovered on Tuesday a large explosive device planted in a car that was likely on its way to explode in an Israeli city, the military released for publication on Wednesday.

The car was stopped during a Border Police operation in the West Bank city and was found to contain a 12 kilogram explosive device connected to several gas balloons and pipe bombs. The car was destroyed by Border Police sappers.

Have you ever read of one instance in which palestinian Arab authorities stopped an explosive-filled vehicle from traveling through the Gaza or Judea/Samaria (the west bank) on its way to Israel?

These, folks, are the people the world demands that Israel make peace with. 

Tell me how.

Ken Berwitz

Barack Obama was supposed to get a major bounce from his trip to Afghanistan, Iraq and Europe.  But did he?

Today's Gallup daily tracking poll shows Mr. Obama leading John McCain 45% - 43%.  At the beginning of Obama's trip, which his traveling companions in the media are treating as the second coming, the same poll had him ahead 47% - 44%.  What does that tell you?

It tells you that, even as Katie, Charlie and Brian drool over Obama, the country's patience with their level of adoration for him is wearing paper thin.

 If this dog and pony show was working even a little, Obama's numbers would  be showing a major upward bounce.  They aren't.

Not in Gallup and not in the Quinnipiac poll that just came out this week (also with much of the polling done during Mr. Obama's trip).  In Quinnipiac, McCain is jumping upward in states like Minnesota and Michigan - states Obama really needs to win.

So as you watch the fawning commentators on MSNBC (among other venues) assuring you of what a seminal week Barack Obama is having, consider the flatline in his polling data where that "bounce" was supposed to be.  Then sit back and be entertained by what fools the olbermanns and Matthews' of the world are making of themselves and how completely their bias is being exposed.

-------------------------------------------------------

P.S:  I spell-checked this blog using Microsoft Word.  When it came to "....what fools the olbermanns and Matthews' of the world are...it suggested that I change  "olbermanns" to "dobermans".  I'm still laughing.

Ken Berwitz

As you may remember, samir kuntar is the murdering terrorist who the Ehud Olmert government handed over to Lebanon , along with the remains of 179 others just like him.  In return Olmert got the remains of two Israelis - which the Lebanese hezbollah terrorists were nice enough to horribly mutilate.

So how does kuntar feel about his newfound freedom?

Here is your answer, courtesy of www.israelnationalnews.com:

Kuntar: 'Allah Willing, I'll Get to Kill More Israelis'

(IsraelNN.com) Samir Kuntar has told the Lebanese station Future TV that "Allah willing, I will get the chance to kill more Israelis." Kuntar is the child-murderer who killed three Israelis, including a four-year-old girl whose skull he crushed with the butt of his rifle, in 1979, and who was released to Hizbullah by Israel last week along with four other terrorists in return for the remains of IDF soldiers Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser.

Kuntar added in the television interview, filmed days after his release, that he would like to pursue a master's degree in "military resistance."

The day after his release, he went on another Lebanese station to say, "this time yesterday, I was still in their hands. But right now, there is nothing I'd like more than to face them again. I ask Allah to make this happen very soon."

For the record, this "deal" was brokered by a proud UN, which then proclaimed its hope that this is just the start and there will be more such exchanges.

Will they be as proud if/when kuntar makes good on his hope?

How much longer will Israel put up with the incomparable fool Olmert?  And how much longer will people who are smart enough to know better continue to approve of the "work" done by the UN?

Ken Berwitz

This report, complete with the pictures, comes to us from www.sweetness-light.com.  It speaks for itself, and doesn't need one additional word from me:

UN Tells Britain To Treat Muslims Better

July 25th, 2008

Ken Berwitz

What a great speech Barack Obama made in Berlin!

It was a spectacular success and a political campaign's wet dream.  Hundreds of thousands of people cheering Mr. Obama as if he were one of the reggae or rock stars who preceded him on the stage (and may well have been responsible for a lot of the attendance, but we won't quibble about that here).

And what a great message!  All those walls coming down!  Brilliant juxtaposition to the site of the former Berlin wall!

Except for one thing............

He was dead wrong when he talked about the walls coming down in Northern Ireland.  His comments were made out of whole cloth.

I'll let Warner Todd Huston take it from here:

Obama Hits a Wall! Will Media Highlight MAJOR Obama Gaffe in Berlin Speech?

July 24, 2008 | Filed Under Democrats/Leftists, Europe, Foreign Policy, History, Media Bias, News, President, Publius Contributor, Society/Culture, Warner Todd Huston |

-By Warner Todd Huston

Obama’s speech today in Berlin, hailed as a “major” address, has at least one major, glaring error that shows that nether Obama nor his handlers and speech writers were thoroughly familiar with the facts. Obama’s main theme was about the “walls” that separate all of us one from another. He claims that many of these “walls” have been taken down and hails that as progress. But in at least one instance he is wrong. In fact more walls have been built where Obama claimed they were taken down.

First the relevant section of Obama’s misconception (my bold for emphasis):

The walls between old allies on either side of the Atlantic cannot stand. The walls between the countries with the most and those with the least cannot stand. The walls between races and tribes; natives and immigrants; Christian and Muslim and Jew cannot stand. These now are the walls we must tear down.

We know they have fallen before. After centuries of strife, the people of Europe have formed a Union of promise and prosperity. Here, at the base of a column built to mark victory in war, we meet in the center of a Europe at peace. Not only have walls come down in Berlin, but they have come down in Belfast, where Protestant and Catholic found a way to live together; in the Balkans, where our Atlantic alliance ended wars and brought savage war criminals to justice; and in South Africa, where the struggle of a courageous people defeated apartheid.

(Full Obama speech transcript here.)

Obama claims that the walls built to separate Protestant from Catholic have come down in Belfast. Well, in fact, they have not. In reality MORE ARE BEING BUILT all the time.

As a May 5th USA Today story chronicles, “Ten years after peace was declared in Northern Ireland, one might have expected that Belfast’s barriers would be torn down by now. But reality, as usual, is far messier. Not one has been dismantled. Instead they’ve grown in both size and number.”

Ronald Reagan was able to get Mr. Gorbechev to tear down those walls, but it seems Mr. Obama can’t even get it straight if they exist or not!

So, where is the fawning, sycophantic media to lambast Obama’s ignorance here?

I won’t hold my breath.

Is this a big deal?  You bet it is.  Mr. Obama's trip is supposed to prove he understands what is happening on the world stage.  But his statement about Northern Ireland showed that the extent of his knowledge is basically what a speechwriter puts on his teleprompter.

And since most of John McCain's misstatements are gleefully picked up by the media (keith olbermann, for example, seems to have spontaneous orgasms over them and his bosom buddy rachel maddow isn't far behind), the mainstream media, with its characteristic neutrality, can't stop talking about how Mr. Obama made such a major gaffe in front of the entire world, right?

Well, right?

Oh, wait;  you didn't see any reporting of Mr. Obama's ignorance about Northern Ireland before you read it here?  Me neither, until I saw Warner's piece.

But listen to them squeal like stuck pigs if you call them biased.

Ken Berwitz

You would think that the Obama people pinch themselves every day to make sure they are not dreaming that the New York Times is as deep in the tank for Saint Barack as it is.

But not only are they not doing so, they seem to think the Times isn't pro-Obama enough!

Read this piece from The New Republic (which usually is on the Times' side of things, let's remember) and see for yourself:

The New Republic End of the Affair by Gabriel Sherman Barack Obama and the press break up. Post Date Thursday, July 24, 2008

Around midnight on July 16, New York Times chief political correspondent Adam Nagourney received a terse e-mail from Barack Obama's press office. The campaign was irked by the Times' latest poll and Nagourney and Megan Thee's accompanying front-page piece titled "Poll Finds Obama Isn't Closing Divide on Race," which was running in the morning's paper. Nagourney answered the query, the substance of which he says was minor, and went to bed, thinking the matter resolved. But, the next morning, Nagourney awoke to an e-mail from Talking Points Memo writer Greg Sargent asking him to comment on an eight-point rebuttal trashing his piece that the Obama campaign had released to reporters and bloggers like The Atlantic's Marc Ambinder and Politico's Ben Smith. Nagourney had not heard the complaints from the Obama camp and had no idea they were so steamed. "I'm looking at this thing, and I'm like, 'What the hell is this?' " Nagourney recently recalled. "I really flipped out." Later that afternoon, Nagourney got permission from Times editors to e-mail Sargent a response to the Obama memo. But the episode still grates. "I've never had an experience like this, with this campaign or others," Nagourney tells me. "I thought they crossed the line. If you have a problem with a story I write, call me first. I'm a big boy. I can handle it. But they never called. They attacked me like I'm a political opponent."

.

Do you believe this?  Obama gets coverage from the Times that is so adoring it makes you wonder if "Pinch" Sulzberger is going to suggest that he dump Michelle and jointly marry their entire news and editorial staff.  But the Obama people are furious with the Times anyway.  Why?  Because it dared to print the results of a political poll that didn't make Obama look like the next coming.

We have talked about just how thin-skinned Barack Obama is in the past.  Evidently this carries over to his staff as well. 

Wait until the general campaign begins (around Labor Day).  If the Obama camp objects this strenuously to the publishing of polling data, what happens if the paper writes something negative about him?

Is Barack Obama a human Mount Vesuvius on the verge of an eruption?  We'll certainly find out.

Ken Berwitz

Just how pervasive is media bias?  I bet you don't know the half of it.

Here is a piece written by William Tate for Investors Business Daily, which provides the specifics.  They are jaw-dropping:

Putting Money Where Mouths Are: Media Donations Favor Dems 100-1

By WILLIAM TATE | Posted Wednesday, July 23, 2008 4:20 PM PT

The New York Times' refusal to publish John McCain's rebuttal to Barack Obama's Iraq op-ed may be the most glaring example of liberal media bias this journalist has ever seen. But true proof of widespread media bias requires one to follow an old journalism maxim: Follow the money.

Even the Associated Press — no bastion of conservatism — has considered, at least superficially, the media's favoritism for Barack Obama. It's time to revisit media bias.

True to form, journalists are defending their bias by saying that one candidate, Obama, is more newsworthy than the other. In other words, there is no media bias. It is we, the hoi polloi, who reveal our bias by questioning the neutrality of these learned professionals in their ivory-towered newsrooms.

Big Media applies this rationalization to every argument used to point out bias. "It's not a result of bias," they say. "It's a matter of news judgment."

And, like the man who knows his wallet was pickpocketed but can't prove it, the public is left to futilely rage against the injustice of it all.

The "newsworthy" argument can be applied to every metric — one-sided imbalances in airtime, story placement, column inches, number of stories, etc. — save one.

An analysis of federal records shows that the amount of money journalists contributed so far this election cycle favors Democrats by a 15:1 ratio over Republicans, with $225,563 going to Democrats, only $16,298 to Republicans .

Two-hundred thirty-five journalists donated to Democrats, just 20 gave to Republicans — a margin greater than 10-to-1. An even greater disparity, 20-to-1, exists between the number of journalists who donated to Barack Obama and John McCain.

Searches for other newsroom categories (reporters, correspondents, news editors, anchors, newspaper editors and publishers) produces 311 donors to Democrats to 30 donors to Republicans, a ratio of just over 10-to-1. In terms of money, $279,266 went to Dems, $20,709 to Republicans, a 14-to-1 ratio.

And while the money totals pale in comparison to the $9-million-plus that just one union's PACs have spent to get Obama elected, they are more substantial than the amount that Obama has criticized John McCain for receiving from lobbyists: 96 lobbyists have contributed $95,850 to McCain, while Obama — who says he won't take money from PACs or federal lobbyists — has received $16,223 from 29 lobbyists.

A few journalists list their employer as an organization like MSNBC, MSNBC.com or ABC News, or report that they're freelancers for the New York Times, or are journalists for Al Jazeera, CNN Turkey, Deutsche Welle Radio or La Republica of Rome (all contributions to Obama). Most report no employer. They're mainly freelancers. That's because most major news organization have policies that forbid newsroom employees from making political donations.

As if to warn their colleagues in the media, MSNBC last summer ran a story on journalists' contributions to political candidates that drew a similar conclusion:

"Most of the newsroom checkbooks leaned to the left."

The timing of that article was rather curious. Dated June 25, 2007, it appeared during the middle of the summer news doldrums in a non-election year — timing that was sure to minimize its impact among the general public, while still warning newsrooms across the country that such political donations can be checked.

In case that was too subtle, MSNBC ran a sidebar story detailing cautionary tales of reporters who lost their jobs or were otherwise negatively impacted because their donations became public.

As if to warn their comrades-in-news against putting their money where their mouth is, the report also cautioned that, with the Internet, "it became easier for the blogging public to look up the donors."

It went on to detail the ban that most major media organizations have against newsroom employees donating to political campaigns, a ban that raises some obvious First Amendment issues. Whether it's intentional or not, the ban makes it difficult to verify the political leanings of Big Media reporters, editors and producers. There are two logical ways to extrapolate what those leanings are, though.

One is the overwhelming nature of the above statistics. Given the pack mentality among journalists and, just like any pack, the tendency to follow the leader — in this case, Big Media — and since Big Media are centered in some of the bluest of blue parts of the country, it is highly likely that the media elite reflect the same, or an even greater, liberal bias.

A second is to analyze contributions from folks in the same corporate cultures. That analysis provides some surprising results. The contributions of individuals who reported being employed by major media organizations are listed in the nearby table.

The contributions add up to $315,533 to Democrats and $22,656 to Republicans — most of that to Ron Paul, who was supported by many liberals as a stalking horse to John McCain, a la Rush Limbaugh's Operation Chaos with Hillary and Obama.

What is truly remarkable about the list is that, discounting contributions to Paul and Rudy Giuliani, who was a favorite son for many folks in the media, the totals look like this: $315,533 to Democrats, $3,150 to Republicans (four individuals who donated to McCain).

Let me repeat: $315,533 to Democrats, $3,150 to Republicans — a ratio of 100-to-1. No bias there.

Holy carnal knowledging excrement.

And these are the people who give us the NEWS about the two candidates? 

Make that double holy carnal knowledging excrement.

Mr. Tate supplements his piece with a chart showing specific amounts donated to the two candidates by members of specific news venues.  For some reason it is not cutting-and-pasting well, so here are the top five from that list, in thousands of dollars:

-NBC, NBC Universal:  Democrats 104, Republicans 3

-CBS:  Democrats 46, Republicans 1 (a total of $966 bucks to be exact)

-Time, Inc:  Democrats 41, Republicans 5 (but about half of the Republican amount may have come from a non-journalist)

-Fox:  Democrats 41, Republicans 0 (that's not a typo)

-Turner:  Democrats 30, Republicans 4

The most interesting venue on this list is Fox, where EVERY DOLLAR was donated to Democrats.  Sort of puts the wood to the assumption that they're all Republicans over there, doesn't it?

So, based on this information, do you think Republicans are likely to be getting an even shake from major media?  

But listen to them squeal like stuck pigs if you call them biased.

Ken Berwitz

The gas station I use more than any other had regular at $3.99.9 ($4.00) last week.  At that time oil was above $140 a barrel.  For a couple of days it was as high as $145 - 147.

Now oil prices have dropped to the $124 - 125 range for the past two days.  That's roughly 12% lower.

12% from $4.00 is $3.52.  Assuming we get about 2/3 of that drop, the price should be $3.68.  If we get half, it should be $3.76.

So why is my gas station charging $3.93.9?

Does the expression "thieving sonofabitch bastards" resonate?

Ken Berwitz

Did they come out for Barack Obama?  Or did they come out to cheer the highly popular German rock bands which performed at his speech?

And most importantly, will media report that these bands surely had a lot to do with the amount of attendance at Mr. Obama's speech?

You would think the answer is pretty obviously "Yes, of course they reported it, how could they not".  But we've seen this happen before with Mr. Obama and most major media did not. 

This is referenced in the piece below, written by Noel Sheppard of www.newsbusters.org.  See for yourself:

Will Media Report Concert Before Obama's Berlin Speech?

It sure does make things easier when the referee is on your side.

Is it going to happen for Barack Obama again, the way it did in Portland?  We'll see.............

Ken Berwitz

Here is the latest installment of "you can't make this stuff up".  It comes to us from Yahoo news.

Read it and marvel at the stupidity of some parents:

Judge: Girl's name, Talula Does The Hula, won't do

Ken Berwitz

Keeping in mind that this comes from the National Enquirer.......

make of it what you will:

This story may or may not be true.  I don't claim to know the answer.

But if it were a Republican on John McCain's short list for the VP nomination I absolutely know it would be all over mainstream media today. 

John Edwards is a Democrat on Barack Obama's short list for the VP nomination.  Did you see the story anywhere but here?

Ken Berwitz

This is an excerpt from Robert Novak's column today.  It indicates the degree of commitment congressional Democrats have for making sure every vote counts.  Read it and see - the bold print is mine:

July 24, 2008

The Soldier Voting Scandal

By Robert Novak

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Rep. Roy Blunt, the House Republican whip, on July 8 introduced a resolution demanding that the Defense Department better enable U.S. military personnel overseas to vote in the November elections. That act was followed by silence. Democrats normally leap on an opportunity to find fault with the Bush Pentagon. But not a single Democrat joined Blunt as a co-sponsor, and an all-Republican proposal cannot pass in the Democratic-controlled House.

Analysis by the federal Election Assistance Commission, rejecting inflated Defense Department voting claims, estimated overseas and absentee military voting for the 2006 midterm elections at a disgracefully low 5.5 percent. The quality of voting statistics is so poor that there is no way to tell how many of the slightly over 330,000 votes actually were sent in by the absentee military voters and their dependents and how many by civilian Americans living abroad -- 6 million all total.

Why are Democrats so unenthusiastic about facilitating the ability of soldiers to vote? 

That's a question we should all be asking ourselves. 

Ken Berwitz

An idealist is one who, on noticing that a rose smells better than a cabbage, concludes that it will also make better soup:  H.L. Mencken

H.L. Mencken was far from a perfect human being.  But he had a great talent for cutting through to the heart of things.  And his definition of idealism, while neither warm nor fuzzy, probably describes at least some people you know or have read about.

This inexorably leads us to Nicholas Kristof, the tra-la-la left wing idealist who writes for the New York Times op-ed page (which certainly puts him ahead of John McCain, doesn't it?). 

Mr. Kristof is just the kind of person Mencken had in mind - someone who ignores reality to indulge in a fantasy world of "logic" that doesn't exist.

Here are excerpts from Mr. Kristof's latest column, which excoriates Israel for not finding a way to make peace with palestinian Arabs.  Specifically, the excerpts consist of comments made to Kristof by readers and his answers to them. 

The reader comments are indented, and in maroon italics.  Kristof's answers are in maroon as well.  My comments are in blue.

Read them and see how completely Mr. Kristof demonstrates the characteristics noted at the beginning of this blog:

--------------------------------------------------

Jews lived in Hebron for 1,800 years continuously ... until their community was murdered in 1929 by their Arab neighbors. The Jews in Hebron today — those “settlers” — have reclaimed Jewish property. So I don’t see what makes them illegitimate or illegal. (Irving)

True, Jews have deep ties to Hebron, just as Christians do to Jerusalem and Bethlehem, but none of these bonds confer any right to live in these places or even visit them. If Israel were to bar American Christians from Jerusalem, that would not be grounds for the United States to send in paratroopers and establish settlements. And if Israel insists on controlling the West Bank, then it needs to give citizenship to Palestinians there so that they can vote just like the settlers.

What Kristof fails to mention or, apparently, understand, is that there is NO SUCH THING as "Palestinian land".  There is no sovereign state of Palestine and never has been one.  Jews have as much right to be on that land as Arabs.  Jews have as much right to create settlements on that land as Arabs do.  The issue is, and has always been, that Israel wants peaceful coexistence while palestinian Arabs want the end of Israel with all Jews either somewhere else or dead - preferably dead. 

You cannot make peace with people who are committed to your destruction and death, no matter how great it looks in an op-ed column.  They have to change their agenda or it is impossible.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

One side is a beautiful, literate, medically and scientifically and artistically an advanced society. The other side wants to throw bombs. Why shouldn’t there be a fence? (Mileway)

So, build a fence. But construct it on the 1967 borders, not Palestinian land — and especially not where it divides Palestinian farmers from their land.

Why the 1967 borders?  Why would Israel relinquish every inch of land won in a defensive war it neither started nor wanted and voluntarily leave itself that vulnerable to its enemies again?  Who else in the world is expected to give an enemy committed to its destruction a do-over?

Israel forced every Jew out of Gaza and gave it all to palestinian Arabs.  Did that create peace?  Gazans called it a victory, immediately used the land as a launching pad for military attacks on Israeli civilians and continues to do so to this day.

If "palestinian farmers" are damaged by the fence, I suggest they register the appropriate complaints with their brethren.  It is they, not Israel, who caused it to be built.

While I do condemn this type of violence, it pales in contrast to Palestinian suicide bombers, rockets and other acts of terror against Jews. (Jay)

B’Tselem, the Israeli human rights organization, reports that a total of 123 Israeli minors have been killed by Palestinians since the second intifada began in 2000, compared with 951 Palestinian minors killed by Israeli security forces.

This is the most odious argument in Kristof's column.  Palestinian Arabs are intentionally targetting Israeli civilians, and the deaths of those 123 minors is exactly what they are trying to do.  Israel is not intentionally targetting palestinian Arabs.  But the brave, principled palestinian Arab terrorists (yes, I am being sarcastic) hide among heavily populated civilian populations and therefore use civilians as human shields.  Israel's awful choice is to either allow them to kill Jews at will or attack in those areas, which guarantees there will be many civilian casualties.  

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

To withdraw from the West Bank without a partner on the Palestinian side will find Israel in the same fix it has once it withdrew from Gaza: a rain of daily rockets. Yes, the security barrier causes hardship, but terrorist attacks have almost disappeared. That means my kids can ride the bus, go to unguarded restaurants and not worry about being blown up on their way to school. Find another way to keep my kids safe, and I’ll happily tear down the barrier. (Laura)

This is the argument that I have the most trouble countering. Laura has a point: The barrier and checkpoints have reduced terrorism. But as presently implemented, they — and the settlements — also reduce the prospect of a long-term peace agreement that is the best hope for Laura’s children.

If Israel were to stop the settlements, ease the checkpoints, allow people in and out more freely, and negotiate more enthusiastically with Syria over the Golan Heights and with the Arab countries on the basis of the Saudi peace proposal, then peace might still elude the region. But Israel would at least be doing everything possible to secure its long-term future, rather than bolstering Hamas.

If there is no two-state solution, there will be a one-state solution — and given demographic trends, that will mean either the end of Israeli democracy or the end of the Jewish state. Zionists should be absolutely clamoring for a Palestinian state.

Laura is right about the need for a sensible Palestinian partner, and the failures of Palestinian leadership have been legion. At the moment, though, Israel has its most reasonable partner ever — Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas — and it is undermining him with its checkpoints and new settlement construction.

Translation:  Kristof thinks that if Israel ignores the palestinian Arab agenda of destroying Israel, and gives them easy access to their targets, maybe they will suddenly like Jews and stop doing what they've been doing singlemindedly and relentlessly for the last 60 years.

You may have noticed a sameness to the last part of each of my answers.  That, of course, is intentional.

Just as a cabbage smells bad but makes good soup, so is it true that the actions taken by Israel may be unpleasant and undesirable, but are necessary for its survival.

Mr. Kristof?  Meet Mr. Mencken.  He has a lot to teach you.

Ken Berwitz

hu·bris n.   Overbearing pride or presumption; arrogance

This fascinating example of unadulterated hubris comes to us from Dan Spencer, writing for www.redstate.com:

Obama Replaces American Flag With Obama Logo

No Wonder His Patriotism Gets Questioned

Remember, weeks ago, when Barack Obama started putting a crude copy of the Presidential Seal, with his name on it, on the podiums where he spoke?  Remember the outrage?  Remember how fast Mr. Obama was embarrassed into taking it down?

I wonder how long it takes to repaint an American flag over an Obama logo.......

Ken Berwitz

This is a real short one:

Yesterday keith olbermann sneered out his disdain for Fox News (which he sometimes calls "Fixed News" and sometimes "Fox Noise).  The reason was that, on the crawl at the bottom of the screen, they misspelled the word "EDUCATION".

Well right now, this minute, I have Hardball on.  Hardball is aired by MSNBC, the same network olbermann is on. 

And on MSNBC's crawl, I have seen the following, six times so far (it probably has run a lot more times than that):

 AP:  OBAMA DEFENDS HIS PROPOSAL TO NEGOTIATE WITH IRAN, SAYIGN HE WOULD USE "BIG STICKS AND BIG CARROTS" TO PERSUADE THE COUNTRY LEADERS NOT TO DEVELOP NUCEALR WEAPONS" 

I assure you that the two misspellings (SAYIGN and NUCEALR) are MSNBC's not mine.

Don't hold your breath waiting for Olbermann to sneer out any attacks this time.

What a jerk.

UPDATE:  The same crawl also refers to a GALLUP DAULY TRACKING POLL.  Whoops.

Go get 'em keith.

Ken Bewitz

Some time ago my co-author, Barry Sinrod, sent me a picture of a bumper sticker that said "Barack Obama" in Hebrew characters.

However, the bumper sticker below, which apparently is finding its way onto cars throughout Israel, does not say "Barack Obama".  It says "sexual intercourse Obama"......except it uses a shorter version of the term "sexual intercourse", one you probably wouldn't use within earshot of your mom:

By contrast, Barack Obama had no problem staying with his Israel-hating pastor, jeremiah wright, through 18 years of  wright's ravings.  And when wright honored the career anti-Semite louis farrakhan with a lifetime achievement award -- and said he "epitomized greatness" - there was not a peep of protest from Mr. Obama.

I only wish more Jews in the USA were as astute.

Ken Berwitz

First let me apologize for the title's redundancy.

Now let me show you the latest example, which comes to us from Johnny Dollar, writing for www.olbermannwatch.com:

Only on OlbyPlanet would self-delusion this egregious go unchecked. Last week on The Hour of Spin, Brit Richard Wolffe simpered about John McCain's Czechoslovakia talk:

WOLFFE: Well, I actually think the wackiest thing was the many references to Czechoslovakia that McCain has been using in recent days. That country hasn't existed for 15 years.

Tonight, Keith Oralmann was at it again, parroting The Wolffe Man and gleefully twisting the knife:

OLBERMANN: Senator John "Czechslovakia" McCain at a Town Hall in New Hampshire today, catching himself for once again citing the name of an Iron Curtain country that has not existed for 15 years.

Um, Keithy? Bathtub Boy? Do you really want to be ridiculing someone for that? At least McCain caught himself. What's your excuse?

• OLBERMANN [11/8/2005]: Let's play Oddball....To Prague in Czechoslovakia, where the country's newest reality show...
  
• OLBERMANN [3/22/2004]: Here are Countdown's "Top 3 Newsmakers" of this day: No. 3: Three 14-year-old school boys in Czechoslovakia...
  
• OLBERMANN [4/12/2004]: Let's play "Oddball." In Poland, they throw water on each other in the festival of Schvingus Gingus (ph); In Czechoslovakia, they celebrate with an Easter Birching...

Keith "Czechoslovakia" Olbermann: poster boy for the arrogance of ignorance.

keith olbermann is a joke.  And a stale one at that.

Ken Berwitz

Suppose a Republican supporter of John McCain used the term "tar baby" in an attack on Barack Obama.  Do you think it would be in the media the next day?  Do you think the network news or the Today show would mention it? 

Well, here is John Kerry, attacking John McCain yesterday:

'Tar baby': Kerry uses term for McCain attack

July 23, 2008 - 1:40 ET

(CLICK HERE TO SEE VIDEO)

"I think John [McCain] is trying to throw that big tar baby out there. You want to lose, you don't want to win. Of course Barack Obama wants America to be successful."

Did you read about it in your paper?  See it on TV?  Have media so much as mentioned in passing that Kerry said it?

But listen to them squeal like stuck pigs if you call them biased.

Ken Berwitz

Please read this piece from Michael Gerson, writing for www.townhall.com, and note the date -- long before John McCain was running for President and needed his wife to impress the national electorate:

KIGALI, Rwanda -- Cindy McCain's first visit to this country in 1994 was during the high season of roadblocks and machetes and shallow graves.

Following a call for help from Doctors Without Borders, McCain had assembled a medical team with the intention of setting up a mobile hospital in Rwanda. Arriving by private plane in mid-April, a couple of weeks into the massacres, she realized that the chaos made deploying her team impossible. At the airport, she paid for the use of a truck and set out for Goma in then-Zaire, where hundreds of thousands of refugees were also headed.

"I never saw anyone harmed," McCain recalls, "but I saw the bodies along the roadside." Checkpoints were manned by 12- and 13-year-olds with AK-47s. "The kids were drinking -- bottles of Guinness, I remember. They would point their guns at you. They wanted money. We paid." Along the way, she picked up several abandoned young people, later given to the care of an Irish charity.

"You could see the chaos, hear the shots, hear the screaming. You could smell it." What, I asked her, could you smell? "The smell of death," she replied.

Arriving across the border in Goma, which is now in Congo, McCain found cholera victims stacked beside the road "like highway barriers." "I remember having to step over the decomposing body of an infant, covered with white powder, lime I guess, to get into one building." The field hospital covered four acres. McCain's team provided primary care for the sick and frightened refugees, many of them suffering dehydration. For nearly a month, McCain organized food and water for the operation, collecting supplies at the Goma airport.

"I have never seen anything like it before," she says, "and never since. ... When I came home, I couldn't put it into words for my husband."

The rushing return of these memories came on Cindy McCain's first visit to Rwanda since the genocide. In the shadow of Barack Obama's world tour, McCain joined a bipartisan delegation -- including former Senate Majority Leaders Bill Frist and Tom Daschle -- organized by the ONE Campaign, a group that advocates for the fight against global poverty and disease. (I am also involved in the efforts of ONE.)

McCain came back to a very different Rwanda -- peaceful, well governed, and making, with American help, some of the most rapid progress in the history of public health. "What has struck me," says McCain, "is that most people are reconciling. A woman I met was gang-raped (during the genocide), her throat was slit, she lost her whole family, but was willing to forgive. The reason this will be a successful country is the women -- some of the strongest, most inspiring women I have ever met."

Given her history of humanitarianism, these adjectives might be associated with McCain herself. The election of her husband would also bring to the White House an adventurous, traveled, intriguingly fearless first lady. Over the years, McCain has brought medical services to a Sandinista stronghold following Nicaragua's civil war; set up a mobile hospital near Kuwait City while the oil wells still burned from the first Gulf War; helped in Bangladesh following a cyclone. And while in that country in 1991, she found her daughter Bridget in an orphanage -- "She really picked me," McCain insists. Sometimes the desire to save every child is properly concentrated on a single child.

Like most of Cindy McCain's life, these stories are generally hidden behind a wall of well-tailored reticence. She values the privacy of her family and resents the intrusiveness of the media. None of her relief work has been done for political consumption or Washington prominence. On the contrary, it has been an alternative life to the culture of the capital -- the rejection of the normal progress of a senator's wife. "It is not about me -- it never has been. I felt it was important -- that I had to do it. I never took government money. It was my own, and I am not ashamed of it."

But all this would have political consequences in a McCain administration. Even if a first lady is not intrusively political, the whole White House responds to her priorities. Cindy McCain has had decades of personal contact with the suffering of the developing world. And in some future crisis or genocide, it might matter greatly to have a first lady who knows the smell of death.

Now try and find something similar about Michelle Obama.  Or even close.  Or anything in the near horizon.  Or anything in the remote horizon.

But how much positive press have mainstream media showered on her to cover for her comments about never being proud of the United States until now, and calling the USA "downright mean"? 

The answer is:  one hell of a lot more than they've given to Cindy McCain  - a genuine humanitarian who goes places and does things that the Michelle Obamas of the world only talk about.

Has any member of the mainstream media ever asked Ms. Obama why she subjected her two young daughters to the ravings of a Black liberation theology hater like jeremiah wright all their lives - until hubby Barack needed to dump him to get elected?  Not a chance, booby.  She is a protected species.

By contract, Cindy McCain has no such status.  It's open season and the guns are aimed.  Ms. McCain is far more likely to be dismissed by media as a trophy wife, and/or an ice queen than what she actually is.

But listen to them squeal like stuck pigs if you call them biased.

Ken Berwitz

If you are attracted to genuinely inspiring stories, here's one from an improbable place:  politics.  The source of this inspiration is a man named William Russell.

And the icing on the cake is that, through a level of perseverance that must have served him well in the army, especially during Desert Storm, Mr. Russell just might unseat the national disgrace, john murtha.

I'll let Michelle Malkin tell you all about it -- but please pay special attention to the paragraph I've put in bold print:

Murtha: Faces anger over slurs of troops.

Posted: 4:02 am
July 23, 2008

A JAW-dropping political miracle may be on the horizon. No, I'm not talking about the second coming of the Obamessiah. I'm talking about the long-deserved comeuppance of troop-smearing, pork-feasting, scandal-tainted Democratic Rep. Jack Murtha of Pennsylvania.

The 18-term congressman's challenger, staunch conservative Republican newcomer William Russell, raised nearly $670,000 in the second quarter. Earmark king Murtha scraped together a measly $119,000.

Russell's underdog campaign bested Murtha without the perks of incumbency, national name recognition, big PAC donations or mainstream media support.

Even more amazing: The challenger, a Desert Storm veteran and Army reservist who survived the 9/11 Pentagon attack, wasn't even publicly campaigning during the quarter. Russell, 45, is on active duty with the Army until after Aug. 1 and is barred from actively campaigning until then.

If all that didn't make this enough of an inspiring story: In February, a Pennsylvania judge ruled that Russell had failed to collect enough signatures to make the primary ballot. But he refused to give up on his goal of defeating Murtha. The GOP neophyte persevered on a shoestring budget and won more than 4,000 write-in votes in the spring to earn a spot on the general-election ballot. Russell's campaign manager, veteran GOP activist Peg Luksik, says most second-quarter donations were less than $50.

Russell's clear on where he stands. "I am a conservative," he says in his defining campaign statement. "I believe in the sovereignty and security of this one nation, under God. I believe the primary role of government is to provide for the common defense and a legal framework to protect families and individual liberty."

The excitement around Russell stands in stark contrast to grass-roots disgust on the right with Beltway Republicans who continue to push the party to the left in a brain-dead bid to "rebrand" the GOP. He has united pro-troops families, social conservatives, fiscal conservatives, Reagan Democrats and independents fed up with Murtha's culture of corruption dating back to his Abscam days in the 1980s.

(Murtha wasn't indicted in the infamous bribery probe but he was videotaped entertaining a $50,000 bribe from undercover FBI agents posing as emissaries for Arab sheiks trying to enter our country illegally.)

"The incredible story about Bill's campaign is that the $15 and $25 contributions are coming in from all over Pennsylvania and every corner of the country," Luksik noted on the Russell Brigade Web site. "This is K Street versus Main Street."

Russell decided to enter politics after hearing Murtha's slanderous 2006 accusations that Marines in Haditha "overreacted because of the pressure on them, and they killed innocent civilians in cold blood." Seven Marines have been cleared or won case dismissals in the Iraq war incident Murtha recklessly adjudicated in the court of public opinion - with willing mainstream journalists swinging their nooses.

Perhaps that complicity explains the great media wall of silence around Russell's upstart campaign. Republican Bill Russell offers ethical, freedom-enhancing, pro-responsibility, anti-retreat, unapologetically conservative change they don't want to believe in.

Until I read this column I did not know a thing about William Russell.  But if what Ms. Malkin writes is true (and I strongly suspect it is), I am pulling for him every inch of the way.

People like this are blueprints for how the Republican Party can compete again.  "Republican strategists" who think they can triangulate voters by taking conservatives for granted while lurching far enough away from them to draw in moderate Democrats, are the reason the Republican party isn't competitive right now.

Bill Clinton was able to pull off this kind of triangulation strategy because he's Bill Clinton.  I don't know of any other politician in either party with the political instincts Clinton had.  He was one of a kind.***

However, most candidates cannot win by triangulating the electorate.  Most candidates have to provide compelling reasons for voters to elect them. 

It is true that entrenched incumbents have a built-in advantage, because they're already in office and are familiar to voters. 

But sometimes a candidate is so attractive that he/she will unseat one of those entrenched incumbents.  I fervently hope that Mr. Russell is one of them.  I fervently hope he defeats murtha.  No one ever earned a pink slip more completely.

------------------------------------------------------

***Barack Obama might conceivably be somewhat in Clinton's league when it comes to mesmerizing voters, but I'll wait and see how his first national campaign comes out before making any final judgment.  Let's see if his oratorical skills and smooth presentation can overcome his repulsive political and spiritual associations and the fact that he has no qualifications to be President.  There's a long way to go before November.

Ken Berwitz

Here, from the invaluable site www.sweetness-light.com, is Barack Obama, in his own words, talking about the troop surge.

This is the same troop surge, it should be noted, that would enable us to bring home more and more of our soldiers.

See if you can discern a slight difference between what he said then and what he says now:

.

Obama On The Surge - Some Video Clips

July 22nd, 2008

.

Ken Berwitz

So what do you do if you have environmental demands, an invitation to be where the Prime Minister of your country is....and a few globs of superglue?

Here, courtesy of the London Daily Mail, is what one genius came up with.  The stupidity is from Glass.  The bold print is from me:

Activist tries to superglue himself to Gordon Brown

By Daily Mail Reporter
Last updated at 10:35 PM on 22nd July 2008

During these turbulent economic times, Gordon Brown is keen for the country to stick by him.

However, this probably wasn't quite what he had in mind.

Dan Glass, of the climate change pressure group Plane Stupid, today tried to superglue himself to the Prime Minister at a Downing Street reception.

Stuck on you: Mr Brown with Dan Glass

As Mr Glass, 24, was introduced to the Premier, he laid a glue-covered hand on his sleeve.

He also took the opportunity to urge Mr Brown to change his mind on the Heathrow airport expansion.

Mr Glass told the assembled guests: 'Do not worry  -  this is a non-violent protest. We cannot shake away climate change like you can just shake away my arm.'

Mr Glass, who had smuggled pouches of glue into the event in his underwear, added later that Mr Brown laughed off the protest.

'He was just grinning about it,' he said. 'He didn't seem to take me seriously.'

Mr Glass, an invited guest, was allowed to stay at the reception for 40 minutes after the stunt. When he left, he tried to glue himself to the gates of Downing Street  -  but had his hand detached by a police officer.

'I didn't have much glue left by that point,' he said.

You want stupid?  There is a planeload of it.  Plane stupid. 

Ken Berwitz

Estelle Getty, who (though two years younger than her) played Bea Arthur's mother, Sophia Petrillo, in The Golden Girls, died today in Los Angeles.  She was 84 years old.

Ms. Getty, very sad to say, was afflicted with Alzheimer's Disease and had been for years.

I hope there is a place in heaven where Ms. Getty can again remember the great role she played and the howls of laughter she provided for so many millions of people.

May she rest in peace.

Ken Berwitz

To follow al sharpton's career (if you can call it that) is to follow a neverending succession of frauds and defaults, then promises to pay up followed by protracted periods of not doing so.

You may have read my blogs about the fraud perpetrated by the "National Action Network", which appears to be a semi-functioning concoction created by sharpton to "convince" (you can use your own word) sponsors to shell money out to him -- with virtually none of it going to any charitable endeavor.  Read about it here and here.

Well, sharpton was on TV defending himself against these charges just within the past month, assuring us that it is all baloney, they're out to get him, he will be vindicated, blah blah blah. 

So that, of course, means he is fighting these outrageous allegations tooth and nail, right? 

Ummmmmm, not exactly.

Here is the relevant excerpt from today's Associated Press article:

Sharpton's lawyers say feds have dropped tax probe

By DAVID B. CARUSO – 53 minutes ago

NEW YORK (AP) — Federal prosecutors have disbanded their criminal investigation into the financial dealings of the Rev. Al Sharpton and his Harlem civil rights group, the minister and his lawyers said Tuesday.

Prosecutors concluded that Sharpton's substantial tax problems were better handled as a civil matter by the Internal Revenue Service rather than in criminal court, his lawyers said.

The IRS and New York state and city tax agencies claim that Sharpton owes well more than $1 million in back taxes and penalties. His organization, the National Action Network, also faces a hefty tax bill.

Sharpton said that both he and the civil rights group would pay off their debts, clean up their books and complete a reorganization intended to ensure the group's long-term fiscal stability.

Nice of the AP to give sharpton that headline which, if you don't read the article, seems to say he beat the rap entirely.

What hold does this sorry fraud have on media?  How can he do these things over and over again and not be dismissed as a patheric, dishonest buffoon?

What hold does he have on federal prosecutors, who always seem to find a way not to prosecute him?

And when in the world do media ever talk about the fact that sharpton is a valued, sought-after kingmaker in the Democratic party?

Do you think they'd ignore this fact if he were a Republican?

Ken Berwitz

Speaking of liars, let's talk about keith olbermann and rachel maddow.

If you can find two more smug, self-righteous liars than this, point them out to me. 

Yesterday, on olbermann's show, "Countdown", the two did a Heckle and Jeckle routine against the Bush administration and John McCain -- no surprise there.  But this time it was based on the presumption that Iraqi President Nouri al-Maliki had stated more than once that he wants a timetable for US troops to leave his country.  

That, folks, is an out and out lie. 

If olbermann and maddow had left it at the fact that Maliki said, in general terms, that he would like a timetable for our withdrawal, but he very heavily qualified his statements, maybe they would have been on solid ground.  But this is olbermann and maddow we're talking about.

Let me show you:

-maddow:  "It was just a few weeks ago that Maliki announced he wanted a definite timetable...."

Did he say that?  Well, what about this: 

Iraqi National Security Adviser Mowaffak al-Rubaie was quick to add that the call for a timetable for U.S. withdrawal was "conditioned on the ability of Iraqi forces to provide security," according to the Associated Press. In other words, Mr. Maliki is not endorsing the Barack Obama agenda of immediate U.S. withdrawal starting on January 20.

- olbermann:  "How did (the Bush administration) think they would get away with saying it was bad translation by the magazine when the translater didn't work for the magazine, he worked for Prime Minister Maliki..."?

Is that what happened?  Then what about this, from Reuters?:

Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki did not back the plan of Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama to withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq and his comments to a German magazine on the issue were misunderstood, the government's spokesman said on Sunday.

Ali al-Dabbagh said in a statement that Maliki's remarks to Der Spiegel were translated incorrectly.

Is Ali-al-Dabbagh working for President Maliki or President Bush?

The plain fact is that olbermann and maddow cherry-pick the parts that coincide with their agenda and pretend the rest doesn't exist.  Then they call OTHER people liars.

MSNBC disgraces itself by having these two on.  But it appears the network has decided that shameless dishonesty is ok, so maybe that doesn't matter anymore.

----------------------------------------------------

P.S. - This is a little off topic, but I have to add it in.  At one point in their pro-Obama lovefest, rachel maddow actually commended Barack Obama for "humility" because he said that there is only one President and he is only going to Iraq as a Senator. 

That's HUMILITY?  Acknowledging that he doesn't supersede the President of the United States is HUMILITY?

You have to laugh...........

Ken Berwitz

There are two kinds of lies.  Lies of commission and lies of omission.

A lie of comission is when you say something that is not true.  A lie of omission is when what you say is true, but you omit things so that it will lead to a different conclusion.

The New York Times, not content with demonstrating its consummate bias regarding the op-ed pieces about Iraq written by Barack Obama and John McCain, has now parlayed that bias into a lie about why this was done.

Let me explain.

As you know, the New York Times published Barack Obama's op-ed commentary on Iraq - without, so far as I am aware, any demand for revisions.  It then rejected John McCain's commentary on Iraq and, incredibly, demanded that it be revised to be more like Mr. Obama's - i.e. to frame the war in Iraq more like his opponent frames it.  The key quote from op-ed editor David Shipley is....

'It would be terrific to have an article from Senator McCain that mirrors Senator Obama's piece.

I'll bet it would.  David Shipley is a Democrat.  He has been a Democratic operative.  And he is refusing to extend the same opportunity to the Republican candidate for President as he did the Democratic candidate, because the Republican didn't frame his position the way the Democrat did. 

This story broke on The Drudge Report yesterday.  And a firestorm immediately erupted.  The Times was busted and then some.  Embarrassed.  Humiliated.  So it had to say something.

Well, this morning it said something.  On page A14, safely hidden in the middle of the news section on the bottem of the left-side page, where it would have as little exposure as possible.  Here, in part, is what it said:

David Shipley, editor of the Op-Ed page, requested that Mr. McCain revise the article if he wanted it published, advising in an e-mail message that the campaign "articulate, in concrete terms, how Senator McCain defines victory in Iraq.  It would also have to lay out a clear plan for achieving victory - with troop levels, timetables and measures for compelling the Iraqis to cooperate,", as well as details of  "the senator's Afghanistan strategy".

Interesting. 

Do you see any demand that Senator McCain has to mirror Senator Obama's piece?  I don't either.  That comment, which is the rawest example of the Times' bias, is omitted. 

In fairness I have to admit that, even without it, an astute reader might realize how unbelievably one-sided Shipley's demand is, because it does mention that McCain was told to write his commentary just like Obama's and to feature the criteria that Obama featured.

But the reader would have to be interpretive enough to understand this.  The Times, you see, declined to provide Shipley's specific demand that McCain's piece had to  "mirror" Obama's commentary or it would not be published.  What a convenient omission.

What happened to the New York Times?  How could a paper this great sink this low this fast? 

Some things in this word are retrievable.  But a reputation is not one of them.  A reputation destroyed is a reputation gone forever.

That is the sad legacy of "Pinch" Sulzberger's New York Times.

-------------------------------------------

P.S.   I watched the first 45 minutes or so of this morning's Today Show.  And unless I missed it (I'm pretty certain I didn't) this disgraceful episode was not reported.  Not even in passing.  THis means that every person who looks to the Today show to get his/her news does not even know it happened. 

But listen to them squeal like stuck pigs if you call them biased.

Ken Berwitz

Ken Berwitz

You're not going to believe this one.  But it is true nonetheless.

Suppose you were a candidate for President of the United States and your opponent wrote an op-ed piece about Iraq that was published in a major newspaper.  Suppose you wrote your view on the same issue and submitted it.  And suppose the editor rejected what you had written ......  on the grounds that it did not agree with your opponent!!!!????

That couldn't happen, right?

Wrong.  It could, and just did.  The newspaper is the New York Times, the view was written by Senator John McCain and the editor who rejected it is David Shipley.  Shipley is the Times' op-ed editor, and a former (?) Democratic operative:

Here is the Drudge Report's piece on this astonishing example of naked bias - complete with the entire article Senator McCain submitted.  I know it is long.  But I would not edit out even one letter.

The scandal belongs to the Times.  The bold print is mine:

NYT REJECTS MCCAIN'S EDITORIAL; SHOULD 'MIRROR' OBAMA

Mon Jul 21 2008 12:00:25 ET

An editorial written by Republican presidential hopeful McCain has been rejected by the NEW YORK TIMES -- less than a week after the paper published an essay written by Obama, the DRUDGE REPORT has learned.

The paper's decision to refuse McCain's direct rebuttal to Obama's 'My Plan for Iraq' has ignited explosive charges of media bias in top Republican circles.

'It would be terrific to have an article from Senator McCain that mirrors Senator Obama's piece,' NYT Op-Ed editor David Shipley explained in an email late Friday to McCain's staff. 'I'm not going to be able to accept this piece as currently written.'

In McCain's submission to the TIMES, he writes of Obama: 'I am dismayed that he never talks about winning the war—only of ending it... if we don't win the war, our enemies will. A triumph for the terrorists would be a disaster for us. That is something I will not allow to happen as president.'

NYT's Shipley advised McCain to try again: 'I'd be pleased, though, to look at another draft.'

[Shipley served in the Clinton Administration from 1995 until 1997 as Special Assistant to the President and Senior Presidential Speechwriter.]

A top McCain source claims the paper simply does not agree with the senator's Iraq policy, and wants him to change it, not "re-work the draft."

McCain writes in the rejected essay: 'Progress has been due primarily to an increase in the number of troops and a change in their strategy. I was an early advocate of the surge at a time when it had few supporters in Washington. Senator Barack Obama was an equally vocal opponent. 'I am not persuaded that 20,000 additional troops in Iraq is going to solve the sectarian violence there,' he said on January 10, 2007. 'In fact, I think it will do the reverse.'

Shipley, who is on vacation this week, explained his decision not to run the editorial.

'The Obama piece worked for me because it offered new information (it appeared before his speech); while Senator Obama discussed Senator McCain, he also went into detail about his own plans.'

Shipley continues: 'It would be terrific to have an article from Senator McCain that mirrors Senator Obama's piece. To that end, the article would have to articulate, in concrete terms, how Senator McCain defines victory in Iraq.'

Developing...



The DRUDGE REPORT presents the McCain editorial in its submitted form:

In January 2007, when General David Petraeus took command in Iraq, he called the situation “hard” but not “hopeless.” Today, 18 months later, violence has fallen by up to 80% to the lowest levels in four years, and Sunni and Shiite terrorists are reeling from a string of defeats. The situation now is full of hope, but considerable hard work remains to consolidate our fragile gains.

Progress has been due primarily to an increase in the number of troops and a change in their strategy. I was an early advocate of the surge at a time when it had few supporters in Washington. Senator Barack Obama was an equally vocal opponent. "I am not persuaded that 20,000 additional troops in Iraq is going to solve the sectarian violence there,” he said on January 10, 2007. “In fact, I think it will do the reverse."

Now Senator Obama has been forced to acknowledge that “our troops have performed brilliantly in lowering the level of violence.” But he still denies that any political progress has resulted.

Perhaps he is unaware that the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad has recently certified that, as one news article put it, “Iraq has met all but three of 18 original benchmarks set by Congress last year to measure security, political and economic progress.” Even more heartening has been progress that’s not measured by the benchmarks. More than 90,000 Iraqis, many of them Sunnis who once fought against the government, have signed up as Sons of Iraq to fight against the terrorists. Nor do they measure Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki’s new-found willingness to crack down on Shiite extremists in Basra and Sadr City—actions that have done much to dispel suspicions of sectarianism.

The success of the surge has not changed Senator Obama’s determination to pull out all of our combat troops. All that has changed is his rationale. In a New York Times op-ed and a speech this week, he offered his “plan for Iraq” in advance of his first “fact finding” trip to that country in more than three years. It consisted of the same old proposal to pull all of our troops out within 16 months. In 2007 he wanted to withdraw because he thought the war was lost. If we had taken his advice, it would have been. Now he wants to withdraw because he thinks Iraqis no longer need our assistance.

To make this point, he mangles the evidence. He makes it sound as if Prime Minister Maliki has endorsed the Obama timetable, when all he has said is that he would like a plan for the eventual withdrawal of U.S. troops at some unspecified point in the future.

Senator Obama is also misleading on the Iraqi military's readiness. The Iraqi Army will be equipped and trained by the middle of next year, but this does not, as Senator Obama suggests, mean that they will then be ready to secure their country without a good deal of help. The Iraqi Air Force, for one, still lags behind, and no modern army can operate without air cover. The Iraqis are also still learning how to conduct planning, logistics, command and control, communications, and other complicated functions needed to support frontline troops.

No one favors a permanent U.S. presence, as Senator Obama charges. A partial withdrawal has already occurred with the departure of five “surge” brigades, and more withdrawals can take place as the security situation improves. As we draw down in Iraq, we can beef up our presence on other battlefields, such as Afghanistan, without fear of leaving a failed state behind. I have said that I expect to welcome home most of our troops from Iraq by the end of my first term in office, in 2013.

But I have also said that any draw-downs must be based on a realistic assessment of conditions on the ground, not on an artificial timetable crafted for domestic political reasons. This is the crux of my disagreement with Senator Obama.

Senator Obama has said that he would consult our commanders on the ground and Iraqi leaders, but he did no such thing before releasing his “plan for Iraq.” Perhaps that’s because he doesn’t want to hear what they have to say. During the course of eight visits to Iraq, I have heard many times from our troops what Major General Jeffrey Hammond, commander of coalition forces in Baghdad, recently said: that leaving based on a timetable would be “very dangerous.”

The danger is that extremists supported by Al Qaeda and Iran could stage a comeback, as they have in the past when we’ve had too few troops in Iraq. Senator Obama seems to have learned nothing from recent history. I find it ironic that he is emulating the worst mistake of the Bush administration by waving the “Mission Accomplished” banner prematurely.

I am also dismayed that he never talks about winning the war—only of ending it. But if we don’t win the war, our enemies will. A triumph for the terrorists would be a disaster for us. That is something I will not allow to happen as president. Instead I will continue implementing a proven counterinsurgency strategy not only in Iraq but also in Afghanistan with the goal of creating stable, secure, self-sustaining democratic allies.

.

Unbelievable does not begin to describe this.

In other words, McCain has to write it the way Obama and Shipley - Democrats both - would write it.   For McCain's piece to be published it has to conform to the parameters set by his opponent.

This sets a new standard for bias, and a new low for the New York Times. 

The FDA requires that there has to be a minimum amount of maple syrup in a product for it to be called maple syrup.

Maybe the FCC should institute a policy that there has to be a minimum amount of evenhandedness in a newspaper for it to be called a newspaper. 

If it ever does that, the Times will be scratching to find a new description.

Ken Berwitz

Barack Obama and his people have spent the last week or so crowing about how right they were that troop strength in Iraq should be reduced, and assuring us that President Bush's current position (i.e. we may be able to accelerate troop reduction) is a case of him listening to the great and powerful Obama.

This was dramatically buttressed by the Der Speigel article which quoted Iraq's President Nouri al-Maliki as saying he agreed with Obama's position.

The problem?  none of the above "facts" are true.

Here is an excerpt from a very well written article by Mark Impomeni of www.redstate.com, laying it all out for us.  The bold print is mine:

We now know that Maliki did not endorse Obama's withdrawal timeline. The headline writer at Der Spiegel did. What Maliki did was call for U.S. troops to be withdrawn from Iraq as early as possible. That's no surprise announcement from an elected head of state with political considerations, and it is certainly no surprise from Maliki, who has been calling for an end to the occupation almost since he was sworn in.

Obama opposed the surge. He said that he was "not persuaded" that an additional 20,000 U.S. troops would have any impact on the level of violence. He campaigned on his opposition to the surge in the primaries. And he said that the surge was not succeeding . Indeed, Obama's entire campaign is based on his supposed superior judgment, which is based his opposition to the Iraq war from the beginning; although he was not in a position to have to take a meaningful vote on the war at the time. For Obama to now claim vindication for his arbitrary timetable based on the remarks of a man who would not be able to make such demands were it not for the success of the very strategy that Obama opposed, is a bit much. Obama did not all of a sudden become the man with the plan in Iraq because the elected leader there sought to curry favor with his constituents and a potential future American president by paying a lip service compliment to the latter's public position.

It was McCain who advocated for the surge long before it was announced, angering many on the right with his routine and unnecessary attacks on former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, who McCain sees as responsible for all things that have gone wrong in Iraq. It is McCain who has campaigned on his belief that withdrawals must be conditions-based, not arbitrarily ordered based on politics. And it has been McCain who has often remarked that he would rather lose the election than lose the war . McCain stands to benefit from any positive news from Iraq. Maliki's call for a timetable for withdrawal, had it happened, would have been the end result of the strategy McCain authored, championed, and stood by.Besides, it didn't happen. Maliki's spokesman says that the prime minister's remarks were, "misunderstood, mistranslated and not conveyed accurately."

It will be a clear measure of just how over-the-top biased media are if they ignore this.  I'm betting that, for the most part, they do.

My first inkling was when my wife put on NBC to watch the Today Show this morning and they did news briefs.  One of them was that al-Maliki had endorsed the Obama's plan but then, after being pressured by the White House, revised his position.

NBC offered exactly no proof of or even circumstantial evidence of the White House doing any such thing.  No need to, sheeple, you're just supposed to believe what we tell you.

I have one question about this:  If, knowing what the White House reaction would be, Nouri al-Maliki felt strong enough to actually endorse Mr. Obama's position, how could they have pressured him to change it?  By doing what? 

See my point?

Ken Berwitz

Remember that great Burger King advertising campaign from years ago, when they sang "Have it your way, have it your way"?

Well it is now 2008 and Barack Obama is doing everything but singing that jingle as his position on Iraq jumps in several different directions simultaneously -- while he tells you, with a straight face - that it hasnt changed at all.

Ironically, he's probably right, too.  Since Mr. Obama has had so many differient positions on Iraq, it would be hard for him to say something now that he hasn't said in the past.

In April of this year, Peter Wehner, writing for Commentary Magazine, wrote an excellent article detailing Obama's statements in support (that's right, support) of what we were doing in Iraq.   I blogged about it then, but I think I think it needs a second airing.

I feel this way because, media in this country being what they are, most of the major venues ignored the facts and quotes unearthed by Wehner.  They conflicted with their coronation of Saint Barack as the new President.  But that doesn't change the facts that Wehner presented.

I strongly urge you to click the link above and read the entire article.  But, before you do, here are a few of its highlights:

Throughout his dramatic campaign to win his party’s nomination for the presidency, Senator Barack Obama has tended to ignore the specifics of policy in favor of the generalities of emotion, centering his appeal to voters on vague promises of “change” and “unity.” But on one issue, above all others, Obama has remained fixated from the campaign’s first moment, and that is the war in Iraq. By Obama’s own account, the consistency of his stand on this war demonstrates more than anything else that he, a one-term United States Senator who arrived in Washington in 2005 with no foreign-policy experience, after an uneventful eight-year stint in the Illinois state senate, possesses the wisdom, the clear-sightedness, and the judgment to assume the responsibilities of the nation’s commander-in-chief.

Obama calls Iraq “the most important foreign-policy decision in a generation.” By the word “decision,” presumably, he means to refer at once to President Bush’s decision to invade Iraq, Congress’s decision to authorize that policy, and his own early decision to oppose any such action.

Indeed, Obama was not yet in the Senate, and the Senate had not yet voted to authorize the war, when, in a speech delivered in Chicago on October 2, 2002, he announced his view of the matter. Granting forthrightly that the Iraqi despot Saddam Hussein had “repeatedly defied UN resolutions, thwarted UN inspection teams, developed chemical and biological weapons, and coveted nuclear capacity,” and that he “butchers his own people,” Obama nevertheless held that, despite all these well-proven crimes, Saddam posed no “imminent and direct threat to the United States or to his neighbors.” What is more, he added, “I know that even a successful war against Iraq will require a U.S. occupation of undetermined length, at undetermined cost, with undetermined consequences.”

Alone among this year’s major Democratic candidates, then, Obama can claim an unspotted record of opposition to American involvement in Iraq and even a kind of prescience as to the subsequent course of events there. In any account of his electoral success so far, this factor must weigh as heavily as his natural eloquence and his ingratiating personality.

But Obama’s thoughts on the war in Iraq did not begin and end with that one speech in October 2002. In fact, an examination of both his statements and his Senate votes over the intervening years demonstrates something very different from the consistency that he and his supporters have claimed for him. It demonstrates instead a record of problematically ad-hoc judgments at best, calculatingly cynical judgments at worst. Even if, for the sake of argument, one were to stipulate that Barack Obama was right in 2002, what does this subsequent record say about his fitness to serve?

_____________

Almost as soon as the war began in March 2003, Obama had second thoughts about his opposition to it. Watching the dramatic footage of the toppling of Saddam’s statue in Baghdad, and then the President’s speech aboard the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln, “I began to suspect,” he would write later in his autobiographical The Audacity of Hope (2006), “that I might have been wrong.” And these second thoughts seem to have stayed with him throughout the entire first phase of the occupation following our initial combat victory. As he told the Chicago Tribune in July 2004, “There’s not that much difference between my position and George Bush’s position at this stage.”

This is hardly to say that he had suddenly metamorphosed into a hawk, let alone a supporter of the President’s broader freedom agenda. Indeed, one would search long and hard for any words from this apostle of hope and change about the palpable benefits that democracy might bring to the Arabs and Muslims of the Middle East. Rather, he seems to have sensed a political weakness in his blanket opposition to a venture still enjoying broad support in the country, and one in which tens of thousands of American soldiers were risking their lives.

And so, in September 2004, in the heat of his campaign for the U.S. Senate, Obama said (according to an AP report) that even though Bush had “bungled his handling of the war,” simply pulling out of Iraq “would make things worse.” Therefore, he himself

would be willing to send more soldiers to Iraq if it is part of a strategy that the President and military leaders believe will stabilize the country and eventually allow America to withdraw.

“If that strategy made sense and would lead ultimately to the pullout of U.S. troops but in the short term required additional troop strength to protect those who are already on the ground, then that’s something I would support,” said Obama.

In November, having won election to the U.S. Senate, Obama once again confirmed his determination to stay the course in Iraq in an interview with PBS’s Charlie Rose. “Once we go in, then we’re committed,” he said, adding:

[O]nce the decision was made, then we’ve got to do everything we can to stabilize the country, to make it successful, because we’ll have too much at stake in the Middle East. And that’s the position that I continue to take.

I've said it many times here, and I'll say it again now.  Barack Obama is a machine politician, straight from the Chicago Democratic political machine.  I don't care how eloquently he speaks, he talks out of every side of his mouth.  He is whatever he needs to be to get votes.

If you vote for Obama based on what you think he might be, knowing that it is a pure guess and you could well be wrong, I suppose that makes at least some sense.  Not much, but some. 

But if you vote for Obama based on what he says he is, that makes no sense at all.

Ken Berwitz

I sometimes wonder if, during one or another of Nancy Pelosi's cosmetic face surgeries, they took out a few chips.  If so, one of them apparently was her honesty chip (how did they ever find one that small?)

Here, via www.politico.com, is Pelosi's immediate, jubilant use of the Der Speigel interview I blogged about earlier today - the one that the Maliki government says was mistranslated and denies.  I've put the key part in bold print:

Pelosi calls for high-level meeting with Iraqis

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama now has a major ally in his push for a timetable for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq. Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki tells a German outlet that he'd like to see troops leave "as soon as possible, as far as we are concerned." He then added: "U.S. presidential candidate Barack Obama is right when he talks about 16 months."

Amanda Terkel with Think Progress is down in Austin live-blogging former Vice President Al Gore's address to the lefty blogosphere. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) introduced Gore and also took questions, one of which was about Maliki's declaration.

"So with the prime minister saying it’s time for you to go," she told the crowd, "I think it’s time for our country to sit down with the Iraqis and work that plan out. [We need to be] respectful of what the prime minister says, and respectful of the will of the American people, who have been against this war for a long time...[We should] have a high-level meeting with the Iraqis to work out the terms of our deployment out of Iraq...So, the end could be in sight."

Yeah, Nancy.  Thanks.  In all the excitement of thinking you've finally found a way to work us into a defeat in Iraq, you managed to ignore the fact that maliki has put out a subsequent statement indicating that is not at all what he said.

I showed the Reuters story with maliki's denial earlier.  But just you know it wasn't some fluke from one press agency, here is the Agence France Presse version.  Again, the bold print is mine:

Iraq denies PM backed Obama troop cut plan

BAGHDAD (AFP) — Iraq on Sunday denied Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki had made remarks backing US Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama’s plan to withdraw troops from the country and demanding a quick pullout.

The German weekly Der Spiegel reported that Maliki in an interview had supported Obama’s plan to withdraw most US troops from Iraq within 16 months if he took office next January.

This “would be the right timescale for withdrawal, allowing for minor adjustments,” Maliki reportedly told the news magazine in the interview to be published on Monday.

Der Spiegel also said that Maliki demanded that American forces leave Iraq “as soon as possible.”

“To date, the United States is struggling to agree on a concrete date for withdrawal because they view such a step as an admission of defeat, which is not the case,” Maliki was reported as saying.

But on Sunday Baghdad government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh denied Maliki had made the remarks, saying they had been “misunderstood and mistranslated and not conveyed accurately.”

Dabbagh said that any statement by Maliki or member of Iraq’s government “should not be understood as support for any US presidential candidate.” …

And who did Pelosi get her information from?  Those fiercely neutral keepers of the flame at www.thinkprogress.com?  Click on the link and see if you would accept anything this bunch says at face value.

So here we have the Speaker of the House, second in line to succeed to the presidency (after the VP), either accepting a lunatic-left blog's spew as being factual, or just lying on her own.

What a pathetic loser Pelosi is. 

Now let's see if the mainstream media make her pay for it in tomorrow's editions.  Or if Couric, Williams and Gibson can take time off from their regularly scheduled drooling over Barack Obama to talk about it.

Lamentably, I think I already know the answer to both questions.

Ken Berwitz

Jeff Jacoby has written a great column for today's Boston Globe.  

Since it is talking about corruption in the one-party state of Massachusetts, and that one party is the Democratic Party, you won't see much about it anywhere else.  So read Mr. Jacoby's fact-fillled column below and either feel pity for or be infuriated by the biased media which allow it to continue virtually unreported:

 ARE WE ANGRY ENOUGH TO FIGHT BACK?

By Jeff Jacoby

TheBoston Globe

Sunday, July 20, 2008

"Friends, red-necks, suckers, and fellow hicks," he would say, leaning forward, leaning at them, looking at them. . . . "That's what you are. And me -- I'm one, too . . . Oh, I'm a sucker, for I fell for that sweet-talking fellow in the fine automobile . . . But I'm standing here on my own hind legs, for even a dog can learn to do that, give him time. I learned. It took me a time but I learned, and here I am on my own hind legs." And he would lean at them. And demand, "Are you, are you on your hind legs? Have you learned that much yet? You think you can learn that much?"

            - From "All The King's Men" by Robert Penn Warren

     Jaws clenched, blood pressures spiked, and radio talk-show hosts spontaneously combusted when the Boston Globe reported last week that the $15 billion Big Dig -- formerly known as the $12.2 billion Big Dig, and more formerly as the $7.7 billion Big Dig, and even, once upon a time, as the $2.5 billion Big Dig -- will in fact cost a staggering $22 billion and not be paid off until 2038.

The four-lane Ted Williams Tunnel, which runs under Boston Harbor to Logan

Airport, was the first major element of the Big Dig to be completed. Originally budgeted

at $2.5 billion, the Big Dig is now expected to cost at least $22 billion.

     The Page 1 story was filled with infuriating details, such as the revelation that 80 percent of Massachusetts Highway Department employees are being paid with borrowed money. Bay State politicians originally sold voters on the Big Dig in part by assuring them that Washington would pick up 90 percent of the cost. In reality, nearly three-fourths of the tab is coming from the pockets of Massachusetts drivers and taxpayers. What we were told in the 1980s would set us back about $350 million will actually cost us more than 50 times as much.

     Well, as Willie Stark would say, are you on your hind legs yet? Are you good and angry?

     Last week also brought the story of Albert Arroyo, a Boston firefighter who applied for disability retirement in March on the grounds that he was left "totally and permanently disabled" after tripping on a staircase in March. He went on injured leave and continued to collect his full salary, tax free. But Arroyo's "total and permanent disability," it appears, wasn't very disabling. In May he entered a men's bodybuilding competition, and finished eighth. When the fire commissioner learned of Arroyo's bodybuilding prowess, he shifted him from injured leave to regular sick leave. He continued to receive a paycheck without working, but it was now taxable. (Not until Friday was Arroyo finally ordered to return to work.)

     Does it infuriate you to learn that this was not the first time Arroyo went on leave for an "injury," but the sixth? Or to learn that more than 100 Boston firefighters have recently won lucrative disability pensions under circumstances so suspicious that the FBI has opened an investigation?

     Then there are all the other public employees milking the Massachusetts pension system. Dozens collect payouts of more than $100,000 a year -- former state Senate president William Bulger, for example, rakes in more than $197,000, a fitting cap to a long career spent gorging at the public trough. Scores of "double-dippers" retire early on full pensions, then get themselves hired back on the public payroll at full salaries. When ex-Big Dig director Michael Lewis retired last year, his pension was tripled and became immediately payable under a nutty state law that rewards government employees whose positions are eliminated. For the rest of his life, Lewis will receive more than $72,500 annually, despite the fact that he is only 46, and is making $130,000 a year as Rhode Island 's secretary of transportation.

     Column after column could be filled with the ways the Massachusetts political class and its hangers-on play taxpayers for suckers -- the gold-plated tax breaks for moviemakers, the insanely lucrative sick-time buybacks, the indefensible police details, the public-sector-only paid holidays, the "temporary" tax hikes that last forever, the state budgets that keep growing even as family budgets shrink.

     It will never end -- not until the suckers get riled up enough to fight back. Not until they start throwing incumbents out of office, instead of blindly re-electing them. Not until they stop letting themselves be treated as ATMs for politicians and doormats for public-employee unions. Not until they force their public "servants" to defer to them, instead of the other way around.

     "Are you on your hind legs?" Willie Stark would say. "Have you learned that much yet?" Well, have you?

Sadly, I am certain the voters of Massachusetts have not learned a thing yet.  And won't for a long time.  Too bad for them.  On the other hand, I'm not sheeding any tears;  they are getting exactly what they deserve.

But does this teach the rest of us about the danger of electing one party governance -- especially the Democratic Party, which is what Massachusetts is suffering with? 

I guess we'll find out in November, won't we?

Ken Berwitz

I'll let Steve Gilbert at www.sweetness-light.com take this one -- although with the word "light" anywhere in sight I have to wonder if he's the right guy for the job:

NPR: For Some Ohioans, Meat Out Of Reach

July 19th, 2008

Ken Berwitz

I swear to you, I did not read what you are about to see before I put up the previous blog.  I read it about one minute afterwards.  I don't play games like that.

Here, courtesy of Reuters, is nouri al-maliki backing off what he apparently said about supporting Barack Obama's withdrawal position:

 Iraq PM did not back Obama troop exit plan: government

Sunday, July 20, 2008

Ali al-Dabbagh said in a statement that Maliki's remarks to Der Spiegel were translated incorrectly.

The German magazine said on Saturday that Maliki supported Obama's proposal that U.S. troops should leave Iraq within 16 months. The interview was released on Saturday.

"U.S. presidential candidate Barack Obama talks about 16 months. That, we think, would be the right time frame for a withdrawal, with the possibility of slight changes," Der Spiegel quoted Maliki as saying.

Dabbagh said statements by Maliki or any other member of the government should not be seen as support for any U.S. presidential candidate.

Obama is visiting Afghanistan and is set to go to Iraq as part of a tour of Europe and the Middle East.

Maliki's remarks were published a day after the White House said he and President George W. Bush had agreed that a security agreement currently being negotiated between them should include a "time horizon" for withdrawal of U.S. troops.

Bush has long opposed setting a timetable for withdrawal, and the White House said the time horizon agreed by the two leaders was not as specific as a time frame pushed by Democrats and could be adjusted based on conditions on the ground.

Well well well. 

If you believe this version, maliki didn't say anything of the kind.  He's just misunderstood.

What we seem to have here is a classic have-your-cake-and-eat-it routine.  First maliki builds up his population's collective ego with comments that suggest they don't need any help sustaining the fragile democracy that the USA provided them with.  Then he assures us he is being misunderstood. 

Do you doubt that he will use the first headline in Iraq and the second one in Washington DC?

What a clumsy liar nouri al-maliki is.

Ken Berwitz

nouri al-maliki is the Prime Minister of Iraq for one reason and one reason only:  The United States gave Iraq the opportunity to vote in a free election.  Period.

And now, after a year of the surge of OUR troops with OUR soldiers spending OUR money why is he talking as though we are his problem? 

Can maliki possibly think the Iraqi army now, or for certain in the next 16 months, will be able to sustain this freedom by itself - a freedom most of the rest of the Arab world despises and al-qaeda was willing to send fighters from so many other countries to destroy?

Here is the interview with maliki just published in the German magazine, Der Spiegel.  In writing this blog I am taking it at face value (subject to revision if I find out afterwards that it was framed differently than he said it).   The bold print is mine:

Iraq Leader Maliki Supports Obama's Withdrawal Plans

In an interview with SPIEGEL, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said Barack Obama's 16 timeframe for a withdrawal from Iraq is the right one.

At least he acknowledged that a prescribed withdrawal would be because we won the war - at least so far - and not because we lost it.  The problem, however, is that if we leave this way our win might very well turn into a loss because of  how we leave.

I would like to think that this is all political -- that maliki is saying this publicly to boost up his people's self esteem and make them feel that they, rather than the USA, are responsible for the level of freedom which now exists in Iraq. 

But I have a lot of trouble convincing myself of this, knowing that maliki's comments could facilitate the election of Barack Obama.  Because if that happens, his false nationalistic bravado might result in a "who cares what happens to 'em, we're outta here" policy that will make him and his country rue the day this interview was given.

Be careful what you wish for.  You might just get it.  There's a saying nouri al-maliki should think about.

Ken Berwitz

Not one word necessary from me on this one.  Mr. James H. Warner, writing for The Herald-Mail, says it all:

July 19, 2008

McCain's bravery, as seen by one man imprisoned with him

Ken Berwitz

I just got this from my friend "Russ".  If you don't enjoy it - and learn from it - I give up. 

Be sure to read through to the last paragraph!!

Railroad tracks .

The US standard railroad gauge (distance between the rails)
is 4 feet, 8.5 inches. That's an exceedingly odd number.

Why was that gauge used? Because that's the way they built
them in England, and English expatriates built the US railroads.

Why did the English build them like that? Because the first rail lines
were built by the same people who built the pre-railroad tramways,
and that's the gauge they used.

Why did 'they' use that gauge then? Because the people who built the
tramways used the same jigs and tools that they used for building wagons,
which used that wheel spacing.

Why did the wagons have that particular odd wheel spacing? Well, if
they tried to use any other spacing, the wagon wheels would break on
some of the old, long distance roads in England , because that's the
spacing of the wheel ruts.

So who built those old rutted roads? Imperial Rome built the first long
distance roads in Europe (and England ) for their legions The roads
have been used ever since.

And the ruts in the roads? Roman war chariots formed the initial ruts,
which everyone else had to match for fear of destroying their wagon
wheels. Since the chariots were made for Imperial Rome, they were all
alike in the matter of wheel spacing. Therefore the United States standard
railroad gauge of 4 feet, 8.5 inches is derived from the original specifications
for an Imperial Roman war chariot. Bureaucracies live forever.

So the next time you are handed a Specification/Procedure/Process and
wonder 'What horse's ass came up with it?' you may be exactly right.
Imperial Roman army chariots were made just wide enough to accommodate
the rear ends of two war horses. (Two horses' asses.) Now, the twist to the story:

When you see a Space Shuttle sitting on its launch pad, there are two
big booster rockets attached to the sides of the main fuel tank. These
are solid rocket boosters, or SRB's. The SRB's are made by Thiokol
at their factory in Utah . The engineers who designed the SRB's would
have preferred to make them a bit fatter, but the SRB's had to be shipped
by train from the factory to the launch site. The railroad line from the factory
happens to run through a tunnel in the mountains, and the SRB's had to fit
through that tunnel. The tunnel is slightly wider than the railroad track, and
the railroad track, as you now know, is about as wide as two horses' behinds.

So, a major Space Shuttle design feature of what is arguably the world's
most advanced transportation system was determined over two thousand
years ago by t he width of a horse's ass. And you thought being a horse's
ass wasn't important? Ancient horse's asses control almost everything..
and CURRENT Horses Asses are controlling everything else. 

Ken Berwitz

Ehud Olmert is the Prime Minister of Israel. 

He is a lousy Prime Minister who seems intent on making a named for himself by appeasing the palestinian Arabs who are committed to vaporizing his country.

And, as it turns out, it has become apparent that he is also a crook

The accusations have been out there for months.  But I held off writing about them until there was little doubt that they were true.  Now there is little doubt.

Here is a brief but excellent account of the sorry situation from Paul Mirengoff of www.powerline.blog:

Israel continues to face many serious threats and potential threats: a nuclear Iran, an emboldened Hezbollah, and the dislike or hatred of various European states and some on the American left. But one senses that a greater threat is posed by what looks like rampant corruption within Israel itself.

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert symbolizes the problem. Golda Meir resigned after the Yom Kippur war, which Israel won. Olmert did not resign after the botched war in Lebanon. This contrast alone suggests decline.

But now Olmert faces credible charges of corruption. An American businessman, Morris Talansky, says he gave Olmert more than $150,000 over a 15 year period, much of it cash stuffed into envelopes. Talansky says that, though the money was intended to help fund Olmert's political campaigns, in fact it helped support Olmert's lavish lifestyle -- a fancy Italian vacation, fine cigars, and a stay at the Ritz-Carlton in Washington, D.C.

Olmert is also being investigated over evidence that he may have bilked various charities of more than $100,000 by billing multiple organizations for the same flights and hotel stays. These organizations are said to include the Holocaust memorial authority, a group that supports Israeli soldiers, and a group that helps mentally retarded children.

Olmert claims that it's all a set-up by corrupt state law enforcement authorities. If true, that would exonerate Olmert, but it would hardly reduce the sense that corruption is rampant in Israel. Nor does that sense rest on the Olmert affair, whatever the truth of it. One reads frequently of venality in high places in Israel.

Israelis live under great pressure, and it is not surprising that they have become quite materialistic. Americans are at least as bad, with less excuse. And while an Israel as materialistic as today's might not have prevailed in 1948, there's no reason to assume that it cannot survive today, given the technological and related advantages it possesses. But a corrupt Israel -- one in which its soldiers are asked to sacrifice so much while its leaders line their pockets -- is another matter.

It is long past the time for this human disaster to hand the reins of government over to someone who might have a clue as to how to lead Israel and protect the country from its enemies.  Let him face the charges described above and either disprove them or go to jail.

Olmert must resign.   Now.

Ken Berwitz

Under the stewardship (make that sewership) of Arthur Ochs "Pinch" Sulzberger, the New York Times has fallen from its lofty perch as "the newspaper of record" into what basically is the New York Post with bigger words and a different fold.

Here is a perfect example.

The lead story in this morning's Times is about Iraq.  Taking time out from its daily hit piece on anything and everything that happens there, today's Times tells us that President Bush changed his policy regarding a timetable for troop withdrawal.  The clear implication is that Mr. Bush has finally at long last realized the error of his ways and is now listening to that giant of military expertise, General Barack Obama.

Here is the beginning of the article:

Bush, in Shift, Accepts Idea of Iraq Timeline

Notice that fourth paragraph, the one I put in bold print?  It is the paragraph which puts the lie to the entipre premise of this article. 

Let me say it plainly:

President Bush has continually said that he would reduce troop levels in Iraq if conditions on the ground permit, but he would not create a pre-set timetable for withdrawal which does not take into account what is happening there.  This agreement, therefore, is exactly in accordance with what he has been saying all along.

There, is that clear enough?

So what we have, again (and again and again) is the New York Times lying to its readers by pumping out a headline which bears no semblance of reality....then burying the reality somewhere in the body of the article so the paper can say it was there.

It is amazing how low the Times has sunk.  What a shame.  But there it is, at the bottom of its self-created cesspool.

Maybe Sulzberger should offer keith olbermann the job of news editor.  Hey, why not go all the way, especially when the paper is so close to it already?

Ken Berwitz

This comes to us from www.olbermannwatch.com.  It is a reminder that keith olbermann is a liar.  And that all his bluster and rehearsed fury is cover for the fact that he is a liar. 

Olbermann is what he is.  Yo