Some F35 Info.

An interesting, but short, analysis on the F35's potential capability, centered on Air-to-air.

Obama Youth.

At the link you'll find a creepy video.

It's like the Obama camp WANTS us to think of totalitarian thugs and propaganda.


It's also more evidence of "astroturfing". Professional efforts disguised to appear grassroots


Jonah Goldberg uses the video as a simple test: "All I need to know about your politics is whether you find this creepy or not."

Also from Rand, a long piece detailing Obama's past and strategies of fermenting crisis and taking advantage of it.

The more we learn the weirder this guy's fans get.

Doom?

Not quite yet.

Remember to compare the precent drop not the raw numbers. Hint, the markets have been getting bigger ofer the years.

7% Fall where "On October 19, 1987, it fell by more than 22 percent."

Damn tricky math!

It's almost as if the media was out to sell more adds via doom-peddling.

Nah...

There's also getting Saint Obama into office.

Tricky Math!

Hmmm Peolosi hasn't done so well for herself.

Pelosi has 235 members. She needed 218. She could spare 17 members and still pass the bill.

The GOP spotted her 65 members, for a bill that made most Republicans' skin crawl in both broad outline and in terms of detail.
That meant Pelosi could afford to lose 82 Democrats.

She lost 95.

Roger L Simon: Is Obama clueless or just a sleazy liar?

Obama makes a claim that Henry Kissinger supported one of his ideas. Moments later Kissinger releases a statement saying:

Senator McCain is right. I would not recommend the next President of the United States engage in talks with Iran at the Presidential level. My views on this issue are entirely compatible with the views of my friend Senator John McCain. We do not agree on everything, but we do agree that any negotiations with Iran must be geared to reality.

Roger L Simon ponders:

My guess is the MSM will do its best to ignore this, because it certainly makes Obama look like a foreign policy amateur. My question is why he thought Kissinger would let such a statement pass? Is Obama clueless or just a sleazy liar? Either way it’s pretty disturbing.

Classy.

Obama a follower and a Slimeball.

Winning combination

How does Obama react to critism?

Once again... by sending in thugs.

Obama... coins?

Before he even gets to the election, Obama's getting coins with his likeness made, hailing him as the president

From Ed Morrissey

Julius Caesar was the first Roman to put his image on coins, which started his downfall. Barack Obama may be the first person in history to start striking coins in his image before taking power. Maybe he just wants to look like all those other presidents on the dollar bills, but this is starting to get … creepy.

Well... the Obama cult grows.

A Clumsy VP?

Looks like Biden is having problems agreeing with the Obama camp.

If Palin had said this....

And here's how the rumors get started and tools a person can use to help determine how valid a story is.

More... strange weighting of party views in polls.

And I'm usually willing to cut a pollster some slack on the partisan breakdown of their sample. But for this [Pennsylvania] poll, the sample was 53 percent Democrat and 39 percent Republican.

Of course Biden has some issues with Pennsylvania and coal.

Victor Hanson has more:

I think in the space of about the last 24 hours, Joe Biden claimed that the AIG bailout was bad, but then said it wasn't bad;

that we did not need to burn coal;

that his apology about the dirty McCain ad was, as they say, inoperative;

that FDR once went on television to address the nation after the stock market crash of '29 (that's a twofer that trumps Obama's Americans liberating Auschwitz);

and all but said that McCain took a $50,000 bribe.

Obama's Executive Experience

Obama does have executive experience. But oddly enough it's something he doesn't talk about and the "Mainstream" media does its best to ignore.
For four years he lead the Chicago Annenberg Challenge.

Go to the link to read, Stanley Kurtz's awaited findings on that subject

Changes in the Nature of Air Power

From Strategypage of course.
Two factors give the main changes: "It all on UAVs and smart bombs."

Once again the US Army has fixed wing combat aircraft. This is thanks to the UAV. "The U.S. Army Air Force, which dissolved into the U.S. Air Force in 1947, is back."

A story you won't find in the Mainstream Media

The Jawa Report has details of some fake grassroots. Namely:

* Evidence suggests that a YouTube video with false claims about Palin was uploaded and promoted by members of a professional PR firm.

* The family that runs the PR firm has extensive ties to the Democratic Party, the netroots, and are staunch Obama supporters.

* Evidence suggests that the firm engaged in a concerted effort to distribute the video in such a way that it would appear to have gone viral on its own. Yet this effort took place on company time.

* Evidence suggests that these distribution efforts included actions by at least one employee of the firm who is unconnected with the family running the company.

* The voice-over artist used in this supposedly amateur video is a professional.

* This same voice-over artist has worked extensively with David Axelrod's firm, which has a history of engaging in phony grassroots efforts, otherwise known as "astroturfing."

* David Axelrod is Barack Obama's chief media strategist.

* The same voice-over artist has worked directly for the Barack Obama campaign.

Go to the link. Read.

It looks like the Obama camp could be even creepier than previously thought.

More on Military stuff.

The "Insurgents" in Iraq are having trouble. Money is getting harder to get, arms are getting more expensive, and trained people are either being killed, captured, or leaving.
Which has caused the IED to morph into the "homemade grenade".
StrategyPage has more.


Recently I was talking with a friend about how Russia lost so many aircraft to the relatively weak Georgian air defenses and that the Russians had very poor performance in their bombing accuracy. Well, Strategypage has an article on that exact subject. Russia's problem in Georgia.

A quick test.

When talkign about the issues Obama is having in what shoudl be a banner year for Dems, Christopher Hitchens has a simple question:

Here's a swift test. Be honest. What sentence can you quote from his convention speech in Denver? I thought so. All right, what about his big rally speech in Berlin? Just as I guessed. OK, help me out: Surely you can manage to cite a line or two from his imperishable address on race (compared by some liberal academics to Gettysburg itself) in Philadelphia? No, not the line about his white grandmother. Some other line. Oh, dear. Now do you see what I mean?

Read the rest of his article for more.

Obama the Luddite.

James Taranto finds another example of Obama's Neo-Luddite views.

It's hard to imagine a more backward-looking position than mourning the decline of the picture-tube industry. What'll Obama do next, promise to restore American supremacy in the manufacture of buggy whips, iron lungs and floppy disks?

We've seen this rejection of technological development before.

I guess the "change" Obama wants isn't towards the future.

Green for Thee but not for Me

MTV shows that they're willing to tote the green line to sell ads but when it comes to producing a show they'll happily bulldoze a rainforest and disturb protected animals. You know because producing an ironically "green themed" reality show is more important than acutally being even remotely environmentally low-impact.

Additional irony in the use of scripts for what is presented as "reality television".

The pictures are quite ammusing, as is seeing that there are some fools that still think MTV cares or is hip or whatever the current activist fad is.

Contrast Iraq of 2006 & Iraq of 2008

Pulitzer winner Dexter Filkins of the NYT writes on how Iraq has changed since he was last there in 2006.

But if this is not peace, it is not war, either — at least not the war I knew. When I left Iraq in the summer of 2006, after living three and a half years here following the collapse of Saddam Hussein’s regime, I believed that evil had triumphed, and that it would be many years before it might be stopped. Iraq, filled with so many people living so close together, nurturing dark and unknowable grievances, seemed destined for a ghastly unraveling.

And now, in the late summer of 2008, comes the calm. Violence has dropped by as much as 90 percent. A handful of the five million Iraqis who fled their homes — one-sixth of all Iraqis — are beginning to return. The mornings, once punctuated by the sounds of exploding bombs, are still. Is it possible that the rage, the thirst for revenge, the sectarian furies, have begun to fade? That Iraqis have been exhausted and frightened by what they have seen?

Read it all. The picture isn't all rosey, but it's a breath of fresh air to see a major outlet reporting from Iraq and going beyond the casualty lists (though with the drop of voilence they've stoped doing even that).

Via Hotair.

Frank J "Well, the American presidency is the next most powerful job after God."

Frank J looks into the US political process and has a few ideas on how to improve it.

We even debate over which candidate will better improve the economy, which is kind of like trying to choose from a litter of kittens based on which one is best at controlling the weather (hint: it’s usually the calico).

His suggestion to fix these problems is a bit silly, but as the comments note, there is a "next best thing" to his solution. One that doesn't involve the US gov sending it's political up and commers to take over other nations.

This doesn't seem... wise

Obama's latest plan.

Barack Obama, you see, is done fixing souls. It's time to crack heads. Prodded by panicked Democrats to take off his white gloves, he issued a Call to Strong Arm to his legions of angry followers on Wednesday. Hope is out. Hellfire is in. Now, the same analysts who tut-tutted Sarah Palin's mild use of sarcasm at the GOP convention are heralding — in the words of the Obama water-carriers at the Associated Press — Obama's "feistier, more sarcastic tone" and his push for Democrat activists "to sharpen their elbows, too."

When Republicans get aggressive, it's "dirty." When Obama gets aggressive, it's "feisty." Exorteth the One: "I need you to go out and talk to your friends and talk to your neighbors. I want you to talk to them whether they are independent or whether they are Republican. I want you to argue with them and get in their face."

That's right. Instead of Hope and Change and New Politics, Obama wants his supporters to go out and "get in [your] face." This isn't thuggish or creepy.

And I'm sure it'll appeal to alot of people in the middle, or at least they'll say "Yes I'll vote for Obama! Just stop bugging me."

Thank goodness we have a secret ballot in this country.

The Media: McCain's always wrong.

In the eyes of the Media McCain just can't win

"Instead of firing Cox, McCain should explain how his policies differ from President Bush on this issue," added Sen. Chuck Schumer.

How does McCain differ from Bush on this issue? Well, for starters, McCain... wants to fire Chris Cox.

And more on the "Just can't win" idea.

In summary the Washington Post thinks McCain shouldn't made an attack ad based on "flimsy" evidence; that evidence being reporting from the Washington Post.
Glen Reynolds: Really, if you were trying< to discredit the traditional media it would be hard to do better than they've been doing themselves.

Meanwhile the meida is playing the race card. For just about any critism against Obama.

Glen Reynolds asks: "Meanwhile, if Obama is President, will Time regard every criticism of his administration as racist?"

Irony

Silencing Critics, cultish worship, "anythign goes" mudslinging.

Via Ace: One of the great ironies of this election is that liberals are worshiping a guy who embodies everything they claim to hate about the Bush administration.

He's right, one of the good things McCain has done was put pressure on Obama, and we're not starting to see just how he handles it.

Double Standards

Palin's email account was hacked.
The "upside" is that there was nothing incriminating in it.
One could imagine what's in the private emails of other politicians.

Glen Reynolds has more information

The Wall Street Journal Notes:

Here we have an actual invasion of an American citizen's privacy, and what is the press's attitude? If the AP is representative (and given its organizational structure, it should be), it is to regard 'questions about the propriety' of the victim as more important than the invasion of privacy itself.

To which Reynolds replies: "That depends. Had Obama's email been hacked by a Republican, it would be Watergate all over again. . . ."

This is what we have to deal with.
The media tried to damn Palin in relation to the Alaskan Independence Party, despite her never being a member of it, but Obama can associate with people who actually have bombed the Pentagon and that's apparently fine.

Misc Obama.

Goldberg on the Obama ad about McCain and Email.

There are two explanations for the ad. One is that Obama released it to reassure his base that he's serious about attacking McCain, not to win over swing voters. That, or the campaign actually thinks it's an effective ad.
Either way, the lesson is the same: Obama doesn't know how to get outside his echo chamber. He talks about being bipartisan to hard-core liberals who like the words, but he rejects actual deviation from the liberal line. He talks about new ideas while repackaging old ones.
He is a candidate who has never had to sell himself to voters who weren't already sold. And it shows.

Obama has been using mass lists of supporters to find people and ask them to silence his critics. See Howard Kurtz for an example of the tactic.
If Obama's doing this now... what will he do about critics if elected President?

Glen Reynolds: THEY TOLD ME THAT IF GEORGE W. BUSH WERE RE-ELECTED, "digital brownshirts" would be mobilized to silence critics. And they were right!

And here's another story the media is doing its best to ignore.

It is now becoming abundantly clear that Barack Obama, in a meeting with Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari, tried to undermine his own country's negotiations with Iraq during his July visit to Baghdad. Even the Obama campaign can't deny it because there were multiple witnesses to the exchange.
So once again, conservatives begin raising the question: Why is the mainstream media ignoring this story? They're treating it like they treated the John Edwards affair story, which they ignored until they no longer could. But this is much more serious. The Democratic nominee for president of the United States attempted to scuttle a crucial status-of-forces agreement between the U.S. and the government of Iraq. He blatantly urged the Iraqis to stop negotiating with the Bush Administration and wait until the next president – presumably him, at least as far as he's concerned – takes office.

New York in Play?

Ed Morrissey looks at some polls.

Obama went down from a 18 point lead to leading by only five.

New York is a must win for Obama, and I doubt he won't win it, but as Morrissey notes, if he can't just count on NY and has to fight for it "he has to sink a large amount of money in New York, he’ll have to take it from his efforts in battleground states, and he’ll have to cut his face time in places like Michigan, Ohio, Colorado, and Minnesota. That’s a recipe for defeat, both financially and electorally."


Meanwhile there's rumors of McCain doing his own stupid move. Supporting a Drilling Bill that is light on any Drilling but heavy on Pork. That's... a bad move for many reasons.

Anne Althouse comments on the new Obama Ad

AltHouse's post is here.
On the upside, he finally focused on McCain instead of Palin.

On the downside...

2. It seems likely that the viewer is just supposed to accept the assertion that there have been sleaziest ads, smears, and a lie, mainly because the names of newspapers appear on screen next to quotes.

The whole ad is an argumentum ad verecundiam. Which only works if you accept the media as being authoritive and respected.

3. I think quite a few voters, like me, will feel very skeptical about generic assertions and quotes taken out of context. We American voters are competent ad watchers, and I don't think this will work on us.

And it's not even skillfully done. The ad doesn't really show McCain as a massive sleaze. It shows that some in the media might consider him one. Very convincing case that.

4. This ad screams its negativity. The ominous music. The string of very ugly words: sleaziest... vile ... dishonest smears ... lie ... damned ... disgraceful ... dishonorable ... deception. And yet the ad seeks to inspire outrage about McCain's negativity. But we're not watching McCain's ads. The example of sleaziness is the one before our eyes now.

Tone is a major problem, the Obama camp sounds just like a typical "He Said / She Said," negative ad. You'd think the master of "new politics" would be a bit more sly.

Instead...

6. The McCain ads I can call to mind are disarmingly funny. This Obama ad is completely devoid of humor or charm. It's got a cheap "nutroots" feeling to it.

We have McCain being the one with the funny ads.

10. This ad strikes me as a big whine: Hey, no fair. Your ads work better than mine. Quit it. Or I'm telling.

So unfunny, unsubstantiated, angry, negative, and whinny. What a winning combination.

Sunday Stuff.

Once again let's see what Victor Davis Hanson has to say.

No Foreign Policy Experience?

That, of course, is the charge against Palin, and it is a legitimate consideration. But as an executive of a key state, I trust her administrative skills and experience will ensure she is surrounded with policy wonks, in the way that other Governor-VP picks were in the past.

Other thoughts: I am far more worried about the top, not the bottom, of a presidential ticket. Barack Obama has no foreign policy experience whatsoever, as we have seen in his historically inaccurate and silly speech at Berlin, his flips on Jerusalem, Iran, and the surge, as well as his confusion over Georgia (go to the UN, both sides are to blame, Iraq was the Russian model, etc.) and NAFTA.

Read it all, he touches on the "issues", the "Old Fish Factor" and the media.

Michael Barone adds to the McCain and the Boyd loop theme.

Then team Obama and its many backers in the media failed to Decide correctly, so when they Acted they got it wrong. Their attacks on Palin tended to ricochet and hit Obama. Is she inexperienced? Well, what has Obama ever run (besides his now floundering campaign)? Being a small-town mayor, as Palin said, is like being a community organizer, “without the actual responsibilities.”

Is she neglecting her family? Well, how often has Obama tucked his daughters in lately? For more than a week we’ve seen the No. 1 person on the Democratic ticket argue that he’s better prepared than the No. 2 person on the Republican ticket. That’s not a winning argument even if you win it. As veteran California Democrat Willie Brown says, “The Republicans are now on offense, and Democrats are on defense.”

And TigerHawk cautions to the McCain camp: Good job. Don't get cocky.

Much of why Obama is having is trouble is becuase he got cocky and thought he would skate to the finish. It would be very poor judgement for McCain to fall into that trap.

Hubris coupled with poor execution is not a recipe for success.

Glen Reynolds has some thoughts on the "email" thing.

Consider: In a single not-very-compelling ad calling McCain a clueless geezer who can't even send email, the Obama campaign managed to draw attention to his war injuries again, to show that it doesn't even know that the 2000 McCain campaign actually pioneered the insurgent Web tactics that Obama used in the 2008 primary, and to produce an ad that seems tailor-made to alienate voters more than a few years older than Obama, all without providing any actual reason to, you know, vote for Obama. That's a combination of cluelessness, sloppiness, and narcissism -- it's clear they can't conceive that McCain could have pioneered anything on the Web, and they're probably too young to actually remember the 2000 election -- that seems emblematic of where that campaign has been lately. Hubris coupled with poor execution is not a recipe for success.

Bold added.
There's more information on the link.

Meanwhile Roger Kimbal wonders Who is the mole in the Obama campaign? He gives examples of the Obama camp's missteps and jokingly wonders who is behind it all.

As Rand Simberg notes: "Hey, as I say in comments, the guy has problems finding good help. Just who we want for president." How come Obama has such poor judgement in picking and organizing his staff? And yet... he keeps insisting that running this campagin should count as his main experience.

And Victor Davis Hanson comes in with some thoughts.

What we are seeing now, unfortunately for Obama if it doesn't cease, is a weird sort of puerile panic and hysteria on the part of Democrats. They are losing it with wild and rather vicious talk about Palin's various supposed misdemeanors, Obama's campaign itself that is suddenly shrilly whining and screaming about lies and liars, when Obama himself is not gaffing like Biden with silly lipstick riffs and arrogant dismissals of small town mayorships (and after his Pennsylvania clingers speech no less!)—all while liberal bloggers, the MSM columnists, the talking heads on CNN, MSNBC, etc are losing their sanity seeing Karl Roves everywhere stealing their hope and change dreams.

Watching some of this hysterical outpouring of anger is surreal, as grown-ups sound like children whose mothers did not buy them a snack or failed to take them to the zoo as promised.

Unless Obama's team can get a handle on this self-induced and paranoid madness, they risk turning a small, natural, and probably temporary 2-3 point bump—quite normal in such a tight see-saw race—into a permanent and insurmountable 5-6 point McCain lead, as the quiet swing voters shrug and say to themselves, "Hmmm, liked that Obama, but if he and his supporters panic and go wild and vicious like this, what in the world would they do when elected?"

This shows how their panic and anger is making a mildly worrying situation (a post convention bump) even worse.

Obama going after Palin. How well's that been working?

From the latest AP poll

The poll suggests that perceived inexperience is more of a problem at the top of the Democratic ticket than in the No. 2 spot for Republicans.

Eighty percent say McCain, with nearly three decades in Congress, has the right experience to be president. Just 46 percent say Obama, now in his fourth year in the Senate, is experienced enough.

Fully 47 percent say Obama lacks the proper experience — an even worse reading than the 36 percent who had the same criticism about McCain running mate Sarah Palin, serving her second year as Alaska governor after being a small-town mayor.

Ed Morrissey has more.

Hey, thanks for making experience an even bigger issue than before, Senator Obama! After the first shrieks of “untested” went out about Palin, the Democratic offensive got everyone wondering about the credentials of the top of the Democratic ticket. Result? Epic fail. More people believe Obama lacks enough experience for the job than believe him suitably prepared.

Brilliant!

Yes, that's the kind of strategic thinking we want in the Whitehouse.

Oh, Obama....

The "Bridge to Nowhwere" situation in summary by the same Jim Geraghty

If I'm a Bridge to Nowhere opponent, the Obama team says I should vote against the guy who railed against it from day one (McCain) and a running mate who initially supported it but ultimately pulled the plug on the project (Palin) and instead support two men who never voted against it, and who voted against a Coburn amendment to divert the money to Hurricane Katrina victims (Obama and Biden).
The tickets are Good-Mixed vs. Bad-Bad in the eyes of pork haters. Why Obama thinks this is a winning argument is not clear.

One really does have to wonder just *what* Obama was thinking.


A fascinating look at moral equivalence by Richard Cohen

In the biographies of both presidential candidates are episodes of pure wonderment. No man can read about McCain's time as a prisoner of war in North Vietnam and not wonder, "Could I do that?" For most of us, the answer — the truthful answer — is no.
For Obama, that episode has nothing to do with physical courage but much to do with moral commitment. At age 22 — a graduate of Columbia University and already making good money as a financial researcher, he walked away to work with the unemployed and alienated in Chicago.

Again we see Obama supporters trying to say that because Obama tried it was sufficient, and that results don't matter.

And Ramesh Ponnuru asks: "Is Cohen really putting these "episodes" on the same plane? Why yes, he is, which leaves me with "pure wonderment" of my own."

Later he notes. "Note the assumptions here. 1) Obama's time as a community organizer is "his strength." Ouch. 2) It is, for some unexplained reason, a "low blow" for Palin to point out that her job involved more actual responsibility than Obama's. It's more outrageous than a smear!"

There is a severe lack of rationality by those in the tank for Obama.


Kevin D. Williamson on some of the message problems the Dems have.He ends with this.

It's not that they failed to "define" McCain, or that the campaign has lost control of the message — it's that their message is custom-tailored to political realities that are now several months out of date. The media will do all they can to help Obama, but even the worst of them can't ignore events.

Those that use an ODDA or Boyd Cycle model for poltics can only look at this and shake their heads.

If you're trying to run a campaign using observations that are months out of date, then you are quite susceptable to a more agile rival.

On a related note Slublog notes another Trap Obama is steping into.

Basically, it's an Obama add saying McCain is a washington insider because he's been there since '82.

Nevermind that Biden has been there since '73, and that both Biden and Obama have become quite adept at getting earmarks.

As Slublog shows, the response against Obama on this writs itself.
Once again, for this to be a trap the McCain camp needs to respond quickly and effectivly.


And here's yet another trap.
"Obama Wants To Make 'Lack of Disclosure' an Issue"
Jim Geraghty shows that Obama and Biden have quite a few things in their past that they haven't Disclosed.

Does Obama really want to make that an issue? It's like he beleives his charges will never be used against him. Does he actually beleive it when the media says that he's alreayd been "vetted" and there's nothing that can hurt him?

Or is he just trying anything, everything, and hoping something will hurt McCain?

"

But just so you know — this is by my count the 4th time Obama's campaign has officially or unofficially made such a declaration that Obama will "take off the gloves" and fight back.
That's a lot of pairs of gloves.
The Isotoner campaign, one might say."

And here we see Obama falling right into the "McCain is old trap".

Why is it a trap?

The reason he doesn't send email is that he can't use a keyboard because of the relentless beatings he received from the Viet Cong in service to our country. . . . McCain's severe war injuries prevent him from combing his hair, typing on a keyboard, or tying his shoes.

Glen Reynolds has more.

Hey Obama, maybe next time you can call McCain senile because he can't tie his own shoes anymore. I'm sure that'll help you get more votes.

It should be noted that in an attempt to "prove" McCain is a computer illiterate Obama's camp must have not done even the most basic internet search to see if there could possibly be a reason why McCain didn't use a computer.

And this guy wants to be president?

Biden questions judgement on VP selection... Obama's VP that is.

Will Biden drop out? He doesn't seem that confident in his own abilities.

Ace has a thought on that.

"Good Point... Barack Obama's judgment was that Joe Biden was the best possible vice presidential candidate. Joe Biden says he's wrong. This was Obama's first major decision as a would-be president. He got it wrong."

At the very least, Obama should have made sure Biden stayed more on message.

However... Hillary doesn't seem too inclined to help just right now. She's not even being on the stump that much to "defend" her party's nomine.

That’s the catch-22 for the Obama campaign. As much as he’d like to get a rescue from his present catastrophic nosedive, Obama knows that he can’t ask it of Hillary Clinton. To publicly acknowledge her as his last, desperate hope would be to admit that he shouldn’t have won the primaries in the first place, and that the superdelegates made a huge mistake in selecting him over Hillary. Also, it would look like the ultimate hypocrisy to demand that Hillary become his attack dog after ignoring her for the position of running mate.

And if Obama asked her to be VP....
"Even more serious question: If Obama’s imploding, why would Hillary agree to come aboard? Better to let McCain finish him off and then skip to the nomination in 2012."

If Hillary goes on to be Obama's VP. There are two options.
1) Obama wins and she has to deal with four years of being second fiddle to Obama, and unless he resigns he'll run again in 2012. This delays her ambitions another 8 years, and has her attached to the Obama administration, for good or ill.

2) Obama looses and not only does Hillary have his failure stuck on her, but it shows that she wasn't powerful enough to "save" his campaign, in what should have been an easy year.

Some Pig?

Victor Davis Hanson has some thoughts on what's going on with Obama.
Instead of Obama doing his set-piece stumps he's improvising comments and it's "almost as if Obama were obsessed by Palin, his doppelgänger, and intent on making the past charges against him work now on her."

Posting on Pajamas Media Hanson has more

Recently Obama himself has panicked over Palin. He lashed out, and has shown himself unsteady. He apparently thinks that hope-and-change Sarah is all fluff, has fooled the nation that doesn't see, as he alone does, that she is empty, resents her glibness and her youth, feels she doesn't have enough experience and has hoodwinked the voters, and finds her soaring speeches vapid.
In other words, he knows what worked for him—and is furious because he suspects that his doppelgänger at the 11th hour might be working it even better. In a Freudian sense, he knows he is inexperienced as he once confessed, and is angry that we don't sense it about Palin. If he doesn't watch it, on one of these hand-in-mike outings, he will yell, "Hey, she's just like me. I know that better than anyone. What's going on here!"

A better response to the "smears" against Palin, including Obama's nebulous "lipstick remark.

My idea on Palin is: Keep her light; let her be light. Let her laugh things off. Let her skewer with poise and pleasure, as she did in Minnesota. It would be so great if she cut an ad mocking the upcoming Streisand fundraiser for Obama — maybe have her sit in an Anchorage tavern, pointing out the difference between the local entertainment and Barbra in L.A.

Some other thoughts on how a pattern is emerging.

I can tell you that using such a loaded phrase, when so many Democrats are still furious at Obama's perceived disrespect towards Hillary Clinton (especially considering his previous incidents of sexism, such as when he dismissively addresses a reporter as "sweetie"), is the work of someone who is either a neophyte, or who has a political deathwish.

Why it's just... not wise for Obama to say such things. Better be safe than sorry.

Take this comment Obama made later on in his speech. If Palin responds, a joke that shows confidence in herself, would simultaneously undermine Obama's -well- competence.

Mark Krikorian thinks that joke is the best way to go. His idea may be too subtle, though if it works could be quite funny.

Jim Geraghty ponders on coincidences.

Barack Obama probably didn't mean to infer that Sarah Palin is a pig with his lipstick comment yesterday. It's just a really big coincidence that when he's facing a woman opponent, the most eloquent and gifted orator in the Democratic Party in recent memory just happens to pick really awkward metaphors that have secondary meanings that many women would find demeaning.

"This is exactly what it looks like: amateur hour. We should say so, and have fun with it." Andy McCarthy
This is the closing to a good post of his showing just why Obama is having these troubles, and again key here is having fun and humor.

But did McCain simply play Obama? McCain camp releases a new ad contrasting Obama's rehtoric versus his reality.

Personally, I thought the "Lipstick" ad was created just to tick off The One and throw him off-message. And it succeeded. This latest ad, though, peels back the hopechangehappyunicornfarts message and shows Obama for what he really is - just another politician. And given the vacuousness of his policy proposals, he can't afford to be seen as simply a politician.

What happened?

Victor Davis Hanson has some thoughts on recent events and how Obama "slipped"
In summary:
1) The problems in taking Hillary as VP are starting to become apparent, as well as the lack of positives from getting a seat-filler like Biden.

2) Palin undercut the Dem's convention bounce, reengergized the McCain camp, and got Obama to go after the bottom of his rival's ticket.

3) The media went after Palin showing naked bias and is experienceing a backlash.
Read the link to find more detail.

He also predicts that Obama will go more negative in an attempt to stop this.
Rand Simberg reminds that Hillary does have issues and would have had problems being on the ticket as VP.

Such as her negatives (with different groups than Obama's negatives), Clintonian baggage, and Clintonian spotlight.

"What was a mistake, though was dissing her and her supporters by making it clear that he had never even considered doing so. If he'd been smarter, he'd have at least gone through the motions of vetting her and making it looks as though she was on the list. As it was, it was just one more finger in their collective face."

Speaking of going negative:

Glen Reynolds links to a comment Obama said, involving, lipstick, pigs and the republican ticket. Some choice bits

MORE: A reader emails: "Surely a man smart enough to be elected president should have foreseen how these remarks would be taken. Don’t Harvard law grads know the impact of words?" Everybody stumbles now and then. I say, don't make any more of it than if McCain had said something similar.

On the other hand, reader Alin Corle emails: "I think if you look at the entire quote, you realize that Obama was referring to Palin in the 'pig' comment. In the next phrase, as reported by Politico.com, Obama referred to 'old fish' wrapped in a paper of change that still stinks, a clear personal attack on McCain. I think both comments taken together are quite outrageous."

Meanwhile, Barry Dauphin writes: "Obama was inelegant in his comment. He was referring to Palin. Although it was not a good comment, getting hysterical about it is not smart. Put it this way, Obama's comment was hardly post partisan. He's usually a better speaker than this. He and his campaign must be quite rattled. They are playing to their base instead of going after independents. Why are they doing that, unless they are worried about their base? Do they have internal polling showing things to be worse for them than the MSM is reporting?"

Emphasis added.

Don't Get Cocky.

Some advice from Glen Reynolds

But I think that Republicans should be careful about launching a cult of Sarah Palin. She's the V.P. pick, not the head of the ticket. She's still a relative newcomer to national politics. She's virtually sure to commit at least one major mistake between now and November. And -- yes, I know I said this before -- she's the V.P. pick, not the head of the ticket.

The Dems built a cult around Barack Obama. It energized some folks, but it ultimately backfired. Republicans might want to restrain themselves just a bit, here.

Is the stress getting to him?

Finally, Obama is reevaluating his strategy.
Shame he can't get Hillary more on board, but that just shows his diplomatic skills.
It's not like he'd have to deal with people more difficult than another branch of his own party in the White House.

On the radio today I heard a blurb of Hillary telling her supporters that "they must vote for Obama". One wonders if there's any meaning to her continued use of that phrase. But yea Obama, I'm sure Hillary's not bitter at all and would do all she can to put you into the position she wanted, and thus delay her own goals by another eight years.

What did Obama do as a Community Organizer? Read and find out. It's a very sober analysis and looks at what he did well and not so well.
Some additional thoughts on the article.

A few notes to add to Byron's excellent article on Barack Obama's years as a community organizer. First, clearly the Obama campaign does feel this is a key part of Obama's qualifications to be president, as it shows up in Obama's nomination acceptance speech, Michelle Obama's speech, Biden's speech, several of Obama's ads, etc.
Second, note that Obama and his supporters speak a great deal about Obama's choice to be a community organizer, and not so much on what he actually did. We're continually expected to applaud the decision to try instead of asking about the results. We never hear, "because of his work, Factory X reopened," or "because of Obama's creation of job retraining program Y, the community's unemployment rate reduced from A to B."

It's like they're trying to convince us that just because Obama tried he should be given full credit.

Meanwhile Obama's... ill-thought-out responses continue to mount.

Which politician said this?

You remember that? For it before you were against it? I mean you can’t just make stuff up. You can’t just recreate yourself. You can’t just reinvent yourself. The American people aren’t stupid.

That's Obama, critical of Palin on... earmarks.

A man with $740 million in pork and counting, a man who actually voted for the "bridge to nowhere" is trying to point out Palin's failures on Pork.

Obama spokesman Bill Burton said:

Despite being discredited over and over again by numerous news organizations, the McCain campaign continues to repeat the lie that Sarah Palin stopped the Bridge to Nowhere.

So... the bridge is actually being built?

Senator, you're right. One can't make it up. First you vote for the bridge, then later on you try to lay the blame on Palin and say that the bridge wasn't stopped by her.

Just how rattled does Palin have you?

And note that once again Obama has focused on Palin. Way to remind people that you are comparable to the opposition's VP.

More Traps

Ace of Spades shows yet another trap Obama has happily jumped into.

This is the man we want leading America-- a simpleton who becomes irrational and unbalanced when challenged by a woman, and continues falling into the trap of having a debate with McCain's junior officer, rather than his actual opponent for the presidency.

As Allah says, it's rather rich that Obama, who's requrested three-quarters of a billion dollars in ear-marks, including for his wife's hospital, which then coincidentally promoted her and gave her a ginormous raise, should be questioning the pork-appetite of a former mayor and governor.

I'm starting to wonder which it is.
1) Is Obama really this foolish?
2) Does he think this won't reflect back on his own Pork?
3) Or does he simply see a woman mocking him and have his vision go red?

I'm not knocking Obama for taking on a woman, mind you (although doing so is made especially problematic, given his dismissive treatment of Hillary in the primaries). I consider Palin his equal -- much moreso, actually, so it's not a question of "Mean Man picking on Poor Little Lady." Palin can take whatever this naive neophyte can dish out.

It's just... she... is... not... running... for President. But Obama is elevating her to the presidential level. So the race, it seems, consists of two candidates for president on the Republican side, and one weak, confused man on the Democrat side.

I'm starting to wonder what Obama's nextgaff will be in this.

Crisis?

Obama’s Existential Crisis

Read this for some trouble Obama is having.


The case for the West Coast Offense as the best football metaphor for the Palin pick.
Basically, it's a move that is different in methods that the other team can't quite predict or wrap their heads around.

Victor Davis Hanson shows how the Obama camp hasn't quite figured out just what to do.

Up until recently I think Obama has run an effective campaign. So why after a week of left-wing / liberal smearing of Palin, would he suddenly announce, "We're not going to be bullied, we're not going to be smeared, we're not going to be lied about"—when everyone will immediately recognize that all those complaints fit precisely—and only—what has been done to Palin? The neutral voter may well think, 'Why, yes, that is exactly what they are doing to Sarah, so why are you protesting when they're not doing it to?"

As another risky move. Obama is running to Hillary for help. He didn't want her as his VP but now that McCain has picked a scary girl Obama can't run to her fast enough.

Ace Notes something

Why was Sarah Palin deployed to knock Barack Obama on the surge? It's obvious, but I'll state the obvious anyway:

1) To start her talking about foreign policy issues.

2) Because she's the "attack dog" and McCain's the presidential candidate, rising above it to discuss his vision.

and, of course, three:

3) Because Obama wigs out whenever he's challenged by a woman, sweetie, and furthermore, because he absolutely cannot resist the bait of getting into a fight with McCain's junior officer.

No... Obama doesn't have a glass jaw that bad?
It does explain some of the vitrol against Hillary, but really... does Ol'Barry have a problem with opposition women challenging him?

Time will tell.

Desperation

Ed Morrissey notes two signs of Desperation from Obama.

He's gone with the race card again. As Morrissey observes, it's hard to take Obama at his word, given that the Republicans have done nothing of the sort he accuses them of. If they had, the media would be broadcasting it and making a big story of it. And rightly so. McCain trying to scare people away Obama because of his race would be huge news.

Shame it's not real.

And Obama is getting emotional about Palin's mockery of his touting his experience as a Community Organizer. Obama “[Palin] wants to be treated same way guys want to be treated, which means their records are under scrutiny. I’ve been through this for 19 months. She’s been through it, what four days?”

Yes Barry, because your past has been under such a deep, deep spotlight. Or maybe you think the media should dig around even more about Palin. I'm sure that'll play just great.

Obama could have diffused the charges that he had no responsibilities and no real accomplishments as a Community Organizer by actually listing them. I've said it before, but that would have easily and powerfully defeated Palin's argument.

So why didn't he do just that?

Instead Obama goes off and whines that Palin is mocking all Community Organizers and all the work they do.

Nice... but he still hasn't said what he has done. Which was Palin's entire point.

Also note that Obama continues to deal with Palin personally.
He's defining her as his opponent. Poor, poor move.

He should let Biden deal with her.

Bill Whittle returns.

In my view, Bill Whittle is one of the best essayists in modern history.

At his site you will find essays on many important subject. He has a clear, empirical minded style that wins.

And now he's written an article for National Review Online.

Go, read it now.

Power corrupts, and I believe there is no power more intoxicating and corrosive than the ability to spend other people’s money at will. If Newt’s Army could go so far astray, you can bet the country was disillusioned, disappointed, and furious — not just ready for change, but eager for it, even change as ethereal and diffuse as what Senator Obama has been peddling. We lost the Senate and the House in 2006 because of this. We were going to lose the presidency in 2008 for it. And we deserved to lose it.

And so — prior to this week — all we had was a grim determination to vote against a dangerous, socialized vision of the future. We were portrayed — largely accurately — as old, tired, out-of-touch, out of ideas, out of candidates . . . too white, too male, too square. It doesn’t matter how true or false that caricature was. That was the narrative, and there was enough of it that fit.

And then the earthquake came.

Sarah Palin is the anti-Obama: not a victim, not a poser, not riding a wave but rather swimming upstream — and most of all, not having run for president her entire life. She is the first politician I have ever seen — and I include Ronnie in this, God bless him — who strikes everyone who sees her as an actual, real, ordinary person. Immediately came T-shirts saying I AM SARAH PALIN. HER STORY IS MY STORY. There is a lot of Obama swag out there, too, but none of it says HIS STORY IS MY STORY. Hold that thought till November 5.

We'll see how Palin continues to perform, and how Obama continues to respond. And note that order. Obama has lost the initiative. He is reacting, not just to McCain but to Palin. As Whittle points out later, Palin can protect the base, while McCain can make the Republican case to the middle.

Oh by the way Whittle has also wrote on the ODDA/Boyde loop.

Sarah Palin has done more than unify and electrify the base. She’s done something I would not have thought possible, were it not happening in front of my nose: Sarah Palin has stolen Barack Obama’s glamour. She’s stolen his excitement, robbed his electricity, burgled his charisma, purloined his star power, and taken his Hope and Change mantra, woven it into a cold-weather fashion accessory, and wrapped it around her neck.

This is the real reason the Dems hate her so much. It's a classic. It's a story as old as Sampson. A mere woman comes in and removes a man's strength.

And, finally . . . what of John McCain? I’ve read many comments about his speech being a disappointment. I don’t know how it looked or played from the floor. But I know how it played from my Los Angeles living room. I believe — and we’ll know soon enough if I’m right — that John McCain did something Thursday night more powerful and astonishing than Sarah Palin did the previous evening. Sarah stole Obama’s glamour. McCain stole his message. (Granted, that may not be a lot, apart from the glamour, but it was all Obama had left.)

Sarah played to the base, who loved her. McCain played to the middle that we will need to win. Put his rhetorical ticks, the green background, the protestor interruptions — put all that away. No one really cares about that.

We in the opinion trade lose track of how little the American public actually knows about candidates, because they — very sensibly, in my view — have the much more important task of actually getting on with life until right . . . about . . . now. For many Americans, this was their introduction to John McCain.

Emphasis added.

Obama should be worried. McCain waited until the public was inundated with Obama's cant of Hope and Change, and the public does want that. Unfortunately, McCain is starting to offer that, and with more experience, judgment, humor and details than Obama.

Meanwhile Obama keeps trying to take out Palin. Leaving McCain alone.

Trap

Ace of Ace of Spades shows one of the traps Obama is in.

Their Number One is now in a running (and kinda deadly) feud with our Number Two.

He is elevating her. Front-running candidates never want to acknowledge lesser competitors by name, or get into a direct argument with them, as that elevates the competitor and diminishes the front-runner.


And presidential candidates never want to engage vice presidential candidates. The reverse is completely untrue; a vp's job is to go after the other's sides top guy.

And yet here we are. The One, the Lamb of Chicago, the man who will clean the oceans and heal the world, is actually having a running argument with the little bumpkin beauty queen from "Wasilly," Alaska.

And no matter how much he struggles, he loses. Even if someone were to conclude Obama is better prepared to be president, if they're being honest with themselves, they have to concede that he is barely better prepared, or merely arguably better prepared.

And meanwhile, no one seems to have any questions about John McCain's fitness for the office. He gets to skate above it all while his nominal counterpart snipes at and squabbles at his junior officer.

I suppose Obama either didn't trust to have Biden do his job as the VP-attack dog, or Obama didn't think about it.

After Palin's Speech: A roundup.

Ace of Spades has a piece on why the hardline liberals keep falling into these traps

You know the big difference between conservatives and liberals in terms of political acumen? You guys never see this stuff coming, because you're so convinced of your innate right to control other people's lives. You convince ourselves you're always the smartest guys in the room, and anyone who disagrees with you must either be so stupid or so luminescently evil they could never prevail in a campaign.

The Ronald Reagans and Sarah Palins surprise you, because you just can't even conceive of them. Your entire sense of self-worth depends on the proposition Liberal = Smart, Good, Conservatives = Stupid, Bad, so you can't imagine clever, good people opposing you.

Sure it's easier and feels better to make your rivals into unthinking evil monsters, but remember, in a contest between fantasy and reality. Bet on reality.

This extends to buying your own propaganda.

Oh, and... Good job so demeaning her you half-convinced the public she was a drooling imbecile and yee-haw hollerin' bumpkin who'd embarrass herself on stage.

Sure, sure. Smart move.

A former beauty queen -- who could have imagined she might be comfortable in front of a large, critical crowd, and might in fact even thrive in the spotlight?

A former television sportscaster -- who would have predicted she'd have some poise and savvy playing to a camera?

The other Roger Simon complains about the Republicans being "mean" to the media, and Slublog from Ace of Spades takes him apart.


Read it for the list of lies and fantasy that the media has tried to make about Palin.

Again, you bring up some points that are perfectly legitimate avenues of investigation. The problem with your increasingly defensive analysis is that you and your ink-stained compatriots didn't stop there. The New York Times 'flooded the zone' with three front-page stories about Palin's pregnant teenage daughter. So far the Obama-Rezko and Obama-Ayers zones have gone shockingly un-flooded.

Yeah, no idiotic bias here.

You want to know why conservatives roared last night when the media was bashed and why many of us have spent the week in a simmering rage? It's because you're hypocrites. You claim to be objective, yet have spent the past few days absolutely smearing a woman and her family because she had the audacity to be a conservative Republican. You have expended more time and effort discussing her daughter's sex life than you've spent looking into the business and political associates of the Democrat candidate for president of the United States. When you did explore Palin's actual record, you have often done so with little regard for the truth. You and your colleagues have relinquished your right to be taken seriously as honest brokers of information.

And what this column shows me is that you know it. Behind the sarcasm lies an attempt to justify your behavior of the past week. Your little snark-fest is step one in the rehabilitation campaign.

And the trap gets even bigger.

On the air and in print, liberal pundits are attacking Palin today. Some attack her record, some disgusting still attack her family, and some attack her for merely being a woman (prompting Hillary Clinton's aides to go on the record decrying these sexist attacks). These liberal bloggers/journalists—the line between them all but removed— continue insisting that Obama, a candidate with far less executive experience than Palin, is a better choice.

That's an interesting argument to make... if they were running for the same job.

Also is note that Palin wasn't angry, she was funny.

But Sarah Palin didn't court this anger with more anger. That would be a turn-off. What most frustrates Americans is that we are a happy, optimistic, can-do people ceaselessly harangued by media solons, delusional academics, post-sovereign Eurocrats, and the Democrats who love them. While we free and feed the world, they can't tell us enough that we're racist, imperialist, torturing louts. We know it's a libel, an endless stream of slander. But we also know it's an absurd libel. We're tired of hearing it, but taking it too seriously would give it power it doesn't deserve.

So Sarah Palin was sarcastic and biting. That's how a happy warrior deals with absurdity. That's how a happy warrior rallies the troops.

We are in a war against terrorists, and the other side has nominated a man who has been a friend and business partner of an unrepentant, America-hating terrorist. The press lauds Obama as post-partisan when even a cursory glance at his record shows he is as partisan as it gets. The press lauds him as post-racial, but he sat comfortably for years in Trinity Church, drinking in the racist ravings of Jeremiah Wright, and he sat comfortably for years in rough-and-tumble Chicago, playing by-the-numbers race-based politics.

Obama blathers about "change" but then chooses as his running-mate a Washington relic who has managed in 35 years to be wrong on just about everything while compiling a record nearly as slavishly Leftist as Obama's. In an era of complex, vicious, asymmetrical threats, Democrats give us a "community organizer" without a shred of executive experience who, in his years as a state legislator, voted "present" when it was time to make the tough calls. Except, of course, when it came to life: In a nation repulsed by partial birth abortion, Obama decided to make his stand enabling the practitioners of infanticide.

And of course. Victor Davis Hanson reports on more of Palin as a target.

We'll see how she handles national level interviews and tough questioning.

The interesting question is, suppose she handles that well too. How does that make Obama look? The Obama camp and the media do keep insisting on trying to compare her to him.

I can't beleive it. The Media is trying to defend "Community Organizer" as some great and accountable posion.

If our friends on the other side of the aisle really want to get into an argument about that... role (I hesitate to call it a job)... Isn't there something inherently undemocratic about self-appointed "community organizers?" For most community leaders — mayors, city or town councilmen, school board members, city or county attorneys and prosecutors, even sheriffs and judges in some jurisdictions... if they fail to perform, they can be voted out of office. They're subject to FOIA and sunshine laws, and local councils and boards have to make their decisions in public. They're accountable. Their meeting minutes and budgets are open to review by anyone.

Who the heck ever elected or appointed community organizers to their positions? By what metrics do they measure their success? To whom do they answer? Who removes them from their positions for insufficient results?

You know what would be the smart way to counter the mockery of Obama claiming being a Community Organizer was a great experience for him. List what Obama accomplished while he was one. Bring out evidence and facts of what he did. Not only would that prove Palin wrong, but it would make Obama look better, and would be damn hard to disprove.

So why don't they do that?

And now they're saying that Palin's speech doesn't count because she was just "Reading off a teleprompter well"
The link has a couple points on that, notably that she was reading about her own life mostly, which makes it a key difference.

The other part is... really? Does the Obama fanclub really want to try to paint someone as an empty suit who's only ability is to read speeches well? Do they want to die on that hill?

Another reason why Hillary can't be happy.

The number of television viewers who tuned in last week to listen to Hillary Clinton: 25 million.

The number who tuned in last night to watch Sarah Palin: 37 million.

I'll be interested to see more polls, but so far the results are good.

Also... more dangers of the Obama camp's idea of trying to compare Obama to Palin.
Obama leads Palin on experience among unaffiliated voters … by five points

Consider that most of the people polled did not really know anything about Palin a week ago, and then consider that Palin is running for VP. Obama is not.

Brilliant move Barry!

And Biben continues his gaffs. Calling Palin a "Lieutenant Governor". It's a higher position than "Former Mayor", granted she never was a Lt. Gov.

Now remember, if Palin made such a mistake about Biden you can bet the media would be all over it. Biden does it? They yawn.

Palin's speech

Hat tip Glen Reynolds and Stop the ACLU for the link.

Speches: Rudy Palin "The war has begun"

Kicking it back to Keith after the Rudy interview, a crestfallen Mitchell [of MSNBC] said, "The war has begun." Indeed.

I thought Rudy and Palin were quite funny. Even when they were mocking Obama, they were smiling and having fun. Which may make the Dem's even angrier, if they don't like being mocked.

It looks good. Palin concentrated on showing what she is really like, instead of what the media tried to make her.

She also used her and McCain's life stories to contrast with what Obama has (and has not) done. It was a clear line between actions and rhetoric.

Here's Glen Reyold's initial thoughts.

The Worst Olberman could say about Palin's speech: "People who like this sort of thing will find this... the sort of thing they like."



I was struck by this part after the the speech.

McCain: "Don't you think we made the right choice for the next vice president of the united states? And what a beautiful family?"
While Bristol and who I' think was her fiance were there.
Oh, he's a cunning old bear.

Obama camp, Mainstream Media. Ball's in your court. Do you double down and keep trying to destroy her or do you move on and try something else?

I'll post a recorded version of her speech when I find it.

Update: The Obama camp, and its supporters in the MSM have come up with a talking point against Palin's speech (in addition to it being "alarmingly" strong). Someone else wrote it.

Lorie Byrd has more

Obama's response -- the speech was written by George Bush's speech writer. Wow. How lame is that? Almost as lame as the reaction from a Kos diarist -- liar, student council speech delivery, etc. Republicans acknowledged the quality of both Hillary and Obama's speeches. We disagree with what they said, but we are smart enough to know they made good speeches.

That's right. The MSM harp on Palin for using a speechwriter. Do they actually think Obama doesn't use one? Or do they simply hold Palin to that much higher of a standard.

Palin Death-pool

Many people have been fretting and worrying on when Palin will drop out of the race.


You may ask who just wants her to go away.

Anne Althouse goes to look.

Here's a hint, it's not the right. They love her.

But yeah, so, obviously Green wants us to think that the Republicans upset about Sarah Palin. But who is pushing the Eagleton meme? Who wants her out?

You know, I remember the McGovern campaign. I was a big supporter of McGovern's, and I hated Nixon, as did all of my friends. And the scenario then was completely different from what you are seeing now. We were never excited about Eagleton in the first place. We just wanted McGovern to win. Eagleton didn't infuse new energy into the McGovern campaign or jazz up am important subset of voters. He was just some boring Senator that got slotted in. And then he brought nothing but trouble and distraction as the news came out that he'd been hospitalized for depression 3 times and had receive electroshock treatments. It wasn't just that there were a couple of old political controversies or a family member was less than perfect. We were getting significant new information about his brain, the brain that we might need to rely on to make presidential decisions. It was simply not acceptable, especially since he'd also withheld this information from McGovern, which showed some really poor character.

The Palin candidacy has virtually nothing in common with the Eagleton scenario, and the people who are saying it does are displaying their desperation. Obviously -- I'm not the first to say this -- if you want McCain to lose and you think she's so terrible, you should be happy to see Palin as the VP nominee. It will help defeat McCain.

So... people that would never vote for McCain don't like her... yeah that's really compelling to McCain to drop her.

Why are they so angry?

Peggy Noonan on Palin: “A real and present danger to the American left”

More on exactly why the media is so angry. Short answer? McCain tricked them and they are angry about it.

In fact, the Democratic frontrunners all had less time in elective office than Sarah Palin. Democrats seem to forget that they nominated John Edwards as VP in 2004 after only three years in public office at all, most of it spent — like Barack Obama — running for President. Where were E.J. Dionne, Sally Quinn, Eleanor Clift, and the rest of the commentariat when John Kerry made that pick? They were too busy singing hosannas to the Democratic ticket to worry about experience then, it seems.

What had Edwards ever done that indicated he should be a heartbeat away from the Presidency? At least Sarah Palin has executive experience, which most people will understand as more applicable to the Presidency than a year of legislative experience. She has worked with a legislature, run an executive branch of government, and managed to do it successfully enough to have approval ratings in the 80s.

The outrage has little to do with experience, and almost everything to do with being outfoxed by McCain. The media expected a staid, boring, safe white man that they could pigeonhole. Instead, they got a dynamic, successful, smart conservative “hockey mom” with a record of reform that Barack Obama cannot match and that is the antithesis of Joe Biden. They got knocked out of their lane, and now they have to figure out how to explain how they could possibly have overlooked Palin in their calculations. Presto! They overlooked her because she’s so inexperienced!

Victor Davis Hanson adds in.

First, there is the annoited's notion that the noble ends justify the slimy means, that whether the issue is abortion or affirmative action or any other hot-button social gospel, the supposed interests of the many override the common decency that should be afforded the few.

We are supposed to think that given one's cosmic sense of fairness and caring, the white knight always is afforded a little human leeway in slaying dragons in the here and now. To save the utopian vision of "two nations" John Edwards, presidential candidate, hundreds in the media passed on verifiable stories of his adultery, the financial support of his mistress, and his blatantly untrue assertions in public press conferences; by the same token to stop "one nation" Palin, the private life of a 17-year old girl must not only be aired, but distorted and in some cases invented.

Second, as in the case of a Palin or Thomas, there is the notion that the slandered deserve it as interloppers—unauthentic women or minorities due to their conservative views, who piggyback on the hard work of feminists and those in the race/identity politics movement. They purportedly do not show enough appreciation and deference to the pioneers who suffered so much to give us abortion on demand, quotas in hiring, etc. and as ingrates thus get what they deserve. For talking-head feminists that a Sally Quin, Nancy Pelosi or Hillary Clinton—unlike Sarah Palin—had a well-connected, influential male around to energize her career is of no concern—except perhaps to make the animus against the outsider upstart even greater.

Tonight Palin gives her speech to the convention. We'll see how she does.

Pajamas TV

Pajamas Media has started a beta of a TV video feature. It can be seen here.

It's worth giving a watch for some more intelligent and coherent commentary.

Again On Palin and Obama.

Victor Davis Hanson on what Palin means to the Dems and why they're attacking her so forcefully.

Read it all, but in short, they're scared. They have no idea what she is and how to substantially deal with her.

Michele Catalano has some thoughts on the latest avenue of attack.

Privacy? Don't bet on it. This is a whole fresh pile of mud for the left to start slinging. They'll attack Palin's family values stance, talk about how Palin teaches abstinence, and start trotting out the hypocrisy meme. Except this is not Palin who is the unmarried, pregnant teen. It's her daughter. It's not particularly shocking when a teenager does something against the parents' teachings, is it? If we were to call out every parent who taught abstinence from sex, smoking, drugs, or drinking then had a kid indulge in any (or all) of those, we'd be here all day.

The fact is, the left is all about privacy in the matters of the womb. Were they to stay true to their colors, this mantra of theirs would seem to preclude them from judging Bristol's pregnancy and her choice to keep her child, right? It will be interesting to see how this plays out. The Kos kids and their blog followers have already made one attempt to ruin this girl's life. Now that they have a story with actual truth behind it, we'll have to sit back and see how far they run with a teenager's identity.

Let me make it clear: there are many things I don't like about Sarah Palin. We are ideologically opposed on numerous issues. Her stance on creationism and her pro-life zealousness are just two examples. Two big ones. There's the fact that McCain chose Palin for VP after meeting her only once; I'd like to think that more thought goes into the process than the need to find a conservative woman for your ticket. I'm naive like that. But the last two days of mudslinging against Palin have been so extreme, they have transformed her into an almost sympathetic figure in my eyes. More important, the barbs thrown at her have made me look upon liberals with a level of contempt I have not felt since, well, 2004.

If I'm rushing to the defense of a woman whose core ideologies I oppose, then something pretty bad must be going on. And that something smells like a pungent mixture of hypocrisy and desperation.

One does not need to agree with someone's politics to find false charges and smears against them and their family to be despicable. In fact, if the target's politics are a factor in whether or not they deserve your sympathy... well doesn't that just say what kind of person you are?

What's really interesting here is the prying into Palin's personal womb space. I thought that was off limits? Isn't that part and parcel of the whole lefty oath that "one should never invade the sanctity of a woman's womb or what she does with it"? Now somehow it's okay to question one woman's uterine activity.

James S. Robbins has some notes.

It's interesting that Barack Obama is publicly making the argument that he has more political experience than Sarah Palin. Why does the top of the Dem ticket feel the need to run against the bottom of the GOP ticket? It diminishes him. And by stressing experience as a metric, isn't Obama setting himself up for the inevitable losing battle of his time in office versus John McCain's? Anyway wasn't this election all about "change?" Didn't Hillary lose the nomination by stressing experience? They must really feel threatened by Ms. Palin.

Jonathan Adler points that the experience issue is not just Palin and Obama. He looks at Dean, Edwards, and the latter Bush.



Obama keeps pushing the "Former Small Town Mayor" theme.
That'll turn on him.
It's like saying Obama has no federal experience because he's merely a former Illinois State Legislator.

Ace of Spades has some more thoughts on the avenue of attack being made by a Former community Organizer.

I do love the insinuation that running for president somehow qualifies him to be president. If that's the case, then he's perhaps the best-qualified candidate ever, because running for president is basically all he's done since entering national politics.

It's really quite revealing that Obama is forced to ignore the office Palin currently holds in order to make the case he's more experienced.

There's also the delicious irony of the Presidential Candidate trying to favorably compare himself (and failing) to the opposition's vice presidential pick.

We now know far more about Sarah Palin in just four days than we've learned about Barack Obama in 17 months. That is just sad. It's a pathetic reflection of the mainstream media's unwillingness to do their jobs for fear of finding stories that would hurt the candidate so many of them openly desire to win.

And shows that Obama has not be vetted. Giving lots of speeches in the media eye does not count, especially if the media plays along and refuses to ask tough questions.

Of all the churches in Chicago, why did Obama chose a church that espouses Black Liberation Theology? The doctrine was conceived by James Cone, based upon the rhetoric of the Black Panthers and Malcolm X and the civil rights movement. It is a radical religion primarily based upon the oppression of blacks by whites. How can Barack Obama make the claim that he is a post-racial candidate, when his entire religious focal point was one of bitter victimization?

Barack Obama knew Bill Ayers was a terrorist when they first met. Barack Obama knew that Bernadine Dohrn was a terrorist when they met, and probably knew she was a fan of Charles Manson's murderous cult as well. He still chose to work with Ayers in numerous groups in leadership positions, and the relationship was close enough for Obama to start his his political career with a fundraiser at Ayers' and Dohrn's home.

What makes it all the more fascinating is that Barack Obama will not refute his 21-year relationship with Bill Ayers and Bernie Dohrn. Barack Obama threw his own grandmother under the bus without a thought, portraying her as a racist for short-term political sympathy.

He tossed his friend and mentor Jeremiah Wright under the bus when it became politically advantageous for him to do so, then his church and congregation, and he hasn't looked back. Father Michael Fleger, the radical priest who advocated lynching a gun store owner, was also a friend of many years (at least 22) tossed aside by Obama without a look back.

But Barack Obama won't refute his relationship with American terrorists Bill Ayers and Bernie Dorhn. He refutes what they did, but makes a point of not assailing who they are or what they believe. Of all the people in his life that have popped up during this campaign, Barack Obama has shown more loyalty to these two terrorists that he has shown anyone else, including his own pastor, church, and grandmother.

This has to make the McCain/Palin camp smile.

The far left is now starting to fantasize that Palin will just go away.
It's amazing how much she scares them.



I've said before that Obama has kept himself above the Bristol Palin and related smears. Now Biden chimes in.

I sincerely hope that Obama's supporters take the same line as the campaign they desire to help has.
But I doubt it, some of these guys are too rabid to realize how repugnant this is or even pragmatic enough to realize that it will simply hurt Obama.

Obama's worst enemy.

Glen Reynolds and others have noted that Obama's worst enemy are his die-hard supporters.

Obama has personally said he'll avoid the Palin pregnancy issue. Which is both very smart politically and a decent thing to do.

If only his supporters had that level of class.

All they're doing is hurting Obama.

Palin's eldest daughter pregnant.

Not much to say in it myself.

Anne Althouse has comments

And Hotair has more.

Go to the links for more information.

Technically having a teenage pregnant out of wedlock is a non-issue. Obama's mother was a teenager and married when six months pregnant.

The worst this could effect Palin are the Evangelicals... if one did not understand how Evangelicals work. They think a baby is a blessing, while others think a baby is punishment.

Bristol is 17, engaged and is going to keep the baby, so it's about the tamest teenage out of wed-lock pregnancy possible.

It is interesting to note that the loudest and most "prudish" cries against Palin are coming from the Left, and from people that wouldn't be voting for McCain/Palin anyway.