Mandates & The Debt Ceiling

Assuming the accuracy of the polls discussed below, Americans are remarkably united on two points. One, our government should address the budget deficit only with spending cuts. Two, the time to start doing that is now. Specifically, Congress should not raise the debt limit.

A CBS Poll, released Friday, showed 77% wanted to reduce the federal budget deficit by only cutting spending. Only 9% supported raising taxes, and only an additional 9% supported a combination of spending cuts and tax raises. In a separate poll, 71% of responders opposed raising the debt limit above its current $14.3 trillion, a ceiling we can expect to bump up against in March.

On 6 January, Treasury Sec. Tim Geithner sent a letter to Congress, positing that the Four Horseman of the Apocalypse would be unleashed upon the world if Congress didn't vote to authorize an increase in the debt ceiling above $14.3 trillion. Would it?

According to the WSJ, the total amount required to service our national debt is actually quite low at the moment:

Total net payments amounted to $197 billion, or 1.4% of annual economic output. That’s a bit more than what the government spent on unemployment insurance.

If that is the case, why is it necessary at all to raise the debt ceiling? That is the thought of Felix Salmon, writing at Reuters:

Greg Ip [writing at The Economist] makes a very important point today, which I haven’t seen made anywhere else*: even if the US debt ceiling isn’t lifted, that doesn’t mean the government will default.

In any given month, the government’s income dwarfs its debt-service obligations, which means that the government could simply pay all interest on Treasury bonds out of its cashflow. Greg hasn’t run the numbers on principal maturities, but I’m pretty sure that they too could be covered out of cash receipts—and when that happened, of course, the total debt outstanding would go down, and we wouldn’t be bumping up against the ceiling any more.

The point here is that the government has enormous expenditures every month, and debt service constitutes an important yet small part of them. If the debt ceiling weren’t raised, it stands to reason that just about any other form of government spending would get cut before Tim Geithner dreamed of defaulting on risk-free bonds.

(H/T Instapundit)

With that in mind, perhaps serious consideration needs to be given to refusing to increase the debt limit and, instead, mandating immediate cuts to the budget. $197 billion ought not to be too had to find in a $3.55 trillion budget and it would put our government on a very different path - one to fiscal sanity. That is what the American people want, even if the left wing elite now in power considers that the end of the world.

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Putting The Popularity Of Our Government In Context

(H/T Instapundit)

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Obama Folds On Immigration As Polls Sharply Support Arizona Law

AP is reporting that Obama has announced that immigration reform is off the table for 2010. For all the hyperventelating about the Arizona immigration reform bill in the left wing MSM, it would appear that the majority of people see things differently:

Seven in 10 U.S. adults support arresting people who can't prove they're in the United States legally, a poll about Arizona's new immigration law
indicated. . . .

Seventy-one percent of poll respondents said they'd support requiring their own police to determine people's U.S. status if there was "reasonable suspicion" the people were illegal immigrants, the poll found.

An equal percentage supported arresting those people if they couldn't prove they were legally in the United States.

Almost two-thirds, or 64 percent, said they believed immigration hurt the United States, with nearly six in 10, or 58 percent, saying illegal immigrants took jobs away from American workers, the poll found. . .

And as Instapundit observes, apparently the Democrats "own polls must have showed something similar. And with blue-collar dems facing layoffs and recession, and black dems not so hot on amnesty, there wasn’t any percentage in bucking the sentiment, I guess, even in terms of shoring up their own base."

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If At First You Don't Succeed, Campaign, Campaign Again

Obama's poll numbers are tanking - as are the poll numbers for his signature legislative effort, universal Obamacare. Obama's coattails are not merely short, but after Massachusetts, Virginia and New Jersey, apparently non-existent. Unable to fathom how he has gone from being the hope 'n change Messiah during the campaign, carrying the Democratic party with him to electoral victory, to someone who makes Jimmy Carter look like a model President, Obama has decided to go back to his comfort zone - campaigning - in a big way.:

After last week's devastating defeat in Massachusetts, President Obama ordered a review of Democratic strategy and has decided to bring back some of the key people who helped him win the presidency, hoping they can work their magic on troubled Democrats. Not wanting to leave anything to chance, the president is taking greater control over party strategy and is bringing back his former campaign manager, David Plouffe, to oversee congressional and governors' races in hopes of preventing a Democratic massacre in November. . . .

The reality is that Obama does not seem yet to have left the campaign mode. Some might think that a detriment in a sitting President. Not Obama and his clique, however, whose response to the problems or governance is to campaign more and harder. Who are we to judge? Oh, that's right. We're the electorate. That's our job.

At any rate, Plouffe, he of campaign magic, is apparently equally as clueless as to the reasons for Obama's downfall. Plouffe has has outlined a sure fire strategy to change Obama's fading fortunes in an op-ed at the Washington Post. Democrats will survive a November massacre if they just "do what the American people sent them to Washington to do." Given that Obama campaigned to the center during the general election, I would have to agree with that. But what Plouffe means is actually to do what the far left base of the Democrats wants them to do. That means, explains Plouffe, first and foremost, immediately passing health care.

One wonders if Plouffe bothered to turn on a t.v. covering the Massachusetts election for TED KENNEDY'S ANCESTRAL SEAT. Apparently not. That said, there might be more to this than meets the eye. Plouffe adds a "P.S." that "[h]ealth care is a jobs creator." Who knew? We can solve all of our problems at once. Given that health care bill would create over 100 new bureaucratic entities, Plouffe's probably not even gilding the lilly with that one. Pass health care and solve our unemployment problem all in one fell swoop. Genuis. No wonder the left feels that they are meant by birthright to govern we, the unwashed masses, by fiat. And if we don't understand that, well, they'll just make a greater effort to explain it to us in the future.

Second on Plouffe's list is that "[w]e need to show that we not just are focused on jobs but also create them." Top down job creation is not how a capitilist system works - or at least not if the goal is the creation of permanent jobs. Government funded jobs from a spending bill are by definition temporary. Of course, it may well be that Plouffe is only concerned about jobs lasting from October to mid November of this year.

On a related note, just on Sunday, the left took credit for creating a whole bunch of jobs - the only problem was that none of the President's staff doing the Sunday talk show circuit could agree on how many. The numbers ranged from "thousands" to "1.5 million" to "2 million." Quite a spread there. Plouffe might want to start out his effort to convince the electorate of the veracity of Obama's job creation claims by making sure that whatever number Obama's speech writer dreams up while on a "fairy dust" bender is the same one used by the rest of the Obama Administration in public.

Plouffe does note, rightly, that "full recovery will happen only when the private sector begins hiring in earnest." What he doesn't explain is why, then, did the Democrats only allocate 2.6% of the $787 billion stimulus bills to helping small business - the hands down best engine of new job creation in America - with another 10% for infrastructure improvements. Well, at least Obama and Plouffe can point to public sector jobs. They did very well from the stimulus.

Unfortunately, as a high school student could probably have explained to Obama and Plouffe, the public sector itself creates no wealth. Public sector employment is wholly dependant upon tax receipts from . . . the private sector (or money borrowed from China which has to be repaid by private sector tax receipts, as the case may be). While public sector functions may be necessary, paying for them is a leech, not a benefit, to the economy. So Obama pissed away close to a trillion in borrowed money for virtually no return on investment. Since Plouffe glosses over those facts, I guess he is taking a mulligan on that one.

Plouffe's ultimate solution is to tell America not to be fooled by Republican criticism as the Bushies are responsible for all of Obama's ills. Apparently Obama was never inagurated and Bush is a year into his third term. If only.

And Plouffe, lastly, calls on Democrats to loudly trumpet their many achievements during the past year. He cites as one of them the great "transparency" instituted by Democrats. Whatever else you may say about Plouffe, the guy obviously has a world class sense of humor.

I am sure the return to a campaign mode that Obama, in reality, never left will work out well for Obama and the Democrats. Indeed, I applaud them for doing so as an alternative to governing and would remind them that, should they fail, not to give up hope. The answer is just to campaign, campaign ever harder.

You know, if this wasn't so deadly serious for our nation, it would be fun just to sit back with some popcorn and watch. These jokers are caricatures - of themselves.

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Truth??? You Can't Handle The Truth

Rasmussen has proven the most accurate polling agency over the past decade. During the last election, Rasmussen predicted 52% to 46% for Obama, and that is in fact what occurred - making them the most accurate of all 23 major polling organizations. And indeed, never a complaint from the left was heard about Rasmussen's polls during the past decade. Yet with Rasmussen now showing poll numbers that demonstrate a real backlash against the left and has Democrat lawmakers looking over their shoulders, the name Rasmussen seems as welcome in far left circles as the name Sarah Palin. This from the Politico:

Democrats are turning their fire on Scott Rasmussen, the prolific independent pollster whose surveys on elections, President Obama’s popularity and a host of other issues are surfacing in the media with increasing frequency.

The pointed attacks reflect a hardening conventional wisdom among prominent liberal bloggers and many Democrats that Rasmussen Reports polls are, at best, the result of a flawed polling model and, at worst, designed to undermine Democratic politicians and the party’s national agenda.

On progressive-oriented websites, anti-Rasmussen sentiment is an article of faith. “Rasmussen Caught With Their Thumb on the Scale,” blared the Daily Kos this summer. “Rasmussen Reports, You Decide,” the blog Swing State Project recently headlined in a play on the Fox News motto.

“I don’t think there are Republican polling firms that get as good a result as Rasmussen does,” said Eric Boehlert, a senior fellow with Media Matters, a progressive research center. “His data looks like it all comes out of the RNC [Republican National Committee]. . . .”

Reality. It bites, eh? Heh.

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The Left Shivers At The Polls

Several prominent Blue Dogs have announced retirement, and one defected to the Republicans yesterday. All of this comes on the heels of severe declines in the poll numbers for the left. Yet Obama, who campaigned as a moderate but is governing as a far left ideologue, pushes on with his unpopular policies and anti-democratic methods. This has many on the left taking starting to sweat at the poll numbers coming in. This from Time Magazine:

. . . But as Obama approaches the first year mark of his presidency, Democratic and Republican strategists are beginning to look more closely at the polls. Here's why:

1. Congress cares about polls.

Obama's success depends upon his ability to get Congress to do his bidding, and as the polls have soured, this has become a much tougher proposition. With the President's approval rating now dipping below 50% in most polls, Democratic pollsters have begun to sound the alarm. In a recent public memo, Celinda Lake, of Lake Research Partners, pointed to a sobering statistic: Presidents with approval ratings below 50% have lost an average of 41 House seats in mid-term elections. (Democrats currently have an 81-seat advantage in the House, so Republicans could gain control of the chamber with a 41-seat pick-up in 2010.) To make matters worse, Republicans now win the generic Congressional ballot by two points, the first time the GOP has outstripped Democrats since January of 2002, according to the George Washington University Battleground Poll.

"To make matters worse?" The authors left wing bent is showing, though in this case I find it more amusing than disquiting.

2. Health-care reform has become a burden.

Something has gone wrong on the long trail to historic health reform. For one thing, Americans no longer support what is going on. The recent Wall Street Journal/NBC poll found that 44% of the country believe it would be better not to pass any plan at all, while 41% said it would be better to pass the plan. As recently as October, the same poll showed those numbers practically reversed. . . .

3. The Obama movement has gone missing.

The 2009 elections in New Jersey and Virginia were initially talked about by Obama allies as a test of the President's organizing power. By the time the votes were counted, however, with Republicans winning two Democratic seats, no one at the White House wanted to claim any responsibility. That's because the remarkable enthusiasm that greeted Obama's victory in 2008, with record turnout among independents, blacks and young people, had gone away, along with the minions of Obama organizers. . . .

4. Keynes doesn't play in Peoria.

Obama has followed a traditionally Keynesian economic path in responding to the recession — temporarily increasing government spending to make up for slack in the economy. But voters, who continue to suffer from the downturn, are not so impressed. In a recent focus group with independent voters who voted for Obama, Republican pollster Ed Goeas found significant concern about government spending. "There was a tipping point that occurred," he said. "The biggest thing I have seen beyond the intensity and the independents moving has been this focus, in the middle of a very bad economy, on spending." . . .

5. Washington has not changed.

President Obama continues to get higher ratings for personal likability and trustworthiness than his Republican foes. But there are also signs that Obama is beginning to feel the taint of the long-standing anger against politics and politicians in general. The Wall Street Journal/NBC poll found in December that 61% of the country has only some confidence, or no confidence, in Obama having the right set of goals and priorities to be President. Meanwhile, America's confidence in general remains in the gutter. When asked if they trust that government will do what is right, 32% said almost never and 46% said only some of the time. In the Battleground poll, Democrats, Republicans and Independents all disapprove of the job Congress is doing, though the numbers among swing-voting independents are most concerning for the party in power. A full 77% of this group disapprove of the Congress's job performance. Only 15% approve.

Perhaps there is a chance that Obama's overreaching will result in such a significant backlash that our ship of state can still be righted (pun intentional). Let us hope.

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The "Recovery" That Isin't

The latest Republican ad - not a bad effort



Meanwhile, USA Today is reporting that Obama continues a practice from ancient antiquity - that of tyrants distibuting the spoils to their favored subjects in order to cement their power. We saw Obama do it with the extra-constitutional favoring of unions over preferred debt holders with GM and Chrysler, and now we see it being played out in the stimulus. Specifically, when the USA today charts where the stimulus money has gone, they find that those locales that supported Obama are raking in $69 per person, those that supported McCain are getting less than half of that at $34 per person.

At least Obama is tanking in the polls. This from Rasmussen:

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Thursday shows that 30% of the nation's voters now Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as President. Thirty-eight percent (38%) Strongly Disapprove giving Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of –8. The President’s Approval Index rating has fallen six points since release of a disappointing jobs report last week (see trends).

Thirty-nine percent (39%) now give the President good or excellent marks for handling the economy while 43% say he is doing a poor job. Those are by far his lowest ratings yet on the economy . . .

Thirty-four percent (34%) of voters nationwide say the U.S. is heading in the right direction, the lowest level of optimism since mid-March. The Rasmussen Index shows consumer and investor confidence are down again today reaching the lowest level in three months. The Discover U.S. Spending Monitor fell for the first time in three months. A Rasmussen video report notes that 46% want the government to stay out of the housing market. . . .

As to the last mentioned by Rasmussen, while it was government involvment in the mortgage industry that gave us our current economic meltdown (see here and here) - specifically, social engineering of lending standards in order to achieve racial quotas - Obama has big plans for expanding that bit of social engineering.

(H/T Gateway, Gateway, Gateway)

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A Townhall By The One

Friday was supposed to be a debate between McCain and Obama on national security and foreign policy. As of this writing, no deal has been reached on the fiscal crisis. It appears now fairly certain McCain will not attend the debate.

If Obama's campaign spokesman has not spoken inartfully (always a distinct possibility), then the One intends to show up and use this as a nationally televised town hall style campaign event in McCain's absence. Allahpundit, looking at the polls, thinks this would be a coup for Obama and a bad move by McCain. It is, I think, a huge risk by both Obama and McCain if Obama goes solo Friday.

Obama's argument justifying going forward on this debate is that Presidents must be able to do more than one thing at a time. Obama's demand that this debate go forward on Friday is undercut by the fact that he refused to the mass of townhall debates McCain had offered. And indeed, Obama's multitasking argument is wholly undercut by his failure to take a week off the campaign trail in the last two years to convene his European Affairs subcommittee and discuss with our European Allies the huge problem caused by NATO's failure to support the NATO mission in Afghanistan.

There seems little doubt that Obama is bound and determined to push for this debate on foreign policy now because, one, he sees a chance for additional partisan gain in the timing and, two, he sees problems if it gets pushed off. As to the former, Obama is weakest on national security. A debate held on the issue now would be greatly overshadowed by the crisis. As to the latter, Obama, who cynically withdrew from public funding for the general election, has to raise tons of money in October. If this is kicked into October, it will have more of an impact on Obama's ability to campaign and raise money than it will on McCain.

I think Obama would look incredibly foolish appearing for an hour and half in a solo town hall format. Regardless of any benefit, the question would be raised why is he doing this rather than being with McCain working on the fiscal crisis that threatens this nation with depression. I have no doubt the MSM will have the One's back on this and spin it to his favor. I think it clear though that a large part of America no longer trusts in the MSM spin and are making up their own minds. If Obama chooses to go through with this plan and refuses to reset the foreign policy debate, he is taking extreme risk that it will backfire upon him in the polls.

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McCain The Chessmaster

John McCain, dropping in the polls, makes another bold move. He responds to the call Monday from Sen. Harry Reid to get involved in the issue of the rescue operation for our economy. He cancels campaigning, goes to Washington to take part in the negotiations on the operation, invites Obama to do the same, and announces he will not take part in Friday's foreign policy debate if the rescue operation has not been nailed down. My own take - a chess move that is both risky and brings a reasonable potential of high reward. Patterico worries that this was a mistake. I disagree.

I have no way of knowing how much of McCain's decision is cold political calculus and how much is "country first," but I would suspect it is both. This move does several things for McCain. One, it gives McCain the aura of being decisive and serious about this economic crisis, making Obama, who I believe has yet to take a position on the rescue plan, appear yet again indecisive by comparison. In a game of one-upsmanship, McCain just did a slam dunk. Bush has since invited Obama to take part in the negotiations and Obama has accepted.

Powerline thinks it is a mistake for McCain to pull out of the Friday debate. I disagree. While this crisis is ongoing, the crisis would grossly overshadow the Friday debate which is on McCain's greatest strength, foreign policy and national security. McCain's action gives him a viable reason for pulling the plug on this debate right now and rescheduling it.

I do not see how Obama could realistically justify refusing to reschedule this debate, but then again, given that Obama has the full backing of the MSM, we have to wait and see. I can see Obama refusing to reschedule and the MSM doing their best to support him. If that were to succeed, it would be a net negative for McCain. But given that Obama has argued that the debate should go on in the face of the greatest fiscal crisis since the depression because a President should be able to multitask, as I post below, McCain has a counter-argument that ought to really sting Obama.

This move also halts Obama's momentum. McCain was taking a bath in the polls as this economic crisis grabbed ever more attention. Regardless of reality, public perception is that the left are better stewards on economic issues. Obama has gained on the economic crisis while McCain has been flailing in response, still not yet responding effectively. This move stops the Obama camp in their tracks from attacking McCain on economic issues while McCain is in Washington. To do otherwise would reflect very poorly on Obama.

And this is one of those rare events where even the far left is - and should be - deathly afraid of playing their usual political games. They are very clearly the root cause of the subprime crisis and they are desperately trying to hide it. If the public sees them as putting the screws to this one and risking a depression for partisan gain, the Democratic party will become not but a historical footnote. So in other words, regardless of how much they want McCain to lose this election, the hand they normally use to stab people in the back with for partisan gain is tied as tight as it will ever be at the moment.

The danger to McCain is that he is unable to rally the right and Republicans get tabbed as being the roadblock to a solution. That would end the campaign here and now. And one can rarely count on our existing group of Congressional Republicans to act with any sort of sanity. That said, while McCain may drive Republicans wild, and while conservative opinion may be against the Treasury plan, I see no other alternative with a hope of passing. If McCain is smart, he will go into negotiations with a requirement that the plan coincide with a reduction in capital gains taxes to preserve people's savings during the hard times ahead. This will make him a conservative hero of sorts and ought to have great appeal to all Americans.

All of this said, when these negotiations are over, it is an absolute necessity that McCain and Republicans tell the tale of how this subprime crisis came to be. McCain clearly does not like attacking his fellow Senators. In this instance, it is his duty to America that this be spelled out from start to finish. Anyone who believes that the left is better trusted with our economy than even the existing sorry group of Republicans in office has bought into a fairy tale - only in this one, Hansel and Gretel get eaten by the Democratic witch.

Lastly, if you have not followed the naked political manuevering of the incredibly inept Harry Reid, inviting and then disinviting McCain, do read up on it at Hot Air. This guy doesn't have the skills or principles be a high school class president, let alone majority leader of the Senate.

Many more links related to all of this at Memorandum.

Other posts related to Subprime Crisis (from oldest to newest):

McCain, The Fannie and Freddie Crisis, and Obamafuscation - Obama and the entire Democratic Party are trying to blame Republicans for the subprime crisis. But this crisis was created by Bill Clinton and protected against Republican efforts to reign it in over a decade – until it failed, nearly pulling out entire economic system into a depression.

A Washington Post Front Page Hack Job - The Washington Post does a hit job on McCain, grossly distorting his record on regulatory matters and ignoring his cosponsoring of legislation to establish much stronger regulation of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Dodging a Depression - The NYT and WSJ document just how serious is the subprime crisis. Quite literally it brought us to the point of a complete and catastrophic stoppage of our financial systems as institutions lost confidence in their fellow institutions. This was not a stock market crash, it was a lending and credit crash. The WSJ describes the events of the week leading up to the crisis point.

Obama & The "Family" Of Fannie Mae - Documenting Obama’s relationship to Fannie Mae.

The Origins – And Foreseeability – Of the Subprime Crisis - A 1999 article in the NYT describes the Clinton Administration forcing subprime loans onto America and also forecasts that this will create a house of cards that will fall apart in a down market.

Covering The Left’s Fannie - The NYT tries to play up old ties of a McCain campaign worker with Fannie Mae while minimizing the fact that McCain himself, in 2005, co-sponsored legislation that may well have prevented the fiscal crisis we are in now.

The Left’s Subprime Meltdown - A post by the Anchoress discusses this subprime crisis as a creation of the left and a system that was protected to the end by the left. She adds additional sites, quotes and links to explain the mosaic.

Fannie & Freddie, McCain & Obama, Subprime & Wall St.
The WSJ discusses both how the subprime loan market came about and how Democrats, including Obama, were both the cause of the problem and the roadblock to a solution that would have averted this catastrophe. Dafydd at Big Lizard's explains how Mortgage Backed Securities worked on Wall Street.

A Doddering Fool & Charlatan - Chris Dodd is up to his ears in the subprime crisis. With our economy teetering on an actual depression due to the Fannie/Freddie/subprime loan crisis, it was not merely surreal to watch Senator Chris Dodd chair an emergency hearing of the Senate Banking Committee to evaluate the Treasury's proposed rescue plan, it was obscene.

Finally – Oversight - The FBI has finally announced criminal investigations at Fannie and Freddie.

When Will They File As A 527 – The NYT continues its wholly biased reporting on the subprime crisis, refusing to report on the genesis of the crisis and instead, reporting on the relationship between Fannie Mae and Rick Davis of McCain’s campaign team.

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Is This One Of The Reasons For The Desperation? (Updated)

The Real Clear Politics electoral college vote count today - McCain 227, Obama 217. That is a major shift. A sudden onset of incontinence is reportedly being treated at hospitals near Obama campaign offices throughout the land, and Depends are flying off the shelves. Things are going south for The One the Fallen Idol.

Obama's problem is no better illustrated than in Florida, one of the big battleground states. It seems the wheels are coming off of Obama's bus somewhere around Tallahassee. Obama has invested heavilly in Florida - to the tune of $8 million in ads over the summer and 350 staffers in over 50 field offices, the largest Demorcratic staff ever in that state for a Presidential race. McCain just began running ads there last week. The status - most polls show McCain at +5 to +8 and Obama seems on the verge of no longer being comptetitive in the Gator state.

This from the St. Petersburg Times:

Barack Obama could be on the verge of falling out of contention in Florida.

Despite spending an estimated $8-million on campaign ads in America's biggest battleground state and putting in place the largest Democratic campaign organization ever in Florida, Obama has lost ground over the summer. Florida has moved from a toss-up state to one that clearly leans toward John McCain, fueling speculation about how much longer the Democratic nominee will continue investing so heavily in the state.

Obama can still win Florida despite the polling gains McCain has made since naming Sarah Palin his running mate, and there is no sign Obama is pulling back in Florida yet. Far from it. Obama allies say he has about 350 paid staffers in the state and about 50 field offices, including in places not known as fertile ground for Democrats, such as Sun City Center, Lake City and Sebring.

But for all the attention to Florida from the Obama campaign, there's little tangible evidence it's paying off.

He is farther behind in the state than John Kerry was at this point in 2004, even though McCain began buying Florida TV ads only last week. By this time in 2004, the Bush-Cheney campaign had spent $13-million on Florida TV. In the rolling average of Florida polls compiled by the Web site RealClearPolitics.com, Obama has never taken the lead over McCain in Florida, and the latest average shows him behind by 5 percentage points. They were tied in early August.

Four Florida polls came out this week, with one showing a tied race, the others showing McCain leading by 5 to 8 percentage points.

"They've had everything going for them — momentum, enthusiasm, money, a complicit national press, a stiff wind at his back for a long time, and he hasn't been able pull ahead in Florida,'' said Republican strategist Alberto Martinez of Tallahassee. "I think Florida is one of those states that's taken off the board pretty soon, as they start focusing resources on states they can win." . . .

Read the entire article. It is possible for this to blow up on McCain. He needs to do well in the debates - I am more confident of his ability to do this than I am Obama's - and Gov. Palin needs to avoid any major gaffes that resonate, and that of course includes her debate with Biden. And Congress needs to avoid doing something stupid in regards to drilling - i.e., do not cave to Democrats. This is still too close for conservatives to be feeling confident, but its impossible not to start feeling a bit of optimism..

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Desperation

As I posted below, Obama, sliding in the polls, has promised to be much more aggressive in his attacks on John McCain. But Obama has to be truly desperate to go after John McCain on the basis of his associations. Given Obama's history of ties to radical after radical, this would seem a can of worms he would stay away from like its radioactive. Yet he is now preparing to run an ad criticizing McCain for associating with Rick Reid, an individual involved with Jack Abramoff scandal that McCain exposed.

Here is the ad the Obama campaign is now running:



The McCain campaign response, posted at NRO, is stinging:

Barack Obama’s ad is ridiculous. Because of John McCain, corruption was exposed and people like Jack Abramoff went to jail.

However, if Barack Obama wants to have a discussion about truly questionable associations, let’s start with his relationship with the unrepentant terrorist William Ayers, at whose home Obama’s political career was reportedly launched. Mr. Ayers was a leader of the Weather Underground, a terrorist group responsible for countless bombings against targets including the U.S. Capitol, the Pentagon and numerous police stations, courthouses and banks. In recent years, Mr. Ayers has stated, ‘I don’t regret setting bombs … I feel we didn’t do enough.’

The question now is, will Barack Obama immediately call on the University of Illinois to release all of the records they are currently withholding to shed further light on Senator Obama’s relationship with this unrepentant terrorist?”

— McCain spokesman Brian Rogers

This is clearly an effort to slime McCain, but it is ill advised for Obama to say the least. All of the MSM effort to play down and ignore Obama's associations - ones that should have disqualified from running for the presidency in the first place - will go for naught if Obama opens up this can of worms himself.

That said, it is not enough for the McCain campaign to respond to this with a statement. They should be making an immediate demand that Obama pull the ad. If that fails, then the McCain camp should respond in kind. They are more than justified in doing so.

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Truer Words Never Spoken

Obama said yesterday in a speech to the VFW that "McCain doesn't know what he is up against." That is the most accurate statement Obama has made to date. And therein lies his problem. No one knows what McCain is up against. Obama has yet to articulate a doctrine, policy or principal that he has not revoked, revised or tossed out - all the while claiming that his latest articulation represents no change whatsoever from the views he has always held. Obama, whose poll numbers are dropping just slightly slower than lead dropped into the ocean, is vowing to fight back - aided and abetted by the MSM, of course. But his problems are all self-inflicted. Thus, it seems his only options are to delegitimize criticism and to dishonestly paint John McCain.

Obama is losing ground in the polls, with at least one poll, the Zogby poll, now showing a McCain with a 5 point lead. McCain has led a steady drumbbeat against Obama for lacking substance. In response to the Russian invasion of Georgia, McCain looked decisive, Obama weak. And all of that was topped off with a commanding performance by John McCain and a weak performance by Obama at the Saddleback pseudo debate.

A big part of Obama's problem is his dishonesty and blaring hypocrisy. He has raised flip flopping to an art form heretofore not seen in American presidential politics and added on top of it a layer of dishonesty and hypocrisy that is breathtaking. The abortion issue is but the latest shining example. On the day of the Saddleback interview, Obama claimed that he was being maligned with suggestions that he supported infanticide:

The presumptive Democratic nominee responded sharply in an interview Saturday night with the Christian Broadcast Network, saying anti-abortion groups were "lying" about his record.

"They have not been telling the truth," Mr. Obama said. "And I hate to say that people are lying, but here's a situation where folks are lying."

He added that it was "ridiculous" to suggest he had ever supported withholding lifesaving treatment for an infant. "It defies common sense and it defies imagination, and for people to keep on pushing this is offensive," he said in the CBN interview.

At issue is the Born Alive Infant Protection Act, a bill in the Illinois state Senate that sought to protect against bungled abortions by requiring that a fetus that survived an abortion be defined as a person. . . .

It turns out that Obama was lying about his position. He voted against the above referenced bill in the Illinois Senate. Big Lizards has the whole story and Doug Ross also has an excellent post complete with copies of the documentation. And then when that lie was caught, Obama added another layer of dishonest nuance, as Hot Air explains. All of this was on top of his craven refusal to answer the question put to him at Saddleback of when does life begin.

Another Obama problem is his inabiity to back up his promises with anything substantive. He has been asked several times now, in light of his promise to heal the partisan divide, to show an instance where he reached across the aisle on a contentious issue. His answers have been inane, weak and deceptive. When first asked that question a few weeks ago by during a Fox News interview, Obama responded that, while he voted against the appointments of Judge Alito and Roberts, he nonetheless defended Democrats who voted for them. When asked the question at Saddleback, he responded that he had worked with John McCain on bi-partisan ethics legislation. That of course was true - for one week in 2006. That was until Obama backtracked and refused to participate any further, garnering this response from McCain:

Republican Sen. John McCain on Monday accused his Democratic colleague Barack Obama of “partisan posturing” on the issue of lobbying ethics reform . . . “I concluded your professed concern for the institution and the public interest was genuine and admirable,” McCain, R.-Ariz., wrote in a letter to Obama, D-Ill., Monday. “Thank you for disabusing me of such notions.”

Thus, Obama's problems are self inflicted. He is a fundamentally weak candidate with a few superficial strengths. He has tried to ride the wave of his utopian and meaningless rhetoric - but that only went so far before McCain started pointing out the obvious, that the emporer had no clothes. On specific issues, Obama pretty much has no identifiable positions or the positions he does hold, once identified, are disclaimed as the need arises. Again here, McCain has done little more than point out the obvious, often with a bit of humor.

Obama's response has been to "fight back" against the McCain onslaught. We seem to be getting a taste of that in Obama's speech to the VFW and his latest deeply dishonest ad on the economy now playing in the swing states.

Obama's fighting back against McCain at the VFW was to simply demand that McCain stop being critical of Obama. In essence, it was Obama's attempt to paint any criticism of himself as being an attack on his patriotism. I suspect this will work as well as Obama's attempts to paint any criticism of him as being racially motivated. This from the WSJ:

Speaking before the Veterans of Foreign Wars this morning, Barack Obama delivered an amazing show of chutzpah. John McCain had addressed the VFW yesterday, and as the Associated Press reports, he was predictably critical of Obama:

McCain . . . said Obama "tried to legislate failure" in the Iraq war and had put his ambition to be president above the interests of the United States. He said the Illinois senator did this by pushing for a timetable for withdrawal of U.S. combat troops from Iraq and by voting in the Senate against a major appropriations bill to help fund the troop increase.

Here is Obama's reply:

"One of the things that we have to change in this country is the idea that people can't disagree without challenging each other's character and patriotism. I have never suggested that Sen. McCain picks his positions on national security based on politics or personal ambition. I have not suggested it because I believe that he genuinely wants to serve America's national interest. Now, it's time for him to acknowledge that I want to do the same. . . ."

Of course, if Obama were to accuse McCain of picking his positions on national security based on politics or personal ambition, everyone would laugh, because it obviously is not true. By contrast, there is quite a bit of evidence that Obama has placed political expediency above national security . . .

In politics one often hears the charge of hypocrisy: My opponent criticizes me for X, but he has done Y, which is just as bad or worse. Obama's argument here, though, is roughly opposite in form. He concedes that McCain is above reproach on this particular subject and therefore demands that McCain treat him as if he were beyond reproach. Obama's acknowledgment of a McCain virtue is well and good, but it does not mitigate or excuse his own shortcoming.

Powerline also does an exceptional deconstruction of Obama's VFW speech and his attempt to cloak himself from criticism under the rubric of patriotism. It is not Obama's patriotism that is suspect, its his judgment and his willingness to put his ambition over the best interests of the country.

In the swing states, Obama is running ads that amount to cutting and splicing, taking quotes out of context and taking statements McCain made assessing the economy from a time before the economy went into its current rough patch. This from the NYT:

In Philadelphia; East Lansing, Mich.; Green Bay, Wis.; and at least five other major cities, Mr. Obama is heavily showing an advertisement contrasting a statement by Mr. McCain that “we have had a pretty good, prosperous time with low unemployment,” with appearances by people making statements like, “The prices of gas are up; the prices of milk are up.” . . .

Here is Factcheck.org's take on the ad:

"An Obama ad uses dated and out of context quotes to portray McCain as clueless on the economy.

Summary

Obama's campaign is running a TV ad in Indiana that asks the question: "How can John McCain fix the economy, when he doesn't think it's broken?" But the ad uses quotes from McCain that are old and taken out of context:

The ad shows McCain saying, "I don't believe we're headed into a recession." But McCain said that in January, and he also acknowledged at the time that the American economy was in "a rough patch."

The ad then shows McCain saying in April, "[T]here's been great progress economically." But the quote is lifted from a much longer response; McCain went on to say that the "progress" made during Bush's tenure still wouldn't console American families who are facing "tremendous economic challenges."

The third quote from McCain, "[W]e have had a pretty good prosperous time, with low unemployment," also comes from January. In his full response, McCain went on to say "things are tough right now."

So, at any rate, to return to the initial quote from Obama, no, we, like John McCain, really do not have any idea what we are up against in Obama. We do not know what he stands for. But we do know that he is trying every card in the book to deflect all criticism by delegitimizing it as impermissibly motivated. We do know that he is governed first and foremost by ambition. We do know he has a history of close association with radicals. We do know that he is fundamentally dishonest and hypocritical. We do know that he is ducking and running from any real debates with McCain. Is there anything else we really need to know to round out the picture before November?

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A Sophistical Rhetorician Inebriated With The Exuberance Of His Own Verbosity

The above title is a quote of Benjamin Disraeli as he described William Gladstone and used by George Will in his column today to explain why Obama is vastly underpforming his party brand. Powerline also offers some related thoughts.
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This from George Will writing in the NY Post:

As the presidential candidates enter the three-month sprint to November, Barack Obama must be wondering: If that didn't do it, what will?

"That" is his Berlin speech. "It" is assuage anxieties about his understanding of the need to supplement diplomacy with military force.

. . . But polls taken since his trip abroad don't indicate that Obama succeeded in altering the oddest aspect of this campaign: Measured against his party's surging strength, he's dramatically underperforming. Surely this is related to anxieties about his thin resume regarding national security, the thinnest of any major party nominee since Wendell Wilkie's in 1940. But it also might be related to fatigue from too much of his eloquence, which is beginning to sound formulaic and perfunctory.

Even an eloquent politician can become, as Benjamin Disraeli described William Gladstone, "a sophistical rhetorician inebriated with the exuberance of his own verbosity."

Does Obama have the sort of adviser a candidate most needs - someone sufficiently unenthralled to tell him when he has worked one pedal on the organ too much? If so, he should be told: Enough, already, with the we-are-who-we-have-been-waiting-for rhetorical cotton candy that elevates narcissism to a political philosophy.

And no more locutions such as "citizen of the world" and "global citizenship." If they meant anything in Berlin, they meant that Obama wanted Berliners to know that he is proudly cosmopolitan. Cosmopolitanism isn't, however, an asset for US presidential candidates. Least of all is it an asset for Obama, who needs to seem comfortable with America's vibrant and very un-European patriotism.

Otherwise, "citizen of the world" and "global citizenship" are, strictly speaking, nonsense. Citizenship is defined by legal and loyalty attachments to a particular political entity with a distinctive regime and culture. Neither the world nor the globe is such an entity.

. . . Sweeping changes are almost always consequences of calamities - often of wars, sometimes of people determined to "remake the world." Wise voters hanker for candidates whose principal promise is that they will do their best to muddle through without breaking too much crockery.

Read the entire article. It is a good one this week.

On a related note, Paul at Powerline has an insightful post on how Obama pointing out that Obama's reliance on rhetoric and race to win the primary is ill serving him in the general election.

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The Bounce

Obama did his world tour. He announced his findings and plan for Iraq and Afghanistan and then visited those countries. He did Europe where he had to remind people that he would not be voted in as President until November. The Germans went wild. The Brits were in awe. Our troops, a bit less so, but he did not see them that often, so no problems there. The press coverage was all Obama, all the time. It has become so obvious that the MSM is in the tank for Obama one was surprised to hear the occasional mention of John McCain.

So here it comes. The bounce in the polls. . . . .

It is now McCain by 4 points.

That according to the latest from the USA Today-Gallup Poll.

As Gateway Pundit puts it, ruh roh. One can only imagine the sudden breakout of tourettes on the far left this afternoon.

Yes, I know this is but one poll. Yet . . . Abe Lincoln has been validated. You really can't fool all the people all the time.

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Interesting Posts From Around The Web - 1 July 2008

The most interesting posts from around the web, all below the fold . . .
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Art: The Declaration of Independence, John Trumbull

Second Amendment

Slapstick Politics hosts a guest blogger who was particularly impressed by the precision of Scalia’s opinion in Heller. It is well worth a read to savor the taste of the seminal originalist opinion of our time.

As Transterrestrial Musings points out, a lot of people who support a robust Second Amendment right will pulling the lever for McCain in November. The reason – as I also pointed out here - an Obama presidency will likely see the Heller decision rendered a nullity. Power and Control thinks likewise.

Meryl Yourish is exercising her Second Amendment rights after the Heller decision.

Soob blogs on the thought process of gun control advocates, as demonstrated in the Fox News panel Sunday morning. Meanwhile, the Educated Shoprat blogs a case study in the practical benefits of a robust Second Amendment.

Carl at No Oil For Pacifists has a great post on the whining and lamentations of the left in the wake of the Heller opinion. The whine that really gets me comes from those who claim the 1939 Miller case was precedent for holding that the Second Amendment did not grant an individual right. The only people who can possibly spout such nonsense and believe it are people who have never read the case and have no understanding of the law.

In the UK, from whom we inherited the Second Amendment right, the Adam Smith organization ponders the erosion of their own rights.

Iraq, Afghanistan, War & the Military

Thunder Run has a superb roll-up from mil-blogs and other war related news.
Bizzyblog wonders how the media will spin the lowest two month death total for U.S. forces in Iraq from all causes since the invasion of Iraq in 2003.

Seven years after 9-11, the war on terror has been a great success on all major fronts. Four Right Wing Whackos have the new Dem line: "Success against the Taleban. Enemy giving way in Iraq. Al-Qaeda on the run. Situation dire. Let's retreat!"

A great quote from John Adams posted at Power and Control.

A very good post from Callimachus giving his thoughts on the reality of war, total war, and the costs of finding war too brutal to fight to win.

On Jan. 5, Lance Cpl. Robert Crutchfield, home on leave, was shot in front of his girlfriend during a mugging and later died. Red Alerts is following the story and posts that the two thugs who committed this crime will face the death penalty.

Oil & Economics

From Markedmanner, oil hit another all-time high today. Supply is so tight that any problem with any large producer causes a big jump in the futures contracts. That combined with the weak dollar is causing tremendous problems.

From This Ain’t Hell, Dems latest attempts to tie the explosion in oil prices to some highly nebulous Bush big oil agenda. It does not seem to be working. Kollarow is blogging on polls showing the vast majority of Americans favor drill for oil offshore and in ANWR. Even 40% of Democrats are starting to think that a rig or two in ANWR is sounding pretty good. From Pam Meister, Drill Here, Drill Now. Freedom Now ponders our oil woes and Democratic obstructionism – not only at home, it seems, but abroad also.

Matt at Weapons of Mass Discussion has a great blog addressing the canard repeated ad infinitum concerning there is no need to lift the moratorium on ANWR, offshore drilling or the exploration of oil shale when "Big Oil needs to drill in the 68 million acres they already have leased."

Obama

Discriminations post on former Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger who compares Obama’s pre-emptive race bomb with the tactics he observed from Joe McCarthy.

Eye on the World posts that Obama tosses Wessley Clark under the bus after Clark’s unconscionable comments on McCain’s service to our country yesterday. Clark is pure ambition unsaddled with ethics.

Comments Confederate Yankee, the saddest thing about Obama’s military experience is that "the only person he knows with the experience of getting a bomb on target is Bill Ayers."

Jammie Wearing Fool notes the new Democratic talking point: "so McCain was tortured, big deal." These people have a deficit of class matched by their deficit of sense. Gay Patriot also weighs in, and then notes "The more attacks I see from the left the more convinced I become that theirs is a party of hate." In truth, the default position for an increasing majority on the left is not to argue issues, but to demonize those whom they do not agree with. I think "party of hate" only scratches the surface.

Obama supports equal pay for women, just not in his campaign staff – per the Jawa Report.

Vocal Minority posts on Larry Elder, a black conservative, who responded to a query from a fellow African American. Elder explains in detail why he is supporting McCain over Obama. It makes for a good read.

Joshua Pundit posts on Iraq’s decision to sue the UN over the oil for food program – and there is an Obama connection.

Are Obama trolls gaming Google to get anti-Obama blogs shut down? It appears that way. The Irate Nation has the story. The Anchoress also blogs this, along with other stories.

Socialism

Down under at a Western Heart, a good essay that takes a stab at defining the various classes of socialists and the left.

See the Samizdata quote of the day, and then this on the triumph of collectivism in the U.S. and Europe.

I concur with Stop the ACLU that unions are no longer of benefit to our nation. The benefits unions provided to America ended long ago when the worst of employer abuses likewise ended. And with that thought in mind, please note that full and accurate information is the very coin of democracy – and literally so when it concerns the taxpayers coin. Apparently, unions in Washington do not see it that way.

Republicans

Matt at Weapons of Mass Discussion questions the efficacy of donating to the National Republican Senatorial Committee. Their strategy is apparently to hide their affiliation and run against McCain. Who dreamed up this strategy, Howard Dean?

Global Warming

Aurora reports from down under that Kevin Rudd is preparing to tank Australia’s economy in the name of global warming. Read the post. It sounds quite dire.

UK & Europe

Blue Crab Boulevard blogs on political correctness gone absolutely stark raving bonkers in Sweden.

Insanity in the UK posted by Dhimmiwatch. The UK is about to deport a Pakistani family that converted to Christianity even though they face a threat of death for that in their home country. This as the UK hosts a rogues gallery of the world’s worst terrorists that they cannot deport for precisely the same reason. Meanwhile, Shield of Achilles blogs on another honor killing of a young girl in the UK.

In the Netherlands, charges dropped by prosecutors against Geert Wilders for insulting Islam. Dinah Lord posts that the decision included the finding that the legislator's comments were part of a legitimate debate. That debate does not extend to the utterly ludicrous UN Human Rights Council which will now, per Europe News, entertain no discussion of Islam. Anyone who does not realize that this is an existential conflict isn’t paying attention.

Seraphic Secret has an articulate and chilling post on "jew hating savages of Paris" and wherein he makes the point that "Jews are the canaries in the coal mine of civilization."

Political InSecurity posts that MI-5 is warning that al Qaeda is planning suicide attacks in the UK using NHS ambulances.

From LGF - According to the study "Imams in Germany," up to 20 percent of preachers belong to the more conservative, fundamentalist strand of Islam. The study also discovered that only one fifth of imam’s possess academic qualifications."

IslamistWatch posts that surgical hymen restoration – i.e., to present as a virgin – are the rage in Europe among Muslim women. And it is on the welfare dime in the UK and Denmark because the women face threats of violence if they are not virgins when married.

Islam In Europe posts a comprehensive round-up of Islamist related news occurring in Europe.

RightTruth posts on a fascinating book by John Press, Culturalism. It poses the opposite of the insane doctrine of multiculturalism. "Culturism holds that majority cultures have a right to define, protect and promote themselves. By that light, preventing the building of mega-mosques is a reasonable culturist policy. Multiculturalism holds that all cultures are the same and that Britain has no core culture. That is obvious rubbish. Then they use the word racism to slander anyone who does not agree. Culturism is a word that can combat the abuse of Western nations with the words multiculturalism and racism." You could also call it common sense.

Dutchblog Israel posts on the slow diminution of democracy as violence by Islamists comes to be seen as a justifiable method of political expression.
To call what is going on in the UK a decline in academic standards at the hands of the socialist Labour government is a grotesque understatement. MK has the story.

Israel

Soccer Dad has an exceptional post on the proposed deal to trade Samir Kuntar to Hezbollah for the remains of two dead Israeli soldiers. Angel at Woman, Honor Thy Self believes PM Olmert is foolish to make a trade of a terrorist who murdered a child for the remains of two Israeli soldiers. Solomnia is troubled by the same issue.

Dave in Boca has a fascinating post with a lot of personal insights on the al Dura affair and the circle the wagons irrespective of the facts approach being taken by the French media to protect a reporter who should be jailed for life for the bloodshed he has caused.

And see Shrinkwrapped’s exceptional essay on the al Dura affair and its reverberations. "The parallels between the Al-Dura blood libel and the Haditha slander suggest that the American elites are coming to closely resemble the Israeli elites in their ready acceptance of guilt and their aesthenic reactions to accusations of evil intent and atrocity against those who protect us."

Islam

Ironic Surrealism has a chilling highlight reel from the film "Suicide Killers", by Pierre Rehov – a documentary at the culture, ideology and tactics that go into the making of Islamist suicide bombers.

A new Holocaust – only this one aimed at Christians in Muslim lands. Persevere has the story and links. DhimmiWatch has the story of the religiously motivated kidnapping and torture of Coptic Christians and Churches in Egypt. Christians Under Attack has the story of state discrimination against Christians in a province in Indonesia and attacks against converted Christians in Iran as the state ponders whether to start executing converts again.

Verum Serum reports on a Saudi marriage officiant who says that there is no minimum age for marriage – you can marry as young as one year old - though the groom should wait a few years before sexual intercourse. The Dhivehistan, a Maldives blog, posts on two pre-pubescent child brides in Yemen who have run away and both filed for divorce. In fairness to Yemen, this is a major story who many in the country are hoping will lead to a reexamination of the practice. The problem is that the Koran records the 50+ year old prophet taking a 6 year old bride and then having sex with her when she was 9.

At the Whited Sepulchre, a memo from a Jihadist Safety Consultant. It is hilarious.

From FireBase America, the Italians are fighting back. Compare that with a day in the life of a French Police Officer at the Covenant Zone.
Sake White has posted on the Islamic slave trade – a trade which has lasted over 14 centuries and, in some areas, continues today.

From Gates of Vienna: "Peace-loving Muslims have been made irrelevant by their silence. Peace-loving Muslims will become our enemy if they don’t speak up, because like my friend from Germany, they will awaken one day and find that the fanatics own them, and the end of their world will have begun."

The Truth posts on the decision of the Canadian HRC to dismiss charges against Mark Steyn and Muslim unhappiness therewith.

The American Jingoist blogs on the shaky legal ground on which stands the Virginia Islamic Academy.

Elder of Ziyon posts on some real tin foil hat level paranoia – this time of the Persian variety.

History

A great post with lots of links of Pre-WWII Americana and more at the Irish Elk.

Entertainment

Under the Hill has a movie review of Wall-E. They love it.

Politics & Pigskins salutes the passing of George Carlin. At Blogs of War, Carlin doing his 7 Words You Can’t Say On Television routine.

D.C. Comics has revived Catwoman – with a spin. She is now a lesbian. Deansworld comments on the likelihood of success of this new marketing ploy.

Humor

Lot’s of oil. No Caribou. Looks like a great place for exploratory drilling – from Power and Control.

Heh – KG has the New Zealand Navy.

The good folk at Vast Right Wing Conspiracy have felt the muse and been moved by Obama to write new lyrics for an old song, Hey, Hey, Hey, Another One Under The Bus . . .

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