If you want to know what a Democratic disaster looks like, I’d submit that the story the statistics from this Gallup Poll aren’t good news for Democrats. According to this Gallup poll, 28 percent of Hillary’s supporters would vote for John McCain if Hillary doesn’t get the nomination. Similarly, 19 percent of Obama’s supporters would vote for McCain if Obama doesn’t get the nomination.

It’s also reasonable to think that Democratic turnout would drop significantly if Obama isn’t the nominee. There’s no way that Hillary can attract young voters to the polls in the same numbers that Obama can. Then again, I suspect that Obama’s appeal to young voters has diminished since the start of the Pastor J-Wright scandal. It’s always been the case that young voters are idealists, willingly lending their energy to someone with soaring rhetoric.

Lately, Obama’s lofty rhetoric has taken a hit because he wasn’t willing to challenge Pastor J-Wright after any of his hate-filled sermons. Dick Morris nails it perfectly why this has damaged Obama:

Obama has looked weak handling the Rev. Wright controversy. His labored explanation of why he attacks the sin but loves the sinner comes across as elegant but, at the same time, feeble. Obama’s reluctance to trade punches with his opponents makes us wonder if he could trade them with bin Laden or Ahmadinejad. We have no doubt that McCain would gladly come to blows and would represent us well, but about Obama we are not so sure.

Obama has looked feeble in dealing with Pastor J-Wright. While it’s admirable to not abandon a friend, it isn’t admirable to stand up against Pastor J-Wright’s basest principles. Friend or not, his statements had to be vociferously challenged.

Four years ago, Democrats talked about how the Bush-Kerry race was Kerry’s to lose, that they were going to send President Bush back to Crawford. We all know how that turned out.

Are we looking at another election cycle when Democrats snatch defeat from the jaws of victory? It’s too early to tell. What isn’t too early to tell is that there’s indicators that that’s entirely possible.

Technorati Tags: Polling, Obama, Jeremiah Wright, Hillary, John McCain, President Bush, Election 2008

Cross-posted at LetFreedomRingBlog

Prior to the Wisconsin Primary, Michelle Obama said that she was finally proud to be called an American. At the time, it seemed like a peculiar statement at the time. After reading Ed Koch’s column about the Obamas, her statement takes on a totally different complexion. Here’s the YouTube of Michelle Obama’s statement:

Here’s one of the key portions of Mayor Koch’s column:

It is also disturbing to me that Obama’s wife, Michelle, during a speech in Wisconsin last month, said, “For the first time in my adult lifetime, I’m really proud of my country, because it feels like hope is finally making a comeback.”

Strange. This is a woman who has had a good life, with opportunities few whites or blacks have been given. When she entered Princeton and Harvard and later became a partner in a prestigious law firm, didn’t she feel proud to be an American? When she and the Senator bought their new home, was there no feeling of accomplishment and pride in being a U.S. citizen? When her husband was elected to the state legislature and subsequently to the United States Senate, didn’t she feel proud of her country?

As powerful a set of questions as that is, they pale in comparison to this portion of Koch’s column: (continue reading post »)

The message that the anti-war protesters sent in getting the Vets for Freedom event canceled at Forest Lake High School was that an event with military vets isn’t to be tolerated. They aren’t the only people that deserve criticism. I’d say that FLHS principal Steve Massey also deserves criticism heaped on him for caving to political pressure from a fringe liberal blog.

Despite the planned event getting canceled, Vets for Freedom did hold an event, stopping at the American Legion Post 225 in Forest Lake. Here’s a brief recap from the Forest Lake Times:

After threats of an anti-war protest on Monday forced Forest Lake High School to cancel a visit by the Vets for Freedom national heroes tour, the group successfully made the visit to Forest Lake. On Tuesday, the Vets for Freedom bus rolled into the parking lot at American Legion Post 225 which was selected as alternate site for the tour.

Pete Hegseth is the executive director of the organization and a 1999 Forest Lake High School graduate who served with the Army in Iraq. Hegseth said on Tuesday he was disappointed with the school decision to cancel the event as it was an opportunity for students to hear stories from military personnel who have served their country. Hegseth said the high school program would not have taken a position on the Iraq War but would have conveyed a message to students about the importance of patriotism and military service to country.

I’ve talked briefly with Mr. Hegseth before Gen. Petraeus’ testimony last fall. He honorably served his nation in Iraq, fighting to give Iraqis the same basic freedoms we take for granted here. Instead of allowing VFF to give a legitimate presentation about military life, Principal Massey instead chose censorship over enlightenment. (continue reading post »)

According to this article in Hill Magazine, Team Hillary is battening down the hatches following the firestorm involving Hillary’s claim that she dodged sniper bullets on her trip to Bosnia. Here’s the money quote from their article:

“We’ve said all we’re going to say on that,” said Deputy Communications Director Phil Singer on a Tuesday morning conference call with reporters.

Team Obama jumped all over this:

The Obama campaign seized on the story when it was splashed across the CBS website Monday, with spokesman Tommy Vietor saying it is “part of a troubling pattern of Sen. Clinton inflating her foreign policy experience.”

It isn’t surprising to conservatives that Hillary has a credibility gap. In fact, Rush is asking why we think it’s news that a Clinton got caught lying. I think it’s only news because the media isn’t letting Hillary get away with telling this lie.

Technorati Tags: Hillary, Bosnia, Credibility, Obama, Phil Singer, Election 2008

Cross-posted at LetFreedomRingBlog

The Forest Lake school system caved to Democratic pressure by cancelling today’s event by Vets for Freedom. Here’s what you need to know about this disgraceful decision:

Steve Massey, the school principal, said the decision to cancel was prompted by concerns that the event was becoming political rather than educational and therefore was not suitable for a public school.

He said the school had received several phone calls from parents and others, some of whom indicated that they may stage a protest if the event took place.

“The event was structured to be an academic classroom discussion around military service. We thought we’d provide an opportunity for kids to learn about service in the context of our history classes,” Massey said. “As the day progressed, it became clear that this was becoming a political event…which would be inappropriate in a public setting.

“We decided to cancel,” Massey said. Organizers of the National Heroes Tour then scrambled to relocate the event to the American Legion building in Forest Lake. The visit, which U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Stillwater, had been scheduled to attend, is sponsored by Vets for Freedom, a national organization run by Pete Hegseth, a 1999 graduate of Forest Lake Area High School who served with the 101st Airborne in Iraq in 2005-06.

Here’s more on why the decision was made: (continue reading post »)

Hillary’s description of her trip into war-torn Bosnia has earned her 4 Pinocchios from the Washington Post. Thanks to her telling whoppers, we’ve now established a new standard previously unattained by major party presidential candidates. The finalists for the Democratic nomination have both bene caught lying about something important within a month of each other. Here’s what’s touching off the firestorm:

Clinton insisted, “I remember landing under sniper fire. There was supposed to be some kind of a greeting ceremony at the airport, but instead we just ran with our heads down to get into the vehicles to get to our base.”

Here’s the YouTube video that argues against Sen. Clinton:

I know that I’ve got hearing problems and my eyesight ain’t what it used to be but I didn’t hear any sniper fire and I’m certain that Hillary, Chelsea and company weren’t dodging bullets as they left the helicopter.

Let’s remember that it was only a week ago Friday that Obama denied hearing Pastor J-Wright’s incendiary sermons, only to admit last Tuesday that he had heard some of them.

If Sen. McCain were to write the perfect script for his campaign, I don’t think he’d write it much different than this. His primary function is to inject himself into the headlines often enough to remind people that he’s the adult in the race and that he’s a statesman. Then he steps off center stage, raises a bunch of money and watches Hillary and Obama beat each other up while spending millions of dollars against each other.

There’s a few things that are undeniable:

• Hillary wasn’t the model of virtue that Obama started off as;
• Obama isn’t the model of virtue that he started off as and
• John McCain is the beneficiary of the first two undeniable facts.

To a Republican, that’s proof enough that there is a God.

Technorati Tags: Obama, Hillary Clinton, Mudslinging, John McCain, Fundraising, Statesman, Election 2008

Cross-posted at LetFreedomRingBlog

Silvestre Reyes’ dishonesty is showing. Here’s where Rep. Reyes goes wrong in his March 20th Strib op-ed:

As the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, I am committed to taking this fight to the terrorists, but I remain convinced that we can do that while stopping this administration, or any administration, from conducting warrantless spying on Americans. Our responsibility includes not only the safety of the American people but also the safety and sanctity of the American Constitution. We must protect both.

Rep. Reyes is spinning this beyond acceptable levels. He’s writing about Rep. Michele Bachmann’s op-ed about the expiration of the FISA reform bill known as the Protect America Act (PAA). In the law that expired, FISA was updated temporarily. It expired after 6 months.

Everyone who knows anything about intelligence gathering knows that FISA deals only with foreign surveillance, hence the name Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. It has nothing to do with surveilling Americans.

Let’s first examine why the PAA was enacted. A FISA Appellate Court judge ruled that foreign communications that passed through an American telecommunications switch needed a warrant because it was deemed a domestic communication. In this judge’s mind, it didn’t matter that the sender and recipient weren’t Americans. It didn’t even matter that neither the sender or recipient weren’t even in the United States. All that mattered was that the communication passed through an American switch.

DNI Chairman Mike McConnell testified to this in Congress. He repeated that information to FNS’s Chris Wallace:

Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell recently told Fox News Channel’s Chris Wallace that by summer 2007, “We were in extremis, because we had lost…about two-thirds of our [surveillance] capability.”

Director McConnell testified that he was writing out warrants for known terrorists because of the FISA court ruling. (continue reading post »)

House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, (D-MI), promised supporters that he’ll proceed with impeachment hearings after November’s elections:

At a gathering of liberal activists in Washington on Tuesday, Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.) was asked if he would commit to holding the Bush administration accountable once a Democrat is in the White House and illegal acts have been pinned on President Bush.

“Yes, you have my word on that,” Conyers replied. He then shook the questioner’s hand as a sign of his commitment.

Conyers, who chairs the House Judiciary Committee, told an audience at the liberal Take Back America Conference that he is wrestling with the idea of beginning impeachment proceedings against President Bush and Vice President Cheney, but he believes that such an effort might hamper Sen. Barack Obama’s chance of winning the presidency. However, Conyers guaranteed his liberal audience that he will pursue legal action against Bush after the November elections.

In other words, impeachment is purely a political consideration. (continue reading post »)

Two years ago, a liberal friend of mine told me that Republicans had introduced slavery, Jim Crow, and the KKK to the United States, and that Democrats had always been champions of civil rights for Black Americans. Another friend, a successful physician, expressed surprise when I told him that Abraham Lincoln the first Republican president.

A few weeks later, I wrote this essay to illustrate how our public schools and media had successfully reinvented American history. It remains one of my most satisfying essays and one that still generates controversy.

Although I don’t ordinarily respond to Daily Kos moonbats, Brian penned this somewhat coherent response:

Phooey.

FDR, a Democrat, started efforts to end Jim Crow against the pressures of his own Party. Truman, a Democrat, desegregated the military by executive order against the wishes of Democrats AND Republicans in Congress. (Many associate this action with the Civil Rights banner being carried by the Democratic Party and the long association of the black community with Democratic Politics.)

JFK inspired a generation of civil rights activists. (Of course, there was Hoover’s investigations of civil rights activists, but go ahead, link Hoover to anyone but himself!)

LBJ signs the Civil Rights Act — which admittedly was opposed by many Southern Democrats. However, northern and Western Democrats, along with Republicans — the minority party — pushed it through Congress. (The GOP may want to say they did the CRA on their own, but the math wouldn’t let it happen.) LBJ championed the CRA and when signing it into law acknowledged that he “lost the South for the Democrats for at least a generation.”

Brian sucked Mike in as well, who suffers from what one psychiatrist calls Bush Derangement Syndrome. I decided to respond with something more formal before others got too confused. While Brian raises some good questions, I’ve sourced my answers.

FDR’s efforts began ninety years AFTER Republicans started them. Until the mid-1960s the overwhelming majority of Democrats who supported Civil Rights JOINED the Republican Party. The Solid South didn’t permit such “riff-raff.”

FDR’s effort to end military desegregation began in 1941 when socialist labor leader Philip Randolph began to organize black workers into a social and political force.

Although WWII demonstrated the need to enlist and integrate blacks, Democrats who controlled Congress throughout FDR’s presidency (1932-1945) ignored efforts to end segregation until Republicans gained the majority in 1947 – a year that coincided with Truman’s first presidential campaign.

When Truman’s Committee on Civil Rights recommended the end of segregation, Randolph threatened to organize mass civil disobedience unless the military services were immediately desegregated and Jim Crow laws ended. His appearance upset Democrat committee members like Richard Russell (D-GA), whose political careers were tied to segregation.

Truman tossed bones like Universal Military Training (UMT), but Congress rejected amendments by Republicans Jacob Javits and Adam Powell to desegregate the military and Truman signed it, allowing segregation to continue.

In 1948, Truman issued Executive Order 9981 which, on paper, required equal opportunity for black servicemen. A year later, Truman’s Armed Services Committee agreed that equal opportunity did not necessarily mean desegregate and, in their final report, recommended segregation to continue.

The Korean War finally began the end of segregation. In 1953, NAACP administrator Roy Wilkins reported that integration had begun around the fringes, although there was still no large scale changeover in the US. But in August 1954, Republican President Dwight Eisenhower ordered the end of segregation to be eliminated within a matter of months.

By the end of his presidency in 1961, Eisenhower had signed two civil rights bills and had successfully desegregated the military, years before LBJ signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (CRA).

LBJ’s action destroyed the Solid South, which rebelled by shifting their vote to Goldwater.

Brian writes that the new, conservative Republican Party began to creep into the realm of the racist South, suggesting the Republicans embraced the entrenched bigotry of the South. Clearly, the opposite was true. Republicans don’t care how many angry bigoted ex-Democrats vote Republican. Why refuse their votes?

Brian’s insinuation that “the shift” changed the Republican support for civil rights is pap.

In 1948, the Solid South secured 98 percent of the vote by threats, terror, and intimidation. Although a lifelong supporter of civil rights, Goldwater goofed when he opposed the CRA for believing that it “exceeded the Constitutional powers of Congress.” Lifelong segregationists switched their support and the Democrats have celebrated black gullibility and white guilt ever since.

But for a moment, think about the lifelong Democrats of 1964: Was it really possible that Democrats like George Wallace, who defended segregation and Jim Crow for half a century, would support civil rights for the same blacks he hated the previous week?

Not a chance.

Not only did Los Angeles and New York City Democrats support segregation throughout the 1950s and 1960s, they also secured control of the two largest public school districts in the nation (LA & NYC).

If George Wallace, who hated black children in 1963, was suddenly given control of their school districts in 1964, what kind of education could we expect those children to receive by 1965, 1985, or 2005?

Is it really a coincidence that LA and NYC school unions, teachers, and bureaucrats are overwhelmingly Democrat? The fact that half of all black students in the 9th grade today won’t graduate high school would make Democrats like George Wallace very proud, which might also explain why Democrats like Brian and Mike are so confused.

The notion that the people who created, supported, and defended civil rights since 1854 would suddenly embrace bigotry is as preposterous as believing that the lifelong supporters of hate would suddenly find love for black Americans.

History speaks much louder than propaganda.

Simply put, media people are delusional. I offer as proof this article from ABC News. Here’s a prime example of what I’m refering to:

To survey the data points on a good Friday in Obamaland, in what had the potential to be a very rough week:

This week had the potential to be a very rough week? Did ABC just insert that line into their article after accepting it from Obama’s communications team? This is a fatal blow to Obama. He won’t be the 44th president of the United States. His credibility is gone. He’s no longer able to walk on water. His week ends with more questions unanswered than answered. The worst part is that it isn’t over.

This is just the beginning. We still haven’t gotten into his connections with William Ayres. We still haven’t given much attention to his admitting that his connections with Tony Rezko run deeper than he originally admitted.

Here’s the opening paragraph of their article:

Sometimes, like a Cinderella team marching through March, Sen. Barack Obama’s presidential campaign seems nothing short of charmed.

I wouldn’t get any takers betting that Obama’s feeling charmed right now. I’m betting that most people would use the term shell-shocked to describe life in Obama headquarters. Most people in the real world would say that he’s had a miserable week. I know that because that’s where the evidence leads.

Technorati Tags: Obama, Jeremiah Wright, Agenda Media, Scandals, Election 2008

Cross-posted at LetFreedomRingBlog