Bring up Obama's associations!

There's one thing I want to see at tonight's presidential debate: McCain needs to take off his gloves and give it to Obama! I think McCain can still win the election if he doesn't take this advice, but I think he can really turn the tables by talking to America about Barack Obama's relationships with Rev. Wright in particular, but Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn as well.

Unless McCain can raise doubt in Americans' minds about Obama, I don't see how he can close the gap in the polls.

Jesse Jackson rides again!

By vast majorities in virtually every poll, Americans overwhelmingly support Israel. For instance, among Americans who closely follow international issues, 66% support Israel. Only 11% (!) support the Palestinians. Inarguably, this is because, for all it's faults, Israel is a progressive, modern democracy that values life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Throughout her difficult 60 years, Israel has been invaded 4 times and is constantly under terrorist attack. Americans can sympathize with such a state, and such a people...

Now alas, comes Barack Obama, bringing change! According to Obama's long-time friend Jesse Jackson, an Obama administration will "fundamentally change" America's Middle East policy. Said Jackson, "decades of putting Israel's interests first" are over. Why will Obama eviscerate America's long-standing friendship with Israel? Because we need to undo the policies of the "Zionists who have controlled American policy for decades."

That is simply amazing. Amazingly anti-Semitic, that is. It reminds me of Holocaust-denier President Ahmadinejad of Iran, who at his recent UN speech decried the "deceitful Zionists" who control US foreign policy as well as the international financial system. But hey! I suppose Jesse Jackson simply wanted Mr. Ahmadinejad to feel welcome on his visit to "Hymietown."

Remind me again: Why do American Jews support Barack Obama?

Never has America...

Barack Obama is running for the Presidency of the United States - not by virtue of his experience (which he stunningly lacks) - but because of his supposed high-mindedness and good judgement. I would submit that never before has America elected anyone to the Presidency with so little experience and such a history of questionable and unwise decisions.

Barack Obama is a bona fide, died in the wool left-wing ideologue, whose ideology serves as a substitute for the benefits of practical experience. His economic advisers - mostly academics - similarly lack real experience, and their economic theories and formulations are abhorrent to most business leaders. Nowhere on earth has an economic policy that entails the vast redistribution of wealth ever worked. Ask the Europeans, who are currently in the midst of one of the biggest supply-side economic movements in modern European history. Why would we take a leap of faith into socialism at this critical point?

A word about Barack Obama's associations: They're relevant not because Obama would appoint the likes of Jeremiah Wright, Bill Ayers, or Louis Farrakhan to a cabinet post - but because those are the people whose company he keeps. He shares their views of America. Why the hell would he go to great lengths to seek them out as friends and mentors if he passionately opposed their deepest-held convictions?

How many of you have attended a church where the pastor spews hatred of America and white people, and considered that pastor to be your spiritual mentor? Would you stay there for 20 years? How many of you would bring your own impressionable children into such a den of bile?

How many of you find the Rev. Louis Farrakhan to be mostly unobjectionable? How about Father Phlager? Remember, Farrakhan is the guy who, while having tea with his friend Saddam Hussein, condemned America as the "Great Satan." Will Americans elect his ideological student to the Presidency?

Obama's defense for his dalliance with Black Liberation Theologists, Black Supremacists, Socialists, America-haters, and defiant, sadistic terrorists (Ayers and his wife), is that those people are power players in Chicago Democratic politics, who cannot be avoided if one is to succeed there. If that is true, then what does it say about Obama's ambition? Will he not do virtually anything for the benefit of his own career? Do you want him as leader of the free world?

A word about Obama's friend, Bernadine Dohrn, wife of Bill Ayers: How many of you, upon learning of the Tate/LaBianca murders (Charles Manson) responded with: "Dig it! First they killed those pigs, then they ate dinner in the same room with them. They even shoved a fork into the victim's stomach! Wild!" She said that before 400 people. This is to say nothing of Ayer's and Dohrn's own actions. They both personally took part in the bombings of government and private buildings - some of them fatal. She and her darling husband have never recanted and never apologized for their actions or statements. 

We've already been told by Obama that he had no idea that his pastor of 20 years was a radical anti-American zealot who preached hate regularly from the pulpit. Are we now to believe that he had no idea that Ayers and Dohrn are unrepentant anti-American terrorists, and that Ayers himself told the New York Times on - of all days - September 11, 2001, "I don't regret setting bombs. I feel we didn't do enough."?

This, in my mind, is enough to disqualify anyone from presidential electability. I'll post later on his atrocious policy proposals, and why America has never elected someone so far to the left, especially at a time when leftist policies would so severely damage an already precarious state of affairs.

Whatever happened to Ethics Reform?

Does anyone recall that "Ethics Reform" was a major Democratic talking point in the 2006 election campaign? There were days when that's all Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, et al could talk about, leading up to their congressional sweep.

Well I for one am a bit confused. If the Democrats are so concerned about ethical behavior, why is it that not one single Democrat expressed concern about Congressman Charlie Rangel's tax evasions? Rangel, who chairs the tax writing House Committee on Ways and Means, failed to report and pay taxes on rental income on a Dominican Republic beachfront villa he owns. He also admitted the mortgage he secured to finance the property was interest free.

Further clouding the ethical waters for Democrats is Congressman Barney Frank's "relationship" with Fannie Mae. At a time when Fannie was flooding the financial system with bad mortgages lent to applicants who could not afford to pay them, Barney Frank was having an affair with Herb Moses, a Fannie Mae executive who was directly involved in the development of the so-called "toxic" loans that are currently dissolving our financial system. In the 1990's, Moses was working to relax federal regulations on the mortgage industry while at the same time sleeping with the ranking member (now chairman) of the House Finance Committee.

Not one Democrat is concerned about that apparent conflict...

Just when Democrats' ethical behavior can't get much worse, we find out on the Drudge Report today that Senator Claire McCaskill (D-MO), on handing Mitt Romney an earpiece she had used in an interview on MSNBC, told him, "I spit on this before I put it in." According to the report on Politico.com, she spoke these words to Romney with a "sweet smile" on her face. Romney is a private citizen! Is not one single Democrat embarrassed by this childish behavior by an elected U.S. Senator?

It took the Congressional GOP 12 years in the majority to sink its ethical standards to the abysmal level we see the Democratic Majority engaged in today. The Dems have been in control for less than 2 years...

What a waste!

Photo: Adam Nagourney, New York Times

At this point, with the momentum in this campaign clearly headed in Obama's direction, I expected McCain to take the fight to his opponent - relentlessly criticizing Obama's record and rebutting the numerous questionable points he made throughout this debate. McCain had other plans. He apparently decided that a town hall format wasn't the appropriate venue for such a clash. I can't count how many golden opportunities to pummel Obama fell into McCain's lap. He declined each opportunity, frequently digressing into his same old monologue about duty, honor, etc. He's been there, done that already. That won't help him at this point in the race. He would have been better served by slamming Obama as inexperienced and naive.

McCain was right to point out repeatedly that Obama has never challenged his own party leadership, but that fact alone won't win votes - nor persuade Obama voters to stay home. On the other hand, trashing the singular basis for Obama's candidacy - his so-called decision-making ability, by bringing up his devious relationships with Ayers, Wright, etc. will.

McCain too often reverted to the lazy comfort of talking points, when he should have taken the initiative and skewered Obama on spending, taxes, meeting with dictators, etc. I noticed a couple of times where McCain began to tread into this territory (i.e. "you'll raise taxes on small business"), but not in the context of a major, anger-driven knockout punch that might have closed the gap in the polls.

McCain's mediocre and frankly, boring performance in debate #2 will not help him. If anything, it may hurt him, as Obama, the young and inexperienced newcomer, has easily weathered McCain's second-to-last chance to sink him. If McCain doesn't destroy Obama in the third and final debate, he may as well go back home to Arizona and start writing his concession speech.

VP Debate Moderator Biased? Surprise!

Gwen Ifill, who moderated the 2004 Vice Presidential debate and will moderate tonight's VP debate has authored a pro-Obama book that is set to be released on Inauguration Day. That she is biased in favor of the Democratic ticket was clearly evident in her treatment of VP Cheney in 2004. No one should be surprised that she's biased. We weren't going to get a non-partisan moderator unless Jim Lehrer or someone from FOX News stepped in (and God knows the Obama campaign would have allowed that to happen over its dead body).

So we're stuck with a moderator who's in the tank for the Obama campaign. There is one benefit to the fact of Ifill's impending book release: the public (which already knows the media is biased) will be well aware of the political leaning and motivations of Gwen Ifill. If her bias has any effect at all, it might just help Palin more than it hurts her. In any event, I hope she's prepared.

UPDATE:

Kathryn Jean Lopez of National Review apparently concurs with my rather astute analysis (ahem). Check out her posting on "The Corner" at National Review Online.