A short recon of what’s out there that might draw your attention, updated throughout the day...so check back often.
On the Web:
Greyhawk: Racism rears its ugly head - Barack Obama has assured his supporters that Republicans will attack him because he's black. The AP has found an example of just that - headline: AP: Palin's Ayers Attack "Racially Tinged". Here are the first paragraphs: “WASHINGTON - By claiming that Democrat Barack Obama is ‘palling around with terrorists’ and doesn't see the U.S. like other Americans, vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin targeted key goals for a faltering campaign. And though she may have scored a political hit each time, her attack was unsubstantiated and carried a racially tinged subtext that John McCain himself may come to regret.” It's a long article - but to find the hidden racism you'll have to plow through a history of dirty campaign tactics (swiftboating, for example) and speculation that Palin is attempting to turn attention away from the lousy economy to finally reach paragraph 21 - in which we learn that: (READ MORE)
Donald Douglas: Firedoglake: America Will Die in the Blood of Empire - Victory in Iraq was all but declared earlier this year. Both major candidates have claimed success for the Petraeus surge, and each have proposed policy adjustments for the future of Iraq and global security. Even this week, the Associated Press conceded a major Bush administration argument on the conflict, that success in Iraq would stablize the Mideast and promote American interests in the region. Even American public opinion sees the administration's counterinsurgency strategy as improving security in Iraq, and making it possible for the eventual drawdown of American forces. If we might expect policy disagreements between the right and left in American politics, it should be on the pace and scope of the forthcoming troop withdrawal, or one might think. Not so for the folks at Firedoglake: (READ MORE)
Big Dog: Look For Troops To Be Disenfranchised - The members of the military are overwhelmingly conservative and have been a solid Republican voting block for a very long time. The Republican party holds values that most in the military find in line with their own and the members cannot stand liberals who always wave the white flag of defeat. Liberals lost Vietnam and if they have their way they will lose Iraq. I have been told by Obamabots that members of the military are donating more to him than to McCain. I think this is incorrect and it would be hard to demonstrate because Obama has some shady bookkeeping practices. He has a lot of small dollar donors who have given small amounts that add up to 3 or 4 times the legal limit. Obama has also received huge sums of money from people overseas who are NOT American citizens. So when he says that more people in the military have donated to him I would ask, which country’s military? (READ MORE)
The Belmont Club: Smell the Coffee - Samuel Johnson once wrote that “the prospect of hanging focuses the mind wonderfully”. Although the onus for the recent financial crisis has been heaped upon one party by the MSM — the Republicans – the very gravity of the situation can demolish frivolity and produce unexpectedly clear thinking. This YouTube video clip shows Alec Baldwin blaming Barney Frank and the Democrats in large measure for the subprime crisis. He is entirely correct in saying there’s enough blame to go around on both sides of the aisle. Despite the power of the MSM, facts have the irresistable force of reality behind them. And when facts have serious consequences they can burn through bubble-headedness like nothing else. (READ MORE)
Blonde Sagacity: Economy, Housing and Continued Blame-Shifting - "...Unqualified home buyers were not the only ones who benefitted from Massachusetts Rep. Barney Frank’s efforts to deregulate Fannie Mae throughout the 1990s. So did Frank’s partner, a Fannie Mae executive at the forefront of the agency’s push to relax lending restrictions. Now that Fannie Mae is at the epicenter of a financial meltdown that threatens the U.S. economy, some are raising new questions about Frank's relationship with Herb Moses, who was Fannie’s assistant director for product initiatives. Moses worked at the government-sponsored enterprise from 1991 to 1998, while Frank was on the House Banking Committee, which had jurisdiction over Fannie. Although Frank now blames Republicans for the failure of Fannie and Freddie, he spent years blocking GOP lawmakers from imposing tougher regulations on the mortgage giants. (READ MORE)
Bill Whittle: Cowboys and Secret Agents - Last week I administered — and received — an education in international relations. I spent several hours with a pro-American European, a person fighting Islamic extremism throughout Europe and across the world. Now, for reasons that will soon be clear, that last statement is precisely true, but most of the following has been changed to protect her (her?) identity... I can see you leaning forward already. Excellent. Helga(?) is a tall(?), elderly(?), German(?) woman(?). And her job — which she created for herself — is to try to penetrate the carbon-fiber, titanium-reinforced shell of denial that envelopes so many of Europe’s elites regarding the threat of unassimilated Islamists in every corner of the continent. So I found myself toe-to-toe with someone on the same team, but from the opposite side of the fence, so to speak. It was weird. Helga might start in with a criticism of how stupidly the Bush administration handled the run-up to Iraq...oh no, here we go again: (READ MORE)
Don Surber: It’s a correction - A 20% drop in the stocks is normal. Government “help” makes it abnormal. Don’t panic. Oops, Congress and President Bush already did. But the rest of us are not government lifers. A 20% drop is called a correction. We had such a correction in a single day in 1987. But that was 21 years ago and a new generation doesn’t know jack and so we get gajillion-dollar bailouts and panic, panic, panic. Panic leads to recessions. The government interfered with the normal flow of the stock market and made a mess. It was like damming a river, and then complaining because you now have a lake. Via Matt Drudge. “U.S. officials called for a ‘forceful and coordinated’ global response to the credit crisis on Monday as financial market confidence cratered despite another heavy dose of central bank lending,” Reuters reported. Whatever happened to first do no harm? (READ MORE)
GayPatriotWest: Obama: Mispresenting his Relationship to ACORN? - Recall how back in 2004, after John Kerry lost the election, a lot of Democrats were trying to point out Republican tactics to intimidate voters. But, they couldn’t come up with anythying more than a handful of anecdotes, most which they couldn’t document. As the media reported those claims, they downplayed real charges of vote fraud and intimidation, brought in real courts of law, with indictments and convictions, against Democrats. Now, the MSM seems to be ignoring the tactics, often illegal of a liberal group which the Democratic presidential nominee once represented. According to John Fund: “A left-wing ‘community organizing’ group called ACORN has seen its employees frequently convicted of voter registration fraud. This year its employees are under active investigation in several states. Perhaps one reason for ACORN’s go-for-broke behavior is that Barack Obama used to be a lawyer and top trainer for the group. In August, the Obama campaign was caught misidentifying an $800,000 payment it had made to an ACORN subsidiary for ‘election services.’” Fund isn’t the only one to look into Obama’s relationship to the group. (READ MORE)
Jules Crittenden: Naval Strategy - Old Navy man’s new campaign ad: Dangerous. If McCain is slipping in polls, underdog, all that, then what better time to channel Nelson? Divide the enemy fleet. Attack, attack, attack. NYT: Obama calls McCain Ayer attacks “out of touch.” America won’t buy the notion that his extensive professional involvement with someone who was part of a murdeorus 1960s terrorist organization is a problem. Anymore than America will buy the idea that getting palsy with terrorist-backing mullahs is a bad idea, I suppose. Because Americans are stupid that way. “They’d rather try to tear our campaign down than lift this country up,” he told several thousand supporters at a rally here Sunday. “That’s what you do when you’re out of touch, out of ideas and running out of time.” Obie decries “Swift-boating.” I bet Nelson would like Swift boats. Small, manueverable, deadly … as long as you don’t abandon your crew mid-command, like at least one Swift boat commander I could name. (READ MORE)
Amy Proctor: South Korea Partnership Shows Palin’s Experience While North Korea Endorses Obama - (hat tip: Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea Studies blog) In many ways, Sarah Palin has more international experience than Democrat VP nominee Joe Biden and in particular Barack Obama. No, she hasn’t met with as many heads of state as Biden, but her experience doesn’t consist of bloviating as Chairperson of a Senate Committee. Instead, she has hands on experience with oversight and engagement of economic trade relations, international markets and partnerships with foreign countries and their leaders. What exactly has Joe Biden done? As Chair of the Foreign Relations Committee he’s given speeches, promoted ideas and legislated…. In the meantime, Sarah Palin in her 2 short years as Governor of Alaska produced hands on results from international relationships with neighboring countries. Her partnerships include Japan, China, Russia, Korea, Canada and dozens of other foreign countries. (READ MORE)
Political Pistachio: The Liberal Left Despises Palin For Not Practicing Eugenics - Many Liberals have told me that they think the only reason I like Sarah Palin so much is because she is an Evangelical Christian. After all, they can't seem to see any other appealing characteristic regarding her. If that is the case, then why do they despise her so much? To answer the "Christian Question," of course I am happy that a conservative candidate I like is a Christian, but that isn't a requirement for me, nor is it the only reason I like Palin. The fact that she is a woman has nothing to do with it either, though her gender is not something that would turn me away as a voter either. Some liberals have even hinted that I may like Sarah because since she's a woman, it's like a slap in the face to Obama after he rejected Hillary Clinton as his running mate. I know, you liberals always have devious motives, so you figure conservatives must too, but as usual, you are wrong. (READ MORE)
John Hinderaker: What Did Barack Obama Know, and When Did He Know It? - Sarah Palin's calling out of Barack Obama over the Bill Ayers connection has finally caused some mainstream outlets to report the story (albeit generally in misleading fashion) and has compelled the Obama campaign to respond. That response is surprising, to say the least: Obama now claims that he didn't know about Bill Ayers' terrorist past through all the years when he worked with Ayers in Chicago! Ed Morrissey has a report. Here is Obama campaign manager David Axelrod explaining Obama's association with Ayers on CNN: “JIM ACOSTA: ‘Now a college professor in Chicago, Ayers and Obama served together several years on a nonprofit board. And in 1995 Ayers hosted a coffee for Obama when the young community organizer was making his first run for the State Senate. At this point looking back, should he not have done that?’ DAVID AXELROD: ‘Well I mean, when he went, he certainly — he didn’t know the history.’ ACOSTA: ‘The Democratic nominee’s chief strategist David Axelrod maintains Obama at that time had no idea about Ayers’ violent past.’” (READ MORE)
This Ain't Hell: Obama’s ethics violation…again - The Washington Times reports this morning that the hope and change candidate signed a ghost-written letter to the Bush Administration asking for $20-million grant for a supporter and development consultant and that the letter and the relationship wasn’t disclosed as required by ethics rules of the Senate; “ Sen. Barack Obama, who vows to change Washington by trimming wasteful spending and disclosing special-interest requests, wrote the Bush administration last year to seek a multimillion-dollar federal grant for a Chicago housing project that is behind schedule and whose development team includes a longtime political supporter. Mr. Obama’s letter, however, was never disclosed publicly. In fact, the letter was ghostwritten for him by a consultant for the Chicago Housing Authority, which wanted the money - a practice ethics watchdogs have frequently criticized.” (READ MORE)
Van Helsing: AP: It's Racist to Mention Obama's Terrorist Ties - The media's attempt to install an unqualified ultra-left radical in the White House has entered the Twilight Zone with the alarmingly powerful AP's attempt to smear as racist anyone who objects to Obama's close association with anti-American terrorists. Obama is a protégé of unrepentant Weather Underground terrorist Bill Ayers, who introduced him to the Chicago political scene at his apartment back in 1995. Highlights of Ayers's resume include bombing the Pentagon, the Capitol, and New York City police headquarters, getting away with it because of "prosecutorial misconduct," then bragging in the September 11, 2001 edition of the New York Times that he wished he had done more. Also in attendance at Obama's coming out party was Ayers's wife Bernardine Dohrn, another unrepentant terrorist who invented the Weather Underground's three-fingered "fork salute" in honor of the fork the Manson Family stuck in Sharon Tate's pregnant belly. (READ MORE)
John Hawkins: America Has An Obsession With Viriginity? And It's Hurting Young Women? Really? - Last night on instant messenger, a female friend of mine sent me a link to a new book that Jessica Valenti over at Feministing is coming out with. Yes, believe it or not, this apparently isn't some sort of off-the-wall parody -- it's a real book. After sending me the link, my friend's comment was, "What is it with feminists and wanting to turn America's teenagers into raging whores?" Good question. The best thing I can come up with is that when people do stupid or embarrassing things, it makes them feel better to think that other people are doing it with them. Some of us can get past our flaws by simply shrugging our shoulders, saying "the flesh is weak," and admitting that we're not living up to our ideals. But, these hardcore liberal feminists? (READ MORE)
Dinesh D'Souza: David Mamet Leaves the Brain Dead Left - The presidential contest is not simply an election about who rules America; it is also an election about which set of principles defines American politics. For the past two and a half decades, conservatism has set the agenda. Is the left making a comeback? I don't think so. Notice that Democrats avoid terms like "the left" and even "liberalism" like the plague, while Republicans routinely associate themselves with the "right" and the "conservative" label. Also the left is now defined by shrieking demagogues like Michael Moore, while intelligent people are keeping their distance or moving out of this menagerie. In this connection, the case of David Mamet is a revealing one. It has now been six months since playwright David Mamet declared himself an admirer of America and the Constitution, and bid farewell to what he called the "brain dead left." Our left-leaning literary and cultural intelligentsia is still in shock. (READ MORE)
Star Parker: Welfare state failures are at bottom of the crisis - As our financial markets totter, as homes go into foreclosure, as Wall Street executives lose millions, as Americans have more and more difficulty getting loans, can anyone be happy? Certainly. Those on the left who now, with unbounded glee, pen obituaries for the free market. One can sense their joy as they have, they think, the last laugh. Bernie Sanders, the far left senator from Vermont, was almost giddy on Larry Kudlow's TV show recently to hear free-marketer Kudlow endorse the bailout and tell Kudlow that he is glad to see he has become a socialist. The Washington Post's Harold Meyerson writes, "The old order -- the Reagan-age institutions built on the premise that the market can do no wrong and the government no right -- is dying." (READ MORE)
George Will: Choosing the Right Role Model - WASHINGTON -- John McCain, like many Americans who should know better, extravagantly praises Theodore Roosevelt. He is a kindred spirit of the impulsive Rough Rider, but the visceral McCain is rescued from some of TR's excesses by not having TR's overflowing cupboard of ideas. In "Theodore Roosevelt: Preacher of Righteousness" (Yale University Press), Joshua David Hawley, 28, a former clerk for Chief Justice John Roberts, demonstrates that TR, far from being, in Henry Adams' acerbic description, "pure act," was a man of many complex ideas. Some were admirable; many were repellant. He was an individualist who considered the individualism of others an impediment to the social unity required for national greatness. Having read Darwin's "The Origin of Species" at age 14, and having strenuously transformed himself from an asthmatic child into a robust adult, he advocated "warrior republicanism" (Hawley's phrase). (READ MORE)
Thomas Sowell: Do Facts Matter? - Abraham Lincoln said, "You can fool all the people some of the time and some of the people all the time, but you can't fool all the people all the time." Unfortunately, the future of this country, as well as the fate of the Western world, depends on how many people can be fooled on election day, just a few weeks from now. Right now, the polls indicate that a whole lot of the people are being fooled a whole lot of the time. The current financial bailout crisis has propelled Barack Obama back into a substantial lead over John McCain-- which is astonishing in view of which man and which party has had the most to do with bringing on this crisis. It raises the question: Do facts matter? Or is Obama's rhetoric and the media's spin enough to make facts irrelevant? Fact Number One: It was liberal Democrats, led by Senator Christopher Dodd and Congressman Barney Frank, who for years-- including the present year-- denied that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were taking big risks that could lead to a financial crisis. (READ MORE)
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