This ain't Hell, but you can see it from here

Category: Barack Obama/Joe Biden

  • How’s that reaching out working, John?

    The other day, characteristically John McCain pleaded with supporters to not be afraid of Barack Obama (video at LGF) . Attendees booed him.  Bloggers booed. So how did that bit of reaching across the aisle work for McCain ? Well the WSJ’s Washington Wire reports that it got him called a reincarnation of Democrat segregationist governor and presidential candidate George Wallace by John Lewis;

    Rep. John Lewis, an icon of the Civil Rights Movement, compared Republican presidential nominee John McCain to former Alabama Gov. George Wallace, a legendary segregationist. Lewis (D, Ga.) said that McCain and his running mate, Sarah Palin, are “sowing the seeds of hatred and division.”

    […]

    “What I am seeing reminds me too much of another destructive period in American history. Sen. McCain and Gov. Palin are sowing the seeds of hatred and division, and there is no need for this hostility in our political discourse,” he wrote.

    He went on to compare the Republican candidates to Wallace, who ran unsuccessfully for president.

    “George Wallace never threw a bomb. He never fired a gun, but he created the climate and the conditions that encouraged vicious attacks against innocent Americans who were simply trying to exercise their constitutional rights. Because of this atmosphere of hate, four little girls were killed on Sunday morning when a church was bombed in Birmingham, Alabama,” Lewis wrote. “As public figures with the power to influence and persuade, Sen. McCain and Gov. Palin are playing with fire, and if they are not careful, that fire will consume us all.”

    So John McCain responds with more feel-good, happy talk;

    “Congressman John Lewis’ comments represent a character attack against Governor Sarah Palin and me that is shocking and beyond the pale,” he said in a written statement. “I am saddened that John Lewis, a man I’ve always admired, would make such a brazen and baseless attack on my character and the character of the thousands of hardworking Americans who come to our events to cheer for the kind of reform that will put America on the right track.”

    The Obama campaign responds as one might expect them to respond;

    “Senator Obama does not believe that John McCain or his policy criticism is in any way comparable to George Wallace or his segregationist policies,” Burton said. “But John Lewis was right to condemn some of the hateful rhetoric that John McCain himself personally rebuked just last night.”

    I guess that the democrats don’t see that they’re ones fueling the “hateful rhetoric”, calling us racists,  describing us as hicks and gun-clinging whackos. I hope they trot out some more race pimps like Lewis – it’ll only galvanize the folks that make this country work against Obama in these finals weeks.

    Michelle Malkin says; Look who’s gripped by insane rage.

  • ACORN Updates

    We were frying other fish this week and sorta missed the whole ACORN thing, so I thought I’d bring myself up-to-date. My first stop, of course, was at Michelle Malkin who has the latest McCain ad using Obama’s ACORN connections against him…now that there are at least ten States investigating the voter registration practices of the organization. ACORN responds to the ad;

    (more…)

  • Well! Color me shocked! (is the sarcasm filter on?)

    I have currently sitting in my outlook inbox a press release from the Obama campaign about IAVA’s scorecard. In part it reads:

    CHICAGO, IL – Today, the non-partisan Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA) issued their 2008 Congressional report card, grading both Senators Barack Obama and Joe Biden a B. (http://www.veteranreportcard.org/) The same report card gave Senator John McCain a D, making him one of only four Senators to receive a D or below. The scorecard was based on key votes affecting Iraq and Afghanistan veterans – the GI Bill, VA benefits and mental health care – while also highlighting who failed to make veterans a priority.

    Putting aside all I have posted the past 2 days, and have ready to go in the future, one thing stood out. The email presser was sent by Phil Carter, Veterans Director, Obama for America. I met him at the blogexpo, and found him to be a very nice guy. One can only wonder if it is the same Phillip Carter who was a founding member of IAVA:

    Phillip Carter
    Phil served for nine years in the Army as a military police and civil affairs officer. After leaving active duty in 2001, Phil served in the California Army National Guard and in the Army Reserve. He served in Iraq from October 2005 to September 2006 as an adviser to the Iraqi police with the Army’s 101st Airborne Division. Phil is currently an attorney with McKenna Long & Aldridge LLP in New York City. He is a regular contributor to national publications on issues of law and national security and his blog Intel Dump recently moved to the Washington Post’s opinion section.

    Well, I will save you the suspense. Unless there are 2 Phillip Carters who both blogged at Intel Dump. It’s the same one.

    So let’s review:
    A “non-partisan” group does a scorecard made up of votes that aren’t what they say the votes are for, then the Obama Campaign uses them to alert people they got a B and McCain got a D. Only, the guy sending the email out from the Obama campaign is a founding member of the “Non-partisan” organization that did the damn scorecard in the first place?

    You must me [IAVA]ing me.

  • The Second Obama/McCain Debate

    They’ve both been trash talking like prize fighters all weekend, they’ll be roaming the stage and we’ll be talking live about it.

    doubleplusundead has a live chat going and he emailed me to tell us we’re welcome there, too.
    Some background for the debate. I just got this email from the Obama campaign;

    Jonn —

    I was in North Carolina with Barack yesterday — getting ready for tonight’s debate — and I took a break to record a short strategy update for you.

    Yesterday, millions of Americans learned the details about John McCain, his political patron Charles Keating, and their role in the last major financial crisis and taxpayer-financed bailout of our time.

    The truth makes it even clearer why a senior McCain adviser admitted to a reporter, “If we keep talking about the economic crisis, we’re going to lose.”

    But it’s not enough to merely inform voters — we’ve got to turn them out to vote.

    You can make a huge difference by making a short trip to a key battleground state where the race is neck-and-neck — or by making phone calls to undecided voters in battleground states.
    While we’re focused on persuading and turning out voters, John McCain has given up talking about the issues that are central to this election — especially the economy. Instead, he’s running the most negative presidential campaign in modern history.

    In the past few days, we’ve seen the beginning of a major offensive that McCain is about to launch, filled with distortions, personal attacks, and flat-out lies about Barack.

    But you can help fight back by getting involved at the grassroots level — knocking on doors, making phone calls, and talking to undecided voters about what really matters in this election.

    Commit at least one day to make sure Barack gets the votes we need to win:

  • 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.

    Maybe this is why he’s trotting out the Keating Five scandal corpse to distract from his onw ethics shortcomings.

  • Democrats threaten MAD

    Since Sarah Palin has brought up the connections between Obama and his friends the domestic terrorists, the Washington Times reports that Obama’s surrogates are threatening Mutually Assured Destruction;

    Barack Obama’s allies warn that John McCain’s attacks on the Democrat’s character will lead to the political equivalent of mutual assured destruction: fire your big weapon at your own peril.

    Several Obama surrogates said his supporters may start reminding voters of McCain’s ties to Charles Keating, a convicted savings and loan owner whose actions two decades ago triggered a Senate ethics investigation that involved McCain as one of the “Keating Five.”

    So that’s all they have? A twenty-year-old scandal in which McCain was found clean? Well, I guess they could just make shit up if they wanted;

    On Sunday Obama unveiled a TV ad on the economy that paints McCain was “erratic in a crisis.” Some see that as a reminder of McCain’s age, 72.

    Democrats were well-synchronized Sunday, using the word “erratic” and Keating’s name in nearly-matching sentences across the talk show circuit.

    Oh, I see they already are doing just that. I wonder if bullshit will stick to McCain as well as facts stick to Obama. Then we’ll see who are the racists here.

    McCain and his aides, Obama said, “are gambling that he can distract you with smears rather than talk to you about substance. They’d rather try to tear our campaign down than lift this country up. It’s what you do when you’re out of touch, out of ideas, and running out of time.”

    Heh. It’s not a smear if it’s true.

    “Yet instead of addressing these crises, Senator McCain’s campaign has announced that they plan to turn the page on the discussion about our economy and spend the final weeks of this campaign launching Swiftboat-style attacks on me.”

    There was an element of truth to the Swiftboat Vets. Is Obama admitting that there’s an element of truth to his relationaship with domestic terrorist Ayers? The thing is if there was nothing to Obama’s relationship to Ayers, it wouldn’t bother him, but because he’s having such a violent reaction to Palin’s comments, well, that just tells me there’s something bad in there somewhere. I guess he should have come clean about it during the primaries.

  • What is going on?

    Here in the Metro DC area, I keep my political views to myself in the real world. Not that I’m afraid of the stick-armed, puny, intellectual midgets that live here, it’s just that I usually need to get from point A to point B without delaying every ten feet to explain why I think everyone on the way are morons.

    Every person in DC has the political depth of the Daily Show and the calm demeanor of a typical Daily Kos diarist. As I’m fond of pointing out, DC voted 90% for John Kerry in the 2004 election (they picked Howard Dean in their straw primary, and Al Sharpton came in second). So why should I waste my day trying to penetrate that level of ignorance?

    TSO wrote the other day at The Sniper that he’s tired of fending off the Obama-ites in DC’s subway system in Virginia (a state Obama hasn’t quite locked up yet). I guess I’m lucky…Obama figures he’s got Maryland in the bag.

    But to my larger point. Every numbskull in the area has taken it upon themselves to just start a conversation with me to declare how stupid John McCain was to pick Sarah Palin as his VP. People I’ve never spoken a word to, just walk up to me in elevators, on the sidewalk, on the subway, at my desk, on my balcony and start right out with “Do you believe this Sarah Palin person?” The conversation varies with whatever rumor is popular that day, whatever Obama tells them is important through their party organ at the Washington Post.

    When I actually take the time to point out how they’re wrong and present actual facts, they just move on to yesterday’s rumor, then the day before that. When I get tired of listening to it and turn to walk away, they declare themselves the winner (I didn’t even know it was a competition). Each encounter is the same as if they’re all scripted. My building maintence guy in my apartment building started in on me the other day.

    They don’t think much of Alaskans either, as if they’re savages from some outlying territory. They’re also fond of demeaning Palin’s term as governor of such a backward territory as somewhat less worthy than being a community organizer. When I remind them that Palin isn’t running against Obama, they bring out the fact that McCain is a cancer survivor and near death at any given moment.

    I’m charged with being a partisan Republican just defending my “people”. Well, if Sarah Palin and John McCain supported each and every one of their issues exactly the way they themselves would, these clowns would say the same things about Palin and McCain just because they’re Republicans. So who’s really being partisan here?

    It’s a nuisance akin to Hari Krishnas in the airport. I’ve tried to find a movement on the internet that would explain this odd behavior, but I can’t find one. I guess it’s just indicative of the fact that Democrats suck.

    But I guess it could be worse (h/t The Jawa Report);

    [youtube bRrWEg_QBJE nolink]

  • Palling around with terrorists

    The New York Times has finally recognized that Barack Obama knew William Ayers, the 60’s era domestic terrorist who participated in bombings of the Pentagon and skated on terrorist and conspiracy charges on a technicality.

    At a tumultuous meeting of anti-Vietnam War militants at the Chicago Coliseum in 1969, Bill Ayers helped found the radical Weathermen, launching a campaign of bombings that would target the Pentagon and United States Capitol.

    Twenty-six years later, at a lunchtime meeting about school reform in a Chicago skyscraper, Barack Obama met Mr. Ayers, by then an education professor. Their paths have crossed sporadically since then, at a coffee Mr. Ayers hosted for Mr. Obama’s first run for office, on the schools project and a charitable board, and in casual encounters as Hyde Park neighbors.

    They spend the next several paragraphs paying down the connection between the radical Ayers and the radical Obama. They don’t bother to mention that Obama left the entire relationship and his years on the board of the Annenberg Project right out of both of his books. But according to the Times;

    But the two men do not appear to have been close. Nor has Mr. Obama ever expressed sympathy for the radical views and actions of Mr. Ayers, whom he has called “somebody who engaged in detestable acts 40 years ago, when I was 8.”

    But someone who engaged in detestable acts 40 years ago and to this day is unrepetent. Someone who described his movement thusly (NRO link);

    Characterizing Weatherman as “an American Red Army,” Ayers summed up the organization’s ideology as follows: “Kill all the rich people. Break up their cars and apartments. Bring the revolution home, Kill your parents.”

    Someone whose current wife gushed over the Manson murders;

    “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!”  And as Jonah recalled yesterday, “In appreciation, her Weather Underground cell made a threefingered ‘fork’ gesture its official salute.”

    Two people who’ve never apologized nor even stepped back from their disgusting and juvenile behavior forty years ago. Well, Sarah Palin finds it disgusting, too;

    [youtube gi3oP74kMjA nolink]

    The Left doesn’t get it. I was watching America’s Most Wanted last night and one of their criminals was Leo Burt, another 60’s radical bomber who participated in a bombing in Madison, Wisconsin.  AMW interviewed one of Burt’s fellow conspirators who had already done jail time for his participation in the bombing. This fellow conspirator called Burt a patriot for the killing of a research scientist in the bombing. When asked about the killing, the ex-convict made a weak comparison to the “millions” of Indo-asians that had died in Vietnam. I guess domestic terrorism is justified.

    Now, personally, I don’t know anyone who has bombed any US government buildings and that’s probably because I don’t run in the circle of people who would condone that kind of behavior. I don’t even know anyone who has ever served a prison sentence.

    Do you? Would you tolerate any kind of association with someone who planned to murder US soldiers at a dance at Fort Dix with a nail bomb? No matter how long ago it was? Wouldn’t you be embarrassed if it became public that were associated with someone like that?