Sunday, August 31, 2008

Ann Althouse Cuts Through the B.S.

Lots of liberals dislike Ann Althouse for pointing out the hypocrisy of women going to a luncheon for groper-in-chief Bill Clinton. But Althouse is no lightweight and she is all over the Left's (and supposedly Right's) hypocrisy on Sarah Palin.

In this short post, she pulls out a quote from Andrew Sullivan (the Left's favorite supposed conservative), in which he says that John McCain nominated a former beauty queen for vice president.

So we get to pick whatever "former" activity of a candidate seems least presidential and call them that? Do you really want to go there?


I've said this myself. Democrats don't really want to make too much of Palin's lack of experience, given that she's not the presidential candidate. But they seem to think this is a big winner. But as Althouse points out, this leaves Obama wide open:
The Democratic Party gave us a former cocaine user/community activist to take over the White House without even a stint as Vice President.


Haven't we been told that Obama's past indiscretions are off-limits? But now, it's fair game to keep blasting Sarah Palin as a "former beauty queen"? Are women dumb enough not to be insulted by this?

Maureen Dowd Does the Nutroots Proud

I knew the Left was filled with hypocrites, but I never knew exactly how sexist they were until John McCain nominated Sarah Palin for Vice President.

Exhibit 1: this Maureen Dowd column.

This chick flick, naturally, features a wild stroke of fate, when the two-year governor of an oversized igloo becomes commander in chief after the president-elect chokes on a pretzel on day one.

The movie ends with the former beauty queen shaking out her pinned-up hair, taking off her glasses, slipping on ruby red peep-toe platform heels that reveal a pink French-style pedicure, and facing down Vladimir Putin in an island in the Bering Strait. Putting away her breast pump, she points her rifle and informs him frostily that she has some expertise in Russia because it’s close to Alaska. “Back off, Commie dude,” she says. “I’m a much better shot than Cheney.”

Then she takes off in her seaplane and lands on the White House lawn, near the new ice fishing hole and hockey rink. The “First Dude,” as she calls the hunky Eskimo in the East Wing, waits on his snowmobile with the kids — Track (named after high school track meets), Bristol (after Bristol Bay where they did commercial fishing), Willow (after a community in Alaska), Piper (just a cool name) and Trig (Norse for “strength.”)

“The P.T.A. is great preparation for dealing with the K.G.B.,” President Palin murmurs to Todd, as they kiss in the final scene while she changes Trig’s diaper. “Now that Georgia’s safe, how ’bout I cook you up some caribou hot dogs and moose stew for dinner, babe?”


Jeff Goldstein rounds up the hypocrisy quite nicely. The sexism being shown should finally put to rest the "Republicans are the sexists" rhetoric.

Democrat Talking Points

The talking points on Sarah Palin have been passed around and are being regurgitated by all the usual suspects. Here they are with rebuttals:

1. She doesn't have enough experience. Oddly, no one on the Democrat side of the equation worried about experience when they nominated a northern liberal with a thin resume and a good speech. If spending less than two years in the U.S. Senate qualifies Barack Obama to be the leader of the free world, then being mayor of a small town then governor of a small state should balance that out. Especially when the candidate is for the vice president.

Amusingly, Palin hasn't spent her life running for political office the way B.O. has. She's run her own business, likes to hunt and fish, got married, and has raised a family. While Barack Obama was using cocaine, she was a star athlete. And while Obama was performing the nebulous job of "community activist," she was working, first as a journalist and then in the family commercial fishing business.

2. Scandal! Well, not so fast. Flopping Aces has the timeline, which doesn't really add up to executive abuse. Aw, and the libs were just learning to say "Monegan."

3. If you think Hillary supporters will go for her... Two polls out today suggest that women aren't impressed by Palin. Of course, there's also this Zogby poll which states the Palin pick bumped all positive coverage of The One's speech Thursday night off the front page and that the race is a dead heat again. Which means, erm, somebody must like Palin. That and the 7 million bucks McCain has raised since the announcement Friday.

I'm sure there are a number of Hillary supporters churlishly sniffing at the idea that the Republicans--the Republicans!--would think they would be into identity politics. Surely, they will vote for Barack Obama because Hillary told them to!

4. B-b-but the babyyyyy! Women who never worried about juggling careers and families before are now all up in arms that the VPOTUS might have to deal with 2 a.m. feedings. The discussions about her lack of judgment for actually giving birth to a Down Syndrome baby, coupled with jeers that she would have five kids--no right-thinking woman wants 5 kids!!!--just illuminate the feminist hypocrisy when it comes to "choice." Choice is only permissible when the woman holds the proper views on feminist issues. Otherwise she's just a mindless robot for Teh Patriarchy.

The feminists are also up in arms that so much attention is being paid to Palin's looks (VPMILF has shown up on Pandagon more than once). It's tough for them to be forced to defend the enemy (I never had a problem calling out the misogyny directed toward Hillary Clinton and Nancy Pelosi). They might want to get used to it because they'll have plenty of time to practice over the next 4-8 years.

On a side note, Flopping Aces has a couple of terrific posts highlighting Palin's experience versus Obama's (see here and here), including a great video on Barack Obama's legislative accomplishments--er, accomplishment.

This isn't mentioning that Palin is running for vice president and she still has more going for her than Barack Obama. As I pointed out in the comments at CSPT, Palin might become president and you might consider her inexperienced. But you can be 100% assured that an inexperienced person is POTUS if you elect Barack Obama.

Saturday, August 30, 2008

Why Obama Must Be Scared of Sarah Palin

--She's got more executive experience than he does.

--She's got more business experience than he does.

--She's got a son who will be serving in Iraq (no more chickenhawk arguments).

--She doesn't think babies should be killed after birth.

--She hasn't flip-flopped on gun control or energy issues.

--The top of the ticket has the foreign policy experience, which is what the candidate should have.


And here's the dirty little secret: if Joe Biden decides to attack her during the debate, he will look every bit the bully for a national audience. If he tries to be condescending--and when isn't Biden condescending?--he will piss off even more people.

The Obama campaign is already having trouble attacking Palin without coming across as pigs. This will only get better over the next couple of months.

Friday, August 29, 2008

B-B-But She's Neglecting the Babyyyy!

Allahpundit has the post on the initial nutroot reaction to Palin's pick.

This is phase one. Phase two will be, “Wouldn’t a strong, responsible, authentic feminist woman have aborted it?” Man, I’m downright giddy at the thought of where the next eight weeks are going to take us.

I love watching the nutty Left twist itself into knots when conservative women are successful without the victimology. But as Amanda Marcotte always says, conservative women must "hate women" cuz we aren't supportive of killing all the babies.

McCain Picks Palin

John McCain has selected Sarah Palin for the Republican vice presidential slot. Excellent, excellent choice. I'm very happy with it.

Originally, I'd been for Kay Bailey Hutchison, but was concerned about her record on embryonic stem cell research. Also, I wasn't sure how she would help the ticket, other than with women.

Sarah Palin brings the sort of pro-life record that is sure to deliver the votes. As governor of Alaska, she has been a fiscal conservative and is strong on ethics. She's also a woman who strongly supports the pro-life positions and her youth makes a terrific counterpoint to John McCain's experience.

Dana has a nice post up about the selection. Poor Amanda Marcotte is stuttering since she just can't understand how those wimmin-hating Rethuglicans nominated a woman for V.P., unlike that god Obama! As jcw pointed out, the fun part is in the comments where the Pandagonistas feel comfortable telling us how much they approve of choice and really love women making them.

"This ticket looks like an enormous joke right now. She comes off so stupidly on the stump. She’s talking about her PTA experience, for chrissakes. She looks and sounds like someone they plucked out of her living room whilst she was sewing and watching Dr. Phil. And she is completely bogarting Hillary’s history-making run."

"Anyone who decides to carry a Down pregnancy to term, doesn’t know what an IQ of 10 looks like in real life."

"It’s her choice, yes. But the one she made is, in my mind, not indicative of the outcome I’d like to see someone who is potentially going to be leading this country."

"That is why her decision bothers me - because it indicates to me that she does not demonstrate an ability to make an informed decision."

"Her choice to take a job like the VP is either abandonment of a minimal parental duty or negligence on the job. Househubby will raise the kids, but really, wouldn’t it be prudent not to assume a massive amount of new duties now that she and her husband have a 4 month old with Downs’, as well as 3 other at-home kids. She’s exercised the choice to have the child, and I support her right to choose to bear the child and to expect some societal support (ie, special education). Now she needs to get realistic."

As I pointed out in my post on sexist language, the Left evidently doesn't really believe any of the stuff they say because once conservatives do something similar, they use the same attack lines they were previously excoriating. So now, we have the pleasure of watching people who ostensibly think women are smart enough to be VPOTUS telling us why voting "present" in the Senate for 2 years makes Obama more experienced (for the VPOTUS slot, I guess) than being mayor, then governor of a state.

The nutroots are wrong about Palin as some sort of desperation move on McCain's part. Her name has been floated all summer as a possible dark horse pick. In that sense, she's not an "unknown," at least to people who have been paying attention. Nor does it show that no one else was interested in the job. There were plenty of candidates interested.

Palin allows McCain to remain the best candidate for the GOP. She balances some of McCain's liabilities (by providing more conservative credentials), but she is, still, only V.P. Democrats made the mistake in 1984 of thinking that women would vote for Walter Mondale just because of Geraldine Ferraro. They are still making that mistake today, thinking "low info" voters will vote for McCain because of Palin. No doubt, some people will, but not many. Whereas there seem to be a large number of African-Americans willing to vote for Obama just because he is black. Does that make them "low info"? The double standard continues to play.

UPDATE: At least one liberal understands what a mistake it is to argue that Palin doesn't have enough experience for the Veep slot.
Let me also add that when Tim Kaine, who has exactly the same experience as Palin, was treated by the Media and the Dems as a serious and acceptable potential pick, it opens up charges of a double standard.

Voting with the President

Democrats have been tying themselves in knots trying to saddle John McCain with the unpopularity of George Bush. Most recently, they've argued that John McCain has voted with George Bush "94% of the time."

As Dick Morris notes, it's not hard to vote with the president over congratulating a baseball team on its victory and other nonsense that takes up most of the Senate's time. Indeed, even HopeNChange voted with the president 40 percent of the time. How can The One vote with Satan at all?

Morris argues that McCain can use the argument to show how different he is from George Bush on a host of issues. There simply is no other Republican who can make the claim:

* McCain fought for campaign finance reform — McCain-Feingold — that Bush resisted and ultimately signed because he had no choice.

* McCain led the battle to restrict interrogation techniques of terror suspects and to ban torture.

* McCain went with Joe Lieberman on a tough measure to curb climate change, something Bush denies is going on.

* McCain opposed the Bush tax cuts when they passed.

* McCain urged the Iraq surge, a posture Bush rejected for years before conceding its wisdom.

* McCain favors FDA regulation of tobacco and sponsored legislation to that effect, a position all but a handful of Republican senators oppose.

* McCain’s energy bill, also with Lieberman, is a virtual blueprint for energy independence and development of alternate sources.

* After the Enron scandal, McCain introduced sweeping reforms in corporate governance and legislation to guarantee pensions and prohibit golden parachutes for executives. Bush opposed McCain’s changes and the watered-down Sarbanes-Oxley bill eventuated.

* McCain has been harshly critical of congressional overspending, particularly of budgetary earmarks, a position Bush only lately adopted (after the Democrats took over Congress).

The Obama campaign tries to argue that electing John McCain is just a "third Bush term." But the facts show otherwise.

The Exceptional Isn't So Exceptional

Michael Medved has an interesting column on the disconnect between Democrats' lives and their speech. Specifically, that the Democrats who spoke at the DNC convention are examples of how people can start humbly and make it big in this country, but Dems assume no one else can make it without government support.

On the one hand, they want Americans to believe that we live in a dark, destitute moment in our history, with no chance for prosperity or progress unless a Democrat captures the White House.

On the other hand, they celebrate dozens of inspiring rags-to-riches stories (like those of the party’s sweethearts, Barack and Michelle Obama) proving that traditional American values still bring spectacular and gratifying results.

First, they suggest that ordinary Americans can’t possibly achieve their dreams without government help.

But then, sometimes in the very same speeches, they brag about their own classic American stories in which family and faith conquer every obstacle.

Indeed, the life stories of Barack and Michelle Obama aren't filled with government aids to their personal dreams. Their stories are filled with hard work and personal achievement. This contrasts with arguments I've seen lately that imply that only those born with wealth can get ahead in life.

If we really were a static society, government intervention might solve the problem. But we don't live in such a society. There are simply far too many success stories that counter that notion.

There seems to be a real disconnect between the way Democrats have lived their lives and the portrait of life they paint for others. If Barack Obama, who came from a very disadvantaged background, could achieve what he has through family and hard work, why do Democrats assume no one else can?

Thursday, August 28, 2008

Crazy State-Child Issues

For every case of a CPS case worker leaving a starving kid with abusive parents, there's a case of the state overreacting.

Star-Telegram Watchdog columnist Dave Lieber was arrested Tuesday on probable-cause warrants for child abandonment, a Watauga police spokeswoman said.

Lieber, 51, surrendered at the Tarrant County Jail on Tuesday morning, authorities said.

He was released on $4,000 bail.

His arrest stems from an Aug. 13 incident in which Lieber left his 11-year-old son at a Watauga McDonald’s restaurant after the two argued, said Detective Tiffany Ward, a Watauga police spokeswoman.

He was arrested on two warrants, one for child abandonment with intent to return and the other for child abandonment/endangering a child, she said. Both are felonies.

For the record, I don't know Lieber and have never met him. I worked at the Star-Telegram many moons ago, but Lieber isn't someone with whom I was acquainted. Which makes me fully qualified to wonder, WTH?!

Here is Lieber's account of events:
We went out to breakfast the other morning at a restaurant. As soon as he had finished eating, he demanded that we leave. But I wasn’t done. I asked him to please be patient. He refused. I told him, not asked him, to wait. Same response from him. This went on and on and on.

I sent him to another table. I tried to ignore him. But my buttons were pushed. Finally, I couldn’t take it anymore. I stormed out of the restaurant and told him to walk the few blocks home.

I got in the car and drove off.

I was gone for several minutes, long enough to calm down. I doubled back to the restaurant to pick him up. By then, two police cars and a small crowd were gathered outside.

A caring patron had called the police.

My son had given his statement. He explained what he had done. The officer asked if any blows were exchanged. None were.

The police officer gave me a stern lecture about being a responsible parent. He said that it doesn’t take more than a few minutes for something to happen to an unsupervised child. He said, "As a journalist, you know this."

My son apologized to me, and I apologized to him. The officer asked if we were OK to go home. Properly chastened, we were.

I'll admit that the guy blew his top and acted rashly. But we're not talking about abandoning a baby in a field. At 11, I could wander through the neighborhood (including a busy street with lots of shops) without anyone thinking anything about it. Well, except for the dinosaurs that might come eat me.

But seriously. Is this a case where a felony is warranted?

Why Did Nancy Pelosi Try to Take on the Catholic Church?

I'm not Catholic. I was a Baptist as a kid and have been a Presbyterian my entire adult life, so I understand the whole Protestant thing. But Catholics? Eh, my best friend in middle school was Catholic and I've been to a Catholic wedding, but that's about it.

What I do know about the Catholic Church is that they don't believe in abortion. Period. I don't even have to talk to Catholics to know that. I just have to go to any moonbat website to know that the Catholic Church takes a really hard stand on abortion.

That's why I didn't understand Nancy Pelosi trying to say that no, the Church didn't have a stance and that there was disagreement. In case she missed it, here's an article which quotes the official Catholic Church stance on abortion repeatedly.

But whether or not parishioners choose to accept it, the theology on the procedure is clear. From its earliest days, Christianity has considered abortion evil.

"This teaching has remained unchanged and remains unchangeable," according to the Catechism of the Catholic Church. "Direct abortion, that is to say, abortion willed either as an end or a means, is gravely contrary to the moral law."

I know there are plenty of Catholics who disagree with the Church's teachings on abortion and contraception. The answer there is clear: become a Protestant.

As a Protestant, you can go through the buffet line and find a denomination that fits all your ideas and understandings about God and stuff. But you can't just decide that you want to reject church teachings but remain in the church. Talk about an exercise in futility.

Joe Biden's Whoppers Begin

Lots of people have said Joe Biden gave a pretty good speech last night (I didn't watch; I had better things to do). But Powerline found more than a few fabrications in it, as well.

10:26 Barack Obama says that Biden's foreign policy credentials are unmatched. Then why was he wrong about Iraq in 1991; wrong again, at least in his own estimation, in 2003; wrong about the surge; wrong about the intentions of the "moderate" Iranian leaders? Obama, it seems, is too easily impressed.

10:30 Biden's son Beau is introducing his dad. We hear about the tragic car accident that killed his mother, Biden's first wife. Michelle Obama is in tears, as well she might be.

10:31 Beau Biden has just told a whopper. He says that his dad has never been a part of Washington. His evidence is that Biden commiutes to Wilmington. But Joe Biden could ride the train back and forth to Wilmington five times a day. There would still be no bigger creature of Washington than the senior Senator from Delaware.

10:32 Now Beau tells us how his father stuttered as a boy (actually I think we heard this in the tape too). Biden may look like the presidents on the money, but don't let that fool you -- he was once the member of a victim class.

10:34 Joe Biden has started speaking. He praises our troops, the "bravest warriors in the world. There is virtually no applause from the assembled Democrats.

The post goes on, detailing where Biden stretches the truth--and sometimes outright lies. The fact that Democrats can't applaud the job our troops have done says a significant amount about who they are and what they think of our country.

Read the whole thing. It's excellent.

Wednesday, August 27, 2008

There Are Columns and Then There Are Columns

Does this:













Look like this:










?

I count four columns in the background of the POTUS's stage. And he was, after all the POTUS when he was making his speech. Not a wannabe.

I don't consider it to be a real big deal that Obama wants the Parthenon



to give his acceptance speech at. After all, journalists were falling all over each other to see who could use the word "historic" more often. Why not let Obama compare himself with the gods? Seems to me, he's just giving more fodder for the McCain campaign, which is doing a great job of using Obama against himself.

Hmm.

Apparently, the Democrat presidential candidate tried to get $3.4 million in earmarks for clients of the Democrat vice presidential candidate's son.

Sen. Barack Obama sought more than $3.4 million in congressional earmarks for clients of the lobbyist son of his Democratic running mate, Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware, records show. Obama succeeded in getting $192,000 for one of the clients, St. Xavier University in suburban Chicago.

Obama's campaign has taken a hard stance against the world of lobbying in the nation's capital. Obama said he limits his own efforts to get money for pet projects -- a process known as earmarking -- to those that benefit the public. He has posted his earmark requests on his presidential campaign Web site to encourage transparency.

The campaign that just keeps giving...

Most People Don't Have a Problem Knowing When Life Begins

Unlike Barack Obama, who says that's "above his pay grade," most Americans have a pretty good idea when life begins and that's when John McCain said it does: conception.

Zogby International conducted the poll for WorldNetDaily and it questioned 1,099 likely voters from August 22 to 24.

The survey found 59 percent believe human life begins at conception, another 16.8 percent say it happens when an unborn child can survive outside her mother's womb with medical assistance, and just 17.2 percent say human life doesn't begin until birth.

Worse for Obama, most of those polled said they would oppose a candidate who didn't know when a baby is a baby.
The Zogby poll asked a follow-up question about whether voters would support or oppose a presidential candidate who doesn't know when human life begins. Voters, by a 55.3-to-27.7 percent margin, said they would oppose such a candidate.

Supporting abortion till (or even after) birth is a tough position to sell to all but the hardliners.

Defenses to Sexism

"Some of my best friends are skanks!"

"If you'd been a guy, I would have called you a bastard."

"If you wouldn't act like a c---, I wouldn't call you one."

"But you really are a bitch."

"According to the dictionary.
.."


Feel free to leave your own examples. Now replace the sexist words with racist ones and see the effect.

The Obama and Hillary War

I've never seen such a mess as the Democrat Party this year. I'm too young to remember 1968, so maybe that was similarly screwed up, but even to someone like me, who wants Obama to lose, it's just a sad, sad thing to watch, this implosion of the Democratic Party.

There are arguments that can be made that no amount of placating would have satisfied either the Clintons or their supporters. I think there's some truth to that. This is the power couple who rode to victory in 1992 saying we were getting two for one. They tried governing that way for the first two years of Bill Clinton's presidency, and it led directly to the Republican Revolution which gave the GOP control of the House for the first time in 40 years.

Way back in the primaries, I argued that Barack Obama would be a more difficult candidate to beat than Hillary Clinton because every criticism of Obama would be called racism. I was right that everything is called racism (who knew that "tall" was a "dog whistle" for "he's black"?), but in our close-to-post-racial society, voters seem tired of this charge. You can't run as a post-racial candidate who then periodically reminds us that you're black. That doesn't work.

So now, I look at Hillary Clinton and see that it would have been much harder for John McCain to beat her, since they are both relatively centrist candidates (and please don't try to argue that Obama is; he's the farthest left candidate the Dems have dared to run in three decades). Unfortunately for the Dems, Obama chose to be disrespectful of Clinton in the V.P. vetting contest but caved on the convention, so he has won the battle but lost the war.

Going with a candidate about whom little was known--outside of his narcissistic books--provided the Dems the "fresh face" they wanted, but it will cost them as voters begin to realize that his history isn't the Camelot they are being fed at the DNC convention. His voting record is very liberal. His executive experience, such as it is, is spotty and questionable. And community activist? Puh-lease. That phrase is now the biggest joke of the election.

It's hard to believe that the man who was supposedly unbeatable back in the primaries is now faced with a convention that is more fractured than united. But then, that is the hope and change of Barack Obama.

Tuesday, August 26, 2008

Obama and Free Speech

Barack Obama is trying to sic the Justice Department on a group he doesn't like.

Sen. Barack Obama has launched an all-out effort to block a Republican billionaire’s efforts to tie him to domestic and foreign terrorists in a wave of negative television ads.

Obama’s campaign has written the Department of Justice demanding a criminal investigation of the “American Issues Project,” the vehicle through which Dallas investor Harold Simmons is financing the advertisements. The Obama campaign — and tens of thousands of supporters — also is pressuring television networks and affiliates to reject the ads. The effort has met with some success: CNN and Fox News are not airing the attacks.

Obama has also launched his own response ad, directly addressing Simmons' attempt to link him to domestic terror.

Of course, Obama doesn't address the groups running the ad; he attacks John McCain.
"With all our problems, why is John McCain talking about the '60s, trying to link Barack Obama to radical Bill Ayers?" says Obama’s ad. "McCain knows Obama denounced Ayers' crimes, committed when Obama was just 8 years old."

John McCain isn't the one who has raised this issue. But by responding to it, Obama has now made it fair game. Can this campaign get dumber?

The Obama camp has decided to bully stations that run the ads, sending in letters and targeting advertisers. As DRJ at Patterico's Pontifications notes, "they said there would be efforts to quash speech after George W. Bush was elected President. They were right."

Sunday, August 24, 2008

I Want to Cut a Deal with Democrats

I posted this comment on a thread at Delaware Liberal, where the usuals were complaining about McCain discussing his status as a POW:

You know, we could make a deal. McCain won’t mention being a POW if Barack Obama will quit talking about his blackness. I’m for that. I’m tired of hearing how Republicans want to play the race card when it is Democrats in general and the Obama campaign in particular that keeps bringing it up. I don’t wanna hear any more about “dog whistles” in every freakin’ ad that shows what a clown Obama is.

We got a deal?

I know Democrats won't give up their schtick of accusing Republicans of being racists, closeted or otherwise, in every single sentence the Dems utter. But if they want to complain that John McCain brings up the single defining moment of his life when discussing his approach to things, then I think it's acceptable to complain about Obama's racism accusations at every opportunity. This includes the idiotic "dog whistle" claims that, seemingly, any criticism of Obama must circle back to we hate black people.

You think he's inexperienced? You must hate black people!

He's got shady connections? You must hate black people!

You think his policies are, at best, naive, and at worst, destructive for our country? You must hate black people!

You think the fawning and swooning coverage of Barack Obama is embarrassing, disgusting, and a little dishonest? You. Must. Hate. Black. People.

I understand that Democrats are upset that McCain has a credential they don't. It makes sense that the party that typically scorns all things military is repulsed by it. They have nothing to compare and their strategies typically involve cutting military spending and personnel. And the only missions they want our military involved with are those in which we have no national interest. So, yeah, it makes sense to me that they don't want to talk about John McCain being a POW. Unless they want to try to compare our military to the Vietcong.

So, I propose that John McCain stop talking about being a POW if Democrats stop talking about Obama's blackness and accusing every criticism of Obama as being racism. Fair enough?

There Are Never Any Mistakes When It Comes to Abortion

Kevin McCullough has a great column today at townhall.com regarding Obama's infanticide stance.

He uses an anecdote that, actually, could be a lot of us. A couple goes in for an ultrasound. The results aren't good. It appears the baby has Downs Syndrome. The doctor informs the woman of the "procedure" (read: abortion) available. Couple decides against it. Eventually a baby is born...and she is healthy and normal.

If you read enough pro-abortion arguments, you will rarely see discussions about women regretting their abortions. Oh sure, you'll find the obligatory, "I'm so sorry you are in pain," quotations, but no one ever acknowledges that abortion isn't just a 20-minute procedure that "saves someone from a lifetime of misery." It's a decision that most women who have made it think about for decades after the procedure.

And, of course, feminists never discuss the what-if-they-were-wrong angle to the argument. What if the doctors are wrong about the baby? What if the equipment malfunctions? Is it acceptable to kill a baby for a mistake? Barack Obama has said so. He doesn't want his daughters punished with a baby.

Lots of people get bad news when they are pregnant. Or they are scared by sometimes well-meaning doctors and nurses even when nothing is wrong.

I discovered I was pregnant with my son about a month after entering law school. I know that, for some people, that would have been a good reason to kill him. After all, taking care of a baby would be an impediment to my success in school and as an attorney. And it's all about me, right? That's what most of the arguments you'll find at Pandagon will tell you. It's way more important that a woman get what she wants than learn to love what she gets.

I was thrilled to be pregnant. My daughter was six years old, and my husband and I had wanted to start adding to that as soon as we could. Plus, I was 34 years old; my chances were decreasing by the year.

When I was around 20 weeks along, during a routine visit, the nurse told me about the alpha-fetoprotein test I could take. She explained that it was a test that would indicate whether or not everything was all right with the baby.

"So, what happens if the test isn't normal?" my husband asked. We were both a little naive, thinking that the nurse was talking about a curable problem that could be fixed with medication or a surgical procedure.

The nurse seemed uncomfortable for a minute, then said, "If the test isn't normal, you then have the choice of continuing the pregnancy or getting rid of it."

I gasped and stared at my husband. After the nurse left, I said, "I don't want to get rid of the baby just because she might not be normal." He agreed. And then and there, we decided that we didn't want to know if there was a problem like that. We knew we would deal with whatever baby God had decided to bless us with. It turns out, He blessed us with a boy who is now 10, likes trains and online games, and is the apple of his mommy's eye.

I often think about this whenever I read Pandagon and have some snide commenter tell me how I "don't know" anything about pregnancy or abortion. That I must be a man. That, even if I *am* a woman, my life must have been perfect. That it is selfish and stupid to point out that abortion doesn't prevent the pain of a pregnancy gone wrong; it just masks it in a pretty film that some people think they need to deal with the situation.

The ugly truth is, sometimes, the machines and doctors are wrong. And if you're going to be wrong, it's better to be wrong on the side of life than the side of death.

Riling Up the HIllary Voters

If Barack Obama had wanted to unity the Democratic Party, one way to have done it would have been to, at least, vet Hillary Clinton for the Vice President slot.

It's a small thing. Conduct some interviews. Do a little research that she would know about. Then politely tell her that you've chosen a different candidate. Most of us have been in that position (my favorite dogwhistle line was "you aren't quite what we're looking for.").

But the ineptitude of the Obama campaign, so blinded by their own awesomeness, caused them to stomp, yet again, on the second largest block of Democrat voters this year. Do they really assume Hillary voters will line up for Obama?

John McCain has a new ad that hits this nail on the head:



One of the most effective things the McCain campaign has been able to do this year is use Democrats' own words about Barack Obama against him. It's a terrific strategy and difficult to counter, no matter how many times the nutroots scream about how many houses John McCain has.

No doubt, a certain number of Hillary Clinton supporters will hold their noses and vote for Barack Obama because they would rather a Democrat win than a Republican. But I think there are probably a lot of Hillary supporters who wouldn't mind sticking it to the Obama camp by voting for John McCain. Plus, McCain isn't a terrible candidate for Hillary voters, since Clinton and McCain have worked together in the Senate (more of that bipartisanship on display).

My guess is that the Obama campaign will come to regret their decision. Oddly, the same people that have spent years defending the Clintons are now arguing that Hillary just needs to get over herself. So much for loyalty, I suppose.

Saturday, August 23, 2008

Barack America and Senator Blowhard


The more I've thought about Barack Obama's pick of Joe Biden for V.P., the more I become convinced that Obama was stuck with him because there were no better choices readily available. Obama waited until the dead of night on a Friday night-Saturday morning--after all the bars have closed and everybody is tucked into bed in a drunken stupor--to announce the pick. There's just no way that Obama had any confidence that Biden was going to give him a boost with a strategy like that.

I listened to NPR's coverage of the announcement today while out running errands. One commenter noted that Biden is known as "Senator Blowhard." Now, forget all the amusing and adolescent sexual connotations, but that doesn't seem like a ringing endorsement of the pick to me. But what I've mainly picked up on from Biden was two things: his ringing endorsement of John McCain just three years ago and his penchant for sticking his foot in his mouth constantly.

The McCain campaign was prepared for the Biden pick and came out swinging with this very effective ad:



The ad makes two of the most important points about this election: that Barack Obama's inexperience makes him not ready for the presidency, and that John McCain has been so bipartisan that Democrats actually want to run with him. Regardless of what Democrats think they can use of Romney's speeches against McCain, there's simply nothing that compares to having your vice presidential pick quoted admiring the opposition presidential candidate.

To be sure, in his speech today, Joe Biden tried to spin away from his earlier remarks. As hatchet man, his job is to say the things Obama has been scared--er, unwilling to say: namely, that John McCain is just a third Bush term. I suppose this line of attack, expected all summer, is effective with a certain brand of voter. But McCain is well-known for his willingness to go against his party and work in a bipartisan way. It's not hard for McCain to tally the number of times he has done this (frequently to the chagrin of conservatives, but it makes the point that McCain is nobody's to command).

Biden's gaffe machine has already revved up and started producing. Here's a bit Dana picked up from Biden in his very first speech as the Democrat V.P. candidate:



Barack America? This sort of gaffe dovetails nicely with the McCain campaign's "The One" commercials. I can't help but think the Obama campaign is already having buyer's remorse.

UIC to Release Chicago Annenberg Challenge Papers

Just One Minute has a post up about the decision by the University of Illinois at Chicago to release records from the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, an organization Barack Obama headed for several years.

The papers will be released in the midst of the Democrat National Convention, which should dampen some of the media coverage, but there's already been a lot.

Obama Picks Biden as V.P.

The more decisions Barack Obama makes, the better I feel about the Republicans' chances in November. Now, that Obama picked Joe Biden as his running mate (in the dead of night, no less), I'm feeling even better about it.

Joe Biden? Joe Biden? Even the nuts are having a hard time working up any enthusiasm over this pick. Of course, when you have the Obamessiah for your candidate, it was probably hard to come up with a suitable V.P. Maybe Moses wasn't available.

Here's a comment that made me laugh:

I was slightly annoyed by the fact that the word got out before the text message, but seriously - if someone tries to make that the media narrative for the next two days they need to get a life. Iraq War? Shitty Economy? A guy so out of touch he doesn’t know how many houses he owns? Let’s talk about what actually matters.

Emphasis mine. So, let me see if I have this straight. The fact that a rich guy doesn't know or worry about how many houses his rich wife owns is the Democrat talking point now? That's something that "actually matters"? How does that matter, exactly? If you know how many houses your family owns, does that make you more prepared to deal with Russia (whom Obama equates with the allied invasion of Iraq)? How about Iran? Does owning only one million-dollar home mean that you aren't going to tax the hell out of everybody? Or that your abortion policies won't sound as ghoulish?

I think Biden is probably as good a V.P. pick as Obama was likely to make. I can just see the commercials now...
Even Obama's running mate likes John McCain

Joe Biden really likes Obama, for a clean and articulate black guy.

Joe Biden: He only plagiarizes the best.

Obama/Biden: One's a celebrity. One's not terribly bright.

Wow, this should be a contest!

Friday, August 22, 2008

Universal Preschool?

The Wall Street Journal today has this op-ed piece discussing Barack Obama's plan to push for universal preschool.

Democrats love when kids spend more time in school than with their parents. That's so teachers have a better chance of indoctrinating your kiddoes with whatever crap they choose. Everybody knows that the only way to fix our educational problems is through more school, so why would anybody oppose universal preschool?

Because it doesn't work.

If anything, preschool may do lasting damage to many children. A 2005 analysis by researchers at Stanford University and the University of California, Berkeley, found that kindergartners with 15 or more hours of preschool every week were less motivated and more aggressive in class. Likewise, Canada's C.D. Howe Institute found a higher incidence of anxiety, hyperactivity and poor social skills among kids in Quebec after universal preschool.

The only preschool programs that seem to do more good than harm are very intense interventions targeted toward severely disadvantaged kids. A 1960s program in Ypsilanti, Mich., a 1970s program in Chapel Hill, N.C., and a 1980s program in Chicago, Ill., all report a net positive effect on adult crime, earnings, wealth and welfare dependence for participants. But the kids in the Michigan program had low IQs and all came from very poor families, often with parents who were drug addicts and neglectful.

I realize discussing my own children is strictly anecdotal evidence here, but it could be illustrative. My oldest is a go-getter who has always done well. My son is a butterfly chaser who is very intelligent but not terribly disciplined (if I hear, "he has the ability; he just doesn't want to do it" from one more teacher, I'll scream). My youngest daughter brought home only one "B" last year. The rest of her grades were "As". Yet all three kids were raised the same way (the oldest lived with me until she was 12).

I bring this up only to point out that what works in education is still pretty much a mystery. Every expert will tell you that, in order to raise good readers, you have to have lots of books around, and your children have to watch you read. But my best performing children are not readers. My son, the butterfly chaser, is a voracious reader.

The truth is, the best predictor of school performance is involvement by parents. If teachers can get parents involved, students typically perform better because their behavior has consequences (I know, some think "consequence" means "punishment", but obviously not).

This isn't to say that preschool isn't helpful for some students, but, unfortunately, the students who need it are least likely to attend. Making preschool mandatory is just one more year the school system takes from your time with your kids. And that time is short enough as it is.

Men Banned from National Parks for Typo-Chasing

Well, as they say, no good deed goes unpunished. Just ask these guys.

Their crime? Erasing typos from public signs. The pair belong to a the Typo Eradication Advancement League (TEAL), and the purpose of the group is to correct typographical errors on public signs and signs visible to the public.

Unfortunately, the two men picked the wrong sign to correct.

While at Desert View Watchtower on the South Rim on March 28, they were accused of using a whiteout product and a permanent marker to deface a sign that's a National Historic Landmark.

I'm curious about two things. First, what did the sign say? And second, are these guys copyeditors?

When I worked at the newspaper, the brass put a glass key-locked bulletin board case in the elevators. The bulletin board was used to post memos for employees. The glass case was to prevent copyeditors from correcting typos, ungrammatical text, sexist language, or otherwise non-A.P. style prose.

McCain's VP Pick

I've heard a lot of sources saying it's Romney. But I don't like Romney. Not that it will change my vote. But a lot of conservatives might vote for McCain if it is Romney. So, I guess I'm ok with it. Ok, John. You have my permission.

Feminist Hypocrisy in Action

I'm still waiting for Amanda Marcotte to ride to my defense against the sexism in the comment thread of this post, in which a commenter called me a "skank" because I disagree with him politically.

This sort of ranks right up there with the time Jeromy Brown called me a drunk bitch because he couldn't make a coherent argument.

I like when liberal commenters on liberal blogs let the mask slip. For all that I might disagree with far-left feminists, I do agree with them that misogyny still exists and is on display on a daily basis. The amusing part is when supposedly enlightened people from the Left are the ones displaying the anti-woman behavior. Doesn't it ever occur to them that if being called a slut for espousing feminist thought is wrong, then it is equally wrong to be called a slut for espousing conservative views?

This isn't the first time I've run across this sort of thing on lefty blogs. But it is the first time I've seen the moderator of a blog not address the issue by reprimanding the person who did it. Even when I was called a gold-plated bitch on wheels at Echidne's site, Echidne herself told the commenter to chill out.

The funniest part about this behavior is that, left or right, the person who does it always tries to find some excuse for letting the misogyny slip. Take this:

Besides which, I thought we decided that Sharon was definitely male

Oh, now THAT makes all the difference! I hear lots of men call other men "skanks." But the excuse-making got better:
Definitions of skanky on the Web...

You know someone has no argument when they have to resort to dictionary definitions to excuse their behavior. But wait! There was more!
Please come to Chicago. We’ll eat your lunch, stupid cobag.

*sigh* I thought liberals didn't believe in violence to solve differences? And Chicago can't defend itself against one widdle woman? What's wrong with these people.

On the record, I saw two different commenters condemn Mr. Skank. But Jesse Taylor didn't. I guess he was too busy writing up an invoice to the Obama campaign for all his cheerleading. Not a word from Amanda Marcotte, who usually is quick to tell everyone where the misogyny is apparent. Not Pam Spaulding, who thought teachers being allowed to carry guns will lead to shootouts at fire drills (I kid you not). Auguste? Nope.

It's always good to point out the consistency problems liberals have.

Why Do Attorneys Lie?

That headline sounds like the opening to a great lawyer joke, but it's not. I came across this law.com article in which the author asks a psychiatrist why attorneys tell obvious, blatant lies?

Well, I'm no psychiatrist, but I would put being a mother up there in the expert category (not to mention having been a teenager). My experience is that people lie for two reasons: they think they can't get caught and/or they are more afraid of the truth.

The law.com story spends a lot of time discussing the first reason for lying, but also throws in the competitiveness of the adversarial system as an explanation for lawyers lying.

Richard Ratner, a board-certified psychiatrist since 1973, has many lawyers as patients in his clinical work and also serves as a forensic psychiatrist in bar disciplinary cases and other types of litigation. He says a lot of "psychopathology" takes place in litigation, for a variety of reasons.

First, he notes that lawyers, generally, and litigators, in particular, tend to "have generous helpings of narcissism," which he says can be both good and bad. Narcissistic people, he states, "want to go out of their way to shine and make themselves look terrific." This is a good thing to the extent it motivates them to work hard and be prepared.

The problem, he says, comes when you put such people in the crucible of litigation, which after all is a competition with winners and losers. He says that this competition aspect creates a polarization of issues and, for narcissistic people, places their fragile egos directly onto center stage.

Ratner explains that extremely narcissistic people are so "needy for the affirmation of success," that the idea of losing is seen as unbearable. They will therefore use the psychological defenses of "rationalization" and "denial" to enable themselves to intentionally mislead -- and even lie -- if they believe that is the only way to win.

Ratner states that as a result of this rationalization and denial, they do not see themselves as having done anything wrong. Instead, they see themselves as justified , because they were acting for a "higher purpose." He explains that the power of rationalization can be enormous. It can even be seen in such horribly extreme examples as when the killing of innocent civilians by terrorists is seen as "heroic."

My ex-husband has used an attorney I affectionately call The Barracuda for litigation concerning our daughter. I've been shocked at the extent to which this attorney will twist facts and outright lie to the court in an attempt to win. Particularly in family law, where the parties are expected to cooperate and deal with each other after the litigation dust settles, this seems like a very shortsighted strategy. Yet her only goal is to win at all costs, collect her fee, and move on. The aftermath has been that my ex spent thousands of dollars for temporary results, as our child has vacillated about who she wants to be with. But the damage to our relationship, the relationship of her parents to each other, has been permanent.

There were two reasons I decided not to go into law. The first concerned the long, long hours required of most attorneys in the field. I didn't want to have someone else raising my children for me, who were 10, 2, and 5 months when I graduated (yes, I had two children in law school, which is why I always find it amusing when certain liberals want to tell me that I just wasn't "smart enough" to make it. Try studying Constitutional Law and breastfeeding at the same time, pal, then get back to me about being "smart enough"). But the second reason was that I was disgusted by the behavior I saw encouraged by faculty and attorneys when dealing with the law. There's a reason attorneys are required to take a course called "Professional Responsibility." The expectations of clients and other attorneys can and do cause people to behave in unseemly ways.

To put it another way, I didn't like the way I saw many attorneys behave and I didn't want to become like them.

In the years since that decision, I've kept up with several of my friends from law school. Most are successful in the field, but also disappointed with the realities of practice. One friend has handled family law (as I had wanted to), and she confided to me that her attitude towards some potential clients had changed since she had had a child. She understood why I was so outraged and disgusted at the lengths some people go to to win in the family wars.

I think that frequently, in our winner-take-all world, people are willing to forgive lying as, somehow, just another tactic in a war. It just depends on what the definition of "is" is. But the truth is that lying has consequences for clients and attorneys. Clients can be cheated by a rigged system, and attorneys find a little of their souls dying every time they open their mouths.

Thursday, August 21, 2008

Those 20%ers...

Must all be our Olympic athletes.

Why Obama Doesn't Want Us Looking at His "Executive Experience"

Dan Riehl has an excellent post on why Obama has bigger problems than sippin' wine with unrepentant terrorist Bill Ayers with regards to his tenure as chairman of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge. In a word: he sucked.

Read Riehl's excellent post for the details.

Rich Guy vs. Rich Guy

The moonbatosphere is up in arms that John McCain DOESN'T KNOW HOW MANY HOUSES HE OWNS!!!11!!!1!!!!

/Richard Miniter has a post on the story and that, naturally, the Obama campaign was quick to pounce on the gaffe.

At a campaign appearance in Chester, Va., on Thursday morning, Obama said: “Somebody asked John McCain, ‘How many houses do you have?’ And he said, I’m not sure. I’ll have to check with my staff. True quote: I’m not sure, I’ll have to check with my staff. So they asked his staff and he said, at least four. At least four! …

“If you’re like me and you’ve got one house – or you were like the millions of people who are struggling right now to keep up with their mortgage so that they don’t lose their home — you might have a different perspective. By the way, the answer is: John McCain has seven homes. So there’s just a fundamental gap of understanding between John McCain’s world and what people are going through every single day here in America.”

But what do they say about people in glass (or Tony Rezko-financed) houses? Oh, yeah. Don't throw stones:
McCain spokesman Brian Rogers said in response: “Does a guy who made more than $4 million last year, just got back from vacation on a private beach in Hawaii and bought his own million-dollar mansion with the help of a convicted felon really want to get into a debate about houses? Does a guy who worries about the price of arugula and thinks regular people ‘cling’ to guns and religion in the face of economic hardship really want to have a debate about who’s in touch with regular Americans?”

This is the sort of pissing match Obama doesn't want to get into. Really. Because he always gets the worst of it.

Miniter explains that the money is Cindy's and she could own all sorts of properties without his knowledge. And if he says they own two or three but they actually owned five, it would then be "McCain lied!"

More importantly, though, is the hypocrisy of the Left for having a panty squunch about how many houses McCain owns.
McCain is not the richest U.S. Senator. And not the second richest either. Does John Kerry know how many houses his wife owns? What about Ted Kennedy? Or West Virginia’s senator John D. Rockefeller IV?

Democrats like rich people as long as they are ready to eat the other rich people. Nobody but the nutroots are going to believe that, somehow, Obama being less rich than McCain means he's just a regular Joe.

Townhall blog links that seven of the richest 10 people in Congress are Democrats (including Number One), and the top six richest Senators are Democrats, including the Democrats' 2004 presidential candidate John Kerry at Number One. This just isn't a game Democrats want to be playin'.

Spanking Is Racist

That's what you'd think if you read the breathless media hype about a study by Human Rights Watch that found minority children are more likely to be beaten paddled than white children at school.

African American students are more than twice as likely to be paddled. The disparity persists even in places with large black populations, the study found. Similarly, Native Americans were more than twice as likely to be paddled, the study found.

The study also found:

—In states where paddling is most common, black girls were paddled more than twice as often as white girls.

—Boys are three times as likely to be paddled as girls.

—Special education kids were more likely to be paddled.

Well, the situation isn't quite what Human Rights Watch says it is.

Voice in the Wilderness did a li'l Googling and discovered that statistics are funny things.
--Minority children outnumber white children 2 to 1 in schools.

--60.5% of black families were not traditional, two parent homes, 30.1% for Hispanics, 12.7% for Asian families, and 40% for other, non-white races compared to 23.2% for white families.

--Children from nontraditional households tend to show more behavioral problems.


In other words, the problem isn't the spanking. The problem is that the children exhibiting behavioral problems are more likely to be minorities. But that doesn't make as good a story, does it?

H/T to Lone Star Times.

And the Jokes Are On...McCain

This article discusses a study by the Center for Media and Public Affairs which found that the TV comedians are giving Barack Obama the kid glove treatment.

The study covered all jokes between Jan. 1 and July 31 in late-night monologues by Jay Leno, Conan O'Brien, David Letterman, Stewart and Colbert.

Apparently, Jimmy Kimmel was not deemed funny enough to be included, which should give his writers some ammo for tonight's show.

The center found that the network shows broadcast only 169 jokes about Obama, compared with 428 about Bush. McCain drew 328 jokes. Hillary Clinton, who dropped out of the presidential race and much political news in early June, still drew more than twice as many attempted yuk lines (382) as Obama.

The CMPA also has a study now showing Obama is now getting more negative coverage than previously.
Obama’s bad press has come at a time when he was much more visible than McCain. Since June 8, he has been the subject of 120 stories on the three network evening news shows, 50% more than John McCain’s 80 stories.

Well, we still have to vet the Obamessiah, don't we? Poor, poor Obama! I guess Jesse Taylor needs to pick up the slack here.

Old-Style Politics and Obama

Barack Obama has been touting himself as a "new-style" politician for a decade, but, in reality, he's just the same ol' Chicago pol we've seen before. David Freddoso published an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal yesterday discussing how Obama won his first campaign; it wasn't, as he's fabricated in The Audacity of Hope, that people were dazzled by his changeyness. He combed through literally thousands petition signatures, getting them disqualified for things like printing one's name rather than writing it and a married woman using her maiden name.

Unofficial Barack Obama foot-kisser Jesse Taylor is spending a lot of time these days making excuses for Obama (see here and here for this morning's Obama talking points), but the problem is that Obama's record points less to the audacity of hope than to the audacity of Chicago politics.

Now Stanley Kurtz has attempted to lift the rug on the Barack Obama-Weather Underground terrorist William Ayers relationship by sniffing around the Chicago Annenberg Challenge. The paperwork is housed at the University of Illinois at Chicago, and Kurtz wanted to see the records (you know, usually liberals slobber at the idea of public records). Mysteriously, Kurtz has been prevented and the Chicago Tribune's John Kass explains why.

"This is a public entity," Kurtz told us Wednesday. "I don't understand how confidentiality of the donor would be an issue."

You don't understand, Mr. Kurtz? Allow me to explain. The secret is hidden in the name of the library:

The Richard J. Daley Library.

Eureka!

The Richard J. Daley Library doesn't want nobody nobody sent. And Richard J.'s son, Shortshanks, is now the mayor.

Obama, wearing the reformer's mantle, has generously offered to extend that reform to Washington, even to Kenya, but not Chicago, because he knows Shortshanks would be miffed.

Ayers, a former left-wing radical accused of inciting riots during the anti-war protests in the 1960s, is now also under Shortshanks' protection. After Ayers finally resurfaced in 1980, he got a job the Chicago Way, as a professor at UIC.

The Tribune's City Hall reporter, Dan Mihalopoulos, asked Daley on Wednesday if the Richard J. Daley Library should release the documents. Shortshanks didn't like that one. He kept insisting he would be "very frank," a phrase that makes the needles on a polygraph start jumping.

"Bill Ayers—I've said this—his father was a great friend of my father," the mayor said. "I'll be very frank. Vietnam divided families, divided people. It was a terrible time of our country. People didn't know one another. Since then, I'll be very frank, [Ayers] has been in the forefront of a lot of education issues and helping us in public schools and things like that."

The mayor expressed his frustrations with outside agitators like Kurtz.

"People keep trying to align himself with Barack Obama," Daley said. "It's really unfortunate. They're friends. So what? People do make mistakes in the past. You move on. This is a new century, a new time. He reflects back and he's been making a strong contribution to our community."

Mr. Kurtz finally got his answer. It should grace the cover of the National Review, with a cartoon of Shortshanks, dressed like a jolly Tudor monarch, holding a tiny Obama in his right paw, a tiny Ayers in his left:

They're friends. So what?

Welcome to Chicago, Mr. Kurtz.

Jesse Taylor is all impressed with Obama's blackness, as if that should be the key factor in who's the leader of the free world. But somehow, I'm at least as interested in who HopeNChange liked to sip his white wine with.

Obama's excuses have taken on a Clintonesque aura:
The Obama campaign says the senator does not have control over these records or the ability to release them, adding that it has made many documents related to Obama's life available to the public and that "we are pleased the university is pursuing an agreement that would make these records publicly available."

Yeah, because the Agent of Change really wants you to know how close he is to Ayers. Riiight.

Tom Maguire at Just One Minute speculates on who could give the go-ahead to make these documents available. I'd say it's probably somebody who would like Obama to win and doesn't think we should see these things before Nov. 4.

Can't I At Least Get Spammers Who Know English?

Saw this one this morning:

Your shy will be vanished along with overweight.

Who replies to these things?

Wednesday, August 20, 2008

Obama and Planned Parenthood

It's always fun to see what your tax dollars are paying for. Via Hannity's America comes a lovely gem discussing Barack Obama's undying support for Planned Parenthood, which has produced several videos that Amanda Marcotte would probably like.

Yeah, I'm sure this is the approach to sexual matters that I want my children exposed to. Because anything else is treating a girl woman as second class, right? To me, these videos treat girls with no class.

Bloom is Off the Obamessiah?

The latest Zogby poll shows Barack Obama in a 15-point freefall over the summer. I really don't put much stock in polls this far out. We still have 75 days before the election, which is plenty of time for Obama to roar back.

My opinion is that John McCain's celebrity ads, coupled with various missteps on Obama's part, are the reason for the drop in his popularity. As people get to know who Obama is and how he's voted (the only indicators of future behavior), rather than projecting onto him what they hope he will be, they are becoming more uneasy about him.

But keep in mind two things. First, Obama can blanket the airwaves with ads this fall because he has so much money to spend, and so much more money than McCain. It is quite possible that Obama can make up ground with voters through well-placed and effective advertising. The second point is that the November election is still an electoral college race. All Obama needs to do is swing a few voters in key states to win the election. As Democrats discovered in 2000, this isn't a popularity contest.

Still, as Ed Morrissey of Hot Air notes, the Zogby poll is interesting.

Zogby’s internals show this change across almost every demographic, too. Obama lost nine points among Democrats. He lost 11 poinst among Catholics, college graduates, Southerners, and city-dwellers, where he has dropped below 50% — a stunning result. Obama dropped 12 points among voters under 35, another power base for his campaign, and seven points among those earning under $50,000 a year.

The difference — and perhaps the reason for the drama — is that this poll surveyed likely voters, while Pew and the LAT/Bloomberg polls surveyed registered voters. The latter usually favors Democrats, and that could account for the seven-point difference between the two. The month-on-month results show trends that speak for themselves, as Zogby’s methodology has remained consistent.

Obama's inexperience has shown up glaringly in a couple of instances: his handling of the Georgia question and his bungled Saddleback interview. A sophisticated politician should have been able to handle both situations effectively, but Obama came across as out of touch and naive about Georgia and stiff and boring at Saddleback. The contrasts with John McCain's confidence and eloquence could not have been more stark. Hence, the 15-point drop.

Tuesday, August 19, 2008

"Who cares about viability? No one get a voluntary abortion even close to the viability range."

That's that expert on viability, Amanda Marcotte, discussing a subject she has no experience with: having children.

It's a good thing she didn't read this story then, becausse no one gets a voluntary abortion after viability.

A couple from Kafr Yasif in the Galilee received the shock of their lives Monday when the wife's miscarried 610-gram fetus, which had been declared dead five hours earlier, was found to be breathing.

The baby girl, born during the 23rd week of gestation, still has an uncertain future. Hospital spokesman Ziv Farber said that any premature infant of that weight and age had only a 10 percent chance for survival. But five years ago, he added, "we had a baby weighing only 580 grams, and she survived."

The 26-year-old mother and her husband have a five-year-old son at home. When she gave birth after going into premature labor at the hospital, the doctor on the scene pronounced it dead and it was taken to the morgue.

The father, Ali Majdub, told Channel 2 that his wife realized the child was alive after asking to see her dead daughter one last time.

"When we unwrapped the baby to see her, she realized it was moving. I began screaming and ran with it toward the doctors," he said.

She was then rushed to the neonatal intensive care unit, where doctors are fighting for her life.

"I was in shock," the mother told Channel 2 last night. "I thought I wasn't hearing it right when they said she was still alive."

I guess someone above Obama's pay grade decided it wasn't time for this girl to go yet.
Ok, that's enough discussing the Pandagonistas for a while.

It's All About Meeeee

God, I love when the pro-abortion types come unhinged.

Appropriate Quote of the Day

The Patriot Post's quote of the day seems particularly appropriate these days.

"Here comes the orator! With his flood of words, and his drop
of reason."

-- Benjamin Franklin (Poor Richard's Almanack, 1735)

Seems like this would fit one of the presidential candidates.

A Letter to Barack Obama

Dear Senator Obama,
Despite your protestations that your lackluster performance at Saddleback Saturday were peculiarly the fault of John McCain, ordinary Americans aren't buying it. That's because some of your answers simply defy logic.

I was particularly struck by your inability to answer Rick Warren when he asked you when human rights accrue. Your answer, that it was "above your pay grade," struck me as, at once, flippant and devious. "Above your pay grade?" You mean, in all your 47 years, you've never thought about when people deserve human rights? Not when you were a teenager, just becoming aware of the world outside your school? Not when you were a college student, drinking coffee (or stronger), experimenting with drugs, discussing world events? Not in law school, when you pontificated (I'm sure) to your colleagues about justice? Not as a "community organizer," where you had certainly determined that some forms of activism were noble and worthy causes? Not as a husband, father, son to other women?

You don't know when someone gets human rights? Really? Even after saying you didn't want your daughters punished with a baby?

There are some who have rushed to your defense, desperately trying to miss the substance of your statement in the calculus of your words. But the problem is, your "above your pay grade" comment illuminates the problems with being pro-choice in the first place. Amanda Marcotte's latest screed explains it quite well.

I get that the joke was a faux paus because the piety set abhors jokes of this nature, mostly because said jokes draw attention to the fact that they believe horrible things (in this case, that “life begins at conception”, a euphemism for the belief that sperm have more rights than women), and that those horrible things are protected from criticism because they call themselves “people of faith” and are reliably so touchy that most people are scared off the hard questions.

The truth is, it isn't really that difficult to state when you think someone deserves human rights. The problem for you was that you knew your answer--sometime after birth--would be unacceptable to a religious group. Which is the main reason your non-answer is so important.

If you are unwilling to tell the truth in front of a less-than-enthusiastic group of potential supporters, how can Americans expect you to tell the truth to all of them? You've flipped and you've flopped on a whole variety of issues in an attempt to make yourself into something you aren't because--while Jesse Taylor can't admit it--you know that liberal northern Democrats haven't been elected POTUS in your lifetime (the last one being JFK in 1960).

Let me state what you should have said,
There are few questions in the world more important than when human rights accrue to a person. We know what the law says: you become a person at birth. But for those of us lucky enough to be parents, we know that there's something special about children even before birth. Emotionally, it's difficult to recognize the humanity of unborn babies and still agree with the law, but the law protects all of us by giving bright line rules in difficult situations. Any place other than birth creates bigger problems. This doesn't mean we cannot and should not grieve for the difficult decisions made during pregnancy. But birth is one place we can all agree that human beings deserve protection.

It's just a suggestion for the next time your lousy reputation on life issues comes up.

Sincerely,

The Gold-Plated Witch on Wheels

P.S.: The dirty little secret is that of course, Obama knows when he thinks a baby gets human rights.
(A)s a supporter of Roe and Casey, Obama does have an answer: He thinks that a baby acquires rights when it's born - well, perhaps depending on how and why it happens to be born - and lacks them at every juncture before birth. He just didn't want to come out and say it.

Monday, August 18, 2008

Why The British Hate Us

Because they are ignorant.

A poll of nearly 2,000 Britons by YouGov/PHI found that 70 per cent of respondents incorrectly said it was true that the US had done a worse job than the European Union in reducing carbon emissions since 2000. More than 50 per cent presumed that polygamy was legal in the US, when it is illegal in all 50 states.

The poll was commissioned by America In The World , an independent pressure group that launches on Monday and aims to improve understanding and appreciation of the US in Britain and around the world.

Tim Montgomerie, its director, said factual inaccuracies and mistaken assumptions have contributed to Britons and Europeans taking a hostile stance towards their most powerful ally, which often acted against national interests...

The survey showed that a majority agreed with the false statement that since the Second World War the US had more often sided with non-Muslims when they had come into conflict with Muslims. In fact in 11 out of 12 major conflicts between Muslims and non-Muslims, Muslims and secular forces, or Arabs and non-Arabs, the US has sided with the former group. Those conflicts included Turkey and Greece, Bosnia and Yugoslavia, and and Kosovo and Yugoslavia.

Asked if it was true that "from 1973 to 1990 the United States sold Saddam Hussein more than a quarter of his weapons," 80 per cent of British respondents said yes. However the US sold just 0.46 per cent of Saddam's arsenal to him, compared to Russia's 57 per cent, France's 13 per cent and China's 12 per cent...

Almost a third of Britons believe that "Americans who have not paid their hospitals fees or insurance premiums are not entitled to emergency medical care"; by law such treatment must be provided...

Most Britons were unaware of positive aspects of the US, such as the robust environmental movement or the social justice work of evangelical churches, he said.

The American Left always tells us how much more advanced Europe is. Then they point to Europeans' low opinion of the U.S. as being our fault. In reality, the reason Europeans have such low opinions of the U.S. is too much negative attention from European and American news sources. Most of the above mentioned beliefs could have been those of many liberal websites here in the U.S. Maybe that's why they want us to be more like Europe.

Why Obama Can't Talk: McCain Must've Cheated!!!

Ah, yes, as Sister Toldjah has here, you knew that the Obamessiah's campaign would complain of interview fraud after his poor performance Saturday night with Rick Warren. Well, now we have it.

Of course, Sister Toldjah has John McCain's letter to NBC protesting this smear job, and in the letter, he points out that both sides were given the topics in advance. If Barack Obama were really as smart as his non-published grades, papers, and test scores would indicate, then he should have done enough preparatory work to be a better orator. But, once again, we see that when the One can't use a teleprompter, his oratory skills fail.

The Left has determined that no matter how flawed Obama is, they will defend him to the hilt, not by defending the One but by attacking critics. That's why, rather than attacking the substance of The Obama Nation, they spend time telling the world what a wacked-out kook the author is. Now, it's not Obama's fault he can't speak. It must be that John McCain cheated.

We used to deal with these sorts of whiners quickly and thoroughly in the schoolyard. Too bad we can't do that now.

FYI...

Posting will probably be light for the next week. I gots some real life issues to deal with. I'll try to post as I get the chance. In the meantime, you can enjoy limerick contest at CSPT. :)

Sunday, August 17, 2008

A Question for Pro-Choicers

I won't link to Pandagon since it seems to give Jesse Taylor hives (well, ok, here's a link for old times' sake), but here's the question I wish Pandagonistas would answer:

On various abortion-related threads, many commenters have said that a woman should be able to have an abortion "until the baby is out of her body" (or words to this affect).

So, why does their candidate, Barack Obama not support caring for infants born during abortions?

Thursday, August 14, 2008

LOL of the Day

Granted, it's kind of a sad and delusional one down in the abortion thread on Pandagon.

No one here passes judgment on any reaction

The person who wrote that must be new to that site.

UPDATE: Actually, the LOLs just get better--and more bizarre--in the comments. From Amanda, who, I suppose is getting frustrated that someone had the nerve to question the right to kill babies up until birth:
I swear to god, I am sick to the teeth of the involuntary virginal college Repubs on the internet. It’s a real fucking shame they feel their sexuality is this horrible, punishing burden because it makes them desire women---who they feel are beneath them, and then, to add insult to injury, this inferior creatures reject them and their seed as if they have the right. Sit on that bitterness long enough, and banning abortion to punish them, so they feel sexuality as a burden, too, starts to seem “fair”. Misery loves company and all that.

Also, when you feel that women have all this unjustified power to say no to you, then it’s probably very compelling to fantasize about how intercourse is the final conquest. Someone finally says yes, and it’s time to party, to completely own her by forcing her to have a baby against her will and prove, once and for all that yes, you are the master.

I've always found it to be the strangest argument for abortion that women must be absolutely clueless each and every time they have sex that pregnancy could result from that act and that all men have sex with women just to dominate them.

Amanda Marcotte on Abortion

Amanda proves, yet again why she doesn't understand pro-life arguments.

To say the right not just to abortion but contraception is important because I need it to be the full person that I can be, and I am a person of value is to cause palpitations of anxiety, and probably guffaws of contempt from the right. But I think by starting from that place of assurance that our own lives are valuable, it’s the best place to make that moral argument. It’s why having daughters can be such a major influence on politicians’ views on these things---to have a daughter whose value is immediate and unquestionable to you clarifies why the rights of women who actually exist trump the mythical rights of those who don’t.

Emphasis hers.

I think that Amanda's argument just shows how little she knows about parenting in general and parenting girls in particular. Having contraception didn't make me a "full person." Being a person who accepted the consequences of my decisions, used the talents God gave me, and tried to mesh my personal goals and desires with outside obligations made me a full person.

The central problem for pro-choice women is that they want sex to be consequence-free. That is, like men who get out of bed, zip up their pants, and go off to do whatever they want. That's what pro-choice women think sex is about. But, fair or otherwise, that's not what sex is about for women, which is why women have to think about pregnancy when they have sex. With or without contraception.

Lots of women find ways to be "full persons" after having children. And lots of women discover that having children makes them--dare I say it?--"full persons." When pro-lifers argue about the lives of unborn women, it's not just an abstract or weak argument. It hits home, especially once you start having daughters of your own.

UPDATE: Reading through the comments of Amanda's post can be quite enlightening. They believe abortion should always be available until a child is born. That's the argument we should force them to make at the Democratic National Convention. Not this "safe, legal, and rare" fluff.

Dark Confessions

Here's my darkest confession...

I love watching Roger Raglin Outdoors.

I don't even own a gun and have never hunted in my life, but I admit I get a kick out how excited Roger gets every time he kills a whitetail deer. Which seems to be quite often (you really need to click on that link, btw).

But don't tell the folks at Delaware Liberal. They might think he motivated the guy in Arkansas to kill the Democratic Party chairman.

Delaware Liberal and Gun Control

If you want a good buffet of left-leaning and far-left-leaning opinions, there's no better place to go than Delaware Liberal. Unlike, say, Pandagon, which is a one-note harangue, Delaware Liberal tends to cover a range of topics, local, national, and international, with a predictably liberal slant. If Rush Limbaugh is looking for material, he doesn't need to go further than this site.

I like DE because it provides a variety of subjects to discuss, but none has crept into more conversations lately than gun control. That's because of the relatively recent appearance of Mike W. as a counterpoint to any gun control argument.

I don't agree with gun control. The Second Amendment is clear that everyone has a right to own guns for any reason they choose, whether it is protection, hunting, or collecting. And most gun owners are fairly careful about gun safety. The reason a 3-year-old shooting his grandmother makes the news is that it doesn't happen very often.

The owners of DE are a relatively patient lot. They don't ban anyone (that I've seen), but they feel well within their rights to use illogical arguments and ad hominem attacks when logic and facts fail them (hell, who doesn't?). I thought the comments on this thread regarding the shooting of the Arkansas Democratic Party Chairman went a little off the rails.

Jason 330: BTW - The guy just died.

Happy now?

Why would anyone be happy that a guy died? Many at DE assume a conservative shot the chairman for political reasons, but, to date, there has been no political motivation unearthed for the shooting. That hasn't stopped the DE crew from hammering away at the theme that Republicans kill Democrats.

Yet again, there are those interested in blaming anyone but the perpetrators of crimes. As of now, we have no idea why this man shot the other man. Maybe they knew each other. Maybe the gunman had wanted a job and was turned down. Maybe he was a nut. Who knows? But it isn't helpful to automatically brand it as a political problem.

And let's look at their highest profile examples of Democrats who have died because of conservatives:
John F. Kennedy--Kennedy was shot and killed by a communist sympathizer named Lee Harvey Oswald. No conservative here.

Martin Luther King, Jr.--King was assassinated by career criminal James Earl Ray. The Wikipedia entry doesn't give any motivation for the killing, but it is assumed to be racial. No conservative credentials listed.

Robert F. Kennedy--Kennedy was killed by Sirhan Sirhan, a 24-year-old Palestinian who said he decided to kill Kennedy because of his support for Israel (a conservative position, mind you). Diaries show he had decided to kill Kennedy before that position became public, but there's no evidence that Sirhan Sirhan had any conservative motivations for killing Kennedy.

I suppose pointing out that killing Democrats has been the sport of the left far more than the right would be futile. But that doesn't mean every murder of a political official is politically motivated or that gun control has made life any safer for Democrats.

Wednesday, August 13, 2008

A Question for Amanda Marcotte

Did Amanda get to meet John Edwards's mistress on the campaign trail during her short stint with that campaign? Just sayin'.

Unfairness Doctrine and the Internet

I was wondering when someone would get around to pondering the effects of the Fairness Doctrine on the internet. Apparently, FCC members have.

FCC Commissioner Robert McDowell raised that as a possibility after talking with bloggers at the Heritage Foundation in Washington, D.C. McDowell spoke about a recent FCC vote to bar Comcast from engaging in certain Internet practices – expanding the federal agency’s oversight of Internet networks.

The commissioner, a 2006 President Bush appointee, told the Business & Media Institute the Fairness Doctrine could be intertwined with the net neutrality battle. The result might end with the government regulating content on the Web, he warned. McDowell, who was against reprimanding Comcast, said the net neutrality effort could win the support of “a few isolated conservatives” who may not fully realize the long-term effects of government regulation.

“I think the fear is that somehow large corporations will censor their content, their points of view, right,” McDowell said. “I think the bigger concern for them should be if you have government dictating content policy, which by the way would have a big First Amendment problem.”

The big problem with the Fairness Doctrine is that the government shouldn't be in the business of telling Americans what they can and can't read, listen to, or watch, provided there are safeguards for minors. It's not about whether someone's speech is offensive or not; it's about allowing people to express themselves without fear of government oppression. You don't have to like someone else's speech to appreciate that squelching speech you dislike will inevitably lead to squelching speech you do like.