Posts Tagged ‘obama’
Posted by Richard on November 15, 2008
"There are many things my father taught me here in this room. He taught me: keep your friends close, but your enemies closer." — Michael Corleone in The Godfather: Part II
Today's big story/rumor/speculation — Barack Obama is considering offering the Secretary of State job to Hillary Clinton:
Two Democratic officials confirmed that Clinton – long rumored to be a contender for the job – is under serious consideration.
Adding to the intrigue, Obama and Clinton met yesterday in Chicago, according to a Democratic official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to release the information.
I've heard several pundits say this would be a great pick because of her foreign policy credentials. Huh? Did I miss something? Or are they referring to tagging along with her hubby on various globetrotting trips as foreign policy experience?
And how would Obama reconcile such a choice with his sharp differences with Hillary on foreign policy in particular? Oh, I forgot. He won't have to because the media will give him a pass on that.
It could be a shrewd plan to make sure she's in no position to challenge Obama in 2012, if he drives disastrously leftward and recreates the Carter years in spades (pardon the expression).
It's unclear whether Clinton would even want the position. And some wondered if the Obama camp – which is very disciplined about unwanted leaks – is simply trying to compliment her by suggesting she's in the running.
If she wants to keep the options open for another run, she'll turn down the offer — if it comes.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: clinton, hillary, obama, politics | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Richard on November 11, 2008
Take this claim with a grain of salt. It comes from a terrorist organization leader talking to an Arab newspaper, so it's only slightly more credible than a CBS News story about a National Guard memo. But Haaretz reported it:
The Arab daily Al-Hayat on Tuesday quoted a senior Hamas official as saying that United States President-elect Barack Obama's advisors met with members of the Palestinian militant group before the U.S. presidential election.
Ahmed Yusuf, a political advisor to Hamas' Gaza leader Ismail Haniyeh, reportedly told the London-based paper that, "The connection was made via email and after that we met with them in Gaza."
Al-Hayat reported that Yusuf also said the relations were maintained after Obama's electoral victory last Tuesday. He said the president-elect's advisors requested that the relations be kept secret so as not to aid his rival, Senator John McCain.
Well, that part has a certain ring of truth to it.
During Obama's campaign, he pledged that his administration would only hold talks with Hamas if it renounced terrorism, recognized Israel's right to exist, and abided by past agreements.
Maybe Hamas leaders secretly renounced terrorism and recognized Israel's right to exist in their emails to the Obama campaign? Yeah, right.
I've heard that Rahm Emmanuel is a strong supporter of Israel. If this story is true, I wonder what he thinks of it. I wonder if he knew about it.
BTW, if you see this reported in any American mainstream media outlets, drop a link in the comments. I tried searching Google News for obama hamas talks and obama hamas meet. I learned that, as Jerusalem Newswire put it, "Israel reverberates" with the news. But in the U.S. as of 10:30 PM Mountain Time, only Hot Air seemed interested.
UPDATE: P. David Hornik at PajamasMedia and Instapundit also noticed. Still waiting on the NYT, WaPo, AP, ABC, CBS, NBC, …
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: hamas, israel, obama | 3 Comments »
Posted by Richard on November 10, 2008
While catching up on Big Lizards, I learned some other interesting things about the election. The first post debunked the myth of a big surge in registrations and new voters. It seems that, for the umpteenth time, media pundits were wrong about this being the year when young people would finally flock to the polls.
According to Dafydd, most of the new registrations (8.7 million out of 10 million) are explained by the population increase since 2004. Of the 1.3 million "extra" registrations, only about 300,000 showed up to vote — 0.2% of the vote (emphasis in original):
Bottom line: New voters, felons, and bums did not impact the vote in any significant way. ACORN failed; Obama won the election not by bringing "new blood" to the voting booth but by doing a better job than McCain at wooing the traditional voter, the guys and gals who always vote.
So if McCain didn't lose because of a surge of new voters, which traditional voters cost him the election? According to Dafydd, it was conservatives. He quoted the Associated Press (which I won't do, since they don't recognize fair use and have threatened those who don't pay them for quotes): according to exit polls, they said, the percentage of voters calling themselves conservative was the same as four years ago.
Dafydd then argued (emphasis in original):
Let's hop aboard my Syllogismobile and go for a ride…
- 34% of voters called themselves "conservatives."
- Of that 34%, 20% voted for Barack H. Obama; that means 6.8% of the electorate both called themselves conservatives and also voted for Obama. (Would that include Christopher Buckley and his ilk?)
- Contrariwise, only 10% of self-dubbed liberals voted for John S. McCain. Conservatives defected at twice the rate of liberals.
- Suppose, just for a giggle, conservatives had only voted for Obama at the same percentage that liberals voted for McCain… in other words, that conservatives were no more likely to defect than liberals. In that case, half of the conservative defectors would have remained loyal, and 3.4% of votes would shift from Obama to McCain.
- According to the most recent quasi-official unofficial tally, the popular tallies for the two nominees were 52.6% for Obama and 46.1% for McCain.
- Switching 3.4% from left to right yields 49.2% for Obama and 49.5% for McCain. (Note McCain number higher than Obama number.)
- Conclusion: Had conservatives defected at the same rate as liberals, instead of twice the rate, then John McCain would have won this election.
Thanks, guys!
That's a bit of over-simplification. It looks only at the popular vote, not the Electoral College — which would make the analysis much more complicated. But as a rough approximation, it sounds about right. It's very likely that Christopher Buckley and those like him elected Obama.
Bill Buckley is spinning so fast in his grave that it may warp the space-time continuum.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: conservatives, elections, obama, politics | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Richard on November 7, 2008
The pundits, including many conservative pundits, are opining that Obama will "govern from the center." Sure he will. That's why he picked a hard-core leftist, rabidly partisan pit bull, Congressman Rahm Emmanuel, as his chief of staff.
Emmanuel made it quite clear after the 2006 election how interested he is in reaching across the aisle and ending the partisanship in Washington: "The Republicans can go fuck themselves!"
I suspect a number of blue-blood country-club Republican politicians will be only too eager to go fuck themselves in order to demonstrate how bipartisan and cooperative they can be.
Oh, yeah — Emmanuel was on the board of Freddie Mac when it was creating our current financial crisis, and he helped Steny Hoyer manipulate the Congressional bailout plan voting so as to maximize the PR damage to the Republicans. (HT: Sweetness & Light)
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: democrats, leftists, obama, politics, republicans | 4 Comments »
Posted by Richard on November 5, 2008
Not everyone is feeling gracious, magnanimous, and conciliatory. For instance, there's John Derbyshire:
All right, I'm sour. The most liberal member of the U.S. Senate! And that shakedown-artist of a wife, with the permanent frown! And Joe Biden! …
I'm sour about the GOP too. What did it all get us, those 8 years of pandering and spending? If GWB had turned his face against from new entitlements, closed the borders, deported the illegals, held the line on calls to loosen mortgage-lending standards, starved the Department of Education, and declined those invitations to mosque functions, would the GOP be in any worse shape now?
What won this election was the packaging skills of David Axelrod, the swooning complicity of the media, the ruthless opportunism of Barack Obama, and the unprincipled thuggishness of his supporters.
What lost this election was the cloth-eared cluelessness of George W. Bush, the timid squeamishness of John McCain, and the deep lack of interest in conservative principles among Republican primary voters.
Sour? You bet I'm sour. Where was conservatism in this election? Where was restraint in government? Where was national sovereignty? Where was liberty? Where was self-support? And where are those things now? Where are they headed this next four years? Down the toilet, that's where. Pah!
Funny thing: I can relate to Derbyshire's bitterness, while at the same time sharing the magnanimous thoughts and good feelings of Potemra and Goldberg. I guess I'm experiencing a mixture of happiness (about the historical significance) and dread (about what the future holds).
I know one thing: the next gun show will be crowded.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: elections, obama, politics | 4 Comments »
Posted by Richard on November 5, 2008
They're on a roll at The Corner. Is this a great country, or what? Mike Potemra at the corner of 125th Street and Adam Clayton Powell Boulevard in Harlem:
The scene was Congressman Charlie Rangel's block party celebrating the election of Barack Obama. People of all races and ages were there on this mild Manhattan evening, and they were in a festive mood even before the big news was announced. American flags abounded; a platform preacher repeated "God bless America, God bless America."
Why was I, a John McCain voter, there? A bit of personal history. I was born in 1964, and on the day I was born the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Prince Edward County in Virginia had to reopen its public schools. The county had closed the schools because they decided it was better to have no public schools at all than to have to admit black kids into them. Here we are, just 44 years later, with an African-American president, a president elected with the electoral votes of that very same Commonwealth of Virginia.
I voted for John McCain because I admire him immensely as a person, and agree with him on many more issues than I do with Senator Obama. And I ask a rhetorical question: Can we McCain voters, without embarrassment, shed a tear of patriotic joy about the historic significance of what just happened? And I offer a short, rhetorical answer.
Yes, we can.
Amen. It's significant and it's special and it's rather moving. At least for those of us who've been around for, say, fifty-odd years and are thrilled by how things have changed.
(But I still wish the first African-American president were Condi Rice. That would have been a twofer!)
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: elections, emotions, obama, politics | 1 Comment »
Posted by Richard on November 5, 2008
Jonah Goldberg:
Look, I expect to be one of the most severe critics of the Obama administration and the Democrats generally in the years ahead (though I sincerely hope I won't find that necessary). But Obama ran a brilliant race and he should be congratulated for it. Moreover, during the debate over the financial crisis, Obama said that a president should be able to do more than one thing at a time. Well, I think we members of the loyal opposition should be able to make distinctions simultaneously. It is a wonderful thing to have the first African-American president. It is a wonderful thing that in a country where feelings are so intense that power can be transferred so peacefully. Let us hope that the Obama his most dedicated — and most sensible! — fans see turns out to be the real Obama. Let us hope that Obama succeeds and becomes a great president, for all the right reasons.
Indeed.™
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: elections, obama, politics | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Richard on November 4, 2008
Rick Moore said "This is What the Election is All About" (emphasis added):
From Virginia Democrat Representative Jim Moran:
"We have been guided by a Republican administration that believes in the simplistic notion that people who have wealth are entitled to keep it, and they have an antipathy towards the means of redistributing wealth."
Video here. In the socialist world of Moran and Obama, you are not entitled to keep your wealth.
Meanwhile, Black Panthers wielding nightsticks are intimidating voters at Philadelphia polling places.
And Chuckie Schumer is talking about reinstating the Fairness Doctrine.
And Barack Obama gives special thanks to the "gracious press".
Moran — that's pronounced "moron," right?
For more about the Panthers confronting and intimidating certain voters, go here and here.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: economics, elections, media bias, obama, politics, socialism | 2 Comments »
Posted by Richard on November 4, 2008
I heard this sound bite on the radio this morning. A south Florida woman explained to a reporter that she was so excited about electing Obama because "I won't have to work on putting gas in my car, I won't have to work on paying my mortgage, you know, if I help him, he's gonna help me."
I was reminded of the SNL presidential debate skit from a few elections ago (1996?) in which a questioner from the audience demanded of the candidates, "Where's my stuff? I want my stuff!"
Go vote. For McCain.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: free stuff, nanny state, obama | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Richard on November 4, 2008
David Harsanyi (emphasis added):
Obama laughs off the charge of socialist behavior — and to be fair, socialism isn't the precise term to affix to his ideas. It's more like Robin Hood economics. On a recent campaign stop, Obama joked that, by the end of the week, McCain would be accusing him "of being a secret communist because I shared my toys in kindergarten."
A funny line. But, of course, Obama's lofty intellect must comprehend the fundamental difference between sharing your G.I. Joe with a friend and having a bully snatch your G.I. Joe for the collective, prepubescent good. It's the difference between coercion and free association and trade. In practical terms, it's the difference between government cheese and a meal at Ruth's Chris.
Now, I'm not suggesting Obama intends to transform this nation into 1950s-era Soviet tyranny or that he will possess the power to do so. I'm suggesting Obama is praising and mainstreaming an economic philosophy that has failed to produce a scintilla of fairness or prosperity anywhere on Earth. Ever.
Amen! Read the whole thing. Then vote as if our future depends on it.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: egalitarianism, free stuff, obama, politics, socialism | 1 Comment »
Posted by Richard on November 4, 2008
It's not just residents of coal-producing states like Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, North Dakota, Montana, and Colorado who ought to be concerned about Barack Obama's threat to destroy the coal industry. His radical plan will, by his own admission, cause electricity prices across the country to "skyrocket." Are you ready for that? Is our economy ready?
Investor's Business Daily outlined what's at stake:
Speaking to the San Francisco Chronicle on Jan. 17, Barack Obama singled out new coal plant construction for big taxes. The scheme, part of the cap-and-trade energy policy he wants to implement as president, is meant to tax coal producers straight out of business.
"So if somebody wants to build a coal-powered plant, they can," Obama said. "It's just that it will bankrupt them because they're going to be charged a huge sum for all that greenhouse gas that's being emitted."
Isolated gaffe? No. On his own Web site, Obama declares:
"Once we make dirty energy expensive, the second step in my plan is to invest $150 billion over the next decade to ensure the development and deployment of clean, affordable energy."
In other words, Obama's plan is confiscatory taxes to first destroy America's domestic energy producers, and once that bridge is burned, force the U.S. to rely on alternative energies that haven't been developed. The big-government plan might make ideologues happy, but in the real world, it won't work. …
…
America is the Saudi Arabia of coal, with the world's largest demonstrated reserve base of 489 billion short tons, the Energy Department says. About 93% of it is used to produce electricity, and it provides about half of U.S. electricity needs. As the nation's economy expands, that need for coal is projected to grow about 20% by 2030.
If that need can't be met, consumers will be hit with high prices brought on by shortages. Meanwhile, America's 80,000 miners and 1.6 million workers in coal-related and coal-dependent industries would suffer from Obama's taxes on new plants.
"Under my plan of a cap and trade system," Obama said in another interview, "electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket." He added that because "I'm capping greenhouse gases, coal power plants, you know, natural gas, you name it — whatever the plants were, whatever the industry was, they would have to retrofit their operations. That will cost money. They will pass that money on to the consumers."
The biggest problem with Obama's plan is that it taxes productive companies, and offers nothing but "hope" to replace the missing energy. He does not propose using our current resources as a bridge to cleaner energy. He'd rather stop their use cold. No nuclear power, no offshore drilling, no new coal plants, and if consumers have to pay more, too bad. Obama's attack on coal use surely will leave us poorer.
And that's only one of the hundreds of Obama plans to "fundamentally transform" this country that will make us all poorer. He's not going to redistribute wealth so much as he's going to redistribute misery. There will be lots more of that for everyone.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: economy, energy, obama, politics | 1 Comment »
Posted by Richard on November 1, 2008
He's Not My President on 10/31 (emphasis added):
I didn’t say it, Senator Obama did. Speaking tonight at the University of Missouri in Columbia, Missouri, Senator Obama said, near the beginning of his speech: “We are five days away from fundamentally transforming the United States of America.”
…
… fundamentally transforming something (in this case the United States of America) means to markedly change the nature, function, or condition of the foundation or base, forming or serving as an essential component of a system.
So what is it, exactly, that Senator Obama needs to markedly change? What is the foundation or base of the United States of America, the essential component of our system (our government)? I would argue it is the Constitution of the United States of America. But does the U.S. Constitution need to be markedly changed? I would argue, of course it does not. …
I'm a Libertarian and thus not exactly a fan of the status quo. But Obama crowing about "fundamentally transforming" America gives me a chill. When I factor in his 2001 interview in which he regretted that the Supreme Court has failed to "transform" the Constitution by embracing "positive rights" and income redistribution, I become very, very disturbed. This is dangerous stuff.
If you value the Constitution, if you value the founding (fundamental) principles of this country, if you value liberty — hold your nose and go vote for McCain.
Unless you're in a state where it clearly won't matter (like Massachusetts or New York). In that case, do me a favor and vote for Libertarian Bob Barr on my behalf. Regrettably, I can't. Colorado is close, and there's too much at stake.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: elections, obama, politics, socialism | 3 Comments »
Posted by Richard on November 1, 2008
HillBuzz has some sage advice for Republicans: Don't fall for the three head games the media and the Obama campaign are playing. And don't be an Eeyore:
The same pattern that unfolded during our primaries is happening again, because the media has just one tattered old used playbook (written by David Axelrod, of course), and they have not deviated from it yet. What the media and Obama campaign did, in concert, to Hillary Clinton before every major primary is what they are doing to McCain/Palin now. Here are the top three media/Obama head tricks to watch out for in the last days before the election.
If you, collectively, can keep Republicans and other McCain voters from falling for these, we believe there’s nothing Obama can do to win this election. The ONLY way McCain loses is if you Eeyores allow the media to keep you from the polls.
Read the whole thing.
I was pleased to see that something I'd been thinking regarding one of those head games occurred to them, too. Head game #3 is "Repeated insistance that blacks and young people will decide this election, and they are all going to vote in record numbers for Obama." The unintended consequence of this game that occurred to both of us (great minds think alike) is that:
… the Obamedia’s constant drumbeat that Obama’s so far ahead will, ironically, keep a lot of these people from actually voting — since they think he will win in a landslide without them, and one vote doesn’t matter. “Oh, we meant to vote, but we got, like, busy. And stuff.”
According to a news report I heard last night, in the early voting, young people have (yet again) not turned out in the large numbers predicted by the pundits. So the outcome of this election may depend on this: Will the media trumpeting of an inevitable Obama victory keep more McCain supporters away from the long lines on election day or more Obama supporters?
HillBuzz summed up:
It’s all a head game, a fake out. All of this talk about Obama being ahead is just garbage the Obamedia shovels to make you give up and sit home so Obama can win. That’s what breeds Eeyores. And Eeyores giving up and staying home is why Hillary Clinton won Indiana by only 1% when she should have won it by 9%. It really is as simple as that.
So, heads up out there — if you can get Rush to talk about this stuff on air, it would do Republicans a world of good. Make as many people see the media for what they are — a paid extension of the Obama campaign — as humanly possible, keep your heads up, and let’s put another crack in the glass ceiling by making Sarah Palin the nation’s first female Vice President, while putting a good and decent man we trust behind the Resolute Desk where all of us Democrats know he’ll work effectively with Senator Clinton and other Democrats to fix our economy, create good jobs, and make America energy independent for good.
If we work hard, we will win.
Check out other recent posts at HillBuzz — they've been blogging up a storm. For instance, they say "Pennsylvania’s Democrats voting for McCain will decide this election," and think this flyer being widely distributed in Pennsylvania is significant. And there's this update — the Obama campaign has been charging the press thousands of dollars for backstage access (isn't it interesting that none of the national news organizations shaken down like this thought it was worth reporting). Now they're holding an illegal lottery offering a chance at similar access to contributors!
I've been so impressed by the work being done by HillBuzz that I donated $100. You can donate, too, right on the home page.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: elections, mccain, media bias, obama, politics, polls | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Richard on October 31, 2008
Gee, after seeing this picture, I'm sorry I didn't watch the Obama infomercial. Looks like it was fun. It's hard to imagine Obama being annoyingly brash and loud, but ShamWow means "annoyingly brash and loud," doesn't it?
(Courtesy of Freeper Gloucester by way of NewsBusters)
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: humor, infomercial, obama | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Richard on October 30, 2008
Fouad Ajami in today's Wall Street Journal:
There is something odd — and dare I say novel — in American politics about the crowds that have been greeting Barack Obama on his campaign trail. Hitherto, crowds have not been a prominent feature of American politics. We associate them with the temper of Third World societies. We think of places like Argentina and Egypt and Iran, of multitudes brought together by their zeal for a Peron or a Nasser or a Khomeini. In these kinds of societies, the crowd comes forth to affirm its faith in a redeemer: a man who would set the world right.
As the late Nobel laureate Elias Canetti observes in his great book, "Crowds and Power" (first published in 1960), the crowd is based on an illusion of equality: Its quest is for that moment when "distinctions are thrown off and all become equal. It is for the sake of this blessed moment, when no one is greater or better than another, that people become a crowd." These crowds, in the tens of thousands, who have been turning out for the Democratic standard-bearer in St. Louis and Denver and Portland, are a measure of American distress.
On the face of it, there is nothing overwhelmingly stirring about Sen. Obama. There is a cerebral quality to him, and an air of detachment. He has eloquence, but within bounds. After nearly two years on the trail, the audience can pretty much anticipate and recite his lines. The political genius of the man is that he is a blank slate. The devotees can project onto him what they wish. The coalition that has propelled his quest — African-Americans and affluent white liberals — has no economic coherence. But for the moment, there is the illusion of a common undertaking — Canetti's feeling of equality within the crowd. …
Read. The. Whole. Thing.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: obama, politics | 4 Comments »
