Right Wing Nut House

I am afraid I’ve been derelict in my duties as Chief Bemused Chronicler of the Coming Catastrophe. I’ve got an excuse, though. My Give a Damn’s Busted.

Well, that’s only half right. Of course I care about the precipice we are currently teetering upon. Nevertheless, part of me wants to scream “Jump!” just because the idea of huge corporations with enormous political influence and the fabulously wealthy men who run them getting off the hook and not paying dearly for the cruddy decisions they made with their customer’s money sickens my soul.

In six months, even the ones who are fired will no doubt land on their feet running some other company or fund into the ground. They are losers. And the helluva it is, many of these fellows with their hands out, begging us to backstop their stupidity will not be fired, or disciplined, or even given a slap on the wrist. They may even receive kudos from shareholders and the “experts” for having the good sense to finagle cash from the government in exchange for paper that is worth less than a supermarket full of Charmin.

Yes, I know that eventually the Treasury Department will try and sell these securities. And no doubt, the American taxpayer will be told that it was a great deal because we bought in for a song and sold for a huge profit. In the meantime, these same guys will be planning their next get rich quick scheme, gambling that they won’t be one of the suckers holding the bag when the crap hits the fan next time.

As I understand it (and I use the word “understand” in the minimalist way as in “I “understand” quantum mechanics isn’t about repairing tiny cars) the whole point of these trillions of dollars in mortgage backed securities bought by banks and investment firms all over the world is that it “spread the risk” so that no one company would be too exposed.

Who came up with that idea? And why, after spreading the risk all over the world, does it come all the way back and slap the American taxpayer square in the face?

In the immortal words of C-3PO, “Don’t get technical with me.” We are used to government programs being designed to do one thing while ending up accomplishing exactly the opposite. But a financial instrument?

We are told there hasn’t been enough regulation. We are also told there’s been too much regulation. We’ve been told that capitalism is at fault. We’ve been told that it’s government’s fault. We’ve been told it’s a lack of oversight. We’ve been told that banks were forced to lend to deadbeats. We’ve been told it’s the fault of greedy businessmen. We’ve been told it’s no one’s fault, that everyone is to blame.

Now I am not that bright about this kind of thing but to my way of thinking, I’m not sure everything we’ve been told can all be right. And given the track record of the people making these grandiose claims of fault - right and left - it hardly engenders confidence that anyone, anywhere knows what the hell they are talking about.

We might as well face it. Even the financial gypsies at the Fed don’t know what they are doing in this situation. They are in full reactive mode and their crystal balls have gone dark. And if the Fed is in the dark, the hacks at the Treasury Department are only guessing too.

Now I may not understand what’s going on too well but common sense would tell the average Joe that before we go off half cocked and start handing out taxpayer money that maybe, perhaps, we should have the slightest idea if this is going to work.

Just sayin’, that’s all.

Do we have a fallback plan in case this doesn’t do the trick? Or are we just going to throw more money at these Wall Street geniuses and hope for the best?

One thing about this crisis that is truly entertaining is reading bloggers trying to outdo one another in the level of hysteria that their posts reach. It is truly amazing. I’ll bet some of those online thesauruses are getting massive traffic as bloggers search for new adjectives to describe how dire is the situation we find ourselves.

One would think such hyperbole would be the exclusive province of the left. But we righties are making a brave stab at matching them - not in describing the financial crisis but in warning of the catastrophic consequences of the bailout plan. Now, one can oppose the Treasury plan without going off half cocked about “nationalizing Wall Street” or “socializing” the financial system in America. Similarly, one can write of the gravity of the situation without resorting to florid language about selling apples on street corners and half of America standing in soup lines.

But then, what fun is being calm and reasonable? After all, this is an election season and the more out of control and idiotic the rhetoric, the more some people will take you seriously. Besides, predicting the end of the world makes you sound smart to some. It speaks to one of humanity’s most fundamental impulses; the need for drama in our dull and dreary existence. We see this with global warming advocates whose calamitous warnings actually make them feel good inside. There is something almost sexually arousing about imagining the end of the world.

And some bloggers appear to really have a hard on for this disaster.

You won’t want to miss tonight’s Rick Moran Show,, one of the most popular conservative talk shows on Blog Talk Radio.

Tonight, Vodkapundit’s Stephen Green joins me for some pre debate chatter and a look at some of the latest polls. We’ll also ask Steve the best spirits to imbibe while watching a political debate as his “Drunkblogging” debates has become the stuff of legend.

The show will air from 7:00 - 8:00 PM Central time. You can access the live stream here. A podcast will be available for streaming or download shortly after the end of the broadcast.

Click on the stream below and join in on what one wag called a “Wayne’s World for adults.”

The Chat Room will open around 15 minutes before the show opens,

Also, if you’d like to call in and put your two cents in, you can dial (718) 664-9764.

Nearly 2700 posts. More than 31,000 comments. Much laughter. Some frustration. A little genuine anger.

The day was half gone before I realized that today is the fourth anniversary of the birth of my blog, Right Wing Nuthouse. I have told the story of why I started it before so if you wish to know, go back to other September 23rd posts. I have thanked everybody before who had a hand in whatever little success I have enjoyed as a blogger-writer. They know they are and so do I. The short list begins with Ed Morrissey, goes through Glenn Reynolds, and ends up with Allah and Michelle Malkin.

There are dozens of others - some of whom aren’t even blogging anymore. And some are no longer supporters. Being a presence on the internet for 4 years guarantees making enemies - both right and left. I can honestly say I never consciously picked a fight with anyone. And some of those fights - whether they were between me and another blogger or more often, a commenter - mystify me to this day.

But I’ve found there are some people who will deliberately choose to interpret what you write a certain way just so that they can fight with you. Longtime readers of this site know that these blog tussles have been few and far between because I think they are petty and useless. Believe me, I’ve had plenty of opportunities but have passed on around 95% of them. I’ve usually had better things to do than engage in stupid, useless, back-and-forths over some minor supposed insult I’ve given.

Looking back over the last four years, there is plenty to be grateful for and some things to be sorry about. I am grateful that my writing has been recognized in a small corner of the internet and am now making a fairly decent living exclusively as a result of the success of this blog. And I am sorry for some of my more intemperate and angry posts where a judicious use of the “delete” button or a vigorous red pen should have been employed.

But that’s blogging, people - raw, immediate, personal, and as honest as one can dare to be. I have tried not to shave my positions on issues to go along with the crowd. If I believe differently than most on a certain issue, I try to say so. But no one is perfect nor is anyone completely honest about everything. In the end, I have to face the fellow in the mirror who stares back at me and frankly, I take great pride in being able to say that even when I’m wrong or wrong headed, it is not out of design or calculation but because I try to be honest with myself about what I believe.

This is what I owe to you, the readers of this site. It is what I hope keeps bringing you back. I won’t win any web popularity contests. I won’t win any prizes for being a great journalist or scholar, or thinker, or commentator. But at the end of the day, if I’ve made you pause and see things briefly from my point of view and caused you to examine your own thoughts about an issue, then I am content.

Rick Moran
Proprietor

My latest for PJ Media deals with the failure of blogs to fulfill their promise of changing politics for the better while racing with the rest of media to the gutter.

A sample:

I suppose it was unrealistic to expect that the political blogosphere might make some positive contributions to the 2008 election campaign. But judging by the smears and lies that are either created by bloggers or are simply echoed again and again on websites both right and left, along with the painfully shallow emphasis on whatever bloggers can blow up into a “gaffe” by hugely exaggerating some minor misstatement by either candidate, one is left with the sad conclusion that most blogs are contributing absolutely nothing of substance to this election.

Perhaps it is time to pause and ask “Is this the best blogs can do?”

Yes - if you peruse this site you will see I am a prime example of a blogger who deals in these “gotchya” themes. But I also try and cover the race from the perspective of a serious analyst who weighs the import of many of these gaffes and how they will affect the race.

I have also tried to debunk smears on both candidates while taking a more realistic view of Mr. Obama than many of my more conservative readers like.

That said, I realize my shortcomings in this area and make no apologies. I like having a few readers now and then and if I were to turn all wonky on you (and I hate wonk writing) both you and I would be miserable. And God help us if I ever got to the point where I had to be fair and balanced when it came to writing about the left!

So you see, my friends, I am trapped by my own choosing in this little cocoon of trivia and mud slinging. This blog is what it is and I am what I am and you can like it or take your eyes elsewhere. That is the beauty of the blogosphere.

So enjoy!

Blogworld and Las Vegas are calling me away this weekend as I travel to Sin City to hobnob with the Pajama People.

I’ll be writing a couple of articles for Pajama Media so watch for my stuff there. Also, I will try to do a Blog Talk Radio broadcast from the exhibit hall on Saturday. I’ll try to post something on the blog to let you know where to tune in.

If you don’t hear from me ever again either I’ve won a million bucks or one of my many blogger enemies will take the opportunity to permanently delete me. Otherwise, expect some kind of report Monday when I get back.

It is painfully obvious listening to the interview that John McCain had with a reporter from Radio Caracol Miami that the candidate had a very hard time understanding the interviewer’s words because of her very thick accent - coupled with the facts that she had a nasty habit of swallowing words at the end of her sentences and spoke very rapidly to boot.

It is not — repeat not, my lefty friends — because McCain doesn’t know where Spain is or who Zapatero is, or any other idiotic spin you want to put on it. That is so far beneath all of you (except Josh Marshall whose silliness is so out of control he should dress himself and his website up in a clown outfit) that it makes a mockery of any other critique you wish to make of McCain’s attacks on Obama.

There was a point when the interviewer realized McCain didn’t understand she was talking about Spain:

After an extended interview dealing with countries to our south, McCain used the question about Spain to allude back to Mexico, note his work “with leaders in the hemisphere,” and our relationship with “Latin America and the entire region.”

McCain also never makes any mention of Spain or Zapatero.

Further, the individual conducting the interview has a thick accent and McCain appears not to understand her at times.

“Ok, what about Europe, I’m talking about the President of Spain?” she asks.

“What about me, what?” McCain responds, believing she said “you” instead of “Europe.”

Listening to the exchange (it come about 3 minutes into the interview), it is understandable why McCain was having so much trouble. What is totally ridiculous is that McCain didn’t either 1) ask for clarification from the interviewer immediately; or 2) tell the truth after the interview rather than pretending he understood perfectly.

Despite all this, McCain’s campaign insists he was aware it was Spain that was being discussed.

“No, the questioner asked several times about Senator McCain’s willingness to meet Zapatero, and ID’d him in the question so there is no doubt Senator McCain knew exactly to whom the question referred,” said McCain foreign policy adviser Randy Schuenemann in an email. “Senator McCain refused to commit to a White House meeting with President Zapatero in this interview.:

McCain’s campaign also noted that since Zapatero pulled Spanish troops out of Iraq, he has still sought a coveted White House meeting. Representatives of his government have met with the campaigns to discuss the issue.

It seems quite possible in all this that McCain had stopped paying attention to the interview, but still got the policy line right on Spain by sticking to platitudes.

But it’s hard to imagine McCain saying this of a NATO member and European democracy, even one whose government is currently not seen as friendly: “I am willing to meet with any leader who is dedicated to the same principles and philosophy that we are for human rights, democracy and freedom and I will stand up to those who are not.”

I was having a hard time myself trying to understand her. And I was listening to the clear end of the transmission as McCain was being interviewed by phone. I know exactly why McCain didn’t keep saying “What? Would you please repeat that?” He would have had to do it for almost every question given how the woman would trail off into incomprehensible gibberish at the end of her questions while speaking very rapidly with an accent that was very difficult to understand.

I had the exact same difficulty the other day talking to a very nice Hispanic woman in the Verizon customer service department. Now my hearing is going bad anyway but it is likely that most people would have had a problem comprehending what she was saying. She spoke so rapidly and her accent emphasized different syllables in some words so that the overall effect was that I was able to grasp about every third word.

Finally, I apologized profusely, saying I didn’t want to offend her, but her accent was causing me an enormous amount of trouble. She was very sweet and slowed down considerably. After that, I still had some problems but it was much better.

Now I am not running for president but why couldn’t McCain do the same thing? He is a proud man and because he is running for president, he didn’t want to show any potential weakness. It’s not surprising. The very same lefties making out as if he doesn’t know where Spain is or who President Zapetero is would spread the idiocy that he was hard of hearing. As it is, they are virtually accusing him of suffering from dementia.

Any fair minded person listening to that broadcast would agree with me. John McCain couldn’t understand the interviewer. But it was stupid of him to have his campaign go out and pretend that he understood perfectly. No one believes him and it only makes it appear that he did suffer some kind of brain cramp.

The election of Barack Obama would be a catastrophe on the scale of the Great Flood and the Permian Extinction all rolled into one. His ascension to the presidency will mark an end to the American Experiment in self government, open the door for socialism, allow for the payment of reparations to former slaves, ensure the triumph of radical Islam (after turning the White House into a mosque), bring back the Fairness Doctrine, require everyone to become a homosexual, allow the United Nations to run our foreign policy, bring Ahmadinejad over for coffee and some of Michelle’s delicious snack cakes, and turn the United States into a vassal of Sweden.

And that’s not the worst of it.

An Obama victory would also force the Republican party to take a long, hard look at itself and work to discover where things went off the rails. The deadwood and deadheads who are currently in control of the party would be kicked upstairs in order to make room for a new generation of leadership; sobered by defeat, cognizant of the mistakes made in the past, eager to reform everything from the budget process to ethics, and most importantly, able to develop a plan to not only win back power but govern the country once victory is achieved.

A victory by McCain will derail that effort by several years if not, for all practical purposes, shelve it completely. What need is there for reform if we’re winning - even if victory takes the GOP farther away from answering fundamental questions regarding philosophy and identity? John McCain the reformer will find a brick wall if he tries fundamental party reform. Those currently in power are a big part of the problem and it is hardly realistic to believe they will simply fall on their swords and give way to others with new ideas and little baggage to make reform a reality.

If there is a difference in the psyche of the two parties, it is in the way each goes about the process of self examination. Republicans by and large eschew navel gazing, preferring to bull their way ahead with a minimum of self absorbed clutter to distract them. The way the party approached the 1994 elections is a good example. The “Contract with America” was part political testament, part side show, part exercise in turning ideology into governance. It was canny, corny, and brilliantly executed. And after it was realized, the GOP didn’t have a clue what to do with their success except hold on to power.

The Democrats on the other hand are so angst-ridden and emotive when looking at themselves, you half expect the entire party to be locked up and put on a suicide watch. It takes them a lot longer to figure out what went wrong (not liberal enough) and where they should be going (elect more liberals) but when they decide what to do it is for the long term.

Yes, an Obama victory would be bad for America. But if this country can survive a Jimmy Carter, a Herbert Hoover, and a George Bush, it can certainly survive an amateur and fakir like Obama. It will be his incompetence that probably saves us in the end. He has yet to prove himself a success at anything except getting elected. He was a failure as a community organizer, a failure as head of the Chicago Annenberg Project, a failure as a state senator, and a non-entity in the short time he has been a US senator.

With a record like that, how much do we really have to worry about?

I will grant those of you who are wiping spittle off your monitors at this point that an Obama presidency means a much more lefty oriented Supreme Court. We shall see. The GOP will still have the filibuster in the senate. A truly egregious choice could be sidetracked. But even bringing on moderately liberal justices will no doubt mean there will be decisions that will be odious to most conservatives. The key will be to make Obama a one term president while using the next several years to reform the party so that when the GOP is able to win back the House - probably not until 2014 at the earliest - there will not only be a plan for electoral victory but a blueprint for governing as well.

The alternative is for the GOP to continue to wander in the wilderness; directionless, moribund, and with the current leadership more interested in holding on to what they have than seeking to do the things necessary to bring about a resurrection. The party has virtually disappeared from the northeast, the mid-atlantic, and the upper midwest while being challenged in the upper south, border states, the mountain west, and even in the midwest.

There won’t be much of a party left unless Republicans have the courage to take a good long look at themselves, at the last 8 years, at the people who have led them to this near catastrophe, and at a new breed of conservative Republican who could revitalize and re-energize the party and show the American people that the GOP is the party of the future once again.

Obviously, I am not working for a McCain defeat. But his loss would not be the end of the world and could very well be the catalyst for a new, smarter, more dynamic Republican party. It all depends on whether those of us who are in a position to call for change learn the right lessons from a McCain defeat and go about the slow, laborious process of building a new GOP. A party that would not only be capable of winning elections but of governing this beloved country honestly and with the humble realization that the American people need more out of us than moralizing and the tired ideas of the past.

You won’t want to miss tonight’s Rick Moran Show,, one of the most popular conservative talk shows on Blog Talk Radio.

Tonight, my usual suspect Rich Baehr will join me in the second chair for a rollicking good discussion of the state of the presidential race today, September 16.

The show will air from 7:00 - 8:00 PM Central time. You can access the live stream here. A podcast will be available for streaming or download shortly after the end of the broadcast.

Click on the stream below and join in on what one wag called a “Wayne’s World for adults.”

The Chat Room will open around 15 minutes before the show opens,

Also, if you’d like to call in and put your two cents in, you can dial (718) 664-9764.

If John McCain’s “Lipstick on a Pig” attack was criticized for being petty and irrelevant to the “real issues” of the campaign, what should we make of this stellar piece of investigative reporting?

Sarah Palin brought one unusual accessory to the Alaska Governor’s mansion after moving in last year: A tanning bed.

Al Giordano’s NarcoNews first reported that Palin had the apparatus installed in the mansion in Juneau, and a spokesman for the Alaska Department of Transportation and Public Facilities, Roger Wetherell, confirmed the account to Politico.

“She paid for it with her own money,” Wetherell said in an email.

It does get awful dark up there in Alaska, but health authorities like the American Cancer Society generally frown on tanning beds as cancer risks.

The McCain-Palin campaign didn’t have an immediate comment on the purchase.

Matthew Yglesias, true to form, puts the tanning bed caper in “proper context” by pointing out that only those weird, hillbilly Alaskans who eat stuff like “Moose Stew” would think it middle class to have a tanning bed:

But that’s all pretty weird. Normal Americans don’t live in Alaska, don’t experience 22 straight hours of darkness ever, and don’t own personal tanning beds. Long story short, tanning beds are about as all-American as moose stew, which is not to say not all-American at all but rather idiosyncratic elements of the culture of an odd state located northwest of Canada.

I thought that kind of venomous, class conscious, dripping condescension went out of style for the left when Gus Hall moved on to that great proletariat gig in the sky. Jesus Lord God and they wonder why those of us in flyover country believe people like Yglesias to be effete, elitist snobs? Substitute “moose” for “rabbit” or “squirrel” or even “possum” and you have a delicacy enjoyed by millions of hunters and just plain folk all over the south and mountain west - two regions where Democrats, not surprisingly, are as scarce as hen’s teeth.

But the point isn’t that Yglesias and other lefties are out of touch. It’s hysterically funny that they threw a tantrum over McCain’s “Lipstick” attack for being irrelevant to the campaign and now they are attacking Palin for having a tanning bed that she paid for herself?

What is Obama’s position on tanning beds? A vital issue like this and Obama hasn’t formulated a position? How many tanning bed advisors does he have? I would say that’s just one more piece of evidence showing that he is unfit to be president.

Then there’s the latest Obama ad that comes right out and says McCain is “lying” about Obama’s record. The press, rousing itself temporarily from its peripatetic slumber, has suddenly realized that John McCain is indeed making a mockery of the campaign by attacking Obama mercilessly, exaggerating his record beyond recognition. To their mind, it is unfair - especially since it seems to be working. The pushback on the editorial pages and even by friendly columnists has probably hurt McCain or at the very least, blunted his momentum.

But the question is: Are they going to referee this contest and call both candidates out when they exaggerate or lie about their opponents record?

They didn’t do very well when Obama was using McCain’s “100 years” quote to falsely claim his opponent wanted to fight a war in Iraq for 100 years. In fact, most of these same columnists who are tsk-tsking and wagging an accusing finger in McCain’s direction never lifted a pen to take Obama to task for that hugely unfair portrayal of what McCain was saying.

But now that the press is awake and have presumably had their morning coffee, perhaps they’d like to do something about the lying being done by both Biden and Obama regarding McCain’s common sense statement yesterday that the fundamentals of the economy are sound:

“You know that there’s been tremendous turmoil in our financial markets and Wall St. And it is — people are frightened by these events. Our economy, I think still — the fundamentals of our economy are strong. But these are very, very difficult times.”

What does McCain mean by “fundamentals?” Old Wall Street hand Mayor Bloomberg of New York, agreeing with McCain, helps the clueless Democrats and liberals out:

“I do agree that fundamentally America has an economy that is strong,” he said. “America’s great strength is its diversity, its hard work, its good financial statements, its broad capital markets,its enormous natural resources” and its work ethic, he said at an afternoon press conference devoted to reassuring New Yorkers that the city’s finances and its economy are intact.

“I’d rather play America’s hand than any other country,” he said. “Without problems? No.”

Obama and Biden both twisted McCain’s words and made it sound like he was saying all was well, that the economy was doing great. First Biden yesterday:

I believe that’s why Senator McCain could say with a straight face, as recently as this morning, and I quote “the fundamentals of our economy are strong.” That, “We’ve made great progress economically” during the Bush years. But friends, I could walk from here to Lansing, and I wouldn’t run into a single person who thought our economy was doing well, unless I ran into John McCain.

John McCain just doesn’t seem to understand what middle class people are going through today. I don’t doubt that he cares. He just doesn’t think that we have any responsibility to help people who are hurting.

That statement is a vicious, false lie. First, McCain did not say “as recently as this morning” that “We’ve made great progress economically…” That is an out and out lie since McCain said it months ago. Secondly, McCain did not say the “economy was doing well.” In fact, he took great pains to say the opposite. What he said was that the underpinnings of the economy - imports, exports (McCain was wrong in saying we’re the #1 exporting country - Germany is), capital markets, and the most productive work force in the history of human civilization - are still strong. There is nothing myopic about this statement. It is a fact despite Obama and Biden’s attempt to lie about what McCain actually said.

Obama’s lies were even worse:

Why else would he say that the economy isn’t something he understands as well as he should? Why else would he say, today, of all days - just a few hours ago - that the fundamentals of the economy are still strong?

Senator - what economy are you talking about?

What’s more fundamental than the ability to find a job that pays the bills and can raise a family? What’s more fundamental than knowing that your life savings is secure, and that you can retire with dignity? What’s more fundamental than knowing that you’ll have a roof over your head at the end of the day? What’s more fundamental than that?

The fundamentals we use to measure economic strength are whether we are living up to that fundamental promise that has made this country great - that promise that America is the place where you can make it if you try - a promise that is the only reason that we are standing here today.

Obama is not describing the “fundamentals” of the economy and he knows it. He is, in fact, talking about the micro of all micro parts of the economy - the individual citizen’s pocketbook. Obama knows damn well McCain’s statement was about the macro economy. It was not only common sense to say what McCain said. It was the sign of a responsible leader that on a day when hyperbole and lies were coming from Democrats about a serious but manageable crisis on Wall Street, John McCain stood up and sought to remind people that despite the turmoil, we were not going into a depression. He didn’t seek to minimize what was going on. He didn’t try and sugar coat what was happening. But his common sense words sought to keep people calm and try to reassure them that there was nothing to panic about, that the Federal Reserve and the government were on the job.

He never said the economy was doing well. He never said individual Americans weren’t suffering. He said that the economy was not going to collapse - something the statesman Obama did not do and instead, the messiah tried to use scare tactics by totally misrepresenting what McCain said.

So where’s the press? How about a little fairness here? Obama and Biden have shamelessly lied about what John McCain said and not a peep from our guardians of truth in the media. They have reported what Obama and Biden said yesterday without any mention of the fact that they lied through their teeth.

That’s the problem, of course. They never will - especially now that they’ve called McCain out for lying, they are going to allow Obama to get away with even more exaggeration and hyperbole. This is “fairness” as far as the press is concerned.

It had to happen sooner or later. Once the emptiness of Obama’s “Hope and Change” campaign was realized by the voters, the Democratic candidate for president had precious little substance to fall back on.

Political attacks only resonate if the voter perceives a kernel of truth in them. And the way John McCain has been pounding away at Obama’s non-existent plans for what exactly he would like to accomplish as president, it was bound to have an effect on the polls.

It has.

Abandoning all pretense of being a candidate who can unite the country by reaching across the aisle to Republicans and reforming Washington, Obama has dramatically shifted his campaign rhetoric to the Bill Clinton strategy of telling voters “I feel your pain:”

Barack Obama sounds more like a man trying to shake a rain cloud these days, dispensing a teeth-clenching, I-get-your-pain stump speech in town after town that offers only snippets of the unbridled optimism that long permeated his campaign pitch.

Beginning in the days before his party’s convention, the inspirational has given way to the traditional: attacks on John McCain, a register of policy prescriptions and partisan language with the sting of a needle.

Over the summer, Obama would often simply say that he and McCain “fundamentally disagree” on key issues. In New Hampshire on Saturday, Obama said the Arizona senator “doesn’t get it. He doesn’t know what is going on your lives. He is out of touch with the American people.”

The poetic defenses of hope, the playful jokes about being a distant relative of Vice President Cheney and the glancing attention to policy have been replaced by an emphasis on economic fears - an issue-by-issue argument of why the American dream is slipping away and the Republican ticket has no plan to rescue it. He furrows his brow, wags his finger and broadcasts exasperation at the idea that a 26-year veteran of Washington is co-opting his mantra of change.

The Obama campaign has even replaced the wistful slogan, “Change We Can Believe In,” with the more imperative “Change We Need.”

This is the sign of a desperate candidate who doesn’t have a clue how to go about regaining the momentum he enjoyed in the early summer. Gone is the messiah who will go to Washington and save us from partisanship and race hatred. Gone is The One who’s campaign once promised to transcend politics and enter the realm of a crusade.

Now the brawling, Chicago trained street fighter is emerging - and it isn’t pretty. One wonders how his younger, more naive fans are taking this switch. I would have to say that based on history, many of them will become disillusioned and could stay at home on election day - as their older brothers and sisters and even their parents did when they were young and impressionable and had their eyes opened about politics and politicians.

One group this change won’t affect is Obama’s African American base who would probably vote for him if he was found to be the devil himself.  This part of the equation could still make the difference in some blue state races in Michigan and Pennsylvania (among other states) where large African American populations in Detroit and Philadelphia respectively could supply Obama with the margin of victory in very tight races.

But the millions of new voters who answered Obama’s call and saw him as a different kind of politician will, unless they are completely unaware of what is going on in the campaign, have second thoughts about this new version of Obama. This is the Machine pol who kicked his challengers off the ballot in his first state senate race by challenging their signature petitions. This is the “reformer” who walked into Illinois senate leader Emil Jones’ office and made a deal with the devil in order to have some kind of legislative record to run on for his US senate bid. And this is the Obama who threw the Chicago reformers under the bus by endorsing some of the worst Machine candidates at the expense of those running on a “hope and change” platform. All of these critiques will now resonate with voters.

That’s why Obama’s new strategy is so risky. Cynically, he is banking on the economy getting so bad that the voter will respond to his Clintonesque class warfare claims which will allow him to barely squeak out a win in November. He apparently feels that’s all he’s got left.

One thing is certain, however; Obama has totally abandoned all that made him different and exciting to so many voters and now appears to be just another Democratic politician.

This blog post originally appears in The American Thinker

UPDATE

As usual, Ed Morrissey and I are on the same page this morning:

Obama has had to turn back towards his base rather than make a play for independents and centrists. The base has begun to get dispirited, if not outright mutinous, and Obama needs an enthusiastic effort to win battleground states. Instead, he’s begun to fade in formerly safe states like Minnesota and New York, and Pennsylvania and Michigan may have already slipped through his fingers.

Make no mistake about it. Obama may claim this as going on the offensive, but this is a purely defensive move that ignores his one major theme: being different enough to transcend partisanship. John McCain has pushed him out of his comfort zone and forced him to play this election by McCain’s rules, and apparently he isn’t adept enough to figure that out for himself.