Right Wing Nut House

As both the right and left engage in their favorite pastime - The Blame Game - when it comes to assigning responsibility for the mess we’re in with gas prices, I’ve been doing a slow burn about both sides’ singular avoidance of placing blame on the one group who truly deserves it.

Every red blooded American who has voted over the past 30 years - Republican and Democrat - for federal lawmakers who promised, in effect, that this day would come bears the primary responsibility for high gas prices.

We the voters made concious and deliberate choices to elect presidents, members of Congress, and state legislators who ran on a platform that condemned nuclear power and swore to oppose the building of any more plants. If, over the last 30 years, we had replaced the majority of our oil and coal burning plants with nuclear powered generators, we could have saved about half a million bbl a day or 5% of the total imports of 10 million bbl a day.

That doesn’t sound like much but the “speculation premium” added to the current price of oil - about $40 according to the Wall Street Journal - is based on a perceived tightening of the market by 2-3%. There’s a good chance that premium wouldn’t even exist with the savings realized by using safe, clean nuclear power.

We, the voters, also made conscious and deliberate choices in electing everyone from members of Congress to local selectmen who would oppose the building of new refineries. “Not in my backyard” was the refrain of the last 30 years which has seen exactly zero refineries built in this country and 50 refineries closed down. Incredibly, we import about 3.5 million bbl of finished petroleum products every day. This lack of refining capacity has put pressure on our ability to stockpile gas, deisel, and other products that would also dampen speculation and give us a much needed cushion in supply that would stabilize oil prices.

We the voters also made conscious and deliberate choices to elect members of Congress, governors, and state legislators who promised not to drill offshore of all but a handful of states. How much oil is there just waiting for the drill bit? The government estimates around 20 billion bbl which sounds like a lot but only represents the amount of oil we would use in about 3 years. But other estimates from oil companies and other energy experts puts the amount of oil offshore considerably higher. The point isn’t that it would supply ALL of our needs for just a few years. It could never be pumped out that fast anyway. But no one doubts that it could make a sizable dent in our current 10 million bbl a day fix we need from other countries.

A word about the Bakken field which has been receiving some press lately (for obvious reasons). There is a huge disparity between government estimates of how much oil is under South Dakota and Montana and how much there is according to independent energy groups. The government says 21 billion bbl. Other scientific studies put the number at 500 billion bbls. As contrast, Saudi Arabia has proven reserves of about 260 billion bbls.

What has scientists and drillers so excited about this huge field of oil is that recent advances in oil drilling technology may make a large part of that field available for exploitation. To give you an idea, as recently as 1995, the government claimed the field contained only 150 million bbls of recoverable oil. To raise that estimate to 21 billion bbl astonishing.

The key is a breakthrough in drilling technology known as “sideways drilling.” Apparently, most of the oil is unavailable unless that technology is used to exploit the find. At the moment, no one knows how much of this light, sweet crude could contribute to our stocks of oil. But they are finding ways to extract more and more of the find all the time which can only bode well for the future.

This doesn’t help our immediate pain which brings me back to where the blame should lie for this fiasco. We voters made perfectly rational and logical choices to elect politicians who refused to drill offshore, in ANWR, on federal lands - anywhere one spotted owl or caribu might be affected.

There is nothing wrong with this, I might add. There are many among us who continually pat themselves on the back for being good stewards of the land, fighting the good fight against greedy oil companies who would rape the land and coastline in the name of profit.

These same people are much less willing to pat themselves on the back for getting us into our current dilemma. Again, there is nothing basically wrong with being in favor of protecting the environment at all costs - the most obvious cost being cheap gasoline. The question is why are we not accepting responsibility for what is clearly something that is our collective fault.

It has been proven that environmental protection is a luxury that only rich nation’s can afford. We have been willing to pay this price both because it is the right thing to do and because we could afford a small loss in economic growth in exchange for cleaner air and water as well as protecting wildlife.

But times change. The world is changing. And unless we can find a way to balance legitimate concerns about the environment with our need for more oil, the present situation will continue and get worse. This means that environmentalists have to acknowledge that the policies they support are leading us to ruin while the pro-drilling crowd must acknowledge that we can’t go drilling everywhere there’s a drop of oil to be found.

And we the voter have to start electing politicians to office who are realistic about what needs to be done. Can we maintain our committment to a clean environment while increasing our domestic oil supply? I think it can be done - if the political will to do it can be found.

Watching the cable nets talk about the death of Tim Russert at age 58 - and they are all on the story - you are struck by the sheer number of journalists and on air personalities whose professional lives had been touched by this man.

Tom Brokaw put it well with his typical understatement:

He was “one of the premier political journalists and analysts of his time,” Tom Brokaw, the former longtime anchor of “NBC Nightly News,” said in announcing Russert’s death. “This news division will not be the same without his strong, clear voice.”

In addition to his on-air duties, Russert was a Vice President of NBC News - a position in which he fought almost daily battles with the corporation over what to cover as news. He was a Bureau Chief in Washington as well which made him something of a rennaisance man in the news business handling executive, administrative, and talent duties with a practiced ease.

But Russert will be known for his combative yet polite interview techniques that had the effect of breaking down a target into a quivering hunk of jello while boring in and, with bulldog tenacity, not letting go until a particular question was answered. He would ask the same question a half dozen times until he was satisfied that he had at least a partial answer to his question.

The list of honors is impressive:

Russert’s March 2000 interview of Sen. John McCain shared the 2001 Edward R. Murrow Award for Overall Excellence in Television Journalism. He was also the recipient of the John Peter Zenger Award, the American Legion Journalism Award, the Veterans of Foreign Wars News Media Award, the Congressional Medal of Honor Society Journalism Award, the Allen H. Neuharth Award for Excellence in Journalism, the David Brinkley Award for Excellence in Communication and the Catholic Academy for Communication’s Gabriel Award. He was a member of the Broadcasting & Cable Hall of Fame.

I really feel like we are losing one of the last of a dying breed with Russert. Only in their dreams can an Olbermann or Matthews or O’Reily or Cooper be the kind of relentless searcher for truth as Russert clearly was. Despite the fact that his background was in politics rather than journalism, it seems he took to journalism like a duck takes to water.

Some may find bias in the way he interviewed conservatives compared to his interviews with liberals. But I didn’t see it. His job was to ask questions and get answers. And few in the business were so relentless in pursuit of answers be they Democrats or Republicans. There was no such thing as a softball interview where Russert was concerned.

According to people who knew him, he was extremely well informed, spending hours every morning scanning the wires and news reports so that he was up to speed with what was going on. Speaking from experience, I can tell you it is no easy task. I might spend 3-4 hours before sitting down to write anything reading MSM coverage as well as blogs. Russert spent that amount of time and more just so that he could do his job.

A life cut short - a well lived life. We mourn the passing of someone and will miss the spice he brought to political journalism.

Well, duh.

The last seven and a half years have seen the world in turmoil. Growth pains due to globalization, the rising challenge of China and India, a newly autocratic Russia, an EU increasingly going its own way economically, and related to that, the slow collapse of NATO as a viable coalition, dying a slow death in the mountains and valleys of Afghanistan.

Oh…did I mention 9/11 and the American invasion and occupation of Iraq?

Those looking for a common thread may be tempted to lump all of these civilization altering changes under the rubric of “Bush’s incompetence” or “Bush’s stupidity.” But seriously now, are you really that shallow and stupid? All of those challenges have been developing for at least a decade or more. The growth and rapid advancement of globalization has resulted in unparalleled economic growth as well as massive economic dislocation. Bush policies have accelerated some of the local effects of globalization - some good some bad. China and India would be on the verge of economic superpower status regardless of anything America could do.

The EU is still trying to emerge from infancy, still unsure of itself politically. It’s economic performance is improving but nowhere near what was promised. Nevertheless, the EU seems willing to strike out on its own and become a separate entity from the US. Europe had always defined itself through its relations with America through NATO. No longer.

And NATO itself is dying. Unable to face the growing challenges in Afghanistan as most of its members refuse to commit combat forces to the fight, NATO’s reason for being is being challenged with no good answers emerging to give justification for its continued existence. It was thought adding former Eastern bloc countries to the organization would reinvigorate it. Instead, it has simply delayed the inevitable.

And then, there is Iraq.

To say that the Iraq War has made America unpopular in the world is something of a misnomer. It would be more accurate to say the war has made us more unpopular. In truth, it is a myth - one generated for obvious political reasons by the left - that post 9/11, the world was on “our side” and that we were an object of affection and that the world was with us.

Poppycock. I’ve been trying to debunk this myth almost since I started blogging. Much more of the planet celebrated the collapse of the WTC than wept. Those that laid flowers at memorial sites or wrote heartfelt missives to America were showing their solidarity with the American people, not our government.

This was made evident less than 48 hours after the attacks when audience members attending the BBC TV show “Question Time” brought the former ambassador Philip Laden to the verge of tears as they blamed America for the attacks:

Mr Lader had been attempting to express his sadness over the attacks when a number of audience members had shouted him down to voice their anti-US opinions. Mr Lader had looked close to tears.

At times, David Dimbleby struggled to control the discussion as voices and tempers became raised.

Some audience members said the US was ultimately responsible for the attacks because of its foreign policy.

William Shawcross, stuck in London following 9/11, reported what happened on the TV program “Question Time” and gave voice to the predominant view on the continent and most of the rest of the world regarding America:

But the response of some of the Question Time audience reveals a darker side and shows the awful truth that these days there is just one racism that is tolerated - anti-Americanism. Not just tolerated, but often applauded. Like any other nation, the US makes mistakes at home and abroad. (I wrote about some of those in Indochina.)

But the disdain with which its failures and its efforts are greeted by some in Britain and elsewhere in Europe is shocking. Anti-Americanism often goes much further than criticism of Washington. Too often the misfortunes of America are met with glee, a schadenfreude that is quite horrifying.

On Tuesday, I sat watching television numbed by the grief, wondering if anyone I knew had been murdered. Since then, I have been devouring newspapers, attempting to learn more and more of the details. Every day, the agony gets worse. The more details we read of the last phone calls, the emails, the relatives watching those they loved as they died on television, the more personal and intimate this catastrophe becomes - and the more the victims, their families and their society deserve our sympathy.

But I have an awful fear that the solidarity with the US expressed at the United Nations and in Europe this week will not last long. Fundamentalist anti-Americanism will again rear its head, as it did on Question Time. Philip Lader behaved with extraordinary dignity on saying, with tears in his eyes: “I have to share with you that I find it hurtful that you can suggest that a majority of the world despises the US.”

And the Wall Street Journal (”The Myth of Squandered Sympathy“) ices the case that the world was never “with us” after 9/11 with this scathing look at the French and the famous newspaper headline “We are all Americans” which was actually an anti-American editorial:

Thus are legends born. For the solidarity ostentatiously displayed in the title of Mr. Colombani’s editorial is in fact massively belied by the details of the text itself.

By the fifth paragraph, Mr. Colombani is offering his general reflections on the geo-political conditions he supposes provoked the attacks:

“The reality is surely that of a world without a counterbalance, physically destabilized and thus dangerous in the absence of a multipolar equilibrium. And America, in the solitude of its power, of its hyperpower, . . . has ceased to draw the peoples of the globe to it; or, more exactly, in certain parts of the globe, it seems no longer to attract anything but hatred. . . . And perhaps even we ourselves in Europe, from the Gulf War to the use of F16s against Palestinians by the Israeli Army, have underestimated the hatred which, from the outskirts of Jakarta to those of Durban, by way of the rejoicing crowds of Nablus and of Cairo, is focused on the United States.”

In the following paragraph, Mr. Colombani went on to add that perhaps too “the reality” was that America had been “trapped by its own cynicism,” noting that Osama bin Laden himself had, after all, been “trained by the CIA”—a never substantiated charge that has, of course, in the meanwhile become chapter and verse for the blame-America-firsters. “Couldn’t it be, then,” Mr. Colombani concluded, “that America gave birth to this devil?”

So much for “solidarity.” The world may have pitied our people. But the record is crystal clear that anti-American feelings were hardly dampened by the attacks on 9/11.

The fact is, since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the US has replaced Russia as the superpower foreigners love to hate. Given all of this, it should come as absolutely no surprise that Barack Obama, according to a massive study by Pew, is favored overwhelmingly by the peoples of the world.

Unfortunately for Barack Obama, citizens of Australia, Japan, Spain and Tanzania won’t have a vote in the November election.

A new survey of 47,000 people in 60 languages by the Pew Global Attitudes Project shows that around the world, people who follow the US election view Obama more favourably than Republican nominee John McCain.

The survey in 24 countries confirms Obama as the candidate of choice among those not entitled to vote in the November election.

From gleeful villagers in his father’s native Kenya to a troupe of hula dancers in Obama, Japan, the international community has embraced the Illinois senator in a way unseen in past presidential elections.

While the US electorate is divided about evenly between the two candidates, with Obama currently enjoying a slight lead over McCain in recent polling, 84% of Tanzanians who have been following election news say they have confidence in Obama, while 50% say they have confidence in McCain. Seventy-four percent of Britons expressed confidence in Obama, while only 44% do in McCain, according to the survey.

Those results are reflected in every other country surveyed save Jordan, where 23% surveyed have confidence in McCain, compared to 22% for Obama.

There are many reason why Obama is more popular than McCain. His race gives hope to many. Then there’s 8 years of Bush and Republicans that have soured the GOP brand even overseas.

But the major reason given for preferring Obama is that he will “change American foreign policy.” In fact, Obama is the perfect candidate if you hate America. Not that Obama hates America, just that his policy proposals will enable the America haters around the globe.

It’s no accident that the Iranians, Hamas, Syrians and others who hate the United States prefer an Obama presidency. Obama promises a more compliant America, a less bellicose America, a more deferential America, and a more cooperative America. Some of these changes would be welcome. Others, not. But what has Iran and Syria salivating at the prospect of an Obama presidency is a lot less pressure placed on them by the US to act like responsible international citizens and not the brigands and thugs they wish to be.

Obama - a good and honest liberal - would work within the confines of the United Nations to resolve the various crisis at large in the world today. Bush, in his second term, has tried this and has a spotty record. The biggest failure for the UN in the last few years has been Lebanon where UN forces - UNIFIL - were supposed to stop the resupply of Hizbullah and enforce Security Council resolutions which included the disarming of the terrorist militia.

The result? Utter, total, complete, and embarrassing failure. Same goes for Darfur. The same goes for any and every problem the UN insists it must address with the US in a subservient role.

The world can hate us all they want. Only little children and liberals believe that to be important. What matters is are threats to the peace dealt with or swept under the UN rug? Obama would give it the old college try at the UN but run into the same anti-Americanism, the same bureaucratic inertia that has made problems like Darfur, Lebanon, and the Congo unsolvable. So the choice is America standing in the way of the designs of Syria and Iran (and North Korea) virtually alone or as a “partner” with the UN. Since Obama has been making all the right noises about “multi-lateralism” - not as a policy but almost as religion - the world breathes easier. They can all go back to doing nothing and letting problems like Darfur fester and genocide occur.

Obama would be the perfect post-Bush president - for a large segment of the Anti-American world. Not that it matters. Americans don’t vote for a candidate because of how he is perceived overseas. But perhaps we would do well to ask why our enemies are so anxious to see Obama as president?

This is getting so painful to watch that I just had to write this piece.

I would say to my good friends on the left guys, where in all that is good and holy did you people learn how to smear someone? Jesus, Lord you suck at it. Taken as a whole, your efforts are beyond pitiful. Amateurish, disorganized, barely a grade above schoolyard bullying and taunts. Sometimes, you’re not even that good.

In the interest of practicing the “new politics,” - which basically means if you smear someone, you’re only pre-empting a “right wing attack machine” effort that only distracts from the issues in this campaign and if the right smears anyone, they are racist pigs who deserve 5 years in a re-education camp - allow me to instruct you in proper smear etiquette as well as show you the ropes on how to make that smear a winner.

The trouble is, your efforts to date have been horribly childish and uncoordinated. Allow me to give you some pointers;

When attacking another candidate, please refrain from making fun of their physical characteristics like “yellow teeth” or, more broadly, trying to smear the candidate by criticizing him for being tortured while in service to his country, receiving disability pay as a result.

From a tactical standpoint, this is a total waste of good smear material. First, you didn’t say anything about McCain’s cancer - a smearariffic gaffe in that you should always go for the jugular. You could have put it this way:

“John McCain’s teeth are yellowed as a result of his chemotherapy treatment for skin cancer - a disease that will almost certainly kill him before his first term in office is over.”

A truly inspired smear would include the disability pay and the fact that the torture McCain had to endure was so severe he can’t raise his arms above his head. Perhaps you could have thrown something in about how such extreme pain shortens the lives of those who experience it and tie it into the cancer meme.

Get the idea? When smearing someone, creativity and a keen eye for detail is a must.

As an example of exactly the opposite of creativity and originality, there was the smear yesterday that was all over the lefty internet - McCain doesn’t care when the troops come home.

The tone of fake outrage was fine. The exaggerated anger and weeping for the poor families of servicemen and women who are suffering as a result of McCain’s callous remark was pretty good but you missed an opportunity to exploit a widow or two in there.

The real problem you have is that you took the whole thing out of context and the smear was easily debunked. Taking words that someone says and then not putting them in the proper context is so…so…Clintonesque, so 1990’s. This is the 21st century guys! The YouTube of what McCain actually said was all over the place before your smear had a chance to get rolling.

Now, if you’re going to smear someone by taking what they say out of context, the quote must be more extensive and much harder to debunk - like Obama’s “bitter” remarks in San Francisco. The guy went on for 5 minutes about the misguided yokels who cling to their guns and bibles while harboring racist thoughts about blacks and Hispanics. The right wing noise machine went gaga over those remarks and turned them into political dynamite because the explanation by Obama’s camp was almost as long as the quote itself.

See what I’m getting at? Since as you know the American people are a bunch of stupid sheep who need protecting and desire to be led around by the nose, the acronym KISS should be your guide (”Keep it simple, stupid”). All McCain had to do to debunk that pitiful effort yesterday was release a transcript of what he said, for God’s sake!

Now let’s look at a successful smear, shall we? The “Obama is a Muslim” smear is so perfect, it makes me weep to think about how elegant and perfectly logical it is. First, please note the sheer volume of noise on this one. Almost every right of center blogger has posted about it at one time or another. It doesn’t matter if they try to debunk it, it’s like they say about your name in public relations; as long as they spell it right, it’s free advertising. As long as the smear is mentioned, it doesn’t matter which way the writer goes on it.

Secondly, note how impossible it is to be proved wrong. The Obama camp can try and debunk the smear all they want, they only dig a deeper hole for themselves. That’s because every time they try, some Indonesian who knew Obama back when pops up and swears the guy worshipped in a mosque when he was 8 years old or something.

Does that make Obama a Muslim? OF COURSE NOT! But you’re not thinking like the right wing attack machine. What does “true” have to do with a political smear? While an element of truth should reside somewhere in the smear - Obama was in a Muslim country when he was a boy - the rest just follows logically.

You guys just don’t get it. Maybe I should write a book, would that help?

I fear that by the time you learn the true art of the political smear, it will be too late. You people will just continue with your completely childish, schoolyard taunts, making yourselves look utterly ridiculous while we smear merchants on the right continue on our merry way, making Obama so unpalatable a choice that if people do end up casting their ballot for him, they will gag when punching his name in the voting booth.

One thing I hadn’t considered that may be an impossible obstacle for you guys on the left to overcome is that the reason your smears are so childish is because of your arrested intellectual development. Now there may be a way around that but, for the life of me, I can’t think of anything that would help.

Take it from me, fellas. You have a long way to go…

This article originally appears in The American Thinker

On Tuesday, Barack Obama faced the glare of the cameras and tried to deal with what was rapidly becoming one of those “distractions” he so despises.

It turns out that the man he chose to head up the steering committee to help him choose a vice president, Jim Johnson, had a past that was making Obama out to be a hypocrite on the sub-prime mortgage crisis. After Obama skewered John McCain for his connections with sub-prime lenders, it appears that Mr. Johnson made McCain’s connections look positively innocent by comparison.

Johnson, Fannie Mae chief from 1991 through 1998, received more than $7 million in real estate loans from a program open only to “friends of Angelo.” The “Angelo” in question is none other than Angelo Mozilo, CEO of Countrywide Financial Corporation. Obama, who has heavily criticized Mozilo for accepting hefty bonuses despite the sub-prime crisis, evidently didn’t vet Mr. Johnson thoroughly and failed to discover the sweetheart connection.

It should also be noted that according to the Chicago Tribune, the practioner of “new politics” accepted $1.9 million from sub prime lenders which only goes to show that when it comes to a decision between engaging in the “new poltics” and old fashioned money grubbing, “new politics” gets the shaft.

The revelations about Johnson led to an incredible exchange with ABC News reporter Sunlen Miller who grilled Obama on why the information hadn’t been discovered by the campaign before he hired him. The ensuing explanation by Obama is a jaw dropper.

So without further adieu, I give you, ladies and gentlemen, Barack H. Obama - Columbia University graduate, Harvard Law Summa Cum Laude, President of the Harvard Law Review, and noted American orator:

“Now look, the, the, ah, ah, ah, I mean the uh first of all uh I, I, I am not vetting my VP search committee for their mortgages so you’re going have to uh d-direct… Well, nah I mean becomes sort of a… um… I mean this is a game that can be played everybody… It who is tangentially related to our campaign I think is going to have a whole host of relationships. I would have to hire the vetter to uh vet the vetter.”

Huh?

It gets murkier - or more bizarrely incoherent. The following was cleaned up by the ABC website and made into something printable:

“Jim Johnson has a very discrete task,” Obama continued, “as does Eric Holder, and that is simply to gather up information about potential vice presidential candidates. They are performing that job well, it’s a volunteer, unpaid position. And they are giving me information and I will then exercise judgment in terms of who I want to select as a vice presidential candidate.

“So this - you know, these aren’t folks who are working for me,” Obama said. “They’re not people you know who I have assigned to a job in a future administration and, you know, ultimately my assumption is that, you know, this is a discrete task that they’re going to performing for me over the next two months.”

Whassat? What’d he say? Johnson doesn’t really “work” for him because he’s a “volunteer” in an “unpaid position.” And after all, he hasn’t promised him a cabinet post so it’s really OK that I didn’t vet him and besides this is just a “distraction” so can we please get back to your slavish worship of my awe inspiring talents?

Well, on Wednesday, Johnson “unvolunteered” himself from the campaign:

I believe Barack Obama’s candidacy for president of the United States is the most exciting and important of my lifetime,” he said, according to a Bloomberg report. “I would not dream of being a party to distracting attention from that historic effort.”

We all know how much Obama doesn’t like “distractions.” Obama himself cried a few crocodile tears in giving him the heave ho:

“Jim did not want to distract in any way from the very important task of gathering information about my vice presidential nominee, so he has made a decision to step aside that I accept. We have a very good selection process underway, and I am confident that it will produce a number of highly qualified candidates for me to choose from in the weeks ahead. I remain grateful to Jim for his service and his efforts in this process,” Obama said in a statement.

So, another Obama associate is thrown under the bus. One might begin to wonder if there are more people riding on the Obama express or underneath it. Think of all this guy’s friends, staffers, spiritual advisors, and assorted far left radicals who have been given the equivalent of a pair of cement galoshes and thrown into the Chicago River. A partial list:

1, Samantha Powers, foreign policy advisor, who ended up being just a little bit too frank about some of Obama’s less than mainstream plans for Israel and other places if the candidate were to win office.

2. Austan Goolsbee, economic advisor, who whispered to the Canadian government sweet nothings about his boss’s NAFTA switcheroo in Ohio - Obama running around the state, breathing fire about the evils of NAFTA and how he would renegotiate the treaty while Goolsbee was telling the Canadians that the candidate was just politicking and had no intention of touching the treaty.

3. Reverend Jeremiah Wright, friend and spiritual advisor who the candidate bravely stood up for - at first - until Wright’s performance at the National Press Club caused the candidate to open the door himself and push the old man under the wheels.

4. Father Michael Pfleger, friend and spiritual advisor, whose spittle flecked rant at Trinity Church against Hillary, America, and white people forced the candidate to leave his boot print on the good father’s rear end as he too was given a swift kick under the Obama Greyhound.

5. William Ayers, terrorist and future Secretary of Education in an Obama Administration. Well, probably not. But Obama’s dismissal of his former boss and friend as “just a neighbor” no doubt hurt the terrorist’s feelings but became necessary when the press started to get curious about what a candidate for president was doing associating with someone who doesn’t regret blowing people to smithereens.

There are more - the undercarriage of that bus is bloody indeed. There’s the entire congregation of Trinity United Church who now must practice their black liberation theology and “anti-middleclassness” without the man who apparently spent many a pleasant Sunday sleeping through sermons - or so he would have us believe.

But there is a monumental difference between Obama’s previous actions in washing his hands of wayward staffers, bigots, and radicals and having to toss Jim Johnson out the window.

The others were handled when he was simply a candidate for the Democratic nomination for president. But his choice of Johnson to head up the most important job he has between now and the election - choosing a vice president - was made as the presumptive nominee.

In short, Obama’s first major decision as the nominee for president of his party was an unmitigated disaster.

Not only did he choose someone who opened him up to charges of being a rank hypocrite. But the way he handled himself in off the cuff remarks in trying to defend Johnson was shockingly incoherent and stupid. Trying to pass Johnson off as someone who didn’t work for him? That’s childish in its attempt to avoid responsibility. One might expect a 7 year old to deny breaking a dinner plate by saying something like “I didn’t drop it mom, it fell.” But when the potential next president of the United States tries to run away from his mistakes, we can ask legitimate questions on how this man will perform if he reaches the oval office.

Craig Crawford brings up another point:

Obama’s cavalier response utterly contradicted his campaign’s supposed crusade for reform. Not only did those words come across as tone deaf to the very ethical issues that he has raised in this election, but his remarks sounded like the ethical relativism we so often hear from the Washington business-as-usual crowd that Obama claims to be running against.

Chris Cillizza recognizes the danger Obama exposes himself to by latching on to people like Johnson:

For Obama, any questions in voters’ minds about whether he truly is a change agent or is legitimately committed to breaking the alleged stranglehold lobbyists and other power brokers have over the political system is potentially disastrous. Because of the peril involved, it’s not terribly surprising that Obama moved quickly to “fix the glitch” once he realized questions about Johnson weren’t going away.

Seen another way, however, this episode could forebode poorly for how Obama handles the various slings and arrows sent his way by Republicans and their famed — and effective — noise machine.

This is where the national press has done a heroic job in keeping Obama’s associations and actions in his past that would expose him as the hypocrite he is a well kept secret. No real attempt has been made to ferret out the truth of what his career was like as a Chicago politician. The Obama campaign would blow up if the press ever read some back issues of the Chicago Tribune or Sun Times.

Instead, it is as if Obama sprang fully formed into the world of national politics, unsullied by grubby special interests and lobbyists who afflict everyone else in Washington. His holy throat and golden tongue will lead a revolution that will make America a paradise of unity and happiness.

All I can say is we better snap out of it before we elect the most incompetent, the most naive, and perhaps the most dangerous man ever to run for the office of the president.

Did Michael really fly? Or did he have some help from the zebras?

Back in the 1990’s when we were innocent enough to believe that the government didn’t keep aliens on ice at Area 51 or that the military did not create the AIDS virus to kill black people, there were whispers of dark conspiracies surrounding the most popular professional game on the planet - the National Basketball Association. There were intimations from crazed fans and journalists hungry for controversy that referees, in cahoots with the league office, were fixing the outcomes of games in the playoffs so that the NBA could realize the best matchups that would guarantee the most revenue.

There were also charges that the zebras would routinely work to extend playoff series so that the most revenue could be wrung from the match-ups.

It was also alleged back then that star players got special treatment from the refs regarding a lack of technical fouls ( allowing them to get away with thuggery) and, in order to keep them in the games, not calling personal fouls on them.

This was the decade that saw the end of the Magic Johnson-Larry Bird era and the beginning of the Chicago Bulls dynastic run of 6 NBA championships in 8 years. Led by arguably the greatest basketball player in history, Michael Jordan, the Bulls slugged it out early in the decade with first the Detroit Pistons and then, their arch nemesis the New York Knicks.

Those Bulls-Knicks series’ were bloody, take no prisoners affairs that have now retreated into legend. But at the time, it seemed that each game witnessed some of the strangest foul calls in the history of the NBA.

Rebounding was the key for both teams and the battle under the boards was incredible; pushing, shoving, elbows to the face, holding uniforms - anything to gain an advantage in positioning in order to grab the rebound. This, in and of itself was not unusual. In playoff refereeing, it was generally recognized that the players would be allowed a little more leeway than was vouchsafed during the regular season.

But the scrum under the boards wasn’t the problem. It was the phantom fouls being called by referees on defenders guarding shooters that raised eyebrows. Little or no contact with the shooter would draw a whistle and send the player to the free throw line. I can recall several games in this series where players and coaches were beside themselves as a result of a foul called for some ticky tacky contact or worse, no contact at all.

Sports talk radio (just coming into its own back then) was hot with callers claiming conspiracy. The league wanted the series to go on, was the charge. The refs were in the bag, whispered the paranoid.

Or were they?

NBA referees, influenced by cozy relationships with league officials, rigged a 2002 playoff series to force it to a revenue-boosting seven games, a former referee at the center of a gambling scandal alleged Tuesday.

Without identifying anyone or naming teams, Tim Donaghy also claimed the NBA routinely encouraged refs to ring up bogus fouls to manipulate results but discouraged them from calling technical fouls on star players to keep them in games and protect ticket sales and television ratings.

Donaghy is a former ref convicted of manipulating games on which he bet. He also took money from gamblers to try and fix the point spread on games, receiving $5,000 for every game in which he was successful. At the time the scandal broke, I wondered if he was the only ref involved:

The NBA is in deep trouble. Donaghy, who will turn himself in this week, is said to have agreed to cooperate with the FBI in their investigation. If it is revealed that there are indeed other officials involved in this scandal, it could very well destroy the league. As it is now, fans will be watching NBA games with extra care next year and wondering.

Always wondering.

And now, in the midst of the most watched NBA Finals in years, Donaghy apparently confirms all the nasty rumors and conspiracies that have been swirling around the league for more than a decade.

Or is his story just too perfect, too pat?

In one of several allegations of corrupt refereeing, Donaghy said he learned in May 2002 that two referees known as “company men” were working a best-of-seven series in which “Team 5″ was leading 3-2. In the sixth game, he alleged the referees purposely ignored personal fouls and called “made-up fouls on Team 5 in order to give additional free throw opportunities for Team 6.”

“Team 6″ won the game and came back to win the series, the letter said.

Only the Los Angeles Lakers-Sacramento Kings series went to seven games during the 2002 playoffs. And the Lakers went on to win the championship.

At the time, consumer advocate Ralph Nader and the League of Fans, a sports industry watchdog group, sent a letter to Stern complaining about the officiating in Game 6 of the Western Conference finals.

The Lakers, who beat Sacramento 106-102 in that game in Los Angeles, shot 27 free throws in the final quarter and scored 16 of their last 18 points at the line.

The letter also alleged manipulation during a 2005 playoff series.

“Team 3 lost the first two games in the series and Team 3’s owner complained to NBA officials,” the letter said. “Team 3’s owner alleged that referees were letting a Team 4 player get away with illegal screens. NBA Executive Y told Referee Supervisor Z that the referees for that game were to enforce the screening rules strictly against that Team 4 player. … The referees followed the league’s instructions and Team 3 came back from behind to win the series. The NBA benefited from this because it prolonged the series, resulting in more tickets sold and more televised games.”

In that same series, the letter says “Team 3″ lost the first two games of the series and that team owner complained to NBA officials. The letter also alleges that the opposing team’s coach later was fined $100,000 after revealing an NBA official informed him of the behind-the-scenes instructions.

That would correspond with the 2005 first-round playoff series between the Houston Rockets and the Dallas Mavericks, in which Mark Cuban complained to officials and Jeff Van Gundy was fined.

This “evidence” is not as compelling as one might think. It could very well be that Donaghy was simply “confirming” what was believed by some observers in two very high profile incidents where such referee malfeasance was suspected. He has no physical proof that the league ordered the refs to rig the games. Only the word, as the league points out, of a man desperate to have his sentence reduced:

He’s a singing, cooperating witness who is trying to get as light a sentence as he can,” Stern said. “He turned on basically all of his colleagues in an attempt to demonstrate that he is not the only one who engaged in criminal activity. The U.S. attorney’s office, the FBI, have fully investigated it, and Mr. Donaghy is the only one who is guilty of a crime. And he will be sentenced for that crime regardless of the desperate attempts to implicate as many people as he can.”

All true, except…

Except the US attorney and the FBI may not have been informed of this additional information about NBA refs in a conspiracy with the league office to rig games because the letter containing the damning charges wasn’t filed until last Monday. The feds have investigated Donaghy and determined that no other refs or league officials were involved in his gambling schemes. But have they investigated these other charges?

Stern’s statement is unclear on this matter. However, nothing changes the fact that Donaghy’s letter was self-serving and totally void of proof. All we have is the word of a convicted gambler that conspiracy theories that have been the staple of sports talk radio for more than a decade may actually be true - not a lot to hang your hat on for most observers although I’m sure the lines will be hot with “I told you so’s” from the conspiracy promoters at the big sports talk radio stations today.

If the charges have not been investigated, it is paramount that the prosecutor and FBI do so. If the specific allegations have been looked at and found to be baseless, the league should make that plain to the public. As it stands now, David Stern’s statement is ambiguous about these additional charges.

Donaghy put the pro game under a cloud with his gambling. His shocking allegations could bring the NBA crashing down - if they were true. But even if they haven’t been investigated, Donaghy’s lack of proof in making these spectacular charges only reinforces the idea that he is just another con looking for a break from prosecutors.

You won’t want to miss tonight’s Rick Moran Show,, one of the most popular conservative talk shows on Blog Talk Radio. Tonight’s show will be co-hosted by American Thinker’s Political Correspondent Rich Baehr.

Tonight, I’ll have the lovely Taylor Marsh as my guest in the first half hour. We’ll talk about chances of the Democrats getting behind Obama for the fall campaign as well as some other hot topics. The second half hour, Ed Lasky of The American Thinker wll join me to discuss the race from a conservative point of view.

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.

For the best in political analysis, click on the stream below and join in on what one wag called a “Wayne’s World for adults.” A podcast will be available for streaming or download around 15 minutes after the show ends.

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.

The more I read about this race the more convinced I am that John McCain should just go find a hole somewhere and hunker down until the slaughter is over. He doesn’t have a chance. It’s over. Barack Obama will be the next president of the United States and there’s nothing anyone anywhere can do to stop it.

Well…almost no one. I sent the following email to Diebold Corporation.

Dear Diebold:

It has become clear over these last few weeks that Barack Obama - a liberal Democrat - will win the presidency of the United States unless something is done to stop him. Naturally, since you guys control all the voting machines in the United States and are very adept at cheating on behalf of Republicans, I was wondering what you might be planning for this election?

P.S. Where the hell were you guys in 2006?

The whole thing might be moot anyway. I’ve read comments on some lefty blogs that wonder why we just can’t dump Bush now and put Obama in there. To hell with the election. Everyone knows he’s going to win anyway so why let Bush destroy what’s left of the country?

Sound arguments there but if we’re going to do that, why bother to make him simply “president.” We can come up with a better title than that. How about “God-King?” Or my favorite, “Lightwalker” (sounds like something from Star Wars, huh?). Except “Lightwalker” doesn’t convey quite the majesty and pompous arrogance we’re looking for. Let’s call him “Pro Consul” Obama. It will fit very nicely in headlines at the New York Times and MSNBC can do a nightly show “Pro Consul News” (except they already have Olbermann and Matthews doing that already).

At any rate, whenever Obama takes office - next week or on January 20, 2009 - it’s time to start making preparations for his ascension.

First thing we need is a good supply of Dramamine since every time Obama opens his holy throat, the earth moves. I don’t know about you but I get seasick rather easily and having the ground heaving and rolling in response to Obama’s golden tongued rhetoric, it would be too much like being on a Windjammer’s Cruise during hurricane season.

Second, we have to lay in a good supply of pepto bismal if we’re going to be reading the MSM for the next 8 years. I’ve already barfed all over my monitor more than once as a result of reading some of the encomiums that have spewed forth from formerly reputable media outlets. Think how bad it’s going to be after he wins. Jesus at the second coming would have a hard time topping the slavering devotion already shown toward Obama.

Finally, we need to buy a whole lot of whiskey - perhaps I should buy a distillery. The only way a rational human being is going to survive 8 years of doe eyed, kowtowing Obamamaniacs, mindless hero worship, self congratulatory back slapping, and the constant, excruciating, feel-good, “post partisan” unity rhetoric from the once and future messiah is to get and stay rip-roarin’, falling down, three sheets to the wind drunk.

That I can manage, no problem.

You know, it’s just not fair that our enemies have had such a rough time lately.

In Iran, even milquetoast IAEA Chief ElBaradei is getting sick and tired of the regime’s evasions about their nuclear program. I mean, if there’s nothing to hide why not open up and allow the nuke inspectors in so that they can do their job unimpeded? Why not open the history of your program so that we can see how truthful and honest you’ve been with the world about never, ever (cross your heart and hope to be beheaded) wanting nuclear weapons?

But take heart President Ahmadinejad. Stay strong Supreme Leader Khamenei. Hope is on the way. America is about ready to elect a president who can’t decide whether you are just a “tiny country” with a tiny defense budget that offers no threat to the United States or whether you are - as he has “always” said - a grave threat to US security. Since Obama has been all over the map on what he truly thinks about Iran (and under it, over it, and squatting on top of it), you can rest assured that when push comes to shove, the Obamamessiah will give the matter a great deal of thought and probably sell out our friends in the region by recognizing Iran’s “historic mission” to complete the industrialization of the nuclear fuel cycle - and in the end, do absolutely nothing.

As for Syria, Bashar Assad is beside himself with joy these days, having seen his campaign of thuggish intimidation in Lebanon using his surrogates in Hizbullah to beat anyone over the head who looks sideways at Damascus (not to mention the most successful campaign of assassination in world history since Al Capone eliminated his rivals in the bootleg whiskey trade) work to near perfection. Assad’s worries over the Tribunal investigating these deaths are disappearing - the result of the prosecution dying on the vine as the UN moves at a pace that snails would envy to seat the judges and start the trials.

But Baby Assad still has his problems. Nuke inspectors are coming to call on him and there is still a chance for a reversal in Lebanon. But be of stout heart and good cheer, my gangster friend. The Holy Deal Maker is on the way to give you everything you want - and probably then some. No doubt the “realists” in any Obamamessiah administration would see that Lebanon is expendable and it really would be a very small concession to recognize your “sphere of influence” in the tiny country. Hell, you’re halfway there already so what would be the big deal if the US gave you and your mob a free hand in Lebanon?

No skin off our nose - besides, the visuals of you and Obama embracing to seal the deal would be spectacular.

And that goes double for you poor, downtrodden, abused, oppressed, Palestinian terrorists. Why, it’s getting so that you can’t make a decent suicide vest without being interrupted by the Israelis. And firing rockets at civilians can be fun (while giving the kids a good fireworks display) but it kind of spoils the party when the IAF comes calling and drops a couple of smart bombs on the Katyusha launch sites. After all, it causes property values in the neighborhood to plummet and the noise is horrible.

But I say to you my Israeli-hating friends, change is on the way! A “change” you can believe in - if you’re about 5 years old and have the moral compass of an alley cat. With a wave of his hand and a few blasts of rhetoric from his holy throat, the Obamamessiah will turn Israeli-Palestinian negotiations upside down and make sure that the onus for peace falls on the heads of those evil Jews and not on those who have yet to give up the dream of seeing every Jew in Israel pushed bodily into the Mediterranean. After all, who could blame you? Not the Obamamessiah and his cadre of advisors who have made it plain for anyone with half a brain to see that their sympathy for your “cause” outweighs any loyalty the US might have for an ally who has stood beside us for 60 years.

Finally, we come to that rather amorphous mass of bad guys who can loosely be termed “terrorists.” Your days of being hunted down and killed are, I am happy to say, numbered. Once our God-King is in office, we are promised that the United States will fight terrorism “the right way.”

We will arrest you. We will make sure that we don’t blame all Muslims for your wayward thinking about the west. We will give you dirty looks. We will give your lawyers dirty looks when you beat the rap and are freed to carry out whatever plans we so rudely interrupted with our “anti-terror” policies. We will go back to a time when occasional acts of terror are acceptable because, after all, what’s a couple of dozen civilian deaths now and again when weighed against the alternative?

And if you happen to succeed in killing a few hundred…thousand…or hundreds of thousands of us, oh well. We’ll just blame it on Bush and move on to the business of doing pretty much what you wish us to do; get out of the Middle East, stop meddling in Iraq and Afghanistan, and generally absolve ourselves of the responsibility of defending our interests. That’s because we will once again enter an era when we will only use the US military when there can be absolutely no doubt that no US interests are at stake whatsoever. Only selfless military interventions will be tolerated and only when the UN says it’s OK.

Yessiree. A new age is almost upon us - an age when our enemies can breathe a sigh of relief and get back to the business of unfettered, unrestricted actions that run contrary to American interests. They will suffer no penalty if they do - save perhaps the prospect of an American president telling the world “This is not the Iran (or Syria, or Hamas, or jihadis) that I’ve known. They gave no indication when talking to me that they would act in such a beastly manner.”

Expect a lot of that over the next 8 years.

This Obama supporter posted a long piece on “The Jewish Lobby” right on Obama’s presidential campaign website.

To say that what this “Socialist for Obama” writes is anti-Semitic, hateful, inaccurate, insulting, idiotic, paranoid tripe is a given.

But when you realize this is on Obama’s website, you really have to start wondering about not just the candidate, but people’s whose job it is to vet the site and make sure excrement like this doesn’t appear.

The fact that it is still there could mean that Obama campaign workers agree with what’s written. At the very least, it shows how incredibly tone deaf the Obama campaign is if they don’t think this is offensive.

A few choice excerpts:

All Jewish lobbies and organizations are interconnected and there are hundreds upon hundreds of them. The leaders of the numerous Jewish Lobby Groups go to the same synagogues, country clubs, and share the same Jewish investment bankers. And this inter-connectedness extends to the Jews who run the Federal Reserve Bank, US Homeland Security, and the US State Department.

In other words, “Jews stick together.” Americans must know how extremely powerful the Jewish Lobby is and how it operates to undermine America’s interests both at home and abroad. At home - by corrupting America’s political system, and abroad - by dictating American Foreign Policy against America’s best interests.

Hey Kids! Let’s play pretend…

Let’s pretend that this blog post appeared on John McCain’s website. Let’s pretend it was seen by lefty bloggers. Let’s pretend that your average lefty blogger isn’t a screaming meemie of an anti-semite but rather a rational human being.

Can you imagine the hue, the cry, and the hue again that would be raised against McCain? The guy would be run out of the race on a rail.

 But the Annointed One can get away with this because 1) Lefty bloggers really don’t care about this kind of hate speech; and 2) Obamamessiah can do no wrong. 

 And here are some suggestions on how to battle the “Jewish Lobby:”

HOW CAN WE STOP THE JEWISH LOBBY?

Here are 3 options:

1) Commit suicide.
2) Write to your Senator warning him that taking bribes from Jews is a sin.
3) Never vote again.

OR:
+ Pray To The Lord Jesus Christ To Either Convert The Jews Or Conquer Them Through The Power Of His Cross!

This has been on Obama’s presidential campaign site since 9:13 Eastern time this morning. It is now after 1:30 and this offensive piece of trash is still up.*

Cause for concern? Or are we going to hear the old refrain (and getting older every day) “These are not my values blah blah blah…” Perhaps we’ll hear something like “This is not the Socialists for Obama that I know…”

Simply, remarkably, unbelievable. Welcome to “The New Politics” folks.

* My mistake. This blog has been up since 9:13 PM last night - and is still up as of 1:45 PM the next day.

This piece originally appeared in The American Thinker