Right Wing Nut House

One of the things that makes close observers of politics so jaded and cynical is the fact that at one time or another, to one degree or another, every politician will lie.

Now everyone tells little white lies all the time. Some evolutionary biologists theorize that our ability to lie (usually to spare another’s feelings regarding their self image or self worth) assisted hominids in forming tight knit groups and therefore improved their survivability. Such behavior has been seen among chimpanzees - but in a more “political” way. A less dominant male who has mated with a female will seek to hide that fact from the Alpha male (as will the female). This is lying done to prevent a bad outcome - something with which any American politician is very familiar.

Most political lies are transparent. It’s almost as if a game is being played with the voter. The politician is saying “I am lying. You know I am lying. I know that you know I am lying. But let’s keep the fiction going because it sounds good anyway.” This kind of lying is common whenever a politician tries to convince us of their superior motives for supporting or voting on a particular bill. They are doing it “for the children” or “for seniors” or for some other selfless reason.

Just once I’d like to hear a politician get up and say “I am supporting this bill because the National Association of Widget Manufacturers donated $100,000 to my campaign and besides, it’s popular in my district and voting for it will make me a shoo in for re-election.”

It seems that the higher a politician rises, the bigger the lies. Take Barrack Obama, for example. Today’s headlines feature a real whoppers told by Obama over a not inconsequential matter. The only people who seem surprised at this turn of events are partisans on both sides who profess to be shocked - shocked I tell you - that politicians would lie about a position they took on a hot button issue or about an incident that they say has defined their character and informed their faith in God.

In Obama’s case, the lie is as bald faced as a politician can get. This is true of most Obama lies so perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised. Rarely in recent political history has a candidate for president so consistently and shamelessly - so easily - lied about past positions he has taken on a myriad of issues. There have been occasions where he has lied about changing a position he held as recently as 24 hours previously.

Like any good liar, when challenged on the lie, the Obama camp bristles at the suggestion that the messiah could ever utter an untruth. The more blatant the lie, the louder the denunciation of those who have caught him in the fib. Only after a few days have passed and the hubbub dies down will some surrogate or campaign aide like David Axelrod go on TV and admit the truth. Since the lie is no longer a story, the “clarification” rarely receives any play.

There is nothing new in this. Obama is not the first candidate to try and obscure problematic positions on the issues. Nor is John McCain guiltless in trying to hide some of his more contrary stances on policy matters that would get him into trouble with one group or another. In Obama’s case, however, it is the naked cynicism of his lurch toward the center on many issues while claiming that his position has always been the same that causes many to roll their eyes and look in askance at the man’s integrity.

And in Obama’s case, it is not just lies told to cover up his liberal/radical views on policy. His blatant fibbing about his personal relationships with everyone from Rev. Wright, to William Ayers, to Tony Rezko have been shockingly direct, challenging the media to call him out for his lack of candor and outright lies told about his associates.

No one believes Obama when he says he never heard Wright utter his poison while sitting in church. No one believes Obama when he says that Ayers was “just a neighbor” rather than someone he had known for at least 15 years and worked with on a charitable board among other connections. And his characterization of Rezko as just one of thousands of donors to his campaign beggars belief when you consider that the now convicted political fixer is the man largely responsible for putting Barack Obama where he is now.

All of this plays as background to Obama’s latest problem with the truth; his position on the so-called “Born Alive” bill. He voted against the measure while serving in the Illinois senate -a bill that contained the exact same language as the federal legislation passed a few years ago.

Obama swore he opposed the bill because he said it “weakened Roe v. Wade” but he supported the basic idea of trying to save any baby born alive even if the result of an abortion procedure.

Now we learn that in fact, Obama’s explanation was less than candid. Here is what he told CBN interviewer David Brody after the Saddleback debate:

I have said repeatedly that I would have been completely in, fully in support of the federal bill that everybody supported - which was to say - that you should provide assistance to any infant that was born - even if it was as a consequence of an induced abortion.

That was not the bill that was presented at the state level. What that bill also was doing was trying to undermine Roe vs. Wade. By the way, we also had a bill, a law already in place in IL that insured life saving treatment was given to infants.

Obama’s strong denunciation of those who he claims were lying about his radical position on abortion was as tough as any that the campaign has given to critics who have caught him in previous lies:

So for people to suggest that I and the IL Medical Society, so IL doctors were somehow in favor of withholding life saving support from an infant born alive is ridiculous. It defies common sense and it defies imagination and for people to keep on pushing this is offensive and it’s an example of the kind of politics that we have to get beyond.

It’s one thing for people to disagree with me about the issue of choice, it’s another thing for people to out and out misrepresent my positions repeatedly, even after they know that they’re wrong. And that’s what’s been happening.

Who was doing the “misrepresenting?” The New York Post reports on a statement released by the campaign that lets loose with one whopper to hide another:

Indeed, Mr. Obama appeared to misstate his position in the CBN interview on Saturday when he said the federal version he supported “was not the bill that was presented at the state level.”

His campaign yesterday acknowledged that he had voted against an identical bill in the state Senate, and a spokesman, Hari Sevugan, said the senator and other lawmakers had concerns that even as worded, the legislation could have undermined existing Illinois abortion law. Those concerns did not exist for the federal bill, because there is no federal abortion law.

There was nothing in the bill that would have undermined anything except Obama’s good standing with NOW and NARAL who opposed this bill and others like it not because it “undermined” abortion rights but because it would cause some physicians to think twice about performing a late term abortion. Obama, representing what is arguably the most liberal district in the state of Illinois, could hardly have supported anything that was opposed so strenuously by the leading liberal lights of the feminist movement.

So after saying for weeks that no, this was not the same bill passed at the federal level and that he opposed it because it would “undermine” abortion rights, the Obama camp was forced to admit to the lie while still trying to maintain the fiction that it would have kept women from getting an abortion - and by the way, it was unnecessary because Illinois already had laws protecting infants born alive. This too is a lie because Illinois has no such specific law and no prosecutor would ever take a doctor to trial for allowing a baby to die who, once removed from the womb during an abortion procedure, breathed on its own.

There is nothing wrong with a liberal politician pandering to special interest groups like NOW and NARAL. But trying to obscure that fact with a lie and then blasting those who have discovered your fib by, in turn, calling them liars is just one more example of Obama’s monumental problems with telling the truth about anything he stands for - something that could potentially cost him the election if the Republicans are effective at making that case.

Not to be outdone by the right, lefties have attacked John McCain over a story he has told many times about a guard during his captivity who helped inform his faith.

It is a touching story - whether it is true or not. One of the guards was less cruel to him than the others and even showed mercy by coming into his cell one night and loosening the ropes that bound him so tightly:

In the months that followed, I occasionally saw my Good Samaritan when I was moved from one part of the prison to another. He never allowed himself a glance in my direction, much less spoke to me, until one Christmas morning, when I was briefly allowed out of my cell to stand alone in the outdoors and look up at the clear, blue sky. As I was looking at the heavens, I became aware of him as he walked near me and then, for a moment, stood very close to me. He did not speak or smile or look at me. He just stared at the ground in front of us, and then, very casually, he used his foot to draw a cross in the dirt. We both stood looking at his work for a minute until he rubbed it out and walked away.

McCain claims that the experience helped him “to form my lasting appreciation for my own religious faith, and it took the faith of an enemy to reveal it to me.” But is it true? This Kossak believes not:

The version that he gives in his book “Character is Destiny,” is different than the dramatization from a primary campaign commercial he released in 2007, where the guard uses a stick to draw a cross.

We’ll get back to these different versions in a moment.

But, people are now questioning the truth of this entire story.

Why?

Because Alexander Solzhenitsyn had a very similar experience:

Indeed, Solzhenitsyn relates an eerily similar story:

As he waited, head down, he felt a presence. Slowly, he lifted his eyes and saw a skinny, old prisoner squat down next to him. The man said nothing. Instead, he drew a stick through the ground at Solzhenitsyn’s feet, tracing the sign of the Cross. The man then got back up and returned to his work.

As Solzhenitsyn stared at the sign of the Cross, his entire perspective changed. He knew that he was only one man against the all-powerful Soviet empire. Yet in that moment, he knew that there was something greater than the evil that he saw in the prison, something greater than the Soviet Union. He knew that the hope of all mankind was represented in that simple Cross. And through the power of the Cross, anything was possible.

Has this kind of thing never happened in the history of the world? Tom McGuire points out the obvious:

Uh huh. Because the sign of the cross is a pretty well-kept secret, so how could prison guards invoke it twice in one century? FWIW, the story appears in McCain’s 1999 “Faith Of My Fathers”, although I have no idea whether McCain told it earlier. Lexis mavens?

The Kossacks are on this search for the truth, so we know it will be kept classy.

Actually, the Solzhenitsyn story had another prisoner drawing the cross rather than a guard so that would be one extremely significant difference there. But McCain is a huge Solzhenitsyn fan and it would not be beyond imagining he would steal it and use it in his own narrative that reveals his religiosity.

Hilzoy sensibly warns us to look before leaping on this story:

I mention this because I think people should be very wary of leaping to conclusions about what it means that John McCain’s story of a guard who scraped a cross in the dirt on Christmas is (reportedly) similar to an anecdote from Solzhenitsyn’s Gulag Archipelago. It’s not a gesture so unusual that it could not have happened twice. Christianity is not unknown in Vietnam. To my mind, it means next to nothing that the details varied slightly from one version to the next: that happens all the time in normal life, especially forty years after the fact. The only odd thing is that McCain didn’t mention it in his first account of his captivity, which is quite detailed, and does bring up religion. But there are a whole lot of reasons why he might have omitted it other than its not being true.

The point being, we should look in askance at anything these two guys are telling us because as politicians, they were born to lie. And while some may see this attitude as cynical, the fact is it saves a lot of time and heartache if you pronounce a politician guilty of lying until he proves his innocence. And despite the fact that there are many politicians with a rough kind of integrity, they all lie about one thing or another. And separating the lies from the truth becomes harder the higher up they go.

One of the big reasons I love American politics is that nowhere else in the world can you find such a colorful cast of characters that pop up to add a little comedy to our otherwise deadly serious proceedings. Even the crooks are entertaining - if not personality wise then certainly in their marvelously inventive methods of purloining from the public purse.

Duke Cunningham may not have been much of a Congressman but he belongs in the Super Bowl of graft for his enormously inventive plans to enrich himself. “Dollar Bill” Jefferson gave a whole new meaning to the term “cold, hard cash.” Larry Craig’s straddles on more than just issues. And their friends in Congress can be even more entertaining and original in the ways they seek to separate the hard earned taxpayer coin from its owner.

Then there are the gadflies, the hangers on who wish to make an impact on our politics but only end up making idiots of themselves. Not surprisingly, I include myself in this group along with most (not all) bloggers, most columnists in major newspapers, most TV pundits, and anyone who writes for The Nation.

We are in “the boredom killing business,” as William Holden famously said in Paddy Cheyevsky’s brilliant and prescient take on TV news, the movie Network. And one of the best ways to alleviate ennui is to read books that purport to explain, analyze, or otherwise comment upon politics as it is currently practiced here in the United States.

Now the French, God bless ‘em, have a theory that you shouldn’t write about politics or history until at least 50 years have passed from the period you wish to study. Only after everyone is dead and their papers, diaries, letters, and post it notes are published can an author truly know and understand his subject.

This may be true. Then again, it might be a typical French excuse not to do any work. (Oh for God’s sake lighten up, I’m kidding you nitwits).

Be that as it may, today’s political authors immerse themselves in their subjects about as deeply as the puddle that forms after it rains in the utility room of my basement. Anything written by Sean Hannity must come with a piece of string so that the book can be tied to your desk lest it float away. The same goes for Ann Coulter and double for anything ever written about the Bush Administration by a liberal.

Then there are the books written to do a number on a candidate or political figure. There is nothing new about political hit pieces - Jefferson employed Philip Freneau to skewer Washington, Hamilton, and other federalists. The difference today is that they claim to be documented and “thoroughly researched.” Where Freneau would take great glee in airing all sorts of dirt on Alexander Hamilton (most of it untrue), political hatchet men today mask their attacks by hiding behind “scholarship.” Dolts who read these books are generally impressed because they contain hundreds of footnotes and feature a bibliography that rivals the Library of Congress.

But bad sourcing is still bad sourcing, even if you footnote it. And that appears to be the case with Jerome Corsi’s newst effort to insert himself into the presidential race with the publication of his book An Obama Nation.

Corsi’s career as an author is interesting. He’s written two books about a nuclear Iran that accuses politicians of actually paving the way for the mullahs to get the bomb. He’s written another book that tries to debunk peak oil. He wrote a book about border control with Minuteman founder Jim Gilchrist whose main thesis is apparently that Bush is lax on border control because he wants to advance the idea of a North American Union with Canadians and Mexicans.

In short, Corsi is no ordinary Gadfly. He is a certifiable loon. He’s two shakes short of a martini. You cannot take anyone seriously who claims that US politicians are helping Iran get the bomb. Nor can you put any stock in anything written by a guy who thinks that any American president would give up American sovereignty just so he doesn’t have to pay any import duties on his Canadian bacon. It’s stupid. It’s cracked. It’s nutzo.

In a sane world. Jerome Corsi’s stuff might appear on the comic pages. Or placed next to the newest issue of Mad Magazine in the bookstore. But in today’s zany political culture, Corsi rates 100 guest appearances on talk shows and news programs. And apparently there are enough people out there who are either unaware or don’t care about his cockamamie views because Obama Nation will appear this week on the New York Times bestseller list at #1.

According to my old friend Pat Curley, Corsi is also a 9/11 truther who thinks that physicist Steve Jones is the bomb and Alex Jones worthy of an appearance on his show. In fact, the New York Times Caucus Blog informs us that the Obama project caused Corsi to delay his next big revelatory best seller; a book exposing the “lies” told by government in the 9/11 investigation.

Among the follow-up efforts to Jerome R. Corsi’s “Unfit for Command,” which inspired the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth attacks on Senator John Kerry in 2004, is “Obama Nation.” But the conservative commentator’s book about Senator Barack Obama appears to have distracted him from another project he was planning in January: exposing what he calls the government’s inadequate explanations about the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center.

A YouTube video making the rounds, especially among Obama supporters, mocks Mr. Corsi for a Jan. 29 interview on Alex Jones’s radio show, a forum for those who take a deeply skeptical view of government claims about the attacks. (Mr. Corsi also frequently talks about the “North American Union” and other threats from globalization during his appearances).

The clip has Mr. Corsi discussing the findings of Steven Jones, physicist and hero of the “9/11 Truth” movement who claims to have evidence that the World Trade Center towers collapsed due to explosives inside the building, not just the planes hitting them, during the attacks.

Alex Jones is a popular radio host - especially with the tin foil hat crowd as well as that upstanding, all American, all White bunch at Stormfront, the neo Nazi site that gave a lot of luvin to Ron Paul recently. And Pat has also dug up the fact that Corsi apparently has no qualms about appearing anywhere at anytime to discuss his book - even if the radio show he agrees to appear on is geared toward the sub-60 IQ set:

Perhaps Corsi’s most telling appearance, however, has been on The Political Cesspool, an overtly racist, anti-Semitic radio show hosted by self-avowed white nationalist James Edwards. Corsi was interviewed on the Cesspool on July 20 and is scheduled to appear again this Sunday, August 17, joining a recent guest roster that has included Christian Identity pastor Pete Peters, Holocaust denier Mark Weber and former Klan boss David Duke.

Along with promoting Corsi’s appearances, Edwards is boasting on his website that the three-hour weekly show will join the Republic Broadcasting Network in September. This conspiracy-minded network, heard via satellite and the web, features talk about a sinister “New World Order” and wild theories about the causes of 9/11. Shows that air on the network include The Piper Report, named after host Michael Collins Piper, who has contributed to the holocaust denial magazine The Barnes Review, and Mark Dankof’s America, which has interviewed Weber, director of the Institute for Historical Review, a leading Holocaust denial group.

Nice company you’re keeping there, Jerry.

And nice company my fellow conservatives are keeping if you buy his book. There are oodles of things to criticize, denounce, make sport, and laugh at Barack Obama about without having to use anything from this screwball’s book. In fact, I would chastise folks like my good friend Jon Henke of The Next Right, the excellent Peter Wehner of Commentary, and numerous other conservatives and center/right bloggers and pundits who have actually taken the time to try and seriously discredit Corsi and denounce his inaccuracies and idiocies. The best possible thing to do about Jerome Corsi is point a finger and laugh at him. Laugh at his utter, hopeless stupidity at believing that there is a plot to form a North American Union. Giggle at his belief that the World Trade Centers were blown up by the government. Snicker at his notion that currently serving American politicians knowingly aided the Iranian mullahs in their efforts to get the bomb.

Why waste time and effort in a dedicated and well researched effort to critique someone who actually believes Obama is some kind of closet Muslim or at best, has “ties” to the Muslim religion he is not telling us about. This is especially wrongheaded considering that when the subject of Obama’s religion comes up, there is a ready made campaign killer all set to make a spectacular comeback this fall.

Jeremiah Wright as a tool to defeat Obama is a helluva lot more potent than any Islam worshipping Obama did as an 8 year old kid. All that bringing up the fake and foolish story that Obama is a Muslim does is distract from the public concentrating on Wright as Obama mentor and friend. In short, by trying to “prove” a baseless, ridiculous, nutty story about Obama’s radical Islamic past, those pushing this meme are only hurting their own cause.

I frankly don’t care how much of Obama Nation is true and how much is part of Corsi’s overactive imagination. I don’t care what his conclusions are nor do I care to know his views on Obama as a man or a politician. To my mind, a book on Obama written by Mickey Mouse would have more credibility.

At least Mickey isn’t responsible for what comes out of his mouth.

It’s been so long I almost forgot how fond the American left is of “blaming America first” for anything bad that happens in the world.

Bush sneezes in Beijing and it’s America’s fault a typhoon erupts in Bangladesh. We send a couple of hundred advisors to Georgia in order to help them re-organize and train their minuscule 26,000 man army while giving them advice and encouragement in building a democracy and, POOF! It’s our fault that Vladamir Putin chose to invade the sovereign territory of a tiny, nearly defenseless neighbor, burn villages, bomb cities, and generally cause a lot of mayhem.

The argument being advanced - that we pissed Putin off by aiding Georgia - is ludicrous. It presupposes that we should have turned our back on what by any stretch of the imagination is a friend in a part of the world where having countries friendly to the US is absolutely vital to our security and the security of the west. Of course we assisted Georgia in readying itself to resist Russian aggression. Of course we tried to help them in building a democracy. They’re an ally. We will also help the Ukraine fend off Russia as we will Poland and other formerly captive eastern bloc nations if they wish it. This is what the United States is supposed to do. And if it pisses Vladamir Putin off that nations formerly under Russia’s thumb do not wish to return to that arrangement, let him hang.

No doubt it is important to consider how Russia views our assistance to Georgia, the Ukraine, the Baltic states, and former Warsaw Pact countries. But there seems to be a nearly universal belief on the left that Russia’s feelings in the matter should be the overarching consideration and not our own interests nor the desires of these now independent states to remain free of Russian domination. By in effect, taking Russia’s side in this matter (or at the very least accepting their rationale), the left is telling the ex-captive nations to go hang rather than Putin.

I would hesitate to bring up Yalta given that a lot of revisionist history has been churned up about that fateful conference except even the revisionists recognize our miscalculation of Stalin’s intentions. Short of war, there was probably nothing we could have done to prevent the Red Army from dominating eastern Europe. But this time around, we do indeed have options that put the onus of conflict right smack in the Russian’s lap.

Our meager assistance to the formerly captive nations of the old Soviet Union do not threaten Russia in any way. We are not building million man armies or huge military bases with massive numbers of aircraft and material. We are not asking for permanent bases in the Black Sea. Our military assistance to those nations has been small and defensive in nature.

And the fear that these nations have of Russia that drives them to seek alliances with powerful friends should elicit the support and sympathy of the left, not condemnation for getting Vladamir Putin angry.

Assisting smaller nations with their wish to live an independent existence is an option we didn’t have at the end of World War II. Now that it’s there, we have rightly seized it and in perfect accordance with our tradition as a protector of democracies and our national interests which benefit by having friends in a vital part of the world, we are assisting nations who do not fear domination by us but do fear what a resurgent Russia might do to re-establish their hegemony.

Of course, all of this is as plain as the nose on your face - which is why the left is twisting itself into pretzels trying to ignore it. Our assistance to Georgia was “provocative,” we are told - as was sponsoring their membership into NATO. This despite the fact that we insisted that before Georgia was accepted as a NATO member, the status of both breakaway provinces must be resolved peacefully which is hardly “provocative” and more along the lines of “incredibly reasonable.” And how less than 1,000 military advisors and a few hundred civilian contractors is “provocative” to anyone except someone seeking to make excuses for Russian aggression is beyond me.

Ah but we are “encircling Russia” by offering NATO membership to Georgia and the Ukraine thus threatening them. The excuse of Russian encirclement was the Soviet’s rationale for enslaving Warsaw Pact countries back in the day so perhaps it is not entirely a surprise that this old canard would be pulled out of mothballs to justify the unjustifiable.

In order to accept that as an excuse, you must posit that NATO threatens to invade Russia someday or that the alliance would build forward bases in the Caucasus with massive amounts of men and material. NATO doctrine has always been defensive in nature; that is, the alliance’s reason for existence was to respond to Soviet aggression in western Europe, not start World War III. The “encirclement” excuse shows that the left believes NATO is an offensive threat to Russia, a preposterous notion that no one outside of the most anti-American of bigots could possibly think is true.

Given the paucity of support on the left for Georgia and, presumably the Ukraine in resisting Russian aggression, one can legitimately ask which allies we should be supporting? No doubt our support of Israel is “provocative.” Maybe we should pull the rug from under our friends in Tel Aviv. Have we asked China lately how they feel about us supporting the right of Taiwan to determine its own future? Sheesh! Talk about “provocative”…

In fact, using the rationale the left is using with Georgia, there are precious few friends outside of western Europe we should be assisting. If whether or not our assistance is “provocative” is the new benchmark for helping our allies, we will become very lonely very quickly. That’s because someone is always going to be mad at us no matter who we help. Syria was upset we were assisting Lebanon. Iran is mad we’re in Iraq. The Arab world is livid because we help Israel. Chavez is pissed at us because we’re helping Colombia. And on and on and on…

Building a foreign policy based on not pissing off your enemies (or friends for that matter) by subsuming your vital interests to theirs is wacky. But I suppose this is the Winnie the Pooh foreign policy we must come to expect when Obama takes office.

It’s not only in our actions that the left finds fault but also in our words. And it is here that the real cognitive dissonance takes hold and off we fly into La-La-Land for a lesson in “Why everything said about Georgia is warmongering and belligerent unless you act as if it is your fault the crisis ensued in the first place.”

Indeed, calling those who favor a strong, straight from the shoulder response to Russia “warmongers” without threatening war or even hinting at war shows just what kind of war the left would be willing to wage if it ever came to that. It is not “warmongering” to state the obvious - that the invasion of Georgia fundamentally alters the relationship between the US and Russia. It will not be “business as usual.” And telling the Russians that is not being provocative, or warmongering, or belligerent, it is simply stating a fact. Nor is it “warmongering” to strongly condemn, in no uncertain terms and without using weasel words the aggression perpetrated by the Russians on Georgia.

How standing up in the international arena for a friend being systematically taken apart by a hugely more powerful country and calling it “bullying” can be construed as McCain or Bush being “belligerent” is beyond belief. Words do matter, I would say to my friends on the left. And couching a response in diplomatic niceties and sentiments reflecting the idea that both sides are somehow at fault while Georgia is being ripped to shreds by an enemy 20 times its size is, to my mind, worse than cowardice.

Blatant aggression requires the use of language equally naked, stripped of its silly pretensions and delivered with the force of a Joe Frazier right hook. Diplomacy failed folks. The question of whether allowing the Russians respite from international pressure by using soothing, meaningless, soporific language instead of a roaring denunciation that makes Putin feel it and makes the autocrat cringe all the way back in Moscow is what was needed. And McCain delivered it while Obama didn’t. McCain’s instincts were correct. Obama’s were not.

It was Obama who, after an extraordinarily mild statement on Friday, August 8 which politely asked the Russians to please respect the territorial integrity of Georgia (while Russian tanks were already many miles beyond the border of South Ossetia and engaging Georgian troops on Georgian soil) eventually came around to McCain’s more assertive and indeed, courageous stance which condemned the Russians outright and called on pressure to be placed on Russia by the EU in addition to the United Nations.

Only later did Obama forthrightly condemn the Russians - after polls showed the voters instinctively approving McCain’s response over Obamas. That says a lot about both candidates, don’t ya think?

It is not a question of “fear.” This has always driven me up a wall when the left has accused those wishing to confront evil as being fearful. We confront Russia, al-Qaeda. and the rest of the world’s bad guys because it is the right thing to do. Armed with that knowledge and in the basic goodness of the US - if not always in practice - we can face the evil with a clear mind and stout heart - exactly the opposite of being fearful.

But for more political reasons than having anything to do with reality, the left insists on calling those who seek an aggressive war on terror or a tough stand against Russian belligerency as “fearful.” Perhaps for their own self image it makes them feel good to call those who think Russia is being beastly to the Georgians or those who advocate an aggressive war against al-Qaeda “fearful” - fearful of terrorism, fearful of Russia. That fear certainly isn’t present in the words spoken so far in this crisis by either Bush or McCain nor in any previous pronouncements on al-Qaeda can I glean any “fear” being spoken by either of those two.

Yes words matter - which is why in this case, the response of the left to Russian aggression and their unwarranted criticism of McCain and the Administration for speaking frankly, strongly, and realistically about this crisis shows how easily they wilt in the face of aggression. From the polls published so far, it appears the American people agree.

It was just a few short months ago that Jon Stewart on the Daily Show had to tell his audience it was okay to laugh after he made a mild witticism directed toward Barack Obama about his switch on campaign financing. It was at that point that a few of us wondered if the comics and writers who shape much of the national conversation would ever be able to lay a glove on the Illinois senator or whether his race gave him a cloak of immunity, shielding him from the barbs and bon mots of the late night comedy crowd and Comedy Central gang.

We needn’t have worried. It turns out the comedy writers were actually desperate for material with which to skewer Obama but the candidate was so new on the national stage that there was no overarching, defining character trait that the audience would have a common frame of reference with which to understand the humor and laugh.

Why? The reason cited by most of those involved in the shows is that a fundamental factor is so far missing in Mr. Obama: There is no comedic “take” on him, nothing easy to turn to for an easy laugh, like allegations of Bill Clinton’s womanizing, or President Bush’s goofy bumbling or Al Gore’s robotic persona.

“The thing is, he’s not buffoonish in any way,” said Mike Barry, who started writing political jokes for Johnny Carson’s monologues in the waning days of the Johnson administration and has lambasted every presidential candidate since, most recently for Mr. Letterman. “He’s not a comical figure,” Mr. Barry said.

This is true - up to a point. The fact is, it is very hard to make fun of someone unless you are willing to subsume your personal feelings and treat the subject as just another bozo slipping on a banana peel. The mainstream press is still having a hard time getting beyond their goo-goo eyed worship of Obama’s talents as a stump speaker so it is no wonder that comedy writers and performers would have problems zeroing in on the candidate’s many faults and idiosyncrasies.

There is no doubt, several representatives of the late-night shows said, that so far their audiences (and at least some of the shows’ writers) seem to be favorably disposed toward Mr. Obama, to a degree that perhaps leaves them more resistant to jokes about him than those about most previous candidates.

“A lot of people are excited about his candidacy,” Mr. Sweeney said. “It’s almost like: ‘Hey, don’t go after this guy. He’s a fresh face; cut him some slack.’ ”

While the right had been laying into Obama for months about his pomposity, his overly high opinion of himself, and his overweening confidence about winning the election, the general public did not see these traits in the candidate until just recently. It was left to Obama’s ideological allies at The New Yorker to start chipping  away at the marble facade that shielded  the candidate from ridicule and thus, from being portrayed as exactly what he is; a human being with imperfections and a too lofty opinion of himself.

The New Yorker cartoon was notable for the breakthrough in portraying the candidate - even if the target of the satire were his opponents - as something less than a cross between Martin Luther King and Jesus Christ. Touching on all the groundless fears of the right with regard to Obama’s Muslim heritage and his lack of patriotism was nevertheless seen as validating those fears because the idiocy of Obama supporters posited that folks in flyover country weren’t sophisticated enough to see that the joke was actually on them.

Beyond that, the reaction of the Obama camp itself revealed a humorlessness and a surprising sensitivity to criticism that showed a campaign that was taking itself way too seriously for its own good. Any bunch that uptight about a cartoon was bound to step in it sooner or later. This they did with a series of gaffes over the next few weeks that highlighted the candidate’s overconfidence along with an almost regal sense of entitlement that fully manifested itself in prickly responses to a new ad campaign that the McCain campaign began to run.

The fake presidential seal, the constant use of the royal “We” when speaking, the references to himself as president, and finally, his foreign trip last month all worked to shed the image of ice blue perfection so carefully crafted by the campaign and resulted in the candidate becoming fair game for comics, pundits, and late night talk show hosts:

But growing Obama fatigue among voters after his pseudo-presidential visit to Europe and the Middle East has unleashed a wave of satirical fire, mocking Mr Obama for his apparent belief that he has the election in the bag.

Last month Jon Stewart, host of the satirical news programme The Daily Show, had to tell his audience that they were allowed to laugh at Mr Obama after a joke fell flat.

But Mr Stewart made comedic hay during the Illinois Senator’s international trip, mocking his progress through the Holy Land, where he said the candidate stopped “in Bethlehem to see the manger where he was born.”

Late night comic Jimmy Kimmel also cracked a joke at Mr Obama’s expense: “They really love Barack Obama in Germany. He’s like a rock star over there. Impressive until you realise that David Hasselhoff is also like a rock star over there.”

The jokes are important because they increasingly draw on evidence that voters are tiring of Mr Obama’s elevated opinion of himself, the wall to wall coverage of his pronouncements, and the feeling that he should concentrate on voters back home.

But it has been the McCain campaign’s ridiculing of Obama as a world celebrity and poking fun at his messiah-like image that may have done the most damage and actually had an impact on the polls. The blow up over the ad that compared Obama to such celebrities as Britney Spears and Paris Hilton scratched at the soft underbelly of the Obama campaign by attacking the phenomenon of his candidacy and questioning the intelligence and judgment of his most rabid supporters.

This is the risk McCain runs with ridicule; the probability that in addition to his main target Obama, collateral damage will occur when the barbs strike the innocent as well; in this case, the legions of Obama fans who believe their candidate can do no wrong and speak of him as if he is a religious icon. Not that McCain had any chance in swaying these voters but Americans don’t like to see people like that picked on and it could lose him votes among independents and conservative Democrats if his pot shots were seen as cruel and unfair to the Obamabots.

J. Michael Waller, Annenberg Professor of International Communications for The Institute of World Politics wrote a paper in 2006 about ridicule in the public arena and found that the tactic of using ridicule as a weapon could easily backfire:

Laughing at someone – ridicule - is another matter. It is the use of humor at someone else’s expense. It is a zero-sum game destructive to one of the parties involved. Like a gun, it is a dangerous weapon. Even in trained hands, it can misfire. Used carelessly or indiscriminately, ridicule can create enemies were there were none, and deepen hostilities among the very peoples whom the user seeks to win over.

In nearly every aspect of society and across cultures and time, ridicule works. Ridicule leverages the emotions and simplifies the complicated and takes on the powerful, in politics, business, law, entertainment, literature, culture, sports and romance. Ridicule can tear down faster than the other side can rebuild. One might counter an argument, an image, or even a kinetic force, but one can marshal few defenses against the well-aimed barbs that bleed humiliation and drip contempt.

In fact, the Obama campaign had a response to the McCain ad; they played the race card. It’s the only comeback that would have had a greater impact than Obama being accused of being weightless and shallow so they deployed their most potent weapon - with surprising results.

The media to a large extent and much of the public came down on McCain’s side and agreed the ad was not racist - especially after first David Axelrod and then the candidate himself agreed they were injecting race into the argument after first denying any such thing. In effect, McCain’s ad turned the tables on the Obama camp by placing them in the position of attacking McCain supporters with the equally potent race card weapon - and it blew up in their faces.

Another McCain ad which was much more in jest referred to Obama as “The One” and interspersed video of the candidate’s speeches with humorous bits like Charlton Heston as Moses parting the Red Sea. The difference with this ad is that the campaign wisely refrained from attacking Obama supporters. This one was aimed directly at Obama’s supercilious opinion of himself.

In both ads, Obama supporters found themselves stretching the point on racism beyond the breaking point, entering the realm of self parody. The specter of Keith Olberman actually talking about the “phallic symbols” in McCain’s “Celebrity” ad bordered on the surreal.  And David Gergen laughably referred to ”coded signals” in the “The One” ad by solemnly informing us that Moses was actually code for “uppity.”  It was like a logic sickness gripped many Obama surrogates who were examining these ads sometimes frame by frame to glean the last ounce of race baiting from them. Needless to say, their revelations were given short shrift by the American people.

It seems likely that the Obama camp will not pull the race card any time soon when the McCain campaign is in the process of ridiculing him.

Indeed, McCain seems disinclined to change his strategy. By attacking what is perceived as their opponent’s strengths, they are whittling away at the Obama mystique while the media plays into their hands and spreads the message far beyond any ad buys the campaign makes. The McCain campaign’s most recent target is Obama’s speaking ability:

John McCain is mocking the oratorical gifts of Barack Obama, recommending that he “should consider someone with a knack for brevity and directness, to balance the ticket.”

“Taking in my opponent’s performances is a little like watching a big summer blockbuster,” McCain sneers in his weekly radio address, “and an hour in, realizing that all the best scenes were in the trailer you saw last fall.”

Obama delivered the Democrats’ officials radio address Saturday, mentioning “Sen. McCain” four times during a policy remarks about Iraq and balancing the budget. McCain snarks at Obama 10 times in his own address.

McCain’s gibe about a less windy running mate is part of a continuing effort by the Republican’s presidential campaign to turn Obama’s strengths against him.

Obama is popular with younger voters, and Americans usually vote for the more likable presidential candidate. So using political jujitsu, McCain used TV ads to portray his opponent as an air-headed celebrity more in the mold of Paris Hilton than commander in chief.

The danger with this line of attack is that everyone knows Obama can deliver a great speech and mocking one of his obvious gifts could redound to McCain’s disadvantage if it is seen he is being churlish or envious rather than making the point that delivering a great speech while actually saying something relevant and important are two different things. It’s a good point but McCain leaves himself open to counter thrusts by Obama. The candidate will speak before 70,000 people in Denver in what will be one of the more dramatic political scenes in many years. It is hard to see how McCain can make the same claims about Obama’s speeches after the voter sees so many people screaming their delight and the commentators no doubt falling all over themselves in trying to outdo one another in singing the speech’s praises.

Bob Dole had much the same problem in 1996 when running for president. Dole’s biting wit could cross the line at times and rather than being funny, his barbs could be cruel and sound unfeeling, attacking not just Clinton but his supporters as well. He was going to lose anyway so you can’t say this tactic necessarily lost him the election but there is no doubt that at his worst, Dole didn’t help himself when it came to his use of sarcasm and ridicule.

Not so Ronald Reagan. Perhaps it was his genial personality or his gentle delivery that smoothed the rough edges of his ridicule but, to take one example, his famous line delivered when confronted by anti-war protestors holding up signs saying “Make Love, Not War” and Reagan quipping “They didn’t appear they could either” drew laughs from his opponents as well. Reagan, like Lincoln, used humor sparingly but effectively. And it was used to make a valid point, not gratuitously simply to score points against an opponent.

How long McCain can continue to ridicule Obama probably depends on how much fodder the Democrat gives his ad people to use. Are we ready for a more humble, less pretentious Obama? Somehow, I don’t think he has it in him to think of himself as anything less than how he sees himself now.

This very well may be the funniest, the most disturbing, the most outrageous video ever seen in a presidential campaign.

It’s a joke, of course - what Slate V imagines would be a viral video response to a McCain attack ad. But it captures the essence of what our friends at Maggie’s Farm refer to as “a typical Obama supporter” - emotional, juvenile, stunted intellectually, and oblivious to the realities of politics. These are the screamers, the swooners, the goo goo eyed 20-somethings who get their news from “The Daily Show” and Letterman and who are supporting Obama frankly because they don’t know any better. They wonder why we have to have arguements about politics, actually believing that everyone should think the same way as they do about all the issues. They are dangerous because they can easily be manipulated into supporting just about anything Obama wants to do.

And there are millions of them.

This is not a majority of Obama supporters. But it is a significant portion of them. And if that doesn’t chill your bones, nothing will.

Barack Obama has given us several real doozies in this campaign. Some of his utterances have been notable for their gooey vacuousness - harmless tufts of rhetorical fluff that cause his disciples to swoon but initiates the gag reflex in the rest of us. “We are the ones we’ve been waiting for” may draw huge applause and chants of “O-Ba-Ma, O-Ba-Ma” but forces the rest of us to listen to his speeches on an empty stomach lest our most recent repast make an unwelcome appearance in the form of industrial sized chunks of barely digested Cheeto’s.

Recently, Obama tried to explain why he is running for president to a seven year old kid at a town hall meeting. This is a question any presidential candidate worth his salt should be able to tee up, take a mighty swing, and hit the ball out of the park. Even a Democrat should be able to muster the appropriate patriotic bombast and teary-eyed evocation of how much he loves this country and wishes to make it better.

Not our Barack. Forget the bombast. Forget love of country. Let’s just say America sucks and if you want it to be less sucky, elect me:

At a campaign stop in Elkhart, Indiana, a seven-year-old girl asked the Democrat why he wants to be President — and he told her that America has gone downhill:

“America is …, uh, is no longer, uh … what it could be, what it once was. And I say to myself, I don’t want that future for my children.”

Of course, as Ed Morrissey points out, we have heard similar deep thoughts from Michelle Obama as well.

The problem is Obama’s incoherence. Is he saying that America is not what it could be? This is standard lefty grist that illustrates their definition of patriotism. Extrapolate out from that thought and you get the “highest form of patriotism,” according to the left - dissent. In order to improve America you must dissent from what is, in order to achieve what should be. I have written of this definitional difference of patriotism between the right and left and Obama himself has spoken of it on more than one occasion.

But Obama slips in an entirely different thought; that America is “not as it once was.” This goes far beyond holding America responsible for its promises of equal opportunity for all and equal justice under the law. In fact, Obama demonstrates an extraordinarily lack of understanding of what America is all about. Of course we’re a different nation today than we were 10 years ago or 50 or 100 years in the past. America was designed that way. It was the Founder’s intent that America re-invent itself at the drop of a hat to reflect changing realities.

Prior to America coming into being, the only way that could occur was through bloody revolution. We have revolt built into our system of government as every four years, we have the opportunity to alter course 180 degrees or, in rarer cases, strike out in a new direction entirely.

This is the essence of America and it is revealing that Obama is disappointed that we have changed. But let’s forget Obama’s ignorance for a moment and look closer at just what kind of country we have today compared to the one that I grew up in.

I use my own life experience as a yardstick because it was roughly 40-50 years ago and that seems a sufficiently long period to contrast the America of today with the America of yesterday in order to judge whether Obama’s critique holds water.

First, allow me to interpret what Obama finds so horrible about today’s America.

* Health care costs are out of control and people can’t afford health insurance.

* The middle class is disappearing as wages have failed to keep up with inflation and real earnings have been dropping steadily (this has been happening since the 1970’s but for the purposes of Obama’s critique, let’s pretend it’s George Bush’s fault).

* Our industrial base is eroding. We are losing thousands of jobs every month to outsourcing and foreign competition.

* The world is warming up and we’re not doing anything to stop it.

* Housing is a mess thanks to the mortgage crisis.

* We have lost respect and no one in the world loves us because we act in a unilateral way on the world stage and pay no attention to the sensibilities of the rest of the world.

I would say that is a pretty fair partial rendering of what Obama thinks is wrong with America today. To draw a complete picture would require a surface the size of the Sistine Chapel ceiling. Obama is very fond of telling people that this is the most important election in his lifetime which may be one of the bigger exaggerations of his campaign. Perhaps he means it’s important because he’s in it. If he means the 2008 election is more important than 1968, 1972, or 1980 contests, he is full of it. I would even throw in 1964 if only because it handed the left it’s biggest victory and gave LBJ a mandate to create the welfare state in earnest.

But the question is, to which point does Obama want to return in American history that would secure his children’s future? Where in the past would Obama take us that would make us better than we are today?

The very nature of his campaign destroys his rationale as Ed Morrissey points out:

Everyone feels that we can improve ourselves, but we don’t usually cast it in terms of the country no longer being what it once was. Coming from the Obamas, that doesn’t even make sense. They have talked about how difficult it was to break through barriers, not without some justification, to reach this point in their lives and American history.

Doesn’t that speak to the point that we continue to grow and to learn? And if not, which “good old days” did Obama mean? The 1980s? I doubt it, and if he means the Clinton era, then why did he run against Hillary in the first place?

Once again, Obama got off the teleprompter and put his foot directly in his mouth. He’s not selling Hope, he’s selling Despair, and himself as the snake oil that will cure us of all our ills.

The problem in returning to an America that once was is that the very idea of doing so is a chimera, a dream imagined only by those who fail to grasp the dynamism of the American experiment and how changes made in the past continue to mold and shape America today.

Yes we could return to a time when there was no health insurance crisis. There was a time where virtually every working American got their health insurance through their employer. But that world no longer exists, replaced by an extraordinary revolution in medicine that has allowed us to live a decade or more longer while also seeing government crowd out private insurance carriers by an ever more intrusive presence in the health insurance field. And that 1950’s world would also see Mr. Obama’s opportunities for the kind of life he leads now shrivel to damn near nothingness because of the color of his skin.

And yes, we could travel back to a time when unions were very strong and the pay of average Americans had no problem growing far beyond the cost of living. But that world was one still recovering from World War II with all of our major competitors today still rebuilding from that devastating conflict. Where a kid out of high school in Allentown, PA could be assured of a job at the plant and as long as he punched in and out, stayed out of trouble, and worked hard, he could expect a comfortable, middle class existence.

Those days are long gone never to return. The period from 1946-66 was an historical anomaly, a quirk, a hiccup on the historical timeline. Our industries weren’t just dominant. They were “it.” If a European wanted a car, chances are he bought a Ford or GM product rather than wait 2 years for a Euro-mobile. American steel, rubber, machine tools, and anything else manufactured in the US was in high demand around the world because no one was making them better or cheaper.

The reasons why that is no longer so speaks to our enormous success in remaking the world after the war rather than any intrinsic superiority in the way government worked at that time. How does Obama intend to bring them back? Limits on executive pay? Mandatory unionism? Maybe a well placed nuke or two to recreate the utter devastation in Germany, France, England, Japan, and the rest of the world that took a decade and more for them to recover?

Global warming? As long as we play lapdog for the Europeans on this issue and ignore the fact that China will be doing nothing to refrain from pouring carbon into the atmosphere as fast as their coal burning industries can shovel it, what good will it do? We’ve already cut our carbon emissions more than the Europeans over the last decade.

The America that once was had its good points and bad points. The changes that have been wrought have had mixed results as well. The bi-polar world has been replaced by, well, us. Europeans like to talk about “soft power” thus making the planet into something approaching rough equality. But I ask you, when Ahmadinejad, Assad, Kim Jung, Il, and a half dozen other thugs hit their knees every night to pray to their God, are they praying to be spared the wrath of Euro soft power or a visit from an F-117 carrying a bomb with their name on it? I rest my case.

Obama is right that America is “not what it could be.” But he is dead wrong to imagine he can take us back to an America that “once was.” America never looks back. And more than any other people - sometimes to our detriment - our people look to the future. The past is erased, trampled by our headlong rush to meet what will be. The present is just a way station, a temporary stop where we catch our breath before continuing that mad dash to create what is now without regard to what happened before.

“It is good to be shifty in a new country,” was actually an adage taught to school children at one time. It spoke to the fact that America has rolled forward like a steamroller, grinding the past underfoot and recreating itself on a regular basis. I have no doubt that the 2008 election will give us that opportunity to invent a new future for ourselves.

Just as long as we elect a president who understands this essential truth that has defined America for more than 200 years.

Three weeks out from the Democratic convention and Hillary Clinton is slowly emerging from her self-imposed summer hibernation to haunt the party with the prospect that she will at the very least, horn in on some of the presumptive nominee’s glory just by her presence in Denver.

Was her low profile the result of her licking the psychic wounds of being defeated for the nomination? Previous losers have indicated as much and we have no reason to doubt that Clinton was using the time between the end of the primaries and just recently to decompress from the brutal campaign and reflect on the future.

But there are some who believe she still harbors hopes that she can stampede the convention and steal the nomination from Obama right from under his nose. It certainly would make for dramatic TV if such a scenario were to unfold but frankly, the idea that Hillary Clinton would cleave the Democratic party in two, alienate millions of African American voters, destroy her position in the party, and possibly cause the loss of the election - all on national TV - is a fantasy. The party pros - Superdelegates - simply will not allow that to happen given the probable fallout for down ticket races. The pros may have serious doubts about Obama at this late stage but getting rid of him won’t solve any problems and will create even bigger ones.

The party - for better or worse - is stuck with Barack Obama as its nominee and they will win or lose with him in November - period.

This reality hasn’t stopped some bitter end Hillary supporters from dreaming there is still a chance to sway the Superdelegates, trying to convince them to abstain from voting on the first ballot in order to deny Obama a quick victory. This is the fantasy imagined by the cheeky group of Democrats who have coalesced under the banner PUMA (”Party Unity My Ass”). Every rumor of a wavering Superdelegate or hint that there are doubts among convention goers is latched on to with the fervor of the true believer, no matter how improbable or false the information might be.

However, facts are facts. Obama and the Democratic establishment have taken ironclad control of the proceedings in Denver and will do everything in their power to make sure that on the surface at least, the party is united behind the nominee. Any attempted coup or attempted coup will be brutally suppressed.

But even though these Hillaryites don’t have a ghost of a chance in overturning the nomination of Obama, that doesn’t mean they can’t cause loads of trouble for the nominee in Denver - especially if they get anywhere near a microphone. And I will guarantee you that every network and reporter covering the Democratic Convention in Denver will actively seek out the grumblers, the apostates, the bitter enders for Hillary, and any other delegates who will offer a dramatic counterpoint to the lovefest offered up by the Obama campaign. The nominee may control the floor. But he and his people have absolutely no say in what goes out over the airwaves. And since conventions aren’t “news” in the true sense of the word but rather “entertainment,” networks will seek out controversy in order to offer “drama” to the viewer.

(Don’t worry, Democrats. They will do the same thing at the GOP Convention a few days later as they seek out disappointed and disenchanted conservatives to speak against McCain.)

Given this dynamic - something the Obama camp is fully aware - what role can Hillary Clinton play in this soap opera? The two sides are currently engaged in a delicate dance of negotiations on just what the former First Lady can do to help the party without overshadowing the entire event:

The New York Daily News reported Friday that Clinton has decided not to submit a signed request to the DNC to have her name put into nomination; party rules require such a move for a candidate to be voted on.

But Clinton aides continue to say publicly that such details are still being discussed in consultations among the Clinton camp, the Obama campaign and the Democratic National Committee.

“No decisions have been made,” Clinton spokeswoman Kathleen Strand said.

“Sen. Clinton is 100 percent committed to helping Barack Obama become the next president of the United States,” Strand added. “She is very appreciative of the continued commitment of her supporters and understands there are passionate feelings around the convention. While no decisions have been made at this time, they will be made collaboratively with Sen. Clinton and her staff, the DNC and Sen. Obama’s campaign and released at the appropriate time.”

Even many Clinton supporters think that offering her name up for the nomination is a bad idea. Lanny Davis thinks it would be “idiotic” and only serve to remind voters of the deep divisions in the party. But the fact that we are three weeks out and those divisions show little sign of healing, gives Hillary an enormous amount of leverage. Talk now is of making her the Keynote Speaker - a plum that might go a long way toward at least healing some of the rifts between the two camps.

The Obama campaign’s “Operation United Party” has had mixed success since the primaries ended in June. The realists like Taylor Marsh and a few other prominent netroots activists have gotten aboard, offering their full support to the presumptive nominee. But there is still stubborn resistance from many who are holding a grudge against Obama and his people. This feeling of resentment extends from the top of the Democratic party down to the base. Here’s Clinton at a recent fundraiser:

“For so many of my supporters, just like so many of Barack’s supporters, this was a first-time investment of heart and soul and money and effort and sleepless nights and miles of travel,” Clinton said. “You just don’t turn it off like that.”

Whenever she has appeared in public in the last fortnight - appearances notable for their low key, almost private nature - Hillary Clinton has gotten huge applause whenever she alludes to the loyalty of her supporters and how difficult it is to transfer those feelings to another candidate. At this same fundraiser, she got a loud ovation when she hinted that she wouldn’t mind if her name was placed in nomination but she would not actively seek it.

This puts the Obama camp in a huge bind. The convention is supposed to be about him, about his achievements. Placing Clinton’s name in nomination and then allowing her delegates to vote for her would distract from the narrative the campaign is trying to construct for the TV audience. Not doing so, however, might instigate a backlash against him that would prove just as embarrassing.

Obama can’t hide Hillary any more than he can try and make her glory seeking husband disappear. Here’s a description of an interview with Bill Clinton that is important for what he didn’t say as much as it was for the tepid, niggardly endorsement he gave the nominee:

Bill Clinton’s resentment came through in an interview with ABC News during his recent trip to Africa. Asked what regrets he might have about his role in his wife’s campaign, he bristled and then shot back, “I am not a racist. I never made a racist comment.” He struggled to render a positive comment about Obama’s qualifications for his old job. “You could argue that nobody is ever ready to be President,” Clinton said. “You could argue that even if you’ve been Vice President for eight years, that no one can ever be fully ready for the pressures of the office.” Pressed again, he responded with an endorsement that could hardly have been a weaker cup of tea: “I never said he wasn’t qualified. The Constitution sets qualification for the President. And then the people decide who they think would be the better President. I think we have two choices. I think he should win, and I think he will win.”

Not exactly a clarion call to storm the battlements for Obama that’s for sure.

With the press eager to jump on every sign of disunity, with a former candidate whose supporters think she deserves her moment in the sun, with a former president probably secretly wishing that he loses in November, and with his poll numbers stagnating or dropping, Barack Obama faces the greatest challenge to his leadership of the party and his chances for victory in November in Denver three weeks from now.

How he handles these problems will no doubt affect the decision of the American people when they go to the polls in November.

GOP heavyweight politico Alex Castellanos weighs in at, of all places, Huffington Post today with a searing post about why Obama can’t win.

First, Castellano wrestles with the question of the moment; why isn’t Obama farther ahead?

To earn the Democratic nomination, as Fred Thompson points out, Obama ran as George McGovern without the experience, a left-of-center politician who would meet unconditionally with Iran, pull us precipitously out of Iraq, prohibit new drilling for oil, and grow big government in Washington by all but a trillion dollars. In his general election TV ad debut, however, Obama pirouetted like Baryshnikov. With a commercial Mike Huckabee could have run in a Republican primary, Obama now emphasizes his commitment to strong families and heartland values, “Accountability and self-reliance. Love of country. Working hard without making excuses.” In this yet unwritten chapter of his next autobiography, Obama tells us he is the candidate of “welfare to work” who supports our troops and “cut taxes for working families.” The shift in his political personae has been startling. Obama has moved right so far and so fast, he could end up McCain’s Vice-Presidential pick.

General-election Obama now billboards his doubts about affirmative action. He has embraced the Bush Doctrine of pre-emption saying, “I will do everything in my power to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon…everything.” He tells his party “Democrats are not for a bigger government.” Oil drilling is a consideration. His FISA vote and abandonment of public campaign finance introduce us to an Obama of recent invention. And as he abandons his old identity for the new, breeding disenchantment among his formerly passionate left-of-center supporters and, equally, doubts among the center he courts, he risks becoming nothing at all, a candidate who is everything and nothing in the same moment.

In past campaigns, there have been extremely artful pivots to the center among candidates of both parties. Obama’s turn to the right was an unmitigated disaster. Placing himself above other politicians meant that Obama - to maintain his “authenticity” - needed to stick to his leftist principles and positions in order not to ruin his brand.

Alas, Obama could never come close to winning running on the same platform he ran on in the primaries. McGovern tried it and got slaughtered. Hence, the wild lurch to the center that confused even his most rabid acolytes, angered the left, and put off the great center of American politics who recent polls have shown moving toward McCain.

And what of McCain? The contrast is startling:

In the defining moment of his life, McCain was willing to give everything for one thing, and that one thing was his country. Contrast that with Obama, who has told America that he is “a proud citizen of the United States and a fellow citizen of the world.” Obama is the talented salesman who seduced one state after another saying “Iowa, this is our moment,” “Virginia, this is our moment,” “Texas, this is our moment,” and then tells Europe, “people of Berlin, people of the world, this is our moment.” How many times can Barack Obama sell the same moment to everyone, before he becomes Mel Brooks in “The Producers”? Who is Barack Obama? His campaign, as it reupholsters him before our eyes, says we can never know — perhaps because Barack Obama does not know himself.

Perhaps many of us have underestimated the sheer power of McCain’s life story, it’s hold on the nation and effect on the voters. Certainly, as Castellano points out, the contrast with Obama is striking in that regard. McCain’s trial by fire says something very profound, very deep about the man that is resonating with voters as they compare the two candidates. With a spectacular lack of success, the left (not the Obama campaign) has tried to paint McCain as a panderer, a flip flopper, and a man without character or conscience.

On the other hand, McCain’s attacks against Obama are biting, caustic, sarcastic, and ringing true which is why he is staying close to Obama and why, in the end, all the re-invention Obama can muster isn’t going to matter:

John McCain is a complete and well-formed man. Barack Obama is completing himself. As he moves to fit what he perceives to be a right-of-center country, he distances himself from the simple and authentic passion of a young candidate who once pledged “Change We Can Believe In.”

The major differernce between them is in the core of the two candidates; one, rock solid while the other is molten - still forming under pressure and not yet completed.

McCain could still lose badly. People are not paying much attention to the race at this point and it very well may be that when the final determination is made by the voter, they will put aside any concerns about Obama and elect him president. The GOP brand has been damaged so badly and generated so much disgust and anger that in the end, it may be too much for McCain - despite his heroic life story and the heroic effort he is making in the campaign - to overcome.

But Obama will have hurdles to overcome as well. And whether he can define himself sufficiently in the voter’s minds will go a long way toward determining his fate.

This post originally appears in The American Thinker 

Next month, I will mark 4 years blogging about politics, culture, government, and the human comedy/tragedy that one finds on the internet - specifically liberals and their never ending quest to redefine terms and twist language, making it a willing servant to their political agenda.

I am not one of those purists who started to blog in order to “have a conversation with myself” or “seek to know myself better.” I have never made any bones about the fact that I see this blog as a stepping stone to making money as a writer. In this, I have been somewhat successful thanks to those of you who have stuck with me through everything - all my apostasy, my curmudgeonly moods, my lame attempts at satire or humor, and my contrariness on many issues on which we have come to disagree.

Beyond anything I could have imagined, this blog has become an extraordinarily personal undertaking. I suppose that’s because writing is a very personal craft - a curse and blessing for which I had no clue 4 years ago when I started. I am blessed because many a fine folk have been supportive, encouraging, unstinting in their praise, and solicitous when I screw up - a happenstance that occurs far more often than I care to remember.

If my blog attracted only those who usually agreed with me and thought I was the bee’s knees when it came to commentary, blogging would be a marvelous daily exercise. But there is another side to blogging that most of us never talk about; the relentless, daily pounding of negativism, hurtful epithets, and outright spewing hatred that arrives in the form of comments and emails from the other side as well as other blogs linking and posting on something I’ve written.

We all like to think of ourselves as having thick skins and that such criticism rolls off our backs and never affects us. This is the macho element in blogging, one of its more unattractive and dishonest aspects. In this, some of us feel obligated to give back in kind, something I have done on too many occasions to count. Yes, I regret it. And believe me, I have often been the initiator of such ugliness.

Still, there are many bloggers on both the right and left who shame me with their equanimity in the face of the most virulent and nasty personal attacks. Ed Morrissey comes to mind on the right. The folks at Crooked Timber and Obsidian Wings on the left are generally cool in the face of such criticism as well.

But this is not a confessional post where I recognize my sins and ask forgiveness. I am what I am and doubt I will change. Rather, it is my intent to highlight the fact that despite my predilection for using violent language in my defense or to ridicule my political opponents, I have always granted them a certain rough integrity in their beliefs - that they are wrongheaded not evil; that they are arrogant and stupid, not unpatriotic or that they hate America.

If I have ever crossed that line (and I can’t think of an occasion where I have) then I do, in fact, regret it. Because in the give and take of political combat, things are often said that are not meant to respond to argument but rather to inflict pain. In this, I am as human as the next person and am not immune to being wounded by those who attack my integrity, honesty, character, and especially my writings even as I try and parry the thrusts in much the same way.

This is to be expected when dishing out as much sarcastic bile as I have poured on to this website the last 4 years. As a former leftist, I know exactly where the soft spots are, where to hit below the belt and make it hurt. Politics is a full contact sport and this kind of combat is not the “old politics” or the “new politics.” It is simply politics as it has been practiced and will continue to be practiced as long as free people are free to assemble in a free country.

I think a cracking good argument can be made that politics is much more civilized today than it was 50 or 100 years ago. Nevertheless, there is an element to political debate that is present today that was not present back then. And that is the deliberate misinterpretation of intent by the left in many conservative critiques of liberal dogma that has led us to this unhappy point in American history where any criticism levelled at a black Democratic candidate will eventually be deliberately misconceived (or stupidly misconstrued) as an attack on his race.

Allah at Hot Air has been all over the issue of the left deliberately twisting the intent and meaning of criticism of Obama to arrive at a pre-determined conclusion that the attack is racially motivated and, by extension, the attackers are racists.

Goldstein has written a book on his blog over the years in intentionalism and the deliberate rebranding and redefinition of terms and language in order to either cut off debate entirely or redefine the debate by surrendering logic and reason and buying into a false narrative created by the left that gives them the advantage. Goldstein shows how this is especially true in identity politics and how the rank dishonesty of deconstructionism has poisoned political debate.

There is little original thought I can add to either of those excellent critiques so I would like to explore this phenomena on a more personal level. Every anti-Obama post I’ve written on this site or anywhere else has elicited several comments alluding to me as a racist or implying that my criticism is racially motivated. All conservative bloggers have gotten this treatment to one degree or another so I am not alone in experiencing this. It doesn’t matter whether I am serious in my criticism or not. The de facto conclusion reached by these commenters is that the very act of criticizing Obama and that I don’t want him to be president can only mean one thing; it is the candidate’s race that is my primary motivation for opposing him.

As I mention above, I play pretty rough with my political opponents and make no apologies for doing so. And if calling me a racist was done as a regular part of the internet mud wrestling that goes on I wouldn’t have a leg to stand on.

But the intent of branding me with the scarlet “R” of racist is not simply to inflict pain but rather to stifle and cut off debate. There is no answer I can give to the charge, no proof I can offer, no words that would prove otherwise. The charge simply hangs there, tarring me and discrediting what I write in the minds of some who, although fair minded about most things, might buy into the liberal narrative and wonder if subconsciously I am some kind of closet klansman.

Denials only give credence to the charge. Having to disavow you are a racist gives the battle to your opponent because anything you might say to defend yourself can be twisted and deliberately misconstrued as more evidence of racism. On the other hand, silence denotes assent in many people’s minds so not saying anything is as good as being forced to walk around wearing that scarlet “R” on your bodice.

This is not a question of whining about the unfairness of it all. I am pointing out a fact relevant to the debating of issues in this campaign and the relative merits of the two candidates. It is something Allah has pointed out with some heat and scathing criticism as he did in the post I linked above where David Gergen was caught making the same patently ridiculous charge about McCain’s “celebrity” ad being filled with codes and hidden meanings about Obama’s race:

In which the single dumbest, most paranoid racial charge of the campaign is recycled on national television by a former presidential advisor and current Harvard professor. I said it before but it bears repeating: If you take this logic to its conclusion, there’s literally no non-racist way to accuse a member of a minority group of having an outsized ego. Any synonym you can conjure - elitist, arrogant, “megalomaniac narcissist” (to quote Hitchens) - can all happily be dismissed as “code,” regardless of whether the subject might in fact (a) display his very own presidential seal, (b) be known to describe rural voters in terms that call to mind Cletus the slackjawed yokel on “The Simpsons,” and (c) oh, by the way, lead his very own cult with himself as godhead.

George Will makes a point I made myself last week, that the irony of all these bad-faith charges of racism is that most of the GOP’s knocks on Obama’s ego are straight out of the playbook they used against “haughty, French-looking Democrat” John Kerry. Granted, there was no “Moses” ad for Waffles, but that’s because most people hated him; Obama is adored to an absurdly iconic extent, especially vis-a-vis his actual accomplishments (in Lindsey Graham’s words, “fame without portfolio”), which is why he gets goofed on as leading people to the Promised Land whereas Kerry got the windsurfer treatment. (Although there are plenty of goofs on Obama along the same dorky windsurfer lines to be found if you look around.) The real “tell” here, though, is what Gergen offers as further evidence to support his point - that McCain, when asked about affirmative action, said he opposes quotas. A perfectly mainstream conservative position, and certainly one McCain would also hold if he was facing Hillary, but because he’s facing Obama McCain’s no longer allowed to talk about it.

Getting back to the personal, beyond the political tactic there is a psychic cost born by the target of such attacks. The towering injustice of the situation is extraordinarily frustrating. But that is the commenter’s intent - to checkmate his opponent and either provoke a wild response or have the charge go unanswered and thus win the argument.

Those who accuse all liberals of being unpatriotic or un-American perhaps have no cause to grumble when an equally malicious lie like “racist” is directed at them. But having such an epithet tossed in my direction - especially as it has been done recently - I find to be reflective of a mindset that is terrified of open debate and thus resorts to twisting semantics in order to obscure a flawed critique. They can’t argue the issues so the magic word is applied and debate instantly ceases.

As I have written since the beginning of the campaign, this tactic will be hauled out at regular intervals and used to great effect. Allah might be able to define it. Goldstein might be able to analyze and critique its psychological underpinnings and origins.

But they can’t stop it nor can they mitigate its effects. It is the major reason we can’t have an intelligent discussion about race in this campaign or at any time. And the fault, dear lefties, lies not in the stars but with you.

Several weeks ago, the McCain campaign reinvented itself by sloughing off some deadwood, replacing incompetents with pros from the Bush-Cheney team of 2004, and overall, tried to bring a sense of order out of the chaos.

McCain brought in proven winner, Steve Schmidt, to ride herd on the new outfit and tighten up message delivery which had become so scattershot that Republican politicos warned the candidate that he risked everything unless some discipline was applied to the process of organizing and promoting what the candidate was trying to accomplish.

So far, the results are very mixed. There are signs that the campaign is indeed more organized, more focused especially in developing a coherent set of issues that resonate with the voters.

But the message machine is still broken - especially when the McCain team goes on the attack.

Marc Ambinder talked to former McCain campaign confidante John Weaver who was not impressed by the campaign’s latest efforts in going after Obama:

With the release today of a McCain television ad blasting Obama for celebrity preening while gas prices rise, and a memo that accuses Obama of putting his own aggrandizement before the country, Weaver said he’s had “enough.”

The ad’s premise, he said, is “childish.”

“John’s been a celebrity ever since he was shot down,” Weaver said. “Whatever that means. And I recall Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush going overseas and all those waving American flags.”

Weaver remains in contact with senior McCain strategists and, for a while early this year, regularly talked to McCain.

The strategy of driving up Obama’s negatives “reduces McCain on the stage,” Weaver said.

“For McCain to win in such troubled times, he needs to begin telling the American people how he intends to lead us. That McCain exists. He can inspire the country to greatness.”

He added: “There is legitimate mockery of a political campaign now, and it isn’t at Obama’s. For McCain’s sake, this tomfoolery needs to stop.”

I saw the ad and wondered, wtf? What does Brittney Spears have to do with presidential politics? The ad seemed petulant, as if the candidate were complaining that it was unfair that Obama was more popular than McCain.

Childish indeed.

I’m sorry, but there’s just no other way to put it; McCain’s campaign is still foundering, sinking slowly beneath the waves as the Good Ship Obama’s wake continues to slosh over the gunnwales on its way by.

What is the number one issue on people’s minds these days? The price of fuel outstrips everything else in importance. Not only do gas prices speak to people’s fears for the future but energy dominates the voter’s own perception of their economic well being. Every single day, we should hear from the McCain campaign a single, boring, refrain; just drill, baby! The polls show overwhelming support for doing just that. Obama is on the wrong side of that divide and has in fact, led with his chin on this issue on a number of occasions begging McCain to knock his block off and score big.

Case in point, Obama now tells people to keep their tire pressure up and everything will be just fine:

There are things you can do individually, though, to save energy. Making sure your tires are properly inflated — simple thing. But we could save all the oil that they’re talking about getting off drilling — if everybody was just inflating their tires? And getting regular tune-ups? You’d actually save just as much!

Ed Morrissey tears into this simple minded sophistry with relish:

Er, no it couldn’t. The Green River oil shale formation could produce at least 800 billion barrels of oil alone, enough for over 100 years at our current rate of consumption (20 million barrels per day). Would inflating our tires eliminate every single drop of oil we use? Of course not! Nor would it save any significant amount at all. Tire inflation could improve gas mileage by about 3%, which would relate to about 600,000 barrels of oil a day at the most absurdly optimistic extrapolation.

Ed points out later that most cars made in the last 25 years don’t require a “tune-up” every 5,000 miles. Most manufacturers recommend a tune up every 100,000 miles.

But the point isn’t tune-ups and inflated tires. The point is getting more energy. And Obama and the Democrats are dead set against that. While everyone has figured out that drilling won’t completely solve the main problem of energy independence, it’s a nice stop gap measure and has the advantage of a relatively short turnaround time. It might take a decade for alternative energy sources to begin to make a dent in our oil usage. But the effects of drilling - if begun now - can be measured in months.

But we don’t hear this from the McCain camp. This should be the dominant message coming from the campaign. Instead, we get “Obama the celebrity” or “Out of touch Obama” which is a silly claim to make from a guy who can’t even operate a personal computer.

The Fix interviewed several GOP strategists who seem less than impressed with the way the campaign’s message is being delivered:

Sigh,” emailed one senior party strategist who later added: “Every Obama ad since his announcement has fit nicely into a theme, an argument. McCain ads are just catch as catch can, one wild swing at Obama after another. Their increasing bitterness reflects a campaign that is more about some sort of therapeutic frustration venting for the staff than any coherent strategy to elect McCain. It’s unprofessional to the core.”

Another high-level party operative grumbled: “It seems like they are talking to the press pack, not voters.”

That first critique may be a bit harsh but it speaks to the confusion the campaign is experiencing in trying to figure a way to dent Obama’s armor. Right now, the playing field is still wildly tilted in Obama’s favor - partially because many voters still see him as the agent of change and partly because despite some questions being raised by the media lately, Obama still enjoys overwhelming press support - so much so that while Obama’s press was outstanding on his recent trip abroad, the candidate received a dead cat bounce in the polls. The race is where it was before the trip even happened.

This may sound like good news for McCain except he doesn’t appear capable in taking advantage of it. It is Obama who is his own worst enemy and it looks like it will continue to be that way:

Obama seems to have everything going for him. A fresh face. A smooth, cadenced speaking style suited for TV. A message of change at a time when Americans historically favor change, after one party holds the White House for two terms. And after several convictions of GOP legislators.

Obama’s got tons of money. An attractive family. Energized followers. A media that’s curious about the new guy and tired of….

…the dogged old POW one. High gas prices, a poor housing market, a two-front war ongoing and a slightly sagging economy, all of which should help political challengers. Not to mention an unpopular incumbent president.

A lead’s a lead, but political strategists are puzzled.

As many analysts have been saying for months, the race is Obama’s to lose. But those analysts didn’t take into account such a feeble effort coming from the McCain campaign. McCain has to do something positive, say something about the future rather than these constant “gotcha” charges that only play into Obama’s “new politics” theme and his contention that McCain is part of the old way of doing things.

Can the ship be righted in time to catch and defeat Obama? I am guessing not. The problem is apparently partly due to McCain himself:

Sen. John McCain last week delivered one of his sharpest critiques yet of Sen. Barack Obama’s Iraq policies, carefully reading a prepared speech that accused his Democratic rival of failing the commander-in-chief test and promoting ideas that would force American troops to “retreat under fire.”

But just hours after his crisp performance, the Republican presidential candidate blurred his own message with an offhand comment to a television interviewer that Obama’s proposal for a 16-month time frame for removing combat troops from Iraq might be a “pretty good timetable.” That seemed to run counter to his attempts to cast Obama as naive on foreign policy, and it sent his aides scrambling.

And there you have the McCain campaign in a nutshell. For a former military officer, McCain appears to lack the discipline necessary to win the race.

It may come to walling McCain off from the press - fewer avails and press conferences. But whatever is done must be done quickly. Time is running out and the Obama campaign is too smart, too well funded, and too motivated to allow for the kind of weak, unfocused attacks on him that the McCain camp has tried this past fortnight.