Right Wing Nut House

“He maketh me to lie next to him in green pastures.” (HT: Fellows)

“Cult of Obama?” No such thing. Nosir. A figment of the corporate press’s imagination. A Rethuglican dirty trick. A Karl Rove plot. A Hillary Clinton smear.

Now admittedly, the alternative publication that published the above photo got it from another alternative rag (doesn’t anyone in Oregon read, like, you know, straight news?) and makes the valid and defensible point that the picture is a tongue in cheek representation of Obama, satirizing (not “irony or whatever” you ignorant twits) the feelings of those Obamaniacs who, with doe-eyed worship, gaze upon their champion as if he were more than a politician, more than a man, more than a mere mortal.

What the dilettantes don’t get is that the very act of satirizing the mushy headed fools proves that they exist, that there is a very large segment of Obama supporters who view their man as a savior of sorts. I wrote recently about the pause it should give those of us who are enamored of republican principles when examining this Obama phenomenon. There is the smell of danger to some of his rallies - out of control citizens who swoon in his presence or lose themselves in his well modulated but ultimately empty words.

Not recognizing the danger or denying that it exists has been the standard operating procedure of Obama supporters on the left for the better part of a year. Individual citizens making informed decisions is one thing. A mindless mob being manipulated by a politician is quite another.

This is not to say that Obama has dictatorial tendencies or harbors some kind of messiah complex. But mass movements are funny things and all sorts of people get thrown up into leadership positions. The temptation to thuggery can get almost irresistible.

In the meantime, we can laugh at the Obamaniacs and their obsessive love for someone who, after all, is just a politician. My guess is they will become hugely disappointed in their savior long before he or someone else would have the opportunity to create mischief in the republic.

I first saw this shocking clip over at my good friends on Maggie’s Farm who got it from MacRanger.

I am informed it’s an older video and has made the rounds a couple of times so if you’ve seen it, perhaps you might have a theory on why this hasn’t gone viral.

It is 52 seconds of the dumbest, the most frightening ideas on defense policy I’ve heard from the nominee of a major party. We’re in Dennis Kucinich territory here folks.

Here’s the transcript courtesy of one of the commenters at American Thinker (where some of this post originated):

“First, I’m the only major candidate who opposed this war from the beginning. And as president, I will end it.

Second, I will cut tens of billions of dollars in wasteful spending. I will cut investments in unproven missile defense systems. I will not weaponize space. I will slow our development of future combat systems…and I will institute an independent Defense Priorities Board to ensure that the Quadrennial Defense Review is not used to justify unnecessary spending.

Third, I will set a goal of a world without nuclear weapons. To seek that goal I will not develop new nuclear weapons…I will seek a global ban on the development of fissile material…and I will negotiate with Russia to take our ICBMs off of hair-trigger alert…and to achieve deep cuts in our nuclear arsenals.”

In 52 seconds, he rattles off what an Obama presidency would mean for our national defense; slowing down of existing programs to build new weapons, cutting “tens of billions” of dollars in “wasteful” spending, scrapping missile defense completely, and setting up an “independent defense priority review board” (you can imagine the anti-defense liberals sitting on that board) to make sure we don’t waste any money building “unnecessary” weapons.

That’s not all. Obama wishes upon a star for a “nuclear free world” and to that end, he will not allow any new designs for nukes nor will be build any new ones. He wants to talk to the Russians about re-targeting our missiles and “deep cuts” in our nuclear arsenal.

This is dangerous and stupid. Slowing down current weapons projects only makes them more expensive over the long term (but it looks good politically because of the money saved up front). He calls the anti-missile system “unproven” - and thank God for that because the only way to “prove” that it works is to shoot down an incoming missile. Recent successes have been incredible - shooting down a target traveling at Mach 7 is no simple matter. And almost every test shows improvement.

Why scrap the system now after spending tens of billions of dollars and when we are close to success? Lunacy!

In fairness to Obama, everyone knows that we could find tens of billions in savings in the defense department. The question - as it is with his idea for an “independent” Defense Priorities Board - who decides what’s “wasteful” and what is “necessary?

It’s a question that has bedeviled defense planners since the end of World War II. In the 1980’s the Democrats took the easy way out; they voted against every new weapons system that came on line during the Reagan build-up. The M-1 Abrams Tank, the B1, the B2, cruise missiles, Trident Submarine - the list is endless.

Then there’s the matter of his pledge not to design or build any “new” nuclear weapons. This may be a huge problem since nuclear warheads are not like the fine wines I’m sure Obama keeps in his cellar - you can’t just store them away and forget them. Nukes require constant maintenance and the replacement of parts and materials every few years as the plutonium follows the laws of nature and, atom by atom, begins to degrade.

Will a President Obama continue to create fissile material to replenish our existing stockpile of weapons? He doesn’t say, does he?

I shudder when I think his 1960’s style liberal friends will have a go at the defense budget. Considering the fact they don’t think we face any threats, we’ll be lucky to keep the Army band.

Then there’s his pie in the sky notion of a nuclear free world. Everyone wishes for that. Heck, I wish that the moon was made of Velveeta cheese but wishing will never make it so. And somehow, I just can’t picture him and Putin on the same page about much of anything. Obama, the charmer, the ideologue and Putin, the aggressive, canny, ruthless autocrat.

Maybe we can convince a grown up to hold his hand during those negotiations.

In effect, Obama wants to gut the military to make sure we never go to war again. He has said as much on the campaign trail. And if a time ever comes, God forbid, where we would find it necessary to project our power to the far flung corners of the earth in order to protect Americans or American interests under an Obama presidency, I fear the military would be forced to tell him that it wouldn’t be possible.

Obama is McGovern, Carter, and John Kerry all rolled into one when it comes to maintaining and improving our defenses. He would be a disaster as president and this video shows very clearly why.

The Party of Lincoln has officially become The Whitebread and Cracker Party. According to Politico, there are no African American Republican candidates given a serious chance of winning in the House, the Senate, or a governorship:

At the start of the Bush years, the Republican National Committee — in tandem with the White House — vowed to usher in a new era of GOP minority outreach. As George W. Bush winds down his presidency, Republicans are now on the verge of going six — and probably more — years without an African-American governor, senator or House member.

That’s the longest such streak since the 1980s.

Republicans will have only one minority governor, Bobby Jindal of Louisiana, an Indian-American, when the dust settles on the ’08 elections. Democrats have three minority governors and 43 African-American members of Congress, including one — Illinois Sen. Barack Obama — who is their likely presidential nominee. Democrats also have several challengers in winnable House races who are either black or Hispanic.

Despite having a Spanish-speaking “compassionate conservative” in the White House, Republicans’ diversity deficit seems to have only widened.

“In 1994, when I first ran, we had 14 African-American Republicans running for Congress. … I was the only one that won that year, but we had 14, and we had some good candidates,” said former Oklahoma Rep. J.C. Watts, one of the party’s most recognized African-American voices. “I am grateful for what Ken Mehlman did when he was RNC chairman, but I knew that wouldn’t last — that was one person. I’ve never gotten the impression that it was institutionalized.”

Mehlman worked tirelessly in his outreach programs to try and build bridges to the African American, Hispanic, and Asian communities. But J.C. Watts - a man much to good for the Republican party and for politics in general - hits the nail on the head when he talks about institutionalizing that kind of outreach. The GOP never followed up or tried very hard to maintain those bridges so it’s perhaps no surprise that they would have totally collapsed due to a combination of factors but mostly just a lack of effort.

There were high hopes when the Mehlman project began:

Bush’s share of the black vote went from 8 percent to 11 percent between 2000 and 2004, according to exit polls. Despite the small increase, Bush doubled his share of the black vote in Ohio and Florida.

“There are some obvious signs that we are on the verge of a breakthrough when you look at what we have to do to be successful,” said Michael Williams, a black Republican elected to the Texas Railroad Commission, a statewide energy board. “If we can just move to 20 or 25 percent of the African American vote, that is a cataclysmic change in vote count.”

Seeking to build on successes in Ohio and Florida, Mehlman has intensified the recruitment of black candidates for statewide and national offices. The Rev. Keith Butler announced his candidacy against Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.). Michael S. Steele, Maryland’s lieutenant governor, is widely expected to run for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by Paul S. Sarbanes (D), and former Pittsburgh Steelers star Lynn Swann (R) is considering running for governor of Pennsylvania.

That was three years ago. In the interim, Karl Rove decided that white evangelicals were the key to GOP victory and worked on getting anti-gay marriage referendums on state ballots in 2006 believing, as was the case in 2004, that such measures would energize the religious right and send them to the polls in droves.

Unfortunately for Rove and the GOP, things didn’t quite work out the way they hoped. The anti-gay marriage referendums passed handily but rather than voting for Republicans, those opposed to gay marriage were just as likely to vote for the Democrat, leading to the loss of 30 seats in the House. Mehlman’s hard work went for naught as the Democrats picked up 90% of the black vote and 70% of the Hispanic vote.

No serious effort has been made by any nationally organized Republican group to reach out to African Americans since then. Indeed, the GOP candidates for president hurled an insult to the NAACP when they refused to show up at a debate sponsored by the organization. True, the candidates would have been entering hostile territory and the questions were liable to have been pretty testy. But at the time, it smacked of cowardice to me as it does today.

The GOP has much to answer for as far as African Americans since the 1960’s. Long gone are the days when a coalition of northern Democrats and Republicans passed landmark civil rights legislation. Since then, Republicans have sought to use race as a wedge issue in the south, effectively polarizing the electorate so as to maximize the white vote. And there have been some disgraceful attempts over the years to try and tamp down the African American turnout in some parts of the country.

But beyond that, it is my opinion that the GOP’s candidate recruitment efforts suck and their efforts with regard to recruiting minorities to run for office is, if possible, worse. Indeed, we are seeing a repeat of 2006 as far as the relative abilities of the two parties to recruit candidates of all races. In most competitive races, the Democrats have been able to field strong House candidates with district-wide name recognition who are well funded and well organized. The GOP, not so much. Admittedly, it is a tough sell trying to get a popular state senator or state official to run on the GOP label in what promises to be a Democratic year. It must be even harder to convince a black candidate to run when the likely Democratic nominee is himself an African American.

There’s another reason why blacks aren’t running as Republicans and you won’t find it mentioned on any lefty blog. The hostility shown by Democrats toward black GOP candidates is nauseating and certainly plays a role in their refusal to stick their necks out. Michael Steele had Oreos thrown at him. Black GOP candidates are openly called “Uncle Toms” and race traitors. Even if they win, they face the same fate that befell J.C. Watts; being kept out of the Congressional Black Caucus and ostracized by those of your own race.

So perhaps it’s not surprising that there are no serious candidates of color running for any GOP House, Senate, or Governor’s seat. But if the party ever wants to achieve majority status anytime soon, it is not going to be done by appealing solely to male white, middle aged, church loving gun owners. A way must be found to broaden the GOP coalition to include more women, more blacks, more Hispanics, and turn a rather monochromatic party into something more like a rainbow.

Otherwise, get comfortable on those back benches boys. Might want to buy a pillow and set a spell because it will be a long time in the political wilderness for the GOP otherwise.

75,000 at Obama Rally in Portland Yesterday

What could possibly be wrong with 75,000 people attending a political rally?

Admittedly, not much on the surface. And perhaps if the times weren’t so perilous and the candidate who was the beneficiary of that huge crowd wasn’t so problematic, we could really celebrate such an outpouring of support, free from the nagging doubts that plague many of us about Barack Obama and his past associations and present ideological beliefs.

Except my republican soul (note the small “r”) is a little frightened at this mob scene. Politicians should be plebeian in their appeal - being one of us and not standing above us, Caesar-like in their beguilement of the masses. Truman and Eisenhower were plebes; modest in their habits and with no illusions regarding their own failings. There is something to be said for such solid republican values in a presidential candidate and when someone such as a Kennedy or Obama rises above the masses, presenting themselves as perhaps something more than a servant of the people, we are bound to look in askance at such a phenomenon.

Joseph Kennedy told his family at the beginning of JFK’s campaign that they were going to sell the candidate “like soap flakes.” Papa Joe wasn’t just talking about advertising. He was revealing a strategy that for the first time joined the talents of Madison Avenue with the power of Hollywood celebrity to create powerful, irresistible imagery that would elevate Kennedy to hero status and place him on a different plane altogether than any other politician in the country.

It worked beyond expectations. The Kennedy image makers took a sickly, rather bookish 42 year old manchild known for his excesses of the flesh and turned him into a vigorous, glamorous, serious man with a patrician’s attitude of noblesse oblige and a “star quality” unique for its time among politicians.

Of course, this image making worked out quite well until Kennedy was forced to confront Kruschev in Vienna where the peasant -a survivor of a brutal war and numerous murderous purges under Stalin - took the measure of the patrician and found it wanting. The Russian was so certain of his moral ascendancy over Kennedy that he browbeat the younger man, drawing Kennedy into a debate over the superiority of communism over capitalism where the American’s stammering answers to Kruschev’s harangue convinced the Russian that if he placed missiles in Cuba, Kennedy would do nothing in response.

Kennedy spent a considerable amount of time in Hollywood when he was younger and became fascinated with the science of celebrity. What makes one person a movie star and another an extra? As far as JFK could see it wasn’t looks - many extras floating around at Hollywood parties that he and his brothers frequented were as good or better looking than the movie stars of the age. Kennedy decided it was the star’s ability to “project” personality on to the movie screen. He believed that by surrounding himself with movie stars like Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis, Marylin Monroe, and his brother in law Peter Lawford, he would unlock their secrets and, like a magic talisman, their celebrity would rub off on him.

Obama needs no such lessons in how to be a celebrity. He has learned along the way to project his personality (or the personality he chooses to affect) on to an audience, drawing them in to his arms as a mother draws her children. He uses rhetoric to both soothe and ignite his audience. His words are passionate but the candidate himself remains “cool;” a nice trick that makes him extremely accessible to those listening to him. Where most politicians try and instruct the listener, Obama asks questions that the audience already knows the answers. And that answer is him.

Perhaps that is what gives me the most unease when I listen to Obama. It is not the power of the party or his ideas that he attempts to win his audience to; it is a very personal power to which he seeks to wed his fans to his campaign. The solution to our problems, he tells us, is belief; a belief that he can change the country, that he can heal our wounds, restore our soul, and make our cup runneth over.

Any other politician trying this would fall flat on their face and we’d either laugh at them or identify them immediately for the demagogues they are. But because he never fails to include his “empowerment” mantra with his “belief” shtick, one gets the feeling that by joining his campaign, you are entering a privileged society of believers. I don’t want to call it a religion because it is not. But the atmosphere at many of his speeches certainly approaches that of a revival meeting where one’s belief in the preacher will lead them to paradise.

Reading what many Obama supporters say about it their candidate, it is easy to see that they view him as the classic knight on a white charger where he and only he can rescue us from our own folly. Given all that we don’t know about this man, does that make him dangerous? Perhaps no more so than any other candidate. No one saw Nixon as the white horse type and look what he turned out to be.

But dangerous he is - for his beliefs, not for his personality or the character of this mass movement he has inspired. So when I see 75,000 people screaming his name with the kind of abandon reserved for rock stars or religious figures, I worry more that the candidate won’t be able to live up to the lofty expectations he has engendered in his legions than he would use such a movement for nefarious purposes.

And given his incredible lack of experience and zero track record in getting anything done, I would guess that if he is elected he would generate more disappointment among his followers than any other president in memory.

Just what office is Barack Obama running for? Commander in Chief? Or perhaps Keeper of the Constant Whine? Or maybe Lord High Commissioner of the Bitch?

To Obama, it’s always something. Bush challenges his foreign policy positions and he whines about a “political attack” rather than responding.” McCain rightly points out that Obama has absolutely zero foreign policy experience (except that advanced course in foreign relations he took when he was 8 years old and living in Indonesia - or whatever Obama’s claim to superior experience is this week) and the candidate weeps like an 11 year old girl, complaining about McCain using the “old politics” to diss him.

Now Obama is whining about not being able to win in Kentucky on Tuesday. First, he blames Fox News (?). Then he fingers an email campaign in the state against him. Finally, he lamely explains that he just doesn’t have the time to sit down face to face with the good folks from Kentucky and work his magic spell on them:

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, facing a likely defeat in next Tuesday’s primary election, won’t travel to Kentucky before the voting, but said he hopes to have much more time to win over Kentucky voters before the November general election.

He also blamed Fox News for disseminating “rumors” about him and said that that and e-mails filled with misinformation that have been “systematically” dispersed have hurt him in Kentucky.

“When we’re able to campaign in a place like Iowa for several months and I can visit and talk to people individually, I do very well. That’s harder to do at this stage in the campaign,” Obama said in a brief telephone interview Friday. “And once we get past the primary, we’ll able to focus more on those states where we need to make sure people know my track record.”

In contrast, Obama’s rival, Sen. Hillary Clinton, will make five stops in Kentucky over the weekend, including appearances at two university campuses.

Obama spoke to more than 8,000 supporters in Louisville Monday night — his first time in the state since August. He said he had hoped to spend more time in Kentucky earlier this week but was called back to Washington, D.C. for votes on Tuesday.

He even whines about having to serve the people of Illinois while he’s campaigning for president. The fact that he’s missed 40% of senate votes since the beginning of 2007 (McCain has missed 58%) sort of makes his excuse about not being able to spend more time in Kentucky because he had to rush back to Washington and vote ring a little hollow.

But it is his carping and whining about Fox news doing him in as far as Kentucky is concerned that really takes the cake. It couldn’t be that you are hugely unpopular in the state now, could it senator? And yeah, go ahead and play the race card - we fully expect it by now and look forward to you wearing it out in the general election - but the fact is senator it’s not so much that there aren’t racists in Kentucky; there are. It’s just that there are hundreds of thousands of more people who think you are too inexperienced, too liberal, too much of an elitist, and too dangerously naive to vote for you.

The truth hurts, Barry. You can get your minions in the press to write articles between now and the election about the reason you lose so spectacularly is because the good folks in states like Indiana, West Virginia, and Kentucky all keep white robes and hoods hidden in their closets and really can’t stomach the idea of a black man becoming president. That kind of analysis is about as deep as your thinking on foreign policy - which judging by the thugs in the world who look forward to your election victory is not only incredibly shallow but reflects a dangerous self-denial on your part as to just what the endorsement from groups like Hamas really means.

In your arrogance, you tar those who find your positions on the issues wanting with the label of racist. There is no legitimate reason to oppose you, in your opinion. Only racists, fear peddlers, rumor mongerers, and other low life scum refuse to vote for you.

But hey! Once people get to know you, they love you. You will melt the opposition in their hearts by the magical healing powers of your silky smooth, mellifluous voice. You will over come the hardness of their opposition by the sheer goodness of your bi-racial soul.

Phooey!

The more I see and hear Barack Obama, the less I think of him as a man and as a candidate. He hides behind his race as if it was his momma’s skirts. Nothing is ever his fault or the fault of the positions he has taken on issues vital to the safety and security of the United States. It’s either people who don’t vote for him are racists or war mongering fascist neocons who refuse to get with his new program of not being so beastly to our enemies. He is thin skinned, quick to anger, overly sensitive, and a whining, sniveling child who can’t take criticism like a man and respond as an adult.

The more he whines the more the press bends over backwards to cover for him. He makes a statement about there being 57 states and gets a pass. McCain confuses Shias and Sunnis and he’s a senile old man. He calls a reporter “sweetie” and his apology is accepted - end of story. McCain apologizes for anything and it’s never enough.

I hate the idea of having to defend McCain but the fact is, the press coverage of the 2008 campaign is even more lopsided than it was in 2004 - something I thought could never be topped. And as long as Obama cries crocodile tears whining Foul! every time he is criticized, the press will continue to back his outrageous claims of “unfairness” and dirty politics.

I don’t buy the argument circulating on righty blogs that because Bush didn’t specifically name anyone in his “appeasement” remarks before the Israeli Knesset he was not really talking about Obama, or Democrats. It’s pretty disingenuous not to acknowledge who exactly Bush had in mind when making the comment. Indeed, the American people know full well who Bush was referring to because they believe the same thing about Democrats and Obama - that they are hopelessly naive when it comes to the true nature of our enemies and that Obama’s careless remarks about meeting with those nations who harbor us ill will without preconditions smacks of nothing less than a Chamberlainesque eagerness to engage in diplomacy simply for diplomacy’s sake.

The fact that everyone knows who Bush was referring to and the fact that the substance contained in the remark reflects the widely held belief of a very large percentage of voters should have given Obama an opening to retract the remark and share his thoughts on engaging Iran, Syria, and other terrorist supporting nations in a useful dialogue.

Instead, Obama and the Democrats hit the ceiling, calling Bush every name in the book and whining about their hurt feelings. Their reaction reminded me of a line from the movie All The Presidents Men where the Washington Post has published an article accusing the White House of wrongdoing and the reaction to that article from the Nixonites. Ben Bradleee observes “They doubt our ancestry, but they don’t say the story isn’t accurate.”

Obama called Bush’s words “an appalling attack,” “dishonest,” divisive, “fear-peddling,” fear-mongering,” but for some reason, never got around to responding to the substance of Bush’s charge; that Obama and the Democrats cannot be trusted with running American foreign policy because their outlook on the world is is based on false assumptions about, our friends, our allies, our role in the world, and most of all our deadly enemies.

Bush actually did Obama a favor. He gave him a golden opportunity to lay out his “realistic” ideas on American foreign policy so that it would get the widest possible hearing. The problem, as Obama and the Democrats well know, is one of perception - a perception they try their best to finesse rather than tackling head on. It’s not about talking tough and making threats. It is about calling our enemies, well, enemies . They could try that for starters.

And it doesn’t help when Obama gives an interview to David Brooks of the New York Times and talks about satisfying the “legitimate grievances” of Hamas and Hizbullah as if giving one inch to those terrorists wouldn’t put our “friends” (another word the Democrats have a hard time annunciating) in Israel and Lebanon in danger. To even recognize those terrorists have anything “legitimate” in the way of an agenda is as close to appeasement as you can get without going over the line.

After all, that was Chamberlain’s problem. He believed (like Seattle Times editor Bruce Ramsey) that all Hitler wanted was to unite the “German speaking people of Europe” under one flag. The problem, of course, is that those pockets of German speakers lay outside of Germany’s borders - in fact, had always been separate from Germany - and therefore made Hitler’s claim on the Sudetenland and Danzig illegitimate if Chamberlain had bothered to check.

Actually, it wouldn’t have made any difference. Chamberlain was bound and determined to give Hitler everything he wanted in what has to be considered the most spectacular misjudgement in the history of diplomacy. The British Prime Minister believed there was a limit to Hitler’s appetite for conquest. Too late, he realized the truth.

As far as Obama, he seems to have an enemy identification problem - as do most Democrats. They reserve their harshest criticism for their own president while taking it relatively easy on the beasts and thugs who should come in for the bulk of their disapprobation. Do they have a clue how warm and fuzzy that makes people like Hugo Chavez or Mahmoud Ahmadinejad feel? With their over the top, exaggerated, bitter attacks on Bush’s policies and Bush the man, (deserving of plenty of criticism but not the personal hatred thrown his way by so many in the Democratic party), the Democrats play directly into the hands of our enemies.

Do they think the American people haven’t figured this out already? Evidently no. So instead of responding to Bush like adults, Obama and the Democrats whine about how Bush hurt their feelings by calling them “appeasers” which he didn’t but for the sake of Democrat’s high blood pressure, we’ll grant them that small point.

And the obedient servants of Obama and the Democrats in the media are beside themselves with joy. Here is a Democrat who “hits back.” Here is a Democrat who won’t take these “smears” lying down. The media is so pleased at Obama’s tantrum that they can barely contain their glee.

But while they are hugging themselves perhaps they should ask why the candidate couldn’t have hit back and rebutted the charges made by President Bush? Substantively, the charge is still out there, hanging over the campaign and the Democratic party. And until someone, somewhere in the party starts talking about defending America’s vital interests in a way that doesn’t sound like we would sacrifice some of them on the altar of being well thought of by the rest of the world, Obama and the Democrats will continue to have their national security bona fides called into question.

In golf, if you step up to the tee and proceed to hit the ball out of bounds, there is a fine tradition on public link courses that you are allowed a do-over, or “Mulligan” so that you can try to hit the ball a little straighter and not be penalized for your wayward swing.

There’s no such thing in politics, of course…that is, unless you happen to be an inexperienced liberal Democrat campaigning for president who is vouchsafed such luxuries as getting to “clarify” a monumentally stupid statement that demonstrated a dangerous cluelessness about a vital part of the world.

Barack Obama’s statement on the crisis in Lebanon fell as flat as 3 week old champagne in Israel and Lebanon, and probably other places where reformers are seeking to overturn the established order in the Middle East and bring more freedom to the people there. It’s bald faced ignorance about Hizbullah, about the Lebanese people, and what has been going on for more than 2 years in the streets in that tragic country underscores a dangerous naivete on the part of the candidate as well as a shocking lack of perspective on the true nature of groups like Hizbullah and Hamas.

In an eye-brow raising interview with the New York Times David Brooks, Obama was offered a chance to amend his mealy mouthed, pusillanimous statement on Lebanon made over the weekend and substitute instead thoughts that might connect to some semblance of reality regarding Hizbullah and their threat to whatever is left of democracy in Lebanon:

First, Obama’s initial swing that duck hooked clean out of bounds for a 2 stroke penalty:

He called on “all those who have influence with Hezbollah” to “press them to stand down.” Then he declared, “It’s time to engage in diplomatic efforts to help build a new Lebanese consensus that focuses on electoral reform, an end to the current corrupt patronage system, and the development of the economy that provides for a fair distribution of services, opportunities and employment.”

I took the candidate to task for his naive belief that “those who have influence with Hizbullah” care one whit what happens to Lebanese society and in fact, were encouraging Hizbullah in their violent efforts to undermine the legitimacy and authority of the elected government.

As for a “diplomatic consensus” on electoral reform I would say to Obama where the hell have you been for 3 fricking years? The Lebanese along with the Saudis, the Syrians, and the Arab League have all been engaged in efforts to reform Lebanon’s archaic electoral laws.

As for the patronage system, have him clean up his homestate’s corruption before he goes over the Lebanon and starts telling them about “corrupt patronage.” Mayor Daley and Governor Blagovetich make the Lebanese look like pikers in that regard.

And what’s with this “New Deal” economic program for Lebanon? He can’t be that dense, can he? When George Bush took office, aid to Lebanon amounted to around $35 million. This year, in keeping with our pledges made at the Paris Roundtable on aid to Lebanon, the President is asking Congress for $770 million which would make Lebanon the third largest recipient of US aid per capita. This is an amount that Iran can’t come close to matching. Clearly, Lebanon has become one of the most important Middle Eastern countries to American interests.

The Roundtable countries pledged upwards of $7 billion to rebuild Lebanese infrastructure pulverized by Israel during the war with Hizbullah. But that aid can’t start flowing until Lebanon has a new government. And Lebanon won’t have a new government until they elect a president. And they won’t elect a president until a new electoral law is passed. And they won’t have a new electoral law until Hizbullah folds up its tents in downtown Beirut and stops threatening to topple the government of Prime Minister Fouad Siniora, joining their fellow countrymen in a national dialogue. And that won’t happen until there is a new government…

And around and around we go with Obama’s laughable ignorance exposed for all to see. He wants to treat Lebanon the same way he would go about reforming a corrupt ward in Chicago. For obvious reasons, this did not sit well with any Lebanese blogger or pundit I have read since he released that statement.

A sample from AK:

Oh the time we wasted by fighting Hizbullah all those years with rockets, invasions of their homes and shutting down their media outlets. If only we had engaged them and their masters in diplomacy, instead of just sitting with them around discussion tables, welcoming them into our parliament, and letting them veto cabinet decisions. If only Obama had shared his wisdom with us before, back when he was rallying with some of our former friends at pro-Palestinian rallies in Chicago. How stupid we were when, instead of developing national consensus with them, we organized media campaigns against Israel on behalf of the impoverished people who voted for them.

Given this reaction, one would think that given the opportunity to play a Mulligan, the candidate would try and make things right.

Guess again:

Right off the bat he reaffirmed that Hezbollah is “not a legitimate political party.” Instead, “It’s a destabilizing organization by any common-sense standard. This wouldn’t happen without the support of Iran and Syria.”

I asked him what he meant with all this emphasis on electoral and patronage reform. He said the U.S. should help the Lebanese government deliver better services to the Shiites “to peel support away from Hezbollah” and encourage the local populace to “view them as an oppressive force.” The U.S. should “find a mechanism whereby the disaffected have an effective outlet for their grievances, which assures them they are getting social services.”

The U.S. needs a foreign policy that “looks at the root causes of problems and dangers.” Obama compared Hezbollah to Hamas. Both need to be compelled to understand that “they’re going down a blind alley with violence that weakens their legitimate claims.” He knows these movements aren’t going away anytime soon (“Those missiles aren’t going to dissolve”), but “if they decide to shift, we’re going to recognize that. That’s an evolution that should be recognized.”

Obama didn’t only hit his Mulligan out of bounds - the ball made a beeline for the clubhouse and hit the President of the Country Club right in the middle of the forehead.

And while the President of the Golf Club can ban Obama for life, we voters aren’t so lucky. We must deal with this head in the clouds, pie in the sky, completely unrealistic and dangerously naive candidate for the rest of the campaign. All we can do is point out his shocking idiocies and hope that the American people see the danger too.

To take his statement apart, he doesn’t think Hizbullah is a “legitimate” political party. This would come as news to the 24 Hizbullah deputies seated in Parliament and the millions of ordinary Lebanese belonging to what an American presidential candidate has just told them is an illegitimate political entity.

Maybe Obama sees them sort of like Republicans in Chicago’s city hall.

But the real head scratchers in Obamas’s statement have to do with his idea of how government should work in Lebanon. He thinks the Lebanese government should deliver “better services” to the Shia - actually believing that bringing national health care or maybe food stamps to the south will “peel away” ordinary Shias and cement their loyalty to the government. He also thinks we should make the Shias see Hizbullah as an “oppressive force.”

Brooks thinks Obama has been well briefed on Lebanon - that’s a pile of crap. First of all, the writ of Lebanese law does not run in the south - no services, no government officials, just Hizbullah. Perhaps Obama never heard the expression relating to Hizbullah “a state within a state.” How, pray tell, is Obama going to get government services to a people when the terror bosses of Hizbullah control access to the population? How is he going to “peel away” Shias while showing Hizbullah to be “oppressive?”

Of all the platitudinous nonsense ever uttered by Obama, this comes close to taking the cake.

Well, until he said “The U.S. should “find a mechanism whereby the disaffected have an effective outlet for their grievances, which assures them they are getting social services.”

Wha? Who? WTF? The Shias already have an a very fine mechanism that is “an effective outlet” for their grievances. It’s called Hizbullah. And make no mistake, being funded to the tune of $300 million a year by Iran allows the party to set up an entire social welfare infrastructure that addresses the basic needs of the Shia in a way that the Lebanese government never did. Sorry, Barry but if you would return to earth with the rest of us mortals, you would realize your half assed opinions about the situation in Lebanon can only do damage to the very people we are seeking to help.

It only gets more bizarrely stupid the more he opens his mouth. No liberal panacea for what ails Lebanon would be complete without the “root causes” meme - as in, “Gee, if only the terrorists grew up with good food, shelter, heath care, and a 37′ Sony Trinitron, their hearts would melt and the world would be a fine place, indeed.” He believes both Hamas and Hizbullah “need to understand” that they are going down a “blind alley” with violence that “weakens their legitimate (gulp!) claims.”

Can Obama pick and choose which “legitimate claim” Hamas might want to pursue? Maybe they don’t want peace. Maybe they view their #1 legitimate claim to be the destruction of the Jewish state and death to every jew they can lay their hands on. How now, Barry? Will you help Hamas pursue that legitimate claim?

Hizbullah is a slightly different story but only because you can vaguely place their “legitimate claims” in the context of standing up for the Shia underclass - something that this past week’s violence revealed as a sham as Michael Young put so brilliantly in this piece. Basically, Young believes that Hizbullah’s attempted power grab this past week opened a schism between the Shias and the rest of Lebanese society that has made them more isolated than they were.

To even speak of “legitimacy” of claims by Hamas or Hizbullah is outrageously naive. Obama keeps insisting he has a “realistic” outlook on our enemies. And while he makes some of the right noises about Iran and Syria, he more often comes up with ludicrous statements like this that call into question his fitness for the presidency.

Lebanon is not some senate district in Chicago where someone can jump in and butt some heads together, shower a little money, and talk of about economic development as if it were just a question of opening a spigot somewhere and out would pour goodwill and prosperity.

Our friends in Lebanon are very worried about this man becoming president. They fear he will sell them down the river in order to get a peace deal with Iran or broker a Middle East peace with Syria and Israel. The temptation will be great to do so no matter who is president - McCain or Obama - to give in to Syria’s demands on Lebanon and leave the Lebanese people to the tender mercy of Hizbullah and Gangster Assad’s henchmen.

So far, it doesn’t appear to me that Obama has grasped the essential truth of what is at stake in Lebanon and may not see much wrong with abandoning the tiny country to its own, tragic fate.

And in the game of nations, no Mulligans are allowed.

My latest column at Pajamas Media is up and I am getting socked around by everyone for my less than hateful portrayal of Hillary Clinton’s motives for staying in the race:

A sample:

For all the talk of “glass ceilings” and “old boys networks” — and there are still significant barriers to professional women who seek power and influence in the political and corporate world — Hillary Clinton’s candidacy has shattered a few of those ceilings as she has elbowed her way into the oldest and most male of all networks: serious consideration for the most powerful office on the planet.

This is not a quest for the nomination as much as it is the road to a validation of her place in history. One can hardly fault her for trying to keep faith with the millions who see her as a living icon and a harbinger of things to come. For that reason, she may decide to stay in the race until the last primary has been held so that every woman who believes in her and, more importantly, what she represents, can be heard.

I have heard from conservative women that they feel exactly the same way so maybe I am channeling my feminine side today. Or maybe I see Clinton as a historical figure rather than the rapacious, power hungry harridan that many rightly claim also dominates her personae.

People are three dimensional - they are not cartoons. To find absolutely good or evil people is extremely rare. Reagan was not a good father and could be distant with people - even his wife. FDR was a philanderer and wished to transform America into something approaching communism. To accept the good and bad in people is to recognize that they are human beings - imperfect, prone to mistakes, and not always living up (or living down) to our expectations.

I see Hillary as a historical figure standing astride two eras in American history. Her campaign will open the door to other women running for president so that the next time, the fact that a candidate is a woman will hardly be noticed. This is incredible for someone my age who grew up with June Cleaver as the model mother - a model I saw in my mother and the mothers of all my friends at that age. To travel from there to here in my lifetime is a journey that demands its own story, its own narrative. And Hillary Clinton is supplying that story.

In another decade, it will be commonplace for women to be running Fortune 500 companies, starting their share of new businesses, and running for president. This will not take place because of Hillary Clinton. But her campaign is a very significant milestone along the road we have travelled to give women the respect and dignity - and the power - that men demand for themselves.

This is one of the most remarkable things I’ve ever seen in a political poll. It beats the 90% approval rating of Bush after 9/11 and even surpasses the 60+% support Clinton enjoyed even after it was revealed he is a snivelling liar.

No less than 82% of the American people think the country is on the wrong track.

Public disgruntlement neared a record high and President Bush slipped to his career low in the latest ABC News/Washington Post poll.

Eighty-two percent of Americans now say the country’s seriously off on the wrong track, up 10 points in the last year to a point from its record high in polls since 1973. And 31 percent approve of Bush’s job performance overall, while 66 percent disapprove.

The country’s mood — and the president’s ratings — are suffering from the double whammy of an unpopular war and a faltering economy. Consistently for the last year, nearly two-thirds of Americans have said the war in Iraq was not worth fighting. And consumer confidence is near its lowest in weekly ABC News polls since late 1985.

Bush’s approval rating has been extraordinarily stable — before today’s 31 percent it had been 32 percent or 33 percent in nine ABC/Post polls from July through last month. In presidential approval polls by Gallup since 1934, just three presidents have gone lower: Jimmy Carter, who bottomed out at 28 percent approval in July 1979; Richard Nixon, 24 percent in July and August 1974; and Harry Truman, 22 percent in February 1952.

Don’t talk to me about the poll’s internals or bias. Are you paying attention? 82% of your fellow countrymen think that America is a sucky place to live right now.

Holy Jesus! You can’t get 82% of Americans to agree about anything. I’ll bet less than 82% of Americans like chocolate ice cream. I would wager that less than 82% of Americans like McDonalds hamburgers. And I’d bet the farm that less than 82% of Americans like old re-runs of The Carol Burnett Show even though I believe you have to be brain dead not to recognize its brilliance.

About the only thing that 82% of Americans might agree on is that they like sex. I asked Sue if she thought that was true:

ME: Hon, do you think more than 82% of Americans like sex?

SUE: (Glaring at me) What is this, a trick question?

ME: No dear, it’s just that 82% of Americans think we’re on the wrong track in this country and I was trying to think of something else 82% of Americans would agree on.

SUE:

ME: Well?

SUE: Are you talking about like, sex in general or like sex with a specific individual?

ME: Um…do I want to know the answer to that?

SUE: (Eyes Gleaming) If you got 3 minutes, I’ll tell ya…

Ouch.

Think about it for a second. There were certainly less than 82% of colonists who supported the idea of independence. And there were quite a bit fewer than 82% of citizens who thought the Constitution was a great idea. Hell, I doubt whether 82% of early Americans agreed on whether pissing in chamber pots was a good idea.

And what of George Bush’s approval ratings? It’s not that only 31% think he’s doing a swell job that concerns me. It’s the fact that 31% of my fellow countrymen think that George Bush is doing a good job and could tell a pollster that with a straight face. (As many as all that? They can’t all be watching Fox News, can they? If they did, Fox would be outperforming American Idol in the Nielsons.)

I wonder if pollsters are taking into account the “Comedian Factor” - people who get asked whether Bush is doing a good job and think the question is a joke, replying in-kind.

POLLSTER: One last question sir…Do you approve or disapprove of the way President Bush is doing his job?

VOTER: (Snickering) Oh yeah, uh-huh…um, right. Great job, Georgie - keep up the good work (breaks into peals of laughter).

POLLSTER: Oooookay…I’ll take that as a yes.

There is so much bad news for Republicans in this poll, if I were McCain I would demand to be listed on the ballot with an “M” after my name (”Maverick”) rather than an “R” which by election time people are going to think stands for “Rat.” If I were a GOP Congressman or Senator up for re-election, I just might change my party affiliation to “Wiccan.”

At least then I’d get some of the pagan vote.

All is not yet lost, however. A photo may emerge depicting Obama in some kind of a compromising situation - like saluting the flag or putting his hand over his heart while singing the national anthem. No doubt legions of lefties would drop him like yesterday’s edition of The Daily Worker thus handing the election to…Bob Barr who would then legalize marijuana and America would go on a four year stoner holiday.

The way to look at this kind of outrageously bad news if you’re a Republican and/or conservative (the two are not mutually exclusive) is either find it amusing or tragic. Once Obama is elected and the Democrats are firmly ensconced in Washington, we will have plenty of time for tragedy. For now, let us laugh at the fools, the charlatans, the incompetent boobs, the crooks, the pederasts, the scumball, grasping, conniving, two timing, philistines who have brought us to this historic level of shame.

UPDATE: THE HITS JUST KEEP ON COMIN’

Did I include “inept” in my list above? I knew I was forgetting something…

Malkin:

Conservatives have spent the entire campaign season eviscerating Democrat candidates who’ve tattooed themselves with the empty “change” slogan. So what do the brain-dead strategists and p.r. market wizards of the GOP go and do?

Wrap themselves in “change.”

What about self-preservation? What about sovereignty? What about consistent adherence to constitutional principles?

Nope. We get more insipid “change.”

The crack research staff at GOP HQ somehow missed that “Change You Deserve” is the marketing slogan for Effexor, an anti-depressant.

Brilliant.

The GOP lemmings deserve everything they’re going to get in November.

My latest at Pajamas Media is up and let me tell you, it was a labor of love - or a labor anyway.

I had the piece finished around 10:00 PM when Hillary was comfortably ahead by 40,000 votes. Then came the incredible - and ominous - news that the precincts in Lake County, including the city of Gary which is 85% African American, had not reported much of their total. When the mayor of Gary said that the results might be a “shocker,” one began to wonder how close the crooks in Chicago’s neighboring metropolis and kindred machine could actually make the race.

I began a major re-write (still with Hillary the victor) and finished just a few minutes after Fox finally called the race shortly after midnight.

Here’s a sample:

The optimism exhibited the last few days by the Clinton campaign that they were finally making progress in convincing Democrats that she would be the better candidate to face John McCain in the fall came a cropper in Indiana. It vanished in the middle of the night when a comfortable lead disappeared amidst hints of ballot shenanigans in one of the most crooked cities in the United States: Gary, Indiana.

Chicago has nothing on its close neighbor Gary when it comes to playing fast and loose with the electoral process. In 1967, the white city machine was in a panic because African American candidate Richard Hatcher appeared headed for victory. Like any crooked machine, they resorted to the time tested methods of vote fraud, ballot box stuffing, purging voter lists, and ghost voter registrants. Hatcher called in the Feds and the courts and got the process cleansed just in time for him to sweep to victory.

In the end, it really didn’t matter if Gary tried to rig the vote for Obama. By not winning comfortably in a state she was expected to do very well, Hillary Clinton’s campaign suffered the ultimate defeat: she failed to meet expectations.

As you know by now, Hillary cancelled her morning show appearances. Originally, the campaign also cancelled all her appearances for the day but apparently were taken aback by the almost universal interpretation of that action as the end of the road so they added an event at noon today in West Virginia.

But really, how can she go on? The Democrats seem bound and determined to nominate a Jimmy Carter - worse, a Jimmy Carter with baggage. But in this, the worst potential election year for Republicans since 1974, it might be enough anyway.

It’s no accident that the GOP has been losing these special elections in previously safe Republican districts. The party’s message is uncoordinated and mushy, there is trouble raising money, and the caucus is hopelessly divided on what to do to fix it:

Shellshocked House Republicans got warnings from leaders past and present Tuesday: Your party’s message isn’t good enough to prevent disaster in November, and neither is the NRCC’s money.

The double shot of bad news had one veteran Republican House member worrying aloud that the party’s electoral woes — brought into sharp focus by Woody Jenkins’ loss to Don Cazayoux in Louisiana on Saturday — have the House Republican Conference splitting apart in “everybody for himself” mode.

“There is an attitude that, ‘I better watch out for myself, because nobody else is going to do it,’” the member said. “There are all these different factions out there, everyone is sniping at each other, and we have no real plan. We have a lot of people fighting to be the captain of the lifeboat instead of everybody pulling together.”

In a piece published in Human Events, the Republicans’ onetime captain, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, warned his old colleagues that they face “real disaster” on Election Day unless they move immediately to “chart a bold course of real reform” for the country.

But even with all of these advantages, Obama could still lose to John McCain in the fall. It appears that whatever gains he made with white voters over the months have been lost - at least temporarily - by the Wright fiasco. The party knows this but still seems unwilling to cut him loose and turn to Hillary as an alternative.

For her part, Clinton really can’t drop out immediately. She is going to win in West Virginia next week and Kentucky the following week - both by big margins. My guess is that she will trundle onwards, hobbled by a lack of money and with no rational argument to take to the Superdelegates to get them to overturn what is rapidly becoming inevitable.

Allah sums it up:

Slate’s keeping an eye on RCP’s running popular-vote totals and notes that not only will Obama widen his delegate margin tonight, he’ll erase the PV gains she made in Pennsylvania. In fact, as of this moment, even if Florida and Michigan are counted RCP gives her a popular vote lead of just 3,000+ votes — a margin of less than one-tenth of one percent. And that’s assuming that the popular vote totals from the caucuses in Iowa, Washington, Maine, and Nevada (which weren’t reported) aren’t counted at all. If you estimate for those states, he ends up with a lead of more than 100,000. Which means she has nothing left to commend her to the supers except an electabilty argument unsupported by a single key metric or even circumstantial evidence that Pastorgate has done Obama grievous damage at the polls. Are they going to take the nomination from the first serious black candidate for president without any compelling data to hang their decision on? Not a chance. It’s over. Let’s move on.

There are some - Sean Hannity for one - who have been hinting that Hillary’s oppo research on Obama has come up with some extremely damaging stuff that they have been showing privately to select party leaders in hopes of enlisting their support to carry out what would amount to a coup d’etat against the certain nominee. That sounds like Hannity passing gas. Obama has somewhat inoculated himself against further Wright outrages so it would have to be something that involved the candidate personally in Wright’s diatribes to have any effect at all.

It’s not quite time to write the post mortem yet. Hillary will not go quietly into that goodnight until external forces extinguish her candidacy. But the race is over - has been over as I’ve been pointing out - for a couple of months. All that’s left for Clinton is to find the right moment to exit the stage with as much grace as she can muster.