Does America really want a change?

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  • homedawg
    Banned
    • Feb 2007
    • 7689

    Welcome Back, Dad
    By Michael Reagan



    I’ve been trying to convince my fellow conservatives that they have been wasting their time in a fruitless quest for a new Ronald Reagan to emerge and lead our party and our nation. I insisted that we’d never see his like again because he was one of a kind.

    I was wrong!

    Wednesday night I watched the Republican National Convention on television and there, before my very eyes, I saw my Dad reborn; only this time he's a she.

    And what a she!

    In one blockbuster of a speech, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin resurrected my Dad’s indomitable spirit and sent it soaring above the convention center, shooting shock waves through the cynical media’s assigned spaces and electrifying the huge audience with the kind of inspiring rhetoric we haven’t heard since my Dad left the scene.

    This was Ronald Reagan at his best -- the same Ronald Reagan who made the address known now solely as “The Speech,” which during the Goldwater campaign set the tone and the agenda for the rebirth of the traditional conservative movement that later sent him to the White House for eight years and revived the moribund GOP.

    Last night was an extraordinary event. Widely seen beforehand as a make-or-break effort -- either an opportunity for Sarah Palin to show that she was the happy warrior that John McCain assured us she was, or a disaster that would dash McCain’s presidential hopes and send her back to Alaska, sadder but wiser.

    Obviously un-intimidated by either the savage onslaught to which the left-leaning media had subjected her, or the incredible challenge she faced -- and oozing with confidence -- she strode defiantly to the podium and proved she was everything and even more than John McCain told us.

    Much has been made of the fact that she is a woman. What we saw last night, however, was something much more than a just a woman accomplishing something no Republican woman has ever achieved. What we saw was a red-blooded American with that rare, God-given ability to rally her dispirited fellow Republicans and take up the daunting task of leading them -- and all her fellow Americans -- on a pilgrimage to that shining city on the hill my father envisioned as our nation’s real destination.

    In a few words she managed to rip the mask from the faces of her Democratic rivals and reveal them for what they are -- a pair of old-fashioned liberals making promises that cannot be kept without bankrupting the nation and reducing most Americans to the status of mendicants begging for their daily bread at the feet of an all-powerful government.

    Most important, by comparing her own stunning record of achievement with his, she showed Barack Obama for the sham that he is, a man without any solid accomplishments beyond conspicuous self-aggrandizement.

    Like Ronald Reagan, Sarah Palin is one of us. She knows how most of us live because that’s the way she lives. She shares our homespun values and our beliefs, and she glories in her status as a small-town woman who put her shoulder to the wheel and made life better for her neighbors.

    Her astonishing rise up from the grass-roots, her total lack of self-importance, and her ordinary American values and modest lifestyle reveal her to be the kind of hard-working, optimistic, ordinary American who made this country the greatest, most powerful nation on the face of the earth.

    As hard as you might try, you won’t find that kind of plain-spoken, down-to-earth, self-reliant American in the upper ranks of the liberal-infested, elitist Democratic Party, or in the Obama campaign.

    Sarah Palin didn’t go to Harvard, or fiddle around in urban neighborhood leftist activism while engaging in opportunism within the ranks of one of the nation’s most corrupt political machines, never challenging it and going along to get along, like Barack Obama.

    Instead she took on the corrupt establishment in Alaska and beat it, rising to the governorship while bringing reforms to every level of government she served in on her way up the ladder.

    Welcome back, Dad, even if you’re wearing a dress and bearing children this time around.

    Mr. Reagan is a syndicated radio talk-show host and the son of former President Ronald Reagan.

    Comment

    • homedawg
      Banned
      • Feb 2007
      • 7689

      Charlie Gibson's Gaffe

      By Charles Krauthammer, The Washington Post
      September 13, 2008


      Article Excerpt:

      "At times visibly nervous . . . Ms. Palin most visibly stumbled when she was asked by Mr. Gibson if she agreed with the Bush doctrine. Ms. Palin did not seem to know what he was talking about. Mr. Gibson, sounding like an impatient teacher, informed her that it meant the right of 'anticipatory self-defense.' "

      -- New York Times, Sept. 12

      Informed her? Rubbish.

      The New York Times got it wrong. And Charlie Gibson got it wrong.

      There is no single meaning of the Bush doctrine. In fact, there have been four distinct meanings, each one succeeding another over the eight years of this administration -- and the one Charlie Gibson cited is not the one in common usage today. It is utterly different.

      He asked Palin, "Do you agree with the Bush doctrine?"

      She responded, quite sensibly to a question that is ambiguous, "In what respect, Charlie?"

      Sensing his "gotcha" moment, Gibson refused to tell her. After making her fish for the answer, Gibson grudgingly explained to the moose-hunting rube that the Bush doctrine "is that we have the right of anticipatory self-defense."

      Wrong.

      I know something about the subject because, as the Wikipedia entry on the Bush doctrine notes, I was the first to use the term. In the cover essay of the June 4, 2001, issue of the Weekly Standard entitled, "The Bush Doctrine: ABM, Kyoto, and the New American Unilateralism," I suggested that the Bush administration policies of unilaterally withdrawing from the ABM treaty and rejecting the Kyoto protocol, together with others, amounted to a radical change in foreign policy that should be called the Bush doctrine.

      Then came 9/11, and that notion was immediately superseded by the advent of the war on terror. In his address to the joint session of Congress nine days after 9/11, President Bush declared: "Either you are with us or you are with the terrorists. From this day forward any nation that continues to harbor or support terrorism will be regarded by the United States as a hostile regime." This "with us or against us" policy regarding terror -- first deployed against Pakistan when Secretary of State Colin Powell gave President Musharraf that seven-point ultimatum to end support for the Taliban and support our attack on Afghanistan -- became the essence of the Bush doctrine.

      Until Iraq. A year later, when the Iraq war was looming, Bush offered his major justification by enunciating a doctrine of preemptive war. This is the one Charlie Gibson thinks is the Bush doctrine.

      It's not. It's the third in a series and was superseded by the fourth and current definition of the Bush doctrine, the most sweeping formulation of the Bush approach to foreign policy and the one that most clearly and distinctively defines the Bush years: the idea that the fundamental mission of American foreign policy is to spread democracy throughout the world. It was most dramatically enunciated in Bush's second inaugural address: "The survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the success of liberty in other lands. The best hope for peace in our world is the expansion of freedom in all the world."

      This declaration of a sweeping, universal American freedom agenda was consciously meant to echo John Kennedy's pledge in his inaugural address that the United States "shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty." It draws also from the Truman doctrine of March 1947 and from Wilson's 14 points.

      If I were in any public foreign policy debate today, and my adversary were to raise the Bush doctrine, both I and the audience would assume -- unless my interlocutor annotated the reference otherwise -- that he was speaking about the grandly proclaimed (and widely attacked) freedom agenda of the Bush administration.

      Not the Gibson doctrine of preemption.

      Not the "with us or against us" no-neutrality-is-permitted policy of the immediate post-9/11 days.

      Comment

      • homedawg
        Banned
        • Feb 2007
        • 7689

        Vote Republican if you want Equal Pay


        By CASEY B. MULLIGAN, The Wall Street Journal
        September 13, 2008




        Article Excerpt:

        Democratic candidates Barack Obama and Joseph Biden have proclaimed that they favor equal pay for women, and have alleged that Republicans do not. Sen. Biden has also insisted that Republicans, including vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin, represent a step backwards for women. The economic record says exactly the opposite.

        I have used labor market data from the Census Bureau to study the amount and reasons for women's progress in the labor market since the 1960s. One byproduct of my study is a calculation of women's relative wage growth by presidential administration.

        In 1980 -- the last full year of the Jimmy Carter administration -- the typical woman (older than school age, but younger than retirement age) working full time throughout the year earned 38.5% less per hour than did the typical man in the same age bracket working full time throughout the year. When women earn less per hour than men -- even in full-time work -- that is known as the gender wage gap. When the gender wage gap narrows, women's wages have grown relative to men's.

        The gender wage gap was 38.6% in 1976, the last full year of the Gerald Ford administration. By this measure, women made only infinitesimal progress toward equal wages during the four Carter years; women's wages were essentially stagnant relative to men's. In 1988, the last full year of the Ronald Reagan administration, women working full time throughout the year earned 30.3% less per hour than did men.

        A 30.3% gender wage gap is obviously not full equality. But it is much closer to equality than it was at the end of the Carter administration. Women's wages grew almost two percentage points per year more than men's during the Reagan years, compared to less than 0.1 percentage point more than men's per year during the Carter years.


        The nearby chart shows the results for all of the administrations since Lyndon Johnson (I pool Richard Nixon and Ford). Johnson, Carter and Bill Clinton were all Democrats, yet none of them witnessed much labor market progress for women during their administrations. Essentially all of the labor-market progress for women occurred during Republican administrations: eight years of Reagan, four years of George H.W. Bush, and six years of George W. Bush (I do not yet have the data for the last two years of the current administration).

        By 2006, the gender wage gap had narrowed to 21%. The Nixon-Ford administrations were the only Republican administrations that failed to witness significant reduction in the gender wage gap during their terms.

        Sen. Obama says that he wants equal pay for women. If the historical record is any guide, the best way to achieve this is to work for a labor market that creates opportunities for women like it did during the Reagan and the Bush years. At the Reagan-Bush years' pace, the gender wage gap in 2016 would be down to about 12%. At the Carter-Clinton years' pace, women will not see new opportunities, and the gender pay gap will be essentially where it is today.

        Comment

        • homedawg
          Banned
          • Feb 2007
          • 7689

          McCain finds friends at NASCAR race in N.H.

          By Fluto Shinzawa, Boston Globe
          September 15, 2008


          Article Excerpt




          LOUDON, N.H. - As he concluded the drivers' meeting that takes place before each NASCAR Sprint Cup race, David Hoots, the NASCAR manager of series events, told the competitors to remain in their seats.

          "We're waiting on a special guest," Hoots told the 43 drivers huddled yesterday in one of the garages at New Hampshire Motor Speedway.

          Minutes later, Senator John McCain entered the garage to a standing ovation and was introduced by NASCAR president Mike Helton.

          "On Nov. 4, we all get to go make a decision on who our leadership is. Thank goodness that doesn't happen in NASCAR," said Helton, prompting laughter.

          "This group, I think, has always been incredibly aware of and very respectful of the men and women that, throughout the generations of America's history, have gone to defend that freedom and the ability we have to choose our own leaders," Helton said. "I'm very honored today to have a man that not only did that and made the sacrifices that he had, but also chose to help the country go forward."

          McCain, joined by his wife, Cindy, Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling, and his wife, Shonda, spent approximately two hours at the racetrack with a crowd of more than 100,000 NASCAR fans, traditionally a GOP-leaning group. The Straight Talk Express took the tunnel under the track and was parked in the infield.

          McCain was in friendly territory for several reasons. In 2000, McCain scored a New Hampshire primary win. Eight years later, after his rival Mike Huckabee won in the Iowa caucuses, McCain regained momentum in New Hampshire once again by recording his second primary victory in the state.

          Comment

          • homedawg
            Banned
            • Feb 2007
            • 7689

            Records show McCain more bipartisan
            By Stephen Dinan, Washington Times
            September 15, 2008




            Sen. John McCain's record of working with Democrats easily outstrips Sen. Barack Obama's efforts with Republicans, according to an analysis by The Washington Times of their legislative records.

            Whether looking at bills they have led on or bills they have signed onto, Mr. McCain has reached across the aisle far more frequently and with more members than Mr. Obama since the latter came to the Senate in 2005.

            In fact, by several measures, Mr. McCain has been more likely to team up with Democrats than with members of his own party. Democrats made up 55 percent of his political partners over the last two Congresses, including on the tough issues of campaign finance and global warming. For Mr. Obama, Republicans were only 13 percent of his co-sponsors during his time in the Senate, and he had his biggest bipartisan successes on noncontroversial measures, such as issuing a postage stamp in honor of civil rights icon Rosa Parks.

            With calls for change in Washington dominating the campaign, both Mr. Obama, the Democrats' presidential nominee, and Mr. McCain, his Republican opponent, have claimed the mantle of bipartisanship.

            But since 2005, Mr. McCain has led as chief sponsor of 82 bills, on which he had 120 Democratic co-sponsors out of 220 total, for an average of 55 percent. He worked with Democrats on 50 of his bills, and of those, 37 times Democrats outnumber Republicans as co-sponsors.

            Mr. Obama, meanwhile, sponsored 120 bills, of which Republicans co-sponsored just 26, and on only five bills did Republicans outnumber Democrats. Mr. Obama gained 522 total Democratic co-sponsors but only 75 Republicans, for an average of 13 percent of his co-sponsors.

            An Obama campaign spokesman declined to comment on The Times analysis.

            McCain campaign surrogate Sen. Lindsey Graham, though, said the numbers expose a difference between the two candidates.

            "The number - 55 and 13 - probably shows that one has been more desirous to find common ground than the other. The legislative record of Senator Obama is very thin," said Mr. Graham, South Carolina Republican, who has teamed up with Mr. McCain probably more than any other senator.

            The Times study looked at the bills each man introduced as the chief sponsor, and at the bills sponsored by other senators that each man signed onto. The study excluded resolutions and amendments, focusing instead on measures that each man authored and put into the normal legislative process.

            Former Sen. James Jeffords of Vermont, Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, all independents, were grouped with Democrats because each caucused with Democrats during the time under study.

            Bipartisanship is a frequent issue on the campaign trail, with the McCain camp and surrogates such as Mr. Graham arguing the standard is how often someone takes leadership on an issue in defiance of his own party - a measure by which Mr. Obama falls short and Mr. McCain clearly excels.

            He even revels in his stances, telling the audience at a values forum at Saddleback Church in California last month his list is extensive: "Climate change, out-of-control spending, torture." He could have added campaign-finance overhaul, immigration, a patients' bill of rights, gun control and tax cuts as other areas on which he's broken with the majority of his party.

            At the same forum, Mr. Obama said his major break with Democrats came on congressional ethics, when he sponsored a bill to curb meals and gifts from lobbyists.

            In a memo to reporters, his campaign points to bills he worked on that gained near-unanimous support from both parties, including a bill more than a third of the Senate signed onto, sponsored by Sen. Sam Brownback, Kansas Republican, pushing peace initiatives in Sudan, and a bill sponsored by Sen. Orrin G. Hatch, Utah Republican, on charitable contributions that passed by a voice vote in each chamber.

            But foremost, his campaign cites his work teaming up in 2006 with Sen. Richard G. Lugar, Indiana Republican, on the Cooperative Proliferation Detection Act, a noncontroversial measure to secure weapons of mass destruction, and with Sen. Tom Coburn, Oklahoma Republican, to force the administration to create a searchable database to track federal spending grants.

            Speaking to reporters during the Republican National Convention earlier this month Obama aide Robert Gibbs said Mr. Lugar and Mr. Coburn would back up Mr. Obama's bipartisanship claims.

            Mr. Lugar's spokesman said the senator is not doing interviews on the subject. Mr. Coburn, in an interview, said Mr. Obama is a good senator to work with, but said there's no comparison to Mr. McCain's long record.

            "Barack is a great guy, a nice guy, he's a good friend of mine. He has passed two pieces of legislation since he's been in the Senate - had his name on two," Mr. Coburn said. He praised Mr. Obama's staff for the work they did on the spending grants bill, but he said Mr. Obama hasn't gone head-to-head against his leadership when it mattered: "Where have you seen him challenge the status quo?"

            Comment

            • homedawg
              Banned
              • Feb 2007
              • 7689

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              Comment

              • homedawg
                Banned
                • Feb 2007
                • 7689

                Statement By John McCain On The Financial Markets And AIG
                September 17, 2008

                ARLINGTON, VA -- Today, U.S. Senator John McCain issued the following statement on the situation in the financial markets and AIG:

                "Today, the government was forced to commit $85 billion to stop the collapse of AIG, another in a growing series of events that includes Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. These actions stem from failed regulation, reckless management, and a casino culture on Wall Street that has crippled one of the most important companies in America. The focus of any such action should be to protect the millions of Americans who hold insurance policies, retirement plans and other accounts with AIG. We must not bailout the management and speculators who created this mess. They had months of warnings following the Bear Stearns debacle, and they failed to act.

                "We should never again allow the United States to be in this position. We need strong and effective regulation, a return to job-creating growth and a restoration of ethics and the social contract between businesses and America. Important questions remain to be answered by Wall Street. Did executives mislead investors and regulators about the severity of the problem? We must investigate whether or not there was misrepresentation on part of the company executives. If there was, there must be penalties. We need to change the way Washington and Wall Street does business, and as President I will."


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                Last edited by homedawg; 09-17-2008, 05:09 PM.

                Comment

                • homedawg
                  Banned
                  • Feb 2007
                  • 7689

                  Lynn Forester de Rothschild, Member of DNC Platform Committee, Endorses John McCain

                  September 17, 2008

                  ARLINGTON, VA -- Today the McCain-Palin campaign announced the endorsement of Lynn Forester de Rothschild, a prominent Hillary Clinton supporter and member of the Democratic National Committee's Platform Committee.

                  "In an election as important at this, we must choose the candidate who has a proven record of bipartisanship and reforming government, and that's John McCain," Rothschild said. "We can't afford a president who lacks experience and judgment and has never crossed party lines to work for meaningful reform. Amid tough economic times and foreign policy concerns, we need someone who is ready to lead. Although I am a Democrat, I recognize that it's more important to put country ahead of party and that's why I support John McCain."

                  Rothschild, an attorney and businesswoman, supported Sen. Clinton during the Democratic primaries. She will campaign for Sen. McCain through Election Day.

                  Comment

                  • homedawg
                    Banned
                    • Feb 2007
                    • 7689

                    Twenty-Two Reasons To Vote Against Obama





                    The mainstream media continue to deteriorate into a world of slime and sleaze with their assault on Gov. Sarah Palin, the Republican candidate for vice president. They are picking up on lies manufactured in the blogosphere by hate groups such as the Daily Kos, and are transmuting rumors, speculations and outright lies into front-page smears disguised as hard news. As usual, the New York Times (September 2, 2008) has led the way with two front page storie s and a third on a full-page inside. The journalism of the New York Times now makes the supermarket tabloids look good by comparison.

                    Yes, the biased, slime merchants at the New York Times, the Philadelphia Inquirer and the rest of the mainstream media have spent more time vetting and investigating the 17-year old pregnant daughter of Sarah Palin then they have investigating Sen. Barack Obama, a candidate for president. They have spent more time investigating a 22-year old DUI incident of Mrs. Palin's husband than they have spent investigating Sen. Obama's illegal use of cocaine and his admitted boozing and his long-time association with terrorists and racists. They give Obama a free pass but look at Palin's daughter as if the daughter is on the ticket.

                    Former Sen. Fred Thompson was right on target when he said the mainstream media and its partner, the Democratic Party, are so in fear of defeat after the announcement of the McCain/Palin ticket that they are going ever deeper into the journalistic sewer to discredit Gov. Palin. I keep saying the mainstream media has hit rock bottom, but it conti nues to sink lower into the journalistic sewer. They are now clearly so devoid of journalistic principles, honesty and fairness that they will do anything. They are at bottom and can't sink lower.

                    CONT.

                    Comment

                    • homedawg
                      Banned
                      • Feb 2007
                      • 7689

                      cont.

                      Now here's 22 reasons to vote against Mr. Obama and for McCain/Palin.

                      1. Sen. Obama gives flowery speeches on change and hope. But he's part of one of the most corrupt political machines of all time. And instead of fighting and trying to reform the corrupt Chicago Cook County political machine, he used it to rise to power. When reformers tried to fight it, Mr. Obama refused to help them and actually was instrumental in defeating the reform movement. He preaches a new kind of politics but supports and uses one of the worst political machines in the U.S.

                      2. He led the battle in the Illinois legislature to assure that born-alive infants would not be treated as persons and would not be entitled to medical care. Instead, if Sen. Obama had his way, such babies born alive after a botched abortion would be left to die, thus legalizing what appears to be infanticide and murder.

                      3. When he first responded to Russia's invasion of Georgia, he said that aggression was wrong, but the U.S. would be in a better position if we set a good example. Thus he made it clear he was drawing a moral equivalence between Russia's aggression and the U.S.'s liberation of Iraq, which had violated 17 United Nations resolutions. This reaction alone, suggests not merely bad judgment but apparently no judgment at all. Then after giving it more thought, his second response was turning the matter over to the United Nations. That of course was a stupid idea as Russia has a veto in the Security Council.

                      4. He sat in the pews of the Trinity Church in Chicago, listening to a notorious racist, bigot and anti-American, Rev. Jeremiah "God Damn America" Wright, without a peep of protest. He did not leave the church until Rev. Wright said Obama is just another politician who says what he has to say. And that move was dictated by political considerations, not any moral outrage.

                      5. He started his political career in a fund-raiser in the home of William Ayers, an unrepentant terrorist and anti-American. He still hasn't denounced him but says Mr. Ayers is now a member of the Chicago Democratic mainstream. He still maintains a friendly relationship with him, has served on a board with him, and has participated in speaking panels with him.

                      6. He refused to wear a flag on his lapel, claiming he viewed it as a symbol of false patriotism employed after 9/11. He started wearing the flag only when he was embarrassed into doing so under political pressure. At that time he suddenly started ending his speeches with the words "God Bless America."

                      7. He got an earmark appropriation from Congress for his wife's employer, the University of Chicago Medical Center. When questioned on the appearance of conflict of interest, he said there was nothing improper about that but he should have gone to his fellow Illinois Sen. Dick Durban, to put the appropriation through. In other words, if there is an appearance of conflict of interest, you should hide it somehow instead of avoiding what creates such appearance. This is a pattern: saying one thing and doing the opposite. When he started to run for the presidency, he stopped putting in earmarks. As is his usual pattern, he started doing the right thing for election purposes only. So judge him by his record, not moves that are merely campaign calculation.

                      8. He favors increasing the capital gains tax, even though he admitted it will not raise tax revenue, but cut it instead. He justifies such an irrational move, out of what he calls a sense of fairness. That would mean less tax revenue, higher deficits and less incentive for saving, investment, capital formation, economic growth, and creation.

                      9. He called for negotiations without preconditions with the Ahmadinejad of Iran, Chavez of Venzuela, and Castro of Cuba. Even Senator Obama recognized the folly of this idea, so he backed off of it after an explosion of criticism. He thinks sweet talk solves all problems, and when a problem calls for something beyond sweet talk, he 's stumped. He speaks loudly and often, but carries a toothpick-size stick which he is afraid to use. Another example of Mr. Obama's naiveté was his comment that Iran is a small country not to be feared.

                      10. He opposed the surge, said it would fail, and even after it was almost universally acclaimed to be a success, he refuses to admit the surge succeed ed.

                      11. He called for withdrawal from Iraq, in effect, calling for retreat and defeat, which would have turned over the Middle East and much of the world's oil supplies to terrorists and their supporters in Iran.

                      12. He associated with and made a land deal with convicted felon, Tony Rezko, even knowing he was under serious investigation. He admitted this was what he called a boneheaded mistake. Mr. Obama seems incapable of judging his associates, as his close and friendly encounters with the hate-America and terrorist crowd suggests. Even an otherwise friendly biographer, said he is at home with the hate-America types.

                      13. He claims he will bring all sides together but he has never shown any signs or symptoms of bipartisanship. His record is that of a far-left liberal, the most liberal of any member of the U.S. Senate. He goes down the party line, and never reaches across the aisle.

                      14. He claims he will bring change to Washington, but picks a long-term Washington insider, Sen. Joe Biden, who has been in the Senate for decades, and is rated the third most liberal in the U.S. Senate. He claims he'll be the agent of change, but in his acceptance speech he catalogs the tired left-wing Democratic agenda, that has been regurgitated every four years for decades. He talks change but dishes up only the old liberal dishes, which have been rejected by voters many times from McGovern to Carter, and which have failed when implementation was attempted. If Mr. Obama wins the White House, he is likely to have a veto proof Congress, which mean all of his left-loony proposals would probably become law. Electoral history suggests Americans don't go for such unrestrained power. Beware of an Obama/Pelosi/Reid triumvirate that would bring us radical liberalism in its worst form.

                      15. He says he wants to bring us energy independence but refuses to drill and extract our huge reserves, greater than those of Saudi Arabia. He wants us to check our tire pressure instead of drilling. Give me a break! He also advises everyone to tune-up their cars, even though most cars no longer need tune-ups.

                      16. He never sticks with a job. For example, when he became senator he started writing his book. Then within two years of becoming a senator, he started running for president. It is not surprising that he has no legislative accomplishments. This has been the pattern of his entire career. He never sticks with anything long enough to chalk up significant achievements. That's why when asked about his accomplishments, his supporters seem to be stumped. Dean Barnett, in an article in the Weekly Standard (Sept. 1, 2008), entitled "Would You Hire Barack Obama? The resume of a chronic underachiever," writes, "You'd have to conclude that Obama's failure to commit himself to any career sufficiently to excel at it suggests some unexplained restlessness." I'd say it suggests he's a dilitante, who flits from one project to another, but never stays long enough to deliver a satisfactory end product.

                      17. As talk show host Michael Medved has pointed out, the people vouching for him at the Democratic National Convention were mainly relatives, such as his wife and brother-in-law. There were not major figures vouching for him, because they could not vouch for a classic empty-suit. Even Hillary Clinton, in her convention endorsement speech, said Democrats must support him, but in no way vouched for his character or judgment. Contrast that with the people at the Republican National Convention who vouched for Sen. McCain - Sen. Joe Lieberman and former Sen. Fred Thompson.

                      18. To bolster his foreign policy credentials, he picked Sen. Joe Biden as vice president. Sen. Biden voted for the war in Iraq, which vote Sen. Obama views as the symbol of bad judgment. So even Sen. Obama admits Sen. Biden ha bad judgment. Sen. Biden also comes up with wacky ideas of his own such as splitting Iraq, a sovereign nation, into three parts for the Kurds, Shias, and Sunnis. He also voted against the first Gulf War, even after Iraq had invaded Kuwait and threatened Saudi Arabia and the rest of the Middle East. I'd think most would consider that the height of bad judgment. He opposed the surge. He opposed Reagan's build-up to fight international communism, so his bad record is long and unbroken. Biden has judgment bad enough to match that of Sen. Obama's.

                      19. He flip-flops on matters that suggest he has no principles except the old Chicago machine principle of do anything you have to do to get elected. He promised to take public financing, something that the great reformer and change artist claimed to be committed to. Then when he saw it was to his political advantage to stay with totally private contributions, as that would bring in more money, he went back on his promise and rejected public funding. He said that his wide array of contributors to his campaign made his approach into public financing, one of his more nonsensical pieces of logic. He think if he uses sufficient oratorical powers he can make two and two equal ten, or private financing equal public financing.

                      20. He constantly uses such expressions as, "I would be glad to debate my opponent on that issue anytime, anywhere." But that is just for oratorical effect. In practice, he refused Sen. McCain's offer of a town meeting every week to debate the issues. He is clearly afraid of unscripted sessions. If he is not smart enough to go off the teleprompter and script, he is not smart enough to be president.

                      When he participated in the Saddleback debate with Pastor Rick Warren, he demonstrated again he doesn't make sense when confronted with tough questions without the answers on a script. When asked when does life begin, he said that was above his pay-grade. If that question is above his pay grade so is the presidency of the United States.

                      21.He would like voters to view him as a man of great political courage, but he has a documented record of political cowardice. For example, when in the Illinois legislature, he voted "present" over 100 times and was well known for taking that route, of neither a yes or no vote. Present is a classic sitting on the fence and waiting to find out which way the wind will blow. As William Kristol of the Weekly Standard (Sept. 1, 2008) has pointed out, " Has he shunned the easy path or broken with the conventional liberal pieties of those around him? Has he taken on his own party on a major issue? Nope."

                      22. Mr. Obama bases his campaign on his superior judgment, and that in turn is based on his speech against the war in Iraq. Of course, he never made a vote against the war, as at the time he was in the Illinois legislature, not the U.S. Senate. He gave the speech at an anti-war rally in the liberal Hyde Park section in Chicago. But votes are more important than speeches. And since he's been in the Senate, he's been wrong on every issue related to Iraq. These mistaken positions were summed up in an article by Emery in the Weekly Standard (Sept.1, 2008) entitled "Misfortunes of War: Success in Iraq Confounds the Democrats." It isn't easy to be wrong on every vote and pronouncement on Iraq, but don't underestimate Sen. Obama's ineptness in the foreign policy area. Mr. Emery writes: "He claimed that the Anbar Awakening took place as a result of Democrats' congressional victories, but it began in September 2006, two months before before the voting took place. He opposed not only the troop surge, but also the strategic changes that took place along with it, that did so much to enable the victory. He said the American military had noting to do with the Anbar Awakening or with the retreat of the Sadr militia, something denied by the Iraqi military and by the Iraqi Sunnis themselves. He was also wrong in his predictions that none of this would occur."

                      Sen. Obama not only has judgment bad enough to make him wrong on every foreign policy question, but he also has the knack of picking advisors and close associates who have a strong record of being wrong. For example, his choice for vice president, Sen. Biden, and one of the senators that accompanied him on his trip to Iraq, Sen. Chuck Hagel, introduced a resolution in opposition to the buildup that was the surge that turned the tide in Iraq.

                      Sen. Obama's inexperience in foreign policy is perhaps his most dangerous deficiency. But don't underestimate his ability to wreck our economy, destroy the incentives for entrepreneurs to take risks and build jobs, and to wreck our health care delivery system.

                      Comment

                      • homedawg
                        Banned
                        • Feb 2007
                        • 7689

                        Above Their Pay Grade: Barack Obama's Economic Indecision


                        "Barack Obama's refusal to take a stand on the biggest economic issue of the day shows he's not ready to make the tough calls needed to bring real reform and change to Wall Street and Washington. With the financial security of millions of hardworking Americans at stake, we can't afford a president who just votes 'present.' The next president will need to put country before politics and make tough decisions to secure our economic and national security. John McCain's life is filled with examples of putting country first and doing what's right, regardless of self-interest or political gain. As Barack Obama has shown again this week, he has no such record." -- Brian Rogers, McCain-Palin 2008 spokesman

                        INDECISION #1: Barack Obama "Would Not Say If He Supported Or Opposed" The AIG Bailout...

                        Yesterday, The Most Important Issue Of The Day Was The AIG Bailout And Barack Obama "Would Not Say If He Supported Or Opposed The Government-Backed Rescue Of Insurance Giant AIG." Fox News' Brit Hume: "The Democrat is not coming down one way or another on the AIG rescue. Correspondent Major Garrett explains why." Fox News' Major Garrett: "On the biggest financial issue of the day, Barack Obama would not say if he supported or opposed the government-backed rescue of insurance giant AIG." Barack Obama: "We don't know all the details of the arrangement with AIG and the Federal Reserve must ensure that plans protect the families that count on insurance." Garrett: "Obama also wants taxpayers protected but executives and shareholders exposed but on the central question to intervene or not, Obama sidestepped. Advisers said lack of details forced caution. The larger political truth; adv isors believe anxiety alone is enough to lift Obama in the polls. That is why on the trail, Obama doesn't talk about specifics of the moment but the nation's overall direction." (Fox News' "Special Report," 9/17/08)

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                        INDECISION #2: Joe Biden: "Hard For Me To Judge" On The AIG Bailout...

                        Joe Biden On The AIG Bailout: "It's Hard To Judge That Right Now." ABC'S KATE SNOW: "On Tuesday, you said that AIG should not be bailed out by the federal government. Do you still feel that way? Do you feel it was the wrong move for the Fed to jump in?" JOE BIDEN: "It's hard to second guess. I haven't spoken with the Secretary. I mean there's no good answer because it was the spot the policies of the last eight years that put us in. So it's hard to judge that right now, in my spot right here." (ABC's "Good Morning America," 9/18/08)

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                        INDECISION #3: Democrat Senate Leader Says "No One Knows What To Do" But Congress Is Likely To Go On Break...

                        Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV): "No One Knows What To Do." "The Democratic-controlled Congress, acknowledging that it isn't equipped to lead the way to a solution for the financial crisis and can't agree on a path to follow, is likely to just get out of the way. Lawmakers say they are unlikely to take action before, or to delay, their planned adjournments -- Sept. 26 for the House of Representatives, a week later for the Senate. While they haven't ruled out returning after the Nov. 4 elections, they would rather wait until next year unless Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke, who are leading efforts to contain the crisis, call for help. One reason, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said yesterday, is that 'no one knows what to do' at the moment." (Kristin Jensen, "Democratic Congress May Adjourn, Leave Crisis To Fed, Treasury," Bloomberg, 9/18/08)

                        INDECISION #4: Joe Biden Says Paying Higher Taxes Is "Patriotic"...

                        Joe Biden: "It's Time To Be Patriotic" And Pay Higher Taxes. JOE BIDEN: "We want to take money and put it back in the pocket of middle-class people." ABC'S KATE SNOW: "Anybody making over $250,000" BIDEN: "Is gonna pay more." SNOW: "Is going to pay more." BIDEN: "You got it. It's time to be patriotic, Kate. Time to jump in. Time to be part of the deal. Time to help get America out of the rut." (ABC's "Good Morning America," 9/18/08)

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                        INDECISION #5: Democrat Senator Doubts Barack Obama Can Actually Provide Middle Class Tax Relief...

                        Senator Byron Dorgan (D-ND) Said It Would Be "Tough For Democratic Presidential Candidate To Deliver On His Promise To Provide Middle Class Tax Relief." "North Dakota U.S. Sen. Byron Dorgan said this week's financial crisis on Wall Street may make it tough for Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama to deliver on his promise to provide middle class tax relief. 'We don't know the answer to that until we see what will flow from this financial crisis,' said Dorgan, who participated with U.S. Senate candidate Jeanne Shaheen in a conference call with reporters Wednesday. ... But he indicated he was not sure if Obama, a senator from Illinois, would be able deliver on all his promises he detailed in a recent visit to Dover. Dorgan said the federal government has now committed more than $1 trillion in taxpayers' money for the bailouts of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and American International Group, the world's largest insurance company. " (Robert Cook, "Wall Street Crisis May Hurt Obama's Tax Relief Promises," Foster's Daily Democrat, 9/18/08)

                        INDECISION #6: Barack Obama Was For The Commissions Before He Was Against Them...

                        Barack Obama "Has Liked Commissions" In The Past. FOX NEWS' STEVE DOOCY: "So it sounds like is he against commissions." FOX NEWS' BRIAN KILMEADE: "But it's not the truth, is it? Because in the past he has got a track record." FOX NEWS' GRETCHEN CARLSON: "It's more than a one pronged way to deal with the economy and the situation. A commission may be one part of it. It doesn't mean necessarily that you are not going to enact something immediately as well to deal with it, but let's take a look at the history of commissions and who has been in support of them before? Because according to past history, Barack Obama he has liked commissions." (Fox News' "Fox & Friends," 9/18/08)

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                        Comment

                        • homedawg
                          Banned
                          • Feb 2007
                          • 7689

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                          Last edited by homedawg; 09-18-2008, 04:56 PM.

                          Comment

                          • dananderson32
                            Senior Member
                            • Feb 2007
                            • 2748

                            Originally posted by homedawg


                            you better get out there campaigning your boys down 49-47 in your state and while your at it minus well visit Michigan and Wisconsin too
                            ****all plays 4.4 units to win 4 units unless otherwise noted****

                            NBA 20-22 -16.8 units
                            NHL 1-0 +4.0 units
                            MLB 0-1 -4.8 units
                            CFB 12-6-1 +21.6 units

                            Comment

                            • homedawg
                              Banned
                              • Feb 2007
                              • 7689

                              Originally posted by dananderson32
                              you better get out there campaigning your boys down 49-47 in your state and while your at it minus well visit Michigan and Wisconsin too
                              McCAIN 274 Osama 243
                              :beer2:


                              Comment

                              • dananderson32
                                Senior Member
                                • Feb 2007
                                • 2748

                                Originally posted by homedawg
                                McCAIN 274 Osama 243
                                :beer2:


                                obama up at least 5 in colorado up 2 in ohio, up at least 5 in pa, tied 48 all in florida and obama is down 1 in va
                                ****all plays 4.4 units to win 4 units unless otherwise noted****

                                NBA 20-22 -16.8 units
                                NHL 1-0 +4.0 units
                                MLB 0-1 -4.8 units
                                CFB 12-6-1 +21.6 units

                                Comment

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