Another nice political ad

Where have these been?

Nice political ad

Factual, effective, and very well-done. This needs to be getting massive air time.

Biden makes the case for McCain

The gaffe-master is at it again. Instead of reassuring folks about voting for Obama, Joe Biden admitted to a gathering of supporters that electing an inexperienced and weak-on-national security candidate will indeed probably embolden our enemies. In doing so, he indirectly made a strong case for The Hero.

This is part of what he said:

"Mark my words," the Democratic vice presidential nominee warned at the second of his two Seattle fundraisers Sunday. "It will not be six months before the world tests Barack Obama like they did John Kennedy. The world is looking. We're about to elect a brilliant 47-year-old senator president of the United States of America. Remember I said it standing here if you don't remember anything else I said. Watch, we're gonna have an international crisis, a generated crisis, to test the mettle of this guy."

So much for easing the minds of those undecided voters.

He also said this:

"I can give you at least four or five scenarios from where it might originate," Biden said to Emerald City supporters, mentioning the Middle East and Russia as possibilities. "And he's gonna need help. And the kind of help he's gonna need is, he's gonna need you - not financially to help him - we're gonna need you to use your influence, your influence within the community, to stand with him. Because it's not gonna be apparent initially, it's not gonna be apparent that we're right."

One possible translation: Oh and by the way, Barack Obama's Iraq policy will ultimately look pretty much exactly like Bush/McCain Iraq policy. So, please help us calm the Code Pinkers and the moonbats down as they flip out when they realize we're not pulling out of there anytime soon.

So much entertainment value in this election. I wish there were two more years to go instead of two more weeks.

'Change' = Liberal supermajority

For everyone talking about a needed 'change'. Well, this would definitely be a 'change'.

This election is indeed incredibly important and historic, but probably not for the reasons you think. The Wall Street Journal has a powerful editorial about the potential Democratic supermajority. You really need to read the entire article but here's the setup:

If the current polls hold, Barack Obama will win the White House on November 4 and Democrats will consolidate their Congressional majorities, probably with a filibuster-proof Senate or very close to it. Without the ability to filibuster, the Senate would become like the House, able to pass whatever the majority wants.

Though we doubt most Americans realize it, this would be one of the most profound political and ideological shifts in U.S. history. Liberals would dominate the entire government in a way they haven't since 1965, or 1933. In other words, the election would mark the restoration of the activist government that fell out of public favor in the 1970s. If the U.S. really is entering a period of unchecked left-wing ascendancy, Americans at least ought to understand what they will be getting, especially with the media cheering it all on.

If this election is over, and Barry and the Democrats are truly headed for a landslide victory and an increase in congressional seats, then my one hope is that after four years of their ridiculous nanny-state-ism, the electorate will swing back to their natural state: center-right; and a revitalized Republican party will come back stronger than ever.

I can 'hope', can't I?

Debate advice for The Hero

Not that he's listening. But there's really no need to throw out a bunch of one-liners about ACORN, Ayers, and the like. Mainly because the electorate has made it clear that A) they don't seem to care and B) going 'negative' turns undecided voters off and probably won't help The Hero at this point anyway.

What he needs to do is draw distinctions between how he will handle the financial mess and how Obama will. How his legislative record is vast and bipartisan, and how Obama's is short and extreme in its leftism.

He should also explain the difference in philosophy: That while government's role is important, it is not the solution to every problem, and no budget is big enough to deliver on the across-the-board entitlements promised by Obama.

There's no need to call Obama a Marxist (even if he is) – just explain to people why his ideas mirror Marxism. Then let them decide if our founding fathers envisioned a massive central government, sitting in Washington, sucking up taxpayer money and redistributing it among those who refuse to work as hard as others.

But most of all, The Hero simply needs to pose the essential question: Do we really know who this man is?

Victor Davis Hanson at NRO puts it well and here's a brief highlight:

I don't think anyone knows what Obama's true agenda is on things like FISA, NAFTA, Iraq, Iran, public financing, guns, abortion, capital punishment, coal, nuclear power, or drilling — or how to assess his claims of a new bipartisanship against the most liberal and partisan, albeit brief, record in the Senate.

So, The Hero doesn't need to 'go down swinging' as Dick Morris believes. He just needs to ask the American people if they are ready to trust this country to someone they really don't know. He needs to look them in the eye and show them the true leader that he is. One thing I know about the American people is, when they see a true leader, they'll follow.

Just my two cents.

I miss Jeremiah Wright

It seems people on my side are starting to realize that the Billy Ayers story isn't really sticking. Even this humble blogger has privately conceded to some of my own 'associates' that I don't think there's much fire with that smoke. Now, you can make the argument that even if there's just a little bit of fire, it merits further discussion and probably disqualifies someone from the Presidency. Well, I haven't spent much time hammering the Barry/Billy thing because to me there are numerous other and more legitimate facts that disqualify Obama for the Presidency. (And you will hear all of them as the election approaches).

To me, what's always been the more important aspect of the Billy Ayers story is not so much Obama's relationship with him, but what the hell someone like that is doing as a professor at an accredited university – and what exactly is the 'education reform' he espouses?

But that is for another rant.

My purpose here was to say that Tucker Carlson has a really good point:

Why won't the McCain campaign attack Obama for an association more damaging than Bill Ayers—the one with Chicago pastor Jeremiah Wright?

The McCain campaign's attempt to tie Barack Obama to terrorist-turned-professor Bill Ayers appears to have failed. Most people still don't seem to know who Ayers is. And there still isn't evidence that the two were more than acquaintances. By the end of the week, McCain will likely have moved on to another line of attack. The obvious question is: Why not Jeremiah Wright?

Unlike Ayers, the Rev. Wright indisputably was one of Obama's closest friends. Obama himself has said so. Nobody in America needs to be reminded of who Wright is. As long as you've decided to go after Obama's character and associations, Wright seems like the obvious place to start. The 30-second attack ad essentially writes itself.

I can sense the Obama supporters rolling their eyes and saying, "Here we go again."

Just indulge me for a moment. You don't need associations to expose Obama's flaws to the American people. Look at his record, his thin resume, his blatantly false 'moderate' rhetoric (demonstrated by said record). All of this is fair game.

But, if you're going to go after his associations, by all means go after the one that was an actual relationship. This is something that The Hero and I disagree on. He has said Jeremiah Wright should be off limits. Me? I've never understood why they let it fade from the discussion. If I was The Hero's campaign manager, I'd be running Wright ads daily.

Talking about Jeremiah Wright's 'God Damn America' gatherings is not a distraction from substance. It speaks directly to the character and judgment of someone who would attend those gatherings for so many years. Especially since we're not talking about a Chicago City Council seat here, we are talking about the Presidency of the United States.

But hey, that's just my opinion. If you really don't care that Obama was a member of that church for 20 years, there's nothing anyone can say that will change your mind anyway.

A refresher:

Dow has biggest one-day gain since 1933

Good economic news usually equals bad political news for Democrats. (Isn't it nuts how true that is?)

If the economy shows signs of recovery, especially now, The Hero's campaign may just have some life yet.

I can hear your internal dialogue: "But why Capitalist Fanboy? Why would this help The Hero?"

By all means, let me explain.

For some reason, people seem to think Democrats are the party to turn to in rough economic times. Despite the lack of reason for that, it is nevertheless a political reality. However, if the economy seems to be stabilizing (which it will) as the election approaches, people will (and should) get back to looking at the overall view of these candidates: The character, the associations (ancillary or otherwise), the statements (yes, of spouses too), the leadership resume, the actual records of bipartisanship (or lack thereof), and well, you get the picture. You know, stuff that actually qualifies one to be President.

I'm not saying I know what's going to happen on November 4th, I'm just saying don't plan your Obama victory parties just yet.

From the AP (begrudgingly, I'm sure):

NEW YORK (AP) - Wall Street stormed back after its worst week ever and staged the biggest single-day stock rally since the Great Depression on Monday, catapulting the Dow Jones industrials to a 936-point gain and finally offering relief from eight consecutive days of stock market carnage.

While no one was saying the worst was over for the staggering financial system or troubled economy, buyers returned to the stock market with gusto, with some saying stocks had been driven down to fire-sale prices.

The surge came as executives from leading banks were summoned by the Bush administration to Washington to work out a plan to get loans, the lifeblood of the economy, moving again. And it followed signals that European governments would put nearly $2 trillion on the line to protect their own banks.

The Dow gained more than 11 percent, its biggest one-day rally since 1933, and by points it shattered the previous record for a one-day gain of 499, during during the waning days of the technology boom in 2000.

The Left is the 'tolerant' side

Right?

ACORN: Dig up the vote

Get out the vote? No way, it's 'dig up the vote' for ACORN. The community organizers have apparently been registering dead people to vote in Indiana. They don't have any problem with zombies voting – as long as they vote Democrat, of course.

From The Northwest Indiana Times:

CROWN POINT | Lake County Republican Chairman John Curley wants a federal investigation into hundreds of voter registrations bearing fictitious signatures or the names of dead and underage people.

"Fraudulent applications are the workings of ACORN groups operating from Milwaukee and Chicago who are getting out the vote for Obama. I'm Republican, but I want everyone who should vote to vote. But I want a clean election," Curley said at a Wednesday news conference.

Lake County elections officials acknowledged they have found problems and had to reject a large portion of the 5,000 registration forms turned in recently by the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN, an activist group that conducted registration drives across the county this summer.

An ACORN spokesperson couldn't be reached Wednesday for comment. Telephones to ACORN offices in Gary, Indianapolis, Chicago and Milwaukee were reported to be disconnected.

One of the consistent talking points of the Left during this election is that the McCain campaign has not been an 'honorable' one.

I guess organizations like ACORN show the Left has a flexible view of that concept.

Where's the rage really coming from?

As the media begins their latest narrative – which is that the crowd at McCain/Palin rallies are just a 'lynch mob' of racist hicks hating on Obama – we must ask the question, which side is really spewing the divisive rhetoric?

Which side is really lowering the national discourse?

Apparently, it's been completely fine to go after The Hero in the most personal ways (his age, POW injuries, wife's money, etc.) but to even mention the radicals that have consistently floated in Obama's orbit for most of his adult life is 'hateful' and 'negative'.

The hypocrisy is mind-numbing.

It's hard to blame anyone who gives up and tunes all this crap out. On more than one occasion lately I've seriously considered doing just that. (But my 3 readers would probably be disappointed. Okay, maybe they wouldn't even care.)

Anyway, the lovely Michelle Malkin analyzes the whole mess here, and includes a great photo gallery.

Alaska's summer was third coldest...ever

From the Anchorage Daily News:

Summer is officially over in Alaska, and if you got out in the sun to enjoy both days of it you were lucky.

Those were the two July days the temperature at the offices of the National Weather Service in Anchorage hit 70 degrees or better.

"Those temperatures occurred at the beginning of the month (of July) and were immediately followed by a long stretch of cool and wet weather.

"With only two days above 70 degrees this year, that sets a new record for the fewest days to reach 70,'' the weather-watching agency reported Friday.

Add to the lack of heat and sunshine what the agency calls "an astonishing 77%" of days colder than normal, and you get the picture.

This summer was every bit as bad as you thought it was.

Gardens didn't grow. Salmon returned late. Bees didn't make honey. Swallows didn't breed.

And the sunbathing, well, what sunbathing?

On average, Anchorage sees 16 days that hit 70 or better.

Not this year. Not since 1980 has there been a summer less reflective of global warming than this one. Consider these 2008 benchmarks from the weather service that say this month won't be any better:

Over the course of the past 87 years, September temperatures have reached 70 only 17 times, and two of those 70-degree days came in the same year, according to the weather service.

I wonder what will happen to the political landscape when, in 10 years, they figure out we're actually spiraling toward an ice age. Will the climate pimps pressure companies to increase carbon emissions?

Cleric: Replace capitalism with Islamic system

According to AFP:

Muslims should take advantage of the global financial crisis to build an economic system compatible with Islamic principles, influential Sunni cleric Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi said on Sunday.

"The collapse of the capitalist system based on usury and paper and not on goods traded on the market is proof that it is in crisis and shows that Islamic economic philosophy is holding up," said the Egyptian-born, Qatar-based cleric.

"The Western system has collapsed and we have a complete economic philosophy as well as spiritual strength," he said at Sunday's opening of a conference on Jerusalem.

"All riches are ours... the Islamic nation has all or nearly all the oil and we have an economic philosophy that no one else has," Qaradawi said.

He urged Muslims to "profit from the crisis to bring about the triumph of the (Islamic) nation, which holds the spiritual and material resources for victory."

The fundamentalists already want to take us back to the middle ages socially, might as well throw in economically as well.

The world wants Obama, do we?

The sophisticates of Europe have spoken, and they have decreed that if we racist rubes of America fail to elect Obama as President, then the "world's verdict will be harsh".

This according to Jonathan Freedland of The Guardian:

An America that disdains Obama for his global support risks turning current anti-Bush feeling into something far worse.

But what of the rest of the world? This is the reaction I fear most. For Obama has stirred an excitement around the globe unmatched by any American politician in living memory. Polling in Germany, France, Britain and Russia shows that Obama would win by whopping majorities, with the pattern repeated in Africa, Asia, the Middle East and Latin America. If November 4 were a global ballot, Obama would win it handsomely. If the free world could choose its leader, it would be Barack Obama.

The crowd of 200,000 that rallied to hear him in Berlin in July did so not only because of his charisma, but also because they know he, like the majority of the world's population, opposed the Iraq war. McCain supported it, peddling the lie that Saddam was linked to 9/11. Non-Americans sense that Obama will not ride roughshod over the international system but will treat alliances and global institutions seriously: McCain wants to bypass the United Nations in favour of a US-friendly League of Democracies. McCain might talk a good game on climate change, but a repeated floor chant at the Republican convention was "Drill, baby, drill!", as if the solution to global warming were not a radical rethink of the US's entire energy system but more offshore oil rigs.

If Americans choose McCain, they will be turning their back on the rest of the world, choosing to show us four more years of the Bush-Cheney finger. And I predict a deeply unpleasant shift.

Until now, anti-Americanism has been exaggerated and much misunderstood: outside a leftist hardcore, it has mostly been anti-Bushism, opposition to this specific administration. But if McCain wins in November, that might well change. Suddenly Europeans and others will conclude that their dispute is with not only one ruling clique, but Americans themselves. For it will have been the American people, not the politicians, who will have passed up a once-in-a-generation chance for a fresh start - a fresh start the world is yearning for.

And the manner of that decision will matter, too. If it is deemed to have been about race - that Obama was rejected because of his colour - the world's verdict will be harsh. In that circumstance, Slate's Jacob Weisberg wrote recently, international opinion would conclude that "the United States had its day, but in the end couldn't put its own self-interest ahead of its crazy irrationality over race".

I'm not even going to take this opportunity to counter the insulting implication that we are a bunch of hick racists who would never elect a black President. That idea has of course been floating around and you can be sure if Obama loses in November, that discussion will explode into a national debate. It's ridiculous, but I will rant about that another time.

However, to Mr. Freedland's point, I'm tired of caring what the rest of the world thinks. That's not because I think we, as Americans, are so much better than people from other countries. That's not the point. It's because to constantly be gauging the attitude of Europe towards the U.S. is to accept that we are indeed a problem for them, a scourge to the planet, an obstacle to global progress. Interestingly, that seems to be exactly the view of the Left currently in this country – and it's a view that I reject.

America is not the problem, not the scourge, not the obstacle. America is the solution to problems. America is the progress. America is the hope of the world. Period.

Show me a society that has produced more, given more, liberated more, and inspired more; and done so in such a short time. This is not arrogance, just truth.

Now, that doesn't mean that we should trample across the world waving our flag and getting involved in every conflict or situation that comes up. Not in the least. But we should humbly assist those who need (and want) our help, continue to grow our economic strength to our benefit and the developing world, and most of all, continue to lead by example. But hopefully, always with an eye on our own affairs here at home first.

Are we perfect? No, of course not. But I resent the idea that this election – and Obama's predicted victory – has turned into the 'Great American apology to the world' for the last eight years. What, really, do we need to apologize for?

I know the Europeans are all excited about Barry, but I'm not waking up in the morning worrying about how Pierre from Paris is feeling about U.S. politics. I'm sorry, I'm just not.

If anti-Americanism will be 'cured' by Obama's election, I'm happy to refuse the pill.

"It's almost hard to remain objective." Yeah, we know

This video is certainly not new, and it's not like it's a shock – or rare – that a mainstream journalist is completely in the tank for Obama. But this is still one of my favorite examples of an 'objective' network reporter letting their guard down as they fawn over Barry.

Islamic law officially adopted in British courts

From the Times Online:

ISLAMIC law has been officially adopted in Britain, with sharia courts given powers to rule on Muslim civil cases.

The government has quietly sanctioned the powers for sharia judges to rule on cases ranging from divorce and financial disputes to those involving domestic violence.

Rulings issued by a network of five sharia courts are enforceable with the full power of the judicial system, through the county courts or High Court.

Previously, the rulings of sharia courts in Britain could not be enforced, and depended on voluntary compliance among Muslims.

Some might call this a natural progression of multiculturalism in a forward-thinking society. Me? I wonder why any culture would willingly shred its own institutional fabric, especially for the hollow aim of appearing politically sophisticated. Is it not possible to remain sensitive to other cultures without surrendering your own identity?

I guess you could say my negative reaction to this story is melodramatic, a mountain out of a molehill. After all, this is only relating to a small portion of Muslim civil cases and has little effect on the British legal system as a whole. Well, you may be right, or it may be the creeping decline of democratic Western civilization that I've been sensing for some time now.

While you ponder that, ponder this from Mark Steyn's great essay The future belongs to Islam:

In a few years, as millions of Muslim teenagers are entering their voting booths, some European countries will not be living formally under sharia, but -- as much as parts of Nigeria, they will have reached an accommodation with their radicalized Islamic compatriots, who like many intolerant types are expert at exploiting the "tolerance" of pluralist societies. In other Continental countries, things are likely to play out in more traditional fashion, though without a significantly different ending. Wherever one's sympathies lie on Islam's multiple battle fronts the fact is the jihad has held out a long time against very tough enemies. If you're not shy about taking on the Israelis and Russians, why wouldn't you fancy your chances against the Belgians and Spaniards?

"We're the ones who will change you," the Norwegian imam Mullah Krekar told the Oslo newspaper Dagbladet in 2006. "Just look at the development within Europe, where the number of Muslims is expanding like mosquitoes. Every Western woman in the EU is producing an average of 1.4 children. Every Muslim woman in the same countries is producing 3.5 children." As he summed it up: "Our way of thinking will prove more powerful than yours."

Maybe it's true: A great civilization cannot be conquered from without until it has destroyed itself from within.

How to remove spines nonsurgically

According to this story from the Telegraph, one school in England has decided to do away with spelling tests because they are too 'distressing' for the children.

Whitminster Endowed Church of England Primary School, near Stroud, has decided not to give pupils lists of words to learn by rote as homework.

Headmistress Debbie Marklove said there was a risk that children would feel a "sense of failure" if, having learned the words at home, they were unable to spell them at school the next day.

She wrote to all parents of the 105 children aged between four and 11 at the school to tell them about the change.

"You will notice that the children will not be given spelling lists to learn over the week and then be tested in class," she wrote.

"We have taken the decision to stop spellings as homework as it is felt that although children may learn them perfectly at home they are often unable to use them in their daily written work.

"Also many children find this activity unnecessarily distressing.

As far as I know, no one has revealed this to be a joke.

I don't even really get frustrated by stories like this anymore – it's just the way of things. Europe is farther down the abyss, but with the continued pussification of America, we're not far behind. Sometimes I think we may as well just throw up the white flag to the terrorists or whoever else wants to dominate us.

Everyone gets a trophy, no one comes in first, and failure is not allowed – because that would hurt feelings. Instead of raising a generation of tough-minded, self-reliant warriors who have learned from hard work (and occasional failure), we're raising soft losers who will need more time on the psychiatrist's couch and happy pills when they learn that life is tough and you actually have to put forth effort to succeed.

Right now, the West is losing itself, and no one seems to care.

For all you moral equivalence types

...who are somehow able to talk about 'Radical Christianity' with a straight face, as if it is just as much a source of violence, blood and death across the planet. Or for those who would silence criticism of fundamentalist Islam because Muslims who commit acts of terror in the name of jihad (or merely sympathize with them) are such a rare anomaly, it is politically incorrect and 'hateful' to even speak of it.

Well, Clifford May has an interesting story to tell you at NRO. It's a must read actually.

Not since the Nazi book burnings of the 1930s has free speech been as endangered as it is today. Firebombing publishers, murdering filmmakers, issuing death threats against writers and cartoonists, suing researchers, restricting freedom of expression through bogus “human-rights commissions” and the U.N. — these are some of the ways militant Islamists, their enablers, and their apologists are seeking to silence their critics.

Much more on this topic to come...

Let's point some fingers!

According to Dominic Lawson with The Independent in the UK, Democrat fingerprints are all over the financial crisis:

Of all the characteristics of a successful politician, none is more essential than bare-faced cheek. Never has this been more evident than in the past fortnight, as senior Democrat members of the US legislature have sought to lay all the blame for the country's financial crisis on the executive arm of Government and Wall Street.

Neither of these two institutions is blameless – far from it. Yet when I see such senior Democrats as Barney Frank, Chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, and Christopher Dodd, Chairman of the Senate's Banking Committee, play the part of avenging angels – well, I can only stand in silent awe at the sheer tight-bottomed nerve of it. These are men with sphincters of steel.

What is the proximate cause of the collapse of confidence in the world's banks? Millions of improvident loans to American housebuyers. Which organisations were on their own responsible for guaranteeing half of this $12 trillion market? Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, the so-called Government Sponsored Enterprises which last month were formally nationalised to prevent their immediate and catastrophic collapse. Now, who do you think were among the leading figures blocking all the earlier attempts by President Bush – and other Republicans – to bring these lending behemoths under greater regulatory control? Step forward, Barney Frank and Chris Dodd.

In September 2003 the Bush administration launched a measure to bring Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac under stricter regulatory control, after a report by outside investigators established that they were not adequately hedging against risks and that Fannie Mae in particular had scandalously mis-stated its accounts. In 2006, it was revealed that Fannie Mae had overstated its earnings – to which its senior executives' bonuses were linked – by a stunning $9.3billion. Between 1998 and 2003, Fannie Mae's executive chairman, Franklin Raines, picked up over $90m in bonuses and stock options.

Yet Barney Frank and his chums blocked all Bush's attempts to put a rein on Raines. During the House Financial Services Committee hearing following Bush's initiative, Frank declared: "The more people exaggerate a threat of safety and soundness [at Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae], the more people conjure up the possibility of serious financial losses to the Treasury which I do not see. I think we see entities that are fundamentally sound financially." His colleague on the committee, the California Democrat Maxine Walters, said: "There were nearly a dozen hearings where we were trying to fix something that wasn't broke. Mr Chairman, we do not have a crisis at Freddie Mac and particularly at Fannie Mae under the outstanding leadership of Mr Franklin Raines."

I'll go ahead and be all bipartisan and nice and say, "Gee whiz, there's a bunch of Washington blowhards from both parties that need to get booted out of office for this mess," if that'll make you feel better.

But I damn sure know the first two I'd start with.

Crap sandwich

The Senate passed a 451-page, pork-filled $850 billion Wall Street bailout last night, in case you didn't know. Read about it here.

Jonah Goldberg wrote an absolutely brilliant piece a couple of days ago at NRO about the House's own failed attempt at a bailout and how both sides screwed it up.

Meanwhile, President Bush, his popularity ratings stuck at below-freezing numbers, has decided to cling to Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson for warmth on the grounds that the vaunted former Goldman Sachs CEO has the credibility to sell the solution to a problem he’s been exacerbating for 18 months. When a reporter for Forbes magazine asked a Treasury spokesman last week why Congress had to lay out $700 billion, the answer came back: “It’s not based on any particular data point. We just wanted to choose a really large number.”

There’s a confidence builder.

As for the reputedly free-market purists of the congressional GOP, with whom my sympathies generally lie, I cannot let pass without comment the fact that they controlled the legislative branch for most of the last eight years. Only now, when capitalism is in flames, does this fire brigade try to enforce the free-market fire codes without compromise.

I loathe populism. But if there ever has been a moment when reasonable men’s hands itch for the pitchfork, this must surely be it. No one is blameless. No one is pure. Two decades of crapulence by the political class has been prologue to the era of coprophagy that is now upon us. It is crap sandwiches for as far as the eye can see.

Mr. Goldberg and I probably disagree on what level of involvement is needed here by Big Gov in 'assisting' Wall Street. But his vitriol toward both parties on the failed House bill was too good not to point out.

As far as the new Senate bill, why am I not surprised? This is Washington after all. A smaller bill gets defeated in the House of Representatives, then a much bigger, more expensive porker of a bill gets passed by the Senate and will likely now pass in the House.

Crap sandwich, alright.

Shocker: Debate moderator is in the tank for Obama

Seriously, is anyone really shocked by this story?

PBS journalist Gwen Ifill, moderator of the upcoming vice presidential debate, dismissed conservative questions about her impartiality because she is writing a book that includes material on Barack Obama.

Of course she dismissed questions. I mean, Gwen Ifill is a PBS journalist, after all. She also smirked (and drew complaints) after Sarah Palin's speech at the convention, and was less than fair to Evil Dick Cheney four years ago in his debate with the missing man John Edwards.

Ms. Ifill's book is called "The Breakthrough: Politics and Race in the Age of Obama" and is slated to come out on January 20, 2009. Yes, that's inauguration day. If Barry wins, the book should sell pretty good. If McCain wins, the book will sell about five copies to her immediate family.

Look, no one should be surprised that a highly-respected member of the mainstream media is a Liberal, clearly biased, and in the tank for Barry. But what is surprising is how the debate commission didn't even consider this glaring conflict of interest when they chose her to moderate this debate. In the words of Matt Damon, "it's absurd."

Count it as another huge obstacle for Sarah Palin tonight, who hasn't done herself any favors lately with extremely poor interviewing. Good luck Sarah, you'll need it.