Barrel Strength

Let us put Governor Sarah Palin and Senator Barack Obama head-to-head on measures of executive experience. As Governor of Alaska, Sarah Palin has had the final executive authority over a state budget of over $13 billion. During that time she has held an approval rating of approximately eighty percent among Alaskan voters.

As the chairman of the board of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, a foundation mandated to raise standards in public education, Barack Obama had to oversee the disbursement of over $100 million. Both internal and external audits found that under his administration, the Annenberg Challenge had a negligible impact on Chicago public education standards.

Furthermore, genuine education-promoting initiatives such as science fairs and math competitions were denied funding while radical groups that promoted black ethnic identity projects, such as promoting the Emancipation Proclamation anniversary as the national day instead of Independence Day, were funded. By the way, an ex-officio member of the board chaired by Obama is Bill Ayers, the unrepentant domestic terrorist whom Obama claims to barely know.

The question of Obama’s stewardship of the Annenberg Challenge, the attempts to suppress the records of it and the role of Bill Ayers in Obama’s chairmanship were discussed over two hours on August 27 on Milt Rosenberg’s radio show, Extension 720, on WGN Chicago. His guest was Stanley Kurtz, a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center and a contributor to National Review (unabridged MP3 downloadable here).

You will hear Rosenberg and his producer explain that the Obama campaign was invited to participate but declined, while later on Obama operatives mobilized an email campaign calling for supporters to call in to the show and complain to station management over airing the program.

To review: Sarah Palin gets strong public backing for managing a budget 130 times larger than the funds under Barack Obama’s watch, while auditors find that he failed to meet basic performance benchmarks. Now, who is truly the one better prepared to handle a senior executive posting?

So not only is the Obama campaign’s swipe about McCain putting “the former mayor of a town of 9,000 with zero foreign policy experience a heartbeat away from the presidency” petty in tone, it begs consideration of Obama’s own failure as an executive manager and thus serves to demonstrate why the man is unfit to govern the United States.

So He has apparently recruited twitchy lawyer Nathan Thurm as His latest spinmeister:

“Experience is being taken off the table considering you’re putting someone within a heartbeat of the presidency with the thinnest foreign policy experience in history,” spokesman Bill Burton said.

As opposed to putting someone with the thinnest foreign policy experience in history INTO the presidency?

Meanwhile, let’s join His campaign team as they try to win over the blue-collar vote:

Direktlink zum Video auf Youtube

Judging by this photo from Denver, we can rest assured that reports of delusions of god-like grandeur are baseless:

In an earlier post your correspondent posted the following:

With a campaign in which just the foreign policy team consists of a cast of 300, one would expect resplendent accomplishments, given what another ragtag band of 300 accomplished historically, under much more trying circumstances.  Alas, that is not the case.

It seems they have failed him again.  After his Berlin speech Obama has continued to try to impress the electorate with his foreign policy expertise.  In a recent statement about Russia he states:

In his written statement that marked a toughening of his rhetoric toward Russia, Obama also said the United States should call for an immediate meeting of the U.N. Security Council to condemn Moscow’s decision in coordination with European allies.

Is he aware that Russia has a veto in the Security Council?  What is this cast of 300 foreign policy advisers advising?

In its latest mind-boggling ad campaign for Canada’s leading brand of comic re-education, the Mother Corpse apes imagery of the Beatles, at one point depicting the cast members in the style of the “Meet the Beatles” album cover and describing them breathlessly as “the world’s most famous Muslims”.

Funny thing, I looked at the montage and for the life of me could not spot:

• Ayatollah Ruholla Khomeini
• Osama bin Laden
• Yasser Arafat
• Saddam Hussein
• Moammar Khadaffi
• Mohammed al Jinnah

Or are we to believe that the Q scores of Amaar Rashid and Baber Siddiqui are that much higher than theirs?

Who?

Exactly.

For those who thought their foreign policy fears over Obama would be allayed by the powerful informed presence of Joe Biden on the ticket:

At the Tuesday-morning meeting with committee staffers, Biden launches into a stream-of-consciousness monologue about what his committee should be doing, before he finally admits the obvious: “I’m groping here.” Then he hits on an idea: America needs to show the Arab world that we’re not bent on its destruction. “Seems to me this would be a good time to send, no strings attached, a check for $200 million to Iran,” Biden declares. He surveys the table with raised eyebrows, a How do ya like that? look on his face.

The staffers sit in silence. Finally somebody ventures a response: “I think they’d send it back.” Then another aide speaks up delicately: “The thing I would worry about is that it would almost look like a publicity stunt.” Still another reminds Biden that an Iranian delegation is in Moscow that very day to discuss a $300 million arms deal with Vladimir Putin that the United States has strongly condemned. But Joe Biden is barely listening anymore. He’s already moved on to something else.

Now imagine what he would be like at 3:00 AM.

What credibility can one have in painting your opponent as essentially the Darth Vader of our times when you then recruit Grand Moff Tarkin as your sidekick?

And now an endorsement from Jabba the Hutt?

Cheap Jedi mind tricks, indeed!

Greying Imperial time-server and Democrat Senate insider

The stifling of freedom continues unchecked in Canada. I have been watching how the malign influence of human rights laws advances an agenda of “non-discrimination” in all departments of life including medical practice. Its purpose and effect is to consign religion and religious principles to the same domain as masturbation, namely, a private vice best kept hidden from the public, and certainly not to be practised in contradiction to the secular humanist agenda, the real official religion of Ontario. Doubt me? Read on.

Read the rest…

All of the spin on geographical balance and supposed blue-collar appeal cannot explain away the fact that Barack Obama panicked over the foreign policy attacks of the McCain campaign and conceded them by selecting Joe Biden as his running mate.

Consider the contrasts between the Democrats’ playbooks for 1988 and 1992. The Michael Dukakis campaign pitched their man as the architect of the so-called “Massachusetts Miracle” and the successful son of immigrants, yet they went with an old party warhorse to reassure the party base in light of Dukakis’ obvious lack of depth in foreign policy. But in securing an insurgent victory over the liberal party establishment for the radical centrists of the Democratic Leadership Council, Bill Clinton felt sufficiently comfortable to take onboard a contemporary colleague and brand his ticket as a team for youthful change. The Clinton/Gore partnership marked a watershed in American politics, as they became plausible standardbearers for generational change in Washington and defeated an incumbent with sterling foreign policy credentials but a lacklustre domestic record.

So one wonders why Obama’s strategy wizard David Axelrod has squandered a similar opportunity to seize the messaging high ground. Instead of proclaiming that Obama has a winning partner for “change we can believe in”, the choice of Joe Biden is a sop to the “nervous nellies” that with Dad in the co-pilot’s seat, they can relax knowing that the new kid is under adult supervision.

The Obama campaign still has in its favour a considerable margin in GOTV (Get Out the Vote). They can rely upon a much larger base of volunteers and a more motivated core group of voters, sobering facts to consider when interpreting polling results that show Obama either neck-and-neck or running slightly behind McCain.

Nonetheless, this ticket adds little to those strengths for the coming ground war. The Clinton/Gore ticket consolidated the Democrat campaign brand in 1992, while all that remains notable of Dukakis/Bentsen in 1988 is the memorable “No Jack Kennedy” shot at Dan Quayle… who shortly thereafter become Vice President Quayle.

Sometimes you gotta love it when a plan doesn’t come together.

…. if it’s the truth.  “Senator Obama, about the terrorists?”

Note: Click on the “Watch in high quality” link, found below the number of views, if you get a message that the video is no longer available.

Years ago many Canadians were impressed by the performance of a thoughtful cabinet minister who tackled the spiteful polemics of Quebec separatists by refuting their claims in a series of carefully crafted letters buttressed by solid research and exemplary logic.

But now it appears, in the minds of Stéphane Dion and his inner circle, that intellectual integrity no longer “pops”:

With Maple Leaf Food’s Toronto meat-processing plant closed amid a nationwide outbreak of listeria infection, Mr. Dion accused the Tories of wanting to walk away from the “core” government responsibility of food inspection in favour of privatization. And the Liberal Leader named former Ontario Conservative MPs Jim Flaherty, John Baird and Tony Clement as key supporters of the plan.

[..]

“These are the same people – Mr. Flaherty, Mr. Baird, Mr. Clement – who are responsible [for] what happened in Walkerton, who privatized [Ontario's] propane inspection, and they want to do something equivalent about food inspections, which is at the core of what the government should do,” he said.

Nowhere in the story is there evidence of those ministers being connected to the document in question by any recorded means, just an assertion by Mr. Dion of a link. So let us be fair and accept Dion’s premise… by applying his new political set theory to his own turf.

His Green Shift proposal aims to reduce Canada’s output of carbon. And one of the Shift’s biggest proponents is Otawa South MP David McGuinty. And it reasonable to claim that on some given Sundays McGuinty will break bread with someone in Ontario’s government who promised to end that province’s reliance on coal-fired electric power plants. Promised yet failed utterly by his own admission, but continues to promise to do so.

Dion is committed to the Green Shift being revenue neutral. And that commitment is undoubtedly shared by Toronto MP Bob Rae. And Bob Rae knows a lot about revenue neutrality when it comes to taxing energy. He moved to defeat a government that proposed an 18 cent per gallon tax on gasoline, only to have it replaced by one that more than doubled the tax on gasoline.

But that’s just linkage. Tied together. With research. And logic. On our web pages.

Do you think Stéphane Dion shares the desire of your correspondent and our readers for a hot shower to rid oneself of the appalling dirty feeling that comes from exercises like this?

Of course not.

Mark Steyn has been excoriated by the Usual Suspects™ for allegedly failing to see the humour in the carbuncle of CBC’s crown. So what can they say in reply to this assessment from award-winning actor Maury Chaykin?

“I have a bee in my bonnet about that show,” says Chaykin of Little Mosque. “What’s most annoying is the fact that it’s touted as this huge success. I mean, the title is great, but they failed very badly in delivering a good show. After finally seeing an episode, I was just gobstruck. I thought, I don’t know what I’m watching, I don’t understand what it’s supposed to be; it’s not funny, nor moving, nor touching - nothing. It’s two-dimensional in a way that doesn’t touch anything sensitive, doesn’t touch anything that means anything to anyone. It’s so bizarre.”

No polemic, just an accomplished actor’s take on a supposed situation comedy. Works for me.

Eager enough to time his invasion of Georgia two weeks before the conventions and boost McCain’s chances by making foreign policy and national security the key election issues?

An article on today’s Politico.com entitled McCain reopens the national security gap notes that ‘July’s NBC News/Wall Street Journal Poll found that three in four Americans believe McCain can “handle” the role of commander in chief, while only 19 percent said he “cannot,” compared to a 50 percent to 42 percent split for Obama.’

The article goes on to state: ‘When violence between Russia and Georgia escalated to war earlier this month, McCain’s first statement demanded that “Russia should immediately and unconditionally cease its military operations and withdraw all forces from sovereign Georgian territory.” Obama’s first statement, by contrast, delicately avoided the question of responsibility. “Now is the time for Georgia and Russia to show restraint, and to avoid an escalation to full-scale war,” he said. Later that day, Obama blamed Russia for the invasion. By Saturday, the Democrat had moved still closer to McCain’s position: “Russia has escalated the crisis in Georgia through its clear and continued violation of Georgia’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.”

Obama’s Carter-esque lack of clarity and spinelessness were clearly revealed in those 24 hrs. Putin is the craftiest, most ruthless leader Russia has had in decades. He has no love for the USA, but his country shares a continent with China and Iran - nobody’s friends. He needs the greatest military power on the planet to help keep them in check, not wring hands and plead with them to play nicely.

He chose to stage his invasion on a weekend in August when world leaders were on holiday or with him at the Olympics opening ceremonies, and a bare two weeks before the Democratic convention. He is accomplishing a number of goals: putting the fear of Putin into former SSRs and bloc members, reminding Europe he can turn off the pipeline anytime, and forcibly reminding Americans which candidate can deal with him - and which has no clue. Collateral side-effect or part of his calculations from the beginning? I believe there is no coincidence in anything orchestrated by Putin.

The recent interview by Pastor Warren led to the following remark, as reported by Andrea Mitchell of NBC.

Mitchell reported that some “Obama people” were suggesting “that McCain may not have been in the cone of silence and may have had some ability to overhear what the questions were to Obama. He seemed so well prepared.”

Are the “Obama people” surprised that there are people who are capable of articulating their viewpoint without benefit of a teleprompter?  Is that an admission that Obama, the Great Orator, is inept without one?  Hmm, where have we seen that before?

Direktlink zum Video auf Youtube

A new mainstream Hollywood movie rips into Michael Moore and the Air America set, while for the Obamessiah (poll leads be upon Him) upkeep of street credibility is becoming as tough as a camel passing through a needle’s eye. Behold the Good News in all its YouTube glory:

Direktlink zum Video auf Youtube

Direktlink zum Video auf Youtube

H/T FFOF