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PRE-ELECTION SUBSCRIPTION DRIVE – FINAL WEEK

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I'll be on "The Conservative Hispanic" on KVCE Dallas at 10 this morning, ET.  Hear it at 1160 on your Dallas AM dial, or at KVCEradio.com on the internet.

MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 20, 2010

THE NEW McCARTHYISM – AT 9:42 P.M. ET:  During the misnamed "McCarthy era," (that's another story), people would have their patriotism questioned because of a meeting they went to in college.  Liberals coined the term "McCarthyism," then expanded the definition over the decades until it came to mean almost anything liberals didn't like.  But at its core was the admonition:  You must not ask about years ago.

Unless of course, you're asking about a Republican woman.  Then, hey, who ever heard of McCarthyism?

Ron Futrell, at Andrew Breitbart's "Big Journalism" blog, nails the hypocrisy:

The activist old media is hitting an all time low. Quite a challenge for them.

The same media that didn’t give a damn what Barack Obama did during the first 46 years of his life when he was running for president (except that he was organizing communities) is now in a full scale sprint to find out what Republican candidates did as kids.

Christine O’Donnell is running in Delaware against a guy, Chris Coons, who once wrote an article for his college newspaper about becoming a bearded Marxist (his words, not mine), but the media wants to know what she did in high school.

So, what did you do in high school? Let’s put it out there as you run for major office in America.

And...

I wonder what Barack Obama did during high school or college, anybody know? For the first time in the modern age of information we know very little about what the President of the United States of America did in his younger years. Hundreds of media swarmed tiny Wasilla, Alaska to find out anything and everything they could about VP candidate Sarah Palin during the campaign, but the same media had a difficult time getting to Honolulu, the Columbia University campus, Harvard Yard, or the south side of Chicago to ask a question or two about the Cold Hearted Social Engineer who now thinks he’s King of the Free World.

Very well stated.  We must give liberals credit.  They're much better McCarthyites than the rightists ever were, and you'll see that during this campaign.  I hope no conservative ever missed a magazine subscription payment.  It's going to come out. 

September 20, 2010      Permalink

SARAH RISING – AT 7:14 P.M. ET:  In the next few days we'll be talking about the gradually changing perception of Sarah Palin.  Little by little, she's taking turf, and sounding more impressive and certain.  Scott Rasmussen has taken a poll that shows the impact she's having:

Fifty-two percent (52%) of Likely U.S. Voters say their own views are closer to Sarah Palin’s than they are to President Obama’s, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey.

Just 40% say their views are closer to the president’s than to those of the former Alaska governor and Republican vice presidential candidate.

Among the Political Class, however, 68% say their views are more like Obama’s, while 63% of Mainstream voters describe their views as more like Palin’s.

Eighty-four percent (84%) of Republicans and 59% of voters not affiliated with either major party say their views are more like Palin’s. Eighty-one percent (81%) of Democrats say they think more like the president.

White House Press secretary Robert Gibbs last week said Palin is perhaps “the most formidable force in the Republican Party right now,” but just 22% of all voters agree. Fifty-two percent (52%) do not believe Palin is the party’s most formidable force. Twenty-six percent (26%) aren’t sure.

COMMENT:  They love her values, they're not sure about her "stature."  That's what I read in that poll.  But stature can be enhanced, and Palin is doing exactly the right thing.  She's out there stating her views, avoiding obvious interview traps, and speaking over the heads of the media types. 

As for her rejection by the political class, my heart breaks.  For every member of the political class, there must be a hundred real voters.  Which would you choose on election day?

September 20, 2010     Permalink

OH, MAKE SURE TO READ THE FINE PRINT – AT 10:56 A.M. ET:  Sometimes you just have to go down pretty far in a story before it makes sense.  This, from The New York Times.  The headline reads, "The Recession Has (Officially) Ended:

The recession officially ended in June 2009, according to the Business Cycle Dating Committee of the National Bureau of Economic Research, the official arbiter of such dates.

As the great Mr. Carson used to say, "I did not know that."

As many economists had expected, this official end date makes the most recent downturn the longest since World War II. This recent recession, having begun in December 2007, lasted 18 months. Until now the longest postwar recessions were those of 1973-5 and 1981-2, which each lasted 16 months.

Recession and expansion dates are based on various economic indicators, including gross domestic product, income, employment, industrial production and wholesale-retail sales. The Business Cycle Dating Committee typically waits to declare that the economy has turned until well after the fact, when it has a longer track record of economic data to confirm a new trend.

And now for that fine print:

The bureau took care to note that the recession, by definition, meant only the period until the economy reached its low point — not a return to its previous vigor.

Oh.

Maybe this committee might find some useful work.  Even if the recession technically ended more than a year ago, nobody in the real world thinks so.  The economy is the central issue in this campaign, and most knowledgeable people I speak with believe it will be in the doldrums for years to come, no matter what we do.

Change we can believe in.

September 20, 2010      Permalink

PERCEPTIVE, AS ALWAYS – AT 9:07 A.M. ET:  Lost in all the Delaware primary fuss last week was a political convulsion in Washington, D.C. itself.  The reform mayor, Adrian Fenty, was overthrown in the predominantly black city by Council President Vincent Gray, a man said to be closer to the black population.

The key fact in that result is that it may mean the end of school reform in Washington.  Fenty has pushed a thus-far-successful reform effort led by his appointed schools chief, Michelle Rhee.  But Fenty and Rhee apparently "offended" some elements of the city's majority, and certainly offended the teachers' unions.  Michael Barone gives a superb analysis of what happened.  This may have serious implications for other reformers in other cities and states.  From RealClearPolitics:

Four years ago, Fenty carried every precinct in the city. In office, he has drawn national attention for his appointment of Michelle Rhee as school superintendent. Rhee's reforms have produced higher test scores, stable rather than declining enrollment, a teacher evaluations system that has resulted in dismissals of dozens of incompetents and a union contract giving administrators greater flexibility in assignments.

Rhee won national acclaim but antagonized politicians like Gray with deep roots in Washington's black community. Blacks here, as in most large cities, have been more likely than average to work in public sector jobs -- a legacy of the days half a century ago when governments, at least north of the Potomac, didn't discriminate against blacks as many private firms did.

As a result, Gray struck a chord with black voters when he denounced Rhee's teacher layoffs -- the same layoffs that gentry liberals hailed as eliminating bad teachers who hold back children from poor families...

...Gentry liberals and public employee unions were allies in the Obama campaign in 2008. But now they're in a civil war, in city and state politics. This raises the question of whether the Democratic Party favors public employee unions that want more money and less accountability, or gentry liberals and others who care about the quality of public services. Right now, the unions are winning.

COMMENT:  Ah, the gentry liberals.  We know them well.  For years they've had their delicate consciences manipulated by the political left, and now some of them are realizing that they've been backing people who don't produce results.  Barone's excellent analysis may, we stress may, produce real change in the Democratic Party.  On the other hand, gentry liberals, in the end, value their cocktail-party invitations more than their principles, and may just go along with whatever the left wants.

This is well worth reading.  Barone points out that the GOP isn't the only party with growing divisions.

September 20, 2010     Permalink

THEY'RE BAAACK – AT 8:20 A.M. ET:  More traffic tie-ups.  This is the week – we endure it once a year in New York – when international windbags gather at the UN to deliver speeches and leave small tips in our fine restaurants.  All you see on the streets are police cars and limos.  The contribution to world peace is overwhelming.

Naturally, our president, international rock star that he is, will be back to shake a few hands and say a few words.  He's still big at the UN, and there's a good, ugly reason for it, as the Washington Times points out:

When President Obama speaks to the United Nations this week, he'll highlight gains from his policy of engaging the world body, but critics say that will come at the expense of U.N. reform - a Bush-era priority that, at least publicly, seems to have taken a back seat.

The White House has not permanently filled a key reform-centered ambassadorship to the United Nations after Mr. Obama's first nominee, Jide Zeitlin, withdrew his name late last year amid controversy about some business dealings.

Despite evidence of mismanagement at the massive organization, critics say, the U.S. delegation has backed away from the tough watchdog role it played under President George W. Bush.

Of course it has.  The crowd around Obama fairly loves the UN.  What a neat place to practice foreign languages.

The Obama administration said its multilateralist approach has helped advance interests on scores of issues, including nuclear nonproliferation and female empowerment.

Officials say the delegation continues to air grievances on management shortcomings, but does so privately and strategically.

Yeah.  We can't wait to hear the details.

The lack of pressure for UN reform has been one of the many embarrassments of the Obama administration.  Bush understood what the UN really is – a place for corrupt dictators to get their way – but Obama doesn't seem to care.  He even lent the prestige of this nation to the UN's Human Rights Council, one of the most corrupt bodies in the world, when he had the U.S. join it.  There has been no positive result.

So look for Obama to get his usual warm welcome, as contrasted with the ice that greeted Bush.  I'd prefer the ice.

September 20, 2010      Permalink

MORALE BOOST – AT 7:53 A.M. ET:  A new poll out this morning provides a needed smile for the troops on our side, but will bring a grimace to Nancy Pelosi.  From Andrew Malcolm at the L.A. Times's Top of the Ticket blog: 

Now that Democratic majorities in both houses of Congress are back at work after another vacation, their decline in voter approval has resumed in the polls.

A new Gallup/USA Today Poll conducted last week and published this morning reveals that Americans' approval of Congress, controlled by Democrats since January 2007, has dropped another point from August, down to 18%.

Fully 77 out of every 100 Americans disapproves of the job Congress is doing, up from 73% last spring.

The new poll numbers, especially if reiterated by others in coming days, are likely to force the fall's political storyline back on the Democrats' Day of Reckoning, Nov. 2, and off of preferred distractions such as the Tea Party's political spell over so many.

On that last point, see our first post this morning.

Particularly worrisome for Democrats, with President Obama's first midterm elections looming....

...in just 43 days, is that the approval of Congress has already sunk below the lowest Gallup approval ever recorded in a midterm year, the 21% recorded in 1994 and 2006.

And everyone remembers what happened in those two years -- both times unhappy American voters collectively turned both houses of Congress over to the minority party, to the Republicans in '94 and the Democrats in '06.

COMMENT:  The Senate looks very difficult for the GOP to capture.  But the House is well within reason.  Question:  Will Obama pull some kind of October surprise to change the outcome?  You can be sure they're thinking at the White House.  When it comes to politicking, rather than governing, they're thinking all the time.

September 20, 2010      Permalink

THE COUNTDOWN – AT 7:40 A.M. ET:  The election will be held six weeks from tomorrow.  That's about three lifetimes in politics, maybe more with today's 24-hour news cycle.  Plenty can happen.  Innovative – or vicious – politicians can change history in that time.

Last week was not good for our side.  We allowed the focus to shift from the monumentally poor record of the Obama administration and its Congressional allies to the influence of the Tea Party on Republican aspirations.  Once again, the mainstream media acted as a branch of the administration, advancing the line that the GOP was increasingly being taken over by "those people."  Questions asked by Karl Rove about Christine O'Donnell became more important than the jobless numbers.

That has to stop, right now.

The job the GOP has this morning is to get the focus back on the Democrats and what they've managed to do to America in less than two years.  And Republicans must speak over the heads of the press, as Ronald Reagan learned to do.  Katie Couric is not looking for ways to be fair and balanced.  The "60 Minutes" puff interview with the CBS-resurrected Jimmah Carter told the story of how biased that network has become. 

We have said repeatedly that this election is not in the bag for the GOP.  Last week proved the point.  Time to go back on the attack.

September 20, 2010     Permalink

SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 19, 2010

GET THIS MAN A PRESCRIPTION – AT 6:23 P.M. ET:  We have been informed by The New York Times that New York's increasingly batty mayor, Mike Bloomberg, is on a holy mission around the country to put in power his idea of good government guys.  His choices make Lady Gaga's choice in wardrobe look normal.  From The Times:

PROVIDENCE, R.I. — In an election year when anger and mistrust have upended races across the country, toppling moderates and elevating white-hot partisans, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg is trying to pull politics back to the middle, injecting himself into marquee contests and helping candidates fend off the Tea Party.

Don't you just love "white-hot partisans"?  I guess the fanatics who blindly supported Barack Obama in 2008 were "dedicated idealists."

He visited Rhode Island on Thursday to champion Lincoln D. Chafee, a Republican turned independent who is locked in a three-way battle for the governor’s office.

Lincoln Chafee?  Lincoln Chafee?  Do you remember him?  He got his job as a U.S. Senator because his father had held the seat.  He was a marshmallow defined.  He thought being a Republican meant wearing a nice suit and never having a strong point of view on anything.  So Bloomberg now embraces him, and a check must be on the way. 

Bloomberg also recently pilgrimmed to Pennsylvania to endorse Joe Sestak over Pat Toomey.  Sestak, a former Navy vice admiral who left the service under questionable circumstances, is sinking in the polls. 

And get this:

And, in perhaps the mayor’s most direct confrontation with a Tea Party candidacy, he will host a fund-raiser at his Manhattan town house for Harry Reid, the Senate majority leader facing an unexpectedly forceful challenge from Sharron E. Angle, a political neophyte backed by Sarah Palin.

Wait a minute.  I thought Bloomberg was now an independent.  Does an independent hold a fund-raiser for the most partisan Democrat in the Senate, the majority leader? 

Recently, as you may recall, Bloomberg embraced the mosque (or cultural center, or family hang-out) at Ground Zero, pompously stating that anyone opposed should be "ashamed of themselves."  Mayor Mike's ego has never been hard to find.

Look, if any of you see him in your area, just attach a label to him saying "return to City Hall, NY," and dump him in the nearest mailbox.   The package will get here. 

Bloomberg, originally elected mayor with the help of Rudy Giuliani, has drifted further and further away from the Rudy tradition.  He was term-limited to two terms, but managed to convince the necessary authorities to waive the rule just for himself.  Since being inaugurated for a third term he has become a bit of a joke.  It's clear, by the way, that he would like to be president.  Lord save us.

September 19, 2010      Permalink

CLINTON, DITCHING OBAMA'S APPROACH, APPEALS DIRECTLY TO IRANIAN PEOPLE – AT 10:46 A.M. ET:  Another small sign that Hillary Clinton, in some respects at least, is going her own way.  While Barack Obama shows little interest in the opinions or plight of the Iranian people, Clinton has appealed directly to them.  From AP:

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is urging the people of Iran to reject what she says is an expansion of the Iranian military's role and power.

Clinton said Washington is increasingly concerned about the rise of military power in Iran, the main U.S. adversary in the Middle East.

In an interview for broadcast Sunday on ABC's This Week, Clinton said many Iranians are also worried and she hopes they find a way to head off the military drift.

Clinton said she has "grave disagreements" with the Iranian Revolution.

"But the early advocates of it said this would be a republic. It would be an Islamic republic, but it would be a republic. Then we saw a very flawed election and we've seen the elected officials turn for the military to enforce their power," she said.

She said that many Iranians, even those who were originally sympathetic to the revolution are starting to have serious second thoughts about the direction their government has taken.

Without elaborating she said, "I can only hope that there will be some effort inside Iran, by responsible civil and religious leaders, to take hold of the apparatus of the state."s

COMMENT:  Hmm.  Notice that last line.  Is that a call to revolution?  Is Clinton aware of something through intelligence circles?  This is clearly not the kind of comment that her boss would make.  (But does Hillary really consider him her boss?)

Slowly, the secretary of state has been taking a tone at variance with the Obamans.  While Clinton couldn't challenge Obama directly for the 2012 Democratic nomination – she'd alienate the black vote permanently – she could hope that Obama might decide to be a one-termer, giving Clinton a clear shot at the nomination.  Stranger things have happened in politics...like Obama becoming president in the first place.

September 19, 2010      Permalink

WILL SARAH DO IT? – AT 10:03 A.M. ET:  Sarah Palin said this week that she's considering a run for the presidency.  Will she do it?  We have no way of knowing?  The first response, even from so-called "values" pros, was negative.  She scares a lot of people...in part because she won't kowtow to them. 

If she does run, she may have to carve out her own style.  The GOP establishment, which swears in secret ceremonies always to nominate the next person in line, will not be supporting her.  The Politico, in a somewhat sneering article, outlines the Palin dilemma:

DES MOINES — Former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin came to the cradle of America’s Republican establishment to deliver a tribute to “renegades going rogue.”

Palin made clear she is considering running for president but showed no sign that she plans to engage in the painstaking, humbling contest that will begin here in Iowa later this year...

...“I don't know how the machine works. I don't really know who they are up in that hierarchy in the GOP machine,” Palin told the Des Moines audience during her call for party unity and a “great awakening of America.”

But Palin was speaking to the machine. The traditional route to the presidency runs through the Iowa caucuses and victory in the caucuses begin with kowtowing to state Republican leaders in Des Moines, and then devolves to kowtowing to county leaders, town leaders, and precinct captains. The crowd was full of men and women with warm memories of a long line of Republican candidates who have made the journey here.

And that's the problem, and also the obstacle for Sarah, who's improved dramatically as a speaker.  For too long the little hacks in Iowa have had outsized power in the primary system.  Sarah Palin is not a typical candidate.  The GOP dinner she addressed in Iowa this week was the largest of its kind ever held because of her presence.  Behind the hacks sitting up front were the real people sitting in the rear, and they outnumbered the hacks.

Palin must overcome a great deal, and it's possible she can't.  Her own faltering behavior during the 2008 campaign, and a press that despises her and her culture, have combined to give her a net negative in approval ratings.  At Urgent Agenda we've been somewhat skeptical of her.

But, somehow, I hope she runs, just to demonstrate a gutsiness that's been lacking in American politics.  And look, you never know.  Ronald Reagan was also laughed at.  And so, by the way, was FDR, who was called "featherduster" because of his supposed intellectual shallowness. 

We're a nation that cheers the underdog.  If done properly, a Palin run could be an education in itself.

September 19, 2010      Permalink

QUOTE OF THE DAY – AT 9:48 A.M. ET:  We certainly oppose religious bigotry, but discussing religious groups, their problems and controversies, has become an honorable part of the journalistic tradition, and often involves exposing wrongdoing.

Sadly, some people, especially on the left, don't quite get that.  The left has suddenly discovered freedom of religion, but only if it applies to their faves, and is prepared to label anyone as a hater or bigot if the favored group is probed in any way. 

Frank Miele is a brave columnist out West.  I always read him and sometimes quote him.  He's been examining Islam, and now fights back against those who are labeling him simply because he's finding disturbing things:

If you believe my accusers, it turns out I am a bad person because I have actually tried to inform myself about the history of Islam in the West, the basic tenets of the religion, and the danger they pose when unopposed. I am supposed to just shut up about the gay-killing, wife-beating, adulterer-stoning, infidel-conquering beliefs of traditional Islam. If I talk about them, it is little old me who is the problem, not the religion that sanctions executing homosexuals or stoning women to death.

Calling someone who sounds the alarm over Islam’s danger Islamophobic is roughly the equivalent of calling Paul Revere Anglophobic for shouting (in folklore at least), “The British are coming, the British are coming.” If the British had been home napping in London town, Paul Revere would have been crazy. But since the British were indeed marching on Lexington and Concord, it made him a hero, not a fool.

I submit that while I may not be a hero, I am certainly no fool when I warn Americans that we face a grave threat from people who hate us in large part because they are Muslims and we are not. The attacks of 9/11 should have proved that once and for all. The Fort Hood shooter and Times Square bomber are recent confirmations.

Yes sir, yes sir.  We need more rhetoric like that, more fight back.  The attempts to label anyone who questions any part of Islam as "Islamophobic" is well under way, led in part by super-jerk Christiane Amanpour.  At the same time, Islam's attacks on Christianity and Judaism are considered merely "cultural" statements. 

We must protect journalists like Frank Miele.  Reasonable tolerance, which Americans practice every day, does not mean blind acceptance.

Contrast Miele's bravery with today's profoundly embarrassing piece by Nicholas Kristof of The New York Times, in which he apologizes to Islam for our real or imagined sins.  Kristof has won Urgent Agenda's Pompous Fool Award, and may well be in line for another.

September 19, 2010     Permalink