'Red Meat' on McCain-Obama Debate II

Jim Geraghty and Mark Hemingway of National Review in their program Red Meat discuss their reactions to last tonight's presidential debate.

O Lord! Deliver us from Obama madness!

It hit me as I was driving to work this morning, how can the voters be so ignorant as to not understand that it was the damn Democrat liberals and their Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac “free mortgages for everybody so you’ll vote for us” scheme that caused the entire world’s economy to crash? This goes back to President Jimmy Carter's Community Reinvestment Act and it’s been added on by Democrats since and when the Republicans tried to stop it, Democrats blocked it. Barney Frank and his fanny buddy at Fannie Mae and Obama and the Democrat leadership and most of the rank and file Democrats in the Senate and House are in this whole mess up to their liberal asses!

But yet the economy in the tank is helping Obama? What in the hell is up with that? Has the whole frigging country gone bug-f—k crazy!?

Of course, it’s the mainstream media that have been carrying water for the liberals since Hector was a pup who are to blame for the voter ignorance on this issue. But now that it’s blown up in our faces and everybody feels the pain, will the voters finally “get it” at long last?

I hope and pray that this election will be the first once since Hoover and the Great Depression that voters finally understand that Republican Hoover didn't cause the Great Crash of 1929 and Democrat FDR didn't get us out of the Great Depression, it was private enterprise manufacturing in WWII that put the economy back on its feet. Or will they just keep singing "Happy Days Are Here Again" while the Democrat bosses count the cash stolen from the taxpayers and use it to spread a little "walking-around money" on election day?

Michelle Malkin has the details on Obama's walking-around-money plan, which is already hard at work with ACORN stealing the election.

Systemic corruption of our election process continues. Barack Obama and his old friends at ACORN and Project Vote are leading the way. This radical revolution is taking place in your backyard. And as I’ve reported before, this voter-fraud racket is on your dime.

On Monday, the two liberal groups announced the wrap-up of a 21-state voter registration drive targeting low-income people and minorities in battleground states including Ohio, Pennsylvania, Colorado, Florida, New Mexico, and Wisconsin...

ACORN, which receives 40 percent of its revenues from American taxpayers to pursue an aggressive welfare-state agenda, has already helped register over 1.27 million people nationwide. The rest of their funding comes from left-wing heavyweights like billionaire George Soros and the Democracy Alliance.

Dead people voting for Democrats is a time-honored tradition of the party, but ACORN and Obama are taking voter fraud to a whole new level this year. This ain't no grass-roots, retail theft. This is wholesale theft across the nation. Michelle calls it Thug Thizzle to Election Day

In Ohio, large numbers of homeless people received free van and bus rides to register. Shelby Holliday, a reporter for Palestra.net, filmed ACORN shuttling prospects to the polls. She told me she spoke with one homeless woman who told her ACORN “told her who to vote for if she wanted a ‘better life,’ and told her not to worry about jury duty (one of the reasons this homeless woman didn’t want to register) because the government probably wouldn’t be able to track her down. She was registering with a temporary address.”

Holliday interviewed another homeless man targeted by the registration drive who exulted that he was voting for Obama because “I want him to do his thang. You know, do his thug thizzle.”

“Thug thizzle” is street slang for performing your trademark move. Obama and ACORN have practiced their thug thizzle together for years: organizing an ever-expanding community of ineligible and marginal voters to expand the Democratic power base. Rules be damned.

Nevada officials raided the ACORN office in Las Vegas Tuesday, but by the time this ends up in court, Obama will be in the White House.

Brian Faughnan at The Weekly Standard reports more on ACORN voter fraud.

There are accusations of fraud against ACORN in Connecticut, Wisconsin, and Nevada. That's four states in less than one week.

Barack Obama formerly represented ACORN and taught classes for their future leaders. While he served on the Board of Directors of the Woods Foundation, that group received about $200,000 from ACORN. When he began his presidential run, Obama paid ACORN more than $800,000 to help 'Get Out the Vote'--although it was not originally reported that way to the FEC.

Why bother to "Get Out the Vote" when you can just steal it? Meanwhile, Stanley Kurtz at NRO reports on the Obama Acorn Cover-up.

If the cover-up fails, let me make a prediction. Obama will say earnestly, sadly with a straight face: "This is not the ACORN that I knew."

Perhaps sanity is slowly percolating up in voters' minds as election day draws nigh. On the way to work this morning, I broke my longtime ban against liberal talk radio and tuned in National Public Radio to hear what they were saying about last night's Presidential debate. A group of New Mexico voters were being interviewed and not just one but two young 20-something guys said they were for Obama before the debate but had changed their minds and would vote for McCain. One said McCain was offering solutions while Obama was pointing fingers. NPR mentioned the other guy as changing his vote, but didn't interview him. Can't have too much of that kind of talk on NPR.

So of course, NPR shifted to a woman voter for Obama who said she hadn't changed her mind and heard the exact opposite in the debate, that Mr. Cool Obama is still the man with the plan and mean ol' John McCain was just picking on her boy and had no real answers to offer.

As somebody said, nobody ever went broke by underestimating the intelligence of the public. The first time I ever heard of Obama was when his made his "big speech" in the keynote address to the 2000 Democrat National Convention as an obscure Illinois state senator.

I thought then, what the hey? This guy said nothing of substance but sounded like a cross between a calm black preacher and O.J. Simpson's defense attorney and the Democrats all bowed down in worship and cried out "It is the voice of a god, and not of a man!"

That's what the foolish people of Tyre and Sidon said about King Herod when he made a speech and it certainly applies to many of the voters and all of the liberals in Congress, the mainstream media and the leftwing nutroots and other assorted dingbats. That speech didn't work out too well for King Herod despite the people's adulation and my prayer is the same happens to Obama (look it up, Acts 13:20-23).

Since 2000, the legend of the Obamessiah has grown to the point of absolute absurdity. This guy has never done nothing, hardly ever voted on anything except "present" and claims his sole "executive experience" is in his three-year campaign for the presidency when the truth is he's never run nothing but his mouth. This nobody with his smooth talk has seemingly mesmerized a majority of American voters!

Maybe the Obama Kool-Aid is finally wearing off since word of bomb-throwing Bill Ayers and some of the rest of Obama's rouge's gallery of allies has begun to filter up miraculously through the MSM blackout of any anti-Obama news. Why yesterday, we had a "Pig's fly!" moment when CNN aired its first report on Obama's bomb-throwing buddy Bill Ayers and their association going back to Obama's infamous "community organizer" gig in Chicago that blew $150 million from a white man's philanthropy to the Obama-Ayers rouge's gallery of radicals.

The assessment reports on the supposed results of the Annenberg Challenge cash came up with zippo, nada, not a single thing that helped a single resident of Southside Chicago while Mr. Community Organizer was spreading around all that money. If they had just handed the cash out on street corners, every resident of the Southside coulda been riding around in a new Cadillac at least until it ran out of gas.

Ace of Spades broke out his flaming skull and big red headline today for another "Obama's a radical!" development. Proof has surfaced that Obama was a member of the New Party. Big: Scrubbed Web Pages Resurface Naming Obama As Member of Expressly-Leftist "New Party"

So, what the heck is the New Party? I didn't know either. Thomas Lifson at American Thinker supplies the answer and why it's "Big!"

The New Party was a radical left organization, established in 1992, to amalgamate far left groups and push the United States into socialism by forcing the Democratic Party to the left. It was an attempt to regroup the forces on the left in a new strategy to take power, burrowing from within. The party only lasted until 1998, when its strategy of "fusion" failed to withstand a Supreme Court ruling, but after, but the membership, including Barack Obama, continued to move the Democrats leftward with spectacular success.

Lifson supplies some sources on the New Party if you want the details.

Erick Erickson, editor of RedState, explained fusion in a Human Events article.

J. Brown of Politically Drunk on Power has dug up multiple documentary sources (with hyperlinks) proving that Barack Obama was a member of the New Party, despite alleged attempts to cover up his tracks by scrubbing evidence. He or she deserves tremendous praise for doing this detective work.

Obama's career bears many signs of being helped along by the radical left. At the critical moment when he entered electoral politics, he was part of a movement to take over an established political party and dirct it to the task of building a socialist America.

Ace of Spades supplies a couple more links.

More at Nice Deb. Actually not much more, but instead a nice tiny-bites digest.

No Quarter has more. A reader calls it "pretty well sourced."

Maybe it's not too late. Maybe the voters will get "buyer's remorse" as they take an actual look at Obama's record. Hope springs eternal.

Jim Geraghty at The Campaign Spot on NRO has talked to Obi-Wan Kenobi, who expresses optimism that voters ain't so stupid after all.

Obi-Wan has an indefatigable faith in the American people. "The American people figure this out, as long as you put the facts in front of them." He agreed with my assessment that the Republican Party is not the side you expect to sign off on large taxpayer-backed loans to those with no income, no job, and no assets. The media has spent decades portraying the GOP as heartless tightwads; now we're supposed to believe they were the ones urging Fannie and Freddie to give a half-million mortgage to cousin Louie who you wouldn't loan $200 to. "American voters pile up a knowledge bank." And Obi wonders why some Reaganites "forget to trust the people. They are already starting to figure it out. They dislike the Democrats in Congress already and they eventually sort it all out. Again, the economy can play McCain's way."

McCain vs. Obama Round II: Who's got a plan?

The big question outranking all others in Presidential Debate II is the same theme that blew away all others in the first debate: "It's the economy, stupid!" And what the candidates had to say about "What can we do to get us out of this mess?" is quite instructional.

McCain offered a solution to end the housing credit crisis which has frozen our economy and since spread to the entire world economy.

“As president of the United States,” McCain announced, “I would order the secretary of the Treasury to immediately buy up the bad home loan mortgages in America and renegotiate at the new value of those homes — at the diminished value of those homes and let people be able to make those — be able to make those payments and stay in their homes.”

Obama's response: "Bush did it! Republican deregulators did it! McCain did it! I wasn't there that day and I had nothing to do with it!"

Obama's solution: "Now we've got to take some decisive action." Like what, pray tell? Here's what Obama said his "decisive action" plan would include: "." Nada. Zip. El Squatto. Not a mumblin' word. No solutions, just "Third Bush term! Bush did it! Blah, blah, blah...it's not my fault!"

Or as Byron York at National Review puts it succinctly: "Obama didn’t respond."

Did the Obama campaign follow up with details of his "decisive action" plan? Hardly. All they wanted to talk about afterward was what McCain had dared call Their Annointed One, his passing reference to Obama as "that one." Waaah! Did you hear what that man called me?

So what's the big deal about "that one"? Andrea Mitchell said it's racism, of course. "Certainly a lot of people of color will take offense."

Biggest gaffe of the night? Without question Obama's weird claim: "The computer was originally invented by a bunch of government scientists."

Yeah, and Al Gore invented the Internet, too. Government scientists invented the atomic bomb, but not the computer. Where on earth did that crackpot theory spring from? Is Obama's scientific reading list limited to Robert Heinlien sci-fi books? I recall the defunct Soviet government claiming to have invented everything from the light bulb to electricity. Is this Obama's vision of socialist government? Weird.

Thomas Lifson at American Thinker is geekier than I and knows who really invented the computer. Lifson also saw the socialist connection.

That statement about inventing the computer must have provoked whiplash among many in the IT industry! Some have been thinking it was John Vincent Atanasoff at Iowa State University in 1941. But nevermind that.

Here's the weirdest question Tom Brokaw asked (Gabriel Malor calls it "Zen-like Bullshit"): "What don't you know and how will you learn it?"

And IMHO, Obama gave the scariest answer of the night in his weak attempt at humor Henny-Youngman-style: "Take my wife. Please!"

My wife, Michelle, is there and she could give you a much longer list than I do. And most of the time, I learn it by asking her.

The next President of the United States will be getting answers to questions he doesn't know about from Michelle Obama? God help us.

And also IMHO, the best answer of the night was from John McCain's reply to the same "Zen-like BS" question from Brokaw:

I know what it's like in dark times. I know what it's like to have to fight to keep one's hope going through difficult times. I know what it's like to rely on others for support and courage and love in tough times.

I know what it's like to have your comrades reach out to you and your neighbors and your fellow citizens and pick you up and put you back in the fight.

That's what America's all about. I believe in this country. I believe in its future. I believe in its greatness. It's been my great honor to serve it for many, many years.

And I'm asking the American people to give me another opportunity and I'll rest on my record, but I'll also tell you, when times are tough, we need a steady hand at the tiller and the great honor of my life was to always put my country first.

Nobody has all the answers, including the most powerful man in the free world, the President of the United States. So you just have to rely on your leader's wisdom and character to make the right choices when the brown stuff hits the fan. Say what you will about President George W. Bush, can you imagine what President Al Gore would have done on 9-11? That scares me almost as much as "President Obama."

John McCain has been through the fire. He ain't perfect, but nobody's perfect, including me. Obama ain't even been near the real fire yet.

Sarah Barracuda slobber-knocks Smirkin' Joe Biden

Sarah Barracuda slobber-knocked Smirkin' Joe Biden at the debate last night.

McCain leads, Obama blinks and follows

John McCain has got more guts than a Polish sausage factory. Has any presidential candidate in the history of this nation ever suddenly shut down his campaign to go to Washington to deal with a national crisis that's more important than politics? None that I know of.

Newt Gingrich is a far better historian than I and he says President Dwight Eisenhower's promise in the midst of war is the closest match.

Former House speaker Newt Gingrich said the decision to suspend campaigning and lend a hand to the negotiations in Washington was "the greatest single act of responsibility ever taken by a presidential candidate." He said it rivaled Dwight Eisenhower's declaration during the 1952 campaign that he would go to Korea as president, if necessary, to help end the conflict there.

"This is the day the McCain-reform Republican Party began to truly emerge as a movement which puts country first, solutions first, and big change first," he said in a statement.

McCain's gutsy move caught everybody by surprise, particularly Obama, the Democrats and the media (same crowd), an even bigger shocker than his pick of Sarah Palin. Why you'd think the man had supported an unpopular war at the peril of his own political future. Oh right, he already did that.

Rick Moran at American Thinker said this at first blush yesterday:

This is an eye opener. First of all, the Dems don't dare call it a gimmick. McCain has effectively silenced the Democrats about the crisis for a few days.

Secondly, this is bold, decisive leadership - and McCain thought of it first so he gets the cookie. Obama is eating his dust right now and is no doubt kicking himself he didn't think of it first.

Third, this kind of surprise move will make the voters sit up and take notice. Some who may have been moving away from McCain will give him a second look. After all, we now have proof that in this race, there is one guy who talks about bi-partisanship and another who actually does something about it.

Moran was wrong on one count, Democrats did indeed dare to call it a gimmick. Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi had both called on McCain the day before to stop campaigning and come to Washington to pull reluctant Republicans on board their bailout plan. But when McCain took them up on their obviously sarcastic request, Reid was so mad he hung up on McCain when he called to tell him he was on the way. And then Reid called McCain's request to President Bush for a bipartisan economic summit at the White House a "photo op." Gimmick or guts?

The contrast could not be sharper between John McCain's quick, decisive and gutsy action in the midst of a national crisis and Obama's hesitancy and indecision. His first reaction was "Huh?" Then he said he could do two things at once, keep on campaigning and deal with the crisis in Washington by "long distance." Finally he recognized how bad his absence from an economic summit might look and caved in.

We're still waiting for Obama's rescue plan, which he hasn't had the guts to admit is nonexistent. He can't even do one thing at once. Mr. Vapid, Hesitant and Gutless is looking about as presidential as a first-term Senator who's never run nothing before but his own mouth.

Sarah Palin nailed Mr. "Vapid, Hesitant & Gutless" Obama's response to McCain's leadership in her interview with NBC Katie Couric.

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, in her third interview since joining the Republican presidential ticket, licked her finger and stuck it in the air, saying that Sen. Barack Obama might wait and "see what way the political wind's blowing" on the Wall Street rescue package.

Maybe Obama needs a Weatherman to know which way the wind's blowing and his buddy, ol' Bomb-Throwing Bill Ayers, wasn't available because he had all the long-distance lines tied up talking to Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, the mainstream media and the leftwing nutroots.

The New York Times grudgingly acknowledged that today's extraordinary meeting at the White House by Obama, McCain and Congressional leaders with President Bush was initiated by McCain, but had to note McCain read his startling statement from a teleprompter. Obama can't speak without one, but that's not news and it's news that McCain used one? They don't even try to hide their bias against McCain.

The meeting with Mr. Bush on Thursday was precipitated by a call from Mr. McCain, who cast his request as a matter of urgent national priority. “Following Sept. 11, our national leaders came together at a time of crisis,” he told a small group of reporters, while reading the brief statement from a teleprompter, in a small ballroom at the Hilton New York hotel. “We must show that kind of patriotism now.”

Dan Balz of The Washington Post "analyzed" McCain's bold move but the headline and the lede give away his pro-Obama slant. Under the headline Selfless or Reckless? McCain Gambles On Voters' Verdict, Balz gives his game away, answering the question himself: "He's Reckless!"

John McCain is a gambler by nature, and the bet he placed Wednesday may be among the biggest of his political life.

So is it reckless or selfless to gamble your political career on doing what's best for your country? I seem to recall the same thing being said about John McCain two years ago when he gambled his political career vs. winning a war for his country. Not reckless then either.

He managed once again, at least in the short term, to shake up the presidential race at a time when national and state polls show Obama opening up a clear lead. And by day's end, he had forced his rival to blink. Obama initially resisted McCain's call to join him and return to Washington. But hours later he was forced to capitulate whenPresident Bush called him and asked him to participate in a White House meeting with congressional leaders and his GOP rival.

Mr. Blinky still thinks he's in charge despite being forced to board McCain's bus at gunpoint. He's insisting the debate Friday is still on even though McCain has said he won't be there. Unless McCain blinks, it's going to be a lonely debate. Balz points out how foolish that plan is.

Obama ... may look high-handed if he insists on going ahead as negotiations in Washington reach a critical moment by this weekend.

Balz also states the obvious contrast, McCain's bold leadership vs. Obama's "long-distance encouragement" plan for dealing with a crisis.

At a minimum, voters were treated again to contrasting styles of leadership Wednesday, with McCain willing to act boldly, if impulsively, to inject himself into the middle of delicate negotiations to force a solution, and Obama adopting a cooler approach designed to show calm in the midst of crisis while preferring to give long-distance encouragement to all parties in the talks.

Finally, Obama's rescue plan is revealed. No need for an economic summit in the White House. Mr. Cool can handle it via long distance.

Oh well, on to Plan B for Obama since the long-distance deal didn't float. I fully expect him to emerge from the White House this afternoon, smile at the cameras and say with a perfectly straight face that he is delighted to be the One who will lead us to financial stability with his secret plan. He'll announce the details right after McCain works it out with the adults, if there are any others in D.C.

Speaking of juveniles, I was picking up a sub sandwich after work yesterday and the shop had MSNBC on with Chris Matthews going ballistic. He wasn't concerned at all about the financial crisis. He was flipping out because McCain said Friday's debate had to be delayed.

The thrill up his leg musta climbed up higher as his girlish voice got shriller and shriller, demanding to know why the debate couldn't be held on schedule? I wondered, what is the big deal? William Kristol must have heard the same panic I did because he answered my question.

As for the question of Friday night's debate, which some in the media seem to think more important than saving the financial system--if the negotiations are still going on in D.C., McCain should offer to send Palin to debate Obama! Or he can take a break from the meetings, fly down at the last minute himself, and turn a boring foreign policy debate, in which he and Obama would repeat well-rehearsed arguments, into a discussion about leadership and decisiveness. And if the negotiations are clearly on a path to success, then McCain can say he can now afford to leave D.C., fly down, and the debate would become a victory lap for McCain.

So the action of these few days becomes more important than the talk of that hour and a half Friday night. One could even say the contrast between the two men in action becomes the true debate over who should be president. The media, being talkers and debaters, love debates, overestimate their importance, and are underestimating the possible effect of McCain's dramatic action. In the debate itself, McCain should mock the media's greater concern for gabbing than solving our economic problems, and should associate Obama with such a talk-heavy media-type approach to politics. If the race is between an energetic executive and an indecisive talker, the energetic executive should win.

I've been expecting McCain to eat Obama's lunch in the debates, simply because he can think on his feet and Obama can't talk coherently without a written speech flashing across a teleprompter in front of him. Hillary ate him alive in the last debate he was in, which is precisely why Obama hasn't participated in one since. And now that events have overtaken the campaign and the only issue that really matters is what to do about this economic meltdown, what can Obama answer when McCain asks him what his plan is? Call it in by long distance?

Or as Kristol and others have suggested, if McCain sends Palin to debate Obama, well. I'd drive down to Mississippi just to watch that.

And I'd take my camera so I could get a picture of Obama with that "deer in the headlights" look on his face when Sarah locks and loads.

One more item. Remember that Washington Post-ABC-BS poll yesterday that showed Obama with the big lead? The one the media chattered about constantly all day? Total BS. Today's Gallup daily tracking poll has the presidential race back to a dead heat at 46-46, with McCain gaining two points and Obama dropping a point. Why am I not surprised? The Gallup numbers show McCain gaining and Obama dropping.

This update covers interviewing conducted Monday through Wednesday, and as such includes one night after McCain's announcement that he was suspending election campaigning and flying to Washington to help seek a bipartisan solution to the financial crisis. A night by night analysis of interviewing results, however, does not suggest that McCain had a dramatically better night against Obama on Wednesday. Instead, the data show that McCain has been doing slightly better for the last three days than he had in the previous week, and with some strong Obama days falling off of the rolling average, the race has moved to its current tied position. This is the first report since Sept. 13-15, in which Obama did not have at least a one percentage point edge.

You know how to tell when one of the talking heads of the mainstream media is lying? Watch closely. They lie every time their lips move.