Day 200: Obama's approval rating finally goes negative

Where's the 200-day headlines about President Obama's approval rating going into negative territory? There were none and I missed it until I ran across the latest chart and stole it from Gateway Pundit.

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Sunday shows that 32% of the nation's voters now Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as President. Thirty-four percent (34%) Strongly Disapprove giving Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of -2. That’s the President’s lowest rating to date and the first time the Presidential Approval Index has fallen below zero for Obama (see trends).

And over at the Contentions blog at Commentary, there's another poll report that Israelis are finally waking up and smelling the coffee about whose side Obama is on. And it is not Israel's.

The White House is atwitter after a new poll revealed a dramatic shift among Israelis regarding the administration’s policies towards Israel. The poll, conducted by Smith Research and commissioned by the Jerusalem Post, shows that only 6% of Israelis consider Obama “pro-Israel,” while 50% see him as “pro-Palestinian.” Compare this with the same poll from a month earlier, in mid-May, which had 31% responding that the Obama Administration is pro-Israel, and just 14% saying pro-Palestinian. What has changed in the last month? Not much, other than Obama’s dramatic Cairo speech, which described Israel as the product of centuries of Jewish suffering and the Holocaust; and Netanyahu’s no less dramatic response, which described Israel as the product of thousands of years of Jewish attachment to their ancient homeland.

There is a political calculus for the President here: As much as American Jews may have supported Obama without caring too much about his record on Israel, at the end of the day, American Jews tend to care deeply about Israel, and their sense of what’s happening with Israel is highly informed by what Israelis think (or, at least, Israeli elites). In other words, so dramatically lopsided a view of American policy towards Israel will not be lost on American Jewish voters. Midterms are not that far off.

What's going on? Is the kool-aid wearing off? Are voters finally waking up from the November nightmare? I sure hope so. One reason for the shift in polls -- in addition to the biggest reason, which is Obama's own performance, or lack thereof, as President -- is the law of unintended consequences. Obama got elected on the "Bush did it!" strategy. And since taking office, he has continued the "Bush did it!" excuse for all the ills of the world and his own administration.

And guess what? Former Bush administration officials, President George W. Bush himself and even his mild-mannered father, President George H.W. Bush, have finally responded after former Vice President Dick Cheney showed the way. All I can say is it's about time.

The Washington Times tells us who's on first among the Bush administration members who have finally found their voice after Cheney led the charge.

It's not just former Vice President Dick Cheney.

As former President George W. Bush offered his first public - though veiled - criticisms of his successor's administration last week, a growing number of his senior aides and advisers are also speaking up to defend Mr. Bush's record and take on the Obama White House.

A few of them are marrying their insider's policy knowledge with modern technology to critique, in detail, President Obama's economic program.

The day Mr. Obama left for the Middle East earlier this month, former Bush official Tony Fratto launched a broadside against the White House claim that it had "created or saved" 150,000 jobs with economic-stimulus money.

"What causes the jaw to drop is not just the breathtaking deception of the claim, but the gullibility of the Washington press corps to continue reporting it," Mr. Fratto, an economist who served in the Treasury Department and the Bush White House press office, wrote on a blog run by CNBC, where he is now a paid contributor.

When Mr. Obama returned from his trip, the jobs "created or saved" claim was front and center. The White House message of the day - that the stimulus would "create or save" 600,000 more jobs in the next 100 days - ran into a public relations buzz saw.

Perhaps I was wrong when I predicted President Obama's "Bush did it!" strategy would work well enough to see him through his first term and into his second. I sure hope so. C'mon 2012! And perhaps we won't have to wait for the inauguration of President Sarah Palin's first term to see some "change you can believe in." Midterm elections in 2010 would be a fine time to take the reins of power from Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid and return it to the sick-and-tired voters.

The Revenge of Cheney is aided by Obama's power grab

Take a wild guess what the most-read post on my blog is during its short history?

It's Let's Go Fly Fishing with Mr. Nice Guy, quoting a Weekly Standard report on a fishing trip on the Snake River with Vice-President Dick Cheney shortly before he left office.

The most under-appreciated vice president ever, Cheney didn't care a fig about his popularity while in office, he just quietly did his utmost to protect our country, earning his Darth Vader nickname from the leftwingnuts. Hey, anybody that bunch hates has got to be doing something right.

And Cheney has proven himself to be a valuable public servant out of office by speaking out in defense of our nation once again, blasting the Obama administration for releasing the CIA torture memos that document the terrible waterboarding torture of guess how many terrorists? A grand total of three, all three of which were directly involved in the 9/11 attacks on our nation.

But a funny thing happened to Darth Vader and the left's vilification of this good man. While he was speaking out, he blasted those leftwingnuts in office, like House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who knew all about the CIA waterboarding and applauded it shortly after 9/11, only to turncoat in the present political climate and accuse the CIA of lying to them about it. And guess who gets hoisted by her own petard? None other than fancy Nancy from San Fran. Couldn't happen to a nicer gal, could it? There's something delicious about libtards being hung by their own words.

And Bill Kristol points out in a current article in the Weekly Standard how Cheney's courageous stand in the face of withering criticism from the Obamessiah's defenders is defending America.

Dick Cheney is reminding Republicans that they need to defend themselves when attacked.

When President Obama released the Justice Department interrogation memos a month ago, Cheney denounced him for doing so. He explained why it was inappropriate and unwise to release such documents. But he did more. He didn't just defend himself and the administration in which he served. He fought back, and encouraged others to do so.

He challenged the president to release CIA memos evaluating the effectiveness of the enhanced interrogation techniques. He raised the question of whether congressional Democrats--Nancy Pelosi, for one--had known of, and at least tacitly approved of, the allegedly horrifying abuses of the allegedly lawless Bush administration.

Now, a month later, Pelosi is attacking career CIA officials for lying to Congress, and other Democrats are scrambling to distance themselves from her. Meanwhile, the Obama administration has pulled back on threats to prosecute Bush-era lawyers, reversed itself on releasing photos of alleged military abuse of prisoners, and embraced the use of military commissions to try captured terrorists. The administration now looks irresponsible when it lives up to candidate Obama's rhetoric, and hypocritical when it vindicates Bush policies the candidate attacked.

Thank God for Dick Cheney. Along with Rush Limbaugh and Newt Gingrich, these three are taking a stand against the lunatic left and finally the Republicans in office are joining the fight.

House Minority Leader John Boehner steps up to the plate and joins the battle at long last.

And it also appears the lynch mob clamoring for Pelosi's head has been joined by Obama's chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, who Bill Kristol sees as the guiding hand behind CIA Chief Leon Panetta's blast at Pelosi, rebutting her charge that she was lied to about torture by the CIA.

Over at the Washington Post's Post Partisan blog, Kristol writes:

Commentators have been struck -- though not perhaps as much as they should have been -- by the extraordinary character of CIA Director Leon Panetta’s blunt and stark rebuke of Nancy Pelosi. Responding to political debates that “reached a new decibel level [Thursday] when the CIA was accused [by Pelosi] of misleading Congress,” Panetta wrote Friday that “our contemporaneous records from September 2002 indicate that CIA officers briefed truthfully on the interrogation of Abu Zubaydah.”

But did Panetta simply decide on his own to send this letter? It’s almost inconceivable. Panetta is a former member of Congress and a former White House chief of staff. President Obama made him CIA director only four months ago. Even if his motivation for the letter was in part driven by an institutional imperative to defend his agency, Panetta would have understood the political implications of humiliating a House speaker of his own party. He surely at least ran the letter by White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel to get clearance. It’s also possible that Panetta was encouraged to send the letter by Emanuel.

As Emanual has already been quoted as saying about the power grab during the economic crisis, never let a good crisis go to waste. It sure looks like he's using the Pelosi torture crisis to get rid of the Speaker of the House and orchestrate the elevation of someone of his own choosing.

Probably so, but I agree. Off with Pelosi's head and we'll deal with whoever replaces her. In this case, the enemy of my enemy is my friend and getting rid of Pelosi is in the nation's best interest.

And before I leave the topic of our most under-appreciated vice president, guess what the current idiot holding that office shot off his big mouth about? Blogger Stephen F. Hayes at the Weekly Standard comments that Joe Biden has revealed the secret "undisclosed location" where Cheney so famously went when national security issues threatened the Bush administration.

According to an account in Newsweek, Biden did give up one of the country's secrets at another dinner where journalists and politicians make fun of Republicans (and occasionally laugh at each other). Biden told his dinnermates about the existence of a secret bunker under the Vice President's Residence at the U.S. Naval Observatory.
Eleanor Clift writes:

Ever wonder about that secure, undisclosed location where Dick Cheney secreted himself after the 9/11 attacks? Joe Biden reveals the bunker-like room is at the Naval Observatory in Washington, where Cheney lived for eight years and which is now home to Biden. The veep related the story to his head-table dinner mates when he filled in for President Obama at the Gridiron Club earlier this year. He said the young naval officer giving him a tour of the residence showed him the hideaway, which is behind a massive steel door secured by an elaborate lock with a narrow connecting hallway lined with shelves filled with communications equipment. The officer explained that when Cheney was in lock down, this was where his most trusted aides were stationed, an image that Biden conveyed in a way that suggested we shouldn’t be surprised that the policies that emerged were off the wall.

Despite more than fifteen trips to the VPR over the past five years, and despite having conducted dozens of interviews about security precautions taken for Cheney and his staff after 9/11, I was never told such a bunker existed.

I was able to learn and write about Cheney's getaways at Camp David, extra measures taken for him when he traveled on Air Force Two, and even the use of a "dummy" plane sometimes used in combat zones. But no one ever mentioned this secure facility at the Naval Observatory.

The obvious conclusion: Its existence was highly classified.

So what was Joe Biden doing talking about it at the Gridiron Dinner? And, if it was indeed classified, will this disclosure be referred to the Justice Department?

Joe Biden ought to rode out of town on the same rail with Nancy Pelosi. God help our nation.

Lightweight Nancy takes on Heavyweight CIA: TKO at 11

As usual, Sir Charles Krauthammer cuts through all the BS concerning Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi's stammering, stuttering half-truths, lies and damn lies about the CIA and torture.

Krauthammer also provides some overwhelming factoids regarding Pelosi's charge that the CIA lied to her:

"Her charge of the CIA lying to her is utterly implausible. Why would it lie to her and tell all the others the truth? It makes no sense at all; and it was refuted by the black and white Obama CIA memo –– not a memo out of the Prince of Darkness: Bush and Cheney; but Obama CIA –– would show that in the briefing in which she says none of this simulated drowning occurred, they had specifically told her about the Enhanced Interrogation Techniques that had been used on a prisoner, obviously, a month earlier."

Watch and enjoy Pelosi getting utterly Krauthammered on Fox News last night:

Depressing thoughts about the future of our free Republic

Haven't blogged much on politics lately as all the news is bad and getting worse. Depressing for a founding member of the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy, as Obama/Pelosi/Reid consolidate power.

Besides, I've been busy as a one-handed paper hanger working at my new job at a gun store, where Obama's stimulus plan for gun shops shows no signs of slacking off since the election. That's so far as I know the only sector of the economy that's booming and the Good Lord opened a job for me there just in time before I got laid off as a technical writer/photography for a local industry. Proves once again how the Lord takes care of fools and drunks. I've been both and still a bit of the former.

Anyway, I had another depressing thought last night sitting in Bible study at church. We've been studying the "minor prophets," the small in quantity but not quality authors of the concluding books of the Old Testament, such unrecognizable names as Hosea, Amos, Habakkuk, Joel, Obadiah, Micah, Nahum, Haggai, Zephaniah, Zechariah and Malachi. I've read them all before several times in my trips through the Bible, but this is the first time I've participated in a study of these men who wrote during the closing years of the Northern and Southern Jewish kingdoms.

Their messages could be aptly summed up in four words: "The end is near." Their words were indeed prophetic as they warned of the defeat of the Northern Kingdom of Isarel first, when the Assyrians conquered and carried away the "Lost 10 Tribes" of the Jewish nation into exile.

They're called the lost 10 tribes because they never returned to Northern Israel. Gone forever.

And these minor prophets also warned of the coming collapse of the Southern Kingdom of Judah, which happened when Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonians conquered Judah and carried those two Jewish tribes into captivity. They were released by the Persian ruler who conquered Babylon and allowed to return to Israel, but the Southern Kingdom was never restored.

There were no further true kings in Israel following the period written about by the minor prophets. During the 400 "silent years" between Malachi, the last book of the Old Testament, and Matthew, the first book of the New Testament, there was no true king in Israel, nor were there any prophets in Israel.

By the time of the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem, first the Greeks and then the Romans had conquered Israel and King Herod was nothing but a non-Jewish puppet/pretender placed on the throne of Israel by the Romans.

And here's the depressing thought that hit me last night during Bible study of Habakkuk. Are we in the times of the minor prophets here in America? Are the lights about to go out on our freedom as a nation as socialism is being proclaimed on the front cover of a leading magazine?

Prophets of our time have warned for the past few decades "The end is near!" but few have believed them. Seems to me the power grab under way by Obama/Pelosi/Reid could bring about the total collapse of our free-market economy and plunge America into third-world status.

That may be why you cannot find any mention of a nation that sounds even remotely like America in any of the prophetic writings about the last days before Jesus returns to earth.

The Book of Revelation and other end-time prophecies clearly describe the revived Roman empire in Europe, but have no hint of a free nation that is currently the world's sole superpower.

I fear our superpower status is soon to fall into the dustbin of history. Truly the end is near.

Obama-Pelosi-Reid: You won't be laughing at their routine

This new RNC ad is a vicious slur on The Three Stooges. Those guys were brilliant. This trio? Not!

The quotes that explain the entire financial meltdown

Ed Morrissey at HotAir:

For those who want a smoking gun to show the genesis of the financial collapse, this short sequence from a longer video I posted this week will do it. Clinton HUD Secretary Andrew Cuomo announced a settlement of a lending discrimination complaint with Accubanc, a Texas lender whose prerequisites for mortgages came under attack from “community organizers” at the Fort Worth Human Relations Commission and the city of Dallas. I clipped out this sequence to underscore its importance:

Morissey continues:

Here, in fact, is the genesis of the problem, the ideology that created the monster. Cuomo, the Clinton administration, and Congress believed they had the right and the power to determine acceptable risk for the lenders, rather than lenders determining it for themselves in a free market. Even while imposing risk standards on lenders, Cuomo admits that he expects a higher default rate on the new loans — which is why the lenders didn’t want to write them in the first place.

In other words, the CRA didn’t get used to fight discrimination, but to force lenders to give money to high-risk borrowers for political purposes. And Cuomo knew it.

That was the political arrogance at the heart of the collapse. However, the CRA was more a sideshow than the actual problem. When Congress decided that enforcement alone wouldn’t generate enough mortgages to boost their political fortunes, they had Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac eliminate the risk entirely for lenders through the purchase of the subprime loans. Without that risk and with almost-guaranteed short-term profits of subprime loans, lenders went wild while Fannie and Freddie repackaged them as quasi-government bonds for investors.

While Democrats like Barack Obama, Harry Reid, and Nancy Pelosi keep blaming “greed” for the collapse, it was Democrats like Barney Frank and Chris Dodd building that “greed” into the system in order to drive the subprime lending market. And it was Democrats like Frank, Dodd, Maxine Waters, and Lacy Clay who suggested that regulators like Armando Falcon were racists for blowing the whistle on the Ponzi scheme they created.

The Democrats decided, as Michelle says, that mortgages were a civil right, and wouldn’t cost the American taxpayers a dime. How well is that working out, America? And now, the question you have to ask yourselves is this: Do you want the nation’s economic policies run by Obama, Pelosi, Reid, Dodd, and Frank for the next two years?

Obama, Pelosi, Reid, Dodd and Frank, just the crew to take us back into the Great Depression.

SNL's Skit: Washington approves the bailout package

'Reinvesting' our economy to win an election

I don't know whether to cheer or jeer since the bailout/rescue bill went down in flames. Which is it anyway, a bailout or a rescue? If this mess just threatens Wall Street, so what? Ain't got no dog in that fight. But it's bigger than that and has already come to my street. The sweet wife and I have a home mortgage with Countrywide, a credit card with WaMu and 401K and retirement funds also being threatened.

But anything Nancy Pelosi and Barney Frank are pushing can't be good, can it? Or is Nasty Nancy lying? I'm sure I saw her lips moving.

Nancy Pelosi's nasty rant about how President Bush and those evil Republicans got us into this mess is not only a lie, it's a DAMN LIE! And like Hitler's big lies that got us into WWII, I strongly suspect Broomhilda knew exactly what she was doing when she stepped to the podium just prior to the vote and torpedoed the bipartisan rescue bill. If it passed, John McCain would have benefitted and might win the election. But failure of the bill and worsening of the economy, according to conventional wisdom, will benefit Obama and the Democrats.

There's two possibilities here. Pelosi's either dumber than a box of rocks and can't count votes or she sabotaged the rescue intentionally.

Megan McArdle at The Atlantic votes for the stupid theory with a strong whiff of sabotage thrown in.

Pelosi cut a deal in which, as far as I can tell, every single Republican in a safe seat had to vote yes so that the Democrats could maximize their no votes. Given that the Republican caucus is pretty much in open revolt, this was beyond moronic. She then spent a week openly and repeatedly blaming the Republicans and the Bush administration for the current crisis. The way she set things up, it was "Heads I win, tails you lose": vote for the deal and I'll paint you as heartless reactionaries bailing out our fat cat friends. If you're going to do that, you'd better make sure you have some goddamn margin for error in your own party. She didn't. Then she got up and delivered yet another speech blaming the Republicans for the bailout deal she was about to pass.

The Washington Prowler at The American Spectator supports the sabotage theory with a side of stupidity at counting votes.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi ordered her Majority Whip, Jim Clyburn, to essentially not do his job in the runup to the vote on Monday for the negotiated Wall Street bailout plan, according to House Democrat leadership aides.

"Clyburn was not whipping the votes you would have expected him to, in part because he was uncomfortable doing it, in part because we didn't want the push for votes to be successful," says one leadership aide. "All we needed was enough to potentially get us over the finish line, but we wanted the Republicans to be the ones to do it. This was not going to be a Democrat-passed bill if the Speaker had anything to say about it."

James Simpson at American Thinker says it's not stupidity, it's strategy and it's name is The Cloward-Piven Strategy of Orchestrated Crisis

In an earlier post, I noted the liberal record of unmitigated legislative disasters, the latest of which is now being played out in the financial markets before our eyes. Before the 1994 Republican takeover, Democrats had sixty years of virtually unbroken power in Congress - with substantial majorities most of the time. Can a group of smart people, studying issue after issue for years on end, with virtually unlimited resources at their command, not come up with a single policy that works? Why are they chronically incapable?

Why?

One of two things must be true. Either the Democrats are unfathomable idiots, who ignorantly pursue ever more destructive policies despite decades of contrary evidence, or they understand the consequences of their actions and relentlessly carry on anyway because they somehow benefit.

I submit to you they understand the consequences. For many it is simply a practical matter of eliciting votes from a targeted constituency at taxpayer expense; we lose a little, they gain a lot, and the politician keeps his job. But for others, the goal is more malevolent - the failure is deliberate. Don't laugh. This method not only has its proponents, it has a name: the Cloward-Piven Strategy. It describes their agenda, tactics, and long-term strategy.

Is Nancy Pelosi that nasty, that she would blow up the economy to win an election? Not only yes, but HELL YES! And so far the polls are confirming her low opinion of the voters' intelligence at understanding just who's trying to help and who's trying to hurt our economy.

And she's got the entire mainstream media blowing the same BS trumpet with her vs. a handful of us right-wing bloggers, but I gotta try.

The time bomb that went off on Wall Street goes back 31 years to our worst ex-president, good ol' Yellow Dog Democrat Jimmy Carter, was made worse by good ol' Democrat Bill Clinton in 1995 and has had its skids greased all along the way by the same Democrats who now loudly proclaim they're trying to "rescue" the economy, Barney Frank, Chris Dodd, Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, Barack Obama and Co.

As usual in Congress, the bill that started it all had an innocent sounding name, the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA). In liberal lingo, an "investment" is a tax increase and "reinvestment" means robbing people who make money to bribe Democrat voters, also known as welfare.

Roger Kimball at Pajamas Media names the players on the scorecard in Who caused “the biggest financial crisis since the Great Depression?”

"The Community Reinvestment Act” (see here for more).

* The original Community Reinvestment Act was signed into law in 1977 by Jimmy Carter. Its purpose, in a nutshell, was to require banks to provide credit to “under-served populations,” i.e., those with poor credit.

The buzz word was “affordable mortgages,” e.g., mortgages with low teaser-rates, which required the borrower to put no money down, which required the borrower to pay only the interest for a set number of years, etc.

* In 1995, Bill Clinton’s administration made various changes to the CRA, increasing “access to mortgage credit for inner city and distressed rural communities,” i.e., it provided for the securitization, i.e. public underwriting, of what everyone now calls “sub-prime mortgages.”

Bottom line? It forced banks to issue $1 trillion in sub-prime mortgages.

Ace quotes a "geek accountant" who explains in plain terms just how bad the mess we're in is and how much worse it could get - soon.

The accountant's poster name is Inspector Asshole, so get ready for some graphic talk. It's a bit rough, but so is this credit crisis.

They (these distressed assets) have to be shown on the balance sheet and marked down to marked down to market value. This means that suddenly, normally healthy companies have assets that actually have value, but have been artificially and temporarily valued at fucking zero goddamned dollars even if they bought them for several million. Even, and I want the market-valuation absolutists to read this very carefully - even when those assets are ownership of actual real property that have intrinsic worth. Due to this rule, the credit markets are being affected in a way that is not tied directly to the fact that loans were made to itinerant phrenologists and spastic mimes. Those were the root cause. The problem with valuation of these loan packages including defaulted mortgages is a fucking multiplier.

Let's put it this way - think of the "credit drain" and bad things as a military force. The CRA loans to carnies and strippers with Tourette's Syndrome is like a company of infantry - pretty impressive. The problem with marking down to market prices is like giving each sonofabich a Davey Crockett nuclear howitzer.

This means that through temporary and artificial means, a company that would say own 30,000 houses/shitty mortgages, all with $3K worth of salvagable copper in them that could be torn out and sold- that they bought for $3 million - suddenly don't have jack shit on their books. All of it is valued at zero because no one will buy it. That isn't a rumor - that is actually happening. Marking down to zero isn't done on a goddamned whim. It is documented. People/entities with these assets that have intrinsic value cannot label them on their balance sheets as what they paid for them - they must write that they are worthless.

This makes huge companies suddenly in dire straits. They may not be able to make payroll NEXT WEEK. A number of companies, who might be loaded with these, will fail.

This is because they suddenly have to book a loss - huge paper losses - that have no real relation to the situation over just the next three months.

Let me repeat - healthy companies will be unable to prove they own enough assets to float a loan. Past liabilities will be dishonored. This will spread within 21 to 30 days up and down the food chain. Each 2 weeks will result in larger and larger cycles of shrinkage of asset valuation, sudden outlays for demand notes, inability to meet payroll, layoffs, and cancellations (with penalties) of contracts.

Distribution networks would be among the first hit. I haven't gone further than that in my research. But right there, we're looking at some severe dislocation. Severe as in diabetics having to stock up on insulin.

This does have the possibility of being retardedly bad - think what would happen if 1/3rd of the train and truck traffic ceased. Stopped without notice.

The problem is systemic - not just to the credit market - it is systemic to how we do business between states. It is systemic as in "No Produce Scheduled Until Next Week" type signs in your Safeway.

If it doesn't get fixed in 2 weeks, by January some communities will be isolated due to no diesel for the road crews. In New York.

I'm not alone in smelling a rat in Pelosi's ill-timed rant. Wesley Pruden of The Washington Times smells it, too, and offers a female remedy plan. If a bad woman raised a stink to make this economic mess worse, a good woman just might be the answer in this trying hour.

Pruden speculates that the solution to this fine mess that Nasty Nancy seems determined to prolong is: A Job for the Right Woman

Perhaps her tantrum was not a tantrum at all, but a carefully orchestrated two-step to pay back John McCain for his attempt to get Barack Obama back to Washington, even if it meant postponing the Ole Miss debate (that neither man won), where together they could have twisted enough Republican and Democratic arms to win passage of the bailout that nobody wanted and nearly everybody agreed was necessary. If Mr. Obama had made common cause with Mr. McCain even after the debate in Mississippi, there might still have been enough time to make the difference.

Maybe that's what the Obama campaign wanted to avoid. The tears the Anointed One shed after the vote looked a lot like the tears of a crocodile. He even tried to be lighthearted, to show a little insouciance if not actual wit. (An insouciant Barack Obama? Who knew?) He's "confident" of a "solution," but "it's sort of like flying into Denver. You know you're going to land, but it's not always fun going over those mountains."

This sets up an opportunity, maybe the last good one, for John McCain to start burning barns. Who better to start it than Sarah Palin, the stubborn mom with true grit who so terrifies the Democratic left, to debate - in her own voice, unrestrained by the Nervous Nellies and Willie Wimps of the McCain camp who don't understand her Everywoman appeal - Joe Biden about what's real, about the prospect not of a recession but a depression, and the tough decisions ahead and the need for a maverick president with the experience of persuading partisan foes of making painful decisions.

Merely voting "present" won't do it. The people in all 57 states, clinging bitterly to God, guns and now to their life's savings, deserve nothing less.

Somebody needs to point out Nasty Nancy's "challenged" math. When 95 Democrats vote against their leaders' plan and 65 Republicans cross the aisle to vote for it, how does that equate to lack of GOP support killing the rescue bill? Sarah to the rescue is our best hope.

And if you're expecting Obama to come riding in to save the economy, don't bother. He's way too busy getting his dry cleaning done.

Obama said he was "working the phones" as part of his "long-distance encouragement" plan to save the economy right up until the vote went down in flames yesterday. He even had a speech written taking credit for the passage, but had to toss it and quickly change gears.

So today, we get a different tale. The New York Times today gives a totally different version about Obama's involvement in the rescue.

Aides to Mr. Obama said he had not directly reached out to try to sway any House Democrats who opposed the measure. But where Mr. McCain had accused Mr. Obama of taking a hands-off approach to the financial crisis, Democratic advisers said they believed that Mr. McCain now had a role in the legislation’s failure.

So if it had passed, Obama was ready to claim credit. But after it failed, he not only was not involved, it's all John McCain's fault. That's the biggest problem with being a liar. You have to remember the lies you told yesterday so today's lies won't conflict with yesterday's.

My beautiful friend Mary Katharine Ham cites the hypocrisy and lies of Obama, Pelosi, Barney Frank and the whole crowd of Democrats.

The man who's been assuring voters of his very serious weighing in by phone from the campaign trail...didn't actually pick up a phone. This is the real Obama. He is a leader of crowds, not crises.

This won't be a story, but it should be, and Republicans and McCain should point it out. The argument against Dems is the utter lack of competent leadership by Obama and Pelosi, not whining about a Pelosi speech.

Pelosi lost more than 12 of her fellow California Democrats, close friends and allies, and Committee chairs in this vote. Obama failed to take a public position on the vote or to convince any teetering Democrats with promises of a trip to their Districts or other help from the Messiah himself, losing Dems from the Chicago area and much of the Congressional Black Caucus with whom he could have had sway.

And yet, the guy who got his hands dirty, tried to make a few things happen, and didn't quite get the ball across the goal line is the one who takes the political heat for this. Which is why, as Bill Kristol and Dean Barnett have suggested, McCain may as well go all-out on the leadership front. It's where he's comfortable working, and where Obama will never dare to walk ahead of him.

Barney Frank, Chris Dodd, Maxine Waters, and Nancy Pelosi willfully ignored the impending crisis for years before they suddenly saw the light and were able to blame a politically palatable entity for it—Republican embrace of "unbridled" capitalism and deregulation. They too seem to have reaped the benefits of inaction, succeeding in pinning the blame on the markets they meddled with, letting their vulnerable members oppose an unpopular bill, and possibly getting a second run at a bailout bill filled with the pork they cut out the first time around.

In Washington, sometimes "leadership" ain't all its cracked up to be. But isn't the political windfall of inaction—conveniently kvetching without responsibility—usually a privilege reserved for the minority party? Pelosi and Co. seem to be enjoying it no matter the circumstances. Maybe that's the "change" Obama's been talking about bringing to Washington.

And speaking of "change" by Obama, Jonah Goldberg points out an amazing change in The One's view of the economy's "long-term fundamentals."

The man has spent two weeks irresponsibly excoriating his opponent for saying the fundamentals of the economy are strong -- a perfectly leaderly thing for McCain to have said during a panic. Then, campaigning in Colorado on Monday, the day the market plunged 777.68 points, Obama proclaimed: "We've got the long-term fundamentals that will really make sure this economy grows."

Amazing. The fella who kept agreeing with John McCain in the debate now agrees with McCain's upbeat comment on the economy. But now that McCain has engaged himself to deal with the credit crisis, suddenly Obama disavows that he had even "long-distance encouragement" involvement.

All this bad news, economic and political, is putting me in a personal depression as well as threatening an economic one. And then I read something that puts the troubles of this life into a little lighter perspective. Like death. Seriously. P.J. O'Rourke keeps his sense of humor.

I looked death in the face. All right, I didn't. I glimpsed him in a crowd. I've been diagnosed with cancer, of a very treatable kind. I'm told I have a 95% chance of survival. Come to think of it -- as a drinking, smoking, saturated-fat hound -- my chance of survival has been improved by cancer.

...I have, of all the inglorious things, a malignant hemorrhoid. What color bracelet does one wear for that? And where does one wear it? And what slogan is apropos? Perhaps that slogan can be sewn in needlepoint around the ruffle on a cover for my embarrassing little doughnut buttocks pillow.

Furthermore, I am a logical, sensible, pragmatic Republican, and my diagnosis came just weeks after Teddy Kennedy's. That he should have cancer of the brain, and I should have cancer of the ass ... well, I'll say a rosary for him and hope he has a laugh at me. After all, what would I do, ask God for a more dignified cancer? Pancreatic? Liver? Lung?

Now that's class. Any man who can keep a sense of humor even when cancer comes calling is my kind of man. Add P.J. to your prayers. And while you're on your knees, pray for our country, too, something along the lines of "God save us from the Democrats!"

Gen. Petraeus: Ignored Hero of Iraq War

You mighta missed it on the news yesterday. It certainly didn't lead off on TV or get a big headline in The Washington Post or New York Times.

General David Petraeus, commander of our troops in Iraq, passed the baton to General Ray Odierno and moved on to a higher command post.

Petraeus was not a household name in the dark days of early 2007 as he took command of the war in Iraq. Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid were leading a baying pack of hounds, quite sure they had President Bush treed at last as they took turns with the whipsaw blades.

Then came Petraeus and the surge, which Bush supported virtually alone in his own administration and with slim backing in Congress. A senator from Arizona whose political obituary had already been written by the mainstream media was one of the few lonely voices pushing for the surge.

But as 2008 dawned, Jewish pundit Charles Krauthammer commented that he might have to revise his view on the resurrection of the dead because reports of the death of John McCain's campaign for President turned out to be greatly exaggerated. The same could also be said of the war in Iraq, because as McCain's fortunes improved, Petraeus was performing a resurrection miracle in Iraq, while at the same time performing mass reverse resurrections on Osama's thugs. Harry "The war is lost!" Reid and Nancy "Cut and run!" Pelosi grew strangely silent about the war.

Obama stubbornly refused to admit the surge had actually worked until he grew so desperate about Palin-McCain that he asked Bill O'Reilly to let him end his boycott of Fox News. And when O'Reilly pressed him about the surge, Obama cheerfully said with a straight face that the surge had "exceeded our wildest dreams!" Our dreams? I may have to revise my view of Hillary and Bill being the World Champions at telling whoppers.

Maybe it exceeded Obama's worst nightmare, but more recent events have probably taken that rank in the shapely form of one Sarah Palin.

But where is the hero's welcome home, the ticker-tape parade for Gen. David Petraeus, the hero of Iraq? I suspect he'll never get that well-deserved honor. He and his troops coming home will get roughly the same thing us vets from Vietnam got, indifference or even worse.

At Petraeus' change-of-command ceremony Tuesday in Baghdad, Secretary of Defense Williams Gates did give him an appropriate tribute.

"Darkness had descended on this land; merchants of chaos were gaining strength. Death was commonplace, and people around the world were wondering whether any Iraq strategy would work.”

"Slowly, but inexorably, the tide began to turn, our enemies took a fearsome beating they will not soon forget. Fortified by our own people and renewed commitment, the soldiers of Iraq found new courage and confidence. And the people of Iraq, resilient and emboldened, rose up to take back their country."

Is there an echo in here? As I read that quote, I thought I heard a faint, shrill voice somewhere in the background cying out some nonsense about this being the day the oceans will begin to recede and all the ills of humanity will begin to heal. I was probably just hearing things.

I guess I'll know for sure whether my ears were playing tricks on me when the returns come in on the first Tuesday in November. Because that day, the people will decide whether they're on the side of Gen. Petraeus and McCain or Obama and the "General Betray-Us" move-on crowd.

Caspar Weinberger Jr., son of Reagan's Secretary of Defense, is one of the few joining Gates in extending a hero's tribute to Gen Petraeus.

Here’s to General David Petraeus. He never betrayed us. Indeed, he saved America’s war in Iraq. Maybe not single-handily, but there is no doubt whatsoever that without General Petraeus’ bold move to push for more troops to turn the tide against the insurgents, which has paid off handsomely, America would have been severely weakened both at home and around the world.

'Drill Here, Drill Now!' day is Oct. 1

I'm the world's worst procrastinator. I've always believed that anything worth doing today is probably worth putting off until tomorrow. I was gonna join the Procrastinator's Club of America, but I've never got around to it. Besides, if you ignore a problem long enough, it'll away, right?

Well, that is true of one thing, one very important thing. If Congress will just heed the foreign policy advice of Ike's Secretary of State, Dean Acheson, "Don't just do something, stand there," then something real important will take care of itself on Oct. 1, just 12 short days from today.

U.S. Rep. Jeb Hensarling and U.S. Sen. Jim DeMint are urging Congress to do exactly nothing until then to bring about American Energy Freedom Day

In just two weeks, on Oct. 1, Americans could be celebrating American Energy Freedom Day. That's the day the bans on oil shale and offshore drilling for oil and natural gas in America will expire.

Right off American shores there are reserves estimated to hold over 20 billion barrels of oil and 97 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. And in the west, oil shale is estimated to be between 800 billion and 2 trillion barrels of oil -- that is more than three times the proven oil reserves in Saudi Arabia alone.

So-called "compromise" legislation being considered in Congress would increase energy taxes and only open up a fraction of these vast reserves, while permanently banning nearly 80% of our energy resources offshore. It would be irrational in a national energy crisis to create any new ban on American energy, and that's why the best solution is for Congress to allow the current bans to expire on Oct. 1.

The so-called compromise energy bill pushed through by Nancy "Let-em-eat-cake-at-the-pump" Pelosi is already dead on arrival. The Senate has no plans to even consider it, and in the unlikely event they should pass it, President Bush has already said he will veto it. DOA Pelosi.

But Hensarling and Demint warn that Pelosi and Reid have at least one more dirty trick up their sleeves they are expected to play by Oct. 1.

It seems likely that Democrats, beholden to the radical left, will try to stop American Energy Freedom Day by sneaking a new drilling ban in a spending bill that Congress MUST pass to keep the government functioning before the current ban expires on the last day of September.

How reckless will Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid be? We've seen press reports in which they are so adamant about enacting a new bans on oil shale and offshore drilling that they have started to talk about a government shutdown. Rather than help lower the cost of gas and home energy for struggling American families, they remain beholden to left-wing environmentalists. This is a battle we shouldn't have to face, but one that we cannot shy away from.

So far, 155 Republican representatives and 39 senators have joined us in writing these Democrat leaders a letter warning them that we will oppose any attempt to extend the ban on American energy beyond Oct. 1.

Make no mistake; the upcoming energy showdown could be the most important vote we take this year.

If you believe that it is good for America to increase our dependence on foreign oil by continuing to send hundreds of billions of dollars each year to other countries to supply our oil and gas, then that is your right. But if you think we should drill here and drill now, join us in letting the Democrat leadership know that we want to celebrate Energy Freedom Day on Oct. 1. If you believe that it's time to produce American energy and lower gas prices -- stand up and tell all these Democrat leaders to step aside.

One way to support our cause is to go to our Web site and sign the online petition to Pelosi and Reid.

Nothing in Congress ever comes easy, but this actually could. All that Congress must do is cause no harm by doing absolutely nothing. For Democrats, that's easier said than done.

Oh for the good ol' days when we had a "Do Nothing Congress." As for all of us voters who are tired of pain at the pump, do something. Sign the petition. Run out in the yard and yell "I'm mad as hell and I ain't gonna take it anymore!" Vote for John McCain, Sarah Palin and the GOP.

OK, Drill. But only where there’s no oil?

Nancy Pelosi supposedly caved in to pressure from the voting public who are mad as hell about $4+ per-gallon gas prices. Madame Speaker is allowing a vote in the House on a so-called compromise energy bill that will allow offshore oil drilling. Just not where there’s any oil to find.

Iain Murray at The Corner on National Review calls the “compromise” bill under debate Energy Gangsterism

Anyone who believes this is a pro-drilling bill is fooling themselves. It allows a tiny amount of drilling while pushing forward all the fever dreams of the anti-energy environmentalist movement. I urge everyone to read Marlo Lewis' post on this from Planet Gore yesterday. Note in particular that the bill will:

• Permanently ban access to about 97 percent of the undersea oil lying within 50 miles of the California coast.
• Continue the ban on energy production in the Eastern Gulf of Mexico.
• Impose a brand-new ban on oil and gas leases in Alaska’s coastal waters out to 50 miles.
• Not allow states that approve new leases beyond 50 miles to share royalties with the federal government, thus stripping any financial incentive for states to stand up to environmental pressure groups, who will continue to agitate against any new oil and gas operations offshore.

This is not a compromise. It is a sell-out to the anti-energy gangsters.

Now there’s some Pelosi-Obama-style change we can believe in, spare change left in our empty pockets after we gas up. Thanks a bunch, Nancy. If I have to walk, I'll see you at the polls.

If you're not one of 1,478,172 Americans who has signed the Drill Here, Drill Now! petition, do it now.

I heard on Fox News tonight the latest strategy by Pelosi & co. is not to allow any energy bill to pass, but instead let the drilling ban expire in October and then reinstate it after Obama is in the White House and Pelosi and Reid are re-elected leaders of an even bigger Democrat majority in Congress.

But just suppose...

GOP House Revolts; Pelosi Punts

The big issue of this campaign season may well be the Drill Here, Drill Now drive to unlock America’s own energy sources of oil, natural gas, coal and nuclear power. So far, the battle is being fought in the dark on Capitol Hill by a lonely handful of Republican Congressmen.

Erick Erickson in RedState Under the Radar reports The Republican Revolt Continues

Nancy Pelosi, having fled the House of Representatives to promote her book, has done her best to shut down the Republican fight for increased drilling and American energy expansion. She turned off the microphones in the House of Representatives. She turned off the lights. She locked up the visitors gallery.

What Nancy Pelosi could not do, however, was shut out Republicans. The House Republicans have taken to the floor of the House despite no lights and microphones. And they have invited in the public to watch. In just one week more tourists have heard the Republicans’ energy proposal than have purchased Nancy Pelosi’s book.

Brian Darling at Human Events writes about the clash of Drill Here, Drill Now vs. Don’t Drill Here Ever in Americans Take Back the House

As liberals remain disengaged and outright hostile to American energy production, the country -- and to some extent the presidential candidates -- appear to be passing them by. According to a recent Gallup poll, 89% of Americans believe congressional inaction has been an “important reason” that gas prices have reached record highs. Not surprisingly, a slew of new polls indicate a majority of Americans want to access America’s energy offshore, including 57% of liberals, 57% of Floridians and 51% of Californians. Deftly reading the tea leaves in June, John McCain announced his support for offshore energy exploration, and Barack Obama admitted he had to refine his position because Republicans have been so effective in their messaging.

…The good news for Americans is that come Oct. 1, the 27-year-old congressional moratorium on offshore energy production will expire. The bad news is that liberals in Congress can block new drilling by continuing the congressional ban on exploration without a vote on the issue. Conservatives should not rest until Americans have access to American energy and should demand that Congress take no action that doesn’t result in new domestic exploration and drilling.

But we may never get to the Oct. 1 showdown over the expiration of the domestic drilling ban. Martha Zoller at Human Events gives both sides of a supposed compromise being floated by five GOP Senators and five Democrat Senators in Just a Deal Between 10 Senators

This is another “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington” moment. I challenge all the Senators supporting the framework of the Gang of 10 to go to the House floor and stand with the members of the House of Representatives who are standing tall on this issue and that includes the 5 Democrats, too. Then, let’s get the Democrats like Rep. Heath Shuler (D-NC), Rep. Jim Marshall (D-GA), Rep. John Barrow (D-GA) and the other so called “Blue Dog Democrats” to stand up with their colleagues for an American issue to “Drill Here, Drill Now and Save Money” for the American people.

Christopher Chantrill at American Thinker also blasts “The Faithless Five” GOP Senators. He flatly calls it Another Bipartisan Betrayal

Michael Reagan says the showdown over the ban on drilling for our own oil is a “golden opportunity” and it’s time to Fight or Die Republicans

Republicans have their backs against the wall, facing a bloodbath on Election Day that will leave the party in shambles and the nation in the hands of the worst conglomeration of demagogues, scoundrels and loony leftists ever put together in our nation’s history.

…This is a golden opportunity, and if the GOP fails to take full advantage of it they will deserve it if the voters go with Democrats in November. The American people are with the Republicans on the most important issue of our time.

The question is, are the Republicans on their side and willing to lead them in the fight to use all the oil resources the Lord has given us in such great abundance and which now are untapped beneath our feet because the Democrats won’t allow us to drill down to get it.

But while the Gang of 10 made plans to run up the white flag, guess who beat them to the punch? Nancy (No drilling here!) Pelosi. She threw in the towel last night on the Larry King Show, reports The Hill, saying she now “open” to an offshore drilling vote in the House this fall.

BTW, what do Nancy Pelosi and oilman T. Boone Pickens have in common? Would you believe "wind"? Oh, in addition to wind power, there's one other thing both are interested in: billions in tax dollars.

Nancy Pelosi says that she is trying to save the planet and prevent global warming, but the reality is that, according to disclosure statements, in May 2007 she invested in T. Boone Picken’s clean energy fuels corp., CLNE, which is the sole sponsor of a proposal in California to funnel $5 billion in state funds and $5 billion in Federal funds to this corporation which will indirectly help them create a giant wind farm in the Texas panhandle.

Now that explains why Pelosi is so dug in against drilling for American oil, doesn't it?

Pelosi fiddles while America burns

Here’s an issue all of us suffering from $4-gallon gas can agree on. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi turned out the lights on Congress and went on vacation, leaving us all to burn. A few Republicans are camping out in the Capitol in the dark until she agrees to vote on drilling for oil.

Eric Cantor (R-VA) is sponsoring a website where you can sign a petition to urge Speaker Pelosi to call Congress back in session in order to vote on an energy package to include offshore drilling:

We, the undersigned, believe that gas prices are too high. Speaker Pelosi has closed Congress for a five-week paid vacation, without taking any action to lower gas prices. We, the undersigned, have a simple demand: Call Congress Back, Madam Speaker!

If you haven’t signed the Drill Here, Drill Now! petition, join the 1,403,615 Americans who have.