Shotgun stupidity strikes media -- Twice in one day

Those multiple levels of rigorous fact-checking seem to have failed the media once again. This time it's a combination of Sarah Palin and guns, always an explosive mix loved by the MSM.

Newsweek labored long and hard trying to find a photo of Sarah Palin with a gun to use on the cover of their "hit" piece titled The Palin Problem on the VP nominee the MSM just loves to hate.

This is the best they would find, from 2002, and they used it without Sarah's knowledge or permission. But what the hey, it's a good photo and contrary to what the idiots at Newsweek think, linking Sarah to guns helps a lot more than it hurts. The anti-gun crowd ain't going to vote for her in the first place but a photo like that just makes us gun nuts love her even more.

And there are a few armed liberals out there.

But here's where the stupidity kicks in. Elizabeth Snead's L.A. Times newspaper blog is accurately titled "The Dish Rag," and this gun expert used the cover photo with the headline: How did Newsweek get Sarah Palin to pose with a rifle?

They didn't. Mainly because that ain't a rifle. It's a shotgun, as any self-respecting gun nut can see in a flash.

And then the poor gun-ignorant newsblogger makes it even worse by putting the other foot in her mouth.

Hey, is that even the right way to hold a rifle? Can't you shoot your foot off like that?

No, Elizabeth, you can't shoot your foot off with a shotgun with the breech open and obviously unloaded. In fact, the NRA (of which Sarah is a lifetime member, God bless her) teaches that method as the safest possible carry for a shotgun in the field. All around can see the shotgun is open and unloaded and if by some miracle is should accidentally discharge (impossible when it's unloaded and open) the barrels are pointed to the ground where it will do no harm.

Ace reported this little gem of media stupidity and adds:

That's the over-under, break-open, breech-loading 12 gauge sort of rifle.

These are the people who presume to set the gun control policy for this country.

The same press corps which breathlessly invokes "semiautomatic pistol" as words of talismanic import, as if they're describing exotic weaponry on the level of "phased plasma rifle in deh forty watt range."

Thanks to Ace Queen from Free Republic.

Heh: All the comments on the LAT Blog are telling her the same thing. Though one guy claims it's a side-by-side shotgun. I think it's over-under, as most say.

Anyway, this was a funny comment:

The way she is pointing that loaded Machine Gun proves she is racist.

Posted by: Journalism Student | October 08, 2008 at 06:30 PM

Hey Journalism Student! You're Noo Yawk Times material, keep on hitting those books. Or toking on that bong or drinking Obama Kool-Aid or whatever you're doing in school. And that ain't no "loaded Machine Gun" or even any kind of machine gun, you idiot. And while I'm ranting, don't you pukes ever get tired of saying everything a Republican does is racist? Guess not.

I agree with Ace that it's an over-under shotgun, I think that's obvious. It might be a 12 gauge, but I'm not sure about that with these 61-year-old eyes. Ace is a lot younger than me.

In other stupid-media shotgun news, The Peninsula Daily News in Washington state reports a big scoop: Woman shot in leg by her stove

SEKIU — Cory Davis, 56, had just finished stoking her cast-iron stove to heat her home when something inside it exploded.

With a loud bang, she was struck on the inside of her left calf.

"I kept thinking, 'geeze that was one fast hot coal flying at me,'" she said, with a laugh.

"But it wasn't a coal."

It was part of a 22-gauge shotgun shell that had been accidentally placed in the stove along with some newspaper.

Davis said a case of the ammo had spilled in her home, located at Hoko-Ozette Road, about a month ago.

She thinks one shell was in newspaper she had used to light the stove.

Two teeny little errors here. First, the stove didn't shoot her. The shotgun shell did. Second, I'd never heard of a 22 gauge shotgun so I googled it. Only good hit I got, admist some myspace BS about webpage themes and other assorted junk, was for a Hudson Bay 22 Gauge Percussion shotgun, a genuine antique.

Percussion, for you non-gun-nut readers, means a blackpowder muzzle-loader fired with percussion caps, sorta like those cap guns your PC parents would never let you play with.

It most definitely does not fire 22 gauge shotgun "shells" which are modern, breech-loading, self-contained charges of powder and lead pellets. The only other firearm related hit I got on 22 gauge was a QA page at Outdoor Help where a 13-year-old kid asked about using one for turkey hunting. The expert said he'd never heard of 22 gauge and recommended the kid get a 20 gauge.

A little bit of knowledge is dangerous, especially when it comes to media reporting on guns.

.44 Colt Walker revolver sells for record $920K!

(Photo by David Leaming, Morning Sentinel via AP.)
I'm a certified gun nut, particularly on pistols, but if I had this pistol, I'd sell it so fast it would be smoking when it left my hands. Would you believe $920,000, just pocket change shy of a cool million, for this .44 Colt Walker revolver?

An anonymous bidder paid $920,000 for this .44-caliber Colt Walker pistol yesterday in Fairfield, Maine.

James D. Julia Inc. says this is thought to be the highest price anyone has ever paid for a firearm at auction.

"Yee-ha," the gun's owner, John McBride, said as the winning bid was announced, according to the Morning Sentinel. "We did better than we had hoped."

The auction house says this "rare and historic" Colt Whitneyville-Walker pistol was issued during the Mexican-American war. "It is truly one of the greatest prizes of Colts in existence," auctioneer James Julia tells the paper.

It was made for U.S. marshals in the 1840s and its previous owner says he never fired it.

The price includes a buyer's fee of $120,000 charged by the auctioneer.

Julia was also the auctioneer for the previous Colt record of $480,000.

The gun was an heirloom passed down from John McBride's great-great-uncle. The 80-year-old from Montana says some of the money will be used to buy land in that state.

Wish I had a great-great uncle who collected Colt pistols.

The Onion does political reporting at mall shooting

It's a parody by The Onion on media "horserace" political reporting mixed in with a mass murder by a mall shooter, so if you don't like guns, don't watch. But since this is God, Guns & Grits blog, and I like it, here she goes.

Gunman Kills 15 Potential Voters In Crucial Swing State

Sarah Palin on the campaign trail in Nebraska

Sarah Palin campaigns in Nebraska. Amateur video a bit shaky but they love Sarah.

Black, Christian conservative: I'm Voting For McCain / Palin

Black, Christian conservative who's voting for McCain-Palin. Here's rap even I can "dig."

Michael Barone Says Journalists Should Pursue Obama-Ayers Connection

Editor of U.S. News & World Report gives a short primer on Obama and his Chicago buddy, bomb-throwing Bill Ayers.

Before Obama tossed crazy Uncle Jeremiah under the bus

The video referred to below of Obama giving a "shout-out" to his pastor, the not-very-Rev. Jeremiah Wright, is gone down the memory hole, so how about a "greatest hits" video? I ain't forgot and never will.


Obama gives a "shout-out" to Rev. Jeremiah Wright:

CHICAGO (CBS) — While Sen. Barack Obama moved quickly to distance himself from his controversial former pastor this weekend, the presidential candidate offered a "special shout out'' to Rev Jeremiah Wright just last summer.

Last June, Obama was speaking to black clergy at Hampton University. In the video on posted at the time on cbs2chicago.com, Obama lavished praise on Wright, talking glowingly how Wright ''puts up with me, counsels me.''

About one minute into the video, Obama refers to Wright as "as a friend and a great leader.''

Obama's comments appear to indicate a deeper, more personal relationship than the Illinois senator disclosed just days ago when he denounced Wright's inflammatory sermons from the pulpit at the Trinity United Church of Christ.

'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.

SNL's Skit: Washington approves the bailout package

Obama leading vote among leading terrorists

Obama promises: "I will raise your taxes!"

Sarah's A Fighter! MSM might as well give up

Palin: The attacks “may get kind of rough” going forward

Sarah Palin stays on the attack against Obama and his buddy, bomb-throwing Bill Ayers

The Democrats Responsible for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac

Yet another Fannie and Freddie, "The Democrats did it!" ad. Produced by A Better Where.

Obama's old-style politics, Chicago Machine Rolls

New McCain campaign ad on Barack Obama: "Hypo"

If Ted Nugent got elected President…

The Motor City Madman, Ted Nugent, has a new book, “Ted, White and Blue, The Nugent Manifesto.” In case you don’t know, Ted’s a legend on both the rock ‘n’ roll stage and the deep woods, armed and dangerous, as one of us ignorant, bitter, backwoods rednecks clinging to our guns.

Brett Winterble at Human Events reviews Ted’s new book.

In Chapter 3, “If I Were President”, Ted describes what he would do if he were running things. These are some real conversation starters. Among the lengthy list are the following: take appropriate oil and gas from Mexico in the Middle East as payment for all debts we are owed by them and all foreign aid except for cases of extreme natural disasters; refuse to fund health care for people who don’t care about their health and who choose to live lifestyles universally considered unhealthy, like intentionally ingesting poisons like tobacco to the point of cancer, drugs and alcohol to the point of cirrhosis, bad food to the point of obesity, etc.

President Ted would also decree that the second amendment is a national concealed weapons permit for all non-felon Americans. He would limit gun-free zones and announce globally that anyone who is armed and who invades America through unauthorized ports of entry would be shot on sight.

Additionally, President Ted would institute a national castle doctrine encouraging all American citizens to shoot to neutralize any and all unauthorized invaders of their homes and places of business, and then he would give presidential medals of freedom to those who do. OK, Nuge, where do I sign up?

I'd vote for Ted in a North Carolina minute. That's slightly longer than a New York minute but we don't do anything in a hurry down here.

Obama & MSM playing the 'R' card threadbare?

CNN, believe it or not, has a video of Obama's bomb-throwing buddy Bill Ayers, developed working with National Review Online reporter Stanley Kurtz. Of course, it's racism to link Obama and Ayers.

Is the law of unintended consequences kicking in due to Obama and his enablers in the MSM playing their "R" card until it's threadbare?

Even Barney Frank is hollering "racism!" is behind revelations that he and his Democrat pals helped hatch the Fannie/Freddie meltdown. Last time I checked, Barney is fairly pale and most of the Democrats involved are, too, though there are a few not as pale as Barney.

I was shocked last night by something agreed upon by Fox News panel's pair of liberal twofers, Mora Liason and Juan Williams. They're twofers because they're not only the token liberals for the "fair and balanced" network, Mora fills the female slot and Juan the black slot.

Anyway, both agreed that McCain and Palin should be hammering Obama as much or more for the not-rev. Jeremiah Wright's outrageous anti-American rants as for "palling around" with bomb-throwing Bill Ayers of Chicago. They both reasoned that Bill's bomb-throwing days are in the distant past while Wright's "G-- D--- America!" shouts are still with us on youbute waiting to be replayed on the campaign trail.

Are Mora and Juan trying to set up McCain and Palin for the inevitable racism charges from the MSM if they bring up Wright, I wondered?

Or were they seriously honest? Has the racism card been played so often already in this campaign that its effectiveness had been lost? Why else would a black male liberal and a white female liberal, both NPR "experts," agree that connecting Wright to Obama is fair game?

Associated Press "Analysis" writer Douglass Daniel sees a "racially tinged subtext" in Palin's criticism of Obama's pal, bomb-throwing Bill.

But The Wall Street Journal points out the absurdity of seeing racism in mention of Ayers and his wife, bomb-thrower Bernadine Dohrn.

...Mr. and Mrs. Ayers are persons of pallor. What could possibly be racist about Palin's criticizing Obama for associating with a couple of despicable characters who are white? This question brings us into the weird world of Douglass Daniel's imagination.

Thomas Lifson at American Thinker has also noticed an excess of "one size fits all" flinging of racism charges and he quotes Patterico.

Patterico deftly skewers the ridiculous claims of racism made when Obama is criticized:

• It's racist to point out the connection between Barack Obama and a white man - who happens to be a terrorist.

• It's racist to point out the similarity between Barack Obama and two white women - who are famous for being celebrities.

• It's racist to point out the connection between Barack Obama and a black man - who happens to have run Fannie Mae.

• It's racist to point out the connection between Barack Obama and a black woman - who happens to be his wife, and who said she wasn't really proud of America until her husband was nominated.

Even better, Patterico tells the McCain campaign to wise up, and stop being afraid of being the target of the r-claim. The vast majority of voters understand the tyranny of phony racism claims, and resent them. They may be too afraid to tell pollsters so, but they have seen this sort of nonsense for decades. It is now time for McCain to tell the truth and face down those who racialize ordinary politics.

Like the little boy who cried "Wolf" a few too many times too often, sooner or later the racism card had to wear out. Consider R-Card Exhibit No. 2: O.J. finally went to jail. The glove fit and this time the jury did not acquit. Maybe McCain will trot out Crazy Uncle Jerry.

And maybe, just maybe, there's a method to what some on the right have called McCain's madness for not bringing up Jeremiah Wright.

Charlie Martin at American Thinker asks What if McCain knows what he's doing? Charlie sees a plan in Palin's "late" timing in targeting Ayers, and McCain finally hitting Obama and the Democrats involved in Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. Could Jeremiah Wright be next up to bat?

Meanwhile, the MSM "whitewash" of Ayers continues, as tonight's debate moderator Tom Brokaw calls modern Bill an "education reformer."

Sol Stern at The City Journal take a current look at what bomb-throwing Bill has been up to in recent times in his ivory tower of academia.

Calling Bill Ayers a school reformer is a bit like calling Joseph Stalin an agricultural reformer. (If you find the metaphor strained, consider that Walter Duranty, the infamous New York Times reporter covering the Soviet Union in the 1930s, did, in fact, depict Stalin as a great land reformer who created happy, productive collective farms.) For instance, at a November 2006 education forum in Caracas, Venezuela, with President Hugo Chávez at his side, Ayers proclaimed his support for “the profound educational reforms under way here in Venezuela under the leadership of President Chávez. We share the belief that education is the motor-force of revolution. . . . I look forward to seeing how you continue to overcome the failings of capitalist education as you seek to create something truly new and deeply humane.” Ayers concluded his speech by declaring that “Venezuela is poised to offer the world a new model of education—a humanizing and revolutionary model whose twin missions are enlightenment and liberation,” and then, as in days of old, raised his fist and chanted: “Viva Presidente Chávez! Viva la Revolucion Bolivariana! Hasta la Victoria Siempre!”

As I have shown in previous articles in City Journal, Ayers’s school reform agenda focuses almost exclusively on the idea of teaching for “social justice” in the classroom. This has nothing to do with the social-justice ideals of the Sermon on the Mount or Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech. Rather, Ayers and his education school comrades are explicit about the need to indoctrinate public school children with the belief that America is a racist, militarist country and that the capitalist system is inherently unfair and oppressive. As a leader of this growing “reform” movement, Ayers was recently elected vice president for curriculum of the American Education Research Association, the nation’s largest organization of ed school professors and researchers.

If Ayers-style indoctrination of our public-school children is what Obama has in mind when he says "reform," that's far worse than bombs.

And surprise, surprise, guess what Obama says about his campaign kickoff in Ayers' Chicago home? "This is not the Bill Ayers that I knew."

Thomas Sowell is definitely not a "person of pallor," but since he's that rare creature, a black conservative, he knows a lot about racism.

Sowell and Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas are routinely called "Uncle Toms" by liberals, who are immune from racism charges.

Sowell blows away the "guilt by association" charges liberals and the MSM use to explain away the questionable characters around Obama.

Associations are very different from alliances. Allies are not just people who happen to be where you are or who happen to be doing the same things you do. You choose allies deliberately for a reason. The kind of allies you choose says something about you.

Jeremiah Wright, Father Michael Pfleger, William Ayers and Antoin Rezko are not just people who happened to be at the same place at the same time as Barack Obama. They are people with whom he chose to ally himself for years, and with some of whom some serious money changed hands.

Some gave political support, and some gave financial support, to Obama's election campaigns, and Obama in turn contributed either his own money or the taxpayers' money to some of them. That is a familiar political alliance-- but an alliance is not just an "association" from being at the same place at the same time.

Obama could have allied himself with all sorts of other people. But, time and again, he allied himself with people who openly expressed their hatred of America. No amount of flags on his campaign platforms this election year can change that.

So let's do a head count. We got a "black liberation" preacher, a white Catholic priest, a white terrorist-turned-"reformer" and a convicted Syrian-Chicago slum lord waiting for sentencing. Racism loop ain't wide enough for that bunch. But they all share a hatred of America.

BTW, speaking of Rezko, federal prosecutors have put off his sentencing because he is reportedly singing like a bird. Obama partisans have been hinting darkly about an "October surprise." I'll bet this is not what they have in mind. Sing Tony sing, sing a sad song about Obama.

BTW 2, like an "I hate America" triple play, James Lewis of American Thinker connects the dots from Obama to Ayers to Jeremiah Wright.

And in slightly hopeful news, two overnight polls show Obama's once double-digit lead over McCain has shrunk to 3. First CBS, now Zogby.

Palin gets a pass from MSM?! Blindness or Idiocy?

Roger Cohen of The Washington Post has gone way beyond Obama Kool-aid. He's been guzzling the genuine Jim Jones Fake Messiah Juice.

The headline of his latest column is a coffee spitter, so if you're reading this with a mouthful, swallow now. Ready? Media Gives Palin a Pass

Seriously. What universe does this blind, deluded idiot live in? Packs of media, wolves and lawyers (same crowd) have been sifting the weeds in Alaska since McCain picked Sarah Palin as his VP lo many weeks ago, breathlessly blabbing any insane dribbling from the leftwing nutroots as if it was exhaustively fact-checked truth and telling us all this successful wife, mother and governor is at least one step below Neanderthal woman. And Cohen has the gobsmacking audacity to claim the MSM is giving her a pass?! I know where he got that audacity.

Cohen begins by noting William Kristol's NY Times column which quoted Palin saying she does not hold the MSM in high regard. You think?

Cohen said he agrees because the MSM is allegedly giving her a pass and then writes several paragraphs of huge whoppers to "prove" it.

But what seems to have gotten Cohen's knickers into the tightest wad is how unfairly poor ol' Hillary was treated by the media. Boo hoo.

Since I began with the Times' conservative columnist of the moment, I will end with its conservative columnist of years past -- the estimable William Safire. Back in 1996, he called Hillary Clinton "a congenital liar." It was a head-snapping characterization that, alas for Clinton, has defined her for the ages and which she stubbornly vindicates from time to time.

Whoa! Just when did Hillary "stubbornly vindicate" herself from her liar's reputation? When she kept repeating the Kosovo sniper tale which the MSM swallowed hook, line and sinker until some right-wing bloggers blew the whistle? Big Bill and his lovely wife Bruno held the world record for whoppers (Political Division) until along came this nobody who never run nothing but his mouth and took the title away from 'em.

But since Cohen knows his spin about Palin lying won't float, he comes up with a worst offense -- she transgressed via a blink of her eye.

But what about Palin? Can you imagine the reaction of the press corps if (Hillary) Clinton had given the audience a hi-ya-sailor wink?

...Ah, but the scorn, approbation and ridicule that would have descended on Clinton -- I can just imagine the Journal editorial -- have been spared Palin. Much of the mainstream media, grading on a curve suitable for a parrot -- "greed and corruption, greed and corruption, greed and corruption " -- gave her a passing grade or better. I agree with Palin. It's the mainstream media that flunked.

Whoda thunk a little bitty wink would get a fella so hot and bothered? Why you'd think Palin had given Cohen that wink. In his dreams.

Sarah Palin leaves Obama protester speechless

Sen. John McCain in Albuquerque, NM

More red meat from McCain on "Who is the real Barack Obama?" The real fight begins.

Obama "Abetted" Wall Street Corruption, Was Silent on Fannie/Freddie When McCain Tried to Defuse the Bomb

Obama as commander-in-chief 'Dangerous'

McCain ad says Obama as commander-in-chief of our troops at war will be "dangerous."

The gang that brought our economy to a grinding halt

The Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac gang that have brought our economy to a grinding halt.

By Right Change

The truth about Obama's bomb-throwing buddy Ayers

A short history lesson on Obama's Chicago buddy Bill Ayers, Weather Underground terrorist.

NRA Ad: Gun owners against Obama

More bitter, backwoods rednecks who love their guns heard from, voting against Obama.

McCain unloads on Obama's 'character'

McCain on Obama, Fannie Mae, and Freddie Mac

John McCain finally takes on Barack Obama, Fannie Mae, and Freddie Mac. Looks likes he's finally taken the gloves off and begun to ask, "Who really is Barack Obama?" Hope it's not too late.

Palin's advice to McCain: 'Take the gloves off'

America's favorite "hockey mom" sounded more like the "pit bull" Saturday on the campaign trail as John McCain's VP Sarah Palin assumed the traditional VP role of "attack dog" and slapped Barack Obama for "palling around" with former Weather underground terrorist Bill Ayers.

Ace open bloggers also report Palin campaigned Sunday to overflow crowds in Omaha, Nebraska, and Burlingame, California, where she continued to hammer at the Obama-Ayers association. The Corner on NRO provides a link to this eyewitness account from the California stop.

So what played to this audience? What caused genuine applause? Well, one line, in particular: near the end of her twenty-minute speech, Sarah Palin told the audience that out on the hustings one comment from supporters has dominated, in frequency, all others: tell people about the real Barack Obama. She said this quietly, without drama. But: thunder, hoots, an ovation. It was the one real firework in her stump speech; yet from the cadence of the speech one could tell that it was not intended thus. Audiences know that standing up for one particular line in a political speech is reserved for positive lines—lines that honor someone, or declaim some principle, or express some affirmation, or promise some victory. Rarely are audiences moved to bolt from their chairs over a negative line. (They’re more likely to boo affectedly.) But Mr. Obama’s guile has created considerable resentment—so much, in fact, that even a flat recitation of his positions, with not a drought of oratorical flare, dazzles and refreshes and fires an audience.

William Kristol's op-ed column Sunday in The New York Times reports on a Sunday telephone interview with Palin, who said she would certainly accept another debate or town-hall style meeting with Obama's VP Joe Biden to follow up their first meeting Thursday night.

Palin also made clear that she was eager for the McCain-Palin campaign to be more aggressive in helping the American people understand “who the real Barack Obama is.” Part of who Obama is, she said, has to do with his past associations, such as with the former bomber Bill Ayers. Palin had raised the topic of Ayers Saturday on the campaign trail, and she maintained to me that Obama, who’s minimized his relationship with Ayers, “hasn’t been wholly truthful” about this.

I pointed out that Obama surely had a closer connection to the Rev. Jeremiah Wright than to Ayers — and so, I asked, if Ayers is a legitimate issue, what about Reverend Wright?

She didn’t hesitate: “To tell you the truth, Bill, I don’t know why that association isn’t discussed more, because those were appalling things that that pastor had said about our great country, and to have sat in the pews for 20 years and listened to that — with, I don’t know, a sense of condoning it, I guess, because he didn’t get up and leave — to me, that does say something about character. But, you know, I guess that would be a John McCain call on whether he wants to bring that up.”

I guess so. And I guess we’ll soon know McCain’s call on whether he wants to bring Wright up — perhaps at his debate with Obama Tuesday night.

Kristol said he then asked Palin if she had any advice for McCain about what issues to raise in his second debate with Obama?

I asked at the end of our conversation whether Palin, fresh off her own debate, had any advice for McCain. “I’m going to tell him the same thing he told me. I talked to him just a few minutes before I walked out there on stage. And he just said: ‘Have fun. Be yourself, and have fun.’ And Senator McCain can do the same.” She paused, and I was about to thank her for the interview, but she had one more thing to say. “Only maybe I’d add just a couple more words, and that would be: ‘Take the gloves off.’ ”

And maybe I’d add, Hockey Mom knows best.

Buckle up Barack. Sounds like the hockey mom/pit bull has set the stage for an interesting Round Two of McCain vs. Obama. We shall see.

CinC Choices: Win Iraq War or 'Cut and Run'

Military expert Barack Obama talks about our troops in Afghanistan "air raiding villages and killing civilians."


The differences between how John McCain or Barack Obama as Commander in Chief would handle the war in Iraq are quite clear. Both say they want to draw down forces in Iraq and increase forces in Afghanistan, but how and when reveals their stark differences in approach.

Michael Gordon, New York Times correspondent in Iraq, interviewed both candidates on their plans as Commander-in-Chief of the Iraq war.

They ... provided telling clues about how much flexibility the next commander in chief would grant to his generals, including Gen. David H. Petraeus, the former top American general in Iraq who has been named to lead the Central Command, which oversees operations in the Middle East and Afghanistan.

Mr. Obama, who noted that General Petraeus wanted “maximum flexibility” in setting withdrawal schedules, said he “pushed back” when he met with the commander in July by making the case for sending more forces to Afghanistan, which the Democratic candidate views as the main battleground against terrorists.

Mr. McCain, who argued that a favorable outcome in Iraq is vital for American strategy in the Middle East and its overall efforts against terrorists, repeatedly invoked General Petraeus’s counterinsurgency strategy and said he would be inclined to give General Petraeus considerable latitude in setting force levels in Iraq.

So Obama says he "pushed back" during his sole meeting with Gen. Petraeus, when the architect and leader of the successful surge that turned the war from defeat into victory asked for "maximum flexibility." Translation: Obama told Petraeus "It's my way or the highway."

McCain, a decorated war hero and Naval air wing commander, says he will give General Petraeus "considerable latitude" to finish victory.

At the heart of the dispute is Mr. Obama’s 16-month schedule for withdrawing American combat brigades, a timetable that is about twice as fast as that provided for in a draft American and Iraqi accord. Would that deadline spur the Iraqis to overcome their political differences and enable the United States to stabilize Iraq at far lower troop levels, as Mr. Obama asserts?

Or would it tie the hands of commanders and undermine political progress when the security gains in Iraq are still fragile, as Mr. McCain contends? How would Mr. McCain try to promote political progress and better governance in Iraq, when he insists that circumstances on the ground, not the calendar, should determine the pace of reductions?

“The danger with Obama’s rigid timetable is that it may not allow U.S. commanders to react to events on the ground,” said Toby Dodge, a specialist on Iraq at the University of London and a former adviser to General Petraeus.

Obama, who has zero military experience and zero executive experience, tells Gen. Petraeus the troops are leaving in 16 months. Period.

Mr. McCain has argued that reductions should be determined by political and military circumstances, a stance taken by Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who told reporters in June that he favored a “conditions-based approach” that would allow the United States to continuously assess and adjust to events on the ground.

Obama "military strategy" is that an American withdrawal of troops will "force" the Iraqi government to take political actions he demands.

In addition to using troop withdrawals to try to encourage change, Mr. Obama said he would end efforts to train the Iraqi military if Mr. Maliki’s Shiite-dominated government did not take adequate steps to integrate the largely Sunni members of the Awakening movements into Iraq’s security forces.

While McCain points to progress already made militarily and politically by Iraqis has been in response to our troops winning on the ground.

By contrast, Mr. McCain argued that the improved security had finally given the Iraqis the confidence to move forward politically and economically, improving their working relationship with the American military and Ryan C. Crocker, the American ambassador in Baghdad. Threats to cut off American training or deadlines for removing combat brigades, he argued, would only prompt Iraq to become more dependent on Iran or turn to militias for security.

“For a long time, people have said threaten them with this, threaten them with that,” Mr. McCain said. “Instead, Petraeus, Crocker and others established a relationship with the Iraqi government so that they did do de-Baathification, they did do an amnesty, they passed a budget. The United States government hasn’t passed a budget.”

Democrats in charge of Congress haven't passed a budget in peaceful America, while Iraqis have done so in the middle of a war. So which government is dragging it's feet and which one is moving along faster? Iraqis have put Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid's Congress to shame.

And a crying shame is what it would be if the next Commander-in-Chief makes our troops cut and run from a hard-fought victory in Iraq.

Devastating Video, Obama talks about job Ayers gave him

That "guy in his neighborhood" Obama says he barely knows is the same guy who hired him for his first real job, the infamous "community organizer" gig that scammed $150 million for bomb-throwing Bill Ayers and his radical buddies. Obama admits the truth about "that guy."

Fannie Mae CEO calling Obama and the Dems the "Family" and "Conscience" of Fannie Mae

RightChange TV Ad on Freddie, Fannie and John McCain

For the good of the party, time for Eagleton to go

I write this with a heavy heart. A certain presidential candidate has chosen as his VP a candidate who is woefully inadequate for the job. Since the nomination, this candidate has repeatedly proven to be not ready for prime time, making verbal gaffes on an unheard of scale, making serious foreign policy errors in statements that display a monumental ignorance of the basics, much less the fine points of representing our country on the world stage. This person has also seriously damaged the party's standard bearer by undercutting his campaign platforms in numerous areas, including gun control, energy sources and a host of others. If my advice had been asked, I would have told the standard bearer it was a mistake from the get-go to choose a VP from such a sparsely populated state, who has virtually no understanding of national and international issues. It should be obvious that someone who represents so few people is just not ready to lead our great nation.

I mean, good Lord, the state of Delaware hasn't got any more people in it than Alaska, for heaven's sake! How on earth could any reasonable person think Joe Biden is ready to be one heartbeat away from the Presidency? And has he not proven his unsuitability with his silly claims of being pro-gun because he owns two (not just one, but two!) shotguns? And how about the coal-mining states? In such a tight race, can Democrats just write off entire regions because run-off-at-the-mouth Joe says "No clean coal!"? And those whoppers Joe keeps on repeating about being shot at in Iraq and his helicopter being forced down under fire by the Taliban in Afghanistan! Does hearing a bomb go off outside his hotel in Baghdad really equate to "being shot at"?! And does landing his helicopter due to a snowstorm mean the Taliban are in charge of the weather in Afghanistan?! Hillary told one "war" whopper about snipers in Kosovo and got rode out of town on a rail. Tail-Gunner Joe tells two huge "war" whoppers and stays on the ticket?! And the last straw is that disgraceful performance in the debate. This man with 36 years of so-called experience in the Senate holding down a seat on the back row couldn't handle a hockey mom without resorting to 24 bald-faced lies responding to only 18 questions?! That's 1.5 lies per answer Joe! For the good of the party and the good of the country, step down Joe! You're just not ready for prime time.

RNC files FEC complaint over illegal Obama foreign cash

In the about time category, the RNC has finally filed an official complaint with the FEC about the much-reported illegal foreign campaign contributions to the Obama campaign.

The Republican National Committee is filing a complaint with the Federal Elections Commission over what they believe are illegal donations made to Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama's campaign from foreign sources.

"We believe they have been accepting donations from foreign nationals and excessive contributions," said RNC Communications Director Danny Diaz. He said there were "questions with regards to the legitimacy" of the hundreds of millions low-dollar contributions Obama has received.

Federal campaign finance law forbids campaigns from accepting donations from foreign nationals. The complaint will be formally filed with the FEC Monday. The RNC is requesting that the FEC begin auditing Obama's campaign contributions.

If the RNC's allegations are true, it won't be the first time the FEC has found Obama guilty of taking money from foreign sources. Earlier this year, the FEC ordered the Obama campaign to return an illegal donation worth $31,100 made from two brothers in the Gaza Strip.

The RNC's complaint was spurred by a story written by Newsweek's Michael Isikoff on October 4. It said the Obama campaign had accepted online donations from people named "Doodad Pro" and "Good Will." The "Good Will" donor said his employer was "Loving" and his occupations was "You." The address he submitted was for a GoodWill Industries store.

Before Isikoff wrote his piece, several conservative blogs had discussed some of these odd-sounding donations as well.

RNC General Counsel Sean Carincross said various press reports have called into question at least 11,500 donors names. Those names donated approximately $33.8 million to Obama's campaign.

Jim Geraghty at The Campaign Spot on NRO is one who's been writing about these illegal foreign contributions and has a pretty good guess what the FEC will be looking into.

My guess is that it is based on these reports, that had a "Good Will" of Austin, Texas, giving $17,375 in 1,000 separate donations, mostly in amounts of $25 to avoid FEC disclosure requirements, as well as “Pro, Doodad,” from “Nando, NY,” who gave $19,500 in 786 separate donations, most of them for $25.

Obama, In September 2007: 'Subprime lending... a good idea' !?

Jim Geraghty at The Campaign Spot on NRO asks:

Imagine if Barack Obama had given a speech at NASDAQ in September 2007 where he said, "Subprime lending started off as a good idea — helping Americans buy homes who previously couldn't afford to."

It was a good intention, perhaps, but not a good idea.

Or if, in the same speech, Obama had said, "Repeated calls for better disclosure and stronger oversight were met with millions in mortgage industry lobbying," it would be worth noting just how much money Obama received from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac employees and PACs, no? $126,349, more than anyone except Chris Dodd?

Don't you think a comment like this — well into the subprime crisis — is worth bringing up during all of this? Shouldn't those comments - say, if you could get the audio on YouTube or something — belong in an RNC ad?

Imagine that! No, we don't have to imagine because here it is, the smoking gun. Hisself!

Video: Barack Obama's Questionable Associates

Judicial Confirmation Network looks at some of Obama's "friends."

Palin goes on the warpath in California

Sarah Palin, America's favorite pit bull/hockey mom is on the warpath in California where she's attacking Barack Obama for palling around with ol' bomb-throwing Bill Ayers, Chicago neighbor.

Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin on Saturday accused Democrat Barack Obama of "palling around with terrorists" because of an association with a former '60s radical, stepping up an effort to portray Obama as unacceptable to American voters.

Palin's reference was to Bill Ayers, one of the founders of the group the Weather Underground. Its members took credit for bombings, including nonfatal explosions at the Pentagon and U.S. Capitol, during the Vietnam War era...

"Our opponent is someone who sees America as imperfect enough to pal around with terrorists who targeted their own country," Palin told a rally of about 10,000 gathered at a tennis stadium in Carson, a suburb of Los Angeles.

That echoed comments she made earlier in the day to donors at a private airport in Englewood, Colo.: "Our opponent ... is someone who sees America, it seems, as being so imperfect, imperfect enough, that he's palling around with terrorists who would target their own country."

Ace of Spades is at the rally in Carson, CA, and he's live-blogging it.

At The Corner on NRO, here's a quote from Sarah Palin at the Carson rally:

"There's been a lot of interest in what I read lately. Well, I was reading my copy of today’s New York Times and I was really interested to read about Barack’s friends from Chicago. Turns out, one of his earliest supporters is a man who, according to The New York Times was a domestic terrorist and part of a group that, quote, ‘launched a campaign of bombings that would target the Pentagon and the U.S. Capitol.’

These are the same guys who think patriotism is paying higher taxes. This is not a man who sees America as you and I do - as the greatest force for good in the world. This is someone who sees America as imperfect enough to pal around with terrorists who targeted their own country. This, ladies and gentlemen, has nothing to do with the kind of change anyone can believe in - not my kids and not your kids. The only man who can take on Washington is John McCain."

The Noo Yawk Times has finally felt compelled to come to the aid of favorite son Obama as more dirty laundry is aired on his long-time connections with Ayers, who hired young law school grad Obama for his very first job, the famous "community organizer" scam in Chicago, wherein he and Ayers funnelled some $150 million in grant funds to their terrorist, radical buddies.

And no surprise, the Noo Yawk Times story is a total whitewash, pardon the terrible pun.

The above link will take you to American Thinker, where you can get the straight skinny on the Obama-Ayers connections and what old bomb-throwing Bill has been up to since he graduated from throwing bombs to indoctrinating our public school children into his radical ways.

And speaking of throwing bombs, it's about time somebody in the McCain campaign started tossing a few. I guess Sarah is the best man for the job, as they said about Maggie Thatcher.

Stanley Kurtz at The Corner on NRO has done more digging into the Obama-Ayers connections than any journalist and no doubt the NYT whitewash is in response to what Kurtz is writing.

Kurtz responds to the NYT-CNN whitewash:

Obama was perfectly aware of Ayers’ radical views, since he read and publically endorsed, without qualification, Ayers’ book on juvenile crime. That book is quite radical, expressing doubts about whether we ought to have a prison system at all, comparing America to South Africa’s apartheid system, and contemptuously dismissing the idea of the United States as a kind or just country. Shane mentions the book endorsement, yet says nothing about the book’s actual content. Nor does Shane mention the panel about Ayers’ book, on which Obama spoke as part of a joint Ayers-Obama effort to sink the 1998 Illinois juvenile crime bill. Again, we have unmistakable evidence of a substantial political working relationship. (I’ve described it in detail here in "Barack Obama’s Lost Years."

...The Times also ignores the fact that I’ve published a detailed statement from the Obama camp on the relationship between Ayers and Obama at the Chicago Annenberg Challenge. (See "Obama’s Challenge.") Maybe that’s because attention to that statement would force them to acknowledge and report on my detailed reply.

...The New York Times in the tank for Obama? You bet. And sinking deeper every day.

Go Sarah go! Give 'em hell. One down and two to go as Hugh Hewitt says. Bill Ayers is rouge's gallery no. 1. Next is the not-rev. Jeremiah Wright and convicted Chicago crook Tony Rezko.

There's a whole rat's nest of political cronies and crooks in Chicago that paved the path for Obama's rise. Chicago City Motto is "Some of our politicians haven't been indicted yet."

Hugh Hewitt predicts McCain will close and win

Hugh Hewitt has a mighty interesting post at Townhall.com. He's a pretty smart guy so I sure hope he's right. "With One Month to Go, Why McCain Will Close and Win"

Because the country cannot afford the greatest gamble in its modern history at this moment in time.

A confrontation with Iran looms and instability in Pakistan grows. The Islamist threat has been beaten back in Iraq, but continues to nurse its fanatical hatreds in many other places, from Waziristan to London. Israel is ringed not with an enemy that wants a state but by two enemies that want Israel to be destroyed.

The world's financial system is teetering, and the estrangement between the American people and their government has never been this deep in modern times.

The cost of energy has soared and will continue to climb. The entitlement trap has only grown worse in the three years since George Bush asked the Democrats to work with him on Social Security and they said no. The corrupt, self-dealing culture of the Beltway has poisoned the decision-making of many bureaucracies and in ways only the burdened know, and the credibility of the big media is shattered even as their audiences shrink and many of their news rooms come close to shuttering.

So, despite the rapture of college students and the registration of the homeless in Ohio, the common sense of Americans will override curiosity about Barack Obama and infatuation with his celebrity, and trust John McCain to pilot the country for the next four years.

Obama is a wholly untested Illinois state senator with less than 200 actual days on the floor of the U.S. Senate.

Obama has never run anything or faced any significant political crisis in his life requiring the expert exercise of wisdom and judgment, much less this perfect storm of crises.

Obama's rise has been because of machine politics and hard-left coalitions, and his past is checkered with the most radical and the most corrupt sort of characters imaginable --Ayers, Rezko and Wright to name just the big three.

Keep rubbing that crystal ball, Hugh. Read the whole thing.

What happened with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac?

Who brought the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac disaster down upon your heads? Guess. Hint. John McCain and President Bush tried to stop it. Barney Frank and his buddies wouldn't allow it.

Unqualified home buyers were not the only ones who benefitted from Massachusetts Rep. Barney Frank’s efforts to deregulate Fannie Mae throughout the 1990s.

So did Frank’s partner, a Fannie Mae executive at the forefront of the agency’s push to relax lending restrictions.

Now that Fannie Mae is at the epicenter of a financial meltdown that threatens the U.S. economy, some are raising new questions about Frank's relationship with Herb Moses, who was Fannie’s assistant director for product initiatives. Moses worked at the government-sponsored enterprise from 1991 to 1998, while Frank was on the House Banking Committee, which had jurisdiction over Fannie.

Sarah destroys Biden and the MSM myth

Bill Dyer understands the significance of Sarah Palin's demolishment of Joe Biden and the myth the mainstream media is still trying to spread about her supposed lack of qualifications.

Almost without exception, every bit of the analysis and punditry you read or hear from mainstream media sources — including even new media outlets like the major cable news channels — will have missed the most important point about Thursday night's vice presidential debate. They all think it was close, and they all think that some of the things Slow Joe Biden said actually mattered.

To non-sophisticates (which isn't an insult, by the way, and most definitely isn't a synonym for "unsophisticated") — to ordinary people of every economic class, occupation, gender, religion, and even political persuasion — from outside the Beltway and the bi-coastal Blue-State media enclaves, the defining moment of the debate was when a young governor from a remote, sparsely populated state strode confidently across the national stage, stuck out her hand for a firm handshake, looked a silver-haired senator of 36 years' tenure squarely in the eye, and said: "Nice to meet you. Hey, can I call you Joe?"

At that moment, the champagne bubble of the elites popped. For millions of viewers (but almost no national pundits), the juxtaposition telegraphed a clear message: "She's not one of them, she's one of us. But she isn't awed by him. She's not afraid."

Read the whole thing.

Bill O'Reilly blows away Barney Frank's BS

Bill O'Reilly vs. Barney Frank, the Congressman from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Bill tells Frank he's spewing "B.S." and that he's a coward. "You didn't say that? You want me to play it again for ya?"

"Stop the BS! Stop the crap!"

Sarah Palin vs. MSM, the BS piles higher

Carol Platt Liebau at Townhall.com says it well. The mainstream media is back at again, spinning away and trying to convince the American public that Sarah Palin didn't slobberknock Joe Biden at last night's debate. But this time they couldn't leave all the good stuff Sarah said on the cutting room floor and take a few quotes out of context. This time the people saw Sarah live and she won the day despite the Obama Jr. moderator who came from the so-called mainstream media.

As Carol says, it's like what the lawyer said to the jury after they watched a video of his client committing murder:

Who Do You Believe: Us or Your Lying Eyes?

The MSM is busy today with "experts" and left-leaning commentators trying to convince Americans that Sarah Palin didn't perform as well as all of us know she did last night. Good luck to them. In a real sense, the Palin debate was the moment when the curtain was whisked away from the "Wizard of Media." What was revealed? A group of left-wing, elitist humbugs who have neither regard nor respect for "real Americans" -- regular people who believe in personal responsibility, right and wrong, and worship God rather than government. That's who Sarah Palin is, and with her unpretentious sincerity, her ability to show respect to Joe Biden without knuckling under to him, and her straightforward common sense, she showed that leadership in America needn't be predicated on Ivy League degrees or fancy pontification (contrary to the press bias). Good luck to the media trying to denigrate her again. Americans have seen who she is, and what she's made of. Further attempts to smear her as an ignorant, backwoods hick reveal nothing about Governor Palin -- and the world about those who are so desperate to hold the "regular people" of America at bay.

Amen.

New McCain Ad: Barack Obama Tax-Cutter?

Tax-Cutter Barack Obama? Amazing how so many are swallowing his huge whoppers.

"Sarah's a Fighter" - Sarah Palin TV Ad

Sarah Palin TV ad by the Our Country Deserves Better Committee - http://www.OurCountryDeservesBetter.com

Sarah Barracuda slobber-knocks Smirkin' Joe Biden

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