John McCain and 'Ordinary Americans'

One of the hardest things for a stone-cold political junkie to do is to step outside his obsession long enough to consider politics from the viewpoint of the non-junkies -- the non-partisan, apolitical people who pay little notice to the continual sturm und drang of Beltway combat.

These so-called "swing" voters, who ultimately decide every presidential election, regularly confound the expectations of us political junkies. Today, I had an exchange with my American Spectator colleague Philip Klein that raised this topic. In response to my AmSpec blog post about Barack Obama's apparent slump in the polls, Phil wrote:

I wonder what it would take to get McCain's numbers up into the high 40s, let alone low 50s. The larger point I'm making is that historically, convincing voters that your opponent is bad can only get you so far. At some point, you have to give voters a reason to vote for you rather than merely against the other guy. . . . Even if he can raise doubts about Obama, what does McCain have to do to get more people to rally behind him? I'm not so sure.

This is a perfectly valid point, and a troubling concern for Republicans. In recent days, I've repeatedly referenced Patrick Ruffini's argument that, in order to win, the McCain campaign must fight the election as a choice between Obama and Not Obama. Given the Republican "brand damage" problem and given Maverick's alienation from the conservative base, his only real shot is to make the election a referendum on his opponent.

Phil is a young political junkie and I felt that he, in seeing an absence of positive arguments in McCain's favor, was overlooking the attitudes of Ordinary Americans. My reply to Phil on AmSpecBlog:

The obvious responses to your doubts, Phil, would be (a) George McGovern and (b) Mike Dukakis.
Richard Nixon was never a beloved hero or a rallying point for the American people. Nor was Bush 41 a charismatic figure. Yet in 1972 and 1988, the Democrats suffered blowout defeats because they nominated candidates whom the Republican Party could portray as outside the political mainstream.
For 40 years, Democrats have refused to face up to an obvious fact: Americans don't want a liberal president. Democrats have won the White House during this four-decade span only when they have nominated Southern governors who could be depicted, however inaccurately, as moderate/centrist types.
As to the positive appeal of John McCain, ideologues like ourselves cannot resist eye-rolling, shoulder-shrugging exasperation over the man's unprincipled Maverickhood. Yet the fact is that the guy's POW biography, his "Straight Talk" shtick, and his non-partisan reformer "brand" have a genuine appeal to independent voters. And the powerful Geezer Vote is a factor not to be dismissed.
I am not guaranteeing that Team Maverick can pull this off, but to see how it could happen, you've got to think in terms of non-ideological "swing" voters out in the sticks -- the people I call "ordinary Americans," who see politics very differently from the way we political junkies do.

That was about as much as I could get into a single AmSpecBlog post (I don't like to clog up a group blog with long-form arguments) but it's an important point. Even if conservative ideologues can't see it, or don't like it, the appeal of McCain's patriotic non-partisan image is quite real to those patriotic non-partisan people, the Ordinary Americans.

A lot of those folks are "seasoned citizens" who've voted for Republican presidents many times before. Since the 2004 election, they've been turned off by the GOP for several reasons -- Bush's 2005 push for Social Security reform, scandals in Congress, high gas prices, etc. -- but this doesn't mean that they're automatically going to pick Obama over McCain. And the fact that McCain is 71 (a negative in the eyes of many) could actually be a big plus for him on Nov. 4.

Media elites are always fascinated by "the youth vote," but in 2004, exit polls show 54% of voters were 45-plus, of whom 24% were 60 or older. If Obama loses the Geezer Vote, it's going to be a sad day in Hopeville Nov. 5.

Despite all the problems of the GOP, despite all of Crazy Cousin John's shortcomings, Obama is the kind of liberal Republicans have beaten before, and since Steve Schmidt's taken charge of Team Maverick, they've made some moves that suggest they still remember how to do it. And one of the most important challenges they face is convincing Republicans that Obama can be beat.

The "we're doomed" vibe coming from within the GOP is a major obstacle that Team Maverick must overcome. This newly aggressive strategy that Schmidt has implemented, and the consquent slump in Obama's poll numbers, are part of knocking down the powerful myth of inevitability that Obama created by knocking off Hillary in the Democratic primaries.

Ask yourself what would happen if, going into the Democratic convention, Team Obama was looking at a string of polls showing Obama behind, with his "negatives" going through the roof? Will Axelrod and Plouffe be able to deal with that? Will Obama? And what kind of holy unshirted hell will the PUMAs unleash if, on the eve of Denver, they have every reason to believe the superdelegates have saddled them with an unpopular candidate who's sure to lose in November?

None of this is likely, but it's entirely possible, because if you talk to those undecided "swing" voters -- the Ordinary Americans -- they'll always tell you proudly, "I vote for the man, not for the party." And what kind of man are the Democrats asking them to vote for?

That's the key question the GOP hopes to ask -- and answer -- between now and Nov. 4. As I said in a follow-up at AmSpec blog, I'm reminded of one of my favorite scenes in one of my favorite movies:

Flounder: Will that work?
Otter: Hey, it's gotta work better than the truth.
Bluto: My advice to you is to start drinking heavily.

Cheers!

Ferragamogate

The Huffington Post has decided that it's a scandal for Republicans to wear nice shoes, because Obama wears store-brand sneakers from K-Mart. (I don't think so, but lack the investigative resources of the mighty HuffPo.)

'The World's Biggest Celebrity'

A razor-sharp message from Team McCain:

Allah sez:

This is the third ad in nine days to spoof the cult of Obama but the first one to employ it to any useful end, pairing it with the shots of celebutante nitwits to make him look like a “famous for being famous” lightweight . . .

As I explained at AmSpecBlog, this ad should be seen in the context of the "all about Obama" strategy -- an idea I credit to Patrick Ruffini. It's also in line with the new aggressive strategy Maverick showed last week, for which Steve Schmidt seems to be responsible.

UPDATE: Just in case you missed this:

You May Have Jumped The Shark If . . . .
. . . you begin telling people about your own "symbolic importance."
. . . Washington Post columnists start mocking you as the "presumptuous nominee."
. . . your recent poll trend could be interpreted as a net loss of 19 points in 38 days.

And we have more evidence today that Obama's Trend Is Not His Friend.

UPDATE II: You May Have Jumped The Shark If . . . your campaign staff calls Ludacris "a talented individual" in the process of throwing him under the bus:

Obama's kids vs. your kids

He sends his two kids to private school:

Their daughters attend the private University of Chicago Laboratory Schools, where annual tuition ranges from $15,528 for kindergarten to $20,445 for high school.

That's for his kids. Not your kids:

Speaking recently before the American Federation of Teachers, he described the alternative efforts as "tired rhetoric about vouchers and school choice."
Mr. Obama told an interviewer recently that he opposes school choice because, "although it might benefit some kids at the top, what you're going to do is leave a lot of kids at the bottom."

(Via PrestoPundit.)

Live by the poll

. . . die by the poll:

According to a poll conducted June 18-19, Barack Obama had a 15-point lead over John McCain. A poll conducted July 25-27, however, showed McCain with a 4-point lead over the Democrat. Given this 19-point swing in favor of the Republican candidate over a period of 38 days, if the trend continues at the current rate, on what date will Obama's support reach zero?

That's from my latest column for the American Spectator, and you should definitely read the whole thing.

Guess who's got a mancrush?

"Obama is a politician of physical genius. He looks great, moves with grace, and holds himself with a natural authority. This always has been and always will be an important element of political leadership. . . . For me, this makes it all the more perverse that some conservatives criticized Romney for being too good looking, although the stiff Romney doesn't have the natural grace of Obama."

-- Rich Lowry

Careful, Rich -- Sully's the jealous type.

Barr slams Obama's plan to make taxpayers fund health care for illegals

"Free" health care for 12 million illegals? Obama has promised to "give health insurance to 47 million Americans who are now without coverage," Libertarian presidential candidate Bob Barr says:

Of course, "Sen. Obama doesn't plan on giving them coverage. He plans on making the taxpayers give them coverage. There's a big difference,” notes Barr.
But there's an even more fundamental issue. Approximately one-quarter of those persons who are uninsured are in America illegally.
"It's not fair to expect U.S. taxpayers to pay for health insurance for the citizens of another nation. America's bloated welfare state is expensive enough, and even after recent reforms it still creates a disincentive to work. Handing out insurance to people who have come to America illegally will encourage even greater illegal immigration," Barr explains. "And that, in turn, will push up government health care expenditures, creating a vicious cycle of more and more spending and more and more illegal immigration."
Barr argues that the federal government "should move in the other direction. It must stop requiring hospital emergency rooms to provide free care for illegal aliens and the courts must stop forcing states to provide free schooling for the children of illegal aliens. This means changing the law and perhaps even the Constitution, but until we do so the government will continue to create a taxpayer-funded draw for illegal immigration," says Barr.

Wonder if John McCain agrees with Barr or with Obama? Somebody should ask Juan Hernandez to tell McCain what his opinon is on this issue.

You're welcome, ma'am!

"Thank you, misogynist blowhards of the Internet, for helping me to demonstrate my point."

Darling, I'm not exactly sure what your point is, and frankly, I don't give a damn. But any time you need a big ol' huggable lug to serve as your token bogeyman -- the demon-object of your particular idee fixe -- you just give me a holler, y'hear? And I'm sure Vox Day is always glad to be of service, too.

Now, how about that cup of coffee?

Hillary invites me to dinner

She's been after me for months:

Dear Robert,

Summer is a time for simple pleasures: family vacations, baseball games, and dinner out under the stars. At least it is if you aren't running for president!

It sure is nice having a little more time on my hands, and I'd love to spend some of it with you. Would you like to join me for dinner? . . .

This is my first chance to sit down and spend some real one-on-one time with you. If you enter today, we could be having dinner together soon! . . .

Let's go to dinner! Contribute now, and you and I could be enjoying a summer dinner together soon! Join me for dinner. Make a contribution today.

Thank you so much for all your wonderful support.

All the best,

Oh, you coy little minx, you. "Dinner under the stars ... real one-on-one time" -- but don't it alway come down to the money, honey? Let me think about it. I'm a busy guy. Obama wants me backstage with him, you know. In the meantime, how 'bout you get me some coffee?

Let's see you scoff now, Don Surber!

Rasmussen: Obama 47%, McCain 46%

A virtual tie. Will update as soon as I can get this urge to do a vindication dance out of my system . . .

UPDATE: Ed Morrissey's not ready to dance yet, sharing Ace's worries about "the wild-eyed zealotry of Obama's cultists" (which I discussed yesterday).

Right now, I've got the radio on El Rushbo, who's mocking the idea of Obama's inevitability, which he sees as an exercise in media self-delusion.

UPDATED & BUMPED:
Gallup says Obama 47%, McCain 41% -- a 6-point gap, but the third straight day of Obama's decline in their daily tracking poll. Obama's now exactly where he was on July 20. As I wrote on July 19:

The trip will be over by July 27 and, allowing three weekdays of daily tracking polls to assess the overall impact, we should have a preliminary verdict in the Gallup/Rasmussen numbers of July 31, with other polls released in the following week to verify. So, if Obama's foreign adventure succeeds, he should have a definite lead in the two tracking polls by July 31. Otherwise . . .

We now have one weekday's results in both polls, with two more to go. Let's wait until Thursday and see. So far, however, the trend is not Obama's friend.

Max Blumenthal versus ... Toby Keith?

Yeah, I'm sure this is really going to hurt Toby with the country music audience. It's not exactly an "expose" -- Toby is a known associate of that notorious bigot, Willie Nelson.

UPDATE: I see my old buddy Max has linked me, citing his own flawed reporting with a bogus "quote" from a disgruntled alcoholic former co-worker. Like I told you the first time, Max, I'm too lazy too be evil.

Election 'all about Obama'

Despite the negative spin from the Politico, this is actually good news for the Republican candidate:

McCain's aides recognize that the race is becoming centered on Obama, and hope to leverage that dynamic by bolstering their assault on the Democratic nominee-in-waiting.

As Patrick Ruffini has said, in almost so many words, a referendum on Obama is really the only election John McCain can win. The Democrats want a referendum on Bush and the GOP -- the "Bush-McCain policy" meme. Team McCain is trying to set up a choice between Obama and Not Obama.

Both sides are running nebulous, personality-oriented campaigns. The problem for Team Obama is that their Rorschach inkblot candidate -- the tabula rasa of "Hope" onto whom progressives have projected their internal longings -- is subject to starkly different (and extremely negative) interpretations, whereas Team McCain's "straight-talking Maverick war hero" is a well-established persona who can't be so easily molded in the minds of the electorate.

As any honest observed must acknowledge, the Republicans are at a tremendous disadvantage this year, and John McCain is not exactly a campaign consultants ideal candidate. But Team McCain may yet win, provided that they can fight on the battlefield of their choosing. If the Democrats accept that this election is about the question of Obama's readiness for the job, they will be fighting the only battle the GOP can hope to win.

'Down the Ticket'

A conservative site about elections below the presidential level. Mention of Allen West, who was recently named "Worst Person in the World." (Hat tip: See-Dubya at Malkin.)

Liberal love for Bob Novak

Dramatic readings from the Leftosphere:



(Via Johnny Dollar.) Think Progress:

Vulgarity, bigotry, atrocious lies, and name calling are what they’re about, and ALL THEY’RE ABOUT! So, yes, let’s be gracious, but let’s also not forget that our battle is against soulless, mindless vermin, without a shred of compassion or human decency…

The Prince of Darkness is really a great book, considering it was written by soulless, mindless vermin.

Obama backstage passes for sale

It's a fundraiser:

If you make a donation in any amount before midnight on July 31st, you could be selected to travel to Denver for the last two days of the convention -- including the huge event at the open-air stadium on the final night.
Ten supporters from all over the country will be selected to go Backstage with Barack.
We'll provide airfare, accommodations, and two days of convention activities for each supporter and their guest -- including a private meeting with Barack before his historic speech.

Hmmm. For a mere five dollars, I can have tickets? Free travel? Accomodations for me and a guest? And think of the publicity! "McCain Backstage With Obama . . ."

Honey, where's the Visa card?

Veep rumors du jour

It's Kaine, not Hillary, for the Democrats, and Pawlenty for the GOP. Allah sez:

His working-class pedigree is all to the good, but between the lack of name recognition and the "boring old Republican white guy" effect, I'm underwhelmed. He doesn't even have serious religious cred to reassure antsy evangelicals. Let's hope the report's wrong, although given the general savviness of McCain's campaign these days, it probably isn't.

If naming Pawlenty as running mate could paint Minnesota red in November, that would be good, but my fellow 'Tators hope the Pawlenty rumor is bogus. Why sweat over mere rumors? Given the tone-deaf ineptitude of the Republican Party lately, I'm surprised we haven't heard Dan Quayle's name in the mix.

Meanwhile, I'm reasonably sure there is no truth to the rumor that the Democratic Party has employed a Haitian voodoo practicioner to attempt resurrecting Tom Eagleton as a zombie running mate for Obama. (Hey, Missouri's a swing state, too.)

'The Audacity of Taupe'

David Swerdlick brings the funny:

[J]ust in case [Elizabeth Hasselbeck] gets caught up in the Barapture of Obamamania, I'm here to tell her that the "M-word" is off-limits, too. . . .
Yeah, that word. The M-word. Mulatto. . . .
This is our moment. I hear that CNN's next big series will be called "Beige in America." . . .
"Mulatto" rolls off the tongue a lot smoother than "half breed" or "Strom Thurmond, Jr." . . .
[W]hen people ask me why it's OK for us to use the M-word when they can't, I have to tell them that it's a biracial thing...they wouldn't understand. . . .
Black people can't argue a speeding ticket after sundown, and the only thing in life that white people can't do is use the N-word. To that simple rule, I am now officially adding the M-word. Good news, though -- "Creole" has been approved for everybody's use. . . .
We know that just because we've switched from "Keep Taupe Alive" to "The Audacity of Taupe," it doesn't mean that we have overcome.

That there's funny, I don't care who you are.

Latino racism? ¡Sí!

In a column about "traveling while black," Tamara Walker encounters what she suspects is racism in Mexico:

When I checked into my Mexico City bed and breakfast -- which had received rave reviews on from Trip Advisor -- I sensed a disconnect between the pleasant tone the owner adopted over e-mail (he even complimented my Spanish!), and the cold professionalism with which the staff greeted me when I walked through the door.
Having been here a couple of days, and by now a familiar face, I can't help but notice that the various desk clerks and housekeepers still seem to regard me wearily, if they even look at me at all. None of the "friendly and helpful" attitudes previous guests told me to expect are yet on display.

The not-so-subtle racism Walker encountered undermines the American liberal assumption of "minority" solidarity, an assumption that (like so many other liberal assumptions) has no basis in reality. Hostility between blacks and Hispanics in the U.S. is common enough, but the attitudes about race abroad -- well, that's something else.

For example, American diversity-mongers have fostered the concept of Latinos as a single ethnic group, but nationalism is actually quite a powerful force in Latin America, and there are all kinds of resentments. Ever ask a Mexican how he feels about Guatemalans? Or ask a Cuban about Puerto Ricans?

But the Latinos that all other Latinos seem to hate the most are the Argentines, who are viewed as arrogant because of their predominantly European ancestry (whereas most Latin Americans have a substantial admixture of native ancestry). And for a black person in Argentina? Tamara Walker recalls:

I was one of four black women in my undergraduate program in Argentina, and we all had tremendously varied experiences. One woman, then a student at Spelman, was always surprised to hear my stories of being stared, hissed and laughed at while walking down the street. Not to mention the too-numerous occasions when I was taken for a Brazilian sex worker. Or the time a group of doormen started making monkey noises when I walked past their building.
In her case, many people simply took her light skin and wavy hair to mean she was Colombian or Ecuadorian and pretty much left her alone.

So, two women who are considered equally "black" in an American context encounter quite different reactions in Argentina based on their different appearance. Indeed, contrary to the Kumbayah assumptions of American liberals, Latinos are quite color-conscious. If you've ever seen the Latin American soap operas on Telemundo or Univision, you know that the romantic heroes and leading ladies look nothing like the mestizo peasantry. The most popular music and TV star in Brazil for many years was a blue-eyed blonde, Xuxa.

Liberals promote the notion that the United States is uniquely racist, a notion that Tamara Walker's experiences refute. The Argentines who mistook her for a Brazilian hooker certainly didn't get their stereotypes from any Yanqui source.

The whole complex of behaviors and attitudes Americans call "racism" -- a term nowadays applied not only to harmful stereotypes, prejudice and discrimination, but to even the mildest and most ordinary forms of ethnic consciousness -- is a universal fact of the human condition. The amelioration of harm and hatred is more likely to be accomplished by the acknowledgement of that fact than by its denial.

'A lack of serious thought' for Hillary as VP

Ooooh, feel the burn, PUMAs:

In conversations, Mr. Obama's advisers discuss Mrs. Clinton's role at the Democratic convention next month in a way that suggests they are not thinking of her arriving in Denver as Mr. Obama's running mate.
When Mr. Obama appeared Sunday on "Meet the Press" on NBC he offered a description of the kind of person he was looking for, hinting that it would not be someone who was identified strongly with Washington, a choice that would appear to leave out Mrs. Clinton.
His associates said this description reflected the lack of serious thought being given to Mrs. Clinton for the post. . . .
Mr. Obama’s aides are confident that the passions of the primary season have given way to a more pragmatic view among Mrs. Clinton’s supporters and that Mr. Obama would not risk a major backlash from women or other constituencies associated with her if the vice presidential slot goes to someone else.

Rule of thumb for Democrats: Whenever you read a sentence beginning "Mr. Obama's aides are cconfident that . . ." you should beware of whatever follows.

Prediction: If Obama picks anyone but Hillary as his running mate, disastrous results will follow. Team Clinton will not sit idly by while Obama steals the Democratic Party from them. Do you really think that John Edwards scandal was an accident? Are you stupid? No, they made an example out of him -- kind of a warning shot across the bow of the SS Obama.

Attention Virginia GOP

If you know anything really sleazy, slimy and disgusting about Gov. Tim Kaine, please don't breathe a word of it until after Obama picks him as his running mate. Once the choice is announced, then will be the time to bring out the ex-girlfriends, substance abuse issues, embezzlement, electroshock therapy, gay lovers, whatever.

'That assertion is not correct'

The Obama campaign and the New York Times try to spin the Landstuhl story:

Before his visit to Ramstein Air Base, which is near the medical center, was canceled, the plan called for reporters to stay behind at an airport terminal while Mr. Obama and one adviser met with the troops. Why? The Pentagon does not allow reporters and photographers inside Landstuhl.
For weeks, Mr. Obama had been planning to visit wounded troops in Germany. . . . Yet the Landstuhl visit carried more risk because it was to come in the middle of an overseas campaign trip.
Robert Gibbs, a senior strategist for the campaign, said Mr. Obama thought he could carry out the visit without being perceived as politicizing it.
But two days before the visit, Pentagon officials told the campaign that only Mr. Obama would be allowed inside the medical center in his capacity as a senator. The adviser who had intended to join Mr. Obama, Scott Gration, a retired major general in the Air Force, was told he could not go along because he was a volunteer campaign adviser. . . .

At which point, reports from other sources indicate, Gration threw a tantrum that was the proximate cause of the cancellation of the visit. Gration apparently had not realized that signing up as a adviser to Obama meant that he would be treated like any other campaign aide. A senator can bring his Senate staffers with him to visit military hospitals, but a candidate cannot bring his campaign staffers.

The New York Times article doesn't explain that distinction, nor explain that the Obama campaign put the visit to Landstuhl on the media itinerary for the trip. As the transcript of the Friday news gaggle makes clear, the press plane was scheduled to accompany Obama to the Air Force base. Gibbs tried to tell reporters Friday that the plan all along had been for the media to sit in the plane on the tarmac while Obama visited the hospital, but that story doesn't sound convincing to me.

More likely, I suspect, is that the trip was scheduled by campaign staff who didn't fully understand the rules (as his Senate staff would) regarding media, campaigns and military hospitals. And it's clear that Gration didn't understand the rules, either, or else he would have known that his status as a campaign adviser meant that he wouldn't be able to accompany Obama into the hospital. The original plan to bring a whole planeload of reporters, photographers and TV crews to the Air Force base indicates that the Obama campaign originally had some idea that there would be a "news event" for them to cover there. (I discussed this on Friday.)

So it's pretty obvious that Gration and the campaign staff who scheduled the visit to Ramstuhl screwed up, but for some reason Team Obama doesn't want to come right out and say that. Instead, they keep trying to push back against the McCain campaign's spin, which doesn't do anything in terms of undercutting the fundamental narrative that Obama cancelled a visit with wounded troops and instead went to work out with an awestruck German reporterette.

Behind all this is the inescapable fact that Obama's nine-day foreign trip was never anything other than a gigantic publicity stunt, dreamed up by his campaign staff in a moment of hubris. As I said a month ago, when this trip idea first leaked out to the press:

WTF? Are Plouffe and Axelrod daft? How the heck does it help convince independent voters that Obama can be trusted to fix the economy for ordinary Americans to turn on their TVs and see the candidate in London, Paris or Tel Aviv? . . .
Let me go ahead and predict that one of three things will happen. Either (a) this talk of a foreign trip will be quietly shelved, at the behest of Democratic elders; (b) the plan will be seriously scaled back to no more than 4 days, with maybe a quick London stopover en route to Iraq, and a quick stopover in Paris on the way back; or (c) Team Obama will go ahead with this grandiose scheme and suffer a brutal P.R. beating as a result.

Looks like it's (c), huh?

UPDATE: Rather like the Obama campaign itself, DRJ at Patterico is seeking a sort of objective moral truth in this story. From a strictly political standpoint, however, truth and morality are irrelevant. What counts in politics (and Hunter S. Thompson saw this clearly, if no one else does) is perception.

Politics is a game in which the spectators ultimately choose the winner, and the spectators base their choices on their own perceptions. It's like "American Idol" -- a strictly objective judge might conclude that two or three singers who were eliminated in the quarterfinals were actually better than the guy who wins, but the viewers at home have the final say-so.

So this back-and-forth over the exact decision-making process whereby the Landstuhl visit was canceled -- the quest for verifiable truth, however nuanced and complex -- is almost certainly a waste of time and energy. The political truth (i.e., the perception) is simple enough to sum up in three words: "Obama disses troops."

Liberals have complained for years that their nuanced truth keeps getting stomped by the simple lies of Republicans. But how is "Obama disses troops" less nuanced than "Bush lied, people died" or "war for oil"? Democrats know perfectly well that simple slogans are effective, and they use them whenever they can. It's only when they're on the losing end of one of these narrative conflicts that they start whining about "nuance."

Congratulations, Allen West!

A friend e-mailed to tell me that Iraq war veteran Allen West, Republican candidate for Congress in Florida's 22nd District, has been named "Worst Person in the World" by Keith Olbermann. Congratulations to all those who've worked so hard to help Colonel West win this prestigious honor.

Knoxville killer not guilty, liberal says

That's the gist of this HuffPo column, anyway:

Jim Adkisson of Powell, Tennessee was the man with his finger on the trigger. He had mental health problems, and a hard and bitter life. He apparently left a letter explaining that he hated the church for its liberal beliefs and opinions.
And the church had a sign outside indicating it welcomed gays and lesbians.
Who really killed those Unitarians? Was it the preachers who spread hatred and intolerance? The politicians who court and flatter them instead of condemning their hate speech? The media machine that attacks liberals, calls them "traitors" and suggests you speak to them "with a baseball bat"? The economic system that batters people like Jim Adkisson until they snap, then tells them their real enemies are gays and liberals and secular humanists?
If you ask me, it was all of the above.
You killed them, Pat Robertson. You killed them, Pastor Hagee. You killed them, Ann Coulter. You killed them, Dick Morris and Sean Hannity and the rest of you at Fox News.

We are not responsible for our own actions. We are merely tools in the hands of an "economic system," acting on the "false consciousness" implanted in our heads by Murdoch's minions. It all makes sense, now that our friend at HuffPo has put this in perspective for us.

Who's that chick?

In the white bikini at Cabo? Hint: Not looking too shabby for a divorced mother of two who just lost custody of her kids to her former backup dancer.

Getting frisky with some dude sporting what looks like a jailhouse tattoo on his back. The Brits call him a "mystery man." Who is he? A nobody -- I mean, only a nobody would want to be seen with that skanky trash nowadays. Maybe you recognize him from "COPS."

Well, whoever that tattoo-sporting nobody is, I've got one word of advice for him: Disinfectant.

Teens riot in North Carolina mall

I just saw this headline at the Drudge Report and -- in my haste to bring you the breaking news -- haven't yet had time to read the story. I suppose it's middle-school girls upset that tickets sold out for the Miley Cyrus tour. Either that, or unruly preppies showing their disappointment that Izod shirts still haven't been marked down for clearance.

Obama Bounce Watch

UPDATED & BUMPED: Holy freaking kamoley! USA Today poll now has McCain ahead by 4 points among likely voters:

The Friday-Sunday poll, mostly conducted as Obama was returning from his much-publicized overseas trip and released just this hour, shows McCain now ahead 49%-45% among voters that Gallup believes are most likely to go to the polls in November. In late June, he was behind among likely voters, 50%-44%.

I'll be back to comment, but first I have to go do my shift as a volunteer at the Progressive Suicide Prevention Hotline. Advice to parents with Obama supporters living in your basement: Hide the whiskey and sleeping pills.

UPDATE: I'm back. Busy night at the hotline. Ace notes that the unknown factor in this election is "the wild-eyed zealotry of Obama's cultists." Indeed. I haven't seen anything this kind of fanaticism since Heaven's Gate or Jonestown. If Squeaky Fromme weren't in federal prison, she'd be walking precincts for Obama.

PREVIOUSLY:

Slight shrinkage for Obama in the latest Gallup daily tracking poll, as he lead is now 8 points (48%-40%), a decline from yesterday's 9-point lead.

This is minor good news for Crazy Cousin John. Obama's lead had grown from 2 points to 9 points in the span of three days, and if that trend had continued, Maverick would have been looking at a double-digit deficit today.

Remember that these tracking numbers are an average of a three-day rolling sample, so today's slight decline likely represents a fairly major dropoff from Saturday to Sunday. This could mean that Obama's starting to pay a price for skipping the visit to Landstuhl.

Or it could mean nothing at all. A single day's poll results really don't tell us much and, as I've said repeatedly, we won't have a clear snapshot of the state of the campaign until Thursday.

UPDATE: Thomas Edsall examines the dispute over whether polls indicate an inevitable blowout victory for Obama. As for supposedly "inevitable" outcomes, let me share a favorite quote with you:

I do not believe in a fate that will fall on us no matter what we do. I do believe in a fate that will fall on us if we do nothing.

The date was January 20, 1981.

PUMA turns McCainiac

You knew it had to happen sooner or later:

(Via AmSpecBlog.) Kicked out for opposing Hope:

Debra Bartoshevich, the duly elected Democratic Party delegate for Hillary Clinton in Wisconsin who vowed undying loyalty to the former first lady, has been dumped by the state party and barred from attending the Democratic National Convention in Denver next month.

Associated Press on the (un)Democratic Party:

The Wisconsin party's administrative committee voted 23-0 to strip Debra Bartoshevich of her status as a delegate to the Denver convention next month.
Bartoshevich, 41, was pledged to Hillary Rodham Clinton. But when the New York senator suspended her campaign in June after Illinois Sen. Barack Obama clinched a majority of delegates, Bartoshevich told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that she would support Arizona Sen. McCain.
On Friday, state committee members agreed that Bartoshevich had lost her privilege to be one of the state's 92 delegates because of her comments and her affiliation with Citizens for McCain, a branch of his campaign designed to recruit independents and Democrats.

So much for all that yadda-yadda from progressives about the right to patriotic dissent! Ed Morrissey corrects the record on how Obama has "clinched" the nomination:

Obama has not won sufficient delegates to capture the nomination. Neither he nor Hillary Clinton could reach that point, but Obama has enough pledges from superdelegates to win the nomination, if they don't change their minds. Hillary's supporters want a floor vote in Denver with enough debate to give superdelegates an opportunity to rethink their pledges, but so far the Obama campaign has managed to put a stop to it.

How long before liberals start denouncing Ms. Bartoshevich -- the erstwhile Democrat in good standing -- as a racist?

Jobless atheist losers are dangerous

The Knoxville killer:

If the suspect’s own resume is accurate, Owen said, Adkisson worked in a variety of places across the country and most recently worked in Knoxville in 2006. The chief did not specify where Adkisson last held a job.

I only mention this criminal scumbag because a liberal blogger has accused the "right-wing blogosphere" of ignoring this alleged example of "domestic terrorism." The aforesaid liberal blogger ignores the fact that the aforesaid criminal scumbag was apparently an atheist:

Neighbor Karen Massey says, "I was telling him about my daughter graduating from Bible college and I was a Christian and stuff...and he just automatically turned angry." . . .
"I'm really shocked but at the same time knowing now what has happened he and I did have some pretty extensive discussions, biblical discussions."
Those discussions led her to believe Adkisson didn't believe in the bible's teachings.
"He apparently had a problem with what the Bible said and the contradicting. He felt was contradictions which I don't personally believe, because I am a Christian."

Obviously this loser had some problems with that part about "Thou shalt not kill." So, yes indeed you are right, Mr. Liberal Blogger. I ignored this story . . . because I didn't want to be accused of fostering hatred against atheist losers. Not all of them are mass murderers. Yet.

UPDATE: Others ignoring the story in the "right-wing blogosphere" include Confederate Yankee and Michelle Malkin.

UPDATE II: New details emerge:

Inside the house, officers found "Liberalism is a Mental Health Disorder" by radio talk show host Michael Savage, "Let Freedom Ring" by talk show host Sean Hannity, and "The O'Reilly Factor," by television talk show host Bill O'Reilly. Sources say investigators also found a copy of the Knoxville Yellow Pages, a Chilton's repair manual for 1983 Ford pickup trucks and two recent issues of Swank magazine, although detectives are unsure how these items relate to the crime.

OK, I made up that last sentence. Excuse me if I missed the show last week where Hannity told his listeners to go kill UUs. Generally speaking, mass murders cause liberals to call for banning something. I guess now they'll try to ban AM radios. Or 12-gauge shotguns:

Adkisson . . . was subdued by several church members after firing three rounds from a 12-gauge shotgun into the congregation. . . .
"We heard the first shot," said Marty Murphy, 66, a church member since 2000. "It sounded like a bomb went off."

Back when the so-called "assault weapons" ban was being debated, I kept making the point that, in terms of close-range lethality, nothing beats a 12-gauge shotgun. In a home-defense situation, the mere sound of a round being chambered in a pump-action shotgun will send any halfway clever intruder running for his life. This was ignored in all the idiotic hysteria over semi-automatic rifles, but Adkisson's crime highlights the fact that nothing matches a 12-gauge in killing power: Three shots, two dead, seven wounded.

Pray for 'The Prince of Darkness'

Robert Novak has been diagnosed with a brain tumor. He's survived cancer before, but after his accident last week, his doctors apparently decided to do a CT scan. Novak, one of America's finest investigative reporters, is 77.

Early on in his career, Novak's saturnine appearance earned him the "Prince of Darkness" sobriquet. His longtime column partner, Rowland Evans, was a patrician WASP known and loved by Washington insiders, and so it was generally suspected (not altogether unfairly) that Novak was the troublemaker whose inside scoops caused so much embarrassment for the Establishment.

Novak's 2007 memoir is full of fascinating never-before-revealed tidbits about how he got his biggest scoops during his 50-year career as a newsman, including the scoop about Joe Wilson's wife that became the "Plamegate" controversy. Although a staunch conservative who's never made any pretense of "neutrality," Novak is first and foremost a newsman who values a fact-filled scoop over any partisan or ideological loyalty. (His reporting has made him plenty of Republican enemies over the years.)

Prince of Darkness is not only an amazing inside look at the business of journalism, it's an important historical chronicle of our time. I recommend it without hesitation.

UPDATE: You stay classy, HuffPo!

UPDATE II: Ed Morrissey notes still more classiness from the tolerant and enlightened progressives at Democratic Underground.

UPDATE III: Michelle Malkin pays tribute:

Novak has had a huge influence on my career. During a college conservative journalists’ confab, he urged us to seek metro newspaper jobs, pay our dues, and try to stay out of Washington for as long as possible. I took the advice to heart and left D.C. after a year as an intern at NBC to take my first newspaper job at the L.A. Daily News and then the Seattle Times.

This is something overlooked by many young conservatives who seek to emulate Malkin (and Ann Coulter, too). Because of their youthful good looks, some of their admirers imagine that these two ladies came right out of college as conservative superstars. But as she mentions, Malkin spent seven years working for Left Coast newspapers before becoming nationally syndicated in 1999, and was a 31-year-old married mom when she published her first book, Invasion, in 2002.

Coulter spent even longer as a relative unknown -- first as a New York lawyer and then as a Senate staffer -- and didn't publish her first book until she was 34. It is far too common nowadays to meet ambitious young conservative writers who obviously want to be "the next Malkin" or "the next Coulter," but who don't want to pay their dues, and seem disappointed that fame hasn't found them by the time they turn 25.

Malkin also notes as "typical" the Associated Press's superficial "summary" of Novak's career. I would urge anyone who thinks Novak is just another right-wing pundit to read Prince of Darkness and learn the truth.

Rachel defends dog-blogging

Attempting a defense of the indefensible:

[A]s we all know, I routinely violate rules #2 and 3 and yet I'm one of Vox's favorites, which was pointed out a few times in his comment thread, and thus was born the Lucas Exception by Vox Day, which states that "if a female blogger can be confirmed to be as amusingly bloody-minded as Rachel Lucas, she may post about her dogs or other non-feline pets, so long as such posts are not made more than thrice per week. Kids and cats are still right out."
Don't be jealous. Not everyone can have an Exception named after them. You see, Vox gets me.
Which reminds me of something I often want to say here because once a while, someone will not get me and will misinterpret my penchant for the dog pics. I believe the reason I get the Exception, the thing that Vox and most of you (but not all) understand, is that I don’t think the dogs are cute. I think they’re ridiculous. I am mocking them. With affection, of course, but still.

I'm not buying it. Dog-blogging is intrinsically wrong. The only reason Vox overlooks it is because Rachel's cute. If she weighed 400 pounds, the Exception wouldn't exist.

On the other hand, I grant a waiver to Rachel under McCain's Law of Shameless Traffic-Baiting:

"Traffic is traffic, even traffic generated by flame wars with left-wing trolls, Google searches for celebrity breasts or links from ridiculous dog-bloggers."

There is nothing as honest as pure capitalism.

UPDATE: Proving that she's not merely skating by on cuteness and dog-blogging, Miss Lucas adds an update to advise:

I’m sorry ladies but there are only so many lectures about the MomBlogging Revolution and Powerful Womyn and all that happy horses--t that a person can take. It’s not only tiresome on an intellectual level, most of it is the precise opposite of entertaining. Which in my mind, is what blogs are for. Entertainment. Even if they’re educational too, they have to be entertaining on some level to get anyone to come back. Otherwise we’d just read books.

Entertainment? You mean like punkabilly, Harleys, hotrods, hot babes and classic pop swing?

'Black Hawk Down' veteran vs. Obama

Michael Durant, the helicopter pilot who was held captive in Somalia in the "Black Hawk Down" incident, weighs in on the Landstuhl controversy:

"Over the last week, Barack Obama made time in his busy schedule to hold a rally with 200,000 Germans in Berlin, hold a press conference with French President Nicholas Sarkozy in Paris, and hold a solo press conference in front of 10 Downing Street in London. The Obama campaign had also scheduled a visit with wounded U.S. troops at Ramstein Air Base in Germany, but this stop was canceled after it became clear that campaign staff, and the traveling press corps, would not be allowed to accompany Senator Obama."
"I've spent time at Ramstein recovering from wounds received in the service of my country, and I'm sure that Senator Obama could have made no better use of his time than to meet with our men and women in uniform there. That Barack Obama believes otherwise casts serious doubt on his judgment and calls into question his priorities."

(Cross-posted at AmSpec Blog.)

In defense of Elaine Donnelly

Last week, the Washington Post's Dana Milbank unleashed a 1,038-word sneer against Elaine Donnelly of the Center for Military Readiness, who had testified in defense of the military's "don't ask, don't tell" ban on open homosexuality in the armed services.

A courageous knight -- well, Robert Knight -- gallantly comes to the defense of a great lady:

Milbank began his column by sarcastically introducing Mrs. Donnelly only as someone "who has been working for years to protect our fighting forces from the malign influence of women."
Donnelly, who served on the Defense Advisory Committee on Women in the Armed Services and a presidential commission examining the role of women in the military, has worked for years promoting policies that support military families, and resisting the liberal campaign to lift the combat exemption for women. To Milbank, who apparently wants to shove our daughters into harm's way as soon as possible, that's "maligning" women.
Milbank goes on to describe Donnelly’s testimony and responses to questions as "an extraordinary exhibition of rage." Anyone who has seen Mrs. Donnelly under fire knows that she does not do "rage." What she does do is to demolish the other side's arguments with logic and documented materials. . . . Every inch a lady, albeit a lady tough as nails, Mrs. Donnelly does not sink to the level of her opponents.

Milbank seems to be one of those "anointed" liberals who confuse policy disputes with opportunities to display their superior social morality. To oppose gays in the military or women in combat is to be a homophobe or a sexist and therefore inferior, and liberals feel obligated to pull out all the stops when targeting their inferiors.

Readers old enough to remember the original 1993 controversy over this issue will recall that homosexual activity within the U.S. military has been banned since time immemorial under the Universal Code of Military Justice. President Clinton, on his first day in office, signed an executive order rescinding that ban, infuriating the Pentagon and veterans' groups. In a compromise measure worked out by Gen. Colin Powell and Sen. Sam Nunn (D-Ga.), the "don't ask, don't tell" policy was instituted.

Conservative critics at that time recognized the compromise was fundamentally unworkable, but accepted it as preferable to the Clinton policy. No compromise with liberals is ever permanent, however, and so the flaws of "don't ask, don't tell" -- which were evident from the moment the policy was announced -- are used as arguments to adopt the Clinton policy that caused such a firestorm in 1993.

With the facts on her side, Mrs. Donnelly will not back down, although she may be steamrollered by a Democratic Congress as a gesture intended to placate the Democrats' wealthy gay contributors. But don't mistaken, last week's hearing only a gesture.

The Democrats wouldn't dare actually do anything about this issue by passing legislation that Bush could veto, thereby exposing the Democratic majority in Congress as the tool of radicalism it is. Until Nov. 4, the Democrats will pose as moderates concerned about bread-and-butter economic issues -- "working families," yadda, yadda, yadda -- and will wait until after President Obama is elected to reveal their actual agenda.

If you ever had any doubt . . .

. . . that the Left hates religion:

When you don't know how to think for yourself, it's easy for those in power to tell you what to think.
Thus Osama Bin Laden can convince 19 people to fly planes into buildings just like George W. Bush can convince a majority of Americans that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction. It's the naive gullibility that comes from a lifetime of believing in fairy tales and rituals and superstition.

That this DUmmy appropriates as his S/N the name of one of the finest rock bands of all time only adds to his idiocy.

Like my man Howlin' Wolf, I ain't superstitious, and I don't believe in "fairy tales." The reality of Jesus Christ is clear in the testimony of the witnesses to His life, death and resurrection. Furthermore, as the apostle Paul observed:

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness;
Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them.
For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse:
Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened.
Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools . . .

RTWT, as they say. You are free to believe what you want, and I hope you'll excuse my effort to "impose my beliefs" on you. But I would be remiss if I failed to remind you that the rejection of self-evident truth has consequences.

McCain supports civil rights

Ward Connerly's Arizona initiative:

Sen. John McCain said today that he supports a proposed initiative on the November ballot in Arizona that would ban preferential treatment on the basis of race or sex in public education, jobs and contracting, an apparent change in his previous position that such attempts are divisive.
In an interview with ABC's George Stephanopoulos, McCain said he supports the proposed ban on affirmative action; similar measures will also be on the ballot in Colorado and Nebraska.
Asked if he supports measures that would "do away with affirmative action,'' McCain replied: "Yes, I do. I do not believe in quotas. But I have not seen the details of some of these proposals. But I've always opposed quotas.''
"But the one here in Arizona you support?'' Stephanopoulos asked.
"I support it, yes,'' McCain said.

Stephanopoulos and the Washington Post reporter both play games with the phrases "affirmative action" and "quotas." Either the policies are systematically discriminatory, or they are not. It is such race-obsessive discrimination that is "divisive," not Ward Connerly's courageous crusade to eliminate the discrimination.

UPDATE: Michelle Malkin jumps on this story with both feet this morning:

Barack Obama, a lifelong preference-monger, has the wrong convictions on this issue. McCain doesn’t have any.
You asked for straight talk. You got it.

By the way, have you noticed that there are no "John McCain for President" ads on Michelle's site? The GOP nominee isn't advertising on either Michelle's personal blog or on Hot Air -- two of the top conservative sites on the Web, with a combined average traffic of over 450,000 visitors per day. I don't know if that's by the campaign's choice, or by her choice, but either way, I'm pretty sure it's not accidental.

'No woman ever fantasized about being ravished by a liberal'

Good line from P.J. O'Rourke, via Vox Day.

Are there any conservative Republicans left?

Bush is signing that godawful mortgage bailout, John McCain calls Wall Street "the villain" . . . as if one Democratic Party wasn't bad enough, now we get to choose between Democrats and Democrats Lite?

An Echo, Not a Choice!

Celebrity update

Kind of a slow day for celebrity news:

• Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, a British model being touted as the next Kate Moss, was photographed with a bong. And she looks like she's already had a few tokes.
• In other celebrity dopehead news, Whitney Houston's got a new single, and Amy Winehouse ... well, she's Amy Winehouse, right?.
• Shia LeBeouf was busted for DUI and hospitalized for surgery after a 3 a.m. car wreck. What, you've never heard of Shia LeBeaouf? Yeah, me neither. Turns out he starred in the Transformers movie and the Indiana Jones sequel. Slow day, like I said . . .
• Sarah Larson, George Clooney's ex, is not interested in another relationship. Once you've had Clooney, you never go back.
• Lindsay Lohan partied with girlfriend Samantha Ronson. Once you've had Ronson . . .
• And, finally, Charlie Sheen is trying to do a K-Fed on Denise Richards, saying that his ex-wife is an unfit mother because she's a liar. Yeah, Charlie, and you're pure gold, man.

(Gossip, rumors and dish via WeSmirch.)

Little Miss Attila offers to make me a %$&#ing sandwich

In exchange for gin. There's an important lesson here for you ladies: Never let your feminist principles stand between you and a free martini.

Little Miss Attila: A Role Model of True Empowerment!

(And once again, I ask: What is it with redheads in classic pinup art?)

K-Lo is the Taliban?

OK, a silly Washington Post feature about 16-year-old girls buying bikinis:

They all want bikinis.
"A one-piece looks weird," says Carly, a long-limbed and graceful cross-country runner. "No one wears one-pieces unless they're old or on swim team."
Rebecca, a red-headed, freckled softball player with an infectious smile, enthusiastically agrees: "One-pieces actually make your stomach look bulgier."
"I think some one-pieces look good, but it seems like people who aren't confident about themselves wear them," says Alyssa, a petite cheerleader with a creamy complexion and muscular build. "Bikinis are more popular because they're sexier. They draw a guy's attention."

Next, Kathryn Jean Lopez, referencing Kathleen Parker's new book, Save the Males, suggests this is "begging for a dad to be on the scene. . . . Where's dad to just say no?" Next thing you know, a gay leftist is comparing K-Lo to the Taliban.

But what was K-Lo really saying? That no teenager girl should ever wear a bikini? Or was she saying that 16-year-old girls who want to look "sexier" to "draw a guy's attention" might be suffering from a dearth of paternal influence?

Frankly, a dad's perspective might have been simply to inform these girls of the counterintuitive fact that -- even if your goal is to "draw a guy's attention" -- sometimes showing less a little less is better than showing more. A one-piece suit has a certain elegance and suggests a more serious purpose: That you're at the beach or pool to swim, rather than merely to work on a tan.

Dad might even point out that, hey, who says a one-piece isn't sexy? (The "long-limbed" Carly in the Washington Post article might discover she looks especially stunning in a one-piece, which tends to accentuate the legs.)

Something I've often said is that women who leave nothing to the imagination tend to attract guys with no imagination. A really attractive woman is still really attractive even in old jeans and a sweatshirt, and an ugly woman is still ugly, no matter what she's wearing. A beautiful woman doesn't need to flaunt her assets in order to attract guys.

That's the kind of common-sense insight a Dad might offer. Dads can and should help their kids resist peer pressure and pop culture. That's what K-Lo was saying, I think. To compare her to the Taliban is unhelpful.

The Dalai Lama's a Marxist?

Anita Thompson interviews the Dalai Lama:

When he first got to China, the Dalai Lama studied the history of the Chinese Revolution. "I always describe myself as a Marxist, as far as social and economy is concerned," he explained. "In the meantime...I totally am very against, or disagree with, the totalitarian system."
This is the modern principle. Don't think just about the profit, but rather, equal distribution: these are also modern principles. "I am a liberal democratic socialist idealist," he teased.
"My brain could be more red than Chinese leaders'. They only think about money -- economy, economy, economy -- and they don't care about the gap between the rich and the poor and the immense corruption."
There used to be a very sincere ideology in the Chinese government, even during Mao's reign. Of course it was very sad. But at that time, there were many good Communist Party members who dedicated their whole lives to service to the people, "not thinking about their own pockets....That kind of spirit is now lost. Difficult and very sad."

Frankly, I prefer "immense corruption" to Maoism. The Great Leap Forward alone resulted in the deaths of 30 million Chinese. I'm obligated to point this out because, as the Dalai Lama told Anita, "The media should be truthful, unbiased, honest." And the unbiased, honest truth is: Socialism sucks.

Whore hoppers for Hope

The Smoking Gun reports that two men in Chicago have been arrested in recent weeks on charges of solicitation of prostitution -- while wearing Barack Obama T-shirts:

Memo to Barack Obama supporters everywhere: If you plan on soliciting some sexual favors from a prostitute, perhaps you should leave your t-shirt promoting the Democrat's presidential campaign at home. For the second time in recent weeks, a Chicago man has been nabbed on a misdemeanor rap for soliciting sex from an undercover officer while promoting the hometown pol's White House bid.
Sherman Cleveland, 40, was arrested last week and had his car impounded after he allegedly offered a female police officer money if she'd perform a sex act upon him, according to Officer Laura Kubiak, a Chicago Police Department spokesperson.

There must be an innocent explanation. These grassroots activists were just trying to do some outreach to the sex-worker community, canvassing the precinct, when they said something to these undercover cops about recent polls showing that approval ratings of Congress are so low, they're below the low job approval numbers of President Bush. A simple misunderstanding . . .

Dumb things to say

"We better pray Obama gets elected, so Republicans will start acting like Republicans again."
-- guest at a wedding attended by Sister Toldjah

Obama ads: 'No measurable impact'

Donald Lambro, Washington Times:

Barack Obama's summer saturation ad campaign in key battleground states has not increased the Illinois Democrat's poll numbers, according to senior strategists for John McCain's campaign and recent independent polling. . . .
The Obama campaign, flush with cash, is spending record amounts of money on big media buys in states like Virginia, Georgia, Florida, Colorado and Michigan, but the latest polls show that, if anything, the polling in these states has either changed little or the Arizona Republican has narrowed the gap in them. . . .
"So far we're not seeing any evidence that they have had any measurable impact," said a top McCain campaign official on the condition of anonymity.
McCain campaign officials say their own polls show that for all his spending, "Obama's numbers haven't budged a bit."

Read the whole thing. This was obviously written before the latest round of tracking polls, but that "budge" had nothing to do with advertising and everything to do with network news fellatio . . .

'Come with me if you want to live'

Arnold Schwarzenegger terminates trans-fats in California. So when you and your gay spouse get the munchies after smoking too much medical marijuana, you'll have to make do with cholesterol-free low-fat organic bran muffins. Maybe if Mexicans start smuggling trans-fats into San Diego, Schwarzenegger will finally get tough on illegal immigration . . .

Obama bounces to +9

St. Hopey's got his biggest lead so far in the Gallup daily tracking poll -- 49% to 40% for Crazy Cousin John.

Notice that McCain has actually lost three points since Wednesday. Could this be a backlash against McCain's new aggressive approach? So far, there's no sign of a negative impact from the Landstuhl controversy for Obama, but it's probably too early to tell.

Remember: This tracking poll is a three-day sample averaging results from Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Obama's press coverage Thursday was all sunshine and cuddly bunnies, and it wasn't until Friday that the blogosphere and talk-radio jumped all over the Landstuhl controversy. I wouldn't be surprised if Monday's Gallup tracker showed Obama losing a couple of points off his lead.

(Rasmussen's latest has Obama ahead by 5 points, 49%-44% including "leaners.)

It's too soon to tell how this will play out, though. On the day Obama landed in Afghanistan, I said we'd have to wait until July 31 to know the net impact of his trip. We just have to wait and see.

'Stunningly dishonest'?

So says Matthew Yglesias about John McCain's new ad invoking Obama's snub of the wounded heroes at Landstuhl.

Granted, as Allahpundit has noted, the ad does seem to mischaracterize the specific reasons why St. Hopey decided that visiting the brave American men and women who sacrifice for freedom wasn't quite as important as working out with an awestruck German reporterette.

But what's with this all-of-a-sudden progressive concern with facts? Why, just four short years ago, the Left was perfectly happy with "fake but accurate" news.

UPDATE: McCain stays on the attack:

(Via Hot Air.) How will this play? Too soon to tell, but the latest polls are not encouraging.

Gratuitous pinup eye candy

This was the art at Pirate's Cove Sunday roundup, which included a link to me. And since I'm already "the Winston Churchill of patriarchal oppressors," I figure my fellow swine wouldn't mind a little cheesecake.

UPDATE: What is it with redheads in classic pinups? Redheads, redheads, redheads. Were there simply more redheads in the '50s, or were there just more redhead models? Ain't complaining, just noticing.

Another veepstakes rumor

Marc Ambinder says the scuttlebutt is that Crazy Cousin John will announce his running mate Monday. Fine, I'll wait for Monday.

The game of speculating over running mates, and pundits pushing this or that possibility, bores me to tears. It's like kids who spend weeks wondering what gifts they'll get on Christmas morning, but worse, in that so many people claim to have the inside scoop on what's going on.

There may be a certain amount of trial-ballooning that goes on -- names being floated via press leaks to see how people react -- but most of it's just gossip. In the end, candidates usually pick either a blindingly obvious choice (Kerry and John Edwards) or they come up with a name so obscure that none of the pundits guessed it (Bush 41 and Dan Quayle). And beyond the genuine disasters (e.g., Thomas Eagleton) running-mate choices almost never have any real political impact.

Just wait until Dec. 25, kids. It will be here soon enough.

Did Team Clinton expose Edwards?

Fleet Street gets the gist:

Scratch John Edwards off the list of potential vice-presidential candidates. The former White House contender, who had been hoping to get the nod from Barack Obama, is in the midst of a full-blown sex scandal.
Every supermarket shopper knows that the preternaturally youthful former senator for North Carolina may have fathered a love child with a film-maker while Elizabeth, his saintly wife, is dying of cancer.

If the consequence of the Enquirer story is to scuttle Edwards as veep, why not suspect that the purpose of the story was to scuttle Edwards as veep? And if that was the purpose, then who had the motive?

This is invalid as logic, but as a gut-hunch, it feels pretty solid.

Everybody knows that the last thing in the world Team Obama wants is to have Hillary Clinton as his running mate. And among those who know it best are the Clintons themselves. The motive for torpedoing Edwards is obvious enough.

As James Carville likes to say, when you see a turtle sitting on top of a fencepost, you know he didn't crawl up there by himself, and when a sex scandal sinks an obvious rival for Democratic running mate while Hillary's sitting on top of a huge campaign debt, you start thinking: Jack Palladino, Terry Lenzner, Sidney Blumenthal ... Hey, whatever happened to Kathleen Willey's cat?

This is why you know that, if Barack Obama's ever cheated on his wife, he must have been very discreet about it. Trust me, if Obama had any disgruntled ex-girlfriends out there, we'd have heard about it shortly after Super Tuesday. Of course, it's still four weeks until the convention, so there's still time for any aggrieved erstwhile paramour to make a deal with the Clintons.

If a sex scandal ruins Obama between now and Denver, and his ex-girlfriend ends up as Hillary's ambassador to Costa Rica, don't say I didn't warn you.

'No fear of being cut off for life'

So says Gabriel Malor, in response to my mocking of feminist bloggers, and you know something? He's right. I've been married for 20 years, I've got six kids, and what do I have to fear from the opposite sex at this point?

Really, it would be unseemly for me to act "enlightened" and "sensitive" in order to impress women in general. The married man who makes a big show of his sensitivity and enlightenment . . . does the name John Edwards ring a bell, hmmm?

"Feminism" is a catch-all term that means many things, and the reason the term has such an unpopular stigma is that it is associated with whining victimhood. Nobody likes a whiner, and no matter how much intellectuals try to turn victimhood into virtue -- "Admire me because I'm oppressed!" -- the ordinary American rightly rejects such humbug.

Whining is incompatible with the can-do spirit of America. The Pilgrims and pioneers weren't whiners. George Washington didn't sit around Valley Forge whining. And so whenever some activist intellectual type starts whining about "equality" and "rights," the ordinary American is instinctively suspicious: "What kind of scam are they running?" Lee Reynolds captured this in a comment:

Whiny leftists love to look for situations that they can point to as proof of bigotry and discrimination. They don't care if that bigotry and discrimination is real. Their purpose is not to improve things or promote understanding. Their purpose is to promote and maintain the myth that the US is a nation plagued by racism, sexism, and any other inter-group discrimination they can invent or promote as being real.

It's a racket, a hustle. Activist intellectual types invent or exaggerate grievances in order to justify their own existence, and to keep the money rolling in. If you've got a 501(c) operation dedicated to advancing the cause of "equality," you have a vested interest in seeing inequality and discrimination everywhere. Why else should deep-pocket donors and foundations give you money?

William F. Buckley Jr. was once asked by Oxford University to debate the feminist Germaine Greer, but after much back-and-forth via trans-Atlantic telegram, he and Greer were unable to agree on the proposition to be debated. Finally, in frustration, Buckley offered, "Resolved: Give 'em an inch, and they'll take a mile."

In that witticism is much wisdom. Like other "progressive" ideologies, feminism is implacable. There is no fixed objective, no ultimate goal. Rather, feminist is rooted in a culture of complaint. It seeks out grievances to protest and, because there will never be a world without grievances, the protesting never ends. As soon as one concession is granted, another will be immediately demanded, and the specifics of the grievance are essentially irrelevant to this process.

You might as well try to negotiate with a hungry shark as to seek to pacify a feminist. They are permanently indignant and perpetually aggrieved. It's who they are and what they do, their raison d'etre.

Now, Gabriel Malor suggested I "crossed the line" when I viciously mocked the HuffPo feminist who helped organize the "BlogHer" conference. But why was I mocking her? Because she couldn't be satisfied with getting her conference written up in the New York Times. No, she had to complain that the write-up appeared in the "Style and Fashion" section.

Talk about whining! You get a 1,200-word write-up in the New York Freaking Times and then have the effrontery to complain about the placement? Screw you.

Feminism, however, is more than whining. It's also a form of extortion. One reason middle-class men are afraid to denounce feminism as a dishonest scam (which it most certainly is) is for fear that it will harm their careers. Look at what those monsters did to Larry Summers at Harvard. To denounce feminism is to risk being branded an employment liability. What corporation would take the risk of hiring or promoting a man who openly scoffed at feminism? If they were ever sued for discrimination, that guy would become Exhibit A in a "hostile environment" case.

So I've got zero sympathy for whiny feminists who moan endlessly about how bad they've got it, while simultaneously using legal intimidation against any man who dares say them nay. They're the Victimhood Mafia.

Feminists enjoy playing a little game of equating hostility to their bogus ideology with hostility toward women per se. Any man who questions feminist ideology is therefore a "misogynist," a woman-hater. But I don't hate women. I don't discriminate against women. If anything, I tend to discriminate in favor of women, to cut them some slack and give them a break in a way I wouldn't do with men. I've got a wife and two daughters whom I would never want to be treated unfairly or discourteously, so the last thing I would ever do is to encourage or tolerate hatred toward women.

Do feminists even care about stuff like that? No. They are intellectual totalitarians. Disagree with their ideology and you are a sexist. OK, fine: I'm a sexist.

Feminists are like Hitler at Munich, demanding the Sudetenland, and I refuse to be Neville Chamberlain. I'd rather be the Winston Churchill of patriarchal oppressors: We shall fight them on the beaches, we shall fight them on the landing fields -- we shall never surrender!

Now, run along and get me a cup of coffee, hon.

UPDATE: Katie seems to have been offended because a Democrat called her "darlin." Well, you don't have to call me darlin', darlin' . . .