SECOND EVENING UPDATE:  JUNE 20,  2008

Posted at 8:05 p.m. ET

COMMON SENSE

The House has passed and sent to the Senate, which is expected to easily pass it, a new wiretapping bill.  It represents a reasonable compromise, but the usual suspects are still howling:

The House on Friday overwhelmingly approved a bill overhauling the rules on the government’s wiretapping powers and conferring what amounts to legal immunity to the telephone companies that took part in President Bush’s program of eavesdropping without warrants after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

The bill cleared the House by 293 to 129, with near-unanimous support from Republicans and substantial backing from Democrats. It now goes to the Senate, which is expected to pass it next week by a wide margin.

“Our intelligence officials must have the ability to monitor terrorists suspected of plotting to kill Americans and to safeguard our national security,” said Representative John A. Boehner of Ohio, the Republican minority leader. “This bill gives it to them.”

The Democratic majority leader, Representative Steny H. Hoyer of Maryland, was considerably more restrained in his support of the bill, calling it the best compromise possible “in the current atmosphere.”

Naturally, the Dem left spoke up, anguished:

But Representative Jerrold Nadler, a New York Democrat who heads the Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, called the bill “a fig leaf,” and one that “abandons the Constitution’s protections and insulates lawless behavior from legal scrutiny.”

That's complete nonsense.  We need the cooperation of phone companies to conduct legal - I stress legal - surveillance.  If they're asked to do something, and human lives are at stake, they must comply.  To hold them legally accountable for following a reasonable government request is pathetic.  It would lead to a lack of cooperation, and a potential tragedy of vast proportions.  The Constitution, as they say, isn't a suicide pact. 

June 20, 2008.      Permalink          

FIRST EVENING UPDATE:  JUNE 20,  2008

Posted at 6:24 p.m. ET

ARROGANCE

Ed Lasky of American Thinker alerts us to a remarkable piece of arrogance on the part of the Obama campaign, as reported by John M. Broder of The New York Times.  It seems that Obama is using a new seal that bears a striking resemblance to someone else's:

At a discussion with a dozen Democratic governors in Chicago on Friday morning, each of the governors was identified with a small name plate but Senator Barack Obama sat behind a low rostrum to which was attached an official-looking seal no one had seen before.

It is emblazoned with a fierce-looking eagle clutching an olive branch in one claw and arrows in the other and is deliberately reminiscent of the official seal of the president of the United States. Around the top border are the words “Obama for America;” across the bottom is the campaign’s Web address. It also contains the logo of the Obama campaign, variously interpreted as a sunrise or a view down an open road.

Just above the eagle’s head are the words “Vero Possumus,” roughly translated “Yes we can.” Not exactly E Pluribus Unum (Out of Many, One), the motto on the presidential seal and the dollar bill. Then again, Mr. Obama is not the president.

Go take a look.  Given Obama's base of support, I'm surprised they included the arrows.  I'm not surprised that they appropriated the seal.

June 20, 2008.      Permalink          

SECOND AFTERNOON POST:  JUNE 20,  2008

Posted at 4:40 p.m.

MIRACLE

Am I reading correctly, or are my eyes in the tank for McCain? 

Is the liberal press criticizing Obama, or is this a sneak strategy to throw us off guard?

I don't know, but there it is - criticism.  I mean, The New York Times?  There will be coronaries in Greenwich Village:

The excitement underpinning Senator Barack Obama’s campaign rests considerably on his evocative vows to depart from self-interested politics. Unfortunately, Mr. Obama has come up short of that standard with his decision to reject public spending limitations and opt instead for unlimited private financing in the general election.

Mr. Obama is the first presidential candidate to rebuff the public system’s restrictions for the general election since they were enacted after the Watergate scandal. In doing so, he pronounced the public system “broken” and turned away from his earlier strong suggestion — greatly applauded at the time — that he would pursue an agreement with the Republican candidate to preserve the publicly subsidized restraints this fall.

Well, what can one say?  Will these editorial writers ever get another party invitation from George Soros?

And here's ABC's "The Note":

Maybe we had it wrong from the start: It's Barack Obama who is running for George Bush's third term, while John McCain just might be pursuing John Kerry's first.

Not on policy, of course (not that Team McCain would much mind that perception these days). But in approach, in temperament, in stability, in take-no-prisoners mindset -- inside which campaign would Karl Rove recognize a piece of himself?

In rejecting public financing, it's possible that Barack Obama is running for George Bush's third term, while John McCain might be pursuing John Kerry's first.
In the one with tightly controlled access, the jugular-aiming (drama-free) political shop, and the temerity to cast aside a fundraising pledge en route to breaking all campaign-finance records?

Or the one with rolling press conferences, scattershot messaging (with missed zingers), and complaints about the other side not playing fair?

We have found the new politics -- and it can spend half a billion dollars to win an election.

Oh yeah, oh yeah, thank God it's Friday.  Truth is starting to ooze out.  But you can be sure the thought police at these institutions will do their thing, and they'll be back in line by Monday.  But bask in the temporary sunshine.

April 20, 2008.      Permalink          

AFTERNOON POST:  JUNE 20,  2008

Posted at 3:46 p.m. ET

TRACKERS

In today's trackers, Rasmussen has Obama up four, but Gallup has him up only two.  The race is very close.

However, Rasmussen has some bad news for Senator McCain in the electoral college:

The latest Rasmussen Reports polling shows Ohio remains close but Rasmussen Markets data and an average of all recent polls have created a shift. With these changes, Obama now leads in states with 200 Electoral College votes while McCain leads in states with 174 votes. When leaners are included, it’s Obama 284, McCain 240.

A candidate needs 270 to win.

These numbers may well change over the coming months, but there's no guarantee of that.  And some recent state polls may be inaccurate.  McCain has work to do.  The closeness of the popular vote is only an interesting fact.  The electoral vote decides the race.

June 20,  2008.      Permalink          

FRIDAY:  JUNE 20,  2008

Posted at 6:58 a.m. ET

NEW DEMS?

Kimberly A. Strassel, of The Wall Street Journal, writes a very sharp piece on the passing, at least temporarily of the New Democrats, who saved the Democratic Party from itself in the early nineties. 

Listen closely to all those cheers for newly crowned nominee Barack Obama, and in the background you'll catch the notes of a funeral march. Resting, if not in peace, are the New Democrats.

The Illinois senator's primary victory marked the end of many things, and one looks to be his party's 20-year experiment with ideological centrism. The New Dems are still out there, still urging their party to fight its natural liberal instincts. But who's listening? Buoyed by the Republican implosion, wild for their retro nominee, the intellectual soul of the Democratic Party is now firmly left.

The New Democrats were born in the 1980s, in response to Ronald Reagan's triumphs. Prominent Democrats worried the party was out of touch, and created the Democratic Leadership Council. Its members were foreign-policy hawks, unafraid of cultural conservatism, and preached economic centrism. Their poster boy: Bill Clinton.

And...

Mr. Obama calls for an immediate pullout of troops from Iraq, no matter what the consequences. His foreign policy, to the extent it is one, flows not from strength, but from greater American accommodation in the name of diplomacy. Mrs. Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid have together held some 72 votes on Iraq, most devoted to cutting off troop money, blocking the surge, or forcing a pullout.

And...

The one place where New Democrats have made a more lasting mark is on the culture. The party leadership has seen the wisdom of relaxing litmus tests on guns and abortion, a change that in 2006 let them field candidates who won conservative districts. But even here, Mr. Obama is a skeptic. He's said he'd repeal the Defense of Marriage Act – which Bill Clinton signed. He's criticized the Supreme Court for upholding the partial-birth abortion ban.

Finally...

So where does this leave the party? The New Democratic approach gave the party its best run in decades, and it has remained a magic formula for many local candidates. But nationally, the general political mood has left the leadership believing it can win no matter what it says. Maybe. Then again, one election doesn't make for a lasting majority.

True.  If Obama is elected, he has to govern.  That's the hard part.  He can easily crash and burn, like Jimmy Carter, who continues to crash and burn.  And the GOP can come roaring back in the 2010 midterms.

But here's the problem:  Increasingly, the nation's educational system and media are reliably leftist.  They will set the agenda because they're the intellectual gatekeepers of society - letting some ideas in, ridiculing others.  The notion that educators and journalists are "change agents," not scholars and reporters, has taken hold.  The result?  Look at the mad, religious worship of Obama by young people.  No serious questions asked.  No challenges allowed.  Children worshipping a young, inexperienced candidate whose views seem to change by the hours.  It will be harder to break the nation of a leftist fantasy, even if a leftist president collapses.

Tough times ahead.

June 20, 2008.      Permalink          

BARACK'S IMAGE PROBLEM

Truly crusty Wes Pruden of The Washington Times examines some cracks in the Obama armor, and senses that the senator's image may need some revision before long:

A new poll by the Zogby organization for Reuters finds that John McCain, whose campaign is having trouble getting on track, has nevertheless pulled within five points of Sen. Obama. This is a gain of three points over the past month. He leads John McCain 47 to 42 percent, close to the margin of error, which means the two presumptive nominees have moved into a tie, more or less.

Tightening poll numbers, subject to fluctuations every time the wind blows, the mouse squeaks and the dog barks, don't mean much until after Labor Day. But the damage done to Mr. Obama's saintly image by events he seems unable to control is something real to worry about. Worse, he's having his first lovers' quarrel with his camp followers of press and tube.

And...

Reporters were told this week to expect less access to the candidate; photographers especially are poison. The camp followers are still miffed because the Obama campaign dispatched his plane with reporters aboard back to Washington while he, without telling them, slipped away to stay in Chicago to chat up Hillary Clinton. Several bureau chiefs and the Associated Press accused him of deliberate deception.

You mean, there's thinking going on?  This has to stop.

Managing an image is hardly new to the Obama campaign. That's what modern presidential politics is all about, and the Obama campaign usually does it very, very well. When his campaign was struggling with Hillary Clinton in North Carolina, the campaign worked hard to see that white women, waving tiny American flags, always formed a reassuring backdrop for the photographers.

The McCain campaign does this, too, just not as well. Advance men, hired to make the fakery look authentic, carefully choose the faces that surround the candidate. But Barack Obama was first sold as a politician who was above stooping to the level of everyone else. He has to be careful now not to be seen exploiting "identity politics," the fashionable euphemism for "racial politics." When the going gets tough, and the tough get going, it won't be easy.

No, it won't.  And, day by day, Obama is morphing into just another Chicago machine guy, with a silver tongue.  But he will have enough protectors to explain away the changes, the contradictions, the gut fighting. 

The period between Labor Day and the election will be one of the most interesting in the modern history of American politics.  Americans will have a clear, defined choice.  They are watching in Tehran, in the hills of Afghanistan, in Moscow, in China.  And the oil men of Saudi Arabia are watching as well.  But do Americans care?  Ah, that is the question.

June 20, 2008.      Permalink          

ET TU, SWEDEN?

Finally, I don't know what to say.  Is this Sweden?  Is this the darling nation of the chic left?  Is this the land of the Volvo and strange but functional furniture?  Why...why...they're practically Bushian:

STOCKHOLM: Sweden has adopted legislation that will give military intelligence sweeping powers to eavesdrop on all crossborder e-mail and telephone communications.

After heated debate and last-minute changes late Wednesday, lawmakers approved the bill, which has outraged some lawmakers and prompted protesters to hand out copies of George Orwell's novel "1984" outside Parliament.

Lawmakers approved the bill in a 143-to-138 vote Wednesday. One lawmaker abstained. The bill will become law in January.

Google and the Swedish telecommunications company TeliaSonera have called it the most far-reaching eavesdropping plan in Europe, comparable to a U.S. government surveillance program.

"By introducing these new measures, the Swedish government is following the examples set by governments ranging from China and Saudi Arabia to the U.S. government's widely criticized eavesdropping program," said Peter Fleischer, global privacy counsel for Google.

Oh dear, oh dear.  Could it be that Sweden, like other European countries, is starting to rethink its fashionable leftism?  Could it be that it finally sees the threat? 

But don't worry.  Mr. Obama will sweep in and give Sweden Divine permission to return to its old ways.  The laughter you'll hear will be from the mountains of Pakistan.

June 20, 2008.      Permalink