SECOND EVENING UPDATE:  JUNE 23,  2008

Posted at 9:53 p.m. ET

THE REAL OBAMA

Who is the real Obama?  Investor's Business Daily, which runs some of the most clear-minded editorials, tries to answer the question.  I fear they may have hit the mark.

"We know what kind of campaign they (the Republicans) are going to run," he said. "They're going to make you afraid of me. He's young and inexperienced and he's got a funny name. And did I mention he's black? He's got a feisty wife."

Apparently Obama shares the victim mentality — or at least is willing to exploit it. He asks, in essence, how anyone can oppose him and stand in the way of both change and history. And he implies that anyone who does so must be a racist. His words bear a resemblance to the words thundered from the pulpit of his Trinity United Church by the likes of Jeremiah Wright and Michael Pfleger.

A revealing profile in 1995 in the Chicago Reader, a far-left free weekly, tells of how the young Obama fully embraced the black liberation theology espoused by Wright at Trinity and did not accept "the unrealistic politics of integrationist assimilation."

According to the profile, Obama said he was "tired of seeing the moral fervor of black folks whipped up — at the speaker's rostrum and from the pulpit — and then allowed to dissipate because there's no agenda, no concrete program for change." He has change in mind, all right.

And yes, he does have a feisty wife, one who campaigns for him. As a part of his campaign, she's fair game. It is Michelle Obama who said that for the first time in her life she was proud of her country, a country she says is "just downright mean." If she's going to make those remarks, she and he have to defend them.

Only if the media has the discourtesy to inquire.  More:

While Obama masks the radical agenda of the most liberal member of the U.S. Senate in lofty rhetoric, his wife cuts to the chase. In a speech in California, Michelle Obama said: "Barack Obama will require you to work. He is going to demand that you shed your cynicism. That you come out of your isolation, that you move out of your comfort zone." Or else.

When campaigning in Roseburg, Ore., Obama said: "We can't drive our SUVs and eat as much as we want and keep our homes on 72 degrees at all times . . . and then just expect that other countries are going to say OK." Obama added: "That's not leadership. That's not going to happen." Seems that Obama won't let us enjoy our freedoms any more than he'll let us defend them.

It's getting frightening, isn't it?  And it's getting more frightening because we have a media, miseducated in the universities that were wrecked in the sixties, that sees nothing wrong with what Obama is saying.  Wouldn't it be remarkable if the very institution that claims it safeguards our freedoms, the press, is one of the main instruments in destroying them?

June 23, 2008.      Permalink          

FIRST EVENING UPDATE:  JUNE 23, 2008

Posted at 8:04 p.m. ET

WELCOME TO THE USSR

Naturally, this is from Britain's left-wing Guardian:

James Hansen, one of the world's leading climate scientists, will today call for the chief executives of large fossil fuel companies to be put on trial for high crimes against humanity and nature, accusing them of actively spreading doubt about global warming in the same way that tobacco companies blurred the links between smoking and cancer.

Hansen will use the symbolically charged 20th anniversary of his groundbreaking speech (pdf) to the US Congress - in which he was among the first to sound the alarm over the reality of global warming - to argue that radical steps need to be taken immediately if the "perfect storm" of irreversible climate change is not to become inevitable.

Speaking before Congress again, he will accuse the chief executive officers of companies such as ExxonMobil and Peabody Energy of being fully aware of the disinformation about climate change they are spreading.

The comparison between tobacco and global warming is obscene.  The scientific studies linking smoking with cancer were confirmable, based on real statistics, and not based on computer models looking into the future.

Hansen strikes me as a bit of a nut case, but I'm afraid his approach is growing in popularity in the nation's colleges, which often punish speech they find offensive.  Hansen is essentially saying that no one has the right to disagree with him.  He's also handing out the deceptive line that only people with a financial interest are doubting the new religion of global warming.  In fact, some leading figures in climatology have cast substantial doubt on the sweeping claims being made by the Hansen brigades. 

I know little about global warming.  But I know that many of the "scientists" who sign global-warming petitions also know little about it, and aren't even in related fields.  And I know that many scientific "certainties" turn out to be uncertainties before too long.  I'm old enough to recall when heart patients were told to live sedentary lives.  I'm old enough to recall when we were told to eat plenty of egg yolks.  (The word "cholesterol" hadn't entered the language.)  And, while I wasn't around then, I know that, a century ago, polio victims were kept absolutely rigid.  It took an Australian nurse, Elizabeth Kenny (Sister Kenny) to prove that this was harmful, not helpful.

Let the scientific debate continue.  I want to hear all sides.  And I don't want to see those who disagree with the prevailing mood put on trial.  You may think that this could never happen anyway.  Don't be so sure.  As late as the 1980s we had a number of American citizens put on trial for child abuse that never occurred.  That nightmare ended only when crusading journalists like Dorothy Rabinowitz of The Wall Street Journal turned a spotlight on the injustice.  It can happen again.

June 23, 2008.      Permalink          

LATE AFTERNOON POST:  JUNE 23,  2008

Posted at 5:54 p.m.

DUMBNESS

Maybe it's time for John McCain to have one of those little meetings with his staff, and remind them that this is a campaign for the presidency of the United States.  There is a lack of discipline, of attention to detail, and imagination.  Two incidents show exactly what I mean:

Ben Smith at The Politico reports that the otherwise thoughtful Charlie Black actually said publicly that a terror attack on the United States would help McCain.  Just read this:

Fortune describes this, accurately, as a moment of "startling candor" from McCain advisor Charlie Black:

The assassination of Benazir Bhutto in December was an "unfortunate event," says Black. "But his knowledge and ability to talk about it reemphasized that this is the guy who's ready to be Commander-in-Chief. And it helped us." As would, Black concedes with startling candor after we raise the issue, another terrorist attack on U.S. soil.

"Certainly it would be a big advantage to him," says Black.

It's a grim, reasonable question to raise, after the 2004 bombings in Madrid, which succeeded in unseating a conservative government; and after Osama's eleventh hour message message in the U.S. election in 2004, whose aim is still debated, but which helped, and perhaps was aimed to help, Bush win his second term.

But you wouldn't expect McCain's advisor to state it quite so flatly that an attack would help his candidate.

No you wouldn't.  This is close to a firing offense.  I suspect Obama will pick it up and run with it, unless he fears it will call attention to his own lack of experience.  But I cannot fathom why Black would say something so utterly dumb.

Then there's McCain's resident nerd, Mark Soohoo, also showing he's not quite ready for prime time.  Again, The Politico reports:

Ben Smith, filing from a political technology conference, has McCain online guru Mark Soohoo coming in for some rough treatment, in part because of his candidate's admitted inability to use a computer:

"You don’t actually have to use a computer to understand how it shapes the country," [Soohoo] says.

"You actually do," former Edwards blogger Tracy Russo responds, suggesting he try to explain Twitter to his grandmother and then ask her how that applies to governing.

"John McCain is aware of the Internet," says Soohoo. "This is a man who has a very long history of understanding on a range of issues."

Wait, wait, wait.  McCain doesn't use a computer?  Okay, I can accept that.  But I can't accept talking about it.  What an image that projects, especially to young people.  McCain is old enough.  Talking about computer illiteracy only emphasizes his age, and his distance from the new generation.

Shut up, guys.  Stop doing dumb interviews and run the campaign.  You're behind, not ahead.

UPDATE:  McCain has now distanced himself from Charlie Black's remarks:

"I cannot imagine why he would say it," McCain said. "It’s not true. I’ve worked tirelessly since 9/11 to prevent another attack on the United States of America. My record is very clear. The Armed Services Committee, and pieces of legislation. Sponsoring with Joe Lieberman the 9/11 Commission so we could find out the causes and how to fix the challenges that we face to fix the security of our nation. I cannot imagine it. And, uh. So, I would … If he said that, and I do not know the context, I strenuously disagree."

And Black has apologized:

“I deeply regret the comments—they were inappropriate. I recognize that John McCain has devoted his entire adult life to protecting his country.”

Nice you noticed.  Now let's see if this campaign can come together.  And get McCain an iMac.

June 23, 3008.      Permalink          

AFTERNOON POST:  JUNE 23,  2008

Posted at 4:01 p.m.

TRACKERS

Our two standard tracking polls show little change today.  Rasmussen has Obama up six over McCain, but Gallup has him up three.  That's an average lead of 4.5 points.

The trackers continue to negate the recent Newsweek poll showing Obama with a 15-point lead.  Well, at least it made the Newsweek staff happy.

The real issue, of course, is the electoral college, and assessing that depends on a huge number of state polls.  There the picture is quite serious for McCain, as noted Friday by Rasmussen: 

The Rasmussen Reports Balance of Power Calculator (see methodology below) shows Barack Obama leading in states with 200 Electoral College votes while John McCain leads in states with 174 votes. When leaners are included, Obama leads 284-240. On Friday, June 20, Colorado moved from Leans Democratic to Toss-Up but Ohio did the reverse, moving from Toss-Up to Leans Democratic.

McCain needs a fire lit under him. 

June 23, 2008.      Permalink          

MONDAY:  JUNE 23, 2008

Posted at 5:44 a.m. ET

THE ANTI-AMERICANISM GAME

Fouad Ajami, a sane and solid scholar in Mideast affairs, takes a very skeptical view of the reports of rampant anti-Americanism.  We're seeing more and more articles with this view, and Ajami's is especially good:

So America is unloved in Istanbul and Cairo and Karachi: It is an annual ritual, the June release of the Pew global attitudes survey and the laments over the erosion of America's standing in foreign lands.

And...

American liberalism is heavily invested in this narrative of U.S. isolation. The Shiites have their annual ritual of 10 days of self-flagellation and penance, but this liberal narrative is ceaseless: The world once loved us, and all Parisians were Americans after 9/11, but thanks to President Bush we have squandered that sympathy.

In some circles that is considered a religious message, not subject to question.

The deference of American liberal opinion to the coffeehouses of Istanbul and Amman and Karachi is nothing less than astounding. You would not know from these surveys, of course, that anti-Americanism runs deep in the French intellectual scene, and that French thought about the great power across the Atlantic has long been a jumble of envy and condescension.

And most journalists don't know much about anything that happened more than two weeks ago, so don't expect help from them.

I grew up in the Arab world in the late 1950s and early 1960s, and anti-Americanism was the standard political language – even for those pining for American visas and green cards. Precious few took this seriously. The attraction to the glamorous, distant society was too strong in the Beirut of my boyhood.

It is no different today in Egypt or Pakistan. And what people tell pollsters who turn up in their midst with their clipboards? In Hosni Mubarak's tyranny, anti-Americanism is the permissible safety valve for Egyptians unable to speak of their despot.

It's stimulating to read a piece about the Mideast by someone who actually knows the region.  It's also unique.

Meanwhile, a maligned American president now returns from a Europe at peace with American leadership. In France, Germany and Italy, center-right governments are eager to proclaim their identification with American power. Jacques Chirac is gone. Now there is Nicolas Sarkozy, who offered a poetic tribute last November to the American soldiers who fell on French soil, before a joint session of the U.S. Congress.

I didn't see that tribute on American news programs.  Did you?

Finally...

The great battle over the Iraq war has subsided, and Europeans who ponder the burning grounds of the Islamic world know the distinction between fashionable anti-Americanism and the international order underpinned by American power. George W. Bush may have been indifferent to political protocol, but he held the line when it truly mattered, and the Europeans have come to understand that appeasement of dictators and brigands begets its own troubles.

It is one thing to rail against the Pax Americana. But after the pollsters are gone, the truth of our contemporary order of states endures. We live in a world held by American power – and benevolence. Nothing prettier, or more just, looms over the horizon.

Just say "Yippee," and be thankful there are still a few scholars like Fouad Ajami teaching in our universities. 

June 23, 2008.        Permalink              

MORE GOOD NEWS

While we're on the subject, it appears we're also doing pretty well in Asia.  Richard Halloran, formerly of The New York times, reports his findings:

The conventional wisdom holds that the image of America in Asia today is mostly negative. Not so, says a survey published this week, at least in China, Japan, South Korea, Vietnam, and Indonesia. Moreover, in perhaps surprising contrast, the survey said China does not fare well among other Asians.

The Chicago Council on Global Affairs reported that "the United States is still highly regarded in all five of the key areas of soft power addressed in this survey: economics, culture, human capital, diplomacy, and politics." Soft power means using non-military measures to influence other nations.

The Chicago Council, which is considered to reflect Midwestern common sense, added: "Whether this influence is a product of U.S. foreign policy or exists in spite of it, it is clear that the United States has a very strong foundation on which to build future policy in the region."

(Presidential candidates, please take note.)

Well, one candidate will take note.  The other will insist that only through him can we find foreign-policy salvation. 

June 23, 2008.      Permalink               

CAN YOU BELIEVE - MORE?

Let's make this a celebratory Monday.  Reuel Marc Gerecht, in The Weekly Standard, makes a convincing case that, yes, we are safer now than before 9/11, even though General of the Army Obama might not think so:

For him, and many of his supporters, the Bush administration has uniquely and comprehensively degraded the nation's security, especially against the lethal threats emanating from the Middle East. America was much more secure under Hillary Clinton's husband--with the first attack on the World Trade Center, the truck bombing of Khobar Towers, the embassy bombings in Africa, the aborted attempt on the USS Sullivans in Aden, the other attempts at millennial bombings in the Middle East and the United States, and the near sinking of the USS Cole--on the road to 9/11.

Yet when we look at what George W. Bush has actually done, it's pretty hard not to credit him with massively improving America's security, both at home and abroad.

And...

Before 9/11, America's counterterrorist capacities were, to put it politely, disorganized, unfocused, poorly staffed, and poorly run. (The exception was the ever-emotional and self-referential Richard Clarke, the former head of counterterrorism at the National Security Council, who should always get credit for being deadly serious about Islamic terrorism and Osama bin Laden.) The 9/11 Commission report is a chronicle of growing danger unmatched by bureaucratic seriousness or political will.

Yes, I seem to remember something about that, even though the media, cluttered by intellect, seems to have forgotten.

Post 9/11, under President Bush, the situation changed drastically, as it certainly would have changed also under a President Gore. What is striking about Obama's Iraq-obsessed critique of the Bush presidency is his unwillingness to give any credit where credit is obviously due. Today in the mainstream press, with its pronounced anti-Bush reflexes, we are more likely to see articles and op-eds about America's unfair and labyrinthine visa system than about its effectiveness in our counterterrorism campaign.

In part, that's because the Obama crowd and much of the media, at base, don't take national security seriously.  They think our problems are our fault, and those other guys in caves merely have to be "understood."

Although the surge has so far had little effect on Obama and the Democratic party, its effect on the Middle East--on how Iraqis view us, on how all Arabs view us, and on how Iranians view Iraqis and Americans--has been enormous. We didn't run. We doubled-down. The Sunni Arab press and satellite TV channels are describing Iraq in more normal terms (it's hard for them as the country is full of Shiites, Kurds, and Americans) and is learning to deal, ever more calmly, with the hitherto bizarre situation of having Sunni Arab Iraqis say almost nice things about Americans.

There's more like that in the piece.  As I said up above, there are more and more articles coming out pointing to the successes of the Bush administration.  The tragedy will be if Obama is elected and tries to reverse those successes, just to prove that he was right, or just to satisfy the anti-American lust of the left wing of American politics.  We saw that once before, when we cut off aid to our Vietnamese allies in 1975, and forced them to lose.  This must not happen again.

June 23, 2008.       Permalink