This is Not Obama on Radical Islam

The President's passive response on the attacks on Ambassador Stevens and the U.S. embassy in Libya did not take heed of the Chicago Way.

The Chicago Way - The Untouchables


The President is from Chicago isn't he?

What?

BRINGING NEW MEANING TO THE TERM “SILENT MAJORITY:” Robopoll Records Silence As Support For Obama….

Read it, seriously.  These are the kinds of tactics that you see in Third World dicatorships.

What is next, the failure or decision to vote is to be counted as a vote for Obama?

Betsy's Page: Are waivers from Obamacare constitutional?

Betsy Newmark brings to the fore an interesting argument about the Obamacare waivers that are being handed out like Valentine's Day candy. Pointing to a an article by Columbia Law School professor Philip Hamburger,  Newmark notes that not very many people are questioning whether the waivers themselves are permissible.

Professor Hamburger writes:

More seriously, it raises questions about whether we live under a government of laws. Congress can pass statutes that apply to some businesses and not others, but once a law has passed — and therefore is binding — how can the executive branch relieve some Americans of their obligation to obey it? 

The dangers of inequity are obvious. Will only corporations and unions get waivers, or can individuals also get them? For example, if a family physician feels financial pressure under the health-care law to fire one of his employees, will he get a waiver to avoid adding to unemployment? 

Indeed, can even a small corporation get a waiver? Small businesses provide most new jobs, but the answer is obvious: Waivers are mostly, if not entirely, for politically significant businesses and unions that get the special attention of HHS or the White House. The rest of us must obey the laws. 

The dangers of inequity are real because of the discretion inherent in the waivers themselves.  Employers and unions can apply for the waiver (which in and of itself is an expensive proposition) and the Obama Administration through the department of Health and Human Services can then determine whether the waiver should be granted.  Jonathan Adler questions whether, as Prof. Hamburger asserts, the waivers themselves are unconstitutional?

An argument that any executive waiver authority is unconstitutional is a hard sell, particularly given the extent to which Congress may delegate legislative-like authority.   But the concerns that motivate such arguments, particularly that such power is prone to abuse and can undermine the rule of law, are serious.  What to do?  I think such concerns can be addressed through the creation of administrative procedures designed to ensure greater transparency, consistency, and accountability.

Adler brings up the best argument regarding the waivers themselves.  What is unclear is what are the criteria for the granting or denying a waiver?  As Adler pointed out, waivers are not uncommon in the executive branch, but what those waiver provisions include, for example with the Federal Communications Commission,  is a lengthy procedure, including notice and comment periods. Such provisions, Adler contends, allow for a clearer judicial review if that becomes necessary.  Such features are absent in the health care waiver process.

But returning to Betsy Newmark, there is a practical question,

There definitely seems to be something fishy about members of the executive branch to have the power to pick and choose whom a given law should apply to. Take the question away from Obamacare and imagine that it was some other law such as the Civil Rights Act and businesses argued that they could not afford to implement the law. Can you imagine the uproar if any presidential administration tried to pick out which organizations would get waivers from the law? Or pick any law that imposes some sort of burden on organizations - collecting payroll taxes, paying the minimum wage, or following environmental regulations? 

The greater problem with the healthcare waiver provisions is the lack of foresight exhibited by Congress.  They clearly recognized that there maybe problems, hence the waiver provision themselves.  Congress also stretched compliance out a fair distance, which seems admirable, but the confluence of the two means that a great many companies and unions, are failing to take an adequate effort at compliance rather than simply going for the waiver.  This is not an unreasonable position to take for the party seeking the waiver.  Getting the waiver now means they don't have to expend the efforts to comply first and then seek the waiver on the expedited basis.  So the economic rationale makes sense.

Congress is generally very bad at legislating for the future and makes serious mistakes when trying to legislate future behavior, particularly economic behavior.  So given their very poor track record, being a bit more deliberative would have gone a long way to preventing the problems we see today.

What doesn't make sense is that Congress allowed the waivers so far in advance (three and four years) before compliance was mandated.  What also seems odd is the criteria that Congress laid out to be considered for a waiver were particularly fuzzy.  Impact on unemployment seems particularly bad.  A businessman just needs to argue that changing the healthcare plan will lead to unemployment?  Given that there are so many factors lead to unemployment it seems difficult to understand.

Still, it is a good question to ask, is it proper for Congress to delegate the waiver activity?  Yes, I believe it is. Do I think it is unconstitutional to operate that waiver program without well-defined criteria issued by Congress?  Yes, because Congress is abdicating its responsibility?

To ask the question differently?  Would a Democratic Congress have delegated the waiver authority under ObamaCare to a Republican Presidency?

So why does Gov. Abercrombie make such a promise.

Politicians make promises all the time and there are two types of promises in politics:  The promises that are so easy to keep that they are no danger to make and promises that are so unrealistic that everyone knows they mean nothing.  A promise to appear at a civic event is easy to make and if something comes up, easy to rehabilitate, and thus are an example of the former, easy promise to make.  A promise to "cut taxes and restore fiscal sanity" is an easy promsie to make and completely meaningless.

But Hawaii Governor Neil Abercrombie made a promise to produce a birth certificate for President Obama but not it turns out that he may not be able to:

"Pressure was mounting on Hawaii Governor Neil Abercrombie today amid increasing confusion over whether President Obama was born there." This is the UK Daily Mail. "Abercrombie said on Tuesday that an investigation had unearthed papers proving Obama was born in Hawaii in 1961. He told Honolulu's Star-Advertiser: 'It actually exists in the archives, written down,' he said. But it became apparent that what had been discovered was an unspecified listing or notation of Obama's birth that someone had made in the state archives and not a birth certificate. And in the same interview Abercrombie suggested that a long-form, hospital-generated birth certificate for Barack Obama may not exist within the vital records maintained by the Hawaii Department of Health. He said efforts were still being made to track down definitive vital records that would prove Obama was born in Hawaii."
Remember, he started out, the whole reason for doing this was to firmly prove it and establish and get it off the table so it wasn't an election issue for 2012. And he's done the exact opposite now. I mean how many of us could get away with saying, "Yeah, there's a little notation somewhere there in the archives. We can't find the birth certificate.

Now, I am not one of those people who are all up in arms about whether or not President Obama is a natural born citizen or not.  Truthfully, I don't particularly care and I do think he was born in Hawaii.  So, I think he is Constitutionally qualified to be presdient.  But when Abercrombie made such a promise, he should have made sure that he could actually produce one by doing a search before making such a promise.  That would have been smart.

But then again, politicians do stupid things all the time, just ask Silvio Berlusconi.

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Stimulus Does Have to Mean Pork

Clifford Winston puts a spin on the Obama Stimulus plan. A nice optimistic thought, but given the penchant of Congress to use "stimulus packages" as a pork barrel project, (See the NASCAR provisions in previous bills), do you really think that pork won't be a part of the bill?

President-elect Barack Obama says he will create or protect some three million jobs by spending a massive amount of federal dollars to build roads and other "shovel ready" government projects across the country. The projects in this economic stimulus package, he says, will "not be based on politics and lobbying."

Nice thought. But already Mr. Obama is facing pressure by public officials from coast to coast to run in the other direction. In recent weeks, for example, the U.S. Conference of Mayors forwarded to Congress a list of 11,391 infrastructure projects that, we are to believe, are "ready to go." Several media outlets quickly pointed out that this list is full of pork -- the most flagrant examples are a polar-bear exhibit, an antiprostitution program, and a water-park ride. The nation's governors, transit officials, and the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials have sent along their own lists, which are likely to contain their own "bridges to nowhere."

But the deepest problem Mr. Obama faces is not the diversion of funds to pork-barrel projects -- contrary to popular belief, this generally amounts to a modest share of public expenditures. The problem is rather that infrastructure spending itself is productive only when it produces a large social return.(emphasis added)

Considering that Congressmen need Mayors as much as Mayors need Congressmen, do you really believe that at stimulus bill won't be pork laden?

However, in defense of Winston, he does go on to point out the problem with federal transportation spending, i.e. that it misallocates funds and misallocates incentives with respect to how federal dollars in transportation projects.

Of course, a larger problem for me is how does infrastructure spending broadly stimultate the economy? The New Deal was laden with infrastructure spending and much of it didn't really produce long term economic gain, while it did underemploy millions of people.

Barack Obama Doesn't Love the United States

Yesterday and today has seen a flurry of political posts, not long after I said I have not posted a lot on the election. Well, that is the fickle nature of how my head works.

I have been thinking a lot about an Obama presidency and I while I am certain I will not like many, or probably all, of the Obama Administration policies (or for the matter a McCain Administration), I will say that there is one troubling aspect that truly bothers me about Obama. For the longest time, I really couldn't put my finger on it, until, unfortunately, last night and here it is:

I don't think Obama believes that the United States of America is the greatest nation ever on the Earth.

That is a big problem. I can honestly say, that every man who has been President in my lifetime and in the histories I have read of other Presidents, that each one of them, to a man, believed that this is the greatest country ever--full stop. There was no equivocation, no doubts--not even Bill Clinton. I truly believe that each of those men, Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter even, really believed in the specialness (?) and uniqueness of the United States and her place in the world and world history.

I don't believe that about Obama. Call it the Reverend Wright influence or the pandering to the world population (See Berlin) or his general elitism, I just don't think or believe that Obama believes in the fact that the United States is the greatest nation ever.

That is what bothers me the most. I can forgive a President for espousing policies I consider abhorrent because I have trust in that President's belief that he was doing what he felt best for this nation. I can agree to disagree with a man who truly believes that what he is doing is right because he loves this country with all his heart and soul. But without that foundational belief that our new President believes fully in the greatness of our country, I am not sure I can forgive a President whose policies are, in my mind, wrong.

I hope I am wrong about Obama on this score, I really do. But am I?

The Ad McCain Should Have Run

Here. Thanks to Mary Katherine Ham

Jim Geraghty points out that Obama statements should come with an expiration date.

This was perfect fodder for McCain, yet I never saw anything like it.

Althouse: Dont'

Ann Althouse links to an NPR stroy of an immigrant real estate speculator saying:

Don't give this man or anyone like him any of our tax money. Why should he be helped to live in a $1.5 million house? Try to picture the collection of characters NPR considered before deciding Njoku was the one to do a big human interest story about.

But here's the thing, Njoku a black, Nigerian Immigrant is just the sort of person who will get help from an Obama administration and the government. And that is the problem.

Obama Accepting Untraceable Donations

Haven't seen an awful lot about this story. To a certain extent it is inside baseball, a process matter that for the most part only applies to political junkies, campaign finance guys and, right now, conservatives.

Sen. Barack Obama's presidential campaign is allowing donors to use largely untraceable prepaid credit cards that could potentially be used to evade limits on how much an individual is legally allowed to give or to mask a contributor's identity, campaign officials confirmed.

Faced with a huge influx of donations over the Internet, the campaign has also chosen not to use basic security measures to prevent potentially illegal or anonymous contributions from flowing into its accounts, aides acknowledged. Instead, the campaign is scrutinizing its books for improper donations after the money has been deposited.

The Obama organization said its extensive review has ensured that the campaign has refunded any improper contributions, and noted that Federal Election Commission rules do not require front-end screening of donations.

And of course, the Obama campaign is right. Obama's campaign finance lawyer is one of the best, Bob Bauer. He knows the law.

Under the law, if a campaign receives a contribution is thinks might be illegal or otherwise suspect, it is supposed to segregate it in a separate accounting, make a good faith determination if it is indeed illegal or suspect, and refund it if necessary or if they can't make a determination. The problem, of course, as noted in the article is that it is almost impossible to keep up with the flood of contributions coming in via the internet, and it is impossible to tell if the card being used is a prepaid gift card, debit card or standard credit card.

Therein lies the problem. With the flood of money, and the advances in technology, it is not really Obama's fault. Yes, they could take some security steps that apparently the McCain campaign has taken. But teh fact of the matter is, that the FEC regulations regarding fundraising are a creation of the the 1970's with an update to account for credit card contributions. But they were never designed to deal with the age of internet contributions. And when FEC reports, even on a monthly basis, are tens of thousands of lines long in teh electronic filing format (i.e. one contributions per line), it is impossible to check everything from the viewpoint of suspicion.

On a slightly different note, even my mother, no campaign junkie to say the least, was wondering where Obama is getting all this money and whether it was legal or not. So it is creeping out there in the dialogue and certainly making people wonder.

Biden Not a Big Charitable Donor

Paul Caron at TaxProf Blog notes that Joe Biden only gave 0.06% to 0.31% of their income charitable donations, which is pretty meager. Caron writes:

It is jarring that a couple earning over $200,000 per year would give as little as $2 per week to charity. This giving compares very unfavorably to John McCain, whose tax returns show that he gave 27.3% - 28.6% of his income to charity in 2006-2007. During the same period, the Obamas' tax returns show that they gave 5.8% - 6.1% of their income to charity.

Perhaps the Obama-Biden campaign needs a new slogan: "Change You Can Believe In (As Long As Someone Else Pays For It)"

Update: Independent Sector reports that 89% of American households contribute to charity, with an average contribution of $1,620 -- 3.1% of income. (links in original omitted)

But is it meager?

Well compared to the rest of America yes, but here is a thought to think about, what if Biden simply doesn't do enough to track his charitable giving? I know there are times when my family has given to charity, either in goods or money, but can't recall when or how much. It doesn't mean we aren't giving, it simply means we are claiming it on our taxes. Perhaps Biden isn't claiming all of his on his taxes.

Ann Althouse sees no hypocrisy which Caron sort of hints at, but I do to a certain extent. Althouse writes:

Is this out of whack with political ideology? I say no! Conservatives believe private charity should bear more of the burdens of caring for the unfortunate and other good works. Liberals want to see government do more, and we're expected to pay taxes to pay for it.

A commenter to Althouse's post beat me to the punch. It is not hypocritical to not give to charity seeing that Biden pays a not insubstantial amount in taxes every year, much more than the median income in this country. However, McCain paid more in taxes than Biden and made significantly more charitable contributions. The argument is not about taxes or about whether one believes the tax burden is too great or not too great.

The argument is more about whether one is charitable or not. The common theme is that those with more to give should give more (in fact that is a tenent of Democratic taxation policy), but McCain not only gives more at the behest of his government (i.e. being in the highest tax bracket) but also gives more on his own initiative.

I am not claiming that McCain is a better man because he gives more to charity, or that Biden is a lesser leader because he does not give as much to charity. I suppose my larger point really is, does this matter?

Probably not.

Biden and Prosecuting the Bush Administration

No fan of the Bush Administration, Alan Dershowitz writes today in the Wall Street Journal that there is an inherent conflict in any plan/suggestion/wish of an Obama/Biden administration prosecuting the Bush administration. Recent Joe Biden was asked if he would pursue violations made by the present administration for violations of the Constitution? Biden idicated that essentially any criminal violation will be dealt with accordingly.

Dershowitz writes:

Mr. Biden's comments echoed what Mr. Obama had said in April when he pledged that, if elected, he would have his attorney general investigate the actions of his predecessor to distinguish between possible "genuine crimes" and "really bad policies." Mr. Obama moderated his statement by stating that he would not want his first term "consumed by what was perceived on the part of Republicans as a partisan witch hunt," because his administration would have many other problems "we've got to solve."

No reasonable person can disagree with the important principle underlying these statements by the democratic nominees that "no one is above the law." But there is a countervailing principle at play here that is equally important -- namely that the results of an election should not determine who is to be prosecuted. These principles inevitably clash when the winners of a presidential election investigate and prosecute the losers, even if the winners honestly believe that the losers committed "genuine crimes" rather than having pursued merely "bad policies."

Under our particular system of government, it is nearly impossible for a winning administration to prosecute those it defeated without it being perceived, quite understandably, as "a partisan witch hunt." This is because the attorney general of the United States, the official who a President Obama would ask to review his predecessors' actions, plays two roles simultaneously -- that of political adviser to the president, and that of chief law enforcement officer of the United States.

That the current crop of Congressional investigations and those that have taken place since Nancy Pelosi ascended to the Speakership have the tinge of a partisan witchunt rather than simply the exercise of Congress's oversight role cannot be escaped. But there is a rather large gulf between investigating and prosecuting and one need not necessarily lead to the other.

Even as a supporter of the Bush Administration, I am not so blinded by loyalty to question some of the political, policy and yes moral decisions that have been made by this administration. If there were laws broken, then yes, prosecutions should occur. But if an Obama Administration wants to make sure it is not engaging in a partisan witchhunt, it had better have an airtight case that even the most ardent Republican would find compelling.

Is it not enough to simply defeat your political opponents at the polls? What ever happened to the idea of a loyal oppositions?

Possible October Surprise? Obama Dumps Biden for Hillary

Biden might have said Hillary would have been a better pick, but I just can't see Obama dumping Biden for Clinton. Why?

1. It will have the look like and actually be a matter of desperation. The public will interpret it as a "me-too" move after McCain picked Palin.

2. It will signify that Obama can't make a real decision without waffling. This is a personal and personnel decision and one of the first big decisions that Obama had to make. You can be sure that McCain will point out Obama's waffling on this simple decision, what will is say about other, more difficult and more important decisions?

3. It assumes that Hillary Clinton wants the job any more. It would be obvious to her and the rest of the world that dropping Biden for her was a desperation move and I am not sure she wants that.

Wait, what was I thinking, of course Hillary would take it--what was I thinking, her ambition is more naked than an entire nude beach.

Obama Throwing Stones

George Stephanapolous didn't let Obama get away with unsubstantiated attacks on McCain/Palin.

Good.

Obama Barackpedals

Initial Obama reaction to Palin selection is being barackpedaled furiously.

As Tammy Bruce said they are now

in damage control after their petty and insulting initial response to the Palin nomination. I guess they realized insulting small town Americans (again!) and women (again!) gave people too much of a peek behind the curtain.

Hmmmm.

Losers indeed.

Chris Matthews is an Idiot

As if that is news, but the chucklehead made these comments about Colin Powell and Condoleeza Rice:

And it’s important to point out, as we have not so far, Barack Obama was not given this nomination, he won it. He was not offered a nice title like Secretary of State, like Condoleezza Rice got from the Republicans. He was not offered the title of Chairman of the Joint Chiefs as Colin Powell was, or Secretary of State. He won the nomination of a Democratic Party voting together. He defeated all other opponents and took the prize and took the leadership. He is the chosen leader of the Democratic Party.

He is not some popular appointment or a showcase appointment. He is the victor here tonight. That’s why he dictates the agenda. That’s why he says, personally, what the Democratic Party will do if he’s elected President. He is the leader of the party. He may be the leader of the country through a democratic process. It is so vital to understand the history being made here tonight. This is not something cute or wonderful. It is something compelling and powerful. This country has changed its history.

I might have problems with Colin Powell's politics or Condoleeza Rice's effectivness, but they earned the position of Secretary of State. If President Bush wanted to make them a showcase appointment, he would make them administrator of some periperhal agency, not put them fourth in line for the Presidency!!!

Ed Morrissey also points out that Obama didn't actually win the nomination through the primary process, he was able to get the Democratic Party Establishment behind him, he was "given" the nomination in that sense. Neither he nor Hillary were going to win the nomination through the primaries. So no, Obama didn't win, he was given the nomination.

Jim LIndgren on Obama's Community Service Plan

The Volokh Conspiracy's Jim Lindgren examines Barack Obama's plan for middle and high school students to do 50 hours of community service as part of his "civilian national security force." While one can quibble with whether community service (as it is commonly thought of) is comparable to national security, Obama's chosen mechanism is troubling. Since, as Lindgren points out in the comments:

One hurdle that Mr. Obama’s plan must vault is the U.S. Constitution, which limits the federal government to enumerated powers. Lacking the power to mandate universal community service directly, Mr. Obama candidly discloses his strategy: making federal funds contingent on schools having service programs that meet federal standards.

Because Mr. Obama calls his plan voluntary, it’s important to understand exactly what he says and doesn’t say. In both of his main speeches on national service – on July 2, 2008 and on December 5, 2007 – Barack Obama set his goal of 50 hours of service a year, promised that “We'll reach this goal,” and explained how he would do so for middle and high school children:

So when I'm President, I will set a goal for all American middle and high school students to perform 50 hours of service a year, and for all college students to perform 100 hours of service a year. This means that by the time you graduate college, you'll have done 17 weeks of service.

We'll reach this goal in several ways. At the middle and high school level, we'll make federal assistance conditional on school districts developing service programs, and give schools resources to offer new service opportunities.

If Obama hadn’t promised that “We’ll reach this goal” of 50 hours a year of service for all students, one might read his proposal as indicating that he would require schools to have service programs, but that these programs might not require 50 hours of service. Yet the only way that almost every 11-year old public school student in the country would serve 50 hours a year – i.e., the only way that Mr. Obama could reach his goal – is by doing what he seems to indicate he’s going to do: setting a federal goal of 50 hours a year for each middle school student and reaching that goal by making federal funds contingent on middle schools requiring their students to serve those 50 hours.

Thus, it would be the public schools that would impose federal standards of coerced service on each child as part of their requirements for graduation. For students, service would be involuntary. Even for the public schools, their participation would be only nominally voluntary – for how many public schools can survive without federal assistance?

Lest there be any remaining doubt that Barack Obama’s “voluntary” universal service plan contemplates mandatory service for children, his Service Plan praises mandatory service in the sentence that immediately precedes his call for 50 hours of service: “Schools that require service as part of the educational experience create improved learning environments and serve as resources for their communities.” Moreover, in his Plan, he promises to “develop national guidelines for service-learning and community service programs,” thus not leaving the content of service programs to the states.

This is where things get tricky. Leaving aside the constitutional problems, which Obama seems to think he can avoid by using the Spending Clause (itself an overused mechanism for implementing policy that would otherwise be unconstitutional for the federal government to do)

By tying federal aid to public schools to the 50 hour public service you will require two things. First, a massive federal bureacracy will have to be created and funded to oversee the program. Obama has explictly stated here at page 4, "He will develop national guidelines for service-learning and community service programs, and will give schools better tools both to develop successful programs and to document the experience of students at all levels. The documentation takes people to compile and verify the "voluntary service" so that the schools that don't make the time will be sanctioned. So, in addition to all the reporting that schools do now for things like free/reduced lunches, NCLB reporting, attendance, etc., we are going to add yet another data collection and reporting scheme, adding further to the cost of public education. both the new bureaucracy and the new reporting means more tax dollars and make no mistake about it, it would be funded by spending cuts elsewhere.

Second, this program will, as Obama has stated, national standards for community service. Aside from the utter oxymoronic statement itself "National standards for community service," the creation of national standards will mean that the federal government will have to decide what is appropriate community service and what is not. This, in itself has two significant implications. First, in order for organizations to get this free "voluntary labor" that it may want, it will have to "qualify" in the eyes of the government. That means, most likely, an application process--which means another bureaucracy. The application process for charities and community orgranizations will require federal recognition of what is "good" and what is not. Such a program makes me nervous since I don't want the federal government to be making that kind of distinction. Second, we will of course need another federal bureaucracy to manage this aspect of the community service. So more tax dollars to fund this program.

But has anyone given any consideration to what the labor force, i.e. our kids, think of this idea? Keep in mind that teenagers have a pretty sensitive "B.S. detector" and will know that they only have to punch the time clock, so that most of them will do their time and little else. What is the point in that? Oh yeah, free labor by government fiat.

I am not a big fan of high school service learning that currently exists in my home state of Maryland and other locales. To graduate, a student has to put in a certain number of hours in community service. Right now, it is a pretty broad definition, but I worry that even now, it is a matter of punching a time clock and little else.

Our national has a long history of individual volunteerism and Americans are by far the most generous nation on earth. But when you start requiring generosity, don't you simply build resistance to service. What good does that do anyone?

Obama, Pelosi: Blibs on the political radar?

Bruce Walker makes a compelling argument that conservatives will still control in the long run:

The Battleground Poll, the most respected and thorough of all public opinion polls, released its latest results on August 20th. Although many people read this poll for the data on voter preference in upcoming elections, for voter opinions about the two major political parties, for what things matter most to voters, I always zip past this data in the first fifteen pages of poll results and go straight to Question D3, which very quietly and totally ignored proclaims the biggest missing story in American politics and which is the only story, in the long run, that really matters.

snip

What is Question D3 and what were the results to Question D3 in the August 20, 2008 Battleground Poll? It is this:


"When thinking about politics and government, do you consider yourself to be...


Very conservative


Somewhat conservative


MODERATE


Somewhat liberal


Very liberal


UNSURE/REFUSED"


In August 2008, Americans answered that question this way: (1) 20% of Americans considered themselves to be very conservative; (2) 40% of Americans considered themselves to be somewhat conservative; (3) 2% of Americans considered themselves to be moderate; (4) 27% of Americans considered themselves to be somewhat liberal; (5) 9% of Americans considered themselves to be very liberal; and (6) 3% of Americans did not know or refused to answer.

snip

Look at the thirteen Battleground Poll results over the last six years, and how do Americans answer that very question? Here are the percentages of Americans in those polls who call themselves "conservative" since June 2002: 59% (June 2002 poll), 59% (September 2003 poll), 61% (April 2004 poll), 59% (June 2004 poll), 60% (September 2004 poll), 61% (October 2005 poll), 59% (March 2006), 61% (October 2006), 59% (January 2007), 63% (July 2007), 58% (December 2007), 63% (May 2008), and now 60% (August 2008.)

In short, Americans consistently identify with a conservative ideology, despite what liberals may want you to believe.

I think this is what informs consistent public opinion regarding the war in Iraq, the war on terrorism, and other issues that genuinely reflect conservative ideas. Walker talks about abortion, but there are other issues, such as faith in the market, abhorrance to taxes, etc. This is what likely spells the long term doom for liberals.

Democratic Convention to Be Sabotaged by the Clintons

Narcicism never fails to deliver.

Bill Clinton is perplexed and, frankly, not happy that he was asked to speak about national security Wednesday night at the Democratic National Convention and not about the economy, the issue that he rode to the White House at another time of economic peril, a source close to the former president said Monday.

Some close to Clinton are encouraging him not to stick with the night’s theme of national security and add language about the economy in his remarks, in a way that Sen. Barack Obama, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, would frame it, the source said. It’s no secret that Clinton considers himself a highly effective communicator on the politics of the economy.

Look, Bill, you are no longer the guy and your wife is not the nominee. Either shut up and do as you are asked or get out.

Biden Camp Pressed Hard For a Slot on the Ticket - WSJ.com

Great ARticle on the Biden selection.

I always thought that selecting a Vice President was all about offsetting one's own weakness. Biden brings two things to the ticket, foriegn policy knowledge and time in service. Biden is not an executive and never has been, and not I said foreign policy knowledge, not experience as he has none.

Conversely, Biden brings loads of baggage that will be roundly exploited by McCain.

Now that I think about, Biden could bring the advantage of being a better target that Obama, making Obama look less like a jerk than Biden.

Kennedy Will Appear at Convention

Given Ted Kennedy's early support of Obama, his planned appearance at teh Democratic convention will no doubt be met with wild applause.

It think it good that he is healthy enough to attend.