The Churchill Series - Oct. 10, 2008

(One of a series of weekday posts about the life of Winston S. Churchill.)

On June 18, 1940 France began armistice talks with Nazi Germany. That same day Churchill delivered, first in Commons, and later on the BBC (live broadcasts were not then permitted in the Commons) his stirring speech which ended:

Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duty and so bear ourselves that if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years men will still say, “This was their finest hour.”

When we think of Churchill, those and other imperishable words come immediately to mind.

In this post I want to share with you now mostly forgotten remarks - they're not really a speech - Churchill delivered on the BBC the night before his June 18 "Finest Hour" speech.

Churchill delivered his statement, meant to both stiffen the resolve and reassure the British people, immediately following the conclusion of the BBC’s 9 PM news report in which it was announced that France's Raynaud’s government had fallen and been succeeded by one headed by Petain that was negotiating an armistice with Nazi Germany:

The news from France is very bad, and I grieve for the gallant French people who have fallen into this terrible misfortune. Nothing will alter our feelings towards them or our faith that the genius of France will rise again.

What has happened in France makes no difference to our actions and purpose.

We have become the sole champions now in arms to defend the world cause. We shall do our best to be worthy of this high honour.

We shall defend our island home, and with the British Empire we shall fight on unconquerable until the curse of Hitler is lifted from the brows of mankind.

We are sure that in the end all will come right.

It's not a speech, but it's eloquent, focused, and stirring.

In a seven sentences Churchill faced up to the grave news, didn't try to diminish it, honored a fallen ally, assured it it would "rise again," invoked his people's honor, pride and history, reminded them they were defending their island homes, and, relying on a favorite expression he'd learned from the Boers when he fought in South Africa, gave confidence that 'in the end all will come right."

I wish you all a lovely weekend.

Best,

John

Obama explains stocks and bonds. MSM cheers him

McCain ad highlights Obama's ACORN activities

Hat tip: AC

Carter blames Bush. Anyone surprised?

It used to be our former Presidents, regardless of party, rallied behind the current President in a crisis. Their support for the current President would be reported as an instance "of the country coming together in this time of crisis."

But former President Jimmy Carter isn't like other former Presidents. He denigrates America at every opportunity. He regularly pays tribute to the terrorist monster Arafat as he did recently when he laid a wreath at his tomb.

Today Reuters reports: "Ex-president Carter slams Bush on market crisis"

Former President Jimmy Carter said on Friday the "atrocious economic policies" of the Bush administration had caused the worst global financial crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930s.

Carter told reporters on a stopover in Brussels that "profligate spending," massive borrowing and dramatic tax cuts since President George W. Bush took office in 2001 were behind the market turmoil and economic crisis. ...

The rest of Reuters' story's here.

I've always thought Carter was a petty, mean guy always looking out for himself first.

I think that helps explain why he was such a lousy President.

Is anyone surprised Carter's response to the current crisis was to blame President Bush?

Hat tip: Drudge Report

Reid 's race card play will get MSM pass

Yesterday on Las Vegas, NV’s KXNT-AM Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid responded to an interviewer’s question about Sen. Obama’s friend and advisor, former Fannie Mae chief Franklin Raines.

The interviewer asked about Raines’ questionable leadership of Fannie during the time it cooked the books and gave top execs huge bonuses taxpayers are now held responsible for. (Estimates are Raines raked in over $90 million during his 6 years as head of “train wreck bound” Fannie.)

Reid stoutly defended Raines beginning with:

"[Franklin] Raines, who you're talking about, worked for Fannie Mae, was there for a while. The only connection that people could bring up about Raines and Barack Obama is they both are African-American, other than that there is nothing."

You can listen to Reid’s response on this audio.

Reid’s characterization of Raines’ and Obama as “both …African-American, other than that there is nothing” is nothing more than racial stereotyping.

There is so much more we can judge both men by than merely their skin color. Both are accomplished, articulate, highly intelligent, rich, highly influential and political allies who have supported similar policies which have helped bring on this mortgage mess.

Reid overlooks Obama’s and Raines’ talents and accomplishments so he can play the race card in an effort to discredit their critics.

Most MSM news orgs. will give Reid a pass on his racial stereotyping because they understand the Dems’ Senate Majority Leader was trying to help elect Obama and excuse Raines.

And what better way to do that than to play the race card?

A NY Post editorial today looks at Reid’s and other Dems’ race card plays.

Charlie Gibson - tough on Palin. Now look at him w. Obama

AMac has my thanks for sending along the following. I comment below the video

AMac begins - - -

The blog "Brutally Honest" has an embedded 2.5 minute YouTube clip from ABC reporter Charlie Gibson's interview of Sen. Obama. It includes Gibson's questions about Ayers, and Obama's answers.

Obama condemns Ayers long-ago acts. But he ignores the Weathermen's less-ancient deeds, and elides what it might mean to "hate the sin but love the sinner" when the sinner himself remains wholly delighted with his record of evildoing.

Obama also rebuts the accusation that Ayers is presently playing a role in his campaign. A charge I'd not heard prior to this interview.

Reporter Gibson seems to find Obama's answers to be quite excellent. If the clip covers all discussion of Ayers in the interview, Gibson can't think of any follow-ups worth asking.



Comments:

What happened to the tough Charlie Gibson who kept pressing Gov. Palin, even when he had his facts wrong?

And remember his skepticism (that's putting it kindly) about a remark she had made concerning God and the U. S.? Gibson refused to accept her first answer. He kept pressing.

In the Obama interview, Gibson seems almost apologetic and tosses only softballs to the MSM's favorite.

And, as AMac notes, Gibson does no follow-up questioning even though Obama is obviously dissembling as anyone familiar with the Obama-Ayers alliance would know.

Folks, as I looked at Obama and Gibson seated across from each other on that fast-moving train, I thought:"They're taking us for a ride."

If someone comes across a video or transcript of the entire interview, I'd appreciate a heads-up.

Wright's not "controversial." He's "racist" and "anti-American"

"Controversial" is a useful word in some circumstances and a distorter in others.

Noting almost all scientific theories are at least somewhat "controversial" is a very good use of the word.

On the other hand, calling theories of eugenics as preached and practiced in human experiments by the Nazis "controversial" is a misrepresentation by understatement of beliefs and actions which should properly be called "barbarous" and "grossly criminal."

Many of Dr. Martin Luther King's sermons, writings and public addresses were controversial. Some of them contributed to public anger and disorder. But none I've ever read or heard were anti-white or anti-American, and nothing I've read in Taylor Branch's magnificent three-volume history of the Civil Rights Movement suggests any were.

On the other hand, the sermons, writings and public statements of Sen. Obama's close friend, mentor and pastor of almost 20 years, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, are laced with anti-white racism and anti-Americanism.

Wright's accused our government of deliberately spreading the AIDS virus to hold down the black population. He took obvious satisfaction from the Sept. 11 attacks which he said were "America's chickens coming home to roost."

It's a gross misrepresentation of the content and intent of Wright's ravings to use the same word - "controversial" - to describe what he esppuses as we do to describe Dr. King's preaching.

But MSM news orgs. do it regularly as part of their tanking for Obama.

We see another example today in a WaPo story:

"It is absolutely vital that you take it to Obama, that you hit him where it hits, there's a soft spot," said James T. Harris, a local radio talk show host, who urged the Republican nominee to use Barack Obama's controversial former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., and others against him.

Every time you see or hear a news report that refers to Wright as "controversial" or "fiery" and fails to call him a 'racist" and "anti-American," you're at best getting sloppy reporting and more likely getting "anything for Obama" propaganda.

Dick Morris on Obama-Ayers alliance.

Writing in The Hill Dick Morris leaves no doubt Sen. Obama was lying when he said he knew unrepentant terrorist Bill Ayers as “just a guy who lives in my neighborhood.” He also explains what Obama and Ayers really did together. Hint: ACORN’s involved although you wouldn’t know that if you relied on the NYT for your news.

Morris reports - - -

… The records of the administration of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge (CAC), released last week by the University of Illinois, show that the Ayers-Obama connection was, in fact, an intimate collaboration and that it led to the only executive or administrative experience in Obama’s life.

After Walter Annenberg’s foundation offered several hundred million dollars to American public schools in the mid-’90s, William Ayers applied for $50 million for Chicago. The purpose of his application was to secure funds to “raise political consciousness” in Chicago’s public schools.

After he won the grant, Ayers’s group chose Barack Obama to distribute the money. Between 1995 and 1999, Obama distributed the $50 million and raised another $60 million from other civic groups to augment it.

In doing so, he was following Ayers’s admonition to grant the funds to “external” organizations, like American Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) to pair with schools and conduct programs to radicalize the students and politicize them.

Reading, math and science achievement tests counted for little in the CAC grants, but the school’s success in preaching a radical political agenda determined how much money they got.

Barack Obama should have run screaming at the sight of William Ayers and his wife, Bernadette Dohrn.

Ayers has admitted bombing the U.S. Capitol building and the Pentagon, and his wife was sent to prison for failing to cooperate in solving the robbery of a Brink’s armored car in which two police officers were killed. Far from remorse, Ayers told The New York Times in September 2001 that he “wished he could have done more.”

Ayers only avoided conviction when the evidence against him turned out to be contained in illegally obtained wiretaps by the FBI. He was, in fact, guilty as sin.

That Obama should ally himself with Ayers is almost beyond understanding. The former terrorist had not repented of his views and the education grants he got were expressly designed to further them.

So let’s sum up Obama’s Chicago connections. His chief financial supporter was Tony Rezko, now on his way to federal prison. His spiritual adviser and mentor was the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, of “God damn America” fame. And the guy who got him his only administrative job and put him in charge of doling out $50 million is William Ayers, a terrorist who was a domestic Osama bin Laden in his youth.

Even apart from the details of the Obama/Ayers connection, two key points emerge:

a) Obama lied and misled the American people in his description of his relationship with Ayers as casual and arm’s-length; and

b) Obama was consciously guided by Ayers’s radical philosophy, rooted in the teachings of leftist Saul Alinsky, in his distribution of CAC grant funds. …

Morris’ entire column’s here.

**************************************************

Comments:

Other key points have emerged:

a) Almost all MSM have been and remain unwilling to report the truth about the Obama-Ayers alliance to indoctrinate school children; and

b) Obama is refusing to explain to the America people why he formed such a close association with Bill Ayers, working with him to spread the “God damn America” gospel of leftist Saul Alinsky.

Hat tips: BN, Jack in Silver Springs

Farrakhan: When Obama speaks "the Messiah is absolutely speaking"

World Net Daily reports - - -

Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, another powerful Chicago-based political figure associated with the Rev. Jeremiah Wright and other long-time associates of Democratic Party presidential candidate Barack Obama, is leaving no doubt about what he thinks of the leader in the campaign for the White House.

He says when Obama talks "the Messiah is absolutely speaking."

You can watch it for yourself on a newly posted YouTube video.

Addressing a large crowd behind a podium Feb. 24 with a Nation of Islam Saviour's Day 2008 sign, Farrakhan proclaims,

"You are the instruments that God is going to use to bring about universal change, and that is why Barack has captured the youth. And he has involved young people in a political process that they didn't care anything about. That's a sign. When the Messiah speaks, the youth will hear, and the Messiah is absolutely speaking."

Be sure to read the rest of the World Net Daily report here.

The Churchill Series – Oct. 9, 2008

(One of a series of weekday posts on the life of Winston S. Churchill.)

George Orwell was a socialist who saw public leaders like Churchill as impediments to a society in which economic well-being and opportunity were available to all. But unlike most on the left then and now, Orwell recognized and appreciated Churchill for standing up for democracy and against Stalin's dictatorship as well as Hitler's.

What follows is a poem he wrote in 1943 directly addressing a poet and far leftist, Obadiah Hornbrooke' (aka Alex Comfort), who'd shortly before written his own poem attacking Churchill.

Orwell arranged to have his poem published on June 18, the anniversary of Waterloo.

But you don't hoot at Stalin—that's "not done"—
Only at Churchill; I've no wish to praise him,
I'd gladly shoot him when the war is won,
Or now, if there were someone to replace him.
But unlike some, I'll pay him what I owe him;
There was a time when empires crashed like houses,
And many a pink who'd titter at your poem
Was glad enough to cling to Churchill's trousers.
Christ! how they huddled up to one another
Like day-old chicks about their foster-mother!


I'm not a fan for "fighting on the beaches",
And still less for the "breezy uplands" stuff,
I seldom listen-in to Churchill's speeches,
But I'd far sooner hear that kind of guff
Than your remark, a year or so ago,
That if the Nazis came you'd knuckle under
And peaceably "accept the status quo".
Maybe you would! But I've a right to wonder
Which will sound better in the days to come,
"Blood, toil and sweat" or "Kiss the Nazi's bum".

________________________________________

The poem is found on pg. 299 of Orwell's Collected Essays (vol. II).

NYT distorts McCain-Palin's Obama-Ayers charge

Under Obama reporter-supporter Patrick Healy’s byline, the New York Times runs a puff piece today all about what an even tempered, regular guy in the neighborhood Obama is.

We even learn that on "Wednesday evening, he got home early to spend time with his two young daughters and take one of them to a bookstore in their neighborhood.”

Who says the Times isn’t taking a close look at Obama’s activities?

In the middle of the lengthy story we find this misrepresentation of what Sen. McCain and Gov. Palin have been saying about unrepentant terrorist Bill Ayers:

Senator John McCain, Gov. Sarah Palin and their Republican allies are increasingly trying to tag Mr. Obama with the word “radical,” arguing that he prefers radical friends (Bill Ayers, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright) and has a radical tax plan and health care plan (even if both are fundamentally Democratic).

McCain and Palin aren’t referring to Ayers as a “radical.” They call him a terrorist. Palin did so repeatedly this weekend. The McCain ad below twice refers to Ayers as a “terrorist.”

But the Times wants to mellow things out for its candidate, so it misrepresents what McCain-Palin are saying by substituting the much milder description “radical” for the one the two GOP candidate are actually using: “terrorist.”

Anything for Obama.

And did you notice Healy’s and the Times’ “even if both are fundamentally Democratic?”

That’s the kind of commentary that’s supposed to be reserved for the editorial page.

But at the Times – news columns, editorial page, whatever – as long as it helps Obama.

BTW – The story takes a lot of swipes at President Bill Clinton to whom Obama is gushingly compared.

The swipes (gratuitous and nasty) IMO are sure signs the Times isn’t satisfied with the help the Clintons are giving Obama.

If the Times was satisfied with what the Clinton are doing for Obama, it would have swiped at some other presidential figure.

W, for instance.

Citizen at McCain rally speaks out. Watch the crowd react

Hat tip: AC

The strongest McCain ad yet on the Obama-Ayers alliance

This is a powerful ad. I wish McCain would run a similar one on Obama's relationship with the anti-white, anti-American Jeremiah Wright.

NAACP's McSurely 's letter : So bad it was good

KC Johnson has posted letting Durham-in-Wonderland readers know NC NAACP attorney Al McSurely is a registered agent for false accuser Crystal Mangum who's reported to have a book coming out later this month.

KC's post brought to mind a letter of McSurely's published June 3, 2006 in the Raleigh News & Observer.

McSurely was responding to a column by the NY Times' David Brooks, which the N&O had published May 31.

Brooks column was a forthright and graceful acknowledgment that in an earlier column he'd rushed to judgment regarding the Duke lacrosse players.

Brook's apologized and urged others who'd helped create "a witch hunt" to examine more carefully the facts of the case.

If you know McSurely, you know Brooks' column is the kind of thing that would light his very short fuse.

The day McSurely's letter appeared I posted here. The post contains the full text of his letter about which I said, among other things:

McSurely's letter is notable for its personal attacks on Brooks, its playing to stereotypes, its misrepresentation of facts, and its failure to mention many pertinent facts which have led most fair-minded people to question much of what the accuser and her supporters such as McSurely are saying.

The letter is so bad in terms of a careful presentation of the known facts that it has to give encouragement to those who believe the indicted lacrosse players are very likely innocent.

I posted again the following day asking readers:

What’s McSurely doing besides dealing N&O readers a race card?

I hope you read McSurely's letter.

You'll see why I thought McSurely's error-filled, illogical, and racially manipulative letter was good for those seeking truth and justice.

And if, as seems likely, McSurely again appears on the Duke case "radar screen," his letter will be a useful reminder of just what sort of person, attorney and "civil rights advocate" has "blipped on to the screen."

Why the press hides Obama’s lies

Roger L. Simon reviews Sen. Obama’s now familiar lies such as knowing nothing about Wright’s anti-white, anti-American sermons, Will Ayers a guy “in my neighborhood, and many others.

Why has MSM – at least almost all of it – let Obama get away with transparent lies?

Simon concludes:

…The inescapable conclusion is that Barack Obama is a highly deceptive, often dishonest individual . . . yet the press is loath to admit it or to do much to balance the investigative reporting equation. They don’t even begin. What is the explanation for this?

The most obvious reasons are bias and the desire to defeat the opposing candidate.

But beneath these obvious explanations, I sense something more complex and pathological. Deeper fears are perhaps at play - the loss of self-image and personality disintegration, also a desperate need to conform to a fragile peer group.

And in these times more than ever, a yet more potent terror – job loss.

Simon’s entire post’s here.

We know Simon's right about fear of job loss influencing how journalists do their jobs which have never been just about "getting the facts and reporting the story."

Spin and cover-up have been part of reporting since Adam explained how that apple got eaten.

There’s just, in my opinion, more spin and cover-up for Obama as mostly white reporters seek to guard against another major fear reporters have: being accused by those claiming to speak for “the community” of “insensitivity” or outright “racial bias.”

Recall the Duke hoax and attempted frame-up. What reporter wanted to be the first to ask: “When in North Carolina’s judicial history have 46 individuals been named as suspects in a gang-rape investigation based solely on their race?” Or,“How could it be that the accuser battled three lacrosse players for thirty minutes in a small bathroom without any of the four sustaining a single fracture, significant bruising or even one cut requiring a single stitch?”

But I don't want to hold only reporters responsible for the “anything for Obama” shilling we read and hear from most of MSM.

If news org editors, publishers and network higher-ups demanded in-depth reporting on Obama free of partisan spin and cover-up, most reporters would provide something like that even though they’re mostly Dems.

Their desire for job security would override their partisanship; and the support of their editors and employers would greatly lessen their fears of racial smears.

But who any longer expects NY Times' publisher Pinch Sulzberger or its executive editor Bill Keller to demand Times reporters do what for over a century the paper has claimed it does:''give the news impartially, without fear or favor, regardless of party, sect, or interests involved?''

The Churchill Series - Oct. 8, 2008

(One of a series of weekday posts on the life of Winston S. Churchill.)

Now for a series first.

We go video with a three minute clip of Orson Welles on Dick Cavett's show speaking about times he'd meet Churchill.

I think you'll find the video interesting and funny.

Readers comment post debate; I respond (Post 2)

This post is a continuation of Readers comments post debate;I respond.

Readers' comments, in part or whole, are in italics; my responses are in plain.

Tarheel Hawkeye @ 8:05 - - -

Dittoes to [earlier commenter] Ken in Dallas. 'Nuf said.

Ken and TH are Regulars who add a lot to this blog.

Roper @ 8:26 - - -

I wouldn't be too hard on John McCain. This election long ago moved beyond personalities, and McCain may simply have been overtaken by events.

GOP presidential candidates have not been treated fairly since much of the media tagged General Eisenhower, a very smart man, as a dummy. If you’re an R running for President, you better have a message and the ability to “talk over the media” directly to the American people.

McCain had a “talk over the media” chance last night. I don’t think he used it except to pander with a pledge to bailout those who aren’t paying their mortgages.

What did he offer the 95+% of mortgage holders who are paying their mortgages on time besides the chance to also pay for those who aren’t making their mortgage payments?

I’ve some thoughts about helping many people who are not now making their mortgage payments.

I’ll post on that tomorrow.

The American People have regularly swung between periods of desire for opportunity and growth, offset by periods of desire for stability and security. Given the tumult of the past year, many Americans appear willing to accept greater government control and regulation to obtain less volatility. This favors the Democratic party and its candidate.

McCain did the best he could, but this election was always Obamas to win or lose... and so far, he has not lost it.

Can we agree, reasonable Anon, that so far McCain has not asked the questions of Obama which he should have started asking in early Sept. about Ayers, Rezko and Wright?”

Anon @ 10:36 - - -

The mortgage forgiveness was stunning.

Bizarre, too.

I also agree with 6:13 that, when asked about sacrifice, we are not seeing any profiles in courage.

That’s right. We’re seeing from both candidates profiles in pandering.

When I have heard such questions, or questions about priorities, or questions about which promises can't be kept due to the $700 billion bailout ("rescue") I say to myself, "I will vote for the one that tells the truth." Hasn't seemed to happen yet.

I offer Anon @ 10:36 the same advice JinC Regulars usually offer me when I write the Raleigh N&O asking for straight answers about their racially inflammatory, often false and grossly biased Duke lacrosse coverage: “Don’t hold your breath.”

Archer 05 - - -

By Michelle Malkin:

Question: “Who was the Obama plant at last night’s debate?”

Answer: “The Obama plant was Tom Brokaw.”
---------------
There is a lot of chatter today about how Tom Brokaw kept the questions away from anything that would harm Obama. He even handpicked the questions from the audience.

I do believe anyone not noticing the lack of meaty questions for McCain to debate is, shortsighted, or perhaps blinded by the messianic light.

IMO it was a huge mistake to let Brokaw filter questions and decide who and what he wanted asked.
As we used to say when we were kids: “Who died and left Brokaw in charge?”

What a shame the Debate Commission is so craven in the face of Big Media it let Brokaw take charge.

Anon @ 11:38 - - -

Even considering everything, this Election continues to be a referendum on whether an untried first term Senator is qualified and ready to be President of the United States.

You raise a legitimate point about a candidate with very limited experience. The equally legitimate counterpoint is whether the other candidate with much more experience will be the better President.

In addition to their government experience there are the matters of their associations, political alliances, and core beliefs and values to consider, as I don’t doubt you and most everyone else reading this knows.

Anon @ 12:49 - - -

cks for President!!!

I’m not ready to declare for cks yet.

We need to know more about any ties cks may have to Rezko, Ayers and Wright.

I thank you all for commenting.

John

Obama’s veil of secrecy covers more than I thought

I’ve known Sen. Obama is hiding a lot about his working alliances and actions while holding public office to help the convicted felon Tony Rezko, the unrepentant terrorists Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn, and the anti-white, anti-American hate-monger, Obama’s mentor and pastor of almost 20 years, Jeremiah Wright.

But I didn’t really have much of an idea of the how large a veil of secrecy Obama, with the connivance of his media flacks, has thrown over his past.

Yuval Levin at NRO pulls the veil back some - - -

Very soon after she was picked to be McCain’s running mate, Sarah Palin was attacked by Obama campaign spokesmen and a Democratic member of Congress for once being seen wearing a Pat Buchanan button. She had an answer and the campaign offered it.

Yet now we are asked to believe that it’s somehow inappropriate to inquire why Barack Obama’s political career began in the home of an admitted and unrepentant domestic terrorist of the radical left?

“Who is Barack Obama?” is not an irrelevant question given the job Obama is seeking, and it’s a question he has sought mightily to avoid answering.

The veil of secrecy he has thrown over his past (journalists have been denied access to his state legislative office records,

documents about state earmarks he distributed in Illinois,

a list of his legal clients,

his state bar application,

billing records related to Tony Rezko,

medical records,

academic records

— all of which are the sort of documents candidates routinely make public) forces the question all the more. …

Levin’s entire article’s here.

Readers comment post debate; I respond

Readers comments in part or whole in italics; my responses in plain

Ken in Dallas says - - -

To be President you must be prepared for the ultimate battle. I never got the sense that McCain was in it to win.

In "Patton", George C. Scott uttered the secret to victory ..."and if we are not successful, let no man come back alive."

You gotta want it.

And have a plan to win it. I get the feeling McCain is doing a lot of improvising. Some of that is necessary but there should be some things laid out from Day- 1. Such as you bring all the questions regarding Ayers, Rezko and Wright to the fore starting very early in the campaign.

Even if McCain really starts seriously bring them up now, he’ll look to many reasonable people to be doing it as a desperation measure.

He should have been doing it for many weeks and with no apology to anyone.
Many legitimate questions about Obama’s allies have not even been asked yet.
I’ve posted on some of them almost every day since March.

CKS - - -

I would agree with your assessment. McCain seems to be lost in the wilderness - grasping at something that he think will pull him out of the campaign fog into which he has wandered.

What he should have replied to the question concerning the sacrifices that Americans should be asked to make is that all Americans must tighten their belts. That means prioritizing and budgeting:

Paying the mortgage on time, more peanut butter and jelly and less steak.

Learn the art of cooking rather than relying solely on fast food.

Walking or car pooling.

Asking schools to consider a longer day and a four day school week so as to cut down on heating and fuel costs.

These would be augmented by cost cutting measures within the oval office….

There would be no limousines for anyone but the president and vice-president.

Everyone else can use the excellent Washington metro system. (What!!! Ask the Secretary of Transportation to ride the Metro? Next you’ll want him to fly coach. LOL - - JinC)

There will be other more substantive cuts as well but these would be ones that could and would be immediately made to show that we are all in this together.

I agree also with your comment about the mortgage situation. Why is it that the person who religiously pays their mortgage (the first bill I pay each month) would be penalized in favor of those who bought a home beyond their means and does not make that payment the priority?

Why, indeed?

Anon @ 7:52 - - -

It certainly wasn't a town forum. The moderator was awful and didn't control the debate properly. The candidates didn't answer the questions, they just spouted what has been said again and again.

McCain may have picked up some voters with the socialist idea of rescuing those bad mortgagees, and he certainly didn't lose any, so no doubt, he won the debate.

I doubt McCain will pick up many votes with his housing proposal. He’s more likely to lose votes from homeowners currently paying their mortgages (95+%) who are smart enough to realize what could go wrong with one more government entitlement.

McCain is clearly the best man for the job but he's a poor communicator therefore, the ignorant hordes are left to believe the press and therefore, Obama will most likely win the election.

McCain's only hope is that the racists (estimated at 30 percent of the democrat party)will pull it through for him. They will vote for anyone but a black man.

It would be a terrible thing for our country if race decided this election and I’m thinking of race as a decider both for the votes it may bring Obama as well as the votes it may cost him.

The role of race as a factor in drawing people into the Obama camp is one of the most important and underreported stories of this campaign.

Folks, I want to post and comment further on others of your comments, but I’m out of time now. Look for another post by late afternoon.

And "thank you" to each of you who’ve commented.

John

The Churchill Series - Oct. 7, 2008

(One of a series of weekday posts about the life of Winston S. Churchill.)

Two presidential debates are now over.

Now for something completely different - - -

Two amusing Churchill anecdotes that should leave you smiling.

Late in his parliamentary career and not for the first time, he'd dozed off during a wordy members long, rambling speech.

Later, in the Commons Smoking Room, the obviously irritated member approached Churchill.

“Must you always fall asleep when I am speaking?”

“No, it’s entirely voluntary.”

That one’s off the top of my head.

This one is found in Stephen Hayward’s Churchill on Leadership (Forum, 1997). As Hayward tells is:

When the Labour Party’s 1950 housing policy chose the term “accommodation unit” to denote houses and apartments, Churchill, then Leader of the Opposition in the House of Commons, had a field day: “I don’t know how we are going to sing our old song ‘Home Sweet Home.’

‘Accommodation Unit, Sweet Accommodation Unit, there’s no place like our Accommodation Unit.’

I hope I live long enough to see British democracy spit all this rubbish from their lips.” (p. 101)

McCain-Obama tonight: a few thoughts

A commenter at Instapundit said:

I thought it was pretty much a rehash of the first debate, but the format did not favor McCain since his age and injuries make his movement around the floor so much less fluid than Obama's. McCain did tone down his expressions of contempt for Obama and his experience etc., which may actually help him. But I don't think McCain gained anything, so he will probably keep losing ground.

Allowing for some shade of difference on each point, I agree with the commenter except that McCain’s opening promise he wanted the federal government to pick up the burden for people with mortgage payment problems wasn’t anything like a rehash.

It must have surprised a lot of people and gotten them thinking: “Darn! I’m up to date on my mortgage payments. I guess I can’t quality for this new government entitlement McCain’s proposing. If I fall behind on my payments, can I then qualify? What if I don’t pay my property taxes? Will McCain arrange for the federal government to pay them for me?”

I’ve been listening to the Fox commenters. They agree the debate wasn’t a game-changer.

So do I.

And you?

If limited to three words to sum how each candidate came across, I’d go with -

Obama - informed, articulate, cool

McCain – strained, repetitive, pleading

I’ll bet a lot of you will disagree with me.

What say you?

The Bomber as School Reformer

is the title of Sol Stern’s op-ed at City Journal.

Its theme: “The press—and debate moderators—shouldn’t let Bill Ayers and Barack Obama off the hook.”

Stern begins - - -

Back in the early eighties, in an interview with David Horowitz and Peter Collier, Bill Ayers remembered his reaction upon learning that he would not be prosecuted by the government for his bombing spree as a member of the Weather Underground. “Guilty as hell, free as a bird—America is a great country,” he exulted.

Ayers is now a university professor, but he must have been exulting all over again after reading Saturday’s front-page story in the New York Times.

The article explored the putative relationship between Ayers and Barack Obama during the time they worked together on the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, a five-year philanthropic venture that, starting in 1995, distributed over $160 million in school-improvement grants to the Windy City’s public schools.

Ayers wrote the grant proposal that secured seed money for the schools and ran the implementation arm of the project; Obama became chairman of the board that distributed the grants.

Not only did the Times exonerate the Democratic presidential candidate of having anything like a “close” relationship with Ayers—their paths merely “crossed” while working on the Challenge, the paper said—but it also bestowed the honorific of “school reformer” on the ex-bomber. …

Calling Bill Ayers a school reformer is a bit like calling Joseph Stalin an agricultural reformer. (If you find the metaphor strained, consider that Walter Duranty, the infamous New York Times reporter covering the Soviet Union in the 1930s, did, in fact, depict Stalin as a great land reformer who created happy, productive collective farms.)

For instance, at a November 2006 education forum in Caracas, Venezuela, with President Hugo Chávez at his side, Ayers proclaimed his support for “the profound educational reforms under way here in Venezuela under the leadership of President Chávez. We share the belief that education is the motor-force of revolution. . . . I look forward to seeing how you continue to overcome the failings of capitalist education as you seek to create something truly new and deeply humane.”

Ayers concluded his speech by declaring that “Venezuela is poised to offer the world a new model of education—a humanizing and revolutionary model whose twin missions are enlightenment and liberation,” and then, as in days of old, raised his fist and chanted: “Viva Presidente Chávez! Viva la Revolucion Bolivariana! Hasta la Victoria Siempre!”

As I have shown in previous articles in City Journal, Ayers’s school reform agenda focuses almost exclusively on the idea of teaching for “social justice” in the classroom. This has nothing to do with the social-justice ideals of the Sermon on the Mount or Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech. Rather, Ayers and his education school comrades are explicit about the need to indoctrinate public school children with the belief that America is a racist, militarist country and that the capitalist system is inherently unfair and oppressive. …

Despite the Times story, American voters still don’t have an accurate picture of the relationship between Obama and Ayers during their work on the Annenberg Challenge….

For the first time in his life, Ayers seems to be observing Democratic Party discipline and won’t be talking until after November 4. Meanwhile, in one of the Democratic primary debates, Obama said that Ayers was just “a guy I know in the neighborhood”—which certainly qualifies as one of the biggest fibs told by any of the candidates so far.

Is it too much to hope that one of the moderators of the two remaining debates will press Obama for a fuller accounting of his work with Bill Ayers on the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, and also ask Obama what he thinks of Ayers’s views on school reform?

If the mainstream media deem it important that voters know which newspapers one of the vice presidential candidates reads, they certainly ought to be demanding more information from a presidential candidate about whom he collaborated with in distributing $160 million to the public schools. How about it, Tom Brokaw?

Stern’s entire op-ed is here.

*********************************************************

Comments:

It’s no wonder Americans don’t have an accurate picture of the Obama-Ayers relationship.

Most news organizations are in the tank for Obama. They done their best to avoid reporting on the relationship. When they have, they’ve often minimized and outright distorted it.

Just last evening NPR’s national political correspondent Mara Liasson repeated the long since discredited explanation Obama campaign manager David Axelrod had offered about Obama and Ayers mostly knowing one another because their children went to school together. Ayers’ children were grown before the Obama children began school. (See here.)

Most MSM reports I’ve read and heard refer to Ayers as a 60s radical active when Obama was eight. Few mention he’s an unrepentant terrorist who at the time of the Sept. 11 attacks said he only regretted he’d not done more by way of terrorist acts.

It’s a rare MSM report that mentions Ayers commitment over decades to a form of education exactly as Stern describes.

Obama’s relationships with Rezko, Ayers, Wright and others are very troubling. The MSM has failed America by refusing to take an honest, in depth look at them and ask questions it should have asked.

We are in a situation tonight - four weeks from election day - where we’re have close media scrutiny of whether Trig Palin is actually Gov. Palin’s child and an AP report that shortly after she became mayor of Wasilla Sarah Palin received a free facial from one of the city’s cosmeticians.

But I can’t recall a single reporter asking Sen. Obama: “All right, Senator, in almost 20 years of very close friendship with Rev. Wright and attendance at his church you never, as you say, heard any statements from Rev. Wright such as “God damn America” and “KKK-America,” and you never heard any expressions of his misogyny or his claim our government deliberately spread the AIDS virus as a way to hold down America’s black population.

“Allowing for all of that, didn’t Mrs. Obama or others in the Trinity congregation say anything about any of that to you; and didn’t you read any of it that was published in Trinity’s church publications?”

NPR’s Liasson misrepresents Ayers-Obama ties

Last night on Fox News with Brit Hume, Mara Liasson, national political correspondent for the Obama-cheerleading National Public Radio network, tried to “mellow out” Sen. Obama’s relationship with unrepentant terrorist Bill Ayers.

Liasson offered a version of Obama’s shill that Ayers is just a guy who lives “in the neighborhood.”

In Liasson’s version, the Obama-Ayers relationship mostly had to do with them meeting “at school functions” because Obama’s and Ayers’ children went to school together.

Liasson even quoted Obama’s campaign manager David Axelrod as her source.

If you’re aware of how the liberal/leftist Obama-cheerleading NPR has been “reporting” the campaign, you’re not surprised by what Liasson said or by her relying on Axelrod as her source.

What better source an NPR correspondent than Obama's top guy?

Liasson’s spin seems reasonable as long as you don’t know Obama’s and Ayers’ kids didn’t attend school together.

As Bob Owens at Pajama Media has reported:

Trouble is Axelrods dissembling for Obama has been discredited quite a while ago.

Axelrod also tried to excuse the extent of Obama’s involvement with Ayers, stating, “Bill Ayers lives in his neighborhood. Their kids attend the same school. … They’re certainly friendly, they know each other, as anyone whose kids go to school together.”

It’s an obvious fiction pitched by Axelrod, since the Obama children are presently in elementary school, while Ayers’ children are all grown adults, but the Ayers-Obama family connection doesn’t stop at the imaginary connections between the children.

E. J. Dionne’s Palin-bias stumble

WaPo columnist E. J. Dionne, Brookings Institution fellow and Georgetown professor, is often called “’the thinking liberal’s’ liberal pundit.”

Yesterday James Taranto at his WSJ Best of Web blog posted the following- - -

A hilarious example of press bias against Palin occurred last Friday on "The Diane Rehm Show," a production of Washington's WAMU-FM. The exchange between hostess Rehm, caller Tom of Norwich, Vt., and Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne begins at about 46:10 of the "10:00 News Roundup":

Tom: I just wonder why not more has been made of the statement by Palin during the debate last night that "Maliki and the Talabani"--this is a quote from the transcript--"also in working with us are knowing again that we are getting closer and closer to the point of victory." The Talibani obviously are our absolute enemy and have been since 9/11; Maliki, our central ally in Iraq. This to me is a tremendous blunder, revealing a very superficial familiarity with these sorts of terms.

Rehm: Thanks for calling, Tom. . . . E.J.?

Dionne: I think that "superficial" is absolutely the right word for the knowledge or the lack of knowledge Palin showed yesterday. I'm glad the caller raised that one, and I suspect there is going to be a scouring of that transcript for exactly that sort of gaffe. That has echoes of some of the stuff she said to Katie Couric.

If you look at the debate transcript, however, you will see that the reference is not to "the Talabani" but to Talabani--as in Jalal Talabani, the president of Iraq.

********************************************************

Comment:

I don’t know about “thinking liberals,” but I’ll bet most other people at least chuckled at Dionne pompous and erroneous response.

I wonder if a “thinking liberal” has let Dionne know what the rest of us know.

Taranto’s entire post’s here.

The last refuge of scoundrels

is now the race card.

Back in June in Jacksonville Sen. Obama announced at a fund-raiser that Republicans would use race in this campaign.

They hadn’t.

But that didn’t matter to the self-described “post-racial" candidate.

He went ahead with his preemptive race card strike.

Just two days ago the “anything for Obama” AP published an “analysis” by Douglass Daniel who asserted that while there was no “overt racism” in Gov. Palin remarks about unrepentant terrorist Bill Ayers, what Daniel called the “subtext” of her remarks could only be racially motivated because Americans post Sept. 11 view terrorists as “dark skinned.”

That’s bosh. American’s know Ayers and his unrepentant terrorist wife Bernardine Dohrn are WHITE as was Timothy McVeigh and as is Eric Rudolph. We know terrorists come in white and black skin and all skin shades in between.

But Daniel's "analysis" wasn't about the truth. It was about playing the race card and he needed to contrive his “dark skinned” absurdity in order to do that.

Now Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), the man charged with House oversight of Freddie and Fannie, is playing the race card.

From an AP report:

Rep. Barney Frank said Monday that Republican criticism of Democrats over the nation's housing crisis is a veiled attack on the poor that's racially motivated.

The Massachusetts Democrat, chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, said the GOP is appealing to its base by blaming the country's mortgage foreclosure problem on efforts to expand affordable housing through the Community Reinvestment Act. …

"They get to take things out on poor people," Frank said at a mortgage foreclosure symposium in Boston. "Let's be honest: The fact that some of the poor people are black doesn't hurt them either, from their standpoint. This is an effort, I believe, to appeal to a kind of anger in people." …

The entire AP story’s here.

Documentation of Frank’s encouragement of Freddie and Fannie high risk mortgage making and his consistent disregard and ridicule of warnings that Freddie and Fannie meltdowns were on the way can be found in Freddie, Fannie video you won't find on the networks and Barney Frank exposed.

One irony of Barney’s playing the race card:All homeowners are placed at some greater financial risk because of the failure of Frank and others to do their oversight work and instead push risky mortgage-making practices.

But the group likely to be hurt the most by the current mortgage mess are members of minority groups paying their mortgages on time while living in neighborhoods where foreclosures are occurring and dragging down the value of their homes.

CNN starts bringing out some Ayers-Obama truth

This 6 minute video of CNN's Anderson Cooper hosting a report of CNN's investigation of the Ayers-Obama relationship may surprise you.

CNN leaves no doubt the relationship has been much more extensive than Obama claims.

Near the end of the video CNN reports the Obama camp is now saying The One wasn't aware of Ayers background when Ayers hosted at his and his unrepented terrorist wife Bernardine Dohrn's hope the kickoff event for Obama's first race for the Illinois State Senate.

Hat tip: AC

LA Times suppresses McCain story to prop Obama claim

The post title at Patterico’s Pontifications tells you: L.A. Times Cuts Out McCain’s Remarks About Economy, Then Quotes Barack Obama Saying McCain is Scared to Talk About the Economy

Then Patterico documents exactly what the “anything for Obama” LAT did to help their guy.

I hope you give the post a look.

And while you’re at Patterico’s Pontifications, take a look around. He has a fine blog. It’s principal purpose is to call attention to instances of the LAT’s liberal/leftist bias which is as gross as that of McClatchy’s Raleigh N&O.

Hat tip: Instapundit

The Churchill Series - Oct. 6, 2008

(One of a series of weekday posts about the life of Winston S. Churchill.)

This post, now slightly tweaked, originally appeared in May 2007.

John
______________________________________

Today a few of Winston Churchill’s May 8, 1945 V- E Day recollections.

But they’re not the recollections of a great war leader and statesman. They’re the recollections of Churchill’s grandson and namesake who almost half a century later recalled that joyful day in his fifth year of life:

At last the war was over. V-E Day was a day which none of my generation will ever forget.

Following the unconditional surrender of Germany to the Allies on 8 May 1945, the entire British nation, after more than five long years of war, launched into a great and spontaneous celebration of victory.

Aged four and a half, waving my paper Union Jack on a stick and with my hand firmly held by [my nanny,] “Mrs. M.”, I joined the half-million strong crowd that gathered outside Buckingham Palace on that joyful day.

I was not in the least surprised to see Grandpapa appear on the balcony with King George VI, the Queen and other members of the Royal Family, as we all cheered them to the echo.

What could be more natural? I always knew he was the most important Grandpapa in the whole world.

_________________________________________
Winston S. Churchill, Memories and Adventures. (Published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson) (pg. 34)

Palin's comeback to the heckler is much better

than John Kerry's "Do you know who I am?"

Take a look, and thanks to AC for the video link.

Commenter gives an alert. I respond

A JinC Regular writes:

John -

As I write this, Oct. 6, 9:04 PM in Silver Spring, Sean Hannity is talking about Ayers on Hannity & Colmes. Maybe Americans will finally wake up to what St. Barack represents.

Jack in Silver Springs

Thanks, Jack.

After I got your message, I tuned in.

Dick Morris was the guest, and at least this one time Alan Colmes wasn't getting in the way of Morris' answering questions.

Morris is one of Hannity & Colmas most informed and insightful regular guests, but Colmes usually interrupts him and tries to trash Morris' answers with "talking points" Colmes must get from George Soros, Howard Dean or someone like them.

As a result of Colmes' interruptions and trashy shilling, I no longer watch Hannity & Colmes regularly.

Time's too precious.

The “Separatist” lie about Palin

Responding to yesterday’s post – AP OK with terrorist Ayers & Obama; mad at Palin – a commentor said in part:

"guilt by association" is a no-win game. Obama has Ayers; Palin has her Alaska Separatists. ...

To which Archer 05 responded:

The Palin-Separatists, myth was debunked shortly after it appeared. It was a lie!
If you are going to repeat lies, write for other liars.

Associations do matter, and so does telling the truth.

I don’t have any reason to believe the commenter knew the claim Gov. Palin had been a member of the Alaska Separatist Party has been thoroughly disproved for over a month.

Excerpts from a Sept. 2 NYT story with the full story here:

In the mid-1990s, the Alaskan Independence Party was experiencing a boom of sorts. A governor had been elected on its ticket in 1990, when the party was not even a decade old. And membership was swelling.

Among the new recruits was Todd Palin, whose wife, Sarah, would later become governor of Alaska. The Palins attended the party's convention in their hometown, Wasilla, in 1994, according to party officials, where the party called for a revote on statehood and a draft constitution for an independent Republic of Alaska. Mr. Palin joined the party.

Ms. Palin remained a Republican and never joined the Alaskan Independence Party, but returned to its convention in 2006 to speak as candidate for governor. …

Alaskan Independence Party officials released a statement Monday saying that Ms. Palin had been a member for two years, from 1994 to 1996, information included in reports in The New York Times and other news outlets. …

On Tuesday, though, the party's chairwoman, Lynette Clark, said the earlier statement was false. …

On Wednesday, Ms. Clark released a corrected statement, saying, in part, "I, foolishly, repeated and accepted as fact what an officer of this membership shared with myself, and husband Dexter Clark, over a year ago."

Ms. Palin has been registered as a Republican since May 1982, according to the State Division of Elections.

I thank the commenter for a civil and, I believe, honestly-intended comment; and I thank Archer 05 for reminding us that some people are unknowingly repeating the Palin-Separatist falsehood and some people are knowingly repeating it, then putting themselves in the liar category.

And, yes, associations do matter. Tony Rezko and Jeremiah Wright will tell you that. So will Barack Obama, I hope.

Will there be Sulzberger’s in NYT’s future?

Today at New York magazine’s Web site we find Joe Hagen’s “Bleeding ‘Times’ Blood.”

New York's attention grabber: Which is more important to a 25-year-old Ochs-Sulzberger heir: the sense of honor that comes with owning the New York Times, or enough money to do whatever he wants for the rest of his life?

That grabbed me, I’ve just finished Hagen’s article.

While he doesn’t provide a definite answer to the question, Hagen does provide a detailed, well-written and revealing account of how financial pressures, social values, and personality conflicts and rivalries within the Sulzberger family have influenced the Times’ development and its current sense of purpose.

Hagen says - - -

…[It’s] fair to wonder, as the Times’ own public editor, Clark Hoyt, did last year, “How united are the Sulzbergers, and what holds them together? Who is the next generation, and how committed are they to the family’s long practice of investing heavily in quality journalism, even in rocky financial times?”

It’s a question that’s impossible to answer with any certainty, and one that’s difficult even to address, which is perhaps why Times editor Bill Keller has not followed through on his suggestion in that same column that “this is a story [the Times] could do.”

The Sulzberger family is a different clan from the Bancrofts [, former owners of the Wall Street Journal], who were divided by trust funds and populated with restless socialites and horse enthusiasts whose hobbies required access to substantial funds. From an early age, Sulzberger children are taught to value their role as stewards of the paper and servants to the public good.

Privately, however, the family has always quarreled and debated among themselves, with cousins and brothers jockeying for power and influence, and occasional whispers of displeasure with [current publisher Pinch] Sulzberger’s leadership.

Today there is greater possibility for division in the Sulzberger family than there was a decade ago. In the last ten years, at least seventeen new family members have turned 25, the age at which they are allowed to join the trust’s board or vote for trustees, expanding by 38 percent the number of people with input into the family’s dealings.

In 2001, the family trust was quietly amended, expanding the number of family trustees and allowing a less than unanimous vote on “extraordinary corporate transactions”—leaving the door open for a faction of family members to push for a sale. …

Will prestige and legacy alone be enough to sustain the next generation? As the financial fortunes of the New York Times wither, the sad truth is that they may not have a choice.

___________________________

Hagen’s “Bleeding ‘Times’ Blood” is here.

Hat tip: Romensko @ Poynter

Rove speaks up for Palin

Newsweek editor Jon Meacham most recent column - "The Palin Problem" – lets you know right off that “The Palin Problem” is not the vicious smears and lies hurled at her by so many mainstream journalists, but the governor herself:

Yes, she won the debate by not imploding. But governing requires knowledge, and mindless populism is just that—mindless.

Today, Karl Rove in Newsweek answers Meacham.

Rove tells Newsweek readers:

With respect, Jon misses the principal arguments for Sarah Palin. She is the governor of a state with an $11 billion operating budget, a $1.7 billion capital budget and nearly 29,000 employees; she's got more executive experience than any candidate for president or vice president this year. In Alaska she took on the state political establishment, the incumbent Republican governor and the oil companies.

She's a rising star who accentuates John McCain's maverick strengths and a "hockey mom" who has developed a powerful tie to ordinary voters.

That link isn't itself an argument for Palin. But being able to connect with, and inspire, the public is an asset —not a liability. As for Jon's argument against "everyday Americans" as political leaders, many great presidents have been more average than elitist.

Ronald Reagan, from Eureka College, was a far better leader than Woodrow Wilson, a former president of Princeton. Wilson would have given you 100 Supreme Court opinions he disagreed with, whether you wanted to listen or not. …

Meachem’s column’s here; Rove’s is here.

Note especially in Rove's column what he has to say near its end about what McCain-Palin should do in the next four weeks.

Latest Ayers-Obama link. I don’t see much there

Matt Drudge has just posted a 1997 U. of Chicago news announcement of a panel session of juvenile justice. Bill Ayers and Sen. Obama are two of the four panelists and Mrs. Obama, who the announcement describes as Associate Dean of Student Services and Director of the University Community Service Center, is quoted speaking approvingly of the upcoming panel. You can read the announcement here.

So what does it amount to in terms of the Bill Ayers-Barack Obama relationship and the campaign?

It’s one more instance demonstrating Obama dissembled when he described Ayers as a guy “in the neighborhood” with whom he’d once served on a board that included many others of various political leanings.

But people wanting to make anything much of Obama serving on this panel with Ayers – especially people trying to score political advantage using it - will have a hard time doing so.

That Obama and Ayers were members of the same panel 11 years ago means what?

Not necessarily that they agreed on anything. Panelists often disagree with their co-panelists some, a lot or on just about everything.

Obama’s campaign team is going to note the panel’s focus was on ways to improve juvenile justice. What could be wrong with that, they’ll reasonably ask?

They’ll also note their candidate’s participation on the panel is one more instance of his longstanding concern with youth crime prevention and rehabilitation of youthful offenders.

And who’s to say that’s not the case?

McCain and his people would be smart to say very little about this “latest.”

What do you think?

The announcement's here.

Wake-up calls for McCain

The first one comes from Michelle Malkin - - -

… Meanwhile, back in the real world, McCain continues to forbid his campaign from going after Obama for his longtime friendship and ideological partnership with Rev. Jeremiah Wright — and refuses to attack Obama on the Fannie/Freddie/CRA debacles because he fears being perceived as a racist.

Earth to McCain: They will see RAAAACISM in whatever you and Palin will say and do from now until Election Day.

Fight or get rolled.

Wake. Up.

______________

Bill Kristol makes his wake-up call today in a column describing a phone conversation he’s just had with Gov. Palin - - -

… Palin also made clear that she was eager for the McCain-Palin campaign to be more aggressive in helping the American people understand “who the real Barack Obama is.” Part of who Obama is, she said, has to do with his past associations, such as with the former bomber Bill Ayers.

Palin had raised the topic of Ayers Saturday on the campaign trail, and she maintained to me that Obama, who’s minimized his relationship with Ayers, “hasn’t been wholly truthful” about this.

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

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

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

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

Malkin’s post’s here; Kristol’s column’s here.

**********************************

Comments:

There’s no doubt Malkin and Kristol delivered wake-up calls.

But as you see above, McCain’s gotten at least a third one

Palin’s.

IMO the wake-up calls are long overdue.

McCain needs to make clear Sen. Obama can go to any church he likes. We all understand and accept that.

But what McCain must ask - because Obama’s MSM flacks won’t - are questions Americans need honest answers to before we trust Obama with the presidency:

Why did Obama choose a church whose pastor was loud in his anti-white racism, his misogyny and his anti-Americanism?

Why did Obama develop such a close and admiring relationship with Rev. Wright that he viewed the hate-filled pastor as a mentor, often praising him in lavish terms?

Why did Obama remain a member of that church for almost 20 years, leaving only a few months ago when Wright called him “a typical politician” who didn’t mean the criticisms Obama made of Wright a few weeks previously when polls showed Obama’s close ties to Wright were hurting him with the electorate?

Why did Obama and his wife choose to take their children to Wright’s church for their religious instruction?

I'm sure you can think of many other questions.

AP plays race card for Obama

Below in italics are parts of the AP’s “analysis” (“Palin's words carry racial tinge”) of Gov. Palin’s remarks yesterday concerning the Ayers-Obama relationship. My comments are interspersed in plain.

WASHINGTON (AP) - By claiming that Democrat Barack Obama is "palling around with terrorists" and doesn't see the U.S. like other Americans, vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin targeted key goals for a faltering campaign.

And though she may have scored a political hit each time, her attack was unsubstantiated and carried a racially tinged subtext that John McCain himself may come to regret. …

I don’t know whether the McCain campaign has brought the Ayers-Obama relationship to the fore now because his campaign has faltered these past few weeks.

I suspect the AP’s “analyst,” Douglass Daniel, doesn’t know either. He provides nothing to indicate he does.

But if you’re writing a smear-piece targeting McCain-Palin, what AP editor is going to ask you for facts. It's enough that suggesting Palin’s mentioning Ayers yesterday had to do with “a faltering campaign” serves Daniel’s and the AP's purpose.

Contrary to what Daniel indicates, there’s actually a great deal of substantiation of Sen. Obama’s ties to unrepentant terrorist Bill Ayers. See, for example, Stanley Kurtz’s WSJ op-ed "Obama and Ayers Pushed Radicalism On Schools."

Daniel’s “analysis” doesn’t get into any of the Ayers-Obama documentation Kurtz and others have provided.

Judging by Daniel’s “analysis,” you would think he doesn't know much about Obama’s long-term and revealing relationship with Ayers. Daniel doesn’t even tell readers Ayers is an unrepentant terrorist.

Palin's words avoid repulsing voters with overt racism. But is there another subtext for creating the false image of a black presidential nominee "palling around" with terrorists while assuring a predominantly white audience that he doesn't see their America?

Is there another subtext? Sure. Lots of them. But what does that matter to Daniel and the AP? His smear-piece is just about playing the race card to help Obama deal with his Ayers problems.

So talk about Palin's words not being "overt racism." That will prompt readers to wonder whether Palin's words are somehow subtly racist.

Then ask rhetorically whether there can be any other interpretation of Palin's remarks than that they are racist?

And it's all done by Daniel imputing to Palin a motive he doesn't know whether she has, but is happy to smear her as having.

Meet Douglass Daniel, the very model of an Obama Tank Corps journalist.

In a post-Sept. 11 America, terrorists are envisioned as dark-skinned radical Muslims, not the homegrown anarchists of Ayers' day 40 years ago. With Obama a relative unknown when he began his campaign, the Internet hummed with false e-mails about ties to radical Islam of a foreign-born candidate.

Daniel's assertion Americans view terrorists “as dark-skinned radical Muslims” is bosh.

He's so far from truth in his "analysis" he didn't take account of our knowing unrepentant terrorist Bill Ayers is WHITE as is his unrepentant terrorist wife Bernardine Dohrn.

Most of Ayers fellow terrorists in the Weather Underground were white as was Oklahoma City terrorist bomber Timothy McVeigh and as is abortion clinic terrorist bomber Eric Rudolph?

Almost all Americans know terrorists come in every skin color from white to black.

Daniel’s assertion of how we envision terrorists is, like his “analysis,” more projection of what’s on his mind than what’s on the minds of the McCain-Palin team and what’s on our minds.

Daniel and the AP should be ashamed of themselves for playing the race card.

But you know they won’t be.

The entire smear-piece is here.