July 2008

CNN's Roland Martin argues that Obama's big mistake was that mentioned "Bush, then McCain" then lobbed the charge that "they" would make racist attacks. Had Obama simply referred to "bloggers, columnists, conservative talk show hosts ... he would have been absolutely right," says Martin. "I can…

Senator Lieberman's : Senators Joe Lieberman (ID-CT) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC) today introduced a resolution recognizing the strategic success of the troop surge in Iraq and expressing gratitude to the members of the United States Armed Forces who made that success possible. The resolution calls on…

1) From SlateV.com, "Leave Obama Alone" by Christopher Beam (Please see update below) This is a first in Required Reading history - Required Viewing! Before diligently completing your assignment, be forewarned: Those pretend whiny Obama supporters can be a salty bunch. There is obscenity in the…

Mark Hemingway writes that "when Obama says he 'doesn't look like those other presidents on the dollar bills,' he's not talking about race. He's talking about his ears." Seems plausible to me. But on second thought, I think Obama was in fact referring to his being really really ridiculously…

If the objective test of the value of Barack Obama's recent European jaunt is whether or not it helped or hurt his chances of becoming president, it would seem the verdict is in. Intrade shows a steady slide since Barack left the U.S., for a total loss of about 8 percent in the value of a share of…

Having returned from his European vacation, this is the perfect time for Obama to try out a new lapel pin. The seal is gone, and the American flag was temporarily gone. Here is a proposal that should ring true with his staffers: how about Obama wear a United Nations / USA friendship flag lapel pin?…

Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs denies that his candidate's statement that John McCain will try to scare voters by saying that Obama "doesn't look like all those other presidents on the dollar bills" had anything to do with race: "What Barack Obama was talking about was that he didn't get here after…

Today is the magical number of 8 days before the opening ceremony of the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, to be held at 8 p.m. on the 8th day of August, the 8th month of the year. The number 8 has all sorts of magical attraction for the Chinese. Eight, in Mandarin, also means "prosperity" and…

In response to Barack Obama's remarks yesterday in Missouri, McCain campaign manager Rick Davis issued this statement: "Barack Obama has played the race card, and he played it from the bottom of the deck. It's divisive, negative, shameful and wrong." You can read Obama's remarks, as provided by the…

House Democrats pulled out all the stops to win a hard fought legislative victory yesterday - prevailing on a dramatic 213-212 nail-biter vote on the "adjournment resolution," authorizing a five-week summer recess. Congress sets dates for its "district work periods", through these normally routine…

As you know, I haven't exactly established myself as a robotic defender of the McCain campaign. Thus, in the spirit of a very minor league Nixon going to an even more minor league China, I will be the first member of the right wing press to unequivocally defend the McCain ad that compares Barack…

Gallup reports: A new USA Today/Gallup poll finds nearly half of Americans saying the U.S. troop surge in Iraq, now over, has made the situation there better, up from 40% in February and just 22% a year ago. Accordingly, the percentage believing the surge "is not making much difference" has…

Byron York reports that President Bush announced today: The progress in Iraq has allowed us to continue our policy of "return on success." We now have brought home all five of the combat brigades and the three Marine units that were sent to Iraq as part of the surge. The last of these surge…

ABC News has video of Barack Obama telling voters in Missouri today: Nobody really thinks that, that, that Bush or McCain have a real answer for the challenges we face. So what they are going to try to do is make you scared of me. You know he--oh, he's not patriotic enough. He's got a funny name.…

First Read reports: Sen. John Ensign, chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, declined to endorse Stevens' campaign for reelection. The NRSC describes itself on it's Web site as "the only political committee solely dedicated to electing Republicans to the U.S. Senate." Ensign,…

1) From Gallup.com, "Presidential Race Tightens to 4 Points" by some guy who works for Gallup The Ego has landed! A mere three days ago, Barack Obama sat comfortably perched atop a nine point lead in the Gallup tracking poll. Now it's down to four. Rasmussen shows an even tighter race. In…

Rapper Ludacris has released a new song called "Politics: Obama Is Here." In the song, Ludacris attacks Hillary Clinton, John McCain, President Bush, even Jesse Jackson, with nasty, hateful words. An excerpt: Said I handled his biz and I'm one of his favorite rappers Well give Luda a special pardon…

I noted yesterday that opinions in the presidential race are more fluid and softer than usual--resulting in a high degree of variability and volatility in the polls. Today, Rasmussen released this new survey that further underscores that point. According to its most recent poll, about twice as many…

McCain adviser John Goodman explains the inequity of the current health care system, and how John McCain promises to bring fairness: Under the McCain plan, no longer would employers be able to buy insurance with pretax dollars. These payments would be taxable to the employee, just like wages.…

More on the controversy over why Obama called off his visit to greet wounded troops at the Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany. Dan Balz and Michael D. Shear report in the Washington Post: [Obama campaign official Robert] Gibbs said yesterday that the campaign had planned to inform the…

Rumor is that Barack Obama will soon announce Tim Kaine as his vice presidential nominee; I tend to agree with Jim Geraghty that Republicans ought to welcome such a selection. If Obama chooses to double-down on lack of experience and foreign policy credentials, it can only improve the contrast with…

Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens was indicted yesterday "on seven counts of failing to disclose thousands of dollars in services he received from a company that helped renovate his home." MSNBC reports: Prosecutors said Stevens received more than $250,000 in gifts and services from VECO Corp., a powerful…

If there's one person who's likely to lose his job as a result of the indictment of Ted Stevens, it's Congressman Don Young (R-AK). Young is under investigation by the FBI over his ties to Veco, as Stevens is. It would be no surprise at all if Young is indicted, too. And while Stevens is blessed to…

The Anchorage Daily News reports: Palin said she has no interest in leaving her job as governor should the Republican Party look to find a replacement for Stevens on the election ballot.

Jake Tapper notes that frantic Democrats are attempting to add "context" to Barack Obama's latest mega-gaffe. In case you've already forgotten, Obama's latest homage to Himself found Him saying, "I have become a symbol of the possibility of America returning to our best traditions." Anyhoo, per…

Speaking to a bunch of Democratic congress-crtitters last night, Barack Obama proved beyond any measure of a doubt that his ego has completely run away with him. Quoth the longtime community organizer: "I have become a symbol of the possibility of America returning to our best traditions." Somehow…

The Chicago Sun-Times's Lynn Sweet wrote in a blog post on Friday, July 25: Though the Rammstein visit had been planned for days, Obama senior strategist David Axelrod said that that Pentagon notified an Obama military advisor only yesterday or the day before that he should not come. The Pentagon…

This is not a parody. PBS's ombudsman reports that viewers were "outraged" and "appalled" that Max Boot demolished Lawrence Korb's arguments during PBS's NewsHour last week. Of course, they say they're angry that Boot was given more time to speak than Korb, but NewsHour's host Margaret Carlson…

Via the Hotline, a hopeful history lesson by Steve Lombardo at Pollster.com: The trend from 1988 - 2004 shows that the GOP candidate tends to under-poll in the summer--with the exception [...] of the 2000 campaign. In each of the other four years, the Republican candidate had been polling…

The editors at National Review make the case that he should step down: The question is not whether Stevens should resign, but whether he should resign now or after Alaska's August 26 primary. If he steps aside now, the nomination will go to one of the six relatively unknown Republicans who are…

Barack Obama's campaign has been spinning their candidate's position on the surge for the past two months. First, David Axelrod said on MSNBC that Obama "never disputed the fact that if you throw a surge of American soldiers in an area that you can make a difference." A week later Obama's…

1) From the Politico, "Ted Stevens indicted on 7 Counts" by Martin Kady II and John Bresnahan As they say up in Alaska, oy gevalt. At least that's what they say up there in a Michael Chabon novel. Anyway, the Republican party has a new poster boy for the 2008 election. He's an 84 year-old whose…

The Washington Post reports: Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens (R) was charged with seven counts of making false statements on his financial disclosure forms in an indictment unsealed in federal court in the District this afternoon. [...] Stevens, a senator since 1968, "knowingly and willfully engaged in a…

Confused about the array of contradictory polls released in the last few days? You're not alone. First there was the 8-point Obama advantage in Gallup tracking. But wait: Then there was the 4-point McCain lead in another Gallup poll released the same day. What gives? Mark Blumenthal does a nice job…

During his recent visit to Qatar, Chinese vice president Xi Jinping told a group of Hong Kong reporters traveling with him that the chaotic series of incidents leading up to the Beijing Games, including the Lhasa riot and the frequently interrupted torch relay, should be treated with this mindset:…

obamacraig08.jpg Mary Ann Akers at the Washington Post's Trail blog reports that "folks all across Idaho are howling over a snafu that put presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama on a political button with GOP Sen. Larry Craig" instead of Democratic candidate Larry LaRocco. The…

Mexico is our third-leading supplier of foreign oil, but Mexico's national oil company -- Pemex -- faces serious challenges. Pemex will be unable to produce from new deep-water fields without an infusion of private capital, and the Mexican constitution forbids private investment in the petroleum…

ObamaAbroad.JPG When Hillary Clinton kicked off her 2000 campaign for senate, she gaudily commenced a "listening tour" in which she traveled New York listening to the concerns of ordinary voters. The cynics among us never wholly swallowed the notion that the then-First Lady really cared what the…

Politico reports that yesterday Senate Republicans blocked Harry Reid's "Tomnibus"--an omnibus bill of many measures that Tom Coburn had placed a hold on: The vote sent Reid into one of his trademark tirades on the Senate floor, as he basically accused Republicans of voting against people with…

Last night, Mike Huckabee appeared on Hannity & Colmes. I was occasionally critical of Huckabee during the primaries - okay, I was more like "very often" critical of Huckabee during the primary season - but his appearance on H&C was extremely impressive. The McCain campaign should be listening to…

"High flying adored, So Young ... A ... beautiful thing, of all the talents, A cross between a fantasy ... and a saint ... Where do you go from here?" So Che Guevara asked Evita in the Andrew Lloyd Weber-Tim Rice hit musical. Barack Obama's campaign advisers think they have the answer when it comes…

Greg Craig, senior foreign policy adviser to the Obama campaign, went on MSNBC this afternoon to defend his candidate's decision to skip a visit with wounded U.S. troops in Germany. The key exchange: Andrea Mitchell: You were facing the Pentagon saying this can't be political, you can't bring…

We all wish Robert Novak a full and speedy recovery. His excellent reporting, such as this story on Romney's VP prospects, will be missed while he's in the hospital. Novak writes that the reason Mitt Romney is at (or near) the top of McCain's vice-presidential list is his ability to deliver…

Brian Williams, anchorman and part-time earnest diplomat, needs to get back to reading the news. His blockbuster journalistic coup--scoring an interview with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad--is a farce. Maybe it was the heady trip to the Middle East and Europe with the man who will bring…

Yesterday, Drudge blared the news that Obama was leading McCain by 9 points in Gallup's daily tracking poll, but the latest Gallup/USA Today poll shows Obama trailing McCain by 4 points: The Friday-Sunday poll, mostly conducted as Obama was returning from his much-publicized overseas trip and…

McCain's decision to support the Arizona civil rights initiative, on the ballot on Election Day this fall, means that a critical campaign issue is now in play. The initiative, patterned after ones in California, Washington, and Michigan, requires that the state of Arizona neither advantage nor…

1) From the Horse Race Blog, "On Obama's Message" by Jay Cost The always cogent Cost does a magnificent job laying out Barack Obama's meta-narrative: Obama's organization is built around a faulty, occasionally absurd meta-narrative. A meta-narrative is just a campaign's central message, the core…

As Stephen F. Hayes points out below, over the weekend, John McCain came out in favor of Ward Connerly's Arizona ballot measure, which would end race, sex, and other discriminatory preferences in public education, contracting, and hiring. A well-briefed Barack Obama returned serve: "I think in the…

It's summertime. In a normal year that would mean overeager interns from the Ivy League are overrunning offices all along the Northeast corridor. But this is an election year and the Obama campaign is based in Chicago, so these students have spread their wings and ventured to the Midwest. They're…

John McCain yesterday told George Stephanopolous that he supports the Arizona Civil Rights Initiative, a ballot proposition based on the language of the 1964 Civil Rights Act that will appear before Arizona voters this fall. When Arizona legislators pushed for a similar measure back in 1998, McCain…

Barack Obama returned home to lots of press about his World Tour--but not the press he had hoped for. The candidate has been criticized for canceling his visit to wounded U.S. troops in Landstuhl, Germany. ABC's Jake Tapper says, "The campaign had initially said that Sen. Obama had said he thought…

This week in Washington, House Republicans will try to produce a little political heat from rising energy prices. They will attempt to block Congress from adjourning for its summer recess if Democrats don't allow an up or down vote on the GOP energy plan, which includes expanded drilling in the…

The Obama campaign is not just spending thousands on coffee. It's also racked up a fairly sizable bill for wine and assorted booze. In total, the Obama campaign has charged over $6,100 at Sam's Wine and Spirits in Chicago. And the luxuries don't stop there. They spent nearly $2,800 on 14 meals at…

Brian Williams held an interview with Mahmoud Ahmadenijad that you'll be able to see on NBC tonight. The following exchange will likely make the most news: BRIAN WILLIAMS: Is Iran's goal to have nuclear power or to be a nuclear power? Pres. AHMADINEJAD: (Through translator) We are not working to…

Gen. Petraeus doesn't think it's time to declare victory: "We occasionally have commanders who have so many good weeks, (they think) it's won. We've got this thing. Well we don't. We've had so many good weeks. Right now, for example we've had two-and-a-half months of levels of violence not since…

It was a very smiley version of the Sunday news shows. Barack Obama appeared on Meet the Press, and John McCain popped up on This Week. And both of them smiled a lot. Perhaps McCain's aides thought he had been coming through as too cranky and that the best way to counter to such an impression would…

The Corpse Walker

Save the Males

Tony Snow was two years out of college when he got his first job in journalism. I was editor of the editorial page of the Greensboro Record, the afternoon daily in Greensboro, N.C., and I needed an editorial writer. Tony applied for the job. He had no "clips" as such, but the several pieces of…

Whatever Happened to Thrift?

When it comes to wheels, I'm a small car man. Always have been, always will be. Automotively speaking, I really do believe that small is beautiful. Not for everyone, of course, but unquestionably for me.

America Between the Wars

Close on the heels of the latest sham election in Zimbabwe, the International Criminal Court announced last week that it is seeking the arrest of the president of Sudan on charges of genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. As Africa notches up more failures on the long road out of…

Girls Gone Mild

CHALLENGING GORE

This is the week that the Democratic party ran up the white flag when it comes to the surge in Iraq. Leading the surrender was none other than Barack Obama, the Democratic party's presumptive nominee for president and among the most vocal critics of the counterinsurgency plan that has transformed…

Obamaweek

Gas is still at $4 a gallon, but the good news is there's an emerging consensus on a measure that would help: Drill for more oil here at home. President Bush dropped the executive ban on offshore oil and natural gas exploration last week, and House GOP leader John Boehner plans to lead a…

On January 23, 2008, during her keynote speech at the glitzy World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Condoleezza Rice made a surprisingly friendly gesture to the Iranian regime. She said, in this final year of the Bush administration, Iran and the United States could move towards a "new, more…

Should the United States drop into a historically memorable economic downturn in the near future--a clearly possible if far from certain event--economic historians will likely cite July 11, 2008, as a critical date. It will be not unlike October 28, 1929, which we know today as Black Monday. I…

Baghdad

Attachment

The Dark Knight

Former Texas senator Phil Gramm ran for president in 1996. He raised $20 million, spent nearly all of it, and won zero delegates. Political observers had long thought such a feat was impossible, and it remains astonishing even in hindsight. Recently we were reminded how he managed to pull it off.

The ad says that Obama "made time to go to the gym, but cancelled a visit with wounded troops. Seems the Pentagon wouldn't allow him to bring cameras." As I wrote yesterday it seems the reason that Obama scrapped the visit is because he couldn't bring along retired Gen. Scott Gration. Blowing off…

Obama never explains--perhaps he was never asked--why he just didn't choose to leave his advisers on the plane while he visited with wounded U.S. troops: You know, the staff was working this, so I don't know each and every detail. But here's what I understand happened. We had scheduled to go. We…

John Dickerson writes that Barack Obama's stubbornness is strikingly similar to that of George Bush: Barack Obama's trip to Iraq was so presidential that at moments, he sounded like our current White House resident. When Karen Tumulty of Time asked Obama what he'd learned on his trip, he said, "It…

In case you missed it, Gerard Baker's column today is a must-read: And it came to pass, in the eighth year of the reign of the evil Bush the Younger (The Ignorant), when the whole land from the Arabian desert to the shores of the Great Lakes had been laid barren, that a Child appeared in the…

A new Wall Street Journal poll finds that John McCain trails Barack Obama by six percentage points in a head-to-head match up. But when Ralph Nader and Bob Barr are thrown into the mix, Obama opens up a 13-point lead: In a head-to-head match up between Barack Obama and John McCain in the latest…

Pentagon officials tell NBC the problem was that Obama's request to visit Landstuhl included two members of his campaign staff -- retired Major General Jonathan S. Gration and Jeff Kiernan. US military officials in Germany informed the campaign the two political operatives would not be permitted on…

"The genocide in Darfur shames the conscience of us all," Barack Obama told a crowd of 200,000 in Berlin yesterday. "Will we give meaning to the words 'never again' in Darfur?"

ObamaAbroad.JPG I know. Barack Obama inspired you yesterday. And yet you're frustrated. You too long to be a "citizen of the world." But you feel stymied. You're asking yourself, "How do I go about such a thing?" Well, I'm here to help. If you click here, you will be directed to a website that will…

1) From the New York Times, "Playing Innocent Abroad" by David Brooks Brooks takes a savage scalpel to Barack Obama's soon-to-be- infamous Ich bin ein Weltburger speech. ("Weltburger" means "citizen of the world," by the way.) Obama speeches almost always have the same narrative arc. Some problem…

Obama's professional spinmeister Robert Gibbs maintains that the campaign "learned from the Pentagon that the trip to Ramstein and Landstuhl will be viewed as a campaign stop". But First Read reports that the Pentagon says they never discouraged Obama's visit: Did the Pentagon discourage Obama from…

One of the Democrats' signature promises when they campaigned for control of Congress in 2006 was to end the 'K Street Project.' That was the term for the pressure put on lobbyists after the 1994 elections to hire more Republicans. As Kimberly Strassel points out, the K Street Project is back, and…

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Democrats continue to try to avoid a vote on offshore drilling that they are destined to lose, instead preferring to schedule votes on meaningless measures that are defeated anyway. Now even the Washington Post is calling on Senators Reid and Pelosi to allow votes on new drilling. And how does…

Republican political strategists worry that a weak economy will hurt John McCain this November. This fear makes intuitive sense, but is there any data to back it up? My favorite blog written by academics recently addressed this question. University of Houston professor Noah Kaplan notes some…

First Read reports: One military official who was working on the Obama visit said because political candidates are prohibited from using military installations as campaign backdrops, Obama's representatives were told, "he could only bring two or three of his Senate staff member, no campaign…

The latest report on Obama's missing thesis comes from MSNBC. Written his senior year at Columbia University, Obama's thesis was about Soviet nuclear disarmament. It's only natural to wonder what the budding socialist turned presidential candidate thought of nuclear proliferation in the early…

Obama canceled a planned visit with U.S. troops in Germany because, his spokesman said, it would be "inappropriate to make a stop to visit troops at a U.S. military facility as part of a trip funded by the campaign." But after a July 2 campaign event in Colorado, "Obama later paid a private visit…

THE APATOW COMEDY Factory's special this week is 'Step Brothers,' a delightful, saucy R-rated comedy starring Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly as 40-year-old man-children. Steeped in a spicy complementary role are Mary Steenburgen and Richard Jenkins, adding a dash of straight-man to the onscreen…

WASHINGTON IS IN THE MIDST of a food fight--a "food versus fuel" fight to be more exact. At issue is the Energy Independence and Security Act that mandates the use of 36 billion gallons of biofuels between now and 2022. That schedule is known as the Renewable Fuels Standard (RFS). The concept of…

Iranian representatives said today that their country is done cooperating with UN investigators looking into its nuclear program. If past is prologue, the State Department is scrambling to determine what more the U.S. can give to the Islamic Republic.

Passionate Obama supporter Meteor Blades titled his Daily Kos essay on today's colossal failure of a speech, "By This Foreign Policy Speech Will Future Ones Be Measured." Fair enough - that's why they make paint in different colors. In spite of mine and Mr. Blades's disagreement on the speech's…

1) From Barack Obama.com, "A Magical Cure for All Insomniacs" by Barack Obama Greetings, fellow citizens of the world! If you're like me and suffer from insomnia, you'll want to keep the link to Obama's speech in Germany today handy. Free yourself from Ambien! The speech was so dull, even Obama…

Barack Obama in March 2006: I speak "Indonesian and a little Spanish." Obama on July 8, 2008: "It's embarrassing when Europeans come over here, they all speak English, they speak French, they speak German. And then we go over to Europe and all we can say is merci beaucoup." Obama on July 11, 2008:…

This morning Marc Ambinder reported that Barack Obama is already making plans for his presidential transition team, and this afternoon McCain campaign spokesman Tucker Bounds said that Obama's speech was a "premature victory lap today in the heart of Berlin". Perhaps the "Victory Column" in Berlin…

Americans face gas price shock every time they fill up the tank. So it's not a great time to advocate other radical changes that will further drive up energy costs. That's the conclusion of this new Rasmussen poll analyzing opinion about Al Gore's new proposal to shift electricity production to…

Jake Tapper has a statement from Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs on why Obama canceled his meeting with U.S. troops: During his trip as part of the CODEL to Afghanistan and Iraq, Senator Obama visited the combat support hospital in the Green Zone in Baghdad and had a number of other visits with the…

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William Tate writes in Investors Business Daily: An analysis of federal records shows that the amount of money journalists contributed so far this election cycle favors Democrats by a 15:1 ratio over Republicans, with $225,563 going to Democrats, only $16,298 to Republicans . Two-hundred…

Ed Morrissey notes a Der Spiegel report that Obama is skipping his planned meeting with U.S. troops in Germany: ++ Visit to US Military Bases Cancelled ++ 1:42 p.m.: SPIEGEL ONLINE has learned that Obama has cancelled a planned short visit to the Rammstein and Landstuhl US military bases in the…

The Denver Post has some harsh words for the DNC following reports Democrats weren't paying the gas tax. So, let's get this straight: While the rest of us poor schlubs have been grimacing as we put $4 a gallon gas into our cars, local organizers of the Democratic National Convention have been…

Via First Read, a new Quinnipiac poll of likely voters shows McCain ahead by two percentage points in Colorado, and trailing by just a few in Michigan and Minnesota: COLORADO: McCain 46% - Obama 44% MICHIGAN: Obama 46% - McCain 42% MINNESOTA: Obama 46% - McCain 44% WISCONSIN: Obama 50% McCain 39%…

Obama is skipping the election and proceeding at full speed to the turkey pardons and state dinners. Last year, Obama was on a bus in Iowa, his future uncertain. This week, he's getting chauffeured by the King of Jordan and saying he expects to be on the global stage for the next decade. Team Obama…

From New Hampshire's Concord Monitor: After a year of lagging behind his opponent in polls, Sen. John Sununu has closed the gap, transforming New Hampshire's U.S. Senate race into a dead heat, according to a new poll from the University of New Hampshire. Most surveys for the past year have shown…

Before you put the final touches on Senator Obama's speech, it's still not too late to crib from Bill Kristol's column suggesting that the the senator might want to follow in JFK's footsteps and talk about achieving victory: Speaking on behalf of "the world of freedom," Kennedy challenged the…

Marc Ambinder reports that John McCain was asked by a reporter about the kerfuffle surrounding his comments on the surge and the Anbar Awakening: "First of all, a surge is really a counter-insurgency strategy," McCain said. [...] Colonel McFarland, in Anbar province, McCain said, "had already…

Mitrovica, Kosovo

German authorities in Berlin are downplaying an incident earlier today in which a man drove his car through the security perimeter of the Siegessäule (Victory Column) where Barack Obama is scheduled to speak tomorrow. Reuters quotes police spokesman Bernhard Schodrowski as saying, "We don't yet…

On MSNBC this morning, former Gen. Wesley Clark made some inaccurate statements about the application of the "surge" in Anbar province. "Actually, the surge was about Baghdad and it was not about Anbar province," he said. "They didn't bring more troops out to Anbar." Actually, two Marine battalions…

Matthew Continetti and Ana-Marie Cox talk about Obama and the press, Iraq, and more.

Politico's Ben Smith takes umbrage at the McCain campaign's suggestion that Obama flip-flopped on genocide: http://versionista.com/diff/I8fb2vPauSUeHc9GTYOo3Q/

1) From Swampland, "McCain Meltdown" by Joe Klein Huge news! Joe Klein is scandalized. The following John McCain quote has made the longtime and battle hardened campaign coverer hie to his proverbial fainting couch: "This is a clear choice that the American people have. I had the courage and the…

If journalism were a game of how many distortions you can pack into a single paragraph, Amy Wilentz's profile of Jimmy Carter in New York Magazine would win a Pulitzer. It's always been Carter's nature to avoid the political fray. He likes to engage in intelligent conversation with powerful…

Joe Scarborough and Harold Ford agree that it's laughable to believe that the Anbar Awakening could have survived without the surge:

No wonder the Democrats don't support the gas tax holiday. They don't pay taxes like the rest of us on the fuel they're using. Since March, staffers working on the Democratic National Convention have been using the city of Denver's tax-free gas pumps to fill up their cars - and using its carwashes.…

Money matters when it comes to winning elections. And races for the U.S. House are no exception. That's why Washington campaign strategists and the pundit community are abuzz about the recently released second quarter fundraising numbers posted for congressional races. Jim Ellis, who runs an…

olympicmascots.jpg You're not the only one unhappy about the Olympic mascots, collectively known as the Fuwa. If the Beijing Olympics' five cuddly mascots go down in history as a dud, their creator wants no part of the blame. After China's Olympics organizers gave him the assignment, folk artist…

Obama brain.JPG As you know, Barack Obama is still trotting across the globe, sinking three pointers, ignoring military counsel and healing the occasional leper. Amidst all the hullabaloo, these Obama comments regarding Israel and terrorism have been sadly overlooked: "Um, let me be absolutely…

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice met with her North Korean counterpart today in Singapore as part of "informal" six-party talks, according to this report from Bloomberg. The face-to-face meeting, a first for a Bush administration that once considered North Korea part of the "Axis of Evil," comes…

John McCain is drawing criticism for the following exchange with Katie Couric: COURIC: Sen. McCain, Sen. Obama says, while the increased number of US troops contributed to increased security in Iraq, he also credits the Sunni awakening and the Shiite government going after militias. And says that…

ON JULY 14, Guatemalan state prosecutor Juan Carlos Martinez was murdered in a suburb of Guatemala City. Suspicion immediately fell on the narcotics gangs that continue to fuel violence in Guatemala and throughout the region. As Reuters reported, Martinez had been "investigating the murder of three…

Farnborough, UK

Jon Stewart had a segment last night on the media's love affair with Obama: HT: Hot Air

Michael Barone has a very interesting post breaking down how the 2010 census could net add 8 congressional seats for Bush 2004 states and Kerry 2004 states.

Via the McCain campaign, the Rocky Mountain News reports: The committee hosting the Democratic National Convention is using the city's gas pumps to fill up on fuel, avoiding state and federal highway taxes, officials said today. "There's something there that just doesn't seem right to me because,…

In the past, I've noted how elites in the Bos/Wash/NY/Hyde Park corridor have shown a benign indifference to soaring gas prices. Mind you, I'm a self-confessed arugula-munching/latte swilling Boston-based elitist myself who visits his local filling station on average a bit more than once a month.…

On PBS last night the Center for American Progress's Lawrence Korb argued that the Democrats' taking power in the 2006 congressional elections led to the Anbar Awakening, which was a more important factor than the surge in reducing violence in Iraq. Thankfully Max Boot was on the show to smack down…

So the media blasted the Hillary campaign when reports surfaced that it spent $1,200 in a single month at Dunkin' Donuts. That's a lot of coffee for the campaign, or a lot of doughnuts for Bill Clinton. At the time, Gerard Baker wrote a brilliant article about what coffee preferences revealed about…

1) From the Los Angeles Times, "For McCain, the Surge is a Losing Strategy" by Jonah Goldberg A couple of week ago, I mentioned my depression over the way the McCain campaign was functioning. My sad mental state had driven me to beat myself over the head with a baseball bat. After a jot of…

It's official: The media are consumed by the fire of their love for Barack Obama: And the public is catching on. As I noted earlier today, a new Rasmussen report shows that "49% of voters believe most reporters will try to help the Democrat with their coverage." And 45 percent think that "most…

On a conference call with reporters this morning, McCain surrogate Congresswoman Heather Wilson said that John McCain would "like troops to come home earlier than 16 months if the conditions allow it. Senator Obama has said it's a 16-month timeline no matter what." In response to a follow-up…

"It's always a bad practice to say 'always' or 'never'"--Senator Barack Obama

Today's catch phrase is "media bias." Yesterday--the same day Drudge revealed that the New York Times rejected John McCain's op-ed rebutting Barack Obama's op-ed in the same paper--Rasmussen released a timely report: The idea that reporters are trying to help Obama win in November has grown by five…

Despite the rumors, Obama will not hold any fundraisers during his Euro Trip. That means that six days out of the month, or about 20 percent of the month, will be spent without any such events. Obama's online efforts could make up the difference, but reports suggest they won't: "Several said in…

Faruk Sen, the Turkish-born founding Director of the Center for Studies on Turkey in Essen / Germany, has come under sharp political criticism over recent comments comparing the situation of Turkish migrants living in Europe to the plight and discrimination previously suffered by European Jews.…

Barack Obama made a major gaffe yesterday in an interview with ABC's Terry Moran, saying that despite the obvious success of the surge he still would not support it if he were able to cast his vote again. Why? Obama told Moran that he wanted to change "the political debate." Here is the exchange:…

In July 2007 when he was still frantically courting the far left, Barack Obama flatly declared that genocide wouldn't be a good enough reason to keep American troops in Iraq: SUNAPEE, N.H. - Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama said Thursday the United States cannot use its military to…

IN WRITING ABOUT the qualifications for the chief executive of the United States, the Founding Fathers did not seem to care much about where candidates stood on the issues, or what their position papers said, or what their talking points might be. Neither did they care much about poise, posture,…

Amsterdam

THAT LIGHT AT the end of the tunnel: a glimmer of hope or, as President Bush's former chief economist, Larry Lindsey, sees it, an onrushing train? That jump in share prices: start of a recovery from a market bottom, or a "dead cat bounce" typical of bear markets?

Ed Morrissey writes that John McCain's "statement, that Obama's voting record is ‘more to the left than the announced socialist in the United States Senate, Bernie Sanders of Vermont,' is unfortunately not terribly accurate." Morrissey contends that McCain's statement is inaccurate because…

ObamaAbroad.JPG 1) From the New York Times, "No Substitute for Victory" by William Kristol In discussing the portion of Barack Obama's road show that will soon stumble across Germany, Kristol avoids any pettiness regarding the campaign's choice of venue for Obama's benediction/mass leper healing…

Closing the "enthusiasm gap" is John McCain's major hurdle in the next several months according to Republican leaders and political strategists I talked to last week. Barack Obama's supporters are more fired-up, confident, and interested. CBS News polling director Kathleen Frackovic wrote a piece…

The current cover of Der Spiegel prepares the readers of Europe's biggest weekly news magazine for Barack Obama's first public appearance in Berlin this Thursday. The headline "Deutschland trifft den Superstar: Barack Obamas Auftritt in Berlin" (Germany meets the super star: Barack Obama's…

Via Hot Air, watch and laugh:

Barack Obama's much-publicized Middle East trip is in full swing. As Newsbusters notes, his basketball games and photo-ops are getting a lot of attention from the mainstream media. What has Obama been up to in Afghanistan? At Contentions, Jennifer Rubin says not much: Obama "hasn't proved himself…

The Hong Kong-based newspaper Wen Wei Pao reported last week that in the wake of the recent labor unrest in Vietnam, dozens of Taiwanese businesses are considering pulling out of the Southeast Asian country. The report cited a Taiwanese trade representative in Ho Chi Minh City as saying that a wave…

Byron York reports that during a conference call this morning McCain foreign policy adviser Randy Scheunemann rejected the notion that Maliki endorsed Obama's 16-month withdrawal. "One inartful statement from Prime Minister Maliki certainly does not change Iraqi government policies..." said…

Well, if the Germans want Obama to be president, what possible cause for concern could there be? "There is a sort of Obama-mania in Germany right now, but I think a lot of people will have their illusions shattered if he does become president," an official in Chancellor Angela Merkel's office told…

Is anyone actually surprised by reports that two UN soldiers were photographed saluting the coffins of Hezbollah militants? unitem.jpg If only the UN could honestly say this kind of behavior were rare. The fact is the UN can't even say its terrorist sympathies are rarely caught on tape. In 2004,…

Who better to investigate Charlie Rangel than himself? Rangel calls on investigation of himself http://wcbstv.com/politics/charlie.rangel.ethics.2.773451.html Bloomberg refused to comment. http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/07/14/rangels-rent-mayor-bloomberg-wont-go-there/

Last week, comedy writers for the late night shows bemoaned their inability to write jokes about Obama. Alas, there's nothing funny about the Great One--at least not in the minds of Harvard-educated white guys suffering from liberal guilt. In the off case they've been shamed into actually doing…

The kids gloves were snugly on the Sunday morning talk shows this morning, as Democratic luminaries Barack Obama and Al Gore popped up on Face the Nation and Meet the Press, respectively. Obama was "questioned" on the situation in Afghanistan, leading to this exchange: Sen. OBAMA: Well, mission…

Back in the heady days of late 2006--when Barack Obama decided on his run for president--Democrats had a foolproof plan to gain power: Use the "disastrous" war in Iraq to split the Republican base off from the center, force Republicans in Congress to desert the president, defund the war effort, and…

Relentless Pursuit

At a June 4 meeting in Washington to observe the tenth anniversary of Encounter Books, sponsored by the Hudson Institute's Bradley Center for Philanthropy and Civic Renewal, Roger Kimball, editor of The New Criterion and publisher of Encounter Books, offered some introductory remarks, "Encounter…

The late director Billy Wilder, referring to the "Unfriendly Ten"-later called the Hollywood Ten, who refused to answer questions from the House Un-American Activities Committee in its 1950 investigation of Hollywood communism-joked that "only two were talented. The rest were just unfriendly."

Asked how the United States ought to respond to last week's Iranian missile tests, Barack Obama told CNN that it was important "we avoid provocation." Just as last year, Obama criticized a Senate bill designating the Iranian Revolutionary Guards a terrorist organization because it was too…

Revolution in Mind

"I am an ape," declared Pedro Pozas, a Spanish animal rights activist, in 2006. The Spanish parliament, which apparently has come to see things Pozas's way, is now poised to endorse the Great Ape Project, granting chimps, bonobos, apes, and orangutans some of the same rights that Jefferson once…

The Great Craps vs. Poker Debate

The Leaders We Deserved (and a Few We Didn't)

Oh, terrific. Now we have two of them--two presidential candidates, presumptive nominees of their respective parties, who insist they will not rest until they have inspired all of us stick-in-the-mud Americans to reach celestial heights of personal fulfillment by committing ourselves to a life of…

This week John McCain officially released the details of his economic recovery tax plan. The howls of protest from the left were both loud and predictable. The Obama campaign ripped into the McCain plan with the mantra of "tax cuts for the rich," while leftwing special interest groups claimed that…

Denver

A major theme of this year's presidential campaign is that the United States has lost the respect of the world and that electing a Democrat, especially Barack Obama, is the way to fix it. "What if we could restore America's place in the world, and people's faith in our government?" asks one Obama…

Belleville, Michigan

Forty years ago, the Nixon administration (building on the Johnson administration's attempt to transform the Small Business Administration into a weapon in the War on Poverty) undertook efforts to enhance "black capitalism," using Section 8a of the Small Business Act to provide preferences,…

He sent me a note on July 2, just some jokey line about politics: nothing unusual, nothing portentous, nothing worth a call to see how he was feeling. Two days later, according to the news reports, he sat down in his New York apartment and put a gun to his head--a July 4 suicide, the noise of the…

Faruk Sen, the Turkish-born founding director of the Center for Studies on Turkey in Essen, Germany, has been sharply criticized for his recent comments comparing the situation of Turkish migrants living in Europe to the plight and discrimination previously suffered by European Jews. Here is an…

Via Jim Geraghty, the Kansas City Star asks John McCain if Obama is a socialist: [McCain] also said Obama had the "most extreme" record in the Senate. Asked later if he thought Obama was an extremist, McCain said: "His voting record … is more to the left than the announced socialist in the United…

The netroots are in a tizzy because John McCain said that Barack Obama will be in Iraq sometime this weekend. What are they worried about? According to Joe Biden, "the bad guys" don't live in Iraq.

Christopher Beam of Slate explains how his original misleading report on the infamous phrase "terrorist fist jab" was amplified by the right-wing freak show Time, Politico, Andrew Sullivan and friends: The morning after Obama locked up the nomination, I was writing a "Trailhead" item that mocked…

Yes, but not much: The latest Pew Research Center national survey, conducted June 18-29 with a sample of 2,004 adults including 503 on a cell phone, finds that the overall estimate of voter presidential preference is modestly affected by whether or not the cell phone respondents are included.…

On the home page, Peter Wehner thoroughly documents the Democratic opposition to the surge, at least before it was glaringly obvious that the surge had succeeded. One of the many choice quotes in the article is Dick Durbin's statement slamming the "Bush-Petraeus report": In September 2007, Senator…

1) From RealClearPolitics.com, "The Audacity of Vanity" by Charles Krauthammer 'hammer time! Dr. Krauthammer's article has justifiably set off quite a firestorm of delight in conservative circles. My email box has overflowed with links to the column and comments like "Krauthammer's best ever!"…

We know that Time and the three network news anchors adore Barack Obama. But Elle magazine? Elle associate publisher Samantha Fennell is leaving the magazine to work for the Obama campaign. On the Elle Tell All blog--a "fashion, design, and style" blog--Fennell explains, Barack Obama must be…

Perhaps more than any recent election, watching how women vote this year is a critical variable in predicting the outcome of the presidential race. First, female voters comprise a growing share of the U.S. electorate. Men and women no longer represent roughly equal parts of the voting universe as…

We now know where Senator Barack Obama will be speaking in Berlin next Thursday. My source told me last night (and it has already been mentioned in Politico) that it will be at the Siegessäule (the Triumphal Column) on the Street of the 17th of June (Strasse des 17. Juni). Dedicated to Prussia's…

The New York Times reports that Barack Obama has "a huge 300-person foreign policy campaign bureaucracy, organized like a mini State Department, to assist a candidate whose limited national security experience remains a concern to many voters." Jennifer Rubin riffs: Barack Obama has 300 advisors on…

Marc Ambinder responds to my post about Obama's burn rate. He says, "it's almost absurd to compare the Obama campaign's primary burn rate -- which, incidentally, is a percentage, not an aboslute (sic) figure -- to McCain's for June." But I'm not just comparing Obama's spending to McCain's in the…

Obama brain.JPG Barack Obama delivered a speech in West Lafeyette, IN on Wednesday and once again mangled some well known historical facts: Throughout our history, America's confronted constantly evolving danger, from the oppression of an empire, to the lawlessness of the frontier, from the bomb…

More evidence in an Associated Press/Yahoo! poll. The passion and interest shown by blocs of voters are important because they affect who will be motivated to vote. For now, the numbers favor Obama: 38 percent of his supporters say the election is exciting compared to 9 percent of McCain's.…

IN FRANK MILLER's The Dark Knight Returns, there is a moment where Alfred, the family butler, recounts a story from Bruce Wayne's childhood, a few years after the murder of his parents:

1) From the Wall Street Journal, "Who Obama Should See in Iraq" by Dan Senor Senor spent 2003 and 2004 as a senior advisor to the coalition in Iraq. From this experience, he has a pretty good idea what a naïve junior senator should look for in Iraq if he is in fact intent on having a serious fact…

I know, Obama's 3-hour workout has been the main feature on Drudge all day, but the real story is that the senator doesn't sweat, he glows: A distinct lack of visible sweat on the Illinois senator triggered questions about whether he was actually exercising or using the gym visits as cover for…

Earlier this week, Jim DeMint criticized Barack Obama for not holding any hearings on Afghanistan and NATO as the chairman European Affairs Subcommittee. Today, Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Joe Biden wrote a letter to DeMint in defense of Obama. These hearings were held at the "full…

The New Yorker cover controversy revealed the humorless side of the Obama campaign and produced a good laugh from Jon Stewart among others. But the cover also raises another interesting question. What religion do Americans think Obama practices? And do those views--accurate or not--shape their…

Democrats like Sen. Durbin and Sen. Kerry are eager to resurrect the so-called Fairness Doctrine, whereby radio stations will be required to give equal time to liberal talking heads. They know this would kill talk-radio, a traditionally conservative medium, which would instantly become unprofitable…

The $52 million figure may not be a disaster for the Obama campaign, but it is hardly a success. Not just because it's far below what the Obama campaign projected in June. It's a disappointment because it includes general election contributions from those who had previously maxed out. Remember also…

As it turns out, the public monument Rep. Rangel is dedicating to himself merely supplements the rent controlled private monument he currently resides in courtesy of the public dole. His family home consists of three rent-controlled apartments with "custom moldings and dramatic archways, [and] is…

Via First Read, the AP examines how the election will play out if Obama can boost African-American turnout by 30 percent in the South, as he predicted he would do at a campaign stop last August: In Georgia, the GOP presidential nominee's average margin of victory in the past four elections was…

Barack Obama's $52 million haul for the month of June is impressive - more impressive than some of us wags figured it would be. Then again, it's not as impressive as the $100 million The Hill ludicrously speculated his Hopeness would rake in. But what does it all mean? First, let's get the boring…

The Obama campaign announced today that they raised $52 million in June, reversing their trend of three straight months of steep fundraising decline. It's an impressive total (though it still doesn't match his February haul of $55 million). Anyway, good for the Obama campaign. But it's worth…

Cannot be true, right? According to this article the U.S. will announce plans in the next month to establish a U.S.-interest section in Tehran. (H/T NRO.) The sourcing on the story is thin, but it feels like a trial balloon. The story does note that William Burns, announced yesterday as the man…

From the Journal & Courier in Lafayette, Ind.: Purdue University senior Ross McMullin said he was encouraged by the response members of Students for John McCain received as they rallied Wednesday morning on the Memorial Mall along State Street. About 20 students came out for the last-minute rally…

Eh, sort of. Michael Yon sends: The war continues to abate in Iraq. Violence is still present, but, of course, Iraq was a relatively violent place long before Coalition forces moved in. I would go so far as to say that barring any major and unexpected developments (like an Israeli air strike on…

Just a reminder that you can still sign up to attend tomorrow night's panel discussion of Grand New Party.

Comedians who can't think of any Obama jokes should check out this post by Steven Heller at the New York Times' Campaign Stops blog. During the primaries, Obama said American flag lapel pins were a "substitute for ... true patriotism". But now "the presumptive Democratic nominee is seldom seen at…

1) From the Wall Street Journal, "The New Reality In Iraq" by Frederick W. Kagan, Kimberly Kagan and Jack Keane The authors, contributing architects of the surge, have recently returned from a trip to Iraq and have taken note of some dramatic progress: As far as the civil war is concerned, there…

Obama issues a statement in response to the report that a State Department official will meet meet with Iranian leaders even though Iran continues its Uranium enrichment program: "I welcome news that the Bush Administration has shifted course and will send an envoy for direct talks as part of the…

Via The McCain Report, you can read a side by side comparison of Obama's Iraq plan before and after his campaign scrubbed his website over the weekend. One particular "shift in emphasis" caught my eye: Obama's original web page had a section titled Bring the Troops Home that didn't say anything…

Though the Obama campaign has kept the location of their candidate's Berlin speech under wraps, I hear that it will no longer be at the Gendarmenmarkt. One German journalist tells me the Obama camp has narrowed it down to two or three spots: one is the square in front of the Reichstag, a stone's…

It was delicious poetic justice when famed plaintiffs' attorney William Lerach, formerly of the firm Milberg Weiss, was sentenced to two years in federal prison for paying shareholders of large corporations millions of dollars in kickbacks in exchange for their cooperation as name plaintiffs in…

Charlie Rangel is a shameless self-promoter who proceeds from any meeting at the White House to the flock of reporters that congregates outside the West Wing. His accounts never bear much resemblance to reality, but they get him in the paper. In soliciting funds to build a $30 million monument to…

"Barack Obama is in no way upset about the cartoon that depicts him as a Muslim extremist. Because you know who gets upset about cartoons? Muslim extremists! Of which Barack Obama is not. It's just a f---ing cartoon!"--Jon Stewart, telling the Obama press shop how they should have handled the New…

The missile shield that was designed and (partially) fielded under the Bush Administration consists of several highly sophisticated weapon platforms and C2 assets that were intended to function in unison. In the strange world of Obama defense policy (the same that allows for a miraculous 16 month…

When Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki deployed his Army to pacify Basra earlier this year, naysayers insisted that the fledgling Iraqi military would be plagued by defections, cowardice, and general incompetency. Today, Basra is stable and secure. In fact, the conditions have become so favorable, a…

It's not Obama's fault no one can understand his position on Jerusalem. It's just a "syntax" problem. Senator Obama, in his speech to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, said, "Jerusalem will remain the capital of Israel, and it must remain undivided." The next day, an unnamed adviser…

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports that former Georgia Senator Sam Nunn is telling friends he may be busy in August, so they should make vacation plans without him: For the past eight summers, Sam Nunn has spent a week with friends at a manor house in Scotland. The powerful men play golf at…

From the strangest of places, the WaPo editorial page: What's missing in our debate," Mr. Obama said yesterday, "is a discussion of the strategic consequences of Iraq." Indeed: The message that the Democrat sends is that he is ultimately indifferent to the war's outcome -- that Iraq "distracts us…

Perhaps Vidal will open a chain of V hotels to compete with the W. GORE Vidal, now 82 and confined to a wheelchair, sold his house in Ravello, Italy, five years ago when his lifelong companion, Howard Austen, died. Now, La Rondinaia (The Swallow's Nest), a seven-bedroom mansion on the Amalfi Coast,…

If you look behind the numbers of most recent presidential polls, you'll find an interesting "age gap." Obama consistently does very well among Americans under 30 while McCain wins the 60 and older crowd. Chris Cillizza notes: Another interesting finding from the Newsweek poll is that there seems…

As many have noted elsewhere, Barack Obama has ended the civil war in Iraq. As of June 22, Obama was writing on his website that Iraq was mired in a civil war. These unfortunate and counterfactual statements have conveniently disappeared from the BarackObama.com over the last few days. But what of…

Above is the new Vets for Freedom ad, urging members of both parties to finish the job in Iraq, regardless of who becomes president. The sober sense of responsibility of the young veterans in the spot contrasts starkly with the windy hyperbole of Joe Biden. Biden, as you probably recall, engaged in…

An important shift in the Bush administration's position on Iran in this AP story. The State Department's third-ranking official will meet directly with Iranian nuclear negotiators. The move reverses Condoleezza Rice's pledge not to negotiate directly with Iran until it suspends its uranium…

If we had a "Most Offensive Quote of the Day" every day, Joe Biden would probably come to own the prize. But even by the senator's lofty standards of chronic obtuseness, he outdid himself this afternoon: "If John (McCain) wants to know where the bad guys live, come back with me to Afghanistan. We…

Come one, come all to a panel discussion on Grand New Party at the Darlington House Library in Washington, D.C., this Thursday at 6:00 p.m. The event will be moderated by our very own Matthew Continetti, and the all-star panel features GNP authors Ross Douthat and Reihan Salam, as well as Ramesh…

On the homepage, Thomas Donnelly parses today's remarks on Afghanistan by McCain and Obama.

The McCain Campaign highlights this excerpt from Joe Lieberman's speech today at Center for U.S. Global Engagement in Washington, D.C.: Senator Obama this morning said that he wants a foreign policy that is "tough, smart, and principled." This afternoon, I ask: was it tough when Senator Obama voted…

1) From the Politico, "Talking About AfPak" by John McCain. Fair is fair - I've criticized the McCain campaign when it has stumbled. It is thus only right that I give McCain and his team credit when they get one right. McCain gave a speech today on Afghanistan that displayed a superior…

Barack Obama says in his new TV ad "America's Leadership" that "We are a beacon of light around the world. At least that's what we can be again. That's what we should be again." No word on when America stopped being a "beacon of light around the world." Obama's not known as a fan of the Clinton…

BARACK OBAMA IS STRIVING MIGHTILY to pass the commander-in-chief test by proposing that U.S. troops withdraw from Iraq, where we are on the verge of a decisive victory against al Qaeda and Iran's "special group" proxies, and reinforce the NATO mission in Afghanistan, where at best we're only…

The BBC reports that the first Gitmo interrogation video has been released. The detainee in the video is Omar Khadr, a Canadian who was captured following a firefight in Afghanistan and is accused of murdering a U.S. soldier. Khadr was 16 at the time of his interrogation. He says repeatedly: "You…

House Homeland Security Chairman Bennie Thompson (D-MS) is causing controversy on Capitol Hill for his decision to have his chief of staff serve as staff director of the committee, as well. The staffer has no security clearance--which would severely undermine his ability to deal with the sensitive…

A lot of bloggers are using the fact Iran photoshopped evidence of missile tests to draw an analogy to the administration's claims with respect to Iraq's stockpiling of WMD. The better analogy is to the Soviet Union, which featured papier maché missiles in Red Square parades to compel the United…

For some background on the current fighting between John McCain and Barack Obama on the surge and Obama's website, see here. Back in early June I asked Mark Salter about the outdated claims on Obama's website, claims that the surge hadn't worked and that Iraq was in the throes of a "civil war."…

So the late night hosts are laying off Obama ... There is no comedic "take" on him, nothing easy to turn to for an easy laugh, like allegations of Bill Clinton's womanizing, or President Bush's goofy bumbling or Al Gore's robotic persona. "The thing is, he's not buffoonish in any way," said Mike…

The Washington Post reports: Michael E. O'Hanlon, a Democratic defense analyst at the Brookings Institution who has been an outspoken supporter of the war in Iraq, said he could not believe that Obama would put such a definitive timeline into print before a trip to Iraq, where he is to consult with…

Yesterday, President Bush lifted the executive ban on offshore drilling in the Outer Continental Shelf. In a press conference, Bush said, "With this action, the executive branch's restrictions on this exploration have been cleared away. This means that the only thing standing between the American…

The NY Daily News reports Obama's criticism of the surge has been removed from his website: Barack Obama's campaign scrubbed his presidential Web site over the weekend to remove criticism of the U.S. troop "surge" in Iraq, the Daily News has learned. The presumed Democratic nominee replaced his…

ObamaPatton.JPG Lost amid the intellectual incoherence and straddling in Barack Obama's op-ed on Iraq have been his bold plans for Afghanistan: As president, I would pursue a new strategy, and begin by providing at least two additional combat brigades to support our effort in Afghanistan. We need…

State polls are crazy, don't mean anything Virginia, Montana, etc. not enough data points. all over the place. instead of trying to make sense of them, try ignoring them.

THIS IS THE SUMMER of our discontent. Only 14 percent of us are satisfied with the way things are going in the United States, the lowest figure recorded by Gallup's pollsters since they began asking that question almost fifteen years ago. Consumer confidence is at its lowest level in 28 years,…

Former Minnesota governor Jesse Ventura told CNN that he will not run for Senate. Too bad. That would have been fun to watch. And it appears a bid by Ventura would have slightly improved Republican Norm Coleman's odds of holding onto the seat: The possibility of his entrance into the race…

Barack Obama's journey to redefinition is filled with potholes. The hand-wringing among those on the left (see this piece by Matt Stoller) is one such bump in the road. Then there's the polling evidence. Rasmussen reported on Saturday that the presidential race, based on their tracking, is now…

I'm late to this. Andrew Breitbart, author of "Hollywood Interrupted," Drudge Report contributor and founding magnate of the Breitbart-dot-empire, has started a weekly column on Hollywood and politics for The Washington Times. His first column is here. Here is how he describes the life of a…

This week's cover of the New Yorker sparked the Controversy of The Day (So Far!). This parody by some Georgetown students is highly amusing - more so than the actual cover, in fact. (HT: Wonkette.)

Huge news! If I were more skilled in an internet sense of things, I would embed one of those "24" type clocks on the blog so we could enjoy a countdown to Nirvana. I don't want everyone to get too excited because the big event is still a few days away, but on Thursday, Al Gore, the Buck Turgidson…

Thomas Donnelly writes on the homepage: In Obama's view of international politics and power, Iraq is not simply "the greatest strategic blunder in the recent history of American foreign policy," but a diversion, a strategic sideshow. He claims "Iraq is not the central front in the war on terrorism,…

For a long time in China the word "princelings" denoted the pampered, privileged, and frequently unscrupulous children of the country's senior leaders. Over the years, the best, the brightest, and the most trustworthy of these blue-blooded Reds have been fast-tracked to positions of power. A few…

The pace of the U.S. military drawdown in Iraq has been accelerated by the Bush administration, according to the New York Times: "The Bush administration is considering the withdrawal of additional combat forces from Iraq beginning in September, according to administration and military officials,…

IT'S REASSURING TO HEAR Sen. Barack Obama, a man who based his presidential bid on the supposed inevitability of defeat in Iraq, recognize the success of the surge, which he also predicted was bound to fail. But his New York Times op-ed today betrays a strategic understanding that is more deeply…

Roll Call reports that despite the expectation that 2008 will be a banner year for Senate Democrats, many of their challengers are trailing badly in fundraising: A couple of candidates are in good shape, at least on the fundraising front. Through May 21, Maine Rep. Tom Allen (D) raised $3.9…

Last week Jesse Ventura hinted that he might make an independent run for the U.S. Senate in Minnesota, pitting him against Norm Coleman and Al Franken. Now comes the news that Franken, who had won the endorsement of Minnesota Democrats in June at their party convention, might not end up with the…

The Beijing Olympics begin in less than a month, which means the Olympics-related advertising is only getting started. Here's hoping it gets better over time. The first Beijing ads have an interesting theme: "unity." Here, for example, is a new ad from Coca-Cola, a major Olympics sponsor:

James Taranto runs an amusing regular feature called "Wannabe Pundits," in which he collects examples of sports, science, and entertainment writers who unexpectedly veer into embarrassing political commentary. This Newsweek interview with Christopher Nolan, the director of The Dark Knight, is a…

1) From the New York Times, "My Plan for Iraq" by Barack Obama. Barack Obama and his minions are responding fiercely albeit ineffectively to the notion that the presumptive Democratic nominee is a flip-flopper. They figure they have to respond in this fashion, since flip-flopping doomed John…

The Pope wears red shoes? His Holiness has resumed the sporting of red Papal shoes, which have not been used since the early days of Pope John Paul II. Contrary to media speculation the shoes had been crafted by Prada, the Vatican has confirmed they were made by the Pope's personal cobbler. The…

Barack Obama's fundraising may have hit a major speed bump. His poll numbers have taken a dramatic turn for the worse. He forgets to call on his donors to donate to Hillary to help her retire her debt, and even when he does they're not listening to him. And now there's attention to his terrible…

It's official: Barack Obama has given up on the NASCAR vote. On Friday, Sports Illustrated reported that Obama's campaign was "in talks to become the primary sponsor of BAM Racing's No. 49 Sprint Cup car for the Pocono race on August 3," and to be the first presidential candidate in history to…

Barack Obama writes in today's New York Times: In the 18 months since President Bush announced the surge, our troops have performed heroically in bringing down the level of violence. New tactics have protected the Iraqi population, and the Sunni tribes have rejected Al Qaeda - greatly weakening its…

There was a good piece in the Chicago Sun-Times over the weekend on the Barack and Michelle Obama love story. The romance, as we've read before, began in 1988 when Obama, then at law school, had a summer internship at Sidley Austin law firm, where Michelle was the young attorney assigned to be his…

The Dalai Lama said yesterday "'it's totally wrong, unfair' to call Islam a violent religion." Whatever the truth of this claim, there is certainly political wisdom in it. It will be easier to reform Islam if we assert terrorists pervert their religion rather than Islam is inherently flawed. And…

In his New York Times op-ed, Barack Obama argues that a timetable for withdrawal is a key to success in Iraq. "Only by redeploying our troops can we press the Iraqis to reach comprehensive political accommodation and achieve a successful transition to Iraqis' taking responsibility for the security…

The new target of Salman Rushdie's affections is a 27-year-old Bollywood star. That puts her a full decade younger than his ex-wife Padma Lakshmi and more than three decades younger than the four-time married Rushdie who has pledged never to marry again. Sir Salman Rushdie has struck up a close…

William Kristol pays tribute to Tony Snow in today's New York Times, as did Fred Barnes on Saturday on the homepage. And in case you missed them over the weekend, there are many other remembrances of Snow well worth reading. Yuval Levin and Byron York write about Snow's positive impact on the White…

For the second time in a month, a lion of the Washington press corps has died. On Saturday, Tony Snow succumbed to the cancer he had battled for the last three years. Fox News Sunday's Chris Wallace spent the entire hour eulogizing the founder of the show he now hosts, and we learned many tidbits…

Tony Snow, who died Saturday morning at the age of 53, was that rare individual in Washington, a big shot who didn't act like a big shot. He succeeded brilliantly in both journalism and politics, yet barely changed at all in the nearly quarter century I knew him. The reason, I suspect, was that…

Tony Snow's friends and admirers at THE WEEKLY STANDARD mourn his passing. He was a happy and talented warrior in the conservative cause--and, more important of course, he was truly a good man and a loving husband and father. We admired him, we will miss him, and we are grateful to have known him.

Guess Obama will be otherwise preoccupied that night: A coalition of military groups is planning a nationally televised town-hall-style meeting with the presidential candidates near Fort Hood, Tex., the largest active-duty military installation in the country. But so far, only Senator John McCain…

In March 2006, Barack Obama told The Hill that he could speak "Indonesian and a little Spanish." But today at a campaign event in Ohio, Obama elaborated: "I don't speak a foreign language. It's embarrassing!" Obama confessed his monolingual shame while defending comments he had made earlier in the…

Pew issued a report yesterday with new numbers on the presidential race that underscore some themes likely to endure throughout the campaign. A few points deserve special note. First, Pew highlights a point I expect we'll hear repeatedly for the balance of the campaign: This is no Tweedle Dee and…

1) From Rasmussen Reports, "The Daily Presidential Tracking Poll" by Scott Rasmussen Over the weekend, I was having an impromptu conversation with the McCain campaign's deputy director of online communications. During our chat, I predicted, "Your guy will be within two points of Obama in the…

Obama's base is livid, and tens of thousands are now organizing against him on his very own website. The problem with a people-powered movement is that eventually the people want a say. John Rosinski, an engineer in Orlando, Fla., always believed in the you-centered philosophy of Barack Obama's…

A German journalist tells me Senator Barack Obama is now looking to speak at the Gendarmenmarkt in Berlin. Previously there had been rumors as to where the Democratic candidate would address his Teutonic fans. Perhaps at the Branderburg Gate where Reagan told Mr. Gorbachev to "tear down this wall"?…

Iowahawk unearths an announcement from Ayman al Zawahiri on the launch of a new "corporate branding identity" called "Qaedant". As we are currently seeking a 17th round of venture funding, budgets are extremely tight, and this will require reducing our internal work team payroll load through…

Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton held a unity rally in New York to raise money to pay off Hillary's debt. The only problem, as the Los Angeles Times reports, is that Obama "forgot the fund part," and nearly ran off stage before remembering that he needs to raise funds for Hillary: At Real Clear…

When it comes to offshore drilling, a growing number of Obama's Senate colleagues are distancing themselves from his steadfast opposition. They're even starting to side openly with McCain's proposal to allow it. First it was Sen. Durbin, the senior senator from Obama's home state, who said yes to…

On Good Morning America, ABC's Martha Raddatz reported on the feasibility of Barack Obama's 16-month withdrawal plan. Among the troops and commanders she interviewed in Iraq, there's universal agreement that withdrawing in 16 months is dangerous and unworkable. RADDATZ: Do you think it's dangerous…

A Chilean entertainer is determined to see her country climb the ranks of world's happiest place to be: Police in Chile have arrested a stripper who was attempting to remove her clothes outside the presidential palace in the capital, Santiago. Her arrest comes three days after she performed a…

The Senate voted to confirm General David Petraeus as Commander of CentCom by a vote of 95-2. The near-unanimous vote of confidence is rather surprising, given the doubts expressed about Petraeus by Senate Democrats just a few months ago: SEN. HARRY REID (D-NV): Q: "…General Petraeus is going to…

It's been nearly a month since the British released known terrorist Abu Qatada from prison, and he's still walking the streets of London a free man.

Earlier this week, Larry Kudlow talked to a McCain adviser who told him McCain was moving away from his advocacy of cap-and-trade policies as a way to fight climate change. ...on deep background, this senior McCain advisor told me I was correct: no cap-and-trade. In other words, this…

Charles Krauthammer is always good. This is one of his best.

WHEN IT FIRST HIT theaters in 2004, Hellboy was something of a puzzle for audiences: No one quite knew what to make of the blood-red superhero with the devilish horns. Though not a massive flop, the film failed to equal its modest budget at the domestic box office. Yet here we are, four years…

1) From Daily Kos, "McCain Aide Says U.S. is ‘Nation of Whiners' in a ‘Mental Recession'" by "Dansac" That sound you've been hearing all day is me hitting my head in Boston with a baseball bat, trying to forget all the silly things the McCain campaign has done this week. First, McCain surrogate…

Frank Newport, Gallup's head of polling, includes two items about religion and politics in his list of "Five Things You May Not Know About the Presidential Election." The first emphasizes the enduring importance of the Catholic vote in winning the White House. In the most recent Gallup poll, 47…

The Hill reports: The Senate on Thursday nearly unanimously confirmed Gen. David Petraeus as the new commander of the U.S. Central Command and Gen. Ray Odierno, President Bush's pick as the top U.S. military commander in Iraq. Sens. Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.) and Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) opposed the…

Rick Davis just hosted a call to outline the McCain campaign's financial situation. The key figures are that McCain raised $22 million in June, which is $1 million more than last month. The RNC and McCain together have $94 million cash on hand, and expect to spend $400 million between now and the…

I've commented before that Republicans in favor of drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge ought to travel to the part of the Coastal Plain where drilling might someday be allowed. Once you get there, you can see that it's not exactly something to write home about: If voters see the…

LAST WEEK'S DARING RESCUE of French-Colombian politician Ingrid Betancourt and 14 other hostages (including three Americans) by Colombian commandos is cause for rejoicing. As Colombian President Alvaro Uribe put it, the rescue mission was "an unbelievable military achievement." It marked yet…

Barack Obama's upcoming trip to Berlin, scheduled for July 24, has not only triggered considerable media hype in Germany but also revealed sharp divisions within the country's political class, namely about whether the Democratic presidential candidate should be allowed to speak in front of the…

After yesterday's Senate FISA vote, bloggers on both the right and left are in rare agreement over Barack Obama's character. The FISA bill passed 69-28, with Obama voting "yes"...and, interestingly, with Hillary Clinton appeasing the netroots and voting "no." As ABC's Jake Tapper explains, this is…

Politico's John Bresnahan reports that Nancy Pelosi dangles some moonbat bait: Kucinich is expected to offer a "privileged resolution" this afternoon calling on the House to look at whether President Bush should be removed from office for lying to Congress and the American public when he sought…

Belleville, Michigan-- John McCain took questions this morning after stopping at a diner in Livonia, Michigan. He told reporters that Barack Obama refused to label the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps as terrorists and reminded them that Obama was concerned about the U.S. looking too…

German Parliament has been weighing a bill to give children of all ages the right to vote. Yeah, babies would apparently have the same right to vote as their parents under the proposal, which is to say children would provide a pretext for giving parents multiple votes. If the bill gets adopted,…

By now everyone is well aware of the Supreme Court's determination in the Heller case, announced in its last session of the term, that Washington, D.C.'s effective ban on handguns violates the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms. The two big questions now occupying the legal community are…

You may remember Hillary Clinton's Project T-Shirt, in which you could vote for Hillary's next T-shirt design. Well, the winner is in--even if it's a little late to show your support for Hillary. All of you grrrrl power girls who "refuse to be knocked out" should buy the shirt...and help the fallen…

Obama wants everyone to think he's a reasonable guy--perhaps even a maverick--when it comes to abortion. So he came out and said late term abortion isn't justified when the woman is just "feeling blue." Abortion rights activists fired back, and Obama issued the inevitable clarification--so frequent…

Obama told voters in Georgia on Tuesday: "Instead of worrying about whether immigrants can learn English -- they'll learn English -- you need to make sure your child can speak Spanish. You should be thinking about, how can your child become bilingual?" Rasmussen reports that U.S. voters…

Obama brain.JPG "With just half a wing, this bird can't fly" - Barack Obama last night At a campaign event with his erstwhile rival last night, Barack Obama was supposed to pass the metaphorical hat on behalf of Hillary Clinton's campaign debt during one of his rousing trademark speeches. Only one…

California Speaker Pro Tem Dom Perata argues for a $10 billion tax hike by invoking the heroes of World War II. "We've heard so much about the Greatest Generation. Tom Brokaw's book has just unleashed all kinds of paeans to people who were just talking about how wonderful America is thanks to the…

In what was reported to be a play to become McCain's running mate, Carly Fiorina sat down for a roundtable with reporters in Washington on Monday morning. Carly Fiorina, the former Hewlett-Packard chief who is now the Republican National Committee's "Victory Chairman," was discussing…

This comment stood out in an AP story about Barack Obama's reaction to Iran's missile tests. Obama said Iran "must suffer threats of economic sanctions with direct diplomacy opening up channels of communication so we avoid provocation, but we give strong incentives for the Iranians to change their…

Remember when the press flayed Karl Rove for saying that Obama is "the guy at the country club with the beautiful date, holding a martini and a cigarette that stands against the wall and makes snide comments about everyone who passes by"? At the time, Matthew Yglesias chirped "How many Americans…

Last month, Bush apparently gave Prime Minister Olmert a Segway to take back to Israel with him. Bush seems oddly obsessed with the personal transportation devices since first setting foot on one early on his presidency. You might recall what happened, but if you don't, see the photo below ……

1) From the New York Times, "Iran Reports Missile Test, Drawing Rebuke" by Alan Cowell. This piece is actually datelined July 10 - it's like peering into the future! Naturally, the presidential candidates responded to Iran's claim of testing missiles that can reach Israel. John McCain offered sober…

Even Europe thinks Obama is weak on Iran: European officials are increasingly concerned that Sen. Barack Obama's campaign pledge to begin direct talks with Iran on its nuclear program without preconditions could potentially rupture U.S. relations with key European allies early in a potential Obama…

During the primaries, Obama vowed: I will cut tens of billions of dollars in wasteful spending. I will cut investments in unproven missile defense systems. I will not weaponize space. I will slow our development of future combat systems. After Iran's missile test and Russia's threat to respond to…

amy_winehouse1.jpg Amy Winehouse's friends are worried about her addiction to tanning. One unnamed source tells the Telegraph, "This is another addiction that puts her health in danger. Why can't she take up squash or something?" Maybe the enablers in her life should be a little less preoccupied by…

David Corn thinks those meanies at the McCain campaign aren't letting him ask questions: When a reporter calls in for a conference call, he or she is asked by an operator to provide his or her name and media outlet. Then when it comes time for questions, there is a long pause--long enough for…

Short answer - the cameras just showed up! Or as Michelle Malkin mordantly puts it, "A four-part interview that probably entailed hours of set-up, makeup, mic checks, and post-wrap schmoozing…and he "didn't catch it quickly enough." Admittedly, Obama's explanation is patently disingenuous, but at…

Brian Schaffner--who writes an insightful and creative blog at the Center for Congressional and Presidential Studies--explores the relationship between certain cultural/consumer preferences and presidential vote choice in this recent post. According to Schaffner, many pundits and academics believe…

Obama wants his supporters to believe his shifts reflect something other than political expediency. If only they didn't have transparent hack flip-flopping written all over them. Take FISA reform. Obama now says, "Given the choice between voting for an improved yet imperfect bill, and losing…

The Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) launched nine medium and long-range missiles today. This is the latest demonstration of the growing threat posed by the IRGC, which--in addition to being at the center of Iran's ballistic and nuclear weapons programs--is also responsible for training,…

snob.jpg Barack Obama said during a town hall meeting in Georgia on Tuesday: "It's embarrassing when Europeans come over here, they all speak English, they speak French, they speak German. And then we go over to Europe and all we can say is merci beaucoup." Update: Here's the video So if Obama is…

PLENTY OF COMMENTATORS, including yours truly, argued during the Democratic primaries that Barack Obama had shown a weakness with Latino voters which could last through the general election and help John McCain on Election Day. McCain, known for his strong support for "comprehensive immigration…

London

Stunning: You need to make sure your child can speak Spanish... It's embarrassing when Europeans come over here, they all speak English, they speak French, they speak German, and then we go over to Europe, and all we can say is 'merci beaucoup.' If Obama truly believes that immigrants are learning…

Although Obama pledged in an interview with Military Times to "spend more to improve veterans' health care and reduce the wait for a disability claim to be processed, ... Obama said he did not want to be more specific because he did not want to make promises he might not be able to keep." This…

As recently as a few weeks ago, pollsters were not generally asking Americans to rate the importance of gas prices as an election issue. Since May, several national polls have included gas/energy prices as a potential poll answer, and voters have consistently ranked it quite high. It's among the…

IN THEIR JULY 4 Washington Post op-ed columns E.J. Dionne and Michael Gerson both praised Senator Barack Obama's rhetorical embrace of President Bush's faith-based initiative. Despite this seemingly bipartisan consensus, supporters of President Bush's faith-based initiative should think twice…

1) From the Philadelphia Inquirer, "Way Past Time for U.S. to Recommit to Afghanistan" by Senator Robert Casey. I love the smell of a moldy talking point in the morning. Having been caught flatfooted by the Iraq war going unexpectedly well, the Democratic party has developed a sudden need to find a…

ajadandwife.jpg The most surprising thing about Iran's First Lady is that it appears Mahmoud Ahmadinejad found a woman who's actually shorter than he is. The tiny tyrant is no doubt a great source of inspiration to all the tireless workers at Willy Wonka's factory and up at the North Pole.

Slate asks whether cockroaches really will survive nuclear holocaust, reporting, "studies over the last half-decade, such as those conducted by the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation, have found that these 'other insects' are more likely to reign in the age after…

I think it effectively contrasts McCain with Tom Hayden's preferred presidential candidate. But the closing line leaves me cold: "Don't hope for a better life--vote for one." Shouldn't an ad focusing on McCain's service to America emphasize making the country better rather than making our lives…

If Bill Clinton earned a strong re-election win in 1996 by standing against the perceived excesses of a Republican Congress (who favored radical ideas like budget balancing, welfare reform, and term limits) then John McCain ought to take a lesson. Whoever is elected president is likely to be…

Gallup issued this interesting historical analysis, reviewing the predictive power of its July polls on November presidential results. Overall, their numbers project accurately in more than half of the elections. In nine out of the last 15 contests for the White House, the candidate leading in July…

Voice of America reports that the United States and the Czech Republic have signed an agreement to implement a missile defense shield. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Czech Foreign Minister Karel Schwarzenberg signed a deal to build a radar station southwest of Prague, which will be part of…

I hadn't been aware, until Andrew Sullivan's post today, that on July 4 at Monticello President Bush had quoted the June 24, 1826 Jefferson letter I'd written about four days before in the New York Times. Andrew also points out that Bush omits a clause from his quotation of Jefferson: Bush: "In one…

Big Democratic convention news yesterday: Barack Obama will give his acceptance speech at the 75,000-seat Denver Broncos' Invesco Field, rather than the measly 20,000-seat convention hall as originally planned. Obama's campaign manager David Plouffe wrote in an email, "Barack will leave the…

Mike Allen reports that Mike Murphy wants a decision from the McCain campaign by tomorrow: Mike Murphy, a renowned political consultant negotiating to join the presidential campaign of Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), wants a decision by lunchtime tomorrow, sources close to him report. "All this public…

"I accept that all candidates throw out a lot of proposals when they're campaigning," says Leon Panetta, former chief of staff in the Clinton White House. "You have to assume that's all part of a campaign strategy to appeal to a lot of different constituencies that are out there. But once he enters…

Andrew Sullivan links to a list of odd U.S. sex laws and quotes this one: "In Connorsville, Wisconsin, it is illegal for a man to shoot off a gun when his female partner is having an orgasm." It just so happens that I lived on a farm a half mile from Connorsville during the first eight months of my…

The first bit of good to come from letting China host the Olympics. For the first time in nearly a decade China is issuing new banknotes without the image of Chairman Mao Zedong. The 10 yuan ($1.5; £0.75) notes instead feature Beijing's new Olympic stadium on the front, with an ancient Greek…

Following up on Bill Kristol's New York Times column yesterday, there are further reports in the New York Times and the New York Sun on the possibility of McCain 2000 guru Mike Murphy joining this year's campaign. Adam Nagourney reports in the Times: Mr. McCain has told two friends in recent weeks…

THE EDITOR OF A MAGAZINE where I once worked had some half-serious advice for any writer working on a story about a politician. Don't interview the pol, he said. You might like him (or her), and that would ruin the piece.

Yuval Levin and Ramesh Ponnuru parse McCain's newly unveiled economic plan: The plan itself is largely unchanged from prior iterations: veto earmarks, freeze discretionary spending, cut corporate tax rates, phase out the alternative minimum tax, increase the dependent exemption, create an optional…

Politico's Jonathan Martin links to Barack Obama's interview with the Military Times. In the interview Obama said, If current trends continue and we're in a position where we continue to see reductions in violence and stabilizations and continue to see some improvements on the part of the Iraqi…

JOHN MCCAIN'S CAMPAIGN has begun to roll out his newly repackaged economic program, and the early headlines have been all about federal spending. "McCain Reverts to Balanced Budget Pledge," the New York Times reported, and the quote most often pulled out of McCain's remarks had to do with his "stem…

It's been clear for a while that Democrats were making an empty promise when they talked of treating our allies better and 'restoring' America's reputation abroad. Respected Yale University professor and Democratic foreign policy expert Stuart Gottlieb, makes the case quite effectively: The message…

1) From the New York Times, "So Where's Murphy" by William Kristol. As I mentioned earlier in the day, Kristol feels that political consultant extraordinaire Mike Murphy will soon return to John McCain's side and make sense out of the tone-deaf and contradictory hash that the McCain campaign has…

So Iran recently rejected the latest package of benefits proposed by European diplomats if it would stop enriching uranium for the duration of talks. Russia and China appear to be backing off even this precondition, but the United States, Britain and France are standing firm. That means Obama's…

Have you heard? Obama is the Facebook candidate. He has created an entire network of supporters online. You know, on the Internet thing. Obama is to presidential candidates what the iPhone is to cell-phones. Sleek. Cool. A dream to hold. His hippest fans even edit their profiles and take on his…

Chinese media have been enthusiastically quoting Russian press reports attributing last week's post-election violence in Ulan Bator to a U.S.-engineered "color revolution" aimed at countering Russian and Chinese influence in resource-rich Mongolia. A commentary widely circulated in Chinese…

Via First Read, a sufficiently Shermanesque statement from Jim Webb: Virginia Sen. Jim Webb just issued a statement from his Senate office saying that -- "[u]nder no circumstances" -- does he want to be considered as Obama's veep. "Last week I communicated to Sen. Obama and his presidential…

For anyone interested in the political consequences of blogging, this paper by George Washington University political scientists Henry Farrell, Eric Lawrence, and John Sides is worth a read. Using a very large sample of 16,145 Americans who use blogs, drawn from the 2006 Cooperative Congressional…

The idea that Sharia should be incorporated into family law has become commonplace in several European countries, where leaders seem to think it is a moderate concession that might appease Muslim immigrants. As far as they're concerned, imposing Sharia is like a choice of law provision in a…

The New York Times reports that in 1985 Barack Obama accepted a job as a community organizer in Chicago "for a starting salary of $10,000 a year, plus $2,000 to buy a car." That amount appears to be incorrect. It might seem silly to quibble over whether Obama made an extra couple of grand, but he…

Over the weekend, Barack Obama got quite a bit of flak for his most recent flip-flops. First flip: Iraq. Last week he said, "When I go to Iraq and have a chance to talk to some of the commanders on the ground, I am sure I'll have more information and will continue to refine my policies." He then…

Today is a big day on the campaign trail, as the McCain campaign has kicked off its "Focus on the Economy Week." And where does the focus go? You know it - on balancing the budget! Somewhere in New Hampshire, Warren Rudman is cackling maniacally. I kid you not. With the country in a panic over a…

In a speech before Planned Parenthood last year, Barack Obama said that he was well-equipped to defend a right to abortion because "I put Roe at the center of my lesson plan on reproductive freedom when I taught Constitutional law." But during the past week, Obama has proven to be woefully ignorant…

Obama brain.JPG Before the long weekend began, Barack Obama made a semi-flip-flop regarding the situation in Iraq, even allowing that the surge had achieved some stability and that the next president would be foolish to fritter away those gains. Predictably, this acknowledgement of the obvious…

Prospective first ladies generally have a small staff on the campaign, including their own schedulers and hair stylists. Michelle Obama is no doubt the first to have her very own war room. I guess the campaign anticipates plenty more zingers from Obama's gaffe-prone wife, who has previously said…

Barack Obama's policy adjustments (read: flip flops) were the main topics of discussion on Sunday morning's talk shows. On This Week, Joe Lieberman said that "what's significant about what's happened in the last week, frankly in the last month since Sen. Obama clinched the nomination, is how many…

If inspirational claptrap is the stuff of diplomacy, then Barack Obama should flourish in the White House.

Blood Sport

What are the scariest words in constitutional law these days? "Justice Kennedy delivered the opinion of the Court."

Yeltsin

The Enthusiasms of Newsweek

About the time political reporters were sitting down to lunch on June 24, BlackBerries all over Washington buzzed with an unusual email. The pollsters for John McCain's campaign sent out a memo challenging the findings of a poll conducted by the Los Angeles Times and Bloomberg. Hundreds of polls…

Gone to Ground

Grand New Party

There was a moment in history when the Dutch really loved their tulips. In 1635, 40 tulip bulbs sold for the astronomical price of 100,000 florins. This was at a time when the average yearly income of a Dutchman who wasn't forced to spend all his time plugging leaky dikes was 150 florins.

Sheppard Lee

Unlikely Allies

A History of Histories

Paris

"Attempts at humor usually fall flat." This concise admonition from the official guide for lawyers arguing before the Supreme Court makes clear that jokes are not the prescribed oratorical device for winning cases. This guidance, however, does not extend to the nine justices, who quite liberally…

I was with my kids at Zuma beach, in Malibu. It was night. We were alone. A full moon had risen over the Pacific. As far as you could see into a scrim of mist and scattered light, a succession of breakers rolled up the beach, cresting and cresting again, throwing crowns of silvery foam before them,…

While a number of Catholics have been waxing rhapsodic about Barack Obama's appeal, it seems to have gone unnoticed that John McCain is running on an astonishingly Catholic platform. Nearly every time he ventures off the conservative plantation, he moves in the direction of liberal Catholic…

The Modern Element

Dujiangyan City, Sichuan Province

White House Ghosts

Safire's Political Dictionary

The Second Plane

Democrats John Conyers, John Dingell, and Charles Rangel were in the wilderness from 1994 to 2006, the years of Republican rule of the House of Representatives. They endured the shame of being in the minority. Then Democrats regained control of the House, and, at age 77, Conyers became chairman of…

Barack Obama's tack to the center is quite clever for three reasons (and maybe more, but three is all I could think of). One, it may cause moderate and centrist voters to feel more comfortable about voting for him. That's the big one. Two, he's better off being attacked by John McCain as a…

About five months ago, former Al Gore advisor Naomi Wolf went on Fox News and said, "We need to get our babies out of Iraq." In spite or perhaps because of its shocking offensiveness, Wolf's comment revealed the way some members of the left think about the American military - as a hapless…

A Happy 4th to everyone. Believe me - I would have liked to have prepared a Required Reading that was appropriately and perhaps tritely thematic, but there was too much other good stuff out there. 1) From the New York Times, "New and Not Improved" by the editors. Hell hath no fury like a Grey Lady…

If you're looking for some Independence Day-related writings, please see William Kristol's latest column on Thomas Jefferson's letter to Roger Weightman of June 24, 1826. With regret, the 83-year-old Jefferson wrote that his ill health compelled him to decline the invitation to travel to Washington…

Barack Obama recently told a Christian magazine he opposes late-term abortions performed because of mental health problems of the mother. "I don't think that 'mental distress' qualifies as the health of the mother. I think it has to be a serious physical issue that arises in pregnancy, where there…

If you were confused by Obama's remarks on Iraq yesterday, Iowahawk has a clarification from the Illinois senator: Let me be crystal clear: if elected president, my first act will be to call for the immediate withdrawal of all American troops from Iraq. I have always been consistent and forthright…

In light of Sen. Jesse Helms's passing early this morning, we've posted on the homepage Fred Barnes's 1997 profile of the senator.

A REPORT PERSISTS IN WASHINGTON that the Clinton administration will soon seek permanent most-favored-nation status for the People's Republic of China - - possibly in exchange for some concessions on human rights or for shaping up on standards for admission to the World Trade Organization. The…

GRIM, GRIMMER, AND grimmest. That runs the complete gamut of the sentiment prevailing on Wall Street and, indeed, in much of the country as we Americans closed our shops for a long weekend. A recent Goldman Sachs report wails, "The economy is fundamentally weak financial markets remain fragile…

Republicans didn't steal patriotism. Some Democrats just started believing that loving one's country meant trashing it. Being proud of the United States is certainly not a prerequisite in their mind. To the contrary, it is downright unpatriotic to love one's country unconditionally. The definition…

An oddly interesting collection of links for the day prior to a long weekend: 1) From the New York Times, "Obama Might ‘Refine' Iraq Timeline" by Jeff Zeleny. (Scare quotes in original.) When I was on a panel at Blog World in Vegas last fall, the prevailing sentiment among the prominent lefty…

Dick Cheney is for Marriage Equality http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2008/07/obamas-marria-1.html http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5817720/ Steve Schmidt http://www.politico.com/blogs/jonathanmartin/0708/Schmidt_takes_control_of_daytoday_operation.html

Sen. Chuck Hagel recently said he wasn't ready to endorse John McCain. That makes him the Republican Joe Lieberman, except in one respect. There has been no hysterical outcry from his party. Republicans haven't declared Hagel a traitor or a Judas. (Admittedly, that might change if he and Obama were…

In Fargo, N.D., Barack Obama was asked if he's considering changing his policy on Iraq. He said: my position has not changed but keep in mind what that original position was. I have always said that I will listen to commanders on the ground; I've always said that the pace of withdrawal would be…

Perhaps the McCain campaign should schedule a meeting between the two: "I've never even met the man, never spoken to him," Limbaugh said. "I'm sure there are things about him I'd like if we meet. This isn't personal." He then delivered a litany of the presumptive nominee's personal failings - too…

Obama's new ad claims: "He worked his way through college and Harvard Law," but FactCheck.org reports that's a "real stretch" The only back-up the campaign provided for this claim was a quote from Obama's book "Dreams from My Father" having to do with a construction job he had one summer while he…

Charges of flip-flopping do play a big role--perhaps too much--in the rapid response operations of both campaigns. There are obviously a lot of reasons a candidate might alter his position that have nothing to do with political opportunism. After 9/11, for example, President Bush's foreign policy…

tablets.jpg I guess this means the campaign fired the poor staffer whose job was to etch everything Obama said into stone: Sen. Claire McCaskill says Sen. Barack Obama's commitment to withdraw troops from Iraq has not changed - although the timetable might be adjusted "based on circumstances" in…

In Colorado Springs on Wednesday, Barack Obama issued a call to national service. He lamented that after 9/11 "We were ready to step into the strong current of history, and to answer a new call for our country. But the call never came." "We need to ease the burden on our troops, while meeting the…

A RECENT FRENCH POLL shows that majorities of both practicing Catholics and Protestants support France's pro-American president Nicolas Sarkozy, even as his overall polling numbers have dropped.

Spiritual Enterprise

I have to tell you, the pickings on the internets were slim today. Normally I have twenty open windows from which to choose the Required Reading list. Today, I had three. As you may have inferred, that means some of what follows isn't exactly pressing business. 1) From the blog "Just One Minute,"…

Minutes after President Ronald Reagan was sworn in on January 20, 1981, Iran released the 52 U.S. diplomats it had been holding hostage for more than a year. Hours after John McCain arrived in Colombia today, U.S. hostages held by FARC are freed. McCain may work in hours as opposed to minutes, but…

Via James Taranto, the folks in Findlay, Ohio, are none too happy with the Washington Post story on the false anti-Obama rumors allegedly infesting their fair city: The Washington Post did a hit job on Findlay in its Monday edition. The story, "In Flag City USA, False Obama Rumors Are Flying,"…

Patrick Ruffini writes: the key to victory may lie in targeting Ohio-Michigan as a megastate and trying to shift both states 1-2 points in his direction by brute force. If he does this to tune of just 1%, and nothing else changes, the electoral vote is McCain 291, Obama 247 under a tied popular…

On CNN yesterday, Wesley Clark tried to walk back his scandalous statement, saying: "What I said is I honor his service. He's one of my heroes. But having served as a fighter pilot, however great it is to show your character and courage, does not necessarily mean that you're the best qualified…

Lindsey Graham takes aim at the Republican nominee: Graham and Joe Lieberman are traveling with McCain on his two-country tour of Latin America, but this morning were shunted to the press boat (think of kids and the small table at Thanksgiving) for a tour by the entourage of the Port of Cartagena.…

Harry Reid has topped the YouTube charts with this little ditty: "the one thing we fail to talk about is those costs that you don't see on the bottom line. That is coal makes us sick, oil makes us sick; it's global warming. It's ruining our country, it's ruining our world. We've got to stop using…

From alien killer to alien worshiper, Will Smith is starting a new school to bring the teachings of L. Ron Hubbard to impressionistic young people. I'm sure parents will be eager to send their kids, because Smith is such a great judge of character and has said yes to aliens. As long as children are…

Yesterday, I had the audacity to suggest that the lack of any terror attacks on American soil since 9/11 represented an accomplishment for the Bush administration. Frankly, I thought this was a rather banal assertion. Nevertheless, many Bush haters took issue with the contention - much to my…

A key issue in the eight years of Bush's faith-based initiative has concerned the authority of religious entities as employers: May they take religion into account when hiring people to do the work that government funds? On numerous occasions Bush has asked Congress to pass legislation confirming…

The AP dares to ask: which candidate would you rather grill burgers with? People would rather barbecue burgers with Barack Obama than with John McCain. While many are still deciding who should be president, by 52 percent to 45 percent they would prefer having Obama than McCain to their summer…

Via Powerline, Wesley Clark was busted in a CNN interview yesterday afternoon: ROBERTS: But when it comes to that same type of qualification, you were very robustly behind John Kerry's military experience... CLARK: Absolutely. ROBERTS: ... in your speech at the Democratic National Convention in…

A couple people inquired about this piece I posted yesterday, forecasting potential electoral outcomes in U.S. House races this fall. I reported on a recent analysis by Jim Ellis of PRIsm Information Network. Ellis notes that only 18 House races fall into the "up for grabs" category that could go…

Some very disturbing plans: In an interview with the Financial Times, Anthony Lake, a former US national security adviser who has worked with Mr Obama since the start of his campaign, also urged the US to learn lessons from its traumatic withdrawal from Vietnam regarding pulling out of Iraq. "The…

Andrew Sullivan says the "neocon right" is uninterested in debating foreign policy in a serious way, yet he dismisses the notion that such a debate should include further discussion about the surge. It's not surprising that any issue that Sullivan happens to be wrong about is not part of a serious…

THERE IS MUCH TO find loathsome about Justice Kennedy's opinion in Kennedy v. Louisiana, in which the Supreme Court ruled that the Louisiana statute allowing capital punishment for child rapists is unconstitutional. Most morally disgusting is the Court's conclusory recognition of "an incongruity…

JUDGING BY BOX office hauls alone, Will Smith is the last movie star on the planet. By movie star, I don't mean "able to generate headlines" or "most-recognized," simply that Smith can open any genre of movie and look good doing it. His last seven films have all grossed over $100 million, and have…

From The New Yorker In February, 2007, when Barack Obama declared that he was running for President, violence in Iraq had reached apocalyptic levels, and he based his candidacy, in part, on a bold promise to begin a rapid withdrawal of American forces upon taking office. At the time, this pledge…

Lefty blogger Glenn Greenwald does a nice job documenting Barack Obama's serial betrayals of the last two weeks: The choices Obama makes about how he campaigns and the positions he takes are extremely consequential in how political issues in this country are perceived. In the last two weeks alone,…

So Obama would create what he calls "a new President's Council for Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships." Sounds a lot like Bush's White House Office of Faith-based and Community Initiatives. But Obama wants a fresh start. Announcing his plans today after a tour of a food bank in Zanesville,…

I was a little disappointed with today's quiz results. Mr. Starr will be returning next week and he will be informed. From Commentary, "1948, Israel and the Palestinians" by Efraim Karsh. Facts are stubborn things. Too bad more people aren't aware of them. From Politico, "Who's Smearing Whom" by…

In celebration of Quebec's 400th anniversary, France created a special hybrid animal that reflects the dual French and North American heritage of the city: "The Vachibou is a hybrid animal with a very short lifespan," quipped a spokesman for the French consulate. The peculiar mascot, designed for…

Bush-loathing scholar Andrew Bacevich has taken to the Boston Globe to pen a screed documenting the horrible misdeeds perpetrated by the administration. Bacevich even ordered his complaints in a tidy little list: The administration's many failures, especially those related to Iraq, mask a…

Page Six reports that Taki recently traveled to Brussels to defend his World Judo Championship title: Taki Theodoracopulos, the elitist co-founder of The American Conservative, won the US National Judo Championship last year in Miami in the 90-kilo weight class and 70-75 age group. So last week,…

Only days after I endorsed Mitt Romney for VP, a chorus of political insiders are singing the same tune. Two important questions remain about Romney's utility to the McCain campaign. First, what good is the money Mitt Romney raises if McCain remains in the public financing system? Second, can…

James Kirchik points out that over the weekend Barack Obama sent a letter to the Alice B. Toklas LGBT Democratic Club that states: "I oppose the divisive and discriminatory efforts to amend the California Constitution, and similar efforts to amend the U.S. Constitution or those of other states."…

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With over four months until the November election, handicapping 435 House races is a daunting task. But Jim Ellis, a seasoned political operative and electoral analyst who runs the PRIsm Information Network, puts the November landscape into clearer focus. According to Ellis, 228 House seats fall…

Barack Obama visited Independence, Missouri, yesterday to assure people that he doesn't have a patriotism problem. The day before he was in Unity, New Hampshire, to assure Democratic party insiders, in a joint appearance with Hill-Dog, that he doesn't have a unity problem. No word yet on when Obama…

IN THE EXCITEMENT over the Supreme Court's decision in the D.C. gun ban case, almost overlooked was a second decision that struck another blow against the McCain-Feingold federal campaign finance law. In Davis v. FEC, a 5-4 majority found the "Millionaire's Amendment" to be unconstitutional,…

LAST WEEK THE Federal Reserve Board's monetary policy committee (technically, the Federal Open Market Committee, or FOMC) decided to leave interest rates as they are. And thereby hangs a tale of oil, our chief bond salesman, the White House, and the Fed Family. What follows is a combination of hard…