Category: General

McCain/Palin In The Twin Cities

I am at the Twin Cities McCain/Palin rally. Lines are huge — big turnout. More later.

The hangar is packed, which is a good sign. Minnesota appears to be in play in this election. Could it go McCain? It seems unlikely, but a turnout like this is nothing to sneeze at. There is energy in this room today.

Something tells me that people really like Sarah Palin here….

There seems to be a lot of hockey moms here.

The Straight Talk Express is nearly here.

Judging from the crowd, McCain must be arriving. There’s a B-25 Mitchell blocking my view.

Clever sign watch: “We are lipstick-wearing pigs.”

McCain is in the building.

Sarah Palin is firing up the crowd, especially when talking about energy independence.

McCain is up. He seems stronger in person in person than on TV. He does not seem old at all.

McCain’s stump speech hit all the right notes — he talked about reform with conviction. More later.

Liveblogging Obama

I haven’t done a liveblog in ages, so what the heck. I was thinking of taking a drink every time the word “change” is uttered, but I’m starting to think that may result in a liver transplant.

I haven’t read any of the excerpts of Obama’s speech, but I’m guessing that it will be 90% “hope” and “change” and 10% trying to paint America as some kind of post-apocalyptic wasteland. Obama is trying to associate McCain and Bush because he knows that he can’t win against John McCain. If McCain is smart, he’ll be able to change the game next week.

UPDATE: CNN is saying that this will be a “partisan” speech… so much for uniting the country, I guess.

8:58PM CST: How many times has Obama been compared to Lincoln… talk about audacity…

9:01PM CST: They’re doing a video tribute to Obama now. Gag me with a spoon.

Then again, given his paltry experience, at least the video should be short.

9:03PM CST: Obama’s mother woke him up at 4:30am to do his lessons? Does that strike anyone else as ever so slightly odd?

9:05PM CST: These videos are always fluff, but it’s good fluff for the candidates. The video does a good job of humanizing Obama, but it seems to highlight his lack of experience.

Norm Coleman was briefly in the video. Whoops. That must have Franken annoyed.

9:08PM CST: Barack talking about his mother’s death was touching. I also loved the bit about the astronauts. Very humanizing, and a great message. Too bad Obama’s policies are so wrong.

9:11PM CST: Overall, this is a very good video. It does a good job of introducing Obama and setting a positive theme. But will his speech match it?

9:14PM CST: Can he can the “thank you” and get on with the speech?

This is not a good start.

9:15PM CST: He gives a shout out to Hillary? But will it heal the wounds in the Democratic Party? Everyone’s thinking about female voters, but that wasn’t all of Hillary’s bloc.

9:17PM CST: We finally get to substance. And it’s about him. For all the talk about Obama’s supposed humility, he sure seems to talk about himself a lot.

9:18PM CST: And here we go with the pessimism. McCain needs a truly optimistic message to counter this.

9:19PM CST: Obama goes after Bush. I don’t think that this will go over well with independent voters. This is Democratic red meat, not a speech for the general electorate.

9:20PM CST: The insinuation that the government did nothing for Katrina is disgusting.

This is a negative and arrogant speech. It is not hopeful, it is partisan and vicious. This could easily backfire, and I hope it will. We don’t need this kind of mindless partisanship.

9:22PM CST: This speech is an attack speech, and it is not fitting for an event such as this. This is a momentous occasion, and Obama is making it small.

9:24PM CST: My guess: this speech is turning off a lot of people. It’s becoming increasingly shrill and bitter. You don’t spend 20 minutes on the attack when you should be talking about your vision for this country. This is a speech for the MoveOn.org crowd, not Main Street.

9:27PM CST: Negative. Shrill. Lacking in vision. This is not the Obama that inspires. This speech is flopping, and I can’t see independents going for this. What was the Obama team thinking?

9:29PM CST: Obama’s video was beautiful and inspiring. This speech is anything but. How could such a gifted rhetorician sink to such lows?

9:31PM CST: The speech is presenting a vision, but it’s too narrow. He’s gone from attacks to a laundry list. Where is the vision?

9:33PM CST: Obama wants to cut taxes. We’re all Reaganites now.

In 10 years we won’t use Middle Eastern oil? Without more drilling? How? By using the snake oil Sen. Obama is selling?

9:34PM CST: If drilling is a stopgap, then Obama supports more drilling? Then what makes him different than McCain? Of course drilling is a stopgap, but it’s a necessary one. The Democrats don’t want to drill.

9:35PM CST: This is not about small plans. Except for the ones I just spend the past 10 minutes talking about. A bold plan would be school vouchers, Senator, not kowtowing to teacher’s unions. There’s nothing but small plans here.

I’m disappointed. This is the worst Obama speech I’ve heard. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but this is the time he should be hitting the rhetorical highs. Not giving us a laundry list.

9:38PM CST: I’m opening comments for this one. Play nice.

9:39PM CST: Each of us must do our part? For Obama, that means more government mandates.

I’ll give Obama this: he’s right on the importance of family, especially fathers. I like the individual responsibility part. but it’s just a footnote.

9:41PM CST: Obama goes for the antiwar line. If he wants to have a debate on national security, then let’s have it. Obama will lose.

End the war? The war is largely over. We won, and we won because we didn’t listen to small-minded people like you.

9:43PM CST: More attacks. Where is your vision, Senator?

I love how we’ve supposedly strained our alliances, when Europe has become far more pro-American than it was in 2003. And here Obama has been insulting our allies like Columbia.

9:45PM CST: Sen. Obama keeps making all these promises. He’ll really defeat disease?

This speech is 90% attacks and 10% hope and change. Guess I was wrong.

“They have not served a Red America or a Blue America…” at least Obama has one good line tonight.

But then he goes on the attack again.

What happened to Obama being a uniter? A post-partisan figure? This isn’t a uniting speech, this is a partisan speech.

9:49PM CST: Again, the implicit racism of saying that rural people can have guns, but urban people should not.

9:50PM CST: I’m really curious to see how this speech is going. How many times has Obama mentioned McCain? This wasn’t a speech about Obama’s vision, this was an attack speech. I think that Obama has seriously overcorrected here. Yes, the polls showed that Obama needed more substance—but Obama didn’t deliver that tonight. He replaced his hopeful rhetoric with attacks. I don’t see that working for him.

Invoking Dr. King just makes this speech smaller. Sen. Obama did give a speech full of fear and rancor—not the kind of unifying message that Dr. King gave us 45 years ago.

9:56PM CST: Obama ended on a strong note, but this speech was not the sort of speech that he needed tonight.

UPDATE: Obama mentioned McCain 21 times in this speech. If McCain is smart, he won’t mention Obama more than once or twice.

How To Offend Everyone In One Fell Stroke

The New Yorker has given both Senators Obama and McCain something to agree on: their latest cover showing a turban-clad Obama and his wife brandishing an AK-47 is simply tasteless.

The cover is supposed to be a reflection on the supposed “right-wing smear machine” that the left loves to invent, but ends up being a case of friendly fire from the left wing. Its crude stereotype of both Obama and those with legitimate questions about his choice of associations manages to be offensive on a bipartisan level.

It is ironic that the ones that have been using the “fear tactics” that The New Yorker decries are not from the right. Sen. McCain treats Sen. Obama as He Who Must Not Be Middle-Named lest anyone accuse him of racism. The money spent by GOP-leaning 527 groups is a pittance compared to what is spent by groups like MoveOn.org, and the truly harsh attacks against Obama tended to come not from the “vast right-wing conspiracy” but from the paranoid mind of Sen. Clinton—who ironically enough invented the idea. Sen. Obama constantly lashes out against a “smear machine” which exists largely in the minds of the Senator and his supporters.

If Obama were smart, he would embrace his heritage and defuse the “Muslim” issue. The more he runs, the more he looks like he has something to hide. It seems unlikely that people who won’t vote for a candidate with a Muslim middle name are numerous enough to matter or sufficiently likely to vote for Sen. Obama to be bothered with. Obama should run on who he is—someone who is multicultural and can reach out to the rest of the world. The political costs of such a move are unlikely to hurt him, and the potential benefits are substantial. Why not proudly announce that he is Barack Hussein Obama, the son of a Kenyan Muslim who is a committed Christian and American, just as many Americans of foreign descent are? To hear him boldly proclaim his heritage defuses the issue and lets the political debate refocus on what matters—not false issues of patriotism, but substantive questions of judgement, integrity, and experience.

IN CONGRESS, JULY 4, 1776

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America

When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these united Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. — And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.

On Iraq, A Change In Tune

The success of the “surge” in Iraq has apparently become so blatant that even the Obama-infatuated Andrew Sullivan can’t help but see it:

The WaPo reflects what I’ve been trying to understand better: the surprising success (after a rocky start) of the Iraqi Army in Basra, the neutralization of the worst parts of the Sadr forces in Sadr City, increasing success in Mosul, and four-year lows in sectarian violence. The caveats are still there and should never be discounted: Sadr’s militias are still strong in the shadows, sectarian tensions can still flare up, national reconciliation (with a few recent bright spots) remains elusive, Iran is meddlesome, etc. But that the Maliki government is stronger now than anyone anticipated a few months ago seems beyond doubt.

Sullivan counsel Obama not to be unduly pessimistic about Iraq. However, Obama and the other Democrats are invested too heavily in a narrative of defeat to accept anything else. The radical antiwar faction of the Democratic Party has taken the reigns of the party, leaving little room for any heterodox opinions. To speak for the war is to invite the wrath of MoveOn and the rest of the new leftist machine in America.

Even though the progress on the ground speaks for itself, the Democrats do not have the ears to hear it.

For Democrats, The End Of The Road

The AP is reporting that Sen. Barack Obama has the delegates to be the Democratic nominee. However, it appears that Hillary Clinton may not concede tonight, but will make an almost certainly futile attempt to get superdelegates to swing to her side. No matter what, it appears as though Hillary will not be the top of the ticket.

Despite all the rumors, fanned by Clinton herself today, I don’t see her as VP either. If Obama needs a woman, why not Gov. Katherine Sibelius of Kansas? If he needs to get someone who can resonate with red state voters, why not Sen. Jim Webb of Virginia? The “dream ticket” could just as easily be a nightmare—why share the stage with someone like Hillary Clinton? (Not to mention Bill…)

The other winner tonight is John McCain. Obama is an untested candidate who only just won a battle among his own party. Obama has made rookie mistakes, which can damn a candidate. Even an accomplished politico like John Kerry can die the death of a thousand cuts in a long campaign. Someone like Obama who has never had a competitive campaign outside a state legislative race faces a truly great challenge.

With luck, tonight ends the dominance of the Clinton machine—and good riddance. However, like Freddy Krueger, Hillary Clinton may just come back to terrorize our political discourse again—but not this year.

Lies, Damned Lies, And Tell-All Books

Peggy Noonan has, perhaps surprisingly, some positive things to say about former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan’s new “tell-all” book. As much as it would be valuable to have more inside looks at what happened in the run-up to the war in Iraq, McClellan’s book is tainted right from the start.

The Wall Street Journal connects the dots and finds that McClellan’s book was funded and published by the usual radical left-wing groups. That alone isn’t fatal, but the way in which this book is being fawned over reeks of an organized media strategy—the sort of thing which suggest that the real purpose of this book is not to tell the truth, but to advance an agenda. Even Noonan admits that the book is vapid and makes the same unsubstantiated allegations that we have all heard before.

Compare that reaction to the refusal of the mainstream media to even acknowledge Douglas Feith’s book on the start of the war in Iraq. Feith was a central player in that conflict, where McClellan was not. Feith has backed up his memories with actual documentation, while McClellan’s book has not.

The reason for the disparate treatment is obvious: McClellan is telling the media exactly what they want to hear; Feith’s narratives go against the media’s prejudices on Iraq.

It would be valuable to get to the truth about what really went on during the months before the invasion of Iraq, but expecting the truth from an author who is being swept up in such a self-serving media frenzy is too much to ask.

High Oil Prices Are No Mystery

The Washington Post has an article on how high oil prices are “stumping” the experts. The massive rise in oil prices to $130+/barrel does represent an unprecedented rise in oil costs. However, it shouldn’t be a surprise. The world is facing a “perfect storm” of factors: China and the rest of Asia are still growing, OPEC is either unwilling or unable to pump more (and the good money is on the latter—the Saudis may have been overstating their own reserved for some time), and countries are subsidizing gas prices—and subsidies invariably distort markets and raise prices.

Of course, the Democrats have their own culprits. Of course, the Democrats are wrong. They blame the oil companies for raising prices. They do look suspicious, given their skyrocketing profits. The problems with that theory is that those profits are not out of line for the amount of oil they sell. The other problem is that they can’t invest in new projects. Normally they would reinvest those profits into expanding their new capacity. But bad public policy prevents them from doing that: most of America’s coastal waters are off-limits to new oil development, and domestic development in places like ANWR are also forbidden.

Congress is once again asking for the impossible, and behaving petulantly when they don’t hear what they want. On one hand, they want the U.S. to limit carbon emissions—but then they demand cheap gas.

The world doesn’t work that way. We’re running out of cheap gas, and it’s a question of whether we hit the peak in 2030, 2050, or some other point. If we want cheap gas, we have to drill in places like ANWR and off-shore, and we’d better accept that we’ll produce more carbon emissions. If we want to keep ANWR into the untouched pestilential wasteland that it is and keep carbon emissions down, then consumers better get ready to have an arm and a leg ready the next time they buy gas for their cars or pay their heating bills.

As always, Congress’ economic illiteracy is hurting American interests. The laws of supply and demand are just that—laws. There is a relatively stagnant supply of oil and more people are using it. That means the costs will go up, and they’ll go up not only to cover the current costs of oil, but also the future costs.

If the goal really is to reduce the price of oil, we can’t sit on our own reserves. A smart public policy would be to open ANWR and offshore sites to development instead of relying on dangerous and unstable places like the Middle East or Venezuela for our oil while simultaneously creating tax credits and awards for developing clean fuel technologies—because sooner or later we will enter a post-oil economy and the longer we can cushion the shocks the better positioned we’ll be.

Our current strategy, however, won’t work. We can’t keep messing around with the market through oil taxes, byzantine requirements for the blending of fuels, and a stubborn insistence on not allowing more infrastructure like refineries.

As they say, you can’t have your cake and eat it too. The problem is that lesson most of us learned in first grade seems to be forgotten the second a politician walks into the halls of Congress.

Obama: No, We Can’t

As Obama claims the Democratic nomination (despite Hillary Clinton—like Al Gore —having won the popular vote), he just continues to make rookie mistakes. Mitch Berg notes another example of Obama saying something sure to hurt him in the general election. Obama made the following statement in regard to global warming:

“We can’t drive our SUVs and eat as much as we want and keep our homes on 72 degrees at all times … and then just expect that other countries are going to say OK,” Obama said.

“That’s not leadership. That’s not going to happen,” he added.

“Yes we can!” has now morphed into “that’s not going to happen.” So much for Obama’s positive message of “hope.” Apparently we can hope that Obama is merciful in dictating what we should drive, eat, and what temperature we can set our thermostats to.

Such a message is not going to win Obama any converts. Contrary to his defeatism, we can have a modern economy, a growing economy, and a quality standard of life without sacrificing the environment. It simply requires us to be proactive, creative, and not give into the Malthusian rhetoric of those who would set us back.

Berg compares Obama’s words to Jimmy Carter’s infamous “malaise” speech, and it’s an apt comparison. It displays a worldview that is in direct contradiction to Obama’s supposedly “hopeful” rhetoric. Instead of “hope” and “change” Obama’s true worldview seems to be that America must make itself low to be popular with others. That isn’t hope, that’s pessimism. That isn’t change, but a throwback the eras of Jimmy Carter’s fecklessness.

We need a 21st Century energy policy and a 21st Century farm policy. Sen. Obama would take us into the past with more barriers, taxes, subsidies and set-asides. A truly hopeful candidate would talk about the enormous potential of the years ahead—an age when our energy comes from nuclear, solar, wind, and other clean technologies. An age in which our cars are powered by cellulosic ethanol, biofuels, hydrogen or electricity produced by clean power. Obama is simply wrong: we can drive the cars we want, eat as well as we want, and set our thermostats to whatever we damn well please. The way we can do that is by advancing the state of technology and growing the economy. Slowing growth and rejecting new technologies is not the way forward. That should be real change we can believe in.