Army doctor speaks out about Obama troops snub

It's hard not to admire Dr. Danny Jazarevic, who although an M.D., has spent much of his career since the mid-1980s in the Army, the National Guard, or the Army Reserve. Through the John McCain campaign, the good doctor issued a statement about Barack Obama's cancellation of his scheduled visit to Landstuhl Military Hospital in Germany.

By the way, this is my second post in a row about a recipient of the Bronze Star.

Today, Dr. Danny Jazarevic, who served as the Chief of Trauma, Critical Care and Vascular Surgery at Landstuhl, issued the following statement on Barack Obama's canceled visit to Ramstein and Landstuhl:

"Last week, Senator Obama skipped a visit with wounded U.S. troops at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany because the Pentagon would not allow campaign staff or media to accompany him into the hospital. I served as director of trauma surgery at that hospital for nearly four years and saw the effect that a visit from a celebrity like Senator Obama could have on morale. During that time, I do not recall a single member of Congress canceling a visit with the troops despite being just a few hours away, but Senator Obama seems to have been more concerned with how the visit would affect him than how it would affect the soldiers recovering from wounds received in the service of their country."

Dr. Danny Jazarevic served as the Chief of Trauma, Critical Care and Vascular Surgery at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center. In 1984, Dr. Jazarevic joined the United States Army and later the Florida National Guard. He has since served in Honduras, Africa, Saudi Arabia, Bosnia, and Iraq. From December 2002 through January 2006, Dr. Jazarevic was assigned to the U.S. Army Hospital in Landstuhl, Germany, where he served as Chief of Trauma, Critical Care and Vascular Surgery. During this period, he deployed to Iraq numerous times, including with the 101st Airborne Division Forward Surgical Team and as Director of Operations for the 44th U.S. Army Medical Command. He is currently the Chief Trauma Surgeon at a civilian medical center in Florida, and also serves as a full Colonel in the U.S. Army Reserve. Dr. Jazarevic has been awarded the Bronze Star Medal.

Technorati tags: Obama politics Barack Obama Election Democrats Germany Deutschland Yes we can military war on terror Bronze Star

Chicago's Edgewater Beach Hotel: Where "The Natural" was born

In 1952, Bernard Malamud's The Natural was published. The book tells the story of Roy Hobbs, a fantastically gifted baseball player who is shot, to use Hobbs' words, by a "batty dame" just as his professional career is set to begin. At age 37, Hobbs finally makes it to the big leagues, and that's where I end my summary of the book.

In 1984, Robert Redford, in a brilliant performance, portrayed Hobbs in the film version--which kicked off the baseball movie craze.

Where did Malamud get his inspiration for his novel? In Chicago, more specifically, from something that happened at the Edgewater Beach Hotel on the city's North Side.
The hotel was closed in 1967--two condominiums, pictured above, stand on the site of the famous inn.

Eddie Waitkus was a Rookie of the Year first baseman for the Chicago Cubs in 1946, and a two time all-star. While playing for the North Siders, Waitkus got the attention of an obsessed fan, Ruth Ann Steinhagen, who became depressed after Waitkus was traded to the Philadelphia Phillies. On June 14, 1949, the Phillies were in town for a series against the Cubs. The Edgewater was where visiting teams usually stayed, and Steinhagen booked a room there, invited Waitkus to her room, and shot him. She coldly told Waitkus, "If I can’t have you, nobody else can." Steinhagen was committed to a mental institution after the shooting.

Waitkus almost died from his wound, but the following season, he played in of the Phils' 154 games--and the Phillies made it to the World Series for the first time in 35 years.

Here are Waitkus' career stats.

Waitkus served in World War II, survived some bloody fighting in the Philippines, and was awarded four Bronze Stars.

Waitkus may not have been the real "Natural," but he was certainly a real hero. He died of cancer in 1973.

Technorati tags: baseball mlb Cubs chicago cubs sports crime criminal Phillies World War II Chicago history books movies

Obama, the comic book: A chilling story

Doug Ross has put together comic book version of a part of Barack Obama's life his campaign doesn't want you to know about: Buildings without heat co-owned by his financier and pal Antoin "Tony" Rezko. And State Senator Obama didn't know anything about it.

Check out the chilling story--in storyboard format of course--here.

Vote for Obama if that's the kind of change you can believe in.

I linked to this post once before, but it's so good, it deserves a reprise.

And finally, there are rumors that Obama will make an appearance at the Lollapalooza festival in Chicago's Grant Park this weekend. He'll be one mile from the Metropolitan Correctional Center, where the recently convicted Rezko resides these days. Will Obama drop by for a visit?

Technorati tags: Obama politics Barack Obama Illinois Election Democrats Chicago Tony Rezko corruption legal real estate Chicago Lollapalooza

McCain campaign on the latest GDP numbers

From a John McCain campaign press release:

U.S. Senator John McCain's presidential campaign issued the following statement from Doug Holtz-Eakin, McCain 2008 Senior Policy Adviser, on today's GDP data:

"Today's GDP data are a stark reminder of the importance of focusing on the conditions facing American workers and the policies that will get our economy back on track. While growth continues to be disappointing, trade provides one of the few bright spots in an otherwise gloomy economic picture, raising questions about Barack Obama's policy of economic isolationism.

"The data announced today show that exports grew 9.2%. Absent strong growth in trade, the economy would have turned negative in the second quarter, contracting by 0.52% instead of growing 1.9%. Senator Obama will throw up trade barriers that would seriously hurt American workers, businesses and our economy. When 95% of the world's consumers live outside our borders, it is crucial that we do everything we can to expand markets for American goods and level the playing field for American businesses and workers.

"There is much that needs to be done to get the economy on track. John McCain's Jobs for America Plan will encourage new sources of energy, provide relief for skyrocketing gas prices, help families facing foreclosure stay in their homes, put a stop to Washington's out-of-control spending, keep taxes low to create good jobs here in America, and give American workers renewed confidence in their economic future."

Technorati tags: democrats Barack Obama Obama Politics Election John McCain McCain Republican economy business

Obama deals the race card

It's a fact: Barack Obama was the first of the two presumptive presidential to inject race into the contest.

Nobody thinks that Bush and McCain have a real answer to the challenges we face. So what they're going to try to do is make you scared of me, Obama said. You know, he's not patriotic enough, he's got a funny name, you know, he doesn't look like all those other presidents on the dollar bills.

Once Obama is away from the teleprompter--look out. The junior senator from Illinois made those comments at a town-hall style meeting yesterday in Missouri.

John McCain has suggested a series of ten town-hall style debates, the Obama campaign has not been enthusiastic about McCain's idea. After last night's blunder--it's easy to see why.

UPDATE August 1: Barack Obama's chief guru David Axelrod brings up race in regards to the McCain "celebrity ad." Red State reports.

Technorati tags: Obama politics Barack Obama Election Democrats Yes we can John McCain McCain Republican African American black

My Mississippi Manifest Destiny: Clarksdale, Home of the Delta Blues

The Delta Blues heritage of Clarksdale, Mississippi is immense. As for ascertaining who "invented" the blues, it's like attempting who invented music itself. W.C Handy was not a native of Mississippi, but lived in Clarksdale for a few years, where a parking lot is now located. Although he was known as "Father of the Blues, Handy also composed and performed jazz pieces.

Behind the W.C. Handy historical marker in the picture above is the former Wade Walton's Barbershop.

From Marlo Carter Fitzpatrick's Mississippi Off The Beaten Path:

A personal friend of W.C. Handy, Sonny Boy Williamson, and John Lee Hooker, the late Wade Walton was given to impromptu blues performances and gifted story-telling sessions. Patrons who spent time in Walton's chair left with not only a spiffy new look, but a better understanding of the lifestyle called the blues.

It was closed, except for one restaurant, by the time I arrived in town, but a must-see that I was unable to see was Clarksdale Station, an old Illinois Central depot, and like the bus station I blogged about last week, this was undoubtedly a major exit point for the circa 1917-1970 black diaspora. Inside the old station is the Delta Blues Museum.

What remains of the cabin McKinley Morganfield grew up in can be found inside the museum. Never heard of Morganfield? He's best known by his stage name, Muddy Waters. And yes, The Rolling Stones did choose their moniker from a Waters tune. Waters, who died in 1983, was a pioneer of Chicago Blues, an amplified and more upbeat descendant of Delta Blues--the faster pace of city life transformed the genre. The blues great spent much of his youth in Clarksdale.

When I reach Arkansas, I'll have a post about a house--still lived in--that may end up in a museum one day.

Waters' artistic peak was in the 1950s, but in the 1970s, with the guidance of Johnny Winter, who has family roots in Leland, Mississippi, Waters recorded some of his old songs, and along with some new ones. One of the latter was "The Blues Had A Baby And They Named It Rock And Roll." As Waters certainly knew, in 1951 Jackie Brenston and His Delta Cats recorded--in Clarksdale--the first version of what many historians call the first rock and roll song, "Rocket 88."

Brenston, who was born in Clarksdale, sang and played saxophone on the song. however, many believe credit for "Rocket 88" should go to Ike Turner, another Clarksdale-born musician--his band made up most of "The Delta Cats." The edition that was released to the public was cut in Memphis. Sam Phillips, who later founded the seminal Sun Records, produced the song.

Turner, a brilliant musician who is best known as the brutal, philandering and drug abusing ex-husband of Tina Turner, died late last year.

The blues still lives in Clarksdale. Every Friday in April, May and June, there are live concerts at the Blues Alley Stage. I was there on Friday, May 23, and the band was packing up--I wish I had arrived earlier.

Actor Morgan Freeman moved around a lot as a child, but he spend much of his early years in the Mississippi Delta region--he graduated from Greenwood High School, a town southwest of Clarksdale. Freeman still has roots in the Delta, he is co-owner of a blues club, Ground Zero, pictured on the right, which is just a block from Clarksdale Station.

Clarksdale is a great town, one I would have spent more time in, had I not spent a big chunk of that afternoon in Leland. Such is the way of byway adventures.

Next: The Mississippi Blues Trail

Previous My Mississippi Manifest Destiny posts:

Mound Bayou, a town founded by freed slaves
What Mike Espy is up to these days
Churches
Teddy Bear
Coca-Cola museums
Prison laborer in Louisiana
Corinth
Carl Perkins
The Varsity Theatre in Martin, Tennessee
Lincoln and Kentucky
Metropolis

Clarksdale posts:

Robert Johnson's Crossroads
Clarksdale's Old Greyhound Station

Shiloh posts:

Shiloh Part One
Shiloh Part Two
Shiloh Part Three
Shiloh Part Four

Tupelo posts:

$aving$ in Tupelo
Elvis Presley's birthplace
Where Elvis bought his first guitar
The Battle of Tupelo

Natchez Trace posts:

The Natchez Trace Part One
The Natchez Trace Part Two, Indian Mounds
The Natchez Trace Part Three
The Natchez Trace Part Four, Ghost Town
Logging

Natchez posts:

The Father of Waters
Natchez Part One
Natchez Part Two, Forks of the Road
Natchez Part Three

Vicksburg posts:

Vicksburg Battlefield, Part One
Vicksburg Battlefield, Part Two, State Memorials
Vicksburg Battlefield, Part Three, Illinois Memorial
Vicksburg Battlefield, Part Four, The USS Cairo
Vicksburg Battlefield Part Five
Mississippi River at Vicksburg
Memorial Day tribute to our ally Australia
Memorial Day--a time to remember

Leland posts:

Highway 61 Blues Museum
Leland's Blues Murals
Birthplace of Kermit the Frog

Technorati tags: history Americana byways travel travel blog history photography photos Mississippi Highway 61 music blues delta blues Muddy Waters Ike Turner W.C. Handy Morgan Freeman Illinois Central

ABC News on McCain's "celebrity ad"

ABC World News Tonight did a story this evening on the John McCain campaign's latest ad, which likens Barack Obama to Hollywood celebrities. It's a fair comparison. In the last month, Obama and his family appeared on that hard-hitting political television show, Access Hollywood, was interviewed by the cerebral journal Glamour, and he and the other three Obamas are on the cover of the most recent People Magazine, which many literary critics have favorably compared to US News & World Report.

Here's a partial transcript from that ABC News report:

ABC's David Wright: "And today, McCain comparing Obama to empty celebrities, all sizzle, no substance. John McCain has been trying to raise doubts about his opponent. Today in Colorado, he was at it again."

John McCain: "The bottom line is that Senator Obama's words, for all their eloquence and passion, don't mean all that much."

Wright: "McCain has recently said Obama would rather lose a war to win an election. He's called him 'Dr. No' on energy reforms, and run ads blaming Obama for high gas prices."

McCain Ad: "He's the biggest celebrity in the world. But is he ready to lead?"

Wright: "Today, McCain unveiled a new ad in eleven states, flashing images of Britney Spears and Paris Hilton, suggesting Obama is just another vapid celebrity."

McCain Ad: "Higher taxes, more foreign oil. That's the real Obama."

Stuart Rothenberg: "Nobody's going to confuse Paris Hilton with Senator Barack Obama. But over time, the attempt to raise questions about his substance, that could very well work."

Of course, Obama does have substance. In the ABC News story, there is a video clip of the Cult of Change leader saying, "We don't need the same old tired answers."

But that's what Obama offers the American public, the failed liberal dogma of the late 1960s, wrapped up in pretty bow and re-christened "Change." Last year the non-partisan National Journal, after analyzing the votes of all 100 senators, declared Obama the upper chamber's most liberal member.

Technorati tags: Obama politics Barack Obama Election Democrats John McCain McCain Republican ABC News entertainment media Cult of Change

Check out "Barackbook"

Barack Obama has a lot of friends. Many of them, such as Bill "Bomber" Ayers, are causing the Cult of Change leader considerable embarrassment.

Well, with a little help from the Republican National Committee, some of those friends with shady backgrounds have gotten together on Barackbook.

Technorati tags: democrats Barack Obama Obama Politics Bill Ayers terrorism Weather Underground Left Wing Extremists

White Sox fan loses eye after beating from Cubs fans

Disclosure: I'm a Chicago White Sox fan.

Another news source mentioned that the party where the beating occurred had a Sesame Street theme. Big Bird would not approve. The Chicago Sun-Times has more details:

Friendly bantering between three Cubs fans and a White Sox fan at a child's birthday party turned nasty, then allegedly erupted into a brutal beating that cost a 32-year-old Gurnee man his right eye.

Sox fan Robert Steele's eye was damaged beyond repair when an attacker wearing steel-toed boots kicked him in the face during the 2-year-old's birthday party, authorities said Tuesday. Steele also suffered a broken nose and fractured orbital bone in the July 19 attack in northwest suburban Huntley, officials said.

"It was a terrible, terrible beating," McHenry County State's Attorney Louis Bianchi said.

Three Cubs fans have been charged with felonies for allegedly attacking Steele about 10:45 p.m. after hours of good-natured ribbing about his baseball preferences became heated, Huntley Deputy Police Chief Todd Fulton said.

This detail will not shock you: Alcohol was involved. It was not purchased at Mr. Hooper's store.

UPDATE 10:00PM CDT: While I'm aware that the great majority of Cub fans are not brutes, last night some other fans allegedly beat up a supporter of another team, this time a Milwaukee Brewers fan who is now being hospitalized. The Brewers fan supposedly "started it" by throwing a can of Red Bull at a bus carrying fans of Chicago's North Side team.

If someone throw a can of Red Bull at your vehicle, or one you're riding in, my advice is to either ignore it, or call the police.

Like those three McHenry County men, those bus passengers have greatly complicated their lives.

Can't we all get along?

Technorati tags: illinois baseball mlb Cubs chicago cubs sports Chicago White Sox white sox crime criminal

Obama still hearing criticism over snub of troops

Now the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review takes its turn in scolding Barack Obama for skipping a scheduled trip to visit wounded troops in Germany.

The first explanation was that the junior senator from Illinois had decided to cancel the visit because the campaign-funded trip might have been viewed as inappropriate. Later, the campaign blamed the Pentagon for classifying the visit as a campaign stop.

The Department of Defense disputed the original Obama spin -- and then the backspin.

As a U.S. senator, Obama most certainly could visit the wounded and brought office staff -- just not from his campaign. "(R)ather than go forward and potentially get caught up in what might have been considered a political controversy of some sort, what we decided was that we not make a visit and instead I would call some of the troops that were there," Mr. Obama told The New York Times.

He still could have visited had he kept his Big Media fawners behind. Presumably, that would have been too audacious for the self-proclaimed agent of change.

How many explanations is Obama going to give about the snub?

Technorati tags: Obama politics Barack Obama Election Democrats Germany Deutschland Yes we can military war on terror

McCain coming to Racine, Wisconsin for town hall meeting

Racine, Wisconsin is a city just south of Milwaukee, and the town will be the site of John McCain's next town hall meeting. On Thursday, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee will appear at the Racine Civic Centre-Memorial Hall--doors open at 10:00am.

Click here to RSVP.

Just sixty miles from home--too bad I can't sneak away from work.

Technorati tags: politics Election John McCain McCain Republican Wisconsin Racine

Report from The Bench: Chicago scumbags gather at Obama rally

My friend Tom Mannis of The Bench grabbed his video camera and made his way to the Broadway Armory on Chicago's North Side on Sunday to cover a Barack Obama campaign event touted in an e-mail as a "Ninth Congressional District Rally and Volunteer Training." The Cult of Change leader, although he was in Chicago that day, was not among the roster of speakers.

The armory was an auspicious choice for the function, it's right across the street from Broadway Bank, owned by the Giannoulias family. A former loan officer of the bank, Illinois State Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias, is a "friend of Barack" you may not have heard about.

The same Obama e-mail goes on to explain, "We will hear from Obama staff about our general election strategy and how you can get involved to help bring change to America right here in Illinois and eastern Iowa."

Representing Illinois' ninth district, which is not in eastern Iowa, is Jan Schakowsky (D-Evanston), who is even more left-wing than Obama.

Mannis, who like myself suffers the indignity of having Schakowsky "represent" him in Washington, writes:

The event was more of a pep rally for Congresslady Jan Schakowsky (D-IL), whose banner was more than four times the size of the Obama banner hanging behind the little stage. Schakowsky was the main speaker. During her speech, she instructed the crowd in the fine art of responding to questions about Barack Obama's recently convicted friend and former financier, Tony Rezko.

Schakowsky said nothing to the crowd, however, about responding to questions about another convicted criminal who is still close to Obama: Her own husband, Robert "Mr. Kite" Creamer.

Creamer can be seen casually walking among the crowd during his wife's yelping speech, which the cavernous building gave it the respect it deserved--the echo in the room made her comments unintelligible.

For years Creamer was the executive director of a goo-goo group, the Illinois Public Action Council. Schakowsky served on IPAC's board of directors. In 2006, Creamer served a five-month prison sentence for bank fraud and failure to pay withholding taxes after engineering a check-kiting scheme at IPAC.

Since his release from "the house with many doors," Creamer has served as an instructor at Camp Obama. He regularly writes pro-Obama articles for The Huffington Post.

Also in attendance was Larry "Insufferable" Suffredin, a Cook County commissioner who, while he was a candidate for state's attorney earlier this year, was opposed to instituting a sales tax increase in the county. After he was crushed in the polls, Suffredin flip flopped, and was the deciding vote in forcing Chicagoans to pay the nation's highest sales tax. The increase in commonly known as the "corruption tax." Suburban Cook residents like myself pay just a little bit less.

Suffredin "represents" me on the Cook County board.

David Fagus is the Democratic committeeman of Chicago's 49th Ward, he was at the armory too. Fagus is also the chief operating officer of Cermak Health Services, the health care provider at Cook County Jail.

Here's what the Chicago "free registration required" Tribune wrote about Cermak earlier this month:

The report also found that medical services at the jail fell below constitutionally required standards of care in more than a dozen areas, including in staffing and emergency care. Some inmates died needlessly as a result, the Justice Department concluded.

In early 2006, a female inmate died of an untreated infection that was a common complication of HIV, investigators found. She went untreated for weeks despite an abnormal X-ray that identified a problem, the report said.

In an August 2006 case, an inmate's leg was amputated because of a bone infection improperly treated at the jail. In late 2006, another inmate died of sepsis after a jail staffer failed to take him to an appointment for post-operative care for a gunshot wound, the report said.

David Fagus, chief operating officer of Cermak Health Services, the jail hospital, pointed out that Cermak's budget was cut to about $31 million in 2007 from $40 million in 2006. Currently, Cermak has 394 employees, about 70 fewer than in 2006, budget documents show.

Yes, the budget was cut in 2007. But the instances the Tribune cited occurred in 2006.

Go to The Bench for more, and to of course watch his video. Great work, Tom.

Related posts:

Obama, Alexi, and Broadway Bank
Obama's "sweetheart" mortgage: Was the competing lender Broadway Bank?
Liberals laud book by ex-con husband of Rep. Jan Schakowsky
Ex-con and congresswoman's husband Creamer taught at Camp Obama
Rep. Schakowsky: Let your moonbat flag fly
Leftist congresswoman wants to reinstate "Fairness Doctrine"

Technorati tags: Obama politics Barack Obama Election Democrats Illinois Politics cronyism Tony Rezko corruption banking Alexi Giannoulias Schakowsky Jan Schakowsky Congress Robert Creamer

Senator Stevens: Resign now

One of my least favorite--and there are so many to choose from--senators in Washington is Ted Stevens (R-AK). One of his best known projects was the "Bridge to Nowhere."

After a fatal Minnesota bridge collapse last year, John McCain used the example of the "Bridge to Nowhere" as an example of what is wrong with "business as usual" in Washington, as Alaska Report tells us:

Maybe, maybe the 200,000 people who cross that bridge every day would have been safer than spending 233 million of your tax dollars on a bridge in Alaska on an island with 50 people on it," he said, visibly upset. "What do you think we could have done with that $233 million that we spent to go to the bridge to nowhere - bridge to nowhere.

AP reports:

Sen. Ted Stevens, the longest-serving Republican senator and a figure in Alaska politics since before statehood, has been indicted on seven counts of falsely reporting hundreds of thousands of dollars in services he received from a company that helped renovate his home.

Stevens, 84, has been dogged by a federal investigation into whether he pushed for fishing legislation that also benefited his son, an Alaska lobbyist.

From May 1999 to August 2007, prosecutors said Stevens concealed "his continuing receipt of hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of things of value from a private corporation." The indictment released Tuesday said the items included: home improvements to his vacation home in Alaska, including a new first floor, garage, wraparound deck, plumbing, electrical wiring; as well as car exchanges, a Viking gas grill, furniture and tools.

With the understandable public focus on high energy prices, much attention has been paid to developing wind power. But in 2006, Stevens tag-teamed with Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-MA) in an attempt to block the proposed Cape Wind project in Nantucket Sound, near the Kennedy family compound in Hyannis Port.

By the way, what is Barack Obama's stand on Cape Wind? McCain supports it.

Stevens should resign from the Senate immediately. He is up for reelection, but the deadline for the indicted senator to remove his name from the Republican Primary ballot has passed. Alaskans need to have someone else represent them in Washington.

Buh-bye, Ted.

Technorati tags: wind renewable energy Massachusetts wind power elections McCain Republican Cape Wind Barack Obama Obama Ted Stevens Alaska corruption

On this day in 1967: USS Forrestal fire

On July 29, 1967, an errant missile started a fire on the deck of the USS Forrestal, an aircraft carrier stationed in the Gulf of Tonkin off the coast of North Vietnam. It was a devastating tragedy, 134 sailors and marines were killed--including most of the first crew of firefighters sent to battle the blaze.

Michael Zak of the Grand Old Partisan has more:

As bombs and fuel exploded, Lt. Commander John McCain jumped out of his own plane and ran toward the flames -- yes, toward the flames -- attempting to rescue another pilot. An exploding bomb then injured McCain in the chest and legs.

With his own ship out of commission, McCain volunteered for duty aboard the USS Oriskany. Three months later, he was shot down. He spent five and a half years in a communist prison, much of that time in solitary confinement.

To learn more about the USS Forrestal fire, watch this video. Or this one from the McCain campaign.

More from Paul Alexander's Man Of The People, The Life of John McCain:

Naturally, the press coverage of the fire was extensive. One of the front page stories in the (New York) Times featured a striking photograph of McCain. His eyes, dark and foreboding, were looking away from the camera, and his face reflected shock and anguish. The article, "Start of Tragedy: Pilot Hears a Blast As He Checks Plane," described McCain as having "a disarming disregard for formal military speech or style," adding, "He is wiry, prematurely gray and does not take himself too seriously."

"We're professional military men and I suppose it's our war," McCain told the Times reporter, "and yet here were enlisted men who earn $150 a month and work 18 to 20 hours a day--and I mean manual labor--and certainly would have survived had they not stayed to help the pilots fight the fire. I've never seen such acts of heroism."

Technorati tags: politics Election John McCain McCain Republican On this day history Vietnam War New York Times

John McCain: A better man

Richard Cohen puts Obamamania into perspective--hint, it's just a lot of hot air--in his latest Washington Post column.

Just tell me one thing Barack Obama has done that you admire," I asked a prominent Democrat. He paused and then said that he admired Obama's speech to the Democratic convention in 2004. I agreed. It was a hell of a speech, but it was just a speech.

On the other hand, I continued, I could cite four or five actions -- not speeches -- that John McCain has taken that elicit my admiration, even my awe. First, of course, is his decision as a Vietnam prisoner of war to refuse freedom out of concern that he would be exploited for propaganda purposes. To paraphrase what Kipling said about Gunga Din, John McCain is a better man than most.

But I would not stop there. I would include campaign finance reform, which infuriated so many in his own party; opposition to earmarks, which won him no friends; his politically imprudent opposition to the Medicare prescription drug bill (Medicare has about $35 trillion in unfunded obligations); and, last but not least, his very early call for additional troops in Iraq. His was a lonely position -- virtually suicidal for an all-but-certain presidential candidate and no help when his campaign nearly expired last summer. In all these cases, McCain stuck to his guns.

More..

(Obama) has been for and against gun control, against and for the recent domestic surveillance legislation and, in almost a single day, for a united Jerusalem under Israeli control and then, when apprised of U.S. policy and Palestinian chagrin, against it. He is an accomplished pol -- a statement of both admiration and a bit of regret.

Cohen's column reminds me of a February exchange between MSNBC's Chrissie Matthews and and Obama supporter Kirk Watson, a Texas state senator, to name something Obama has achieved as a legislator:

Matthews: "You are a big Barack supporter, right, Senator?"

State Sen. Watson: "I am. Yes, I am."

Matthews: "Well, name some of his legislative accomplishments. No, Senator, I want you to name some of Barack Obama's legislative accomplishments tonight if you can."

State Sen. Watson: "Well, you know, what I will talk about is more about what he is offering the American people right now."

Matthews: "No. No. What has he accomplished, sir? You say you support him. Sir, you have to give me his accomplishments. You've supported him for president. You are on national television. Name his legislative accomplishments, Barack Obama, sir."

State Sen. Watson: "Well, I'm not going to be able to name you specific items of legislative accomplishments."

Matthews: "Can you name any? Can you name anything he's accomplished as a Congressman?"

State Sen. Watson: "No, I'm not going to be able to do that tonight."

Matthews: "Well, that is a problem isn't it?"

It's a problem for the American people if someone with a very thin résumé becomes president.

Related posts:

Obama supporter exposes his idol as an empty suit

Obama's state legislative record--he got a lot of help

Technorati tags: Obama politics Barack Obama Election Democrats MSNBC chris matthews hardball Kirk Watson John McCain McCain Republican

Morton Grove repeals handgun ban

I'm off work on Tuesday. Perhaps I'll go out an buy a handgun.

Morton Grove, Illinois, where I live, repealed its 27 year-old handgun ban. The northern suburb of Chicago gained national fame--some would say infamy--by becoming the first town in America to make possessing a handgun illegal.

Gun violence in Morton Grove wasn't a problem before the ban was put in place, nor was it afterwards, and for the foreseeable future, it won't be.

Hats off to Mayor Richard Krier--I voted for him--and the five village board members who for making owning a handgun legal here. And thanks for saving the village thousands of dollars in legal fees--the National Rifle Association had promised to sue Morton Grove after the United State Supreme Court affirmed last month that the Second Amendment permits individuals to own handguns.

As for buying a gun? I don't see that happening. Violent crime is rare here. And I'm a lovable guy, who would want to hurt me?

Technorati tags: Illinois Morton Grove Chicago Supreme Court SCOTUS law legal 2nd Amendment gun control gun rights Washington DC NRA

Report from the McCain campaign teleconference on the economy

For my entire adult life--since 1982--it's been small businesses that have been the driving force in creating jobs. Microsoft and Google--and they're not the only examples I could use--once were small businesses.

More than two-thirds of all new jobs come from small businesses. Barack Obama wants to raise the rate on capital gains, as well in a move to "bring fairness" to the tax system, on families making more than $250,000.

Many of those families, "the rich" in Obama-speak, own small businesses. As for the capital gains rate--currently at 15 percent--Obama wants it higher, but won't say how much. Why not tell us now, Barack?

John McCain wants to keep the Bush tax cuts permanent--and he wants to the capital gains tax rate the same.

This morning I listened in on a McCain campaign teleconference call with former Hewlett Packard CEO Carly Fiorina, Meg Whitman, former eBay (a onetime small business) president and CEO, and two economics professors, Martin Feldstein of Harvard, and John Taylor of Stanford.

Fiorina spoke about the sluggish economy:

And yet, one of the bright shining spots in the economy was small business that created over 230,000 thousand jobs (in the first six months of the year). That's why John McCain wants to make it easier for small business to access capital by keeping the tax rate on capital gains and dividends low. It's why he proposes a depreciation schedule that allows small business to invest in capital equipment and technology and offsets office expenses in the first year. It's why he proposes a portable affordable healthcare plan rather the saddling small businesses with a huge $12,000 payment for a government mandated health proposal for every employee with a family as Barack Obama would do.

Whitman brought up energy:

...and this will be a perfect lead in for Marty, is that you can't talk about our economy and the challenge it faces without talking about energy. Because with the high price of oil, the high price of gasoline ... it has filtered into food prices, shipping prices, everything that is driven by oil, which is just about everything we consume is. So we have got to have a national energy policy that is smart, is intact, and makes a ton of sense because if we don't, we're going to have a lot of trouble over time making sure that our economy grows again.

Then it was Feldstein's turn:

Now many people have reacted to these long-term proposals by saying now what about the price of oil today?' So what I want to focus on is the fact that policies that affect long term-supply, like the McCain strategies for increasing exploration and production, or strategies that reduce demand in the-long term, incentives for new technology for example, have an immediate impact on today's prices. Something's that going to change the supply and demand five years, ten years, twenty years from now will have an impact on today's prices. The reason for that is that if an increase in long-term supply or reduction in long-term demand is perceived by investors and by the oil industry and others as changing the future price of oil, that changes their incentives today in terms of the inventories they accumulate and the prices they charge. If the price is going to be lower in the future because of more supply and less demand that price is going to come down in the future, that gives producers and others an incentive to sell more today rather than hoarding it, inventorying it, or failing to bring it out of the ground. An that's an incentive that affects not just American firms but also the Middle East oil providers who look ahead and see policies coming into place which are going to affect the demand and supply over the long term, and we've already seen it in recent day as the price of oil has come down substantially.

I think the key thing to understand, and to communicate to readers, is that policies that aim at the long term will have this favorable short term affect on prices.

Taylor concluded:

Let me just mention some contrasts with Senator Obama. I think on the taxes it couldn't be greater. I just don't see how anybody can think of raising taxes in weak economic times like this and that's a key part of what Senator Obama has proposed. In contrast, Senator McCain wants to prevent taxes from increasing on small businesses, on capital gains, on dividends and also wants to give a reduction in taxes on a corporate level and business level so that American firms can compete abroad and create jobs.

Vote for low taxes, vote for jobs, vote for energy, vote for McCain.

Technorati tags: politics election environment Democrats news Democrats Obama Barack Obama McCain John McCain energy economy business taxes

Do you remember Reverend Wright?

News you may have missed from Barack Obama's travels in the Middle East:

Thank you so much. I extend greetings from my pastor. He's like my priest. His name is Jeremiah Wright.

Did you catch that? Probably not, because Obama made that statement in a church in northern Israel--in 2006.
Chuck Goudie has more in this morning's Daily Herald:

The Rev. Wright flap, Obama's financial dealings and his relationship with Tony Rezko were all forgotten, almost as if the campaign had built a wall in the middle of the Atlantic to keep them at bay.

Even as the Obama campaign plane flew by convicted, corrupt businessman and political fundraiser Tony Rezko's birthplace in Syria, it was unlikely anyone noticed or cared.

More:

Despite the great wall that now seems to cordon off Mr. Obama's past from the present, the quote delivered in Israel in 2006 should be evocative. No amount of denunciation will change the fact that Mr. Obama would probably not be where he is today if it wasn't for the Rev. Wright. Obama can reduce Wright to "an old uncle" who said things he didn't always agree with, such the preacher's oft-repeated claims that HIV and crack cocaine were government plots aimed at African-Americans.

In his column, Goudie has a timeline of the Obama-Wright relationship.

Yesterday, Barack Obama spoke in at the UNITY Conference just south of Chicago's downtown. Incarcerated just two miles away was Tony Rezko--and to use Goudie's words, "it was unlikely anyone noticed or cared."

H/T to Backyard Conservative

Technorati tags: politics Illinois Election Democrats Chicago Tony Rezko corruption legal Obama Jeremiah Wright

Vet held captive in Somalia speaks out on Obama's cancelled troop visit

From a John McCain campaign press release:

Today, Chief Warrant Officer (4th class) Michael J. Durant (Ret.) issued the following statement on Barack Obama's canceled visit to Ramstein and Landstuhl:

"Over the last week, Barack Obama made time in his busy schedule to hold a rally with 200,000 Germans in Berlin, hold a press conference with French President Nicholas Sarkozy in Paris, and hold a solo press conference in front of 10 Downing Street in London. The Obama campaign had also scheduled a visit with wounded U.S. troops at Ramstein Air Base in Germany, but this stop was canceled after it became clear that campaign staff, and the traveling press corps, would not be allowed to accompany Senator Obama.

"I've spent time at Ramstein recovering from wounds received in the service of my country, and I'm sure that Senator Obama could have made no better use of his time than to meet with our men and women in uniform there. That Barack Obama believes otherwise casts serious doubt on his judgment and calls into question his priorities."

Michael Durant, CW4 (Retired), US Army; born July 23, 1961 in Berlin, NH. He entered the United States Army in August 1979. Following basic training he attended the Defense Language Institute, and was then assigned to the 470th Military Intelligence Group, Fort Clayton, Panama as a Spanish voice intercept operator. He then completed helicopter flight training at Fort Rucker, Alabama. Upon appointment to Warrant Officer 1 in November 1983, he completed the UH60 Black Hawk Qualification Course and was assigned to the 377th Medical Evacuation Company, Seoul Korea. His next assignment was with the 101st Aviation Battalion, Fort Campbell, Kentucky, where he performed duties as an instructor pilot.

Michael joined the 160th Special Operations Group on August 1, 1988. Assigned to D company, he performed duties as Flight Lead and Standardization Instructor Pilot. He participated in combat operations Prime Chance (Persian Gulf in 1989), Just Cause (Panama invasion in 1989), Desert Storm (Liberation of Kuwait in 1991), and Gothic Serpent (Somalia in 1993).

On October 3, 1993, while piloting an MH60 Black Hawk in Mogadishu, Somalia, he was shot down and held captive by hostile forces. He was released eleven days later.

Technorati tags: Obama politics Barack Obama Election Democrats Germany Berlin Deutschland military war on terror McCain John McCain

A preview of a chaotic Obama White House

Barack Obama has never been in charge of anything larger than his Senate office, and of course for the last 18 months, he's been running for president--so it's safe to say he's been an absentee boss for half of his time in Washington.

But Obama was a community organizer, of course.

So it shouldn't be surprising that Obama, who could be president in six months, is the captain of the good ship chaos.

Jim Geraghty of The National Review's Campaign Spot explains:

Obama's campaign is often praised as disciplined and focused, but a good chunk of his flip-flops are a result of staffers who, we are later told, are freelancing or mischaracterizing the true views of the candidate. Based on how frequently Obama staffers contradict each other on fairly basic matters, there is a strong case to be made that an Obama White House would be chaos.

Obama's chief strategist David Axelrod to the Chicago Sun Times, July 25: The Pentagon "viewed this as a campaign event and therefore they said he should not come."

Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs, on Morning Joe, this morning: "We never said that the Pentagon prevented us from going."

Technorati tags: Obama politics Barack Obama Election Democrats flip flop

Barack Obama-Larry Craig ticket?

Up until a year ago, Larry Craig was an obscure Republican senator from Idaho. He was arrested in a men's room at Minneapolis-Saint Paul International Airport for lewd behavior--he quickly pleaded guilty to the less serious charge of disorderly conduct.

Once this news became public, his obscurity vanished. And he became the punch line of many jokes on The Daily Show, The Late Show with David Letterman, and The Tonight Show.

Craig's making news again, and oddly enough it involves Barack Obama, as The Lewiston Tribune's Politics Virtual Deadlines reports:

So this is what the button was supposed to look like.

But someone browsing the Web found a site selling Democratic campaign buttons. And while the campaign buttons featured the names of presidential candidate Barack Obama and Larry LaRocco, candidate for Idaho Republican Larry Craig's Senate seat, the photos were of Obama and Craig.

Oops!

He quickly ordered 10 of the buttons. Though the Website was later changed to show the correct photo, the buttons arrived in Lewiston just as promised: a photo of a smiling Craig was shown above LaRocco's name.

Hey, I'm probably more sympathetic than most, since I work in an industry where every mistake is public and analyzed by thousands. But you gotta admit, this one is a doozy. I wonder how many of wrong buttons were shipped out before the mistake was discovered? And I wonder if they’re worth more than a buck.

UPDATE 11:25 CDT: Here is a picture of the button.

Technorati tags: republicans Idaho gaycurrent events politics Washington Larry Craig Obama Barack Obama Democrats

The price of oil will make Obama's call to help the third world more difficult

From Obama's Berlin speech:

Now the world will watch and remember what we do here – what we do with this moment. Will we extend our hand to the people in the forgotten corners of this world who yearn for lives marked by dignity and opportunity; by security and justice? Will we lift the child in Bangladesh from poverty, shelter the refugee in Chad, and banish the scourge of AIDS in our time?

Let's focus on that child in Bangladesh...poverty can be measured in many ways, but by all estimates, Bangladesh is one of the world's poorest nations--as is Haiti.

From AP via the Chicago Tribune (free registration may be required for the link):

But right now, aid workers say, the poorest families need immediate help, and little of the promised emergency food has reached them. Most of what has made it to Haiti is stuck in port. Nearly all the rest is still inside warehouses — victim of high fuel prices emphasis mine, bad roads and a weak national government.

You see that! High fuel costs! Whether it is planting or harvesting crops, or getting crops to warehouses, and then to consumers--gasoline-powered vehicles are used in each step of the process. And when the price of gasoline goes up...what happens?

The AP article is about Haiti, but the writer could have easily substituted Bangladesh and the same point would be valid.

Controlling energy costs is not just about driving your SUV whenever and wherever you want.

Drill here. Drill now. Pay less. Feed the world.

Technorati tags: Obama Barack Obama politics election energy Illinois McCain John McCain Republican Drill here, drill now Bangladesh Haiti

The latest from America's worst governmental body, Cook County

From the Chicago Tribune's Eric Zorn in 2006:

Obama's staff released a profoundly disheartening letter to voters this week in which Obama, joined by Sen. Dick Durbin, endorsed Cook County Board presidential candidate Todd Stroger.

The letter, which puffs lots of hot air into the saggy balloon of Stroger's legislative resume, refers to him as "a good progressive Democrat" who will "lead us into a new era of Cook County government."

Todd Stroger was a "strong voice" in Springfield, the letter says. He has "worked assiduously" for the poor as an alderman. Yet, of course, the record reveals that Stroger is an unimaginative legislative drone whose reform credentials are wholly imaginary--an unlikely trailblazer to a new era.

Since Stroger won that election, things have gotten worse in Cook County. Machine patronage jobs are what fuels the government of America's second most populous county. To help fund this haven of graft, a one percent sales tax was foisted on Cook's 5 million residents by Todd "The Toddler" Stroger and the so-called public servants on the Cook County Board of Commissioners--forcing suburban Cook residents like myself to pay 10 percent sales tax on most purchases. That's tied for second in the nation--the unfortunate folks in Birmingham, Alabama pay that rate too.

But finishing on top of the sales tax derby is Chicago--where of course Obama lives-- people living in Cook's county seat are saddled with a sales tax rate of $10.25 percent.

As I've noted before, the new levy is widely referred to as the "corruption tax."

Not to sell corruption short, but it can be also called in incompetence tax, as the Chicago Sun-Times explains in an article--you can't make this stuff up--about Cook County's new magazine:

Tired of getting "pummeled by the newspapers every day," Cook County Board president Todd Stroger's administration has decided to counter with a new magazine overseen by county officials.

Publisher/editor Theresa Tracy said Cook County magazine would be "independently published" and a "credible, compelling and valuable resource" for county residents.

But county officials have the final say on what's published. And Tracy accepted $24,999 from Stroger's administration last November to launch the magazine -- $1 under the amount that would have required the approval of the full Cook County Board.

Remember: Obama said The Toddler would "lead us into a new era of Cook County government."
When will we see this great work of journalism? Try never. Stroger spokesman Eugene Mullins spoke to the Sun-Times:

"I was asked to review it and decided not to distribute it -- not because of content, but errors and omissions in the article" about John Stroger (Toddler's late father, whom he replaced on the Democratic ballot two years ago), Mullins said. "Judging on grammatical stuff -- something misspelled or that's not a complete sentence -- falls back on the president. And this is a Cook County magazine. I have to find a way to get rid of them. I'm not distributing them."

$24,999 in tax dollars wasted. What a horrible turn of events in this "new era." In the publishing business, it's customary to proofread before going to print. F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote The Great Gatsby, not The Grate Gatsby. Since publishers can't pass on the cost of their mistakes onto taxpayers, they tend to be less reckless in their endeavors.

All 5,000 copies of Cook County Magazine are in Mullin's office. If you are part of the cleaning crew at the County Building in downtown Chicago, keep this in mind: Mullins won't notice if just one of those magazines is missing. E-mail me at john.ruberry@sbcglobal.net after you grab one.

I want to shout out to the world about the "new era of Cook County government." Obama declared it so.

Related post:

Bid to rescind Cook County corruption tax fails: UPDATED

Technorati tags: Obama politics Barack Obama Election Democrats Illinois Politics Cook County Stroger cronyism nepotism

Build-out continues for 2008 Republican National Convention

Older readers of Marathon Pundit will of course remember the last time the Republican National Convention came to Minnesota's Twin Cities--1892. President Benjamin Harrison was re-nominated, although that November he became the first president to lose to a former president--Democrat Grover Cleveland prevailed.

That convention was held in Minneapolis, this year's RNC will take place in St. Paul.

More from a RNC press release:

The 2008 Republican National Convention today released a behind-the-scenes, time lapse video of the ongoing transformation of the Xcel Energy Center into the podium for the Republican Party's nomination of Sen. John McCain.

In the week since work began at the venue, workers have removed 3,000 seats, built workspace for staff and media, and began technological enhancements needed to support the 45,000 participants expected. We invite you to view our progress by clicking here.

Stay tuned! The 2008 Republican National Convention plans to release a new video each Sunday, so that all can follow along with the six-week transformation.

I'm counting the days until I head west on Interstate 94 to report on the proceedings.

Related post:

Marathon Pundit receives media credentials to Republican Nat'l Convention

Technorati tags: RNC elections republicans Minnesota minneapolis GOP politics

Coneflowers in Morton Grove

These prairie coneflowers were gracing Morton Grove's Linne Woods this morning. Often confused with the more common black-eyed susans, the distinguishing characteristic of coneflowers is their drooping petals.

Technorati tags: Illinois photography photos Morton Grove nature wildflowers botany

Latest John McCain ad hits Obama over not supporting our troops

From a McCain campaign press release:

U.S. Senator John McCain's presidential campaign today released its latest television ad entitled "Troops." The ad highlights Barack Obama's record of not calling a single oversight hearing on NATO's mission in Afghanistan, not visiting in Iraq for over 900 days, not supporting our troops when he voted against critical funding in 2007 and not visiting our wounded troops in Germany when he made time to go to the gym but cancelled trips to Ramstein and Landstuhl. The ad will air in key states.

Barack Obama: No he can't.

Technorati tags: Obama politics Barack Obama Election Democrats Germany Deutschland Iraq العراق Yes we can Afghanistan افغانستان McCain John McCain Republican military war on terror

John McCain's weekly radio address

In his weekly radio address this morning, John McCain spoke about about Barack Obama's multiple positions on the Iraq surge. He also returned to the topic of the high cost of energy.

I spent the past week in Maine, Upstate New York, New Hampshire, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Colorado. And I spoke with voters about how to get the American economy running at full strength again. We need to stay focused on creating jobs for our people, and protecting paychecks from the rising costs of food, gasoline, and most everything else. Above all, we need to get a handle on the cost of oil and gasoline, and to regain energy independence for America.

In Maine, eight out of ten homes use heating oil. And with the cost of that fuel approaching $5 per gallon, many families will have to spend a thousand dollars or more every time they fill their tank, just to keep warm this winter. This is just one example of the troubles Americans face. And for our truckers, farmers, and taxi drivers, the need for relief is just as great.

Yet even now, with the price of gasoline at four dollars or more per gallon, the Congress has done exactly nothing to suspend the federal gas tax. Incredibly, some in Congress are actually in favor of raising the gas tax by another ten cents per gallon. And Senator Obama has proposed a windfall profits tax on oil that could simply be passed on to consumers, raising prices at the pump even more. My energy plan will save Americans money at the pump in the best possible way -- by not taking it away in the first place.

We also need to act right now to increase America's own energy production. Last week, the President finally lifted the executive ban on offshore oil and gas exploration, and called on Congress to lift its ban as well. The Congress now has the sole power to lift the ban, but so far they just can't be bothered to get around to it. Lifting that ban would seriously lower the price of oil -- and Congress should get it done immediately. As a matter of fairness to the American people, we need to drill more, drill now, and pay less at the pump.

The mainstream media's comedic branch, including The Daily Show and Late Night With David Letterman, regularly lampoons McCain about his age. But this forward looking man has a goal of building 45 nuclear power plants by 2030.

McCain noted in his radio address that France, which Obama visited yesterday, gets 80 percent of its electricity from nuclear power.

Here's something I'm going to throw in the mix: Obama's Illinois has more nuclear power plants than any other state--and Illinoisans receive 45 percent of their electricity from nuclear power.

Technorati tags: politics election environment Democrats news Democrats Obama Barack Obama McCain John McCain Drill here, drill now energy economy nuclear energy France française

The Times of London writes about the greatness of the great one

Gerard Baker in The Times of London recites from the Book of Obama, chapter one, verse one:

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 wilderness.

The Child was blessed in looks and intellect. Scion of a simple family, offspring of a miraculous union, grandson of a typical white person and an African peasant. And yea, as he grew, the Child walked in the path of righteousness, with only the occasional detour into the odd weed and a little blow.

When he was twelve years old, they found him in the temple in the City of Chicago, arguing the finer points of community organisation with the Prophet Jeremiah and the Elders. And the Elders were astonished at what they heard and said among themselves: "Verily, who is this Child that he opens our hearts and minds to the audacity of hope?"

In the great Battles of Caucus and Primary he smote the conniving Hillary, wife of the deposed King Bill the Priapic and their barbarian hordes of Working Class Whites.

Amen.

Technorati tags: Obama politics Barack Obama Election Democrats Yes we can Cult of Change Politics UK

Hannity pummels Obama over dropping military hospital visit

"Well, as John McCain said, it's never inappropriate if you are a United States Senator to visit a sick soldier. It's never inappropriate."
Sean Hannity, July 25, 2008.

Obama's decision to skip a planned trip to visit wounded soldiers at the Landstuhl military hospital in Germany is going to be a big headache this fall for the junior senator from my state.

Sean Hannity ripped into the Cult of Change leader on his radio show this afternoon:

You know I've found one article -- I hadn't known this -- I was telling you earlier the Obama campaign tried to blame the Pentagon. Here he was scheduled. He wanted to go visit this military hospital. It was on the campaign sheet to go visit the military hospital in Germany. And we find out that the only restrictions the Pentagon wanted to impose was their rule against turning visits by politicians into campaign events.

And, by the way, you know, I know for a fact because I talked to these kids when I went to Walter Reed and Bethesda, that literally the president would sneak on over often to go see these, kids -- you never heard about it, it was never reported. As a matter of fact, I remember I was out there with Ollie North and they said, yeah the president was just here, two days ago, whatever it was. And you know, same thing with Donald Rumsfeld. Donald Rumsfeld used to go over there all the time, but he didn't turn it into a campaign event.

Anyway, so Obama has it on the schedule. The Pentagon says, look, you can come but they're going to impose their rule against turning a visit by a politician into a campaign event. Now this is what we finally are finding out here. All the Pentagon said is they advised Obama's staff -- yeah of course he can visit the hospital and injured personnel in Germany but only in his capacity as a member of Congress, in other words without the trappings of a political campaign, which by the way, it's unfair to use sick soldiers who risked their lives as a political prop.

Obama apparently cancelled the visit and went to work out instead. He went to work out and then said it would be inappropriate as part of a trip financed by his campaign. Well, as John McCain said, it's never inappropriate if you are a United States senator to visit a sick soldier. It's never inappropriate. There's not one taxpayer in the country that would have any opposition to this nor is there any rules against this. The only difference is the only restriction that was placed is that they don't want to have candidates, you know, using the appearance for some type of political benefit. That wasn't enough. He had to bring along of course the entourage and the multiple 10,000 media press secretaries along with him.

So if you want my take on this, if you want to remember one thing about this trip is that Barack Obama chose to work out rather than see the wounded troops because he couldn't bring Katie Couric, Charlie Gibson, and Brian Williams with him.

Jim Geraghty in the National Review's Campaign Spot has more on Obama's cut-and-run from our recovering soldiers. He calls is a "fumble."

Look for the Sunday morning talk shows to bring up Obama's fumble.

Technorati tags: Obama politics Barack Obama Election Democrats Germany Berlin Deutschland military war on terror McCain John McCain Sean Hannity Cult of Change Bush

Hi Bob: Chicago's Bob Newhart building

Or is it Chicago's Bob Hartley building?

One of the most popular television shows of the 1970s was The Bob Newhart Show. Newhart is a Chicago native, and in his self-named show, he played a Chicago psychologist named Bob Hartley.

Like my late father, Newhart was a graduate of St. Ignatius High School--then a nuts-and-bolts (and fists) all-male Jesuit school on the city's West Side. Now it's co-educational--and a fist-free zone.

Newhart was two years older than my dad--they didn't know each other. However, a longtime family friend, a year older than my father, did know the future professional funny man, and he described him as "a troublemaker." Back then, Newhart was an amateur funny man.

In the opening montage of The Bob Newhart Show, Hartley's reel-world home was shown--and it was this building at 5901 North Sheridan Road on the city's North Side.

I took this picture during my 14-mile run on Sunday, from Chicago's lakefront running path.

As they so often said on that show...

"Hi Bob!"

Technorati tags: Bob Newhart television Chicago entertainment

Wall Street Journal on Obama's world tour

The analysis, and the criticism, of Barack Obama's trip overseas keeps coming.

The Wall Street Journal weighs in:

Mr. Obama also knows that Gen. Petraeus opposes setting a fixed timetable for withdrawing U.S. forces from Iraq. This military judgment ought to count for something, particularly since Congressional Democrats have long scolded President Bush for failing to pay sufficient heed to the advice of generals such as former Army Chief of Staff Eric Shinseki. Yet Mr. Obama, who has always been careful to cite the views of military commanders to justify his 16 month withdrawal schedule, now says that heeding less congenial military advice would mean an abdication of his responsibilities as a prospective commander in chief.

The Obama campaign now makes much of the fact that Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki seems to have endorsed the idea of a timetable for withdrawal, with 2010 as the approximate date. This is being played as a great political coup for Mr. Obama -- which, we suppose, it is, if only because the media plays it that way.

But the significant debate is not over whether and when the U.S. will withdraw. It's over whether the U.S. will win. In his Berlin speech, Mr. Obama was at his most forceful when he insisted that "this is the moment when we must defeat terror," adding that "the threat is real and we cannot shrink from our responsibility to combat it." This is well-said and true.

But it squares oddly with a political campaign whose central premise is that losing in Iraq -- and whatever calamities may follow -- is a matter of little consequence to U.S. or European interests. It squares oddly, too, with Mr. Obama's broader promise to "stand for the human rights of the dissident in Burma, the blogger in Iran, the voter in Zimbabwe" and virtually every other global cause.

Technorati tags: politics news Democrats Obama politics Barack Obama Iraq العراق Yes we can Afghanistan افغانستان

Fact checking Obama's Berlin speech

Don Surber of the Charleston (West Virginia) Daily Mail performs a fact checking exercise of yesterday's speech by Barack Obama in Berlin.

It's a long post. Great work, Don.

Technorati tags: Obama politics Barack Obama Election Democrats Germany Berlin Deutschland West Virginia

Obama ditches Berlin troop visit for shopping: CORRECTED

There's a lot wrong with Barack Obama's decision to cancel a planned trip to a U.S. military hospital in Landstuhl, Germany.

Obama, through a spokesperson of course, claims that the Pentagon suggested that to him it was not a good idea for the Illinois senator to visit soldiers who were wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan, because it would be a campaign event.

Obama went shopping instead.

Earlier in his trip, he made it clear that he wasn't interested in listening to generals such as David Petraeus in how to conduct the war in Iraq.

Okay, assume what the spokesperson said it true. Obama still could have visited the troops at Landstuhl--without his beloved media throng.

Shameful.

CORRECTION 9:40 AM: Landstuhl is quite some distance from Berlin--it's located near the French border.

Technorati tags: Obama politics Barack Obama Election Democrats Germany Berlin Deutschland military war on terror

Doug Ross compiles the ultimate list of Obama flip flops

The story so far: Doug Ross has compiled the ultimate list of Barack Obama flip flops. Just as counting of the number of asteroids in the asteroid belt is a challenge to the world's greatest astronomers--bloggers face a similar challenge in counting the Cult of Change leader's flip flops.

But Ross seems to have them all documented. Until, that is, the next flip flop.

In the update part of one of my earlier posts from today, I have the exclamation point for Ross's compilation.

Technorati tags: Obama politics Barack Obama Election Democrats flip flop

My Mississippi Manifest Destiny: Clarksdale's Old Greyhound Station

Like many towns of its size, Clarksdale, Mississippi, circa 1940, had several common focal points that residents of other cities would recognize in a second. A movie theater, a train station (more on that in my next post), a courthouse, and a bus station.

Clarksdale has a beautiful Greyhound station, although years ago buses stopped using the station. Several blogs, including this one, have reported that Greyhound has abandoned Clarksdale, but Greyhound's web site lists the Delta town on its site. Maybe a subcontractor?

At one time the building hosted the Clarksdale visitor's center--but it appears this beauty, although well-maintained, is unused. That's a shame.

Sociologically, the station is important. Because without a doubt it was where thousands of Mississippians who took part in the black diaspora bought their one-way tickets to a better life in the North.

Next post: Clarkdale, Home of the Delta Blues

Earlier Clarksdale post: Robert Johnson's Crossroads

Technorati tags: history Americana byways travel travel blog history photography photos Mississippi African American black Highway 61 music blues delta blues Greyhound architecture

Report from this morning's McCain campaign teleconference

This morning, the John McCain campaign held another teleconference--this time on energy. Speaking and taking questions were two campaign senior policy advisers Nancy Pfotenhauer and Doug Holtz-Eakin. Also this morning, I drove past a Marathon gas station in Morton Grove, where regular gasoline is being sold at $4.22 a gallon. That's about a dollar more than that staion was selling fuel last year.

Here's a portion of what Holtz-Eakin said:

(McCain will) commit to using coal, our most abundant natural resource, burning it cleanly and sequestering the carbon. He's committed to building 45 new nuclear power plants in the United States between now and 2030, to provide a stable source of energy for not just those electric vehicles, but for small businesses and households that are going to face higher heating costs. And, over the long term, he's committed to an environmentally respectful policy of cap-and-trade, which will bring the United States into global leadership on the issue of global warming.

"So his policies are ones which recognize the real economic duress that people feel right now, take bold actions to address them right now and for the foreseeable future, relieve us forever of our reliance on imported oil.

"This stands in stark contrast to the path that has been chosen by Barack Obama. Barack Obama has said no to additional oil exploration in the U.S. He has said no to additional natural gas exploration. He has said no more coal-fired power plants. He has said no to nuclear power plants. Barack Obama has a policy that means the United States will not have more energy as it tries to grow and it will simply have to live with higher prices. Barack Obama himself has said higher gasoline prices are fine; they just got there faster than he expected. He has said it would be fine to put new taxes on natural gas and on coal, raising those prices further.

Interesting statement about Obama and coal. The coal industry used to be a major employer in the southern Illinois. During his 2004 Senate run, Obama made repeated promises that he would work to revive downstate Illinois' coal industry.

He's done nothing since other than make hot air promises. Flip. Flop.

And three months ago, Obama had the audacity to attempt to bond with Montana voters by reminding them that their state, like Illinois, is a coal state.

The high cost of energy is a millstone on the economy--John McCain understand that. Obama doesn't, as Nancy Pfotenhauer explained:

The failure of Senator Obama to understand the need to increase domestic (energy) production is just stunning. And that is going to be a big hurdle for him to overcome.

That it will be.

Technorati tags: politics election environment Democrats news Democrats Obama Barack Obama McCain John McCain Drill here, drill now energy flip flop coal economy natural gas nuclear energy

Obama in Berlin: Great speaker--but don't look for results

I just finished watching Barack Obama's speech in Berlin. He sure knows his way around a teleprompter...but keep in mind, this guy's record for actual getting things done...well, he doesn't have one.

Here's what the National Review's Byron York wrote about the Cult of Change leader last month:

When he left for law school, Obama wondered what he had accomplished as an organizer. He certainly had some achievements, but he did not--perhaps could not--concede that there might be something wrong to his approach to Chicago's problems. Instead of questioning his own premises, he concluded that he simply needed more power to get the job done. So he made plans to run for political office. And in each successive office, he has concluded that he did not have enough power to get the job done, so now he is running for the most powerful office in the land.

And what if he gets it? He'll be the biggest, strongest organizer in the world. He'll dazzle the country with his message of hope and possibility. But we shouldn't expect much to actually get done.

He dazzled Germany just now. But as Mark Halperin of Time said on the Fox News Channel, "He's not running for president of Germany."

Technorati tags: Obama politics Barack Obama Election Democrats Germany Berlin Deutschland Cult of Change

An endorsement that won't end up on Obama's web site: UPDATED

From the Jackson Clarion-Ledger:

Before he died Wednesday evening, death row inmate Dale Leo Bishop apologized to his victim's family, thanked America and urged people to vote for Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama.

"For those who oppose the death penalty and want to see it end, our best bet is to vote for Barack Obama because his supporters have been working behind the scenes to end this practice," Bishop said.

More...

A Lee County jury convicted Bishop in 2000 of participating in the murder of Marcus Gentry, who was beaten to death in December 1998 with a claw hammer. His body was found along a logging road near Saltillo.

Bishop did not deliver the fatal blows. He became only the eighth person put to death who did not directly kill his victim among the more than 1,100 executed since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976 - not including contract killings

Obama claims that he supports capital punishment. But in this now legandary 1996 Independent Voters of Illinois-Independent Precint Organization survey, Obama replied "No" to the question, "Do you support capital punishment?"

But The Great One's campaign staff says a volunteer filled out that form.

Yeah, right.

Hat tip to Brainster.

UPDATE 2:05 PM CDT:

Courtesy of Obama's Senate web site, from a 2005 Chicago Tribune interview:

I would feel very uncomfortable putting my name to something that was written by somebody else or co-written or dictated. If my name is on it, it belongs to me.

Case closed.

Thanks for the link:

Doug Ross @ Journal

Technorati tags: Obama politics Barack Obama Election Democrats IVI-IPO capital punishment death penalty Mississippi flip flop

Lots of static in new Obama Spanish language ad

Since the Barack Obama campaign is not much more than a marketing exercise--the man with the thin résumé has no record to run on--it's amazing when you discover that the geniuses running the enterprise botch a radio advertisement.

The Washington Times has the story:

As the battle between John McCain and Barack Obama for Hispanic votes heats up, it raises the question of what relates better, an immigrant father or an absentee father? For Obama, the answer is an absentee father.

This morning Obama's campaign e-mailed reporters the script for his first Spanish-language radio ad of the general election, designed to portray him as sharing the same experiences as many Latino voters, and it included these lines:

"His father was an immigrant. His mother from a humble, middle class family. Through student loans and hard work, he graduated from college.

More...

But about an hour later the campaign sent out what it said was the final script, which changed those lines to read:

"He grew up without a father — raised by his mother with the support of his grandparents."

I don't remember Obama writing in Dreams From My Father that he grew up without one.

Here's a disturbing sentence from the first draft of that ad:

Obama never pulled people down as he made his way up…

Try telling that to Alice Palmer--his predecessor in the Illinois State Senate. She anointed The Chosen One as her successor, and when she changed her mind about not running for re-election, Obama had her thrown off the ballot for petition irregularities. Palmer was the first person--that we know of--who Obama "threw under the bus." Barack Obama Sr. is the latest.

This sentence made it into both drafts of the ad:

In the State Senate, he passed a law that helped reduce the welfare roles by over 80% by helping families to secure jobs.

Here's what AP wrote when the Obama campaign used that same claim in a television ad:

But to suggest Obama personally "slashed the rolls by 80 percent" is a stretch; federal law signed by President Clinton required the state come up with a plan to trim the welfare rolls. Obama said he would have opposed Clinton's initiative.

Obama's latest ad is not muy bien.

Technorati tags: Obama politics Barack Obama Election Democrats Illinois Politics welfare español Alice Palmer advertising radio

Reason Magazine: Chicago the worst city for personal freedom

ThirdWaveDave tipped me off to a Reason Magazine article that ranks 35 cities in regards to personal freedom. Las Vegas came in first--the most free--Chicago last. There are tons of nit-picky laws in Barack Obama's hometown--although the widely ridiculed ban on foie gras was repealed.

Here's one law the libertarian-minded magazine missed: After Little Marathon Pundit was born, I had to sell my two-seater Honda. I received a parking tickett for having a "For Sale" sign in the window of my car.

From Reason:

But the repeal of the foie gras ban doesn't herald a freer future. The same week Chicago reversed the ban, the Board of Aldermen (My note--it's called the City Council in Chicago) considered a law that would require all pet owners to sterilize their dogs and cats, an overreaction to a pit bull attack on a woman one month earlier. And after a year in which the city's notoriously rough-around-the-edges police department endured a series of high-profile shootings, beatings, and allegations of corruption, the City Council addressed these problems by considering a bill that would...give overweight cops a nutritionist and personal trainer.

(Doug) Sohn (the only man fined for serving foie gras while the ban was in effect) says this is typical of the way the aldermen operate. "The board thinks, 'This is our job; we pass laws,'" he says. "The trans fat ban, the smoking ban—these are easy problems to look like you’re solving. It's easy, it's elitist, it's black and white. People don't like smoking, so let's ban it. Chicago is the fattest city in the country, so let's attack McDonald's with a trans fat ban. The knee-jerk stuff is a good way to look like you're leading. It's much more difficult to fix something like the broken sewer and street systems—why we have so many potholes."

Reason notes that Chicago has more red light cameras than any city in the country, and it's second to only New York in the number of public surveillance cameras. That's one of them up on top, taken a few weeks ago on the corner of Howard and Damen in the ward of Joe Moore (the alderman who pushed through the foie gras ban). Perhaps the people who live and work near these boxes feel safer, but to me, it's a heads-up call that I've entered a high crime area. Roll up the windows and lock the doors.

However, if Chicago lands the 2016 Summer Olympics, Mayor Richard Daley will have those police cameras everywhere.

But at least you'll be able to munch on foie gras within sight of them.

For more on Alderman Joe Moore, visit Tom Mannis' The Bench, and start scrolling.

Related post:

City of Chicago weighs elephant ban

Technorati tags: Chicago illinois Nanny State society foie gras libertarian Las Vegas law enforcement Joe Moore Rogers Park

Video: The media is in love with Barack Obama

We all know, to use Fox & Friends Steve Doocy's words, that the media "is in the tank" for Barack Obama. But even I'm amazed about the pervasiveness of Obama-mania among the mainstream media.

The worst of the ilk of course is MSNBC's Chrissie Matthews, who probably isn't wearing pants when he sits behind his desk and reports on his love, Barack Obama.

Click here to view the videos.

Technorati tags: Obama politics Barack Obama Election Democrats MSNBC chris matthews hardball media bias

My Mississippi Manifest Destiny: Robert Johnson's Crossroads

After a brief respite, My Mississippi Manifest Destiny is back. After leaving Mound Bayou, I motored up north to Clarksdale. Which brought me to the site, where legend has it, pioneering bluesman Robert Johnson sold his soul to the devil--the crossroads of Highway 61 and Highway 49.

I had trouble finding the iconic sign pictured above--Highway 61 was re-routed decades ago, so the crossroads is on the site where the roads used to meet. The monument is near downtown Clarksdale, across the street from Crossroads Furniture. The picture on the lower left is where the two roads intersect now.

The Johnson story goes like this: Sometime in the mid-1930s, Johnson travelled to this spot (although others are plausible) to offer his soul to the devil, so he could be the greatest blues artist ever. By many accounts, Johnson became just that. But as is typical of devil's bargains, Old Scratch (as he always does) got the best of his client--granting him his wish, but Johnson died shortly afterwards, reportedly poisoned by a jealous husband. So Johnson never got to reap the benefits of his evil business transacation.

Johnson made 41 recordings during his lifetime, they are are chronicled here. His best known song is Sweet Home Chicago. Most people remember that song from the The Blues Brothers movie.

If delta blues music has a hometown, Clarksdale is it. I'll cover the other artists with ties to Clarksdale in upcoming posts.

Previous My Mississippi Manifest Destiny posts:

Mound Bayou, a town founded by freed slaves
What Mike Espy is up to these days
Churches
Teddy Bear
Coca-Cola museums
Prison laborer in Louisiana
Natchez Part Three
Natchez Part Two, Forks of the Road
Natchez Part One
The Father of Waters
Logging
The Natchez Trace Part Four, Ghost Town
The Natchez Trace Part Three
The Natchez Trace Part Two, Indian Mounds
The Natchez Trace Part One
$aving$ in Tupelo
Where Elvis bought his first guitar
Elvis Presley's birthplace
The Battle of Tupelo
Corinth
Shiloh Part Four
Shiloh Part Three
Shiloh Part Two
Shiloh Part One
Carl Perkins
The Varsity Theatre in Martin, Tennessee
Lincoln and Kentucky
Metropolis

Vicksburg-related posts:

Vicksburg Battlefield Part Five
Vicksburg Battlefield, Part Four, The USS Cairo
Vicksburg Battlefield, Part Three, Illinois Memorial
Mississippi River at Vicksburg
Vicksburg Battlefield, Part Two, State Memorials
Vicksburg Battlefield, Part One
Jewish Mississippi
Memorial Day tribute to our ally Australia
Memorial Day--a time to remember

Leland posts:

Highway 61 Blues Museum
Leland's Blues Murals
Birthplace of Kermit the Frog

Technorati tags: Americana byways travel travel blog history photography photos Mississippi African American black Highway 61 Robert Johnson music blues delta blues

Obama's muddled Iraq and Afghanistan policies

From a Washington Post editorial:

The initial media coverage of Barack Obama's visit to Iraq suggested that the Democratic candidate found agreement with his plan to withdraw all U.S. combat forces on a 16-month timetable. So it seems worthwhile to point out that, by Mr. Obama's own account, neither U.S. commanders nor Iraq's principal political leaders actually support his strategy.

More...

Yet Mr. Obama's account of his strategic vision remains eccentric. He insists that Afghanistan is "the central front" for the United States, along with the border areas of Pakistan. But there are no known al-Qaeda bases in Afghanistan, and any additional U.S. forces sent there would not be able to operate in the Pakistani territories where Osama bin Laden is headquartered. While the United States has an interest in preventing the resurgence of the Afghan Taliban, the country's strategic importance pales beside that of Iraq, which lies at the geopolitical center of the Middle East and contains some of the world's largest oil reserves. If Mr. Obama's antiwar stance has blinded him to those realities, that could prove far more debilitating to him as president than any particular timetable.

Barack Obama is the chairman of the Senate subcommittee on Europe. Since NATO forces are engaged in Afghanistan, his committee has oversight authority there. But in his 18 months in that post, he yet to have a hearing about Afgnanistan.

Do you want more? Almost a year ago, Obama said as president he would invade Pakistan to flush out al Qaeda fighters. Understandably, Pakistan didn't react favorably to this suggestion, nor did Obama's netroots supporters--so that ended the "Bomb Pakistan" phase of Obama's presidential campaign.

Technorati tags: politics news Democrats Obama politics Barack Obama Iraq العراق Yes we can Afghanistan افغانستان

Bid to rescind Cook County corruption tax fails: UPDATED

Life got a little harder for myself and the other five million residents of Cook County, Illinois on July 1. Suburbanites began paying a 10 percent sales tax--only Birmingham, Alabama can match that. Chicagoans pay 10.25 percent--the highest sales tax in America.

There is some delicious irony, though. Cook County has been controlled by Democrats for forty years. And when Barack Obama, the South Sider who is the leader of the Cult of Change, became the presumptive Democratic nominee, a large chunk of the Democratic National Committee moved to the Gotham City of the Midwest--and now they're also paying the nation's highest sales tax.

As I've remarked many times before, shortly before the 2006 general election, the Democratic nominee for Cook County Board President, Todd Stroger, looked beatable. But Illinois' Democratic heavyweights, including Barack Obama, pushed the ward-heeler over the top. Obama, in a letter, said "The Toddler" was "a good progressive Democrat" who will "lead us into a new era of Cook County government."

Although there are some hard-working county employees, Cook County government for decades has as a haven for patronage job seekers. Rita Rezko, wife of convicted felon Antoin "Tony" Rezko, earns $38,000 a year as a member of an obscure board, a part-part time job, with full benefits. How did she this plum gig. Her husband raised a lot of money for the late John Stroger, who preceded Todd as Cook County board president.

Obama's pal Rezko got around.

Tony Peraica, a suburban Republican, was the younger Stroger's opponent in 2006. He's a county commissioner, and he introduced today's resolution to repeal what's being called Cook County's "corruption tax." The measure failed 10-7. All five Republican commissioners voted to drop the tax, they were joined by two Democrats. Which means of course 10 Democrats support the corruption tax.

By now a theme should be apparent.

Meanwhile, Barack Obama continues to get worshipped by his mainstream media sycophants. Hopefully one of them will get drunk and work up the courage to ask Obama about the corruption tax--and his feelings on living in the city with America's highest sales tax.

UPDATE July 23: Stroger is not only incapable of running Cook County, his campaign fund is a mess. From the Chicago "free registration required" Tribune:

Cook County Board President Todd Stroger's campaign paid nearly $27,000 in fines to state elections officials for violating campaign fundraising reporting rules during his controversial 2006 victory, according to paperwork filed Tuesday.

In addition, a treasurer of one of Stroger's political bank accounts said she expects more fines to be levied after the campaign filed incomplete and late reports to the State Board of Elections this week.

State elections officials said the Stroger campaign was fined $25,581 for failing to file timely reports on contributions of more than $500 that it received in the final weeks before the 2006 general election. The campaign was fined an additional $1,175 for failing to timely file its organization papers with the elections board.

Stroger was named by Cook County Democrats in July 2006 as a substitute candidate for his then-ailing father, incumbent County Board President John Stroger, but it wasn't until October that his campaign filed the proper paperwork with the state. The elder Stroger, who suffered a stroke a week before the March 2006 Democratic primary, died in January.

Related posts:

Hey Obama! Speak out on proposal to impose nation's highest sales tax in your hometown: UDPATED
Revolt at the polls against the Cook County corruption tax called by Democratic reformer
T-Day in Obama's hometown: Highest sales tax of any big city in America
Patronage hiring still thrives in Cook County
Another thing for Obama to be silent on: Cook County summer jobs going to pols' kids
Rita Rezko's contribution to America's worst government, Cook County
Update on America's worst governmental body, Cook County
Palatine wants to secede from Cook County
Something else for Obama to be silent on: Chicago will have the nation's highest sales tax
Say no to higher Cook County taxes
No fat in Cook County budget?
Beavers leaves it to the race card as America's worst governmental body gets worse
Your Cook County tax dollars at work
Stop the proposed Cook County phone tax
"Is anyone watching out for Chicago taxpayers?"
Time for me to shop...outside Cook County?
Marathon Pundit Chicago River dumping follow up
Obama and Chicago's "We Don't Want Nobody Nobody Sent" culture
Cook County sues Cook County
My day as a Cook County juror
Cook County treasurer's office working against taxpayers

Technorati tags: Obama politics Barack Obama Election Democrats Illinois Politics Cook County Stroger cronyism nepotism

Denver gives DNC host committee pass on gas taxes

Ah...the Audacity of Hypocrisy!

Once again, from the Rocky Mountain News:

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 a sense, you're saying then that the officials who pass the laws are not willing to live by them, and that concerns me," Councilwoman Jeanne Faatz said.

The issue came up during the council's weekly meeting with Mayor John Hickenlooper when the Public Works Department requested authorization to be reimbursed by the Denver 2008 Convention Host Committee for use of "fueling facilities, fuel and car washes."

A few months ago, John McCain suggested a "gas tax holiday" for the summer. Barack Obama called it a "gimmick." The DNC host committee is enjoying their gimmicky gas tax holiday to be sure.

Technorati tags: politics election environment Democrats Denver DNC news Democrats Obama Barack Obama McCain John McCain Republican hypocrisy Drill here, drill now energy

Former "child prodigy" environmentalist leading Dem convention "greening" efforts

It's been my experience about people who lie about their past, especially about innocuous things, is that it usually exposes a major character flaw. For instance, I used to work with a guy who would regularly make Baron Münchhausen type claims that could not possibly be true. My liar was a fairly young guy, and I simply did that math and concluded that he could not have possibly done all the things he said he did. He didn't last long--he got fired for stealing.

Erick Erickson of Red State got his calculator out yesterday, and did the math on Andrea Robinson, the director of greening for the Democratic National Convention Committee. However Robinson's "youth" isn't what blows her cover.

The DNCC will take place in Denver next month.

Erickson in is post notes that earlier this month the Rocky Mountain News listed her age as "thirtysomething."

From yesterday's Rocky Mountain News:

But if you read Robinson's profile on the DNCC Website it says she has "more than 25 years in the environmental field." That means she started when she was 13.

Smith reports she did, in fact, start her first environmental non-profit when she was 13 - though that particular job does not show up on Robinson's resume. It also took the DNCC about a month to produce a resume for her when the Rocky requested it. When the resume was finally produced, it actually included her current job title as the Director of Sustainability and Greening for the DNCC.

This is a high-profile position and the DNCC has made no secret about Robinson being the DNCC's first ever Director of Greening. The DNCC recently launched a challenge to all 50 state delegations to commit their delegates to being carbon neutral during the convention - but as of a month ago, only three states had signed up - California, Nevada and Vermont. Damon Jones, spokesman for the DNCC said now there are 37 delegations participating. Robinson is leading that effort.

Robinson, who was born in Orange County, Calif., does list a bachelor's degree in environmental science from the University of California, Santa Barbara on the resume. And her experience listed includes being the the consultant and greening manager for Giants Stadium and Shanghai for the Live Earth concerts in 2007.

Robinson is also an actress, and has a body of work, mostly in television, going back to the 1990s, which the Rocky Mountain News says is not on the-DNCC supplied resume.
Back to the Rocky Mountain News:

Robinson, for her part, declined to comment on why she left the TV career off her resume.

But does Robinson have more than 25 years of environmental experience?

Technorati tags: politics election environment green sustainability Democrats Denver DNC

Sam Brownback admits he was wrong, McCain was right on the surge

For a while last year, Senator Sam Brownback (R-KS) was a presidential candidate. He didn't think the Iraq troop surge would work. In a John McCain campaign teleconference this morning (this one I missed), he admitted that he was wrong, McCain was right on th Iraq troop surge.

I was skeptical about the surge at that point and time. And he said this is what we've got to do and we did it and thank goodness for John McCain because we won. I was wrong on the surge. Thankfully, John prevailed in this and because John McCain prevailed on this we are looking at a situation where we can substantially draw down troops in Iraq today instead of defeat.

Has Obama ever admitted he was wrong on anything?

Technorati tags: politics news Democrats Obama politics Barack Obama McCain John McCain Republican Iraq العراق Kansas Brownback

Obama stuck in a timetable warp on Iraq

Besides childish refrains such as "Yes we can," Barack Obama's presidential campaign has been centered on a timetable for our forces to leave in Iraq. However, if Obama's 2007 cut-and-run "strategy" had been followed, the nation would be in the throes of a civil war.

For the first time, Obama met with General Davis Petraeus about Iraq. And Obama seems troubled that Petraeus wants "maximum flexibility."

Petraeus, not Obama, is the "Yes we can" guy.

Here are Obama's comments:

In terms of my conversations with General Petraeus, there's no doubt that General Petraeus does not want a timetable. I mean I think that he's said that publicly. And he is, and as I said, in his role, I think he wants maximum flexibility to be able to do what he believes needs to be done inside of Iraq.

And here is the video.

Last night, when asked on ABC's Nightline if knowing what he knows now, if he would support the surge, Obama said no.

Petraeus: Flexible

Obama: Inflexible

Technorati tags: politics news Democrats Obama politics Barack Obama McCain John McCain Republican Iraq العراق Yes we can

New McCain ad: "Don't hope for more energy, vote for it"

That's right, the ad says "Don't hope for more energy, vote for it." John McCain and the Republicans have an energy plan.

I know the Democrats have one--It's not called "Hope," it's called "Nope."

Keep an eye on the comments section. Every time I do an energy post, an Obama troll spews Dem talking points about wind power and alternative sources of energy. I might be reaching a bit, but since they don't follow the same tactic with my Iraq posts, or even Tony Rezko, the Democrats must view energy as a vulnerable issue for them.

They're scared.

Technorati tags: Obama politics Barack Obama politics election energy McCain John McCain Republican Drill here, drill now offshore drilling wind alternative energy

Another McCain campaign teleconference report

I hope I continue to get invited to these John McCain campaign teleconferences. For the second time in a week, Randy Scheunemann, the campaign's senior foreign policy adviser--only this time by himself--spoke on the senator's behalf on the telephone for reporters.

Here some of that he said:

Senator Obama's judgment on Iraq has been universally wrong. He opposed the surge. He predicted it would fail. He said not only would it not decrease sectarian violence, it would likely increase it. Had we followed his course of action there would have been no surge, funding for troops would have been cut off last year. He proposed a withdrawal plan in January 2007 that would have all our troops out of Iraq by March 2008. He rewrote his website on the surge and now he is trying to rewrite history saying he always knew the surge could reduce sectarian violence.

Had we followed Senator Obama's advice in fact he would not be in Iraq today because Iraq would be in chaos. He couldn't visit Basra as he's doing today because Basra would be under the control of Iranian backed killers rather than under the control of the Iraqi government and coalition forces. So what we're seeing today is a real watershed moment for Senator Obama. Is he going to listen to our commanders in the field and talk about and listen to them when they say any withdrawal must be based on conditions or is he stubbornly adhere to his politically motivated plan to have an unconditional withdrawal driven only by dates, arbitrary dates, rather than conditions on the ground?

My guess is that Obama will listen to The Daily Kos crowd in regards to what to do in Iraq. And Afghanistan.
Some more commons sense from Scheunemann:

Senator Obama decided some months ago when he was running for the nomination that 16-months was the time period that all troops should be withdrawn. Not 12 months, not 14, not 18, but 16. That's an artificial date and it is completely ignorant of conditions on the ground and the effect that it would have both on our ability to withdraw as well as the ability to have sustainable security in Iraq in the aftermath.

Obama: Wrong on the surge. Wrong on offshore drilling. Wrong on taxes. Wrong on Tony Rezko. Wrong on Todd Stroger....Wrong, wrong, wrong.

Related posts:

Report from the teleconference with the McCain campaign

Setting the record straight on the withdrawal of troops from Iraq

Iraq flip flops documented on Obama's own web site

Technorati tags: politics news Democrats Obama politics Barack Obama McCain John McCain Republican Iraq العراق Flip flop

Obama's world tour T-shirts

Since Barack Obama is a "rock star," of course it's fitting that his trip to the Middle East and Europe is being called a "world tour."

And what's a rockin' world tour without official t-shirts?

My buddies over at America is an Obamanation have a couple of wardrobe suggestions for enthusiastic Obama fans who can't find the correct thing to wear.

Michelle Malkin has a collection of shirts too.

Technorati tags: Obama politics Barack Obama politics humor humour Cult of Change

Pink warriors against cancer

It's an expression in the rock and roll world that it's the bands that make the concerts rock, but it's the roadies who make it roll.

And in regards to races such as 5Ks and 10Ks, it's the runners who compete in them, but it's the volunteers, such as the ones pictured here, who make the races run.

My training for the Chicago Marathon is progressing, yesterday morning I ran 14 miles on Chicago's lakefront. At roughly mile 10 of my trek, I encountered these enthusiastic volunteers for Fleet Feet's 5K and 10K Women's Festival. These Avon employees--Avon raises a lot of money for breast cancer research--insisted I accept their Gatorade--even though as a male there was no way that I could have been an entrant in the race.

Well done, ladies. Thanks for the Gatorade and keep up the good work.

Related post:

A participant's view of the cancelled Chicago Marathon: UPDATED

Technorati tags: Chicago Marathon running marathon run Chicago illinois Avon breast cancer

Republican National Convention moving into St. Paul's Xcel Center

Yours truly is a credentialed member of the media for the Republican National Convention in St. Paul in September. It will unquestionably be the highlight of my blogging career.

In a press release, the RNC announced today that the arena which last week hosted a Neil Diamond concert is now being transformed for the convention.

Today marks the handover of the Xcel Energy Center to planners for the 2008 Republican National Convention, beginning a six-week transformation in advance of the September 1-4 event.

During the next 42 days, convention staff will oversee the build-out of the Xcel Energy Center and the 475,000 square feet of media workspace located in the Saint Paul RiverCentre and Roy Wilkins Auditorium. Experts specializing in a variety of trades will work as a team to ensure that all systems are "go" when the gavel drops September 1.

"After more than one year of preparation and a lot of hard work, we are excited to officially transition from planning to implementation," said convention President and CEO Maria Cino. "With only six weeks to go, we will be ready to welcome Sen. John McCain and the 45,000 convention participants joining us from around the country and the millions more participating from home."

Twenty-five trucks carrying equipment and supplies arrived at the Xcel Energy Center early this morning, enabling crews to get an early start on the first phase of the transformation process. Today, modifications to suites and media workspace will begin, ensuring that all necessary accommodations are made for the 15,000 members of the media expected at this year’s convention.

Throughout the next six weeks, crews will install nearly six miles of phone and internet cable and a total of 4,500 data and analog lines. Cellular providers will be increasing service capacity and state-of-the-art technology will be installed to provide real-time access to convention activities for millions around the world.

Related post:

Today's Republican National Convention's lunchtime chat

Technorati tags: RNC elections republicans Minnesota minneapolis GOP politics St. Paul twin cities

John McCain appears on NBC's Today Show

If you didn't catch NBC's Today Show this morning, you missed John McCain making a lot of sense--nothing unusual there. Remember--Obama opposed the troop surge that McCain first championed.

NBC's Meredith Vieira: "You have been tough on Senator Obama. You have questioned his judgment on foreign policy, called him naive and his trip little more than a campaign rally overseas. So, given what you have seen and heard over the past few days, do you still hold to that assessment?"

John McCain: "I'm glad that Senator Obama is going to get a chance for the first time to sit down with General David Petraeus and understand what the surge was all about. Why it succeeded. And why we are winning the war and that is because we carried out a strategy which has succeeded and Senator Obama rallied against, voted against, and used his opposition to the surge as a way of gaining the nomination of his party. I hope he will have a chance to admit that he badly misjudged the situation, and he was wrong when he said that the surge wouldn't work. It has succeeded and we're winning the war. I think it's important that the American people know that that is the situation. I have mentioned general Petraeus, yes."

Vieira: "I'm bringing him up because he told the AP on Saturday that al-Qaeda may be shifting its base back to Afghanistan and then on Sunday Barack Obama reiterated his belief that Afghanistan is the central front in the war on terrorism. Do you agree with that?"

John McCain: "I agree with General Petraeus when he said Iraq was the central battleground in the war in the struggle against al-Qaeda and he said that repeatedly. And I agree with him when he said we will be able to withdraw troops as conditions on the ground dictate, not to do what Senator Obama wanted to do which was that we would be out by last March and never have had the surge and the success. And you can't choose to lose a war in Iraq in my view in order to win in Afghanistan. Of course we have problems in Afghanistan and as we succeed in Iraq there will be troops available to go to Afghanistan, but it's more than just troops. Senator Obama doesn't understand that it is a strategy, the same strategy that succeeded in Iraq, we will employ in Afghanistan, the one that he rejected and still does not accept the success of."

More from McCain on Today...

And by the way, we would have been out (of Iraq) last march if Senator Obama's original wish would have been called for. Not 16 months from now, but last March. He was wrong on the surge, he was wrong today when he says it didn't succeed. And obviously we have challenges in Afghanistan which will require more troops and more NATO participation, but we can win. If we had lost in Iraq, we would have risked a much wider war that would have put enormous challenges and burdens on our military."

Technorati tags: politics news Democrats Obama politics Barack Obama McCain John McCain Republican Iraq العراق Today Show Afghanistan افغانستان

One year ago today: Marathon Pundit begins "My Kansas Kronikles" trip

It was on this date last year that I began my first blog-o-vacation, My Kansas Kronikles. Its follow up is My Mississipi Manifest Destiny, which, tomorrow at the latest, I'll continue with my first Clarksdale post.

Technorati tags: history Americana byways travel travel blog history photography photos Mississippi Kansas

John McCain: The real agent of change

John McCain, unlike Barack Obama, has a record of getting things done. If Obama was able to bring a teleprompter wherever he went, perhaps he'd have a list of achievements too.

David Lee, a longtime New Hampshire Democratic Party activist, spoke up for McCain in yesterday's Portsmouth Herald. Lee recently agreed to serve as a co-chair of New Hampshire Independents for John McCain.

As John McCain has said many times, he did not go to Washington to win the prize for congeniality. By putting principle over politics, McCain has rightfully been declared a true maverick. The majority of voters here in New Hampshire, and throughout the nation, prefer a leader who is not afraid of taking positions because they are the "right thing to do" for this country, rather than caving in to special interests or their respective political party's line.

His record as an independent reformer makes our job of rallying New Hampshire independents to John McCain's candidacy a straightforward endeavor. Simply put, John McCain can point to a strong record of bipartisan achievement -- one that appeals to Democrats, independents and Republicans.

More...

John McCain's record and life story make him a natural fit for New Hampshire's independent voters. Based on his unimpeachable character, independents know they can trust McCain to do what is right for our country -- in good times and in bad. Bringing forth a new day in our national political life, McCain will bring "straight talk" to the White House and will set to work on America's challenges with tested leadership only he can provide.

Our country has a real choice in this election. While Barack Obama talks of change, always in a very eloquent manner, John McCain has shown he knows how to deliver change. New Hampshire voters, who have all but trademarked the word "independent," can easily differentiate between the two. As McCain's campaign has said: don't just hope for a better life, vote for one. I encourage my fellow independents to give their strong consideration to John McCain.

Speaking of Obama, name one...that's right, name just one major issue where the so-called "agent of change" crossed the aisles and voted with the Republicans before he became the presumptive Democratic Party nominee. That means his FISA flip flop doesn't count. Let me know what you find.

Technorati tags: politics Democrats Obama politics Barack Obama McCain John McCain Republican New Hampshire

Lieberman has the goods on Obama's Iraq policy

Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT)--remember, he was the Democrats' vice presidential nominee in 2000--might be a prime time speaker at the Republican National Convention in St. Paul. The loud cheers you hear will be mine. Lieberman appeared on Fox News Sunday this morning, and had this to say about Barack Obama's Iraq policy.

The fact is that if Barack Obama's policy on Iraq had been implemented, Barack Obama couldn't go to Iraq today. It wouldn't be safe. Barack Obama, John McCain saw the same difficulty in Iraq. John McCain had the guts to argue against public opinion, to put his whole campaign on the line because as he says he'd rather lose an election than lose a war that he thinks is this important to the United States. The reason I say ... if Barack Obama's policy in Iraq had been implemented he couldn't be in Iraq today, is because he was prepared to accept retreat and defeat and that would mean today al Qaeda would be in charge of parts of Iraq, Iranian-backed extremists would be in charge of other parts of Iraq. There'd be civil war and maybe even genocide. And the fact is that we are winning in Iraq today. And, you know, you can't choose, as Senator Obama seems to think, to lose in Iraq so you can win in Afghanistan. The reality is if we lost in Iraq, whi ch Obama was prepared to do, we -- we would go to Afghanistan as losers.

Meanwhile, a spokesman for Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki says the leader didn't state he agreed with Obama's 16 month withdrawal policy, but that al-Maliki's comments to a German reporter were "misunderstood and mistranslated."

Related post:

Lieberman on Obama's Iraq nuancing: "It's just not what we want in a president"

Technorati tags: politics news Democrats Obama politics Barack Obama McCain John McCain Republican Iraq العراق Lieberman

Obama: The man, the speech, and a thin résumé

I read somewhere recently, in The American Thinker I think, that Barack Obama has the thinnest résumé of any major party presidential candidate since Wendell Willkie carried the GOP banner in 1940.

What was your favorite moment of the Willkie presidency?

Jenny Backus, a senior Barack Obama advisor, spoke with the Rocky Mountain News a couple of days ago.

"No one more than Barack Obama understands how important it is to deliver a convention speech well," Backus said. "He wouldn't be where he is if he didn't know how to deliver convention speeches."

Of course he wouldn't! What are his accomplishments? One bill passed in the US Senate. Impressive. His record in the Illinois State Senate, as explained a few posts down in my New Yorker article analysis, was largely the work of others, particularly Senate President Emil Jones.

The Obama zealots like to point out that Abraham Lincoln didn't have much experience before he was elected president. The National Review shot that argument to pieces a few months ago. When he ran for the US Senate in 1858, Lincoln, NR said, was matched against Stephen A. Douglas, that body's top Democrat. The seven Lincoln-Douglas debates are still studied 150 years later. Obama ended up in the US Senate after his top two opponents imploded because of private life embarrasments, which left the cartoonish Alan Keyes as Obama's final "obstacle" to victory.

Lincoln's defeat in 1858 was much more meaningful than Obama's win in 2004.

As for Obama, "He wouldn't be where he is if he didn't know how to deliver convention speeches."

No one will ever say that about John McCain.

Technorati tags: democrats Barack Obama Obama Politics Illinois Abraham Lincoln John McCain McCain Republican GOP history

The Dark Knight--and my critique of an idiotic review

It measures up to the hype.

Last night, Mrs. Marathon Pundit and I drove to the nearest multiplex to see the latest Batman film, The Dark Knight. It's a masterpiece. I could do a full-blown review, but I don't think many people come to this blog for movie appraisals. Also, unlike a certain film reviewer--I'll get to him later--I don't take myself so seriously.

Chicago has never looked better--or more menacing--in this film. Oops, did I say Chicago? I meant Gotham City. But most of The Dark Knight was filmed in Chicago, much of it inside and outside the old downtown post office in the city's West Loop. I used to work across the street from the art-deco monolith.

Did you like the car chase scene from The Blues Brothers on Lower Wacker Drive? Well, I guarantee you'll enjoy the one in this movie better. (By the way, how did they get that 16-wheeler down there?)

The late Heath Ledger is fabulous as The Joker, and I sound like a homer here, but watching an Australian play a killer clown with a Chicago accent was worth the price of admission for me.

Why so serious? That's one of the best lines from The Joker.

But now it's time for a sour note, albeit one that also has a Chicago accent. A couple of times in the film, The Joker is called a terrorist--an accurate epithet.

J.R. Jones is the chief film critic of The Chicago Reader, an alternative free weekly, the Village Voice for the Midwest.

Here is the opening paragraph in his Dark Knight review:

As the Bush era drags on, I seem to be developing an irrational hatred of summer blockbusters, those gas-guzzling, road-hogging, radio-blasting Hummers of the entertainment business. The fact that they get worse and worse and still make tons of money doesn't say much for the national character. New York Times columnist Frank Rich recently conjured up an image of Americans flocking to the movies this summer to escape their woes, as if we were all dust bowl farmers hoping to banish the Great Depression from our thoughts with flickering images of Clark Gable and Mickey Mouse. But while our leaders are waging preemptive wars, torturing innocent people to death, tossing out habeas corpus, and gutting the Fourth Amendment, we probably don't need to escape as much as the rest of the world needs to escape from us.

More...

Lest anyone miss the connection to 9/11 and the so-called War on Terror, Nolan has (Note...I edited a bit out for people who haven't seen the movie) an overhead shot shows a building that covers an entire city block collapsing into rubble. The Dark Knight may be a state-of-the-art popcorn movie, but its Gotham City is a fun-house-mirror image of America, its democratic institutions crumbling and its people perched between anarchy and totalitarianism.

Whoah! Who got up on the wrong side of The Daily Kos? Sometimes, J.R., it's just a movie. Let me repeat, sometimes, it's just a movie. Of course you probably call movies "cinema."

In his loathsome review, Jones issues a spoiler alert, but he apparently isn't aware, or just doesn't care, that people sometimes skim articles. Readers skim my blog posts. Jones gives away the ending of The Dark Knight. Sorry Jones-ey, but the world isn't hanging on every one of your words.

Why so serious?

Let me use my best Chicago accent to issue my opinion on Jones:

What a douchebag!

Technorati tags: politics RepublicanBush The Dark Knight Media Bias left wing extremists Heath Ledger liberals Chicago movies entertainment

Setting the record straight on the withdrawal of troops from Iraq

Libs and their enablers in the mainstream media are having some fun with a statement made by Iraqi Prime Minister Minister Nouri al-Maliki that he agreed with Barack Obama's timeline for troop withdrawals from Iraq. But just yesterday, President Bush and al-Maliki agreed to set a "time horizon" for troop reductions.

Tuesday afternoon I was able to listen in on a teleconference organized by the John McCain campaign. One of the speakers was Randy Scheunemann, the campaign's senior foreign policy advisor. He issued this statement this evening.

The difference between John McCain and Barack Obama is that Barack Obama advocates an unconditional withdrawal that ignores the facts on the ground and the advice of our top military commanders. John McCain believes withdrawal must be based on conditions on the ground. Prime Minister Maliki has repeatedly affirmed the same view, and did so again today. Timing is not as important as whether we leave with victory and honor, which is of no apparent concern to Barack Obama. The fundamental truth remains that Senator McCain was right about the surge and Senator Obama was wrong. We would not be in the position to discuss a responsible withdrawal today if Senator Obama's views had prevailed. (Emphasis mine.)

Scheunmemann made a lot of sense on Tuesday, and he's making a lot of sense now.

Related posts:

Report from the teleconference with the McCain campaign

Iraq flip flops documented on Obama's own web site

Technorati tags: politics news Democrats Obama politics Barack Obama McCain John McCain Republican Iraq العراق Flip flop

McCain's weekly radio address is about Afghanistan

Below is an excerpt from John McCain's weekly radio address. Afghanistan is the topic of the speech. Obama has overlooked the country--he'll be making his first visit there next week, and the subcommittee he chairs--which has oversight om Afghanistan--has never held a hearing on the situation there. It's safe to say McCain has a better handle on events in Afghanistan, and he'll be a much more effective leader than the junior senator from my state.

Good morning. I'm John McCain, and this week, debate in the presidential campaign turned to the war in Afghanistan. My opponent, Senator Obama, announced his strategy for Afghanistan and Iraq before departing on a fact-finding mission that will include visits to both those countries. Apparently, he's confident enough that he won't find any facts that might change his opinion or alter his strategy. Remarkable.

This is similar to the mistake Senator Obama made when he confidently declared that the surge in Iraq could not possibly reduce sectarian violence there, and might well increase violence. He was so certain the surge would fail that he called for our troops to retreat as quickly as possible. Senator Obama's previous statements against the surge have been hastily removed from his campaign website, in the audacious hope that no one would notice. But we all remember quite well that he said the surge would fail, and today we know that he was wrong.

Although the situation in Iraq is much improved, the war in Afghanistan has taken a bad turn that must be quickly reversed. Security in that country has deteriorated, and our enemies are on the offensive. And it is precisely the success of the surge in Iraq that shows us the way to victory over the Taliban.

Our commanders on the ground in Afghanistan say they need at least three additional brigades. I will ensure our commanders in Afghanistan get the troops they need by asking NATO to send more and by sending U.S. troops as they become available.

Related post:

Report from the teleconference with the McCain campaign

Technorati tags: politics news Democrats Obama politics Barack Obama McCain John McCain Republican Afghanistan افغانستان Iraq العراق

Onion: 'Time' publishes definitive Obama puff piece

You know what...the ultimate joke could on on the American public...as what The Onion wrote is so on the money--its latest article might be genuine.

Just a few days ago, that hard-hitting political journal Glamour published an interview with the leader of the Cult of Change.

Hailed by media critics as the fluffiest, most toothless, and softest-hitting coverage of the presidential candidate to date, a story in this week's Time magazine is being called the definitive Barack Obama puff piece.

"No news publication has dared to barely scratch the surface like this before," columnist and campaign reporter Michael King wrote in The Washington Post Tuesday. "This profile sets a benchmark for mindless filler by which all other features about Sen. Obama will now be judged. Just impressive puff-journalism all around."

The 24-page profile, entitled "Boogyin' With Barack," hit newsstands Monday and contains photos of the candidate as a baby, graduating from Columbia University, standing and laughing, holding hands with his wife and best friend, Michelle, greeting a crowd of blue-collar autoworkers, eating breakfast with diner patrons, and staring pensively out of an airplane window while a pen and legal pad rest comfortably on his lowered tray table.

According to political analysts, the Time piece features the most lack-of-depth reporting on Obama ever published, and for the first time reveals a number of inconsequential truths about the candidate, including how he keeps in shape on the campaign trail, and which historical figures the presidential hopeful would choose to have dinner with.

When are you going to appear on The O'Reilly Factor, Barack?

Technorati tags: Obama politics Barack Obama politics humor humour Cult of Change

My assorted thoughts on the New Yorker Obama piece

Beyond the controversial magazine cover, here are my musings on Ryan Lizza's New Yorker article on Barack Obama's rise.

This sentence about Obama's first State Senate run speaks for itself:

(Convicted felon Tony) Rezko was one of the people Obama consulted when he considered running to replace (Alice) Palmer, and Rezko eventually raised about ten per cent of Obama's funds for that first campaign.

Palmer of course was the first person Obama "threw under the bus."

Lizza devotes several paragraphs to the State Senate rivalry between Obama and Rickey "Hollywood" Hendon, a filmmaker. I've never met Obama, but I have met Hendon. When I was employed in catering sales at the old Bismarck Hotel, I worked with Hendon on the set-up particulars for a couple of his fundraising events there. Hendon is a lot of fun, he is almost certainly more fun than the wonkish Obama.

Hendon was close to Alice Palmer, and the two men didn't get along. And the still don't is my guess. I won't rehash Lizza's account of their run-ins, but he leaves out another point of contention--Obama is a South Sider, Hendon lives on the West Side of Chicago.

But Lizza missed an intregal component of Obama-Hendon feud.

Like any community, the African-American community of Chicago doesn't have one voice. When blacks first settled in Chicago, they put down roots on the city's South Side (not that they had a lot of choice in the matter). Blacks didn't live in large numbers on the West Side until after World War II. To this day the older community dominates Chicago's African-American political scene. Harold Washington (Chicago's first black mayor), Jesse Jackson, Eugene Sawyer (Chicago's second black mayor), Carol Moseley Braun, Roland Burris (Illinois' first statewide officeholder)...all South Siders. The city's major black social institutions and churches are located....you guessed it, on the South Side.

How would have Obama's life be different if he had accepted a community organizer's job on Chicago's West Side? Is America ready for a West Side president?

Lizza then moves on to Obama's "famous" 2002 anti-war speech he gave at Daley Plaza in Chicago's Loop. Maybe I had a busy week at work, maybe my daughter was sick, but I didn't hear about this speech until last year. I'm sure it had an effect on those liberal goo-goos who made up much of Obama's early support base (along with Tony Rezko) for his US Senate run two years later. But those people, considering who was on the Democratic primary ballot in 2004, would have backed him anyway.

Obama's since debunked claim that his Kansas grandfather met with soldiers who witnessed the horrors of the Treblinka and Aushwitz concentration camps at the end of World War II is mentioned, but not corrected, by Lizza. It was the Red Army who liberated those camps, US soldiers never got anywhere near those places.

The "man behind the curtain" for Obama in his last two years in the Illinois State Senate was machine pol Emil Jones, the president of that body.

Lizza writes:

In the State Senate, Jones did something even more important for Obama. He pushed him forward as the key sponsor of some of the Party's most important legislation, even though the move did not sit well with some colleagues (My note: Rickey Hendon was one of those senators) who had plugged away in the minority on bills that Obama now championed as part of the majority. "Because he had been in the minority, Barack didn't have a legislative record to run on, and there was a buildup of all these great ideas that the Republicans kept in the rules committee when they were in the majority," (Will) Burns said. "Jones basically gave Obama the space to do what Obama wanted to do. Emil made it clear to people that it would be good for them." Burns, who at that point was working for Jones, was assigned to keep an eye on Obama's floor votes, which, because he was a Senate candidate, would be under closer scrutiny. The Obama-Jones alliance worked. In one year, 2003, Obama passed much of the legislation, including bills on racial profiling, death-penalty reform, and expanded health insurance for children, that he highlighted in his Senate campaign.

Has Emil Jones considered running for president? He is after all, another powerful South Sider.

And finally...

Here's an excerpt from the survey Barack Obama completed for the Independent Voters of Illinois-Independent Precinct Organization (IVI-IPO) during his 1996 campaign for the State Senate.

Do you support state legislation:

to ban the manufacture, sale and possession of handguns: Yes.

Twelve years later Obama says he supports an individual right's to bear arms, including handguns. An Obama spokesman made the audacious claim that a staffer filled out the IVI-IPO form for the great one.

Lizza in the New Yorker reveals the identity of the staffer:

In another episode that has Obama's old friends feeling frustrated, Obama recently blamed his first campaign manager, Carol Anne Harwell, for reporting on a 1996 questionnaire that Obama favored a ban on handguns. According to her friends, Harwell was furious that the campaign made her Obama's scapegoat. "She got, as the saying goes, run over by a bus," Lois Friedberg-Dobry (an early Obama supporter) said.

Harwell should be angry. The IVI-IPO, despite its name, is about as independent as MoveOn.org. It may not be officially part of the Cook County Regular Democratic Organization, but it almost never endorses Republicans. The group is highly respected by the the Hyde Park intellectuals who made up an important part of Obama's early base. It's ludicrous to believe that Obama, without his knowledge, let Harwell complete the IVI-IPO survey.

He's just another Chicago politician.

Technorati tags: Obama politics Barack Obama Election Democrats Illinois Politics Chicago Emil Jones liberals progressives New Yorker Tony Rezko Chicago black african american

Today's Republican National Convention's lunchtime chat

I found the time to participate for the first time in a Republican National Convention lunchtime chat. They occur each Friday at 12pm noon CDT, and they're hosted by
Matt Burns, the RNC's director of communications.

While Burns was munching on some Pringles potato chips, I was able to ask a question about what I, a credentialed blogger, can expect in St. Paul in September.

Burns replied that I will enjoy "access to just about anything any other media person will have." Cool.

There will be "excitement," and here is the best part, I will be able to meet some "pretty high level officers in the Republican Party."

I can't wait.

Technorati tags: RNC elections republicans Minnesota minneapolis GOP politics St. Paul twin cities

McCain: We have "succeeded" in Iraq

The man with the best judgement of the two major presidential candidates, John McCain, supported the Iraq troop surge before our current commander in chief. When President Bush authorized the surge, Barack Obama was against it--and favored the withdrawl of our troops.

The Fox News Channel has more:

John McCain took one step closer to declaring victory in Iraq Thursday, telling Missouri residents and later reporters that the U.S. military has "succeeded."

The presumptive GOP nominee usually couches his language and argues the troop surge is "succeeding," but on Thursday he emphasized that strategic success has already been achieved.

The rhetorical development comes as Barack Obama prepares to travel to Iraq for the first time as a presidential candidate and to Afghanistan for the first time ever.

"I am happy to stand in front of you to tell you that this strategy has succeeded. It has succeeded. It has succeeded," McCain said first at a Kansas City, Mo., town hall meeting.

Technorati tags: politics news Democrats Obama politics Barack Obama McCain John McCain Republican Iraq العراق

Democrats' pond scum energy plan

The Democrats are clearly on the wrong side of the energy issue. But as usual, they claim they know better than the American pubic.

David Harsanyi explains in his latest Denver Post column:

Don't worry, though, congressional Democrats have a bold plan. Hold on for 10 or 15 years and they'll have a bounty of energy options. They promise. But no oil shale. No clean coal. No nuclear power. And definitely no more oil. They will not enable your revolting, inefficient lifestyle. (My note: Except for themselves.) In the short-term, offshore drilling, especially, is a pie-in-the-sky fairy tale. Unlike, say, pond scum and hydrogen fuel packs.

On the bright side, it seems that reality is beginning to overtake fantasy. This week, Newt Gingrich's American Solutions for Winning the Future group delivered 1.3 million signatures to Congress, demanding that Washington allow more drilling. A recent Zogby International polls shows 74 percent of likely voters support offshore drilling in U.S. coastal waters, and 59 percent favor drilling for oil in the
tundra of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

There are few issues in America that offer this kind of impressive "unity." But apparently when unity doesn't align with left-wing orthodoxy, we need more "leadership" to explain why we're wrong.

Presumptive presidential nominee Barack Obama called offshore drilling a "gimmick." According to other Democrats, prices would not be affected for five years and oil companies probably would not use the leases anyway.

Meanwhile, Al Gore was in Washington yesterday, where spoke about his vision (delusion?) of a fossil fuel-free America in ten years. While he spoke, according to the Fox News Channel, his fleet of SUVs idled--the air conditioning was running.

Related David Harsanyi post:

"Nanny State" book is out

Technorati tags: Obama politics Barack Obama politics election energy Illinois McCain John McCain Republican Drill here, drill now offshore drilling David Harsanyi Al Gore hypocrisy

My Mississippi Manifest Destiny: Mound Bayou, a town founded by freed slaves

At the recommendation of Levois of It's My Mind, I veered a few miles east of Highway 61 onto the Route 161 cutoff to see Mound Bayou, the oldest black municipality in the United States.

From Mound Bayou.org:

On July 12, 1887, the city of Mound Bayou, Mississippi was founded by Isaiah T. Montgomery and his cousin, Benjamin T. Green, former slaves of Joseph Emory Davis. Mound Bayou is situated halfway between Vicksburg, Mississippi and Memphis, Tennessee off of Highway 61. Mound Bayou remains the oldest bastion of Black municipal government in the South.

Isaiah T. Montgomery and Benjamin T. Green had as their dream since before the Civil War to found the Largest U.S. Negro Town. Montgomery and Green founded Mound Bayou to serve as a sanctuary for African-American families and culture. Throughout the years, Mound Bayou has continued its long tradition of community self-empowerment that has produced numerous African American leaders, innovators, and proud family lineages. Mound Bayou has always been a model city for the capabilities of African-Americans to rise above inequality in the South. The town has never practiced or experienced segregation within its borders. Mound Bayou is a town without second class citizens.

Joseph Emory Davis was the brother of Jefferson Davis, the president of the Confederacy. Mound Bayou is not a properous town, but there is a sense of community there--the place just seems to hang together in its own fashion.

Marlo Carter Fitzpatrick, in her book Mississippi Off The Beaten Path, has this to say about the town:

A favorite stop in Mound Bayou is Peter's Pottery. Peter Woods and his three brothers learned the fine art of pottery from the master at McCarty Pottery in Merigold (the next town down the road). The Woods Brothers left McCarty in 1998 with plans to pursue new careers, but soon they realized clay was in their blood. Together they established Peter's Pottery, the place to find animals, candlesticks, dinnerware, crosses, and vases crafted of Mississippi clay and finished with the brother's exclusive glaze, Bayou Blue. Peter's pottery is collected worldwide; President Bush is the proud owner of a Bayou Blue elephant.

Next: Clarksdale

Previous My Mississippi Manifest Destiny posts:

What Mike Espy is up to these days
Churches
Teddy Bear
Coca-Cola museums
Prison laborer in Louisiana
Natchez Part Three
Natchez Part Two, Forks of the Road
Natchez Part One
The Father of Waters
Logging
The Natchez Trace Part Four, Ghost Town
The Natchez Trace Part Three
The Natchez Trace Part Two, Indian Mounds
The Natchez Trace Part One
$aving$ in Tupelo
Where Elvis bought his first guitar
Elvis Presley's birthplace
The Battle of Tupelo
Corinth
Shiloh Part Four
Shiloh Part Three
Shiloh Part Two
Shiloh Part One
Carl Perkins
The Varsity Theatre in Martin, Tennessee
Lincoln and Kentucky
Metropolis

Vicksburg-related posts:

Vicksburg Battlefield Part Five
Vicksburg Battlefield, Part Four, The USS Cairo
Vicksburg Battlefield, Part Three, Illinois Memorial
Mississippi River at Vicksburg
Vicksburg Battlefield, Part Two, State Memorials
Vicksburg Battlefield, Part One
Jewish Mississippi
Memorial Day tribute to our ally Australia
Memorial Day--a time to remember

Leland posts:

Highway 61 Blues Museum
Leland's Blues Murals
Birthplace of Kermit the Frog

Technorati tags: history Americana byways travel travel blog history photography photos Mississippi African American black Highway 61 books pottery Jefferson Davis

Goofy governor calls for state cops, National Guard to patrol Chicago streets

Last night Governor Rod Blagojevich, in a rare press conference, said "violent crime in Chicago is out of control" and that the Illinois State Police and the National Guard should patrol the city's streets.

Shootings are definitely on the upswing in Chicago, but with the exception of the July 3rd gang related-bloodshed in Chicago's Loop during the Taste of Chicago festival, the turmoil is concentrated in parts of the city--and this is going to sound heartless--where less violent periods are followed by more violent ones.

Englewoood is one of those neighgorhoods. I was there two days ago to take photographs for my Obama's boondoggle post.

So here I am, a 46 year-old white guy, hanging around a vacant lot in an all-black neighborhood for a half hour (I had to wait for the el train to run past--it was not a fluke that I captured that shot) and do you know what? No one bothered me. Then I drove around Englewood for a while--and no one bothered me.

Here's an ironic aside: Three miles to the south of Englewood is Jeremiah Wright's Trinity United Church of Christ. I took some photographs of the church in April--no one threatened me--but drivers were making rude gestures in my direction, honked their horns, and one person shouted something at me, in a menacing fashion, as I snapped away on my Canon. TUCC is in a better neighborhood, and after ten minutes of this treatment, I thought it was at best to scram from there.

Let's get back to Blagojevich. The Chicago Democrat is very unpopular--he has higher disapproval ratings than President Bush--and this is deep-blue Illinois. After his pal Tony Rezko's corruption conviction (Rezko got around), the local scuttlebutt was that a Blagojevich federal indictment was imminent. It will probably happen. Even if it doesn't, Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan, another Chicago Democrat, an ally of Mayor Richard M. Daley, might begin impeachment proceedings against "Blago."

Madigan and Blagojevich locking horns over the state budget. So to draw attention from his failures as governor, Blagojevich calls a press conference, and says "violent crime in Chicago is out of control." Meanwhile his legacy after five and half years as governor consists of grandstanding, obfuscation, fiscal gimmicks, and corruption.

That's the way it really is. Or at least the way I see it. If you don't get it, that's because it's a Chicago thing--you wouldn't understand.

Should Blagojevich become the first Illinois governor to be impeached, his chances, at least for now, are pretty good in the State Senate. Emil Jones, who is, you guessed it, a Chicago Democrat, is in addition being close to Barack Obama, happens to be very friendly with the governor.

Tom at The Bench has more.

Related posts:

Ill. GOP to Gov. Blagojevich: Give back the Rezko cash

Impeachment talk about Gov. Blagojevich continues

Obama's state legislative record--he got a lot of help

Recall amendment dies in Ill. State Senate

Technorati tags: Chicago illinois Barack Obama Obama Politics Illinois Politics Tony Rezko corruption legal Emil Jones impeachment Blagojevich

Another thing for Obama to be silent on: Cook County summer jobs going to pols' kids

In his now legendary (to some) years as a community organizer on Chicago's South Side, one of the things Barack Obama fought for was a summer jobs for the young people there.

Do you want to know where a fabulous summer jobs program exists in 2008? At Cook County's Metropolitan Chicago Water Reclamation District.

It's controlled by elected Democrats.

But to score one of these jobs, which pays $13 an hour, it helps--a lot--if your parent is a Cook County politician.

Fox Chicago's Dane Placko says "According to insiders, each (Water Reclamation District) commissioner is allowed submit more than a dozen names for jobs each summer."

The summer jobs, there are about 200 of them, are not publicized. Imagine what Obama the community organizer would have said about that!

And it's not just Water Reclamation District commissioners taking advantage of this jobs program. Aldermen, high-ranking city employees, state legislators, union leaders, and ward committeemen all have relatives who are employed by the District this summer. Several campaign contributors of District President Terrence O'Brien, let me use my favorite Chicago word, "coincidentally" have summer jobs with the MWRD.

From Fox Chicago:

With the economy hurting and employment at a premium, Better Government Association President Jay Stewart says those jobs should be available to the children of all taxpayers. "You get these politicians saying we need a summer jobs program," Stewart said. "For who? Them or everybody else?"

Watch part one of the Fox 32 segment here. And then check out part two.

When will Barack Obama speak out on the jobs-for-pols' kids farce?

Don't hold your breath.

Related post: Rita Rezko's contribution to America's worst government, Cook County

Technorati tags: politics Illinois Election Democrats Obama Chicago Cook County jobs summer jobs

Fannie Mae news: Obama campaign getting acidic advice from ex-CEO Raines

The mainstream media "experts" are saying energy could be the sleeper issue in the presidential race. I believe it is already a major issue. But the housing crisis could be that sleeper, and if it is, then it's bad news for the Barack Obama and the Democrats.

Ben Smith of Politico explains:

An ill-timed -- for Obama -- profile of former Fannie Mae CEO Franklin Raines, forced out in an accounting mess a few years ago.

The Style Section piece reports that he's recently been taking "calls from Barack Obama's presidential campaign seeking his advice on mortgage and housing policy matters."

Hard to find anybody in the mortgage industry who's looking real great right now, but Fannie Mae's critics, in particular, seem to have been vindicated.

And that "mess" wasn't just some little indiscretion over the bar bill at Hooter's--the Washington Post calls it a "$6.3 billion accounting scandal." That's audacious!

Related posts:

Judicial Watch files complaints against Obama over mansion mortgage

Obama's "sweetheart" mortgage: Was the competing lender Broadway Bank?

Obama, Alexi, and Broadway Bank

Technorati tags: Obama politics Barack Obama Election Democrats corruption mortgages real estate Fannie Mae housing

Beating down the doors to get inside Wal-Mart

Unbelievably, Wal-Mart was a major political issue two years ago--made so by the Democratic Party. Earlier this week Fortune Magazine released its list of the nation's top 500 companies--once again, Wal-Mart ended up on top. The Arkansas-based retailer is also the nation's largest private employer--no one else comes close.

I'm interested if Barack Obama's lurch towards the center will include backing away from his 2007 statement on Wal-Mart--"I won't shop there." Since 100 million Americans shop at at the retail king weekly--plenty of them are Democrats--Obama might want to grab a shopping cart--like I do--and pick up some items at his nearest Wal-Mart.

My friend Tristan Roy from Edelman tipped me off about a story from yesterday's Minneapolis Star-Tribune. The article works on a couple of levels for me--it offers further proof that Wal-Mart is not an ogre, and yesterday I got my Republican National Committee housing assignment--I'll be spending a few nights in Dakota County, Minnesota. Perhaps I'll bump into a certain judge there...

"Wal-Mart hammered by judge," shouted a front-page Star Tribune headline earlier this month. The Dakota County judge -- responding to a class-action assault on the giant retailer -- labeled Wal-Mart "dehumanizing" and set it up for a possible $2 billion penalty.

Many Minnesotans probably shrugged. What else is new? The story seemed consistent with charges we've heard for years: Wal-Mart exploits its workers by paying skinflint wages and skimping on health insurance. Not to mention driving legions of mom-and-pop stores out of business.

With such a reputation for ruthlessness, Wal-Mart must be struggling to find workers, right?

Yet when the company opened a new store in St. Paul's Midway area in May 2004, about 6,000 applicants vied for 325 job openings, according to Joyce Niska, the store's acting manager in 2005. That, too, was nothing new. For years, people have beaten down the doors to work at Wal-Mart.

And people have beaten down the doors to shop there...

Related posts:

Michelle Obama quits board of big Wal-Mart supplier

My book report: The Wal-Mart Revolution: How Big Box Stores Benefit Consumers, Workers, and the Economy

Technorati tags: politics elections retail business Obama barack obama democrats big box RNC Minnesota Wal-Mart

Jesse in full hypocrisy mode: Used "N" word in conversation about Obama

Is this the end of Jesse Jackson? Probably not, but on can hope that the race-baiter will be out of business after it was revealed by the blogger TVNewser that used the "N" word in that now notorious recorded conversation where Jackson called for cutting out Barack Obama's n*ts. Here's the missing piece:

Barack...he's talking down to black people...telling n—s how to behave.

But two years ago, Jackson asked that rappers and comedians stop using the "N" word.

Technorati tags: Illinois Election Democrats