Wow.  Tough talk… but I like it.

Take something as small as Obama’s need for a word-for-word script, just to answer questions at press conferences. His teleprompter dependency is simply unprecedented. Any Republican president would be laughed out of the room with that kind of hand-holding from Axelrod, or Bill Ayers, or Michelle, or whoever is dictating the words behind the scenes. No wonder Obama is considered eloquent. Like a talking head on TV he constantly needs his writers to feed him the words, so he can pay total attention to his acting style. But even his acting is degenerating in front of our eyes: Obama is turning Obombastama. You can tell from the tone of hysteria creeping into his operatic baritone. Maybe they need to switch that reverb circuit back on? That should impress all the lickspittles of the White House press.

via American Thinker: Obama’s essence.

Finally… a conservative who fights back.

What is so funny about the entire interview is how John Ziegler is trying to prove there was media bias… and all David Shuster could do was cite polls–using a perception he helped create to prove there wasn’t partisanship in the media.

This at best, a classic appeal to popularity, at worst, a lame attempt at ass-covering.

John’s whole documentary is, of course, trying to explain how that perception was created… but Shuster either had no clue what John was trying to say… or didn’t care… which had the rather unintended effect of further re-inforcing John’s credibility.

Obama on George Stephanopoulos,

“I want to be realistic here, not everything that we talked about during the campaign are we going to be able to do on the pace we had hoped,”

“everybody in the country is going to have to sacrifice something, accept change for the greater good…”

Funny how politicians will promise anything to get elected.  Typical…

I guess this raises the obvious question… how are we all better off if we are all sacraficing?  It seems to me I would be better off if I didn’t have to sacrafice.  I just love Obama’s logic.  We are all better off if we are all worse off.

Well, we lost… it’s a fact.  We’ve elected the most inexperienced candidate in history and things are going to be tough for a couple years… but the sooner conservatives move on and learn from this, the better.  I think there are many things to be upset about; but those can wait for another day.  For now, I just wanted to list some things conservatives can still be thankful for:

1. The country’s conservative instinct.  It wasn’t a fluke the financial bailout was widely criticized… and we should expect to see much more of this kind of gut rejection of most of Obama’s government solutions.
2. Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi. Congressional chances in 2010 are vastly improved because of the incompetency that is the Democratic Congressional leadership.  I haven’t met a person who actually says they trust either of these people; defeating them isn’t rocket science.
3. Our safety the last 7 years.  Nuff said; if Bush has been successful at anything, he’s kept us safe.
4. Rush Limbaugh – he’s now the leader of the Republican party as far as I can tell… hopefully he’ll be on TV much more on the offensive now that he doesn’t have to defend a bunch of stupid Republicans.
5. The moderates are gone.  That’s right, we’ve finally cut off all the moderate republicans in Congress.  The country rejected them… and rightfully so.  To all those loosers, I just want to say one thing… [insert middle finger here].
6. Obama won! Seriously, do we want the coming economic malaise shackled around republican’s shoulders for the next 2 decades?  Democrats will finally share in the blame that they have been due… and Conservatives can get back on their economic message.  Sure, the world is going to become more dangerous in the meantime… maybe Europe will take the opportunity to take some responsibility knowing their US trump card is not quite as useful as it used to be.  Israel might even take the opportunity to finally say NO to washington and take care of business.
7. Jonah Goldberg (and NRO generally). some of the smartest and best communicators in the country are fighting strong every day; and they haven’t given up… they will take the lead in reforming and re-building the Republican party.  We have a strong base to start from… which should make our suffrage under Obama as short as possible.
8. Sarah Palin.  Conservatives have found a star–and we are in desperate need of stars.  She has serious potential and she reflects all our best ideas and values. 2012 anyone?
9. THE NEW MEDIA! We may not realize this but the election wouldn’t have even been close had it not been for the facts they were able to dig up on Obama.  This is an invaluable resource… and they proved themselves as quite capable.
10. Thomas Sowell, Mark Steyn, Andrew Klavan, James Taranto, Victor Davis Hanson, and any other of my favorite authors I may have overlooked.
11. Our collective perspective. Let’s face it, the country has been through much worse than this.
12. Scalia, Roberts, Alito and Thomas. These are some mighty fine men we’ve got there.
13. more as events warrant…
    

Windmills of Change, originally uploaded by red321.

Expansive dreams about renewable energy, like Al Gore’s hope of replacing all fossil fuels in a decade, are bumping up against the reality of a power grid that cannot handle the new demands.

The dirty [little] secret of clean energy is that while generating it is getting easier, moving it to market is not.

Politicians in Washington have long known about the grid’s limitations but have made scant headway in solving them. They are reluctant to trample the prerogatives of state governments, which have traditionally exercised authority over the grid and have little incentive to push improvements that would benefit neighboring states.

The Energy Challenge – Wind Energy Bumps Into Power Grid’s Limits – Series – NYTimes.com.

You know… where has this story been the past 5 years NYT??? There WERE ALWAYS problems with the green, wind-driven agenda and this is just one more of those problems that are easily recognizable to anyone of reasonable intelligence… yet only NOW does the NYT run stories about how all these millions of dollar investments aren’t really working because of FUNDAMENTAL LIMITATIONS of the system??? after it has been CHAMPIONING these very solutions for the past decade or so???

How much will clean energy cost anyway??? I guess we’ll never know because there will always be another bank-breaking technical hurdle in the way after we invest in whatever environmentalists demand we invest in… they don’t have a clue… the fact that the Grid CANT SUPPORT wind-mills SHOULD HAVE BEEN THE FIRST THING YOU IDOTS took a look at!

You know, this is just one more example of Liberalism’s fundamental problem: the law of unintended/unexpected consequences. A MARKET-DRIVEN approach to energy would have uncovered these kind of problems and put investment dollars where it would be more useful. These poor saps in Maple Ridge, N.Y. just took the word of a few self-proclaimed expert politicians — who assured everyone that THEIR plan would magically make our lives better — and now have nothing to show for it. This kind of top-down market decision-making causes NOTHING but problems… and this is exactly what Obama is suggesting… that HIS ideas will save us all.

the utter arrogance…

Here they are … in no particular order:

1.  He supported Scholarships for ILLEGAL immigrants (link)

2.  He supported drivers’ licenses, government benefits and in-state tuition rates for illegals (link)

3.  He opposed a bill requiring proof of citizenship to vote. (link)

4.  He established a partially taxpayer-financed Mexican consulate office in Little Rock, a scheme involving the lease of building space to the Mexican government for $1 a year.  Why is the media not hounding him for this? (link)

5.  His dangerous views on terrorism and his inability to understand their motives and purpose (link).

“We must first destroy existing terrorist groups and then attack the underlying conditions that breed them: the lack of basic sanitation, health care, education, jobs, a free press, fair courts – which all translates into a lack of opportunity and hope. The United States’ strategic interests as the world’s most powerful country coincide with its moral obligations as the richest.”

As Selwyn Duke at the American Thinker put it… “does Huck know that Osama bin Laden is worth about $300 million?  I’ll also note that there is no moral obligation to use other people’s money for your government-run charities.“

4.  He says he would favor a national smoking ban (and I’m not even a smoker.  This kind of activity is just not the role the FEDERAL government should be playing.  It’s unconstitutional and reeks of an anti-freedom mentality) (link). 

5.  He is pro Taxes and Big Government (link)

5a.  Spending increased 65% from 1996 to 2004 in Arkansas while he was in office there. (link)

6.  He has expressed an ability to be easily bought with campaign contributions (link)

In Arkansas, Mr. Huckabee was investigated by the state ethics committee at least 14 times. Most of the complaints centered on what appears to be a serial disregard for government rules about gifts and outside financial compensation. He reported $112,000 worth of gifts in one year alone, nearly double his $67,000 salary… Five of the 14 investigations resulted in admonishments: Two for failing to report gifts (one was later overturned), the other three for some $80,000 that Mr. Huckabee and his wife received but failed to initially report. One of these admonishments involved a $23,500 payment to Mr. Huckabee from an opaque organization called Action America that he helped found in 1994 while lieutenant governor, and that was designed to coordinate his speeches and supplement his income.

8.  The mainstream media likes Huckabee… this is reason enough for any conservative to think twice about supporting him. (link)

Since the beginning of 2007, the Democratic National Committee has released 102 direct attacks on Mitt Romney. Rudy Giuliani has warranted 78; John McCain 68; Fred Thompson 21. Mike Huckabee? Four. The most recent of these landed back in March. GOP voters may not have examined Mr. Huckabee’s record, but the left has–and they love what they see.

 I’ve got some readers that support Huckabee… and I respect their opinions… but seriously, i think we can do better… even McCain (who I dislike) would be a more reliable candidate with a better record. 

Recently, Hillary Clinton claimed she gave back over $800,000 in fundraising money donated by an immigrant named Norman Hsu.  I happen to commend Hillary for taking that course of action (although she has not yet released any confirmation such promise was kept); keeping the money in that situation would have painted too big a target on hillary for the rest of her campaign.

However, when taking such questionable donations… all from CHINESE donors… becomes a common practice of her campaign,  one must start to hold her accountable for such questionable decisions.  The L.A. Times has more:

The Times examined the cases of more than 150 donors who provided checks to Clinton after fundraising events geared to the Chinese community. One-third of those donors could not be found using property, telephone or business records. Most have not registered to vote, according to public records.

And several dozen were described in financial reports as holding jobs — including dishwasher, server or chef — that would normally make it difficult to donate amounts ranging from $500 to the legal maximum of $2,300 per election.

Where is this money coming from?  Are we to believe that these poor dishwashers are personally fronting thousands of dollars to donate to Hillary?  Who is fronting the cash?  Why are they all Chinese?

If you haven’t gathered by now… my blog posts usually have a high correlation to quotes from things I read or people I hear… and this post is no different. If you didn’t already know, Democratic Senator George Biden said recently about fellow Senator Barak Obama,

‘I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy’ (emphasis added)

One can only imagine Biden said this because Obama impressed this upon him–and, one could also conclude that such an opinion was impressed because of the uniqueness (in Biden’s mind) of the quality in question… namely Obama’s cleanliness.

Now, Biden is getting SOME slack for this comment, but I think it would be helpful to remember the comparative slack given to another Senator who said the following words.

“I want to say this about my state: When Strom Thurmond ran for president, we voted for him. We’re proud of it. And if the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn’t have had all these problems over all these years, either,”

Trent Lott, former Senate majority leader, was forced to resign his post because of those words. Not only do they not even mention blacks in any way, but they were said in the context of wishing a very old and feeble man a happy birthday… and yet Lott was crucified for their utterance–by Democrats, by the media, by blacks across the country.

I wonder though, and perhaps you could answer the questions yourself:

• Which statement is more overtly racist?
• Has the media held Biden to the same standards as they held Lott, or have they quickly forgotten the story?
• Who behaved better, Senate Democrats in the Lott case or Senate Republicans in the Biden case? Who was more ruthless in their attacks?

These questions bring to mind another interesting quote. During the Lott fiasco, many Democrats thought that Lott should be “censured” for such a comment. The eerie silence of Democrats in this case isn’t surprising. They quickly forgive racism if its one of their own, but exalt their own moral superiority when it is convenient to do so (one needs go no farther than their tolerance of Robert Byrd). They protect and forgive for overt acts of racism but call for blood when race isn’t even uttered. The media is no better.

But all things being equal, I doubt Biden actually meant anything racist by his comments… and Lott probably didn’t either. Were it not for a troubling double standard applied to Republicans, this post might have been much different. Is “clean” really a racially charged word? Is calling someone “ghetto” or “white trash” any better? Do we not all hear those vernacular regularly without even a second thought to their racial overtones? This media episode points out the sensitivity, insecurity, and fealty to the gospel of political correctness everyone in Washington seems to suffer from–and it kinda makes mes sick!