Nutters In Nests

My friend in Oakland insists that I don't have the big picture. Oh, I have it alright.

Bush Was Right

Liberals were wrong. History will be kind to George W. Bush.

Obama Campaign: "The Israeli Connection to 9/11"--UPDATED

You have got to be kidding me. More at LGF. The link magically disappeared. Thankfully Charles got it before it was gone.

Update:

Jim Hoft has more of Obama's Jew-hate. The Jews are corrupting politics, according to Obama's website. This is just lovely. I would be very worried to be Jewish and have Barack Obama as president.

Conservatives More Honest Than Liberals

And research dollars needed to be spent to learn this:

The World Values Survey found that those on the left were also much more likely to say it is OK to buy goods that you know are stolen. Studies have also found that those on the left were more likely to say it was OK to drink a can of soda in a store without paying for it and to avoid the truth while negotiating the price of a car.

Liberals: Cheating on taxes? Great! Plagiarizing? Absolutely! Doing something wrong and covering it up? No problem!

So why would liberals be less honest than conservatives?

The honesty gap is also not a result of “bad people” becoming liberals and “good people” becoming conservatives. In my mind, a more likely explanation is bad ideas. Modern liberalism is infused with idea that truth is relative. Surveys consistently show this. And if truth is relative, it also must follow that honesty is subjective.

Sixties organizer Saul Alinsky, who both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton say inspired and influenced them, once said the effective political advocate “doesn’t have a fixed truth; truth to him is relative and changing, everything to him is relative and changing. He is a political relativist.”

During this political season, honesty is often in short supply. But at least we can improve things by accepting the idea that truth and honesty exist. As the late scholar Sidney Hook put it, “the easiest rationalization for the refusal to seek the truth is the denial that truth exists.”

The only objective reality is a liberal's own reality. That leaves room for all sorts of bad behavior.

H/T John Hawkins

Australia Cuts And Runs

I'm sure they view their actions as courageous, but it just seems like Australia is bailing on a friend and even more, they are bailing on the Iraqi people. Peter Khalil extols the military (rightfully so) and simultaneously claims moral superiority for quitting combat while combat is still needed to achieve this nebulous goal:

In making the case for responsible withdrawal the Prime Minister has demonstrated independence and candour. The Rudd Government's Iraq policy is grounded in the recognition that stability in Iraq requires a political solution among all the ethnic and sectarian groups on such critical issues as the distribution of oil revenue, powers of regional governments and demobilisation of militias. The strategic reality is that an indefinite presence of foreign troops as part of a one-dimensional military campaign will never end the violence. This can be achieved only by Iraqis through negotiation and agreement.

Can you say rationalization? This is just Leftist-speak for desiring a positive outcome but being unwilling to do the tough work to get it done. Oh, they're available for the easy stuff, but the Americans can do the hard work and the Australians can feel good about themselves because they'll give some money and "support".

Sure, Americans still like Australians, but Kevin Rudd and his stupid minions and craven foreign policy? Not so much.

Cross-posted at Right Wing News.

American Empire

I always thought it'd be cool to be an empire. America is so awesome everyone should want to be us.

Obama's Mental Problems--UPDATED: A Whitey Tape?

A certain amount of narcissism must be present in order to be a politician; the politician believes his solutions are worthy of your vote. A certain amount of narcissism is healthy. Barack Obama is certainly narcissistic. But more than that, Obama suffers from a pathology of Masochistic Omnipotence that infects Leftist Progressives generally and that's worrying. MaxedOutMama recommended this post by ShrinkWrapped and it is a must read (also, read this). Shrinkwrapped says:

I mention this woman because what Richard Landes describes as Masochistic Omnipotence is ubiquitous on the left. Much of the commentary about the Iraq War, and some of the most egregious commentary post-9/11, suggests that our actions produced the Islamic terror that we are currently fighting. This not only devalues the motives, intelligence, and actual words of our enemies but places us in the position of omnipotence and control over their actions. This is certainly compensatory. It is far less anxiety producing to believe that if you behave nicely to your enemies they will reciprocate in kind, than to believe that there is nothing you can do except fight them with all of the faculties you have, but it also represents unconscious omnipotent fantasies that should be very troubling.

In addition to the arrogance and childish and fanciful notions of control, The Anchoress notes how Barack Obama just isn't that bright. He has made mistake after mistake on the campaign trail and the media has ignored his ignorance. It's breathtaking really. The press so desires this man as president, they willingly overlook a preponderance of evidence of Obama's dull-wittedness after years of hammering Bush and before him, Bush I and Dan Quale and before him Ronald Reagan. Would that the same standards were applied to a Democrat.

Arrogance and ignorance is a worrying combination.

UPDATED: Gateway Pundit reports the potential of a videotape of Michelle Obama using the term "whitey". Ha! Just the idea makes me laugh. One of Jim's commenters TaSSsays:

Republican tactic?
Come now.
The timing is all Hillary.
Someone please, pass the popcorn. The vast right-wing conspiracy is doing nothing more then enjoying the show.

I'd enjoy it more if the stakes weren't so high.

Intestinal cramping interferes with intellectual reasoning

I am so irritated with Firefox, I could spit. I don't feel well, I was putting together a decent post for you guys and it was just flushed down the internet black hole. In some parallel universe there is a post that was destined for greatness (well at least mediocrity) and it's gone.

Want to laugh? Go look at Rachel Lucas' dog. Dog humiliation has never made me laugh so hard.

Gas prices are up, buy a scooter. I have a scooter story, but it's humiliating and I already feel sick.

Hillary might be a redneck drinker after all. No wonder she's so popular in the holler.

I never thought Al Franken was funny, but imagining Minnesota Democrats ponder Franken's senatorial candidacy is funny.

More white hate at Obama's church. Racism, the gift that just keeps on giving. And Obama is going to usher in a post-racial world. Right.

Links of good stuff here. I'm going to bed.

McClellan's Book Published By Soros Company

Little Green Footballs has the details. You know, I tried to not be mean about Scott McClellan yesterday and just light-heartedly joke about his opportunism. Today, I'm not feeling so charitable.

When McClellan worked as Press Secretary, he was so dull-witted and slow on the uptake it was painful to watch. The press was clearly frustrated. The bland dullness and lack of articulate answers didn't look feigned. In fact, I thought it was a case of pure evil Rovian genius to have McClellan as Press Secretary. McClellan was so bad he was good.

Below is a clip around the Plame investigation:



So, McClellan now says he knew what was going on and didn't blow the whistle.

Well, McClellan wasn't some Rovian plot. He just stunk that bad and had to be replaced by Tony Snow, who was fantastic. I don't think this book will make McClellan come off as suddenly smart except to liberals who aren't too bright anyway.

How Does White Guilt Help?

Megan McCardle writes about racism and conservatives (via Instapundit). The comments are really interesting. Go read them. The opinions range from a self-righteous defense of white guilt to diminishing the contributions of prominent black conservatives because they're not really conservative.

So let me get this straight: Liberals are better than conservatives because they feel bad that there's racism and they're justified in using blacks to make them feel better, but that's not racism that's "promoting diversity".

As Ms. McArdle says:

It's also worth noting that the presidential candidate who has done the most to exploit the racism of others this election season is liberal Democrat Hillary Clinton, whose campaign, though bullish on sexism, has spent a lot more time talking about how it is constrained by political correctness in its campaign against Barack Obama than being concerned with actual racism.

Conservative find discrimination based on race or gender repugnant. As the Democratic primary season has amply demonstrated, identity politics, when taken to its logical end, is absurd. What is the big idea on the Left these days?

How does feeling guilty for wrongs people committed generations ago change the reality today? How does feeling better because you're guilty help? It's irrational. And the policies that liberals espouse are irrational and lead to the exact opposite place they intend. New Orleans is a liberal government let to run amok for years. In the north, there's Detroit and Philadelphia. All three cities have been run by liberal policies. The results have been anything but good especially for black people. And in places like Key West and San Francisco, other places where liberal politics are practiced, poor people of any color cannot live there. Now, who exactly is discriminatory?

And then there are the individual implications. One of my genius friends happens to be black (he's not genius enough to be conservative). He was educated in a fantastic university and not because of affirmative action. But how galling would it be to work your ass off and be presumed to have needed lowered standards in order to make it?

It is irrational to believe that racism doesn't exist. It does. It is also irrational to believe that by focusing on race and feeling guilty, racism will end.

Cross-posted at Right Wing News.

Jimmy Carter Needs To.....

Oh, I was going to say, shut up, but actually, that's not in the spirit of free speech. I think he needs to talk more. Just talk and talk and talk and talk. He is Barack Obama except, white and old. Every time he opens his yapper, people think, "Hey, that's what Democrats think and Barack Obama is a Democrat." I don't know if people think that, but I hope people think that. So keep on talking Jimmy. Your bitterness and loathing seep through every word and deed. I don't think Mr. Carter will ever forgive America for not loving him. We are just that stupid. It's a heavy burden he has to live with, no longer being able lead the dumbest people on the face of the planet.

Hung From Their Own Rope

If the Right is apathetic, the Left is apoplectic. I've been ruminating on the implications for the country whether Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton get the nomination.

To me, Hillary Clinton is the harder candidate to beat in the general election. She is perceived as more centrist and has done a pretty good job casting herself as the working man's candidate. She is tough, competitive and hangs in there. This tenacity has impressed many people. Aside from her weeping episodes which came off as manipulative, she has been doggedly determined and come across as tough. She craves power and it's both terrifying and respect-inducing to behold.

The calls for Hillary to bow out when she is hanging so tough enrages feminists and the women who support her. It's the same old, same old from the patriarchy: take a back seat to a lesser man. Concede. Submit. Stand down to elevate him. Hillary has, of course, done this. She supported Bill for years, even through his infidelity and immaturity, in order to have the power. But she knows, as does everyone else, that is was his power. Now, it is her turn. This message resonates deeply with women. The feminists waited for this moment. It's the culmination of a lifetime of hopes and dreams and Hillary symbolizes the American Woman. Not getting the nomination is like orgasm-less sex. Women don't want to be left hanging. Again.

I think the Left, the Super-delegates, even average middle-American voters fear that Obama's newness, his lack of experience, his liberalness, his softness won't play in the general election. But everyone is stuck. If women have suffered lo, these many years in America, only blacks can claim more victimhood. Underneath the Obama candidacy is a threat and silent menace: nominate him, or else. Or else what? Will there be riots in the cities should Obama not get the nomination? Will delegates' lives be threatened? That's what some fear. And so, the renewed pleas for Hillary to "do the right thing" and quit.

The nomination of Barack Obama means "healing", "hope" and "change". What it means is that America, can, once and for all, put the taint of slavery behind them. The tide has turned and America, finally, in Michelle Obama's 44th year, is a place where even black citizens can be proud. As much as blacks want this, whites want this more. Many whites tire of the collective guilt and want to be shed of it. A black president would heal the country and change the future.

How will Obama's followers, including the 90% black voters, feel should they be denied? This moment seems historic and profound and necessary. The emotionalism, the attachment is as real as group adoration ever can be. Obama taps into a well of desire and fear that is almost irresistible. Life without him will be desolate, life will him will be infused with purpose and light.

For the Democrats making this decision, it's over. There can be no other candidate than Obama. He may lose in the general, but that will be a small price to pay. This candidacy matters more to elite Democrats than to the political realities of the general election. Hillary Clinton isn't making this decision easy, but, in the end, it won't matter. This is about history. This is about symbolism. This is about shiny ideals and a perfect vision.

Democrats will, without irony, savage John McCain--even his amazing military record. They will paint him as conservative (which conservatives will roll their eyes at). They will disparage his long record. Trying to fight Obama's record will be like shadow boxing. He doesn't have one. His list of accomplishments is anemic, but he's not running on what he's done but what what he represents.

The only result of this Democratic primary will be a new level of cynicism that can only come from identity politics. And while this is all inevitable and predictable, it's distressing at the same time. A fractured society doesn't last long.

Cross-posted at Right Wing News.

Indiana Jones And The Kingdom Of The Empty Skull

Last night, late, after American Idol and the delight in David Cook's success, after the news, a friend, her kids and her kid's friends showed up at the door and kidnapped me. The destination? The opening show, 12:01 a.m., of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Well, I wanted to to see the movie anyway, why not stay up until 3:00 a.m. on a week night? I had more than a couple reasons, but went anyway, encouraged by the positive reviews coming out of Cannes, I decided in the spirit of teenagers everywhere, what the hell?

Speaking of teenagers and Indy nerds generally, two mega theaters were not quite sold out but they were full and it was midnight. Long lines filled with grinning people congregated. I imagine that this is what it felt like to be in Portland waiting for Barack Obama. Dude, it was an experience. A young Indiana showed up with his beautiful sidekick Marion (one presumes). The crowd clapped at the opening credits. Whoops came at exciting parts. This was a crowd that would be easy to please.

And yet....my friend who is a die-hard Indiana Jones fan came out of it feeling meh. She wasn't thrilled with the ending and didn't see it coming. I'm no prophet, but the opening set, Area 51, gave me a clue about what to expect. Just a little one.

Before I share what bugs me about the film, let me just say that the requisite one-liners, snappy dialogue and nail-biting action sequences filled the screen. The familiar John Williams score made me feel nostalgic. And Harrison Ford is old and seems to be lost in actual irony. His age is acknowledged right off the bat and then five minute later, he's beating men senseless half his age. He looks pretty believable doing it. Well, kinda believable.

And that brings me to what bugs me about the film. The overall tone was the problem. (Warning: Mild spoilers ahead. Do not read further if you want to flinch at every surprise.) The movie opens at Area 51, the Russian bad guys headed by wacky parapsychologist and Lenin lover Irina Spelkt (Cate Blanchett), want something and they mow down five innocent American soldiers at the entry check point to get it. The audience collectively flinched, but what I found disconcerting was the way the camera lingered and there was no outrage or sense of wrongness about this event. Those deaths don't get avenged. It's irritating as hell. Indy is in one of the trucks, he's there. One pithy line of vengeance, but no. They are American soldiers. They deserve to die.

It gets worse. Indy escapes and ends up back at his college campus where McCarthyism has taken root and poor Indy is being suspected as a traitor. The emphasis throughout is not on communism's badness but America's ridiculousness and that takes some plot-slowing turns:

Or, rather, it isn't; instead of plunging into the thick of things, we have to spend some time with Indy back on campus, where concerns about his patriotism see him dismissed from his position;

How dare anyone question anyone's patriotism? A communism protest gets run over. An all-American town gets torched. A sympathetic hero gets "swift-boated". Ten minutes in, I wanted to throw up. My friend just found it boring, which it was.

And so it went. The adventure takes Indy all over the globe again. His youthful sidekick just seemed wrongly cast. The story is choppy and there is one glaring plot hole that is still bugging the hell out of me. After you guys all see it, maybe you'll have an answer, but I've wracked my brain and have come up with a big fat nothing.

I'll be curious about how Indy fans take this movie. I give it 2.5/5 stars. Vote once you see it.

Indiana Jones and The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull was
	Awesome
	Horrible
	Meh
pollcode.com free polls

Stuff You Should Know

What does Obama really believe? If you listen, he'll tell you.

And so will Michelle. Ugh. The woman needs to pipe down if she doesn't want criticism for saying stupid things.

I don't know what to think about this research that says cellphone use by pregnant women causes attention problems in the offspring, but it seems that cell phones might be more troublesome than we know. And here's the weird thing: when my iPhone is anywhere near the subwoofer, the subwoofer vibrates when I get a phone call or text or email. In fact, if the phone is near the radio, the radio goes static until it turns off again. They produce a huge EMF for being so small. At the rate people use phones now, the next generation will all be mentally retarded.

Want to see the droopiest ta-ta's ever? Evidently they fed one of the meanest mouths, too. Part of the Code Pink crowd's progeny. Ew, my eyes are still recovering. And just so you know, yes, sometimes bloggers get hate mail. Lovely. (We get love notes, too, so it all evens out.)

William F. Buckley built a road that I don't think conservative have been following for quite some time.

Crazy ants (not to be confused with my crazy aunts) are taking over Houston. I should be disturbed, but here's the disturbing part: if we get infested with them, they eat wires. No! Not that! They also eat fire ants, which is a good thing.

Is the world economy destabilizing? Yes. Are energy prices going to cause problems? Seems like they will.

Ann Althouse wants liberals to not speak their truth so people will take them seriously when it comes to Supreme Court Justices. Even if they don't say it, Ann, we know their judicial intentions. There's no hiding it.

Are conservatives out of ideas? Um, no. But the conservatives aren't running the Republican party right now. Neither are the libertarians. Right now, fat, happy, pseudo-dems are running the party and the only ideas they possess come from the Democrats. It's called liberalism lite and it sucks.

Part of this cross-posted at RWN.

Big Ideas On The Left and Right

While the good people of Oregon worshiped adoringly and the press facilitated the faux-outrage over President Bush's scorn for appeasement, the meat of the President's impressive speech was lost. Here's my favorite line:

Ultimately, to prevail in this struggle, we must offer an alternative to the ideology of the extremists by extending our vision of justice and tolerance and freedom and hope. These values are the self-evident right of all people, of all religions, in all the world because they are a gift from the Almighty God.

This speech was a big speech on a big platform sharing big ideas. These are ideas to fight for and defend. There are still worthy ideals.

The ideas in this speech make discussions about fat people and SUVs and global warming seem small and insignificant in comparison. But those are the big, triumphant ideas of the Left these days. The leader of the Left in America presses for ways to constrain human freedom (link to video of Obama's latest speech) to create an ideal society. Higher taxes to put money where they believe it should go. New laws so people will drive the "right" kind of cars. Policies will encourage parents to make sure their children are fit. Those are the "big ideas". Actually, the big idea is that Barack Obama knows what's good for you.

The big idea on the Right should be that you know what's good for you. I said should be. This election, the decision will be between which mommy seems less naggy. Big ideas will be for another election somewhere down the road.

Cross-posted at Right Wing News.

It's Okay To Be Racist, Sexist, Misogynist, Misandrist, Ageist or Mean Generally IF You're Liberal

Liberal commenters over at Cassy Fiano's blog felt free to spew hate toward her because shes conservative and female:

Grebrook:
Dude, she's fat. LOL. And she goes and gives this pathetically condescending interview about how she doesn't date liberal men, as if liberal men really care? It's kind of like a black guy telling the KKK "nah, you're not good enough for me to be a member". They're not exactly inviting him in.

Cassy, you're fat, seriously. Until you lose weight, I think it's safe to say that you don't have much room to talk about "liberal idiots" if you're not intelligent enough to stay healthy.

Grebrook:
Rofl, do you actually read this blog? This girl is a walking cliche. A fat, white angry Republican ...

Fat? A whale? Come on guys, couldn't you come up with anything better than that? I mean, really. That's like, the most boring, unoriginal insult in the book. Try a little harder next time. Please.

It isn't about lack of imagination, Cassy. It's about entitlement. Being liberal entitles a person to say and do anything because their motives are pure and their premise unquestionably correct.

So, Hillary can, with a straight face talk about her white people supporters. Obama can disparage "the other" because he's better, knows better. These are the leaders of the Left. The average Leftist blog commenter is just doing the same thing albeit on a less sophisticated level. The talk will denigrate into fat rolls and vaginas. My personal favorite sexist joke recently here:

What is the smartest thing to come out of a woman's mouth? Albert Einstein's cock.

The joke was in reference to me being a stupid, entitled, fat, old bitch. It was a personal attack to demonstrate my abject stupidness. It was okay, though, because when you're smarter and liberal (read better) using a sexist attack is perfectly acceptable.

Today, James Kirchick writing in The Advocate highlights liberal homophobia:

If John McCain had confessed to being “not comfortable” around “those people,” handed a microphone over to the likes of Donnie McClurkin, cast aspersions about the sexuality of political opponents, or just openly called someone a “fruitcake,” the denunciations from liberals would be swift and unforgiving. Yet Democrats in particular and liberals more broadly always get a pass. Indeed, at the time of Stark’s outburst, the Human Rights Campaign defended the congressman by emphasizing that he "is one of the gay community's staunchest allies." Log Cabin Republicans president Patrick Sammon points to the example of the Democratic mayor of Fort Lauderdale, Jim Naugle, who has made a series of homophobic remarks about the many gay tourists who visit his Florida city. Rarely, however, do news stories ever mention that Naugle is a Democrat. “If he was a Republican, every single story about him would have ‘Republican’ before his name,” Sammon says.

The liberal journalist Eric Alterman, a columnist for The Nation and a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress think tank, is a particularly nasty example of the liberal homophobe. Two years ago he challenged gay, HIV-positive journalist Andrew Sullivan to prove a claim Sullivan had made about Alterman regarding military action in Afghanistan, offering to pay “$10,000 to the AIDS charity of Sullivan’s choice.” He mocked Sullivan, “who is HIV positive and likes to discuss this fact with reporters,” for his “remodeled bathroom in P-town.” Alterman regularly refers to Sullivan as “little Roy,” after Roy Cohn, the gay aide to Sen. Joe McCarthy who died of AIDS complications. Following Ann Coulter’s labeling Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards a “faggot” in 2007, Alterman said, “Look, the word 'faggot' ... is a word one hears in private conversation quite frequently; she just said it in public.” Makes one wonder what sort of company Alterman keeps.

Why do liberals get a pass when they are clearly hypocritical and would, themselves, skewer someone on the right who used the same rhetoric? Because, their ideology is pure. They have good intentions. Their motives are above question.

I'm not arguing for stifling free speech. As I wrote last week in "America Up!", there is far too much victim-claiming behavior by far too many people. The political correctness has stopped honest debate about real solutions and lead to absolutely insane actions. Political correctness has put the emphasis on the superficial rather than the substance. What I am arguing is that the liberals want and get to have it all ways. It is perfectly fine to play dirty, use nasty language, and hold discriminatory beliefs as long as they wear the right name and party.

Democrats and liberals always get a pass. It makes me think that they don't really believe their politically correct rhetoric and just spew it to obtain and retain power. Holding the Right to stringent speech standards restricts the debate and forces only certain kind of conversations with pre-determined outcomes. How convenient. Even better, liberals can attempt to restrict the speech of the opposition by using the very same offensive speech they claim is wrong. Wow, what a great deal.

Michelle Obama's Education

So Obama triumphs and Hillary ebbs closer to defeat. And I feel......fine.

But who cares about them? The most interesting person in this whole election is Michelle Obama. James Lileks says:

Off to write my weekly XM radio / Pajamas Media audio commentary; something about Michelle Obama, I think. Downbeat, resentful, insular, tone-deaf and peevish: when everyone's tired of Rev. Wright, and the Bill Ayers issue has surged and retreated, she might end up the last liability.

Evidently, Ms. Obama made it into Princeton with lackluster test scores. She's not a good test taker. I know bad test takers. They ended up at community college or a lower tier state school and yet Michelle found herself in Princeton. And yet, life has done her wrong. Over at One Cosmos this assessment of her last diatribe:

You just have to be so ahistorically narcissistic to share Obama's bleak vision of the United States. Your mind has to essentially circle in a tight spiral around your own myopia and provincialism, so that it is simultaneously petty, and yet, grandiose and presumptuous. Far from having doors closed to her, this is a woman who has probably never been confronted and brought down a peg, one of the sad legacies of white liberal guilt. This is the very reason why left wing black "thinkers" tend not just to be such cringeworthy mediocrities, but downright embarrassments, such as Cornell West, whereas conservative black thinkers such as Thomas Sowell or Shelby Steele are as brilliant as they come. The left systematically substitutes compassion for standards, which is not a recipe for excellence, to say the least.

Well, there's that. Cosmo attributes Michelle's anger to mental illness not stupidity. But let a kernel of bitterness sprout and it looks like full-fledged crazy which makes a person say absolutely ridiculously stupid things. Chicken-egg. Over at Powerline:

According to Mrs. Obama, the Obama campaign has been constrained by nameless forces constantly changing the rules of the game and thereby preventing Senator Obama from securing the nomination. Who are "they"? Mrs. Obama says just enough about these nameless forces for us to infer that "they" include the Clintons and their supporters. "They" seem also (incredibly) to include the mainstream media. These nameless forces have approximately the same specificity as the names on Joe McCarthy's list.

Well, when even one member of the press abstains from effusively praising the Obamas, when an Obama gets a challenging question, when an Obama faces obstacles like SATs, the world is against them. America is just that unfair. Why don't you people get it? Byron York notes the bitterness:

Mrs. Obama begins a long riff about how that is happening not just to her husband but to Americans as a whole, who are working hard only to find the benefits of their work kept just out of reach. “You know what happens when you live in a society where the vast majority of people are struggling every day to reach an ever-shifting and moving bar?” she asks. “You know what happens in that kind of society?”

“THEY GET FRUSTRATED!” yells a man in the audience.

Stoke the hate! It will get everyone voting against The Man. Michelle Malkin notes the victim rhetoric:

Barack Obama, the missus explains, is Everyman who has ever been put down by The Man. And “understand this” (a condescending verbal tic shared by both Obamas): Mrs. Obama is here to make sure you feel their pain. Which is really your pain. Because the hardships of a privileged Ivy League couple are “exactly” the same as the travails of miners or service workers or small-business owners: “So the bar has been shifting and moving in this race,” she grumbles, “but the irony is, the sad irony is, that’s exactly what is happening to most Americans in this country.”

You know who Mrs. Obama reminds me of again? Oh, yes she does: Hillary Clinton. The world was a conspiracy against the Clintons, too. Hillary still believes it, of course. Note her speech going after oil companies and "taking their profits" to put toward her own pet energy independence projects. Big Oil is just an extension of The Man trying to keep the little guy down. But that's now. Back when Hillary was being First Lady it was the "vast Right Wing conspiracy". It's always somebody else who's oppressing the big ideas and general wonderfulness of the Democrats.

Michelle Obama articulates the general vibe of the Left. I hope she keeps talking. In the meantime, though, we Republicans have our own guy to worry about.

Peace Thugs Wage War On Veteren's Family

Here's the video of the peace activists beating the shit out of a a family: father (vet), mother, 14 year old daughter. The courage. The valor.

Wanna Vote? Bring A Picture I.D.--UPDATED

The Supreme Court upheld Indiana's law requiring voters to bring a photo ID. It makes no sense not to have this law. Sheesh! You can't buy a six pack of bud without an ID but you can vote?

This finding is a major blow to the Democrats intent on having all those illegal immigrants and dead people vote for them. It's been a bad day for the Lefties. Aw.....

UPDATE: Ann Althouse has more on the breakdown of the decision.

Obama: Excusing Violence

It just occurred to me, after reading James Lileks excellent piece about Obama buddy, and former terrorist, Bill Ayers, that the reason todays Leftists sympathize with al Qaeda and Hamas and any other nefarious regime bent on suppressing their people, is because today's Leftists are or would like to be the regime. They never stopped being those people who, while rebelling against the regime, now find themselves with the delicious possibility of enacting their revenge as the regime.

Lilek's juxtaposition of a Chicago Trib editorialist, who writes with the objective nostalgia of grandma recalling porches and lemonade, with his own interpretation, says it all. Here's just one example, but you need to read the whole thing. It's sickening, really:

Second, you have to wonder why Stephanopoulos, who has been resurrected as a television commentator, thought to ask Obama about . . . Bill Ayers.

Lileks: Because of Mr. Ayers’ illustrious past as a domestic bomb-planter, perhaps. Strange as it may seem some people have a few questions.

Obama knows Ayers, a former radical and member of the Weather Underground who is now an academic in Chicago. They met years ago. They served together on the board of the Woods Fund of Chicago, which provides money for anti-poverty efforts.

Lileks: These are magic words, meant to inoculate: Academic. Anti-poverty efforts. You may believe that an “academic” is someone devoted to a disinterested pursuit of truth bravely following logic down the harrowing corridors where ideology is the first casualty; you may also be a freshman in college with your tuition paid by your parents. There’s a touching naïvete about the description of Ayers as a college professor, as if that means he has entered a realm of pipe-smoking rumination about Truth and Beauty. Doesn’t that make him an Authority? Aren’t we supposed to question Authority? Note to Dick Cheney: get yourself to the Department of Political Science at the U of Wyoming, and watch those calls for war-crime prosecutions melt away. The editorial also notes that it's difficult to move in Chicago academic circles and not encounter Ayers, and no doubt truck drivers and housewives and guys heading to the office on the train nodded in agreement: boy, true dat.

Mayor Daly says,"I don't condone what he did 40 years ago but I remember that period well. It was a difficult time, but those days are long over.”

It was a difficult time. What a wonderful absolution. Oh, we all went a little mad. Some of us listened to Steppenwolf, some of us bombed government buildings and plotted robberies that killed people, some of us were rotting in Vietnamese prisons having our teeth bashed out by torture experts. Those days are behind us now, best forgotten. (Unlike the McCarthy era, which will be the subject of 163 movies about the blacklist next year, bringing the total to 45,203.)

You know, it may be hard to find a candidate who doesn’t belong to a church whose leader delivers eyebrow-singing speeches on the evils of America and also built a house Jim Bakker would approve, and it may be hard to find a candidate who doesn’t move with ease in the same social circles as some people who bombed the Pentagon, but it can’t be that hard to find one who doesn’t do both.

The premise of the editorial is about how the press was mean to Obama, after ten days of not talking to the press at all, mind you, and daring to ask him marginally challenging questions. How dare they question? Don't they know who they're talking to? Don't they realize that by bringing up tough subjects they could be standing in the way of history? Don't the journalists, bloggers and pundits see how historic Barack Obama is? Don't they realize that their nit-picking will undo the future of the greatest leader the world has ever known? Don't they realize how unfair it is to pick on Obama's pals?

The Leftists who support Obama and his merry band of former terrorist (Powerline link on the terrorism of Ayers, go read it), America-hating thuggish "academic" friends can do so because they were of the same ilk. They are the same ilk. The rebellion, the rhetoric, the murder, the mayhem is like sweet music to their ears. Obama's subtle turning of phrases, his willingness to tap into the well of resentment bears the mark of a true fearless leader.

But the leader has to have support. The leader has to have minions to excuse his bad judgment and encourage and justify the rhetoric and oppression. He has no shortage of those. Paul Auster writing in the New York Times recalls, fondly, his youth where he was a nascient protester and reluctant rebel, yet still believes the ideology today:

I hesitate to draw any comparisons with the present — and therefore will not end this memory-piece with the word “Iraq.” I am 61 now, but my thinking has not changed much since that year of fire and blood, and as I sit alone in this room with a pen in my hand, I realize that I am still crazy, perhaps crazier than ever.

At least Auster admits it, because there is zip that is rational coming from the Leftists today. Their ideology is as fraught and inherently contradictory as ever. Maybe that's where the crazy comes from. Glenn Reynolds says:

It was the poison of Vietnam that made people crazy. And, apparently, has kept them that way ever since.

People uncomfortable with authority figures tend to be the worst authority figures. Rather than wear the mantle of leadership responsibly they overcompensate and in so doing rule ruthlessly. Anyone who disagrees with the ideology is suspect. Paranoia, delusion and crazy reign. There is no shortage of crazy surrounding Barack Obama.