Jonah Goldberg is one of my favorite conservative columnists. He reminds me of the classic cheerful conservative. (As Dinesh D'Souza wrote in Letters to a Young Conservative, we conservatives should always be cheerful because we know our ideas are right and they will win out in the end.). Love this most recent piece by him.

Bold Prediction: We'll look back at September as the month Obama & Co. lost the election. He's self-destructing before our very eyes ("lipstick on a pig"? really?). The guy has never had to run a tough campaign in his life. Sorry, the Democratic primary doesn't count. All he had to was pander to the ultra-liberal base and he faced an opponent with high and already established unfavorable ratings, and even then, he probably would've lost to Hillary if the primary season was a month longer. Obama is like cheap jewelry; he looks great at first glance, but the more you leave him on, you end up with these ugly red marks on your ears.

McPalin Rattles Team Obama
The double-team strategy is a winning one.
By Jonah Goldberg

Barack
Obama, a famous fan of pickup basketball, must recognize his plight:
It’s two on one now. John McCain drafted Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, the
star point guard from the Wasilla Warriors, to double-team Obama.

(McCain’s
team doesn’t care if no one guards Joe Biden, who seems to spend most
of his time yelling to the media, “I’m open! I’m open!” But when he
gets the ball, all he does is talk about what a great player he is and
dribble in place.)

So
after the halftime show of the political conventions, to strain the
sports metaphor a bit further, it looks as if the change-up in strategy
has Team Obama rattled and in danger of choking. Polls — the closest
thing we have to a scoreboard — show that McCain, at least temporarily,
has taken the lead. On Tuesday, the Real Clear Politics average of
national polls showed McCain ahead by a razor-thin (and statistically
meaningless) 2.9 percentage points. The USA Today-Gallup poll had
McCain leading by a whopping 10 points among likely voters (and four
points among registered voters), though that’s almost surely an
overstatement.

The McCain-Palin convention bounce also all but
closed the ticket’s gender gap. According to Rasmussen Reports, Obama
had a 14-point lead among women; now it’s three. According to the
latest ABC/Washington Post poll, McCain now has a 12-point lead among
white women.

Still, there’s a lot of pressure on Sarah
Barracuda. Called up from the political minors, she could yet wilt
under the hot lights. But that’s looking less and less likely.

The
outrageous attacks on Palin out of the block (She banned books! She
opposed family planning education! She’s a creationist!) are untrue.
And the eagerness of the mainstream media to go after her family life
has backfired as well. For instance, Hanna Rosin wrote sneeringly in
Slate magazine of Palin’s “wreck of a home life.” Would Slate say that
Obama, conceived out of wedlock to a teen mom, comes from a “wreck” of
a family? I somehow doubt it.

Palin’s more sober critics, mostly on the right, worried that picking
her would undermine McCain’s claim to “experience.” Almost the exact
opposite has happened. Thanks to the double-team strategy, Obama has
found himself in the awkward position of sounding as if he’s running
against the GOP’s vice presidential nominee. When Obama compared his
own experience to Palin’s tenure as mayor of Wasilla (leaving out her
current job as governor), he ran right into the pick the McCain
campaign had set, leaving McCain a clearer path to victory.

The
more Obama has to explain why being a community organizer — or a state
legislator, or a one-term senator with few accomplishments under his
belt — is better preparation for the presidency than being a mayor or
governor, the more he volunteers his own shortcomings when compared
with McCain.

Besides, on paper, Obama doesn’t stand up very well against Palin. All
of the mythic themes of Obama’s political narrative — the ethics
reformer, the bipartisan, the new kind of politician — look like
press-release material next to Palin’s accomplishments. Obama voted the
Democratic Party line more often (97 percent) than McCain voted in
accord with President Bush (90 percent). In Washington, Obama’s
supposedly “sweeping” ethics reform — which forces congressmen to eat
lobbyist-provided meals standing up instead of sitting down — and his
feckless reforms in Illinois make him look the Bambi to Palin’s
Godzilla.

Obama’s idea of ethics reform is to mandate clean sheets in the brothel. Palin’s is to tear it down.

The
most unsportsmanlike conduct in the days to come will be the search for
Palin gaffes, of which there undoubtedly will be many. The media will
call fouls on her that they never call on the other candidates. Over
the last week, Obama misspoke and referred to his “Muslim faith” on
ABC’s This Week and told a rally how excited he was to be in
“New Pennsylvania.” Perhaps that’s one of the 57 states he once claimed
to campaign in?

And let’s not forget Biden, whose gaffes are the unavoidable byproduct of his limitless gasbaggery. Biden could shout on Meet the Press,
“Get these squirrels off of me!” and the collective response would be,
“There goes Joe again.” But if Palin flubs the name of the deputy
agriculture minister of Kyrgyzstan, the media will blow their whistles
saying she’s unprepared for the job.

Fair or not, that’s how it works in the pros. But so far, it still looks as if the MVP title is hers to lose.

— Jonah Goldberg is the author of Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left from Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning.

my favorite excerpts:

"Our family has the same ups and downs as any other ... the same challenges and the same joys.
Sometimes even the greatest joys bring challenge.
And children with special needs inspire a special love.
To the families of special-needs children all across this country, I
have a message: For years, you sought to make America a more welcoming
place for your sons and daughters.
I pledge to you that if we are elected, you will have a friend and advocate in the White House."

"We tend to prefer candidates who don't talk about us one way in Scranton and another way in San Francisco."

"While I was at it, I got rid of a few things in the governor's office that I didn't believe our citizens should have to pay for.
That luxury jet was over the top. I put it on eBay.
I also drive myself to work.
And I thought we could muddle through without the governor's
personal chef -- although I've got to admit that sometimes my kids sure
miss her."

"Our state budget is under control.
We have a surplus.
And I have protected the taxpayers by vetoing wasteful spending: nearly half a billion dollars in vetoes."

"And there is much to like and admire about our opponent.
But listening to him speak, it's easy to forget that this is a man
who has authored two memoirs but not a single major law or reform --
not even in the state Senate."

=====
as a passionate blogger, i make mistakes. that attack on obama and his half brother was not fair (thanks jea for making me see that). i take it back.

of course, i don't take back my belief that obama is inexperienced, wrong on policies, and a highly disingenuous politician. can someone tell me any 'change' he brought about while part of the chicago political machine?

btw, watch the ad on my pal's xanga page. obama's quote at the end is quite damning.

i'm cool.

thanks, jeff.

one of obama's favorite sayings is how we need to be our brother's keeper. he repeated it at the Saddleback Forum with Rick Warren, and during his acceptance speech at the DNC.

but obama's youngest half-brother, as found by Vanity Fair, lives in a hut in a poor town on the outskirts of Nairobi, Kenya. yup, 26-year old George Hussein Onyango Obama told Vanity Fair, “No
one knows who I am. I live here on less than a dollar a month.” his shack measures six feet by ten feet, and yet he says that
Barack Obama has done nothing to reach out to him or to help him. “I
live like a recluse. If anyone says something about my surname, I say
we are not related. I am ashamed.”

so what has Barack said or done about his brother? absolutely nothing. and some of Obama’s supporters have basically
accused the young half-brother of trying to benefit from Obama’s
success. right, because this brother was seeking out the cameras and writers.

George, it's too bad you don't live in America. because when Obama becomes president, he'd take care of you. but now, you just have to "Pull yourself up by your boot straps, even if you don’t have boots. You’re on your own."

and just like his shady relationships with convicted felon Tony Rezko, and noted terrorist William Ayers, the mainstream media has not taken Obama to task for this revelation (they were forced to deal with Rev. Jeremiah Wright). meanwhile, revelations about Sarah Palin's TEENAGE daughter's pregnancy receive wall-to-wall coverage on CNN, The New York Times, and The Washington Post, and they're shamelessly politicizing it by using one person (of whose story they know no details) to talk about the failings of the abstinence policy. gotta love democrats. i'm reminded of when they repeatedly shouted "WE WILL WIN!" at Paul Wellstone's funeral. they'll never stop at anything to earn political points.

this story is beautiful.

btw, 90 percent of babies diagnosed prenatally with down's syndrome are aborted.

how can anyone argue that this particular practice is not a classic example of the weak being systematically destroyed?
=====
btw, read this article
about the dirty tricks the Obama campaign is doing (of course, you
won't hear this from the mainstream media). this dude is an
ultra-partisan, old-style politician, plain and simple. nothing in his
record states otherwise. America, please stop being fooled by this
"change" rhetoric.

with the exception of his wife, there was not one person at the DNC who
stated anything along the lines of "I know Barack Obama. I've fought
and stood with him. You can trust him." (take note of the stark
contrast when the RNC takes place this coming week). the basic cry from
people like Biden and the Clintons was "hey, he's a Democrat like us,
please vote for him." in his acceptance speech, Obama mentioned nothing
about what he's done. he spent a lot more time attacking John McCain
(yup, that's the new-style politics for you), and his main statement
about his qualifications was, "I'm a Democrat, just like FDR and Truman
were. therefore, I must be qualified."

i mean, if you were hiring an executive to run a company, would you
hire a guy with ZERO experience running anything, and no worthy
references whatsoever? would you hire him simply because he was an
amazing speaker who made all these spectacular promises, but had no
proof that he could deliver on them? no one would take you seriously.

ladies, would you commit to a guy that was all talk and no past actions
just because he had a smooth tongue? well, maybe you would at first,
but in the end you'd end up with a broken heart or you'd end up
marrying a loser. haha.

gimme a break.

oh my gosh, i LOVE this pick.
she's an ethics reformer (she even blew the whistle on people in her own party, and defeated the incumbent Republican governor in the 2006 primary), anti-pork champion, knows about the need for energy independence, and has worked frequently with Democrats & Independents.

obama talks it. she's DONE it. (btw, did obama mention one accomplishment in his speech last night? if so, it must've gotten lost in all the impossible promises and ridiculous platitudes he spewed. maybe more on that another time.)

her speech just made me smile from ear to ear.
she's staunchly pro-life. she has 5 children, including a son with down syndrome (down syndrome babies are the kind of babies that are most frequently aborted b/c of birth defects). her words when she had that baby: "how can you say he's not beautiful? to me, he's beautiful. he's perfect."

she's a committed wife and mother, hunter, a former championship
basketball player and sportscaster. in high school, she was the head of
the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, and she won Miss Congeniality in
a beauty pageant. and she married her high school sweetheart.

ok, i've been waiting for a reason to vote in November. count me in now!

obviously, he's pro-death. we all know that. but let's dig a little deeper into his reply to Rick Warren at the Saddleback Forum on Saturday. Warren asked him when human life begins:

“Well, I think that whether you are looking at it from a theological
perspective or a scientific perspective, answering that question with
specificity, you know, is above my pay grade,” Obama answered.

Wow, talk about completely weaseling out of the question. Your pay grade? What the heck does that mean? At least John Kerry in 2004 was able to admit that "life begins at conception." Obama can't even bring himself to say that. Ladies and gentlemen, that's how pro-death he is!

I also count at least three bald-faced lies by Obama in his answer. First, he keeps trotting out the lie that abortions have actually increased under Bush's tenure in office. It's a classic liberal talking point, and like many of them, it's not true. The Alan Guttmacher Institute, a research firm associated with Planned Parenthood, reported back in January that the number of abortions nationwide have fallen to their lowest point in 30 years and have declined 25 percent since 1990. The number of abortion are now at their lowest point since 1976.

Secondly, he claims the reason he didn't vote in favor of a law that would've protected babies that are born alive (usually because of failed abortion attempts) is because it didn't have language that protected Roe v. Wade. Actually, Obama voted with fellow Illinois state senators to specifically INSERT that language into the bill! And then he voted to kill the bill (this is all documented). And get this: He's been aggressively accusing pro-life advocates of LYING about his role in this bill, when he's the one that's full of it.

Finally, he stated that he was against partial-birth abortion. Oh yeah, it's easy to say that now that it's illegal. But the truth is that twice as a Illinois state senator, he voted against a partial-birth abortion ban. Also, his wife Michelle in 2004 sent out a fundraising letter which stated that "‘so-called’ partial-birth abortion was a
legitimate medical procedure that should be protected."

A couple more things- The misleading statement by Obama that annoys me the most is this nonsense about how he always opposed the war in Iraq. He did... as an Illinois state senator. As other Democratic U.S. senators have said to him, it's easy to do so when your position really doesn't mean squat. Rick Warren asked him on Saturday, "What's the most gut-wrenching decision you've ever had to make?" And Obama replied with voting against the war. So let's see.. he didn't have any influence on the matter, and that's his most gut-wrenching decision? I think that last sentence sums up well his utter lack of qualifications to become the next president of the United States.

Also, when Russia recently invaded Georgia, Obama's first comments were along the lines of "Both sides must show restraint." That's like Hitler invading Poland, and FDR saying "Both sides must show restraint." Gimme a break. Liberals just can't help making statements that emphasize moral equivalency. Obama also stated that the UN should get involved to invoke a cease-fire. Uh, there's a problem with that: Russia has veto power on the UN Security Council, so I don't think they'd play along. I mean, c'mon, that's just stupidity.

I am not a big John McCain fan at all (I just don't trust that he represents my conservative views well), and I have considered sitting out this election. But every day, Obama continues to aggravate me with his falsehoods and ridiculous statements. Without a doubt, he is the worst mainstream presidential candidate of my lifetime.

i love tom coburn 8 more days till the Call DC!

Pro-Life
Senator Tom Coburn, Under Fire for Delivering Babies For Free

by
Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
August 7,
2008

Washington,
DC (LifeNews.com) -- Members of the U.S. Senate don't typically
earn money from another job after they're elected to the august body
because of concerns that they will be unduly influenced by customers
or colleagues. Oklahoma pro-life Sen. Tom Coburn is an OBGYN and is
coming under fire for helping his patients.

When
he is not in Washington, Coburn works at the Muskogee Regional Medical
Center.

The
hospital changed from a public one to private ownership in April and,
following that decision, Coburn has come under fire for working there.
However, Coburn changed his practice and now delivers babies at no
cost.

But
that hasn't allayed the concerns of the Senate ethics committee, which
is controlled by pro-abortion Democrats who have threatened Coburn
with censure for delivering babies at the medical center.

Coburn
spokesman John Hart recently told The Hill newspaper that he thinks
the charges are politically motivated by abortion politics.

“The
committee has shown us zero empirical evidence to back up its flimsy
claim," he said.

He
cited other work other senators have done that was for commercial
or private companies like pro-abortion Senator Pat Leahy, who recently
appeared in a popular movie.

“If
Sen. Coburn can only deliver babies for free at a public hospital,
shouldn't Sen. Leahy only be allowed to donate his notable thespian
skills to a public entity like PBS?" he asked.

“The
parents of babies Dr. Coburn delivers don't choose him hoping to sway
his vote, and they never have," he told The Hill.

'In
the 10 years Dr. Coburn has provided free healthcare to his neighbors
while serving in Congress, the Ethics Committee has never pointed
to a single conflict of interest. No lobbyist or any individual has
ever attempted to infiltrate his medical office under the guise of
an invasive medical exam to discuss Senate business," he concluded.

Tony
Perkins, the head of the Family Research Council said there is some
hypocrisy involved. He said the pro-abortion senators targeting Coburn
wouldn't have any concerns if he worked for Planned Parenthood doing
abortions for free.

my current favorite worship song:

15 more days till the Call DC!!!!!