Monthly Archives: July 2008

July 24, 2008 — John Hinderaker

He Could Be A Serial Liar

Maybe there is another explanation for Barack Obama’s trouble with the truth, but I’m not sure what it would be. He did it again today, loosing a palpable falsehood on NBC. Not that it’s a surprise; Obama coming out with a whopper has become pretty much a daily occurrence. Here is Obama being interviewed by Brian Williams. Williams asks him about the surge, and whether it hasn’t been a success. »
July 24, 2008 — Paul Mirengoff

In the end, not much

Barack Obama’s speech in Berlin was a coherent, articulate, but hardly memorable expression of the liberal internationalism that, I take it, will govern his foreign policy if he is elected president. This approach to foreign policy wisely recognizes the need for the U.S. to be heavily engaged in the world, but fails fully to recognize the need for this engagement to be backed up by force and the credible threat »
July 24, 2008 — John Hinderaker

How Bad Was It?

I didn’t think Obama’s Berlin speech was as bad as Scott did. Actually, I could have given large chunks of it myself, although perhaps not with a straight face. It will no doubt contribute to the dawning realization among Obama’s nutroot fans that he doesn’t need them and doesn’t much care what they think. There were, of course, problematic parts, like introducing himself as a “citizen of the world.” These »
July 24, 2008 — Scott Johnson

Does anybody know what moment it is?

In his sermon to the Germans, Barack Obama presents himself both as Barack the Baptist and the Obamessiah. Nevertheless, Americans naturally root for the underdog to prevail. For pride to take a fall. Don’t we instinctively seek to puncture the grandiose pretensions of a blowhard? It seems to me that this is the question that Obama’s speech elicits. And one more question. I wonder if Americans will appreciate Obama’s deprecation »
July 24, 2008 — John Hinderaker

McCain Closes the Gap

The Washington Post reports that John McCain has made significant gains in several battleground states over the past month. He and Barack Obama are now in dead heats, according to recent Post/Quinnipiac/Wall Street Journal polling, in Colorado, Michigan and Minnesota, while Obama continues to enjoy a sizable lead in Wisconsin. The Post’s Chris Cillizza speculates that the cause of McCain’s resurgence could be the recent focus on Iraq and Afghanistan »
July 24, 2008 — John Hinderaker

Sightseeing or Wounded Soldiers? For Obama, an Easy Choice

Politics is largely about priorities; so is life, for that matter. Barack Obama’s priorities were put into sharp relief today when he canceled visits to two American military bases in Germany. He still has time, of course, to play the “rock star” in front of cheering multitudes of Germans. Ed Morrissey broke the story: Der Spiegel’s blog reports on Obama’s priorities: 1:42 p.m.: SPIEGEL ONLINE has learned that Obama has »
July 24, 2008 — Scott Johnson

Obama’s committee of the hole

During the run-up to the primaries, Senator Obama did not appear in the Senate to vote on the Kyl-Lieberman Amendment calling on the government to designate the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps a terrorist entity and thus suffer the imposition of sanctions. On the day of the vote on the amendment, however, Obama issued a statement announcing that he would have voted against it. In the statement, the closest he came »
July 23, 2008 — John Hinderaker

Three Related Stories

The McCain campaign has launched a new web video called Obama Love. It’s pretty funny: But the problem it documents humorously is real. William Tate added up the numbers for Investors Business Daily. Journalists donate money to Democrats over Republicans by more than a 10 to 1 margin, and even that ratio understates the case: Reporters consistently tell us that while it’s true that they’re all Democrats, it doesn’t influence »
July 23, 2008 — Paul Mirengoff

Can wishing make it so?

On the heels of Chris Cillizza’s pro-Obama testimonial, Washington Post writers Karen DeYoung and Jonathan Weisman have produced their own puff-piece. The two announce that Obama “has shifted the foreign policy debate” to “broader issues” than Iraq. Indeed, “Obama has declared the war in Iraq all but over” and thus “remade the campaign’s foreign policy playing field, neatly sidestepping Republican charges that he has been naive and wrong on Iraq.” »
July 23, 2008 — Paul Mirengoff

Rocky Mountain tune-up

Iran’s national basketball team, having qualified for the Olympics, is tuning up by playing in the Rocky Mountain Revue summer league. The league consists of NBA squads made up of rookies and other hopefuls (otherwise known as prospects and suspects). So far, the Iranian team has lost to Dallas (62-79) and to Utah (57-82). The tournament is being played in Salt Lake City. The team’s visit was arranged with the »
July 23, 2008 — Paul Mirengoff

An Obsession worth watching

Two years ago, we wrote about “Obsession: Radical Islam’s War Against The West.” This awarding-winning flim uses images from Arab TV rarely seen in the West to provide an inside view of the hatred Islamic Radicals are teaching, their incitement of global jihad, and their goal of world domination. It also pointed to parallels between the Islamic Radicals and the Nazi movement. The folks who brought us “Obsession” are attempting »
July 23, 2008 — John Hinderaker

The Times Looks For Friends In All the Wrong Places

The New York Times has staunchly tried to defend the Democrats’ refusal to develop America’s energy resources. Yesterday, they thought they had discovered an ally in Texas oilman Boone Pickens. Thus, in an editorial titled T. Boone Pickens Rides the Wind, the paper encouraged the Bush administration to follow Pickens’ policy prescriptions on energy: T. Boone Pickens, the legendary wildcatter and corporate raider, has decided that drilling for more oil »
July 23, 2008 — John Hinderaker

The Fine Line Between Pandering and Lying

Barack Obama held a press conference in Sderot, Israel today. I wouldn’t have blamed him if he had stuck to a reasonable degree of pandering, but check out this question and answer from the press conference: QUESTION: Senator Obama, you said in AIPAC convention that the (INAUDIBLE) Jerusalem could continue to be the capital city. Then you changed it and clarified later on in the — (INAUDIBLE) wonder. How could »
July 23, 2008 — Scott Johnson

Third time’s a charm?

The New York Observer reports that a team of Hollywood insiders is working on a screen adaptation of Mary Mapes’s 2005 book Truth And Duty. Mapes was the producer of the 60 Minutes II story by Dan Rather about President Bush’s time in the Texas Air National Guard, which ran on CBS in September 2004 and led to her dismissal from the network. I thought I was the only person »
July 23, 2008 — Scott Johnson

Opportunism knocks yet again

In his Examiner column “War and peace and the Democrats,” Paul Mirengoff collects conflicting statements made by Barack Obama on his signature issue of Iraq. Paul’s column cites and relies in part on Peter Wehner’s Commentary article “Obama’s war,” but it distills and updates the evidence of Obama’s extraordinary cynicism. Paul shows that, in a line headed by Bill Clinton and John Kerry, Obama has perfected the art of trimming »
July 23, 2008 — Scott Johnson

Joel Mowbray reports: Eric Cantor for VP?

Eric Cantor is the House chief deputy minority whip whom we have written about in several posts including “A letter to Speaker Pelosi” and “Cantor on CAIR.” Our occasional correspondent Joel Mowbray ([email protected]) writes: With the speculation machine at full tilt this week that McCain may soon announce his running mate, one name not commonly bandied about deserves at least a closer look: Rep. Eric Cantor. The Virginia Republican is »
July 22, 2008 — Paul Mirengoff

Defense or guilty plea

The trial of Salim Ahmed Hamdan got off to a rocky start for the prosecution when the presiding military judge ruled that some of Hamdan’s statements could not be used because they were obtained under “highly coercive” conditions. The Washington Post says that these admissions “made up a key part of the prosecution’s case against him.” What struck me in the Post’s story, though, was this line: “[Hamdan’s] lawyers have »