The Ad I Want to See

I saw the text for a great proposed ad. John McCain should use this ad — preferably just ahead of Barack Obama's planned informercial. Here's the ad's proposed text:

Hi, I'm John McCain. You won't be seeing a 30-minute ad from my campaign tonight for a very simple reason. I kept my word. Both Barack Obama and I both promised you we would accept public financing and abide by the limitations associated with it. I kept my word, Obama broke his promise to you, the American people. You are going to hear a lot of promises from Obama tonight. He will promise a middle class tax cut. He made the same promise to the voters in Illinois when he ran for the Senate, that he would propose a middle class tax cut. He broke his word, and instead voted 94 times for tax increases, including tax increases on anyone making over $42,000. So when you hear Obama make his promises tonight, keep in mind that he has a history of making promises during the campaign, but after the election he doesn't keep them. I am proud of my history of keeping promises. I think the citizens of this great country deserve a President they can trust - one who tells you the truth during the campaign and keeps his promises after the election.

Thank you Rich Lowry.

Most Profligate Congress Ever

The Republican-led Congress of 2001-2006 has taken a lot of grief for their wasteful spending. And rightly so. Five of their first six budgets (for 2002-2006) increased spending year-over-year by from 6% to 8%. They finally started getting themselves under control for the 2007 budget, which increased outlays by less than 3%.

Then, suddenly, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid were in charge. Their Congress this year is known for doing nothing. But last year, they did manage to accomplish something — they managed to more than triple the outlays rate of increase over that of the last year of the Republican Congress. Tom Blumer has the year-over-year comparisons. Here's the chart

but what Blumer says should be read, too.

What Is Obama Hiding?

I saw the claims, but I didn't give them any credence. After all, similar claims had been made about Barry Goldwater (because he was born in Arizona before it was a state) and John McCain (because he was born in a U.S. military hospital in the Panama Canal Zone). I figured it was unlikely there was anything to the claims that Barack Obama was not a natural born citizen, and ineligible to run for president — especially since there was an image of a Certificate of Live Birth posted on the Obama campaign web site.

But then it turned out there were at least two different Certificate versions out there, apparently both from the Obama campaign. That meant at least one had to be a forgery. Because of that, there began to be demands that Obama authorize the release of official documents to prove his eligibility. When Obama refused, lawsuits started getting filed in state and federal courts to force the documents' release — and they weren't getting immediately dismissed. And Obama continues to fight those lawsuits, fighting to avoid the release of his birth records — even interrupting his campaign to appear in court in Hawaii last week as part of this effort. (While there, he also visited his grandmother, who was released from the hospital a couple of weeks ago.)

When John McCain's eligibility was questioned because of his birth outside the (at the time) 48 states (in the Panama Canal Zone), his immediate response was to release the documents that demonstrated the falsity of the accusations. That's a complete contrast to Obama's response. Why? It's not like this is taking up any time from McCain's staff -- they've ignored this from the beginning. It's only taking up time and effort from Obama's staff and the DNC staff. Obama could end this any time by allowing the release of the documents. Why doesn't he?

I'm still trying to figure out what Obama is hiding here. I can only think it must be something that's really important to him, or he wouldn't be spending so much time & effort & money to keep it hidden. And I don't see that any legitimate purpose is served by Obama acting like a dirty Chicago machine politician. (Yes, I know that statement is repetitive and redundant.)

Guess we'll see what happens. But I'm left wondering.
What is Obama hiding?

Biden Asks Support for Obama

ABC News reports on its Political Radar about what vice presidential candidate Sen. Joe Biden (D-DE) said on Sunday to supporters in Seattle (which he also reportedly said at another venue the day before).

"Mark my words," the Democratic vice presidential nominee warned at the second of his two Seattle fundraisers Sunday. "It will not be six months before the world tests Barack Obama like they did John Kennedy. The world is looking. We're about to elect a brilliant 47-year-old senator president of the United States of America. Remember I said it standing here if you don't remember anything else I said. Watch, we're gonna have an international crisis, a generated crisis, to test the mettle of this guy."

"I can give you at least four or five scenarios from where it might originate," Biden said to Emerald City supporters, mentioning the Middle East and Russia as possibilities. "And he's gonna need help. And the kind of help he's gonna need is, he's gonna need you - not financially to help him - we're gonna need you to use your influence, your influence within the community, to stand with him. Because it's not gonna be apparent initially, it's not gonna be apparent that we're right."

Let me translate that from Washington politicalese into human language: Biden is saying the election of Obama to the presidency will mean our adversaries will attack us within six months. And he's saying we won't like Obama's response — which is to say the response will be wrong. Another way to say the same thing is that Obama will embolden our enemies and push us to the brink of disaster — and then he will probably fumble the ball.

That all seems to be a set of very good reasons to vote for Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) rather than Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL). That may be why Biden has no public events scheduled between now and the election. The Democrats' biggest fear at the moment may be Joe Biden's next speaking engagement.

Separately, there seems to be a lot more stuff happening today. I can't get to all of it yet. Watch for these upcoming items Real Soon Now:

• Barry's court date
• Did Jeff blow it?

What's Bad for America

I heard the keynote speeches at the Alfred E. Smith Benefit Dinner last Thursday night by both Sen. John McCain and Sen. Barack Obama. Both gave good speeches — I thought McCain's was better and more humorous, but both were good.

Thinking about it later, I remembered one of Obama's lines. I couldn't find it in the partial transcripts I ran across, but it was something like this: "With our nation's economy in such chaos, John McCain has said that, if the election is about the economy, he'll lose. So let's talk about the economy."

That fits in with what I've seen in Congress over the last several years. It's not that the Democrats' leadership in our Democrat-controlled Congress is actively trying to hurt the U.S. economy — I think — but they will do absolutely anything to make sure anything to make sure any bad news is blamed on anybody but them — preferably on George Bush.

But the behavior of the economy is also notable. Most of the economic damage during the Bush Administration has been in the last two years, since the Democrats took over Congress. Here's just one example, from early August.



That's not saying the Republicans are blameless. They certainly didn't get the job done when they had control of Congress, either, though some of that was due to Democrat obstructionism. And it can be argued that many elements of the economic cycles may be out of the control of Congresses and Presidents. Even so, it's worth keeping in mind while listening to the evening news that

        What's bad for the country is good for the Democrats

UPDATE: This post was originally published on October 19. It was deleted and re-published to get rid of comment spam. Comment moderation has been activated.

Dishonest & Dishonorable

The "non-partisan Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA)" issued a "report card" on members of Congress, supposedly based on key votes affecting Iraq and Afghanistan veterans. But it seems a bit weird:

• "Baghdad Jim" McDermott, Maxine Waters, and Dennis Kucinich got As
• Obama and Biden got Bs
• McCain got a D, one of the four worst senatorial grades

Something seems seriously out of kilter.

Now I think we know what it is. It turns out a founder of IAVA is a senior Obama campaign aide (Phil Carter, Veterans Director, Obama for America). Thus, IAVA is revealed as another example of astroturfing — a campaign sockpuppet masquerading as a grassroots organization.

There it is: Obama and his campaign staff, dishonest and dishonorable. Again. (Or is that still?) I am definitely very offended.

Bill Whittle, Again

People respond — appropriately — to the conditions they are faced with. Different basic conditions produce different basic responses. That's why I've found people from different parts of this country sometimes have a hard time understanding each other. Going across countries and continents gives the same problem, only moreso.

Bill Whittle has found the same thing. His "Cowboys and Secret Agents" is a must read. Really.