Tuesday Afternoon Cigar

The filler of a CAO Brazillia seared as we reviewed the recent 'outrage' by Senator Obama over recent Rev. Wright comments.

So, the Sunday after 9-11 Rev. Wright said the following: "America's chickens are coming home to roost". In other words, America deserved the 9-11 attacks. Obama wasn't at church that day, and says if he had been, he "might" have walked out in protest.

In recent days, Rev. Wright has said "Politicians say what they say and do what they do based on electability". That could be interpreted to mean: Obama is only saying what he says to get elected and that he doesn't have a core, moral basis for his opinions nor is he a leader capable of pushing an unpopular agenda through to completion. Of course, we at Ushanka.us know Obama has a core, hence the popular and sexy COMMIE OBAMA Rally Cap!

One question is asked by all, while another goes un-asked:

How are the latter, most recent comments worse than what was said (and known to be said) back in 2001?
But more telling, why didn't Obama go to church the Sunday after the most tragic and stunning attack on US soil in the history of the country?

To the first question, we suspect Obama's 'outrage' is in response to how recent the comments are, not the content. To the second question, we recall our church was standing room only that Sunday. Maybe we are wrong. Maybe Senator Obama does not have a core.

We might have to burn a second Brazilla to work this through....

Two early and choice commentaries by fellow bloggers:

Christopher Chantrill, American Thinker
Hugh Hewitt

Is Barack Obama a Communist?

Confederate Yankee leads the discussion at his blog.

We've already made our opinion known with the sexy, Soviet-Style COMMIE OBAMA Rally Cap!

Ushanka Tip to CY!

Newsbusters also makes the link.

MSM News

From EditorandPublisher.com:

The New York Times lost more than 150,000 copies on Sunday. Circulation on that day fell a whopping 9.2% to 1,476,400. The paper's daily circulation declined 3.8% to 1,077,256.
---
In Los Angeles, the Times lost more than 40,000 daily copies. Daily circulation there was down 5.1% to 773,884. Sunday declined 6.0% to 1,101,981.
---
The San Francisco Chronicle reported that daily circulation dropped 4.2% to 370,345, while Sunday dropped 3.0% to 424,603.
---
Daily and Sunday circulation at the Chicago Tribune both dropped 4.4% to 541,663 and 898,703, respectively.

Expect Ushanka.us to report losses soon if these trends continue. We'll then proceed to 'restructure' our operations and focus on our 'core' assets that 'differentiate' us from our MSM-bashing competitors. Karl will explain to shareholders (site members) that we are navigating the nadir, and a significant uptick is just around the corner in this cyclical blogging environment. In the meantime, ignore some of these suggested headlines for the MSM:

MSM Bloggers impacted by declining NYT subscriptions
Poll: Bloggers less likely to survive recent NYT-Nat'l Enquirer merger
NYT consolidates media power by dropping unneeded deliveries
Obama: "I still read the New York Times, right after church"

Great Minds Think Alike...

If we say so ourselves...

Green Monsters Love Leninade!

Found this on YouTube:

Karl's Weekend Reading

The big news this week was the Pennsylvania Primary. Obama's 10-point loss, despite spending nearly 3-to-1 over Hillary, and his embarrassing performance in the debate will keep the Dem in-fighting going for another month or more. Here are the four best quotes regarding Obama from this week's readings:

Lawrence Kudlow, from his Towhall.com article, Why Not Blame Obama?

But here's the deal: During the debate, Obama bungled his answers on tax policy, big time. Period. End of sentence. End of story. To my liberal friends in the media, all I can say is: Get over it. Your guy has a very poor grasp of basic economic principles.

First off, you don't raise taxes during a recession. That's a no-brainer. Second, doubling the capital-gains tax rate will affect Americans up and down the income ladder, not just rich hedge-fund managers. In addition, capital-gains tax cuts are self-financing, and they stimulate jobs and the economy. You want to raise budget revenues and spark economic growth? Cut the cap-gains tax rate. That's what history shows.

The Wall Street Journal's Steve Moore points out that in 2005, almost half of all tax returns reporting capital gains came from households with incomes under $50,000, while more than three-quarters came from households earning less than $100,000.

Karl Rove, from his opinion piece in the WSJ, Is Obama Ready for Prime Time?

Mr. Obama has not been a leader on big causes in Congress. He has been manifestly unwilling to expend his political capital on urgent issues. He has been only an observer, watching the action from a distance, thinking wry and sardonic and cynical thoughts to himself about his colleagues, mildly amused at their to-ing and fro-ing. He has held his energy and talent in reserve for the more important task of advancing his own political career, which means running for president.

But something happened along the way. Voters saw in the Philadelphia debate the responses of a vitamin-deficient Stevenson act-a-like. And in the closing days of the Pennsylvania primary, they saw him alternate between whining about his treatment by Mrs. Clinton and the press, and attacking Sen. John McCain by exaggerating and twisting his words. No one likes a whiner, and his old-style attacks undermine his appeals for postpartisanship.

Too hot in the kitchen! That is our take on Obama's refusal to debate in North Carolina.

From James Taranto's Best of the Web posting from Tuesday, The Obama Quarantine, where he comments on Obama's lack of debate backbone:

Of course, after last week's debate--which turned out to be highly informative--Obama has got to be wishing he had stopped at 20. Given that he seems to have the nomination nearly locked up anyway, it makes tactical sense for him to run out the clock and stay far away from anyone who may ask him a tough question.

But does it make strategic sense? It strikes us that Obama may be setting a trap for himself. Consider the experience of John Kerry in 2004: He won nomination easily, with the media largely buying into his "war hero" story and not asking tough questions. One notable exception was ABC's Charlie Gibson, who almost exactly four years ago confronted Kerry about his shifty behavior vis-à-vis his medals.

Once Kerry was past the convention, the questions that should have been asked much earlier began coming out. The Swift Boat Veterans for Truth ended up doing the media's job for them. If Obama succeeds in avoiding the tough questions now, someone will end up asking them in the fall. Will he be prepared?

And Charles Krauthammer comments on Obama's strongest supporters, the media, in his Townhall.com article The "Distractions"of Obama's Character:

In the now-famous Pennsylvania debate, Obama had extreme difficulty answering questions about these associations and attitudes. The difficulty is understandable. Some of the contradictions are inexplicable. How does one explain campaigning throughout 2007 on a platform of transcending racial divisions, while in that same year contributing $26,000 to a church whose pastor incites race hatred?

What is Obama to do? Dismiss all such questions about his associations and attitudes as "distractions." And then count on his acolytes in the media to wage jihad against those who have the temerity to raise these questions. As if the character and beliefs of a man who would be president are less important than the "issues." As if some political indecency was committed when Obama was prevented from going through his 21st -- and likely last -- primary debate without being asked about Wright or Ayers or the tribal habits of gun-toting God-loving Pennsylvanians.

Commie Obama!

Dan Henninger at the WSJ explains why he thinks the Obama nomination is "inevitable".

We agree, which is why we are officially calling our sexy ushanka hat the "COMMIE OBAMA" Rally Cap!

Saturday Afternoon Cigar

A Rocky Patel Edge burned as we posted our "Book Club Addition", "Hillary a Commie?", and "Obama and Guns" posts.

Obama and Guns

If you do not agree that the Second Amendment is what makes the other amendments possible, save yourself some time and stop reading here.

A common discussion between Karl and fellow 'bitter' conservative and Ushanka.us enthusiast, Mickail, is the liberal attack-agenda on gun ownership. Up until now, Karl has tempered Mickail's pessimism with the recent histories of Gore 2000 and Kerry 2004 where the gun issue was surrendered at the national debate out of worries it could hurt Democratic voter turnout. Karl thought he saw the same in the 2008 Democratic primaries. But, enough information has emerged to change his opinion.

We are now convinced that an Obama administration will act on gun control, despite his claims to respect "traditions". We still think taxes will co-exist with Iraq as the leading issues in the general election, but we now think the gun issue should share that priority. Here are links to, and quotes from, some recent articles:

April 3 - Michelle Malkin - "Obamessiah: Roll Back Carried Concealed Laws!". Quoting Obama:

I am not in favor of concealed weapons,” Obama said. “I think that creates a potential atmosphere where more innocent people could (get shot during) altercations.

April 17 - David Kopel in the WSJ - "The Democrats and Gun Control".

When the U.S. Supreme Court voted last year to hear a case on the constitutionality of the Washington, D.C., handgun ban, Mr. Obama's campaign told the Chicago Tribune: "Obama believes the D.C. handgun law is constitutional" and that "local communities" should have the ability "to enact common sense laws." Other than Washington, D.C., the only American cities with handgun bans are Chicago and four of its suburbs. As a state senator, Mr. Obama voted against a 2004 bill (which passed overwhelmingly) to give citizens a legal defense against prosecution for violating a local handgun ban if they actually used the firearm for lawful self-defense on their own property.

Mr. Obama's campaign Web site touts his belief in the Second Amendment rights to have guns "for the purposes of hunting and target shooting." Conspicuously absent is the right to have firearms to defend one's self, home and family. In 2001, as a state senator, Mr. Obama voted against allowing the beneficiaries of domestic violence protective orders to carry handguns for protection.
---
Forty states currently allow most law-abiding adult citizens to carry concealed handguns for lawful protection, after a background check and (in almost all such states) a safety class. Of course those laws only apply to carrying within the relevant state. Mr. Obama told the Chicago Tribune in 2004 that he favored a national ban on concealed carry, to "prevent other states' laws from threatening the safety of Illinois residents." Mrs. Clinton campaigned against a licensed carry referendum in Missouri.
---
A presidential candidate could of course swear devotion to the First Amendment, while declaring that the amendment's purpose is to protect sports reporting and book collecting. And that candidate could still support government lawsuits against publishers, local bans on newspapers, and draconian restrictions on political commentary.

April 19 - Arthur C. Brooks in the WSJ - "Trigger Happy". Data that shows how out of touch Obama and his liberal supporter really are:

34% of American homes have guns,
Poor? Gun owners earn 32% more than non-gun owners,
Bitter? Gun owners: 39% 'very happy' vs. 30% for non-gun owners,
Charitable giving? 83% of gun owners vs 75% non-gun owners,

Why are gun owners so happy? One plausible reason is a sense of self-reliance, in terms of self-defense or even in terms of the ability to hunt their own dinner.
---
None of this is to dictate what gun policy should be in our nation and its communities, let alone whether gun owners deserve to be happier than those of us without firearms. Guns are an important area of debate about freedom and security, not to mention constitutionality. What we do know, however, is that contrary to the implication of Mr. Obama's comments, for many Americans, happiness often does indeed involve a warm gun.

We think this topic should remain at the top of the issues list for the 2008 election. Will we hear Obama commit to gun rights, for defense against criminals AND a tyrannical government, or will we continue to watch him duck and evade? Comments are on.

Hillary a Commie?

DUH!

I doesn't take an article from The New York Sun to convince us Hillary has communist inspirations. Nor would it take anything the left throws at us to convince us otherwise.

We think she'd prefer show-trials of her opponents, the elimination of property rights, and control of the food supplies to control the masses if only she could suspend that pesky constitution. We also think that she has thought long and hard for most of her adult life in finding ways to get as close as possible to these goals as our next president.

In one of Rush Limbaugh's many comparisons to the proposed policies of Hillary (and Obama) to failed policies of Communists around the globe, he mentioned an Huffington Blog Post that led us to the Sun article, "Hillary Clinton's Radical Summer". The blog post asked why the Philadelphia debate explored Obama's past (and current) associations with questionable figures, but not Hillary's. Specifically, her work with Communists and Communist sympathizers. Good question!

It turns out her work with the law firm Treuhaft, Walker and Burnstein suggests an active effort on Hillary's part as a law student to intern with the most leftist law firm in existence. It wasn't just the Black Panthers she was helping, although that alone is grounds for expulsion from American politics. The firm also worked on behalf of Huey Newton (of Free Huey! fame) that summer who was charged with killing an Oakland police officer. They succeeded in getting the case dismissed.

A thorough article, with names and interviews of firm partners and associates. One comment from the firm's co-founder and former member of the Communist Party USA, Robert Treuhaft, said it all:

By the time Mrs. Clinton arrived at the Treuhaft firm in 1971, its reputation as a defender of left-wingers and radicals was well established. Indeed, those at the firm assumed that reputation drew the Yale law student in.

"She did want to work for a left-wing movement law firm. Anyone who went to college or law school would have known our law firm was a Communist law firm," Treuhaft told Ms. Sheehy in 1999.

Comments are on. Tell us how we are wrong about Hillary.

Book Club Addition

Want a fast and fun read? We finished "Shooter", by USMC Gunnery Sergeant Jack Coughlin (Ret), in two days only because we took our time and savored the story.

Coughlin has 60 confirmed kills as a USMC sniper, with likely many more that couldn't be confirmed due to fast-moving combat environments that include Somalia and Iraq.

A good book if you want to get into the head of someone who sees the death he brings up close, and still keeps his feet and soul grounded in reality. A good book to get a sense of priorities - both in targets and in snap decisions that always put the commander's and the mission's needs before his own. A good book to get to know one of the many great Americans we have protecting our way of life.

Do-It-Yourself Obama Logos

Found at Jawa. Gallery here. Here are the three we liked:

Karl's Weekend Reading

Let's have more Philadelphia Debates! Was that a defining event, or what?! We can feel the weight of our bitterness lift from our body!

Kimberley Strassel at the WSJ, provides a great post-debate summary, A 'Bitter' Misstep:

So there is some irony that Mr. Obama has guaranteed this political cycle will now contain a hefty focus on . . . church and guns. The latter, by the way, is an issue some Democrats still "bitterly" credit for losing Al Gore key states in 2000. Sure enough, firearms made a prominent appearance at Wednesday's debate, forcing both candidates (who've spent the past week lauding American gun "traditions") to remember they were still fighting in a liberal, gun-control primary. Their hem-and-haw answers surely left neither gun-owners nor gun-haters happy, guaranteeing future discussion.
---
At least a few on the right have decided that if the choice is between getting voters to remember why they didn't like Mrs. Clinton 15 years ago, or getting voters to remember why they didn't like Mr. Obama a few minutes ago, they'll take the fresher memories.

George Will compares Obama with a previous Democratic candidate, Adlai Stevenson, in his Tuesday Townhall.com article, Barack Obama's Bitter Liberalism:

Stevenson, like Obama, energized young, educated professionals for whom, Barone wrote, "what was attractive was not his platform but his attitude." They sought from Stevenson "not so much changes in public policy as validation of their own cultural stance." They especially rejected "American exceptionalism, the notion that the United States was specially good and decent," rather than -- in Michelle Obama's words -- "just downright mean."
---
The iconic public intellectual of liberal condescension was Columbia University historian Richard Hofstadter, who died in 1970 but whose spirit still permeated that school when Obama matriculated there in 1981. Hofstadter pioneered the rhetorical tactic that Obama has revived with his diagnosis of working-class Democrats as victims -- the indispensable category in liberal theory. The tactic is to dismiss rather than refute those with whom you disagree.

Larry Elder looks at the media's response and role in the 'Bitter' story. Were they objective as they would have us believe? Larry writes the following in his Thursday Townhall.com article, Obama is 'Bitterly' Out of Touch:

Obama, by the way, made his "bitter" analysis on a Sunday, but not until Friday did this become a major media story. Why so long? No doubt, the anti-Second Amendment, secular media -- to say nothing of those in attendance -- agreed with Obama's analysis of the unsophisticated little people. Obama is, therefore, "in touch."

But remember the recent Bush press conference, when Bush responded with skepticism about a reporter's prediction of impending $4-a-gallon gas? The next day, page A-1 in the Los Angeles Times: "$4-a-Gallon Gas? It's News To Bush; President's Surprise at the Idea Fuels a Sense That He's Out of Touch." But as to the newsworthiness of Obama's insult to Midwesterners -- it made pages A-13 and A-17, in the Los Angeles Times and The New York Times, respectively.

Ushanka owner and former UN Ambassador, John R. Bolton, continues to press the Bush Administration's non-progress in the North Korean talks. It appears the US will agree to a 'trust, but not verify' policy towards the North Korean Communists. Tuesday's WSJ: Bush's North Korea Capitulation.

Pyongyang's escape from accountability could break down international counter-proliferation efforts. What possible reason will Iran now have to be transparent about its nuclear activities? If North Korea can get away with deception and be rewarded, why should Iran not do the same? In Libya, Moammar Gadhafi will kick himself for giving up his nuclear weapons program in 2003. This deal with North Korea is troubling enough, but the worst news is still to come.

Commies Turn On Each Other (comments)

A well documented but little known fact of communist history is that communists turn on themselves, not just on the bourgeois. Pol Pot's commies turned on the commies from Vietnam. Stalin's commies turned on Trotsky and other Lenin leaders. The list goes on and on.

So, with a smug grin, we read today's headline: "An angry China is lashing out at its foreign critics".

BEIJING — Bristling at criticism in the run-up to the Summer Olympics, China is lashing back at its foreign critics _ by name.

Earlier this week, the state Xinhua news agency called House Speaker Nancy Pelosi “disgusting.” And on Tuesday, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu lambasted a CNN commentator, Jack Cafferty, for his “vicious” commentary on China.

“We solemnly request that CNN, and Cafferty himself, take back the malicious remarks and apologize to the Chinese people,” Jiang said at a news briefing.

Our questions for those arguing for partial or full boycott of the China games - Where were you 12 years ago when Beijing was selected as the 2008 site? Are your protests genuine, or are you just jumping on the latest bandwagon? And, are you against Communism, or are you just for Tibet? Hmm?

Happy Tax Day...

Proletarians Unite - Behind Low Taxes! No matter how bad tax day was this year, it will be getting worse. Are you ready? Is you employer? Is your economy?

Sunday Afternoon Cigar

A CAO Italiana smoldered as we finally finished the Black Book of Communism. About 8-9 pages per year of communism, this book covers everything that happened in the last century. The "Why" is not fully answered, and will hopefully be a top focus of historians in the years to come.

A telling prediction of Lenin's, recalled by Gorky, is worthy of retelling here. Referring to Soviet children in 1924:

Their lives will be better than ours: they'll be spared many of the things we have been forced to live through. Their lives will be less cruel. Mind you, I don't envy them. Our generation will have carried out a task of tremendous historical importance. The cruelty of our lives, imposed by circumstances, will be understood and pardoned. Everything will be understood, everything!

Well, we don't envy them either. Those children either died early and violent deaths, lived their lives in a prison system, or lived in terror under Lenin and his successors. They suffered as all those Lenin DID envy.

Friday Afternoon Cigar

So Air America's Randi Rhodes has quit. Sounds like a good time for a cigar!

We burned a Rocky Patel Sun Grown in honor of the talk show host's kamikaze-like judgement when she called Senator Clinton and Geraldine Ferraro 'f**king whores' on April 3rd. Oh my. Maybe her departure will bring an end to the divisiveness we've seen in politics of late. Speaking of divisiveness, have you seen our sexy COMMIE OBAMA rally cap?

Karl's Weekend Reading

Get ready to pay some taxes. Especially you poor people! Excerpt and graph from Tuesday's Opinion page of the WSJ - "The Coming Tax Bomb" by John F. Cogan and R. Glenn Hubbard:

The tax code changes enacted in 2001 and 2003 are scheduled to expire at the end of 2010. If they do, statutory marginal tax rates will rise across the board; ranging from a 13% increase for the highest income households to a 50% increase in tax rates faced by lower-income households. The marriage penalty will be reimposed and the child credit cut by $500 per child. The long-term capital gains tax rate will rise by one-third (to 20% from 15%) and the top tax rate on dividends will nearly triple (to 39.6% from 15%). The estate tax will roar back from extinction at the same time, with a top rate of 55% and an exempt amount of only $600,000. Finally, the Alternative Minimum Tax will reach far deeper into the middle class, ensnaring 25 million tax filers in its web.

What will President Obama say in his 2012 re-election campaign? Will he blame Bush for not extending the tax cuts further? Will he tell the burdened tax payers to have more hope? Will he explain that these taxes make it possible for the 15-month wait for a taxpayer-paid hip replacement? Or will he convey the tried-and-true commie line: "just a few more years of sacrifice and we'll have the Utopia we've dreamed of!"? Pay a high tax rate? Yes we can!

Michael Yon says "Let's 'Surge' Some More" in his WSJ opinion article today:

As the outrages of Abu Ghraib faded in memory – and paled in comparison to al Qaeda's brutalities – and our soldiers under the Petraeus strategy got off their big bases and out of their tanks and deeper into the neighborhoods, American values began to win the war.

Iraqis came to respect American soldiers as warriors who would protect them from terror gangs. But Iraqis also discovered that these great warriors are even happier helping rebuild a clinic, school or a neighborhood. They learned that the American soldier is not only the most dangerous enemy in the world, but one of the best friends a neighborhood can have.
---
Precisely because we have made so much political progress in the past year, rather than talking about force reduction, Congress should be figuring ways and means to increase troop levels. For all our successes, we still do not have enough troops. This makes the fight longer and more lethal for the troops who are fighting.

Our thoughts exactly! The US wins every time it takes the fight to the enemy. Should we accept the premise from the other enemy - the Democrats - that the only options are to retain troop strength, or reduce?

Speaking of the 'other' enemy, Michael Reagan responds to the latest Petraeus visit to congress in his Townhall article, "Congressional Democrats: The Other Insurgents":

There must have been times when Gen. David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker thought they were back in embattled Sadr City when they faced Democrats on Capitol Hill this week -- no Iraqi insurgents or al Sadr militiamen could have been more hostile.

No wonder. The goals of the Democrats and both al Qaeda and al Sadr insurgents are the same: the defeat of the United States in the war in Iraq.
---
If we had listened to the defeatist Democrats there wouldn't be 175,000 trained Iraqi soldiers, 379,000 trained Iraqi police, 90,000 trained Sons of Iraq, and you wouldn't have Maliki, a Shia leader, sending his military into Basra to fight Shia militias.

Instead, al Sadr would be running Iraq with the help of Iran, and bin Laden would be using Iraq as a training base for al Qaeda.

Islam and Europe

A well-spoken 6-minute commentary on the Islamic takeover of Western Europe:

The Ushanka.us Book Club (to your left) includes an excellent review of recent events and trends in Europe, While Europe Slept by Bruce Bawer.

Thursday Afternoon Cigar

We lit our own Olympic Flame today - at the end of a CAO Brazilia.

No boycotts here, as the Olympic Committee (and the world) knew about Tibet and the Communist Chinese long ago. It appears, however, that Hillary and Obama are just learning of China's human rights. How convenient...

Nonetheless, we wish the Dali Lama the best of luck with his PR campaign against those commie bastards!

Berkeley Hippies

A fun Comedy Central video on the Berkeley Marine Corps protests.

U/T: Halls and Shores

Karl's Weekend Reading

All politics this week:

In Monday's Best of the Web, James Taranto comments on something that has been bugging us about the Rev. Wright story. Specifically, our shock that the Rev. Wright sermons are what we would expect to hear in a mosque, not in a church.

...if 1 in 10 Americans mistakenly think Obama is a Muslim, this is a topic on which people are unusually well-informed.

Moreover, does it really make sense to expect that the revelations about Wright would dispel the notion that Obama is Muslim? Consider what we've learned over the past few weeks about Obama's "spiritual mentor": He has a strong antipathy toward America and Israel. He purveys wild conspiracy theories about the American government. He described the 9/11 attacks as "America's chickens coming home to roost." He has bestowed an award on Louis Farrakhan of the Nation of, uh, Islam, and traveled with Farrakhan to visit Libyan dictator Muammar Gadhafi. He has given space in his newsletter to Hamas, an Islamist terror group.

True, Wright and Obama believe that Jesus is the Messiah rather than that Muhammad is God's final prophet. But this seems a minor point of doctrine compared with the litany we've just rehearsed. None of the items in that litany are inherent to Islam, of course, but all are consistent with the form of Islam with which America finds itself in conflict--a "perversion of a great religion," as some have said. If 90% of Americans can keep track of which religion is being perverted, that's pretty impressive.

Is Obama a "liberal"? This question is answered by Peter Wehner in Wednesday's WSJ - Obama and the 'L' Word.

National Journal rated him as the most liberal person in the Senate in 2007, and for good reason. On economic policy, Mr. Obama favors higher income, Social Security and corporate taxes. He supports massive increases in domestic spending and greater government regulation of the economy. He favors a significantly larger role for the federal government in health care. He opposes the North American Free Trade Agreement.

Mr. Obama has criticized the Supreme Court's decision to uphold a partial birth abortion ban, and he wants to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act. He voted against John Roberts and Samuel Alito for the Supreme Court. In Illinois, Mr. Obama supported banning the manufacture, sale and possession of handguns. And he supports granting driver's licenses to illegal immigrants.

On national security matters, Mr. Obama voted to deny legal immunity to telecom companies that have cooperated with the government in warrantless wiretapping of suspected terrorists. He wants to grant habeas corpus rights to detainees held at Guantanamo Bay. He supports a full-scale withdrawal from Iraq. And he says, in his first year in office, he would meet with the leaders of Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Cuba and North Korea without preconditions.

It's no wonder that Mr. Obama has been endorsed by Moveon.org – one of the most radical groups within the liberal universe.

"Does Obama Understand Defeat?" is Bret Stephens' WSJ article on Tuesday. Several excerpts:

The hawk and the dove are prepared to fly some distance together, particularly on Guantanamo, global warming and the promotion of Islamic moderation.
---
Where the candidates have real differences is over Iraq. Mr. Obama, as everyone knows, wants to remove American troops at a steady rate of one to two combat brigades a month, until they are all but gone, and "help Iraq reach a meaningful accord on national reconcilation." Mr. McCain, as everyone also knows, will do just about everything it takes to win in Iraq and is prepared, on the Korean, West German or Japanese model, to deploy soldiers to the country for a century to preserve the peace.

Yet what distinguishes Mr. McCain's foreign policy from Mr. Obama's is not about the nature of America's commitments in the Middle East. It is about their understanding of the consequences of defeat. Mr. McCain seems to have some. It's not clear whether Mr. Obama does.
---
...questions for Mr. Obama: Could there be something worse than the indefinite maintenance of a flawed policy? What if, following a U.S. withdrawal, Iraq collapsed into chaos? What if U.S. embassy personnel have to be helicoptered to safety from the roof of the Baghdad embassy? It's not as if this hasn't happened before.

The WSJ Editorial Board responded to Hillary's comparison of the US economy to that of Japan's last week: "Hillary's Bad History". Hillary's $10 billion "Rebuild America Plan" is an attempt to create jobs and resolve the current economic crisis. As the WSJ states: "Japan also made the mistake of refusing to make banks pay for the mistakes they made during their global lending spree in the late 1980s." The WSJ suggests a different approach:

A better model is the one the late Al Casey put into practice during the savings and loan crisis in the early 1990s. As president of the Resolution Trust Corp., Mr. Casey sold almost $400 billion of bankrupt assets as rapidly as he could. Declaring that his purpose was to "put the RTC out of business," Mr. Casey let investors buy those assets even at "vulture" prices. The real estate market was able to find a bottom, and the recovery came so fast that Bill Clinton inherited an economy that grew by 3.3% in 1992.

Remember when Americans clapped?

"Something"...

Karl immersed himself in liberalism yesterday!

We listened to Air America as we drove to the accountant's office. (Yes, we are one of the 50% of Americans that pay taxes) Specifically, the Rachel Maddow show [link].

Rachel explained in one segment how the US is charging a Quantanamo prisoner for "something". At least three times she would go in depth about how the 'Pentagon is supervising a military tribunal'. Get it? Her attempt to show a lack of "objectivity" on the part of the military. But when it came time to speak to the charges, she would explain the prisoner is charged with "something".

If we were liberal, we too would ignore the full story and eagerly savor Rachel's recurring themes: wrong war - unfair - US is bad - Bush sucks - US is hateful - blah blah blah. Instead, we feel sorry for liberals who let the Rachel Maddows in our media mislead their audiences for political gain.

So here is the missing info [link to WSJ editorial - "Embassy Bomber"]:

Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani is a member of al Qaeda.
Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani is charged with participating in the 1998 embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania.
Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani is accused of buying the truck, explosives and other bomb components.
Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani is accused of scouting the targets and coordinating the terrorist cells activities.
Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani confessed to his role in the embassy bombings.
Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani fled to Pakistan after the bombings and taught at al Qaeda terrorist camps until captured.

Well, isn't that 'something'? Here is hoping Karl's tax dollars go towards a short rope....