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McCain nails Obama: "The American people have figured it out"

Photoshopped version (above) of this morning's Drudge Report screaming headline (below). AP photo

"'Oh my,' McCain laughs, his voice dripping with jest," in a refreshingly candid NRO interview that suggests Sarah Palin is now in the driver's seat and her former running mate in the passenger seat of the jerry-built vehicle that started the two on a bumpy ride across the political landscape back in August of 2008, when Palin sprung onto the national scene full blown from McCain's forehead. She's been disintermediating the powers that be via the internet ever since, speaking directly to us and to the Leader of the Free World through Facebook, WSJ and WaPo op eds, talk radio and Fox News. Here's McCain, referencing the growing Sestak scandal headlined by Drudge:

"Can’t we just trust their words? I mean, what’s the matter with you? If Robert Gibbs says nothing untoward took place, then that, of course, satisfies any concerns I might have." More seriously: "All I can say is this: Imagine if this was the Bush administration. The media wolf pack would be in full cry. But this is something we’ve grown used to. We have a compliant media. The good thing is that the American people have figured it out. They’re not being guided by the views of the mainstream media. If they were, the president’s polls wouldn’t be where they are."

Meanwhile, having followed the legacy-media script, Rahm, Barack and Bubba find themselves front and center on Drudge this morning, first day of a three-day weekend when the White House no doubt hoped the nation would head out for the patio and not worry our pretty little heads about the big lie they dumped on us yesterday. Instead, it's all over talk radio, cable and the internet. Pajamas Media's take was particularly witty and astute [h/t Dan Collins at POWIP]:

Of course in the case of Sestak and his putative job offer, we have no idea what actually happened. But we do know the sleaze factor is high —  and not just because of the presence of Bill Clinton whose SQ (Sleaze Quotient) may be even higher than his IQ. Clinton is merely a product of "The Culture of Narcissism," Obama et al are the product of something worse – "The Culture of Chicago."

But the real issue now is not the “Deep Dish Sleazemeisters” from Chicago. They are who they are. Rod Blagojevich, Rahm Emanuel and Barack Obama are all cut from the same cloth.

The real issue is our media – the Fourth Estate that we all are supposed to depend on to vet these people.

Not to worry. As John McCain has figured out — thanks, perhaps, to the lady at the wheel — we may have a compliant media, but "the American people have figured it out."

Crossposted at Riehl World View and Liberty Pundits.

John McCain reminds us that elections have consequences

"BEST TOWN HALL EVER," we just tweeted as John McCain warms hearts and minds of a Sun City, Arizona roomful of constituents with free-market, tort-reform sweet nothings regarding health-care reform:

Senator John McCain answering thoughtful questions thoughtfully and with characteristic humor. Peaceful revolt in progress!

A breath of fresh air after the out-of-touch arrogance and disrespect of I-know-better-than-you-what's-good-for-you Arlen Specter et al towards the people who put them in office. You don't have to see eye-to-eye with McCain on everything to know authenticity when you see it. As we said of Palin in a similar vein recently, like Ronald Reagan, he trusts us! Plus, how can you not love a politician who boldly goes where no Senator has gone before, telling a hoary lawyer joke before a national audience (Fox, CNN & MSNBC are all carrying it live):

What is the difference between a catfish and a lawyer? One's a bottom-crawling scum sucker and the other's a fish.

"There goes the lawyer vote," he quips good naturedly. Great TV!

Update: "John is able to stand back and see himself as a human. The liberals can only see themselves as Gods," observes Goomp in the comments. "It's the human factor that is missing in Obama and his cadre," adds our imail correspondent:

Socialist automatons, and that's what Socialism is all about … creating mindless automatons.

The mindset comes through loud and clear in the dismissive attitude of pro-Obamacare Senators and Representatives towards their town hall constituents.

GOP is back. A little bird told me.

"Whoever the party leaders selected for last night's [GOP Senate-House fundraiser] keynote could legitimately claim a modicum of heir transparency," observes the WaPo's Dana Milbank. "Hence the intrigue over the two would-be keynote speakers, Gingrich and Palin, each with an eye on a 2012 presidential run." See below for details. Above, Newt keynotes as GOPs "intellectual center" (Tucker Carlson's words) while Sarah the "It Girl" flashes a bit of political ankle. (C-Span screen grab, left, Getty Images, right)

"Like broken clock, TIME got it right. McCain's tweet at GOP funder was moment of truth: GOP = back!" we twittered in response to a Howard Kurtz twitter query this morning. More about the unanticipated effect McCain's tweet had on us, but first, Kurtz's query:

Is Twitter just a fun hangout, or do you buy the Time-cover argument that it's changing the way we communicate and get information?

We're with Ed Morrissey, who twittered back "Both." Take that McCain tweet referenced above. It was fun, informationally enriching AND had an energizing psychological effect that traveled instantaneously over the internet from the Washington Convention Center straight into our own heart and mind:

Great to see Sarah and Todd at the dinner tonight — nice reunion!

We just happened to have been on our Tweet Deck and caught it live. We missed the dinner speeches at the time but caught some of Newt Gingrich's keynote in wee-hour C-Span reruns. Good, substantive stuff that's music to the ears of anti-statists like us. Will try to catch up today. We heard emcee Jon Voight was a smash, "taking a bite out of the Obama administration," as Fox & Friends hostess Gretchen Carlson described his crowd pleasing welcome. There'd been a frenzied buzz amongst the commentariat about whether Palin would or would not show, would or would not speak:

Palin was invited to be the keynote speaker at the dinner. What happened next, however, is a matter of hot dispute. Party officials say she accepted and reneged. Palin loyalists say she was merely mulling the offer. Either way, the party moved on and invited Gingrich to be the substitute keynoter.

In recent days, Palin was reinvited to the event, but that invitation was rescinded over concerns that the darling of the conservative base would steal the spotlight from Gingrich…

Finally, a compromise of sorts was reached: Palin would attend the event and be given a seat of honor, but would not have a speaking role.

Instead, she would be speaking to a much bigger audience, having taped an interview with Fox News's Sean Hannity (viewership in excess of 3 million). It was scheduled to air at 9 p.m. — exactly the moment Gingrich was scheduled to begin his keynote address.

'Sounds like her handlers know how to put a little flash of ankle to good use. Press reactions this morning were all over the place, from the WaPo's Dana Banks's intoxicated "Keynoter or Not, Palin Steals Spotlight at GOP Fundraiser" to CQ Politics's soberer "Gingrich Trumps Palin at GOP Gala." Take your pick. There's room for both Sarah's gung ho charisma and Gingrich's equally gung ho gravitas in this big Republican tent. As Newt told Fox & Friends this morning, "I'm an inclusionist, not an exclusionist. I think it's more fun to be a majority." Besides, Sarah's a quick study and was heard seamlessly incorporating Newtonian ideas and phraseology — duly credited — into a speech she gave last week. Enter, stage left, a Palinophobe looking for dirt:

Newt Gingrich takes no issue with Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin for using his words in a speech she gave last week. In fact, he'd be happy if more Republicans espoused his ideas, a spokesman for the former House speaker said Monday.

Blogger Geoffrey Dunn, who is writing a book about Palin, accused the former Republican vice presidential candidate [in a Huffington Post piece] of lifting phrases and ideas at length from an article co-written by Gingrich in 2005.

Gingrich spokesman Rick Tyler said the accusation was comical. "If she used Newt's ideas in a speech and gave him credit for them, there certainly is zero issue," Tyler said.

As we twittered Jake Tapper in response to a tweet of his quoting that Gingrich spokesman:

Lefties fear charismatic Sarah, armed with Newt's words she agrees with & credits, will be unbeatable!

But woman does not live by Twitter alone. Video of the GOP Senate-House Dinner, start to finish, now available at C-Span:

Fmr. House Speaker Newt Gingrich stressed getting back to “first principles” as he addressed the 2009 Republican Senate-House Dinner. Criticizing Pres. Obama’s “utopian idealism,” Mr. Gingrich said the GOP now faces opportunities to regain the White House and Congress.

This just in on Fox from commentator Tucker Carlson, who acknowledges the excitement Sarah brings to any gathering but notes: "Newt Is emerging, I think as the intellectual center of the GOP. People are looking to him for ideas, and I think he's running for president."

Update: Maggie's links.

Will President Obama "preserve, protect and defend"?

Can a leopard change its spots? As blogfriend Gayle Miller of And you thought YOU were cranky says in the comments of our previous post, "The presidency has often been a transformative experience — we can only pray most humbly that this is true in the case of the man who will take office on 1/20/09." Or if you're a cat, like Tiny above, you can stare at things we don't see.

"The Clintons really won't be going back to the White House," The Boston Globe's in-house, voice-in-the-wilderness conservative Jeff Jacoby reminds us, trying to cheer up even a "red voter in the bluest of states" like ourselves with a list of soothing post-election "reasons for some solace":

We haven't seen the last of Sarah Palin, who demonstrated star power as she withstood with aplomb and good humor a vicious assault from the left. [Our "everything happens for a reason" impulse tells us John McCain was put on this earth to launch the Alaska Governor into the political stratosphere.]

Government financing of political campaigns, always a dreadful idea, is dead [Who's sorry now?] …

A turn in the wilderness will do Republicans good [That's what happens when you let the intellectual restlessness of your early years give way to decadent complacency] …

Ah. We feel better already. "But the most lustrous silver lining of all is the racial one," concludes Jacoby:

As a politician and policymaker, Obama distresses me; his extreme liberalism is not what the nation needs. But as a symbol — a son of Africa elected to lead a majority-white nation that once enslaved Africans and treated their descendants with great cruelty — Obama's rise makes me proud of my country. The anthem of the Civil Rights Movement was "We Shall Overcome." Impossible as it might have seemed scant decades ago, we have.

Lovely thoughts, but is a symbol enough? Will President Barack Obama leave the Marx-lite philosophy and thuggish Chicago-style political tactics of his youth behind and rise to the challenge when he solemnly swears "I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States so help me God" on Inauguration Day? We guess it depends upon what your definition of "to the best of my ability" is.

Vote, baby vote!

Click on the icon and enter your registration address to get voting information and directions to your polling location, and vote early and often!

Endorsements:

Go, Johnny, go!

Sarah get your gun

May the best man and woman win!

Update: Record crowds lining up at the Williams School, where we exercised our franchise just after 7 o'clock this morning. Chelsea's a Democrat Stronghold, of course, and we saw a lot of happy faces whose joy in the morning will be our own sorrow. At least one fellow citizen, a volunteer who checked our name and address against the voting roll, gave us the secret signal — a furtive knowing nod  — when we said in parting "May the best man AND WOMAN win."

Update II: Hair-raising tales from the front in the comments. Be sure to check 'em out. A teaser from our real-world friend Carol Ward:

Reporting from Watertown, the line at the polls this morning was long, but orderly. The middle aged crunchy granola crowd was positively giddy — one man in Birkenstocks beamed on with "Look at this — how exciting. It is being a part of history" …

Not even in the Kerry Bush election of 2004 did I see this level of adolescent rapture.

I've seen commentary about how sobering it will be for these people once the One is elected and it turns out he can't walk on water. But these folks can't be sobered — the capacity for self delusion is limitless.

The white-guilt crowd feeling good about themselves, unforeseen consequences be damned.

He who laughs last laughs best

"The disastrous course of the past 4 years?" Try telling that to Baby Cakes, Mr. Gore. He and his sis, the Divine Miss T, have been having the time of their lives for the past 4 years.

"Hello Donot," writes the unspeakable Al Gore in an email forwarded to us by his dear "friend," our own Taxachusetts Senator John Kerry:

By the narrowest of margins, we lost our chance to elect John Kerry president in 2004 and cut short the disastrous course of the past 4 years.

In 2000 and 2004, just a small difference in voter turnout would have made the difference. This time around, that difference could be you.

That's why I'm asking you to consider taking the day off to volunteer on Election Day — Tuesday, November 4th — to help carry Barack Obama to victory.

I know that this isn't possible for everyone, but if you can, I'd like for you to sign up to get out the vote on Election Day so that we can finally bring the change this country needs.

Speaking of disastrous courses of the past 4 years  — NOT! — check out the first course, doibs (above) we had last night for our Friday WSJ Crossword Puzzle Date, featuring Triscuits topped with leftover meatball slices on a dollop of mayo and chicken strogie with shredded parmesan and cheddar. The carrot was frosting on the cake.

Icky poo. How sad that skipping work to support the Democrat candidate is the best our fellow Americans on the left side of the aisle have to offer in defense of the Shining City Upon a Hill. How condescending to the intelligence of us little people is that? These are humor-challenged folk who are capable of asserting, as does Roseanne, that "An Obama presidency would be great for comedy, as it signals a rise in the intelligence level of America, which makes for better, more ironic and layered jokes." Can you say nuance? We're with centrist Ann Althouse on this:

Blah! I despise all the comic writers who have held their fire because they so want Obama to win. Comedy first, you traitors to your craft.

John McCain, a deeply humorous individual who's been there and done that, won the laugh fest last night on Saturday Night Live. He who laughs last laughs best.

"You can't go wrong with McCain Fine Gold"

"Are you someone who likes fine jewelry and also respects a politician who can reach across the aisle? If so, you can't go wrong with McCain Fine Gold," quips John McCain as faux QVC infomercial host of "Washington Outsider Jewelry Extravaganza" on Saturday Night Live last night. With wife Cindy standing by her man, McCain delivered the punchline with perfect pitch: "It commemorates the McCain/Feingold act and also looks great with evening wear."  Watch video here and backstage clips here, including "My favorite thing probably I've ever done, Streisand" as Yentl: "Pretty annoying, huh? Now you know how I feel."

With perfect comic timing and fiscal discipline, Navy flyboy Johnny McCain got inside his profligate, public-funding-turncoat adversary's OODA loop on Saturday Night Live last night [watch here], shooting Red-Diaper Baby Barry Obama's multi-million-dollar "Sally Struthers of our national conscience" prime-time infomercial blitz — the yawner that delayed the start of the World Series broadcast — out of the sky without spending a penny for air time:

John McCain as himself: The final days of any election are the most essential. Last Wednesday, Barack Obama purchased air time on three major networks. We, however, can only afford [TV home shopping network] QVC … so tonight we come before you with some final remarks on our campaign.

Tina Fey as Sarah Palin: And as part of our agreement with the QVC folks, we're gonna try and sell you some stuff.

McCain: This has been an historic campaign, so why not remember it with our line of collectible products … Look. Would I rather be on three major networks? Of course, but I'm a true maverick, a Republican without money.

"It's like the old days, when it actually was a funny show," writes our imail correspondent:

She: I'm really pleased if this was scripted by SNL. They used to poke fun at BOTH sides. For the last 20 years, they have been grim, in the tank, NOT FUNNY. Who would have thought that a little under a year ago, our toes curled at the thought of a McCain presidency?

We: They realize that Sarah saved their a**!

She: The interviewer [in the must-view "SNL Backstage" video with John and Cindy] as much as said it, re: saving their a**.

We: It's the capitalism, stupid!

Landslide!

Update: We love TigerHawk's take:

You have to hand it to John McCain. He's still having fun.

And speaking of still having fun, there's a radiant look of pure joy about our man Joey Lieberman, beaming as he stands behind his man on the campaign trail today. Are internal polls whispering sweet nothings in his ear? We liked the sound of the latest IBD/TIPP Tracking Poll:

The race tightened again Sunday as independents who'd been leaning to Obama shifted to McCain to leave that key group a toss-up. McCain also pulled even in the Midwest, moved back into the lead with men, padded his gains among Protestants and Catholics, and is favored for the first time by high school graduates.

Protestants and Catholics, sure, but high school graduates? God truly does move in "a mysterious way, his wonders to perform."

"Duty, honor and country," McCain's core values

Cranes and salt pile frame a glorious sunset across the street from Chelsea-by-the-Sea at Eastern Minerals early evening. The sometimes too sober Fred Barnes says McCain will win; the ever clueless Mort Kondrake says Obama. Fred cites "duty, honor and country," McCain's core values as explicated in a superb WSJ editorial this morning. Johnny's core values were the very thing that finally allowed us to 'learn to stop worrying and love John McCain" back last February. Our sister, our dear blogfriend Miss Kelly and our own gut are chanting "Landslide."

Is Thomas Sowell a racist?

Obama "thinks taxes have been too low, and I think spending has been too high," John McCain is telling a spirited Newport News, Virginia, audience this morning, finally defining a difference to distance himself from big-spender President Bush that we can believe in. The fighter pilot is shooting Obama out of the sky!

"After the big gamble on subprime mortgages that led to the current financial crisis, is there going to be an even bigger gamble, by putting the fate of a nation in the hands of a man whose only qualifications are ego and mouth?" asks Thomas Sowell, likening the consequences of Sen. Lindsey Graham's Obama-Pelosi-Reid "tax trifecta from hell!” to the decline and fall of the Roman Empire:

Obama has the kind of cocksure confidence that can only be achieved by not achieving anything else …

The signs of Barack Obama's self-centered immaturity are painfully obvious, though ignored by true believers who have poured their hopes into him, and by the media who just want the symbolism and the ideology that Obama represents.

The triumphal tour of world capitals and photo-op meetings with world leaders by someone who, after all, was still merely a candidate, is just one sign of this self-centered immaturity …

For someone who has actually accomplished nothing to blithely talk about taking away what has been earned by those who have accomplished something, and give it to whomever he chooses in the name of "spreading the wealth," is the kind of casual arrogance that has led to many economic catastrophes in many countries.

'Wonder how much the Republicans shelled out for Piper Palin's calculatedly adorable "Snow Princess" Halloween costume, not to mention her baby brother Trig's blatantly Republicanist* elephant costume? (AP photo)

When it comes to "spreading the wealth," Obama's propagandists leave the McCain people in the dust. Will those "speakers of the big lie truth to power" who were so upset about the McCain campaign's spending $150,000 for Sarah Palin's clothes and such be shocked, shocked by today's revelation that "Obama spent nearly $700,000 for stage, lights in Berlin." And that's just one world capital. Presumably, Obama's profligacy will be, in Sowell's words, "ignored by … the media who just want the symbolism and the ideology that Obama represents."

Love is blind, and you, Dr. Sowell, not unlike ourselves — as Sen. Obama himself explained just after springing full blown from Oprah's brow two years back —  are a racist. Any questions? Just ask graphic novelist Erik Svane's cat.

Update: "Well I can say this much. If Dr. Sowell, who is of African ancestry, were running for president of the USA, he would get my vote," writes Goomp in the comments:

He understands that the nature of free enterprise brings out innovation and efficiency, and government enterprise brings lack of efficiency and lack of innovation. If that is racist, so be it.

It was Goomp himself who introduced us years ago to the voice of pioneering black conservative thinker Thomas Sowell, after whom he named his mighty black-with-white longhair pussycat.

*Update II: TGY in the comments at a snickering Wonkette: "Also, how much did the RNC pay Neiman Marcus for that costume?" Inquiring minds want to know.

Update III: Are the racists running the asylum? See for yourself at Dr. Sanity's Carnival of the Insanities.

"Obama knows what con men have long known"

Babe keeps cozy and warm on a cool autumn day atop the TV tuner.

"Liberals love to poke fun at Sarah Palin's past history as a runner-up in the Miss Alaska Competition, but it is one of many of the features of Palin's life that I can truly identify with," writes blogfriend Laura Lee of The WIde Awake Café in a must-read autobiographical snippet that we herewith publish in full. Her insight illuminates, like nothing else we have read, why Sarah Palin drives Northeast Corridor Conservatives and their fellow travelers on the left side of the aisle to distraction:

I also was a runner-up in a local Miss Fort Smith competition, and what I learned in the whole pageant deal was how superficial some people are, how to answer both tough and dumb questions and how incredibly back-stabbing some females could be. I learned that beauty contestants were required to put vasoline on their teeth in order to smile. I learned that I swung my arms too much when I walked down the ramp. All sorts of discoveries about myself made me realize I was too much of an introvert to be comfortable out in the center of the stage. The main thing I learned though, was that the dream I had as a little girl was not, in reality, anything at all that I wanted.

The day before the pageant we were interviewed by a local radio station host. The questions were so asinine I found myself very impatient with the questioner. One of her questions was, "If you could speak to anyone you want to, living or dead, who would it be?" I thought a little while about it, and not wanting to insult any of my favorite artists, musicians, writers or relatives, I went for the One that I spoke to every night. I said, "God." Now, I think I would say, "Sarah Palin." Sarah Palin has been able, throughout her life, to take everything she has been through and make something better of it. She has stepped out in the center and taken the tough and dumb questions with grace and patience. She knows her guy, McCain. These two are a great team.

Grace under pressure, the very definition of courage. As we blogged three weeks back, "It's the character, stupid," quoting our own email response to Fox & Friends' viewer question "Which is more important in this election, character or an economic plan?":

While Obama's stealth radical agenda, Alinsky-style thuggish tactics and hysterical followers frighten me, I'm no big fan of McCain's either, what with Soros-seeded McCain-Feingold "finance reform" and McCain's scientifically challenged views on anthropogenic climate change.

Sarah, on the other hand, floats my boat.

McCain is the far lesser of two evils. Neither of the presidential candidates knows the first thing about economics, so all we have LEFT is character, and for a Beltway pol, McCain's got it way over Barack "Whichever-way-the-wind-blows" Obama.

Outside on the terrace, Tiny keeps the side yard safe for democracy.

Speaking of "Which is more important in this election, character or an economic plan," Thomas Sowell, as always, is not afraid to call a con a con in his latest:

People who think that talking points on this or that problem constitute "the real issues" that we should be talking about, instead of Obama’s track record, ignore a very fundamental fact about representative government.

Representative government exists, in the first place, because we the voters cannot possibly have all the information necessary to make rational decisions on all the things that the government does. We cannot rule through polls or referendums. We must trust someone to represent us, especially as President of the United States.

Once we recognize this basic fact of representative government, then the question of how trustworthy a candidate is becomes a more urgent question than any of the so-called “real issues.”

A candidate who spends two decades promoting polarization and then runs as a healer and uniter, rather than a divider, forfeits all trust by that fact alone …

Some people take solace from the fact that Senator Obama has verbally shifted position on some issues, like drilling for oil or gun control, since this is supposed to show that he is “pragmatic” rather than ideological.

But political zig-zags show no such moderation as some seem to assume. Lenin zig-zagged and so did Hitler. Zig-zags may show no more than that someone is playing the public for fools.

Some people who see the fraud in what Obama is saying are amazed that others do not. But Obama knows what con men have long known, that their job is not to convince skeptics but to enable the gullible to continue to believe what they want to believe. He does that very well.

Pol and media spin about "the real issues" has always stuck in our craw. Thank you, Dr. Sowell, for explicating the real, real issues.