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WEDNESDAY,  SEPTEMBER 24,  2008

UPDATE AT 9:18 P.M. ET:  President Bush has just addressed the nation on the financial crisis.  He was calm and reasoned.  One thing he revealed - that he's asked both Senator McCain and Senator Obama to come to a meeting at the White House to help solve the crisis.  McCain, of course, had already said he was returning to Washington.  Obama had resisted.  Now Obama, who received a personal call from Bush, must certainly go to the White House.  Can he really defy a request from the president?  If he does, he can destroy himself.  But if he answers the president's summons, he looks like a follower, not a leader.  Advantage:  McCain.

UPDATE AT 7:12 P.M. ET:  Obama has turned down McCain's suggestion to postpone Friday night's debate.  The left-wing spin machine is going into action, accusing McCain of trying to avoid the debate.  McCain is correct here - the people's business comes first, and a debate can be put off a few days.  But the press will twist it otherwise.  Already David Letterman has gone hysterical over McCain's cancelling an appearance on his show tonight.

And the Democrats in Congress will make things difficult for McCain in Washington.  Common decency requires that Obama agree to suspend the debate and return to carry out his oath of office as a senator.  The fact that the press isn't, at this hour, demanding it of him, tells us what our modern media is all about.   

NOTE AT 5:49 P.M. ET:  For sheer nerve, nothing today beats the ditz-of-the-world column by CNN anchor Campbell Brown, here.  Brown runs one of the most anti-Sarah Palin programs on TV.  Some call it the "Anti-Sarah Hour."  In her column today, though, she accuses the McCain campaign of practicing, get this, sexism against Sarah Palin.  You cannot make this stuff up.

Brown apparently feels she can get away with anything.  And at CNN, she apparently can.

THE CRISIS

Posted at 5:14 P.M. ET

The financial crisis enveloping the nation is smothering the political campaigns.  As you know by now, Senator McCain has suspended campaigning and is returning to Washington to work on solving the financial woes.  He's asked Obama to do the same, but so far Obama seems to be balking.  McCain has asked that Friday's debate be postponed.

Look, this isn't all about patriotism and "putting country first."  McCain clearly is maneuvering politically.  But there's an old saying in the Chicago political machine:  "Good government is good politics."  Returning to Washington is the right thing to do.  McCain is a U.S. senator.  If Obama chooses to continue campaigning, he begins to look selfish and ridiculous.  But if he, too, returns to Washington, he's following McCain's lead.

What if Obama hangs tough and says he intends to show up at the debate.  For McCain to cave in would look weak, especially when he actually is in Washington doing public business.  McCain should express outrage at that point, and needle Obama as a man who spends all his time running for office and too little time performing the duties of the office.

McCain is in trouble.  He knows it, and he's acting properly.  I'd love to see Obama debate an empty chair, while McCain is doing the public's business.

But will the public side with McCain or Obama?  I think they'll go with McCain.  They already see him as a leader, and Obama, if he does not return to Washington as well, can look awfully small.

September 24, 2008.       Permalink          

UPDATE AT 4:39 P.M. ET:  I just returned from listening to a briefing by Dick Morris.  More about that in a post to come soon.  Fascinating. 

The polls today are all over the place.  We reported the Washington Post/ABC poll, showing Obama up nine. There's also a Fox poll showing him up six,  but the trackers don't confirm such a dramatic movement.  Gallup still has Obama up only three.  You can go to the link and read the numbers.  Obama has made progress, but the averages suggest he's about five points ahead.  That can be overcome, but the financial crisis is clearly a body blow to the McCain campaign. 

UPDATE AT 10:10 A.M. ET:  This is bad news:  The Hotline tracker just out shows Obama up six, getting close to that nine-point lead in the Washington Post/ABC poll.  Hotline yesterday had Obama up four.  So Obama has now gained two points each in the Rasmussen and Hotline polls.  We are two days away from the first debate.  Things are getting serious.  But we stress again that these are daily snapshots.

Clearly, though, the financial crisis, coming conveniently in the middle of the presidential campaign, is a nightmare for McCain.  I make no accusations and have no evidence, but someone should investigate the timing of all this.  Usually that would be the press.  It won't be this time, for obvious reasons.

UPDATE AT 9:32 A.M. ET:  The Rasmussen tracker, just out, has Obama with a two-point lead.  The poll had the race tied yesterday.  This is the first time in more than two weeks that Obama has had a lead greater than a point in the Rasmussen poll.  Does this mean that the Washington Post poll showing Obama up nine may have identified a late trend?  No, not by a long shot.  This is still a very tight race, with more than a month to go before the election. 

UPDATE AT 7:58 A.M. ET:  First tracker of the day is out.  The Battleground tracker has McCain up by two, the same result as yesterday. 

The next tracker, Rasmussen, should be out about 9:30 a.m. ET.  Ras had a tie yesterday.

MR. EXPERIENCE

Posted at 7:38 a.m. ET

Once again Joe Biden shows that, as a man one heartbeat away from the presidency, he stands head and shoulders over that...that mom from Alaska.

WASHINGTON - Vice presidential candidate Joe Biden says today's leaders should take a lesson from the history books and follow fellow Democrat Franklin D. Roosevelt's response to a financial crisis.

"When the stock market crashed, Franklin D. Roosevelt got on the television and didn't just talk about the, you know, the princes of greed. He said, 'Look, here's what happened,'" Barack Obama's running mate recently told the "CBS Evening News."

Except, Republican Herbert Hoover was in office when the stock market crashed in October 1929.

Oh, and by the way, they didn't have TV back then.  No Howdy Doody.  No Big Bird.  Not even Wolf Blitzer.

FDR was elected three years later when voters denied Hoover a second term. The Democratic challenger appealed to the "forgotten man" by promising a "new deal" to solve the Depression era.

No, he tried to solve the problems of the Depression.  He didn't try to solve the Depression era.  You don't solve an era.  Geez, can we get the reporters to get it right.

Biden was commenting on the stock market crash when he said leaders should explain the current economic crisis and how to solve it to the public.

"Part of what being a leader does is to instill confidence, is to demonstrate what he or she knows what they are talking about and to communicating to people ... this is how we can fix this," Biden said.

And you certainly did it, Joe - by messing up the memory of the most famous Democrat of all time.  Blessings on Barack Obama for having the wisdom to select you.  Please save us from that sitting governor of Alaska and her 80-percent approval rating.

Maybe it's time to put the money under the mattress.

September 24, 2008.      Permalink          

UPDATE AT 7:03 A.M. ET:  Two new polls just out give completely different results.  A Washington Post/ABC poll shows Obama up nine points, way beyond what any other poll shows.  All the others show either a tie, or Obama up no more than four.

A new Ipsos/McClatchy poll has Obama up one, consistent with other polls.

We'll watch the four trackers carefully today to see if the Post/ABC boys picked up some trend, but I doubt it.  If the trackers continue to show the trend they've shown recently, you can toss the Post/ABC effort.  Maybe they can get their money back.

TONY'S FURY

Posted at 6:58 a.m. ET

Readers of Urgent Agenda know that I respect the work of Washington columnist Tony Blankley.  He is thoughtful, informed, and measured.  He is rarely angry.

Today he's angry, and for good reason.  Like so many of us, he's had it with the press coverage of this campaign.  All you need to do is look at the coverage of Sarah Palin as opposed to Joe Biden to see the extent of the bias.  Sarah conducts herself with dignity and class.  Joe can't open his mouth without making a fool of himself.  And Biden is considered by the media the "qualified" candidate.

Blankley lays out the indictment:

The mainstream media have gone over the line and are now straight-out propagandists for the Obama campaign.

While they have been liberal and blinkered in their worldview for decades, in 2007-08, for the first time, the major media consciously are covering for one candidate for president and consciously are knifing the other. This is no longer journalism; it is simply propaganda. (The American left-wing version of the Völkischer Beobachter cannot be far behind.)

The consequences of this can be catastrophic.

And as a result, we are less than seven weeks away from possibly electing a president who has not been thoroughly or even halfway honestly presented to the country by our watchdogs -- the press. The image of Obama that the press has presented to the public is not a fair approximation of the real man. They consciously have ignored whole years of his life and have shown a lack of curiosity about such gaps, which bespeaks a lack of journalistic instinct.

Compare please with the sending of battalions of "journalists" to Alaska to detail every day in the life of Sarah Palin.

The mainstream media ruthlessly and endlessly repeat any McCain gaffes while ignoring Obama gaffes. You have to go to weird little Web sites to see all the stammering and stuttering that Obama needs before getting out a sentence fragment or two. But all you see on the networks is an eventually clear sentence from Obama. You don't see Obama's ludicrous gaffe that Iran is a tiny country and no threat to us. Nor his 57 American states gaffe. Nor his forgetting, if he ever knew, that Russia has a veto in the U.N. Nor his whining and puerile "come on" when he is being challenged. This is the kind of editing one would expect from Goebbels' disciples, not Cronkite's.

Well, I guess Tony won't get that VIP tour of The New York Times.

But worse than all the unfair and distorted reporting and image projecting are the shocking gaps in Obama's life that are not reported at all. The major media simply have not reported on Obama's two years at New York's Columbia University, where, among other things, he lived a mere quarter-mile from former terrorist Bill Ayers. Later, they both ended up as neighbors and associates in Chicago. Obama denies more than a passing relationship with Ayers.

Oh, the red-baiting.  Tony, join the sophisticates and stop asking penetrating questions.  Be more establishment, Tony.

Nor have the media paid any serious attention to Obama's rise in Chicago politics. How did honest Obama rise in the famously sordid Chicago political machine with the full support of Boss Daley?

He must have licked envelopes and run doorbells very well.  Can't you give the man credit, Tony?

The public image of Obama as an idealistic, post-race, post-partisan, well-spoken and honest young man with the wisdom and courage befitting a great national leader is a confection spun by a willing conspiracy of Obama, his publicist (David Axelrod) and most of the senior editors, producers and reporters of the national media.

Perhaps that is why the National Journal's respected correspondent Stuart Taylor wrote, "The media can no longer be trusted to provide accurate and fair campaign reporting and analysis."

Taylor also was one of the few to expose the Duke University lacrosse case hoax.  Dangerous man, that Taylor.  No VIP tour for him, either.

The public will be voting based on the idealized image of the man who never was. If he wins, however, we will be governed by the sunken, cynical man Obama really is. One can only hope that the senior journalists will be judged as harshly for their professional misconduct as Wall Street's leaders currently are for their failings.

Their response will be to wave the First Amendment flag and "move on," which is the mantra of their age.

Excellent column.       

September 24, 2008.      Permalink          

TUESDAY,  SEPTEMBER 23,  2008

FINANCIAL ANGER

Posted at 7:25 p.m. ET

The financial bailout package got a cold reception on Capitol Hill today.  There is gut anger at what has happened.   A loyal reader alerts us to an article by the mysterious Spengler, a pen name for a widely quoted writer who publishes in the Asia Times.  Agree with him or not, he expresses the anger and frustration that so many feel about the financial mess on Wall Street:

Why should American taxpayers give US Treasury Secretary "Hank" Paulson a blank check to bail out the shareholders of busted banks? Why should the Treasury turn itself into a toxic waste dump for their bad loans? Why not let other banks join the unlamented Brothers Lehman in bankruptcy court, and start a new bank with taxpayers' money?

Those are the questions people are asking.

Why are the voices raised in protest so shrill and few? Why will Americans fall on their fountain-pens for their bankers? If America is to adopt socialism, why not have socialism for the poor, rather than for the rich? Why should American households that earn $50,000 a year subsidize Goldman Sachs partners who earn $5 million a year?

You can call that demagoguery.  But, those, too, are the questions people are asking. 

Paulson's dreadful scheme will become law, because Americans love their bankers. The bankers enable their collective gambling habit. Think of America as a town with one casino, in which the only economic activity is gambling. Most people lose, but the casino keeps lending them more money to play. Eventually, of course, the casino must go bankrupt. At this point, the townspeople people vote to tax themselves in order to bail out the casino. Collectively, the gamblers cannot help but lose; individually they nonetheless hope to win their way out of the hole.

Sorry to say it, but there's a lot of truth to that.  Frugality and savings, once American staples, seem to have been forgotten. 

As it is, many of the baby boomers now on the verge of retirement will spend their declining years working at Wal-Mart or McDonalds rather than cruising the Caribbean. Some of them still have time to tighten their belts and save 10% of their income (by consuming 10% less), plus a good deal more to compensate for the missing savings of the 1990s.

And...

The homeowners of America hope against hope that somehow, sometime, the price of their one only asset will bounce back...

...Sadly, there is no reason to expect the bailout of bank shareholders to have any effect at all on American home prices, which will continue to sink into the sand.

One of the biggest economic mistakes we made was to sell people on the notion that a house was a guaranteed investment, rather than a place to live.  It let people live the illusion that they were wealthy. 

Why the taxpayers of America would allow their pockets to be picked in this fashion requires a different sort of explanation than one finds in economics textbooks. My analogy of gamblers taxing themselves to bail out the casino is inspired, in part, by a remarkable new book by the Canadian economists Reuven and Gabrielle Brenner (with Aaron Brown), A World of Chance. In effect, the Brenners re-interpret economic theory in terms of gambling, showing how profoundly gambling figures into human behavior, especially in such matters as so-called life-cycle investing.

Felix Rohatyn, the highly respected investment banker, once said that the stock market had become a casino.  Ditto, today, for other markets.

Alas for the gamblers of America: they will tax themselves to keep the casino in operation, but it will not profit them. Where, oh where, is America's Vladimir Putin, who will drive out the oligarchs who have stolen the country's treasure and debased its currency?

Now there's a frightening thought, isn't it?  Do we really need a Putin?  The sad fact is, if things get bad, some Americans will accept greater and greater central control.

We were taught in history classes that Franklin D. Roosevelt saved capitalism, and prevented America from going too far to the left.  We may not be so lucky next time, especially if real leftists are already in place in Washington.

A time to be cautious, wise, and not to panic.

September 23, 2008.      Permalink          

UPDATE AT 6:30 P.M. ET:   NEW YORK (AP) -- Sarah Palin met her first world leaders Tuesday. It was a tightly controlled crash course on foreign policy for the Republican vice presidential candidate, the mayor-turned-governor who has been outside North America just once.  Palin sat down with Afghan President Hamid Karzai and Colombian President Alvaro Uribe. The conversations were private, the pictures public, meant to build her resume for voters concerned about her lack of experience in world affairs.

COMMENT:  Notice the nastiness, the patronizing tone.  What governor is referred to as "the mayor-turned-governor"?  Does anyone ask Barack Obama what real experience he has in foreign policy?  He headed a subcommittee of the Foreign Relations Committee and never held one meeting.  And this past summer's magical mystery tour of Europe and the Mideast?  Wasn't that an attempt to polish his credentials?  The press is playing with fire in its coverage of Sarah Palin, and will get burned.

UPDATE AT 5:30 P.M. ET: Also from Rasmussen:  Three out of four U.S. voters (74%) say they are Very Likely to watch the upcoming presidential debates, but over half (56%) think debate moderators are biased in their questioning, according to new Rasmussen Reports national telephone surveys taken Friday and Saturday nights.
In the first debate this Friday evening, 22% believe the moderator, veteran PBS newsman Jim Lehrer, will try to help Barack Obama. Forty-three percent (43%) say Lehrer will play a neutral role to help voters make an informed choice. Only six percent (6%) think he will try to help John McCain (see crosstabs).

COMMENT:  Lehrer is a liberal, no doubt about it.  I worry more about the second debate, week from Thursday, between Biden and Palin.  The moderator is Gwen Ifill, who never misses a chance to advance her leftist side.  We can pray that she behaves.

UPDATE AT 2:32 P.M. ET:   From Rasmussen:  Republican incumbent Norm Coleman has inched ahead of Al Franken in Minnesota's hotly contested U.S. Senate race, with the introduction of a third-party candidate having virtually no impact on the contest so far.  Coleman, who is seeking a second term in the Senate, is ahead of Franken, a TV comedy writer and longtime Democratic activist, by a statistically insignificant one percentage point, 48% to 47%, according to the latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of voters in the state.

COMMENT:  The idea that a nut job like Al Franken can even be close to a thoughtful, serious senator like Norm Coleman shows what "progressive" politics has become in the state of Minnesota.

Further update, at 5:19 p.m. ET:  A new Quinnipiac poll has Coleman up seven.

TRACKERS

Posted at 1:20 p.m. ET

All four trackers are now out for today.  As reported earlier, Battleground has McCain up two.  It was plus one for Mac yesterday.  Rasmussen shows a dead heat.  It was plus one for Obama yesterday.

Now Gallup has Obama up three.  It was plus four for Obama yesterday.

And Hotline has Obama up four.   It was plus five yesterday.

In other words, every poll shows a one-point gain for McCain today.

What does this mean?  Well, it may mean nothing.  Just a statistical fluke.  On the other hand, trackers are normally done over a three-day period, and it's possible that McCain had a good polling day yesterday.

We'll need more polling to come to any conclusion.  The debate is Friday.  I'd love this race to be all tied up again, or with McCain slightly ahead, as the candidates meet.

September 23, 2008.      Permalink          

UPDATE AT 9:35 A.M. ET:  The Rasmussen tracker is now out, showing a dead heat, 48-48.  Rasmussen had Obama up by one yesterday.  Two more trackers, Hotline and Gallup, are due out later today.  Hotline had Obama up five yesterday, and Gallup had him up four.  Battleground, released earlier this morning, has McCain up two, the only national poll in which McCain leads.

UPDATE AT 8:11 A.M. ET:  The first polls are out for today.  View them with caution.

The Battleground tracker has McCain up two.  They had him up one yesterday.  But please note that Battleground is the only poll showing McCain ahead.  It is the outlier.

Quinnipiac is out with state polls that are discouraging for McCain.  Obama is up four in Michigan.  Added to yesterday's Rasmussen result, Michigan must be considered as slipping into the Obama column. 

Quinnipiac has Obama up two in Minnesota, close for a Democratic state.  But Minnesota generally produces a Democratic vote on election day.

Quinnipiac has Obama up seven in Wisconsin.  Again, Wisconsin is drifting toward its usual Democratic position.

The real discouragement is Colorado, almost a must-win for McCain.  Quinnipiac has Obama up four.

Now, this is one polling company.  But I can't say that I'm starting the day with a smile. 

HANSON

Posted at 7:43 a.m. ET

As usual, Victor Davis Hanson has some of the smartest things to say about this election campaign, basing his views on an actual knowledge of history, a knowledge not shared by many members of the chattering classes.

Hanson discusses the unprecedented assault against Sarah Palin.  He concludes, reflecting on whether she's tough enough for high office:

And? She is still smiling and apparently unmoved. Had they done this to Biden, he would have gone berserk. Wait--they didn't do this to Biden, and he seems near berserk in his daily gaffes.

And...

The point is this: I think it is much harder for a mother of three or four in an out-of-the-way Alaskan town to get elected to city council and the mayorship, then take on the entire Republican establishment and get elected governor than it is for a Barack Obama to emerge from Chicago politics into the Illinois state house and later Senate. The qualities that allowed a Palin to succeed without the power spouse, the identity politics, the Ivy-League cachet, the fawning New York editors and DC insider-press will ensure she does not implode on the campaign trail--and won't in office either.

Barack Obama, in contrast, on numerous occasions has complained how tiring, how hard, how unfair, how racist the campaign has turned out to be; Palin never.

Isn't it nice to know that someone has noticed.

Again my point? That the much deprecated "life experience" is every bit as important to leadership as is abstract learning. Both complement each other, but so far I think Palin understands the symbiotic world of word and the world of deed far more so than does Obama. And again, we are not talking about McCain, where the contrast only widens-and is far more important.

Tell that to the faculty at Harvard.

While civilization advances on the shoulders of the educated, it is carried along by the legs of the muscular classes. And the latter are not there by some magical IQ test or a natural filtering process that separates the wheat from the chaff, but rather by either birth, or, as often, by their preference for action and the physical world.

Second, I have seen no difference in intelligence levels between those who inhabit the world of the physical and those who cultivate the life of the mind. That is, the most brilliant Greek philologists seemed no more impressive in their aptitude than the fellow who could take apart the transmission of an old Italian Oliver tractor, fix it, and put it back together--without a manual. And I knew three or four who could. The inept mechanic seemed no more dull than the showy graduate student who could not distinguish an articular infinitive from an accusative of respect.

Well said.

For most of you readers, all this is trite and self-evident. But apparently not for hundreds in politics, the media, the universities, Hollywood, and the foundations who seem to think that a fumbling nervous Obama in interviews, who grasps for a word and utters vacuous platitudes is "really" contemplative, like his Harvard Law professors; but when a Sarah Palin seems nervous under scrutiny from a pseudo-professorial, glasses-on-the-lower-nose Charlie Gibson, she is clearly an empty head with an Idaho BA.

Even better said.

A Ronald Reagan knew more about human nature, and thus what drives the Soviet Union than did all the Ivy-League Soviet specialists that surrounded Jimmy Carter-much less the Sally Quinns and Maureen Dowds of that age. We in America, unlike the Europeans, know this intuitively, grasp that a Harry Truman figured out the Russian communists far better than did the Harvard-educated aristocrat FDR.

A knowledge of history - demonstrated.

What is wisdom?

Not necessarily degrees, glibness, poise, or factual recall, but the ability to understand human nature. And that requires two simple things: an inductive method of reasoning to look at the world empirically, and a body of knowledge and experience to draw on for guidance.

Palin in empirical fashion bucked the Republican establishment and the old-boy network when she thought it was unreasonable; Obama never figured out or at least never questioned Tony Rezko or the Chicago machine, Trinity Church or the Pelosi-Kennedy liberal mantra--unless it proved advantageous.

I wish there were more writers like Hanson.  I wish I could point to one prominent newspaper editor in the United States and say he's the equal of Hanson.  But we live in an age where wisdom is defined by the diploma on the wall and the quickness of the insult.  If you don't believe that, look at American history, and contemplate the names of those who'd be laughed out of the room by today's elites.  Start with Andrew Jackson, then list Lincoln, then continue with both Roosevelts, and include Harry Truman, Dwight Eisenhower and Ronald Reagan.

That tells the story.

September 23, 2008.      Permalink          

 FRAUD!

Posted at 6:56 a.m. ET

We've discussed this periodically at Urgent Agenda as one of the factors that can influence a close election in November - voter fraud.

Now the McCain campaign has gone public with its concerns.  Former Senators Warren Rudman and John Danforth, men of fine reputation, are running the campaign's Open and Honest Elections Committee, and, in a conference call with reporters yesterday, expressed worry that "honest" and "open" might not always apply on this election day:

Both Rudman and Danforth voiced concern that there is or may be a pattern of registering people who are not entitled to vote, noting that of particular concern is an organization called The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN).

“We are concerned that ACORN has been connected with Senator [Barack] Obama and that he has ties to it,” said Danforth. “He directed something called Project Vote; he taught classes for future leaders that are identified by ACORN; and he has represented ACORN in court in a lawsuit against the state of Illinois. ACORN’s political action committee has endorsed Senator Obama.”

Danforth expressed alarm that ACORN has been bringing in large numbers of names, many who are not qualified to vote, and the practice may be “gumming” up the system. He added that after the enactment of the Help America Vote Act in 2002, there has been a requirement for statewide computerization of registered voters and that the local overseers may become overwhelmed by the sheer numbers being put forth by ACORN.

ACORN has had a number of brushes with the law.  The strength of that statement by John Danforth, a man known for his mildness, should worry us all.  But it goes on:

Between Danforth and Rudman, they ticked off an inventory of what they perceived as likely trouble spots:

In Ohio in the last election, there were four counties where voter registration exceeded the number of voting-age people in the counties.

In Colorado, ACORN registered some individuals 40 separate times. Danforth noted that the ACORN director in Ohio played this down, saying in effect just because you register somebody 35 times doesn’t mean that they get to vote 35 times. “So, a fairly cavalier attitude,” he concluded.

In Nevada, nearly 1,000 felons were illegally registered to vote in 2004.

In Washington state, felony charges were brought against ACORN workers and some went to jail.

On Sept. 18th in The Washington Post, an article pointed out the danger that Election Day could become a real mess because of the applications turned in for registration of people who are not entitled to vote.

In Michigan, ACORN enrolled 200,000 voters and a spokesman for the secretary of state of Michigan has said that there appears to be a sizable number of duplicate and fraudulent applications.

The Clark County, Nev., registrar claims that there has been rampant fraud, and counts roughly 40 percent of registration applications submitted by ACORN from January through July had been rejected or questioned.

And that list goes on.  You might wish to read the whole bill of particulars.

“Our concern is that if this is a close election ... and if one side believes it has been cheated ... it is going to be harder to heal the wounds that are created at election time,” said Danforth.

But here is the tragedy:  If voter fraud is widespread, you may never know about it.  The very journalists who are putting Barack Obama in the White House will be the ones charged with bringing fraud to light.  How enthusiastic do you think they'll be?

And fraud will most likely center around minority voters.  Just the image of widespread probes of minority voting patterns right after America elects its first black president will be too much for the liberal press to bear.  The cry of "racism" will immediately be heard.  Even a defeated John McCain might, despite all evidence, choose not to pursue the matter, for fear of being labeled a "killer of the dream."

That is the way the game is played. 

Obama's support is centered in large cities with a history of voting "irregularities."  He is a product of the Chicago machine, where the dearly departed express their preferences on each election day, proving the Truth of life after death. 

Danforth and Rudman are not men who make wild charges.  This could be a scandalous election, but you may never know it.

September 23, 2008.      Permalink          

"What you see is news.  What you know is background.  What you feel is opinion."
    - Lester Markel, late Sunday editor
      of The New York Times.

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