Big Tent: September 2008 Archives

What McCain SHOULD say, following the Joseph Welch moment I beseeched of him yesterday:

1. Announce emphatically that the bill failed not only because of a failure of bipartisanship, but also because the American people rejected it — members of Congress heard overwhelming opposition.

 

2. State, therefore, that the only proper course is to make an appeal directly to the American people to rally them behind the needed reforms.

 

3. This appeal should take the form of a series of prudent, center-right proposals to address this and related crises.  Proposals designed, frankly, to unite his supporters and divide those of Obama's.  We win only if we can set forth a clear choice of conservative v. liberal.

 

4. Focus his campaigning on these proposals, so as to force Obama to take some position.  Hammer Obama on either his socialism (too liberal) or his silence (not ready to lead).

 

5. Lastly, craft this center-right platform as potentially bipartisan.  Invite ALL candidates, whether incumbents or challengers, of ALL parties, to join him, and otherwise seek, in De-Gaulle-like-fashion, to "rally the people" to these reforms.

In other words, abandon conventional "bipartisanship," run to the right, and re-seize the campaign initiative by forcing Obama out of the comfort zone, and veritable "cone of silence," that the Enemy Media have provided him and he's been smart enough to gratefully accept.

What McCain IS saying:

Once again, Sailor is speaking as a governing senator rather than a presidential candidate.  Sure, the FDIC expansion is a good idea - one that the Donks refused to allow into the compromise bailout bill they torpedoed, I might add - but I don't think I'm speaking impudently when I ask why the damn bailout legislation is necessary if Treasury already has a trillion bucks just sitting around waiting to be put toward the bailout without involving Congress at all.  Is all that cash, er, "earmarked" for some other purpose?  Could any of it be redirected without congressional authorization?  If so, why doesn't Paulson make a downpayment on the bad mortage paper now to at least temporarily stabilize financial markets?  Particularly after the criminally negligent partisan stunt Crazy Nancy pulled yesterday?

Otherwise, hey, way to go, Maverick, on reminding everybody of how you got humiliated by the Dems last week, and how you got humiliated again yesterday, and persisting in pushing a bailout the public still doesn't want, and calling for YET ANOTHER "BIPARTISAN" EFFORT to "get something done".  Oh, yes, and babbling on about fighting earmarks yesterday while your good, close, personal friend Speakerette Pelosi was wiping out a trillion dollars of private sector wealth.  I can SEE your candidacy shrinking like Mork from Ork after accidentally taking Mindy's cold medicine.

America doesn't need a "maverick reformer," it needs a CONSERVATIVE reformer.  A bitter shame it is that the GOP nominating electorate left those candidates behind last winter.  By the time we ever nominate another one, there may be little or no country left to reform.

This RNC ad could be effective, or it could just sail right by voters panicked by the financial crisis:

This touches on a Geraghty point from a few days back about the presidency being a pyrrhic victory given that it's likely to be dominated by an economic downturn and digging out from under the rubble of the Donk subprime mortgage scandal that caused it.  People already looking at the bailout price tag may not be so eager to have to swallow Obamanomics on top of it.

Or viewers already brainwashed to blame the mess on the GOP won't hear a word after "Wall Street Meltdown" but will see the name "Obama" on the screen and swoon in comparative ecstasy.  Besides, Barry can always claim, as he has begun to in understated fashion, that he'll defer his trillion smackers in new domestic spending, and then "change his mind" after the election.

Officially fifteen days late comes this McCain ad which finally ads the second leg to the three-legged PR stool that could have won him the election with this issue:

It took five days for McCain to get around to pointing out that Barack Obama has two Donk ex-Fannie Mae CEOs as his top economic advisors.  Now, eleven days after that and a full week after it could have made any earthly difference to his election chances, he finally touts his own attempts to rein in the excesses the Democrats were committing, and their "see no evil" blockage of every Republican attempt to put a stop to it.  Nice to see the spot mention Obama's conspicuous silence on the matter when he could have made a difference.

But the core of this mess is the Community Reinvestment Program, the Dems' use of the mortgage industry to "privatize" an unfunded mandate for making home ownership an entitlement, and their use of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to turn that mound of worthless parchment into a avaricious orgy.  This is a DEMOCRAT scandal, a DEMOCRAT disaster, and a DEMOCRAT debacle, and yet no Republican is pointing it out, even as the Dems are smearing them with all the blame for it all.  And judging by McCain's notable fade in the polls, that unopposed PR scam is working.

Running for president is a partisan undertaking, Senator.  All that ducking "the blame game" has done is get you and your party wrongfully and falsely tarred with culpability for a calamity you tried to prevent.  Until you drop this mindless "bipartisanship" fetish and start saying so, you'll continue hurtling toward the defeat it has so richly earned you.

John Sith McCain has allegedly resumed his presidential campaign.  These are two of the ads he has decided to run.

First, an attempt to capitalize on Barry O's usual Iraq tap-dance he trotted out again at Friday's debate:

Eh.  Senator Hussein tried to spin it that he wasn't voting against funding the troops, but rather was trying to force a withdrawal timetable on the Bush Administration.  Which, of course, would have led to a pell-mell retreat in order to meet it that would have, as Senator Rogaine pointed out in days gone by, endangered the lives of thousands of American troops.  As well as handed a staggering victory to al Qaeda and Iran and ensured that Afghanistan became precisely the backwater in the War on Terror that Barry claims it is now.

But let's face it, Iraq is no longer a front-burner issue.  Nor is the Surge or whether or not we should have invaded in the first place.  We've won despite Barack Obama's best efforts, and even he acknowledges it, even as he continues to say he would not have employed the strategy that brought that victory about.  A commentary on his utter lack of judgment to go neatly with his utter lack of experience, but a factor, I think, that has long since been built into his "market price," and thus unlikely to move the proverbial needle one way or the other.

Next, a sop to "stem cell research":

Sure, "Barack Obama and his congressional [and media] allies" have smeared McCain-Palin as being "against stem cell research".  Heck, Republicans all across the country are having that false charge hurled at them.  This McCain ad calls a lie a lie, but misses the bigger counterargument.

Have you noticed how the adjective "embryonic" has mysteriously disappeared from the rest of the phrase "stem cell research"?  Not unlike the term "pro-abortion" gave way to the sanitized and friendlier-sounding "pro-choice".  As the child-killer lobby and industry has grown more and more extreme in the defence of its satanic creed, and abortion on demand has grown correspondingly less and less popular, such PR semantic PR gimmicks became more and more important.  Too call an "abortion rights supporter" pro-abortion was wholly descriptive; but who could be against "choice"?  Who would want to be labeled as "anti-choice"?  Never mind that the choice is for in utero genocide; THAT reality is kept safely off screen and out of the debate.  In the same way, by subtely withdrawing the distinction between embryonic and adult stem cells, social libs seek to conceal the weakness of their position that further exposes their infanticidal urges and denigrate their foes as flat-earther neanderthals at the same time.

It is undeniable fact that human embryonic stem cells are medically worthless, whereas ADULT stem cells have many medical applications.  NOBODY is against the latter, nor for funding for it, and the Bush Administration - which was the first to fund adult stem cell research in the first place - has not BANNED embryonic stem cell research anywhere.  By failing to restore that distinction, this McCain ad doesn't explain HOW the Rogaine Messiah accusations are false, and the true evil motivations that lay behind them.

Lastly, here is a CNN story that is far more useful than either of the above spots, and which is ready made ammo for Sarah Palin (remember her?) in Thursday's veep debate:

A "bridge to TWO nowheres" and another fifty million smackers in pork in the continuing resolution the Dems have passed in lieu of ACTUALLY PASSING AND FUNDING A BUDGET for the fiscal year that begins in TWO DAYS.  Man, but the Enemy Media must be confident of Obama's invincibility if they're allowing such stories to run over their airwaves more than a month before Election Day.

Here's hoping - and yes, praying - that Barracuda makes good use of every last bid of ordnance at her disposal, and that Slow Joe provides her with more on the fly.  As thoroughly as her running mate has botched their November chances, she may very well be the GOP's - and America's - last glimmer of hope.

Beldar takes note of what John McCain was doing yesterday after the first presidential debate:

Senior adviser Mark Salter said the Arizona senator spent the morning at his campaign headquarters placing calls to congressional leaders and White House officials involved in finalizing a multibillion-dollar deal to bail out failing financial firms. Earlier in the week McCain suspended most campaign activities to help develop a bipartisan agreement....

"He can effectively do what he needs to do by phone," Salter said Saturday. "He's calling members on both sides, talking to people in the Administration, helping out as he can."

Two questions come instantly to mind after reading that quote:

1) If McCain "can effectively do what he needs to do by phone," why did he suspend his campaign and take the bipartisan cavalry tearing off to the Beltway last week?

2) Wasn't that pretty much the alibi Barack Obama came up with last week to excuse his blowing off McCain's invitation to join said cavalry?

Beldar's reaction to that quote is unwittingly telling, I think:

Once again, faced with the choice between country and career, John McCain chose country. He'd rather lose a campaign than risk our country's fundamental economic security.

And thanks to his rank negligence in failing to realize that, especially in a campaign like this one, when he advances "career" he advances "country" at the same time, John McCain is guaranteeing the loss of both.

Meanwhile, what was The Chosen One doing?  What a presidential candidate is SUPPOSED to be doing:

Obama, meanwhile, stuck to his campaign schedule which will take him and Biden from here to two other swing states this weekend: Virginia and Michigan....

Though he has dismissed the presidential candidates' intervention in the bailout talks as counterproductive grandstanding, Obama expressed forceful opinions about what the deal should — and should not — include.

"I will not allow this plan to become a welfare program for Wall Street executives," he told the crowd here. And he suggested an additional $50 billion in aid for the unemployed and investments in infrastructure should be part of the deal.

"Washington has to feel the same sense of urgency about passing an economic stimulus plan" as it does about rescuing mega-investors, said Obama, who spoke by phone Saturday about the state of the negotiations with Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-NV, and House Financial Services Chairman Barney Frank, D-MA.

Beldar rips Obama for not following McCain's selfless example.  But isn't it already long established that B.O. isn't a leader?  Has no political or any other sort of courage?  Has the character and integrity of a hyena?

I'll tell you, though, what he realizes of which Beldar and many of us on the Right have lost sight: False Messiah doesn't NEED to stick his neck out like McCain has because his party is using this financial crisis to drive the electorate in his direction.  Don't forget that McCain was lured back to D.C. by the Democrats and then double-crossed when he got there; or how much ground that's cost him in the polls in the past few days.  If Sailor had done what he's doing now, making phone calls behind the scenes and otherwise staying on the campaign trail where he belonged, he'd still be in this race, and perhaps more pressure would be on Barry to be more proactive.  But as things are turning out, why should he be?  His congressional allies have fatally wounded his opponent and have turned the polls in his direction.  Tactically speaking, he has every incentive to keep his mouth shut about this issue and stay out of the way.

Perhaps too many on my side of the aisle have imbibed the "country first" Kool-Aid.  Maybe they didn't even realize they were doing so.  But my reading of history, particularly that of contemporary American politics, is that the sort of selfless statesmanship that John McCain personifies is rarely honored at the time it is offered.  It is only seen as such long after the fact, whereas crass, manipulative, hardball, partisan politics has maximum impact precisely at the time it is most needed.  That's why conservatives are always left spluttering in outrage and frustration that voters can't SEE how unfit, unqualified, and unworthy a man like Barack Obama is to lead the Free World and elect such men to the highest office in the land, and how voters also seem incapable of recognizing what soulless zombies Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid and their party are when they put the Dems in charge of Congress.

There is a difference, in short, between politicking and governing.  You don't get to do the latter without successfully doing the former.  And you can't successfully do the former if you're stopping in mid-stream and trying to do the latter at the same time.

Many believe John McCain can be a great president.  Maybe they're right.  But in order to show what a great leader and statesman he can be as president, he has to get elected first.  And that means putting "career" first.  If he does that, trust me, country will be along for that triumphant ride.  If he doesn't, country will crash and burn as well.

I don't totally agree with Jim that the election is essentially over, but I am certainly nervous about it. I remember this feeling four years ago when Bush and Kerry were neck and neck, but God help me, Kerry would have been better than Obama. To think that we may put the future of this country in the hands of an arrogant punk like Barack Obama is just unfathomable to me.

I am of the opinion that McCain was clearly more presidential last night, but I wonder how many people are really paying attention to exactly what each man stands for and what his presidency would mean to the future of America. Obama is unqualified and unfit for the office...but then, so was Clinton--who was maybe not so much unqualified, but most definitely unfit. We lost our collective minds and elected him, and now we're on the verge of making an even bigger mistake.

Working at the Post Office, I have the "pleasure" of seeing all of the political mail that comes through. The unions are certainly in the tank for Obama. If I see the term "working families" one more time, I'll barf. I guess those of us who vote Republican are not members of "working families," nor are those who happen to make a lot of money. What a stupid phrase...but boy, they're using it to death. And a lot of uninformed twits are buying that Obama cares about them. Tell me, how does a massive tax increase that will doom the economy and take more money out of the pockets of "working families" help those families? Stupidity abounds among people when it comes to Obama, and it's driving me crazy!

I refuse to throw up my hands and say the race is over. It's not. But boy, there's a lot of work to do and a short time in which to do it.

There are plenty of other post-game analyses to choose from, if you wish to dig into more of the detail.  And yes, I did watch the debate, and was barraging Ed Morrissey with comments throughout, only two of which made it on the live blog.  No complaints, since he did warn everybody in advance that that would be the case.

The domestic policy goodie bag is Obama's turf, and he put over his laundry list, including his risible attempt to pass off stealing billions from Big Oil and spraying rebate checks all over the friuted plain as a "tax cut," well.  But McCain also succeeded in "drilling" his emphasis upon reining in federal spending and the growth of government, and made effective cases for domestic energy exploration and the need for corporate tax cuts by pointing out that our high corporate tax rates are precisely what results in American jobs getting shipped overseas (just call it "the luck of the Irish").  Sailor also scored points when moderator Jim Lehrer asked both men if they'd be willing to forego other discretionary domestic spending to help offset the enormous cost of a Wall Street b[uy]out and he suggested a non-defense/non-veterans spending freeze, and Barry just went "humina, humina, humina."

On foreign policy, fugheddaboudit.  McCain was speaking from long experience, not notes.  Clearly he didn't need to prep himself on this wide ranging topic, because he's LIVED it.  Whereas Lucifer might as well have had a little stack of 3x5 index cards sitting in front of him.  Or a teleprompter.  His FP answers were an inch deep, and got all the shallower the longer he rambled through his hard-left/defeatist/appeasnik talking points.

Case in point was when B.O. tried to trump Maverick by claiming that not only has the Bush Administration aped his "unconditional direct presidential groveling in Tehran" position, but one of his own FP advisors, none other than Henry Kissinger himself, has said the same thing.  McCain gently but firmly replied that he's known Kissinger for thirty-five years (and Barry hasn't) and he never said any such thing.

Guess who was right:

Henry Kissinger believes Barack Obama misstated his views on diplomacy with US adversaries and is not happy about being mischaracterized. He says: “Senator McCain is right. I would not recommend the next President of the United States engage in talks with Iran at the Presidential level. My views on this issue are entirely compatible with the views of my friend Senator John McCain. We do not agree on everything, but we do agree that any negotiations with Iran must be geared to reality.”

McCain pointed out that quitting Iraq on the edge of victory would adversely impact Afghanistan and the whole region, on the latter of which Obama tried to emphasize his faux hawkishness.  When the latter touted cross-Pakistani-border attacks against al Qaeda and the Taliban, McCain pointed out that "You don't come out and SAY that" - as in publicly and in advance.  McCain pointed out that for all of Barry's purported concern about Afghanistan and Pakistan, he never once held a hearing about either on the Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee he chairs, nor ever once went there until his Ego Trip back in July.  McCain pointed out that he recognized Vladimir Putin for what he is - "K...G...B" - years ago, while Obama tried to put over the laughable notion that he would support bringing Ukraine and Georgia into NATO when that would mean committing the United States to war with Russia if they attacked either (in Georgia's case, AGAIN), a proposition nobody in their right mind can believe The One would ever honor.

McCain spoke at great length about the entire foreign policy/national security gamut, with the nuance and depth that only comes from experience.  Obama had his bullet points.  It was not only no contest, it was almost embarrassing to watch.

BUT...it was also McCain's home turf, and he was EXPECTED to school the Chicago Cherubim in this area.  And in any case, that's not what presidential debates are really about.

They are, rather, a chance for voters to gauge and evaluate the two candidates side-by-side, not so much in terms of what they say, but in how they act and carry themselves.  It isn't the technical scorecard that alters the course of a campaign, but those moments that stick out in the minds of viewers: Gerald Ford referring to Poland as being "outside the Warsaw Pact"; Ronald Reagan looking over at Jimmy Carter and drawling, "There you go again!"; Michael Dukakis clinically answering the question from Bernard Shaw about how he'd react if one of his prison furlough-ees raped and murdered his wife Kitty; Bush41 checking his watch at the 1992 town hall-style debate; Al Gore's rude sighing and attempt to physically intimidate Bush43; John Kerry outting Dick Cheney's lesbian daughter.

Jim Geraghty thinks Obama may have committed one of those "real moment" gaffes with his attempted "bracelet trump":

At one and the same time, False Messiah said, "Hey, I've got a bracelet TOO!!!" and conceded how little of an emotional impact it made on him when he had to actually stop and look at the damn thing to remember the name of the soldier whose mother had given it to him.  It's a wonder he ever remembered to bring it to the debate with him.

That was the most egregious example of the pattern that quickly established it self throughout the ninety minute encounter of McCain speaking confidently and authoritatively, in complete command of the situation and the material, and Obama trying to keep up with him and even one-up him.  The latter's two most repeated phrases were, "First of all, let me clarify a few things" and "John is right."  Barry was on the defensive for pretty much the whole night, and it must have grated on his towering ego given how snappish and flustered he grew towards the end.  His tendency to "uh," which he'd kept under control, briefly resurfaced at the finish.

Scoring the debate technically, I'd call the economic third a draw and the foreign policy two-thirds a McCain blowout.  Scoring it in public relations terms, I'd give McCain a solid, if not overwhelming, victory.

Scoring it strategically, though, by which I mean what McCain needed to turn around the collapse his campaign has experienced over the past few days, I have to say that Obama was the big winner.

It is my concerted belief that the failure of John Sith McCain to get out in front of this financial "crisis" from day one and define it truthfully as the result of Democrat policies and Democrat obstruction of Republican - and especially McCain's own - attempts to repeal those policies and restore sanity to the mortgage lending business; followed by his getting suckered by Treasury Secretary and Donk mole Hank Paulson and the Democrats into flushing his "I can get things done" prestige down the more-than-proverbial commode by suspending his campaign, parachuting into the Capitol to save the day, and getting sabotaged BY HIS OPPONENT, and then getting blamed BY the Dems for said sabotage, has fatally wounded his candidacy.

This debate was going to include questions about the Wall Street Meltdown.  It was IMPERATIVE that McCain talk about the Community Reinvestment Program that the Dems amended to force mortgage lenders to write high-risk loans that would never be repaid; congressional mandates that turned this bad paper into "mortgage backed securities" and directed Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to sell them, thus entangling Wall Street's finances and the entire investor class's retirement nest eggs in this rickety web; and Democrat obstruction of Republican attempts to INCREASE regulation of this runaway gravy train.

But that answer never came.  All we got was more stale populist "me-too"-ing of Donk "Wall Street greed" rhetoric, and no challenge whatsoever of Barry's stock answer of this mess being the result of "unregulated" free market capitalism, and the fault of George W. Bush and....John McCain.

The Wall Street Meltdown is what has crippled McCain's candidacy.  That's the issue on which he had to start fighting back.  This debate was his last, best chance to do so.  He punted instead.

Unless there's another foreign crisis, or major pre-election terrorist attack, I think the die is now cast.  The remaining debates no longer matter.  Sarah Palin no longer matters.  All that matters is the economy and the financial situation.  John McCain has blown that, and the election along with it.

My fellow Americans, the "New Tone" chickens have finally, fully, devastatingly come home to roost.  And their name is Henry Paulson.

You remember the "New Tone," right?  It's what President George W. Bush wanted to bring to Washington, D.C. after years of "partisan bickering" between congressional Republicans and the Clinton administration.  He wanted things in the nation's capital to work the way he made them work in Texas state government: friendly, cordial, civil - one might even say "post-partisan".  In Austin, Dubya succeeded, because the Democrats he worked with there weren't the same kind of Democrats he was inheriting in Washington.  In Texas, most Dems are "blue dog" centrists, not very far philosophically or ideologically from Bush himself.  In Washington, most Dems are vicious, corrupt, Marxist scumbags.  And they had the long knives out for him from day one after the failure of Al Gore's Florida Insurrection.

But the President persevered anyway.  It's cost him again and again over the past eight years.  It's a wonder - neigh MIRACLE - that it didn't cost him a second term.  It's the reason that his approval ratings have been subterranean almost ever since he was re-elected, arguably a factor in the GOP losing Congress in 2006, and why John Sith McCain has such a steep hill to climb to somehow succeed him in five and a half weeks.

But never has it cost his party and his possible successor more than it has with the Paulson Sting.

Henry Paulson is George W. Bush's third Secretary of the Treasury.  Bush has never had a free-market conservative SecTres.  I have no idea why.  For a President that ran on supply-side tax-cutting, one would have thought he'd have dialed up Steve Forbes or Larry Kudlow even before he got on the blower to Colin Powell to ask him to run Foggy Bottom.  Instead he has invariably tapped either non-ideological or ideologically hostile types like the ever-loyal Paul O'Neill, the non-descript John Snow, and the now-treacherous Hank Paulson.

Paulson's selection two years ago was particularly pregnant given current circumstances.  As the ex-chairman of Goldman Sachs, he's not exactly a neutral, disinterested observer in the "Wall Street Meltdown," and as a Democrat, his loyalties to President Bush would, to any other Republican but he, have to be considered questionable at best.

I wouldn't go so far as to say that Paulson has horns, a pitchfork, hooves, and a pointed tail.  But in light of what took place yesterday, he sure looks like a Donk mole in the heart of the "enemy" camp.

Let's reestablish the week's baseline, shall we?

1) TUESDAY: Paulson calls South Carolina Republican Senator Lindsey Graham - one of Darth Queeg's RINO Sith apprentices - and begs him to get McCain involved in the b[uy]out negotiations.  More specifically, to talk House Republicans into getting involved in the b[uy]out negotiations (even though the Dems had pointedly excluded them to that point) because without them, according to Paulson, no "bipartisan" deal will be possible (flag this in your thoughts for immediate future reference).

2) WEDNESDAY: Graham relays Paulson's message.  McCain, incapable of resisting a "call to duty" and any opportunity to "put country above party" - EVEN IN THE MIDDLE OF A PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN - answers the call, and just as predictably calls Barack Obama and invites The One to join him in a show of bipartisan unity in the midst of a national "crisis".  Barry blows him off, and Maverick suspends his campaign (including pulling down all his ads) anyway and jets back to D.C.

Later in the day, at McCain's urging, President Bush invites both him AND Senator Hussein, along with the party leaders and Banking Committee Chairs and ranking members of both houses, to a "bipartisan crisis summit" at the White House to hammer out a "bipartisan deal" that will "save the country".  Having been directly summoned by the President of the United States, B.O. decides that invitation is too big and too public to snub.

3) THURSDAY: I'm listening to Sean Hannity on the way back from lunch.  He says that the big powwow at the White House has broken up.  McCain and Obama were supposed to come out and jointly speak to the press hordes on the front lawn, but Hannity reports that McCain exited via the West Wing, ducked into his transportation conveyance, and sped away without a word.  I figured Obama would come out and brag about having "saved the day" himself, and wondered why McCain would let him do that, but evidently Barry didn't have much to say, either.

This morning we found out why:

When Senator Barack Obama was given the floor to speak during White House negotiations, according to White House aides, he did so raising concerns about a House Republican alternative to the Paulson/Bernanke $700 billion bailout. But those concerns weren't necessarily his, as he was not aware of the GOP plan before reviewing notes provided him by Paulson loyalists in Treasury prior to entering the meeting.

According to an Obama campaign source, the notes were passed to Obama via senior aides traveling with him, who had been emailed the document via a current Goldman Sachs employee and Wall Street fundraiser for the Obama campaign. "It was made clear that the memo was from ‘friends' and was reliable," says the campaign source.

The memo allowed Obama and his fellow Democrats to box in Republican attendees and essentially took what President Bush had billed as a negotiating meeting off the rails.

"Paulson and his team have not acted in good faith for this President or the Administration for which they serve," says a House Republican leader who was not present at the White House meeting, but who instead is part of the team hammering out the House GOP alternative. "We keep hearing about how Secretary Paulson is working with Democrats on this or that, yet he never seems to consider working with the party that essentially hired him. Perhaps he's auditioning for a Democratic administration job. Our proposal didn't just spring forth fully formed; we've been working on this for several days, and Treasury staff has known about it." [emphases added]

Here's Limbaugh's version, with some interesting additional details:

The President, in order to let everybody be heard, deferred to various Democrats, and every one of the Democrats - Pelosi, Reid, Dodd, and Frank - declined to speak and deferred to Obama.  So Obama became the official Democrat spokesman in the meeting.  This was to hype Obama's leadership and presidential aura and so forth.  What happened next, the first thing out of Obama's mouth - Paulson is in the meeting - is he starts ripping the House Republican proposal and asks Paulson what he thinks of it.

And - note this well - Paulson ripped it too.  Resuming quote...:

This led Boehner and the other Republicans in there to think they have been sandbagged.  We found out this morning that Obama had no clue - because he was in transit doing other things, he had no clue - what the House Republican position was....It ended up with Obama essentially chairing the meeting, with the meeting falling apart.  The President was described as "beleaguered," trying to regain control of the meeting.  McCain [hardly said] anything.  Everybody was yelling and screaming in there.  McCain did not.  He said, "We've gotta put these differences aside, work together," you know, typical McCain. [emphases added]

How pathetic is that?  If you had any doubts about just how lame a duck George W. Bush has become, this ought to lay it to nauseating rest.  Once again, Dubya "deferred" to these creatures; once again he tried to "reach out" to them to "put partisan differences aside" to "work together" to "do what's best for the country."  And once again they pissed in his face and kicked him in the nuts.  The "New Tone" produces its latest harvest of bitter, foolish fruit.

No, wait, I take that back; the Dems acted like Bush wasn't even there.  As far as they were concerned, this was Obama's meeting.  Consequently, it was McCain they were humiliating.

Here, though, is where I diverge from the Maha Rushie's take:

So this whole meeting yesterday essentially was established to show off Obama's leadership skills and negotiating skills, and he blew it!  People who disagree with him, he has no idea how to negotiate with.  Even Obama ended up last night on TV. I think the Democrats were so frightened that the truth would come out about what happened in this meeting.

Departure #1: The Democrats own majorities in both Houses of Congress.  On the House side, the minority is essentially powerless to stop the majority, and the majority can do anything it wants.  Consequently, Speakerette Pelosi could simply bring the House GOP counter-proposal to a vote, crush it, then ram through the Donk/Paulson nationalization bill on a party line vote and take all the credit for having "saved the country" from another "Great Depression".  What need is there to get House 'Pubbies to "negotiate"?

Three letters: C...Y...A.  Polls are showing the public substantially if not overwhelmingly against a Donk/Paulson-style b[uy]out, which also helps explain why Lucifer wants to tack on an extra $50 billion of worthless deficit spending (i.e. to make sure there's something in it for "Main Street" as well as "Wall Street").  As per usual, House Pachyderms are responding to the will of the people, heeding the voice of "Main Street," and Donks are trying to scheme there way around it.  The most direct route to doing so is to [DRUMROLL] "sandbag" House GOPers into caving in order to provide "bipartisan" cover for a Wall Street b[uy]out Main Street doesn't want, after which any credit will be glommed by the Dems and any blame will fall on Republicans.

Departure #2: I don't think Obama "blew" anything.  I think Pelosi and Reid and Dodd and Frank knew he was clueless about the House GOP proposal and used that cluelessness AND their nominee to DELIBERATELY SABOTAGE A DEAL and then MAKE SURE McCAIN WAS BLAMED FOR IT.

Scroll down the Limbaugh link.  After echoing Paulson earlier in the week that McCain's presence was absolutely crucial to getting a deal done, there were Dirty Harry and close Paulson pal Chucky Schumer and other Donks this morning claiming that they already HAD a deal done (which was BS) and McCain blew it up by not ordering House 'Pubbies to surrender (or failing to get them to comply).  Indeed, Schumer actually "respectfully" instructed President Bush to tell McCain to "get out of town."  Which, of course, Sailor had little choice but to do.

What have I been saying all week about McCain's "bailing out for the b[uy]out?  That he was setting himself up to fail because the Democrats have exactly ZERO reasons to negotiate and EVERY reason to hold out and, if it happens, let the economy collapse.

Let's review:

1) In any negotiation, the side that can afford to wait longer ALWAYS has the upper hand.

2) The Democrats are going to gain seats in Congress in November no matter how this b[uy]out business turns out, and in the event of a total economic meltdown they'll benefit from that even more.  And in the meantime, the longer they hold out, the greater their chance of getting everything they want in a deal and more.

Consequently the Democrats have had the upper hand in the whole Wall Street Meltdown from day one (conceded to them by John McCain's RINO fecklessness), arguably promulgated the policies that created it with such an eventual outcome in mind, and used their man in the Bush Cabinet, Henry Paulson, to lure John McCain into a trap that would destroy both his credibility and his candidacy on the issue that will dominate the rest of the campaign, and thus guarantee the election of Barack Hussein Obama as the next president of the United States.

The Democrats have achieved what may be the ultimate coup: they will be the ones responsible for destroying the economy, and their reward will be total, unchecked power over it.  And they have exploited John McCain's own maverick gimmick to pull it off.

A fitting end for a decade of perfidy against his own.  A bitter tragedy that the rest of us have to accompany him to this political perdition.

There appears to be a burgeoning debate as to what prompted John Sith McCain to take the extraordinary step of suspending his sinking presidential campaign and go back to Washington to resume his roll as the betrayer of everything the Republican Party is supposed to stand for.  I shared some of my thoughts on that yesterday.  This morning there's a story that it wasn't originally McCain's idea at all:

Don't think for one moment that Sailor answering Secretary Paulson's call to action wasn't, and isn't, entirely political.  Indeed, it is an act of desperation, in my estimation.

Why?  Look at the polling composite/Electoral College map widget on the left sidebar.  A week and a half ago McCain was ahead in the EC 270-268 and two points up in the popular vote (a composite of state composites based upon an average of the most recent seven days' polls of likely voters).  When the Wall Street Meltdown hit last Monday, New Mexico immediately flipped to Obama, and ever since that popular vote number has inexorably eroded to the point where today, North Carolina has flipped as well and Obama has taken the composite popular vote lead.

How did this happen?  Simple: a large plurality of Americans is blaming the GOP for the Democrats' disaster.  Why?  (1) Bush is president; (2) the Dems spent last week bellowingly reinforcing the vile misconception; but most importantly, (3) Team Sith did virtually nothing to refute it, other than run a few ads pointing out that Obama's top two economic advisors are corrupt ex-FNMA CEOs, and otherwise me-tooed the other side's populist rhertoric about "Wall Street greed" and "predatory lenders".  Since McCain wouldn't play the "blame game," he forfeited with only token resistance, and as a result, the campaign has been slowly to steadily slipping away from him ever since.

Then comes Henry Paulson's phone call, and what Darth Queeg and his braintrust recognized as a golden "hail Mary" opportunity to jiu-jitsu this political death blow into a huge trump on B.O.  By suspending his campaign and gallantly inviting Lucifer to do the same and jointly return to Washington to save this misbegotten statist brontosaurus from its well-deserved extinction - and anticipating that The One would get that deer-in-the-headlights look and turn him down - Maverick would have the chance to put his "country first" motto into action before the entire country, swoop into the Capitol to save the day and the economy and America itself, and make Barry look like the empty suit/poseur/dilletante/pretender/numbnut he really is, all as the entire country breathlessly watched.

The downside, on the other hand, is that "McCain providing cover" translates to "bullying Republicans into combusting their principles and acting against the best interests of their party and their country.  But I suppose Palinmania is supposed to cover that.  The massively bigger hazard is as I alluded to yesterday: by buying into the "WE'VE GOT TO DO SOMETHING, NOW!!!!" panicmongering, McCain handed the negotiating catbird seat to the Dems, who have nothing to fear politically from being obstructionists (since they're going to gain seats in November regardless and their presidential candidate is already pulling away in the polls because of this mess) and everything to gain from blocking a bailout deal, humiliating McCain and possibly knocking the economy over into the deep recession or even depression that would entrench them in power for the next hundred years - for which the GOP would also get tarred with responsibility.

That caveat appears to never have occurred to Lord Queeg.  Or if it did, he just shrugged and modifiedly regurgitated one of his standard catch-phrases, "I'd rather lose an election than lose the American economy."  Ironic, since losing this election guarantees the collapse of the American economy once the Dems get unchallenged control over it whether or not Hank Paulson's downpayment on it wins congressional passage.

We'll have to see whether Ensign Ed and Double H, or yours truly, has the right immediate take on this over the next week.  But even if it isn't me, the longer term forecast of galloping socialism and a long, dark, Donk age is graven in stone.

UPDATE: Here's a thought: if McCain does swoop in and gets a deal done within hours, doesn't that make an argument for why he should stay in the Senate rather than move to the White House?

UPDATE II: Me, from yesterday:

Meanwhile, Lucifer is left with an el primo opportunity to turn Friday's debate into an unopposed solo national address that systematically hacks to bits McCain's foreign policy manifesto - or subtley co-opts it.

The Author and Perfector of the Marxist Faith, today:

Barack Obama is committed to hosting a public, televised event Friday night in Mississippi even if John McCain does not show up, a source close to the Obama campaign tells the Huffington Post.

The senator, the source says, is willing to make the scheduled debate a townhall meeting, a one-on-one interview with NewsHour’s Jim Lehrer, or the combination of the two in McCain’s absence.

AP thinks McCain will blink this time, and the polling backs it up.  If this were two weeks ago, I'd say the HotAirster was nuts, but now?  The Sith Master really doesn't have much of a choice.

Here's an original exit question: If Maverick does jump through Messiah's hoop like the latter did the former's yesterday (with a bit 'o help from his presidential "running mate"), how much does that undercut any benefit he gained from "putting country first"?  More or less than what he'd lose from letting The Golden Child pound away at his national security/foreign policy advantage before the entire nation unopposed?

UPDATE III: Chris Dodd is full of shit.  The very fact that he's a point man on this mess from the Senate when he's one of the prime SOBs that pushed the policies that created it and from which he handsomely and corruptly benefitted is like the two rolls of bathroom tissue it'd take to wipe it all up and would never go down the bowl no matter how many times we flushed.  Neither would he, come to think of it.

Enough of the scatalogy metaphor.  As aforelinked, Dodd claimed this morning that a deal had been reached.  Thing was, even National Barack Company was reporting that Barney Frank's scheme to use part of this seven hundred billion to, in essence, keep afloat the frakking Community Redevelopment Program that was the genesis of this meltdown in the first place was going about as far with already-skeptical Republicans as Reese Witherspoon running for a seat in the Iranian parliament.  Coming back from lunch, Sean Hannity reported that Senate Banking Committee ranking member Dick Shelby (R-AL) emerged from this "summit" at the White House disavowing that ANY agreement had been reached.  House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) echoed Shelby earlier, if not quite as bluntly.

Hannity also reported that while Light-Bringer exited the meeting and made a beeline for his press buddies, Darth Queeg ducked out the West Wing entrance and into his limo or whatever and sped away.  Not surprising to me if his angle was to "parachute" into D.C. and use his mighty maverickiness to whip everybody into line behind a modified Paulson plan, which clearly isn't happening (yet).  Doesn't say much for his vaunted leadership qualities if even his own GOP colleagues balk at his grandstanding effrontry.  Or maybe Sailor has played the "maverick" card one time too many.

Either way, it's no wonder he didn't want to face the media.  He might finally have had that stack-blowing that everybody's been expecting for the past year and a half.  Given that his "country first in action" gambit is fizzling, and bailing out to the debate tomorrow night would earn him "flip-flop" ridicule, and he just might have blown the election, it'd be hard to blame him.

UPDATE IV: Here's another question that's been vamping through my brain of late: We've got the federal government trying to cram a socialistic b[uy]out of Wall Street down our throats that is roughly equal to 5% of current gross domestic product - i.e. the aggregate annual national income - or a quarter of the "official" annual federal budget (to which they claim this wouldn't be added because it would be [snicker] "investments").  That's a lot of money, even for the feds.  And even if this mountain of "investments" were ultimately unloaded for a net profit to the taxpayers, what do you think would be done with it - returned to us, put toward the Social Security and/or Medicare "trust funds," or porked?

So here's the question: if this b[uy]out of Wall Street fails to fix the underlying problem - and it will, absent wholesale regulatory changes as well as wholesale electoral ousting of Democrats across the board - and We, The People, end up on the hook for all this worthless Donk-inspired paper, might that not bring the federal government's solvency into question (even sooner than the looming entitlements crunch will)?  Who will bail them - US - out then?

That should be McCain's next ad, assuming he ever resumes his campaign.  Talk doesn't get any straighter than that.

Sure sounds like Darth Queeg is suddenly trying to stitch them on.  In "Dome," he makes not inconspicuous reference to "Barack Obama and his liberal congressional allies":

That combination guarantees "a massive government, billions in spending increases, wasteful pork....painful income taxes, skyrocketing taxes on life savings, electricity and home heating oil."  The brief shot of the newborn baby being blacked out by the looming shadow of Obamerica was a nice not-so-subliminal touch and cross-connection to the abortion issue as well.

On the positive side are these two ads directed at Michiganders and Ohioans, respectively:

The message seems clear to me: John McCain will "fight" for us, but he needs a Republican majority in Congress to do more than just spend the next four years heroically trying to stem the hard-Left tide.  And we know how hard he fights against his good, close, personal friends across the aisle, don't we?  But with a Congress controlled again by his own party, he'd be giving them leftward hell on a daily basis.

With the House possibly coming within striking distance, what they heck?  Might as well at least attempt to give the rest of the GOP ballot a boost while the proverbial iron is hot.

UPDATE: Here's the "iron," BTW:

I know Palinmania is still running wild, but this has to make you wonder anew about the "overshadowing" factor, doesn't it?:

McCain did not mention the flooding during his brief remarks, which focused mainly on the country’s financial crisis. A steady stream of folks started leaving the rally when McCain started speaking, apparently they were there just to see Palin. [emphasis added]

For all the shitstorming that that Barracuda has endured, would Sailor even still be in the race were she not on his ticket?  And is it better that the Mavericks draw huge crowds half of which get up and leave if Palin doesn't kick off the festivities, or never to have drawn huge crowds at all?  Could this be the one time when people really do vote for the bottom half of the ticket?

UPDATE II: How about in the 2012 Republican primaries (assuming Godbama hasn't driven the GOP underground in the interim)?

Turns out, the ad the Obama campaign is howling about is 100% correct.

Is anyone besides me aghast at the audacity of the Obama campaign complaining about dishonesty? They can't even be honest about THAT.

JASmius adds: Victor Davis Hanson elaborates on that point:

What we are seeing is a sort of meltdown in which the selection of Palin is associated with the first real possibility all summer that the messianic Obama may not necessarily ascend; that triggers a certain repulsion toward her in particular, and a general furor at the once likeable McCain (once likeable to present-day Obama's supporters in the past sense that in 2000 he was going to lose, perhaps divide Republicans, and was not George Bush), which, in turn, can conjure up all sorts of no longer latent demons, going back to Vietnam onto to Iraq and the ongoing war in Afghanistan.

The problem (inter alia) with this vicious, loose use of "traitor" and "lie/liar/lying" and blanket condemnations of the US military is that it achieves the opposite of what the authors intend — and repelling most readers to such a degree that they are scared off from anything the writer seems to be advocating.

We've seen that with the Atlantic Monthly pictures and blog rumors about Palin's recent Down Syndrome pregnancy, the unhinged hatred columns of the sort of a Salon's Cintra Wilson or those suggesting riots or global hatred of the U.S. if Obama loses, the Matthews/Olbermann rants, the daily salvos from the NY Times columnists,and the hourly Palin rage from spoiled Hollywood prima donnas.

Do they have any idea of how they sound or where this leads? Despite an unpopular incumbent, economic upheaval, unpopular wars, and a charismatic Democratic candidate, the media, hand in glove with Obama's messianic sense of self, are doing all they can to lose a once sure election by the sheer repugnance of the way in which their anger is expressed and expressed and expressed . . .

I believe Pogo said it best: "We have met the enemy, and they are us."  The Left was at the apex of its arrogant triumphalism when Bill Clinton was elected president in 1992; after two years of indiscrete extremist excesses, it all came crashing back down again in 1994 with the GOP congressional blowout, and then again in 2000 with the agonizing loss to George W. Bush.  That defeat radicalized liberals further, as did the ensuing shocks of 2002 and 2004 when, each time, they assumed without any thought or humility that they were going to get all their power back.  No other outcome was possible in their minds, and when it didn't happen, the (insert Republican name here) Derangement Syndrome metastasized another order of magnitude.

Then their time finally came 'round at last in 2006.  Whether the GOP had become inured to the trappings of power, or the Iraqi front of the War Against Islamic Fundamentalism had exceeded its historical shelf life date, or voters just wanted be free of Donk whining, they finally ended their dozen-year exile from power on Capitol Hill.

Did that bit of satiation of power lust calm them down enough to regain any semblance of perspective?  Please.  That victory had the same effect as the previous defeats - they became even louder, even more obnoxious and despicable, even more extreme, and even bigger liars.  Only thing that changed is that now they had power to abuse.

So, naturally, they thought - and the rest of us, including yours truly, bought into it - that under the banner of The Messiah, they'd not only get the White House back in 2008, but in a landslide of such magnitude that it would give them the latitude to make sure that another 1994 could never happen again.  American politics as it has been for 232 years would finally be over.  No more elections would necessary.  The people would have made their choice once and for all time, and it would be the Democrat Party.

This entitlement/totalitarianist mindset is, by this time, hardwired into the left-wing psyche.  It's the core of their self-esteem.  For them, politics IS their religion.  It's why they hate God and every one who follows Him - to them, WE'RE the heretics, trying to deny them their rightful destiny, to wit, to rule America with an iron-fisted "benevolence" that none dare challenge.

Yet over the course of the summer, it started happening again.  Things started getting flaky - again.  Their Messiah, already deflating after the late-primary season mauling administered by their forgotten goddess, proved to be mortal and clay-footed after all.  The gaffes and pratfalls and mistakes he made back in the spring proved to be the rule rather than the exception.  And then the Dems' favorite Republican did the last thing they ever expected from him: he started contesting the election.  He took whimsical aim at Godbama's colossal hauteur and finished the deflation the Empress started.  And then, after The One made the biggest blunder of all by passing her over for a blowhard nobody from f'ing Delaware, the old bastard trumped him by picking a woman!  An a politically attractive woman!  A popular woman!  A conservative woman!  A Christian woman!  And the more lefties tried to massacre her character and reputation, the more popular she became.

Now Light-Bringer is actually behind.  He doesn't appear to have what it takes to get back on top.  And now even their control of the House of Representatives is coming into jeopardy.

It's all falling apart.  Jesusland is rising again, like the unkillable Jason from Friday The Thirteenth, to "steal" yet another national canvass from the Self-Annointed.  And it is driving them insane.

I've said for years that what the Democrats need, desperately, more than anything else, is a defeat so crushing, so devastating, so illusion-preempting, that the nutters that dominate it would be completely discredited and marginalized, and the "grown-ups" - if they still have any after all this - could re-emerge, take the helm, and start rebuilding the party back in the American mainstream as it used to be, absent the social policy wickedness, the militant atheism, and the ingrained anti-patriotism and Ameriphobia.  That's what made the 2006 midterms so disappointing; all of that disgusting assholery was rewarded instead of punished.

Would an Obama defeat and loss of the House to the GOP in a year that history alone indicates should be a Donk sweep be the expectational equivalent?  Or are we headed for something not unfairly describable as a second civil war?

Rhetorically, the war is already nuclear.  Political violence would be the logical next step.

I'll leave the dot-connecting implications of that conclusion to your imaginations.  I just wonder how many Americans outside "Jesusland" would be shocked by it - or if they'd be cheering instead.

Yeah, Lehman Brothers went tits up this morning, and Merrill Lynch sold itself for fifty cents on the dollar to Bank of America, and AIG is next in line at Henry Paulsen's door with its hand out and its leg up.  Yeah, it's not not a big deal.  Yeah, the Dow plunged three hundred points at the opening bell, was down as much as five hundred points - but did recover some by the end of the day's trading.

Why do I add that last bit of perspective?  Because while this is the easy-money lending chickens coming home to roost, it does not - yet - constitute the entire American economy being in a "crisis".  Black Monday was a crisis; the Great Depression was a crisis; both were triggered by the economic policies that in this campaign fall under the umbrella of Obamanomics.  Which strongly suggests that electing Barack Obama president is the only thing that can bring about a true economic crisis in America.  But we're not in one yet.

I trust you can sympathize, and hopefully empathize as well, with the teeth-grating opening line in this latest "timely" McCain ad:

I know, I know, "straight talk" on the economy from Darth Queeg went out the window when Phil Gramm was pink-slipped out the door for dispensing the genuine article.  That we're NOT in an "economic crisis" is the truth; pandering to the other side's fearmongering just to try and defuse the "out of touch" cliche is a lie that overshadows ever center-right idea he promulgates before and after its utterance.

Case in point:

Bad, bad, bad.  Five uses of the world "crisis" in a single paragraph.  Lots of warmed over populism without any policy specifics or naming of accountable names.  Oh, heavens to Betsy, NO, because that might run the risk of getting [GASP] partisan, and that just wouldn't do in the midst of a do-or-die presidential campaign.

The other side would NEVER do something like THAT - would they?:

Speaking here in Macomb County, referred to as the heart of Reagan Democratic terrain, Biden focused primarily on the economy, pouncing especially on McCain saying again today that he fundamentals of the economy remain strong.

“That’s what John said,” Biden assured a booing crowd. “He says that, ‘We’ve made great progress economically’ in the Bush years. Ladies and gentlemen, ladies and gentlemen, I could walk from here to Lansing, and I wouldn’t run into a single person who thought our economy was doing well — unless I ran into John McCain.”

Actually, we HAVE made great progress economically in the Bush years.  After inheriting Bill Clinton's dot.com bust and recession, absorbing the 9/11 attacks, and later the 2005 hurricane season, and this year's energy price spiral, the Bush tax-cut-fueled economy has nonetheless boomed for the past five years, adding millions of new jobs and shutting up the Doomocrats for a good long time.

Well, that's just Slow Joe being Slow Joe, right?  A stopped clock is right twice a day?  But surely the rest of Team Hussein isn't that dishonest, yes?:

"Today of all days, John McCain's stubborn insistence that the 'fundamentals of the economy are strong' shows that he is disturbingly out of touch with what's going in the lives of ordinary Americans," Obama spokesman Bill Burton said. "Even as his own ads try to convince him that the economy is in crisis, apparently his twenty-six years in Washington have left him incapable of understanding that the policies he supports have created an [sic] historic economic crisis."

Their quote of McCain was cherry-picked from another portion of that same town hall appearance in which Maverick again tried to sound panderingly "in touch":

"The fundamentals of our economy are still strong but these are very, very difficult times. I promise you we will never put America in this position again."

Guess which part of that sentence the Dems cherry-picked. 

So what did it profit Sailor to commiserate in what Senator Gramm spot-on described as "mental recession"?  He's still lampooned by his foes as "out of touch," still grafted at the hip with their cartoon caricature of Dubya.  So why not tout the economic boom of the past five years and the policies that made it possible?  Why not contrast that with the economic disaster of tax increases and explosions of government and galloping socialism and permanent energy crisis that False Messiah promises?  And why not get at the heart of what brought about this so-called "financial meltdown"?:

Banks....should have known better, making massive loans to people who had insufficient verified income, assets, or collateral, to purchase houses and later being surprised to learn these people would not repay them. The repackaging and recombining all grew out of the original decision to approve loans that had little or no chance of being repaid.

There are a lot of reasons why banks started offering these loans, but among them was a bipartisan sense that increasing the number of Americans with a mortgage instead of renting was a national priority....

Once major financial institutions like Frannie and Freddie started reaching out to the sub-prime market, others didn't want to get left behind. This generated a boom in housing prices that was swell for homeowners, for sellers, for the real estate industry, for homebuilders - for everybody except first-time home buyers.

In the end, this financial crisis began because not enough people in authority said "no" when members of the general public said they wanted a loan. They went to the banks and effectively asked for something for nothing. And the banks said "sure."

And why did they do that?  Because they knew the federal government - the taxpayers - We, The People - would be the backstop for their wild lending pitches.  Or, in other words, the S&L "crisis" all over again.

It bears noting that Barack Hussein Obama has been part of the problem, and John Sith McCain wasn't afraid to [AHEM] dish out some trademark "straight talk" - six months ago.  But now?  Punching-bag city.

Ensign Ed is correct that, "The candidate who comes up with an easily understood solution will win the confidence of voters unsettled by the instability."  If Sailor continues to futiley pander to mental recessionists, thus playing right into Doomocrat hands, Rogaine Messiah's Bush-bashing - never far from the conventional wisdom these days - will slow his recent poll surge to a screeching halt.

All I can say is, praise the LORD for Sarah Palin: 

And to think I've been fretting that the Republican ticket's joint campaigning ran the risk of making Darth Queeg look like a fifth-wheel to his own campaign.  Judging by the maunderings he burbles when Barracuda isn't at his side keeping him focused, maybe Maverick should stay on the proverbial "front porch" and let Sarah do the heavy lifting for him.

Perhaps Slimeicane Sarah is finally running out of steam?  The Washington Post had to go deep into the mothballs to drag out this old chestnut:

Governor Sarah Palin linked the war in Iraq with the September 11 terrorist attacks, telling an Iraq-bound brigade of soldiers that included her son that they would “defend the innocent from the enemies who planned and carried out and rejoiced in the death of thousands of Americans.”

The idea that the Iraqi government under Saddam Hussein helped al-Qaeda plan the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, a view once promoted by Bush Administration officials, has since been rejected even by the President himself. But it is widely agreed that militants allied with al-Qaeda have taken root in Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion.

Sigh.  Bush never claimed that Iraq was linked to 9/11.  And it is established fact that an al Qaeda affiliated group was in Iraq before Operation Iraqi Freedom.

But watch the entire Palin speech, and ask yourself what its context is - a concept evidentally completely foreign to Anne Kornblut:

Give up?  Here's a hint: which entity have Coalition forces been fighting the past two or three years?  Answer: NOT Saddamite dead-enders.

By contrast, perhaps USA Today has decided that facts might make better weapons against Sarah Palin's immense popularity with conservatives than another avalanche of scurrilous tabloidism:

Weeks after taking office as Alaska’s governor in December 2006, Sarah Palin vetoed a bill that sought to ban benefits for the same-sex partners of state workers. It was unconstitutional, she said.

This year, she rebuffed religious conservatives who wanted her to add two abortion restriction measures to a special legislative session on oil and gas policy, even though she supported the bills. Former aide Larry Persily said she didn’t want to risk offending Democrats, whose votes she needed on energy legislation.

Since Republican presidential candidate John McCain picked Palin as his running mate, much attention has been focused on her deeply conservative social views — including her opposition to abortion even in cases of rape and incest and her attendance at a church that promotes the “transformation” of homosexuals through prayer.

But in her twenty-one months as governor, Palin has taken few steps to advance culturally conservative causes. Instead, after she knocked off an incumbent amid an influence-peddling scandal linked to the oil industry, Palin pursued a populist agenda that toughened ethics rules and raised taxes on oil and gas companies.

That certainly fits the McCain/"Maverick"/RINO mold the Right has come to know and detest so well over the past decade, and makes it all the less of a wonder why Sailor selected her.  It stands to reason that I take exception with every one of those citations and cannot help but count them as strikes against her.

And yet....

Michael Reagan compared Palin to his father, and one can see at least some parallels with Ronald Reagan’s stewardship of California and of the nation.  Reagan fought a larger war for conservatism but didn’t mind allying himself across the aisle when he could reduce governmental power.  He also gave tremendous personal support to religious values, but tended to shy away from government policies to impose them.

Plus, as a practical matter, after all that the other side has tried, and continues to try, to do to her, I don't think you could pry the base away from its embrace of her with a nuclear-powered jaws-of-life.

I will admit to being more than a little baffled at why the same conservative Republicans who seethed at Maverick's mavericky maverickism for years are now cheering the proclamations of the McCain-Palin ticket being "more bipartisan" and more "populistly reformist" than Rogaine Messiah.  I happen to curmudgeonly believe that there's a lot to be said for sticking to your partisan guns and inviting centrist members of the other party to come on over to the Good Guys as the opportunities present themselves.  The GOP may not have all the right answers, but it's beyond crystal clear that the Democrats don't have ANY, and are extremely not-nice people besides.

That temporary myopia will gestate immense intra-party rifts in the aftermath of a McCain-Palin victory, mark my words.  But we're too submerged in the current struggle against the forces of pagan/Marxist darkness to notice.

I'll give credit to USA Today for originality, though.