US CENTCOM Press Releases

Last April, I complimented Barack Obama for his principled stand against the corrupt practice of providing “street money” to political organizers in Philadelphia.  He insisted that his new kind of politics didn’t allow for the cash-on-demand tradition in Philadelphia, and that his organization would remain voluntary.  Even with ward bosses playing the race card against him in response — claiming that Obama spent his money at “white” television stations instead of on black volunteers through street money — Obama held firm.

Strangely enough, the Chief Stumbling Block has now changed his tune on the grassrootiest mode of buying - and fabricating - votes:

According to U.S. Representative Bob Brady, the local Democratic Party chairman, Senator Barack Obama’s general-election presidential campaign in Philadelphia will be run differently from his primary operation, which relied more on volunteers than on Democratic ward leaders and did not provide street money on Election Day.

“We’re not going to pay for votes or pay for turnout,” Obama said before the Pennsylvania primary.

But Brady said that the campaign has promised street money to pump up turnout in November. And now that Obama is the official nominee, his campaign will team up with the city’s Democratic ward leaders, who traditionally help get out votes.

Yeah, it's another flip-flop. Yeah, it's another of Lucifer's lofty, high-falutin' principles heaved overboard like a corpse into a cold, isolated, murky lake.  But did you really expect him to hold to that impossible idealism if he wasn't at least twenty-five points ahead in the polls?

Here's all you need to know to understand this latest reversal:

1) In April, Obama held firm on not sullying his campaign with cash-wad-armed street hustlers;

2) Obama lost the Pennsylvania Donk primary to Hillary Clinton by double-digits, sparking a nominating season-closing losing streak that only the ubiquity of the Democrats' proportional representation delegate rules prevented from becoming a total collapse;

3) Obama - assuming that Hillary doesn't succeed in submarining the nomination away from him - is in a general election dog-fight with John Sith McCain instead of the landslide cakewalk everybody expected;

4) Unless he pulls some miracle surge out of his nether regions, another loss in Pennsylvania will almost certainly cost BO the election.

There's only one principle, and one principle only, that Barack Hussein Obama will not abandon: He'll do ANYTHING to win.

Come to think of it, that's most of why he isn't winning....

UPDATE: 'nother case in point:

Case in point #1: America is in "extreme distress," and only Barack Hussein Obama can save it:

An upside-down flag IS the international symbol for extreme distress.  The rather obvious thematic implication on this holographic credential for BO's Nuremburgesque acceptance speech rally-cum-golden-calf-in-more-ways-than-one is that, just as he told that little girl at a recent appearance when she asked him why he's running for president, America is "not what it once was," and only he, the Pocket Savior, can redeem it.

Obamanoids weren't quite stupid enough to come out and admit it, but their lame-ass explanation/demurral more than succeeded in making them look like they thought their listeners were:

Matt Chandler with the Obama campaign says the flag is not upside down. He says it is a stylized flag designed to blend the stars on Senator Obama's shirt with the flag blowing in the wind.

Natalie Wyeth with the Democratic National Convention Committee sent 9NEWS the following statement Saturday night:"The DNCC community credentials incorporate patriotic design elements. They do not depict an actual American flag. The DNCC has full and complete respect for the flag and all rules of display."

Typical Obamarrhea.  Don't believe the clear evidence of your eyes, believe what we tell you that flagrantly defies it.

Check out the pic again.  There are two objects in it; one is a profile of Lucifer; the other is an American flag.  And it is f'ing upside-down.

I don't know why they didn't just say that to show Old Glory right-side up with the blue field in the upper-left as it is supposed to be, Obama would look like he was hanging upside-down like Toby Maguire when he first kissed Kirsten Dunst in the first Spiderman.  That would just make them look incompetent, something to which you'd think they'd have grown accustomed by now, as opposed to equal measures of arrogant, contemptuous, and borderline insane.

But of course we know why they didn't shrug sheepishly and concede the point: Because they are the children of Barack, and Barack is god, and gods don't make mistakes.

Perhaps that helps explain their twisted concept of law & order:

In 2003, a CBS4 investigation named Lauricella, a 29-year police veteran, as one of three top commanders in the Denver Police Department’s Crimes Against Persons Bureau who were routinely leaving their posts in the middle of the afternoon to work an outside job as a $30 an hour crossing guard for a private school. The revelation triggered a criminal investigation, reforms in DPD off-duty policies and hefty fines and suspensions for the other two commanders. One was suspended for thirty days for his conduct and fined another ten days pay. Denver’s Manager of Safety ordered another lieutenant suspended for twenty days and he was fined thirteen days pay.

However, Lauricella’s case was even more egregious. After he was confronted about working an outside job in the middle of his normal work day, someone immediately doctored Lauricella’s time records, changing dozens of days to try to make it appear he had been doing nothing wrong. A special prosecutor appointed to examine the case, ruled no criminal charges should be filed, but said the tampering with Lauricella’s time records was “suspicious … inappropriate” and concluded it was “highly unlikely” anyone other than Lauricella had falsified his work records.

Lauricella was suspended for seven months during the investigation but resigned in August 2003 rather than face disciplinary measures, which could have included termination.

Say hello to one of the DNCC's security consultants for next week's First Coming.

It couldn't have happened any other way, could it?

Mark Udall - the son of the eminently forgettable Morris Udall, whose claim to fame is that he couldn't beat Jimmy Carter in the 1976 Democrat presidential primaries - is seeking the Colorado senate seat being vacated by the retiring GOPer Wayne Allard.  Mark Udall is also, like his historical footnote of a father, an environmental extremist who has obstructed domestic energy development ever since he's been in the House of Representatives.

All of which means that no matter which way he slices it, his ass is hanging out to the skyrocketing energy prices wind no matter what he does.

Anybody who is surprised by the following story, stand on your head:

Udall, one of the House’s preeminent environmentalists and the Democratic nominee in a closely contested Colorado Senate race, came out in favor of a bipartisan, comprehensive energy plan that would permit additional offshore drilling — a striking departure from his past opposition to such measures.

He also aired a television ad featuring oil workers on a derrick, with Udall saying, “We’ve got to produce our own oil and gas here in our country and keep it here to power America’s economy. …

But Udall — whose Senate campaign has renamed his GOP opponent, Bob Schaffer, “Big Oil Bob” — is certainly one of the least likely proponents of offshore drilling.

His family name is closely tied with the protection of natural resources and conservation, consistent with the approach that he has advocated in the House. In Congress, Udall opposed offshore drilling on numerous occasions, and voted against expanding refinery capacity six times.

And now he's donning a cowboy hat and pretending to be J.R. Ewing.  Which lends Udall all the credibility of nudist running a Men's Warehouse.

You have to love that shot of Udall skulking behind that airport partition.  Nothing else could be more emblematic of the jam the Democrats find themselves in on energy policy, trapped between their greenstremist fundies and a pissed-off public now wise to the whole "save the planet" swindle - and how it is exposing their true cockroach natures for the entire electorate to see.

8 Therefore, although in Christ I could be bold and order you to do what you ought to do, 9 yet I appeal to you on the basis of love. I then, as Paul — an old man and now also a prisoner of Christ Jesus — 10 I appeal to you for my son Onesimus,^[a] who became my son while I was in chains. 11 Formerly he was useless to you, but now he has become useful both to you and to me.

12 I am sending him — who is my very heart — back to you. 13 I would have liked to keep him with me so that he could take your place in helping me while I am in chains for the Gospel. 14 But I did not want to do anything without your consent, so that any favor you do will be spontaneous and not forced. 15 Perhaps the reason he was separated from you for a little while was that you might have him back for good — 16 no longer as a slave, but better than a slave, as a dear brother. He is very dear to me but even dearer to you, both as a man and as a brother in the LORD.

17 So if you consider me a partner, welcome him as you would welcome me. 18 If he has done you any wrong or owes you anything, charge it to me. 19 I, Paul, am writing this with my own hand. I will pay it back — not to mention that you owe me your very self.

-Philemon 1:8-19

Let's revisit the Hussein Cash Machine, shall we?

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama raised more than $51 million in July and the Democratic National Committee reported $27.7 million in donations last month, putting Obama in a strong position for the fall campaign.

Obama began August with $65.8 million on hand and the DNC had $28.5 million available, according to statements released Saturday. His July total was slightly less than the $52 million he raised in June.

Obama’s Internet-powered fundraising efforts have shattered all previous records for a presidential campaign, bringing in a total of $390 million so far. The Illinois senator has announced he will forgo public financing for the general election, giving up $84 million in taxpayer money for the final two months of the campaign and committing himself to a steady pace of fundraising.

By contrast, Republican candidate John McCain has raised just $140 million and has agreed to accept public financing for the general election and the spending restraints that come with it. McCain has remained competitive, however, because of the fundraising success of the Republican National Committee.

Sounds great at first blush, doesn't it?  But when the fundraising totals of the respective candidates and their national party committees are aggregated, the heretofore bankrupt, sadsack GOP is actually in parity with or even a little bit ahead of its Democrat counterpart.  This reflects the much greater "bang for the buck" that Team Sith is getting versus Team Messiah, a function of how current events have reshuffled election issues to the fore that weigh heavily in McCain's favor and to Obama's distinct disadvantage, in addition to Lucifer's insatiable gaffery, hauteur, smearmongering, and extremism.  Indeed, he's doing as much or more than Lord Queeg himself to sell the Arizona senator to the electorate as the better choice for president of the United States.  It's almost like an in-kind contribution of his campaign resources to McCain.

Expenditures are always the other side of the budget from income.  There are a lot of people who make more money than I do, but whose net worth is probably a lot less than mine, because they "spend to their income" and beyond, whereas I'm so tight I squeak.  BO, unsurprisingly, has that same problem vis-a-vie his "senior" opponent.  Given that McCain kept his promise to take the $84 million in public financing for the fall home stretch - dough he doesn't have to spend a dime to collect - while Obama has to "earn" his as a consequence of his treacherous decision to abandon his own public financing promise, his nearly three-to-one fundraising edge over Sailor from the beginning of the cycle will prove a lot smaller than it looks.

Particularly in light of how little all that lucre has purchased (via Newsmax Insider):

Predictions of a landslide victory by Democrat Barack Obama in the November election may be off base, according to a historical analysis.

In five of the six post-World War II landslides — defined as a victory of ten percentage points or more — the eventual winner was ahead by at least ten percentage points in the polls at the end of August, according to the analysis of Gallup Polls by Politico.

But recent Gallup tracking polls put Obama ahead of his Republican rival John McCain by a margin of only two to five points.

One landslide winner, Lyndon Johnson, was ahead of Barry Goldwater in a late August 1964 Gallup Poll by a huge margin — 67%-26%. Johnson went on to win the election with 61% of the vote.

In 1972, incumbent Richard Nixon was ahead of George McGovern by about twenty points in August. He won by twenty-three points.

Incumbent Ronald Reagan was ahead of Walter Mondale by ten points in 1984, and won by nearly twice that margin.

Dwight Eisenhower was ahead of Adlai Stevenson by at least fifteen points in two late August 1952 Gallup Polls. Ike won by eleven points.

“There was a definite cockiness that Democrats felt once they regained control of Congress, and I’ve felt it was a misplaced cockiness,” pollster John Zogby said.

And political analyst Charlie Cook told Politico: “I don’t think you see leads in presidential races over five points in this day and age. [Obama has] averaged leads of three points since spring. The key is that Obama hasn’t closed the sale.

“The question is, Does Obama ever close the sale?”

The answer is that Obama thought he "closed the sale" the day he announced his candidacy, insofar as he ever considered such a thing to be necessary at all.  And yet it is precisely that unmerited "cockiness" that is eating his campaign alive like the cancer it is.  At the rate his callow ego is metastasizing, it may not matter how much cash Team Hussein hoovers up.

That isn't the only fiscal drain the Golden Child is encountering, either.

There is a reason why I try never to have cash on my person.  If I do, and somebody hits me up for a loan, I can't turn them down by begging localized illiquidity.  In much the same way, Barry O's well-earned rain-making reputation - and equally infamous penchant for heaving so-called "principles" overboard at the slightest inconvenience - has made him his party's surrogate teat:

Facing a large deficit in the Democratic National Convention budget, officials from Barack Obama’s campaign have begun personally soliciting labor unions and others for contributions of up to $1 million. In exchange, donors could get stadium skyboxes for Obama’s acceptance speech and other perks.

Obama has regularly criticized politicians seeking large donations outside the framework of campaign finance regulations — so-called soft money — while touting the virtues of relying on small donations.

But campaign officials last month reluctantly decided they had to take a hand in raising large donations from individuals, unions and corporations. Some of the donors get special bundles of perks, including use of the party suites at Denver’s Invesco Field, as well as special policy briefings by Obama advisors, choice hotel rooms and party invitations.

What caused the shift was evidence that the Denver Host Committee was having trouble raising the estimated $60 million in cash and in-kind contributions needed to fund the convention, which runs August 24-29.

The resulting shortfall of which was, in large part, a product of the Idol's compulsive lust to be worshipped by an unparalleled multitude of supplicants and sychophants all at the same time.

And so out went this thunderous declaration....

....and in came the special interests - DEMOCRAT special interests (Big Labor, mercenary corporations, and, yes, "fatcats") - to which False Messiah somehow extended the hand unnailed from his self-hoisted petard.

Behold, the god who loves money, the Unifier who will apparently unload anything he can get his hands on and everything he purports to hold dear for another thirty pieces of silver.

In short, just another liberal Democrat.  But one all the more intolerably insufferable for the hypermoralistic sanctimony that drenches each and every one of the phony commandments he issues.

As to his sincere commandments - well, sometimes the old adage is true: You can run, but you cannot hide:

The presumptive Democratic nominee responded sharply in an interview Saturday night with the Christian Broadcast Network, saying anti-abortion groups were "lying" about his record.

"They have not been telling the truth," Mr. Obama said. "And I hate to say that people are lying, but here's a situation where folks are lying."

He added that it was "ridiculous" to suggest he had ever supported withholding lifesaving treatment for an infant. "It defies common sense and it defies imagination, and for people to keep on pushing this is offensive," he said in the CBN interview.

Wait for it....wait for it....

Indeed, Mr. Obama appeared to misstate his position in the CBN interview on Saturday when he said the federal version [of the Born Alive Infant Protection Act] he supported “was not the bill that was presented at the state level.”

His campaign yesterday acknowledged that he had voted against an identical bill in the state Senate, and a spokesman, Hari Sevugan, said the senator and other lawmakers had concerns that even as worded, the legislation could have undermined existing Illinois abortion law. Those concerns did not exist for the federal bill, because there is no federal abortion law.

In 2005, the campaign noted, a “Born Alive” bill passed the Illinois Legislature after another clause had been added that explicitly stated that the legislation would have no effect on existing state abortion laws.

So let's tally this up: (1) Obama lied about the BAIPA he killed at the state level in order to cover the lie that he'd have voted for the federal version; (2) he smeared the pro-life opponents who exposed his lies and called him on them; (3) within a day he feinted fessing up and then (4) doubled-down even further into the bowels of despicable absurdity by claiming that even though the Illinois version of the BAIPA he buried had the identical neutrality provisions regarding existing abortion law that the federal version had, it "still wasn't good enough."

This goes to great redundant lengths to show what an f'ing liar this man is.  But in this case it's not about his money-grubbing or his oceanic conceit, but rather a topic that Light-Bringer and his opponent were confronted with this past Saturday:

“Evil does exist,” Obama began acknowledging the premise of the question as he ticked off the evils of genocide in Darfur, inner-city crime and child abuse. “I think it has to be confronted. It has to be confronted squarely and one of the things that I strongly believe is that, you know, we are not going to, as individuals erase evil from the world. That is God’s task. but we can be soldiers in that process and we can confront it when we see it.”

I'll let Ensign Ed lower the closing boom:

If child abuse is an evil that must be confronted, then infanticide is even more evil.  What did Obama do when he saw this evil?  Did he confront it, as one of God’s soldiers?  Or did he facilitate it?

The answer now from the Obama campaign is clear.  Obama facilitated evil in order to protect abortion on demand, which was never threatened by S.1082 in the first place.

That much apparently wasn’t above his pay grade.

And this man claims to be a Christian?

NR argues that Russia had achieved all its tactical and immediate strategic aims from its invasion of Georgia....:

It had subdued its fractious, independent neighbor. All but one of the energy pipelines between Central Asia and Western Europe were under its direct control — and the single exception was but a few hours away by tank. A stern lesson had been sent to former Soviet possessions, inside and outside the Commonwealth of Independent States, that they live in Russia’s zone of influence and must conform to Russian foreign policy. The European Union had forsworn any criticism of Moscow’s open aggression to protect its own status as a “mediator.” The U.S. had failed to offer any real succor to Georgia.

....but then "overplayed a very strong hand" by failing to quit while it was ahead, sending its troops "roving around Georgia destroying any property, including railway bridges and docks, that might conceivably have a military use."  An action technically allowed and actively encouraged by the first ceasefire "brokered" by the French.  These excesses "provoked" a show of solidarity in Tbilisi between Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili and his counterparts from the ex-Soviet provinces of Poland, Ukraine, Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia; a slightly reduced level of punchless flaccidity from the Bush Administration in the form of humanitarian aid and a more balanced ceasefire not-quite-ultimatum delivered by SecState Condi Rice; expansion of the Western anti-missile shield to include new bases in Poland and Ukriane; and renewed momentum for extending NATO membership to Ukraine and what's left of Georgia.

NR's editors draw a parallel between Russia's attack on Georgia and the Soviet "invasion" of Czechoslovakia in 1968 and contend that because Russian tanks haven't (yet) captured Tbilisi and Russian troops haven't dragged President Saakashvili away in chains to a Siberian labor camp, and because the former Soviet provinces on Russia's western border haven't fallen into line behind Moscow in backing its giant neighbor's rape of the tiny Caucasus state, and because the Western reaction this time was nominally less feckless than the one forty years ago, today's crisis is far less of a triumph for the Russkies.

The flaw in that argument is rather obvious: the Red Army's crushing of the "Prague Spring" was an internal security matter of the Empire, not one soveriegn nation-state invading another.  The Warsaw Pact's endorsement was provincial governors following orders from Moscow.  The West's lack of response mattered far less then than it does now, because the rape of Georgia is the first overt step back toward the reconstruction of the dreaded USSR.

To be fair, NR caveatizes its overly sunny conclusion with several significant "ifs" whose fulfillment is not overly likely, particularly given the likely winner of the U.S. presidential election.  Said "ifs" do not appear to have even occurred to StratFor's George Friedman, who is far more focused on the realpolitik of the great power realities of what he calls "The REAL World Order".

Point #1: Despite being the unchallenged planetary hegemon, the U.S. is having to field national security threats faster than even its resources can keep up with:

Its ground forces and the bulk of its logistical capability are committed to the Middle East, particularly Iraq and Afghanistan. The United States also is threatening on occasion to go to war with Iran, which would tie down most of its air power, and it is facing a destabilizing Pakistan. Therefore, there is this paradox: The United States is so powerful that, in the long run, it has created an imbalance in the global system. In the short run, however, it is so off balance that it has few, if any, military resources to deal with challenges elsewhere. That means that the United States remains the dominant power in the long run but it cannot exercise that power in the short run. This creates a window of opportunity for other countries to act.

Point #2: The reason we can't keep all these brushfire plates spinning any more is because we spent too long dicking around in Iraq:

The outcome of the Iraq war can be seen emerging. The United States has succeeded in creating the foundations for a political settlement among the main Iraqi factions that will create a relatively stable government. In that sense, U.S. policy has succeeded. But the problem the United States has is the length of time it took to achieve this success. Had it occurred in 2003, the United States would not suffer its current imbalance. But this is 2008, more than five years after the invasion. The United States never expected a war of this duration, nor did it plan for it. In order to fight the war, it had to inject a major portion of its ground fighting capability into it. The length of the war was the problem. U.S. ground forces are either in Iraq, recovering from a tour or preparing for a deployment. What strategic reserves are available are tasked into Afghanistan. Little is left over.

Point #3: We did not take care of business a lot sooner in Iraq, as well as liberate Iran and Syria, while the window of opportunity was open five years ago.  Yet we pursued President Bush's Wilsonian democracy fetish in Russia's "near abroad" without taking into account a negative Russian reaction to it that, if it materialized - as it now has in Georgia - we would have little or no means of counteracting.  Call it "potential overextension" that got realized, leaving us with no other direction to go except in reverse:

In spite of diminishing military options outside of the Middle East, the United States did not modify its policy in the former Soviet Union. It continued to aggressively attempt to influence countries in the region, and it became particularly committed to integrating Ukraine and Georgia into NATO, in spite of the fact that both were of overwhelming strategic interest to the Russians. Ukraine dominated Russia’s southwestern flank, without any natural boundaries protecting them. Georgia was seen as a constant irritant in Chechnya as well as a barrier to Russian interests in the Caucasus.

Moving rapidly to consolidate U.S. control over these and other countries in the former Soviet Union made strategic sense. Russia was weak, divided and poorly governed. It could make no response. Continuing this policy in the 2000s, when the Russians were getting stronger, more united and better governed and while U.S. forces were no longer available, made much less sense. The United States continued to irritate the Russians without having, in the short run, the forces needed to act decisively.

The combination of #2 and #3 meant that Moscow had its own window of opportunity to begin rebuilding its empire before we could finish the job in Iraq and free up forces for "redeployment" elsewhere - such as the Caucasus.  Unlike us, they seized their opportunity while they could, and now the entire template of global alignments has irretrievably changed.

But we all know what the real unfinished business for the U.S. is in the Middle East, and it's several hundred miles to the south:

[T]he Russians had an additional lever for use on the Americans: Iran.

The United States had been playing a complex game with Iran for years, threatening to attack while trying to negotiate. The Americans needed the Russians. Sanctions against Iran would have no meaning if the Russians did not participate, and the United States did not want Russia selling advance air defense systems to Iran. (Such systems, which American analysts had warned were quite capable, were not present in Syria on September 6, 2007, when the Israelis struck a nuclear facility there.) As the United States re-evaluates the Russian military, it does not want to be surprised by Russian technology. Therefore, the more aggressive the United States becomes toward Russia, the greater the difficulties it will have in Iran. This further encouraged the Russians to act sooner rather than later.

Thus leading to Friedman's novel conclusion/recommendation: a Russo-American grand bargain:

The Russians have now proven two things. First, contrary to the reality of the 1990s, they can execute a competent military operation. Second, contrary to regional perception, the United States cannot intervene....

We would expect the Russians to get traction. But if they don’t, the Russians are aware that they are, in the long run, much weaker than the Americans, and that they will retain their regional position of strength only while the United States is off balance in Iraq. If the lesson isn’t absorbed, the Russians are capable of more direct action, and they will not let this chance slip away. This is their chance to redefine their sphere of influence. They will not get another.

....[T]he Russians are waiting for the Americans to calm down and get serious. If the Americans plan to take meaningful action against them, they will respond in Iran. But the Americans have no meaningful actions they can take; they need to get out of Iraq and they need help against Iran. The quid pro quo here is obvious. The United States acquiesces to Russian actions (which it can’t do anything about), while the Russians cooperate with the United States against Iran getting nuclear weapons (something Russia does not want to see).

Throw Georgia - and by implication the rest of the former Soviet "republics," who will inevitably knuckle under to Czar Vlad sooner or later regardless - under the bus in exchange for Russian "assistance" in neutralizing Iran.

While Friedman's supporting arguments are sound, his conclusion is quasi-Obamaesque in its wishful thinking quotient.  It is illogical to suggest that Russia does not want to see a nuclear Iran when Russia has been Iran's principle nuclear technology and fuel supplier for over a decade.  Why would they want to cooperate with us in shutting down the mullahgarchy's visions of Armageddon and the return of the Twelfth Imam when the only conceivable strategic purpose of nuclearizing Iran in the first place was to tie us down so they could have a free hand in "Prime Minister" Putin's neoSovietization?

Friedman's quid pro quo sounds to me like three more magic beans.  We would be endorsing our borderline humiliation in Georgia, admitting weakness on Iran, in exchange for the "promise" of "assistance" from a man who has already lied repeatedly and flagrantly ever since his tanks crossed the Georgian border and against whose own strategic interests he would be acting.  The mullahs would become even more emboldened to produce and "deploy" their nukes, as well as reignite chaos in Iraq, keeping us tied down there even longer, or more likely forcing our retreat from there, and eventually from Afghanistan and that entire part of the world.

In the end, our options vis-a-vie the Caucasus are indeed slim and none.  We're not going to go to war with Russia over Georgia, Iraq or no Iraq.  We can only apply what "soft power" measures we can and hope it stalls Putin's imperialism long enough for us to "regain our balance."

Similarly, the Russians are going to fight us indirectly in and with Iran no matter what we do.  We therefore have to "disarm" Iran anyway.  That is the most immediate and mortal national security threat we face.  Whether or not we "need help" - and I don't think we do - succor will never come from Tehran's principle nuclear vendor and protector on the UN Security Council.

Meanwhile, back in Russian-occupied Georgia, Czar Vlad has ordered the ethnic cleansing of Georgian cities, sent his forces to close in on the capital of Tbilisi with reinforcements pouring in right behind them - all after not one, but two cease-fires were supposed to have the Russians withdrawing to their own territory.  His "Sudetenland strategy" is marking the Baltic states, Ukraine, Kazakhstan for similar "protection."

And he may be making a prophet out of me yet again:

President Hugo Chavez said on Sunday that Russian President Dimitri Medvedev wants to send a Russian naval fleet to visit Venezuela.

“Russia has informed us they intend to visit Venezuela, that is, the intention that a Russian fleet should come to the Caribbean,” Chavez said on his weekly radio program.

“I told the president (Medvedev), ‘If you’re coming to the Caribbean, we’ll welcome you,’” Chavez said, adding that the Russian naval fleet would pay “a friendly and working” visit to Venezuela…

“We very much need them here,” Chavez said of the Russian weapons. “We’ve got the helicopters, the Sukoi fighters and we’re now considering buying some Russian submarines to patrol our territorial waters,” Chavez said.

A "working" visit, hmm?  Russian submarines to "patrol their territorial waters," or ours?  Just what other hardware might that fleet be delivering?

Doesn't look to me like that seriously crazed-up fruit loop is aware he's overplayed his hand.  So who's going to convince him - and how?

US CENTCOM Latest News Feed

1 How lovely is your dwelling place, O LORD Almighty!

2 My soul yearns, even faints, for the courts of the LORD; my heart and my flesh cry out for the living God.

3 Even the sparrow has found a home, and the swallow a nest for herself, where she may have her young — a place near Your altar, O LORD Almighty, my King and my God.

4 Blessed are those who dwell in Your house; they are ever praising You. 

5 Blessed are those whose strength is in You, who have set their hearts on pilgrimage.

6 As they pass through the Valley of Baca, they make it a place of springs; the autumn rains also cover it with pools. ^[b]

7 They go from strength to strength, till each appears before God in Zion.

8 Hear my prayer, O LORD God Almighty; listen to me, O God of Jacob. 

9 Look upon our shield, ^[c] O God; look with favor on Your anointed one.

10 Better is one day in Your courts than a thousand elsewhere; I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than dwell in the tents of the wicked.

11 For the LORD God is a sun and shield; the LORD bestows favor and honor; no good thing does He withhold from those whose walk is blameless.

12 O LORD Almighty, blessed is the man who trusts in You.

-Psalm 84

In practical, nuts & bolts terms, the United States was never going to intervene militarily in Georgia.  Even if we had the forces in place to do so, it is not in our strategic interest to get into a shooting war with the Russians at a time when we're finishing the job in Iraq, staring down the barrel of Iranian nukes, and dancing on the sharp edge of losing Pakistan to al Qaeda before Afghanistan can be fully stabilized.  Especially as they have clients in our strategic back yard (Cuba and Venezuela) that could potentially hit us hard if we did so.

We are doing what we can, though, even if it doesn't seem like much:

President Bush said Wednesday that the Pentagon had begun a “vigorous and ongoing” humanitarian mission to ease the suffering in Georgia, and that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice would travel to France and then to Georgia to work for a settlement of the crisis…

Mr. Bush said that a transport plane with medical supplies was already on its way to Georgia, and that American air and naval forces would carry out the aid mission. And he said pointedly that Russia must not interfere with aid arriving in Georgia by air, land or water…

However, minutes after Mr. Bush’s comments, President Mikheil Saakashvili of Georgia characterized the import of the American aid as “definitely an American military presence” and called it a “turning point.”…

“What I expected specifically from America was to secure our airport and to secure our seaports,” he went on, concluding that the American presence would do so. “The main thing now is that the Georgian Tbilisi airport will be permanently under control.”

It isn't what Saakashvili was hoping for - nothing less than the aforementioned U.S. military intervention - but Ace and AP see it as a "tripwire," a token American force not unlike our half-century long presence in South Korea that is a deterrent against the Russians going any further (at the very least) and an "encouragement" for them to knuckle under to our demands for their withdrawal (at the wishful-thinking best).

Call me cynical, call me a pessimist, but somehow I don't think Czar Vlad is either intimidated or dazzled by our hollow seat-of-the-pants brinksmanship:

We understand that this current Georgian leadership is a special project of the United States, but one day the United States will have to choose between defending its prestige over a virtual project or real partnership which requires joint action.

More specifically pertaining to Georgia itself, Putin's deputy followed up his ruler's thoughts thusly:

President Dmitri A. Medvedev of Russia said Thursday that Russia would act as an international guarantor of the two pro-Russian enclaves at the center of the crisis with Georgia, and Foreign Minister Sergey V. Lavrov said that Georgia’s territorial integrity was “de facto limited because of the war.”

Together, the comments offered a sharp retort to President Bush’s insistence a day earlier that “the sovereign and territorial integrity of Georgia be respected.”…

According to Reuters, he said: “Russia’s position is unchanged: we will support any decisions taken by the peoples of South Ossetia and Abkhazia in accordance with the U.N. Charter,” adding that “not only do we support but we will guarantee them.”

“One can forget about any talk about Georgia’s territorial integrity because, I believe, it is impossible to persuade South Ossetia and Abkhazia to agree with the logic that they can be forced back into the Georgian state,” Mr. Lavrov said, The Associated Press reported.

Translation: Same as last weekend - the Red Army is back in Georgia to stay.  And right now they're busily engaged in systematically laying waste to the Georgian military bases the defending forces were forced to abandon, including, presumeably, the airfields that we would need to fly in the humanitarian assistance Dubya promised.

Oh, and did I forget to mention the best part of all?  This conquest consolidation on Moscow's part is essentially allowed by the first French-brokered "cease-fire."  Which ought to give you a sneak preview about what will transpire when this mess inevitably goes to the UN, on whose Security Council Russia, don't forget, has a veto.

This situation, in other words, cannot be resolved by "soft power".  Yet we're not in a position to stop the Russians militarily in-theatre, and we don't want a shooting war with a heavily-nuclear armed regime feeling its petro-dollar-fueled Napoleonic oats and with a trigger finger of uncertain itchiness.  So what can we do?

Remember your chess:

Prime Minister Donald Tusk said the United States had agreed to help augment Poland’s defenses with Patriot missiles in exchange for placing ten missile defense interceptors in the eastern European country…

While Washington says the defense system is meant to guard Europe against missile-armed states like Iran, the Kremlin feels it is aimed at Russia’s missile force, and [parliamentary foreign affairs committe chairman Konstantin] Kosachev told the Interfax news agency the deal will spark “a real rise in tensions in Russian-American relations.”…

No, the Kremlin doesn't "feel" that a paltry ten interceptors are aimed at their hundreds-of-times-that-size missile force.  Rather, they recognize the chess move and are so confident in their upper-handedness over us that they feel free to use it to escalate the East-West confrontation further, believing that we will inevitably back down, causing us a proportionately larger loss of prestige.  A conclusion not unreinforced by the remainder of the Polish PM's comments:

Talking about the “mutual commitment” part of the agreement, Tusk said that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization would be too slow in coming to Poland’s defense if Poland were threatened and that the bloc would take “days, weeks to start that machinery.”

“Poland and the Poles do not want to be in alliances in which assistance comes at some point later - it is no good when assistance comes to dead people. Poland wants to be in alliances where assistance comes in the very first hours of - knock on wood - any possible conflict,” Tusk said.

Translation: don't abandon us like you did the Georgians.  Which makes me wonder why we're only putting a measley ten missile interceptors in Poland given that the very action of installing ANY is being used by Putin as a propaganda tool aimed at calling our strategic bluff.

And when Czar Vlad calls a bluff, he doesn't mess around:

Putin is threatening nuclear war if we put ten friggin' missile interceptors in Poland?  Did this really start out as a minor military incursion on the Caucasus Peninsula just a week ago?  Or have we reached the level where it's becoming obvious that Putin is bluffing?

Meanwhile, back in Georgia, the Russians accepted the more balanced cease-fire Secretary Rice brought with her:

The agreement now sets the stage for a Russian troop withdrawal from Georgia after more than a week of warfare. It was not immediately clear if any troops had begun pulling back.

The cease-fire agreement calls for both sides forces to pull back to positions they held before fighting erupted August 8 after Georgia launched a massive barrage to try to take control of the Russian-backed separatist region of South Ossetia. The Russian army quickly overwhelmed the forces of the former Soviet republic neighbor and then drove deep into Georgia.

The plan appears to leave some tense issues open to interpretation, including whether Georgia will be able to send troops back into parts of South Ossetia.

However, not surprisingly, as of today the Russian retreat has yet to materialize:

Bush told reporters at his Texas ranch that Russia took “a hopeful step” earlier in the day with an agreement to cease hostilities and pull back its forces. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev signed the deal at the Black Sea resort of Sochi after meeting with Russia’s Security Council, according to a Russian news agency.

But Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said later that “extra security measures” were necessary before any troops could be removed — a stance that U.S. and Georgian officials said was at odds with the French-negotiated agreement.

Bottom line: the Russian Army went into Georgia because they knew we couldn't stop them; they're staying there because they know we can't, and won't, drive them out.  And they're going to ride that coup as far as we'll let them take it.

Kinda puts our presidential election in better perspective, doesn't it?

Only one in four Americans believes global warming is the biggest environmental challenge facing the world, a new poll reveals.

The ABC News/Planet Green/Stanford University survey found that public concern over the global warming issue has diminished over the past year.

Fewer than half of the poll’s respondents, 47%, think global warming is an important issue to them personally, down from 52% in April 2007.

While 80% believe Earth is warming, that figure is down four percentage points from last year.

Doubts over the science behind the global warming issue still linger in people's minds, according to the poll results reported by the National Journal. Just 30% of respondents said they trust what scientists have to say about the environment "completely" or "a lot," 39% said they trust them "a moderate amount," and 30% said they do not trust them.

Also, nearly 60% of respondents said there is "a lot of disagreement" within the scientific community as to how dangerous climate change is.

According to ABC News' Gary Langer, the diminished concern over global warming coincides with decreased media attention to climate change, in favor of the election and economy. "A database search finds 50% fewer news stories on global warming in the month before this poll was conducted, compared with the month before last year's survey," Langer wrote.

In any case, about seven in ten respondents said they're attempting to reduce their energy consumption by driving less, using less electricity and recycling.

But 63% are in favor of drilling for oil in coastal waters where it is currently not allowed, and 55% support drilling in U.S. wilderness areas where it is not allowed.

It's easy to indulge in all that "go green" nonsense when it doesn't cost you anything, or when that cost is not visible.  The global warming hysteria has always been a lot like a disaster movie.  Like Independence Day, in which viewers got to watch New York City and Los Angeles and Washington, D.C. and Houston laid waste, and landmarks like the Empire State Building, the White House, and the U.S. Capitol obliterated.  It was a lot of rip-roaring, rollicking fun precisely because it wasn't real.  Five years later when the World Trade Center and the Pentagon were demolished for real, the entertainment value mysteriously plummeted.

The climate change crusade was similarly feel-good-esque in the thought that by using a big-ass recycling bin and driving a roller skate and eschewing back yard barbeques, you were doing your part to "save the planet".  You really weren't doing any such thing, because the mere existence of our modern civilization is not a "threat" to the planet, its ecology, or anything else, and even if it was, meaninglessly gauzy gesture-making would have no impact one way or the other.  But it built our self-esteem somehow, and as long as it didn't impact our everyday lives, it was a harmless ego-stroke.

This summer's camel's back-breaking gas price straw changed that equation.  Drastically.  The ecozealots' chickens finally came home to roost.  People are all very-very and to-to about being "green" and all, but not if it means we have to fork over fifty bucks every fill-up even if we're already driving roller skates.  And the quickest way to lose all that environmental goodwill is for greenstremists to get in our faces, thump two fingers in our chest, and tell us we've got to pay even more for gas unless we follow their instructions and be docilely herded into public transit or onto bicycles or behind the wheel of hamster-powered hybrids, freeze in the winter and swelter in the summer "for our own good".  Oh, yes, and be taxed to death to fund all these pie-in-the-sky "renewable alternatives" the damned charlatans have promised for a generation that have never panned out and never will.

Perhaps this helps explain the stunning revival of GOP courage, and even aggressiveness:

Republicans lambasted House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-CA) energy plan Saturday advising her to “get out of the way” if she was not going to accept GOP solutions to the energy crisis.

In her Saturday radio address Pelosi announced that Democrats would consider opening up parts of the outer continental shelf for drilling as a part of a broad new energy plan that will be unveiled in the coming weeks.

The Democratic initiative will also seek to release oil from the seven hundred million barrel Strategic Petroleum Reserve, require oil companies to pay billions of dollars Democrats believe they owe to invest in clean energy resources, increase the use natural gas and create a federal Renewable Electricity Standard.

The panic of Pelosi's Politburo continues to balloon.  They can't hide from the doctrinaire absolutism of their greenstremist wing, they can't hide the disastrous economic consequences from an arroused public that is now wise to them, and they can't bluff or bully the minority party that recognizes a Godsend wedge issue when it sees one and smells blood.

How much has the political momentum shifted inside the Beltway?  Senator "I'd sooner drill in the Grand Canyon than in ANWR" is even coming around, and implicitly leaning on the Senate's "gang of ten" to follow his lead:

In late June, McCain told voters in Missouri and Minnesota that he was open to receiving new information about exploration on Alaska’s coastal plain, but noted: “I certainly haven’t changed my position.”

In an interview with the Weekly Standard aboard his campaign plane last week, McCain made clear he has not ruled out a change in his position – to one that endorses drilling in ANWR. “I continue to examine it,” he said. So does his staff. McCain’s campaign has been quietly studying the ANWR issue and discussing the potential consequences – good and bad – of a policy change.

But in our conversation on August 13, McCain added a new wrinkle. When I asked him if he had consulted [Alaska Governor Sarah] Palin about ANWR, he said that he had not yet done so. He added, “I probably should,” he said. “I will.”

So I called Palin to ask what McCain can expect to hear. The answer is that Palin, who has been mentioned as a possible McCain running mate but has not been vetted, will make a straightforward case for drilling in ANWR. She says McCain’s willingness to take another look at ANWR is “very encouraging.”

If the King of Comitous Compromise is signaling a willingness to take another look at ANWR drilling, especially given his new role as titular head of the GOP, that cannot help but have an impact on the GOP side of the Senate compromisers.  Pulling the Republican contingents on both sides of the Capitol away from frittering away the vast potential political gains of standing with the huge majorities of the public who now favor unfettered domestic energy exploration can only tighten the Dems' self-braided noose tighter around their pencil-necks.  Throw in war in the Caucasus, the return of the Cold War, and its oil-related implications on top of the national security aspects, and the Donks are thrown into full-scale disarray with no place to retreat to.

If they retain the most tenuous link with reality, the majority will "get out of the way," try and salvage control of Congress, and survive to "shut down the dynamo" another day.  But will what even Donk pollster John Zogby is calling Dems' "cockiness," much less their ill-concealed radicalism, allow such consideration of the bigger picture?

Yes, that is a rhetorical question.

Wow. I'm not sure that "answer" could have been much worse. I don't blame Obama for being uncomfortable about his abortion record, especially in that setting, but gee whiz, that's about the worst answer I've ever heard, no matter WHO you're trying to pander to. And of course, he never did really answer the question. McCain's answer was immediate, "At the moment of conception." His pro-life position and his determination on the war are the two reasons I can vote for him...well, other than the simply horrific thought of a President Obama.