by L. Brent Bozell III
September 2, 2008 Tell a friend about this site
When MSNBC’s Chris Matthews suggested in Denver that Barack Obama earned his present elevation in American politics, unlike “showcase appointments” like Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice, he reminded the world of the peculiarity of liberalism. John McCain’s selection of Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate underlined it. Liberals find no joy when Republicans select women or minorities for top positions. They are all fraudulent traitors to their own apparent group interests. Conservative blacks aren’t really black. Conservative Latinos aren’t really Latino. Now, conservative women are somehow not really women.
Newsweek’s Eleanor Clift spoke for her colleagues on the Palin selection: “If the media reaction is anything, it's been literally laughter in many places...In very, very many newsrooms.”
This principle – that Hell hath no fury like a liberal who’s been insulted by a conservative not sticking to white male appointments – explains why President Bush successfully placed two white men on the Supreme Court. Only picking Harriet Miers was outrageous (although her capacity for the job was clearly an issue). Bush saw how upset the Left became when Clarence Thomas was nominated. John McCain could have played safe. He chose to mix things up and pick a woman who matched his tendency to mix things up.
That decision led inexorably to a big, fat Exhibit A of media bias. The media’s treatment of Palin was nothing like their approval for Joe Biden, Obama’s running mate, the week before. The Washington Post called the Biden selection an “infusion of experience and aggressiveness,” and he was “a sharp-witted and energetic foreign policy expert.” There was no mention that Biden was a liberal, or that while National Journal found Obama to be the most liberal Senator in 2007, Biden came in close behind in third place.
When Palin was picked, the Post couldn’t stop pounding away on her conservatism. The lead story underlined: “The self-described 'hockey mom' brings a blue-collar conservatism and strong antiabortion views to the ticket.” Another story on the front-page called her “the pro-gun, antiabortion governor of Alaska.” The caption under her picture noted Palin was “a conservative with strong antiabortion views.”
Next came Exhibit B. The media didn’t simply slam Gov. Palin as a conservative, they went intensely ugly and personal. CNN’s John Roberts quickly suggested she might be a crummy mother: “There's also this issue that on April 18th, she gave birth to a baby with Down's syndrome....Children with Down's syndrome require an awful lot of attention. The role of Vice President, it seems to me, would take up an awful lot of her time, and it raises the issue of how much time will she have to dedicate to her newborn child?”
On the next day, ABC's Good Morning America weekend co-anchor Bill Weir piled on with the disabled-child-neglect attack in an interview with McCain spokesman Mike DuHaime. “Adding to the brutality of a national campaign, the Palin family also has an infant with special needs. What leads you, the Senator, and the Governor to believe that one won't affect the other in the next couple of months?" When DuHaime tried to answer, Weir repeated himself: “She has an infant with special needs. Will that affect her campaigning?” Weir was accurately describing himself when he mentioned “adding to the brutality of a national campaign.”
Then came the media’s heavy rush to cover the news that Palin’s 17-year-old daughter Bristol was pregnant, and would keep the baby and marry the father. Once again, ABC led the media insult machine. They called the baby a “skeleton in the closet,” a strange term for an unborn child, a “bombshell” cynically timed to explode on the day Hurricane Gustav swept ashore. The story emerged in reaction to the left-wing blogsite Daily Kos circulating the incredibly disgusting and wholly inaccurate smear that Gov. Palin somehow faked her latest pregnancy to cover for her daughter’s supposed motherhood of her disabled son.
ABC and CNN also used the Bristol news to lecture the Republicans about their hypocrisy on sex education in high schools, wildly presuming Gov. Palin’s daughter didn’t know how babies were made. The agenda seemed clear: keep Palin constantly under attack, and suggest perhaps McCain should just dump her and go find someone else….for the media to brutalize.
John McCain made a bold choice in not merely picking a woman, but picking a pro-life woman courageous enough to put her motherhood where her mouth is. Now the media want him to pay dearly for it. The idea that they would lecture anyone else about rumor-mongering or “Swift-boating” ought to be laughed off the public stage.
Thursday, September 4, 2008
interview with US magazine editor
This guy is a huge Obama supporter. It is disgusting what they will do.
Would you hire this man to run the most successful and generous corporation in the world?
Suppose for a second that the United States of America is a corporation, and you, a citizen, are a stockholder in that corporation. Further suppose that your corporation has been going through a rough patch for the last half a year or so after 30+ years of strength. And finally, suppose that the current President of your corporation is retiring, and you need to hire a new President. Forgetting for the moment, that your corporation has real enemy’s intent on literally destroying it, would you hire this man?
Imagine that this man comes to you and says he wants to change everything your corporation has done for the past 30 years as the most successful and generous corporation in the world. He doesn’t want to change a few things that your corporation has done successfully for the last 30 years. He wants to change everything. He is saying 100% change.
So you ask this man, have you ever done any of these things before? Have you ever run a corporation of any size? Have you ever been an employee of a corporation that has done the things that you are talking about?
This man replies to you that he has not, but he has heard about it. Then the man goes on to lecture you about all of your failings as stockholders. How you have been a moral failure for not giving more of your corporate earnings to help the poor. How he and only he can make your corporation what it really needs to be. How he is the one you have been waiting for lo these past few centuries.
When you ask this man for a resume, he replies you’ll need a court order to see it. When you ask this man for references, he tells you that he’s got a few new friends that you can talk to who don’t know him very well and have just recently changed their view of him, but other than that, he really hasn’t been close to anyone.
Finally, this man’s wife shows up. She tells you, you better get this man now, because after today, he won’t be available any longer. Oh, and by the way, until you decided to interview him to run your corporation, she had never been proud to be a fellow stockholder in the most successful and generous corporation in the world.
Would you hire this man? Really? Would you?
Imagine that this man comes to you and says he wants to change everything your corporation has done for the past 30 years as the most successful and generous corporation in the world. He doesn’t want to change a few things that your corporation has done successfully for the last 30 years. He wants to change everything. He is saying 100% change.
So you ask this man, have you ever done any of these things before? Have you ever run a corporation of any size? Have you ever been an employee of a corporation that has done the things that you are talking about?
This man replies to you that he has not, but he has heard about it. Then the man goes on to lecture you about all of your failings as stockholders. How you have been a moral failure for not giving more of your corporate earnings to help the poor. How he and only he can make your corporation what it really needs to be. How he is the one you have been waiting for lo these past few centuries.
When you ask this man for a resume, he replies you’ll need a court order to see it. When you ask this man for references, he tells you that he’s got a few new friends that you can talk to who don’t know him very well and have just recently changed their view of him, but other than that, he really hasn’t been close to anyone.
Finally, this man’s wife shows up. She tells you, you better get this man now, because after today, he won’t be available any longer. Oh, and by the way, until you decided to interview him to run your corporation, she had never been proud to be a fellow stockholder in the most successful and generous corporation in the world.
Would you hire this man? Really? Would you?
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
Monday, September 1, 2008
The truth about the Bush presidency
A Brief History of Bush's Time
By Randall Hoven
The current narrative of the Bush Presidency is that it is a failure (believed by 107 of 109 historians surveyed) and that George W. Bush is the worst President in history (believed by 61% of those surveyed historians). Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) said, "The president already has the mark of the American people -- he's the worst president we ever had."
That's one narrative. I have another.
Despite being handed one of the worst situations in history from President Clinton, and being fought tooth and nail by his opponents in government and the media, literally from the day of his election, President George W. Bush persevered to restore prosperity at home and to make the US and the world more free and secure.
The 2000 Election and Transition to Office
On November 7, 2000, voters went to the polls and elected George W. Bush to be President of the United States. After initially conceding defeat in a private phone call to Bush, Al Gore decided instead to contest the outcome in Florida. He sued for various recounts and was joined by the Florida Supreme Court, while Bush fought for counting votes per the rules in place prior to the election.
Complaints that Bush "stole" the election boiled down to two: (1) we should use a method of determining the winner other than the one in the Constitution, and (2) we should use a method of determining "voter intent" other than by counting legally cast ballots per the rules in place prior to the election.
Later recounts would show that George W. Bush would have won the election in Florida under any method considered by either Al Gore or the Florida Supreme Court.
"The Miami Herald and USA Today reported George W. Bush would have widened his 537-vote victory to a 1,665-vote margin if the recount ordered by the Florida Supreme Court would have been allowed to continue."
Al Gore would not concede in public until December 13, more than a month after the election. But the Clinton administration denied the Bush team the keys to the transition office set up two blocks from the White House and waiting since November 8, until December 15. Normally a newly-elected President is provided a transition office the day after the election. George W. Bush was finally allowed to use his just 36 days before being sworn in as President, or less than half the transition time allowed other Presidents-elect.
The Pre-Bush Situation and His First Eight Months
A year before Bush took office, the stock market peaked and subsequently declined 8% by the end of 2000. The last four fiscal quarters under President Clinton showed steadily declining GDP growth rates of 4.8, 3.5, 2.4, and 1.9 percent, respectively. When Bush took office, the US Government was still operating under the fiscal budget signed by President Clinton, and would remain so for more than another eight months. Within six weeks of Bush being sworn in, the economy was officially in recession.
On the defense front, President Bush was handed a smoldering crisis that had been brewing throughout President Clinton's two terms.
* The World Trade Center was bombed by Islamists in 1993, killing six and injuring 1,042.
* We lost 18 US Special Ops forces in Mogadishu while fighting Islamist allies of Osama bin Laden.
* Osama bin Laden declared war against the U.S. in his fatwa of 1996.
* The Khobar Towers used to house our servicemen in Saudi Arabia were bombed by Islamists in 1996, killing 19 US servicemen.
* Our embassies in Tanzania and Kenya were bombed in 1998 by bin Laden supported Islamists, killing at least 223 and injuring thousands.
* Pakistan and India both successfully tested nuclear warheads in 1998, to the surprise of our CIA.
* The USS Cole was bombed in 2000 by Islamists, killing 17 US sailors.
* In Israel, the Oslo accords had broken down, the PLO had rejected the most generous "peace for land" deal ever offered, and the intifada was back in business by the end of 2000.
* Nations pursuing nuclear weapon capability (beyond Pakistan and India, who had it by 1998) were North Korea, Iran, Iraq and Libya.
Saddam Hussein's Iraq had kicked out the UN weapons inspectors in 1998 and was in defiance of multiple UN resolutions from 1991 through 2000. Saddam's Iraq had tried to assassinate former President Bush and fired thousands of times at US and coalition forces enforcing the resolutions of the United Nations.
Throughout this time, President Clinton's administration forbade communications between the CIA and the FBI regarding terrorists or terrorist activities. Clinton withdrew US forces from Somalia shortly after the Mogadishu incident. And he treated the terrorist incidents as crimes to be dealt with by our legal system.
When he did send missiles into Iraq, he made sure it was at night so no one would get hurt. According to the Washington Post,
"Clinton ordered the attack Friday, but the raid was delayed a day so it would not fall on the Muslim sabbath... The missiles struck late at night -- between 1 a.m. and 2 a.m. Baghdad time -- because Clinton wished to minimize possible deaths of innocent civilians."
I'm thinking a strike at 2 am would also minimize possible deaths of guilty Baathists.
On September 11, 2001, or less than eight months after President Bush took office, Islamist terrorists perpetrated the worst attack by foreigners on US soil since the burning of Washington, DC, in 1812, killing almost 3,000 civilians. The attackers had been planning and preparing it for five years.
That was President Bush's welcome to office. A recession within two months. The 9/11 attacks within eight months. And an Iraq in continual defiance of its terms of surrender, multiple UN resolutions and WMD inspectors. And this after being given only half the transition time as usual.
The Following Seven Years
By November 2001 the recession was officially over, just one month under Bush's own budget, weeks after 9/11 and just 10 months into a Bush Presidency. It was an historically short and shallow recession. From 2003 through 2006, all under President Bush and a Republican Congress, real GDP grew over 3% per year, considered a healthy and sustainable pace. By early 2008, the real economy had grown about 20% since Bush took office. Since President Bush took office, the economy has grown in every single fiscal quarter; there has been no quarter of negative real growth.
Are you better off now than you were eight years ago? If you are anywhere near average, yes. Personal, disposable, inflation-adjusted income grew 9% in the first six years under Bush. Since Bush has been President, the unemployment rate has remained under 6.3% and averaged 5.2% (In Clinton's eight years it remained under 7.3% and also averaged 5.2%.)
On the foreign front, President Bush used "aggressive diplomacy" to convince Pakistan to support us in fighting against Osama bin Laden and the Taliban and to allow us insight into the status of its nuclear weapons. India, the other new member of the nuclear club, remained on good terms with us throughout.
President Bush, with Congressional support, our NATO allies and our first-rate military, freed the people of Afghanistan from the Taliban warlords, helped install a democracy there, captured or killed hundreds of al Qaida there and drove those remaining, probably including Osama bin Laden and his top commanders, to remote mountains and caves. By also cutting off funding sources and communications channels, al Qaida appears to have been rendered ineffective as a coordinated network of terrorists under any kind of effective command and control. It's possible ad hoc "cells" of those sympathetic to al Qaida might still do some damage on US soil, but none have so far.
President Bush, with large and bipartisan majorities in both houses of Congress, support from more than 45 countries and our first-rate military, freed the people of Iraq from Saddam Hussein, helped install a democracy there, and captured or killed hundreds of al Qaida, radical Islamists and other terrorists there. Saddam's WMD capabilities, programs and remaining weapons were removed from an outlaw regime. I have written elsewhere on the justification of the Iraq war, which was supported by both pre-war and post-war intelligence.
President Bush, with diplomacy, the example of Iraq and the assistance of foreign allies, convinced Libya to cease its pursuit of nuclear weapons.
President Bush, using diplomacy and working with China, Japan and South Korea, appears to have reached a breakthrough with North Korea, getting it to dismantle its plutonium creating sites and to allow intrusive inspections. While this all needs to be finalized and verified, such progress illustrates President Bush's skill at effective diplomacy - one that has real results, not paper promises quickly broken and never verified.
Iran is still a problem, but even there President Bush is waging diplomacy in concert with our allies and the United Nations.
In short, all the new and major WMD proliferation threats were dealt with one way or another: Pakistan, North Korea, Iran, Iraq, Libya. They are not all put to rest, but about three-and-a-half of the five biggies appear to have been dealt with sufficiently. And terrorists, even those inside Iraq and Afghanistan at this point, seem to be kept at bay for now as well.
I think these are tremendous achievements, and ones that would not have occurred under either a President Gore or President Kerry.
But what have been the costs? In dollars, defense spending has gone from 3% of GDP to 4%. That's it -- a level that is still below where it was for over 50 years, from World War II through 1994.
In US lives, 4,147 servicemen lost their lives due to hostile or non-hostile action in Iraq to date. Each lost life is a tragedy, and I am deeply grateful to our lost troops and their families. From 2001 to 2006, the worst year for active military duty deaths was 2005, with 1,941 deaths due to all causes. In 1980, President Carter's last year, there were 2,392 such deaths in a larger military establishment. Each year in which we had troops engaged in both Iraq and Afghanistan saw fewer US military deaths than any year from 1980 through 1987, all years without major conflicts. The major conflicts of World War II, Korea and Vietnam had 405,399, 36,574, and 58,209 fatalities, respectively.
Judging A President
"However tempting it might be to some, when much trouble lies ahead, to step aside adroitly and put someone else up to take the blows, I do not intend to take that cowardly course, but, on the contrary, to stand to my post and persevere in accordance with my duty as I see it."
If we use these words of Winston Churchill to judge our presidents, did President Bush "step aside adroitly" or did he stand his post and "persevere"? He has surely taken the blows.
By Randall Hoven
The current narrative of the Bush Presidency is that it is a failure (believed by 107 of 109 historians surveyed) and that George W. Bush is the worst President in history (believed by 61% of those surveyed historians). Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) said, "The president already has the mark of the American people -- he's the worst president we ever had."
That's one narrative. I have another.
Despite being handed one of the worst situations in history from President Clinton, and being fought tooth and nail by his opponents in government and the media, literally from the day of his election, President George W. Bush persevered to restore prosperity at home and to make the US and the world more free and secure.
The 2000 Election and Transition to Office
On November 7, 2000, voters went to the polls and elected George W. Bush to be President of the United States. After initially conceding defeat in a private phone call to Bush, Al Gore decided instead to contest the outcome in Florida. He sued for various recounts and was joined by the Florida Supreme Court, while Bush fought for counting votes per the rules in place prior to the election.
Complaints that Bush "stole" the election boiled down to two: (1) we should use a method of determining the winner other than the one in the Constitution, and (2) we should use a method of determining "voter intent" other than by counting legally cast ballots per the rules in place prior to the election.
Later recounts would show that George W. Bush would have won the election in Florida under any method considered by either Al Gore or the Florida Supreme Court.
"The Miami Herald and USA Today reported George W. Bush would have widened his 537-vote victory to a 1,665-vote margin if the recount ordered by the Florida Supreme Court would have been allowed to continue."
Al Gore would not concede in public until December 13, more than a month after the election. But the Clinton administration denied the Bush team the keys to the transition office set up two blocks from the White House and waiting since November 8, until December 15. Normally a newly-elected President is provided a transition office the day after the election. George W. Bush was finally allowed to use his just 36 days before being sworn in as President, or less than half the transition time allowed other Presidents-elect.
The Pre-Bush Situation and His First Eight Months
A year before Bush took office, the stock market peaked and subsequently declined 8% by the end of 2000. The last four fiscal quarters under President Clinton showed steadily declining GDP growth rates of 4.8, 3.5, 2.4, and 1.9 percent, respectively. When Bush took office, the US Government was still operating under the fiscal budget signed by President Clinton, and would remain so for more than another eight months. Within six weeks of Bush being sworn in, the economy was officially in recession.
On the defense front, President Bush was handed a smoldering crisis that had been brewing throughout President Clinton's two terms.
* The World Trade Center was bombed by Islamists in 1993, killing six and injuring 1,042.
* We lost 18 US Special Ops forces in Mogadishu while fighting Islamist allies of Osama bin Laden.
* Osama bin Laden declared war against the U.S. in his fatwa of 1996.
* The Khobar Towers used to house our servicemen in Saudi Arabia were bombed by Islamists in 1996, killing 19 US servicemen.
* Our embassies in Tanzania and Kenya were bombed in 1998 by bin Laden supported Islamists, killing at least 223 and injuring thousands.
* Pakistan and India both successfully tested nuclear warheads in 1998, to the surprise of our CIA.
* The USS Cole was bombed in 2000 by Islamists, killing 17 US sailors.
* In Israel, the Oslo accords had broken down, the PLO had rejected the most generous "peace for land" deal ever offered, and the intifada was back in business by the end of 2000.
* Nations pursuing nuclear weapon capability (beyond Pakistan and India, who had it by 1998) were North Korea, Iran, Iraq and Libya.
Saddam Hussein's Iraq had kicked out the UN weapons inspectors in 1998 and was in defiance of multiple UN resolutions from 1991 through 2000. Saddam's Iraq had tried to assassinate former President Bush and fired thousands of times at US and coalition forces enforcing the resolutions of the United Nations.
Throughout this time, President Clinton's administration forbade communications between the CIA and the FBI regarding terrorists or terrorist activities. Clinton withdrew US forces from Somalia shortly after the Mogadishu incident. And he treated the terrorist incidents as crimes to be dealt with by our legal system.
When he did send missiles into Iraq, he made sure it was at night so no one would get hurt. According to the Washington Post,
"Clinton ordered the attack Friday, but the raid was delayed a day so it would not fall on the Muslim sabbath... The missiles struck late at night -- between 1 a.m. and 2 a.m. Baghdad time -- because Clinton wished to minimize possible deaths of innocent civilians."
I'm thinking a strike at 2 am would also minimize possible deaths of guilty Baathists.
On September 11, 2001, or less than eight months after President Bush took office, Islamist terrorists perpetrated the worst attack by foreigners on US soil since the burning of Washington, DC, in 1812, killing almost 3,000 civilians. The attackers had been planning and preparing it for five years.
That was President Bush's welcome to office. A recession within two months. The 9/11 attacks within eight months. And an Iraq in continual defiance of its terms of surrender, multiple UN resolutions and WMD inspectors. And this after being given only half the transition time as usual.
The Following Seven Years
By November 2001 the recession was officially over, just one month under Bush's own budget, weeks after 9/11 and just 10 months into a Bush Presidency. It was an historically short and shallow recession. From 2003 through 2006, all under President Bush and a Republican Congress, real GDP grew over 3% per year, considered a healthy and sustainable pace. By early 2008, the real economy had grown about 20% since Bush took office. Since President Bush took office, the economy has grown in every single fiscal quarter; there has been no quarter of negative real growth.
Are you better off now than you were eight years ago? If you are anywhere near average, yes. Personal, disposable, inflation-adjusted income grew 9% in the first six years under Bush. Since Bush has been President, the unemployment rate has remained under 6.3% and averaged 5.2% (In Clinton's eight years it remained under 7.3% and also averaged 5.2%.)
On the foreign front, President Bush used "aggressive diplomacy" to convince Pakistan to support us in fighting against Osama bin Laden and the Taliban and to allow us insight into the status of its nuclear weapons. India, the other new member of the nuclear club, remained on good terms with us throughout.
President Bush, with Congressional support, our NATO allies and our first-rate military, freed the people of Afghanistan from the Taliban warlords, helped install a democracy there, captured or killed hundreds of al Qaida there and drove those remaining, probably including Osama bin Laden and his top commanders, to remote mountains and caves. By also cutting off funding sources and communications channels, al Qaida appears to have been rendered ineffective as a coordinated network of terrorists under any kind of effective command and control. It's possible ad hoc "cells" of those sympathetic to al Qaida might still do some damage on US soil, but none have so far.
President Bush, with large and bipartisan majorities in both houses of Congress, support from more than 45 countries and our first-rate military, freed the people of Iraq from Saddam Hussein, helped install a democracy there, and captured or killed hundreds of al Qaida, radical Islamists and other terrorists there. Saddam's WMD capabilities, programs and remaining weapons were removed from an outlaw regime. I have written elsewhere on the justification of the Iraq war, which was supported by both pre-war and post-war intelligence.
President Bush, with diplomacy, the example of Iraq and the assistance of foreign allies, convinced Libya to cease its pursuit of nuclear weapons.
President Bush, using diplomacy and working with China, Japan and South Korea, appears to have reached a breakthrough with North Korea, getting it to dismantle its plutonium creating sites and to allow intrusive inspections. While this all needs to be finalized and verified, such progress illustrates President Bush's skill at effective diplomacy - one that has real results, not paper promises quickly broken and never verified.
Iran is still a problem, but even there President Bush is waging diplomacy in concert with our allies and the United Nations.
In short, all the new and major WMD proliferation threats were dealt with one way or another: Pakistan, North Korea, Iran, Iraq, Libya. They are not all put to rest, but about three-and-a-half of the five biggies appear to have been dealt with sufficiently. And terrorists, even those inside Iraq and Afghanistan at this point, seem to be kept at bay for now as well.
I think these are tremendous achievements, and ones that would not have occurred under either a President Gore or President Kerry.
But what have been the costs? In dollars, defense spending has gone from 3% of GDP to 4%. That's it -- a level that is still below where it was for over 50 years, from World War II through 1994.
In US lives, 4,147 servicemen lost their lives due to hostile or non-hostile action in Iraq to date. Each lost life is a tragedy, and I am deeply grateful to our lost troops and their families. From 2001 to 2006, the worst year for active military duty deaths was 2005, with 1,941 deaths due to all causes. In 1980, President Carter's last year, there were 2,392 such deaths in a larger military establishment. Each year in which we had troops engaged in both Iraq and Afghanistan saw fewer US military deaths than any year from 1980 through 1987, all years without major conflicts. The major conflicts of World War II, Korea and Vietnam had 405,399, 36,574, and 58,209 fatalities, respectively.
Judging A President
"However tempting it might be to some, when much trouble lies ahead, to step aside adroitly and put someone else up to take the blows, I do not intend to take that cowardly course, but, on the contrary, to stand to my post and persevere in accordance with my duty as I see it."
If we use these words of Winston Churchill to judge our presidents, did President Bush "step aside adroitly" or did he stand his post and "persevere"? He has surely taken the blows.
Sunday, August 24, 2008
An interesting story from Newsbusters
MSM Ignores Democrat Lawsuit Against Obama
By P.J. Gladnick (Bio | Archive)
August 22, 2008 - 16:08 ET
Imagine if a prominent Mitt Romney supporter who was a former Deputy Attorney General of Pennsylvania as well as former Republican Party chair in Montgomery County in that state had filed a lawsuit against John McCain questioning his eligibility to become president. How many milliseconds after the filing of that lawsuit do you think it would take for that news to be prominently featured on the New York Times website as well as the many other MSM websites? Well, something very much like that has happened only instead of a Republican suing McCain it was Democrat Philip J. Berg, a Hillary Clinton supporter and former Deputy Attorney General as well as former Democrat Party chair for Montgomery county, who filed a lawsuit yesterday against Barack Obama to keep the DNC from nominating him because Berg claims he is ineligible to become president. So far there has been a collective yawn from the MSM to this news. The one exception was a very small blurb in the Philadelphia News Clout section:
Barack Obama's presidential campaign has faced so many false rumors about his family history that it has put his birth certificate on the Internet: he was born in Honolulu, nearly two years after Hawaii became a state, making Obama a U.S. citizen by birth.
But that hasn't stopped Montgomery County lawyer Philip J. Berg from challenging Obama's qualifications to be president.
Berg, a Hillary Clinton supporter, announced he's filing a federal lawsuit today, claiming that Obama lost his citizenship when his mother relocated the family to Indonesia when Barack was a boy.
Under the law, however, moving to a foreign country does not negate an American's citizenship.
Berg said that he's acting on his own, not as an agent for the Clinton campaign. Republicans were prepared to file a similar lawsuit after the Democratic convention, he said.
To find out what the real details are of this lawsuit we once again, as with the John Edwards scandal, have to rely on the blogosphere. One of the blogs which provides detailed information about this lawsuit is legal writer Jeff Schreiber's America's Right:
A prominent Philadelphia attorney and Hillary Clinton supporter filed suit this afternoon in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania against Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, the Democratic National Committee and the Federal Election Commission. The action seeks an injunction preventing the senator from continuing his candidacy and a court order enjoining the DNC from nominating him next week, all on grounds that Sen. Obama is constitutionally ineligible to run for and hold the office of President of the United States.
Phillip Berg, the filing attorney, is a former gubernatorial and senatorial candidate, former chair of the Democratic Party in Montgomery (PA) County, former member of the Democratic State Committee, and former Deputy Attorney General of Pennsylvania. According to Berg, he filed the suit--just days before the DNC is to hold its nominating convention in Denver--for the health of the Democratic Party.
"I filed this action at this time," Berg stated, "to avoid the obvious problems that will occur when the Republican Party raises these issues after Obama is nominated.".
Berg cited a number of unanswered questions regarding the Illinois senator's background, and in today's lawsuit maintained that Sen. Obama is not a natural born U.S. citizen or that, if he ever was, he lost his citizenship when he was adopted in Indonesia. Berg also cites what he calls "dual loyalties" due to his citizenship and ties with Kenya and Indonesia.
Even if Sen. Obama can prove his U.S. citizenship, Berg stated, citing the senator's use of a birth certificate from the state of Hawaii verified as a forgery by three independent document forensic experts, the issue of "multi-citizenship with responsibilities owed to and allegiance to other countries" remains on the table.
In the lawsuit, Berg states that Sen. Obama was born in Kenya, and not in Hawaii as the senator maintains. Before giving birth, according to the lawsuit, Obama's mother traveled to Kenya with his father but was prevented from flying back to Hawaii because of the late stage of her pregnancy, "apparently a normal restriction to avoid births during a flight." As Sen. Obama's own paternal grandmother, half-brother and half-sister have also claimed, Berg maintains that Stanley Ann Dunham--Obama's mother--gave birth to little Barack in Kenya and subsequently flew to Hawaii to register the birth.
Berg cites inconsistent accounts of Sen. Obama's birth, including reports that he was born at two separate hospitals--Kapiolani Hospital and Queens Hospital--in Honolulu, as well a profound lack of birthing records for Stanley Ann Dunham, though simple "registry of birth" records for Barack Obama are available in a Hawaiian public records office.
Should Sen. Obama truly have been born in Kenya, Berg writes, the laws on the books at the time of his birth hold that U.S. citizenship may only pass to a child born overseas to a U.S. citizen parent and non-citizen parent if the former was at least 19 years of age. Sen. Obama's mother was only 18 at the time. Therefore, because U.S. citizenship could not legally be passed on to him, Obama could not be registered as a "natural born" citizen and would therefore be ineligible to seek the presidency pursuant to Article II, Section 1 of the United States Constitution.
Moreover, even if Sen. Obama could have somehow been deemed "natural born," that citizenship was lost in or around 1967 when he and his mother took up residency in Indonesia, where Stanley Ann Dunham married Lolo Soetoro, an Indonesian citizen. Berg also states that he possesses copies of Sen. Obama's registration to Fransiskus Assisi School In Jakarta, Indonesia which clearly show that he was registered under the name "Barry Soetoro" and his citizenship listed as Indonesian.
The Hawaiian birth certificate, Berg says, is a forgery. In the suit, the attorney states that the birth certificate on record is a forgery, has been identified as such by three independent document forensic experts, and actually belonged to Maya Kasandra Soetoro, Sen. Obama's half-sister.
"Voters donated money, goods and services to elect a nominee and were defrauded by Sen. Obama's lies and obfuscations," Berg stated. "If the DNC officers ... had performed one ounce of due diligence we would not find ourselves in this emergency predicament, one week away from making a person the nominee who has lost their citizenship as a child and failed to even perform the basic steps of regaining citizenship as prescribed by constitutional laws."
"It is unfair to the country," he continued, "for candidates of either party to become the nominee when there is any question of the ability to serve if elected."
Don't hold your breath waiting for the MSM to cover this lawsuit story but if you want the latest information as it breaks, check out the updates at the America's Right blog.
By P.J. Gladnick (Bio | Archive)
August 22, 2008 - 16:08 ET
Imagine if a prominent Mitt Romney supporter who was a former Deputy Attorney General of Pennsylvania as well as former Republican Party chair in Montgomery County in that state had filed a lawsuit against John McCain questioning his eligibility to become president. How many milliseconds after the filing of that lawsuit do you think it would take for that news to be prominently featured on the New York Times website as well as the many other MSM websites? Well, something very much like that has happened only instead of a Republican suing McCain it was Democrat Philip J. Berg, a Hillary Clinton supporter and former Deputy Attorney General as well as former Democrat Party chair for Montgomery county, who filed a lawsuit yesterday against Barack Obama to keep the DNC from nominating him because Berg claims he is ineligible to become president. So far there has been a collective yawn from the MSM to this news. The one exception was a very small blurb in the Philadelphia News Clout section:
Barack Obama's presidential campaign has faced so many false rumors about his family history that it has put his birth certificate on the Internet: he was born in Honolulu, nearly two years after Hawaii became a state, making Obama a U.S. citizen by birth.
But that hasn't stopped Montgomery County lawyer Philip J. Berg from challenging Obama's qualifications to be president.
Berg, a Hillary Clinton supporter, announced he's filing a federal lawsuit today, claiming that Obama lost his citizenship when his mother relocated the family to Indonesia when Barack was a boy.
Under the law, however, moving to a foreign country does not negate an American's citizenship.
Berg said that he's acting on his own, not as an agent for the Clinton campaign. Republicans were prepared to file a similar lawsuit after the Democratic convention, he said.
To find out what the real details are of this lawsuit we once again, as with the John Edwards scandal, have to rely on the blogosphere. One of the blogs which provides detailed information about this lawsuit is legal writer Jeff Schreiber's America's Right:
A prominent Philadelphia attorney and Hillary Clinton supporter filed suit this afternoon in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania against Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, the Democratic National Committee and the Federal Election Commission. The action seeks an injunction preventing the senator from continuing his candidacy and a court order enjoining the DNC from nominating him next week, all on grounds that Sen. Obama is constitutionally ineligible to run for and hold the office of President of the United States.
Phillip Berg, the filing attorney, is a former gubernatorial and senatorial candidate, former chair of the Democratic Party in Montgomery (PA) County, former member of the Democratic State Committee, and former Deputy Attorney General of Pennsylvania. According to Berg, he filed the suit--just days before the DNC is to hold its nominating convention in Denver--for the health of the Democratic Party.
"I filed this action at this time," Berg stated, "to avoid the obvious problems that will occur when the Republican Party raises these issues after Obama is nominated.".
Berg cited a number of unanswered questions regarding the Illinois senator's background, and in today's lawsuit maintained that Sen. Obama is not a natural born U.S. citizen or that, if he ever was, he lost his citizenship when he was adopted in Indonesia. Berg also cites what he calls "dual loyalties" due to his citizenship and ties with Kenya and Indonesia.
Even if Sen. Obama can prove his U.S. citizenship, Berg stated, citing the senator's use of a birth certificate from the state of Hawaii verified as a forgery by three independent document forensic experts, the issue of "multi-citizenship with responsibilities owed to and allegiance to other countries" remains on the table.
In the lawsuit, Berg states that Sen. Obama was born in Kenya, and not in Hawaii as the senator maintains. Before giving birth, according to the lawsuit, Obama's mother traveled to Kenya with his father but was prevented from flying back to Hawaii because of the late stage of her pregnancy, "apparently a normal restriction to avoid births during a flight." As Sen. Obama's own paternal grandmother, half-brother and half-sister have also claimed, Berg maintains that Stanley Ann Dunham--Obama's mother--gave birth to little Barack in Kenya and subsequently flew to Hawaii to register the birth.
Berg cites inconsistent accounts of Sen. Obama's birth, including reports that he was born at two separate hospitals--Kapiolani Hospital and Queens Hospital--in Honolulu, as well a profound lack of birthing records for Stanley Ann Dunham, though simple "registry of birth" records for Barack Obama are available in a Hawaiian public records office.
Should Sen. Obama truly have been born in Kenya, Berg writes, the laws on the books at the time of his birth hold that U.S. citizenship may only pass to a child born overseas to a U.S. citizen parent and non-citizen parent if the former was at least 19 years of age. Sen. Obama's mother was only 18 at the time. Therefore, because U.S. citizenship could not legally be passed on to him, Obama could not be registered as a "natural born" citizen and would therefore be ineligible to seek the presidency pursuant to Article II, Section 1 of the United States Constitution.
Moreover, even if Sen. Obama could have somehow been deemed "natural born," that citizenship was lost in or around 1967 when he and his mother took up residency in Indonesia, where Stanley Ann Dunham married Lolo Soetoro, an Indonesian citizen. Berg also states that he possesses copies of Sen. Obama's registration to Fransiskus Assisi School In Jakarta, Indonesia which clearly show that he was registered under the name "Barry Soetoro" and his citizenship listed as Indonesian.
The Hawaiian birth certificate, Berg says, is a forgery. In the suit, the attorney states that the birth certificate on record is a forgery, has been identified as such by three independent document forensic experts, and actually belonged to Maya Kasandra Soetoro, Sen. Obama's half-sister.
"Voters donated money, goods and services to elect a nominee and were defrauded by Sen. Obama's lies and obfuscations," Berg stated. "If the DNC officers ... had performed one ounce of due diligence we would not find ourselves in this emergency predicament, one week away from making a person the nominee who has lost their citizenship as a child and failed to even perform the basic steps of regaining citizenship as prescribed by constitutional laws."
"It is unfair to the country," he continued, "for candidates of either party to become the nominee when there is any question of the ability to serve if elected."
Don't hold your breath waiting for the MSM to cover this lawsuit story but if you want the latest information as it breaks, check out the updates at the America's Right blog.
Michelle Obama's Hospital Shuns Uninsured Poor People
Presumptive Democrat presidential nominee Barack Obama has positioned himself as the champion of the poor and all those that can't afford health insurance.
Maybe he should direct his efforts to the hospital his wife Michelle works for, as it appears the University of Chicago Medical Center "steers patients who don't have private insurance -- primarily poor, black people -- to other health care facilities."
As reported by the Chicago Sun-Times Saturday (emphasis added throughout, h/t NBer saw the light, photo courtesy NY Daily News):
Maybe he should direct his efforts to the hospital his wife Michelle works for, as it appears the University of Chicago Medical Center "steers patients who don't have private insurance -- primarily poor, black people -- to other health care facilities."
As reported by the Chicago Sun-Times Saturday (emphasis added throughout, h/t NBer saw the light, photo courtesy NY Daily News):
Obamas wants change, he picks a vp that has been part ot the problem in the Senate for over 30 years.
Putting the Biden Pick in Perspective
Posted by: Erick Erickson
Saturday, August 23, 2008 at 08:02PM
48 Comments
1.
When Joe Biden entered the United States Senate, John McCain was in his fifth year of captivity at the Hanoi Hilton.
2.
Barry Obama was eight when Biden began his Senate career.
3.
Nixon was starting his second term as President.
Barack Obama's campaign says Joe Biden is "not of Washington." Linda Douglass, formerly of ABC News and now an Obama hack (not that it'd be different were she still at ABC) told Wolf Blitzer, "you know, the thing is, he is not of washington. he is, as you well know, wolf, he doesn't own a home in washington. he goes home every single night to his family in delaware."
What spin. The man went to Washington while McCain was still being tortured and yet McCain is somehow more of Washington that Biden? Give me a freakin' break.
Posted by: Erick Erickson
Saturday, August 23, 2008 at 08:02PM
48 Comments
1.
When Joe Biden entered the United States Senate, John McCain was in his fifth year of captivity at the Hanoi Hilton.
2.
Barry Obama was eight when Biden began his Senate career.
3.
Nixon was starting his second term as President.
Barack Obama's campaign says Joe Biden is "not of Washington." Linda Douglass, formerly of ABC News and now an Obama hack (not that it'd be different were she still at ABC) told Wolf Blitzer, "you know, the thing is, he is not of washington. he is, as you well know, wolf, he doesn't own a home in washington. he goes home every single night to his family in delaware."
What spin. The man went to Washington while McCain was still being tortured and yet McCain is somehow more of Washington that Biden? Give me a freakin' break.
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