David Brooks’ article in the NYT 6/20/08 sums up what is by now abundantly clear about Barack Obama.  He is the epitome of pure unadulterated political ambition.  That is the simple truth underlying the audacity inherent in Obama challenging Hillary Clinton for the presidency.  That is the reason he discards his past attachments (Pfleger, TUCC, his grandmother etc) with such ease, along with any policy positions (eg. campaign finance reform) that hamper his quest for the White House.  His memoir is a fiction, a construct written by a man who decided at a Jesse Jackson speech (Columbia, 1984) to orient his life around becoming the first black president.  He was never dreaming of his father.  He was planning to become the first Black Father of this nation.  His Afri-Kansan ergo African American identity itself is a politically expedient affectation, honed to advantage in Southside Chicago politics.  Reverend Wright knew this when he called Obama a politician who “says what politicians say”.   So the man who brought Barack to Jesus, who was his mentor for 20 years, went under the bus with the rest of Obama’s past.  That blank slate, the one on which we can all write our hopes and dreams, may already be filled in with hubristic jive.  Red State… Blue State… Purple state? What a hopelessly insincere nursery rhyme that one is.  The only color purple he sees lies on the purple robes of power he dreams of soon wearing.  But, oh how remarkably marketable is America’s first Machiavellian Leftist. A Niebuhr reading Nietzschean, a real crowd pleaser with the will to power.  The new politics you say?  I think we've been reading this story for 2500 years.  Audacity.  Ambition.  Arrogance.   Nothing new there.  So if he wins the general election, don’t be surprised if we catch some Obama troll on November 5th measuring off a plot of ground on the Washington Mall for his memorial.   Right next to Lincoln's.
 
In politics as in war:  L’audace, l’audace.  Toujours l’audace.  Thus spoke Barack Obama.

The presidential race has created a monster this election season.  No, not Barack Obama.  The voting public.  Their post June 4th hangover has now worn off and they are hungry for more entertainment.  The Democrats need to capture the moment, reinvigorate this election with a little more dynamism.  After all, that's what they're all about this year.  And since they've gambled on junior Senator Obama as their nominee, they should double down and go for broke.  Obama should pick that ex-Marine dynamo, Jim Webb, as his running mate.  Let's evaluate the Pros and Cons for Obama:  

Brings national security expertise to the ticket.
Acknowledges you have none.

Instant Redneck cred.  Helps in PA and OH.
Reverend Wright'll have a meltdown.  Might lose Chicago.

Multicultural photo ops:  Afri-Kansan, African American, Redneck American, Asian American.
He may be in camouflage with a KBar in his teeth.

Discount cigarettes for four years.  Helps with those college loans.
You might have to drink beer and eat possum pie.

Good backup body guard.  Always armed and dangerous.
Can't mention gun control.  Always armed and dangerous.
 
Straight talker, says it like it is.
Might punch you if you don't believe him.

He can show you how to salute the flag.
He might drop you for push ups if you screw it up.

Helps beat McCain to the Vet Vote.
Women Vets p*ss him off and it shows.

You both are writers.  Common bond.
He knows the difference between fiction and non-fiction.

Words matter to him as well.
He may hold you to yours.  Semper Fi?

Before you talk the talk, you gotta walk the walk?  Well, maybe not.  If you talk the talk better than anyone else, it appears, you may be excused from this requirement.  Ironic that AllTalk Barack faces (and will likely defeat) the one Republican who has surely walked the walk.  But then, history is full of just such ironies.  With his speeches Obama may very well fool a majority of Americans into voting for him this election.  They seemingly wish to be fooled.  The alternative, John McCain, is teleprompter challenged and telegenically deficient.  And while he's no fool, McCain is a known entity who fools no one.  Don't expect Obama to go one-on-one with him in those townhall debates where McCain has a chance to parlez some points.  Obama will stay scripted by his handlers, recycling and refining his speeches with ever more brazen comments designed to capture the political middle ground.   And his speaking style is pure political genius.  Where did it come from?

Like so much else about Obama, this is affectation. The African American religious cadence of Obama's speeches derives from black (and white) sermonizing tradition in the South, which was transplanted to Chicago where he learned it, no doubt, at TUCC.  It's like Soul Food Day at Occidental College.  You consume a bit of Southern culture thinking it is something else, like black solidarity or whatever.  Obama uses this manner of speaking to confirm his I-am-American bona fides.  LA to Southside via Columbia and Harvard.  He finally learned to speak American.  Sounds so down home, does our Chicago homey.  And check out Obama's hand movements during his speeches.  Fascinating.  He alternately gestures with both hands, the left and right sides of his body becoming mirror images in form and function.  I doubt this is accidental.  The choreographed message is loud and clear:  Biracial, metrosexual and politically ambidextrous.  All things to all people.

While the stylistics of his speeches are now perfected, the content continues to evolve.  For example, with both the Michigan speech and the one on Father's Day, Obama offered a prescription for correcting what ails America's youth.  I hope his young Energizer Bunny acolytes were listening.  He has plans for them, similar to those McCain once voiced:  you all need to give something back to your country.  Peace Corps, military service, community activism.  Forget about post-college employment where you can lounge around with a laptop writing worthless internet "content".  Think more like five years in Southside Chicago teaching disaffected inner city gangsta wannabes to read.  No slack for them either.  And together with his AIPAC speech, Obama has now shamelessly bolted to middle ground, while simultaneously offering a little something for everyone.  A chicken in every pot, a shotgun in every gun rack.  Jerusalem solely for the Jews.  It all rolls off the tongue so easily.  Bill Clinton should thank his lucky stars that Obama wasn't old enough to run against him in 1992.  Hillary gave him a fight, but Obama would've beaten Bill easily.  He's the new improved Panderer-in-Chief.  And he out-Reagans Reagan in the feel-good department to boot.  He's gonna walk the talk right up Pennsylvania Avenue.   And we're foolish enough to let him.  He once referred to himself as a blank slate on which voters write their own dreams.  That may be the truest thing he ever said.       

Why do they cling to their guns?  "They" being those mythical hard working socially conservative Middle Americans.  You know, the ones liberal Democrats would more openly disparage if they didn't need their votes.  Barack Obama and his friends offer us an economic explanation for the phenomena of the gun obsessed lower classes.  Unable to adapt to new economic trends, they are stuck in a rut, ridin' shotgun on the last stagecoach to Nowheresville.  With their stagnating jobs based on old industries, manufacturing, farming etc, the poor down trodden blue collar masses have been rendered witless, unable to adapt to the new high tech economy.  So "they cling to what they know" says Obama.  Religion, xenophobia and their guns.  Perhaps re-education camps would be of help to them, but then they have already proven themselves averse to the benefits of an education.  Better jobs could change them for the better, curing them of their affliction, their addiction to guns.  Alas, for them, change is not something you can believe in, it is something to be afraid of.  And in their fear they circle the wagons, guns pointing outward at the world and await their fate.

I apologize if I have understated the liberal Left's argument here regarding gun ownership in America.  In any case, it is preposterous.  When Obama's gun gaffe in San Francisco was spilled to the public a few months ago, the initial uproar was directed at the dismissive attitude toward certain Americans implicit in his statements.  He countered by saying he meant no disrespect.  He was merely offering an explanation, an economic one, for their odd behavior.  This led to a diagnosis of subacute Marxism by some pundits, possibly terminal.  He may not have intended to be dismissive, but Obama does appear to believe socio-economic status determines certain behaviors like gun ownership, not voting for him, and retaining certain traditions and values.  Lost in all the hoopla, I believe, is that what he said was plainly wrong, and betrays his profound ignorance of guns and the people who own them. 
 
What do we know about guns in America?  Guns are common, being found in approximately one in two households overall.  Rates of gun ownership correlate strongly with where a person lives, being higher the further away from urban areas you go.  Social surveys confirm this.  However, very little else is known for certain about gun ownership in America.  I doubt, for example, reliable data exist for how many Americans actually shoot their guns or how often.  Blue collar jobs are also relatively more common in the same non-urban areas where gun ownership is high.  But this is a demographic association not a cause and effect relationship. People in non-urban areas in this country have always owned guns, through good times and bad.  Economic assumptions about gun ownership are ridiculous for a lot of reasons, not the least of which is we know so little about this common American trait.
There's another reason they hang onto their guns, one that tells us a lot about ourselves and our country.  One Senator Obama would do well to heed.  (Caveat:  True gun nuts may now be excused as what follows is somewhat simplistic.  I don't need the email overload).

Among other things, guns represent to their owners a traditional American value, one that used to be universally accepted in this country.  That value is still expressed in phrases like "well made", "made to last", "made in America".  But sadly, those phrases no longer ring true in our country.  Picture a guy who's been working on a Ford Motor Company assembly line for forty years.  Do you think he believes his company's "Quality Is Job 1" slogan?  Toyota usurped that reality a long time ago.  So he goes home at night and cleans his Winchester Model 70 bolt action deer rifle handed down from his father.  The gun's weathered and beaten, but the parts are original and it still shoots true.  Also, it's worth more now than when it was initially purchased.  Why not sell it for the money?  In part because it was made by Americans who understood the value of things made to last.  He wishes he worked for a company that still understands that basic American ideal.

Guns embody such concepts more than any other product made in this country.  Don't believe me?  Name an item that is manufactured in America, mass produced, sold to millions of people, which with little upkeep can easily last a hundred years or more.  Guns are the antithesis our modern disposable mindset, which itself is a result of an economy predicated on expendability.  They have always been built to last.  Quality, durability and dependability -- what ever happened to those American values, Senator Obama?   That's why people who own guns hang on to them.   Sad to say, Winchester Repeating Arms Company closed its plant in New Haven two years ago.  Is Ford or GM next?

John McCain or Barack Obama.  Whose better for America?  For Europe?  For the common interests of both? 

The chance for a realignment of U.S. and EU interests is in the offing.  France, Germany, Italy and possible Britian have, to some degree, realized their previous excesses.  Hopefully, we have recognized our own, particularly the idea that "Old Europe" is irrelevant.  It is not, as John McCain's proposal for a league of democracies organized to confront common problems in the third world makes clear.  However, should a left-leaning Barack Obama ascend to the Presidency, the Yin/Yang relationship between the U.S. and Europe may swing the other way, pushing Western Europe in the "right" direction.  The "new" Europe could become more like the U.S., just as the U.S. becomes more like "Old Europe".  What would be the consequences?  Russia will continue to follow her own course, looking East in hopes of reviving a Eurasian identity, while her influence to the West remains unchecked.  Turkey, that most unfairly maligned of nations who would be European, could default to Muslim Middle East mode if the US/EU is not more careful.  Turkish influence in the new Central Asian republics is invaluable.  If we do not wish to avail ourselves of that influence, the Russians surely will.  Finally, to the South, the future of the Middle East may hang in the balance, not in ancient Jerusalem but in modern Baghdad.  The turnaround in Iraq may have Europeans worried that failure by the U.S. at this point could be attributed to willful negligence on their part, with unforeseen consequences for both.  The same holds for Afghanistan, where the joint American/NATO venture remains a microcosm of our differences .

The American leader Europeans love to hate will soon be gone, possibly replaced by one they would normally adore.   His foreign and domestic policies, mimick their own, but could turn out to be a failure when transplanted to America.  In that case, Europeans now realize, we all lose.  For both Europe and the United States, changes are coming, regardless of who becomes president.  And change necessarily comes with a caveat:  be careful what you wish for.  Seized by a contagion of wishful thinking, millions of Americans and Europeans have become enchanted by our newest political star, Barack Obama, and are marching to his tune toward our common future, as if he's the Pied Piper.  But, he's more Pinocchio than the Pied Piper, a puppet who's come to life and escaped the controlling hands of that most traditional of American values, skepticism of charlatans proffering snake oil cure-alls.  Unfortunately, our world is not some Disneyland fairy tale.  More than anyone else, John McCain with his politician's smile barely hiding the scars, knows this to be true.  In the modern history of western democracies, rarely has there been such a dichotomy in the choice for leadership.  And the choice is ours.   John McCain or Barack Obama. 





Want to change the world?  Just, sing along then to the theme song to Disney's Pinocchio:
  
"When you wish upon a star",
 
"No matter who you are", 
  
"All your dreams will come true".
 

Then again, maybe they won't.  As the Buddhists would say, may you live in interesting times.  And, so we do.
    

Prince Obama and His Magic Carpet Ride to Teheran.  What a fairy tale that one is.  But then, what can a 47 year old neophyte Senator with NO experience in international or military affairs do when facing a John McCain in the general election?  Why, propose the most simplistic solution possible to all of our foreign policy problems, and bluff his way through November, of course.   Just talk your adversaries to death, without preconditions.  That's a pipe dream right out of 1001 Nights.  How sophomoric junior Senator Obama.  Would you talk to all of our enemies?  Including Osama bin Laden?  You do know, don't you, American Presidents traditionally talk to our adversaries only when there are clear gains to be made, and certain preconditions are met?  Personally, I doubt that's the case with the Iranians, and I doubt Obama is serious about his proposal to talk to them.  First of all, who's gonna go to Teheran?  King of Kings Obama?  Might wanna check the latest list of fatwas against apostates first.  Who else?  The State Department?  Hell, they don't even want to go to Baghdad where they're surrounded 24/7 by those trigger happy killers employed by Blackwater.  Good luck talking the Dips into going to Teheran where I'm pretty sure the Quds Force guys will want to be their guards, just like in the old days.  Oh, and by the way, we got any Farsi speakers down at Foggy Bottom?  Seems George Bush realized we had a deficit of Middle East linguists about four years after he invaded Iraq.  Finally Senator Obama, are you old enough to remember what happened in 1979?  If you wanna send State Department diplomats over to Teheran, they won't be able to "talk to our enemies" when they get there because you're gonna have to bind and gag 'em first just to get them on the plane.  And in that case, all you're doing is saving the mullas the trouble.  Seriously, this is all a feint by Obama, absolving him of the customary requirement for a candidate to put forth realistic and specific solutions to our foreign policy dilemmas, so we can evaluate them before we vote.  We should call his bluff.  Make Talk-To-Me Obama promise that if he is elected president, he will nominate Hillarity for Secretary of State and come January, ship her off on the Enola Gay to meet with the mullahs.  Dress her up in a gray pant suit with fins, give her a beehive hairdo shaped like a nose cone, and  stamp:  Greetings from the Great Satan on her forehead.  That'll get 'em talkin', and we'll be rid of her.

Ruse #3:  The Boys Who Cried Hussein.  Obama is a Muslim, right?  Wrong.  He's the Reverend Wright's most accomplished Christian convert.  I don't think Camp Obama started the Muslim rumor which has gone viral in the right-wing blogosphere (and, absent proof, it is a rumor).  But it almost appears as if some of those posts come from Obama trolls in disguise.  I know it's a stretch, but hear me out.  What's the advantage to Obama to promote this rumor?  It's an easy one to dispel, and he can claim he's the victim of right-wing paranoid propaganda.  Note, his religion and religiosity are tied to Wright's Trinity United Church of Christ.  Keep labeling him a Muslim and he gets to use his twenty year association with a Christian church run by a racist bigot to disprove a bigoted religious slur.  The issue is not Obama's religion, it's his religious mentor's racism.  Never conflate the two. Also, he spent many years being tutored by a master in the science of victimology.  He knows how to play this one.  Don't be duped by the Obama-the-Muslim scam.  The web savvy Obamaniacs are out there trolling for suckers.  You take the bait, we all take the barb.  Duplicity, not audacity is Obama's real forte.

Ruse #4:  Prince Obama and The Magic Carpet Ride to Teheran.  What should a 47 year old neophyte Senator with NO experience in international or military affairs do when facing a John McCain in the general election.  Why, propose the most simplistic solution to all of our foreign policy problems and bluff his way through November of course.   Just talk your adversaries to death, without preconditions.  Well, that's a pipe dream right out of 1001 Nights.  How sophomoric junior Senator Obama.  Would you talk to all of our enemies?  Including Osama bin Laden?  You do know, don't you, American Presidents traditionally talk to our adversaries when there are clear gains to be made, and our conditions are met?  Personally, I doubt that's the case with the Iranians, and I doubt Obama is serious about his proposal to talk to them.  First of all, who's gonna go to Teheran?  President Obama?  Might wanna check their current list of fatwas against apostates first.  Who else?  The State Department?  Hell, they don't even want to go to Baghdad where they're surrounded 24/7 by those trigger happy killers employed by Blackwater.  Good luck talking them into going to Teheran where I'm pretty sure the Quds Force guys will want to be their guards.  Oh, by the way, we got any Farsi speakers down at Foggy Bottom?  Seems George Bush realized we had a deficit of Middle East linguists about four years after he invaded Iraq.  And finally Senator Obama, are you old enough to remember what happened in 1979?  If you wanna send diplomats from State over to Teheran, they won't be able to "talk to our enemies" when they get there because you're gonna have to bind and gag 'em first just to get them on the plane.  And in that case, all you're doing is saving the mullas the trouble.  Seriously, this is all a feint by Obama, absolving him of the customary requirement for a candidate to put forth specific and realistic solutions to our foreign policy dilemmas, so we can evaluate them before we vote.   We should call his bluff.  Make Obama promise  that if he is elected president, he will  nominate Hillarity for Secretary of State.  Come January, ship her off solo to meet the mullahs.  Dress her up in a gray pant suit with fins, and give her a beehive hairdo shaped like a warhead.  Stamp:  Greetings from the Great Satan on her forehead.  That'll get'em talkin'!

 

 







             

Have we been wrong all along about Barack Obama's strategy to win the White house?  I think in some respects we have, and we may have fallen for a few clever tricks he has played on the media as well as the rest of us.  First let me say, I do not think Obama is a Muslim, a Marxist or the Manchurian Candidate.  He's a liberal Democrat trying to get elected President on the thinnest resume of any candidate we've seen in ages.  He had the audacity to challenge HRC, the Queen of the Democratic Party, who initially ran for the nomination as if she were an incumbent.  Obama said early on in the campaign he wanted to "change the way politics is done" in this country and he has certainly tried - with some success- to change the rules of the game.  He wows the crowds like a rock star, raises lots of money on line and has run a great campaign.  HRC made a lot of mistakes and now can't win the nomination (legitimately, anyway).  He'll be the nominee and face McCain - someone who also wishes to change the rules of politics -  in the Fall.  So far so good.  What have we missed?  A few ruses, I think, and a very clever strategy to exploit them.

Obama's New Rules of political warfare have been thoroughly explained by Victor Davis Hanson in his articles.  Part of the rules- change strategy Obama employs is to call everything that makes you look bad a "distraction from the real issues".  Obama gets traction from this tactic by foisting on us distractions of his own making, and benefits from the backlash.  A few examples:

Ruse #1:  The Patriot Game.  In the last general election a decorated Viet Nam Vet was upstaged by a draft dodger who portrayed his opponent as unpatriotic.  The winner of that election went on to start an unpopular war that five years later makes Americans a little unhappy with the patriot they selected in '04.  The Republican nominee this time is someone virtually everyone accepts as a bona fide American War Hero.  In this context I cannot believe Obama is truly as cavalier as he pretends to be about wearing the flag pin or not (same for the hand over the heart during the National Anthem).  He offered an inane explanation as to why he stopped wearing the pin post 9/11 and now wears it intermittently.  The blogosphere (myself included) went nuts, and the MSM still write articles about the pin and patriotism.  Because of what happened to John Kerry, the backlash is strongly in Obama's favor, nullifying the patriotism issue.  Take home message:  Don't Swiftboat Obama over a flag pin that John McCain doesn't wear.  His nonchalance about the flag pin was always intentionally incendiary, and it's a ruse that worked.  Touche Obama.

Ruse #2:  The Red Herring.  Obama's a Marxist!  Right?  Well he's always talking about Marxist-lite writers and uses phrases that sound vaguely Marxist influenced.  His supporters are enamored with Che and his campaign hires a band named The Decemberists to play to a crowd of 75,000 in Portland (apparently the band occasionally opens with the National Anthem of the USSR).  While baiting the Republicans to begin red-baiting Obama hasn't worked as well (yet), charges of McCarthyism still abound.  This will be a bigger issue when the degree of Obama's true association with Bill Ayers becomes more generally known.  Ayers is of course the Bolshevik bomb thrower from the 60's who still wants to bring down the U.S. government.  So what's Obama to do about his friend Bill?  He throws the masses a little Marxist bone to chew on, while he tries to stuff the rest of the Ayers skeleton back into the closet.  Did you really believe his non-answer about Ayers during the ABC debate ("he's an English professor who lives in my neighborhood")?  Obama knew he's an education professor and the two are much closer than he implied.  That question became, of course, another "distraction from the issues" and ABC was roundly chastised for raising it.  Again, the backlash favored Obama who must know that the only difference between terrorists Bill Ayers and Timothy McVeigh is that McVeigh made a better bomb.  

To be cont'd            














             

I tried to write about the Republicans, but Obama's distractions just kept distracting me.  Case in point, what's his issue with wearing, or not wearing, a flag pin on his lapel?  Do I really care one way or the other?  No.  Does John McCain wear one?  No.  Either way, it's irrelevant. What is relevant is his seeming inconsistency, or rather insouciance on this issue.  It doesn't rise to the level of flip-flopping, but his attitude about the flag pin is somewhat flippant.  Recently he explained at length that, at some point post 9/11, he stopped wearing the flag pin as a symbolic gesture against what he perceived as false patriotism.  Since he, therefore, understands the import of such symbolism he might wish to recall that, post 9/11, we were sending young troops into combat, some of whom may have had a different take on the symbolic nature of the American flag, like it sort of represents what they and their buddies were fighting and dying for.  They may not have considered it appropriate to use a flag as some sort of political football handed off on a whim as a symbolic gesture.  And some of those soldiers going into combat post 9/11 might also recall another Democratic politician who was similarly challenged with the rules governing basic American symbols.  That would be the newly inaugurated President, Bill Clinton, in 1993.  Remember his lackadaisical approach to saluting the troops?  Or not.  How about the White House staff turning away military officers in uniform - wasn't it a three star general -  sent to brief the President on national security matters?  Apparently, Bubba and the bimbos who guarded access to him had a different impression of what a military uniform symbolized.  That whole affair went down real well with the troops.  Speaking from experience, sitting in the sand in some shithole like Somalia and reading about how your new President disses his own Military's most basic symbols, doesn't give you a warm 'n fuzzy feeling.
    
Fast forward fifteen years and another liberal politician with no military experience is having similar trouble with symbols. Nowadays, Obama seems determined to wear his flag pin intermittently, depending on his mood or whatever.  Must be a big decision for him every morning - hmm, what message do I want to send to the people today?  False Patriotism....True Patriotism....Indecisiveness?  What a dialectical dilemma!  Where's my Niebuhr?  He'll know what to do.  Our troops in uniform are a little more used to, uh, uniformity.  For them, the symbol of the American flag usually stands for only one thing, their country - not necessarily their patriotism.  Wearing a flag symbol is optional, unless it's stitched on your uniform of the day.  And while many of these young troops probably lack Obama's sophistication, they do manage to get dressed every day in uniforms that are festooned with a variety of pin-on symbols, like rank and such.  They are not simpletons.  They might, however, be a little too preoccupied right now to understand the convoluted discourse of a Harvard educated lawyer/presidential candidate seeking to explain something as simple as pinning a flag on his suit lapel.  Or not. The logic of his verbal gyrations on this issue might elude them.  Considering he hopes to be their commander-in-chief someday soon, Senator Obama might want to remember that, and adopt a more simplistic approach to his morning constitutional.  Note bene senator:  You don't want to emulate Bill Clinton on this one.

I agree we should add educational reform to VDH's prescriptions for improving Conservatism in this country.  In fact, in a recent commentary on this site I somewhat jokingly recommended we transfer the Department of Education to the Pentagon, as the crisis in K-12 education is a national security concern.  Clearly, there is a continuing crisis in education in this country, and how that crisis is resolved is of vital importance to Conservatives.  Politically, I am moderately conservative, but I am near apoplectic at the demise of public education in this country.  I'm not sure why this was left off Professor Hanson's list as he has written extensively on the problems endemic in post-secondary schools in this country.  I'm fairly sure he would agree that educational reform, at all levels, is necessary for sustaining Conservatism as a viable political framework for good governance.  Furthermore, it is necessary for sustaining a viable future for this country.  The question is, where do we start?

We start by electing a president who doesn't treat educational reform as a political crusade designed to obtain partisan advantage.  W Bush treated the Department of Education as an orphan step-child, full of liberal minded reformers and idealogues  (which it is).  As a consequence, he essentially tried to do away with the Department, and when that didn't work, simply ignored it.  Not exactly a testament to good leadership, but for him -- par for the course.  What do you expect from someone who was never a serious student himself?  (I love it when he reassures us he has assessed the problem, the person or whatever, and his "gut" tells him this or that.  As he possesses a fairly non-critical intellect, by "gut" he may in fact be referring to his GI tract).  No need to discuss Bill Clinton and the Department of Education.  If he didn't create the monster it now is, he certainly overfed it and took it off its leash.

The Democratic candidates have of course promoted their vaunted educational plans, which translate into more of the same.  To my knowledge, John McCain has not formally announced his plans for reforming education in this country.  Not to worry.  For this problem, and many others, I firmly believe he is the go-to guy.  He won't policy-wonk this to death because that's been tried and failed.  He won't ignore the problem because that's not his style.  I believe he'll put someone in charge of the Department of Education who will actually reform it, and back that person to the hilt.  He is a firm believer in leadership making a difference in solving problems.  To whit, General Abrams in Viet Nam, General Petreus in Iraq, and Ronald Reagan for our own country.   His choice to run the department will not be a political idealogue because politicization of the content and delivery of education is the underlying problem.

So who would that person be?  Another PhD Ed with yet another nouveau curriculum to hock, written by someone who hasn't taught students for decades?  How about a Classicist/Historian who has always promoted critical thinking and empirical judgement as the hallmarks of a successful education?  Could this be why VDH left educational reform off this list, as he is advising JM on this issue.  As Frodo says, there is always hope.           

Ah, Hillary.  Tough week for ya lass, what with Edwards bouncing for Obama the day after you thumped him in West Virginia.  But all is lost, so you got nothin' to lose.  I know the boys cut a deal, but so what?  Obama doesn't want Johnboy's white trash votes, and he never had very many anyways.  My guess is Obama will let Edwards run the pooper-scooper around the White house lawn a few times before he ships him back to Hicksville.   Veepstakes is off the table so it's not like you're losing to TWO boys.  Come on, chin up girl!  Don't get that dear-in-the-headlights look about you.   Remember?  Girls rule.  Boys drool.  Just like they taught you at Wellesley.  Time to go to Plan G, or whatever it is.  A few suggestions:
  
Don't challenge him to a mud slinging contest -- that's bad for the Party.
Challenge him to a mud wrestling contest -- that's good for us and you'll win.
Get'em in a headlock and make him say Uncle Wright three times.

On the campaign trail always order hard boiled huevos grandes.  Natural colored eggs covered with ketchup are best.  File your teeth if you have to, but smile wide and chomp hard, shell 'n all.  Afterwards, use the Mens room and watch the guys scatter.

Know what a codpiece is?  Attach one to your pantsuit and wear it to your next debate with Obama.  Then, pull an Al Gore and stomp around the podium while he's talking.  He might wet himself, and either way, the video'll go viral.

Just before the convention, call Andy Young and cut off Bill's supply of black girls.  Talk about the elephant in the room, he'll go rogue mode and trample the opposition.   Just keep him away from Michelle, though.  I'm pretty sure she can take him.

Worst case scenario:  take the Veep job.  Once you're in, make them play MacBeth every night in the White House theatre.  Get a white nightgown and while he's sleeping stomp the hallways screaming OUT OUT DAMN SPOT.  Run again in 2012. 

Remember.  He's a boy.  So don't quit don't quit don't quit don't quit don't don't quit don't quit don't quit don't quit

You go, uh, girl. 

Small wonder polls say 80% of Americans are dissatisfied with the direction the country is going -- neither political party adequately represents the beliefs of their constituents anymore.  As Victor Davis Hansen points out in a recent article for example, it's hard to find an old fashioned Democrat anymore, especially in places like California.  Sure, Hillary Clinton rooted around the rust belt and rallied the the surviving remnants of these dinosaur Democrats.  But, alas, they no longer matter.  Her belated reincarnation as a common man of the people will not derail Obama on his way to deification in Denver.  Her cause and that of her new found supporters is lost.  Note that after Obama's defeat in Pennsylvania, his campaign manager essentially disowned this segment of Democrats who voted for Hillary, calling them unnecessary for a win in November.  He may be right.  Probably half of those traditional PA Democrats will eventually hold their nose and vote for Obama, and the rest will do the same for McCain.  Either way they no longer have a Party to call home.
     
John Edwards knows this.  Reading the tea leaves (or the entrails) of his Party, he has now cast his lot with Obama, thereby abandoning all pretense of being the champion of the little guy and the working poor.  I'm sure for the multi-millionaire lawyer this comes as a relief, as his southern poor boy persona was a tiresome charade anyway.  And the real down home country types all recognized a con when they saw one.  Fittingly, his endorsement of Obama comes only after the Senator from Illinois has conclusively shown he has little support among the segment of Democrats that Edwards previously courted and lost.  Oh, and remember his Two Americas?  If you want a perfect example of that notion, look at the split in the Democratic Party:  well-to-do liberals and their college age brood vs. blue collar working class joes.  Guess we now know where ol' Johnboy's loyalties truly lie.  Fightin' for the little guy only makes sense if you get rich or get elected. 

And so the Party of the People is about to veer left and completely disown its historic roots (working class people of the wrong color) in favor of a junior Senator with no leadership experience who talks the talk.  How did this happen?  My pet theory is a couple of years ago the billionaire socialists --yes, it's an oxymoron-- in the Democratic Party had a focus group session where everyone got high, pulled out their laptops and designed the perfect liberal candidate.  The result was a biracial man, raised mostly outside of the mainland US by a strong willed single mom who had a PhD in Anthropology and worked in the third world.  He was given a golden tongue, good looks and, critically (because he's male) a non-confrontational demeanor.  He was educated at all the "best" schools and had the most progressive advisors.  As unions were either defunct or contaminated with more plebian minded Democrats, he worked as a community organizer in an African-American neighborhood where he learned to speak the local patois.  After spending five years with the common folk he was sent to re-education camp at Harvard Law School.  He subsequently married a strong willed black woman of equal physical stature and professional credentials.  Naturally, they had two daughters and baptized them in the church of Black Liberation Theology.  The perfect liberal candidate would be introduced to the political world by a couple of unregenerate 60's radicals, sort of a passing of the mantle.  At this point in their collective hallucination, the focus group began to chant and rubbed real hard on an Evian water bottle.  Out popped a genie who granted them their wish, conjuring up Barack Obama.   The money flowed like honey and the rest is history.   I mean, the rest of the Democratic Party is history.           



   

Why does she continue to run?  Because he lets her. 

Poor henpecked Obama has been surrounded by demanding women his whole life and is used to being deferential to them, if not capitulatory.  His wife Michelle, for example, seems to wear the pants in their household.  Like a wolf, HRC sniffed out this weakness toward women in Obama.  Remember the hue and cry over his gentlemanly defense of her being "likable enough" during an early debate?  Women voters, no doubt stoked by Hillary, smacked him down as being arrogant.  That he took it without a fight was a twofer for her:  portraying him as uppity for his old fashion chivalry while simultaneously emasculating him for not fighting back.  If HRC were a white man and Obama treated "him" with that much deference, no one would vote for him, least of all black Americans.  My suggestions for Senator Obama:

Listen to Michelle on this one.  It's okay to hate Hillary Clinton.  Most Americans do.
 
Put her away for good.  She's not dead in the water because she's not dead.  In fact, she's the Undead, bleedin' you of all self respect.  Drive a stake through her heart and wrap garlic around her coffin.

Once she's dead politically, don't resurrect her as your Veep.  Remember Vince Foster?

With the nomination in hand move rapidly to the center politically.  You must move fast because you have a long way to go from deep left field.  Shed the metrosexual look and attitude as you go.  Middle America expects you to be a man, not a hermaphrodite.   

In the general election treat John McCain with collegial respect, not deference.  He's not a girl and won't pretend to be offended.

If you win, do something dramatic your first week in office as President.  Possibilities include repealing Title IX, declaring a National Take Your Son to Work Day, or relocating the Department of Education to the Pentagon.  The crisis affecting boys in K - 12 schools is a national security concern.

I know you have two daughters (as do I).  Adopt a couple of boys.  That'll keep Michelle busy for your first term.

As President, be a role model for all young boys, black and white.  They sorely need one.  

Could Reverend Wright possibly do any more damage to the Obama campaign than he did Monday at the National Press Club?  I doubt it.  He seemed to verify most of the inflammatory statements in the snippets of sermons we've seen over and over again.  He also claimed Obama distanced himself from these statements only for political gain.   It won't be easy to dodge that contention, especially as Obama has sought to "contextualize" Wright's remarks with some blather about his white grandmother.  He should have made a clean break with this racist demagogue back in Philadelphia.  Now it's too late and his market share in the polls for the Indianna primary next week is dropping fast.  For Obama, Wright couldn't have picked a worse time to open his mouth.  The question is why?

I'm not buying the theory that Wright was merely sticking up for his church or that this was an act of self-promotion on his part.  Flanked by bodyguards from Minister Farrakhan's corps, he paid homage to their master on national TV in an act clearly designed to rankle many Democrats (and Americans in general).  Unbelievably, he joked about being on the ticket with Obama.  The only thing he forgot to mention was his deep and abiding appreciation for the Weather Underground.  He did this the week after Obama lost in PA because of his inability to sway more blue collar/white voters.  I'm sure he confirmed a lot of the reservations those voters had about Senator Obama.  IN has a demographic makeup similar to PA, and Obama will now likely write off that state.  Wright is actively and knowingly sabotaging the campaign of the first black American to get this close to the presidency.  Does he possibly fear a black president would undermine his life's work:  the promotion of bigotry via Black Liberation Theology, black grievance mongering and an us versus them view of all things American?  Is Obama's message of unity and a new style of politics perceived as a threat to the Old Guard of Wright's generation?  I honestly don't get it.  Must be like that T-shirt says:  It's a Black Thing.  You wouldn't understand.

But, perhaps, for Wright-minded people, it would be more useful to have a black candidate lose at this juncture than to actually win the presidency and work to overcome our racial differences.  They could blame Obama's loss on racist whites instead of their racist sermonizing.       

Elitist liberal senator ascribes the social values and concerns of working class voters to misdirected bitterness about their economic status, their social class. He further believes their religious faith, traditional family values and adherence to the sanctity of the Constitution prevent them from focusing on what truly ails them:  their lack of economic opportunity. What was that philosophy called that asserted all political behavior could be explained as class conflict over economic opportunity? That religion was opium for the masses, lulling them into complacent acceptance of their proletarian status? Oh yeah, now I remember.  Marxism.  And I remember where I first learned about this now discredited political theory.  Possibly the same place Barack Obama did.

Obama's recent statements in San Francisco about why he cannot attract more working class voters in middle America are more than just condescending.  They are, quite frankly, radical, in the sense that word used to imply during the 60's.  These statements may provide a glimpse into the inner Obama, reflecting his true convictions and what underlies his political philosophy.  If he believes workers in this country "cling to" their guns, religion and social values because of their poor economic status, he's applying Karl Marx's theory of historical materialism to explain traditional American beliefs.  Speaking from experience, during the 1970s Marxist theories were quite popular among professors in the Social Science Departments at Occidental College.  It's been some time now, but I think I detect a bit of the dialectic in Obama's statements.  And I wonder if he isn't a closet Marxist.


I wrote the above yesterday after hearing about Obama's talk in San Francisco.  Then I googled Obama and Marxism.  Plenty of people have made the same assessment.  Apparently it's no secret  that he leans toward a modified Marxist view of American society.  Bill Kristol's OP/ED piece in the NYT today lays it all out and says it far better than I can.