Wednesday, July 23, 2008

Quote o' the day: Respect and Unity


Senator Barack Obama on the U.S. Military (via Astute Bloggers):

That requires... us to... have... enough troops that we're not just air-raiding villages and killing civilians, which is causing enormous problems there.

Michelle Obama is our runner-up for her optically frightening descriptions (New Yorker, 10 March 2008):

I asked [Michelle Obama] if she was offended by Bill Clinton’s use of the phrase “fairy tale” to describe her husband’s characterization of his position on the Iraq War. At first, Obama responded with a curt “No.” But, after a few seconds, she affected a funny voice. “I want to rip his eyes out!” she said, clawing at the air with her fingernails. One of her advisers gave her a nervous look. “Kidding!” Obama said. “See, this is what gets me into trouble.”

Party Unity: It's fantastic!

Photo o' the day: Pals


Reuters (via LGF):

Perhaps this is why the Israelis are nervous about Senator "He's not the ___ I knew" Obama.

A recent Haaretz article poses the question: "What's wrong with Obama?"

There's no shortage of answers.

Charlton Heston's Basement


This is the late, great Charlton Heston's gun vault. And this isn't listed in Snopes, so it must be real! Clickety-click to zoom.




I thought my Y2K bunker was pretty cool until I saw Heston's gun-vault.

Microsoft kicks off the $300 million Vista salvage operation


Gizmodo:

Microsoft's $300 million campaign to return fire after Apple's "Mac vs. PC" ads with our buddy John Hodgman—which, like it or not, were a wildly successful campaign and definitely helped shape the public's perception of Vista—has begun with this image from microsoft.com

...It makes sense that Microsoft is going for a more conceptual ad here, rather than tick off a list of everything that people should perceive Vista is good at (they already do that on the page the ad points to). I can think of a lot of other future installments, like "At one point, everyone thought witches walked among us" or "At one point, people thought they could turn lead into gold," or "At one point, people thought that it was a good idea to s*** into ditches alongside the city streets."

A few of the choice comments:

Goes to show just how "uncool" MSFT is. Even their ads to say they don't suck, suck.

You mean it's not a good idea to s*** in a ditch? So wait, because the world isn't flat - Vista doesn't suck? That was a perception, that the world was flat. Is Microsoft saying that Vista sucking is just a perception? No, it's a fact. Vista sucks b***s, it's got gaping holes and bugs and so on. I'm a PC guy, but I can still smell crap in the ditch when it's present.

Do I have to install Silverlight to view it? And what the hell is up with microsoft.com?! My first time on the site but WOW it blows and is impossible to navigate!

I haven't used Vista extensively in a long time, but the bugs I had on it were so minor yet so frequent that they frustrated me to no end and I've lost a lot of reason to go back to it...

Completing the tone-deaf quality of the whole campaign is the ship in the illustration -- a design in use about 400 years AFTER Columbus, when round-the-world voyages were routine...

At one point people thought Vista would be good... Then it shipped.

At one point, people thought XP sucked.

At one point, everyone bought our products because there was no other choice.

So i go to microsoft.com and it tells me i should install Silverlight. ok. i download and try to install it. installer tells me i already have a 'newer' version installed. original page still says i should install plugin to 'experience' silverlight. microsoft fails on all fronts all the time. why cant they get it right? why is that? why?

If these are the things that are supposed to be the reason to switch, then Vista is even more dead in the water than i thought. Every single one of those can be done better with non MS software.

At one point Microsoft made passably decent products.

I hope MS aren't spending much on the advert, 'cos I can't think how it could be worse. Is that supposed to be a drawing of the Nina, the Pinta or the Santa Maria, or a frigate from Nelson's navy, circa 1800?

I don't much care for Vista. I don't really feel like UAC is an elegant solution-- it works, but it's the computer equivalent of having a ruler slapped across your fingers whenever you do something ill-advised on your PC. Couldn't they have come up with a less intrusive-- or at least, less annoying-- answer? I hate DWM-- it's such a neat concept, but the implementation is just wonktacular-- and I wish they'd figured out a way to do that kind of seamlessly, instead of making it a giant resource suck-hole. It's not even about having the RAM to run Vista properly-- I do-- but it's about not wasting what you've got. I appreciate that Vista's more secure than XP, by and large, and decidedly so when comparing XP at this point in its lifetime to Vista now-- but give me a copy of XP and a copy of nLite and I'd be much happier. I don't want my OS to be a big drain on my system resources-- I want something snappy and really, really lightweight. It's a consideration I also make when I'm weighing any comparable softwares. I don't really care for bloat. And Vista-- at least, for the foreseeable future until even every cheap Dell box is running a quad-core, 8GB RAM setup-- is just using too much of the system resources for my tastes.

Tuesday, July 22, 2008

The man who couldn't admit he was wrong


Refusal to acknowledge a major national security blunder isn't a great trait for a would-be President. The Atlantic's Marc Ambinder provides the transcript from a Katie Couric interview in which Barack Obama offered a cringe-worthy and tortured explanation of his "Surge" positions.

Couric: ...did the surge, the addition of 30,000 additional troops ... help the situation in Iraq?

Obama: Katie, as … you've asked me three different times, and I have said repeatedly that there is no doubt that our troops helped to reduce violence. There's no doubt.

Couric: But yet you're saying … given what you know now, you still wouldn't support it … so I'm just trying to understand this.

Obama: Because … it's pretty straightforward. By us putting $10 billion to $12 billion a month, $200 billion, that's money that could have gone into Afghanistan. Those additional troops could have gone into Afghanistan. That money also could have been used to shore up a declining economic situation in the United States. That money could have been applied to having a serious energy security plan so that we were reducing our demand on oil, which is helping to fund the insurgents in many countries. So those are all factors that would be taken into consideration in my decision-- to deal with a specific tactic or strategy inside of Iraq.

Couric: And I really don't mean to belabor this, Senator, because I'm really, I'm trying … to figure out your position. Do you think the level of security in Iraq …

Obama: Yes.

Couric … would exist today without the surge?

Obama: Katie, I have no idea what would have happened ...had we applied my approach, which was to put more pressure on the Iraqis to arrive at a political reconciliation. So this is all hypotheticals. What I can say is that there's no doubt that our U.S. troops have contributed to a reduction of violence in Iraq. I said that-- not just today, not just yesterday, but I've said that-- previously...

Of course, what Obama really said about the surge is well-documented:

• Barack Obama, Jan. 2007: "I am not persuaded that 20,000 additional troops in Iraqis going to solve the sectarian violence there. In fact, I think it will do the reverse."

• Democrat Barack Obama, Jan 2007: "I don't think the president's [surge] strategy is going to work."

• Democrat Barack Obama, Jul. 2007: "My assessment is that the surge has not worked."

• Democrat Barack Obama, Oct. 2007: "[The surge is a] complete failure... Iraq’s leaders are not reconciling. They are not achieving political benchmarks."

When someone's been that wrong, that consistently, on matters of national security, there's only one thing you can call that person.

A Democrat.

Update: Gateway Pundit has the video: "This Video Is Amazing! ...CBS did an excellent job... This could very well be a turning point in this year's election! Obama came off cocky, confused and crazy. McCain was wonderful- honest, humble and smart."

Update II: Wonkette says "Barack Obama Is A Moron":

Barack Obama’s had his big interview with Katie Couric, and we have excerpts! Somehow, he seems to let Katie Couric trap him, too, with regards to the Surge. She asks him, at one point, if, Given What We Know Now about declined violence in Iraq, he would’ve supported the Surge last year, hmm? Rather than offer his very logical strategic position on this, he tries to make it an economic issue, about how much these damn wars cost...

...Under the current strategy, Iraq will develop into a 46-year-old albino loser who still lives in his parents’ basement; he’s tried to escape and make a go of things for himself in the real world, but his parents have locked him in the basement, which is the point. [Ed: Iraq -- a 46-year-old albino loser? What an elegant analogy!]

The loser child metaphor, it works! Yet here’s Obama, PLAYING POLITICS, saying we should leave Iraq simply because it costs money at a time when you have no home, an insulting contrast of sorts. And yelling at Katie Couric.

Rules? They're for the little people, not Democratic big-wigs


Rep. Robert Wexler, author of "Fire-Breathing Liberal", has a tiny bit of a residency problem according to the Wall Street Journal's John Fund. The Palm Beach Post provides the backdrop.

An opponent of U.S. Rep. Robert Wexler, D-Delray Beach, has accused the six-term congressman of playing a residency shell game, saying Wexler pretends to keep an address in Florida while flagrantly making his home in Maryland. ...Edward Lynch [is] a Republican running for Wexler's congressional seat.

"The house he lists on his voter registration is his in-laws' house in a gated 55-and-older community," Lynch said this afternoon. "Legally, he can't move back with children under 18."

Lynch said Wexler's three children attend Charles W. Smith Jewish Day School in Rockville, Md... Lynch, meanwhile, said he intends to file legal papers about the issue in the coming weeks.

[Since his children can't even legally live there] "...it is not truly his home, and it can't be his home, and he's using that address as his address to vote from," Lynch said... Lynch faces Wexler and no-party candidate Ben Graber in the Nov. 4 election for Florida's 19th Congressional District.

Presumptive Democratic nominee Barack Obama recommends Wexler's book. Given Obama's track record, that doesn't come as much of a surprise.

Update: Atlas has much, much more on Wexler: "Another example of Democrat hubris - I am above the law... Clearly it's a phantom residence, he ain't sleeping on [the] couch with his three children."

Hat tip: Larwyn

Photo o' the Day: The Triumvirate


AFP/Getty Images (via LGF).

Palestinian artist Walid Ayyub adds a dove to a painting of Barack Obama, which will accompany his other portraits including Hamas terrorist Abdel Aziz-Rantizi and mass-murderer Che Guevara.

Enquirer: John Edwards visits Rielle Hunter and their love child


The Enquirer is reporting that they "busted" John Edwards visiting his alleged lover Rielle Hunter and their young child in Los Angeles.

Vice Presidential candidate Sen. John Edwards was caught visiting his mistress and secret love child at 2:40 this morning in a Los Angeles hotel by the NATIONAL ENQUIRER.

The married ex-senator from North Carolina - whose wife Elizabeth continues to battle cancer -- met with his mistress, blonde divorcée Rielle Hunter, at the Beverly Hilton on Monday night, July 21 - and the NATIONAL ENQUIRER was there! He didn't leave until early the next morning.

Rielle had driven to Los Angeles from Santa Barbara with a male friend for the rendezvous with Edwards. The former senator attended a press event Monday afternoon with L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa on the topic of how to combat homelessness.

But a months-long NATIONAL ENQUIRER investigation had yielded information that Rielle and Edwards, 54, had arranged to secretly meet afterward and for the ex-senator to spend some time with both his mistress and the love child who he refuses to publicly acknowledge as his own.

...Rielle had reserved rooms 246 and 252 under the name of the friend who had accompanied her from Santa Barbara, Bob McGovern. Rielle was in one room and McGovern was in another with her baby. This allowed her and Edwards to spend time alone, a source revealed... ...he stayed until attempting to sneak out of the hotel unseen at 2:40 a.m. (PST).

...Shocked to see a reporter, and without saying anything, Edwards ran up the stairs leading from the hotel basement to the lobby. But, spotting a photographer, he doubled back into the basement. As he emerged from the stairwell, reporter Butterfield questioned him about his hookup with Rielle.

Edwards did not answer and then ran into a nearby restroom. He stayed inside for about 15 minutes, refusing to answer questions from the NATIONAL ENQUIRER about what he was doing in the hotel. A group of hotel security men eventually escorted him from the men's room...

One of the original blogs on the story -- DBKP -- is on the case again.

Update: The brilliant Roger L. Simon observes:

[Rielle] was a long time hanger on in Hollywood circles before heading East to do political promo videos… and, yes, I had met her myself on a couple of occasions at parties. She was not particularly notable, of the tedious sort that bore you to death about their yoga instructor.

But now that the cat is out the bag, I will say what I wanted to say then. John Edwards–he of constructing a 28,000 square foot home while preaching about the two Americas and remonstrating about the environment–is one of the most reprehensible schmucks to appear on the American political scene in some time. And that’s saying something. That he played this game while his wife had cancer makes it contemptible beyond words. Now we know why he was always primping in the mirror. It is narcissism unbounded.

...Oh, one last thing, for those of you who say it’s The National Enquirer, how do we know it’s true? I suggest you Google the “National Enquirer and OJ Simpson.” They broke most of the important stories on that case. In general, these days they’re vastly more reliable than The New York Times.

Update II: Gawker's prediction:

Edwards admits to having made a terrible mistake in a moment of weakness last year, but assures everyone he was only visiting Hunter again because of the child, and out of a sense of duty and obligation. His name isn't mentioned in a political context for another eight years, when he launches a third-party presidential campaign with running mate Gary Hart, on the strength of their joint reality show.

For continuity's sake, the following is a reprint of the December 27, 2007 post on Edwards and Hunter.

* * * Dec. 27, 2007 Repost * * *

The blog doing the most heavy lifting on the reputed John Edwards Love Child saga is Death by 1000 Papercuts. While the story has been curiously ignored by the mainstream media, DBKP has continued digging.


The story keeps getting curiouser and curiouser, as reported Edwards love interest Rielle Hunter is allegedly being housed by a retired NBA player.

Question: What former NBA player's latest charity outreach involves providing housing for unwed, pregnant women?

Hint #1: The player and various family members have each contributed the allowable limit each to the John Edwards campaign, for a total of over $15,000.

Hint #2: The unwed, pregnant woman is actually just one: Rielle Hunter, the former producer of videos for the Edwards campaign that traveled around the country last year with the presidential candidate.

DBKP received a tip that Hunter is now living in the house of a former NBA player who is also an Edwards backer.

Again, this caused us to ask questions.

Was Rielle Hunter a professional basketball fan?

What is the connection between Hunter and the NBA player/Edwards contributor?

Will this cause any curiosity in a Mainstream Media that seems determined not to exhibit any?

Okay, so I was curious. Went to OpenSecrets and did a donor lookup.

The only ex-NBA player and heavy Edwards donor I found is Eric Montross, who is listed in Chapel Hill. That's not to say Montross is hosting Rielle, but if the DBKP story is accurate, he's someone for the MSM to check into.

Fittingly, DBKP hammers the mainstream media for its non-coverage of the John Edwards Love Child story.

[The story] doesn't excite Bob Schieffer...

A presidential candidate's alleged mistress moving close to campaign headquarters, driving around in a BMW owned by the campaign's former Director of Operations, living in a house owned by the campaign's backer, having her bills and living expenses paid for--well, who is paying them?

Doesn't matter.

That wouldn't likely excite Bob Schieffer, either.


...Unnamed source, you say?

"...it appears to me that there's absolutely nothing to it"

Good thing Deep Throat had the good sense not to leak to the Enquirer.

Bob Schieffer would have passed on that one.

But DBKP's doesn't mean to be picking on Bob Schieffer. We like Bob and always enjoyed watching "Face the Nation".

Bob's is shorthand for the attitude of the Mainstream Media.

I'm firmly convinced that the blogosphere renders the MSM increasingly irrelevant by the day.

Update: DBKP calls our attention to a curious statement in the December 19th Enquirer article:

...Young placed Rielle in a rental home in the Governor’s Club, the same gated community where he lives in a multimillion-dollar home with his wife Cheri and their young children. That home is owned by an Edwards’ backer and is less than five miles from Edwards’ national campaign headquarters in Chapel Hill, N.C.

A former “Director of Operations” for Edwards’ campaign, Young’s last official position with the campaign was “North Carolina Finance Director.”

He left that job about a month ago – about the same time Rielle settled in Chapel Hill.

A source close to Young vehemently denies that he funneled campaign money to Rielle – who drives a BMW SUV registered in Young’s name.

What an odd denial! Who accused Young of funneling campaign funds to support Rielle in the first place? I wonder if any member of our crack mainstream media will bother to check into this interesting thread.

Update II: Here's something I missed from Newsweek in December of 2006 (hat tip: Luke Ford):

The [Edwards campaign] Webisodes are the brainchild of Rielle Hunter, a filmmaker who met Edwards at a New York bar where Edwards was having a business meeting. "I didn’t think it was John Edwards," Hunter recalls, "because the public persona did not mesh at all with the person who was sitting in front of me." Hunter pitched Edwards on the documentaries as a medium for bringing the "real John Edwards" to the people. Edwards still has a ways to go. In the midst of a short theme sequence that begins each Webisode, the camera lingers over the former senator’s behind as he tucks a starched white shirt into his pants [LF: 1:12 into this video]. Still, Hunter, now under contract with Edwards’s organization, says she sees the untucked John Edwards coming more and more to the fore.

The 'untucked' John Edwards?

Update III: Jezebel certainly doesn't mince words.

NY Times rejects McCain's editorial: says he hasn't 'earned' it


An op-ed written by GOP nominee John McCain was rejected by the New York Times for publication. This occurred only a week after the paper published an essay written by presumptive Democratic nominee, Barack Obama. In a statement released today, Times Opinion Page Editor David Shipley explained the paper's rationale.

It would be terrific to have an article from Senator McCain. However, we feel McCain's perspective in this piece is not as open as Senator Obama's. Nor has McCain earned the right to an automatic slot on our op-ed page through his service to the community the way the Obama has.

Remember, McCain never served as a community organizer. He did not serve his local citizenry as a state senator. And he never built grass-roots support organizations.

Barack Obama is a candidate who espouses inclusion, tolerance, and humility.

Furthermore, the presumptive Democratic nominee has been consistently right on the major issues; which is not the case for Senator McCain. We'd like McCain to take responsibility for his actions including terrorizing innocent civilians.

In conclusion, I'm not going to be able to accept this piece as currently written. I’d be pleased, though, to look at another draft once Senator McCain has addressed these issues.

Monday, July 21, 2008

Get Your New Gas Pump Stickers Here!


BUMPED AND UPDATED: I'm keeping this on the top o' the list for the evening. Email it to your friends if you get the chance.

After seeing the last batch of gas pump stickers, Larwyn suggested a few modifications.

Here's how they look on the pump.*

Click to zoom on this "four-pack" to print your own copies.

And here's a closeup.

* Remember: only affix these to gas pumps if you have the owner's permission.

What Hillary said about Obama and Afghanistan


Sweetness & Light reminds us of the content on Hillary's website mere weeks ago (via the American Thinker's Clarice Feldman):

Hillary For President
"True"
TV : 30

Announcer: Barack Obama says he has the judgment to be president.

But as chairman of an oversight committee charged with the force of fighting Al Qaeda in Afghanistan - he was too busy running for president to hold even one hearing.

Barack Obama: "I became chairman of this committee, at the beginning of this campaign-at the beginning of 2007, so it is true that we haven't had oversight hearings on Afghanistan."

Announcer: Hillary Clinton will never be too busy to defend our national security-bringing our troops home from Iraq and pursing Al Qaeda in Afghanistan.

Hillary Clinton: "I'm Hillary Clinton and I approved this message."

***Poof**** Down the memory hole.

Usenet Troll o' the Day


From alt.politics.democrats.d:

Barack Obama MUST win so that we can ban all guns

Barack Obama... works hard to reduce violence in Kenya and participates in other programs beneficial to Africa knows more about violence than white liberals could ever envision and will work to insure guns are wiped out and that the sweeping increases in gun crime are halted.

We have all these states today passing laws allowing violent felons to carry concealed weapons and look at the skyrocketing crime. Washington DC is the murder capital of the world!!!

Barack has been criticized for refusing to recite the pledge of allegiance or put his hand on his heart when others recite it, but this is simply his way of refusing to pledge alliegance to the gun culture of the United States.

This could be one of the best trolls of all time. On the other hand, if it's a real Obama supporter, I fear for the future of the Democratic Party.

Graph o' the Day


Via GraphJam:


Hat tip: Linda

General Obama calls for shifting troops to Afghanistan


Headline in today's Wall Street Journal: "Obama calls for shifting troops to Afghanistan."

On the first stop of his weeklong foreign tour, Sen. Barack Obama Sunday called for shifting U.S. military forces from Iraq to Afghanistan, which he called "the central front on our battle against terrorism."

One tiny problem: that announcement was made without consulting General Petraeus, seeing the situation in Iraq, listening to any of Iraq's leaders or consulting with other experts. But no one should be surprised: Obama has a long history of botched predictions made in a complete absence of information.

Last week Charles Krauthammer observed:

[What would Iraq] look like if what Obama had proposed at the beginning of '07 had occurred. He would have had all our troops out four months ago, which means we would have al-Queda in control of large elements of Iraq with a strong base... It means that Iran would have the control that it had before the central government kicked Iran and its cohorts, allies, and clients out of the southern areas of Iraq. It would have tremendous influence over Iraq.

And probably the central government would have a collapsed, and it would be in the middle of a civil war and possibly genocide.

The best argument against Obama, the best antiwar argument to use against him, is to say that if we had listened to him we'd be in a position where we would be looking at a strategic calamity on our hands, as I described, also, a humanitarian one, which would impel us to have a third Iraqi war.

Which could, of course, have also touched off a world war.

As Jimmy Carter reminds us daily, the price of presidential stupidity is high. Vote accordingly in 2008.

Update: Exhibiting all the courage of Carter: "after talking for two years about timetables to remove troops from Iraq, Barack Obama goes to Baghdad and wimps out... He didn't even bring it up with the Iraqi Prime Minister!"

Cartoon o' the Day: Nick Anderson


The Houston Chronicle's Nick Anderson.

A distinct lack of media outrage over tasteless McCain cartoon


Remember the firestorm of media controversy that erupted with the publication of the New Yorker's recent cover story on Barack Obama?

Newsbusters' Tom Blumer noted a Rolling Stone cartoon that is arguably more tasteless (less tasteful?) depicting McCain's political opponents -- with decidedly Asian features -- torturing him NVA-style.

The cartoon accompanied a ridiculously partisan Matt Taibbi commentary.

Full Metal McCain - Haunted by the ghosts of Vietnam, the one-time maverick has transformed himself into just another liberal-bashing fearmonger

...here in the Big Easy, John McCain has chosen this moment to mount his first general-election attack against the Great Satanic Liberal Enemy — who, as luck would have it, turns out to be a Negro intellectual from Harvard who's never served in the military. And this is supposed to be a bad year for Republicans?...

No media outcry. No carping or complaining from the candidate. Just another day at the office for the GOP.

Hat tip: Rants & Refinements

Sunday, July 20, 2008

Obama's official campaign blog hosts more racist filth


Somehow (*sigh*) this one was approved by Obama's webmasters.

Just what is it about Obama's site that attracts this sort of virulent racism?

The kike filth are trying to steal this election from us. But this is our time. The kike live in fear of peace. They fear happiness. The thought of people living happily in peace without killing each other frightens the horde of kike that runs our government. But when pieces of kike use their kike manipulation tactics to stop Barack, it is time to strike back. There is nothing a kike army can do when faced with progressive people who are determined to achieve peace. We will achieve lasting peace.

Lovely. Let's all hum the dual mantras of "hope" and "change".

The author, going by the handle Kate Smythe-Blake, is no newcomer to Obama's website. There's a delightful history of posts including:

War hero?
By Kate Smythe-Blake - Jul 1st, 2008 at 10:57 pm EDT
John McCain is no war hero.

We are all Hussein
By Kate Smythe-Blake - Jun 30th, 2008 at 11:17 pm EDT
I am Hussein.

The Future is Now
By Kate Smythe-Blake - Jun 29th, 2008 at 5:50 pm EDT
We are tired of waiting for the things that we want. We will be repressed no longer. This is our time. The future is now. Get on board or be left behind.

Get on board the train?

History Lesson: How Democrats doubled down on defeat


A brief tour:

• Democrat Joe Biden, Jan. 2007: "If he surges another 20, 30 [thousand], or whatever number he's going to, into Baghdad, it'll be a tragic mistake."

• Democrat Barack Obama, Jan. 2007: "I am not persuaded that 20,000 additional troops in Iraqis going to solve the sectarian violence there. In fact, I think it will do the reverse."

• Democrat Hillary Clinton, Jan. 2007: "I cannot support [the] proposed escalation of the war in Iraq."

• Democrat Barack Obama, Jan 2007: "I don't think the president's [surge] strategy is going to work."

• Democrat John Kerry, Feb. 2007: "The simple fact is that sending in over 20,000 additional troops isn't the answer--in fact, it's a tragic mistake. It won't end the violence; it won't provide security; ...it won't turn back the clock and avoid the civil war that is already underway; it won't deter terrorists, who have a completely different agenda; it won't rein in the militias."

• Democrat Dennis Kucinich, Feb. 2007: "It has been proven time and time again that troop surges don't work."

• Democrat Harry Reid, Apr. 2007: "The war is lost... This surge is not accomplishing anything."

• Democrat Christopher Dodd, Apr. 2007: "We don't need a surge of troops in Iraq... there is no military solution in Iraq. To insist upon a surge is wrong."

• Democrat Barack Obama, Jul. 2007: "My assessment is that the surge has not worked."

• Democrat Dick Durbin, Aug. 2007: "By carefully manipulating the statistics, the Bush-Petraeus report will try to persuade us that violence in Iraq is decreasing and thus the surge is working. Even if the figures were right, the conclusion is wrong."

• Democrat Jan Schakowsky, Aug. 2007: "I believe overall the surge is a failure. ...It’s clear to me we cannot win..."

• Democrat Joe Biden, Sep. 2007: "We should stop the surge and start bringing our troops home... [When asked whether Iraq closer to political reconciliation than before the surge began, and would continuing the operation stop the killing between Sunnis, Shi'ites and Kurds?] ...The answer to both those questions is no."

• Democrat John Kerry, Sep. 2007: ""The president's escalation ... has failed to achieve its goal of bringing about a resolution of the fundamental conflict between Sunni and Shi'ite."

• Democrat Chris Dodd, Sep. 2007: "It pains me to say that ... the surge tactic is a failure — and that failure is reconfirmed everyday by unfolding events in Iraq."

• Democrat Barack Obama, Oct. 2007: "[The surge is a] complete failure... Iraq’s leaders are not reconciling. They are not achieving political benchmarks."

• Democrat Harry Reid, Nov. 2007: "It is indisputable that the goals of the surge have failed."

• Democrat Joe Biden, Nov. 2007: "This whole notion that the surge is working is fantasy."

• Democrat Nancy Pelosi, Feb. 2008: "There haven't been gains [in Iraq]... The gains have not produced the desired effect, which is the reconciliation of Iraq. This is a failure. This is a failure."

• Democrat Carl Levin, Apr. 2008: "...the purpose of the surge as announced by President Bush last year... has not been achieved"

• Democrat Joe Biden, Apr. 2008: "The purpose of the surge was to bring violence in Iraq down so that its leaders could come together politically. Violence has come down, but the Iraqis have not come together... We Democrats understand that this war must end..."

• Democrat Bill Richardson, Jun. 2008: "[when asked if he was ready to concede that John McCain had been right in proposing the surge, said] "Absolutely not."

Peter Wehner concludes:

Democrats, then, have compounded their initial bad judgment about the surge with reckless obstinacy. As ethno-sectarian violence in Iraq rapidly declined, as al Qaeda absorbed tremendous military blows, and as political accommodation and legislative achievements have emerged, Democrats, rather than welcoming the progress, grew agitated. They embraced with religious zeal the belief that the Iraq war was lost; they therefore viewed the success of the surge as a terribly inconvenient development, one they sought to deny to the point that they looked silly and out of touch. Worse, Democrats acted as if they had a vested interest in an American defeat.

Rarely has a political party been so uniformly wrong, in such an obvious way, on such an important matter. And when Americans cast their vote on November 4, they should carefully consider how Barack Obama and the entire Democratic party fought ferociously and relentlessly to undermine a policy that has worked extraordinarily well...

Democrats called General Petraeus a liar. They said the war was lost. They claimed our troops were barbaric, killing innocent civilians with impunity.

They were wrong. They were unbelievably partisan, putting their interests before those of the United States and the safety of its military.

No party has been more wrong, more often, on serious issues of national import than the Democratic party since 1864.

As for Iraq? Well, let's just say that the Democrats' track record as the Party of Weakness and Defeat remains unblemished.

Update: Even preventing a holocaust wasn't a good enough reason for Obama to keep troops in Iraq:

Barack Obama said Thursday the United States cannot use its military to solve humanitarian problems and that preventing a potential genocide in Iraq isn't a good enough reason to keep U.S. forces there...


Linked by: Gateway Pundit and Wolf Howling. Thanks! Sources: Peter Wehner, Stephen Collinson, Democrats.org, New York Times, Think Progress, Democrats.org, Reuters, Carl Levin's Official Website, Chris Dodd's Official Website.

Dark Knight of Terror


The Washington Times' Sonny Bunch reviews The Dark Knight:

The Nolans force an interesting dilemma on the audience: How should society combat [terroristic] malevolence? With the shining white knight, a district attorney who plays by the rules and brings criminals to justice in a court of law?

Or with the tarnished dark knight, a masked vigilante who operates outside the jurisdiction of the police — a man who doesn't blanch at the thought of dropping a murderer off a 20-foot balcony to soften him up for interrogation? Is it possible for the two to work in tandem without the dark corrupting the light?

..."The Dark Knight" is a masterpiece of the first order, and the first great post-Sept. 11 film. I mean that not chronologically, but generically. It is the first film to realistically confront the impact of terror on society writ large — and grapple with how that society must respond in the face of nihilistic aggression against a foe dedicated to ending its way of life.

Goodness. Now progressives will be complaining that Hollywood is endorsing the "politics of fear."

Progressive blog comment-watch


Over at TPM Election Central, Hillary and Obama loyalists are going after each other with a vengeance ("Top Dem Party Officials Send Sharply-Worded Email Demanding That Hillary Donors And Supporters Get Behind Obama"). Accusations of trolling, stupidity, Democratic sabotage, and the like are running fast and furious.

This comes on the heels of a series of death threats against Hillary backers. Nothing says Party Unity like the promise of a set of ghastly murders.

In the post's comments, the current curse-word totals are running as follows:

12 f***
 4 s***
 4 a**
 3 a******

I'll alert the blogosphere as those counts change.