Tuesday, October 21, 2008
Powell's Predictable Endorsement
Gen. Colin Powell’s endorsement of Barack Obama for president, in effect ending Powell’s brief interlude as a Republican, was the least surprising and most predictable event of an unusually unpredictable election cycle. The interaction between Powell and the Republican Party was never a marriage made in heaven.
Powell was enticed into becoming a Republican, even though he had no connection with or affection for the Republican Party. Unlike Eisenhower, who carried no ideology into politics, Powell is much more of a liberal in his ideology.
Powell’s debut as a Republican at the 1996 GOP convention in San Diego was not an auspicious success, particularly after the general delivered a speech that seemed suspiciously Democratic to the assembled delegates.
Powell’s friend and political adviser Kenneth Duberstein, a Washington Republican operative and lobbyist, has tried hard to facilitate Powell’s entrance into the GOP. But as astute as Duberstein is, the general and the GOP simply never trusted each other.
The general resisted efforts to enlist him as a party fund-raiser, and Powell was clearly not comfortable as a Republican.
The endorsement of Obama was an event waiting to happen.
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Powell Endorses McCain (Endorsement Ignored by MSM)
Powell has endorsed McCain. Huh? Is that some sort of typo? Nope. It is the Powell endorsement that the mainstream media is ignoring. Colin Powell has endorsed Barack Obama which was widely heralded in the MSM. However, his son, former FCC Commission Chairman Michael Powell has endorsed John McCain. The MSM is conveniently ignoring it but here is the report of this endorsement in The Hill: [snip]
He endorsed McCain early in the Republican primary in January, and said the Arizona senator was the best candidate to “calm the turbulent economic waters and to steer the new economy in a direction that will bring growth, opportunity and prosperity to all Americans.”Now imagine if the reverse had happened. Colin Powell endorses McCain while son Michael endorses Obama. Does anyone doubt that the tenor of the Colin Powell endorsement story would be that while he endorsed McCain, his "progressive" son, representing the younger generation, endorsed Obama?
Michael Powell serves as senior adviser of Providence Equity Partners and rector of the board of visitors of the College of William and Mary. He also serves on the boards of Cisco Systems, ObjectVideo and the Rand Corporation, and served as chairman of the FCC under Bush from 2001 to 2005.
However, since the reverse happened, the Michael Powell endorsement of McCain is almost completely overlooked in the media. Check out Google and you will see the only mention of the Michael Powell endorsement of McCain is in The Hill.
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'Joe the Plumber' strikes back at media
NEW YORK – "Joe the Plumber" is lashing out at the media for analyzing his personal life since he suddenly became a focal point of the presidential race last week.
Joe Wurzelbacher, a plumber from Holland, Ohio, told Mike Huckabee on his Fox News talk show Saturday that he is upset by the attention and has been unable to work with reporters crowded on his front lawn.
"The media's worried about whether I've paid my taxes, they're worried about any number of silly things that have nothing to do with America,"Wurzelbacher said he agreed to appear on the show after he received phone calls from friends serving in the military who voiced their support.
"You know, when you can't ask a question of your leaders anymore, that gets scary,"READ MORE
These plumbers are on Joe's side
"Tommy the Plumber" is kind of hot. He's irritated by U.S. Sen. Barack Obama's plan to raise taxes on people who make $250,000 or more. "I've made that," said Tommy Kimmons, owner of Kimmons Plumbing.
"I know a lot of other plumbers that have made more than that. We are already taxed to the death and you want to throw some more on us, especially in these economical times. People are going to be laying people off."READ MORE
Two views on voter fraud...
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45% Say ACORN Trying to Register Illegal Voters
Forty-five percent (45%) of voters say the liberal activist group ACORN is trying to register voters illegally, but they’re divided over whether Barack Obama has ties to the group, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey. Only 25% think ACORN, under investigation in 15 [update: 17] states for possible voter registration fraud, is not trying to put illegal voters on the rolls.
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CNN Airs Democratic Fears About GOP Voter Suppression
CNN correspondent Carol Costello’s report on Monday’s American Morning program unquestioningly repeated a claim by Democrats in Michigan that Republicans in the state would disqualify voters affected by home foreclosures. She began her report by phrasing the accusation this way:
"Lost your house to foreclosure? Democrats in Macomb County, Michigan, say beware -- Republicans, they say, want to make sure you lose your vote, too."READ MORE
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Media Overwhelmingly Positive on Obama
It is no surprise that Barack Obama receives much better treatment in the media than John McCain, but the non-partisan Center for Media and Public Affairs actually conducted a study that concluded just that.
The Center’s evaluation found that since both candidates were formally nominated "Senator Obama on the network evening news shows have been 65% positive, compared to only 36% positive about John McCain."
While the networks ignored the study, the October 20 edition of "Fox and Friends" interviewed CMPA’s founder Robert Lichter. Lichter noted that Obama fits the media’s template of a "fresh face," "some sort of special dimensions," and "charismatic quality." He did note that the media eventually sours on such candidates, but curiously have not done so for Senator Obama.
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ABC Touts 'Obama's Best Weekend Ever,' Powell's 'Booster Rocket'
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"Good Morning America" journalists celebrated the endorsement of Senator Barack Obama by former Secretary of State Colin Powell on Monday's program. An ABC graphic for reporter John Berman's segment did not hold back. It asked, "Obama's Best Weekend Ever? Powell and Donors Boost Obama."
Co-host Diane Sawyer teased the story by announcing, "This morning, Senator Obama's banner weekend: Record breaking crowds, cash and the endorsement heard around the world."[?] [audio excerpt here]
[i.e., how to spin a predictable, expected event into 'world news'. What bias? These folks would be comical if so many Americans didn't actually swallow this pap.]
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Lauer to Obama: How Will You 'Manage Expectations' of Being 'Messiah?'
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Reciting all the messianic nicknames given to Barack Obama, such as "The One," "The Savior," and "The Messiah," NBC's Matt Lauer, on Monday's "Today" show asked the Democratic presidential nominee, how he will "manage" such great, "expectations." During an interview, aired in two parts in the first hour of "Today," Lauer rarely hit Obama with a tough question, instead choosing to focus on recent campaign highlights...
[well why start asking tough questions now - the election's over, haven't you heard?]
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Pelosi: 100% Barack's Gonna Win
There are only 15 days left until Election Day, which means that pundits and pols will be busy predicting who will win come November 7. We caught up with Speaker Nancy Pelosi at Georgetown's Café Milano Friday night and she didn't pull any punches. "100% Barack Obama is going to win!" she told Yeas & Nays. "He's going to be our next president and a great president at that. We're all excited to work him."
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Obama And Ayers: Why The Excuses?
A reader writes: I'm a liberal and a decided Obama voter. But Democrats' excuses for Obama with respect to Ayers are extremely annoying to me. I haven't seen in the press a clear explanation of why Obama attended an event at Ayers' home, or whether or not he knew about Ayers activities. (Snip) If Obama knew Ayers was an unremorseful terrorist, then let him explain to us why he felt it was okay for him to call on Ayers at his home.
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The Obama-Khalidi Connection
Another radical Obama association exposed
Khalidi is a former professor at the University of Illinois and was a close friend of Barack Obama and his wife Michelle. At a farewell dinner for Khalidi before he took the Columbia job, Obama 's speech was filled with glowing praise for his friend, including references to the many meals they had shared. He thanked Khalidi for opening his eyes about the problems of the Palestinians.
Khalidi himself has given vocal support to suicide bombers.
Khalidi's wife Mona ran the Chicago area charity, the Arab American Action Network, that received substantial assistance from the Woods Fund, a left wing foundation that Obama and unreconstructed terrorist Bill Ayers were Board members. The AAAN was notorious for its pro-Palestianian sympathies.
[not just one 'association' - but one in a long litany of working relationships with one extreme radical after another -- and the media? silent.]
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Obama-Khalidi-Ayers and the MSM
The Washington Post's Chris Cillizza is a regular and very welcome guest on the program. Prompted by Ace of Spades, I asked Chris on Tuesday prior to the presidential debate about MSM's treatment of Joe Biden's serial misstatements at last week's VP debate. The transcript is here.
At the conclusion of the interview I inquired if Chris knew of Rashid Khalidi, and Khalidi's friendship with Bill Ayers and Khalidi's long association with Barack Obama. Chris didn't, which didn't surprise me as I hadn't know about it either until an interview with Stanley Kurtz on Monday.
What Kurtz explained to me is that Bill Ayers and Rashid Khalidi are very close: [long history, snip]
What all of this suggests is that the Hyde Park community of hard left intellectuals was tightly knit, and that Obama was at the heart of it. MSM's indifference to this community and its impact on Obama is nothing short of astounding, like leaving his Vietnam experiences out of Kerry's bio in 2004.
[yet it's being ignored]
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Bring On The Boo Birds
I don’t approve of pelting anyone with anything — but really, can you blame a McCain crowd for showing contempt for a MSM “newsman”? If MSM wants to be treated as impartial arbiter, a “watchdog” and not a lapdog of one candidate, its members should consider some behavior modification.
Demand not just medical records but earmark records from Joe Biden. Ask Barack Obama why he served on the Woods Fund with Bill Ayers for years and if he specifically approved grants to ACORN and a host of leftwing groups. Do a 3000-word piece on Obama’s earmarks and ties to corrupt Chicago officials to counterbalance the dozens of 3000-word pieces going after the other side (e.g. ”Palin annoys Wasilla librarian” and “Cindy McCain was addicted to pain killers”).
Even more shocking, not a single one of the networks news outlet or mainstream national newspaper has looked at Obama’s unprecedented attempt to use the Justice Department to chill speech...
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The Real Threat of Censorship
Since losing power in 1994, the Left has been making ugly noises about what would happen when it regained power. The “fairness doctrine” has been bandied about, but that is not what should alarm us most... [snip]
More frighteningly, speech codes and the very term “politically incorrect” have been formally adopted by college administrations as the proper way to speak, to write, and to think. Coercion, not persuasion, has become the preferred means of advancing Leftism. Why then should we be so surprised that partisans in political campaigns now find the Left menacing them for politically incorrect versions of truth? [snip]
Now, the Obama campaign has taken the next logical step. Obama supporters openly seek to censor campaign ads critical of Obama by threatening private lawsuits and, much more dangerously, punitive actions by public prosecutors against anyone who, in their partisan opinion, does not tell 'the truth' about Obama. The Left now seeks openly to shut up not only those voices who operate on the public airways, like talk radio, but it seeks to shut up any voices who challenge their positions [snip]
This Leftist agenda is dangerously brazen and critically close to becoming real. Any assumption that people who have shown no restraint at all in their pursuit of power would not take the last, bitter, necessary step toward the sort of control which the Left once exercised is an error.
Perhaps, for us, it may be the most tragic error in the history of our republic...
[something you need to know {or once it's censored, how will you?} > PLEASE READ > http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/5653 ]
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McCain Would Restore America’s Standing
The left’s explanations for Middle Eastern rage can be reduced to the following: misunderstanding (almost always ours), humiliation (almost always inflicted by us, or by key allies, such as Israel) or insufficient commitment to conflict resolution (almost always by us). And since we are, in large part, to blame for the problem because of either ignorance, arrogance or absence, then the solution lies in our hands as well, by pursuing some new policy initiative that remedies whatever was lacking in our previous efforts.
The right approaches the issue from a different perspective: Middle Eastern rage is a manifestation of contempt toward the West, which is itself a result of the deep agony that has gripped the Islamic world since its failed siege of Vienna half a millennium ago. The contempt emanates from a sense of entitlement and superiority, the agitation from frustration. The rejection of the West’s rise over the last millennium drives the politics of our enemies — be they secular Ba’athists or Shiite and Sunni Islamists. As long as that contempt is confirmed and stimulated by displays of Western guilt or apology, then the embers of hope for a restored Islamic empire will continue to burn.
Ultimately, this debate should be argued not according to theories and assumptions, but by evidence of what works, what doesn’t and what has never been tried. The policies that Obama advocates — dialogue with Iran, investing the full weight of American prestige and presidential power on resolving the Palestinian issue, attempting to seduce the dictator of Damascus into a Western orbit — have all been tried, not once, but by almost all administrations until now.
Indeed, with the exception of the Reagan years, almost all the policies toward the Middle East in the last 35 years are anchored to the left’s assumptions... [snip]
Thus, the evidence amassed over decades on these sorts of policies toward Iran, Syria and the Palestinians is overwhelming: They not only fail but carry costs that further undermine American prestige, increase anti-Americanism and weaken our key allies and friends in the region. Some of the renowned Arab philosophers of past centuries would little wonder at this result. They understood the dynamic. To paraphrase one of the greatest, Ibn Hazm:"Those who chase the friendship of their foes only earn the despair of their friends and the contempt of their enemies..."
[ McCain's no Reagan, but Obama is Carter ]
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Iran Refuses to Meet US Without Preconditions
Mehdi Kalhor, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's media consultant and Iran's Vice President of media affairs announced on Saturday that Iran is setting two preconditions before it will engage in any talks with the United States. (h/t Wizbang).In an exclusive interview with the Islamic Republic News Agency, he said as long as U.S. forces have not left the Middle East region and continues its support for the Zionist regime, talks between Iran and U.S. is off the agenda.
The announcement was made in an interview with the Islamic Republic News Agency and has been reported independently by both the Fars News Agency and Al Jezeera. Strangely though there does not appear to be any mention in the US media according to a Google search.
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Iran busts 'spy pigeons' near nuclear site
Security forces in Natanz have arrested two suspected ''spy pigeons'' near Iran's controversial uranium enrichment facility, the reformist Etemad Melli newspaper reported on Monday. One of the pigeons was caught near a rose water production plant in the city of Kashan in Isfahan province, the report cited an unnamed informed source as saying, adding that some metal rings and invisible strings were attached to the bird...
[er, excuse - but if the strings are invisible - oh never mind]
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