I knew this would be a great election year – lots of good stuff to look forward to. But even I underestimated this, in particular, I underestimated John McCain.

I think Palin is a phenomenal choice for VP. And that is true regardless of gender. Her record of being the outsider and confronting corruption is the perfect pairing for McCain’s “maverick” image.

The other great thing is how foolishly the Obama campaign walked right into McCain’s trap – and started scrutinizing Palin’s experience.

On Hannity & Colmes last night, there was this little gem:

Alan Colmes: Do you believe that Sarah Palin is ready, Day One, if God forbid something happens to John McCain?

Mike Huckabee: I think she’s far more ready to be President if something happens to McCain than Barack Obama would be if something doesn’t happen to McCain.

I already liked Huckabee. But that retort just put him off the map.

Comparisons between Palin and Obama are just awesome. If you read nothing else about Palin, make it Sarah Palin vs. Barack Obama by Jeff Emanuel at redstate.com. It’s actually quite factually accurate. Which is what makes it all the more hilarious.

The Obama campaign has no class. Their reaction to McCain’s choice of Sarah Palin to be VP this morning:

Today, John McCain put the former mayor of a town of 9,000 with zero foreign policy experience a heartbeat away from the presidency. Governor Palin shares John McCain’s commitment to overturning Roe v. Wade, the agenda of Big Oil and continuing George Bush’s failed economic policies. That’s not the change we need, it’s just more of the same.

Wait, did you hear the birds chirping? No congratulations in that statement, at all.

Hmm, let’s respond to each of these points:

1) “Former mayor of a town of 9,000 with zero foreign policy experience a heartbeat away from the presidency.” Or how about a “community organizer,” originally elected in one of the most corrupt districts in the country, who had barely been in the US Senate long enough to take a breath before being pushed on the public as presidential material? This is an argument Obama does not want to enter into.

That Palin comes from a small town means she is an outsider. That plays well, especially when all the other candidates are Senators. If Obama wants to stay away from being attacked as elitist, he better stay away from begrudging Palin’s political background from a small town.

Further, she’s a governor as well as a mayor, Senator Obama. That means she has executive experience. And she got there by taking on the corrupt politicians in her own party. Americans like that kind of experience, and she’s been at it longer than Obama has (since Bill Ayers hosted Obama’s first fundraiser). I’ve never heard of Obama ever taking on the corruption in Chicago – because he has specifically benefitted from it.

2) “…commitment to overturning Roe v. Wade…” Good. Because last time I checked, the “right to an abortion” isn’t found anywhere in our Constitution, and if there is ONE Supreme Court decision that deserves to be overturned, it’s the one that says people have a constitutional right to murder their unborn children.

3) “…the agenda of Big Oil…” This is the biggest stretch of the bunch, and reveals how desperate Obama’s campaign is. Her husband is a blue collar worker in the oil industry, from what I understand. The corruption she took on was specifically linked to oil companies.

4) “…George Bush’s failed economic policies…” Trying to describe McCain/Palin as a 3rd Bush/Cheney term simply isn’t going to work. In any case, if you think cutting wasteful spending, attacking corruption, and lowering taxes is a “failed” economic policy, then that’s one more reason for me to not vote for you.

Later in the afternoon, Obama made some comments of congratulations. He tried to excuse the earlier lack of class by saying:

I think that, you know, campaigns start getting these hair triggers.

Yeah, these are people picked by Obama that work for him. And he tries to pass the buck.

That his campaign immediately went into attack mode, and distorted her record and belittled her experience, reveals how little class Obama and his campaign has.

More of the same, I guess.

Yes, I watched the speech last night. It was a good speech, and if you’re a liberal, I can understand that you’re more energized now than ever. For the first time in 16 years, the Democrats have a found someone who can give a stump speech without boring you to tears.

But the speech has issues. Mostly, the classic problem liberals have – that things are just awful and only the government can make them better.

There’s a lot of good response to the speech today, but this response from Pejman Yousefzadeh over at redstate.com is one of the best.

I am not hard-hearted to those who suffer. I just am outraged that politicians feel they have to constantly and consistently appeal to our worst fears by making it seem as if suffering is everywhere and just around the corner from your home, barreling towards you to consign you to the depths of Hellish misery and that the only way to escape is to actually be reassured and grateful when Bureaucratic Man comes around and tells us “I am from the Government and I am here to help.” We ought to know by now that governmental “help” is nothing of the kind. The same people that screw up your day while you are waiting in line at the Post Office, while you are waiting at the DMV or while you are dealing with the recalcitrant IRS gnome who is impervious to reason are the ones who will be put in charge of your health care, will administer tax policy and will usurp your right and the right of your community to raise and educate your children. All the pretty words in the world can’t hide that ugly fact.

Just like global warming (of which there has been none for 7-8 years), I’m tired of hearing how awful the economy is. Even last night, Obama talked about the economy being in such bad shape, ignoring the report yesterday that the GDP grew at 3.3%. Just like how the Democrats are ignoring the progress in Iraq, Democratic victory this year is dependent upon voters believing everything is awful. Even when it isn’t true.

The Obama link with Bill Ayers has been heating up lately in the press, and for good reason. That Obama has been a close friend of Ayers, and that Ayers is a huge political supporter of Obama (including helping him get his start in politics), is an important piece of information that the public should be made aware of.

Or, if you’re Obama, you surely believe that the public should not be made aware of it. Reading how Obama’s campaign has been trying to handle this issue reminds me heavily of the Clinton years. That is, when your opposition is trying to push out information that can destroy your political power, you do everything you can to shut them up.

Last week, the group American Issues Project released a commercial clearly outlining the links between Obama and Ayers.

Obama’s initial response was to blame the whole thing on McCain – whose campaign wasn’t a part of this commercial at all. But Obama’s response only highlighted the issue further, and the media picked it up that much more. So Obama’s campaign filed a complaint with the Justice Department against the American Issues Project, claiming that they violated FEC rules by running the ad.

Recently, Stanley Kurtz wrote an article for the National Review outlining the Obama-Ayers links, and his efforts to get access to archives at the Univsirty of Illinois at Chicago (where Ayers is a professor) that would further provide evidence of their close association while Obama served on a board of a group that Ayers founded at the university.

These records were only recently released a couple of days ago – after a lot of suspicious runarounds with the University (detailed in Kurtz’ article, which was written before the University finally agreed to release the documents). Thus, Kurtz has a lot of light to shed on this issue as he has been pouring over this material over the last couple of days.

Kurtz was to be on WGN radio in Chicago last night to discuss this, but Obama sought to have all discussion of the topic removed from the station:

“WGN radio is giving right-wing hatchet man Stanley Kurtz a forum to air his baseless, fear-mongering terrorist smears,” Obama’s campaign wrote in an e-mail to supporters. “He’s currently scheduled to spend a solid two-hour block from 9:00 to 11:00 p.m. pushing lies, distortions, and manipulations about Barack and University of Illinois professor William Ayers.”

The Obama campaign also urged supporters to flood the radio station with complaint calls. The Milt Rosenburg show asked the Obama campaign to send someone to appear on the show to respond, but that didn’t happen. Obama has steadfastly refused pretty much any talk radio appearance requests.

This is Obama’s playbook – any time serious criticism is leveled against him, you do what you can to shut them up. Tell them your wife is off-limits (though she’s campaigning heavily for you). Characterize them as as “right-wing hatchet man,” a “smear-merchant,” pushing “fear-mongering terrorist smears.” Oh, and of course, you have to accuse them of “lowering the standards of political discourse.” Then for good measure, file a complaint against them with the Justice Department, and hope that an investigation will either cost them a lot of money, or hopefully shut them down altogether.

This is the kind of tactic any typical politician would take – when you can’t argue against a position, demonize the opposition and if possible, shut them down. If you seriously think that Obama, who was been handed multiple elections by a corrupt Chicago poltical machine, represents any “new kind of politics,” you’re going to be very, very disappointed.

This is the kind of tactic Obama uses while a candidate. Imagine what would happen if he becomes the president. Given that Nancy Pelosi and other Democrats want to re-enact the Fairness Doctrine, it would be easy for Democrats to squelch this kind of opposition using new FCC rules once they have full control of the government.

More of the same.

UPDATE: more links on this story: Michelle Malkin includes some comments from people who listened to the show and how some of Obama’s supporters were trying to disrupt it.

Somebody sent me a link to this YouTube video today. It does an awesome job highlighting Obama’s shifting positions on Iraq.

This video includes the following quotes from Obama:

“I am not persuaded that 20,000 additional troops in Iraq is going to solve the sectarian violence there. In fact, I think it will do the reverse.” (January 10, 2007, MSNBC)

“And I said at the time, when I opposed the surge, that given how wonderfully our troops perform, if we place 30,000 more troops in there, then we would see an improvement in the security situation and we would see a reduction in the violence.” (January 5, 2008, Democratic debate)

The video provides this “translation:” You’re never wrong if you pretend you gave the right answer all along.

Also:

“It is clear at this point that we cannot, through putting in more troops or maintaining the presence that we have, expect that somehow the situation is going to improve.” (October 22, 2006, Meet the Press)

“My assessment is that the surge has not worked and we will not see a different report eight weeks from now.” (July 18, 2007, Today)

“Finally, in 2006-2007, we started to see that, even after an election, George Bush continued to want to pursue a course that didn’t withdraw troops from Iraq but actually doubled down and initiated a surge and at that stage I said very clearly, not only have we not seen improvements, but we’re actually worsening, potentially, a situation there.” (November 11, 2007, Meet the Press)

This is important because Obama will be coming back from Iraq, and he will have to radically change his tune. In fact, he already has – the Obama website has removed portions that claim the surge is not working. Why? Because the surge has been working. Violence is way, way down. Which means that McCain was right all along. And Obama will shift his position on Iraq, again. As he has done with so many things. But in doing so, he will upset his angry left base, and to the center he will reveal himself as a man with no principles.

Bill Clinton could get away with stuff like this. For one thing, he was a better liar. But far more importantly, Obama has to contend with the internet, which is a vast archive of all of his previous positions. He can’t plausibly claim now that he thought the surge would work, despite the fact that he opposed it, because when he originally opposed it he said (quite eloquently, I might add) that the surge would make the situation worse. But he likewise can’t tell the truth and say that he was against it all along, because doing so removes any credibility that as commander-in-chief he could make the right decision.

Perhaps the best part about this video, that is so hard-hitting against Obama, is that it comes from the McCain campaign. This is a good sign – that they have the gumption to call Obama out on his lies, and that they will use the internet to get this message out.

The center has always belonged to McCain, for good or ill, and he doesn’t have to “shift” to get there at all. But as Obama tries to shift to the center, he will meet the same problems that Kerry did in 2004. His record is far too liberal to survive the shift. The only variable left is how tough McCain will get. If this video is any indication, McCain is ready to pull if off.

Several Supreme Court decisions came down in the last couple of days. As is the case with many Supreme Court decisions, you have the conservative wing (Roberts, Scalia, Thomas, and Alito) opposite the liberal wing (Stevens, Souter, Ginsburg, and Breyer). Therefore, Justice Kennedy seems to hold the key to what the court will decide, and he did in each of these cases.

District of Columbia v Heller – The Supreme Court finally analyzed whether or not the “right to keep and bear arms” applies to the government or to individuals. Of course, no other right in the Bill of Rights was applied to the government. The Bill of Rights essentially either places restrictions on government by securing to rights to individuals. Liberals have been arguing for years that the “right to keep and bear arms” wasn’t on par with freedom of speech, press, or religion. The conservative wing of the court was joined by Justice Kennedy to provide a sensible, plain interpretation of the 2nd amendment.

Kennedy v Louisiana – The Supreme Court decided that states cannot provide the death penalty as an option for punishment of those convicted of child rape, saying that this violates the “cruel and unusual punishment” clause. Look, either the death penalty is cruel and unusual or it isn’t. The Supreme Court has repeatedly upheld the death penalty (even as recently as two months ago!), but it seems like the court (at least the liberal wing of it) wants to micromanage exactly how it can be used. Justice Kennedy joined the liberal wing of the court.

Boumediene v Bush – The Supreme Court said “just kidding” (according to Scalia’s dissent) and required the executive branch to grant all detainees at Guantanamo Bay full habeas corpus rights. (Previously, the court instructed Congress to outline a process for the military to apply to consider a detainee’s request for release, which was passed as the Military Commissions Act of 2006. This ruling basically makes that act of Congress worthless.) Essentially, the judicial branch is now determining how the executive branch should wage war, including what rights it must grant upon enemy combatants captured in the field of war. Judicial activism at it’s finest. Justice Kennedy again joined the liberal wing of the court.

The point isn’t whether you personally agree with the liberal or conservative view of any of these decisions. The question is whether the decision was based on a principle of the separation of powers, and whether a right is explicitly defined by the Constitution or not.

For instance, the “right to keep and bear arms” is explicitly in the 2nd amendment, and residents of Washington, DC have been denied that right for some time. The liberal wing of the court wanted to continue to deny them of that right. The conservative wing of the court sees that the 2nd amendment was passed by legislative and democratic processes, and that it is outside of the government’s power to completely deny them a right specifically guaranteed to them.

In terms of capital punishment, a case could be made that the death penalty is “cruel and unusual” – however, the court has repeatedly upheld this as a form of punishment. In what circumstances a punishment should be applied is open to interpretation, but it is exactly this kind of interpretation that was destined for legislatures to debate through democratic processes. Instead, the liberal wing of the court likes to look for “evolving standards,” “national consensus,” and making their own decisions about what is an acceptable “proportional punishment.” These types of decisions were never meant to be decided by unaccountable judges, only by elected officials.

With regards to enemy combatants, the power to wage war is vested in one individual, the commander-in-chief. Congress declares war, but the president wages it. And the president is accountable, as an elected official. As the Supreme Court enters into the issue, our ability to wage war must now be held against standards set by an unaccountable, unelected branch of government. Congress is given the power to set the jurisdiction of the courts, which is what it did in the Military Commissions Act of 2006. But for some reason the Supreme Court can just decide that this law is worthless, and instead of allowing the president to wage a war that was declared by the Congress, it has stepped in and declared that enemy combatants have the same rights as citizens under the Constitution (at least with respect to habeas corpus).

The liberal wing of the court likes to accomplish by judicial fiat what cannot be accomplished through legislative means. Protecting judges from political pressure is not supposed to be a blank check to enacting whatever changes they desire. But in a world where the Supreme Court is the most politically active and most politically powerful institution in the land, we should not be surprised that nominations and confirmation hearings are as politically charged as they have become since the Democrats made a mockery of the process with Robert Bork. (The slanderous accusations made by Ted Kennedy led to Bork’s defeat, and to today’s situation of Justice Kennedy as the swing vote.)

Conservatives desire justices who read the laws, interpret, and apply them. Liberals desire justices who will continue to uphold the court’s liberally activist past, while forging ahead into new frontiers of liberal activism impossible to pass legislatively.

All of this becomes extremely important when deciding who to vote for this November for president.

UPDATE: Larrey Anderson dealt with this same topic in Justice Anthony Kennedy and Our Schizophrenic Supreme Court, and summed the problem up well: “Your personal right to firearms was one vote away from being thrown on the ash heap of history. And it still is. Cities, like New York, with strict gun control laws, will be sued in federal court using the holding from Heller. Justice Kennedy could change his mind tomorrow.” Ann Coulter also handled this topic mightily in last week’s column, Justice Kennedy: American Idle.

In 10 Concerns about Barack Obama, Bill Bennett and Seth Leibsohn outline ten reasons to be very concerned about Obama. Head over to the article for the full reasoning, but here’s the list, with my comments:

“Barack Obama’s foreign policy is dangerous, naïve, and betrays a profound misreading of history.” He likes to compare his desire to meet with our enemies to Reagan meeting with Gorbachev – which only happened after Gorbachev began making changes and revealed himself as a different kind of leader. And also only happend AFTER Reagan called the Soviet Union out as an “evil empire.” Reagan’s views were best summed up as “peace through strength” and “trust but verify.”

“Barack Obama’s Iraq policy will hand al-Qaeda a victory and undercut our entire position in the Middle East, while at the same time put a huge source of oil in the hands of terrorists.” With all the progress made in Iraq in the past several months, Obama still hasn’t changed his tune on this. Obama will simply hand Iraq to al-Qaeda on a silver platter.

“Barack Obama has sent mixed, confusing, and inconsistent messages on his policy toward Israel.” Saying one thing to AIPAC one day and quickly backtracking from it the next, he’s confused both supporters of Israel and those who desire to destroy it (Obama did receive an endorsement from Hamas).

“In the primary campaign, Barack Obama consistently campaigned against NAFTA, but has now changed his tune, as he has with other issues.” They also point out his switch on public campaign financing. Along with his switches on support for Israel, it looks like the Democrats have picked another flip-flopper.

“Barack Obama’s judgment about personal and professional affiliations is more than troubling.” Jeremiah Wright and Bill Ayers were bad enough, but the list keeps getting longer. These types of affiliations represent the types of people he will appoint for positions in his administration, as ambassadors, as judges, etc.

“Obama is simply out of step with how terrorists should be handled; he would turn back the clock on how we fight terrorism, using the failed strategy of the 1990s as opposed to the post-9/11 strategy that has kept us safe.” Obama considers it no big deal that captured terrorists will have to be granted habeas-corpus rights under the recent Supreme Court ruling. He considers the first World Trade Center bombing to be a shining example of battling terrorists – wait until they bomb us, then arrest them and keep them in prison. That mentality didn’t protect the country on 9/11, and a break from that mentality has kept us safer over the past seven years. Obama would return back to the “law enforcement” strategy that gave us a false sense of security.

“Barack Obama’s economic policies would hurt the economy.” Obama wants to increase taxes on income, payroll, capital gains, dividends, and inheritance. His proposals would have a devastating affect on the economy, which is currently struggling. Add tax hikes on top of that, and you can bet that the economy will go into a full-blown recession.

“Barack Obama opposes drilling on and offshore to reduce gas and oil prices.” Despite the way Democrats like to blame oil companies, the only way to reduce the price of a limited resource is to either reduce demand or increase supply. Better yet, do both. And while you’re at it, keep money away from terrorist-sponsoring countries. That’s not going to happen under Obama.

“Barack Obama is to the left of Hillary Clinton and NARAL on the issue of life.” Like all liberals, Obama has a very weak argument for his position on abortion, voting against any abortion restriction he’s had in front of him.

“Barack Obama is actually to the left of every member of the U.S. Senate.” Kerry’s heavy (and lengthy) liberal voting record hurt him greatly in 2004. Obama doesn’t have that long of a voting record in the Senate, yet the record he does have has earned him the title of “the most liberal Senator in 2007.” He received a score of 95.5 from the National Journal, higher than any other Senator.

So what good is inspiration if it is accompanied by all of this? If you’re a liberal through and through, I can see why you’re excited about Obama. For the first time since 1996, you have a presidential candidate that represents your views who is more expressive than a doorknob. But for the rest of you Obama supporters out there, why does a candidate’s inspirational voice mean that you can gloss over all of these serious problems?

There are so many lessons of the failure of socialism during the 20th century that the left refuses to learn from. 120 years ago, socialism was a bright idea that many wanted to try out and experiment with. America weathered that storm, in some ways, despite the socialist influences present in the New Deal and the entitlement programs that followed. But liberals still crave more and more socialism, believing that while every nation to try socialist principles has failed, they will be the ones to finally get it right.

There was an awesome opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal today about Argentina, titled From Breadbasket to Basket Case. In it, Mary Anastasia O’Grady describes Argentina’s “ballooning entitlements, class warfare, hostility toward producers, capital and private property, protectionism and subsidized central-planning.” Argentina has been going through political upheaval in the past decade, repeating the benefits of nearly 90 years of of socialist experimentation.

If America is not cautious, we will be in a similar problem. The dollar is already having trouble on the world market. Democrats find it easy to get the spotlight by blaming just about any problem on companies that are turning a profit. Entitlements are already out of control – Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid are all in serious danger and are growing at unsustainable rates, but all Democrats want to talk about is adding a huge new entitlement in the form of “universal health care.” Just this past week some congressional Democrats expressed their desire to have the government take over oil refineries. The sad thing is, 37% of Democrats think the oil industry should be nationalized.

Socialists knew that this would happen in America.

The American people will never knowingly adopt socialism. But, under the name of “liberalism,” they will adopt every fragment of the socialist program, until one day America will be a socialist nation, without knowing how it happened. — Norman Thomas, U.S. Socialist Party presidential candidate 1940, 1944 and 1948

This situation should not be surprising to us. In a climate where few people understand the basic principle of supply and demand, because of the lousy state of government education, it is easy for an eloquent, inspiring speaker to come along and talk about “change” and pull on people’s heartstrings, while promoting what is, more or less, a socialist agenda. Few people understand the principles behind this inspiration, and what the long-term effects on the government and our economy could very well be.

In many, many ways, it’s 1976 all over again. My mom recently admitted to me that she voted for Jimmy Carter in 1976. My mother is no fool, but she was convinced that this was a really nice man who would be a great president. She was wrong. And it took the mistake of Jimmy Carter for us to get Ronald Reagan (who my mother voted for twice).

Does America have to make a mistake again in 2008? Or will it learn from the thousands of mistakes made by socialist governments and leaders with socialist leanings over the past century?

We’ll know the answer to that in November.

From NASA:

For about 300 years Jupiter’s banded atmosphere has shown a remarkable feature to telescopic viewers, a large swirling storm system known as The Great Red Spot. In 2006, another red storm system appeared, actually seen to form as smaller whitish oval-shaped storms merged and then developed the curious reddish hue. Now, Jupiter has a third red spot, again produced from a smaller whitish storm. All three are seen in this image made from data recorded on May 9 and 10 with the Hubble Space Telescope’s Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2. The spots extend above the surrounding clouds and their red color may be due to deeper material dredged up by the storms and exposed to ultraviolet light, but the exact chemical process is still unknown. For scale, the Great Red Spot has almost twice the diameter of planet Earth, making both new spots less than one Earth-diameter across. The newest red spot is on the far left (west), along the same band of clouds as the Great Red Spot and is drifting toward it. If the motion continues, the new spot will encounter the much larger storm system in August. Jupiter’s recent outbreak of red spots is likely related to large scale climate change as the gas giant planet is getting warmer near the equator.

First Earth, then Mars. Now Jupiter. There are other reports of warming on Saturn, Neptune, Pluto, and various moons of other planets. When will the madness end? Pretty soon “global warming” (oh, I’m sorry, “climate change”) will affect all of the planets in our little corner of the universe.

Of course, you’d think some people would make the connection about what is common between all these planets warming up.

Government education at work.

This is one of Bush’s best speeches ever:

There are good and decent people who cannot fathom the darkness in these men and try to explain away their words. It’s natural, but it is deadly wrong. As witnesses to evil in the past, we carry a solemn responsibility to take these words seriously. Jews and Americans have seen the consequences of disregarding the words of leaders who espouse hatred. And that is a mistake the world must not repeat in the 21st century.

Some seem to believe that we should negotiate with the terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along. We have heard this foolish delusion before. As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: “Lord, if I could only have talked to Hitler, all this might have been avoided.” We have an obligation to call this what it is–the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history.

Some people suggest if the United States would just break ties with Israel, all our problems in the Middle East would go away. This is a tired argument that buys into the propaganda of the enemies of peace, and America utterly rejects it.

Why is it that in the best speeches Bush has ever given, he sounds almost exactly like Reagan? Actually, come to think of it, that’s not really a surprise at all.

And when Obama complained that this was a political attack against him, he misunderstood who Bush was criticizing, I think. If you read Bush’s words carefully, he’s obviously criticizing Jimmy Carter. That Obama misunderstood it as a criticism of himself just further entrenches my belief that an Obama presidency would be as much of a disaster as a Carter presidency (and worse, that an Obama ex-presidency would be just as bad as a Carter ex-presidency). Which might be unavoidable, and it actually might be necessary for the country before we can turn to another Reagan-quality president. But still disconcerting nonetheless.

I think it is truly a proud position to believe that one can carry some type of “ingenious argument” that will “persuade them they have been wrong all along.” Any would-be president who doesn’t understand the principle here — the problem with “the false comfort of appeasement,” needs to take a few more history lessons.