Redstate

Posted at 6:17pm on Apr. 25, 2008 The Total Witlessness of Obama Apologists

By Rick Moran

Obama's problem associations with Wright, Rezko, and Ayers have really got the creative juices flowing on the left as they twist themselves into rhetorical and intellectual pretzels trying to downplay or dismiss, their candidate's monumentally poor judgement in hanging around with these folks for much of his adult life.

Some may read this apologia for Obama's associations from Reed Hundt at TPM Cafe and shake their heads in wonderment at the cluelessness of the author. Others may marvel at the sheer brazenness of Hundt's dismissive comments about Ayers and Wright, admiring the guts it took to reveal oneself as an idiot.

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Posted at 2:18pm on Apr. 23, 2008 Is Obama in Trouble?

By Rick Moran

Conventional wisdom says Obama is not in any danger of losing the nomination as long as he remains ahead in the pledged delegate count. I would say that this is true at this point despite his blow out loss yesterday to Clinton in Pennsylvania.

And yes friends, it was a blow out. When you lose 62% of the white vote, that's a blowout. When you lose 70% of the Catholic vote, that is a blowout. When you lose 57% of the Jewish vote, that's a blowout. When you lose 58% of churchgoers, that is a blowout. When you lose 54% of workers making less than $50,000 a year (and win only those making less than $15,000 and more than $150,000), that's a blowout. When you lose 63% of seniors, that's a blowout. When you outspend your opponent by 3-1 and still lose by 10 points, that's a blowout.

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Posted at 4:18pm on Apr. 22, 2008 The Whiner and the Iron Lady

By Rick Moran

One of the criteria the American people use to judge a presidential candidate is "likability" - a nebulous and indefinable attribute to be sure. Experts tell us that part of the "likability" question is whether the voter wants this guy (or woman) coming into their homes every damn day for the next 8 years via television.

Obviously, this attribute has not played a huge role in determining how people vote - otherwise people would have chosen Hubert Humphrey's "Happy Warrior" exterior over Nixon's dourness and certainly Gerald Ford's steadiness over Carter's nauseating sanctimony.

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Posted at 12:57pm on Apr. 21, 2008 Defending the Pope and Other Counterintuitive Undertakings

By Rick Moran

Once a Catholic, always a Catholic - that's me, alright. Despite the fact I have long since left the Church, God, Jesus, the Holy Ghost (changed to "Spirit" in my youth; so much for the immutability of the divine), organized religion, and the idea of the supernatural altogether, I am still a Catholic.

I think like a Catholic. My worldview has been shaped - though not dominated - by Catholicism. In this, the nuns, the priests, the brothers, and probably a monk or two have left their mark on my intellectual, social, and spiritual development. And I will thank them for it till my dying breath. There is great beauty to be found in the strands of logic and insightful, penetrating analysis of humanity by Catholic thinkers like Augustine, Aquinas, Newman, and other Catholic theologians and philosophers.

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Posted at 2:20pm on Apr. 20, 2008 Remarkable Stupidity at the LA Times

By Rick Moran

This is the very first thing I read after getting out of bed and before the coffee was ready. Needless to say, it was an eye-opener:

In his portrayal of our second president, Paul Giamatti creates a man perpetually dissatisfied, disgusted by the preening ambition of politics even as he is infected by it. If his relentless crankiness was a bit hard for some of us to take in early episodes, in the second half of the series it makes much more sense. While exhorting angry men to throw off the shackles of tyranny offers many opportunities for rhetorical fabulousness, setting up a new government is a bureaucratic nightmare, with oversized personalities disagreeing over things both petty and fundamental. George Washington (David Morse) so quickly tired of the infighting among his Cabinet and vagaries of public opinion that he stepped down from the presidency after a single term. "I know now what it is like to be disliked," he says to Adams, his perpetually disliked vice president.

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Posted at 2:49pm on Apr. 9, 2008 Obama Believes Iraqi Government Behind Iranian 'Special Groups'

By Rick Moran

It's true. Obama actually said it. Here's the exact quote:

Do we feel confident that the Iraqi government is behind the aid to these "special groups" or do we believe they are just tacitly tolerating it?

Still don't believe me? It's about 1:15 into this video:

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Posted at 3:51pm on Mar. 13, 2008 Obama-Rezko: Beyond "Guilt by Association"

By Rick Moran

For a United States Senator, Barack Obama has been doing a lot of explaining about the company he has kept for the last 17 years or so.

Take some Joe Blow Alderman off the streets of Chicago and examine his friends and acquaintances and you're bound to come up with a couple of unsavory characters that straddle the line of legality with regard to city contracts or their business dealings.

But Obama is not some regular Machine pol juicing the way for his ward heeling friends so they can grow fat and rich at taxpayer expense. He is a United States Senator and the Democratic Party's frontrunner for President of the United States. One would think a higher standard might be in order regarding such a man's associates.

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Posted at 7:12pm on Mar. 12, 2008 The Great All-American Hooker Hunt

By Rick Moran

I can't tell you how proud I am of our media today.

With the world in its usual state of near hysteria over this or that problem dictator or American action, (or when Israel lifts a finger to defend itself), our media has chosen to initiate what can only be called the greatest quest/crusade in at least the last week. It is as fierce and as fervent as Ahab's obsessive search for the Great White Whale - without the uplifting literary flair of a Melville.

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Posted at 10:01am on Mar. 9, 2008 Was There an Obama-Daley Deal on the Presidency?

By Rick Moran

This is another in a series of stories that received some play in Chicago at the time it occurred but never made it past the state line for some reason.

It is especially curious that this story never took off nationally because far more than most people realize, Mayor Richard M. Daley is a player in national Democratic politics - perhaps not as powerful as his father but almost certainly the current Mayor Daley has more clout than any other big city Democratic mayor in the country.

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Posted at 3:07pm on Mar. 6, 2008 Obama-Rezko and Media Ignorance of 'The Chicago Way'

By Rick Moran

Malone: You said you wanted to get Capone. Do you really wanna get him? You see what I'm saying is, what are you prepared to do?
Ness: Anything and everything in my power.
Malone: And *then* what are you prepared to do? If you open the can on these worms you must be prepared to go all the way because they're not gonna give up the fight until one of you is dead.