Stories by Mark I
Posted at 3:30pm on Jul. 7, 2008 Obama Will Sell Anything
"I Sell the Things You Need To Be. I'm the Smiling Face on Your TV"
By Mark I
The Obama campaign officially announced today that Sen. Obama will accept the Democratic presidential nomination in an open air event expected to draw 75,000 people. The campaign takes pains to point out that free tickets will be available for the torchlight rally acceptance speech, but...
If you make a donation of $5 or more between now and midnight on July 31st, you could be one of 10 supporters chosen to fly to Denver and spend two days and nights at the convention, meet Barack backstage, and watch his acceptance speech in person. Each of the ten supporters who are selected will be able to bring one guest to join them.
This guy will sell anything. So much for the new politics. Obama's campaign is more motivated by money and fundraising than any campaign in recent memory. One wonders if this will continue into an Obama presidency.
"For a donation of $25 dollars or more, you could be one of 10 lucky people to be flown to Washington D.C. to sit in on an exciting intelligence briefing in the White House Situation Room. Afterwards, you'll be given an exclusive tour of the Oval Office and get to listen in on a secure phone call between President Obama and Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. Your whirlwind day will conclude with a special de-briefing by the president and the opportunity to personally sign one letter of President Obama's signature to the official roll back of the Bush Tax Cuts."
I guess "fixing a broken public finance system" means "sell anything that isn't nailed down including my dignity and the dignity of the office in order to out raise my opponents" in Obamian.
Posted in 2008 | Barack Obama | Democratic Convention | fundraising | Liberals | Obamafiles | Same as the Old Politics — Comments (29)/ Email this page » / Read More »
Posted at 9:15am on Jul. 7, 2008 The Baracklaration of Obamdependence
Principles are Oppressive
By Mark I
FROM CHICAGO, JULY 4, 2008
When in the Course of a presidential campaign it becomes necessary for one candidate to dissolve the political bands which have connected him with his previous positions and to assume for the electorate, the separate and equal station of general election candidate to which the Laws of Electoral Campaigning and Campaign Managers entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of average voters is unnecessary, lest that require that he should declare the causes which impel them to hold to principle.
Read on...
Posted in 2008 | Barack Obama | Liberals | Obamafiles | Principles | Same as the Old Politics — Comments (4)/ Email this page » / Read More »
Posted at 3:30pm on Jul. 1, 2008 A New Kind of Sleaze
Clark was Put up to it
By Mark I
The Obama campaign officially says that Gen. Wesley Clark was not officially speaking for Obama when on CBS's Face the Nation this past Sunday, he denigrated Sen. John McCain's military experience. "I don't think that riding in a fighter plane and getting shot down is a qualification to become president, " Clark sniffed. Besides hinting that McCain was a substandard pilot-good ones do not get shot down-that remark necessarily discounts everything that came afterwards, McCain's five and a half years of voluntary confinement. Voluntary because the North Vietnamese, after learning that McCain was the son of a top U.S. Admiral, offered him early release, ahead of others who had been captured before McCain. McCain refused, not wanting to hand his captors a propaganda victory and undermine the morale of his co-prisoners. McCain never had to endure the debilitating torture, the beatings, the psychological torment, and the spirit-breaking confinement. He did it out of love of country and dedication to duty.
This is not to try and make McCain into a Christ-like figure, willingly suffering for the nation's sins. But it does illuminate just how egregious and despicable Clark's comments were. To boil McCain's entire military record down to the singular event of the loss of his plane while flying bombing missions over Hanoi, the most dangerous duty for an aviator in the Vietnam War, is so callous and dismissive that it had to have been intentional.
Read on...
Posted in 2008 | Barack Obama | John McCain | Liberals | military service | Obamafiles | Same as the Old Politics — Comments (32)/ Email this page » / Read More »
Posted at 7:00pm on Jun. 22, 2008 Obama Might Just Blow It
This is Not the Moderate You are Looking For
By Mark I
The biggest danger to Sen. Barack Obama's campaign comes not from his Republican opponent, Sen. John McCain, nor from his former rival, Sen. Hillary Clinton, but from Barack Obama himself. Obama has sold himself as a new kind of politician, even an anti-politician, a practitioner of a new kind of politics. The Achilles heel of this strategy is that Obama is not really that different from other politicians; and if he can be shown to be just like every other candidate, save for his eloquence, voters who invested in him on a personal level may begin to feel like they have been had.
The past week provided Obama with a few opportunities to show that he really is a different kind of candidate, indeed a different kind of Democrat, than the standard variety. But in each instance, he espoused the typical liberal position.
Read on...
Posted in 2008 | Barack Obama | Liberals | Obamafiles | Same as the Old Politics — Comments (119)/ Email this page » / Read More »
Posted at 12:00pm on Jun. 10, 2008 Federal Jobs Illegal Immigrants Can’t Do
The President Gets It. Better Late Than Never
By Mark I
President Bush modified an Executive Order from the Clinton Administration yesterday to effectively bar illegal immigrants from working jobs on the Federal dole. All Federal contractors will now have to register for the Department of Homeland Security’s E-Verify program and check the status of all their workers and subcontractors’ workers before starting work on Federal contracts.
The E-Verify program is the bane of civil liberties and open borders groups because it uses the Social Security Administration’s database to actually cross check the often times fraudulent or stolen numbers provided by illegal immigrants on their employment applications. A Federal Court in San Francisco, natch, blocked part of Homeland Security’s program in a lawsuit filed by the ACLU, the San Francisco Labor Council, and the strange political bedfellows of the AFL-CIO and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. That ruling, issued by Supreme Court Justice Steven Breyer’s brother Judge Charles Breyer, has prevented the Social Security Administration from sending out over 140,000 “no match” letters to employers. The letters would have required employers to take steps to verify their employees’ identities within 90 days or else fire the workers.
Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said at the time that the ruling did not amount to a “holiday from law enforcement,” and that the Administration would do, “as much administratively as we can, within the boundaries of existing law,” to continue to crackdown on illegal immigration. The president rightfully took a lot of criticism from the right for his backing of the Senate’s disastrous “comprehensive” immigration bill, and many have been skeptical of the Administration’s stepped up enforcement of illegal immigration laws in the wake of that compromise’s failure in Congress. Sen. McCain, too, a champion of the Senate bill, professes to have seen the light on illegal immigration and now calls for securing the border before taking up any immigration bill. Yesterday’s move to secure federally contracted jobs for American workers is evidence that the Administration does get it, and is another huge victory for opponents of the comprehensive approach to immigration reform. Sen. McCain can show that he gets it too by pledging not to alter or rescind the order if elected.
Posted in illegal immigration | Immigration | John McCain | President Bush | The Bush Administration — Comments (12)/ Email this page » / Read More »
Posted at 3:00pm on May 29, 2008 Obama May Visit Iraq, On One Condition
He Would Go to Ensure Defeat
By Mark I
The Obama campaign continues flailing around wildly when challenged on Sen. Obama's lack of foreign policy chops. Last week, Obama flipped and flopped over the issue of his pledge to meet with Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez, telling one audience that he would let Chavez set the agenda for such a meeting, and another that Venezuela should be internationally isolated.
This week, he is trying to "clarify" his promise to meet face to face, without pre-conditions, with the leader of Iran. Even the New York Times recognized the desperation with which the Obama campaign is trying to back off from the candidate's naive views on meeting with America's enemies.
Now Sen. Obama is under fire from Sen. John McCain for not having been to Iraq in over two years. McCain challenged Obama to go to Iraq and see the difference that the troop surge has made in that time. McCain even offered to go with Obama to show him around. The Obama campaign first dismissed the call as a "political stunt." But now it has decided that Obama may indeed go to Iraq, just not to see how American and Iraqi troops are winning the war. Obama wants to go to figure out how to withdraw.
This morning on MSNBC's Morning Joe, Obama campaign Communications Director Robert Gibbs said the following when asked if Obama would consider going to Iraq.
"Well, as he said yesterday Mika, it's under discussion about going overseas and going to Iraq sometime between now and the campaign. You know, I don't think we'll be taking that trip with John McCain because as Senator Obama said yesterday, the work that the men and women in our military are doing over there is just far too important for them to be props in some sort of political stunt or photo-op. You know, what they're doing over there is separated from their families, giving for their country. It's truly, truly amazing, and I think we would want to go over there and talk to them and see what sort of difficulties they're facing and see how it is that we can begin to carefully remove them and carefully bring them back to their families and bring them back to the United States."
The Obama campaign won't go to see how the U.S. is winning because that would constitute using the troops as "props" in a "political stunt" and "photo-op." But going over to find out the "difficulties" they are having and to figure out how to "begin to carefully remove them" is not? Nonsense.
The real story here is that Obama has no interest in what is really happening in Iraq, unless it fits his predetermined view that the war is lost. The message from the Obama campaign is clear. Sen. Obama would meet with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Hugo Chavez without pre-conditions and without pre-judging the agenda items, but he won't go meet with the troops in Iraq unless it is on his terms. He would go to make sure America lost if it would help him win.
Posted in 2008 | Barack Obama | Foreign Policy Inexperience | Hugo Chavez | Iraq | Mahmoud Ahmadinejad | Obamafiles — Comments (58)/ Email this page » / Read More »
Posted at 12:00pm on May 27, 2008 Obama Takes All Sides on Chavez
Inexperienced and Naïve on Foreign Policy, Good at Campaigning
By Mark I
Another day, another position on Hugo Chavez from Sen. Barack Obama. Last week, he told the Orlando Sentinel that he favored meeting with the Venezuelan Marxist dictator He even went so far as to say that Chavez could set the agenda. But the very next day, he told a Miami audience that Chavez’s support for the FARC narco-terrorist rebel group in Colombia disqualified Venezuela from such a meeting. Speaking to the Cuban American National Foundation, Obama said the following.
"We will shine a light on any support for the FARC that comes from neighboring governments. This behavior must be exposed to international condemnation, regional isolation, and -- if need be -- strong sanctions. It must not stand."
Thank God for the qualifier. Strong sanctions? Whoa! hold on there big guy. You’re inexperienced in foreign affairs and all, but you just can’t go around threatening sanctions, especially strong ones, without months and years of delays, negotiations, aggressive diplomacy, and Security Council debates. You don’t want to blow all your options in one fell swoop.
Mocking aside, there are a couple of bigger points to make from this.
Read on...
Posted in 2008 | Barack Obama | foreign policy | Hugo Chavez | Liberals | Obamafiles — Comments (7)/ Email this page » / Read More »
Posted at 11:00am on May 23, 2008 Obama Would Dance to Chavez’s Tune
“Hi, President Chavez. What Can I Do For You?”
By Mark I
After weeks of backtracking on his pledge to meet unconditionally with the leaders of Iran, Syria, North Korea, Venezuela, and Cuba, Sen. Barack Obama has doubled down on his dangerous foreign policy naiveté, telling the Orlando Sentinel yesterday that not only would he have no pre-conditions for the meetings, he wouldn’t even have an agenda. Speaking of a future meeting with Venezuelan dictator, and soon to be internationally recognized terrorist supporter, Hugo Chavez, Obama said that whatever Hugo would want to talk about would be just fine with him.
I would be willing to initiate such talks with leaders of countries adversarial to the United States. There would be a lot of preparation. The first steps would not be to pre-judge all the items on the list. […]
One of the obvious high priorities in my talks with President Hugo Chavez would be the fermentation of anti-American sentiment in Latin America, his support of FARC in Colombia and other issues he would want to talk about. It is important to understand that ignoring these countries has not led to improved behavior on their part and it has not served our national security interests.
There needs to be a shift in foreign politics and return to traditional foreign politics that were supported by both Republicans and Democrats in the past.
First of all, it’s difficult to determine from his words whether Sen. Obama believes that the, "fermentation of anti-American sentiment," and Chavez’s, "support of FARC in Colombia," are necessarily bad things. Obama could have said, "the disturbing fermentation of anti-American sentiment," or, "his unacceptable support of the terrorist group FARC in Colombia." But he didn’t. Chavez certainly does not think that his behavior needs to improve. For all we know, Obama doesn’t either. He won’t pre-judge it. Rather he would reward Chavez by granting him the honor of a meeting of equals, complete with unspecified agenda items that would take Chavez’s phony complaints about U.S. imperialism at face value.
Second, if Obama holds so low an opinion of the Office of the Presidency that he would use the office to bend and scrape at the feet of thugs like Hugo Chavez, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Kim Jong-Il, one wonders why he is running for it.
Posted in 2008 | Barack Obama | foreign policy | Hugo Chavez | Liberals | Obamafiles — Comments (15)/ Email this page » / Read More »
Posted at 4:00pm on May 14, 2008 Polluting the Message
Always Let the Right Hand Know What the Left Hand is Pandering
By Mark I
Sen. John McCain has called for a summer gas tax holiday to help consumers dealing with the rising cost of filling their tanks. Most observers, including this one, think that the temporary aspect of McCain’s suspension makes it nothing more than political pandering. But we’ll accept that because of the political strategy inherent in making this proposal. It’s a good suggestion inasmuch as it forces his Democratic rivals to go on record as for or against higher gas prices. Sen. Hillary!™ Clinton recognized the political strategy implicit in McCain’s call and quickly endorsed the idea, while the Senator from H.O.P.E.™, Barack Obama, did not. In the process Obama painted himself as more comfortable than McCain or Clinton with high gas prices. So far, so good.
But then Sen. McCain stole the thunder away from his own political jujitsu by coming out in favor of a cap and trade system for carbon emissions. Leaving aside the catastrophic economic implications such a policy would have, and sidestepping the question of whether man-made global warming is real and reversible; calling for this policy on the heels of proposing a gas tax suspension is both bad politics and poor message craft. The two proposals contradict one another and make the Democrats' message look coherent by comparison.
Read on…
Posted in 2008 | Barack Obama | Environmentalism | Gas Tax Holiday | Global Warming | Hillary Clinton | John McCain — Comments (21)/ Email this page » / Read More »
Posted at 9:45am on May 13, 2008 Reading War and Decision: Part One
Chapters 1-3: The First Days
By Mark I
From its very first pages, War and Decision, Inside the Pentagon at the Dawn of the War on Terrorism, by former Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas J. Feith, takes the conventional wisdom about the war on terror and throws it out the window. Nothing, literally nothing you know about the way that the Bush Administration planned, decided, and executed the United States’ strategy for fighting and ultimately winning the war can stand up to the scrutiny imposed by this consequential book. In twenty years, when historians start to write a dispassionate history of the Bush Administration and its actions, they would do well to start with Feith’s careful, detailed, and surprising account of the issues, decisions, mistakes, and triumphs that America experienced in the early stages of its war against fundamentalist Islamic extremists.
Throughout her history, America has been fortunate to have great leaders at decisive times: George Washington and the Founders; Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War; Franklin Delano Roosevelt during the Great Depression and World War II; Ronald Reagan after the decline of the 1970s. America’s democracy, by design or by Providence, always seems to produce a man for his times to steer the nation through turbulence. In the case of the war on terrorism, there was not so much one man--although George W. Bush will ultimately be judged kindly by history for his principled leadership--as there was a particularly important plane trip. On the day after September 11th, 2001, when America had been brought low from the skies by hijacked airplanes used as weapons, it is both ironic and entirely fitting that the germ of the battle plan that would ultimately bring the terrorists to their knees, would begin to take shape in the belly of a military cargo plane en route from Europe to Andrews Air Force Base.
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