More Change You Can Believe In: Obama Capitulates To The Russians

Former US Ambassador to the UN, John Bolton to Rich Lowry:

"This is just pre-emptive capitulation, although like everything else, the rhetoric is that we're doing the opposite." It doesn't make sense that we should only be concerned with the short-and-medium-range threat and not also with "the long-range threat 2 or 3 years from now." And our intelligence on Iran is manifestly "inadequate." I wouldn't "bet a lot of money on it being right," and in any case, "there's this concept called 'break-out,'" where they achieve a quantum leap in their capability. It's a "bet against the future" that leaves "us and the Europeans in a more risky situation." All the talk of the intelligence changing and an enhanced short-and-medium-range capability is "blue smoke and mirrors" because they never believed in missile defense. "It's a convenient smoke-screen to do what they wanted to do anyway, which is to give up on missile defense in the hope the Russians will be nice to us." Secretary Gates’s comments were the "most disingenuous." Yes, we want a defense against the short-and-medium-range threat, but the whole idea of missile defense is based on a "layered defense." "Gates was a problem in the Bush administration on missile defense. He was always weak on this."

My man Mitt Romney is very sharp on this issue as well:

* The administration believes that by giving such a gesture of goodwill to the Russians, they will be more willing to give in to our request that they join in sanctions against Iran. Here, the president’s lack of negotiation experience may have come in to play. Yes, sometimes in a negotiation you give up something that is important to you, but you do that only when the other party has agreed to give you something you want even more. You don’t give before you get. But here it’s even worse than that: The president has taught Putin that when he blusters and threatens, America caves.

* The administration is also teaching our friends some very unfortunate lessons; the Eastern Europeans who have stood so valiantly with America and who took political heat for backing the missile-defense system have simply been brushed aside. They have to wonder why America is treating its foes better than it is treating its friends. It’s a question that also is surely being asked in Israel and Honduras.

* The administration’s discounting of Iran’s nuclear progress tells Israel that if it is to stop what its own intelligence may believe is an imminent threat, it may have to act alone — and precipitously.

Then, from Drudge, Analysis: Demise of U.S. shield may embolden Russia hawks and Barack Obama surrenders to Russia on Missile Defence.

If you have tips, questions, comments or suggestions, email me at lybberty@gmail.com.

Acorn: Waaaaaaaay Better Than President Bush's "Faith Based Initiatives"

You know, if you like drugs, prostitution, sex trafficking & whatnot.

Oh, and fraud. I almost forgot about fraud. If you like fraud, you're gonna love Acorn.

If you have tips, questions, comments or suggestions, email me at lybberty@gmail.com.

Democrat Double Standards (UPDATED)

Rich Lowry:

The three most prominent Democrats in national politics during the past two years -- Barack Obama, Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton -- are all ascending from the U.S. Senate to the executive branch, creating open Senate seats for Democratic governors to fill. And, oh, what a spectacle it is -- of corruption, insider dealing, treacly dynastic politics and rank nepotism. . . . We might be witnessing the most brazen bout of cronyism since Napoleon made his relatives and minions rulers of conquered Europe. Or at least since the Kennedy family arranged in 1960 to have John Kennedy's pliable Harvard roommate keep his Massachusetts Senate seat warm until Ted turned 30 and could inherit -- er, get elected to -- it.

These things, these double standards, sometimes appear so blatantly obvious, I wonder if I'm playing the role of Captain Obvious when I bring them to your attention.

There are two groups who apply double standards to questions of nepotism, cronyism, & corruption in politics--they are, of course, the Media and the Democrat party. I get that these things afflict both parties (it's why Republicans got tossed out in 2006), my only point is that the response to them is not the same.

Democrats and their fellow travelers in the press do all they can to explain things away (see Rod Blagojevich, Caroline Kennedy--exhibits 349, 350) or, failing that, just drop their party identifier--the big "D" for Democrat--when they write about them in an article.

If, reading your local crappy newspaper, you start to think to yourself, "Wow. Republicans are always committing crimes and whatnot and are corrupt nepotistic hypocrites." Just remember, add the D for Democrat anytime you can't find the party identified and that ought to even things out.

(h/t Scott L.)

UPDATE 8:50pm PST: (h/t Ace) More Evidence: Ohio Attorney General, Mike Dann (D), is one of those corrupt Democrats I wrote about above. Some 20% of MSM reports about the man mentioned his party affiliation. Yup. I know.


If you have tips, questions, comments or suggestions, email me at lybberty@gmail.com.

Surveying The Case For McCain (& Against Obama)

NRO Editors, 2 columns by Thomas Sowell, 1 by Rich Lowry, & 1 by Charles Krauthammer:

NRO editors:

This election does not present Americans with a straight-up choice between conservatism and liberalism. This is not so much because John McCain is a moderate, although he is, as because liberals are likely to have effective majorities in both houses of Congress. Thus the choice we face is, in most respects, between a liberalism that is checked and one that is not.

We have no doubt that if McCain is president we will find much to criticize. But we will be confident that we have the right commander-in-chief and that liberals do not have a free hand to remake our country. In this election we support Senator McCain and urge all conservatives to do so as well.

Thomas Sowell - "Obama, Powell, & Popularity":

Among the reasons given by Secretary Powell for supporting Barack Obama is that Obama can restore America’s standing with foreign countries.

The idea that the United States must somehow rehabilitate itself in the eyes of the United Nations or NATO or “world opinion” is staggering, even though it is an idea very popular in the mainstream media.

The first duty of a President of the United States is to protect American interests — of which survival is number one — regardless of what others may say.

[...]

Despite the media hype that we need to rehabilitate ourselves in the eyes of the world, the United States of America remains the number one destination of immigrants from around the world, some of whom take desperate chances with their lives to get here, whether across the waters of the Caribbean or by crossing our dangerous southwest desert.

Even when dozens of governments around the world join the United States in coordinated efforts to fight international terrorism, the media will call our actions “unilateral” if some demagogues in France or Germany spout off against us.

The American nuclear umbrella has enabled Western European nations to escape responsibility for their own military survival for more than half a century.

Lack of responsibility has bred irresponsibility, one sign of which are unionized troops in NATO and NATO bomber pilots who have office hours when they will and will not fly, not to mention NATO troops letting American troops handle the really dangerous fighting in Afghanistan.

Maybe the time is overdue for NATO to try to rehabilitate itself and for Americans to stop trying to be “citizens of the world.”

Needless to say, I don't buy this argument about "rehabilitating America's image abroad." They don't hate us any more now than the "Peace Movement" of the 1980s hated Ronald Reagan. These are the fruits of playing policeman of the world.

Charles Krauthammer - "Further Left than LBJ":

McCain is just the kind of moderate conservative that the Washington/media establishment once loved — the champion of myriad conservative heresies that made him a burr in the side of congressional Republicans and George W. Bush. But now that he is standing in the way of an audacity-of-hope Democratic restoration, erstwhile friends recoil from McCain on the pretense that he has suddenly become right wing.

Self-serving rubbish. McCain is who he always was. Generally speaking, he sees government as a Rooseveltian counterweight (Teddy with a touch of Franklin) to the various malefactors of wealth and power. He wants government to tackle large looming liabilities such as Social Security and Medicare. He wants to free up health insurance by beginning to sever its debilitating connection to employment — a ruinous accident of history (arising from World War II wage and price controls) that increases the terror of job loss, inhibits labor mobility and saddles American industry with costs that are driving it (see: Detroit) into insolvency. And he supports lower corporate and marginal tax rates to encourage entrepreneurship and job creation.

An eclectic, moderate, generally centrist agenda in a guy almost congenitally given to bipartisanship.

I have a lot of so-called "moderate" friends. They have always complained about the supposed extreme right-wing nature of Republican politics. Alright, guys, you got what you asked for. John McCain is the most moderate candidate since Bill Clinton. He's the Republican party's equivalent of Bill Clinton, minus the womanizing.

Will you vote for him?

Rich Lowry - "Redistribution You Can Believe In":

Obama proposes a dog’s breakfast of tax credits, including a $500 refundable work credit that applies even to people who owe no income taxes. The Internal Revenue Service would cut them a $500 check every year. This essentially is a government payment dressed up as a tax cut. It will be partly funded by new taxes on the top 5 percent. So Obama is redistributing wealth, but in an eminently salable way. Call it “redistributive change we can believe in.”

Obama’s plan wouldn’t, like cuts in marginal tax rates, increase the incentive to work, invest or save. In fact, the opposite. As tax credits phase out, they increase marginal tax rates. But for Obama, his plan is a matter of justice rather than economics.

When in a Democratic primary debate Charlie Gibson of ABC News pointed out to Obama that increasing the capital-gains rate in the past has initially reduced revenue, Obama replied that he wanted the increase “for purposes of fairness.”

But how unfair is the American tax system? It’s already steeply progressive. IRS data show that the top 1 percent of filers paid 40 percent of federal income taxes in 2006. The top 5 percent paid 60 percent. The top half paid 97 percent.

Robbing the rich to bribe the poor. This is Obama's idea of "social justice." Social justice is a joke.

True justice is not taking money from those who earned it and giving it to those who did not.

Thomas Sowell - "A Perfect Storm":

Policies that he proposes under the banner of “change” are almost all policies that have been tried repeatedly in other countries — and failed repeatedly in other countries.

Politicians telling businesses how to operate? That’s been tried in countries around the world, especially during the second half of the 20th century. It has failed so often and so badly that even socialist and communist governments were freeing up their markets by the end of the century.

The economies of China and India began their take-off into high rates of growth when they got rid of precisely the kinds of policies that Obama is advocating for the United States under the magic mantra of “change.”

Putting restrictions on international trade in order to save jobs at home? That was tried here with the Hawley-Smoot tariff during the Great Depression.

Unemployment was 9 percent when that tariff was passed to save jobs, but unemployment went up instead of down, and reached 25 percent before the decade was over.

Higher taxes to “spread the wealth around,” as Obama puts it? The idea of redistributing wealth has turned into the reality of redistributing poverty, in countries where wealth has fled and the production of new wealth has been stifled by a lack of incentives.

Open your eyes, folks.

If you think you've got it bad now under Bush, just wait until you see the craptastic future Obama has in store for you.


If you have tips, questions, comments or suggestions, email me at lybberty@gmail.com.

NB #20 & 21: Rich Lowry On The Media, NPR's Bias (UPDATED)

At least I think these latest two are my 20th and 21st posts for NewsBusters. I'm not altogether certain.

The first post examines end of John McCain's friendly relationship with the MSM. They loved him when he battled President Bush in 2000, passed campaign finance reform, and generally ticked off his own party. Now that he's running against their man Barrack? Well ...

The End of an Affair: McCain Realizes Media Dislikes Him

My second post, also written today, treats the lazy liberal journalism of NPR. Rather than actually looking at the record, they simply parroted the NOW talking points that it is a 'non-partisan organization for women that rarely endorses candidates for President'--except for earlier this year when they endorsed Hillary and 2004 when they endorsed John Kerry. Come on, folks, how about a little honesty and hard work in your journalism?

NPR Reports: 'Non-Partisan' NOW Endorses Obama

Friend of Lybberty, Amanda B., emailed me a copy of the email she sent NPR, decrying their liberal bias. You see, unlike me, she listens to NPR and enjoys their cultural offerings. Their hard swerve to the left and into the tank for Obama has upset her, and rightly so.

I love NPR, however, please provide the news free of the bias that I would expect from another news source and not my beloved NPR. In today's piece on the corruption of Mayor Kilpatrick, his party affiliation was not named. Yet, in a similar story on the corruption of Senator Stevens, his party WAS named. I really don't care whether the slimy politicians' parties are named or not, but please be consistent in your identification. I wouldn't want NPR to be included on that list of media outlets that the Republicans have been so soundly denouncing.

If you have tips, questions, comments or suggestions, email me at lybberty@gmail.com.

Dateline: Xcel Center, RNC Day 2

UPDATE 2:43am CDT: Last update before I sign off for the night. I watched this exchange--between Gingrich & an MSNBC reporter--from the concourse and thought, I wonder what they're talking about. My colleague at NewsBusters, Noel Sheppard found the video and it's fantastic. Click here, to see Noel's post. I repeat something I've written before. We are more than happy to have a dialogue about Palin and debate the relative merits of her experience versus Obama's.

It's important to understand that debating our #2 vs. their #1 concedes that Obama isn't even in McCain's orbit.

UPDATE 2:41am CDT: One other point I forgot to mention regarding our interview with Jon Voight. We asked him about other conservatives in Hollywood and if he had any advice to give to them or young conservatives. The long and short of his answer was similar to what I have observed in academia. If you want work, keep your mouth shut about your conservative politics. At this point in his career (though it has been known about Voight for some time), he can say what he wants because he doesn't really need the work and he is a big enough name that he can get work despite his politics. For younger actors/writers/directors, this is not the case.

UPDATE: 2:31am CDT: My days are divided by sleep periods rather than by calendar days. While waiting to interview Jon Voight, we joked around with Kevin Farley, the younger brother of one of my favorite comedians, the late Chris Farley. Seeing Kevin was, to use an overused word, surreal--not because I or anyone else was particularly impressed to meet Kevin (though he is a nice guy), but because he looks just like his brother. At first glance, I had to do a double take because I was sure I had seen a ghost.

UPDATE: 10:56pm CDT: The posts below now contain links to the video of our interviews with Mort Kondracke and Laura Ingraham.

UPDATE: 10:45pm CDT: We just finished interviewing Jon Voight regarding his role in An American Carol, the right's response to endless parade of conservative-lampooning films. If you judge a person by the company or celebrities he keeps, John McCain comes out looking great. Compare and contrast Jon Voight with Kanye West. West's songs, though catchy, are full of hateful, racist lyrics. And Jon Voight is just awesome. Ditto Five for Fighting's Jon Ondrasik, who was with Jon Voight. (making them the h-less Jon's)

UPDATE: 8:48pm CDT: Just got back from interviewing Mort Kondracke of Fox's "Beltway Boys," Gary Bauer, former POTUS candidate, and Laura Ingraham. Mort is shorter than his fellow "Boy" Fred Barnes, but is just as congenial. Like just about everyone else, they took the time, even though they were in a hurry, to speak with us.

Laura Ingraham said "the media hates Sarah Palin because she's pro-life. End of story." I think there's a lot of truth to that.

Mort Kondracke played the role of media apologist at first, saying that it was important that they go hard after Palin because of the short period of time to "vet" her. After being asked, pointedly, if the media were treating Palin the way they had treated Obama--especially as it relates to Rezko, Ayers, Wright, etc.--Kondracke admitted that it was not equal treatment.

Gary Bauer's comments were on point and in touch with the religious wing of the Republican party. He pointed out the hypocrisy of the left in criticizing Palin for her daughter becoming a pregnant--something they usually treat as a non-issue. He noted the many christian-crisis centers across the centers designed to help young women in a similar situation. As he said, social conservatives embrace and aid those who make mistakes and need help.

UPDATE: 6:52pm CDT: ABC News and Politico separately reported that 'while the hurricane raged, Republicans partied.' This is an unfair and untrue characterization. It's true, the previously planned parties were still held, for the most part. But the partisan celebrations have been replaced by American fundraisers for those in the path of Hurricane Gustav. This has been my experience and after interviewing a number of delegates, it seems to be everyone's experience.

- Seated next to me in the Press Filing Center are a couple of leftist new media types. They are so smug and self satisfied. In hushed tones that aren't so hushed (you know, so everyone around them can hear but they "maintain decorum."), they talk about how things seem "dead" or "like an undertakers conference, " (har, har, har). Compare that take with the critique above, that holds that Republicans are partying too hard in light of the hurricane.

If you're a conservative in this country, you cannot win.

UPDATE: 5:19pm CDT: In early 2007, Jonah Goldberg participated in a debate at the Oxford Union about the following topic: "This House regrets the founding of The United States of America." It was a ridiculous proposition and fortunately, cooler heads prevailed. Today, I spoke with Goldberg about that debate, telling him that it was a source of some pride for us Americans who spent time in Oxbridge circles and frequently encountered just the sort of anti-American spirit reflected by that debate topic.

He was, like his colleagues, gracious, and said that were it not for the extreme left of the opposition, they might have lost, owing to the fact that the crowd was decidedly anti-American. Irony of ironies, the Communist was a no show. As Goldberg said, "this is a guy who has spent his life defending lost causes (Stalin, among others) you'd have thought he show up to the debate."

(audio here)

First, links to my latest NewsBusters posts:

How to Cover Pregnancy Controversies, MSM-Style
Hot Air TV: 'Instant Classic'
Another Fake 'Lifelong Republican' Exposed
Celebs for McCain: Yes, Virginia, There Are a Few
Pollster.com Finds 'House Effects,' Not Bias, to Blame for Volatile Polls

- Yesterday was a long day that seemed longer because of a late arrival the night before. Official RNC stuff was limited with the First Lady & Cindy McCain making a brief appearance and appealing for support of the Gulf Coast states--specifically Louisiana--as they deal with Gustav and the latest round of hurricanes.

- Interesting note: the 5 gulf coast state governor are all Republicans. And anyone who followed Katrina can't help but notice the stark contrast between the leadership provided by Bobby Jindal and his predecessor, the spectacularly incompetent Kathleen Blanco. Why didn't Kanye accuse Blanco of hating black people?

- At the National Review reception I spoke with Byron York, Rich Lowry, & Kathryn Jean Lopez. I didn't quite have time to talk to Jonah Goldberg or Mickey Kaus. To the man (and woman) they were all gracious and took the time to chat about politics and education. Special thanks to Ms. Lopez for the invitation. I am only sorry that my first NR party came after Bill Buckley's passing. I would like to have made his acquaintance.
(click the name for a link to their latest stuff)

- At the Lifetime women's party, I tried to get myself cast as the villainous male in the next Lifetime feature film. No dice.

- This morning I attended a blogger brunch hosted by RedState and Google. Fred Thompson was the featured speaker and like Michael Steele yesterday, he railed on the media coverage of this campaign in general, and the shameful Bristol Palin attacks in particular. Fred's a good one.

One interesting point about the co-hosting by RedState and Google: Google is notoriously liberal--they endorse the sort of web-censorship conservatives hate because it is always conservative stuff that gets lifted. So, for months leading up to the convention, no one wanted to partner with Google. This was money for the taking--to put on a party for conservatives, but no one wanted their money.

Just two weeks ahead of the convention, RedState decided they wanted to do a blogger brunch and reached out to the RNC. The RNC mentioned Google. Initially RedState said no, but after speaking with Google, concluded their (Google's) intentions to become more neutral, were honest. So there we were this morning and there we will be tomorrow. Hopefully Google follows through on stopping their censorship of conservatives.


If you have tips, questions, comments or suggestions, email me at lybberty@gmail.com.

Another take on Romney's "big loss"

From a Drudge Report-linked article (hat tip: Matt Lybbert) at a Washington Post blog comes this interesting take on Romney's performance in the Iowa caucus (note: scroll to the first comment).

Turn Rich Lowry's numbers around and you'd see something very interesting - if Utah was the first caucus and 60% of caucusers were Mormons and Mitt only got 1/3 of the vote and only won by 9 points, you'd say he lost. You'd say that even if his opponent had spent millions more. I hate to sound like a sore loser, but the media response doesn't make sense to me. Given the favorable circumstances, I think Huckabee lost and Mitt won.

No, we're not drinking the kool-aid, we just thought this was an interesting way of giving context to the outcome. Furthermore, and importantly for all those of us who were angry with the evangelicals and homeschoolers, this seems to indicate that evangelical voters are not blindly following Huck. Romney got nearly 20% of the Evangelical vote, Huck got 45%, and the remaining 35% was spread among the other candidates. Despite what will undoubtedly be the MSM company line, sanity and rational thought do exist among the religious right.


If you have tips, questions, comments, suggestions, or requests for subscription only articles, email us at lybberty@gmail.com.

National Review, Our Fav Conservative Mag, Endorses Mitt

Generally, we believe that newspapers should not endorse candidates. Rather, we think they should advocate issues, ideas, and positions. We're not quite sure what to make of it when an outspoken conservative publication endorses a particular candidate.


Drudge called our attention to this development and it appears the Drudge traffic is overloading National Review's servers, so good luck getting at the article here.

Like National Review, we appreciate the totality of Mitt Romney's conservative positions. His current stated positions more closely match ours than any of the other Republican candidates for President. However, we still have reservations about Romney. How sure is his conversion to conservative principles? Was his change of position the result of a change of heart? Or was he just endorsing moderate to liberal positions to get elected in MA? Or, even worse, is he only now adopting conservative ideals to get past the Republican primary?

Point by point, Mitt is our ideal candidate. But if he is not a true conservative believer, we'd rather have a candidate with whom we disagree, but believe is telling the truth.


***Update 11:23PM MST - Transcript of chat between Hugh Hewitt and Rich Lowry, Editor of National Review. This provides great insight into NR's decision making process vis-à-vis their endorsement of Romney.


If you have tips, questions, comments, suggestions, or requests for subscription only articles, email us at lybberty@gmail.com.