"A PEOPLE MAGAZINE STORY WAITING TO HAPPEN" -- A conservative Hoover Institute political analyst weighs in behind Sarah Palin for Vice President.

THE PATHETIC INABILITY OF THE MSM to tell the truth or get the facts straight in the ongoing Swiftboat / John Kerry story.

More here.

BARACK OBAMA WAS IN FAVOR OF ATTACKING THE PATRIOTISM of others, before he was against it. 

I love the fact that a guy whose closest political friends have slandered, cursed and even bombed this nation is now lecturing the rest of us about the true meaning of patriotism.  This is a man who as much as said that the he doesn't love this country because of what it is or has been -- but only loves it because of what he and other leftists might be able to make of it in the future if it they are allowed to transform it to fit to their utopian party line of the moment.

Obama has attacked the patriotism of those who wear flag pins.  And Obama has attacked the patriotism of those who've taken the country to war.  Somehow in Obama's world those of us who fly our flag and wish our army victory during wartime just aren't patriots like Obama and his America condemning friends.  And what I think of that is Barack Obama can go to hell.

WHO CAN RESPECT the Bush Presidency?  I mean, if you are a conservative.

BILL KRISTOL ENDORSES SARAH PALIN FOR THE VICE PRESIDENCY.

SO UNPRINCIPLED he makes Bill Clinton look scrupulous.  Of course having no principles is what being a lefty is all about.  Quotable:

I have never had any illusions about Obama. I merely note with amazement that his media swooners seem to accept his every policy reversal with an equanimity unseen since the Daily Worker would change the party line overnight ..

A WONDERFULLY PUT POINT on Constitutional government from Justice Scalia:

We know of no other enumerated constitutional right whose core protection has been subjected to a freestanding "interest-balancing" approach [responding to Justice Breyer's proposal for a new standard for the right to possess a gun]. The very enumeration of the right takes out of the hands of government - even the Third Branch of Government - the power to decide on a case-by-case basis whether the right is really worth [his emphasis] insisting upon. A constitutional guarantee subject to future judges' assessments of its usefulness is no constitutional guarantee at all. Constitutional rights are enshrined with the scope they were understood to have when the people adopted them, whether or not future legislatures or (yes) even future judges think that scope is too broad. We would not apply an "interest-balancing" approach to the prohibition of a peaceful neo-Nazi march through Skokie... Like the First, it is the very product of an interest-balancing by the people - which Justice Breyer would now conduct for them anew.

[hat tip Andy McCarthy]

IN A 5-4 VOTE THE SUPREME COURT UPHOLDS THE CONSTITUTION, kinda, sorta.  In dissent, Justices John Stevens, David Souter, Ruth Ginsburg, and Stephen Breyer joined together in issuing a minority edict directing the President to stamp "VOID" in thick black ink over the 2nd Amendment on the copy of the U.S. Constitution now in the National Archive.  It was widely anticipated that the President would ignore this edict, unless the four were joined by a fifth.  It was not clear at this time whether the President would be personally charged with the task of apply the ink blotter to the historic document.

BARACK OBAMA HAS DEMOSTRATED CONSISTENT BAD JUDGMENT when it comes to assessing what will and what won't work in Iraq.  And if you've been following along at home, you well know this isn't a first time botched judgment for Obama.

PATTERICO ON THE TYRANNY which is the United States Supreme Court.

THE GOVERNOR OF ALASKA CONFRONTS THE U.S. CONGRESS ON OIL.  Wish the Governor of California had the ethics, intelligence and courage of Sarah Palin.

WHEN IS $75,000 PUT IN YOUR BANK ACCOUNT not a bribe?  When you're an exploited Senator writing legislation which will hand over tens of billions of tax dollars to you benefactors.

So why aren't these guys in shackles answering charges of bribery in Federal Court?  A President with any ethics or guts would have these guys in orange suits being frog marched to a Federal detention center, and let their lawyers explain why $75,000 bribe isn't a $75,000 bribe.

WEHNER ON THE AMAZING ACHIEVEMENT OF BARACK OBAMA:

Very few politicians are able to pull off not only appearing to be different than they are, but appearing to be the opposite of what they are. And even fewer have the gift of denouncing what they embody and getting away with it.

NEW DETAILS ON Barack Obama's teenage mentor Frank Marshall Davis (pdf file).

POLITICO PROFILES SARAH PALIN.

IT'S PRETTY CLEAR that the Supreme Court simply ignored the Constitution in its recent power play to wrestle control over foreign policy and war from the Congress and the President.

MORE LIES FROM BARACK OBAMA. This time Obama is nailed by George Will:

Last July, Obama said that "more young black men languish in prison than attend colleges and universities." Actually, there are more than twice as many black men ages 18 to 24 in college as there are in jail. Last September he said, "We have a system that locks away too many young, first-time, nonviolent offenders for the better part of their lives." But Heather MacDonald of the Manhattan Institute, writing in the institute's City Journal, notes that from 1999 to 2004, violent offenders accounted for all of the increase in the prison population. Furthermore, Mac Donald cites data indicating that:

"In the overwhelming majority of cases, prison remains a lifetime achievement award for persistence in criminal offending. Absent recidivism or a violent crime, the criminal-justice system will do everything it can to keep you out of the state or federal slammer."

OBAMA HAS BROKEN yet another promise to the American people.  He'd made the promise to meet John McCain in debate anyplace, anytime, but he's now backed out on that commitment, and his campaign is doing everything it can to avoid meeting McCain in extensive face to face debates.

ONE PARTISAN DEMOCRAT replaces another.  The similarity here is that both are extremely good a seeming to be fair, and seeming to put their deep biases in favor of the "home team" behind them.  And they certainly make gestures at being fair that others don't even try.  So it turns out that only those with a great understanding of the  game can see just how slanted is the playing field. 

And they're both genuinely nice guys, when so many journalists simply aren't.  Who can argue with that?

THIS IS A SHOCKER. John McCain has been lying to us all along.  I'm wondering how we could possibly have gotten two worse candidates running for President. Somehow we've managed to create a system which encourages only the worst ego cases to serve.  Here's a suggestion for improving things.  Pay these guys a lot more and give them a lot less power.  Make it a job for people dedicated to something other than their own self aggrandizement.

Economist Arnold Kling has some thoughts on a class with too much power here.

EVEN A LEFTY HACK LIKE MARK SHIELDS is admitting that Obama is a colossal liar as convincing in his lies as a man held hostage and forced to read a bogus confession.

IN POLITICS THERE ARE SOME THINGS MONEY CAN BUY. For everything else, there's the RACECARD:



Membership in a race hate church:  $27,500. 

Playing the race card against your white opponent:  Priceless.

(hat tip Nice Deb)

UPDATE:  The Other McCain:

The MSM moves fast. Obama plays the race card Friday and by Sunday, the Washington Post has a 1,200-word feature to corroborate Obama's message: Anybody who doesn't support Obama is a neo-Nazi racist.

UPDATE II:  This should surprise now one.  The Washington Post is simply lying about a supposed "uptick" in race hate traffic on the internet.  Why let the facts get in the way of the WaPo's Democrat Party narrative?

IN OBAMA WORLD the facts are optional.

STEVE SAILER TAKES A LOOK AT Obama's "Family Values" ad spot and finds it pretty much total bullshit.

MORE OBAMA LIES HERE.  

The quantity and scale of Obama lying and bullshitting is like nothing I've ever witnessed in American politics.  Can anyone recall anything like it?  I can't.

JOHN McCAIN WILL USE RACE HATE in an effort to win the White House -- that's the latest bit of political pollution coming for Barack Obama.

Bringing the politics of Al Sharpton to the Presidency.  Now that's a change.

UPDATE:  Baldilocks weighs in:

Most people couldn't care less about your name and your color, Senator Obama. They fear being lead by you because you have no substantive legislative record, you're a chronic liar and, after explicitly stating that you choose your friends carefully, you have repeatedly and systematically made friends with people who hate this country.

And Liebau:

It strikes me that Democrats frequently tell voters all the dirty ways Republicans will try to "divide" us without ever providing any examples.  For their own part, they regularly work to create and exploit divisions -- between genders (because pro-life=anti-woman, we're told); between races (remember the false accounts of the burning of black churches in 1996, and the James Byrd ad in 2000?); between "rich" and poor (ignoring the fact that the "rich" bear a disproportionate share of the tax burden).

Yet, somehow, pointing out that Barack Obama has no foreign policy experience and dangerously naive views on foreign policy -- a critique of his policies, mind you --  is somehow illegitimately stoking "fear," and is tantamount to mindless racism.  Yeah, that makes sense.

Sister Toldjah points out that Obama has a long history of using race to divide the country and win elections.

Hey, it's not as if Obama didn't spend most of his adult life in a church which used race to build a community built on anti-white and anti-American anger.  And it's not as if Obama didn't use this hate group as a powerful stepping stone to a political career.  We know who Barack Obama is.  Who will have the guts to say it?  Certainly not John McCain.

Also this:  Rick Moran -- how the race card works.

UPDATE II:  CNN openly smear McCain & Co., taking sides with Obama with that argument that Obama is merely preparing for the inevitable racist attacks McCain & Co. will be launching against Obama.  The CNN'ers in fact claim that McCain partisans are already out with these racists attacks on Obama, but provide no evidence of any kind to back their smears against McCain and crew.  I've never been much surprised when CNN takes sides with Obama, but the utter insubstantiation of these enormous smears did make me take pause.

THE LOWEST RATING EVER for any American institution goes to the current Democrat controlled Congress. 

It's coming close to the point where about the same percentage of the country are illiterate as there are people who have confidence in the government given to us by the U.S. Congress -- which might explain why there is anyone left who has respect for that institution.

THE LATEST OBAMA LIE. Obama is lying in his first national ad -- falsely saying that he worked to help wounded troops.  In fact, he didn't even bother to show up for the vote, and spent every waking hour running for President rather that working at his actual job as U.S. Senator.

AS THE COUNTRY DESCENDS into every deeper corruption and economic mismanagement, with the imminent election of the most corrupt and economically illiterate President since Lyndon Johnson, when will begin to put responsibility for this mess where it belongs -- at the foot of the pathetic leadership of George W. Bush?  It's good to see that at least Michelle Malkin is willing to do so.

OBAMA BREAKS HIS WORD and his commitment to the American people to engage in the clean politics of public campaign financing.  Instead Obama will run in the general on dirty money of he'll beg from interest groups, the super rich, lobbyists, Hollywacko leftists, and America loathing morons from across the country.

It's the old politics as big as it gets.  It surprises no one.  And it's the Obama way.

Obama is not something new.  He's something worse.

UPDATE:  Obama breaks his word -- and lies about it.  Anyone else see a pattern?  Hello?

UPDATE II:  Patterico has the document where Obama directly answer "YES" to the question of whether he would pledge to publicly finance his campaign, the way every other major party candidate has since Watergate.  There's no weasel room here.  None.  The mas is just b*llsh*tt*ng the willingly misled, which unfortunately includes most of the Democrat party press corp.

DREAMS FROM MY SOCIALIST FATHER -- THE POSTER



If the Obama campaign wants to go fascist chic it ought to go fascist chic:



Make your own poster here.

HUGH HEWITT PICKS UP ON THE FACT that Barack Obama is a constant teller of tall tales. 

If you know the man's history, you know the man has soaked in fiction all his life.  In his memoir he tells us as that a boy and as a teen he made stuff up time after time in order to fit in, understand his absent dad, and puff himself up.  In High School Obama was a member of the literary club.  In college he loaded up on literature classes, and the closest thing to science fiction in academia: classes by Marxists and feminists and "neocolonialist" professors.  In Chicago as a "community organizer" Obama spent much of his time writing fiction based on the South Side poor he met during his "day job".  At Harvard Obama took classes from the "Crits", legal theorists who interpreted the law as a form of fiction written to serve class interests.  Then, of course, Obama spent the next three years writing his deeply fictionalized memoir, packed with made-up dialog and many fictionalized characters and events, a sort of personal docu-drama with about as much fictional content as one of the historical novels you see suburban housewives reading (and perhaps targeted at the same audience). 

And then, of course, there's the fictional story Obama has created of his life in politics.

So don't be surprised that a lot of what Obama says is a matter of mere invention.  He's a man of fiction, from beginning to end.

AL GORE SPENDS $16,533 A MONTH on electricity to power his massive home.  That's up over 10% since Gore began renovations last year to make his house "green friendly."  Anyone else think it's weird that Al Gore didn't do much of anything to conserve energy until last year, or that his current actions produce merely symbolic results, and fail utterly to produce real ones?  My dad has taken successful steps to conserve energy since the early 1970s.  Al Gore?  Not so much.

IS BARACK OBAMA A MARXIST? And just how many of his friends and mentors have been Marxists or communists or socialists?  These are the rumors -- and facts -- I'd like to see the Obama campaign address.

Not that there's anything wrong with being a Marxist.  Not that there's anything wrong with having Marxist, communist and socialist friends.  Some of my best friends have been Marxists, communists, and socialists. 

But I wouldn't want any one of them within a thousand miles of the Presidency of the United States.

EVERYONE KEEPS PRETENDING THEY KNOW Barack Obama as if they'd grown up with him or lived next door to the guy for the last 20 years.  But you didn't.  So who is this guy really?  He's this guy.

ANDY McCARTHY WEIGHS IN on habeas corpus and the Supreme Court.  Quotable:

It would be preposterous to believe that the Framers intended the American people's courts to be available to the enemy, during a war the American people have decided to wage, in order to harass and dispirit the government officials the American people have charged to wage it and the forces which are doing just that.

Such a delusion is possible only if you think the courts belong to the judges, not the people, and that it is the role of the judges to exist as an independent, supranational tribunal where people outside our body-politic, including our enemies, are welcome to press their case against our country.

If foreigners want to advance such claims against the United States, that is the stuff of diplomacy, force-of-arms, or international tribunals if we have agreed to submit to them by democratic means. It is not the job of our own courts, derived from a farce that the habeas corpus rights preserved by our own Constitution were meant to run to the benefit of our enemies..

THOMAS SOWELL ON TIM RUSSERT.

THEY KEEP TELLING US HOW SUPER SMART Barack Obama is.  Obama may have talents, but being super smart isn't one of them.  The more he bluffs his way through this campaign -- and gets caught -- the more the rest of us will question the intelligence and character of those who keep telling us how super smart the Democrat nominee is.  It's one thing when it's Whooppi Goldberg telling you that Barack Obama is super smart.  It's another when its partisan law professor Cass Sunstein.  I'm with Jonah Goldberg, Sunstein isn't being square with us when he's praising his personal friend for being "open minded" -- and quickly coming to leftist conclusions.  Brilliant!

UPDATE:  It looks like as least one person in the McCain campaign would like to win in November and has the guts to fight back.

SHARPTON'S MILLION DOLLAR SHAKEDOWN. This is something like a giant metaphor of the liberal movement.

"I DON'T APPROACH [THINGS] FROM A PARTISAN OR IDEOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE" -- the always honest Barack Obama in a new interview with ABC News.

Among Obama's "non-ideological" / "non-partisan" positions?  He's in favor of an insurance scheme to socialize medicine, he's against liberating parents and students with vouchers, he's in favor of repealing the Defense of Marriage Act, he'd like to fight the terror war as a criminal matter, and he's in favor of increasing taxes for the purpose of redistributing wealth by means which will almost certainly reduce government revenue and decrease national wealth.  Nothing ideological or non-partisan about any of that.

POP! HOUSING PRICES ARE DOWN 27% from this time last year in Southern California:

The median home sale price in six Southern California counties was $370,000, down from $505,000 a year earlier, according to DataQuick Information Systems. DataQuick said that was the biggest annual decline it has recorded since it began tracking prices in 1988 ..

Sales of post-foreclosure homes continue to dominate many inland markets. Of all the Southland homes resold in May, 37.4% had been foreclosed on at some point in the prior 12 months, compared with a revised 36.2% in April and 5.5% one year ago. Across the six-county area, these "foreclosure resales" ranged from 25.6% of resale activity in Orange County to 56.6% in Riverside County.

DOES ALAN BLINDER KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT ECONOMICS? This piece on bubbles and the banks has a sort of grotesque interest for any of you who actually understand how the the Fed manipulates the time structure of the production economy (read some Hayek or some Roger Garrison if you'd like to learn).  Unfortunately, Alan Blinder is not one of them.

YOUR CONSERVATIVE DAD -- -- and your conservative granddad -- were right all along.  They were right about taxes, they were right about economics, and they were right about all those left wing Democrats Presidents.  And your conservative dads and grandfathers were wronged by your left wing professors, wronged by the left wing media, and wronged by the bogus history all these fraudulent scoundrels taught you all your life.

The big question now is, will we be fooled again?  Will we again ignore the age old wisdom of our conservative dads?

As the choice for President comes closer, I can't forget this.

Although Barack Obama's father wasn't much of a father, the power of fathers is such that a boy and a young man can build his life on the ideals of even an absent father.  The ideals of Barack Obama's absent father happen to be socialist ideals.  And  Obama hasn't hid the fact that his political life has been build on the ideals of his abscent father, instilled in him by his left wing mother.  Actually, Obama wrote a book about it.  And it no doubt didn't help that the man his grandfather sent Barack to as a mentor and substitute father was a member of the Communist Party, U.S.A.

If you haven't caught on yet, Barack Obama did not have a conservative dad, and Americans need to stop pretending that Obama thinks like a man who grew up learning all the commonsense American wisdom of all those conservative dads (whether immigrant or native born) who explained to so many of us how America works and what makes America succeed.  Obama didn't have that kind of dad and he doesn't have that kind of wisdom, and it's folly to pretend otherwise.

So what about John McCain?

Well, whatever his flaws, John McCain did have an old fashioned conservative father, and an old fashioned conservative grandfather.   It's certainly true that John McCain's father and grandfather were absent a lot also.  But all you need to understand them -- and John McCain -- is to take a look at this.  McCain talks about his father and grandfather -- and what they mean to him -- here.

UPDATE:  A related article from Peter Schweizer in the Daily Mail:

There is plenty of data that shows that Right-wingers are happier, more generous to charities, less likely to commit suicide - and even hug their children more than those on the Left.

In my experience, they are also more honest, friendly and well-adjusted.

Much of this springs from the destructive influence of modern liberal ideas.

In the Sixties, we saw the beginning of a narcissism and self-absorption that gripped the Left and has not let go.

The full-scale embrace of the importance of self-awareness, self-discovery and being 'true' to oneself, along with the idea that the State should care for the less fortunate, has created a swathe of Left-wing people who want to outsource their obligations to others.

The statistics I base this on come from the General Social Survey, America's premier social research database, but they are just as relevant to the UK, as I believe political belief systems drive one's attitudes, regardless of where you happen to live.

Those surveyed were asked: 'Is it your obligation to care for a seriously injured/ill spouse or parent, or should you give care only if you really want to?' Of those describing themselves as 'conservative', 71 per cent said it was. Only 46 per cent of those on the Left agreed.

To the question: 'Do you get happiness by putting someone else's happiness ahead of your own?', 55 per cent of those who said they were 'very conservative' said Yes, compared with 20 per cent of those who were 'very liberal'.

It's been my experience that conservatives like to talk about things outside of themselves while progressives like to discuss themselves: how they are feeling and what their desires are. That might make for a good therapy session but it's not much fun over a long dinner.

Research also indicates those on the Left are less interested in getting married: 30 per cent of those who were 'very liberal' said it was important, in contrast to 65 per cent of Right-wingers.

The same holds true when the question of having children arises .. While 69 per cent of those who called themselves 'very conservative' said it was important for them to have children, only 38 per cent of corresponding liberals agreed.

Many on the Left proudly proclaim themselves 'child-free'. While some do not want children on ecological grounds, much has to do with the fact that they simply don't want the responsibility of having a child.

When asked by the World Values Survey whether parents should sacrifice their own well-being for those of their children, those on the Left were nearly twice as likely to say No ..

Political polling establishes that modern Presidential races and most governorships come down to a contest between those who don't have have children in the house or aren't married against married couples with children in the household.  Steve Sailer believes that the effect of affordable family formation on parents even explains the divide between "blue state" regions of the country and "red state" regions (be sure to scroll down to his graph of the effect of this divide on Presidential politics). 

It's not hard to guess where all those Conservative Dads live -- the ones who've been right about history, right about the economy, and right about America.

UPDATE II:  Where have all the dads gone?  If you don't have a conservative dad, there's a good chance you don't have a dad at all:

The nation's out-of-wedlock birth rate is 38%. Among white children, 28% are now born to a single mother; among Hispanic children it is 50% and reaches a chilling, disorienting peak of 71% for black children. According to the National Center for Health Statistics, nearly a quarter of America's white children (22%) do not have any male in their homes; nearly a third (31%) of Hispanic children and over half of black children (56%) are fatherless.

This represents a dramatic shift in American life. In the early 1960s, only 2.3% of white children and 24% of black children were born to a single mom. Having a dad, in short, is now a privilege, a ticket to middle-class status on par with getting into a good college.

The odds increase for a child's success with the psychological and financial stability rooted in having two parents. Having two parents means there is a greater likelihood that someone will read to a child as a preschooler, support him through school, and prevent him from dropping out, as well as teaching him how to compete, win and lose and get up to try again, in academics, athletics and the arts. Maybe most important of all is that having a dad at home is almost a certain ticket out of poverty; because about 40% of single-mother families are in poverty ..

"If you are concerned about reducing child poverty then you have to focus on missing fathers," says Roland Warren, president of the National Fatherhood Initiative, based in Gaithersburg, Md. ..

A study of black families 10 years ago, when the out-of-wedlock birthrate was not as high as today, found that single moms reported only 20% of the "baby's daddy" spent time with the child or took a "lot" of interest in the baby ..

In his own life, [Walter] Myers, [a best-selling author of books for teenagers], often looked down on the man in his house: his stepfather, who worked as a janitor and was illiterate. He felt this man had little to teach him.

Then his own son complained one day that he, Myers, "sounded just like granddad" when he told the boy to pick up after himself, to work harder and show respect to people.

"I didn't know it at the time," says Mr. Myers of his stepfather, "but just having him around meant I was picking up his discipline, his pride, his work ethic. . ." He adds: "Until I heard it from my son I never understood it."

UPDATE III:  Barack Obama goes after the conservative dad vote, stealing themes from Chris Rock and Bill Cosby (read this recent Chicago Tribune interview with Bill Cosby):

We need fathers to realize that responsibility does not end at conception. Too many fathers are M.I.A, too many fathers are AWOL, missing from too many lives and too many homes.  They have abandoned their responsibilities, acting like boys instead of men. And the foundations of our families are weaker because of it.

Ann Althouse comments:

I know what [Obama] is trying to do is to push more men to be involved in their children's lives, but the way he is saying it, he is siding with traditionalists who think the male role is special, distinctive, and necessary.

That's right.  Obama is taking sides with your conservative dad.

UPDATE IV:  Interesting comments section at Althouse, including this:

Wow, yesterday Obama came out in favor of bike helmets and today we note that he is in favor of fatherhood. He certainly is not afraid to take a forthright stand on the tough issues ....

And this:

Ya'll do realize this was Obama's Sister Souljah speech, right? The speech wasn't aimed at men who abandon their families, it was aimed at white middle-of-the-roaders, aka Reagan Democrats.

"ENGLISH COMMON LAW has never held that the writ of habeas corpus extended beyond the sovereign territory of the Crown."  That's really all you really need to know about the the Court's recent Gitmo decision.  But Wehner has more here.

WHAT WE'VE COME TO EXPECT. More lies from the MSM and Obama about conservative alternative media.  These people aren't so stupid, but they are that dishonest.

This is my experience:  Leftists in the media are routinely dishonest.  Conservatives in the old and media rarely are.  I'm guessing your life time of anecdotal evidence on the matter is roughly the same.  So how do we explain this?  Why is there a culture of dishonesty on the left?   I'm guessing the answer is over-determined.

WHEN YOU ARE BARACK OBAMA even being a nerd is an act of courage and heroism.

INCREASING SIGNS of an increasingly corrupt American power structure.  The more power you bring to Washington, the more corrupt Washington will be.   Obama's plan is to bring more power to Washington.  He's a down and dirty player from Chicago.  Do the mat