ONLY A GUY FROM THE CIA COULD GET IT THIS WRONG:

Terror's campaign: Election Day approaches; is al-Qaida coming as well? (Bruce Riedel, 8/17/08, The Washington Post)

As someone who worked on terrorism issues for decades at the CIA and elsewhere, I found the most striking thing about the Madrid bombings to be the sophistication of the jihadists' grasp of electoral timing. The bombers seemed to have been encouraged by al-Qaida's terrorist infrastructure in Iraq, which scoped out Spanish vulnerability weeks before the election, analyzed the fault line in the NATO alliance and concluded that a bloody blow could drive hawkish Spain out of the Iraq war coalition. That al-Qaida in Iraq analysis was distributed on jihadist Web sites in December 2003, and their cohort in Madrid took careful note.

If it happened in Spain, it can happen here.

Spain required Generalissimo Franco and a Civil War to save it from Communist takeover. Here the commies couldn't withstand two misfits like Richard Nixon and Joe McCarthy.

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WE CAN'T BE THE ONLY ONES THINKING NUTELLA ON PORK RINDS...:

Bacon and chocolate -- an unlikely, tasty combo (MICHELLE LOCKE, 8/12/08, Associated Press)

Here are three little words that might give the staunchest snacker pause: Chocolate-covered bacon.

It sounds so wrong. But it tastes just right, says Joseph Marini III, a fourth-generation candy maker who is selling the bacon bonbons at the Santa Cruz Boardwalk seaside amusement park.

"It's not just for breakfast any more," he says with a grin.

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"AND WHERE I DISAGREED WITH HIM...:

Neo-McCain: The making of an uberhawk (John B. Judis, 10/16/06, The New Republic)

McCain is also another rarity in Washington: a centrist by conviction rather than by design. His political philosophy places him closer to Theodore Roosevelt than to his other idols, Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan: more noblesse oblige than libertarian populism or business conservatism. He says he favors "a minimum of government regulation in our lives," but what really matters is whether a policy or business practice is in the national interest. If it isn't, he'll use the power of the government to change it. Goldwater would not have voted for a bill tightening controls over the tobacco industry, and Reagan would have balked at curbing pollution. McCain has backed both. Liberals have recently chided him for wooing his party's evangelical base, but these have been nominal efforts. McCain pronounced himself in favor of teaching creationism as a theory; but he also devotes a chapter of his latest book to the genius of Charles Darwin. He gave a commencement speech at Jerry Falwell's Liberty University; but, in a subtle rebuke to Christian conservatives, he spoke entirely about foreign policy. Earlier this year, he voted to block a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage.

McCain's idiosyncratic approach to party politics also makes him an outlier. His commitment to bipartisanship is real--he worked with Russ Feingold on campaign finance reform, Ted Kennedy on immigration reform, and Joe Lieberman on global warming--as is his relish for battling his own party's leaders. Last month, when Bush and his congressional allies were using a bill flouting the Geneva Conventions to paint Democrats as soft on terrorism, McCain, along with John Warner and Lindsey Graham, blocked the measure and insisted on a compromise. True, the compromise was flawed. Still, it undermined the administration's efforts to exploit the war on terrorism for political purposes.

McCain has one other attribute that separates him from many of his peers in Washington: He is willing to change his mind. This may be his most admirable quality; yet it is also frequently overlooked, probably because it seems to contradict McCain's reputation for stubbornness, even nastiness--a reputation his right-wing opponents are all too happy to speculate about. "Everyone knows McCain has a temperament problem, but no one is going to say anything about it," one prominent Washington conservative complains. Yet the most distinctive aspect of McCain's temperament is not his anger; rather, it is his penchant for reconsidering both old enmities and old convictions. Witness his work with John Kerry on normalizing relations with Vietnam, as well as his collaboration on campaign finance reform with activist Fred Wertheimer, who had sharply criticized McCain during the Keating Five scandal.

Nowhere has McCain's willingness to question his own previous assumptions been more dramatic than on foreign policy. When he first arrived in Washington, he was essentially a realist, arguing that U.S. military power should only be used to protect vital national interests. Since the late '90s, however, he has joined forces with neoconservatives to support a crusade aimed at overthrowing hostile and undemocratic regimes--by force, if necessary--and installing in their place democratic, pro-American governments. Unlike many Republicans, he enthusiastically backed Bill Clinton's intervention in Kosovo. Moreover, he was pushing for Saddam Hussein's forcible overthrow years before September 11--at a time when George W. Bush was still warning against the arrogant use of American might.

And therein lies my McCain dilemma--and, perhaps, yours. If, like me, you believe that the war in Iraq has been an unmitigated disaster, then you are likely disturbed by McCain's early and continuing support for it--indeed, he advocates sending more troops to that strife-torn land--and by his advocacy of an approach to Iran that could lead to another fruitless war.

...he was right and I was wrong."

For all the talk about Obamicans, we all know Democrats who just aren't sold on the Unicorn Rider--for whatever reason-- and don't mind McCain. Does anyone know someone who voted for W who's going to vote for Obama? Hardly.

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GRAY AIN'T GRAVITAS:

How McCain Won Saddleback: In an unusual setting, his experience overwhelmed Obama. (Byron York, 8/17/08, National Review)

In a debate, candidates are often asked the same question, but the second guy has always heard what the first guy said and tailors his answer accordingly. At Saddleback, there was something much different — and more revealing — going on.

The contrast was striking throughout each man’s one-hour time on stage. When Warren asked Obama, “What’s the most gut-wrenching decision you’ve ever had to make?” Obama answered that opposing the war in Iraq was “as tough a decision that I’ve had to make, not only because there were political consequences but also because Saddam Hussein was a bad person and there was no doubt he meant America ill.” But Obama was a state senator in Illinois when Congress authorized the president to use force in Iraq. He didn’t have to make a decision on the war. That fact was a recurring issue in the Democratic primaries, when candidates Hillary Clinton, Joseph Biden, Christopher Dodd, and John Edwards argued that they, as senators, had to make a choice Obama didn’t have to make. And now he says it’s his toughest call.

When McCain got the question, he was able to tell an old story with a sense of gravity and poignancy that he seldom shows in public. He described his time as a prisoner of war, when he was offered a chance for early release because his father was a top naval officer. “I was in rather bad physical shape,” McCain told Warren, but “we had a code of conduct that said you only leave by order of capture.” So McCain refused to go. He made the telling even more forceful when he added that, “in the spirit of full disclosure, I’m very happy I didn’t know the war was going to last for another three years or so.” In one moment, he showed a sense of pride and a hint of regret, too; he came across as a man who did the right thing but not without the temptation to take an easy out. In any event, the message was very clear: John McCain has had to make bigger, more momentous decisions in his life than has Barack Obama.

McCain bested Obama again when Warren asked for an example of a time in which he “went against party loyalty and maybe even against your own best interest for the good of America.”

“Well, I’ll give you an example that in fact I worked with John McCain on,” Obama said, “and that was the issue of campaign ethics reform and finance reform.” But it turned out that was an issue on which Obama had briefly allied with McCain and then jumped back to the Democratic mother ship, causing McCain to write Obama an angry note about the abandonment of what had been a principled position. As far as bucking your party goes, it wasn’t very big stuff.

When McCain got the question, everyone in the room thought he would bring up campaign-finance reform, the issue on which he has alienated the Republican base for years. But he didn’t. “Climate change, out-of-control spending, torture,” he said. “The list goes on.” McCain’s prime example, though, was his story of opposing Ronald Reagan’s decision to send a contingent of Marines to Lebanon as a peacekeeping force. “My knowledge and my background told me that a few hundred Marines in a situation like that could not successfully carry out any kind of peacekeeping mission, and I thought they were going into harm’s way,” McCain said. But he deeply admired Reagan, and wanted to be loyal to the party; it was a difficult decision.

McCain answered the whole question without touching on campaign finance; he had so much more life experience to draw on that he could swamp Obama without using everything he had.

And on it went.

Do they have to keep Mr. Obama tethered to keep him from floating away?

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WHEN YOU'VE NOTHING TO OFFER BUT CHEAP LABOR...:

China's brightest day may have just passed (David Frum, August 09, 2008, National Post)

China is a low-value-added economy. One famous study found that of the $299 cost of an “assembled in China” iPod, only $4 was retained in China. This is not a country with a lot of margin for error.

China now seeks to climb the value-added ladder, as Japan, Taiwan and South Korea did beforehand. It has little choice: Annual wages in China’s cities are rising past the $2,000 mark, enough to send the most basic manufacturing industries (toys, apparel) to seek cheaper workers in Vietnam, Cambodia and Sri Lanka.

But it’s hard to see how a society that lacks the rule of law — where no factory owner can be sure who owns the ground under his plant — can execute that climb.

...you're easily replaced.

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AS NEOCONSERVATISM IS BUT A PALE REFLECTION OF THEOCONSERVATISM, SO WILL THE McCAIN DOCTRINE REFLECT THE BUSH:

Response to 9/11 Offers Outline of a McCain Doctrine (DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK, 8/17/08, NY times)

[A]s Mr. McCain prepares to accept the Republican presidential nomination, his response to the attacks of Sept. 11 opens a window onto how he might approach the gravest responsibilities of a potential commander in chief. Like many, he immediately recalibrated his assessment of the unseen risks to America’s security. But he also began to suggest that he saw a new “opportunity” to deter other potential foes by punishing not only Al Qaeda but also Iraq.

“Just as Sept. 11 revolutionized our resolve to defeat our enemies, so has it brought into focus the opportunities we now have to secure and expand our freedom,” Mr. McCain told a NATO conference in Munich in early 2002, urging the Europeans to join what he portrayed as an all but certain assault on Saddam Hussein. “A better world is already emerging from the rubble.”

To his admirers, Mr. McCain’s tough response to Sept. 11 is at the heart of his appeal. They argue that he displayed the same decisiveness again last week in his swift calls to penalize Russia for its incursion into Georgia, in part by sending peacekeepers to police its border.

His critics charge that the emotion of Sept. 11 overwhelmed his former cool-eyed caution about deploying American troops without a clear national interest and a well-defined exit, turning him into a tool of the Bush administration in its push for a war to transform the region. [...]

At a European security conference in February 2002, when the Bush administration still publicly maintained that it had made no decision about moving against Iraq, Mr. McCain described an invasion as all but certain. “A terrorist resides in Baghdad,” he said, adding, “A day of reckoning is approaching.”

Regime change in Iraq in addition to Afghanistan, he argued, would compel other sponsors of terrorism to mend their ways, “accomplishing by example what we would otherwise have to pursue through force of arms.”

Finally, as American troops massed in the Persian Gulf in early 2003, Mr. McCain grew impatient, his aides say, concerned that the White House was failing to act as the hot desert summer neared. Waiting, he warned in a speech in Washington, risked squandering the public and international support aroused by Sept. 11. “Does anyone really believe that the world’s will to contain Saddam won’t eventually collapse as utterly as it did in the 1990s?” Mr. McCain asked.

In retrospect, some of Mr. McCain’s critics now accuse him of looking for a pretext to justify the war. “McCain was hell-bent for leather: ‘Saddam Hussein is a bad guy, we have got to teach him, let’s send a message to the other people in the Middle East,’ ” said Senator John Kerry, Democrat of Massachusetts.

Which raises the obvious question, which parts of this does Mr. Kerry think are wrong: that Saddam was evil; that he should have been removed; and/or that other evil regimes ought to get the message that we can and will remove them too?

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WHEN THEY SEE THE DETAILS THEY'LL WISH HE'D STAYED OPAQUE:

Seeing Tougher Race, Allies Ask Obama to Make ‘Hope’ Specific (PATRICK HEALY, 8/17/08, NY Times)

As Senator Barack Obama prepares to accept the Democratic presidential nomination next week, party leaders in battleground states say the fight ahead against Senator John McCain looks tougher than they imagined, with Mr. Obama vulnerable on multiple fronts despite weeks of cross-country and overseas campaigning.

These Democrats — 15 governors, members of Congress and state party leaders — say Mr. Obama has yet to convert his popularity among many Americans into solutions to crucial electoral challenges: showing ownership of an issue, like economic stewardship or national security; winning over supporters of Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton; and minimizing his race and experience level as concerns for voters.

Mr. Obama has run for the last 18 months as the candidate of hope.

That last sentence reads like a punchline.

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IF YOU CAN'T PAD YOUR RESUME, BUY EXPERIENCE IN A BOTTLE:

Is Obama Dying His Hair Gray? (New York, 8/05/08)

Barack Obama has begun talking about how he's "going gray" lately, and it's true — the man's hair is going silver faster than you can say "Anderson Cooper with a tan." So fast, in fact, that we have to wonder at the legitimacy of it. Just last month, Obama's longtime barber said he'd never dyed Obama's hair darker — implying that the candidate's youthful color is stress-resistant. But within the last week, the candidate has mysteriously gone nearly fully gray. Look at the above pictures.

We hate to call the effects of age into question, but doesn't it look like he's dying his hair to look more distinguished?

We just know this a racist meme for some reason....

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KIND OF SILLY TO EVEN DEBATE WHO'S THE GREATEST PLAYER EVER:

Babe Ruth Called His Shot, From the Mound (KEN SCHLAGER, 8/17/08, NY Times)

Nobody ever bothered to tell Babe Ruth about pitch counts, five-man rotations or Joba rules. He would not have listened.

Ruth had no such concerns on an early fall day in 1930 when he approached the Yankees’ rookie manager, Bob Shawkey, with the idea of pitching the season’s final game. Ruth figured the stunt would help draw a crowd.

It was a no-brainer for Shawkey. After all, the Babe would be pitching on nine years’ rest.

The game itself was inconsequential. The Yankees were stuck in third place when they traveled to Boston for the season’s final weekend to play the cellar-dwelling Red Sox.

So Shawkey gave Ruth the ball on Sept. 28, 1930, and he pitched a complete game. [...]

The Babe had pitched in exhibition games over the years, but those contests were hardly preparation for his nine innings of masterly work against the Red Sox. Ruth scattered 11 hits and struck out 3, shutting out the Red Sox for the first five innings. Ruth even started two double plays, each time snatching “a smash hot off the bat,” according to The Times’s account. The Yankees won, 9-3.

Ruth batted third that day and contributed two singles, but Gehrig stole the show offensively. Although never as flamboyant as Ruth, Gehrig was capable of a grand gesture. When he learned that the Babe planned to pitch, he offered to take Ruth’s place in left field. Gehrig, a first baseman who was in the sixth year of his Iron Man streak that reached 2,130 games, had not played the outfield since 1925.

Gehrig made two putouts in left and went 3 for 5, pushing his final season average to .379 and nearly snatching the batting crown from Philadelphia outfielder Al Simmons, who sat out the final game at .381. Ruth’s and Gehrig’s efforts were not entirely wasted on Boston fans. Only 12,000 showed up, but they were “visibly and audibly impressed,” according to The Times.

When told of Ruth’s feat, Rick Peterson, the former Mets pitching coach, said, “It’s incredible.”

An expert on pitcher conditioning and mechanics, Peterson said it took six weeks to get a starting pitcher ready. “That’s why spring training is six weeks long,” he said.

Peterson dismissed the possibility of a present-day position player taking the ball for a start.

“It’s not even close,” he said. “You see what happens on occasion when it’s late in a game and you put in a player to finish. They’re always beat up the next day.”

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SO HOW DID BEING A WHOLLY-OWNED SUBSIDIARY...:

Latino voting bloc rises at a bad time for black pols (Earl Ofari Hutchinson, 8/17/08, Philadelphia Inquirer)

In the next couple of months, presumptive presidential candidates Barack Obama and John McCain will dump millions into Spanish-language ads, pitches, and pleas for votes on Spanish-language stations. When, not if, Democrats and Republicans cut an immigration-reform deal, one of its features almost certainly will include some legalization plan that within a few years will turn thousands more Latino immigrants into vote-casting U.S. citizens. Democrats and Republicans will pour even more time, money and personnel into courting Latino voters. The potential political gain from a massive outreach effort to Latinos is far greater than putting the same resources into courting black voters.

It's sound political reasoning. That effort worked for Republicans in 2004, when Bush got nearly 40 percent of the Latino vote. The Democrats, meanwhile, maintain a solid lock on the black vote. In every election since 1964, blacks have given more than 80 percent to 90 percent of their votes to the Democrats. They will give even more of their vote to Obama this election.

With the tantalizing prospect of a small, nonetheless important, segment of newly enfranchised Latino voters going Republican, there's no political incentive for Republicans to do more to get the black vote. That even includes their relentless pursuit of black evangelicals. Hispanic evangelical churches have an estimated 20 million members, and those numbers are growing yearly. According to a survey by the Hispanic Churches in American Public Life project, the majority of Latino evangelicals are conservative, pro-family, antiabortion and antigay marriage. Latino evangelicals are GOP-friendly, and they have political clout. They got several mainstream evangelical groups to back the Senate compromise immigration-reform bill. And while the National Association of Evangelicals stopped short of backing the Senate bill, it still urged "humane" immigration law.

The leap in Latino voting strength comes at a bad time for black politicians. Although the number of black elected officials has held steady in state offices and in Congress, the spectacular growth of prior years has flattened out. The Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies reported only a marginal increase after the 2004 elections in the number of black elected officials, mostly in a handful of Deep South states and Illinois.

Politicians already are de-emphasizing traditional black issues. Obama and McCain have been virtually mute on miserably failing inner-city schools, soaring black unemployment, prison incarceration, and the HIV/AIDS crisis that has torn black communities.

The new reality is that immigration, both legal and illegal, has drastically changed the ethnic and political landscape. As whites fade into a minority, the great fear is that blacks could fade just as fast in numbers and political power.

...of the Democratic Party work out for you?

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PUPPET PEARLS BEFORE...:

"Star Wars: The Clone Wars" (Stephanie Zacharek, Aug. 15, 2008, Salon)

[T]he one thing "The Clone Wars" does have going for it is its animation style, which is hardly revolutionary -- and that's exactly what's interesting about it. Lucas and Filoni were reportedly inspired by the '60s British television show "Thunderbirds," whose characters were creepy, awkward-looking marionettes.

...swine.

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CHRISTIAN EXCEPT WHEN IT COMES TO MORALITY?:

For Obama at Saddleback, a Tough Crowd on Some Issues (Jake Tapper, August 16, 2008, ABC News: Political Punch)

[W]here Obama had more trouble with the crowd – which sat politely throughout the forum – was when Warren delved into the social issues that put Obama and his liberal views at odds with the majority of white evangelicals.

“Forty million abortions since Roe v. Wade,” noted Warren. “At what point does a baby get human rights in your view?”

Obama said that “whether you are looking at it from a theological perspective or a scientific perspective, answering that question with specificity, you know, is above my pay grade. “

“I am pro-choice,” the Democratic senator acknowledged. I believe in Roe v. Wade and have come to that conclusion not because I'm pro-abortion, but because ultimately I don't think women make these decisions casually. They wrestle with these things in profound ways. In consultation with their pastors or spouses or their doctors and their family members.”

He mentioned that everyone could find common ground on the goal of reducing the number of abortions, which he’d put into the Democratic party platform. No one seemed to care much.

Likewise, Obama’s support for research involving embryonic stem cell research was met with the distant sound of crickets.

Given that Senators get to vote on Supreme Court justices, it is his pay grade. He just votes against life.

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NO SCRIPT? NO HOPE:

McCain's Back in the Saddleback (Chuck Todd, 8/16/08, NBC: First Read)

Quick first impressions: Obama spent more time trying to impress Warren (or to put another away) not offend Warren while McCain seemingly ignored Warren and decided he was talking to folks watching on TV. The McCain way of handling this forum is usually the winning way. Obama may have had more authentic moments but McCain was impressively on message.

This was a mistake Obama made a few times during the primary season. On one hand, it can make a moderator feel good when their subject actually tries to answer every question and take into account their opinions on a particular topic. And Obama's supporters will email me tonight and say this is what they love about him.

And yet, this reminded me of the many comparisons we made between Obama and Hillary Clinton. She was much more effective at answering questions in 90 seconds and always staying on message while Obama too easily allowed himself to get knocked off his talking points. Remember, Obama doesn't need to win over his supporters, he needs folks who are just now tuning in.

The poor Unicorn Rider is in way over his newly gray head.

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