Obama is responsible

With one sentence, Obama could employ the moral force necessary to stop Kos and the other prog-bloggers from spreading smears. The fact that he does not do so proves his complicity.

We now know that the Bush State Department has peeked into the passport data of McCain, Huckabee -- and Hillary Clinton. I was curious to see how the Kossacks would handle this revelation.

As always, they did not disappoint:

Wasn’t it reported that in Hillary’s case there was no real breach but her name was used during a training session?

Then we have McCain which looks like it was done as a cover up.

As though that "training exercise" explanation would suffice if offered in the Obama case.

yep this smells to high heaven

What better way to cover up a political hit-job than to show equal disdain for all the candidates of both parties.

No one wants McCain's passport records. And I seriously doubt if anyone really wanted Hillary's.

The Kossacks have pounced on one "damning" piece of info, which, in their view, proves Hillary's perfidy:

The supervisor was Maura Hardy, a former Clinton appointee (a former Ambassador),

To which Kagro X, one of the few sane voices left in progland, responded:

Maura Hardy? The Maura Hardy who's worked for the State Department in every administration since Reagan?

Now she's a Clinton crony because she got a career civil service appointment as ambassador to that plum assignment, Paraguay?

Keith Obermann himself has decided to blame Hillary before learning the facts. I do a pretty good Murrow impression myself: FOR SHAME, SIR!

Can anyone name any a single sin committed by the Republican smear machine that has gone unreplicated by the "progressive" media? The left has degenerated into an unreasoning mob. I began this blog to argue the case for John Kerry. Four years later, I find that that the people I used to see as comrades have decided to mount a particularly harrowing production of The Crucible.

The ghastly erosion of principle and decency on the left is no trivial story -- arguably, this development is more important than is the election itself.

I hold Barack Obama himself partially responsible for the left's transformation into a slavering pack of beasts. Look at his latest campaign announcement:

In a “60 Minutes” interview, Senator Clinton refused to confirm that Senator Obama is a Christian, even though she knows the facts.

An utter lie. Here is the transcript:

Q: You don't believe that Senator Obama's a Muslim?

A: Of course not. I mean, that, you know, there is no basis for that.

And:

Q:No. No, there is nothing to base that on. As far as I know.

Q: It's just scurrilous…?

A: Look, I have been the target of so many ridiculous rumors, that I have a great deal of sympathy for anybody who gets, you know, smeared with the kind of rumors that go on all the time.

When they progblogs recount this tale, you don't see the words "smeared" and "ridiculous rumors" and "scurrilous," do you? (Yes, "scurrilous" was the interviewer's word, but Hillary ran with it.) To repeat one of my favorite Oscar Wilde-isms: "Quotation can be slander/When you gerrymander." Anyone who can parse Clinton's words in such a way as to justify the Obama campaign's smear-job is simply being inane -- and history will judge harshly.

Much else in the recent Obama mailer deserves to be deplored. I will here note only this:

A new Gallup poll...shows a staggering figure: far fewer Americans think Clinton is trustworthy than think she isn’t, by a margin 44-53 percent.

Yes -- and for years, the polls also said that the vast majority of Americans believed that Saddam Hussein engineered the 911 attacks. In 2000, polls showed that the majority of Americans were affected by the unconscionable "Gore the liar" meme.

(Incidentally, the most recent polls also say that the American public prefers McCain to Obama. McCain beats Clinton as well.)

The anti-Hillary numbers are the way they are because the Clintons have been subjected to the most vicious, long-running smear campaign in American history. As the old Rogers and Hammerstein song says: "You have to be carefully taught..." They were "taught" about Gore, they were "taught" about 9/11, and they've been "taught" about the Clintons. Has the nation profited from this education?

A few years ago, the previous paragraph would have been uncontroversial on the the left-wing sites. But now the progs feel no remorse in repeating all of the old fabrications and innuendos.

Those Gallup numbers show only that the Obama/Limbaugh/Murdoch/Kos/Moon/DU/Free Republic/TPM smear tactics have worked.

I cannot keep company with the Obama supporters because they now keep company with the very people I have sworn to fight.

Why did Obama rely on the politics of prevarication? Because he brings nothing else to the discussion beyond a reliance on emotionalism:

IMO, he is grossly underqualified and unprepared for the presidency. I base that viewpoint on a thorough study of his life and resume. Obama himself has acknowledged his relative dearth of experience, even though his more fanatical supporters never will. I reject the argument that experience is not an important factor in job performance. Obviously, it is not the only factor.

IMO, the claim that his "good judgment" will compensate for any deficiency in experience may be comforting, but my study of his speeches and policy positions convinces me that there are all too many examples of "poor judgment," not adequately tempered or illuminated by experience.

He advocates a "coalition of faith and bipartisanship." The latter is impossible except for an occasional, isolated issue. The former is a deplorable intrusion of religious thinking into public life. I do not want a Democratic Ministry in Washington, any more than the Republican Ministry that currently exists. Obama has not clarified how his congregation's racist doctrine (published on their website) would or would not influence his policies or decisions as president.

His economic proposals are weak and mostly a rehash of positions previously developed by Clinton. He has repeatedly articulated an unsound linkage between foreign policy decisions and domestic initiatives. His excessively broad finger-pointing at Corporate America and Big Business will make it impossible for him to enlist these powerful interest groups in participating in his agenda.

Whereas Clinton's team features policy-wonks and pragmatists, Obama's advisors and campaign feature his personality and appeals to emotion. We badly need a wiser, more rational citizenry to decrease our vulnerability to propaganda and disinformation. As an educator, Obama should understand that need.

Obama's claim to strong anti-war credentials is a gross exaggeration and based almost entirely on one tepid speech given in 2002 as an Illinois State Senator.

Obama's foreign policy ideas, as reiterated in his Iraq speech this week, are dangerous in their naiveté and advocacy of unilateral military adventurism. He proposes a new "central front" for the war in the Middle East, along the Pakistani and Afghanistan border, with or without the consent and cooperation of our crucial regional ally, Pakistan.

This otherwise fine analysis errs when describing Obama's economic views as a xerox of Hillary's. What about Social Security? When did that stop being the untouchable "third rail" of American politics?

Obama has allied himself with economic aides who rely on the libertarian Cato Institute's argument that Social Security needs "fixing." As Al Franken demonstrates in his most recent book, the Cato crowd have spewed fake numbers for ideological reasons.

Somehow, Barack Obama has become a Rorshach test onto which the gullible project their hopes and dreams. One day the dreamers will awake, and they will discover that the Obama of their hallucinations is not real.

Note: If you have something new and relevant to say, then say it. But don't just repeat the old lies. Progs seem to be under the impression that certain fibs, such as the "Fairy Tale" hoax and the "darkened video" falsehood, can win the day through sheer repetition. Check first to see whether I have already addressed your point; the search engine is at the top of the page. I will delete any comment that goes over old ground.

I will also delete any comment that simply insults me without mounting an argument. If you know how to argue, then you may also heap denigration on my head, if doing so makes you feel better.

I will delete any comment that dodges and switches subjects.

If you feel these rules are unfair, simply go away. I neither need nor want you -- and I have a phobic reaction to mobs.