More Political Nonsense From the "Non-Political" Nobel Committee

I'm amused by the Nobel Peace Prize being awarded to President Obama for eleven day's work as President (Obama took office January 20th, the deadline for nominations for the prior year was February 1st), but what's done is done. He's been awarded it, and has humbly accepted it in the spirit that it was offered.

So be it.

I'm also amused by the Republicans telling their members to tone it down, out of fear that they will be seen as a bunch of whiners. This is probably a smart move on their part.

And what does his press secretary have to say?

"We think that this gives us a sense of momentum when the United States has accolades tossed its way rather than shoes," he said this morning.

Accolades, eh? This was a one-fingered salute to President Bush from the Nobel Peace Prize committee, which also awarded Al Gore the prize for his global warming hubris, nothing more. So given their own political activism, I'm not surprised they gave Obama the prize for eleven days of no results.

And Mr. Press Secretary is sounding more like a propaganda minister every day, instead of a Press Secretary.

Even Obama's allies on MSNBC were not overly generous:

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Whatever.

White House Denies Presidential Bow to Saudi King: Putting a Spin on this Miscue Makes the Situation Worse

The White House attempted to put a political spin on President Obama's deep bow to Saudi King Faud while at the G-20 summit in London, saying it wasn't a bow at all.

Horsecrap!

What the hell was he doing way down there? Giving King Faud a presidential blo...never mind.

Of course not. But they would have us believe that it was ANYTHING but a bow to a foreign ruler, in spite of this serious breach of protocol being caught on video and in pictures. They ought to admit that the President screwed up, apologize and move on.

But instead he's having his spin doctors try to hoodwink the rightly-offended American public---of which nearly 60,000,000 people didn't vote for him---and his strategy isn't working. Now he's got two screw-ups to fix instead of one.

I don't even want to think about what he would do if he met with Kim Jong Il or with Uncle Fidel, who the Congressional Black Caucus likes very much. There's enough drivel coming from that group of lawmakers to make me SICK!

I'm waiting to see if the White House attempts to squirm its way out of the first two problems, or if they come clean.

Obama Wins; Definitely Not a Reagan Landslide, But More Than Enough to Beat McCain

Barack Obama made history, becoming the first African-American man to become President of the United States. It wasn't quite a Reagan-style landslide, but was still more than enough to put McCain away. Congratulations to the President-elect.

I'm more unhappy about Michigan's Prop 1 and 2 right now than I am about the race for the White House. I've been on record as not being happy with either candidate, but we have a new President, and without all the legal dramas of 2000. For that, I am grateful.

We'll see how President-elect Obama does. I'm looking forward to a lot of new source material in the next four years, especially if his Socialist views begin to take the shape of policy.

For now, he has a lot of work to do in order to straighten out the economy.

It Will Be Over Tomorrow; We Will Have a New President

As the rest of the country gets ready to vote starting in a little over eight hours from now, I still have mixed feelings on the candidates.

They are not the best that their respective parties have to offer, and we're going to be stuck with one of them for the next four years, assuming they stay healthy.

McCain has made too many compromises over his career to be called a real conservative. Obama is too young and inexperienced and is too far over to the left; he's going to be forced to move to the right in order to govern if he wins tomorrow.

I don't think that the polls are correct in their blowout predictions either.

They've gotten the last two Presidential elections wrong with their polling data, both before and during Election Day. The problem is that the media and the pollsters continually underestimate the turnout on the Republican side, while overestimating the Democratic turnout on Election Day. And they never seem to learn from their mistakes.

And when the polls do not match the election results, they start screaming about voter suppression and start looking for victims. They don't seem to understand that many people don't want to tell who they actually voted for. I'd tell a pollster that I wrote in Mickey Mouse, just to throw their numbers off. It's none of their business!

It'll be interesting to see if any coal states predicted to go to Obama flip to McCain. Very few of the networks carried the Obama/coal industry story.

I will be watching the results tomorrow night with great interest.

ATF Breaks Up Skinhead Ring That Wanted to Go After Obama; This is a Small Taste of Things to Come

The government announced today that it was charging two skinheads with plotting to kill Senator Obama and dozens of others in a blaze of hatred and gunfire. It's likely that this is the tip of the iceberg, and other plots are being planned.

The skinheads fully expected to be killed in the attempt to gun down Obama in a drive-by suicide attack. Luckily they were stopped before they could carry out this plot.

I hope that, regardless of the way the election goes, that the President stays alive and healthy for the entire term.

Voting for #2: My Choice is Already Made

I voted absentee today and dropped it in the mail with mixed feelings on the matter.

And for the first time, I didn't vote for the headliner on the ticket; I voted for the #2 slot this time around, because I think there's a distinct possibility that the VP nominee on the ticket will be President sometime before the end of the new Administration.

Our country still has a problem with violent racism, and I think that some redneck will inevitably take a shot at Obama. We'll almost certainly see a surge in racial hate groups, especially with the economy in the shape it's in now if Obama is elected President. They'll blame him for their not being able to hold jobs; and whatever excuse that they can come up with to go after him. And we'll have a problem with domestic terrorism as well as international terrorism.

And McCain's age is something to be concerned with. We know that the person who is the President ages a lot faster than normal, due to the heavy work schedule, stress and other issues. McCain is 72 now, with a history of heart trouble. That's an issue.

I hope that both stay alive and healthy, whether they are elected in November or not.

But for my vote, I was thinking about a possible President Biden or President Palin running the country. Biden has too many liberal votes and causes to his name for my taste, and I wish Palin had a little more experience on the political side of things. But ultimately I voted for the candidate who best matched my social views.

We also know that the President will surround himself or herself with the best economic advisers that can be found, so they don't necessarily need to be an expert on the economy themselves, so long as the advisers are expert's experts on the topic.

It's a bonus if the President does have experience in the business world, but what they have to be able to do is comprehend it, and then communicate it in a way that makes sense to the public.

The same thing can be said about every aspect of the Presidency; hopefully the President will chose wise advisers.

Surprise, Surprise: Obama Says He Should Get Credit for Curing Wall Street Folly: Since When?

Barack Obama blasted John McCain again, saying that McCain didn't do anything to deserve credit for the $700 billion mistake-in-progress plan, while he did.

Yeah, right.

Last time I checked, Obama scurried his butt out of Washington first. He also didn't want to even be in Washington (which I think was a smart initial move.) McCain stuck around, then left Washington to go to Friday's debate, then turned around and came back to Washington to confer with his GOP colleagues. Obama belatedly returned.

Obama said he deserved credit for making sure that there were taxpayer protections in the plan, but the fact is that his Democratic colleagues and many Republicans were calling for the same things long before Obama even realized that it was going to be a campaign issue.

Both candidates were equally ineffective and should have stayed out of Washington to begin with. Obama's statements are highly hypocritical.

And the "plan" that they came up with is not much of one.

On to Palin vs. Biden. Hopefully they have more of a pulse than their bosses did during Friday's debate.

Presidential Candidates Need to Get the Hell Out of Dodge: Their Presence at White House Didn't Help Matters

Talks aimed at alleviating the U.S. financial crisis ended in failure, with both sides blaming the other. And the presence of the presidential candidates didn't aid the summit in finding a solution to Wall Street's Folly.

They need to get OUT of Washington and put some distance between themselves and the ongoing fiasco at the White House. And McCain needs to get it in gear and quit wasting time on pointless political gestures. He needs to show up at that debate tomorrow night and give Obama what-for, or risk becoming a has-been former presidential candidate.

What a stupid stunt!

No American Candidates Should be Anywhere Near UN Next Week: Opening Session Being Attended by World Leaders

I'm not too happy to hear that the GOP ticket is planning on sending Sarah Palin to the U.N. to meet world leaders to build her foreign policy experience. That is precisely the WRONG thing to do; it's no better than Obama's grandstanding overseas a couple of months ago.

They need to reconsider this move. If McCain/Palin wins in November, she can build up her experience by attending funerals of foreign leaders and dignitaries, and acting as the President's representative while overseas.

This could backfire as badly as Obama's bungled overseas trip. I don't think they want to go there. Both tickets should avoid the UN like the plague!

Foreign Governments Need to Stay the Hell Out of Our Business: We'll Elect Our Own President, Thank You Very Much

80% of the world wants Obama in the White House? Too bad; there might well be a lot of disappointed people around the world once AMERICANS have their say at the polls on November 4th. Americans don't like foreigners messing with OUR elections.

And what is with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown endorsing Obama and Obama's proposals that Obama withdrew his support from last month? I respect the Prime Minister, but not when it comes to OUR elections. He ought to get his OWN house into order before telling us how to run ours.

And speaking of elections, why won't he allow a general election in Britain? Is it because Labor's run out of gas and the Conservatives lead by David Cameron are taking seats away from his party in local elections across Britain? This man has some nerve endorsing Obama when he won't allow a general election in his own country.

And as predicted, Obama didn't earn any votes over here with his grand trip overseas, in which he WAS grandstanding. Shame, shame. Pandering to an overseas audience before he's even elected.

International community, keep your opinions to yourselves because we AREN'T interested. Run your own elections, and let us run ours.

The Mainstream Media is Getting It Wrong Again: They Underestimate Conservative Turnout on Election Day

The word out in the media is that they're laughing at the GOP vice presidential nominee and consider it a joke.

GOOD.

Considering the outcomes of the last two Presidential elections, one would have thought that they had learned their lesson. Guess not. They're ignoring the effect that Governor Palin is already having on conservative voters, who have already proven that when they turn out in large numbers, their candidate wins the election.

There's some pretty silly articles out there put on by liberal pundits who have no clue as to what kind of strategy McCain is employing, including this one. The Politico article is one of the more clueless ones that I've seen so far.

It's still too early to tell if Governor Palin will be able to draw out conservatives who were sitting on the fence, waiting to see how things turn out before deciding to go vote on Election Day. But if she's successful and enough attention is turned onto Obama's time in the Senate and his super-liberal positions, the Democrats could be in deep trouble, considering that there's a statistical dead-heat going on in the polls.

The entire election will hinge on whether the conservatives turn out in force, and carry as few as two swing states that are leaning toward Obama at the current time. There's still two full months and change before Election Day, and it could go either way. But the MSM is underestimating the conservative turnout and overestimating the Democratic turnout, as they have over and over again. It'll be funny if they're dead wrong--again.

The conservatives are better at turning out voters than the Democrats and "rock the vote" are. When will the media be on the same page as reality?

McCain's VP Choice is a Good One: Experience Remains an Issue in McCain vs. Obama Race

John McCain selected Governor Sarah Palin of Alaska as his running mate. It's a good choice, and an unexpected one. The smart money was on Romney as McCain's VP candidate, but McCain went with another Republican--and a conservative one--who has taken on her own state party in an attempt to straighten Alaska out.

I view her as an ideal citizen-politician who isn't part of the Washington crowd, who isn't afraid to take on her own party and will tell it like it is.

More importantly, she counts herself as an opponent of abortion and has gotten good reviews from conservative leaders. I like the choice.

Obama is trying to say that experience is no longer an issue between the candidates, but it actually still is. The main event is still Obama vs. McCain, not Obama vs. Palin. Obama or McCain will be running the country in 2009; that hasn't changed, so experience is still on the table.

Democratic Convention Was All Giltz, No Substance: Temple of Obama Was Ridiculous

The Democrats sure know how to put on a glitzy party, that's for sure, but their convention was all glitz, and no substance. They failed to astonish anyone with bold new initiatives, and was nothing short of a full-scale victim pity party.

And there was Bill Clinton retelling old lies and rewriting history...again. All one has to do is look at the first quarter of 2001's growth rate to tell the story of record surpluses and economic growth: the economy grew backwards at a rate of -.49%. He handed off an economy with decreased GDP to George W. Bush. His surpluses were already on the way out the door while Clinton was still in office.

I wasn't impressed with the rhetoric. All I heard was "poor us, poor us." They delivered on the "why" but not on the "how" except in the most generic terms possible. "Obama has the experience to put people back to work!" How, exactly?

And the Temple of Obama thing on the last night was utterly ridiculous; it's cannon fodder for the opposition, who has already taken great advantage of how it looked, even before the One even appeared on the stage. And when he did take the stage, he announced nothing new, other than some new criticisms of McCain.

For all that trouble, Obama got a six point bounce in the polls, which is considered a moderate outcome. The candidate who gets the bigger bounce in the polls following the respective conventions usually wins the election. In 2004, Bush got a 15 point bounce, Kerry got a five point bounce. Kerry was also dealing (ineffectually) with the Swift Boat ads, which came on the heels of the 2004 Democratic National Convention.

I took more enjoyment out of watching MSNBC with it's on-air personality conflicts. THAT was more interesting watching than the Democratic Convention.

I wonder if the networks will monitor the GOP convention next week as closely as they did Obama's. I seriously doubt it. And I also wonder if the GOP convention will be as generic as the Democratic one was. We'll see.

Did Hillary Mean It? WHO CARES?

I've got a few things to say about this recent body language/speech analysis that the networks seem to be indulging in when analyzing a political speech.

I don't put a lot of stock in over-analyzing a political speech, and I think that the networks are doing precisely that. And they're missing the point. What percentage of political speech made by a politician is actually meant?

The real answer might shock some of the pundits.

Regarding Hillary's "concession" speech, she just got her ass kicked in the delegate count, and for the sake of her party's unity, she gave the speech that people on her side needed to hear. THAT'S ALL IT WAS! And if anyone missed it, she said this between the lines: "Hope Obama loses so I can run again in 2012."

That's the headline, CBS. "Did she mean it?" WHO CARES!

As far as the side I'm on, I'm not on hers, and I will campaign against her again when she runs in 2012.

If Hollywood Wants Obama to Win, They Need to Shut Up About McCain

It occurs to me that the more Hollywood talks politics, the more the right gets fired up. So it stands to reason, that if they want their "chosen one" Obama to win, they need to shut up about McCain and keep making movies. In fact, the less we hear from Hollywood, so much the better.

If they want to use the power of their celebrity to promote a cause, that's one thing. But everyone saw what happened when McCain ran his "Celebrity" ad and use Britney Spears and Paris Hilton in it: Obama's numbers began to slide and haven't recovered. He'll have a bump in the numbers next week due to the Democratic Convention starting tomorrow, and all eyes will be on Obama.

The week after, the GOP has their turn. Then I fully expect one of the most negative campaigns in American political history to begin.

But with the success of McCain's "Celebrity" ad, Hollywood should take note that most common folks don't care about their opinions. They'll wind up hurting Obama instead of McCain if they trash-talk McCain.

Joe Biden is Obama's Choice: Will Hillary's Voters Stand for This?

Joe Biden was announced as Obama's choice to be his running mate yesterday, and it's an interesting choice. I thought he'd go with Hillary Clinton to keep her voters from going over to John McCain on Election Day. I don't think they're going to go for this. There's a lot of grumbling going on.

It'll also be interesting to see if Obama's people can keep Senator Biden from going "off the reservation" and speaking his mind and getting into trouble again.

In any case, I'm not voting for the ticket. They're too far to the left for my taste.

Veepstakes: AKA Ho-Hum

I'm not waiting for Obama's VP pick to be rolled out, like the media, who don't seem to know what to do with themselves. If John McCain was introduced as his running mate, THEN I'd sit up and take notice.

More ho-hum from Camp Obama.

And the press can't get enough of it. Bleah!

If McCain Chooses a Pro-Choice VP, I Definitely Will Vote 3rd Party

Rumors have surfaced that John McCain is thinking about a pro-choice candidate. If he dares to go down that course, he will lose whatever Conservative support he's managed to cobble together in recent months.

I sure as hell won't vote for him if he does this. Right now there's a possibility that I might vote for him to stop Obama, but I will not vote for any pro-choice candidate on any level, under any circumstances.

He really needs to choose carefully and decide which base he wants to rely upon.

Tire Talk: Obama's Gas-Saving Strategy Will Cause People to Overinflate Their Tires if They Aren't Careful

I've been listening to the current political chatter about inflating our tires to save on gas; some people are going to inflate their tires to the maximum limit and have blowouts. Obama's making an error.

According to those in the know, he needs to add a disclaimer to his "advice" for saving fuel that the PSI printed on the side of the tire means that's the tire's maximum rating when the tires are hot. Air pressure increases as the tire heats up, so the secret is to inflate the tires to under the limit so that when the tire gets hot it doesn't go over the printed limit.

I'm no mechanic, but I've read enough to know that cold weather will drop the air pressure in tires, so more air might need to be added during winter months; in hot weather, the PSI will increase due to the heat so less air is needed.

It's amazing what becomes politicized in an election year. Tire pressure of all things...

No New Presidential Politics Posts Here for a While

I haven't been writing about either Obama or McCain or anything else over here as of late.

I am so turned off by both candidates that I have been staying away from commenting on the 2008 Presidential Election. As far as the election itself, it's a question of whether I vote for McCain, or vote for a worthy 3rd party candidate. If it looks like it's going to be very close, I won't waste my vote; stopping Obama is more important than my disillusionment with McCain.

I'm going with issues related to the current Administration and local politics for the time being, unless something really strange happens in the current campaign. Maybe after the conventions the choice will become clearer.