After massive effort, he’s still trailing McCain for Nevada’s must-win five electoral votes. Details over at Battle Born Politics.

A Wall Street Journal editorial via Catholics in the Public Square lays it out:

Miss Jessen is an exquisite example of what antiabortion advocates call a “survivor.” Well into her third trimester of pregnancy, Gianna’s biological mother was injected with a saline solution intended to induce a chemical abortion at a Los Angeles County abortion center. Eighteen hours later, and precious minutes before the abortionist’s arrival, Gianna emerged. Premature and with severe injuries that resulted in cerebral palsy. But alive.

Had the abortionist been present at her birth, Gianna would have been killed, perhaps by suffocation. As it was, a startled nurse called an ambulance, and Gianna was rushed to a nearby hospital, where, weighing just two pounds, she was placed in an incubator, then, months later, in foster care.

Gianna survived then, and thrives now, because, as she told me recently with a laugh, “I guess I don’t die easy.” Which is what the abortionist might have thought as he signed his victim’s birth certificate. Gianna’s medical records state that she was “born during saline abortion.”

As an Illinois state senator, Barack Obama twice opposed legislation to define as “persons” babies who survive late-term abortions. Babies like Gianna. Mr. Obama said in a speech on the Illinois Senate floor that he could not accept that babies wholly emerged from their mother’s wombs are “persons,” and thus deserving of equal protection under the Constitution’s 14th Amendment.

A federal version on the same legislation passed the Senate unanimously and with the support of all but 15 members of the House. Gianna was present when President Bush signed the Born Alive Infants Protection Act in 2002.

When I asked Gianna to reflect on Mr. Obama’s candidacy, she paused, then said, “I really hope the American people will have their eyes wide open and choose to be discerning. . . . He is extreme, extreme, extreme.”

“Extreme” may not be the impression the hundreds of thousands of Americans who have bought Mr. Obama’s autobiography have been left with. In “The Audacity of Hope,” Mr. Obama’s presidential manifesto, he calls abortion “undeniably difficult,” “a very difficult issue,” “never a good thing” and “a wrenching moral issue.”

He laments his party’s “litmus test” for “orthodoxy” on abortion and other issues, and even admits, “I do not presume to know the answer to that question.” That question being the moral status of the fetus, who he nonetheless concedes has “moral weight.”

Those statements are seriously made but, alas, cannot be taken at all seriously. Mr. Obama has compiled a 100% lifetime “pro-choice” voting record, including votes against any and all restrictions on late-term abortions and parental involvement in teenagers’ abortions.

OBama is, indeed, extreme on the issue of abortion – but the real problem is that this extremism is entirely mainstream in the Democratic party. The article goes on to note that Obama has pledged to sign the so-called “Freedom of Choice Act“, a monstrous bit of pro-death legislation which would undo no only the federal ban on late-term abortions, but also the various common-sense regulations placed on abortion at the State level over the years. This is pro-abortion fanaticism in action, and Obama is hip deep in it.

I cannot take at face value anyone’s claims to care about people if they can’t care about the most helpless amongst us – there is a cold hearted indifference to suffering in the actions of those who work to protect abortion; from those who just use honey-coated words to cover up what it really is, to those who actually seek to ensure that more abortions are peformed. Obama talks a great game about helping the helpless, but when the real helpless have arrived in front of him, he’s slammed the door in their faces, more interested in garnering pro-abortion donations and pro-abortion political support for his blinding ambition to be President of the United States. Abortion is wicked; evil to the core – only the rankest sort of ignorance and cowardice can excuse any support for it; there is just never, ever a valid reason for seeking the termination of an unborn human life.

While many issues will be discussed during this campaign and while abortion won’t register with more than 5% or so as the most vital issue of the election, the central issue or our time has been, is and will be the abortion issue. As long as we permit this barbaric and inhuman practice – a veritible human sacrifice on the altar of the secular god “Selfishness” – just that long will we remain a nation divided against itself, and unsure of its place in the world. Just as we were riven by the stresses of trying to reconcile chattel slavery with our sublime Declaration of Independence so, too, are we riven by the attempts to reconcile cold blooded murder with the right to life our Founders fought and died for. This terrible poison, abortion, must end – and we will not end it by electing as President a man who will talk a lot about how sad abortion is, but who will in practical terms do all he can to advance the cause of abortion in the United States.

In the end, if one has any sense of the sanctity of human life – all life, even that unborn – then John McCain is the only possible candidate for 2008. A man of unscotchable pro-life record and a clear view of the value of life (probably built up by his inhuman treatment at the hands of the North Vietnamese), who is pledged to appoint judges who understand that the US Constitution isn’t a plaything for the latest liberal fads.

Another Democrat getting preferential treatment on a loan:

Senator Kent Conrad said he was given preferential treatment on a mortgage from Countrywide Financial Corp. and will write a $10,500 check to charity.

“It appears Countrywide waived one point on my mortgage,” Conrad, a North Dakota Democrat, said in a statement today in Washington. “Although I did not ask for or know that I was receiving a discount, and even though I was offered a competitive loan from another lender, I do not want to have received preferential treatment.”

Conrad said he also received a loan from Countrywide on an eight-unit apartment building in Bismarck, North Dakota, even though the lender typically serves properties that have four units or less. He said he had decided to refinance that loan with another institution.

Conrad and Senator Christopher Dodd, who oversees the U.S. mortgage industry as chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, were among those who received loans through Countrywide’s “V.I.P.” program, which waived points, fees and borrowing rules for prominent people, Portfolio magazine reported June 12. Dodd has denied receiving preferential treatment.

“He never expected, asked for or was aware of any special treatment,” Conrad’s spokesman, Chris Thorne, said. “He is paying this to make absolutely clear he will not partake in any preferential treatment.”

As there is more than one way to skin a cat, there is more than one way to bribe a politician. The fact that there is such a thing as a VIP program is disturbing enough (full disclosure: the very large financial institution I work for has one, too, and it annoys me no end, though I’ve never noted a politician in the mix, but I’m also not nearly privy to the full scope of the program), but to see an elected official not making 100% certain that he doesn’t benefit from such a program gets any “clean government” advocate rather upset.

You see, the problem here is that its too large an opening for outright corruption – we don’t know if Conrad was actually being bribed, but the plain fact of the matter is that such a thing can very easily become a bribe. Like this – one of the things Matt and I discovered in writing Caucus of Corruption is that while a politician can’t use political donations to enrich himself, he can put his wife on the campaign payroll and pay her (and, therefor, himself) a hefty paycheck out of donated funds…and more than once Matt and I found that the politician doing this sort of thing had no or token opposition to his re-election bid (meaning he was taking in vast amounts of money for no actual purpose, and shovelling it over to his wife for alleged work on a nearly un-necessary re-election effort). Very easy for Countrywide – or any bank – to turn special treatment of a loan into a bribe; “ok, Senator, you vote the way we want and we’ll ensure that you get a very low cost loan to buy that property you have your eye one” – the savings in such a transaction could amount to hundreds of thousands of dollars, more than enough to get a corrupt pol to do one’s bidding.

And, once again, this brings me back to the theme of Caucus – that unless and until Democrats start holding their own side accountable for corruption, this sort of shady practice will continue unabated. Conrad might be squeeky clean, but does anyone want to bet me that a program like Countrywide’s VIP program has never been misused? Back in 2004, Democrats were urging any Republican even remotely connected to shady practices be forced out of office…I won’t hold my breath waiting for Democrats to start demanding the same level of accountability for their side.

Yep, that Obama; just a breath of fresh air in American political life:

Obama: “If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun.” (Barack Obama, Remarks At Fundraiser, Philadelphia , PA, 6/14/08)

FLASHBACK: Obama: “I chose to run … because I believed that Americans of every political stripe were hungry for a new kind of politics, a politics that focused not just on how to win but why we should, a politics that focused on those values and ideals that we held in common as Americans…” (Barack Obama, Remarks At Campaign Event, Des Moines , Iowa , 12/27/07)

One of the more amusing (in a sad way) things about modern politics is the way the left has convinced itself that the left has been the victim of a smear campaign – this is one of the best illustrations of the “big lie” I’ve ever seen. There is, however, an internal logic to this – when the left calls the right racist, sexist and homophobic the left views this as mere statement of self-evident fact, and thus can’t be a smear. On the other hand, as leftists are living saints (in the important things – which don’t include actually helping the poor, but do include recycling), anything which might cast them in a bad light is automatically a smear. Example: Calling the President “BusHitler” is ok, merely asking quesitons about Kerry’s bona-fides is evil; get it?

But the fact remains – it is the left which is nasty, and increasingly so. As I said early on, we can expect the most massive smear campaign in human history to be directed against John McCain – Obama isn’t really talking about bringing a gun to a knife fight, but about bringing a gun to something that isn’t (or shouldn’t) even be a fight but should, instead, be a careful exposition of the contrasting views so that the American people can make an informed decision about what direction they wish the nation to be taken…but, the problem with this is that such an exposition would result in a crushing victory for McCain, so that whole concept is out the window.

Get ready for the political gun battle, boys and girls, because we can’t afford to hold fire.

UPDATE: This is making Team McCain rethink their offer of ten town hall meetings:

Obama Flip-Flop on Gun Control? Or New Politics? Or Both?

Barack Obama appeared at a fundraiser in Philadelphia last night where he delivered the following remark:

“If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun.”

A couple thoughts from McCain HQ on this. First, Barack Obama has a long track record as a proponent of stringent gun-control regulations–to the point that a questionnaire filled out by his staff, and with the candidate’s handwriting on it, stated that Obama favored a ban on the manufacture, sale, and distribution of handguns. Can we assume that Senator Obama now opposes efforts to ban the possession of handguns?

Second, would Obama be carrying a concealed weapon to this fight? Will he have a permit?

And finally, we’re having second thoughts about our proposed series of town halls.

NRO’s The Corner gets this question from a McCain staffer:

Moment of Clarity Time: Given the magnitude of Thursday’s 5-4 Supreme Court decision on Guantanamo detainees, Democrats should all be asked a simple question: Would you have voted with the majority or sided with the minority? Agree or disagree, Senator Obama has taken a stand and welcomes the ruling. Senator McCain opposes the ruling. What about the rest of the Democratic Party? Chairman Dean? The Blue Dogs..? Yea or Nay?

I agree – lets have this out; get everyone on record loud and clear on how they view this decision, and let the voters decide in November which side most reflects the common sense position of the American people. This is what we have elections for, and I’ll be more than happy to abide by the decision of my fellow Americans.

According to this rather nasty greenhouse calculator courtesy of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation – the test is a series of questions entirely loaded towards proving any normal person to be an environmental cretin. The more normal you are, the larger the pig you’ll be and thus the earlier you should have croaked so that you can save the planet – though in all the times I’ve heard us being told to save the planet, I’ve never really heard a good explanation of what we’re saving it for…given that the inevitible end of the earth is, well, the end of the earth and that pile of recycled soda cans won’t be doing anyone a bit of good when that happens.

Anyways, if you live in an apartment with four or more people, always walk/bike, spend less than 10 grand a year and donate money to enviornmentalist causes, then the calculator will tell you that you can live forever; the new sainthood for our secular materialists is St. Sustainable…the belief in nothing outside the material world and in the utter worthlessness of mankind and his wicked deeds.

Thanks, but I think I’ll remain human…

It will become an ever more pressing issue for them as 2008 progresses – and Victor Davis Hanson writes a long article detailing many of the anti-Iraq/anti-Bush myths and their lack of credibility, and brings up this very valid point:

6. President Bush’s presidency was ruined in Iraq.

If we were to lose the war, then yes. But should we win, should a constitutional government stabilize, should al-Qaeda keep unraveling, and should the hiatus of terrorist attacks against Americans at home and abroad continue, then historians will rank Bush in Trumanesque terms: a similarly orphaned presidency that ended disliked — even as it crafted a strategy to defeat global Islamic terror by taking the fight to the heart of the Middle East, while establishing proof of America’s good intentions by fostering constitutional government that offered Iraqis an alternative other than the usual Middle East non-choice of theocracy or autocracy.

Bush was terribly damaged by a series of poor spokesmen, his own bellicose soundbites of 2002–3, a series of tell-all defections of former intimates and officials, and an inability to cut U.S. consumption of imported petroleum. But that said, years from now, historians will look at the record and the results, not the present rhetoric, and his legacy could well be — “He kept us safe.”

Indeed – but it might not be historians 50 years from now figuring this out, but the American people awakening to the realisation that our incomparable armed forces have won an amazing victory, and then crediting the man who lead the way, President George W. Bush. This could start to happen by mid-Summer, and therein lies the left’s big worry.

You see, the left owns defeat (as Limbaugh puts it), since 2004 they have been hammering home on the theme that the war is lost – not “will be lost” or “could be lost” but “is lost”; while it took some time for senior Democrats to hop on the defeatist bandwagon, we now have clear statements from a large number of senior Democrats, including Barack Obama, that the war was lost years ago…but that war allegedly lost years ago has actually been won, and the question which will be asked (especially by John McCain and the GOP) is how we can entrust our nation to people who were ready to throw in the towell at the first sign of difficulty? It does take a bit of courage to govern, and Democrats have shown themselves to either be contemptible fools, or rank cowards on the issue of the War on Terrorism.

Right now, we just get ever more shrill assertions that the war is lost – heck, for a while there our leftwing friends were even trying to convince us that Iraq’s smashing victory in Basra was a defeat! Eventually, however, the left – led by Barack Obama – will have to confront the fact that we’ve won and our troops are starting to come home crowned with glorious victory. It will be interesting to see them try and wriggle out of years of defeatist propaganda.

Only 58 years old – my best memory of him, actually, is a time he was interviewed by Rush Limbaugh about his biographical book about his dad, Big Russ and Me. Political differences aside, Russert came across as a very kind person who loved his dad very much.

May God bless Russert’s family and comfort them in this time of grief.

For none of us lives in himself, and none dies to himself; for if we live, we live to the Lord, or if we die, we die to the Lord.

Therefore, whether we live or die, we are the Lord’s. For to this end Christ died and rose again, that he might be Lord both of the dead and of the living. – Romans 14:7-9

UPDATE: President Bush’s statement:

Laura and I are deeply saddened by the sudden passing of Tim Russert. Those of us who knew and worked with Tim, his many friends, and the millions of Americans who loyally followed his career on the air will all miss him.

As the longest-serving host of the longest-running program in the history of television, he was an institution in both news and politics for more than two decades. Tim was a tough and hardworking newsman. He was always well-informed and thorough in his interviews. And he was as gregarious off the set as he was prepared on it.

Most important, Tim was a proud son and father, and Laura and I offer our deepest sympathies to his wife Maureen, his son Luke, and the entire Russert family. We will keep them in our prayers.

UPDATE, by Matt Margolis: I post my own Russert story here.

UPDATE: Rush Limbaugh comments over at Radio Equalizer:

“It’s just a shame,” Limbaugh told your Radio Equalizer just moments ago. “Tim was a regular guy with that perpetual smile he wore naturally all the time. He loved life and got everything he could out of it.

“He was the closest thing there was at any of the networks to an objective journalist.

“Whether it was at dinner here in Florida while his son was taking golf lessons, or on the set of Meet The Press, Tim was always the same with me: genuine. He never condescended to anyone and was the consummate professional. He will be hard to replace,” Limbaugh added.

McCain wants ten town hall meeting with Obama, Obama wants one town hall meeting with McCain. Team McCain asks again:

Just to reiterate, we have proposed at least ten joint town hall meetings once a week until the week before the Democratic Convention begins. As we understand your counter-proposal, you have proposed only one town hall meeting before the Democratic Convention.

In keeping with our original proposal, we are planning a joint town hall meeting in Minnesota next Thursday evening (June 19, 2008). We will hold time on our schedule for joint town halls every Thursday night until the Democratic convention. I hope Senator Obama would reconsider his position and agree to join Senator McCain as early as next week.

We have also today accepted the invitation from Mrs. Ronald Reagan, Lynda Johnson Robb and Luci Baines Johnson to attend town hall meetings in July at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential Library. As Mrs. Johnson said, these town halls will truly be an opportunity to “deliberate the great issues of our time.” Their sponsorship certainly meets our standards for a positive and productive opportunity for voters to interact with the candidates. I hope you will agree.

However, at this moment, we fear that our negotiations over joint town hall meetings are turning into a debate about process. That is exactly what we have always hoped to avoid, and why we proposed a town hall format that would render many of these process issues moot. As Senator Obama has said, he is prepared to meet “anywhere, anytime” for a town hall.

We remain committed to this idea because joint town hall meetings offer the best format for presenting both candidates’ visions for our country’s future in a substantive way. We have a chance to change the way presidential elections are run and elevate the political dialogue. Americans deserve this kind of opportunity, and we hope that Senator Obama will join us at town hall meetings throughout the summer months.

Obama is master of the set-piece speech – but away from the tele-prompter, he stumbles badly. Meanwhile, watching McCain give a set speech can be an excruciating experience, but to hear him in a town hall setting is a grand and glorious thing. In practical terms, the best way to get a read on a candidate is in an informal, give and take session of questions and answers – anyone can craft a good speech, but the real person comes through during unscripted moments. Obama wants very much for the American people not to get to know the real Obama – he wants to be that shining star who is going to make everything all better; a fairy tale which will fall apart on close examination, and thus Obama is wary of meeting McCain in a town hall setting.

And we can see why – his “bitter” remarks and his fool statement about meeting with foreign tyrants without pre-conditions show the real Obama, and also show a man without a grasp of the basics; they show a man entirely captured by the kook left and without any knowledge of alternative points of view. Obama wants to stay away from venues where he can slip into more folly – and he certainly doesn’t want to look like a fool in the same venue where his opponent is looking like a champ.

What will come of this? Depends – as long as Obama feels that he’s going to win this in a walkover (and all indications so far are that Obama feels he’s already President-elect), he’ll try to stay away from McCain…maybe agree to one scripted town hall, and one or two highly formalised debates, but he won’t want to mix it up with McCain. If, however, it becomes clear that McCain is either close behind or even pulling ahead, then Obama will be forced to get down into the trenches, or just look like a coward.

From the Miami Herald:

So much for party unity: As Florida Dems prepare for Saturday’s Jefferson-Jackson dinner aimed at bringing the party “together once and for all,” a spat over the Obama campaign’s decision to replace some already-designated Florida delegates with Obama backers has intensified.

And how. DNC member Jon Ausman late Thursday e-mailed Dems (and reporters) choice sections of what he says were e-mails from Obama’s Florida finance chair Kirk Wagar — in which Wagar curses Ausman out and criticizes Sen. Bill Nelson and party director Leonard Joseph.

The highlights: “You (Jon Ausman) f***ed us. We are dealing with it. You need to accept the fact that you f***ed us.”

And of Nelson: “I am getting very sick of (Senator) Nelson making a bad situation worse.”

Said Ausman to Wagar: “We are at a point in time when we need to heal and come together. Help me understand how these messages, which you have sent to me in writing, help Senator Obama’s campaign.”

Wagar sent out an e-mail shortly after, apologizing for the profanity, but suggesting Ausman had used “out of context snippets from some ongoing and sometimes heated arguments we have had over the course of this campaign.

“I apologize for the profanity that you were subjected to,” he said in the e-mail. “It is a vice of mine that I try to minimize but seems to rear it’s head with more frequency when I deal with Jon.”

Of Nelson and Joseph, Wagar said he disagreed with them on seating the delegates, but “did not malign them in private nor in the excerpts Jon blasted out. I have worked with Leonard for years, long before he came to Florida, and I have worked very hard for and with Senator Nelson. On this issue we disagreed and despite Jon’s effort to twist it into something more, it isn’t.”

Just one, big, happy family all united behind Obama and ready to take on the GOP…yeah, and I’ve got a bridge in Brooklyn for sale.

The fact that these were released to the press shows that there is a chasm between some Democrats and their presumptive nominee, and this casts doubt on Obama’s ability to really get the entire Democratic coalition behind him in the fall for what will be a very close race.