Blogs For Victory

The fact that the rumors of Edwards’ infidelity have been around for a long time and the MSM only started covering it when Edwards confessed.

If this has been a GOPer, it would have been ’round the clock coverage until the miscreant was forced to admit it…

UPDATE: Advice Goddess points out that the LA Times, Tribune of The People, Defender of All That is Good and Scourge of The Powerful put an intern on the case.

The L.A. Times And Rielle Hunter: Way Too Little, Way Too Late

Finally, finally, after suffering nationwide media blog ridicule, the L.A. Times squeeezes out a story about how they didn’t tell the story, plus a “timeline,” bylined Kate Linthicum, of l’affaire Edwards and Hunter…

…I hadn’t seen the byline Kate Linthicum before, so I looked her up. Yes, while they’re throwing all the experienced reporters out of the place, we’ve now got the apparently undersupervised intern (Barnard Class of 2008) writing the paper…

At 50 years old:

CHICAGO – Bernie Mac, the actor and comedian who teamed up in the casino heist caper “Ocean’s Eleven” and gained a prestigious Peabody Award for his sitcom “The Bernie Mac Show,” died Saturday at age 50.

“Actor/comedian Bernie Mac passed away this morning from complications due to pneumonia in a Chicago area hospital,” his publicist, Danica Smith, said in a statement from Los Angeles.

She said no other details were available and asked that his family’s privacy be respected.

The comedian suffered from sarcoidosis, an inflammatory lung disease that produces tiny lumps of cells in the body’s organs, but had said the condition went into remission in 2005. He recently was hospitalized and treated for pneumonia, which his publicist said was not related to the disease.

Recently, Mac’s brand of comedy caught him flack when he was heckled during a surprise appearance at a July fundraiser for Democratic presidential candidate and fellow Chicagoan Barack Obama.

Toward the end of a 10-minute standup routine, Mac joked about menopause, sexual infidelity and promiscuity, and used occasional crude language. The performance earned him a rebuke from Obama’s campaign.

He was a funny man, and his humor will be missed.

Social issues are driving it:

The latest Associated TV/Zogby International poll reports a significant change in Catholic support for the leading presumptive presidential nominees of both major U.S. political parties. Zogby analyst Fritz Wenzel explains that the shift amongst Catholics is due to increased concern about “social values.”

In mid-July, Catholics polled by Zogby International favored Democratic Sen. Barack Obama by 11 percent. The latest poll now shows they favor Republican Sen. John McCain by a margin of 50 to 34 percent.

Zogby International said in a Tuesday press release that McCain leads Obama among all voters by 42 to 41 percent, as measured by a telephone poll of 1,011 likely voters. The poll, commissioned by Associated TV and conducted from July 31 to August 1, claims a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.

On the other hand, an Associated Press/Ipsos poll conducted between July 31 and August 4 finds Catholic support evenly divided between both candidates.

Fritz Wenzel, a Zogby Polling Analyst, gave CNA a statistical breakdown of the 269 Catholic respondents’ answers.

About fifty percent of the Catholics favored McCain, while 34 percent favored Obama. Twelve percent were undecided, while two and one percent favored third-party candidates Bob Barr and Ralph Nader, respectively.

“Catholics vote largely on a set of conservative values and on social values. On social values McCain has a natural advantage because of his pro-life stance, compared to Obama’s pro-choice stance,” Wenzel told CNA.

“This is a dominant issue in voting for Catholics because of the balance of the Supreme Court. The other issues are also important. When you start thinking about the conditions in the Iraq War, that was a concern for Catholics earlier. It’s becoming less so, so voters are turning to other, more domestic concerns.”

The push is rapidly coming to a shove and I think that, in the end, a very large majority of devout Catholics will give their votes to John McCain. There’s just too much riding on this election to think that Obama is the man for the times. While a lot of Catholics very much want large increases in social spending (heck, in a way even I do – though I don’t want to pour it into the failed, liberal programs; I have other ideas), with the Supreme Court in the balance and the Culture of Life poised for some real victories under continued Republican government, the thought of a few more billion for social spending drops in the scales of relative values. Lets first save life, then we can worry about what to do with the life once here.

There is also in Obama that very off-putting arrogance and self-centeredness. While we’re not better than anyone else, there is in Catholic attitude a demand of humility, and the higher you go the more humble we want you to be. As Obama rises, so does his ego, and Pride isn’t a deadly sin for nothing, you know?

All in all, this year is shaping up to have a lot of surpises in store, and the fact that the Catholic vote might go decisively for McCain – and perhaps hand him the White House – is just one of a dozen oddities…but it is good that my fellow Catholics are wise to the needs of the day.

To the US dollar:

US stocks soared on Friday as the dollar saw its biggest one-day jump against the euro in eight years and oil prices plunged.

The moves marked a key reversal of a trend that many investors had followed profitably for months – betting that high commodity prices would keep the dollar weak.

The dollar reached its highest in five months against a trade-weighted basket of currencies, while oil fell more than $5 to $114.87, 22 per cent below its record high of $147.27 last month. The S&P 500 closed 2.4 per cent higher in New York.

The shift in sentiment was triggered by Jean-Claude Trichet, president of the European Central Bank, who warned on Thursday that third-quarter eurozone growth would be “particularly weak”. This sparked talk that the ECB would be forced to abandon its hawkish policy stance and start cutting interest rates, thereby weakening the euro.

“This is the watershed week for the US dollar,” said Marc Chandler, currency strategist at Brown Brothers Harriman. “The magnitude of the dollar’s moves and the breaking of key technical levels suggest that a major shift in the outlook towards the dollar is occurring as massive positions are adjusted.” Other analysts described the widespread buying of dollars as “capitulation”.

The dollar hit a five-month high of $1.5055 against the euro and climbed 1.3 per cent to $1.9189 against the pound – its strongest since November 2006.

Traders said the violence of the move was testimony to the extent to which the market had been surprised by economic weakness outside the US.

“Mr Trichet was unable to convince the public that the ECB had not been surprised by the eurozone’s economic downturn,” said Ulrich Leuchtmann at Commerzbank. “Therefore, the last remaining rate hike expectations were taken off the table.”

Why is this? Because if you’re looking for security, there’s nothing quite as good as the American economy and American law – we actually have the highest business ethics in the world (I know, hard to believe, but there it is) as well as very transparant requirements in corporate reporting which makes the investor confident that when he plunks his money into the United States he’ll know where it is and what can happen to it. Couple this with the largest economy in the world (I know, the Eurozone is supposed to be that, but that is mostly a mirage produced by massive Eurozone government spending), and you get the bank of last resort, the United States of America.

Bulwark of liberty, engine of economic growth, bastion of Judeo-Christian civilization – the United States serves many purposes, and with this comes a great responsibility. We simply must protect this great thing, the United States of America. We daren’t negligently throw it away in a bid for shallow popularity – hard as it may be to take, if what the United States must do is protect fools in their folly, then that is what we’ll have to do, in the hopes that the fools will learn wisdom. The people who complain about us the most are those who live most solidly lapped in the wealth and privilege built up by the long peace guarded by the United States (meaning, of course, that it has been because of us that no world war has erupted in the past 60 years). They glory in their wealth and power and know not where it comes from – its not so much biting the hand that feeds them, but biting the hand of a benefactor they don’t even recognise.

Its all good – those who have wisdom and strength are to use it for the benefit of others, and if all we do is what we can for the best, then we’ll have done all that is required of us.

I am pleased to announce the launch of our first local politics oriented blog… Virginia Blogs For Victory.

So much for tabloid trash, I guess:

John Edwards repeatedly lied during his Presidential campaign about an extramarital affair with a novice filmmaker, the former Senator admitted to ABC News today.

In an interview for broadcast tonight on Nightline, Edwards told ABC News correspondent Bob Woodruff he did have an affair with 42-year old Rielle Hunter, but said that he did not love her.

Edwards also denied he was the father of Hunter’s baby girl, Frances Quinn, although the one-time Democratic Presidential candidate said he has not taken a paternity test.

Edwards said he knew he was not the father based on timing of the baby’s birth on February 27, 2008. He said his affair ended too soon for him to have been the father.

A former campaign aide, Andrew Young, has said he was the father of the child.

According to friends of Hunter, Edwards met her at a New York city bar in 2006. His political action committee later paid her $114,000 to produce campaign website documentaries despite her lack of experience.

Edwards said the affair began during the campaign after she was hired. Hunter traveled with Edwards around the country and to Africa.

Edwards said his wife, Elizabeth, and others in his family became aware of the affair in 2006.

Edwards made a point of telling Woodruff that his wife’s cancer was in remission when he began the affair with Hunter. Elizabeth Edwards has since been diagnosed with an incurable form of the disease.

That she was in remission makes a difference? I guess Edwards found he was off the short list….

UPDATE: Edwards says his family became aware of the affair in 2006 – but NRO’s The Corner points out a December 25th, 2006 article which has Hunter working for Edwards…did the family find out between Christmas and New Year’s? There’s more to this than meets the eye….though, also noted at NRO, congrats to Edwards’ PR people for dumping this on the day war breaks out in Russia and the Olympics begin.

Interesting, to say the least – American Thinker brings this to our attention from a March, 2008 NPR report (of all things):

Even in this era of YouTube and camera phones, a recording of Obama’s speech is all but impossible to find. The Obama campaign has gone so far as to re-create portions of the speech for a television ad, with the candidate re-reading the text, with audience sound effects…

Obama says he risked his career to go out on a limb for the anti-war cause…but is this really the case? From the same story:

…So, just how much attention did the speech attract?

Bill Glauber, who covered the rally for the Chicago Tribune, says he didn’t even quote Obama.

“I guess other media was there,” Glauber says, “but we didn’t quote Barack Obama at his famous anti-war speech. He was not the main guy.”

Glauber says that he did not even mention Obama in his newspaper article on the rally and instead focused on the rally’s other speaker, the Rev. Jesse Jackson.(emphasis added)

An un-reported speech in a very blue State – hardly the high risk endevour Obama says it was…and given that he also trimmed towards a more pro-war stance during his 2004 Senate run, the whole story of Obama’s anti-war speech now has a large question mark about it. Certainly, Obama comes from the anti-war left of his party…but one wonders just how much of that speech as we know it today was re-crafted to appeal to leftwing primary voters in 2008? Anyone who would fake a speech for an ad is not someone to whom “scrupulously honest” can be applied to – Obama seeks to deceive if he believes such deception will help him win, and if a man will deceive once, he’ll do it again and again.

It just could be that the whole Obama story is a fraud from start to finish – a con job designed to advance only one thing, Obama. Any of you lefties feeling like suckers, yet?

Perhaps the Democratic establishment was too quick to kneel before Obama? Victor Davis Hanson dicsusses:

The primary season ended with a narrow Obama victory — and a wounded, but supposedly wiser, Democratic candidate.

Not quite. Without evidence, he unwisely has claimed his opponents (“they”) will play the race card against poor him. In contrast, on the hot-button issue of racial reparations, he recently played to cheering minority audiences by cryptically suggesting that the government must “not just . . . offer words, but offer deeds.” He later clarified that he didn’t mean cash grants, but his initial words were awfully vague.

Second, many are beginning to notice how a Saint Obama talks down to them. We American yokels can’t speak French or Spanish. We eat too much. Our cars are too big, our houses either overheated or overcooled. And we don’t even put enough air in our car tires. In contrast, a lean, hip Obama promises to still the rising seas and cool down the planet, assuring adoring Germans that he is a citizen of the world.

Third, Obama knows that all doctrinaire liberals must tack rightward in the general election. But due to his inexperience, he’s doing it in far clumsier fashion than any triangulating candidate in memory. Do we know — does Obama even know? — what he really feels about drilling off our coasts, tapping the strategic petroleum reserve, NAFTA, faith-based initiatives, campaign financing, the FISA surveillance laws, town-hall debates with McCain, Iran, the surge, timetables for Iraq pullouts, gun control, or capital punishment?…

…In a tough year like this, Democrats could probably have defeated Republican John McCain with a flawed, but seasoned candidate like Hillary Clinton. But long-suffering liberals convinced their party to go with a messiah rather than a dependable nominee — and thereby they probably will get neither.

The kook left was for Obama because Obama was pure as the wind driven snow on the left’s main 2008 issue: Iraq. But Obama secured the nomination on the strength of party elites (ie, the “superdelegates”) rushing over to his side towards the end of the primary season. Without the superdelegates, Obama is substantially short of a nominating majority and had the superdelegates held off, the Democrats would be looking towards a brokered convention. The powers of the Democratic party decided that it was too risky to not nominate Obama and, at any rate, that they already had the White House in the bag, so no worries (the fundamental reason for Obama? Down ballot. Democratic powers were fearful that failure to nominate Obama would weaken Democratic House candidates among black voters, perhaps even turning the House back over to the GOP for weakness in black Democratic turnout).

But it seems to have turned out otherwise – McCain is running neck and neck with Obama and given that GOPers traditionally poll weaker the further out you get from the election, there is every reason to expect that – at minimum – it will be a long night on November 4th…and, of course, there is in this closeness the strong prospect of McCain winning. The basic theory is still good for the Democrats – Obama ensures a massive African American turnout, but other than that the whole game plan for 2008 is proving wrong for the Democrats. It wasn’t supposed to be like this – Obama was supposed to cruise to victory and bring in 20 more House Democrats and maybe as many as 10 Senators. The Liberal Dawn was supposed to happen…but now we might have a liberal nightmare of President McCain and a revitalised House GOP which, even if not the majority, controls the terms of debate in the House.

It has been, indeed, a long and strange election year – and it may well get stranger. Keep this in mind – while Obama is still the inside favorite to win, there is a better chance of a McCain landslide than an Obama landslide (though, of course, the chances of any landslide are pretty small).

So, are you planning to watch the Olympics? Feel free to discuss this and anything else.

Hard to believe, but there it is:

Sen. Hillary Clinton told a gathering of supporters last week that she’s looking for a “strategy” for her delegates to have their voices heard and “respected” at the Democratic National Convention — and did not rule out the possibility of having her name placed into nomination at the convention alongside Sen. Barack Obama’s.

“I happen to believe that we will come out stronger if people feel that their voices were heard and their views were respected. I think that is a very big part of how we actually come out unified,” Clinton, D-N.Y., said at a California fundraiser last Thursday, in a video clip captured by an attendee and posted on YouTube.

“Because I know from just what I’m hearing, that there’s incredible pent-up desire. And I think that people want to feel like, ‘OK, it’s a catharsis, we’re here, we did it, and then everybody get behind Sen. Obama.’ That is what most people believe is the best way to go,” she said.

“No decisions have been made. And so we are trying to work all this through with the DNC and with the Obama campaign.”

Ummmm…yeah….sure, Hill, whatever you say.

Meanwhile, back in the real world…

For a couple weeks now the old man has been rumbling ’round the house with words like “floor fight” just waiting to burst out. I’ve downplayed this because, well, the old man is 81 and getting on in years and, heck, why would Hillary do something like that? But now I’m not so sure – Obama is weakening by the day against McCain and now the House Democrats are starting to implode…and what was once a sure-thing now looks, at best, like a dicey proposition. The Democrats gather in Denver 18 days from now – and if between now and then there is more evidence that the Democrats nominated the wrong guy, then who knows what might happen?

Hillary certainly hasn’t given up her ambitions and if anyone out there thinks that Hillary believes Obama is the better candidate then I’ve got a bridge in Brooklyn to sell ya. The mind harks back to the 1976 convention when Reagan spoke and the gathered GOPers at that moment realised that in nominating Ford, they had nominated the wrong man…might be that more and more Democrats are realising that placing your bets on a rookie with ultra-leftist and corruption skeletons in the closet could be the wrong way to go. Remember, Obama only has a first-ballot majority courtesy of those superdelegates, who can still switch, if they have a mind to.

Of course – more than likely this will blow over and that Obama will have a smooth running love fest in Denver…but it ain’t over till the fat-thighed lady sings, and she’s not entirely ready to get out on stage, it would seem.