Obama: Unplugs Himself and Hooks to Populism!

He who coddles may get bit! China is far less tolerant of radical Islamism than Russia but both nations keep feeding the kitty at their own peril and ours. (See 1 below.)

Speaking of a kitty. In case you missed it this is Paris Hilton's response to der Alte! I liked her sex video better. Have to hand it to her though, very clever.
> http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/64ad536a6d

More about Israel's F161 purchases and does it increase Israel's options regarding attacking Iran? (See 2 below.)

More cartoon ideas:

a)Ahmadinejad sitting on nuclear bomb juxtaposed McCain and Obama arguing in diapers.

Pro McCain cartoons:

a) Obama on knee putting ring on tire. Caption: Obama "engauged."

b) Obama at Ritz Spa getting manicure. GI in hospital learning to use new prosthetic hands.

Pro Obama cartoons:

a) GW ventriloquist with McCain dummy sitting on knee.

b) McCain at convention barring Cheney shown with shotgun.

Does Russia's rejection of sanctions make it a go for Israel? (See 3 below.)

Robert Smith picks up on my analogy of Obama's energy plan which hearkens back to Carter's. (See 4 below.)

Kyle-Anne Shiver also believes Pelosi drinks her own bath water. (See 5 below.)

Is Barak posturing and if not why all the telegraphing? (See 6 below.)

Does Hillary have some un-played cards of her own? (See 7 below.)

With press and media friends like those of Obama's, he might not need enemies because over exposure may be causing Obama Fatigue according to Shapiro. America was "Wild About Harry" but becoming turned off by Obama mania? (See 8 below.)

Socialists/liberals always turn to the siren song of populism. Edwards tried it and we have not heard from him anymore. Maybe he has been busy with other matters. (See 9 below.)

Phil Gramm's comment about "whiners" revisited. (See 10 below.)

Democrats outdo Republicans, by turning populists, in hopes of capturing the south. The story of Bobby Bright. What impact will more conservative Democrats have on a Pelosi led House? (See 11 below.)

When I step back and observe the campaign scene it is truly fascinating to watch.

We have two candidates that are as different as two can be (age,ethnicity,experience and service.) The issues change from day to day but basically are fourfold in nature: execution of the Iraq War, energy dependency, the housing and financial implosion and the economy. Each candidate offers divergent solutions.

The public mood is one of anger and frustration. The ratings of the sitting president and Congress are at historically low levels. We have another do-nothing Congress and a president who no longer commands the nation's attention.

The tactonic political plates seem to be shifting away from thread worn conservatism towards liberal populism. We also could be electing a president whose policies make little sense and which have not been fleshed out beyond the fact that they will bring about a lot of questionable change. The wealthy could be taxed in order to re-distribute when empirical evidence suggests this would be counter-productive. We could be increasing the size of government and increasing its share of GDP, yet many of the problems we face were government induced and/or mandated, ie. keep interest rates low, demand banks make loans to those who could not afford house payments while agencies and Congressional oversight committees looked the other way and matters got out of hand and the increased cost in food because of the ethanol program which was a pay off to Sen. Dole's farm constituents. The program is just another boondoggle based on a flawed premise regarding curtailing air pollution.

To put out the various raging fires, Congress and the Fed have stuffed their hoses with more deficit spending.

The political debates have ranged from insightful to farcical. We currently are witnessing some inane energy proposals that cannot stand rational scrutiny. They resemble a grab bag of "feel goods" that will result in considerable hangover effects, wasteful spending and more disappointments because they are unrealistic and over promise.

What is even more disturbing is we have three more months of this nonsense.

The IBD keeps posing questions about Obama's energy plan and suggests he has come unplugged. (See 12 below.)

Dick

1) China and the Enduring Uighurs
By Rodger Baker

On Aug. 4, four days before the start of the Beijing Olympics, two ethnic Uighurs drove a stolen dump truck into a group of some 70 Chinese border police in the town of Kashi in Xinjiang, killing at least 16 of the officers. The attackers carried knives and home-made explosive devices and had also written manifestos in which they expressed their commitment to jihad in Xinjiang. The incident occurred just days after a group calling itself the Turkistan Islamic Party (TIP) claimed responsibility for a series of recent attacks and security incidents in China and warned of further attacks targeting the Olympics.

Chinese authorities linked the Aug. 4 attack to transnational jihadists, suggesting the involvement of the East Turkistan Islamic Movement (ETIM), which Beijing has warned is the biggest terrorist threat to China and the Olympics. Despite the Chinese warnings and TIP claims and the intensified focus on the Uighurs because of the Aug. 4 attack, there is still much confusion over just who these Uighur or Turkistani militants are.


The Uighurs, a predominately Muslim Turkic ethnic group largely centered in China’s northwestern Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region, have their own culture, language and written script distinct from their Han Chinese counterparts. Uighur ethnic nationalists and Islamist separatists have risen several times to challenge Chinese control over Xinjiang, but the Uighur independence movement remains fractured and frequently at odds with itself. However, recent evolutions within the Islamist militant Uighur movement, including growing links with transnational jihadist groups in Central and Southwest Asia, may represent a renewed threat to security in China.
Origins in Xinjiang

Uighur nationalism traces its origins back to a broader Turkistan, stretching through much of modern day Xinjiang (so-called “East Turkistan”) and into Central Asia. East Turkistan was conquered by the Manchus in the mid-1700s and, after decades of struggle, the territory was annexed by China, which later renamed it Xinjiang, or “New Territories.” A modern nation-state calling itself East Turkistan arose in Xinjiang in the chaotic transition from imperial China to Communist China, lasting for two brief periods from 1933 to 1934 and from 1944 to 1949. Since that time, “East Turkistan” has been, more or less, an integral part of the People’s Republic of China.

The evolution of militant Uighur separatism — and particularly Islamist-based separatism — has been shaped over time by both domestic and foreign developments. In 1940, Hizbul Islam Li-Turkistan (Islamic Party of Turkistan or Turkistan Islamic Movement ) emerged in Xinjiang, spearheading a series of unsuccessful uprisings from the 1940s through 1952, first against local warlords and later against the Communist Chinese.

In 1956, as the “Hundred Flowers” was blooming in China’s eastern cities, and intellectuals were (very briefly) allowed to air their complaints and suggestions for China’s political and social development, a new leadership emerged among the Uighur Islamist nationalists, changing the focus from “Turkistan” to the more specific “East Turkistan,” or Xinjiang. Following another failed uprising, the Islamist Uighur movement faded away for several decades, with only minor sparks flaring during the chaos of the Cultural Revolution.

In 1979, as Deng Xiaoping was launching China’s economic opening and reform, there was a coinciding period of Islamic and ethnic revival in Xinjiang, reflecting the relative openness of China at the time. During this time, one of the original founders of Hizbul Islam Li-Turkistan, Abdul Hakeem, was released from prison and set up underground religious schools. Among his pupils in the 1980s was Hasan Mahsum, who would go on to found ETIM.

The 1980s were a chaotic period in Xinjiang, with ethnic and religious revivalism, a growing student movement, and public opposition to China’s nuclear testing at Lop Nor. Uighur student protests were more a reflection of the growing student activism in China as a whole (culminating in the 1989 Tiananmen Square incident) than a resurgence of Uighur separatism, but they coincided with a general movement in Xinjiang to promote literacy and to refocus on religious and ethnic heritage. Amid this revival, several Uighur separatist or Islamist militant movements emerged.

A critical moment occurred in April 1990, when an offshoot of the Uighur Islamist militant movement was discovered plotting an uprising in Xinjiang. The April 5 so-called “Baren Incident” (named for the city where militants and their supporters faced off against Chinese security forces) led Beijing to launch dragnet operations in the region, arresting known, suspected or potential troublemakers — a pattern that would be repeated through the “Strike Hard” campaigns of the 1990s. Many of the Uighurs caught up in these security campaigns, including Mahsum, began to share, refine and shape their ideology in prisons, taking on more radical tendencies and creating networks of relations that could be called upon later. From 1995 to 1997, the struggle in Xinjiang reached its peak, with increasingly frequent attacks by militants in Xinjiang and equally intensified security countermeasures by Beijing.

It was also at this time that China formed the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), enlisting Central Asian assistance in cracking down on Uighur militants, many of whom had fled China. In some ways this plan backfired, as it provided common cause between the Uighurs and Central Asian militants, and forced some Uighur Islamist militants further west, to Pakistan and Afghanistan, where they would link up with the Taliban, al Qaeda, and the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), among others.

Among those leaving China was Mahsum, who tried to rally support from the Uighur diaspora in Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Turkey but was rebuffed. Mahsum and a small group of followers headed to Central Asia and ultimately Afghanistan, where he established ETIM as a direct successor to his former teacher’s Hizbul Islam Li-Turkistan. By 1998, Kabul-based ETIM began recruiting and training Uighur militants while expanding ties with the emerging jihadist movement in the region, dropping the “East” from its name to reflect these deepening ties. Until the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, ETIM focused on recruiting and training Uighur militants at a camp run by Mahsum and Abdul Haq, who is cited by TIP now as its spiritual leader.

With the U.S. attack on Afghanistan in October 2001, ETIM was routed and its remnants fled to Central Asia and Pakistan. In January 2002, Mahsum tried to distance ETIM from al Qaeda in an attempt to avoid having the Uighur movement come under U.S. guns. It did not work. In September 2002, the United States declared ETIM a terrorist organization at the behest of China. A year later, ETIM experienced what seemed to be its last gasps, with a joint U.S.-Pakistani operation in South Waziristan in October 2003 killing Hasan Mahsum.
A Movement Reborn?

Following Mahsum’s death, a leaderless ETIM continued to interact with the Taliban and various Central Asian militants, particularly Uzbeks, and slowly reformed into a more coherent core in the Pakistan/Afghanistan frontier. In 2005, there were stirrings of this new Uighur Islamist militant group, the Turkistan Islamic Party (TIP), which established a robust presence on the Internet, posting histories of the Uighur/Turkistan people in western China and Central Asia and inspirational videos featuring Mahsum. In 2006, a new video surfaced calling for jihad in Xinjiang, and later that year there were reports that remnants of ETIM had begun re-forming and moving back into far western Xinjiang.

It was also around this time that Beijing began raising the specter of ETIM targeting the Olympics — a move seen at the time as primarily an excuse for stricter security controls. In early January 2007, Beijing raided a camp of suspected ETIM militants near the Xinjiang border with Tajikistan, and a year later raided another suspected camp in Urumchi, uncovering a plot to carry out attacks during the Olympics. This was followed in March by a reported attempt by Uighur militants to down a Chinese airliner with gasoline smuggled aboard in soda cans.

Publicly, the Uighur militant issue was quickly swept aside by the Tibetan uprising in March, leaving nearly unnoticed an anti-government protest in Hotan and a series of counterterrorism raids by Chinese security forces in late March and early April that reportedly found evidence of more specific plots to attack Beijing and Shanghai during the Olympics.

In the midst of this security campaign, TIP released a video, not disseminated widely until late June, in which spokesman Commander Seyfullah laid out a list of grievances against Beijing and cited Abdul Haq as calling on Uighur Islamist militants to begin strikes against China. The video also complained that the “U.S.-led Western countries listed the Turkistan Islamic Party as one of the international terrorist organizations,” an apparent reference to the United States’ 2002 listing of the ETIM on the terrorist exclusion list.

In addition to linking the TIP to the ETIM, the April video also revealed some elements of the movement’s evolution since the death of Mahsum. Rather than the typical rhetoric of groups closely linked to the Wahabi ideology of al Qaeda, TIP listed its grievances against Beijing in an almost lawyer-like fashion, following more closely the pattern of Hizb al-Tahrir (HT), a movement active in Central Asia advocating nonviolent struggle against corrupt regimes and promoting the return of Islamic rule. Although HT officially renounces violence as a tool of political change, it has provided an abundance of zealous and impatient idealists who are often recruited by more active militant organizations.

The blending of the HT ideologies with the underlying principles of Turkistan independence reflects the melding of the Uighur Islamist militancy with wider Central Asian Islamist movements. Fractures in HT, emerging in 2005 and expanding thereafter, may also have contributed to the evolution of TIP’s ideology; breakaway elements of HT argued that the nonviolent methods espoused by HT were no longer effective.

What appears to be emerging is a Turkistan Islamist movement with links in Central Asia, stretching back to Afghanistan and Pakistan, blending Taliban training, transnational jihadist experiential learning, HT frameworks and recruiting, and Central Asian ties for support and shelter. This is a very different entity than China has faced in the past. If the TIP follows the examples set by the global jihadist movement, it will become an entity with a small core leadership based far from its primary field of operations guiding (ideologically but not necessarily operationally) a number of small grassroots militant cells.

The network will be diffuse, with cells operating relatively independently with minimal knowledge or communication among them and focused on localized goals based on their training, skills and commitment. This would make the TIP less of a strategic threat, since it would be unable to rally large numbers of fighters in a single or sustained operation, but it would also be more difficult to fight, since Beijing would be unable to use information from raiding one cell to find another.

This appears to be exactly what we are seeing now. The central TIP core uses the Internet and videos as psychological tools to trigger a reaction from Beijing and inspire militants without exposing itself to detection or capture. On July 25, TIP released a video claiming responsibility for a series of attacks in China, including bus bombings in Kunming, a bus fire in Shanghai and a tractor bombing in Wenzhou. While these claims were almost certainly exaggerated, the Aug. 4 attack in Xinjiang suddenly refocused attention on the TIP and its earlier threats.

Further complicating things for Beijing are the transnational linkages ETIM forged and TIP has maintained. The Turkistan movement includes not only China’s Uighurs but also crosses into Uzbekistan, parts of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan and spreads back through Central Asia all the way to Turkey. These linkages may have been the focus of quiet security warnings beginning around March that Afghan, Middle Eastern and Central Asian migrants and tourists were spotted carrying out surveillance of schools, hotels and government buildings in Beijing and Shanghai — possibly part of an attack cycle.

The alleged activities seem to fit a pattern within the international jihadist movement of paying more attention to China. Islamists have considered China something less imperialistic, and thus less threatening, than the United States and European powers, but this began changing with the launch of the SCO, and the trend has been accelerating with China’s expanded involvement in Africa and Central Asia and its continued support for Pakistan’s government. China’s rising profile among Islamists has coincided with the rebirth of the Uighur Islamist militant movement just as Beijing embarks on one of its most significant security events: the Summer Olympics.

Whatever name it may go by today — be it Hizbul Islam Li-Turkistan, the East Turkistan Islamic Movement or the Turkistan Islamic Party — the Uighur Islamist militant movement remains a security threat to Beijing. And in its current incarnation, drawing on internationalist resources and experiences and sporting a more diffuse structure, the Uighur militancy may well be getting a second wind.

2) Israel mulls military option for Iran nukes
By STEVEN GUTKIN

JERUSALEM - Israel is building up its strike capabilities amid growing anxiety over Iran's nuclear ambitions and appears confident that a military attack would cripple Tehran's atomic program, even if it can't destroy it.


Such talk could be more threat than reality. However, Iran's refusal to accept Western conditions is worrying Israel as is the perception that Washington now prefers diplomacy over confrontation with Tehran.

The Jewish state has purchased 90 F-16I fighter planes that can carry enough fuel to reach Iran, and will receive 11 more by the end of next year. It has bought two new Dolphin submarines from Germany reportedly capable of firing nuclear-armed warheads — in addition to the three it already has.

And this summer it carried out air maneuvers in the Mediterranean that touched off an international debate over whether they were a "dress rehearsal" for an imminent attack, a stern warning to Iran or a just a way to get allies to step up the pressure on Tehran to stop building nukes.

According to foreign media reports, Israeli intelligence is active inside Iranian territory. Israel's military censor, who can impose a range of legal sanctions against journalists operating in the country, does not permit publication of details of such information in news reports written from Israel.

The issue of Iran's nuclear program took on new urgency this week after U.S. officials rejected Tehran's response to an incentives package aimed at getting it to stop sensitive nuclear activity — setting the stage for a fourth round of international sanctions against the country.

Israel, itself an undeclared nuclear power, sees an atomic bomb in Iranian hands as a direct threat to its existence.

Israel believes Tehran will have enriched enough uranium for a nuclear bomb by next year or 2010 at the latest. The United States has trimmed its estimate that Iran is several years or as much as a decade away from being able to field a bomb, but has not been precise about a timetable. In general U.S. officials think Iran isn't as close to a bomb as Israel claims, but are concerned that Iran is working faster than anticipated to add centrifuges, the workhorses of uranium enrichment.

"If Israeli, U.S., or European intelligence gets proof that Iran has succeeded in developing nuclear weapons technology, then Israel will respond in a manner reflecting the existential threat posed by such a weapon," said Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Shaul Mofaz, speaking at a policy forum in Washington last week.

"Israel takes (Iranian President) Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's statements regarding its destruction seriously. Israel cannot risk another Holocaust," Mofaz said.

The Iranian leader has in the past called for Israel's elimination, though his exact remarks have been disputed. Some translators say he called for Israel to be "wiped off the map," while others say a better translation would be "vanish from the pages of time" — implying Israel would disappear on its own rather than be destroyed.

Iran insists its uranium enrichment is meant only for electricity generation, not a bomb — an assertion that most Western nations see as disingenuous.

Israeli policymakers and experts have been debating for quite some time whether it would even be possible for Israel to take out Iran's nuclear program. The mission would be far more complicated than a 1981 Israeli raid that destroyed Iraq's partially built Osirak nuclear reactor, or an Israeli raid last year on what U.S. intelligence officials said was another unfinished nuclear facility in Syria.

In Iran, multiple atomic installations are scattered throughout the country, some underground or bored into mountains — unlike the Iraqi and Syrian installations, which were single aboveground complexes.

Still, the Syria action seemed to indicate that Israel would also be willing to use force preemptively against Iran.

"For Israel this is not a target that cannot be achieved," said Maj. Gen. Aharon Zeevi-Farkash, former head of Israel's army intelligence.

However, it's unlikely Israel would carry out an attack without approval from the United States.

Recent signs that Washington may be moving away from a military option — including a proposal to open a low-level U.S. diplomatic office in Tehran and a recent decision to allow a senior U.S. diplomat to participate alongside Iran in international talks in Geneva — are not sitting very well with Israel.

That may help explain recent visits to Jerusalem by Mike McConnell, the U.S. director of national intelligence, and Adm. Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, each of whom delivered a message to Israel that it does not have a green light to attack Iran at this time.

Senior Israeli officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they do not wish to appear at odds with their most important ally, said they were concerned about a possible softening of the U.S. stance toward Iran.

Apparently to allay Israeli concerns, Bush administration officials last week assured visiting Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak that the U.S. has not ruled out the possibility of a military strike on Iran. And the U.S., aware of Israel's high anxiety over Iran's nukes, is also hooking Israel up to an advanced missile detection system known as X-Band to guard against any future attack by Iran, said a senior U.S. defense official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the discussions over the issue have not been made public.

With sanctions and diplomacy still the international community's preferred method to get Iran to stop building the bomb, an Israeli strike does not appear imminent.

If it did attack, however, Israel would have to contend with upgraded Iranian defense capabilities, including 29 new Tor-M1 surface-to-air missile systems Iran purchased from Russia last year in a $700 million deal.

Russia has so far not gone through with a proposed sale to Iran of S-300 surface-to-air missiles, an even more powerful air defense system than the Tor-M1. An Israeli defense official said the deal is still on the table, however. This is a big source of consternation for Israel because the system could significantly complicate a pre-emptive Israeli assault on Iran.

Military experts say an Israeli strike would require manned aircraft to bombard multiple targets and heavy precision bombs that can blast through underground bunkers — something Israel failed to do in its 2006 war against Hezbollah. It's widely assumed that Israel is seeking to obtain bunker buster bombs, if it hasn't already done so.

Elite ground troops could also be necessary to penetrate the most difficult sites, though Israeli military planners say they see that option as perhaps too risky.

America's ability to take out Iran's nuclear facilities is far superior to Israel's.

Unlike Israel, the United States has cruise missiles that can deliver high-explosive bombs to precise locations and B-2 bombers capable of dropping 85 500-pound bombs in a single run.

Yet the cost of an attack — by the U.S., Israel or both — is likely to be enormous.

Iran could halt oil production and shut down tanker traffic in the strategic Strait of Hormuz, which could send the price of crude skyrocketing and wreck Western economies.

It could stir up trouble for the U.S. in Iraq by revving up Shiite militias there just as Washington is showing some important gains in reining in Iraqi chaos.

It could activate its militant proxies in both Lebanon and the Gaza Strip, from where Israel could come under heavy rocket attack. And it could strike Israel with its arsenal of Shahab-3 long-range missiles — something Israel is hoping to guard against through its Arrow missile defense system.

Perhaps most importantly, any strike on Iran — especially if it's done without having exhausted all diplomatic channels — could have the opposite of the desired effect, "actually increasing the nationalist fervor to build a nuclear weapon," said Meir Javedanfar, an Iranian-born Israeli and expert on Iranian affairs.

Whether an attack on Iran would be worth its cost would depend on how long the nuclear program could be delayed, said Chuck Freilich, a former Israeli deputy national security adviser and now a senior fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School.

"A two, three-year delay is not worth it. For a five to 10-year delay I would say yes," he said.

3) US sources hint that by rejecting Iran sanctions, Moscow opens door to Israeli attack


Sources in Washington commented Wednesday night, Aug. 6, that, while it is unlikely that Israel would attack Iran without US approval, this might change if tough sanctions were taken off the table. They reported Israel was building up its strike capabilities for an attack, had purchased 90 F-16I planes that can carry enough fuel to reach Iran and would receive another 11 by the end of next year. The Jewish state had also bought two new Dolphin submarines from Germany capable of firing nuclear-armed warheads, in addition to the three already in service with its navy.

According to foreign media, Israel is active inside Iranian territory.

This information was leaked by Washington sources, apparently to warn Moscow that by closing the door to sanctions, it was opening the door to an Israeli attack.

A few hours earlier by Russian UN ambassador Vitaly Churkin: “There have been no firm agreements or understandings or any kind of concerted work” against Iran over its nuclear program.” He took exception to US and British statements that a fourth round of UN Security Council sanctions was on the cards against Iran for its ambiguous response to the six-power incentives.

The sources disclosed that Israel, believing Tehran will have enough enriched uranium for a nuclear bomb by next year or 2010 at the latest, is worried about Washington’s softening on Iran and intention to open a US office in Tehran.

Washington sources report that Israeli is building up its strike capabilities and appears confident that a military attack would cripple Tehran’s nuclear program even if its installations were too widely scattered to be completely wiped out.

US, British, Russian, Chinese, French, German and European officials spoke by conference earlier in the day. The US and Britain said they had agreed to consider a possible fourth round of UN Security Council sanctions for lack of a clear yes or no from Tehran on the suspension of uranium enrichment in return for incentives.

This the Russian ambassador denied. He also said Moscow had set no deadline for Iran to respond to the offer made on June 19. “The negotiating track is open, there are contacts between the parties,” he said. While Russian would have preferred a clear response, “It’s more complicated than that as we all know.”

He suggested that further talks among the six powers would take place in September on the sidelines of the next UN General Assembly.

4) Recycling Jimmy Carter
By J. Robert Smith

Barack Obama doesn't just talk about conservation, he practices it. In his thinking and proposals on energy, the Illinois senator has expertly recycled Jimmy Carter. Though there may be a difference here or there, the Obama policies are essentially Carter's.

You have doubts? Read through Carter's energy speech from April 1977. In a nationally televised addressed, Carter struck themes that are echoed by Obama today.

- Whereas Jimmy Carter accused the United States of being "the most wasteful nation on earth," Obama is fond of saying that Americans are energy hogs, consuming a quarter of the world's energy while being only three percent of the world's population.

- Carter urged "strict conservation and a transition to "permanent renewable energy sources, like solar power." He spoke about the need to protect the environment.

- Like Obama raising the specter of manmade global warming, Carter had his Chicken Little, too. He conjured up the image of a mini-apocalypse, should Americans not come to grips soon with the energy crisis. In his own words:

"We will feel mounting pressure to plunder the environment. We will have a crash program to build more nuclear plants, strip-mine and burn more coal, and drill more offshore wells than we will need if we begin to conserve now. Inflation will soar, production will go down, people will lose their jobs. Intense competition will build up among nations and among the different regions within our own country.
"
If we fail to act soon, we will face an economic, social and political crisis that will threaten our free institutions."


In a similar vein, Barack Obama said this last year, when he unveiled his global warming initiative:

"This is our generation's moment to save future generations from global catastrophe by creating a market for clean-burning fuels that can stop the dangerous transformation of our climate."


The irony is that a portion of Carter's prophecy came to pass during his administration, and led to his eventual defeat at the hands of Ronald Reagan. Thanks to his tax and fiscal policies -- not conflicts over energy -- inflation soared, productivity took a hit and unemployment spiraled up. It was the stuff of the "Misery Index."

Carter's prediction that dwindling resources and rising consumption would lead to collapse never came to pass, as anyone living can testify. But here's what skeptical Americans heard from Carter on that long-ago April night:

"World consumption of oil is still going up. If it were possible to keep it rising during the 1970s and 1980s by 5 percent a year as it has in the past, we could use up all the proven reserves of oil in the entire world by the end of the next decade."


Energy demand has, in fact, continued to climb since Carter's presidency, but so has energy production -- domestically and globally. Exploration, advances in technology, entrepreneurism and market forces have seen to that happy result. And, not incidentally, President Reagan's policies unleashed an economic revival that was as good for the nation's energy sector as it was for other sectors of the economy.

Lately, global demand for oil and gas has spiked, eating into supply and contributing to rising costs. But today, as we know, there is no foreseeable shortage of oil, gas or coal. There is some shortage in technological prowess in converting oil shale and coal to petrol, or, at least, to do so cost-effectively. The real shortages have been in foresight and political will. The lack of development of nuclear power is a prime example. Years of relatively cheap energy made voters complacent and made obstructionism by liberals and environmentalists easy.

Americans have been the victims of their own success; yet, within that success lie the keys to meeting the nation's current and future energy challenges. Those keys have nothing to do with treating oil and gas producers as predators; nor taxing consumption at confiscatory levels; nor relying on big government and centralized planning. All of that was tried in the last century, to one degree or another, and failed. Not surprisingly, it has to do with government clearing the way for the private sector. Taxes need to be low and fair; regulations, sensible, not onerous or obstructive. Laws should not serve as impediments to the smart development of energy resources on public lands. The general rule should be: "Where government meddles, it muddles."

The real curiosity is how Barack Obama and liberals generally have picked up on Jimmy Carter's woeful policies and failed predictions, as if the intervening twenty-seven years since Carter's term were but the slightest pause; or a blip to be overlooked. Nothing, apparently, transpired in those years to teach or dissuade liberals. They are purblind; true believers who will not be shaken from their course, no matter the hard facts or history's lessons.

In economics, Jimmy Carter was the Herbert Hoover of the latter part of the twentieth century -- though one has to give Hoover his due: he never suffered a foreign policy debacle as Carter did. The Iranian hostage crisis was that debacle, and, here again, it is instructive about Barack Obama. Carter's naivety and belief in negotiating with the mullahs for the release of the hostages proved futile. It was Reagan's election and the implied use of force that won the hostages' release. What has Barack Obama learned from that episode? Judging from his earlier and oft-stated desire to parlay with dictators, evidently nothing.

Obama and the Democrats may think that recycling is always a good thing. But some presidencies, like some waste, are too toxic for reuse by humans.

5) The Imperious Nancy Pelosi
By Kyle-Anne Shiver


Power is known to do some mighty strange things to otherwise quite normal people. At this perilous moment in our history, we have given a great deal of power to a kindly Catholic grandmother named Nancy. And, unfortunately for us little people, it seems to have gone straight to the little lady's head.

Nancy Pelosi has been Speaker of the House of Representatives for less than two years. Yet she has already waged war with the Pentagon over her use of military jets to return to her district[TL1] , ordered organic menus at government cafeterias, and pushed the Congress -- and all the rest of us -- green.

Not content to deal only with domestic policy and stay within the framework of her constitutional role as House Speaker, Nancy Pelosi has traveled abroad as a foreign-policy emissary, spoke for America to the Israelis, then mis-spoke for the Israelis to the Syrians, then managed to worm her way out of the whole conundrum without so much as a broken nail.

This lady is wily; one must give her that.

Of course, some would consider Ms. Pelosi's housekeeping abilities to be somewhat less than she claimed before assuming her current role. Presiding over the most drastic plunge in the public's approval rating for the United States Congress ever seems to allow much room for improvement. With her Congress now at an unprecedentedly low 9% approval rating from the public she serves, it would seem very, very, very bad timing for imperious acts.

Imperious people rarely take proper note of personal limitations, however.

Ms. Pelosi, this week, imperiously deigned not to allow a vote on the lifting of the oil-drill ban. Then, when Republican Congressmen refused to halt the debate, attempting to force an up or down vote before the month-long vacation, Ms. Pelosi imperiously used her power over the electrical power and extinguished the lights.

At this very moment, Republicans are continuing the debate in the darkened halls of Congress, while Princess Pelosi is on vacation, carried back to California on one of our military jets and using lots and lots and lots of jet fuel to get there. American taxpayers all over the Land, many of whom could not even afford a modest summer vacation somewhere close by because of the high gas prices, are taking note.

This reminds many of us, me included, of Jimmy Carter's presidency, the gas lines, the super-inflation, and the service station signs that declared in bold letters: No Gas Today. "No Gas Today" or too-high-to-afford gas translates for many Americans, to no work today, which then translates to no food today.

Princess Pelosi has lived a life free of these mundane concerns, it seems.

Even though modern Democrats are becoming known for their historical Alzheimer's, I would encourage Ms. Pelosi, at this critical juncture in her career, to remember that Jimmy Carter was booted out handily. And if that memory does not stir her to return to finish her work in Washington before resuming her vacation, then perhaps she ought to consider the fate of another imperious woman from the history books.

Even though feminists have attempted to completely rid history of any ill-judgment of Marie Antoinette, legends rarely spring from nothingness, or even from pure misogyny. So I think it fairly safe to assume that even if the infamous French Queen Marie never actually told the bread-starved French folks to go eat cake, there was at least some fire in all the smoke that surrounded her.

Now I sincerely doubt that modern-day Americans will physically storm the halls of Congress; we are far too busy making a living. I doubt that Americans will mount another revolution to oust Princess Pelosi; we have the vote. And no matter how imperious Princess Pelosi becomes, I really do doubt that we Americans would employ the guillotine; there are so many more civilized ways of taking away power.

Over the past two weeks, our Congress has been flooded with petitions, emails, faxes and phone calls from the citizenry, demanding that a vote be taken on the oil-drill ban. All to no avail with this imperious woman, who does not exactly seem to regard herself as a humble servant of the people.

The President, who has been deemed by Democrats the most arrogant man alive, might be able to executively order that fuel for Ms. Pelosi's military jet be withheld, but I doubt he would ever do it. If she weren't so arrogant, she would fly back to Washington commercially, and lead by example when it comes to saving the planet. But imperious people rarely think this way.

It might be wise for Ms. Pelosi and her fellow Democrats to consider that when it comes to life choices, most normal people give priority to avoiding certain doom over avoiding possible doom. Not drilling, not taking advantage of every resource we have to efficiently increase our energy supply, leaves all Americans in grave danger of pretty certain doom.

Even the most imperious people ought to be able to understand this much, in my opinion.

Will they or won't they? That is the question of 2008.

6) Defense minister: All Iran options are 'open and ready'

A nuclear Iran would be "dangerous to world order," Defense Minister Ehud Barak told Italian daily Corriere della Sera in an interview published Thursday morning.


He emphasized that all options for dealing with the Iranian nuclear threat were "open and ready," and stressed the importance of "strengthening and accelerating economic sanctions against Iran."

"Either way, we need to keep every option open. If they provoke us, or they attack us, our army is prepared to attack and to succeed uncompromisingly," he asserted, adding that "it's up to us to find the best way to get the best result with minimum damage."

"Iran confirmed its message when it stood against the whole world: To deceive and to reject. Their aim is to obtain an atomic bomb."

The defense minister also spoke of the results of the 2006 Lebanon War, telling the Italian paper, "Two years ago, we saw the price that's paid for a lack of an experienced leadership. Nevertheless, today we're equipped with a good understanding to prevent this happening again."

"The State of Israel," Barak went on, "is in need of unity."

He also told the Italian paper that UN Security Council Resolution 1701 that brought an end to the war was inefficient since Hizbullah, Syria and Iran were doing what they wanted in Lebanon.

After these comments, Barak stated that he preferred not to comment on internal Israeli politics, or on Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's impending resignation, but noted that he agreed to take part in a national unity government.

According to Barak, the challenges Israel faces are tremendous, both on a security level and in the diplomatic arena.

7) Hillary's Growing Shadow
By Victor Davis Hanson

Barack Obama and John McCain are running neck and neck.

Impossible?

It would seem so. Republican President Bush still has less than a 30 percent approval rating. Headlines blare that unemployment and inflation are up -- even if we aren't, technically, in a recession. Gas is around $4 a gallon. Housing prices have nosedived. Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, has been indicted -- another in a line of congressional Republicans caught in financial or sexual scandal.

Meanwhile, the GOP's presumptive candidate, John McCain, is 71 years old. The Republican base thinks he's lackluster and too liberal.

So, everyone is puzzled why the Democratic candidate isn't at least 10 points ahead. It seems the more Americans get used to Barack Obama, the less they want him as president -- and the more Democrats will soon regret not nominating Hillary Clinton.

First, Obama was billed as a post-racial healer. His half-African ancestry, exotic background and soothing rhetoric were supposed to have been novel and to have reassured the public he was no race-monger like Al Sharpton. On the other hand, his 20-year career in the cauldron of Chicago racial politics also guaranteed to his liberal base that he wasn't just a moderate Colin Powell, either.

Yet within weeks of the first primary, the outraged Clintons were accusing Obama of playing "the race card" -- and vice-versa. Blacks soon were voting heavily against Hillary Clinton. In turn, Hillary, the elite Ivy League progressive, turned into a blue-denim working gal -- and won nearly all the final big-state Democratic primaries on the strength of working-class whites.

Americans also learned to their regret how exactly a Hawaiian-born Barack Obama -- raised, in part, by his white grandparents and without African-American heritage -- had managed to win credibility in what would become his legislative district in Chicago. That discovery of racial chauvinism wasn't hard once his former associate, his pastor for over 20 years, the racist Rev. Jeremiah Wright, spewed his venom.

Obama himself didn't help things as he taught the nation that his dutiful grandmother was at times a small-minded bigot -- no different from a "typical white person." And in an impromptu riff, Obama ridiculed small-town working-class Pennsylvanians' supposed racial insularity.

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?

Fourth, Obama is proving as inept an extemporaneous speaker as he is gifted with the Teleprompter. Like most rookie senators, in news conferences and interviews, he stumbles and then makes serial gaffes -- from the insignificant, like getting the number of states wrong, to the downright worrisome, such as calling for a shadow civilian aid bureaucracy to be funded like the Pentagon (which would mean $500 billion per annum).

If the polls are right, a public tired of Republicans is beginning to think an increasingly bothersome Obama would be no better -- and maybe a lot worse. It is one thing to suggest to voters that they should shed their prejudices, eat less and be more cosmopolitan. But it is quite another when the sermonizer himself too easily evokes race, weekly changes his mind and often sounds like he doesn't have a clue what he's talking about.

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.

8) I'm so bored with O-B-A-M-A
By Walter Shapiro

It's not always a good thing to dominate the news cycle. Is "Obama Fatigue" for real, and is it a danger to the candidate?



In the next month, Obama will have twin opportunities to restore a sense of surprise and wonder to his campaign. A pedestrian vice-presidential rollout (especially if it is a make-no-waves selection like Indiana Sen. Evan Bayh) and an eloquent-but-empty convention speech could signal trouble. Obama needs to give independents and loosely affiliated voters new reasons to vote for him, since he appears to have reached a temporary ceiling a bit shy of 50 percent in most public polls. Kohut theorizes that the public's boredom with the Obama story "may account for the way that the horse-race numbers are stalled."

There are leading Democrats both within the Obama camp and outside it who brood aloud (but not for attribution) about the caution that seems to afflict the Illinois senator's campaign. "The ads are too narrow and too tactical," says a well-placed Democratic media consultant. "They need to get on with it and start talking about the big issue -- the economy -- instead of focusing on values and bio." David Winston, a Republican pollster unaffiliated with the McCain campaign, interestingly enough makes an analogous point. "Obama has gone from someone who is dynamic to someone who -- to the use the old Woody Hayes football line -- just tries for three yards and a cloud of dust."

Up to now, the goal in presidential politics has been to dominate the news cycle. Since Obama wrapped up the nomination in early June, weekly Pew polls have found that he has consistently bested McCain better than 6-to-1 in voter awareness of his campaigning. This may be about the most lopsided margin in winning the headline wars since James Monroe ran virtually unopposed in the 1820 election. But now, with voters suddenly curious about McCain (judging from the Pew numbers), Obama may be a victim of too much too soon. As singers and comedians have known since the early days of vaudeville, the cardinal rule in show business is to leave the stage with the audience wanting more.

9) Obama Pivots to Populism
By Ruth Marcus

ELKHART, Ind. -- Barack Obama is cranking up the populist rhetoric.
He'll sock oil companies with a windfall profits tax to give American families a $1,000 "energy rebate," he tells voters at a town hall meeting in Youngstown, Ohio, on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, Obama says, John McCain would lavish "$4 billion more in tax breaks to the biggest oil companies in America -- including $1.2 billion to Exxon-Mobil ... a company that, last quarter, made the same amount of money in 30 seconds that a typical Ohio worker makes in a year."

This turn to populism is not an extreme political makeover. Rather, it's a distinct tonal shift as the Democratic presidential candidate finishes a trip through three swing states -- Michigan, Ohio and Indiana -- where blue-collar voters aren't necessarily on board. Listen to Obama, and you hear the distant strains of Al Gore 2000: "the people versus the powerful."
The traditional transition from primary to general election campaigning involves stepping gingerly, preferably unobtrusively, toward the center. Obama swiftly executed that pivot, from backing the warrantless wiretapping compromise to speaking supportively of Supreme Court rulings on gun rights and the death penalty.
But much as John McCain needs to cultivate his party's still-skeptical base, Obama needs to tend to the anxieties of blue-collar Democratic voters in states such as Ohio who voted overwhelmingly for Hillary Clinton in the primary. More broadly, he needs to speak to the cascading economic worries felt by voters of both parties, or no party at all.

Later that day, on board his campaign plane en route to a town hall meeting here, I ask Obama about this louder populist backbeat. Does the message that might resonate with Hillary Clinton Democrats risk alienating Republicans or independent voters?
"I don't think people are disturbed by that argument," he says, as long as they "feel like you are mindful (that) the market is still the best way to allocate resources productively, that some of the excesses of the '60s and '70s may have hampered economic growth, that we don't want to return to marginal tax rates of 60 or 70 percent."
But, I point out, there wasn't a lot of that sort of free market talk in Obama's Ohio remarks.
"The people are hurting right now," Obama replies, adding that his energy plan emphasizes job creation through private enterprise. "We've become so accustomed to thinking that there's two ways of looking at the economy. Either you don't give a hoot about what's happening in the daily lives of people, so you don't talk about it ... or conversely, you are, you know, out there raging against the machine."
Obama argues that his brand of populism is not aimed as much at frustration with big business as with disappointment with dysfunctional government. "When you hear me talk about people versus the powerful, my populism is built most powerfully around the sense that government is non-responsive to these folks," he says. "They're probably less angry at Wall Street for making money and angrier at Washington for not just setting up some basic rules of the road."
Are oil companies, I ask, more morally culpable than other industries that would not be subject to Obama's proposed tax?

"Not in the view of most economists," Obama replies. "I'm well aware of the argument (about) singling out oil companies rather than soda pop manufacturers," he says.
Yes, but what does Obama himself believe? "I think oil companies are amoral. They want to make as much money as they can for their shareholders, which is what corporations do," he says. "The difference is the nature of the kind of outsized profits they make that may have no relationship to their investments or their production. The fact, for example, the shortage of refinery capacity could actually increase their profits so the less they invest the more they make indicates that you are not dealing with someone making widgets out there."
Obama circled back to our conversation when a questioner at Wednesday's town hall meeting asked why he singled out oil companies. This time his answer ventured beyond refinery capacity and widgets.

"So the question is, does it make more sense for the oil companies to pay for it or does it make more sense for the struggling waitress who is barely getting by to pay for it?" he said. "And the answer is I'm going to fight for the waitress, not because I hate the oil companies but because I think it's more fair."
Also, waitresses vote.

10) A Nation of Whiners? Perhaps
By Froma Harrop

You won't hear me straining to defend Phil Gramm, the Texas Republican whose penchant for grating commentary sunk his 1996 bid for the presidency before the New Hampshire primary. It was really just a matter of time before the former senator, serving as John McCain's economic advisor, put his foot in it: Gramm opined that Americans complaining about the economy were "whiners."

It's not good politics to call any voter a whiner, and Gramm had to leave the campaign. But honesty impels one to grant him this: The point about America being "a nation of whiners" is not without merit.

Yes, losing one's job or home is traumatic, and having both taken away more so. But the average citizens facing $4-a-gallon gas and learning that their hacienda isn't the money factory they thought it was haven't exactly been thrown into the Dust Bowl. Some Europeans pay twice as much for gas and live in half the space, and no one is passing around the hat for them.

I spent last week replaying Ken Burns' searing series on World War II. "The War" follows several American families ranging from working class to upper-middle class. None of them, not even the fancy folks in Mobile, Ala., lived as large as today's typical McMansion family.

These people also had to endure the war's horrific sacrifice, made more unbearable by the youth of the dead. Nearly 7,000 Americans perished on the tiny island of Iwo Jima alone, with several times that number injured, many grievously. It was a hideous battle in a long parade of gruesome campaigns. Over 400,000 Americans died in that war.

One of the documentary's running themes was that of servicemen pining for their loved ones back home. And their homes were modest triple-deckers in Connecticut, farmhouses in Minnesota or bungalows in California.

When the war ended, Americans soon resumed their historic quest for bigger and better. But even then, the returning soldier's idea of palatial living was a 750-square-foot house in Levittown, one-third the average size of a new home in 2006. The accommodations in Americans, by the way, were the envy of ruined Europe.

So the recent economic downturn hasn't made Americans poor by any sane measurement. No one enjoys downward mobility, but let's ask whether telling kids to share a bedroom or downsizing to a sedan represents anything worthy of the word "sacrifice."

Middle-class Americans fell into this predicament because they started acting like people who are richer than they are. They had built extravagant lifestyles with borrowed money. And they ignored the many warnings that the growth of China and India would push energy prices skyward.

Now is a time to recognize reality and adjust to it in an adult fashion. Though I consider myself an environmentalist, I did put off taking certain steps to cut fuel consumption in my house. It took natural gas prices shooting through the roof to move me to replace my leaky old windows. Believe me, paying for new double-panes was low on my Fun List. Did I whine about the cost? More than I care to admit.

But then one reads about the food lines in the Great Depression. You look at the destitute norm in the Third World. And you focus on any war, including Iraq, and try to fathom the tragedy of an 18-year-old dying in a foreign desert.

Sure, we can shake our heads at Phil Gramm's impolitic remark. And we can condemn the role his philosophy of deregulation played in the current housing mess. But, you know, there's something to what the man said.

11) The New Southern Strategy: Democrats Tap Conservative Candidates in GOP Bastions
By GREG HITT

PRATTVILLE, Ala -- This is how shaky Republican fortunes are in 2008: In one of the most conservative corners of the conservative South, Democrats stand a good chance of winning a congressional seat.


This working-class, mostly rural district has been controlled by Republicans since 1964, when Alabama's white electorate began its long turn away from the Democratic Party. In 2004, President George W. Bush won 67% of the district's vote. Today's leading candidate is Bobby Bright, a self-styled "Southern conservative" and sharecropper's son from remote Alabama farm country. In another era, he would have run as a Republican. But he's a Democrat, and early polls strongly suggest he can win.

Spurred by the souring economy and a newfound willingness to embrace conservative candidates, the Democratic Party is running its most competitive campaign across the South in 40 years, fielding potential winners along a rib of states stretching from Louisiana to Virginia, the heart of the Old Confederacy. Sen. Barack Obama's ability to excite African-American voters in certain Southern races could provide an additional boost, too.

The party's rising prospects point toward a once unthinkable goal: a reversal of the "Great Reversal," the switch in political loyalties in the 1960s that made the South a Republican stronghold for a generation. If the current picture holds, Democrats could use the Southern strength to help craft a workable Senate majority and expand their majority in the House of Representatives. At the very least, it widens the field of competitive seats, forcing Republicans to fight fires in once-reliably solid areas.

"This is clearly new territory," says Maryland Rep. Chris Van Hollen, the Democratic Party's chief strategist for House races.

The story of Mr. Bright, the current mayor of Montgomery, could have been sketched by Robert Penn Warren, the novelist who famously captured the essence of Southern populism. Stocky and square-shouldered, Mr. Bright professes a love of chicken livers and is a deacon in Montgomery's First Baptist Church. Despite nearly a decade in politics, he is still a bit rough around the edges: A poster on the wall of his campaign office, scrawled in black marker, reminds Mr. Bright to say "please" when making fund-raising calls.

Mr. Bright toyed with the idea of running as a Republican. He spoke with party activists "and prayed on it." But he decided that he felt more at home with the Democrats, whom he describes as the party of working people and the party of diversity.

"The Republican Party has done a wonderful job of making it appear that you don't have a choice," said Mr. Bright, standing on a sidewalk in downtown Prattville, dabbing at sweat beading on his forehead. "But that's changing. That's changing with me."

That Democrats are competitive at all in the South is one of the central narratives of this year's fight for Congress. As recently as July 2006, the year Democrats took control of Congress, a Wall Street Journal-NBC News poll showed Southern voters bucking national sentiment, saying they preferred Republicans over Democrats by 47% to 40%.

But this spring, the party won special elections for House seats in heavily Republican parts of Mississippi and Louisiana. Democrats consistently outnumbered Republicans across the South in this year's presidential primaries. And in the latest Wall Street Journal-NBC News poll, conducted last month, Southern voters said they prefer a Democratic-controlled Congress over a Republican one by a 44% to 40% margin, a reversal of the long-term historical patterns.

Getting Competitive

In Virginia, Democrat Mark Warner, the former governor, is far ahead in the race to replace retiring Republican Sen. John Warner (no relation). In Mississippi, Democrat Ronnie Musgrove, who fought to post the Ten Commandments in state buildings, is polling even or just ahead of his opponent. In North Carolina, Democrat Kay Hagan is stressing her family's military roots in a challenge to Republican Sen. Elizabeth Dole.


In early 2007, both parties expected only 35 to 40 House seats out of 435 to be truly competitive. Now, half a dozen Republican-held House seats across the South, including rural districts in Virginia, North Carolina, Louisiana and South Carolina, are growing more competitive. That makes life tougher for Republicans already facing a 19-seat deficit.

Mr. Bright and his fellow Democrats still have a big task ahead if they have any hope of establishing a Southern beachhead. The Republican Party has had a strong hold on the region for decades, and getting voters to break old habits in voting booths could be difficult. As they have in the past, cultural issues like abortion and gun rights could break to the forefront of the national debate and sow doubts about even moderate Democrats.

A particular danger for Democrats these days is that voters will turn against established politicians of all stripes, in a burst of antiestablishment feelings fueled by the weak economy and fatigue with politics-as-usual. Indeed, Republican strategists say Democrats are misreading what is an anti-incumbent -- not anti-Republican -- environment, pointing to the primary defeats of incumbents like Maryland Reps. Albert Wynn, a Democrat, and Wayne Gilchrest, a Republican.

But Republican opportunities to erode Democrat's advantages appear to be few and far between. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, in an essay published in May in Human Events, the conservative online magazine, warned that his party risks reverting to the "permanent minority status it had from 1930 to 1994."

Why the South Is Shifting

The Republican gains in the South, which started with the Goldwater campaign in 1964, opened the door to the Nixon, Reagan and Bush presidencies by creating an impregnable voting block out of white conservatives. The reasons for the shift are still debated. Some argue Republicans successfully appealed to whites riled over the Civil Rights movement. Others say Republicans successfully appealed to voters in border Southern states who were disenchanted with the nation's crumbling cities and rising crime rate.

Why the South is moving toward Democrats today is an easier question to answer. One reason: With anxiety high about the economy, more voters are looking to Democrats amid a surge of populist sentiment and an embrace of activist government.

"The pool of votes available to Democrats during tough times gets bigger in the South," says John Anzalone, a Bright political consultant who advised Democratic winners in Louisiana and Mississippi. In contrast with past downturns, he also suggested voters in the current political climate do appear more concerned about economic than cultural issues. "Those are our wheelhouse [core] issues," he says.

Democrats have also made efforts to recruit candidates who reflect the values of local districts. Not that long ago, party leaders picked from a list of liberal stalwarts who matched national party sentiments on issues such as gun rights and abortion. Now the focus is finding candidates "who would win," says one senior strategist.

The 2006 victory of Virginia Democrat Sen. Jim Webb, a moderate who favors gun rights, over Republican Sen. George Allen was an early sign that the strategy might work. Sen. Webb says he sees "real potential" for Democrats to make further inroads in the South, especially with white Southern conservatives. "A lot of people are re-evaluating," he says.

Mr. Bright, 56 years old, was raised in Alabama's Wiregrass country southeast of Montgomery. His father sharecropped a small farm before moving the family to his own place. The second youngest of 14 children, Mr. Bright sold vegetables on a truck stand at the side of the road. For many years, the family had no indoor plumbing.

He was one of two siblings to graduate from high school and the only one to go to college. At a local community college, he was elected to the honorary title of "Mr. Boll Weevil." Mr. Bright later graduated from Auburn University with an undergraduate degree in political science. In search of a job, he worked initially as a prison guard, earned a master's degree in criminal justice and eventually a law degree.

When Mr. Bright ran for mayor of Montgomery in 1999, he wasn't given much of a chance against the long-time incumbent, a defender of the city's political establishment. Yet Mr. Bright knocked him off, arguing the city -- the cradle of the Confederacy and a birthplace of the civil-rights movement -- needed to move beyond its history of racial discord.

As mayor, he wooed a Hyundai Motor Co. assembly plant to the community. Mr. Bright hired the city's first black police and fire chiefs and also supported measures that tightened local scrutiny of illegal immigrants.

When the sitting Republican congressman announced his decision to retire last September, Alabama Rep. Artur Davis called Mr. Bright and asked if he was interested. Mr. Davis is in charge of recruiting for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, or DCCC, the political arm of House Democrats.

"Absolutely," replied Mr. Bright, who had long harbored hopes of representing southeast Alabama in Congress.

At the time, Mr. Bright, who says he also spoke to Republican leaders, hadn't committed to either party. He worried he might be seen as a "closet Republican" on Capitol Hill, Mr. Davis says. Democratic leaders assured him he'd be accepted.

"You're expected to speak for your district," Mr. Davis said. "We wouldn't think any other kind of person would win."

In February, Mr. Bright announced his run for Congress as a Democrat. Standing on the steps of the courthouse in Ozark, a small town not far from his family's farm, Mr. Bright described himself as "pro-gun" and "pro-life" and vowed to fight illegal immigration. "He sounded like a Republican to me," says Bob Bunting, Ozark's mayor, who stood in the crowd.

Mr. Bright likes to say that he represents the values of Alabama's Second Congressional District, which encompasses 15 mostly rural counties and parts of Montgomery. He moved easily through the primary in early June.

From a metal folding chair at his campaign headquarters, Mr. Bright concentrated on raising money. On the wall is a "pitch chart," which reminds Mr. Bright to explain to donors why he is running, to say "please," and then thank them. Mr. Bright hates asking for money, the legacy of a father who taught his children that "you don't call folks and beg for anything."

By the end of June, he had $281,000 in the bank, after expenses. Mr. Bright can also expect to benefit from spending by the DCCC, which has a big cash advantage over House Republicans. His Republican opponent, state Rep. Jay Love, who is also a deacon at Montgomery's First Baptist Church, reported having only $91,000 in available cash, although he is certain to draw support from national party leaders and will likely draw on his personal account for the general election.

African-American Turnout

With Illinois Sen. Barack Obama at the top of the national Democratic ticket, Mr. Bright will likely get a further boost from high turnout among African-Americans, who represent more than a quarter of registered voters in the district.

For decades, winning the Republican primary was tantamount to punching a ticket to Capitol Hill. Retiring Rep. Terry Everett served 16 years. Before him, Rep. Bill Dickinson, heir to the Goldwater legacy, served more than 20.

'Bobby, Bobby'

In mid-July, the night the Republican primary was settled, Mr. Love attempted to saddle Mr. Bright with the Democratic Party's liberal national leadership. "If you think Nancy Pelosi and Charlie Rangel know what's best for our district, then there will be a candidate in this race for you -- but he will not be coming out of the Republican Party," Mr. Love says

That line of attack didn't work in the earlier special elections and doesn't seem promising here, either. Early polling by Mr. Bright's campaign showed him holding up well against a variety of Republican opponents including Mr. Love. On the Fourth of July, Mr. Bright arrived early at the annual barbeque held in Millbrook, where plates of chicken and pork went on sale at 5:30 a.m.

In a parking lot, Judy Lowery, a 54-year-old bank employee who lives in nearby Deatsville, tells the candidate she appreciates his "Christian values" and offers to help in the fall. "I almost always vote Republican and I'm going to vote for Bobby Bright," Mrs. Lowery said later. "I don't think he's doing this for himself," she added.

At a parade in Prattville later, folks shouted "Bobby, Bobby" as he wheeled by in his black pickup truck. Mr. Bright, dressed in khaki pants and a red, white and blue shirt, tossed candy and whiffle balls at the crowd.

"Party means less today than it has in my lifetime in Alabama," says state Rep. David Grimes, who lost to Mr. Love in the nomination battle for the congressional seat. Mr. Grimes says the mayor's ties to southeast Alabama, especially his blue-collar upbringing and conservative values, will serve him well in November.

"I tell you this: Bobby Bright is going to be the man to beat."

12) Say Watt, Senator?
By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY

Energy Policy: Barack Obama wants a million electric cars on the road by 2015. Where's he going to plug them in? John McCain has the answer — a renewable energy source called nuclear power.


Speaking Tuesday in Lansing, Mich., Sen. Obama set a goal of putting 1 million plug-in gas-electric hybrid cars, capable of getting 150 miles per gallon of gasoline consumed, on the road by 2015.

To help power them, Obama also said he wanted 10% of our electricity to come from renewable sources by 2012 and 25% by 2025.

Actually, about 20% of our electricity already comes from a renewable resource — nuclear power — and John McCain wants to up that percentage significantly.

Obama has opposed increased use of non-polluting nuclear power and the reprocessing of spent fuel rods into new fuel, not to mention the storage of radioactive waste in the geologically safe and stable facility being built at Yucca Mountain in Nevada.

Unlike Obama, Nancy Pelosi and other Democrats now on vacation — as in the vacation their constituents increasingly can't afford because of high energy costs — John McCain is for all forms of energy, as long as they're produced domestically.

"We all know nuclear power isn't enough and drilling isn't enough," McCain rightly said Tuesday, as he stood in front of the cooling towers of Michigan's Fermi II nuclear power plant on the shores of Lake Erie near the Ohio border. "Solving our national energy crisis requires an all-of-the-above approach."

DTE Energy's Fermi II, named for Enrico Fermi, the first physicist to split the atom, is one of three nuclear plants in Michigan that supply about 25% of the state's electrical needs. McCain wants to build 45 new nuclear power plants nationwide by 2030 to meet a demand for electricity that is expected to rise 25% by then.

McCain recalled his service aboard the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS Enterprise and noted: "I knew (nuclear power) was safe then, and I know it's safe now." As he has pointed out, U.S. sailors have sailed aboard nuclear submarines and aircraft carriers for more than five decades without ill effects or accidents. No American sailor, past or present, glows in the dark.

Safety and waste-storage concerns have been mentioned by Obama as reasons he is not a nuclear proponent. No doubt nuclear critics inside and outside his camp will say, "Wait a minute! Didn't the Los Angeles-class nuclear power submarine USS Houston leak radioactive water earlier this year?" Yes, it did, about the same amount of radioactivity as a 50-pound bag of fertilizer emits.

Since the U.S. Navy commissioned the world's first nuclear-powered sub, the USS Nautilus, in 1954, there hasn't been a single nuclear reactor accident on any of its nuclear-powered vessels. There currently are 102 nuclear reactors aboard 80 Navy combat vessels.

"Sen. Obama has said that expanding our nuclear power plants 'doesn't make sense for America,' " McCain said at Fermi. "He also says no to nuclear storage and reprocessing. I couldn't disagree more.

"I have proposed a plan to build additional nuclear plants. That means new jobs and that means new energy. If we want to enable the technologies of tomorrow like plug-in electric cars, we need electricity to plug into."

As Nicolas Loras and Jack Spencer of the Heritage Foundation note, uranium is considered a finite resource like coal and oil, but it can be recycled and reused. It's a renewable resource, and the French, the British and, yes, even the Japanese recycle their spent nuclear fuel.

Using the French method of reprocessing, the U.S. could recycle its 58,000 tons of used fuel to power every household for 12 years.

As even Patrick Moore, a Greenpeace co-founder who gained prominence in the 1960s by opposing nuclear testing, told a House committee in April 2005: "Nuclear energy is the only non-greenhouse-gas-emitting power source that can effectively replace fossil fuels and satisfy global demand for energy."

Barack Obama, call your office.