Are We Seeing Churchill's Adage - Never Give Up!

Forwarded to me by a fellow memo reader. (See 1 below.)

This is a bit outdated because it refers to an interview in April of this year but last night Obama appeared on the Bill O'Reilly show and was asked to explain the Ayers relationship and we heard pretty much the same thin response - I was eight etc. The below article now becomes more relevant.

Somehow I never associated with Klansmen or White Citizen Council members when I grew up in Birmingham though I knew many of them. They were not the kind of people I cared to associate with since my father was actively trying to have them exposed and called to justice. Not as a prosecutor but simply because he was a private citizen-lawyer trying to live a principled life who set a marvelous example for me and the city he loved.

Obama might have been better had some of my father's views rubbed off on him but I guess he was too busy attending church and hearing inflammatory rhetoric of a different order. Now he tries to hide behind his efforts as a concerned neighborhood activist in hopes of deflecting commentary about his prior associations.

His candidacy sets an interesting personal standard and fits my old worn expression to a T - "When all else fails lower your standards." Have we ever witnessed a presidential nominee with such a questionable past record of associations who then proceeded to defend them, disavow them and make comments that put himself outside mainstream Americans when he talked about their taking solace from religion and guns. Shades of Richard Nixon? (See 2 below.)

Is NATO going to get it right in Afghanistan? So far we are losing and with mountainous topography and Pakistan providing safe havens and making the job of getting at the Taliban and al Qaeda even tougher. (See 3 below.)

Obama set back on his heels? Costa thinks so.

The Palin turn of events caught the press and media folks by surprise and thus their incessant attacks which, as I have repeatedly stated, only bring her more support and thus McCain as well.

As for Obama, he told us he can toughen it out because he played basketball. But are we getting a glimpse of the doggedness of the POW McCain who like Churchill said, "Never give up, never, never, never."

Obama is now playing in the big leagues. Something he has never done before. I posted several articles by two imminent black commentator-professors, whose insights I respect a great deal, and they pointed out Obama's thin line problem early on and wrote they questioned whether Obama had the experience for the challenge he was about to meet.

I listened to snippets of Obama's recent comments and he seems more and more up tight, vulnerable, shrill and testy. Last night O'Reilly smoked him out and though Obama protested and defended himself intellectually he did not convincingly deflect the thrust of the questions in my opinion which got under his thin skin.

Are we finally coming to realize this is a man - a potential president - who could be sitting across the table from the likes of Medvedev and Putin?

The headlines of recent articles are interesting but they could also prove to be premature and thus wrong (See James Pothokoukis' article at end of 4b).

Time always tells. (See 4, 4a and 4b below.)

A sad death announcement. (See 5 below.)


Dick


1)one of our good friends (Eddie S), from San Antonio , fishes at the Wildman Lodge on the Alaskan Peninsula The lodge is owned by Butch and Kathy Wildman. The Wildmans spend their winters in Texas and their summers in Alaska Kathy's fatheand former husband served in the Alaskan legislature for around 30 years so Butch and Kathy know Alaska politics.
>
> Eddie emailed Butch and asked what the Wildmans think of Gov. Sarah Palin. Butch's unedited email is attached below. This is what many citizens of Alaska think of Sarah Palin!
>
> Thanks,
> _________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
>
>
> Hi Eddie:
> Fishing is good here at Wildman and I rarely have time for politics, but many of our friends are asking us "Who is Sarah Palin?" Of course, as Alaskans, Kathy and I are extremely proud of her. We just want to let you know that Sarah "Barracuda" Palin is a straight shooting, hard charging, get it done gal. She knows when to listen, how to analyze the facts and how to make a decision, then implement the plan. She doesn't do a poll before jumping in with both feet like so many of the Washington types. She has little legislative experience because she has always held an EXECUTIVE position; in private life, as mayor of Anchorage's largest bedroom community or more recently as Governor of our State. She is a smart, attractive home grown Alaska girl with excellent moral and family values. She can see what needs to be done and does not hesitate to get it done.

One of our State's major problems is that its Capital is in Juneau, 500 miles from the nearest road and 800 air miles from the population base which is Anchorage, Wasilla and Fairbanks. Our legislature and most of the State government is in Juneau and they ALL behave like a bunch of freshmen in a college town. It has been this way since Statehood in 1959. When Sarah moved to Juneau , so did accountability and responsibility When the oil revenue started flowing and a barrel of North Slope Crude hit $23.00, these people began spending money like drunken sailors. You can only imagine what was happenings when oil hit $100.00 plus a barrel, about the time Sarah took command. My wife Kathy has first-hand experience with this fiasco, as her father and also her ex-husband were Alaska Legislators who served in Juneau as Senators, Senate President, or members of the State House for a combined period spanning nearly three decades.

About the time Sarah took the HELM as Governor of Alaska, about half the State legislature was in the pocket of big oil companies or contractors doing big projects for Native Corporations around Alaska, all funded by State oil revenue. Alaska's government was nothing but a good old boys club riding the perpetual wave of prosperity. This filtered down from the legislature, through the Department of Natural Resources, Department of Labor and even spilled in to the Public Safety who are supposed to "preserve and protect".

When Sarah walked into the Governor's Mansion, she promptly dismissed the State Trooper detachment assigned to Governor and had her and her husband's gun case brought in from Wasilla. Then, she got rid of the former Governor's STATE Jet and told legislators that there were no more free rides, they would have to fly Alaska Airlines, just like her and her family if they wanted to travel. Next came the nut cutting (the Barracuda part) the heads that rolled were too numerous to name, but when Sarah finished cleaning house, a number of our legislators ended up in jail on corruption charges, or tendered their resignations along with numerous department heads and those who have been riding the gravy train for way too long, AND THEN SHE HAD LUNCH. By the end of the day, Sarah Palin had saved the people of Alaska millions and has not yet slowed down.

She has truly brought CHANGE to Juneau I personally know several in the private sector in Alaska , that hold her in high esteem. She surrounds herself with smart people, many from my hometown of Anchorage , she listens to them but makes her own decisions. Sarah Palin is a no B.S. politician. It is refreshing that there is such a thing anymore. You want to talk about CHANGE? You should see a before and after picture of the State government in Alaska That's CHANGE! Sarah will bring a number of things to the election. I am sure she will appeal to many voters who may otherwise have gone in other directions on election day. The conservative block will not be for Barak. We have their vote. We need what Sarah will bring, first to the election and second, what she will bring to Washington D.C. McCain has been advised well, Let's just hope the American people can get the straight scoop on her in the weeks ahead. This is just the opinion of one Alaska Bush Pilot and Guide, who pays attention to national politics, watches the news and is deathly afraid of the direction our nation is headed. I guarantee that if Sarah gets a chance to dig her spurs into the flanks of the liberal Washington types, they will know that she is in the saddle.
> Butch King
> Pilot/Guide
> Butch & Kathy King
> Proprietors
> Wildman Lake Lodge

2)John M. Murtagh: Fire in the Night and The Weathermen tried to kill my family.

During the April 16 debate between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, moderator George Stephanopoulos brought up “a gentleman named William Ayers,” who “was part of the Weather Underground in the 1970s. They bombed the Pentagon, the Capitol, and other buildings. He’s never apologized for that.” Stephanopoulos then asked Obama to explain his relationship with Ayers. Obama’s answer: “The notion that somehow as a consequence of me knowing somebody who engaged in detestable acts 40 years ago, when I was eight years old, somehow reflects on me and my values, doesn’t make much sense, George.” Obama was indeed only eight in early 1970. I was only nine then, the year Ayers’s Weathermen tried to murder me.

In February 1970, my father, a New York State Supreme Court justice, was presiding over the trial of the so-called “Panther 21,” members of the Black Panther Party indicted in a plot to bomb New York landmarks and department stores. Early on the morning of February 21, as my family slept, three gasoline-filled firebombs exploded at our home on the northern tip of Manhattan, two at the front door and the third tucked neatly under the gas tank of the family car. (Today, of course, we’d call that a car bomb.) A neighbor heard the first two blasts and, with the remains of a snowman I had built a few days earlier, managed to douse the flames beneath the car. That was an act whose courage I fully appreciated only as an adult, an act that doubtless saved multiple lives that night.

I still recall, as though it were a dream, thinking that someone was lifting and dropping my bed as the explosions jolted me awake, and I remember my mother’s pulling me from the tangle of sheets and running to the kitchen where my father stood. Through the large windows overlooking the yard, all we could see was the bright glow of flames below. We didn’t leave our burning house for fear of who might be waiting outside. The same night, bombs were thrown at a police car in Manhattan and two military recruiting stations in Brooklyn. Sunlight, the next morning, revealed three sentences of blood-red graffiti on our sidewalk: FREE THE PANTHER 21; THE VIET CONG HAVE WON; KILL THE PIGS.

For the next 18 months, I went to school in an unmarked police car. My mother, a schoolteacher, had plainclothes detectives waiting in the faculty lounge all day. My brother saved a few bucks because he didn’t have to rent a limo for the senior prom: the NYPD did the driving. We all made the best of the odd new life that had been thrust upon us, but for years, the sound of a fire truck’s siren made my stomach knot and my heart race. In many ways, the enormity of the attempt to kill my entire family didn’t fully hit me until years later, when, a father myself, I was tucking my own nine-year-old John Murtagh into bed.

Though no one was ever caught or tried for the attempt on my family’s life, there was never any doubt who was behind it. Only a few weeks after the attack, the New York contingent of the Weathermen blew themselves up making more bombs in a Greenwich Village townhouse. The same cell had bombed my house, writes Ron Jacobs in The Way the Wind Blew: A History of the Weather Underground. And in late November that year, a letter to the Associated Press signed by Bernardine Dohrn, Ayers’s wife, promised more bombings.

As the association between Obama and Ayers came to light, it would have helped the senator a little if his friend had at least shown some remorse. But listen to Ayers interviewed in the New York Times on September 11, 2001, of all days: “I don’t regret setting bombs. I feel we didn’t do enough.” Translation: “We meant to kill that judge and his family, not just damage the porch.” When asked by the Times if he would do it all again, Ayers responded: “I don’t want to discount the possibility.”

Though never a supporter of Obama, I admired him for a time for his ability to engage our imaginations, and especially for his ability to inspire the young once again to embrace the political system. Yet his myopia in the last few months has cast a new light on his “politics of change.” Nobody should hold the junior senator from Illinois responsible for his friends’ and supporters’ violent terrorist acts. But it is fair to hold him responsible for a startling lack of judgment in his choice of mentors, associates, and friends, and for showing a callous disregard for the lives they damaged and the hatred they have demonstrated for this country. It is fair, too, to ask what those choices say about Obama’s own beliefs, his philosophy, and the direction he would take our nation.

At the conclusion of his 2001 Times interview, Ayers said of his upbringing and subsequent radicalization: “I was a child of privilege and I woke up to a world on fire.”

Funny thing, Bill: one night, so did I.

John M. Murtagh is a practicing attorney, an adjunct professor of public policy at the Fordham University College of Liberal Studies, and a member of the city council in Yonkers, New York, where he resides with his wife and two sons.

3)NATO’s Afghan strategy to be applied in Pakistan – According to US military chief


The day before the seventh anniversary of al Qaeda’s Sept. 11 attacks on the US, Adm. Mike Mullen, Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff said of the war which followed those attacks: “I’m not convinced we are winning it in Afghanistan. I am convinced we can.”

Mullen was the first high-ranking American officer to admit frankly that the United States is not winning the war on terror or beating al Qaeda and Taliban.

Saturday, the US commander in Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus – soon to be head of the Central Command – spoke in a similar vein: “You will not find any military leader who will say this…all we can say is al Qaeda is still dangerous,” he said when asked if al Qaeda had been defeated in Iraq.

Military and counter-terror sources note that the two commanders’ blunt words lay bare the impasse reached in America’s war on terror, with no real strategic solution for defeating al Qaeda and Taliban, either in Afghanistan or Pakistan – or even in Iraq, where a semi-victory over Osama bin Laden’s terrorists has been achieved.

Mullen’s proposed application of NATO’s methods in Afghanistan to Pakistan would take the war into the troubled border regions of that country, where the terrorists enjoy sanctuary, and even into the Pakistan heartland.

In the past two weeks, US forces have stepped up their alleged Predator drone missile strikes on Taliban bases in those border regions and US commandos have carried out at least one cross-border ground raid against a Taliban center.

Islamabad has tried warning the Americans to stop these attacks, which are bound to end in clashes with Pakistani forces. The Pakistan populace is so enraged by the civilian casualties caused that they are rallying around al Qaeda and Taliban.

Shortly after Mullen spoke, the Pakistani chief of staff Gen. Ashfaq Kayani said the Pakistan army would not permit American troops to operate in their country.

All in all, in September 2008, the US-led NATO anti-terror campaign is encumbered by three major impediments:

1. They have not caught Osama bin Laden and have no idea where he and his staff are hiding.

2. Notwithstanding major successes in Iraq, al Qaeda and Taliban operations have not been curbed. To the contrary, al Qaeda’s cells are active on the Indian subcontinent, Central Asia, the Middle East, North Africa and the Arabian Peninsula.

3. There are indications that in several countries, including the US and main European and Middle East cities, al Qaeda has acquired a capability for massive attacks by means of radioactive or “dirty” bombs.

4) Obama On His Heels
By Jay Cost



This campaign has taken a surprising turn since the Democratic convention. Everybody is still talking about the Republican vice-presidential nominee.

Who would have predicted this just two weeks ago?

When I say everybody is talking about Governor Palin, I mean everybody. It's not just that Palin has excited the Republican base and intrigued the press corps. She's also gotten the notice of Barack Obama. The Democratic nominee has singled Palin out for criticism on earmarks in general and the "Bridge To Nowhere" in particular.

This is peculiar. Typically, a presidential nominee does not criticize his opponent's veep. This becomes doubly peculiar when we consider that just a week ago the Obama campaign indicated plans to ignore Palin altogether:

The Obama campaign has no silver bullet to use against the Palin (sic). Instead, Obama has decided to largely avoid directly engaging her and will instead keep his focus largely on John McCain and on linking the Republican ticket to President George W. Bush. The Obama campaign will leave Palin to navigate the same cycle of celebrity that Obama has weathered, and the same peril that her nascent image will be defined by questions and contradictions from her Alaska past.


The reason for the change must be what the ABC News/Washington Post poll found - a huge swing toward McCain-Palin among white women. This is a very important voting bloc.


The GOP improved it's showing among white men by 17 points between 1996 and 2004. Among white women it improved by 16 points. This is how an 8.5-point Republican defeat transformed into a 2.4-point Republican victory.

The ABC News poll that set tongues wagging has McCain up 12 among white women - about the same margin as the final result in 2004. I had been inclined to write those results off, as I figured a post-convention poll like that is not indicative of where the race is heading. However, the course correction of the Obama campaign inclines me to believe that there might be something going on here. On September 4th, his campaign said that it was not planning to directly criticize Palin. On September 8th, it released an ad directly criticizing her. You don't do that kind of 180 unless something is up.

The Obama campaign's decision to attack is a risky one. Negative campaigns are always tricky, but this one is especially so. To some degree, Palin has been treated unfairly since her debut as McCain's vice-president. What the McCain campaign wants to do is tie all criticisms of Palin to the unfair ones, and ultimately remind people of how Hillary Clinton was treated. Team McCain is especially eager to do this for anything that comes out of Obama's mouth - hence the "lipstick on a pig" spot, which in turn induced a response from Obama.

We can assign winners and losers in this little skirmish; we can decide who has truth on his side and who does not. But that misses the point. Here we have yet another day when the focus is on the GOP's youthful, smiling, attractive, witty, female vice-presidential nominee. And for yet another day our ears are filled with the sounds of the Democratic nominee decrying how unfair the Republicans are - as if only one side hits below the belt.

Ultimately, I'm not a huge believer in the importance of "winning" news cycles. I do think, however, that the battle for the news cycle is an exhibition of a campaign's ability to move its message. And it has become clear that the McCain campaign is better at this. This "lipstick on a pig" incident will probably not affect a single vote - but it shows that the McCain campaign is ready and able to defend any real gains it might have made among white women. Once again, it's doing a better job getting its message across.

Nobody would have predicted this on June 3rd. That was the day Obama boldly stood in the Excel Energy Center and proclaimed an exciting new moment in American politics. Meanwhile McCain, sweating profusely, stood in front of a green screen and gave a rambling, disjointed speech. The contrast in messages was stark. Three months later, it's just as stark - but now it's Obama that's sweating and McCain that's exciting. What a turnaround.

4a) WHY BAM'S FLAILING URBAN MACHINE RUNS AGROUND
By MARK CUNNINGHAM

IF it suddenly seems like the Obama campaign doesn't have any idea what it's doing, maybe that's because it doesn't.

Barack Obama has never run a campaign against a real Republican. And his main strategist, David Axelrod, is way out of his areas of expertise.

Axelrod specializes in urban politics. He's run a bunch of mayoral races (usually in cities with lots of blacks), plus contests in true-blue states like Massachusetts and New York.

And his favorite guns may well misfire now.

New Yorkers may recall that he was on the Freddy Ferrer team - and how the class-warfare theme of "the Two New Yorks" managed to lose the 2005 mayoral race in a city that's overwhelmingly Democratic. (Yes, Bloomberg had his billions - but he was beatable.)

Nor did the same shtick do much for Axelrod client John Edwards, who didn't exactly score big with "the Two Americas" in the Democrats' 2004 presidential primaries.

The left-populism did work for Deval Patrick in the People's Republic of Massachusetts - but, again, an early caucus victory was vital to getting the nomination, as was the fact that the primary featured two white candidates. (And the general was a four-way race, with a Republican nominee unimpressive even by the low standards of the Bay State GOP.)

By the way, it's not much of a governing philosophy: After less than a year on the job, Patrick has job-approval ratings to rival President Bush's.

The approach appeals to Democrats - consultant Bob Shrum spent his career selling it to one candidate after another. But it just doesn't sell with the great American middle: Shrum's presidential candidates invariably lost.

Axelrod is also known for playing the race card, but that can backfire, big-time - especially when neither he nor Obama really has much feel for the political and cultural landscape of most of the nation.

Obama has lived a lot of places, but his adult life has been overwhelming "anti-Palin country" - urban and/or elite: here in New York as a Columbia undergrad, and later with NYPIRG; Cambridge, Mass., for Harvard; Chicago.

You start to see why he couldn't name a single right-wing friend when Bill O'Reilly asked. And how he unleashed that idiotic comment about how small-town people "cling to guns or religion."

A race against a serious Republican might have awakened him to this weakness - but he's never been in one before. In Illinois, he was the surprise winner of the 2004 primary for the Senate, in part because two white candidates split the vote.

In the general, he basically had it won once a Chicago paper took down the GOP nominee by getting a court to unseal unseemly divorce papers, and the local Republicans then tapped Alan Keyes - a carpet-bagging right-wing performance artist - as their standard-bearer.

So it's not such a mystery that the mean machine of the Democratic primaries, which stole the nomination away from Sen. Hillary Clinton, is sputtering so badly now.

Nor does Joe Biden bring much wider experience to the Obama campaign. He left Scranton at age 10, and his real home since 1973 has been the US Senate.

Of course, the polls are still tight, with McCain-Palin swimming against a strong Democratic tide. The Republicans may yet implode or somehow get taken out by Obama's acolytes in the press.

But Barack Obama would be a fool to bet on any of that. Instead, he should make an executive decision - and bring on board some Democratic talent that actually has a clue of how to fight to win this race.

4b)Palin is A Powerful New Feminist Force by Camille Paglia, The Salon

The Election Is Now All About Obama - Dick Morris, The Hill

McCain Bounce Has Democrats Off Balance - Wallsten & Hook, LA Times

Could Clinton Have Palin-Proofed Dems? - G. Thrush & M. Kady, Politico

Gov. Palin and the GOP Resurrection - Tony Blankley, Washington Times

Don't Be Swept Away By the Palin Hype - Jerry Lanson, CS Monitor

GOP Shouldn't Turn Palin Into Obama - Philip Klein, American Spectator

'Pit Bull' Palin Raises Biting Questions by Clarence Page, Chicago Tribune

The Palin Problem by Maureen Dowd, New York Times

Democrats in Trouble by Dick Morris, New York Post

Will McCain's Bounce Last? - John Judis, The New Republic

McCain Camp Perfects Its Outrage Over Sexism - John Dickerson, Slate

Trig Palin's Breakthrough - Michael Gerson, Washington Post

World Verdict Will Be Harsh If US Rejects Obama - J. Freedland, Guardian

Treatment of Palin Stirring a Backlash? - Michael Goodwin, NY Daily News

Pop! Why the Obama Bubble Has Collapsed by James Pethokoukis


The Obama campaign seems to have experienced a "Minsky Moment." That, as any financial bubblologist worth his weight in tulips knows, is the particular point in time when no more "greater fools" can be found to support a bubble and a Great Deflation finally begins. Sssssss. (The financial phenomenon is named after economist Hyman Minksy.)

Now Obama's Minsky Moment is morphing into the McCain Moment. The evidence? Here goes: 1) The final 10 national polls in June had Barack Obama up by an average of 7 percentage points. The past eight polls this month have John McCain up by a bit more than 2 points, according to RealClearPolitics. 2) Right around the same time that Obama's polling lead was entering landslide territory in June, his odds of victory over at the Intrade betting markets were hovering at a sky-high 70 percent. Today, Obama's chances are right around 50-50 vs. McCain. 3) And now, according to a New York Times story yesterday, the deluge of donations has started drying up: "Pushing a fundraiser later this month, a finance staff member sent a sharply worded note last week to Illinois members of its national finance committee, calling their recent efforts 'extremely anemic.'"

Speculative bubbles have come in many different varieties: flowers, railway shares, Florida property, Beanie Babies, comic books, technology stocks, exurb McMansions. Does Candidate Obama qualify? Well, the candidate does sound a bit like a lot of the hot Internet companies back in the late 1990s. Not much of a track record. Lots of media hype. Parabolic ascent. And now a stomach-dropping decline.

Maybe that's all a bit too cynical. But take a look at the following description of a bubblicious scenario from the preface of the 1841 classic Extraordinary Delusions and the Madness of Crowds by Charles Mackay. Tell me it doesn't sound like Peak Obamamania, from celebrity-packed, will.i.am YouTube videos to weak-kneed supporters at rallies (bold is mine):

In reading the history of nations, we find that, like individuals, they have their whims and their peculiarities; their seasons of excitement and recklessness, when they care not what they do. We find that whole communities suddenly fix their minds upon one object, and go mad in its pursuit; that millions of people become simultaneously impressed with one delusion, and run after it, till their attention is caught by some new folly more captivating than the first.... Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, and one by one.

Two events firm the Obama-tech stock analogy in my mind. First is Obama's selection of Joe Biden as his running mate. (This may have been the exact Minsky Moment for Obama.) The logic behind the move was that Mr. Change needed to be balanced by Mr. Experience. New Economy Obama acquires Old Economy Biden. It reminds one of the January 2000 purchase of Time Warner by AOL, a combination which turned out to be a synergistic dud. The amateur explainers at Wikipedia got this one spot-on: "The acquisition thus became a symbol of the dot-coms' challenge to "old economy" companies and the old economy's ultimate survival. The revolutionary optimism of the boom faded, and analysts once again recognized the relevance of traditional business thinking."

Has the "revolutionary optimism" of Obamamania faded? Let's turn to a second event. I was recently chatting with a top Obama adviser who was explaining in detail the campaign's ambitious 50-state strategy, how legions of Obamamaniacs were turning up in the reddest counties of the red states. If that was all true, I asked him, how come the polls were so close? If Obama was surging in places where John Kerry and Al Gore got clobbered, shouldn't the Democratic nominee be ahead by a country mile? The only answer I got was something about how the structure of the American electorate is historically biased against Democrats.

Huh? I felt like a Wall Street analyst during the tech boom sitting through a glitzy PowerPoint presentation—filled with buzzwords like "stickiness" and "eyeballs" and, of course, "sticky eyeballs"—who finally had the temerity to ask: "So if things are so great, why aren't you making any money?" It's like the old joke, "Sure, we lose money on each sale, but we make up for it on volume!" (The adviser finally admitted that Obama hadn't closed the deal on national security.)

Is Obama doomed to go from hero to zero, bubble to complete bust? I don't think so. Politicians, unlike stocks, don't go to zero—though Howard Dean did come awfully close in the 2004 Democratic primaries. Obama is still neck-and-neck with McCain. And just as investors slowly drifted back to the survivors of the tech wreck—Yahoo, Amazon, eBay—so might former Obama supporters who moved to "undecided" or to McCain. But just as burned investors wanted to see hard sales and earnings before they jumped back in, potential Obama returnees may want to know in greater detail what Obama is going to do about high gas prices, the housing bust, Afghanistan, and budget reform. I will add, however, that back in the spring, a top GOP political analyst told me that while Hillary Clinton was a candidate who, if nominated, would win or lose by a narrow margin, Obama could win or lose by 10.

Plus, the GOP may be experiencing its own bubble right now in the rising popularity of McCain running mate Sarah Palin. Maybe "Sarah America" is an example of what Mackay meant by "some new folly more captivating than the first." Maybe American politics has become like the economy, one bubble seemingly leading to another. Maybe. But by the time this latest bubble begins to leak, the election may already be over.

5)An Obituary printed in the London Times........ Interesting and
sadly rather true

Today we mourn the passing of a beloved old friend, Common Sense, who has
been with us for many years. No one knows for sure how old he was, since
his birth records were long ago lost in bureaucratic red tape. He will be
remembered as having cultivated such valuable lessons as:
Knowing when to come in out of the rain;
Why the early bird gets the worm;
Life isn't always fair;
and maybe it was my fault.

Common Sense lived by simple, sound financial policies (don't spend more
than you can earn) and reliable strategies (adults, not children, are in
charge).

His health began to deteriorate rapidly when well-intentioned but
overbearing regulations were set in place. Reports of a 6-year-old boy
charged with sexual harassment for kissing a classmate; teens suspended
from school for using mouthwash after lunch; and a teacher fired for
reprimanding an unruly student, only worsened his condition.

Common Sense lost ground when parents attacked teachers for doing the job
that they themselves had failed to do in disciplining their unruly children.

It declined even further when schools were required to get parental consent
to administer sun lotion or an Aspirin to a student; but could not inform
parents when a student became pregnant and wanted to have an abortion.

Common Sense lost the will to live as the churches became businesses; and
criminals received better treatment than their victims.

Common Sense took a beating when you couldn't defend yourself from a
burglar in your own home and the burglar could sue you for assault.

Common Sense finally gave up the will to live, after a woman failed to
realize that a steaming cup of coffee was hot. She spilled a little in her
lap, and was promptly awarded a huge settlement.

Common Sense was preceded in death, by his parents, Truth and Trust, by his
wife, Discretion, by his daughter, Responsibility, and by his son, Reason.

He is survived by his 4 stepbrothers;
I Know My Rights
I Want It Now
Someone Else Is To Blame
I'm A Victim

Not many attended his funeral because so few realized he was gone. If you
still remember him, pass this on. If not, join the majority and do nothing.