From the New York Daily News. John McCain hammered Barack Obama Thursday as a military know-nothing who shied away from service after being accused by the Democrat of going AWOL on helping veterans. In a blistering attack, McCain told Obama to butt out on lecturing him about funding college aid for vets in a new version of the G.I. bill that passed the Senate 75-22. "I will not accept from Sen. Obama, who did not feel it was his responsibility to serve our country in uniform, any lectures on my regard for those who did," McCain said in a statement. McCain, who had an ugly dustup with Obama last year over judicial appointments, said it was "typical" of his likely November rival to "use the Senate floor to take cheap shots at an opponent and easy advantage of an issue he has less than zero understanding of." After citing his own Navy service and five years as a POW in Hanoi, McCain said that "if Sen. Obama would take the time and trouble to understand this issue, he would learn to debate an honest disagreement respectfully."
Friday, May 23, 2008
Gloves Off
Disgrace
It's a disgrace.
After more than a decade as the ultimate Democratic Party insider, Hillary Rodham Clinton finds herself in a strange place: on the outside looking in, beseeching party leaders to help keep her White House bid alive. In campaign appearances through south Florida, Clinton called out her own party's leadership, urging them to restore national convention delegates to Florida and Michigan. . . . "We're asking the Democratic National Committee to make sure they count all of your votes," she said at a Miami rally Wednesday night. In years past, the Clintons didn't have to ask the DNC for anything; they just told the committee what to do.
Downashore?
Goin downashore this weekend?
It Ain't Summer Yet!
I don't know who came up with the notion that the summer begins on Memorial Day but all this stuff about summer kicking off this weekend is nothing but a hoax.
Thursday, May 22, 2008
'A Few Old Jews'
"It's all going to boil down to a few old Jews in Century Village."
This quote comes from Rabbi Ruvi New of East Boca Raton, Fla., in a story in today's New York Times. Here are some other snippets:
At the Aberdeen Golf and Country Club on Sunday, the fountains were burbling, the man-made lakes were shining, and Shirley Weitz and Ruth Grossman were debating why Jews in this gated neighborhood of airy retirement homes feel so much trepidation about Senator Barack Obama.
“The people here, liberal people, will not vote for Obama because of his attitude towards Israel,” Ms. Weitz, 83, said, lingering over brunch.
“They’re going to vote for McCain,” she said . . . the resistance toward Mr. Obama appears to be rooted in something more than factual misperception; even those with an accurate understanding of Mr. Obama share the hesitations. In dozens of interviews, South Florida Jews questioned his commitment to Israel . . . “You watch George Bush for a day, and you know where he stands,” said Rabbi Jonathan Berkun of the Aventura Turnberry Jewish Center . . .
Some voters even see parallels between Mr. Obama’s foreign policy positions and his choice of pastor — in both cases, a tendency to venture too close to questionable characters.
“The fundamentals of meeting with Iran are the same as the fundamentals of meeting with Rev. Wright,” said Joe Limansky, 69, of Boca Raton . . .
[Democrat Congressman Robert] Wexler said he had constituents who voted for Al Smith, the first Catholic presidential nominee, in 1928, “and they’ve never voted for a Republican since.”
“They are not going to vote for Senator John McCain,” he added.
Still, Mr. Wexler admits, he has not yet been able to persuade his in-laws to vote for Mr. Obama.
Fightin Spirit
Robert Novak says
"McCain won't play by Obama's rules." Here's more:
The shorthand, widely repeated by the news media, is that the Republican candidate must not "Swift boat" Obama. That amounts to unilateral political disarmament by McCain.
McCain is not about to disarm. His campaign has no intention of fighting this battle on Democratic turf. During the more than five months ahead, Republicans will explore the mindset of this young man who is a stranger to most Americans. That includes his association with the Chicago leftist William Ayers, who has remained unrepentant about his violent role as a 1960s radical. This will not be popular with McCain's erstwhile admirers in the mainstream news media, but America has not heard the last of Bill Ayers in this campaign.
The Juggernaut
A story in Britain's Telegraph has the Obama camp already measuring the drapes at 1600. According to this report the Obamaniacs are convinced they've created a juggernaut that will crush McCain. They feel the inevitability of the OH!man's triumph should be evident to everyone. Here's part of the story:
Although publicly heaping praise on Hillary Clinton, Mr Obama’s Democratic rival, and carefully avoiding putting pressure on her to drop out before the final states vote on June 3rd, the Illinois senator’s staff is impatient to launch a full-scale offensive against Mr McCain.
But they believe that the ferocious fight Mrs Clinton has put up has helped them build an organization of unprecedented strength.
“I don’t think John McCain realizes what he’s in for,” said one adviser. “We’ve created a juggernaut,” said another, “and it’s going to overwhelm him.”
They cite their Internet fundraising operation, the grassroots organising network that secured victory over Mrs Clinton by winning a series of caucus states and hundreds of thousands of idealistic young volunteers as crucial advantages over Mr McCain.
And here's a quote from Joe Trippi that's also part of the story:
“Obama’s got the strongest organisation in history because of what he’s done with the Internet and plugging volunteers into the paid organisers operation. McCain’s team is in a shambles. He has no organisation and no grassroots fundraising operation.”
Surely you remember Joe Trippi, don't you? Trippi's the wunderkind who was gonna make Howard Dean President of the United States.
Remember Howard Dean? He's now the Chair of the Democrat National Committee and the guy who's made the mess of the party delegate rules -- the rules that have left the voters of Florida and Michigan virtually disenfranchised.
Frankly, if I were McCain, I'd rather have Dean, Trippi and the Obamaniacs mucho confident right now. That's just about where they ought to be.
To me it seems like everything's right on schedule.
This Is A Fact
Since the Wisconsin primary in February Hillary Clinton has garnered nearly 800,000 more popular votes than Barack Obama - nearly eight hundred thousand!
Facts are funny things.
And they are hard to refute.
Remember: All the flowery rhetoric in the world and all the sloganeering cannot change this one fact.
Did She Miss Something?
I know that we're not supposed to discuss Michelle Obama (yet another topic deemed "off limits" by the OH!man) but I can't resist passing along this question that Pultizer Prize-winning columnist George Will poses to Obama about Michelle and her recent comments:
Michelle, who was born in 1964, says that most Americans' lives have"gotten progressively worse since I was a little girl." Since 1960,real per capita income has increased 143 percent, life expectancy has increased by seven years, infant mo rtality has declined 74 percent, deaths from heart disease have been halved, childhood leukemia has stopped being a death sentence, depression has become a treatable disease, air and water pollution have been drastically reduced, the number of women earning a bachelor's degree has more than doubled, the rate of home ownership has increased 10.2 percent, the size of the average American home has doubled, the percentage of homes with air conditioning has risen from 12 to 77, the portion of Americans who own shares of stock has quintupled. Has your wife perhaps missed some pertinent developments in this country that she calls "just downright mean"?
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
Ka Boom!
Justlikethat we've quickly logged our 9,000th visitor on this site.
And our numbers ccontinue to grow.
Thank you for helping to make us such a big success.
Just within the past few days the site has had visitors from Mexico, Ireland, Brazil, England, Pakist and and Japan. And within the United States we've had visitors from border to border and coast to coast.
Keep spreading the word!
Koch: Appeasement It Is
From Mayor Ed Koch:
Recently, President Bush went to Israel to celebrate its 60th birthday as a nation and addressed its parliament, the Knesset. He said, "Some seem to believe that we should negotiate with the terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along. We have an obligation to call this what it is: the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history."
Bush's remarks were heavily criticized by leading Democrats, particularly Barack Obama, who said, "Now that's exactly the kind of appalling attack that's divided our country and that alienates us from the world."
Really? Is it wrong to call the philosophy supporting negotiating at the highest levels - President to President without pre-conditions -- with the terrorists and radicals by its rightful name - appeasement?
The President was accurate in my opinion in recalling the specter of Neville Chamberlain's pre-World War II efforts to satisfy Adolf Hitler. Those efforts responded to Hitler's siren call that all he wanted was the Sudetenland, with Chamberlain responding, "yes," and returning to Britain waving a paper and announcing, "peace in our time." Must we really learn the terrible lesson of Munich all over again seventy years later?
Israel and the Western world are in great danger from a declared enemy that knows no limits when it comes to achieving its goal of destroying Western civilization and spreading militant Islam through threats and terrorism throughout the world.
Read Mayor Koch's entire column by clicking here.
That Country Crowd
Watching the Academy of Country Music Awards the other night I started thinking about how many of country's current crop of stars seem inauthentic. And, I'm also troubled by the fact that these awards shows rarely showcase country's best.
Thoroughbred
Hillary Clinton won a spectacular victory in Kentucky last night once again defeating Obama by more than two-to-won and winning nearly every demographic group.
At this same point in his campaign John McCain was easily besting his opponents.
But Obama just can't seem to do that,
What's remarkable about the Democrat race is how little it's changed from the beginning. Obama and Clinton voters each remain firmly alligned in their own camps. There has really been very little movement. In fact Hillary voters have actually solidified behind her (and still come out in large numbers) while Obama has seen some erosion, particularly among white voters who don't happen to be wealthy.
In the exit poll in Kentucky MORE THAN ONE THIRD of Kentucky Democrats say that in an Obama/McCain November matchup they will vote for McCain. If you don't think that's enough to deliver Kentucky to McCain you don't know how to count!
Teddy
I was sorry to hear the news about Senator Ted Kennedy today and join with so many others in wishing him strength, hope and a complete recovery as he battles Cancer. Only last week in my Philadelphia Daily News column I talked about how I supported Kennedy's quest for the presidency in 1980. The Democrat Party would have been wise to chuck Carter and nominate Kennedy that year. The party probably would have had a more successful future. Instead the party stayed with Carter and tumbled into a downward spiral that (save for the two Clinton terms) has not abated. Carter set the stage for Mondale, Dukakis, Gore and Kerry --all losers. Last year when it was announced that Ted Kennedy would finally write his memoirs I welcomed the news and hoped that Teddy would tell us some of his survival secrets. I said this: Whatever you may feel about Teddy he has certainly known the highs and the lows and it's fair to say he's been through hell over the course of his 75 years. Maybe he'll give us some insight as to where and how he got the strength to carry on.
I hope Ted Kennedy will be able to look forward to more chapters of his life -- inspiring, successful chapters -- ahead of him.
Appeasement Flap
Caroline Glick in The Jerusalem Post and at Real Clear Politics:
Obama's response to Bush's speech was an effective acknowledgement that appeasing Iran and other terror sponsors is a defining feature of his campaign and of his political persona. As far as he is concerned, an attack against appeasement is an attack against Obama . . .
Since the definition of appeasement is to reward others for their bad behavior, and since the US has refused for 29 years to reward the Iranians for their bad behavior by having presidential summits with Iranian leaders, Obama's pledge represents a massive act of appeasement. And since it is Iran's illicit nuclear weapons program that would bring a President Barack Obama to the table, his policy would invite nuclear blackmail by other countries by signaling to them that the US rewards nuclear proliferators . . .
In many ways, Obama and his allies call to mind the influential American newspaperman H.L. Mencken. In the 1920s and early 1930s, Mencken was the most influential writer in the US. He was an anti-Christian and anti-Semitic agnostic, a supporter of Germany during World War I, and a fierce opponent of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's New Deal. He also opposed American participation in World War II.
In his biography of Mencken, The Skeptic: A Life of H.L. Mencken, Terry Teachout argues that the reason Mencken did not think it was worth fighting Hitler's Germany was because Mencken simply couldn't accept the existence of evil. He could see no moral distinction between Roosevelt, who he despised, and Adolf Hitler who he considered "a boob."
There are strong echoes of Mencken's moral blindness to Hitler's evil in the contemporary Left's refusal to understand the nature of the threat posed by Iran and its terror proxies. And Bush made this clear in his speech to the Knesset when he said, "There are good and decent people who cannot fathom the darkness in these men and try to explain away their words. It's natural, but it is deadly wrong."
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
'Reckless'
From McCain campiagn manager Rick Davis:
John McCain has made it very clear that we will not negotiate with terrorist organizations. By conducting a presidential meeting with the leader of Iran - the world's largest state sponsor of terrorism - as Senator Obama wants to do, we would legitimize a regime that is dedicated to the extinction of Israel and is responsible for the death of brave young Americans.
And it doesn't stop with Iran. Barack Obama has said he would sit down, unconditionally, with the leaders of oppressive regimes around the world. Today, as many celebrate Cuban Independence Day, we are reminded how the Cuban people continue to live under tyranny on that imprisoned island. The Castro regime, for decades under Fidel and now under his brother Raul, enforces strict limits against freedom of expression, association, assembly, movement and speech. This regime led by Raul oppresses its people and regularly flaunts its hatred of the United States.Yet, Barack Obama said he would sit down unconditionally, with Raul Castro.
Jumping Ship
First, Senator Joe Liberman jumped ship to support his friend, John McCain.
Koch carries significant weight with many Jewish Democrats in New York and across the country. He also has a history of playing the maverick and crossing party lines. . .
Dream Candidate?
From the Washington Times:
"Osama bin Laden must be chuckling in his safe house," wrote Shireen Burki in the Christian Science Monitor yesterday.
"The 2008 campaign could very well give Al Qaeda the ultimate propaganda tool: President Barack Hussein Obama, Muslim apostate. The fact that Sen. Obama — son of a Muslim father — insists he was never a Muslim before becoming Christian is irrelevant to bin Laden. In bin Laden's eyes, Obama is a murtad fitri, the worst type of apostate, because he was blessed by Allah to be born into the true faith of Islam.
"Should Obama become U.S. commander-in-chief, there is a strong likelihood that Al Qaeda's media arm, As-Sahab, will exploit his background to argue that an apostate is leading the global war on terror (read: attacks against fellow Muslims). This perception would be leveraged to galvanize sympathizers into action.
"Al Qaeda, though, has struggled recently to recruit volunteers for this jihad. While bin Laden retains significant support as someone willing to stand up for Muslim concerns, most Muslims abhor Al Qaeda's terrorist methods, whose primary targets are innocent noncombatants.
"But an apostate as head of the United States could change this equation. It would be a propaganda boost for Al Qaeda's mission. All one has to do is read Al Qaeda's public statements to recognize how frequently it makes baseless apostasy accusations against fellow Muslims who challenge its message or actions.
"That's why Obama is bin Laden's dream candidate."
Ms. Burki, incidentally, is a political scientist at the University of Mary Washington and the daughter of a Muslim father and a Christian mother. She spent her childhood in Pakistan.
Gerry May Bolt!
From Don Frederick the LA Times politics blog:
Might fully one-third of the six surviving Democratic vice presidential nominees end up opposing their party's national ticket this November?
That possibility arose today based on comments Geraldine Ferraro, the 1984 Democratic veep candidate, made to The New York Times.
Sen. Joe Lieberman, who occupied the No. 2 slot for the Democrats in 2000, months ago declared for presumptive Republican White House nominee John McCain.
And Ferraro, a staunch Hillary Clinton supporter who sparked a brouhaha earlier this year over whether she made a racially dismissive remark about Barack Obama, apparently is no longer a reliable Democratic vote.
Ferraro, in the NYT story, terms Obama "terribly sexist." And, as a result, she says she may not be able to cast her ballot for him if, as anticipated, he gains the Democratic presidential nod.
BTW: Gerry was all over the morning shows this AM protesting sexism in the Dem Party and saying yes, indeed, she may withold support from the OH!man.
Too Much, Methinks . . .
Cartoon from 2008 Pulitzer Prize winner Michael Ramirez of Investor's Business Daily. Thanks, Michael, and congratulations once again on your well-deserved honor.
For more cartoons by Ramirez, click here.
Goodbye, Shining City!
From IVD, Investor's Business Daily:
Obama's support of ethanol subsidies, which McCain opposes, and opposition to domestic oil production contribute to the rising price of both food and fuel both here and abroad. But Obama has even bigger ideas, such as repealing the Industrial Revolution.
"We can't drive our SUVs and eat as much as we want and keep our homes on 72 degrees at all times . . . and then just expect that other countries are going to say, 'OK,' " Obama said. "That's not leadership. That's not going to happen."
Oh, really? Who's going to say we can't load up our SUVs and head out in search of bacon double cheeseburgers at the mall? China? India? Bangladesh?
Obama called on the U.S. to "lead by example" on global warming. But as we have noted repeatedly, America's record on both energy efficiency and controlling emissions of so-called greenhouse gas emissions already leads the world and beats the pants off Kyoto signatories such as members of the European Union.
Obama's remarks sound like defeated 2004 Democratic candidate John Kerry's global test for U.S. foreign policy decisions where "you have to do it in a way that passes the test — that passes the global test — where your countrymen, your people understand fully why you're doing what you're doing and you can prove to the world that you did it for legitimate reasons." . . . Obama is talking about taking Reagan's shining city on the hill and turning it into a little house on the prairie.
McCain: Obama 'Reckless'
From Towhall.com:
Republican John McCain accused Democrat Barack Obama of inexperience and reckless judgment for saying Iran does not pose the same serious threat to the United States as the Soviet Union did in its day.
The likely GOP presidential nominee made the criticism Monday in Chicago, Obama's home turf.
"Such a statement betrays the depth of Senator Obama's inexperience and reckless judgment. These are very serious deficiencies for an American president to possess," McCain said at the restaurant industry's annual meeting.
He was referring to comments Obama made Sunday in Pendleton, Ore.: "Iran, Cuba, Venezuela - these countries are tiny compared to the Soviet Union. They don't pose a serious threat to us the way the Soviet Union posed a threat to us. And yet we were willing to talk to the Soviet Union at the time when they were saying, `We're going to wipe you off the planet.'"
McCain's campaign on Monday distributed a video clip of Obama making the comments.
McCain listed the dangers he sees from Iran: It provides deadly explosive devices used to kill U.S. soldiers in Iraq, sponsors terrorists in Iraq and elsewhere in the Middle East and is committed to Israel's destruction.
"The threat the government of Iran poses is anything but tiny," McCain said.
Jersey Boy Fights Back!
From Klaus Marre at The Hill:
The White House on Monday sent a scathing letter to NBC News, accusing the news network of “deceptively” editing an interview with President Bush on the issue of appeasement and Iran.
At issue were remarks Bush made in front of Israel's parliament earlier this week.
Specifically, White House counselor Ed Gillespie [a home-bred Jersey boy] laments that the network edited the interview in a way that “is clearly intended to give viewers the impression that [Bush] agreed with [correspondent Richard Engel's] characterization of his remarks when he explicitly challenged it.
“This deceitful editing to further a media-manufactured storyline is utterly misleading and irresponsible and I hereby request in the interest of fairness and accuracy that the network air the President’s responses to both initial questions in full on the two programs that used the excerpts,” said Gillespie in the letter to NBC News President Steve Capus.
Gillespie used the opportunity to also inquire whether NBC News still believes that Iraq is in the midst of a civil war. In November 2006, the network decided to label the infighting in the country a “civil war.”
“I noticed that around September of 2007, your network quietly stopped referring to conditions in Iraq as a ‘civil war,’ ” Gillespie wrote. “Is it still NBC News’s carefully deliberated opinion that Iraq is in the midst of a civil war? If not, will the network publicly declare that the civil war has ended, or that it was wrong to declare it in the first place?”
Gillespie also hit NBC News on its reporting on the state of the economy.
“I’m sure you don’t want people to conclude that there is really no distinction between the ‘news’ as reported on NBC and the ‘opinion’ as reported on MSNBC, despite the increasing blurring of those lines,” Gillespie concluded. “I welcome your response to this letter, and hope it is one that reassures your broadcast network’s viewers that blatantly partisan talk show hosts like Christopher Matthews and Keith Olbermann at MSNBC don’t hold editorial sway over the NBC network news division.”
Monday, May 19, 2008
That Sinking Feeling
From From John P. Mcalpin in The Record:
The majority rules. Only 46 percent of New Jerseyans approve the job that Governor Corzine is doing as governor of the state.
And 61 percent believe those finances "pose a direct threat" to the quality of life here.
Corzine's overall approval rating now stands at 38 percent — a nine-point drop from January, when 47 percent gave him grades of either "excellent" or "good." Fifty-eight percent now rank his performance as "fair" or "poor."
The latest poll results come as Corzine is pushing another difficult state budget and preparing to redo his plan for restructuring state finances after an unpopular push to hike tolls.
No, We Can't!
Forget about eating as much as you want.
Forget about driving SUVs.
Forget about keeping your home at 72 degrees.
According to Barack Obama "That's just not going to happen" because "that's not leadership."
We can't do these things anymore "and expect that other countries are going to say 'OK'" according to the OH!man.
Obama said all this yesterday in a speech at Roseburg, Oregon.
So get ready to lower your sights, America. And get ready to change the way you live. And get ready to give up many of the personal freedoms that you hold dear.
Because Obama says: "We can't drive our SUVs and eat as much as we want and keep our homes on 72 degrees at all times ... and then just expect that other countries are going to say OK," Obama said.
"That's not leadership. That's not going to happen," he added.
The OH!man knows what's best for you. And he means to enforce it.
Understand?
Betrayal
From the Associated Press and MSNBC:
From young feminist activists to the grandmothers who embrace Clinton along the rope line at her campaign events, many women who voted in large numbers for the former first lady during the primaries have begun mourning the turn of events. They know their dream of electing a female president this year probably will not come to pass — and wonder when it ever will.
"For us, getting a woman elected is major," said Laurine Glynn, 72, of New York City. "We've waited, fought a lot for this. I do worry that my generation won't see a female president." . . .
"Women are feeling a lot of sadness, disappointment and some anger as they look back at what happened in this race," said Debbie Walsh, director of the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University . . .
Kate Michelman, the former president of NARAL who supports Obama, said Clinton didn't stand for the new direction that voters — including many women — now crave.
"Hillary Clinton represents the status quo at best, and keeps us rooted in a place we need to move from," Michelman said. "I've watched younger women come into their adult lives from a different set of experiences, and Hillary Clinton was not the president to make the transition to the newly inspired movement that we need."
Who the hell is Kate Michelman to tell women (or anyone else for that matter) who represents the "status quo" and who represents "new generations?" Since when did Michelman become the interpreter of the dreams, aspirations and likes and dislikes of young women?
Split Decision
From John Brummett in the Las Vegas Review-Journal:
Here's my latest fearless prediction, subject by pundit's license to changing at any point and certainly before mid-October, by which time the political dynamic could be far different from what it is now:
It is for a John McCain victory for president coupled with significant gains for Democrats in the House and Senate, perhaps sufficient in the latter chamber to overcome filibusters with the help of the two or three reasonable Republicans.
We might get a little actual governing done on health care and illegal immigrants. We might get moderate Supreme Court nominees. Of course the war in Iraq could go on, and on, and on.
Why a McCain victory?
Because presidential races are about one of two things -- a prevailing national mood or a prevailing national fear. The mood is all for the Democrats, but the fear is all of Barack Obama . . .
Obama isn't winning Reagan Democrats. He isn't winning rural white voters. He isn't winning blue-collar white voters. He may not ever be able to win them. He is seen by people in those demographics -- generally speaking, of course -- as either a Muslim or a member of a frightening Afro-centric Christian group.
He is seen as one who, like previous Democratic nominees Michael Dukakis and John Kerry, is culturally alien to simple, down-home American middle-class values.
That being the case, he loses West Virginia and Ohio and Arkansas and Missouri and everything Democratic presidential candidates always lose in general elections.
Golden Boy
Forget about the OH!man.
With his golden locks and dazzling smile, Jean Sarkozy looks like a film star - he happens to be a keen amateur actor - and has inherited his father’s political ambition. Now he is playing the leading role in a drama that they are calling “the rise of the dauphin”.
As tens of thousands of students and teachers took to the streets last week to protest at the president’s plans to cut teaching jobs and streamline the civil service, Jean, a town councillor in Neuilly, the affluent Parisian suburb in which he was born, staged his own piece of political theatre. It was designed to show that not all young people were against his father’s economic reforms.
He launched the first in a series of meetings called “jeudis jeunes” - “young Thursdays” - in a cafe where young conservatives were invited to question prominent government members and other celebrity guests.
“The idea is to show young people that you can get involved in politics,” said Jean, 21, referring to youths who did not feel attracted to the left. “It irritates me that when you are young it’s always easier to carry the banner of the left or the extreme left. But it is possible for young people to have other convictions.”
Sunday, May 18, 2008
NARAL Stumbles
From Beth Frerking at Politico:
With the clock running down on a long-fought primary, NARAL Pro-Choice America leaders sent state affiliates reeling this week by endorsing Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois. It was seen as a gratuitous slap in the face to a longtime ally, and it sparked a fear even closer to home: that the move will alienate donors loyal to Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York.
Many on this week’s conference call were stunned on learning the news, making urgent pleas for the group to remain neutral until after the June 3 Democratic primaries. “It’s created a firestorm,” said NARAL Pro-Choice New York President Kelli Conlin, who was on the conference call. “Everyone was mystified ... saying, ‘What is the upside for the organization? And, frankly, [there was] a lot of concern about the donor base. ... There was real concern there would be a backlash.” There was a backlash, and it was swift, starting with NARAL’s own website. At last count, there were more than 3,300 comments in an electronic chat about the endorsement, the overwhelming majority of them negative. “Shame shame shame!” read one, with many correspondents threatening never to support NARAL financially again. “No more donations from me!!!” wrote another.
Viguerie: Resign!
From Newsmax:
The Republican Party must replace its leadership or conservatives will continue to withhold support and the GOP will face “disaster” in November, leading conservative activist Richard A. Viguerie declared.
“Republican Party leaders must resign,” said Viguerie, publisher of ConservativeHQ.com and the pioneer of political direct mail.
“Leaders in the White House, the Congress, and the Republican National Committee and its affiliates, along with most Republican leaders at the state level, have failed — or outright betrayed — the conservative voters who put them in their positions . . .
“Republicans are doomed to wander in the political wilderness until this generation of weak-kneed, no-vision, inarticulate, afraid-of-the-liberal-media politicians are replaced with principled conservatives in the mold of Bill Buckley, Barry Goldwater, and Ronald Reagan.”
Viguerie has this message for the current GOP leadership: “For the future of the Republican Party, for America, and the cause of freedom: Go!”
Otto!
His was a name that gave Hollywood actors, writers, camera
men and others a chill of fear: Otto!
It could only be one person: Otto Preminger, aka Otto the Terrible.
Now, I've just finished reading Foster Hirsch's big new biography of Preminger, Otto, The Man Who Would Be King and I've found it to be an in-depth, fascinating read.
Otto was known for his tantrums. And Hirsch speculates that the root of Otto's legendary temper was buried deep in his indulged Austrian childhood. Otto's loving, benevolent parents produced a child who simply Knew He Was Very Special and who grew up to become a great Hollywood producer and director and a master promoter of his own plays and movies.
Preminger was also a proud American and a very proud (though non-observant) Jew who successfully brought Leon Uris' "Exodus" to the screen. A shrewd businessman, he always brought his films in on-time and under budget.
Among Preminger's more notable movies are classics such as Laura, Anatomy Of A Murder, The Man With The Golden Arm, In Harm's Way, Advise And Consent and his last, underrated film, The Human Factor.
He was a formal, imposing figure whose persona masked a kinder, softer side: a passionate lover, a devoted father, a loyal friend, a dedicated defender of artistic freedom and a knowledgeable epicurean and world-traveller.
His story is worth the read.
Otto truly was Bigger Than Life!