Body Parts

McCain, Obama, Theodore Roosevelt, and the Strenuous Life

Does TR's address to the Hamilton Club of Chicago, in April 1899 provide the kind of message to which McCain responds when McCain says that he admires the first Roosevelt president? TR calls for Americans, as individuals, and America, as a nation, to step courageously and vigorously onto the world stage, to accept the responsibility that history had imposed on them. Shed its rhetorical anachronisms about empire, Roosevelt's speech foreshadowed a theme and a tone that JFK would announce, in his inaugural address in 1961, that a new generation had accepted. 

Roosevelt condemns the man who shirks effort and hard work, instead falling upon ease and comfort. Similarly, he contrasts the nation that retreats inside its borders, "taking no interest in what goes on beyond them, sunk in a scrambling commercialism; heedless of the higher life, the life of aspiration, of toil and risk, busying ourselves only with the wants of our bodies for the day," to the nation that courageously grasps the sacrifice necessary to make the world a better place.

"The timid man, the lazy man, the man who distrusts his country, the over-civilized man, who has lost the great fighting, masterful virtues, the ignorant man, and the man of dull mind, whose soul is incapable of feeling the mighty lift that thrills "stern men with empires in their brains"—all these, of course, shrink from seeing the nation undertake its new duties; shrink from seeing us build a navy and an army adequate to our needs; shrink from seeing us do our share of the world's work, by bringing order out of chaos..."   

"If we are to be a really great people, we must strive in good faith to play a great part in the world. We cannot avoid meeting great issues. All that we can determine for ourselves is whether we shall meet them well or ill."

Of our present candidates for president, who is the timid man, the man who distrusts his country, the over-civilized man?

Texas GOP Answers Obama on McCain's Houses

This is a jagged dagger. Obama has earned this ad.

(Thanks to Hot Air.)

Obama True Believers Drive Away White Democratic Support With Racial References

Every time an Obama fanatic makes a racial accusation against a black or white Democrat who does not support Obama, another legion of white voters turns away from Obama. And I'm doubtful that the racial card will play well with Latinos, either. The Latino voters most likely to vote are second generation and on the ladder of upward mobility. Most are making it in the private sector, many by owning their own business. They aspire to join the middle and upper middle class occupied by most white voters. They identify with that class, want to live in their neighborhoods, and have the economic and social benefits that come from leaving the barrio. We can see their aspirations in the vast sweep of the many Latino moveups in the new housing developments in inland Southern California. Many of these voters will take umbrage at the use of racist catcalls, for fear that an intensification of the race atmosphere of the country will impede their social advance. You watch for the polls on this issue; dollars to donuts, I am correct on this issue.

Obama Says It's Biden. Yawn. B-o-r-i-n-g.

Joe Biden is a boring pick by Obama for his vice-presidential running mate. Worse, Biden brings no positive advantage to the Obama team. Why?

1. Biden is a Senator. The Senate is an insulated cocoon where egos expand to fill the podium available. Biden has experience in foreign relations and the judiciary; but his experience is not built upon any significant professional experience outside of politics. He has been in the Senate since 1972. His entire career is as a professional politician. He blurs Obama's image as a post-partisan politician.
2. Biden would beef up the foreign relations credentials of an Obama ticket, but not of Obama himself. Americans aren't going to choose a president who would simply hand off his foreign relations responsibility to someone else.
3. Biden has never served in the military in any capacity. He has never commanded men and women who might die performing his commands. Americans aren't going to choose a president who selects a vice president who is not ready to step into the presidency and be commander in chief.
4. Biden is an old white man. He will be 66 years old in November. He smudges Obama's shine as a new young face in politics. How can Obama bitch that McCain is too old, when he has picked Biden; Biden's over the line which marks that youthfulness is irretrievably gone.
5. Biden is smart, but he is not brilliant. He's a talker, who talks and talks and talks. When talking off script, he's as prone to gaffes as Obama. His prolix style will smudge Obama's glory as a great orator.
6. Biden will not bring a large swing state into Obama's column.
7. Biden has never run an organization. He has never had to stand alone and make an executive decision for which he has had solely to bear full responsibility.
8. Biden's candidacy for the presidency has twice been rejected by the American people in one form or another. He has been tested and found not ready to serve.

Obama's choice of Biden shows poor political and practical judgment on Obama's part.  Obama reveals how little he understands the perception of common Americans that the Senate and its Senators are in a world apart from them, a world in which their own vanity, unopposed by any nonpolitical forces of reality, expands, puffs, and searches for its image in the mirror of public relations. Biden is an uninspired choice that holds no promise for the choices Obama would make, if elected, for his cabinet.

No one woke up this Saturday morning and said, WOW! I can hardly wait to vote for the Obama-Biden ticket! Really, no one. No woman woke up and said, WOW! I'm so glad he didn't pick Hillary, 'cause Biden is THE MAN! Really, no woman did. No black person woke up this morning and said, WOW! Thank goodness he chose this old white guy, 'cause there aren't any interesting black or women or Latino or Asian politicians or military heroes or business executives or you name it who might be suitable as vice president.

The pick of Biden is indicative of the hollowness of Obama's candidacy. The selection will be viewed as one more step toward Obama's defeat. If one wants McCain to win, as I do, the choice is good for Republicans. Biden will turn the Obama campaign into a leaden sinker as effectively as any one could.

Update. August 24, 2008. The AP recites the list of liabilities that Biden brings to the Obama campaign.

Update. August 24, 2008. Rasmussen polls voters of both parties for their reaction to the selection of Biden. It's *yawn* everywhere. Ominously, a majority of young voters, who have been the core of Obama's constituency, are not signing onto Biden. My prediction: on election day in November, the overwhelming majority of young voters will not vote. Obama will be left only with black voters and cultural liberals, two smallish groups in the American political spectrum.

Update. August 25, 2008. CNN/Opinion Poll shows Obama and McCain even after Biden pick, with Hillary supporters alienated by the Biden pick. I told you so, above.

Former Presidential Candidate Edwards' Infidelity Just Sad Pain For His Family

I don't take any pleasure in the exposure of Edwards' infidelity; I simply feel sad for the pain his family must have felt, when they first learned of it, and the pain they feel now in its public exposure--pain that is added to the private suffering of his wife's struggle with cancer. It takes a special kind of ego to be a politician. It does not take a special kind of ego to be unfaithful to one's spouse and family; infidelity is as common as mud, as sin; nothing special about it.

The Political Qualities and Character of Obama and McCain, Summed Up

A long analysis and comparison of Obama's and McCain's political qualities and career and character, by Dan McLaughlin. An argument that will probably appear considerate of both men and credible to conservative and moderate voters. No rational argument will persuade the true believers of Obama's candidacy. (Thanks, Victory Caucaus.)

Paris Hilton's Response Video to McCain's Use of Her Image in a Campaign Ad

She's funny and having fun. She has a sense of humor. She has been the object of ridicule and displays a happy worldliness, with a subtle hint of self-deprecation. She is much to be contrasted to Obama, with his holy persona and his holy campaign ads. He, for sure, has no public sense of humor. God help us. Couldn't the Dems nominate Paris. After all, she's hot and, even if they lose, they'll always have Paris ...

Obama's Failure to Visit Wounded Troops at Landstuhl

There is no excuse for Obama not to visit Landstuhl Hospital. None. Obama should have gone, privately, by himself as a Senator, without publicity, and spent hours with the troops, not minutes. It is not an excuse to say that he has visited wounded soldiers in Walter Reed, for the visit to Landstuhl was one he requested and was approved. He failed an important test of being (as he is posing for, if not rehearsing) commander in chief. Remember that President Bush has met a number of times with families of killed US troops in private meetings without publicity. McCain has similarly met with wounded troops.  And after 9-11, Mayor Guiliani visited many injured soldiers and fireman and attended  over a hundred funerals. When a commander orders soldiers into battle, he (or she) should be there for them when they return. And he should give the soldiers complete confidence that he will be. Obama just doesn't get it.

Update. July 30, 2008. Better said by Sergeant Major Craig Layton.

McCain's Black Daughter

At Gateway Pundit.

Are Voters for McCain and Against Obama "Racists"?

Matthew May explores this issue at a personal level in American Thinker. I concur with his judgment. May knows he's not. I know I'm not. Other voters for McCain should not be presumed to be racists. I will be voting for McCain, not reluctantly, and against Obama. I will, however, vote against Obama reluctantly, because I would like to vote for this charismatic black politician. Over the years, I've voted for other black politicians at the local, state, and national levels. I voted repeatedly for my black city councilman representing my black neighborhood. I voted Peace and Freedom Party. I voted for Jesse Jackson. I've even voted for black politicians I couldn't admire, but for whom I voted as a symbolic statement. But Obama is different. We are now, as he says, a "post-race" nation; the necessity to vote black as a matter of racial protest is history. Absent that necessity, Obama fails nearly every important political test I expect of him. His political history and his political and religious affiliations (the ugly Reverend Wright especially), regardless whether he obtained them opportunistically as he worked his way up the ladder of Chicago politics, I cannot trust. His Left political philosophy, echoing the offensive socialist/populist ideology of the 1960s, regardless whether he obtained it in shallow political opportunism, I reject as an abomination and a threat to the security of America. If the Left and the Obama Liberals wish to label me as racist for my view of their man and my intended vote for McCain, they can do so; I don't personally care. I'm only sorry for America that Obama's effort to construct a "post-race" political campaign should be dragged by his own followers back into the muck of Liberal race-guilt politics. America's blacks will suffer for it.