Wall Street Journal video: A Liberal Super Majority

A video version of The Journal's editorial of the same title published in the past week. We can only pray that these predictions do not come to pass.

Tony Blair: Bush is "colorblind"

Following Sen. Obama's Tuesday speech on race, Jonah Goldberg has a post over at The Corner:

Goldberg:

“Obamaniacs think conservatives just don't get it, that we're mired in the past, that we are motivated by old passions and bigotries. We can't get swept up in the Obama "movement" because we don't want or can't imagine a post-racial America, blah, blah, blah, blah. The truth, as Ross suggests, is that we very much can imagine a post-racial America.”

And here’s a perfect example of what Goldberg is talking about. This is from a recent article, previously discussed in this space, written by Bob Geldof, when Geldof accompanied President Bush on his recent tour of Africa:

Geldof: "I spoke to Blair about you before I came on the plane."

Bush: "Tony Blair? What'd he say?"

Geldof: "He said you don't see color. To remember that you employed the first black secretaries of state, that your worldview had changed since you began, and that Condi was a big influence with regard to Africa."

That’s the kind of colorblind The FDC, Goldberg, and many others would like to see. I don’t think that liberals really want that.

The Obama Bargain

Shelby Steele, writing in today's Wall Street Journal:

How to turn one's blackness to advantage?

The answer is that one "bargains." Bargaining is a mask that blacks can wear in the American mainstream, one that enables them to put whites at their ease. This mask diffuses the anxiety that goes along with being white in a multiracial society. Bargainers make the subliminal promise to whites not to shame them with America's history of racism, on the condition that they will not hold the bargainer's race against him. And whites love this bargain -- and feel affection for the bargainer -- because it gives them racial innocence in a society where whites live under constant threat of being stigmatized as racist. So the bargainer presents himself as an opportunity for whites to experience racial innocence.

This is how Mr. Obama has turned his blackness into his great political advantage, and also into a kind of personal charisma. Bargainers are conduits of white innocence, and they are as popular as the need for white innocence is strong. Mr. Obama's extraordinary dash to the forefront of American politics is less a measure of the man than of the hunger in white America for racial innocence.

But...

...bargainers have an Achilles heel. They succeed as conduits of white innocence only as long as they are largely invisible as complex human beings. They hope to become icons that can be identified with rather than seen, and their individual complexity gets in the way of this. So bargainers are always laboring to stay invisible. (We don't know the real politics or convictions of Tiger Woods or Michael Jordan or Oprah Winfrey, bargainers all.) Mr. Obama has said of himself, "I serve as a blank screen on which people of vastly different political stripes project their own views . . ." And so, human visibility is Mr. Obama's Achilles heel. If we see the real man, his contradictions and bents of character, he will be ruined as an icon, as a "blank screen."

Obama and Rev. Jeremiah Wright

There's much discussion in this country today regarding Sen. Barack Obama and his association with the Rev. Jeremiah Wright at the church the Obama's have attended for the past twenty-plus years.

One telling sign about the potential fall-out is all of the hand-wringing going on over at the Daily Kos.

Poster Silverfox:

"The story is pretty damning when looked at through the eyes of the general populace....The context of these sermons appear to be a real liability for the Obama campaign, as he has not only embraced Rev. Wright, but more importantly (and the point will be made by the GOP) continued to attend the church where these types of messages were being dispersed (thus giving his implicit agreement with the general concepts). I am starting to fear that we (with the help of the media) may have forced out John Edwards a tad too early during the primary and we may end up in a very tough fight for a White House that should be easy pickings."

A commenter to the post:

This is big.
Obama's gonna have to deal with it and it's not going to be pretty. It cannot be wished away.
by bugscuffle on Thu Mar 13, 2008 at 10:02:24 AM PDT

One of the unintended consequences of the MSM's non-vetting of the Democratic candidates is that eventually the dirt on a particular candidate will get out...eventually. In the case of Obama it may have gotten out too late, i.e. after he's already been deemed the Democratic nominee (although not formally at this time). On the other side of the coin the Republicans get sufficiently vetted by the MSM with glee, notwithstanding a potential "October Surprise" if the Democratic campaign has dirt that has not been leaked to the MSM.

Mrs. Clinton lives to fight another day

And you know she will. She will not give up the Democratic nomination until Sen. Obama pries it from her cold, dead fingers.

Tomorrow morning's Wall Street Journal Editorial:

"...after her victory yesterday in Ohio and a nailbiter in Texas, we see little reason that the New York Senator shouldn't fight on."

Of course.

Just read Mark Steyn...

...he's one-of-a-kind.

Steyn on Obama supporters:

"Do Obama’s volunteers even know who Che is? Apart from being a really cool guy on posters and T-shirts, like James Dean or Bart Simpson, I doubt it. They’re pseudo-revolutionaries. Very few people in America want a real revolution: Life is great, this is a terrific country, with unparalleled economic opportunities. To be sure, it’s a tougher break if you have the misfortune to be the victim of one of Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society programs or a decrepit inner-city grade school with a higher per-student budget than the wealthiest parts of Switzerland. But even so, to be born a U.S. citizen is, as Cecil Rhodes once said of England, to win first prize in the lottery of life. Not even Obama supporters want real revolution: They’re messy, your cities get torched, the economy collapses, much of your talent flees. Ask the many peoples around the world for whom revolution means not a lame-o Sixties poster above your desk but the carnage and horror of the day before yesterday."

h/t: Wall Street Journal, Best of the Web

Just copied words.

Apparently even the Republicans aren't concerned about Sen. Barack Obama's plagiarized speech. The FDC does not agree.

Judge for yourself, but in this side-by-side comparison Patrick has a much better delivery than Obama, and gets the more enthusiastic response. Maybe Obama was embarrassed because he knew that it was copied from Patrick.

Presidential candidates hire speechwriters to put words in their mouths. Their own words. Not somebody elses words. Obama could have used: "Ask not what you country can do for you, but ask what you can do for your country!". But, using such an iconic line wouldn't be considered plagiarism because it's too well known. See, effective plagiarism (or plagiarism that you get away with) is some great material that just never quite made it to a wide enough audience the first time around. Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick's speech qualifies on that criteria. Obama, get your own material.

Putting Exxon Mobil's Profits & Tax Bill In Perspective

The other day Sen. Barack Obama gave a speech where he railed against tax "loopholes that let corporations avoid paying their taxes while you're paying more."

Let's take a closer look at that accusation. Economist Mark Perry posts at his Carpe Diem blog about Exxon Mobil's astronomical corporate tax bill.


Perry concludes:


"Just one corporation (Exxon Mobil) pays as much in taxes ($27 billion) annually as the entire bottom 50% of individual taxpayers paid in 2004 (most recent year available), which is 65,000,000 people! Further, the tax rate for the bottom 50% was only 3% of adjusted gross income ($27.4 billion / $922 billion) in 2004, and the tax rate for Exxon was 41% in 2006 ($67.4 billion in taxable income, $27.9 billion in taxes)."


On top of all of these federal taxes paid by Exxon Mobil, The FDC recently congratulated the Big Oil company's record profits in 2007. As noted in that post, in 2007 Exxon Mobil paid $35.6 billion in dividends to their shareholders.


If you add the $35.6 billion paid in dividends to shareholders, and add in the $27 billion Exxon Mobil paid in corporate taxes in 2004 (the latest year available), you get a boggling $62.6 billion in gross profits that did not end up in the corporate cash register.

The CW says that Big Oil takes all of these profits away from hard working Americans, and The Man keeps all the money. Obviously, that is not the case.

h/t: Larry Kudlow at The Corner.

"Man of the Year" vs. Mrs. Clinton

There's an interesting conversation going on today over at Ben Smith's Blog at The Politico. 944 comments and counting as of The FDC post time.

The gist of it is that back in New Hampshire Mrs. Clinton made a remark about Russian President (and soon to be dictator) Vladimir Putin not having a soul. A Russian reporter asked Putin about that comment and according to Ben Smith:

"The former KGB lieutenant colonel appeared to lash out at U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton — a leading Democratic candidate for president — when one reporter quoted her as saying that former KGB officers have no soul:"At a minimum, a head of state should have a head," Putin said."

With 934 comments on Smith's blog, obviously this has struck a nerve with many people. It doesn't hurt that this blog got "Drudged" either. Putin won that exchange, no question about it. He made Mrs. Clinton look foolish.

The FDC agrees with Mrs. Clintons opinion, but just the fact that she let this remark slip out of her mouth shows that she is a dipomatic/foreign policy newbie. No matter your personal feelings (or more accurately for Mrs. Clinton, her political feelings she projects to the public) you have to use tact with what comes out of your mouth.

The left and the MSM are always portraying the Republicans as having a ham-handed screw-you type diplomacy/foreign policy. But, George W. Bush met with Putin and said that he saw Putin's "heart". Who's got the ham-handed screw-you foreign policy now? Mrs. Clinton is always touting her so-called foreign policy experience she gained as the wife of the President. If that were true, Mrs. FDC would make a great real estate broker (since she's married to one). This just goes to show that if one of the Democratic candidates becomes President they are going to have to operate in the real world. In other words, they'd have to make tough decisions, then act, speak as a leader, and live with the consequences of those decisions, actions, and words.

As much as Mrs. Clinton showed poor judgment, I fear Sen. Obama would fare even worse against the likes of Putin and Ahmadinejad. They must be licking their chops at their prospects of toying with and manipulating either Mrs. Clinton or Sen. Obama.

Can What?

Sen. Barack Obama keeps saying: "Yes we can!"

So, Daniel Henninger asks, "can what?" This on tomorrow's Wall Street Journal Editorial Page about Sen. Obama's victory speech last night in Madison, Wisconsin.

Excellent timing, Dan! This dovetails perfectly with my two posts from earlier today.

Henninger:

"Listen closely to that Tuesday night Wisconsin speech. Unhinge yourself from the mesmerizing voice. What one hears is a message that is largely negative, illustrated with anecdotes of unremitting bleakness. Heavy with class warfare, it is a speech that could have been delivered by a Democrat in 1968, or even 1928."

Peel back the eloquent message of "hope" and "change", and you've got a pretty depressing message. Will voters keep listening to it for almost nine months more. It's a long time until November. This depressing message could cause the "cult of personality" to really drink the Kool-Aid - the Jonestown flavor.

Yes we can! (The American people, not the government)

There's been much discussion over Sen. Obama's "Yes, we can!" speech. You know, the one where he channels Bob the Builder.

Eyeblast has put together a Reagan remix that is oddly similar to Obama's speech - but with a wholly different outlook on who "we" is.

Obama: The Government.

The Great Communicator: The American People.

h/t: Hot Air

A study of contrasts

The most obvious contrasts between the presumptive Presidential nominees are that of race and age, but there is much more.

What Ray Robison writing at The American Thinker calls Sen. Barack Obama's "easygoing and non-confrontational style" could just as easily be called a lack of spine. Despite Sen. Obama's considerable communication skills, American's prefer their Presidents to possess some spine (to varying degrees).

On the other end of the spectrum sits Sen. John McCain. A Google search for "temper John McCain" reveals over 12,700 results in a typically blistering Google speed of .11 seconds. McCain's temper is well-documented, and perhaps he possesses a bit too much spine.

So which is worse, too little spine, or too little? It all depends. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Vladimir Putin must be licking their chops at an opportunity to manipulate a foreign policy greenhorn like Obama. On the other hand, although McCain's temper may do more harm than good, The FDC believes that it's better to err on the side of "spine", i.e. McCain. Especially when dealing with characters like Ahmadinejad, Putin, and Hugo Chavez.

Sen. Obama, tear down that flag!

One of Sen. Obama's campaign offices has a Cuban flag with Communist terrorist Che Guevara prominently displayed by one of Obama's pinko campaign workers. Not that The FDC believes all Obama supporters to be communist revolutionary sympathizers, but it is telling...and may remind some of Obama's real record.