The Obama Defense
By Jonah Goldberg
He says in a new ad that he was only 8 years-old when Bill Ayers was plotting and carrying out terrorist attacks against the United States.Why didn't Trent Lott think of that! He was only 7 when when Strom Thurmond ran as a Dixiecrat in 1948.
Are the Denver Dems Downing Stocks? [Larry Kudlow]
Are the Denver Dems downing the stock market today? The Dow is off 230 points, starting right from the get-go. So-called market analysts are blaming financials and the credit crunch as they always do. But there's more.
Obama and Biden gave us plenty of class warfare in their Springfield, Ill., get together on Saturday. Tax the rich. Redistribute income and wealth. Go after all those corporate meanies. Trade protection. Card-check for the Unions to stop secret elections (not even former Democratic presidential candidate George McGovern agrees with that one.)
Then there's Nancy Pelosi on TV bashing oil. And a huge New York Times Magazine article on Obamanomics by David Leonhardt tells us about tax fairness and redistribution from Obama, and shows that my good friend Robert Reich is in the driver's seat with lots of public spending for the Obama plan. Deficit hawks like Jason Furman, the Robert Rubin protégé, seem to be in second place.
Taxing capital gains, dividends, and rich people makes me wonder who exactly is gonna supply the capital and investment to grow the economy. And while Obama's Wall Street supporters helped put a 20 percent lid on investment tax rates, a three-house Democratic sweep could make matters much worse on the capitalism front.
Meanwhile, the Barron's cover story called "Dueling Visions" by my friend Jim McTague says that Obama wants to repeat the mistakes of Herbert Hoover, raising individual and corporate taxes and siphoning needed investment capital out of the markets and into the hands of bureaucrats. It doesn't seem like much of an economic recovery program.
Another problem is on the spending side for consumer demand. Hate to say it, but rich people are not only the biggest investors, they're also the biggest spenders. According to the Tax Policy Center, Obamanomics would boost their average tax bill by $94,000 to as much as $653,000. Phew.
With the Denver Dems strutting their stuff, this could be a bumpy week for stocks. Did anyone say free-market capitalism is the best path to prosperity?
Obama will soon do to energy what he did to the surge [Victor Davis Hanson]
Energy is surely a winning issue for McCain. The enormous and very recent leaps in natural gas production attest to the synergy that can result when high-tech and the market coalesce to create incentives and profits; even the mere discussion of further drilling in the US, the world's largest consumer of imported oil, has had a dampening effect on speculation, and led in part to a lowering of prices. The good news is that this is not antithetical (at least as long as prices for oil and gas do not crash) to encouragement of alternative fuels.
But the contrast with Obama is telling and analogous to the surge in Iraq where McCain was likewise vindicated by events. Supporting more gas and oil production has already refuted the canard that any improvement would take a decade and save only a few cents. We knew that when the Democrats (1) were dismissing increased oil and gas production at home, as unimportant, while (2) at the same time begging the Saudis, threatening to sue OPEC, and wanting to tap the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, all for amounts of 100,000-300,000 barrels a day. The rule seems to be a 100,000 barrels pumped out of the Arabian desert or Persian Gulf is an enormous amount, a million barrels pumped from ANWR or off Florida and California is a pittance.
McCain should run ads stressing that this can-do strategy on gas and oil is already having positive psychological effects, and will soon save the country billions in the our balance of payments.
Watch Obama—as in the case of the surge in which events required a reversal of course— suddenly support the recent successes in natural gas production. His new strategy seems to be to talk up wind and solar, then say nothing good or evil about nuclear, natural gas, or even additional oil production—with the expectation that the latter will coalesce to bring down energy prices so that he can give credit to the insignificant former.
All this is simply Obama's surge strategy in which his opposition to all phases of it naturally led to its measured success, proving the wisdom of his timetable withdrawal.
A footnote: the market and profits really do matter: NB: Al Gore is enthused with his greenhouses gas campaign in part because he is heavily invested in a profitable multi-media campaign about a carbon Armaggedon that apparently requires his further interest in carbon-offsetting, for-profit consulting firms—in the manner that Nancy ("I'm trying to save the planet") Pelosi is at least not opposed to new gas explorations (a carbon emitting, fossil fuel requiring as much land intrustion and water as oil drilling) and thus has invested in the natural -gas burning car industry. The suddenly mega-rich Gore and the suddenly Wall Sreet savvy Pelosi ll is Orwellian when juxtaposed to the sermons about "Big Oil" greed and the need for windfall profits new taxes. Makes the"two-nations" Edwards mansion seem small in comparison.
There's Always Putin?
By Victor Davis Hanson
When watching some of the clips from the demonstrators in Denver, I noticed that all the 'No Blood for Oil' placards of yesteryear and the assorted anti-Iraq war signs have been replaced by several 'No War in Iran' types. Not even a 'suspension of disbelief' or 'General Betray Us' slogan. Similarly in recent years, as I drove along Shaw Avenue in Fresno, I've noticed all sorts of Iraq war protests, then suddenly, almost on cue, the accustomed crowd brought out about a month ago a new batch of preemptory 'No War in Iran' signs. It's eerie, almost like the old Soviet 'Hands off Germany' signs in 1939, suddenly replaced by 'Stop the fascist warmonger Hitler' in 1941. Apparently, by silent admission the Iraq War is now over, and without a new one in Iran, there is a sort of protest limbo, as 1960s souls circle aimlessly in search of an anti-war cause. So why not Georgia and 'fascist' Russian aggression?
Obama, Biden, and Bankruptcy
By Byron York
Many in the media are paying attention to Joseph Biden's long and deep ties to MBNA, the Delaware-based credit-card company that is part of Bank of America. There have been mentions of the company's generous payments to Biden's son, as well as a top company's generous purchase of Biden's house. They're always mentioned in relation to Biden's support of the Bankruptcy Bill. Which brought to mind an Obama stump speech I heard in Columbia, South Carolina last January. From my story at the time: As the cheering continued, Obama hit Hillary Clinton as someone just too steeped in Washington to be straight with anyone. 'People don't say what they mean when they've been in Washington too long,' he said, with a look of mock amazement. 'You know, Senator Clinton, during that same debate, somebody asked her about the bankruptcy bill. She voted for a bankruptcy bill in 2001, that the credit cards and the banks had been pushing, that made it more difficult for folks who have been trapped in these unscrupulous loans, where you get zero interest and then suddenly it pops up to 30 percent. And the credit card companies, even though they are sending these things in the mail constantly every day they don't want you to get out from under that debt. So Tim Russert or somebody asked Senator Clinton, 'Why did you vote for that bill?' And she said, 'Well, I voted for it, but I hoped it didn't pass.' What does that mean?' It was a routine that could be easily re-worked to apply to Joe Biden, with the difference being that Biden did want the bill to pass.
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