“Perverse” is how the new McCain ad has been described. I would allow that. And given that I find no need for our prospective leaders - the hero and role model that is the President - to add to the perversion of political discourse, I would add the descriptor, “infuriating.”

This is horrifying to me. The bill that McCain mentions Obama enacted was for “age-appropriate” education, meaning to protect children against pedophiles by teaching them to report to a parent any abusive activity. It was to protect children.

McCain describes it as, “learning about sex before learning to read.”

For those observing this matter objectively, I ask this:

What is the intent of this ad?

It isn’t to educate. Its facts are untrue. Not only the distortion about the children, but all three articles that the ad cites either go on to praise Obama or rip McCain worse - Education Week very much so.

But consider the distortion about the children. Why would you present a bill that intends to teach children how to protect against abuse, as “teaches about sex before learning to read”?

It isn’t enlightening - isn’t intended to better inform the voter about two candidates. It isn’t comparing the candidates honestly. So that’s not its intent.

What is?

In my estimation, it’s to scare people. To use a lie to scare people. To use the fear for our children in a lie to scare people. To use the fear for our children in a lie to scare people that they will, in essence, be attacked by sex - by sexual information when they’re practically toddlers.

I can’t see any other intent for this ad.

I can’t see that someone who would submit it would have any respect for the honest functioning of democracy.

I can’t see that someone who would accuse their opponent of sexual assault on the minds of young children has anywhere near the decency to represent the greatest country in the world.

I find this a new low.

Last week was the RNC bump.

Yesterday, Democrats were wringing their hands over rising Red polls, and Independents were listening to commentators wonder whether the skinny scholar was tough enough next to the War Hero.

Today, continuing what they began last night, the Democratic ticket hit back hard.

Obama, in Dayton, gave due criticism to the foreign policy:

Obama accused Bush of “tinkering around the edges” and “kicking the can down the road to the next president” with his plans to remove 8,000 US troops from Iraq in the coming months and send 4,500 to Afghanistan by January.

He mentioned the unstable status quo - a situation truly on a razor’s edge: The Islamic-fundamentalist Shia in power in Baghdad arresting the Sunni tribal leaders who were and are helping us to fight al-Qaeda; the Taleban ascendant and US-Coalition deaths climbing.

He mentioned the expense of the war - approximately $10 billion a month - and the $79 billion surplus Baghdad is sitting on.

And he summed up Bush’s recent decision to deploy the exhausted forces out of Iraq and into Afghanistan:

“The Illinois senator said that on Afghanistan, he was “glad that the president is moving in the direction of the policy that I have advocated for years.”

But he added: “His plan comes up short — it is not enough troops, and not enough resources, with not enough urgency.”

This could not be more right. We need to remember the lessons of Iraq - that showing up to a fight short on resources will be worse than not showing up at all. For years, the country was pat on the head and told that everything was alright; that the only critics were internal enemies who hated the country and were fixated on its faults. Meanwhile, the insurgency worsened, our troops were worn down and bloodshed blew out of control.

Finally 2006 made the White House admit mistakes; finally Petraeus stepped in and acted in defiance of stated policy; at long last, after hundreds of thousands of lives needlessly and forever lost, we adjusted strategy, provided the resources necessary - albeit still on a shoestring, but we have nothing left due to the grand strategic decisions made - and began to stabilize.

We can only hope that Obama’s criticisms now compel the administration to take action in Afghanistan sooner rather than later - that the White House remembers the fundamental flaw in its Iraq strategy, that it was under supplied and ignorant of the local powers, and adjusts in Afghanistan.

If not, our only hope is that America remembers that war critics are better friends to this country than those who ignore its faults at the expense of American lives and treasure.

For, according to John McCain, all things are going just peachy overseas.

It ain’t broke. There are still periodic suicide bombings, but that’s as natural as sandstorms. The Iraqi government wants Obama’s timetable, not long-term bases, but that’s no reason not to keep advocating digging in and building Burger Kings behind concrete walls. Afghanistan sees a resurgent Taleban, but we just need to send in enough troops to break the deluge, not to actually staunch the threat. And as for ‘remember 9/11,’ well, McCain said he’d follow Osama to the gates of Hell, but he draws the line at actually following him to where he is.

“…seven years after 9/11, we are still fighting a war without end in Iraq and we still haven’t taken out the terrorists responsible for 9/11. We heard no explanation for why (Al-Qaeda leader) Osama bin Laden is still at large, because that’s where George Bush and John McCain’s judgment has gotten us.”

And that’s where it will continue to get us - a long way off from getting the people who attacked us, closer and closer to getting disastrously worn down with an average of three-tours served and climbing among our troops, and getting deeper and deeper in debt.

To that, today, and in a bold voice, Obama has declared, “Enough.”

Here’s hoping that message will echo strongly from now until November.

Here’s hoping that the people remember the courage of the troops, and are brave enough to admit the government’s mistakes and vote for something new to give them a winnable war.

Here’s hoping for “enough” to bring us an end in sight.

Perfect speeches require that they be the perfect speech for a particular time, a certain occasion.

Obama gave a perfect speech for his acceptance of the Vice Presidential nomination.

I do not say this lightly. I say it because many went into the speech wanting different things, but few came away from it feeling unsatisfied.

For those that have never really met him, like dozens of independents who said they received it so well, it was a splendid introduction.

For those of us who have been following him closely for months, it was an emphasis of the versatile strengths he brings:

It was inspiring, but not an epic flight of rhetoric like his ‘One America’ speech. It was substantive about policy and how he will realistically achieve it, though not as remarkably thorough as his Web site. It was aggressive toward McCain, but not in a way that was either reactive or disrespectful.

It is a perfect instrument for getting a sense of who he is.

So, when you are ready - long-time friend or open-minded independent - press ‘Play’ below, and meet Barack Obama.

Four outstanding speeches were featured at the DNC last night; only two were featured, and one was too early for some to see:

Clinton

Message: “The Ready Speech” - Obama is ready to lead, ready to defend the Constitution, ready to be President.

Kerry

Message: “Senator McCain v. Candidate McCain” - “Talk about being before it before you were against it.”

Tammy Duckworth

Message: “McCain Encourages Partial Privatization of VA”

Bear in mind something about McCain’s partial privatization efforts: This is a complex issue.

McCain’s argument is that farming out care to private providers will alleviate the burden on the VA and allow for faster treatment for both combat injuries and other care.  This is the “rationed care” he and Tammy talk about.

VA support groups, like the Disabled Veterans and the Veterans of Foreign Wars, have not received his plan well.  They argue that the VA can and does already do such a thing, and it needn’t be mandated.

A good breakdown of the conflict is here.

Biden

Message: “Save the American dream” - Obama and I are working Joes, and McCain will sell us out at this critical time.

Enjoy.  These are not to be missed.

I have said it on this blog before, and I say it here again: Prevailing military wisdom is that while the defense is the strongest stance, the attack is the most preferrable, because the attack defines the battle. This is a lesson that the Democrats are ignoring at their peril in the case of the election, and one they best take to heart soon.

In the case of the election, the Democrats are letting John McCain define the “narrative” of the two candidates - their personalities. He is doing this primarily through ads, surrogates and 527 insinuations. The story he tells is a simple, resonant one for most Americans:

“I am a war hero who suffered for your sins of failure in Vietnam and for love of country. My opponent is a radical black man, an outsider to your way of life, and you cannot trust him because he is so charming.”

It is hitting home. Obama is being pounded down in the polls, from starlet to symbol of an uncertain future. His positives are being turned into negatives. McCain, on the attack, is defining the positive course of the direction - and he’s turning it down a very dark road: One where voters are focused on how afraid they are of Obama, and so cannot realize they should be terrified of McCain.

Yet Obama and the Democrats are allowing it happen. Only recently have they really put their shoulders into shoving Obama’s biography forefront in this campaign. They have, over the past few weeks and especially at the convention, tried to show the “hero of the working class” Obama and his blue-collar-rooted wife.

This is a reaction, not an action. It is, therefore, inherently subordinate to the opposition’s strategy. McCain is still directing events.

And the main way Democrats are allowing this to happen is because they are not making attacks of their own. They attack on issues and they attack on reasoning. If voters voted on either of these points, or if the media had any compelling interest in the truth being told, this would matter.

Voters vote on their emotions - on how they feel about a candidate’s stance on an issue, not by knowing what that stance is. The media hates the truth; the truth means things are settled, meaning conflict is over with, and you might as well change the channel.

The Democrats must attack on basis of character. Instead, they reinforce McCain’s definition of himself as all the while he rips down Obama:

The GOP accuses Obama of being a terrorist, of being a radical, of hating the country, of wanting to lose the war so that he could win the election. The Democrats call John McCain, “a good man,” “a good friend,” a “good soldier” of “honored sacrifice,” acting as though he was just doing what politicians do - playing to a base - and so suffering a temporary lapse of morals.

They need to stop this. It shores up McCain’s story, making his claims - false though they may be - seem founded in truth and integrity.

They need to hit his character. They need to define the battle. They need to start hammering home who these candidates are - a man who has devoted his life to bringing people of all kinds together to solve the problems of the common man, and a conniving, venal, ambitious and hateful man who plays the political currents for his own ends.

No more “good friend.” No more “good soldier.” No more “honored service.” Let Tucker Bounds float those potty logs. Start making waves:

Remind people of the Keating Five. It shows his avarice.

Remind people of his first wife being left broken in body and heart for a beer heiress. It shows his selfishness.

Remind people of his anger, of how “everyone in Congress has a John McCain story,” of how he called his wife a cunt for criticizing his thinning hair. It shows his spite.

Remind people of the constant mistakes he makes. Remind them of the constant lying. Remind them that he’s got nothing, nothing, which is why he tries to scare people into rejecting his opponent - and remind them that those are the actions of a coward.

Call him a coward. Call him old. Call him hateful.

People may think this is going overboard. But this is what is working against Obama. It is a tactic where the voter may not agree with its statement, but they feel ill thinking about the candidate - they fear him, doubt him, despite their better sense. They don’t feel like voting for him. They stay home. Or they get angry and march.

This is what a population with an electorate galvanized by rage wants.

They are furious at Bush. Furious that their jobs are vanishing, furious at the war. The Democrats must channel that fury. Direct it at McCain.

Otherwise, he will continue direct it at them.

Obama can stay above this fray - he can simply avoid praising McCain in any fashion and play to the central message: That McCain is a lying flip-flopper, “The Great American Sell Out.” But the rest of the Dems must do their jobs as surrogates, and start handing out torches to the angry mob that’s waiting to burn the monster of the last eight years.

I woke up from the usual political nightmares today to find an e-mail from a trusted confidant:

I’ve heard and thought more about McCain’s statement re number of houses, and I recommend that you avoid the subject on your blog.

I was thinking of the same. Nevertheless, yesterday’s article had been about how Obama needs to get on the attack with ads, and the housing attack was cited. I read on.

I am really sick of the current iteration of “Gotcha” Politics, especially as advanced by Talk Radio and Cable TV (including MSNBC). If you’re going to play that game, do it the way Tim Russert did: issue-driven, geared toward determining intellectual honesty.

Let’s please focus on substance….This is a critical time in world history, and I’m saddened by the baseness of American discourse.

A co-worker who’s got a good head on his shoulders said something similar about the house ad. Though I should note that he’s somewhat more disposed to the Republicans - and the confidant above is thoroughly a Democrat, albeit a frustrated one - he felt the ad was “humorous” and “petty.” He too said he cared about the issues.

Almost everybody I talk to does.

So, if this model holds true, shouldn’t candidates experience a climb in the polls when they focus not on their opponent, but on the issues?

Recently, John McCain has enjoyed a leap in his polling numbers. Over the past two months, Obama has gone from leading by 6.8 to 1.4! McCain’s favorable ratings have held mighty strong, while Obama’s plummeted an average of 10 points! And battleground states right and left - no pun intended - have been beginning to trend to McCain.

Therefore, given that everyone cares about the issues, and abhors negative, petty, humorous trash, McCain must be talking about the issues while Obama talks about trash.

Let’s review the ads they released over the past month and a half - the period of Obama’s preciptous decline - to see who is staying away from those poisonous “Gotcha” politics. We’ll do the survey week by week.

One Month Ago

Obama Ads: “Sand Dunes” (about McCain and his energy plan), “New Energy” (about his energy plan), “America’s Leadership” (about Obama’s record in the Senate fighting terrorism and partisanship; a Matt Funk Favorite), “Restore” (about Obama’s security policy, and denouncing a McCain ad against him as “misleading”)

McCain Ads: “Jobs for America” (about McCain bringing jobs for America), “Love” (about how McCain was a POW during the summer of love, and loves his country), “God’s Children” (about how hispanics are good Americans, even illegal immigrants), “Troop Funding” (lies about Obama’s record on troops and security; the “misleading” ad above), “Pump” (claims Obama is responsible for gas soaring because of his opposition to gas tax holiday)

Main Media Topic: Obama’s support is fragile (see Jesse Jackson’s nuts and related).

Three Weeks Ago

Obama Ads: “Old Politics” (claims McCain is misleading on “Pump” ad, above; outlines Obama’s energy plan), “Low Road” (about how McCain is being negative in his campaigning, just like the Bush campaign of ‘00 and ‘04)

McCain Ads: “Celeb” (compared Obama to Paris and Britney, saying he’s an empty celebrity), “The One” (denounces Obama as “messianic” and his followers as zealots)

Main Media Topic: Is Obama a vain celebrity?

Two Weeks Ago

Obama Ads: “Pocket” (notes McCain gets massive contributions from oil companies, gives them big tax breaks), “Low Road Express” (says McCain’s running a negative campaign), “Original” (shows the similarities between McCain and Bush’s record)

McCain Ads: “Broken” (says McCain has fought corruption in both parties), “Family” (claims Obama’s economic plan will ruin your family’s financial future), “Painful” (says Obama is a detached celebrity, while Americans go through tough times)

Main Media Topic: Why won’t Barack fight back?

One Week Ago

Obama Ads: “Fat Cat” (indicates how Obama does not take lobbyist or PAC money), “Book” (illustrates how Bush and McCain have nearly identical policies), “Fix the Economy” (shows how McCain says the economy is good, and how middle class Americans don’t)

McCain Ads: “Recipe”, “Fan Club”, “Taxman”, “Maybe”, “Millions” and “The One - Road to Denver” (all claiming Obama is an out of touch celebrity)

Main Media Topic: Why won’t Barack fight back, since he is losing support?

The data suggests a point contrary to my canny confidants’ - namely, that running negative ads about absolute crap is really, really effective in swaying voters.

McCain attacked right at one of Obama’s chief strengths - and the only one the media spends a lot of time discussing - his charisma. He turned the positive quality of being able to inspire hope and excitement in others into a negative to be feared.

The result has, as those poll numbers show, not been insubstantial. And so I have to respectfully disagree with my confidants on this one: It is talking about the issues that does not work. The media does not pay anywhere near as much attention to that as it does to the kind of feckless nonsense that “Celeb” and its spawn consist of.

Proof of this? Almost no one I talk to knows what Obama’s policies are. In the issue-oriented ads I noted above and in gatherings around the country, he’s been outlining his policies - especially his economic and energy policies. Few I talk to know what they are.

The media instead talks about how Obama is showing weakness by not going after McCain. As the ads above also show, Obama has attacked McCain - but he’s attacked him on the issues. That has nowhere near the resonance of crappy personal attacks, nor does it has their wonderful, toxic ancillary benefit of poisoning whatever the person says.

After “Celeb,” most fence-sitters will be disposed to not believing Obama, regardless of his issue stance. They will, by default, see him as unready, insubstantial and out of touch. This detracts from the power of his issue stances, and adds to McCain’s.

I wish things were different, my dear confidants. But with the lead Op-Ed pieces this Friday being, “Yes We Can Turns To Oops, We May Not,” “Why McCain Is Rising,” “Why Obama Has To Get Mad To Win,” “The Mystery of Obama’s Problems” and “The End of the Fairy Tale,” the media is focusing on other than the issues.

In a perfect world, the media would devote all its time to weighing the empirical truth of each candidate’s statements. It would engage in follow-up, eschew rumor and radicalism, and extol good behavior. In our world, it doesn’t.

It craves ignorance, wanting to keep the audience always wondering, so they’ll stay aggravated and tuned in. It spurns follow-up when it’s off-message, fixates solely on rumor and radicalism, and denigrates good behavior as weak. It hates the kind of campaigns my confidants want, and it will deny the candidate who runs it a voice.

One might argue that Obama’s problem is that during the primary, he set the tone - “Change” - while Hillary was stuck on issues and negative attacks. Now, Obama has tried to address the people who say he’s an empty suit by talking policy, and McCain is setting the tone - “Negativity.”

The solution, then, would be to consistently ignore McCain and to find a positive, inspiring message again. That could be the case after the Democratic Convention, when the VP can be the attack dog and Obama can go back to giving rousing speeches about hope.

Yet two problems with this remain:

One, it doesn’t address the qualms of my confidant, who knows little of Obama’s issues and would just as soon vote McCain, since you know what you’re getting from him. Millions of Americans presumably feel the same.

And two, the media wants a fight. They demand a fight. And now that two months of criticizing Obama for not being aggressive has resulted in the insipid “House Gaffe,” they are sneering at him for being “just like any other politician” while slobbering all over the story of McCain’s senility.

Given these, it’s hard to argue that the Ad War is not best won the Simple Way, by drilling into the American people’s heads that while your candidate may not have great issue positions … at least he’s not the flip-flopping, elitist vanity plate the other guy is.

That is, of course, how the last two elections were won.

Obama has been sharpening his rhetoric lately, but he and his campaign mustn’t mistake counterattacking for attacking. Whereas it’s a fine tactic on the battlefield - the World War II German Army, held out way, way longer than they should have by turning it into an artform - it usually makes it look like you’re losing. In a game of appearances like politics, that can be fatal.

So here I propose a simple strategy of attack for the Obama campaign to exact on McCain. The “KISS” principle - Keep It Simple, Stupid - comes into effect here, because contrary to what the ruddy-pated right-wing mouthpieces might say, people really /do/ want a simple solution to cling to these days.

Make these two points. Make them forcefully, incessantly, and whenever conversation strays to other topics, somehow connect it back here. The military calls this “concentration of force.”

1. McCain is the worst flip-flopper ever.
2. McCain is betraying veterans.

With those two points preceding you, you not only have two succinct and devastating points - for proof of “devastating,” see “John Kerry 2004″ - you also have the truth on your side.

McCain does flip-flop. This is way, way easier to prove than with Kerry. A little follow-up on any discrepancy in his past will make him burp up a “I was for it before I was against it” line. It’s all downhill from there.

McCain has betrayed veterans. You can use the example of the GI Bill, but it goes much further than this, extending into his efforts to block VA spending bills and missing Iraq votes.

This also fits neatly with the fact that McCain blocked a unanimously supported Congressional effort to release POW/MIA information from the Pentagon and Hanoi. There are those who believe he did this to protect the ugly events that he was forced to submit to there.

With those two central axes of attack, manuever as needed. All this takes is a line of additional direction from the vector of the message:

“McCain is the worst flip-flopper ever. He sucked up to Sturgis after he’d fought for foreign motorcycles to be sold to our government agencies.”

“McCain betrayed veterans. He knows they fall within the lower tax brackets, but he taxes them more to give money to the rich 1%.”

You can even combine them:

“McCain is the worst flip-flopper ever. He pushed for the Iraq war, said it would be over in no time, and then said he intends to establish bases there for one hundred years. He betrayed our troops.”

This isn’t nice stuff. It is, however, resonant. Nice stuff tends to make people nod, then nod off. Not-nice stuff makes people angry.

Right now, they’re angry at the wrong guy.

In an ideal world, nobody would be angry. They would disagree with those who hold staunch but separate views, and would pour their positive energy into crystal-eyed demonstrations of communal support for their causes. That was the campaign Obama tried to run.

That campaign should be over. The one above is the one he should launch.

Today, he put out a video taking advantage of McCain forgetting how many houses he has. This is a good sign. He should keep hammering this point with every surrogate in his dog-eared address book: Most people may forget how many DVDs they own. Some lucky ones forget how many TVs they have. McCain forgot how many of something most people can’t even afford one of that he has.

And Obama hit him for it:

And McCain’s camp hit back in the dumbest way possible. They hit back mean, and with a lie: (see strategy #1, McCain The Lying Flip-Flopper)

“Does a guy who made more than $4 million last year, just got back from vacation on a private beach in Hawaii and bought his own million-dollar mansion with the help of a convicted felon really want to get into a debate about houses?” wrote spokesman Brian Rogers. “Does a guy who worries about the price of arugula and thinks regular people “cling” to guns and religion in the face of economic hardship really want to have a debate about who’s in touch with regular Americans?”
(Ed. Note: Lies in bold)

The answer to that is as follows:

“You can’t even challenge me without lying!”

“Private beach, flat out lie. As for my income, Americans can’t found their childrens’ futures on the hopes of getting a book deal. As for the rest of it, you’re just plain making it up…

“Which brings us to the bottom line - you can’t take a stand on anything without having to lie!”

Begin attack number one. Repeat until people never forget this central tenet:

No matter what John McCain says, no matter how offensive the attack, how brilliant the energy plan, how personal the accusation, how inspiring the message, he lies.

He is a lying flip-flopper that betrayed our vets.

It’s as simple as that.

As McCain’s ads take the low road - including a recent one drawing numbers from a Tax Center that said he would swell the debt and defecit to record levels - Obama’s strike for the middle: The middle class that deserves someone appealing to them:

Obama does get me hoping again, sometimes when I can barely dare to do so. The following glimpses from his campaign insiders - related by Howard Fineman - stand to make me electrified.

“If I had to bet my life on it, I’d bet it is Joe[.]”

Nothing in this race’s next phase could make me happier.

“Joe won’t be afraid to get in McCain’s face, which is what Obama needs,” said one non-contender source.

Absolutely. Just look at this strongly voiced article on the opinions of the left. People want blood in the sand, and Obama can’t be the one to go on the attack.

Biden seems to live for the attack.

And a source personally close to Obama simply said “Biden makes the most sense.”

And to answer the question you must be asking yourself, no, I am not that quoted source. I just say what they said, all the time.

As if reinforcing this, Obama cited Joe today in a speech he gave to the VFW. It not only underscores the importance Biden has had in this campaign - it was an emphasis of the Senator’s awesome foreign policy experience.

Biden is perfect. Now it remains to be seen if we can hope for perfection.

I almost titled this story - “AP Finally Reports Something Correctly”; it seems the Associated Press committed a Freudian slip in print when writing about McCain’s VP list.

“His top contenders are said to include Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney. Less traditional choices mentioned include former Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge, an abortion-rights supporter, and Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman, the Democratic vice presidential prick in 2000 who now is an independent.”

It happens to everyone. What’s that old expression about broken watches telling the time twice a day?

And in related news, Bill Clinton knows what time it is - time to rally ’round the party standard and get to circling the wagons, with the Democratic Convention due next week.

Or, rather, he knows it’s time for self-serving, vindictive grandstanding, what with he and his wife (and even Chelsea and Socks and Hillary’s AV team) practically headlining the Democratic Cathartha-fest 2008. He gave a preview of coming detractions yesterday.

“Obviously, I favor Senator Obama’s energy positions, and Democrats have been by and large the more forward-leaning actors,” Mr. Clinton said. “But John McCain has the best record of any Republican running for president on the energy issue and on climate change.” He added, “I’m very encouraged about where the presidential rhetoric is in this campaign.”

The message is clear: Since my wife’s not running, it doesn’t matter a good goddamn who you vote for.

In order for that message to change, the Democrats better get wise to the fact that the Clintons are as much a part of the vain, backbiting Bush era as the man in the White House himself.

Among the more gut-curdling and inhuman of Jerome Corsi’s repugnant distortions about Obama was the allegation that the Senator cast a vote for infanticide - a claim Corsi’s feckless partisan meat puppet of a show host, Sean Hannity, just nodded to; and a claim Corsi made on no less than three separate occasions, not counting his book.

Jerome Corsi, author of the book, The Obama Nation, falsely claimed on Hannity’s America that Sen. Barack Obama said, “Even if a child was born … the woman still had the right to kill the child in an abortion.” Corsi similarly falsely asserted on Hannity & Colmes that “[a]fter a child’s born, Obama … in the [Illinois] state Senate, wanted the child killed if the mother desired an abortion,” and on Sean Hannity’s radio program, said that “Obama’s on record as let’s kill the baby if that’s what the mother wants.” In fact, Obama has never supported giving people the right to kill their children.

Tragically, millions of Americans will likely not make the obvious assumption that such a claim is preposterous. Research shows that Corsi is being thoroughly mendacious - the law he refers to would not have defined what “born” or “alive” meant, while at the same time letting family members bring lawsuits against doctors they thought acted inadequately. It was bad law - either doomed to die quickly or to drag costly suits into its slow demise.

But this all raises the question, where does Obama stand on “life” and “choice” issues, and what, if anything, has he sought to do about them?

We are given a clearer perspective on the complexity of that answer by Obama’s handling of the Illinois Liability Law above. For Obama did support another bill, the Born Alive Act, that bestowed the full rights of a human being on a child born during the process of an abortion. In essence, it’s intent - protection of a born child - was the same, and of his interest.

Does this mean Obama is not in favor of unrestricted abortion rights? It may dismay progressives - or excite centrists and pro-lifers - to hear that he has supported banning various late-term procedures.

How does he maintain that 100% NARAL record, then? Obama has never failed to vote in support of a female individual’s right to the procedure. Yet he has claimed that the restriction of the procedure in the more gruesome instances is warranted and legal. And he has gone an extra step, taking the rhetoric he laid out in his political writings and incorporating them into the policy action of the party he had won the leadership of.

Obama, and key others in the Democratic Party and the former-GOP pro-life community, have lately strove to make abortion reduction a bi-partisan issue by putting it in the Democratic Party platform. Yes, it is now an official part of the platform to pursue the goal of reducing incidence of abortion. And, as I noted in a previous post, it is high time that they wrested this particular moral high ground from the tenuous, exploitative grasp of the GOP.

I say “exploitative,” because the GOP platform has been anti-contraception, anti-sex education, anti-natal welfare, anti-adoption, but fiercely and uncompromisingly anti-abortion. It smacks of callous calculation rather than actual concern that they have no real functional interest in preventing unwanted pregnancies or providing for the chaotic circumstances that afflict any unprepared mother, but are obsessively interested in the child when it’s in the mother. One may argue that the GOP does care about those other concerns, but it is hard to argue that their policies have made that care manifest in a way that helps.

the Republican line on abortion–the singular focus on banning it–was just a cynical ploy. I know that many GOP leaders were sincere, but overall the strategy was simply to oppose abortion symbolically while doing nothing to reduce abortions in real life. Moreover, there is evidence from history and from around the world that banning abortion would not even reduce abortions (have we ever banned anything successfully?).

Pro-life Christians are finally getting this.

This has left the “life” issue up for grabs: Not just “life” as defined as opposition to a woman’s right to choose to terminate a pregnancy, but “life” that can expanded to include care and respect for all phases of the process - for the sexually active girl or woman, for the life whose fate depends on her, and for the child that must be cared for all the more after its born. And this is what the 2008 platform seeks to achieve.

The effect would be profound, in that it would turn an issue that has only been useful as partisan demonization - and hardly for limiting abortions - and transform it into a bipartisan call to provide actual care for all life. If Obama is both sincere and committed to the causes he has been bold enough to speak on extensively and candidly in the past, especially in his writing, the Republican wedge issue that only fosters the problem may be turned into an urge to support Democratic social aid programs.

Can Obama speak strongly enough to be considered sincere? All indications are that he will do just that tomorrow at the Faith Forum to be held at the Saddleback mega-church. It falls to him to not only regurgitate the Clinton-era idiom of “safe, legal and rare” about abortion, but to synthesize the effort to actually reduce abortions with the earnest concern for all life.

I trust he won’t disappoint. Obama devotes a whole chapter of Audacity of Hope to the subject. There is no doubting his depth of consideration, feeling and concern; he at one point compares the guilt of some women over their past abortions to that of former slave holders - clearly he recognizes the severity of the decision involved. And that he, not McCain, is a zealous Evangelical Christian, gives him additional premium to his claim of spiritual investment in a better life.

Today, Matthew 25 - a progressive Christian group central to the nascent efforts like those above - released a commercial for Obama.

It is the organization’s title - the Biblical passage that says that those who don’t just bide time in this life, but work at charity, are saved, and any who do less are damned - that resonates with Obama’s faith. He has been an activist for the poor, the disadvantaged and the denounced on both sides of the political spectrum. There is no doubt that he struggles for the least of us.

We’ll see what stand he takes for “the least among” the pro-life movement tomorrow.

The Clintons have returned in force. Just like Caesar at Pharsalus, you think you have them pinned down and starved out, then you drop your guard for a moment and for the throat they go. In this case, they just got Hillary’s name entered as a possible Convention nominee.

The New York Daily News reported recently that Clinton had asked not to be nominated. But at a fundraiser last week in California, Clinton told supporters she was looking for a way to recognize them at the convention. “I happen to believe that we will come out stronger if people feel that their voices were heard and their views respected, she said. “I think that is a very big part of how we actually come out unified.”

That “way” will just happen to be a parade of division, a muttering chorus of doubt like a bad case of tinitis.

Colbert was right. This isn’t just “catharsis.” It’s a whole damn Greek drama.

Why the DNC allowed this to happen is beyond me - like we need more mania, arrogance, disunity, incompetence, nostalgia, avarice, back-biting and partisanship in this campaign. It certainly isn’t for the cause of banding behind Barack, as recent events have shown.

First we had Bill using an ABC exclusive interview opportunity to gripe about the primaries and deny that Obama’s ready to be President:

Then it came out that, behind closed doors, Hillary had encouraged her supporters in “PUMA” (Party Unity My Ass) to find some way to express the will to nominate her at the convention.

All this is occurring with the backdrop of The Atlantic having published the e-mails of the Clinton campaign; e-mails that reveal:

Above all, this irony emerges: Clinton ran on the basis of managerial competence—on her capacity, as she liked to put it, to “do the job from Day One.” In fact, she never behaved like a chief executive, and her own staff proved to be her Achilles’ heel.

Also clarified was the strategy of the Clinton campaign against Obama - that being to always be on the attack; to go for his person, not his policies; to cast him as “foreign” and not Americans. These are the very strategies of the GOP, and they are attacks that the Clintons have never refuted - have, in fact, only underhandedly stoked. It is no surprise that they are attacks that still have edge and venom to them.

What is a surprise is that all of this amounts to the DNC and the Obama campaign spotlighting the Clintons at the Convention. Given key speaking slots - even for Chelsea - and central billing on the schedule, they will be dominating the coverage with their controversy, their undermining unpredictability, their swaggering spitefulness.

Already they’ve managed to secure a rotten plank in the DNC platform, one emetically toxic to the cause of feminism, that as much as states that Hillary’s primary loss was due not to Obama’s excellence but to “demeaning portrayals of women [that] cheapen our debates, dampen the dreams of our daughters, and deny us the contributions of many.” How proponents of the Clinton position cannot see that their planned “protest’s” tawdry emotionalism, passive-aggression and self-indulgent divisiveness would be pathetic regardless of gender is beyond me. That they are not only allowed, but even endorsed, and transformed into an animus to accuse media bias and therefore dismiss the failings of the disgusting Clinton campaign as non-existent is a slash through the hamstrings for both women’s equality and political progress.

It is likely that the foundation of the Convention will be further cracked as the insurgent cries of PUMA get to voice their open-throated outrage that their cult idol, Clinton, did not triumph - or in the hopes that she still will.

Why the Democrats are not preventing this, and letting the isolated and bankrupt Clintons just starve away in a pit of their plummeting poll numbers, is beyond me. They are putting the knife to their outstretched throats for the sake of some nebulous loyalty to the wheezing machine of the past. They just don’t get it - the last thing this xenophobic feeding frenzy of a race needs is more blood in the water.

Why they don’t get it is one of the chief reasons it took a city-annihilating hurricane, an economic topple, two debilitating and senseless wars, massive civil rights violations and a smattering of sex scandals to bring them back to something resembling power in 2006: The America of today does not crave complexity, revolutionary anger, minority sensitivity, heated debate and diversity.

The America of the 21st century is scared, tired, hopeless.

They want simple answers, unflagging positivity, overweaning pride, absolute loyalty and unity.

Until the DNC gets this, they’re never going to really hold the throne.

And if the ravenous Clintons - who have already muscled their way into turning the Convention into televised party suicide - have their way, that throne will be set on one of the prettiest and most promising pile of broken dreams we have seen in over a generation.

Numbers like Mark Nickolas discovered are why whenever I hear the term “liberal biased media” these days, I get another white hair. They prove the media’s not liberal, or ideological, or even sensible.

They are merely deliberately stupid, arrogantly untruthful, gluttonous, sycophantic greedheads who have the interests of a fight promoter and the morals of a gulag commandant.

For the numbers show that even compared to Karl Rove and parties with an ideological bias, the media is harsher in its estimate of Obama’s appeal and abilities: That the polls of Zogby and the like compile to show Obama 127 electoral votes ahead, Rove at 77 ahead, the Cook Political Report at 66 ahead - and all of these are far larger than the most preferenntial media outlet, CNN, which has Obama at only 32 ahead.

Most channels and print media figures hover around 28 by Nickolas’ discovery; the Washington Post even goes so far with poll gymnatics to put McCain ahead by 6 EV.

The media is, for the time, wrong. The professionals, after all, are getting far different numbers than the ones that illustrate the campaigns as a tooth-and-nail death match that could swing either way (so stay tuned!).

But the media tells people what’s true and what they should feel about it. People react accordingly. And so the question becomes how long before the self-fulfilling prophecy of a tight race is born out, and the media - as they did with Iraq - coaxes the public to embrace the disaster they’ve dreamt up.

McCain’s disastrous economic policies are imprinted with George W. Bush’s legacy and thrown in his face with this new ad from the Obama campaign.

The ad will hopefully remind voters that unless they change who’s in charge economically, they’ll keep getting what they’re getting economically.

But loud and clear, it states Obama’s for the middle class - a tune he should trumpet as much as possible.

Obama has put the energy revolution central in his campaign, as embodied by the commercial he’s spent millions to have play during the Olympics.

Share it with your friends by copying and e-mailing this link:

http://link.brightcove.com/services/link/bcpid1185304443/bctid1717903009

It also brings to the fore how truly progressive and visionary he intends to be.