In a HIGHLY favorable piece from a far-left liberal newspaper (just consider the title: “Obama stance on Iraq Shows Evolving View“!!!), Barack Obama is nevertheless revealed to have simply been all over the place regarding Iraq. A much tougher - and much more substantial - piece shows just how way, way, WAAAAY all over the place Obama has been regarding Iraq:

But perhaps a different kind of consistency is to be discerned in this maze. When Obama opposed the war in 2002, it was clearly in his political interest to do so; according to Dan Shomon, his campaign manager at the time, the key to Obama’s chances in the Democratic race for the Senate nomination lay in his ability to rally the Left to his side.4 Then, in 2004, when the war was still supported by most Americans, he associated himself with the Bush occupation strategy. In 2005, as Iraq was becoming increasingly unpopular, he temporized by joining those saying we had to reduce but not withdraw our troop presence. By 2006, with the war’s unpopularity deepening, he embraced a policy of full-scale withdrawal.

Is that what a president does? Does he waffle this way, then that, depending on the frequent shifts of the political breezes? Or is a president - and anyone who wants to become president - forced to carefully decide what needs to be done, and then commit himself (just as he commits his troops)?

“Oh, things are going well, so I’m committed. Oh, we’re having a few setbacks, so I demand a withdrawal. Oh, things are better now, so I’ll “refine” my policy. Oh, my left-wing base is turning on me, so I’ll recommit myself to my previous withdrawal policy.”

Could a president send troops, change his mind and withdraw them, change his mind again and increase their number form when he withdrew them before, and then decide that he shouldn’t have sent them after all and withdrawn them again - all within the span of about 2 1/2 years?

Conservative critics have pounced all over Obama:

“There appears to be no issue that Barack Obama is not willing to reverse himself on for the sake of political expedience,” said Alex Conant, a spokesman for the Republican National Committee. “Obama’s Iraq problem undermines the central premise of his candidacy and shows him to be a typical politician.”

Mr. Obama said such criticism was misguided, saying: “My position has not changed, but keep in mind what that original position was. I’ve always said that I would listen to commanders on the ground.”

Well, if that’s true (and you’re not a rank, hypocritical liar without shame who plays politics even when men’s lives hang in the balance), then why did you announce your rigid commitment to a 16-month timetable for withdrawal BEFORE you went to Iraq and actually listened to those commanders?  The reality is, you’re not going to listen to them at all - just as you’ve NEVER listened to them.

The Clinton campaign pointed out that Obama would renege on his Iraq policy - which is exactly what he tried to do until his liberal base erupted in outrage over the reversal.

The man is a veritable bastion of courage and integrity.

Barack Obama has been in favor of a timetable for withdraw since late 2005. What would have happened to Iraq had Barack Obama been our president? If we had pulled out of the country when Obama said we should (depending, of course, on how Obama felt about the war that day), a too-weak and too-unstable Iraq would have almost certainly descended into chaos, become a terrorist stronghold, and forced us to invade for yet a third time.

In January of 2007, John McCain proposed a troop surge in Iraq, and Barack Obama opposed it:

(CBS) Sen. John McCain supports President George Bush’s planned troop surge in Iraq, while his fellow Senator, and likely opponent in the 2008 race for the White House, Barack Obama would rather see a “surge in diplomacy.”

A showdown between Congress and the president looms after President Bush said he would send 21,000 more American troops to Iraq. Meanwhile, a new poll indicates that the public is overwhelmingly against the plan.

Obama pursued a plan of action that would have done NOTHING as Iraq began to stumble into chaos. John McCain - as the article acknowledges - took an “overwhelmingly” unpopular stance and supported a policy that WORKED. [And note the pessimistic stance liberal CBS took on the idea of the troop surge].

American military commanders are close to declaring complete victory in Iraq.

Even Al Qaeda has openly admitted that they have lost in Iraq.

The result of this success is that Obama scrubbed his earlier positions regarding the surge from his website. That’s “change” for you: no major political candidate in American history has ever been so completely disingenuous regarding his positions.

As an Associate Press article by Nedra Pickler put it:

WASHINGTON (AP) — Barack Obama’s aides have removed criticism of President Bush’s increase of troops to Iraq from the campaign Web site, part of an effort to update the Democrat’s written war plan to reflect changing conditions.

Debate over the impact of President Bush’s troop “surge” has been at the center of exchanges this week between Obama and Republican presidential rival John McCain. Obama opposed the war and the surge from the start, while McCain supported both the invasion and the troop increase.

A year and a half after Bush announced he was sending reinforcements to Iraq, it is widely credited with reducing violence there. With most Americans ready to end the war, McCain is using the surge debate to argue he has better judgment and the troops should stay to win the fight. Obama argues the troop increase has not achieved its other goal of fostering a political reconciliation among Iraqi factions.

After Bush delivered a nationally televised address on Jan. 10, 2007, announcing his plan, Obama argued it could make the situation worse by taking pressure off Iraqis to find a political solution to the fighting.

“I am not persuaded that 20,000 additional troops in Iraq is going to solve the sectarian violence there,” the Illinois senator said that night, a month before announcing his presidential bid. “In fact, I think it will do the reverse.”

Obama continued to argue throughout 2007 that the troop increase was a mistake. By the early part of this year, he was acknowledging that it had improved security and reduced violence, but he has stuck by his opposition to the move.

By the time Obama staffers got through editing Obama’s previous positions:

Only one of his plan’s subheads remains unchanged, the first one — “Judgment You Can Trust.” That’s a message the campaign wants Americans to embrace.

That’s right: “judgment you can trust.” You can trust a man who takes every position under the sun depending on his political expediency, plays politics when soldiers’ lives are on the line, scrubs his own website of his previous erroneous positions, and then blithely pretends he’s had the same position all along.

As Barack Obama launches his foreign visit accompanied by the in-the-tank anchors from the in-the-tank networks and all the media fanfare they can produce, the narrative will be that Obama is right about the timetable for withdrawal.

But the only reason we can reasonably talk about a timetable for an American withdrawal from Iraq is because better and more courageous men were in charge - and Barack Obama was not.

As you listen to the in-the-tank media hype for Obama, don’t forget that.

Obama has repeatedly cut and run from his own positions: from dismissing the wearing of flag pins to wearing them constantly; from publicly vowing that he could never denounce Rev. Jeremiah Wright any more than he could denounce his own grandmother to publicly denouncing Jeremiah Wright; from filling out questionnaires to denying that he filled out the answers on the questionnaires; from being an opponent of free trade to being a supporter of free trade; from telling a Jewish audience that he supported Jerusalem as the eternal capital of a Jewish state to telling a group of Palestinians that he was open to negotiating the status of Jerusalem; from claiming that Iran was not a serious threat to claiming that Iran represents a serious threat; from vowing to accept public financing to refusing to accept public financing; from supporting the Washington D.C. ban on handguns to supporting the Supreme Court decision overturning the Washington D.C. ban on handguns; from swearing he would filibuster any FISA bill that did not allow lawsuits against telecoms to voting for a FISA bill that didn’t include any provisions to punish telecoms; from vowing to end the Iraq war in 2009 to saying he would refine his position to listen to military commanders to saying he would end the war in Iraq irregardless of the commanders.

The liberal editorial board of the New York Times has recognized that Barack Obama seemed to lack a functioning moral compass. Last week New York Times columnist Bob Herbert pointed out that Barack Obama has no moral compass whatsoever. He ended his piece by saying:

There’s even concern that he’s doing the Obama two-step on the issue that has been the cornerstone of his campaign: his opposition to the war in Iraq. But the senator denied that any significant change should be inferred from his comment that he would “continue to refine” his policy on the war.

Mr. Obama is betting that in the long run none of this will matter, that the most important thing is winning the White House, that his staunchest supporters (horrified at the very idea of a President McCain) will be there when he needs them.

He seems to believe that his shifts and twists and clever panders — as opposed to bold, principled leadership on important matters — will entice large numbers of independent and conservative voters to climb off the fence and run into his yard.

Maybe. But that’s a very dangerous game for a man who first turned voters on by presenting himself as someone who was different, who wouldn’t engage in the terminal emptiness of politics as usual.

Don’t forget that Barack Obama is a pandering, waffling, flip flopping liberal who doesn’t have the courage of his own convictions.

Increasingly even liberals are recognizing that Barack Obama is simply not fit to lead.

When I was a child - about five or six - something happened that left a vivid impression on me.

I heard the word “nigger” for the first time.

It wasn’t the word that left such an impression (I didn’t even know what it meant); rather, it was my father’s reaction to it.

My dad used curse words at the man who said it. The other man yelled at my dad, and my dad yelled back at him. The other man was big and angry and mean. I was terrified that my dad was going to fight that bad man.

After that incident, my dad sat me down. He apologized for using bad words, and then he said that there were two kinds of words: bad words and evil words. And he said the word “nigger” was an evil word. He said he got so angry because it was wrong for that man to say such a hateful thing around children. He said that sometimes you had to stand up and say that something was wrong.

My father said that people who used that word meant that black people weren’t human beings like other people, but were something less. He said that the most awful things that ever happened happened because people thought like that about other people who were different from them, and that he hoped that I would never be like those people.

I wonder what children who heard Jesse Jackson use the word the other day thought.

There was a discussion about it on The View, in which Whoopie Goldberg and the liberals on the program justified black people using the word. It’s only wrong when white people use it.

Black people use it as a “term of endearment.”

Is that the case?

I don’t think so. There’s nothing “dear” about the word, and there never has been. Hey, I’m calling you a sub-human beast of burden, but I really mean it in a really nice way.

For one thing, it perpetuates the use of both the word, and the content of the word. If you think that racist white people don’t justify their use of the word with, “Black people use it all the time. They use it to talk about each other!” then you simply aren’t living in the real world.

If black people want white people to stop using the “N-word,” then they have to stop using the word themselves. Until that word is off-limits for everyone, it will continue to be fair game for everyone.

How many children - every single day - learn about racism by hearing that word for the very first time?

Thank God for my dad, who stood up and said, “Don’t you dare use that word around my son!”

Elizabeth Hasslebeck literally cried because that word so upset her. It ought to upset everyone. Period.

Instead, when I googled “elizabeth hasslebeck” and “n-word” I saw the full hate and meanness of the left come out in all its vile ugliness. I discussed the viciousness of the left the other day in writing about the hatred expressed over the passing of Tony Snow. Viciousness is increasingly coming to characterize the left.

For a second thing, claiming that one group of people can use a word, and another group of people can’t, is the quintessential example of a double-standard.

The double-standards that have been a constant element of “the civil rights movement” for years are a big part of why so many white people have become so embittered over the movement. Racial quotas. The N-word. The very anger over demands for personal responsibility that so enraged Jesse Jackson in the first place.

How on earth does anybody think that a reliance upon one double-standard after another is the path to racial harmony? It just isn’t, and it never was.

Dr. Martin Luther KIng, Jr. said, “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.” But the civil rights leaders - such as Jesse Jackson - turned that statement on its head.

Don’t you talk to us about the “content of our characters!” You had better never forget the color of our skins!” And you better give us stuff on the basis of the color of our skins!

How are poor whites supposed to feel when they are systematically denied equal opportunity in the very name of “equal opportunity”?

Dr. King’s murder was a terrible thing. But the worst thing of all was that lesser men were able to hijack the civil rights movement and substitute their own ideas for his.

The third thing is that the use of the “N-word” itself becomes a political expression and an example of everything that is wrong with politics.

When Don Imus referred to “Nappy-headed hoes” he was attacked by the very “civil rights leaders” (including Jackson himself) who are now defending Jackson’s use of the word.

When Republican Senator George Allen used the word “macaca” to describe a Democrat plant, he was literally driven out of politics. To this day, I have never been able to find out what that word actually means. It didn’t matter. It could be construed to sound racist, and that was enough.

Now the same people who were so completely outraged over a conservative using the nonsensical word “macaca” are defending a liberal using the genuinely evil word “nigger.” It is simply Kafkaesque.

If you want to say, “It’s different because Jackson is a black man using a word about blacks!” then let me mention Barack Obama’s use of “typical white person.”

What we are seeing today is nothing less than selective outrage being employed as a political weapon.

And it’s wrong. It’s wrong because it makes genuine racism meaningless as politically-motivated pseudo-charges or racism drown out the real thing.

I am a conservative white male. And like the overwhelming majority of genuine conservatives, I would gladly support the candidacy of Dr. Condileeza Rice for president. She is - of course - both black and female.

I wouldn’t vote for her “because she’s black”; rather I would vote for her because she has the experience, the judgment, the competence, the character, the values, and the policies to be our president.

I do not support Barack Obama. And I refuse to support him not “because he’s black”; rather, I won’t vote for him because he doesn’t have the experience, the judgment, the competence, the character, the values, and the policies to be our president.

Jesse Jackson used the “N-word” because he thinks entirely in racial (and I would argue racist) terms. One of the worst examples of racism is the continuous use of terms like “Uncle Tom” and “race traitor” to describe prominent black leaders such as Condileeza Rice, Colin Powell, and Clarence Thomas.

As far as many in the “civil rights movement” are concerned, unless you are “our kind of black,” they feel entirely free to call you “a house nigger.”

That’s exactly what Jesse Jackson was doing. Barack Obama wasn’t being “his” kind of black.

They are the real racists, because they can only think in purely racial terms, and they see racism in everyone but themselves. And it’s truly sad that such people have somehow been able to put themselves in charge over who gets to branded as a “racist” and who doesn’t.

One black intellectual spoke of bargainers and challengers in the black community. The first group is willing to give whites and white society the benefit of the doubt, and work with them to try to create a better society. The second group (and Jesse Jackson is in this group) holds that whites and white society should be regarded as racist until they prove they are not.

But Jesse Jackson himself once said that crime was such a problem in the black community that when he saw a group of young black men he automatically looked around and found himself reassured by the presence of white people. Given the black crime rate, why shouldn’t I assume that blacks aren’t criminals and “thugs” (as Barack Obama’s NEW pastor himself put it) until they prove otherwise?

Because that’s not the way my dad taught me how to regard people, is why.  That view doesn’t lead to peace and harmony, but suspicion and mistrust.

Anyone who has read even one of my articles about Barack Obama knows that I am not an Obama supporter. But on this issue, Barack Obama is clearly right, and Jesse Jackson - who has been the paradigmatic “civil rights leader” for a generation now - should now stand revealed for just how terribly wrong he is and always has been.

I dream of a day when Dr. King’s dream comes true. That’s why I have always been an opponent of Jesse Jackson.

Fox News had this yesterday:

On his upcoming overseas trip, Barack Obama will be met along the way by the anchors of the three network evening newscasts. About 200 other journalists have also asked to join Obama during his trip.

But Howard Kurtz of The Washington Post reports that John McCain has taken three foreign trips in the past four months — all unaccompanied by a single network anchor and with little fanfare.

The Tyndall Report, which monitors news coverage, says that since June the nightly newscasts on the three networks spent a combined 114 minutes covering Obama while devoting just 48 minutes to McCain.

And first of all, with all three anchors from all three networks accompanying Obama, you can figure that that “114 minutes to 48 minutes” figure will get a LOT more lopsided.

Question: why is Obama’s trip getting all this attention?

Explain it to me. If you think I’m dumb for not understanding, feel free to use as many one-syllable words as you want. Why is the media that virtually ignored McCain’s trips giving Obama’s trip so much attention?

It’s not that Obama is surging ahead in the polls and McCain is going nowhere; the reality is that the two candidates are in a statistical dead heat, and that it has been McCain - and NOT Obama - who is moving upward. It’s not as though the American people want to know what Obama is doing, and could care less about what McCain is doing.

And it certainly isn’t over some drama that Obama’s position might actually change regarding Iraq. He earlier announced that his 16 month timetable for withdrawal from Iraq could change depending on conditions on the ground and advice from military commanders. But his reversal was so unpopular with liberals that he was forced to waffle and pander his way back to his earlier position. He is now firmly committed to pulling out of Iraq in 16 months, commanders be damned.

The Obamamessiah apparently does not need to hear the opinions of American commanders in Iraq; he doesn’t need to see how dramatically the conditions on the ground have changed. He is divinely omniscient, knowing their thoughts and their hearts across the Atlantic, and knowing far better than they as to what to do.

So what is it? Why are the media so excited that all three of the mainline network anchors are going with him? Along with a massive flock of journalists? Why?

There is one reason and one reason only: they are biased journalists in the tank for Obama, and they want to create a sense of excitement about his trip. They want to make Barack Obama appear “presidential.”

Here’s an article that raises some of the issues the media COULD use to create its narrative of Obama’s visit, as well as the effort to “provide him a real commander-in-chief moment” picture they almost certainly WILL end up attempting to create.

At MSNBC’s First Read, Domenico Montanaro wonders if McCain has boxed Obama in on the issue, or whether it could bounce back against the Republican presidential candidate.

“Has McCain boxed Obama in on this issue — because if he does actually go to Iraq, will it look like McCain’s idea?” Montanaro wonders. “There are certainly a few other pros to McCain’s line of attack here: It moves the issue terrain to ground on which the Arizona senator is comfortable (Iraq), and it makes McCain look like the knowledgeable and experienced one.”

The article continues, “‘The important thing is for him to go and see the facts on the ground and the success we are achieving,’ McCain said yesterday. But there are a couple of cons, too. For starters, this debate will spur news organizations to whip up the video of McCain’s widely panned stroll through that Baghdad market, evidence that politicians don’t always see everything when they visit Iraq. But more important, if Obama DOES go, it could provide him a real commander-in-chief moment. As conservative commentator Jennifer Rubin puts it, ‘He might be able to … show he is not ‘afraid’ to get out and meet with the troops and commanders. He might even impress some voters that he is fluent enough in national security matters to be a credible commander-in-chief.’”

Will we hear about the negative side surrounding Obama’s trip? John Gibson put it this way:

But now he’s been cornered by McCain and his choices are not good. If after “consideration” he decides not to go, he will be dogged continuously about why he criticizes and condemns the situation in Iraq when he won’t go see it for himself.

If on the other hand he does go, he is very likely to see firsthand what a wide array of commentators have called success in Iraq: A much improved security situation, normal life returning to Iraqi streets, the impending and total defeat of Al Qaeda (an AQ Web site recently posted an essay titled “How We Lost in Iraq”), and the determination of the prime minister to stamp out sectarian violence with massive numbers of Iraqi troops.

Will journalist ask Obama about why Al Qaeda is now openly acknowledging that it lost in Iraq? Will they ask how Obama can criticize McCain’s Iraq position when it was that policy that has resulted in the victory? Will they ask Obama why he scrubbed his own website of his earlier predictions that the “surge” would fail and result in disaster? Will they point out that, had we pursued Obama’s policy, we would have abandoned Iraq at a time when our withdrawal would have certainly resulted in defeat instead of victory? Will they point out that withdrawing when Obama said we should have would have almost certainly resulted in a massive humanitarian crisis, and necessitated a third invasion in Iraq?

One thing is for sure: the three network anchors, and the hundreds of journalists, most definitely WON’T ask these questions. And they won’t treat Barack Obama the way they treated John McCain when he was panned for his stroll in that Baghdad market. And they further won’t tell us that he’s only going because it’s politically necessary that he go, or that the trip is essentially pointless because he’s already announced his policy.

Barack Obama has not bothered to visit Iraq for 921 days now. He hasn’t felt the need to consult with American military commanders to benefit from their insights before announcing his policies. He didn’t bother to seek extra time with General Petraeus when he was in Washington, and didn’t even ask the general a single question (but instead spent his entire allotted time at the hearing lecturing him). He clearly tried to waffle in announcing he was “refining” his previous Iraq position, which is exactly what the Clinton campaign predicted he would do. And now he’s waffled back. (Read my article for links to all of the above and more).

Will any of that fertile journalistic territory be the narrative the media paints during Obama’s first foreign visit in 2 1/2 years? And when Obama goes to Israel, will the media remind viewers that Obama told a group of American Jews that Jerusalem would remain the eternal undivided capital of Israel, and then told a group of American Palestinians the opposite? Will they use this perfect “gotcha” moment to force Obama to announce exactly what his stance on Jerusalem is? What do you think?

One journalist predicted that we will need to smoke a cigarette after the lovey-dovey-fluff-interview with Katie Couric. Does anybody think that this network anchor will ask him genuinely tough questions that could make Obama look bad? And that analogy immediately brings to mind the fact that Obama is a smoker; how much coverage have you seen on that? How much do you think you would see if McCain was a smoker? Does anybody seriously believe that story would be so conveniently forgotten?

This is the same media that gave significant coverage to the failure of Iraq to meet American benchmarks, and then failed to cover the story that Iraq was now making huge progress meeting those same benchmarks. Fox News’ Britt Hume put it this way:

Hume Correctly Predicts Only FNC Would Report Progress in Iraq

After leading Tuesday’s Special Report with how “last year the administration reported satisfactory progress on only about eight of 18 benchmarks” while this year, in a report disclosed Tuesday, the administration determined “there has been satisfactory progress on 15 of the 18,” FNC’s Brit Hume doubted “word of this progress is going to get through” to the public as he predicted: “I suspect that this broadcast tonight — and maybe some others on this channel — are the only ones who are going to make a headline out of this. This is not going to be a big story elsewhere.” Indeed, the CBS Evening News, NBC Nightly News and CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360 were silent Tuesday night about the benchmarks. Hume also observed that “when it first hit the wires, the wire story lead about it was all about how much trouble the next President is going to have with the slow pace of the Iraqi government. Only down in the story did one find out that this new report on the benchmarks has come out reporting a dramatic change from a year ago.”

A more detailed story provides more illumination on why Iraq’s success in meeting 15 of the 18 benchmarks somehow didn’t deserve coverage. They don’t want progress in Iraq. They don’t want you to know about the progress in Iraq. They want the American people to be mushrooms: they want you K.I.T.D.A.F.O.H.S. (Kept In The Dark And Fed On Horse you-know-what).

The media claims that it is objectively attempting to prove the public with the facts when they are doing anything but. They are attempting to paint one distorted narrative after another that conforms to their own agenda. If it were any other industry (e.g. banking or investment), we would call this kind of behavior “fraud” and punish it criminally.

The thing that bothers me is that the most important election in America is no longer even close to fair. Rather, it is every bit as lopsided as the clearly liberal and clearly biased media can make it.

If the American people were allowed to receive the real story about Barack Obama, if they were presented with the real Obama policies, and if they were presented with the ramifications of those policies, he would lose in a landslide. As the media cheerfully accompanies Barack Obama on his heroic and romantic trip to foreign lands, you can bet that they will be doing everything they can to continue to distort the news to prevent that from happening.

Remember Nancy Pelosi’s “commonsense plan” to lower gas prices, back when gas prices were half what they are since she and her fellow Democrats assumed power in Congress?

“With record gas prices, record CEO pay packages, and record oil company profits, Speaker Hastert and the Majority Congress continue to give the American people empty rhetoric rather than join Democrats who are working to lower gas prices now.

“Democrats have a commonsense plan to help bring down skyrocketing gas prices by cracking down on price gouging, rolling back the billions of dollars in taxpayer subsidies, tax breaks and royalty relief given to big oil and gas companies, and increasing production of alternative fuels.”

Investors’ Business Daily came out with the following call for Nancy Pelosi:

Feckless To Reckless, Pelosi Should Resign

By INVESTOR’S BUSINESS DAILY | Monday, July 14, 2008

Leadership: With oil hitting $147, Nancy Pelosi finally admits energy is a problem. But instead of drilling for it, she’s cooked up a new drain-the-reserves scheme. It’s pure politics at a time of crisis. She ought to resign.

Any leader with an energy record as derelict as Speaker Pelosi’s ought to step down. Where she once was just incompetent and irresponsible, she has now — with her latest scheme to fix oil prices — become dangerous.

Despite polls showing Americans in favor of drilling more oil from America’s huge untapped supplies, Pelosi won’t allow it. She just wants to empty our Strategic Petroleum Reserve for a short-term fix to get through Election Day.

It’s an irresponsible suggestion, signaling not only an ignorance of how the economy works but also a willingness to place the nation at risk in the case of emergency.

Last Tuesday, Pelosi sent a letter to President Bush urging him to release a “small portion” of the nation’s 706 million barrels of strategic-reserve oil to bring down prices. Regardless of how one feels about whether reserves should be held at all, two big problems stand out with Pelosi’s tiny demand.

One, she’s proposing a misappropriation of the reserves. The U.S. oil stockpile is a 58-day cushion for emergencies that today are all possible. If Israel attacks Iran, for example, and prices double again. Or if Hugo Chavez cuts off his supplies, as he threatened to do as recently as Sunday.

The reserve is there to cushion the blow of a market disruption; it’s not an open-market mechanism to manipulate prices for political ends.

Two, Pelosi has finally admitted that supply matters, something that contrasts with her entire legislative record. We count 14 energy actions to suppress supply on her Web site just since 2005.

She has blocked efforts to open Alaska to drilling, denounced fossil fuels, blamed oil companies for high gasoline prices, voted for biotech boondoggles and condemned speculators.

“Our coasts need lasting protection from oil and gas drilling,” she declared Dec. 6, 2006, after Democrats won control of Congress. Missing are any moves against petrotyrant regimes who drive prices skyward, or even lip service to the idea of ensuring supply through drilling.

Pelosi downplays her proposal as modest because it’s a “small” portion of the reserves to spend. And look what happened in 2000, she says, when an SPR release authorized by President Clinton lowered gasoline prices nearly 20%.

But she’s not fooling anyone. Then, like now, an election was coming up.

With Congress’ public approval at a subterranean 9% and falling, the speaker must be starting to realize that November may not be the Democratic cakewalk that pundits predict.

President Bush, however, isn’t about to be suckered into releasing the reserves just long enough for pump prices to fall by Election Day, thereby saving Democrats’ skins so they can carry on their drill-nothingism for an additional two years.

The president needs to do two things with Pelosi’s proposal: First, tell her “no,” unless she comes up with a plan to open up more drilling. Second, expose it for what it is — a bid to paint Bush as the problem to distract from her own sorry record.

In playing politics with the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, the speaker has moved beyond the incompetence and irresponsibility that have characterized her leadership to date.

It borders on reckless, something we cannot tolerate in such dangerous times.

Democrat Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid ought to join her, given that he thinks that the very substance our culture needs to survive is evil:

“The one thing we fail to talk about is those costs that you don’t see on the bottom line. That is coal makes us sick, oil makes us sick; it’s global warming. It’s ruining our country, it’s ruining our world. We’ve got to stop using fossil fuel.”

Ohmigosh! The leaders of both the Democrat-controlled House and Senate are completely irresponsible - and completely useless - on energy, at a time when energy is becoming a genuine crisis!

Can we make it a trifecta? Do we have - dare I say it - THREE stooges?

Here’s what Barack Obama’s campaign says about President Bush’s lifting of the executive order prohibiting offshore oil drilling:

“If offshore drilling would provide short-term relief at the pump or a long-term strategy for energy independence, it would be worthy of our consideration, regardless of the risks. But most experts, even within the Bush administration, concede it would do neither. It would merely prolong the failed energy policies we have seen from Washington for 30 years. Senator Obama believes Americans need real short-term relief, which is why he has proposed a second round of stimulus with energy rebates for working families. And over the long-term, Senator Obama understands that our national security and the survivial of the planet demand a real strategy to break our dependence on foreign oil by developing clean, new sources of energy and by vastly improving the energey efficiency of our cars, trucks and our economy. He is ready to lead such a transformation.”

Yep. Three for three. We have the Three Stooges of energy. And I personally think Nancy Pelosi is the “Moe” of the bunch (I’ll leave it to others to decide which one is “Curly”).

What do we make of the Democrats’ proposals? How has House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s “commonsense plan” performed since gas prices were a little over $2 a gallon when she took over?

Well, that’s clearly a rhetorical question; Pelosi, Reid, and their Democrat Congress haven’t done a single positive thing.

What do we make of Democrats’ excuses for refusing to allow drilling? Stop and thing about their answers: 1) there’s no point in drilling because it won’t produce a drop of oil for seven years; 2) we can’t drill our way out of the problem; 3) drilling simply represents the failed policy of the past; 4) we should open the strategic petroleum reserve to lower energy prices; 5) off-shore drilling will contaminate our environment and harm our tourism industries; 6) if we expand drilling we will contribute to global warming; 7) the oil companies have 68 million acres they can drill on; 8) the high price of gas is due to “price gouging” by big oil; 9) the high price of gas is due to speculators manipulating the market.

Think about it:
1) If there’s no point in drilling because it won’t immediately produce any oil, then by the same twisted idiot’s logic, there’s no point in investing in “alternative energy” - most of which is purely theoretical and which certainly won’t be producing real energy in seven years. This asanine point is simply breathtaking in its sheer brazen shortsightedness; better to have it in seven years than not have it at all! Particularly when, had Democrats allowed us to have this oil seven years ago, we wouldn’t be where we are now.

Democrats have been saying for 25 years that drilling won’t produce an immediate solution to our energy needs. Their current rhetoric merely reveals just how terribly wrong they were seven years ago! At some point we must hold them accountable for their criminal stupidity.

2) We may not be able to completely drill our way out of the problem (although many in the petroleum industry point to their studies and argue, ‘Yes we actually can!’). But there is absolutely no question that we can substantially increase our oil supplies - and have a massive impact on our energy problem - precisely by drilling.

Explain to me how hundreds of billions of barrels of domestic oil - immune from the whims of OPEC, and immune from the instability of the Middle East and Northern Africa - wouldn’t help us solve our problem?

3) If drilling - in Barack Obama’s words - would “merely prolong the failed energy policies we have seen” - than should we stop drilling? For one thing, for most of that time, the point is we haven’t drilled; drilling has been banned. So the actual “failed policy” would really be NOT drilling, wouldn’t it?

What is Obama’s and the Democrat’s meaningful alternative to drilling? When oil constitutes over 85% of our energy, just what do they propose to do to make up for that massive chunk of our requirement? The simple fact of the matter is that there is nothing out there that can begin to fill the void of oil - and by virtually all accounts we will continue to need oil for several decades to come.

It’s almost like saying that “eating would merely prolong the failed dietary policies of the past.” Even under the valid assumption that we’ve had a poor diet plan in the past, does that mean we should starve ourselves to death?

4) Opening our strategic reserve to reduce oil prices would lower gas prices. This is undoubtedly true, but what happens if we have a crisis? What happens if Israel - acting in its legitimate self interests - takes out some of Iran’s nuclear capability? That strategic reserve is there for emergencies, and we face some very real potential global crises today. What would we do if Iran shut down the Strait of Hormuz and we didn’t have any oil on reserve? what would we do if we had another Hurricane Katrina that damaged oil refineries?

But another problem with this line of argument is that it exposes the gaping hole of stupidity of the Democrat’s arguments against drilling. They’re claiming on the one hand that the millions of barrels of oil a day that domestic drilling would produce wouldn’t solve our problems, while simultaneously claiming that a much smaller contribution to the oil supply would be beneficial. Which is it?

The best way to increase our national oil supply is to move toward a solution that would actually increase our oil supply. That means drilling.

5) Will off-shore drilling harm our tourism industries?

Well, a big problem with that hypothesis is that tourism isn’t going to do very well as long as fuel is so expensive that nobody can afford to go anywhere. So there’s a clear counterproductive notion to protecting our pristine beaches (particularly given that the oil rigs would be located miles out to see beyond the horizon anyway).

Let’s all agree that ANWR is not a tourist hot spot.

Will drilling create massive footprints in pristine wilderness and offshore areas? Not nearly as much as the Democrats disingenuously claim it will. And the question is, would even a large footprint in some way-far-away place like ANWR really be worth destroying our national economy over? Let’s put it to a vote: should we abandon the American way of life, or drill? Right now, 70-75% of the American people are screaming, “Drill!” And as the crisis mounts, that percentage is going to get higher.

We have dramatically improved the environmental impact of our drilling operations. We can do it cleanly, and with a surprisingly small “footprint.”

6) Will drilling increase global warming? Please, PLEASE realize that the best measurable (as opposed to abstract computer models!) scientific evidence is that we have been having warming and cooling cycles for millennial, and that we are currently in a cooling cycle.

Furthermore, we have evidence of a tropical heat vent in our climate system - not considered in computer models - which provides a “natural thermostat” that all by itself renders much of the alarm over global warming moot.

Are we really prepared to dramatically reduce our lifestyle in order to fight a cyclical climate phenomena that we can do nothing to stop anyway, and which will not even be all that bad given the documented human history through previous warmings?

And if all that isn’t enough, then tell me how refusing to drill for our own oil, while at the same time begging OPEC countries to drill more of theirs, helps prevent global warming. If we drilled for our oil, we would actually be using techniques that are much more environment-friendly.

7) The oil companies have 68 million acres to drill on, so they don’t need any more.

I can’t help but wonder: are Democrats really this stupid, or do they have an ulterior agenda for wanting to prevent America from accessing its vast domestic oil reserves?

When it comes to drilling, one acre is most definitely NOT as good as another. You don’t just drill a hole in the ground, and oil comes out.

Oil companies lease all the land they can, and then they begin the lengthy phase of doing geological studies and drilling test wells. Most of the ground comes up empty. Other ground has oil, but not in enough quantities to produce profitably.

The areas that most definitely DO produce are off-limits because of Democrat’s actions. The off-shore areas - overwhelmingly off-limits to drilling because of Democrats in Congress - are KNOWN to be the most productive of all.

And even those leased areas that WOULD actually produce oil all-too frequently tend to become off-limits to oil companies because of the actions of liberal groups such as environmentalists. To cite merely one case among many, the sage grouse is definitely more important to liberals than the fact that your family will suffer over high oil prices. This is an area that most definitely produces oil, and which is located in such a way that it will prevent drilling throughout the region.

As one other fact that Democrats and their media lackeys tend to conveniently ignore, some of that “68 million acres” we keep hearing about are actually being worked by the oil companies. The term “production” applies to sites that are actually producing oil right now, irregardless of the fact that oil companies have invested millions there, and are working toward production.

8) The excessive profits and price gouging of oil companies is to blame for high oil prices.

Well, oil trades at a world price, not one set by American oil companies. The fact is that U.S. oil has lost considerable influence to both OPEC and to foreign government oil, and has little influence over the market price of a barrel of oil. The largest American oil company - Exxon Mobil - is only the 14th largest in the world today. Therefore, much of the criticism of American oil is literally just another one symptom of the “blame America first, blame America for everything” ideology of liberals.

Democrats also perform another bait and switch: when they talk about the “obscene profits,” they always talk about the gross profit in total dollars, and never about profit as a percentage of costs. But think about it: if you had a 10% profit with a commodity that sold for $100 a unit, and the cost per unit went up to $200, you’re profit in dollars would double - even though it remained the exact same percentage. Given that virtually every corporation focuses on profits as a percentage of its costs, the oil companies aren’t doing anything that other businesses don’t do and have been doing.

Oil companies make billions of dollars in profit because they have hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars in assets and costs. But their profits are actually well within the normative range of corporations in other industries. Oil companies have to continue to make reasonable profits, or else stockholders will withdraw their money and invest in other, more profitable, industries.

The following chart is illustrative of oil company profits relative to other industries:

Do oil companies benefit from sweetheart tax deals, as Democrats constantly claim? Look at the facts and make your own determination:

A study reveals that just one corporation (Exxon Mobil) pays as much in taxes ($27 billion) annually as the entire bottom 50% of individual taxpayers (65,000,000 people!). Moreover, the tax rate for the bottom 50% of taxpayers is only 3% of adjusted gross income ($27.4 billion in income / $922 billion paid in taxes), and the tax rate for Exxon was 41% in 2006 ($67.4 billion in taxable income, $27.9 billion in taxes).

So the oil companies - which in the 1990s actually suffered huge losses resulting in major layoffs (and no Democrats wailed about it or demanded hearings then) - are not “price gouging,” are not “making windfall profits,” and are certainly not “benefiting from sweetheart tax subsidies.”

9) Speculators’ have been driving up the price of oil.

The fact is that no one is able to prove that speculation is having ANY effect on oil at all. Maybe it is and maybe it isn’t, but it’s a purely theoretical argument. Most of the so-called “speculators” are companies with commercial fleets and airlines who need to buy oil at the best prices in order to keep their costs down. If they believe that oil is becoming more expensive, what do you think they will do? They will buy oil now to save money later. And that raises the price now. It’s a simple market phenomenon.

I heard a pertinent illustration to the speculation issue: Imagine that the city of Chicago announced a moratorium on any new building. No new building permits. No new construction. What do you think would happen to the price of real estate in Chicago? It would skyrocket. Now, imagine what would happen if you announced a major new construction program in Chicago: do you think that would raise or lower the price of real estate?

We saw something like this in the past two days: oil has dropped dramatically - $15 a barrel - in just two days. And what accompanies that decrease? President Bush lifted the executive ban on offshore drilling.

The mere lifting of the ban encouraged the market that more supplies could be on the way, and therefore lowered the price of oil today. When more is coming, you don’t have a scarce - and therefore more valuable - resource. When less is coming, the price increases. Everyone understands this except Democrats.

We have the Three Stooges of Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and Barack Obama, who have announced that they are determined to pursue a policy that will keep the price of oil shockingly high and leave us vulnerable to foreign price manipulation.

If I were from a country that is hostile to the United States, I would be watching this current version of the Three Stooges and laughing my head off over their ridiculous antics. But I love my country. And I can only mourn the fact that two stooges are in power, and a third may be on the way.

The Associated Press’ “eulogy” of Tony Snow contained the following comments:

With a quick-from-the-lip repartee, broadcaster’s good looks and a relentlessly bright outlook — if not always a command of the facts — he became a popular figure around the country to the delight of his White House bosses.

In that year and a half at the White House, Snow brought partisan zeal and the skills of a seasoned performer to the task of explaining and defending the president’s policies. During daily briefings, he challenged reporters, scolded them and questioned their motives as if he were starring in a TV show broadcast live from the West Wing.

Critics suggested that Snow was turning the traditionally informational daily briefing into a personality-driven media event short on facts and long on confrontation. He was the first press secretary, by his own accounting, to travel the country raising money for Republican candidates.

Bill O’Reilly clearly wasn’t touched by the Associate Press‘ treatment of Snow. He had this to say yesterday:

Over the weekend, we eulogized Tony Snow in a personal way. I hope you saw our broadcast because I believe we painted a very accurate picture of a great man. Tonight we’ll get into policy — the things that Tony believed in and the challenges he faced going public with those beliefs.

Hours after Tony died early Saturday morning, the Associated Press published an obituary of him. Written by Douglass Daniel, the obit listed Tony’s bio and some of his achievements, but it also injected a left-wing partisan viewpoint, which was insulting to the Snow family and completely inappropriate.

Just a few weeks ago, the AP ran a terrific obituary for Tim Russert, avoiding any cheap shots. But Daniel could not do that for Tony Snow as he wrote: “With a quick-from-the-lip repartee, broadcaster’s good looks and a relentlessly bright outlook — if not always a command of the facts — he became a popular figure around the country to the delight of his White House bosses. Critics suggested that Snow was turning the traditionally informational daily briefing into a personality-driven media event short on facts and long on confrontation.”

Now, if you want to criticize Tony’s White House career, do it after he’s buried, OK, Associated Press? Your opinion of his job performance doesn’t belong in an obituary. It was an insult to Tony’s family and demonstrates once and for all the AP is no longer a news service. It has become a liberal clearing house.

Now, I myself just wrote a eulogy remembering both Tim Russert and Tony Snow. Tim Russert came from the Democratic ranks; and more than occasionally I believed that he was grilling Republicans in a way that he did not grill Democrats on his program. But I was writing a eulogy, and so I focused on the very best of these two men.

That’s what you do when you eulogize, unless you are overly partisan. You look at the best of someone, and pointedly ignore the negative. The AP gave a magnificent, criticism-free sendoff to Tim Russert. It just couldn’t find the same graciousness for a conservative.

Shame on them for allowing their thinly veiled political ideology to intrude on good taste.

Rush Limbaugh, commenting on the AP’s lack of journalistic balance, said this:

A month ago I went on a riff about the lone remaining monopoly in the Drive-By Media, that being the Associated Press and I pointed out how dangerous they are. They still have a monopoly in the sense that every newspaper in the country subscribes to their service and prints their BS. Yesterday, Politico.com ran a story about the new Washington — or the editor, bureau chief, whatever; Washington bureau chief; I forget what title he has, Ron Fournier, the former White House reporter. He has decided — and I don’t know how long ago they decided this, but it probably coincides pretty much with my noticing it, but they decided, he decided — from now on the AP is going to start putting opinion in the news, that people are just too stupid to figure out what the news is without an opinion being thrown in there. Honestly this is what they said. I had the story in the stack yesterday. I think I have it anywhere near here, but I’m summarizing it pretty closely.

Limbaugh was referring to a Politico.com story titled, “Is Fournier saving or destroying the AP?” in which Ron Fournier, the head of the Associated Press’ Washington bureau, is revealed to encourage first-person writing and the use of emotive language in news stories. Part of the Politico piece points out the clear pitfall of Fournier’s new approach to journalism:

Fournier and other critics of the conventional press model, especially those on the left, have said that being released from the tired conventions of news writing is exactly what journalism needs.

By these lights, the mentality that presumes both sides of an argument are entitled to equal weight is what prevented the media from challenging the Bush administration more aggressively on the Iraq war and other issues.

Others warn that what Fournier and other proponents see as truth-telling can easily bleed into opinionizing — exactly the opposite of the AP’s mission of “delivering fast, unbiased news.”

“The problem,” says James Taranto, the Wall Street Journal’s Best of the Web columnist and a frequent critic of what he sees as the AP’s liberal bias, “is that while you can do opinion journalism and incorporate reporting into it, you can’t say you’re doing straight reporting, and then add opinion to that.”

A dispatch Fournier filed in 2005 in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina began: “The Iraqi insurgency is in its last throes. The economy is booming. Anybody who leaks a CIA agent’s identity will be fired. Add another piece of White House rhetoric that doesn’t match the public’s view of reality: Help is on the way, Gulf Coast.”

Fournier cited the article in an essay titled “Accountability Journalism: Liberating reporters and the truth” he wrote for the June 1 issue of the AP’s internal newsletter, The Essentials, as an example of how to be “provocative without being partisan … truth-tellers without being editorial writers.”

“I call ‘em as I see ‘em” has little validity if you are in the tank for one side. You probably wouldn’ t want a die-hard Lakers fan like me refereeing a Laker game in the playoffs if you are rooting for the other team - or even if you simply want an objectively-called game. It’s not that I would deliberately cheat; it’s just that my “pro-Laker” mentality and desire to see the Lakers win would alter my perception and affect my judgment.  Limbaugh used the media’s outrage over the NBA referee scandal as an example of their own innate hypocrisy. It’s too bad they refuse to apply the same standard and rationale about genuine objectivity for themselves that they reserve for everybody else.

Here is a collection of pieces I’ve writing discussing about the media’s ideological biases:

NBC’s Deceptive Editing Reveals Why Bush Right and Obama Wrong

How to Demagogue the Economy

Hillary’s Pennsylvania Win Has Media Snivelling

Media Frenzy over ABC Democratic Debate Reveals Leftist Bias

I chuckled over a July 14, 2008 Mallard Fillmore cartoon that read: “This just in!… The mainstream media now say they felt the need to cover the “Countrywide” loan scandal involving Democratic Senators Chris Dodd and Kent Conrad just as aggressively as they cover Republican scandals… then quickly sat down until the feeling went away.” It’s absolutely true. They covered the story, and then let it slide into obscurity. Had it been a pair of Republicans, there would have been a daily drumbeat of coverage until the two resigned.

When the media becomes ideologically biased - which they have - they undermine the role our founding fathers intended for them in the Bill of Rights, and leave us vulnerable to the ramifications of a people with a distorted view of the world.

When they even feel the need to editorialize and present their biases in a eulogy, it is beyond petty.

But the obvious bias of the left-tilted media - which is revealed even in coverage eulogizing political journalists who have just passed away - is only part of the story. We also must recognize that there is a rabid left wing in this country that are absolutely vicious.

That viciousness was revealed following the announcement of the death of Tony Snow.

The LA Times has a moderated blog which had the following remarks allowed about Tony Snow:

I hope the rest of these criminals die too. Good riddance to a person who contributed to making this world a worse place. - Posted by: Max | July 12, 2008 at 05:58 AM

Its unfortunate he won’t be able to see the damage he helped inflict on this country and the world. I wonder how he likes hell. - Posted by: tedson | July 12, 2008 at 06:27 AM

Was anyone more perfectly named for their job? Tony’s Snow-jobs about Bushian idiocy only helped sink the nation into the hole where we are now. - Posted by: Johnsy | July 12, 2008 at 06:58 AM

Good riddance , we still have a white house full of liars
and American soldiers being slaughtered. if Cheney strokes
then change will begin , as for Bush he is just to stupid
to die and when he dies bury him at home in IRAQ.
- Posted by: slimjim66 | July 12, 2008 at 07:30 AM

This outrage indicates why new legislation should be put in place to require a regular colonoscopy for Snow’s cohorts in propaganda. (Limbaugh, Hannity, Beck etc) Only a careful inspection of their alimentary tracts will prevent their insolent, hatefilled cancer from developing and spreading. - Posted by: Passing LostAnglos | July 12, 2008 at 07:38 AM

The question begs to be asked, is it possible to die when you don’t have a soul.
- Posted by: Chad | July 12, 2008 at 09:38 AM

Oh YES HE WAS A WONDERFUL MAN AND A …..
PUUULLLEEEASE
THIS PERSON HAD A MAJOR PART IN THE MOST EVIL ADMINISTRATION THIS COUNTRY HAS EVER SEEN.
DEATH AND TORTURE, ILLEGAL WARS, WAR CRIMINAL SOLDIERS, GOOD RIDDANCE
CANCER WAS TOO GOOD FOR HIM
HOPE IT WAS PAINFUL.
NOW FOR THE REST OF THIS SCUMMY ADMINISTRATION. COME ON CANCER, DO YOUR GOOD WORK…………
- Posted by: perry | July 12, 2008 at 02:26 PM

I have frequently heard liberals talk about how hateful the concept of “hell” is and that condemning biblically-forbidden behaviors and warning about the judgment of hell is hateful. But now I see that liberals don’t mind talking about hell at all; they merely wish to reserve it for conservatives and those who actually believe in the Bible.

The Daily Kos, by all accounts, was even worse.

The hatred of the left must be pointed out. People need to see these people as they actually are. The people who talk about “tolerance” routinely shout down conservative speakers and broadcast outright visceral hatred for those with whom they disagree.

One of the posters to the LA Times blog had this to say:

All you right wingers would be saying much worse things if the same had happened to Ted Kennedy or Obama - you are nothing but trash and liars just like Snow job was. good riddance to bad rubbish. - Posted by: Alan | July 12, 2008 at 04:52 PM

Nope. When Ted Kennedy was diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor, I wrote a piece asking for prayer for the man. I don’t have the hatred for even Osama bin Laden that so many on the left publicly harbored for Tony Snow. I just don’t have that kind of hate and meanness in me.

Nor have I ever come across a “right wing hate site” that was even close to the outright viciousness that is routinely contained in major liberal blogs such as Media Matters and the Daily Kos (and now the LA Times!!!).

The liberal media is not only overtly ideologically biased, but is now actually providing a forum for the worst kind of hatred (one LA Times blog comment allowed by the moderator asked whether Tony Snow would be buried in his Nazi uniform), has sunk to levels that are downright despicable. It is no wonder that they are losing their readership and viewership in droves.

Liberals ought to be ashamed.

Barack Obama has been running as the guy who opposed the war in Iraq.

Well, if opposing the war is the personification of wisdom, then don’t vote for Barack Obama - who has hedged on the Iraq War at times - vote for Cindy Sheehan. She opposes the war WAY more than Obama.

Shoot, vote for some six-year old liberal’s kid who has opposed the war since he was born!

Obama said today:

WASHINGTON and ALBUQUERQUE - Sen. Barack Obama said Tuesday that overall U.S. interests have been hurt rather than helped by the Bush administration’s decision to increase troop strength in Iraq 18 months ago, and vowed to stick to his plan to withdraw combat troops within 16 months of becoming president.

Obama said his White House rival, Sen. John McCain, “has argued that the gains of the surge mean that I should change my commitment to end the war. But this argument misconstrues what is necessary to succeed in Iraq, and stubbornly ignores the facts of the broader strategic picture that we face.”

If John McCain “ignores the facts,” Barack Obama changes them altogether.

The absolutely crazy and hypocritical thing is that - even as Barack Obama criticized John McCain for his commitment to the war in Iraq via the “Surge” strategy, Barack Obama had the massive chutzpah to scrub his website of past comments regarding that very strategy.

“My opponent is completely wrong! Oops. Pardon me while I scrub my website to hide what I USED to say.”

It’s simply amazing.

Politico writes about it with the hammer-smashing-the-nail title of “Surge Meets Purge“:

The McCain camaign is poking fun at Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) for a report in today’s New York Daily News that he had cleansed BarackObama.com of past criticism of the surge strategy in Iraq.

“BARACK OBAMA “REFINING” IRAQ POSITION ON OWN WEBSITE,” blares the McCain release, which helpfully links to the former versions of the site.

The Daily News report by James Gordon Meek says: “Barack Obama’s campaign scrubbed his presidential Web site over the weekend to remove criticism of the U.S. troop ‘surge’ in Iraq, the Daily News has learned. The presumed Democratic nominee replaced his Iraq issue Web page, which had described the surge as a ‘problem’ that had barely reduced violence. ‘The surge is not working,’ Obama’s old plan stated, citing a lack of Iraqi political cooperation but crediting Sunni sheiks - not U.S. military muscle - for quelling violence in Anbar Province.

Sean Hackbarth in an American Mind piece calls it, “Obama’s Surge Stance Goes Down Memory Hole“:

Edit a Presidential candidate’s view on the Iraq surge? “Yes we can!” At least that’s what Sen. Barack Obama’s web team did over the weekend. Instead of simply saying he was wrong about the surge Obama and his campaign pretends we won’t notice his alterations in emphasis. Events on the ground in Iraq have changed yet Obama is still adamant to pull U.S. troops out in 16 months. This causes Jim Geraghty to write,

That suggests the candidate is wedded to ideology and oblivious to the consequences of policy changes. And a candidate who has the… well, audacity to claim that he always said the surge would result in an “improvement in the security situation and a reduction of violence” when he said the opposite many times thinks that A) voters are gullible and B) the media have the attention span of an over-caffeinated ferret.

Gateway Pundit has a side-by-side before-and-after of Obama’s Iraq page.

Rick Moran goes for the jugular. Just like Obama thinks he’s better on Iraq because he possesses superior judgment it’s been wrong about the surge.

The most devastating article of the bunch is found on Powerline under the title “Obama’s Dishonest Op-ed.” The piece - after damning Obama regarding Iraq with his own words - proceeds to show that Obama has been as dishonest about Afghanistan as he has been wrong about Iraq.

Charles Krauthammer didn’t mention Obama’s reversing position on the surge, or the website purging that preceded the flip flopping. But he very clearly understands the Weasel who is Barack Obama:

CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER, SYNDICATED COLUMNIST: What impresses me is his audacity. Everybody moves to the center after securing the nomination. There’s nothing new under the sun there.

He did it in a particularly spectacular way with the flips that you talked about. There are a couple of others on NAFTA and flag pins, and he does it all within about three weeks. It’s sort of unprecedented.

But he goes way beyond that. On each of these he pretends that he has never changed. He says, yes, I said the gun bill was constitutional and I supported it. And now he supports the Supreme Court decision that rules it unconstitutional, and pretends it is the same decision.

But then he goes beyond that, reaching an almost acrobatic level of cynicism here, in which he says, as you indicated, Fred, anybody who believes otherwise, anybody who believes he is not actually a flipper and he hasn’t actually changed, is himself cynical, or, as he puts it, “steeped in the old politics,” and so cynical that they can’t even believe that a politician like him would act on principle.

What non-political no-self-interested reason explains his change on campaign finance other than the fact that he has a lot of money and he would lose it otherwise if he had stuck to his principles?

What non-self-interested reason explains his flip on guns, on FISA, on the flag pins, on everything? But he thinks he–what impresses me is his intellectual arrogance. He thinks everyone is either a fool who would believe all this, or a knave who is somehow distorting his words [Italics mine].

I personally believe that Barack Obama is counting on a very supportive media to help him sanitize his previously held positions by simply refusing to give them the continued coverage that would truly hurt him. Flip flops, reversals, and website purges only hurt him if the American people know about it. And the media seems to develop a convenient pattern of amnesia where Barack Obama is concerned. A recent New York Times piece about Obama’s spirituality, for instance, didn’t even mention the name “Jeremiah Wright.”

John McCain responded to Obama’s criticisms in part with the following:

Over the last year, Senator Obama and I were part of a great debate about the war in Iraq. Both of us agreed the Bush administration had pursued a failed strategy there and that we had to change course. Where Senator Obama and I disagreed, fundamentally, was what course we should take. I called for a comprehensive new strategy – a surge of troops and counterinsurgency to win the war. Senator Obama disagreed. He opposed the surge, predicted it would increase sectarian violence, and called for our troops to retreat as quickly as possible.

Today we know Senator Obama was wrong. The surge has succeeded. And because of its success, the next President will inherit a situation in Iraq in which America’s enemies are on the run, and our soldiers are beginning to come home. Senator Obama is departing soon on a trip abroad that will include a fact-finding mission to Iraq and Afghanistan. And I note that he is speaking today about his plans for Iraq and Afghanistan before he has even left, before he has talked to General Petraeus, before he has seen the progress in Iraq, and before he has set foot in Afghanistan for the first time. In my experience, fact-finding missions usually work best the other way around: first you assess the facts on the ground, then you present a new strategy.

Although the situation in Iraq is much improved, another test awaits whoever wins this election: the war in Afghanistan. The status quo is not acceptable. Security in Afghanistan has deteriorated, and our enemies are on the offensive. From the moment the next President walks into the Oval Office, he will face critical decisions about Afghanistan.

Senator Obama will tell you we can’t win in Afghanistan without losing in Iraq. In fact, he has it exactly backwards. It is precisely the success of the surge in Iraq that shows us the way to succeed in Afghanistan. It is by applying the tried and true principles of counter-insurgency used in the surge – which Senator Obama opposed — that we will win in Afghanistan. With the right strategy and the right forces, we can succeed in both Iraq and Afghanistan. I know how to win wars. And if I’m elected President, I will turn around the war in Afghanistan, just as we have turned around the war in Iraq, with a comprehensive strategy for victory.

As for Obama’s Iraq “plan” - if you can call it that - ABC’s Martha Raddatz wrote a July 11 article titled “Obama’s Iraq Withdrawal Plan May Prove Difficult: U.S. Commanders in Iraq Warn of Security Dangers, See Logistical Nightmare.” She notes that:

Whatever nuance Barack Obama is now adding to his Iraq withdrawal strategy, the core plan on his Web site is as plain as day: Obama would “immediately begin to remove our troops from Iraq. He will remove one to two combat brigades each month, and have all of our combat brigades out of Iraq within 16 months.”

It is a plan that, no doubt, helped Obama get his party’s nomination, but one that may prove difficult if he is elected president.

Of course, liberals don’t let little things like facts get in the way.

And of course, we now know that Obama’s “core plans” - just like his website itself - are both subject to change without notice.

Barack Obama had this to say the other day on July 11:

I’ve often said that the decisions we make in this election and in the next few years will set the course for the next generation. That is true of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. It’s true of our economy. And it is especially true of our energy policy.

The urgency of this challenge is clear to anyone who’s tried to fill up their tank with gas that’s now over $4 a gallon. It’s clear to the legions of scientists who believe that we are nearing a point of no return when it comes to our global climate crisis. And with each passing day, it is clear that our addiction to fossil fuels is one of the most serious threats to our national security in the 21st century.

…An even more immediate and direct security threat comes from our dependence on foreign oil. The price of a barrel of oil is now one of the most dangerous weapons in the world. Tyrants from Caracas to Tehran use it to prop up their regimes, intimidate the international community, and hold us hostage to a market that is subject to their whims. If Iran decided to shut down the petroleum-rich Strait of Hormuz tomorrow, they believe oil would skyrocket to $300-a-barrel in minutes, a price that one speculator predicted would result in $12-a-gallon gas. $12 a gallon.

The nearly $700 million a day we send to unstable or hostile nations also funds both sides of the war on terror, paying for everything from the madrassas that plant the seeds of terror in young minds to the bombs that go off in Baghdad and Kabul. Our oil addiction even presents a target for Osama bin Laden, who has told al Qaeda, “focus your operations on oil, since this will cause [the Americans] to die off on their own.”

If we stay on our current course, the rapid growth of nations like China and India will rise about one-third by 2030. In that same year, Middle Eastern regimes will be sitting on 83% of our global oil reserves. Imagine that – the very source of energy that fuels nearly all of our transportation, controlled almost entirely by some of the world’s most unstable and undemocratic governments.

This is not the future I want for America. We are not a country that places our fate in the hands of dictators and tyrants – we are a nation that controls our own destiny. That’s who we are. That’s who we’ve always been. It’s what led us to wage a revolution that brought down an Empire. It’s why we built an Arsenal of Democracy to defeat Fascism, and stopped the spread of Communism with the power of our ideals. And it’s why we must end the tyranny of oil in our time.

Notice the last sentence. “It’s why we must end the tyranny of oil in our time.”

Obama doesn’t say, “the tyranny of Middle Eastern oil,” or “the tyranny of oil controlled by terrorist and totalitarian regimes.” He says, “the tyranny of oil.” Period. “Oil” is a tyrant. Hope you knew that.

Please understand the history that Barack Obama foolishly ignores even as he attempts to cite it. One of the key stratagies we used to defeat Nazi fascism was to systematically deny them the fuel they needed to keep their war machine running. Had the Nazis had adequate oil supplies, it is almost certain that they would have broken through the American lines during the Battle of the Bulge. Conversely, had the United States not had adequate oil, we would not have won the war.  Citing the defeat of fascism with cutting ourselves off from oil is historical revisionism that borders on criminal irresponsibility. Oil made us strong. Oil helped us defeat fascism.

It is with this fact in mind that I consider Obama’s last sentence, “And it’s why we must end the tyranny of oil in our time” in light of Neville Chamberlain’s now infamous “peace in our time” statement. Chamberlain has gone down in history as being the ignominous fool who actively prevented England from arming itself and standing up to the real tyranny of Adolf Hitler even as the threat of Hitler loomed ever larger and ever darker. Barack Obama is a fool in the same mold as Neville Chamberlain, because he urges the same pathetic mindset that characterized Chamberlain. Obama refuses to allow drilling to develop a stable domestic supply of what the United States absolutely needs to remain strong.

Barack obama ignores the lessons of history. And he views oil as a moral evil rather than as a vitally needed source of energy. That’s why he can run an ad like this:

SCRIPT: Announcer: “On gas prices, John McCain’s part of the problem. McCain and Bush support a drilling plan that won’t produce a drop of oil for seven years. McCain will give more tax breaks to big oil. He’s voted with Bush 95 percent of the time. Barack Obama will make energy independence an urgent priority. Raise mileage standards. Fast track technology for alternative fuels. A thousand-dollar tax cut to help families as we break the grip of foreign oil. A real plan and new energy.”

Obama: “I’m Barack Obama, and I approve this message.”

You see, oil is “a tyrant” for Barack Obama. And John McCain - like that evil George Bush - support drilling. Drilling to provide the world with still more oil, and therefore still more tyranny. Barack Obama is a clever speaker, but the simple fact of the matter is that he is taking the far left position that fossil fuels - which contribute to global warming - are therefore evil and their use contributes to “tyranny.” Let me tell you what: an attitude like that may be as politically correct as the sky is blue, but it most definitely won’t fill your gas tank.

Obama acknowledges the dilemma we now find ourselves in: that of facing the prospect of $12 a gallon gasoline because of our dependence on foreign oil, the volatility of a Middle East that could erupt at any moment, and the increased global competition for dwindling supplies. [Note: I've already written about why we face $12 a gallon gas].

The answer to this dilemma, according to Barack Obama, is to absolutely refuse to increase our domestic oil production, and to instead wave a magic wand that will give us a powerful new alternative source of energy that will somehow meet all our needs and solve all our problems.

John McCain is “part of the problem” because he - like that George Bush - “supports a drilling plan that won’t produce a drop of oil for seven years.“

Well, a few things. First, I can not even begin to comprehend the irrationality of claiming that any attempt to increase our own oil supply - and we have massive oil potential - must not be considered as a solution to obtaining energy independence from foreign oil. Apparently as part of his plan to end “the tyranny of oil,” Barack Obama is literally in favor of preventing private corporations - using private money - from increasing our domestic oil supply while at the same time decrying our dependence on foreign oil. This is absurd. It is insane.

Second, Obama - joining a chorus of other Democrats in claiming that drilling “won’t produce a drop of oil for seven years” is equally irrational. Had people like Barack Obama gotten the heck out of the way seven years ago - instead of using the power of government to prevent drilling - we would not be where we are now. To use a criminally stupid policy that prevented us from drilling seven years ago in support of an even more criminally stupid policy to therefore not drill now is simply incredible. How on earth can everyone not see this? Had we drilled seven years ago we would have increased supplies now. If we don’t drill now, we will for a certain fact place ourselves in an even more dire situation in seven years. Period. End of story.

As a further note, oil experts say they could have some production on line in as little as one year. And many financial experts say that - to whatever extent “speculation” is driving up the price of oil - a firm commitment to increase our supplies would dramatically reduce the problem.

Third, Barack Obama is literally blaming George Bush and John McCain for attempting to do what would have worked had we only done it earlier, and would still work now but for obstructionist Democrats who have no energy plan at all.

House Democrats have literally been blocking any vote on energy at all for fear that Republicans would introduce a vote requiring domestic drilling. This is the epitome of not having a plan. (Maybe blocking any bill on energy is part of Nancy Pelosi’s brilliant “commonsense plan” that has seen the price of gas double since she began to implement it?)

Now, at this point, a liberal (I don’t use the word “progressive” because that would imply they want “progress,” when these people stand in the way of genuine progress) will probably stand up and say, “Obama DOES have an energy plan.”

Well, keep in mind that Barack Obama himself has said that he was all in favor of gas becoming more expensive; he only regretted that the price rose so steeply and thereby ignited the ire of Americans.

But let’s look at Barack Obama’s plan to solve our energy dilemma. Let’s see who is really “part of the problem.”

What is Obama proposing?

Well, he absolutely stands against increasing the amount of the stuff that fills our tanks and keeps our economy flowing.

In place of “the tyranny of oil” (and especially “the tyranny” of domestic oil), Obama proposes:

* A second, $50 billion stimulus package that would send energy rebate checks to every American.* A $1,000 middle-class tax cut that will go to 95% of all workers and their families.

* A crack down on oil speculators who may be artificially driving up the price of oil.

* A fast-track $150 billion of investment in a clean energy fund to help create the fuel-efficient cars and alternative sources of energy that will secure this nation and jumpstart a green economy.

* Doubling fuel mileage standards over the next two decades utilizing much of the technology we have on the shelf today – a step that will save this country half a trillion gallons of gasoline, the equivalent of cutting the price of a gallon of gas in half. And I will provide tax credits and loan guarantees for our automakers to help them make this transition.

* A Venture Capital Fund that will provide $50 billion over five years to get the most promising clean energy technologies out of the lab and into the marketplace.

* Requiring that 25% of U.S. electricity comes renewable sources by 2025, and that the U.S. produce two billion gallons of advanced cellulosic biofuels by 2013. (Pointedly, he says that the U.S. will “also invest in finding cleaner ways to use coal, our nation’s most abundant energy source, and safer ways to use nuclear power and store nuclear waste.”

* Using the U.S. clean energy fund to invest over $1 billion a year to re-tool and modernize our factories and build the advanced technology cars, trucks and SUVs of the future.

* Calling on businesses, government, and the American people to make America 50% more energy efficient by 2030.

The first two proposals have nothing to do with energy whatsoever, apart from essentially subsidizing the frightenly high cost of gas. I enjoyed my last $300 handout from the government, and would enjoy the next one just as much. But that money in my pocket is going to have to be paid by the next generation. We do have a nearly $10 trillion national debt, and eventually this kind of debt level is going to implode this country.

As for Obama’s $150 billion investment in clean energy - which by the way would come on the backs of those evil oil companies who produce that “tyrant” substance oil (and which would drive up their costs and thereby drive up the price they charge for gasoline) - how long will it take before we’re driving happily along with cheap fuel? He ridicules drilling because it will take “seven years,” after all. Well, by his own incredibly stupid logic, let’s ridicule investment in alternative energy! It will take YEARS before we have any significant energy from such alternatives.

Keep in mind, alternatives such as ethanol (which is E-85, aka “flex fuel”) has been fool’s gold. It is incredibly expensive to produce, relies on huge government subsidies to bring the cost down to level’s that Americans are willing to pay, and has caused enormous increases in the price of our food. If that isn’t bad enough, desperately poor people around the world are literally starving for this insane government-propped “alternative fuel.”

Ethanol truly IS an “alternative”; it is an alternative to what actually works. It is an alternative to sanity.

Every other part of Obama’s plan is tantamount to an act of bowing down before the pagan idol of big government. Private enterprise is irrelevant for Barack Obama, other than the fact that they are obstacles in the way, who must be forced by the government in order to do what is right and good as decreed by the standards of political correctness.

The idea of getting out of the way and allowing the private sector to produce the innovations we need is shockingly absent from Obama’s plan. Instead, the private sector is “required” to do one thing, and “called on” to do another.

Keep in mind, Democrats in the Senate couldn’t even run a freakin’ cafeteria without running it into the ground.

And how much energy will Obama’s plan actually produce? What kind of energy? How much will it cost?

This isn’t an energy plan. It is a typical liberal NON-energy plan from a typical liberal politician.

It’s not lack of government money that has prevented nuclear power and clean coal-burning technology, it’s been Democrats and their innumerable laws, restrictions, and regulations. Private money would flood in if Democrat’s would quit imposing one burden after another upon energy providers and let them produce energy.

We don’t have nuclear power because liberals and environmentalist foolishly despised it and demonized it twenty years ago. We don’t have it because Democrats have imposed so many hurdles, so many regulations, so many restrictions, so many environmental studies, so much bureaucracy and so much red tape, that it has been unprofitable - and even impossible - to build a nuclear power plant (or, for that matter, an oil refinery).

Barack Obama went to Las Vegas and had this to say:

Under the bleach-bright Las Vegas summer sun, Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama on Tuesday checked out the solar panels that shade cars in the parking lot of the Springs Preserve while powering the facility.

“What we are seeing here … is that the green, renewable energy economy is not some far-off, pie-in-the-sky future,” Obama said in a speech at the local nature attraction. “It is now. It’s creating jobs now. It is providing cheap alternatives to $140-a-barrel oil now. And it can create millions of additional jobs, entire industries, if we act now.”

Really? How much? What’s it going to cost? Will it keep my car running?

Keep in mind, liberals recently blocked a massive solar panal plan on federal land. They have blocked wind mills. Ted Kennedy has personally done everything he could to block a wind farm in Massachusetts. They have blocked nuclear power for decades.

But the problem with alternative energy isn’t just obstructionist Democrats. It goes far, far deeper.

Obama went to Las Vegas to sing Kumbaya to solar energy. So let’s look at solar energy:

Can renewable energy make a dent in fossil fuels?

4.2 billion. [Emphasis mine]

That’s how many rooftops you’d have to cover with solar panels to displace a cubic mile of oil (CMO), a measure of energy consumption, according to Ripudaman Malhotra, who oversees research on fossil fuels at SRI International. The electricity captured in those hypothetical solar panels in a year (2.1 kilowatts each) would roughly equal the energy in a CMO. The world consumes a little over 1 CMO of oil a year right now and about 3 CMOs of energy from all sources.

Put another way, we’d need to equip 250,000 roofs a day with solar panels for the next 50 years to have enough photovoltaic infrastructure to provide the world with a CMO’s worth of solar-generated electricity for a year. We’re nowhere close to that pace.

Great googley moogley! That’s a whole bunch of solar panels. Particularly with liberals blocking the ones we’re trying to build now. Clearly, solar energy won’t even scratch the surface of providing a real solution to oil.

Well, beyond solar energy, there’s also wind power. And Obama talked about nuclear power, too. Could they provide us with a real alternative to oil? Not even close:

But don’t blame the solar industry. You’d also have to erect a 900-megawatt nuclear power plant every week for 50 years to get enough plants (2,500) to produce the same energy in a year to equal a CMO. Wind power? You need 3 million for a CMO, or 1,200 a week planted in the ground over the next 50 years. Demand for power also continues to escalate with economic development in the emerging world.

“In 30 years we will need six CMOs, so where are we going to get that?” Malhotra said. “I’m trying to communicate the scale of the problem.”

The article above, by Michael Kanellos, has a neat little pie chart for you “a picture’s worth a thousand words” types:

The problem is that abandoning the use of oil and then relying on the “alternative” solutions that we currently have is analogous to draining all the oceans dry and then trying to refill them by spitting. And there just aint enough spit to make a hill-of-beans’ worth of difference. And there aint enough “alternative energy.”

Michael J. Economides, writing for China Daily, says in an article titled, “Fossil fuels still the best,” writes:

Of the world energy demand 87 percent comes from fossil fuels, oil, gas and coal. This fraction has not changed much since the 1970s and the first “energy crisis”, while energy demand has more than doubled.

By almost everybody’s estimates by the year 2030, the total world demand will increase by 50 percent and oil, gas and coal will still provide 87 percent of the world energy. The reason we use them is not because of some evil conspiracy headed by a dark knight. We use them because they are the easiest, most flexible, most reliable and most efficient forms of energy.

Biofuels as done today, cause a negative energy balance not even considering their impact on food prices. I have no aversion to wind or solar. I love the sun, I am Greek. But they are eminently unreliable and, even in their best case, without government subsidies, they make $200 to $2000 oil still attractive. It is that simple.

But here is how we are ridiculous in the developed world and it would have been funny had we not run the danger of committing societal hara-kiri. We have let dazed environmentalism of the most outrageous variety put on a tie and become mainstream, dominate the covers of national newsmagazines and, predictably as of late, earn Oscars, Emmys and Nobels.

There are no alternatives to fossil fuels for decades and the transition will be long and painful. Nothing will happen overnight. We will continue to be a fossil fuel-dependent economy for the foreseeable future.

We desperately need oil. But Barack Obama stands in the way of obtaining the oil we need. We can not possibly maintain any semblance of the lifestyle that we have come to enjoy without oil. Ergo sum, Barack Obama is a clear and present danger to the American way of life.

And Barack Obama, due to the brand of pure foolishness he shares with his fellow Democrats, requires the United states remain completely d