The nightmare of the Obama presidency rolls on with the government takeover of GM.

The rationale for keeping GM out of bankruptcy was two-fold: no available financing and the potential damage to consumer confidence. But the government is providing financing and is offering to guarantee warranties. So what is the excuse now?

It's all politics now.

The question that has to be on any serious observer's mind: After rushing Congress to act, why did he wait for days to sign the "emergency" stimulus bill?

Could it be true that the biggest appropriations joke in American history may be staggering to an unexpected defeat?

...to keep from crying.

The mad genius behind this is, of course, Iowahawk.

Ace:

Bear in mind, of course, Sarah Palin was a moron for taking on the less-spectacularly corrupt Alaskan political machine. See, if she had been as brilliant as Obama, she wouldn't have needed to respond with crude measures like fighting corruption and defeating corrupt politicians; she could have employed nuance and smarts to finesse around it, and even profit from it.

[sigh]

This is the culture from which our great new political messiah emerged. Hope everyone who voted for Obama is ready for Illinois-style politics on a national level:

Illinois Gov. Rod R. Blagojevich and his Chief of Staff, John Harris, were arrested today by FBI agents on federal corruption charges alleging that they and others are engaging in ongoing criminal activity: conspiring to obtain personal financial benefits for Blagojevich by leveraging his sole authority to appoint a United States Senator; threatening to withhold substantial state assistance to the Tribune Company in connection with the sale of Wrigley Field to induce the firing of Chicago Tribune editorial board members sharply critical of Blagojevich; and to obtain campaign contributions in exchange for official actions – both historically and now in a push before a new state ethics law takes effect January 1, 2009.

I seem to recall a certain party campaigning against a "culture of corruption" in Washington a few years back. They'd better HOPE that Obama wasn't corrupted by the ultimate culture of corruption - Chicago, where he learned the game and earned his political stripes. I'd say hope is all they have at this point.

God save America.

The following is a continuation of a debate from elsewhere. Sorry if you're not in the loop.

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Put yourself in my shoes for a moment: I believe that human life is sacred, that life begins at conception, and that the chief responsibility of government is to protect innocent human life.

Now, if you believed what I just laid out, could you be “pro-choice but anti-abortion”?

Believe me, I do understand your viewpoint. I’d love it if I could just take the easy way out and say that I was personally opposed to abortion but “didn’t want to impose my values on anyone.” That would be so easy. But I’d have to ignore my deeply held principles about the dignity of the human person. I can’t do that, and you should understand that asking me to do so is like telling an abolitionist that if they don’t like slavery, they shouldn’t buy a slave.

As for whether or not using the term “infanticide” is “inflammatory”: if a child is born alive, is breathing, is moving, is fighting for survival, and it is simply left to die because it is unwanted… What would you call it?

I was going to write a big post detailing why I support John McCain and Sarah Palin, but to be honest I've grown so weary of this election that I just don't have it in me. So instead, I'll just rattle off some bullet points.

• In all honesty, I'm not a big fan of McCain. One can't help but respect him for his service to our country - I mean, come on, the man spent 5 years in a Vietnamese prison camp - but his political career has been a decidedly mixed bag; his desire for "reform" and constant need to be seen as the bipartisan maverick (see the gang of 10 judges compromise) has been a constant irritation.


• That being said, we have to look at the other viable option for president: Barack Obama. Obama makes McCain look like a staunch conservative by comparison.


• Foreign Policy: The dominant issue in this year's foreign policy debate has been Iraq. Obama has been consistently wrong on the issue, in my opinion. It's perfectly legitimate for him to have opposed the war in the beginning; that's fine. I disagreed with him then, and I would still do so today. But since his election to the Senate, he has consistently called for the withdrawal of troops from Iraq before the US had achieved victory. The fact of the matter is that once our troops had been committed to the theater of battle (which they had been in an overwhelmingly bipartisan fashion), I believe it is incumbent upon our political leaders to commit to nothing less than victory. Obama would have settled for far less.


• One of George Bush's weaknesses (and also one of his strengths) is his loyalty and stubbornness. This double-edged sword was never more in evidence than in 2006-2007, when he remained committed to the strategy being pursued by his generals in Iraq well past the point where it seemed necessary to make a change. John McCain, to his credit, very early on began to insist that we needed to commit more troops to Iraq in order to stabilize the situation and restore order. Barack Obama strongly opposed this troop surge strategy. Eventually, Bush came around to McCain's position, put General Petraeus in charge, and since the beginning of the surge violence in Iraq (as well as American casualties) have plummeted. I believe that the surge was the major test of foreign policy acumen for the two major presidential candidates. John McCain passed with flying colors. Barack Obama failed miserably.


• Beyond the war, Obama's shifting positions on whether he would or would not meet with our enemies (including Iran) for talks without precondition have done nothing to convince me that this man has any core principles upon which he would base his decisions. McCain has no such problems. And frankly, Joe Biden was right when he guaranteed that the world would severely test the young senator from Illinois within 6 months of his election. I simply have no confidence in Obama's ability to respond effectively to such a test, be it from Iran, North Korea, or Al Qaeda. I have no such doubts with McCain.


• Domestic Policy: Again, McCain isn't exactly a shining star of conservative thought, but he's practically Hayek compared with the alternative.


• Democrats don't understand the free market. Obama is a hard-left Democrat. Obama worked with ACORN. Obama and his ilk were instrumental in causing the financial meltdown. Is it wise to put the people who built the bomb that destroyed the market in charge of fixing the market? No.


• Barack Obama hung around with Bill Ayers, an unrepentant terrorist and real-life actual hardcore marxist. That's reprehensible to begin with, but the real problem isn't just hanging around with Ayers. It's that he worked for a decade with Bill Ayers on "education reform." Stanley Kurtz at NRO has done a fine job of detailing the type of "reforms" that Ayers and Obama were pushing. Browse his archives for the scoop. Or just consider this: in November of 2006, Bill Ayers was in Hugo Chavez's Venezuela where he said that he and Chavez "...share the belief that education is the motor-force of revolution." I can assure you that he wasn't talking about the Reagan Revolution. Is that the kind of reform that you want to see in your kid's school? How much of Ayers' belief and value system does Obama share? We don't know, and our incurious media has made no effort to inform us.


• Let's talk Jeremiah Wright: Wright subscribes to a system of belief known as Black Liberation Theology, which was developed by "theologians" like James Cone. The fact of the matter is that Black Liberation Theology, while it uses Christian terms and plays at being a Christian religion, is in fact not Christianity at all but is instead little more than a racist doctrine intent upon achieving black political power. Obama attended Wright's church for 20 years. He chose Wrights church. According to his own books, he did so at least in part because he identified with the messages that Wright delivered from the pulpit. Knowing what we know about Wright and his theology, this leaves us with 2 options for Obama, neither of which reflects well on him: 1) he really never did agree with Wright's theology, and attended Trinity simply to advance his community organizing activities and political career; or 2) he agrees with the racist theology espoused by Wright. It's odd to hope that someone was an insincere believer, but in this case, I do.


• The Moral Case against Barack Obama: Many of the issues that I feel strongly about in this election are, for Christians, prudential issues. Christians can disagree about issues of war and peace, of how to help the poor, of how to best approach economic issues. But Christians are not allowed to disagree on the fundamental issue of the sanctity of human life. On the issue of abortion in particular, Barack Obama has a record that should shock the conscience of, well, anyone, but at the very least should horrify those who believe that human life is created in the image of God and is therefore sacred.


• The most egregious offense of Obama against the sanctity of human life came in the Illinois senate, when he repeatedly voted against legislation intended to require that infants who survived abortion attempts be given adequate medical care. His reasoning for opposing the legislation was that if we acknowledged that these children who were born alive after a failed abortion were actually human, we would have to grant them human rights, and such an action might have a negative impact on abortion rights in the future. Keep in mind that we have the testimony of a nurse who had cradled one of these babies who had been left to die in a closet rather than be given any medical treatment.


• In other words - and I'll put this in a way that reflects best on Obama's position - he was unwilling to curtail a practice that could arguably be called infanticide because to do so would acknowledge that a fetus is actually human, which might have a negative effect on the "right to abortion" somewhere down the road. I've said it before, and I'll say it again: based on this reasoning, I have no problem calling Obama a moral monster.

In the end, I think it's clear that this election is a referendum on Barack Obama's fitness for office. It has been since the primaries ended. John McCain represents a safer choice for those who can't convince themselves that Obama isn't just far too risky to put in power. While I've never been terribly enthused about his candidacy, I can say for certain that John McCain is an honorable man, and I believe he will serve honorably in the office of the Presidency. I believe that Obama is something like Carter without the morals - he will be disastrous for our economy, and will signal weakness to our enemies, thus inviting attack.

McCain/Palin '08 is the clear choice this year. Here's hoping enough people see Obama for what he really is.

Remember, if you ask a question of The One, you implicitly agree that your entire personal and financial history is open to public and government scrutiny.

And the left has the balls to call us fascists.

Treacher:

As if it's somehow relevant that Obama revealed to the whole world that he's a socialist. Who cares that he looked one of his inferiors in the eye and told the peasant he doesn't deserve the money he earns?

Of course the only reason that people want voters to prove their identity at the polls is RACISM.

How is it that Bill Ayers can be considered "mainstream"? Only in Chicago:

Turn on the TV news when John McCain is picking up undecided voters by invoking Barack Obama's relationship with unrepentant American terrorist William Ayers and, invariably, some liberal talking head will sniff in disgust and say Ayers is no big deal where Obama comes from.

Unfortunately, that's true. Ayers is a terrorist. But this is Chicago.

Obama and Ayers are neighbors and they worked together on school issues with the same foundation. Obama's political coming-out party was held in Ayers' living room when Obama was running for his first political office.

And the boss of Chicago is Mayor Richard Daley. Mayor Shortshanks has thrown his protective embrace around both men. These are facts.

But the reason Ayers is not a big deal in Chicago has to do with the Chicago Way, and the left fork of that road that has been bought and paid for by the Daley machine, subsidized by taxpayers who foot the bill for public relations contracts from City Hall.

I am shocked - SHOCKED! - to see that Washington is busily casting blame on Wall Street for all of our current financial woes while ignoring the massive evidence of corruption inside the sacred chambers of Congress. Exhibit A - Chris Dodd:

Former Lehman Brothers CEO Dick Fuld was under oath Monday when he was grilled on Capitol Hill about his role in the current financial meltdown. But if Members really want to understand the credit mania, they should also call Chris Dodd.

The Connecticut Senator has been out front denouncing the "companies that form the foundation of our financial markets," for "their insatiable appetite for risk." He has also decried "reckless, careless and sometimes unscrupulous actors in the mortgage lending industry" and he has proclaimed that "American taxpayers deserve to know how we arrived at this moment." To that end, we propose he take the stand -- under oath.

Former Countrywide Financial loan officer Robert Feinberg says Mr. Dodd knowingly saved thousands of dollars on his refinancing of two properties in 2003 as part of a special program the California mortgage company had for the influential. He also says he has internal company documents that prove Mr. Dodd knew he was getting preferential treatment as a friend of Angelo Mozilo, Countrywide's then-CEO.

Read the whole editorial, then contact your senators to see just how interested they are in getting to the bottom of this mess. I'm inclined to believe that in Dodd's case (as well as some others - see Exhibit B: Barney Frank), this isn't a case of "where there's smoke there's fire," it's a case of YOU'RE ON FREAKING FIRE, MAN!

I suppose the body count is the main difference. And obviously there were ideological differences; McVeigh was interesting in revenge on a government that he felt had abandoned its original purpose and ideals; Ayers wanted to simply overthrow that same government and replace it with a completely different system. But both had ideologies that led them into violence, both committed acts of terror in service of their ideologies, and both are responsible for the deaths of innocents.

Only one of them got what he deserved after his crimes; McVeigh was, of course, executed. Ayers is a free man due to a mistake by law enforcement in the investigation of his case. And of course, because Ayers' crimes were conducted in the service of a leftist worldview, he is not only not ostracized, but rather welcomed into the polite intellectual circles of the left as something of a folk hero. He now spreads his vicious ideology as a Professor at the University of Illinois - Chicago.

And, apparently, mentors Democrat presidential candidates. What has happened to our society?