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.

My guess is that he'll be seen as something of a disaster on domestic policy, what with the massive spending and growth of the federal government. But on foreign policy? I believe he'll be vindicated.

In the avalanche of abuse and ridicule that we are witnessing in the media assessments of President Bush's legacy, there are factors that need to be borne in mind if we are to come to a judgment that is not warped by the kind of partisan hysteria that has characterised this issue on both sides of the Atlantic.

The first is that history, by looking at the key facts rather than being distracted by the loud ambient noise of the 24-hour news cycle, will probably hand down a far more positive judgment on Mr Bush's presidency than the immediate, knee-jerk loathing of the American and European elites.

We'll give it 20 years or so. Time will tell, but I think people will appreciate W's stalwart approach to foreign policy. My real fear is that Bush will look great in comparison to his successor, who will likely be as much of a disaster (or more) than Bush's predecessor on the international side...

From The Road To Serfdom, Chapter Two: The Great Utopia

To the great apostles of political freedom, the word had meant freedom from coercion, freedom from the arbitrary power of other men, release from the ties which left the individual no choice but obedience to the orders of a superior to whom he was attached. The new freedom promised, however, was to be freedom from necessity, release from the compulsion of the circumstances which inevitably limit the range of choice for all of us, although for some very much more than for others. Before man could truly be free, the "despotism of physical want" had to be broken, the "restraints of the economic system" relaxed.

Freedom in this sense is, of course, merely another name for power or wealth. Yet, although the promises of this new freedom were often coupled with irresponsible promises of a great increase in material wealth in a socialist society, it was not from such an absolute conquest of the niggardliness of nature that economic freedom was expected. What the promise really amounted to was that the great existing disparities in the range of choice of different people were to disappear. The demand for the new freedom was thus only another name for the old demand for an equal distribution of wealth. But the new name gave the socialists another word in common with the liberals, and they exploited it to the full. And, although the word was used in a different sense by the two groups, few people noticed this and still fewer asked themselves whether the two kinds of freedom could really be combined.

F.A. Hayek, writing during World War II:

We have progressively abandoned that freedom in economic affairs without which personal and political freedom has never existed in the past. Although we had been warned by some of the greatest political thinkers of the nineteenth century, by Tocqueville and Lord Acton, that socialism means slavery, we have steadily moved in the direction of socialism. And now that we have seen a new form of slavery arise before our eyes, we have so completely forgotten the warning that is scarcely occurs to us that the two things may be connected.

The Road to Serfdom, Chapter One: The Abandoned Road

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

I will miss the heck out of Dick Cheney.

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]

Good news from Georgia.

from Dennis Prager...

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.

about damn time. Obama's biggest problem is his ideology. Time to start pointing out where it comes from:

The Republican campaign, falling behind Obama in polls, plans to make attacks on Obama's character a centerpiece of presidential candidate John McCain's message with a month remaining before Election Day.

Palin told a group of donors at a private airport, "Our opponent ... is someone who sees America, it seems, as being so imperfect, imperfect enough, that he's palling around with terrorists who would target their own country." She also said, "This is not a man who sees America as you see America and as I see America."

Who gives a crap what the media says about this line of attack. It's the truth. Hit Obama hard; he deserves it.

Courtesy of the hawk.

"No point saving your credibility for the future when you don't have a future, I guess..."