News Flash: Enforcement Works!

Mark Krikorian puts the 'd u' in duh with this great article at NRO:

'They're not going back unless they are rounded up" — Hillary Clinton, 2007

In this quote, Senator Clinton nicely summed up the conventional wisdom on immigration enforcement: the only options before us are either arresting and deporting every single illegal alien or legalizing them. George Will was more colorful with his image of "200,000 buses in a caravan stretching bumper-to-bumper from San Diego to Alaska" as the only way to reduce the illegal population.

The Bush administration shared this view and for six and a half years pushed amnesty, which finally crashed and burned in the Senate last summer. After that stunning defeat, the result of an unprecedented outpouring of public outrage, the White House appears to have decided to let immigration authorities do their jobs. (I have a piece about this in the current print issue of National Review.)

Whatever the administration's motives behind permitting stepped-up enforcement (and I have my doubts), the results are now in: enforcement works. A new report, by Steven Camarota and Karen Jensenius of my Center for Immigration Studies, estimates that the illegal-immigrant population has declined 11 percent through May of this year, down to 11.2 million from an August 2007 peak of 12.5 million. If this decline were sustained, it would cut the illegal population in half in five years.

The drop in the illegal population is many times larger than the number of illegal aliens actually deported during that time, so by definition most of the decline is due to illegal immigrants leaving the country on their own.

Of course, the economy has slowed down, so maybe this development is just part of a normal ebb-and-flow of illegal aliens responding to the business cycle. Right?

Wrong. First of all, it's only the illegal population that has dropped; the number of legal immigrants continues to grow. Also, the decline in the number of illegal aliens began before there was a significant rise in their unemployment rate. Finally, while the illegal population did decline some during the last recession, and thus the economy almost certainly plays a role, the current decline is already significantly larger than last time, and it's not clear that we're even in a recession yet. What's more, there is good evidence that the illegal population actually rose last summer while Congress was debating the McCain/Kennedy amnesty bill and then, when that legislation failed to pass, the illegal population began to fall almost immediately.

These findings, based on monthly surveys from the Census Bureau (and as hard as it is to believe, most illegals really do respond to such surveys), are consistent with anecdotal evidence reported in the media over the last year: "More Mexicans leaving U.S. under duress," "Arizona Seeing Signs of Flight by Immigrants," "Hardships in Mass. spur Brazilian exodus," and so on. The findings are also consistent with data showing a drop in remittances sent home by immigrants and a drop in border arrests.

The biggest question now is not whether enforcement works, but whether the next administration will abandon the current enforcement push. Obama and McCain have essentially identical positions on immigration, favoring legalization of the current illegals and increases in future admissions. Their rhetorical commitment to enforcing immigration laws is grudging and transparently insincere.

But even before they have a chance to pull the plug on enforcement, the two candidates could halt the decline in the illegal population just by talking up amnesty at every turn. As the spike, and subsequent drop, in the illegal population during last summer's amnesty debate suggests, illegal immigrants respond to incentives just like anyone else. If there's a realistic, widely publicized near-term prospect of amnesty, more of those already here illegally will rethink plans of leaving, and more of those not yet here will decide to risk the trip.

In that case, the sooner the next president introduces his promised amnesty bill, the sooner it can be defeated, and the sooner we'll be able to get back to shrinking the illegal population via the proven strategy of attrition through enforcement.

I'm usually reluctant to say 'I told you so', but in this case I'll make an exception for all those who thought it couldn't be done...

I TOLD YOU SO!!!

And so did every other thinking individual who understands the nature of illegal immigration.  It's all about the incentives.  If you offer gratuitous handouts in the form of free health care, free education, free welfare, free food, lots of jobs, a deliberate refusal to uphold immigration law, and, yes, the big one, amnesty, you'll see a massive influx of illegals.  On the other hand, if you crack down on employers who hire illegals, actually enforce the laws that are already on the books, and roll back policies like sanctuary cities and benefits for illegals, they leave.  On their own.  Sure, not all of them, but many, as Krikorian's numbers indicate.  The question of how to 'deport 12 million people' is simply a straw man argument that is easily knocked down by reality: we don't have to deport them because they'll leave on their own if the incentives are removed.  And that's without having any border security to speak of!  Just imagine how much progress we could make if our stupid, worthless Congress would actually follow through on their multiple promises to build a border fence?  The fence alone has a track record of reducing illegal immigrant and drug traffic by as much as 90% in areas where it has actually been built (i.e. San Diego, in Duncan Hunter's district).  Put the fence and the disincentives together and it's a virtual guarantee!

The proof is out there for anyone with a quarter of a brain and a willingness to acknowledge the truth to see.  Krikorian said it himself - we can literally halve the number of illegals here in just five years!  I'm sure we'll never see a complete zero in terms of illegal immigration, but by following these policies, we can -- in just a few years, probably less than a decade -- essentially wipe out the illegal immigration tsunami that has been building since the first amnesty in the mid-60's.

This is what the American people want.  This has now been proven beyond doubt to work.  The only thing standing in the way now is Congress.

Just like usual.

There's my two cents.

Update: Charges Dropped

A couple weeks ago I blogged about a ridiculous situation where a father was charged with assault for punching a man who tried to fondle his 4-year old son in a public bathroom.  Just wanted to pass along an update: Michelle Malkin reports receiving a message from the family indicating that all charges against the father have been dropped.  Congrats to the Beatrice family!

Unfortunately, the man who molested the child -- who was of Hispanic origin and didn't speak English, though no one bothered to check if he was in the country illegally -- did not show up for his arraignment.  It's too bad no one could have predicted that he wouldn't show up for his court date.  ...Ahem...  HELLO?!

Otherwise, a child molester may have been put behind bars rather than allowed to roam free.  Maybe he'll show up in San Francisco, where they have good values and a comprehensive sanctuary policy.

All joking aside, it truly saddens me to think of what damage he might do the next time he molests a child if a righteously angry father isn't right there to beat him down again.

There's my two cents.

Chicken Bells

Here is some wise and witty advice from an e-mail I received recently:

John was in the fertilized egg business. He had several hundred young layers (hens), called 'pullets,' and ten roosters to fertilize the eggs. He kept records, and any rooster not performing went into the soup pot and was replaced.

This took a lot of time, so he bought some tiny bells and attached them to his roosters. Each bell had a different tone, so he could tell from a distance, which rooster was performing. Now, he could sit on the porch and fill out an efficiency report by just listening to the bells.

John's favorite rooster, old Butch, was a very fine specimen, but this morning he noticed old Butch's bell hadn't rung at all! When he went to investigate, he saw the other roosters were busy chasing pullets, bells-a-ringing, but the pullets, hearing the roosters coming, could run for cover. To John's amazement, old Butch had his bell in his beak, so it couldn't ring. He'd sneak up on a pullet, do his job and walk on to the next one.

John was so proud of old Butch that he entered him in the Renfrew County Fair and he became an overnight sensation among the judges. The result was the judges not only awarded old Butch the No Bell Piece Prize but they also awarded him the Pulletsurprise as well.

Clearly old Butch was a politician in the making. Who else but a politician could figure out how to win two of the most highly coveted awards on our planet by being the best at sneaking up on the populace and screwing them when they weren't paying attention?

Vote carefully this year, the bells are not always audible.

I'll never look at chickens (or Nobel/Pulitzer winners) the same way again.  :)

Sowell-ing His Wisdom

Thomas Sowell shares some more of his random thoughts at NRO.  My favorites:

Government bailouts are like potato chips: You can't stop with just one.

Anyone who is honest with himself and with others knows that there is not a snow ball's chance in hell to have an honest dialogue about race.

I wonder what radical feminists make of the fact that it was men who created the rule of "women and children first" when it came to rescuing people from life-threatening emergencies.

Barack Obama's motto "Change you can believe in" has acquired a new meaning — changing his positions is the only thing you can believe in. His campaign began with a huge change in the image he projects, compared to what he was doing for 20 years before.

What is amazing this year is how many people have bought the fundamentally childish notion that, if you don't like the way things are going, the answer is to write a blank check for generic "change," empowering someone chosen not on the basis of any track record but on the basis of his skill with words.

When New York Times writer Linda Greenhouse recently declared the 1987 confirmation hearings for Judge Robert Bork "both fair and profound," it was as close to a declaration of moral bankruptcy as possible. Those hearings were a triumph of character assassination by politicians with no character of their own. The country is still paying the price, as potential judicial nominees decline to be nominated and then smeared on nationwide television.

Some of the most emotionally powerful words are undefined, such as "social justice," "a living wage," "price gouging," or a "fragile" environment, for example. Such terms are especially valuable to politicians during an election year, for these terms can attract the votes of people who mean very different — and even mutually contradictory — things when they use these words.

It is hard to get the supporters of Barack Obama to give a coherent reason for their support. The basis for their support seems to be guilt, gullibility, or — in the case of some conservatives — a hatred of John McCain.

How many in the media have expressed half as much outrage about the beheading of innocent people by terrorists in Iraq as they have about the captured terrorists held at Guantánamo not being treated as nicely as they think they should be?

I love it!

America Fears Obama As Commander-In-Chief

I thought this was a very interesting article from Floyd and Mary Beth Brown at Townhall.com:

On the night of January 20, 2009, a new commander-in-chief will leave the inaugural podium, parade, and festivities for the Oval Office. A national security staff ready with the latest "threat briefing" will join him there. On his desk, they will place a thick binder of reports, each focusing on real or emerging threats to our national security. In the quiet of the Oval Office -- in the presence of these stern-faced, deadly serious briefers and advisers -- Barack H. Obama, should he be the next president, will come face-to-face with reality.

Americans are afraid of this scenario, Barack H. Obama as commander-in-chief. The New York Times and CBS News released a poll this week; in it, Americans answered detailed questions about this possibility.

The poll's answers shocked the strategists at the Obama campaign headquarters in Chicago. An intensive international travel schedule for Obama and a refocus of the campaign's message on defense and foreign policy speaks to this fear.

The poll says Americans consider him lacking in the abilities necessary to run the armed services. Conversely, the polls show John McCain blows Obama out of the water as a good commander-in-chief. Forty-six percent of respondents thought McCain would very likely "be effective" as commander-in-chief, as opposed to only 24 percent saying the same of Obama. In fact, 36 percent think it is "not likely" Obama will be effective in the position.

Obama's talents lie in his gift of oratory and his ability to move people with emotion, but this does not necessarily make for a good commander. The chief executive's job requires forward thinking, realistic assessments of the world's threats, and the maturity to make judgments in a crisis.

The USS Gerald R. Ford, an aircraft carrier, is now under construction in Hampton Roads, Va. It will be ready to join the fleet in 2015, replacing a carrier launched 47 years ago. Do we know that the USS Ford will be needed in 2015?

No, we do not. But can we afford to bet against it?

Obama thinks so. According to his own campaign literature, he is willing to let the USS Ford, and many more of tomorrow's defense technologies, rust at the pier.

The decision to build the aircraft carrier is based on the concept of preparing America for the next war to come. Commanders must anticipate the evil designs of irrational lunatics. It's always a tricky business, trying to anticipate future unknowns. Nevertheless, the president's oath is to protect and defend the United States.

A president who hasn't had any experience in military strategic planning is going to find himself in deep trouble if he finds his strategic armories empty in the face of an advancing enemy.

A review of Obama's national defense plans offers insight into his preparedness to meet today's and tomorrow's defense realities. Obama makes a variety of claims which we think would dramatically weaken America if enacted. The Obama plans include cutting tens of billions of dollars of the Defense Department budget, and the development of no new weapons in space to protect satellites and strategic assets. He plans cuts in missile defense systems, slowing our development of future combat systems, developing no new nuclear weapons, and negotiating with Russia to take our ICBMs off what he calls "hair-trigger alert". He advocates deep cuts in our nuclear program.

Not only does Obama have dangerous disarmament plans for America, he sorely lacks in experience. Besides being a junior senator, he has not been on any of the major defense committees. He has no previous hands-on experience with the military nor has he spent time with the men and women of our armed forces.

There are hundreds of weapon systems that could, under the quick-to-cut hand of Obama, be eliminated before they had the chance to prove themselves. If Obama had been in charge when the M1A1 Abrams Main Battle Tank was under development (a huge financial problem for the military) he would have cut it. But its developers persisted, and dollars that might have been considered "waste" by Obama were spent until the M1A1 became the most lethal, most respected, most effective tank on the battlefield.

Ask any Abrams crew member who has survived direct hits by explosive shells and rocket-propelled grenades if he would have canceled the Abrams, and the answer will be a resounding "No!"

Obama's perfect future vision enables him to scrap defense programs, even as our nation's enemies prepare very nasty projectiles to hurtle across continents and oceans.

Will he be able to effectively deal with crazed terrorists and power-hungry leaders with nuclear weapons in hand? Recent polls show Americans are nervous about Obama as commander-in-chief, and rightly so.

Wow.  This is certainly not something you'll see reported in the MSM!  This is one of the biggest weaknesses of Obama, and his recent world tour was supposed to fix it.  It did not.  There's really no way Obama is going to improve his status against McCain on this particular issue.  The public made up its mind about McCain years ago, and it is highly unlikely that it's going to change.  Americans love their war heroes, even if they don't particularly like war itself.  Obama's best bet is to divert the attention from this issue and try to focus on things that suit him more, like playing the race card and pandering to his ignorant base about the environment and socialist policies.

There's my two cents.

Some Observations On The House, Values, Wind, And The Obamessiah

Some observations from recent headlines:

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Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats in the House are still wasting time, showing us why they've achieved historically low approval levels.  They're still trying to condemn Karl Rove for his 'sins' -- which have been completely disproven for years -- while working as Bush's adviser, and they're still apologizing for slavery and Jim Crow laws.  She also has a twisted sense of 'values':

"San Francisco values to me means that every child in our city has health insurance until they are 25 years old. San Francisco values say we don't have a minimum wage, we have a living wage. In San Francisco we respect the dignity and worth of every person and respect is the order of the day there. Issues like protecting the environment aren't issues for us -- they are values and ethics."

Michelle Malkin points out the following...

See what's missing?

Not a word about the San Francisco values that led to illegal alien Honduran crack dealers getting subsidized escort shuttle service back home to escape deportation and prosecution. Not a word about the San Francisco values that led to illegal alien drug lords getting sent down and dumped on San Bernardino group homes– only to walk out of them scot-free. Not a word about the San Francisco values that gave bloody sanctuary to the illegal alien killer of the Bologna family. Illegal alien sanctuary policies have been an inhumane curse on untold numbers of families in the Bay Area. Let's hear about those San Francisco values, Nan.

I think that if San Francisco 'values' became the norm across America, I'd move to Australia.

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Barack Obama has answered the question of why he is uncomfortable wearing an American flag lapel pin: because he feels he's a citizen of the world, not America.  It's too bad that reality intrudes on his prophetic vision:

But "citizen of the world" is a utopian, unreal, angelic, inhuman term, an abstraction of the sort that leads to immense bloodshed as human irregularities are hacked off and angularity is loudly planed away. I agree with Pete Wehner's observation on Commentary's website that one can be a citizen of the United States, but not — in anything like the same sense — of the world.  One can enjoy the natural rights protected by the U.S. Constitution, but will not find such rights protected globally, not even in France, as Byron York pointed out last month and again on Friday.

The Berlin speech also explains why Obama is more likely to praise an "ideal" America than the real America. He is bewitched by abstractions and lofty ideals.

Do we really want to elect a President who feels a stronger connection to foreign nations -- which don't have the same rights and protections as we do, and many of whom are actively hostile toward us -- than to our own country?

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Here's a great example of liberal Democrats at work.  The DNC, to keep its environmentalist wacko base happy, is trying to keep their convention carbon neutral.  To do that, they're buying carbon offsets in the form of sponsoring a wind turbine in in eastern Colorado for the energy used by the convention.  The problem here is that the wind turbine isn't functional, and it is incapable of producing its intended output.  They keep turning it on and off, though, to make it look like it's working.

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Let us consider Barack the Obamessiah.  He seems to be forgetting one teeny, tiny detail...we have these things called elections.  He has to win that before assuming power.  That hasn't stopped him from acting like the President already, though.  He seems to have abandoned the hope of winning for the change of having a new president, but without the fuss of an actual election!  Convenient, is it not?

On another note, is the Obamessiah bubble about to burst?  He continues to give up ground in the polls.  Also, the 200,000 people who attended his speech in Berlin may have actually been closer to 20,000.  Eh, what's a decimal point when you're talking about the Obamessiah?  After all, the Obamessiah is more noble than anyone else in the world, you know (never mind that his actual credentials pale in comparison with some of those lesser beings).  The future for women under the Obamessiah is very bleak, but on the other hand, illegal aliens will get free health care and blacks and Hawaiians will get reparations.  Truly, the Obamessiah is a symbol.  In his own words, he has, "become a symbol of the possibility of America returning to our best traditions."  There is a question of the context, but regardless, this statement brings us back to his universe-sized ego and excessive hubris.

Some observations for you to ponder...

There's my two cents.

No New Taxes...Oh, Boy

Does this sound familiar?

"I want to look you in the eye: I will not raise your taxes nor support a tax increase. I will not do it."

McCain said it in a town hall meeting in Colorado today.  While I applaud him for it, I have a bad feeling that if he manages to win the White House while facing a strong Democrat majority in Congress, they'll be able to box him into either raising taxes (thus violating a clear campaign promise and dooming his 2012 campaign like George H.W. Bush did in 1988) or becoming a lame duck President very early in his first term by shutting down everything he tries to do.  We know for certain from George W. Bush's experience (i.e. letting Kennedy write the education bill, etc.) that working with Democrats never yields a return measure of cooperation, so while I firmly agree with the sentiment, I wonder if he's just bitten off more than he can chew.  Time will tell, I guess.

There's my two cents.

Do-Nothing Democrats Continue Their Streak

Ignoring the clear demands of the American people to take action on excessively high gas prices, the Democrat leadership in the House has forced the late summer recess without actually doing anything.  In a 213-212 vote, the House finished business today and began a 5-week recess.  The vote was close, with 100% of the Republicans and over a dozen Democrats opposing the shutdown, but Nancy got her way in the end.  Mark Hemingway reports on a GOP press release:

Do-Nothing Democrats Vote to Adjourn House of Representatives Without Taking Action to Lower Gas Prices

Putnam: "It's Time Democrats Put Their Boarding Passes Back in Their Pockets"

WASHINGTON – Rep. Adam Putnam (R-FL), Chairman of the House Republican Conference, issued the following statement shortly after the House of Representatives voted 213-212 – with no Republicans voting in the affirmative – to adjourn for five weeks in August and September without taking action to lower gas prices and break our dependence on foreign oil:

"The Democratic Congress should be held in contempt for voting to skip town without dealing with America's energy crisis.

"Democrats are out of touch, out of excuses, out of support and out of time. Americans are hurting. Independent polls show they overwhelmingly support House Republicans' all-of-the-above energy solutions.

"It's time Democrats put their boarding passes back in their pockets and get to work by voting on the American Energy Act."

The Democrats obdurate obstinence on energy issues and gas prices is really going to hurt them if they don't wise up soon. Not taking action this is a gift to Republicans up for election. They can now spend the next five weeks on the campaign trail railing against their opponents for not doing anything about gas prices. 

I'd suggest continuing the pressure on Pelosi and the Democrats.  Make their vacations as miserable (or at least annoying) as possible.  The plain fact is that the Dems are the ones blocking any action on energy, and the Reps need to shout it from the rooftops.  Ultimately, this could come back to haunt them in the election.  While I would guess we'll start seeing some ads accusing the Dems of obstructing energy production and reduction of gas prices, I wonder if prices will edge up now, with no immediate action possible.  We'll see.

The bottom line is this: Democrats are causing your pain at the pump.

Remember that.

There's my two cents.

Miscellaneous Thoughts

I wanted to share some thoughts on a number of stories that have been accumulating on my list over the past couple weeks.

Illegal Immigration
Here's a gem from the Houston Chronicle.  Apparently, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is about to unveil a new program to combat illegal immigration.  This program is essentially self-deportation.  That's right, we're simply asking illegals to turn themselves in so we can ship 'em out.

Okay, now that you've finally stopped laughing, let's remember that our border is so porous that people can get out just as easily as they can get in...if they wanted to.  Let's live in the real world, please!  How about real immigration measures like the E-verify program and the SAVE Act?  Those would actually make a difference.  This kind of stupidity will help no one.  The only thing I can think of that this would accomplish (and it's admittedly a major stretch, given the federal government's record on immigration enforcement) is to provide some kind of grace period before a major crackdown.  If people complain about the crackdown, ICE could point at this program as giving illegals a chance to leave peacefully on their own terms.  But I'd be shocked if that's the case.

Gas and Oil
I'm sure you've noticed that gas prices have fallen quite a bit over the past couple weeks.  There are a number of factors in that, but in my opinion, there are two big ones.  First, President Bush blew away the ban on off-shore drilling.  Second, Americans have changed their driving habits, which has brought down demand.  This drove the supply up, which means the price came down.  Simple economics.  Oil has fallen almost $30 per barrel, and gas almost $.40 per gallon.  This was not unexpected, as some economists have been predicting the bursting of an oil bubble for months.  The things we need to take away are that we can drill our way out of these current high prices.  Speculation works in a downward direction just as well as upward, as evidenced by the immediate drop in oil prices when Bush removed the ban on off-shore drilling.  And, the dropping prices are precisely what we would expect from a basic understanding of economics.

The point is that Democrat leaders are blocking all true energy development, while Republicans are actually showing some fight, and the American people need to continue increasing the pressure on the Dem leadership.  Call or e-mail daily until Pelosi and Reid cave in.  In particular, the GOP's "All of the above" plan would be tremendous - it would increase oil drilling, oil shale development, nuclear energy development, and more coal production, alongside conservation.  Support it.

Also, did you know that American oil rigs are actually cleaner than Mother Nature herself when it comes to oil leakage?  I bet you didn't.  In fact, nature dumps 95 times more oil into the oceans than we do every year!

Sources:
International Herald Tribune
CBS 2 in Chicago
Bloomberg

Racism
Racism has just gotten stupid now.  Did you know that babies and children are racist?  So are black holes and cake.  Never mind the real (reverse) racism going on around the country, or the fact that there is a black national anthem being sung in place of the Star-Spangled Banner.  And, naturally, blacks are harmed more by catastrophic global warming than anyone else.

This is ridiculous!  Anyone who thinks racism will be banished if Obama becomes president is hopelessly naive - if anything, it will get exponentially worse, as every possible critique or opposition to anything he says or does will be attacked as a racist charge.  Give me a break.

Mortgage Bailout Stupidity
Here's a perfect example of the kind of people that are being bailed out by all these mortgage bills Congress is passing nowadays.  A family who was given a free house and a quarter of a million dollars to pay expenses for that house by ABC's Extreme Home Makeover is now in foreclosure because they put the collateral for the home up for a massive loan for their failed business.  Now, I have no problem with this show, and I have no problem with people using their home's collateral to try to save a business.  I do have a problem with using my tax dollars to bail them out of their situation.  They made the decision to do this stuff with a house that was custom built for them out of the generosity of their neighbors and the TV show.  They need to live with the consequences.  If someone is given a six-figure gift like that and choose to squander it, they should not be rewarded by escaping the consequences.  Call me cold and heartless, but I agree with Michelle Malkin on this one, who said the real victims here are those who "scrimped and saved and acted responsibly".

In another episode of unintended consequences, this bailout madness is also opening doors which may be even worse than widespread foreclosures.  The Competitive Enterprise Institute warns that this measure opens the door for big-time eminent domain seizures by the government, which could affect far more Americans in the long run.

Stupid Quote of the Day
What prominent politician recently said this:

"I have always loved longitude, I love latitude; it's in the stars. But longitude, it's about time. ... Time and clocks and all the rest of that have always been a fascination for me."

No, it wasn't George W. Bush.  It was Democrat Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi.  What a dim bulb.  Oh, wait, she's done her best to outlaw normal light bulbs...I guess she would be a swirly, screwy bulb.  Yeah, that's much better.

The Deficit
Much is being made of the record projected deficit for 2009 in the MSM right now.  It's supposed to be almost half a trillion dollars, and could go higher if the economy doesn't recover as well as they're predicting.  But, don't freak out...here's some perspective for you.  As a percentage of GDP, even half a trillion dollars would only be 3.3%, well below the record of 6% in the early 1980s.  Still, it's a big problem, and needs to be addressed.  One obvious solution would be to curb federal spending (i.e. mortgage bailouts!) and excessive pork.  Then, let's reduce taxes some more - that always jumpstarts the economy.  History proves it.

Stevens Indicted
Republican Ted Stevens of Alaska was recently indicted for inappropriately accepting gifts.  While this is probably going to be spun as yet another corrupt GOPer, I'd like to offer a prediction that Stevens will quickly depart the scene for his transgressions.  While there is corruption on both sides of the aisle, only the Reps ever seem to clean up their messes.  Personally, I hope this guy is sent packing tomorrow - he's one of the worst pork spenders in Congress!  It would be good to get him out.  And, if it becomes necessary for the Governor to appoint a replacement, I have no doubt that rock-star conservative Sarah Palin (who enjoys 80% popularity in the state and has been concerned about Stevens' activities for quite some time) would appoint someone who would be far, far better in the Senate.

Unintended Consequences and Liberalism
Something that is really quite amazing about liberals is how they don't understand unintended consequences.  Rush Limbaugh relates a couple of these in the July issue of his newsletter.  In Charlotte, NC, the city council launched a campaign to conserve water.  The people of the city obeyed, and water usage dropped like a rock.  So what did the city do next?  They raised taxes on water to make up for the revenue shortfall.  Similarly, in Dallas, TX, traffic cameras were installed at numerous intersections in the interest of 'public safety'.  The worked so well in reducing speeding tickets and accidents that the city dismantled them because they weren't getting enough revenue.  Third example: the SCHIP bill.  I've blogged extensively about this before, but Limbaugh's point here is that the bill's supporters were going to pay for this massive expansion of health care by a 156% tax increase on cigarettes.  Of course, that meant they would have to attract 22 million new smokers -- and it's a proven fact that most smokers are low-income people -- but they were willing to make that sacrifice to get their expansion.

The point is that liberal policies aren't supposed to be judged on their results, but rather on their intentions.  When some of these things actually work (the unintended consequence), they then backtrack because they're not making enough money to feed their government beast.  You simply cannot win here, because liberalism isn't about actually helping people - it's about the acquisition of power for the elites by controlling the masses.

So, Limbaugh uses these examples to make another prediction that seems fairly obvious.  Liberals have been yammering for years about needing to drive less and take more public transport.  With the recent spike in gas prices, Americans are now doing just that.  What do you suppose will be the liberal response to this 'success'?  That's right, they're now complaining about the shortfall of revenue, and quietly beginning to talk about raising the gas tax.

Another example of this same concept can be seen with the recent banning of fast food in certain poor areas of Los Angeles.  While this sounds noble (helping fight obesity), what about the businesses that are now suddenly looking at closing?  How does that help the poor people who have jobs there?  And what about the fact that those same poor people are now going to have to pay more for food than ever before?  It's not a solution, it's a feel-good intention by liberals, as well as a blatant attempt to control the people in this area (because liberals always think they know better than you do what you should eat, buy, etc.).

Once again - this is liberalism, 'solving' problems on the basis of intentions rather than actual solutions, and then backpedaling when necessary to raise taxes in order to increase their power.  Liberalism is nothing but trouble.

I hope you've found these stories and comments enlightening!

There's my two cents.

Why Liberals Lie About What They Believe

John Hawkins writes one of the best articles I've ever seen on defining liberals.  If you want to understand the liberal mindset, you've got to read this:

Why Liberals Lie About What They Believe
Once you've watched liberals long enough to understand how they think -- scratch that, how they feel -- they become extraordinarily predictable.

To begin with, the liberal agenda is, in many respects, the same as it was in the thirties. Whether you call it communism, fascism, socialism, liberalism, or progressivism, the only real difference is how much they believe they can get away with, the way they sell it to people, and the latest trendy name for what they believe.

So, once the liberals pick a policy from their stale program to push, the next step is to get it implemented. This is where liberals have problems because whether a policy makes sense, is practical, or actually improves people's lives is of secondary importance to them. What is important to liberals is whether supporting or opposing that policy makes them feel good about themselves.

This is why liberals continue to support dysfunctional policies that have been failing miserably for decades and why they often oppose common sense programs that have been proven to work time and time again -- because it isn't about whether it works or not, it's about how it makes them feel.

In other words, a liberal will almost always prefer a policy that's extremely expensive, is difficult to implement, helps almost no one, but seems "nice" -- to a policy that is cheap, simple to implement, extremely effective, and seems "mean."

However, since most Americans make decisions about policies based on whether or not they believe the policy makes people's lives better or worse, liberals have had to become habitually dishonest about what they believe and want to do to get their ideas put into action.

This is a point worth stressing because many people who aren't familiar with politics believe that conservatives and liberals are simply flip sides of the same coin and therefore, approach issues the same way. However, conservatives genuinely believe that this is a center-right country. That's why conservatives have no qualms about being publicly labeled as conservatives and it's part of the reason why we're much more honest than the Left -- because we believe that a majority of the American people generally agree with us and share our values. So, those of us on the Right spend our time trying to explain to the American people what we really want to do, while the Left spends its time trying to hide what it really wants to do from the American people.

Because of this, when liberals don't feel that the political winds are blowing in their direction, not only will they generally avoid discussing the things they believe, they will typically deny that they believe them at all.

Additionally, liberals go to bizarre lengths to tilt the political playing field in their favor. They move into the mainstream media so that they can tip what are supposed to be "objective" news stories in their favor. They get into positions of power in our educational system so that they can teach kids liberal propaganda before they're old enough to know better. They uniformly support judges who care nothing about the Constitution as long as it moves liberal ideological goals forward. Even the Left's support of illegal immigration is rooted in the desire to bring in millions of poor people from socialist countries who are more likely to vote Democratic. If they can't convince the American voters they're right, then they'll just bring in some new voters.

More disturbing is the Left's ever-increasing reliance on what are commonly thought of as fascist tactics. Liberals at college campuses attempt to disrupt conservative speeches and the Democrats want to try to drive conservative talk radio hosts off the air with the Fairness Doctrine. Conservatives like Tom DeLay, Rush Limbaugh, and Ann Coulter have been targeted criminally for political reasons and there's even talk of trying to jail members of the Bush Administration over policy differences after they're out of office. Ideological soulmates of modern liberals -- like Stalin, Lenin, and Mao -- would certainly approve of those tactics.

Still, even though this is a center-right country, we do have political cycles and there are times when those cycles favor the Left. When that happens and the Lefties start to get a bit more confident, usually a few liberals at the edges will start talking about what they want to do. At that early point, most other liberals will still vehemently deny their ideological goals to the public out of fear that it will prevent them from getting into power.

However, when the Left gains enough strength to be capable of getting one of the policies they favor implemented, all the liberals who previously denied that they supported it will unapologetically shift on a dime and vote for it en masse -- while they rely on their ideological allies in the media and the fact that many Americans are ill informed about politics to cover their tracks.

So, if you want to know what liberals want to do, their words mean absolutely nothing because lying about their agenda has become as natural to them as chasing a cat is to a dog. Instead, what you have to do is watch what other liberals have done when they have come into power.

Look at Canada, where conservatives are being put on trial for hate crimes because they've dared to criticize Muslims. Look at European countries, where they have socialistic economies, sky high tax rates, rigid speech codes, and overweening nannystates. You can even look at liberal enclaves in the United States like Berkeley and San Francisco, where members of the military are treated like pariahs and they boo the national anthem.

If you believe the liberals in Berkeley, France, Canada or for that matter in the bowels of the Daily Kos or Huffington Post, are significantly different than, say Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton, you are kidding yourself. The only differences are in what they think they can get away with and how honest they are willing to be about their agenda.

This is an outstanding explanation of why liberalism makes no sense most of the time.  If you look at an issue entirely from the perspective of how it makes you feel, you'll start understanding why a liberal does what he does (you might also have to start with assumptions that America sucks and humanity is a plague upon the Earth).

I would add only one thing to this article.  I've often said that liberalism always eventually contradicts itself because it has no central guiding, unchanging Truths upon with to rely.  Hawkins' explanation reveals the why-behind-the-what of my assertion - if your guiding principle is simply your feelings, then anything goes.  One person's 'right' is another person's 'wrong', and when the two of them come into conflict, they're both 'right', so how do you decide who wins?  And, of course, the obvious fact that feelings change quickly and often illustrates why liberals flit from one cause to the next so rapidly.  In contrast, however, conservatism is based on a set of core principles (things like smaller government, lower taxes, more individual responsibility, strong national defense, traditional family values, etc.) which do not change over time or with a change in feeling.  Thus, the issues which drive conservatives remain constant, and we can be honest about what we believe and why it will work.

This fundamental flaw with liberalism is not a mystery - even if they lean left on certain particular issues, most Americans live conservatively.  They'd rather have the government bothering them less, they'd rather keep more of their paycheck each month, and they'd rather have the freedom to work, buy, and live however they want.  This is why liberalism always fails at the ballot box.  This is why liberals always move to the center for general elections.  This is why liberals focus on schools and judges - to gradually slip their way of thinking into the culture without actually having to win elections.  This is the danger of liberalism.

Hawkins' final point about the difference between the DailyKos crazies and the Obamessiah is dead on, too.  The ONLY difference is that the Kos-ites are actually being honest about what they believe.  Obama can't afford that kind of honesty - it would end his political career (and his quest to save mankind) in a hurry.

There's my two cents.

Drill Before Vacation, You Idiots!

There is a massive movement to force Congress to do something about oil drilling before they embark on their upcoming 5-week recess.  Americans of all stripes -- Reps, Dems, Indies, and everyone in between -- are mad at Congress for sitting on their thumbs while we pay more at the pump.  Technically speaking, the anger should be directed at the Democrats, specifically Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, but the point remains: the American people are demanding action NOW.

Join in with the likes of Michelle Malkin, who posts an interview with House Minority Leader John Boehner about Pelosi's continued prevention of a floor vote on the "All Of The Above" energy plan the House Republicans are pushing.  Also, there's Newt Gingrich, who has the following to say about the matter:

It's almost August, the time each year when many American families go on vacation. But if you're like many Americans, you're crunching the numbers and realizing this year's vacation won't be like recent years past. The cost of gasoline and its spillover effect on the price of food - and, well, everything else - has left your family with less money to spend. That's why over half of Americans are reconsidering taking vacation this summer to save money.

It's against this backdrop that Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and the rest of the leadership in Congress will have to make a big choice.

With so many Americans skipping vacation this summer because of the high cost of gas, should Congress get to go on a five week vacation without doing anything about it?

Last week, House Republicans introduced a comprehensive energy legislation called the American Energy Act.

The American Energy Act is the sort of "all of the above" energy solution the American people want, one that allows for the development of American oil to lower gas prices and free us from foreign sources of oil, but also recognizes that oil must be used as a bridge to a much more diversified energy portfolio for America.

Passing the bill would not only allow the development of more American energy resources from the outer-continental shelf, oil shale, and the Arctic coastal plane, it would cut red tape that blocks the development of new refineries, provide tax incentives and prizes to reward energy conservation and efficiency, and promote renewable and alternative energy technologies.

But if Nancy Pelosi has anything to do with it, the bill will never even come to a vote.

Last week, the US Geological Survey issued a report that showed there are an estimated 90 billion barrels of oil in the Arctic. One third of that oil is in Alaskan territory, but it is currently illegal to access most of it due to the offshore drilling moratorium imposed by Congress.

Furthermore, a recent Fox News poll shows that the American people now favor "increasing oil in the United States immediately" (75%), including offshore (71%) and "in a small area of the Alaskan Wildlife Refuge" (54%).

But despite the increasingly overwhelming reasons to "Drill Here, Drill Now, Pay Less", Nancy Pelosi and her anti-energy allies in the House are countering the House Republicans' "all of the above" energy proposal with a "none of the above" energy stonewall.

They want to leave Washington this Friday having done nothing to lower gas prices. They won't even allow a vote on the American Energy Act.

And let's be clear. None of their reasons for burying the American Energy Act have to do with the merits of the bill.

The Left has offered all sorts of arguments for why they oppose drilling, including reasons why producing more American oil will not lower gas prices. These arguments are bunk, and the American people know it.

In last week's newsletter, I linked to a study by two economists that argued allowing drilling in ANWR would produce an immediate drop in oil prices even if the oil did not enter refineries for several years. The study was rejected for publication in The Energy Journal, not because the editors disagreed with their findings, but because they considered the study's conclusion so obvious that it was not worth publishing.

This week, noted American Enterprise Institute economist Kevin Hasset confirmed what we already know - drilling now would lower prices immediately:

If exploration can be expected to be successful and significantly increase oil production in the future, then it would cause producers to revise downward their estimates for future prices. This would increase the attractiveness of extracting more today. As producers respond with higher production, prices today would drop.

Read the full article here.

So why is Nancy Pelosi preventing votes that would allow for the production of more American oil - which would have the likely effect of lowering our gas prices today?

If the American Energy Act were allowed to come up for a vote and it passed, it would infuriate the left-wing environmental lobby that opposes all new American oil production.

And if the bill were allowed to come up for a vote and Nancy Pelosi and her anti-energy allies could corral enough votes to defeat it, those Representatives would then have to explain their votes to an angry constituency with an election in less than 100 days.

Even the Washington Post can see through this debased power politics. In an editorial last week, they asked:

When they took the majority, House Democrats proclaimed that "bills should generally come to the floor under a procedure that allows open, full and fair debate consisting of a full amendment process that grants the Minority the right to offer its alternatives." Why not on drilling?

It's a good question, and one we should ask all of our Representatives.

Our Representatives have a simple choice to make.

With so many Americans cancelling their vacation this summer because of high gas prices, should Congress get to go on a five week vacation without doing anything about it?

Call your Representatives today and insist they do two things.

1. Make it clear to Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid they won't support ending the legislative session without passing legislation to lower gas prices.
2. And in the House, push Nancy Pelosi to allow a vote on the American Energy Act.

Americans deserves to know where their Representatives stand on this vital piece of legislation, and it's obscene to allow the bill to languish while so many Americans are suffering under the weight of high gas prices.

Also, we're at over 1.3 million signatures in American Solutions "Drill Here, Drill Now, Pay Less" petition. But it will take more.

If you're one of the 1.3 million who have signed so far, please consider sending it to ten of your friends. It's AmericanSolutions.com/DrillNow.

The Left has had a stranglehold on America's energy future for too long and thanks to your efforts it's now beginning to break. It's now time to increase the pressure on the Left to allow a common-sense energy policy that uses all of our American energy sources.

This is a critical time.  Not only do we need some relief from energy prices, but we need it now.  Pelosi and Reid have made it clear that they're merely running out the clock until the next Congress goes into session, at which time they hope to have an environmentally friendly (and economically stupid) Barack Obama as President along with an even bigger majority in Congress.  Then they'll be able to casually sit back and flip off the American people, continuing to do nothing as prices rise even more.

So, the time to act is now! 

The GOP is actually showing some fight for a change on this issue, so let 'em hear your voice of encouragement!  The dirty little secret is that many of the Democrats would vote in favor of increased drilling, too, which is precisely why Pelosi and Reid can't even allow a vote - they know they'll lose.

Call your Senators and Rep and demand that they address this issue before taking their vacations.  Then call Pelosi and Reid specifically, and hammer them over the issue.  Then do it again the next day, and the next, and the next.  The fact is that they're ignoring the clear demands of the vast majority of the American people for purely political reasons.  Tell them it won't fly with you, and that you consider them personally responsible for the continuing high gas prices.

They're the ones preventing relief, so take out your frustrations on them.

There's my two cents.

Yes!!! Omnibus Pork Bill Killed

Thanks to all of you for calling and e-mailing your Senators yesterday - it worked!  Harry Reid's attempt at strong-arming billions of dollars of pork spending failed:

Senate Republicans yesterday blocked consideration of 35 bills that were rolled into one omnibus measure designed to overcome the objections of Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), who has used parliamentary tactics to stymie dozens of pieces of legislation.

Siding with Coburn, most Republicans voted against bringing up the omnibus bill, worth more than $10 billion, contending that it would take debate time away from energy legislation and efforts to bring down gasoline prices.

"The American people are asking us to do something about the price of gas at the pump," said Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who called energy legislation that includes more domestic oil production the "number one issue in the country."

The 52 to 40 tally in favor of considering the bill was eight votes shy of the 60 required. Democrats threatened political retaliation against Republicans in November

Some more details:

Coburn is opposed to creating federal programs unless other programs he considers duplicative are eliminated or reduced in scope, and he demands that new programs also contain measures of their effectiveness.

"We don't do that in this city. We just conveniently charge it to our grandchildren," Coburn said in debate before the vote, noting the record $482 billion deficit projected yesterday for 2009.

Coburn said there are only five bills in the omnibus package that he "adamantly" opposes as unnecessary, including one that would place restrictions on the sale and interstate transport of apes and monkeys and another that would establish a commission on the bicentennial celebration of the War of 1812.

This is great news!  As important as it may be to restrict monkey transport, I certainly think it's more important to reign in the out-of-control spending of our Democrat-led Congress.  It's good to see enough Republicans stand up for fiscal responsibility to stop this train for a change!  Here is a link to the vote record.

Now, please take a moment to contact those Senators who opposed this bill, especially Coburn.  They should be acknowledged when they do something right, even if it isn't very often.

There's my two cents.

Trouble In Obamessiah Land

Despite the MSM's very best efforts, the Obamessiah's halo is rapidly dimming as he plummets in the polls.  There are a number of reasons for this.

First, his ego.  For anyone to seek the highest office in America and the most powerful position in the world, he or she has to have a healthy dose of ego.  It goes with the territory to say that you think you're a cut above the rest.  Frankly, I would hope my President is a cut above the rest.  That being said, Obama's ego is gargantuan -- even for a would-be President -- and that means he's got a mammoth-sized blind spot.  James Lewis says:

It's Obama's need to be seen as Jesus Christ Superstar. They have to "remake the world," "stop the rise of the oceans," "we are the change we've been waiting for."  The Obamas keep getting drawn into that blind spot, even when it's not smart politically. Arrogance is their Achilles' heel.

A Nuremberg-style mass rally in Germany is not exactly the natural stage for an American presidential candidate to strut his stuff.     It's exactly the opposite of the usual politician's schtick in America. "I'm just a little ole country boy" assures the voters that you don't have the swelled head. Abraham Lincoln, Andrew Jackson, Jimmy Carter, even an egomaniac like LBJ knew that much. But the Obamas don't seem to care.  The temptation of Ego Tripping overwhelms their common sense.

Consider his background:

Amazingly, both Barack and Michelle seem to suffer from real feelings of inferiority. Michelle is a Princess of Privilege -- Princeton University, Harvard Law School and her 300K job today.  And yet, she tells us that she spent years feeling bad about being black in America, as she told the world in her undergraduate thesis, at the very time when blacks are moving ahead faster than ever before in human history. 

That is more than a little bit bizarre. It's completely out of touch with her own external reality. Ninety-nine percent of the American people would be thrilled to have Michelle's opportunities in life.

Obama's two (count 'em, two!) autobiographies are all about his sense of inferiority. "Dreams of My Father" really has to do with the ego crunch of being abandoned by one's idealized father; it's a tough thing for any kid. Obama's mother was also an intermittent presence, and abandonment is the overwhelming theme of his early life.  "What's wrong with me that my parents aren't here?"  That's what abandoned kids end up asking themselves.

Only Barack's grandparents and a series of father figures made up for that yawning gap, and that was never enough. So Obama discovered his (made-up) racial identity as a solution -- he would Save His People to fill that hole in his soul.

Obama is a mixed-race man who has no American slavery in his family past; growing up in Hawaii he never encountered Jim Crow segregation. But Obama chose the identity of American black victimhood in spite of his very favored life.  

So why the ego?

Obama's messianic persona, his need to Save His People, was his way of filling that childhood hole in his soul.

Barack's run for President is his big chance to make up for those haunting feelings of self-doubt and worthlessness. So for the Obama campaign, grandiose ego display is the answer to persistent feelings of being small and insignificant.

So, he's gone overboard.  In recent campaign speeches, he has pledged to heal the sick, give jobs to the jobless, lower the oceans, and more.  It's ridiculous.  If his ego is the compensation for his self-confidence, he must have absolutely no confidence at all!  The problem is, Americans generally don't like people who are egotistical.

Another way to say it is hubris.  For example:

He has a seat on his campaign aircraft marked "president". He has taken a shot at creating his own presidential seal, complete with Latin motto. He has laid claim to personal control over the world's oceans and seas. He has repeatedly attempted to dictate how and on what level he, his ideas, and his activities may be discussed. He has encouraged a portrayal of himself as a messianic figure, including a portrait of himself as Christ, complete with halo. He is even now completing a triumphant grand tour of the old world, during which he attempted to shanghai an ancient monument for personal use without consulting the host government.

A word of Attic Greek origin, hubris was a major concept animating classical Greek thought. Hubris is overweening pride, an arrogance so profound and so visible as to affront the gods themselves. Hubris was a quality often identified with Greek tragic heroes. The hero allowed simple human pride in his accomplishments and station to burgeon to offensive proportions, at which point the wheels of fate began rolling. The ending was never good...

But Obama has no great and glorious accomplishment to speak of.  He edged out Hillary in an ugly primary, but that's about it (unless you want to count being the #1 most liberal Senator around).  Even so, his overblown arrogance gives him the hubris of those tragic heroes who actually accomplished something.  The problem, then, is what always happens to those tragic heroes - they go down in flames, spectacularly so.  And here's the rub:

What we can be sure of is that Obama will not avoid the final reckoning. The last, and strangest, characteristic of the victim of hubris is that he appears to welcome his fate, almost embracing it, cooperating in his own downfall. So it will be with Barack Obama. But he must not be allowed to take the country with him.

Aside from his misguided conception of himself, Obama also has a casual relationship with truth.  Aside from the multitude of previous truth 'incidents', his latest speech in Berlin was another great example.  Thomas Lifson's analysis:

Twice in the course of generating the almost poetic images which mark his rhetoric, Senator Obama spoke to the assembled throng and the world's media about matters at variance with reality. This was a prepared speech, read from a teleprompter. The candidate and his staff knew the speech was going to be important, attracting the biggest crowd of his career. Moreover, the candidate boasts that he has 300 foreign policy advisors, who should be capable of fact checking the candidate's most visible oration yet.

Obama, speaking to Berliners, used the familiar cloudy and cold Berlin winter weather to evoke a response of sympathy and unity with America (at least America of the Berlin Airlift era) when he said,

"The odds were stacked against success. In the winter, a heavy fog filled the sky above, and many planes were forced to turn back without dropping off the needed supplies. The streets where we stand were filled with hungry families who had no comfort from the cold."

There's nothing like shared sacrifice in the past to generate warm feelings. Even young Berliners who weren't born then experience Berlin's dreary winters. Very artful speechwriting.

But Obama didn't know what he was talking about when it comes to the actual military operation of the Berlin Airlift. He was dead wrong about "many planes ... forced to trun back," as historian D.M. Giangreco pointed out yesterday in American Thinker.

Obama should have read my book before making his claim about the Berlin Airlift.   Barely a handful of the nearly 28,000 flights "turned back" in the face in the cruel winter of 1948-1949. 

Obama obviously has limited knowledge of the Airlift, and automatically assumes that the USAF would send up aircraft in prohibitively dangerous weather (it didn't) and that, once up, large numbers of pilots aborted their missions. 

A candidate for commander-in-chief hereby parades his deep misunderstanding about the way the United States Air Force regards human life. Is this how he would treat Airmen and Airwomen when he is in command? This should raise alarm bells among those who value the lives of our military men and women.

I find it unnerving that Obama is so out of touch with the realities of military operations and history. But even more unsettling is the habit of mind revealed here: the assumption that he knows everything already, so there is no need to sweat the details. He apparently is ignorant of the existence of what Donald Rumsfeld called the "unknown unknowns."

The second fictional imagery employed by Obama is even more troubling. Neither the man nor his 300 advisors apparently have bothered to learn about the facts on the ground in Northern Ireland.

"Not only have walls come down in Berlin, but they have come down in Belfast, where Protestant and Catholic found a way to live together;"

David Singh today pointed out for our readers that as recently as May 3, USA Today, a widely-read news source not known as a purveyor of esoteric knowledge, published an article revealing:

"Ten years after peace was declared in Northern Ireland, one might have expected that Belfast's barriers would be torn down by now. But reality, as usual, is far messier. Not one has been dismantled. Instead they've grown in both size and number."

A president of the United States needs to know the basic facts. This is far worse than Gerald Ford's reference to Poland as a free country during the Iron Curtain days. Obama and his advisors share a mentality that assumes an omnipotence unjustified by his abilities.

Senator Obama is on his way to becoming a laughingstock. If he were a Republican, he would be ridiculed mercilessly for these verbal bungles in the world spotlight.

Lifson is exactly right!  Obama and his staff seem to think that facts don't matter, and that they're immune to the effects of misrepresenting the facts (which is a little thing called lying).  The American people are beginning to understand this about him, and it's killing him.  So is the fact that he blew off a visit to wounded soldiers after this speech in favor of a workout at the hotel, as is the fact that he took the international stage to apologize for his own country while calling himself a citizen of the world.  He has also added supreme presumption to his list of character attributes, acting like the President before he's even officially become his party's nominee (a fact which McCain rightly called out).

Americans don't like hearing any of this sort of thing from their leaders.

The entire point of this trip through the Middle East and Europe was to prop Obama up as a leader of the people and a Presidential man with foreign policy cred and military gravitas.  If anything, it has had the opposite effect.  The latest USA Today/Gallup poll shows that McCain is now leading Obama by four points, a 10-point swing in the past month.  Several other major polls still show the two candidates in a dead heat, and the days of vast double-digit Obama leads are gone.  This has to be devastating to the Obama campaign (and the MSM), despite how they're spinning it (they now say they never intended to get a bounce out of the trip).

The fact is that Obama simply has not held up well under the scrutiny of high-profile presidential coverage, even with the overwhelming favorability of that coverage.  His associations with unrepentant terrorists and racist hatemongers, his backroom real estate deals with convicted felons, his constant flip-flopping (or going 'both ways') on every important issue, his radical Left fringe socialist views on abortion and the economy, his verbal gaffes when speaking off the cuff, and his obvious disdain for the military and the American people are catching up to him.  His chickens, as...someone...once said, are coming home to roost.

The halo is dimming, indeed.  Is Hillary waiting in the wings?  The nomination isn't official yet...

There's my two cents.