So how would I have answered Couric's questions about abortion?

I said yesterday I thought Palin's answers to Couric's questions about abortion came up short. So what do I think she should have said?

Someone wrote to suggest I am looking too much for a "perfect" or "ideal" presidential candidate and ought not to be so hard on Palin. "I have this [issue of abortion and 'morning-after' pills] in my face every day and don't have a policy ironed out on laws for an ideal world."

My reply:

I would "merely" want to point out that,

• As far as I know, you're not a professional politician, nor have you ever pretended to be one.
   
• Palin is running for VP of the United States on a declared/avowed "pro-life" platform.
   
• I am not seeking to critique anyone else's position at this time. I am only seeking to note that Palin walked into an interview declaring her "principles" and then demonstrated that, from a political/legal perspective, her "principles" are vacuous; she had obviously never really thought through how to respond to legitimate political/legal/policy questions on the subject.

I believe she ought to have responded in a substantive manner to the issues Katie Couric raised. She should have "stood up" for her avowed principles.

Among the points I would have wanted her to make:

• Extreme cases make for bad laws. (Or: You don't want to make laws based on extreme cases.)
   
• My concern [speaking for Palin, here!] is to stand up for the rights of the unborn baby.
   
• It is--absolutely--required for us to consider the rights of the 15-year-old girl.
   
• What I [again, speaking for Palin, here!] am concerned to change is the idea or principle that, because of difficult circumstances, "of course" we abandon the baby in behalf of the baby's mother.
  
  Our culture, at this point, seems to assume that the baby means nothing, is nothing, has no rights, ought not to have rights; the mother should have absolute, life-and-death power over her baby, with no input or encouragement or pressure from society at large (or the government).
   
• If, in these rare, extreme circumstances such as the one you mentioned, Katie: if in such a case we were to establish a policy that the government might reimburse the victim for her pain and suffering (unless and until the perpetrator of the crime can be brought to justice and will be required, himself, to make restitution) . . . --What is the problem with that?
   

Now, if I wanted to press the case further than required, I might continue something along these lines:

• What I don't understand, Katie [and, again, I'm attempting to speak for Palin, here!], is why we as a society seem to believe that the innocent baby should die, but the monstrously wicked perpetrator of the rape himself ought to be permitted to live? . . .
  
  Obviously, in our society today, we seem to think it is legitimate to condemn the innocent baby to death. . . .
  
  [And now, if I really wanted to push things, I might even note that I take my general worldview from the Bible. So . . . ] As I'm sure you're aware, I seek to follow Jesus. My spiritual roots are in Him.
  
  According to the Bible, if a witness in a court of law is found to have spoken falsely against an accused, then the false witness him- or herself, should suffer whatever punishment his false testimony would have brought upon the one against whom he testified.
  
  Here, apparently, in the case of a rapist, the biological father of the baby intends for the baby to die.
  
  My opinion--and I don't expect to be pushing for such a law in the near future; we have many far higher priorities to attend to!--but I believe it would be appropriate to put the rapist to death even while we do everything we can to save the life of the baby.
  
  It is time our culture stopped looking out for the so-called "rights" of the perpetrators of irresponsible and and evil acts and began to provide protection for the innocent: in this case, the mother and the baby. . . .

. . . I would say something like this.

But please know: this is not my area, either. I am not like you, confronted by this issue on a daily basis. I'm not confronted by it even on a semi-annual basis.

But I expect, if I were in Sarah Palin's shoes, and I were a legitimate candidate for VP, I would consult with "the best" counselors there are on this planet about issues like this that I know are going to be hot-buttons.

I would contact Mark Crutcher of Life Dynamics, Inc. and/or others of his caliber. These people have done amazing work at putting together powerful similes, metaphors and other communicative tools from the pro-life side.

But, no. Palin, a supposedly experienced politician who claims to be ready for the vice presidency, just went out "n*ked," without appropriate preparation. And she got slaughtered.

While we're on the subject of Palin . . .

I had intended to include the video above in my last "Fair is fair" post, but it didn't flow with the rest of the content.

So I decided to make this a separate post.

Palin has stated, clearly, that she is "pro-life." But what, exactly does that mean, from a policy perspective? Isn't that the question we need to be asking and need to hear her talk about?

We see how she has lived out her convictions as a private person. I am very happy to see her commitment to uphold the life of her son and grandchild.

But we're not considering whether to ask her to be our nation's wife. We are considering whether to ask her to be our nation's assistant chief executive, someone who will help push for the passage of laws and someone who will establish legal policies.

So how does she reply to Couric's questions concerning legal issues related to life?

Couric asks, "If a 15-year-old is raped by her father, you believe it should be illegal for her to get an abortion. Why?"

And, following up: "Ideally, you think it should be illegal for a girl who was raped or a victim of incest to get an abortion?"

Pay attention to her answers! They are no different, as far as I can see, from the most merciful "pro-choice"/"pro-abortion" politicians' answers! If you can discern a difference, I would appreciate hearing your analysis.

. . . But then, after handling Couric's questions, on their face, as well as she can, Palin takes the offensive and frames her own question: "If you're asking . . . kind of foundationally, here, Should anybody end up in jail for having had an abortion?" Please pay attention to her answer to that question, as well!

It sounds to me as if she has no legal or policy plans in mind that are any different from what the law of the land proclaims right now.

Oh, but Couric couldn't leave well enough alone. Following up, she asks: ". . . How do you feel about the 'morning-after' pill?"

Palin: "Well, I'm all for contraception and I'm all for any preventative measures that are legal and safe and should be taken, but, Katie, I am one to believe that life starts at the moment of conception and . . . "

Couric jumps in, "Ergo, you don't believe in the 'morning-after' pill?"

Palin: ". . . I would like to see fewer and fewer abortions in this world and, again, I haven't spoken with anyone who disagrees with my position on that."

Couric: "I'm sorry. I just want to ask you again, 'Do you condone or condemn the "morning-after" pill?'"

And Palin's reply (again, perfectly in line with every so-called "pro-choice"/"pro-abortion" politician I've ever heard): "Personally--and this isn't a McCain-Palin policy . . . personally, I would not choose to participate in that kind of contraception."

So, first, notice, she has no policy or legal answers. And, second, she provides no more reassurance about what her policy stands might be than what all the "pro-choice"/"pro-abortion" crowd can offer.

The differences we might expect to see under Palin as chief or assistant chief executive are, at best, differences, merely, of semantics and emphasis, aren't they?

ETA: Check out So how would I have responded to Couric's questions?

Semi just-for-fun

Palin for President!


Click anywhere on the picture to discover amazing/fun things. Kind of a video discovery game with lots of references related to things Sarah Palin has said.

You will want to click just about any- and everywhere on the picture, sometimes multiple times. (Responses change.)

Even if you are a Palin fan, you should find much of the content rather clever and/or humorous. . . .

Fair is fair from the other side . . .

Yeah. It's too easy to forget how all the conservative, "religious right" leaders, just a few months ago, wanted nothing to do with McCain.

It was a few years ago, actually, that McCain first crossed my radar. Remember the McCain-Feingold bill? But that was merely the most obvious aspect of McCain's unsuitability.

James Dobson of Focus on the Family said, in a January 2007 interview, he "couldn't support [McCain] 'under any circumstances'" . . . not only because of McCain-Feingold, but because of McCain's lack of support for male-female marriage, and because of his support for legislation that would create "obstacles for ministries such as Focus to reach constituents with action messages about pending legislation."

And then, as Warren Mass and William F. Jasper note in a recent article,

Right up to the Republican convention in St. Paul in September, some of the most visible and vocal conservative leaders were still tepid at best toward McCain, or were still vowing to sit out the election in protest. McCain's long record of crossing the aisle to cosponsor big-government, liberal-left legislation with Democrats like Teddy Kennedy, Hillary Clinton, Joe Lieberman, and Russ Feingold had understandably alienated him from most of the party faithful. His antagonism toward the religious right had not helped either. His reference during his 2000 presidential run to the Rev. Jerry Falwell and other social conservatives as "agents of intolerance" played well with the liberal media, RINOs (Republicans In Name Only), and the homosexual set at the Log Cabin Club, but cost him dearly among mainstream voters, as he later admitted.

Conservative pundits and commentators kept the airwaves and the blogosphere roiling with anti-McCain invective. "McCain will kill conservatism as a dominant force in the Republican Party," Rush Limbaugh declared on his radio show on January 11 of this year, during one of his many rants against the Arizona senator.

"If he's our candidate, then Hillary is going to be our girl, because she's more conservative than he is," threatened Ann Coulter on Fox's Hannity and Colmes. "I think she would be stronger on the war on terrorism," Coulter opined. "John McCain is not only bad for Republicanism, which he definitely is — he is bad for the country," she said.

Sean Hannity, an early booster of Rudi Giuliani, repeatedly blistered McCain on his radio and TV programs as beyond the pale. "There is clearly an effort [by the media] underway, I think, to convince us, the voters, to go for either, say John McCain or Mike Huckabee," Hannity declared in January. "If you ask me who are the two more liberal candidates in the Republican primary, I would say, it's John McCain and Mike Huckabee."

"McCain is not only not conservative enough; he also has built a reputation as a maverick by stabbing his party in the back — not in furtherance of conservative principles but by betraying them," wrote David Limbaugh, Rush's younger brother and a columnist for Newsmax.com and Townhall.com. "McCain delights in sticking it to his colleagues while winning accolades from the mainstream liberal media," said David Limbaugh.

But, as Mass and Jasper note, "What a difference a few weeks can make! In the blink of an eye, politically speaking, Sen. John McCain has gone from pariah to darling among much of the indispensable conservative base of the Republican Party."

Now, after having wavered for the last week or so as a result of Mike Rosen's column, I think I've decided I'm not going to "buy" McCain's--or the Republican Party's--supposed "conversion" to conservatism. I'm going to vote for a third party candidate who better expresses my interests and concerns.

Yes, despite the pro-life issue that clearly differentiates the two major-party candidates, and the issue that has gotten me to "buy" the "promise" of the Republican Party for too many years in the past.

Clearly, these guys (and gals) are no friends of integrity. Not "even" Palin. . . . Or, perhaps I should say, most especially not Palin.

Since, as I am waking up to realize, my vote won't change much of anything whether a Republican or a Democrat is in office, or whether the Republicans or the Democrats dominate Congress, I would like to "vote my conscience" in hopes that, over time, more people will become fed up with the "unlimited government" Republicrats who completely dominate national politics . . . and maybe a third party really will become viable as a force on the national stage.
*******
So let me analyze Palin and McCain from the "other" side. . . .

No. I will let "the other side" do it for themselves.

I'm afraid WWSPD--What Would Sarah Palin Do? cuts a bit too close for my comfort due to the fact that I, myself, have communicated about the questions concerning Obama's legitimacy as a presidential candidate. And so those questions are turned, a bit, on their head: "Jesus 'Hussein' Christ? Without an original birth certificate, we'll never know!"

The author of the article writes:

I’ve reluctantly come around to the view of Sarah Palin, John McCain, and other luminaries that we must judge our fellow citizens by their associations - and we must assume that you at least partially endorse the views of anyone you pal around with. Hence - Barack Obama pals around with a terrorist - by which I mean he served on the board of a charitable foundation with this guy, along with a bunch of conservative Republicans. Therefore, Barack Obama does not see America as you see America and as I see America.

Clear. Logical.

So, I decided to see who else I could disregard because of their poor judgment and unsavory associations. Now - I first thought about Sarah Palin herself, whose husband is a member of a political party whose founder recently declared: “The fires of hell are frozen glaciers compared to my hatred for the American government” among other nice tidbits; worse, Palin herself has spoken at this party’s convention and was at one point thought to be a member by their spokesperson - before the McCain campaign corrected her. I mean, in this case, Palin isn’t just palling around with this group - she’s associating herself with their politics by speaking at their convention - and her husband believed in the party enough to join! But then I realized that I know Sarah Palin - and Sarah Palin wouldn’t endorse those views. Obama on the other hand. . . .

And then of course, I started thinking about John McCain and the mafia connections behind his wife’s vast fortune and his requests that leniency be given to terrorists who killed many Americans and attacked Madison Square Garden, JFK Airport, and Lincoln Center among other targets. But I know John McCain - and I know he loves America - so I put these unsavory associations out of my mind.

Then of course, I came across this other guy - a peacenik, with long hippie-like hair, preaching namby-pamby, weak-kneed, anti-American values like forgiving enemies and avoiding violence and caring for the poor and telling people they should pay their taxes - basically a filthy liberal. He seems to have influenced a lot of people - so I wanted to point out that not only was this guy born in what was called in his day, “Palestine” - making him likely an Arab.

This guy apparently was well known for palling around with tax collectors, prostitutes, adulterers, and political radicals [Zealots advocated the overthrow of the Roman government]. He even attacked the religious authorities saying that the tax collectors and prostitutes were better than them. The guy also seethes with class resentment and seems to be trying to wage class warfare.

Clearly, the guy is a dangerous liberal with worrying bloodlines who’s going to wage class war on the rich. That’s not what this Christian nation needs. Enough of this WWJD. It’s time for WWSPD!

Except . . . I don't know! What would Sarah Palin do if she became president . . . or, even, vice president?

I don't think I have any idea! Do you?

Y'know something? In the end, I don't think she really has any idea, either! She has no well-thought-out political philosophy . . . any more than do just about any of the other major party candidates for public office. With just a few exceptions. Ron Paul comes to mind. . . .

I mean, what do you get from Palin's answers to these direct and, one would hope, relatively simple questions?


And



Or, even, Couric's question about how she helped to develop her worldview: "In terms of establishing your worldview . . . what newspapers and magazines did you regularly read before you were tapped for [the vice presidential nomination] to stay informed and understand the world?"


I have to confess, these interviews, for me, make the following ad rather pointed. (Now that you've watched Cafferty's clip and commentary, you can skip the central portion of the ad and merely watch and listen to the beginning and the end):


And the entire fiasco makes the mocking videos like the following one rather sadly humorous as well:

I think I finally feel free to vote my conscience

I am so sick of the two major parties, and so sick of the lack of integrity or character on the part of the Republicans, in particular, I figure I can do no harm by voting my conscience (as I have refused to do the last two elections, due to the supposed "evil" of the Democratic Party).

Yes, I voted for George Bush both times. And what has that gotten us? More tax-and-borrow liberalism, and now, in the last two weeks, socialistic benefits for people who have dedicated themselves to acquiring the most money possible, and higher inflation and/or future misery for many people who have dedicated themselves to living frugally within their means.

I think this Time magazine article, titled
How We Became the United States of France, expresses it well:

This is the state of our great republic: We've nationalized the financial system, taking control from Wall Street bankers we no longer trust. We're about to quasi-nationalize the Detroit auto companies via massive loans because they're a source of American pride, and too many jobs — and votes — are at stake. Our Social Security system is going broke as we head for a future where too many retirees will be supported by too few workers. How long before we have national healthcare? Put it all together, and the America that emerges is a cartoonish version of the country most despised by red-meat red-state patriots: France. Only with worse food.

Admit it, mes amis, the rugged individualism and cutthroat capitalism that made America the land of unlimited opportunity has been shrink-wrapped by a half dozen short sellers in Greenwich, Conn. and FedExed to Washington D.C. to be spoon-fed back to life by Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson. We're now no different from any of those Western European semi-socialist welfare states that we love to deride. . . .

Now our laissez-faire (hey, a French word) regulation-averse Administration has made France's only Socialist president, Francois Mitterand, look like Adam Smith by comparison. All Mitterand did was nationalize France's big banks and insurance companies in 1982; he didn't have to deal with bankers who didn't want to lend money, as Paulson does. When the state runs the banks, they are merely cows to be milked in the service of la patrie. France doesn't have the mortgage crisis that we do, either. In bailing out mortgage lenders Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, our government has basically turned America into the largest subsidized housing project in the world. Sure, France has its banlieus, where it likes to warehouse people who aren't French enough (meaning, immigrants orAlgerians) in huge apartment blocks. But the bulk of French homeowners are curiously free of subprime mortgages foisted on them by fellow citizens, and they aren't over their heads in personal debt. . . .

Now the U.S. is faced with the same prospect in the auto industry. GM and Ford need money to develop greener cars that can compete with Toyota and Honda. And they're looking to Uncle Sam for investment — an investment that could have been avoided had Washington imposed more stringent mileage standards years earlier. But we don't want to interfere with market forces like the French do — until we do. . . .

Even in the strongest sectors in the U.S., there's no getting away from the French influence. Nothing is more sacred to France than its farmers. They get whatever they demand, and they demand a lot. And if there are any issues about price supports, or feed costs being too high, or actual competition from other countries, French farmers simply shut down the country by marching their livestock up the Champs Elysee and piling up wheat on the highways. U.S. farmers would never resort to such behavior. They don't have to: they're the most coddled special interest group in U.S. history, lavished with $180 billion in subsidies by both parties, even when their products are fetching record prices. One consequence: U.S. consumers pay twice what the French pay for sugar, because of price guarantees. We're more French than France.

George W., as far as I can tell, has proven himself more socialistic than Franklin D. Roosevelt was. And that's saying rather a lot!

Of course, we're not about to try to elect George W. again. That's nice. But now what does John McCain have to offer?

Prior to Palin being put forward, it was only the Democrats who had an inexperienced candidate being promoted for the White House. But now the Republicans have promoted an equally inexperienced candidate and, worse, they seem unwilling to admit what a sham she is.

She is supposedly a high-minded, principled person with a heart set on eliminating government waste. Really? Must be a relatively recent conversion.

• Yes, she opposed the Bridge to Nowhere. But only after she promoted it. (During her 2006 campaign for governor, Palin repeatedly expressed support for the bridge project, saying Alaska should take advantage of earmarks “while our congressional delegation is in a strong position to assist.” [Anchorage Daily News, 10/22/06 (answer to Question #5); Ketchikan Daily News, 8/9/06, 11/21/06])
  
  Moreover, it was only after the issue became a national embarrassment that she decided it was a bad idea.
  
  Meanwhile,
• She was all in favor of as much federal pork as she could get her hands on for the community she served as mayor.. ($27 million in 14 projects.)
• She permitted the $25 million, 3.2-mile long, federally-funded "road to nowhere" to continue. --I guess, as long as the federal government pays (meaning, U.S. taxpayers pay) for it and the taxpayers ignore it, such expenditures are okay.
• Oh. And let us not forget her "travel expenses" incurred for staying--or, rather, going--home and/or for helping her family travel with her.
  
  "Her costs have been much lower than her Democratic predecessor's," say her apologists.
  
  Yeah. But what about honesty, accountability, ethics and integrity? Would the IRS permit private businesses to charge off these kinds of expenses as legitimate business expenses?
  
  If you heard of some private business person who was doing this, would you agree: "Yeah, that's really okay!"?
  
  I don't think so!

And then I'm supposed to take comfort that she is a quick study on foreign policy even though, by her own admission, that has never been of interest to her?

Sorry. I would be happy to do a similar "analysis" of Obama and Biden, but I have never had interest in potentially voting Democratic.

Now I have to decide whether to vote Libertarian or U.S. Constitution Party.

Sarah Palin and the possible faked pregnancy

God says we need to avoid gossip.

I want to avoid gossip.

It is wise to beware of rumors. "Don't believe everything you hear." Absolutely. But/and . . . isn't there a place where you need to investigate "your own side" in the same way you would investigate "the other side"?

I have found it so common: advocates for any particular position are happy to investigate virtually every rumor or whisper of malfeasance that has to do with "the opposition." They say such investigations are necessary to "get at the truth" and/or to build any sense of possible confidence in anything "the opposition" has to say.

But when it comes to "their own," if someone raises questions, their hackles rise in high dudgeon: "How dare you ask such things!"

I ask, "But what if these things are true? Shouldn't we know that?"

So I set off to find out if, and to what extent, there may be any validity to the rumor that Sarah Palin did not bear Trig, the son she now claims as her own.

And I will say, she looks bad either way: whether she bore Trig or not. She appears either to be a liar (for "a good cause," no doubt: to save her daughter's dignity), or she lacks discernment (why else would she put her baby's life at risk?), or, perhaps, despite her avowed commitment to life, she had a secret death-wish for her son.

Truly.

I find any one of these options rather disturbing for someone who intends to run our country. I want the highest ethics. And I'm afraid we're not finding them.

But I'll let you be the judge.

Having had two daughters bear children within the past five weeks, I find it impossible to believe as a completely factual account what the press reported concerning Trig's birth:

• Mrs. Palin made a keynote luncheon address at the Republican Governor’s Energy Conference in Texas on April 17, after she noticed she had begun to leak amniotic fluid.
• She then proceeded to the airport where she took a regularly-scheduled, eight-hour commercial flight back up to Anchorage.
• Rather than having the baby in Anchorage, the state capital and the largest city in the state, she then proceeded to drive 44 miles from the Anchorage airport to the 74-bed Mat-Su Regional Medical Center located in a community with not even a fifth the population.
• An hour later, she checked in with her doctor.

And then, finally,

• Seven hours later, she had the baby.

Is this really what you would do if you had a Down syndrome baby? Is this what you would do if you had any kind of baby?

Hate to say it, but I'm skeptical.

For further discussion, see the comments at the end of the original article that brought this to my attention.

********

ETA (9/2/08): Reliable sources now report that Mrs. Palin's 17-year-old daughter is currently pregnant and expecting to give birth in December. So the pregnancy was not faked.

But now mom/Mrs. Prospective Vice President has two major "distractions" on her hands in the form of a very young, Down syndrome baby and an unmarried daughter who is pregnant. How can she keep up every end of all the jobs she's being called upon to fulfill?

• Wife
• Mom
• Governor of Alaska
• Vice Presidential Candidate
• Human being

Will she be able to succeed where few--very few (any?)--men do?

And now it begins to hit the fan . . .

So I got up this morning and began to look for information about Sarah Palin.

Already, last night, I had read of her possible ethical lapse with her ex-brother-in-law.

And in the same article, I read negative comments from her own state's leading papers about her lack of experience and lack of interest or drive toward national politics:

From the editorial in the Daily News-Miner in Fairbanks:

Sen. John McCain's selection of Gov. Sarah Palin as his vice presidential running mate was a stunning decision that should make Alaskans proud, even while we wonder about the actual merits of the choice.... Alaskans and Americans must ask, though, whether she should become vice president and, more importantly, be placed first in line to become president.

In fact, as the governor herself acknowledged in her acceptance speech, she never set out to be involved in public affairs. She has never publicly demonstrated the kind of interest, much less expertise, in federal issues and foreign affairs that should mark a candidate for the second-highest office in the land. Republicans rightfully have criticized the Democratic nominee, Sen. Barack Obama, for his lack of experience, but Palin is a neophyte in comparison; how will Republicans reconcile the criticism of Obama with the obligatory cheering for Palin?

Most people would acknowledge that, regardless of her charm and good intentions, Palin is not ready for the top job. McCain seems to have put his political interests ahead of the nation's when he created the possibility that she might fill it.

And from the editorial in the Anchorage Daily News:

It's stunning that someone with so little national and international experience might be heartbeat away from the presidency.

Gov. Palin is a classic Alaska story. She is an example of the opportunity our state offers to those with talent, initiative and determination...

McCain picked Palin despite a recent blemish on her ethically pure resume. While she was governor, members of her family and staff tried to get her ex-brother-in-law fired from the Alaska State Troopers. Her public safety commissioner would not do so; she forced him out, supposedly for other reasons. While she runs for vice-president, the Legislature has an investigator on the case.

For all those advantages, Palin joins the ticket with one huge weakness: She's a total beginner on national and international issues.

Gov. Palin will have to spend the next two months convincing Americans that she's ready to be a heartbeat away from the presidency....

I'm afraid I'm rather naïve. Even though I say this blog mixes in "a little politics," politics is really not a major interest of mine. That I don't normally follow political races.

But reading the article I just referenced from The Huffington Post--and seeing several other articles whose titles alone oozed similar animosity--I realized, if Palin is supposed to become vice president, she is going to have to endure some pretty grueling tests.

But now to this morning.

I bump into an article that suggests Palin may have "faked" pregnancy to cover for an out-of-wedlock baby born by her daughter?

Ouch! And, Oh! And, Oh, no!

Is this "politics as usual"? Rumor-mongering? Will Sarah Palin stand up to scrutiny?

If the independent public investigator assigned to discover the facts in the case concerning Palin's ex-brother-in-law should determine she actually did overstep the bounds of propriety in his case, and/or if the rumor about a faked pregnancy proves true, not only do McCain and Palin have major ethical issues on their hands, but McCain's choice of running mate--the lack of discernment her choice shows--will become a major negative factor in McCain's election strategy. And one would have to question the entire Republican Party: are they really so short of qualified candidates that they have to choose someone with virtually no national standing to become the vice presidential candidate?

Though then, come to think of it, the same question could be asked of the Democrats concerning Obama. He has some major ethical issues of his own, doesn't he?

As Tom Fitton, president of Judicial Watch (JW), notes in his latest fund-raising letter, JW felt the need to file a Freedom of Information Act request with the Illinois State Archives (ISA) to produce "any and all public documents . . . resulting from Illinois State Senator Barack Obama's years in office (1997-2004) that the ISA have in their possession."

Why?

Because

Back when he was questioned about his records on Meet the Press last year, Senator Obama stated

"Well, let's be clear. In the state Senate, every single piece of information, every document related to state government was kept by the state of Illinois and has been disclosed and is available and has been gone through with a fine-toothed comb by news outlets in Illinois . . . every document related to my interactions with government is available right now."

Yet the State Archives responded to our request by telling us that they don't maintain those records, nor have they received any requests from Senator Obama to archive any of his records.

"Clearly," Fitton says, "Barack Obama, just like Hillary Clinton, has a records problem. Our investigation suggests Senator Obama could have had his records archived so that they are available to the public but has chosen not to. Apparently he does not want a complete paper trail of his time in the Illinois State Senate.
So much for 'transparency' from the candidate who has made honesty and integrity his calling card!"

And then there is the matter of his relationship with Tony Rezko.

[W]e know that Senator Obama has a tangled history of personal and business dealings with one Antoin "Tony" Rezko, a naturalized American citizen who immigrated to the United States from Syria, settled in Chicago and who has long served as a political godfather to Barack Obama.

Over the years, in fact, Mr. Rezko has basically bankrolled Senator Obama's political career — beginning with Obama's first campaign for public office in 1996.
Rezko and members of his large family have contributed more than $200,000 to Obama campaigns since then. (The highly respected London Times referred to Rezko as "Mr. Obama's long-serving bagman.")

The relationship between Rezko and Senator Obama is so close that the Senator and Rezko went in on a real estate deal together! In fact, Obama's dealing with Rezko may have allowed Obama to pay $300,000 below the asking price for his $1.65 million Chicago mansion.

Obama and Rezko "walked through" the mansion together. They bought adjoining properties on the same day, and Rezko paid full freight on the deal (to the same owner Obama bought his house from).

This story gets more interesting when you consider that on June 4th in Chicago Tony Rezko was convicted in court for fraud and for a kickback scheme designed to shake down investment firms seeking Illinois state government business. . . .

Papers filed in this case show that about a month before Obama's suspicious land deal, Rezko received a wire transfer of $3.5 million from Nadhim Auchi, an Iraqi billionaire now living in Britain who made his fortune through "business dealings" with the corrupt Saddam Hussein regime. This transfer raises the question posed by the London Times — whether or not "funds from Nadhmi Auchi . . . helped Mr. Obama buy his mock Georgian mansion in Chicago."

Rezko has now been convicted for his alleged corrupt dealings with the administration of another prominent Illinois Democrat, Governor Rod Blagojevich. Over the years, Rezko also contributed generously to the Governor's campaigns...and was rewarded with appointments to state boards and commissions. . . .

Fitton concludes: "Corrupting the state government of Illinois is bad enough; but now the question is whether Tony Rezko has corrupted Barack Obama, the man who may be our next president."

And the list of scandals--or potential scandals--continues:

• There is the matter of his long-standing relationship with the firebrand and, apparently, anti-American preacher Jeremiah Wright.


• And his relationship with William Ayers, a founding member of the Weather Underground who set off bombs in the U.S. Capitol and the Pentagon. (According to Fitton, they claimed "credit" for 25 such bombs.) Ayers was quoted in the New York Times as saying "I don't regret setting bombs. I feel we didn't do enough."
  
  Is the quote about not having "done enough" taken out of context? I can imagine. But then having a presidential candidate associating with an unrepentant anti-government bomber?


• Some seriously shady-looking stock deals.
  

  Two months after he took his Senate seat in 2005, the Senator purchased $50,000 worth of stock in highly speculative ventures, whose major investors were some of his biggest campaign contributors.
  
  One of the companies was a biotech concern that benefited from legislation that Senator Obama pushed just two weeks after purchasing $5,000 worth of its stock.
  
  When he was working to pass that legislation, just whose interest was the Senator advancing . . . his constituents', the company's, or his own?

Suddenly, in the context of all of these issues, even supposing Palin engaged in some--what well-wishers might like to call "white lying"--I sense Palin's sins probably pale in comparison.

BUT. What really bothers me: why can't the United States field some better-qualified candidates for president and vice president. Are these really the best we have?

Obama seemed unbeatable. And then . . .

I watched Obama's acceptance speech Thursday night--something I hadn't even really planned to do. But I was driving home from somewhere just before he began to speak, and I happened to be listening to NPR, something else I haven't done in months. Somehow, the excitement of the reportage got me thinking, "I really honest to listen to what the man has to say."

Based on everything I have heard or read about Obama, I am really not interested in him becoming our president. And, honestly, nor am I excited about McCain. I would prefer a true, limited-government libertarian (either big or little "L" libertarian!) in office. After eight years of a borrow-and-spend, unlimited-government Republican as president, I'm really not interested in four or more years of either more borrowing-and-spending or taxing-and-spending unlimited-government politicians in office. But I doubt my preferences are going to make much difference this election cycle!

Anyway, I listened to Obama and was impressed. (I've never heard him speak before.)

I was impressed not in terms of wanting to see him become our president, but in terms of his message. I thought, "McCain is sunk. A message of 'hope' and 'change,' even if it is empty, will tend to pull the heartstrings more than any stick-in-the-mud, reactionary, negative message of 'We can't afford it,' 'You're a socialist,' or, 'You're so naïve.'"

Beyond the appeal of the dreamy message itself ("Imagine"!), and Obama's incredibly smooth and apparently heart-felt delivery, I was astonished (though I probably ought not to have been!) at how many young people, and "people of color" there were at Invesco Field. And that the stadium was so full! And how do you get 75,000 people all to cheer so wildly at one time for a speech . . . especially when the man who is speaking makes such unbelievable claims about all "he" is going to do: how "he" is going to change the tax code, and "he" is going to make health insurance affordable for everyone, and "he" is going to transform America.

Oh, yes, and he is going to go through the budget, line by line, and locate billions of dollars to fund all of his favorite projects.

[I don't think so! Not when, as I noted a few weeks ago, the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, Richard W. Fisher, is able to say,

[A]ll we would have to do to fully fund our nation’s entitlement programs would be to cut discretionary spending by 97 percent . . . discretionary spending [that] includes defense and national security, education, the environment and many other areas, not just those controversial earmarks that make the evening news. All of them would have to be cut--almost eliminated, really--to tackle [the] problem [of unfunded federal government obligations] through discretionary spending. . . .

[J]ust to drive an important point home, these spending cuts or tax increases would need to be made immediately and maintained in perpetuity to solve the entitlement deficit problem. Discretionary spending would have to be reduced by 97 percent not only for our generation, but for our children and their children and every generation of children to come. And similarly on the taxation side, income tax revenue would have to rise 68 percent and remain that high forever. . . .

[Of course, whether Obama is blowing smoke or not, I wish another recent president would have shown even a glimmer of gumption to go gone through the budget line by line and cut out the fat . . . instead of increasing so many line items beyond what his political opponents had even dared to ask for!]

Oh. And the last incredible line about how "This [my candidacy] has never been about me. It's always been about you."

Right. (Not!)

But the line went down well.

*******

So, even though I don't believe a word Obama said about what he "will" accomplish, I sensed McCain was sunk.

And then yesterday. McCain picks Sarah Palin, governor of Alaska.

What?

[Strange: I remember having heard of her--i.e., having read of her--somewhere just a few weeks ago, in an article in some magazine we get. Just can't remember which one.

Anyway.]

Suddenly, I thought, maybe McCain can pull this off. Having as his running mate a woman, a relatively young woman (younger than Obama!?!), mother of five, staunchly pro-life, a gun-toting hunter and outdoorsperson . . . : it sure could change the dynamics of the campaign.

Now, suddenly, I sensed, people won't be talking about Obama; they'll have to talk about Palin. And the energy and dynamism of Obama's campaign compared to McCain's: it suddenly disappears.

We're still not talking about a whole lot of substantive issues. (I phrase it that way only because I see one [very] substantive issue being addressed directly: the issue of human life. But other than that--yes, extremely important, but still "only" one among many!-- . . . Other than that, what I've just talked about is wholly personality-driven.)

Oh. But it does remind me: I was struck by Obama's comment. Something about how, "No matter where we stand on the matter of when life begins, we can all agree that there should be fewer unwanted children."

Yeah.

But there is a big--huge--difference in how we might achieve that end.

Will there be "fewer unwanted children" because we killed the ones whose biological parents don't want them? Or will there be "fewer unwanted children" because there has been some (God-given) change of heart on the part of parents so that the children who were, at one time, unwanted, become wanted? Do we have a government that, by policy, seems to urge citizens to give in to their basest desires . . . or do we have a government that urges citizens to buck up and rise, if not to their highest moral plane, at least to a minimally non-destructive position?