So articulate

McCain called Obama "eloquent" twice in today's final presidential debate. 'Eloquent'/'articulate' is such a subtle racial put-down, I wonder whether it was deliberate or not.

When you couple that with the chutzpah of some of his personal attacks ("Obama launched his campaign from Bill Ayer's house"), it almost seems as if McCain is goading Obama into losing his cool.

But he's probably spent a lifetime learning to deal with guys like McCain without spooking the horses. He's very good at it.

Unity deferred – but between who?

Somewhat ironic first sentence:

Few people claim to understand the dynamics of the Clinton vote. In the most recent New York Times/CBS News poll, conducted Aug. 15-20, 22 percent of voters who said they had voted for Mrs. Clinton in the primaries say they now support Mr. McCain, while 61 percent back Mr. Obama. Among the women who voted for Mrs. Clinton, 17 percent say they support Mr. McCain, and 63 percent Mr. Obama. (The rest were undecided.) “This says again, you can’t take these women for granted,” Ms. Walsh said. [NYT 8/30/08]

No – it says you can't take the hawks for granted. The whole story is about Hillary Clinton's women voters potentially supporting McCain. So they survey Clinton supporters and the numbers show it's actually the men among them who are more likely to back McCain. And by a significant margin: the report says 22% of all Clinton voters now back McCain, but only 17% of the women. So even if her supporters were 50/50 men/women, that means that 27% of the men have switched to McCain, vs 17% of the women. If the ratio of women to men is greater than 50/50, that difference has to be even larger.

An alternative explanation for why some Clinton supporters are now backing McCain might be their stance on the actual issues. And on at least on one of the biggest issues, the war in Iraq, Clinton and McCain sat firmly on the opposite side from Obama. That seems like a more plausible explanation than the idea that Hillary supporters just want to punish Obama for defeating a woman.

The hidden footage from Iraq THEY don't want you to see

This exclusive footage, shot in Anbar province just days ago, proves that the liberal media are hiding the true story of success in Iraq:

A new 'pro-peace' version of AIPAC?

J Street is the political arm of the pro-Israel, pro-peace movement. We seek to change the direction of American policy in the Middle East and to broaden the public and policy debate in the U.S. about the Middle East. -www.jstreet.org, 2008

Stuck in the corner

Murdoch's home-town boys pull no punches in the world-wide battle for fairness and balance:

Reality bites the psychotic Left
While the Left is still fighting the intellectual battles of the 1970s, the rest of the world has moved on. Progressive only in their own, inflated self image, the commentariat finds itself stranded on the outer fringes of the national debate, stuck in an intellectual cul-de-sac without the courage or confidence to retrace its steps. Their voices have not been silenced, they have simply lost their relevance. While the mainstream debate is conducted elsewhere, the progressives are stuck in the corner, muttering darkly among themselves.

-The Australian, editorial - 11 June 2007

With the left in the corner begging for mercy, Murdoch's guy lays it down:

This conceit informs the kind of rigid political correctness that shuts down debate. ... To challenge the precepts of political Islam is to demonise Muslims and to demonise any minority group is failure to recognise the superior virtue of the oppressed. [ibid]

Let me get this straight: we're not demonising minorities. But if we were, it would be ok anyhow, because - uh - it's not true that they're superior.

Fox News: Foley is actually a Democrat

On tonight's O'Reilly Factor, Mark Foley was shown on-screeen on three separate occasions, each time as "Former Congressman Mark Foley (D-FL)" -- identifying him as a Democrat, when he was (and is) a Republican.

Homeland Security vs hippies

Is Eric Cartman running the Department of Homeland Security?

They ran a "large scale international cyber terror simulation" called "Cyber Storm", whose logo is about as lame (pronounced "L/\M3") as you might expect given the name.

I suppose you could forgive the lameness if they were out Protecting America^TM from the Evil Doers. But who were the Evil Doers causing the "cyber terror" in this exercise? Not Al Qaida, but a fictitious left-wing "Worldwide Anti-Globalization Alliance" in cahoos with "Freedom not Bombs". Kevin Poulsen writes in Wired:

... Does the administration really see the far left as potential cyber terrorists ready to take down the power grid and air traffic control systems? This might explain why the U.S. keeps getting caught spying on peaceful war-protestors.

100+ civilians now killed per day in Iraq

3,438 killed in July alone. So the tragedy that Iraq has represented for America over the last three and a half years (2,607 soldiers killed) is repeated every month in Iraq. Except with women and children. In their own homes.

Bush vs the Law

Couldn't put it any better than Glenn Greenwald does here. Just read his post.

"There are no hereditary kings in America"

Round One of ACLU vs the National Security Agency goes to the ACLU. Judge Anna Diggs Taylor:

We must first note that the Office of the Chief Executive has itself been created, with its powers, by the Constitution. There are no hereditary Kings in America and no power not created by the Constitution. So all "inherent power" must derive from that Constitution.

For more on the Bush administration's latest set-back, we cross now to Jack Cafferty: