Jul 22 2008

Jesus and Obama, Robbin’ in da ‘Hood

Category: election 2008,McCain,Obama,politics,theology — harmonicminer @ 3:22 pm

A fine bit of satire at A Vote for Barack Obama is a Vote for Jesus : Jesus Manifesto. It’s all pretty funny; here’s a sample.

…………..
A vote for Barack Obama is a vote for Jesus…not that I agree with everything he stands for. I mean, I am an independent sort of thinker. I am firmly convinced that God is neither a republican or a democrat. But Barack Obama transcends such distinctions. He flies high over such petty concerns on shimmering gossamer wings. Golden light emanates from his perfect form. His smiling eyes looking down upon me with a look that pierces my soul! I get lost in his smile, and long for one of his chiseled arms to hold me close while the other smites a damning blow to poverty and oppression.
……………
I encourage you to vote for Obama too. I’m not saying that voting for McCain would be a sin. Nor am I saying that it would be a horrible, disgusting sin for you to not vote at all. But I am saying that to vote for Obama is to vote for Jesus. And to NOT vote for Obama would mean that you don’t love Jesus, the poor, or your own mother. To NOT vote for Jesus would be to render Jesus’ life and message meaningless. That’s all I’m saying.

Jesus… and Robin Hood ethics. I like it. It reminds me of all those scriptures of Jesus and his posse holding up rich people on the road and taking their money at sword point and giving it to poor people. Robbin’ in da ‘hood, but all for a good cause. Of course, later on in, oh, the 32nd chapter of Matthew, we read about Jesus getting the ear of King Herod, and getting him to have the soldiers take the money from the rich and give it to the poor. All perfectly legal.  Same difference, and saves Jesus and his posse from having to do it themselves.

Personally, I’m encouraging all twenty and thirty somethings to vote for Obama, since that will selfishly be best for me… he’ll make sure they pay for my retirement and medical care, even though I’ll have more money than them at the time.

The way I see it, I win either way. McCain gets elected, in which case things are better for my children, and their children… or Obama gets elected, and things are better for me. Who knows: maybe I”ll decide to pass along some of the largesse from you and your kiddies to MY kiddies, if I’m feeling extra generous at the time.

Can’t beat that.

hat tip: Aly at Addison Road

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Jul 20 2008

McCain, School Choice, the NAACP and the Feds

Category: education,election 2008,McCain,Obama,politics — harmonicminer @ 3:00 pm

John McCain to NAACP: It’s Time for School Choice

John McCain told the NAACP this morning that after decades of broken promises by the nation’s public school systems it is time to give all parents an easy choice of public and private schools. He is right, so long as he doesn’t propose a private school choice program at the national level.

At the link are some excellent comments about proper limits for federal involvement in a school choice program.

Nationally, blacks want school choice. Obama, as usual, is trying to have it both ways. Don’t expect a clear statement on the issue from him, given that his primary constituency, blacks, wants school choice, but his primary enabling constituency, the teachers union, does not. Actually, expect several clear statements from him, just don’t expect them to agree, and expect his campaign surrogates to spin in various directions, depending on who they’re talking to.

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Jul 03 2008

For the politically less interested, who still plan to vote

Category: election 2008,McCain,Obama — harmonicminer @ 11:00 am

If You Are Just Starting To Think About This Election… Clear thinking from John Mark Reynolds

Normal people, those with actual lives, do not follow every poll on Real Clear Politics. If you have a good life, then it is likely that you are only vaguely aware that soon you will have to TIVO past even more political ads. You know there is an election this year, but like a trip to the dentist, you have put off the unpleasant task of deciding on a candidate. Fortunately for you, there are now only two candidates left with any chance of actually being the president.

Many (if not most) American voters only know three things about the two guys running for President:

1. Neither of them is named Clinton or Bush.

(A pause to thank God for His mercies.)

2. One is young and cool.

3. The other is old and a war hero.

Blessed is the man who does not check Rasmussen Report three times a day. If you are this person, congratulations on living a peaceful life. The genius of the republic is that it allows a man to be a patriot without being a politico.

There is more, and if you’re not really up to speed on the candidates, you really need to read all of this.

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Jun 21 2008

The Incurious Left: If you don’t look, you don’t have to notice.

Category: Uncategorized — harmonicminer @ 5:40 pm

How long can the fiction be kept up by the Left that the situation in Iraq is more or less the same now as 18 months ago?

Michael Barone

It is beyond doubt now that the surge has been hugely successful, beyond even the hopes of its strongest advocates, like Frederick and Kimberly Kagan. Violence is down enormously, Anbar and Basra and Sadr City have been pacified, Prime Minister Maliki has led successful attempts to pacify Shiites as well as Sunnis, and the Iraqi parliament has passed almost all of the “benchmark” legislation demanded by the Democratic Congress — all of which Barack Obama seems to have barely noticed or noticed not at all. He has not visited Iraq since January 2006 and did not seek a meeting with Gen. David Petraeus when he was in Washington.

As with the Haditha Marines story, and many others, the main stream media gives enormous play to any story that hurts the Bush narrative, and downplays anything that might help it.

But the facts on the ground in Iraq continue to improve, despite the occasional bombing. To the extent that the upcoming election is a referendum on where we go from here on the Iraq war, good news in Iraq hurts the Democrats, which is why those parts of the media who are committed to Obama’s election will continue to give any good news the very minimum of coverage they can, and retain any credibility at all, while any bombing, no matter how rare or isolated, is guaranteed page one material.

McCain pretty much has to get Obama into less moderated debate formats, reducing Obama’s ability to survive on just putting out long canned speeches (which he delivers as well as any actor). The public needs to see Obama trying to respond to tough questions from McCain about why Obama was so wrong about the surge and its effects on Iraqi politics. Obama needs to own up to his opinion, expressed with great certainty in early 2007, that the surge would not, could not work.

It must be tough to be a politician whose hopes for victory depend on bad news for the USA as a whole, or at least on the public not finding out the good news.

So, the questions: how long can Obama and the media keep the American public from finding out

1) How well things are going in Iraq, and the arrow of progress?
2) What happens if we leave prematurely?
3) How wrong Obama was about the surge, and what that means about his vaunted “judgment”?

Some possible good news in this is that the “independent” voters will just start to wake up and look around in a couple of months, and if the good news in Iraq continues, it will be harder and harder to hide it, and Obama’s lack of foresight in the matter.

Prediction: If bad news happens in Iraq, or anything that can be spun that way, expect the major media to trumpet it from every orifice they have. If, on the other hand, things continue as they are, expect the major media to try to paint the election as being about “post-Iraq” issues like the economy, health-care, gas prices, etc.

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