From Blogger Jenny Hatch

Free Republic Thread on this post
Here is an election roundup from my favorite political commentators:
Mark Steyn: Obama in 2-D (Must Read!!!)
Victor Davis Hanson: The End of Journalism
Thomas Sowell: Ego and Mouth
Ben Johnson: Socialism we can believe in
Michael Freund: Look who’s rooting for Obama
Mark Levin interviews Sarah Palin
Phyllis Schlafly: Big Media Pull Out All Stops to Elect Obama
Cal Thomas: Smoking audio I blogged this story here.
Peter Wehner: Liberals and the Surge (Must read!!!)
QUOTE:

In his April testimony, while stipulating that “the situation in certain areas is still unsatisfactory and innumerable challenges remain,” Petraeus presented an avalanche of statistics illustrating the degree to which “security in Iraq is better than it was when Ambassador Crocker and I reported to you last September, and . . . significantly better than it was 15 months ago when Iraq was on the brink of civil war and the decision was made to deploy additional U.S. forces to Iraq.”

To which Crocker added:

Last September, I said that the cumulative trajectory of political, economic, and diplomatic developments in Iraq was upward, although the slope of that line was not steep. Developments over the last seven months have strengthened my sense of a positive trend.

Which did not stop Barack Obama from taking to the op-ed page of the New York Times two months later to insist that “the same factors that led me to oppose the surge still hold true.” A week later, ABC’s Terry Moran asked Obama if, knowing what he knew now, would he support it? Obama’s answer was “No.” That is, he was still against the surge despite his own belated acknowledgment that it had, in fact, “succeeded beyond our wildest dreams.”

In the effort to reconcile this blatant contradiction—akin to a diagnostician’s continuing to oppose the treatment that made the patient well—he twisted himself into an intellectual pretzel, asserting that the decrease in violence was the result not of any new American strategy but of “political factors inside Iraq that came right at the same time.”

…And so it goes. By the time General Petraeus handed over the flag of his command to General Raymond Odierno in September, the situation in Iraq had been utterly transformed.

…For some liberals, hatred of the President was clearly so all-encompassing that they had developed a deep investment in the failure of what they habitually dismissed not as America’s war but as “Bush’s war.” To an extent, this passion was driven by merely partisan considerations: Iraq had become a superbly effective instrument with which to bludgeon Republicans. It had helped the Democrats take control of both the House and the Senate in 2006; might not a thorough “Republican” defeat in Iraq lastingly reshape the political landscape in their favor?

This is, admittedly, an unpleasant line of speculation, and those foolhardy enough to venture upon it have been loudly condemned for questioning the patriotism of their political adversaries. But patriotism is not the issue—judgment is. When politicians acting in good faith misjudge a situation, nothing prevents them from acknowledging their error and explaining themselves. For the most part, we await such acknowledgments in vain.

In partial extenuation, it might be contended that politicians have an elementary obligation to be responsive to the opinions of their constituents; since Iraq had become a certifiably unpopular cause, stepping out of line on the issue was likely to be regarded as an offense punishable at the polls. But what, then, are we to say of the opinion shapers, the editorial writers of our great newspapers, the essayists and columnists and book authors who, unconstrained by petty interest, present themselves as stalwartly independent spirits willing to follow the truth wherever it may lead? What was at work in them when the evidence of American progress—which started as a trickle, and then became a river, and eventually became a flood—could no longer be denied? For not only did they continue to deny it, but they actively promoted an alternative policy of withdrawal and retreat that would have made an American defeat, and a jihadist and Iranian victory, inevitable. Is it not fair to say that what was at work in them was an ideological antipathy not just to an American President, but to America’s cause?

Fortunately, as I noted at the outset, Americans at large are not so ready to deny the evidence of their senses, and appear open to reasoned argument on the basis of that evidence. For a political leader in high office, this is a great blessing. Some eyes will refuse to open and some ears will refuse to hear and some voices will always be raised high in derision. To act rightly in such circumstances is difficult and often enormously costly; but it is the very essence of leadership. If a leader’s decision is wise, there are grounds for hoping that in time this wisdom will be vindicated and, perhaps, recognized—even in the case of a war once massively unpopular but now winnable.”

Donald Kochan: Selfishness IS a Virtue
As Adam Smith described:

“Every individual is continually exerting himself to find out the most advantageous employment for whatever capital he can command. It is his own advantage, indeed, and not that of society, which he has in view. But the study of his own advantage naturally, or rather necessarily, leads him to prefer employment which is most advantageous to the society . . . . [H]e intends only his own gain, and he is in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention. Nor is it always the worse for the society that it was no part of it. By pursuing his own interest he frequently promotes that of the society more effectually than when he really intends to promote it.” — Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, bk. IV, ch. 2, 397, 399 (D.D. Raphael ed., 1991) (1776).

In his book “Capitalism and Freedom” (1962) Milton Friedman (1912-2006) advocated minimizing the role of government in a free market as a means of creating political and social freedom.
And the final, to me most important, column written about the election in the past month.
Erik Rush: Obama and the Trinity United murders

Members of Chicago’s Trinity United Church (the house of worship attended by Democrat presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama for 20 years) already had their Christmas trees up when members of the Chicago press circulated through the city, interviewing many of them as they mourned Donald Young, their 47-year-old choir master who has been found shot dead in his South Side Chicago home on December 3, 2007.

Young, known for having a flamboyant persona, was an openly gay man.

The choir director’s murder and the execution-style murders of two other gay Trinity United congregants within 60 days of each other had gays and blacks terrified over the winter of 2007-2008. They feared that a serial killer targeting either blacks, gays or both might have hung out his shingle in Chicago.

Curiously, neither Sen. Obama, his surrogates nor law enforcement had anything to say regarding the circumstantial connection. Nowhere in the news reports of the killings has there been any mention of Obama, or the questioning of him or any of his cohorts or staffers by Chicago police.

To suggest that Sen. Obama was somehow involved in these murders is obviously a leap. However, one would imagine that if any other prominent citizen had been publicly accused of being a closet homosexual, then three gay men from their church were murdered in the months that followed, local law enforcement would have crawled up one of their excretive orifices with an entire forensics lab.

Although this columnist and Fox News’ Sean Hannity have been accused of similar transgressions, the Rev. James David Manning appears to have taken on the mission of preventing the election of Barack Obama as a holy and personal crusade. The minister, who presides over New York-based Atlah World Ministries, has released a flurry of anti-Obama videos that depict the candidate as “an emissary of the devil.”

Manning asserts that Barack Obama is at least bisexual, if not a closet homosexual and former drug abuser, an unregenerate sinner who is only using the issue of faith to advance himself in the political realm. Manning is also opposed to the progressive agenda for blacks, maintaining that it has only served to render blacks irresponsible and dependent.

Although former Obama associate and accuser Larry Sinclair — who precipitated Obama’s short-lived “gay bimbo eruption” at the beginning of his campaign — failed a polygraph test following his assertions that he had done cocaine and had sex with Obama in 1999, it does give pause that the candidate continues to be linked with sex and drugs.

Though Obama did admit to experimentation with drugs years ago, some speculate that he was concerned that his experimentation with (or immersion in) sexually adventurous realms might not sit so well with American voters. If Rev. Manning’s charges contained any truth whatever, it might lend credence to accusations that the three men murdered in Chicago were victims of a conspiracy to silence those who might bring Obama’s homosexual dalliances to light.

Left wing blogs and some YouTube posters portray Manning as a veritable psych ward escapee. Others find him — though brutally frank — as one who simply possesses a certain orthodoxy as regards literal obedience to Christian doctrine in the tradition of a Pat Robertson, though possibly being singled out because he is black (an because some are so slavishly dedicated to Obama).

In conversation, Rev. Manning is entirely lucid. He maintains that his sources and information pertaining to Obama are “rock-solid and incontrovertible” He has met with Larry Sinclair and while Sinclair “obviously has other things going on in his life relating to his credibility,” the pastor said that, in general, Sinclair speaks easily and knowledgably when he talks about Obama’s bisexuality and crack cocaine use.

So what do we really know? What we know is that three gay members of trinity United Church were murdered in close temporal proximity during late 2007. It is extremely unlikely that Obama never met these men, particularly the choir director. We also know that somewhat earlier, a former Obama acquaintance claimed that he and Obama had participated in gay sex and drug use. Though it was revealed that the man was lying about something, law enforcement operatives know that polygraphs are not universally reliable and even pathological liars don’t lie all the time.

The tabloids The National Enquirer and The Globe have been investigating Obama’s alleged homosexual adventures and drug use for some time. A private investigator who works with the Chicago Police Department allegedly told the tabloid The Globe that Donald Young was silenced because of something he knew about Obama.

As we know, despite the outlandish tales sometimes spun by these publications, quite often they are spot-on as regards the lives of people in the spotlight. A prime example is the case of Sen. John Edwards’ love child. If the tabloids know anything, however, they are clearly biding their time.

As may be some others…”

© Erik Rush

Erik Rush broke the story on Rev. Wright in 2007
I don’t have anything to add to these excellent comments on the current political situation, except to challenge my readers to go vote!!!
Let Freedom Ring!
Jenny Hatch