From a campiagn press release

 “Meet, talk, and hope may be a sound approach in a state legislature, but it is dangerously naive in international diplomacy where the oppressed look to America for hope and adversaries wish us ill.”  

The Weekley Standard Blog has an awesome piece about Obama’s total lack of understanding about the military structure.

There is a lot about Obama’s story that makes no sense. Let us start with the opening line:

“You know, I’ve heard from an Army captain who was the head of a rifle platoon–supposed to have 39 men in a rifle platoon. Ended up being sent to Afghanistan with 24 because 15 of those soldiers had been sent to Iraq.”

Well, captains command companies, not rifle platoons. A rifle platoon is normally commanded by a 2nd lieutenant, sometimes (if short handed) by a senior sergeant. So for starters, Obama betrays a woeful ignorance of military organization and the chain of command. Then he remarks that the platoon was under-strength because 15 of its men had been “sent to Iraq.” Sorry, the Army doesn’t work that way. Platoons are organic units, consisting of three rifle squads, a heavy weapons squad, and a headquarters section. You can’t break it up. It is the smallest building block in the infantry that can conduct fire-and-movement tactics.

There is quite a bit more, but I have to include the closing

Overall, I think Obama would be better sticking to his “message of hope”–hope that nobody will ever ask him to make any substantive statements on military affairs, ever again.

While the NYT has been busy with their hit and run against Sen. McCain all the Dem strategists come talking heads have been touting a similar phrase, “where there is smoke, there’s fire”.  If that’s the case, then Obama’s house is burning down because Rezko and his dirty dollars bought it. From today’s Wall Street Journal 

While the Chicago trial doesn’t involve Sen. Obama, it puts the candidate’s ties to Mr. Rezko back in the spotlight. Mr. Rezko is under indictment for extortion, and prosecutors will try to prove he used connections with state politicians and appointees to orchestrate kickback schemes. The 52-year-old real-estate developer, a key player in the Illinois political establishment, has pleaded not guilty. When asked if the timing of the trial could be problematic for the Obama campaign, spokesman Bill Burton said, “By now it is well-established that Sen. Obama is not involved in the matters at issue in the trial.” Sen. Clinton laid into her rival in a debate last month over his ties to Mr. Rezko, whom she labeled a “slum landlord,” and her campaign has suggested that Mr. Rezko played a bigger role in Sen. Obama’s professional and personal life than the candidate has acknowledged.  

In the 109th and 110th Congresses Barack Obama was the lead sponsor on 116 bills. Of that pathetically small effort, only one–one!–was passed and signed into law. That huge legislative achievement? S. 2125, a bill to “promote relief, security, and democracy in the Democratic Republic of Congo” became law in December 2006. (S. 2125, Became Law 12/22/06). For those of you keeping score at home thats a 1.6% rate of passage from the junior Senator from Illinois.

Barack Obama cited JFK in defending his misguided Cuba policy, but JFK imposed the embargo he is trying to sidestep…

Barack Obama Sites President Kennedy In Defending His Cuba Policy Obama: “I support the eventual normalization. And it’s absolutely true that I think our policy has been a failure. … I think it is important for us to have the direct contact, not just in Cuba, but I think this principle applies generally. I recall what John F. Kennedy once said, that we should never negotiate out of fear, but we should never fear to negotiate. And this moment, this opportunity when Fidel Castro has finally stepped down, I think, is one that we should try to take advantage of.” (http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/02/21/debate.transcript/)

Yet JFK Imposed The Current Policy Of Isolating Cuba: “The embargo, which began in 1960 during the Eisenhower administration with a ban on U.S. exports to Cuba except for food and medicine, was extended on Feb. 7, 1962, by President Kennedy to ban all imports from Cuba to the United States, including the Cuban cigars that Kennedy had a special fondness for. The aim was to financially strangle Cuba and force a change in the communist-run government.” (Martin Crutsinger, “Cuban Trade Embargo Expected to Remain”, Associated Press, 2/20/2008)

Barack Obama O’Drama has captured the heart of his fellow dramatists out in liberal Hollywood. Wooed by his Pied Piper siren song, the leftists who spend the millions bashing America and all we stand for, have begun to coalesce around the liberal, freshmen senator from Chicago.

Of course, this is a natural fit - the actors and actresses famed for their imaginations and grounded in their false realities are inherently drawn to Barack Obama’s overly dramatic and downright depressing view of America. For instance, Daniel Henninger paraphrases Obama:

“…lies awake at night wondering how he’s going to pay the bills . . . she works the night shift after a full day of college and still can’t afford health care for a sister who’s ill . . . the senior I met who lost his pension when the company he gave his life to went bankrupt . . . the teacher who works at Dunkin’ Donuts after school just to make ends meet . . . I was not born into money or status . . . I’ve fought to bring jobs to the jobless in the shadow of a shuttered steel plant . . . to make sure people weren’t denied their rights because of what they looked like or where they came from . . . Now we carry our message to farms and factories.”

And so, George Clooney, Susan Surandon, and Haley Berry….

“He walks into a room and you want to follow him somewhere, anywhere,” says George Clooney.

“I’ll do whatever he says to do,” says actress Halle Berry. “I’ll collect paper cups off the ground to make his pathway clear.”

I’m nervous because nobody’s quite sure what Obama stands for, even his supporters. (“I can’t wait to see,” said actress/activist Susan Sarandon, declaring full support nonetheless).

…all are drawn to him like moths to a flame.

Barack, your drama may be tempting to listen to, but your policies are nothing more than the typical, tired, and failed liberal ideas of the past. More government, more bureaucracy, more spending - more and more and more of the current system that is failing to solve our problems now.

Mr. O’Drama, tear down this wall* of rhetoric so that America can see you for the liberal you really are!

*Since we’re in the business of “borrowing” words.

Clinton = 50%

Obama = 45%

http://trailblazers.beloblog.com/archives/2008/02/new-texas-poll-hillary-holds-t.html#comments

Apparently his Texas surrogate had a tough time. When Chris Matthews starts giving a Dem a hard time, you know there’s a glaring problem with the candidate.

Campaign surrogate STUMPED on Obama’a legislative accomplishments

Nancy Pelosi has developed quite an amazing ability to stick her foot in her mouth right when it will be the most noticeable. While Nancy Pelosi is saying things like this,

“There haven’t been gains, Wolf,” the speaker replied. “The gains have not produced the desired effect, which is the reconciliation of Iraq. This is a failure. This is a failure. The troops have succeeded, God bless them. We owe them the greatest debt of gratitude for their sacrifice, their patriotism, and for their courage and to their families as well.” [Emphasis mine]

Meanwhile, Al-Qaeda is signing a different tune. In recently released copies of letters intercepted between the leaders of Al-Qaeda in Iraq, the terrorists in charge sound the alarm that everything around them is falling apart.

 “This created weakness and psychological defeat. This also created panic, fear and the unwillingness to fight. The morale of the fighters went down . . . There was a total collapse in the security structure of the organisation.”

and this:

“There were almost 600 fighters in our sector before the tribes changed course 360 degrees . . . Many of our fighters quit and some of them joined the deserters . . . As a result of that the number of fighters dropped down to 20 or less.”

and this:

“The Islamic State of Iraq [al-Qaeda] is faced with an extraordinary crisis, especially in al-Anbar province. Al-Qaeda’s expulsion from Anbar created weakness and psychological defeat. This also created panic, fear and the unwillingness to fight.

Of course, Nancy Pelosi and her fellow Democrats have never been to keen on things like facts. They tend to get in the way of their agenda…

I know I’ve posted about this a few times already (here, here, and here) but here’s another article (this one from RedState and in turn from the NYT) citing concerns about the Dems being able to pull together after this brutal primary.

An interesting fact noted in the article that I had not previously known (or thought about) is that GOP turnout was lower in the primaries of both Ronald Reagan and George Bush Sr. than in the contemporary Dem primaries, but we went on to win the White House both times. Constantly, I am asked if our party is “depressed” or “tired” and because of this lack of enthusiasm, if we are going to lose the WH. One of the many counters now is that your answer can be found in history…