Democratic Buyer's Remorse

In the midst of Barack Obama's latest controversy, this time over the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, I suggested that "Democratic buyer's remorse may be this year's October Surprise."

While my quip was prompted by unrepentant 1960s radical William Ayers, the possibility of Democratic buyer's remorse enveloping both officials and the rank-and-file of the party appears increasingly likely.

The scale of Barack Obama's liabilities may be so grand, the range of his controversies so vast, and his depth of experience so shallow that the Democratic electorate may not need until October to realize it picked badly in the nomination contests this year.

Stuart Rothenberg makes the suggestion in his essay, "Should Democrats Be Feeling Any Kind of Buyer's Remorse?":

As Democrats kick off their national convention to nominate Illinois Sen. Barack Obama as their nominee for president, there is little or no evidence that activists or insiders are having second thoughts about the party's standard-bearer.

In other words, buyer's remorse has not settled in, and it probably won't unless Republican Sen. John McCain (Ariz.) nips Obama at the wire 10 weeks from now.

Yet only the most uncritical party insider could avoid asking himself or herself the obvious question as delegates gather in Denver: Did Democrats, who two years ago placed no higher priority on selecting a candidate than on picking someone who could win back the White House in 2008, really pick the right person to carry the party's banner this year?

Obama remains the favorite to win in November, but he has not yet come close to locking up the race, even with a political landscape that is slanted so completely in his party's favor.

Because of that, it's hard not to wonder whether his party would be in a far more secure position to win the White House if Democrats in Denver were preparing to nominate Indiana Sen. Evan Bayh, Delaware Sen. Joseph Biden, former Virginia Gov. Mark Warner or any of a number of other Democrats, possibly including New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton.

On one hand, voters remain very unhappy with the Bush administration and with the direction of the country, and Obama remains one of the party's strongest messengers for "change."

Moreover, the Illinois Democrat's ability to excite younger voters and mobilize African-Americans is unmatched when compared to other potential Democratic nominees. Unlike what Clinton or Biden could have done as the party's presidential nominee, Obama may be able to change the traditional political arithmetic this year, benefiting Democrats up and down the ballot in many states.

But Obama's shortcomings, most particularly his limited experience, his difficulty connecting with older, working-class white voters and his inability to ease voter doubts about his ability to handle foreign policy crises, make him inherently a riskier choice for the White House.

The Senator's supporters, of course, argue that events have proved the soundness of his judgment, and he'll have plenty of opportunities during the next two and a half months to do what Ronald Reagan did in 1980 -- convince undecided voters that he has the toughness, astuteness and levelheadedness to protect U.S. interests abroad and deal with tough, even ruthless, adversaries.

But at least at this point in the campaign, with the surge in Iraq apparently paying dividends and the Russian invasion of Georgia reminding Americans of the dangers that still exist internationally, Obama looks far more fragile as a nominee than he did five months ago, riding the wave of change.

Rothenberg's putting it mildly, but read more at the link.

A key point from the article: As much as Democrats want to focus on "Bush's third term," John McCain's been successful in making this summer's media coverage a referendum on Barack Obama's fitness to serve.

And don't forget about the trouble in Hillaryland!

It turns out that some of Clinton's top advisers will skip Obama's acceptance speech at INVESCO Field.

Not only that, Hillary's delegates are being told to vote their conscience, in Denver, which could make for some hot times on the convention floor, particulary since the sparks have already started to fly: Delmarie Cobb, a Clinton delegate from Chicago, has apparently been slurred as an "Uncle Tom" by Emil Jones, Barack Obama's South Side political mentor. It remains to be seen if the Clinton-Obama disunity will be settled in time to salvage the promise of the Democrats' historic primary season earlier this year.

Meanwhile, the presidential horse race remains tied, and 27 percent of Hillary's supporters say they'll support McCain in November, up from 16 percent in late June.

Hillary's Convention Narrative

Long-time readers will recall that I blogged the presidential primaries like a man on fire.

I recall, earlier this year, as the Democratic race wore on, many commentators suggested that the party schism between the supporters of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama was potentially fatal to Democratic Party hopes in the fall. I discounted such talk. Anger at nearly eight years of GOP rule would provide a central focal point binding the disparate left-wing factions together by the time of the national party conventions and beyond.

That scenario might have held, but with Barack Obama becoming the Democratic nominee, the passions of the "Hillraisers" haven't settled down; and the selection of Joe Biden as running-mate may have been the ultimate slap in the face, especially since Clinton apparently wasn't even vetted for the post (I remember all of the "unity" rallies now ... a waste for Obama, but a PR milestone for Hillary).

Well, it turns out that even if Hillary Clinton gives a bang-up send-off speech for Obama, her supporters my nurse enough grudges to defect from Democratic Party ranks anyway, with large numbers voting for John McCain in the general election. Top Democratic officials are already moving to revise the party's presidential nomination process. All of this is combining for a perfect storm of self-immolation this year, especially with hopes of a bounce in polling trends dangerously deflating for the Obama-Biden ticket.

All of this prompts Rich Lowry to suggests that the dominant narrative this week in Denver will be Hillary Clinton's:

IT'S Hillary's convention. Not in the way she imagined it when the primary battle began - she's not the nominee making history and bidding to end the dread Bush years. That role has been usurped by Barack Obama.

But the convention narrative revolves around her in important ways.

It's not just because so much drama attaches to the question of how she and embittered husband Bill regard Obama, and not just because she and Bill are getting so much air time. Obama has two major challenges this week - and both are Hillary-centric.

First, Obama has to win over Hillary's voters from the primaries, only 52 percent of whom are now supporting him, according to the latest Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll.

Second, he has to occupy the space on the political spectrum that Hillary carved out in the primaries - identifying himself with mainstream American values, demonstrating a toughness on foreign affairs and connecting with the working class with his economic policies. (If he's at a loss how to do any of it, perhaps Hillary can explain it over a shot and beer chaser.)

That Obama is still performing so poorly among Hillary voters makes the prominence he's given the Clintons look less like an abject capitulation and more like a strategic necessity. If the Clintons can deliver Hillary's voters, every minute devoted to them will have been worth it.

The Clintons, of course, are profoundly conflicted. They've long thought Obama will lose, but they can't betray that belief lest - should Obama actually fail in the fall - they get blamed, engendering the bitterness of half the party.

Lowry suggests that the Clintons are torn over all of this. They don't think Obama's electable, but they can't say it publicly, for fear of being blamed for a Democratic catastrophe.

There's no better outcome for the Clintons, of course. Hillary will become the odds-on Democratic frontrunner if McCain wins on November 4.

The Politico has more in its piece, "Tensions Boil Between Obama-Clinton Camps."

Note that all of this is taking place during an electoral environment for 2008 seen as a slam-dunk Democratic year. For example, Bloomberg writes this morning, "Democrats Begin Convention With Most Advantages Since Watergate."

Unfortunately, today's polls aren't cooperating, partly because Hillary supporters are dragging down the numbers for the Democratic ticket.

The party needs that "game changer," and they need it fast.

Netroots Seeks Leftward Shift in Media Coverage

Just this weekend American Power was dismissed as a "random, arcane, nearly useless professorial blog" by Professor Russell Burgos at UCLA.

I'm not familiar with Burgos' work, but a quick Google search indicates he's apparently a frequent contributor to hard-left blog comment threads, and he spends time writing progressive letters to the editor. Burgos is also an Army veteran, so perhaps that background informs his left-wing perspective, something like an Apocalypse Now syndrome.

In light of all this, it's not surprising Burgos would dismiss American Power as "nearly useless," although my feeling is that Burgos wouldn't say the same thing of the lefty blogs he frequents, like Washinton Monthly's "Political Animal."

I mention all of this while contemplating this morning's piece at the Politico, "Netroots Push Back Against MSM 'Bias'." The article suggests left-wing bloggers hardly agree with the notion of the "liberal media," and they're out to do something about it:

If you asked a random sample of progressive Democrats and liberal bloggers to describe the current state of political media, from CNN to The New York Times, there’s one word that’s unlikely to come up: “liberal.”

For those on the left, the more operative words these days are “mainstream,” “establishment,” or “traditional.” And if one is feeling particularly aggrieved, the description of choice is increasingly — and surprisingly — “conservative.”

Gone are the days when only the right howled about bias and malice from network anchors and star political reporters. What began roughly a decade ago as frustration from Democrats over coverage of President Bill Clinton’s impeachment and adulterous escapades has morphed into an informally organized rapid response network, ready to pounce on any and all perceived media slights against Barack Obama.

Clearly, bloggers aren’t a monolithic group. But it’s fair to say that liberal bloggers — and the more activist-oriented members of the Netroots within that group — have been calling out the media’s campaign coverage with far more regularity than just four years ago. And it’s not simply because there are more activists who know how Moveable Type works.

Pushback against the media has been aided by the growth of more sophisticated liberal news sites, such as Talking Points Memo and The Huffington Post. In 2004, TPM founder Josh Marshall didn’t have any paid staffers; this year he has nine. And Arianna Huffington’s arsenal of nearly 2,000 bloggers didn’t exist until President Bush was already six months into his second term. Not to mention, liberal watchdog group Media Matters — which provides ammo to many bloggers — has grown in that time from about 20 staffers to near 100, according to a source familiar with the organization.

Criticism from the left can take a variety of forms, including fact-checking, aggregating links and sometimes original reporting. Also, similar to the right’s strategy over decades of “working the refs,” there are left-leaning bloggers who provide a knee-jerk dismissal of whatever’s on the front page of the Times or making the rounds on Sunday chat shows.

Daily Kos founder Markos Moulitsas, who co-authored with Jerome Armstrong the seminal Netroots tract, “Crashing the Gates,” said in an e-mail that he’s found political coverage to be “utterly vapid, devoid of context, frequently wrong, and wedded to narratives that defy all logic and reality.”

Trolling a handful of the top liberal blogs, it’s obvious that Moulitsas’ critique isn’t isolated.

Liberal bloggers often raise the issue of how Al Gore and John Kerry were treated by the press and have adopted a “never again” approach to the 2008 race. Bloggers raise a ruckus when they believe the media is focusing too heavily on superficial issues rather than policy. Some examples: bloggers cried foul when the national press kept writing about whether Obama wore a flag lapel pin, as well as the various narratives discussed as clouding his chances in November — inexperience, overly eloquent, arrogant, too skinny, too black or not black enough. And don’t mention Bittergate, Obama’s now infamous thoughts about Americans who own guns and go to church, to a left-of-center blogger, either.

“Liberals believe that they can’t get a fair shake from the media anymore,” said Eric Alterman, media critic and author of the 2003 book “What Liberal Media?”

So when liberals feel the media is misrepresenting something important, Alterman said, they respond quickly. “That’s an exact mirror of what the right did with talk radio,” he added.

Alterman, like several liberal writers interviewed, said that he considers the majority of Beltway journalists to be socially liberal but “corrupted by their need to be part of the establishment.”

Read the whole thing, here.

The basic academic consensus, a point the Politico touches on, is that journalists are mostly left-wing Democrats, but they seek to practice the objective professionalism that is the standard of non-biased journalism. Hence, the leftoshere's outrage is now basically transplanting 1990s-era talk radio as the grassroots movement du jour seeking to eviscerate views that don't align with their own.

Netroots practices are often totalitarian, seen, for example, in Jane Hamsher's latest atttempt to smother journalists who are friendly with Republicans.

To borrow from Megan McArdle, the netroots' anger at the establishment media power structure seems to be rapidly transmuting into anger at the non-netroots media power structure.

No doubt Russell Burgos approves. Perhaps he can redirect some of that anger at C-SPAN.

New Poll Confirms Obama Dangers as Convention Begins

As I argued this afternoon, Michael Dukakis held a seven-point lead over George H.W. Bush in public opinion polling on the eve of the 1988 Democratic National Convention. Governor Dukakis went on to enjoy a 17 percentage-point bounce after being nominated by his party for the general election campaign.

But this year, Barack Obama's campaign is floundering in the polls in an election that has all the makings and excitement of a Democratic blowout in November. Indeed, at an identical point in the campaign compared to 20 years ago (with the Democrats then, like now, seeking the White House after nearly eight years of GOP rule), Gallup finds the 2008 race in a perfect tie, with 45 percent of voters nationwide supporting each candidate for president.

This should not be happening to the Democrats.

John McCain's campaign was criticized in March for campaign drift, for missing a golden opportunity to seize the initiative while the Democratic campaign sludged along. Just six-weeks ago McCain was considered still adrift, in need of a dramatic shakeup, a "dose of discipline." Throughout the year, the GOP's suffered from an "enthusiasm gap" that has promised to swamp the party in turnout come November. And the GOP has trailed the Democrats badly in the money race, with the uptick in McCain's July reporting seen as a lifeline after months of underperformance in campaign receipts.

Well, something has happened along the roads to Denver and Minneapolis. In the first public opinion survey conducted since news of Joe Biden's selection as the Democratic running mate, CNN is reporting that McCain and Obama are tied dead-even in the presidential horse race:

It’s a dead heat in the race for the White House. The first national poll conducted entirely after Barack Obama publicly named Joe Biden as his running mate suggests that battle for the presidency between the Illinois senator and Republican rival John McCain is all tied up.

In a new CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll out Sunday night, 47 percent of those questioned are backing Obama with an equal amount supporting the Arizona senator.

“This looks like a step backward for Obama, who had a 51 to 44 percent advantage last month,” says CNN Polling Director Keating Holland.

“Even last week, just before his choice of Joe Biden as his running mate became known, most polls tended to show Obama with a single-digit advantage over McCain,” adds Holland.

So what’s the difference now?

It may be supporters of Hillary Clinton, who still would prefer the Senator from New York as the Democratic Party’s presidential nominee.


Sixty-six percent of Clinton supporters, registered Democrats who want Clinton as the nominee, are now backing Obama. That’s down from 75 percent in the end of June. Twenty-seven percent of them now say they’ll support McCain, up from 16 percent in late June.

“The number of Clinton Democrats who say they would vote for McCain has gone up 11 points since June, enough to account for most although not all of the support McCain has gained in that time,” says Holland.

Clinton and Obama battled throughout the primary season, with Clinton winning more than 40 percent of the delegates. She suspended her bid for the White House and backed Obama in early June, after the end of the primary season.

A majority of those surveyed said the selection of Biden was a good pick, although Clinton supporters were significantly less enthusiastic as registered Democrats as a whole.

Note though, Obama's weaknesses are also found beyond the CNN survey: The Western States poll now reports McCain holding a nine-point regional spread over Obama "If the 2008 presidential election were held today..."

This week should go a long way toward settling questions surrounding the inability of the Democrats to take advantage of the permissive environment helping the party this year.

There have been suggestions that a "wave of buyer’s remorse has swept the Democratic Party." While that sounds like a premature hypothesis, Obama's tepid support in public opinion - particularly coming on the heels of his veep selection - is certainly starting to flesh out the thesis a bit.

McCain Leads Colorado as Tide Turns Against Obama Nationally

John McCain holds a slight but statistically insignificant lead in the Quinnipiac University poll on the Colorado presidential race.

McCain is up in Colorado 46 to 45 percent, but Quinnipiac notes that McCain holds advantages on key question items:

This latest survey might have more good news for McCain than might appear at first glance. Despite the closeness of the horse race numbers, he is viewed favorably 53 - 34 percent compared to Obama's 48 - 39 percent.

Colorado voters trust Obama more than McCain 49 - 42 percent to handle the energy crisis, 47 - 43 percent to handle the economy and 48 - 41 percent to handle a natural disaster.

But they trust McCain more, 51 - 37 percent, to handle Russia, 57 - 35 percent to handle a terrorist incident in the U.S. and 56 - 36 percent to handle a conflict between Iran and Israel.

"Colorado is one of the most important battleground states that will decide the presidency as Sen. John McCain and Sen. Barack Obama slug it out nose to nose. If the national election is close in November, a handful of votes in Colorado will be decisive," said Peter A. Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute. "Right now, independent voters are split with 46 percent for Sen. McCain and 44 percent for Sen. Obama.

"Who wins the election may wind up depending on whether voters look inward to the economy and fuel prices or outward to world hot spots."

It will be interesting to see how things play out.

International events have contributed substantially to the Democratic slide in the polls (Obama's disastrous European tour, for example, as well as Democratic weakness on the Russia crisis). Not just that, polls show Americans less gloomy about the economy, and gasoline prices have declined somewhat, taking some stress off U.S. pocketbooks, and neutralizing a bit of the Democratic advantage on economic issues.

Nationally, McCain and Obama are tied at 45 percent in the latest Gallup poll, and Obama's selection of Senator Joseph Biden is not likely to improve Democratic polling numbers.

All of this is awful news for Barack Obama and his supporters. Indeed, the Democrats at this stage of the campaign - on the eve of a historically diverse national party convention - should now be pulling out a double-digit advantage over the GOP.

The fact that they are not explains, I would argue, why the Democratic left is so terrified that many are resorting to the most spurious allegations and irrational attacks imaginable.

The worst example, at the moment, is Jacob Weisberg's, who argued yesterday that "racism is the only reason" John McCain might win the election (but don't forget Dave Neiwart, who argues that using the adjective "audacious" to describe Obama is the new "presumptious," which is racist code for "uppity," if you can follow that).

Closely following behind Weisberg are Talking Points Memo, Think Progress, and Matthew Yglesias, who are enraged at Mark Halperin's suggestion that Obama's recent attacks on McCain's "houses" have opened him up to GOP attacks on Tony Rezko, Jeremiah Wright, and William Ayers. TBogg, as well, has added his screams to the left's totalitarian bid to silence AP reporter Ron Fournier for being friendly to Republicans.

And then there's the Newshoggers, who have joined the military-bashing meme attacking McCain for his political identification as a prisoner-of-war during Vietnam.

The fact is, despite a practically overdetermined Democratic election victory for this November, the tide has turned against Barack Obama and his partisans. Extreme fear and outrage on the left are starting to show as a result, so we can expect more desperate, unbridled attacks on alleged GOP racism or McCain's presumed media "adulation-advantage" going forward.

Note that with Barack Obama's selection of Senator Joseph Biden as running mate, some commentators have been offering up an Obama-Biden/Dukakis-Bentson analogy for the general election.

While clever, it's supremely unfair to Michael Dukakis and Lloyd Bentson.

Not only did Dukakis hold a 47 to 41 percent advantage in Gallup polling on the eve of the 1988 Democratic National Convention (and, recall, Gallup finds the 2008 race tied today), Dukakis and Bentsen were eminently more qualified for the Oval Office than are Obama and Biden. Dukakis was the longest serving governor in the history of Massachusetts, and Bentsen really did serve with Jack Kennedy during his 48-year career in the United States Congress.

I'll have more later.

Ties That Bind: Barack Obama and William Ayers

Barack Obama's association with Weatherman terrorist William Ayers has reemerged this week amid troubling questions surrounding a cover-up of Obama's failed leadership of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge.

Michael Barone indicates that "Obama Needs to Explain His Ties to William Ayers":

In my U.S. News column this week, I make a brief reference to the unrepentant Weather Underground terrorist bomber William Ayers and his connections to Barack Obama. They were closer than Obama implied when George Stephanopoulos asked him about Ayers in the April 16 debate—the last debate Obama allowed during the primary season....

Ayers was one of the original grantees of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, a school reform organization in the 1990s, and was cochairman of the Chicago School Reform Collaborative, one the two operational arms of the CAC. Obama, then not yet a state senator, became chairman of the CAC in 1995. Later in that year, the first organizing meeting for Obama's state Senate campaign was held in Ayers's apartment. Ayers later wrote a memoir, and an article about him appeared in the New York Times on Sept. 11, 2001. "I don't regret setting bombs," Ayers is quoted as saying. "I feel we didn't do enough."

Ayers was a terrorist in the late 1960s and 1970s whose radical group set bombs at the Pentagon and U.S. Capitol.

You might wonder what Obama was doing working with a character like this. And you might wonder how an unrepentant terrorist got a huge grant and cooperation from the Chicago public school system. You might wonder—if you don't know Chicago. For this is a city with a civic culture in which politicians, in the words of a story often told by former congressman, federal judge, and Clinton White House counsel Abner Mikva, "don't want nobody nobody sent." That's what Mikva remembers being told when he went to a Democratic ward headquarters to volunteer for Adlai Stevenson in the 1950s, and it rings true. And it's a civic culture in which there's nobody better to send you than your parents.

Barone continues, explaining why Ayers' past as a domestic terrorist is no problem for Obama:

He was willing to use Ayers and ally with him despite his terrorist past and lack of repentance. An unrepentant terrorist, who bragged of bombing the U.S. Capitol and the Pentagon, was a fit associate. Ayers evidently helped Obama gain insider status in Chicago civic life and politics—how much, we can't be sure unless the Richard J. Daley Library opens the CAC archive. But most American politicians would not have chosen to associate with a man with Ayers's past or of Ayers's beliefs. It's something voters might reasonably want to take into account.

Thomas Lifson covered the Obama-Ayers connection yesterday:

Obama and his campaign long have gone out of their way to downplay, in fact distort, the long and evidently deep relationship between Ayers and Obama.

Recall that Obama told ABC's George Stephanopolous that Ayers was just "a guy who lives in my neighborhood."

Yet, if Ayers was just a neighbor, why has Stanley Kurtz at the National Review been stonewalled by the University of Illinios Chicago regarding access to Annenberg files?

The university has agreed to open public access to the Daley Library's Annenberg documents, although Steve Diamond suggests questions remain on the hush, hush nature of the controversy:

Bill Ayers, the former terrorist leader of the Weather Underground, is now a prominent member of the UIC faculty in their College of Education. He was the founder of the CAC and helped pick Barack Obama as the CAC Board Chair in 1995....
Without a full explanation of the role of Ayers in this series of events, it is unlikely that the public will feel reassured that the CAC documents have not been tampered with.

As I've noted previously, the Ayers/CAC scandal is part of the new, broader pattern of Barack Obama's deceit, secrecy, and subterfuge.

So far, the press has largely given Obama a pass, but as attention mounts, the Annenberg case could further damage Obama's presidential aspirations. As Clarice Feldman notes:

The last thing Obama should want made public are his dubious associates....

Once the public learns more of the CAC, will the voters decide that the manner in which Obama exercised his sole opportunity at executive authority was so good that he deserves the keys to the Oval Office?

Will the voters conclude that the old- professor- in- the- neighborhood story was so disingenuous that Obama was lying to hide from them facts they deserved to know — indeed, facts every bit as relevant as Hillary’s failure at health care reform about which they were informed in the primaries?

Will voters who consider education an important issue — and surely that includes many important voter groups for Obama — take kindly to a man who took $110 million of charitable funds which were earmarked for improving public education and squandered it on salaries for men like Weatherman Ayers and Michael Klonsky, the Maoist leader of the Revolutionary Youth Movement which worked with the Weather Underground and who at the time of CAC’s lavish grants to him worked as a cab driver?

I don't think so.

Obama's a classic Chicago machine politician, and as revelations continue to surface, Democratic buyer's remorse may be this year's October Surprise.

Joe Biden's Disastrous Foreign Policy Liabilities

Barack Obama's selection of Senator Joseph Biden was designed to bolster the Democrats' flagging standings on the national security issue. Biden, a 35-year veteran of the Congress, serving on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, looked to provide foreign policy gravitas to Obama's dangerous inexperience on the international stage.

Yet, as analysts and bloggers take a closer look, Obama's Biden pick may end up being a disastrous liability for the campaign.

For one thing, Biden's holds a near-religious commitment to diplomacy before the resort to military force in a crisis. Biden's hedging has left the Delaware Senator a legacy of vacillation and hypocrisy in foreign affairs. For some background, here's Michael Gordon:

As the Bush administration was fine-tuning its plan to invade Iraq, Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr. helped draft a proposed resolution that emphasized the need for diplomatic efforts to dismantle Saddam Hussein’s weapons programs but gave President Bush the authority to use military force as a last resort....

Mr. Biden is widely seen as a liberal-minded internationalist. He has emphasized the need for diplomacy but has been prepared at times to back it with the threat of force. An early advocate of military action to quell the ethnic fighting in the Balkans, he has not been averse to American military intervention abroad. As the debates over Kosovo and later Iraq showed, he has been loath to give the United Nations a veto over American policy decisions. But he has also sought to ensure that the United States acted in concert with other nations.

The Los Angeles Times has more:

Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. joins the Democratic ticket as an acknowledged foreign policy sage whose 36-year record has won him bipartisan praise as a liberal internationalist who generally hews close to his party's center. But he has sometimes found himself at odds with members of his own party as well as with Republicans.

Biden has frequently favored humanitarian interventions abroad and was an early and influential advocate for U.S. military action in the Balkans in the 1990s. He also advocates U.S. action to stem the continuing bloodshed in Darfur.

Some liberal Democrats remain distressed by his 2002 vote for the Iraq war, which Barack Obama opposed. Other critics say Biden was misguided or even naive in his most recent proposal to resolve sectarian conflict by giving broad autonomy to Iraq's three major population groups, the Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds. And he opposed last year's troop "surge," which by most accounts has contributed significantly to the reduction in violence in Iraq.

What appears to bind Biden and Obama in the realm of foreign affairs, however, is a shared belief in strong cooperation with America's traditional allies and in the use of force only as a last resort. The Democratic standard-bearers reject the belief of President Bush and some other conservatives that the United States should not hesitate to act unilaterally if other nations demur.

Biden's partition plan has not endeared him to Iraqis, as TigerHawk points out:

Reuters is reporting that Barack Obama's selection of Joe Biden is not popular among Iraqis, who very much dislike Biden's proposal to partition their country....

The Biden partition plan was a bad idea from the beginning, and all Iraqis should be grateful that - so far - it has gained no footing within the executive branch.

Anyway, it is a reflection of the diminishing political significance of the Iraq war that Barack Obama, who secured the Democratic nomination in part by making much of his opposition to the war and his plan to withdraw our troops on a fast schedule, is now able to pick as his running mate a senator who voted for the invasion in 2002 and whose favored "solution" would have required more rather than less American involvement in Iraqi domestic politics.

What's particularly bothersome about Biden is his shameless antiwar pandering.

Recall that Obama's greatest weakness on foreign policy is his awful judgment on the Iraq war. When the conflict was going poorly in 2004 he advocated sending more troops to rectify the "botched" Bush-Rumsfeld light infantry invasion and failed post-conflict stablity operations. Yet, when the administration made key strategic adjustements in 2006-2007, Obama was one of the most vociferous oppoents of the surge in the U.S. Senate.

Yet, by selecting Biden, rather than choosing a running mate who has consistently advocated firmness and careful resolve on the conflict, he's found a campaign partner who has eschewed strategic clarity and carried water for the antiwar hordes.

As the National Review noted, commenting on Biden's selection as veep:

...Biden is a typical liberal who has no claim to post-partisanship...

His vaunted foreign-policy judgment is seriously flawed. Although he was not as irresponsible as other Democrats in calling for an immediate pullout from Iraq, he opposed the surge and plugged for an unworkable plan to partition the country, one long ago overtaken by events, even though his office was saying as of only a week ago that he still supports it.

The cardinal rule of vice-presidential picks is: Do no harm. It remains to be seen if Biden will meet even this low standard.

Scott at Power Line agrees:

Rather than adding to Obama's attractions or neutralizing Obama's liabilities, if he does anything, Biden subtracts from Obama's strengths and contributes to his liabilities.

Obama's selection of Joe Biden may prove a disastrous liability, accentuating weakness in foreign policy rather than strengthening it. As Michael Rubin concludes:

Obama may have wanted Biden's foreign policy experience, but he may soon find that Biden's track record leaves a lot to be desired. On Iraq, on Iran, and elsewhere...

The New York Times has a lead story this morning entitled, "In Obama’s Choice, a ‘Very Personal Decision’.

Unfortunatly for the Democrats, Obama's choice may end up as a very personal disaster.

Obama Passes Over Hillary Clinton With Snub Biden Pick

A big development this morning is the McCain campaign's release of a brilliant new ad buy hammering Barack Obama for passing over Hillary Clinton as running mate:

NARRATOR: She won millions of votes.

But isn't on his ticket.

Why?

For speaking the truth.

On his plans:

HILLARY CLINTON: "You never hear the specifics."

NARRATOR: On the Rezko scandal:

HILLARY CLINTON: "We still don't have a lot of answers about Senator Obama."

NARRATOR: On his attacks:

HILLARY CLINTON: "Senator Obama's campaign has become increasingly Negative."

NARRATOR: The truth hurt.

And Obama didn't like it.

JOHN MCCAIN: I'm John McCain and I approved this message.

The New York Times and the Washington Post have stories. McCain's targeting the gender vote still smarting at the perceived sexism of the primaries (Rassmussen finds women in general less than thrilled with the selection of Joe Biden as Democratic running mate).

This morning's commercial is the latest in McCain's smart aggressiveness hoping to blunt any positive bounce for Obama during the Democrats' big week in Denver. Yesterday, the campaign released a spot showing Biden saying he'd be honored to serve with John McCain "because I think the country would be better off."

Friday the campaign published a strategy press release predicting a 15 percentage-point convention bounce of Obama (floating high expectations).

On top of all this, of course, will be McCain's strategically-timed vice-presidential announcement. Planned for August 29, the day after Obama's INVESCO triumph-of-the-will acceptance speech, a solid veep selection for the GOP will tamp down public enthusiasm for the Democrats and shift the campaign narrative back to Obama's failure to pull out a big lead in public opinion.

Latest polling shows the presidential horse race holding steady. Today's Washington Post poll, conducted before the announcement of Biden as running mate, has Obama up four points among likely voters, which is just a little better than the rolling average we've seen this last couple of weeks.

The selection of Biden does little to help Obama in public opinion. On top of that, Biden's selection has enraged top Clinton advisors, so Tuesday night's Hillary Clinton speech to the delegates may be one of the most consequential turning points in this campaign.

Victory in Iraq Confounds Antiwar Forces

A couple of months back I wrote a post outlining the ever-shifting antiwar positions in opposition to the Iraq deployment (going all the way back to 2003).

This year, for example, when John McCain made remarks in January about having a U.S. commitment in Iraq for "100 years," his comments were twisted by war opponents to mean a century of anti-insurgency, urban combat, and Dover landings. As progress has continued more recently - and as long-term U.S. basing arrangements in Iraq haven been discussed - the 100-year meme has been described as "neo-imperialism." Now, amid signs that a preliminary security pact with Iraq is near agreement, as well as reports suggesting that the Iraq army is being transformed to a stand-alone fighting force transitioning beyond counterinsurgency to the defense of the nation's borders from outside threats, there's some antiwar buzz insisting that Iraq's army is ill-equipped for robust, independent operations, and that security on the ground is tenuous - a condition that would strengthen Barack Obama's electoral position on the war.

Alas, the antiwar elements look like some of those long lost Japanese soldiers who continued to fight long past the surrender of Japan in 1945.

These are the misfortunes of the left's antiwar forces. As it turns out, Noemie Emery has examined the irrationalism of Barack Obama and the Democratic antiwar base now that defeat on the ground has essentially been ruled out:

McCain and his party ... wanted to win the war all along, but for Obama and many Democrats, the sudden lurch from the catastrophic Bush failure to unexpected victory has caused incoherence. Last year, in damage control, Chuck Schumer declared that the surge itself had been counterproductive: "The violence in Anbar has gone down despite the surge, not because of the surge," he insisted, without quite explaining it. "It wasn't that the surge brought peace." Nancy Pelosi said the surge hadn't worked, and then said it worked only because Iran let it. To Time's Joe Klein, the surge is whipped cream on top of the pile of excrement that is the war, a debacle that somehow produced undeniable victory. "The reality is that neither Barack Obama nor Nuri al-Maliki nor most anybody else believes that the Iraq war can be 'lost' at this point," Klein wrote on July 22, a day after he compared the war effort to fertilizer, and the same day he called the war he said had been won a "disastrous" enterprise. Obama tried the same thing when he called the surge a tactical success within a larger strategic debacle, but a success he would still vote against - knowing in advance it would still be successful - if once again given the chance.

A commander in chief who votes against the success of his own armed forces? Is this the judgment - and change - that we can believe in?

Last month, amid all the political jockeying over the definition of "time horizons" in Iraq, Spencer Ackerman exclaimed:

The Iraq war is and has always been an obscenity, a filthy lie born of avarice and lust for power masquerading as virtue. This is what imperialism looks like.

Actually, this is what denial looks like. But they do keep trying.

Biden's Debut Speech: What Beautiful Day?

Joseph Biden, in his speech today after being introduced as Barack Obama's running mate, made it clear that the Democrats plan to campaign against the "failed" policies of eight years of "Bush-McCain."

This, of course, is the "McCain = Bush's Third Term" meme. It's been pushed for months, with little positive effect for the Democrats. Polls continue to show a statistical dead heat in the presidential horse race (and tapping Biden is not expected to improve the numbers). Obama's weeks-long slide in public opinion will likely pause this week, only to continue its stall after a brief polling-bounce turnaround.

What struck me about Biden's debut, however, was the tremendous incongruity between his attack-dog message and his congressional-insider, pro-war record.

Biden, for example, slammed the administration's "disastrous" economic legacy and the war in Iraq, yet as Jonah Goldberg asks:

How can Joe Biden run against a broken Washington when he's such an integral figure in it?

Yeah, how can he?

Biden began his Springfield speech praising our nation for allowing anyone to pull themselves up if they work hard, then in the next breath he announced that "the American dream is slipping away."

Biden continued, saying Americans are up late worring about paying the bills, while housing values have dropped "off a cliff." He then jabs John McCain for not knowing "which of the seven kitchen tables to sit at." Class warfare? I thought everyone in America could get ahead with hard work? No wonder Biden's plagiarizes speeches ... his aren't really coherent.

Meanwhile, speaking of economic classes, Barack Obama's reported income for 2007 was $4.2 million, placing him in the top 1 percent of households for 2007. Yep, hard work will do that for you, with a little help from the Chicago machine, of course.

Biden goes off on foreign policy, saying we "can't afford four more years of a foreign policy that has shredded our alliances and sacrificed our moral standing around the world."

But as Betsy Newmark points out, Biden said in 2002 that we needed to topple Saddam Hussein:

Biden on Meet the Press in 2002, discussing Saddam Hussein: “He’s a long term threat and a short term threat to our national security...

“We have no choice but to eliminate the threat. This is a guy who is an extreme danger to the world.”Biden on Meet the Press in 2002: “Saddam must be dislodged from his weapons or dislodged from power.”

Biden concluded his Springfield address saying "God bless America, and may he protect our troops." Well, folks aren't looking for divine leadership in protecting American forces in the field. Public opinion, by a decisive margin, sees McCain with the requisite experience to lead the troops in national security and crisis management, not Barack Obama (and not the man upstairs, with all due respect).

Biden's incongruity was topped off, at the conclusion of his speech, by the pumping sound of U2's "Beautiful Day," with the volume rising as the Delaware Senator joined hands triumphantly with Obama at the center of the stage.

So, let's think about this, "It's a beautiful day ... don't let it get away..."

It's Bono, of course, singing of hope and uplift, but the Irish singer-activist has consistently praised the Bush administration for pledging $15 billion for AIDS relief in Africa. First announced in this year's State of the Union, the administration has increased the appropriation to $39 billion, but it's been the the Democratic Congress that has balked in funding the initiative.

It's a beautiful day? "See the world wasting away, while U.S. Congress dawdles and plays."

Hope and change? Joe Biden's part of that Congress, serving his sixth term. "Don't let him get away..."

What beautiful day?

Related: For the text of Biden's Springfield debut, see Real Clear Politics, "Elect Obama to Reclaim America."

Obama's Veep: The Perfect Accompaniment of Lies and Deceit

Barack Obama officially launched Democratic convention week with the selection of Delaware Senator Joseph Biden as his vice-presidential running mate.

No matter who he picked, Obama would have received both praise and censure. With Biden, it's clear that Obama's deeply concerned about his lack of experience in foreign affairs. Biden, a member of the U.S. Senate's Foreign Relations Committee, has served in Washington for 35 years. The obvious hope is that Biden will provide ballast on international affairs, and he might help Obama negotiate the political attack culture that's central to electoral battles.

I'm not sure I can add a whole lot of incisive analysis on Biden's assets or liabilities. Lots of folks have already weighed in, and we'll have a full week of near-exclusive focus on the Democratic Party, with all types of interesting analyses.

I can say that the first thing that always pops into my mind when Biden's in the news is his disastrous plagiarism scandal from the 1988 presidential primaries.

Fortunately, Sigmund, Carl and Alfred have provided some nice links to refresh our memories of Biden's ignominious debut in presidential politics. Here's this, from the Washington Post:

Democratic presidential candidate Joseph R. Biden Jr., a U.S. senator from Delaware, was driven from the nomination battle after delivering, without attribution, passages from a speech by British Labor party leader Neil Kinnock. A barrage of subsidiary revelations by the press also contributed to Biden's withdrawal: a serious plagiarism incident involving Biden during his law school years; the senator's boastful exaggerations of his academic record at a New Hampshire campaign event; and the discovery of other quotations in Biden's speeches pilfered from past Democratic politicians.

It turns out that the Biden's Kinnock klepto-moment was not an isolated incident. Here's more from Sigmund, Carl and Alfred:

In 1965 Biden plagiarized while writing a paper as a student at the Syracuse University Law School in a legal methods course which he failed because of that copied paper. Such “stressless scholarship” as it is euphemistically called has become all too common in the modern Internet era with countless cheatsites and “research services” offering to sell students papers on topics from A to Z.

Biden’s case demonstrates that student plagiarism is nothing new. Only the methods of cheating have changed. Today, cheating has gone digital with the proliferation of Internet based paper filing and distributions systems, but the principles—or lack thereof—are the same. And as the Biden case illustrates, getting caught for such academic dishonesty may have serious ramifications for one’s political career. Joe Biden’s failed bid for the Democratic ticket is a case in point.

“Stressless scholarship” may seem like a pretty good idea at the time that many students make that decision to ‘crib’, copy, or dowload a paper off the Internet, but in Biden’s case the plagiarism of his student days came back to haunt his bid for the democratic presidential nomination like a spectre from his past.

In an article entitled “Biden’s Belly Flop”, Newsweek printed Joe Biden’s yearbook picture from his college days and a copy of his law school transcripts with the big “F” in his transcripts circled. Biden was given a chance to repeat his legal methods course, and above the “F” his retake grade of 80% was eventually penciled in. Being a repeat offender when it came to plagiarism made things much, much worse for Biden than they might have been otherwise in his failed bid for the Democratic presidential ticket in 1987.

Senator Biden’s plagiarism of a speech by British Labor Party leader Neal Kinnock took place at a campaign stump at the Iowa State Fairgrounds. In closing his speech, Biden took Kinnock’s ideas and language as if they were his very own inspired thoughts, prefacing Kinnock’s ideas with the phrase “I started thinking as I was coming over here . . . “. Little did Biden suspect that video footage of this speech would be spliced together with footage of Kinnock’s speech in an “attack video” which would be distributed by members of the Dukakis campaign.

Making the headline news in the New York Times, and the evening news on TV, the video was a stab in the back for Biden by his democratic competitor, and although he insisted that “I’m in this race to stay. I’m in this race to win,” the resulting publicity surrounding his unacknowledged use of Neal Kinnock’s speech was what eventually forced him out of the race. Name recognition was no longer a problem for Biden, but not the kind of name recognition which would assist his campaign for the democratic presidential nomination. His name was now a byword for plagiarism. His situation became a classic example of plagiarism for high school teachers and college instructors across the nation lecturing on the evils of unacknowledged source use.

You know, "Biden" really is a "byword" for plagiarism. When the Delaware Senator ran for the Democratic nomination this year, the Kinnock controversy was always front and center for me - and that's the case even though Biden appears as an otherwise good man.

But let me close with one more quote, from Tom Bevan at Real Clear Poliltics, who shares this passage on Biden's character from Peggy Noonan:

The great thing about Joe Biden during the Alito hearings, the reason he is, to me, actually endearing, is that as he speaks, as he goes on and on and spins his long statements, hypotheticals, and free associations--as he demonstrates yet again, as he did in the Roberts hearings and even the Thomas hearings, that he is incapable of staying on the river of a thought, and is constantly lured down tributaries from which he can never quite work his way back--you can see him batting the little paddles of his mind against the weeds, trying desperately to return to the river but not remembering where it is, or where it was going. I love him. He's human, like a garrulous uncle after a drink.

More on Biden, of course, will be forthcoming. Obama's pick, for me, is a classic "birds of a feather" selection. Biden's plagiarism is a perfect accompaniment for Obama's presidential campaign of lies and deceit, seen now in the Illinios Senator's abortion and Annenberg scandals.

It's not a good sign, however, that Obama's running-mate is already being attacked as "racist," and that prominent left-wing bloggers are distressed at the pick, with one saying "I'm going to try and come around to believing I should vote for this ticket. It won't be easy."

The Secret Life of Senator Infanticide

Barack Obama's abortion extremism puts him almost alone on a scale of brutal opposition to the right to life.

Indeed, his consistency in voting against Illinois' Born Alive Protection Act has earned Obama the grand title of "Senator Infanticide." As Andrew McCarthy writes, for Obama, the protection of abortion doctors is more important that protecting the lives of children:

There wasn’t any question about what was happening. The abortions were going wrong. The babies weren’t cooperating. They wouldn’t die as planned. Or, as Illinois state senator Barack Obama so touchingly put it, there was “movement or some indication that, in fact, they’re not just coming out limp and dead.”

No, Senator. They wouldn’t go along with the program. They wouldn’t just come out limp and dead.

They were coming out alive. Born alive. Babies. Vulnerable human beings Obama, in his detached pomposity, might otherwise include among “the least of my brothers.” But of course, an abortion extremist can’t very well be invoking Saint Matthew, can he? So, for Obama, the shunning of these least of our brothers and sisters — millions of them — is somehow not among America’s greatest moral failings.

No. In Obama’s hardball, hard-Left world, these least become “that fetus, or child — however you want to describe it.”

Most of us, of course, opt for “child,” particularly when the “it” is born and living and breathing and in need of our help. Particularly when the “it” is clinging not to guns or religion but to life.

But not Barack Obama. As an Illinois state senator, he voted to permit infanticide. And now, running for president, he banks on media adulation to insulate him from his past.

The record, however, doesn’t lie.

Infanticide is a bracing word. But in this context, it’s the only word that fits. Obama heard the testimony of a nurse, Jill Stanek. She recounted how she’d spent 45 minutes holding a living baby left to die.

The child had lacked the good grace to expire as planned in an induced-labor abortion — one in which an abortionist artificially induces labor with the expectation that the underdeveloped “fetus, or child — however you want to describe it” will not survive the delivery.

Stanek encountered another nurse carrying the child to a “soiled utility room” where it would be left to die. It wasn’t that unusual. The induced-labor method was used for late-term abortions. Many of the babies were strong enough to survive the delivery. At least for a time.

So something had to be done with them. They couldn’t be left out in the open, struggling in the presence of fellow human beings. After all, those fellow human beings — health-care providers — would then be forced to confront the inconvenient question of why they were standing idly by. That would hold a mirror up to the whole grisly business.

Better the utility room. Alone, out of sight and out of mind. Next case.

Stanek’s account enraged the public and shamed into silence most of the country’s staunchest pro-abortion activists. Most, not all. Not Barack Obama.

My friend Hadley Arkes ingeniously argued that legislatures, including Congress, should take up “Born Alive” legislation: laws making explicit what decency already made undeniable: that from the moment of birth — from the moment one is expelled or extracted alive from the birth canal — a human being is entitled to all the protections the law accords to living persons.

Such laws were enacted by overwhelming margins. In the United States Congress, even such pro-abortion activists as Sen. Barbara Boxer went along.

But not Barack Obama. In the Illinois senate, he opposed Born-Alive tooth and nail.

The shocking extremism of that position — giving infanticide the nod over compassion and life — is profoundly embarrassing to him now. So he has lied about what he did. He has offered various conflicting explanations, ranging from the assertion that he didn’t oppose the anti-infanticide legislation (he did), to the assertion that he opposed it because it didn’t contain a superfluous clause reaffirming abortion rights (it did), to the assertion that it was unnecessary because Illinois law already protected the children of botched abortions (it didn’t — and even if it arguably did, why oppose a clarification?).

What Obama hasn’t offered, however, is the rationalization he vigorously posited during the 2002 Illinois senate debate.

There's more at the link.

One of the most amazing things about all of this, is that as much as I've vehemently opposed Obama on his postmodernism and his deep ties to ideological radicalism, the news of Obama's votes against protecting babies is not only personally insulting, it feels like an assault on basic human decency.

Back in March, when we learned about the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, I remember thinking that it couldn't get worse for Obama than this, it couldn't get more controversial than “God damn America.”

But it has gotten worse.

What's become clear this week is that Barack Obama is an inveterate liar. He's not told the truth about his past positions on abortion (his "life lies," in David Freddosso's words), and he's also not been forthcoming on his ties to fugitive terrorist William Ayers and his leadership of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge.

But that's not all!

We've learned today that Obama published a brief research note in the Harvard Law Review which outlined his early pro-choice jurisprudence. What's most striking about this is not so much Obama's views (as reprehensible as they are), but that he's specifically claimed not to have authored any research during his law school tenure at Harvard University. As Ann Althouse rightly notes:

What is odd is that up until now, we'd been led to think that Obama, despite his stature as president of the Harvard Law Review, had never written anything. Once Politico tracked down the article, the campaign acknowledged that Obama had written it. But why the urge to suppress it? Obama took knocks for his supposed failure to produce any legal scholarship. It seems that abortion is just not something he wants to have to talk about.

Absolutely, and as we're seeing, it's not just abortion: From Trinity United Church of Christ to the Richard J. Daley Library at University of Illinois at Chicago to the pattern of secrecy surrounding every move of his presidential campaign, Barack Obama is engaged in a deep program of deception, dishonesty, obfuscation, and prevarication.

What's shameful is the media's protective cocoon that's enabled this perfidy. As Michael Barone asks, "Why Won't the Mainstream Media Question the Obama Narrative?"

The answer? "Obama's Secret Weapon: The Media."

It's worth a thought...

Related: "University of Illinois to Release Obama Records."

Obama Lags in Democratic Backing

Gallup reports that while more voters identify as Democratic, Democrats are less likely to support Barack Obama than are Republicans to support John McCain:

As the national political conventions are poised to start, the party orientation of U.S. voters clearly favors the Democratic Party, similar to the pattern seen for the past five months. Among all national registered voters interviewed thus far in August for the Gallup Poll Daily tracking survey, 35% identify as Democrats compared with 28% who identify as Republicans. An additional 36% are independents.

The current 7-point Democratic advantage in party ID expands to 10 points when the party leanings of independents are taken into account. Fifty percent of U.S. registered voters identify with or lean to the Democratic Party and 40% are Republican or lean Republican.

This Democratic advantage contrasts with the close nature of the presidential contest between Democrat Barack Obama and Republican John McCain in monthly averages of the Obama vs. McCain horse race since March....

The reasons this is not translating into a stronger lead for Obama are twofold:

1. Although Democrats outnumber Republicans in the electorate, McCain receives the support of a greater share of his party base than does Obama.

Whereas 84% of Republicans polled from Aug. 11-17 say they will vote for McCain in November, only 79% of Democrats say they will vote for Obama. A similar gap in party loyalty has been seen each week since Obama clinched the Democratic nomination in early June. Over this period, Obama's Democratic support has ranged from 78% to 82% while McCain's Republican support has ranged from 83% to 85%.

2. The race has been extremely close among the roughly 36% of voters who call themselves political independents.

Since early June, Obama and McCain have swapped the lead among independents, with neither ever achieving a very large lead. Overall, Obama has averaged just a 1-point lead over McCain among independents, and in interviews conducted Aug. 11-17, the two were tied at 42%....

If each candidate were supported equally by his partisans, and independents split equally, that would translate into a 7- to 10-point lead for Obama over McCain in the race for president. But the race has been closer than that, primarily because a greater proportion of Republicans than Democrats are backing their own party's candidate for president.

Going into the convention period, it thus appears that a crucial test for Obama will be winning over heretofore reluctant Democrats to his candidacy, and the challenge for McCain will be retaining his Republican base. The vice presidential selections could be key factors in both cases. At the same time, both candidates will face the challenge of attracting more independents to their candidacies. In a close race, even a slight swing in the preferences of this group could be decisive.

In other words, Obama should be much farther ahead in public opinion polls, not just in terms of voter indentification trends, but also in what's ostensibly a Democratic year with public approval ratings for George W. Bush in the low 30 percent range.

For a variety of factors, the Democrats will likely see a historically small polling bounce for Obama coming out of Denver, if he gets one at all.

As more and more revelations of the Illinois Senator's radicalism and secretism come to light, Obama's numbers may well continue their collapse. At this rate, a Michael Dukakis-style debacle in November looks increasingly possible.