Leftists Blame Bush/McCain for Yemeni Bomb Attack

In another sign of how unglued members of the radical left have become, prominent netroots bloggers are blaming "Bush/McCain" for today's terrorist bombing of the U.S. embassy in Yemen.

Here's the resident foreign policy expert at Hullabaloo:

Y'know, occasionally I catch some grief by saying I have come truly to despise Bush/McCain and their ideological cronies like Cheney, Addington, Rumsfeld, and so on.

Here's why: Because the Bush/McCain gang is so ignorant violent, mentally disturbed and powerful, they get hundreds of thousands innocent people killed. Sheer moral hygiene makes it imperative that this country say no to four more years of the same.

Matthew Yglesias add this:

I guess I don’t have a grand point to make about this, but it’s a reminder that if you want to curb radicalism it makes more sense to focus on ways to reduce its appeal in the places where radical movements are already strong (Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, etc.) rather than, say, by invading Iraq.

Not surprisingly, both of these guys fail to quote the New York Times piece to which they've linked, which indicates:

Yemen has long been viewed as a haven for jihadists. It became a special concern for the United States in 2000, after Al Qaeda operatives rammed the destroyer Cole in Aden harbor, on Yemen’s southern coast, killing 17 American sailors.

The Cole bombing, of course, took place on President Bill Clinton's watch, and was a prime example of the collapse of America's anti-terror policies during the 1990s under Clinton/Gore - whose failed leadership led to the attacks of September 11, 2001

Tristero's wild allegations at Hullabaloo are typical of those who blame the terror on Bush/McCain (while he offers no condemnation of the Islamist nihilists who murdered the 16 innocents in the attack).

Yglesias, on the other hand, has built up his whole foreign policy reputation as a purveyor of 1990s-style "liberal internationalism," an approach he mistakening assumes argues for the near-universal renunciation of the use of military force.

With his apparent "mainstream" foreign policy creds, Yglesias' blind recrimination against the Bush administration might seem counterintuitive, but in fact his comments are completely understandible when we recall that Yglesias is known to don terrorist garb in solidarity with the sworn enemies of the United States.

Hysteria Grips Democratic Ranks as Obama Slide Continues

Here's John McCain's new ad buy on the economy, "Enough Is Enough":

Today, McCain-Palin 2008 released its latest television ad, entitled "Enough is Enough." With our economy in crisis, John McCain will meet this crisis by reforming Wall Street, enacting new rules for fairness and honesty and not tolerating a system that puts familes at risk. The ad will be televised nationally.

Meanwhile, hysteria has gripped the Democratic-left as Barack Obama struggles to regain the political momentum in an electoral environment overdetermined to favor the Democratic Party.

A leading Politico story asks,"Can Obama Really Pull it Off?

Can Barack Obama actually blow this thing? Can he actually lose in November?

We have a deeply troubled economy, an unpopular war, a very unpopular president and a historic reluctance on the part of the American people to elect the same party to the White House three terms in a row.

You look at all that, and you figure Obama would be leading by double digits. But he isn’t. The race is essentially tied, and not just in the national polls, which really don’t count for much, but in the Electoral College projections, which do. On Monday, MSNBC put its electoral count at 233 for Obama and 227 for McCain, with 270 needed for victory. That’s really close.

Some Democrats are getting very concerned, and they have been making their concerns known to the Obama campaign. “We’re familiar with this,” Obama’s campaign manager, David Plouffe, told The New York Times a few days ago. “And I’m sure between now and Nov. 4 there will be another period of hand-wringing and bed-wetting. It comes with the territory.”

Bed wetting? Geez, things must not be going well for the Dems!

Indeed, Rick Moran's article captures the current mania on the left, "Markets Crash, Media Hysterical, Democrats Thrilled":

“McCain Loses Fox News” blared the headline at the liberal website Think Progress. And that appeared to be the least of the Republican nominee’s worries. From Wall Street to Main Street, Democrats could barely contain their glee over the sudden turn of events that culminated in the crisis in the markets on Monday.

When financial writers ran out of dire adjectives to describe the serious crisis in the markets, Democratic and liberal blogs helped them out by managing to find a few more. After all, business reporters are not generally given to hyperbole, and the adjective is something of a stranger to them. Thankfully, Obama-supporting websites had access to an online thesaurus or two which they were able to comb for exactly the right apocalyptic language that would freeze the blood while getting the point across that John McCain was at fault by reason of his association with George Bush and that it was time to make sure the windows on those Wall Street skyscrapers were suicide-proofed.

New York Times columnist, blogger, and resident hysteric Paul Krugman referred to the day’s 500 point stock market drop as “Black Monday.” The problem with that is that 1) the name has already been taken; and 2) it is hyperbole.

The real “Black Monday” occurred on October 19, 1987, when stocks lost more than 22% of their value. Today’s market “turmoil” (which is as hyperbolic as the New York Times feels like getting) resulted in a loss of 4.4% in the value of the stock market. This is serious for those of us who have invested in mutual funds (I would suggest downing a good, stiff, Glenlivet or perhaps a strawberry martini before checking your portfolio today) but hardly the kind of thing that will result in an economic collapse.

Read the whole thing, here.

In my essay yesterday, "No Panic From Banking Crisis as McCain Momentum Holds," a new visitor left this comment:

Don't you ever get tired of spinning every bit of news in a way favorable to your point of view. Don't you ever get tired of deception and outright lying? I mean you must know that what you're saying is partly bs. And why the meaness? Why do you call Americans who have liberal values 'lefties.' Why do you work so hard to make the situation worse? Why do you think it's patriotic to malign other Americans?

I don't know if this fellow's been around my blog much, but suggesting, as I do at the post, that the loss of momentum for the Democrats "must be painful" is hardly being "mean."

Notice how these comments don't attempt to actually rebut any of the points I make in the essay, like the fact that John McCain actually leads Barack Obama by 20 votes in Electoral College projections, or that McCain holds a four-point edge in weekend polling in Ohio, which might be the most important battteground state in 2008.

The truth hurts, I guess, which leads the lefties to hurl accusations of "lying."

No Panic From Banking Crisis as McCain Momentum Holds

Gallup reports that surveys from Saturday, Sunday, and Monday show little change in public perceptions of the economy:

An examination of single-night interviewing from Monday night, after the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell by 500 points and Sunday's financial calamities dominated the news, does not reflect a dramatic downturn in either views of the current economy nor perceptions about the direction of the economy.

As the week progresses, Americans' views of the economy may change further - particularly if the Dow Jones average continues to fall, or if further problems in the banking industry are reflected in the news. For the moment, however, Gallup's tracking data do not suggest that Monday's financial news caused an immediate downturn in the American public's views of the economy.

We'll probably see the numbers on the "getting worse" measure go up just a few points over the next few days.

Yet, considering the scale of turmoil in the markets, Gallup's numbers indicate that negative perceptions of the economy have probably topped out for the year. Of course, the lefties are milking any and all perceptions of crisis for all they're worth.

Meanwhile, the McCain/Palin ticket is leading Obam/Biden 227/207 in the Electoral College projection at RealClearPolitics, with 104 votes up for grabs in toss-up states. Also, Rasmussen has McCain leading Obama by one point in a statistical dead-heat tracking poll, although Sarah Palin beats Joseph Biden 47 to 44 percent a hypothetical head-to-head race for the presidency.

The election's shaping up to be largely a rerun of the key battlegrounds state contests we saw in 2004, with Ohio likely to be a must-wing state for both campaigns (and McCain's holding a lead there, 48 to 44 percent, in weekend polling).

All of this must be painful for the Democrats (either that or they're fooling themselves on the prospects for a comeback amid the market shocks), and the clock's ticking down for Obama's long-awaited game changer. If economic crisis on Wall Street's not doing it for "The One," it's doubtful that anything will.

Unprecedented Attacks on McCain/Palin

Victor Davis Hanson puts the sustained attacks against John McCain and Sarah Palin in perspective:

The sudden change in the polls the last 10 days, even though it may be temporary, has prompted a furor in the media that has no parallel in modern election history. Vicious words like "treason", "abasement", "liar", and "lying" are in the air now in an unheralded attack on McCain, often in association with the sex education ad, and the lipstick identification with Palin as a pig. (cf. e.g., Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen today). But as Byron York has shown, that ad alleging that Obama supported detailed information about matters of sex to be disseminated to younger children (for a variety of educational reasons), while tough and unnecessary, was nevertheless not a lie.

And as far as the silly lipstick moment, if one studies the tape carefully as Obama lets go with his similes, it is clear that the hooting audience at least seemed to make the association with Palin, and the further elaboration on a stinky old fish seemed to cement the allusion to McCain....

What we are seeing is a sort of meltdown in which the selection of Palin is associated with the first real possibility all summer that the messianic Obama may not necessarily ascend; that triggers a certain repulsion toward her in particular, and a general furor at the once likeable McCain (once likeable to present-day Obama's supporters in the past sense that in 2000 he was going to lose, perhaps divide Republicans, and was not George Bush), which, in turn, can conjure up all sorts of no longer latent demons, going back to Vietnam onto to Iraq and the ongoing war in Afghanistan.

The problem (inter alia) with this vicious, loose use of "traitor" and "lie/liar/lying" and blanket condemnations of the US military is that it achieves the opposite of what the authors intend — and repelling most readers to such a degree that they are scared off from anything the writer seems to be advocating.

Lest one think Hanson's exaggerating, just check out this essay from Paul Slansky at Huffington Post, "Why Does John McCain Hate America So Much?":

The contempt John McCain has shown for the people of this country by plucking the wildly unqualified Sarah Palin to sit a cancer-prone heartbeat from the presidency leaves only one conclusion. John McCain hates America....

That John McCain is a shameless panderer who'll do anything to get elected president has become increasingly obvious over the eight years he's spent reversing every principled position he'd ever taken. That John McCain has renounced every shred of honor that ever attached to him is clear to anyone who bears witness to the parade of scummy lies he calls his advertising campaign....

John McCain likes to wrap himself in the flag and call himself a patriot, but foisting this dangerously inappropriate successor-in-waiting on the nation puts him at the opposite end of that spectrum. By disregarding the kind of risk his country will be at if this know-nothing reactionary ascends to the presidency, he reveals himself not as a patriot, but rather as a traitor. If John McCain dies in office, he should be posthumously tried for treason.

With this f**k-you to America, John McCain has proven himself to be - and I never thought I'd be able to say this about anyone - as despicable as George W. Bush.

And to think, I'll have commenters here telling me "in no way do Slansky's views represent the mainstream of the Democratic Party."

Yeah, right...

Obama Confirms Effort to Delay Troop Pullout in Iraq

Barack Obama's statement denying secret negotiations with the Iraqi government on the U.S. withdrawal from Iraq in fact confirms Amir Taheri's allegations that the Illinois Senator made an end run around U.S. officials on the disposition of American forces.

Obama's own statements reveal he indeed appealed to the Iraqi government for a delay in the withdrawal plans:

In the New York Post, conservative Iranian-born columnist Amir Taheri quoted Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari as saying the Democrat made the demand when he visited Baghdad in July, while publicly demanding an early withdrawal.

"He asked why we were not prepared to delay an agreement until after the US elections and the formation of a new administration in Washington," Zebari said in an interview, according to Taheri.

"However, as an Iraqi, I prefer to have a security agreement that regulates the activities of foreign troops, rather than keeping the matter open," Zebari reportedly said.

The Republican campaign of John McCain seized on the report to accuse Obama of double-speak on Iraq, calling it an "egregious act of political interference by a presidential candidate seeking political advantage overseas."

But Obama's national security spokeswoman Wendy Morigi said Taheri's article bore "as much resemblance to the truth as a McCain campaign commercial."

In fact, Obama had told the Iraqis that they should not rush through a "Strategic Framework Agreement" governing the future of US forces until after President George W. Bush leaves office, she said.

There's lots of analysis online, but Captain Ed lays out the implications of Obama's confirmation of independent military diplomacy with the Iraqi government:

Barack Obama went to Iraq and interfered with the diplomatic efforts of the elected United States government, in a war zone no less, by telling the Iraqis to stop negotiating with the President. How exactly does that make Taheri’s column untruthful?

It wasn’t enough for Obama to fail at forcing the nation into a defeat in Iraq when he opposed the surge. Now he has interfered with our efforts to stabilize Iraq and provide for its security after the surge succeeded in keeping Iraq from falling into a failed state. And when he got caught working for failure and defeat, he tried making it into a smear against John McCain.

That’s not leadership America needs from a Senator, let alone a President. The Senate should investigate this as a gross violation of the Constitution and the separation of powers between the branches of government.

This story demands wide circulation.

See also, "Will the Biggest Obama Scandal of the Campaign Be Buried Alive?"

McCain/Palin's Fundamental Leadership on Economy

Here's the new John McCain ad buy on the campaign's economic leadership, "Crisis":

Barack Obama hammered McCain earlier today for his comment suggesting the "fundamentals" of the ecomony remain solid.

But it turns out that New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg agrees with McCain:

I guess I do agree that fundamentally America has an economy that's strong," Bloomberg said during a Blue Room press conference this afternoon in response to the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy, Merrill Lynch sale and teering of AIG.

"America's great strength is its diversity, is its hard work, its good financial statements, its broad capital markets, enormous natural resources," the mayor continued. "And the great American ethic of...We may yell and scream a little bit, but in the end, Americans get on with it. They go out and they find new careers. They start new companies. They want better for their children, even if it means hard work and sacrifice for themselves. Are we without problems? No.

Interestingly, Lawrence Kudlow, in praising Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson's leadership during the crisis, confirms the soundness of McCain/Palin's approach to economic management:

There are many ... issues wound up in all this. But one thing's for sure. Keeping tax rates low, holding back cheap-money inflation, strengthening the dollar, and building a more effective regulatory structure that does not stifle free enterprise is what will promote long-run economic prosperity. For optimists like myself, the plunge in oil and gas pump prices is already producing a sizable tax-cut effect, planting the seeds of recovery for mortgage-holding consumers and everyone else.

Obama Alleged to Undermine President During Wartime

Via Andrew McCarthy, "McCain Responds to Obama's Reported Undermining of the Commander-In-Chief During Wartime":

The McCain Campaign has issued a statement responding to the report from Amer Taheri (see today's web briefing) that Sen. Obama secretly negotiated with the Iraqi government regarding U.S. withdrawal from Iraq. McCain spokesman Randy Scheunemann stated as follows:

At this point, it is not yet clear what official American negotiations Senator Obama tried to undermine with Iraqi leaders, but the possibility of such actions is unprecedented. It should be concerning to all that he reportedly urged that the democratically-elected Iraqi government listen to him rather than the US administration in power. If news reports are accurate, this is an egregious act of political interference by a presidential candidate seeking political advantage overseas. Senator Obama needs to reveal what he said to Iraq's Foreign Minister during their closed door meeting. The charge that he sought to delay the withdrawal of Americans from Iraq raises serious questions about Senator Obama's judgment and it demands an explanation.

Fox News reports that Obama has denied the story, "Obama Camp Denies He Tried to Delay Withdrawal Agreement of Troops From Iraq."

Just getting these allegations out into the press is damaging, but if independent corroboration emerges, this story is deadly to Obama's election chances.

Earl Hutchinson knows this, so he attacks the messenger, and then prays:

The Iranian-born Taheri who reports the alleged "private" conversation between Obama and Zebari has been roundly and repeatedly slammed as a rabid, political ax grinding neo-con shill. He may well be that and more. Still, the charge is out there, so Team Obama please say that it's nonsense.

What a potentially devastating surprise, and it's not even October yet!

Hat Tip: Memeorandum

Barack Obama's Screaming Negativity

Here's Barack Obama's new attack ad:

Ann Althouse offers a detailed analysis, including this:

This ad screams its negativity. The ominous music. The string of very ugly words: sleaziest... vile ... dishonest smears ... lie ... damned ... disgraceful ... dishonorable ... deception. And yet the ad seeks to inspire outrage about McCain's negativity. But we're not watching McCain's ads. The example of sleaziness is the one before our eyes now.

The ad screams desperation as well.

Also, don't miss the new 527 interest group ad from Born Alive Truth.

Babies Have a Right to Life, Senator Obama

A new 527 interest organization, Born Alive Truth, is distributing the testimony of abortion survivor Gianna Jessen, seen at the video:

Can you imagine not giving babies their basic human rights, no matter how they entered our world? My name is Gianna Jessen, born 31 years ago after a failed abortion. I’m a survivor, as are many others…but if Barack Obama had his way, I wouldn’t be here.

Unfortunately, Barack Obama voted four times against affording these babies their most basic human right. I have serious concerns about Senator Obama’s record and views on this issue, given he voted against these protections four times as a state Senator. Just as abuse victims share their stories to educate the public, fight for the common good and hope that as a result politicians do what’s right, I felt it was important to come forward and give these new born babies a voice.

I am living proof these babies have a right to live, and I invite you to learn more about Senator Obama’s record on this important issue.

-Abortion Survivor Gianna Jessen

See also, Dawn Eden, "Obama: "The First Thing I'd Do as President ...", on a President Obama's first legislative act of signing into law the Freedom of Choice Act, which would reauthorize partial-birth abortions in the United States.

Plus, don't miss my earlier entry, "The Secret Life of Senator Infanticide."

McCain Holds Historical Advantage in Current Poll Trends

Gallup's got an editorial analysis on the firm's polling trends for the presidential election:

Some aspects of Democrats' "structural" election advantage have faded in the immediate aftermath of the Republican National Convention. Americans have become more likely to identify as Republicans than before the conventions, although Democrats retain a slight edge on this measure. The Republican Party is now seen almost as favorably as the Democratic Party. Democrats now have only a slight edge on generic ballots for Congress. A key question is whether or not these Republican gains will remain in place, or fade in the weeks after the GOP convention....

Barack Obama led John McCain by only an average of three percentage points (registered voters) for most of this summer. The two candidates ended up in a statistical tie just as the Democratic convention began. Obama then received a predictable convention "bounce" during his convention. McCain, in turn, more than matched Obama's bounce, and by ten days after the GOP convention, was maintaining a small advantage over Obama. The extent to which this slight, but meaningful, lead alters the structure of the election remains to be seen.

It's still too early to estimate election probabilities, but if McCain retains an advantage in the weeks after the conventions ended, history says that he has a better than even chance of winning the election.

There's more at the link.

The editors note that the potential impact of the current economic crisis on Wall Street is unknown at this time, if there's going to be any impact from the turmoil at all.

You can bet, in any case, that the left will be working its hardest to milk any inkling of bad economic news they can get. Time is running out, so look for leftists to be cheering continued market instability in the days and weeks ahead.

Atlantic to Apologize for Doctored McCain Photographs

Fox News reports that the Atlantic Monthly will apologize for pictures demonizing John McCain, which were posted at photographer Jill Greenberg's website. Greenberg worked under contract for the magazine in producing photographs for the Atlantic's latest cover story:

The editor of The Atlantic Monthly said Monday he is sending a letter of apology to John McCain after a woman the magazine hired to photograph the Republican presidential nominee posted manipulated pictures from the photo shoot on her Web site.

Photographer Jill Greenberg, who is vehemently anti-Republican and expressed glee that the photos would stir up conservative ire, took pictures of McCain for the cover of The Atlantic’s October issue.

During the shoot, she took several other backlit pictures, which she then doctored and posted to her site. In one photo, she added blood oozing from McCain’s shark-toothed mouth and labeled it with the caption “I am a bloodthirsty warmongerer.” In another, a caption over McCain’s head says, “I will have my girl kill Roe v. Wade,” an obvious reference to his running mate Sarah Palin’s anti-abortion positions.

Editor James Bennet said Greenberg behaved improperly and will not be paid for the session. He said the magazine is also considering a lawsuit.

If you haven't seen them, Gawker's got Greenberg's additional "diabolical" McCain photos.

The Atlantic's got about as much credibility as Us Weekly, in any case.

Obama's Faith Merchandise

Beliefnet reports that the Barack Obama campaign is rolling out a line of "faith merchandise," including "Believers for Barack" paraphernalia:

The campaign's newsletter states:

Believers for Barack rally signs and bumper stickers, along with all Pro-Family Pro-Obama merchandise, are appropriate for people of all faith backgrounds. We'll soon be rolling out merchandise for other religious groups and denominations, but I wanted to get this out to you without delay.

"Pro-family"?

In a 2006 speech at Saddleback Church in Orange Country, California, Obama declared:

We should never forget that God granted us the power to reason so that we would do His work here on Earth...

I guess Obama's "pro-family" work for God doesn't extend to protecting the lives of infant babies left to die in soiled-linen closests.

But wait!

The campaign indicates that they'll soon have available "Pro-Israel Pro-Obama" merchandise!

I'm sure the "Jewish Americans for Obama" network at the Obama official homepage is thrilled, considering that:

A growing number of bloggers such as Richard Cohen, Brigitte Gabriel, Sharon Hughes, Charles Krauthammer, Kenneth Blackwell, Naomi Ragen, Debbie Schlussel, Ed Lasky, and William Levinson are pointing out Barack Obama’s numerous connections to unsavory individuals and organizations that espouse and promote hatred of Jews, Catholics, white people, Israel, and/or the United States.

Don't forget that Obama, last February, refused to reject the endorsement of Louis Farrakan, who has condemned Judaism as a "gutter religion."

Of course, at the time Obama was still a member of Trinity United Church of Christ, rockin' and rolling to Reverend Jeremiah's "greatest hits."

Dow Tumbles to 500-Point Decline

American financial markets have sustained one of the most significant collapses in recent history, as the Wall Street Journal reports:

The stock market suffered its worst daily plunge in nearly seven years Monday as the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers Holdings threw the U.S. financial system into an abyss, uncertain where the bottom of its credit-related problems lies.

Lehman's demise makes it the biggest casualty yet in the long-running credit crisis, which has so far seen torrents of red ink, restructurings and acquisitions, and shutterings of a few commercial banks. But until Sunday night, no Wall Street firm of such size and stature had suffered an all-out meltdown.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average, which languished with a loss between 200 and 300 points for most of the day, saw its losses accelerate in the last hour of trading to suffer its worst daily point drop since trading resumed after the 9/11 terror attacks. The Dow ended down by 504.48 points on Monday, off 4.4%, at its daily low of 10917.51, down 18% on the year.

All 30 of the Dow's components fell, led by a 60.8% plunge in American International Group. The Federal Reserve on Monday asked Goldman Sachs Group and J.P. Morgan Chase to help make $70-$75 billion in loans available to the company, according to people familiar with the situation. The insurer has been racing to restructure its business and raise fresh capital to avoid a downgrade of its credit ratings.

The number of big players on Wall Street is dwindling, but traders said it remains to be seen where and for how much longer the ill effects of soured credit bets will continue to surface. A series of events through the end of the week, including a Fed meeting Tuesday and stock-options expiration Friday, could shed more light on the state of the financial system and send investors on another dizzying ride.

See also the reports at the New York Times and the Washington Post.

As noted above by the Journal, we'll know more about the impact of the market crash on the financial system and broader economy later, but Barack Obama and the Democrats are wasting no time in hammering John McCain as out of touch on pocketbook issues:

Hours after Senator John McCain said “the fundamentals of our economy are strong,” Senator Barack Obama seized upon the remark on Monday and offered a blistering critique of the Republican Party’s stewardship of the economy as the Wall Street turmoil created ripples in the presidential campaign.

“We just woke up to news of financial disaster and this morning and he said that the fundamentals of the economy are still strong?” Mr. Obama told voters at an afternoon rally here. “Senator McCain, what economy are you talking about?”

As he campaigned in Florida on Monday, Mr. McCain cautioned against panic as the stock market fell, Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy protection and Merrill Lynch was abruptly acquired. He acknowledged “tremendous turmoil in our financial markets” but said taxpayers should not be forced to pay for a government bailout.

“People are frightened by these events,” Mr. McCain said at a rally in Jacksonville. “Our economy, I think still, the fundamentals of our economy are strong. But these are very, very difficult times.”

Prolonged economic difficulty would benefit Obama, but as financial markets stabilize, and as the Dow rallies to recover from the slide over the next few days, the political impact of today's turmoil may not be enough to improve Obama's fortunes.

This raises dangers for the Democrats.

John McCain won plaudits coming out of the Saddleback Civil Forum last month, not the least because of his decisive optimism. Left-wing commentators are arguing that Obama needs to hammer harder against the GOP, and the Wall Street mess presents an opportunity. But the party will be poorly received for cheering hard times, especially in the light of the overall positive economic record of the Bush administration, and the federal government's well-received performance on Hurricane Gustav earlier this month.

The "sky is not falling," although many on the left are claiming otherwise.

What Happened to Sociotropic Voting?

I remember a funny term in graduate school called "sociotropic voting."

The notion is that voters look at the economy's performance and evaluate their electoral choices with the goal of maximizing "social welfare" in mind. With the current economic turbulence - housing and the subprime collapse, the Wall Street financial crisis, sustained high gas prices and inflation at the grocery store checkout line, etc. - it seems we'd be seeing more discussion along the lines of public interest voting, and thus signs of political rewards for the party out of power.

If one clicks on the Huffington Post, as I have the last few days, the website has adopted the old newspaper rack headline strategy of crisis. Clicking right now finds the blaring topic headline, "BLACK MONDAY." I checked over there last night to find Huffington Post trumpeting the recent Alan Greenspan quote, "ONCE IN A CENTURY ECONOMIC CRISIS."

As bad as things are, the feeling on the street is nowhere near that proportion. I'm seeing less "bank owned" for sale signs as I was at the beginning of the year, and even as national unemployment numbers edge up, the Southern California economy appears robust, with firms hiring and the morning crush on Los Angeles freeways signaling as big a traffic commute as ever (impressionist data to be sure, but nevertheless good indicators of a vigorous local marketplace).

Indeed, as tough as the economy seems objectively, individual concerns about market instability have been declining, as seen in a recent Gallup report, "Pessimism Declines Despite Job Woes."

So, where's the attention to sociotropic voting?

The Monkey Cage has a research update, "A Different Take on Sociotropic and Pocketbook Voting":

Dozens – hundreds? – of research studies have explored one particular aspect of the economic basis of electoral behavior: the issue of whether “pocketbook” considerations (one’s personal financial situation) or “sociotropic” ones (one’s assessment of the state of the broader economy) are more important. The standard modus operandi in such research is to pit these two possibilities against one another in horse-race fashion and determining which comes out ahead. Or, in more comprehensive treatments, the two possibilities might be included additively in models of voting, to try to assess the overall impact of economic conditions on voting behavior.

Mitchell Killian, Ryan Schoen, and Aaron Dusso (political science graduate students at, ahem, George Washington University) have a somewhat different take on this issue. In a piece that will appear in an upcoming issue of Political Behavior, they examine the possibility that “pocketbook and sociotropic economic assessments are not independent and alternative sources of voter turnout, but operate in tandem to shape electoral behavior.”

A draft of the research is here (in pdf).

The paper's blending macro- and micro-economic concerns among voters, synthesizing two strands of reseach. The dependent variable is "likelihood of voting," rather than "voting for policies that maximize 'social welfare,'" which is considered the main hypothesis in sociotropic models.

Still, the Killian, Schoen, and Dusso paper finds that:

The perception that one is falling behind economically relative to the rest of society spurs those individuals to vote more than individuals who perceive that they have been reaping relative economic gains.

Taking this logic further, perhaps current polling data predicting a large turnout in November's election can be correlated to feelings of "not keeping up with the Jones" among American voters; and if so, from a sociotropic perspective, we might expect the party out of power to benefit.

In other words, the Democrats should be pulling away in public opinion polling.

But they're not, at either the presidential or generic congressional level.

So, what happened to sociotropic voting?

Who knows?

The Politico reports that the "banking meltdown" is going to wallop the presidential campaigns, but frankly, the Democrats are facing an uphill battle in making the case for "Bush's third term."

Maybe Barack Obama needs to replace Joseph Biden with Hillary Clinton as running mate (so the Democrats can capture more of those "bitter" voters).

But I'll leave it the political science voting experts to sort it all out.

What if Obama Loses?

Consider this a perfect follow-up essay to my earlier entry today, "Voter Disenfranchisement as Racism Against Obama?"

It turns out that Harvard's Randall Kennedy has written about the potential reaction among black Americans at the loss of Barack Obama in November.

Before leaving a quote, I must say I'm intrigued that Kennedy's publishing his piece right now. I don't remember him writing anything on Obama all year (and I like Kennedy, too, an atypical scholar of black law and politics, who often questions the reigning shibboleths); so perhaps his post is one more tiny inkling of how poorly things are going for the Democrats - or perhaps it's another indicator of how far Obama's fallen, like Icarus, from the lofty clouds of messianic inevitablity.

But here's Kennedy:

After he was nominated in the week marking the 45th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech, Obama became the focus of millennial aspirations. "Obama is a once-in-a-lifetime black candidate," wrote a black student in a memo for my course, "our one shot, probably the only real contender that my parents and grandparents will ever see, and maybe the only contender my generation will see. All my hopes ride with him." Imagine the pain of such hopes dashed.

Black America, of course, is diverse. Some black conservatives -- columnist Thomas Sowell or Ken Blackwell, former secretary of state of Ohio -- will undoubtedly be delighted by an Obama defeat; he is, after all, their ideological foe. But there are also black leftists who oppose him. Writing in the Progressive magazine, Prof. Adolph Reed of the University of Pennsylvania urges voters to reject Obama (as well as McCain) because he is a "vacuous opportunist" who, like Bill Clinton, conservatizes the leftward end of the American political spectrum. A close variant is the camp of blacks who will be relieved by an Obama defeat because they fear that his victory would misleadingly suggest that America is no longer in need of large-scale racial reform. Still others, who believe that Obama has hurt himself by seeking the political center and declining to be more forceful in voicing a progressive alternative to the Republican ticket, would feel somber vindication.

There are blacks who'll be indifferent to an Obama defeat because they don't think that the outcome of the presidential race will have any real effect on their miserable fates. Others, protecting themselves against the pain of disappointment, have systematically repressed expectations. My mother will be sorry if Obama loses, but she won't feel disillusioned, because she hasn't allowed herself to get her hopes up. She has insisted throughout that "the white folks are going to refuse one way or another to permit Obama to become president." That she says this is remarkable, given the success of her three children, all of whom attended Princeton and became attorneys (one is a federal judge). Still, even though she has seen many racial barriers fall, she's simply unwilling to make herself vulnerable to dejection by investing herself fully in the Obama phenomenon.

If Obama loses, I personally will feel disappointed, frustrated, hurt. I'll conclude that a fabulous opportunity has been lost. I'll believe that American voters have made a huge mistake. And I'll think that an important ingredient of their error is racial prejudice -- not the hateful, snarling, open bigotry that terrorized my parents in their youth, but rather a vague, sophisticated, low-key prejudice that is chameleonlike in its ability to adapt to new surroundings and to hide even from those firmly in its grip.
If Obama is defeated, I will, for a brief time, be stunned by feelings of dejection, anger and resentment. These will only be the stronger because the climate of this election year so clearly favors the Democrats, because this was supposed to be an election the Republicans couldn't win, and because in my view, the Obama ticket is obviously superior to McCain's.

But I hope that soon thereafter I'll find solace and encouragement in contemplating this unprecedented development: A major political party nominated a black man for the highest office in the land, and that man waged an intelligent, brave campaign in which many millions of Americans of all races enthusiastically supported an African American standard-bearer.

Note first, if Obama loses, and the election's close, the Democrats will have attorneys flaring out around the country - to Florida, Ohio, and other states - amid a national outcry on the left alleging "Rovian" fraud and "racist" ballot irregularities. The anger will be of the intensity following Al Gore's loss to G.W. Bush in 2000, with some added outrage on the scale seen on the African-American street after the white officers' aquittals in the Rodney King beating trial in 1992 (no prediction on rioting this time, but who knows?).

But I haven't actually thought that far ahead.

Barack Obama's already achieved history by winning the nomination of his party for President of the United States. Unfortunately, the Democrats need a "black Bill Clinton," that is, they need an African-American "New Democrat" who is willing to break free from the party's debilitating focus on identity politics and racial grievance. They also need, actually, someone's who's less about "hope and changiness" and more about patriotism and traditionalism.

That said, as readers know, I've been pumping up John McCain all year, and if Obama loses it'll seem a bit miraculous, given the Obamania of just a few months ago. Like Kennedy, I'll reflect on the history-making nature of Obama's quest, and I'll long marvel over the "millions of Americans of all races enthusiastically supported an African American standard-bearer."

But I'll simply be glad he lost, knowing that our country will be safer and our that our political culture and traditions will not only be preserved by a McCain/Palin presidency, but rejuvenated with the kind reformist, new-feminist change that's a wholly more refreshing kind of radicalism than anything the Democrats had to offer.

Voter Disenfranchisement as Racism Against Obama?

A couple of weeks back, Jacob Weisberg argued that racial prejudice in the electorate "could be large enough to cost Obama the election."

Weisberg's piece was widely slammed as over-the-top victimology. Still, of all the frenzied attacks we're now seeing on the McCain/Palin ticket, continued allegations of racism might be the only smears likely to gain genuine traction among voters - ironically, since polling data show that Americans overwhelmingly reject racial discrimination. Still, for the left, "thar's gold in them thar hills." As Peter Kirsanow, at the National Review, noted during the primaries:

The tendency of Obama supporters to see racist impulses behind every criticism of their candidate has evolved into absurdity.

Nevertheless, the left's racism charge is the smear against white voters that just won't go away. In fact, Larisa Alexandrovna makes the case this morning that the Republican Party is essentially a party of white supremacy:

Their values are simply this: hate black, hate liberals, hate Jews who are not part of the end of times scenario, hate women and above all, declare an all out war on anyone who disagrees with them. These people are in fact the horror of the worst kind that is plaguing America.

John McCain's new "Disrespect" ad is allegedly more evidence of this:

Ordering a black man to show you respect you is pretty over the top in 2008. I'm sure McCain's constituency in the South and perhaps right here in Indiana will recognize the terminology from their (thankfully) long ago heydays of sundown towns and lynch mob gatherings, though, and respond accordingly.

The political problem with these allegations is that they're easily dismissed as sour grapes and hypocritical rants. The Democrats ran an ugly primary campaign, with top party members from Bill Clinton on down recycling common racial stereotypes from earlier decades.

If, however, it can be shown that whatever racism exists today is not isolated to the narrow fringes of the political spectrum, that racism, in fact, provides an apartheid structure of great white political hegemony, then Obama supporters may find a big enough payoff in pandering to the racial guilt of the post-civil rights white majority.

For example, the New York Times offers a dramatic look at the question of black felon voter disenfranchisment in its piece, "States Restore Voting Rights for Ex-Convicts":

Felony disenfranchisement — often a holdover from exclusionary Jim Crow-era laws like poll taxes and ballot box literacy tests — affects about 5.3 million former and current felons in the United States, according to voting rights groups....

Muslima Lewis, a lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union in Florida, said: “Really, you’re not having a full participatory democracy if you disenfranchise so many people. It weakens the whole system and, in particular, communities of color.”

The Times suggests that of the two major-party presidential campaigns, only the Obama organization has shown a direct political interest in bolstering the push to restore felons' voting rights (with the implication being that the GOP doesn't care about mobilizing black voters).

The clearest statement on the relationship between black voter disenfranchisement and election 2008 is Andrew Hacker's new piece a the New York Review, with the front-page title in the hard-copy edition blaring, "Prejudice Against Obama" (the online version is here). Hacker's introduction lays out the political implications of the institutional suppression of black voters:

Barack Obama can only become president by mustering a turnout that will surpass the votes he is not going to get. This may well mean that more black Americans than ever will have to go to the polls, if only because the electorate is predominantly white, and it isn't clear how their votes will go. Obstacles to getting blacks to vote have always been formidable, but this year there will be barriers—some new, some long-standing—that previous campaigns have not had to face.

For many years, the momentum was toward making the franchise universal. Property qualifications were ended; the poll tax was nullified; the voting age was lowered to eighteen. But now strong forces are at work to downsize the electorate, ostensibly to combat fraud and strip the rolls of voters who are ineligible for one reason or another. But the real effect is to make it harder for many black Americans to vote, largely because they are more vulnerable to challenges than other parts of the population.

Hacker is a careful scholar, so despite his leftist agenda, I take his work seriously. He is at pains, for example, to avoid cries of "racism" in his piece. The problem, however, is not so much institutional prejudice (there are indeed lingering strains), or voter biases found in hard-to-measure phenomena like the "Bradley effect," but the inability of the Democrats to move beyond the image of a grievance-based party out to distribute racial reparations to its multicultural constituencies.

Not only that, the fact itself of Obama's historic nomination as the Democratic Party's standard-bearer makes cries of "racism" appear trite. Sure, we know the Stormfront-types will never accept a black candidate (believe me, I know, as I'm being attacked right now as "F**king N....." at a pro-Confederacy white supremist blog), but the overall trend in voting rights since the 1960s has been toward the expansion of the vote and the empowerment of previously disadvantaged groups.

As Abigail Thernstrom noted recently:

We've come to the end of a remarkable journey. In the early 1960s, most Southern blacks were barred from voting. Yet today, just over four decades later, blacks and whites from across the country have selected an African American man as the presidential nominee of the Democratic Party.

The United States has undergone an extraordinary, awe-inspiring transformation -- particularly so for those who remember what the South was like not so long ago. In 1964, the right to vote remained a white privilege, despite the promise of the 15th Amendment. Blacks were routinely kept from the polls by fraudulent literacy tests, violence and intimidation. Without the franchise, they had little or no say in what policies their "representatives" in Congress might support, where state health dollars would go or which local streets would get sidewalks. To have the vote was to belong to the American community; the disfranchised had been stripped, in a fundamental sense, of their citizenship. There were, of course, no black elected officials from the South....

But in a recent Washington Post-ABC News poll, 63% of blacks answered "yes" to the question: "Do you think it's possible your child could grow up to be president or not?" - a higher figure than that for whites.

Whatever your politics, Barack Obama's moment is our moment too - the end of one story and the beginning of another. A moment in which to celebrate.

Arguments and statistics like this won't likely satisfy race-conscious "Blood of Martyrs" activists in the current Democratic Party base, but notwithstanding remaining problems concerning the voting rights of ex-convicts, the United States today is living the dream that Martin Luther King envisioned during a long, hot summer 45-years ago.

Photo Credit: New York Times

The Democrats and the Antiwar Movement

One of the most interesting political developments over the last few years has been the growing fusion between the Democratic Party and the hardline radical elements of the contemporary antiwar left.

Determining which groups and individuals actually comprise "the left" is difficult, but as I've argued numerous time, the radical left today is increasingly an online advocacy and electoral mobilization movement. From the netroots blogs such as Daily Kos, Firedoglake, and Open Left, to the various iterations of online interest groups, such as MoveOn.org, the movement for a progressive overthrow of the hegemonic, imperialist right-wing establishment (BushCo and the neocons, basically) has been the driving ideological program of today's left.

Note, of course, that with the Barack Obama phenomenon we did see members of the '60s protest generation endorse the Illinois Senator (and Obama himself has long been dogged by his own ties to domestic terrorists and his unorthodox upbringing in Marxist ideology).

I identified the hardline radical support for the Obama campaign with the notion of "no enemies on the left." While Obama's a pragmatic politician who's been known to shift to the center for electoral expediency, on the issue of Iraq he's been a godsend to the left's radical antiwar constituencies. Indeed, Barack Obama provides a near-perfect fit for the left's template of postmodern, anti-military moral relativism seeking to rein in American power and put international interests above those of the American state.

The background on the antiwar movement is told in David Horowitz's recent book, Party of Defeat: How Democrats and Radicals Undermined America’s War on Terror Before and After 9-11, which is reviewed by Bruce Thornton at City Journal. Here's Thornton on the Democratic Party's antiwar politics:

Party of Defeat opens with the Vietnam War-era hijacking of the Democratic Party by antiwar radicals, whose ultimate purpose wasn’t so much to end the war, but to discredit and weaken the political, social, and economic foundations of America. For the radical Left, then and now, “no longer regards itself as part of the nation ... “This Left sees itself instead as part of an abstract ‘humanity,’ transcending national borders and patriotic allegiances, whose interests coincide with a worldwide radical cause.” As such, it must work against America’s interests and success, disguising its activity as “dissent” or a more general antiwar sentiment.

This stream of today's Democratic Party is either not appreciated by many or flatly denied (for further elaboration of the theme, see also, John Tierney, "The Politics of Peace: What’s Behind the Anti-War Movement?").

With the exception of some mainstream outlets like International Business Daily and National Review (who explicitly identify the Obama phenomena in class-analysis terms), and a few top bloggers like Jim Hoft and Tom Maguire, Obama's mostly discussed in terms of the mainstream social identity of the Democratic Party as a pro-capitalist, center-left catch-all party of enemy-combatant rights, diversity, and organized labor.

I haven't written much lately on the Democrats and the extreme left factions, largely because the Palin phenomenon has completely dominated the news media. But as we move into the remaining weeks of the campaign, it's important for conservatives not to lose sight of this year's epochal battle in American politics between the GOP's vision - embodied best by President Ronald Reagan, and now Sarah Palin - of peace through strength and the embrace of American exceptionalism in foreign policy, and the left's agenda of multicultural liberal internationalism (including Obama's initial call for international diplomacy without preconditions).

What stoked my reflection on the topic was an article I read earlier tonight in the International Socialist Review, while out at Borders with my son.

The piece, "Which Way Forward for the Antiwar Movement?", actually repudiates the electoral mobilization strategies of hard left organizations such as United for Peace and Justice. But the author's agenda for rekindling the currently moribund protest movement (an effort to draw on the lessons of the Vietnam-era antiwar successes) reminded me of the alliance between socialism and radical Islam that's one of the most significant threats to American national security in the current age:

To really understand the kind of mass struggle we must aim to build, we should draw on the lessons of the movement against the war in Vietnam. It was not the president or Congress that ended that war. Instead it was the dynamic interaction of 3 militant mass struggles. The mass civilian antiwar movement staged mass marches, mass civil disobedience, and a wave of campus strikes that shut down the universities and colleges of the United States.

On top of that, the U.S. troops revolted against the war. As David Cortright’s Soldiers in Revolt describes, civilian activists in collaboration with vets and GIs set up coffeehouses where soldiers could organize their antiwar movement and build Vietnam Veterans Against the War. In Vietnam itself, the U.S. troops refused to fight, organizing “search and avoid” missions and even threatening their officers with fragmentation grenades to prevent officers from sending them into combat. This GI rebellion essentially paralyzed the American military in Vietnam.

Finally, and most importantly, the Vietnamese people themselves forged the National Liberation Front that fought for their own emancipation. They proved, especially after the Tet Offensive in 1968, that the United States and its puppet government had no support in Vietnam, and that the people were committed to driving the U.S. out of Southeast Asia. This three-dimensional, militant movement won the liberation of Vietnam.

Okay, pay attention to that last paragraph: The implication there is that the contemporary antiwar movement needs to back indigenous resistance forces against "American imperial agression." Today, such a drive would translate into ideological and material support to al Qaeda in Iraq, Hamas in the West Bank, Hezbollah in Syria, and the Taliban in hills of Tora Bora - and that's not to mention the emerging Iranian-Venezuelan anti-US axis of evil (for more on that, see "Anti-Americans on the March").

There are some in the radical netroots - like the extremist Newshoggers - who have already mounted a campaign of ideological support for America's defeat. Others, like many Barack Obama supporters, simply fail to make the connection between unlimited face-to-face diplomacy with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and threats like the explosively formed penetrators that have killed hundreds of U.S. soldiers in Iraq in the last few years.

Now's the time to return to the issues of Barack Obama's radical ties. While the explicit relationship between the Democratic Party and the contemporary antiwar left is complicated, there's no doubt that many outside the realm of doctrinaire Leninist cadres seek a progressive alliance between the hardline antiwar groups and the top echelons of the Democratic Party's organization.

Panic Sets in for Democrats

I've highlighted previously the desperate search for scapegoats on the left amid Barack Obama's fall from grace. Yet, I'm also careful to note that we still have a long way to go in this election, and it's too early to get cocky about GOP prospects.

Jim Wooten, at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, doesn't seem too worried about that:

Barack Obama knows it. The election he had in the bag is slipping away.

The selection of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as John McCain’s running mate has so thrown him off stride, as it has most other Democrats, that all the momentum he had has vanished. He’s getting panicky advice from everywhere. He intends to launch more and sharper attacks, abandoning any pretense of a new and different, more civil campaign.

Democrats know something, and desperation is setting in. They have a novice campaigner who wanders off message. With every advantage in the primaries, Obama couldn’t win the big states — New York, New Jersey, Ohio and Pennsylvania — against Hillary Clinton, even when he got to define the rules for running against him. She could never risk alienating the base she’ll need in 2012; John McCain and Sarah Palin have no such constraints — hence the panic.

For a “change” candidate, Obama appears to be a man locked in time, unable to move past criticism, unable to move from the grip of the Democratic left, unable to adapt to the changed reality that the campaign is not the referendum on the war in Iraq or on the administration of George W. Bush that he’d envisioned.

He’s begun to sound dated. Last week, for example, he devoted valuable campaign days — less than two months remain — into explaining a silly “lipstick on a pig” line. The McCain campaign had reacted, accusing him of making the reference to Palin. “I don’t care what they say about me,” Obama responded. “But I love this country too much to let them take over another election with lies and phony outrage and ‘Swiftboat politics.’ Enough is enough,” he said. (The Swiftboat reference is from the 2004 campaign of John Kerry).

The Democratic left is still seething from the Kerry campaign’s loss and is determined to see Bush expelled from the White House in disgrace — the reason it is locked in to making this a referendum on the administration now ending.

It barely worked when the maverick McCain, no darling of the Bushites, got the nomination. With Palin, the Washington outsider, the “third term” argument is plainly absurd. But Obama can’t let go, just as the lefties can’t let go of the Swiftboat Veterans for Truth defeat of Kerry. He can’t move on.

Obama has the habit, too, of reminding voters of their doubts about him, as he did in reminding a Detroit audience that he’s been accused of being less interested in protecting you from terrorists than reading them their rights. And, when he professes love of country as his basis for refusing to allow the McCain campaign to attack his words, he raises questions about why he finds the affirmation of love necessary.

Obama will lose because with less than two months remaining voters won’t be able to get comfortable with him. He can’t stay on message and he can’t avoid sending signals that interfere with the message when he does.

There's more at the link, here.

A check over at Talk Left indicates the folks there haven't read Wooten ("McCain = Bush's Third Term").

There may be something to Wooten's hunch, in any case: The news around the country today was good for McCain/Palin, as it looks like Michigan, Ohio, and Pennsylvania are trending toward the GOP in state-by-state polling (see here and here).

Plus, McCain/Palin still hold a small lead in Gallup's daily tracking numbers, 47 to 45 percent, while Rasussen has McCain up three points over Obama, 49 to 46 percent.

Obama still hasn't been able to recapture the momentum he enjoyed coming out the Democratic primaries. He needs a strong performance on the hustings this next few weeks, and the Obama/Biden ticket needs to perform well in the presidential and vice-presidential debates.

My prediction is that McCain/Palin will hold their own on the campaign trail at during the debates, and the presidential horse will settle back down close to the 45-45 range. I doubt the Obama can recapture the brief bounce he received coming out of Mile High, however. Realistically, the only hope for the Democratic-left is for its relentless barrage of allegations, attacks, and smears to wound the GOP ticket enough to reclaim the mantle as a the election's agent of "change," with a resultant improving in the national polling picture.

On the change issue, however, so far the polls show a surprising toss-up even on that question.

Leftist Depravity Continues with Accusations of Palin Pedophilia

Randi Rhodes has claimed that Alaska Governor Sarah Palin is "friends with all the teenage boys" in town, and parents can't let their kids "sleep over" at the Palin home:

Brian Maloney offers some background:

Just how far are lefty pundits willing to go to smear Sarah Palin? On behalf of the "progressive" movement, libtalker Randi Rhodes seems determined to sink to new depths of moral depravity, with the limits of imagination as her only impediment.

Less than a week after her wildly dishonest claim that John McCain was "well-treated" during his wartime imprisonment in Vietnam, Rhodes is at it again, this time making a strong inference that Palin likes to sleep with teenage boys.

It's further evidence of a widespread smear campaign that involves lefty bloggers, libtalkers and the mainstream news media. With this gang, the ends apparently justify the means. That there isn't a shred of evidence to back up any of their claims is irrelevant: this is full-scale character assassination.

I'm having an ongoing debate with Dan Nexon at Duck of Minerva over the relative extremes on the right and the left of the spectrum. Dan argues, essentially, that the continuous examples of left-wing depravity are isolated instances and cannot be generalized to "the left."

But as regular readers know well, I've chronicled example after example of the left's intolerance and evil found throughout the netroots, including top members of the leftosphere who coordinate closely with the Democratic Party and the Barack Obama campaign.

Yesterday, for example, Daily Kos had this image posted in a now-deleted comment thread:

You can still read, however, the Kos-hosted diary, "Eulogy Before the Inevitability of Self-Destruction: The Decline and Death of Israel":

As Israel reach the milestone of the 60th anniversary commemoration, its legacy will be showered not with peace and goodwill but revulsion of conscience and damnation.

I could continue around the horn of the leftosphere all afternoon finding examples of Palin derangement, left-wing nti-Semitism, Bush-Cheney demonization, and so forth. But there's no need. I've written about the issue many times, for example, in my essay, "Surrendering Reason to Hate?":

This quest for enemies consumes far left-wing partisans. It is an endless search seeking to delegitimize and dehumanize those who would threaten the safety of a secular, redistributionist world of exclusive false brotherhood and psychological security.

This is why I think there are variations in the propensity to surrender to hate. The left's psychopolitical agenda is "clothed in darkness." It is this very difficult for them to find that "one good thing" about those with whom they differ.

I wrote that over a month ago, but just this week Camille Paglia made a similar point in discussing the Democratic-left's response to the Palin phenomenon:

The witch-trial hysteria of the past two incendiary weeks unfortunately reveals a disturbing trend in the Democratic Party, which has worsened over the past decade. Democrats are quick to attack the religiosity of Republicans, but Democratic ideology itself seems to have become a secular substitute religion. Since when did Democrats become so judgmental and intolerant? Conservatives are demonized, with the universe polarized into a Manichaean battle of us versus them, good versus evil. Democrats are clinging to pat group opinions as if they were inflexible moral absolutes. The party is in peril if it cannot observe and listen and adapt to changing social circumstances.

None of this is statistical confirmation for a generalized hypothesis on the hard-left's secular demonology. But it's demonstrably clear that folks from top bloggers like Markos Moulitsas and Andrew Sullivan to the nihilists at Sadly No! to TBogg's demonic conservative ridicule-machine are on an endless quest to destroy their enemies with a venomous brew of hate and intolerance.

Barack Obama's collapse from the heights of "Oneness" has only added to this zealotry.

*********

UPDATE: TBogg's here to correct me:

Randi Rhodes left Air America back in April after being suspended by the network. So you just set a new land speed record by being wrong four words into your post.

Yet, TBogg's got no problem with Rhodes' Palin derangement, and of course, no word on the demonic conservative ridicule machine.