The Truth

Obama secured this country’s chief domestic priority for 2008: denying Senator Hillary Clinton the presidency. --"Two Cheers for Senator Barack Obama", By Dery Murdock, Scripps Howard

First, ... Obama has earned the eternal gratitude of millions of relieved Americans who understand how calamitous a Hillary Clinton administration would have been. [snip]

Second, Obama has performed an enormous public service as a black candidate of unprecedented elegance and eloquence. Obama demonstrates what results when a young black man works and studies hard and beautifully speaks proper English.

Let me agree with the first statement, and partially disagree with the second. Obama's election was in fact due partly to his ability to deliver a soaring speech -- when someone else writes it for him and he can read it from a teleprompter. That is where my praise ends. His success is the hatred for Hillary Clinton, the fact that he is Black, and most important -- who he has behind him holding him up. Mr. Murdock continues:

So why two cheers and not three? Despite his enormous appeal, Obama is an over-the-cliff-and-tumbling-into-the-canyon-Left, big-government, tax-hiking spendthrift. For 2007, the National Journal ranked him the Senate’s No. 1 liberal with a score of 95.5 percent. This put Obama to the left of Senator Bernie Sanders (Independent-Socialist – Vermont) who rated a marginally more conservative 93.7.

The National Taxpayer’s Union calculates that Obama’s policy prescriptions would balloon annual federal spending by $343.6 billion. Presumptive Republican nominee John McCain would boost yearly outlays by a more modest $68.5 billion. Obama recently embraced Congress’s atrocious $307 billion farm bailout. McCain condemned it.

The Wall Street Journal’s John Fund expertly dissects Obamanomics. Among the many warning signs:

Obama endorses a 45 percent minimum-wage increase, from $6.55 to $9.50. Why not simply triple it, to $19.65? Employers would love that.Barack Obama’s agenda is statist and disappointingly unimaginative. It lacks the Democratic Leadership Council’s “Third Way” thinking or even the dreadful-albeit-interesting quality of such ideas as comparable worth or cumulative voting. Obama’s program of tax, spend, and regulate is as innovative as a station wagon.

Obama wants a “market oversight commission” to monitor and reduce risks to the finance industry. The FDIC, Federal Reserve, SEC, and Treasury already attempt this, whether or not they should.

While Obama favors modest middle-class tax cuts, he promises widespread tax hikes. For top filers, taxes on capital gains would rise from 15 to 28 percent, dividends from 15 to 39.6 percent, and personal incomes from 35 to 39.6 percent. Meanwhile, the Death Tax would zoom in 2011 from 0 to 55 percent. “And if you live in a high income-tax state like New York, New Jersey, or California,” Fund adds, “your highest marginal tax rate could go to as high as 60 percent.”

Obama would let President Bush’s tax cuts lapse. The Heritage Foundation estimates that this would cost taxpayers $113 billion in 2011 and $133 billion in 2012 alone.

Perhaps Obama should choose Condi Rice as his VP running mate??? Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice (Condi Rice At Cross-Purposes with Bush Agenda? By Jeffery T. Kuhner, The Washington Times)

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has helped to derail President Bush´s pro-democracy agenda. [snip] In reality, Miss Rice was never a foreign policy hawk - or even a genuine conservative. Rather, she is a flinty realist who emphasizes the importance of geopolitical stability and diplomacy over disruptive change. A protege of Brent Scowcroft and James Baker, she believes multilateralism and negotiations are the most effective tools of statecraft. (continue reading)

Other reading: The Father of the Taliban: An Interview with Maulana Sami ul-Haq, Global Terrorism The Changing Face of Islam, Bangkok Post