McCain and his lack of “soaring rhetoric”
If American elections turned on criteria such as that used by “Toastmasters” – elections would be different. However, an ability to deliver oratorical overkill, hardly provides proof of an ability to make decisions or to lead.
This is especially true when it is learned that most of Obama’s “soaring rhetoric” is stolen – nothing but tried and true applause lines of other politicians.
McCain is learning to come to grips with the telepromter – but without scripting and a telepromter, Obama is a ticking time bomb that can explode at any moment with another outrageous gaffe – such as his noting we have 58 states and stories of WWII exploits of a non-existent uncle.
Democrats have been AWOL on issues of national defense for more than 40 years
Liberal pundits say Americans are so jaded about the war on terror, they’ll give Democrats a pass for their failures to support our military.
Democrat retreat from a strong national defense, and their outright hostility to our military and those who serve, can be traced to the takeover of that party by the left wing extremists that followed George McGovern.
Democrats deny there is a war on terror – even bar use of the term in Congressional committees – Democrat House Speaker, Nancy Pelosi has tried to cut funding to our troops under fire more than 40 times, and the bumbling Democrat Senate Leader, Harry Reid has even declared the war has been lost.
Fortunately for America, Democrats also have a record of being wrong.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/04/AR2008070402091.html
Democrats try hard to make people believe Republicans are injecting race into the presidential campaign – facts show the opposite is true. Racism is a Democrat thing again
Democrats maneuver to make people believe that opposing Obama is a racist thing – a political tactic known as “inoculation” – undercutting a possible lane of attack before it an be used.
The problem lies in the fact that Obama’s race has never been the issue, his extremism, total lack of any viable experience and the rampant bigotry to which he is joined at the hip have generated the opposition.
Extremism has never been popular in American politics. Only the fawning support of Obama by a mainstream media that long ago put aside professional ethics and integrity, has covered his base. In truth, America has never had a more extreme candidate – especially one whose Church preaches hatred of America and its white population.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/07/obamas_candidacy_is_a_test.html
Opinion:
Time for reality in dealing with energy
There is panic at every gas pump in every city in America. No wonder.
With prices soaring past $4 a gallon, the US economy faces a serious challenge. Most all we do depends on oil – if for no other reason than gasoline or diesel is necessary to get where we are going.
The crisis hits a peak in the middle of a political season, so both parties are shuffling around to provide a solution – or at least an apparent solution. They do this knowing that voters don’t reward those who solve problems – voters reward those who offer the most appealing plan for a solution.
Once a problem I solved, it is no long a problem and is forgotten …needless to say, voters never stop again to recall who provided the solution.
Democrats have been flying high in political polling of late. The downswing in the economy, public distraction from the real horror of the war on terror, and, of course, the high cost of gas along with the unpopularity of the GOP president, have all provided indications of a Democrat landslide.
However, the Democrats may have given the GOP the issue needed to reverse the fortunes and regain political momentum.
Incredibly, the Democrats jumped into the energy fray by falling back on the plan liberals always have for dealing with a problem: create a new tax and raise others. A willingness to rape the productive segment of America has always been irresistible to liberals.
California’s extremist Senator, Barbara Boxer extols her sponsorship of S.3044, a bill to impose "windfall profits taxes" on Big Oil. She writes, "At a time when so many Americans are struggling to make ends meet and having to make the impossible choice between buying food for their families and filling up their gas tank, I am deeply disturbed that some of my colleagues [Republicans] prevented this important bill from moving forward."
Boxer’s stupidity is the best news a beleaguered GOP has had in months. It’s hard to see how anyone could convince themselves that Boxer’s position is at all rational. In fact it isn’t.
Should Boxer’s incredible tax bill become law, prices at the pump would immediately rise – corporations “Big Oil” will simply pass along the tax to consumers. Democrats such as Boxer offer no solution, only more pain for normal America.
Republicans, on the other hand, are calling for drilling in this country and doing so immediately. Democrats point to the fact it could take as much as five years for those wells to hit the market – but five years from today, is far better than five years beginning a decade from now.
Another factor – oil speculation – betting on the future price of oil – has been blamed for much of the increase in gasoline prices. A massive, dedicated drive to drill in America and the prospect of identifying sources of more oil than can be found in the Middle East, will kick speculators in the drawers. Hopefully, many will take a major bath financially and prices will collapse.
Democrats, meanwhile, demand more effort on alternative energy. Fine. No one suggests otherwise. But for the foreseeable future, America will run on oil whether liberals like it or not. Democrats whine about dangers to our beaches if we deill off shore, ignoring the fact that without oil, no one can get to the beaches. They even oppose drilling in the Arctic waste lands – an area with no other potential to offer.
It should not be an insurmountable task for Republicans to explain the differences of approaches to every day voters. The choice is simple:
Drill now and for the future and escape the trap of dependence on foreign oil,
or
Enact new, punitive taxes and immediately increase gasoline prices.
The choice could not be clearer – vote Republican and support lower gas prices, or vote Democrat and get higher prices almost immediately. That’s a simple choice and one that should drive this election.
Buddy
http://www.townhall.com/Columnists/PaulJacob/2008/07/06/hitchhikers_guide_to_gas_prices_dont_panic!
Hitchhiker's guide to gas prices: Don't panic!
Paul Jacob
“Gas prices will never go down.”
“The price at the pump can only go higher.”
“High prices are here to stay.”
This seems to be the current wisdom. I hear it everywhere. There’s no need for a specific citation, for you’ve heard it too.
But why should we believe it? Gas prices have gone down in the past. Why not again?
Two words: Peak Oil.
Or make that three: Peak Oil blather.
In a Wikipedia article on gas prices, we are told that “there are now very few parties who do not acknowledge that the concept of a production peak is valid.” So what is “peak oil”?
It’s the notion that at some point the sources of petroleum in the Earth’s crust will suffer so much depletion that production must gradually grind down, spiking prices and putting a substantial crimp on oil usage. “Peak oil” would seem to be simply an obvious extrapolation from the idea of scarcity. “Few parties” deny scarcity.
Like the Laffer curve in supply-side economics, however, the relevance of Peak Oil Theory all comes down to timing. Are we quickly reaching that peak oil point? Is there any reason to believe we are there yet?
Not really.
Take the assessment by William J. Cummings, an ExxonMobil spokesman: “All the easy oil and gas in the world has pretty much been found. Now comes the harder work in finding and producing oil from more challenging environments and work areas.”
The trouble, here, is what gets covers up:
The almost certain-to-be-huge reserves to be found in less convenient places, like the deep ocean. Once perfected, techniques to retrieve deep-ocean oil will themselves come down in price, and the vast reserves we can expect to find (and are finding) will likely work to mitigate the “ever-upward” trend in prices.
And not all new sources need be in the deepest ocean beds, or the coldest Siberian plains. Higher prices have already spurred new exploration; new sources are now being prepped for exploitation. And these near-to-present supplies will likely affect prices. (When? My crystal ball is in the shop. Sorry.)
Several years ago, a year before the dot-com bust, a friend of mine heard a major speculator pooh-pooh talk of a downturn in the stock prices. “Prices will only go up and up and up.”
My friend came away from the conference with one word on his lips, repeated: “Sell, sell, sell.”
Not long after, NASDAQ collapsed along with much else. It couldn’t happen. And yet it did.
Normal cycle of boom and bust. Or boomlet and bustlet.
The same goes for oil. ABC’s Adam Shell may report that recent gasoline price rises were “unexpected” and qualify as somehow “unprecedented,” but we don’t need to buy into such ahistorical hype. Similarly, when all around you are saying the price can only go up, start thinking that the very opposite will happen.
What goes up must come down.
Now, I am no economist. Peak Oil may make little near-term sense, and its predicted forces may have negligible effect on current prices, but Peak Amateur Econ Theory Metatheory tells me that I’m about to pass the point where my supply of meaningful things to say runs out. Still, one idea remains worthy to flag onto the main drag, if for no other reason than the application of a little common sense. (I have a mild addiction to that term, by the way, not merely because I like Tom Paine, but also because I have a multimedia commentary program called Common Sense — in which I usually stay closer to my area of expertise.)
Here goes:
Every time oil prices have spiked in the past, they’ve gone down again. Often plummeting.
And let me do my journalistic duty and quote an expert, Cato scholar Alan Reynolds. “Marginal uses of oil become less and less attractive when the price goes sky high.” And this will have an effect. Has had an effect. Demand for oil in America is lower today than in 2004. And even in China, he says, high oil prices are starting to curb usage. (All those plastic products are made from good ol’ oil, and the profit margin on a lot of them is extremely thin. Costs go up? Production ceases.) Singapore production is down 6 percent.
Reynolds confirms every suspicion I’ve had that prices will fall. For every reaction, there is an opposite reaction? Something like that Newtonian idea governs economies, too. Prices rise, and demand falls, and prices then fall. If the price whoppingly spikes for a commodity like oil, a recession happens — as businesses and business projects fail in reaction to increased costs — and demand goes down, and so prices must go down.
“In the last three recessions,” says Reynolds, oil prices have “fallen by 44 to 76 percent in a reasonably short period of time. How does that happen? It crushes demand and to clear the markets the oil sellers have to accept whatever prices the market will bear.”
There you go. Very few trends always shoot ever upward. Same goes for gas prices.
Prices are rising, understandably, but they will go down again, almost certainly — perhaps even in the not-too-distant future. And by a substantial amount. Before a recession, or after it? Reynolds claims you don’t need a full-blown recession to spur a price fall. Will prices rocket up to $7 per gallon, first? My crystal ball, once again, ain’t handy.
I’m not vying for a gig as chief prophet, just throwing a little cold water in the face of paranoia and panic. Yes, times have gotten tougher, and may get tougher still. But if the marketplace is left free to react, we’ll not only survive, we’ll flourish.
Copyright © 2008 Salem Web Network. All Rights Reserved.
.
.
Comments