The Boring Debate

By Tommy Jadoo

The first of the presidential debates failed to meet expectations.  Candidates merely confirmed the views of their voters.

After the hype, after the frenzy, after the months of building tension, tonight’s debate erupted in 90 minutes of the most dull, pedantic minutae in the history of presidential debates.  Sen. McCain performed well but despite the occasional fillibustering in which the Senator revealed a profound knowledge of history, there was no homerun.  Sen. Obama, the apogee of hope-change-new America!, was lackluster at best.

The format of the debates may be the ultimate culprit.  Perfectly dressed candidates in perfectly pressed suits behind perfectly poised podiums answering perfectly crafted questions in perfectly set time.

Where was Sarkozy v. Royal?  Bush v. Kerry?  Reagan v. Carter?

The Come Back To Reality Kid

By Tommy Jadoo

Hillary Clinton will not win the presidency. She won’t even win the nomination. Despite Pennsylvania’s double-digit win, in the grander scheme of things, there was no difference made.

During the early 90s, Bill Clinton headed into the New Hampshire Primary with allegations of an extramarital affair with Gennifer Flowers, a former Penthouse Pet and occasional actress. Sen. Paul Tsongas (D-MA) quickly gained momentum on the heels of the controversy, as evidenced by New Hampshire polls, forcing the Clintons to react in the form of a 60 Minutes interview in which they refuted the charges.

The interview singlehandedly won Governor Clinton several lost delegates and ended the momentum of Tsongas. The Governor instantly became the self-proclaimed “Comeback Kid”, a moniker which lasted with him through the battle with California’s Jerry Brown and, arguably, through the Lewinsky Scandal which saw a dip and subsequent rise in Gallup approval ratings.

Now, in the wake of his wife’s Pennsylvania double-digit win against Barack Obama, the New York Times released an article today labeling Mrs. Clinton the “Comeback Kid” and The Economist, in a play on words, “The Comeback-Again Kid”.

Last night, Charlie Rose hosted a panel of seven historians, economists, and political analysts, not one of which admitted the glaring truth: Hillary Clinton will not win. Indeed, she has no chance of winning. None.

The automatic-delegates will not risk alienating the Latte Liberals and Black Democrats that are the base of Obama’s support. If the nation’s first serious black contender for the Presidency is squeezed out on the vote of superdelegates and not the vote of the people, there will be an uprising that the Democratic Party has not seen in many years.

Many have referred to this as the most exciting Democratic race since 1969 but it is also the most damaging, with two candidates bloodying each other up (thank you, Mr. Limbaugh) in what can only result in a lose-lose situation. Neither Clinton nor Obama will emerge as a viable candidate in June, Obama bruised from the Reverend Wright/Tony Rezko/Will Ayers controversies and Clinton slashed by her own party and a potentially shunned Obama base.

Obama is fighting the wrong fight. There came a point in McCain’s campaign in which he deemed it more beneficial to run a race against the democrats rather than a race against his nearest rival, Mike Huckabee. Obama needs to do the same. If the Democratic Primary lasts until the convention, Obama will have less than 60 days to convince people that he is a more able leader than John McCain. He must recognize that Clinton can not win, and turn his attention entirely and solely upon the Arizona senator NOW. There is, quite simply, no time to waste.

The only thing Mrs. Clinton will be “coming back” to is her husband and, historically, that has proven to have been a bad bet.

Note:  Mrs. Clinton’s Pennsylvania win has since proven to be a single-digit win of 9 points rather than the 10 point lead that was projected on Tuesday night.

A New Low For Political Analysts

By Tommy Jadoo

MSNBC inviting a political analyst on to analyze the President’s singing?

If there is one group that understands comedy, it’s the Democrats. Note how the pillow comment floors the room. A million laughs!

The Utopia of the Secular Progressivist

By Tommy Jadoo

A colleague once said, “The world will be a much better place when the baby boomers die off. There will be less racism, less oppression, less discrimination.”

Oh how the days of Bill Buckley are missed.

The Chinese Stimulus Plan

By T.R. Bozarjian

Rebate checks delivered by your friendly, government, postman. A few extra bucks but, at what cost?

Tax Day is just around the corner and the IRS should witness more prompt returns than usual, almost wholly due to the Economic Stimulus Act of 2008 – a $150 billion dollar plan aimed at boosting the economy by providing rebate checks to taxpayers and tax credits to businesses.

“Tens of millions Americans will have a check in the mail,” opined House Speaker, Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) at a recent new conference. “It is there to strengthen the middle class, to create jobs and to turn this economy around.”

Americans can expect to receive anywhere from $600 to $1,200 which they will immediately spend on Chinese products. Last year, the United States imported $28.6 billion worth of goods from the number one exporter to the US – a number only expected to grow with the increasingly weak dollar and the rise of the Chinese economy as a force to be reckoned with. Since the 1970s, China’s economy has doubled every eight years and with the upcoming Beijing Olympic games bringing an increase in tourism and private capital from foreign investors, the growth rate is expected to rise exponentially.

Harvard historian, Niall Ferguson, has been reluctant to christen this the “Chinese Century”, maintaining that as long as Americans have the “technological ace in the hole”, it is not over. For this, we can only keep our fingers crossed but let us ask ourselves: Who are we fooling?

In reaction to the Plan, President Bush told reporters, “”I’ve always believed that allowing people to keep more of their own money and to use it as they see fit is the best way to help our economy grow.”

Right now, it is far too easy to extend our arms and touch something made in China. It will be even easier to extend our rebate checks and buy something made in China.

Mr. Bush, Mrs. Pelosi: We do not strengthen the herd by feeding the lions.

Hillary’s List of Lies

By DICK MORRIS

Published on TheHill.com on March 25, 2008.

The USA Today/Gallup survey clearly explains why Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) is losing. Asked whether the candidates were “honest and trustworthy,” Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) won with 67 percent, with Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) right behind him at 63. Hillary scored only 44 percent, the lowest rating for any candidate for any attribute in the poll.

Hillary simply cannot tell the truth. Here’s her scorecard:

Admitted Lies

• Chelsea was jogging around the Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001. (She was in bed watching it on TV.)

• Hillary was named after Sir Edmund Hillary. (She admitted she was wrong. He climbed Mt. Everest five years after her birth.)

• She was under sniper fire in Bosnia. (A girl presented her with flowers at the foot of the ramp.)

• She learned in The Wall Street Journal how to make a killing in the futures market. (It didn’t cover the market back then.)

Whoppers She Won’t Confess To

• She didn’t know about the FALN pardons.

• She didn’t know that her brothers were being paid to get pardons that Clinton granted.

• Taking the White House gifts was a clerical error.

• She didn’t know that her staff would fire the travel office staff after she told them to do so.

• She didn’t know that the Peter Paul fundraiser in Hollywood in 2000 cost $700,000 more than she reported it had.

• She opposed NAFTA at the time.

• She was instrumental in the Irish peace process.

• She urged Bill to intervene in Rwanda.

• She played a role in the ’90s economic recovery.

• The billing records showed up on their own.

• She thought Bill was innocent when the Monica scandal broke.

• She was always a Yankees fan.

• She had nothing to do with the New Square Hasidic pardons (after they voted for her 1,400-12 and she attended a meeting at the White House about the pardons).

• She negotiated for the release of refugees in Macedonia (who were released the day before she got there).

With a record like that, is it any wonder that we suspect her of being less than honest and straightforward?

Why has McCain jumped out to a nine-point lead over Obama and a seven-point lead over Hillary in the latest Rasmussen poll? OK, Obama has had the Rev. Wright mess on his hands. And Hillary has come in for her share of negatives, like the Richardson endorsement of Obama and the denouement of her latest lie — that she endured sniper fire d uring a trip to Bosnia. But why has McCain gained so much in so short a period of time? Most polls had the general election tied two weeks ago.

McCain’s virtues require a contrast in order to stand out. His strength, integrity, solidity and dependability all are essentially passive virtues, which shine only by contrast with others. Now that Obama and Hillary are offering images that are much weaker, less honest, and less solid and dependable, good old John McCain looks that much better as he tours Iraq and Israel while the Democrats rip one another apart.

It took Nixon for us to appreciate Jimmy Carter’s simple honesty. It took Clinton and Monica for us to value George W. Bush’s personal character. And it takes the unseemly battle among the Democrats for us to give John McCain his due.

When Obama faces McCain in the general election (not if but when) the legacy of the Wright scandal will not be to question Obama’s patriotism or love of America. It wil l be to ask if he has the right stuff (pardon the pun).

The largest gap between McCain and Obama in the most recent USA Today/Gallup Poll was on the trait of leadership. Asked if each man was a “strong, decisive leader,” 69 percent felt that the description fit McCain while only 56 percent thought it would apply to Obama. (61 percent said it of Hillary.) Obama has looked weak handling the Rev. Wright controversy. His labored explanation of why he attacks the sin but loves the sinner comes across as elegant but, at the same time, feeble. Obama’s reluctance to trade punches with his opponents makes us wonder if he could trade them with bin Laden or Ahmadinejad. We have no doubt that McCain would gladly come to blows and would represent us well, but about Obama we are not so sure.

You can get more of Dick’s columns by subscribing at DickMorris.com. Dick Morris is not affiliated with BowTieRepublican.com

That Old Black Eloquence

By Tommy Jadoo

Some are referencing it as the most critical speech on race since Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I Have A Dream”.

A Small Circle of Friends

By Tommy Jadoo

Who is Barack Obama? Like shady strangers and teenage boyfriends, we can judge him from the company he keeps.

“List Barack Obama’s legislative accomplishments now.” boomed Chris Matthews before the Texas and Ohio primaries. After the dancing, after the nervous giggling, after the side sneers, Senator Kirk Watson (D-TX) finally admitted, “I’m not going to be able to do that tonight.”

FOX’s Sean Hannity ran a segment last week in which he hit the streets of Times Square asking passerbys to do the same. The result? A series of silences and confessions. Not convinced that this was a Barack-specific phenomenon, FOX’s Alan Colmes asked an unsuspecting 18 year old to name “one McCain accomplishment”, to which the acne-faced youngster rattled off everything from campaign finance reform to newly devised strategies for the War in Iraq. Without pause. Without hesitation.

Barack Obama may have the ability to inspire, as Senator Watson opined in his feckless attempts at dodging the Matthew’s question, but Obama remains the tall, dark and mysterious stranger he was before Florida and Michigan and perhaps even before this; a classmate of Obama at Occidental college revealed the campus rumor that Obama was a Hawaiian prince.

If the contest with Hillary lasts until the Democratic National Convention, and it most likely will, Obama will have little more than nine weeks until the general election. Nine weeks to show people who he is. With Hillary listing off accomplishments at every opportunity – some, of dubious origin, filed under her term as First Lady – and McCain having one run for the presidency in which he has had plenty of time to do the same, Obama will face much difficulty no matter his openness. Is it any wonder why he hides himself beneath the cloaks of hope and change?

And so, with profound curiosity, we look to a man’s friends to determine the nature of the man himself.

William Ayers – Obama mentor and friend. Political activist and prominent member of the Weather Underground, a violent Leftist group responsible for numerous bombings of federal buildings.

Atoin “Tony” Rezko – Obama real estate partner. Restaurateur and real estate developer currently facing charges of money laundering, extortion, and fraud.

Louis Farrakhan – Obama supporter. Racist and anti-Semetic head of the Nation of Islam who has referred to Jews, Palestinians, Koreans, and Vietnamese as “bloodsuckers“. When asked to reject Farrakhan’s endorsement at the Texas-Ohio debates, Obama responded, “I can’t say to somebody that he can’t say that he thinks I’m a good guy.”

Jeremiah Wright – Obama pastor. Noted for his beliefs that American’s were responsible for the attacks of 9-11 and repeatedly shouting “God damn America!” several times during a 2003 sermon. Wright has been Obama’s pastor for nearly 20 years and married Barack and Michelle Obama in 1992.

So what does this say about Barack Obama? Well, at least he’s got Oprah.

Jeremiah Wright’s IRS Problem?

By Tommy Jadoo

Will Barack Obama’s pastor, Jeremiah Wright, face the wrath of the IRS?

IRS Tax Code: To be tax-exempt under section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code, an organization must be organized and operated exclusively for exempt purposes set forth in section 501(c)(3), and none of its earnings may inure to any private shareholder or individual. In addition, it may not be an action organization, i.e., it may not attempt to influence legislation as a substantial part of its activities and it may not participate in any campaign activity for or against political candidates.

Spitzer Resignation

By Tommy Jadoo

New York Governor Eliot Spitzer announces resignation.