Oh, wait. No, not really. None of those things have really happened. I was shocked to see The Hill, a site I read regularly for its impartiality, and whose Associate Editor, A.B. Stoddard, I have admired for her intellect. The premise of the article by Peter Schroeder is this:

President Obama, with his electoral fate tied to the economy, must be pleased with the momentum he’s getting.

Just months ago, the U.S. credit rating was downgraded and Democrats worried Obama was following in the footsteps of one-term President Jimmy Carter. Maybe he will, but reports in the last week suggest manufacturing and construction are humming, and Thanksgiving saw record-setting shopping by consumers.

The icing on the cake? A jobs report Friday shaved nearly half a point off the unemployment rate. The 8.6 percent rate was down from 9 percent in October and is the lowest unemployment has stood in two and a half years. (Emphasis mine.)

“Democrats have a very good chance in 2012 and if the economy gets better that’ll help us,” said Rep. Norm Dicks (D-Wash.). “Things are looking a lot better. A lot better.”

“The icing on the cake?” Really? He is promoting this false meme that the artificially reduced Unemployment numbers put forth by the Obama Administration (and which Larry Johnson thoroughly debunks in this post, “Delusional America“)? Is it really good news for Obama that over 300,000 people have given up hope of ever finding a job again? That’s a GOOD thing? In what universe? ObamaMedia World? Evidently. I was just appalled to see a site like The Hill pushing this crock of BS for Obama and the Democrats. This wasn’t an opinion piece, after all, it was allegedly “reporting.” Reporting Democratic talking points, maybe, but not the facts, or reality. At the very BEST, the number is now at 8.9%, and even that is pushing it (according to Eric Bolling on “The Five”).

These kinds of machinations by the Democrats are really mind boggling. It wasn’t so long ago that I would have bought this crap they are selling, being a dyed in the wool Dem and all. But no longer. I simply cannot understand how the Party that claims to be SO compassionate is CELEBRATING people giving up out of despair. How is that good in ANYONE’S world?

This does seem to be the Democrats’ MO, though. This kind of hoodwinking, that is. This instance has to do with the economy, riding a wave of glee on the backs of those who have given up. My good friend, CindyIndie, sent me an article about an issue in Texas that highlights more of this double-speaking machination that seems to be SOP. This one deals with their “concern” for minority presence and leadership in politics. The title gives a hint, “Opportunity Lost To End The White-Guy Streak.” Yes, and that opportunity was lost due to an appeal by the Democrats:

For a while there, before a three-judge federal panel did some three-judge federal paneling, the good and progressive people of Travis County (long self-congratulatory about their goodness and progressivity) seemed en route to ballot-box ethnic history.

[...]

This, of course, was all about Republican self-interest and had nothing to do with wanting to break the white-man streak in Travis County. But facts are facts, and regardless of why it happened (largely to stick it to longtime U.S. Rep. Lloyd Doggett, D-Austin, a longtime white man), the map offered a solid possibility of electing an African American and two Hispanics to a five-person (up from the current three) Travis County U.S. House delegation.

To jack with Doggett, the GOP drew a Hispanic-heavy San Antonio-Austin district in which state Rep. Joaquin Castro, D-San Antonio, had a solid shot at beating Doggett in the Democratic primary. The map also brought into Travis County a multicounty, northward meandering district now represented by Republican Bill Flores of Waco.

The Travis County map also included a greatly rejiggered multicounty district in which former Railroad Commissioner Michael Williams, a black Republican, had a solid chance of winning. The other districts in the county (also multicounty districts) most likely would have continued to have been represented by Republicans Michael McCaul of Austin and Lamar Smith of San Antonio, who self-identify as white men.

So Travis County could have wound up with two white guys, two Hispanic guys and a black guy. Sure, only one of them (McCaul) now lives in the county, but hey, ethnic history is ethnic history — even if the black guy (Williams) and one of the Hispanics (Flores) are Republicans (a concept that irks some of the local good and progressive.) (Click here to read the rest.)

Well, of course it is obvious why the Democrats claimed this would affect minority representation – because we all know that Black Republicans aren’t really black, and I assume that extends to Hispanic Republicans, too. Much better to have a paternalist White Guy represent your interests – they do so well with that. Just look at Women’s Issues and how well our Congress has handled that (e.g., equal pay is still a dream).

Honestly, I don’t know how in the world the Democrats could have even made this argument to the Panel with straight faces. Maybe they didn’t. Maybe there were lots of winks, guffaws, and “dontcha knows” thrown in there. Beats me. But apparently, it is a mindset that allows them to say these things, much like this pronouncement from The Hill’s “Signs” article:

[snip] Democrats have felt the swing in momentum.

Rep. Sander Levin (D-Mich.) said the president’s chances for reelection have “improved” with the economy, while Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) says voters will see the president has things moving in the right direction.

“The economy is not where we want it to be, but it’s at least stable and slowly but surely going in the right direction,” Cummings told The Hill. (Click here to read the rest.)

Uh, yeah, just keep telling yourselves that. I suppose these folks also still believe in Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, and the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, which they are presumably counting on to help ease our massive debt, which is now 100% of our GDP. Yeah, sure, the economy is doing GREAT! Just peachy! Just tell all of those folks who are first time filers for Unemployment, those who dropped out, and those who have lost their homes. I am so certain they will all agree with Levin and Cummings, aren’t you? Cough, cough. Uh huh. Maybe it is time for them to take off their rose colored glasses, and try looking at reality for a change. Just a thought. What do you think?

Except it hasn’t. Nope. Turns out that the unemployment number is more like 17%, particularly when one factors in the underemployed. Add to that people who have been on Unemployment for 99 weeks, much less those who have exceeded that time, and it paints a bleak picture indeed:

To hear these stories is just heartbreaking, isn’t it? Some states are suffering more than others. For instance, the state of California has an unemployment rate closer to 22%. One can understand, then, why Jerry Brown’s economic remedy is this (h/t to Gina):

“If we can find some more money, we can dish it out.”

Wow. And he’s currently leading Meg Whitman in CA? For real?? Holy moley. I am sure that is a comfort to those who are currently in need. Ahem. That is one heckuva plan there, Brownie.

And speaking of Jerry Brown, if I may digress for a moment, check out this little news clip (again, h/t to Gina):

“Yawn – I just can’t be bothered talking any more about my aide calling former CEO, and fellow gubernatorial candidate, Meg Whitman a whore. What’s the big deal, anyway?? Sheesh. Get off it already.”

Ah, yes – I can see why N.O.W. endorsed him over Whitman, can’t you? (That’s snark, btw…)

Back to the issue at hand. Not only is the actual number much higher than is generally claimed by this Administration, but many of these people currently unemployed have been out of work for over a year. Imagine that – out of work for over a YEAR. Even with unemployment compensation, that fundamentally changes how one lives. Some of you know all too well what that is like, how heartbreaking, frustrating, and demeaning that is, even when the loss of the job is not performance related (and in this economy, that is the case for most folks).

And why is the actual number being underreported? Why is Obama not focusing all of his attention on this issue, rather than, I dunno, claims that the Chamber of Commerce is trying to impact the midterm elections, and taking funds from foreign nations with ZERO proof. (Oh, and in an ironic twist of fate, guess who actually takes in more foreign money, twice as much, to be exact? You guessed it – the Democrats! Oopsie daisy.)

Let’s see. What else has Obama been focusing on rather than unemployment, and the economy in general? Oh, yes. His all-time favorite thing. Campaigning. Yep – he’s been traipsing all over this land of ours, from sea to shining sea, endorsing all manner of candidates with a “D” after their names (whether they want him to or not, I presume) in an attempt to stave off what is looking like a bad election for the Democrats.

Except for one. That would be Rhode Island Democratic candidate for Governor, Frank Capprio. Seems Obama has declined to endorse him because of his buddy, Lincoln Chafee, former Republican now Independent who endorsed Obama back in the day, who is also in the race. Oh, the White House will send out Vice President Joe Biden to assist whacky Alan Grayson down in Florida in his campaign, but not Capprio (you remember Grayson, right? He is the one who said Republicans’ health plan is for “sick people to die quickly.“). Well, Mr. Capprio isn’t taking this lying down. His response to Obama on his refusal to endorse him? “Shove it.” No, seriously – that’s what he said! “Shove it!”

I think “Shove It!” is what many Americans are going to be saying next Tuesday, too, those people who fall in the 17%, or even 22%, of the unemployed. Those who have lost their livelihoods, often their homes, and had their worlds turned upside down by this economy that Obama has been just too busy to address. No, he would rather tilt at windmills like the Chamber of Commerce boondoggle, or push his Obamacare on us, the issues involved with it coming to light every day (simply put, it’s gonna cost us a gazillion dollars), push his Cap and Trade (which will also cost us a gazillion dollars), or travel around the country on our dime to shore up (fading) support for the likes of Harry Reid, than deal with the real issues facing our country. Gee, can’t imagine why some folks might see this election as a referendum on Obama, can you?

People in this country are hurting, and hurting badly. Jobs are hard, if not impossible, to come by. Finally, at least one of the major network news sources is willing to acknowledge what some of the other stations (like Fox) have been reporting, and before an election, to boot. So, good for CBS for doing this (finally). Kinda makes you wonder just what else they are “under-reporting” or under-counting, doesn’t it? Sure does me. In this case, though, hopefully, something positive will happen in the upcoming election to help out the (almost) 1 out of 5 Americans. Better than hope, get out and vote.

So, imagine my surprise when reading my morning newspaper to see a column by Pitts about Sarah Palin that wasn’t completely negative. I admit, I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop as he discussed her new neighbor. Sure, there were some snide comments, and a few digs at her and those who support her, but overall, for someone who had been such an Obama-phile, it was pretty, well, nice. Don’t take my word for it, though. Here is his recent column on Sarah Palin and ‘Stalker’ Next Door:

There goes the neighborhood.

We do not know if that was Sarah Palin’s initial response to the news that a journalist writing a book about her had rented the house next to hers in Wasilla, Alaska. But who could blame her if it was?

As it is, the response Palin did share on Facebook seems tellingly uneven, as if Joe McGinniss’ decision to move in next door had knocked her off her game. One moment, she’s chirping with trademark insouciance about how she might bake him a blueberry pie to welcome him to the neighborhood. The next, she is talking about raising the fence between her house and his.

In the same Facebook posting, Palin also suggested, with smarmy innuendo, that from his new home, the author could see into her daughter’s bedroom. Palin did not explain why he would wish to do so.

McGinniss’ move has stirred controversy beyond Wasilla. A posting on Slate.com strongly defended his “immersion” journalism. At the other end of the opinion spectrum, the author has received death threats from angry Palin fans. Among McGinniss’ more hinged critics, the word “creepy” gets used a lot. Even in defending him, the piece on Slate.com likened him to a stalker.

Uh, yeah – I think “creepy” applies to this guy, don’t you? Shoot, even he seems to think so:

For his part, McGinniss told NBC’s Today show that “Creepy is as creepy does” — whatever that means — and portrayed his decision to rent the house next door as coincidental. He needed to live in Wasilla for the summer while doing his research, it was a great house at a great price and it just happened to be next door to the woman he is writing about.

If ever there is a Museum of Disingenuous Explanations, that one will deserve its own wing. And here, let us stipulate three things:

One, McGinniss is pulling an obvious stunt that ultimately benefits both parties: it helps him sell books, it helps her sell herself as a victim of the “lamestream” media.

Two, McGinniss is perfectly within his rights to rent this house — or any other he desires.

Three, Palin is, of her own doing, a public figure and as such, must accept intense, even intrusive media scrutiny.

But even stipulating all that, it’s hard to be sanguine about the uncomfortable nearness McGinniss has foisted upon his subject. Not that you can’t understand why he’d want to write about her. Palin is, second only to the president himself, the most compelling figure in American politics — and the most polarizing. For some, she is the folksy, straight-talkin’ avatar of conservative principles, while for others, she is the leader of an intellectually incoherent movement that has no idea where it’s going but seems in a hurry to get there.

Perhaps there is a rule for liberals of which I am unaware that requires, should one say anything neutral or even the least bit decent, some sort of put down of her, and those who actually like her. Just saying. Pitts continues:

Under neither interpretation, however, does she forfeit her humanity or her right to expect that she will be treated with basic human decency. And stalking another person — sorry, but when even your friends call you a stalker, you’re a stalker — violates that expectation. This is not immersion nor even intrusion. This is invasion.

Unfortunately, invasion has become the media’s default means of covering the rich and famous. Ask Brad Pitt, Sandra Bullock, Tom Cruise. They all enjoy the mixed blessing of being celebrities in an era where lines of propriety have been all but erased and too close is never close enough — an era where you are never out of camera range and folks seem to think themselves entitled to your deepest feelings, failings, secrets and fears, as if public people had no right to private lives. Indeed, if I were Pitt, Bullock or Cruise, I’d make offers on the houses next to mine just in case McGinniss has given somebody ideas.

We have, many of us, chosen to forget this, but the mere fact of being well known does not make an individual abstract or theoretical, nor does it absolve us of the obligation to treat them as we’d wish to be treated. People have the right to live peaceably and privately within their own walls.

Even Sarah Palin.

See what I mean? Generally decent toward Palin in the face of her stalker living next door (and I concur – if one’s own friends refer to you as a stalker, well, it’s probably true). Pitts is right, too – “even” Sarah Palin deserves some privacy from a creep like McGinniss.

And even Palin deserves to have the press treat her like a real person and not a caricature from time to time. Glad to see Pitts starting to emerge from the Hopium haze. There may be hope yet…

Fortunately, though, some people (besides us) are seeing Obama for who he is as this article highlights (h/t to LisaB), “Obama, The Thin Skinned President“. I have been saying it for ages – Obama is an incredibly petulant, immature, arrogant, narcissistic person who seems to want the perks of the job, and none of the responsibility. Hell, if Bush had said something like this, it would be ALL OVER the headlines. I would have been writing about that, too. But Obama? You know the drill: “Leave Barry ALLOOOONNNEEEE!”

Spare me.

Except these guys didn’t, thank heavens:

In their book “The Battle for America 2008,” Haynes Johnson and Dan Balz wrote this:

[Chief political aide David] Axelrod also warned that Obama’s confessions of youthful drug use, described in his memoir, Dreams From My Father, would be used against him. “This is more than an unpleasant inconvenience,” he wrote. “It goes to your willingness and ability to put up with something you have never experienced on a sustained basis: criticism. At the risk of triggering the very reaction that concerns me, I don’t know if you are Muhammad Ali or Floyd Patterson when it comes to taking a punch. You care far too much what is written and said about you. You don’t relish combat when it becomes personal and nasty. When the largely irrelevant Alan Keyes attacked you, you flinched,” he said of Obama’s 2004 U.S. Senate opponent.

I thought of this memo after reading the comment by Sen. Pat Roberts after he and other Senate Republicans had a contentious 80-minute meeting with the president on Tuesday. “He needs to take a Valium before he comes in and talks to Republicans,” Roberts said. “He’s pretty thin-skinned.”

Sen. Roberts is being too generous. Obama is among the most thin-skinned presidents we have had, and we see evidence of it in every possible venue imaginable, from one-on-one interviews to press conferences, from extemporaneous remarks to set speeches.

The president is constantly complaining about what others are saying about him. He is upset at Fox News, and conservative talk radio, and Republicans, and people carrying unflattering posters of him. He gets upset when his avalanche of faulty facts are challenged, like on health care. He gets upset when he is called on his hypocrisy, on everything from breaking his promise not to hire lobbyists in the White House to broadcasting health care meetings on C-SPAN to not curtailing earmarks to failing in his promises of transparency and bipartisanship.
In Obama’s eyes, he is always the aggrieved, always the violated, always the victim of some injustice. He is America’s virtuous and valorous hero, a man of unusually pure motives and uncommon wisdom, under assault by the forces of darkness.
It is all so darn unfair.

Not surprisingly, Obama’s thin skin leads to self pity. As Daniel Halper of The Weekly Standard pointed out, in a fundraising event for Sen. Barbara Boxer, Obama said,

Let’s face it: this has been the toughest year and a half since any year and a half since the 1930s. (Emphasis mine)

Really, now? Worse than the period surrounding December 7, 1941 and September 11, 2001? Worse than what Gerald Ford faced after the resignation of Richard Nixon and Watergate, which constituted the worse constitutional scandal in our history and tore the country apart? Worse than what Ronald Reagan faced after Jimmy Carter (when interest rates were 22 percent, inflation was more than 13 percent, and Reagan faced something entirely new under the sun, “stagflation”)? Worse than 1968, when Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr. were assassinated and there was rioting in our streets? Worse than what LBJ faced during Vietnam — a war which eventually claimed more than 58,000 lives? Worse than what John Kennedy faced in the Bay of Pigs and in the Cuban Missile Crisis, when we and the Soviet Union edged up to the brink of nuclear war? Worse than what Franklin Roosevelt faced on the eve of the Normandy invasion? Worse than what Bush faced in Iraq in 2006, when that nation was on the edge of civil war, or when the financial system collapsed in the last months of his presidency? Worse than what Truman faced in defeating imperial Japan, in reconstructing post-war Europe, and in responding to North Korea’s invasion of South Korea?

That isn’t “thin-skinned” – that is DELUSIONAL. He honestly thinks he has had more to deal with in the past 80 years than Roosevelt during a little thing he may have heard of, World War II??? Or how about Vietnam? The WORLD TRADE TOWERS??? Seriously? Wow. Yep, I’d say he’s delusional. Back to the article:

In his autobiography “Present at the Creation,” Dean Acheson wrote about the immensity of the task the Truman administration faced after war ended in 1945, which “only slowly revealed itself. As it did so, it began to appear as just a bit less formidable than that described in the first chapter of Genesis. That was to create a world out of chaos; ours, to create half a world, a free half, out of the same material without blowing the whole to pieces in the process.”

For Obama to complain that the problems he faces are so much worse than any other president in the last 80 years is stunningly self-indulgent, to say nothing of ahistorical.

With Obama there is also the compulsive need to admonish others, to point fingers, to say that the problems he faces are not of his doing. Oh, sure; on occasions there are the grudging concessions, like in Thursday’s press conference devoted to the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, where Obama says, “In case you’re wondering who’s responsible, I take responsibility” to ensure that “everything is done to shut this down.” But those words are always pro forma, done reluctantly and for tactical political reasons, a rhetorical trick that is meant to get him off the hook. As recently as last week, Obama, in the Rose Garden, was implicitly blaming the previous occupant of the White House for the explosion of the offshore rig Deepwater Horizon [Obama remarks linked here].

The president’s instincts are by now obvious to all: deflect blame, point fingers, and lash out at others, most especially his predecessor. We know from press reports (see here and here) that the strategy for the Democrats in 2010, two years after Obama was elected president, is to – you guessed it – blame George W. Bush.
What explains all this is hard to know. But it’s clear he has adopted an image of himself as something rare and remarkable, a historic figure of almost super-human abilities. “I am absolutely certain that generations from now,” Obama said during the summer of his presidential run, “we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment when we began to provide care for the sick and good jobs to the jobless; this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal; this was the moment when we ended a war and secured our nation and restored our image as the last, best hope on earth.”
“We are the ones we have been waiting for,” Obama and his aides said constantly during the campaign.

Hmmm. Yes, this simply adds credence to my contention that he is delusional. He really does seem to think he is some kind of Messiah figure. The whole “rise of the oceans began to slow” (because it was loaded down with oil, apparently) thing is just scary shit. There is no other way to describe it. And yet his “Resistance Is Futile” Obots didn’t bat an EYE at this Messianic statement. What does that say about them?? Oh, I think we all know that, too. And they walk among us. That’s pretty damn scary, too. They think he’s dreamy, after all, because they haven’t bother to really look, or to believe their own eyes and ears when faced with a ton of information to the contrary. So here we are, stuck with this man:

President Obama’s more unattractive personal qualities probably won’t wear well with the electorate. Americans tend to tire of those who are look back rather than ahead and are always blaming others for the problems they face.

Barack Obama — a man who was as unprepared to be president as any man in our lifetime — has over the last 16 months shown that he is overmatched by events. His poll numbers continue to drop, his health care proposal is becoming less rather than more popular, the oil spill in the Gulf is badly eroding his image for leadership and competence, and his party has been battered in election after election since November. We have now reached the point where Democrats are running against Obama and his agenda in order to survive (witness Mark Critz in Pennsylvania).

We can hope that Obama, an intelligent man, learns from the errors of his ways. But the great danger in all of this is that in the face of his troubles Obama and his aides become increasingly defensive, display a greater sense of entitlement and even a touch of paranoia. When arrogant men lose control of events it can easily lead to feelings of isolation, to striking out at critics, to bullying opponents, and to straying across lines that should not be crossed.

And so the president needs to surround himself with people who can tamp down on the uglier impulses within his administration, who are willing to tell Obama that the lore created by him, Axelrod, Plouffe, and Gibbs during the campaign has given way to reality, that cockiness is not the same as wisdom, and that spin is no substitute for substantive achievements. And Obama needs someone who has standing in his life to tell him that the presidency is a revered institution that should not be treated as if it were a ward in Chicago.

The ingredients are in place for some serious problems down the road. Those who care for the president need to recognize the warning signs now, sooner rather later, before it becomes too late, for him and for the nation.

“Intelligent”? Why oh why do we keep hearing THAT meme? How has he proven this “intelligence” thus far, I’d like to know? Tell me. Oh, sure, he got the DNC to support him, or the DNC PICKED him, more like it, knowing what an empty suit he is, and could be molded to do their bidding. But that isn’t necessarily “intelligence.” He couldn’t come up with his own policies, for crying out loud, so resorted to stealing from the REAL intelligent person in the race, then got the MSM to give him the credit. Again, not “intelligent.” There are other words for that. Corrupt, unethical, morally bankrupt (oh, sorry – that’s two words), conniving, duplicitous, and I could go on. Feel free to add your own. But none of those in and of themselves are markers of intelligence.

Bottom line though, is this: What in the hell is WRONG with this man? HOW in the hell did he get the most powerful job in the world?? WHO would want him to have this much power? And how are we going to recover from him being president? These are the questions with which we must wrestle, and so, so many more. Wow. “Thin-skinned” is the very least of what Obama is…

My fellow writers and I have posted many stories these last two years detailing the same Obama shortcomings that Mr. Fineman covers here. But of course, we are just bloggers, the people who spread rumors and complain without cause. Right? In February I posted The Cost of Enabling Obama, detailing the dangers of pushing his cult of personality with no vetting. He had just been inaugurated and big media was still honeymooning, defending President Obama’s every move. That phase is over – much to the chagrin and dismay of our Celebrity-in-Chief.

Fineman states:

If ubiquity were the measure of a presidency, Barack Obama would already be grinning at us from Mount Rushmore. But of course it is not. Despite his many words and television appearances, our elegant and eloquent president remains more an emblem of change than an agent of it.
[snip]
The president’s problem isn’t that he is too visible; it’s the lack of content in what he says when he keeps showing up on the tube. Obama can seem a mite too impressed with his own aura, as if his presence on the stage is the Answer. There is, at times, a self-referential (even self-reverential) tone in his big speeches.

The phrase, “words, just words,” springs to mind. Fineman actually agrees with his conservative WaPo colleague Charles Krauthammer that our President is just a tad narcissistic. Fineman notes Obama’s “endless, worthy to-do list—health care, climate change, bank reform, global capital regulation, AfPak, the Middle East,” as yet has “no boxes checked “done.””

This is a problem that style will not fix. Unless Obama learns to rely less on charm, rhetoric, and good intentions and more on picking his spots and winning in political combat, he’s not going to be reelected, let alone enshrined in South Dakota.

Re-elected? Fineman states that reaching back rather than forward and making President Bush “the bogeyman” is “starting to sound more like an excuse than an explanation.”

Members of Obama’s own party know who Obama is not; they still sometimes wonder who he really is.

They never knew who he was. His proposals were and are, shall we say, elastic. Shame on them. They kicked the more qualified candidate to the curb when they had no idea who they were voting for or if he had a clue how to do the job.

In Washington, the appearance of uncertainty is taken as weakness—especially on Capitol Hill, where a president is only as revered as he is feared. Being the cool, convivial late-night-guest in chief won’t cut it with Congress, an institution impervious to charm (especially the charm of a president with wavering poll numbers). Members of both parties are taking Obama’s measure with their defiant and sometimes hostile response to his desires on health care. Never much of a legislator (and not long a -senator), Obama underestimated the complexity of enacting a major “reform” bill. Letting Congress try to write it on its own was an awful idea. As a balkanized land of microfiefdoms, each loyal to its own lobbyists and consultants, Congress is incapable of being led by its “leadership.” It’s not like Chicago, where you call a guy who calls a guy who calls Daley, who makes the call. The president himself must make his wishes clear—along with the consequences for those who fail to grant them.

Are you telling me Fineman just figured this out? We saw this coming from our living room couches nearly two years ago and we were not getting paid a salary to do it. You’d think someone who does this for a living would be a bit more perceptive. Fineman notes Obama’s admiration for President Reagan, who made his wishes perfectly clear when he took office and did not outsource his policies to the likes of a Nancy Pelosi.

Obama seems to think he’ll get credit for the breathtaking scope of his ambition. But unless he sees results, it will have the opposite effect—diluting his clout, exhausting his allies, and emboldening his enemies.

Again, Obama wants us to “applaud the tenor for clearing his throat.” Fineman states that cap and trade is dead for this year, health care is a long way from passage and his banking legislation reform isn’t making much headway either. He concludes:

Doing Letterman again won’t help. It may boost the host’s ratings, Mr. President, but probably not your own.

To make matters worse, the very teacher’s unions who helped to elect the President are now criticizing him regarding his new education proposals. You will not believe the title of the article in WaPo: Unions Criticize Obama’s School Proposals as Bush 3.

Ouch. How many times have all us wacky bloggers called him the same thing. Read the article here. The teacher’s unions now agree with us? Curiouser and curiouser.

A few days ago, the Los Angeles Times posted an article: Was Hillary Right on Iran? reminding everyone of Hillary’s efforts during the primary to caution Americans about the dangers of buying into the naivete of Obama’s foreign policy. Now they want to quote her? Now they want to stop making fun of her? Now they say she was right?

Now what do we do?

Yes, experience and policy knowledge actually do count for something. I guess all her “tea parties” all these years counted for something, too. Now she’s stuck making the best of the “new direction” he purports to represent.

Please pardon my dust for being a broken record, but I’ll repeat now what I wrote then: It is not possible for someone so inexperienced, with limited understanding of the tangled economic issues we face, a less than sophisticated understanding of foreign policy, or even the machinations of Congress, a man with no governing or executive experience, and precious little legislative experience to be able to step up to the plate at this critical juncture and perform miracles. Even to perform decently. That would be ridiculous. Nothing in President Obama’s life thus far has trained him for these challenges.

The true problem, greater than all of the above, is that his pathology involves his believing naively, or narcissistically, in his own ability to move mountains on the force of his own personality. And further, that the DNC elite and the media enabled him at every turn to believe this was true.

President Obama is going to Denmark to pitch for Chicago to host the Olympics in 2016, he is still campaigning 24/7 with a smile plastered on his face, pitching the same talking points that lack the same substance they lacked for the past two years. He has only had one conversation with Gen. McChrystal since he took command of the war in Afghanistan. As Commander in Chief, Obama appears to be taking the same level of interest he did when he was head of that subcommittee on European Affairs/Afghanistian while he was campaigning — the one where he did not hold one meeting in two years.

What has changed? Who is in charge if he is out there playing salesman in chief? And now Fineman et al want to tell the President to get off the TV screen and get down to work? Why? They enabled his “brand” at every turn. No wonder any news organization that has been mindlessly defending these actions has seen their readership and viewership take a nosedive.

Maybe we need a new influx of people in the pundit class. Fineman, Milbank, Olbermann, Matthews, Maddow, Alter, Klein, Mitchell, Kurtz, Dowd, Quinn, Noonan, Rich, Reich and the rest were too busy as Joan Walsh put it “singing along with his lyrics” to bother looking at him in an objective fashion. It is inexcusable that these pundits dare to complain about Obama now. The insults they directed at anyone not falling in line for their chosen candidate were and are disgraceful. How many of us lost friendships last year or were attacked because we refused to be a part of “Buying Brand Obama.” This is not about apologies or “I told you so.” This is about a genuine worry for our country and the direction it is taking under more inadequate and disingenuous leadership.

If a majority of voters insist on continuing to vote for style over substance, the prognosis is not good. Wake up, America.

Well, and if that didn’t just beat all, dangit – I switched the channel to NOT have to watch him go on and on – and there he was on a COMMERCIAL. I thought I was safe going over to ESPN. Apparently not. Blech.

I swear, though, if I see that damn “Cha, Cha, Cha, Cha Chia” Obama commercial one more time, well, I’m not sure my tv is safe. And when they claim it’s a “great opportunity” to get one? Well, yes SOMEONE is being opportunistic, but I don’t think it is the buyer. Ahem.

Then there are the Sunday morning news shows. Because Obama hasn’t gotten his face on tv ENOUGH this week, or gone on and on about this faulty plan enough, he has to ruin our Sunday morning, too. On every channel except for Fox and Telemundo, as I understand it. Huh. Wassup with that? Ahahahahaha…

Oh – and about the SC representative who shouted out “You lie” Wednesday night, Joe Wilson? I admit, I had never heard of him before. The only Joe Wilson with whom I was familiar was the Ambassador, husband to Valerie Plame Wilson. But one thing’s for sure – he spoke the truth. Every day brings a new way in which that comes out.

And it isn’t like it hasn’t happened before, for heaven’s sake. Yes, a breach of decorum, but Democrats are hardly blameless as this post from Mere Rhetoric highlights. It’s happened. And it happened during The One’s Big 263rd Speech. It wasn’t right, but it wasn’t racism, either.

Hypocrisy is hardly the purview of one party, and the Democrats have made that ABUNDANTLY clear, especially with their little resolution denouncing Rep. Wilson, or whatever the heck it was they did to him. This is getting mighty tiresome, and it hasn’t even been a year yet. Oh, dang.

All I can say is: Thank heavens for Yankees baseball, and the incredible achievement of Derek Jeter. The night of the “big” speech, it allowed me to avoid the breathless adoration of the Obamaphants. Yes, my beloved Derek Jeter, the Captain of the Yankees, tied the Iron Horse’s record of 2,721 hits, which he has now surpassed. Unbelievable. And all the while he has been amassing these hits, with every milestone, his response has been the same – it is all about the team. Anyway, here is the big moment:

Pretty cool, right? Now that I could watch all day. Obama? Not so much.

How about you – are you as sick of seeing him spewing the same hollow crapola day in and day out? What else is on your mind?

Rather, the point of the Editorial has to do with an upcoming Supreme Court decision:

The Supreme Court may be about to radically change politics by striking down the longstanding rule that says corporations cannot spend directly on federal elections. If the floodgates open, money from big business could overwhelm the electoral process, as well as the making of laws on issues like tax policy and bank regulation.

The court, which is scheduled to hear arguments on this issue on Wednesday, is rushing to decide a monumental question at breakneck speed and seems willing to throw established precedents and judicial modesty out the window.

Corporations and unions have been prohibited from spending their money on federal campaigns since 1947, and corporate contributions have been barred since 1907. States have barred corporate expenditures since the late 1800s. These laws are very much needed today. In the 2008 election cycle, Fortune 100 companies alone had combined revenues of $13.1 trillion and profits of $605 billion. That dwarfs the $1.5 billion that Federal Election Commission-registered political parties spent during the same election period, or the $1.2 billion spent by federal political action committees.

Uh, okay. Is it really possible that the Editors are unaware just how much money Obama spent to buy the White House in the last election? Are they unaware that he violated one of his campaign promises to forego Public Financing? Did they even BOTHER to look up just how much money Obama GOT from corporations?? Evidently not. Hence their outrage at this possibility. And it goes on:

The Supreme Court has repeatedly upheld the limitations on corporate campaign expenditures. In 1990, in Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce, and again in 2003, in McConnell v. Federal Election Commission, it made clear that Congress was acting within its authority and that the restrictions are consistent with the First Amendment.

In late June, the court directed the parties to address whether Austin and McConnell should be overruled. It gave the parties in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission a month to write legal briefs on a question of extraordinary complexity and importance, and it scheduled arguments during the court’s vacation.

All of this is disturbing on many levels. Normally, the court tries not to decide cases on constitutional grounds if they can be resolved more simply. Here the court is reaching out to decide a constitutional issue that could change the direction of American democracy.

The Editors are sure right about that – it IS “disturbing on many levels.” I just don’t get why they didn’t get so exercised about this say, oh, two years ago. I guess I’m just nitpicky that way.

And their concern continues:

The court usually shows great respect for its own precedents, a point Chief Justice John Roberts made at his confirmation hearings. Now the court appears ready, without any particular need, to overturn important precedents and decades of federal and state law.

The scheduling is enormously troubling. There is no rush to address the constitutionality of the corporate expenditures limit. But the court is racing to do that in a poorly chosen case with no factual record on the critical question, making careful deliberation impossible.

Most disturbing, though, is the substance of what the court seems poised to do. If corporations are allowed to spend from their own treasuries on elections — rather than through political action committees, which take contributions from company employees — it would usher in an unprecedented age of special-interest politics.

Corporations would have an enormous say in who wins federal elections. They would be able to use this influence to obtain subsidies, stimulus money and tax loopholes and to undo protections for investors, workers and consumers. It would take an extraordinarily brave member of Congress to stand up to agents of big business who then could say, quite credibly, that they would spend whatever it takes in the next election to defeat him or her.

The conservative majority on the court likes to present itself as deferential to the elected branches of government and as minimalists about the role of judges. Chief Justice Roberts promised the Senate that if confirmed he would remember that it’s his “job to call balls and strikes and not to pitch or bat.”

If the court races to overturn federal and state laws, and its well-established precedents, to free up corporations to drown elections in money, it will be swinging for the fences. The American public will be the losers.

Well,I don’t know about you, but this seems just a tad disingenuous to me. They are railing NOW about the money corporations can spend? Do you think they gave a crap that Goldman Sachs, yes, I said, GOLDMAN SACHS, gave Obama almost $1 MILLION dollars? How about Time Warner giving him almost $600,000? The list goes on and on, which is what makes the outrage of the Editors ring just a bit hollow to me. How about you?

Now, you know I can’t abide Andrew Sullivan for a bunch of reasons. Hence my unwillingness to give him any traffic at all by even going to his site and re-posting his article here. But when I saw this blurb, and Sullivan’s arrogant, and sexist, title, I just couldn’t resist. I almost cracked up laughing that he, of all people, is getting his nose out of joint about the questions Cheney was asked in this interview. Apparently, he has forgotten just about every interview Obama has had since he began his campaign, and he was running for the highest office in the land! Cheney is not running for anything (and I hasten to add, I have absolutely NO love lost for Dick Cheney. I appreciate that he supports his daughter, her partner, and their child, but that’s about it).

Perhaps Sullivan forgot this interview by Charlie Gibson of ABC News, an outlet that uses OUR airwaves for FREE, of Obama during the campaign:

How does it feel to break a glass ceiling?
How does it feel to “win”?
How does your family feel about your “winning” breaking a glass ceiling?
Who will be your VP?
Should you choose Hillary Clinton as VP?
Will you accept public finance?
What issues is your campaign about?
Will you visit Iraq?
Will you debate McCain at a town hall?
What did you think of your competitor’s [Clinton] speech?

Oooooohhhhh – how di Obama withstand those WITHERING questions?

Or more recently, how about Brian Williams and his day at the White House, one that culminated in THIS moment:

Seriously?? He really wants to go down this road of how political interviewees are handled? How about this clip with George Stephanapoulous:

Heck, George even supplies the correct verbiage to Obama! And may I just say one more time – HOW was this man portrayed as being ELOQUENT??? Holy smokes.

Okay, one more to prove the point, if you can stomach watching Keith Olberman:

Oh, yes – that is some HARD-HITTING “journalism” there for Mr. Sullivan. Get one of the two most biased for Obama show hosts (I refuse to call Olberman a “journalist”) to lob softballs for Obama to trash the Republicans.

By the way, remember Obama’s appearance with McCain at Ground Zero? Yeah, so dignified:

I digress. Back to the whole hard-hitting journalism thing: At least Steve Kroft pointed out Obama’s inappropriate laughter here:

But he did so with a smile, and accepted that lame-ass excuse from Obama as to why he was laughing while indicating how he was going to use our money to bail out the UAW even though Americans were STRONGLY opposed to that idea.

Sullivan complains about the questions asked Cheney? Maybe he should have been so worried about the questions asked of Obama…

Michelle Obama’s arms are transformational. They are representative of a new kind of woman: strong, vigorous, intelligent and loving. And they are a mother’s arms.

It’s bad enough that the Washington Post publishes the drivel of the sniveling, stuck-up snob,Sally Quinn, but that they’re actually featuring her ode to Michelle Obama’s arms — literally and metaphorically — is too much to take. Check out the left column at the top of the home page of the Washington Post:

 
Last fall, Larry Johnson wrote how Quinn eviscerated Sarah Palin:

Last September, Larry Johnson wrote “Sally Quinn Projecting on Palin.”

Now, you’re going to have to read Larry’s entire article to get the irony of Quinn’s attacks on Palin, but here’s a sampling:

I was puzzled by the crazy attack that Sally Quinn launched on Sarah Palin, Republican V.P. nominee, because it was so over the top. Sally’s view? A woman with five kids has no business being Vice President. (Of course, no one made that argument to Joe Biden when he was a widower and single dad working in Washington as a Senator. But I digress.) Here’s Sally’s latest ranting:

Sarah Palin has five children. She is nursing her fifth child, an infant with Down syndrome. Her 17-year-old unmarried child is pregnant. Palin has spoken against sex education or the teaching of contraception. When her water broke with her Down Syndrome baby she got on a plane and flew eight hours back to Alaska, making it only hours before the birth, a risky decision for a pregnant woman of any age. After delivering one child she went back to work the next day. After the birth of her fifth child, she was back in the office after a few days.

I would like to hear what women think of her priorities. Do they believe that her first priority is as a mother or as a governor? Will her first priority be as a mother or as a Vice President or a President? One in three Vice Presidents become President. John McCain is a 72-year-old cancer survivor. As Vice President, Palin could ascend to the highest office in the land at any moment. Do women believe she should relegate her job to second place or her children to second place? Does she have to make such a choice? Every woman, and particularly every woman who works, including me, understands that the conflicts and the guilt are always there in a way that they are not for men.

So what’s her problem? Well, to use her logic, she’s a lousy, irresponsible mother. She was working as a journalist at the Washington Post, had a fling with the boss and married him, and then, at the advanced age of 41, had a child. …

It is well-known that Sally Quinn treated the Clintons like “trailer trash” when they attempted to join D.C. society during Bill Clinton’s two administrations.

But somehow Michelle Obama — who’s dropped the black power mantra to portray a 1950s-style motherly and wifely role — is superior?

People like Sally Quinn can’t stand — they actually fear — women who dare to stand up and take positions of authority beyond the traditional roles typically assumed by First Ladies.

I couldn’t bring myself to read all of Quinn’s column, but here’s another excerpt sent to me by Lyn:

“May I change the subject,” said a prominent Washington theologian at a recent dinner. The conversation had been high-minded — religion, philosophy, the nature of evil. “I’d like to talk about Michelle Obama’s arms,” he said.

He is a big fan of those arms. We then began a discussion about the significance of the first lady’s arms. Actually, it turned out to be equally serious. Michelle Obama’s arms, we determined, were transformational. Her arms are representative of a new kind of woman: young, strong, vigorous, intelligent, accomplished, sexual, powerful, embracing and, most of all, loving.

Today is Mother’s Day. Today we should celebrate Michelle Obama’s arms as the arms of a mother.

This is a woman who has the courage to say “I am mom in chief” and make her children and her family — unapologetically — her No. 1 priority. She is able to do this because she is so intelligent and accomplished that she doesn’t have to prove anything to anyone. She is healthy enough to be able to say, this is who I am, these are my values and my priorities. …

By all means, let’s worship as a role model a woman who has earned millions thanks solely to her husband’s political clout and who has servants waiting on her day and night.

Every mother who’s forced to work two jobs to put bread on the table will be doubtless inspired.

Via Memeorandum, and from the Los Angeles Times blog, “Top of the Ticket” — with the writer’s tongue firmly planted in his cheek in his story, “Obama official Kareem Dale confirms White House’s love for MSNBC“:

For some inexplicable reason having to do with who knows what, a widespread impression has grown among many politics fans that MSNBC and its crowd of talkers — including Chris “Thrill Up My Leg” Matthews, Norah “The GOP Is Doomed to Die” O’Donnell and Ed “It’s Time to Grind Them Into the Ground” Schultz — are somewhat in favor of President Obama.

Well, actually in complete love with the Great Change Agent.

Now, thanks to the ubiquitous cameras of C-SPAN, comes official videoed word from Kareem Dale, special assistant to the president for arts and culture and a key White House advisor on disability policy. …

CHECK OUT the 1:51 point of this video, and listen to the praise for MSNBC from Kareem Dale, “special assistant to the president for arts and culture and a key White House advisor on disability policy”:

Ironically, “Morning Joe” is probably the only MSNBC show that takes Obama to task semi-regularly. DCMediaGirl, who knows Joe Scarborough in “real life,” has praised Joe’s truth-telling abilities many times here. And some of the best segments involve Pat Buchanan and Scarborough “goin’ to town” on Obama and his administration.

As you can easily imagine, plenty of bloggers had some, um, comments about this video. One of the best “riffs” comes from Jules Crittenden in “All You Need Is Love”:

Yesterday we saw mapped out the well from which the president of the United States draws his deep thot on foreign policy. An aging fat whiny Brit of weak vertebral constitution with an unhealthy Palin obsession, also known as Andrew Sullivan. We’ve also seen this week the instruments of his wrath: The attack foo-foo dogs of the White House Press Corps. Today, it’s the object of his affection. Make that “Love.” Yeah, that’s a capital L-o-v-e … Looooooove, as a White House flack admits that’s how the Obama admin feels about MSNBC. via LA Times’ Top of the Ticket, which has the vid of Kareem Dale, special assistant to the president for arts and culture, abashedly admitting feelings … nothing more than feelings … feelings of loooooooooove!

Feeelings! Woah-oh-oh feeeeeeeeeelings! Trying to forget these … Sorry, can’t help myself. All you need is love! O, to be so lighthearted and aglow. It just makes me want to break into song! …

Here’s the amusing part: MSNBC’s ratings are dropping like a stone. If you missed it, be sure to check out PatRacimora’s “Tingle Up My Leg Award for Cable News“:

This week Fox again leads by a large margin its competitors. In primetime (8-11 p.m.), Fox News averaged 551,000 viewers in the target 25-54 year-old demographic, with MSNBC finishing a distant second with 271,000, and CNN third with 248,000. If you want to see this weeks cable news ratings, they are all here, but to save you time, Fox is first for every hour of every day. …

Of course, PatRacimora graced the story with one of her memorable cartoons. Check it out.

… and …

… in my upcoming post, more proof (as if you needed it) that the MSM are in Obama’s pocket.

And that is why I took particular delight in Andy Borowitz’s most recent piece, “Obama Quits While Ahead; Prez Resigns After Hundred Days: “It’s All Downhill From Here.” Oh, if only:

In a move that stunned both political allies and foes alike, President Barack Obama resigned today after serving 100 days in office, telling the White House press corps, “It’s all downhill from here.”

The reporters seemed stunned by the President’s decision in light of the fawning media coverage he received during his first 100 days, but the hyperbolic nature of that reportage, ironically, may have been the prime motivator behind Mr. Obama’s shocking move.

“Let’s face it, I’m not going to get better coverage than I have to date,” he said. “The only guy with a higher approval rating is that dude who landed the plane on the Hudson – or maybe that other dude who escaped from those pirates.”

Click HERE to read the rest – it is pretty funny, especially to see who has higher poll numbers than Obama!

Sigh. I guess it is easy for him to have slightly better than half approval ratings when liberals and progressives ignore: expanded faith-based initiatives, a program we detested under Bush; keeping No Child Left Behind intact, a program we have all widely decried, especially teachers; and Obama’s EXPANSION of warrantless wire-tapping on American citizens. For added irony, here is a video from Keith Olbermann, of all people, on this very thing:

Then there is the attempt to nationalize our banks, firing the CEO of a private company, and the list goes on and on. These are just off the top of my head. I am sure there are more – feel free to add them!

The point is, someone who was inexperienced and unqualified was elected president as the result of the best marketing ploy I have ever seen. His connections to: Tony Rezko; Jeremiah Wright; Bill Ayers; Khalid Rashidi; Kwame Kilpatrick; Louis Farrakhan; and James Meeks, to mention a few, all ignored. Also ignored was his massive contributions from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, as was his his dearth of a record, both as an IL state senator and a US senator (or how he got to either one of those positions – getting the qualified people kicked off with the very thinnest of reasons). His sexist behavior, and his homophobic associates, all ignored by the MSM and his followers, people who ordinarily would never give quarter to such a person (and about which I have written extensively here. To find those posts, and other related articles by fellow No Quarter writers on those issues, and Obama’s associates, feel free to do a Search at No Quarter.).

Oh, what might have been. Below are a few very good videos on Hillary Clinton, the one who received the most votes in a Primary EVER, despite being outspent at every turn, and having the MSM expose its Clinton Derangement Syndrome at every turn. Still, STILL, she received the most votes of anyone EVER. That says something, both about her, and about the DNC’s choice to pick Obama over her, for all of their concocted reasons and unethical machinations to make it so. In recognition, then, of Obama’s 100 Days in the White House, I hope these will bring a smile to your face (though they also brought tears to my eyes):

Today on Glenn Beck, Kathy Barkulius was on to tell Glenn about her interaction with that CNN “reporter” named Susan Roesgen. Kathy is the one who confronted Susan after she tried to SAVAGE the fellow tea-party goer, who was holding his son, and basically tried to shut him up with DNC talking points. Kathy wasn’t going to stand for it, so after CNN’s cameras quit rolling, Kathy made her stand and gave Ms. Roesgen a piece of her mind! You can find the original video of the confrontation elsewhere on YouTube.

Here are more videos and excellent tidbits I’ve found on Roesgen. But my primary question remains: WHY is she still listed at CNN as a reporter?

Here’s a fun mash-up of Roesgen and Keith Olbermann:

Here’s “Susan Roesgen: A Disgrace to All Professional Journalists”:

Here’s “Shep Smith Responds to Diss from CNN’s Susan Roesgen!”:

The Washington Times has a great report, “Inside Blogotics“:

“Poor little Susan Roesgen had a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day!” quipped self-described “Queer Conservative” Kevin.

In a famous clip that CNN has being trying to scrub from the Internet on copyright grounds, Ms. Roesgen asked a man holding his toddler why he was protesting, interrupted him with “what does that have to do with taxes?” and told him that Illinois will get billions from President Obama’s stimulus bill (the taxes will come from other states, obviously).

She signed off with, “I think you get the general tenor of this, uh, it’s anti-government, anti-CNN, since this is highly promoted by the rightwing conservative network Fox and since I can’t really hear much more, I think this is not really family viewing, toss it back to you, Kera.”

“Unreal,” muttered Allahpundit at Hot Air.

“The title of the clip is ‘CNN Reporter Roughed Up at Chicago Tea-Party,’ which, as youll see, is a transparent lie unless you consider the crowd yelling at her to stop cutting off the people shes interviewing as ‘rough.’ But that’s par for the course for the narrative being organized here: A nasty, violent, ignorant crowd, all doing the bidding of CNNs sinister competitor. Stay classy, Turnerites,” he said.

Ace of Spades asks, “Is she there as a representative of CNN or of the Obama Administration? And is there a meaningful distinction between the two?”

Nor, Ace pointed out, was this Ms. Roesgen’s first run-in in recent days with protesters whom she doesn’t get. “Earlier, she couldn’t believe that pious Catholics at Notre Dame would object to the nation’s top constitutional abortionist speaking at that Catholic school,” Ace wrote, referring to an exchange that ended with her saying: “Can you believe that, Wolf, they’re actually praying that God will change the heart and mind of President Obama to make him pro-life?”

WE ARE LIVE NOW! CLICK ON THE ARROW TO JOIN US!

Come on by and let your hair down. You’ll be free to RANT about what you REALLY think about Michelle and Barack’s destruction of the once-unparalleled position of the United States as the globe’s clear superpower, both real and symbolically. I, for one, can’t take it anymore. Be sure to share what you’ve been saying and e-mailing to friends and family. Copy and paste any especially Obama-damning e-mails or blog comments you’ve written.

Here is how the AAPOR defines the Bradley effect on page 53 of the report:

the tendency for respondents to report a preference for a black candidate (Obama) but vote instead for a white opponent.

And here is what their extensive and rigorous report found (pages 53-54):

Several compelling pieces of evidence suggest that the New Hampshire estimation errors were probably not caused by the “Bradley effect” – or the tendency for respondents to report a preference for a black candidate (Obama) but vote instead for a white opponent. A meta-analysis by Hopkins (2008) indicates that while the Bradley effect did undermine some state-level polls in previous decades, there is no evidence for such an effect in recent years. In the 2008 general election, the very accurate final poll estimates of Barack Obama’s fairly decisive victory over John McCain dispelled suspicion that the Bradley effect was at play during the final weeks of the fall contest. There is also a conspicuous lack of evidence for a Bradley effect in the primary contests outside of New Hampshire. Of the 81 polls conducted during the final 30 days of the Iowa, South Carolina, California, and Wisconsin contests, the vast majority (86%) over-estimated Clinton’s relative vote share, while just 14% over-estimated Obama’s relative vote share. This finding is based on the signed direction of A for each survey.26 Furthermore, as reported in Table 3, poll estimates of Obama’s vote share in New Hampshire were quite accurate – it was only Clinton’s share that was consistently underestimated.

Here is Table 3 (page 14):

In poll after poll Hillary Cinton’s support was undersampled while Obama’s support was correctly sampled. It was not that her supporters lied to pollsters; they were simply not contacted.

Pollster.com offers this summary of the report:

• Given the compressed caucus and primary calendar, polls conducted before the New Hampshire primary may have ended too early to capture late shifts in the electorate’s preferences there.
• Most commercial polling firms conducted interviews on the first or second call, but respondents who required more effort to contact were more likely to support Senator Clinton. Instead of continuing to call their initial samples to reach these hard‐to‐contact people, pollsters typically added new households to the sample, skewing the results toward the opinions of those who were easy to reach on the phone, and who more typically supported Senator Obama.
• Non‐response patterns, identified by comparing characteristics of the pre‐election samples with the exit poll samples, suggest that some groups who supported Senator Clinton–such as union members and those with less education–were under‐ represented in pre‐election polls, possibly because they were more difficult to reach.
• Variations in likely voter models could explain some of the estimation problems in individual polls. Application of the Gallup likely larger error than was present in the unadjusted data. The influx of first-time voters may have had adverse effects on likely voter models.

Hillary’s base of women, blue collar workers, union members, single mothers and the elderly were simply too difficult to contact, while young Obama supporters were always available by telephone. It was not racism or the Bradley Effect that enabled Hillary to win New Hampshire; it was that the pollsters never spoke to her base.

But the media and the Obama campaign had to accuse New Hampshire Democratic Primary voters of racism in order to minimize Hillary’s victory and racialize the race before the South Carolina primary, where the majority of Democratic voters are African-American.

Here is Mickey Kaus of Slate on January 9, 2008:

1. Bradley Effect: It seemed like a nice wonky little point when Polipundit speculated on the Reverse Bradley Effect–the idea that Iowa’s public caucuses led Dem voters to demonstrate their lack of prejudice by caucusing for Obama. Now this is the CW of the hour. Polipundit wrote:

I suspect that Obama may have scored better than he would have in a secret-ballot election, and benefited from a Reverse Bradley Effect.

New Hampshire, of course, is a secret ballot election. Voters might have told pollsters one thing but done another in private.** New Hampshirites I ran into Tuesday night mentioned that the state was very late ratifying the MLK Holiday.

Here is Andrew Kohut in the New York Times on January 10, 2008:

To my mind all these factors deserve further study. But another possible explanation cannot be ignored — the longstanding pattern of pre-election polls overstating support for black candidates among white voters, particularly white voters who are poor.…

Poorer, less well-educated white people refuse surveys more often than affluent, better-educated whites. Polls generally adjust their samples for this tendency. But here’s the problem: these whites who do not respond to surveys tend to have more unfavorable views of blacks than respondents who do the interviews….

In New Hampshire, the ballots are still warm, so it’s hard to pinpoint the exact cause for the primary poll flop. But given the dearth of obvious explanations, serious consideration has to be given to the difficulties that race and class present to survey methodology.

Here is David Kuo of the Huffington Post as votes were counted during the New Hampshire Primary:

Tonight, despite all the talk of how little race matters in this campaign, it is clear that race is still a big deal in bi-racial campaigns. And it has showed up for the first time, in a measurable way, in the 2008 presidential race.

It means that every poll — from exit polls to tracking polls — are absolutely suspect from here on out.

Here are excerpts from MSNBC on the night of the New Hampshire Primary:

ROBINSON: Well, I‘ll tell you what some people will suspect. Here you have polls, you know, the day before the primary showing Obama way ahead. And he finishes, you know, 15 points lower than that. A lot of people will suspect a “Bradley effect.”

You know, Tom Bradley…

SCARBOROUGH: Oh, Tom Bradley. You‘re…

(CROSSTALK)

ROBINSON: Not the Bill Bradley effect. We were talking about Bill Bradley‘s endorsement being, you know, not necessarily the greatest thing. I‘m talking about Tom Bradley, the mayor—African-American mayor of Los Angeles years ago, ran for governor of California. Polls showed him on election eve that he was going to cruise to victory and he lost. And Doug Wilder of—the first…

SCARBOROUGH: Wait, wait, wait, but are you really saying right now that the people of New Hampshire may have—I won‘t say, be racist, but are you saying that they did not want to go in that booth and vote for a black man? …

BRIAN WILLIAMS, NBC ANCHOR: I was just going to say, I‘ve been listening to the panel. Number one, the “Bradley effect,” whether people are going to decide it was in effect in this case is very real and talked about among people in the political business. Let‘s not forget the Gantt race in North Carolina few years ago.…

CHUCK TODD, NBC NEWS POLITICAL DIRECTOR: Well, look, you can only go back—you know, and I go back in recent history and you try to find races where you had these gigantic poll shifts, where the final pre-election polls differed so dramatically from the actual result.

And the one thing they all have in common is something that Eugene Robinson brought up earlier, and that is race.

It was Tom Bradley in California governor‘s race in 1982. The polls had him ahead—ahead by a fairly healthy margin over George Deukmejian. He ended up losing.

And Virginia governor, 1989, Doug Wilder had a double digit lead going into the final—in the final weekend. He won by a very narrow 1 point margin.

Harvey Gant, the 1990 Senate race with Jesse Helms—one of the most divisive races, frankly, that this country had on race. That was, again, pre-election polls had Gant ahead, Helms wins.

So you can‘t help but look at that—and particularly you‘ve got to wonder what this sends—the message that this could send to African-American Democrats, who may look at this and say, well, of course, that‘s what happened. You know, a lot of times when I‘ve noticed this and when you talk to African-American Democrats, they sat here and they‘ll see this race stuff a lot quicker than us in white America. And I think that this is—it‘s at least, you‘ve got to explore it. You‘ve got to look at it. History has taught us this—recent history—when it‘s come to dealing with African-American candidates.

Here is Carol Costello, Andrew Kohut and Professor Charles Ogletree on CNN’s Situation Room on January 11, 2008:

I’m Wolf Blitzer.

You’re in THE SITUATION ROOM.

Is the U.S. ready for an African-American president?

Senator Barack Obama’s strong showing so far in this campaign has many saying absolutely, yes. Others, though, say it’s too soon to tell.

Carol Costello has been looking into this story for us — you’ve been talking to a lot of people supposedly knowledgeable on this very sensitive subject.

What are they telling you?

COSTELLO: Well, it is a sensitive subject, isn’t it?

You know, most I talked with today say it is too soon to tell.

Obama seems to have transcended race, but can he in the long run?

Already, critics say Obama’s opponents are trying to create this subtle narrative of racial division. They deny it, but it illustrates how hard it is in this country to take race out of the equation.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

COSTELLO (voice-over): The Iowa caucus created all kinds of excitement surrounding Barack Obama. His win in a predominantly white state and a strong showing in another seemingly proves it — Obama can transcend race. It’s something Obama has always believed could happen.

SEN. BARACK OBAMA (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: If I have your support, if I have your energy and involvement and commitment and ideas, then I am here to tell you yes, we can in ’08.

COSTELLO: Maybe. But there are those who feel while Iowa and New Hampshire prove Obama can certainly get white votes, it doesn’t mean he can continue the trend — that Obama’s second place finish in New Hampshire, despite polls that had him coming in first, illustrates the undercurrent about race that exists in this country.

Andrew Kohut, in charge of Pew Research, has a theory. He says many of those inclined to vote for Hillary Clinton in New Hampshire were poor, uneducated whites who don’t participate in polls and who often don’t vote for blacks.

ANDREW KOHUT, PRES., PEW RESEARCH CTR.: At least race should be considered because we know that the kinds of people drawn to Mrs. Clinton are always the kinds of people who turn down surveys at pretty high rates. We don’t know much about whether the people who we don’t get are like the people that we do get.

COSTELLO: Polls about race are notoriously difficult to analyze. Take this ABC/Washington Post poll conducted before the Iowa caucus. A whopping 88 percent of Americans said race would not matter in choosing a president. But pollsters say you have to take this result with a grain of salt. Few people are willing to tell a pollster they’re racist. It reflects the Bradley effect, after Tom Bradley, a black man who ran for governor in California in 1982. Most polls showed him leading but he lost to a white male candidate.

PROF. CHARLES OGLETREE, HARVARD LAW SCHOOL: Ask Tom Bradley when he ran for governor in California. Black man, thought he could win, he didn’t. Ask Harvey Gant in North Carolina. Ask Harold Ford, Jr.

COSTELLO: Look at the stats. There is one black governor in the United States. They are nine women governors. They are 16 senators who are women. And one black man, Barack Obama.

Still, Barack Obama got plenty of votes in New Hampshire and in Iowa, which are both 95 percent white.

You could say that trumps the poll, but there are many more people yet to vote and racial under currents that are so hard to predict.

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And here is the Obama campaign as discussed in an article by Ryan Lizza in the January 21, 2008, edition of the New Yorker:

Did Obama experience a similar fate in New Hampshire? The evidence is murky, but his campaign believes the question is important enough to warrant study. When I asked a senior Obama adviser whether the Bradley effect was a possible explanation for the gap between the final poll numbers, which showed Obama leading by an average of eight points, and the ultimate outcome, he replied, “Definitely.” He added, “If so, then the question is: what’s different between Iowa and New Hampshire? It could be that the socially acceptable thing in front of your neighbor at a caucus could be different than what you do in a secret ballot. Obviously, that’s something we’re going to be trying to figure out as we go forward, primarily through polling. I know people are working on ways of asking questions about getting at people’s attitudes about race. We’re working on this.”

In other words, the Obama campaign cited the Bradley Effect in order to explain a loss, and the sycophantic media repeated the notion again and again and again. Apparently they received the memo from David Axelrod as votes were counted in New Hampshire. Too bad real analysis reveals that the Bradley Effect had no impact on the New Hampshire Primary.

Will CNN apologize? Will MSNBC apologize? Will the New York Times apologize? Will Slate apologize? And is it not a coincidence that after the Obama campaign decided race was the reason he lost the NH primary that the Clintons were accused of racism by the Obama campaign during the South Carolina primary? All of it was debunked in the report released today by the AAPOR. Will Obama and Axelrod apologize to Hillary and Bill Clinton?

I doubt anyone will apologize, for no one in the Obama administration or in the Obamamedia cares about facts. But at least all of us know that those of us who voted for Hillary during the New Hampshire primary and during the other primaries are not racist. Will they apologize to us?