Echoes of Berlin
Lessons From A Dance Slav
Athlete Without Compelling Personal Drama Expelled from Olympics
Election Based On Merit, Not On Identity
What Free Press?
In N.H., A Deal To Close
Obama Patriotism and Worldview Declared Off-Limits
Who Started Cold War II?
Martha's Big Adventure - A Blueprint to Build Your Dream
The 3 a.m. Phone Call Is Real
A Majority Minority Nation
Too - Americas
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No Celebration For Horses At This Celebration
Leroy Sievers
Lessons From Literature
A Sad Week For Georgia, America And The World
Good And Evil And Obama
Blame Everyone But Russia!
Weekly Review
Even Health Care Can Be Outsourced
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It's A Three-Man Race: Obama Vs The Two McCains
Faith And Our Future
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Bush Bets Pakistan Will Become South Korea, Not Iran
How To Stop Putin
The Party Of McGovern, Mondale, Dukakis And Kerry
Dems Will Never Abort Pro-Choice Mission
Holier Than Thou
On Meal Diversity, Being Green, Dudists, Al's Opera, Etc.
Democratic Platform's Hidden Soros Slush Fund
Lobbyist Says Blocking Her Political Donation Is Unfair
Back-To-Back Conventions: The Great Unknown
Democrats Should Apologize For Blowing It On Surge
Pain At The Port
Report From A Forgotten War (2nd In A Series)
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Helping Boys Without Hurting Girls
Clarity Is Good, Wisdom Is Better
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Edwards: An Affair We Won't Remember
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The Rhinoceros in the Room ... RACE
Where Paternalism Makes The Grade
The Disappearing Lame Duck



Hillary's Growing Shadow
Victor Davis Hanson 8/7/2008
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Barack Obama and John McCain are running neck and neck.

Impossible?

It would seem so. Republican President Bush still has less than a 30 percent approval rating. Headlines blare that unemployment and inflation are up -- even if we aren't, technically, in a recession. Gas is around $4 a gallon. Housing prices have nosedived. Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, has been indicted -- another in a line of congressional Republicans caught in financial or sexual scandal.

Meanwhile, the GOP's presumptive candidate, John McCain, is 71 years old. The Republican base thinks he's lackluster and too liberal.

So, everyone is puzzled why the Democratic candidate isn't at least 10 points ahead. It seems the more Americans get used to Barack Obama, the less they want him as president -- and the more Democrats will soon regret not nominating Hillary Clinton.

First, Obama was billed as a post-racial healer. His half-African ancestry, exotic background and soothing rhetoric were supposed to have been novel and to have reassured the public he was no race-monger like Al Sharpton. On the other hand, his 20-year career in the cauldron of Chicago racial politics also guaranteed to his liberal base that he wasn't just a moderate
Colin Powell, either.

Yet within weeks of the first primary, the outraged Clintons were accusing Obama of playing "the race card" -- and vice-versa. Blacks soon were voting heavily against Hillary Clinton. In turn, Hillary, the elite Ivy League progressive, turned into a blue-denim working gal -- and won nearly all the final big-state Democratic primaries on the strength of working-class whites.

Americans also learned to their regret how exactly a Hawaiian-born Barack Obama -- raised, in part, by his white grandparents and without African-American heritage -- had managed to win credibility in what would become his legislative district in Chicago. That discovery of racial chauvinism wasn't hard once his former associate, his pastor for over 20 years, the racist Rev. Jeremiah Wright, spewed his venom.

Obama himself didn't help things as he taught the nation that his dutiful grandmother was at times a small-minded bigot -- no different from a "typical white person." And in an impromptu riff, Obama ridiculed small-town working-class Pennsylvanians' supposed racial insularity.

The primary season ended with a narrow Obama victory -- and a wounded, but supposedly wiser, Democratic candidate.

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Radioactive Racial Politics COLOR
By Nate Beeler - The Washington Examiner * Posted 08/01/2008
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Posted By: Helen  on Wednesday, August 13, 2008

At this point I think the weaknesses he may show are far less significant than our reputation in the world.  I travel a lot to other countries and I am always embarrassed by our current administration.  At least Barack Obama can have an intellignet conversation with world leaders.  Was anyone more embarrased then when GWB told the Pope he just gave an "awesome" speech?