It’s not that I take any glee in watching the media and the Left pound this woman. In fact, it is the savageness of their attacks that I am focused on. As they continue to rip into Mrs. Palin … have you noticed? … something ever so interesting is happening. Heretofore, the Republicans have been lukewarm about their candidate. Fundraising has been lackluster. This lack of enthusiasm has been the number-one factor that would have / could have put Obama in the White House. I know he can’t win on a straight up election -- self-professed liberals just don’t -- unless the Religious Right stays home or does some sort of Third Party thing. Clinton was the last liberal that got elected to the White House, not by a majority, but by a split vote. In those days running up to the election, no one was really sure he was a liberal anyway. He said he was moderate or progressive or some other label. The only way that I could see where Obama stood a chance of winning in this election was going to be the lack of interest and support from the Right for the Republican candidate. If the Right turned out in really low numbers, it seemed possible (if unlikely) for the Democrats to pull it out.

Then came Sarah Palin. She walked out onto that stage next to John McCain and the whole picture changed. Sarah Palin is real pleasant to look at, isn’t she? She’s a little eye-candy and that never hurt anyone with a public career. The Left, the Democrats and the other usual suspects went wild! They have been howling for blood ever since. They have been vicious and unfair and ugly beyond their own standards. The good news is that the Right has responded, and how they have responded! They have been circling the wagons around Sarah Palin in a major way. Suddenly, the whole “culture wars” thing is renewed with vigor. Even now, I can hear someone shouting “Amen” from the back.

I don’t envy Mrs. Palin the fiery furnace she is going to have to pass through, as the assaults on her keep coming in never-ending waves of rage. These assaults are against cultural values that are shared by her constituency, and the enthusiastic support that has been unleashed is phenomenal. The media attack-dogs are showing themselves for who we have known they are, and no one is making any pretense of unbiased balance. Their downward spiral will only continue.

Meanwhile, the Right-wing of the Republican Party is no longer staring out the window, wondering what they are going to do about their lack of appealing choices in the upcoming Presidential race. They are hot! Anyone listening to those nasty talk radio shows knows that the Defense of Sarah Palin, which is the defense of our traditional American values, has more passion and more vitality than we have seen in the McCain campaign so far.

The net result is amazing. John McCain is free to return to his comfort zone, talking about security and fiscal things. As the Left continues to attack Sarah Palin, they are not using their bully pulpit to gurgle their admiration of Obama. The Religious Right is back in the fray, with a compelling interest in the November election. My compliments and kudos to the campaign strategist who set this up!

But sometimes, especially in the late evenings, I like to play a few hands to unwind and de-stress. Recently, while playing, it occurred to me that there were some life lessons to learn.

The first lesson: sometimes you lose. I lose more hands than I win. In fact, I can play a perfect game and still lose. I don’t always have to lose because I make a mistake, but I don’t necessarily win just because I made no mistakes. Playing perfectly and flawlessly is not congruent with winning.

The second lesson: sometimes there is nothing to do but start over. No matter how strongly you wish it, there are times that you can’t win and you just need to begin anew. Whining doesn't help.

Lately, I have been mulling over the political correctness of diversity while playing solitaire. The good thing about playing solitaire on the computer, as opposed to the olden days when these processes had to be performed manually, is that there is no “deck of fifty-one” of Statler Brothers’ fame. Everyone who has ever played solitaire knows that you need all the cards in order to win. This alone is a beautiful example of diversity at work. There are situations that require a black six or a red four and, in those circumstances, no matter how much someone may love the Jack of Clubs, the Jack just won’t do.

That’s when I realized what was wrong with the public discourse on diversity in America today. The end game doesn’t really seem to be about finding the right place for each card and having each one play its role. It’s really more like a reverse discrimination, especially against whites, Republicans, males, Christians and Conservatives, and ever so especially if all these things come together. If I need a black nine, but I turn over a red seven, am I prejudiced against all red cards if I fail to play that card anyway? If I say I want a red ten, and then two of them turn up back to back, does that mean I didn’t want the red ten in the first place if I can’t play both? If I turn over the Queen of Diamonds and there is nowhere I can play that card in the game at the moment, does this mean that I don’t like women? Does this mean that I never wanted the Queen of Diamonds and never will?

Why does the national discussion start off talking about “strong women” only to find out that this defense only applies to females of the Democrat persuasion? (Or was that Democrats of the female persuasion?) If I say “not this black man at this time for this particular job,” does that make me a hate-mongering reactionary oppressor? And always will be?

I need all fifty-two cards to win a game of solitaire. But I don’t win every game, even though I play with all fifty-two cards. It depends on the order and the placement. Clearly there is something racist or bigoted or something about these rules. In truth, we just need to rethink the national discussion, but what’s the likelihood of that?

Today, Reuters posted a story about the differing definitions of patriotism in the current Presidential race. The reporter, Matthew Bigg, claims there are two types of patriotism; one type of patriotism is the war hero saga of John McCain, while the other type of patriotism is Barack Obama’s “call … back to the can-do spirit of the nation's founders.” I’m not kidding. I couldn’t make this stuff up. Here, see for yourself:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080819/pl_nm/usa_politics_patriotism_dc_5

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_N1rqVo2W0

There was another YouTube video in which Barack Obama was delivering a speech on the immediate and thorough defunding of the military, but I can’t find it now. There are so many Obama videos now that it is hard to work my way through all of them. I’m sure someone can find it and post it here in the comments.

If Barack Obama can actually convince the voters, through the enthusiastic support of a few Reuters reporters, that he is patriotic, I’ll eat his lapel pin. Oh wait. Is he currently wearing one? OK, I’ll eat Nancy Pelosi’s lapel pin. No, wait. I don’t think she wears one either. It seems the whole Democratic Party is going through a desperate and tortured rewrite of the word “patriotism” to get that defense and loyalty stuff out of there. Criticism of the U.S. and witty put-downs -- that’s the new and upcoming definition of patriotism.

The interesting theme in all of this was best articulated by a young lady that I was talking to a few weeks back. She was gushing and gurgling about how wonderful Obama was. I asked her a few questions, which she really couldn’t answer, about his policies and plans for our country. Finally, she tossed her hair back and said, “Just stop! There is nothing you can say that is going to make any difference to me. I just like him.”

‘Nuff said.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,397645,00.html

The article doesn’t say what percentage of the labor force is Muslim. I’m willing to bet that it’s less than 10% of the membership of this labor union local. But the exact percentage really doesn’t matter. The article does say that it was labor that was pushing this negotiation. So the labor union leaders made it a "top priority" to get a paid holiday that is currently relevant to a fraction of their membership in exchange for a holiday that is supposed to honor the working people of this nation, specifically including labor union members, which would be, um, 100% of the labor union membership. So let’s see… help me with the math here .. and don't forget to carry the bum. And the answer is: Let’s take something from everyone and trade it for something that only matters to a minority of the people. Does that work for you?

It’s not just that the labor union wanted to come out on the wrong side of the current culture war that our troops are fighting in the Middle East. It’s not just a confused and contorted way of promoting a religion that has shown itself to be intolerant of our American customs and traditions. It’s also appeasement. It’s also pandering. Somehow, labor leadership thinks it’s OK to take something away from everyone to give to a few. I can understand how they would get this notion -- it’s the same principle as welfare and other government entitlement programs.

But if history has shown us anything, and apparently it hasn’t, we should know that appeasement only leads to more aggressive behavior by the very folks we were trying to appease. Basically, if you give a dog a bone, it doesn’t go away. It might lie down while it enjoys the bone. But then the dog comes back. It only gets bolder and wants more bones, and maybe some of that meat you have there, too.

Why are we so ashamed of who we are? Why is it so shameful to stand up and say that Capitalism and Christianity have been good for America? And that America has been good for this world? Why do we want to wring our hands over trying to get everyone to like us? We have a Presidential candidate who wants to chastise the good people of this country for using what he believes is more than our “fair share” of the energy in the world, but overlooks that we use that energy to feed everyone else around the world. We are not selfish, slothful people. Americans are generous to a fault with our bounty. What’s so wrong about that? Why should we be embarrassed for ourselves? I don’t want Eid-al-Fitr off from work. It’s not my way. I don’t want to drink that Kool-Aid.

It’s OK to want to show that we are compassionate, understanding, tolerant people. Even towards intolerant people. The American people have nothing to apologize for. We are imperfect, but we are the best there is.

Not long ago, I heard those two good old boys at Red State Update (www.redstateupdate.com) say that this current Presidential election was nothing more than an up-or-down referendum on Barack Obama. The Republicans were running an empty “R” space for the “no-to-Obama” vote. At the time I just laughed and laughed, which is precisely what those good old boys had intended.

Since then, I have been watching and I am becoming convinced of the truth that underlies their jokes on that topic. The news coverage of Obama’s campaign is beyond ridiculous. Who doesn’t know that? In fact, I rather enjoyed finding this “poll” that suggests that the press coverage of Obama is so far over the top that it is setting lots of folks off. How bad is it when Democrats, being polled by their liberal colleagues, reply that they want less Obama and more McCain?

(http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080806/ap_on_el_pr/poll_obama_overexposure)

OK, so the media coverage is adding new extremes to the term “biased.” OK, so the entire English-speaking world is being asked to come out and swoon over this new phenomenon (like the screaming girls that used to attend 1950's Frank Sinatra concerts?) OK, so the TV cameras keep finding people who can articulate that they love this man because he is the first black Presidential candidate to get the nomination from one of the major political parties, while simultaneously denying that race has anything to do with it.

All that said, I am not afraid of that man. In recent years, no one has successfully run for the office of the President of the United States with the term “liberal” attached to him. Nope, there has not been one in the past fifty years. Jimmy Carter is an incredible far-left liberal whacko who, to this day, never shrinks from finding new ways to embarrass his country every few years. But who knew it back when it was time for voting? He was supposed to be an incredibly brainy Southern moderate who was going to balance the budget because he was just so much smarter than the rest of us. The voters thought we needed someone smart to help us balance the Federal budget and turn the tide on the excessive government spending. We didn’t get it. And Bill Clinton never admitted to any liberalism while he was running for office. No one was quite sure what he believed in those days, but he never got a majority of the vote anyway. Clinton won because Perot split the vote on the right. As long as there is no serious third party candidate coming up to fill the hunger on the right for a strong conservative leader, the results of the upcoming election are fairly predictable.

The previous Democrat candidates who said they were liberals and proud of it, let’s see, I can name a few; there was McGovern and there was Dukakis and there was Kerry. Last time I checked, they got minced into hash. (Here’s a fun way to prove that point. Ask your friends this question; “True or False? Reagan ran unopposed for his second term as President.” They KNOW that SOMEBODY must have run against him … but, um, er, who could it have been? It’s always good for a hearty laugh.)

This week, I think I have finally figured out where those other missing states are. At first, it didn’t make much sense to me to hold a campaign rally in Germany. But then, I couldn’t remember if Obama had won the Democrat primary election in Germany, or if he was trying to garner support in a previously contested district that had perhaps voted for Hillary. That’s when it finally sank in why Obama thinks there are 57 states in this country; he’s counting on the votes from his EU buddies to put him into the black (no, wait, can’t say that! That would be a racist thing to say.)

Then, there was a second item that I noticed about Barack’s European Campaign, and once again the press corps seems to have missed the connection. On the one hand, they happily reported the support numbers Obama is getting from the voters of Europe and that would be fine if I cared what Europeans thought of American politics. The second number that they have been loathe to report is that, in almost precisely the same proportions, these same European voters have said that they felt America was too strong and, for the common good of everyone on the planet, the U.S. should be caused to be rendered weaker. It is with this thought still on their lips that they express their support and devotion to Barack Obama for President.

I see no reason to add anything more to their message.

Act One: In the middle of the 1800s, crude oil was considered a nuisance. It killed crops when it would come bubbling up out of the ground. There were no known uses for it, except perhaps as an occasional ingredient in Dr. FeelGood’s All Purpose Elixir. No one wanted this black oozy stuff. It was just some unwanted trash.

Act Two: Let’s roll forward fifty years. At the beginning of the 1900s, with the coming of the motor car, several sources of fuel were tested. The fuel that won early favoritism was gasoline, processed from the unwanted black ooze. It seemed like such a good idea -- to be able to put this nasty trashy material to good use. So, as the motor cars became popular, so too grew the industry that took the crude oil from the ground, processed it into gasoline and other useful products and distributed it to roadside fueling stations.

Act Three: Now, let’s look forward another fifty years. By the middle of the 1900s, America was in love with their cars. We built Interstate Highways all across the fruited plain. Then we took to those highways for our family vacations, paying 19-cents a gallon for the fuel to run our big, heavy cars. The classic 1957 Chevrolet was not a fuel-efficient machine; it was a machine of power and style. We drove to the beaches of Florida. We drove to coast of California. We crossed mountains and deserts, burning fuel with happy abandon.

Act Four: Another fifty years pass, welcome to the new millennium, and things are no longer the way they used to be. Environmental protectionists keep us from drilling for much of the oil we have in this country and keep telling us our cars are destroying the planet. More and more, we are buying our fuel from thugs and dictators who take our money and use it to fund terror organizations working against us. The taxes keep pushing the price of gasoline ever higher, as do the speculators. Our family cars are smaller and more fuel efficient than they were fifty years ago, but even so we still cringe at the prices at the pump. The happy abandon is replaced with guilt, fear and misgivings.

It’s obvious to me that there is a change in the offing. Our lives are still arranged for us to be in our cars; commuting from home to work, driving the kids to soccer practice, and taking motor trips to see Grandma for Thanksgiving. But it’s no fun anymore. We are changing our driving habits, but we would rather change our cars. We don’t want to get rid of them. We just want them to be fun again.

If anyone were to take a look, that change is quickly coming. Sure, the Saudis recently agreed to pump more oil; for without our appetite for gasoline, they are back to having nothing but desert sand and some black oozy trashy stuff. But increasing the current supply of oil is not going to work in the not-so-long term. Sure, the same environmentalists that tell us our cars are evil want us to burn corn in with the gas. But it doesn’t really solve the issue, that idea just prolongs it. But true change, a total change in fuel supply, a fundamental change is already cruising into the culture. The “hybrid” cars already try to employ electricity, while still burning some gasoline. That technology is changing rapidly and will soon be coming of age. The Internet tells us even now that we can convert our car to run on water. Hydrogen cells are emerging as an alternative technology to power cars. All these are examples of a marketplace responding to motorists’ discontent, and undoubtedly there are more ideas that have not quite yet come into marketability. These changes have been a long time coming. It takes years to move from a new theoretical design into refitting the factories' machine tools to manufacture these new products, then to distribution and marketing of the new cars and the new power sources. The trend began years ago, and there is no sign of the change slowing now. In fact, market forces seem to suggest that the change will only accelerate into the future.

Act Five: So, rolling ahead another fifty years, it’s unlikely that the internal combustion engine will still be the primary mode of choice on our highways. Children will be wide-eyed as their grandparents talk about how they used to pump gasoline at gas stations, or how they drove a gas-driven auto to take their drivers licensing exam. It’s not clear which technology will gain the market favor over the others. If I could tell that, I would invest heavily in the companies bringing that specific technology to market today. But I can tell that a massive change is coming.

On the downside, all the environmental whackos who obstructed drilling and sounded the drum-beat alarm about the deleterious effects on the planet that our gasoline powered autos are supposedly causing, these doomsayers will never get to see how wrong they were. There is no evidence to support their anxieties now, and changing the technology will make it moot that there isn’t any negative effect on the earth from our cars and never was. In the transition, they will have to find something else to wring their hands about, something else to accuse us of destroying, some other way to make sure that we don’t have too much fun. I’m sure they will rise to that occasion.

  For most of my lifetime, the liberals -- championed by the government school teachers and college professors -- have been all about politically correct speech. For most of my lifetime, I have been reprimanded for ever daring to speak my mind. Most currently, expressing my opinion is now called “flaming” but, for as long as I can remember, I have been censored from speaking anything that someone else might consider insensitive or inappropriate. It hasn’t mattered what I was trying to talk about, either. If I was trying to talk about social attitudes towards slaves two centuries ago, I would be assaulted for being a racist (whether I ever bothered to mention my own attitude or not). In discussing analysis of corporate financial statements, if I failed to say something disparaging of Exxon, or of any large corporations in general, I was loudly accused of seeking to intimidate my classmates. Holding me accountable for the possibility that someone might take offense at what I dared to say has a very dampening effect on my supposed free speech.

  And who doesn’t know that free speech has been in the latrine for years? That’s something we already have to thank John McCain for, in part -- and there is a growing chance that we are going to get to chew on even more of his ideas of freedom.  (He is no kind of Republican. The best thing I can say for John McCain is that he is not Hillary. That may have to be enough).

  What I am enjoying is the puzzlement among the political pollsters of why their polls are so wrong this cycle, and how they can’t figure it out. I can tell them and it still won’t matter. Years and years of political correctness are coming home to them. What a voter says when the pollster is standing in front of him and a few friends -- and what he/she really believes in the privacy of his/her own voting booth are proving to be two different things. There is no way that anyone is going to tell a pollster that they aren’t so sure they are ready for a President with black skin and a Muslim name. That would beg for getting attacked for being insensitive racist pig. And similary dittoing for the Hildebeast. No, the only politically correct thing to say is to bubble effusively and overenthusiastically about one or the other -- and quietly lie about the real voting. That’s the whole beauty of the secret ballot in the first place.

  No amount of coaxing or rewording the questions is going to matter. Everyone can see that coming. We have been trained in schools for many years, even if we didn't get any academics in the bargain. What someone thinks and what someone says can be very different. Once upon a time it was a sign of good manners. Now it is just a way to keep from being accused of wrong thinking. How is it, then, that these pollsters can’t figure it out? I suspect this is the fruit of years of cultivating political correctness.