On 9/19/2001 Obama was quoted in the Hyde Park Herald as saying (in part):

We must also engage, however, in the more difficult task of understanding the sources of such madness. The essence of this tragedy, it seems to me, derives from a fundamental absence of empathy on the part of the attackers: an inability to imagine, or connect with, the humanity and suffering of others. Such a failure of empathy, such numbness to the pain of a child or the desperation of a parent, is not innate; nor, history tells us, is it unique to a particular culture, religion, or ethnicity. It may find expression in a particular brand of violence, and may be channeled by particular demagogues or fanatics. Most often, though, it grows out of a climate of poverty and ignorance, helplessness and despair.

Commenter James Felix on Michelle Malkin's website answers this well:

It is also indisputable that the majority are also male and have dark hair. A majority of them have also never attended a Star Trek convention. Are Y chromosomes, dark hair and a lack of appreciation for sci-fi also contributing factors?

Of course not. A basic tenet of logic is that correlation is not causation.

As I pointed out in an earlier post, there are a lot of countries that are much poorer and more desperate than any in the Middle East who somehow do not give birth to terrorist movements. Why not? If poverty and unemployment are contributing factors why aren’t they recruiting Americans who find themselves down and out? Surely AQ would dearly love to have some average-looking American citizens doing their work here within our borders. So where are the legions of Appalachian AQ operatives?

Unemployment and poverty aren’t the problems. The problem is that you have a demented society that teaches it’s children practically from birth that the road to paradise is paved with dead infidels. You have two generations now that have been trained to be receptive to the message that Bin Laden and his twisted ilk put out.

You can repeat the idea of a poverty/terror link till you’re blue in the face, it won’t make it true.

Barak seems to be very confused about the motivations of those that would attack us.  Of course he sat for 20 years listening to his Pastor Jeremiah Wright.  This is the same Jeremiah Wright who led Obama to Christ, at whose church Barak met his wife, who married them, and baptised their children.  Jeremiah Wright is a believer in and a leading teacher of "Black Liberation Theology" which lead him to preach about 9/11:

I heard Ambassador Peck on an interview yesterday, did anybody else see him or hear him? He was on Fox News, this is a white man, and he was upsetting the Fox News commentators to no end. He pointed out, did you see him John, a white man, and he pointed out, an ambassador, that what Malcolm X said when he got silenced by Elijah Mohammed was in fact true, America’s chickens are coming home to roost. We took this country by terror, away from the Sioux, the Apache, the Arowak, the Comanche, the Arapahoe, the Navajo. Terrorism. We took Africans from their country to build our way of ease and kept them enslaved and living in fear. Terrorism. We bombed Granada and killed innocent civilians, babies, non-military personnel. We bombed the black civilian community of Panama with stealth bombers and killed unarmed teenagers and toddlers, pregnant mothers, and hardworking fathers. We bombed Qaddafi’s home and killed his child. Blessed are they who bash your children’s head against a rock. We bombed Iraq. We killed unarmed civilians trying to make a living. We bombed a plant in Sudan to payback for the attack on our embassy, killed hundreds of hardworking people, mothers and fathers who left home to go that day not knowing that they would never get back home. We bombed Hiroshima, we bombed Nagasaki, and we nuked far more than the thousands in New York and the Pentagon and we never batted an eye. Kids playing in the playground, mothers picking up children from school, civilians, not soldiers, people just trying to make it day by day.

We have supported state terrorism against the Palestinians and Black South Africans and now we are indignant because the stuff we have done overseas is now brought right back to our own front yards. America’s chickens are coming home to roost.

So according to Jeremiah "God Damn America" Wright it is the fault of the white citizens of the USA that we were attacked on 9/11.  No wonder someone who attended his church for 20 years is a bit confused!

Today Democrat Steve Cohen standing on the floor of the US House of Representatives compared Barak Obama to Jesus and Sara Palin to Pontius Pilate.  For a while they managed to block YouTube from showing this but it is now available again.

Everyone in Alaska knows Sarah Palin blocked the wasteful "Bridge to Nowhere" and even the Democrat Party acknowledged this on their website.  Then the McCain campaign started mentioning this fact, and Barak Obama decided to claim it was a lie.  Suddenly the Democrats in Alaska removed mention of this from their website.  They had to remove the proof that Obama was lying.

The national Democrat Party website held several references to Sarah Palin as a lipstick wearing pig, one of them illustrated by a charming picture of a pig wearing lipstick, glasses, and a necklace.  Barak Obama in a speech compared Sarah Palin to a lipstick wearing pig and John McCain to an 8 year old stinking fish.  Reasonable people everywhere were revolted by Obama's remarks, so of course he tried to deny having made them.  Guess what, the references on the Democrat website suddenly disappeared ...

Here is McCain's response to the attacks:

My friend Scott Ross (I engineered his radio program back in 1970 - 1971) sent the following email to me today:

Left wing groups are offering cash to anyone who can come up with dirt on Sarah Palin's husband.  The New York Times today ran no less than 3 front page stories on Sarah Palin's daughter.  Where will it stop?

As Michelle Malkin put it:

If a Democrat mom chooses public office, she’s a patriot Wonder Woman imbued with Absolute Moral Authority on children’s, health, and social welfare issues.

If a Republican mom chooses public office, she’s the child-neglecting spawn of Satan who has no business debating any domestic public policy because of alleged hypocrisy.

Glenn Reynolds quips:

HOW THEY COULD HAVE KEPT THE PALIN PREGNANCY STORY OUT OF THE PRESS: Leaked it that John Edwards was the father . . . ..

The statement of the Palin family today:

“We have been blessed with five wonderful children who we love with all our heart and mean everything to us. Our beautiful daughter Bristol came to us with news that as parents we knew would make her grow up faster than we had ever planned. We’re proud of Bristol’s decision to have her baby and even prouder to become grandparents. As Bristol faces the responsibilities of adulthood, she knows she has our unconditional love and support.

“Bristol and the young man she will marry are going to realize very quickly the difficulties of raising a child, which is why they will have the love and support of our entire family. We ask the media to respect our daughter and Levi’s privacy as has always been the tradition of children of candidates.”

Obama said a little while ago:

“Look, I got two daughters — 9 years old and 6 years old,” he said. “I am going to teach them first about values and morals, but if they make a mistake, I don’t want them punished with a baby."

As Michelle Malkin said:

"One ticket sees this as a blessing. The other sees it as a curse. Could the core differences between the two be any starker?"

John McCain selected Governor Sarah Palin (pronounced pale-in) of Alaska to be his running mate, and a lot of folk are asking "Sarah who?"  In an attempt to answer that question I have compiled the following bio.

Sarah Palin was born in Idaho and moved to Alaska as a child.

Known as "Sarah Barracuda" on the basketball court she helped her High School team win the state championship.  She also led the team in prayers before each game and is an evangelical Christian.

She married her high school sweetheart Todd Palin.  They have 5 children.  A strong Pro-Lifer, she refused to abort her youngest Trig, born while she was governor, when tests showed he had Downs Syndrome.  Her oldest Track, was named after the sport.  He has joined the Army and is about to be deployed to Iraq.

She was a "hockey Mom" who started in politics in the PTA then became mayor of Wasilla (her hometown near Anchorage).  She was Chair of the Alaska Conservation Commission from 2003 to 2004, and the Ethics Commissioner of the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, but quit in 2004 in protest against ethical violations by the Alaska Republican Chairman, a member of the Commission.  She went on to defeat the Republican Governor of Alaska in the primary on an anti-corruption platform, and then won the general election.

As governor she cut state spending in Alaska, killed the "bridge to nowhere", and is a big proponent of developing Alaska's oil and gas resources to help the USA become energy independent.  She is not, however, willing to give the big oil companies what they want when she sees that as going against the interests of her state and nation.  Her husband Todd quit his 17 year position with BP to avoid even an appearance of conflict of interest, when that company became involved in negotiations with his wife's administration over a gas pipeline.

She is opposed to same sex marriage, but vetoed a bill blocking health benefits for the partners of gay public employees.

When she needed money to go to college she entered beauty contests.  She won Miss Wasilla and was runner up in the 1984 Miss Alaska contest.

She hunts, ice-fishes, and is a crack shot.  She is a Life Member of the NRA.

She has sued the Federal government to stop the listing of polar bears as an endangered species, and has a grizzly bear her father shot covering the sofa in her office.

Back when pot was legal in Alaska, she tried it.  "I can’t claim a Bill Clinton and say I never inhaled."

Todd Palin is a Union Steelworker who worked part of the year in the oil fields of Alaska for BP.  The rest of the year he runs a small commercial fishing operation.  He is part Yupik Eskimo and a 4 time winner of the 2000 mile Iron Dog snowmobile race. Last year he earned $93,000 total.

We know this because as governor Sarah Palin pushed through a strong financial disclosure law.  There is far more detail in the Palin's disclosure forms posted on the Internet, than there are in the Federal forms of our Senators and Representatives.

Ed Morrissey gives the background on how McCain came to select Sarah Palin.

Professor John Mark Reynolds writes about how Sarah Palin's experience is being undervalued.

Here is a side by side comparison of Sarah Palin and Barak Obama.

Here is the comparison in pdf form for easy printing.

The Obama campaign can't contradict the facts in this short video, so they are trying to bully TV stations into not showing it and have asked the Department of Justice to investigate the American Issues Project who produced it.  Do you want a President who uses government agencies to try to silence those he does not like?

Watch the video.

HT Michelle Malkin

One of the things I disagree with McCain over is Campaign Finance.  On this subject I agree with Dr. Jerry Pournelle:

Aside on campaign financing: Harold Laski a very long time ago said that wealthy people and companies would defend their interests with money and no laws could be devised that would prevent that. I have seen no evidence that he was incorrect. One can regulate somewhat, but onerous regulations invite the wealthy to hire lawyers to find new ways. My inclination is to fewer regulations and more disclosure. I'd also act to make parties a bit stronger (and able to collect money more easily). I will concede that I am no expert on this but I have spent 50 years being involved in politics and I have some experience in both raising and spending political money. What is very clear is that the present system isn't working very well. As I said, on principle I prefer less regulation and more disclosure.

I don't have Dr. Pournelle's years in politics, but what he says makes better sense than our current system.  Let anyone spend any amount of their personal funds on politics that they wish, but every candidate and political action committee must post the contributions within 24 hours to a public website.

Andrew C. McCarthy has a powerful article on Obama's support for Infanticide.

"There wasn’t any question about what was happening. The abortions were going wrong. The babies weren’t cooperating. They wouldn’t die as planned. Or, as Illinois state senator Barack Obama so touchingly put it, there was “movement or some indication that, in fact, they’re not just coming out limp and dead.”

No, Senator. They wouldn’t go along with the program. They wouldn’t just come out limp and dead.

They were coming out alive. Born alive. Babies. Vulnerable human beings Obama, in his detached pomposity, might otherwise include among “the least of my brothers.” But of course, an abortion extremist can’t very well be invoking Saint Matthew, can he? So, for Obama, the shunning of these least of our brothers and sisters — millions of them — is somehow not among America’s greatest moral failings."

Read the whole thing!

Of course given Obama's obvious lack of concern for "the least of my brothers" why does it not surprise me that he has a half brother George Obama living in a hut in Nairobi, Kenya.  La Shawn Barber has the story.

"The Telegraph reports that George Obama, Barack Obama’s half-brother, subsists on less than a dollar a month in a hut in Nairobi, Kenya. He says he’s ashamed of his poverty and doesn’t tell people he’s related to America’s first black major party presumptive presidential nominee.

Assuming he didn’t know how his brother was living (benefit of the doubt, and all that), I wonder what Barack Obama will do to help him now, in light of his “we still don’t spend enough time thinking about the least of these” lecture on Saturday at the Saddleback Civil Forum."

The more folk look at Obama's claim that National Right to Life was lying about his record, the worse that record looks.

Erik Erickson posts a transcript.

Joel Mowbray looks at who is telling the truth.

David Reinhard looks at the coverup.

Guy Benson puts Obama's position this way:

"Put crudely, once a woman chooses to abort, she’s entitled to a dead baby."

Change & Experience has the audio of Obama arguing against the Born Alive Infant Protection Act.  Contrast that to his claim on CBN:

"He added that it was "ridiculous" to suggest he had ever supported withholding lifesaving treatment for an infant. "It defies common sense and it defies imagination, and for people to keep on pushing this is offensive," he said in the CBN interview."

Scott Johnson of Power Line just crafted a great way of putting Obama's position on abortion:

"Those who have dug into his record in the Illinois senate, however, have found evidence that Obama is a devout believer in what might be called the sacramental or positive good view of abortion: nothing can be allowed to interfere with the unfettered exercise of the purported right, including the accident of an infant born alive."

This was in response to Obama's refusal to give a straight answer to Rick Warren of Saddleback Church on abortion.

Obama also claimed over the weekend on CBN that:

"anti-abortion groups were "lying" about his record.

"They have not been telling the truth," Mr. Obama said. "And I hate to say that people are lying, but here's a situation where folks are lying."

He added that it was "ridiculous" to suggest he had ever supported withholding lifesaving treatment for an infant. "It defies common sense and it defies imagination, and for people to keep on pushing this is offensive," he said in the CBN interview."

However according to the voting records from the Illinois state Senate, it was Obama who was lying on CBN and not the "anti-abortion groups".

Listen to Obama's remarks before Planned Parenthood (the largest abortion provider in the USA) to hear him deal with the subject of abortion in a forthright way that stands in direct contrast to his response to Rick Warren and his claims on CBN.

No not Michelle Malkin's group, this Hot Air Tour is from the folk at Americans for Prosperity.

They will be in Broomfield and Fort Collins on Wednesday August 20, Pueblo and Colorado Springs on Thursday the 21st, and Glenwood, Grand Junction, and Denver on Friday the 22nd.  Sounds like a whole lot of fun!  Click on the Logo above to learn more and register for the events.

While addressing the folk at Planned Parenthood (the largest abortion provider in the USA) Obama said that his first act as President would be to overturn the ban on "partial birth abortion".  He said "On this issue, I will not yield."

La Shawn Barber comments:

    "In contrast, John McCain, a man I’ll reluctantly, with a strenuous effort, vote for in November, said this about partial birth abortion:

    'I will do everything in my power to ban that horrible procedure.'

    Now, it doesn’t matter to me whether McCain is a Christian or not. At the very least, he’s against so-called partial birth abortion, and that’s good enough for me. When it comes to unborn life, I will not yield. Any Obama supporter who claims to be a Christian ought to be ashamed."

I stand with La Shawn on this issue.