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Slate magazine is just one of the countless media outlets convulsing with St. Vitus' Dance over that demonic succubus Sarah Palin.
Respecting the rights of all means that I respect your right not to eat meat or to eat meat from a supermarket and not to hunt. I expect the same respect.
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Andrew Cline has been editorial page editor of the New Hampshire Union Leader since October of 2001. His writing has appeared in more than 100 newspapers and magazines, including The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, and National Review.Pat Buchanan: John McCain isn't done yet
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Reader commentsTwo weeks after the Republican convention in St. Paul, Minn., John McCain and Sarah Palin were striding forward toward victory.
They had erased the eight-point lead Barack Obama had opened up in Denver and watched as one blue state after another moved into the toss-up category.
That is ancient history now.
Since mid-September, the stock market has cratered, losing half of the $8 trillion that has vanished since October 2007. All five of America's great investment banks -- Bear Sterns, Lehman Brothers, Merrill-Lynch, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley -- have either ceased to be independent or ceased to be.
The nation's largest savings and loan, Washington Mutual, and largest insurance company, AIG, have gone belly up, with the federal bailout of the latter costing $100 billion and counting. Perhaps $3 trillion of the $8 trillion in stock value that is gone disappeared after passage of the $700 billion federal bailout of Wall Street.
President George W. Bush has fallen to 26 percent approval, a level unseen since Richard Nixon was driven from office in the Watergate summer of 1974. Four in five think the nation is on the wrong course.
Yet, Barack Obama has only a six-point lead in an averaging of national polls. While he has moved ahead in Ohio, Florida, North Carolina and Virginia, one senses America is not so much rallying to him as running away from a Republican brand that is now on the same shelf with Chinese baby formula.
Obama still has not closed the sale. He has overtaken McCain not because of any brilliant campaign he has conducted but because of the dreadful news pouring out of Wall Street. McCain and Palin are being dragged down by Dow Jones, not Barack Obama.
As of today, the country is not so much voting for Barack and the Democrats as it is preparing to vote against the Republicans.
Consider: The Congress, whose Democratic ranks the nation is getting ready to enlarge -- the Congress led by Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid -- has an approval rating half that of Bush.
Indeed, looking back on the Year of Barack, 2008, it is clear he has never closed the sale, either with the people or his own party.
After he came off the blocks with a startling triumph in Iowa and ran up a dozen straight primary and caucus victories in February, arrived the spring when Hillary, though Obama's media auxiliary was ordering her to get out, defeated him in Texas, crushed him in Ohio and Pennsylvania, and humiliated him in West Virginia and Kentucky.
Each time the voters take a second look at Barack, their positive first impressions seem to dissipate. Barack is a weak closer.
Herein lies McCain's hope. The country wants change, but it has not concluded it wants Obama. But if John McCain cannot raise grave doubts about Obama's agenda, his associates, his record, his character, his fitness to be President, Obama is going to win by default.
Obama has succeeded in the debates by playing defense. By his cool demeanor and persona, he has diminished apprehensions about an Obama presidency. There is no evidence of surging enthusiasm.
The Obama media are well aware of Obama's Achilles' heel, his great vulnerability, the doubts about him that still exist in the public mind. That is why they are near hysterical about Palin's ripping of Obama for "palling around" with "domestic terrorists" like William Ayers, the 1960s and 1970s Weatherman radical who conspired to bomb the Capitol and Pentagon and was quoted the morning of 9-11 as saying he wished he had set off more bombs.
The mainstream media call this irrelevant, as it was so long ago. Yet, can one imagine how the media would have reacted had they learned that a GOP presidential nominee was introduced to politics and worked in harness with a KKK bomber of black churches in the 1960s, who was quoted the morning of Oklahoma City as saying he wished he had planted more bombs?
As McCain is an establishment man on illegal aliens, NAFTA and Wall Street bailouts, uneasy with social issues like affirmative action and abortion, he lacks the full panoply of weapons that successful Republicans like Nixon, Ronald Reagan and Bush II used to win two terms. He seems to confine himself to the limited arsenal Gerald Ford, Bush 1 and Bob Dole employed when they went down to defeat.
This election is not over. Yet, even if McCain gets a bit of luck, a dead cat bounce on Wall Street, he must persuade the nation Obama is an unacceptable occupant of the White House if he is to win.
Palin appears ready to take the heat to make that case. But McCain seems ambivalent to the point of being bipolar on whether he wants to take responsibility for peeling the hide off Barack Obama.
Perhaps it comes down to what McCain really thinks about an Obama presidency and how he wants to be remembered by history.
Pat Buchanan is a former Republican and Reform Party candidate for President, adviser to two Presidents and a syndicated columnist based in Washington, D.C.
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YOUR COMMENTS
Frank Smith, after eight years of Obama(should our nation be so unfortunate), I'm sure I will have a lower opinion of 'progressive' neo-Marxists than I do now.
Ted, I'll be organizing the "Abu Graib parade" right after I get done with the "US saves world from Nazi domination parade", "US rebuilds Europe, after Nazis defeated parade", "US wins 'cold war', saving world from communist domination parade", etc., etc...
Ted, reasonable people understand that the US, while not perfect, is more perfect than the vast majority, if not all, of any other nations that have been in the position of dominance.
The fact that you, and your fellow travellers can spout your myopic protests, without being rounded up by the 'Bush Brownshirts' should give you a clue as to what my point is.
I understand, Ted, that the liberal Neo-Marxists, in the US, have felt oppressed.
Maybe your pal Obama will, after implementing his plans for "change", make the US a more welcoming place for you guys.
Well, back to the parades.
- Michael Paradis, Manchester
McCain's "racist"? Really? You Marxists are forgetting that the McCain's have an adopted daughter from Bangladesh. Amazing that all the racist-bating is being defecated out the bowels of the far Left. And yet legitimate racism and radicalism like Rev Wright & William Ayers are some how off limits. Somehow it's "racist" to question Obama's judgement, values, and personal beliefs based in Obama's choice in personal association?! - That's bs! Any far Left politician indoctrinated the corrupt Chicago quasi-politico Demofascist mold is simply unfit and untrustworthy in the position of Executive Office.
- Mac Wade, Newmarket, NH
I have to laugh. This coming from one of the biggest racist and pal of domestic terroists G Gordon Liddy.
Pat Buchanan was the developer of Reagans Southern Strategy which was racist.
He supports Palin she is one of us he says.
One of us=RACIST
- Kitty Lemit, Boston, Mass
Paradis:
Let mo know when you are organizing the "Abu Graib abuse parade". I'll be there with you. I had a tear in my eye (prideful of course) when Bush decided our democratic republic would not give detainees habeas corpus. Who needs a history lesson?
- Ted, Mont Vernon
Paradis, we'll see how you feel about your core beliefs once Obama's been president for eight years.
- Frank Smith, Manchester
Robert, "I am ready to be very proud of America again on November 4th."
Really? Carefull, you are starting to sound like that angry woman, Michelle Obama.
If eight years of Bush caused you to lose pride in America, I would suggest to you, Robert, that you reexamine your core beliefs. Not to mention US history, world history, and comparitive relationships.
- Michael Paradis, Manchester
To Gene O'Neil, what do you call the person who graduated last from Medical school? DOCTOR!
- Goldie, Bedford
Gene, if you just discovered that fact then you haven't been paying attention (and I thought it was fourth from the bottom). So what? The bottom of the class at the Naval Academy is still better than the top 10 in most colleges. Don't use that as justification.
And you don't think Obama got a few breaks along the way?
- George, Weare
McCain, I just discovered, graduated eighth from the BOTTOM of his college class, of NINE HUNDRED! Wow!
I don't know about you, but where I come from only the most disinterested and lazy learners go that low. (And his dad was a four star admiral, so John was likely given breaks.)
We are a complex country, we do need a minimum of education in our candidate, McCain doesn't cut it.
- Gene O'Neil, Manchester
From my vantage point up in Canada, I have rooted for Obama since the primaries - because of his approach to foreign policy.
What America's leaders do affects us all. President Bush, with his diplomacy of threats and insults ("Axis of Evil", etc.), the unneccesary Iraq War, neglecting the war in Afghanistan (where Canadians now fight) has made the world a more dangerous place place.
And John McCain approves of all that - still - and has from the beginning. Barack Obama, howeverdisapproved - from the beginning.
- Gary Peschell, St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada
Mr. Stossel has got it exactly right. There is no credit freeze. There is a tightening of credit, which is only sensible, since loose credit got us into this mess to begin with. The bailout just rewards bad behavior and it won't work. Getting us through this recession will require a little pain, some bad tasting medicine, and time; we can't postpone the inevitable any longer. It's time to pay the piper. We all should be saving and interest rates should rise to encourage it; this would further strengthen the dollar and put more money in all of our pockets. Our government has leveraged our future; it's time for real solutions, not trillion dollar bailouts.
- Matt Johnson, Concord
This election is Socialism versus lots of Socialism. May the least worst man win.
- Dmitry, Ossipee
So? American still has a huge number of racists. They wouldn't vote for Jesus if he were running and he was also what would locally be thought of as black. Fortnately, several times in the past, the fairness of America has risen up and passed the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Act, overturned Dred Scott, thrown out separate but equal etc. I am ready to be very proud of America again on November 4th. I had hoped for a gay, black, Jewish, female, vegetarian, PETA member for a candidate so that we could get over this once and for all, but Barack is as good as we could do at this time. Hooray for small steps.
- Robert W. Mann, Deerfield
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