Despite the ignorami of the MSM and Democrat Party leadership (Pelosi/Reid) claiming defeat when Iraqi forces first begain the assault in Basra, it looks increasingly like the Maliki campaign is a success.  (h/t – Instapundit)

All across Iraq’s second city life is improving, a month after Iraqi troops began a surprise crackdown on the black-clad gangs who were allowed to flourish under the British military.  The gunmen’s reign had enforced a strict set of religious codes.

Yet after three years of being terrified of kidnap, rape and murder — a fate that befell scores of other women — Nadyia Ahmed, 22, is among those enjoying a sense of normality, happy for the first time to attend her science course at Basra University. “I now have the university life that I heard of at high school before the war and always dreamt about,” she told The Times. “It was a nightmare because of these militiamen. I only attended class three days a week but now I look forward to going every day.”

The real problem we are now realizing is that the British military allowed the militias to control Basra. 

Raids are continuing in a few remaining strongholds but the Iraqi commander in charge of the unprecedented operation is confident that his forces will soon achieve something that the British military could not — a city free from rogue gunmen.

British and US officials acknowledge tentatively that a turning point has been reached. Sir Richard Dannatt, the head of the British Army, made an unannounced visit to Basra over the weekend.

Local people are daring to hope that the dark days of death squads and kidnap are over, displaying the sort of optimism that was last seen when British forces arrived in 2003 with the false promise of a better life free from Saddam Hussein.

Um… shouldn’t this news be leading all of the network news programs?  The Iraqi Army is doing what we have been asking them to do.  And at the same time pushing back on the Iranian influence in Southern Iraq.   So why isn’t Brian Williams broadcasting live from Basra?

The more important quesiton in all of this:  Is the submission of (homeland) Britain to Islamic influence and law affecting the British military as well?  After all, this is the same British military that surrendered one of its ships to Iran with nary a peep, much less any shots fired.

Winston must be spinning in his grave.

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

At the end of a recent post, I made a point which I want to address in a shorter piece. I concluded PA exit polls reveal weakness of both Dem candidates thusly:

If this fall’s were an election on character and fitness to lead rather than on partisan differences, John McCain would beat either Democratic candidate in a walk. But, party politics does matter, so it could well be a close race this fall.

A March Gallup poll showed him with a 67% favorable rating, well ahead of Mrs. Clinton and five points ahead of Senator Obama–and this before “Bittergate” broke.

To counter the Arizona Senator’s high favorables, some on the left (and even a few in the MSM) repeat their mantra that election of John McCain would amount to a third term for George W. Bush whose current favorables are not even half those of his 2000 GOP rival. (Maybe it’s that their hatred of Bush is so intense they “need” to run against their bête noire.)

Given how often the presumptive GOP nominee bucked his own party–and this president, it’s absurd to even consider that his Administration would be a continuation of current policies (well, except in the broad strategies for defeating Islamofascism). John McCain has been bucking Bush almost since the outset of his Administration and stood for bedrock conservative principles by criticizing excessive federal spending and voting against the Medicare Prescription Drug Bill in 2003. Not to mention his push to change tactics in Iraq–long before “the surge.”

The real challenge for John McCain this fall is to make this race a referendum on him rather than on the current Administration, without alienating a conservative base already skeptical of him. Methinks as the fall election shapes up, voters will focus more on his qualities than his partisan affiliation.

Perhaps, he can best meet this challenge by appointing a Vice-Presidential nominee who appeals to the base without turning off moderates and other independents. My former elementary school assistant soccer coach comes to mind. As does the current governor of a southern state.

A few days ago, I wrote a friend saying that the “nightmare” scenario for the Democrats would be if Obama won the popular vote without Florida but Hillary won it in with Florida.

This morning reading a piece by John Fund in Wall Street Journal’s Political Diary (available by subscription), I learned that Ms. Hillary was already claiming she has “received more votes by the people who have voted than anybody else . . . . if you count . . . the 2.3 million people who voted in Michigan and Florida.”

She can make a colorable claim to including Florida’s votes in the total since both candidates’ names were on the ballot and neither campaigned there. (Well, she did get some press attention for coming to the state on the day of the primary; some of his TV ads appeared on Florida cable stations as part of a national buy.)

But, to include Michigan when hers was the only name on the ballot? Alone among the serious Democratic presidential candidates, all of whom, including the former First Lady, signed a “pledge not to ‘campaign or participate’ in the Michigan or Florida Democratic primaries,” she kept “her name on the Michigan ballot” when others, including Senator Obama, removed theirs.

With her latest ludicrous claim, Ms. Hillary, in the interest of promoting herself, has accelerated the realization of this “nightmare” scenario for her party. This RealClearPolitics chart shows the numerous ways to calculate popular vote totals in the Democratic primaries and cauci. Most, even those including Florida, give Obama a slight lead. Only when factoring in Michigan (where Ms. Hillary adds to her total, but Mr. Obama cannot add to his since he wasn’t on the ballot) does she come out on top.

By making such an issue of popular vote, Hillary opens her party to further divisions. Because the Democratic candidates pledged not to campaign in the Sunshine and Wolverine state and because of the difficulty in determining Democratic vote totals in several caucus states, there are numerous ways to tabulate the Democratic popular vote total.

Maybe we Republicans should temper our harsh judgment of Mrs. Clinton. We see her yet again fostering further discord in her party.

Welcome Instapundit Readers!! While you’re here, take a gander at some of our latest posts where we discuss anti-Republican bias of gay media (here and here) and how European tolerance of murderous intolerance and provide a Terrorist Guide to American Elections.

UPDATE: Click on more for excerpts from a Democrat’s take on the problematic popular vote count for his party’s 2008 presidential candidates. (more…)

Building on my post, Dutch Gays Prefer Conservative Parties in a post of his own, our friend Chris Crain, provides some information about conservatism in the Netherlands, based on his travels here and greater knowledge of Dutch politics. He also repeats a question he had asked before: “how do you tolerate everything while not tolerating intolerance?”

The question bears repetition. It sometimes seems tolerance is the watchword of the left, well, tolerance for everything but white male individuals supporting Western Judaeo-Christian ideas and institutions.

Hence, in Europe, we see tolerance of the anti-gay and misogynistic practices of radical Muslims in Western society which Bruce Bawer details so well in his excellent book, While Europe Slept: How Radical Islam is Destroying the West from Within. This tolerance has caused police in European nations to look the other way when Muslim families kills their daughters for dating (or being presumed to date) outside the faith. Or for engaging in sexual relations before marriage.

British Gay leaders have received death threats from Muslim fundamentalists in the United Kingdom while one Muslim extremist murdered Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh. They all claim to be doing this in the name of their faith.

Should we be tolerant of such murderous bigotry? By speaking out regularly against narrow (but less vicioius) attitudes of American social conservatives, representatives of gay organizations refuse to tolerate the beliefs of certain Christians. Shouldn’t they be less tolerant of a attitudes which more regularly have more fatal consequences?

(more…)

Take a gander around the conservative and libertarian blogosphere and you’ll find reference to facts which disprove the narratives of articles in the MSM. Today, for example Glenn Reynolds links John Podhoretz’s post noting how a recent report filed by a New York Times reporter undermined that very reporter’s past articles showing the failures of the Iraqi government to respond effectively to the recent uprising by radical Shiite militias.

Sometimes it seems reporters put their own narratives before the actual facts of the story they’re covering. It seems they’re more interested in confirming what they already believe than in discovering what is actually going on.

Such is the case of Charles Kaiser and his Out magazine “hit piece” on gay Republicans. Just as some New York Times reporters’ narrative that we’re headed to defeat in Iraq colors their coverage of the conflict, so does some gay scribes’ narrative of the hypocrisy of gay Republicans color their coverage of us.

As I make that point of the end of my rather lengthy second post on this travesty of journalism, I repeat it here in this shorter post in the hope of giving it a wider audience:

For these leftist scribes, their narrative is more important than the facts. The very opening blurb of Kaiser’s piece tips us off to their narrative on gay Republicans: “exposing an ancient hypocrisy at the heart of the GOP.” So fascinated are they by some ancient legend, they neglect present-day reality.

Alas that for all too many members of our community, the gay media narrative passes for actual reporting. No wonder so many gay people have such a negative view of gay Republicans. Kudos to Log Cabin and Chris Crain for challenging that.

UPDATE: As to the example I gave in the opening paragraph, Glenn Reynolds writes today, “Plus this: Iraqi forces see victory in Basra. And yet it was spun by the U.S. media as a huge defeat.”

Back when I was president of Log Cabin of Northern Virginia, I knew I could count on Washington Blade reporter Lou Chibbaro, Jr. to treat us (and all gay Republicans for that matter) fairly. When writing about us, he made sure to talk to us before writing about us.

So, I wonder why it is that Out magazine chose to ask Charles Kaiser to write its piece on gay Republicans instead of Lou, a gay reporter with a record of evenhanded treatment whereas Kaiser has consistently in his Advocate columns (and elsewhere I presume) repeated the trite, tiresome and untrue gay-left talking points about gay Republicans.

Did Out commission Kaiser to write this piece because they knew his anti-Republican leanings and wanted an article which “proved” what they already believed, that gay Republicans are closeted hypocrites, living a double-life? And that our political careers would be compromised by our coming out? (That latter point have been true at one point, but is hardly the case today.)

By contrast with columnist Kaiser, reporter Chibbaro has a long record of covering the Washington, DC gay community, earning the respect of individuals on both sides of the political aisle and having a good number of Republican contacts. That Out magazine didn’t turn to someone like him, but instead chose a columnist known for his critical commentary of Republicans suggests its editors weren’t interested in an unbiased account of gay Republicans.

While we gay Republicans give the gay media a lot of grief, we should remember there are those like Lou still committed to covering us fairly. I thought of Lou this morning when reading Michael Yon’s Moment of Truth in Iraq. On page 139, Yon writes that while conservative readers give “the New York Times grief,” that paper does have two reporters Michael Gordon and Rich Oppel striving to provide fair coverage of the War in Iraq. He singles out other MSM reporters who strive to be evenhanded.

As we give Kaiser (and Out Magazine for tapping him) grief for his “hit piece,” we should also remember the Lou Chibbaros of the world. As well as the MSM reporters not dedicated to their editors’ narrative.

The “Princess Warrior, ” a really cool lesbian, asked me to alert GayPatriot readers to a fundraiser on Wednesday evening April 30, 2008 from 7-10 PM, our gym is sponsoring for AIDS/LifeCycle.

Join her and me at Eleven Restaurant Nightclub, 8811 Santa Monica Boulevard in West Hollywood. $20 gets you one drink and two raffle tickets, $50 gets you into the VIP area, while $125 gets you into the VIP area and gives you a special gift bag. All proceeds benefit AIDS/LifeCyle and are tax deductible.

There’ll be cocktails, hors d’oeuvres, a silent auction, and a raffle for a $7800 Specialized S-Works Rouboux bicycle.

Click here for more information and to buy tickets.

If you’re not free next Wednesday, you can also bid on two VIP tickets to see Tony Snow debate Bill Maher at 7:30 PM on Monday evening, April 28th at the Gibson Amphitheatre in Universal City. All proceeds from that auction go to AIDS/Lifecyle.

Hope to see you on the 30th. And to please the lady Warrior–while supporting a good cause, I just might contribute at the highest level.

…how much longer do we have to put up with those dumb ads on TV with those two mean and pandering politicians that seem to have invaded north carolina?

[GP Ed. Note: Another two weeks, Saxby. I'm sorry.]

I’m glad I didn’t have to do all of the hard civics work and research needed to present the “Terrorists Guide to the USA Election”…. Michelle Malkin has done it for me.

Bravo!

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

For the past few weeks, almost past two months, I’ve been blogging up a storm, posting an average of three to four pieces a day on the weekdays, sometimes as many as seven. Delighted with this increased prolificness, I assumed it would continue.

I had planned four posts for Wednesday, but ended up writing only one. When I sat down to blogging, my mind was elsewhere. I could not focus. It was a labor to write the one post I did get up yesterday. The words did not flow as I would have liked them to.

When I was done, I felt a lot like I did when I used to run competitively. After a big race, I’d be beat; it might take me a day or two to resume my normal running routine. Then, I pushed myself to my physical limit. One minute, I’m running the fastest I could run, the next I could barely manage a jog.

Maybe this process holds true for writing. One day I can whip out five posts, the next I can barely write one.  It seems there’s a word for it, something like compensation. (But, then again, there are some bloggers who manage to post thoughtful pieces at a steady pace seven days a week.)

I don’t quite know how to explain this phenomenon, but I do expect to resume regular blogging today, perhaps at the pace of past days or perhaps at a more “deliberate” rate.

Or maybe it’s just that I didn’t refrain from blogging on Saturday (the Jewish Sabbath) as is normally my wont. And the Sabbath is there for a reason. Our psyche does need a day of rest.

Such rest rejuvenates us, giving us energy for the rest of the week.

——-

*Not sure this is the right word.

UPDATE at the end–As I anticipated writing this piece, I asked my friend Neal Zaslavasky, an Obama supporter, if he would write a response. He has done so and I have posted that unaltered at the end. Please address his remarks with the same civility with which he addressed this post. And bear in mind, his politics notwithstanding, he’s a very cool guy.

Yesterday, I blogged that exit polls in Pennsylvania could tell us a lot about Obama’s chances in the fall. And after reviewing them, they don’t look all that good for the Illinois Senator. And even though Mrs. Clinton won, the exit polls point to some problems the former First Lady will face in the unlikely (yet still possible) event that she wins the Democratic nomination.

That’s not to say John McCain is out of the woods for he will be laboring under the baggage of being the Republican nominee in a year which doesn’t look good for the GOP.

Still, if he were matched up against either of his Democratic opponents and party affiliation were not an issue, he would win this fall in a cakewalk.

As expected, late deciders broke for Mrs. Clinton by a margin of 59-41. This suggests (as all too many have said ad nausem) that Obama has yet to “close the deal.” It should be an especially troubling trend (following similar numbers in Texas and Ohio) that he can’t swing a majority of undecideds even though the media (and some Democrats) have been touting him as the all-but-certain nominee. (55% of Democrats said “they expected him, not Clinton, to be the party’s eventual nominee.“)

How can he expect to win undecideds in the fall (and hold on to his share of Independents) if he can’t convince Democrats even at a time when a vote for him seemed to be a vote for party unity–and the good for the party.

Given Hillary’s negative campaign, it seems not so much that Hillary won, but that Obama lost last night. Powerline’s Paul Mirengoff speculated that the results showed that “Obama must be fairly unpopular in Pennsylvania.”

(more…)

Seems I was right on Monday when I blogged that the Democratic race is far from over. Winning by ten points, Hillary did five points better than she needed to do to justify remaining the race, but not well enough to significantly shift its dynamics. Obama remains the frontrunner, though she now has a more serious shot at her party’s nomination.

Republicans could hardly have asked for a better result (though I would have preferred margin a tad closer).

Hillary won even as “two thirds of voters” said she “attacked Obama unfairly,” further cementing her high negatives. Only half said the Illinois Senator unfairly attacked his New York colleague.

Once again, late deciders broke for the former First Lady. (I’ll have more on this in my followup tomorrow to this post.)

If Rush Limbaugh were truly behind Mrs. Clinton’s big win last night, as some have suggested, he certainly succeeded in keeping alive the divisions in the Democratic Party. Reporter David Lightman called the Democratic race “muddled” in “a stalemate without apparent end.” Hillary Clinton’s “harsh tactics” alienated a lot of Obama supporters (via Instapundit).

In their bitterness at their savior’s loss, expect Obama supporters to spew their bile on Clinton campaign chairman Terry McAuliffe for calling FoxNews “fair and balanced.” That former Democratic National Committee chair praised the network for being the first to call the Keystone State.

(more…)

As I am about to retire this evening, Hillary Clinton has won Pennsylvania and is nurturing a 9% lead and about a 150,000 vote margin — which has increased by 50,000 in the past hour.   Being a Pennsylvania native I know a lot about the state, and I observe that MANY of the rural counties (including a couple of the Philly burbs) aren’t reporting all results yet.  I suspect Hillary will top 10%, if not more once all the votes are counted.

In any case, the big winner aside from Hillary is America’s Anchorman — Rush Limbaugh.  His “Operation Chaos” has kept the Democratic race going and this thing is far from over without serious rifts in the party.  As Hillary said today about Obama…

Speaking to reporters in Conshohocken, Pa., today, Clinton rejected that common argument, saying “a win is a win.”

“But maybe I’m old fashioned about that. But you run a very competitive race at a considerable financial disadvantage. I think maybe the question ought to be why can’t he close the deal?”

By the way, Michael Barone’s excellent analysis of the Democratic primary race — Jacksonians vs. Academics — definitely rings more true with Hillary’s Pennsylvania victor this evening.

Now… North Carolina, my new home state, is looking more and more like THE KEY battleground especially if Hillary winds up winning Indiana (which is up next).

Operation Chaos moves to the TarHeel State!

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

Imagine, if you will, a piece on gay activists where the writer interviewed only Gary Bauer, James Dobson, Paul Cameron, Lou Sheldon and their associated social conservative ilk. Perhaps, such a thing has already been done. If it were, the mainstream media would have dismissed it (as well they should).

This week, through Log Cabin, we learned of a similar piece in Out magazine where the author contacts those opposed to the subject of his piece and one openly gay journalist. Let us hope the mainstream media treat this as they would a piece on gays featuring such anti-gay activists. For “reporter” Charles Kaiser is little different from a social conservative cheerleader for such divisive figures as Dobson, Sheldon and Cameron choosing only to interview figures antagonistic toward his subject.

Having read the piece, I am amazed at little its author actually knows about gay Republicans (kind of like Dobson and gay people). He devotes a good chunk of his article to Terry Dolan, the one-time head of the National Conservative Political Action Committee (NCPAC) by day and supposedly notorious leather queen by night. Dolan died over two decades ago, just over six years before Log Cabin set up its national office in Washington and years before Republican Congressmen Jim Kolbe continued to win reelection in Arizona even after coming out as gay.

Given the fact that Dolan died when Reagan was president, you’d think he’d hold less interest to a reporter covering gay Republicans in 2008 than an openly gay Republican Congressman who chaired a House subcommittee in the current Bush Administration. But, Kolbe gets nary a mention in this article while Kaiser quotes a “Democratic political consultant” for an anecdote about Dolan.

That consultant wasn’t the only Democrat Kaiser contacted for his piece on gay Republicans. He also quotes openly gay Democratic Congressman Barney Frank.

(more…)

I just got off the phone with a great friend and GayPatriot reader. He lives in the Philadelphia suburbs and, like many others in his state, went to vote earlier. Here is what he told me about his trip to vote today. I am paraphrasing our conversation….

So I went to the polls today and, as you know you get swarmed by these campaign workers. I wanted to quiet the Obama person quickly and thought of what to say.

I said: “I am a gun-toting, pro-life, devout Christian…. how will Senator Obama protect my Second Amendment rights?”

Bruce, I swear this is a quote of what the Obama volunteer said in response: “Now which Amendment is that one?

Well, I nearly strangled the bastard.

I doubled over in laughter…. then sighed at the stupidity and ignorance of basic Consitutional principles of the Obama supporter and millions of other Americans.

But why bother teaching the U.S. Constitution in public schools when all the evil in the world is “Bush’s Fault” ?

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

Back in 1976, when, after a divisive contest for the Republican nomination, President Ford addressed GOP delegates at the party’s convention in Kansas City, he challenged his Democratic rival, to a series of debates. He hoped such a bold (and novel at that time) strategy would overcome his deficit in the polls.

At one point, that Democrat, Jimmy Carter, led the incumbent Republican in the polls by a such a margin that if undecided vote were decided evenly between candidates, Carter would have defeated Ford by a 2-to-1 margin, eclipsing the popular vote landslides of Nixon in 1972 and FDR in 1936.

Through those debates, Ford hoped to define the the relatively untested former Georgia governor and so show his unfitness (demonstrated by later events) for the White House. Carter had succeeded in winning the Democratic nomination based largely on his charm, his status as a political outsider, his promise of change, and his smile (which seems to have disappeared in recent years).

Carter in 1976 seems a lot like Barack Obama in 2008, a candidate who moved from political obscurity to Democratic presidential frontrunner in an amazingly short amount of time. Indeed, Rich Lowry made this very comparison in a National Review piece back in December (full article available by subscription only). Similarly to the Illinois Senator, the then-former Georgia governor ran on a “theme of hope and change,” attempted a “a trans-ideological appeal” and presented himself as a “non-politician” politician.

Both men rode high in the polls until their opponents started defining them. Obama is certainly making it easier for Mrs. Clinton and Senator McCain to define him as a politician not yet ready to lead. Presidential timber he may be, but this tree needs a little more time growing before he is ready for harvest.

(more…)

Aa Pennsylvania voters trek to the polls today in the latest contest in the race for the Democratic nomination, we may be able to see some clues how the candidates, particularly Senator Obama, will withstand the pressures of the fall campaign. Giving his recent decision to dodge a debate in North Carolina, the signs don’t look as good for him.

But, then again, that’s me speaking as a relatively partisan political observer, not as an independent voter.

To understand what the voters are thinking, the best (albeit flawed) gage is exit polling. Those polls today could really provide us a window into how well the likely Democratic nominee holds up in the fall campaign. In the most recent big-state primaries, those polls showed late-deciders (those who made up their minds in the last 72 hours) breaking overwhelmingly for Mrs. Clinton. With the help of a media no longer swooning over her rival, her campaign succeeded in sowing doubts about him.

Should late-deciders break again for her, it would show how soft is Obama’s support, suggesting that currently undecided voters might more readily break for McCain come November. Recall how much time Arizona’s senior Senator has spent in the public eye and how little has his junior Illinois colleague. People have pretty much made up their mind about John McCain; they’re still getting to know Barack Obama.

The real question is should the late-deciders break for Mrs. Clinton, would they mean she can win back disgruntled Democrats and pull in some independents in the fall and that despite the hits she has taken, she retains a solid base of support? Or would people just be voting for her as the only alternative to Senator Obama?

(more…)

I am busy working on a couple pieces on the Pennsylvania primary and the Democratic race for the White House which I’d like to post before the polls close today in the Keystone State, so won’t give this the attention it deserves right now, but wanted to alert you to a Log Cabin release which deserves broad circulation.

In a recent piece on gay Republicans in “Out” magazine, the “reporter” Charles Kaiser “failed to talk to one single gay Republican for the article. Our friend Chris Crain, hardly a Republican he (but fair to Republicans on his blog and in person) took note:

But talk about an appallingly bad job… Author Charles Kaiser (“The Gay Metropolis”) was the one tasked with shedding some insight on the phenomenon of closeted gay Republicans. So who did he talk to: Barney Frank, outing activist/ blogger Mike Rogers, an unnamed Democratic political consultant and a gay Washington Post reporter.

What about an actual living, breathing gay Republican (closeted or otherwise)? Wouldn’t they be at least relevant? Could Kaiser not find the number for Log Cabin?

I’ll have more to say on this later, particularly some thoughts about the “reporter” th magazine chose to write this piece. And wondering why some gay journalists, playwrights and screenwriters feel they can write about gay Republicans without ever talking to gay Republicans.

Kudos to Log Cabin for exposing the anti-Republican bias in gay media. And kudos to our friend Chris Crain for the fairness of his blogging.

…. in Chicago?

An outburst of gunfire rattled the city during the weekend, with at least nine people killed in 36 separate acts of violence.

The shootings were reported from Friday until Monday morning, police spokeswoman Monique Bond said.

They included gang shootings, drive-by attacks, and even one case in which someone used an AK-47 to shoot up a plumbing supply store.

Authorities did not immediately say whether any of the shootings were thought to be related.

Police Superintendent Jody Weis blamed an excess of guns and gangs.  “There are just too many weapons here,” Weis said Sunday. “Too many guns, too many gangs.”

When I first read these accounts I thought:  Man, that sounds worse than Baghdad.   I wasn’t the only one who made the connection.

At Instapundit, Glenn publishes an email from Michael Yon, noted blogger on the ground in Iraq.  “CHICAGO SOUNDS LIKE MOSUL”

And Glenn himself makes this observation:  “Still, they’re different: One has crooked officials, violent gangs with their hooks into government and law enforcement, and a culture of corruption that has resisted the central government’s effects to clean it up, and the other is a city in Iraq.”

Ouch.

So, what is Obama’s Plan to end the War in Chicago?  Should we surrender to the gangs and let them fill in a power vacuum? 

Ah, difficult questions that won’t be asked by the MSM.

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

Something struck me as I read James Taranto’s comments (via Instapundit*) on liberals made unhappy by last week’s Democratic debate in Philadelphia: their bellyaching undermines their own rationale for supporting this charismatic man lacking executive experience for the highest office in the land.

I mean, if their guy were this great post-partisan figure (as all too many of them claim), able through his very presence and the singularity of his circumstances to unite and lead the counry, he would be able to rise above even the most partisan of moderators and the most antagonistic of journalists. (See e.g., Ronald Reagan and Sam Donaldson.) That they would whine that he got harsh treatment from the media suggests they lack confidence in his ability to withstand such tough questioning.

Made of Teflon he ain’t. Or at least they don’t think him to be.

Can they tell me how they expect a man who they don’t think can handle tough questions can handle the rigors of a job which includes the responsibilities of Commander in Chief and Chief Executive of the United States?

So, with thir bellyaching in mind, I have few more questions (hope they’re not too shoddy or despicable) for Obama supporters:

• What makes your man such an unusual politician?
• What has he accomplished to merit your enthusiasm and to show his fitness for the White House?
• If your man is as great as you claim, why are you whining about the debate? Do you really believe his stature should exempt him from intense and probing questioning?
• Wouldn’t a man who seeks to lead our great nation be able to dismiss unfair questions much as one such leader handled a question about his age in 1984?

——-

*While I normally try to catch Taranto’s Best of the Web everyday, I did follow Glenn’s link to it before I got to it on my own today, so by the standard of common (blogging) courtesy, I own him a hat tip.

UPDATE:  Obama must really hate tough questions as he is refusing to debate Mrs. Clinton in North Carolina.