Boy were they ever swindled.

At the recent Saddleback forum, where by almost all accounts McCain spanked Obama, the anointed one provided new fuel to critics regarding his complete and utter lack of qualifications.

Asked about judicial nominees, Obama stated that he would not have nominated Clarence Thomas because he didn’t have enough experience.  I kid you not.

“I would not have nominated Clarence Thomas. I don’t think that he, I don’t think that he was a strong enough jurist or legal thinker at the time for that elevation. Setting aside the fact that I profoundly disagree with his interpretation of a lot of the Constitution.”

So what shows that Obama is a strong enough executive for elevation to the office of the Presidency?  Obama’s opinion of Thomas is laughable, especially coming from a man who was, by all accounts, an utterly undistinguished professor too scared to put his own opinions on paper.

Racists, racists…everywhere!

Why isn’t Obama creaming his rival? Why is he, at best, just a few points ahead, and stubbornly stalled below 50 percent in every national poll?

The commentariat has countless other answers at the ready. Obama is aloof, elitist, lacks the common touch. He has failed to put forward a powerful economic message. He is cut from the same cloth as past Democrats seen as too weak, too effete, too liberal. His calculated dash to the center has left him looking, in the words of GOP consultant Alex Castellanos, like “an ever-changing work-in-progress … as authentic as a pair of designer jeans.”

Yet, as Castellanos admits to me, all these explanations “leave many things unspoken.” Or perhaps just one big thing. Obama, after all, isn’t having trouble with African-American voters or Hispanic voters or young voters. Where he’s lagging is among white voters, and with older ones in particular. Call me crazy, but isn’t it possible, just possible, that Obama’s lead is being inhibited by the fact that he is, you know, black? “Of course it is,” says another prominent Republican operative. “It’s the thing that nobody wants to talk about, but it’s obviously a huge factor.”

You old racist fossils! How dare you not help in the anointment of the Messiah? For shame.

Barack Obama has a solution to high gas prices: use the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR).

Sen. Barack Obama called Monday for using oil from the nation’s strategic reserves to lower gasoline prices, the second time in less than a week that he has modified a position on energy issues, as he and Sen. John McCain seek to find solutions to a topic that is increasingly dominating the presidential race.

…His proposal comes a month after Obama said he would consider using oil from the reserves only in a “genuine emergency,” such as “terrorist acts.” Aides said the plan is not a reversal because he would replace light crude oil in the reserves with less-expensive heavy crude. They also noted that the senator from Illinois last week described the country’s economic conditions as an “emergency.”

So not only is this yet another in a long line of flip flops, it’s also a stupid idea. Granted, it’s not as morally repulsive and economically damaging as his rehashed call for government sanctioned thievery (”windfall profits tax”), but it’s a blatant misuse of the strategic reserve for the purpose of electoral benefit.

The SPR was established in response to the Arab oil embargo. Its purpose is to provide a temporary cushion against physical shortages in the oil supply, thus protecting the economy from excessive damage during emergency situations and also to discourage attempts at using oil as a political weapon. The key point here is that SPR is intended to be used for transient emergencies.

There is no such physical shortage at present. The price of gasoline right now is reflective of growth in global demand, not dramatic decreases in supply. Opening SPR would likely have a depressive affect on gas prices, but it would be temporary and would do nothing to solve the issue that has created those prices in the first place. Unlike the situations SPR was designed for, this is not one we can just wait out. Furthermore, as oil demand grows the size of the reserve that is needed to successfully protect the economy during times of physical disruption increases. Using SPR now would only make it more difficult to protect the economy should a true shortage or interruption arise in the future.

Although the reserve has been used for political purposes in the past (in the nineties some was sold off to trick people into thinking the government had become fiscally responsible), such actions should be opposed. The SPR is not a vote buying slush fund to get Barack Obama elected.

Is there any doubt left that Obama is one of the most cynical political calculators to run for President in recent memory? There shouldn’t be:

Obama says give Fla. and Mich. delegates full vote

Now that Barack Obama has clinched the Democratic nomination for president, he wants convention delegates from Florida and Michigan to have full voting rights at the party’s national convention.

Obama sent a letter Sunday to the party’s credentials committee, asking members to reinstate the delegates’ voting rights when the committee meets at the start of the convention in Denver.

…Now that Barack Obama has clinched the Democratic nomination for president, he wants convention delegates from Florida and Michigan to have full voting rights at the party’s national convention.

The most ardent opponents of seating Michigan and Florida delegates were all Obama supporters and underlings. His website published in April a list of articles and editorials vehemently opposing the seating of delegates, clearly condoning this position. But that wasn’t the Barack Obama he knew.

Or so says the Senator from Illinois, whose security in Afghanistan was provided by the much maligned firm.

Sen. Barack Obama has not been a fan of private police like Blackwater in war zones, and some news outlets even reported that they were spurned for his trip last week to Afghanistan and Iraq. But Whispers confirms that Blackwater did handle the Democratic presidential candidate’s security in Afghanistan and helped out in Iraq. What’s more, Obama was overheard saying: “Blackwater is getting a bad rap.” Since everything appeared to go swimmingly, maybe he will take firms like Blackwater out of his sights, the company’s supporters hope.

Hat tip: Protein Wisdom

Now to put Obama’s recent observation in context. His official Senate website features a number of op-eds disparaging the private security firm. In one from the Chicago-Sun Times the group is likened to a “rogue militia” group:

Contractors shouldn’t be rogue militia, roaming the country shooting without justification and without consequences. This is especially true since the federal government has apparently hired out the Iraq war right under our noses: There are nearly as many private military employees there as troops.

In the same article the administration is also chastised for relying on a “shadow military.” Another featured op-ed, this time from the LA TImes, declares that such contractors should not be tasked with providing security to American diplomats.

But Congress should also debate the overarching issue: Which military and security functions should be outsourced in the first place? And which pose the potential to harm the national interest if delegated to the private sector? The traditional standard was that “mission critical” functions — jobs that would lose the war if botched — shouldn’t be outsourced. What little is known about the Pentagon’s use of security contractors indicates that standard is obsolete. But what should the new criteria be?

The Blackwater debacle suggests that at the very least, outsourcing the protection of U.S. diplomats operating in war zones — a national security imperative — is a bad idea.

Does Barack Obama support these views? If not, why are they featured on his website? If so, how does he reconcile such statements with his recent adventures? Having found that the group is getting a “bad rap,” is he also willing to admit his culpability in making that so?

In a speech from October of 2007 featured on Obama’s campaign website (which curiously lacks a search function), he stated, “We cannot win a fight for hearts and minds when we outsource critical missions to unaccountable contractors.”  Does this mean that, by accepting the security of Blackwater, Obama has contributed to our supposed inability to “win a fight for hearts and minds?”

Two must-read articles today concerning Iraq. One is by Michael Yon outlining the reasons he believes the war is effectively over and we have emerged victorious. Sorry libs. I trust Yon’s reporting on the war to be the most unbiased and in depth reporting available to the public. He’s spent more time there than pretty much anyone in the media. As if we couldn’t come to the same conclusion of victory on our own based on what is reported - or un-reported - elsewhere, but hearing Yon say it with such certainty is further encouragement.

The other concerns the messiah and his shameless attempts to play both sides of the Iraq issue. On the one hand he grudgingly admits the surge resulted in success, but still says he wouldn’t support it if he could do it all over again. Kind of reminds me of the questions Bush and Cheney got about whether they would still invade Iraq knowing what they know today about the WMDs that were never found. Though somehow it seems the press isn’t exploring these questions quite so passionately where Obama is concerned.

As an aside, I’m glad the surge worked and the war is “over” because my older brother is currently on a plane back there for the back four of a twelve month tour. I like to think he’s played no small part in the decline of the most visible insurgent weapon, the IED, over the last year. Proud of him. But there are still plenty of dead-enders over there to pose significant danger to our fighting men and women, so the prayers must never stop.

The New York Times, which just recently ran an editorial on Iraq authored by Obama, hasn’t any room in its daily rag of democratic talking points for a McCain rebuttal.

An editorial written by Republican presidential hopeful McCain has been rejected by the NEW YORK TIMES — less than a week after the paper published an essay written by Obama, the DRUDGE REPORT has learned.

The paper’s decision to refuse McCain’s direct rebuttal to Obama’s ‘My Plan for Iraq’ has ignited explosive charges of media bias in top Republican circles.

‘It would be terrific to have an article from Senator McCain that mirrors Senator Obama’s piece,’ NYT Op-Ed editor David Shipley explained in an email late Friday to McCain’s staff. ‘I’m not going to be able to accept this piece as currently written.’

In McCain’s submission to the TIMES, he writes of Obama: ‘I am dismayed that he never talks about winning the war—only of ending it… if we don’t win the war, our enemies will. A triumph for the terrorists would be a disaster for us. That is something I will not allow to happen as president.’

NYT’s Shipley advised McCain to try again: ‘I’d be pleased, though, to look at another draft.’

[Shipley served in the Clinton Administration from 1995 until 1997 as Special Assistant to the President and Senior Presidential Speechwriter.]

A top McCain source claims the paper simply does not agree with the senator’s Iraq policy, and wants him to change it, not “re-work the draft.”

Just don’t you dare call them biased.

Some illuminating news and observations from this WaPo article on Obama’s upcoming travels:

The Washington Post has learned that Brian Williams, Charlie Gibson and Katie Couric will travel overseas next week, lured by the prospect of interviews with the presumed Democratic candidate. That means the NBC, ABC and CBS newscasts will originate from stops on the trip and undoubtedly play it up.

Sources in both television and politics confirmed that the Williams, Gibson and Couric interviews will be parceled out on successive nights in different countries. That means the Obama camp will have drawn the anchors halfway around the world by offering access. (Correspondents could have done the interviews instead, but a certain competitiveness sets in once one or two anchors agree to go.) The Post is withholding the scheduled locations for the interviews for security reasons.

Obama has been quite adept at working the media. He is on the cover of this week’s Newsweek, again, after star turns on Us Weekly, “Access Hollywood” (with kids) and, not so happily, the New Yorker. And the contrast with the coverage of John McCain’s campaign has been striking.

When McCain, in March, visited Britain, France and Israel and met with their leaders, no network anchors tagged along. NBC and ABC sent correspondents; CBS did not. McCain’s trip to Colombia and Mexico two weeks ago was barely covered, although NBC and ABC sent correspondents.

The Obama trip was already likely to dominate the news. (We’re starting to see headlines like this one in the L.A. Times: “Europe Awaits Obama with Open Arms.”) With Brian, Charlie and Katie along, it’s a slam dunk.

Where’s the “Media Awaits Savior with Open Arms” story?

The outcry over the infamous New Yorker cover has provided snobbish left wing commentators yet another opportunity to confirm their own enlightened status by condemning all us plebes who cling to our guns and bibles.

Madison Powers at CQ Politics frets:

The potential consequence of a synoptic image of this sort explains why it’s the New Yorker’s own demographic who are upset. They get that this is but the latest instance in which the mainstream media unwittingly contribute to the perpetuation of a deliberately created myth emanating from the lesser regions of the new media.

What about those who perpetrate the laundry list of falsehoods? If they are supposed get their comeuppance, it’s really hard to see how. The defense is that it has to be seen in context, and that only those ignorant of the context are flummoxed. The problem is that the New Yorker’s context is not the same as the context in which others see it. The message travels far beyond the Hudson into places the messenger probably does not.

Not only is this an example of the kind of rejection of intentionalism which Jeff Goldstein observed, but the basic assumption behind the author’s view is that us simple folk are simply too stupid to get it.  Furthermore, it’s become automatic for these writers to state with authority that such views about Obama are widespread and more than just the usual internet nonsense found on all matters.  This view is entirely unsubstantiated.

On the flip side, none of these enlightened individuals express much concern over the pervasive belief on the left that Bush was behind 9/11, a view held for no other reason than that these people really, really want a good reason to justify their hatred of Bush.  Contrary to how their disinterested pretensions, these writers don’t care a whit about ensuring truth wins over rumors; they care about tarring republicans and protecting Obama.  But anyone who is familiar with the left side of the blogosphere knows that rumors and falsehoods are far more likely to gain the status of conventional wisdom within the left, while the right is actually willing to dispel and condemn such things within its own community.  Don’t let the snobs browbeat you into believing any different.