Electing a Scary Black Man President Isn't the End of the World

Isn’t this a great country? This year’s presidential election proves that anything is possible in America, even a scary black man being elected President of the United States. Whether Obama was elected because of enormous voter fraud, liberal white guilt, an influx of new and ignorant voters or some kind of mass hysteria is not important. For now all Americans should savor this victory for our country and for conservative values.

Some conservatives have gotten the mistaken impression that this election was some kind of repudiation of conservatism, which couldn’t be further from the truth. Thank goodness Michelle Malkin was there to go all Don Corleone and bitchslap the whiney, spineless conservatives who harbored such notions. “I’m getting a lot of moan-y, sad-face ‘What do we do now, Michelle?’ e-mails,” wrote Malkin. But this is no time for self-reflection and mea culpas, Malkin told her minions. “We do not apologize for our beliefs. We do not re-brand them, re-form them, or relinquish them. We defend them.” In other words we must double down on our beliefs no matter how distasteful some Americans find them to be. In fact, Americans were telling us that we weren’t conservative enough, that we need to get back to our core principles by being stingier and more callous. John Derbyshire, lamented that we probably would have won this election if only George Bush had deported 20 million illegal aliens and not visited mosques. But this is no time to regret the past. In fact, conservatives have a lot to be proud of.

For years conservatives have been saying that racism doesn’t exist anymore. The election of Barack Obama proves we were right all along. Throughout the campaign we reminded people at every opportunity that while it might be frightening that Obama is a socialist who pals around with terrorists, probably wasn’t born in this country and is secretly a Muslim, it made no difference whatsoever that he was black. “America actually is more post-racial than most realize,” wrote The Anchoress before the election. “Think about it. Obama can’t break 50%. Neither could Kerry, Gore or Clinton. So, Obama is being treated precisely like every other Democrat politician of the last 16 years. His race is not holding him down. His race is not propping him up. This should be cause for celebration, I think. We’ve clearly moved past race.” So even if Obama had lost the election it would have proven that racism doesn’t exist because white people lost elections, too. Still, some conservatives believe that more could have been done to prove that Obama’s race didn’t matter. Lisa Schifrin points out one of the reasons McCain lost was that he was too squeamish about the race thing and hadn’t yet gotten the word that we live in a post-racial society. “Some McCain aides had felt for a while that their candidate had had a deep reluctance to impede the election of the nation's first African American president. That he had, perhaps, pulled punches and failed to strike as hard as necessary to win this thing, for that greater good,” wrote Schifrin. “All Republicans who watched their candidate these past few months, must have been struck, as I have been, by the sense that he was holding back.” Although it’s true that McCain might have been able to win the election if he believed more strongly that race was irrelevant and brought up issues like Rev. Wright, other conservatives did not share his reluctance and in the end no matter what we threw at Obama, white people voted for him anyway. So with the election of Obama conservatives have been vindicated. Now that we have proved once and for all that racism doesn’t exist and that we live in a post-racial society, we never have to talk about race again. Sometimes you win by losing.

I know many conservatives are frightened by an Obama presidency but there are many reasons for optimism. While this election did not turn out the way we expected, Obama will probably really screw things up (I mean, worse than they already are). It’s not too idealistic to believe he could turn out to be a hopelessly incompetent President, maybe the worst this country has ever seen, and completely run America into the ground. We can already take solace in the fact that Obama has so much to live up to that it will be impossible for him to succeed. “Disillusionment will turn to a feeling of betrayal. And that will, in turn, convert to anger,” wrote Steven Den Beste hopefully. “Our mission for the next four years is to be in opposition without becoming deranged.” So all we have to do is let Obama take this country to hell in a handbasket without looking like we are too crazy. How hard could that be?

Although many conservatives did not appear to realize what an enormous opportunity had been handed to us, they nevertheless accepted the news of Obama’s victory with a stoicism that should make us all proud. “Obama is NOT the Anti-Christ,” wrote Flopping Aces, reassuringly. “The Anti-Christ has an actual plan and millions of years of experience to call upon. Obama the President can claim NONE of these qualities.” Sultan Knish exuded a Zen-like calm as he anticipated the next four years. “Today I unpacked my winter clothes in preparation for a long winter, and a long winter is coming if not of the thermometer, then of the soul,” Sultan wrote with soaring poetic imagery, if not of the anger, then of the sorrow. “A man that represents not simply an opposing view but the view of those who oppose America and all it stands for, will sit in the Oval Office. Worse still he did not get there through a democratic election but through fraud, voter intimidation and every dirty trick culminating in a campaign that had little in common with conventional American politics and a great deal in common with the cults of personality cultivated by totalitarian dictators.” Atlas Shrugs waxed poetic, too, transforming herself into a Jewish, orthographically challenged e.e. cummings: “he says he is a democrat. i think he does so to hide that he is a committed marxist leninist who intends to impose a marxist dictatorhip upon this country, which advancig the interests of islam. he will attempt to either impose or import sharia, and sharia financing into this country. he is not my president. i do not accept him we have no deals, mr. obama and i, as he has vitiated them by a fundamental and far reaching fraud. he has evil designes and intents upon me and mine, upon thee and me.”

Obama’s epic fail of an administration will make President Bush’s term look brilliant by comparison. Unfortunately, President Bush has not gotten the respect and appreciation he deserves for keeping America safe after 9/11, protecting all of our other cities besides New Orleans and keeping our economy strong until the financial crisis. Pat Boone, who had such a wonderful career turning crude African-American noise into nice, wholesome Christian music (maybe he could revive his career by re-recording some of Obama’s speeches and doing the same for him), recently shared a very amusing and creative “Bush Resignation Letter” in which Bush explains how great he was to all the ingrates. “I'm fed up with you people,” the faux Bush says. “I'm fed up because you have no understanding of what's really going on in the world – or of what's going on in this once-great nation of ours. And the majority of you are too damn lazy to do your homework and figure it out.” The Wall Street Journal has already begun assigning blame for the Bush Administration’s problems where it belongs: to the American people. In an editorial titled “The Treatment of Bush Has Been a Disgrace,” Jeffrey Shapiro writes, “The attacks launched against him have been cruel and slanderous, proving to the world what little character and resolve we have. The president is not to blame for all these problems.…Our failure to stand by the one person who continued to stand by us has not gone unnoticed by our enemies. It has shown to the world how disloyal we can be when our president needed loyalty -- a shameful display of arrogance and weakness that will haunt this nation long after Mr. Bush has left the White House.” Of course, Mr. Shapiro and other conservatives will always stand by President Obama no matter how bad a President he is because we aren’t disloyal like liberals are. Obama will have to fail on his own without our help. Then we can all say, “I told you so.” I don’t know how much an Obama administration will have to screw up to make the Bush Administration look good, but we can all keep our fingers crossed.

Another bright spot in the election was that the success of Proposition 8 showed that while Americans are colorblind, they still hate gay people, even in California. In addition to Proposition 8, which banned gay marriage in California, similar propositions in Florida and Arizona succeeded and Arkansas passed a resolution banning the practice of forcing orphans to live with gay parents instead of in nice, comfortable orphanages. Conservatives should make vilifying gays the centerpiece of our platform in the coming years since it obviously still works. In fact, Proposition 8 got its strongest support from blacks and Hispanics, so once they get over the novelty of having a minority in the White House, we may be able to use this issue to win them over to the conservative cause.

Lost in the drama of election night coverage was the fact that Gabriel Malor, one of the pseudononymous co-bloggers on the blog of CPAC Blogger of the Year Ace of Spades, chose this night to come out of the closet and was duly slapped down by conservatives sticking to their principles. “Could we have a moment of silence for those poor fools who were happily married or engaged yesterday and today are finding out that they don't have squat?” Malor wrote. “Prop 8 was much more personal than some silly high-speed train or hospital funding. People are hurting today. And I'm one of them.” Commenters at Ace of Spades, where ribald anti-gay humor has always been one the features that makes the blog so delightful, were shocked. “Did Gabe just come out of the closet?” exclaimed A Different Dave in Texas. Apotheosis did his best to take it in stride with a nervous attempt at humor: “I'm sorry you're hurting, Gabriel. I'd offer you a hug, but...y'know. Just a beer or something, man? We're cool, right?” But while some commenters offered him sympathy, others stuck to their core conservative principles. “Wow. I'm really hurting for all the guy who want to marry their sisters. The gals who want to marry their Doberman Pinschers. The pain. The hurt,” wrote Dang sarcastically. “I'm not a hard hearted person, but I'm also not going to lose sleep about the democratic process working to the disappointment of some. That's just the f---ing breaks,” said Nom de Blog. Moronizer was having none of it: “So you got ‘married,’ knowing full well that it might get voided. Boo hoo.” And Religious Zealot wanted Malor to stop acting so gay about it: “I don't deny that Gabe and others are hurting, it's just that it's a drama-queen reaction.” I hope that in the coming days the bloggers at Ace of Spades will redouble their efforts to make fun of gays lest people start speculating about the sexual preference of the other co-bloggers and regular commenters there. Better to nip this thing in the bud before it spreads.

Even though Ace of Spades was not able to have any effect whatsoever on the election, it wasn’t for lack of trying. And Ace of Spades will continue to be the go-to blog as conservatives grapple with their principles in this brave new world. If there is one thing that distinguishes conservatives from liberals it’s that we don’t believe in demonizing our opponents unless it’s absolutely necessary. “McCain lost honorably, as he wanted. I guess that's what really matters in the end,” Ace of Spades wrote after the results came. Ace of Spades never lost his honor or dignity even as he did his best to warn Americans that they were about to elect someone who was “the same kind of socialist race hustler as Jesse Jackson,” was so close to terrorists that one even wrote his book for him and had a mistress that the mainstream media refused to report on no matter how much he tried to push the story. Now Ace and his "moronbloggers," as they call themselves, will lead the way in showing why conservatives are better than liberals. “I love this country too much to do to President-Elect Obama what the left did to President Bush, John McCain and Sarah Palin. We’re better than that,” wrote Ace’s co-blogger Slublog. “Demonization is not essential to opposition.” Conservatives can try other things, too.

Of course, conservatives are not going to be afraid to give President Obama constructive criticism when necessary, while we wait for 2012, when we can all get behind the Sarah Palin/Dan Quayle ticket (yes you can say you heard it here first: Palin will be the Republican nominee in 2012 and she will select Dan Quayle as her running mate to add experience and gravitas to the ticket). When Bill Clinton was elected President in 1992, Bob Dole famously said "Good news is, Clinton's on his honeymoon. Bad news is, his chaperone is Bob Dole." That was before the Internet. President Obama is going to have the whole conservative blogosphere as his chaperone.

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Why McCain Will Win

The pundits have gotten everything wrong this election year, from prematurely writing John McCain’s political obituary to declaring Hillary Clinton the Democrat nominee to celebrating Fred Thompson as the second coming of Ronald Reagan. But none of these blunders compares to the egg they will be wearing on their faces when the election results roll in this Tuesday, and John McCain becomes the next President of the United States. I think most of the major demographic groups are going to break for McCain, but you don’t have to wait for the Wednesday morning quarterbacking to find out why this will happen because I’m going to tell you right now.

Young People Won’t Show Up To Vote Because They Are Lazy and Stupid

I don’t know who on Obama’s campaign had the bright idea to base their campaign strategy on a huge turnout of young people. Have they actually met any young people? Let’s face it, young people today are the least reliable, laziest, stupidest generation in our nation’s history. If we had known that baby boomers would end up spawning such spoiled, self-absorbed progeny, we would have had them all sterilized. Historically, young people don’t show up to vote, anyway, but this year promises to be even worse. Just as Obama Girl couldn’t manage to vote in the primary because she had to wash her hair or something, most young people won’t be able to summon up the energy to get out of bed or stop playing their video games long enough to show up and vote for Obama. I’d be surprised if these dimwits even know how voting works. On Election Day, I expect, millions of young people will be frantically texting their friends trying to find out the number of the Obama hotline to call to cast their vote. Unfortunately, these idiots are our future. I hope I die before they get old.

Jews, Like Horses, Are Easily Frightened

The McCain campaign has finally hit on a strategy that works: scaring the Jews. It’s a sure-fire strategy because jittery Jews are the most easily frightened people on earth. Boo! If you’re Jewish, you probably jumped just reading that last sentence. It really doesn’t take much. All you have to do is insinuate that somebody knows somebody who might possibly be anti-Semitic and Jews will stampede in the other direction. You don't really need any evidence. Jews have already done half the work themselves by sending around scary emails to each other about how Obama is bad for the Jews because he will destroy Israel the minute he is elected President. Nobody knows how to scare Jews better than other Jews. McCain spokesman Michael Goldfarb might have looked like a manipulative fear-monger and an ass to some people when he started stammering in a recent interview and couldn’t name all the anti-Semitic people he said Obama supposedly knows, but to other Jews Goldfarb looked like a fellow scared Jew who can barely utter a coherent sentence because he’s so frightened. Every Jew knows we are thisclose to another Holocaust, so why take a chance on some guy whose name sounds Arab, when there’s a very nice goy running? Sure, his running mate belongs to a church that thinks Jesus is coming any day now to convert all the Jews, but there is no one who loves Israel more than a bunch of Christians waiting for the Rapture. I expect just seeing Obama’s name is going to have many Jews running out of voting booths screaming like it's Halloween. For Jews, everyday is Halloween.

The Reverse Bradley Effect

Republicans are hoping that all the polls are wrong because of the "Bradley Effect," the phenomenon where white people say they are going to vote for the black guy because they don’t want to appear racist but once they get in the voting booth they just can’t do it. But this year, I think we’re going to see a "Reverse Bradley Effect," where black people say they are going to vote for the black guy because they don’t want to seem disloyal, but when they get into the voting booth they just can’t pull the lever for the brother. When it gets right down to it, black people don’t really trust other black people. When a famous black person gets in trouble, what’s the first thing they do? They hire a Jewish lawyer. And how many rich and famous black people let other black people manage their money or careers? Not too many. If black people won’t hire black lawyers or accountants, what makes you think they are going to hire a black President?

Hispanics Will Remember Why No Se Puede Support Obama

John McCain probably thought Hispanics would line up behind him because he sponsored the immigration reform bill that would have granted amnesty to illegal aliens, but Hispanics have been skittish about supporting him because they know he will probably sell them down the river to appease his base the first chance he gets. Until Election Day, that is. Once Election Day rolls around Hispanics will suddenly remember just how much they hate black people. No one hates black people more than Hispanics (except maybe Asians). Black people give Hispanic people someone to look down on. They even still call them "Negroes" long after everyone else changed to "blacks" and "African-Americans." If a black person gets elected President, the only people Hispanics will have left to make fun of will be gay people. I don’t think they’ll let that happen.

Old People Stick Together

This year old people have a chance to make history instead of just being history. They have an opportunity to elect the oldest human to ever serve as President, someone who is as crotchety as they are. Old people don’t care if their daughter marries a young man, they just don’t want one running the country. And they can sympathize with someone whose rightful promotion is being stolen by some precocious young whippersnapper who doesn’t have the decency to wait his turn. It seems like lately Presidents just keep getting younger and younger and old people think it’s about time someone who looks like them gets in the White House for a change. Ultimately, old people like to stick together, which is why they are going to flock to McCain. You’ve probably noticed that in public places like parks or cafeterias old people tend to gravitate toward one another because they feel more comfortable hanging out with other old people who can understand their jokes and ossified cultural references. They imagine having a President who will say things that go over everybody's head and when young people turn to them and ask them to explain, they will just say, “It’s an old people thing; you wouldn’t understand.”

Men Think With Their…

Palin has had a strange effect on American men. It’s hard to describe the secret of her allure. According to Kathleen Parker, it's why McCain picked her in the first place: "McCain took Palin to his favorite coffee-drinking spot down by a creek and a sycamore tree," she writes. "They talked for more than an hour, and, as Napoleon whispered to Josephine, ‘Voila.’ One does not have to be a psychoanalyst to reckon that McCain was smitten." In The New Yorker Jane Mayer describes how a group of influential conservative men became putty in Palin's hands after they met her on a cruise. Rich Lowry may have articulated it best when he wrote after the debate, "I'm sure I'm not the only male in America who, when Palin dropped her first wink, sat up a little straighter on the couch and said, 'Hey, I think she just winked at me.' And her smile. By the end, when she clearly knew she was doing well, it was so sparkling it was almost mesmerizing. It sent little starbursts through the screen and ricocheting around the living rooms of America." Ultimately, I think many men will end up voting for Palin and her running mate because men tend to think with their hearts more than their brains. When men see Palin, they can’t describe the effect she has on them; they just know their palms get sweaty and hearts start beating faster.

Women Love a Bad Boy

Women love a bad boy and there was a time when Obama seemed exciting and even a little dangerous, the kind of guy girls would like to bring home to their parents just to scare them. But as the campaign wore on, Obama seemed less and less enthralling. Women began to realize that his cool façade wasn’t keeping a lid on roiling depths of passion; it was just hiding more and more layers of cool. After a while he began to seem so safe and reassuring that women started to get bored with him. And then they took a look at McCain. They realized that he was reckless and impetuous and oh so deliciously risky. Sure, he might snap at you and call you nasty names but he’ll always say he’s sorry afterward and that just makes him more alluring. With McCain as President, you’ll never know what he is going to do next. In the end he may bankrupt you or knock you up (and after he appoints Supreme Court Justices who reverse Roe v. Wade, you’ll be spared from having to make that heart-rending decision about what to do about it), but in the end you know you would make the same choice again even if everything tells you not to. Remember when you picked George Bush over that boring guy who reminded you of your first husband?

Conservatives Finally Have a Reason To Be Optimistic About the Future

Conservatives have always hated McCain for his support of immigration reform, campaign finance reform and moderate judges, and his opposition to torture and the Bush tax cuts, until he changed his mind and kicked his principles under the Straight Talk Express, though not soon enough for most of us. But after he picked Sarah Palin, conservatives took another look at McCain. That was when we noticed that McCain is really, really old and sometimes he doesn’t look all that well (wink!). And then it dawned on us: McCain will probably die in office! We may not be all that happy with McCain, but we are practically giddy at the prospect that he won't last that long. He could even keel over right after the Inauguration. And then . . . say hello to President Palin! The thought of a President Palin sends chills up the legs of many patriotic Americans, and up other parts of their bodies, too. So conservatives will be rushing to the polls fired up by the prospect that a vote for McCain is really a vote for President Palin. When you go into the voting booth November 4, I hope you, too, will picture Sarah Palin sitting in the Oval Office with her Manolo Blahniks propped up on the desk and I betcha you’ll know what to do.

Update: Whoops.

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Swift Reactions 9: In Which Ann Althouse Tasks Me

You would think that my piece “Great Moments in Election-Year Blogging,” which brought well-deserved attention to the underreported stories on Obama in the conservative blogosphere, would have been greeted by those hard-working bloggers with great appreciation. Astonishingly, many of them responded with ingratitude and even hostility. Perhaps the most puzzling reaction came from Ann Althouse, who may have earned a place in Bartlett’s for her quote "You know, just because the thing I saw wasn't there doesn't mean there wasn't something there that I didn't see," thanks in no small part to the efforts of this modest blogger.

After I sent Ms. Althouse a link to the story as a courtesy, she wrote back to say, “Deceitful as usual. Thanks a whole hell of a lot.” I replied that I was “deeply troubled” that she would consider my piece “deceitful” and assured her that “like you, I am very scrupulous about what is published under my name (well, pseudonym), and I would hate to ruin my reputation by giving people the idea that I just publish whatever outrageous idea pops into my head without regard to what damage it might cause to myself and others.” Unfortunately, it was difficult to have a discussion with her about just what was wrong with my piece because she has a very strict policy against reading my work, lest the intellectual purity of her ideas be sullied by my clumsy attempts at reason, which I completely understand. Perhaps I didn’t praise her enough.

But her annoyance at me for my inadequate praise turned into rage after George Packer of the New Yorker linked to my piece and accused her of belonging to “a self-isolating political subculture gone rancid.” How did Ms. Althouse respond to this ridiculous and unfair charge? She and her commenters circled the wagons and viciously lashed out. “George Packer, names me and slams me, but doesn't link, so there's no way for readers to see the context” she wrote. “Shame on you, George Packer! That is truly sleazy!” Finally, she told Mr. Packer, “Look in a mirror, man. Look in a damn mirror, loser.” If Mr. Packer bothered to come to her site and read what she wrote as well as all of the supportive comments from her loyal and insular community of regular commenters, he would certainly see there was nothing “self-isolating” or “rancid” about her subculture. Later, she added, still fuming, “What Packer seems to have done is to have adopted another blogger's summary of what a lot of bloggers, including me, have done over the course of the election season. That other blogger paid no attention to my year of balanced blogging, under an explicit vow of cruel neutrality.” It seemed to me, however, that she undermined her case, and might even strike some as a wee bit hypocritical, when she referred to me as “that other blogger” without linking to me or even naming me, while accusing Mr. Packer of the very same violation of blogger ethics. Although I’m not a law professor like Ms. Althouse, from what experience I have gathered watching Matlock, I’m pretty sure that undermining your case is something you want to avoid.

When I politely pointed out this apparent contradiction in an email, she replied, “Your name has never appeared in a post on my blog. You smeared me by name on your blog and so did Packer. I chose only to write about Packer because of his prominence. I chose to ignore you other than to tell you by email that I regard what you wrote about me as deceitful.” I did not have the heart to tell Ms. Althouse that perhaps Mr. Packer applied her own reasoning to her and did not link to her because he did not consider her prominent enough to warrant such attention. Despite the fact that Ms. Althouse considers my blog to be The Blog That Dare Not Speak Its Name, said to me in her comments, “I don't like you, and screw you” and referred to me as a “little prick,” a “s---head,” a “hypocrite,” “boring,” and an “a--hole,” I know that this is just her colorful way of speaking, and probably how she speaks to her students as well to toughen them up, so I don’t take it personally. I only wish her well in her desire to someday earn the respect of the eastern elites, which she so clearly craves, like those other “wet-fingered conservatives” that Charles Krauthammer writes about.

Ace of Spades also seemed unhappy with my piece, cruelly drawing my attention in an email to the fact that his traffic is somewhat higher than mine. I pointed out that we have different goals: “I have aimed for a quality audience instead of simply quantity as you have,” I told him and encouraged him to “keep up the good work,” cheering him on by saying, “I know you're going to hit on a story that will actually have an effect on the election someday.” Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs took issue with my post as well, linking to it in a comment (see comment #79) and telling his readers, “If you want a graphic demonstration of how much damage is being done by the so-called ‘conservatives’ who are chasing after conspiracy fantasies and stupid ugly rumors, read it and weep.”

Some of my own commenters also expressed disappointment with my piece. First-time (and apparently last-time) reader Dawn Marie, wrote, “It would have been nice to find a conservative blog that I could read in order to get a balanced perspective on the news. Unfortunately, your blog is just a collection of unsubstantiated rumors.” Although she allowed that “there are moments when your writing is fair,” she went on to say, “Your bias comes out with statements such as (paraphrased) ‘supported the democrats until they nominated an unqualified African-American candidate.’ Why not just say they nominated an ‘unqualified candidate’? Is there something particularly juicy to the placement of unqualified and African-American next to each other?” I have to confess I'm not sure what she is trying to say here. Does she mean I should use fewer adjectives? My good friend Neddie Jingo quickly rallied to my defense: “How dare you come into this good conservative blog and imply that it's ‘unbalanced’? Mr. Swift is and always has been a deep conservative thinker of the first water. I get all my news from him, just as he gets his from Fox News and Jay Leno monologues. That way, it's extra-filtered and pure, pure, pure,” he wrote. “I suspect you are actually a LIEberal flying under false colors, trying to make us think you are a conservative in order to make our brains explode from the sheer contradiction.”

Although there were some naysayers, such as Lonewhacko, whose name, I think, is supposed to be ironic, most of the comments were enthusiastically respectful. I urge you to read them all, though if you are rushed for time, Mistah Charley summed them up nicely. I must say, however, I was a bit hurt when Driftglass compared my post to an old rug, though I’m sure he didn’t mean to be quite so unkind.

Finally, my piece “Pro-America vs. Anti-America,” which included a handy chart outlining the differences, really brought out the creativity of my dear readers, who provided their own wonderful illustrations of Pro-America/Anti-America. Here are a few examples: Distributorcap: Wheel of Fortune/Jeopardy; Dr. X: Fried/sautéed; PK: Dogma/Karma; Tom: glossolalia/stream of consciousness; rynato: Elvis Presley/Elvis Costello; Pamela D. Hart: lemonade/Kool-Aid; chicago dyke: meth/pot g4rg4ntu4: God/Boognish. Please go read them all. In the end I think I will take my very small, high-quality, not-particularly-loyal community over that of Ann Althouse and Ace of Spades any day.

Update: Ms. Althouse is still very angry.

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Great Moments in Election-Year Blogging

No matter what happens in this year’s election, the conservative blogosphere deserves to win a collective Pulitzer Prize for its election-year coverage. While the mainstream media has given Americans a very distorted picture of Barack Obama, portraying him as a thoughtful, intelligent, unflappable, decent family man who has the temperament and judgment to be President, the conservative blogosphere has been the only place where you can get the real story. Hampered by quaint, old-fashioned rules of journalism that require citing evidence and reputable sources, the mainstream media has failed to report a number of important stories about Obama and the conservative blogosphere has had to step up and do the media’s job for them. As a public service I have collected some of the most important of these stories in one place. Pulitzer Prize judges, take note!

Some of the stories below are shocking and even hard to believe, but they weren’t published on crazy, fringe websites. They appeared on some of the most distinguished and well-respected sites on the Internet. The bloggers and online journalists who published them have staked their reputations and their sacred honor on the veracity of these reports. To doubt the truth of their findings, you would have to believe that an entire segment of the blogosphere has suddenly been gripped by hysteria and gone collectively insane, which is a pretty unlikely scenario.

During Obama’s dark, mysterious years at Columbia, he was involved in domestic terrorist bombings

Although some mainstream media sources have alluded to Obama’s mysterious years at Columbia, only one intrepid reporter, Tom Maguire of Just One Minute has made the cognitive leap required to connect all of the dots. Noting that Obama admitted in his book Dreams of My Father that he was “interested in South Africa divestment,” Maguire does some digging and discovers that some protests against the 1981 tour by the South African Springboks rugby team resulted in violence and even some bombings. Guess who “was involved in some fashion” in these bombings? The Weather Underground! “These are just dots and it may be impossible to connect them,” says Maguire, modestly, “but we have Barack Obama at Columbia working on South African divestment (as were many peaceful protestors) while other radical elements with a Weather Underground flavor are setting bombs, killing cops, and working on South African divestment. As a bonus, Bill Ayers is studying at Bank Street College a quarter mile from Columbia.” Wow! How can the mainstream media possibly ignore the fact that Obama must have been “involved in some fashion” in domestic terrorism because he was “interested in South African divestment.” “Tom Maguire steps pretty far out on a limb with this bit of speculation,” says CPAC Blogger of the Year Ace of Spades, who links to the story. “But it would explain why Barack Obama's ‘lost years’ at Columbia have remained so very very secret.” It makes me wonder how my friend Tom Watson, who was at Columbia at the same time as Obama and was also “interested in South African divestment,” was connected to the Weather Underground, not to mention hundreds of other former Columbia students who today freely walk the streets despite their terrorist connections. I wonder if Tom has mentioned his radical connections in his upcoming book CauseWired: Plugging In, Getting Involved, Changing the World, or if like Obama, he mysteriously left it out.

Obama didn’t actually write Dreams of My Father. In fact, it was ghost-written by none other than Bill Ayers!

Jack Cashill at the aptly named American Thinker found it difficult to believe that Barack Obama, who is not one of the most articulate politicians around, could possibly have written a whole book all by himself. He must have had help. Probably from someone evil. So on a hunch Cashill decided to compare Obama’s book with a book written by Bill Ayers and lo and behold, he discovered some shocking similarities, including the use of nautical imagery and the fact that a very scientific test to determine the grade level of the prose was a match. This wasn’t the first story Cashill broke. Cashill also proved that Arab terrorists and not Eric Rudolph were responsible for the 1996 Olympics bombing in Atlanta and that the Clintons covered up the real cause of the death of Ron Brown and the downing of TWA Flight 800. Unfortunately, Cashill’s overwhelming evidence wasn’t enough to convince the mainstream media to report on his theories, but Ann Althouse, who is a tenured professor at the 36th most prestigious law school in the country according to U.S. News & World Report, took them very seriously. “Mere confirmation bias? Or is Cashill onto something?” wrote the respected professor ominously after presenting her exhaustive analysis. Former U.S. prosecutor Andrew C. McCarthy, who now writes for the National Review’s The Corner, wrote that while he didn’t “want to feed into what sounds, at first blush, like Vince Fosteresque paranoia,” after reading Cashill’s analysis he found it “thorough, thoughtful, and alarming.” Scott Johnson at Powerline called Cashill's work "interesting" and said that while "Cashill could also make the case that John Hinderaker and I qualify for recognition as Obama's secret collaborator" they didn't live in Obama's neighborhood, as Ayers did, which is in itself pretty damning. “Nautical metaphors may sink Obama,” Ace of Spades wrote hopefully. Flopping Aces saw Ayers’ ghost-writing of Obama’s book as just one part of a vast conspiracy to get a socialist elected President. “Eventually, if successful, their dreams of a Communist nation can be realized,” wrote Flopping Aces. “Sounds crazy….I know.” By the way, before Cashill hit on his theory, I noted some eerie similarities between Dreams of My Father and the Horatio Hornblower novels of C.S. Forester, which also contain nautical references and are written on a high school level, but I gave up my investigation when I realized that Forester died in 1966 and probably could not have written Obama’s book. Why didn't I think of comparing Obama’s book to Ayers’ book instead? I guess that's why I'm not one of the A-list bloggers.

Michelle Obama attacks “American white racists” in an interview with obscure online news site

I bet you probably didn’t know that Michelle Obama gave an exclusive interview to the obscure online journalism site African Press International in which she said that “American white racists” are trying to derail her husband's candidacy by claiming that Obama was adopted by his Indonesian stepfather, which would make him ineligible to be President under one of the secret, little-known provisions of the U.S. Constitution. Mrs. Obama was apparently so disturbed by these charges that she decided to call this press agency, which most people have never heard of, and vent Martha Mitchell-like, even though her words might scuttle her husband’s chances of becoming President. Although the mainstream media hasn’t yet picked up the story, and the Obama campaign denies the interview took place, Gateway Pundit, Protein Wisdom, Right Pundits, Stop the ACLU, Maggies Notebook, Death by 1000 Paperecuts, Strata-Sphere, Gina Cobb, Macsmind, News Busters, World Net Daily, Jim Treacher, Townhall and a number of other conservative blogs and news sites ran with it. Although some cynical bloggers were skeptical of the story for some reason and demanded more proof, API assured them that it had tapes of the conversations and was just waiting for the right moment to release them. Although API still hasn’t managed to work out the logistics yet, and several deadlines have already come and gone, conservative bloggers are very patient and understanding and just hope that API can work everything out before the election. “We will know soon enough,” writes Gateway Pundit. “It is amazing how the media will believe a hoax that some Republican yelled ‘kill him’ at a Palin rally with no evidence but will disregard a harsh story on Michelle Obama from the start. It's interesting how that works.” It is funny how that works, Gateway Pundit.

Obama had a girlfriend that his wife found out about and forced her to move to the Caribbean.

What would an election be without a sex scandal? If you only read the American mainstream media, you might not know that the U.K.’s Daily Mail reported that Obama was “the target of a shadowy smear campaign designed to derail his bid for the US Presidency by falsely claiming he had a close friendship with an attractive African-American female employee…. The woman, now 33, vigorously denies the vicious and unsubstantiated gossip.” Unfortunately, the American mainstream media apparently has some kind of silly rules about publishing stories about unsubstantiated rumors as a way of writing about those rumors, but conservative bloggers have been all over the story like white bloggers on rice. Once again the conservative blogosphere’s most respected blogger Ace of Spades led the way. “Having now spoken to someone tracking the story, I can say: 1) It's not just a silly little rumor. 2) It will break in some form shortly,” he wrote. Ace even noticed that Obama had vacationed in the Caribbean, noting his source “hadn't even made that connection.” That’s just how Ace’s mind works, making connections that don’t even occur to peddlers of sleazy gossip.

Unfortunately, the story hasn’t broken yet in some form, except on a number of prominent conservative blogs. Jammie Wearing Fool presented a very credible case for why the story might be true, writing, “If you're Obama and you're married to the modern-day incarnation of Aunt Esther, you've got to figure the temptation to get your thang on must be pretty strong.” Say Anything advised Obama to “disclose this woman’s pay records, her travel records and her job history as it relates to working for his Senate staff and/or campaign.” Stop the ACLU cautioned, “Just remember…this is only a rumor until the media get off their behinds and actually investigate this,” but that didn’t stop Right Voices, Protein Wisdom, Hill Buzz, Confederate Yankee, Jammie Wearing Fool, Silent Running or Black Five from discussing it. Unfortunately, these bloggers have been unable to offer any evidence that the story is true, but just because there is no evidence that something is true, that doesn’t mean it isn’t true.

There is a tape of Michelle Obama with Louis Farrakhan talking about “whitey”

Larry Johnson of No Quarter used to be a liberal until the Democrats decided to nominate an unqualified African-American for President. In a last-ditch attempt to get Democrats to come to their senses, he revealed the existence of a secret videotape featuring Michelle Obama speaking to a group that included the wife of Louis Farrakhan and maybe even Farrakhan himself in which she confirms the most feverish nightmares of some white Americans by ranting about “whitey.” Johnson claimed that Republicans had a copy of this tape, which they were holding onto until October, when it would do the most damage. Although he didn’t actually see the tape himself, he had many friends and friends of friends who did see it. Stop the ACLU wrote, "This is all a rumor, but if you read Michelle’s college thesis on race you will find it is most likely true." Macranger reported, "Too many insiders are talking about it to outright dismiss it." Jim Geraghty of National Review's The Corner initially believed the tape existed but later grew skeptical, writing, "I note that despite my readers' hopes, this fits the pattern for rumors like this — they're always simultaneously vague but hyped to be huge, and they're always coming just around the corner." Killjoy. If Johnson is right, and there is no reason to doubt him, we should be seeing that tape any day now. But you might want to send him a note and remind him that there are only two more weeks left in October so they better release that tape quick.

Obama was not born in the United States and his birth certificate has been forged.

What would happen if we elected a President who was not born in this country and is not eligible to be President? Some of the best minds in the conservative blogosphere are doing everything they can to stop this horrifying scenario from happening before it is too late. “This is serious: Barack Obama's campaign has endorsed the accuracy of what is almost certainly a forged birth certificate for Obama,” writes Right Wing News. According to Pamela Geller of Atlas Shrugs, Doug Ross of Director Blue and Israel Insider, the birth certificate the Obama campaign released is without a doubt a forgery, which they have proven using all kinds of scientific analysis that involves anti-aliasing and kerning, which makes my head spin but looks really convincing. Tiger Hawk was really concerned about this: “I do not think that it would be good for anybody, including Republicans, if it turned out that Barack Obama was not 'natural born' under the law. What a mess that would be for the whole country.” And Andrew McCarthy of the National Review’s The Corner also wanted answers, adding, in case anyone had any doubt, “I am not a conspiracy theorist.” (Update: What is the real reason for Obama's trip to Hawaii?)

So if Obama wasn’t born in Hawaii, where was he born? Prestigious conservative news organization World Net Daily reports, “Pennsylvania Democrat Philip J. Berg, who filed a lawsuit demanding Sen. Barack Obama present proof of his American citizenship, now says that by failing to respond Obama has legally ‘admitted’ to the lawsuit's accusations, including the charge that the Democratic candidate was born in Mombosa [sic], Kenya.” Berg claims he spoke to Obama’s grandmother and she said she was in the delivery room when he was born in a hospital in Mombassa. Although Philip Berg once filed a RICO lawsuit against Bush and others blaming them for the events of 9/11, that doesn’t mean he’s wrong now. (Update: Pamela Geller of Atlas Shrugs has determined that not only was Obama not born in Hawaii, his father is actually Malcolm X!)

As if being Kenyan weren’t bad enough, John Ray at Stop the ACLU reports that Obama is also Indonesian according to another birth certificate and that he traveled to Pakistan in 1981 on an Indonesian passport where he no doubt met with members of Al Qaeda. “I suspect that Obama may have dumped his Indonesian citizenship at some point along the way, to advance his political career,” writes Ray of the wily, ambitious politician. “But I would not be shocked if he still holds it. This question, however, should not overshadow the serious problem of hiding his Indonesian identity from the electorate….. What else is he hiding?” Despite so much evidence that Obama is not a natural-born U.S. citizen, some conservative bloggers have been as dismissive of this story as the mainstream media. “Let’s stop chasing absurd conspiracy theories that make it more difficult to win the real arguments in this election,” Ed Morrissey of Hot Air wrote, Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs, who is the Father of Konservative Kerning Analysis has banned mention of the birth certificate story on his site and AJ Strata of Strata-Sphere did his own scientific analysis to disprove it. Who got to them, I wonder?

Barack Obama had an underage, gay “affair” with a pedophile.

When the National Enquirer reported that one of Obama’s childhood mentors wrote a semi-autobiographical book that includes passages about sex with an underage girl, the conservative blogosphere collectively made the next logical leap that even the Enquirer was too skittish to make: Obama must have had sex with this man when he was nine years old. “The National Enquirer now suggests Barack Obama had an underage, gay affair with a pedophile,” wrote Erick Erickson of Red State. “Yup. That Frank Marshall Davis guy Barry says was his good friend? Turns out he was a perv of the first order and liked young boys." In case anyone should make unfair accusations against him, Erickson added, "This post is not intended to spread that rumor.” Indeed, that post was only intended as a public service to pass on information that was right there between the lines of the Enquirer story for all to see. “That may be worse than his having been counseled by Jeremiah Wright,” wrote Dan Riehl. “No wonder he says "Pakit-stan" in that funny way of his! heh!” Confederate Yankee wondered why this very important story was being buried by the mainstream media, explaining, “Barack Obama's list of known mentors now includes child rapists ('Uncle Frank' Marshall), racists (Rev. Jeremiah Wright) and terrorists (Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dorn). When is someone going to question how these associations must have warped Obama's views and render him unstable, and unsuitable for the Presidency?” Jules Crittenden, who called the story an “October Surprise,” dismissed Obama’s being “mentored by a suspected commie pervert in underage late-night drinking/dirty limerick slams” as a “youthful indiscretion,” but added, “with the subsequent adult pattern … 20 years in the pews of a frothing America-bashing bigot and the professional palling around with an unrepentant ex-terrorist … you begin to see what they mean when with that ‘doesn’t look like us’ line. Turns out it’s not a racial cue at all.” Dan Collins of Protein Wisdom also reported on the story, but as usual, I have no idea what he was trying to say. “No doubt Obama will claim this as a desperate smear by the forces of evil who are afraid of change,” said Jammie Wearing Fool, with that delightful sarcasm he uses when not smearing people.

You might think that the fact that Obama was palling around with pedophiles when he was nine years old, which is the exact same time that William Ayers was blowing up the Pentagon, would be an important story, but once again the mainstream media ignored it. Conservative blogger Don Surber also demurred, writing, “Some bloggers are calling this an October surprise. I call it stupidity” and predictably liberal bloggers proceeded to shoot the messengers. “When people discuss (possible) sexual contact between ten-year-old boys who are not their political enemies and grown men, they usually refer to the 'underage gay affairs' as sexual abuse,” wrote Jim Henley of Unqualified Offerings. “They also recognize that adults who have been abused may or may not wish to tell the whole world the details, and they respect it. Admittedly, most people are not members of the NAMBLA wing of the Republican Party, or, failing that, curdled into pure meanness. Maybe Erickson just holds with the more sweeping theories about the cultural construction of the age of consent. Whatever the reason, he’s sure that that little vixen, ten-year-old Barry Obama, was asking for it man.”

Obama had cocaine-fueled gay sex in the back of a limousine with a not-very-attractive disabled man with a criminal background

While the mainstream media requires their sources practically to be saints before they will even think of publishing sensational allegations, the prestigious World Net Daily is under no such constraints. It reported on Larry Sinclair’s allegations that he did cocaine and had sex with Barack Obama in the back of a limousine without making him jump through all the hoops a mainstream media organization or even the National Enquirer would have required. Although some people didn't find Larry Sinclair's story credible considering his criminal record and the fact that he failed a lie detector test, WND decided to publish the allegations and let the people decide. Although many in the conservative blogoshpere also doubted Sinclair’s veracity, some, like Rusty Shackleford at Jawa Report, decided the gloves were off after the National Enquirer ran a salacious report on Sarah Palin, and reluctantly decided to link to the story anyway, because, as he explains, “this kind of slime is now in play.” Mick Stockinger at Uncorrelated agreed that “it’s only fair” to bring it up and Rude News called it “tit for tat.” That oughta teach the National Enquirer.

Obama was getting answers in the first debate through a clear plastic hearing aid in his ear

Ann Althouse has a unique ability to see things that no one else sees, not unlike my Aunt Agatha, until she was sent away to a rest home and forced to take medication that took away her abilities. During the primaries, Althouse discovered that a Hillary Clinton ad included the subliminal message “Nig” written on a child's pajamas. Then during the debates, Althouse noticed on her high definition television that Obama was wearing a clear plastic hearing aid in his ear and noted that he spoke haltingly as if someone was giving him the answers in the debate. “It's clearly there, a crescent of clear plastic,” she said in response to some skeptical comments (note her use of the word "crescent," a clever reference to Obama's secret Muslim heritage). Although Althouse later backed away from the story, which Glenn Reynolds at Instapundit linked to, she didn’t repudiate it entirely, concluding in the comments, "You know, just because the thing I saw wasn't there doesn't mean there wasn't something there that I didn't see." I don’t know if this is an acceptable standard of evidence in courts of law since I am not a law professor like Ms. Althouse, but it has come to be the standard of evidence in the conservative blogosphere, and I don’t see why the fuddy-duddy mainstream media can’t adopt this way of thinking, too.

Ace of Spades’ Super-Secret Unified Field Story That Connects All the Dots

For weeks Ace of Spades has been working on a super-secret story about Obama, which "called Obama a straight-up liar on his supposed 'flimsy' relationship with The Terrorist William Ayers" and finally connected all the dots, linking Obama and Bill Ayers, Acorn, Tony Reszko, Charles Manson, the Chicago mob, the Illuminati, Freemasons, the Trilateral Commission, Jewish bankers, Nazis living in South America, Fidel Castro, the KGB, the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, Bigfoot, Area 51, the Harlem Globetrotters, the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, the Bermuda Triangle, Mrs. Calabash and Mr. Gorsky. Apparently, Ben Smith at Politico, had the story, too, according to Ace and Hill Buzz, and he was just sitting on it (though Smith denied it). Then just as Ace was on the verge of breaking the story, he made this heart-breaking announcement: “The source was considering dropping his demand for anonymity. Thus likely moving the story forward. (He wasn't considering going forward with the Politico, by the way: but with the other, more important organization.) And now, today? After witnessing Politico, among others, savage Joe Wurtzelbacher? Cold feet.” Curse you, mainstream media and your accursed fact-checking! Will your cover-up of the truth about Barack Obama never end!

Update: Ms. Althouse is not happy about New Yorker writer George Packer's post about this modest post and calls me terrible names in her comments. See more about her disappointing reaction here.

Carnivals: Bobo Carnival of Politics, Carnival of the Insanities, Fuelmyblog Carnival, Carnival of Aloha, Carnival of Conservatism

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Pro-America vs. Anti-America

There has been some confusion over what Sarah Palin meant when she said, “The best of America is in these small towns that we get to visit, and in these wonderful little pockets of what I call the real America, being here with all of you hard working very patriotic, very pro-America areas of this great nation." Unfortunately, Palin did not elaborate in her speech on just what she meant by “pro-America” and conversely, what constitutes “anti-America.” McCain adviser Nancy Pfotenhauer offered one example of what Palin meant by pointing out that northern Virginia is not “real Virginia.” Rep. Michelle Bachmann then went on Hardball and told Chris Matthews, “I wish the American media would take a great look at the views of the people in Congress and find out, are they pro-America or anti-America? I think the people would love to see an expose like that.” But many Americans are still unclear as to what is pro-America and what is anti-America, so I have made a handy chart that will give you some examples. This list is by no means exhaustive so please feel free to provide your own examples in the comments. (Photo by Stanley J. Forman)

Pro-America	Anti-America
Republicans	Democrats
Small towns	Cities (except for Ground Zero in New York)
The South (except northern Virginia and the parts of Florida where liberal New York Jews live), the Midwest (except for Illinois, Michigan, Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin), the West (except for the Pacific Coast and Colorado), western Pennsylvania	The East (except western Pennsylvania), the Pacific Coast, Colorado, parts of the Midwest that have turned against God, northern Virginia
Christians (except for Unitarians), Neocons	Liberal Jews, Unitarians, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists and other atheists
Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader	Saturday Night Live
Country music (except for the Dixie Chicks), Christian rock	Non-Christian rock, hip hop, electronica, classical, jazz, folk, blues, salsa, reggae, bossa nova, sea shanties, etc.
Hank Williams, Jr.	Hank Williams, Sr.
A six pack of Pabst Blue Ribbon	A venti soy milk latte
Iceberg lettuce	Arugula
American Idol	Project Runway
American Carol	A Christmas Carol
Homeschooling	Daycare
Regent University	The Ivy League
Herbert Hoover, Harry Truman, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, George W. Bush	Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, Bill Clinton
Leaving Gs off the ends of words	Pronouncing “nuclear” correctly
Soccer moms	Soccer
Professional wrestling	Olympic wrestling
A wide stance	Coming out
Shotgun marriages	Gay marriages
SUVs	Hybrids
Twilight	His Dark Materials
Chronicles of Narnia	Harry Potter
Conservapedia	Wikipedia
Pregnant teens who keep their babies	Teens who use birth control
Intelligent Design	Interior design
Seven houses	One house you can’t afford
Anger	Compassion
Myspace	Facebook
Godtube	Youtube
Abstinence-only sex education	Biology
The Rapture	Global Warming
Fargo (the accent)	Fargo (the movie)
Guns	Lawsuits
Death penalty	Abortion
Waterboarding	Skateboarding
Talk radio	NPR
Aspirin	Socialized medicine
Dr. Phil	Oprah Winfrey
Anna Nicole Smith	Princess Diana
Supreme Court cases whose names I can’t remember where Roberts, Alito, Scalia and Thomas are in the majority	Roe v. Wade
William Buckley	Christopher Buckley, Lord Buckley
Sexy librarians	American Library Association
Robocalls that interrupt your dinner	Polls that interrupt your dinner
Legacy admissions	Affirmative action
Second Amendment	Ninth Amendment
G. Gordon Liddy, Eric Rudolph, Timothy McVeigh	The Weather Underground
Social Darwinism	Theory of Evolution
Signing statements	Legislation
Joe Lieberman	Colin Powell
Pakistan	Spain
Stephen Baldwin	Alec Baldwin
Red Dawn	Dawn of the Dead
White	Black

Carnivals: Carnival of the Insanities, Bobo Carnival of Politics, Carnival To Replace Michele Bachmann

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Please Help Joe the Plumber

As we face one of the worst economic crises in our history, Americans are wondering, What can we do to help Joe the Plumber? While Barack Obama showed he is out of touch during the last presidential debate by talking about health care, education, taxes, energy policy, 401ks, mortgages and other boring middle class issues most Americans don’t really care about, John McCain focused almost exclusively on the problems of Joe the Plumber. No matter what issue debate moderator Bob Scheiffer raised, McCain always brought it back to Joe the Plumber, and what a McCain presidency would do to make him richer.

Joe the Plumber (whose real name is Joe Wurzelbacher, which may be unpronounceable but at least sounds more American than Obama) came to the nation’s attention when Obama went traipsing through a suburban Ohio neighborhood whose residents breathed a sigh of relief when they realized he was just a presidential candidate and that they could unlock their doors and didn’t need to dial 911 after all. Joe went up to Obama and said, “I'm getting ready to buy a company that makes 250 to 280 thousand dollars a year. Your new tax plan is going to tax me more, isn't it?" It turns out that Joe the Plumber doesn't actually have an extra $250,000 yet, and would probably get a tax cut under Obama's plan, but Joe is a dreamer and he dreams that he will earn this money someday the good old-fashioned American way, by charging average Americans $100 an hour, including the time he has to wait around for his partner to get “special parts.”

Instead of telling Joe what he wanted to hear, which is what a politician experienced enough to be President would have done, Obama replied, "I’m gonna cut taxes a little bit more for the folks who are most in need and for the 5% of the folks who are doing very well – even though they’ve been working hard and I appreciate that – I just want to make sure they’re paying a little bit more in order to pay for those other tax cuts. . . . My attitude is that if the economy’s good for folks from the bottom up, it’s gonna be good for everybody. If you’ve got a plumbing business, you’re gonna be better off if you’ve got a whole bunch of customers who can afford to hire you, and right now everybody’s so pinched that business is bad for everybody and I think when you spread the wealth around, it’s good for everybody."

The most famous plumber in America said he was not happy with Obama’s answer, calling it "a tap dance...almost as good as Sammy Davis, Jr," referring to the only black entertainer he could think of off the top of his head. If he had been given more time to come up with an answer he might also have said Obama “moonwalked like Michael Jackson,” “crooned like Nat King Cole,” “tickled the ivories like Stevie Wonder,” “twisted like Chubby Checkers,” “blew his horn like Dizzy Gillespie,” “talked jive like Cab Calloway,” “gave up the funk like George Clinton,” “rapped like Tupac Shakur,” or “shuffled like Step’n Fetchit.” Joe also told Fox News that he thought Obama’s answer was a “socialist viewpoint.”

It turns out that Joe is right. The idea that the wealthy should pay more taxes than the less well off, which economists call a “progressive tax system,” was proposed by Karl Marx in The Communist Manifesto, and he got the idea from socialist economist Adam Smith, who is also not American.

Why should people who are too lazy to make $250,000 get a tax cut, as most of them will under Obama’s tax plan, while people like Joe (in his dreams) and Exxon-Mobile Corporation will be left out in the cold? McCain thinks that’s unfair. “Joe, I want to tell you, I’ll not only help that — you buy that business that you worked your whole life for and be able — and I’ll keep your taxes low and I’ll provide available and affordable health care for you and your employees,” said McCain.

McCain didn’t say how he would specifically help Joe the Plumber, whether he will earmark some of the money he intends to use to take bad mortgages off the hands of banks so their CEOs will get their Christmas bonuses this year and use it to buy Joe’s business, whether he will temporarily suspend his presidency and ask Congress to pass special legislation to bail out Joe or whether he will ask his wife for permission to dip into her fortune to lend Joe the money personally. But the choice for the American people is clear: They can vote for Obama and greedily line their pockets with the tax cut they would get under Obama’s plan or they can vote for McCain and help Joe the Plumber. And since Joe is apparently not registered to vote himself, he is going to need you to vote for him.

I think Americans are a generous people and I am sure they wouldn’t mind sacrificing a little to help out Joe the Plumber. Once McCain gets into office and makes sure Joe the Plumber has gotten all the help he needs, then we can move on to solve some of the other less pressing problems with the economy.

Carnivals: Carnival of Taxes

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Obama's Secret Plan To Repeal the First Amendment

A number of conservative bloggers are warning that if Obama is elected one of the first things he will do is to take away our right to free speech. Of course, I am a big supporter of free speech, except when it comes to yelling “Fire” in a crowded theater (or even in not-so-crowded theaters showing An American Carol), indecency (Playboy, books by James Joyce and Vladimir Nabokov, anything gay), and anything that undermines the war effort (The Dixie Chicks, news organizations). But an Obama presidency will take us back to 1984; the book, that is, not the year (which wouldn't be so bad).

“Conservative-friendly media better get ready,” warns Brian C. Anderson. “Should Barack Obama win the presidency and the Democrats control Congress, as now seems likely, they will launch a full-scale war to drive critics — especially on political talk radio — right out of legitimate public debate.”

He cites some shocking proof of Obama’s intention to curtail the free speech rights of conservatives. When the NRA tried to run ads targeting Obama, his lawyers sent “bullying” letters to stations that ran them, according to Anderson. If Obama is elected, lawyers will be free to send bullying letters to anyone they want. You will have to be careful of what you say or write lest a lawyer get wind of it and fire off a bullying letter.

But there’s more. When a 527 group, the American Issues Project, tried to get stations to run ads linking Obama to terrorists, says Anderson, Obama’s campaign “complained” about the ads to the Department of Justice that AIP had broken campaign finance laws and “spooked” some stations from running them. Republicans value the free speech rights of 527 groups and would never do such a thing. If 527 groups can be stopped from smearing political opponents, our democracy is certainly in peril.

But that’s not all. When two conservative writers appeared on Chicago's WGN-AM Radio attacking Obama, Obama supporters flooded the station with, Anderson reports, “rage-filled phone calls and e-mails, making the program more difficult to conduct.” Have you ever heard anything so frightening? Imagine if conservatives bombarded someone with rage-filled phone calls and emails, not that we would, of course. Liberals would be horrified. According to Anderson, the show had “invited the Obama campaign to send a representative to respond; the campaign preferred to answer with digital brownshirts.” If the Nazis had been able to send rage-filled emails and make harassing phone calls to Jewish shopowners instead of beating them up, smashing everything in their shops and sending them to concentration camps, we might all be speaking German today.

“These crude efforts are only a start,” says Anderson. As soon as Obama gets in office he will restore the Fairness Doctrine, which could force radio and TV stations to let liberals on the air! Sure, Obama says he is opposed to reinstituting the Fairness Doctrine, but Obama is a liar, which means that the opposite is true of whatever he says. So we can be fairly certain that he actually does support reinstituting the Fairness Doctrine, unlike John McCain who also says he is opposed to the Fairness Doctrine but is not a liar.

If the Fairness Doctrine is reinstated, warns Glenn Reynolds, “I think I'll start an organization to flood the FCC with complaints whenever there's media bias from any of the big networks.” This will give the FCC less time to investigate all the complaints it now gets from people concerned about dirty words and wardrobe malfunctions. Bono will have free reign to curse whenever he wants and Janet Jackson will be able to go on television, even on Sesame Street, wearing only pasties. I'm sure Reynolds would hate for that to happen, but desperate times call for desperate measures.

When Obama reinstates the Fairness Doctrine, there’s an “even chance,” according to Stephen Green, that it will apply to blogs! “If (when?) it happens, I’ll break that law,” says Green, trying to put on a brave face. “I will break it with all due malice and in full knowledge of the possible consequences. I’ll shout ‘Fire Obama!’ in a crowded theater. And then, for the first time ever, I’ll ask for reader donations. Because I’ll going to need them, lots of them, to pay for the lawyers.” I think I'll start asking for donations now.

Although Green admits he was drunk when he wrote this, it can’t be dismissed as the paranoid ramblings of an aging, drug-addled Libertarian. “Republicans, given the kind of power the Democrats are about to accrue, would maybe take away your right to get a completely totally naked chick to grind on your lap in a publicly licensed bar,” says Green. “The Democrats will do their damnedest to take away your right to speak.” I’m sure we can all agree that putting the Pussycat Dolls in jail would be preferable to shutting up Rush Limbaugh.

But even if you take Obama at his word (and who would be naïve and stupid enough to do that?), and he doesn’t impose the Fairness Doctrine on blogs, if he is elected this modest blog and all other conservative blogs will have to shut down. That’s because Obama supports something called "network neutrality," which would prevent telecom companies from charging exorbitant rates for use of the Internet that only conservatives can afford. By letting just anyone use the Internet at low prices, corporations would be forced to let liberals stay on the web (unlike, say, on talk radio) and the Internet will slow to a crawl, which will cause people to start reading newspapers, which are all controlled by liberals. The conservative voice will be virtually silenced, except for the homeless guy ranting on the corner.

I am taking a great risk in writing this. By publishing this on my blog, I have probably earned a spot on Obama’s enemies list. If he is elected, he will probably shut down my blog, have the IRS initiate a tax audit against me, eavesdrop on my phone calls and break into my office looking for embarrassing information. Imagine electing a President who would do harass its enemies like that.

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