The Audacity of Hope and the Paucity of Israel

I was going to ask you to guess what glaring omission Barack Obama made in his chapter on foreign policy in The Audacity of Hope, but I couldn’t stop myself from giving it away in the title of this post. Dan at GayPatriot just finished reading Obama’s book and notes that there are 54 pages on “The World Beyond Our Borders” and Israel isn’t mentioned. Not even once.

Wait. Obama titled The Audacity of Hope with a phrase coined by his anti-Semitic pastor and the book fails to address the Jewish State? Surely you jest!

In related news, young Jewish Obama supporters are descending upon the Fort Lauderdale area in an organized effort to convince their pro-Israel grandparents to vote for Obama in November. They’re calling it The Great Schlep, and one of their talking points is that “Obama hearts Israel and so do you.”

I’m just not feeling the love.

September 21, 2008 · Filed Under Barack Obama, Election 2008

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Pat Buchanan is Not Representative of Republicans

David Zucker and his new flick An American Carol were the focus of a post on Entertainment Weekly’s PopWatch Blog this week. Describing the movie, the blogger wrote, “Think Dickens’ holiday classic, spun by Pat Buchanan.”

Oh, is An American Carol a delightful tale of anti-Semitic bigotry sprinkled with heartwarming homophobia and uplifting fear mongering about AIDS?

Newsflash: Pat Buchanan is NOT representative of Republicans.

I’m sick of the GOP being painted by liberals as the party of bigotry, the party of Pat Buchanan and Jesse Helms. The right needs to disown Pat Buchanan and his ilk once and for all.

September 20, 2008 · Filed Under Liberal Absurdity

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Will Bill O’Reilly’s Webmaster Be Able to Spin This?

Bill O’Reilly likes to say he’s “looking out for you,” but who’s looking out for O’Reilly?

Not his Webmaster, apparently.

Disgruntled hackers took control of BillOreilly.com on Friday and posted screenshots of the administrative interface on Wikileaks.org as proof of their electronic invasion. Wikileaks was told the breach was in retaliation for O’Reilly’s sharp criticism of sites that published some of Sarah Palin’s inbox after her email account was hacked earlier this week.

Here’s the text from the Wikileaks entry:

The file provides proof that the Fox News demagogue, Bill O’Reilly, has been hacked.

Wikileaks has been informed the hack was a response to the pundit’s recent scurrilous attacks over the Sarah Palin’s email story–including those on Wikileaks and other members of the press. Hacktivists, thumbing their noses at the pundit, took control of O’Reilly’s main site, BillOReilly.com. According to our source, the security protecting O’Reilly’s site and subscribers was “non-existent”.

And here’s a bit more from someone who claims to be involved in the hacking:

it was easy really we searched his website and found this link here [url removed] to all those passwords and they were unencrypted and it didnt require a login, Bill needs to really fire his webmaster lol

Yeah, I’m sure Bill is LOL. That person pins the hacking on Ebaumsworld users, but a commenter suggests users of the 4chan boards have been known to use Ebaumsworld as a cover.

The stolen information includes the names, e-mail addresses, and passwords of BillOreilly.com premium members, as well as their geographical locations. While only a handful of members had their information published at Wikileaks, more than 200 individuals currently have their member data being passed around the Web via popular file hosts and peer-to-peer file sharing.

The Register spoke to Eric Marston, the CTO of the company responsible for O’Reilly’s site.

According to Marston, the hackers were able to access the unsecured list by trying a large number of variations of the website’s administrative URL. He said all affected members have received an email and a phone call informing them of the breach and urging them to change their password anywhere they may have used it. No credit card information was stolen, and the site has since been completely locked down, Marston said.

The Register also points out that even though no credit card data was pilfered, the victims are vulnerable to identity theft and further hacks since people often use the same password on multiple systems.

Threat Level and Gateway Pundit have more.

September 20, 2008 · Filed Under Liberal Absurdity

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Sarah Palin’s Email Shows She’s Squeaky Clean

By now you’ve heard that some lowlife stole Sarah Palin’s Yahoo email password, broke into her account, and posted screenshots for the world to see. The bloodthirsty lefty piranhas began circling, waiting for Sarah Barracuda to go belly up, but it turns out they won’t be feasting on Palin this time.

As it turns out, Sarah Palin has nothing to hide.

There’s not a shred of evidence that her personal email account contained anything damning – not so much as a dirty joke or unusual grocery list. I won’t send traffic to the pages that have screenshots of Sarah Palin’s account, but if you’re interested, they’re easy enough to find via Google.

Someone claiming to be the one who broke into Palin’s account posted a lengthy explanation on the /b/ board at 4chan.org, the board where the screenshots originally surfaced. The message has since been deleted, but Michelle Malkin has the text, which includes the following:

I read though the emails… ALL OF THEM… before I posted, and what I concluded was anticlimactic, there was nothing there, nothing incriminating, nothing that would derail her campaign as I had hoped, all I saw was personal stuff, some clerical stuff from when she was governor…. And pictures of her family

Of course, that didn’t stop Gawker from publishing the screenshots of Palin’s account. The Huffington Post followed Gawker’s lead, as did Daily Kos where this incident was the subject of at least 11 diaries. The Associated Press got in on the reprehensible behavior by refusing to comply with the Secret Service’s request for assistance with their probe into the leaked emails.

Predictably, the dregs of the left at HuffPo are proclaiming this a Rovian plot to get rid of troopergate evidence. Yawn.  Others are calling the leaked emails damaging proof that she used a personal email account to conduct government business.  Double yawn.

I wonder, will hungry piranhas cannibalize each other when denied a meal?

September 18, 2008 · Filed Under Sarah Palin

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Lehman Brothers Can Still Help in Emergencies

Behold, the Lehman Brothers emergency evacuation kit:

Kits like these are currently plentiful on eBay, and come complete with Lehman Brothers branded pen light, goggles, mask, whistle, and instructions. I guess yesterday’s junk is today’s collectible.

How’s that for a free market?

September 17, 2008 · Filed Under Economy

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I’m In a Purple State of Mind

Last year my husband and I left true blue New York for redder pastures in the south. Little did I know we might be giving up a pair of swing state votes:

Seven weeks until Election Day, the race for President has tightened in New York, with Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) leading Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) 46-41 percent among likely voters, according to a new Siena (College) Research Institute poll released today. Obama’s five point lead is down from eight points in August, 13 points in July and 18 points in June, when he led 51-33 percent.

The Siena poll has New York looking pretty purple.

I’ve been eligible to vote in three presidential elections, and each time the Dems won New York comfortably, with 58 to 60 percent of the vote. But this year, even though Empire State Democrats outnumber Republicans by more than 2.3 million voters, it looks like my motherland might actually be in play for McCain. That’s likely an overly optimistic outlook, but we’ll see what other polls say during the coming days.

I almost feel guilty for leaving New York when my vote could have helped. I guess if I want to influence the outcome in a battleground state, I’ll have to keep working on my Obama-leaning sister in Colorado.

Update, 9/17/08: As I kind of expected, pollsters are raining on my parade.  The latest Rasmussen poll gives Obama 55% of likely New York voters and McCain 42%.  That gives Obama a nice 13 point cushion, and Rasmussen estimates the Dems have an almost 90% chance of taking New York’s Electoral votes in November.

Still, it’s worth noting that Rasmussen gave Obama a 31 point lead in June and a 20 point lead last month.  He probably won’t take New York, but his performance will be embarrassingly lackluster compared to Kerry and Gore.

September 16, 2008 · Filed Under Election 2008

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