Lawyers are for Losers

Observation by James Taranto, Wall Street Journal:

Barack Obama and Joe Biden are both lawyers. Neither John McCain nor Sarah Palin is a lawyer. Kedwards were both lawyers too, whereas neither George W. Bush nor Dick Cheney is one.

Eugene Volokh, a lawyer, extends the pattern further: Of 12 Democratic presidential and vice presidential nominees since 1980, all but two (Jimmy Carter and Al Gore) were lawyers. Of the nine Republican nominees in the same period, all but two (Dan Quayle and Bob Dole) were nonlawyers.

Very interesting, and hopefully a good omen.   Jimmy Carter and Al Gore are the only two democrat presidential nominees to recieve a majority of the popular vote since Lyndon B. Johson.   B.J. Clinton only got elected due some big eared fool on the ballot.   Clinton never got a majority of the popular vote.   Gore dd.  So why to the ‘rats treat the Clintons like royalty but Gore like a pariah.   Maybe they just lke losing.

Friday, end of the week. Fall is here, with a bang… 43 degrees this morning and even colder in some of the hills south of I90, and up in the Adirondacks. Leaves are changing the birds are flocking. Let’s see what else is happening.

• YetAnotherJohn gets a third place, and the boss gets an Honorable Mention in the OTB Caption Contest.
• Have ye heard of the new pirate movie? It be rated Arrrrr…. Yeah, that was today. Why couldn’t one of the networks do a “Pirates of the Carabian ” marathon, for pity’s sake?
• Nice to see Krugman get handed his backside on a plate. Of course, that happens every time he comes out into the real world, which in turn is why he so seldom does.
• You know, some purists are starting to annoy me, particularly when they get theselves tripped up by their own definitions. Libertarians, for example,  who fall over their own feet talking about Democracy, when in fact what they’re bitching about doesn’t qualify in even the remotest sense of the word. As I told Verdon: ?
  

  Is it naive to note that none of this stuff was ever put to a direct vote? All of it… Every damned penny, Steve, was ‘given’ us without our direct say so. And certainly, Fannie Mae in particular was an imposition from the White House.What I’m suggesting, here… is that ‘the people’ were never really given the choice in the matter. By definition, that hardly qualifies as democracy, per se’.

  Oh, granted that arguably, some candidates over the years have partially campaigned on such governmental largess. But in each case, they present not an individual choice, but a package deal, a take it all or forget it situation.

  I look at Obama, as an example, proposing huge tax hikes, and I wonder, if such tax hikes were given a straight up or down vote, minus the personality and all the other issues, would they pass? I doubt it.

  If you’re going to use words at least have the courtesy to remain within the boundires set for them by the dictionary. I mean, Beck for example drives me nucking futz sometimes, but at least he stays within definitional lines you can predict and use as a basis for discussion. You know… welcome to words mean things, with your host Daniel Webster.   You get outside those bounds and there’s nothing to discuss. It’s that (for lack of a better way of putting this) purity of meaning that helps keep my respect for Beck higher than for most people on this planet, despite some of the witheringly heated discussions he and I have had over the years.

• By the same token, then…. When a leftist starts talking about ‘faith tradition’ take it as a sure sign they haven’t a clue about the meaning of either word, and they’re trying to manipulate something they don’t understand, to their own advantage by way of a false identification with it.
• Same for the word ‘Patriotism’. When Biden starts talking about your being a ‘Patriot” reach for your wallet.  And yes, I hear you saying Biden is no purist, but I suggest he’s pure socialist… it’s the only way he could come up with a remark like that outside of Cuba, Venezuala or the former Soviet Union, with a straight face.If I recall, Hitler said the same thing, too, but I’m not sure how far I want to pursue that line. The usual idiots will start chanting “Godwin” at the first opportunity.
• Thing is, all these things are in my view reflective of a mindset in each case. As an example, those who have problems with our support of our troops… what kind of mindset do you suppose could be attached to such an individual?
• By the way, since we now have proof Charlie Rangel isn’t paying taxes in spite of having written the tax laws, does that mean Joe Biden is questioning Charlie Rangel’s patriotism?  Just curious.
• Memo to Stuart Taylor: So, does this mean you EVER trusted the press to be fair and accurate?  Oh. Yeah, I guess that WOULD be rather obvious from your past writings, huh? Took ya long enough.
• I mentioned the other day about the california Budget Veto? What do you know… the legislature backed down. The slightest presure and these goons turn tail.
• Interesting post at the DC Examiner this morning.
  

  As the stock market plunged nearly 1,000 points in two days this week, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada was preoccupied with protecting billions of dollars worth of earmarks contained in a separate, unpublished committee report that got a one-sentence reference in a giant $612 billion defense bill. Reid engineered the 61-to-32 vote to limit debate on the bill, thus barring consideration of an amendment offered by Sen. Jim DeMint. The South Carolina Republican’s amendment would have deleted the reference to the committee report so that it would have to be considered separately. By leaving the language in the bill, the lawmakers were able to carry out one of their favorite maneuvers: Incorporating committee reports into omnibus bills so they can give billions of tax dollars to their cronies without recorded votes on specific spending measures. This is the same Harry Reid who with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi promised to “drain the swamp” of Republican corruption if voters would return the Democrats to the majority.
  But Reid’s move was not just a slap at DeMint. Under pressure from a bipartisan coalition of fiscal watchdog groups, including Porkbusters, Club for Growth, Citizens Against Government Waste, National Taxpayers Union and Taxpayers for Common Sense, President George W. Bush signed an executive order last January that directed federal agencies to ignore earmarks that only appear in committee reports. If DeMint’s proposal had passed, the earmarks in the defense bill’s committee report would have been merely suggestions – not legally binding spending instructions. No wonder Reid made sure the South Carolinian’s amendment never made it to the Senate floor.

  So much for the Democrat party promises of ‘draining the swamp’. All we’ve done is give power to the gators. Swamp Stompers take note.

•  We got CLOBBERED with traffic when we posted the story  on that 20 year old brat kid of the Tennesee Democrat legislator Kernell  being the one who hacked Sarah Palin’s E-mail.  Based on the link totals form the other sites I’ve been wathcing of late, it appears the interest was indeed quite high.  Wanna know what, though? I think what we have here, people, is the oft spoken values of the parents coming of age in the kid. I do have to wonder, though, how long it’ll be before the very same crowd who was complaining abut how Bristol Palin wasn’t under control will be making excuses for Kernell, saying’well, ya can’t control kids’…
• Did anyone notice that we’re on a stock upsiwng like we’ve not had in years?  So much for the gloom and doom crowd. And, so much also, for the fairness of reporting from the usual suspects.  I’m willing to bet this is the first most of you have heard of this market gain. Oh… and I think I should point out it’s not just us. The whole world is involved, here.  London’s exchange had a day, like they’ve quite literally never seen before, as an example.
•  So, Bubba says we shouldn’t under-estimate Palin. I can’t help but wonder what precipitated that comment.
• I’ve got a question for Obama; How do you plan to deal with NORK, given that the negotiations you usually call the solution to any old thing that comes up,  have worked out so well in this case?
• Martin: What will she say? As little as freakin’ possible, that’s what.  I could be wrong, but I figure that by that time, the Raines/Obama connection will be full fruited with McCain finally getting off this kick of blaming the market and putting the blame where it belongs… on those two, and references to such matters will be off limits for the usual leftist crowd. As I keep saying, this is a failure of government, in the form of Raines and his buddy, Obama… not of the market. This bears on your comments on AIG, as well. As I’ve been saying, AIG is in trouble because the government screwed up by injecting itself into the home loan business in the first place…(Va F&F) and then by placing people like Raines and Gorelick in charge of the place…. who then turned around and caused a 10 billion dollar crisis, walking away with millions in their pockets to boot.
• As a matter of fact, I’ll tell you what; I’m now callingfor an investigation into the Democrats involved with this, who have walked off with millions of our money, and are the direct cause of this financial meltdown. Let’s get Franklin Deleno Raines up on the carpet. Get’s get Jamie Gorelick up on the carpet. Let’s get Barrack Obama up on the carpet.  Let’s get them to explain away the connections we’ve been making between them and the fraud driven failure we’ve been witness to recently. Let’s question the Democrats who, when Bush and company pointed to F&F being in serious trouble, scoffed at the whole notion and said the whole thingw as overblown, and nothing but an attempt to divert attention from a failed Iraq policy… which also turned out not to be true, by the way. Let’s get the Democrats in congress and in the Senate to stop covering up their roles in all of this.  Let’s see if they survive those kind of questions.  It’s time to bring the heat, people. Past it, rather.
• Have a great weekend.

Imagine if Sarah Palin backed up one of her political opinions with the assertion that it comported with the doctrine of her church. I will wait and wait for Andrew Sullivan to denounce Biden as a Christianist.

That’s Ann Althouse, and that’s the BitsBlog Snark of the day.

I’ve often wondered how Catholics could elect Democrats in the last 40 years or so. That would seem to have been rendered a moot point this cycle, as Gerald Warner observes:

Missed it by THAT MUCH

Remember, you read it here first: on September 11 this blog reported a mounting backlash from Catholic bishops against Biden, Barack Obama’s “Catholic” pro-abortion running mate. At that time I estimated eight bishops had come out to denounce Biden; the total is now 55. Beyond that, Biden is being trashed across every state of the Union by Catholic newspapers, TV and radio stations, and blogs. It is a tsunami of rejection.

The story has now hit the secular media. Last Saturday Time magazine asked: “Does Biden Have a Catholic Problem?” By Wednesday the issue had moved onto the front page of the New York Times. Joe the Jinx has blown it, big time. Biden has only himself to blame: he started this war, with his notoriously undisciplined mouth. He knew the dangers. Last August, Archbishop Raymond Burke, former Archbishop of St Louis and now Prefect of the Apostolic Segnatura in Rome, said communion should be denied to pro-abortion politicians “until they have reformed their lives”.

Now, how important is this?

There are 47 million Catholic voters in the United States. One quarter of all registered voters are Catholics. At every presidential election in the past 30 years the Catholic vote has gone to the winning candidate, except for Al Gore in 2000. This year 41 per cent of Catholics are independents – up from 30 per cent in 2004

My take here is that Obama is in serious trouble… Biden has already cost him more in independants than he could have possibly gotten out of Biden’s reinforcement of the Democrat party base.

You knew it was coming.   When you try to smear Rush Limbugh, he fights backs.   Sadly for BO, Limbaugh has full access to own library and knows how to use it,  Wall Street Journal:

I understand the rough and tumble of politics. But Barack Obama — the supposedly postpartisan, postracial candidate of hope and change — has gone where few modern candidates have gone before.

Mr. Obama’s campaign is now trafficking in prejudice of its own making. And in doing so, it is playing with political dynamite

Barack Obama is no more that George Wallace with a slightly better tan.

D. Kernell appears to be a moron.   Well it appears that this one moron is about to find out what it is to have his life made miserable by an army of morons.   Ace thinks he has found his man and and has called in the hounds err morons.   Ace quoting the Tenessean:

The son of state Rep. Mike Kernell has been contacted by authorities in connection with a probe into the hacking of personal e-mail of vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin, Kernell told The Tennessean

Hat tip photo and more:  Gateway Pundit.

I don’t think Ace likes Kernell:

Your name is Mudd.

And every derogatory tip I get about your background, I will publish.

Ex-girlfriends (or boyfriends, who knows) of David Kernell? Please contact me.

In the words of Emilio Estevez, “I’ll make ya famous.”

If BO wants Chicago style politics, Ace appears to be more that willing to play this the Chicago Obama way, to wit down and dirty.

While Ace wants to talk to Kernell’s ex’s, Bitsblog is blegging for the name of Kernell’s contact, boss, inside the Obama Campaign.   Nothing personal, or private, just the name of Kernell’s contact.

Addendum:

Aside to Andrew the Excitable(no link), while Ace intends to pry under every rock in Kernell’s life, Ace will not be violating Kernell’s privacy.   Ace will be vetting him.

Others tracking this:

Michelle; Hot Air, Jammie Wearing Fool, Sister Toldjah

You have not seen this person holding this sign before. You can go about your business. Move along.

• Heard this one on a local talk show… BO saying:
  

  “If we’re going to ask questions about who has been promulgating negative ads that are completely unrelated to the issues at hand, I think I win that contest pretty handily.”

  Well, yeah, I think I can agree with that, yes.

• As usual, when the going gets tough, the Democrats in Congress go on Vacation. What’s their approval rating, these days, 12%, or something?
• So, Biden is now calling paying higher taxes a ‘patriotic act’?   At the same time, I see he doesn’t figure giving that money to charity is all that patriotic. Despite his huge income, he gives very little indeed.  I guess that’s the kind of nonsense you’d expect from someone who has raised taxes every time he had the chance. So has Obama.  It’s quite clear, folks that the Democrats as is usual, have given us a very anti-private sector ticket. We’re dealing with people whose sensibilties are drawn directly from Das Kapital.  Mark this well, folks, these people think America is great not because of it’s freedoms, but because of it’s government.  That’s exactly why this financial meltdown is being blamed not on the government actions that caused it, but on the free enterprise- free market model.  This whole problem, folks is rooted at the Fannie Mae business a point which you will never hear from Obama, and Biden, because they both had a hand in propping up FDR’s monster.  If the Republicans are smart, they’ll start banging this drum… loudly. Frankly, though, I wonder if they’re quite that bright. We’ll see.
• I’m not sure if this is good or not, but The Donald is now a McCain supporter.
• There’s still a lot of traffic on Sarah Palin’s Email being hacked. Remember when the government breaking into people’s Emails used to be the fear from the BDS crowd? Now it’s apparently their tool of choice. What interests me is that virtually nobody is shocked by this happening.  It’s almost like they think all is as it should be. And now, perhaps we have an idea of why the leftists were all bent outta shape when they figured out McCain doesn’t use the net much. Ignore for the moment his disability; Looks form here like the reason they got so loud with that meme was…  wait for it….He didn’t have anything they could hack into.
• So, as David noted earlier today, Obama is now telling his mindless supporters to ‘Argue, and get in their face’. Hell, Barry, they’re already doing that. Guess what?  They’ve already lost.  You really think getting louder with the same BS arguemnt is going to change things?
• So DHS has partnered with Sesame Street?  I suppose there’s a logical reason, here, but it does strike me that this one’s already been covered, in the graphic presented here… and this ones a couple years old. Someone’s a little behind on their press releases, methinks.
• The Democrats are breathing a sigh of relief, I’m willing to bet. The recent financial issues have given them some diversion from the criminal actions of William Jefferson, and Charlie Rangel. Have you noticed they’ve not gotten much in the way of news space?
• Me at the Glittering Eye:
  

  Good post.
  But look, your title implies the real answer, here.
  The best thing we can do is make sure the government stays out of the home loan industry altogether. The problem is not free markets or the investment world. The problem is government. In this case, specifically, the FDR creation of Fannie Mae, and it’s recent mismanagement of it.As I’ve pointed out else where… Let’s not delude ourselves into thinking that F&F are anything but governmental creations, run by political appointees, who turned around and raped the place so badly it crashed. If all the banks in the world were to coordinate their efforts, in trying to create this large an issue, absent governmental involvement in the home loan industry, it could not happen. The key here is government, and the abuse of power thereof.

• Glenn points out that Charlie Rangel has yet another scandal on his hands. As William Jefferson demonstrates, though, this too shall go away with no penalty to be paid. With the defference being paid to black Democrats just now in ters of criminal behavior, does anyone really consider it possible that an Obama administration would ever be held to account?
•  By the way, speaking of things disappearing, has anyone noticed that Global Warming iis now under the carpet as a topic?

Bruce:

As Ed Morrissey points out, 2005 would be the year John McCain made this speech:

Mr. President, this week Fannie Mae’s regulator reported that the company’s quarterly reports of profit growth over the past few years were “illusions deliberately and systematically created” by the company’s senior management, which resulted in a $10.6 billion accounting scandal.

The Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight’s report goes on to say that Fannie Mae employees deliberately and intentionally manipulated financial reports to hit earnings targets in order to trigger bonuses for senior executives. In the case of Franklin Raines, Fannie Mae’s former chief executive officer, OFHEO’s report shows that over half of Mr. Raines’ compensation for the 6 years through 2003 was directly tied to meeting earnings targets. The report of financial misconduct at Fannie Mae echoes the deeply troubling $5 billion profit restatement at Freddie Mac.

The OFHEO report also states that Fannie Mae used its political power to lobby Congress in an effort to interfere with the regulator’s examination of the company’s accounting problems. This report comes some weeks after Freddie Mac paid a record $3.8 million fine in a settlement with the Federal Election Commission and restated lobbying disclosure reports from 2004 to 2005. These are entities that have demonstrated over and over again that they are deeply in need of reform.

For years I have been concerned about the regulatory structure that governs Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac-known as Government-sponsored entities or GSEs-and the sheer magnitude of these companies and the role they play in the housing market. OFHEO’s report this week does nothing to ease these concerns. In fact, the report does quite the contrary. OFHEO’s report solidifies my view that the GSEs need to be reformed without delay.

I join as a cosponsor of the Federal Housing Enterprise Regulatory Reform Act of 2005, S. 190, to underscore my support for quick passage of GSE regulatory reform legislation. If Congress does not act, American taxpayers will continue to be exposed to the enormous risk that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac pose to the housing market, the overall financial system, and the economy as a whole.

I urge my colleagues to support swift action on this GSE reform legislation.

…

And, as I’ve cited twice, in 2003, two years earlier than the McCain speech, we have the Bush Administration pushing for reform and the Democrats saying the problems are an “exaggeration” and that there is no problem with Freddie and Fanny.

So the next time your hear Obama claim he doesn’t take money from lobbyists, you know what to say (and cite). And the next time you hear Obama try to lay this exclusively at the feet of Republicans, you can pretty much point to the same information to refute that obvious bit of nonsense.
…
I know I keep going over this and stressing it, but this is important. It points to some major league dissembling on the part of the Democrats as they try to frame this as exclusively a Republican and administration failure when it fact, the blame lays mostly at their feet.

I quote as much of this as I do because this is, as Billy sometimes says “Life and Death Vital” to understand, going into this thing.  And of course because Bruce and I are in full agreement here. I’ve laid all of this out for you yesterday. What I’ve seen since only confirms my read; It is the Democrats and their misuse of government that caused this meltdown. Turning it over to them to solve isn’t the answer, folks.

It not clear who going to win the presidential election come November.  It is clear who has lost already.   The loser is Andrew the Excitable, b/k/a Andrew Sullivan, late of Atlantic.   Ace is doing the dirty work, actually reading Andrew’s ravings, so we are spared the pain.  Ace:

He really believes that Bristol Palin is Trig’s mother. Because he is, quite literally, demented. And he’s not allowed to come right out and say that, so his already-erratic moods swing e’er more wildly due the frustration that only he can see what is in front of all our noses, but the big meanies at gay gossip site and antisemitic conspiracy newsletter The Atlantic won’t let the truth come out. The truth– that BRISTOL IS TRIG’S MOTHER!!1!!

Ace is really not nice to make sport of nitwits, but in case of Andrew the Excitable,  I think it appropriate.  And you?

I note a whole mess-O-traffic on Sarah Palin’s Yahoo account.

Among them, Michelle. Michelle and Michelle

Busy girl, Michelle.

Kim at Whizbang muses:

Everyday I am learning that there doesn’t seem to be a rock bottom for the scum who support Obama

Strata agrees and says:

Clearly, for the “anything to win” left, the invasion of privacy AND the publication of private information to the world is see as a crowning victory for the liberal movement (now looking a bit fascists in the double standard of when laws apply and don’t apply, the trigger being political association)

Memeorandum has more of course.

OK, before you start, it turns out there’s a lot of texture on those old historical markers, that make them a bear to touch up, and my graphic tools aren’t up to that drill.  At least one of you should recognize the real location… in Dryden, NY. I took this a few years ago. That said, let’s get to it.

• It’s amazing. Despite all of the facts, only part of which I laid out this monring, Nancy Pelosi still claims the Democrats are not at all responsible for the current financial situation. The Hill explains.  This woman needs to be gone. I mean, really.  A short memory, perhaps? In what has to be the most crass CYA move I’ve ever seen, she’s ordered a Wall Street Probe.
• Of course the current Senate leader, Harry Reid, also suffers from a short memory. He blames Phil Graham for the current meltdown… saying Graham wrote legislation deregulating the home loan industries… but it turns out it was legislation both Reid and Joe Biden supported, and voted for. I guess one might say “oops”… execpt that there seems a pattern developing.
• Obama’s showing signs of trouble. First, Virginia, then PA, as we mentioned this morning. Now, apparently, Harry Reid apparently asked Obama for financial help in the Senate.  Obama told him ‘no’. This tells me two things; Obama’s in trouble and knows it. So are the Democrats in the Senate. And Reid knows it, too. Is that blood in the water I smell? To quote the Bard, I think it be.
• Speaking of the Annointed One, Bob Owens has a nice peice up today on the bit with Obama trying to get the Iraqis to hold our troops for longer.
  

  According to Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari in Amir Taheri’s op-ed in Monday’s New York Post, Obama used his trip to privately lobby Iraqi government officials to delay an agreement that would reduce the number of American soldiers in Iraq, while at the same time publicly calling for a unilateral withdrawal.The delay was a “key theme” of his discussions with Iraqi leaders according to Zebari, and Obama reportedly asked those leaders to delay an agreement until after the U.S. presidential election. Zebari claimed that in doing so, Obama attempted to argue that it was not in Iraq’s interest to negotiate with the current adminstration, and insisted that the U.S. Congress should be involved.

  During the same visit to Iraq, Obama may have also tried to convince a series of American commanders, including General David Petraeus, to offer a “realistic withdrawal date” to pull soldiers out of Iraq. All commanders reportedly declined.
  …
  If the claims in Taheri’s article are accurate, then Senator Obama is playing a dangerous and duplicitous game.

  It would mean Barack Obama attempted to pressure American military commanders to make a declaration that he would have used as a political tool during his presidential campaign to undermine both his opponent and the current president, perhaps undermining the credibility of the U.S. military as an apolitical group loyal to the United States instead of political parties.
  …
  Obama would have used any timeline offered to shore up Obama’s support on the far left wing of the Democratic Party, a fringe that advocates an immediate withdrawal of American forces from Iraq, regardless of the resulting security vacuum or the possibilities of political and security instabilities that would be the likely result.

  Many in this radicalized wing, while thankfully only a fraction of the overall party, openly desire a too-quick retreat in order to secure an American defeat and a failed Iraqi state. They would tout that as a failure of the “Bush doctrine,” specifically the part that justifies preemptive war to depose foreign governments that pose a threat to the security of the United States, even if that government is not an imminent threat.

  But even as Senator Obama may have been pandering to his anti-war base by trying to pressure U.S. commanders for a withdrawal date that would be used as a political tool, he was concurrently trying to keep his same core group of radicals stirred up by attempting to slow the signs of progress in Iraq by manipulating a key statistic progressive blogs and other anti-war activists keyed on the most heavily: the number of American forces in Iraq.

  If American forces began to withdraw significant numbers of soldiers from Iraq , it would undermine Obama’s core campaign message that to elect anyone else would result in the continuance of a war without end.

  Owens, smart guy that he is comes to the only conclusion possible:

  By lobbying Iraqi leaders to keep the status quo until after the U.S. presidential election, Senator Obama would have been attempting to undermine the foreign policy of a sitting president to shore up his own political base.

  Go and read. Obama is already in trouble in many areas of the country, even among Democrats. the expose of this kind of double-dealing, under-handedness is not going to set well, even with the far left he was attempting to sway with these moves.

• Schwarzenegger has managed to find his veto pen. What’s remarkable is that it’s the first time I can recall seeing such a veto of a state budget. If HE thinks it’s too large, you can pretty much bet the farm on it being totally whacked.
• The extended bit I wrote this morning on the Financial meltdown, as I suggested, is only part of the deal. Classical Values has more.
• Oil has fallen to $91/bbl. Look for it to go lower. Meanwhile gas spiked a little Ike fears, but watch for that to start falling again in a week or so.

WASHINGTON —(Fox)-  Hillary Clinton has pulled out of an appearance at a New York rally next week to protest Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, her aides say because she doesn’t want to be seen alongside Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin in a “partisan” event.

Several American Jewish groups plan a major rally outside the United Nations on Sept. 22. Clinton had previously accepted the invitation to join, but her aides objected when they learned the Alaska governor will be part of the rally. Palin is also expected to meet with several foreign ministers during the U.N.’s opening General Assembly session.

“Her attendance was news to us, and this was never billed to us as a partisan political event,” Clinton spokesman Philippe Reines said Wednesday. “Sen. Clinton will therefore not be attending.”

So, Philippe, let’s make sure I understand you, here, now.

 If Hillary Clinton is the only political attendee, it’s non-partisan, but if Sarah Palin shows up and might be seen with Clinton, uniting against  Ahmadinejad, suddenly, it’s a partisan event?

Ummm. Yeah. Okaaayyyyy..(Backing away)

(over PA spakers) George Orwell, white Courtesy phone… Mr George Orwell, please pick up the white courtesy phone.

Look, I knew Palin was driving them off their rockers, but I’d no idea it was this bad.

The Obama Meltdown continues:

WASHINGTON (CNN) — Lynn Forester de Rothschild, a prominent Hillary Clinton supporter and member of the Democratic National Committee’s Platform Committee, will endorse John McCain for president on Wednesday, her spokesman tells CNN.

The announcement will take place at a news conference on Capitol Hill, just blocks away from the DNC headquarters. Forester will “campaign and help him through the election,” the spokesman said of her plans to help the Republican presidential nominee.

Forester was a major donor for Clinton earning her the title as a Hillraiser for helping to raise at least $100,000 for the New York Democratic senator’s failed presidential bid.

In an interview with CNN this summer, Forester did not hide her distaste for eventual Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama.

“This is a hard decision for me personally because frankly I don’t like him,” she said of Obama in an interview with CNN’s Joe Johns. “I feel like he is an elitist. I feel like he has not given me reason to trust him.”

It’s nothing short of amazing to me how many Democrats are jumping ship.  Perhaps they’re noting the ship is sinking. They’d better.

Like many, I’ve perceived the mainstream media as being in the tank for liberals and Democrats over the years. This year, however, it’s difficult to see them making it through November without collectively purchasing a larger tank. Between the ugliness of their attacks on Governor Palin and the over-flowing juices from their passion for Obama, perhaps they need a tank designed along the lines of one typically used for sewage.

That’s Dan Riehl, from Riehl World View, who wins today’s BitsBlog Snark of the Day.