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A transplanted Midwesterner puts down roots in Alabama and helps show how "loyal Bushies" have corrupted our justice system.

The Case Against Barack Obama, by David Freddoso,Aug.4,2008,Regenery Publishing. David Freddoso has covered politics for six years and is a political reporter for National Review Online.he has also worked as a reporter for the national news weekly, Human Events.

Swift Boat publisher Regnery is sending Barack Obama a birthday present today, as it unleashes 250,000 copies of The Case Against Barack Obama.  According to company insiders, it is the largest initial printing in the company’s history.The conservative publisher [sister company of Human Events] crippled John Kerry in his 2004 presidential bid with its publication of Unfit for Command. The publisher's description of this new book on Obama: "He's the media's darling, the fresh face of the Democratic ticket. But what does Barack Obama really stand for--and will his extreme liberal agenda and complete inexperience in global affairs endanger the country?

This is what David Freddoso examines   1. Why Obama's inexperience and extreme left-wing voting record is more dangerous than any threat we face today   2. Why the Rev. Wright debacle reveals Obama's poor judgment of character and deceitful nature   3. Why it won't be politics of change with President Obama--it will be liberalism as usual.

John McCain has been crying foul a lot lately about Barack Obama being the media favorite, that McCain is getting the short end of media coverage.  Greg Sargent at TPM Election Central:

The coverage also feeds into concerns in Mr. McCain's campaign, and among Republicans in general, that the news media are imbalanced in their coverage of the candidates ...

Before going after the media on imbalance of coverage, McCain may want to first make sure his own house is in order, as the cliché goes, and look at his own media allies.  I took a tour of six of the most prominent Republican/Right-wing websites and was taken aback that the six sights were all rife with imbalanced coverage of the two presidential candidates - in favor of Obama!  McCain is being ignored at his own websites!

John McCain is officially irrelevant...   This is Madness, Not Snark

McCain would be most comfortable running in accord with his particular notions of political virtue while emphasizing character, national security, and a few pet causes such as earmarks. If he wants to win, he has to leave his comfort zone. He should take a page from Hillary Clinton. She did not, of course, defeat Obama, but she road-tested a strategy that cost him support among crucial constituencies—and that strategy is even better suited to McCain’s general-election run than it was to her primary campaign.

McCain ought to be encouraged by how close she came. She was a plodding speaker lacking pizzazz, drew smaller crowds than Obama by an order of magnitude, and was outspent and out-organized. McCain will have all the same deficits. Yet she fought Obama nearly to a draw, and after February—when she had finally figured out how to run against him—beat him soundly. That was too late for her. But it is not too late for McCain.

OK, so we all know about the cover of the next issue of the New Yorker. But have you seen the cover of next week's National Review? There's no link available yet, but I've seen it and it's absolutely incredible.

by Michael D. Setty (metty@publictransit.us)

Michelle Obama, wife of Senator Barack Obama, was featured as "cover girl" by National Review on its issue dated April 21, 2008, with the headline Mrs. Grievance and Her Discontent.

We (at the www.publictransit.us blog) know rather little about the writer, Mark Steyn (a self-described "conservative polemicist" and "talk radio" host) and not as much as many Kossacks about the subject, Michelle Obama. But we do know a thing or two about the "structural dishonesty" practiced by National Review.

Just days after stepping on the third rail of American politics with his proclamation that Social Security is "an absolute disgrace," John McCain may once again have stepped in it on the immigration issue.  His new ad praising the contributions of Hispanic-Americans, titled "God's Children," has much of the conservative blogosphere frothing at the mouth.  Meanwhile, the imbroglio will only serve to once again highlight McCain's just-in-time reversals on the comprehensive immigration reform he once advocated.

Over at the National Review on Saturday, Kathryn Jean Lopez suggested a novel future for George W. Bush after he completes his disastrous tenure in the White House.  The most unpopular President in modern times, Lopez insists, would "make an awesome high-school government teacher."  But leaving aside for the moment his obvious aversion to academic study and the English language (as well as the U.S. Constitution), Bush has already made up his mind about his "post-service service."  Upon leaving office, President Bush has said he plans to "replenish the ol' coffers."

Who says the U.S. doesn't condone torture?

The party never ends at National Review; it just gets less viable over time.

MC Byron York busts out the following remix, sampling various tunes from 2004's Now That's What I Call Bullshit Volume 27:

It's common to see mentions in the press these days about some "swiftboating" of Barack Obama that is allegedly in the works, or might someday allegedly be in the works, or might someday be thought to be allegedly in the works.

Ha. Ha. Ha. Silly press. Seriously, who gets "Swiftboated" in a U.S. presidential election? This hasn't happened to a single presidential candidate since 2004.

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In what is billed as a major policy speech on energy and the environment, John McCain has introduced a plan that just makes things worse. His proposals only benefit the big oil companies that are amongst his biggest supporters and who are well represented on the staff of his campaign. In the advance text of his speech he says:

"In the face of climate change and other serious challenges, energy conservation is no longer just a moral luxury or a personal virtue,"

I wonder when energy conservation stopped being just a moral luxury or a personal virtue.

My friends know I'm obsessed with Ayn Rand, who for better or worse I’ve got to own up to as an influence.  For a long time I've been wanting to write about that influence.  

I thought I would use Kossacks as guinea pigs (since in a Randian world there wouldn’t be a law against it).  Is this of any interest at all?  

Like the indecisive security guard in Atlas Shrugged who deserves to be murdered in cold blood because he would not make a choice, I’m waiting to be told what to think.  

Thanks for taking a look at this.

Sen. Boren just reiterated the false claim that Sen. Obama is the most liberal Senator:

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — Democratic Rep. Dan Boren of Oklahoma said Tuesday Barack Obama is "the most liberal senator" in Congress and he has no intention of endorsing him for the White House.

However, Boren will vote for Obama at the Democratic National Convention in Denver in August and will vote Democratic on Nov. 4.

"I think this is an important time for our country," Boren said in a telephone interview. "We're facing a terrible economic downturn. We have high gasoline prices. We have problems in our foreign policy. That's why I think it's important."

Boren, the lone Democrat in Oklahoma's congressional delegate, said that while Obama has talked about working with Republicans, "unfortunately, his record does not reflect working in a bipartisan fashion."

On Thursday, John McCain's wife Cindy declared she would never release her tax returns.  Unfortunately, the McCains are bucking the tide of public opinion regarding her income and href="00 million fortune.  The American people by lopsided margins overwhelmingly believe presidential candidates should disclose their tax returns.  And as they showed four years ago in the imbroglio over Theresa Heinz Kerry, the leading lights of the Republican Party and the conservative movement used to agree.

The National Review seems to particularly enjoy blogging about Jeremiah Wright.  I can sort of imagine the gang watching Wright's performance together, as they sip on a morning Chablis and kick their feet up on their desks, showing off their argyle socks.

Jim Geraghty -- otherwise known as the Dude Who Leaks Shitty Exit Polls -- had a particularly harsh critique of Wright and Obama today.

Watching Obama's Philly speech about race, I allowed myself for a brief moment the possibility that our country would actually come away from the Reverend Wright story with a better understanding about race, or at least a more practiced facility for talking about it.

The media has ground that delicate moment of hope underfoot, into a fine powder.  They have drawn their line in the sand and made it clear that they prefer the gen-pop to be thuddingly ignorant, and will write and say whatever it takes to keep it that way.

To wit, Jim Geraghty writes:

The entire tone of the race changed the moment we saw the first fiery Wright sermon. The sight of those sermons triggered a question in a lot of voters' minds: How do you get the moderate-sounding, pleasant, agreeable student Barack Obama from an angry, divisive, radical, way-out-of-the-mainstream teacher like Jeremiah Wright?

Let me ask you a question, as sincerely as I can:

The American economy is in recession and according to Larry Kudlow, that is a cause for celebration.  On Friday, the National Review regular and CNBC host praised three months of job losses as "an economic cleansing" and beamed that "recessions are therapeutic."   And by all indications, Kudlow's prescription of an economic enema for the American people is one shared by John McCain.

The National Review was influential in creating the modern conservative movement.  I read it because I want to get some sense of what the right thinks and cannot stand reading the right wing blogs.

Today's editorial on the NRO on Obama's Philadelphia speech, "Obama's Evasions" is instructive what it tells us about the mainstream right and what we can expect in the fall.

More after the fold.