If you receive this and you hate it and you don’t want to ever read it no matter what...that is fine; email me back and you will be deleted from my list (which is almost at the maximum anyway).

List your proposals for our energy crisis; explain how each of them will help the situation, and how long it will take each of these items to have a positive effect on our economy.

"There are things that you can do individually, though, to save energy: make sure your tires are properly inflated—simple thing—but we could save all the oil that they’re talking about gettin’ off drilling if everyone was just inflating their tires? An-an-and getting regular tuneups—you could actually save just as much.” Part of Barrack Obama’s energy plan, July 2008.

Here is the video of him reading this from the teleprompter, where he seems to question this himself as he reads it:

A petition to ban Di-hydrogen monoxide; Penn and Teller get political at a greenie meet.

Obama said that, he does not look like Americans in the past who have spoken to the German people. Gingrich observed that Condi Rice and Colin Powell have spoke to the German people. Is Obama excluding them? Or do they not count because they are not presidents/presidential candidates?

He also said that he doesn’t look like the other presidents on the dollar bills (does he know that they aren’t all presidents?). Yet, there are those from his campaign assuring us on every station that this is not a reference to race.

With regards to his associations with William Ayers, a known and, apparently, unrepentant terrorist, Obama, or his camp, has said, they live in the same neighborhood and their kids go to the same schools. I, like most people, just accepted this at face value. We know that the Obama’s have little girls, around grade school and maybe junior high age. Ayer’s children are grown. What schools did they go to together?

I have both conservative and liberal friends, Christian and non-Christian friends, and I try to get a feel for where those who disagree with me are coming from. I recently re-connected with an old high school buddy who is fairly liberal and I am trying to see things from that perspective. I get bogged down in two places:

Anytime government is proposed as the solution, and more taxes and bigger government and more education (or, indoctrination), I become hesitent to support that approach. I don't see government as my savior; I don't see government as the entity that I should look toward for my sustenance. There are situations which I can imagine where I would become helpless, and, barring help from family members, at that point, I can see appealing to the government to some extent. However, even then, I would look to God for deliverance, guidance and help before looking to government.

I realize that some people have it very hard; however, knowing the little I know about the Great Depression and recalling the years of the Carter administration, I cannot, with any intellectual integrity, think of these Bush years (or even Clinton years) as difficult times domestically speaking, knowing the people that I know (and I know a fair share of people who are on the government dole). We have very low unemployment and we have low inflation. So, I cannot see a bigger government system coming in to "fix" what does not appear to me to be all that broken.

Are there people in need? Are there people facing difficult circumstances? Of course there are...but that is true at any point in time, no matter who is in charge. When Democrats find this or that person, and tell their sad little story, and say, "And I met a woman in Small Town, USA, and she is struggling" I am not moved. I have struggled in the past, I am stuggling now, and I will struggle in the future. I have paid into social security all my life and, under today's laws, I will never see one dime of it. Am I mad? Not really. I understand that this is how government works. It takes your money, it makes promises, but don’t expect anything to come of it.

There is something else which these sad stories all ignore: failure and hardship are the foundations of character and innovation. I don’t have a very high opinion of my own generation; we are self-centered, hedonistic, and, we even invent a myriad of mental illnesses for ourselves, because our life has been rather easy. On the other hand, I have a lot of respect for the generation of my parents. They endured hardships that I will probably only imagine in my life, and they won World War II as a nation. What happened on D-Day or in Ploesti is unimaginable to me. Their courage and sacrifice made my world free and prosperous. I can only say that about a handful of people from my generation and subsequent generations.

Did that generation become too dependent on government? To some extent, they did, but they deserved it. We don’t.

What we need is a new approach, where we do not view government as our mother; where we do not see government as the place to run to when any difficulty besets us.

My point is, when someone says we need to tax the rich more, we need to have more government programs, we need to have the government step in and do this or that, that is a point at which I can no longer buy into what they are selling.

One of the best shows on FoxNews, which I have just recently discovered is the Wall Street Journal. These are business oriented people who examine the politics of this past week and make some observations. It is an excellent show.

One observation which they made this week is, most of the time when there is a Democratic President and a Democratic Congress elected, they will raise taxes more than they promise to.

Obama is essentially required to debate McCain 3 times, which he has agreed to. However, despite McCain’s many challenges to debate at Town hall meetings, and despite Obama saying, “That is a debate I am willing to have at any time with McCain” Obama is certainly not willing. The reason is, Obama is unable to speak without an teleprompter. We had an example of this, this past week.

Question: So my question is, in the face of the numerous attacks that are made on the African community (or the black community)...uh...by the same US government that you aspire to be...um...and we're talking about attacks like the subprime mortgage that you spoke of that wasn't just a general, ambiguous kind of of phenomonen, but a phenomenon that targeted the African community and Latino community...Attacks like the killing of Sean Bell by the New York police department...and Javon Dawson right here in St. Petersburb by the St Pete police, and the Jena 6 and Hurricane Katrina, and the list goes on... In the face of all these attacks that are clearly being made on the African community...uh..Why is it that you have not had the ability to not one time speak to the interests and even speak on behalf of the oppressed and exploited African community or black community in this country?

To be fair, this is a nonsensical question, which Obama should have pointed out. The government is not out to get Black people. However, that was not Obama’s response.

Obama answers with: Alright. Alright. Well, I...the...uh..I-I guess I-I...Hold on a second, everybody...I-I-I want everybody to be respectful, that's why we're having a town hall meeting. This-this-this is democracy at work. And he had-he asked a legitimate question, so I wanna give him an answer."

Um...I think you're misinformed about, when you say, "not one time". Every issue you've spoken about, I actually did speak out on. When it came to...hold on...I just-I'm gonna go through the very specific examples.

I've been talking about predatory lending for the last 2 years in the United States Senate and worked to pass legislation to prevent it when I was in the State legislature. I...and I have repeatedly said that many of the...uh...predatory loans that were made in the mortgage system did target African-American & Latino communities. I've said that repeatedly."

Number two. Jena 6. I was the first candidate to get out there and say, "This is wrong, there's an injustice that's been done, and we need to change it. That's number two."

When Sean Bell got shot, I put out a statement immediately, saying, "This is a problem." So...so a-a-all...so all I'm...a-a-all I'm ...a-a-a...hold on...h-h-hold on...don't, don't, don't start shouting back, I'm just answering your question. On on on, on each of these issues, I've spoke out.

Now, I may not have spoken out the way you wanted me to speak out, which is fine, because I-I-I, n-n-no, I understand. But, but, but, I-I-I, which is fine, well, it-it-we-it...wait, hold on a second. R-r-remember we're, we're, I've got other people so I'm just trying to answer your question. So what I'm saying is..what I...here's what I'm suggesting. What I'm suggesting is that, on each of these issues that you mentioned, I have spoken out. And I've spoken out forcefully. And I-I-I, listen, I was a civil rights lawyer. I-I-I have, I have passed, I passed...Hold on a second. HOld on. I passed the first racial profiling legislation in Illinois. I passed...I passed the...some of the...the...some of the toughest death penalty reform legislation in Illinois.

S-so...these are issues I've worked on for decades. Now, that doesn't mean I'm always gonna satisfy the way you guys want these issues framed. And I understand that. Which, which, which, which gives you the option of voting for somebody else. It gives you the option to run for the office yourself. But, they, those are all options. But...but the one thing...but the one thing that I think is important...the one thing I think is important is...that...that we're respectful towards each other and, what is true is, that I believe the only way that we're gonna solve our problems in this country, the only way...the only way that we're gonna solve our problems in this country...is if all of us come together...Black, white, hispanic, Asian, Native American, young, old, disabled, gay straight...that, I think has got to be our agenda. Alright? Okay.

This is why Obama will not debate in a town hall format with McCain. He is going ot have a tough enough time with McCain with a standard format where Obama can memorize 1–2 minute answers (as well as slogans and obfuscations). He is unable to compete in the arena of ideas, and do not expect him to.

Sure, they are so wrong, it is pitiful, but the Republican party needs to make hay of this issue right now. McCain has begun to hammer them with ads. The ads which Obama keeps referring to as lacking in substance continue to pound his [lack of an] energy policy. This will move the electorate to the side of Republicans (which it is already doing).

At some point in time, Democrats will recognize that their present approach to energy (a call to conservation; demonizing big oil) is not working, and, as I have said in the past, they will cave on this issue, and they will do so before the upcoming election. If they don't, they might as well start cleaning out their office desks. Also, as I have said before, Obama will cave on this issue too. He will come out in favor of doing everything, including drilling offshore and possibly even in ANWR. Will he present this as another issue upon which he has not changed his mind or will he actually admit to changing his mind?

[Editor’s note: I wrote this 2 days ago; since then, Obama has indicated that he is open to compromise with regards to energy issues, as political compromise is the foundation of our system...it will not take him very long to accept offshore drilling as one approach to our energy needs; I told you that he and Congress would cave on this issue!]

On FoxNews this morning, I observed two Senators, one Democrat and one Republican, each blaming the other party for our energy crisis. Here is what I hear the Democrat saying. The oil companies are buying their stock and making money for their stockholders but they are not exploring all of the lands which they currently hold a lease on.

I live in Texas, so I know a little about oil by osmosis. I almost cannot drive anywhere without either seeing a small oil well or some sort or oil well drilling equipment. I also understand that oil is a business, and businesses look to make money. I hope that is not a difficult concept for any liberal reading this article.

I do understand a few things: oil companies make money by drilling for oil, by refining oil, and by transporting oil. Considering that energy is the driving force of our nation, I expect oil companies to make a lot of money. I am not shocked when they show record profits. I don't have this great desire to transfer their profits from their hard work (and it is hard work) to the bank of the United States Government.

So, when I hear about oil companies having leases where they are not drilling, I don't automatically think that this is some great scheme for them to own as many leases as possible (which lease, if I understand correctly, is lost at some point in time if they do not drill). My guess is, given the little I know, they drill where is it most profitable. If there is not much profit to come from this or that plot of land, then I don't expect them to drill there. I also know that you cannot simply look out at a plot of land and say, "There's oil there." Some exploration is necessary. Expensive exploration.

So why are the oil companies biding their time at this moment? They are waiting for Congress to pass whatever legislation they are going to pass dealing with energy, and then the oil companies will act in their own best interests (nothing wrong with that, btw).

It is quite simple: oil companies have a low profit margin and the Democrats are in charge of Congress. The Dems are very anti-oil and they demonize the oil companies. Therefore, it only seems reasonable for the oil companies to step back, wait to find out what Congress is going to do, and then act. It would be foolish, from a business perspective, to make a boatload of commitments, not knowing whether or not the end result is going to be profitable.

So, when Democrats demonize oil companies and get all a-twitter because Exon-Mobile is making the largest quarter profits ever, I am not upset nor do I hate on Big Oil for making the money. It is because of them that I can hop into my car right now, drive 1–2 miles, and gas up. I may not like the price I am paying, but I recognize that they are not to be faulted for less US production than we ought to have.

I heard a very interesting speaker on talk radio the other day and I think that he was on Hugh Hewitt's show and his name was Michael something (not Yahn). He was a young Democrat who supported the change of strategy in Iraq (he was not the kind to demand, winning or losing, withdraw now). However, he credits Democrats for the improved conditions on the ground in Iraq.

Here's how his argument went: the Democrats loud and vociferous attacks against the Iraq War and attempts to pin the war solely on Bush required Bush to reexamine his strategy there, to replace Rumsfield, and the end result has been the very successful surge. He argues that, apart from the Democratic attack against the war, that we might be in the same place where we were 3 years ago.

I half agree with him. I believe in the two-party system. Although I have found Democrats for the past 7 or 8 years to behave contemtably, and the press to behave even worse, it does provide the counterbalance that is necessary. Although I tend to side with Ann Coulter when she says she favors a two-party system of Republicans and Conservative Republcians, I still acknowledge that, by our very imperfect system, we sometimes bumble along to a good result.

With Republicans controlling the executive and legislative branches, the end result was an almost uncontrolled spending spree (Bush never claimed to be an economic conservative). As a conservative Republican, that aspect of Bush's presidency is embarrassing to me. I am one of the 25% who strongly support Bush and trust him with respect to taxes and the war on terrorism, but I sure wish that he would have been more tight-fisted.

There were strong attacks against Bush and his war policy and he did have to reevaluate his approach, and the end result is, for maybe 10 or 20 years, we will have an ally against terrorism right smack dab in the the middle of the Middle East.

Also, in support of Michael's position, the Democrats could have ended the war at any point in time. With the majority which they held in Congress, they could have never brought an Iraq funding bill before Congress, and they had enough of a majority to vote down any such bill. The idea that they were able to sell their constituents on the idea that they are anti-war and would stop the war, and never did (which is a good thing) is quite impressive, from a political standpoint. Can it be possible that most Democrats don't realize that they could have ended the war in Iraq a few months? Their very vocal, but not actual, opposition to the war, may have resulted, in some measure, to our present-day success in Iraq.

Furthermore, the al-Maliki government was well aware of the growing opposition to the war and that, if Congress just did not fund the war there, there could be a precipitous withdrawal of our troops, resulting in the fall of a Democratic government there. This made them get on the ball and, to this date, have met 15 of the 18 benchmarks set for them (something which ought to be a front page story in every newspaper, but is not). If only our Congress could act as swiftly on our energy problem here.

Michael admitted that he had a tough time convincing any of his Democratic friends of this position, but he certainly caused me to think it through.

It is often called Bush’s war or the Bush-McCain war, instead of our war in Iraq; but I see very few people in the media giving him credit for what appears to be, so far, a victory for America.

In Vietnam, there was a problem of no clear vision for the strategy of this war, and with each new president, there was, should I say, a timid approach to war—don’t make the Communists too angry. We lost focus and we lost the war, although we should not have (a Democratic Congress managed to snatch defeat from the hands of victory).

Bush has a clear vision for Iraq, one with which we may disagree; and this clear vision includes victory, no matter what the political cost. This is why we are winning in Iraq and why we may have a 20+ year ally in the Middle East.

Homelessness, according to the 2006 figures, is down 12% according to one set of figures I have heard; and down 30% according to another set of figures. Whichever, under a Republican administration and under a Republican Congress, homelessness decreased significantly. Where are the stories about what worked to bring down homelessness? Will there be any praise for Bush? I doubt it.

Illegal aliens? Also a hefty decrease. Estimates place this at over a million fewer illegals in our country (I don’t know from when to when exactly). What is being credited? Not Bush, of course, but our bad economy.

Speaking of our economy, unemployment has been steadily rising since the Democrats took over Congress (part of this is because of their minimum wage law partially because of the press). But let’s tick off a few more things: very low overall unemployment during all years of Bush’s 2 terms; he inherited a recession which somehow magically turned into the longest period of uninterrupted growth in the history of the United States; for those who want fairness, the rich are now paying a higher percentage of taxes than they did under Clinton; and, despite inheriting a recession, facing 9/11 (greatest attack on our soil), Hurricane Katrina (greatest natural disaster in the United States); the greatest oil crisis ever (in terms of rice); and the housing crisis (caused in part by Congressional mandate), and despite almost daily moaning and groaning in the press, our economy is chugging along in pretty good shape, with low unemployment, low inflation. It is actually a pretty good record, and, if Bush was a Democrat, the press would be fawning over and praising him for being able to hold it all together during so many crises. Instead, we have constant sound-bytes about the struggling Bush-McCain economy. There will come a time—in our lifetimes, I predict—when Americans will look back fondly on these days of prosperity and freedom, and wish they would return to America.

In all of these cases: strong economy, victory and troop reduction in Iraq, reduced homelessness and reduced illegal immigrants, Bush deserves a great deal of credit.

Environmentalism isn't about the environment, Kukis. The greenies who started the movement at the behest of man like Ansel Adams and Audubon are players on the fringe now. The concerns of people like us are ignores, except as propaganda to keep our support. The movement was hijacked thirty years ago by very powerful individuals and vastly wealthy outlets for elitist funding like the Rockefeller Foundation.

The motives are obvious. When these powerful entities realized how widespread the support for conservation efforts were in American society they visualized the opportunity to gain enormous power in government and industry. This is the true agenda, POWER !!!

The plethora of laws in the environmental arsenal have given them control over every aspect of American life, and much of it occurs under the radar, because public sentiment lies with the eco-crowd. It is politial suicide to oppose them, and we are seeing how this dynamic works in the global warming tug-of-war. Professors who speak out against the gw alarmists are denied grants from the government and maginalized by their peers in the academic pipe. Politicians who dare to oppose the consensus are attacked as irresponsible and pro-destructive industry, contributing to the demise of the planet.

Let me give you an example of how these entities operate. You won't read about it in the press.

One case I ran across, and published in my book, was that of John Posgai, a Hungarian who migrated here at the close of WWII to escape the Communists. Mr. Posgai worked hard and saved his money and purchased the site of an old junkyard to build a home on. Most of the junk had been removed, but a few scattered items of debris remained, including 16 old tire casings. Naturally, he removed them.

Not long afterward two goons in U.S. Fish and Wildlife uniforms arrest Mr. Posgai and charged him with 16 counts of violating the Clean Water Act, the chief mechanism used by the eco-mafia to gain control of private property and keep property owners in line.

The tires he tossed out held rain water, and supported "aquatic life" (mosquitos). For his crime John Posgai was sentenced to federal prison for 3 years and fined $103, 000.00. At the time I wrote my book he was still serving his time.

As they led Mr. Posgai from the courtroom he was heard to puzzle why such a thing had happened to him? He thought America was a free country, the poor fool. I also published a couple hundred other horror stories, but there are thousands that I could not print. There wasn't space to do it economically enough to suit the publisher.

The eco-elite could care less about pollution, except where it gives them power over one sector of industry or another. There is political and financial hay to be reaped when one wields power over such industries as mining, logging, livestock production, oil exploration and drilling, commercial fishing, etc. When I worked as an engineering tech I recall one project where we inadvertantly dozed a road across a small swale that happened to hold water for a month out of the year, in the spring. The word spread like wildfire through the company that the government, the local EPA office, had filed a Section C violation against us (or something apocalyptic sounding) for disturbing a "wetland". They could have put us out of business, closed the doors and denied us our engineering license in Nebraska, in spite of the fact that we were a highly respected firm that had been operating in the state for forty years.

Management started jumping through hoops, stammering and scrambling for solutions, and the punk who headed up the EPA office sat there with his feet up on his desk and barked orders like the jackass that he was. He graciously allowed us to stay in business, in spite of our heinous crime, but we had to dredge out an area 5 times larger than the swale and spend thousands to reroute the road, re-cut and fill the entire area, yada, yada, yada. The eco-establishment wields the same power over all of industry that interfaces with the environment.

I love the outdoors. I was raised in a very primitive location WAY out in the boonies. My old man taught me as a boy to conserve and protect nature. I knew things like never to hunt "chickens" (roughed grouse) until late in the summer, after their chicks were on their own. Dad was a forest ranger, and I learned timber management at his knee, enough know that the eco-crazies and their policies are destructive to the environment. They oppose keeping deadfall and dry brush clear, or logging off areas where there is a high incidence of beetle kill. They believe in letting a fire burn itself out, so there are no longer fire dispatcher positions at ranger stations. They do not support fire crews any longer (my Dad was a dispatcher, so I know a lot about this). The USFS no longer stations lookouts to report smokes after an electrical storm.

The single greatest polluter is local and federal government. THEY are the ones who dump so much solid waste into the lakes and streams in the proximity of large cities, mostly sewage. Their laws, such as the catalytic converter required on our automobiles, produce the acid rain, which is sulphuric acid, that is denuding the forests along the U.S./Canadian border in the Northeast.

Endangered species? Did you know that NOT ONE species of animal or plant has ever survived as a result of this stupid law? What few have recovered from near extinction have come back as a result of private land owners who nurture them. Many others that they claim are near extinction are not. They are thinned out in a local vicinity where they were once numerous, but the species exist elsewhere in the thousands.

Using this law spuriously, the government has transplanted the grey wolf from regions of Canada to the ranchlands of Idaho and Montana where these predators are wrecking havoc, killing thousands of calves and newborn horses, but ranchers cannot shoot them. I should say, they can't get CAUGHT shooting them.

In the country I grew up in the EPA has transplanted like 50 grizzlies because their number in that region has been diminishing. When I was a kid we used to round up a posse and hunt down rogue grizzlies that came north from the Yellowstone and ransacked homes at random. They would kill anything in their path, man or beast. We would find them and kill them on the spot. Now the residents of the Kootenai Forest around Troy and Libby have a serious danger to be concerned about. They have children, and many of the men work outdoors. Grizzlies don't need a provocation to attack, they are a nasty tempered animal who may kill a man just because....who knows? They might just enjoy killing. A black or brown bear is afraid of man, and will clear out in a hurry if they see or smell a human, but not a silvertip. A grizzly will attack for no reason, and many times stalk a man for miles before they kill him.

I can tell you from experience that they are very hard to kill. They have a concave "dished" face, thick bone, that will deflect a bullet, and when they are coming straight at you they present a much smaller target tan you might imagine. Talk about scary...a grizzly can run as fast as a race horse for about 100 yards, the length of a football field, and you have about 5 seconds to draw a bead and fire. Your best chance is to hit him in the shoulders, above his head, where a solid hit will break his spine. This is an area the size of a man's head, and take it from me, when you look down the barrel of a rifle at a charging grizzly all you can see is a huge set of gleeming fangs, exposed in a viscious snarl, canines that average five inches, razor sharp. A few inches above, a glaring pair of eyes that are seething hatred, and saying clear as day that he intends to make short work of you.

With this VERY disturbing image coming toward you at clipper speed, your nerves are as tight as a bow string, the sights are dancing the jitterbug, and you are desperately clutching your weapon with sweaty hands, sweat is running into your eyes, stinging like saltwater....and you have one shot. If you miss, you're dead. You can't shoot him in the chest and stop him. I've seen a deer run a half mile with their heart blown out. It will kill a grizzly, but not before he makes mincemeat of you.

These are the monsters that the U.S. Government has foisted off on the residents of my hometown on a sheer whim, because there are hundreds of grizzlies elewhere, thousands, but only a few in that area. In other words, our interests are secondary to those of mother nature.

The tragic truth is, we have entrusted our environment to the wrong people, with nefarious motives that have NOTHING to do with the concerns that we share about the environment.

Please forgive my rambling, but this is a subject of prime importance to me and I get carried away.

It pains me to say that I am so terribly ashamed of our nation today. The depth to which we have fallen is all the more apparent, because we have the contrast of that magnificent generation that endured The Depression, and fought to victory in WWII.

The latest shameful episode is unfolding now. There will be an army of reporters, including 3 major news anchors, accompanying Barack Obama on his visit to Iraq.

Did I miss something? Did I fall into slumber, and miss an election? Why is the press treating this guy like he's already The President? I recall seeing a few very brief clips of John McCain's visits to Iraq, and several times I was surprised that he had gone there without the attendant hooplah. In fact, there were no interviews, no suitable coverage of his visit, and most of the time we learn about it after he has returned.

But Obama's every belch is reported in infinite detail. Now Saint Obama is being swept into the headlines because he's going to Iraq. There will be extensive coverage of him pontificating to Maliki, and the government over there, shaking hands with soldiers, and walking around with his oversized cranium encased in a "piss pot" (helmet to the uninitiated).

Our politicians have been toadying greedballs for years, but the decline of our press media is a relatively new phenomenon, and an extremely disturbing one. Oh, they aren't confusing me, but it would seem their brainwashing is very effective elsewhere.

What ever became of integrity, and the onus of responsibility that the 4th estate report the news in an unbiased, objective light? Isn't this their mandate, to acknowledge their solumn duty, as the conduit of current events to the viewing public, and thereby to serve the principle that our society has a right to know all the facts?

Has freedom of speech become so passe that the press is compelled to take such careless license in their reporting, and exercise such caprice with apparent disdain for the principle of TRUTH? Is it honorable to exploit this great privilege to their selfish ends? To advance their personal agenda?

Hell, why even bother with an election? The American press has already crowned Mr. Obama king, and they are doing everything in their power to stuff him down our throats. The tragedy is that millions of Americans meekly tag along, like so many sheep to the slaughter, lapping up every word.

Am I being hyper-arbitrary, to gripe because our so called "reporters" treat Obama like a rock star, and John McCain (and Hillary Clinton) like bums on the street? Am I pissed because they are glorifying a guy who is nothing more than a talking head? A guy with a big vocabulary, a high IQ, and nothing else of note?

These "anchors", and the entire networks (except for Fox), have abrogated their role as news agencies, and become brainwashing organs, controlled by the left. It's getting to the point that I hesitate to listen to the Obama cheer leading sessions, er...I mean the news, anymore.

SNERDLEY: This is Bo Snerdley, Official Barack Criticizer for the EIB Network, certified black enough to criticize with non-homogenized organic slave blood. I have a statement. Mr. Obama, your trip to Europe -- marred by your gross insensitivity to our wounded troops, ego-based photo-ops with foreign leaders, and a speech about nothing to a large crowd in Germany -- has now been overshadowed by the rapper Ludacris. It was you who connected Ludacris to your election efforts, touting his music was on your iPod and seeking to establish your hipness. Now, Ludacris is coming back to bite you. Instead of throwing Ludacris overboard with your grandma, you could have bridged the gap, sir, by putting the comments of Ludacris in proper perspective; thus bringing the "two Americas" you Democrats have created together -- and at the same time, taking on the mainstream press, who have attacked you by blowing up this silly little song out of proportion. Sadly, sir, you've let us down once more. And now a translation for EIB brothers and sisters in the hood.

SNERDLEY: Yo, dog. This ain't cool, yo. First, while all you homeys in the hood are still trying to gas up their rides, man, four bucks a pop, you posing over in Europe, yo? Then you head back to the cribby, and first thing that you do, you diss Ludacris! What's up with that? Yo, man, you are the one that gave him his props in the first place.

LUDACRIS: With a slot in the president's iPod Obama shouted 'em and said I handle my biz and I'm one of his favorite rappers. Well give Luda a special pardon if I'm ever in the slammer. Better yet put me in office. Make me your vice president.

SNERDLEY: Now, check this out, yo. Since you won't give America the 411 on what Ludacris was trying to say, I guess I gotta do it. A'right?

LUDACRIS: Hillary hated on you, so that bitch is irrelevant. Jesse talking slick and apologizing for what? If you said it then you meant it how you want it head or gut? And all you other politicians trying to hate on my man, watch us win majority vote in every state on my man.

SNERDLEY: All the brother was trying to say, yo -- and you could have just explained this to everybody -- was that Hillary's camp was dissing you. True that? You know, she vetched you, man, you know that. She sent her crew out to destroy your world, man, talking about that Muslim thing. You know, your coke deal, you know what I'm saying? Then she was trying to even imply, yo, that you might be dealing. You remember all that, don't you? Then Bill, yo, boy, home boy totally came out on you. So now you dissing Ludacris for calling her a "bitch"? Yo, mang! What you go out and you talking about this is misogynistic. You know what was misogynistic, brother, the way Bill illed all those women up in the White House, yo. That was misogynistic. How about those women they talking about, "Yo, he raped me?" Put on me ice on it? Yo, man you shoulda just went out there and say, "Yo, boy, you boys in the press need to put some ice on this, man, because Ludacris ain't the one that's misogynistic, yo. It ain't him." Now, for Jesse, yo, what did he say? All Jesse said was that he wanted to cut your baby makers out. He want to cut your nuts out, brother, "'cause you talking down to the niggers." That's what he said. I'm not saying it. That's what he said. Okay? Everybody is making him backtrack, yo. But this is the same kind of stuff we rappers say every day. You know it, brother; I know it brother. So you tell the press tell ought the president, "What you getting ill with Ludacris for? This stuff was on my iPod. This was one of my American constituents, yo, and ain't got nothing to say about it."

LUDACRIS: So get off your ass, black people. It's time to get out and vote! Paint the White House black and I'm sure that's got 'em terrified. McCain don't belong in any chair unless he's paralyzed.

SNERDLEY: Now, yo, check this out. Who is it that's been saying the boy is old? It wasn't Ludacris first. It was yo boys in the press. Oh, okay. That's all homey was saying. That's all homey was saying. As for Bush...

LUDACRIS: ...Bush is mentally handicapped. Ball up all of his speeches and just throw 'em like candy wrap, 'cause what you talking I hear nothing even relevant, and you the worst of all 43 presidents.

SNERDLEY: That's...all...everybody...has...been... saying in the Democrat Party since he was elected! My statement is over.

RUSH: Senator McCain is out there saying the truth about Barack Obama. One of the things that Senator McCain is saying, and he said this last week, he said it's apparent to him that Senator Obama would lose a war in order to win an election. And of course, the Drive-Bys and the Democrats are outraged by this, and they're all coming to Obama's defense. All McCain did was state the obvious. What is truly outrageous about this is it wasn't just Obama. The entire Democrat Party was invested in defeat, and they did not mince their words about it. And they have never been held to account. It was only a year ago that Harry Reid said that we had no chance to win, that Harry Reid said, "This war is lost," and it was all about the surge.

They were waving the Democrat white flag; they were threatening to defund the war. It was only six months ago that they were demanding funding limits on this. Here's the problem for the media in this: The media endorsed the Democrat position that we'd already lost in Iraq, and thus we need to get out of there as quickly as we can. So hold the Democrats to account? To do that would be to hold the Drive-Bys to account for themselves, which they will never do. You remember watching these shows. How many pundits did they publish or have on the air as guests, including former generals under Clinton insisting that all is lost? I think even Colin Powell was among the people complaining in the wings that we had no chance.

Yet today, the AP, I'll read this to you again, "The United States is now winning the war that two years ago seemed lost." Now, why this? Why now? A, it's inescapable. B, they finally went over there. Why did they go over there? Because they went over there in hot pursuit of the Most Merciful Lord Barack Obama himself with their tongues hanging out dragging along the pavement hoping for some face time with Lord Obama. So now all of a sudden Barry goes to Iraq and they notice that we are winning. McCain comes back, and McCain's comment about Obama preferring defeat in order to get elected was simply Obama's obstinance in refusing to suggest that knowing what he knows now, he would support the surge. The surge is what brought us victory! Obama has been in a total state of denial about it, and the press is circling the wagons for him as quickly as they can. It's exactly what it is.

The question remains: Is any of this gonna matter? You know, I sit here and I'm working feverishly on show prep, and people send me their thoughts on what Obama said here and how he's flip-flopping from what he said a year ago, two years ago. If you go back and actually put a list together of all these things, they are amazing. This guy has been so all over the ballpark on virtually everything. But I wonder if calling attention to the so-called flip-flops is going to work. I don't think that's the way to do this. I think to go about this is to continue to hammer away at his competence and his inexperience. Why does a guy have to go to Berlin and tell the audience he loves his country? Why is that just not assumed? He trashes his country. I'll never forget this, folks.

This is the one thing about that speech that I'm not going to forgot. I don't care about flip-flops in the past. I don't care what he said about the surge then versus now, except in terms of that it shows his inexperience. But to go over there and say to these people that his is an imperfect country and we've made a lot of mistakes and we've got a lot to pay for, and to be routinely praised for this -- especially to a country and a group of people who we have saved in any number of ways -- just rubs me raw. It just offends the hell out of me, and this is something I think should be focused on, as well as his inexperience. He had nothing to do with it other than suggesting a loss.

The Drive-Bys are out there saying his plans are the ones endorsed by Maliki. His plan has been endorsed by everybody else and he's the one that's bringing victory. I'll tell you something else. I'm gonna go out on a limb. You know this prayer when he went to the Western Wall and he writes this prayer out and he sticks it in the wall, and then some Jewish student comes along (supposedly) goes digging around in there and finds it and releases it, and everybody is up in arms over the invasion of privacy. I would not be surprised -- and we will probably not learn this -- that whole thing is a campaign trick, that that note was written to be discovered. That note, that prayer was written to be found. Because I'll tell you: This party and Obama himself are as cynical as it takes to get where they want to go, and if it is ever learned that this whole thing was part of a plan... Hell, they had campaign signs up there at the Western Wall, a sacred shrine, for crying out loud. If I learn that this whole thing was done as part of a plan -- and, by the way, I don't think the student is known.

Has he announced his name? He's being secretive about some things. But this is just a little too, you know, with all the sensitivity this campaign has, and you know they have it, about whether or not he's a Muslim, you know that stuff bugs them. It really bugs 'em. What better way to dispense with that, and in Jeremiah Wright and Farrakhan and all these other associations that he has, finding that little prayer? It could go a long way toward showing all those claims that he's not really a Christian. By the way, none of that's been stated on this program. I'm just telling you what the campaign is concerned about. But I believe these people -- and McCain is right: They'll do whatever it takes to win an election. They're doing it now! They're standing in the way of progress any which way, matter, or form. And then they're defining progress in a way that...

This mortgage bailout. Last time I looked, 95 to 96% of Americans were paying their mortgages. So now we've got a spending bill and a plan and a system behind it that rivals the New Deal in terms of government involvement in people's lives. This is going to come back and bite us in any number of ways. This bailout is an absolute mistake. Both parties are making a mistake on this, but the sad reality is that we are here for one reason. We don't have any leaders, and Obama is not a leader. We don't have any leaders on our side. We have panderers. We have populists. We have people who are gauging what the American people want, and they're in a race in both parties to give it to them, rather than to say, "We can't do that. That's not what we do in this country. We're not going to bail you out. You made a mistake. We can't bail out 600 thousand to a million mortgage owners and have it not affect us and our system." The American people don't want to go to war. Fine. We won't go to war.

The only two things they care about: American people want lower gasoline? Democrats will not help you there. And if you want to get rid of illegal immigration and close the borders? Democrats will not help you there, either. But other than that, members of both parties are running around, total populists: listening to whatever people want and giving it to them. We're going to have a price to pay for this, and we will pay it, and somewhere down the road there's going to be another conservative uprising to stop all this because the direction this kind of populism and pandering is going to take the country will break it. And there's going to be a couple generations down the road that are going to see this coming and they're not going to pay for it and they're not going to take it anymore. So the problems that we face today -- economically and a government that's just out of control, too large -- the people who have created these problems, the political class, both parties who created these problems are simply passing them on to future generations so that people alive today will not have to deal with the very mess they created.

RUSH: Okay, let's start on the phones. We'll start in Fort Hood, Texas. This is Amy, one of my all-time, top-ten favorite female names. Amy, welcome to the EIB Network. Hello.

CALLER: I just wanted to make a comment about your point with McCain and his flip-flopping and the tactic with Obama. There's an article in this week's National Review by Rich Lowry and Ramesh -- I'm going to murder this --

CALLER: Ponnuru. And essentially they were writing that the flip-flop issue is not what's really going to drive it, because McCain should take a page out of Hillary's book once she got her act together in the later part of the primary, and to really hit hard on the incompetence and inexperience of Barack Obama.

CALLER: Yes, they did. It's a very interesting article. It's very well worth the read.

RUSH: Wow. Well, I'm glad to hear they wrote that. One of the times in my life I'm happiest is when I'm on the same page National Review. And this is a point that I've been making for quite a while here, Amy, and the same thing with Clinton. I mean, Clinton lies, didn't hurt anybody, didn't hurt Clinton. His voters didn't care that Clinton was a liar. They liked that he got away with it. Obama's supporters are gonna like that he gets away with flip-floping. Remember, he's The Messiah. It's too macro to start talking about what Obama said in 2003 about the surge, or '4, '5, '6, whatever it was, when people are most concerned about domestic issues. Do you find it interesting, folks, according to Gallup, Obama is up by nine, 49 to 40 over McCain. Rasmussen, he's up by three. Do you find it interesting that no matter what, Obama cannot crack 50%? He cannot get beyond 50% in the polls so he's up nine, up three, whatever, this is not a big bump. So he comes back from his summer intern tour, and the first thing he announces today is he's going to put together this great counsel of economic advisors and start focusing on domestic economic issues. Now, why is that? Because he didn't get a bump out of this trip, and there are a lot of people concerned about some of the things he said.

You know, the American people, liberals and conservatives -- I used to be able to say this -- I think liberals would love hearing their country trashed overseas, by Clinton, by Gore, by Obama. I'll tell you, a lot of independents don't want to hear it. A lot of independents do not want to hear somebody who's not even the president, who is not even the formal nominee of his party go over and rip his country apart in front of a bunch of Europeans. The elites in the Democrat apart may fantasize about being Europeans, but the American people don't. So they did the tour, did the requisite, "I gotta go work out," instead of seeing the troops, did the requisite bashing of his country to get all the Europeans on his side. He's come back, is starting to work on economic issues, and the reason is the gasoline price, the oil price, and the unpredictability in it. Yeah, gasoline prices nationally may be under three bucks now, but are they going to stay there? The reason prices are down is because people are not using as much. The airlines are not using as much. People are not driving their automobiles as much, and so the spot market price on oil is coming down in the commodities market, but it's creeping back up. It's around 124 today, 125, down from its top of 140. But nobody is sure it's going to stay there, and nobody is sure it is going to keep coming down.

But one thing people do know is that an effort to increase our own domestic supply would go a long way to alleviating this problem on a permanent basis, and they know that Obama and the Democrats are standing in the way of it. Or they should know. Those are the kind of things to plug. Those are the kind of things to tell the American people, not what Obama said in 2005 versus today or 2006, and his associations. When he goes over to Berlin, trashes his own country, who else thinks this way? Jeremiah Wright. Obama just says it in a little bit of a better way, but Jeremiah Wright thinks the same thing that Obama thinks and Bill Ayers. This is why character and these associations matter. These may be little things to a lot of people, but not to me. The reason Obama's flip-flopping on all this stuff is because he doesn't know what he's talking about, folks. He has no military experience. One hundred forty-three days in the Senate. He's spouting a line guaranteed to get him the Democrat Party nomination, when he opposes the surge. He can't afford for the military to be victorious while seeking the Democrat party nomination. He simply can't afford it.

RUSH: Let's talk about China and the ChiComs and the Olympics. Let's try to put some things here in order. As you know the Olympics start August the 8th. The Olympics start on August the 8th and many of the venues in which the Olympic games will be contested will be in the polluted city of Beijing. You have no doubt -- well, maybe you haven't -- the Drive-Bys are running pictures of a polluted, smoggy Beijing that makes Los Angeles on its worst day look like the Cayman Islands. So the ChiComs have said, doesn't matter, we're going to make it rain if we have to to get the smog away, then we're going to not make it rain, we're gonna stop the rain for the opening ceremonies and the games. But they haven't been able to stop the smog, and they have shut down a considerable percentage of their factories and industrial production. They have told drivers of automobiles in Beijing to park their cars more days a week than not, they have done everything they can to stop the smog based on what they think is the cause of it, i.e., Chinese human beings, and it hasn't reduced it. Shutting down the factories hasn't gotten rid of the smog, and making people drive less hasn't gotten rid of the smog.

So people are looking, and they're saying, "Why don't they take some Draconian measures and really fix it." I mean, this is the Olympics. They've got a big PR show they're trying to put on here. They're trying to make a big impression on the rest of the world. Folks, I'm not sure they shut down these factories. I think of that is just BS. Here's a dirty little secret about the ChiComs. They cannot afford a revolution. They cannot have a bunch of people, unemployed, not working, not productive, with very little income, not in their cities -- it's okay if that's out in the countryside, but even that's getting to be risky. But in their cities, they can't afford it. They will lose control of their population. So as far as the Hu Jintao and the ChiCom leadership is concerned, they will pollute this planet as much as they have to to make sure that they don't have a revolution launched against them. And that's why they're never going to go along with any kind of Kyoto protocol or any other worldwide program to reduce carbon emissions 'cause they know that reducing carbon emissions is going to slow down their economy, and they can't afford that because they can't afford people from the countryside coming into the city wanting work, when they're cutting back jobs in the city because of all these environmental concerns they must take.

So they're basically saying to the rest of the world -- (blowing a raspberry) -- on these environmental concerns because they care about themselves, they care about their country, their economy, and their leadership roles. And they obviously don't think what they're doing is that damaging anyway. It's just part and parcel of large groups of people living together. Now, here in the United States, for a whole host of reasons, chief among them the high price of gasoline -- But I also think there's a herd mentality in this, too. People apparently, supposedly, according to Drive-By Media reports, for the last two months, three months, have been showing up at automobile dealerships and trying to trade in their SUVs and other automobiles that are, quote, unquote, gas hogs, 'cause they can't afford 'em anymore with the tipping point price of gasoline now reaching four bucks per gallon. So we here in America, the most prosperous, the most advanced, the freest, greatest potential, the most amazing collection of human beings in the history of collections of human beings, we are getting rid of our SUVs and pickup trucks, and we are in the process of downsizing to driving bubbles with wheels, lawn mowers with wheels, battery powered cars and so for forth, what are they doing in China?

What are the ChiComs doing -- while we move ourselves back to the Stone Age -- well, at least in that direction. China's most popular car is an SUV. SUV sales in China are exploding. "Nodding his head to the disco music blaring out of his car's nine speakers, Zhang Linsen swings the shiny, black Hummer H2 out of his company's gates and on to the spacious four-lane road. 'In China, size matters,' says Zhang, the 44-year-old founder of a media and graphic design company. 'People want to have a car that shows off their status in society. No one wants to buy small.' Zhang grasps the wheels of his Hummer, also called a fierce horse in Chinese, and hits the accelerator. Car ownership in China is exploding, and it's not only cars but also sport-utility vehicles, pickup trucks and other gas-guzzling rides."

Do you remember when Nixon went to China? When Mao Tse-Tung was still running the show over there, barely, Madam Mao had tried to off him a couple times, she was in jail. But the guy really running the show was Zhou Enlai. Zhou Enlai ran around with this giant big Buick. The ChiCom leadership was running around in giant big Buicks while the population was in rickshaws. They've always had this fascination with huge, large cars because the little ChiComs had the ChiCom leaders driving these things around and now they've got the chance to buy these SUVs, these Hummers. Folks, I don't know what the price of gasoline is in China and I don't know to what extent, if any, it is subsidized -- okay, it is subsidized. See, the ChiComs need their economy growing. They need people driving around, moving around. They need people to be able to afford fuel, so they're subsidizing fuel. They're not bailing people out of stupid home mortgage messes. They're buying their gasoline for them, because they need an economy. Know what energy means to this, the whole subject of economic growth. So meanwhile, the ChiComs, a country certainly growing, certainly on the rise, but it ain't the United States of America. How does it make you feel that Zhang Linsen has a big Hummer with nine speakers blaring as he pulls out into a four-lane road with so much smog he basically can't see the car in front of him, and you are trading in all of your cars and trying to go out and find basically a lawn mower.

[After all the free publicity the mainstream Media has given Obama, why isn’t he way ahead of McCain?]

RUSH: Interesting story in the New York Times yesterday. We talked about this just a little and it's interesting, too, about who wrote this. Adam Nagourney. Adam Nagourney is the reporter that the Obama campaign -- what did they do, throw him off the airplane or kicked him out? They criticized him. Oh, that's what it was. He wrote a story in the New York Times about how Obama is not solving the racial divide in this country, and they responded to Adam Nagourney the next day by putting out a Talking Points Memo that treated Adam Nagourney of the New York Times like he was a candidate. They went out and destroyed him and destroyed his piece, and Adam Nagourney at the New York Times is miffed about this. He was very upset about it; said they could have at least called me. I can take it. They could have called me and talked to me about my story.

So Adam Nagourney yesterday asked, "Why is Obama not improving in the polls?" This has a lot of people stunned. Now, the daily Gallup tracking poll out of registered voters today has Obama up by eight. But if you look at likely voters, McCain is up by four, and McCain among likely voters has had a swing of ten points since last Friday, when, you know, Obama's intern tour all over the world ended. Everybody is scratching their heads because if you look at television, it is clear which campaign is dynamic and exciting and is getting all the coverage, and which campaign isn't (to be polite). Yet McCain, in the USA Today/Gallup poll, is up by four. This was yesterday. "McCain moved from being behind by six among likely voters a month ago to a four-point lead over Obama among that group in the latest USA Today/Gallup poll.

"McCain still trails among the broader universe of registered voters. By both measures the race is tight. The Friday-through-Sunday poll, which was mostly conducted as Obama was returning from his [intern trip] and released just yesterday, shows McCain now ahead 49-45 among likely voters. In late June he was behind among likely voters 50-44." Then we come to Nagourney's story: "It is a question that has hovered over Senator Barack Obama even as he has passed milestone after milestone in his race for the White House: Why is he not doing better? It shadowed him as he struggled against Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton in many states through the primaries ... And it is back again as he returns from an overseas trip that even Republicans have described as politically triumphant. In this case, the question is why, given how sour Americans feel about President George W. Bush and the Republican Party, about the Iraq war and the ailing economy that Bush will leave to his successor and about the perception that Obama is running such a better campaign than Senator John McCain, the senator from Illinois is not doing even better in national opinion polls."

Why is that? "Most polls show Obama with a lead of 6 or 7 points over McCain nationally, and he rarely breaks the 50 percent mark," and Robert Novak made this point in his piece yesterday that no matter what, he hasn't crossed the 50% threshold. And neither, by the way, did Bill Clinton in either of his two presidential races. Let's go back to the paragraphs that Adam Nagourney writes. I think this explains much of the mind-set and the narrative -- the template, if you will, of the Drive-By Media -- Why? [G]iven how sour Americans feel about President George W. Bush and the Republican Party, about the Iraq war and the ailing economy that Bush will leave to his successor..." Why? With all this hatred for Bush, with all this anger at Bush, with all this anger at Republicans -- Republicans are hated -- with all this desire to get Bush out, why isn't Obama doing any better? Plus with all our wonderful coverage. We are treating this guy like a rock star. We're treating Obama as if he is The Messiah! We have gone overboard. Could it be, ladies and gentlemen, exactly what I said to you in the early days of Obama's summer camp trip last week? Backlash. There's a backlash out there against Obama, backlash against the media. The media is not popular. The media is less popular than George W. Bush, if truth be known.

RUSH: Brett from Redwood City, California. Great to have you here, sir. Welcome to the program.

CALLER: Hey, I just wanted to say that back in January or February when Obama was giving a speech I remember my wife wanted to shut everything down and listen to Obama, and everything that he said about hope and change.

CALLER: She's basically going, "Hurrah! Hurrah! Absolutely fantastic." Anyways, at the same time my son -- who is about 16, 17 -- and I are going like, "Don't you see he's saying the same thing, 'Hope and change. Hope and change'?" Anyways, you know, so she's pretty set on Obama and voting for him but then I talked with her the other day, I said, "Are you still in with Obama?" And she goes, "Well, the more I see him, the more I'm not really liking him anymore," and so will that change her vote? I couldn't tell you, but right now, I don't think that she's lying what she's seeing now.

CALLER: You know, the more I think she sees him, I think the more she's starting to realize that the guy is pretty much a -- sort of a fraud. But she won't say so; she doesn't want get into details because she's not really political. She just likes what he was standing for in the beginning.

CALLER: And you know one other thing -- and I know that I'm supposed to keep on this topic, but -- I was with my aunt who is about 91 years old the other day. She's down in LA, and she's a big Hillary supporter, and I said, "Well, since Hillary is out, are you going to vote for Obama?" She goes, "Heck no. I'm not going to vote," and so I thought that was pretty interesting.

RUSH: Well, I'm glad you called because you have provided here a nice transition into a couple of audio sound bites that I have told the broadcast engineer to stand by on. First, yesterday, just to refresh your memory, here is what I said.

RUSH ARCHIVE: This is going to be a referendum on Obama. It really is. And some people are going to have to vote against him. Well, I know that's not the perfect world. You want to have somebody out there you could vote for. But this campaign, this election, is going to be a referendum up or down on Obama.

RUSH: It is. And this last call, this guy's unpolitical, apolitical wife, starting to be exposed. Something about it doesn't seem genuine anymore. She can't put her finger on it because she's not political, just seems to be a little disingenuous. The word "fraud" was used. David Rodham Gergen was on Larry King Alive last night. Larry King said, why is this presidential race so close, David [Rodham] Gergen?"

RODHAM GERGEN: That's one of the great mysteries, Larry. Today there's a Gallup/USA Today poll wha -- uh, uh, among likely voters which has McCain up by four. We're in this highly puzzling, uh, mysterious time. This is increasingly a referendum about, uh, Barack Obama, and so it is very much like what we saw back in 1980 when -- when Ronald Reagan ran against Jimmy Carter. The campaign became, are you...? Is the country ready for Reagan, and over time -- in the fall, especially -- Reagan convinced people he was someone they would like and then they voted for him.

RUSH: Well, up until the Reagan comparison, I followed this. David Rodham Gergen is essentially echoing my sentiments that this is a referendum on Obama. It's his to win or lose. But Reagan in 1980? For crying out loud, this country was in genuine misery! Jimmy Carter was not liked at all. In fact, the preelection polls did not show the scope of Reagan's victory. That was a 45-state landslide. The Drive-Bys were just fooling themselves back then. This country was not a referendum on "Is Reagan liked or not liked?" This was a campaign on salient issues that dealt with the specifics of this country's economics and foreign policy at the time, and Jimmy Carter had demonstrated himself to be a total failure. He had insulted the American people, blaming them for the malaise -- I should say us, blaming us for the malaise -- in which the country was floundering.

To compare Reagan to Obama in the sense? See, the Democrats loved to talk about Reagan as somebody that was simply the result of slick marketing and packaging, and Reagan was about substantive issues. And it was about the presentation and articulation of those issues in an inspirational way, and they have done their best to rewrite the history of that. If there's anybody that's getting along here with slick marketing and packaging, it is none other than The Messiah: the Most Merciful Lord Barack Obama, who is a total media creation. (interruption) Well, Snerdley asked a good question here. Sometimes Snerdley actually inquires a good question. "Why is the presumption that he should be up?" Why is the presumption that Obama should be up?

Well, look who's asking the question? The Drive-Bys! We aren't. The Drive-Bys are asking the question. And the reason why they presume that he would be up is because they have been giving this guy the kind of publicity he couldn't afford to buy. Not only are they covering what he's doing, they are portraying him as acting president, and they are saying he's qualified, and he's a statesman, and he's going to save America, and he's going to make America liked. What they don't get is a majority of Americans don't care to have this country defined by whether or not people in other countries approve of us or not, particularly the Europeans. They live in their own cocoon and they think that whatever they're doing is going to transfer to the same kind of adoration for Obama that they have amongst the great unwashed.

So their presumption Obama should be way up is based not only on the fact that they are so in the tank. Even some Drive-Bys are getting concerned about it. The second reason is, they're ignoring McCain. And when they do pay attention to McCain, they try to make it as unflattering as they can. So they figure that he ought to be well over 50, maybe up to 60% simply because of the assistance they are giving him. They're out of touch. The Drive-Bys are out of touch. This, as I told you, his campaign, the Obama campaign, as stated by that brilliant PR executive in DC, is about history. It's historical. And it's even more unimportant, the historical aspect is even more important to the Drive-Bys because they want to be able to say they made it happen. Not only are they witnessing history, the first black president, they want to be able to say they made it happen, and they aren't making it happen. He didn't get a bump when he got the nomination. He didn't get a bump on his little intern tour. McCain up by four? That's got 'em floored. So they're not reporting the likely voter side of the poll. They're reporting the registered voter side of the poll. The presumption that he ought to be up is based on the fact that he is... Well, they're even.

I've got some stories in the stack today. He's the story. I mean, he's everywhere. Everything he does, everything he says gets reported and amplified. They just can't figure out why this isn't translating into love and support among the people for Obama that echoes their own love and support.

RUSH: You might recall a couple weeks ago when the whole notion of the unfairness that McCain was experiencing in terms of media coverage versus Obama, I remember getting a call from the Associated Press, David Bauder, and he wanted a quote from me on this, and he used 80% of what I said. I said this is not surprising here. This is very typical the Democrat candidate would get far more coverage and much more favorable coverage than the Republican candidate. There's nothing untypical about this. This is par for the course. What they're trying to do is establish this guy as a statesman. The whole point of going over there is to make him look like he is something he's not. He doesn't know what he's talking about, foreign policy-wise. This is to make him look like he's a statesman in that area. Then I said there's another thing going on here, Mr. Bauder, and he didn't use this quote, but this also answers the question, why the presumption that Obama should be up at 60%. There is no question that the Drive-By Media, because of guilt, genuine liberalism, and so forth, have this desire for a black candidate to do well.

The senator, who doesn't know diddly-squat about anything, served 143 days, working days in the Senate, who has no substantive achievements that can be pointed to, they still have to make sure this guy does well. This is the historical aspect of this, the historical aspect of this campaign, the first black president. And so they want to be the ones to make it happen whether he's qualified or not, because they, as liberals rooted in the civil rights struggles of this country's past have this burning desire for black candidates here to do well. They're going to be so bent out of shape if Obama loses this. You should be prepared for that. I'm forewarning you about it now. There's another aspect of this, too, and that is the arrogance of liberalism. The arrogance of liberalism is that, "Okay, so you have Bush that won two elections, 2000 and 2004, flukes. Something went wrong. The Diebold machines or the Supreme Court, the American people don't elect Republicans, they elect Democrats." This assumption here that the birthright of Democrats is power and it's theirs by fiat simply because they're born and they exist.

So you couple their arrogance with the historical aspect and their desire for a black candidate, for this guy to do well, and they've gotta make it appear he can do well 'cause he cannot do it on his own by pointing to his record, and you have this presumption that he ought to be way, way up in the polls, plus they look at McCain, and they see somebody old and worn out who's not making any waves, who's not exciting anybody, and they don't understand it. Well, look at some recent histoire, ladies and gentlemen. Go back to 2000, the last two presidential races have been pretty close. Two-thousand, of course, very close, came down to one state, and 2004 was not as close as 2000 and not as close as the Democrats thought, but it still came down to one state, Ohio. This country has been pretty well polarized for quite a while. The presumption that this is going to be a runaway, the presumption that this is going to be a slam dunk for the liberal Democrats is not born out by this nation's recent voting history.

Here is Janet from The Porch, Maine. Great to have you on the EIB Network, Janet. Hello.

RUSH: On the porch, okay. Well, you never know. People call here with names from my home state of Missouri I never heard of, so I just assumed there was a place there called The Porch. I know there's a place in Texas called The Woodlands.

CALLER: Well, this is actually a porch overlooking the ocean. Hi, happy 20 years, and thank you.

CALLER: Arts-and-croissant crowd dittos. I just wanted to posit a new idea about Obama, as to why he's not sweeping us all off our feet, even though he was causing women to faint earlier this year --

CALLER: He's not likable. It's really simple. The man is odious. He talks like a girl. You ran a clip yesterday of Gloria Steinem, excuse me, Jane Fonda.

CALLER: Those two women are fairly interchangeable, and making the case for women's radio, the need for women's radio. Well, that could have been Obama opining on his version of foreign policy. It's pure psychobabble.

RUSH: Well, now wait a minute. Normally I would discount any assertion that Obama is unlikable. But when it comes to women assessing political characters, personalities, you gotta give it some weight. You gotta give this some credibility. It would have never occurred to me that Obama is unlikable. But you don't doubt women on stuff like this.

RUSH: I got a lot of guys telling me, "It's wrong, Obama is totally likable." Maybe to you guys. I'm telling you, don't doubt these women. Don't doubt 'em on this. This is interesting.

RUSH: Jonathan Weisman. There is a bit of a controversy brewing among the Drive-Bys. Some of the Drive-Bys are getting... (sigh) How should I say this? I think they're starting to fall off the wagon here when it comes to Obama. Some of them are beginning to see some signs we have always seen, and are now becoming doubtful. Jonathan Weisman, Washington Post blog called The Trail: "In his closed-door meeting with House Democrats..."

Oh, by the way: "The House of Representatives issued an unprecedented apology yesterday to black Americans for wrongs committed against them and their ancestors who suffered under slavery and Jim Crow segregation laws. 'Today represents a milestone in our nation's efforts to remedy the ills of our past,' said Rep. Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick, a Michigan Democrat and chairwoman of the Congressional Black Caucus." Yeah, right. Okay, so can we move on now? Okay, can we move on, or does this set the stage for reparations? When the House of Representatives officially apologizes, then we've set the stage for reparations here. I wonder if the House of Representatives would apologize to me for the actions taken by Senator "Dingy" Harry Reid using the power of the federal government to intimidate my syndication partners into essentially silencing me? It's certainly not slavery, not Jim Crow laws, but clearly a giant footprint of the federal government into the private sector attempting to silence one figure -- and we beat it back. You want to sit there and start apologizing for all these things, how about apologize to me?

At any rate, Obama is traveling around Washington like he's already the president: multiple-SUV motorcades, intersections shut down for blocks and blocks so he can get by. Dana Milbank today at the Washington Post has a mocking piece on how all of this has just gone to Obama's head. It's just getting too much to bear. Jonathan Weisman at his blog at the Washington Post says "In his closed door meeting with House Democrats Tuesday night," this is yesterday, "Obama delivered a real zinger. According to a witness [he] was waxing lyrical about last week's trip to Europe, when he [said], 'this is the moment, as Nancy [Pelosi] noted, that the world is waiting for.' The 200,000 souls who thronged to his speech in Berlin came not just for him, he told the enthralled audience...

"'I have become a symbol of the possibility of America returning to our best traditions,' he said." I, Lord Barack Obama, The Messiah, "have become a symbol of the possibility of America returning to our best traditions." Now, at first blush it seems like staggering arrogance. Besides favoring high gas prices and not acknowledging the success of the American military in Iraq, his arrogance is tamping down his poll numbers. This is the breezy arrogance of a person who has never earned anything. Like an irresponsible young adult who has unexpectedly inherited millions of dollars, there's nothing attractive about arrogance in a public servant, especially one who has endorsed high gas prices. The only thing, Obama said, that bothered him about gas prices is how fast they got to four bucks. However, there now is controversy over this interpretation of Obama's remarks.

Jake Tapper at the ABC News blog says the Washington Post has an interesting quote this morning from the meeting Obama held with house Democrats yesterday afternoon and they quote the statement, "I have become a symbol of the possibility of America returning to our best traditions." However, Democrats in the room "suggest that the quote is out of context and that it twists Obama's meaning to mean the complete opposite of what he was saying. A House Democrat staffer said, 'His entire point of that riff was that the campaign's not about him. Left out of the first half of the sentence, which was something along the lines of "It has become increasingly clear in my travel, the campaign, the crowds, the enthusiasm, 200,000 people in Berlin, is not about me at all. It's about America. I have just become a symbol,"' and Jake Tapper said other staffers with whom he spoke with and a Democrat congressman -- who isn't a particular fan of Obama -- agrees, saying that Obama "preceded that quote with something along the lines of:

"'These people in Germany, they weren't excited about me. They were excited about the prospect of America getting back to being all it could be.'" I don't care which is true. I really don't care which is true. I think it is presumptuous as hell to say either of these things. I mean to say that I "have become a symbol of the possibility of America returning to our best traditions"? What best traditions? Massive, massive tax increases, massive growth of government? Who the hell...? I'm so frustrated at times to listen to this guy, Obama, and other Democrats run around and basically kiss the rear ends of these Europeans, particularly citizens so he can say, "I have become a symbol. Yes, I'm a symbol because I represent these people being excited at the prospect of American getting back to being all it could be," which brings me to another subject.

Obama's campaign: real change, change that makes a difference, "a change that" whatever his campaign slogan is. Got me to thinking, what would be real change in this country? 'Cause Obama ain't it. More liberalism is not real change. Bigger government is not real change. New entitlements, that's not change. What would really be change? I think any of us could answer that question, and our answers would show that it's nothing Obama is talking about. "These people in Germany were excited about the prospect of America getting back to being all it could be." Once again, Obama meeting with Democrats has to slam his own country. He did it in front of that German crowd, he did it to the House Democrats, and they were raucously applauding. Doesn't it irritate you that the Democrat Party's presidential nominee gets his biggest applause lines when he rips this country to shreds in any number of ways?

RUSH: In 1992, Nightline, Ted Koppel says to Algore, "Joining us is Senator Al Gore, whose new book is [Earth in the Lurch] Earth in the Balance. Rush Limbaugh, whose syndicated radio show is heard across the country. There is, Senator Gore, a growing feeling -- and I don't want to say it represents anything representing a majority yet, but a growing feeling -- that sometimes the environmentalists are putting the spotted owl and the snail darter ahead of human beings."

ALGORE: We now face a global ecological crisis that is more serious than anything human civilization has ever faced, and there's a problem of scale here. To discuss, uh, the friction in the passage and implementation of some of the laws on the local environment -- and to weigh at the same time that against this unprecedented global crisis -- I think presents a -- a problem of scale. When you talk about military matters, you talk about local conflicts, regional theaters of action, and strategic conflicts, same with the environment. You've got local environmental problems; regional problems, like acid rain. Now we've got a whole new category of global or strategic problems, which include the hole in the ozone layer -- which now could appear above the United States -- global climate change, the destruction of the rain forests at a rate that means they'll be totally gone in another few decades unless we stop, the pollution of the oceans and the atmosphere, and the like. These represent brand-new challenges that call for a new kind of response.

RUSH: Now, remember, this is 16 years ago: 1992. Koppel then said to me, "Rush, I've listened to you many afternoons, as you know. You tend to -- I don't want to say you dismiss all these issues, but at least you dismiss them as having been proven beyond a shadow of a doubt."

RUSH 1992: There is no ozone hole above the United States and if we want to get into a detailed discussion of ozone depletion we can, but I think, Ted, that there is not a crisis. See, this is the problem I have. I don't think the earth is fragile. I don't think the ecology is fragilely balanced and I think that the doomsday industry that is typified by members of the Hollywood acting community who say, "We've only got ten years left to save our planet, we've gotta act now," there's no way, if what these people say is true, that we could solve these problems in ten years anyway. It's budget time in Washington; NASA is being cut, and I think that this fright and doom scenario is designed to frighten people. Everything in this country today seems to be crisis. I can't do anything without having to face it as a crisis. We don't have any time to think about it. There are as many scientists, maybe even more on the opposite side of all of these doomsday predictions, and I think that --

ALGORE: Rush did identify, I think, the key point of disagreement early in his first response, and that is the question of whether or not the earth is fragile. Are we as human beings now capable of doing serious damage to the global environment? That's really the key difference between the --

ALGORE: Yes, I think so. I think for three reasons, Rush. I think three things have changed -- in our lifetimes, incidentally. Number one: The population explosion now adds the entire population of China every ten years. Number two: We've got new technologies we never had before like chlorofluorocarbons, which magnify our impact on the earth. Just as nuclear weapons transformed warfare, these thousands of new technologies that magnify our ability to exploit the earth, change our relationship to the earth.

RUSH: Next, Koppel said, "Rush Limbaugh, we've both run into politicians during our careers who know how to fake it on an issue. I don't know anybody on Capitol Hill who is more knowledgeable on the subject of environment than Algore. You have to take seriously what he says."

RUSH 1992: The environmental movement as fueled by the militants who lead it, I think, is the new home of socialism. I think it is. They've adopted a constituency here which can't speak -- that is trees and rocks and so forth -- and can't reject the so-called help and concern that the advocates are giving it, and gives them a stage from which to constantly launch attacks at capitalism. If you listen to what Senator Gore said, it is manmade products which are causing the ozone completion. Yet Mt. Pinatubo has put 570 times the amount of chlorine into the atmospheric in one eruption than all of manmade chlorofluorocarbons in one year; and the ultraviolet radiation measured on this country's surface since 1974 has shown no increase whatsoever. And if there's ozone depletion going on, you're going to have UV radiation levels going way up, and they simply aren't. The sun makes ozone, and there's an ozone hole in the Antarctic Circle and the Arctic Circle simply because the sun is below the horizon for a portion of the year.

RUSH: Koppel finally says, "I'll tell you what, gentlemen, we're down to our last 45 seconds. So a closing thought from you, Senator Gore. We just heard from Rush Limbaugh."

ALGORE: Well, there's a classic experiment in science, Ted, about a frog that's dropped in a pot of boiling water and jumps right out. When the same frog is put in a pot of lukewarm water that's slowly brought to a boil it just sits there until it's rescued. A frog's nervous system needs a sudden jolt to get the connection. We're like that frog! We're getting the signals of ecological devastation around the world, but we're still dead in the water. The ozone hole is threatening to open up above North America --

ALGORE: The American people want to see us take this problem seriously and do something about it.

KOPPEL: All right, Senator Gore. I thank you very much, Rush, you'll have three hours --

RUSH: That was 1992, February 4th of 1992 on ABC's Nightline, a debate of the environmental crisis. I think I was in Buffalo. That's right. I had to do this from Buffalo, you're right, because I was up there on a Rush to Excellence Tour, yeah. You're right, you know? The setup wasn't the best, but nevertheless, the thing to take from this is, it's 16 years ago and the ozone hole was going to break out over America. It has not done so. The ozone hole has been shrinking. Sixteen years ago, this was the same arguments, and they talked then about ten years. "If we don't do anything, we've got ten years." Well, we haven't been doing much because they keep bellyaching that we're not doing much. We haven't done anything, actually, and they're still bellyaching. So I remember when this aired, I went home whenever I finished. I went back to the room.

My dad, who could not listen to the radio because of a hearing problem, it just irritated him, but he was able to watch television with closed-captioning. You gotta remember, my dad -- as I've mentioned over the years -- for the longest time... I mean, up until... Let's just say 1991. Well, sooner. Say 1987. So when I'm 37, he still considers himself to be a failure as a father 'cause he couldn't convince me to go to college. I'm the only member of my family that didn't graduate. Hell, I barely made it out of (interruption). Well, I didn't make it out of ballroom dance, I quit because I had to go to it. It was taught by a drill sergeant in WACs. I said, "This is not for me, this place." I knew what I wanted to do. I was passionate about radio. Hell, folks, I even flunked speech. Not because he didn't do the speeches, because I didn't outline them, already had a technique for doing speeches, but they should have called the course Outline 101.

So my dad, even though my radio career finally broke out, success was happening in Sacramento and I had moved to New York in 1988, and he was aware even though he couldn't listen much to the radio 'cause it irritated him. My mom reported to him. So when he saw this program on Nightline, my mother called and told me the story. He's watching, he got to the first commercial break, and my dad took off his glasses and looked at my mother (her name was Millie) and she said he just had the most dumbfounded look on his face. He looked at her and said, "Millie, where in hell did he learn all this?" And my mother looked back at him and said, "From you, silly." He had thought that he was a giant failure throughout his life 'cause I didn't go to college. You know, he'd come out of Great Depression, World War II, and the key to surviving something like that was a college education. That's what you needed to get a job, and I didn't have that, so he finally realized that this was gonna pay off and work out. I went back and I was expecting all kinds of accolades from people, great performance. I heard from more conservative environmental types that I was the wrong guy to have been on this show. They should have had an official environmentalist debate Gore, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. (laughs)

RUSH: By the way, audio sound bite number 24, Algore. This is probably year-and-a-half after the Nightline debate. This is November 9th of 1993, Larry King Alive, the Algore debate with Ross Perot on NAFTA. This is what Algore said.

ALGORE: Let me just finish this one point: And distinguished Americans from Colin Powell to Tip O'Neill to Rush Limbaugh...

RUSH: He was talking about people who support NAFTA. So back then, I mean this is Vice President Gore saying this in the first year of the Clinton administration, I was a distinguished American.

RUSH: Nancy Pelosi and the gang have left town. There is nothing going to be done for five weeks, not a single appropriation bill -- nothing on drilling. And it was not just four years ago when we saw John Kerry hounding President Bush to go "jawbone" with the Saudis to bring the oil price down? Now, four years later, all they want is for the price to remain high. They want you miserable. They want you suffering.

Anyway, what Pelosi has basically done here is shut down the House so they don't have to talk about offshore drilling. They went out, got aboard their jets and they left town without taking any action on the president's request to drill for oil and other things. Twenty-five members of the House Republican caucus nevertheless stayed behind and continued to make speeches and discuss -- on the floor of the House -- the need to drill here and drill now. But Pelosi ordered the cameras from C-SPAN turned off, she ordered the microphones turned off, and she ordered the press gallery cleared. However, I have just been informed that the lights have come back on. (The cameras have not yet, at least according to C-SPAN.) So this is an excellent sign.

Now, what the House Republicans today are doing right now is just ramming it down the Democrats' throats. When the speaker of the House, who controls all this, orders the cameras turned off, the lights turned off, and the microphones turned off... you know, this is reminiscent of what happened back in the eighties with Newt Gingrich and his boys leading the special orders at night. Tip O'Neill finally got fed up with it and ordered the House closed. The special orders -- they're just in there making speeches to an empty body -- but as long as somebody is speaking C-SPAN contractually had to carry it. So the House Republicans, 25 or 30 of them, are just continuing to hammer away, and they're demanding that the Democrats come back and debate them and talk about this and take action on this thing that the American people care so adamantly about, and that's the supply of oil and providing it for ourselves to make us less dependent on foreign oil.

This is not going to be good for the Democrats, folks. They claim to be for the little guy, they claim to be for the great unwashed and the downtrodden, the homeless, the hungry, and the thirsty, but they've abandoned them -- and they've abandoned them with four-dollar-a-gallon gasoline. They want the price to stay high. The American people are starting to figure this out. The only people making noise about taking market action that would lower price is Republicans. And Obama is in big trouble on this. To sit there and take no action whatsoever and then to say, as he did today, he wants another stimulus check to every American, a thousand dollars paid for by oil company profits... The American people don't want the oil companies paying more taxes. The federal government gets 50% of all the profits that the oil companies report anyway, so this is a winning issue, and I suspect the president and the Republicans are content to have the Democrats out of town and showing that they care nothing at all about the American people. I mean, all the Democrats care about is their own reelections and their upcoming convention.

Now, Representative Mike Pence, Republican, Indiana, who is single-handedly trying to kill the Fairness Doctrine forever, is one of the organizers of this session that is taking place in the House of Representatives today. He says that up to 40 Republican members are prepared to keep the proceedings going. He is quoted as saying, "I'm prepared to stay here as long as we can." He added that before the Democrat motion to adjourn was adopted, a hundred Republicans, 100, had signed up to speak for five minutes each about gas prices, but the adjournment vote precluded that. Bu the Democrats skipped town, got in their own private jets, making their own carbon footprint and flew away. These kinds of tactics, folks, are exactly what is called for. This is worthy of your support.

If you can somehow find a way to let these guys -- the Republicans -- know that you are appreciative of what they're doing, that they're finally standing up and that they are fighting the Democrat majority on this and taking it to them on an issue that matters greatly to a vast majority of the American people, do it. And I want to congratulate them and encourage them to keep up these kinds of legislative tactics. They've been absent for way too long. This is gutsy and it's courageous, and it will stand these guys in good stead. It will inspire their voters, it will inspire them, and you can inspire them by letting them know you appreciate what they are doing.

[One of Limbaugh’s themes is, if you conserve on this or that, then you will, in the end, get charged more for that item and pay higher taxes on it; so, while we have been moaning about gas prices and cutting back, Congress has been preparing to tax us more to make up for our conservation]

RUSH: By the way, the AP has a big sob story for government: "Soaring fuel prices and other economic strains have led Americans to cut back sharply on driving," which everybody said we should do. Save the planet, burn less fossil fuels, less pollution, we should do it, so we've done it. But now this is "jeopardizing the federal fund for highway construction and repairs. Americans drove 9.6 billion fewer miles in May 2008 than in May 2007, according to federal data released Monday. The 3.7 percent decline was the third-largest monthly drop in the 66 years the Department of Transportation has been collecting the data. ... ''People are choosing to drive less in the ways that they can,'' said Doug Hecox, a spokesman for the Federal Highway Administration. They're cutting the number of car trips they take, and they're walking, taking carpools and, sometimes, simply staying home instead," which is everything they've told us to do and now they're bellyaching and whining over lost tax revenue, and the AP is singing a swan song for them. "Drivers are turning to mass transit." That's also what they told us to do. You're driving less, you're going to pay more taxes. You wait. Why do you think in Congress they're dillydallying around here under the cover of darkness, thinking about raising the fuel tax a dime a gallon on gasoline and diesel. They are, my friends. We have warned you about this.

The Operative Term is 'Hubris.' No candidate could ever compare to Obama in this arena.

Several months ago, I have given you some early Obama history; finally, someone else put this out as well:

Obama trying out other professions rather than president (a Paul Shanklin parody):

Blacks hardest hit by global warming; for those of you who know Dusty Baker, he is in this story:

RUSH: At the National Press Club today, House Majority Whip James Clyburn -- he also runs the Congressional Black Caucus, I think. James Clyburn claimed that African-Americans are "disproportionately impacted" by climate change. "A report released earlier in the week arrived at the same conclusion, advocated a tax on polluters that would eliminate the financial burden of global warming on low income minority households." Kid you not. Kid you not. The question is not how, we're not supposed to ask the question. This is one of these things we accept, women and minorities hardest hit by everything. Global warming, minorities, blacks hardest hit. So now Clyburn wants a tax on polluters that would eliminate the financial burden of global warming on low-income households. Here's the thing he's forgetting, ladies and gentlemen, about this. Forgive me for pointing this out, but Dusty Baker, no less an authority when he was manager of the Chicago Cubs, made this observation. Clyburn is from a race of people who are known as the sun people. They're not the ice people. They're supposed to do better in the heat -- that's what Dusty Baker said. Well known scientist and sociologist, who also in his side life, managed the Chicago Cubs. Leonard Jeffries, who was a brilliant, brilliant writer and professor at New York University, established the whole concept of sun people and ice people, which is where the estimable Dusty Baker picked it up took the concept even further into national discourse by talking about it after baseball games that the Chicago Cubs lost. So what's the big deal, Mr. Clyburn? I mean, how can it hurt, is the question, how can it hurt?

Over and over again, Obama warns us that conservative Republicans are going to play the race card against him. I know that the Obama faithful really believe this to be true; however, is there anyone with any objectivity who thinks that McCain or any known Republican will say, “Don’t vote for Obama because he is a Negro”? Obama has warned his followers about this on several different occasions; he and his campaign are getting desperate.

RUSH: Remember, we had the story in the New York Times, that referred to the 1.9% economic growth rate as "tepid" and that the stimulus had failed. Here's the Washington Post headline today: "Economy Grows on Impact of Stimulus," the exact opposite take. Yesterday the economy, "tepid," and the stimulus didn't help. Washington Post: "Economy Grows on Impact of Stimulus; Troubles Expected As Effect Wears Off -- The [commerce] department said the economy shrank at the end of last year, revising an earlier estimate of growth. And there is evidence that the decent growth in the second quarter will come at a cost. 'We essentially traded strong growth now for weak growth later,' said Sung Won Sohn, an economist at California State University." By the way, I discount all these economists that the Drive-Bys find because every month when new economic figures or job figures or whatever come out, their experts are always surprised. Whether the news is good or bad, they're always surprised at it. The news is always unexpected. So they've got this guy from Cal State, Sung Won Sohn, who says, "As a result, this may turn out to be a longer recession than we're used to." We're not in a recession! We simply are not in a recession.

Conservative Review
Issue #36	Kukis Digests and Opines on this Week’s News and Views	August 3, 2008