There used to be a Degrees of Comparison joke – whether just or unjust I don’t know – that went like this: stupid, stupider, Shirley MacLaine.

I think it would be just to revise it as: stupid, stupider, John McCain.

Here he is, boring, repetitive (nattering on about ‘reaching across the aisle’ and ‘maverick’ , over and over again, as if anybody cares), and way behind in the polls, and he will not use the vast arsenal of ammunition available to him against his red revolutionary radical opponent who has spent his life consorting with terrorists, crooks, jihadis, corrupt politicians, has lied over and over again, is without any qualification for the presidency, is a terrifying threat to the freedom and safety of Americans, and is one of those most to blame for the present economic catastrophe affecting the entire globe.  

Many conservatives suspected that the choice of McCain as Republican candidate was a bad mistake. Now we can be sure of it. The only reason to vote for him is to keep Obama – far, far worse – out of power. But McCain himself is refusing to use the only tactics that might, even at this late stage, achieve that  end:  

Power Line quotes a Minneapolis Star Tribune reporter: 

Struggling to contain an emotional fire his own campaign kindled, Republican presidential nominee John McCain spent much of a town hall meeting in Lakeville on Friday trying to cool his supporters’ growing hostility toward Democrat Barack Obama.

Responding to repeated questions about Obama’s truthfulness and personal background, McCain urged backers at a packed gym at Lakeville South High School to be "respectful" toward his opponent.

McCain found himself in the odd and uncomfortable position of defending an opponent who is pulling away in many polls at the end of a week when he and running mate Sarah Palin stepped up their own attacks against Obama – often inspiring outbursts at raucous rallies, complete with cries of "terrorist" and "off with his head."

The Minnesota gathering lacked that kind of harshness, but sustained booing greeted many of McCain’s attempts to discourage the crowd’s fear and anger. Of the 21 questions posed to McCain during 45 minutes of give-and-take, one-third challenged him to take on Obama more aggressively, with a few making incendiary comments.

Late in the town hall meeting, Gayle Quinnell of Shakopee called Obama "an Arab." Taken aback, McCain shook his head and, taking the microphone from her, said, "No, ma’am. He’s a decent family man, citizen that I just happen to have disagreements with on fundamental issues." …

McCain repeatedly tried to dial down his supporters’ antipathy toward Obama. "I will fight, but we will be respectful," he said. "I admire Senator Obama" – as the crowd booed loudly – "I want everyone to be respectful. … I don’t mean you have to reduce your ferocity, just be respectful."

 "Off with his head"? I don’t think any Presidential candidate has ever faced a monolithic wall of establishment hostility comparable to what John McCain confronts this year. Nor has any political party been the subject of such an unrelenting campaign of vilification as the Republicans have sustained over the past five or six years. I don’t doubt that the establishment will succeed in dragging their candidate across the finish line next month. What will happen after that is anybody’s guess. 

 Kimberly A Strassel writes in the Wall Street Journal:

And now, America, we introduce the Great Obama! The world’s most gifted political magician! A thing of wonder. A thing of awe. Just watch him defy politics, economics, even gravity! (And hold your applause until the end, please.)

To kick off our show tonight, Mr. Obama will give 95% of American working families a tax cut, even though 40% of Americans today don’t pay income taxes! How can our star enact such mathemagic? How can he "cut" zero? Abracadabra! It’s called a "refundable tax credit." It involves the federal government taking money from those who do pay taxes, and writing checks to those who don’t. Yes, yes, in the real world this is known as "welfare," but please try not to ruin the show.

Ken Fallin

For his next trick, the Great Obama will jumpstart the economy, and he’ll do it byraising taxes on the very businesses that are today adrift in a financial tsunami! That will include all those among the top 1% of taxpayers who are in fact small-business owners, and the nation’s biggest employers who currently pay some of the highest corporate tax rates in the developed world. Mr. Obama will, with a flick of his fingers, show them how to create more jobs with less money. It’s simple, really. He has a wand.

Next up, Mr. Obama will re-regulate the economy, with no ill effects whatsoever! You may have heard that for the past 40 years most politicians believed deregulation was good for the U.S. economy. You might have even heard that much of today’s financial mess tracks to loose money policy, or Fannie and Freddie excesses. Our magician will show the fault was instead with our failure to clamp down on innovation and risk-taking, and will fix this with new, all-encompassing rules. Presto! …

And just watch the Great Obama perform a feat never yet managed in all history. He will create that enormous new government health program, spend billions to transform our energy economy, provide financial assistance to former Soviet satellites, invest in infrastructure, increase education spending, provide job training assistance, and give 95% of Americans a tax (ahem) cut – all without raising the deficit a single penny! And he’ll do it in the middle of a financial crisis. And with falling tax revenues! Voila!

Moving along to a little ventriloquism. Study his mouth carefully, folks: It looks like he’s saying "I’ll stop the special interests," when in fact the words coming out are "Welcome to Washington, friends!" Wind and solar companies, ethanol makers, tort lawyers, unions, community organizers – all are welcome to feed at the public trough and to request special favors. From now on "special interests" will only refer to universally despised, if utterly crucial, economic players. Say, oil companies. Hocus Pocus!

And for tonight’s finale, the Great Obama will uphold America’s "moral" obligation to "stop genocide" by abandoning Iraq! While teleported to the region, he will simultaneously convince Iranian leaders to peacefully abandon their nuclear pursuits (even as he does not sit down with them), fix Afghanistan with a strategy that does not resemble the Iraqi surge, and (drumroll!) pull Osama bin Laden out of his hat!

Tada!

You can clap now. (Applause. Cheers.) We’d like to thank a few people in the audience. Namely, Republican presidential nominee John McCain, who has so admirably restrained himself from running up on stage to debunk any of these illusions and spoil everyone’s fun.

We know he’s in a bit of a box, having initially blamed today’s financial crisis on corporate "greed," and thus made it that much harder to call for a corporate tax cut, or warn against excessive regulation. Still, there were some pretty big openings up here this evening, and he let them alone! We’d also like to thank Mr. McCain for keeping all the focus on himself these past weeks. It has helped the Great Obama to just get on with the show.

As for that show, we’d love to invite you all back for next week’s performance, when the Great Obama will thrill with new, amazing exploits. He will respect your Second Amendment rights even as he regulates firearms! He will renegotiate Nafta, even as he supports free trade! He will …

 Shawn Akers writes in Townhall:

            Whatever else may be said, Mr. Obama’s personality cult campaign has been an unmitigated success, creating, almost ex nihilo, a “beloved leader” out of a largely inexperienced and unknown man, void of business, executive, and foreign policy credentials.  This fact alone is cause for substantial concern, but, unfortunately for the American people, what has been true of the form of the Obama campaign is now materializing in its function as individuals cloaked in the appearance of state authority seek to silence dissent and indoctrinate the masses.

            The largest portion of the media has progressed in its leftist agenda so overtly in the current presidential race that we are hardly surprised when television news “anchors” swoon at the very mention of Barak Obama while taking every opportunity to belittle Governor Sara Palin, feigning objectivity and savoring superiority all the while.  Such private sector propaganda is so common it is almost passé.  What is far more troubling is when individuals holding powerful and intimidating public posts – police officers and prosecutors, individuals who, by the very power of their offices, can strip citizens of their liberty – use their positions to intimidate anyone who dares speak against Mr. Obama.  When Missouri prosecutor Bob McCulloch takes to the air waves, placing the public on notice that he is a member of Mr. Obama’s “truth squad” and that he and other Missouri prosecutors and law enforcement officials plan to “respond immediately” to any critical speech concerning Mr. Obama that “might violate Missouri ethics laws,” the message, with all of its implications, is crystal clear – “speak out against our beloved leader and all the fury of the state will fall on you.”   

 Thomas Lifson reveals in The American Thinker:

Another piece in the puzzle of Barack Obama has been revealed, greatly strengthening the picture of a man groomed by an older generation of radical leftists for insertion into the American political process, trading on good looks, brains, educational pedigree, and the desire of the vast majority of the voting public to right the historical racial wrongs of the land.

The New Party was a radical left organization, established in 1992, to amalgamate far left groups and push the United States into socialism by forcing the Democratic Party to the left. It was an attempt to regroup the forces on the left in a new strategy to take power, burrowing from within. The party only lasted until 1998, when its strategy of "fusion" failed to withstand a Supreme Court ruling. But dissolving the party didn’t stop the membership, including Barack Obama, from continuing to move the Democrats leftward with spectacular success. 

 Burt Prelutski writes in Townhall about ACORN, the organization at the root of the subprime catastrophe:

It is those on the far left who have done everything in their power to corrupt the election process. One of their chief means of doing so has been through the activities of a group known as ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now). With approximately 175,000 dues-paying members, they own TV stations, businesses and periodicals, and have offices stretching from Canada to Peru, with over 80 offices in the U.S.

To give you some idea how all-encompassing the group is, they have schools where the children of leftists are trained in class-consciousness; they run boot camps for training street activists; and, like Jesse Jackson’s Rainbow Coalition, they extort money from banks and other businesses by threatening racial violence and trumped-up civil rights charges. One can almost imagine Marx, Lenin and Stalin, shaking their heads in admiration and hoisting their glasses in toast.

Apparently, the members of ACORN have gained control of the New York City government, resulting in a rollback of welfare reform; the appointment of a politicized Civilian Review Board, empowered to prosecute police officers and ban racial and ethnic profiling in the city that experienced 9/11 firsthand; raise corporate taxes; and is attempting to prevent any corporation from fleeing the city without obtaining an “exit visa.” Even before Berkeley got around to having its own foreign policy, New York’s City Council, by a 31-17 vote, passed a resolution condemning the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

For several years, the leadership covered up the fact that Dale Rathke, the brother of Wade Rathke, who co-founded ACORN, had embezzled nearly a million dollars from the organization. Once the theft finally came to light, the excuse given for not informing the authorities was that those of us on the right would use it as an excuse to attack the group. That of course is an obvious lie. Those of us on the right have far better reasons than financial skullduggery to attack ACORN. In fact, I, for one, regard Dale Rathke as something of a folk hero. I say it was far better that he squandered his ill-gotten gains on wine, women and song, than that the group got to spend it subverting the democratic process.

These people, self-proclaimed defenders of freedom, liberty and the working man – or, more often, non-working man – devote most of their energy and resources to making sure that they fix elections in much the same way that crooked gamblers fix fights. During the 2004 election cycle, ACORN ran a “voter mobilization drive” that resulted in countless allegations of fraudulent voter registration, vote-rigging and vote-for-pay scams. One of their specialties was registering convicted felons. Attorney generals in many states filed charges against several members of the group, charges that included voter-intimidation, vandalism and the destruction of voter registration forms.

What I have not been able to figure out is why the leaders of the group have not been indicted under RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act) for taking part in an ongoing criminal organization. The only logical reason that the feds have backed off is because of ACORN’s close ties to organized labor. Tragically, in 2008 America, it’s not only individuals who are easily intimidated, but the government itself.

It’s no surprise that Barack Obama is ACORN’s choice for the White House. ACORN, after all, was created by those who subscribed to Saul Alinsky’s left-wing belief that class warfare is the only war worth fighting and that in order to win it, the ends always justify the means. And however much the left has recently attempted to pass off “community organizer” as a Christ-like vocation, everyone in his right mind knows that these days it’s code for Communist activist. 

 

As the ‘mainstream media’ refused to publish facts about Barack Obama that might dissuade voters from voting for him, it  was up to the McCain Campaign to make them known. But apparently no one running the McCain Campaign thought of doing it until Sarah Palin came along and brought up the name of William Ayers in a speech that simply could not be ignored.

At last one of the clues to who and what Obama is, what the political opinions are of the man standing for the presidency of the United States actually are, was reaching the multitudes who knew nothing of him but his gift of the gab. That clue should have been followed by the rest. They’re all there, easy to find. His Kenyan father was a radical leftist. His mother, the 60s hippie, was a New Lefty. His grandfather got an ardent Communist named Frank Marshall Davis to mould the mind of young Barack, who went on eagerly to drink down the red ideology of Saul Alinsky. He sought a launch-pad for his political career among revolutionary leftists and America-haters (Ayers and Dohrn) in Chicago. When he attained the power to do so, he channeled funds to promote the activities and causes of the revolutionary left. He joined a church where revolutionary anti-American ideology was consistently preached. When he needed funds for his campaign in Illinois, they were raised for him in turn by his revolutionary leftist comrades. He trained ACORN staff in techniques of extortion, and ACORN is a radical red organization (see our posts on it) at the very root of the sub-prime meltdown.  

The old saying, ‘if it looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, you can bet it is a duck’  applies here. Obama grew up with red radicals, learnt from red radicals, mixed with red radicals, worked with red radicals, churched with red radicals, strives to achieve the objectives of red radicalism, so what is he?

But even now that one of the clues has been outed with the name of William Ayers, Obama escapes being identified by the company he keeps. He says he just happens to live in the same neighborhood as this terrorist guy. He pretends to be hurt by unfair  ‘guilt by association’. Or if you won’t swallow the ‘just a neighbor’ line, then okay, at worst he  happened to have been washed up by coincidence on the same committees – which just happened to promote the indoctrination of the young with red revolutionary ideology. 

And the McCain people are letting him get away with it!

When they are asked: ‘What does it say about Obama that he associated with the terrorist William Ayers?’  – ‘It shows he has bad judgment,’ comes the reply.

No, it doesn’t. It shows that birds of a red revolutionary feather flock together.

It isn’t only that William Ayers was a terrorist; it’s what he was using terrorism for that needs to be taken notice of.  What was he trying to achieve with it? What was – and is – his ideology?  (Clues: He’s pally with Hugo Chavez; he admires Fidel Castro.)  

So it isn’t just that Barack Obama associates with red revolutionary radicals. Red revolutionary radicalism is his provenance. It’s where he comes from. It’s where he chose to put down his political roots.  It’s what formed his mind. It’s what lies behind his redistributionist, collectivist policies. 

Is it really possible that Americans could vote into power a red revolutionary radical without realizing what they’re doing?  It looks all too possible now, with Obama way ahead in the polls.

How many Americans would knowingly vote for a red revolutionary radical?  How can they be warned in time that that is what Obama is?

The only source of such information is the McCain Campaign, since the MSM – whose job it is – have iniquitously decided to conceal it.

But the McCain Campaign doesn’t seem to get it!

Hello over there! Anybody in the McCain Campaign doing any thinking?

It’s a poor choice for America between a man who thinks like a red revolutionary and a man who doesn’t seem to think at all. 

But – Oh dear! – better the boring guy who’s not too smart than the smart guy who will take America down the long hard slope into the socialist ditch where Europe now lies dying.   

 The Long War Journal reports on one of 157 camps in South Waziristan (Pakistan) where children are trained to blow themselves and as many others as they can to pieces:

Scores of children train to become suicide bombers at a camp run by Qair Hussain in Spinkai, South Waziristan. Image courtesy of AfPax Insider.

The Taliban have rebuilt a camp in South Waziristan that trains children to be suicide bombers, a video from Pakistan shows. Children as young as seven years old are indoctrinated to wage jihad in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

The video, obtained by AfPax Insider, was shot in August in Spinkai Ragzai, South Waziristan, a tribal area run by Pakistani Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud. The Taliban are seen "training dozens of boys ranging in age from seven to 14," the news service reported. "The video attempts to justify suicide bombings as a legitimate means of attack against "infidels.’"

The images shows the children reading from the Quran and an adult Taliban training the children. One slide shows a poster board with the words “Killing a Spy” written in English.

While not explicitly stated in the AfPax Insider report, the camp is run by Qari Hussain, a senior lieutenant to Baitullah who has close links to al Qaeda. Hussain has rebuilt his child training camp after the Pakistani military demolished his suicide nursery during a short offensive in Spinkai in January 2008.

In May, a senior Pakistani general described the previous camp as a "factory." The military seized numerous documents and training materials in the demolished camp.

"It was like a factory that had been recruiting nine to 12-year-old boys, and turning them into suicide bombers," said Major General Tariq Khan, the commander of Pakistan’s 14 Division, which led the operation in South Waziristan.

"The computers, other equipment and literature seized from the place … give graphic details of the training process in this so-called ‘nursery,’" Dawn reported in May. "There are videos of young boys carrying out executions, a classroom where 10- to 12-year olds are sitting in formations, with white band of Quranic verses wrapped around their forehead, and there are training videos to show how improvised explosive devices are made and detonated." 

The University of Illinois wanted to employ Jack the Ripper as Professor of Criminology and Ethics, and was disappointed to learn that he was not available for the post as he died some time ago. Just kidding. But take the case of  William Ayers. 

 William Ayers the terrorist (and proud of it) is a tenured professor of Education at the University of Illinois, and much more than that – as this Investor’s Business Daily article reports:

Ayers told [his friend] the great humanitarian Chavez: "Teaching invites transformations, it urges revolutions large and small. La educacion es revolucion." It is that form of socialist revolution that Ayers, and Obama, have worked to bring to America.

Ayers, now a tenured Distinguished Professor of Education at the University of Illinois, Chicago, works to educate teachers in socialist revolutionary ideology, urging that it be passed on to impressionable students.

As [Sol] Stern points out, "Ayers and his education school comrades are explicit about the need to indoctrinate public school children in the belief that America is a racist, militarist country and that the capitalist system is inherently unfair and oppressive."

If Ayers was just another nutty professor, we’d be lucky. But he wields great influence in academic circles and has had Obama’s ear. He’s the author or editor of 15 books. Chicago’s current mayor, Richard M. Daley, has employed Ayers as a teacher trainer for Chicago’s public schools and consulted him on the city’s education-reform plans.

Just last month, Ayers was elected vice-president for curriculum for the 25,000-member American Educational Research Association. AERA is the nation’s largest organization of education-school professors and researchers. 

 … though not intentionally, of course. 

This from al-Aqsa TV on September 3, 2008, translated by MEMRI: 

Dr. Ahmad Al-Muzain: The Prophet Muhammad said that there is no need to wash off the urine of the male infant. Only the urine of the female infant should be washed. In the case of the urine of the male infant, it is enough to sprinkle water lightly over it. From this, the religious scholars have concluded that the urine of the male is less impure than the urine of the female. This gives rise to many questions: Why is there a distinction between the urine of the male and the female? What is the wisdom in this? Is this, as some Orientalists claim, discrimination against the female, even in infancy? God forbid that this is true.

[…]

In order to prove the wisdom behind this, scientists from an Iraqi university have conducted a unique experiment. Of course, this experiment was supervised by a professor from the International Commission on Scientific Signs in the Quran and the Sunna.

[…]

This experiment proved that a type of bacteria known as E. coli – and you can see a picture of this bacteria behind me… We found this type of bacteria in the urine culture of both male and female infants. What was strange, however, was that the urine of the male infant contained much fewer bacteria than that of the female.

[…]

This proves unequivocally that this is the true religion, and that this knowledge was conveyed to the Prophet by Allah.

 In the 1960s the New Left undertook to change the Western World to be more like the totalitarian East by embarking on ‘the long march through the institutions’.  A target institution would be infiltrated and subverted, turned if possible, or discredited. The prize targets were the media, the universities, local government, the police, national parliaments. Philanthropic organizations like Amnesty International and the charitable foundations were among the easier targets to take over or exploit. Slowly but steadily, taking advantage of the freedom they were dedicated to destroying, the red revolutionaries succeeded. 

To see how the trick was worked on a comparatively small scale, look at the ‘Chicago Annenberg Challenge’.  A respectable charitable foundation was asked for funds for educating the disadvantaged. All-too-innocent trustees responded generously, since that is what they were entrusted to provide funds for. But the people who received and would administer the funds were far left ideologues, among them one William Ayers, a leading and active member of a terrorist organization who escaped being sent to prison through a legal nicety.  He appointed  BARACK OBAMA to head the beneficiary organization. The funds, granted in good faith, were misdirected, not to education – though it looked as if that’s what they were being used for – but to indoctrination. So the far left ideologues brought off another political scam.  The appointment advanced Obama on his personal long march.  

(Here’s a link to an article explaining how Ayers was responsible for the appointment of Obama to the Chicago Annenberg Challenge. )

The hands of the subversives are firmly on many of the levers of power. And now the most desirable and essential destination of the long march is within their reach: the presidency of the United States of America. 

Make no mistake about it: whatever Barack Obama says to get himself there, however he seems to be ‘moving to the centre’ and distancing himself from his political origins,  he is a creature of the Revolutionary Left. His policies and his appointees will prove it if he gets there.