The Daily Brief — Friday, August 29, 2008

By Patrick Henry 

 

Oprah on Obama: ‘I cried my eyelashes off’
Associated Press
Oprah Winfrey is leaving Denver with the candidate she wanted, but reportedly without her eyelashes. The talk-show host said she was moved to tears by Barack Obama’s acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention. And those must’ve been some serious tears. “I cried my eyelashes off,” she said in the bowels of Invesco Field, moments after Obama accepted the nomination for president before an estimated 84,000 people… more»

pH: Queen of TV? No, Queen of Hyperbole.

A Shooting Liberal Star
WSJ Editorial Board
Americans last night got their closest look yet at Barack Obama, the shooting star bidding to be our next President. His speech before 85,000 at Invesco Field was as much coronation as nomination. Yet for someone who is so close to being the most powerful man in the world, the remarkable fact is that Americans still know very little about either his political philosophy or what he wants to accomplish. This is not unusual for the modern Democratic Party. As we’ve often noted, the party has tended to nominate relative unknowns ever since its animating liberalism fell out of public favor in the 1970s. Sometimes the voters have gone along with the leap of faith (Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton) and sometimes they haven’t (Michael Dukakis). But in either case the voters learned sooner or later that they were sold something more than the “change” they imagined… more»

The Flashback Kid Plays Denver
IBD Editorial Board
Ex-President Bill Clinton has told some tall tales in his day, but keeping a straight face while endorsing Barack Obama — after blasting him for months — may just be his slickest move ever… more»

pH: Great editorial. IBD’s editorials are becoming must reads.

Obama Gets Serious
Wall Street Journal · Peggy Noonan
Will it work? We’ll see the polls on the final convention bounce soon. We’ll know some of the answer then. But I have a feeling this speech will be like the Europe trip. It will take time for people to let it sink in, and decide what they think. And I’ll tell you, Mr. Obama left a lot of space for Mr. McCain to play the happy warrior next week. He left the Republicans a big opportunity to wield against him, in contrast, humor, and wit, and even something approximating joy… more»

The Perfect Stranger
RealClearPolitics · Charles Krauthammer
Barack Obama is an immensely talented man whose talents have been largely devoted to crafting, and chronicling, his own life. Not things. Not ideas. Not institutions. But himself. Nothing wrong or even terribly odd about that, except that he is laying claim to the job of crafting the coming history of the United States. A leap of such audacity is odd. The air of unease at the Democratic convention this week was not just a result of the Clinton psychodrama. The deeper anxiety was that the party was nominating a man of many gifts but precious few accomplishments — bearing even fewer witnesses… more»

pH: Ouch! Typical Krauthammer–the understated assassin. His portrayal of Obama as a lifelong narcissist is scathing.

A Strategic Opening For McCain
Townhall.com · Dick Morris and Eileen McGann
Many political campaigns run against the wrong candidate. The opportunity to pick on a vulnerable target is so tempting that they are lured into attacking someone who isn’t running. In 1992, the Republicans unleashed their convention barrage at Hillary and left Bill unscathed. In 1996, Dole still ran against Clinton the liberal and ignored the changes in his political positioning. Campaigns go after the flaming red cape, so glittering a target, and leave the matador alone. That’s what the Democratic convention has been doing in Denver. They are so anxious to run against Bush, their animosity is so pent up, that they persist in running against a man who is not seeking a third term. In speech after speech, the Democrats knock the Bush record and then add, lamely, that McCain is the same as Bush. Or they call the McCain candidacy Bush’s third term. It was no accident — or Freudian slip — when Joe Biden spoke of John Bush instead of George in his litany of attacks… more»

pH: Like a broken clock, even Morris can be right on occasion. This is one of those rare moments.

Bust Going Boom
IBD Editorial Board
We keep looking for the much-anticipated recession, but it doesn’t seem to have gotten here yet. Could it be that many of those expecting a downturn were wrong, and the economy’s not going into the tank?… more»

pH: Whenever I hear Democrats ‘dis the economy, I remember Dick Gephardt claiming the economy under Reagan was the worst since the Great Depression. People, some perspective please. Inflation, unemployment, and interest rates were all double digits under Carter.

Biden Wanted to Break Up Iraq
Wall Street Journal · Dan Senor
At the Democratic convention, Joe Biden had the opportunity to showcase his foreign policy experience. Yet his principal and most recent foreign policy initiative — his plan for the soft partition of Iraq — was glaringly absent from his acceptance speech. When Barack Obama named his running mate, he ticked off Mr. Biden’s work on a range of other foreign policy issues — from chemical weapons to Bosnia. But there was no mention of Mr. Biden’s plan for Iraq. This was a remarkable omission. Mr. Biden’s Iraq plan had been a central theme of his own presidential campaign, and the subject of numerous addresses, television appearances, and op-eds. He authored a Senate resolution, passed in September, that reflected his plan, and he even created a Web site to promote it: www.planforiraq.com. But there is no more talk about that Senate resolution. And the Web site has been quietly taken down. Why the sudden silence?… more»

Carter: McCain ‘milking’ POW time
USA Today · Alan Gomez
Former president Jimmy Carter called Republican presidential candidate John McCain a “distinguished naval officer,” but he said the Arizona senator has been “milking every possible drop of advantage” from his time served as a prisoner of war in Vietnam… more»

pH: Speaking of the Carter economy, our 39th President weighs in on John McCain. The man is shameless.