Unbelievable.  Simply unbelievable.

Will this exchange be featured on the MSM tonight?

So Obama will be jetting off to Geneva, Switzerland to hob nob with the expats and raise a bundle of cash with the help of George Clooney.

I guess that's what citizens of the world do.

But what about Al Gore's 10-years-to-get-off-oil command?  If global warming really is a crisis and the transition to clean energy the most urgent of all issues, does continent-hopping really responsible behavior? 

Over and over again we see behaviors from proponents of massive regulation to stave off global warming that undercut their claims of urgency.  (See Powerline's report on Al Gore's houseboat for another example.)

The Obama-Clooney-Pelosi-Marie Antoinette Democrats intend to maintain their lifestyles even as ordinary voters forfeit theirs at the pump and via massive government regulation.

Obama-Clooney '08:  Substitute campaign slogan here.  For background, click here.  But here's some ideas for the bumper stickers at the DNC.
 
Because it's better to look good than to sound smart.

The experience of Chicago street politics, with all the morals of Hollywood.

Our George is cuter than their George.

White House of the Stars.

This is the moment the Ocean's 11 began to rise.

Because sometimes, experience is overrated.

If you have suggestions, send them to generalissimo@hughhewitt.com, and we'll add them to the list.

Entries:

O Policy, Where Art Thou

Three Kings Of The World.

Bringing Good Looks To Bad Policies

Don't Hate Us Because We're Beautiful

Because sometimes, inexperience is not enough.

Because 'Crockett and Tubbs' is soooo '80's

Blatherheads 

Intolerable Cruelty

Two towers of energy by wind

Elect us and we'll totally make out on camera

An Empty Suit - An Empty Head

Building bridges between all 58 states

Where common sense ends and arrogance begins

Two empty suits for the price of one

Germany will love us for it

They have a Clooney but no Clue!

You Really Like Them

Experience, we don’t need no stinkin experience!

I’m looney, He’s Clooney

Do as we say, not as we do!

The Audacity of Neutrality

A Ticket Europe can be Proud of

Tire Inflation and Hot Air

Because one expensive empty suit is never enough

We're sure we know better than you

You will love us as much as we do

Because . . . Line Please

Teleprompting our way to the White House

Let's be honest.  We just look better

We’re the airheads we’ve been waiting for

Vanity and Inanity

Unleash the gravitas!

Have Teleprompter, Will Campaign 

At least one of us can ACT like we know what we are doing

Even If We Can't Govern, We Look Fabulous

Fixing the world's problem one charming smile at a time

You simply have to because we're that "tingly."

“We don’t care…we don’t have to.  We’re elitists!”

Malignant Narcissism you can believe in

We complete you.

The Audacity of Dope

Absolutely Fatuous

Bristling at questions doesn't exactly show the American people how qualified you are to be president and commander-in-chief. 



If this is how Barack Obama handles a tough questioner, how is he going to respond the first time something tough comes his way in the White House?   You can't lead by teleprompter.

Online acrtivists are encouraging the House GOP to stay the course.

Here's a related Kithbridge.com aggregator.

Courtesy of Ed Morrissey at Hot Air, we've just learned that His Obamaness and his entourage will be spending part of the GOP Convention in early September raising money...in Geneva, Switzerland...at a $1,000 a plate dinner (dollars, not Euros)...hosted by George Clooney.  Yes, that is our guy, Barack Obama, a man of the people, running a campaign funded almost entirely of Grandma's last $10. 

But you know that once the news goes viral that the event is taking place, in spite of Michelle Obama's pleas to go, the PR nightmare of leaving the country again to go hobnob and fleece international elites in Switzerland right before the election is going to cause Team Obama to cancel the event.  Yes, Switzerland is going under the bus.  It's not a matter of if, it's a matter of when. 

Hugh thinks three days.  I give it a week until we hear it's canceled.  Leave your guesses in the comment section. 

Switzerland?  I guess this is one of the other 58 states Obama missed during his last trip to Europe, and he wanted every world citizen to be represented.

If you’ve seen Austin Bay’s column today, he gives us a a small portion from his exclusive interview with General David Petraeus conducted yesterday. The full multi media program will be available on Austin’s ArenaUSA.com channel.  That an in-depth interview with the general behind the turn-around in Iraq was granted to a new convergence media network is one more sign that MSM is no longer the exclusive or preferable conduit to the news and news makers.  MSM is not covering the unfolding victory in Iraq so it is crucial that interviews like Austin's get wide exposure.

If you follow this link and register on Col. Bay’s Arena channel, you can get the interview prior to it’s public release Thursday, just by entering the passcode “hugh”.

The Los Angeles Times runs a front-page story on Corporal Garrett Jones, back in the fight in Afghanistan after losing a leg last year:

On July 23, 2007, Jones was on foot patrol near the Iraqi city of Fallouja when he was injured by a roadside bomb. After the attack, his left leg was amputated above the knee. He developed infections and fevers. His weight dropped from 175 pounds to 125. At 21, Jones faced months of painful rehabilitation and a likely end to his service in the Marine Corps.

One year later, Jones is walking smoothly on a prosthetic leg. He not only continues to serve on active duty, but he has worked his way back to a war zone, serving with his Marine battle buddies in Afghanistan.

(Note the story is sourced from "Camp Barber," which I suspect is named for my old friend Colonel Bill Barber, Medal of Honor recipient, who would have been so honored and also proud of Corporal Jones.)

More from Jones:

"I want to be someone an injured Marine can talk to," Jones said. "And I can tell them: 'Times will be rough and not always easy as an amputee, but you can still make great things out of an unfortunate situation.' That's what I want to do."

and

Jones didn't get his first prosthesis until November. By the end of December, he had learned how to snowboard again, a sport he had enjoyed for years. He plans to compete in freestyle snowboarding in the 2010 Paralympics in Vancouver, Canada.

Read the whole thing. Twice.  And consider a donation to the Injured Marine Semper Fi Fund.

China has revoked the visa of Olympic Gold Medalist Joey Cheek.  The speedskater was headed to the Beijing Games when the PRC  slammed the door, no doubt because of Cheeks activism on Darfur.

Cheek's statement:

I am saddened not to be able to attend the Games. The Olympic Games represent something powerful: that people can come together from around the world and do things that no one thought were possible. However, the denial of my visa is a part of a systemic effort by the Chinese government to coerce and threaten athletes who are speaking out on behalf of the innocent people of Darfur.

The IOC should make this an issue as should the president and every other world leader trooping to Beijing.  If the PRC doesn't get blasted in the media for each of its suppressions, more will follow. 

Powerline's John Hinderaker is a litigator, and so he pays close attention to assertions and the evidence --or lack thereof-- behind them.

He's also careful to keep focused on the original assertions made by Obama concerning tire inflation and its impact.  

His first post on Obama's first "inflated tires" assertion is here.  It notes that Obama's first assertion was that if we all had properly inflated tires we could save "all the oil that they are talking about getting off drilling."

John followed up with this post on the continuing attempt by Obama and his MSM allies to recover from this pratfall.  John notes that the maximum savings of oil from tires and tune-ups (and this generously assumes all cars have underinflated tires and need tune-ups) is 420 million barrels of oil a year.  (Not only does this number overestimate the need for the remedial actions it also assumes perfect compliance in a country of people for whom non-compliance is a creed.)

The beauty of the second post is that John dug into Time Magazine's defense of Obama and dissected the assertion by reporter Michael Grunwald that the outer continental shelf could only produce 200,000 barrels a day despite reserves there of at least 18 billion barrels.  John discovers that the 200,000 estimate was based on oil priced by the market at $60 a barrel, not $120 or higher. 

The price of a commodity greatly impacts the lengths to which industry will go to retrieve it, which is why we are having this debate.  Even as the oil bubble --hopefully-- begins to break, we know that we are living in an age of increasing demand and declining supply.  We have to get the infrastructure in place to utilize our own resources, and we have to start now.  The Obama-Pelosi-Reid Democrats want to do nothing but pump up your tires. 

They were wrong about the surge and the war.  They are wrong about energy.  Dismay with the GOP is high, but the willingness of the Democrats to continually display their collective disdain for facts, common sense, and the economic and national security well being of the country gives John McCain and the Republicans some hope provided they keep hitting on these big issues:  There's a war going on that we have to win, and there is energy available that we have to go and get.

Please, God, let Obama keep talking about tires from now until November.

And please let Obama keep insulting those who have concluded that tire inflation is not an energy policy.

I think Allen Colmes may have been miffed with me on tonight's show when I said as much, but the contrast between the uber-serious John McCain and the dilettante from Chicago's South Side is never more obvious than when the latter is lecturing America on tire care.

Unless when it is talking about the war against the jihadists, the war McCain wants to win and which Obama is pledged to forfeit.

Obama already has a running mate --named Pelosi.  He and she don't care what you pay at the pump and have no realistic plan to drive that price down.  Since McCain and the House GOP began demanding drilling, the cost of oil has plummeted.

Any vote for any Congressional Democrat is a vote for Pelosi as Speaker.

Every voter ought to be seeing Nancy Pelosi's face every time they fill up at the pump.  She simply does not care what you are paying for gas.  And Obama-Pelosi will not change if they win in November.

Imagine what the price at the pump would be if both of America's major parties were in favor of finding and using America's vast energy resources.

At least the Veeps-to-be-named-later get Gwen Ifill who is only 52.

In all of American journalism they couldn't find one moderator under 40?

Or even 50?

Or one outside the deadly boring conventions of the MSNM that is dying before our eyes for lack of interest? 


UPDATE:  Duane asks: Why not Walter?  I'm worried that a distraught Dan Rather may try and crash the debates.  But a listener writes:

I’m listening to you in the office and I think that you missed an opportunity regarding the hosts for the debates. Why would they go with someone younger when the media has demonstrated here that clearly they have chosen age and experience over youth and charisma. See, even the msm understands it, despite being in the bag for Barak.

Incredibly, both Geraghty the Indispensable and Jake Tapper report that Obama has doubled down on "inflated tires = all the oil from offshore drilling."

In addition to stubbornly clinging to his original error, Obama describes those who rightly think it is absurd to assert the idea that inflating tires can equal the energy flowing from new production from the outer continental shelf as "tak[ing] pride in being ignorant."

Tapper tracked down one of the "energy experts" Obama challenged his critics to find, Frank Verrastro at CSIS, who told Tapper:

"So the production offset [from inflating tires] is more likely to approach 800 thousand barrels per day – a tidy sum and a worthwhile target for savings, but not equal to OCS output," he rules. "Finally, without knowing what production volumes could be expected from lifting the ban on OCS drilling moratoria, it’s impossible to assert that taking these fuel savings actions would exceed future offshore oil volumes, and in fact, one might argue that the combination of achieving these savings AND developing new supply would doubly enhance US energy security."

The fact that Obama feels the need to cling to an absurd position in the face of the overwhelming rejection of his facts is disquieting.  You can stick to unpopular policies because you believe they are correct and will ultimately bring important results, as President Bush has done in Iraq.

But you cannot stick to made up facts and not prompt serious questions about judgment. 

The AP reports on the young Obama's mentor (via Politico.com). 

The Wikipedia entry on Davis is here.

A long ago association friendship with a radical poet will not be an issue in the campaign, but it would be of interest to have someone talk to Obama about his youth.  I don't recall any journalist with access to the Dalibama spending even 30 minutes on his youth and his account of it in Dreams From My Father.

William Kristol remembers Peter Rodman.