The Lieberman boomlet --Ed Morrissey's reaction of  "Disaster" sums up a lot of the reaction I received on my show and in my e-mail box yesterday (HT: RobinsonandLong.com)-- reminds me of the push for a Reagan-Ford ticket in 1980, when Beltway sharpies told the Gipper he couldn't win without a major shake-up of the dynamics of the race, one that would be provided by picking former President Ford as a running mate.

Reagan was tempted but ultimately went with George H.W. Bush and drove straight-ahead to a blowout win over then President Carter.  Reagan won because he persuaded millions of Americans he had the right vision for the country, and that the voters could trust him --and his party-- to govern well though Watergate was only a short six years in the past,

Senator McCain has the same choice ahead of him.  He doesn't need any bank shots or game-changers.  He needs what was on display Saturday night at Saddleback --a confidence in the rightness of center-right ideas across a range of issues and of course a deep belief in American exceptionalism.  A conventional but base-energizing choice --Romney or Pawlenty-- will keep the momentum going and reveal no deficit of confidence in McCain's ideas or the core ideas of his party.  Such a choice will also say that while the Congressional GOP was seduced by spending and Beltway ways over the past few terms, the party's ideals remain the right ones for governing, and that its social agenda of protecting and strengthening families while seeking to protect the unborn remain at the core of the party and its nominee.

Yesterday I interviewed Mitt Romney (transcript here) and Denver's Archbishop Charles Chaput (transcript here.)  Monday I interviewed author David Freddoso about his new book, which will air today.

All three conversations reveal that the country remains divided over some major issues that simply don't admit to bipartisan approaches: Should we pursue victory in Iraq and the wider war?  Should we go and explore and produce as much of our own energy as possible?  Should life in the womb be protected?  Should taxes be kept low?  Does America still represent the best hope for the planet?  Senator Lieberman has put aside his party's position on victory in Iraq, but he has not done so on many of these other crucial issues, and for those people who fight day in and day out for such things, the veep selection matters a great deal.  "Would John McCain ever pick a running mate in favor of retreat in Iraq," a pro-life activist asked me yesterday.  "Of course he wouldn't,"  was the obvious answer, and the activist's point was made:  If Senator McCain genuinely cares about the life issue, he won't pick a pro-choice running mate.

McCain won big on Saturday and the polls across the board are shifting his way because a solid majority of the country isn't ready to abandon the idea that America is the world's leader and is fundamentally a good nation doing great things, as it has been for the past two hundred plus years. 

The GOP has championed these core ideas since 1980 and there is no need to apologize for them though the leadership on the Hill failed to execute well in the past few years.  Picking a leader within the party as a running mate underscores Senator McCain's commitment to the ideas that powered the Reagan Revolution, and a bumbling, fumbling, inexperienced Barack Obama has no response to these ideas.

The big shift in the Reuters poll (yes, I know it is Zogby, but the direction counts) is just the latest indication that the public has begun to really examine the four year senator from Illinois and to conclude that it isn't going to gamble the country's future on the most radical major party nominee in modern American political history, especially one who has taken to whining about imaginary unfair attacks on his patriotism while dissembling about his record and his associates.

As noted, David Freddoso will be on today's program discussing his book, The Case Against Barack Obama.

And Archbishop Chaput's book, Render Unto Caesar, is doing very well on Amazon.com. Get that along with Freddoso's and save on shipping.  Archbishop Chaput, btw, is conspicuously not being invited to bring his pro-life message to the Democratic Convention convening in his Diocese. (Perhaps Father Phleger will be the Roman Catholic representative?)

UPDATE:  Archbishop Chaput will be my guest in hours two and three today to discuss his new book, linked below.  See also Archbishop Burke's new call for Catholics who support abortion rights to refrain from receiving Holy Communion. (More below)

Archbishop Charles Chaput of Denver writes on the election ahead of us in First Things.

Archbishop Chaput has a new book out, Render Unto Caesar: Serving the Nation by Living Our Catholic Beliefs in Public Life, which should be read by every Catholic and far beyond that flock as well.  Any person of faith interested in the growing pressure to banish faith from the public  square or troubled by the noisy-if-not-very-influential rise of the new atheism will be encouraged by Chaput's bold and clear defense of Christian participation in the debates of the day as Christians.



Order one for yourself, and send one to an agnostic/atheist in your life as well.

UPDATE, cont:  From the story on Archbishop Burke:

The prefect of the Apostolic Signature, Archbishop Raymond Burke, said this week that Catholics, especially politicians who publically defend abortion, should not receive Communion, and that ministers of Communion should be responsibly charitable in denying it to them if they ask for it, “until they have reformed their lives.”

From Pollster.com comes the word that Norm Coleman has a seven point lead over the tax cheating pornographer, and that McCain is a mere two points behind Obama in MN.

There are lots of pro-life Democrats up north, and Obama's the most radical abortion rights advocate ever to run for president.  It could be very close indeed in the Gopher State.

Coleman deserves some help to keep the expected surge of Obama money from resurrecting Franken, as does Bob Schaffer in Colorado where Boulder liberal Mark Udall is doing summersaults on drilling to escape his close ties to Nancy Pelosi. 

And, who came up with the upside-down flag idea?  (HT: RobinsonandLong.com).

The details from The Los Angeles Times' Andrew Malcolm:

Punditfight makes a Trump reference, and I am stuck in Bruno Sammartino land.

Where's Lileks in this scrum?

That's what Mike Allen is reporting, and Mike knows his stuff.

Romney is benefitting from the scurrilous e-mails attacks on his faith (don't try and push McCain around, plus the bigots' push gives the Arizona senator a chance to supercharge religious minorities with a stirring denunciation of this vile bigotry) and from the centrality of Michigan and Colorado where the former Massachusetts governor is very popular.

Pawlenty has the great advantage of being acceptable to everyone.

Either is a great choice that builds on the momentum of the past month.

Plus, whispers from my Dem friends about the Obama collapse.  They know he'll give a great acceptance speech (but what if he doesn't?) but untethered to the prompter, his ums and ahhs have begun to be noticed far and wide.

Hitchens dispatches the analogy.  (HT: RobinsonandLong.com)

And stop by RevokeTheGames.com and sign the petition.  It would be obscene to conduct the Olympics a half hour's drive from ground zero in the Russian rape of Georgia.

Sometimes you think the left has hit bottom, and then it falls off the floor.

PunditFight is always listening.

An effort that left, right and center can agree on?

The IOC should begin consideration of the need to move the 2014 Games asap.

Let the Contest Begin
By Clark S. Judge
 
By Monday next week, all eyes will be turned to Denver and the Russian roulette convention that the Clintons have now forced on Team Obama.  The GOP presidential nominating meeting starts the following Monday.  So this is the last week of the long primary and post-primary season before the traditional campaign begins.  How does the race for the White House look today?
Read More...

One of the great aspects of the new blog/feed put together by Peter Robinson and Rob Long is that it allows for a quick survey of all the recent blog posts from the collected center-right authors, which in turn allows for a consensus to reveal itself pretty quickly.

The consensus on yesterday's forum at Saddleback Valley Community Church is that Senator McCain had an exceptional night, that Rick Warren pulled off a very difficult job, and that Senator Obama was smooth as usual except for his "above my pay grade" gaffe, which is one of those phrases that will stick and hurt.

Obama also had on display yesterday a very troubling slipperiness that is increasingly defining him.  The senator has tried, somewhat successfully for the time being, to slip away from his associations with Jeremiah Wright, Tony Rezko, William Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn. 

He has also managed to slip into a "reformer" shtick that has zero connection to his hyper-partisan voting record.

But yesterday he tried to slip past at least two issues on which such obfuscation shouldn't work --same sex marriage and Senate ethics reform.

My point here is not to argue the policy positions Obama takes, but to point out his firm denial of his real positions on both issues.  He flat out distorted his positions, and did so without even an arched eye-brow from the MSM.

The transcripts of the interviews are here.  (HT: Red County).

Obama's distortion of events with regards to Senate ethics reform came up when Rick Warren asked for "an example of when you went against party loyalty and maybe even against your own best interest for the good of America?"

Obama replied: 

Well, I'll give you an example that in fact I worked with John McCain on, and that was the issue of campaign ethics reform and finance reform.  That wasn't probably in my interest or his for that matter because the truth was both Democrats and Republicans sort of like the status quo and I was new to the Senate and it didn't necessarily engender a lot of popularity when I started saying, you know, we are going to eliminate meals and gifts from corporate lobbyists. I remember one of my colleagues whose name will be unmentioned who said, "Well, where do you expect us to eat, McDonalds?" and I thought, well, actually, a lot of opur constituents probably do eat at McDonald's so that wouldn't be such a bad thing.  I think we were able to get a bill passed that hasn't made Washington perfect but at least it [is] moving things forward.

Put aside the cloying identification with the McDonald's customers and the wonderfully convenient story of the unnamed senator's cravenness, and just focus on the facts.  Recall, Obama cited McCain here as his cover for acting in a bipartisan or non-partisan fashion.  The detailed account of this "teamwork" from David Freddoso's new book --pp. 97-99, puts the lie to Obama's account.  In fact Obama approached McCain and "promised to work with him seriously on a bipartisan lobbying and ethics reform package," in February 2006. After some work "McCain thought they had an agreement."  Freddoso continues:

Then Obama's party leaders took him aside and set him straight.  They had an election plan, and they weren't about to have [Obama] ruin that by working on both sides of the aisle to accomplish something substantive in 2006.

Freddoso then reprints the account of the Obama double-cross reported by Marc Ambinder, then working for the highly respect National Journal.  Obama sent McCain a letter backing out of the effort..  McCain responded with a blistering rebuke.

"I concluded your professed concern for the institution and the public interest was genuine and admirable," McCain responded.  "[T]hank you for disabusing me of such notions."

No matter what one thinks of the merits of the Obama flip-flop, for him to cite his work with John McCain on Senate reform as the best example of his willingness to work against party and self-interest is more than just oily.  It is deeply deceptive.

As was Obama's response to Warren's question on marriage.

"I am not somebody who promotes same sex marriage, but I do believe in civil unions," Obama flatly stated.

Here's a July 1 blog post from Democracy for America on Obama's position on California's Proposition 8, the marriage amendment on November's ballot:

In a letter read to a gathering of the Alice B. Toklas LGBT Democratic Club on Sunday, Democratic Presidential Candidate Barack Obama reaffirmed his opposition to ballot measures that propose to take away the freedom to marry for lesbian and gay couples, including California's Proposition 8.

This is a tremendous boost to our campaign.

We applaud Barack Obama for his consistent opposition to Proposition 8, the California initiative which would mandate that lesbian and gay couples be treated differently under the California Constitution. We agree with Senator Obama that all people should be treated equally under the law. Senator Obama and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger join millions of Californians who are speaking out against Proposition 8 and standing up in favor of protecting fundamental freedoms.

Please forward this message to all of your friends. Urge them to sign our pledge to Vow to Vote No on Prop 8 today!

Sincerely,

Dale Kelly Bankhead
Campaign Manager
No on 8, Equality For All

Obama lacked the courage to acknowledge his position on Proposition 8 and its centrality to the campaign for same sex marriage not just in California but across the United States.

Obama's casual deceptions are rarely commented on by MSM as its various arms work overtime to facilitate Obama's role as the reforming, non-partisan centrist.  

In fact, he's from the way left wing of the Democratic party and has never worked across the aisle on any major initiative, and he regulalry refuses to honestly explain his long held positions.  McCain's straight-forward, direct answers to all questions yesterday may have even been more powerful in stark contrast to the rambling, serial filibusters delivered by Obama, and McCain's answers did not attempt to distort key positions to curry the favor of the audience.  As the campaign moves forward, McCain continue to be well served by candor, and Obama will continue to have to rely of distortion and his friendly dupes in the Fourth Estate.

It is an advantage to be able to say what you truly believe and to be comfortable defending the positions you have actually taken, which means it is an advantage for McCain.

UPDATE: Obama's dissembling on abortion and the Born Alive Infant Protection Bill is now so completely documented that even the Obama campaign is admitting that Obama's past statements on the subject have been misleading:

Indeed, Mr. Obama appeared to misstate his position in the CBN interview on Saturday when he said the federal version he supported "was not the bill that was presented at the state level."

His campaign yesterday acknowledged that he had voted against an identical bill in the state Senate, and a spokesman, Hari Sevugan, said the senator and other lawmakers had concerns that even as worded, the legislation could have undermined existing Illinois abortion law. Those concerns did not exist for the federal bill, because there is no federal abortion law.

And be sure to read about the ongoing cover-up of Obama's relationship with Bill Ayers, as detailed by NRO's Stanley Kurtz.

Excellent.  Just excellent.

Also, my friend and former Los Angeles Times religion reporter William Lobdell is liveblogging the Rick Warren interviews of Obama and McCain.

As noted below, I think Senator McCain should build on his excellent three weeks with a Romney or Pawlenty selection, but if Team McCain feels the need to energize the troops, they could take a page out of the Democrats' 1956 convention, where Adlai Stevenson threw the choice to the delegates. (Estes Kefauver won on the third ballot over Hubert Humphrey and John F. Kennedy.)

Such an announcement on the eve of the Denver gathering would drain coverage from the Dems as our modern media loves a horserace, especially one in which the rules would be so wide open.  And if would-be veeps did the smart thing, they'd declare and campaign openly, using the opportunity to pump for seriousness abroad, sustaining the victory in Iraq, expanding our push for energy exploration and, of course, bashing Obama.  We'd have surround-sound of quality GOP oratory for the next two-plus weeks leading to the vote, and genuine drama in St. Paul.

Victor Davis Hanson notes what the world saw this past week --a Democratic nominee in way over his head:

Obama initially sounded like the therapeutic high-school principal and his 'zero-tolerance' doctrine of moral equivalence as he expels both the victim and the bully; but his calls for UN solutions, talks with equally at fault parties, and apparent trust in the wisdom of the EU and the power of NATO may not just scare Eastern Europeans but even those 200,000 who deified him at Berlin.

Get, read and pass on Freddoso's book: The Case Against Barack Obama.



As for the Lieberman for Veep boomlet, I agree with John Hinderaker: "Let's hope the Lieberman boomlet dies out quickly."

I think Senator Lieberman would make an excellent choice for secretary of State, but the veep signals the direction of the party many years down the road, and getting the vast party apparatus to put their collective shoulder to the wheel in the months ahead requires a solid conservative with the ability to inspire the old guard while bringing in some new energy.  As I wrote earlier this week, the obvious and smart choice is Romney, though Pawlenty fills most of the bill as well.

As Obama unravels and stumbles about, McCain just needs to keep making sound decisions.  The steady hand will out.