Tom Maguire has a round-down of the fallout from the Obama campaign's decision to try and bury the Ayers connection with yesterday's ad.

Jonah Goldberg has even more. (HT: RobinsonandLong.com)

The Washington Post reports on the great unease at the Democratic Convention:

As the Democrats kicked off a convention designed to unite support behind Obama, interviews with several dozen delegates pointed to an undercurrent of anxiety among many from key swing states who will be charged with leading the push in their communities. They expressed doubts bordering on bewilderment: Why, in a year that had been shaping up as a watershed for Democrats, amid an economic downturn and an unpopular Republican presidency, is the race so tight?

Why, indeed.  The answers:  Jeremiah Wright. Tony Rezko. Michael Pfleger. Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn.

"Above my pay grade."  "Bitter and clinging to God and their guns." "Citizen of the world."  Tire gauges.  "First time I have been proud of my country."  "Vastly superior infrastructure."  The Born Alive Infant Protection Act.

And now Slow Joe Biden.

That's just part of the list.  The Dems are nominating the most radical major party candidate in history, whose thin record is relentlessly hard left, and whose rhetoric of change and hope cannot cover the fact that he has never worked across the aisle, has never sought to reform the deeply corrupt Chicago or Illinois political machines, and that he is hopelessly out of his depth on foreign policy and national security issues. 

Dems are uneasy because Obama has gone out of his way to run over the Clintons and insult them, telegraphing how he would run the party and the country if he got to 1600.

Andy they are also alarmed by a shaken and struggling campaign that releases text messages of important decisions in the middle of the night, and ads on the first day of the convention that focus on Bill Ayers, the unrepentant terrorist who has long and significant ties to Obama.  It made matters much worse that Nancy Pelosi used Meet the Press to start a major confrontation with the Roman Catholic Church on abortion which has sparked stinging rebukes from senior Catholic leadership in Denver and nationally.

Yes, Michelle Obama gave a good speech, and yes, saying goodbye to Teddy was emotional.  But feelings about the last representative of a generation of huge political figures and one carefully crafted and stage-managed speech by the nominee's wife have almost no impact on the race as it stands right now.  When the delegates are telling the post that things are tough in Ohio, Pennsylvania and Michigan, you know there is real trouble in traditional Democratic strongholds, and you can expect the GOP ticket to camp in those states as well as in Minnesota, Iowa, and Wisconsin and the key mountain west states of Colorada and Nevada.

The attempt to rush the country to the far left of the political spectrum worked for as long as no one focused too much on what Obama believed and who his close friends and allies are and the emptiness of his rhetoric.  Now the focus has arrived, and the effect is withering.  It is magnified by the rhetoric of some of Obama's supporters like billionaire Tim Gill, who is using his money to attack politicians who believe in traditional marriage.  The Denver convention has a huge number of radicals working to nominate a radical.  Is it any wonder that traditional Democrats are worried that their party has driven itself into a very tight corner?

As for the Obama campaign's new Ayers ad, here's the video of Obama's friend and associate from two foundations, Bill Ayers, part 1, from November 30, 2007:

Part 2:

From George Weigel, biographer of John Paul II and Benedict XVI, one of the most prominent Catholic public intellectuals:

In her "Meet the Press" appearance Aug. 24, Pelosi was asked by Tom Brokaw whether she agreed with Senator Obama's statements on abortion at Saddleback. Pelosi, declaring herself an "ardent, practicing Catholic," told Brokaw that "this is an issue that I have studied for a long time"—and then got herself into a deep muddle, in which she seemed to confuse St. Augustine with St. Thomas Aquinas (neither of whom, in any case, knew anything about modern embryology); misrepresented the settled (and scientifically informed) judgment of the Catholic Church on when life begins by declaring it an open question, and concluded by suggesting that none of this really makes a difference, because what the scientists, theologians, and philosophers say "... shouldn't have an impact on a the woman's right to choose." The Speaker then misrepresented the legal impact of Roe v. Wade, arguing that the Supreme Court hadn't created a right to "abortion on demand"—which will come as news to those on both sides of the ongoing debates over partial-birth abortion and other late-term abortion procedures, parental- and spousal-notifications laws and regulatory oversight of abortion clinics.

Be sure to read the entire piece.

Pelosi's Meet the Press deception has triggered unprecedented, forceful responses from the American Roman Catholic hierarchy.

Has even one member of the MSM asked the Speaker for a response, a clarification, or an apology?

The attention Pelosi triggered on the abortion rights radicalism of her party is a gift to the pro-life cause, just as Obama's stunningly stupid decision to bring up Ayers (HT: RobinsonandLong.com) is a gift to people concerned that the extent of Obama's ties to the unrepentant terrorist receive full review by the voters. 

The Pelosi abortion deception and the attempt by Obama to downplay his long and significant association with Ayers are both attempts to head-fake the electorate in an era when such blatant evasions will not fly.  Inside the Pepsi Center they may be unaware of the fact that both the nominee and the Speaker have stepped in it, and the MSM may be helping to keep the Dems misinformed.

But big lies don't work in the age of new media.  The Dems big week is off to an awful start.

Now the full weight of the Catholic Church is coming down on Nancy Pelosi.  Bravo to Cardinal Rigali and Bishop Lori who join Archbishop Chaput in setting an example for their fellow Church leaders.  Now, how about the Bishop of San Francisco?  The story:

Cardinal Justin F. Rigali, chairman of the U.S. Bishops’ Committee on Pro-Life Activities, and Bishop William E. Lori, chairman of the U.S. Bishops’ Committee on Doctrine, have issued the following statement:
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Bravo to the two senior Catholics in Denver.  Now if Speaker Pelosi's bishop in San Francisco was just as blunt, the damage done by the Speaker's deception on Meet The Press yesterday would be minimized.  For a complete account of what Archbishop Chaput --and the Roman Catholic Church-- believes, read his brand new book, Render Unto Caesar.  The full text of today's statement:

                      

 

ON THE SEPARATION OF SENSE AND STATE
A CLARIFICATION FOR THE PEOPLE OF THE CHURCH
IN NORTHERN COLORADO

To Catholics of the Archdiocese of Denver:

 

Catholic public leaders inconvenienced by the abortion debate tend to take a hard line in talking about the "separation of Church and state." But their idea of separation often seems to work one way. In fact, some officials also seem comfortable in the role of theologian. And that warrants some interest, not as a "political" issue, but as a matter of accuracy and justice.

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi is a gifted public servant of strong convictions and many professional skills. Regrettably, knowledge of Catholic history and teaching does not seem to be one of them.

Interviewed on Meet the Press August 24, Speaker Pelosi was asked when human life begins. She said the following:

"I would say that as an ardent, practicing Catholic, this is an issue that I have studied for a long time.And what I know is over the centuries, the doctors of the church have not been able to make that definition. . . St. Augustine said at three months. We don't know. The point is, is that it shouldn't have an impact on the woman's right to choose."

Since Speaker Pelosi has, in her words, studied the issue "for a long time," she must know very well one of the premier works on the subject, Jesuit John Connery's Abortion: The Development of the Roman Catholic Perspective (Loyola, 1977). Here's how Connery concludes his study:

"The Christian tradition from the earliest days reveals a firm antiabortion attitude . . . The condemnation of abortion did not depend on and was not limited in any way by theories regarding the time of fetal animation. Even during the many centuries when Church penal and penitential practice was based on the theory of delayed animation, the condemnation of abortion was never affected by it. Whatever one would want to hold about the time of animation, or when the fetus became a human being in the strict sense of the term, abortion from the time of conception was considered wrong, and the time of animation was never looked on as a moral dividing line between permissible and impermissible abortion."

Or to put it in the blunter words of the great Lutheran pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer:

"Destruction of the embryo in the mother's womb is a violation of the right to live which God has

bestowed on this nascent life. To raise the question whether we are here concerned already with a human being or not is merely to confuse the issue. The simple fact is that God certainly intended to create a human being and that this nascent human being has been deliberately deprived of his life. And that is nothing but murder."

Ardent, practicing Catholics will quickly learn from the historical record that from apostolic times, the Christian tradition overwhelmingly held that abortion was grievously evil. In the absence of modern medical knowledge, some of the Early Fathers held that abortion was homicide; others that it was tantamount to homicide; and various scholars theorized about when and how the unborn child might be animated or "ensouled." But none diminished the unique evil of abortion as an attack on life itself, and the early Church closely associated abortion with infanticide. In short, from the beginning, the believing Christian community held that abortion was always, gravely wrong.

Of course, we now know with biological certainty exactly when human life begins. Thus, today's religious alibis for abortion and a so-called "right to choose" are nothing more than that - alibis that break radically with historic Christian and Catholic belief.

Abortion kills an unborn, developing human life. It is always gravely evil, and so are the evasions employed to justify it. Catholics who make excuses for it - whether they're famous or not - fool only themselves and abuse the fidelity of those Catholics who do sincerely seek to follow the Gospel and live their Catholic faith.

The duty of the Church and other religious communities is moral witness. The duty of the state and its officials is to serve the common good, which is always rooted in moral truth. A proper understanding of the "separation of Church and state" does not imply a separation of faith from political life. But of course, it's always important to know what our faith actually teaches.

Charles J. Chaput, O.F.M. Cap.

Archbishop of Denver

James D. Conley

Auxiliary Bishop of Denver

Here's what Nancy Pelosi said on Meet the Press yesterday:

 

REP. PELOSI: And what I know is, over the centuries, the doctors of the church have not been able to make that definition.  And Senator--St. Augustine said at three months.  We don't know. The point is, is that it shouldn't have an impact on the woman's right to choose.  . . . As I say, the Catholic Church for centuries has been discussing this, and there are those who've decided...

MR. BROKAW:  The Catholic Church at the moment feels very strongly that it...

REP. PELOSI:  I understand that.

MR. BROKAW:  ...begins at the point of conception.

REP. PELOSI:  I understand.  And this is like maybe 50 years or something like that.  So again, over the history of the church, this is an issue of controversy. 

(HT: Carol Liebau who discusses the whopper at Townhall's group blog.)

Last week I spent a couple of hours on air with Denver's Archbishop Charles Chaput.  Nancy Pelosi should read the archbishop's new book, Render Unto Caesar, but does anyone really believe she doesn't know she lied through her teeth on an issue central to the doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church.  (I'd love for readers and listeners to order copies for her offices in D.C. and San Francisco --and to look for the opportunity to put the book into her hands.) There is no doubt about what the Church teaches about the sanctity of unborn life, and it didn't begin teaching that 50 years ago.  Pelosi's attempt to cloud this issue is really despicable and deeply dishonest, a display of her fear of explaining her own position.  The worst part is that she is attempting to spread confusion --lies really-- about the Church's teaching which could mislead others who genuinely would like to know what the Church teaches about the issue.

Here's what the archbishop noted last week on my show:

HH: Now you bring up the pro-life issue, and we’re going to spend a lot of time talking about it, so here’s my first foray into it. We are talking on August the 19^th, and I expect to rebroadcast this interview in the future, so it will be on August 19^th, but it’s going to be rebroadcast again. But this is three days after a big gathering in Saddleback Valley Community Church auditorium with my friend, Rick Warren, who you may very well know as well, talked to the presidential candidates. Were you satisfied that that was a serious conversation about the life issue, Archbishop?

CC: Well you know, I didn’t hear it when it was on. I heard some of the tapes afterwards, some of the session, and I didn’t hear all of it, so my comments will be in that context. I certainly thought that Senator McCain gave a very clear answer, and I’m always grateful when people give me what they think in a direct kind of way. You know, for Senator Obama to say that it’s above his pay grade to know when we should begin to respect the human dignity of an unborn person I think is evading the question. We all have to make that decision. Every time we vote, whether to vote in favor or against pro-choice, or pro-abortion legislation, is making a decision. So I think that he’s made decisions, each one of us has to make decisions all the time in our voting. So to say it’s above our pay grade just isn’t dealing with the issue appropriately. So I hope that both sides of the issue will speak clearly and directly so that we can make decisions based on the facts. 

HH: Now I think probably the most controversial paragraph in the book, and by the way, my hat’s off to you for organizing this. You make people work to get to the controversy, because it’s in a context that has to be developed out of American history and Roman Catholic theology. But it’s on Page 229. “My friends often ask me if Catholics in genuinely good conscience can vote for a pro-choice candidate. The answer is I couldn’t. Supporting a right to choose abortion simply masks and evades what abortion really is, the deliberate killing of innocent life. I know of nothing that can morally offset that kind of evil.” Thank you for the clarity. Is that opinion widely held among the bishops, Archbishop? 

CC: Well, I would suspect that’s where most of us stand. I don’t know that they always say it in the same way I said it, but I think most of us stand there. You know, many of us are hesitant to speak very publicly on this issue, because we’re accused of partisanship or whatever. And I think bishops have to be very careful. I haven’t registered in a party, because I don’t want the people to use that as an excuse to say that I’m partisan. So I think bishops really stand in the same place, but may not articulate it the same way I did. 

- -     -   -    

HH: Archbishop, I want to go back to the abortion discussion. Quoting again from one of the later chapters in your book, “One of the pillars of Catholic thought is this – don’t deliberately kill the innocent, and don’t collude in allowing it. We sin if we support candidates because they support a false right to abortion. We sin if we support pro-choice candidates without a truly proportionate reason for doing so, that is a reason grave enough to outweigh our obligation to end the killing of the unborn. And what would a proportionate reason look like? It would be a reason we could, with an honest heart, expect the unborn victims of abortion to accept when we meet them and need to explain our actions as we someday will.” Are you aware of any such proportionate actions out there, proportionate reasons right now, Archbishop? 

CC: Well, let me give you two answers to that. You know, as I say, it’s hard for me to come to the conclusion there are proportionate reasons. But here’s a case where I’m certain there would be. If you have two candidates running for the same office, they’re the only choices, both of them are pro-choice, but one is much better on the other issues than the other. I think that you can choose the lesser of two evils with a clear conscience. You don’t have to. You can decide not to vote, or you can vote for a third person who couldn’t be elected. But in those circumstances, you would be voting for a pro-choice candidate, but not because the person is pro-choice, but because the alternative is a worse situation. I also know that, and this is the second point, I know many good Catholics who have given a lot of serious thought to the abortion issue, and will still vote for a candidate who is pro-choice. They’ll try to discourage that person from holding that position, they’ll work really hard within their party to get the party to change its platform if it’s pro-abortion. But they’ve kind of examined all the issues, and weighed them together, and still feel that in a particular situation, that the candidate that they are going to vote for who is pro-choice is a better of the two. And the Church, you know, says you can do that if you have a truly proportionate reason. And I hope they work hard at it, and I don’t always understand how they arrive at their conclusion. It’s hard to imagine in my mind anything worse than the destruction of more than a million unborn children in our country every year through abortion. But I think that sincere people really do arrive at those conclusions sometimes.  

Note how the archbishop tries to understand how a Catholic could vote for a pro-abortion rights candidate.  But there is no mistaking the centrality of the issue or where the Church stands on it.  Speaker Pelosi was being as deceptive as any public figure I have ever heard address the subject of Catholic doctrine, and the bishops should immediately issue the necessary rebuke less anyone be misled by the willful deception.

The only thing Pelosi accomplished by attempting this dishonest ruse is to return the focus to Joe Biden's extreme pro-choice record (though he fails to match that of Obama's which is the most extreme record possible given he voted against the Born Alive Infant Protection Act.)  Biden supporters made much of his Catholic identity and roots this weekend, but passed over that once again the Dems have nominated a candidate who by definition is deeply at odds with the core teachings of his own church.  Biden is supposed to help shore up the Catholic vote, Why would Mass-attending, observant Catholics vote for someone who quite obviously rejects the Church's teachings?

Come to think of it, order a copy of Chaput's book for Slow Joe's office as well.

Having achieved near-Haliburton status on the nutty left, Blackwater wisely decided to bring in a bunch of new media types to see for themselves what the company does.  Rob Neppell reports at VictoryCaucus.com.

Bill Kristol is still thinking Joe Lieberman.  (HT: RobinsonandLong.com.) 

Michael Medved is excited about Senator Hutchison.

I'll leave it to someone else to figure out when the country last had two tickets composed of four senators, but McCain backers hoping for a McCain presidency should look at ElectionProjection's map:



The left-of-center blogger FiveThirtyEight charts it this way:



Romney or Pawlenty help McCain in the states where he needs to needs to flip tens of thousands of votes to his column --Romney in Michigan, Colorado, Nevada and New Hampshire; Pawlenty in Minnesota, Wisconsin and Iowa. 

The two senators, their supporters argue, will have an impact across the U.S., but vice presidents rarely if ever do that. 

Vice presidential nominees can hurt the top of the ticket.  They can lose the one debate when the country is watching.  They can disappoint key parts of the base and send them to the sidelines.  They can make gaffes on the trail and thus feed the hostile MSM with storylines.

But the most they can help is in a handful of states and on three crucial occasions --when they are announced, when they speak to the convention and when they debate. 

The only one of the rumored possible veeps who will almost certainly help in key states and on those three crucial dates is Romney, though Pawlenty is a likely assist across all categories as well.  Senators Lieberman and Hutchison, Secretary Ridge, former Congressman Portman etc --they all raise worries about these four factors.

Senator McCain is even going into the conventions, which very few observers thought would be the case.  There is no reason for going long at this point, and every reason to allow Obama to keep beating himself.

Either Romney or Pawlenty makes enormous sense, and Romney has the advantages of having spent months in the media madness of the primary season and of having been in the bizarre world of nationally televised debates many times.  The base both in and beyond St. Paul would rally to either man, but would be split decisively by a pro-choicer.

The Dems made a mistake in 2004 by picking soft-punching Edwards, and Obama has made a huge mistake by going with another Beltway Brahmin while kicking Hillary and her supporters in the teeth.  The Dems are worried and can't hide it.  The next four days won't infuse Obama with gravitas or change their position on victory in the war or using America's energy, and it won't erase Obama's record of zero achievement and lousy judgment.  If anything, Denver will add to the fears of a personality cult instead of a presidency. 

Senator McCain needs competence, experience and energy to match his own and a running mate whose ideas resonate with the GOP faithful.  Lieberman for Secretary of State, yes, but winning means exciting the GOP in September, a good showing on October 2 at Washington University, and crucial help in few key states in November.

Read about her at PowderTracks.

A guest post from Clark Judge:

Barack Gatsby
By Clark S. Judge
 
As the Democratic National Convention gets underway in Denver, the media is full of profiles of the party’s soon-to-be nominee.  Who is Barack Obama? they ask, an odd question.  After 19 months of campaigning shouldn’t they know?  But reading the stories, it is clear that those covering him – despite the worshipful reporting -- are not finding the answer all that easy to pin down.  Perhaps the reason is that, in surprising respects, Senator Obama resembles a certain similarly memorable but also enigmatic character from fiction, one who almost entirely invented himself – the Great Gatsby.
 
Every first-class politician must think hard about his public persona, including condensing his or her life story into a coherent account that implicitly says this person is ready to lead.  Think of the two presidents I served under, Ronald Reagan and (as vice president) George H.W. Bush:

• Reagan: Son of lower middle-class Midwestern parents; his Irish father struggles with alcoholism; shortly after graduating from college, he moves west to a successful career in movies and television; during the Second World War he serves in the Army, on the home front because of bad eyesight; after the war, he stands up to communist infiltration of his union; when troubled times come, he answers the call of principle and enters politics.
• Bush: Son of privilege, he enlists on his 18th birthday for World War II naval air service; is almost killed in heroic action; after the war he moves with his new family to a dusty western town and becomes a highly successful entrepreneur; believing that public service is a personal duty, he enters politics.
  

Both Bill Clinton (the man from Hope) and George W. Bush (the irresponsible young man who grew up) had similar glosses on their life stories – as does Obama.
 
But here’s the difference: Obama’s story, while factually correct, is – how to put this – not what it seems.
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Won't it be great to have the Olympic Games in a fully free country?

Wouldn't it be great to have the Olympic Games return to the PRC when it is in fact a free country?

And shouldn't the IOC revoke the 2014 games from Russia? 

Russia's rape of Georgia should not be rewarded.

How long will it take Obama to denounce Madonna?

Perhaps never. Obama pal, unrepentant terrorist Bill Ayers probably agrees with the idiotic diva. 

A vote for Obama is a vote for empowering this sort of insanity.

Courtesy of Team McCain:

 “In his first event since choosing Joe Biden as his Vice Presidential nominee, Barack Obama attacked many of Joe Biden’s own positions on national security issues.  We look forward to the debate between Joe Biden and Barack Obama over whether or not Senator Obama is qualified to be commander in chief.  Unfortunately for Americans, the one area that is not up for debate on the Democratic ticket is their shared opposition to new drilling, safe nuclear power, and their votes for higher taxes on the middle class.” --McCain spokesman Brian Rogers

OBAMA ATTACKS ON BIDEN TODAY

Today, Barack Obama Attacked John McCain For Voting For The 2002 Iraq War Resolution; Joe Biden Also Voted For The Resolution:

Joe Biden Voted For The Iraq War Resolution.  (H.J. Res. 114, CQ Vote #237: Passed 77-23: R 48-1; D 29-21; I 0-1, 10/11/02, Biden Voted Yea)

 

?         Joe Biden Called Saddam Hussein "An Extreme Danger To The World." Biden: "This is a guy who's used weapons of mass destruction. This is a guy who's destabilized the whole neighborhood. This is a guy who in a war with the Iranians, over 800,000 people on both sides were killed. This is a guy who is an extreme danger to the world. And this is a guy who is in every way possible seeking weapons of mass destruction. That case, in and of itself, ought to be sufficient." (NBC's "Meet The Press," 8/4/02)
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From George Will's column on the ridiculous rhetoric of Obama and the Dems on energy (HT: RobinsonandLong.com):

There never is a shortage of nonsensical political rhetoric, but really: Has there ever been solemn silliness comparable to today's politicians tarting up their agendas as things designed for, and necessary to, "saving the planet," and promising edicts to "require" entire industries to reorder themselves?

None of Obama's proclamations on our energy future are remotely achievable in the time frames he asserts.  That which could be done to increase the supply of energy and drive down the cost of gas and heating oil --drilling off shore and in ANWR-- are forbidden.  And the nuclear power capacity we must have and must begin to build immediately is only grudgingly if ever mentioned by the Dems.

All week long the Dems in Denver will sing of their concern for the working man and woman pinched by today's economy, but that which they could do to quickly and significantly help they will refuse to do.