Obama History "Fail" Once More

At a fundraiser last night President Obama said:

"We've lost our ambition, our -- our imagination, and -- and -- our willingness to do the things that built the Golden Gate Bridge and Hoover Dam and unleashed all the potential in this country,"

Interesting fact about the Golden Gate (From California Historian):

"This bridge was the first of such magnitude and controversy to be completely financed by private citizens (Gronquist 128-129). All who did contribute money were promised restitution at four and three-fourths percent interest rate within a maximum of 40 years.

It is amazing how successful this way of financing was, considering the effects of the Great Depression."

More importantly the insurmountable level of regulations required to complete a project such as the Golden Gate Bridge or Hoover Dam would kill either of these projects before they even got to the drafting stage.

As Rush Limbaugh said today:

"The people in this country have their imagination. The people of this country still have their dreams and their willingness to do things. You stand in the way. The federal government stands in the way. Mountainous regulations. We did build the Golden Gate Bridge, the Bay Bridge, the Hoover Dam, and the Empire State Building in ten years -- and we did it in the middle of the Great Depression. You couldn't do it today. Regardless the ambition, imagination, willingness, or desire, you couldn't do it in ten years today. Look at Ground Zero in Manhattan. You couldn't do it. I mean, physically it could be done, but it couldn't be legally done."

Obama's Role Model -- Diplomacy That Nearly Destroyed The World: Prediction Realized

Update May 16, 2011 and reposted to front page:  German Paper: Iran is Building Rocket Launch Bases in Venezuela.  As I said at the bottom of this post, "If this is what Obama has in mind, getting the hell beat out of him by Kim and Mahmoud I don't want anything to do with it! I should just start digging the shelter now!"

I really believe it is as if Obama believes the past 2000 years were an anomaly rather then the human condition.


Original post dated May 8, 2008 follows:...............................................

I trust the American people to understand that it is not weakness, but wisdom to talk not just to our friends, but to our enemies, like Roosevelt did, and Kennedy did, and Truman did.

Obama's supporters are too young to know any of this, but Roosevelt led the United States in the war against Hitler; the Allied policy was unconditional surrender, so there was very little for Roosevelt and Hitler to discuss, and in fact, the two did not meet at all (but they did exchange correspondence before the war).
So my guess is that Obama is thinking of the Yalta Conference with Churchill and Stalin as talking to "our enemies", although of course we were still allied with the Soviet Union against Germany and Japan at that point. Beyond that, is the Yalta Conference something Obama and his advisers view as a success worthy of emulation?
(Just One Minute -- Don't Know Much About History...)

Yalta was considered a diplomatic disaster that enslaved millions in Eastern Europe. Roosevelt, who called Stalin, "Uncle Joe," failed to recognize the evil that would lead to the deaths of 15 to 20 million Soviet citizens -- Time Magazine (13 April 1998) (Some estimates as large as 52 million with 30 million being the median estimate).

I can't recall when Truman talked to our enemies, other then perhaps their surrender after he dropped the atomic bomb . Truman lead the UN into Korea and did so without talking to our enemies -- they were boycotting the UN -- rather then talk he gave ultimatums and took action to remove our enemies from South Korea.

As a matter of fact Truman has his own Doctrine (The Truman Doctrine) that supported our allies financially and militarily against Soviet (our enemies) influence. This lead to what was known as the Domino Theory and formed much of the Cold War doctrine that lasted for decades (a variation of which Bush uses to push democracy).

Along with The Marshall Plan The Truman Doctrine helped feed the Soviet reaction that led to the Berlin Blockade. It was only the show of determination and strength -- redeployment of B-29's to England, the same bombers that dropped atomic weapons on Japan -- that prevented escalation of the conflict during the 11 months of the airlift.

Kennedy escalated Vietnam as a part of Truman's doctrine and while he did speak to Kruschev during the Vienna Summit it was considered a failure that caused the players (Kennedy and Kruschev) to push the world toward the most dangerous nuclear stand off in history -- The Cuban missile Crisis.

(About Vienna, Kennedy later claimed of Khrushchev, "He beat the hell out of me.")

If this is what Obama has in mind, getting the hell beat out of him by Kim and Mahmoud I don't want anything to do with it! I should just start digging the shelter now!
DKK

Update: Great minds think alike - points made by Jack Kelly here at Real Clear Politics.

Dumb War Hypocrite........

May 28, 2008 I analyzed Barack Obama's Dumb War speech and concluded it did not make the grade of real world experience.

Well, here is an upgraded version with just a few changes:

That’s what I’m opposed to. A dumb war. A rash war. A war based not on reason but on passion, not on principle but on politics.

Now let me be clear. I suffer no illusions about Muammar Quaddafi . He is a brutal man. A ruthless man. A man who butchers his own people to secure his own power. He has repeatedly defied UN resolutions, sponsored terrorists , developed chemical and biological weapons, and enriched himself at the expense of his country.

He’s a bad guy. The world, and the Libyan people, would be better off without him.

But I also know that Quaddafi poses no imminent and direct threat to the United States, or to his neighbors, that the Libyan economy is in shambles, that the Libyan military a fraction of its former strength, and that in concert with the international community he can be contained until, in the way of all petty dictators, he falls away into the dustbin of history.

I know that even a successful war against Libya will require a US occupation of undetermined length, at undetermined cost, with undetermined consequences. I know that an invasion of Libya without a clear rationale and without strong international support will only fan the flames of the Middle East, and encourage the worst, rather than best, impulses of the Arab world, and strengthen the recruitment arm of al-Qaeda.

I am not opposed to all wars. I’m opposed to dumb wars.

Oh how things have Obama has changed

The Worst of Both Worlds -- Failure to Lead

President Obama's dithering and failure to lead on the Libya situation has lead to a no win situation for the US.

We won't receive any of the meager credit we could might have gotten if the rebellion succeeds and we will receive all of the blame if it fails.

Yes, this always happens anyway, but at least we had the opportunity to shape things somewhat and we would have gotten some credit from those objective few.

America's weakness affects its friends, but aren't we all getting along now? Nay, not so much.

Jimmy Carter will go down in American history as "the president who lost Iran," which during his term went from being a major strategic ally of the United States to being the revolutionary Islamic Republic. Barack Obama will be remembered as the president who "lost" Turkey, Lebanon and Egypt, and during whose tenure America's alliances in the Middle East crumbled.

The superficial circumstances are similar. In both cases, a United States in financial crisis and after failed wars loses global influence under a leftist president whose good intentions are interpreted abroad as expressions of weakness. The results are reflected in the fall of regimes that were dependent on their relationship with Washington for survival, or in a change in their orientation, as with Ankara.

America's general weakness clearly affects its friends.

Haaretz

Obama will go down in history as the president who lost Egypt

China Keeping the Lights On

Of course President Obama is being nice to China. After all, now that the government has gotten involved in choosing your light bulbs for you we don't make any light bulbs here anymore. If we want to keep the lights on we need China to keep sending them to us.

God forbid we ever end up in a serious war with China it will be lights out literally.
DKK

From Master Strategist to Master Batter Of Blame

In his weekly radio address yesterday, President Barack Obama patted himself on the back for having "refocused the fight - bringing to a responsible end the war in Iraq, which had nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks".
He then told people to remember that "our adversaries are those who would attack our country, not our fellow Americans", before decrying "fear and cynicism" and "partisanship and division" - the code phrases for horrid Republicans used during his 2008 election campaign.

Complacency, faux moralising and partisan shots at Republicans. It was a neat summary of where Obama is going wrong after the Christmas Day debacle when the Nigerian knicker bomber managed to waltz onto a Detroit-bound flight.

For a man who campaigned denouncing the politicisation of national security under President George W Bush, it is worth noting how intensely political Obama's treatment of what might henceforth be known as Underpantsgate has been.

His White House recognised its political vulnerability more readily than it comprehended the level of danger faced by Americans.

Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab's father had courageously contacted the American Embassy in Abuja in November and met the CIA station chief to tell him that his son was involved with fundamentalist elements in Yemen. American intelligence had also intercepted discussions in Yemen about a possible attack by "the Nigerian".

The Obama administration knew most, if not all, of this by last Sunday, 48 hours after the attack was thwarted. But the priority in Obamaland was to play things down and take pot shots at the Bush administration.

Janet Napolitano, the Homeland Security chief – who prefers the term "man-caused disasters" to "terrorism" - blithely stated that there was "no indication that it is part of anything larger". She then insisted that the "system is working".

Although Napolitano has taken a lot of flak for these comic utterances, she was not "misspeaking" but trotting out the agreed talking points of the day.

Robert Gibbs, Obama's chief mouthpiece, also stated that "in many ways this system has worked" and would say nothing about a possible wider plot.

In Hawaii, where Obama was holidaying, Gibbs's deputy Bill Burton told the press that "we are winding down a war in Iraq that took our eye off of the terrorists that attacked us" and that Obama was reviewing "procedures that have been in place the last several years" (i.e. Bush instituted them). He added, without apparent irony, that "the President refuses to play politics with these issues".

Meanwhile, the White House was working overtime to build a case against Bush. A source in the White House counsel's office told The American Spectator of memos frantically seeking information that would "show that the Bush Administration had had far worse missteps than we ever could".

Republicans smell blood. There is a pattern in the Obama administration of dismissing Islamist terrorist attacks as regrettable random acts. In his radio address after Major Nidal Hassan's slaughtered 13 at Fort Hood, Texas, Obama made no mention of terrorism or militant Islam, instead blandly promising that the "ongoing investigation into this terrible tragedy" would "look at the motives of the alleged gunman".

Hassan was a committed Islamist who had corresponded with the fanatical Yemeni imam Anwar al-Awlaki. In June, Abdul Hakim Mujahid Muhammad, a Muslim convert being watched by the FBI and who had previously travelled to Yemen, murdered a US Army recruit in Arkansas. That rated only a tepid statement by Obama about a "senseless act of violence".

But the violence wasn't senseless, it had a calculated objective - just as Abdulmutallab was not, as Obama described him, an "isolated extremist". No wonder many Americans want to grab Obama by the lapels and scream: "It's the Jihad, stupid." Dick Cheney, the former vice-president, clearly struck a nerve when he charged last week that Obama was "trying to pretend we are not at war".

The White House communications director Dan Pfeiffer eagerly descended into the political fray, responding to Cheney with the obligatory jibe about Iraq and also a litany of examples of Obama's "public statements that explicitly state we are at war".

It's a sure sign that you're losing the argument when you have to research quotes from your boss's speeches to prove that he gets it that America is at war. The problem for Obama is that people are now judging him by his actions as well as his words.

The incompetence of the US intelligence bureaucracy is not the only thing that makes Underpantsgate so damaging for Obama. More serious is his failure to understand or acknowledge the nature of the enemy - and to view war as mere politics.

Barack Obama is vulnerable on terror -- and he knows it -- Telegraph UK


We've gone from an administration of master strategists the press labeled as a bunch of bunglers to a bunch of bunglers the press labels as master strategists.

Iraq was no more a distraction from the War on Terror then the invasion of Sicily and Italy was in the War on Fascism.  It managed to eliminate thousands of al Qaeda from the battlefield in the same manner Churchill called Italy the soft underbelly of Europe.  (See reports early this year showing numbers of al Qaeda killed or captured in Iraq, al Qaeda appears near destroyed, zero combat deaths in 12/09 in Iraq, etc.)

As long as the left fails to see (for political reasons) that these aren't separate wars but separate battles in one war then we will never make headway again (as one US commentator said in late 2001, "we will just have to get used to terror attacks as a way of life like the rest of the world.")

We went from al Qaeda being near functional destruction, based on reports early 09, to resurgent and ready to attack by Christmas.

In 1989 after 8 years of Reagan the Berlin Wall fell because smart men kept up the pressure he had ramped up.  In 2009 the smart men were sent home in favor of the polished -- to all our loss.

Cleverest Innovation of 2009

New accounting standard BHO/DC-02009.01.

Using this standard a good friend of mine was able to create or save $30,000 by spending every penny he earned in unemployment as well as some of his child's college fund in 2009.  He is thrilled with the results and feels he will be able to convince the bank not to foreclose on his home once he shows them his accurate online tracking of the funds.

Personally I was able to show that I lost or didn't gain 20 pounds!
DKK

Update:

This is the same system, including the web reporting that we are using to determine how many jobs were CREATED or SAVED by the stimulus. If it works for Washington....

Read the Speech, Mr. President, Don't Just Quote From It!

During his December 1, 2009 speech to West Point President Obama quoted from President Dwight D. Eisenhower's Farewell Address of January 17, 1961,

I'm mindful of the words of President Eisenhower, who -- in discussing our national security -- said, "Each proposal must be weighed in the light of a broader consideration: the need to maintain balance in and among national programs."

Over the past several years, we have lost that balance.  We've failed to appreciate the connection between our national security and our economy.

With all due respect, Mr. President, it is frankly ironic that you would choose this speech.  If you did read and understand this speech you would understand that it is a frank warning against everything you have done and proposed to date. (I have previously written about the Eisenhower speech while discussing the scientific-technological elite and global warming).

A few examples:



Take over of the nations health care:

Crises there will continue to be. In meeting them, whether foreign or domestic, great or small, there is a recurring temptation to feel that some spectacular and costly action could become the miraculous solution to all current difficulties. A huge increase in newer elements of our defenses; development of unrealistic programs to cure every ill in agriculture; a dramatic expansion in basic and applied research -- these and many other possibilities, each possibly promising in itself, may be suggested as the only way to the road we wish to travel.

Cap and Trade/Climategate:

The prospect of domination of the nation's scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present -- and is gravely to be regarded.

Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite. 

Bailouts/Takeovers/Nationalization :

But each proposal must be weighed in the light of a broader consideration: the need to maintain balance in and among national programs, balance between the private and the public economy, balance between the cost and hoped for advantages, balance between the clearly necessary and the comfortably desirable, balance between our essential requirements as a nation and the duties imposed by the nation upon the individual, balance between actions of the moment and the national welfare of the future.

Stimulus/Economic/Resources :

Another factor in maintaining balance involves the element of time. As we peer into society's future, we -- you and I, and our government -- must avoid the impulse to live only for today, plundering for our own ease and convenience the precious resources of tomorrow. We cannot mortgage the material assets of our grandchildren without risking the loss also of their political and spiritual heritage. We want democracy to survive for all generations to come, not to become the insolvent phantom of tomorrow.

Foreign Policy/Honduras:

America is today the strongest, the most influential, and most productive nation in the world. Understandably proud of this pre-eminence, we yet realize that America's leadership and prestige depend, not merely upon our unmatched material progress, riches, and military strength, but on how we use our power in the interests of world peace and human betterment.

Throughout America's adventure in free government, our basic purposes have been to keep the peace, to foster progress in human achievement, and to enhance liberty, dignity, and integrity among peoples and among nations. To strive for less would be unworthy of a free and religious people. Any failure traceable to arrogance, or our lack of comprehension, or readiness to sacrifice would inflict upon us grievous hurt, both at home and abroad.

War on Terror/Long Term Conflict:

Progress toward these noble goals is persistently threatened by the conflict now engulfing the world. It commands our whole attention, absorbs our very beings. We face a hostile ideology global in scope, atheistic in character, ruthless in purpose, and insiduous [insidious] in method. Unhappily, the danger it poses promises to be of indefinite duration. To meet it successfully, there is called for, not so much the emotional and transitory sacrifices of crisis, but rather those which enable us to carry forward steadily, surely, and without complaint the burdens of a prolonged and complex struggle with liberty the stake. Only thus shall we remain, despite every provocation, on our charted course toward permanent peace and human betterment.

It really is a fascinating prescient speech, take a couple minutes and read the entire thing.

DKK 

 

Who Could Have Seen The Iranian Upheaval Coming? -- The Fruits of Victory In Iraq!

While Obama sits stubbornly wedded to his promise to negotiate with the dictators of the world -- despite the human rights violations of those same dictators -- the intelligencia and Washington pundits are amazed that the upheaval is occurring. No one could have seen this coming. Better yet there are those who are besides themselves trying to credit Obama.

But who, nearly 6 years ago could have actually predicted this happening following a US victory in Iraq? And in nearly the exact manner in which it happened -- The Iranian regime losing it's credibility by rigging the Iranian elections denying the people of Iran the right to the democracy they demand.

"In Iran the demand for democracy is strong and broad … The regime in Tehran must heed the democratic demands of the Iranian people, or lose its last claim to legitimacy."

George W. Bush discussing the impact of a free Iraq on the Middle East, November 6, 2003. Nearly 6 years ago.


Ronald Reagan fought the cold war for eight years. The year he left office the Soviet Union began to crumble and fell. His successor was there willing to follow through and capitalize on that victory (albeit cautiously at first).


George W. Bush fought the Axis of Evil for seven years. The year he left office one of the remaining two members of that Axis stood on the brink -- will Obama stubbornly cling to his, "one world of rainbows and lollipops as long as we extend an open hand," philosophy or will he grab the hard fought victory that has been presented to him? (Credit where credit is due, Obama's election did shift the focus off of Bush allowing Iranians to look inward).

More:

Full text of the speech is here but here is another quote:

"Iraqi democracy will succeed -- and that success will send forth the news, from Damascus to Teheran -- that freedom can be the future of every nation. The establishment of a free Iraq at the heart of the Middle East will be a watershed event in the global democratic revolution. "

Even Obama's White House is claiming his speech lead to uprising -- link to Hot Air!

Update, June 25, 2009:
Robert Kaplan at the Washington Post finally notices that this was part of the goal for Iraq, but fails to mention Bush at all on the entire page -- entire column, not once.

As if the entire thing was not part of the plan but was just an after effect ... WTF people there was a plan and it was articulated!

More Bush (thanks commenter Juliesa at Hot Air):

To the people of Iran: You are rich in culture and talent. You have a right to live under a government that listens to your wishes, respects your talents, and allows you to build better lives for your families. Unfortunately, your government denies you these opportunities, and threatens the peace and stability of your neighbors. So we call on the regime in Tehran to heed your will, and to make itself accountable to you. The day will come when the people of Iran have a government that embraces liberty and justice, and Iran joins the community of free nations. And when that good day comes, you will have no better friend than the United States of America.

George W. Bush Discusses the Importance of Freedom in the Middle East January 13, 2008.
DKK

Manzullo Shows Why He's There -- Those Other Republicans Should Pay Attention! -- UPDATED WITH VIDEO

Rep. Manzullo to Geithner: Your Plan Is 'Radical'

In testimony before the House Financial Services committee that just adjourned, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner just had to defend his institutional takeover plan against charges of radicalism.

"Do you realize how radical your proposal is?" Rep. Donald Manzullo (R-Ill.) asked.

"It's not radical. . ." Geither began, before Manzullo interrupted him.

"You're talking about seizing private businesses and you don't consider that radical?" Manzullo replied, his voice rising.

Manzullo is trying to get Geithner to give details of the plan -- that's where Geithner got stung before -- but Geithner doesn't have them yet.

If the plan were not radical, Manzullo said to Geithner, "you would have answers to some of my questions, such as, what size business would be subject to this?"

DKK
The Ticker (WaPo)

Update:  Here is the video from Rep. Manzullo's YouTube page:

DKK

Obamaganda

Obamaganda -- the MSM treatment of the 2008 election as described by Time Magazine Editor, Mark Halperin.

McCain Beats Obama Bloody Without Even Having To Lift A (North Vietnamese Torturer Broken) Hand -- Will Obama Save Himself From Himself?

[Obama spokesman Dan] Pfeiffer said. "It's extraordinary that someone who wants to be our president and our commander in chief doesn't know how to send an e-mail."
Well, I guess it depends on what you mean by "extraordinary." The reason he doesn't send email is that he can't use a keyboard because of the relentless beatings he received from the Viet Cong in service to our country. From the Boston Globe (March 4, 2000):

McCain gets emotional at the mention of military families needing food stamps or veterans lacking health care. The outrage comes from inside: McCain's severe war injuries prevent him from combing his hair, typing on a keyboard, or tying his shoes. Friends marvel at McCain's encyclopedic knowledge of sports. He's an avid fan - Ted Williams is his hero - but he can't raise his arm above his shoulder to throw a baseball.

Jonah Goldberg at The Corner on National Review discussing this foolish advertisement by Barack Obama.



There is plenty of evidence in the Goldberg post that McCain does use the internet but because of his injuries his wife does the typing for him.  He uses the internet with the mouse.

What makes it really bad is that when you attack a man for not using the internet or being able to send an Email because of injuries he sustained in the service of the country couldn't you at least spend 5 minutes on Google for the real story like many bloggers have done?  Who looks the fool now, Barack!

I hate to do this, but alas, not all is lost for team Obama.  Today is a perfect time for Obama’s own Sister Soulja moment. He could order that computer ad pulled, apologize directly for having placed it.

Considering how foolish and hateful it makes him seem and how much it distracts from the message in the second half it was a tactical mistake as well as a strategic mistake.

Reclaim the mantle of change and ‘new politics’ and only put ads on that proclaim what he will do. If he does it now he may be early enough to make McCains ads look petty if Obama never responds with anything but positive, “I will,” messages.

He would be locked in though — no negative replies at all.

That would be as bold a move as Palin was for McCain — for that reason he wont do it. He can’t face the screaming of the left and media.  The critters at Kos, DU, and the other fever swamps of the left have been demanding that Obama hit back and hit hard.


The flailing by team Obama is really beginning to show.  It's time a grown up stepped in to run that thing.  Remember, this is what he considers executive experience that qualifies him to be President.
DKK

Update: Ace notes that Forbes Magazine noted McCain’s disability in 2000, too:

In certain ways, McCain was a natural Web candidate. Chairman of the Senate Telecommunications Subcommittee and regarded as the U.S. Senate’s savviest technologist, McCain is an inveterate devotee of email. His nightly ritual is to read his email together with his wife, Cindy. The injuries he incurred as a Vietnam POW make it painful for McCain to type. Instead, he dictates responses that his wife types on a laptop. “She’s a whiz on the keyboard, and I’m so laborious,” McCain admits.

Want To Know How An Obama Administration Would Run, Just Watch His Home State -- Illinois, The State With No Ethics, Hope OR Change!

The Illinois Legislature passed a comprehensive reform measure to bring ethics to all areas of state government. For the most part, it ends pay to pay politics, which has caused all manner of corruption in Illinois.

The governor vetoed it putting an executive order in place instead.  The problem:

The executive order won’t take effect until AFTER the election, and it won’t cover state departments or branches that are not under the governor’s control.

Plus, there are no penalties for breaking this order. So, the governor couild ignore his own ethics executive order and he could not be punished. Nor could anyone else. Plus, executive orders aren’t laws, they can be changed or abolished by whim.

DKK
Sweeny Report

Biden Doesn't Compliment The Obama Brand, He Alters It -- Forced By Poll Numbers?

Obama has built up a brand.  Biden does not fit that brand.  He alters it.

I don't know if worldwide events influenced his selection of if poll numbers did, but he doesn't seem to fit.  Just not quite right.
DKK

Update -- As if to prove my point:

Biden has accepted $5,133,072 in contributions from lawyers and lobbyists since 2003. Obama does not accept contributions from federally registered lobbyists.

And he has one other weakness that hasn’t received much attention to date. One of Biden’s sons, Hunter, is a registered Washington lobbyist in a year in which Obama has been excoriating lobbyists and the culture of corruption in Washington. The younger Biden is a name partner at the firm Oldaker, Biden & Belair, LLP, and seems to have specialized in lobbying for just the kind of earmark spending by Congress that Obama has vowed to slash. Republican insiders say the party is likely to make an issue of Biden’s family lobbying ties.

Also expect to hear more about Biden’s close ties with credit card companies. His largest contributor (based on total contributions by employees) over the past five years has been MBNA, the Delaware-based bank aquired in 2005 by Bank of America than until then was the world’s largest independent credit card issuer and a major supporter of the 2005 bankruptcy bill that Biden crossed the aisle to support.

Hot Air

Obama Chooses Biden!

Obama picks Biden for veep
DKK

Obama Spent As Much Just In Ads As McCain Spent Total For July -- Yet Poll Numbers Dropping -- The More You Know Him...

Barack Obama spent more on advertising last month than Republican rival John McCain spent on his campaign, new Federal Election Commission filings show.

Obama spent $57.2 million in July, including $33 million on advertising. McCain spent $32.4 million, with $18.7 million going for ads.

McCain entered August with slightly more money than Obama when funds in the bank accounts of the Republican and Democratic party committees are included.

DKK
Bloomberg

Media Can't Be Bothered With That -- They Are Too Busy Diggin Up Divorce Papers Or Something!

THE OBAMA / BILL AYERS / ANNENBERG STORY has broken out into the Legacy Media now. Tom Maguire comments: "Hard to believe that with our aggressive national media covering a Presidential campaign that Obama and Daley could mange this cover-up in plain sight. Yeah, real hard."
I caution those who are excited about getting into the archives, though: It probably won't happen, and by now I'm sure that the files have been vacuumed of any seriously embarrassing matter anyway. This is Chicago.
UPDATE: What leaked out.

It really is amazing that the very same media that cleared the way for Obama's Senate win by suing to force the release of his opponent's sealed divorce documents just can't seem to care about the extent of Obama's ties to an unrepentent domestic terrorist.
DKK
Instapundit

Wiki info on Barack's Senate race:

Barack Obama's backers emailed reporters about the divorce controversy, but refrained from on-the-record commentary about the divorce files.^[7] On March 29, 2004, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Robert Schnider ruled that several of the Ryans' divorce records should be opened to the public, and ruled that a court-appointed referee would later decide which custody files should remain sealed to protect the interests of Ryan's young child.^[8] The following week, on April 2, 2004, Barack Obama changed his position about the Ryans' soon-to-be-released divorce records, and called on Democrats to not inject them into the campaign.^[7] The Ryan campaign characterized Obama's shift as hypocritical, because Obama's backers had been emailing reports about the divorce records prior to Judge Schnider's decision.^[7]

Ryan dropped out less then a week after the records were released.

And who demanded those documents to be released:

Ryan married actress Jeri Ryan in 1991; together they have a son, Alex Ryan. They divorced in 1999 in California, and the records of the divorce were sealed at their mutual request. Five years later, when Ryan's Senate campaign began, the Chicago Tribune newspaper and WLS-TV, the local ABC affiliate, sought to have the records released. Both Ryan and his wife agreed to make their divorce records public, but not make the custody records public, claiming that the custody records could be harmful to their son if released.

Answers.com
DKK

Yea, But He Does A Great Motor Boat Impression! "Um, Um, bu, bu, but, um um!"

According to several Democrat political consultants presumptive Democrat presidential nominee Barack Obama spent part of his Hawaiian vacation working on weaning himself from a heavy dependence on teleprompters. Even in what are staged as "town hall" events for Obama, remarks are scripted or formatted into bullet points that scroll on teleprompter screens. Obama has had several embarrassing events where the teleprompter either malfunctioned or the screens were not fully visible.

"He just locks down and can't get the words out," says one political consultant. "For such a fine speaker, it's really quite remarkable that he's had issues."

Obama's troubles with unscripted moments contributed to his campaign's refusal to participate in town hall format debates or discussions with Sen. John McCain, who feels much more comfortable in the unscripted moments.

DKK
American Spectator -- Washington Prowler

"Well, ya know, Obama is a 'Post Turtle'"

While suturing a cut on the hand of a 75 year old rancher,

who's hand was caught in the gate while working cattle, the doctor struck up a conversation with the old man. Eventually the topic got around to Obama and his bid to be our president.

The old rancher said, "Well, ya know, Obama is a 'Post Turtle'".

Not being familiar with the term, the doctor asked him what a 'post turtle' was. The old rancher said, "When your driving down a country road on you come across a fence post with a turtle balanced on top, that's a 'post turtle".

The old rancher saw the puzzled look on the doctor's face so he continued to explain. "You know he didn't get up there by himself, he doesn't belong up there, and he doesn't know what to do while he's up there, and you just wonder what kind of dumb ass put him up there to begin with".

DKK
Flicker: DrMadjack
Via Curmudgeonly & Skeptical