By: The Conservative Soldier.

If elected President of the United States, Sen. Barack Obama will, in reality, become a Chief Executive Officer with one all-encompassing mandate.

He will not have time to consider the will of the American people or the security of the homeland. Obama will be serving the whims of a wealthy, powerful and often corrupt Board of Directors. In these seats of ultimate but invisible power will be mentors William Ayers, Bernardine Dohrn, Rashid Khalidi, Father Michael Pfleger, Antoin Rezko, George Soros, Oprah Winfrey and Rev. Jeremiah Wright, among others.

This might prove to be less an election than a bloodless coup. By rejecting federal campaign funds that he'd pledged to accept before his advisers got involved, Sen. Obama will outspend Sen. John McCain by at least $250 million. The origin of millions of these dollars are undocumented.

This is less about democracy than subversion. Obama has not provided something as basic as proof of citizenship -- his. And the citizenship status of countless, mystery internet donors also remains unknown and un-investigated.

Our smitten media stands by, watching, as the United States and its Constitution takes on the ultimate supreme council of Obama fund raisers, operatives, religious zealots and community organizers. The community, in this case, has a population of about 305 million.

The author David Freddoso in his landmark book, The Case Against Barack Obama, gives Obama far greater benefit of the doubt than some will about the Senator's radical ties, but raises the central, numbing question that must be asked.

"Barack Obama has many ties to radicals -- some violent, some intriguing, and some just odd," he writes in the 2008 book. "... Obama is not a Marxist or a radical. He is certainly not a terrorist-sympathizer. Yet it is clear that radicals have influenced his judgment. ... Should he become president, will he entrust such men and women with executive power?"

When Sen. McCain says he is an American and, as such, chooses to stand up and fight, he is not spewing campaign slogans to inspire crowds.

He is enunciating what the stakes are and what patriotic Americans must do.

When our country is threatened, we fight. I stand with Sen. McCain.

The current political season has intensified my love for a country that is revered by some and reviled by others. I can not be convinced, even amid the drumbeat of “change”, that America no longer is a shining city on a hill.

Our nation certainly is not invulnerable to internal conflict, as we learned so painfully in the mid-19th century. It is not immune to catastrophic economic downturns (1930s), or to severe economic bubbles (1907, 2008). It is not always on guard when enemies visit (1941, 2001).

The strength of this union will be tested again on Tuesday on an election day that is historic by any measure.

Sen. Barack Obama’s candidacy for President represents a serious crossroads for the United States. If he is elected, the power Obama will inherit and how he wields it poses a serious, long term threat to the economic and physical security of our nation.

Opposition to Obama has drawn sharp criticism. Predictably, many left wings citizens, and neighbors, assume that concern voiced openly about Obama’s candidacy equates to racism. This illogical leap was, sadly, inevitable.

I am not, to quote comedian Dennis Miller, worried about the color of Obama’s skin. I am worried about the thinness of it. I am not concerned by his blood lines. But I am gravely concerned about Obama’s blood oaths (Ayers, Khalidi, Rezko, Wright, et al).

Some say Obama has turned the race for the White House into American Idol. I fear more his idle, empty social welfare rhetoric, and ideologically cluttered foreign policy vision.

Sen. John McCain prepared to become President of the United States by living, serving and persevering. Sen. Obama prepared by endearing himself to powerful and wealthy mentors, memorizing every page of the Democrat playbook and reciting it to the adoring masses with undeniable eloquence.

Before you vote on Tuesday, and if you are at all undecided, consider the eloquence of commentator Charles Krauthammer, who offers the most concise description of the Obama phenomenon I have read (below). Most of all remember that, while we are strong and resilient as a nation, we are not invulnerable, even to trifling, ambitious, unqualified political candidates.

Krauthammer, August 2008:
“Barack Obama is an immensely talented man whose talents have been largely devoted to crafting, and chronicling, his own life. Not things. Not ideas. Not institutions. But himself.

“Nothing wrong or even terribly odd about that, except that he is laying claim to the job of crafting the coming history of the United States. A leap of such audacity is odd. The air of unease at the Democratic convention ... was not just a result of the Clinton psychodrama. The deeper anxiety was that the party was nominating a man of many gifts but precious few accomplishments – bearing even fewer witnesses.”

By: The Conservative Soldier

The major polls are tightening. Sen. McCain is gaining rapidly in several crucial states. But the haunting question lingers: What are we going to do if Obama wins?

What are we going to do:

If the next U.S. President has no moral compass guiding his response to a threat against our national security?

If the leader of the free world welcomes conversations with brutal dictators who want only to destroy us and our way of life?

If an unproven former Senator, working with a fully compliant Congress, redistributes the "wealth" by raising taxes on people and businesses that drive America’s economic engine, while sending tax rebates to others who currently pay ZERO income taxes?

If Obama is afforded unfettered opportunities to bankrupt the Government through nationalized healthcare programs and other entitlements that will be almost impossible to undo, even if proven misguided and ineffective?

If this “Socialist Messiah” seats radical left wing judges on the Supreme Court, one by one, until the deck is stacked against the majority of Americans for generations?

The thought of Barack Obama standing with his hand on a Bible, swearing before God and everybody that he will protect and defend the Constitution of the United States, is unsettling at best. How do you protect or defend something you seek to weaken and marginalize?

What are we going to do if that January day comes?

Those who choose to participate in democracy, rather than exploit it, will do what we always do in this country. We’ll remind ourselves that politics is local. Slowly but surely, district by district, region by region, state by state, we will “throw the bums out”, replacing the Chris Dodds, Barney Franks, Nancy Pelosis, Harry Reids and Chuck Schumers with effective Senators and Representatives. Shouldn’t we demand legislators who can sustain reasonable approval ratings, rather than sustain 74% DISAPPROVAL ratings?

We will engage time-tested American democracy, and we’ll start in the voting booths. It might not happen in 2008, but it will happen.

We will unseat members of Congress who cheered Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae as these organizations diluted lending standards, deliberately creating legions of unqualified homeowners and fueling the era of sub-prime mortgages. As these “leaders” sat awash in campaign contributions from Freddie and Fannie, ignoring red flags unfurled by opposing Senators including John McCain, they placed our financial systems on the brink of collapse. They've been "spreading the wealth around" for years, in fact. And look where we are.

We are living on the crumbling edge of the brink. And who is most threatened by this? The very Middle Class that Obama and his fellow liberals claim to be fighting for. Despite oft-repeated Obamaspeak during the current campaign, the prosperity of the American Middle Class is threatened not by the affluent, which pay most of the country’s taxes, but by the low (or no) income homeowner who can’t cover his mortgage payment, or multiple home equity loan payments, and now faces foreclosure and bankruptcy. The wealth was spread and it has slipped through many unqualified fingers.

Obama likes to pound away about the past eight years under President Bush (during which there have been no terror attacks since Sept. 11, 2001), but the economic cancer seeded by misguided, radical left wing elected officials has been spreading more than 15 years, unabated.

In the end, a President traditionally promises to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States on Inauguration Day, but it is up to individual citizens to strap on our boots, hit the ground and wage the battles.

And that’s what we’re going to do.

By: The Conservative Soldier.

United Airlines announced this week it is cutting 7,000 jobs by the end of next year.

I hope the 7,000 include some of the lying, arrogant, incompetent and utterly useless employees who transformed our recent routine Washington-to-Chicago trip into an all too typical commercial aviation nightmare.

I know, I know. They're here for our safety. For example, I am sure they know exactly what to do to protect us from say, overindulging on peanuts or soda pop. They keep us safe from that nasty stuff by making only one pass down the economy aisle with "snacks" and beverages. Up front, they present warm nuts but still make you beg for that beverage refill.

But what do they really know about protecting us from, say, mental breakdowns and gate rage and anxiety attacks? Based on my recent experience at Washington Dulles, I am certain these union loyalists know absolutely nothing.

The scenario I am about to describe happens repeatedly, every day of the year at airports from coast to coast. But, as with starvation in Africa or human rights abuses in China, the conversation and the quest for permanent solutions must persist until progress is achieved. We must not stop having a national dialog among weary travelers about the airlines' gross incompetence simply because it addresses the same old same old. We have to keep talking about it, we have to step up the criticism, we have to demand these gnats on the front lines of a dying industry be swatted from time to time.

The flight was United's 461, Boeing 767-300 service from Dulles to O'Hare at 6:45 in the evening. It began quite well. My wife, daughter and I successfully upgraded from Economy Plus to United Business. (The aircraft has a three-cabin configuration of First, Business and Economy, as it is principally intended for international service). This particular 767 recently was updated to United's newest International First and Business seating. The Business seats are narrower than ever, but are designed to become flat for sleeping, and provide each customer a private pod in which to rest, or watch moves or play video games on what appeared to be 19-inch screens.

Off we went toward the end of the taxiway, an active runway close at hand. Around us, fellow Business upgradees were positively giddy about all the new buttons to press and various seat-comfort positions they were about to road test.

Before long, as I listened to air traffic control, I heard our cockpit crew request a delay for a "maintenance issue". Huge red flag. Of course, if we'd been lucky, they would have been referring to nothing more serious than an inoperative coffeemaker. No such luck. Thus began another chapter in my deteriorating 25-year relationship with United Airlines.

Back to the gate we would go, owed to some problem with a leading wing edge component that aids aircraft control in flight. The captain's tone was not particularly dire, so there seemed to be optimism in the air that a mechanic would swoop in and save the day with a piece or two of duct tape.

Never happened. (A team of mechanics was unable to fix the problem on the 767, which leads one to wonder how the aircraft made it to Dulles in the first place. Or ... was the "mechanical issue" simply a convenient cancellation tactic?)

As we sat, oblivious, with alternate flight options slowly dissolving, the cockpit crew ate a quick dinner, probably chit-chatting about pension woes and salary concessions. Ultimately we were sent off the aircraft and told to report several gates away to another, waiting aircraft. Sounded like a good deal.

Bad deal. This was a Boeing 757, a single isle aircraft. The first officer jumped on the PA and assured us there was room for everybody, but he never mentioned the little problem dawning on us more seasoned travelers. A different plane meant that all of our boarding passes were now irrelevant. I cringed thinking about how long it would take to re-issue them to 150+, grumpy passengers.

Turns out only a few boarding passes were re-issued (including mine). In the interim, a gate agent with a heavy Jamaican accent made a few incoherent announcements, begging patience and providing absolutely no sense of what the plan was. Then along came another customer service guy who also looked like a security type (to combat gate rage, presumably). His bit of exciting news was that the flight crew was about to become "illegal", meaning they were nearing the maximum number of hours they can work in a day. The poor babies do need their rest. You can't be obnoxious and indifferent without proper sleep, after all. You can't not find an extra pillow without a restful interlude now and then.

The search was on for another flight crew, we were told. No one believed that for a second, of course.

As the Jamaican handed me my re-issued boarding passes for the "new" UA 461, my cell phone buzzed. It was an automated message from United. UA 461 was cancelled.

I advised the Jamaican. His phone rang just then. Confirming what I knew before he did.

He advised the masses to return to the main Dulles terminal and to visit "Q9". He meant queue nine. But, alas, in his native tongue, queue means "line". As in, get in line and await your fate.

We bee-lined to the nearest Red Carpet Club, where we were re-booked on a flight the next day at 10 am, handed complimentary toiletry kits and wished a most pleasant good night.

A night that began with the promise of a lie-flat bed ended in a taxi cab to my parents' home for a quick nap and a shower. And we were considered the lucky ones.

By: The Conservative Soldier

We're about to be pushed back, almost on time, from a gate at RDU International in North Carolina the other day when The Captain, in his best I-am-a-Senior-Pilot-with-a-vault-full-of-worthless-stock-options tone, announces we'll be delayed.

Why the delay? Conservatives, of course.

North Carolina's iconic conservative, Sen. Jesse Helms, died on the 4th of July. Not a Yankee Doodle, but a dandy for sure. His funeral was July 8 in Raleigh. An hour or so before the departure of our Chicago flight, Vice President Dick Cheney jetted into RDU aboard Air Force Two (a winglet-enhanced Boeing 757) to pay his respects to Sen. Helms.

As Air Force Two descended into RDU, the airspace in the vicinity was sealed, leaving planes such as our American MD80 in a holding pattern. As soon as VP Cheney was off the tarmac and headed to the Helms service, the airspace was re-opened and a number of flights were vectored for landing.

As the pilot explained, all of these planes came in at once instead of at their normal staggered times. (A few minutes is staggered, apparently). We would be delayed 30 minutes because the luggage from the inbound flight was still in the belly of our MD80 even though the passengers had long ago assembled in baggage claim. While they paced, we sat, for even more than 30 minutes. All of the incoming luggage finally came off, followed by the loading of the outbound luggage.

Over the PA, Disgruntled Senior Pilot suggests there was not sufficient ground crew to handle the onslaught of incoming flights (all three or four of them). "If you want to complain," he added, "I guess you can write a letter to the Vice President."

In any case, this Lib Hugging Un-American pilot had no chance at winning the Sound Bite of the Week award.

That prize already belonged to the pilot of Sen. Barack Hussein Obama's aircraft, an MD80 charter from the Midwest Airlines fleet. It made an unscheduled stop in St. Louis en route to Charlotte, N.C., on Monday because an emergency escape chute deployed in flight from the rear section of the aircraft.

The pilot explained the decision to put down in St. Louis by saying, "We detected a little bit of a controllability issue."

Apparently the Obama talking points people got to the pilot before he gave the honest answer, which would have been, "We didn't know if we could keep this massive, aging airliner, moving at 500 mph, from nose-diving into a Missouri cornfield, so we landed as quickly as possible."

Got to love that they had an emergency over the battleground state of Missouri. If I'm Sen. John McCain my first move is to get this ad on the air ASAP: "He tried to fly right over the Show Me State. Only a mid-air emergency compelled Sen. Obama to set foot on Missouri soil. Will Obama always wait for crisis before he reaches out to you?"

A lot of good material here.

Sen. Hillary Clinton had chartered the same aircraft before bowing out of the Democratic race. I think I 'd have flown commercial before loading my staff and the press corp onto that charter. Another judgment red flag against the Obamas, I say. Bill sits near the back of the plane, doesn't he? Isn't that where the youngest tenured female press sit? Who knows what buttons he was fiddling around with after a few vodka tonics.

And you had to love the fact that the emergency was set off by a rear escape chute deployment? Did someone in the Obama inner circle decide he'd had enough, right then and there (a la the infamous 1971 hijacker/thief D.B. Cooper, who "escaped" by parachuting from the rear stairs of a 727 over Washington state)? Was Obama trying to drop anti-McCain leaflets over the midwest? Were the sacks of multimillion-dollar campaign contributions they tossed in the back simply too heavy for the rear door mechanism to withstand?

We know that Midwest Airlines is famous for serving its commercial passengers freshly baked chocolate chip cookies in flight. So, presumably, the cookies on Obama's Monday flight to Charlotte were only half baked.

Need we say more?

By The Conservative Soldier:

So it has come to this: Everyone who is critical, even fearful, of Sen. Barack Hussein Obama is not simply opposing the radical-liberal tsunami that he intends for our country. No, those who shudder at the possibility of Obamarama 2008 are fueling the “silent subtext of race that has been part of the contest since Day One.”

That’s how the current state of affairs is characterized by the vitriolic Chicago Sun-Times columnist Mary Mitchell, who is Obama’s unofficial fan club president in his adopted hometown. I can only imagine Mary has waited her entire lifetime for the opportunity to paint every opponent of a Presidential candidate of color as racist scum. As a columnist for a dying, irrelevant newspaper, daily breaking news on Obama is a windfall for Mary. He gives her a platform upon which to play the political race card and, possibly, an excuse to keep her pathetic little newspaper on the radar, too.

Even as Obama declared Tuesday night that he is the Democratic nominee, history was unfolding, unimpeded by his empty, liberal boilerplate rhetoric. He’d better be careful wishing for change, because change is happening all around him, even faster than Obama’s speechwriting team can possibly type. Or hype.

On the day Obama declared a “defining moment” for America (his candidacy, to be precise), Iran’s little open-collared dictator Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was in Rome, attending a UN summit, where he warned (in softer terms than his previous “stinking corpse” description) that “Israel is doomed to go.” Clearly, there are different interpretations out there about when the defining moments will come and what they will mean.

On the day Obama vowed his campaign never will “use religion as a wedge”, his friend Rev. Michael Pfleger was quoted in an interview observing, “This is a dangerous time in America … where you have to whisper your thoughts.” These were his comments after he was blasted by the Chicago Archdiocese for, essentially, using religion as a wedge in a sermon in which he mocked Obama’s opponent, Hillary Rodham Clinton, from the pulpit.

Pfleger, an iconoclast for years, was asked to undergo a leave of absence after taking his act into Chicago’s Trinity United Church of Christ, where he was afflicted by the same self-absorption that beleaguered Obama’s former pastor at Trinity, the fashion challenged Jeremiah Wright. He, like Wright, forgot that leading the flock does not include campaigning for causes, or, in Pfleger’s case, the Obama presidential chase.

Pfleger expects us to believe that he never would have gone off on Hillary in a sermon had he known that Trinity’s streaming video technology had been restored just prior to his so-called Memorial Day weekend sermon. It would have been all right, Pfleger implies, to spew his pro-racism venom to a strictly private audience (similar to Obama’s audience in San Francisco, where he assailed the religion and gun clingers). Pfleger was obviously “victimized” by whatever techie fixed the equipment, not by his own arrogance.

And, on the morning of the day Obama declared himself the Democrat nominee (notwithstanding the angered delegates in Florida and Michigan), old mother Mary in her Sun-Times column was blaming “ugly politics” for trampling the sanctity of Trinity Church, and lamenting that “Obama has repeatedly been forced to cut ties with black leaders by people who are exploiting white fears.”

She can lament from now until November. The truth — an I am not whispering here, Father Pfleger — is that Revs. Wright and Pfleger have awakened the nation to the Obama agenda by virtue of their total disregard for the sanctity of worship. God and religion are mere props by which radical liberalism and creeping government encroachment on American life are advanced.

For a majority of Americans, the defining moment sought from Obama will be his willingness to demand the separation of church and hate. Resigning his 20-year membership from Trinity’s “Open Mic Night” stage is a hollow gesture, at best.

By The Conservative Soldier:

We ventured off across America for Memorial Day weekend. Rather than go on complaining about the airlines, their attitudes and their soaring, shameless new fees, we simply boycotted them for a change. I placed all of my luggage in the back of a mid-sized German SUV, and, gleefully, did not charge myself for the second, third and fourth bags. Liberating, to be sure.

Driving 500+ plus miles from suburban Chicago to Nashville, Tenn., provides a pleasant reminder that gasoline, even at $4.00+ per gallon, is still pretty cheap, relatively speaking. In a mid-sized, 25 mpg German SUV, one can drive roundtrip to Nashville, more than 1,000 miles, for about $250 including lunch stops, or for around $83 per person in a family of three. What am I missing here? Is this excessive?

The real upside of taking to the road is that I am now able to credibly refute what many have suspected all along: that the mainstream/dinosaur/drive-by media has talked America into a recessionary, despairing mindset. According to the news readers and various wrist-wringing social commentators, everyone is “hurting”. The U.S. is a veritable Dust Bowl. Vacations are being canceled. Lives are turned upside down. And why? Need you ask? Because, you religion-clinging nit wits, the federal government and George Bush aren’t doing enough and don’t care about you. About us. All of us.

Out in America, from the farmlands of Indiana, to the rolling springtime beauty of Kentucky, to the vibrant music mecca of Nashville, this despair, this dark cloud, was not what we discovered during the Memorial Day weekend. Just by listening (Hillary, I believe, would say we’d accomplished a Listening Tour), I was encouraged that we are not in the Final Days, merely marking time until the Great Barack and the Empress Michelle rise to power and bring about sweeping CHANGE.

Out there across the fruited plain, I heard:

Local talk radio conversations focused on the gallantry and resolve of our American military, and expressions of great pride about what they have and will achieve in Iraq and Afghanistan and, if necessary, Iran.

Gasoline fueled vehicles zipping past. Transport rigs. Motorcycles. Huge RVs. SUVs. Pickups. America is still moving. Interstate 65 heading south was packed with folks heading to the Indy 500, or beyond, to the splendor of Old Kentucky thoroughbred farms, or to the sprawling Opryland Resort in Nashville.

Great country music, America’s music, performed before yet another full house at the Grand Ole Opry.

A congenial Tennessee-born bellman who said, “God Bless You”, when accepting his tip.

The buzz of hundreds upon hundreds of guests dining (and, yes, overdining), cocktailing, sun bathing, photographing, and celebrating inside the Opryland resort complex. Tickets for Sunday’s nearby General Jackson riverboat luncheon cruise and floor show nearly were sold out when I bought ours.

To the chagrin of the media lefties who desperately want to see our nation on the verge of economic collapse by Fall, just in time for Obamarama ‘08, my report from the road is that Americans are generally fat (frighteningly so) and relatively happy. Is everyone obscenely rich, paying for their fuel by peeling from a wad of 100s, ordering freely from the reserve wine list and partying with Paris Hilton? No. But, as we always do, Americans will persevere, work hard, love their kids and ride out whatever economic dips may come our way.

Why, on the General Jackson riverboat, the mostly average looking, middle class, predominantly senior folks, even applauded heartily for the live entertainment, the Peking Acrobats. I thought we’re all supposed to be honked off at the scheming Chinese for dissing the Dalai Lama and for consuming ever more gas and, thus, driving crude oil barrel prices through the roof?

We’re supposed to be a nation overpopulated by angry, economically ravaged, coupon clipping, war weary people who have canceled all leisure activities and parked our cars for good. Believe the media drum bangers, or treat yourself to a $100 tank of gas and go have a look at what’s really happening out there.

By The Conservative Soldier:

Now that Illinois Sen. Barack Hussein Obama has concluded that Iran is a "tiny" country (like Venezuela and Cuba and, presumably, like Germany and Japan in the 1940s), and that we really ought be doing shots and beers with Iran's rather compact little dictator, what else will he try slipping past bitter, God-fearing, Second Amendment loyalists along the campaign trail?

Global warming is a tired issue from the Clinton era. Global shrinkage, now that's troubling.

Rev. Wright's church isn't as big as you think. It's so tiny, I couldn't find it most Sundays. And though Rev. Wright's mouth is big, the hatred spewing from that mouth is really quite minuscule.

We should only raise taxes dramatically on a small number of people.

Chances are slim that every George W. Bush speech is not an attack on me.

Bill Ayers' detonated very small bombs. The time I have spent around him was, indeed, tiny.

The threat to America posed by radical Islam? I'm thinking pretty small.

And, furthermore, why is Ted Kennedy still in the hospital? It was only a small seizure.

In fact, my fellow Americans, when you really stop and think about it, it's a small world, after all.

(As the bands strikes up the Disney classic tune, Obama breaks into song)

It's a world of NAFTA, a world of tears
It's a world of dopes, who are shooting deers
Iran nukes? I don't care
Are you folks not aware?
It's a small world after all

It's a small world after all
Let's give Tehran a friendly call
My VP should be Ron Paul
It's a small, small world

There's just one U.S. and one golden sun
And Barack means friendship toward everyone.
Ahmadinejad can't hide
All that love trapped inside
It's a small, small world

By The Conservative Soldier:

As Mother's Day approaches, I am thankful for my mother, for her enduring, positive influence on my life and on countless other people of all ages over the decades. I am thankful that, at 77, she remains a pre-school teacher in a school owned by an equally healthy 78-year-old woman and family friend. It is comforting to know that Mom is infusing these little guys and gals with love, happiness and human decency, qualities they will carry with them unknowingly in the years to come.

I am thankful and blessed to have a mother to wrap my arms around on Sunday, a mother with whom to bicker about preparing the feast and doing the dishes.

And I am really, really thankful for all of the people my dear, sweet mother is not. That she is not:

Madame Speaker Nancy Pelosi (left). Hillary Clinton. Jane Fonda. Barbara Walters. Dianne Feinstein. Gloria Steinham. Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Arianna Huffington. Now there's a roster from hell if I've ever seen one.

I am most certain many of the aforementioned have children who love and adore them, who share my gratitude this Mother's Day. But that's part of the problem. They have children and grandchildren who might very well some day aspire to be them! So the cycle of femi-liberal madness will go on unabated.

Dennis Miller on his brilliant talk radio show this morning expressed surprise and dismay that the attractive, intelligent Chelsea Clinton is still up there on the campaign stump with her mom, Hillary, even as Sen. Clinton rambles on about electibility and experience and her connection to the downtrodden. "I would have thought she might get it more than she does," Miller remarked.

And then Miller's hilarious sidekick, Sal, suggested maybe Chelsea had been brainwashed at birth, and can be placed in campaign zombie, wave-and-smile mode merely by the snap of a finger or the utterance of a secret word.

Chelsea can rightly argue that she did not ask to be the daughter of the President of the United States -- and it's a wonder she is, given that Bill Clinton might have easily never gotten around to a night of passion with Hillary, for both the obvious reason and because he was probably "overbooked" most nights as his state trooper convoy snaked its way in and around Little Rock diners and hotels. Chelsea might say she did not ask to be the daughter of a political animal like Hillary Clinton, whose thirst for power knows no bounds.

But despite all of that, Chelsea might feel obligated to forgive Dad and lend moral and emotional support to Mom. (And, the way it's going, after the Clintons blow through their $104 million, Chels may be hit up for financial support, as well).

And that's the scariest part. We all know how it feels to love your Mom. You don't agree on everything, you don't want to hang out with her all day, every day. But no matter what is simmering inside you, no matter how significantly your values and beliefs and aspirations might run counter to hers, you go along and get along because Mom deserves it, at the very least. Human nature being what it is, many adult children never tell Moms (and Dads) what they need to hear, never challenge their ideas or decisions, because, well, it's too hard. Chelsea Clinton might think her Mom's candidacy is becoming a joke, but Hillary will never hear it pass through her daughter's lips.

On Mother's Day, if your Mom is with you, in body or spirit, pause to be thankful. Especially if she is a woman who put her family ahead of all else, who taught her children how to be decent human beings, who did not wallow in self pity because of the world's gender inequalities, who did not look to government and entitlement programs to get her through life, who did not contemplate ever, not for one day, membership in a labor union, who did not lean against feminism's crutch.

That's the kind of mom the world never will stop needing. And, hopefully, cherishing.

By The Conservative Soldier:

The mainstream media this morning reminds me of a room full of Howard Deans, unleashing a collective primal scream, in perfect disharmony.

What we were saying here 48 hours ago, the drive-by media (as Rush Limbaugh so aptly tags it) is only now discovering, which is that one Wright represents a lot of wrongs and a world of trouble for the formerly presumptive Democrat Presidential choice, Sen. Barrack H. Obama (D-IL).

Obama is no longer actually running for President. He is running from Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Obama's former and, now permanently exiled, pastor/friend/mentor.

Obama's past association with Wright was all but a "third rail" topic only a few weeks ago. Many in the media, and fellow liberal consumers of said media, seemed to agree that questioning Obama's fitness to be President based on his membership in Wright's Chicago church was unfair, not relevant, a race-card play.

Wright's words, they said, were not in context. The hateful sermon passages unearthed by Fox's Sean Hannity were atypical of Wright and not a reflection of the mindset of the congregation.

Eventually, we all might have believed this conventional wisdom had it not been for Wright's inability to keep his mouth shut, to shun a chance to fuel his emerging celebrity status. Obama nearly wiggled out of Wright's clutches and was just on the verge of turning his campaign back into a conversation with America about health care, the economy, the war on terror and energy dependence/fuel prices.

Instead, Wright backed Obama to the edge on Monday with his arrogant, divisive remarks before the National Press Club's assembled guests. We said it then and there: Wright may be Obama's former pastor but he is in no way his former problem.

It was obvious that Wright was mad as hell that Obama tried to minimize his relationship to Wright. And it was obvious that Wright's extremist views, his contempt for America, for white people and the media, was not born of recent shifts in doctrine but has been the core of Wright's identity for years -- for the 20 years of Obama's on-and-off attendance in his church.

Suddenly, after another Obama denunciation press conference, after another "I was against it after I was for it" moment in American politics, the mainstreamers are waking up. Guess Obama should have called out Wright a long time ago. Guess it was a miscalculation to dismiss the cantankerous old pastor as a "crazy uncle" in the family but nothing more. Guess we know more about Obama's inclinations when he is about to take a political IED on the side of the road leading to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. (He will not just distance, he will disown).

The Chicago Sun-Times this morning on its front page promoted reaction to Obama's bail-out by not one or two, but six, columnists inside the paper. Most of them took up the theme, "Hey, Barack, what took you so long?" For some of these paid pundits, the light just went on, I suppose. For a lot of voters in a general election, character matters and character is reflected by the company one keeps.

Obama's emergency press conference is another reflection. It is patently disingenuous of Obama to "unequivocally" denounce his ex-pastor after, and only after, Wright re-stirred the pot.

Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton and John McCain are campaigning for the Presidency, too, lest we forget. They are talking about their plans to right (without the "W" and post-W) the U.S. economy. McCain is doing a town hall on health care today. While they campaign, Obama, you get the feeling, waits for the next shoe to drop, or, in the case of Obama's ties to professed domestic terrorist William Ayers, the next shoe-bomb.

The clearest gauge of how severe the Wright setback is and will be is found on the home page of the Real Clear Politics web site today. Its digest of Wednesday media reports from newspapers, magazines and blogs, lists six stories about Obama-Wright (the top six), plus one on Ayers, along with a few about the economy and one about McCain.

Wright has to be loving this.

The Rev. Jeremiah Wright, now retired as head of the church Obama "attends" in Chicago, may be, in fact, Obama's former pastor, as the Presidential candidate characterizes him. But Wright certainly is not Obama's former problem. Not by a long shot.

Run, Barack, run. From Rev. Wright. He says he'll come after you if you are elected President because you will then be the leader of a nation whose foreign policy Wright detests.

But it does not appear the Rev. will wait until Inauguration Day. He appears to be coming after Sen. Obama in the here and now. Wright's arrogant appearance Monday at the National Press Club in Washington -- on the eve of a key Democrat primary in Indiana -- can not be misinterpreted. He denies interest in the political process, but make no mistake about it, Rev. Wright is exacting his revenge on Obama.

Obama distanced himself from Wright after revelations of Wright's past ranting from the pulpit. Obama denounced the anti-American, inflammatory passages from various Wright sermons. Obama claimed he did not often hear Wright when Wright was going off on subjects such as AIDS and America's racist tendencies.

So now it is time for Obama to pay the price. The Rev. says he is raising his public profile to protect the dignity of his church, and the so-called Black Church community. Yet it is obvious this is only about Wright getting back at Obama, getting back at the mainstream media and about the care and feeding of Wright's massive ego. He is not attempting to soften his messages of contempt toward the United States and its policies. At the National Press Club, Wright actually sought to advance and sharpen those messages.

First, Wright granted a sit-down with ultraliberal commentator Bill Moyers to take a few swings at Moyers' softballs. Then he spoke before the NAACP in Detroit, pounding the podium, or was it Obama's political future he was smacking down? Why would Wright include a rant in his Detroit speech in which he called the candidate "Barack Hussein Obama"? Not once, but several times in rapid succession. The Obama camp abhors the use of Obama's middle name.

Then it was off to D.C. for a contentious Q&A at the National Press Club. Why now? Why not?

Obama must pay. If Obama falls, Wright rises. Wright will not see Obama in the Oval Office after Inauguration Day 2009 because Obama will be back home in Illinois, regrouping as a defeated man must do. And Wright wants it that way.

The Rev. is so completely delusional he would rather turn up America's racial tension a few notches, he would rather reassert the power of the Black Church and its doctrine, and he would rather become a rising celebrity. He'd rather have all of that than see Barack Obama become America's first black President.

The Rev. Wright has come home to roost. But voters on the fence may soon be leaving their perches to re-examine Hillary Clinton or John McCain, and leaving Obama with plenty of time to shop for a new house of worship.

The soon-to-be-former-President (and Prime Minister-in-waiting) of Russia does not have to put up with the whims of the media, apparently. When the newspaper Moskovsky Korrespondent recently reported that Putin was dumping his wife for a diminutive trophy babe, a 24-year-old Olympic champion gymnast no less, Putin shut down the newspaper within days of the scandalous revelation. Take that, you unyielding journalistic insects.

Poor old Bill and Barack have no such recourse, but they're no doubt taking mental notes on Putin's swift, retaliatory response. If the media continues to turn up the heat here in First Amendment Land, maybe one of Barack's old Chicago operatives has a friend who has a friend who knows the publisher at Tribune Co., or maybe the Clintons could call in a favor to a Saudi sheik Bill has formerly partied with and ask His Sultanship to make a hostile takeover bid for News Corporation's Fox News Channel.

Otherwise, they're out there 24/7 without a net. We know Obama was caught on tape in San Francisco, complaining about annoying working class Americans who are so tormented by their lives that they have no choice but to cling to worship and gun ownership. But that apparently did not leave him suitably leery of the media's audo equipment.

This week in Scranton, Pa., Obama made a morning appearance at a diner, seated at a counter, suffocated, no doubt, by the bitterness all around him. In an apparent lapse by Obama's campaign staff, reporters and camera crews were permitted to cozy up as Obama was about to hunker down with a syrup-covered waffle.

What, someone asked, is Obama's view of President Jimmy Carter's recent meeting with leaders of the terrorist organization Hamas?

"Why can't I just eat my waffle?" Obama sneered, suggesting a hint of bitterness about the prospect of a cold meal.

The reporter, fearless that her media outlet would be shut down because she insisted on doing her job, phrased the Hamas question again and pressed for an answer. "Just let me eat my waffle," Obama bristled.

Clinton's media trouble came when chatting with a radio station by telephone Monday night, trying to bolster his wife Hillary's Presidential campaign. The inquisitor dared to ask the former President if he regretted comparing Obama's earlier primary win in South Carolina to a 1988 South Carolina primary victory by longshot black presidential candidate Jesse Jackson. Clinton rambled on about how the uproar was actually Obama's camp using the "race card" on him.

Then he hung up. Or so he thought. The interview was over, but Clinton kept talking with audio rolling at the radio station in Delaware.

"I don't think I should take any sh-- from anybody on that, do you?" Clinton whined, the line still live.

At least President Clinton has evolved beyond, "Just let Monica and I eat our double cheeseburgers!"

So let us crystalize the words of these campaign weary men. Sen. Obama declined to criticize, or even comment on, the indefensible and reckless behavior of a former President (Carter) and fellow liberal even as Carter seeks to connect with the agenda of Hamas and to better understand its blood thirsty, terror bent organizers.

Obama has given new meaning to waffling. And it is not a trivial re-definition as his silence on Carter is making me nervous that Obama thinks Jimmah is doing the patriotic thing.

Clinton has reminded us that he actually believes he formerly reigned as "the first black president". All these years later he doesn't understand that no one was buying it. He has an office in Harlem, but his brain resides on Mars, or beyond.

Meanwhile, the Clinton and Obama media strategists are probably adopting a new approach when faced with a media firestorm: "What would Vladimir Putin do?"