Scott R. Sullivan

August 2nd, 2008 by Scott

Once upon a time (back in May), when he was still fighting Clinton and before be became Lord Obama with the media, the Democratic presidential hopeful was asked about debating in town hall meetings across the country with John McCain.

In fact, he said, “That’s a great idea.” And later in May, he said:

“If I have the opportunity to debate substantive issues before the voters with John McCain, that’s something that I am going to welcome.”

But now he has flip-flopped and has reversed his position on this, avoiding debating McCain at all except for the three official network debates in the fall.

So much for welcoming a healthy debate. Is he scared? I think so. He is so used to the media treating him like the Messiah that he has become a brand. He reads these rock star speeches from a teleprompter and wouldn’t be able to debate a real issue if placed into the situation.

Which is why he’s avoiding a town hall style debate. He knows he wouldn’t stand a chance.

I think Obama’s campaign manager, David Plouffe, had the best idea back in June:

In June, Plouffe had suggested Obama-McCain meetings more along the lines of the historic Lincoln-Douglas debates. In 1858, during Abraham Lincoln’s Senate campaign against Stephen Douglas, the candidates met seven times across Illinois. One spoke for an hour, the other for an hour and a half, and the first was allowed a half-hour rebuttal. (Source)

So much for Obama’s promise.

August 1st, 2008 by Scott

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (AP) - Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama said Friday he would be willing to support limited additional offshore oil drilling if that’s what it takes to enact a comprehensive policy to foster fuel-efficient autos and develop alternate energy sources.

Shifting from his previous opposition to expanded offshore drilling, the Illinois senator told a Florida newspaper he could get behind a compromise with Republicans and oil companies to prevent gridlock over energy.(Source)

Um. I could just say, I told you so.

Let’s take a step back, though. It appears, people complained about the gas prices. Bush signed off on drilling and the price of oil has dropped pretty much every day since during the past two or three weeks. It is now $3.65 and $3.75 at the stations down the road from me.

Now, Obama sees the writing on the wall and realizes that drilling for oil will actually help our dependence on foreign oil. Go figure. Us plain old Republicans have only been saying this for, well, ever.

We need more oil drilled off our own coasts, more nuclear plants and more wind farms. In fact, my wife happened to help design the wind farms in Schuylkill County along the upper ridge of the Allegheny Mountains.

What President Bush needs to do is devote funds to increase the wind farms, nuclear plants and oil rigs and refineries in America. Doing a combination of these things will bring us back to the point where we don’t need foreign oil.

Although Obama is a flip-flopper for reversing his position, at least he’s giving us Republicans the ammo we need for drilling. Thank you Obama!

July 21st, 2008 by Scott

So is this the week? Bob Novak is reporting today that Sen. McCain will be revealing his choice for running mate sometime this week.

Two names that keep recurring are Gov. Romney and Gov. Jindal. As I reported back in May:

Gov. Jindal looks very promising. He’s the youngest Governor in the country and has been hailed as the next Ronald Reagan! His voting record backs up these claims. He has voted for gun rights, to lower taxes, and most importantly, understands the global war on terror. This is a man we need in the White House.

If he chooses Jindal or Romney, I’ll be VERY happy.

I’ll find out if my thinking is correct later this week if Novak’s right on the timing.

And this comes at a great time. Obama is still trying to figure out a way to say he is against the troop surge that, obviously, worked. He, like Clinton before him, seems to be asking advice from his 300 advisors on what to say, whether or not to wear a flag pin, and so much more.

In a time when we are being spoon-fed the Hollywood-style packaged marketing of Obama(TM), the Brand, having a running mate like Gov. Jindal or Gov. Romney added to the race is a breath of fresh air.

P.S.
And both are Governors, which I love to keep bringing up. For those not familiar with my focus on Governors and the race for the White House, read my post from last year about the 2008 election about why history favors Governors over Senators for President.

Update:
It was just reported (July 23) that Gov. Jindal has taken himself off the short-list for VP choice for McCain. He says he wants to help Louisiana, which is an honorable decision.

It also gives him several years to prepare for 2012 as a running mate or presidential candidate. He’s a great choice to be the next Reagan and I hope he decides to take this challenge in the next election cycle.

July 20th, 2008 by Scott

In one of Obama’s recent ads, he says:

He passed a law to move people from welfare to work, slashed the rolls by eighty percent. Passed tax cuts for workers; health care for kids.

The truth of the matter is, he was mandated to sign that law by a bill written by the 1994 Republican Congress and signed into law by President Clinton:

First, the law in question wasn’t dreamed up out of thin air by its sponsors. It was the follow-up to the welfare reform act, the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act, that President Clinton signed on Aug. 26, 1996. That law gave states the ability to design their own welfare programs as long as they met certain federal requirements, including limits on how long recipients could get benefits.

Welfare reform was successful in moving people off public assistance. There was about a 78 percent drop in the number of families receiving public assistance in Illinois between 1998 and 2006. It was the federal law, hammered out by Clinton and the Republican Congress, that set the wheels in motion and forced states to act. Nationwide, the number of families on welfare declined quite a bit as well, going from 3,146,870 in ‘98 to 1,805,900 in ‘06, a decrease of almost 43 percent.(Source)

So why are we interested in putting Obama in the White House, when it was the 1994 Republican Congress and their Contract With America that initiated this action?

It was the Republican Congress that helped get people off welfare and become responsible, productive citizens. Let’s remember that.

July 15th, 2008 by Scott

I love that title! Credit goes to an article in the New York Daily News talking about how Obama, over this past weekend, decided to rewrite history and purge his website of references to his opposition to the troop surge.

WASHINGTON - Barack Obama’s campaign scrubbed his presidential Web site over the weekend to remove criticism of the U.S. troop “surge” in Iraq, the Daily News has learned.

The presumed Democratic nominee replaced his Iraq issue Web page, which had described the surge as a “problem” that had barely reduced violence.

“The surge is not working,” Obama’s old plan stated, citing a lack of Iraqi political cooperation but crediting Sunni sheiks - not U.S. military muscle - for quelling violence in Anbar Province.

The News reported Sunday that insurgent attacks have fallen to the fewest since March 2004.

GOP rival John McCain zinged Obama as a flip-flopper. “The major point here is that Sen. Obama refuses to acknowledge that he was wrong,” said McCain, adding that Obama “refuses to acknowledge that it [the surge] is succeeding.”(Source)

We’ll see how much the main stream media picks up on this story or if they ignore it.

This is becoming a bigger problem online, as it becomes easier for people to “erase” past comments and or rewrite stories and revise history.

You’ll notice on my blog, when I make an update to an article I wrote, I add an “Update” at the bottom, leaving my article intact (two example: unemployment change, miscalled primary result).

A few times, this makes obvious the point that I made an error or was off in a prediction, but also shows I have nothing to hide, unlike Obama, who is attempting to change his own history.

In the long term, it also shows I am not afraid to state my beliefs and stick to them instead of feeling the direction of the wind and go with the popular “feeling” of the day.

June 21st, 2008 by Scott

So now Obama has another flip on the War on Terror. And it is eerily similar to Sen. Kerry’s “I voted for it before I voted against it” remark. Here’s the news:

Presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama supports the spy bill compromise passed by the House Friday, despite having opposed retroactive amnesty to telecoms that helped with the President’s secret, warrantless wiretapping.
The bill is widely perceived as a victory for the White House, and was agreed to by Democrats out of a fear of being labeled soft on terrorism in the upcoming elections.(Source)

Obama said yesterday, “That is why last year I opposed the so-called Protect America Act.”

Now he’s for the same thing he’s been harping on Bush about. But he’s about change. But in all seriousness, I do applaud the Dems for voting for this bill, albeit for the wrong reasons.

June 19th, 2008 by Scott

Obama. The “candidate of change.”

Just a few months ago (Nov 2007), Obama reiterated that he would “return excess money from donors, and stay within the public financing system for the general election.”

Today, when he realized that the Republicans have been raising more money (Republican National Committee has $40 million on hand, a compared to the $4 million on hand in the Democratic National Committe as of this writing) and he needed to catch up, the candidate of change decided to change his position and said, “We’ve made the decision not to participate in the public financing system for the general election.”

So the candidate of change means HE’s going to CHANGE HIS POSITION. Now I get it.

How are we to trust his comments on the War on Terror when he can’t even keep a promise about funding his own campaign?

May 16th, 2008 by Scott

I have found the most recent events involving a certain political candidate to be very revealing. Allow me to back up a minute and give some background.

This is Israel’s 60th anniversary as a nation. As part of the celebration, President Bush traveled overseas to Israel to speak. While there, he said the following:

“Some seem to believe we should negotiate with terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along. We have an obligation to call this what it is - the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history.”
(Source: My Way)

First of all, he is one hundred percent correct.

Also, this is something the President has been saying for, oh, maybe seven years, starting back when he stood on the pile of rubble on Ground Zero with a megaphone in his hand telling the world that the men who blew up those buildings will soon hear from the United States.

Since that day, President Bush has maintained a consistent message: we don’t negotiate with terrorists. The Dems have never liked this. Too much of a “cowboy” approach.

So when he made these recent comment in Israel, immediately afterwards, a certain senator felt very vulnerable.

“It is sad that President Bush would use a speech to the Knesset on the 60th anniversary of Israel’s independence to launch a false political attack. George Bush knows that I have never supported engagement with terrorists, and the president’s extraordinary politicization of foreign policy and the politics of fear do nothing to secure the American people or our stalwart ally Israel.”
(Souce: ABC News)

Now, call me silly, but I didn’t hear President Bush mention anyone by name. He was saying the same thing he’s been saying, talking in broader strokes.

But Obama obviously feels vulnerable since he responded so quickly and defensively about this. For him to turn this into a political issue so quickly and defend himself so dramatically just shows how self-conscience he is about his position on national security.

Why would he be self-conscience about his position on this? It might have something to do with a statement he made not too long ago. In fact I published an analysis about this just one month ago.

For example, take Iran (the “most active state sponsor of terrorism” according to the United States State Department, Turkey, and Britain).

In dealing with a state sponsor of terrorism, Iran, Obama has said, “My approach to Iran will be based upon aggressive diplomacy.”

So Obama is weak on national security. He has reason to feel self-conscience. And the funny thing is that I actually AGREE with what Mrs. Bill Clinton has been saying on this issue, since she’s on the same page as the Republicans; don’t negotiate with terrorists.

But it is telling that he felt that President Bush was talking about him. It is very telling.

I find the far-left to be so predictable. They think the world revolves around them. I’ve got a message to you: be a little more humble. Accept that the world doesn’t revolve around you.

UPDATE:
As of 3:00 pm Eastern, the White House has spoken about this eruption that has occurred. As I wrote above, it had nothing to do with Obama, despite his desire to be the center of attention.

Instead, the White House was speaking of former president, Jimmy Carter, and his meeting with terrorist group, Hamas. Here’s their statement:

“We did not anticipate that it would be taken that way, because its kind of hard to take it that way when you look at the actual words. … There was some anticipation that someone might say you know its an expression of rebuke to former President Carter for having met with Hamas. that was something that was anticipated but no one wrote about it or raised it.”

Time for Obama to insert foot into mouth.

May 5th, 2008 by Scott

Glenn Beck has just written a brilliant analysis of Barack Obama’s character.

Sen. Barack Obama is moving away from the Rev. Jeremiah Wright so fast he may claim to be an atheist by next weekend. The ongoing sprint from such a polarizing figure is far from a surprise, it’s just the timing of it that is so odd.

Do I think for a second that Obama believes the government created the AIDS virus to kill African-Americans? No. But at this point it’s rational to wonder whether he is either lying or has an awful sense of judgment. He either knew Wright’s views and didn’t tell the truth about them, or he somehow missed the core beliefs of the man who was spending his Sunday mornings teaching core beliefs.

I’m glad Obama has come to the same conclusion that Wright’s critics came to long ago. I just wonder why it took me two minutes and him two decades.
(Source: CNN)

Brilliant.

May 2nd, 2008 by Scott

I’m a bit late on this one, but wanted to expand just a little on my post on April 16, about Obama being “just another politician.” I wrote on April 16:

He isn’t the new ‘change’ everyone wants. He is just a politician, just like Clinton, twisting words, distracting and blaming others.

Obama’s paster, Jeremiah Wright, continues to stoke the flames. First, it was his quotes, “God Damn America” days after September 11. Now, he is going after Obama. On April 28, just 12 days AFTER MY ANALYSIS, Wright said:

He’s a politician. And he says what he has to say as a politician. He had to distance himself, because he’s a politician, from what the media was saying I had said, which was anti-American. (Source)

Yup. Obama’s just another politician. In fact, according to Rasmussen Reports, 58% Say Obama Denounced Wright for Political Convenience, not Outrage.

In the race for the Democratic Presidential Nomination, it’s Clinton 46% Obama 44%. That’s the second straight day that Clinton has held a statistically insignificant two-point edge over Obama. However, that represents a ten-point swing since Wright’s press conference. Before Wright appeared at the National Press Club, Obama led Clinton by eight points. (Source: Rasmussen Reports)

As I’ve said many times, this is a fun election. *grin*