The suit filed by Mr. McCain’s campaign against elections officials states Mr. McCain could lose votes from military members overseas who support the Vietnam War hero.

“There are many military service members and overseas voters who support Senator John McCain for president in the upcoming election and whose right to vote will be denied without relief from this court,” stated the complaint, also filed in U.S. District Court in Richmond.

The complaint states some Virginia localities did not send absentee ballots to overseas voters at least 45 days before the election, as recommended in 2004 by a congressionally created commission.

Wow. That is just a tad problematic, don’t you think? It is 2008 - surely 4 years is sufficient lead time to make sure that everything is squared away in order to fulfill this recommendation. Just sayin’.

This lawsuit was sparked by one case - see? Making your voice heard DOES matter! Hopefully, anyway. THe article continues:

The complaint cites the specific case of a Marine stationed in Iraq who did not receive his absentee ballot from Arlington County until Oct. 29. It asks that the court order absentee ballots for federal offices sent by Nov. 4 from qualified voters and received by Nov. 14 in the state to be counted.

“The McCain-Palin campaign believes without exception that the servicemen and women on the front line protecting our freedoms deserve every opportunity to make sure their vote counts,” McCain spokeswoman Gail Gitcho said.

It was not clear last night when the suit would be heard in court.

“Of course we want to make sure that all the absentee ballots that are coming in from overseas are counted,” Miss Skinner said. “We’ll comply with whatever order the judge gives on that.”

I dunno - I don’t think 10 days is all that long to wait, all things considered, do you? Whether one agrees with the Iraq War (I don’t), the reality is that these people are putting their lives on the line, their lives at home on hold, making sacrifices the enormity of which many of us cannot fathom, including, sadly, the ultimate sacrifice for some. I think the least we can do is allow them to VOTE. THis goes for ALL of our military serving abroad, whether it be Iraq, or Afghanistan, or Germany - wherever it is, our citizens deserve to execute their right in a democracy to cast their vote. Anything less is unacceptable, especially when they are in harm’s way. And especially when people like these two get to vote unimpeded:

Isn’t it weird seeing people go up and hug them? Like they are just anybody else in the neighborhood, not two unrepentant domestic terrorists who want to teach their children?? I wonder - was it from them that Obama learned to be a con man? Ahem.

So, yeah - I don’t think 10 days is too much to ask to allow late absentee ballots from our military, through no fault of their own, to come back in, do you?

The “ugly frog” is a well-known routine that predates Karl Rove’s infamous “Rovian” tactics. Craig Crawford described the “ugly frog routine” this way:

[A] top Republican operative who specializes in electing weak candidates once explained to me how you derail a powerful foe who’s winning on issues. He called it the ugly frog routine.

Ugly frogs in this game can be anything that opposing candidates do or say that, out of context, puts them on the defense.

“Stick that frog right in their face, shake it all around, and say, ‘Here, look at this BIG UGLY FROG,’” the GOP consultant said. “Then, as they defend themselves and explain the context, real quick grab another ugly frog. Repeat often until they’ve spent most of the campaign reacting to your agenda.”

Crawford pointed out something that McCain has been very good — and consistent in exploiting this routine. McCain’s primary routine has been to point out that Barack Obama is an elitist, rock star, out-of-touch Democrat!

John McCain’s team has been playing the ugly frog routine against Barack Obama almost daily, starting with the Paris Hilton celebrity advertisement, forcing the Democrats to react to a barrage of silly attacks.

Do you remember this?

Craig asked the “dark operative” how to combat the routine:

“Get your own frogs,” he said. “Stay off defense.”

Whether it is the ugly frog routine or getting Obama’s “achille’s heel,” as I call it, McCain has it over Obama. McCain’s tactics are keeping Obama off his game, not knowing where to find his own “ugly frogs”. Obama scrambled to find his own “ugly frog” but came up with one that back-fired:

This ad drew strong criticism of Obama, as Uppity Woman pointed out in “Obama Makes Fun of McCain’s Disabilities in Ad.”

Well, Obama’s first “ugly frog” died. I guess he will have to try again, if he can just find another one!

Obama’s willingness to flip-flop has earned him the moniker Backtrack Obama. He betrayed progressives by voting for the FISA legislation; he promised to expand Bush’s faith-based initiatives; he equivocated on choice by saying that “mental distress” should not be a factor in abortion.

Obama’s newest flip flop was not over a matter of public policy important to progressives, but rather the United State’s historic role in confronting evil. During the debate at Saddleback, Rick Warren asked, “Does evil exist and, if it does, do we ignore it, do we negotiate with it, do we contain it, or do we defeat it?”

OBAMA: Evil does exist. I mean, I think we see evil all the time. We see evil in Darfur. We see evil sadly on the streets of our cities. We see evil in parents who viciously abuse their children. And I think it has to be confronted. It has to be confronted squarely. And one of the things that I strongly believe is that, you know, we are not going to, as individuals, be able to erase evil from the world. That is God’s task. But we can be soldiers in that process. And we can confront it when we see it.

Now, the one thing that I think is very important is for us to have some humility in how we approach the issue of confronting evil. Because, you know, a lot of evil’s been perpetrated based on the claim that we were trying to confront evil.

Think about Obama’s words. He’s talking about the United States. Consider the image below. It’s G.I.s examining a train car at Dachau. During the last century, the United States ended the bloody morass of World War I, freed Europe from genocidal Nazism and freed the Pacific Rim from the horrors of Imperial Japan. We held off Soviet expansionism and our policies eventually freed hundreds of millions who lived under the iron fist of communism.

Our country has undoubtedly made grievous errors confronting evil. We’ve entered conflicts, like Vietnam, where we had only a cursory understanding of the nationalistic feelings of the population. But to accuse the United States of being evil when we confronted communist expansionism in Korea or Vietnam or dictators elsewhere, like Iraq — regardless of how unwise the war policies may have been — is an inaccurate and shameful explanation of our history. It is the typical far-left canard which describes bad policies as having evil intentions.

The men responsible for our entry into Vietnam — Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson — were idealists who were responding to the pressures of their era. They collectively made many mistakes, but they were not evil men. Similarly, the men who had to deal with Saddam Hussein — Bush I, Clinton, and Bush II — were all criticized for their actions or inactions but all of them, I believe, wanted to make the best decisions for the security of their country. So while mistakes were made, colossal mistakes, it was not on par with the evil we confronted, as Obama suggests.

When Warren asked the same question of McCain, he responded:

MCCAIN: Defeat it.

(APPLAUSE) A couple points. One, if I’m president of the United States, my friends, if I have to follow him to the gates of hell, I will get Osama Bin Laden and bring him to justice. I will do that and I know how to do it. I will get that guy. No one, no one should be allowed to take thousands of innocent American lives.

This one question put into stark relief each man’s attitude towards the United States. McCain is a man who personally sacrificed in a war which lasted far too long, but he does not ascribe evil to his own country. He knows evil exists and he is ready to confront it. McCain is an old-fashioned patriot, and Obama believes in the moral relativists values of the extreme left. In Obama’s flip flop, the good guys become the bad guys. No wonder he felt at home at Jeremiah Wright’s Trinity Church.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CBJouPhws1M[/youtube]

After the Standard in Kenya was burned, Obama decided to offer criticism of Kenya and the current president.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bpvLV3d1Eq4[/youtube]

Earlier this year discord broke out in Kenya. Odinga backers burned a church and hacked 50 people to death, some of them women and children. Do we want Obama who is backed by a fellow LUO tribesman, Odinga as our president? Why hasn’t Obama condemned Odinga?

The second one is a story you will find everywhere. Obama played the race card AGAIN! Once again, he is accusing his opponent of using racial attacks. This time, Obama said (three different times, three different campaign stops) McCain was trying to scare voters away from him by pointing out he had “a funny name, and he doesn’t look like all the presidents on the dollar bills and the five dollar bills.” (ALL the presidents on the dollar bills? I thought we had ONE president on the dollar bill, and a different president on the five dollar bill - that makes two dudes.)

Well, actually, Obama does resemble Lincoln a bit. They are both tall and skinny. But, who does Obama think he is, to compare himself to two of our greatest presidents in history? He isn’t even President! Does he actually think he belongs on a bill? Maybe he should be on the $3 bill.

The race card will allow voters to once again focus on the issue of trust with Obama. He did it against Hillary, he did it in Germany, and now he is doing it against McCain. And, back to Germany - he said that he does not look like other Americans who have spoken there. Again, he is comparing himself to Reagan and Kennedy, who were PRESIDENTS. But other Americans have spoken in Germany, and *gasp* they were (whisper) black (Powell, Rice to name a couple). Obama has already crowned himself King, and keeps comparing himself to our most beloved Presidents. He really, really needs to stop doing that.

Jake Tapper schooled Obama for it, too, Did Obama Accuse McCain of Running a Racist, Xenophobic Campaign ?

Another controversy that is growing, and swirling is the Wailing Wall prayer *scandal*. American Thinker has a breakdown of how the events unfolded. I have also read on other pro-Obama blog (which I will not name here) that they believe he gave the prayer to the media as well. And you can see the video, of an Obama campaign worker, retrieving the prayer from the wall. It is linked to, in the story.

And, there was ANOTHER scandalish story brewing this week, this time involving an Obama fan. Did you see the video Ludacris made? If not, here it is. Of course, Obama’s camp gave the ol’ *wink wink* type of condemnation. (you know, “ya, know I’m just messing with you, man”).

Burton said in an e-mail statement Wednesday. “This song is not only outrageously offensive to Sen. Clinton, Rev. Jackson, Sen. McCain and President Bush, it is offensive to all of us who are trying to raise our children with the values we hold dear. While Ludacris is a talented individual he should be ashamed of these lyrics.” So, in other words, *this is not the Ludacris we have known*. These are snipits from other Ludacris songs:

“Fuck That! Get the fuck back! Luda make your skull crack Tuck that Bitch, your whole town’s on my nutsack Cuff that Put it in your weed, nigga, puff that What’s that People gon’ die tonight”.

“Yeah come see this nigga come see this ol’ light-skinned mothafucka I seen him and I’m addicted disturbin tha peace is the clickplease tell these fake ass niggas who you are”

“You frostin’ like a flake and Ludacris feels grrreat! Who want come face me, face come want who? And women give me face until they’re face turns blue They can’t breathe, dick to mouth recessatation A tight squeeze witch stops the length to conversations”.

“You see I’m from a small town called “Fresh out a cop’s ass” Where Mr. Head-Potatoes are skinned they get mashed I smell puss from fifty yards Y’all not playin with full decks as if I jacked out ya Jacks and left fifty cards Catch me in Vegas spinnin’ the green”.

I’m not exactly sure what most of them say, but it doesn’t seem like this new song is that much different from his other ones…in fact, it seems more tame. I wonder if Obama will be deleting Ludacris from his iPod now?
And, I thought this one was most interesting. O’S TOUR DE FARCE - PHOTO OPS & FECKLESSNESS You really need to read the whole piece, but here is a snipit.

In private, though, Iraqi officials admit that Obama’s analysis is “way off the mark.” Without the surge, the Sunni tribes wouldn’t have switched sides to help flush out al Qaeda. And the strong US military presence enabled the new Iraqi army to defeat Iran-backed Shiite militias in Basra and Baghdad.

Nevertheless, in public at least, no Iraqi politician wants to appear more appreciative of American sacrifices than the man who may become the next US president.

Iraqis were most surprised by Obama’s apparent readiness to throw away all the gains made in Iraq simply to prove that he’d been right in opposing the 2003 overthrow of Saddam Hussein. “He gave us the impression that the last thing he wanted was for Iraq to look anything like a success for the United States,” a senior Iraqi official told me. “As far as he is concerned, this is Bush’s war and must end in lack of success, if not actual defeat.”

And if you ever wondered what, exactly, IS a community organizer, you can read this.

Oh, and one other thing. Rumors are swirling that the reason John Edwards endorsed Obama immediately after Hillary’s HUGE win in West Virginia, is because Obama threatened him with the baby scandal. It sure makes sense, to me. Edwards said for months that he would not endorse. And then BAM, out he comes. And then, now, the scandal comes out. Why? Well, it took me a few days to figure out why it would be leaked, but I don’t really think it was. I think National Enquirer really just caught him. They broke the story last year (wasn’t it right around the time John dropped out? I forget) so, they knew there was a story. They just couldn’t prove it. But, catching him in the hotel did it. And now, they have the birth certificate, and there is not a father listed.

So, I just want to say, I think America will forgive John his affair. After all, he does have a lot going on at home, and who knows what has been happening behind closed doors. We all have so much sympathy and respect for Elizabeth, but I wouldn’t doubt that she knows much more about this than anyone else. She seems very intelligent. My point it, she might very well have known about this from the beginning. People deal with trauma in different ways, I am not judging him for an affair. But, I will never forgive him, if he was blackmailed into supporting Obama, and never came forward with it. We know the story to be true, but out of respect for Elizabeth, the media is not talking about it. But, if John knows something about Obama, he needs to come forward. (I am not sure if this is coming across right….) Well, anyway, it sure was a busy week, chock full of WORMS (what Obama really means) and controversy, and scandal.

Can we have Hillary back now, please!?

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[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WmlvyXeXbyo&[/youtube]

He schmoozed Sarkozy in France and renegotiated some treaties. According to Sean Carman, Senator Barack Obama announced today that on his recent overseas tour he successfully negotiated a wide-ranging treaty with America’s European allies. Logan Act violations anyone?

Maureen Dowd of the New York Times in her op-ed piece Cyclops and Cunning chatted with Obama about gifts for his girls and Foreign Heads of States. It turns out Obama has a key chain and snow globe aide to get gifts for his girls.

She asked about those blue boxes with the ribbons that “body man”, Reggie Love, was toting for heads of state. Obama said this about those boxes:

“I was not well organized enough to personally think of what presents to give these guys,” Obama said. “Hopefully, should I end up being president, I can put my touch on the present thing. But I didn’t even know it was a custom to give presents other than state visits.”

Dowd said this:

Sure enough, “our hero” came home to a passel of economic troubles in Dreamerica, rushing to talk to Bernanke & Paulson. Some news analyses of his trip wondered “Where’s the Bounce?” The old Hillary refrain — why can’t he close the deal against a supposedly flawed opponent — echoes.

.
I heard Amazon.com sells “Protocol 101 for Dummies” for $14.95! Well someone needs to order one for our “pretend president”!

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The Republican National Committee went to Berlin on Obama’s trail and had a few candid conversations with Europeans about Obama.

This spot is Internet-only and was paid for by the RNC. It’s a bit amateurish if you ask me.

From my blog, By The Fault.

George Stephanopoulos interviewed John McCain at length on his Sunday morning program, ABC’s This Week, and asked Sen. McCain about Obama’s decision not to visit the wounded soldiers at Landstuhl:

As Memeorandum.com makes clear, this issue has “legs.” In case you missed it, Larry Johnson wrote an excellent analysis early this morning, “Obama Using the Troops.”

Via the McCain press release:

“I think people make a judgment by what we do and what we don’t do. He certainly found time to do other things.” — John McCain

John McCain
ABC’s “This Week”
July 27, 2008

ABC’s George Stephanopoulos: “There’s also been a flap about Senator Obama’s decision in Germany not to visit the troops at Landstuhl. He now says that, based on what he was hearing from the Pentagon, there was no way that wouldn’t be seen as a political trip, which is why he decided not to go. Do you accept that explanation?”

John McCain: “Well, I know this, those troops would have loved to have seen him. And I know of no Pentagon regulation that would have prevented him from going there without the media and the press and all of the associated people. Nothing that I know of would have kept him from visiting those wounded troops. And they are gravely wounded, many of them.”

…

“In Landstuhl, Germany, when I went through, I visited the hospital. But the important thing is that, if I had been told by the Pentagon that I couldn’t visit those troops, and I was there and wanted to be there, I guarantee you, there would have been a seismic event. And so, I believe he had the opportunity to go without the media. And I’ll let the facts speak for themselves.”

…

“There was nothing to prevent him from going, if he went without the press and the media and his campaign people. But we’ll see what happens.”

…

“I think people make a judgment by what we do and what we don’t do. He certainly found time to do other things.”

Fox News
July 26, 2008

Fox News’ Molly Henneberg: “Tucker joins us from Virginia. So Tucker, Senator Obama decided to not to visit wounded soldiers in Germany when he was there, and this has not gone unnoticed by the McCain campaign. In fact, just a couple of minutes ago on my Blackberry, I got a new statement from your campaign, from a military advisor, Lt. Col. Joe Repya. He says, this is quoting, ‘For a young man so apt at playing president, Barack Obama badly misjudged the important demands of the office he seeks. Visiting with world leaders and speeches to cheering Europeans should not be a substitute for comforting injured American heroes.’ So you guys think he really made a significant mistake by not going to Landstuhl Medical Center in Germany?”

Tucker Bounds: “It is significant and I think what is most significant about it, Molly, is it speaks to his judgment. He prioritizes throngs of fawning Germans over meeting with wounded combat troops in Germany. And, you know, it really speaks to the experience that Barack Obama lacks. This is a serious position he runs to fill, and he needs to understand exactly where his role is and how important it is to lead as the commander-in-chief.”

Henneberg: “Now, the Obama campaign says they didn’t want to do it for political purposes, but you were telling me earlier that your campaign wouldn’t have criticized him even if he had gone?”

Bounds: “No, that’s right Molly. I think there have been nine different excuses out of Barack Obama’s campaign as to why that trip and that visit never took place, and all of them fundamentally ignore one fact, which is that he couldn’t make time in his schedule to meet with wounded combat troops who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan. And it speaks again to the judgment of the candidate that’s running to be the Commander-in-Chief of our military.”

“So if you want my take on this, if you want to remember one thing about this trip, is that Barack Obama chose to work out rather than see the wounded troops because he couldn’t bring Katie Couric, Charlie Gibson, and Brian Williams with him.” — Sean Hannity

See my original story, “Barack Skipped Visiting Wounded Troops in Germany.” And check out Memorandum.com’s coverage of the controversy.

Here’s more from “The Sean Hannity Show” (syndicated AM radio), July 25, 2008 (SusanUnPC’s Note: I disagree with many of Hannity’s political views, particularly on health care, but on this issue he is 100% correct. Obama could have gone “solo” to visit the troops. That would have been the right thing to do. I cannot fathom his excuse that he didn’t go because his campaign staff wasn’t permitted to accompany him.)

Sean Hannity: “You know I’ve found one article — I hadn’t known this — I was telling you earlier the Obama campaign tried to blame the Pentagon. Here he was scheduled. He wanted to go visit this military hospital. It was on the campaign sheet to go visit the military hospital in Germany. And we find out that the only restrictions the Pentagon wanted to impose was their rule against turning visits by politicians into campaign events.

“And, by the way, you know, I know for a fact because I talked to these kids when I went to Walter Reed and Bethesda, that literally the president would sneak on over often to go see these, kids — you never heard about it, it was never reported. As a matter of fact, I remember I was out there with Ollie North and they said, yeah the president was just here, two days ago, whatever it was. And you know, same thing with Donald Rumsfeld. Donald Rumsfeld used to go over there all the time, but he didn’t turn it into a campaign event.

“Anyway, so Obama has it on the schedule. The Pentagon says, look, you can come but they’re going to impose their rule against turning a visit by a politician into a campaign event. Now this is what we finally are finding out here. All the Pentagon said is they advised Obama’s staff — yeah of course he can visit the hospital and injured personnel in Germany but only in his capacity as a Member of Congress, in other words without the trappings of a political campaign, which by the way, it’s unfair to use sick soldiers who risked their lives as a political prop.

“Obama apparently cancelled the visit and went to work out instead. He went to work out and then said it would be inappropriate as part of a trip financed by his campaign. Well, as John McCain said, it’s never inappropriate if you are a United States Senator to visit a sick soldier. It’s never inappropriate. There’s not one taxpayer in the country that would have any opposition to this nor is there any rules against this. The only difference is the only restriction that was placed is that they don’t want to have candidates, you know, using the appearance for some type of political benefit. That wasn’t enough. He had to bring along of course the entourage and the multiple 10,000 media press secretaries along with him.

“So if you want my take on this, if you want to remember one thing about this trip is that Barack Obama chose to work out rather than see the wounded troops because he couldn’t bring Katie Couric, Charlie Gibson, and Brian Williams with him.”

UPDATE:

From a very clever, imaginative story by “madamab” at The Confluence, “Bill Burton’s Secret Weapon: A Play in One Scientific Act“:

AXELROD: Okay, Bill, we’ve got several things that need our immediate attention. First off, as you know, President Obama’s foreign-policy experience has now been brought up to parity with John McCain’s after his week-long tour of Europe and the Middle East. So we’re all good there. However, we estimated that a million people would attend his speech in Berlin, and even with two free concerts thrown in, we were nowhere near that number. Can we figure out how many people attended?

BURTON: No problemo! [addressing the box on his desk] Computer, how many people attended the Berlin rally?

COMPUTER [in sultry female voice]: Please press the green button. [BURTON does so.] Your answer is: Two hundred thousand.

AXELROD: Great, great. I’ll send it out now. [notates the number in his iPhone and quickly sends it off to his press mailing list] Okay, next item is: The President skipped a visit to the troops while in Berlin because the Pentagon wouldn’t allow him to bring in his cameras. How do we make it clear that President Obama does not, in fact, think of the troops as just a campaign prop?

BURTON [drawing in his breath]: Oooooh, that’s a tough one. Let’s see what our girl can come up with. Computer, what is the reason for Obama’s skipping his visit to the troops?

COMPUTER: Please press the red button. [BURTON does so.] Your answer is: I.A.C.F.

AXELROD [confused]: IACF?

BURTON [embarrassed at the faux pas]: Um, that stands for “It’s All Clinton’s Fault.” I keep telling her that is no longer an acceptable response, but she keeps defaulting to it - I don’t know why. [addressing computer] Computer, please give alternate reason.

COMPUTER: Please press the red button. [BURTON does so.] Your alternate reason is: George W. Bush.

AXELROD: George W. Bush? What does she mean by that?

BURTON [nervously]: Search me. [both think for a moment]

AXELROD: Wait, wait! I’ve got it! We’ll say the Pentagon stopped him from going. They were worried that it would look like a campaign visit. Brilliant, Bill! Gotta love that machine. [BURTON is visibly relieved. AXELROD dashes off another communique to the press corpse.] …

Read all.

Caption: “Wounded American soldier Ryan Newberry gives a big hug to Eddie, a black lab from the American Red Cross Pet Visitation program. Newberry is recovering at the Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany and said he really enjoyed the visit.”

… The German magazine Der Spiegel is reporting online that Obama has “cancelled a planned short visit to the Rammstein and Landstuhl U.S. military bases in the southwest German state of Rhineland-Palatinate. The visits were planned for Friday.”

“Barack Obama will not be coming to us,” a spokesperson for the U.S. military hospital in Landstuhl told Der Spiegel. “I don’t know why.”

Obama senior adviser Robert Gibbs told ABC News in a statement, “During his trip as part of the CODEL to Afghanistan and Iraq, Sen. Obama visited the combat support hospital in the Green Zone in Baghdad and had a number of other visits with the troops.  For the second part of his trip, the senator wanted to visit the men and women at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center to express his gratitude for their service and sacrifice. The senator decided out of respect for these servicemen and women that it would be inappropriate to make a stop to visit troops at a U.S. military facility as part of a trip funded by the campaign.”

John McCain’s campaign didn’t buy that baloney:

"Barack Obama is wrong," said McCain spokesman Brian Rogers. “It is never ‘inappropriate’ to visit our men and women in the military."

An Obama adviser, Air Force Maj. Gen. Scott Gration (Ret.), later elaborated on Obama’s decision to skip the event.

"We learned from the Pentagon last night that the visit would be viewed instead as a campaign event," Gration said. "Sen. Obama did not want to have a trip to see our wounded warriors perveived as a campaign event when his visit was to show his appreciation for our troops and decided instead not to go."

Good god almighty.

Well, he had his priorities.

Doing a rock star turn in Berlin definitely trumps visiting wounded soldiers. Definitely.

Although he could claim that visiting the wounded troops was relevant to the work of his committee — a committee of which he is actually a member, the Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs.

But that involves doing the WORK of the committee instead of just TALKING about the committee.